OR THE DEAD ? 
 
 By AMEXIB RIVES. 
 
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 The wonderful book of this young authoress has perhaps made a deeper 
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 "Amelie Kives has talent of high order, and she seems to know what 
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 gencer. 
 
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THE 
 
 WITNESS OF THE SUN 
 
 BY 
 
 AMELIE KIVES, 
 
 AUTHOR OP "THE QUICK OR THE BEAD?" ETC. 
 
 L, . c. 
 
 On the earth the broken arcs; in heaven the perfect round." 
 
 EGBERT BROWNING. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
 1889. 
 
Copyright, 1889, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 
 
 ^ $_All rights reserved*! 
 
TO 
 
 MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER, 
 
 A THANK-OFFERING. 
 
 RI11972 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 I. 
 
 WHAT was one to do with a young girl who 
 sketched ideal heads on her slate underneath half- 
 finished sums in decimal fractions, who altered the 
 profiles of the Roman emperors in her Italian his 
 tory, and who frankly declared that the unexplained 
 draperies above the figures in the Sistine Madonna 
 reminded her disagreeably of the parted curtains in a 
 coup&-lit ? Miss Matilda Herbert acknowledged her 
 self at a loss. She even suggested, on occasions, the 
 advisability of resigning her position as governess in 
 the Demarini household. To this, however, the 
 countess would never so much as give ear. Her 
 good Herbert was as much a part of her daily life 
 as her warm bath or her mandarin orange before 
 breakfast. She had superintended the education of 
 Ilva for ten years, why not for half as many more ? 
 Besides, one could easily prevent any tampering with 
 the imperial outlines by purchasing an unillustrated 
 history ; and as for the presumptuous criticisms of 
 Raphael, her good Herbert had only to close her ears 
 and affect deafness. 
 
 7 
 
OF THE SUN. 
 
 When Ilva began the JEneid, however, it was even 
 more painful. She openly ridiculed the famous hero, 
 and not only laughed but drew him to scorn on that 
 ever-to-be-dreaded slate, yes, pictured him in ghastly 
 white outlines, with tears twice the size of his noble 
 head coursing down entirely to the wooden frame of 
 her slate. 
 
 "He is always crying," she said. " Dio mio ! 
 fancy trying to make a hero of a man who is always 
 as damp as they say the climate of England is ! He 
 cries for everything, absolutely. The fires of love ? 
 Pouf ! He could have put them out with a bucket 
 of tears in less than twenty minutes. He a hero ! 
 He was an ass. See, here are his ears. Look, 
 signorina, I make his ears !" And at this juncture 
 she would hold up the slate with another libellous 
 representation of the celebrated Greek. 
 
 Ilva was at ten a very tall child, with a figure 
 which, though delicate, was supple and strong as 
 steel. Her hair, of a pale silverish gold, suggestive 
 of moonlight through amber, grew in five well-de 
 fined points above her noble, low brow. Her skin 
 had the clear whiteness of almonds which have been 
 soaked in water. Her eyes, large and lustrous, were 
 the tint of a spring rain-cloud, that indescribable 
 bluish gray-violet which seems to make blue cold by 
 contrast, gray harsh, and violet sentimental. 
 
 Her nose and mouth, while handsome, were too 
 large for her face, at present. In a word, with some 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 9 
 
 very lovely points she was plain, and with decided 
 grace of movement she was, on occasion, awkward. 
 Being entirely aware of these disheartening facts, she 
 felt them the more keenly, perhaps, as her little friend 
 Nathali Zanova was a dainty piece of plump perfec 
 tion, whose nurse was stopped many times a day with 
 admiring exclamations and inquiries: "Oh, what a 
 beautiful little angel ! What hair ! What eyes ! 
 like a fawn s. One could see the little beauty was 
 of the nobility;" and then sometimes in an aside, 
 " What a contrast ! The other has fine hair and eyes, 
 to be sure, but so pale; and then her mouth and 
 nose ! She makes a capital foil, however. The little 
 cherub s mother must be a clever woman." Nathali, 
 for her part, was as conscious of her charms as her 
 friend was of her defects, and had a little strut which 
 she assumed upon the street or in the public gardens, 
 and which irritated Ilva to a limitless degree. This 
 was, of .course, when they were much younger. Na 
 thali was now twelve, and Ilva ten. 
 
 She was not so intimate with Nathali as of yore, 
 finding her too much occupied in coveting the toilets 
 of her mother s guests, and musing upon the prob 
 able magnificence of her future marriage, which she 
 frankly avowed she hoped would take place almost 
 immediately after her dtibut. Ilva did not care for 
 toilets, and had startlingly precocious ideas concerning 
 love and matrimony. On the eve of her tenth birth 
 day she had begun a romance in the following manner : 
 
10 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Married love is like champagne with the sparkles 
 out." This sentence the good and indefatigable Her 
 bert had found and at once torn up ; but, as II va 
 said, with an expressive little grin which showed 
 both rows of sharp little teeth, " No matter ! It is 
 written in my brain. You cannot tear my brain up 
 and put it in your waste-basket, Herbert. That is 
 all." 
 
 She was very moderate in her ambitions. She 
 only desired to become a painter more great than 
 Sanzio, a poet more original than Dante, and a 
 novelist more striking than Alessandro Manzoni. 
 
 The countess, who was perhaps fonder of her peace 
 than of the Demarini jewels, did not occupy herself 
 much with the affairs of her little daughter, beyond 
 seeing that she had plenty of clothes and school- 
 books, and taking her sometimes to drive in her 
 victoria. 
 
 Ilva decidedly preferred walking alone to driving 
 with her mother. At the back of the Villa Dema 
 rini there rose abruptly a steep hill, in whose side 
 were set rough stone steps, which led to a level space 
 on top, crowned with olive-trees and ilex and the 
 ruins of a little marble temple. There was also a 
 marble seat, with some Latin words curving about 
 its weather-beaten back. There were numberless 
 grasshoppers and lizards, and a rose-tree which was 
 in full bloom, its red petals resting upon the broken 
 limbs of a fallen wood-god below, like drops of 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. H 
 
 fragrant blood. Still farther up there were pines. 
 The hill-side was tawny and resinous with the with 
 ered needles. The living leaves above seemed ever 
 mourning their dead comrades below ; all night and 
 all day they sighed ceaselessly. Then there were 
 always orioles in the great oleanders, so tame that 
 they would peck crumbs from the girl s hands and 
 even from the top of her bright head. There could 
 be nothing more delightful, Ilva thought, than to 
 lie at one s ease along that old marble seat, with 
 one s locked hands for a pillow, and watch the rest 
 less blue of the sea between the serpent-like stems 
 of the old .olive-trees. Their leaves had the dusty 
 silver of a moth s wing, even in the brightest sun 
 light, and their gentle clapper reminded this some 
 what fantastic child of a subdued accompaniment of 
 castanets to which the sunlight danced. One could 
 see so far, too, on every side. There lay the village 
 to the right, its white walls and houses glittering in 
 the garish light, like the foam-cap of that great green 
 wave of verdure which rolled all the way from the 
 foot of the distant mountains. Then to the left the 
 pretty huddling of another little village, farther away, 
 among its palms and olives and pomegranates and 
 almond-trees, and the white gleam of the broad road, 
 and the dashes of color in the skirts of the peasant- 
 women who moved along it to and from the village, 
 some with great panniers of lemons and oranges upon 
 their shoulders, some driving or riding the shag-eared 
 
12 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 little donkeys that ambled placidly beneath similar 
 burdens. From this delectable eminence they were 
 only blurs of pale and ruddy gold to II va, in the 
 same way that the sea was only a vast twinkle, as 
 vividly blue as the wet wing of a bird that flies 
 through a sunbeam while one looks. There were no 
 waves, only that endless, tireless dance of azure light 
 which reminded the girl of the breath-broken light 
 of the sapphires which she was sometimes allowed 
 to clasp about her mother s throat on grand occasions. 
 Yes, that was just the way they shimmered. How 
 if one were a giantess and had a giant lover to whom 
 one might say, " No, never will I be thy wife until 
 thou hast hardened that sea there into a sapphire 
 pendant, for which thou must also twist me a great 
 rope of golden stars and of sunbeams. Yes, and 
 when thou hast completed that, I will have thee drag 
 down the canopy of heaven to make me a robe, and 
 I will have also the sun for a clasp to my girdle, and 
 the Milky Way for a veil, and I will have yes, I 
 will have I will have " 
 
 II. 
 
 But here she had been interrupted in her soliloquy. 
 She knew who he was the moment she looked up. 
 She had seen his photograph the afternoon before, 
 when she had been allowed to come in for dessert at 
 luncheon and the people at table had been discussing 
 him. He was the young Russian who had just writ- 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 13 
 
 ten a terrible novel, for which he was to have been 
 exiled to Siberia, but, owing to some powerful influ 
 ence, the Czar had merely banished him instead. 
 She had wished then with all her heart to see him 
 and speak with him. She thought perhaps that he 
 would listen to some of her manuscripts and have a 
 sympathy for her. She too was going to be a great 
 novelist. Perhaps she might even be banished from 
 Italy some day. She had been extremely angry when 
 her mother told her that she could not possibly allow 
 her to be at luncheon again to-day. Ilva s anger 
 was of the steely, white-hot kind that always burns 
 one s self far more than one s adversary. She had 
 come to her olive-hidden retreat as usual, and had 
 brought with her some sheets of note-paper, upon 
 which she had written again, in large, determined 
 letters, " Married love is like champagne with the 
 sparkles out." How that would have impressed the 
 young Eussian, that sentence which she felt to be 
 masterly ! She was sure no one would have sus 
 pected that a little girl of ten had originated it. 
 And in his photograph he had such kind, deep eyes, 
 and such a gentle, high-arched mouth. She was 
 sure that he would have encouraged her and felt for 
 her. And then to be denied all these delightful pos 
 sibilities merely because she was yet in short frocks 
 and wore her hair in a hideous queue! She had 
 torn the thick bands apart, in a kind of impotent 
 frenzy, as this thought had come to her, and was 
 
14 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 lying back among their riotous splendor, when the 
 voice had interrupted her. 
 
 Nadrovine thought her asleep until her murmured 
 soliloquy caught his ear, and he listened in silence 
 until she hesitated; then he interrupted her with 
 these words : 
 
 "And what wilt thou have next, little Titaness? 
 Possibly the keys of paradise to hang up in thy 
 drawing-room under a knot of scarlet ribbon. Or 
 is blue thy color?" 
 
 " I do not know quite what you mean, signer," 
 she replied, sitting erect, and gathering back her 
 unbound hair with both hands. " I am sorry you 
 heard me saying such silly things. You will think 
 me very foolish." 
 
 " I don t see that there was anything very silly 
 in your words," said Nadroviue, kindly. " To tell 
 you the truth, I thought them very pretty. Are all 
 your ideas as big as those ?" 
 
 " They are not small," she admitted, with some 
 reserve, and a haughtiness which he thought very 
 appropriate to her pale and sternly-cut little features. 
 
 " You are one of Madame Demarini s daughters, 
 are you not ?" he then asked, following out his own 
 train of thought rather than trying to sustain the 
 thread of their conversation. 
 
 She looked at him calmly. " Yes, I am Ilva," 
 she replied. " Please don t mention having found 
 me up here. Nathalies nurse would be sure to think 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. ig 
 
 it a good place for her to play in. Nathali is ray 
 friend, -or used to be." 
 
 " You like, then, to be alone?" said Nadrovine, who 
 was still standing. He chinked some bright pebbles 
 which he had boyishly transferred from the beach to 
 his pocket, as he looked down at her gravely. He 
 thought the pale, unchildish face, with its oriflamme 
 of vivid hair, singularly interesting and attractive, 
 "You like to be alone? Is that it ?" he repeated. 
 
 " Yes, that is it," she answered. " I am never 
 alone except when I am up here. No one ever 
 comes here but me, the steps are so steep, and there 
 is always so much wind. It is not cold, though ; il 
 is never cold here; and if one wants to write, one has 
 only to make paper-weights of bits of stone. Thai 
 statue s three fingers and heel make capital ones, and 
 the bench is delightful for a table." 
 
 "Ah, you write?" said Nadrovine, amused, bul 
 not allowing any sign of it to escape him. He had 
 known several little girls who wrote, and he was 
 always very ready indeed to read their manuscripts 
 " May I sit there by you ?" he said now ; " and wi! 
 you show me some stories, if you have them up hen 
 with you ?" 
 
 The swift rush of color to her pale face made hei 
 radiant for a moment. It was as rosy and as sudder 
 a transformation as that in a pantomime. Nadrovim 
 saw in that moment that she would probably grow uj; 
 to be very beautiful. He was beginning to wonder 
 
15 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 what she would read to him from her little blotted 
 roll of manuscript. They were always blotted, he 
 remembered, and always in a roll. But, lo ! on the 
 bit of paper she slipped into his hands was only one 
 sentence, unblotted and heavily legible: "Married 
 love is like champagne with the sparkles out." He 
 read it once, once again, and then looked at the little 
 authoress somewhat curiously. 
 
 " What is this, doushka ?" he asked. " The title, 
 or a sentiment that you are going to enlarge upon ? 
 And where did you ever get hold of it ?" 
 
 Then said II va, proudly, 
 
 " It is mine. It is not a title. I wrote it." 
 
 "Wrote it? Composed it?" echoed Nadrovine, 
 looking as astounded as her expectation had pictured 
 him. Then, with a sudden change of tone, " How 
 old are you, little one ?" 
 
 She looked at him, and caught back another wisp 
 of hair which the wind had blown loose again. " I 
 am ten, ten one week ago," she answered. She was 
 very anxious to know what he would say next, and 
 moved unconsciously a little nearer to him along the 
 old marble seat. Then this celebrated and banished 
 young Russian did a rather strange thing : Ilva, 
 thinking of it afterwards, wondered how she could 
 have allowed it. He put a gentle and at the same 
 time strong arm about her slender shoulders and 
 drew her to his side, still holding the sheet of paper 
 in his other hand. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 17 
 
 " Doushka," he said, " I have a little cousin whom 
 I love very much. She is just a year older than you. 
 She too wishes to write, and some day I think she 
 will do so to her heart s content. I say to you just 
 what I would say to her, Tear up these words, and 
 try to forget them. Also, never write of what you 
 cannot, in some sort at least, comprehend. Softly, 
 DOW. Don t be angry with me. Don t pull away. 
 It is a very clever sentence, cleverer, perhaps, than 
 you have any idea of. It might have been written 
 by one three times your age. Still, it is an unpleasant 
 sort of sentence, too. Let me see. How can I best 
 explain to you? Well, then, for instance, suppose 
 you had said, Married love is like champagne, un 
 palatable and flat when one allows the cork of sym 
 pathy to become shrivelled. That isn t perhaps as 
 clear, but it is more hopeful. If you ever write, 
 doushka, and I trust you will, pray, above all 
 things, let your books be hopeful. Do not write so 
 that when one reads one will say, l Ah, well, in all 
 probability I too will be dragged down into just such 
 a quagmire. What is the use of struggling ? No, 
 make your stories, even those that may be sad, so 
 full of hope that one, having read them, will leap 
 up, saying, JSTo matter if things are sad, there is 
 brightness in all. I see no reason why I should not 
 try to be happy like Carlo, or Bettina, or one of the 
 charming people you are sure to write of. There, that 
 is a neat little sermon, and you furnished the text." 
 b 2* 
 
18 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 Ilva knit her brows, but was not exactly offended. 
 " I do not quite understand why you do not like my 
 sentence, but I hope you do not think it wicked. I 
 only meant it to be true. It seems to me it is like 
 that. I will do as you say, however : I will tear 
 it up." She stripped the sheet of paper, as she 
 spoke, into several little ribbons, and then tore these 
 across once or twice. " There," she ended, slipping 
 them into his hand with a gesture which was both 
 impulsive and imperious. " Keep it to remind you 
 that I promise to do as you say." 
 
 " Indeed I will," said the young Russian, heartily. 
 He took the slender, strong little hand and kissed it 
 lightly. "You are to write only what is brave and 
 hopeful," he said, as if speaking to the long fingers 
 which lay upon his palm ; and they tightened slightly 
 in answer. 
 
 Then he stooped and lifted a book from the sun 
 burnt grass. He had at first thought it a pretty 
 box of some sort, for its cover was of old Dutch 
 silver-work, with the Demarini crest set in opals, 
 altogether a very superb and inappropriate volume 
 to share the siesta of a little girl who wore a rumpled 
 brown holland frock and lay on her back in the sun 
 shine as regard lessly placid as the lizard that basked 
 near by. He held it on. his left hand and opened it. 
 It was a volume of Ariosto s unabridged poems. 
 
 "And have you read this, doushka?" he asked, 
 beginning to feel more puzzled and amused and a 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 19 
 
 little horrified. She leaned over and gravely turned 
 one or two leaves with an air of proprietorship. 
 
 "Is it not lovely?" she said. "Yes, I have just 
 begun it to-day. I was trying to make some poetry 
 myself when you came." 
 
 "And could you not?" said Nadrovine, still 
 smiling rather dubiously. 
 
 " No ; I do not think I have that talent," she re 
 plied, with some sadness. " The rhymes are like so 
 many gnats buz-buz-buzzing, when I only want to 
 fix my ideas. Do you ever write poetry, signer ?" 
 
 Nadrovine said no, that he did not. Suddenly he 
 put out his hand and drew her down beside him 
 again. "No, I do not write poetry," he repeated. 
 " But I can tell charming fairy-tales. Do you care 
 for fairy-tales?" 
 
 " Oh ! so much !" exclaimed Ilva. 
 
 "Then," said Nadrovine, "I will tell you one. 
 Here it is. There was once a little princess " 
 
 " Do not make it commonplace," interrupted Ilva, 
 with one of her frowns. "I wish you had said a 
 little peasant-girl; all fairy-tales have princesses. 
 But no matter." 
 
 Nadrovine laughed, showing teeth which were 
 splendidly white and regular. " My story will dis 
 appoint you, I fear," he said, in reply to these rapid 
 interpellations ; " but, since my heroine was a princess 
 at first, she must remain one now. She had not a 
 very commonplace name, at all events : they called 
 
20 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 her Liott. She also had the most uncomraonplace 
 dwelling conceivable, for she lived in a palace of ice, 
 which was far more beautiful than anything which 
 you or I ever saw. She had the most charming 
 dresses and jewels, and every toy that one can im 
 agine, but her chief delight was in her gardens. 
 There grew thousands of flowers, from great red 
 roses like these overhead, to the little w r ild flowers 
 that all children love." 
 
 " Ah, yes, that is very natural," put in the Sig- 
 norina Demarini. " I like those much better than 
 any others myself." 
 
 " And I," said Nadrovine, seriously. " One day, 
 then, Princess Liott was in her garden, which was 
 separated from the fields beyond by a high hedge, 
 and, peeping through the hedge, she saw the most 
 gorgeous blossoms in all the world. She had never 
 dreamed of such beautiful flowers, not even when 
 she lay awake at night and pressed her fingers on 
 her eyelids to see the splendid lilac and gold and 
 green wreaths that grew and faded and paled and 
 sparkled again." 
 
 " Yes, are they not beautiful ?" asked Ilva, be 
 coming absorbed in this not at all commonplace 
 fairy-tale. " You have so many touches of nature : 
 that is what makes your books famous, I suppose." 
 
 Nadrovine went on without replying : 
 
 " The flowers that Princess Liott saw were much 
 more lovely, and she would have squeezed through 
 
WITNESS OF THE SUN. 21 
 
 the hedge after them, had not the governess caught 
 her arm. My princess/ said she, do not touch 
 those flowers : they are poisonous, in spite of their 
 beautiful colors, and will forever stain your little 
 white hands/ But the princess was haughty and 
 would not be controlled. She broke from her gov 
 erness into the lovely field, and gathered the jewel- 
 like blossoms right and left, until she was tired with 
 stooping ; then she ran back in triumph to show her 
 governess how silly her warning had been ; but later, 
 when her governess took the great nosegay from 
 Liott s hands, they were all seamed and blackened, 
 as though they had been burned, and not only that, 
 but the fumes had risen from the red and yellow 
 bells and had blackened poor Princess Liott s fair 
 skin and dimmed her lovely eyes." 
 
 " Was she never pretty again ?" said II va, slowly. 
 
 " She was never quite -white again," said Nadro- 
 vine; "and she always sat with her hands folded 
 palms downward in her lap : so I suppose the ugly 
 stains and seams never went quite away." 
 
 "That is a very sad story," said Ilva, still 
 slowly. 
 
 "Doushka," said Nadrovine, "books are some 
 times more poisonous than flowers. You see, my 
 story is commonplace after all : it has a moral." 
 
 She kept her bright, direct glance on him, still 
 turning slowly the leaves of the book which rested 
 on his knee. 
 
22 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Is this a bad book ?" she said, at last, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " It is not good for you to read, little one." 
 
 She suddenly lifted it from his knee. He thought 
 she was going to walk proudly off with her rightful 
 property, but instead she turned with a beautiful, 
 impulsive straightening of both arms towards him. 
 
 u Take it," she said. " I give it to you. Keep 
 it, and remember that I have promised you." 
 
 Nadrovine was silent a moment, and then drew 
 the child to him. 
 
 " This is far too valuable a book for you to give 
 away unpermitted," he said, gently; "but your 
 promise, which is many times more valuable, I take 
 and keep." 
 
 She frowned a little, and the gold lights grew in 
 her dark eyes. 
 
 " I bid you take it," she said. " It is mine : no 
 one else has a right to it : my grandmother left it to 
 me in her will when I was oh ! a mere speck a 
 baby. Here ; that is my name. You see ? Take it." 
 
 Nadrovine was extremely touched. 
 
 "Doushka," he said, and as he spoke he put a 
 shapely brown hand on her blowing hair, " I cannot 
 take your beautiful book for my very own, but I 
 will keep it gladly until you wish for it again." 
 
 She said nothing in answer, and, stooping towards 
 her, he saw that her eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " You are very good to mo," she said, in a stifled 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 23 
 
 voice. "You seem to care. Why do you? No 
 one else does. I might read every book in the house 
 if I chose. Nathali is watched over and cared for. 
 She is so beautiful. Have you seen her ? But I 
 I am ugly !" 
 
 And she turned and rushed away from him down 
 the rough, irregular steps, sobbing as she went, and 
 leaving a very perplexed and astounded young Rus 
 sian novelist behind her. 
 
 She did not see him again until she was seventeen. 
 
 III. 
 
 This little episode with Nad ro vine had a distinct 
 effect upon the girl s character. There were many 
 things every day that she denied herself, in thinking 
 that he would not have approved them. She seemed 
 to herself to have become the Princess Liott of his 
 little allegory, and was very bent on keeping her 
 hands clean at least, since they could not be small 
 and white like Nathalies. She no longer drove the 
 dusty toads from under the big aloes, into the little 
 pool on the east terrace. She tried not to say inso 
 lent things to the very exasperating Herbert. She 
 bore like a Stoic such lies as Nathali saw fit to tell 
 of her from time to time, and she abandoned her 
 alterations in the profiles of the Roman emperors, in 
 order that she might give her undivided attention to 
 the reproduction of Nadro vine s sharply-cut features. 
 He became to her a sort of embodied conscience, and 
 
24 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 she fell into one of those pure and romantic idola 
 tries of which only an innocent girl is capable. She 
 heard of him very often. Sometimes her father and 
 mother would discuss his career and personality. 
 Sometimes the guests at the villa would do so. 
 Sometimes she would herself see articles in the dif 
 ferent papers concerning him. He was founder of 
 a new school, they said, one which did not pluck 
 the wings from ideals and leave them to crawl, but 
 which pointed out a possible butterfly in every ugly, 
 realistic grub which nibbled the flowers of rhetoric. 
 The child carefully cut out such articles and put 
 them away in a little enamelled box which had once 
 held bon-bons. This box had a lock and key, and 
 she wore the key about her throat on a bit of ribbon. 
 As his profile dominated all her sketches, so what 
 she fancied to be his character was given to every 
 hero in her fantastic stories. As the years went by, 
 however, his wraith became paler and more trans 
 parent, until, instead of coloring circumstances, as it 
 were, the vivid hues of surrounding facts became 
 more and more apparent through its dwindling mist. 
 When Ilva was seventeen, she told herself that she 
 had been ridiculously sentimental, and that this Na- 
 drovine whom she had adored so long would be the 
 first to smile at her for a romantic little school-girl. 
 She still kept the newspaper cuttings which spoke of 
 him, however, but she took the key from about her 
 neck and put it in her writing-desk. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 25 
 
 She often thought of the hour when she and Na- 
 drovine would meet again, and whether he had kept 
 the silver book, as he had promised, all these years. 
 She wondered, in fact, if he remembered her. 
 
 One day the countess said, as they sat together on 
 the terrace late in the afternoon, 
 
 "By the way, Ilva, Nadrovine, the great writer, 
 comes here this evening to dine. Your father brings 
 him. It is only a family dinner; and, as there is 
 such an awkward number, I am going to permit you 
 to dine with us." 
 
 " I shall like it very much. You are very kind, 
 mamma," said the girl. Her heart beat a good deal, 
 and she felt that the color had risen to her cheeks. 
 It was so strange to think that she was to see him 
 after all these years, and so very pleasant to think 
 how different he would find her, in appearance at 
 least, from what she had been at their last interview. 
 
 She was very careful with her toilet that evening, 
 plaiting and replaiting, herself, the luxurious swaths 
 of her hair, until they were as lustrous as so many 
 twisted flames, pinning the knot of tea-roses which 
 she was to wear in five different places on her cor 
 sage, and stopping at the last moment while her 
 maid sewed new rosettes on a pair of bronze shoes 
 which she particularly fancied. 
 
 " Ah," said Nadrovine to himself, when she entered 
 the room, " she is as lovely as I thought she would 
 be." 
 
 B 3 
 
26 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 Her childishly simple gown of white gauze was 
 cut squarely from her long and supple throat, and 
 fawn-colored gloves came up nearly to the puffed 
 sleeves which surmounted her graceful shoulders 
 like some airy order of epaulets. There was a 
 gold-colored ribbon about her waist, and a knot of 
 it among the lace at her breast. The tea-roses 
 were mingled with the lace and ribbon. 
 
 As for Nadrovine, he had not changed in the least. 
 He was now twenty-nine, but his light-brown curls 
 were as free from any tinge of gray as they had been 
 seven years ago, and he carried himself with as virile 
 a grace. When he smiled on speaking to her for the 
 first time, she saw that his teeth were as brilliantly 
 regular as ever and his mouth as handsome. He had 
 the thin curled lips which, when not cruel, are so 
 beautiful. Ilva thought of numberless things which 
 she would like to say to him. She wondered, should 
 they chance to be thrown together for a few moments, 
 what he would first say to her. After dinner they 
 went out on the terrace and had cigarettes and coffee 
 and liqueurs. There was much soft moonlight 
 through a silver fleece of clouds. It made trans 
 parent the tender leaves of a young grape-vine 
 near which the girl sat, and threw delicate moving 
 shadows over her white gown and arms. She had 
 wound some thin white stuff about her head and 
 shoulders, and the golden ribbons at her waist and 
 bosom reminded him of stray sunbeams. Some peo- 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 27 
 
 pie bad just called informally, and he came and sat 
 dowii in a great bamboo chair near her, while they 
 were making their greetings. 
 
 " You have never asked for the silver book," was 
 what he said to her; and she replied, not lightly as 
 she had meant to, but very seriously, 
 
 " And I never will." 
 
 " What ! you will never read Ariosto ?" said 
 Nadrovine, smiling. " I find him a charming poet." 
 
 This was not quite what Ilva had expected. She 
 returned his smile with a rather haughty look. 
 
 "I dare say I should find him charming also," 
 she replied, after perhaps a second s pause. " It is 
 merely a whim." 
 
 " So, then, you have whims, like any other mortal, 
 signorina?" said Nadrovine, still smiling. "I fan 
 cied that you were going to develop into a start- 
 lingly original young lady, from the glimpse I had 
 of your childhood. I have whims myself. They 
 are very disagreeable. Take my advice, and give 
 them to me to keep with the silver book." 
 
 Ilva thought him impertinent. She was bitterly 
 disappointed. Her pretty, childish breast swelled 
 angrily under its knot of gold ribbons. Is any 
 thing so annoying to a young girl as to be taken 
 for exactly the age that she is? She was just seven 
 teen, and he treated her as he would have done any 
 other little girl of seventeen. She began to dislike 
 him. She began to find disagreeable the lines of 
 
28 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 that sharp-cut profile which she had so often drawn 
 on slate and paper and even on the stiff hem of her 
 white petticoats. He was apparently absorbed in 
 his own thoughts during the silence which followed. 
 He leaned his head back against the olive-wood 
 trellis that supported the grape-vine, and allowed 
 the smoke of his cigarette to escape through his 
 handsome nostrils. He was, in fact, thinking of 
 her, gentle and tender thoughts, such as some men 
 will give young girls into whose pure minds they 
 see as through a crystal opening. He thought her 
 renunciation of Ariosto as lovely as it was childish, 
 and, seeing that she was offended, regretted having 
 teased her. He turned suddenly and threw away 
 his cigarette. 
 
 " Doushka," he said, how well she remembered 
 the tone of his voice as he pronounced the odd little 
 Russian word ! " see, do not be angry with me. It 
 was only in jest that I spoke. It is very good and 
 lovely of you to have kept your promise all these 
 years. I am going to ask you to let me send you 
 back your silver book with marks at those passages 
 which I think you would enjoy. Will you ?" 
 
 The feeling of personal dislike for him melted 
 away with these words, but the annoyance at being 
 addressed as though she were a child increased, if 
 possible. 
 
 " You are very good," she said, a trifle stiffly. 
 
 "Ah, you said that to me once before," replied 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 29 
 
 Nadrovine, with the smile which she was beginning 
 to watch for, "but so differently. There were tears 
 in your voice as well as in your eyes then. What 
 a strange little creature you were !" he went on, 
 speaking more to himself than to her. "I have 
 often regretted that I did not see more of you as a 
 child." 
 
 "Perhaps you would have had more regrets the 
 more you saw of me," said the girl, slowly. " I be 
 lieve that I was a very disagreeable child." 
 
 Nadrovine made a light gesture of dissent. " Oh, 
 we should have understood each other," he said, 
 easily. 
 
 "Do you think so?" asked Ilva. She held a 
 little fan of amber with gold ribbons between her 
 eyes and the moonlit glare of the sea. He thought 
 that the moonlight shining through it reproduced the 
 tint of her hair exactly. She could not make out his 
 expression, for the background of sparkling water. 
 Nadrovine caught the nettled tone in her voice. 
 
 " Why ? Do you think so ?" he said, gently. 
 
 "Oh! I? How can I tell?" she answered, ar 
 ranging her roses. "It is your gift to guess at 
 situations. You are famous for it. If you say so, 
 yes, I suppose we should have understood each other, 
 yes, assuredly." 
 
 " You mean that we do not understand each other 
 now," said Nadrovine. She replied by another ques 
 tion. 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Do you think we do ?" she said ; but, before he 
 could answer, the countess approached with some 
 guests who wished to meet Nadrovine, and Ilva 
 spoke no more alone with him that evening. 
 
 She went to her room feeling a good deal as 
 though she had lifted a charming flower to her face 
 and the bee within had stung her. She had thought 
 so often of this meeting, had listened so many times 
 to the earnest, beautiful things he would probably 
 say to her. She had even committed one of her 
 prettiest poems to memory in order that she might 
 repeat it to him when he inquired about her writings. 
 She remembered with a fresh feeling of irritated dis 
 appointment that he had not asked so much as one 
 question concerning them. Altogether, it had been a 
 very flat and uneventful conversation. He had only 
 said what any other man might have said under the 
 circumstances, and she, on her side, had only been 
 rather rude, she was afraid. 
 
 Nathali Zanova came over the next morning full 
 of the celebrated Russian s advent in the neighbor 
 hood. 
 
 "And you actually sat at the same table with 
 him !" said she. " Dio mio ! that I had been in 
 spired to ask myself to dine yesterday ! What did 
 he talk of? They say he is as beautiful as a Greek 
 god. Is he?" 
 
 "Some Greek gods are very ugly; don t you 
 think so?" said Ilva, chillily. "There is one in the 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 31 
 
 Vatican with a broken nose who is quite hideous. 
 Signor Nadrovine is not at all like him. I don t 
 think he is like any of them." 
 
 " Ebbene, I should have said like one s dream of 
 a Greek god," cried Nathali. "You dear, literal 
 girl !" She took Ilva about the waist and attempted 
 to kiss her. 
 
 "Please do not, Nathali," said the girl. "You 
 know I do not like to be kissed." 
 
 "Yes, by me," said Nathali, good-humoredly ; 
 "and yet I have very pretty lips. Ebbene, wait 
 until you have a lover." 
 
 " I shall never kiss any man but my husband," 
 Ilva replied, with loftiness. 
 
 " Oh-h ! so there is going to be a husband, then, 
 after all," said Signorina Zanova, smiling her large- 
 toothed but still pretty smile. " A month ago you 
 were never going to marry." 
 
 " One can never tell," answered Ilva, calmly, not 
 withstanding, however, she blushed rather warmly. 
 Nathali was almost as exasperating on occasions as 
 the good Herbert. She was a very large-limbed 
 woman, not so tall as Ilva, with a pale, well-cut, 
 rather voluptuous mouth, which was generally open 
 in a perpetual air of wonder, eyes which were too 
 wide apart, and coarse, beautifully brown hair, cut 
 abundantly above her thick eyebrows. Her figure, 
 although well shaped, was too compact to be graceful. 
 One always felt that it must be with a sense of duty 
 
32 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 accomplished that the Signorina Zanova unbuttoned 
 her corsage at night. She was a woman who became 
 herself extremely, if one may be allowed a certain 
 liberty of expression, that is, her mind harmonized 
 entirely with her physique. Had she been allowed 
 to select a body to contain her soul, one felt quite 
 certain that her present shape would have been her 
 choice. Her big limbs ended in the tiny hands and 
 feet which are the ideal of beauty with so many 
 women and which men generally fail to admire. 
 As a little girl, Nathali had possessed the arms of 
 a well-stuffed chair and the legs of a piano. As a 
 young lady, voluminous sleeves and draperies only 
 permitted one to observe hands which corresponded 
 to the little tassels which usually finish off chair- 
 arms and feet not much larger than the casters in 
 which piano-legs always terminate. She was nine 
 teen, and had been in society for a year, and was 
 always consciously or unconsciously reminding II va 
 of her less fortunate position. She would rush over 
 to the Villa Demarini, on the day after a ball, with 
 handfuls of gay ribbons which she had received in 
 the cotillon and which she ostensibly brought for the 
 collars of Ilva s dogs. Ilva, for her part, was quite 
 sure that Nathali really brought them to show what 
 a success she had had at the ball. Nathalies purse 
 was as well filled as her bodice, which may perhaps 
 somewhat account for the brilliancy of her social 
 career, and she had an American friend, a woman 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 33 
 
 even larger and more exuberant of limb than her 
 self, who taught her to emulate the little Joseph in 
 apparel and to use American slang. This being 
 sometimes translated into Italian was a very astound 
 ing thing to hear. 
 
 The difference in the feelings of the two girls for 
 each other may perhaps be concisely explained by 
 saying that the ways of Ilva wearied Nathali, while 
 Nathali herself wearied Ilva. She would often escape, 
 when she saw the Zanova coupe approaching, and run 
 far out into the great orange-gardens that flanked the 
 house. Sometimes it would be her fate to be inter 
 cepted in her flight. To-day was one of those days ; 
 and, to complete matters, Nathali insisted upon talk 
 ing of Nadrovine. 
 
 " My dearest child," she now proceeded to remark, 
 " do you know they say that, although he is so dis 
 tinguished, he is a perfect Don Juan ?" 
 
 " I forbid you to say any more," interrupted Ilva, 
 in a tensely quiet voice. Her eyes had those golden 
 lights which flash in the eyes of some angry dogs, 
 and which with her always meant violent emotion of 
 some sort. She went and threw wide the Venetian 
 blinds of one of her windows. " Is it that Mees 
 Sherlow who has taught you such conversation?" 
 she continued, leaning against the window, and not 
 regarding Nathali, whose mouth was more open than 
 usual. " If it is so, do not think that I will listen 
 to it. Such talk is abominable, disgusting, odious 
 
34 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 to me. You used not to say such things, Nathali. 
 It is like the fairy-tale where the toads fell out of 
 the girl s mouth. You might as well come and 
 pour a handful of mud into my lap : I would thank 
 you quite as much." 
 
 Nathali turned quite pale. 
 
 " You are horridly rude," she said. She took off 
 her heavy rings and tossed them in her two hands 
 with an attempt at carelessness. " There is nothing 
 so odious as a prude," she remarked, after a while. 
 
 " Except a woman who repeats unclean stories and 
 anecdotes," replied Ilva, coolly. 
 
 " I do not repeat unclean anecdotes," said Nathali, 
 sullenly. She rose and put on her rings again, and 
 took up her sunshade, which bristled with orange- 
 and cherry-colored ribbons. " It is nothing to say 
 that a man is a Don Juan. All men sow their wild 
 oats nowadays. If Nadrovine were not a " 
 
 " Do not dare to say it again !" cried Ilva, spring 
 ing to her feet. She seized the back of a chair 
 which stood between them and held it tightly with 
 both hands. "If I am rude," she said, looking 
 steadily at her friend, " it is you who make me 
 so." 
 
 " Oh, it is not of the slightest consequence," said 
 Signorina Zanova, who was now scarlet as the bows 
 on her sunshade, with unmitigated rage. " If I had 
 known you were already enamoured of the man, I 
 would have said nothing to you. Addio, cara mia ; 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 35 
 
 a better temper to you soon, and a sunny wedding- 
 day." 
 
 She flourished her parasol with the air of one who 
 offers the last insult to an already infuriated foe, and 
 left the room. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Nadrovine was not in the 
 least a Don Juan. It was no especial question of 
 morality with him, however. He was a rather cold, 
 excessively refined man, who found no amusement 
 in liaisons of any kind. He would have been equally 
 amused and touched by Ilva s warm defence of him. 
 Of this young girl he was especially fond. Such 
 natures are more capable of comprehending and re 
 turning the affection of children than those which 
 are more sensual ; and Ilva was in truth a child as 
 yet. She sat down, after Signorina Zanova had de 
 parted, at the window w r hich she had opened, and 
 began to go over the years since the day upon which 
 she had first met Nadrovine. She had not realized 
 until a few moments ago how much he had again 
 become to her, in spite of their uncongenial conver 
 sation. 
 
 She thrust back angrily the idea which Nathali 
 had forced upon her. It gave her the same feeling 
 that possessed her when she found that her maid had 
 tossed a nosegay into the slop-bowl. It was a very 
 blossom-like sentiment which she had always cher 
 ished for Nadrovine, and she felt as though her 
 friend had dropped it into a figurative slop-bowl. 
 
36 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It was only three days afterwards that Ilva saw 
 Nadrovine again. The countess had driven into the 
 village early in the afternoon to do some shopping, 
 and the good Herbert was indulging in her usual 
 four-o clock siesta, shut into her own room. The 
 house was very dark and cool and empty, and the 
 day outside very vivid and hot and crowded with 
 sweet sights and noises and perfumes, the sounds of 
 birds and of the sea, the voices of children wrangling 
 good-humoredly, the fragrance of sunburnt fruit. On 
 the eastern terrace the grass was blue with fallen figs, 
 and the orioles made golden flashes among the 
 pomegranates in the tree just outside the girl s win 
 dow. She could see the clustering blossoms among 
 the roots of the orange-trees, and the twinkle of the 
 sunlight on the wings of the bees humming over 
 them. All about and above and beneath her were 
 brilliant winged things, that dipped and glanced and 
 alighted and took flight again, and there were some 
 variegated butterflies that looked like living jewels. 
 The day seemed holding out its arms to her. She 
 took a big white sunshade whose rose-colored lining 
 appeared to blush for its unfashionable proportions, 
 and, lifting a book at random, went out into the 
 fragrant, vibrating glare, under the pomegranate- 
 tree, over the fig-strewn grass, up the rough stone 
 steps that led to the ruined temple on the olive- 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 37 
 
 crowned hill-top, and so into the temple itself. She 
 threw herself on the sun-bkached grass and lay down 
 upon it, leaning her head, with its cushion of burn 
 ished hair, against the old marble seat. 
 
