Part 15 (2/2)

Following her, I thought of the mysterious beauty of her eyes, her pallor, her slimness, and that faint smile which hovered between ecstasy and indifference, and away went my mind to one whom the shrewdest and tenderest of my own countrymen called once Criseyde.

She led me into a garden all of faint-hued flowers. There bloomed no scarlet here, nor blue, nor yellow; but white and lavender and purest purple. Here, also, like torches of the sun, stood poplars each by each in the windless air, and the impenetrable darkness of cypresses beneath them.

Here too was a fountain whose waters leapt no more, mossy and time-worn. I could not but think of those other gardens of my journey--Jane's, Ennui's, Dianeme's; and yet none like this for the s.h.i.+ngley murmur of the sea, and the calmness of morning.

”But, surely,” I said, ”this must be very far from Troy.”

”Far indeed,” she said.

”Far also from the hollow s.h.i.+ps.”

”Far also from the hollow s.h.i.+ps,” she replied.

”Yet,” said I, ”in the country whence I come is a saying: Where the treasure is--”

”Alack! _there_ gloats the miser!” said Criseyde; ”but I, Traveller, have no treasure, only a patchwork memory, and that's a great grief.”

”Well, then, forget! Why try in vain?” I said.

She smiled and seated herself, leaning a little forward, looking upon the ground.

”Soothfastness _must_,”' she said very gravely, raising her long black eyebrows; ”yet truly it must be a forlorn thing to be remembered by one who so lightly forgets. So then I say, to teach myself to be true--'Look now, Criseyde, yonder fine, many-hearted poplar--that is Paris; and all that bank of marriage-ivy--that is marriageable Helen, green and cold; and the waterless fountain--that truly is Diomed; and the faded flower that nods in shadow, why, that must be me, even me, Criseyde!'”

”And this thick rosemary-bush that smells of exile, who, then, is that?” I said.

She looked deep into the shadow of the cypresses. ”That,” she said, ”I think I have forgot again.”

”But,” I said, ”Diomed, now, was he quite so silent--not one trickle of persuasion?”

”Why,” she said, ”I think 'twas the fountain was Diomed: I know not.

And as for persuasion; he was a man forked, vain, and absolute as all.

Let the waterless stone be sudden Diomed--you will confuse my wits, Mariner; where, then, were I?” She smiled, stooping lower. ”You have voyaged far?” she said.

”From childhood to this side regret,” I answered rather sadly.

”'Tis a sad end to a sweet tale,” she said, ”were it but truly told.

But yet, and yet, and yet--you may return, and life heals every, every wound. _I_ must look on the ground and make amends. 'Tis this same making amends men now call 'Purgatory,' they tell me.”

”'Amends,'” I said; ”to whom? for what?”

”Welaway,” said she, with a narrow fork between her brows; ”to most men and to all women, for being that Criseyde.” She gazed half solemnly at some picture of reverie.

”But which Criseyde?” I said. ”She who was every wind's, or but one perfect summer's?”

She glanced strangely at me. ”Ask of the night that burns so many stars,” she said. ”All's done; all pa.s.ses. Yet my poor busy Uncle Pandar had no such changes, nor Hector, nor ... Men change not: they love and love again--one same tune of a myriad verses.”

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