Princess Zara

by Ross Beeckman

  CHAPTER XII

  WHEN LOVE WAS BORN

  The streets of St. Petersburg, the city itself, nihilism, Russia, theczar had ceased to exist for me, however. Whatever she may have seenupon the street that had brought that startled cry to her lips, and hadmade her turn about and grasp my arm, had also brought into hercountenance an expression of such overwhelming and overpowering concernfor me, that I knew with a perfect knowledge in that instant, that Zaraloved me.

  Have you ever been swayed by an impulse that is utterly beyond yourcontrol, and before which all other considerations degenerate to suchutter insignificance as not to exist at all?

  It was such an one that controlled me then.

  As she drew me toward the window, and would have directed my gazethrough it, her own eyes held unflinchingly to mine, and mine held herswith a compelling power which she did not seek to resist, and could nothave controlled, even if she had made the effort.

  Whatever it may have been, out there in the street, that had alarmedher, she forgot it, and my arms were around her, her lithe, sinuous,pulsing body was crushed madly against my own, and our lips had metbefore either of us realized it. We had mutually recognized the strangeand overwhelming instinct of love, that had asserted its control overboth at the self-same instant. I forgot the world, the flesh and thedevil, the czar, Russia, and nihilism, and she forgot even thatuppermost terror that was tearing at her heart, in that supreme momentof the rapturous recognition of love.

  We were unconscious of the fact that we were standing directly beforethe window, where we must have been for the moment in full view ofpersons passing in the street; we had forgotten everything, save eachother.

  We were both silent; there was no occasion for words; our souls werespeaking to each other in a language of their own, God-given andcomplete, which leaves nothing to be understood, which comprehends allthings.

  In such supreme moments as that one was, heart speaks to heart with acomplete understanding which passeth all human knowledge, and which canbe understood only by the two who are most concerned, and by God, whocreated such impulses.

  Presently we were back again beside the low divan. She was seated uponthe edge of it, and I was beside her, with one knee on the floor,clasping both her hands in one of mine, while the other still encircledher body, holding her tightly against me in that rhapsody of love whichoverawes all sense of understanding.

  Her head rested lightly upon my shoulder; stray tresses of her hairbrushed against my temple and my cheek; her half-parted lips, glowinglike newly opened rose-buds, never attained a distance of more than aninch from mine, and for the most part they were together, as lightningconductors of every thrill that pulsed through her being and mine.

  When our lips were not in contact, our eyes were; they were gazing intothe utmost depths of each other's soul, reading and understanding allthat was mutually expressed, charmed and fascinated by the beauteouspanoramic scenes which flittered in love-phantoms past our propheticvision.

  "My love! my love!" she murmured over and over again, as if it were allshe could utter, and as if with the use of that expression all thingswere said and done; and I replied as inevitably and comprehensively.

  It sounds inane enough in the telling of it, but meaningless phrasesand abrupt expressions may, at certain moments in our lives, expresseverything.

  Time became a blank; the world was blotted out; existence was only anincident; we, ourselves, with our bodies, our energies, ourcapabilities, had become mere atoms in the immensity of that greatestof all God's creations, Love.

  There were murderers waiting in the street to do me to death; I thankedGod for their presence, since because of it, Zara had been brought tothe confession and expression of her love for me. She was a nihilistqueen and she had played with the affections of men in order to stupefythem to her purposes, as demanded by the cause she served; but I alsothanked God for that, because its consideration and my deep resentmenthad made plain to me the real power and passion of this abundantlyglorious woman, now swayed by only one impulse, love for me.

  But, however enthralling they may be, all impulses must have an end.However complete may be love's expression, there is a limit to itscontinuance; I mean that silent form of expression which proclaimsitself only in soul communion.

  It was a period of almost utter unconsciousness, since we were bothconscious of only one thing while it lasted; but the reaction came atlast while she was still relaxed in my embrace, and while yet themystifying magic induced by contact with her, enveloped me, body andsoul.

  "Zara," I said, half whispering the word now so unutterably sweet tome, "you will leave Russia now--with me?"

  The question brought us both to our senses, with a start, and myprincess drew away from me a little, and said, with a whimsical smile:

  "A little while ago, my love, you ordered me to leave Russia, alone;now you order me away again, but under guard. I think I will obey youin this last order you have given me. Whenever you will it, I will go."

  "And leave behind you all that you have hitherto thought so much about,Zara?" I asked, brought back by her statement to a realization of theconditions by which we were surrounded. She replied without hesitation,and with a finality that was complete:

  "Yes."

  Ah, what maps of the world have been changed by that word yes. Whathistories have been written because of its utterance, even in awhispered tone, as hers was then.

  "And your nihilists?" I asked her, still intent upon an even morecomplete capitulation on her part.

  "Yes," she repeated.

  "And your brother? The cause you have served so intently? The purposeof your life? Everything, Zara?"

  "Yes," she said a third time, and still with that same emphasis offinality which could not be misunderstood, and for which there was noqualification.

  I was silent and so was she; but after a little I heard her murmuringin a tone so low that it seemed as if I scarcely heard it,notwithstanding the fact that every word was quite distinct.

  "I will leave everything for you, my love, for you are all the world tome. There is nothing else now, but you. Nihilism and the cause itupholds, has sunk into utter insignificance, and has become a merepoint in the history of my life, like a punctuating period that isplaced at the end of a written sentence. Nihilists, great and small,have become mere atoms in the mystery of creation, and they can have nofurther influence upon my life. The czar of all the Russias is no morea personage to me now, than the merest black dwarf of central Africa,and Russia itself has diminuated to a mere island in the sea ofeternity, a speck on the map of the infinite creation. You,Dubravnik----" She paused there and smiled into my eyes with aninimitable gesture of tenderness as she reached upward with her righthand and brushed back the hair from my temples--"I think I shall alwayscall you Dubravnik. The name is yours, as I have known you, and asDubravnik you are mine, as I am yours."

