I am forbidden to write her. I must speak to some one, to something. He came three days ago. He is tall, black-eyed, with a laugh that rings. When I hear that laugh, I cannot even moisten my dry tongue. I have learned the meaning of hate. Yesterday she ran to the spring to bring him a glass of water. (He lay lazily and let her.) I followed.
"Is that the man you said you might love?" I whispered.
It looked as if the whisper burned her cheek. She turned red to the roots of her yellow hair. She could not look at me.
"Sir Knight," she said at last, "in the world we do not ask such things."
So I knew.
As to my manner, I think I have obeyed her. At least, I have been silent. But if this is to be my portion, death must come soon. For all my body is under the sway of this great trouble. I cannot eat. My hands seem helpless, they are so cold. My throat is choked. When have I slept? I think my father knows, and, though I cannot speak to him, understands, if a man for whom life is over can ever understand one at the beginning. Yet how can he? how can he? For my mother loved him, and gave herself to him. There is in all the world no sorrow like this of mine. To stand by and see another man help her into the boat and row away! To see him pin a flower in her hair with those daring hands! And I would have died to do it. Yet last night, as I stormed through the forest like the north wind that hates the clinging leaves, blind in the darkness, blind from within,—and only through some forest instinct keeping myself from crashing into tree and bush,—a moment of calm enwrapped me as quickly as if a gossamer veil had fallen from above. I seemed to see the meaning of things, the true meaning and value. That he should give her a flower, should take her hand, should win her smile—nay, the touch of her cheek, her lips—words I can scarcely write, even here,—what are these perishable gifts? Gauds of time! Did some poet say that, or have I made the phrase? The foolish broidery on the web of life, to wear and wear with years! But what lies behind to engender the token—ah, that is the eternal! I cannot penetrate her heart to see the living thoughts that thus denote themselves; but I know my own. I challenge time itself to match them with a brood more great. My love, my faith in her, my sacrifice, these are giants, springing into sudden Titanic birth, and Homer's heroes are pygmies to them. So the night calmed me, and I thanked God (did I ever write that word before? Did I ever really think it?) that my soul was born. But in the morning the mood had passed. I knew still what I had learned, but I could not feel it. My father, my dear father! He sits all day with Homer open on his knee, and does not read. Once after the others had been here, and he saw me wince when she and the man went laughing off together, he said to me, almost as if he were afraid to say it:—
"Don't overestimate the little familiarities of social life." He said it, but I could not answer.
Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume
Well—child! (You are nothing more—nothing!) Our guest has gone. Now let us hope you will straightway begin to get back your color. You look like the travesty of Hope Deferred. Dress you for Pierrot, and you'd serve well for the ghost of youthful folly. But you have behaved excellently. Socially speaking, you have watched beside your arms. Consider yourself knighted. Shall I tell you a secret? The Forest of Arden is not a proper trysting-place for folk who have met in the town; at least, if one of them has been learning the sweet directness of the woods. For I, whom this man somewhat enchains and always did,—when I saw him among the trees, I knew he was very worldly and a trifle fat! And he does not swim well. And he slept o' mornings, and I could not help thinking of you wandering—albeit like a zany whose bauble is hid—in the dewy brake. Understand plainly, you are at this moment dear to me. The thought of you is sweet as Endymion to Diana; yet I who am no Dian, but a poor fin de siècle spinster, her being distorted by culture, would withdraw from you were you here, as the chaste huntress from Actæon. I like you; but I mean nothing by the saying, nothing, nothing! Nay, and I said "I love," it would be but lightly, as if we were both in a little play: a play which nobody wrote, and no man saw acted, and which the actors themselves will speedily forget. Think of the thistle-downiest thing you ever saw, the most fleeting: the glow that rises in the sunset sky and flees before the sight. That is what I mean when I say you are dear to me. Do not make me repent having said it.
Francis Hume to Zoe Montrose