Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
after day, as years rolled by. At last I fell asleep while she sang.
When I awoke, I knew not whether it was night or day. The fire had sunk
to a few red embers, which just gave light enough to show me the woman
standing a few feet from me, with her back towards me, facing the door
by which I had entered. She was weeping, but very gently and
plentifully. The tears seemed to come freely from her heart. Thus she
stood for a few minutes; then, slowly turning at right angles to her
former position, she faced another of the four sides of the cottage. I
now observed, for the first time, that here was a door likewise; and
that, indeed, there was one in the centre of every side of the cottage.
When she looked towards the second door, her tears ceased to flow, but
sighs took their place. She often closed her eyes as she stood; and
every time she closed her eyes, a gentle sigh seemed to be born in her
heart, and to escape at her lips. But when her eyes were open, her
sighs were deep and very sad, and shook her whole frame. Then she
turned towards the third door, and a cry as of fear or suppressed pain
broke from her; but she seemed to hearten herself against the dismay,
and to front it steadily; for, although I often heard a slight cry, and
sometimes a moan, yet she never moved or bent her head, and I felt sure
that her eyes never closed. Then she turned to the fourth door, and I
saw her shudder, and then stand still as a statue; till at last she
turned towards me and approached the fire. I saw that her face was
white as death. But she gave one look upwards, and smiled the sweetest,
most child-innocent smile; then heaped fresh wood on the fire, and,
sitting down by the blaze, drew her wheel near her, and began to spin.
While she spun, she murmured a low strange song, to which the hum of
the wheel made a kind of infinite symphony. At length she paused in her
spinning and singing, and glanced towards me, like a mother who looks
whether or not her child gives signs of waking. She smiled when she saw
that my eyes were open. I asked her whether it was day yet. She
answered, “It is always day here, so long as I keep my fire burning.”
I felt wonderfully refreshed; and a great desire to see more of the
island awoke within me. I rose, and saying that I wished to look about
me, went towards the door by which I had entered.
“Stay a moment,” said my hostess, with some trepidation in her voice.
“Listen to me. You will not see what you expect when you go out of that
door. Only remember this: whenever you wish to come back to me, enter
wherever you see this mark.”
She held up her left hand between me and the fire. Upon the palm, which
appeared almost transparent, I saw, in dark red, a mark like this —>
which I took care to fix in my mind.
She then kissed me, and bade me good-bye with a solemnity that awed me;
and bewildered me too, seeing I was only going out for a little ramble
in an island, which I did not believe larger than could easily be
compassed in a few hours’ walk at most. As I went she resumed her
spinning.
I opened the door, and stepped out. The moment my foot touched the
smooth sward, I seemed to issue from the door of an old barn on my
father’s estate, where, in the hot afternoons, I used to go and lie
amongst the straw, and read. It seemed to me now that I had been asleep
there. At a little distance in the field, I saw two of my brothers at
play. The moment they caught sight of me, they called out to me to come
and join them, which I did; and we played together as we had done years
ago, till the red sun went down in the west, and the gray fog began to
rise from the river. Then we went home together with a strange
happiness. As we went, we heard the continually renewed larum of a
landrail in the long grass. One of my brothers and I separated to a
little distance, and each commenced running towards the part whence the
sound appeared to come, in the hope of approaching the spot where the
bird was, and so getting at least a sight of it, if we should not be
able to capture the little creature. My father’s voice recalled us from
trampling down the rich long grass, soon to be cut down and laid aside
for the winter. I had quite forgotten all about Fairy Land, and the
wonderful old woman, and the curious red mark.
My favourite brother and I shared the same bed. Some childish dispute
arose between us; and our last words, ere we fell asleep, were not of
kindness, notwithstanding the pleasures of the day. When I woke in the
morning, I missed him. He had risen early, and had gone to bathe in the
river. In another hour, he was brought home drowned. Alas! alas! if we
had only gone to sleep as usual, the one with his arm about the other!
Amidst the horror of the moment, a strange conviction flashed across my
mind, that I had gone through the very same once before.
I rushed out of the house, I knew not why, sobbing and crying bitterly.
I ran through the fields in aimless distress, till, passing the old
barn, I caught sight of a red mark on the door. The merest trifles
sometimes rivet the attention in the deepest misery; the intellect has
so little to do with grief. I went up to look at this mark, which I did
not remember ever to have seen before. As I looked at it, I thought I
would go in and lie down amongst the straw, for I was very weary with
running about and weeping. I opened the door; and there in the cottage
sat the old woman as I had left her, at her spinning-wheel.
“I did not expect you quite so soon,” she said, as I shut the door
behind me. I went up to the couch, and threw myself on it with that
fatigue wherewith one awakes from a feverish dream of hopeless grief.
The old woman sang:
The great sun, benighted,
May faint from the sky;
But love, once uplighted,
Will never more die.
Form, with its brightness,
From eyes will depart:
It walketh, in whiteness,
The halls of the heart.
Ere she had ceased singing, my courage had returned. I started from the
couch, and, without taking leave of the old woman, opened the door of
Sighs, and sprang into what should appear.