 Everything gleamed tremulously through the 
 rising heat. The tall wild flowers and weeds 
 seemed shuddering against the violent blue of the 
 sky beyond. One of the slender Corinthian columns 
 which had remained standing, had wavy outlines, as 
 of a white, ever-ascending flame. The vast grass- 
 fields below rippled like another sea. So intensely 
 still was it, save for the sounds of leaf and bird and 
 waves, that she could hear distinctly the soft drop 
 ping of the ripe figs upon the thick turf and a bird 
 whetting its beak on a fallen marble capital near by. 
 She was very warm, and yet a purring wind crept 
 over her every now and then and kept the heat from 
 growing oppressive. She had a great flare of fire- 
 colored azaleas at her belt, and an intoxicated sleepy 
 bee had fallen into one of the gorgeous chalices and 
 droned and struggled intermittently with a palpable 
 affectation of energy. One of the orioles, which 
 were yet very tame, poised on delicate, whirring 
 wings and tore at the red petals mischievously. 
 
 She did not even open the book that she had 
 brought with her, and she had been thinking of Na- 
 drovine for some moments, when he spoke to her. 
 He had been watching her just as he had done 
 seven years ago, and, as he had also done on that 
 4 
 
38 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 occasion, had mistaken her shut-eyed quiet for sleep. 
 She rose to her feet with a supple, unhurried grace 
 which did not escape him, and put up her hand to 
 her hair, the instinctive gesture of a woman whose 
 hair-pins are forsaking her. 
 
 "I wish you had been soliloquizing this time 
 also," he said, with a smile, as he stooped to lift 
 her shawl and book from the grass ; and then Ilva 
 was very glad that her umbrella was lined with 
 pink, for she felt herself redden a little. 
 
 " And I am thankful that I was not," she answered, 
 candidly. " I am not much wiser than I was seven 
 years ago, and I might have uttered just some such 
 nonsense." 
 
 " I assured you then that I did not think it non 
 sense," said Nadrovine, gravely. " I do not think 
 so now ; and I remember it perfectly, word for word. 
 You were wondering how it would feel if one were 
 a giantess and had a giant lover to whom one could 
 say " 
 
 " Pray don t repeat it," exclaimed Ilva, with an 
 imperious gesture. 
 
 " But if I think it charming ?" said Nadrovine. 
 
 " That is impossible," she said, smiling all at once. 
 She had one of those full, lissome mouths which 
 adapt themselves exquisitely to a smile. Her whole 
 face changed with it as water under a float of sun 
 light. The contour became more childish, and yet 
 somehow her expression was more that of a woman. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 39 
 
 She sat down suddenly on the marble seat and drew 
 aside her white skirt to make room for him. 
 
 "Let us talk," she said, impulsively. "I have 
 some things to say to you." 
 
 " It would take many hours to say all that I wish 
 to say to you," replied Nadrovine, seriously. " In 
 the first place, do you still write ?" 
 
 He had taken his place by her, sitting sidewise, 
 with one elbow resting on the back of the bench 
 and his hand supporting his uncovered head. With 
 the other hand he clinked some pebbles together, as 
 she remembered him to have done during that 
 memorable interview. He had thrown his hat on 
 the ground, but it had left a red mark across his 
 forehead. His hair clung damply to his temples. 
 Signorina Zanova s remark about the Greek god came 
 back to her. It was the face of a Greek, certainly. 
 Ilva had a cynical disbelief in deities. She liked to 
 look at him, but, being afraid of seeming to stare, 
 turned her eyes presently to the azaleas in her belt. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I write, sometimes," she said, rather 
 vaguely. 
 
 " Only sometimes ?" asked Nadrovine. " Some 
 times is the arch-enemy of success ; and I remember 
 you very ambitious." 
 
 She lifted her eyes again to his face, and his met 
 them. 
 
 " Perhaps I am ambitious now," she said, with a 
 half smile. 
 
40 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 "I am rather inclined to think it is not per 
 haps/ " replied Nadrovine. He was reflecting upon 
 the loveliness of that direct, gentle gaze. Most of 
 the young girls of his acquaintance dropped their 
 eyes with a puppet-like certainty under an at all 
 prolonged look, while others returned such glances 
 too boldly. 
 
 She charmed him very much. He was almost 
 afraid to allow the conversation to take a serious 
 tone, for fear she would disappoint him. She was 
 looking away again now. A little white butterfly 
 had alighted on the laces above her breast, and rose 
 and fell with her soft breathing, as daintily as a bird 
 upon a wave. 
 
 " If you have a sweetheart, signorina, be sure that 
 he is thinking of you," said Nadrovine, suddenly. 
 
 She turned her eyes from the sea to him with a 
 rather startled look. 
 
 " Why do you say that ?". she asked. 
 
 " Because a white butterfly has alighted upon your 
 dress. It is a sure sign." 
 
 She glanced down, and saw the pretty thing open 
 ing and shutting its silvery wings with all the 
 coquetry of a conscious beauty manipulating her 
 fan. She breathed more gently than ever, in order 
 not to disturb it. 
 
 " Is that a Russian superstition ?" she said, after a 
 moment. 
 
 " I really do not know," Nadrovine replied. " But 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 41 
 
 I seem to have heard it all my life, and the one 
 about a bird flying into a room." 
 
 "What is that ?" said Ilva. 
 
 " They say that it is a forewarning of death or of 
 a great sorrow. Myself, I am . not superstitious. 
 One night in Russia I heard a tapping at my window, 
 and, like the melancholy young man in Poe s romance, 
 opened it. There was nothing so startling as a raven 
 outside, however, only a little brown bird who had- 
 been attracted by the light. I let him in, and, after 
 flying distractedly about, he made himself quite com 
 fortable on the back of a tall chair. Then three 
 more rapped and gained admittance, and all four 
 spent the night with me. In the morning I fed them 
 and set them free. But they seemed only to bring 
 me good luck. I got many things that I wanted 
 soon afterwards." 
 
 "A nightingale flew into my room once," said 
 Ilva. "He was so frightened, though, poor little 
 soul, that he killed himself by beating his head 
 against the wall. It made me very sad at first; 
 but I reflected that he might have been put into 
 pasta by some peasant, and so was somewhat com 
 forted." 
 
 "You call him poor little soul," Nadrovine ob 
 served, smiling. " I see that we share a belief." 
 
 " Oh, there must be birds in heaven !" the girl ex 
 claimed, quickly. 
 
 " And why not ?" said Nadrovine. " One knows 
 4* 
 
42 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 there are horses, made of fire, but still horses. It 
 seems to me that birds have quite as much right to 
 be there." 
 
 " Oh, much more," said Ilva, gravely. " I am sure 
 that there must be many of them." 
 
 " One might say that the angels were a species of 
 fowl," continued Nadrovine, gravely. " In all the 
 pictures they have great wings covered with feathers." 
 
 Ilva looked at him, still seriously, but her eyes 
 laughed under their broad lids. 
 
 " I have always thought they must be so uncom 
 fortable," she said. "One would have always to 
 be considering them, like a court-train or a travel 
 ling-case." 
 
 " What a prosaic simile !" cried Nadrovine, and 
 then they both laughed. It is as impossible for two 
 people who have laughed together to remain ceremo 
 nious in manner, as for a person to maintain strict 
 dignity during a first lesson on the violin. 
 
 The butterfly was alarmed into flight by the gay 
 sound, but they moved nearer each other. 
 
 " I begin to recognize the little girl I used to 
 know," said Nadrovine. "When I first saw you 
 the other night I thought you had become very stiff 
 and conventional and difficult. You were rather 
 severe with me also." 
 
 " Was I ?" said Ilva. " Well She paused, 
 
 and looked at him, laughing somewhat. "I, too, 
 thought you very disagreeable," she said. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 43 
 
 " And I tried to be so charming." 
 
 " That was the reason, doubtless. If one wishes 
 to be odious, one has only to try to be charming." 
 
 " And does your rule work both ways, signorina ? 
 If so, I shall begin to behave accordingly." 
 
 She looked at him again, and again laughed. 
 
 " I like you very well as you are," she told him. 
 
 " But you do not know me as I am," persisted 
 Nadrovine : " you only know me as I seem. If 
 you are as cynical as you used to be, I shall feel a 
 dread of your knowing me better." 
 
 "As I used to be?" 
 
 " Yes, when you wrote that terrible sentence, 
 Married love is like champagne with " 
 
 " Do not !" cried Ilva. " It is as bad to quote 
 one s sayings to one, as to tell one that you once 
 heard Patti or Scalchi sing the song that one has 
 just sung." 
 
 " But tell me, then, signorina, do you still believe 
 that?" 
 
 " I have no experience," said the girl, demurely. 
 " Some day when I am famous " 
 
 " Ah, then you do intend to be famous ?" 
 
 " If I can. Now, there you have experience. 
 Tell me, is it pleasant to be famous ?" 
 
 Nadrovine changed his position before replying. 
 He leaned forward, and, resting his elbows on his 
 knees, fitted a blade of grass between his joined 
 thumbs. 
 
44 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " I will tell you what fame reminds me of, 
 doushka," he said, a little absently. "There is a 
 picture by Van Dyck of Charles V. in the Uffizi 
 in your Florence, that is my idea of fame. The 
 king is in full armor, on horseback, and an eagle 
 holds a wreath of laurel over his head. The eagle 
 seems to me to be an admirable type of fame. 
 When he finally consents to crown one with the 
 laurel, he at the same time gives one a sharp dig 
 with his mighty beak." 
 
 "I thought you had everything in the world," 
 said the girl, impulsively. Nadrovine lifted his 
 thumbs, with the carefully-arranged blade of grass, 
 to his lips, and blew a shrill little blast. 
 
 " That reminds me so of my boyhood," he said, 
 before directly replying to her. "I had an old 
 nurse who used to make me those whistles by the 
 hour. She predicted, by the way, that I should 
 have nothing in the world that I wanted." 
 
 " But you have fame, success, renown ?" said Ilva. 
 
 " Only a little of each, doushka." He called her 
 by the uncouth term of endearment absolutely with 
 out thinking. She seemed as much a child to him 
 as she had done seven years ago in her brown hoi- 
 land frock and flowing mane. But she was not as 
 much a child : she was like a rose-branch on which 
 some flowers are in full bloom and others yet in the 
 bud. It remained for him to discover this, however. 
 
 " Only a very little of each," he repeated. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 45 
 
 " But," she said, with some impatience, " how 
 can that be ? You are known in many countries ? 
 Your books are translated into many tongues? 
 You are honored and fdted wherever you choose to 
 appear ?" 
 
 Nadrovine threw away the grass-blade and turned 
 towards her, again running his hand deep into his 
 curls and so leaning upon it. 
 
 "Does it not occur to you, signorina," he said, 
 " that if my measure of success were quite full, its 
 contents would not rattle so noisily ?" 
 
 " Bah !" said Ilva, with energetic rudeness, " that 
 is unworthy of you ! That is fallacy. Why not be 
 honest and acknowledge that you are famous and 
 successful ? I should like you so much better." 
 
 " Would you ?" he said, a little curiously. 
 
 She had furled her big white parasol, and the bril 
 liant sunset light was fall upon her. Her spirited 
 head was tilted rather imperiously backward. One 
 could see the pulses of her throat stirring the lace 
 of her white gown. Her hair and eyes seemed to 
 concentrate the surrounding brilliancy. 
 
 " I should, I should," she assured him, vehemently. 
 "It is as false as though I were to look in my mirror 
 and turn simpering away to murmur, How ugly I 
 am! " 
 
 Nadrovine looked at her, amused, but roused. 
 
 " So you do not make a secret of what your mirror 
 tells you ?" said he. 
 
46 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Dio ! no ! Why should I ? I have eyes, and 
 I have an excellent appreciation. It is absurd to 
 imagine that I do not know I am handsome. There 
 is this about it only. I do not admire myself. I 
 am too slight, too pale. I like magnificent women, 
 with brilliant coloring like an oil-painting. I am 
 like a pastel. But because I and some others do 
 not admire myself, is no reason why I should deny 
 that I am handsome." 
 
 She paused, still looking at him, with her straight, 
 dark brows drawn into a slight frown. 
 
 Nadrovine forgot for a moment that she was only 
 a little girl of seventeen, she looked so thoroughly 
 the woman, with her superb pose and air of dis 
 pleased royalty. 
 
 " You have expressed it for me admirably, signo- 
 rina," he said, at last. " I do not admire myself." 
 
 " Be honest,- then, and confess that others admire 
 you." 
 
 " Do you ?" he said, smiling, but with quickness. 
 
 " Is not that a little impertinent ?" she replied, 
 but also smiling. 
 
 " Perhaps. But I was going to say that if you 
 admire me I will confess myself a success." 
 
 " That is even more unworthy of you than several 
 other remarks you have made this afternoon. I did 
 not think that you would attempt flattery." She 
 turned her head away, and he thought that she was 
 angry. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 47 
 
 " I am sorry if you think I meant to flatter you," 
 he said, after a slight pause. " Are you very much 
 vexed with me ?" 
 
 " No, not vexed," she said, in a low voice. 
 
 " What then ? Disgusted ?" 
 
 " No, no," she said, hastily. Then, with a little 
 movement towards her sunshade, which lay on the 
 seat beside her, " Is it not getting rather late ? Had 
 we not better go in ?" 
 
 A sudden thought struck Nad ro vine. 
 
 "Doushka," he said, gently, "will you look at 
 me?" 
 
 " I would rather, that is, of course," she replied, 
 turning hurriedly. It was as he had thought. Great 
 tears stood in her eyes. Nadrovine felt a strange 
 stirring in his breast. He let slip all his chill deli 
 cacy of manner, while the blood sprang into his face. 
 
 " I beg you to forgive me. I beg you to forgive 
 me," he said, unsteadily. " I forgot for a moment 
 that I was not talking to a woman of the world, who 
 would know how to accept such an absurd speech for 
 its worth." 
 
 Had he wished this time to utter the most insidious 
 piece of flattery in his power, he could not have 
 reached the desired result more completely. To be 
 mistaken for a woman of the world is as delightful 
 to a young girl as for an older woman to be likened 
 to a child. Her beautiful, luminous eyes did not fall 
 from his. 
 
48 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " One hates to be flattered by those whom one es 
 teems, as much as one likes to be flattered by those for 
 whom one doesn t care," she said. " When one doesn t 
 care, one laughs for thinking how silly people can be, to 
 fancy one is going to believe such words, and so amuses 
 one s self. But when one does care, it is different." 
 
 Nadrovine got to his feet and walked to the edge 
 of the little bluff. He stood there a few moments, 
 and then came back to her. 
 
 " I will not say all to you that I feel," he said, 
 looking down at her, " lest you think me crazy. But 
 will you tell me that you have forgiven me ?" 
 
 " Indeed, indeed I will," she said, happily. " I 
 do not think you will ever speak so to me again." 
 
 " No, I do not think it likely," replied Nadrovine. 
 
 Ilva was very light-hearted the rest of that even 
 ing and all the next day. She felt that Nadrovine 
 comprehended her better than at first and would not 
 hereafter treat her so entirely as a child. She got 
 out the different notices of him and read them over. 
 What a brilliant man he was, after all, and what 
 exquisite romances he wrote ! She buried herself in 
 a hammock and read one all day. It was as though 
 he were speaking to her. She recognized one or two 
 things that she had already heard him say. 
 
 V. 
 
 Nadrovine tried to analyze the feelings which had 
 possessed him when he saw the tears in the girl s eyes. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 49 
 
 It escaped him, however, as a float of light escapes a 
 child s grasp, falling each time outside of the fingers 
 that would seize it. He was entirely conscious of 
 the light, but it danced elusively and would not re 
 main still to be analyzed. He realized only one de 
 cided emotion, the wish to see the eyes again, and 
 alas for the humanity which in his romances he so 
 lauded ! to again behold them full of tears. 
 
 Had she been the ordinary type of a pretty, un 
 sophisticated young girl, the tears would have signi 
 fied to him mere moisture. But she was so extremely 
 removed from anything ordinary that they occupied 
 in his mind a place as unique as the drops which 
 the fairy hung in every cowslip s ear. How vigorous 
 and spirited she had looked while pouring forth all 
 that tirade against him ! She reminded him of a 
 young Caryatid who was fully capable of supporting 
 the temple of her convictions. He was not, as a 
 rule, fanciful, but he fell to wondering how her 
 lovely curves would express themselves beneath the 
 folds of a Greek peplos. There should be a crown 
 of red roses on her hair, some of their shaken leaves 
 upon her breast, one of her long white arms sunk 
 deep into thick grass. Some one said of Yernet 
 smoking, "Pif! paf! pouf! and he makes a man." 
 " Pif! paf! pouf!" and Nadrovine made a goddess. 
 
 Not content with that, he fashioned a sultana, 
 whose great, violet-gray eyes were like rain-washed 
 amethysts. He surrounded her with Circassian girls, 
 c d 5 
 
50 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 who fanned her with wonderful plumes that leaped 
 like flames from long wands of ivory. He went 
 further, and created a little Russian, whose heavy 
 hair drifting over her dress of palest blue and pink 
 was as sunlight athwart the late sky outside. 
 
 Nadrovine was as fond of dreaming with his eyes 
 open as are all who will acknowledge it. There was 
 not a pretty woman of his acquaintance whom he 
 had not espoused in imagination, and from whom he 
 had not divorced himself the following day, or week, 
 or month, as the case had been. One would have 
 annoyed him in his writing-hours, one would have 
 expected too much, one had coarse elbows when she 
 took off her long gloves at a dinner. All made him 
 smile. Ilva, on the contrary, made him frown, a 
 perplexed frown. She would probably never annoy 
 him in his writing-hours, as she wrote herself. Her 
 elbows were as complete as flowers. Then he had 
 always remembered her with a tenderness which 
 now made itself remembered in turn. 
 
 He leaped to his feet all at once and became very 
 serious. He would not allow himself to think of 
 her in a light way, no matter how pure. He had 
 respected her as a child ; how much more should he 
 respect her as a woman ! For she was a woman, he 
 told himself, although the ghost of her child-self 
 haunted her voice and speech and gestures, even at 
 times the expression of her face. 
 
 She had occupied always a high place in his 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 51 
 
 thoughts. She should occupy one higher still, and 
 in mounting to her new position she should close 
 the door of her past dwelling behind her, as the 
 chambered nautilus closes the door of its old habita 
 tion. She should become to him the type of noble 
 womanhood, his Madonna Mia, whom he would 
 help along the gracious ways wherein her feet were 
 set. He was not thinking of love, the love that 
 leads to marriage. Custom and a corrupt society had 
 given him rather a gross idea of such love. He would 
 never attempt to catch this Psyche by her wings, but 
 would make so alluring the gardens in which he 
 walked that she would alight among his flowers of 
 her own free will. Theirs would be an ideal love, 
 the winging of two souls to one object. He had en 
 tirely forgotten for the moment that Etiquette rules 
 in Demeter s place, and that even souls are not un- 
 discussed of domestics. 
 
 Nadrovine was not rich. He was, in fact, rather 
 poor, although he would inherit great wealth on his 
 mother s death. His poverty, however, was in a 
 great degree the result of carelessness. He made 
 and spent money with equal ease. He decided now 
 that he was thoroughly capable of supporting a wife, 
 should he ever look upon such a possibility as serious. 
 The girl passed and repassed before him. Again 
 and again he saw her tear-filled eyes. The faint per 
 fume of the azaleas at her belt disturbed him. He 
 seemed again to hold her hand, the pliable, lovely 
 
52 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 hand, that had been so quiet, and yet so strong, 
 within his. It was her latent strength, as much as 
 her beauty, that he found enchanting. 
 
 At this point in his meditations he went and leaned 
 over the terrace of the villa at which he was stop 
 ping, and looked down into the sea. The night 
 was very sultry, and the whisper of the water 
 sounded like an invitation. Nadrovine was much 
 given to nocturnal swimming. It was long past 
 midnight, and no one besides himself was awake in 
 the house. He went down the sea-steps, after fetch 
 ing his bath-sheet, and plunged into the tremulous 
 net-work of moonlit ripples. Even this did not 
 change the tenor of his thoughts. As the cool waves 
 caressed and clasped him, he found himself wonder 
 ing if Ilva Demarini were a good swimmer, and, if 
 such were the case, how delightful it would be to 
 cleave that gleaming highway which led even to the 
 portal of the rising moon, with her beside him. He 
 could fancy her flower-like limbs in their drenched 
 white garments, and the flow of her radiant hair 
 into the flow of the sheeny water. She would turn 
 her noble head every now and then and smile and 
 speak to him. If she grew tired, she should give 
 herself into his arm, and he would swim with the 
 other and so sustain her. 
 
 "I am thinking a great deal about that young 
 girl," he said to himself, with some wonder, as he 
 resumed his clothes and returned to his room. He 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 53 
 
 went and lifted her silver book from a carefully- 
 locked case which stood on his writing-table, and, 
 seating himself, began to mark such passages as he 
 considered appropriate for her to read. He was fa 
 miliar with Ariosto, but re-read many stanzas, with 
 that added interest which we always take in the 
 pre-imagined appreciation of another. 
 
 When he next called at the Villa Demarini, not 
 only was he told that the countess was out, but that 
 the signorina had gone for a walk. As he passed 
 along the terrace on his way back, it suddenly occurred 
 to him that he would rest for a few moments among 
 the ruins of the little temple on the hill-top. He 
 found there a palm-leaf fan, a scarf of some gauzy, 
 smoke-colored material, and the second volume of 
 Taine s " English Literature." He lifted his brows 
 a little as he took the book into his hand and began 
 turning the leaves. As he glanced over the pages, 
 some words scribbled in pencil caught his eye. He 
 paused and read them. They were written at the end 
 of the chapter on Ben Jonson, and were referred by 
 an asterisk to the sentences regarding the complete 
 idea which "conceives of the entire animal, its color, 
 the play of the light upon its skin, its form, the 
 quivering of its outstretched limbs, the flash of its 
 eyes, and at the same time its passion of the mo 
 ment, its excitement, its dash." 
 
 " This is surely very strange I" Ilva had written. 
 " When on the other page Taine spoke of the ordi- 
 5* 
 
54 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 nary mind trying to imagine an animal unseen of 
 actual eyes, I closed mine, and, for example, imagined 
 a tiger (a beast which I have never seen). I saw 
 nay, I heard the crisp crackling of the jungle reeds 
 and grass, with their russet- verdant lights filtering 
 through, the water curling among the thick blades 
 and stems, the flash of ragged and tawny reflection 
 as the great beast came padding through, the serrated 
 edges of the stiff blades dragging along his sleek 
 sides, the play of light among the supple wrinkles of 
 his hide, the darkening and yellowing of the great 
 eyes as his pupils contracted and dilated at the sight 
 of a drinking form. More than this, I felt with 
 him, marked the angry jerking of his tail s tip, and 
 the sheathing and unsheathing of his bluish-brown 
 claws in the oozy soil." 
 
 These hastily-scrawled sentences had a subtle 
 charm for Nadrovine, they were so entirely differ 
 ent from the sentiments which most young ladies 
 scribbled on the margins of their favorite volumes. 
 Had II va ornamented the margin of the pages with 
 many a " Bella ! Superba ! Bellissima !" it would 
 have seemed to him only the natural result of a 
 young girPs perusing so vivid a book. This account 
 of a mind-seen tiger aroused his surprise and a de 
 cided degree of admiration. He felt that his interest 
 in her was a crescendo, where in all other cases it 
 had been decidedly a diminuendo. " Without doubt 
 this little girl has a singular fascination for me," he 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 55 
 
 said to himself, impatiently. " I come to call. She 
 is out. I am conscious of actual disappointment. I 
 take up a book she has been reading, see some 
 words that she has written on the margin, and thrill 
 like any school-boy over the autograph of his first 
 
 flame. I wonder if it can be possible that I 
 
 Ouph ! I am idiotic ! I shall go and begin work on 
 that twenty-third chapter. 7 As he was setting forth 
 with this laudable determination, however, there came 
 to him a sound of voices laughing, voices that ap 
 proached nearer each moment, and as he stood at the 
 top of the stone stair- way, II va appeared at the foot 
 with a pretty child astride of her shoulders. Its 
 small hands were clutched in her riotous hair, and 
 her white woollen gown, full of wild flowers, was 
 pinned up about her waist. She held the child s 
 dainty ankles in one shapely hand, and the other 
 grasped several dolls and a straw hat with a gold- 
 colored lining. As she bent her head in the effort 
 of climbing the- rather difficult steps, she did not 
 catch sight of Nadrovine during her ascent, and the 
 child was too delighted with her tawny-maned steed 
 to take much notice of anything else. All the way 
 up she chattered gayly : 
 
 " And you will tell me a story ? and then we will 
 have chocolate? and a ball? You will invite the 
 orioles, won t you, darling cousine ? and the lizards ? 
 Do you know their tails break oif snap ! if one 
 tries to catch them that way ? The olives are so 
 
56 TEE WITNESS OF THE SUX. 
 
 black now; but we can pretend they are dates. 
 Have you grapes, cousine? And the apricot I 
 gave you ? Oh ! and the little knives and forks ?" 
 
 " Yrr. y . yes. to everything/ * replied the girl, 
 merrily. But, darling, if you pull out all my hair, 
 there will be no golden wire to strangle the nanghty 
 prince with." 
 
 "* Oh ! do I pull you. my very dearest ?" said the 
 little rider, distressed : then, all at once breaking off, 
 " Look ! is that the prince ?" 
 
 "Who? where?" said Ilva, staring. Then she 
 too stopped. "Is it you?" she asked, and to her 
 dismay felt the warm color wrap all her face, 
 
 Unless it is my doppelganger," said Xadrovine, 
 gravely. " And so I am the prince who is to be 
 strangled with a golden wire? What have I done so 
 wicked as all tluv 
 
 " Y:> .: wfll have to ask Lotta,* said Ilva. " I am 
 only chief executioner. I am not informed about the 
 offences." 
 
 The pretty elf on her neck swung round in order 
 to look earnestly into her eyes. 
 
 " Oh. cousine ! " exclaimed she, " but you do know 
 about the prince ! H xJetta s sash to draw 
 
 himself up to Viola s win- 1 
 
 That was indeed a crime," said Xadrovine, 
 " But why do you particularly strangle him with a 
 golden wire?* 
 
 " Oh, because because because it suits his com- 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 57 
 
 plexion," ended the elf, nodding triumphantly at 
 him. She was as unlike Ilva as possible. Her 
 dark hair, falling in dense, web-like masses about 
 her small pale face, had absolutely no reflections. 
 Her eyes were a clear sea-gray, with soft shadows 
 above and beneath them. She was exquisitely 
 formed, slender and graceful as a dragon-fly. In 
 her little white pinafore were three more dolls. 
 
 " You must introduce me to these young ladies," 
 he said, smiling, and holding out his hand. The 
 small Lotta placed one of hers sedately in the clearly- 
 marked palm. 
 
 This is the bride/ she said, indicating a damsel 
 in white satin with a very fluffy coiffure and gigantic 
 flesh-colored kid arms. "She is to marry the 
 prince." 
 
 " Oh ! then she must be Viola," said Xadrovine. 
 
 " No, oh, no, indeed !" Lotta assured him. " It is 
 Viola whom he loves only ; it is Nicoletta whom he 
 is to many." 
 
 " Ah !" said Xadrovine, seriously. " Then he is 
 rich?" 
 
 Xo, no!" replied Lotta, vehemently: "it is 
 letta who is rich. Don t you see? Else, of 
 course, he would many Viola." 
 
 " Dearest little one," said Ilva, " who taught you 
 all this? It isn t fair for Xicoletta to have all the 
 money." 
 
 The child looked at her shrewdly. 
 
58 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Mamma has all the money," she said. " Aunt 
 Anita has not a " 
 
 " The apricot ! I have dropped it !" cried Ilva. 
 
 Then, as the child ran after it, she turned impetu 
 ously to Nadrovine. 
 
 "Do not think I have been teaching her such 
 things/ she said. " I keep her with me as much 
 as I can, but, do what I may, she sees too much of 
 the servants." 
 
 "I never think anything of you but what you 
 would like to know/ 7 said Nadrovine. She turned 
 away towards the child, and wiped the fallen apricot 
 on a handful of grass. 
 
 " Now we will have the feast," she said. " Ask 
 Signer Nadrovine to gather you some olives, if you 
 wish them." 
 
 He went to the gnarled olive-tree and returned 
 with a handful of the shrivelled fruit, and in the 
 mean time Ilva had set out the mimic repast on the 
 old marble seat, with her lace-edged pocket-handker 
 chief for a table-cloth. The little set of red-and-gilt 
 china glittered brightly in the afternoon sun. There 
 were several dishes composed of a grape each, and 
 Nadrovine cut the apricot, as Lotta directed, into 
 three pieces. There was a lump of sugar for each of 
 the dolls, and Lotta bit a corner from hers with her 
 sharp little teeth, to offer Nadrovine. 
 
 " Who is the charming young lady in blue ?" 
 he asked, as he crunched this original gift. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 59 
 
 " Who? Francesca? She is the Signora Marilli. 
 She hates her husband dreadfully, and is in love 
 with the prince, and flirts disgustingly, and " 
 
 "Don t you think it is time to strangle the 
 prince?" asked Ilva, who was seated on the dry 
 grass, braiding up the abundant brown locks of Nico- 
 letta. Lotta agreed that she thought it was, and, 
 having risen, shook out her pinafore and said that 
 she would go to prepare the place of execution. 
 
 " Get a nice long one !" she called to Ilva over her 
 shoulder. 
 
 "To what does that refer?" said Nadrovine. 
 Ilva laughed, a little confusedly, he thought. 
 
 "Why, it is dreadful nonsense, you know," she 
 replied, " but she is such a dear child. She means a 
 strand of my hair." 
 
 Nadrovine regarded her absently while she drew 
 out the glittering almost invisible filament from her 
 masses of burnished coils. " And round his heart 
 one strangling golden hair," he said, half to himself. 
 
 " Ah ! Rossetti," said Ilva, with one of her swift 
 glances. " I do not always understand Rossetti ; but 
 that is beautiful." 
 
 " It is profoundly true," said Nadrovine. 
 
 " What ! you believe in the men who have died 
 for love ?" said the girl, smiling. 
 
 " Do not you believe it?" 
 
 " For love of themselves and of their own way, 
 yes," she said, mischievously. " I don t believe in 
 
60 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 strangling golden hairs, though. But then one 
 can t blame Rossetti for writing rather bitterly of 
 golden hair." 
 
 "Why?" said Nadrovine, who had long passed 
 the stage when he feared that her conversation would 
 disappoint him. 
 
 "Why? That is evident, I think. Did he not 
 lament his wife to such an extent that he buried all 
 his manuscripts with her, and did he not afterwards 
 have the poor woman disturbed in her grave that he 
 might recover them, and found that her beautiful 
 golden hair had grown all about them? Perhaps 
 it is not true ; but I have heard it many times." 
 
 " Then the strangling golden hair must have been 
 true in his case. He died rather young, you know." 
 
 " Yes, but he died of insomnia." 
 
 "And don t you think a strangling golden hair 
 would be very likely to cause insomnia ?" 
 
 " I know that you are joking," said Ilva, lightly. 
 " And it is useless to try to prove to me that men are 
 faithful to their dead. They wear loyalty so many 
 months, as women wear crape, and then take another 
 bride, as a woman puts on colors." 
 
 " And you think all women faithful ?" 
 
 " Not all, of course, but nearly all. Why, surely 
 you will acknowledge that ?" 
 
 Nadrovine looked down a moment into his hat, 
 which he held between his knees. 
 
 "I will tell you what I think, signorina," he said. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 61 
 
 " The most faithful thing, after a dog, is the woman 
 whom one has ceased to love." 
 
 He liked to bring the blood-stain to her clear 
 brow. 
 
 "One never ceases to love," she said, haughtily. 
 " If one ceases, as you call it, one has never loved. 
 One may have a passion, of course, and that may 
 cease : I do not suppose you think of such cases ?" 
 
 " Do you mean to say that if you loved once it 
 would be forever ?" said Nadrovine. 
 
 She remained quite still for a moment, leaning on 
 her hand, with her long fingers sunk deep into her 
 hair and her eyes on the sea. Presently she looked 
 at him steadily. 
 
 "Yes," she replied. 
 
 Then said Nadrovine, in a voice not familiar to 
 himself, " I believe that you would." 
 
 The old proverb about the devil may be applied 
 to Love : speak of him, and he is sure to appear. 
 He is a confirmed eavesdropper, and never hears his 
 name mentioned that he does not hasten to the spot. 
 The things that he overhears are generally so pleasant 
 that he has never been broken of this reprehensible 
 habit. 
 
 " I believe that you would," Nadrovine repeated. 
 
 " Of course ; yes. Why not ?" said Ilva, hur 
 riedly, disturbed by the new note in his voice. 
 " How long Lotta takes ! Lotta !" 
 
 Nadrovine smiled, leaning his head back against 
 6 
 
62 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 the marble seat. The leaf-shadows trembled across 
 his throat, and it looked so sensitive in its brown 
 clearness that the girl wondered the dancing flecks 
 did not tickle him. 
 
 " Lotta ! Lotta !" she called again. 
 
 " Now, if these were the days of Pan," said Na- 
 drovine, looking down upon her, his smile gone, " do 
 you know what would happen ?" 
 
 " No," she replied, returning his gaze as if com 
 pelled, but with an unmoved serenity. 
 
 " Why, there would come a little faun, a charming 
 little kid faun, out of the ilexes there, and he would 
 flute away on his reeds until the dainty Lotta danced 
 away on his arm, out of sight, out of hearing." 
 
 He paused, as if expecting her to say something. 
 
 " And then ?" she asked, mechanically. 
 
 " And then," said Nadrovine, gravely, " then we 
 could continue our talk together." 
 
 A gleam went over her face, like the reflection of 
 a white bird s wing in shadowed water. She felt a 
 rebellion against his words, and yet she wished that 
 she had allowed Lotta to go with her nurse that after 
 noon. She answered, however, with perfect sim 
 plicity, 
 
 " You do not like children ?" 
 
 " On the contrary. But there are some things that 
 I like better." 
 
 "Ah? It is that?" 
 
 " It is that, signorina." 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 53 
 
 She turned to him suddenly with all the frankness 
 of a flower that wears the sky s livery and sees no 
 presumption in the act. 
 
 " Dear Signor Nadrovine," she smiled, he saw 
 the light strike clearly through the opal brightness 
 of her little teeth, a can you mean seriously that it 
 gives you pleasure to talk to me ?" 
 
 Nadrovine did not smile in reply. He was very 
 grave, and his eyes met hers in a level look. 
 
 " It gives me the greatest pleasure that I know," 
 he answered, and their eyes held each other. 
 
 " You are very good/ 7 said Ilva, presently, in a 
 low voice, possessing her eyes again. She held out 
 both hands to Lotta, who had returned after ar 
 ranging elaborately the place of execution, and pre 
 tended to let the child pull her to her feet. 
 
 " Why, you are quite a little Amazon !" said Na- 
 drovine. 
 
 "Pouf! that is nothing," replied Mademoiselle. 
 " I fence. I fence with Victor. I can do un, deux, 
 un, deux, trois, doublez, deYloublez -fendez-vous ! I 
 fence better than many boys. They get so angry. 
 They want to poke one. George he is my other 
 brother said, Cre ! ere" ! to me one day when I dis 
 armed him. He danced : he did, indeed. He looked 
 very ugly. I said, ( I pity your wife, mow cher, and 
 was so calm that he would have liked to slap me. He 
 would have slapped me if he had not known that 
 Victor would tell and he would get slapped himself. 
 
64 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 You see ?" She bared one pale little wrist, with its 
 purplish thread-like veins, and moved it from side 
 to side, exposing the flexile muscles. 
 
 " It is like steel," she said. 
 
 Nadrovine examined it seriously. 
 
 " A kiss would make you a bracelet, mademoiselle," 
 he remarked, finally. " And you fence with this elf s 
 love-charm ?" 
 
 She looked at him unabashed and unoffended. 
 
 " I fence well," she assured him. 
 
 " I do not doubt it." 
 
 " And I am learning Italian. Which do you like 
 best, the way that Signorina Zanova says Cecilia/ 
 or the way that II va says it ?" 
 
 "How does Ilva say it?" 
 
 " This way, as if it were sweet in her mouth, 
 t Sheshilia. I like that best. It sounds as though 
 she kissed it before she let it get away." 
 
 " Yes, I like that best," said Nadrovine. 
 
 " Very well. And when I am grown I will fence 
 with you." 
 
 " Ah, yes, but it must be with foils." 
 
 " Why?" asked the child, puzzled. 
 
 "Because, mademoiselle, to fence with a young 
 demoiselle without foils is to commit a great indis 
 cretion." 
 
 " Si ?" said Lotta. She then carefully arranged 
 Prince Zi-Zi s sash, and, being weary of the conver 
 sation, announced that it was time to strangle him. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 65 
 
 " A strange game," observed Nadrovine, as he fol 
 lowed them to the place of execution. 
 
 " Yes, but not so strange as it seems until one 
 knows," explained II va, somewhat hurriedly. " As 
 soon as he is strangled he is supposed to come to life 
 as a good prince, and to turn monk for stealing 
 Viola s sash." 
 
 " It was Nicoletta s sash, was it not ?" 
 
 " He becomes good, a monk. We have a great 
 rosary made of berries." 
 
 " A monk !" said Nadrovine. 
 
 His tone arrested the girl. She paused in her task 
 of tying a slipknot in the strand of hair, and looked 
 up at him. His eyes dwelt on the far sea-blue. She 
 felt suddenly apart from him, as though the sea had 
 broken through the grass and flowers between them. 
 
 " I wished to be a monk once," he said, turning to 
 her at last. 
 
 " And now ?" she said, gently. 
 
 " And now ? Not always. Sometimes. Not 
 always. It must be a peaceful life." 
 
 " After one has lived," said the girl. She re 
 garded him with a serene wisdom in her large eyes. 
 
 " You do not think, then, that I would make a 
 good monk, signorina?" 
 
 "Perhaps, after you have lived," she repeated, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Is not that something like saying that one would 
 make a good ghost ?" 
 
QQ THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " If I were a ghost," he said, suddenly, " I would 
 haunt you. I would be in the wind outside your 
 window, and you should feel me in the mists rolling 
 in from the sea. If things were not as I wished 
 them, I would disturb you sadly. I would blow in 
 draughts upon such cavaliers as I did not approve. 
 I would give them rheumatism, influenza, every 
 thing unlovely." 
 
 " In that case you would make a better monk than 
 ghost, signor." She did not look in the least con 
 scious, and arranged the golden noose about Prince 
 Zi-Zi s neck with calm fingers. 
 
 " Perhaps," he said, imitating her enigmatical tone 
 of a moment before. 
 
 VI. 
 
 They executed the poor Zi-Zi, had another feast, 
 in honor of his revival, and then prepared to descend 
 to the villa. 
 
 " But my story !" said Lotta, hanging back. 
 "You haven t told me a story, dearest Cousine 
 Ilva, and I feel so unsettled when we cease our play 
 without a. story. The day doesn t end right. It is 
 as if the sun went down, splash ! like a sponge into 
 the sea, and put everything out. When you tell me 
 a story, I come slowly, slowly to the idea of going to 
 bed, and then I put myself to sleep thinking about 
 it." 
 
