But Dion shied away from that. He could imagine her as the mother of a child, beautiful mother of a child almost as beautiful; but he could not conceive of her as the “mater” of a person with a mustache.
Their youth, their youth—must it go?
Again she moved slightly above him. The twigs crackled, making an almost irritable music of dryness. Again the lowing of cattle came over that old battlefield from the edge of the sea. And just then, at that very moment, Dion knew that his great love could not stand still, that, like all great things, it must progress. And the cry, that intense human cry, “Whither?” echoed in the deep places of his soul. Whither were he and his great love going? To what end were they journeying? For a moment sadness invaded him, the sadness of one who thinks and is very ignorant. Why cannot a man think deeply without thinking of an end? “All things come to an end!” That cruel saying went through his mind like footsteps echoing on iron, and a sense of fear encompassed him. There is something terrible in a great love, set in the little life of a man like a vast light in a tiny attic.
Did Rosamund ever have such thoughts? Dion longed to ask her. Was she sleeping perhaps now? She was lying very still. If they ever had a child its coming would mark a great step onwards along the road, the closing of a very beautiful chapter in their book of life. It would be over, their loneliness in love, man and woman in solitude. Even the sexual tie would be changed. All the world would be changed.
He lay flat on the ground, stretched out, his elbows firmly planted, his chin in his palms, his face set towards the plain and the sea.
What he looked at seemed gently to chide him. There were such a brightness and simplicity and such a delicious freedom from all complication in this Grecian landscape edged by the wide frankness of the sea that he felt reassured. Edging the mound there were wild aloes and the wild oleander. A river intersected the plain which in many places was tawny yellow. Along the river bank grew tall reeds, sedges and rushes. Beyond the plain, and beyond the blue waters, rose the Island of Euboea, and ranges of mountains, those mountains of Greece which are so characteristic in their unpretentious bareness, which neither overwhelm nor entice, but which are unfailingly delicate, unfailing beautiful, quietly, almost gently, noble. In the distance, when he turned his head, Dion could see the little Albanian village of Marathon, a huddle of tiny houses far off under the hills. He looked at it for a moment, then again looked out over the plain, rejoicing in its emptiness. Along the sea edge the cattle were straying, but their movements were almost imperceptible. Still they were living things and drew Dion’s eyes. The life in them sent out its message to the life in him, and he earnestly watched them grazing. Their vague and ruminating movements really emphasized the profound peace which lay around Rosamund and him. To watch them thus was a savoring of peace. For every contented animal is a bearer of peaceful tidings. In the Garden of Eden with the Two there were happy animals. And Dion recalled the great battle which had dyed red this serene wilderness, a battle which was great because it had been gently sung, lifted up by the music of poets, set on high by the lips of orators. He looked over the land and thought: “Here Miltiades won the name which has resounded through history. To that shore, where I see the cattle, the Persians were driven.” And it seemed to him that the battle of Marathon had been fought in order that Rosamund and he, in the nineteenth century, might be drawn to this place to meet the shining afternoon. Yes, it was fought for that, and to make this place the more wonderful for them. It was their Garden of Eden consecrated by History.
What a very small animal that was which had strayed away from its kind over the tawny ground where surely there was nothing to feed upon! The little dark body of it looked oddly detached as it moved along. And now another animal was following it quickly. The arrival of the second darkness, running, made Dion know that the first was human, the guardian of the beasts, no doubt.
So Eden was invaded already! He smiled as he thought of the serpent. The human being came on slowly, always moving in the direction of the mound, and always accompanied by its attendant animal—a dog, of course. Soon Dion knew that both were making for the mound. It occurred to him that Rosamund was in the private room of him who was approaching, was possibly sound asleep there.
“Rosamund!” he almost whispered.
There was no answer.