it. And to-morrow the Señora will not be here, and I shall be gone back
to Mexico. So why not spare us to-day! Surely you can show us this
consideration.”
Ramón looked at her, and then at Kate. There was anger in his eyes. And
Kate could almost feel, in his powerful chest, the big heart swelling
with a suffocation of anger. Both women kept mum. But it pleased them,
anyhow, that they could make him angry.
“Why not row with Mrs Leslie on the lake!” he said, with quiet control.
But under his dark brows was a level, indignant anger.
“We may not want to,” said Carlota.
Then he did what Kate had not known anyone to do before. He withdrew
his consciousness away from them as they all three sat at table,
leaving the two women, as it were, seated outside a closed door, with
nothing more happening. Kate felt for the time startled and forlorn,
then a slow anger burned in her warm ivory cheek.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I can start home before then.”
“No! No!” said Doña Carlota, with a Spanish wail. “Don’t leave me. Stay
with me till evening, and help me to amuse Don Cipriano. He is coming
to supper.”
CHAP: XI. LORDS OF THE DAY AND NIGHT.
When lunch was over, Ramón went to his room, to sleep for an hour. It
was a hot, still afternoon. Clouds were standing erect and splendid, at
the west end of the lake, like messengers. Ramón went into his room and
closed the window-doors and the shutters, till it was quite dark, save
for yellow pencils of light that stood like substance on the darkness,
from the cracks of the shutters.
He took off his clothes, and in the darkness thrust his clenched fists
upwards above his head, in a terrible tension of stretched, upright
prayer. In his eyes was only darkness, and slowly the darkness revolved
in his brain, too, till he was mindless. Only a powerful will stretched
itself and quivered from his spine in an immense tension of prayer.
Stretched the invisible bow of the body in the darkness with inhuman
tension, erect, till the arrows of the soul, mindless, shot to the
mark, and the prayer reached its goal.
Then suddenly, the clenched and quivering arms dropped, the body
relaxed into softness. The man had reached his strength again. He had
broken the cords of the world, and was free in the other strength.
Softly, delicately, taking great care not to think, not to remember,
not to disturb the poisonous snakes of mental consciousness, he picked
up a thin, fine blanket, wrapped it round him, and lay down on the pile
of mats on the floor. In an instant he was asleep.
He slept in complete oblivion for about an hour. Then suddenly he
opened his eyes wide. He saw the velvety darkness, and the pencils of
light gone frail. The sun had moved. Listening, there seemed not a
sound in the world: there was no world.
Then he began to hear. He heard the faint rumble of an ox wagon: then
leaves in a wind: then a faint tapping noise: then the creak of some
bird calling.
He rose and quickly dressed in the dark, and threw open the doors. It
was mid-afternoon, with a hot wind blowing, and clouds reared up dark
and bronze in the west, the sun hidden. But the rain would not fall
yet. He took a big straw hat and balanced it on his head. It had a
round crest of black and white and blue feathers, like an eye, or a
sun, in front. He heard the low sound of women talking. Ah, the strange
woman! He had forgotten her. And Carlota! Carlota was here! He thought
of her for a moment, and of her curious opposition. Then, before he
could be angry, he lifted his breast again in the black, mindless
prayer, his eyes went dark, and the sense of opposition left him.
He went quickly, driftingly along the terrace to the stone stairs that
led down to the inner entrance-way. Going through to the courtyard, he
saw two men packing bales of bananas upon donkeys, under a shed. The
soldiers were sleeping in the zaguan. Through the open doors, up the
avenue of trees, he could see an ox-wagon slowly retreating. Within the
courtyard there was the sharp ringing of metal hammered on an anvil.
It came from a corner where was a smithy, where a man and a boy were
working. In another shed, a carpenter was planing wood.
Don Ramón stood a moment to look around. This was his own world. His
own spirit was spread over it like a soft, nourishing shadow, and the
silence of his own power gave it peace.
The men working were almost instantly aware of his presence. One after
the other the dark, hot faces glanced up at him, and glanced away
again. They were men, and his presence was wonderful to them; but they
were afraid to approach him, even by staring at him. They worked the
quicker for having seen him, as if it gave them new life.
He went across to the smithy, where the boy was blowing the
old-fashioned bellows, and the man was hammering a piece of metal, with
quick, light blows. The man worked on without lifting his head, as the
_patrón_ drew near.
“It is the bird?” said Ramón, standing watching the piece of metal, now
cold upon the anvil.
“Yes, _Patrón_! It is the bird. Is it right?” And the man looked up
with black, bright, waiting eyes.
