IV

It had often seemed to her a strange thing, as she sat thinking, how

all one labors to learn passes easily away, and what one feels remains,

welcome or no. All the book-learning of her early years had gone, but

there would never go the memory of her first blushing kiss, and though

it was six-and-twenty years since he had gone from her life, yet the

thought of the Philistine boy who was now a grandee of Egypt--that

remained.

So, likewise, all she had learned of the Hebrews was gone; now a

legend, now a saying would come back to her, some proverb or a piece of

ritual, but like a bar from a tune one has forgotten. But everything

she felt, everything she had known of great Samson remained with her.

One learns things and one lives things. The things written in the head

fade out and die, but the words on the heart bite deeper and deeper....

She could remember every kiss he had given, the immense madness he had

evoked.... O God, was it possible that she, so calm now, so respected,

so wise, had once shaken like a leaf at his voice? Her knees had

trembled; her heart had fought in her breast like a caged bird; her

throat had gone dry....

Before she met him, she knew him by repute, a huge, turbulent man of

immense strength, who had often been in trouble with the Philistine

authorities.... In the tribal troubles, some years before, his name

had been very prominent. He had married a Philistine girl in Timnath,

and there had been a riot at the wedding, over a question of dowry, or

something of the kind, and some of the girl's Philistine relations had

been killed. A sort of vendetta had arisen and Samson had declared war

against the nation. He had proceeded to burn the corn stacked in the

fields; there was a strange rumor that he had captured an immensity of

foxes and, tying burning brands to their tails, had loosed them among

the harvest.

Then, of course, from a family quarrel it had become a national affair

and Samson was proscribed. Prodigious stories were told of his

strength and valor, of his defeating patrols single-handed, and

refuging on the rocks of Etom. The Hebrews were asked to give him up

to authority, and brought him to Lehi bound. But there he burst his

cords, such immense strength had he, and escaped after slaying twenty

men in a hand-to-hand fight. Then he had become a bandit of the hills

on whose head a price was set.

Around him a romance grew, as will about all mountain chiefs, to which

Samson lived up most gallantly. Careless of disguise, careless of

danger, he had come, with his great red beard and his hair floating to

his hips, into Gaza itself once, to see a woman. The watchmen were

told, and the city gates were locked while they searched for him, but

he crashed through the gates with his terrific shoulders and made his

way to Hebron. It was said he carried parts of the ironwork with him

to make weapons.

All this had happened years before, and all the border warfare was

over, and Samson was no longer a proscribed bandit but a great man of

the Hebrews, leaping suddenly into fame and holding fame and power as

such men will. He no longer raided harvests and kine, nor came to Gaza

secretly, but now he walked like a conqueror. It was said that it

irked him that everything was so peaceful and quiet, and he regretted

the old roaming days. To the Hebrews he was a great figure, a champion.

Delilah had never understood how they made a champion out of this

guerilla fighter, but when she saw him for the first time she

understood. He came to thank her for the interest she had taken in his

race.

"You have been good to my people," his voice thundered. "I thank you."

Herself, a tall woman, had to look up like a child to him, and herself,

no small woman, felt a reed beside that vast muscular bulk. She had

two impressions of him, his immense masculine quality, and his

tremendously arrogant manner. For everything Philistine he seemed to

hold a tremendous contempt. He had beaten the Philistines, and

physically he thought little enough of them.

It seemed a little flaunting to her, at first, that great cape of red

hair, of which he was so very proud, so very careful. In a smaller man

it would have been effeminate, but in him it was a trait of virility,

like a lion's mane. Beside him his followers, his clansmen, seemed so

frail, so puny. No wonder they watched him with those adoring eyes.

No wonder they exhibited him, so proud they were.

To Delilah, it was a wonder and an irritation that she should be so

moved, so thrown off her axis mentally and emotionally by the presence

of this great hairy man. All her senses were jangled suddenly. One

part of her, the Philistine lady, smiled in a little patronizing

contempt for the unconcealed boastfulness of his words, for his

insulting glance at the passers-by.

But another, a strange Delilah clamored:

"No matter what he says, let him speak on. My heart opens at his

voice.... Let him contemn all men with his arrogant eye, but let him

not contemn me!"

The Philistine lady had a little disgust for the way he laid his hand

on the heads and the shoulders of his followers, pawing them clumsily.

But the new Delilah clamored:

"If he lays his hand on me, I shall faint to the ground and die!" And

a burning shame rose in her, and her face reddened. And she said to

herself, "God! God! I have suddenly gone mad!"

