silent a long time. They were sitting at the end of the garden, upon a seat that stood in a semi-circle of rhododendrons in flower; the great blossoms of purple satin shut them inwith a high wall of closely clustered bouquets, rising from the paths and overtopping their heads; clambering roses flung their incense before them. They both sat still, happy together, happy in the sympathy of their atmospheres mingling together; yet in their happiness there was the invincible melancholy which is an integral part of all life, even in happiness.
“I do not know how I am to tell you,” he resumed; “but suppose I were to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you … That would not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that from pure happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive nothing, and suffer hunger like a beast. I am bad, I am egotistical to be able to speak like this, but I must tell you the truth, that you may not think too well of me. So I only seek your society as something beautiful above all things, with which I indulge myself only on rare occasions.”
She was silent.
“Sometimes … sometimes, too, I think that in doing this I am not doing right so far as you are concerned; that in some way or other I offend or hurt you. Then I sit thinking about it, until I feel sure it would be best to take leave of you for ever.”
She was silent still; motionless she sat, with her hands listlessly in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.
“Speak to me …” he begged.
“You do not offend me, nor hurt me,” she said. “Come to me whenever you feel the need. Do always as you think best, and I shall think that best too; you must not doubt that.”
“I should so much like to know how you like me.”
“In what way? Surely, as a madonna a sinner who repents and gives her his soul,” she said, archly. “Am I not a madonna?”
“Are you content to be so?”
“Can you be so ignorant about women not to know how in each one of us there is a longing to solace and relief, to play, in fact, at being a madonna?”
“Do not speak so,” he said, with pain in his voice.
“I am speaking seriously …”
He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him; a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the rhododendrons as in the heart of one great mystic flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He gave himself up wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere wafted about them of the sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It began to grow dark; a violet gloom fell from the sky like crêpe falling upon crêpe; quietly the stars lighted out. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the adjacent villa had stopped. And Happiness drew a veil betweenhis soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows, and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the Happiness that had come while the world died away; the Happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible, coming from the Love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the Love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything, or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, that is the soul of Love itself.
High he felt himself: the like of the illusion he had of her, which she wished to maintain for his sake, of which he was now absolutely certain, doubting nothing. For he could not understand that what had given him happiness – his illusion – so perfect, so crystalline, could cause her any grief; he could not at this
“I do not know how I am to tell you,” he resumed; “but suppose I were to see you every day, every moment that I thought of you … That would not do. For then I should become so refined, so subtle, that from pure happiness I should not be able to live; my other being would receive nothing, and suffer hunger like a beast. I am bad, I am egotistical to be able to speak like this, but I must tell you the truth, that you may not think too well of me. So I only seek your society as something beautiful above all things, with which I indulge myself only on rare occasions.”
She was silent.
“Sometimes … sometimes, too, I think that in doing this I am not doing right so far as you are concerned; that in some way or other I offend or hurt you. Then I sit thinking about it, until I feel sure it would be best to take leave of you for ever.”
She was silent still; motionless she sat, with her hands listlessly in her lap, her head slightly bowed, a smile about her mouth.
“Speak to me …” he begged.
“You do not offend me, nor hurt me,” she said. “Come to me whenever you feel the need. Do always as you think best, and I shall think that best too; you must not doubt that.”
“I should so much like to know how you like me.”
“In what way? Surely, as a madonna a sinner who repents and gives her his soul,” she said, archly. “Am I not a madonna?”
“Are you content to be so?”
“Can you be so ignorant about women not to know how in each one of us there is a longing to solace and relief, to play, in fact, at being a madonna?”
“Do not speak so,” he said, with pain in his voice.
“I am speaking seriously …”
He looked at her; a doubt rose within him, but she smiled to him; a calm glory was about her; she sat amidst the bouquets of the rhododendrons as in the heart of one great mystic flower. The wound of his doubt was soothed with balsam. He gave himself up wholly to his happiness; an atmosphere wafted about them of the sweet calm of life, an atmosphere in which life becomes dispassionate and restful and smiling, like the air which is rare about the gods. It began to grow dark; a violet gloom fell from the sky like crêpe falling upon crêpe; quietly the stars lighted out. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the adjacent villa had stopped. And Happiness drew a veil betweenhis soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows, and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the Happiness that had come while the world died away; the Happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible, coming from the Love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the Love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything, or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, that is the soul of Love itself.
High he felt himself: the like of the illusion he had of her, which she wished to maintain for his sake, of which he was now absolutely certain, doubting nothing. For he could not understand that what had given him happiness – his illusion – so perfect, so crystalline, could cause her any grief; he could not at this
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