The smith lifted with the tongs the black, flat, tongue-shaped piece of
metal, and Ramón looked at it a long time.
“I put the wings on after,” said the smith.
Ramón traced with his dark, sensitive hand an imaginary line, outside
the edge of the iron. Three times he did it. And the movement
fascinated the smith.
“A little more slender--so!” said Ramón.
“Yes, _Patrón_! Yes! Yes! I understand,” said the man eagerly.
“And the rest?”
“Here it is!” The man pointed to two hoops of iron, one smaller than
the other, and to some flat discs of iron, triangular in shape.
“Lay them on the ground.”
The man put the hoops on the ground, one within the other. Then, taking
the triangular discs, he placed them with quick, sensitive hands, so
that their bases were upon the outer circle, and their apices touched
the inner. There were seven. And thus they made a seven-pointed sun of
the space inside.
“Now the bird,” said Ramón.
The man quickly took the long piece of iron: it was the rudimentary
form of a bird, with two feet, but as yet without wings. He placed it
in the centre of the inner circle, so that the feet touched the circle
and the crest of the head touched opposite.
“So! It fits,” said the man.
Ramón stood looking at the big iron symbol on the ground. He heard
the doors of the inner entrance: Kate and Carlota walking across the
courtyard.
“I take it away?” asked the workman quickly.
“Never mind,” Ramón answered quietly.
Kate stood and stared at the great wreath of iron on the ground.
“What is it?” she asked brightly.
“The bird within the sun.”
“Is that a bird?”
“When it has wings.”
“Ah, yes! When it has wings. And what is it for?”
“For a symbol to the people.”
“It is pretty.”
“Yes.”
“Ramón!” said Doña Carlota, “will you give me the key for the boat?
Martin will row us out.”
He produced the key from under his sash.
“Where did you get that beautiful sash?” asked Kate.
It was the white sash with blue and brown-black bars, and with a heavy
red fringe.
“This?” he said. “We wove it here.”
“And did you make the sandals too?”
“Yes! They were made by Manuel. Later I will show you.”
“Oh, I should like to see!--They are beautiful, don’t you think, Doña
Carlota?”
“Yes! Yes! It is true. But whether beautiful things are wise things, I
don’t know. So much I don’t know, Señora. Ay, so much!--And you, do you
know what is wise?”
“I?” said Kate. “I don’t care very much.”
“Ah! You don’t care!--You think Ramón is wise, to wear the peasants’
clothes, and the huaraches?” For once Doña Carlota was speaking in slow
English.
“Oh, yes!” cried Kate. “He looks so handsome!--Men’s clothes are so
hideous, and Don Ramón looks so handsome in those!” With the big hat
poised on his head, he had a certain air of nobility and authority.
“Ah!” cried Doña Carlota, looking at the other woman with intelligent,
half-scared eyes, and swinging the key of the boat. “Shall we go to the
lake?”
The two women departed. Ramón, laughing to himself, went out of the
gate and across the outer yard, to where a big, barn-like building
stood near the trees. He entered the barn, and gave a low whistle.
It was answered from the loft above, and a trap-door opened. Don
Ramón went up the steps, and found himself in a sort of studio and
carpenter’s shop. A fattish young man with curly hair, wearing an
artist’s blouse, and with mallet and chisels in his hand, greeted him.
“How is it going?” asked Ramón.
“Yes--well--”
The artist was working on a head, in wood. It was larger than life,
conventionalised. Yet under the conventional lines the likeness to
Ramón revealed itself.
“Sit for me for half an hour,” said the sculptor.
Ramón sat in silence, while the other man bent over his model, working
in silent concentration. And all the time, Ramón sat erect, almost
motionless, with a great stillness of repose and concentration,
thinking about nothing, but throwing out the dark aura of power, in the
spell of which the artist worked.
“That is enough,” he said at last, quietly rising.
“But give me the pose before you go,” said the artist.
Ramón slowly took off his blouse-skirt, and stood with naked torso,
the sash with its blue and black bars tight round his naked waist. For
some moments he stood gathering himself together. Then suddenly, in
a concentration of intense, proud prayer, he flung his right arm up
above his head, and stood transfixed, his left arm hanging softly by
his side, the fingers touching his thigh. And on his face that fixed,
intense look of pride which was at once a prayer.
The artist gazed with wonder, and with an appreciation touched with
fear. The other man, large and intense, with big dark eyes staring
with intense pride, yet prayerful, beyond the natural horizons, sent a
thrill of dread and of joy through the artist. He bowed his head as he
looked.