All her culture, her tradition, all the fine conventions of her life,

seemed suddenly to vanish, become nothing, before this immense male.

All the men of her life, friends, her young false lover, relatives

seemed like puppets beside him--their shaven faces, their polished

speech, their carefulness of dress and demeanor. The rufous giant had

appeared, and "Away," he seemed to have cried, and they had whirled

off, like blown feathers.

If she were troubled, he was troubled too. The directness of him read

her perturbation. A great desire rose in the turbulent hillsman to be

near her, to know her body and soul. He was accustomed to women, to

love women, but never had he known a woman such as this--a beautiful

groomed lady who possessed all that was a wonder to him, riches and

foreign breeding and a strange, sweet culture. His wife of Timneth had

been only a country girl, and his sweethearts of the hills had been

tribeswomen, agile, angry as cats, like some hard, harsh fruit, and the

women he had known in Gaza were venal women, for every man. But this

was a great lady--and she loved him. A great pride, and a great

wonder, and desire rose in him. He was stupefied as she.

They looked at each other, each reading the other's thought, until

their throats became dry, and all words were just trivial sounds,

meaning nothing. Dumb and wondrous he was, and she dumb and bowing

with shame. How they parted was to her a mystery, but that their hands

touched, and at the touch all her bone and flesh seemed to go liquid,

and her knees trembled as with an immensity of fear. And nothing

seemed stable in the world but his great hot hand, that trembled too....

Bowed with shame she was, troubled, blind in purpose, all the familiar

things of her house and lands were now unfamiliar, unimportant. The

long day dragged, and in her heart was a storm, like a hot wind from

the desert. She refuged in her inner rooms, in the coolness of her

inner rooms, but that brought no relief, and restlessly she must come

out again. The Asian sun crept slowly from east to west, but Delilah

remained in a dull maze. "Am I ill?" she asked. "Am I stricken with

some strange disease?" But no. "I am insane," she thought. "I must

put it out of my head. I must n't think." Slowly, slowly the day

wheeled by; but out of her head it would not go. And her face went

white and slowly she whispered to herself: "I am a bad woman. I never

knew before. Oh, shame, shame and woe! I am an evil woman!"

The Asian sun dropped into the hissing sea, and came the soft Syrian

dusk, and the swift coolth of the night. The heat of mind and body

went with the heat of the day. There remained only a deep longing,

that seemed to be a nostalgia of the infinite. Without, the night was

blue, there was only a little wind among the apple-trees, and all the

flowers had closed until dawn should come, but the birds were unsilent

and the earth itself was restless, now spring was here.

The night wind cooled her sweet brow and ruffled the dark perfumed hair

at her temples. The cool night wind, like cool water. Then arose in

Delilah a desire for it, and she wandered out among the vines and

apple-trees, touching them, as she passed, in sympathy, for it seemed

to her that they must share her yearning. Though all was darkness, yet

all was not rest. Somewhere the sheep were grazing, and she could

imagine the gods of the nearer East walking the earth, the passionate,

seeking gods, the ever-young ones; they walked beside her, their slim,

brown, beautiful bodies, their liquid eyes. All the longing of the

night came to her lips in a little song--an air, and faltering,

unthought words.

"O Spring, which begins now," went the throbbing contralto.

There was a rustle among the trees. Her heart stopped beating.

"Is some one there? Who is there? Who?" But she knew well who was

there.

"Who is it? Who is it?"

She saw the great bulk in the blue night, like a giant, like some great

giant of the earth.

"It is I--Samson."

"What--how--" Words would not come to her. Nor would words mean

anything. "Why--"

She put out her hands--she knew not for what reason, perhaps to thrust

him away--her slim white hands in the dusk. He seized them. Once

again she throbbed from head to foot, and her knees became weak, and

all of her melted. And she fell forward, will having left her, on the

great bearded chest.

"I am dying," she murmured. "O my God, I die!"

V

Now they were married; and he had come to live in her house, the low,

pleasant house in the valley of Sorek, the white and cool house....

Without, the Syrian flowers grew in the garden, the white and blue and

little red flowers, the bees droned.... Cool dairies and enclosures

with great stacks of corn; and in the meadows the dappled kine grazed,

and on the hillsides the heavy-fleeced sheep. Within, her hand maidens

tended the whirring spinning-wheels, and all the graciousness of a

great house was there, cool water-jars that Persian potters had made,

and stuffs from Damascus, and rugs on the walls from cunning Eastern

looms, and furniture fashioned by the proud Syrian craftsmen. Her

house had been a house loved by all, the young Philistine poets and

elder statesmen and calm, subtle priests. And the strain and weariness

of affairs had come on them, they would say: "Let us go out to

Delilah's house at Sorek, and rest in the orchard of the bees." ... But

now, now Samson was there, and things were different.

