"The truth--of course! How could I help it? Now, listen. Once I was
in a big town, where there was a picture gallery, and lots of marble
statues--like the old Greeks used to make. You've read about them,
haven't you?"
"Yes, I think so. But I've never seen them."
"Well, there were lots of these statues, white as snow, and looking
just like life. And they were all naked, with never a rag to cover
them, but for all that one could look at them, as calm and pure as on
the face of God. For they were so beautiful that one could think
of nothing but the sacred beauty God has given to the human form.
And--can you guess what I'm going to say now?"
"How should I guess?" said the girl, looking down shyly, as if with
some inkling she would not confess of what was in his mind.
"Just this--you are like that to me: a marble statue, white and cool,
with a beauty that is holy in itself. And I thank God that made you so
beautiful and pure."
"Now you're laughing at me again," said the girl sadly.
"'Tis solemn earnest. Listen. Ask yourself, in the time we've been
together here, have we ever exchanged a single kiss, a single touch,
with any thought of passion?"
"Passion?" The girl's eyes looked frankly into his.
"Yes.... It might have been, you know. I am passionate by nature, but
when I look at you, it cools and dies. I am telling you the truth when
I say you have been like a healing, cooling draught to one in a fever.
And I believe you have changed me altogether, now and for ever after."
"I don't think I understand--not all of it. But have you really been
so happy?"
"So unspeakably happy. Yes. And glad to feel myself strong and
self-restrained. I have often thought that no one could ever dream
what happiness and beauty can live in one little grey village. Do you
know what I think? I believe that in every little grey village there
is a quiet, secret happiness, that no one knows."
"Not everywhere, Olof. It is not everywhere there is anyone like you."
"But you! I don't mean to say, of course, it should be just like ours.
But a happiness...."
He drew the girl to him, and their lips met in a long, gentle kiss.
"Can everyone kiss like you?" she whispered shyly, with a tender gleam
in her eyes.
"Maybe. I don't know."
"No, no--there's no one in the world like you. None that can talk like
you, or kiss like you. Do you know what I always think--always look
at, when you kiss me?"
"No--tell me, tell me!" he cried eagerly.
"No--I don't think I can."
"Something you can't tell _me_, Daisy-flower? Come, don't you think
it's your turn to tell me something now?"
"Well, then--only, you mustn't laugh. I know it's silly. I always--I
always look at your neck. There's a big vein just there, and it beats
so prettily all the time. And then I feel as if your soul were flowing
through it--right into me. And it does, for I can feel it!"
"That's the loveliest thing you've ever said in all your life," said
he solemnly. "We won't talk any more now, only be together...."
* * * * *
Spring was near; it was open war between the sun and the cold. The
snowdrifts had begun to disappear.
Strange dreams were at work in Olof's mind.
"She loves me--warmly and truly," he told himself. "But is her love
deep and strong enough for her to forget all else, and give herself up
fully and freely to her lover?"
"And could you let her? Could you accept that sacrifice--from one like
her?"
"No, no. I didn't mean that, of course. But if only I could be
sure--could feel beyond all doubt that she _would_; that she was ready
to give up everything for my sake...."
"And you count _that_ the final test of love? Shame on you!"
The colour faded from the evening sky; the stars were lit ... the
errant fancies died away.
* * * * *
In the brilliant sunlight they returned--the same strange dreams
welling up on every side, like the waters of spring. Behind and before
him, everywhere, insistently, an irresistible song.
"I must know--I must sound the uttermost depths of her love!"
"Can you not see how cruel it would be--cruel to her beyond all
others?"
"But only to know! To ask as if only in jest...."
"In jest? And you would jest with such a thing as this!"
And the dreams sank down into the hurrying waters; yet still the warm
clouds sailed across the sky.
* * * * *
Like a rushing flood--the old desire again.
"Can anything be cruel that is meant in love? A question only--showing
in itself how deeply I love her? It is torture not to know; I must
break through it--I must learn the truth!"
