Part 5 (1/2)
Chilled and frightened at hearing Eothwald address her in accents such as he had never used before, the gentle Duva tearfully promised to comply with his request, and to conceal from all the knowledge of her earthly lover. But the concealment preyed on her mind, and though in his presence she forgot all save the bliss of being beloved, yet she had for ever lost the joyous serenity of her early youth; while the very look which roused her watchful mother's anxiety, gave her in her lover's eye, a more etherial air of languor and grace.
Eothwald's secret care was widely different: he knew that his Duva might in some terrible unknown manner have to suffer for his love; but his anxiety was lest he should not succeed in obtaining her perfect likeness, and thence partly came his reluctance to allow her to speak of him to her people. He made sure they would remind her of the perils of holding intercourse with mankind, and probably put a complete stop to their clandestine meetings, now only carried on under the shadow of the more legitimate attachment of Himinglafa and Nacken.
While the inexperienced Duva only knew and felt she loved, the more worldly Eothwald gazed upon her with a critical and artistic eye, and often sent a chill of cold presentiment to her very heart's core, when to her gentlest words he vouchsafed no answer; but, absently scanning her perfect form, would strive to compare and calculate in his mind the accuracy of his progressing model in the cave.
He found it easy to obtain Duva's compliance with all his requests save one; but it was for long in vain that he besought her to leave her watery home. Many a time and oft they parted almost in anger, and the poor little sea-nymph more than once weepingly entreated him sooner to quit her for ever, and go back to his own kith and kind. But Eothwald always returned afresh to the charge, for, besides his real attachment to the gentle maid herself, he knew that could he but once behold her fair proportions near him in the cave, he could successfully finish his now nearly completed model; and, by imparting to it those life-like touches which alone it required, he would be enabled to give to the world for the first time the perfect image of a mermaiden. With true artistic fervour he forgot his mortal love in the eager pursuit of his immortal art, and, brought completely to a standstill by the hara.s.sing intensity of his longing to have the living form at hand to aid him in his work, he grew so unkind towards Duva that with saddened heart the poor child promised to comply with his prayer, and arranged to accompany him through the wood the following night, when the yellow harvest moon would reign in her fullest beauty.
Words cannot paint the overflowing sorrow that oppressed the pale mermaiden's heart that eventful day as she joined her parents and sisters, for what an inward voice told her, was the last time. Old Agir, her father, gathered her to his bosom, and pressed his little Duva to tell her trouble, but with a forced smile she first nestled closer to that protecting shoulder and then sprang half sobbing away, and they thought she grieved over the approaching bridals of Nacken and Himinglafa and the prospect of losing her favourite sister.
The wild young Kolga blew through her sh.e.l.l, and in her efforts to cheer Duva made such a bubbling amid the water, that people pa.s.sing in boats far above the sea-king's palace, paused on their oars to watch the agitated surface and thought they had discovered a new ocean spring.
Hafring and Blodughadda caressed their little sister and playfully asked her to choose whether they should all wear coral or pearls at Himinglafa's wedding, but with trembling lip she turned away, unable to trust her voice in answer to their laughing affection, and for the first time they deemed their pet Duva was sullen. Ah! how little they knew the aching throbs of pain that strangled her sweet voice and silenced their sorrow-stricken playmate.
At last the hour of sunset drew near. Together, as usual, Himinglafa and Duva rose to the surface of the darkening ocean, and soon were greeted by the entrancing strains of Nacken's harp. Slowly Duva disengaged herself from her sister's embrace and lingered long near the companion, till now the sharer of every joy or care. But time's relentless wheel rolled on, and through the woods by the river's brink gleamed the golden radiance of the harvest moon, as the mermaiden at length approached the sh.o.r.e where her lover kept anxious watch. With joyful eagerness Eothwald greeted her, and in low trembling tones whispered loving thanks into her ear; even then Duva would have withdrawn her consent, but the impatient Eothwald, without pausing, threw his strong arms around her, raised his beloved burden from the glittering water, and bore her swiftly towards the cave.
A feeling of deadly sickness came over the little sea-maid as she was thus lifted from her native element, but the soothing words of her lover infused new life into her fainting frame, and in safety they reached the cave, where Eothwald joyfully deposited his lovely charge on the couch he had so long prepared for her use.
Uttering but scant welcome the sculptor flew rapidly to his work, for already fatigue and exhaustion clouded the sweet eyes, that were wont to sparkle so merrily, and spread a new languor over the limbs of his exquisite model. With pa.s.sionate energy Eothwald moulded his plastic clay, completely forgetting in his ardour the unwonted position of the sea-king's daughter, and her need of watchful tenderness.
