The Purple Cloud Part 21

'Pre-vail,' said I.

'Pe-vvvail,' said she.

'White Power shall not prevail,' said I.

'Hwhite Pow-wer sall not--fffail,' said she.

A thunder which roared as she said it seemed to me to go laughing through the universe, and a minute I looked upon her face with positive shrinking fear; till, starting up, I thrust her with violence from my path, and dashed forth to re-seek the palace and my bed.

Such was the ingrat.i.tude and fatality which my first attempt, four nights since, to teach her met with. It remains to be seen whether my pity for her dumbness, or some servile tendency toward fellowship in myself, will result in any further lesson. Certainly, I think not: for though I have given my word, the most solemnly-pledged word may be broken.

Surely, surely, her presence in the world with me--for I suppose it is that--has wrought some profound changes in my mood: for gone now apparently are those turbulent hours when, stalking like a peac.o.c.k, I flaunted my monarchy in the face of the Eternal Powers, with hissed blasphemies; or else dribbled, shaking my body in a lewd dance; or was off to fire some vast city and revel in redness and the chucklings of h.e.l.l; or rolled in the drunkenness of drugs. It was mere frenzy!--I see it now--it was 'not good,' 'not good.' And it rather looks as if it were past--or almost. I have clipped my beard and hair, removed the earrings, and thought of modifying my attire. I will just watch to see whether she comes loitering down there about the gate of the lake.

Her progress is like....

It is nine months since I have written, on these sheets, those words, 'Her progress is like....' being the beginning of some narrative in which something interrupted me: and since then I have had no impulse to write.

But I was thinking just now of the curious tricks and uncertainties of my memory, and seeing the sheets, will record it here. I have lately been trying to recall the name of a sister of mine--some perfectly simple name, I know--and the name of my old home in England: and they have completely pa.s.sed out of my cognizance, though she was my only sister, and we grew up closely together: some quite simple name, I forget it now. Yet I can't say that my memory is bad: there are things--quite unexpected, unimportant things--which come up in my mind with considerable clearness. For instance, I remember to have met in Paris (I think), long before the poison-cloud, a little Brazilian boy of the colour of weak coffee-and-milk, of whom she now constantly reminds me. He wore his hair short like a convict's, so that one could spy the fish-white flesh beneath, and delighted to play solitary about the stairs of the hotel, dressed up in the white balloon-dress of a Pierrot.

I have the impression now that he must have had very large ears. Clever as a flea he was, knowing five or six languages, as it were by nature, without having any suspicion that that was at all extraordinary. She has that same light, unconscious, and nonchalant cleverness, and easy way of life. It is little more than a year since I began to teach her, and already she can speak English with a quite considerable vocabulary, and perfect correctness (except that she does not p.r.o.nounce the letter 'r'); she has also read, or rather devoured, a good many books; and can write, draw, and play the harp. And all she does without effort: rather with the flighty naturalness with which a bird takes to the wing.

What made me teach her to read was this: One afternoon, fourteen months or so ago, I from the roof-kiosk saw her down at the lake-rim, a book in hand; and as she had seen me looking steadily at books, so she was looking steadily at it, with pathetic sideward head: so that I burst into laughter, for I saw her clearly through the gla.s.s, and whether she is the simplest little fool, or the craftiest serpent that ever breathed, I am not yet sure. If I thought that she has the least design upon my honour, it would be ill for her.

I went to Gallipoli for two days in the month of May, and brought back a very pretty little caique, a perfect slender crescent of the colour of the moon, though I had two days' labour in cutting through bush-thicket for the pa.s.sage of the motor in bringing it up to the lake. It has pleased me to see her lie among the silk cushions of the middle, while I, paddling, taught her her first words and sentences between the hours of eight and ten in the evening, though later they became 10 A.M. to noon, when the reading began, we sitting on the palace-steps before the portal, her mouth invariably well covered with the yashmak, the lesson-book being a large-lettered old Bible found at her yali. _Why_ she must needs wear the yashmak she has never once asked; and how much she divines, knows, or intends, I have no idea, continually questioning myself as to whether she is all simplicity, or all cunning.

That she is conscious of some profound difference in our organisation I cannot doubt: for that I have a long beard, and she none at all, is among the most patent of facts.

I have thought that a certain _Western-ness_--a growing modernity of tone--may be the result, as far as I am concerned, of her presence with me? I do not know....

There is the gleam of a lake-end just visible in the north forest from the palace-top, and in it a good number of fish like carp, tench, roach, etc., so in May I searched for a tackle-shop in the Gallipoli Fatmeh-bazaar, and got four 12-foot rods, with reels, silk-line, quill-floats, a few yards of silk-worm gut, with a packet of No. 7 and 8 hooks, and split-shot for sinkers; and since red-worms, maggots and gentles are common on the island, I felt sure of a great many more fish than the number I wanted, which was none at all. However, for the mere amus.e.m.e.nt, I fished several times, lying at my length in a patch of long-gra.s.s over-waved by an enormous cedar, where the bank is steep, and the water deep. And one mid-afternoon she was suddenly there with me, questioned me with her eyes, and when I consented, stayed: and presently I said I would teach her bottom-angling, and sent her flying up to the palace for another rod and tackle.

That day she did nothing, for after teaching her to thread the worm, and put the gentles on the smaller hooks, I sent her to hunt for worms to chop up for ground-baiting the pitch for the next afternoon; and when this was done it was dinner-time, and I sent her home, for by then I was giving the reading-lessons in the morning.

The next day I found her at the bank, taught her to take the sounding for adjusting the float, and she lay down not far from me, holding the rod. So I said to her:

'Well, this is better than living in a dark cellar twenty years, with nothing to do but walk up and down, sleep, and consume dates and Ismidt wine.'

'Yes!' says she.

'Twenty years!' said I: 'How did you bear it?'

'I was not closs,' says she.

'Did you never suspect that there was a world outside that cellar?' said I.

'Never,' says she, 'or lather, yes: but I did not suppose that it was _this_ world, but another where he lived.'

'He who?'

'He who spoke with me.'

'Who was that?'

'Oh! a bite!' she screamed gladly.

I saw her float bob under, and started up, rushed to her, and taught her how to strike and play it, though it turned out when landed to be nothing but a tiny barbel: but she was in ecstasies, holding it on her palm, murmuring her fond coo.

She re-baited, and we lay again. I said:

'But what a life: no exit, no light, no prospect, no hope--'

'Plenty of _hope_!' says she.

'Good Heavens! hope of what?'

'I knew vely well that something was lipening over the cellar, or under, or alound it, and would come to pa.s.s at a certain fixed hour, and that I should see it, and feel it, and it would be vely nice.'

'Ah, well, you had to wait for it, at any rate. Didn't those twenty years seem _long_?'

'No--at least sometimes--not often. I was always so occupied.'

'Occupied in doing what?'

'In eating, or dlinking, or lunning, or talking.'

'Talking to your_self_?'

'Not myself.'

'To whom, then?'

'To the one who told me when I was hungly, and put the dates to satisfy my hunger.'

'I see. Don't wriggle about in that way, or you will never catch any fish. The maxim of angling is: "Study to be quiet"--'

'O! another bite!' she called, and this time, all alone, very agilely landed a good-sized bream.

'But do you mean that you were never sad?' said I when she was re-settled.

'Sometimes I would sit and cly,' says she--'I did not know why. But if that was "sadness," I was never miserlable, never, never. And if I clied, it did not last long, and I would soon fall to sleep, for he would lock me in his lap, and kiss me, and wipe all my tears away.'

'He who?'