Chita: A Memory of Last Island Read online

him the supreme realization of all possibledreams of beauty ... And his passionate jealousy; and the slap fromLaroussel; and the humiliating two-minute duel with rapiers in which helearned that he had found his master. The scar was deep. Why had notLaroussel killed him then? ... Not evil-hearted, Laroussel,--theyused to salute each other afterward when they met; and Laroussel'ssmile was kindly. Why had he refrained from returning it? Where wasLaroussel now?

  For the death of his generous father, who had sacrificed so much toreform him; for the death, only a short while after, of hisall-forgiving mother, he had found one sweet woman to console him withher tender words, her loving lips, her delicious caress. She had givenhim Zouzoune, the darling link between their lives,--Zouzoune, whowaited each evening with black Eglantine at the gate to watch for hiscoming, and to cry through all the house like a bird, "Papa, lapevini!--papa Zulien ape vini!" ... And once that she had made him veryangry by upsetting the ink over a mass of business papers, and he hadslapped her (could he ever forgive himself?)--she had cried, throughher sobs of astonishment and pain:--"To laimin moin?--to batte moin!"(Thou lovest me?--thou beatest me!) Next month she would have been fiveyears old. To laimin moin?--to batte moin! ...

  A furious paroxysm of grief convulsed him, suffocated him; it seemed tohim that something within must burst, must break. He flung himselfdown upon his bed, biting the coverings in order to stifle his outcry,to smother the sounds of his despair. What crime had he ever done, ohGod! that he should be made to suffer thus?--was it for this he hadbeen permitted to live? had been rescued from the sea and carriedround all the world unscathed? Why should he live to remember, tosuffer, to agonize? Was not Ramirez wiser?

  How long the contest within him lasted, he never knew; but ere it wasdone, he had become, in more ways than one, a changed man. For thefirst,--though not indeed for the last time,--something of the deeperand nobler comprehension of human weakness and of human suffering hadbeen revealed to him,--something of that larger knowledge without whichthe sense of duty can never be fully acquired, nor the understanding ofunselfish goodness, nor the spirit of tenderness. The suicide is not acoward; he is an egotist.

  A ray of sunlight touched his wet pillow,--awoke him. He rushed to thewindow, flung the latticed shutters apart, and looked out.

  Something beautiful and ghostly filled all the vistas,--frost-haze; andin some queer way the mist had momentarily caught and held the verycolor of the sky. An azure fog! Through it the quaint and checkeredstreet--as yet but half illumined by the sun,--took tones of impossiblecolor; the view paled away through faint bluish tints into transparentpurples;--all the shadows were indigo. How sweet the morning!--howwell life seemed worth living! Because the sun had shown his facethrough a fairy veil of frost! ...

  Who was the ancient thinker?--was it Hermes?--who said:--

  "The Sun is Laughter; for 'tis He who maketh joyous the thoughts ofmen, and gladdeneth the infinite world." ...