Part 50 (2/2)

Sie sprechen eine Sprache, Die ist so reich, so schon; Doch keiner der Philologen Kann diese Sprache verstehen.

Ich aber hab' sie gelernet, Und ich vergesse sie nicht; Mir diente als Grammatik Der Herzallerliebsten Gesicht.

HEINE.

One evening in particular the sense of expectation in him felt very close upon delivery. All day he had been aware of it, and a letter received that morning from his cousin seemed the cause. The story, in its shorter version, had been accepted. Its reality, therefore, had already spread; one other mind, at least, had judged it with understanding. Two months from now, when it appeared in print, hundreds more would read it. Its beauty would run loose in many hearts. And Rogers went about his work that day as though the pleasure was his own. The world felt very sweet. He saw the good in every one with whom he came in contact. And the inner excitement due to something going to happen was continuous and c.u.mulative.

Yet London just then--it was August--was dull and empty, dusty, and badly frayed at the edges. It needed a great cleaning; he would have liked to pour sea water over all its streets and houses, bathed its panting parks in the crystal fountains of Bourcelles. All day long his thoughts, indeed, left London for holidays in little Bourcelles. He was profoundly conscious that the Antic.i.p.ation he first recognised in that forest village was close upon accomplishment now. On the journey back to England he recalled how urgent it had been. In London, ever since, it had never really left him. But to-day it now suddenly became more than expectation--he felt it in him as a certainty that approached fulfilment. It was strange, it was bewildering; it seemed to him as though something from that under-self he could never properly reach within him, pushed upwards with a kind of aggressive violence towards the surface. It was both sweet and vital. Behind the 'something' was the 'some one' who led it into action.

At half-past six he strolled down a deserted St. James's Street, pa.s.sed the door of his club with no temptation to go in, and climbed the stairs slowly to his rooms. His body was languid though his mind alert. He sank into an arm-chair beside the open window. 'I must _do_ something to-night,' he thought eagerly; 'mere reading at the club is out of the question. I'll go to a theatre or--or--.' He considered various alternatives, deciding finally upon Richmond Park.

He loved long walks at night when his mind was restless thus; the air in Richmond Park was peculiarly fresh and scented after dark. He knew the little gate that was never closed. He would dine lightly, and go for a ten-mile stretch among the oaks, surprise the deer asleep, listen to the hum of distant London, and watch the fairy battle between the lurid reflection of its million lights and the little stars.... There were places in the bracken where....

The rumbling clatter of a railway van disturbed the picture. His mind followed the noise instead. Thought flashed along the street to a station. He saw trains...

'Come at once! You're wanted here--some one calls you!' sounded a breathless merry voice beside him. 'Come quickly; aussi schnell que moglich!'

There was a great gulp of happiness in him; his spirit plunged in joy.

He turned and looked about him swiftly. That singing voice, with its impudent mingling of languages was unmistakable.

'From the Pleiades. Look sharp! You've been further off than ever lately, and further is further than farther--much! Over the forests and into the cave, that is the way we must all behave---!'

He opened an eye.

Between him and a great gold sunset ran the wind. It was a slender violet wind. The sunset, however, was in the act of disappearing for the Scaffolding of Dusk was pa.s.sing through the air--he saw the slung trellis-work about him, the tracery of a million lines, the guy-ropes, uprights, and the feathery threads of ebony that trailed the Night behind them like a mighty cloth. There was a fluttering as of innumerable wings.

'You needn't tug like that,' he gasped. 'I'm coming all right. I'm out!'

'But you're so slow and sticky,' she insisted. 'You've been sticky like this for weeks now!'

He saw the bright brown eyes and felt the hair all over his face like a bath of perfume. They rushed together. His heart beat faster....

'Who wants me in such a hurry?' he cried, the moment he was disentangled. Laughter ran past him on every side from the world of trees.

'As if you didn't know! What _is_ the good of pretending any longer!

You're both together in the Network, and you know it just as well as she does!'

Pretending! Just as well as _she_ does!

As though he had eyes all over his body he saw the Net of Stars above him. Below were forests, vineyards, meadows, and the tiny lights of houses. In the distance s.h.i.+mmered the waters of a familiar lake. Great purple mountains rolled against the sky line. But immediately over his head, close yet also distant, filling the entire heavens, there hung a glittering Pattern that he knew, grown now so vast that at first he scarcely recognised its dazzling loveliness. From the painted western horizon it stretched to other fastenings that dipped below the world, where the East laid its gulfs of darkness to surprise the sun. It swung proudly down, as though hung from the Pole Star towards the north, and while the Great Bear 'pointers' tossed its embroidery across Ca.s.siopeia, the Pleiades, just rising, flung its further fringes down to Orion, waiting in wonder to receive them far below the horizon. Old Sirius wore one breadth of it across his stupendous shoulder, and Aldebaran, with fingers of bronze and fire, drew it delicately as with golden leashes over the sleeping world.

When first he saw it, there was this gentle fluttering as of wings through all its intricate parts, but the same moment four shooting stars pierced its outlying edges with flying nails of gold. It steadied and grew taut.

'There she is!' cried Monkey, flas.h.i.+ng away like a comet towards the Cave. 'You'll catch it now--and you deserve to!' She turned a brilliant somersault and vanished.

Then, somehow, the vast Pattern settled into a smaller scale, so that he saw it closer, clearer, and without confusion. Beauty and wonder focused for his sight. The perfected design of Daddy's fairy story floated down into his heart without a hint of wumbling. Never had he seen it so luminous and simple. For others, of course, meanwhile had known and understood it. Others believed. Its reality was more intense, thus, than before.

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