To Leeward

by F. Marion Crawford

"Nothing, nothing, nothing, dear," she answered softly, and her head drooped happily upon his shoulder.

They were as though alone in the boat, for the broad sail was stretched right across to catch the wind, and hid the men, who sat together forward, chattering in a low voice in the incomprehensible dialect known as the lingua franca, the free tongue in which all Mediterranean sailors understand one another, from Gibraltar to Constantinople, and from Smyrna to Marseilles. They did not care a rush what their master did, nor where he went; they had some confidence in his knowledge of the sea and of the coast, and they had entire confidence in themselves, whatever wind might blow. It was nothing to them, who came from the north coast, whether their broad-shouldered "signore" took a "bella signora" from Naples or Sorrento for a midnight sail in his boat. He paid well, to every man his wages, and he often gave them a few francs to drink his health. They had never had so good a "padrone" before, and they asked no questions, wisely distinguishing the side of the bread upon which a bountiful providence had spread the most butter for their benefit. They also said that nothing ever mattered much so long as they got their pay.

Leonora had found at last the desire of her heart,—the reckless, stormy passion, careless of everything but itself and its object, of which she had so often dreamed. She had found the man for her to love, and she did love him to distraction. As for the rest of the world, she was more persuaded than ever that there was nothing very much in anything after all. What she had was wholly sufficient in the present, the future was a future full of joy and love, and divested of everything that could possibly be wearisome, and the past was cut off, murdered, dead and buried out of sight.

But though she had killed it and thrown it away, as Julius had done with the dogs, it had a ghost and a living memory that would haunt her for many days and weeks, and months and years. A life is not a dream to be forgotten, nor an old garment to be thrown aside at will. Life is an ever present thing, and all our past is as much a part and parcel of to-day as the marks we bear in our bodies are portions of ourselves, no matter how we came by them, nor when.

Out of nothing, nothing can come. Out of confusion and vanity and pure selfishness, out of confused and incoherent fragments of half-expressed wisdom, out of the very vanity of vanities, which is the vanity of wise words wrought into foolish phrases; out of the shell of an imaginary self wrought fine and gilded to please the worst part of the real self,—out of all these things, I say, what can come that is good? Or can anything come of them which is truly evil, seeing that, one with another, they are all but so many empty nothings, melted together and lost in the great void that receives the failures of the soul-world?

If anything results from such a life, it must be the realisation of nothing, which is the extinction and annihilation of that which is,—and woe be to the destroyer. We may destroy all hold and anchorage of mind and soul, we may reason ourselves into a disbelief in reality, in matter, in daily life, in good and evil. But always when we think that everything is done, and that our fabric of philosophy is faultless, there arises the strong tide of human passion and creeps across the sands to our tower. At first we may watch the waves from a long way off, and laugh to see them break and overwhelm the very foolish people who have no tower on the shore and must swim for their lives or perish. But the tide rolls on toward us, and runs cruelly up, crashing and thundering in its rising might, till it rends and tears our flimsy castle out of the sands beneath our very feet, and we fall headlong into the rushing waters. And then we too must struggle like the rest, if we can; and if we cannot, we must sink to the bottom, while those who learned when the tide was low and the water smooth, and have tried their strength in many a brave buffet with the waves, swim strongly over our drowned bodies.

It is easy to moralise, it is hard to live. That is the reason that great moralists are generally either old men who have done with living and would like to teach other people, or else young men and young women who have not enough vitality to animate the most lymphatic oyster, but who manage to float about by their own inflation. These latter never save any one from drowning, and the former save very few. The people who can help others are the strong ones who can catch them just below the shoulder, by the arm, and support them and push them to land, themselves doing all the work. That is a watery simile, but most similes are but water, and can be poured into a tea-cup or into a bucket—they will take the shape of either.

The night wore on, the full moon sinking slowly to the west, so that after a time she was hidden from the lovers by the sails, and there was a broad shadow behind them. Still the breeze blew fresh from the land and carried them straight towards Ischia, and the boat rocked smoothly over the rolling water. Leonora rested on the thick cushions, and her head lay nestled in Batiscombe's arm while he held the tiller carelessly with his other hand, steering by the wind, in the certainty of making the right course. He did not speak, for he wanted her to rest, and so it came about that before long she fell peacefully asleep, and Julius drew a light shawl tenderly about her, and kissed her ruddy hair, and looked out over the moonlit water, calmly as though he were sailing for his pleasure.

He was thinking what strange things happened in his life, and wondering within himself whether he could ever grow old and be like other people. But he could never be like other people now, for he must live a life apart from the world, and create an existence of a new kind, utterly free from the ties and bonds and weariness of society. It would also be without the amusements, the gayety, the glitter, and the flattery of society. Batiscombe liked all that, too; but he thought he could do without it very well. Just now the fascination of the hour was upon him. The sweet sea-breeze, the moonlight on the water, the swirl of the boat's wake—and, above all, the beautiful woman by his side sleeping so gently and nestled so lovingly close to him,—it was all perfect.

But with a curious duality that belonged to him, he enjoyed the moment and thought intensely of the future at the same time; not with any fear or regret or even with the anticipation of remorse for what he had done, but with a far-seeing love of combination, striving to know exactly what would happen and to provide for it.