 "Can you refuse that?" said Nadrovine; and 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 67 
 
 Ilva drew the child to her and fondled her delicate 
 cheek. 
 
 " Signor Nadrovine is the one whom you should 
 ask/ 7 she said. " He is far cleverer than I about 
 telling stories. People make books out of his 
 stories." 
 
 " Oh ! books !" said Lotta. " I have many books. 
 What I like is to feel that it is coming out of your 
 lips, quite, quite new, and that you don t know any 
 more than I do what the next thing will be." 
 
 " The prettiest story that I ever heard as a little 
 girl was told to me by Signor Nadrovine," said Ilva. 
 
 Lotta regarded Nadrovine with palpably increasing 
 respect. 
 
 " If you would but tell me one, signor I" 
 
 " There is a charming one that I think of," replied 
 Nadrovine. " It is called The Princess of the Silver 
 Book; 7 and I do not know how it ends, any more 
 than you do." 
 
 " Why, how strange !" cried the child. " Cousine 
 Ilva told me a story once, and it had a name almost 
 exact " 
 
 " Ah ! the poor, poor Nicoletta !" said Ilva. " We 
 are trampling upon her. Poverina ! There ! there ! 
 Hush ! You see she will cry, my sweet. You will 
 have to console her yourself. She is such a mother- 
 baby. There !" 
 
 Lotta received her suffering daughter and tossed 
 her back and forth with an air of dainty matronliness 
 
63 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. . 
 
 which reminded one of a peach-bough swinging a 
 blossom. 
 
 " Poor thing ! poor thing !" she crooned. " But it 
 is her own fault. Nini asked her yesterday how her 
 migraine was, and she said she had quite recovered, 
 that she never felt better. She should have said, 
 you know, Thanks, I am well, but not so well as 
 yesterday. 7 " 
 
 "Ah, yes; you must teach her that our Italian 
 ideas are not to be laughed at. But she must have 
 a new sash in place of the one that Zi-Zi stole away. 
 Come to my room quite early to-morrow ; I have 
 one that I will give her, such a pretty, rosy thing, 
 like a little strip of that pink sky there." 
 
 Ilva was hurrying on, delighted at having turned 
 the child s attention. 
 
 " Oh, dearest Cousine Ilva, thank you ! Nicoletta 
 wishes to give you her hand. She is nearly spring 
 ing from my arms with delight. I can scarcely hold 
 her. Dearest Cousine Ilva, do give her a badgno, 
 a wee, wee one. It will so please her !" She looked 
 on with the bland smile of motherhood during this 
 performance, and then, as she received the cheered 
 Nicoletta into her arms and settled her gauze skirts, 
 she said over her shoulder to Nadrovine, 
 
 " It was < The Prince of the Silver Book. I had 
 almost forgotten to tell you." 
 
 For the second time that afternoon, Ilva felt her 
 self blush from forehead to throat. In spite of her 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 69 
 
 wish to appear unmoved, she hastened her steps 
 towards the house. 
 
 Nadrovine questioned the child in his grave way. 
 " That is a coincidence, is it not ?" he said. " Was 
 it a fairy-story? and was the prince happy in the 
 end ?" 
 
 "He was great; that is much better than being 
 happy. Cousine II va says that it is much better." 
 
 " Would you rather be great than happy ?" 
 
 "I should have to think about that/ 7 replied 
 Lotta. " I do not always wish to do what I ought. 
 But then to be great ! to have one s way always !" 
 
 " To be great," said Nadrovine, " means never to 
 have one s way." 
 
 Lotta tried to subdue the incredulity that swept 
 over her small face at this announcement. 
 
 " I tell you what I should like to be," she said at 
 last, waiving the subject. " I should like to have an 
 invisible cap. When people displeased me, I would 
 put on my cap and serve them as I wished. Oh, the 
 fun that I would have ! Oh, the droll things that 
 I would do ! Oh !" She drew a long breath, and 
 tucked Nicoletta under her arm in order to clasp her 
 hands ecstatically. 
 
 " What sort of things ?" inquired Nadrovine. 
 
 " Why, for instance, when mamma took me to 
 church and the cure" preached too long a sermon, I 
 would pop on my dear little cap, and steal on tiptoe 
 behind him, and pinch his nose together so that he 
 
70 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 would sound as though he were wheezing through a 
 toy trumpet. Oh, the poor man ! how comical he 
 would look ! And then when they sought me, there 
 I would be as still as a mouse, and the little cap in 
 my pocket. Oh, I would rather have that than the 
 big gold cross on the Madeleine, and a queen s 
 crown, and diamond shoes, and live dolls ! Cousine 
 Ilva s prince wasn t at all like that, though. He 
 was of a great dignity, and always spoke in a gentle 
 voice, and called people the princess, I mean 
 doushka. That means little darling/ or dear 
 little one. He was the most charming creature. 
 His eyes were of light, and his hair of sunbeams, 
 and he always made people do good things without 
 looking ridiculous. That is so difficult!" She 
 sighed, and smoothed Nicoletta s hair. 
 
 "That must have been a beautiful story," said 
 Nadrovine, feeling Ilva s embarrassment without 
 looking at her, and hastening to change the subject. 
 " I shall try and get your cousin to tell it to me 
 some day." 
 
 "Oh, I am sure she will," Lotta assured him. 
 "Won t you, cousine dearest? You would tell it 
 now if we begged you, would you not ?" 
 
 " It is too late. The story is too long. And 
 there ! there is Marie beckoning to you." 
 
 She kissed the child and gave her a gentle push 
 forward towards her nurse, after waiting for her to 
 make her stately adieux to Nadrovine. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 71 
 
 Miss Herbert was sitting with her fancy-work on 
 the terrace, and looked up as they approached. 
 
 " Has mamma returned ?" asked Ilva, after greet 
 ings had been interchanged. "Is Aunt Cecilia in 
 the drawing-room ?" 
 
 No ; Madame Boutry was still lying down, with 
 a headache, and the countess had not returned. 
 
 " It is cooler out here," said Ilva, hesitating. She 
 did not wish to seem to dismiss him, and yet she 
 shrank from forcing herself upon him. 
 
 " Let us stay outside, by all means," replied Na- 
 drovine. " The sunset will be superb, and I am sure 
 poor Miss Herbert would dislike being dragged in 
 doors." 
 
 " Shall we walk, or will you bring chairs ?" 
 
 " Let us walk, if you are not tired." 
 
 "Oh, no! I am only tired of being still. I 
 stooped too much over Lotta s dolls. It has made 
 my head heavy. It will be delightful to walk." 
 
 " I brought your book with me. Shall I leave it 
 with Miss Herbert ? Or perhaps it is a copy that 
 you do not wish to remain about the house. I had 
 the indiscretion to read some of your marginal notes. 
 You will forgive me? You know what an interest 
 I take in your writing ?" 
 
 She stood looking at him, stung by a rush of 
 mingled sensations. 
 
 "How presumptuous, how silly, you must have 
 thought me !" she exclaimed. 
 
72 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Why, no. It is a remarkable bit of writing, 
 terse, original. If you are not displeased, I am. 
 delighted to have seen it. You have great imagina 
 tion." 
 
 "Do you think so?" said Ilva, in a low voice. 
 Her heart seemed to shake her with its rapid beat 
 ing, for his approval or disapproval meant much to 
 her. 
 
 "Yes, great and original," replied Nadrovine. 
 "You will let me see some of your manuscripts, 
 will you not ?" 
 
 " Some. Perhaps. They are very badly written. 
 I have never shown them." 
 
 " I wish all the more to see them." 
 
 " Do you ?" said the girl, for want of a better re 
 mark. " It will be quite a task to read them. They 
 are written on both sides of the paper. I believe that 
 is a mistake." 
 
 Nadrovine was regarding her side-face as they 
 walked up and down together. 
 
 " You are very serious in this," he said. " It is 
 a very serious thing to you, is it not?" 
 
 " Very. I love nothing so much. I cannot im 
 agine life without it. Do not encourage me to talk, 
 signor, if you intend laughing at me. I believe that 
 you are in earnest, but I have no past experience 
 by which to judge. I have never spoken of this 
 before to any one." 
 
 " I am sure you do not think that I would laugh 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 73 
 
 at you/ said Nadrovine. His tone convinced her. 
 She drew in a long breath of relief, and let it escape 
 softly, that it might not sound like a sigh. 
 
 " It is very good of you to be interested," she said, 
 in a restrained voice. "You must have so many 
 people talk to you in this vein." 
 
 "On this subject; not in this vein." 
 
 " There are so many things that I should like to 
 say to you, I do not know which to say first." 
 
 " I hope that you will take time to say them all, 
 signorina. Believe me, nothing could delight me 
 more." 
 
 " Oh, but there will not be time. I shall not see 
 you often enough." 
 
 She paused, feeling that she had said something 
 which had better have remained unspoken. She was 
 too candid to try and escape by means of a subter 
 fuge, and stood before him wordless, and too over 
 whelmed to do more than control her expression of 
 dismay. 
 
 " I suspect you will see me oftener than you have 
 any idea of," said Nadrovine, with ready tact. Her 
 evident confusion was as delightful to him as the 
 frankness of the silence which admitted it. 
 
 "You are very, very good," replied Ilva, and 
 paused again. 
 
 She thought hopelessly of the conversations that 
 would have to pass between them before she could 
 speak to him without embarrassment, and tilted 
 
74 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 her fine head with a certain air of restrained eager 
 ness. 
 
 " I say nothing that I wish !" she exclaimed, im 
 patiently. And then, before Nadrovine could correct 
 her, " I wish to tell you some simple thing, and I 
 deliberately say something else. But I will tell you 
 quickly, before my tongue runs away with the words, 
 how I thank you for your good words. They en 
 courage me. They are much to me. I have read 
 all your books. Herbert has them. I have marked 
 some of them with my thumb-nail. Herbert will 
 not have pencil-marks in her books, but she does not 
 notice the nail-marks. Some of them made me 
 breathe as though I had been running. The one 
 where they take away poor Sovosky s dog at the 
 Siberian frontier, and one of the soldiers kicks it, 
 and it whines and tries to get to Sovosky, and 
 the soldier kicks it again and breaks its leg, my 
 face stung when I read that. I hated that sol 
 dier. I could see the dog, and poor Sovosky with 
 the tears freezing on his face. Tell me," she 
 continued, eagerly, " did you ever see a scene like 
 that ?" 
 
 Nadrovine paused a moment before answering 
 her, looking down at the grass between them, and 
 her high-curved foot sunk into its soft mat. Then 
 he lifted his eyes to hers. 
 
 " My father is in Siberia," he said. 
 
 Ilva pressed her hands together, feeling the same 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 75 
 
 hot smarting in her face that had stung her when 
 reading of Sovosky and his dog. 
 
 " Siberia ? Your father ? He is in Siberia ?" 
 
 They stood in silence, looking out over the sea, 
 where in swirls of citron and vermilion a few sails 
 were dissolving like feathers thrown against flame. 
 Presently she said, in an undertone, 
 
 " I do thank you for telling me that. I feel it. I 
 feel it so much more than I can say. I cannot say 
 how much." 
 
 ft I can feel how much," replied Nadrovine. 
 
 A long, narrow veil of sea-blue gauze that she 
 held over her arm blew out and clung to the cloth 
 of his sleeve. It was like a visible sign of the airy 
 thread of sympathy and confidence connecting them. 
 He could have kissed it, so strongly had his feeling 
 for the girl grown in this short, unlooked-for inter 
 view. 
 
 " You must not think that I told you this to harrow 
 tip your feelings and make you sorry for me, signo- 
 rina. To be true, I love my mother best, although 
 I always looked upon my father with an almost awed 
 admiration. It will explain to you many things in 
 my books which might otherwise seem unnecessarily 
 bitter, this fact of my father s exile, I mean. My 
 mother has borne it more bravely than I have. She 
 is very wonderful. You will like each other, I arn 
 sure. I am sure, at least, that she will like you ; 
 and she is very beautiful." 
 
76 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " If she will let me like her," said Ilva, hesitat 
 ingly. "The friends of friends are so apt to be 
 enemies, and one s mother so rarely likes the people 
 whom one is fondest of." 
 
 " My mother and I are the exceptions that prove 
 your rule, signorina." 
 
 " You always agree ?" 
 
 " We have never yet disagreed*" 
 
 "And she is beautiful? Is she at all like you? 
 I mean, is she dark or fair?" 
 
 " She has ink-black hair, and emerald eyes, and a 
 skin like milk. She is nearly as tall as I am, too 
 tall, say the little men and women. She is five foot 
 ten, supple and majestic, and with such a sweet voice." 
 
 " Oh, one does not care whether a woman is tall 
 or short, if her voice is sweet," said Ilva. " Then 
 you must be like your father? And was he tall 
 also?" 
 
 " Two inches taller than I am. You will think 
 us a race of giants." 
 
 " How lovely she must be, with her sweet voice !" 
 sighed the girl. " I do not wonder that you worship 
 her." The Countess Demarini was short and rather 
 stout, and her voice, when she took the trouble to 
 speak, had an asthmatic wheeze that gave way occa 
 sionally to a complaining whine. 
 
 "You have her picture?" continued Ilva, a little 
 shyly. 
 
 " Yes, two miniatures, one in her Russian dress, 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 77 
 
 one in a black satin gown. If you would like to see 
 them " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Ilva, " please." 
 
 Nadrovine took out his watch, opened it, and held 
 it towards her. The face that she saw enthralled 
 her. It was of a long, oval contour, clearly pale, 
 save for the scarlet of the full, round lips, sur 
 mounted by night-colored hair, and made brilliant 
 with dark-green eyes slightly prominent under thick, 
 heavily-curved lids. The nose was short and well 
 cut, the ears symmetrically placed and clasping closely 
 the small, self-possessed head, the forehead high, 
 boldly modelled, shaded by a few short curls melting 
 into a violetish haze at the temples. 
 
 The pretty Russian head-dress set with pearls 
 and emeralds brought out vividly the tones of this 
 charming face. 
 
 " How very beautiful ! How you must love 
 her !" cried Ilva. " And how young she looks !" 
 
 "Yes," replied Nadrovine, also gazing at the 
 miniature in the young girl s palm, a she has a re 
 markable appearance for her age. That miniature 
 was painted only two years ago ; and she looks no 
 older now. I am glad that we agree in this instance 
 as well as in many others, signoriua. I will tell my 
 mother of your approval. She is coming shortly to 
 Italy to spend the rest of this year with me." 
 
 Ilva turned on him her wide, clear gaze. 
 
 " Then I may see her ; we may know each other. 
 7* 
 
78 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 But I am afraid that young girls bore a woman like 
 Madame Nad ro vine." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Nadrovine. "You would not 
 bore her." 
 
 " Ah, but how can you tell ?" 
 
 " We agree so perfectly." 
 
 Ilva looked once more at the miniature that she 
 held, and then returned him his watch. It was 
 warm with her hand, and he kept it in his own 
 for a minute or two. The western light was in her 
 eyes and on her hair, and a sweep of mystic rose- 
 gray throbbed behind her. She was still looking at 
 him. 
 
 " I cannot tell you how kind I think you for the 
 interest that you have shown in my work, in my 
 wish to work," she said, rapidly. "I know how 
 very, very pale my hopes and ambitions must seem 
 to you, to you who have accomplished so much. 
 I do not wish to say too much, to be what Herbert 
 calls gushing/ but I do wish you to know that I 
 appreciate all that you have said to me of kindness 
 and encouragement." 
 
 " It is you who have been kind to me," replied 
 Nadrovine. 
 
 "But the whole world is kind to you. It is 
 nothing for one unknown person to like what you 
 write, and it is everything for me, your approval, 
 I mean. I shall work so hard now. I seem to feel 
 a new zest : I am already longing to get my pen in 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 79 
 
 my fingers. I may have something that I shall not 
 feel ashamed to show you, after all." 
 
 " I shall wish to see whatever you have written. 
 Believe me, I speak honestly." 
 
 " Ah, well, I cannot destroy your ideal of my 
 power by doing anything so rash as that," said II va. 
 She laughed a little, and drew the dim blue veil 
 about her head and throat. He thought that her 
 eyes must be like the eyes of Pandora before she 
 had opened her box. " Perhaps she too picked the 
 lock with a pen," he reflected. 
 
 " There is one thing that I must tell you before 
 I go," he said, suddenly. " You will think me trite, 
 and possibly morbid." , 
 
 "What is it? Say it," returned the girl, with 
 her eager imperiousness. 
 
 " It is this : that writing is a hard art. One has 
 to suffer, especially a woman, especially a woman 
 who has the courage of her opinions." 
 
 " That means that you think I have the courage 
 of mine, does it not, signer ?" 
 
 " I do think so, assuredly." 
 
 "But/then, if I am willing to suffer?" 
 
 " We are all willing to suffer as long as suffering 
 means a vague pain which does not disturb our poise, 
 or individuality, or surroundings. Ask yourself how 
 you could bear to part with one of your hands." 
 
 She lifted one of her delicate hands, held it be 
 tween herself and the fading sunset, and hesitated. 
 
30 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 l The idea of being maimed is always so horrible." 
 
 " There are worse things than losing one s hand, 
 doushka." 
 
 "What is worse?" 
 
 " To have the eye of the public always at one s 
 key-hole. A man might go mad for that, thrust his 
 pen through the opening and put it out, and so have 
 no readers for his manuscripts. The sensation of 
 being eternally pried upon, there is nothing much 
 worse than that ; and that is the penalty." 
 
 They were silent for a few moments, and then Ilva 
 said, with a gentle dignity, 
 
 " I will remember. I thank you for telling me." 
 
 She turned, and Nadrovine followed her to the 
 piazza, before which the Countess Demarini s carriage 
 had just stopped. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Nadrovine was candid enough with himself to 
 acknowledge, as he drove back to his lodgings, that 
 he was interested in the girl to an absorbing degree. 
 She had for him, in contrast to all other handsome 
 women who had attracted him, that subtle charm 
 which one only recognizes after one has yielded to its 
 spell. She seemed to him as graciously and serenely 
 pure as her own eyes, and as vivid in her unusual 
 naturalness as their changing lights. It was perhaps 
 or rather probably the fact of her mother s being 
 an American that gave her the untrammelled grace 
 of gesture and expression which so delighted him, 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. gl 
 
 and she had evidently been without guidance save 
 that which the long-suffering Herbert had ventured 
 to exercise. He was also keenly conscious of the 
 subtle flattery contained in the disclosures of Made 
 moiselle Lotta. He had evidently been the hero of 
 all the young girl s day-dreams. She had thought 
 of him constantly, and he represented to her the 
 entire world of men. Nadrovine had always cher 
 ished an aversion to marriage. He felt this aversion 
 melting away as he fancied those quiet eyes trans 
 formed and wavering with the love-light that he 
 should have kindled, those lips so placid and undis 
 turbed in their delicate curves trembling with words 
 of confession. He did not realize how intensely her 
 individuality had impressed him, until in his conjec 
 tures he found himself wondering what type of man 
 would finally win and marry her. He shrunk from 
 it as sensitively-organized people will sometimes 
 shrink from throwing a flower into the fire. There 
 was no man of whom he could think as husband to 
 that slender, Psyche-faced child without a shudder of 
 revulsion and apprehension ; for he was one of the few 
 men who recognize that a woman may be married 
 while her soul remains un wedded, and that the fate 
 of the victims of the Minotaur was preferable to this. 
 He realized that the only love to which such a woman 
 would yield would have to be as supreme in its rev 
 erence as in its fire, a white flame, still, pure, and ever- 
 ascending. Her dreams would be a man s only rival ; 
 
82 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 but then few have ever estimated the force in the 
 rivalry of an ideal. The man who is measured by a 
 woman s imagined lover is far less fortunate than the 
 man who has to deal with an actual being. Nadro- 
 vine recognized all this ; but underneath and ever 
 present was that consciousness of having dominated 
 those girlish dreams, of having figured as "The 
 Prince of the Silver Book." 
 
 He was often at the Villa Demarini during the 
 next fortnight. Sometimes he would see Ilva, gener 
 ally in the presence of her mother and Miss Herbert ; 
 while once or twice he had the good fortune to find 
 her alone with Lotta among the ruins of the little 
 temple on the hill. She finally consented to show 
 him one or two of her manuscripts, and he was singu 
 larly haunted by them, vigorous original essays and 
 poems, decidedly ungirlish in their handling of sub 
 jects which she could only have imagined. He saw 
 that there was genius throbbing under the crude 
 richness of language and ideas, and told her so. 
 She did not say much, but the look in her eyes was 
 sufficient. He was beginning to tire of seeing only 
 gratitude and appreciation in those clear eyes. She 
 seemed made for love, the love of a man who has 
 recognized -that God created him for one woman and 
 who has lived his life with a view to their ultimate 
 meeting. Nadrovine had so lived his life, and the 
 girl was growing inexpressibly dear to him. 
 
 He had the good fortune to find himself beside 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 83 
 
 her on horseback late one afternoon in June. They 
 were on their way with Miss Herbert, Lotta, and 
 her two brothers to visit an old castle belonging to 
 a cousin of Count Demarini, a haunted place which 
 boasted murders and blood-stains, and, best of all 
 in the eyes of the two boys, underground dungeons 
 with great stone doors. They were wild to inspect 
 these gloomy places, and chattered of them all the 
 way over. 
 
 " What strange creatures boys are I" said Ilva to 
 Nadrovine. " They seem to delight in all sorts of 
 cruel, grewsome things !" 
 
 She was dressed in an English riding-habit, sit 
 ting square and straight on her neat hunting-saddle, 
 and riding a handsome chestnut with one white hind 
 stocking and a star between his eyes. 
 
 " I confess that I don t like boys," she added, 
 pausing as though to wait for his expression of dis 
 approval. 
 
 " Sometimes one finds a boy whom one loves/ 
 replied Nadrovine, " but it is very rare. The two 
 little animals in front are very pretty, with their blue 
 eyes and blond hair, but they are little animals for 
 all that." 
 
 "So different from Lotta. She is like a sweet 
 fairy," said Ilva. " And how deliciously she man 
 ages her pony ! One wants to take her, pony and 
 all, into one s arms." 
 
 " She adores vou." 
 
84 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Yes ; she has a great ideal of me. I fear for 
 her when it is dispelled. It takes a great deal of 
 self-control to live up to a child s ideal of one." 
 
 " Or a woman s/ said Nadrovine. 
 
 " Do you think that many women have ideals of 
 men, nowadays, Signer Nadrovine? I know very 
 few women, but those that I do know seem to me 
 hardly to do men justice." 
 
 " That is perhaps the reason, signorina, why we do 
 not live more nobly. We know that most women 
 do not expect it of us." 
 
 She turned on him her frank smile and the glow 
 of her believing look. 
 
 " Why do you say such things, except in your 
 books ? I know that you have lived nobly." 
 
 " I was only speaking of men as a class. I have 
 had my mother s belief in me to live up to. I owe 
 much nearly everything to my mother." 
 
 " She must deserve your worship, signer." 
 
 " You will think so indeed when you know her. 
 I expect her next week. I am like a lover await 
 ing his lady, as restless and nervous as a boy." 
 
 " It must be almost divine to a mother to have such 
 a love," said the girl. " It is the most beautiful love 
 of all. Do you not think so ?" 
 
 " No, signorina." 
 
 " You do not ?" She flushed a little, but asked her 
 question bravely. 
 
 " No, doushka ; there is one love which, when it is 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 85 
 
 as God meant it to be, is more godlike than any on 
 earth. The love of Christ for the Church is not 
 compared to the love of a father for his child." 
 
 "No?" said Ilva. She could control her voice, 
 but not the violent leaping of her heart. 
 
 " Can t we ride faster ?" here called Miss Herbert, 
 who, unlike most Englishwomen, did not ride well, 
 disliked a trot, and was only happy when cantering. 
 " We can see nothing of the castle before sundown if 
 we do not hurry." 
 
 " There will be a moon," said Nadrovine under 
 his breath. 
 
 His heart was beating rapidly also, and he wished 
 poor Herbert in many an unpleasant place. 
 
 " Yes, nearly a full moon," said Ilva. They set 
 their horses in a gallop and soon overtook and 
 repassed the others. 
 
 " How you would enjoy a ride over the steppe !" 
 said Nad ro vine, as they drew rein. " I can see you 
 on a black Russian horse with your hair loose." 
 
 " Oh ! oh !" said Ilva, relieved at finding an excuse 
 to laugh. " One never rides with loosened hair ex 
 cept in Perrault s fairy-tales. Fancy how slovenly 
 one would look in a top-hat with one s hair flying !" 
 
 " I was thinking of the contrast between the horse s 
 mane and your hair. You have such wonderful hair. 
 It is like a little child s, and it is so thick. It must 
 weigh your arms down to comb it out." 
 
 " Ah ! here we are at the gate," said Ilva. " What 
 8 
 
86 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 hideous stone griffins ! but the gate itself is beauti 
 ful." 
 
 " There are three more miles through the 
 grounds," called Miss Herbert. " We must hurry, 
 my dear !" 
 
 They galloped up to the door of the castle. It 
 was a great square pile, draped with vines, and sur 
 rounded by huge cedars and olive-trees. They were 
 shown over it by the cicerone, a withered creature 
 with dull eyes and an even duller mind. He had 
 not a word to say, but threw open doors on gloom 
 and beauty alike with the same unvarying stolidity 
 of countenance. 
 
 They were retiring rather disappointed with their 
 jaunt, when Victor and Georges precipitated them 
 selves at the same time upon Miss Herbert, crying, 
 " The dungeons ! the dungeons ! We must see the 
 dungeons !" 
 
 \\r ell sai( j Migg Herbert, weakly. 
 
 " Do you care about it ?" Nadrovine asked Ilva. 
 
 "Now that we are here, we might as well see 
 them," she replied; "and the boys seem beside 
 themselves." 
 
 It was therefore decided that they should visit 
 the dungeons. Pietro, the cicerone, arranged a very 
 mediaeval-looking torch in a species of iron cup, and 
 prepared to lead the way. 
 
 " Why don t you take a lantern ?" asked Nadro- 
 vine. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 87 
 
 "We have no lanterns, Excellency/ replied the 
 automaton. 
 
 " Then a candle or a lamp ?" 
 
 " Candles and lamps blow out, Excellency." 
 
 " In that case, your idea of the torch is capital," 
 said Nadrovine, dryly; and they all laughed, all 
 except Pietro, who descended the narrow stairways 
 like a statue in motion, with no expression on his 
 face whatever, either of amusement or distaste. 
 
 There were four of these underground cells, each 
 damper and more slimy than the last. The mud 
 seemed to be at least an inch thick on the soggy 
 floors, and the slime clung in ropes to the trickling 
 walls. 
 
 " Let us go in, just to say we have been in," urged 
 the boys ; and so all six went and stood in the 
 hideous place, shrinking involuntarily from the coated 
 roof and sides. The doors were of stone a foot thick. 
 
 No one spoke. 
 
 " Three men were starved to death in there, so it 
 is said," droned the cicerone, giving voice to his first 
 remark. He would not enter, but stood just with 
 out, thrusting his torch back and forth and waving 
 it about to give them a full view of the horrors which 
 surrounded them. They started. It seemed almost 
 like the utterance of a ghost. The only unimpressed 
 beings were the two boys, who flitted in and out like 
 will-o -the-wisps, their fair hair seeming to catch fire 
 from the fitful torch-light. 
 
88 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 No one could quite tell how it happened. There 
 seemed to be a sudden scuffle, a sharp cry from Pietro. 
 The torch fell hissing in the mud just beyond the 
 great door, and the door itself closed with a heavy 
 jar. Everything at once became quiet. No sound 
 reached them from the outside. In the ooze of the 
 floor the great knot of resinous wood lay sputtering 
 and sending up a heavy coil of smoke. The faces 
 of the four who were shut in were seen wide-eyed 
 and strained in the dull glow. Miss Herbert drew 
 Lotta up into her arms and pressed the child s face 
 down upon her shoulder. 
 
 " Victor ! Georges !" cried Nadrovine, " open at 
 once I" 
 
 He struck the stone with his hands. No grave 
 was ever more silent than the place into which they 
 had been shut. The fallen torch smoked on slowly 
 to its final spark, and the cell was filled with the 
 tarry smoke. Then a thick, soundless darkness 
 closed about them. Lotta began to sob in a nervous 
 ecstasy of fear. 
 
 Ilva felt Nadrovine close at her side, though he 
 did not touch her. 
 
 " I am not afraid," she said, before he could speak. 
 " Shall we have to wait long ?" 
 
 " I cannot tell," he replied. " Those little " 
 
 he addressed some terms to the sportive young 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 89 
 
 Boutrys between his closed teeth. "They should 
 be soundly flogged," he ended. "I fear you will 
 take a horrible cold in this vile den. Wait a 
 moment. 
 
 Ilva felt something soft thrust under her feet ; she 
 trod upon it with a smile which seemed strangely 
 unnecessary in that thick blackness. 
 
 " Is it not drier ? You do not feel the damp so 
 much ?" inquired Nadrovine, anxiously. 
 
 She said, " No. I thank you so very much." 
 
 Lotta went on sobbing, and the sound was almost 
 a relief to them. 
 
 There passed what seemed to them a long time. 
 
 "I have some matches," said Nadrovine. He 
 struck them one after another until they were all 
 gone, and looked at his watch. 
 
 It had been only four minutes since they were 
 locked into the cell. 
 
 " This is terrible !" cried Miss Herbert, shrilly. 
 " What can have happened ? I will see that those 
 boys have a just punishment, a severe caning." 
 
 " And I !" said Nadrovine, grimly. They felt 
 that Miss Herbert nodded approval before again 
 bestowing her attention on the frightened Lotta. 
 
 The minutes slowly passed. Ilva could hear the 
 loud ticking of Nadrovine s watch in the dense 
 silence, and it seemed strange that it should con 
 tinue on its way so calmly, as strange as that 
 the rich Italian sky swept cloudless overhead, and 
 
90 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 that the fair afternoon moved on to night uninter 
 rupted. 
 
 " I can t understand why they do not let us out 
 at once," said Ilva, finally. " Do you suppose that 
 the cicerone does not know how to open the door ?" 
 
 " It may not have been shut for many years," 
 replied Nadrovine. " He may not understand how 
 to unclose it. Are you cold ? I seem to feel that 
 you are shivering." 
 
 " You felt that ? How strange ! I was shiver 
 ing ; but I am not cold. After all, it is a grewsome 
 feeling, being shut into a place like this." 
 
 Involuntarily they spoke in whispers and drew 
 nearer to each other. Nadrovine was standing be 
 tween Ilva and Miss Herbert, and put his hand on 
 Lotta s little head to reassure her while he spoke. 
 
 " It cannot last more than ten minutes longer, 
 at the utmost," he said. " Evidently the cicerone 
 has gone to get aid of some kind. You must have 
 conquered both Victor and Georges at fencing this 
 morning, mademoiselle, to cause such spite." 
 
 "I f-f-fenced with Georges," sobbed Lotta, "and 
 b-b-broke his f-foil, and then I made V- Victor 
 angry b-by saying he would be a s-s-sneak if he 
 told if he t-told M-m-aman when Georges pushed 
 me. Oh, will it be long, m sieu ? Please hold my 
 other hand. Please hold me very tight, Mees Her 
 bert. I wish you would tell me a story about light 
 places, and sunshine, and bright blue and pink 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 91 
 
 flowers ! It will help me to compose myself. You 
 know truly I believe myself to be dreaming." She 
 fell into nervous sobbing again, and buried her head 
 in Miss Herbert s shoulder. 
 
 " If one had only brought one s goloshes !" mur 
 mured that patient creature. " But, then, how could 
 one imagine such a contingency? Hush, hush, my 
 dear child ! I will tell you a story, if you will only 
 listen." She went off into a long, rambling narrative 
 in which she and her four brothers and sisters all 
 played conspicuous parts. 
 
 " You are still shivering. I am sure that you 
 must be cold," said Nadrovine. " You are too near 
 that damp wall." He put out his hand to ascertain 
 her position, and it came in contact with her soft hair. 
 
 " If you would lean on me !" he said, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 He found the slight, ungloved hand and drew it 
 through his arm. "How you tremble, my poor 
 child !" he whispered. " This will have a terrible 
 effect on you." 
 
 She did not answer at once, and then said finally, 
 in a low voice, " I am glad that you are here. I feel 
 safe." 
 
 " Doushka !" he whispered, in an indescribable 
 tone. 
 
 Ilva felt that a tremor ran through him also. She 
 strove to control herself. 
 
 " I I think if only Miss Herbert and Lotta and 
 
92 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 I had been shut into this dungeon, that I should have 
 suffered a great deal. I think of all sorts of horrors. 
 I seem to feel those starving wretches crawling and 
 cursing in the mud at my feet." 
 
 She felt herself drawn closer to him, a perceptible, 
 imperious movement. 
 
 " You are not afraid with me ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " You trust me ? you believe in me ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You feel that I would stand between you and all 
 evil?" 
 
 There was a pause, and then she said, clearly, 
 
 " I feel that." 
 
 " Ilva !" said Nadrovine. She felt his arms close 
 around her. She did not repulse him. His lips 
 rested against her forehead, and all the darkness 
 seemed to press in golden throbbings against her 
 closed lids. 
 
 She stood locked in his arms, wordless, for a long 
 while. They could hear Miss Herbert droning out 
 her chronicles of Matilda and Alfred and John and 
 Charlotte and their troubles with their kitchen-gar 
 dens, and how they were paid fourpence for every 
 turnip that they brought to perfection, and sixpence 
 for every carrot, and how they discovered a new 
 species of rose by mixing the seeds, and how they 
 made enough money by it to purchase a brass lecturn 
 for a gift to their father on Michaelmas, etc., etc., etc. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 93 
 
 Ilva felt sure that Lotta was right and that they 
 were all dreaming. Those quivering lips on her fore 
 head were the only real things in this chaos of un- 
 usualness and living gloom. 
 
 As for Nadrovine, the past seemed to have broken 
 in a mighty wave on the shore of the present, and to 
 have left him stranded there. All his ideas and 
 theories of the last ten years were no more in this 
 surge of emotion than shells and strips of sea-weed 
 on the actual sea. He knew that to clasp in his arms 
 this fragile piece of girlhood, feeling her content to 
 be there, was sufficient, and that the hope of sealing, 
 on some future day, her pure and sensitive lips with 
 his, held for him more possibilities of joy than were 
 contained in the cup of fame pressed down and run 
 ning over. He loved her as women should pray 
 Heaven to be loved, with a keen recognition of all 
 the traits that he did not himself possess, and a de 
 termination to consider them most when he under 
 stood them least, with a reverence as intense as it 
 was sincere for the child in her, which is part of every 
 complete woman, old or young, an absolute belief in 
 her delicacy of soul and body, an adoration of her 
 very self and spirit, which constrained him rather to 
 imagine the love as seen in her eyes than as felt on 
 her lips, and an awe for her purity which made him 
 think that, while as her lover he might dare to caress 
 her mouth, as her husband he would only venture 
 to kiss the utmost edge of her garments. 
 
94 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 In a few moments more the door was opened for 
 them. 
 
 It was as Nadrovine had thought: the cicerone 
 had had to procure the aid of two other servants be 
 fore he could move the heavy block of stone. Victor 
 and Georges were scampering homeward, in dismay 
 at what they had done. 
 
 Nadrovine and Ilva rode forth beneath a sky which 
 seemed to float like a golden bubble above them, a 
 bubble blown upward from the great bowl of the 
 earth which hollowed to the horizon. The pines 
 seemed dripping with sherry. 
 
 " They are like green beards of Tritons drenched 
 in wine," said Ilva, fancifully, as if speaking to her 
 self. 
 
 Miss Herbert, urged by wrath, had for once con 
 quered her fears, and had ridden ahead at a smart 
 gallop to overtake and lecture the two culprits. 
 Lotta at her heels on her Polo pony forced the 
 pace, and they were both soon beyond sight and 
 hearing. 
 
 Ilva, feeling Nadrovine s eyes upon her, moved 
 uneasily in the saddle. 
 
 " Doushka, give me your hand," he said, at last. 
 
 She put it, palm up, in his. 
 
 " Do you give it to me really, my shy one ? Is it 
 mine to do with as I like ?" 
 
 She could not trust herself to speak, but made a 
 downward movement of assent with her chin. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 95 
 
 " Then first," said Nadrovine, raising it to his lips, 
 " this, and afterwards this." He drew a ring from 
 his own hand and pushed it firmly to the base of her 
 slight finger, saying, in a low voice, 
 
 "With this ring I seal thee to me. Thou art 
 mine, my betrothed, my promised." 
 
 She trembled, and he released her hand. 
 
 " Will you see if you can read the motto cut in the 
 stone, doushka ?" he asked, after a long pause. " The 
 light is fading, but the letters are very clearly cut. 
 Try." 
 
 She held her hand towards the mellow tremble 
 overhead, and read aloud, falteringly, 
 
 " Esto sol testis. It is Latin, is it not? I do 
 not understand Latin well. What is the meaning?" 
 
 " Let the sun be a witness/ " replied Nadrovine. 
 "Let a man strive to keep his life so clean and 
 without reproach that the sun can search its every 
 cranny without bringing unwholesome or ugly facts 
 to light. It is not the family motto. It is the 
 motto that I selected for myself and had cut in that 
 sapphire when I was a boy of fourteen. I wish 
 you to wear it now and share it with me." 
 
 He smiled, and, stooping, kissed the ring as it 
 lay like a drop of blue sea-water upon her pale 
 hand. " I wish the sun to be a witness to my love 
 for you." 
 
 " Oh !" said the girl, dropping her reins and 
 placing both hands against her throat. 
 
96 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 The horses had stopped together on the crest of a 
 little hill. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Nadrovine, quickly. 
 
 " Nothing. I love you so !" She leaned towards 
 him, holding out her arms. Her eyes dwelt full 
 and clear upon his. He bent to her, and she pressed 
 his head against her for a moment, looking out over 
 it into the red ball of the sinking sun that he had 
 invoked to witness their betrothal. It seemed to 
 her as though she were gazing through a flaming 
 orifice straight to the core of heaven. Her heart 
 was a prayer within her. It would have been 
 almost a sacrilege to form words with her lips at 
 that unspeakable moment. 
 
 They rode on in silence for a long while, until 
 the last fires of the splendid, cloudless sunset were 
 blotted out by the soft gloom of twilight gray as a 
 moth s wing. The green lights of the first few stars 
 shone down upon them through the rich haze, like 
 glow-worms seen through a vast cobweb. Overhead 
 was the sound of the wind in the pines and the call 
 of the nightingales. The night opened about them 
 like a great flower sleepy with perfume. They 
 seemed folded in its warm petals, a part of it, 
 as content as the small creatures that live in roses. 
 He held her hand, and her life seemed flowing into 
 his through that close clasp. He could not believe 
 in a time when this proud sense of ownership, of 
 duality, had not possessed him. The great, glorious, 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 97 
 
 changing, growing night seemed without meaning 
 save as a setting for that young creature at his side, 
 with her hair which seemed woven of the spiritual 
 ized sunlight which one sees in dreams, and her eyes 
 which seemed to hold all shadows and light, all love 
 and pain, in their serene depths. 
 
 He felt that even pain with her would be out 
 wardly a calm thing, a great stillness, as her love 
 was now. But she spoke to him presently. 
 
