All around him brooded silent night. But from the flower-boats down the river came the faint echo of laughter and songs and music. From the sampans and junks anchored across the river came an occasional volley of crackers by which the simple boatman warned the devils of the night that he was still alert. Sometimes was heard from these rocking boats a child’s fretful cry. As night wore on the noises of revelry ceased. The boatmen and the night devils slept in peace and the children’s cries were hushed.
The world was asleep. No sounds were heard but what came from the river at the Breton’s feet, for when the insect hum of man was stilled and a nation of them slept on its banks this river communed aloud and to those that sought it there was peace, even enticement in its coaxing, as well as terror.
The Breton leaned perilously over this compassionate, sweet-voiced river upon which only the day before he had looked impatiently as he waited his cumbersome sea-junk to make headway against its flood. Eagerly had he watched for the first sight of the Sea-Guarding Tower on the north wall, then for the two slender pagodas, which are the city’s masts.
And this was the end.
At last he sought this river over whose bosom he had dreamed so long and so happily. But he had come to it now an outcast; a priest that had repudiated his God and defiled his sacred brotherhood; a man that had sinned—a man—yes—again he hears her fall; again he hears the little moan that broke from her lips; again he sees her lying as dead in the twilight. It is he that did this——
The Breton mechanically took off his rosary and crucifix and dropped them into the waters. He drew himself up, then hesitated. Presently his chin sank to his bosom and he stood motionless on the very brink of this strange River of Pearls, which has never been known to smile since mankind came to dwell on its banks, other than to those that sought it in the night, then a smile came from its murky depths and it was illumined with more delicate traceries than are reflected from the fretwork of heaven.
To those that are happy and look upon it in the sunlight, this melancholy river is forever sombrously brooding; its bosom is an abyss and its voice that of grief. But for those that seek it, repose is found there, and in its dreadful monologue contentedness, a paradox only understood by those whose hearts, as its bosom, are allow with tears. Those listening forget, and plans are not made with the sound of its voice in the ear. Innumerable have been the weary pilgrims that have questioned and have been pleased with its answer; more have sought than have fled from it and its voice has been the rarest of music to them; its bosom the kindest. Holding its arms open to him, entreating, enticing so gently, this dreadful yet kindly river flowed on by the Breton to the sea.
Night was passing. The golden-jetted horologue of Eternity turned slowly. No moon came up, but in endless succession rose the constellations. Majestically these bright markers of unending Time crossed the firmament and with infinite grandeur, ignorant of the riot of man, a pulse beat went through the universe.
Day approached.
A fog came up the river and the stars were seen no more. The Breton still stood erect upon the bank; his eyes peered into the waters below him; his hands still hung listlessly by his side.