Part 5 (1/2)
”No, no,” he said; ”I just decided not to go on. I--wanted to come to you.”
Nuova could not realize at once all he meant by these words. The thing clearest in her mind just now was what Saggia and all the others had told her so often. She began to speak slowly and almost mechanically as her memory guided her.
”But you can't do that,” she said. ”It--it--isn't done, you know. You must chase the Princess; you must win her; and you--you”--she sobbed--”you must die.”
She stepped toward him, excitedly, with her hands outstretched to urge him on. ”Go on!” she exclaimed. ”Go on! Start again! You are so much swifter and stronger than the others! You can beat them yet! Hurry! Fly!”
In her excitement and half-crazed exaltation she pressed against him to push him into starting. He held her closely to him for a moment, caressing her gently. But soon she drew violently away, and spoke again with choking voice. ”Fly!” she said. ”Go on! Go on!”
Hero shook his head doggedly. ”No, I will not go. I cannot go. I never wanted to go. I wanted to come to you. I didn't know you were in the garden. But here you are.” In his joy at being with her, he began to dismiss the dark thoughts of his break with bee custom. He looked intently and eagerly at her.
”Yes, here you are, I have come to you. I have come to tell you that I”--he stumbled a little in his speech, and smiled slightly--”I--am a new bee, too!”
Nuova laughed happily. Then she grew serious and puzzled. ”And Saggia and Beffa,” she said. ”Are we all new bees in this hive?”
Hero smiled. ”Uno, Due, and Tre--” he said.
”Ugh! horrid bees,” said Nuova with a grimace. ”They would like to kill me.”
”Beasts!” broke in Hero, ”I'll kill them!” But then he remembered the fact that he had no lance nor by bee tradition could have any. ”Absurd,” he said in disgust. ”What a world, where only the women may carry lances and fight and work, and the men are only loafers and lovers, and can only love by tradition, at that. Bah! I'd rather be even a human being. They are silly enough, those awkward giants, and can't fly and eat other animals as spiders and snakes do, but their men can work and fight; and they can love whom they like. At least they can if they don't try to be too much like us, as some of them seem to want to be. It's a terrible thing to be a man bee. We have no rights at all!”
Nuova looked up at him wonderingly. ”Why, the other drones seem to like to loaf,” she said. ”Anyway, they don't object.”
”Don't object!” exclaimed Hero contemptuously. ”They don't think; they don't feel! Each just does what the others do and all just do what drones have always done.”
”But how else are we to know what to do,” persisted Nuova, who had learned her lesson well from Saggia, ”except by seeing what others do, and being told what the bees before us did?”
Hero was amazed and disconcerted to hear Nuova talk in this way.
”Why, you talk like Saggia!” he said. ”What do you mean? Haven't you always objected to doing what the others do? Haven't you always tried to do what you most wanted to? And haven't you wanted to talk with me? I thought you--liked me.”
Nuova was disconcertingly calm. ”Oh, yes, I have objected to some things, and I do like to talk with you. And I like you. But all that must not interfere with the work and life of the community. And I am afraid it is interfering. I ought to be getting more honey, and you ought to be flying after the Princess.” She paused; then she added, determinedly and even severely: ”You must go right away. You can catch up with them yet, and beat them, and--and--win her.” Nuova had grown more excited and earnest as she continued urging him, but her voice broke a little as she uttered the last words.
Hero, paying too little attention to her manner and reading nothing in it, so seized was he by surprise at Nuova's new att.i.tude, was yet doggedly intent on speaking out his own feelings. ”No, I am not going after the Princess,” he declared, speaking almost roughly in his vehemence. ”I stopped flying because I wished to, and I came here because I wished to, and I shall talk to you because I wish to. You must hear me! Nuova, it is not the Princess that I love; it is you.” Nuova started. ”Yes, you; just you; all you. I love you, Nuova.”
Nuova had stood rigidly at first, but then unconsciously swayed a little toward him. Then she caught herself and stepped back, all the time staring at him fixedly. He leaned toward her as he finished speaking, but made no other motion.
Nuova began to speak, still holding herself rigid and staring at him. She spoke in an even, monotonous voice, even mechanically, and as if directed by some foreign influence.
”You cannot love me,” she said. ”You can only love a Princess. I cannot love you. I cannot love anybody. There are other things for me to do. I have not cleaned floors; I must clean floors. And you, you must chase Princesses, chase Princesses, chase--Princesses--all--the--time.” Her voice trailed away into tense silence, and she swayed as if about to fall, but recovered herself, and half-turned as if to move away.
Hero stepped forward, caught hold of her roughly, and spoke harshly. ”You shall not clean floors,” he said, ”and I will not court the Princess.” Then suddenly he spoke tenderly, ”Nuova, I love you. Saggia says I can't; all of them say I can't; you say I can't. Well, I do. That is all. That is the answer. I have never loved a Princess and I do love you; I have loved you from the moment I saw you.” He spoke more impetuously. ”I didn't know what it was at first; now I do. I found out when I started to fly after Principessa. I can fly faster than any other drone; yet every one was beating me. I can fly higher than any other bee; but I couldn't rise at all. Why? Because of you, Nuova; because I loved you, Nuova, and could not love Principessa. And they say that you cannot love me. Saggia says so, does she?--and all of them say so, do they?--and you say so, do you? Well, they are all mistaken. Just as they are all mistaken about me. I can love you, because I do. You can love me, because you are going to. You were not an Amazon, yet you fought. You are not a Princess, but you are going to love. I can teach you; I will teach you.”
Nuova was almost carried away by Hero's speech--and her own inclinations. But she still fought blindly and feebly against what she wanted most. ”No, no,” she stammered; ”I must work; I must go; I am only a worker bee; I cannot love; it is all fixed; it has been that way for a long time; I know; Saggia knows; Beffa--”
She stopped short, remembering some of Beffa's cryptic words.
Just then Beffa's voice was heard. He was coming toward them hopping and singing.
CHAPTER XII.
The Happy Ending.
Beffa had not been able to hold the foragers any longer away from that part of the garden where Nuova and Hero were. The flowers here were more abundant and sweeter with honey, and the bees soon forgot their fright of the toad they had not seen--and that Beffa had not, either.
Hero and Nuova were still concealed by the bush, behind which they stood, from the returning bees, but it was only a matter of a short time before they would certainly be seen. Beffa, therefore, came hopping toward them and singing. He could at least warn them of the approach of the others. So he sang loudly: ”Ah, well, who knows? Ah, well, who knows? The old world for the old bee; The new world for the new; For who may know the real truth? The untrue may be true. Ah, well, who knows? Ah, well, who knows?”
Hero turned triumphantly to Nuova. ”Yes, yes, you hear?” he said. ”Beffa knows. Say it; say it. Beffa knows: not Saggia; not the others; but Beffa. They are all blind. They only see what has been, but Beffa sees what may be. And you see it, Nuova, and I see it. You are a new bee, Nuova, and so is Beffa, and so am I. And we shall do new things; live a new life. Ah, Nuova, my little Nuova! I love you, and you love me. My little Nuova!”
Nuova could say nothing, do nothing. It was too much. She could only look up through a mist of tears into Hero's face and smile happily at him; it was half-smiling, half-crying, but unmistakable to Hero for what it truly was; the full revelation of Nuova's consent to all he had said. They stood together, silent in their great happiness. And thus Uno saw them. Uno was the first of the returned foragers to come, in seeking new flowers, around the bush and in sight of them. She stared at them amazed. Then, angry and malevolent, she beckoned, without calling out, to her companions to come to her. They crowded up and looked where Uno pointed. They were astounded and outraged. Uno first spoke up.