 "I seem to have belonged to you always," she 
 said, with her beautiful candor. " I seem only to 
 have a right to myself through you. Your love 
 makes me glad to be myself; because if I had been 
 any one else, no matter how great or good, you 
 would not have loved me, and your love is best. 
 No, no : you must not speak ; you must not con 
 tradict me. Just let me say what is in my heart. 
 I feel that what is there must run into your heart 
 like a stream into the great sea. It is wonderful to 
 think that I have your love, I out of the world ! 
 It is as though a great star were to concentrate its 
 light all on some little flower, and say, f I will shine 
 only for this flower that I love. It is as though 
 some high one in heaven were to refuse to sing in 
 the great choir, that his voice might be heard only 
 in the dreams of some poor woman upon earth 
 whom he loved and waited for. Ah, do not inter 
 rupt me ! It is so big in my heart. It strains it. 
 I have no one else to speak to, indeed, no one that 
 E g 9 
 
98 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 I care to speak to. You are the only one, the very 
 first, the first since I was a little child and I gave 
 you my silver book. You helped to form my life. 
 You helped to make me into what you now love. 
 You were like a song through the silence of my life, 
 like the song that Pippa sang so unconsciously, 
 always, always at the right moment. Always your 
 memory was with me at the right moment. I never 
 had a wrong thought, a wrong impulse, that your 
 face did not come to me as clear, as clear, it was 
 as clear as that white magnolia flower there in the 
 moonlight. And your eyes would look so grieved. 
 I longed to ask your pardon, to have you take my 
 hand and say that you forgave me. I dreamed 
 about you sometimes when I was awake, sometimes 
 when I was asleep. When I used to fancy how it 
 would be if you were dead, it seemed to me that my 
 life would never stop going on, on, on, on. And 
 my heart seemed like a tiresome voice insisting that 
 I was alive. I would try not to listen to it ; but it 
 would seem to fill the room. And then I would lie 
 quite still and think, After all, it is you who love 
 him, my heart. Beat on, beat on ! Oh, do not 
 stop ! without you I could not give him my love. 7 
 
 " And then I would imagine you married to some 
 one, some one fair and tall, having great dark eyes, 
 and wonderful hair with deep shadows and lights, 
 like the lights on moving water, -some one whom 
 you loved. It was like a band squeezing my heart. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 99 
 
 It was as though crabs had my throat and side in 
 their nippers. I would get up and go to the window 
 and fill my soul with the night. And then peace 
 and rest and gentleness would seem to flow down 
 to me through the stars, as though their rays were 
 silver threads binding my soul to heaven. I would 
 say, Perhaps it cools his eyes to take the stars deep, 
 deep into them. Perhaps he kneels sometimes and 
 looks up at them as I am looking now/ And then 
 I would say, Give him peace too, dear stars. Give 
 him rest, and a cool quietness, and thoughts of the 
 shady places of heaven, as you have given me. 
 And then I would sleep. I was only a child ; but 
 I loved you. Oh, I loved you ! not so much as I 
 do now, but much much !" 
 
 She lifted his hand, and would have pressed her 
 lips upon it, but he stopped her. 
 
 "Not that! not that !" He could not speak. 
 
 She waited for him, looking up at the gathering 
 stars in mid-heaven. " My heaven-hearted one ! my 
 spirit-love !" he said, at last. " How am I to speak 
 to you? How am I to put into my blunt man s 
 words the story of my love for you ? Let me prove 
 it to you, beloved ! Do not wait for me to speak. 
 There is nothing that I can say after what you have 
 told me. Even the passion of sunlight would seem 
 too earthly after the starry sweetness of your words. 
 You are all to me, everything. You are sun and 
 stars, the night and the day, the inland and the 
 
100 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 ocean, reality, dreams, ambition, fruition. You sur 
 pass my ideal, inasmuch as it is not in the power of 
 a man, no matter how clean and high his life has 
 been, to evolve out of sheer imagination a woman 
 like yourself. Were a man, even faintly, to imagine 
 such a woman, she would seem in his dreams unreal, 
 evasive, cold. You are as real to me as music, as 
 the May, as the light on summer hills, as warm as 
 the heart of summer, sweeter, more full of possibili 
 ties. There is nothing chilling about you, and when 
 I draw you to me, so, and feel your sweet life throb 
 bing in my arms, I wish that day might never break 
 again, but that we could live on in this trance of 
 content, closed in by this vast night, watched over 
 by the stars with their light in our hearts." 
 
 " My man of men/ 7 said the girl, " was I not 
 right to love you ?" 
 
 " You humble me ! you humble me !" cried Nad- 
 rovine, passionately. " I had thought my life a 
 clean one until your love shone on it. And now it 
 seems full of dark places !" 
 
 "It is full of my love," she said, pressing her 
 cheek to his, and touching his bended throat lightly 
 with the ends of her long fingers. 
 
 " I cannot speak," he said. " Forgive me. I 
 have no words. I have dreamed of such a love, 
 of such a love as I feel for you, I mean. There are 
 no words. I will listen to you." 
 
 A lustrous quivering began to fill the air, the 
 

 WITNESS V 
 
 light from the rising moon. All things were radiant 
 with it. White flowers appeared here and there from 
 the shadows, as the stars had appeared at first in the 
 heavens. As the silver edge began to gleam behind 
 the almond-trees on a rise near by, she turned to 
 him with an exquisite shyness, lifting her face to his 
 in the tranquil light. 
 
 " Let the moon be a witness, also," she said, on a 
 catching breath; and, stooping, Nadrovine put his 
 mouth to the word-stirred lips. It was a kiss long 
 and gentle, but such a kiss as he would have given 
 a child. He could not have kissed her as a lover 
 then, even had she desired it. . But she smiled with 
 perfect joy, drooping her head a little, and grudging 
 even the night-wind its touch upon her lips. 
 
 They parted in utter silence, Nadrovine holding 
 her upon his breast a moment when he lifted her 
 from the saddle, and making silently the sign of the 
 cross upon her forehead. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Nadrovine was a man whose nature w r as too re 
 fined for his life to have been coarse. He was moral 
 rather from inclination than from principle ; although 
 principle would have restrained him to a great de 
 gree even had his tastes been different from what 
 they were. Crime had no attraction for him, and 
 he would as soon have turned from galloping upon 
 elastic turf to plunge along through a muddy lane, 
 9* 
 
102 THE WtmESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 as to have turned aside from the pursuit of his art 
 to accept caresses that bored him. There are such 
 men. They are termed icicles by the ignoble and 
 given small credit for their course of action. " We 
 will give a tiger credit for not eating men," say the 
 wise, " but a horse is graminivorous : why should we 
 praise him because he does not feed upon flesh ?" 
 
 In truth, Nadrovine was not cold ; but the fires 
 o his nature were as deeply buried as those of 
 earth, and when they were quiescent ice and snow 
 could form above them, and so the wise were de 
 ceived. The hearts of most men are like the grates 
 in inns, where the wood is laid ready for kindling ; 
 and the smile of any pretty woman is enough to set 
 it in a blaze. Nadrovine s heart resembled a vol 
 cano, and it depended upon his own nature and the 
 voice of one woman as to whether or not the hidden 
 flame would be discernible. 
 
 To those who have an indomitable patience, love 
 in its highest and most complete form invariably 
 comes. Whether it be for pain or gladness, those 
 who have dreamed loyally of Love, not condescend 
 ing meanwhile to distract themselves with Philotes^ 
 will always feel, at last, his hands in theirs, and see 
 the tears and laughter of his eyes. As Nadrovine 
 rode slowly home beneath the tremulous splendor 
 of the stars, yesterday seemed as far beyond him as 
 though he had slept for a thousand years and been 
 awakened by a kiss. He seemed always to have 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 1Q3 
 
 loved her, always to have belonged to her, as she 
 had said of herself in regard to him, with her pure 
 frankness. In truth, it is never anything but what 
 we have given up that comes to us. He had given 
 up, long ago, all idea of bestowing or receiving love, 
 and now his breast actually ached with a magnitude 
 of devotion such as he had never ventured to describe, 
 even in his most impassioned romances. Here was a 
 love which seemed the beginning of everything in 
 stead of the end of a great many. Instead of resign 
 ing all other women in order to possess this one, he 
 felt that in contrast with her all others ceased to 
 exist. They became mere ciphers, which served to 
 increase the value of his unit by passing behind her, 
 and he wondered that he had not recognized in her as 
 a child the spirit which as a woman would enthrall 
 him. 
 
 He entered the cool hall of the pretty villa which 
 he had taken in order that his mother might spend 
 the rest of the summer with him. There was a 
 heavy scent of roses on the air. An armful of the 
 deep, orange-colored flowers lay on a low table under 
 some wax-lights, and two or three had fallen on the 
 red tiles of the floor. As he stood absently looking 
 at them, the faint odor of a cigarette passed through 
 a curtained door and floated towards him. At first 
 he was scarcely conscious of it, then started, and, 
 turning, entered between the curtains into the apart 
 ment beyond. 
 
104 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Ah, at last !" was breathed rather than spoken. 
 
 His mother, leaning back among gold-colored 
 cushions with a knot of the orange roses at her breast, 
 reached up languidly with her beautiful, half-bare 
 arms and drew his mouth down upon hers. The 
 perfume of the cigarette-smoke upon her breath and 
 in her hair irritated him, and the roses jarred upon 
 him after the wonderful freshness of the night out 
 side, being of the rare, hot-house species which one 
 invariably associates with dinners and balls. 
 
 The slight shade of annoyance, however, only ac 
 centuated the radiant expression of welcome which 
 had lighted his face when she first spoke. 
 
 " Have you waited long ?" he said. " I did not 
 expect you until to-morrow. Is your room in readi 
 ness ? Have you as many apartments as you wish ? 
 Small one, how good it is to see you !" 
 
 She leaned over him as he knelt at her side, caress 
 ing his curls by nipping them with her lips which 
 she drew in over her teeth, and pulling them so as to 
 cause him a slight pain. His chin she had taken 
 into one of her strong, flexile palms, so that he could 
 not pull away, and her other hand was behind his 
 throat. 
 
 " I have everything. I have you, my little dear 
 one !" she replied. " It seems to me as though I can 
 never forget that you were once my baby, and that 
 you lay with your little face buried in my throat, 
 and pinched me with your sharp little gums to show 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 1Q5 
 
 when you were hungry. I feel you now, no longer 
 than one of these roses, stem and all ; and so soft ! 
 You smelt always of ironed linen and dried violets. 
 I can sniff your little damp head on the flannel now. 
 And that is all gone forever ! Vladimir, if you ever 
 marry I don t think I shall make a great noise. I 
 think I shall go very quietly to your bride s house 
 to take her a wedding-present; and when she is 
 asleep, with her white throat bent backward for 
 your dream ed-of kisses, I shall give it one snip, deep 
 to the left, with my little, crooked toilet-scissors, and 
 then strike her across the lips, very lightly, once with 
 my gloves. Come ! How pale you are ! How you 
 scowl, my great one ! Come into your old small 
 one s arms and let her tell you that really your bride 
 shall be as her own child, and that she will kiss the 
 pretty throat and mouth many times for the kisses 
 that you will have left there. Ah !" she added, 
 pressing her lips again to his, " but it is absurdly 
 delicious to think that I am not called on to share 
 you yet, that you are all mine, all that you do not 
 put in those books of yours. But there is some 
 thing different, a look, a pose, a I don t know 
 what. Is it a new book ? Have you been writing 
 a love-scene ?" 
 
 She drew back, pressing him from her with a hand 
 on either shoulder and regarding him steadily from 
 narrow r ed lids with her dark-green, jewel-like eyes. 
 " Ah, yes ! you have been writing one of those de- 
 
106 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 scriptions where one feels through the people one is 
 writing of. You have trembled with your hero be 
 neath the kiss of some beautiful woman. He has 
 taken her in his arms, and your breast has throbbed. 
 Go ! go and bring it and read it to me. I will 
 not even smoke while I listen." She gave him a 
 little push forward, but he leaned against her knees, 
 saying that he was tired and had written no love- 
 scene. 
 
 " Not with pen and ink, perhaps/ replied his 
 mother, "but there has been one written on your 
 mind s tablets lately. Do not deny it ! There is a 
 certain look upon your face of which I am a con 
 noisseur. "Well, then, tell me of it ! I would much 
 rather hear it related than read." 
 
 Nadrovine moved his head as it lay against her 
 arm, to signify that he had nothing either to read or 
 to relate. 
 
 " Ah, bah ! you are a stupid, sweet monster, like 
 that fellow with the ass s head in the play. I am 
 to be your Titania and tickle your ears as you sleep, 
 I suppose? Now rise at once, and seat yourself 
 opposite me, that I may look at you. But not on 
 poor Scud !" she added, as Nadrovine prepared to 
 throw himself into a low wicker chair in front of her. 
 There was lying in it a dapper fox-terrier which she 
 shook unceremoniously from the silk cushion upon 
 the floor. " He is a nice little beast. I do not wish 
 him out of the way, yet. And, besides, the proper 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 1Q7 
 
 method will be to chloroform him, not to mash him 
 to a jelly." 
 
 "Why do you have a fox-terrier?" asked Nadro- 
 vine. " A Russian greyhound, or a deer-hound, or 
 even a Siberian blood-hound, would suit you far 
 better than that fidgety little gommeux" 
 
 " Precisely why I like him, dear, great, but not 
 always discerning one ! I dislike women who are 
 eternally posing for harmonious effects. I am natu 
 rally expected to own a sleuth-hound, or some mon 
 ster of that sort, and to drive with my horses Rus 
 sian fashion ; therefore I prefer a fox-terrier and a 
 curricle with a pair of English bays harnessed in 
 the usual manner, as becomes a fading beauty with 
 more than five gray hairs visible in the most con 
 spicuous waves of her tresses, and whose son writes 
 novels which add at least a hundred years to her 
 age." 
 
 She put one of her exquisite feet, in its silk 
 stocking and small embroidered mule, on the edge 
 of the chair in which he was sitting, and rubbed it 
 gently against him as she talked. She was nearly 
 head and shoulders taller than the Medici, but the 
 Medici could not have supported her plump body 
 upon those fine, delicately-modelled ankles. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine s wrists and ankles would 
 have been too small, had it not been for the perfect, 
 lithe symmetry of her- whole superb figure. Her 
 white flesh was as hard and elastic as the flesh of a 
 
108 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 young horse, and she had the eyes of a girl. Those 
 eyes in the rich maturity of her face were like some 
 flowers of spring blooming in the heart of summer. 
 They were a girl s eyes, but experience spoke from 
 every curve of the deeply-cut lips. 
 
 " A fading beauty !" echoed Nadrovine, clasping 
 the narrow foot. " Small one ! some one has been 
 praising you lately, else you would not venture to 
 say such a thing. And so you have five gray hairs ? 
 Give them to me, and I will have them made into 
 a paint-brush to color that pretty mole on the left 
 of your chin, there." 
 
 " Le bon Dieu has saved me that trouble, man 
 cher" replied his mother, tranquilly. "But your 
 thought is a kindness, nevertheless. I will smoke 
 now, I think. My cigarette-case, if you please." 
 She extended her hand, one of those beautiful hands 
 whose palms look like crumpled pink tissue-paper, 
 and yet which have the strength of machinery. 
 
 He handed her the simple silver case with its 
 cipher S. N. in gold, and she snapped back the 
 lid with an impatient click, finding it empty. 
 
 " I am rather glad of that/ 7 said Nadroviue, lazily 
 reaching for papers and tobacco. " I enjoy nothing 
 much more than seeing you roll cigarettes." 
 
 " Baby ! I love you !" she replied, pressing him 
 with a little movement of her foot. " By the way, 
 Vladimir, have you your horse with you ?" 
 
 " Czarina, you mean ? Yes. Will you ride here ?" 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 1Q9 
 
 "Ride?" She paused to look at him, with the 
 moist rose tip of her tongue against the cigarette 
 which she was rolling. " Will I ride here ? Dear 
 great one ! can you fancy me in any place two days, 
 two hours, without being on horseback? If I am 
 ever translated, I trust it will be in a saddle rather 
 than a chariot." 
 
 " My horses are at your disposal, most dear." 
 
 She rose to light her cigarette over the lamp near 
 which they were sitting. The light caught her curled 
 eyelashes and the jut of her strongly-marked brows. 
 He thought he detected a slight tremor at the corners 
 of her mouth. 
 
 "Why do you smile ?" he demanded, somewhat 
 quickly. 
 
 " Oh, well, at nothing, at a thought." She 
 pulled the fox-terrier s ears between her thumb and 
 little finger, holding her cigarette in her first and 
 third. Then, suddenly lifting her eyes upon his, 
 
 " Am I most dear ?" 
 
 Nadroviue started perceptibly. He felt his cheeks 
 sting, and a certain bigness about his heart, which 
 beat fiercely. 
 
 "Am I?" repeated his mother, serenely. She 
 blew some rings of smoke from her rounded lips, 
 and he thought with an absent-minded fancifulness 
 that they looked like the ghosts of kisses. 
 
 " Why should you ask me such a question ?" he 
 inquired, finally, with abruptness. 
 10 
 
110 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Why ? Oh, because it suggested itself ! I won 
 dered. I put my wonder into words. There is the 
 whole story." 
 
 "You will always be most dear 1 in your own 
 peculiar way/ said Nadrovine. He looked down 
 at his left hand, surprised for the moment not to 
 feel the familiar ring upon his finger. His mother 
 followed his glance. 
 
 "In my own peculiar way?" she repeated, 
 curiously. And then, " Your sapphire, my scribbler 
 dear? your unequalled Esto sol testis ? Where 
 is he? Not lost?" There was again that little 
 flicker at her mouth s edge. 
 
 " No, not lost," said Nadrovine. 
 
 "Well, and what then?" 
 
 "I took it off." 
 
 " You took it off?" repeated his mother, with 
 the same almost imperceptible pause between the 
 words. She smiled openly this time. " And, pray, 
 where did you put it ?" 
 
 " Where it will be even safer," he answered, rally 
 ing suddenly. "Where the sun will be a better 
 witness than ever." 
 
 " Oh ! So !" said his mother. 
 
 " Come !" cried Nadrovine, rising to his feet. " It 
 is so hot in here ! Look at the poor moths on the 
 table there, and your book curling in the lamp-light ! 
 Let us walk on the terrace. I know that you love 
 the sea." 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. m 
 
 " Come, then/ 7 she replied. She stretched an arm 
 out on either side, and let the end of her cigarette 
 fall from her relaxed fingers. Her gown of cream- 
 white Chinese silk hid the straining of her supple 
 figure beneath its numerous folds. " Ah," she said, 
 with clinched teeth, " that was a renewal of every 
 thing. Pull me up, and I can walk with you all 
 night." He drew her to her feet, and they passed 
 together into the hushed and radiant night without. 
 A strong sea-air entered their nostrils, and lips parted 
 to speak, changing the woman s mood and intensify 
 ing that of the man. 
 
 " One wishes one s self a star on a night like this !" 
 she said, opening the folds of silk at her neck and 
 expanding her splendid chest. " One wishes to be 
 loved only by God and children ! one s own child," 
 she pressed upon the shoulder of her son, " and 
 the children of misfortune." 
 
 " My mother !" he said, forgetting, in that thrilled 
 moment, even the eyes of Ilva. 
 
 " My son !" she returned. She stopped, hesitated, 
 confronted him. " For I, the Lord thy God, am 
 a jealous God ! " she repeated. " Vladimir, that 
 might read, i For we, the women thy mothers, are 
 jealous women P To give up ! It is impossible. 
 It is impossible, Vladimir ! To give up our own to 
 strangers ! To be forsaken ! Our Lord has said 
 that we must be forsaken. Yes ! and God also 
 said, Honor thy father and thy mother ! It is 
 
112 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 terrible ! Why do those great words contradict each 
 other? To give them up, our own, our heart s blood ! 
 to give them up to little, pretty things who do not 
 even know what it means to accept them, to take 
 them from us !" 
 
 She spoke to the sea, holding her strong throat 
 with a hand on either side. 
 
 " To give them up, their eyes, their voices, their 
 days, their nights, the talents and passions that they 
 have drawn from our breasts. To give them up! 
 always to give them up ! To be forsaken ! To 
 be content to be forsaken ! To feel that we are second 
 to what will forever be first with us ! To remember 
 our pain that gave them being, and to endure pain 
 more frightful in resigning them ! To know that 
 they will never be wholly ours again ! To know 
 that their arms are only nests for others, their hearts 
 quickened with another s image, their lips waiting 
 for her, that heaven means only the possibility of 
 her presence ! Jealous ? Jealous ? Vladimir !" 
 her voice rang through him, " where is your ring ?" 
 
 X. 
 
 The sound of the sea seemed to cease for Nadro- 
 vine. He heard only the pumping of his quick 
 blood past his ears. His mother s face shut out the 
 phosphorescent line of surf beyond, a face which 
 was a shadow, broken only by the glittering ques 
 tions of her eyes. He was dumb, overwhelmed by 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. H3 
 
 a vast distaste to sharing his secret even with her. 
 He had not meant to reveal it for some days. II va, 
 he knew, would remain silent until he told her to 
 speak. His mother waited, moveless, wordless. He 
 could hear her heart beating a little out of time with 
 his, more quickly and unevenly. She was still 
 holding her throat in both hands, and her silk gown 
 made a subdued, crisp noise in the varying wind 
 which was not unlike an echo of the advancing, re 
 ceding waves below. 
 
 He spoke at last, taking down her hands from 
 her throat and placing them against his breast. 
 
 " Trust me, my mother !" he said. They were 
 the first words that came to him. 
 
 " Show yourself worthy," she answered. " Let 
 me trust you. Your ring, Vladimir !" 
 
 He stooped and kissed the hands that he held. 
 
 " If I tell you in a week, small one, will that 
 
 Why in a week ?" 
 
 " It is a whim, a desire. I beg of you, give me 
 this week. Have you never wanted a week out of 
 your life all to yourself, for no particular reason ?" 
 
 " But why a week ? Why not two weeks ? Why 
 not two days ?" 
 
 " You will trust me ?" 
 
 " I must !" She drew her hands impatiently away, 
 turned from him. The moon shone through the 
 thin folds of her gown on either side, and her noble 
 h 10- 
 
114 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 figure was dark between them. Nadrovine followed 
 her. 
 
 " You will do as I ask, little mother ?" 
 
 "Why a week?" she reiterated, turning upon 
 him. 
 
 He began to experience that sensation of hopeless 
 exasperation which possesses one when questioned 
 against one s will. 
 
 " I have said ( a week/ " he answered, controlling 
 himself. "It is a short time. This is Tuesday 
 night. Next Tuesday night at this hour I will tell 
 you." 
 
 " Perhaps I shall not care to know then," she 
 said, harshly. All softness had passed from her face. 
 It was as expressionless as an inland lake when no 
 wind is stirring. 
 
 " As you please," said Nadrovine. He stood 
 looking down at the sea, with his profile turned 
 towards her. The pain of being misunderstood was 
 upon him, and that stripped feeling which accom 
 panies any attempt of another, no matter how dear, 
 to unveil our holy of holies. 
 
 " The sea is the water of youth," remarked his 
 mother, turning abruptly, her voice light and un 
 concerned again. " Paris is like Mr. Hyde, and 
 the Kiviera is like Dr. Jekyll, where one s health 
 is concerned. I feel much younger !" 
 
 They talked of his work and prospects, walking 
 up and down in the moonlight until nearly one 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. H5 
 
 o clock, when his mother left him to go to bed. She 
 made no allusion to their first topic of conversation, 
 but kissed him good-night on the cheek instead of on 
 the lips. 
 
 If men realized how their mothers love them, 
 there would be a new force in the world. 
 
 Nadrovine, on the contrary, thought his mother 
 exacting and lacking in consideration for him. 
 
 He came upon her the next morning shortly after 
 sunrise, with little Lotta Boutry at her side. 
 
 "An elf, Vladimir!" she called to him, " a 
 genuine elf! She is coming to breakfast with me. 
 I have promised to have some woodbine for her to 
 suck, and some candied violets for an entree. She 
 says she can fence, with a bulrush, no doubt !" 
 
 " Oh, Signor Nadrovine," cried Lotta, " if this is 
 your maman, I do not wonder you tell charming 
 fairy-stories and that Cousine Ilva loves so to hear 
 you talk ! She is even more beautiful than you, 
 your maman, I mean, and she speaks as charm- 
 ingly!" 
 
 " Who is Cousine Ilva ?" said Madame Nadro- 
 vine. 
 
 " Your buttons are too much to the left, Made 
 moiselle Lotta," corrected Nadrovine. " Draw your 
 right shoulder a trifle backward, I pray you." 
 
 " Cousine Ilva," said Mademoiselle Boutry, " I 
 thank you, Signor Nadrovine, Cousine Ilva is the 
 Signorina Demarini. She and Signor Nadrovine, 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 your son, are the greatest of friends. They take long 
 rides together, long, long rides. And talk ! Oh, 
 how they talk ! One can hear them when one has 
 ridden far ahead, a sort of murmur like a bee 
 caught in a flower, um-um-urn-um. Signor Na- 
 drovine used to tell Cousine Ilva stories when she 
 was a little, little girl. He called her, < doushka then. 
 He was The Prince of the Silver Book/ I feel 
 convinced." 
 
 " Why ?" said Madame Nadrovine. 
 
 " Because he calls her doushka. * 
 
 " Oh ! So he calls her doushka now ?" 
 
 "Yes, madarne." 
 
 " And what does she say in reply ?" 
 
 " She looks another way, or says nothing, or says, 
 < Signor ? " 
 
 " You observe, do you not, cherie ?" 
 
 " I used to observe more than I do now, madarne, 
 but maman has broken me of it somewhat. When 
 ever I look in the least solemn, she says, Qit oa- 
 tUj chtrie f As-tu de bo-bo f Miss Herbert says that 
 means, in English, { Art thou in the doomps ? 9i 
 
 " Thou hast not the doomps this morning, then, 
 little one ?" said Madame Nadrovine. 
 
 " Oh, no !" replied Lotta. 
 
 "And what did you say your cousine Ilva was 
 named ?" 
 
 " She is the Signorina Demarini." 
 
 " Demarini ?" repeated Madame Nadrovine. She 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. H7 
 
 knit her deeply-modelled brows. " Demarini ? And 
 your uncle, the Signor Demarini, what is he like?" 
 
 " I do not know him well. Fanny says that he 
 has the nose of a shadow when one holds the candle 
 in a wrong position." 
 
 " A Roman nose, then ?" 
 
 " It has a hump, rnadame." 
 
 " How do you know, petite ?" 
 
 "By his portrait in Aunt Anita s locket. But 
 his hair, oh, it is lovely ! Like astrachan. So 
 black ! so curly ! One would not think of his nose 
 again when one had looked at his hair." 
 
 " You are a delightful morsel," said Madame Xa- 
 drovine, " as complete as a little mole on a pretty 
 woman s cheek." 
 
 " You have two moles," said Lotta, composedly, 
 " and of such a lovely brown. They are just like 
 little bits of a negro s skin pasted upon yours. 
 Maman had a little negro page one year. He stole 
 so much sugar that it gave him some disease and he 
 died. He was odious. I prayed not to be glad. 
 But it was at Christmas. Le bon Dieu had so much 
 to attend to that probably he did not listen to me." 
 
 " Why ?" asked Madame Nadrovine for the second 
 time. 
 
 "Oh, well, because," replied Mademoiselle 
 Boutry, "because I was glad. He used to bite 
 pieces out of my wax dolls and chew them. He 
 was very odious. One could not call one s dolls 
 
118 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 one s own, when he was by. Little negroes are 
 hateful things. One night maman let me sit up to 
 see an eclipse of the moon. It came to me then. 
 Little negroes are like eclipses of the stars. We 
 we white children are like real stars, and little 
 negroes are like eclipsed stars, brown, dull and 
 horrid. Fancy a heaven of eclipsed stars, mon 
 sieur, with an eclipsed moon for maman ! Bah !" 
 She galloped ahead a little way. 
 
 "I wish to chaperon her at her first ball, great 
 one," said Madame Nadrovine over her shoulder. 
 
 "You like arduous tasks," replied Nadrovine, 
 dryly. 
 
 " Arduous !" exclaimed his mother. " I should 
 like to drive a comet with its tail for reins that is 
 all ! Brilliant ! The child is a fairy, with a diamond 
 for a mind. One could write on crystal with it." 
 
 " Or glass," said Nadrovine. 
 
 "Oh, yes, glass," repeated his mother, "glass 
 made from the ashes of great men and the sands of 
 time." 
 
 " You will spoil her, small one." 
 
 " If I did not, men would. It is always better 
 for a woman to be spoiled by women than by men." 
 
 " But she is a child, not a woman." 
 
 "Children are born women in this nineteenth 
 century. You hear how she talks ?" 
 
 "Yes; it makes one laugh and shudder at the 
 same time." 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. H9 
 
 "To say the least, that is a novel sensation. 
 One generally combines tears with shuddering, not 
 laughter. Here she comes back again." 
 
 Lotta approached them on her pony, her cheeks 
 like the inner lips of conch-shells, her hair riotous 
 in the sharp morning wind. 
 
 "Oh, madame !" she cried, "see what a droll 
 thing I have found ! A little shell ! So fine ! so 
 pretty ! And yet when one holds it in one s hand 
 it puts out horrid claws into one s palm." 
 
 " Throw it away," advised Madame Nadrovine. 
 
 Lotta regarded it gravely. "Cousine Ilva says 
 that there is a lesson in everything," she remarked. 
 " I have decided already upon this queer creature. 
 It is like the cure" of our village. He is so smooth, 
 so quiet on the outside,- his shell, you know, and 
 then as soon as one begins to listen, to really be 
 interested, he puts out his claws and scratches one. 
 He hints at one s friends, especially when they are 
 sitting in the front row and have new gowns on. 
 Marie Dinot had a new cap one Sunday, and a 
 blue gown that maman gave her, and he said some 
 things some horrid things about head-dresses and 
 fine apparel. Marie fairly squirmed. I really 
 wished to spread my own gown over her, she looked 
 so embarrassed ; and really, you know, it was imma 
 terial to me." 
 
 " You are a little Samaritan," remarked Madame 
 Nadrovine. 
 
120 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Oh, I should like to be !" said Lotta. " But 
 it is beyond me. Numa Rouinestan" she patted 
 the pony s flat and muscular neck " will not carry 
 double. I could not take any one on my horse and 
 pour oil on him, not possibly, because Numa 
 would kick so frightfully." 
 
 "But you would wish to?" suggested Madame 
 Nad ro vine. 
 
 " Oh, yes, with all my heart. I would ride away 
 and get Cousine Ilva, and she would tell me what 
 to do." 
 
 " How good this Cousine Ilva must be !" 
 
 " There is no one so good, nor so pretty." 
 
 "Not even I?" asked her new friend. Lotta 
 reined in Numa, and shaded her eyes in order to 
 observe her carefully. 
 
 " You are not pretty," she announced, finally. 
 "You are like a great picture which has been 
 painted many years. Young girls might make you 
 look like a picture, a little pale, you know; but 
 you make them look just what they are, only young 
 girls. I say it so badly. One feels you, madame, 
 and one sees them. Your hair is so beautiful, like 
 purple-beech leaves, and your eyes are the color of 
 the moss on which they fall when the wind loosens 
 them. Your skin is like a white cloud. It makes 
 one think to look at you. When one looks at my 
 cousine Ilva, one wishes to know what she thinks." 
 
 " Your name should be ( Wonderful/ " said Ma- 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 121 
 
 dame Nadrovine. " You are the only child that I 
 ever coveted." 
 
 " If one could have two mammas," replied Lotta, 
 " I would pray for you to be my second one." 
 
 " And how old are you ?" asked her friend. 
 
 "Nine," answered Lotta, adding, gravely, "But 
 I feel as though I had lived much longer. Other 
 children of nine seem very young to me." 
 
 " I should think so !" murmured Madame Nadro- 
 vine. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Lotta found herself seated at a light wicker table, 
 facing her new and fascinating acquaintance, with a 
 plate of great silverish-blue hot-house grapes before 
 her, a gold knife and fork, and a glass of pale- 
 yellow wine at her side. 
 
 "Must I drink this?" she inquired, simply. 
 
 " If you wish," replied Madame Nadrovine. 
 
 The child tasted it and set it down. 
 
 " It is wine, is it not ?" she asked. " I like it." 
 
 " Yes ; it is Tokay." 
 
 " Cousine Ilva does not like wine. That is some 
 thing the color of her hair." 
 
 "Then she is very fair?" 
 
 " Oh, very ! Her eyes are darker than these 
 
 grapes, but her skin is like like It is whiter 
 
 than yours, madame." 
 
 " And she and my son are great friends ?" 
 F 11 
 
122 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Oh, great ! They ride, read, walk. I will taste 
 that wine again, if I may, madame." 
 
 " Certainly, cMrie. It is very light, like sun 
 beams. It is good for you. Will you drink my 
 health ?" 
 
 The child lifted the delicate glass to her thin, 
 curved red lips. 
 
 " May you grow more and more beautiful every 
 year, ch&re madame," said she. 
 
 " And may you increase in wit and in the like 
 ness of Voltaire !" returned Madame Nadrovine, 
 bowing over her second glass. 
 
 " Who was Voltaire?" asked Lotta, pausing with 
 a grape half pressed from its juicy sheath. " Was 
 he the man who said, II y a des fagots et des 
 fagots ? Cousine Ilva says that Shakespeare said, 
 f There are men and men/ before Voltaire said that. 
 It was in my last lesson." 
 
 " A sound lesson," said Madame Nadrovine. 
 
 " It was a very hard one to learn," replied the child. 
 
 "Ah, we all find it so," remarked her friend, 
 smiling. " Will you have some more of my pretty 
 wine?" 
 
 " Yes, thank you so much. It must be made of 
 sunbeams : it makes me feel like dancing, as they do. 
 It seems as if I had a thousand things to tell you 
 and as if they ought all to be said at once. I do 
 not know where to begin." She swallowed another 
 mouthful of the Tokay. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 123 
 
 "Begin where you wish," said Madame Nadro- 
 viue. 
 
 Lotta held out her little hands and looked at 
 them earnestly. They seemed strangely alive, to 
 have an existence apart from hers. At the same 
 time a joyous importance possessed her : she be 
 lieved that the green-eyed lady opposite her would 
 attach great meaning to whatever she said and was 
 anxious to hear her speak. She nodded her little 
 head wisely. "I will tell you something," she 
 announced, in a low voice. " I have never told it, 
 even in my prayers. It is about Signer Nadro- 
 vine." 
 
 " Indeed ?" said his mother. She replenished the 
 glass of Tokay, and then leaned on an indolent white 
 elbow, waiting for the child to continue. 
 
 "Yes, it is about them both, about Consine Ilva 
 
 and Signor Nadrovine. It is my belief, madame 
 
 Did I spill that grape-juice on the cloth, madame? 
 I trust not. I have been taught never to spill 
 things. My little American governess taught me. 
 She never spills anything. She is charming. Her 
 eyes are of a dark brown, with little three-cornered 
 lights in them. But I was not going to talk about 
 her ?" She stopped with a slightly dazed expression, 
 and put this statement in the form of a question. 
 
 " It was about my son and your cousine Ilva, was 
 it not, cherie?" 
 
 "Yes. Why doesn t Signor Nadrovine come to 
 
124 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 breakfast ? Does he never get hungry ? Why did 
 he leave us ?" 
 
 " He wanted to ride longer, I suppose. But the 
 great secret which you were going to confide to me, 
 petite ?" 
 
 " Oh !" said Lotta. She pushed the glass of Tokay 
 a little from her, and regarded it seriously, screwing 
 her small brows together. " Oh !" she said, again. 
 "It is not exactly* a secret. An idea. My idea, 
 madame. Only an idea of mine. A silly idea, per 
 haps. I think they are in love, like Graciosa and 
 Percinet in the fairy-tale. Aunt Anita is like the 
 Duchess Grognon. My aunt Anita is Cousine Ilva s 
 mother. She is an American too, but she left her 
 beauty in America, she says, with her American 
 name. It was Ann. She is Anita in Italy. She 
 has a long black tooth in front. It is like one of the 
 black keys on a piano-forte, the rest are so white. 
 She says the nerve was killed. But she has a great 
 many left. She says that they will kill her. They 
 go to sleep when she is quiet and reads yellow books, 
 but when I play with Zi-Zi and Nicoletta they wake 
 up and begin to jump up and down. That is the 
 time when Cousine Ilva takes me to the little hill, 
 and when Signor Nadrovine comes, and we cut up 
 apricots and have feasts and strangle Zi-Zi and Signor 
 Nadrovine steals the hair. I saw him. He wound 
 it around his finger. I believe Cousine Ilva saw 
 him too. She didn t say anything. But her eyes 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 125 
 
 looked. You know people s eyes do look. His do, 
 Sigiior Nadro vine s, I mean. They look at her 
 as if she were an apricot and they wished they had 
 teeth, so that they could eat her up. They do, indeed. 
 Indeed, indeed they do. Oh, madaine, how I am 
 talking ! My tongue seems to go of itself. I have 
 such a pleasant little aching in my elbows and knees. 
 I could ride right into the middle of the sea, and 
 I don t believe it would drown me. I believe it 
 would roll up on each side, as it did for the Israel 
 ites. That is the way Mees Herbert does her hair. 
 I have often thought the part looked like the path 
 through the Red Sea, it is so red, red, you know, 
 and it is heaped up in such big waves on either side. 
 I imagine that the hair-pins are the Egyptians all 
 sunk out of sight in it. And the little steel points 
 in her comb are the good Israelites, that have gotten 
 safely over. Cousine Ilva says she loathes that comb. 
 She used to learn her multiplication-table by looking 
 at it, and she never could remember how many of 
 those little steel points there were. Sometimes I 
 wonder if any one ever called Mees Herbert 
 doushka. It would be almost like calling Saint 
 Cecilia Cici, or Saint Pierre Pierrot/ would it 
 not? Oh, how I talk! Will you forgive me? 
 Will you give me just three more grapes? They 
 are like the three bears, only they haven t bears 
 paws. I don t know why I said that. It doesn t 
 seem to have much sense. But then wise things 
 11* 
 
126 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 don t seem to have much sense. Those words cut 
 in the ring that Cousine Ilva wears around her neck, 
 she showed them to rne and explained them, but 
 they seemed not to have much meaning to me. Some 
 thing about the sun. It was Latin. I don t think 
 the Latin people could have understood each other 
 very well. Perhaps they prayed in French, you 
 know, madame. I am sure God speaks French. It 
 would seem so unnatural for him to speak English, 
 or German. He must understand them all, of 
 course, but I am sure that he himself speaks in 
 French." 
 
 " And the words on the ring were Latin ?" 
 "Cousine Ilva told me so. She kissed it. It 
 was an Italian kiss, no matter what the words are. 
 It seems silly to wear a ring on a ribbon. One 
 might as well wear one s shoe on one s hat. I beg 
 you to forgive me, madame. I really feel as if my 
 eyes and nose and ears would begin to talk presently. 
 I feel so happy, and yet I feel like weeping, too. I 
 seem to love you more than any one in the world, 
 and then that makes me wish to cry, because there 
 is Cousine Ilva, and maman, and my dear friend 
 Signor Nadrovine. I should have said your dear 
 son. Please think I meant your dear son, or merely 
 your son, whichever you prefer." 
 
 Again she lifted the wineglass to her lips. Madame 
 Nadrovine, still leaning on her elbow, watched her 
 lazily, a smile just lifting the corners of her round 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 127 
 
 lips. She used sometimes to catch dragou-flies by 
 their steel-blue wings and dip them in her wineglass 
 until they were quite intoxicated, watching their sub 
 sequent efforts to fly, with just such a flitting smile. 
 They would whirr their wings helplessly for a second 
 or two, and then deliberately turn their long bodies 
 over their heads in a species of leisurely back sum 
 mersault. She had the same sense of amusement 
 now in noting the actions and words of the child op 
 posite her, after her fourth glass of Tokay : besides, 
 she was learning all that she wished to know, in the 
 easiest and most detailed manner. 
 
 " So she wears this ring on a ribbon around her 
 neck ?" she asked, finally. " What color is it, 
 
 " The ring, or the ribbon ?" demanded Lotta, as 
 solemnly as though aifairs of state depended upon 
 the reply. 
 
