Part 19 (1/2)

Instead of in sleep, now his waking sight drank in the vision which was part of his living being. But although he had poured out every supplication and ardent prayer his mind could conceive, he never could imprison a single look that he knew was conscious of his presence.

She sometimes would talk, but more often she would play upon her beloved violin, and then Eric would feel that each drop of his blood was rus.h.i.+ng through his veins like a mountain torrent; or he would be possessed by a frantic longing to be free of his body to soar with the music far up into heaven.

It would happen that she would take hold of his hand and lead him to places of strangest solitude, and there her visionary words would try to describe the marvellous things her brain was seeing.

He followed the flight of her extraordinary thoughts; but each day he was filled with deeper depression, knowing that never had she consciously looked at his face, never had she realized that it was an unusual companion who was now at her side, that she was alone with a being consumed by love.

She talked in a confiding voice as a child speaks to its mother, or as one that had the habit of conversing alone in the night.

The things she said, and conjured up before his eager mind, were saturated with such unheard-of sweetness that Eric lived in a world he had never known.

And so the days pa.s.sed one by one; the bluebells faded and died, and still Eric clung to the forlorn hope that Stella's eyes would suddenly open and see him at her side. The gypsies folded their tents and moved farther on, roaming from spot to spot.

Wherever they went Eric was always with them.

For hours he would walk in the dust of the roads, keeping pace with the bare feet of the woman he loved.

The falcon was always there, and still flew like a white banner before him, as it had done on the very first day. But now Eric no more followed the s.h.i.+ne on its wings; he was following a lowly maiden who held his beating heart within her careless hand.

He pa.s.sed through many villages such as Radu had described: the savage dogs rushed out and surrounded their wandering procession, the maize-thatched cottages had their doors wide open, and it was true that the tall sunflowers could peep in at the tiny windows, and that the maidens sat upon the thresholds drawing their tireless needles through the snowy linen that lay in their laps.

The peasants looked at the earth-coloured travellers with glances of disdain; and seldom did a kindly welcome greet them as they came.

Only for Eric they made an exception, and more than one dark-eyed girl would have given much to keep him at her side.

Autumn was turning the leaves into glorious colours. The woods were a never-ending marvel of red, gold, and brown. On the freshly reaped maize-fields the Indian corn lay in small pyramids of ripest orange. The peasants sat about in groups singing the songs of harvest, whilst the early night did its best to hurry the glowing sunsets out of the flaming sky.

Always smaller grew the hope in our wanderer's heart, always more weary were the endless roads.

Stella still had her eyes turned upon things he could not see. He had not been able to make her grasp the fact that she had a stranger at her side.

Each day he brought her another wreath for her burnished tresses--a wreath that he wound with his artist fingers from whatever flowers he could find along his road.

They were becoming scarcer and rarer because of the descending autumn that lay like a hush over the tired world. He made them of pale-tinted crocuses that hung upon her forehead like tired sighs--he bound them with the brightest leaves of the season that resembled the spreading sunsets he so loved at the end of the day. Often he had plucked s.h.i.+ning berries that surrounded her waxen brow like heavy drops of blood. And one day the wreath he brought her was all feathery and white, plaited with the fluffy ghosts of the wild clematis that climbs over rock and tree.

On a morning when the clouds hung heavy over their heads he pressed above her lovely face a garland of sloe-berries entwined with grey leaves of the weeping-willow; they fell about her delicate temples, touching her rounded cheeks with loving caresses as a mother's hand would do.

Once as she sat on a hard heap of stones, spent after the tramp of the day, he left her to glean from the barren fields ripe ears of corn that had been scattered by the reapers on their way.

He made them into a golden crown which he laid at her feet in the dust, looking into her eyes, trembling under the weight of his love.

And always he found some lowly plant which he plucked with the thought of bringing a smile to her lips. He even conjured into a circlet of silver the star-shaped thistles that grew amongst the wilting gra.s.s, and so that their p.r.i.c.kles should not wound her delicate skin, he lined it with soft green moss that lay close against her forehead, guarding it from the slightest scratch.

But the days when he found neither flower nor plant he felt like a beggar that dare not come before the face of his queen....

Often when the roving tribe had pitched their tents for the night, Gundian would go and sit beside the fire with old Zorka the witch, and he never wearied of the tales she told, listening, with interest that was always new, to the quaint words that fell from her lips.

Zorka's heart had made him her own, and she dearly loved to have him at her side; but never did she find the needed courage to urge him to relinquish his quest; yet, as the days rolled by, she feared more and more that the signs might really come true.

On a night when all was dark and still, the very old woman and the beautiful youth sat side by side looking into the leaping flames.