Don Ramón turned to him.
“Now you!” he said.
The artist was afraid. He seemed to quail. But he met Ramón’s eyes.
And instantly, that stillness of concentration came over him, like a
trance. And then suddenly, out of the trance, he shot his arm aloft,
and his fat, pale face took on an expression of peace, a noble,
motionless transfiguration, the blue-grey eyes calm, proud, reaching
into the beyond, with prayer. And though he stood in his blouse, with
a rather pudgy figure and curly hair, he had the perfect stillness of
nobility.
“It is good!” said Ramón, bowing his head.
The artist suddenly changed; Ramón held out his two hands, the artist
took them in his two hands. Then he lifted Ramón’s right hand and
placed the back of it on his brow.
“Adios!” said Ramón, taking his blouse again.
“Adios, señor!” said the artist.
And with a proud, white look of joy in his face, he turned again to his
work.
Ramón visited the adobe house, its yard fenced with cane and
overshadowed by a great mango tree, where Manuel and his wife and
children, and two assistants, were spinning and weaving. Two little
girls were assiduously carding white wool and brown wool under a
cluster of banana trees: the wife and a young maiden were spinning
fine, fine thread. On the line hung dyed wool, red, and blue, and
green. And under the shed stood Manuel and a youth, weaving at two
heavy hand-looms.
“How is it going?” called Don Ramón.
“_Muy bien! Muy bien!_” answered Manuel, with that curious look of
transfiguration glistening in his black eyes and in the smile of his
face. “It is going well, very well, _Señor_!”
Ramón paused to look at the fine white serape on the loom. It had a
zigzag border of natural black wool and blue, in little diamonds, and
the ends a complication of blackish and blue diamond-pattern. The man
was just beginning to do the centre--called the _boca_, the mouth: and
he looked anxiously at the design that was tacked to the loom. But it
was simple: the same as the iron symbol the smith was making: a snake
with his tail in his mouth, the black triangles on his back being the
outside of the circle: and in the middle, a blue eagle standing erect,
with slim wings touching the belly of the snake with their tips, and
slim feet upon the snake, within the hoop.
Ramón went back to the house, to the upper terrace, and round to
the short wing where his room was. He put a folded serape over his
shoulder, and went along the terrace. At the end of this wing,
projecting to the lake, was a square terrace with a low, thick wall
and a tiled roof, and a coral-scarlet bignonia dangling from the
massive pillars. The terrace, or loggia, was strewn with the native
palm-leaf mats, _petates_, and there was a drum in one corner, with
the drum-stick upon it. At the far inner corner, went down an enclosed
stone staircase, with an iron door at the bottom.
Ramón stood a while looking out at the lake. The clouds were dissolving
again, the sheet of water gave off a whitish light. In the distance he
could see the dancing speck of a boat, probably Martin with the two
women.
He took off his hat and his blouse, and stood motionless, naked to the
waist. Then he lifted the drum-stick, and after waiting a moment or
two, to become still in soul, he sounded the rhythmic summons, rather
slow, yet with a curious urge in its strong-weak, one-two rhythm. He
had got the old barbaric power into the drum.
For some time he stood alone, the drum, or tom-tom, lifted by its thong
against his legs, his right hand drumming, his face expressionless. A
man entered, bareheaded, running from the inner terrace. He was in the
white cotton clothes, snow white, but with a dark serape folded on his
shoulder, and he held a key in his hand. He saluted Ramón by putting
the back of his right hand in front of his eyes for a moment, then he
went down the stone stairway and opened the iron door.
Immediately men were coming up, all dressed alike, in the white cotton
clothes and the huaraches, each with a folded serape over his shoulder.
But their sashes were all blue, and their sandals blue and white. The
sculptor came too, and Mirabal was there, also dressed in the cotton
clothes.
There were seven men, besides Ramón. At the top of the stairs, one
after another, they saluted. Then they took their serapes, dark brown,
with blue eyes filled with white, along the edges, and threw them
down along the wall, their hats beside them. Then they took off their
blouses, and flung them on their hats.
Ramón left the drum, and sat down on his own serape, that was white
with the blue and black bars, and the scarlet fringe. The drummer sat
down and took the drum. The circle of men sat cross-legged, naked to
the waist, silent. Some were of a dark, ruddy coffee-brown, two were
white, Ramón was of a soft creamy brown. They sat in silence for a
time, only the monotonous, hypnotic sound of the drum pulsing, touching
the inner air. Then the drummer began to sing, in the curious, small,
inner voice, that hardly emerges from the circle, singing in the
ancient falsetto of the Indians:
“Who sleeps--shall wake! Who sleeps--shall wake! Who treads down the
path of the snake shall arrive at the place; in the path of the dust
shall arrive at the place and be dressed in the skin of the snake--”
One by one the voices of the men joined in, till they were all singing
in the strange, blind infallible rhythm of the ancient barbaric world.