 " The ring." 
 
 " The ring is blue, a black-blue. The ribbon is 
 white. I asked her why she did not wear it on her 
 finger, and she said, l Because/ That was only last 
 night. I slept with her. Nini pinched me, and I 
 went to Cousine Ilva s room in the middle of the 
 night, and she was sitting up reading her Bible in 
 her chemise, and I saw the ring around her throat. 
 I will have ten rings when I have a lover, one for 
 each finger, and they must be of ten different colors, 
 and I think I will have little bars of music cut on 
 
128 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 them instead of words. Tra ! la ! la ! Tra ! la ! la ! 
 Just fancy ! I could hold up my hands and one 
 could play a tune on the piano by looking at them. 
 Oh, madame, why, why do I say such things? I 
 am not so silly usually, nor impertinent. I talk too 
 much, but not so much as I have to-day, and then 
 I cannot stop. My mind seems to be running on a 
 little track, with steam to push it. If I let it stop, 
 it will run off the track and break, or so it seems 
 to me. Do you know, madame, I believe my head 
 is lined with that lovely yellow wine? I seem to 
 see with the backs of my eyes as well as with the 
 fronts of them, and my head is such a lovely pink 
 inside, with a lining of that yellow wine. I feel as 
 though I must come into your arms and put my 
 head just there on that little crease in your bodice. 
 I fancy that your heart is under it. I want you to 
 love me, madame. I beg you to love me. I beg 
 you to tell me that you love me. Oh, I shall be so 
 unhappy, so desolated, if you do not say that you 
 love me ! And, madame," she held up a slender 
 finger of warning, and fastened her swimming gray 
 eyes on those of Nadrovine s mother, "and, ma 
 dame," she repeated, "you must mean it. I could 
 not bear it if you did not mean it. It would be 
 nothing to me. I would weep indeed. Oh, I feel 
 as though there were a whole ocean behind my eyes 
 waiting to turn into tears at the first cross word." 
 She dropped her little, dark head on the table, 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 129 
 
 nearly into her plate, and fenced it about with her 
 small fingers. " Oh ! oh !" she sobbed, " do not let 
 any one be harsh to me ! I could not bear it ! I 
 could not bear it ! Oh, I do not mean to weep ! 
 Why, why is it? I do not cry easily. No one has 
 been harsh to me ; and I do so wish to be silent. 
 Why is it that I talk on and on ? Oh, if you would 
 only love me, rnadame !" 
 
 Madame Nadrovine rose, biting her lips, and drew 
 the airy figure into her arms. 
 
 " There, there !" she said, soothingly. She adored 
 children, and this one was peculiarly adorable. She 
 pressed her very close, and nipped the little, moist 
 cheek with her strong lips. " There, there !" she 
 repeated, " I do love you. You are a little darling. 
 I wish you were mine. You are the dearest little 
 dark-light in all the world. Your hair is like a 
 mass of sun-rays that have been turned black for 
 shining on naughty things. Your little mouth would 
 woo a woman from thoughts of her lover. You are 
 a little love, love, love," she crooned, rocking the 
 distressed elf caressingly and singing the words to a 
 minor air. " My little love, love, love. And I love 
 you with all my heart. There, now, go to sleep. 
 There, now, go to sleep. Go to sleep." She rocked 
 her back and forth unceasingly, chanting the word 
 " sleep" in various keys, until the child was actually 
 sleeping on her breast. Then she loosened her arms, 
 and looked down at the slight relaxed figure in its 
 
130 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 pearl-gray riding-habit, stretched limply across her 
 knees. She lifted one of the little half-curled hands 
 and kissed its pale-rose palm twice, with soft, long 
 kisses. The child s hair was damp, and matted 
 upon her forehead. Madame Nadrovine lifted it, 
 and fanned the warm brow with a crumpled napkin. 
 Lotta slept on undisturbed. Her relaxed lips formed 
 a piteous arch, her slightly-marked, delicate brows 
 twitched uneasily with her dreams. She moved 
 abruptly now and then, and tossed her slender 
 limbs about. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine smiled again, shook her head, 
 and drew the parted lips together in a really tender kiss. 
 
 " May you never be intoxicated with anything 
 more dangerous than Tokay, you witchling !" she 
 muttered. 
 
 Nadrovine entered, and found her bending over 
 the child, who still slept heavily. He came towards 
 them, looking anxious. 
 
 " Asleep ?" he said. " What is wrong ? Asleep 
 at this time in the morning ? I fear she isn t well. 
 She looks like a delicate little thing." 
 
 " A little body and a great deal of soul/ answered 
 his mother, smiling again. " But she may have ex 
 hausted herself. She insisted on keeping up with 
 me in all my gallops." 
 
 " No doubt that is it/ assented Nadrovine. " But 
 she is as white as her collar. What will you do 
 with her?" 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 131 
 
 "I shall order a trap of some kind and drive 
 with her at once to the Villa Demarini," she replied, 
 serenely. 
 
 Nadrovine stooped to pick up her napkin, which 
 had fallen near his feet. 
 
 " I will drive you," he said. 
 
 " But do not look so worried, Vladimir. She is 
 only tired, I am sure. An hour s nap will refresh 
 her absolutely. You see how quietly she sleeps ?" 
 
 " Is it natural for sleeping children to be so pale ?" 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 " Well, no doubt you know much better than I, 
 but I will confess that I don t like that ghastly 
 pallor. A trap will be at the door in ten minutes." 
 
 He left the room, and his mother sat silently, still 
 rocking the sleeping child, and smiling to herself 
 from time to time, with her eyes on the sea beyond. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine got into the phaeton without 
 changing her habit, still holding Lotta in her arms. 
 She tilted the child s hat abov her face, in order to 
 prevent the white morning light from disturbing her. 
 Nadrovine drove the little chestnut cobs in silence, 
 wondering less regarding this whim of his mother s 
 than as to how much Lotta had revealed to her. 
 The sea had that air of freshness which convinces 
 one that it has just been created, a long sparkle 
 of cold blue against a belt of fawn-brown sand, like 
 
132 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 a band of sapphires against the skin of a mulatto. 
 One felt the unsunned wind between one s eyelids 
 in a cool kiss, sweet with opening flowers as the hair 
 of a woman moist with sleep. The moon floated 
 overhead, a shred of light on the dark cobalt of the 
 sky. There were clouds near the horizon, small 
 puffs of silver-white and green-gray. This cool, 
 trembling morning, however, signified a hot noon. 
 It was as full of the promise of mid-day as a girl s 
 kiss of the passion of womanhood. One knew that 
 four hours later the moon would have melted from 
 sight, that the sea would plunge heavily in waves 
 as of oil, that the crisp wind would sink to a sultry 
 sigh along the hot, steaming sands, and that to look 
 at the copper dome of the sky would cause one about 
 as much pleasure as to write an ode to the Queen of 
 the Salamanders on an August afternoon in Tangiers. 
 
 In the Villa Demarini no one seemed awake. 
 There was a gardener s boy training the geraniums 
 on one of the terraces, and a black caniche seriously 
 regarding the sea with ears erect. He was so ab 
 sorbed in his contemplation that he did not even 
 bark as the phaeton drove up. 
 
 The gardener s boy, however, dropped his shears, 
 and came somewhat sheepishly to hold the horses 
 while Nadrovine got down and extended his arms 
 for Lotta. 
 
 " But what is one to do ?" asked his mother, making 
 no movement to resign the child to him, and looking 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 133 
 
 up at the closed blinds. " One can t leave the poor 
 mouse on the veranda, and yet one doesn t wish to 
 rouse the whole house. 
 
 The gardener s boy touched his hat. 
 
 "Gracious madam," said he, with a glutinous 
 German accent, "the young gentlemen are awake, 
 but they are hiding for fear that the young lady is 
 killed. They stopped to talk to some boys on the 
 shore, and the Fran lei n galloped away. They 
 thought that perhaps she was drowned. The Friiu- 
 lein Ilva was bathing, and I told her. She rode 
 off on Herr Georges s pony. She has been gone 
 half an hour. No one else is awake. The Friiu- 
 lein and her brothers ride always alone at this hour 
 in the morning." 
 
 " In what direction did the Signoriua Ilva go ?" 
 asked Nadrovine, quickly. . 
 
 " Towards the village, mein Herr. Shall I awaken 
 the nurse-maid ?" 
 
 "Suppose we drive towards the village and try 
 to meet her?" suggested Nadrovine to his mother. 
 " She must have turned back by this time." 
 
 Just at this moment the short strokes of a pony s 
 legs sounded on the gravel, and Ilva approached 
 them, her gown of pale-blue gingham modelled 
 damply to her shoulders and arms, her thick hair 
 uncoiling at her throat, hatless, gloveless, even shoe 
 less, in her haste. She was paler than Lotta, and 
 her lips quivered. Nadrovine lifted her from the 
 12 
 
134 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 pony without even greeting her, and assisted her 
 into the phaeton beside his mother. She could not 
 speak, but put her hand on Lotta s little body and 
 began to draw deep breaths, the color running 
 gradually back into lips and cheeks. 
 
 " I am afraid you have been sadly frightened," said 
 Madame Nadrovine, at last. " It was very thought 
 less of me to keep the child, but she fascinated me so 
 that I was scarcely responsible. She is a perfect 
 little Rosalind with a Titania s body, and of such 
 a charming order of beauty." 
 
 " This is my mother, signorina," said Nadrovine. 
 
 " I I thank you !" replied the girl, and then 
 blushed intensely. " I mean, I am most happy to 
 know you, madame ! Signor Nadrovine has spoken 
 much about you. Will you tell me how you found 
 her? Was she thrown? Is she unconscious, or 
 only asleep? Her mother worships her so. It 
 would have killed her." 
 
 " Oh, I think she is merely exhausted," answered 
 Madame Nadrovine. " If she could be undressed 
 without waking her " 
 
 "What is all this?" cried a voice behind them. 
 "Has anything happened to the child?" A tall 
 figure approached, the figure of a man with closely- 
 curling dark hair, soaked from his sea-bath, a large, 
 aquiline nose finely cut, clear lips, pale but hand 
 some, and the complexion of a seckel pear. 
 
 " Madame Nadrovine !" he exclaimed. 
 
THE. WITNESS OF THE SUN. 135 
 
 "Myself, count," she replied, bowing slightly. 
 Her eyes wore an amused expression above her 
 grave mouth. 
 
 " Dear papa," said Ilva, " will you lift Lotta out 
 and carry her up-stairs ? I would like to put her to 
 bed before Aunt Cecilia wakes." 
 
 Her father held out his arms mechanically, and 
 Madame Nadrovine lifted Lotta s little limp form 
 upon them. 
 
 "Do not jar her, count," she enjoined. There 
 were veiled sparkles of mischief in her verdant eyes 
 as she watched him ascend the steps of the veranda 
 with the sleeping child in his arms. 
 
 " Will you not have a glass of wine, madame ?" 
 asked Ilva, somewhat nervously, as her father disap 
 peared. She was painfully conscious of her dishev 
 elled appearance in contrast with the complete attire 
 of the woman in the black habit and top-hat. She 
 felt that those eyes, with their jade-colored high lights, 
 were taking her in from head to foot, and that her 
 damp gingham gown was attracting their criticism. 
 
 " I will get you a glass of wine myself," she re 
 peated, vaguely. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine made a gesture of negation 
 with her handsome, ungloved hand. 
 
 " Thanks !" she replied. " I have had my grapes 
 and coffee, and also a glass of Tokay. I fear we are 
 detaining you, mademoiselle. We will call again to 
 ask after the little Lotta." 
 
136 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 "You will have nothing?" asked Ilva, disap 
 pointed in spite of herself. " It will not take a mo 
 ment. My aunt will wish to thank you." 
 
 "Nothing will afford me more pleasure than to 
 give her another opportunity," rejoined Madame 
 Nadrovine, graciously. She made a few more 
 amiable remarks, and was driven off by her son 
 just as Count Demarini appeared on the veranda, 
 having consigned Lotta to her nurse. 
 
 " This afternoon," Nadrovine had whispered to 
 Ilva as he passed her to get into the phaeton. Her 
 heart was throbbing with emotions as contradictory 
 as strange, when her father ran hurriedly down the 
 steps and put his hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "How long have you known Madame Nadro- 
 vine ?" he asked, abruptly. 
 
 Ilva lifted to him her frankly surprised eyes.- 
 
 " What a coincidence that you should know her 
 so well, papa !" she said. " I have met her this 
 morning for the first time. How beautiful she is ! 
 It is almost unearthly. Her eyes are like a Lo 
 relei s, so green and liquid, just the tint in a 
 hollowing wave. Where did you know her, papa?" 
 " She has been the beauty of Paris for two seasons. 
 Is she to be here long? I thought her in Hom- 
 bourg." 
 
 " She is to spend the summer with Signor Nadro- 
 vine, her son. How absurd, papa, that she should 
 have a son as old as that ! She looks like his elder 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 137 
 
 sister. What strange, strange eyes ! All the green 
 lights of heaven and earth seem to shine in them 
 alternately, the light of water, of grass, of glow 
 worms, of stars, of lightning, of peacocks 7 breasts, 
 of precious stones. But, dear papa, I have not said 
 e how do you do ? 7 to you. I sat up very late last 
 night to welcome you, but they said that the train 
 was three hours late, and so I went to bed. Have 
 you been here long ?" 
 
 " An hour, two hours, perhaps. What is the 
 matter with the child? 7 
 
 "WithLotta?" 
 
 " Yes. 7 
 
 " I do not know. Nothing serious, I am sure. 
 Madame Nadrovine said that it was probably ex 
 haustion. 77 
 
 She was rather in awe of her father, but took his 
 hand and kissed it shyly, while he stood silent, pull 
 ing the ears of the caniche, who was fawning upon 
 him with wriggling body and lapping tongue. 
 
 He smiled absently and stroked her cheek and 
 throat. He was proud of her beauty and talents, 
 but utterly unfamiliar with herself. She was a 
 school-girl still, and he might as well have tried to 
 take interest in an expurgated edition of .the poets. 
 
 " Dear papa, it seems so long since I have seen 
 you !" she said, in a low voice. She pressed timidly 
 against him, feeling the need of parental love to 
 complete the love of the lover. Her mother was 
 
138 THE WITS ESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 the last person in the world from whom she would 
 have sought sympathy, either openly or surrepti 
 tiously, but her father, though seldom at home, and 
 rarely noticing her, was always amiable on those 
 occasions when he did condescend to pay her some 
 little attention. As for the girl, she loved him with 
 that blind and idealized affection which imaginative 
 people sometimes bestow on those whom custom bids 
 them revere, regardless of circumstances. His slight 
 caress thrilled her very heart s core, and she longed 
 to hide her face on his knees and tell him of her 
 love for Nadrovine and ask his approval. She was 
 frightened at the wonderful reality which life had 
 suddenly assumed. All her past seemed receding, 
 like a chaos of dreams from which one has been 
 roused by a fall. She longed for some one to assure 
 her that other women had given themselves, their 
 ambitions, their ideas, their hopes, as utterly as she 
 had done. 
 
 " You love me, papa ?" she said, impulsively, look 
 ing down at his hand which she still held, that he 
 might not see the tears which blurred her eyes. He 
 started. A tear had fallen on his hand. Ilva wiped 
 it hurriedly away with one of her own. 
 
 "Love you, my little Silverhair? Why, of 
 course! Why are you crying? Is Miss Herbert 
 harsh ? I must speak to her." 
 
 " No, no, papa," said the girl. 
 
 "Then what is it? Why do you cry?" His 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 139 
 
 voice had an impatient ring, which she detected 
 instantly in spite of her agitation. 
 
 " Lotta ! it was Lotta !" she hastened to assure 
 him. " I was so alarmed about her. I wondered 
 if you or or mamma would be so much grieved 
 if I were to be hurt, to die, perhaps. Oh, papa, 
 do not notice me ! I am very silly. I am thor 
 oughly unnerved. I expected to come across the 
 poor little thing lying dead at every corner that I 
 turned." 
 
 "Poor little cat!" said her father, fondling her 
 shoulder. " Too bad ! too bad ! I must speak to 
 Cecilia about letting the children ride alone. There, 
 now ! go and change your clothes, my dear, and lie 
 down. Have you a book to read? There is Feuil- 
 let s Roman cl im jeune Homme pauvre: you are 
 old enough to read that, I should think. It has an 
 excellent moral. It ought to be in the library, on 
 the second shelf of the bookcase, near the door. Or 
 * I Promessi Sposi : you - might read that. Tell 
 your mother that you have my permission." 
 
 "Thank you," said the girl, biting her lips to 
 repress a smile. Evidently her father did not know 
 that since she could first read she might have perused 
 every book in the house without fear of interruption. 
 " Thank you, papa," she repeated, and began to walk 
 slowly away in the direction of the house. They 
 had been standing near the edge of the terrace. 
 
 Count Demarini called on Madame Nadrovine 
 
140 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 that afternoon, to take her the heart-felt thanks of 
 Lotta s mother and his wife, who were both too 
 much overcome by the child s still somnolent inclina 
 tions to appear in person. They were afraid of sun 
 stroke, and sat all day fanning the slumberer, one on 
 each side of her little bed, with expressions of con 
 trolled apprehension. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine was alone when the footman 
 announced Demarini, teaching Scud to sing, by 
 striking dismal chords on a mandolin and pulling 
 his ear to accentuate the torture. 
 
 "How is the poor little one?" she said, placing 
 the mandolin on the floor at her side, and resuming 
 her rings, which she had taken off to facilitate the 
 singing-lesson. 
 
 Demarini seated himself opposite her, fondling 
 the fox-terrier s head much as he had fondled that 
 of his daughter during the past morning. He kept 
 his eyes on Madame Nadrovine s hands, while she 
 kept hers upon his downcast lids. 
 
 " They fear a sunstroke," he replied. 
 
 " Ah ! bah !" shrugged she, " what a thing it is 
 to have children] What cowards they make of one ! 
 The child was worn out." 
 
 " Yes, probably," assented Demarini. He re 
 turned her compelling gaze presently. 
 
 "I thought you were in Hombourg?" he said, 
 under his breath. 
 
 She lifted her brows until there were two or three 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 141 
 
 fine wrinkles in her smooth forehead, tuning the 
 mandolin meanwhile to another key. 
 
 "And so I was. What would you have? One 
 can t stay in one place forever ?" 
 
 " One could/ 7 said Demarini, uncertainly, " if one 
 were permitted," he added, in a low voice. 
 
 "One could do numberless things if one were 
 permitted," replied Madame Nad ro vine. 
 
 Again Demarini looked at her, a flashing look. 
 
 It lit up his swarthy face like the gleam from an 
 
 almost extinguished fire on the ceiling of a dark 
 
 room. 
 
 * " Do you think I knew you were here ?" he asked. 
 
 "I? Oh, it is much too warm to think. Besides, 
 coincidences fill up every inexplicable gap in life." 
 
 " You know that I would not have come when it 
 was not your wish. I would not have called this 
 afternoon save to explain my presence in your neigh 
 borhood." 
 
 She made him a little bow, full of mockery and 
 a teasing amusement. 
 
 " I am in your debt, monsieur." 
 
 He half started to his feet. 
 
 " You are not angry ? You do not bid me go, 
 Sereda?" 
 
 " Pardon me, count, I took a slight cold in sleep 
 ing near an open window on my way from Hom- 
 bourg. It has made me a little deaf. Will you 
 have the kindness to repeat that last sentence ?" 
 
142 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 He stood before her, grasping his hat in both 
 hands, the veins in his temples swelling. 
 
 " You know that I love you to madness," he said, 
 controlling himself. "I have called you by your 
 name before. You know that I had rather be 
 laughed at by you than caressed by any other. You 
 own me absolutely, body and soul." 
 
 "And you own a charming daughter. She is 
 like a young Psyche, a Psyche who will neVer 
 make the mistake of dropping hot oil on her 
 Cupid. She will peep at him by moonlight or the 
 reflection of a star in a mirror. But that damp 
 blue cotton gown was as charming on her pretty 
 bust as a peplos." 
 
 " Do you tell me to go ?" 
 
 " My dear Demarini, if I told you to go you would 
 assuredly stay." 
 
 " I would do what you told me." 
 
 " Do what you wish, I pray you." 
 
 " You are ungenerous." 
 
 " I have tried to overcome that fault in vain." 
 
 "You torture me?" 
 
 " Your endurance is that of a hero." 
 
 " You know that I only live for your pleasure." 
 
 " I fear that your sacrifice is vain." 
 
 "Sereda!" 
 
 " I beg of you, monsieur. My name is not ugly 
 enough to be picturesque. There is an English 
 rhyme that I remember : 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 143 
 
 " Call me Daphne, call me Chloris, 
 Call me Lalage or Doris. 
 
 There are four names to choose from. Any substi 
 tute will do." 
 
 Demarini missed an excellent opportunity by his 
 lack of knowledge. With what an air he could 
 have finished the quotation, "Only, only call me 
 thine !" 
 
 Madame Nadrovine had taken an unfair advan 
 tage of his ignorance of English. 
 
 He could only repeat himself passionately : 
 
 " But you do not tell me to go ? You do not tell 
 me to leave Italy ? Oh ! que je GUIS fou ! Que je 
 vous adore ! Que je vous adore /" 
 
 He caught the loose sleeve of her gown and pressed 
 it against his lips. 
 
 "It is not yet paid for," she laughed, regarding 
 him lazily. "It is the property of Felix that you 
 are caressing." 
 
 " You wear it : that is sufficient. Why do you 
 always mock me?" 
 
 " That I may not be mocked myself." 
 
 "You do not hate me?" 
 
 " I have not capacity for so extreme an exertion." 
 
 " And I may call upon you ?" 
 
 1 " If you will take the chance of finding me out 
 when you call." 
 
 " It is enough to live under the same constellations 
 that shine above you." 
 
144 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " And what when it is cloudy ?" 
 
 " It is better to share clouds with you than sun 
 shine with another." 
 
 " You deserve something for that speech." 
 
 "What? what, Sereda?" 
 
 "A kind message to take back in regard to the 
 little Lotta. Say that I will call to-morrow after 
 noon to drive her in my phaeton. And now I must 
 pray you to excuse me," she concluded, looking at a 
 little watch which hung from a thread-like bracelet 
 on her left arm. " I have only three-quarters of 
 an hour in which to make my toilet for dinner. 
 Say to the little one that I love her dearly and await 
 our next interview with impatience." 
 
 She took a cigarette from her case, after extend 
 ing it to Demarini, who extracted one eagerly with 
 trembling fingers, and lighted it unconcernedly as 
 he left the room. He saw her slightly smiling face, 
 with its placid, downcast lids, in the pale light of 
 the fuse, as he glanced back at her before letting the 
 folds of the portiere fall between them. Scud had 
 jumped up in her lap, and was lapping her smooth 
 chin with his thin pink tongue. 
 
 "The little beast!" said Demarini, shutting his 
 teeth hard on the last word. He had the aversion 
 of most men to seeing a pet dog in contact with a 
 woman, and when that woman was the object of the 
 sincerest folly of his life it became insupportable. 
 He would have wrung the dog s neck without the 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 145 
 
 slightest compunction, could he have been sure of 
 remaining undiscovered. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 No sooner had Demarini left the house than Ma 
 dame Nadrovine s whole aspect changed entirely. 
 She threw the just-lighted cigarette from her, and 
 watched it smoke of itself on the red tiles of the 
 floor, holding either arm of her chair and caressing 
 her under lip with her tongue, in absolute absorp 
 tion. Scud touched the half-extinguished cigarette 
 with his inquisitive black nose, and sprang back 
 uttering a short howl of pain, to seek protection in 
 the skirts of his mistress. She stroked his dapper 
 little head absently, her great eyes fixed on the floor 
 a yard or two beyond. 
 
 " I have it, Scud !" she exclaimed, finally. " It 
 is as clear as your eyes, my beauty !" She hugged 
 him in the nook of her arm as though he had been 
 a child, and he cuddled up to her, making little wet 
 noises of pleasure with his flexible tongue. 
 
 " We shall see what he will have to tell me next 
 Tuesday, little sleek one ! Now kiss my ear because 
 I have confided in you, petit !" 
 
 Scud saluted the salmon-pink ear turned to him, 
 with rapturous iteration. He looked into her face 
 precisely as if he understood everything, and then 
 pushed a soft paw into her cheek as a baby pushes 
 its soft hand. He was an exceedingly human little 
 G k 13 
 
146 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 beast. Madame Nadrovine felt as though she had 
 really confided her plan to an approving friend. She 
 kissed the little dog twice on the top of his smooth 
 head, and then put him down from her lap. 
 
 The next day she called again at the Villa Dema- 
 rini, to inquire after Mademoiselle Boutry. Ilva 
 was the first to enter the drawing-room. She had 
 on a Roman shirt, and her bare throat rose charm 
 ingly from its loose folds. Madame Nadrovine 
 noted the extreme beauty of her slight hands and 
 wrists. Her blond hair was arranged loosely in a 
 strange coiffure : one could not tell where it began 
 or ended. It looked as though her head were cased 
 in a helmet of silverish gold. " Lotta seems quite 
 herself to-day," she said, adding, half awkwardly, 
 " She seems also in love with you, rnadame." 
 
 " I fear, then, that she is fickle, mademoiselle/ 
 smiled Nadrovine s mother. " Yesterday she was 
 your ardent slave." 
 
 "Sensitive children are always won by beauty," 
 replied Ilva, and then flushed, feeling that she had 
 said something bluntly flattering. 
 
 " How gauche ! how utterly unsophisticated !" said 
 Madame Nadrovine to herself. " But she has a 
 wonderful profile, like those on old coins. And 
 what a figure ! the hips of a girl and the breast 
 of a goddess !" 
 
 Ilva, wishing to appear at her best, naturally ap 
 peared at her worst. Madame Nadrovine left, won- 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 147 
 
 dering what Vladimir saw in the child beyond that 
 beauty of youth which the adored and the adorer so 
 soon outgrow. 
 
 She called to Nadrovine that evening as he was 
 returning with the pressure of the girl s lips yet 
 pulsing upon his. 
 
 He approached slowly. She was pulling the dried 
 leaves from some heliotrope-plants, her purplish-black 
 hair falling in a heavy plait far below her waist. 
 Some of the violet heliotrope-branches were thrust 
 through the girdle of yellow brocade. 
 
 "I called at the Villa Demarini this morning, 
 Vladimir," she said, without pausing in her occupa 
 tion. "The little one has quite recovered. And I 
 saw that pretty young girl again. She is as adorably 
 lovely as she is deplorably silly." 
 
 " Silly, small one ?" asked Nadrovine, with a smile 
 whose complaisance goaded his mother to a frown. 
 " In what did her silliness consist ?" 
 
 " Oh, as for that, I do not recall exactly. It was 
 the general impression. But,- of course, if she is not 
 silly in your eyes I accept your judgment, you have 
 known her so much longer than I have." 
 
 " Since she was a child of ten," replied Nadrovine. 
 
 "Indeed?" said his mother. She drew down a 
 yellow rose which drooped from a trellis overhead, 
 and began stripping it of its blighted outer leaves. 
 "It is strange what opposite impressions different 
 people make on different people." 
 
148 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Yes ; I have thought that," admitted Nadrovine. 
 
 His mother changed the conversation with her 
 usual unfailing tact. An hour later they were 
 dining alone together, the last flush of sunset striking 
 across the silver and glass of the dinner- table and 
 firing Madame Nadrovine s thick hair. 
 
 " I suppose you have heard of Neivensky s mar 
 riage ?" she said, holding her interlaced hands about 
 her small claret-glass. " Of course it will be the end 
 of his career." 
 
 " Why ?" asked Nadrovine. He was thinking of 
 that last look in Ilva s eyes, a look of intense love 
 and pleading. " I fear your mother does not like 
 me. Try to make her like me," she had said to 
 him. She had held him from her except for that 
 last kiss. " I feel that she would not wish it," she 
 had whispered. And she had agreed with him that 
 it was best not to tell either his mother or her own 
 until a week had passed. 
 
 "It would be so much to happen all at once. I 
 will be so thankful to have my heart beat quietly 
 for a little while." Those were her words at parting. 
 He had not touched her, except to take from her that 
 one kiss, not yet the kiss of a lover, she lifted her 
 lips so frankly. He could not bear to rouse her 
 from her ethereal dreams. She would only love him 
 more when she comprehended. 
 
 "Why?" he repeated. 
 
 " Oh, it goes without saying," answered his mother. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 149 
 
 "She is a little country-girl, as lovely as one s 
 dream of a cool brook in summer, but so ignorant 
 of everything, even of love, which she undoubtedly 
 possesses in great quantities." 
 
 " You have seen her, then ?" said Nadrovine. 
 
 " Twice. Her eyes were glued on him, and she 
 spoke to one without turning her head. If there 
 could be as many babies as disillusions during the 
 next six years, perhaps they might be happy." 
 
 " Do you think the only hope of married people 
 lies in their offspring ?" 
 
 "In those cases where men of genius marry com 
 monplace women, I do, most assuredly." 
 
 " And what when men of genius marry women of 
 genius ?" 
 
 " One might as well say, How if man s inclina 
 tions and Heaven s decrees ran in the same direc 
 tion? 7 or, What if love were ever given by two 
 people in like proportion ? I must say, Vladimir, 
 that outside of your novels your remarks are the 
 reverse of sagacious. If men of genius were to 
 marry women of genius, the story of the garden of 
 Eden would sink into insignificance, and one would 
 accept the grave cheerfully as the consummation of 
 such an existence, smiling at the idea of a heaven 
 where there is no marriage nor giving in marriage." 
 
 " But you believe in the marriage of true minds ?" 
 ventured her son. 
 
 " It is a union as vague as that of Saint Cecilia 
 13* 
 
150 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 and her heavenly lover, who, by the way, permit 
 ted her to be beheaded ! After all, those celestial 
 unions invariably end by one of the participants 
 losing their heads : do you not think so ?" She 
 smiled provokingly with her long eyes, and reached 
 for a bunch of grapes, holding back her sleeve with 
 one supple hand. 
 
 " I think it depends," said Nadrovine, beginning 
 to realize that the task of breaking his engagement 
 to his mother would not be an easy one. " It de 
 pends upon the people," he continued ; " and also 
 upon what one considers a celestial union. " 
 
 " Oh, that is easy enough to explain !" exclaimed 
 Madame Nadrovine. " It is where souls are chiefly 
 mentioned and bodies are regarded as mere accidents ; 
 where love-looks are more than kisses, and words 
 than hand-pressures. These are the wings of love. 
 Lovers amuse themselves in pulling them off, as little 
 boys find occupation in maiming flies. When this 
 is accomplished and love is left crawling, they forget 
 that it once had wings, and speak of it as though 
 it had been always the mere grub that it now ap 
 pears." 
 
 " That is not your real idea of love, I am sure, 
 small one," said Nadrovine, with a sudden grip of 
 revulsion which he conquered at once. " Pure love 
 sanctifies the body which it inhabits. And its wings 
 grow stronger with each effort to fly, like the wings 
 of a young bird. A true man cherishes each feather 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 151 
 
 of the wings of love, instead of attempting to pluck 
 them out. You have some reason for wishing to 
 tease me : is it not so ?" 
 
 His mother lifted her brows slightly without look 
 ing at him. " It is true, then, that you believe what 
 you say in your books regarding love ?" 
 
 " Why should you think otherwise ?" 
 
 " Merely because you have lived nine-and-twenty 
 years in the world, and that most people who have 
 lived that length of time have seen it that it is not 
 good." 
 
 " There may be good love in a bad world, may 
 there not, dear small one ?" 
 
 " There would be more probability of bad love in 
 a good world." She stopped in her reckless speech, 
 noting his chilled expression, to rise and droop over 
 him with her exquisite grace of motherhood. 
 
 "How seriously you take my frivolous chatter, 
 dear great one !" she said, letting her lips move 
 against his cheek in forming these words. " Of 
 course there is good love, the love of all mothers 
 for their children, my love for you !" 
 
 This short conversation served to show her how 
 completely in earnest he was. There was that serious 
 ness of speech and manner which only accompanies 
 a great and sincere passion. There would not be the 
 slightest use in arguing with him : of that she was 
 convinced absolutely and at once. Any frustration 
 of what she chose to consider this disastrous affair 
 
152 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 must depend upon her, and upon her alone. She 
 was quite determined, and the next time that Dema- 
 rini called he found her in. She laughed at him, 
 it is true, and lashed him unmercifully with her 
 steely wit, but she did not forbid him to repeat his 
 visit, and she consented to ride with him on the fol 
 lowing afternoon. They met her son, his daughter, 
 and Lotta on their way home. 
 
 " How lovely, how lovely your mother is !" sighed 
 the girl. "But something tells me that she will 
 never like me." 
 
 " She has only to know you/ 7 said Nadrovine. 
 
 " But it will be so hard for me to let her know 
 me, feeling that she has an antipathy for me." 
 
 Nadrovine smiled with the perfect confidence of 
 a man thoroughly in love regarding his lady s powers 
 of charming. 
 
 " You smile because you think that I am ex 
 aggerating," said Ilva ; " but I feel such an absolute 
 conviction that it is more serious than you think." 
 
 They were walking down the old rose-garden 
 towards the sea. She had changed her habit for a 
 gown of thin, soft, white stuff which fell in supple 
 plaits close to her slight limbs. There was an old- 
 silver girdle about her waist, and she had pulled a 
 branch of blush-roses diagonally through it. The 
 pink flowers were reflected faintly in the dull silver. 
 A band of the same metal held her elastic hair in 
 place, but it was loosened above her eyes, which 
 
TEE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 153 
 
 were the color of. the sea at twilight, under her 
 clear brows. Lotta was some way in front of them, 
 absorbed in her dolls and Gaulois the caniche. 
 
 " I feel that it is serious," said Ilva, raising her 
 eyes to his. "I feel that I can never make her 
 like me." 
 
 "But, doushka, you have seen her how many 
 times ? once, is it not ?" 
 
 " And, oh ! I was so embarrassed, I could think 
 of nothing. I stammered, I said everything wrong. 
 She must have thought me quite a little fool ; and 
 I could see even in that short time that to be foolish 
 was the worst of all in her eyes. Generally I am 
 so calm. I have never known what it is to feel ill 
 at ease." 
 
 " You were too anxious, my princess." 
 
 " Yes, perhaps that was it. But I have spoiled 
 everything." 
 
 " You have spoiled me," smiled Nadrovine. 
 
 " In what way ? What do you mean ?" 
 
 " Why, all faces are so meaningless to me since I 
 have seen yours. The world is so empty where you 
 are not. It makes my heart beat just to think of 
 your eyes, and to remember your lips " 
 
 He drew her to him by her slight wrists. 
 
 " Dear heart, why do you tremble ?" 
 
 " You are trembling too," she whispered. 
 
 " It is because I love you so much." 
 
 "And I " 
 
154 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 "Divide my love by all the stars of Italy, and 
 perhaps yours will be half of that." 
 
 " Multiply your love by every snow-flake that has 
 ever fallen in Kussia, and perhaps it will equal one- 
 tenth of mine." 
 
 He released her wrists and took her gently but 
 strongly into his arms. Her lovely blond head leaned 
 back against his breast, her lips were parted, her eyes 
 fastened upon his. A sweet, intense pallor swept her 
 face from brow to chin. She felt the deep throbbing 
 of his heart beneath her cheek. 
 
 "Ilva," he said, "I have never kissed you as a 
 man kisses the woman whom he loves above all 
 others, and who has promised to become his wife. 
 Will you let me give you that kiss of kisses ? It 
 will make you mine forever. No ceremony, no words 
 of man, could seal you to me more entirely, my little 
 one, my poet, my wife. Will you give me your lips 
 as a sign that you have* given me your heart and your 
 soul?" 
 
 She did not answer him, but neither did she at 
 tempt to draw away. He felt the slight, quivering 
 arms press him a little closer, and then he bent his 
 face upon hers. She sank down* weeping from that 
 controlled yet masterful caress, the tears of a young 
 girl who feels that she has given her past and future 
 irrevocably into the hands of another, and who knows 
 that she can never be entirely her own again, in this 
 world or in any world above. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 155 
 
 " I love you, I love you," was all that Nadrovine 
 could win from her in reply to his entreaties and 
 self-reproaches. " No, no ! you have done nothing. 
 You have not wounded me. I I love you more 
 than ever. But there is something gone, something 
 that can never be the same. We can never live over 
 the last half-hour again. Oh, how awkwardly I say 
 it ! I feel the same, and yet different. It is like 
 these roses in my belt. They are roses, but their 
 stems have been broken ; they have been gathered." 
 She cried softly, hiding her face in her hands and 
 leaning it against his breast. 
 
 " My rose, whom I will wear forever," he whis 
 pered, pressing the small head against him. When 
 she looked up at last, he drew the sign of the cross 
 in her own tears upon her lips. 
 
 " They are doubly mine now," he said, with the 
 smile which she thought like light. She reached up, 
 drew down his head, and kissed him of her own 
 accord, timidly, upon both eyes. 
 
 It was Tuesday afternoon. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 On his way home, Nadrovine recalled the fact that 
 he had promised to reveal to his mother this night 
 the history of his missing ring. The recollected 
 clasp of Ilva s arms about his body seemed to give 
 him strength, and he determined to announce his en 
 gagement as soon as he entered his mother s boudoir. 
 
156 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 He ran up the shallow steps easily, noiselessly, smiling 
 to himself. He imagined the scene that would follow 
 his disclosure ; but it was almost pleasant to think 
 of enduring even such pangs for the sake of his 
 lady. He lifted the portiere softly and paused on 
 the threshold, seeing that Count Demarini was seated 
 near his mother, talking earnestly. No doubt they 
 were speaking on the very subject which he had 
 intended to broach. He hesitated. For an instant 
 her eyes seemed to rest on him, but he felt that he 
 was mistaken, for she returned at once to her con 
 versation with Count Demarini, more absorbedly 
 than before. She had a great nosegay of roses and 
 heliotrope in her hand, and laughed as she pressed 
 them against Demarini s nostrils, hiding his whole 
 face. Her gown, of a curious dull-green silk, had 
 gold threads through it, which caught the light. 
 Her black hair made a shadowy haze about the 
 rich pallor of her face. Nadrovine was pierced by 
 her beauty and the luxurious grace of her sidelong 
 posture. 
 
 He saw Demarini seize the wrist of the hand which 
 held the bunch of roses, tear the roses from it, and 
 dash them upon the floor, at the same time drawing 
 her down into his arms. She rested against him, 
 her lips upon his. It was a long, silent kiss. 
 
 Nadrovine loosened the portiSre, and it resumed 
 its heavy folds without a sound. 
 
 " It must be nearly eight o clock. Time to dress 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 157 
 
 for dinner," he said, aloud. He took out his watch 
 and looked at it, walking slowly along the cool hall 
 to the room where he usually smoked. There were 
 no candles lighted yet, and the afternoon glow fell 
 dimly through the swaying white curtains. He went 
 and leaned against one of the arched windows. 
 
 The individuality of inanimate objects began to 
 impress him, the indifference of the sea, the self- 
 satisfaction of white sails moving placidly further 
 and further towards the citrine west. A branch of 
 small white flowers near him seemed vain of their 
 beauty, in their tremulous tossings back and forth. 
 There was an impassive stolidity about earth and 
 sky which irritated him. He heard two servants 
 laughing in the shrubbery on one side, and felt that 
 they had been wilfully impertinent. Twilight de 
 scended gradually, like the ceasing of a dream. The 
 sky was alternately a faded blue, a deep indigo, a 
 black-violet in which the gathering stars vibrated 
 glow-worm green, yellow of tigers eyes, red of 
 cactus-flowers, the silver of frost in moonlight. 
 
