CHAPTER II.
Thus half in perfect poetry, part in simplest prose, opened the first canto of that long song which has made music in me; which has made music of me, since that happy night. Of the countless words which we have exchanged together in times succeeding, these, the few of our first meeting are carved upon my brain as salutations are carved in stone above the doorways of mansions. He that has loved as I did, may say why this should be so, if he can. I cannot. Time and storm beat against these inscriptions, and give them other colouring,—the tints of years and weather; but while the house lasts and the rock holds the salutation lives. In most other matters, the force of recurring experience weakens association. He who loves cherishes the first words of the beloved as he cherishes her last.
The situation was simple enough: an injured man and a lovely woman, guests of the same summer hotel; a slow recovery; a leisurely sweet acquaintance; the light that never was on hill or shore; and so the charm was wrought. My accident held me a prisoner for six weeks. But my love put me in chains in six minutes.
Her name was Helen; like hers of old
"Who fired the topmost towers of Ilium."
I liked the stately name of her, for she was of full womanhood,—thirty-three years old; the age at which the French connoisseur said that a charming woman charmed the most.
Upon the evening before we parted, I ventured—for we sat at the sheltered end of the piazza, away from the patterers and chatterers, a little by ourselves—to ask her a brave question. I had learned that one might ask her anything; she had originality; she was not of the feminine pattern; she had no paltriness nor pettiness in her thoughts; she looked out, as men do, upon a subject; not down, as women are wont. She was a woman with whom a man could converse. He need not adapt himself and conceal himself, and play the part of a gallant at real matters which were above gallantry. He could confide in her. Now it was new to me to consider that I could confide in any person. In my calling, one becomes such a receptacle of human confidence,—one soaks up other people's lives till one becomes a great sponge, absorptive and absorbing for ever, as sponges should. Who notices when the useful thing gets too full? That is what it is there for. Pour on—scalding hot, or freezing cold, or pure or foul—pour away. If one day it refuses to absorb any more, and lies limp and valueless—why, the Doctor has broken down; or the Doctor is dead. Who ever thought anything could happen to the Doctor? One thing in the natural history of the sponge is apt to be overlooked. When the process of absorption reaches a certain point, let the true hand touch the wearied thing, and grasp it in the right way, and lo! back rushes the instinct of confidence, out, not in.
Something of this sort had happened to me. The novelty of real acquaintance with a woman who did not need me had an effect upon me which perhaps few outside of my profession can understand. This woman truly needed nothing of me. She had not so much as a toothache or a sore throat. If she had cares or troubles they were her own. She leaned upon me no more than the sunrise did upon the mountain. She was as radiant, as healthful, as vivid, and as calm; she surrounded me, she overflowed me like the colour of the air. Nay, beyond this it was I who had need; it was she who ministered. It was I who suffered the whims and longings of weakness,—the thousand little cravings of the sick for the well. It was I who learned to know that I had never known the meaning of what is called "diversion." I learned to suspect that I had yet to learn the true place of sympathy in therapeutics. I learned, in short, some serious professional lessons which were the simplest human ones.
But the question that I spoke of was on this wise. It did not indeed wear the form, but she gave it the hospitality, of a question.
"I wish I knew," I said, "why you have not married. I wish you thought me worthy to know."