A stranger in a new and untried world--a timid maiden strayed for the first time far beyond the protecting care of parents and brethren, the little Duva reclined amazed upon her fragrant bed of leaves. Strange thrills were sent through her by the strong night perfumes exhaled on every side from earthly leaf, tree, and flower.
At last she was upon that land about which from childhood she had dreamed, with an eager desire to explore its forbidden mysteries. But she thought not of these things, her whole heart was absorbed in Eothwald. The young sculptor no longer gazed on her with the melting eye of love. By the flickering light of the torch which shed its ruddy glow over the cave, she could perceive the artist's glance now fixed on his clay figure, now turned upon herself with a searching look of restless dissatisfaction due in reality to the shortcomings of his own handiwork, but which chilled and saddened Duva's sensitive heart.
[Ill.u.s.tration: EOTHWALD AND DUVA IN THE CAVE.
P. 102.]
Again and again the gentle maiden nerved her voice to speak, but faintness overpowered her, and a dreamless sleep already fanned her with its over-shadowing wings. Eothwald's form swam magnified before her eyes, and then vanished altogether amid the mist of gathering tears. The cave grew dim--the little sea-child again beheld the palace of her father--her lovely sisters waved a mute welcome through the changing atmosphere. With the tremulous sigh of a repentant child that has erred, but returns with glad sorrow to fling itself on its mother's breast, Duva, forgetting all save that joyful vision, stretched forth her innocent arms with a low murmur of tenderness, and a gesture of delight.
”Can you not remain as I placed you?” impatiently muttered the sculptor, as the sudden movement of Duva's arms altered her whole position, and lost irretrievably the graceful att.i.tude he was striving faithfully to immortalise. Even as he spoke, something about his beloved alarmed him; he rushed across the cave, but ere he could touch her, Duva's fair form had disappeared--she was gone!
The red torch flickered high, and suddenly expired. The moon's ray, cold and pale, penetrated within the cave, and lo! upon the spot so lately pressed by the enchanting figure of the poor little stranger, pure and transparent in the silvery light, glistened a white pearly sh.e.l.l, while a tiny rivulet stole silently from beneath it, and trickled into the moonlit glen without.
Eothwald threw himself wildly on his knees, and felt the couch all over in vain--in vain!--then in desperation he fled out into the wood and searched for his lost love, breathing her name in fondest accents through the silence of the night, but alas! awakening no response from the desolate solitudes around him. Wearied and heart-broken he returned at length from his fruitless errand, and sank into heavy slumber.
Hours had pa.s.sed unheeded away, when with troubled recollection he awoke and sprang to his feet. Gradually he remembered that in his dreams Duva had again appeared to him. With bitter tears she sorrowfully told him that his own thoughtless actions had parted them.
He first tempted her by mortal love to deceive and leave her fond parents and her beloved home; then as he moulded his clay from her beautiful form, in the self-abstraction of genius, he half forgot her sacrifice, and neglected her tender spirit. Wounded and unable to struggle against her altered condition of life without the comforting care of her mortal lover, she had fallen a victim to the law that ruled supreme over herself and her kindred, and lost her visible shape, which became again transformed into the water, whence it originally sprang.
With streaming eyes she waved a long farewell, then, lovely as a morning dream, faded from his view.
Eothwald flew back to his work with fierce energy; he felt indeed a high soaring ambition. He yearned to represent worthily, to this and future generations, the fair lineaments, the tender immortal beauty of the sea-king's daughter, who had given him her simple young heart, and whose affection he had so rudely requited. A solemn inward voice told him he had no time to spend in useless remorse, or in unavailing lamentation. Death's shadowy finger already beckoned him to the ”silent land.” Grief had snapped the first chord of life's. .h.i.therto sweet melody, and his days on earth were numbered.
He returned in a short s.p.a.ce to his native city. His half-finished work was slowly removed to the studio. There by day and by night he laboured almost ceaselessly, and wove into a wild poetical dream the young life of the fair Duva and her family, as she herself in days gone by had frequently, half romancing and half in earnest, described it to him.
He designed a lofty fountain, and upon its six sides placed in groups of wondrous imagery her parents, their nine lovely daughters, and the young river-G.o.d Nacken, whose strains had first led him to his beloved.
As in his lonely studio he ceaselessly toiled, he wrote down at intervals this explanation of his labours--that to all futurity might be known the names and history of those whose divine beauty he thus strove to commemorate.[2]
[2] The description of the different groups represented on the fountain, is taken from a beautiful work of art, designed and executed by Molin, a young Swedish sculptor of great promise, now dead.