Swirling Waters Part 37

Little children know this truth instinctively. They find their highest happiness in make-believe. A child of the slums with a rag-doll and a few beads and a sc.r.a.p of faded finery can make for herself a world of fairyland. She is a princess clothed in s.h.i.+mmering silk and hung about with pearls and diamonds. She is courted by a knight in golden armour.

She is married amidst the acclamations of a loyal populace. She is the mother of a king-to-be. She is radiantly happy.

And in her self-created world of make-believe she is far wiser than these grown-ups who insist with obstinate complacency on "seeing things as they are." They take pride in being disillusioned.

Not realising that happiness is bowered in illusion.

"Let us live in dreamland awhile," Elaine had said with the wisdom of a little child.

It was tacitly agreed to by Riviere. When together, they combined to ignore the tangle of ugly circ.u.mstance and the harsh struggle to come.

For the time being they were in fancy two lovers with no barrier between and the world smiling joyously upon them.

After a full day's work in his laboratory, he would come to her side and answer her questions with the tenderness of a lover.

"You've brought me white lilac again," she said one day as he entered.

"How did you first guess that white lilac is my favourite flower?"

"White lilac is yourself," he answered.

"Why?"

"Every woman suggests a flower. One sees many roses--little bud roses, and big, buxom, full-blown roses, and wild, free-blowing roses. One sees many white camellias, and heavy-scented tuberoses, and opulent Parma violets, and gorgeous tiger-lilies--those have been the women of my world. One sees many marigolds and cornflowers and poppies. But I've seen only one white lilac--you. White lilac is the fresh young Spring.

And yet it is a woman grown. White lilac is sweet and tender and gracious. White lilac is so faint in perfume that any other scented flower would smother it, and yet its fragrance lives in my memory beyond any other. White lilac is yourself."

"How many-sided you are! Financier, and scientist, and now ... and now poet."

"No--lover."

"Then love must be living poetry."

"That many-sidedness is my weakness."

"I don't want it otherwise."

"The success race has to be run in blinkers. One must see only the goal ahead. There must be no looking to right or left."

"If success means that, then success is bought too dearly.... Dear John, I don't want you otherwise than you are. I love you for your weakness and not your strength. That's the mother-love in a woman."

"I can do so little for you."

"So little? You've made this sick-room an enchanted castle for me! I dread the time when I shall have to leave it. But we won't speak of that--that's forbidden ground."

"We'll speak only of the world we've created for ourselves. It's a whole planet with only you and I for its sole inhabitants. The planet Earth is far away in s.p.a.ce--just a cold white star amongst a wilderness of others."

"I used to think you cold and bloodless--that was at Arles and Nimes."

"We were far apart then. We were next to one another in the physical plane, and yet a million miles away in the plane of reality. Only the invisible things are the realities of life.... You were to leave Nimes the next day, and I never expected to see you again."

"You remember the arena at Arles, at sunset, when you climbed up to stand beside me. Did you know then that I wanted you to speak to me?

"Yes, I knew that. But there was the barrier between us."

"Were we destined to meet, do you think?"

"_Quien sabe?_"

There was a long silence between them--a silence which held no constraint, a silence that exists only between those in deep sympathy.

Silence is the test of true friends.h.i.+p.

"I was so glad to know," she said at length. "It outweighed everything else."

There was no need to put her thoughts more explicitly.

"Didn't you guess before?" he answered gently.

"I couldn't be sure, and the doubt tortured me. I thought it might only be pity. Such a world of difference!"

"You're sure now?"

"Yes; your voice has told me more than your words. Even the notes of the birds soften when they...." She left the sentence uncompleted.

"It was Larssen who brought us together," he meditated.

"Larssen! He dominates us both. He seems to hold us in his hands. He's like ... like Fate. Pitiless, relentless."

"And, like Fate, to be fought to the end."

"I love you for your weakness, and yet I love you as the fighter. How contradictory it sounds!"

"Such seeming contradiction comes from elision. One leaves out the train of thought in between. Between you and me there's no need for the lengthy explanation. There's scarcely need for words at all."

"But yet I love to hear you speak. Your words heal."

"Dr Hegelmann is shrewd as well as marvellously skilful. He said to me to-day: 'I can see you are obeying orders. Fraulein needs your doctoring as much as my surgery.'"

"He's a dear man as well as a great man."

Riviere burst out impulsively: "But the days fly by and my Cinderella's midnight rushes nearer!"

"Not yours alone. Mine too!"

"And when our fairy garments turn back to rags?"

"We'll have had our hour--_our hour_! No one can take that away from us.

Its memories----"

"To me it will be the memory of white lilac."