But now, as the grey light grows deeper and twilight hangs upon a frail thread ere it drops into the lap of darkness; now, as though it were a herald of the night to come, a wind springs up across the land. I hear it as its first whispers begin to tell their secrets in the corners and the crevices. Yet it whispers not for long. Soon, with a loud, insistent voice, it is crying its importunate passion to the mill. But she is chained. The fetters cling unmercifully to her arms. She cannot move. Again and again the wind envelops her in its embrace, but she makes no answer to its passion. Only now and again there comes her faint, despairing cry—the cry of a woman in pain—the cry of a woman in prison. I feel so sorely tempted to set her free, just to see her great generous arms sweeping in a joyous abandonment of life before the wind she loves so well.
And here am I, in this old, old silent mill, writing an essay on the Value of Idleness.
Night is on the verge now. The words run into one another upon the paper. It is so dark that my pen wanders from the faint ruled line and sets out on its own account across the dim grey page.
At last comes the voice of my friend far below.
“Have you finished your idleness yet?”
“It’s finished,” say I with a sense of loss of the moments that have been mine—mine and this dear, sad woman’s in prison. I bolt the doors and come down.
“Come and read it to me now,” says he.
And I read it all.
* * * * *
“But there’s nothing about idleness,” he said. “Where’s the Value of Idleness?”