ought not sleep
and dreams, but waking visions. Night by night, from my dry grass bed I
beheld Nuflo sitting in his old doubled-up posture, his big brown feet
close to the white ashes--sitting silent and miserable. I pitied him; I
owed him hospitality; but it seemed intolerable that he should be there.
It was better to shut my eyes; for then Rima's arms would be round my
neck; the silky mist of her hair against my face, her flowery breath
mixing with my breath. What a luminous face was hers! Even with
closeshut eyes I could see it vividly, the translucent skin showing the
radiant rose beneath, the lustrous eyes, spiritual and passionate, dark
as purple wine under their dark lashes. Then my eyes would open wide. No
Rima in my arms! But over there, a little way back from the fire, just
beyond where old Nuflo had sat brooding a few minutes ago, Rima would
be standing, still and pale and unspeakably sad. Why does she come to me
from the outside darkness to stand there talking to me, yet never once
lifting her mournful eyes to mine? "Do not believe it, Abel; no, that
was only a phantom of your brain, the What-I-was that you remember so
well. For do you not see that when I come she fades away and is nothing?
Not that--do not ask it. I know that I once refused to look into your
eyes, and afterwards, in the cave at Riolama, I looked long and was
happy--unspeakably happy! But now--oh, you do not know what you ask; you
do not know the sorrow that has come into mine; that if you once beheld
it, for very sorrow you would die. And you must live. But I will wait
patiently, and we shall be together in the end, and see each other
without disguise. Nothing shall divide us. Only wish not for it soon;
think not that death will ease your pain, and seek it not. Austerities?
Good works? Prayers? They are not seen; they are not heard, they are
less-than nothing, and there is no intercession. I did not know it then,
but you knew it. Your life was your own; you are not saved nor judged!
acquit yourself--undo that which you have done, which Heaven cannot
undo--and Heaven will say no word nor will I. You cannot, Abel, you
cannot. That which you have done is done, and yours must be the penalty
and the sorrow--yours and mine--yours and mine--yours and mine."

This, too, was a phantom, a Rima of the mind, one of the shapes the
ever-changing black vapours of remorse and insanity would take; and
all her mournful sentences were woven out of my own brain