Three Weeks

Her voice was a dream-voice as she whispered on. "Do you not love those minarets and towers against the opal sky, and the rose-pink granite hills beyond? And look, Paul, at this peep of the Nile--those are the water-buffaloes--those strange beasts--you see they are pulling that ridiculous water-drawer--just the same as in Pharaoh's time. Ah! I smell the scent of the East. Look at the straight blue figures, the lines so pleasing and long. The dignity, the peace, the forever in it all.... Now we are there. See the brilliant crowd all moving with little haste, and listen to the strange noise. Look at the faces of the camels, disdainful and calm, and that of an old devil-man with tangled hair....

"Come--come from this; I want the desert and the Sphinx!

"Ah! it is bright day again, and we have all the green world between us and the great vast brown tract of sand. And those are the Pyramids clear-cut against the turquoise sky, and soon we shall be there, only you must observe this green around us first, my Paul--the green of no other country in all the world--pure emerald--nature's supreme concentrated effort of green for miles and miles. No, I do not want to live in that small village in a brown mud hut, shared with another wife to that gaunt blue linen-clad man; I would kill them all and be free. I want to go on, beloved--on to the desert for you and me alone, with its wonderful passion, and wonderful peace...."

Her voice became still more dreamy; there was a cadence in it now as if some soul within were forcing her to chant it all, with almost the lilt of blank verse.

"Oh! the strange drug of the glorious East, flooding your senses with beauty and life. 'Tis the spell of the Sphinx, and now we are there, close in her presence. Look, the sun has set....

"Hush! hush! beloved! we are alone, the camels and guides afar off--we are alone, sweetheart, and we go on together, you and I and the moon. See, she is rising all silver and pure, and blue is the sky, and scented the night. Look, there is the Sphinx! Do you see the strange mystery of her smile and the glamour of her eyes? She is a goddess, and she knows men's souls, and their foolish unavailing passion and pain--never content with the Is which they have, always regretting the Was which has passed, and building false hopes on the phantom May be. But you and I, my lover, my sweet, have fathomed the riddle which is hid in the smile of our goddess, our Sphinx--we have guessed it, and now are as high gods too. For we know it means to live in the present, and quaff life in its full. Sweetheart, beloved--joy and life in its full----"....