"..." But the other voice was lost in a rush of foaming waters.
* * * * *
He took the girl's hand in his, and spoke warmly, with beautiful
words.
Her fair brow darkened under a cloud--so dark seemed any cloud there
that for a moment he wished he had not spoken.
"I never thought you could doubt me," she murmured, almost in tears.
"Or ask--or ask for that!"
"Oh, my love," he thought. "If you only knew! Just one word, and then
I can tell you all--and we shall be doubly happy after."
So he thought, but he did not speak. And now he could think of nothing
but the moment when he could tell her that it was but a question in
all innocence--a trial of her love.
"It is because I love you as I do," she said, "that I could not do it.
We have been so happy--but _that_ would be something strange between
us. And now that you are going away...." She stopped, and the two
looked at each other sorrowfully. It was as if already something
strange had crept between them, as if they had hurt each other
unwittingly, and suffered at the thought.
* * * * *
Day by day their parting drew nearer, the sun was veiled in a dreary
mist.
Then one day she came to him, strangely moved, and clung to him,
slight and yielding as the drooping curtains of the birch, swayed
by the wind. Clung to him, threw her arms warmly round his neck, and
looked into his eyes with a new light in her own.
"What--what is it?" he asked, with emotion, hovering between fear and
a strange delight.
"Olof--I am ... I can say it now...."
A tumult of joy rose up in him at her words. He clasped her to him in
a fervent embrace, and opened his lips to tell her the secret at last.
But his heart beat all too violently, a hand seemed clutching his
throat, and he could not utter a word, but crushed her closer to him,
and pressed his lips to hers.
Drawn two ways, he seemed, and now but one; all thought of the other
vanished utterly. His breast was almost bursting with a desperate
regret; he could not speak, and would not even if he could.
And then, as he felt the pressure of her embrace return his own,
regret was drowned in an ecstasy of surrender.
"I love you," she whispered, "as only _your mother_ ever could!"
Olof turned cold. It was as if a stranger had surprised them in an
intimate caress.
"Olof," she murmured, with an unspeakable tenderness in her eyes. And
as if some great thing had suddenly come into her mind she went on:
"You have never told me about your mother.... No, don't tell me now;
I know it all myself. She is tall like you, and stately, and upright
still as ever. And she has just the same bright eyes, and little
hollows at the temples, like you have. And she wears a dark striped
apron, with a little pocket at the side, where she keeps her knitting,
and takes it out now and then to work at as she goes."
"How could you know!" he cried, in pleased surprise. His fear was gone
now, and he felt only a wonderful depth of happiness at hearing the
girl speak so tenderly of his mother.
"'Tis only guessing. But do you know--I should so like to see her,
your mother, that...."
"That...?"
"Only ... only, I should like to see her so. Then I'd put my arms
round her neck and ... Olof, did your mother often kiss you?"
"No. Not often."
"But she stroked your hair, and often talked with you all alone, I
know."
"Yes ... yes."
His arms loosed their hold of the girl, and almost unconsciously he
thrust her a little away, staring out into the distance with a faint
smile on his lips and deepest earnest in his eyes.
The girl looked at him wonderingly.
"What is it?" she asked anxiously, as if fearing to have hurt him. But
he did not seem to hear, only stood looking out at nothing as before.
"Olof--what is it?" she asked again, in evident distress.
"Only--it was only my mother speaking to me all alone," he answered in
a low voice.
"Oh!" The girl sighed deeply. "Now--was it just now she spoke?"
He nodded.
The girl glanced at him and hesitated. "Won't you--won't you tell me
what she said?" she asked timidly.
"She told me it was wrong--a sinful wrong even to ask you...."
The girl gazed at him for a long time without speaking; the tenderness
in her eyes grew to unutterable depths.
"Oh," she whispered at last, very softly, "if she only knew how I love
her now--your mother! I never loved her so before." And she clasped
her arms round his neck.