s to himself and to the stars? And
yet, he could remember it all so well: the quiet hills sleeping in the
moonlight, the slender skeleton of the bridge reaching out into the
river, and up yonder, alone on the hill, the big white house; upstairs,
in Winifred's window, the light that told him she was still awake and
still thinking of him. And after the light went out he walked alone,
taking the heavens into his confidence, unable to tear himself away from
the white magic of the night, unwilling to sleep because longing was so
sweet to him, and because, for the first time since first the hills were
hung with moonlight, there was a lover in the world. And always there
was the sound of the rushing water underneath, the sound which, more
than anything else, meant death; the wearing away of things under the
impact of physical forces which men could direct but never circumvent or
diminish. Then, in the exaltation of love, more than ever it seemed to
him to mean death, the only other thing as strong as love. Under the
moon, under the cold, splendid stars, there were only those two things
awake and sleepless; death and love, the rushing river and his burning
heart.
Alexander sat up and looked about him. The train was tearing on through
the darkness. All his companions in the day-coach were either dozing or
sleeping heavily, and the murky lamps were turned low. How came he here
among all these dirty people? Why was he going to London? What did it
mean--what was the answer? How could this happen to a man who had lived
through that magical spring and summer, and who had felt that the stars
themselves were but flaming particles in the far-away infinitudes of his
love?
What had he done to lose it? How could he endure the baseness of life
without it? And with every revolution of the wheels beneath him, the
unquiet quicksilver in his breast told him that at midsummer he would be
in London. He remembered his last night there: the red foggy darkness,
the hungry crowds before the theatres, the hand-organs, the feverish
rhythm of the blurred, crowded streets, and the feeling of letting
himself go with the crowd. He shuddered and looked about him at the poor
unconscious companions of his journey, unkempt and travel-stained, now
doubled in unlovely attitudes, who had come to stand to him for the
ugliness he had brought into the world.
And those boys back there, beginning it all just as he had begun it; he
wished he could promise them be
|