II.
EUTERPE’S STORY: THE GIRL AND THE MINSTREL.
THERE was silence for a few moments. Erato, stretched lazily on the floor, looking up at the dim-lit roof of the cloud-chamber, let her pretty lips curve half-way to a smile, when she checked herself suddenly; she never could keep her thoughts still for a moment,—they flew from poor Clio’s story to a story of her own. She was thinking now of a hot summer night in Sicily, and of one who walked across the low hills, with flocks pattering softly after him, and seen but indistinctly in those fragrant moments when the evening touches the darkness. She thought of him. As he went, he piped a melody—a simple strain enough, but with one of those quaint refrains that nestle down in the memory of a man. Ah—and afterwards!
“Clio,” she said, drawing a long breath, “I have a story, sweet and fit for a summer night, a story of the joyousness, and rapture, and sorrow of Love. Will you hear it?”
“Ah, yes, Clio!” said Terpsichore. “Erato once told me a story, and it was so lovely and dreamy. It had the temper of soft valse music. One’s heart throbbed to it: one lived to it, as it were. Let us hear Erato’s story.”
“Not just yet, I think,” answered Clio. “We must not forget that Granta lies beneath us. Far down below our feet, one sits—a young man with red hair—amid many dictionaries. He is turning into Latin elegiacs those beautiful lines—I quote from memory—
Already he has seven feet in his hexameter, and knows it not, because the gods do not like him. If we let thoughts of love stray forth from our cloud-chamber, and flutter down into that young man’s red head, I fear that he would never get the pentameter at all. No, Erato, to these young men love is a disturbing influence; they avoid the maidens, and care only for a surer knowledge of Greek accentuation. When they have all gone to bed, you shall tell your story; great personages in history have fallen in love; I myself have no prejudice against it. But you may choose which of us shall tell the next story.”
Erato sighed, and glanced round the room. When her eyes fell on Euterpe her face brightened. And truly Euterpe was good to see: she had a wonderful grace of body, and fresh gladness in her eyes; yet there was a depth in the look of her; it was the look of one not easily understood, of one who could feel a sorrow.
“I choose Euterpe, because she is so beautiful.”
A little flush came into Euterpe’s cheeks; her lips parted, showing her small white teeth. She was ever shy and quiet.
“I would sooner sing to you,” she said. “I am more used to singing.”
“No, dear, it must be a story,” said Clio firmly.
“And perhaps a song will come into it,” added Erato sweetly.
Then Euterpe told this story. And all the time that she was telling it Erato sat gazing upward into Euterpe’s eyes.
The child came through the forest. The big trees grew close together, and creeping plants hung like heavy serpents from their boughs. The sun found its way through, here and there, among the broad, smooth leaves, and made splashes of light on the red gold of the child’s hair. One bird called to another; every now and then there was a flutter among the leaves, or the quick rustle of some small live thing in the tall grasses and brushwood below, and a scented wind kept singing of a land of rest where the good winds go when they die. From far away one could hear the low roar of a lion, as he stood by the margin of the distant morass, looking over stretches of sand and spaces of still water to the line of grey hills that seemed to be the end of the world.
The child was very fair. Her hair was glorious; her eyes were blue; her young limbs were white, and strong, and graceful. Yet one might see a fierce look in the blue eyes, and splashes of crimson here and there on the white limbs, and her breath came quickly; for it was in her nature to torture and to kill, and she knew no better thing. In one hand she dragged along the body of a young wild cat, scarcely more than a kitten. She lived ever in the open air, and she was fleet and fearless. All the morning she had chased it, until it was weary; yet, although it was young, it had fought long and fiercely. On the hand that dragged it along were the marks of its claws and teeth; thick drops of blood fell slowly on to its body, and its fur was wet and stained. The child wore a living, tortured, fluttering necklace. She had caught the butterflies one by one, choosing those which were brightest in colour, and had threaded a spiked tendril through the soft bodies to make herself the necklace. She liked the tickling fuss and flutter that the butterflies made against her smooth skin, as they hung there and died slowly.
