that glimmered red through its own smoke, which hung thickening

under the boughs of the big tree. She approached him from the
side as he neared the plankway of the house. He saw her stop to

let him begin his ascent. In the darkness her figure was like
the shadow of a woman with clasped hands put out beseechingly. He

stopped--could not help glancing at her. In all the sombre
gracefulness of the straight figure, her limbs, features--all was

indistinct and vague but the gleam of her eyes in the faint
starlight. He turned his head away and moved on. He could feel

her footsteps behind him on the bending planks, but he walked up
without turning his head. He knew what she wanted. She wanted

to come in there. He shuddered at the thought of what might
happen in the impenetrable darkness of that house if they were to

find themselves alone--even for a moment. He stopped in the
doorway, and heard her say--

"Let me come in. Why this anger? Why this silence? . . . Let
me watch . . by your side. . . . Have I not watched faithfully?

Did harm ever come to you when you closed your eyes while I was
by? . . . I have waited . . . I have waited for your smile, for

your words . . . I can wait no more. . . . Look at me . . .
speak to me. Is there a bad spirit in you? A bad spirit that

has eaten up your courage and your love? Let me touch you.
Forget all . . . All. Forget the wicked hearts, the angry faces

. . . and remember only the day I came to you . . . to you! O my
heart! O my life!"

The pleading sadness of her appeal filled the space with the
tremor of her low tones, that carried tenderness and tears into

the great peace of the sleeping world. All around them the
forests, the clearings, the river, covered by the silent veil of

night, seemed to wake up and listen to her words in attentive
stillness. After the sound of her voice had died out in a

stifled sigh they appeared to listen yet; and nothing stirred
among the shapeless shadows but the innumerable fireflies that

twinkled in changing clusters, in gliding pairs, in wandering and
solitary points--like the glimmering drift of scattered

star-dust.
Willems turned round slowly, reluctantly, as if compelled by main

force. Her face was hidden in her hands, and he looked above her
bent head, into the sombre brilliance of the night. It was one

of those nights that give the impression of extreme vastness,
when the sky seems higher, when the passing puffs of tepid breeze

seem to bring with them faint whispers from beyond the stars.
The air was full of sweet scent, of the scent charming,

penetrating. and violent like the impulse of love. He looked
into that great dark place odorous with the breath of life, with

the mystery of existence, renewed, fecund, indestructible; and he
felt afraid of his solitude, of the solitude of his body, of the

loneliness of his soul in the presence of this unconscious and
ardent struggle, of this lofty indifference, of this merciless

and mysterious purpose, perpetuating strife and death through the
march of ages. For the second time in his life he felt, in a

sudden sense of his significance, the need to send a cry for help
into the wilderness, and for the second time he realized the

hopelessness of its unconcern. He could shout for help on every
side--and nobody would answer. He could stretch out his hands,

he could call for aid, for support, for sympathy, for relief--and
nobody would come. Nobody. There was no one there--but that

woman.
His heart was moved, softened with pity at his own abandonment.

His anger against her, against her who was the cause of all his
misfortunes, vanished before his extreme need for some kind of

consolation. Perhaps--if he must resign himself to his fate--she
might help him to forget. To forget! For a moment, in an access

of despair so profound that it seemed like the beginning of
peace, he planned the deliberatedescent from his pedestal, the

throwing away of his superiority, of all his hopes, of old
ambitions, of the ungrateful civilization. For a moment,

forgetfulness in her arms seemed possible; and lured by that
possibility the semblance of renewed desire possessed his breast

in a burst of recklesscontempt for everything outside
himself--in a savagedisdain of Earth and of Heaven. He said to

himself that he would not repent. The punishment for his only
sin was too heavy. There was no mercy under Heaven. He did not

want any. He thought, desperately, that if he could find with
her again the madness of the past, the strange delirium that had

changed him, that had worked his undoing, he would be ready to
pay for it with an eternity of perdition. He was intoxicated by

the subtle perfumes of the night; he was carried away by the
suggestive stir of the warm breeze; he was possessed by the

exaltation of the solitude, of the silence, of his memories, in
the presence of that figure offering herself in a submissive and

patient devotion; coming to him in the name of the past, in the
name of those days when he could see nothing, think of nothing,

desire nothing--but her embrace.
He took her suddenly in his arms, and she clasped her hands round

his neck with a low cry of joy and surprise. He took her in his
arms and waited for the transport, for the madness, for the

sensations remembered and lost; and while she sobbed gently on
his breast he held her and felt cold, sick, tired, exasperated

with his failure--and ended by cursing himself. She clung to him
trembling with the intensity of her happiness and her love. He

heard her whispering--her face hidden on his shoulder--of past
sorrow, of coming joy that would last for ever; of her unshaken

belief in his love. She had always believed. Always! Even
while his face was turned away from her in the dark days while

his mind was wandering in his own land, amongst his own people.
But it would never wander away from her any more, now it had come

back. He would forget the cold faces and the hard hearts of the
cruel people. What was there to remember? Nothing? Was it not

so? . . .
He listened hopelessly to the faint murmur. He stood still and

rigid, pressing her mechanically to his breast while he thought
that there was nothing for him in the world. He was robbed of

everything; robbed of his passion, of his liberty, of
forgetfulness, of consolation. She, wild with delight, whispered

on rapidly, of love, of light, of peace, of long years. . . . He
looked drearily above her head down into the deeper gloom of the

courtyard. And, all at once, it seemed to him that he was
peering into a sombre hollow, into a deep black hole full of

decay and of whitened bones; into an immense and inevitable grave
full of corruption where sooner or later he must, unavoidably,

fall.
In the morning he came out early, and stood for a time in the

doorway, listening to the light breathing behind him--in the
house. She slept. He had not closed his eyes through all that

night. He stood swaying--then leaned against the lintel of the
door. He was exhausted, done up; fancied himself hardly alive.

He had a disgusted horror of himself that, as he looked at the
level sea of mist at his feet, faded quickly into dull

indifference. It was like a sudden and final decrepitude of his
senses, of his body, of his thoughts. Standing on the high

platform, he looked over the expanse of low night fog above
which, here and there, stood out the feathery heads of tall

bamboo clumps and the round tops of single trees, resembling
small islets emerging black and solid from a ghostly and

impalpable sea. Upon the faintlyluminousbackground of the
eastern sky, the sombre line of the great forests bounded that

smooth sea of white vapours with an appearance of a fantastic and
unattainable shore.

He looked without seeing anything--thinking of himself. Before
his eyes the light of the rising sun burst above the forest with

the suddenness of an explosion. He saw nothing. Then, after a
time, he murmured with conviction--speaking half aloud to himself

in the shock of the penetrating thought: