Athalie

Where the ceiling is the sky:
Night and day the Weavers ply
Colour, shadow, hue, and dye,
Where the rushing shuttles fly,
Weaving dreams across the Loom,
Picturing a common doom!

"How, Beloved, can we die —
We Immortals, Thou and I?"

He smiled: "Death seems very far away," he said.

"Nothing dies… If only this world could understand… Did I tell you that mother has been with me often while you were away?"

"No."

"It was wonderfully sweet to see her in the room. One night I fell asleep across her knees."

"Does she ever speak to you, Athalie?"

"Yes, sometimes we talk."

"At night?"

"By day, too… I was sitting in the living-room the other morning, and she came up behind me and took both my hands. We talked, I lying back in the rocking chair and looking up at her… Mrs. Connor came in. I am quite sure she was frightened when she heard my voice in there conversing with nobody she could see."

Athalie smiled to herself as at some amusing memory evoked.

"If Mrs. Connor ever knew how she is followed about by so many purring pussies and little wagging dogs – I mean dogs and pussies who are no longer what we call 'alive,' – I don't know what she'd think. Sometimes the place is full of them, Clive – such darling little creatures. Hafiz sees them; and watches and watches, but never moves."

Clive was staring a trifle hard; Athalie, lazily stretching her arms, glanced at him with that humorous expression which hinted of gentlest mockery.

"Don't worry; nothing follows you, Clive, except an idle girl who finds no time for anything else, so busy are her thoughts with you."

He bent forward and kissed her; and she clasped both hands behind his head, drawing it nearer.

"Have you missed me, Athalie?"

"You could never understand how much."

"Did you find me in your crystal?"

"No; I saw only the sea and on the horizon a stain of smoke, and a gull flying."

He drew her closely into his arms: "God," he breathed, "if anything ever should happen to you! – and I – alone on earth – and blind – "

"Yes. That is the only anxiety I ever knew … because you are blind."

"If you came to me I could not see you. If you spoke to me I could not hear. Could anything more awful happen?"

"Do you care for me so much?"

In his eyes she read her answer, and thrilled to it, closer in his arms; and rested so, her cheek against his, gazing at the sunset out of dreamy eyes.

They had been slowly pacing the garden paths, arm within arm, when Mrs. Connor came to summon them to dinner. The small dining-room was flooded with sunset light; rosy bars of it lay across cloth and fruit and flowers, and striped the wall and ceiling.

And when dinner was ended the pale fire still burned on the thin silk curtains and struck across the garden, gilding the coping of the wall where clustering peaches hung all turned to gold like fabled fruit that ripens in Hesperides.

Hafiz followed them out under the evening sky and seated himself upon the grass. And he seemed mildly to enjoy the robins' evening carolling, blinking benevolently up at the little vesper choristers, high singing in the sunset's lingering glow.

Whenever light puffs of wind set blossoms swaying, the jet from the fountain basin swerved, and a mellow raining sound of drops swept the still pool. The lilac twilight deepened to mauve; upon the surface of the pool a primrose tint grew duller. Then the first bat zig-zagged across the sky; and every clove-pink border became misty with the wings of dusk-moths.

On Athalie's frail white gown one alighted, – a little grey thing wearing a pair of peacock-tinted diamonds on its forewings; and as it sat there, quivering, the iridescent incrustations changed from burnished gold to green.

"Wonders, wonders, under the moon," murmured the girl – "thronging miracles that fill the day and night, always, everywhere. And so few to see them… Sometimes, to me the blindness of the world to all the loveliness that I 'see clearly' is like my own blindness to the hidden wonders of the night – where uncounted myriads of little rainbow spirits fly. And nobody sees and knows the living splendour of them except when some grey-winged phantom strays indoors from the outer shadows. And it astonishes us to see, under the drab forewings, a blaze of scarlet, gold, or orange."

"I suppose," he said, "that the unseen night world all around us is no more wonderful than what, in the day-world, the vast majority of us never see, never suspect."

"I think it must be so, Clive. Being accustomed to a more densely populated world than are many people, I believe that if I could see only what they see, – merely that small portion of activity and life which the world calls 'living things,' I should find the sunlit world rather empty, and the night but a silent desolation under the stars."

After a few minutes' thought he asked in a low voice whether at that moment there was anybody in the garden except themselves.

"Some people were here a little while ago, looking at the flowers. I think they must have lived here many, many years ago; perhaps when this old house was new."

"Could you not ask them who they were?"

"No, dear."

"Why?"

"If they were what you would call 'alive' I could not intrude upon them, could I? The laws of reticence, the respect for privacy, remain the same. I am conscious of no more impertinent curiosity concerning them than I am concerning any passer in the city streets."

"Have they gone?"

"Yes. But all the evening I have been hearing children at play just beyond the garden wall… And, when I was a child, somebody killed a little dog down by the causeway. He is here in the garden, now, trotting gaily about the lawn – such a happy little dog! – and Hafiz has folded his forepaws under his ruff and has settled down to watch him. Don't you see how Hafiz watches, how his head turns following every movement of the little visitor?"

He nodded; then: "Do you still hear the children outside the wall?"

She sat listening, the smile brooding in her eyes.

"Can you still hear them?" he repeated, wistfully.

"Yes, dear."

"What are they saying?"

"I can't make out. They are having a happy time somewhere on the outer lawns."

"How many are there?"