Chapter 3

About the mother’s head the bees were flying, touching her with their long tapering limbs; and, in her brain-picture, out of the shadow of the room came one with sallow face, deep-lined, the cheeks drawn into hollows, and a mouth smiling quiveringly. He stretched out his hand. And the mother drew back, and cried, “Who are you?” He answered nothing; and she looked up between his eyelids. And she said, “What can you give the child--health?” And he said, “The man I touch, there wakes up in his blood a burning fever, that shall lick his blood as fire. The fever that I will give him shall be cured when his life is cured.”

“You give wealth?”

He shook his head. “The man whom I touch, when he bends to pick up gold, he sees suddenly a light over his head in the sky; while he looks up to see it, the gold slips from between his fingers, or sometimes another passing takes it from them.”

“Fame?”

He answered, “likely not. For the man I touch there is a path traced out in the sand by a finger which no man sees. That he must follow. Sometimes it leads almost to the top, and then turns down suddenly into the valley. He must follow it, though none else sees the tracing.”

“Love?”

He said, “He shall hunger for it--but he shall not find it. When he stretches out his arms to it, and would lay his heart against a thing he loves, then, far off along the horizon he shall see a light play. He must go towards it. The thing he loves will not journey with him; he must travel alone. When he presses somewhat to his burning heart, crying, ‘Mine, mine, my own!’ he shall hear a voice--‘Renounce! renounce! this is not thine!’”

“He shall succeed?”

He said, “He shall fail. When he runs with others they shall reach the goal before him. For strange voices shall call to him and strange lights shall beckon him, and he must wait and listen. And this shall be the strangest: far off across the burning sands where, to other men, there is only the desert’s waste, he shall see a blue sea! On that sea the sun shines always, and the water is blue as burning amethyst, and the foam is white on the shore. A great land rises from it, and he shall see upon the mountain-tops burning gold.”

The mother said, “He shall reach it?”

And he smiled curiously.

She said, “It is real?”

And he said, “What IS real?”

And she looked up between his half-closed eyelids, and said, “Touch.”

And he leaned forward and laid his hand upon the sleeper, and whispered to it, smiling; and this only she heard--“This shall be thy reward--that the ideal shall be real to thee.”

And the child trembled; but the mother slept on heavily and her brain-picture vanished. But deep within her the antenatal thing that lay here had a dream. In those eyes that had never seen the day, in that half-shaped brain was a sensation of light! Light--that it never had seen. Light--that perhaps it never should see. Light--that existed somewhere!

And already it had its reward: the Ideal was real to it.

London.

VII. IN A RUINED CHAPEL.

“I cannot forgive--I love.”

There are four bare walls; there is a Christ upon the walls, in red, carrying his cross; there is a Blessed Bambino with the face rubbed out; there is Madonna in blue and red; there are Roman soldiers and a Christ with tied hands. All the roof is gone; overhead is the blue, blue Italian sky; the rain has beaten holes in the walls, and the plaster is peeling from it. The chapel stands here alone upon the promontory, and by day and by night the sea breaks at its feet. Some say that it was set here by the monks from the island down below, that they might bring their sick here in times of deadly plague. Some say that it was set here that the passing monks and friars, as they hurried by upon the roadway, might stop and say their prayers here. Now no one stops to pray here, and the sick come no more to be healed.

Behind it runs the old Roman road. If you climb it and come and sit there alone on a hot sunny day you may almost hear at last the clink of the Roman soldiers upon the pavement, and the sound of that older time, as you sit there in the sun, when Hannibal and his men broke through the brushwood, and no road was.

Now it is very quiet. Sometimes a peasant girl comes riding by between her panniers, and you hear the mule’s feet beat upon the bricks of the pavement; sometimes an old woman goes past with a bundle of weeds upon her head, or a brigand-looking man hurries by with a bundle of sticks in his hand; but for the rest the Chapel lies here alone upon the promontory, between the two bays and hears the sea break at its feet.

