The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories
was leaning over the balcony with her back to me. The light of the sunrise
fell on her ear and cheek. Her pretty white neck and the little curls that
nestled there, and her white shoulder were in the sun, and all the grace
of her body was in the cool blue shadow. She was dressed--how can I
describe it? It was easy and flowing. And altogether there she stood, so
that it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as though I had
never seen her before. And when at last I sighed and raised myself upon my
arm she turned her face to me--"
He stopped.
"I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother,
sisters, friends, wife and daughters--all their faces, the play of their
faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more real to me. I
can bring it back into memory so that I see it again--I could draw it or
paint it. And after all--"
He stopped--but I said nothing.
"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not that
beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of a
saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of
radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave gray eyes. And
she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant and
gracious things--"
He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up at me
and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute belief in
the reality of his story.
"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had ever
worked for or desired, for her sake. I had been a master man away there in
the north, with influence and property and a great reputation, but none of
it had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the place, this city
of sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things to wreck and ruin
just to save a remnant at least of my life. While I had been in love with
her before I knew that she had any care for me, before I had imagined that
she would dare--that we should dare--all my life had seemed vain and
hollow, dust and ashes. It _was_ dust and ashes. Night after night,
and through the long days I had longed and desired--my soul had beaten
against the thing forbidden!
"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. It's
emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's there,
everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left them in
their crisis to do what they could."
"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled.
"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--I had
been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group themselves
about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to do things and
risk things because of their confidence in me. I had been playing that
game for years, that big laborious game, that vague, monstrous political
game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and agitation. It was a vast
weltering world, and at last I had a sort of leadership against the Gang--
you know it was called the Gang--a sort of compromise of scoundrelly
projects and base ambitions and vast public emotional stupidities and
catch-words--the Gang that kept the world noisy and blind year by year,
and all the while that it was drifting, drifting towards infinite
disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the shades and
complications of the year--the year something or other ahead. I had it
all--down to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had been
dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer new
development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes. It was
some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I sat up on
the couch and remained looking at the woman, and rejoicing--rejoicing that
I had come away out of all that tumult and folly and violence before it
was too late. After all, I thought, this is life--love and beauty, desire
and delight, are they not worth all those dismal struggles for vague,
gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for having ever sought to be a leader
when I might have given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had not
spent my early days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself upon
vain and worthless women, and at the thought all my being went out in love
and tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and
compelled me--compelled me by her invincible charm for me--to lay that
life aside.
"'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear; 'you
are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all things. Love!
to have _you_ is worth them all together.' And at the murmur of my
voice she turned about.
"'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--come and see the sunrise
upon Monte Solaro.'
"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She put
a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great masses of
limestone flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted the
sunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How can I
describe to you the scene we had before us? We were at Capri----"
"I have been there," I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk
_vero Capri_--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit."
"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can tell me--you
will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have never been
there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a vast
multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed out of the
limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. The whole island,
you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the
other side there were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages
to which the flying machines came. They called it a Pleasure City. Of
course, there was none of that in your time--rather, I should say,
_is_ none of that _now_. Of course. Now!--yes.
"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that one
could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand feet high
perhaps, coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, and beyond it the
Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and passed into the hot
sunrise. And when one turned to the west, distinct and near was a little
bay, a little beach still in shadow. And out of that shadow rose Solaro,
straight and tall, flushed and golden-crested, like a beauty throned, and
the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from east
to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with little
sailing-boats.
"To the eastward, of course, these little boats were gray and very minute
and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of gold--shining
gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was a rock with an arch
worn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and foam all round the
rock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch."
"I know that rock," I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It is called the
Faraglioni."
"_Faraglioni_? Yes, _she_ called it that," answered the man with
the white face. "There was some story--but that----"
He put his hand to his forehead again. "No," he said, "I forget that
story.
"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that
little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of
mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat and
talked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers, not because
there was any one to hear, but because there was still such a freshness of
mind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened, I think, to
find themselves at last in words. And so they went softly.
"Presently we were hungry, and we went from our apartment, going by a
strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great
breakfast-room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful
place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of plucked
strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would not
heed a man who was watching me from a table near by.
"And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describe
that hall. The place was enormous, larger than any building you have ever
seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into the
wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads of gold,
burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora across the
roof and interlaced, like--like conjuring tricks. All about the great
circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, and
intricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The place was inundated
with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. And as we went through
the throng the people turned about and looked at us, for all through the
world my name and face were known, and how I had suddenly thrown up pride,
and struggle to come to this place. And they looked also at the lady
beside me, though half the story of how at last she had come to me was
unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were there, I know, but judged
me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and dishonour that had come upon
my name.
"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the rhythm
of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about the
hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were dressed
in splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced about the
great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and glorious
processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not the
dreary monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but dances that were
beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing--dancing
joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she danced with a
serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and caressing me--smiling
and caressing with her eyes.
"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe it;
but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has ever
come to me awake.
"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to me. He
was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and already I
had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and afterwards
as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, as we sat in
a little alcove smiling at the pleasure of all the people who went to and
fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me, and spoke to me so
that I was forced to listen. And he asked that he might speak to me for a
little time apart.
"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to tell
me?'
"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady to
hear.
"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.
"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he asked
me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration that
Gresham had made. Now, Gresham had always before been the man next to
myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a
forcible, hard, and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and
soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that the
others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about what he
had done re-awakened my old interest in the life I had put aside just for
a moment.
"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What has
Gresham been saying?'
"And with that the man began, nothing loth, and I must confess ever; I was
struck by Gresham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words he