What had he done, drawn on by that which he had read in her eyes in that
poignant moment! In jail, locked behind a grated door of steel, he had
taken her hand and drawn her to him until the shock of the bars had
called back his manhood. He had taken advantage of her friendship and
sympathy.
Prison was no place for love; a man locked in jail charged with a
crime had no right to think of it. It was base of him, and unworthy.
Still--mounting again in a swift, delicious flight--it was sweet to
know what her eyes had told him, sweeter to rest assured that she had
not left him in scorn. Down again, a falling clod. Unless he had
misinterpreted them in the ignorance of his untutored heart. Yet, that
is a language that needs no lexicon, he knew.
Who is so simple, indeed, as to be unaware of that? How different this
passion from that which Ollie's uncovered bosom had stirred; how he
burned with shame at the memory of that day!
Up and down he strode the morning through, his long, thin legs now spare
in his boot-tops, his wide, bony shoulders sharp through his coat. The
strong light fell on his gaunt face as he turned toward the window;
shadows magnified its hollows when he turned toward the door. Now that
the panic of it had left him, the sweetness of it remained.
How soft her hand was, how her yielding body swayed in his arm! How
delicious her breath was on his face; how near her eyes, speaking to
him, and her lips; how near her parted, warm, red lips!
He took up the Book, and turned with trembling hands to a place that he
remembered well. There was something that he had read, not feeling, not
understanding, words of which came back to him now. The Songs of Songs,
Which is Solomon's.
Ah, the Song of Songs! The music of it now was written in his heart. It
was not the song in glorification and exaltation of the church that the
translators had captioned it; not a song full of earthly symbols meant
to represent spiritual passions. Joe had read it, time and again, in
that application, and it had fallen flavorless upon his understanding.
No; it was the song of a strong man to the woman whom he loved.
And the music of it, old but ever new in its human appeal, now was
written in his heart.
Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely. Thou
art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.... Until the day break,
and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved....
Ah, until the day break!
In his rapt exaltation the boy's face beamed as he strode swiftly the
length of his cell. It would not be long until daybreak now. The judge
would understand him, and would not press a man to tell what he had
delicate reasons for concealing, when the concealment could bring harm
to nobody, but boundless good to one weak creature who must wither
otherwise in the blaze of shame.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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