I came here one winter’s day when the midday sun shone hot on the bricks of the Roman road. I was weary, and the way seemed steep. I walked into the chapel to the broken window, and looked out across the bay. Far off, across the blue, blue water, were towns and villages, hanging white and red dots, upon the mountain-sides, and the blue mountains rose up into the sky, and now stood out from it and now melted back again.

The mountains seemed calling to me, but I knew there would never be a bridge built from them to me; never, never, never! I shaded my eyes with my hand and turned away. I could not bear to look at them.

I walked through the ruined Chapel, and looked at the Christ in red carrying his cross, and the Blessed rubbed-out Bambino, and the Roman soldiers, and the folded hands, and the reed; and I went and sat down in the open porch upon a stone. At my feet was the small bay, with its white row of houses buried among the olive trees; the water broke in a long, thin, white line of foam along the shore; and I leaned my elbows on my knees. I was tired, very tired; tired with a tiredness that seemed older than the heat of the day and the shining of the sun on the bricks of the Roman road; and I lay my head upon my knees; I heard the breaking of the water on the rocks three hundred feet below, and the rustling of the wind among the olive trees and the ruined arches, and then I fell asleep there. I had a dream.

A man cried up to God, and God sent down an angel to help him; and the angel came back and said, “I cannot help that man.”

God said, “How is it with him?”

And the angel said, “He cries out continually that one has injured him; and he would forgive him and he cannot.”

God said, “What have you done for him?”

The angel said, “All--. I took him by the hand, and I said, ‘See, when other men speak ill of that man do you speak well of him; secretly, in ways he shall not know, serve him; if you have anything you value share it with him, so, serving him, you will at last come to feel possession in him, and you will forgive.’ And he said, ‘I will do it.’ Afterwards, as I passed by in the dark of night, I heard one crying out, ‘I have done all. It helps nothing! My speaking well of him helps me nothing! If I share my heart’s blood with him, is the burning within me less? I cannot forgive; I cannot forgive! Oh, God, I cannot forgive!’

“I said to him, ‘See here, look back on all your past. See from your childhood all smallness, all indirectness that has been yours; look well at it, and in its light do you not see every man your brother? Are you so sinless you have right to hate?’

“He looked, and said, ‘Yes, you are right; I too have failed, and I forgive my fellow. Go, I am satisfied; I have forgiven;’ and he laid him down peacefully and folded his hands on his breast, and I thought it was well with him. But scarcely had my wings rustled and I turned to come up here, when I heard one crying out on earth again, ‘I cannot forgive! I cannot forgive! Oh, God, God, I cannot forgive! It is better to die than to hate! I cannot forgive! I cannot forgive!’ And I went and stood outside his door in the dark, and I heard him cry, ‘I have not sinned so, not so! If I have torn my fellows’ flesh ever so little, I have kneeled down and kissed the wound with my mouth till it was healed. I have not willed that any soul shall be lost through hate of me. If they have but fancied that I wronged them I have lain down on the ground before them that they might tread on me, and so, seeing my humiliation, forgive and not be lost through hating me; they have not cared that my soul should be lost; they have not willed to save me; they have not tried that I should forgive them!’

“I said to him, ‘See here, be thou content; do not forgive: forget this soul and its injury; go on your way. In the next world perhaps--’

“He cried, ‘Go from me, you understand nothing! What is the next world to me! I am lost now, today. I cannot see the sunlight shine, the dust is in my throat, the sand is in my eyes! Go from me, you know nothing! Oh, once again before I die to see that the world is beautiful! Oh, God, God, I cannot live and not love. I cannot live and hate. Oh, God, God, God!’ So I left him crying out and came back here.”

God said, “This man’s soul must be saved.”

And the angel said “How?”

God said, “Go down you, and save it.”

The angel said, “What more shall I do?”

Then God bent down and whispered in the angel’s ear, and the angel spread out its wings and went down to earth.

And partly I woke, sitting there upon the broken stone with my head on my knee; but I was too weary to rise. I heard the wind roam through the olive trees and among the ruined arches, and then I slept again.

