'I love you.'
'And are you content?'
'Yes; we float, we whirl together in the fresh air.'
'Alice!' I said all at once, 'you are perhaps a sinful, condemned soul?'
My companion's head bent towards me. 'I don't understand you,' she murmured.
'I adjure you in God's name….' I was beginning.
'What are you saying?' she put in in perplexity. 'I don't understand.'
I fancied that the arm that lay like a chilly girdle about my waist softly trembled….
'Don't be afraid,' said Alice, 'don't be afraid, my dear one!' Her face turned and moved towards my face…. I felt on my lips a strange sensation, like the faintest prick of a soft and delicate sting…. Leeches might prick so in mild and drowsy mood.
VIII
I glanced downwards. We had now risen again to a considerable height. We were flying over some provincial town I did not know, situated on the side of a wide slope. Churches rose up high among the dark mass of wooden roofs and orchards; a long bridge stood out black at the bend of a river; everything was hushed, buried in slumber. The very crosses and cupolas seemed to gleam with a silent brilliance; silently stood the tall posts of the wells beside the round tops of the willows; silently the straight whitish road darted arrow-like into one end of the town, and silently it ran out again at the opposite end on to the dark waste of monotonous fields.
'What town is this?' I asked.
'X….'
'X … in Y … province?'
'Yes.'
'I'm a long distance indeed from home!'
'Distance is not for us.'
'Really?' I was fired by a sudden recklessness. 'Then take me to South
America!
'To America I cannot. It's daylight there by now.' 'And we are night-birds.
Well, anywhere, where you can, only far, far away.'
'Shut your eyes and hold your breath,' answered Alice, and we flew along with the speed of a whirlwind. With a deafening noise the air rushed into my ears. We stopped, but the noise did not cease. On the contrary, it changed into a sort of menacing roar, the roll of thunder…
'Now you can open your eyes,' said Alice.
IX
I obeyed … Good God, where was I?
Overhead, ponderous, smoke-like storm-clouds; they huddled, they moved on like a herd of furious monsters … and there below, another monster; a raging, yes, raging, sea … The white foam gleamed with spasmodic fury, and surged up in hillocks upon it, and hurling up shaggy billows, it beat with a sullen roar against a huge cliff, black as pitch. The howling of the tempest, the chilling gasp of the storm-rocked abyss, the weighty splash of the breakers, in which from time to time one fancied something like a wail, like distant cannon-shots, like a bell ringing—the tearing crunch and grind of the shingle on the beach, the sudden shriek of an unseen gull, on the murky horizon the disabled hulk of a ship—on every side death, death and horror…. Giddiness overcame me, and I shut my eyes again with a sinking heart….
'What is this? Where are we?'
'On the south coast of the Isle of Wight opposite the Blackgang cliff where ships are so often wrecked,' said Alice, speaking this time with peculiar distinctness, and as it seemed to me with a certain malignant pleasure….
'Take me away, away from here … home! home!' I shrank up, hid my face in my hands … I felt that we were moving faster than before; the wind now was not roaring or moaning, it whistled in my hair, in my clothes … I caught my breath …
'Stand on your feet now,' I heard Alice's voice saying. I tried to master myself, to regain consciousness … I felt the earth under the soles of my feet, and I heard nothing, as though everything had swooned away about me … only in my temples the blood throbbed irregularly, and my head was still giddy with a faint ringing in my ears. I drew myself up and opened my eyes.
X
We were on the bank of my pond. Straight before me there were glimpses through the pointed leaves of the willows of its broad surface with threads of fluffy mist clinging here and there upon it. To the right a field of rye shone dimly; on the left stood up my orchard trees, tall, rigid, drenched it seemed in dew … The breath of the morning was already upon them. Across the pure grey sky stretched like streaks of smoke, two or three slanting clouds; they had a yellowish tinge, the first faint glow of dawn fell on them; one could not say whence it came; the eye could not detect on the horizon, which was gradually growing lighter, the spot where the sun was to rise. The stars had disappeared; nothing was astir yet, though everything was already on the point of awakening in the enchanted stillness of the morning twilight.
'Morning! see, it is morning!' cried Alice in my ear. 'Farewell till to-morrow.'
I turned round … Lightly rising from the earth, she floated by, and suddenly she raised both hands above her head. The head and hands and shoulders glowed for an instant with warm, corporeal light; living sparks gleamed in the dark eyes; a smile of mysterious tenderness stirred the reddening lips…. A lovely woman had suddenly arisen before me…. But as though dropping into a swoon, she fell back instantly and melted away like vapour.
I remained passive.
When I recovered myself and looked round me, it seemed to me that the corporeal, pale-rosy colour that had flitted over the figure of my phantom had not yet vanished, and was enfolding me, diffused in the air…. It was the flush of dawn. All at once I was conscious of extreme fatigue and turned homewards. As I passed the poultry-yard, I heard the first morning cackling of the geese (no birds wake earlier than they do); along the roof at the end of each beam sat a rook, and they were all busily and silently pluming themselves, standing out in sharp outline against the milky sky. From time to time they all rose at once, and after a short flight, settled again in a row, without uttering a caw…. From the wood close by came twice repeated the drowsy, fresh chuck-chuck of the black-cock, beginning to fly into the dewy grass, overgrown by brambles…. With a faint tremor all over me I made my way to my bed, and soon fell into a sound sleep.
XI
The next night, as I was approaching the old oak, Alice moved to meet me, as if I were an old friend. I was not afraid of her as I had been the day before, I was almost rejoiced at seeing her; I did not even attempt to comprehend what was happening to me; I was simply longing to fly farther to interesting places.
Alice's arm again twined about me, and we took flight again.
'Let us go to Italy,' I whispered in her ear.
'Wherever you wish, my dear one,' she answered solemnly and slowly, and slowly and solemnly she turned her face towards me. It struck me as less transparent than on the eve; more womanlike and more imposing; it recalled to me the being I had had a glimpse of in the early dawn at parting.
'This night is a great night,' Alice went on. 'It comes rarely—when seven times thirteen …'
At this point I could not catch a few words.
'To-night we can see what is hidden at other times.'
'Alice!' I implored, 'but who are you, tell me at last?'
