It was the kind of autumn evening made for thought and sadness. The sky was very clear, with a suspicion of purple in it, and the gold of ages was in the west. As she stood by her bedroom window looking out at it, there came that terrible foreboding of sadness and sorrow that seems to do its best to crush young hearts, though perhaps it only moulds them.
And along with it came a longing for expansion, a weariness of the endless routine, the companionless silence and that nameless thirst after something, she knew not what. How could Rosalie, walking in the mist, having no speech or utterance, explain it even to herself? She wanted something, the purple of the sky suggested something—suggested, nothing more. And from that day forward the nameless longing grew, settling itself within her heart, finding no happier outside quarters. I do not know that she looked thinner or more frail, her physical strength was too great for that. No one beyond herself knew of the longing, and she attributed it all to discontent, and tried to stifle it.
At last one evening she understood. The inordinate longing for speech rushed over her.
But how to manage it? It is all very well to find out what you want to do—but how to do it? There was only one way—only one way, at any rate, that suggested itself to her, and that way was prayer.
Now, her religious education had not been exactly neglected, but Rosalie was one of those heedless creatures who hear a little and invent a great deal.
She had been told with great piety by her aunt of the great golden Serpent, its wonderful power, its relentless cruelty to those who crossed or vexed it, its generosity to those who did as they were told, and from those few rudimentary remarks she had built up a little golden temple of her own, quite an unseen spiritual affair, in which to worship the Supreme Being of Lucifram. She certainly gave to the gorgeous Serpent many qualifications she had never been told it possessed, but what of that? She was but a poor, helpless creature at best. But with a reverent, far-away love she had always worshipped the Serpent, although as a sex she had been given to understand he reckoned her somewhat inferior.
But now, sitting up in bed, there came to her one of those terrible convictions, never to be misplaced, that are in themselves the sheerest madness or the sheerest sanity, that she must get her tongue untied. And the Serpent, being the strongest of all powers on Lucifram, was the likeliest to do it.
Next afternoon at five o’clock saw Rosalie kneeling in the famous temple, her head buried in her hands, praying in the silence as only sincerity and helplessness can pray.
“Oh, Serpent, give me my tongue! Let me talk,” said she, a most natural request when coming from a woman.
Then she went home quite comforted, as only the simple can be.