  My reply to this was not a spoken word, and it needs no explanation.

  "You, Dubravnik," she continued from the point where she so sweetlyinterrupted herself, "have become the universe to me, now. You are theinfinite space which comprehends all."

  It was sweet to hear her express herself so; sweeter still to know,that comprehensive as it was, it went but a little way towardexplaining all that she would have liked to say; and sweetest of all torealize that she also exactly expressed my thought toward her, and thatshe knew she did so.

  There was a long silence after that, broken only by her breathing, by amurmured word of caress, by a gesture of endearment or an occasionalsigh; but I brought it to an end presently by asking a question whichbrought her out of her reverie with a start of affright.

  "What was it, Zara, that you saw through the window when----" I did notcomplete the sentence. It was not necessary. She understood meinstantly and with the understanding there returned to her arealization of all the terrors by which we were at that momentsurrounded. We could love each other with a rhapsodical completeness,in perfect security, so long a
s we remained together inside that room;but beyond the walls of Zara's palatial home death stalked grimly,waiting, waiting, waiting, for the moment to strike.

  She withdrew from my embrace, slowly and tentatively, but surely, untilwe no longer touched each other, and she gazed appealingly into my eyeswhile the flush of love forsook her cheeks and brow, giving place to apallor of uncertainty and dread for me.

  "I had forgotten," she murmured.

  "Then continue to forget, my Zara," I whispered.

  "No, we must not forget; we must remember." She raised her hand andpointed toward the window. "Out there, Dubravnik, death waits for you.I had forgotten. I had forgotten."

  With a start she gained her feet and stood for a moment palpitatinglyuncertain, clasping and unclasping her hands, while her bosom rose andfell in this stress of an utterly new emotion.

  One whom she loved was threatened, now. The maternal instinct ofwomankind is never more prominent than when it is exercised in theprotection of the man she loves, and who is destined to be the fatherof her offspring. It is a grand and a noble sentiment, and no man liveswho will ever comprehend it; but when a man loves as I loved then, hecan appreciate its fullness, even though he may not understand it; hecan recognize its existence and presence, even though it would beimpossible for him to define it.

  And it was the maternal instinct that governed her in that moment ofterrorized realization of the dangers which threatened me.

  I had suddenly become her charge and care. She saw herself asresponsible for the conditions that menaced me, and she was like a wildpartridge sheltering its brood, and which will not hesitate to face anyperil for their protection.

  I was always more or less indifferent, if not insensible, to danger. Itmay not necessarily be bravery that refuses to recognize perils; it maybe an instinctive quality of dominance, and self-confidence which isconvinced of its power to overcome them.

  I rose and stood beside her, putting my arm around her as we faced thewindow from the opposite side of the room.

  "Out there lies danger, Zara," I said smiling, "but here, in this room,dwells happiness."

  "There can be no happiness with death waiting for you outside," shesaid, with sharp decision.

  "Zara, my love!"

  She wheeled upon me and clasped her hands together behind my neck,looking up at me with trouble-shrouded eyes, and with brows that wereslightly corrugated by the perplexities of the moment.

  "Listen to me, sweetheart," she said, with her face so close to minethat I had all I could do to refrain from interrupting her. "We mustnot belittle the perils that lie yonder. There are two lives in dangernow, for if anything should happen to you, it would kill me also. I amselfish now, Dubravnik, in my concern for you, for after all it ismyself whom I would protect, through you. But we must not belittle thedanger. I know that you are brave and daring; that you have no fear. Irealize that you view with contempt the perils that beset you, but oh,my love, suppose that you should not escape."

  "Why suppose it, Zara? I am here; the danger is there. We need notanticipate it. Let us leave it to be met at the proper moment,forgetting for this once, that it exists."

  "No, no, we must control ourselves. We have been children for an houror more, forgetful of all things save love; but now let us be what weare, a man and a woman who have perils to face."

  "And who, I trust, have the courage to meet them, Zara."

  "Ay, courage; but courage alone does not always accomplish the soughtfor end. Courage alone is not inevitably competent to meet and overcomeconditions. And we need more than courage, Dubravnik; we needresource."

  "Resource is something with which we are both moderately wellprovided," I suggested, smiling, and still refusing to accept her wordsas seriously as she intended them.

  She stamped her foot impatiently upon the rug, and frowned a little,with a touch of petulance in her manner that was the most bewitchingthing I had yet seen about her.

  "Do be your own self for a moment," she commanded me, withdrawing frommy restraining arm and stepping away out of my reach.

  "How can I be myself, when I see and realize only you?" I bantered her.

  Then came another transition almost as startling as it was complete.

  She threw herself bodily forward into my embrace, clasping her clingingarms about me, while she buried her beautiful face between my chin andshoulder and burst into a passion of sobs which convulsed her soutterly that I was alarmed.

  I had tried her too far with my bantering attitude, and my apparentindifference to a threatening and terrible fate.

  "Zara!" I said. "My love!"

  But she only sobbed on and on, and I held her crushed against me untilthe storm should pass, knowing that a great calm would succeed it, andthat her present expression of emotion was only the safety valve forall that had passed between us since the incident when our lips met forthe first time.