“Who art thou? What is thy fatherland? Where dost thou dwell? Day after
day I come seeking thee, and see neither the palfrey that brings thee
hither, nor the servants who bear thy litter. Rend once for all the veil
of mystery in which thou dost enfold thyself as in the heart of night. I
love thee and, highborn or lowly, I will be thine, thine forever.”
The sun had crossed the crest of the mountain. The shadows were
descending its slope with giant strides. The breeze sighed amid the
poplars of the fountain. The mist, rising little by little from the
surface of the lake, began to envelop the rocks of its margin.
Upon one of these rocks, on one which seemed ready to topple over into
the depths of the waters on whose surface was pictured its wavering
image, the heir of Almenar, on his knees at the feet of his mysterious
beloved, sought in vain to draw from her the secret of her existence.
She was beautiful, beautiful and pallid as an alabaster statue. One of
her tresses fell over her shoulders, entangling itself in the folds of
her veil like a ray of sunlight passing through clouds; and her eyes,
within the circle of her amber-colored lashes, gleamed like emeralds set
in fretted gold.
When the youth ceased speaking, her lips moved as for utterance, but
only exhaled a sigh, a sigh soft and sorrowful like that of the gentle
wave which a dying breeze drives among the rushes.
“Thou answerest not,” exclaimed Fernando, seeing his hope mocked.
“Wouldst thou have me credit what they have told me of thee? Oh, no!
Speak to me. I long to know if thou lovest me; I long to know if I may
love thee, if thou art a woman----”
--“Or a demon. And if I were?”
The youth hesitated a moment; a cold sweat ran through his limbs; the
pupils of his eyes dilated, fixing themselves with more intensity upon
those of that woman and, fascinated by their phosphoric brilliance, as
though demented he exclaimed in a burst of passion:
“If thou wert, I should love thee. I should love thee as I love thee
now, as it is my destiny to love thee even beyond this life, if there be
any life beyond.”
“Fernando,” said the beautiful being then, in a voice like music: “I
love thee even more than thou lovest me; in that I, who am pure spirit,
stoop to a mortal. I am not a woman like those that live on earth. I am
a woman worthy of thee who art superior to the rest of humankind. I
dwell in the depths of these waters, incorporeal like them, fugitive and
transparent; I speak with their murmurs and move with their undulations.
I do not punish him who dares disturb the fountain where I live; rather
I reward him with my love, as a mortal superior to the superstitions of
the common herd, as a lover capable of responding to my strange and
mysterious embrace.”
While she was speaking, the youth, absorbed in the contemplation of her
fantastic beauty, drawn on as by an unknown force, approached nearer and
nearer the edge of the rock. The woman of the emerald eyes continued
thus:
“Dost thou behold, behold the limpid depths of this lake, behold these
plants with large, green leaves which wave in its bosom? They will give
us a couch of emeralds and corals and I--I will give thee a bliss
unnamable, that bliss which thou hast dreamed of in thine hours of
delirium, and which no other can bestow.--Come! the mists of the lake
float over our brows like a pavilion of lawn, the waves call us with
their incomprehensible voices, the wind sings among the poplars hymns of
love; come--come!”
Night began to cast her shadows, the moon shimmered on the surface of
the pool, the mist was driven before the rising breeze, the green eyes
glittered in the dusk like the will-o’-the-wisps that run over the
surface of impure waters. “Come, come!” these words were murmuring in
the ears of Fernando like an incantation,--“Come!” and the mysterious
woman called him to the brink of the abyss where she was poised, and
seemed to offer him a kiss--a kiss----
Fernando took one step toward her--another--and felt arms slender and
flexible twining about his neck and a cold sensation on his burning
lips, a kiss of snow--wavered, lost his footing and fell, striking the
water with a dull and mournful sound.
The waves leaped in sparks of light, and closed over his body, and their
silvery circles went widening, widening until they died away on the
banks.