Название: A Country Idyl and Other Stories
Автор: Bolton Sarah Knowles
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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How I wish you were here to sit beside me, and talk as we used to do in college days! Then we wondered where each would be, what experiences would fill each heart, and what the future had for us in its shadowy keeping.
You have been a wanderer, and seen much of the world. I have had, for the most part, a quiet life of study, have finished a book, have had anxieties, as who has not, but, best of all, I have found my ideal.
You will perhaps smile at this, and recall to me my love of athletic sports, my disregard of the affections, my entire ability to live without the gentler sex. Not that you and I both did not admire a brilliant eye, or a rosy lip, or a perfect hand, but life was so full without all this that we looked at women as one does at rare pictures – expensive luxuries, to be admired rather than possessed.
But all has changed with me. I have met one who will, I think, fill my vision for life. She is not strictly beautiful. Her blue eyes are calm and clear. Her manner is not responsive, and she would seem to a stranger like one to be worshipped from afar. She has depth of affection, but it is not on the surface.
Edith Graham is to most persons a mystery. She loves nature, sits with me often to enjoy these wonderful sunsets, makes me feel that I am in the presence of a goddess, and goes her way, while I continue to worship her.
Yes, I think I have used the right word – “worship.” I walk a thousand times past the house where she lives because she is there. I linger in the pathways where she daily walks, with the feeling that her footsteps have given them a special sacredness. I know well the seat in the forest near here where she comes to read and look upon the distant lake. Every friend of hers is nearer to me because her friend. The graves, even, of her dear ones are precious to me. Every tree or flower she has admired is fairer to me. The golden-rod of the fields I keep ever in my study because she loves and gathers it. I have planted red carnations in my garden because she delights to wear them. The autumn leaves are exquisite to me because she paints them, and I recall the sound of her feet among the rustling leaves with the same joy which I feel in remembering the music of the priests of Notre Dame, or the voices of the nuns of the Sacré Cœur in Rome, at sunset.
The moon, from new to full, has an added beauty because when Edith and I are separated she speaks to us both the eternal language of love. When I watch the clouds break over her majestic face I know that Edith too enjoys the beauty of the scene.
The song of the robins among our trees is sweeter because Edith hears it. The little stream that wanders near us and glides over the stones at the foot of the hill in a white sheet of spray is a bond between us, for we have both looked upon it. Edith’s name seems as musical to me as the waterfall. I can fancy that it is graven upon my heart.
I know every change of her features, – she is almost always quiet, – and her every word and act I have gone over and over in my mind ten thousand times. We have read together, and I hope she loves me. This companionship is so blessed that I dread to speak to her of love – though my face must always tell it – lest, possibly, the dream be dispelled, and I wake to the dreadful knowledge that she cannot be mine.
Do you know all these feelings, Ernest? Whatever you may think of me, I have grown a nobler man through them. All womanhood is more sacred to me. I can do work I never thought myself capable of before. It would be a pleasure to work for Edith as long as I live. I am going to Europe soon, and I must settle this matter. I will write you then.
Dear Ernest: The scene has changed since I wrote you months ago. I am at the foot of the Jungfrau, whose snowy top, gilded by the sun, is ever a thing of beauty.
The day I dreaded has come and gone. I have told Edith all my heart, and, alas! she is not mine. She was already half plighted to a young naval officer, whom she met when she was away at school. I believe she was fond of me, for our tastes are similar, but she has been the true woman through it all.
I blame her? Never! I would not allow my heart to cherish such a thought for a moment.
Do I love her less? No. Shall I think a flower less beautiful and fragrant because another owns it and enjoys it? Edith will be to me ever the same lovely picture of youthful womanhood – the same blessing, though to me unattainable. Do not imagine that I shall forget her. A man loves as deeply as a woman, often more deeply, and not seldom remembers as long as she does. Other faces may interest me; other women be companionable; but they will not be Edith.
I shall go back to our old home beside the lake, because she will sometime come there, and it will always be a comfort and pleasure to see her, even if she does not see me. Perhaps it is a foolish wish, but I shall hope sometime to rest in the same cemetery where she rests.
I love to think of her the last thing as I sleep, for then ofttimes in my dreams she talks and walks with me, and I awake refreshed by the memory.
Some one has said, “Happiness is not possession. It is giving and growing;” and I know that I am growing more fit for her companionship, even though it come only in another life.
The seas she sails upon, the harbors she enters, will all be nearer and dearer to me. The world will grow larger instead of smaller to my vision. I shall be lonely; yes, almost unbearably lonely. But, after all, what a blessing to have known her – to have loved her – to have offered her the best thing a man can offer a woman, the consecration of his life to her! What if I had gone through these years and not have seen such an ideal? How poor would be my heart! Now I can say with Shelley, “Love’s very pain is sweet.”
Of course I can but think of what I have missed. To have seen her in a pleasant home and to come to her after the day’s work was done would have been bliss indeed. To have seen the sun set and the moon rise; to have walked over the hills and meadows together; to have read by our open fire; to have laughed and wept and prayed and grown gray-haired together – all this would have made life complete. Even silence together would have made earth seem heaven.
Life is indeed a mystery. It brings us development, if not happiness. For a time after I left home I seemed unable to put myself to any labor, but I have come to be grateful that for me there is so beautiful an ideal – one that sheds a halo about even the saddest day. But there come times of anguish, when I long to hold Edith’s hand in mine; to press her to my heart with all the rapture of a perfect love. Then I go out under the blue sky and walk, if I can, always towards the sunset, getting out of the rich color all the balm possible for an unsatisfied soul.
I sometimes wonder if she realizes how I worship her – if she knows all the bliss of loving, and the eternal sorrow of losing. Ah! I know it all.
Dear Ernest: How the years have come and gone since I wrote you from Switzerland! I have just seen Edith home from a voyage to Japan. And she has brought her little girl of three, with her own blue eyes and the same reserved, quiet ways. The child came across the hill with her nurse to our grove, and I made friends with her and held her on my knee and kissed her. She could not know how very dear she is to me, and why. She could not guess that the golden hair which I fondled took me back to other days, and quickened the flow of blood in my veins. Her smooth, fair skin is like her mother’s. I could not help wishing that she might stay with me forever, and look out upon the lake and the sunsets.
It will be a dreadful wrench to my heart when they go back. Japan is so far away. Edith looks paler than formerly, and smiles less frequently. I have heard it hinted that she is not happy. Can it be possible that her husband does not appreciate the treasure which he has won?
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