The angel went down and found the man with the bitter heart and took him by the hand, and led him to a certain spot.

Now the man wist not where it was the angel would take him nor what he would show him there. And when they came the angel shaded the man’s eyes with his wing, and when he moved it the man saw somewhat on the earth before them. For God had given it to that angel to unclothe a human soul; to take from it all those outward attributes of form, and colour, and age, and sex, whereby one man is known from among his fellows and is marked off from the rest, and the soul lay before them, bare, as a man turning his eye inwards beholds himself.

They saw its past, its childhood, the tiny life with the dew upon it; they saw its youth when the dew was melting, and the creature raised its Lilliputian mouth to drink from a cup too large for it, and they saw how the water spilt; they saw its hopes that were never realized; they saw its hours of intellectual blindness, men call sin; they saw its hours of all-radiating insight, which men call righteousness; they saw its hour of strength, when it leaped to its feet crying, “I am omnipotent;” its hour of weakness, when it fell to the earth and grasped dust only; they saw what it might have been, but never would be.

The man bent forward.

And the angel said, “What is it?”

He answered, “It is I! it is myself!” And he went forward as if he would have lain his heart against it; but the angel held him back and covered his eyes.

Now God had given power to the angel further to unclothe that soul, to take from it all those outward attributes of time and place and circumstance whereby the individual life is marked off from the life of the whole.

Again the angel uncovered the man’s eyes, and he looked. He saw before him that which in its tiny drop reflects the whole universe; he saw that which marks within itself the step of the furthest star, and tells how the crystal grows under ground where no eye has seen it; that which is where the germ in the egg stirs; which moves the outstretched fingers of the little newborn babe, and keeps the leaves of the trees pointing upward; which moves where the jelly-fish sail alone on the sunny seas, and is where the lichens form on the mountains’ rocks.

And the man looked.

And the angel touched him.

But the man bowed his head and shuddered. He whispered--“It is God!”

And the angel re-covered the man’s eyes. And when he uncovered them there was one walking from them a little way off;--for the angel had re-clothed the soul in its outward form and vesture--and the man knew who it was.

And the angel said, “Do you know him?”

And the man said, “I know him,” and he looked after the figure.

And the angel said, “Have you forgiven him?”

But the man said, “How beautiful my brother is!”

And the angel looked into the man’s eyes, and he shaded his own face with his wing from the light. He laughed softly and went up to God.

But the men were together on earth.

I awoke.

The blue, blue sky was over my head, and the waves were breaking below on the shore. I walked through the little chapel, and I saw the Madonna in blue and red, and the Christ carrying his cross, and the Roman soldiers with the rod, and the Blessed Bambino with its broken face; and then I walked down the sloping rock to the brick pathway. The olive trees stood up on either side of the road, their black berries and pale-green leaves stood out against the sky; and the little ice-plants hung from the crevices in the stone wall. It seemed to me as if it must have rained while I was asleep. I thought I had never seen the heavens and the earth look so beautiful before. I walked down the road. The old, old, old tiredness was gone.

Presently there came a peasant boy down the path leading his ass; she had two large panniers fastened to her sides; and they went down the road before me.

I had never seen him before; but I should have liked to walk by him and to have held his hand--only, he would not have known why.

Alassio, Italy.

VIII. LIFE’S GIFTS.

I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift--in the one Love, in the other Freedom. And she said to the woman, “Choose!”

And the woman waited long: and she said, “Freedom!”

And Life said, “Thou hast well chosen. If thou hadst said, ‘Love,’ I would have given thee that thou didst ask for; and I would have gone from thee, and returned to thee no more. Now, the day will come when I shall return. In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand.”

I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.

London.

IX. THE ARTIST’S SECRET.

There was an artist once, and he painted a picture. Other artists had colours richer and rarer, and painted more notable pictures. He painted his with one colour, there was a wonderful red glow on it; and the people went up and down, saying, “We like the picture, we like the glow.”

The other artists came and said, “Where does he get his colour from?” They asked him; and he smiled and said, “I cannot tell you”; and worked on with his head bent low.