 He stood there until darkness had formed densely 
 over land and water, and a servant entered bringing 
 candles. " Take them away/ he said. Gloom again 
 surrounded him. He was thinking of his childhood, 
 recalling the folk-lore in which his mother was so 
 learned, and which she used to repeat to him in her 
 charming voice; the quaint airs which she used to 
 sing to him, and in which he fancied he heard the 
 14 
 
158 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 barking of wolves, the breaking of horses feet through 
 the crust of the snow, the cry of the child tossed out 
 as a sacrifice for the others in the quickly-gliding 
 sleigh. He saw his mother upon his father s knee, 
 her black hair mingling with his red-brown beard. 
 Her emerald ring had caught in it one day as she 
 patted his cheek, and he had pretended to weep. She 
 had also pretended to count the tears, and had given 
 him a kiss for each. Then he was a boy, with her 
 breath on his throat as she leaned to help him with 
 his Virgil. Her rich voice had made the flexible 
 verse throb like bars of music. He had been so 
 proud of her. None of his playmates had possessed 
 mothers who could help them with their Yirgils. 
 She had risen from a bed of illness to be present 
 at his first communion. He could feel her tremble 
 as she folded him afterwards in her arms and set 
 her lips upon his head. She had sat on the edge 
 of his little iron bed nearly all that night, and then 
 they had prayed together until it was morning. He 
 remembered her kindly smiles and praises of his first 
 interlined manuscript, her astonished commendation 
 of the one which he brought her a year later, the 
 pride which broke through her eyes, like light through 
 a forming wave, when he put his first printed book 
 into her hands. She had kissed his hair, his eyes, 
 his lips. 
 
 " My mother ! my mother ! my mother !" he whis 
 pered, between hoarse sobs, sinking down and taking 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 159 
 
 his head between his locked arms. Then he rose 
 to his feet, passing quickly from the house, and lean 
 ing on the old stone gate of the garden, still with his 
 eyes on the sea, in which the stars seemed to collect 
 and scatter like drops of quicksilver. There were 
 footsteps shortly, and a man s voice humming an air 
 from " Faust." Nadrovine stepped quietly into the 
 gravelled path before him, and Deraarini stopped, 
 hesitating. He did not recognize the figure that con 
 fronted him. 
 
 " My friends will wait on you to-morrow," said 
 Nadrovine. " A quarrel at cards." 
 
 " Ebbene, signer," replied the Italian. He passed 
 on with a perfect comprehension of what had hap 
 pened, but considered that kiss well bought. He 
 resumed the air from " Faust," and Nadrovine heard 
 it ringing out clearly on the tense quiet of the night. 
 
 He returned to the house. 
 
 "Vladimir?" said his mother, who had come to 
 meet him. She spoke uncertainly, and this went to 
 his heart. He had not yet realized the enormity of 
 it all. 
 
 " Vladimir, are you there ?" she repeated. He did 
 not speak, but made a movement of assent. They 
 stood facing each other, and the slender curve of the 
 rising moon shed a strange light between them. 
 
 " Are you there ?" she said again. " What is the 
 matter ? Why don t you answer me ?" 
 
 He moved back as she advanced towards him. " I 
 
160 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 know, I have seen No, no," he said, as she 
 
 attempted to put her hand on his arm. He tried 
 to continue, "I was going to tell you. I went to 
 
 your boudoir. I meant to tell you " He stopped 
 
 again, shuddering violently. 
 
 " You meant to tell me what ?" said his mother. 
 
 There was an absolute silence for some seconds, 
 and then Ire replied distinctly, in a low voice, 
 
 "I was going to tell you of my engagement to 
 Signorina Demarini." 
 
 There was another long silence, broken only by 
 the sideward movement of his mother s foot on the 
 gravel. " Well ?" she said, finally. 
 
 " I know all. I saw it all, my mother I" he 
 answered, brokenly, and then, with a repressed cry, 
 
 " My mother ! You did not ! you could not ! 
 Say it to me ! Say it 1" 
 
 She felt herself crushed in his arms. He was 
 holding her fiercely as though he meant to tear a 
 denial from her. 
 
 " What what is it that you wish me to say ? 
 You hurt me," she managed to articulate. He re 
 leased her as suddenly as he had seized her, and 
 lapsed into his former tone of dull constraint. 
 
 " I saw you with Demarini," he said, evenly. 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " I saw him kiss you." 
 
 Still silence. 
 
 He continued, " I saw you return the kiss." 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. IQl 
 
 " Well ?" said his mother. He could almost have 
 fancied that he saw her smile. 
 
 " I have challenged him," he replied. 
 
 " Well ?" she repeated. " I happen to know that 
 you are the better swordsman." 
 
 " I do not understand," he said, with an effort, 
 " I do not understand how it is that you feel." 
 
 "Give the muscadin a lesson," suggested his 
 mother, smiling distinctly this time. 
 
 Nadrovine stared at her. " What is it that you 
 mean ?" he said. 
 
 She approached him. He could not keep her 
 from touching him. 
 
 " Vladimir," she said, " is it possible," she paused 
 to laugh a little under her breath, " is it possible 
 that you think I was serious just now?" 
 
 " That you were serious ?" He stared at her. 
 
 " My dear Vladimir," she laughed uncontrol- 
 ledly this time, "my dear, dear boy, wait a 
 moment until I tell you." He waited, without 
 moving, until she resumed. "Nothing will give 
 me greater pleasure, I assure you of it on my 
 honor," Nadrovine winced, "than to have you 
 split the forearm of that caniche-haired gommeux in 
 your neatest manner." 
 
 His whole body was beginning to throb with a 
 
 violent although repressed disgust. There seemed 
 
 to be some vile metamorphosis of heaven and earth 
 
 taking place. This woman who could use the light 
 
 I 14* 
 
162 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 slang of society to him at such a moment was his 
 mother, and her lips had just been pressed by those 
 of the man whom she designated " muscadiri" and 
 "gommeux" 
 
 " What is it ? what has come to you ?" he stam 
 mered. " You are different." 
 
 She stood for at least three minutes looking out 
 at the breaking silver of the Mediterranean, and 
 then, wrapping her arms in the light scarf about 
 her shoulders, began to speak. 
 
 "I will tell you everything," she said. "You 
 will be very angry. It may estrange you from me 
 for years, but at the end of those years you will love 
 me more than ever. You will feel grateful to me 
 as you have never felt before. It is this. I see 
 you on the verge of ruining your whole life, your 
 whole career. I determine to save you at any hazard. 
 You will not listen to me. I watch and find that 
 you are determined ; that nothing can change you, 
 no one, your mother least of all. I go to see this 
 girl with whom you are infatuated. I find her 
 lovely, commonplace, the sort of woman who after 
 a year of marriage would drive a man to suicide. 
 I think, I pray, I plot. An idea comes to me. It 
 is a sacrifice. Ugh ! I feel it now !" She made a 
 movement of revolt with her whole supple figure. 
 " It is a terrible self-sacrifice, but mothers will do 
 anything for their sons. I determine upon it. I 
 determine to do it. I nerve myself, conquer myself. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 163 
 
 Vladimir," she broke off and turned to him, her 
 face honestly anxious and eager now in the pale 
 light, "I saw you just now in the door- way. It 
 was for that I let Demarini kiss me. I meant you 
 to challenge him." 
 
 There was again silence between them. 
 
 "I do not understand," he said, finally. He 
 noticed that the wind shaking her heavy skirts 
 loosened from them a perfume of white lilac, which 
 produced an unnatural effect of spring in the sultry 
 summer air. " You say you meant me to challenge 
 him ? that you meant me to do it ?" 
 
 " Yes, for your own good. Yes, yes. I felt 
 that you were ruining your life, taking your des 
 tiny into your own hands. She would have made 
 you wretched, cramped you, thwarted you ; your art 
 would have been absolutely destroyed. There is no 
 misery like that of an artist on finding that he has 
 married one who does not appreciate or love his art. 
 It is like being compelled to have for a companion 
 in heaven one who is always sighing for earth. I 
 saw all this. I knew I could not make you under 
 stand. I knew that you would laugh, would scorn 
 the idea, would make a jest of it. You will per 
 haps hate me now for a while, for a while : you 
 would have hated me always if I had known this 
 and had not told you, had not warned you, had 
 not prevented you. You will thank me some day. 
 How you will thank me ! You will kiss my hands. 
 
164 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 Vladimir, where are you going ? Tell me that you 
 understand. Say that you understand " 
 
 " Do not touch me/ 7 said Nadrovine ; but she fol 
 lowed him and took his arm into both hands. 
 
 " But you understand ? you do understand ?" she 
 urged. 
 
 " Yes, I understand," he replied, in a low voice, 
 loosing her strong fingers and putting her hands 
 from him. "I ask that you will not disturb me 
 now." 
 
 " Vladimir? 
 
 " That you will not touch me." 
 
 " Vladimir, you will not always be " 
 
 " You must not touch me. I wish to be alone. 
 Don t follow me. I wish to be by myself." 
 
 He passed rapidly from her sight among the thick 
 ening shadows, leaving her standing there, her arms 
 dropped straight and tense along her sides, her lips 
 pressed inward in a firm expression of restrained 
 pain. 
 
 Nadrovine walked rapidly until he found himself 
 among the ruins of the little temple on the hill. 
 The sky above was like the outreaching of a great 
 silver wing, soft with clouds as with wind-rufiled 
 feathers. He could see the lights in the house 
 below, glowing like oranges of flame among the 
 thick branches of the trees. The sea s voice seemed 
 the purring of a somnolent tiger gentle with love 
 and drowsing on distant sands. There was a pale, 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 165 
 
 spiritual light filtered through the floating clouds 
 overhead and resting on a mist of pearl below, the 
 light that might shine through moonlit water upon 
 a drowned world. He sat perfectly still on the old 
 marble bench, and seemed wrapped in a banner of 
 sunlight, with the subtle scent of azaleas soaking 
 the dense air. He remembered the very folds in 
 her white gown. He remembered the white butter 
 fly that had alighted on her breast. And then it 
 was Lotta s tea-party that he recalled, the droll 
 little cups of red-and-gilt china, the apricot . which 
 he had cut in three pieces, the wicked Zi-Zi who 
 had stolen Nicoletta s sash, Nicoletta herself, and 
 Lucia, and the strange anatomy of their elbowless 
 pink-kid arms. 
 
 " Do not be frightened, monsieur : it is only I. I 
 have been watching you. I thought you were asleep 
 until you breathed so loudly. I wished very much 
 to scream at first, because I did not know you ; but 
 it was only a moment. As soon as I made up my 
 mind to come nearer, I recognized you immediately. 
 My mamma taught me that once when I was fright 
 ened by my own clothes on a chair. She took me 
 up to them and let me feel them ; and ever since 
 then I have always gone up to things in the dark 
 and felt them or looked at them very closely. It is 
 such a good plan." 
 
 It was little Lotta Boutry who addressed him. 
 She stood with her small feet bare on the cool marble 
 
166 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 in front of him. Her night-gown made a lawny 
 vapor about her fragile limbs, and the moonlight 
 glanced from her veil of dark hair in lustrous daz 
 zles, as from the leaves of the great magnolia below 
 them. She looked like the spirit of this pale, opal- 
 tinted night condensed into human shape. 
 
 XV. 
 
 " I hope I did not startle you, monsieur ?" she 
 continued, pushing back her damp hair and regard 
 ing him earnestly without moving. 
 
 " Startle me ? Why, no," replied Nadrovine, 
 absently. " But your slippers, little one ? You 
 will take cold standing on that chilly marble." 
 
 "Oh, I think not," said Lotta. "It feels de 
 licious, not at all too cool. The night is so warm 
 in the house. I was thinking that the moon looked 
 hot as I came up the stairway. I saw it through a 
 little tear in the clouds. It was like a hot coal 
 through gray ashes." 
 
 " But what are you doing here at this hour of the 
 night, little one?" asked Nadrovine. 
 
 " I came for my poor Zi-Zi. I forgot him. He 
 has been lying there alone ever since five o clock 
 this afternoon. He was so unhappy that I could 
 not make up my mind to strangle him, even though 
 Cousine Ilva gave me one of her gold hairs. I 
 know he has been thinking, thinking, thinking out 
 here all by himself. Because dolls must think, you 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 167 
 
 know. I am sure that locomotives do. I am sure 
 they are in a wicked mood when they run off the 
 rails and hurt so many poor people ; and then when 
 they run together what they call a collision I am 
 sure that they are in love with each other and that 
 they are* determined to embrace each other no matter 
 how many people they hurt. I am sure dolls have 
 feelings. If one could alive them with steam, like 
 locomotives, I am sure they would run into each 
 other s arms, no matter how terribly they pinched 
 the fingers of the person who was holding them. 
 I will get poor Zi-Zi and try to comfort him." 
 
 She returned with the little doll in his crimson 
 velvet blouse pressed against her bosom. 
 
 " He is very, very sad," she said, gravely. " His 
 whole face is wet, he has been weeping so. You 
 know more about men than I do, monsieur : tell 
 me how to comfort him." 
 
 " There is no comfort for men s tears, little one." 
 
 " But Zi-Zi is only a doll-man. There must be 
 some comfort for him. Suppose you hold him a 
 little while. I must go back to bed before they 
 put out the lights. There is no light in Cousine 
 Ilva s room, and I crept out on my toes to keep 
 from waking her. I could see her in the moonlight, 
 though. She is so lovely. She let me put all the 
 dolls to sleep across our feet, and did not even move, 
 and she let me cover them with her pretty white- 
 and-blue toilet-cover. I slipped out of bed very 
 
168 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 softly. She did not even stir. Her hair was all 
 between us, like gold. I kissed it. I wanted to 
 kiss her, but I was afraid I would wake her. She 
 said something in her sleep. She looked like an 
 angel. Her hair showed on each side like gold 
 wings. Oh, monsieur, you would write a story 
 about her if you could see her to-night." 
 
 Nadrovine drew the child into his arms, but he 
 was trembling, and she shrank back alarmed. 
 
 "What is it? why do you shake so? Do you 
 see anything ? Never mind, though : I can control 
 myself. Perhaps it is a fairy." 
 
 " And so you left her asleep, little one ?" 
 
 "There is nothing, then? I thought you saw 
 something. Yes, she was fast, fast asleep. She 
 taught me such a pretty verse before she went to 
 sleep, though. I only remember two lines. It was 
 all about different eyes. These are the lines : 
 
 Quick to change are eyes of blue, 
 Brown s of all the sweetest hue. 
 
 And then she said, Do you know any one with 
 brown eyes, cherie f and I said that you had brown 
 eyes, and she laughed and held me. I was pulling 
 off her stockings. It is so pretty to do, -just like 
 peeling the dark-blue skin off of a white fig ; and 
 she has such pretty little toes, the nails shine like 
 any one else s finger-nails, and there are little white 
 arches on them. Then I comb and brush her hair. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 169 
 
 She is like a big, big doll to me. I do love her so ! 
 You love her, don t you, monsieur ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Nadrovine. 
 
 " I was sure that you did. And she loves you, 
 oh, devotedly I" 
 
 " CMrie, how do you know ?" 
 
 " Because when I speak of you she comes nearer 
 to me, and takes me in her arms, and keeps her face 
 against mine so that I cannot see it. And whenever 
 your name is mentioned she turns as if it were her 
 own name and some one were calling her. And 
 and the princes in her fairy-stories always look like 
 you, and when she draws pictures they are all like 
 you. And it was she who made me think of praying 
 for you with those whom I love. And one day when 
 I said to her that I hoped she would marry you, 
 she almost hurt me with kisses, but whispered after 
 wards, Do not say that to any one else, darling, for 
 they would not understand. But it is true. I do 
 hope that you will be married, and then I would 
 pay you long, long visits, and we would be so 
 happy together. You would wish it, would you 
 not? 7 
 
 " With all my heart, pretty one. But see, the 
 lights are going out in the house. You must not 
 stay longer. Will you take your cousin a little mes 
 sage from me ? And can I trust you to tell it to no 
 one else ?" 
 
 The child looked at him seriously while stroking 
 H 15 
 
170 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 the disconsolate Zi-Zi down the entire length of his 
 inaccurately-formed little figure. 
 
 " Must I awaken her to tell her, monsieur ?" 
 "Yes, with a kiss, little one. Tell her where 
 you have been, and that you have seen me, and then 
 say to her the words that I will repeat to you." 
 
 u But, monsieur, she has such lovely, lovely dreams ; 
 and the next morning she always tells them to me. 
 Suppose I should break one in the middle? One 
 can never mend a dream, you know, no matter how 
 much one may desire to. One may begin by dream 
 ing of a nest of little white doves with pink bills 
 and feet, which one is feeding on stars that taste 
 sweet like bon-bons, and one may be awakened and 
 go to sleep again to dream of a large cat that has 
 eyes of green fire and red-hot claws which scratch 
 and burn at the same time. I really know, mon 
 sieur, because I have had such things happen, and 
 it is so distressing. And then, too, Cousine Ilva s 
 dreams are so beautiful. She hears water falling 
 like music that makes itself. And sees flowers whose 
 perfumes are so sweet that to them it is like loving. 
 And great, silver-white peacocks, with purple-and- 
 gold eyes on their tails. And jewels poured out on 
 the ground, which are the lovely thoughts of good 
 little children that the angels turn into precious gtones 
 to feed the poor. The sapphires are one s thoughts 
 of the blessed Christ-Child, and the pearls of the 
 Holy Spirit, and the rubies of God. And when one 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 171 
 
 wishes to help others it is diamonds, and when one 
 is sorry for one s sins it is emeralds. And amethysts 
 mean kisses to those who do not expect them. And 
 a topaz is just a kind word, even if one only speaks 
 it to one s self and nobody hears. And there are 
 many, many others ; but I forget. Oh, I could not 
 bear to disturb one of her dreams, monsieur I" 
 
 " No, my sweet one, I can well believe it ; although 
 such souls have beautiful dreams whether they wake 
 or sleep. But you will tell her the words I say to 
 you as soon as she wakes, will you not?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, truly," said the child, earnestly. 
 "What are they? I must hurry, and I wish to 
 learn them correctly." 
 
 " Say to her, then, my little heart, that the words 
 on the blue ring that she wears around her neck are 
 part of my message to her, and ask her to trust me 
 whatever happens ; that, whatever it is, it could not 
 be avoided. And" he held the child s face in his 
 hands, so that he could look into her eyes " and 
 that I love her, that I will always love her." 
 
 " I am sure that you do," said the child, simply. 
 "It makes your. face so good." 
 
 Nadrovine carried her in his arms down the stairs 
 and to the edge of the last terrace. As he put her 
 gently down she kissed him of her own accord, a 
 little, damp, child s kiss that went to his heart. He 
 kneeled down and drew her against his breast for a 
 last caress. 
 
172 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Good-by, my dear little Lotta," he said. " And 
 say your little prayer for me twice to-night." 
 
 " I will, monsieur. But I have already said it 
 once." 
 
 " Then make it three times, my dear little true one, 
 and it will help me when I arn sad and troubled." 
 
 " Dear monsieur," she replied, agitated vaguely, 
 her lips quivering, " my prayers will be that sadness 
 and trouble may not come to you." 
 
 " One might as well pray against the coming of 
 death, little one. But there, I am talking at ran 
 dom. Run, run, before the last light is put out. I 
 will wait here for you." * 
 
 He gave her a last kiss, and then stood watching 
 her airy figure until it was gathered .into the evasive 
 shadows of the old garden. It seemed to him as 
 though she were the wraith of his youth, vanishing 
 as he looked, and leaving behind only a pulsing gloom 
 and the yearning sounds of a summer midnight. The 
 great harmony of the sea wounded him, as we are 
 wounded by a voice that sang at the funeral of one 
 we loved. It was the sound most associated with 
 her, with her words, her tears, her laughter, a pro 
 found, subdued undercurrent of rich cadences, above 
 which her clear tones rose like the night-call of a 
 bird above the sonorous breathing of a great forest. 
 He stood and looked at the pauseless swaying of the 
 moonlit tide below him, and knew that he could 
 never again endure that majestic sight nor bear the 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 173 
 
 rhythm of its throbbing monotone. It is hard to be 
 deprived of love and of the sea at the same time, 
 only those who love the sea can understand how hard. 
 Nadrovine s heart surged up for one bitter instant in 
 a passion of revolt and rebellion, that instinct of 
 savagery which possesses us when we first learn that 
 circumstance is lord of all, and that the result of the 
 actions of others, and not man, is often master of his 
 fate. He had not allowed himself to think of his 
 mother, or, rather, as yet he felt nothing in regard 
 to her. That part of his nature which* used to vibrate 
 at the least memory of her seemed numbed and inca 
 pable of sensation. He walked back and forth along 
 the broad turf-path, with that hungry feeling grow 
 ing in his heart which besets those who walk alone 
 through scenes where their dearest have once been 
 with them. And then he became racked with an 
 unconquerable longing to see her, to speak with her, 
 to take her in his arms, if only for one moment. 
 To know that it was impossible only rendered the 
 painful longing more frantic. He thought, with a 
 sharp contraction of regret, of how many better mes 
 sages he might have given the child to take her, and 
 in so much sweeter a way. At least he could have 
 sent her a knot of her favorite blush-roses : they 
 would have lain on her pillow all night and in the 
 morning have been pressed against her face. But 
 this thought disturbed him with a sudden sense of 
 revulsion. Ah ! he remembered. He paused, and 
 15* 
 
174 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 stood perfectly still, lifting his shoulders a little, as 
 though to withstand the buffet of an inrolling wave. 
 His mind wandered to commonplace things. He re 
 membered that his man had neglected to replace some 
 books, which were to be returned, in the packing- 
 cases. The petty prick of irritation returned with 
 the thought. They should have been sent back at 
 least two days ago. There was also a roll of proof 
 waiting for him on his writing-table. He began 
 reconsidering a chapter which he had determined to 
 omit. The sea came rolling towards him, insistent, 
 unavoidable, like a great genie daring him to forget 
 for even a moment. Turning, he walked steadily in 
 the opposite direction, but those dithyrambic surges 
 of deep sound, beating up against the steely arch 
 overhead, seemed to descend upon him in great floods, 
 and to inundate his mind with their individuality, 
 until he was powerless to think any thoughts save 
 those which they recalled. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 It was at seven o clock the next morning that 
 Madame Nadrovine was roused by the entrance of 
 some one who walked softly through the gloom of 
 the closely-curtained room until reaching her bed 
 side. 
 
 " Alma ?" she said, half raising herself among the 
 light bedclothes, " is it not very early for my coffee ?" 
 There was no reply, but the intruder suddenly thrust 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 175 
 
 wide the Venetian blinds of the window facing the 
 bed, and drew back the curtains, admitting a tangle 
 of early sunbeams, which, reflected from a bath near 
 the window, played over the bed and the half-awak 
 ened woman. She put up one arm to shield her eyes, 
 leaning on the other. Her hair was braided in one 
 great braid, like that of a little girl. She looked 
 amazingly young, with her bare throat, blinking eyes, 
 and cheeks flushed with sleep and creased by the 
 folds of her pillow-case like those of a baby. 
 
 " What is it ? Who is it ? What do you want ?" 
 she asked, unable yet to identify the person who 
 confronted her. 
 
 " He is dead ! I have killed him," replied the 
 voice of Nadrovine. He was standing with his back 
 to the window, and she could not see his face for 
 the blaze of morning light behind him. 
 
 "I have killed him," he repeated, in the same 
 monotonous voice. " I only meant to wound him ; 
 but he slipped. He was quite dead in a few 
 moments. The surgeon could do nothing." 
 
 His mother stammered, catching her night-gown 
 together at the throat : 
 
 "Who is dead? who is dead? What do you 
 mean ?" 
 
 "It is Demarini. We fought before day this 
 morning. The sun was just rising when he died. 
 There was a horrible likeness with the eyes shut. 
 She is so fair, but there is a likeness. It was hor- 
 
176 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 rible. I can never forget it. I will see that face 
 over your shoulder whenever I look at you." 
 
 "Bah! I will not believe it, that he is dead/ 
 cried his mother, making an excited motion to leave 
 the bed. " It is some ridiculous sensationalism. 
 One knows the way that surgeons talk, and an 
 Italian ! Ring for Alma. 
 
 "No," replied Nadrovine. "I have locked the 
 door. I wish to speak to you alone. It seems so 
 strange. I seem so changed, as though I myself 
 were dead. You know that you have ruined my 
 life?" 
 
 " My dear boy, let me " 
 
 " When I say that you have ruined my life, I 
 mean that you have also ruined everything that makes 
 life worth living. You have left me nothing." 
 
 " My dear Vladimir " 
 
 " I no longer love you. I would prefer the pain 
 of loving you, knowing you to be unworthy, rather 
 than this feeling of utter incapacity. You seem 
 like a machine, a beautiful machine which has 
 maimed a man confiding too much in his knowl 
 edge of it. Nothing seems real but this hour, this 
 moment. My boyhood and manhood are like the 
 confusion of past dreams. I know that you are my 
 mother, that you gave me birth with pain and have 
 sacrificed much for me, and yet I hope that after 
 to-day I will never look at you or hear your voice 
 again. I know that this absolute absence of all 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 177 
 
 emotion is unnatural. Nature will speak before 
 long, perhaps before to-night, with another of her 
 million voices. Perhaps I shall hate you. I might 
 be tempted to curse you." There was a pause, 
 during which one could hear a gardener s boy sweep 
 ing the grass with a broom of twigs. His mother 
 made no reply, but continued to look up at him 
 with her clear, unfaltering eyes. 
 
 "Well? 7 she said, at last. 
 
 " I am going before such a change can take place. 
 I wished to see you once more. It will be a final 
 farewell. I hope never to see you again." 
 
 " You will say that, of course, as often as you wish," 
 she murmured behind her shut teeth. " Go on." 
 
 " I thought that perhaps it might soften me, that 
 I might find something to say to you, something 
 forgiving. I do not forgive you." 
 
 " And then?" 
 
 "I will never forgive you. We will never see 
 each other again." 
 
 " You \vill remember that I told you we might 
 be estranged for several years." 
 
 " You will never see me again. You will never 
 even hear of me." 
 
 "It is natural that you should feel bitter. I 
 expected you to be milch more violent. But it is 
 nonsense about Demarini, you know. Naturally, 
 he swooned from loss of blood." 
 
 " There is no doubt of his being dead," said Na- 
 
178 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 drovine, coldly. " I came to speak to you of one or 
 two things. In the first place, I wish to ask that 
 you will make no effort to discover my whereabouts 
 at any time. It would only annoy and disturb me, 
 and would change nothing." 
 
 " He speaks to me, to me !" whispered his mother, 
 still keeping her eyes fastened on him. She nodded 
 assent. 
 
 " Then I wish you to allow Ivan to pack every 
 thing that I leave, without being interrupted. I 
 want no one to enter my rooms or arrange my things 
 except Ivan." 
 
 Again his mother nodded. 
 
 "And then there is this. You have a portrait 
 of my father. It is in a carved silver case set with 
 little rubies. Ah ! it is there around your neck. 
 Give it to me, please." 
 
 She bared her throat with a superb movement. 
 
 "Take it," she replied. 
 
 He unfastened it without touching her white flesh, 
 and opened it to assure himself that all was as he 
 remembered it. His own face confronted him, the 
 face of a boy of eighteen, with blond curls, rather 
 long. A sudden rush of emotion mastered him. He 
 was blinded, and the blood gathered hotly in his 
 throat. He put out his hand to steady himself, and 
 it fell upon his mother s shoulder. She clasped it 
 with both her own, in a sudden eager gesture of 
 appeal. Her lips moved. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 179 
 
 Nadrovine stood staring down at the portrait in 
 his hand, while she watched him ravenously, her 
 parted lips still forming unuttered words. 
 
 " He is softened. It has touched him. My great 
 love has melted him. He will forgive me." 
 
 These were the sentences that she framed in silent 
 but rapturous certainty. He turned suddenly, with 
 drawing his hand from beneath hers, and tossing the 
 open case upon the bed. 
 
 " It has always been so. You have always put 
 me before him. I never knew it until now. I might 
 have known. I might have known that such light- 
 heartedness as yours could never have been feigned. 
 What woman who loved her husband could have 
 laughed and danced and reigned, as you have done, 
 with him, her husband, rotting in Siberia? I have 
 been a fool ! I have been a fool !" 
 
 He went to the door and unlocked it. She thought 
 that he would come back, but he opened it and passed 
 through, closing it after him. 
 
 " It is a natural mood. It will pass," she said, 
 consoling herself by speaking aloud as she rose from 
 bed. 
 
 She walked to the open window and half closed the 
 blinds, shutting out the sunlight. There was a half- 
 finished letter on her writing-table, an order for 
 some new morning gowns. She took up the pen and 
 began to finish it mechanically, thinking of other 
 things all the while that she wrote. Not for an 
 
180 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 instant did she believe Demarini to be dead. All 
 the frivolous details that she was describing inter 
 wove themselves oddly with her thoughts, and the 
 scenes of the past twenty-four hours appeared again 
 to her, seen through folds of lace and muslin and 
 behind the fluttering of pale-green ribbons, and hats 
 garnished with apple-blossoms. She ended the letter 
 and sealed it with elaborate care, spoiling two or three 
 envelopes in the process, and then reopened it to say 
 that, after all, she had decided to have the gown of 
 India muslin made over pale-green silk and embroid 
 ered by hand with apple-blossoms in a very delicate 
 shade of rose-color, the sprays being far apart in 
 order to give the costume an airy look. She then 
 sealed it again, even more carefully than before, and 
 rang for her maid, being impatient to dress and yet 
 avoiding beginning. It seemed as though she could 
 not take her bath and have her hair arranged for 
 hours; and all the time she was wondering about 
 Nadrovine, and picturing him in various ways. 
 
 It was not until she appeared at luncheon and 
 asked for him that she realized his determination. 
 He had taken the morning train for Paris some 
 hours ago. The servant who told her noticed that 
 she assumed her seat at the table rather abruptly, 
 but beyond this she showed no emotion. The only 
 time that her self-control forsook her was when she 
 became convinced beyond doubt of Demarini s death. 
 Instead of growing pale, the blood rushed darkly to 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. IgJ 
 
 her face, which worked convulsively in an expression 
 of horror. They heard her mutter, 
 
 " Then he will not forgive me." 
 
 Her maid wished to undress her, but she motioned 
 her fiercely to leave the room. The girl, who adored 
 her, crouching outside her door, heard the soft foot 
 falls moving up and down for at least two hours, and 
 the noise of her silken skirt hissing in little jerks as 
 her quick impatient strides drew it after her along 
 the tiled floor. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Three weeks of unbroken silence from Nadrovine 
 followed the day of his departure. His mother had 
 not left the house once, and for forty-eight hours 
 had been locked in her apartments. No one was ad 
 mitted. The trays of food left at her door were taken 
 away untouched, while the little Swede, kneeling and 
 listening at the key-hole, could hear nothing, not a 
 movement, not a sound, not even a sigh. 
 
 It was about nine o clock on the evening of the 
 third day, that Alma, passing through the hall with 
 wine and fruit in her hands, encountered a figure 
 clothed in white standing just within the door of 
 entrance. She stopped and stared in silence, while the 
 figure approached her. It spoke in a soft voice. 
 
 " Can I see Madame Nadrovine ?" 
 
 Alma saw that there was pale-golden hair under 
 its scarf of white gauze, and that its breast rose and 
 fell quickly. She also heard the sound of its escaping 
 16 
 
182 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 breath, and decided that this breathing was too rapid 
 and natural to be that of an apparition. 
 
 " Can I see your mistress ?" said the gentle voice 
 a second time. 
 
 Alma steadied her tray of wine and fruit against 
 the carved iron railing of the stairway. 
 
 " I do not think so, mademoiselle," she replied, 
 hesitating. " She has not seen any one, not even 
 taken food, for three days." 
 
 " Is she then ill?" 
 
 "No one knows, mademoiselle; for no one has 
 seen her for three days." 
 
 " I must see her," said Ilva. 
 
 "But, mademoiselle " 
 
 " I must see her," repeated the girl, gently. " Come ! 
 you will take me to her, I know. I am in great sorrow, 
 and she alone can help me." 
 
 Alma still hesitated, although she began to yield, 
 and Ilva took her little, plump, tanned hand in both 
 her own and pressed it against her breast. " I may 
 be able to help her too," she said. " Give me the 
 wine and fruit, and let me take it to her." 
 
 " But but " stammered the girl. Ilva, coming 
 
 close to her and still holding her hands, said, in a 
 ringing voice, low and sweet with the weakness of 
 misery, 
 
 " Listen ! listen, my sister, for all women should 
 be sisters in time of trouble : I only want to help 
 her and to try to be helped by her. I am in great 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 183 
 
 sorrow. My wretchedness is almost past my own 
 power of comprehension. I wish only to stand out 
 side her door and speak to her. You may watch 
 here on the stairs. Why, what harm could I do 
 her ? I am only a poor, unhappy girl. Her door 
 is locked, you say. How could I harm her in any 
 way? How could I? Even if I wanted to, how 
 could I ? And what is your name ?" 
 
 " Alma/ 7 replied the girl. 
 
 " Then, dear, dear Alma, let me go to her door 
 and speak to her through it. You may watch ; you 
 may even listen, if you wish." 
 
 The girl broke suddenly into teal s. 
 
 " Go ! go !" she exclaimed, sobbing, and holding 
 out the little silver tray with both hands, while avert 
 ing her face. " Go quickly, and the blessed Lord be 
 with you !" 
 
 " And with you !" said Ilva, kissing her. She 
 took the wine and fruit from her hands, saying, with 
 a sorrowful smile, " But why do you weep ?" 
 
 " I weep because you have the look in your face 
 of those who die young," replied the girl, "and 
 because you are so beautiful." 
 
 u It is well to die young," said Ilva, smiling again. 
 "But I love you for your tears, and I will pray for 
 you always with those whom I love." 
 
 She kissed her again solemnly on the forehead, 
 and ascended the wide marble stairway. Alma had 
 told her to stop at the first door to the right, and she 
 
184 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 stood there awhile in silence, before speaking. Then 
 she said, gently, 
 
 " Vladimir s mother?" 
 
 There was only silence for reply. 
 
 She spoke again, even more softly, more gently : 
 
 " Vladimir s mother? Vladimir s dear, dear 
 mother ?" 
 
 Only silence, profound, vibrating. Again she 
 spoke, with an anguished note of entreaty begin 
 ning to throb through her low tones : 
 
 " Oh, will you not answer me ? Will you not 
 answer me ? I only wish to ask you where he is, 
 that I may tell him how fully I forgive him, how 
 I believed the words that little Lotta brought me. 
 I trust him. I trust him utterly. I feel that he 
 is suffering, that he is in anguish ! I only can help 
 him, but not without you, not without you. Even 
 if you hate me, will you not open to me for his 
 sake? You may curse me, you may tell me how 
 you hate me, but I will not care. It is for his sake. 
 . . . Oh, if you would but understand ! Oh, if I 
 could but make you understand ! I will go into a 
 convent. I will promise you never to see him again. 
 Only I cannot bear the thought of his suffering : I 
 cannot ! . . . I cannot ! It is driving me mad. I 
 hear only evil words of him from morning until 
 night, from night until morning. Will you not 
 answer me ? Are you dead too ?" 
 
 Still the heavy silence which seemed to press 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 185 
 
 against her ears until they ached. She kneeled 
 down, supporting the tray of fruit upon her knees 
 and lifting upward her pale face in supplication. 
 
 " O Sancta Maria/ 7 she whispered, " soften her 
 heart ; let her heart be softened by the words that 
 thou wilt teach me to say to her." 
 
 Again she bent forward, with her cheek against 
 the door. 
 
 "Open to me in his name, in his name," she 
 murmured. " I only wish it for his sake. Believe 
 me ! oh, believe me, believe me ! You may say 
 what you will to me. I will endure any reproach 
 that you offer me. Only open to me. Only open 
 to me, that I may see you and speak with you." 
 
 After waiting several moments, during which her 
 lips moved incessantly in whispered words of prayer, 
 she spoke again : 
 
 " I will not weary you more ; but if during the 
 night you feel that you can speak to me, open the 
 door. You will find me still here. And there is 
 wine for you, his dear mother, and some fruit. 
 Oh, you must be so weak, so weak ! My heart 
 aches when I think of it. But now good-night. 
 May angels minister to you ! May you be told in 
 dreams of my sincerity ! I am ready to promise 
 whatever you wish." 
 
 She then stretched herself deliberately along the 
 floor, resting her head against a panther s skin, which 
 she rolled up and over which she placed her gauze 
 
 16* 
 
186 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 scarf in order to have a comparatively cool pillow. 
 It seemed to her that she lay there for hours. She 
 lived over again every scene with Nadrovine since 
 her first meeting with him as a little girl. Alma 
 had fallen asleep on the stairs, and the wax candles 
 in the hall below, unextinguished, dripped in semi- 
 transparent mounds on the tiles beneath and hung 
 in stalactites from the crystal bobches. One by one 
 they burned low, flared, and went out. Only the 
 languid glittering of the stars which studded the 
 space of sky enclosed by an open window near at 
 hand lighted the great hall. Ilva had not stirred. 
 She- lay in an attitude of tense quiet, one hand retain 
 ing her improvised pillow in its place, the other 
 stretched above the little tray at her side, like the 
 hand of a mother questioning the slumber of her 
 first-born. Was it not this wine and fruit which 
 was to nourish his mother, the woman who had 
 brought him into the world to love her and to be 
 loved by her? 
 
 It was one o clock when the door opened wide, and 
 a tall, impassive form appeared on the threshold, 
 pressed forward, as it were, by a flood of light from 
 beyond. The folds of her white crape dressing- 
 gown fell in an almost forbidding simplicity to her 
 bare feet. Her face was ghastly, her eyes dull and 
 sunken beneath their dark lids. Her thick hair, 
 half braided, was tangled in a lustreless mesh of 
 strands. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 187 
 
 II va at once rose to her knees, and remained in that 
 position, looking up at her. Presently she ventured 
 to lift her clasped hands timidly, drawing them down 
 at once and straining them against her breast. 
 
 " Oh, how ill you look ! How ill you look !" 
 she exclaimed, in a pained voice. 
 
 Nadrovine s mother stood motionless, still regard 
 ing her. Suddenly she moved aside. 
 
 " Come in I" she said, sternly. 
 
 Ilva found herself in an airy room, charming with 
 hangings of white and gold, and with low chairs and 
 couches covered with old-fashioned silks in faded 
 tints. The bed, with its eight curtains of yellow 
 brocade, was as smooth as though just spread. 
 There were torn papers scattered over the floor, 
 and an overturned inkstand. The ink, sluggishly 
 following an uncertain course, had left a gloomy 
 stain on the bright floor. 
 
 " And now, what is it that you wish with me ?" 
 asked the woman. 
 
 Ilva s heart seemed strangling her. 
 
 " That you will tell me where he is. I wish to 
 forgive him. I wish to know where he is. It is 
 only because I cannot bear that he shall suffer. Ah ! 
 I know that you will tell me," she ended, in a suffo 
 cating voice. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine regarded her calmly. "I 
 know no more where he is than you do," she said, 
 at last. 
 
188 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " But, sigoora ! dear signora . . . !" 
 " I have told you that I know no more than you 
 do." 
 
 " But you love him ? you love him ? You can 
 not desire that he should suffer. If he could only 
 know that I forgive him !" 
 
 " For what do you forgive him ?" 
 " Signora, . . . for the death of my father." 
 " You are indeed lenient, mademoiselle." 
 " I trust him. I know that it was not his fault. 
 I do not understand, but I am sure of that. I trust 
 him utterly. I am sure that he did not mean to do 
 it." 
 
 " I have not found so great faith, no, not in 
 Israel ! " quoted the woman, in a hard voice, half 
 smiling down at her. " You are deeply in love, it 
 is evident, mademoiselle." 
 
