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Page 18
"Do you never think--?" I began, but she put her hand to my lips, like a
child, to stop me, and said, "No, I never think, and I never mean to
think, of all the old hateful things. I never wilfully did any harm; I
only liked the people who liked me, and gave them all they asked--and
now I know that I did right, though in old days serious people used to
try to frighten me. God is very good to me," she went on, smiling, "to
allow me to be happy in my own way."
While we talked thus, sitting on a seat that overlooked the great
city--I had never seen it look so stately and beautiful, so full of all
that the heart could desire--Lucius himself drew near to us, smiling,
and seated himself the other side of Cynthia. "Now is not this
heavenly?" she said; "to be with the two people I like best--for you are
a faithful old thing, you know--and not to be afraid of anything
disagreeable or tiresome happening--not to have to explain or make
excuses, what could be better?"
"Yes," said Lucius, "it is happy enough," and he smiled at me in a
friendly way. "The pleasantest point is that one can _wait_ in this
charming place. In the old days, one was afraid of a hundred
things--money, weather, illness, criticism. One had to make love in a
hurry, because one missed the beautiful hour; and then there was the
horror of growing old. But now if Cynthia chooses to amuse herself with
other people, what do I care? She comes back as delightful as ever, and
it is only so much more to be amused about. One is not even afraid of
being lazy, and as for those ugly twinges of what one called
conscience--which were only a sort of rheumatism after all--that is all
gone too; and the delight of finding that one was right after all, and
that there were really no such things as consequences!"
I became aware, as Lucius spoke thus, in all his careless beauty, of a
vague trouble of soul. I seemed to foresee a kind of conflict between
myself and him. He felt it too, I was aware; for he drew Cynthia to him,
and said something to her; and presently they went off laughing, like a
pair of children, waving a farewell to me. I experienced a sense of
desolation, knowing in my mind that all was not well, and yet feeling so
powerless to contend with happiness so strong and wide.
XII
Presently I wandered off alone, and went out of the city with a sudden
impulse. I thought I would go in the opposite direction to that by which
I had entered it. I could see the great hills down which Cynthia and I
had made our way in the dawn; but I had never gone in the further
direction, where there stretched what seemed to be a great forest. The
whole place lay bathed in a calm light, all unutterably beautiful. I
wandered long by streams and wood-ends, every corner that I turned
revealing new prospects of delight. I came at last to the edge of the
forest, the mouths of little open glades running up into it, with fern
and thorn-thickets. There were deer here browsing about the dingles,
which let me come close to them and touch them, raising their heads from
the grass, and regarding me with gentle and fearless eyes. Birds sang
softly among the boughs, and even fluttered to my shoulder, as if
pleased to be noticed. So this was what was called on earth the place of
torment, a place into which it seemed as if nothing of sorrow or pain
could ever intrude!
Just on the edge of the wood stood a little cottage, surrounded by a
quiet garden, bees humming about the flowers, the scents of which came
with a homely sweetness on the air. But here I saw something which I did
not at first understand. This was a group of three people, a man and a
woman and a boy of about seventeen, beside the cottage porch. They had a
rustic air about them, and the same sort of leisurely look that all the
people of the land wore. They were all three beautiful, with a simple
and appropriate kind of beauty, such as comes of a contented sojourn in
the open air. But I became in a moment aware that there was a disturbing
element among them. The two elders seemed to be trying to persuade the
boy, who listened smilingly enough, but half turned away from them, as
though he were going away on some errand of which they did not approve.
They greeted me, as I drew near, with the same cordiality as one
received everywhere, and the man said, "Perhaps you can help us, sir,
for we are in a trouble?" The woman joined with a murmur in the request,
and I said I would gladly do what I could; while I spoke, the boy
watched me earnestly, and something drew me to him, because I saw a look
that seemed to tell me that he was, like myself, a stranger in the
place. Then the man said, "We have lived here together very happily a
long time, we three--I do not know how we came together, but so it was;
and we have been more at ease than words can tell, after hard lives in
the other world; and now this lad here, who has been our delight, says
that he must go elsewhere and cannot stay with us; and we would persuade
him if we could; and perhaps you, sir, who no doubt know what lies
beyond the fields and woods that we see, can satisfy him that it is
better to remain."
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