Through all Philistia the news had gone, that Delilah had become

infatuated with and married the guerilla leader, and the young men

stormed. Was she mad? Or what had he done to her? And an immense

disgust arose in them. Delilah, to marry that! Delilah, of all women!

Delilah, beautiful, gifted, with all her tradition, to be bound to this

ragamuffin warrior! This fatuous boaster, with his red hair of comedy,

and yokel whiskers! How disgusting, how degrading! And they had

offered her all their hearts and poetry, and she had chosen this. O

Delilah! Delilah!

Older men and women said nothing. Some of them understood. The

freakish and terrible lightning that passion is, and how it strikes.

In some women that is what strong drink is to men, a mocker and a

raging thing. A pity, though, Delilah... And the priests shook their

heads. It will not last, they said, and her heart will be broken.

Though it was pain to them, still they came to see her, to let her know

that nothing mattered, she was their friend always.... They had to

suffer seeing the great red one at the head of the table, hearing his

jokes and reminiscences. And solemnly he would speak of his birth, and

claim supernatural happenings at it, angels appearing and going up in

pillars of fire.... And the company made awkward comments, and Delilah

lowered her eyes....

Sometimes a great rage against the Philistines would take him, and he

would give vent to it by telling at the table of his fight at

Ramath-leki when he had annihilated the Philistine patrol with the

first weapon to hand, a great bone he had found in the desert sands.

After many years and much telling he had exaggerated the deed out of

all proportion, until from ten it had become a thousand men.

"And do you know what that bone was?" He would put his immense hands

on the table and lean forward.

"The jawbone of an ass," he roared with the thunderous laughter. "Ho!

ho! The jawbone of an ass. With the jawbone of an ass, heaps upon

heaps, with the jaw of an ass have I slain a thousand men."

But worse than his rage and boasting was his good humor. When they

spoke to Delilah of some new poet in Tyre, or of some subtle new

writings of the Egyptians he would break in with his terrible question:

"Did they know any riddles?" And without waiting for an answer he

would tell them of the sinister conundrum he had propounded on the

occasion of his first marriage. It seems, as he told it, that when he

was courting his first wife, who they all knew "had turned out no

good," he explained as he patted Delilah's hand, he met a young lion at

Timnath, and it roared at him, and he caught it up and rent it, "and I

had nothing but my two hands." He transacted his business, and went

home, and when he was coming for the wedding, he looked to see if the

lion's carcass was there where he had thrown it, and it was still

there, and a swarm of bees and honey were in it, and the honey was

good. "Fine eating," he told them.

At the marriage feast he proposed a riddle, wagering thirty fine linen

sheets and thirty changes of garments that the guests would not answer

in seven days. "And if you can't find it out, you pay me thirty sheets

and thirty changes of garments," he laughed. "They were all

Philistines, and all thought themselves clever fellows.

"So I said: 'Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong

came forth sweetness. Expound me that,' said I, 'or pay up. Or pay

up,' said I."

And he looked around the table, silent, a great grin under his red

beard.

"And did they expound it?" Some one asked at length.

"They did. 'What is sweeter than honey?' they answered, with a smile

on their faces, 'and what is stronger than a lion?' They got around

the wife, do you see, and she gave them the answer.' I told them that,

too. 'If you had not plowed with my heifer,' said I, 'you had not

found out my riddle.' So I lost the wager."

"And did you pay up?"

"I did. And that's funnier than the riddle. I went down to Ashkelon,

and killed thirty men there, and took their belongings, and gave the

thirty changes of garments to them that found out the riddle. So it

cost me nothing, do you see, and I kept my word.

"But I never looked at the wife after. I could n't. I took a kind of

hate against her. She married another fellow."

A great embarrassment arose among all the company, so full of shame

were they for their hostess; but over her fine, sweet face no shadow

passed. She might have been married to a king, so calm and dignified

she was. A great lady, she!

She understood now, looking back, how pathetic a figure the red giant

was, had she only had the eyes, the wisdom to see then. He was so lost

among the suave, sophisticated Philistines, who could hurt more with a

word than he could with his great brawny hands. Beneath his swelling

thews he was only a child. He wanted to be as important as the guests

in her house. Feeling they despised him for his origin, and his

manners, his boastfulness and his arrogance were only a defense.

