The Crisis. An Attempt at Synthesis.
[Illustration]
On the following day the blind man awoke early. All was quiet in his
room, neither was there as yet any movement in the house. Through the
window which had remained open into the garden during the night came the
freshness of the early morning. His memory had not yet recalled to him
the events of the previous day, but his whole being was filled with a new
and unusual sensation.
Peter lay for several moments in bed, listening to the twitter of a bird
in the garden and to the feelings stirring within his own heart. “What
has happened to me?” he thought; and at this very moment the words which
were spoken to him in the twilight, near the old mill, flashed into his
mind: “Is it possible that you had never thought of this? How dull you
are.”
It was true, Peter had never thought of it. Evelyn’s presence had always
been a joy to him, but until yesterday he had never realized the fact,
any more than one realizes the air he breathes. Those simple words had
fallen into his soul like a pebble upon the glassy surface of a stream:
one moment it was placid, serenely reflecting the sunlight and the blue
sky,—a toss of the pebble, and it is shaken to its very depths. Now
he awoke like one newly born, and Evelyn—his old companion—appeared
to him in an altered light. As he recalled one by one the incidents
of yesterday, even the most minute, he heard with fresh surprise the
accents of her altered voice as reproduced by his imagination,—“How
stupid you are!” “Don’t, my darling!”
Instantly Peter rose, dressed himself, and ran through the dewy garden
to the old mill. The water was murmuring and the wild-cherry bushes
whispering the same as ever,—only then it had been dark, and now it was
a bright sunny morning. Never before had light produced so palpable an
effect upon him. The bright rays of the cheerful sun seemed to mingle
with the dewy fragrance and the universal freshness of the early morning,
stirring his nerves to a gentle excitement.
But together with this pleasing agitation there arose in the inmost
depths of the blind man’s heart another and a different feeling, so vague
and shapeless that at first he did not even realize its presence; but
gradually it grew to be a part of himself, like the strain of melancholy
that sometimes weaves itself imperceptibly through a merry song. It
rose from the depths of his soul as from small beginnings a heavy cloud
gathers in the heated atmosphere; and just as a cloud is expanded by
rain, so was this emotion deepened by rising tears, until it grew to
predominate over every other feeling. It was but recently that her words
had sounded in his ears, and he could remember every detail of that first
explanation; he seemed still to feel her silken hair and to hear the
throbbing of her heart against his own. And out of all this he wrought an
image that made his own heart beat with joy. Yet now a dark and shapeless
“something” rises to blight this image with its poisonous breath, and to
cause it to vanish into empty air.
In vain did Peter go afterward to the mill and spend hours at a time
there, beset by contending feelings, endeavoring to recall to his
imagination Evelyn’s words, her voice, and her movements. He had lost the
power that once he possessed of uniting them in one harmonious whole.
From the very beginning there had been an intangible “something” that he
had been unable to grasp; and now this “something” was rising above his
head, as a storm-cloud rises from the horizon. The sound of her voice
was hushed, all the impressions of that happy evening had grown dim, and
behold a void was in their place, to fill which void there rose from the
depths of the blind man’s soul a yearning desire. He longed to see her.
The sudden shock that had roused that evenly balanced youthful nature
from its brief slumber had likewise awakened the fatal element that
contained within itself the germs of irrepressible suffering. He loved
her, and longed to see her.