And all in the small, inward voices, as if they were singing from the
oldest, darkest recess of the soul, not outwards, but inwards, the soul
singing back to herself.
They sang for a time, in the peculiar unison like a flock of birds that
fly in one consciousness. And when the drum shuddered for an end, they
all let their voices fade out, with the same broad, clapping sound in
the throat.
There was silence. The men turned, speaking to one another, laughing
in a quiet way. But their daytime voices, and their daytime eyes had
gone.
Then Ramón’s voice was heard, and the men were suddenly silent,
listening with bent heads. Ramón sat with his face lifted, looking far
away, in the pride of prayer.
“There is no Before and After, there is only Now,” he said, speaking in
a proud, but inward voice.
“The great Snake coils and uncoils the plasm of his folds, and stars
appear, and worlds fade out. It is no more than the changing and easing
of the plasm.
“_I always am_, says his sleep.
“As a man in a deep sleep knows not, but is, so is the Snake of the
coiled cosmos, wearing its plasm.
“As a man in a deep sleep has no to-morrow, no yesterday, nor to-day,
but only _is_, so is the limpid, far-reaching Snake of the eternal
Cosmos, Now, and forever Now.
“Now, and only Now, and forever Now.
“But dreams arise and fade in the sleep of the Snake.
“And worlds arise as dreams, and are gone as dreams.
“And man is a dream in the sleep of the Snake.
“And only the sleep that is dreamless breathes _I Am_!
“In the dreamless Now, _I Am_.
“Dreams arise as they must arise, and man is a dream arisen.
“But the dreamless plasm of the Snake is the plasm of a man, of his
body, his soul, and his spirit at one.
“And the perfect sleep of the Snake _I Am_ is the plasm of a man, who
is whole.
“When the plasm of the body, and the plasm of the soul, and the plasm
of the spirit are at one, in the Snake _I Am_.
“I am Now.
“Was-not is a dream, and shall-be is a dream, like two separate, heavy
feet.
“But Now, I Am.
“The trees put forth their leaves in their sleep, and flowering emerge
out of dreams, into pure I Am.
“The birds forget the stress of their dreams, and sing aloud in the
Now, I Am! I Am!
“For dreams have wings and feet, and journeys to take, and efforts to
make.
“But the glimmering Snake of the Now is wingless and footless, and
undivided, and perfectly coiled.
“It is thus the cat lies down, in the coil of Now, and the cow curves
round her nose to her belly, lying down.
“In the feet of a dream the hare runs uphill. But when he pauses, the
dream has passed, he has entered the timeless Now, and his eyes are the
wide I Am.
“Only man dreams, dreams, and dreams, and changes from dream to dream,
like a man who tosses on his bed.
“With his eyes and his mouth he dreams, with his hands and his feet,
with phallos and heart and belly, with body and spirit and soul, in a
tempest of dreams.
“And rushes from dream to dream, in the hope of the perfect dream.
“But I, I say to you, there is no dream that is perfect, for every
dream has an ache and an urge, an urge and an ache.
“And nothing is perfect, save the dream pass out into the sleep, I Am.
“When the dream of the eyes is darkened, and encompassed with Now.
“And the dream of the mouth resounds in the last I Am.
“And the dream of the hands is a sleep like a bird on the sea, that
sleeps and is lifted and shifted, and knows not.
“And the dreams of the feet and the toes touch the core of the world,
where the Serpent sleeps.
“And the dream of the phallos reaches the great I Know Not.
“And the dream of the body is the stillness of a flower in the dark.
“And the dream of the soul is gone in the perfume of Now.
“And the dream of the spirit lapses, and lays down its head, and is
still with the Morning Star.
“For each dream starts out of Now, and is accomplished in Now.
“In the core of the flower, the glimmering, wakeless Snake.
“And what falls away is a dream, and what accrues is a dream. There is
always and only Now, Now and I Am.”
There was silence in the circle of men. Outside, the sound of the
bullock-wagon could be heard, and from the lake, the faint knocking of
oars. But the seven men sat with their heads bent, in the semi-trance,
listening inwardly.
Then the drum began softly to beat, as if of itself. And a man began to
sing, in a small voice:
“The Lord of the Morning Star
Stood between the day and the night:
As a bird that lifts its wings, and stands
With the bright wing on the right
And the wing of the dark on the left,
The Dawn Star stood into sight.
