Short Fiction, Aleksandr Kuprin [the speed reading book txt] 📗

But a charmed numbness has suddenly taken possession of Sulamith’s body. She wants to rise, and can not; wants to move her hand, and can not. And, without understanding what is taking place with her, she whispers, gazing through the window:

“Ah, his locks are filled with the drops of the night! But I have put off my chiton. How shall I put it on?”

“Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. The morn is nigh, flowers appear on the earth, and the vines with the tender grape give a goodly smell; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard from the mountains.”

“I have washed my feet,” whispers Sulamith; “how shall I defile them?”

The dark head disappears from the window-lattice; the resounding steps pass around the house and cease at the door. The beloved cautiously puts in his hand by the hole of the door. His fingers can be heard groping for the inner bolt.

Then does Sulamith rise up, pressing her palms hard against her breasts, and whispers in affright:

“My sister sleeps⁠—I fear to awaken her.”

She irresolutely dons her sandals, puts a light chiton upon her naked body, throws a vail over it, and opens the door, leaving marks of myrrh upon the handles of the lock. But there is no longer anyone upon the road that glimmers whitely in its solitude between the dark bushes in the gray murk of morning. The beloved had not waited, and was gone; not even his steps were to be heard. The moon has dwindled and paled, and floats on high. In the east, above the waves of the mountains, the sky is putting on a chilly pink before the dawn. In the distance the walls and towers of Jerusalem glimmer whitely.

“My beloved! King of my life!” Sulamith calls into the humid darkness. “I am here. I await thee.⁠ ⁠… Return!”

But none responds.

“I will run upon the highway; I shall, I shall overtake my beloved,” Sulamith says to herself. “I will go about the city in the streets and in the broad ways; I will seek him whom my soul loveth. O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breast of my mother! When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house. Thou wouldst instruct me; I would cause thee to drink of the juice of my pomegranates. I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him I am smitten by love.”

Thus does she commune with herself, and with light, docile steps runs upon the road toward the city. At the Dung Gates near the wall, two watchmen that had gone about the city at night are sitting and dozing in the chill of the morning. They awaken and stare with astonishment at the running girl. The younger arises and blocks her way with outstretched arms.

“Stay, stay, thou fair!” exclaims he with laughter. “Whither so fast? Thou hast passed the night on the sly in the bed of thy dear and art yet warm from his embraces; whereas we have been chilled through by the dampness of the night. It would be but fair if thou wert to sit a while with us.”

The elder also arises and wants to embrace Sulamith. He does not laugh; he breathes heavily, fast, and with wheezing; he is licking his blue lips with his tongue. His face, made hideous by great scars of healed leprosy, seems frightful in the pallid murk. He speaks in a voice hoarse and snuffling:

“Yea, of a truth. What is thy beloved more than other men, sweet maiden! Shut thy eyes, and thou canst not tell me apart from him. I am even better, for, of a certainty, I am more experienced than he.”

They clutch at her bosom, her shoulders, her arms and raiment. But Sulamith is lithe and strong, and her body, anointed with oil, is slippery. She tears herself away, leaving in the hands of the watchmen her outer vail, and runs back still faster along the same road. She has experienced neither offense nor fear⁠—she is all swallowed up in thoughts of Solomon. Passing by her house, she sees the door out of which she had just gone still left open, a gaping black quadrangle in the white wall. But she merely catches her breath, shrinks within herself, like a young cat, and runs by on her tiptoes with never a sound.

She crosses the bridge of Kidron, avoids the outskirt of the village of Siloam, and by a stony road gradually climbs the southern slope of Bath-El-Khav, into her vineyard. Her brother is still sleeping among the vines, wrapped up in a woolen blanket all wet from the dew. Sulamith rouses him, but he can not awaken, enchained by the morning sleep of youth.

As yesterday, the dawn is flaming over Anaze. A wind springs up. The fragrance of the grape in blossom streams through the air.

“I shall come away and look upon that place of the wall where my beloved hath stood,” Sulamith is saying. “I shall feel with my hands the stones that he hath touched; I shall kiss the ground beneath his feet.”

She glides lightly between the vines. The dew falls from them, chilling her feet and spattering her elbows. And now a joyous cry from Sulamith fills the vineyard! The king is standing beyond the wall. With a radiant face he stretches out his arms to meet her.

More lightly than a bird Sulamith surmounts the enclosure, and, without words, with a moan of happiness, entwines the king.

Several minutes pass thus. Finally, tearing his lips away from her mouth, Solomon speaks, enraptured, and his voice trembles:

“Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair!”

“O, how fair art thou, my beloved!”

Tears of delight and gratefulness⁠—blessed tears⁠—sparkle upon Sulamith’s pale and beautiful face. Languishing with love, she sinks to