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Albert Keim and Louis Lumet - "Honoré de Balzac"

George Gissing - "Demos"

Luo GuanZhong - "Fen Zhuang Lou Chapter 11 20 (Cosmetical Building)"

David Widger - "Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain"

In the Wilderness

R >> Robert Hichens >> In the Wilderness




The guardian stared hard at this man, then turned his bright eyes again
upon the woman. As he looked at her some recollection began to stir in
his mind.

Not many travelers came twice to the green recesses of Elis. He was
accustomed to brief acquaintanceships, closed by small gifts of money,
and succeeded by farewells which troubled his spirit not at all. But
this woman seemed familiar to him; and even the man----

He got up from his seat and went towards them.

As he came into the sunlight the woman saw him and smiled. And, when she
smiled, he knew he had seen her before. The deep gravity of her face as
she approached had nearly tricked his memory, but now he remembered all
about her. She was the beautiful fair Englishwoman who had camped on
the hill of Drouva not so many years ago, who had gone out shooting with
that young rascal, Dirmikis, and who had spent solitary hours wrapt
in contemplation of the statue whose fame doubtless had brought her to
Elis.

Not so many years ago! But was this the man the husband who had been
with her then, and who had evidently been deeply in love with her?

It seemed to the guardian that there was some puzzling change in the
beautiful woman. As to the man----Still wondering, the guardian took off
his cap politely and uttered a smiling welcome in Greek. Then the
man smiled too, faintly, and still preserving the under-look of deep
gravity, and the guardian knew him. It was indeed the husband, but grown
to look very much older, and different in some almost mysterious way.

The woman made a gesture towards the museum. The guardian bowed, turned
and moved to lead the way through the vestibule into the great room of
the Victory. But the woman spoke behind him and he paused. He did not
understand what she said, but the sound of her voice seemed to plead
with him--or to command him. He looked at her and understood.

She was gazing at him steadily, and her eyes told him not to go before
her, told him to stay where he was.

He nodded his head, slightly pursing his small mouth. She knew the way
of course. How should she not know it?

Gently she came up to him and just touched his coat sleeve--to thank
him. Then she went on slowly with her companion, traversed the room of
the Victory, looking neither to right nor left, crossed the threshold of
the smaller chamber beyond it and disappeared.

For a moment the guardian stood at gaze. Then he went back to his seat,
sat down and sighed. A faint sense of awe had come upon him. He did not
understand it, and he sighed again. Then, pulling himself together, he
felt for a cigarette, lit it and began to smoke, staring at the patch of
sunlight outside, and at the olive tree which grew close to the doorway.

* * * * *

Within the chamber of the Hermes for a long time there was silence.
Rosamund was sitting before the statue. Dion stood near to her, but not
close to her. The eyes of both of them were fixed upon Hermes and the
child. Once again they were greeted by the strange and exquisite hush
which seems, like a divine sentinel, to wait at the threshold of that
shrine in Elis; once again the silence seemed to come out of the marble
and to press softly against their two hearts. But they were changed,
and so the great peace of the Hermes seemed to them subtly changed. They
knew now the full meaning of torment--torment of the body and of the
soul. They knew the blackness of rebellion. But they knew also, or
at least were beginning to know, the true essence of peace. And this
beginning of knowledge drew them nearer to the Hermes than they had been
in the bygone years, than they had ever been before the coming of little
Robin into their lives, and before Robin had left them, obedient to the
call from beyond.

The olive branch was gone from the doorway. Something beautiful was
missing from the picture of Elis which had reminded Rosamund of the
glimpse of distant country in Raphael's "Marriage of the Virgin." And
they longed to have it there, that little olive branch--ah, how they
longed! There was pain in their hearts. But there was no longer the
cruel fierceness of rebellion. They were able to gaze at the child on
whom Hermes was gazing, if not with his celestial serenity yet with
a resignation that was even subtly mingled with something akin to
gratitude.

"Shall we reach that goal and take a child with us?"

Long ago that had been Dion's thought in Elis. And long ago Rosamund had
broken the silence within that room by the words:

"I'm trying to learn something here, how to bring _him_ up if he ever
comes."

And now God had given them a child, and God had taken him from them.
Robin had gone from all that was not intended, but that, for some
inscrutable reason, had come to be. Robin was in the released world.

As the twilight began to fall another twilight came back flooding with
its green dimness the memories of them both. And at last Rosamund spoke.

"Dion!"

"Yes."

"Come a little nearer to me."

He came close to her and stood beside her.

"Do you remember something you said to me here? It was in the
twilight----"

She paused. Tears had come into her eyes and her voice had trembled.

"It was in the twilight. You said that it seemed to you as if Hermes
were taking the child away, partly because of us."

Her voice broke.

"I--I disliked your saying that. I told you I couldn't feel that."

"I remember."

"And then you explained exactly what you meant. And we spoke of the
human fear that comes to those who look at a child they love and think,
'what is life going to do to the child?' This evening I want to tell
you that in a strange way I am able to be glad that Robin has gone, glad
with some part of me that is more mother than anything else in me, I
think. Robin is--is so safe now."

The tears came thickly and fell upon her face. She put out a hand to
Dion. He clasped it closely.

"God took him away, and perhaps because of us. I think it may have
been to teach us, you and me. Perhaps we needed a great sorrow. Perhaps
nothing else could have taught us something we had to learn."

"It may be so," he almost whispered.

She got up and leaned against his shoulder.

"Whatever happens to me in the future," she said, "I don't think I shall
ever distrust God again."

He put his arm round her and, for the first time since their reunion, he
kissed her, and she returned his kiss.

Over Elis the twilight was falling, a green twilight, sylvan and very
ethereal, tremulous in its delicate beauty. It stole through the green
doors, and down through the murmuring pine trees. The sheep-bells were
ringing softly; the flocks were going homeward from pasture; and the
chime of their little bells mingled with the wide whispering of the
eternities among the summits of the pine trees. Music of earth mingled
with the music from a distance that knew what the twilight knew.

Presently the two marble figures in the chamber of the Hermes began to
fade away gradually, as if deliberately withdrawing themselves from the
gaze of men. At last only their outlines were visible to Rosamund and to
Dion. But even these told of the Golden Age, of the age of long peace.

"FAREWELL!"

Some one had said it within that chamber, and a second voice had echoed
it.

As the guardian of the Hermes watched the two pilgrims walking slowly
away down the valley he noticed that the man's right arm clasped the
woman's waist. And, so, they passed from his sight and were taken by the
green twilight of Elis.