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Page 49
Following her, I thought of the mysterious beauty of her eyes, her
pallor, her slimness, and that faint smile which hovered between
ecstasy and indifference, and away went my mind to one whom the
shrewdest and tenderest of my own countrymen called once Criseyde.
She led me into a garden all of faint-hued flowers. There bloomed no
scarlet here, nor blue, nor yellow; but white and lavender and purest
purple. Here, also, like torches of the sun, stood poplars each by
each in the windless air, and the impenetrable darkness of cypresses
beneath them.
Here too was a fountain whose waters leapt no more, mossy and
time-worn. I could not but think of those other gardens of my
journey--Jane's, Ennui's, Dianeme's; and yet none like this for the
shingley murmur of the sea, and the calmness of morning.
"But, surely," I said, "this must be very far from Troy."
"Far indeed," she said.
"Far also from the hollow ships."
"Far also from the hollow ships," she replied.
"Yet," said I, "in the country whence I come is a saying: Where the
treasure is--"
"Alack! _there_ gloats the miser!" said Criseyde; "but I, Traveller,
have no treasure, only a patchwork memory, and that's a great grief."
"Well, then, forget! Why try in vain?" I said.
She smiled and seated herself, leaning a little forward, looking upon
the ground.
"Soothfastness _must_,"' she said very gravely, raising her long black
eyebrows; "yet truly it must be a forlorn thing to be remembered by
one who so lightly forgets. So then I say, to teach myself to be
true--'Look now, Criseyde, yonder fine, many-hearted poplar--that is
Paris; and all that bank of marriage-ivy--that is marriageable Helen,
green and cold; and the waterless fountain--that truly is Diomed; and
the faded flower that nods in shadow, why, that must be me, even me,
Criseyde!'"
"And this thick rosemary-bush that smells of exile, who, then, is
that?" I said.
She looked deep into the shadow of the cypresses. "That," she said, "I
think I have forgot again."
"But," I said, "Diomed, now, was he quite so silent--not one trickle
of persuasion?"
"Why," she said, "I think 'twas the fountain was Diomed: I know not.
And as for persuasion; he was a man forked, vain, and absolute as all.
Let the waterless stone be sudden Diomed--you will confuse my wits,
Mariner; where, then, were I?" She smiled, stooping lower. "You have
voyaged far?" she said.
"From childhood to this side regret," I answered rather sadly.
"'Tis a sad end to a sweet tale," she said, "were it but truly told.
But yet, and yet, and yet--you may return, and life heals every, every
wound. _I_ must look on the ground and make amends. 'Tis this same
making amends men now call 'Purgatory,' they tell me."
"'Amends,'" I said; "to whom? for what?"
"Welaway," said she, with a narrow fork between her brows; "to most
men and to all women, for being that Criseyde." She gazed half
solemnly at some picture of reverie.
"But which Criseyde?" I said. "She who was every wind's, or but one
perfect summer's?"
She glanced strangely at me. "Ask of the night that burns so many
stars," she said. "All's done; all passes. Yet my poor busy Uncle
Pandar had no such changes, nor Hector, nor ... Men change not: they
love and love again--one same tune of a myriad verses."
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