I stood in a lordly hall, where, by a blazing fire on the hearth, sat a
lady, waiting, I knew, for some one long desired. A mirror was near me,
but I saw that my form had no place within its depths, so I feared not
that I should be seen. The lady wonderfully resembled my marble lady,
but was altogether of the daughters of men, and I could not tell
whether or not it was she.
It was not for me she waited. The tramp of a great horse rang through
the court without. It ceased, and the clang of armour told that his
rider alighted, and the sound of his ringing heels approached the hall.
The door opened; but the lady waited, for she would meet her lord
alone. He strode in: she flew like a home-bound dove into his arms, and
nestled on the hard steel. It was the knight of the soiled armour. But
now the armour shone like polished glass; and strange to tell, though
the mirror reflected not my form, I saw a dim shadow of myself in the
shining steel.
“O my beloved, thou art come, and I am blessed.”
Her soft fingers speedily overcame the hard clasp of his helmet; one by
one she undid the buckles of his armour; and she toiled under the
weight of the mail, as she _would_ carry it aside. Then she unclasped
his greaves, and unbuckled his spurs; and once more she sprang into his
arms, and laid her head where she could now feel the beating of his
heart. Then she disengaged herself from his embrace, and, moving back a
step or two, gazed at him. He stood there a mighty form, crowned with a
noble head, where all sadness had disappeared, or had been absorbed in
solemn purpose. Yet I suppose that he looked more thoughtful than the
lady had expected to see him, for she did not renew her caresses,
although his face glowed with love, and the few words he spoke were as
mighty deeds for strength; but she led him towards the hearth, and
seated him in an ancient chair, and set wine before him, and sat at his
feet.
“I am sad,” he said, “when I think of the youth whom I met twice in the
forests of Fairy Land; and who, you say, twice, with his songs, roused
you from the death-sleep of an evil enchantment. There was something
noble in him, but it was a nobleness of thought, and not of deed. He
may yet perish of vile fear.”
“Ah!” returned the lady, “you saved him once, and for that I thank you;
for may I not say that I somewhat loved him? But tell me how you fared,
when you struck your battle-axe into the ash-tree, and he came and
found you; for so much of the story you had told me, when the
beggar-child came and took you away.”
“As soon as I saw him,” rejoined the knight, “I knew that earthly arms
availed not against such as he; and that my soul must meet him in its
naked strength. So I unclasped my helm, and flung it on the ground;
and, holding my good axe yet in my hand, gazed at him with steady eyes.
On he came, a horror indeed, but I did not flinch. Endurance must
conquer, where force could not reach. He came nearer and nearer, till
the ghastly face was close to mine. A shudder as of death ran through
me; but I think I did not move, for he seemed to quail, and retreated.
As soon as he gave back, I struck one more sturdy blow on the stem of
his tree, that the forest rang; and then looked at him again. He
writhed and grinned with rage and apparent pain, and again approached
me, but retreated sooner than before. I heeded him no more, but hewed
with a will at the tree, till the trunk creaked, and the head bowed,
and with a crash it fell to the earth. Then I looked up from my labour,
and lo! the spectre had vanished, and I saw him no more; nor ever in my
wanderings have I heard of him again.”
“Well struck! well withstood! my hero,” said the lady.
“But,” said the knight, somewhat troubled, “dost thou love the youth
still?”
“Ah!” she replied, “how can I help it? He woke me from worse than
death; he loved me. I had never been for thee, if he had not sought me
first. But I love him not as I love thee. He was but the moon of my
night; thou art the sun of my day, O beloved.”
“Thou art right,” returned the noble man. “It were hard, indeed, not to
have some love in return for such a gift as he hath given thee. I, too,
owe him more than words can speak.”
Humbled before them, with an aching and desolate heart, I yet could not
restrain my words:
“Let me, then, be the moon of thy night still, O woman! And when thy
day is beclouded, as the fairest days will be, let some song of mine
comfort thee, as an old, withered, half-forgotten thing, that belongs
to an ancient mournful hour of uncompleted birth, which yet was
beautiful in its time.”
They sat silent, and I almost thought they were listening. The colour
of the lady’s eyes grew deeper and deeper; the slow tears grew, and
filled them, and overflowed. They rose, and passed, hand in hand, close
to where I stood; and each looked towards me in passing. Then they
disappeared through a door which closed behind them; but, ere it
closed, I saw that the room into which it opened was a rich chamber,
hung with gorgeous arras. I stood with an ocean of sighs frozen in my
bosom. I could remain no longer. She was near me, and I could not see
her; near me in the arms of one loved better than I, and I would not
see her, and I would not be by her. But how to escape from the nearness
of the best beloved? I had not this time forgotten the mark; for the
fact that I could not enter the sphere of these living beings kept me
aware that, for me, I moved in a vision, while they moved in life. I
looked all about for the mark, but could see it nowhere; for I avoided
looking just where it was. There the dull red cipher glowed, on the
very door of their secret chamber. Struck with agony, I dashed it open,