And one went to the far East and bought costly pigments, and made a rare colour and painted, but after a time the picture faded. Another read in the old books, and made a colour rich and rare, but when he had put it on the picture it was dead.

But the artist painted on. Always the work got redder and redder, and the artist grew whiter and whiter. At last one day they found him dead before his picture, and they took him up to bury him. The other men looked about in all the pots and crucibles, but they found nothing they had not.

And when they undressed him to put his grave-clothes on him, they found above his left breast the mark of a wound--it was an old, old wound, that must have been there all his life, for the edges were old and hardened; but Death, who seals all things, had drawn the edges together, and closed it up.

And they buried him. And still the people went about saying, “Where did he find his colour from?”

And it came to pass that after a while the artist was forgotten--but the work lived.

St. Leonards-on-Sea.

X. “I THOUGHT I STOOD.”

I thought I stood in Heaven before God’s throne, and God asked me what I had come for. I said I had come to arraign my brother, Man.

God said, “What has he done?”

I said, “He has taken my sister, Woman, and has stricken her, and wounded her, and thrust her out into the streets; she lies there prostrate. His hands are red with blood. I am here to arraign him; that the kingdom be taken from him, because he is not worthy, and given unto me. My hands are pure.”

I showed them.

God said, “Thy hands are pure.--Lift up thy robe.”

I raised it; my feet were red, blood-red, as if I had trodden in wine.

God said, “How is this?”

I said, “Dear Lord, the streets on earth are full of mire. If I should walk straight on in them my outer robe might be bespotted, you see how white it is! Therefore I pick my way.”

God said, “On what?”

I was silent, and I let my robe fall. I wrapped my mantle about my head. I went out softly. I was afraid that the angels would see me.

II.

Once more I stood at the gate of Heaven, I and another. We held fast by one another; we were very tired. We looked up at the great gates; the angels opened them, and we went in. The mud was on our garments. We walked across the marble floor, and up to the great throne. Then the angels divided us. Her, they set upon the top step, but me, upon the bottom; for, they said, “Last time this woman came here she left red foot-marks on the floor; we had to wash them out with our tears. Let her not go up.”

Then she, with whom I came, looked back, and stretched out her hand to me; and I went and stood beside her. And the angels, they, the shining ones who never sinned and never suffered, walked by us to and fro and up and down; I think we should have felt a little lonely there if it had not been for one another, the angels were so bright.

God asked me what I had come for; and I drew my sister forward a little that he might see her.

God said, “How is it you are here together today?”

I said, “She was upon the ground in the street, and they passed over her; I lay down by her, and she put her arms around my neck, and so I lifted her, and we two rose together.”

God said, “Whom are you now come to accuse before me?”

I said, “We are come to accuse no man.”

And God bent, and said, “My children--what is it that ye seek?”

And she beside me drew my hand that I should speak for both.

I said, “We have come to ask that thou shouldst speak to Man, our brother, and give us a message for him that he might understand, and that he might--”

God said, “Go, take the message down to him!”

I said, “But what is the message?”

God said, “Upon your hearts it is written; take it down to him.”

And we turned to go; the angels went with us to the door. They looked at us.

And one said--“Ai! but their dresses are beautiful!”

And the other said, “I thought it was mire when they came in, but see, it is all golden!”

But another said, “Hush, it is the light from their faces!”

And we went down to him.

Alassio, Italy.

XI. THE SUNLIGHT LAY ACROSS MY BED.

In the dark one night I lay upon my bed. I heard the policeman’s feet beat on the pavement; I heard the wheels of carriages roll home from houses of entertainment; I heard a woman’s laugh below my window--and then I fell asleep. And in the dark I dreamt a dream. I dreamt God took my soul to Hell.

Hell was a fair place; the water of the lake was blue.

I said to God, “I like this place.”

God said, “Ay, dost thou!”