Little by little now Delilah's friends disappeared, and she was glad of

it, for she hated to see Samson despised, disliked and their pitying

looks for her hurt her terribly. And the days of peace were dreadful

to him; his, too, the tragedy of the soldier now that war was over, and

no more exhilaration, keenness, importance. The tolerance of his old

enemies was an insult to him. On their hatred he had thriven. Their

hatred made him important. If their hatred went, he would no longer be

the great Samson, he would only be a giant of the hills.

He could n't believe they did n't hate him--how could they do

otherwise, he having killed so many?--and a great suspicion arose in

him. They were a noted race for stratagems, these Philistines, and

might they not now be planning something against him? Delilah, for

instance! It was strange, he thought, how a woman of her standing

should marry him like that. He could n't understand. He must watch

her.

He was forever, also, meeting his old tribesmen, seeing them more now

than ever, for he would run to them when oppressed by the Philistine

atmosphere. And the Philistines as a whole they regarded as deadly

enemies. They never believed in their peaceful intentions. Though

they were in a way proud of Samson's great marriage, yet they

distrusted it. And by hint and innuendo they sought to put him on his

guard. He nodded importantly. He did n't need to be told about the

Philistines, he said; he'd keep his eye on them. "Had anything...?"

they crowded around him. Well, he wasn't saying, but he was watching;

he smiled. His wife? Let them not worry; he did n't trust women very

far.

And relieved, and once more raised in importance and self-esteem, he

would swagger back to the house.

Sometimes, too, in Delilah's place, he would be seized with a great

desire to make friends with the young Philistines; and when Delilah

wasn't there, he would show off his immense strength, felling an ox

with one blow of his fist. Once he had himself bound with seven green

withes, stouter than rope, stronger than chains, and with a cruel burst

of strength stood free, snapping them as though they were threads. And

once he had his arms bound with new rope, breaking the bond without any

effort. But his greatest triumph was having his hair woven into a

great spinning-wheel and fastened to the pin, and walking away took

with him the pin of the beam, and the web. But the Philistines had

seen more intricate and showy feats of strength by the Egyptians' black

slaves. And it did not impress them over-much. No matter what he did,

he could not get into sympathy with them. He was a stranger in his

wife's house. Also he could not understand why she should seem

humiliated by these displays. Did not a woman love a strong man?

Shouldn't she be proud? Well, why was n't she?

Somehow the story of these trials of strength reached the Hebrew

settlements, and they construed it that the Philistines were seeking to

take him. When he came among them, magniloquent, magnificent, they

questioned him and he gave no answer, letting them believe that his old

enemies were spreading nets for him. A great terror arose in them.

And they tried to persuade him to come back to them. But he would n't.

He was equal to all their stratagems, he hinted. "But the women!" they

said, "nothing passes the cunning of a woman. Better leave her,

Samson; better leave her now."

"The woman pleases me well." And he would n't be moved.

The woman pleased him, but he did n't love her; and he displeased her,

but she loved him. In Delilah's heart was so much aching love for him,

such depth of passion, that at times she was ashamed. It seemed to her

that she had given everything in her to this man. No matter how

displeased she was, no matter how humiliated by his boastings, by his

circus tricks, when night came, and he put out his hand to her, all the

irritation of the day passed, and her being sang.

She had chosen her husband, and what she had chosen was her own

business. No matter how queer he was, she could n't have him laughed

at.... So they stayed away, and she was glad of it and little by

little the great wonder of her marriage provoked no more passion, no

more discussion. Only when a stranger appeared, or some old friend,

and asked in the public assemblies of Delilah, and the incongruous

marriage was once more brought up and discussed. Shoulders shrugged.

"And is she happy?"

"We don't know. We don't see much of her any more."

A new strange element came up in this isolation: Samson did n't like

being left alone by the Philistines. Somewhere in his mind arose the

theory that it was a new insult, a new harm. He grew short with his

wife; became irritable; nothing pleased him. He was not a farmer, a

warrior he! he complained. He was entitled to relaxation, amusement,

conversation. He was no vegetable--

"Then, Samson, you would like people here?"

He did n't like to be left alone, as though he had the plague, or

treated as though he were nobody, by God!

"Then they shall come, Samson."

