XLVI
Thereturned wayfarer, ragged, bare-footed, and dishevelled, continued in his profound sleep by the side of the fire. Not a sound escaped him, not once did he change his posture; and as the hour of midnight approached, the old man, his father, began to have a fear that he would not waken again. But at the first stroke of the clocks, as they told the midnight hour, the wanderer opened his eyes to the full, and, rising immediately from his chair, without pain, and without weariness, sat down exactly as he was before the materials for writing that were spread upon the table, and commenced author.
At first, as he dipped the pen in the ink, and it sought the virgin sheets of white paper, his face was calm and untroubled, and about his lips was a happy smile of peace. Lightly, easily, deftly at first, his right hand, that was now so strong, ran across the paper, without a moment of hesitation, without a single pause, or any kind of uncertainty.
Page upon page was traversed by his strong right hand. Not once did it falter, no fault did it commit; and neither blot, nor erasure, nor substitution of one word for another, defiled the fair copy that grew, minute by minute, under the slender, blood-stained fingers. Hour after hour passed; and the aged man, his father, sat by the side of the fire with his dim and incredulous eyes fixed upon him who wrote. In them was a kind of entrancement.
The beams of the morning stole through the top of the shutters of the little room, but the author did not look up an instant from his labours, and not once did he change the attitude in which he wrote. Neither did he ask to have the shutters thrown back, and the bright lamp removed, even when it was twelve o’clock in the day. From time to time the old man plied the hearth with fuel, and also he procured a second lamp, newly replenished with oil.
In the afternoon the old man went forth of the little room, and making no sound, so that his movements might not be regarded, he penetrated, candle in hand, to a deep cellar below the shop.
In a corner of this chill vault, all covered with cobwebs and grime, was a bottle of a great and aged wine. This the old man removed from the place it had occupied full many years, and bore it, with a care as nice as a woman bears a sleeping infant, up the dark stairs to the little room.
The old man placed the wine near to him who wrote; but, as though unconscious of the action, the returned wayfarer pursued his labours.
The old man, his father, then returned to his place beside the bright hearth. The hours passed. All that day the shutters were not taken down from the shop, which was shrouded in complete darkness in the broad light; while in the room behind it a lamp was burning continually, even when the sun was high at noon.
As page upon page was traversed by the strong right hand of him who wrote, and they began to form a delicately-written heap on the table before him, the mood of the author, which at first was so serene and of such a calm assurance, began to change. In those large and bright eyes, whose lustre seemed to vie with that of the ever-burning lamp, the inward fire, the controlled passion, the noble self-possession, began, towards afternoon, to yield to the hue of terror. The large and bright eyes began to roll in a strange kind of frenzy.Great beads of perspiration came upon the forehead of the author; they rolled in a stream down his cheeks.
Not once, however, did he pause in those labours which added steadily to the pile of his writings. Although the author appeared to be suffering a more than mortal agony, and that even as he wrote he sought the merciful respite of death, he never once faltered, nor looked up, nor refrained an instant from his task.
Towards the hour of eight in the evening, the listening ears of the aged man, his father, heard a loud tapping upon the shutters of the shop. He rose at once from his place beside the hearth and went forth of the little room, and opened very softly, yet with a kind of despair as he did so, the outer door of the shop.
“Who is he who beats upon the ears of us in our little room?” he asked of him who stood out upon the threshold of the night.
“Has he awakened?” asked the anxious visitor. “I have been fearing all day lest he should not wake any more.”
“He is awake and he is writing his treatise,” said the old man devoutly.
“I must see him,” said the man from the street. “You must let me see him. I will not go beyond the shop. And I will not disturb him as I walk across it.”
“He is writing his treatise,” said the old man in a tone that would seem to deny him.
“Oh!” cried the man from the street piteously, “I must see him, if only for a moment, now that he is awake.”
And so great were the entreaties of the man from the street, that the old man, enjoining many earnest restrictions upon him, led him at last with infinite caution through the dark shop, to look upon the face of him who wrote.
However, no sooner had the man from the street looked upon the face of him he had craved to seethan he uttered a suppressed cry of dismay and terror. For the face of the returned wayfarer seemed to be convulsed with a mortal agony.
Creeping away with the silence in which he had come to the threshold, without revealing his presence to the returned wayfarer, or causing him once to refrain from his labours, the man from the street returned in a kind of despair to that outer element of darkness out of which he had emerged.
“Oh,” he muttered, as the scalding tears sprang out of his eyes as he traversed the inhospitable pavements of the streets; “I wish now that I had not seen him. It is just as I thought it would be.”
Yet the next evening at the same hour the man from the street tapped upon the shutter again; and again his summons was answered by the old man within.
“How is he now?” asked the visitor breathlessly. “I hope there is no change for the worse.”
