“I rubbed my eyes, and thanked God for the sunlight. I sat up on the couch, looking at the woman and rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult, folly, and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is life—love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth all those dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? I blamed myself for having ever sought to be a leader when I might have given my days to love. All my being went out in love and tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and compelled me by her invincible charm to lay that life aside.
“‘You are worth it, my dearest one’ I said, without intending her to hear; ‘worth pride and praise and all things. Love! to have you is worth them all together.” And at the murmur of my voice she turned about.
“‘Come and see,’ she cried—I can hear her now—‘come and see the sunrise upon Monte Solaro.’
“I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She put a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed toward great masses of limestone, flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted the sunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How can I describe to you the scene before us? We were at Capri—”
“I have been there,” I said. “I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk vero Capri—muddy stuff like cider—at the summit.”
“Ah!” said the man with the white face; “then perhaps you can tell me—you will know if this is indeed Capri. For in this life I have never been there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a multitude of little rooms, cool and sunny, hollowed out of the limestone of a sort of cape, high above the sea.
The whole island was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the other side were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages to which flying machines came. They called it a pleasure city. Of course, there was none of that in your time—rather, I should say, is none of that now.
“Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so we could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff—a thousand feet high perhaps—coldly gray except for one bright edge of gold, and beyond it the Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and passed into the hot sunrise. When one turned to the west, distinct and near was a little bay, a little beach still in shadow. Out of that shadow rose Solaro straight and tall, flushed and golden crested, like a beauty throned, and the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from east to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with little sailing boats.
“Eastward, of course, these little boats were gray and very minute and clear, but westward they were little boats of gold—shining gold—almost like little flames. And just below us was a rock with an arch worn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and foam all around the rock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch.”
“I know that rock,” I said. “I was nearly drowned there. It is called the Faraglioni.”
“I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that,” answered the man with the white face.
“Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat and talked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers not because there was anyone to hear, but because there was still such a freshness of mind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened, I think, to find themselves at last in words. And so they went softly.
“Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going by a strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great breakfast room—there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of plucked strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would not heed a man who was watching me from a table nearby.
“And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describe that hall.
The place was enormous—larger than any building you have ever seen—and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into the wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora across the roof and interlaced, like—like conjuring tricks. All about the great circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, and intricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The place was inundated with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. And as we went through the throng the people turned about and looked at us, for all through the world my name and face were known, and how I had suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And they looked also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how at last she had come to me was unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were there, I know, but judged me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and dishonor that had come upon my name.
“The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the rhythm of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about the hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were dressed in splendid colors and crowned with flowers; thousands danced about the great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and glorious processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not the dreary monotonies of your days—of this time, I mean—but dances that were beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing—dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and caressing me—smiling and caressing with her eyes.
“The music was different,” he murmured. “It went—I cannot describe it; but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has ever come to me awake.
“And then—it was when we had done dancing—a man came to speak to me. He was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and already I had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and afterward as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, as we sat in a little alcove, smiling at the pleasure of all the people who went to and fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me, and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen.
And he asked that he might speak to me for a little time apart.
“‘No,’ I said. ‘I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to tell me?’
“He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady to hear.
“‘Perhaps for me to hear,’ said I.
“He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he asked me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration that Evesham had made? Now, Evesham had always before been the man next to myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a forcible, hard, and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that the others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about what he had done reawakened my old interest in the life I had put aside just for a moment.
“‘I have taken no heed of any news for many days,’ I said. ‘What has Evesham been saying?’
“And with that the man began, nothing loth, and I must confess even I was struck by Evesham’s reckless folly in the wild and threatening words he had used. And this messenger they had sent to me not only told me of Evesham’s speech, but went on to ask counsel and to point out what need they had of me. While he talked, my lady sat a little forward and watched his face and mine.
“My old habits of scheming and organizing reasserted themselves. I could even see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all the dramatic effect of it.
All that this man said witnessed to the disorder of the party indeed, but not to its damage. I should go back stronger than I had come. And then I thought of my lady. You see—how can I tell you? There were certain peculiarities of our relationship—as things are I need not tell you about that—which would render her presence with me impossible. I should have had to leave her; indeed, I should have had to renounce her clearly and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in the north. And the man knew that, even as he talked to her and me, knew it as well as she did, that my steps to duty were—first, separation, then abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return was shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his eloquence was gaining ground with me.