But ah! there was something, he objected. He did n't like this damned

superciliousness, this accursed Philistine superiority--

"You imagine it, Samson. You are too sensitive, my big lover."

"Then they are not superior? are not better than I?"

"Of course not, great Samson. In every way you are as good as they,

the same as they. You would look the same as they, only

better-looking, more magnificent, if only--"

"If only what?"

"Oh, don't be angry with me, lover, if I tell you. There is only one

thing remarkable about you; one thing they can criticize. If only your

hair--"

"Ha! my hair!"

"O Lover, without it, you would look so great and splendid, and

dignified. There would be nothing to criticize."

"But Delilah, my strength is in my hair."

"O lover, lover, don't be silly!"

"Also, my parents took a vow--"

"But darling, your parents never knew you were to be such a great man,

and that you would have to command respect from the nation--"

"Of course, of course. But, Delilah, if my strength goes--"

"Dearest, it won't go. How could it?"

"And they won't have anything to criticize then! Ha! Then off it

comes!"

She was so happy, the tears came into her eyes. This strange desire to

wear his hair long as a woman's had been a bugbear to her. This

foppishness, freakishness, superstition, whatever it was, it made him

remarkable. She could n't suffer to have men smile at him.

"If you only knew how happy you make me!"

He was ludicrously nervous as she shore off the great red braids. He

was more, he was frightened. The burden gone, he strolled casually

around, picked up a little bar of iron at the fireplace, twisted it to

form a loop, was satisfied. Glanced at himself in the long metal

mirror, smiled.

"I think it suits me well."

A thrill of delight came to Delilah, a new, a younger Samson had

appeared. Her heart went pit-a-pat.... A great dignity sat on him

now, and he weighed his words at the table. Gone with his hair was his

old arrogance, and seemingly his race hatred.... The Philistines spoke

among themselves, wondering how she had done it. This quiet,

well-groomed man, remarkable only for his size and height, could this

be the same red rebel whom they had known a few short months ago? A

wonderful woman.

But when the Hebrews heard of it, a great chill fell on their hearts,

and they wrung their hands. "They have cut off our Samson's hair. Oh,

woe!" they cried. "The woman enticed him, and he a Nazarite unto God

from his mother's womb. Oh, woe! Oh, woe! Gone is his strength now,

and gone is glory!" But the red one, all agog with his new

worldliness, paid no heed to them, went never near them.

For some brief weeks Delilah knew happiness such as she never believed

possible in earth or heaven.... So fine, so strong he looked, so

greatly he acted, so--so fully he loved.... Of course it could n't

have lasted, she knew now. How fast catastrophe!

Quietly he said one day: "How soon it gets dark! Night falls faster

than it used. An hour ago the sun was shining, and now it is dark."

She felt as if some cruel fingers had seized her heart, her throat.

She froze to the ground.

"What did you say?"

"I say, why don't the maidens bring lights?"

"Not yet, dear heart.... Let us stay in the warm dusk. Wait, I take

your hand."

A few days later he stumbled and all but fell, was clumsy. She flew to

his side.

"My eyes," he said, "a touch of sun. Nothing particular." But she

sent for a physician.

"It's nothing," Samson said. "Something I 've eaten. I 'll go to

sleep."

"Dear Samson, to please me." The physician examined his eyes.

"Well?" Delilah drew him aside.

"The early days in the desert.... He is going blind."

"Is there no hope, no cure?"

"None."

A little laugh of agony came from her. Great Samson blind! The little

lover blind!... Oh, God!...

"Shall we tell him?"

"No, no!" she burst out. Maybe there was some mistake! "No. We

sha'n't tell him."

A few days later came a great bellow from the garden!

"The sun has gone out of the sky," she heard him exalt. "The day of

wrath is on us. The God of the Hebrews will judge the just and the

unjust. O Philistines, your day has come. The sun has gone out of the

sky."

She flew to him, her feet hardly touching the grass.

"The sun has gone out of the sky," he chanted; "now is silence, but

soon the mountains will rend, the cliffs fall, and the Lord God of

Hosts will appear in thunder!"

"Oh, Samson, Samson!" Her face was a wet mask of tears. Her arms went

quickly about him. "Listen, Samson!"

"Delilah, the sun has gone out of the sky!"

"Samson, Samson, you are great, you are big, you are brave. Be brave

now, heart of hearts--"

"The Day of Days is here. The sun has gone out of the sky."

"Worse, my darling, worse. Worse than that the sun should be gone from

the sky. The sun, Samson, the sun--the sun has gone out of your eyes!"