Within: a bed, a stove, a table—the gaunt framework of home. But the window overlooked the river; and the boy was now seven years old, unknowing, unquestioning, serenely obedient to the circumstances of his life: feeling no desire that wandered beyond the familiar presence of his mother—her voice and touch and brooding love.
It was a magic window—a window turned lengthwise, broad, low, small-paned, disclosing wonders without end: a scene of infinite changes. There was shipping below, restless craft upon the water; and beyond, dwarfed in the distance, was a confusion of streets, of flat, puffing roofs, stretching from the shining river to the far, misty hills, which lay beside the sea, invisible and mysterious.
But top floor rear was remote from the river and the roofs. From the window—and from the love in the room—the boy looked out upon an alien world, heard the distant murmur, monotonously proceeding, night and day: uncomprehending, but unperturbed....
In the evening the boy sat with his mother at the window. Together they watched the shadows gather—the hills and the city and the river dissolve: the whole broad world turn to points of light, twinkling, flashing, darting, in the black, voiceless gulf. Nor would she fail to watch the night come, whether in gentle weather or whipping rain: but there would sit, the boy in her arms, held close to her breast, her hand straying restlessly over his small body, intimately caressing it.
The falling shadows; the river, flowing unfeelingly; the lights, wandering without rest, aimless, forever astray in the dark: these were a spell upon her.
"They go to the sea!" she whispered, once.
"The ships, mother?"
She put his head in the hollow of her shoulder, where her cheek might touch his hair: all the time staring out at the lights on the river.
"All the ships, all the lights on the river," she said, hoarsely, "go out there."
"Why?"