 " Oh, yes ! yes !" cried Ilva, her face breaking 
 into a radiance of innocent rapture. "You must 
 see how I love him to have come to you. I felt 
 that you hated me, and yet I came. I loved him so 
 much that your hate seemed a little, little thing in 
 comparison. I knew that you would see me. I 
 was sure of it. I thought perhaps that I could 
 make you understand that you had hated me un 
 justly, that I was not as you thought me. Believe 
 ine, signora, oh, believe me ! I love you for his sake, 
 in spite of your hatred. I will do whatever you 
 wish." 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 139 
 
 "I tell you that I know nothing. Why do you 
 stare at me so? There, sit down. You are as 
 white as your gown. There, sit down, I say. Do 
 you faint ? Look ! I will shake you if you attempt 
 to faint." 
 
 She caught the girl fiercely by the arm, while the 
 great eyes looked up at her, dazed, but unterrified. 
 
 " You would not really hurt me ?" she said, half 
 questioningly. Madame Nadrovine withdrew her 
 hand in some haste. 
 
 " Why should I hurt you ?" she asked. 
 
 " I knew you would not. It was only a thought. 
 We cannot help our thoughts, you know." Then 
 suddenly she slipped from the chair into which 
 Madame Nadrovine had forced her, and clasped her 
 about with both arms. 
 
 " Signora ! signora ! in Christ s name, for Christ s 
 sake, tell me where he is !" 
 
 " Little idiot ! have I not already said twice, that 
 I do not know ?" 
 
 " But, signora . . . " 
 
 " I tell you I do not know." 
 
 "But, signora, think, think !" 
 
 " I say I know nothing, nothing ! Saints ! am 
 I not sufficiently humiliated by such a confession, 
 that you force me to repeat it? I tell you that I 
 know nothing. Do you hear? Nothing, nothing, 
 nothing, nothing !" 
 
 " But, signora, listen. I wish to ..." 
 
190 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " Nothing, I say ! Let me go ! You drive me 
 frantic ! Let go !" 
 
 She drew her robe violently from the girl s hands, 
 causing her to swerve and fall sidelong on the floor. 
 A little sigh escaped the pale lips, and then the slight 
 limbs settled quietly. 
 
 The woman stood looking at her for a moment, 
 rigid, fierce, her hands clinched ; but she soon saw 
 by the pallor of the face at her feet that the swoon 
 was not a feigned one. She knelt abruptly, and took 
 one of the little, relaxed hands in hers. It was 
 damp and cold. She put her hand on the wavy hair : 
 it was also damp about the brow and temples. 
 
 " Wake ! wake !" she called, in a stertorous whis 
 per, dragging her upward by the lifeless arms, and 
 then lowering the inert body again upon the floor. 
 She slapped her face, her hands. She poured the 
 contents of a great ebony case of perfume over the 
 inanimate breast. The delicate hue of flesh shone 
 through the soaked muslin, but no signs of returning 
 life stirred its folds. She then caught sight of the de 
 canter of wine on the tray near the still open door, 
 and, seizing it, forced a glassful between the girPs 
 teeth. As the long breath of returning conscious 
 ness lifted her bosom, the fasting woman at her side, 
 made ravenous by the smell of the wine and fruit, 
 began to eat the grapes, skins and seed, tearing them 
 from their stems with her sharp teeth, and washing 
 them down with glass after glass of sherry. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 When she had finished this strange and hurried 
 repast, she turned, still kneeling, and looked down 
 at the prostrate girl. Ilva s eyes were closed, but she 
 breathed regularly, and one of her hands stirred 
 slightly, like a fallen magnolia-leaf lifted by the 
 wind. Madame Nadrovine felt the girPs heart. It 
 was beating, slowly but firmly. 
 
 " Let me help you to the bed," she suggested, in a 
 cold voice. Ilva did not reply. She closed again 
 her dark eyes, which she had half opened, and lay 
 without motion. Madame Nadrovine did not waste 
 further time in words. Thrusting her strong arms 
 under the slight figure, she lifted her and carried 
 her to the great bed, with its eight shining curtains. 
 
 She drew the old-fashioned embroidered white satin 
 coverlet from beneath her, and placed it over her up 
 to her breast. 
 
 " I thank you," murmured Ilva, again opening 
 her languid eyes for an instant. Invigorated by the 
 wine which she had drunk, Madame Nadrovine began 
 to rub the lifeless limbs with a regular sweeping 
 movement of her strong hands, and as she sat, bend 
 ing back and forth to her task, she noticed how frail 
 and wasted was the fair face and how transparent 
 the little hands unfolded on the shimmering coverlet. 
 
 " She has been fasting too," she muttered to her 
 self in her voice of the past three weeks, a voice 
 
192 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 without feeling or inflections. She found that she 
 could not withdraw her gaze from the quiet, pale 
 face. What long, dark lashes she had, curling to 
 her eyebrows with their golden tips which a mon- 
 daine would undoubtedly have dyed ! What fine, 
 narrow eyebrows ! What a clear forehead, smooth 
 and bluish, with thread-like veins at the temples! 
 Her soft hair grew in little points, downy and of a 
 pale brown. Above rippled a luxurious tide of 
 silverish gold. The little nostrils were haughty, 
 thin, and high-arched, the lips curved and drooping 
 slightly at the corners. Nadrovine s mother gazed 
 at them as though under a spell, and then her look 
 dropped to the white throat stretched back on the 
 pillow. Her little crooked toilet-scissors were lying 
 near. She could touch them with her outstretched 
 hand. What was it that she had said to Nadrovine 
 only a month ago? She took them up on three 
 fingers and made the motion of cutting in the air. 
 The sherry burned through her veins. A soft touch 
 roused her. Ilva had slipped from the pillow, and 
 was resting her cheek upon one of her hands. 
 
 " You are so good to me," she said. " I knew 
 that you were good. He could not love you as he 
 does if you were not good." 
 
 Madame Nadrovine let the scissors drop noiselessly 
 among the folds of her dressing-gown. She frowned, 
 however. 
 
 " You are clever," she remarked, in her harshest 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 193 
 
 tones. " I made a mistake when I thought you 
 silly." 
 
 " No, no, signora ! Do not think I say things for 
 effect. He used to speak to me for hours and hours 
 of his love for you. We used to talk of you over 
 and over again. I was afraid, but he used to tell 
 me of your loveliness and goodness, and then I would 
 not be so frightened. Ah, signora, why do you hate 
 me? He will always be yours more than mine. 
 He is your flesh and blood. You have suffered for 
 him. Oh, signora, think of it ! you have suffered 
 for him, and I, no matter how much I suffer, what 
 can I do for him ? We are separated forever. He 
 will not marry me with this stain of blood between 
 us. Will you not let me love you ? I can have no 
 more. He will never wish me to be his wife now : 
 all that is gone, gone. I can only be his sister, 
 your daughter, signora, your daughter !" 
 
 For the first time she began to weep. Great tears 
 glazed her face. Her sobs shook her convulsively, 
 and she grasped Madame Nadrovine s gown with 
 both hands. The woman rose excitedly, pushing 
 her back among the heaped-up pillows. 
 
 " Never ! . . . never !" she said, in a choked voice. 
 "My daughter? Never!" 
 
 She took two or three strides forward. In the 
 centre of the room she paused, turning about and 
 regarding the tear-shaken girl with a splendid scorn. 
 
 " My daughter ! Are you Demarini s child, you 
 i n 17 
 
194 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 who wish to be my daughter? You wish to have 
 for a mother the mother of the man who killed your 
 father?" 
 
 " Ah, signora, that was an accident. My poor 
 father slipped. We were told that by the surgeon 
 who attended him. And I also have his words, 
 the words of your son. They are here in my breast. 
 It was an accident, a terrible, terrible accident. Oh, 
 signora, believe that I have suifered. I loved my 
 father. It was I who watched with him all that first 
 dreadful night, I and little Lotta. She would not 
 leave me. There was no one else but the servants ; 
 and of course I could not have borne that. My 
 mother and my aunt were both ill, and Nini is afraid 
 of the dead. I sat beside him, at his head, so that I 
 could look down upon his face. It was very beauti 
 ful. I never noticed before how long his lashes were, 
 like a woman s, and his forehead so clear in the 
 candle-light. At first I could only think of the 
 awful wound in his breast, ... of who had made 
 it there. I felt as though the sword had pierced me. 
 And then to be thrust by the hand that had caressed 
 me, his daughter ! that had drawn the sign of 
 the cross upon my lips, and in my tears ! I knew 
 that my father had forgiven him. He looked so 
 calm, ... so good. It was almost the face of a saint, 
 so pure and placid. And he was good, good and 
 gentle. It must have been some madness. I know 
 that he has forgiven. I know that he would plead 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 195 
 
 for me, signora, . . . would wish me to forgive. 
 Why, I can almost see him, there, there beyond your 
 shoulder " 
 
 In her excitement, with running tears and catch 
 ing breath, II va kneeled up in the great bed and 
 extended her arm towards Madame Nadrovine, her 
 eyes fixed as though on some object beyond her. 
 The short, hoarse cry that the woman uttered 
 startled her : it was almost like the bark of some 
 animal in anguish. She wheeled and caught at a 
 chair near her for support. 
 
 " You see nothing ! . . . Why do you point at me 
 in that theatrical manner? . . . You know that you 
 see nothing ! . . . You do it for effect." The words 
 came in hurried bursts, as though forced from her, 
 and the chair trembled with her heavy grasp upon it. 
 
 " It is absurd, . . . absurd !" she repeated, sinking 
 down and thrusting back her loosened hair with both 
 hands. " But you are a good actress, mademoiselle." 
 
 At these words, Ilva rose slowly from the bed, 
 and stood erect, meeting the sneering gaze of 
 Madame Nadrovine in a calm, level look. 
 
 " Since you can believe this of me, there is nothing 
 left for me but to go, signora," she said, with a quiet 
 dignity. " I wish you good-night." 
 
 She made a slight inclination, graceful and self- 
 contained, and, passing through the open door, went 
 swiftly down the broad stairway and into the warm 
 night outside. Madame N"adi;ovine remained where 
 
196 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 she was, the scornful smile with which she had greeted 
 the last speech of the young girl still lifting the cor 
 ners of her lips. 
 
 As she had done with Nadrovine, she waited, ex 
 pecting to see Ilva return and throw herself at her 
 feet in a last paroxysm of pleading and despair. 
 The moments passed on in quiet silence, however, 
 the perfumes and leaf-sounds of the great garden 
 below rising and falling with the indolent wind. 
 She rose finally and approached the open window. 
 In the distant haze of the late and waning moon 
 light, the girl s figure shone like a small statuette 
 of silver among the dark shrubbery, and presently 
 vanished altogether. Madame Nadrovine turned 
 again towards the lighted room. It was suifocating 
 with the scent of the vervain which she had poured 
 over Ilva during her swoon, and the empty grape- 
 twigs lay in a desolate-looking bundle among the half- 
 filled sherry-glasses. Moths and strange summer in 
 sects of all sorts were fluttering and singing about 
 the glittering candles on her toilet-table and writing- 
 desk. Some of them were half burned to death and 
 buzzed in anguish among the silver and ivory brushes 
 and toilet-articles ; others, half plunged in the melted 
 wax, strove to free themselves with desperate contor 
 tions of their long legs. 
 
 The woman stood for a moment gazing absently 
 down at the struggling creatures ; then, lifting a 
 brush, she put an end to their pain by a quick tap 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 197 
 
 or two, and, taking fresh candles from a drawer, 
 placed them on her writing-table. A square book 
 of black Russian leather with a heavy lock and 
 monogram in silver lay between the two candle 
 sticks. She opened it, read a page or two, turned 
 to a fresh page, dipped her pen in the ink, and, 
 kneeling down in front of the table, began to write 
 as follows : 
 
 " Just God, have mercy upon me, and turn the 
 heart of my son towards me again. Thou knowest 
 that all I have done was for his sake. Thou knowest 
 how distasteful and abominable it was to me beyond 
 words. If I have done wrong I ask Thy forgive 
 ness. I will fast for a year, and sell my jewels for 
 the poor, if Thou wilt but pardon me. Judge me 
 not by the offence, O Lord, but by the love that 
 caused it. If I almost worship my son, O Lord, 
 Thou, whose Son was worshipped by his mother, 
 wilt look leniently upon what for me is a sin. O 
 God, lay not the death of Demarini to my charge. 
 Thou knowest that I did not mean him to be killed. 
 My object was to make a breach between the two 
 families which would prevent my son from marrying 
 an immature child in no way worthy of him. My 
 God, I have been called a hard woman. Thou who 
 madest me knowest that if this is so it is the fault 
 of heredity rather than from any wish of my own ; 
 but to my son, O God, I am as melted wax. Lord, 
 give him back to me, if I die with his first look. 
 
198 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 Give him back to me in love, if his first kiss means 
 death to me. These words are weak and cold to 
 what is filling my heart like bubbling iron. Why 
 didst Thou send this girl to divide us ? Did I not 
 bring him up to fear and honor Thee ? Did I not 
 teach him to make his genius an offering unto Thee ? 
 Wherein have I failed? Why is this punishment 
 sent upon me? I feel that Thou art angry with 
 me ; and yet, Lord, it is not, alas ! Thy anger which 
 so much grieves me as the loss of my son. It is not 
 so much Thy anger that I dread, as that it will cause 
 Thee to keep him from me. I feel that Thou art 
 displeased with me for my lack of gentleness to the 
 girl ; but I would have been a hypocrite had I pre 
 tended to feel any pity for her. Perhaps she de 
 serves it. I do not know. It is nothing to me. 
 Thou seest, O Lord, how utterly I bare my soul to 
 Thee. I hide nothing. I excuse nothing, The 
 thing that I did was wrong, but the love that caused 
 it was sublime. It was the wisdom of the world, 
 but Thy Son hath told us to be wise as serpents/ 
 and I did not mean to be less t harmless than a dove. 
 I meant not the death of any one. I only wished to 
 save my son, and the great genius which Thou hast 
 given him, from a living death. Let him live to 
 thank me for it. Let him live to- recognize that 
 Demarini s death was indeed an accident for which 
 neither he nor I are responsible. Bring him back 
 to me. Soften his heart. Give him to me again. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 199 
 
 Thou knowest that, with all my sins, I am honest 
 to Thee. Even to Thee I never feign to feel that 
 which is absent. I fear Thee more than I love Thee, 
 and I love my son more than I desire perfect good 
 ness, but if Thou wilt only give him to me once 
 more I will strive to serve Thee even with my hard 
 ness. Give him back to me, that I may hear him 
 say, if only once, that he loves me, and then punish 
 me as Thou wilt. Amen." 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Madame Nad ro vine, with the practicality which 
 distinguished her, set about aiding Providence to 
 answer her prayer. She employed in secret the ser 
 vices of one of the most distinguished detectives in 
 France, and, some months from the night of her 
 interview with Ilva, discovered that her son was ill 
 with a slow fever in poor apartments in one of the 
 side-streets of Paris. 
 
 She knocked at the door of his room the day after 
 this information had reached her, scarcely waiting 
 for his answer before entering. It was a small room, 
 with whitewashed walls and heavy walnut furniture 
 of that awkward and obsolete order which always 
 manages to rise, like cream, to the top story of old 
 houses. The windows were small, set with panes 
 of greenish glass, and spotted a dingy yellow over 
 the entire upper sash by repeated layers of rain 
 drops. Opposite, in the waterish light of the fading 
 
200 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 afternoon, the zinc roofs and awnings gave forth a 
 gray glare, which seemed to be reflected in the black 
 ooze of the streets below. A fine and steady rain 
 was falling. The depressing gleam of hundreds of 
 soaked umbrellas passing and repassing far below 
 gave one a sensation of desolation which was aug 
 mented by the glisten of the wet cab-tops, and the 
 swallows preening their damp feathers on the branch 
 of a dead tree near the grimy window. 
 
 Sunk in an old chair covered with time-dimmed 
 cretonne, was Nadrovine, his face turned listlessly 
 towards the blank patch of sky visible to him through 
 the clouded casement, his hands resting inertly on 
 a closed book which was sunk between his knees. 
 His dark dressing-gown, folded and re-folded about 
 his figure, gave a wonderful appearance of emacia 
 tion. His hair, grown longer during his illness, re 
 called to his face a look of his youth as represented in 
 the miniature which he had taken from his mother s 
 neck on the day of their last interview. She turned 
 the key in the door, which she closed behind her, 
 and, slipping it into her pocket, advanced a few steps. 
 
 She spoke to him. " Vladimir?" she said, in a 
 low voice. 
 
 He half rose from the great chair, steadying him 
 self with a hand on either arm. His pale face be 
 came suffused with blood. 
 
 " It is you ? ... It is you ?" he said, on short, 
 rushing breaths. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 201 
 
 " Yes, it is 1 1 . . . your mother. Did you think 
 that you could be ill, suffering, and I not find it 
 out?" 
 
 He continued to stare at her in silence, his quiver 
 ing arms retaining him in his half-erect posture. 
 
 She came close to him and put forth her hand to 
 force him gently back into the chair, but he dropped 
 from her touch and pressed back among the worn-out 
 springs, making them creak with his sudden energy 
 of sickness. 
 
 " I ask you not to touch me !" he panted. 
 
 " But you cannot expect me to obey you, dear great 
 one?" she said, bending over him, with the smile 
 which no other had ever seen. " It is the fancy of 
 an invalid, such a dear invalid ! . . . But you have 
 been too much alone, my darling !" 
 
 She attempted to run her long fingers through his 
 hair. 
 
 " I beg of you ..." he reiterated, in the tone 
 of one exquisitely tortured. 
 
 " Ah, great one, great one, if you knew the anguish 
 you make me suffer, you would try to overcome these 
 fancies of a sick child. -You wring my very heart !" 
 
 " And you mine !" he stammered. His weak efforts 
 to push the heavy chair still farther from her made 
 the old wire padding and casters creak again. " I 
 beg of you to go," he whispered. " Only go !" 
 
 "My darling! . . . When I have just come to 
 care for you ! . . . Vladimir, you were never cruel." 
 
202 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " I do not mean to be ; ... that is, I must be 
 .. . . Do you not see my tortures? ... I wish only 
 to be alone." 
 
 "And can you dream for an instant that, even 
 although you hated me, I would leave you alone 
 when I see you ill? See, I will not touch you: 
 ... I will only stay as your servant, your nurse. 
 . . . You cannot refuse that ?" 
 
 " Just to be alone, ... to be alone again !" mur 
 mured the exhausted man, letting his eyes close 
 wearily. 
 
 " I have said that I will not touch you, Vladimir. 
 If you wish it, I will not even speak to you. But 
 you cannot, in humanity, tell me to leave you ! You 
 cannot expect me to obey such a command as that, 
 you whom I have cradled on my breast in the most 
 fearful diseases ! Why, I drank your scorching 
 breath when as a little thing of two you had diph 
 theria so that I could get no one to help me nurse 
 you but a Sister of Charity ! When they thought 
 you threatened with small-pox, it was I I who 
 nursed you night and day, who took you into the bed 
 with me, between the very sheets, and placed your 
 face upon my bare breast ! And you would send me 
 from you now ? Ah, no ! no ! You are a true man, 
 tender, gentle, forgiving. You do not really think 
 of such a thing ! My son ! . . . my first- and last- 
 born !" 
 
 Nadrovine s eyes were now fixed upon his mother s 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 203 
 
 crouching form, in an expression of the most agonized 
 entreaty and suffering. His temples and the hollows 
 beneath his eyes were beaded with sweat. His breath 
 escaped draggingly through his half-parted lips, which 
 moved without uttering a sound. Some one laughed 
 and ran a halting chromatic scale in the room below 
 as though trying to make the soulless, rattling in 
 strument giggle an accompaniment. 
 
 " Little ape ! you have been stealing raisins again !" 
 exclaimed a shrill voice from another direction, and 
 the sound of two or three smart slaps was followed 
 by the droning cries of a small child. 
 
 " Answer me, Vladimir ! . . . Answer me, my 
 heart, my darling !" urged his mother, still kneel 
 ing. Her great fur robes, which the sudden cold 
 weather had caused her to assume, and which she 
 had not removed on entering the chilly apartment, 
 hung in soft splendor about her, and rose into a 
 muffled background for her face, which shone with 
 the luminousness of a moonstone in the white light 
 from the patch of sky above. 
 
 " It is too much ... I have too much ..." he 
 stammered, still staring at her. 
 
 " Then why do you not wish me to share it ? 
 Why do you send me away? I will do whatever 
 you wish. See ! All is not as you think. All is 
 not lost. Listen, Vladimir. I will tell you. It is 
 good news. I will tell you. You shall have her 
 after all ! You shall have her, my own ! Vladimir, 
 
204 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 speak to me ! Speak ! . . . Do not sit so rigid. . . . 
 Look at me ! . . . Speak to me I" She rose, stum 
 bling over her heavy furs in her eagerness to reach 
 him, but before she could touch him he opened his 
 eyes, and something in their expression arrested her 
 where she stood. 
 
 " No ! . . . no !" she hastened to assure him, sob- 
 bingly. "Do not look at me like that ! I am not 
 going to touch you. ... I swear it !" 
 
 The look of relief which crept over his face cut 
 her to the quick. She hurt her hands with their 
 pinching clasp upon each other. 
 
 " You shall have her. . . . You shall have her/ 
 she repeated, trembling through all her splendid 
 frame. 
 
 " Do not speak of her !" cried Nadrovine, in a 
 dreadful voice. He bent upon her another of those 
 looks which had frozen her and with the memory 
 of which she was now trembling. 
 
 " I know all, all. It has come to me in my 
 loneliness and illness as clear as day. Scales have 
 fallen from my eyes. I know everything Every 
 thing has been made clear to me. I no longer think 
 that I killed him by accident. No ! it was God who 
 
 drove my sword into the breast of your " He 
 
 broke off; his lips remained parted. " No ! no ! I 
 must not say it ! ... She is my mother ; . . after 
 all, she is my mother. . . . r> 
 
 Madame Nadrovine loosened her great cloak with 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 205 
 
 a quick gesture and thrust it from her. All of a 
 sudden she seemed suffocating. She stood before him 
 only in her simple black gown, her bosom rising and 
 falling against her clinched hands. 
 
 " What is it that you mean ?" she said, almost in 
 a whisper. 
 
 "Do not act to me, my mother," he replied, 
 sternly. " For in your heart you must believe with 
 me that the man whom I killed I was ordained by 
 God to kill as my father s defender/ 
 
 His name burst from her in one terrible cry. And 
 then again she uttered it in a heart-broken note of 
 anguish and despair : 
 
 " You believe that of me ? ... My God ! my 
 God ! . . . He believes that I, his mother, I, his 
 mother, I, who have worshipped him, who have 
 adored him, yes, adored him before very God, even 
 as Mary adored her Son ... It is my punish 
 ment ! ... It is my punishment ! . . . Yes, this 
 is to be my Hell. ... I will carry it in my breast 
 forever !" 
 
 For the first time in his life, JSadrovine saw his 
 mother break into piteous weeping, turning from 
 him and leaning her face on her arms, which she 
 rested against the whitewashed wall. A violent 
 shuddering took possession of him. The Western 
 Railway terminus was not far distant, and the shrill 
 scream of an approaching train mingled discordantly 
 with the chromatic scales which were again sound- 
 18 
 
206 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 ing from the room below. A girl in the house op 
 posite lighted a great lamp and began to read, rock 
 ing back and forth. Nadrovine heard his mother s 
 weeping mingle with the commonplace sounds, in 
 an awful discord. The droop of her dark figure 
 against the white wall was as abandoned, as desolate, 
 as the swaths of crape on white tombstones. Her 
 beautiful dark head was bent almost out of sight 
 under its weight of misery. 
 
 " Oh, my God ! Oh, my God !" he heard her say 
 over and over again. The young girl in the oppo 
 site window, whom he could not avoid seeing from 
 the side of his eye, seemed to be rocking in time to 
 these plaintive, smothered cries. All at once she 
 turned, revealing to him her face marred with an 
 guish, its loosened, trembling lips, its eyes heavy 
 with tears. She looked all at once her full age. 
 In the cold light from above, her hair seemed sud 
 denly to be streaked with gray. 
 
 "Do you know me?" she asked, with faltering 
 eagerness. " Do you know who I am ?" It was 
 heart-rending, this last desperate clutching at the 
 possibility of his delirium. " Speak my name. Tell 
 me who I am," she continued, holding herself from 
 him, as it were, with the pressure of her strong 
 hands against her breast. 
 
 " Too well. ... I know too well," he said, in a 
 choked voice. 
 
 " But say it, then ! say it ! ... Speak my name. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 207 
 
 I wish to hear what you will say. I beg it of 
 you 1" 
 
 "Oh, my mother/ 7 exclaimed JSTadroviue, "do 
 you not see that you are killing me ? ... I cannot 
 forget. ... In spite of all, yes, in spite of all, I 
 love you, ... God knows !" 
 
 He would have gone on, but she flung herself 
 against his knees with a great cry. Her face was 
 radiant, brilliant, tremulous with smiles, the face 
 of a young mother whose first-born has just been 
 placed in her arms. 
 
 " Again, once more ! Say that you love me, 
 only once again. It is the answer to my prayer. 
 Afterwards the punishment. . . . Vladimir, ... it 
 is your mother, it is your mother who humbles 
 herself to you, who prays to you, . . . your small 
 one. ... I seem to hold you again in my breast. 
 You love me, you have said it. ... No matter 
 what you believe of me, you love me." 
 
 Nadrovine covered his face with both hands. 
 
 " Have pity !" he said, in a hoarse voice. 
 
 " But you love me ! ... you love me ! ... I 
 can bear anything knowing that. . . . And you will 
 overcome this other horrible fancy. I know it. ... 
 When you are strong and well again, you will come 
 and kneel to me for forgiveness. Oh, I know, -I !" 
 
 She leaped to her feet, straightening her tall figure 
 superbly. "I can bear anything, anything, now," 
 she continued, half chanting the words as she began 
 
208 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 to move about the little room, drawing a chair into 
 place, fastening back one of the bed-curtains of dim 
 bluish cretonne which had fallen from its loop of 
 tarnished silver cord. She opened the door of the 
 ugly little stove and peeped in to see if it needed 
 replenishing, tossing in a coal or two with her long, 
 white fingers from which she had drawn her gloves. 
 The glowing light fell rosily on her sparkling face, 
 and on the patches of whitewash which remained 
 upon the bosom and sleeves of her black gown from 
 their contact with the wall. 
 
 " We must have lights," she said, excitedly. " It 
 is growing dark. And there must be medicine for 
 you to take. Where is it? And when did you 
 lunch ? It must be six o clock. You must have 
 some food. What does the doctor allow you? I 
 will go and fetch it myself." 
 
 Nadrovine, weakened, made incapable of any sus 
 tained effort, by a wasting illness, seemed suddenly 
 to have yielded. 
 
 "You will find the medicine in that little cup 
 board in the corner," he replied. " Two teaspoon- 
 fuls in a wineglass of water." 
 
 " And the food, great one, what must I prepare 
 for you ?" 
 
 " Nothing. ... A glass of milk at seven, with 
 a little lime-water in it. But I am convalescent 
 now. The medicine is only a tonic." 
 
 She poured it out, holding it up between her eyes 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 209 
 
 and the waning light in order to assure herself of a 
 correct measurement. She then lighted a students- 
 lamp which she discovered on a small table near the 
 bed, tearing out the fly-leaf of a book to make a 
 lamp-lighter. 
 
 " Just a moment," she said, as she placed it near 
 him, "while I bid the concierge to send up a boy 
 with my travelling-case." 
 
 She was only absent a few moments, From the 
 case, which had been placed on the bed, she took 
 out one of her favorite white crape peignoirs and 
 some pretty, gold-colored mules. Her favorite per 
 fume of white lilacs made spring seem an invisible 
 presence in the low, stuffy room. She cast aside her 
 black gown, and assumed the peignoir, stooping her 
 self to unbutton her boots, and with her usual dainti 
 ness drawing on stockings of gold-colored silk, in 
 place of the black ones which she wore, before as 
 suming the graceful slippers. She then unfastened, 
 brushed, and re-braided her long hair, humming to 
 herself before the little wavy glass over its shelf in 
 the wall as she did so, with her mouth full of hair 
 pins. 
 
 XX. 
 
 As she turned from this task, she saw that Na- 
 drovine had apparently fallen asleep. She stood 
 looking down at him, her hand raised half warn- 
 ingly, as though entreating his guardian angel not 
 to rustle her wings too loudly. She did not touch 
 o 18* 
 
210 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 him; she scarcely dared to breathe. It took her 
 some moments to move to the door softly enough 
 and to open it in search of the milk and lime-water 
 which was to constitute his dinner. Having slipped 
 on her boots again and covered herself from head 
 to foot with the fur cloak, she came back with it 
 in a little case for ice which she had gone to pur 
 chase herself, and with the last bit of ice which she 
 could find at the nearest chemist s. She placed these 
 treasures in the corner of the room which was farthest 
 from the stove, and then, glancing at ISTadrovine, 
 established herself in one of the two remaining 
 chairs, with her feet on the other. It was so still 
 in this lonely street that the hum of the distant 
 thoroughfares reached one no more distinctly than 
 the confused murmur of a shell placed at one s ear, 
 and he could hear plainly the ticking of the little 
 watch which she always wore on her left arm, and 
 which seemed to mark time for the crooning noise 
 emitted by the pan of water on the stove near by. 
 
 Nadrovine watched her beneath his half-closed 
 lids for at least an hour before altering his position. 
 He then sighed heavily, and she was at his side 
 in a moment with the glass of milk. 
 
 " I am afraid you have gone without it too long," 
 she said, anxiously ; " but I could not bear to wake 
 you." He drank it obediently, and she then left 
 him, saying that while he prepared for bed she would 
 sit on the stairway just outside. When she returned 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 211 
 
 he was in bed, and seemed to have fallen asleep 
 again from sheer weakness. She ran her strong 
 hand once or twice down the bedclothes with a 
 gesture of inexpressible tenderness, and then kneeled 
 down suddenly, resting her head and hands against 
 his feet. Her prayer lasted so long that one might 
 have fancied her to have fallen asleep after the ex 
 citement of the past hours ; but she rose at last, 
 vigorous and self-contained as ever, this time placing 
 herself in the chair which Nadrovine had occupied, 
 and turning down the lamp. The night passed on. 
 Hour after hour slid dayward in a silence broken 
 only by the occasional rumbling jolts of some cart 
 in the street below, and the incessant purring noise 
 of the pan of water, which from time to time she 
 rose to replenish. 
 
 A sudden, sharp, clicking sound roused her with 
 a start. Broad daylight drenched the misty air 
 without, and gave to the bleak whitewashed walls 
 surrounding her all the ghastly candor of a corpse s 
 face unveiled by day. Nadrovine was standing, 
 entirely dressed, by the open door. It was the 
 click of the unoiled latch which had awakened her. 
 She was beside him in an instant. 
 
 "What is it? ... What do you wish? . . . 
 Where are you going ? I will get anything that you 
 wish. . . . Come ! Come back to bed." 
 
 Again she thought him delirious, but he answered 
 her gravely and collectedly : 
 
212 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " I had hoped that you would not wake. ... I 
 must go. I have my senses perfectly. ... I have 
 thought of it all night." 
 
 " Where ? Where is it that you are going ?" 
 
 " To Alceron." 
 
 " To Alceron ! To- Normandy ! Whom do you 
 know in Normandy? We have no friends there, 
 no one to whose house you could go as an ill 
 man." 
 
 " I have said that I am convalescent. And then 
 my friend is a priest, or rather a monk." 
 
 "But why do you go to-day? . . . Why were 
 you stealing away from me ? Ah ! come back, I 
 implore you, or at least close the door. That chill 
 draught is dreadful." 
 
 "I have no time. I must go at once. It is a 
 matter of importance." 
 
 "A matter of importance? What can be so im 
 portant as your health ?" 
 
 " I must go, and at once." 
 
 " You are determined ?" 
 
 " Absolutely." 
 
 " Will nothing, nothing " 
 
 " No, no. It is imperative. There is nothing to 
 which I could listen." 
 
 She stood watching him, her face sharp with anxiety. 
 
 " Then I must go with you !" she broke in, inter 
 rupting him. 
 
 " Impossible !" said Nadrovine, hastily. " I have 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 213 
 
 only a few moments. It may be that I will miss 
 the train now. There ! There is a whistle now." 
 
 " That is a train coming in. Cannot you tell the 
 difference ? A moment, just a moment. 77 
 
 "No, I cannot wait. It would take too long. 
 You could not get ready in time." 
 
 " But I am ready now/ 7 said his mother. 
 
 While they were speaking, she had thrust her feet 
 into her boots, and assumed her long fur cloak, which 
 completely hid the white crape gown underneath, and 
 now pressed through the door at his side, fastening 
 on her hat with trembling fingers. 
 
 " Come, then ! 77 said Nadrovine, growing paler 
 than ever. She followed him down the long flights 
 of stairs, her unbuttoned boots sounding clumsily 
 on the uncarpeted wood, her hands still nervously 
 busy with her hat. They passed together out into 
 the raw morning air, which was gradually becoming 
 broken and lively with the clattering of the milk 
 maids pails, the running of children s feet along 
 the pavement, the bells of hurrying asses, the sound 
 of brooms in the opening shop-doors and laughter 
 issuing from their dim recesses. Before one of these 
 shops a little thing of six was watering the side- walk 
 with a large watering-pot, and some of the spray 
 dashed Madame Nadrovine 7 s ankles as she passed 
 by, her boots still flapping untidily with her swift 
 movements. So unwonted a sight were slovenly feet 
 even in summer Paris that the little gamine with 
 
214 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 the watering-pot paused in her occupation to stare 
 after the tall lady who wore yellow silk stockings in 
 the street and who left her boots unfastened. Even 
 the fruit-venders yawning over their stalls and with 
 their chins and throats gilded by the reflected light 
 from the piles of oranges beneath were transfixed 
 with a sense of bewilderment. 
 
 As they rolled out of the great station, the ball of 
 the sun appeared in sodden crimson behind a bank 
 of dense gray, making the soaked, dark masses of 
 the bridges appear more imposing and sombre than 
 ever by its lurid flaring in the water below. 
 
 The whole journey was passed in utter silence. 
 
 She was at last convinced that the excitement of 
 fever had nothing to do with his actions. He was 
 pursuing some plan long meditated upon, and which 
 her presence had probably brought to a crisis. There 
 were only two -other people in the carriage, an old 
 man, and a child of about nine, a graceful elf, not 
 unlike little Lotta Boutry with her dark curls and 
 large gray eyes. She amused herself by making a 
 " mouse" out of her small pocket-handkerchief and 
 causing it to jump to different parts of the carriage. 
 By accident it chanced to strike Nadrovine on the 
 hand. He started and turned his head. 
 
 " Oh, monsieur ! I ask you a thousand pardons I" 
 cried the little witch, growing crimson in a genuine 
 embarrassment. Her likeness to Lotta struck him 
 at once. He smiled. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 215 
 
 "Do not look so alarmed, my dear," he said, 
 kindly. " Come here, and I will show you how to 
 make a cure* with your handkerchief." And, as the 
 child sidled up to him, he gravely drew a knot in 
 the bit of cambric, and, placing it over his forefinger 
 to represent the cure^s head, proceeded to wave his 
 thumb and second finger, as though making the cure" 
 gesticulate violently with his arms. He seemed to 
 himself to have suddenly become childish, so easily 
 was he moved to joining in the child s merriment 
 at the antics of this strange little priest. He then 
 talked to her, and told her stories until she fell asleep 
 with her head almost in the pocket of his coat. She 
 and the old man were both asleep when they reached 
 Alceron, and he stooped and kissed her before he got 
 out. Had he glanced at his mother, her drawn, set 
 face would assuredly have struck to his heart ; but 
 he did not turn his head in her direction. In fact, 
 he had almost forgotten her presence. His thoughts 
 and sensations seemed to him as unfamiliar as the 
 scenes which surrounded him. 
 
 As they walked along the principal street of the 
 little village, they saw that the sun had disappeared, 
 and that a drizzling rain was beginning to fall. The 
 booming of the heavy surf thundered through the 
 damp air, seeming to make the ground vibrate be 
 neath their feet. Far out at sea fell a leaden gleam 
 from a ragged gap in the clouds. The quaint houses 
 of black flint mottled with patches of whitewash 
 
216 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 seemed pushing against each other in their march 
 seaward. One could see the splendid, yellow- white 
 waves shaking their crests angrily as they reared and 
 plunged against the great stone quay. A sail passed 
 into the glary light far away, tossed wildly for a mo 
 ment or two, and then dashed on into the gloom be 
 yond, while a keen wind, stinging with salt, swept the 
 street from end to end. 
 
 Nadrovine walked rapidly, bending his head to 
 prevent the wind from carrying away his hat, and 
 his mother kept close behind him. Moisture dripped 
 from her hat, from the sables that enveloped her, 
 from her falling hair. Her feet were now drenched, 
 and the constant slipping of the unbuttoned boots 
 had chafed her heels until each step was a pain. 
 
 They paused before a small house shrinking back 
 under its projecting roof like a shy child under its 
 hood. Some one spoke through the closed door, and 
 Nadrovine answered in Latin. He was admitted at 
 once, and his mother, shivering under her heavy 
 cloak, crouched down under the shelter of the old 
 portico to wait for him. He returned after an in 
 terval of perhaps an hour. A man was with him, 
 a monk, whose heavy cowl pulled forward concealed 
 all of his face except a pale, handsome mouth, and 
 a fine chin, bluish with much shaving. 
 
 They passed Madame Nadrovine in silence, and 
 walked together down the slanting street, the monk s 
 heavy gown beating about his limbs in the fresh 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 217 
 
 blasts of wind. She struggled after them. Her 
 feet now pained her so intensely that she took off 
 her boots and hid them under her cloak, experiencing 
 a delightful sensation of relief each time that her 
 feet sunk to her ankles in the oozing sand. 
 
 The monastery of Alceron is built upon a neck 
 of land that juts out into the sea, and its cliffs are 
 worn away by the boiling waves like a stack of hay 
 nibbled by cattle in winter. It is a great building 
 of dark granite, and utterly out of keeping with the 
 chapels which flank it, and which are specimens of 
 the most soaring Gothic, their slender spires and 
 steeples seeming to pierce the low-hanging clouds 
 with a species of exultation. 
 
 Up a narrow stairway cut in the stone, and shiny 
 with moss, Madame Nadrovine followed the two men. 
 She was dazed, breathless, almost callous with mental 
 and physical pain. Her eyes seemed pierced by two 
 red-hot knitting-needles which, ever turning, were 
 thrust deep into her brain. The ceaseless boom of 
 the vast breakers seemed part of the tumult in her 
 hot head. 
 
 Unfastening her hat, she let it escape from her hand 
 and fall whirling down into the sea. It skimmed, 
 slanting and dipping, for two or three seconds over 
 the w T hite surge, like a raven with a broken wing, 
 and then disappeared. She pushed back her satu 
 rated hair and struggled on. Below stretched the 
 village, the corn-lands, the plunging ocean. A train 
 K 19 
 
218 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 rushed through the sodden valley, leaving behind it 
 volumes of black smoke, which, uncurling lazily, 
 hung low over the drenched fields until they dis 
 solved into the thick air. 
 
 As Nadrovine was about to pass within the iron- 
 bound doors of the monastery, however, his mother 
 sprang forward and thrust herself between the monk 
 and her son. 
 
 " Tell me, ... " she cried," tell me what it is 
 that you are going to do !" 
 
 The monk stared at her in surprise, drawing away 
 his gown from the contamination of a woman s gar 
 ments. 
 
 " You shall tell me," she repeated, " one of you. 
 Speak \" 
 
 " Who is this woman ?" said the monk to Nadro- 
 vine, and was answered in a whisper, and in two 
 words : 
 
 " My mother." 
 
