'And what happens to them after that?' asked the Sphinx.
'One night when the moon is hidden their mother comes to them with treacherous wile, and suggests that they should go off on a
holiday again to seek the moon—the moon that for a moment seems captured by the pearl-fishers of the sky. And so off they go merrily, but, alas! no moon appears; and presently they are aware of unwieldy bumping presences upon the surface of the sea, presences as of huge dolphins; and rough voices call across the water, till, scared, the little whitebaits turn home in flight—to find themselves somehow meshed in an invisible prison, a net as fine and strong as air, into which, O agony! they are presently hauled, lovely banks of silver, shining like opened coffers beneath the coarse and ragged flares of yellow torches. The rest is silence.'
'What sad little lives! and what a cruel world it is!' said the Sphinx—as she crunched with her knife through the body of a lark, that but yesterday had been singing in the blue sky. Its spirit sang just above our heads as she ate, and the air was thick with the grey ghosts of all the whitebait she had eaten that night.
But there were no longer any tears in her eyes.
[THE ANSWER OF THE ROSE]
The Sphinx and I sat in our little box at Romeo and Juliet. It was the first time she had seen that fairy-tale of passion upon the stage. I had seen it played once before—in Paradise. Therefore, I rather trembled to see it again in an earthly play-house, and as much as possible kept my eyes from the stage. All I knew of the performance—but how much was that!—was two lovely voices making love like angels; and when there were no words, the music told me what was going on. Love speaks so many languages.
One might as well look. It was as clear as moonlight to the tragic eye within the heart. The Sphinx was gazing on it all with those eyes that will never grow old, neither for years nor tears; but though I seemed to be seeing nothing but an advertisement of Paderewski pianos on the pro
gramme, I saw it—oh, didn't I see it?—all. The house had grown dark, and the music low and passionate, and for a moment no one was speaking. Only, deep in the thickets of my heart there sang a tragic nightingale that, happily, only I could hear; and I said to myself, 'Now the young fool is climbing the orchard wall! Yes, there go Benvolio and Mercutio calling him; and now,—"he jests at scars who never felt a wound"—the other young fool is coming out on to the balcony. God help them both! They have no eyes—no eyes—or surely they would see the shadow that sings "Love! Love! Love!" like a fountain in the moonlight, and then shrinks away to chuckle "Death! Death! Death!" in the darkness!'
But, soft, what light from yonder window breaks!