"Look!" she whispered. She remained as if in terror, pointing.
Three figures were converging toward them--black figures out of the
distant snow. Figures of men, without faces, like three bundles of
clothes, they came toiling across the unbroken white of the park, an air
of intense destinations about them. Above the desolate field of white
the three figures seemed suddenly to loom into heroic sizes. They reared
to a height and zigzagged across a nowhere.
"See, see!" Rachel cried. She was still pointing. Her voice rang
brokenly. "They're coming for me, Erik. Erik, don't you see? People
wandering toward me. Horrible strangers. Oh, I know, I know!" She
laughed. "My grandmother was a gypsy and she's telling my fortune in the
snow. Things that will jump out of space and come at me, after you're
gone."
The three men, puffing with exertion, converged upon the walk and passed
on with a morose stare at the lovers. Dorn sighed, relieved. He had
caught a strange foreboding sense out of the tableau of the white field
and the three converging black figures.... If he loved her why was he
letting her go? If he loved her....
He walked on suddenly wearied, saddened, uncertain. It was no more than
a dream that had touched his senses, a breath of a dream that lingered
for a moment upon his mirror. It would pass, as all things pass. And he
would fall back into the pattern of streets and faces, watching as
before the emptiness of life make geometrical figures of itself. Yes, it
was better to have her go--simpler. Perhaps a desire would remain, a
breath, a moonlit memory of her loveliness to mumble over now and then,
like a line of poetry always unwritten. Let her go. Beautiful ...
wonderful.... These were words. Was he even sad? She was--what? Another
woman.
In the shadow of a snow-covered wall he paused. The snow had ended.
"Come closer," he whispered. She remained silent as he removed her
overcoat. He dropped it in the snow and threw his own beside it.
"We'll be warm for a minute against each other."
She was a flower in his arms. She seemed to vanish and become mist.
Slowly he became aware of her touch, of her arms holding him and her
lips. She was saying:
"I am yours--always--everywhere. I will be a shrine to you. And whenever
you want me I will come crawling on my knees to you."
Dying, dying! She was dying. Another moment and the mist of her would be
gone. "Rachel.... Rachel. I love you. I send you away. Oh, God, why do I
send you away?"
She was out of his arms. Undressed, naked, emptied, he stood unknown to
himself. No words. Her kiss alone lived on his lips. She was looking at
him with burning wild eyes. Expression seemed to have left her. There
was something else in her face.
"I must look at you. To remember, to remember!" she gasped. "Oh, to
remember you! I have never looked at you. I have never seen you. It's a
dream. Who is Erik Dorn? Who am I? Oh, let me look at you...."
The eyes of Rachel grew marvelously bright. Burned ... burned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account