The tempter was departing gloomily, when he saw tears start from the bright eyes of Immalee, and caught a wild and dark omen from her innocent grief. “And you weep, Immalee?”
“Yes,” said the beautiful being, “I always weep when I see the sun set in clouds; and will you, the sun of my heart, set in darkness too? and will you not rise again? will you not?” and, with the graceful confidence of pure innocence, she pressed her red delicious lip to his hand as she spoke. “Will you not? I shall never love my roses and peacocks if you do not return, for they cannot speak to me as you do, nor can I give them one thought, but you can give me many. Oh, I would like to have many thoughts about ‘the world that suffers,’ from which you came; and I believe you came from it, for, till I saw you, I never felt a pain that was not pleasure; but now, it is all pain when I think you will not return.”
“I will return,” said the stranger, “beautiful Immalee, and will show you, at my return, a glimpse of that world from which I come, and in which you will soon be an inmate.”
“But shall I see you there,” said Immalee, “otherwise how shall I ‘talk thoughts’?”
“Oh yes—oh certainly.”
“But why do you repeat the same words twice; your once would have been enough.”
“Well then, yes.”
“Then take this rose from me, and let us inhale its odour together, as I say to my friend in the fountain, when I bend to kiss it; but my friend withdraws its rose before I have tasted it, and I leave mine on the water. Will you not take my rose,” said the beautiful suppliant, bending towards him.
“I will,” said the stranger; and he took a flower from the cluster Immalee held out to him. It was a withered one. He snatched it, and hid it in his breast.
“And will you go without a canoe across that dark sea?” said Immalee.
“We shall meet again, and meet in the world of suffering,” said the stranger.
“Thank you—oh, thank you,” repeated Immalee, as she saw him plunge fearless amid the surf.
The stranger answered only, “We shall meet again.” Twice, as he parted, he threw a glance at the beautiful and isolated being; a lingering of humanity trembled round his heart—but he tore the withered rose from his bosom, and to the waved arm and angel-smile of Immalee, he answered, “We shall meet again.”
XVI
Più non ho la dolce speranza.
Didone
Seven mornings and evenings Immalee paced the sands of her lonely isle, without seeing the stranger. She had still his promise to console her, that they should meet in the world of suffering; and this she repeated to herself as if it was full of hope and consolation. In this interval she tried to educate herself for her introduction into this world, and it was beautiful to see her attempting, from vegetable and animal analogies, to form some image of the incomprehensible destiny of man. In the shade she watched the withering flower.—“The blood that ran red through its veins yesterday is purple today, and will be black and dry tomorrow,” she said; “but it feels no pain—it dies patiently—and the ranunculus and tulip near it are untouched by grief for their companion, or their colours would not be so resplendent. But can it be thus in the world that thinks? Could I see him wither and die, without withering and dying along with him. Oh no! when that flower fades, I will be the dew that falls over him!”
She attempted to enlarge her comprehension, by observing the animal world. A young loxia had fallen dead from its pendent nest; and Immalee, looking into the aperture which that intelligent bird forms at the lower extremity of the nest to secure it from birds of prey, perceived the old ones with fireflies in their small beaks, their young one lying dead before them. At this sight Immalee burst into tears.—“Ah! you cannot weep,” she said, “what an advantage I have over you! You eat, though your young one, your own one, is dead; but could I ever drink of the milk of the cocoa, if he could no longer taste it? I begin to comprehend what he said—to think, then, is to suffer—and a world of thought must be a world of pain! But how delicious are these tears! Formerly I wept for pleasure—but there is a pain sweeter than pleasure, that I never felt till I beheld him. Oh! who would not think, to have the joy of tears?”
But Immalee did not occupy this interval solely in reflection; a new anxiety began to agitate her; and in the intervals of her meditation and her tears, she searched with avidity for the most glowing and fantastically wreathed shells to deck her arms and hair with. She changed her drapery of flowers every day, and never thought them fresh after the first hour; then she filled her largest shells with the most limpid water, and her hollow coconuts with the most delicious figs, interspersed with roses, and arranged them picturesquely on the stone bench of the ruined pagoda. The time, however, passed over without the arrival of the stranger, and Immalee, on visiting her fairy banquet the next day, wept over the withered fruit, but dried her eyes, and hastened to replace them.
She was thus employed on the eighth morning, when she saw the stranger approach; and the wild and innocent delight with which she bounded towards him, excited in him for a moment a feeling of gloomy and reluctant compunction, which Immalee’s quick susceptibility traced in his pausing step and averted eye. She stood trembling in lovely