Birds sang, turf came to the water-edge, and trees grew from it. Away off among the trees I saw beautiful women walking. Their clothes were of many delicate colours and clung to them, and they were tall and graceful and had yellow hair. Their robes trailed over the grass. They glided in and out among the trees, and over their heads hung yellow fruit like large pears of melted gold.

I said, “It is very fair; I would go up and taste the--”

God said, “Wait.”

And after a while I noticed a very fair woman pass: she looked this way and that, and drew down a branch, and it seemed she kissed the fruit upon it softly, and went on her way, and her dress made no rustle as she passed over the grass. And when I saw her no more, from among the stems came another woman fair as she had been, in a delicate tinted robe; she looked this way and that. When she saw no one there she drew down the fruit, and when she had looked over it to find a place, she put her mouth to it softly, and went away. And I saw other and other women come, making no noise, and they glided away also over the grass.

And I said to God, “What are they doing?”

God said, “They are poisoning.”

And I said, “How?”

God said, “They touch it with their lips, when they have made a tiny wound in it with their fore-teeth they set in it that which is under their tongues: they close it with their lip--that no man may see the place, and pass on.”

I said to God, “Why do they do it?”

God said, “That another may not eat.”

I said to God, “But if they poison all then none dare eat; what do they gain?”

God said, “Nothing.”

I said, “Are they not afraid they themselves may bite where another has bitten?”

God said, “They are afraid. In Hell all men fear.”

He called me further. And the water of the lake seemed less blue.

Then, to the right among the trees were men working. And I said to God, “I should like to go and work with them. Hell must be a very fruitful place, the grass is so green.”

God said, “Nothing grows in the garden they are making.”

We stood looking; and I saw them working among the bushes, digging holes, but in them they set nothing; and when they had covered them with sticks and earth each went a way off and sat behind the bushes watching; and I noticed that as each walked he set his foot down carefully looking where he trod. I said to God, “What are they doing?”

God said, “Making pitfalls into which their fellows may sink.”

I said to God, “Why do they do it?”

God said, “Because each thinks that when his brother falls he will rise.”

I said to God, “How will he rise?”

God said, “He will not rise.”

And I saw their eyes gleam from behind the bushes.

I said to God, “Are these men sane?”

God said, “They are not sane; there is no sane man in Hell.”

And he told me to come further.

And I looked where I trod.

And we came where Hell opened into a plain, and a great house stood there. Marble pillars upheld the roof, and white marble steps let up to it. The wind of heaven blew through it. Only at the back hung a thick curtain. Fair men and women there feasted at long tables. They danced, and I saw the robes of women flutter in the air and heard the laugh of strong men. What they feasted with was wine; they drew it from large jars which stood somewhat in the background, and I saw the wine sparkle as they drew it.

And I said to God, “I should like to go up and drink.” And God said, “Wait.” And I saw men coming in to the Banquet House; they came in from the back and lifted the corner of the curtain at the sides and crept in quickly; and they let the curtain fall behind them; they bore great jars they could hardly carry. And the men and women crowded round them, and the new-comers opened their jars and gave them of the wine to drink; and I saw that the women drank even more greedily than the men. And when others had well drunken they set the jars among the old ones beside the wall, and took their places at the table. And I saw that some of the jars were very old and mildewed and dusty, but others had still drops of new must on them and shone from the furnace.

And I said to God, “What is that?” For amid the sound of the singing, and over the dancing of feet, and over the laughing across the wine-cups I heard a cry.

And God said, “Stand a way off.”

And he took me where I saw both sides of the curtain. Behind the house was the wine-press where the wine was made. I saw the grapes crushed, and I heard them cry. I said, “Do not they on the other side hear it?”

God said, “The curtain is thick; they are feasting.”

And I said, “But the men who came in last. They saw?”

God said, “They let the curtain fall behind them--and they forget!”

I said, “How came they by their jars of wine?”

God said, “In the treading of the press these are they who came to the top; they have climbed out over the edge, and filled their jars from below, and have gone into the house.”

And I said, “And if they had fallen as they climbed--?”

God said, “They had been wine.”

I stood a way off watching in the sunshine, and I shivered.