I pushed my boat between the rocks towards the island. Bright and burning though the beams of the sun were, here seemed everlasting shadow. And though at my gradual intrusion, at splash or grating of keel, the startled cormorant cried in the air, and with one cry woke many, yet here too seemed perpetual stillness.
How could I know what eyes might not be regarding me from bowers as thick and secluded as these? Yet this seemed an isle in some vague fashion familiar to me. To these same watery steps of stone, to this same mooring-ring surely I had voyaged before in dream or other life? I glanced into the water and saw my own fantastic image beneath the reflected gloom of cypresses, and knew at least, though I a shadow might be, this also was an island in a sea of shadows. Far from all land its marbles might be reared, yet they were warm to my touch, and these were nightingales, and those strutting doves beneath the little arches.
So very gradually, and glancing to and fro into these unstirring groves, I came presently to the entrance court of the solitary villa on the cliff-side. Here a thread-like fountain plashed in its basin, the one thing astir in this cool retreat. Here, too, grew orange trees, with their unripe fruit upon them.
But I continued, and venturing out upon the terrace overlooking the sea, saw again with a kind of astonishment the doctor's green, unwieldy boat beneath me and the emerald of the nearer waters tossing above the yellow sands.
Here I had sat awhile lost in ease when I heard a footstep approaching and the rhythmical rustling of drapery, and knew eyes were now regarding me that I feared, yet much desired to meet.
"Oh me!" said a clear yet almost languid voice. "How comes any man so softly?"
Turning, I looked in the face of one how long a shade!
I strove in vain to hide my confusion. This lady only smiled the deeper out of her baffling eyes.
"If you could guess," she said presently, "how my heart leapt in me, as if, poor creature, any oars of earth could bring it ease, you would think me indeed as desolate as I am. To hear the bird scream, Traveller! I hastened from the gardens as if the black ships of the Greeks were come to take me. But such is long ago. Tell me, now, is the world yet harsh with men and sad with women? Burns yet that madness mirth calls Life? or truly does the puny, busy-tongued race sleep at last, nodding no more at me?"
I told as best I could how chance had fetched me; told, too, that earth was yet pestered with men, and heavenly with women. "And the madness mirth calls Life flickers yet," I said; "and the little race tosses on in nightmare."