 " Her place is not here," said the monk, coldly. 
 " Have you not made your farewells ?" 
 
 " What is this ? What do you mean ?" cried Ma 
 dame Nadrovine, fiercely. " I know nothing ! What 
 farewells? My son has been desperately ill with 
 brain-fever. He is now out of his mind. Yes, it 
 is my belief that he is now a maniac from fever. 
 What advantage are you trying to take of him? 
 Vladimir, come ; let us return. This exposure may 
 mean death to you." 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 219 
 
 " It is impossible," he said, in a dull tone. He 
 had not once lifted his eyes from the ground. 
 
 " You are mad !" said his mother. " You are 
 beside yourself with fever. You, whoever you are, 
 are taking advantage of an insane man." 
 
 "I have been his confessor for eight months," 
 replied the monk. " This step has been long medi 
 tated." 
 
 "What step? . . . What step?" she exclaimed, 
 angrily. " Vladimir, answer me yourself. I com 
 mand you." 
 
 " Answer, my son," said the monk, in a low voice. 
 And then these words escaped the lips of Nadrovine 
 as though uttered by a machine : 
 
 "It is my desire of my own free will to enter 
 the monastery of Alceron as a permanent member, 
 to take the vow of silence, and to live a life of self- 
 denial both in body and in soul." 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine s next action astounded the 
 monk, who expected a violent scene, accompanied by 
 tears and reproaches. She stepped back, gathering 
 her wet clothes about her with one of those royal 
 gestures which she knew how to assume without 
 becoming theatrical, and said, in a clear, self-con 
 tained voice, 
 
 "Go, then!" 
 
 Nadrovine did not stir. His face preserved its 
 
220 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 immobile pallor. Not a muscle started or quiv 
 ered. 
 
 " Go, then !" repeated his mother, in her ringing 
 tones. " Since it is your desire, it is mine also. I 
 wish no love nor duty that does not come to me as 
 a free gift." 
 
 The deep notes of the vesper-bell mingled with 
 the strident shriek of a little tug which was ap 
 proaching the quay below. From the doors of the 
 monastery came a band of monks, solemn, implacable 
 figures in their dark gowns and cowls. They passed 
 by the strange group without appearing to notice it, 
 and entered the chapel to the right. One heard their 
 sonorous chanting muffled by the great walls. 
 
 The monk touched Nadrovine on the shoulder. 
 "It wants but an hour of the time, my son," he 
 said. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine had not yet relaxed her defiant, 
 towering pose. 
 
 As though impelled by some force within, Na- 
 drovine turned and entered the chapel with the 
 monk. The ponderous doors closed behind them. 
 And at that irrevocable sight the whole force and 
 meaning of it all seemed to sweep over the woman 
 like a whirlwind. Dashing herself forward, she beat 
 the doors with her hands, bruising them on the enor 
 mous iron nails with which they were studded, weep 
 ing, crying aloud, now praying to God, now cursing 
 His cruelty which had taken from her the one creature 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 221 
 
 whom she had ever loved. She looked like a mag 
 nificent evil spirit demanding entrance to the sacred 
 place, that she might wreak her vengeance on some 
 hated one within. Her face, dark and swollen with 
 rage, lost every trace of its rare beauty. She called 
 down every ill of earth and purgatory upon those 
 who had enticed her son from her. The savage in 
 her seemed suddenly to have broken through every 
 restraint of tradition and custom, and to have trans 
 formed her into a fury whose tongue uttered alter 
 nately the most withering blasphemies and cries for 
 mercy like those of an animal which is being vivi 
 sected. 
 
 Her fury exhausted itself at last, and she sank 
 down on the chapel steps, letting her head lean back 
 against the lintel. Twilight was gathering. A 
 broad, violet-colored star throbbed in the sky be 
 tween tatters of wind-torn cloud. In the village, 
 and along the quay, lights sprang out against the 
 darkness, and on the little tugs they also twinkled 
 gayly. The monastery was a sullen, uncompro 
 mising squareness against the pearl-colored sky. 
 Hoarse screaming and puffings ascended from the 
 water below, sounds of shouting, of bells, of men s 
 and women s voices mingled in drunken laughter. 
 That serene violet flame burned quietly over all. 
 The woman fixed on it her hot eyes. It rested her 
 to imagine it merely an opening in heaven s floor, 
 rather than another world, vast, and with a misery 
 19* 
 
222 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 vaster in proportion than this world upon which, 
 the wretched drama of her life was being played. 
 The intoning of the monks within reached her in a 
 melancholy cadence, as indistinct, as weird, as the 
 voices of the Seven Sleepers talking in their dreams 
 might have sounded to a listener at the mouth of 
 their cave. She even caught a whiff of the burn 
 ing incense. Her feet began to ache intolerably, 
 witn a throbbing, burning pulsation, and she held 
 them, first one and then the other, in the palms of 
 her hands, which she first cooled upon the stones of 
 the damp wall. 
 
 She sat there, it seemed to her, for many hours. 
 The heavy doors opened at last, and the warm air 
 within rushed out, enveloping her in its steam of 
 breath and incense, and the odor of woollen gowns, 
 sandal-wood, leather, moth-eaten embroideries. The 
 monks each carried a tall taper which left behind it 
 a little stream of brown smoke, and which brought 
 out clearly the modelling of mouths and chins. She 
 let them pass, thirty, forty, even fifty, and then she 
 leaped forward and threw her strong arms around 
 the fifty-first. He staggered, swayed, his candle 
 falling from his hand and singeing her hair as it 
 fell. The darkness hid his face. There was con 
 fusion among the monks : they wavered and halted, 
 not knowing what had happened. 
 
 "Vladimir! Vladimir!" groaned a woman s 
 voice, in an ecstasy of pain, " my great one, my 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 223 
 
 only one, my son, speak ! Say some word to me ! 
 My son ! My son !" 
 
 He struggled with her in silence. The solemn 
 vows which he had just taken sealed his lips. The 
 other monks were also of a necessity silent. They 
 jostled against each other in awed curiosity, drop 
 ping the hot wax from their tapers on their sandalled 
 feet and blowing gowns. Many of the candles 
 were extinguished. One of the monks took Na- 
 drovine by the arm and tried to force him along, 
 but the woman was stronger than he had thought ; 
 her arms held the knees of her son as in a hoop of 
 steel : 
 
 " Speak to me ! Speak to me ! I command you, 
 I, your mother, I who gave you birth. You are 
 my flesh, torn from me with horrible pain. My life, 
 my youth, everything I have given to you. You 
 have no right ! God will curse you, and all these 
 with you ! You will die horribly ! My curse will 
 be upon you ! My curse will be upon all these who 
 have taken you from me ! May God " 
 
 Some one thrust her roughly backward, and she 
 fell, her head striking one of the stone steps. The 
 procession passed on. One of the monks hesitated, 
 and half turned, but was pressed forward by those 
 behind. They were all received into the vast hall 
 of the monastery of Alceron, and its vine- wood doors 
 closed behind them. 
 
 When she opened her eyes at last, that violet-hued 
 
224 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 star still pulsed quietly over Alceron, but there were 
 multitudes to keep it company. The sky was sown 
 with them, and they pricked the heaving water below 
 with sharp little blades of light. 
 
 The noise of laughter and singing still rose from 
 the quay below. On her left the black pile of the 
 monastery wore a solemn grandeur. She lifted her 
 arms towards it and cursed it, together with all its 
 inmates, then, turning, groped her way with her deli 
 cate bare feet and hands towards the moss-covered 
 stairway in the rock. That feeling of unreality which 
 always attends one in a great crisis claimed and over 
 powered her. She endeavored to descend the slippery 
 stairs, but, after falling once or twice, sat down and 
 worked her way along by the aid of her arms and 
 the pressure of her feet against the stone directly 
 below her. When she finally found herself at the 
 bottom, she did not know which way to go. Fixing 
 her eyes on the brightest light visible, she began to 
 walk towards it. 
 
 After perhaps half an hour, she found herself 
 before a tavern, which was brilliantly lighted for so 
 small a village, with several large oil lamps, but, 
 strange to say, the crowd had collected outside of 
 the open door instead of within. 
 
 One of the men caught sight of her as she came 
 forward, her dark hair hanging about her face in 
 sodden disorder, some blood from a wound which 
 she had received in one of her falls when attempting 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 225 
 
 to descend the stone stairway staining her temple and 
 cheek, her robe of sable pulpy and forlorn like the 
 coat of some drenched wild beast. 
 
 " You re a pretty sight !" called one of the men, 
 roughly, a brawny sailor with a head of matted 
 black curls and the jaw of an Irishman. " I say," 
 he roared to the others, " she looks like a bear that 
 has just swallowed a woman all but her head !" 
 
 There was a chorus of appreciative laughter. The 
 woman whom they ridiculed stared at them coldly. 
 When the laughter had subsided, she asked, in a 
 calm voice, 
 
 " Why do you stay out here in the street to bellow, 
 when you might be in that room there ?" 
 
 The crowd received this remark in silence, being 
 rather overwhelmed at her coolness. 
 
 " You are one to ask questions, mafoi !" exclaimed 
 one of the women, finally, with a light impertinence. 
 " I should wish to know where you would find your 
 self if we asked you all the questions that we felt 
 disposed to ask !" 
 
 " I should remain where I now am and endeavor 
 to answer them civilly," replied Madame Nadrovine, 
 in the same tranquil voice. A little mumbling of 
 applause was heard at this, and she took advantage 
 of it to repeat her question. The people were be 
 ginning to see that she was no common character, 
 and one of the men answered her with a certain 
 respect, 
 P 
 
226 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 " It is Jean Givelot, who is ill with the fever, 
 at least with that and a mixture of the drink-crazi- 
 ness. We were all in there when he was taken. I 
 went for the doctor. It was droll to see us when 
 he said what it was. We all tumbled on each other 
 in our haste to get outside, like so many sheep. Ore" ! 
 our sweethearts had to take care of themselves, I tell 
 you. The devil might have had the hindmost, for 
 all we cared !" And again a shout of merriment 
 ascended. As it died away, there could be heard the 
 groans and entreaties of the man within : 
 
 " Do you not see them ? Do you not see them ? 
 A hundred thousand great pink rats. They are clear 
 like jelly; one can see through them. And their 
 tails wriggle like serpents; They nibble me. Oh ! 
 oh ! they are serpents ! They nibble me and sting 
 me all at once. Oh !" 
 
 " You hear," said the man, significantly. " It is 
 this way with him once every two or three years, 
 and it is bad enough, God knows; but now that 
 he has the fever with it, one can t tell where it will 
 end." 
 
 " Who is with him ?" said Madame Nadrovine. 
 
 "No one. The doctor has gone to fetch some 
 one ; that is, if he can find any one just for the night. 
 A nurse has been telegraphed for." 
 
 " Yes, I took the telegraph. The doctor promised 
 me two sous," said a little monkey who stood by, 
 expanding his naked brown chest. 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 227 
 
 ." And there is no one with him ?" said Madame 
 Nadrovine again. 
 
 " No one ! not a soul ! not even a cat !" resounded 
 from all sides. 
 
 She moved forward, pushing open the door, which 
 swung easily at her touch. 
 
 "You are all cowards, all human beings/ she 
 said, in her clear voice, and, before they knew it, 
 had passed into the room beyond, through the door 
 with its transparent glass panes which had " Le Cafe" 
 Dore", Jean Givelot Proprie"teur," in an arch of gilt 
 letters across its clear expanse. They flattened their 
 faces against the panes, watching her walk across 
 the floor and disappear within a room beyond, from 
 whence issued those dreadful cries. 
 
 When the reckless woman entered this apartment 
 she fully expected the crazed man to fly at her and 
 perhaps to strangle her ; but he was crouching pite- 
 ously in a distant corner behind a barricade of chairs 
 and other small articles of furniture, over which his 
 wild face peered timidly, convulsed with fear. He 
 was a small creature, with a lean brown face, hair of 
 that pale hue which seems only a darker shade of 
 flesh-color, and small black eyes under thick, red 
 dish lids. His flaccid mouth worked from side to 
 side over his projecting teeth. 
 
 " The rats ! the rats I" he moaned. " Oh, help me 
 to drive them away ! Each has a little one with it. 
 They are talking rats. They say, Jean Givelot, 
 
228 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 Satan has sent us to gnaw your heart and let out 
 the good brandy in it ! Yes ! yes ! I know it. I 
 have known it a long while. My heart is full of 
 brandy, like one of those chocolate bon-bons which 
 Marie sent from Paris last Easter. Oh, the little 
 cold feet ! They patter all over me ! They leave 
 blisters full of brandy. Oh ! oh ! I sweat it at every 
 pore. I will melt and stream away under the door, 
 and then those vagabonds outside will dip me up in 
 a cup and drink me ! Ah ! ah ! how I will burn 
 them ! I am poisonous through and through. 
 These rats that nibble me, see how they are 
 dying. There are three layers on the floor. They 
 swell like drums as soon as their teeth go in me. 
 By and by they will be up to my knees, then to my 
 breast. Oh ! help ! help ! They will rise above 
 my head and suffocate me ! I shall die horribly ! 
 It is what Marie said. She would say, Jean 
 Givelot, if you do not mend your ways, some day 
 you will perish horribly/ Oh ! oh ! Marie ! Marie ! 
 bonne maman ! call away the rats ! call away the 
 rats ! I will be good ! I will be good !" 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Madame Nadrovine threw aside her heavy cloak, 
 and advanced towards him. He had not noticed 
 her when she entered the room, but now as she 
 approached him in her long white peignoir he 
 uttered a low wail of terror and clutched his face 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 229 
 
 in both hands, flattening himself against the wall 
 behind. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! I called bonne mam an ! and there she 
 is in her long white grave-clothes. Good bonne 
 marnan, dear, kind, good bonne maman, don t hurt 
 your poor, poor little Jean, who promises to be good. 
 I will never steal the liqueur of the brandied peaches 
 again. I will take out the stones for you and peel 
 them all day long. Ugh ! how she smells of the 
 grave ! how she smells of the grave !" he ended, in 
 a lower tone, as though to himself. 
 
 "Come," said Madame Nadrovine, soothingly, 
 " I am not angry. I have come to help you to be 
 good. See, first I will drive all the rats away." She 
 took up a towel from one of the chairs and began 
 whipping the air and floor with it. She walked 
 slowly around the room, beating it about her, and 
 then, after making the motions of driving things 
 out of the door, she closed it and returned quietly. 
 
 " You see, they are all gone," she said, in her calm, 
 reassuring voice, " and I have pushed the dead ones 
 out with my foot. It is all quiet. Come and lie on 
 the bed while I say a charm that will make the brandy 
 in your heart evaporate and let you sleep." 
 
 He glanced timidly at her through his quivering 
 fingers, which he parted a little. 
 
 "Then you are not angry? You will not \beat 
 me?" 
 
 " Certainly not. You see that I have driven all 
 20 
 
230 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 the rats away. Come and let me help you on the 
 bed." 
 
 " But, bonne niaman, you used always to beat me 
 when I stole the liqueur ; and then, too, you look so 
 horrible in your long shroud. It makes me creep 
 all over. I feel as though I were lined with ice." 
 
 " Silly fellow ! this is not my shroud. This is the 
 robe that I wear as an angel. If you will come and 
 lie on the bed, I will let you hold a fold of it, and it 
 will make you sleep and drive away all evil dreams." 
 
 She began to take away the pile of chairs and foot 
 stools one by one, talking to him in a low, even 
 voice all the while. He would shrink nervously 
 away as the white fingers came near him, but sub 
 mitted docilely, and at last stepped forward and 
 allowed himself to be guided to the bed. Just as 
 he put one knee on it, however, he gave a howl of 
 terror and caught Madame Nadrovine about the 
 knees, plunging his head into the damp folds of 
 her gown. 
 
 "Oh! oh!" he moaned, "there are worms in it ! 
 black worms, with heads like little goblins, two 
 white dots for eyes, and a mark for the nose and 
 mouth ! they are like the figures you used to draw 
 for me on my slate, bonne maman ! Do not make 
 me get in there ! I shall die ! I shall die of horror ! 
 They stand on their tails and wave from side to side. 
 Oh, you will kill me if you make me get in there !" 
 
 Madame Nadrovine shook him off with a gesture 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 231 
 
 of angry disgust. He fell back, supporting himself 
 with one hand, and staring up at her. 
 
 "You know you are angry, bonne maman," he 
 whimpered. "You know you mean to beat me. 
 But why did you put the worms there, if you wanted 
 me to get in the bed ?" 
 
 Great tears began to roll down his face, and he 
 tucked them in his mouth with his tongue as they 
 fell, still blinking up at her. She made a strong 
 eifort and regained her patience. 
 
 "Come, stupid boy," she said. "There are no 
 worms there now. I have turned them all into 
 little sparrows, and they have flown away. Look, 
 I assure you it is so." 
 
 She finally coaxed him to lie down, and after about 
 fifteen minutes the anodyne which the doctor had 
 given him before leaving began to work, and he fell 
 into a heavy, stertorous sleep, with his flabby lips 
 hanging loosely, and his eyeballs showing in glazed 
 streaks between his fleshy lids. 
 
 Madame Nad ro vine sat in a low chair opposite 
 the bed, and took in every detail of the unconscious 
 mass of ugliness with her clear, cold eyes, the thin, 
 clammy hair, streaking the bulging forehead, the 
 pufting in and out of the swollen lips with the 
 harsh breaths that escaped them, the revolting coarse 
 ness of throat and nostrils, and the pendulous, red 
 ear-lobes covered with a fuzz of whitish hair. 
 
 He slept on and on, and she sat without moving, 
 
232 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 never taking her eyes from that bleared face. Her 
 fair, naked feet, covered with dried sand, were crossed 
 unconcernedly in front of her, and she had thrown 
 one of her arms over the back of the chair; the 
 other followed listlessly the curve of her thigh out 
 lined by the damp crape. In the street outside the 
 crowd was thinning, but some remained and whis 
 pered together with important noddings and finger- 
 shakings. Every one was on the lookout for the 
 doctor, being desirous to be the first to impart to 
 him the news of the strange woman who had ap 
 peared suddenly out of the night, " like a great black 
 witch," as one of the men said. 
 
 When poor Givelot s ravings finally ceased, they 
 were more convinced than ever that she had some 
 unholy power which she used freely to soothe him. 
 
 " I tell you she is a witch," insisted the sailor, 
 wisely. "She has just the look in her eyes of a 
 Breton woman I once saw, who had eaten the livers 
 of ten black cats, raw, at midnight, lying face down 
 on her father s grave, and after that she could drive 
 out devils and see things that she couldn t feel. I 
 tell you I know what I say !" 
 
 Madame Nadrovine continued her silent watch. It 
 had lasted now for nearly two hours. As the clock 
 over the door gave a wheezy click preparatory to 
 striking, she rose and approached the bed. Givelot 
 had not moved. An idea had been forming in the 
 woman s mind for some time past. She put her hand 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 233 
 
 on the pillow, and looked over her shoulder around 
 the room. No one was there. The door was closed 
 and latched. There was a little plaster-cast figure 
 of the Virgin on a bracket at the foot of the bed, 
 and she went and kneeled down before it in silence, 
 her large eyes fastened on its sugar-like pink dra 
 peries. Then she rose and came back to the man s 
 side. 
 
 "It will be the expiation; it will wipe out that 
 other kiss, and my son will be restored to me/ 7 
 
 Stooping, she pressed her fresh, cool lips to those 
 of Jean Givelot, through which his breath, scorch 
 ing with fever and liquor, escaped in gusts. 
 
 It was her desire to woo death in the most horrible 
 way possible, to take the fever, and to be forgiven by 
 Nadrovine on her death-bed. 
 
 Before daybreak Madame Nadrovirie was herself 
 raving in another room at the Cafe" Dore", but not 
 with "the -fever." She was threatened with pneu 
 monia, and the little thermometer which the doctor 
 slipped under her arm already registered one hun 
 dred and four degrees. 
 
 Nadrovine or Brother Fe"licien, as he was now 
 called having obtained permission from the abbe" to 
 have inquiries made in Alceron regarding his mother, 
 she was moved as soon as possible to a home con 
 ducted by some Sceurs Blancs about fifteen miles 
 from the village. The journey, though attended 
 with every possible precaution, had the effect of 
 20* 
 
234 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 throwing her again into a hot fever and delirium, 
 in which state she remained for nearly thirteen days. 
 One would scarcely have known her. Her beautiful 
 tresses cut close to her head disclosed its delicate 
 symmetry, which had been somewhat concealed by 
 the abundance of dark braids. Her fine skin had 
 assumed the livid, damp appearance of a wax figure 
 slightly melted by a series of long summer days. 
 Against it her graceful sweeping brows stood out 
 boldly, almost harshly, as though one had tied a 
 narrow band of black velvet about her forehead. 
 Her dark eyes, constantly rolling, could be seen in 
 bluish, raised shadows under her lids. Her cheeks 
 and lips had fallen, becoming drawn and yellowish, 
 and her whole face had that withered look which 
 one sees in a tea-rose that has been placed too near a 
 fire. 
 
 Those calm and stately maidens with their serene 
 faces framed in sleek, iron-glazed linen, heard strange 
 words during that month of steady nursing. For 
 hours and hours the monotonous murmur would go 
 on, almost as though she were talking in her sleep. 
 One strange peculiarity was that she rarely unclosed 
 her eyes, and never when delirious. They seemed to 
 be turned inward on her own perplexed, suffering 
 spirit. She always fancied that her son was again a 
 baby lying in her eager arms. 
 
 "You see how strong he is," she would say. 
 " When he stretches, his little back is like steel ; 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 235 
 
 and I can scarcely hold his chin when he yawns. 
 And he pinches my breast with his little fingers 
 when he is nursing, until it hurts ; I tell you, it 
 really hurts. There are little blue marks where he 
 has hurt me. Oh, it is divine to feel the little mouth 
 drawing my life into his ! It seems as though I were 
 full of the light of heaven, and that he fed upon it 
 instead of milk. I did not wish a child, you know. 
 Now I do not wish anything else. He lies in my 
 breast at night until the warmth of his little body 
 makes us both moist where our flesh comes in con 
 tact. Sometimes I love him so that I desire to hurt 
 him. Then I have to call to Elsa to come quick ! 
 quick ! I tell her, and she laughs. She tells me 
 that I will not feel so when I have six more just 
 like him. Just like him ! The blessed Mary knew 
 .that no other could be like her first-born ; and it is 
 so that I feel. Out of the strong came forth sweet 
 ness/ It is like that about Ivan and his son. All 
 the love that I ought to have given my husband 
 I give to his child. That is not disloyal. It is part 
 of him as well as of me. I love him in loving his 
 son. Oh, I cannot bear to think that my baby s lips 
 will ever be pressed to those of another woman with 
 more love than they have felt for me ! I do not 
 wish him to marry. Perhaps he will be a great 
 priest. Oh, I cannot let him grow out of my arms 
 into those of another woman ! Just to think that 
 she who may steal him from me is perhaps yet un- 
 
236 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 born, that perhaps they who are to be her parents 
 are yet unknown to each other ! May they never 
 meet! I wish that in heaven I may always rest 
 without pain, as one after great pain, with my baby 
 in my arms. I do not wish another. It would seem 
 like sacrilege. Perhaps the Virgin Mother would 
 let me whisper to her of my bliss. Perhaps she 
 would come sometimes and talk to me while I nursed 
 him, and kiss his beautiful brow. And I would 
 tell her of how I feared and dreaded, and perhaps 
 she would tell me that she had feared and dreaded 
 too. And then we would both fall to sleep upon 
 her breast. Oh, he is so sweet ! so sweet ! Look 
 at his little chest : Elsa says that it is very broad, 
 the broadest she ever saw. He will be tall, and 
 very strong. Oh, to think that the day will. come 
 when he will be stronger than I am ! Ah ! if we 
 could only die together now and remain a mother 
 and child forever in heaven !" 
 
 It was in this way that she would murmur on for 
 days and nights at a time. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 It was only two weeks after Nadrovine had taken 
 his vow, and at the height of his mother s illness, 
 that he was sent on an errand of mercy to a family 
 of starving wretches who were also ill with the fever, 
 and who lived in Vaudebec, a village some ten miles 
 distant. The road lay inland for about seven miles, 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 237 
 
 and then followed the coast, which was totally unlike 
 the rocky cliffs upon which Alceron descended in a 
 series of terraces towards the quays. The beach was 
 a broad, level stretch of fawn-colored sand, across 
 which the figure of a girl rolling her wheelbarrow of 
 sea-weed would come out into picturesque relief as 
 she walked slowly, her sabots compressing the wet 
 sand about them until it looked like cracking ice 
 with each footstep. Now a woman on a donkey 
 approached, her figure reflected, broken but life-like, 
 in the strips of sand-divided pools in front. Chil 
 dren rolled laughing in the hazy sunlight, adorning 
 themselves with shells and broad ribbons of sea 
 weed, and burying one another in the sand. One 
 little imp of seven snatched away his sister s necker 
 chief as Nadrovine advanced, leaving her plump, 
 reddening shoulders bare, in order to pull it over 
 his charmingly impertinent little visage, as though it 
 were a cowl. He held his hands folded and walked 
 along behind Brother Fe"licien, imitating to the full 
 compass of his sturdy legs the monk s slow, swing 
 ing gait. Nadrovine turned and smiled at him over 
 his shoulder. The pranks of children never irritated 
 him. 
 
 He reached the village at last, and was returning 
 saddened and inexpressibly exhausted by the brutal, 
 violent misery which he had witnessed, when a clear 
 voice roused him, a child s voice. 
 
 " Oh !" it rang out in a note of distress, " what 
 
238 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 shall I do? My poor Zi-Zi ! I buried him alive 
 just to have an effect on that hard-hearted Nico- 
 letta, and now I can t find his grave !" 
 
 Nadrovine stopped short, not knowing which way 
 to turn, and little Lotta Boutry flashed by him on 
 her slender red-silk legs, her frock of white flannel 
 blowing back in the steady wind, and her dark head 
 uncovered. The child s skirts touched him as she 
 flew. And then another figure advanced. It was 
 Ilva, so slight, so pale, that she looked like a moon 
 beam which had assumed a woman s shape. She 
 wore a gown of black serge, and there was a black 
 silk handkerchief knotted about her throat. She 
 had no hat, and carried a large raw-silk umbrella 
 over her shoulder, turning it listlessly as she walked. 
 One could see the violet tones of delicate health in 
 her throat and temples at some distance. 
 
 She smiled in answer to the child s appeal, but 
 her eyes were piteously grave in contrast. Her voice 
 was so low that Nadrovine could not hear what she 
 said ; he only saw that they were coming towards him 
 hand in hand. His presence of mind forsook him 
 utterly. He had that sensation of being petrified 
 which assails one sometimes in a dream where one 
 finds one s self standing on a railway, facing an ad 
 vancing train, and yet powerless to leap aside. They 
 were quite close to him; the child almost touched 
 him. A fatal weakness came over him, a deadly sen 
 sation of blackness, in which the world seemed swing- 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 239 
 
 ing in great circles, and his very marrow dissolving 
 in an icy nausea. 
 
 " Oh, cousine !" shrieked the child, " look at the 
 poor monk ! He is ill ! He is falling !" 
 
 He felt the girPs nervous arm thrust under his, and 
 her slight figure brace itself to support him. 
 
 " Lean on me, I beg of you," she said, anxiously. 
 " You must be suffering very much. Are are you 
 hungry?" she stammered a little with a gracious 
 embarrassment. "We have our luncheon here, 
 which we do not want. We were just talking of 
 giving it to the first little child that we met. I 
 pray you to lean on me. I am much stronger than 
 I look." He was forced to catch at the delicate 
 shoulder in order to stand. Her eyes fell on his 
 bare hand. It was sufficient. 
 
 " Vladimir !" she said, in a voice which seemed 
 to sweep away earth and sky and to leave only their 
 two lives beating there against each other once more. 
 It was only an instant : in another he had freed him 
 self of her touch and stepped back, shuddering vio 
 lently, and trying to conceal his face from her. She 
 followed him ; she held him again with her hands. 
 Again all things seemed to slip from him, but the 
 consciousness that she was there, near him, and that 
 her voice spoke his name. He could not even say 
 hers in return. His lips were sealed. His newly- 
 taken vows bound him. All his blood seemed foam- i 
 ing upward to his heart and swelling for a vent. 
 
240 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 He tried to shake her off. She held him desper 
 ately : they half slipped, and in recovering himself 
 his cowl was shaken back. 
 
 " Oh, my God !" she cried, in a tone of indescrib 
 able pain, "will you not even speak to me? And 
 you have been ill. You are changed. You look 
 older. It frightens me ! You frighten me ! Run, 
 run, Lotta, run away to your dolls. I will come 
 presently. I have much to say to Signor Na- 
 drovine." 
 
 The child went at once, her little, serious face 
 pallid with the excessive greatness of the shock. 
 She could not resist turning her head every now 
 and then, as she walked away, to see what they were 
 doing. They still stood where she had left them, 
 Nadrovine with his head bent and turned away, Ilva 
 with her whole figure yearning towards him, her 
 hands locked together in a gesture of impassioned 
 prayer. The child sat down in the shade of the 
 umbrella which she rested on the sand, and tried to 
 compose herself by talking to her dolls. 
 
 " I was going to get maman to make you a monk s 
 gown, my dear Zi-Zi," she said, gravely ; " but I 
 don t think it will do. It seems to change people 
 horribly. I don t think I should ever have known 
 Monsieur Nadrovine if it hadn t been for Cousine 
 Ilva. Perhaps when Viola gets broken yes, per 
 haps then I will let you have a monk s gown." 
 She had placed the umbrella, with her usual dainty 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 241 
 
 discreetness, so that it hid Nadrovine and Ilva from 
 her sight, and she was so far away that she could 
 hear nothing. 
 
 " I know you will speak to me, I know you will 
 speak to me, Vladimir," the girl was saying. 
 "What is it? Are you too ill to speak? Oh, 
 Vladimir, tell me what to do. Think of what I 
 have suffered. I would have died, I think, only I 
 was so strong I could not. I used to think some 
 times, Now it is coming. This pain is too awful 
 to last. God would not wish one to endure such 
 pain any longer/ But then a dulness would come 
 for a time instead of death, and I would feel noth 
 ing for hours. I could not even believe that I had 
 ever felt anything. It did not seem to me as though 
 I could have suffered as I thought. And then, all 
 at once, when I felt safe and was trying to think 
 only of heaven and the peace of God, it would come 
 crashing back. I used to feel as though my soul 
 and body were being ground together in a great red- 
 hot iron hand. Oh, Vladimir, you are mine, you 
 are my very own, as I am yours ! You promised 
 you vowed it to me. Any vows that you have 
 taken since cannot wipe out those. Oh, Vladimir, 
 remember ! You have been ill. It was a madness. 
 I know it so well. Many and many a time I have 
 longed to become a nun, and then I would think, 
 No I God means us to meet again. He means us 
 to have each other. I feel it. I must wait. I must 
 
 L q 21 
 
242 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 be patient/ Vladimir, I have been so patient, I 
 
 have waited so long My God ! he turns from 
 
 me ! . . . He does not love me any more ! He does 
 not love me any more !" 
 
 A groaning cry was wrenched from Nadrovine. 
 In a moment the girl was .on her knees beside him, 
 kissing his coarse gown, reaching upward with her 
 little, thin hands for his, clutching his wide sleeves, 
 sobbing, laughing, talking, all in a breath : 
 
 "Vladimir, Vladimir, you will speak to me? 
 You do love me? You will tell me everything, 
 my darling, my darling? Oh, was it because you 
 thought my father s death would stand between us? 
 Vladimir, I prayed to our blessed Lord with fast 
 ing, to guide me, and as it was an accident, ... as 
 
 it was an accident Oh, Vladimir, at least we 
 
 can love each other, if we cannot be married. At 
 least you will let me love you, and know that you 
 love me. Dear, I knew that it would come between 
 us. I knew that you thought I would never forgive 
 you. You did not know me. You did not know 
 me. Ah, but the sun can be a witness to my love 
 for you ! Ah, Vladimir, Vladimir, it is such joy to 
 see you, to be with you again, that it is almost as 
 much a pain as sorrow. Oh, turn your face to me ! 
 let me see your eyes, let me see you, Vladimir ! 
 Give me your hands and lift me up." 
 
 She kneeled, straining her slight body upward, yet 
 without touching him, her pure face as pathetic in 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 243 
 
 contrast with her slender black-gowned figure as a 
 flower left blooming on a charred stem. 
 
 He dared not look at her. He tried not to hear 
 her, not to think. 
 
 She waited for him a long while. At last she said, 
 in a voice exquisitely gentle in its faltering grief, 
 
 " Then you do not love me ?" 
 
 Again she waited. At last she rose from her 
 knees, the damp sand clinging in patches to her 
 black skirt. 
 
 " I will go. ... It must be very painful. If 
 you will pray for me sometimes, ... I will always 
 ... I will always . . . " She stopped, struggling 
 to control herself, and putting her hand to her throat, 
 which ached sharply. "I will . . . yes, always 
 .. . . it is for always with me ... I have taken 
 no new vows ... It cannot be a sin for me . . . 
 But sometimes, ... if you will, . . . just a word 
 when you pray for for those who are not happy 
 .... Since you will not speak to me, if you will 
 only lift your hand ... I will understand, . . . 
 and . . . and go." 
 
 There was another silence, and then she turned to 
 go, very slowly, dragging each slender foot as though 
 in bodily pain. All at once he turned, straightening 
 his whole figure. He held out his arms to her, his 
 face blanched with an unutterable struggle. His 
 voice rang out calling her name : 
 
 " Ilva ! . . . Do not go. ... I am a coward. 
 
244 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 . . . But I love you." As she rushed towards him, 
 lightly, swiftly, her arms extended almost like a thing 
 flying, his hands dropped at his sides. 
 
 " Do not touch me," he said. " I am a coward, 
 . . . and perjured. Do not let me break more than 
 one vow. ... I will speak, yes ; but I must not 
 touch you. . . . Help me. . . . You see how weak 
 I am. Do not tempt me !" 
 
 " Oh, my dear one," she answered, " indeed, indeed 
 I will not. I will even go at once, if you wish it. 
 It is enough to have heard you say that you love 
 me. Tell me, what is it that you wish of me ? Why, 
 I could take your hand and walk calmly out into the 
 sea there and be drowned with you if it was needful. 
 Or I could go by myself, if it would help you. Just 
 to have seen you and heard you speak, saying you 
 loved me, and then my name once more, ah ! that 
 was sweet !" She stood gazing at him, great tears 
 brimming in her eyes, and her hands clasped together 
 against her breast. 
 
 " Tell me ; and whatever you say, I will do it," 
 she repeated. 
 
 " Forgive, . . . forgive !" stammered the man, 
 completely overmastered. "It is terrible to suffer 
 so. . . Perhaps for me . . . but what have you done, 
 . . . my star, . . . my lily ?" He muttered to him 
 self, " My God, my God ! Thou wast crucified. . . . 
 Have mercy." 
 
 " Oh, Vladimir," said the girl, " do not think-that 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 245 
 
 I will give you more to bear ! I will try to help 
 you in every way. I am here as long as you need 
 me. And when you bid me to go, ah, you shall 
 see how obedient I will be." 
 
 " It is not as you think," he said. " That came 
 between us. Yes ; . . . but I did not mean it. There 
 was more. I can never explain ; but you will trust 
 me. There was more, more, which made it im 
 possible. ... It was for that I became a monk. 
 But you will believe that I would have been true to 
 you in love and in purity with nothing but your 
 memory to bind me until I died." These last sen 
 tences rang out passionately, unbroken, triumphant. 
 
 " Oh, with all my soul ! with all my soul !" she 
 cried, her face radiant. " I trust you, believe you, 
 love you ! It will be forever !" 
 
 " Yes, forever," he said, making the sign of the 
 cross between them. They stood gazing at each 
 other in a heart-broken silence. 
 
 " And you must go away from me ?" she said at 
 last, wistfully. " I must leave you ? . . . Tell me," 
 timidly, "would it be a sin for me just to kiss your 
 hand?" 
 
 He could not answer her, and, taking his silence 
 for consent, she approached him ; but he folded his 
 hands in his sleeves, making a faint gesture of nega 
 tion with his head. 
 
 "I must not?" she said, her sweet face falling. 
 " "Well, then, since you wish it. ... You shall see 
 21* 
 
246 T HE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 how brave I am. ... Must it be without anything, 
 . . . without even so much as touching your hair ? 
 . . . Well, then, I will, I will. ... I ask the 
 dear Christ to be with you. . . . Perhaps if I am 
 patient . . . And there is all eternity. It will be 
 a sweet pain ... to wait for you. ... And I am 
 not very strong." 
 
 Nadrovine buried his face in his hands, trembling 
 in every limb. The tide was going out. The shallow 
 pools glowed like vast opals in the level light of the 
 sun. The west was brilliant with crimson clouds in 
 the shape of a great flamingo flying southward. 
 Lotta, tired of her one-sided conversation with her 
 wax and china family under the umbrella, had taken 
 off her shoes and stockings and was wading about 
 among the pools. She was quite far out, a tiny 
 splash of indigo among the soft and vivid hues of 
 heaven and water. 
 
 " Ah, don t ! don t I" pleaded Ilva. " You break 
 my heart. . . . And, after all, ... is it not a sweet 
 thought ? . . . We shall have each other there. . . . 
 I will be so patient, so brave. . . . Ah, Vladimir, 
 ... I have such a beautiful thought, . . . oh, a 
 thought so divine that my flesh seems to melt away 
 and leave me just my soul to remember it ! It is 
 this : I will live so pure, so true, so good a life on 
 earth, that when I come to you in heaven I will 
 take you by the hand, and you shall hear with me 
 the words that our dear Lord will say to tell me of 
 
THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 247 
 
 the joy that I have given Him and the love that He 
 has always poured upon me !" 
 
 Nadrovine remained gazing at her in unspeakable 
 awe and adoration. The whole light of the gorgeous 
 sky was upon them. Her pale hair was like still 
 flame about her face, like a halo. He felt that he 
 must kneel to her as in worship. And there was a 
 beautiful, happy smile on her face. 
 
 All at once a shrill cry rang out, bringing them 
 back to earth : 
 
 " Cousine ! . . . cousine ! I am sinking ! I am 
 sinking in a great hole !" 
 
 They flew together. The child was already up to 
 her knees in the quicksand. Wrapping his arms 
 around her, Nadrovine drew her out by a supreme 
 effort, and threw her from him as far as he could. 
 
 " Run ! run !" he called to her. " Ilva, run, my 
 darling ! I do not know how far this slough reaches. 
 It has me, I feel it. Run for help !" 
 
 She turned from Lotta, whom she had hastened to 
 soothe, and saw that his heavy weight had caused 
 him to sink nearly to his waist in this short time. 
 She knew that help was impossible. Her mind was 
 made up in an instant. 
 
 " Run ! run, Lotta !" she said, echoing his words. 
 " Run for help, and do not look back, or you will 
 lose time." 
 
 The child started off like a hare. With a swift 
 movement Ilva sprang into the quicksand at Na- 
 
248 THE WITNESS OF THE SUN. 
 
 drovine s side. She put her arms about his neck, 
 her lips to his. Far along the broad brown sands 
 the light figure of the child scudded with the speed 
 of desperation. The distant tide made a soft moan 
 ing. A flock of sails leaning to westward passed 
 into a shaft of rose-colored light. The clouds floated 
 on serenely, of gauze, of soft wool, of banners 
 of crape across the heavens. At last the sky was a 
 placid dome of topaz above the quiet sea. Over 
 shore and inland a beautiful peace brooded, broken 
 only by the calm wings of a nestward dove, the one 
 living thing visible. 
 
 The Sun had been a Witness. 
 
 THE END. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 I