Lo! I am always here!
Far in the hollow of space
I brush the wing of the day
And put light on your face.
The other wing brushes the dark.
But I, I am always in place.
Yea, I am always here. I am Lord
In every way. And the lords among men
See me through the flashing of wings.
They see me and lose me again.
But lo! I am always here
Within ken.
The multitudes see me not.
They see only the waving of wings,
The coming and going of things.
The cold and the hot.
But ye that perceive me between
The tremors of night and the day,
I make you the Lords of the Way
Unseen.
The path between gulfs of the dark and the steeps of the light;
The path like a snake that is gone, like the length of a fuse to
ignite
The substance of shadow, that bursts and explodes into sight.
I am here undeparting. I sit tight
Between wings of the endless flight,
At the depths of the peace and the fight.
Deep in the moistures of peace,
And far down the muzzle of the fight
You shall find me, who am neither increase
Nor destruction, different quite.
I am far beyond
The horizons of love and strife.
Like a star, like a pond
That washes the lords of life.”
“Listen!” said Ramón, in the stillness. “We will be masters among men,
and lords among men. But lords of men, and masters of men we will not
be. Listen! We are lords of the night. Lords of the day and night. Sons
of the Morning Star, sons of the Evening Star. Men of the Morning and
the Evening Star.
“We are not lords of men: how can men make us lords? Nor are we masters
of men, for men are not worth it.
“But I am the Morning and the Evening Star, and lord of the day and the
night. By the power that is put in my left hand, and the power that I
grasp in my right, I am lord of the two ways.
“And my flower on earth is the jasmine flower, and in heaven the flower
Hesperus.
“I will not command you, nor serve you, for the snake goes crooked to
his own house.
“Yet I will be with you, so you depart not from yourselves.
“There is no giving, and no taking. When the fingers that give touch
the fingers that receive, the Morning Star shines at once, from the
contact, and the jasmine gleams between the hands. And thus there
is neither giving nor taking, nor hand that proffers nor hand that
receives, but the star between them is all, and the dark hand and the
light hand are invisible on each side. The jasmine takes the giving and
the receiving in her cup, and the scent of the oneness is fragrant on
the air.
“Think neither to give nor to receive, only let the jasmine flower.
“Let nothing spill from you in excess, let nothing be reived from you.
“And reive nothing away. Not even the scent from the rose, nor the
juice from the pomegranate, nor the warmth from the fire.
“But say to the rose: Lo! I take you away from your tree, and your
breath is in my nostrils, and my breath is warm in your depths. Let it
be a sacrament between us.
“And beware when you break the pomegranate; it is sunset you take in
your hands. Say: I am coming, come thou. Let the Evening Star stand
between us.
“And when the fire burns up and the wind is cold and you spread your
hands to the blaze, listen to the flame saying: Ah! Is it thou? Comest
thou to me? Lo, I was going the longest journey, down the path of the
greatest snake. But since thou comest to me, I come to thee. And where
thou fallest into my hands, fall I into thine, and jasmine flowers on
the burning bush between us. Our meeting is the burning bush, whence
the jasmine flowers.
“Reive nothing away, and let nothing be reived from you. For reiver and
bereaved alike break the root of the jasmine flower, and spit upon the
Evening Star.
“Take nothing, to say: _I have it!_ For you can possess nothing, not
even peace.
“Nought is possessible, neither gold, nor land nor love, nor life, nor
peace, nor even sorrow nor death, nor yet salvation.
“Say of nothing: It is mine.
“Say only: It is with me.
“For the gold that is with thee lingers as a departing moon, looking
across space thy way, saying: Lo! We are beholden of each other. Lo!
for this little while, to each other thou and I are beholden.
“And thy land says to thee: Ah, my child of a far-off father! Come,
lift me, lift me a little while, that poppies and wheat may blow on the
level wind that moves between my breast and thine! Then sink with me,
and we will make one mound.
“And listen to thy love saying: Beloved! I am mown by thy sword like
mown grass, and darkness is upon me, and the tremble of the Evening
Star. And to me thou art darkness and nowhere. Oh thou, when thou
risest up and goest thy way, speak to me, only say: The star rose
between us.
“And say to thy life: Am I thine? Art thou mine? Am I the blue curve of
day around thine uncurved night? Are my eyes the twilight of neither
of us, where the star hangs? Is my upper lip the sunset and my lower
lip the dawn, does the star tremble inside my mouth?