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Dreamer of Dreams

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<h2>XXII</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> He seeks to know The joy that is more great than joy The beauty of the old green earth can give. </div> <div class="stanza"> Fiona Macleod. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> Zorka kept her promise; and one day, who knows whence, Eric found all he needed for beginning the picture the old woman had commanded him to paint. The tents had been pitched quite near to a forest all shining and shimmering in every shade of gold; gold under foot, gold overhead, gold falling softly from every bough. The sun threw his glinting rays upon all the beauty that was a last glorious farewell Nature was taking from the departing year. The smoke of the camps and the mist of the autumn mornings mingled like spirit souls, and waved in moving vapours, veils that some fairy might have hung over the branches to fill her dwelling with mystic shadows and shades. From within the shelter of the wood, the great naked plain could be seen as far as the eye could reach, but the waving ocean of corn was a past dream of the summer months. Now the fields and pastures looked desolate and barren, dark and cold, even beneath the face of the kindly life-giving planet that shone down upon it with a friendly face. The rusty tents resembled dwarf pyramids standing upon some desert seen from afar off. But the forest was a palace fit for a king, fashioned out of lustrous rays all woven together into a web of sunny yellows, and there sat Eric for many an hour trying to make his picture live. Stella never refused to let him take her hand, and followed him meekly whither he led. He seated her upon a bank of grass, having first covered it over and over with leaves of fiery red. For her lovely feet he made a nest of warm green moss, and at her side he laid a sycamore leaf full of jet-black bramble-berries as polished as agate balls. Out of their flexible branches he wound a wreath about her head; their fading leaves made a many-tinted crown, more beautiful than a queen could wear, all amber, topaz, and burnished gold, deep and rich in hue, splashed in places as with stains of blood. In and out among the rusty leaves he had plaited dark purple aster stars that nestled among her waving hair. Whilst his nervous fingers were by slow degrees laying hold of his forsaken art, Stella played him ancient tunes of such melting sweetness that often his hot tears flowed down and mixed in crystal rivulets with the colours on his palette. As she played, all the visions of the days of his wanderings rose up out of the distance and floated like shadows before his brain. He saw little Oona playing with her balls on the smooth marble terrace, saw the sleepy little town with the scarlet bunches of geraniums, heard the bird-like voice of the unknown girl singing her song of innocence. He walked again under the face of the moon into the ice maiden's snowy castle, and there he stood with her amongst the beating, broken hearts that lay awaiting the great trumpet call. He stood on the wave-tossed boards of the frail little vessel, mingling his voice with the cries of the sea. Then, wandering through the enchanted grottos, he came to the place where he shudderingly knelt by the murdered form of the far too entrancing woman. In the ruined cathedral the Virgin's eyes once again blessed his folded hands with her flowing tears. Above all, the venerated face of his dearly loved master rose startlingly vivid, waving to him with trembling hands, and his little travelling companion came running towards him, her dear arms outstretched in joyous greeting. The silent army of phantoms passed and faded into space, so that amongst the falling leaves of autumn he imagined he could clearly see the many-coloured bubbles rise like tropical butterflies floating always farther away. Last of all came Radu the shepherd, with eyes resembling two burning coals, his white teeth shining from between his smiling lips. And there was not one of these trembling apparitions that did not look down upon him with loving glances;—only this fair being playing at his side would not turn her look his way. Oh, those eyes that his fairy fingers at last were fixing on his canvas: deep, grey, wide open, surrounded by long black lashes that were like dark rays radiating from the unfathomed pupils, starry eyes overflowing with celestial dreams, eyes that never, ah, never would come down to look into his! He clenched his teeth, and, casting away his brushes, he threw himself down at her feet, laying his face close against them as they rested, pale twin sisters, amongst the mosses he had gathered. But Stella was as ever in a world of her own; and whilst the young painter was trembling with uncontrollable longing, his lips pressed upon the ground as close to her as he dared, she serenely played on her violin, making it cry out all the infinite yearning to which her ethereal nature had never yet awakened. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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