“You may enter and look upon him,” said the old man.
“I don’t think I want to do that,” said the visitor with fear in his eyes. “I think I would rather not do so.”
“Perhaps,” said the old man, “you may find a change for the better.”
“No, I don’t think I will come in,” said the man with weak tremulousness; but this he seemed suddenly to discard in a kind of disgust, and he followed the old man through the darkness of the shop.
As he came to stand again upon the threshold of the little room he saw that the returned wayfarer had scarcely changed his posture from the previous evening, and was writing still. The mass of papers before him, covered in a fine and delicate writing, were an ever-increasing pile. Yet the man from the street hardly dared to look at the face of the writer. At last, however, he summoned the courage to do so, and in the act of beholding it almost revealed his presence by a cry of surprise. For the face was no longer transfigured with terror: it wasas calm, serene, and peaceful as that of Nature upon an evening of summer.
Again the man from the street returned to his element; and this time in lieu of his previous despair was a sort of bewildered gladness. The face he had looked upon that evening was one of such wisdom and beauty, that even eyes such as his own could not misread its meaning. “Oh, how beautiful he is! How beautiful he is!” he exclaimed as he walked along.
The next evening the visitor returned once more and knocked upon the shutter; again he was received by the old man who led him within. The returned wayfarer still sat at the table writing his treatise. Again he appeared scarcely to have changed his posture. The pile of writing had grown greater and greater. In mute bewilderment the man from the street gazed upon him. The worn and haggard countenance of him who wrote was convulsed with tears. Yet although they dripped upon the white paper, even as the pen traversed it, he refrained not an instant from his task.
As the unhappy man from the street again sought the outer darkness, he said with a sinking heart: “When he stops writing I am sure he will die!”
On the next evening he presented himself at the shutter for the fourth time.
“How is he now?” he cried to the old man. “Does he still live?”
“You may enter,” said the old man; and in the darkness the man from the street could not observe the secret smile that was about his lips.
Ever writing as before, the returned wayfarer had now a face that was radiant with joy. As he continued to fill one page upon another, his lips began to move in a kind of low crooning chant. When the watcher from the threshold caught the first sounds of his voice, he remembered with one of those pangs with which reason confronts that which lies beyond it, the day upon which he and hisboon companions had taken him upon the sea in a boat.
“I don’t know how it will end, I don’t know how it will end!” cried the man as he entered the streets. His emotion was wrought so highly that he walked the streets until dawn.
Yet again on the evening of the fifth day he returned, and with secret, fearful steps he came to the threshold of the little room. He who sat there was writing still. His cheeks had now sunk into his jaws; his eyes that formerly were so large and bright lacked lustre; the slender fingers were moving painfully; the gaunt face had almost the composure of death.
The watcher crept forth again to the streets, and walked them in a kind of madness. “I begin to wish he would die,” he said as he took his way. “It is dreadful, it is dreadful! Yes, I wish he would die.”
Yet on the evening of the sixth day the man came again and knocked upon the shutter.
“I hope he is dead,” he said bitterly as the old man confronted him. “It is dreadful, it is dreadful!”
“He sleeps now,” said the old man simply. “Is it not wonderful that the strength should have been given to him to complete his task? But he now sleeps.”
They stole together to the threshold, where this superhuman labourer, bare-footed and unkempt, and in his rags lay fast asleep. His face was buried amid the great bulk of his writings.
“Oh,” said the man from the street with a harsh sob; “he is dead at last.”
“Oh, no,” said the old man, “he breathes softly.”
“Can it be possible?” said the other. “Can he have done all this and yet remained alive? I must see for myself before I can believe it.”
The man from the street made as if he would cross the threshold of the little room.
“Beware,” said the old man almost sternly. “Did you not promise that you would not go beyond this?”
“Yes, I did,” said the other mournfully, “but I am sure he is dead.”
“Return to-morrow, my friend, at the same hour,” said the old man, “and be of good hope. He ate and drank before he slept and he promised to awaken.”
The next day the man came back again to the threshold of the little room, but the writer still slept with his face buried within his labours.
“He will never awaken, he will never awaken!” said the watcher.
“Be of good faith,” said the old man softly. “Return to-morrow again.”
The man did as he was bidden, but he who had laboured was still asleep.
“Why do you deceive me?” cried the man from the street, almost beside himself with his passion; “you know he will never wake again. And you dare not tell me the truth. I will enter and see for myself.”
The old man pushed him back with his feeble strength as he made to cross the threshold. His face had a tragic consternation too dreadful to behold.
“If you cross the threshold,” he said, “while he still sleeps he will never, never awaken.”
These words and the countenance of the old man convinced the man from the street that such was the truth.
“I will return to-morrow and see if he sleeps still,” said the man, returning to the street.
“This passes all understanding,” he muttered constantly as he took his way.