A great purple flower, that grew low down on the ground, lifted its brightness towards her as she passed: “And, oh!” sighed the flower, “she is fair, and sweet would it be if she would take me and wear me gently at her breast.” The child did not know the voice of flowers; but she stooped down and tore off the purple petals one by one. From the cup of the flower rolled a big golden bee: he had been sleeping there. For one second he buzzed on the ground, trying to remember where he was and to understand what had happened. In that second the child had swiftly seized a stone, and so she crushed most of the bee, leaving it enough life to let it feel the agony of death. She flung down the body of the wild cat, and ran on for a few steps, with a laugh on her red mouth. Then she stopped again where a nest was built in a bush with very dark leaves and little white globes of flowers. In the nest were three young birds: two of these she cast to the ground and killed at once: she held the third in her small hot hands for a second, and a kind of frenzy came on her, and she made her firm teeth meet in its neck. For a little while she stood shuddering, and then she passed onwards, but more slowly. Slowly she came through the forest in her fairness and cruelty, caring nothing for her own beauty, and knowing nothing better than her cruelty.
And it chanced that she came to the place where the minstrel sat in pleasant shade on a mossy curve of a tree’s root. In his hands was his lyre, and music came from it like falling water. The child crept into the brushwood, and hid herself, and listened. And the minstrel sang:
The voice ceased; but the music of the lyre still flowed on, and the minstrel looked upwards towards the sky. No word of cruelty had been in the song; but through the music her first knowledge of gentleness came to the child, and she saw that she had been cruel. She crouched there amid the tall rank grasses; her face had grown whiter and whiter; her eyes were strained and piteous, but there was no tear in them. With trembling fingers she unfastened the living fluttering necklace, and gently killed all the butterflies to spare them torture. Then she flung herself prone on the ground, with her forehead on her linked hands; her red lips quivered a little, but the relief of tears came not. “Ah!” she moaned, “why was I so cruel? Why did I never know?” The wind played with her hair, moving it caressingly.
As the child lay there, and the minstrel played on and on, the sky above grew darker. There was no need now for pleasant shade. Over the line of grey hills that seemed to be the end of the world rested the storm-clouds, black and purple. Suddenly the air became quite still, as if it were waiting for something. Was it the roar of the lion or the voice of the storm that sounded dimly afar off?
Once more the minstrel raised his voice to song, and anger was in his eyes:
The child had raised herself to watch the minstrel. As he sang the last words the skies seemed to snap overhead; a quick flash shot downwards, like the thrust of ghostly steel. For a moment the child’s eyes were dazzled; then the loud roar of thunder seemed to fill the forest and the sky. When she looked again she saw that the minstrel had fallen forward on his face; by his side was his lyre, with the strings broken and smouldering; from his body, charred by the lightning, delicate strays of smoke curled up. The child came, and knelt by the side of the dead minstrel. She raised his head, and looked piteously upon it, for the beauty had all gone out of it now; then she pressed her little red lips to the blackened lips of the dead man, and went on her way. It was the first kiss she had ever given.
And still she did not weep; but the blood in her veins seemed to be as fire, and strange voices were sounding in her head. When the evening fell she stood by the edge of the swamp. Out of a dim cavern crept an old lion, and looked at her with green, hungry eyes. His lips curled a little backward. The child called to him: “Come, then! I have been seeking for you! Torture me, and then let me die!”
The lion turned swiftly round, and fled with a howl back into the cavern.
The child wandered on. She ate the black poison berries, but they would not hurt her. At last, when the moon was up, she saw a dark, deep pool, and flung herself into it; but the pool cast her back again on to the shore. She was fain to die, and to atone; but the gods knew their business better than to allow it.
And still she walks through the forest, seeking rest and finding it not, and she speaks to none. Only sometimes at night, when the golden moon comes up behind the low grey hills, she sings in a sweet child’s voice a few lines of a remembered song:
And the gods are immensely amused.
“Thanks,” said Thalia, “though I don’t care much for those fanciful high-toned stories.”
But Erato rose, and seated herself on the divan by Euterpe’s side, and wound one arm round her waist, and kissed her on the lips. I thought they looked rather pretty and poetical; but I don’t go in much for that kind of thing myself.