A Crystal Age, W. H. Hudson [most read books of all time TXT] 📗

such a change going on within me—I sometimes thought that a little more and I would touch that serene, enduring bliss which seemed to be the normal condition of my fellow-inmates. My passion for Yoletta now burned with a gentle flame, which did not consume, but only imparted an agreeable sense of warmth to the system. When she was there, sitting with me at her mother's feet, sometimes so near that her dark, shining hair brushed against my cheek, and her fragrant breath came on my face; and when she caressed my hand, and gazed full at me with those dear eyes that had no shadow of regret or anxiety in them, but only unfathomable love, I could imagine that our union was already complete, that she was altogether and eternally mine.

I knew that this could not continue. Sometimes I could not prevent my thoughts from flying away from the present; then suddenly the complexion of my dream would change, darkening like a fair landscape when a cloud obscures the sun. Not forever would the demon of passion slumber and dream in my breast; with recovered strength it would wake again, and, ever increasing in power and ever baffled of its desire, would raise once more that black tempest of that past to overwhelm me. Other darker visions followed: I would see myself as in a magic glass, lying with upturned, ghastly face, with many people about me, hurrying to and fro, wringing their hands and weeping aloud with grief, shuddering at the abhorred sight of blood on their sacred, shining floors; or, worse still, I saw myself shivering in sordid rags and gaunt with long-lasting famine, a fugitive in some wintry, desolate land, far from all human companionship, the very image of Yoletta scorched by madness to formless ashes in my brain; and for all sensations, feelings, memories, thoughts, nothing left to me but a distorted likeness of the visible world, and a terrible unrest urging me, as with a whip of scorpions, ever on and on, to ford yet other black, icy torrents, and tear myself bleeding through yet other thorny thickets, and climb the ramparts of yet other gigantic, barren hills.

But these moments of terrible depression, new to my life, were infrequent, and seldom lasted long. Chastel was my good angel; a word, a touch from her hand, and the ugly spirits would vanish. She appeared to possess a mysterious faculty—perhaps only the keen insight and sympathy of a highly spiritualized nature—which informed her of much that was passing in my heart: if a shadow came there when she had no wish or strength to converse, she would make me draw close to her seat, and rest her hand on mine, and the shadow would pass from me.

I could not help reflecting often and wonderingly at this great change in her manner towards me. Her eyes dwelt lovingly on me, and her keenest suffering, and the unfortunate blundering expressions I frequently let fall, seemed equally powerless to wring one harsh or impatient word from her. I was not now only one among her children, privileged to come and sit at her feet, to have with them a share in her impartial affection; and remembering that I was a stranger in the house, and compared but poorly with the others, the undisguised preference she showed for me, and the wish to have me almost constantly with her, seemed a great mystery.

One afternoon, as I sat alone with her, she made the remark that my reading lessons had ceased.

"Oh yes, I can read perfectly well now," I answered. "May I read to you from this book?" Saying which, I put my hand towards a volume lying on the couch at her side. It differed from the other books I had seen, in its smaller size and blue binding.

"No, not in this book," she said, with a shade of annoyance in her voice, putting out her hand to prevent my taking it.

"Have I made another mistake?" I asked, withdrawing my hand. "I am very ignorant."

"Yes, poor boy, you are very ignorant," she returned, placing her hand on my forehead. "You must know that this is a mother's book, and only a mother may read in it."

"I am afraid," I said, with a sigh, "that it will be a long time before I cease to offend you with such mistakes."

"There is no occasion to say that, for you have not offended me, only you make me feel sorry. Every day when you are with me I try to teach you something, to smooth the path for you; but you must remember, my son, that others cannot feel towards you as I do, and it may come to pass that they will sometimes be offended with you, because their love is less than mine."

"But why do you care so much for me?" I asked, emboldened by her words. "Once I thought that you only of all in the house would never love me: what has changed your feelings towards me, for I know that they have changed?" She looked at me, smiling a little sadly, but did not reply. "I think I should be happier for knowing," I resumed, caressing her hand. "Will you not tell me?"

There was a strange trouble on her face as her eyes glanced away and then returned to mine again, while her lips quivered, as if with unspoken words. Then she answered: "No, I cannot tell you now. It would make you happy, perhaps, but the proper time has not yet arrived. You must be patient, and learn, for you have much to learn. It is my desire that you should know all those things concerning the family of which you are ignorant, and when I say all, I mean not only those suitable to one in your present condition, as a son of the house, but also those higher matters which belong to the heads of the house—to the father and mother."

Then, casting away all caution, I answered: "It is precisely a knowledge of those greater matters concerning the family which I have been hungering after ever since I came into the house."

"I know it," she returned. "This hunger you speak of was partly the cause of your fever, and it is in you, keeping you feverish and feeble still; but for this, instead of being a prisoner here, you would now be abroad, feeling the sun and wind on your face."

"And if you know that," I pleaded, "why do you not now impart the knowledge that can make me whole? For surely, all those lesser matters—those things suitable for one in my condition to know—can be learned afterwards, in due time. For they are not of pressing importance, but the other is to me a matter of life and death, if you only knew it."

"I know everything," she returned quickly. But a cloud had come over her face at my concluding words, and a startled look into her eyes. "Life and death! do you know what you are saying?" she exclaimed, fixing her eyes on me with such intense earnestness in them that mine fell abashed before their gaze. Then, after a while, she drew my head down against her knees, and spoke with a strange tenderness. "Do you then find it so hard to exercise a little patience, my son, that you do not acquiesce in what I say to