The Purple Cloud

by M. P. Shiel

all the hopeless things the mosthopeless, for the world is great--and I sought and did not find her; andafter three days I turned back, recognising that I was mad to search theinfinite, and coming near the Chateau, I saw her wave her handkerchieffrom the island-edge, for she divined that I had gone to seek her, andshe was watching for me: and when I took her hand, what did she say tome, the Biblical simpleton?--'Oh you of little Faith!' says she. And shehad adventures to lisp, with all the _r_'s liquefied into _l_'s, and Iwas with her all that day again.

  Once a month perhaps she would knock at my outermost door, which Imostly kept locked when at home, bringing me a sumptuously-dressed,highly-spiced red trout or grayling, which I had not the heart torefuse, and exquisitely she does them, all hot and spiced, applyingapparently to their preparation the taste which she applies to dress;and her extraordinary luck in angling did not fail to supply her withthe finest specimens, though, for that matter, this lake, with its oldfish-hatcheries and fish-ladders, is not miserly in that way, swarmingnow with the best lake trout, river trout, red trout, and with salmon,of which last I have brought in one with the landing-net of, I shouldsay, thirty-five to forty pounds. As the bottom goes off very rapidlyfrom the two islands to a depth of eight to nine hundred feet, we didnot long confine ourselves to bottom-fishing, but gradually advanced toevery variety of manoeuvre, doing middle-water spinning withthree-triangle flights and sliding lip-hook for jack and trout, trailingwith the sail for salmon, live-baiting with the float for pike, dapingwith blue-bottles, casting with artificial flies, and I could not say inwhich she became the most carelessly adept, for all soon seemed as oldand natural to her as an occupation learned from birth.

  * * * * *

  On the 21st October I attained my forty-sixth birthday in excellenthealth: a day destined to end for me in bloodshed and tragedy, alas. Iforget now what circumstance had caused me to mention the date longbeforehand in, I think, Venice, not dreaming that she would keep anycount of it, nor was I even sure that my calendar was not faulty by aday. But at ten in the morning of what I called the 21st, descending bymy private spiral in flannels with some trout and par bait, andtackle--I met her coming up, my God, though she had no earthly right tobe there. With her cooing murmur of a laugh, yet pale, pale, and with amost guilty look, she presented me a large bouquet of wild flowers.

  I was at once thrown into a state of great agitation. She was dressed inrather a frippery of _mousseline de soie_, all cream-laced, withwide-hanging short sleeves, a large diamond at the low open neck, theivory-brown skin there contrasting with the powdered bluish-white of herface, where, however, the freckles were not quite whited out; on herfeet little pink satin slippers, without any stockings--a divinely palepink; and well back on her hair a plain thin circlet of gold; and shesmelled like heaven, God knows.

  I could not speak. She broke an awkward silence, saying, very faint andpallid:

  'It is the day!'

  'I--perhaps--' I said, or some incoherency like that.

  I saw the touch of enthusiasm which she had summoned up quenched by mymanner.

  'I have not done long again?' she asked, looking down, breaking anothersilence.

  'No, no, oh no,' said I hurriedly: 'not done wrong again. Only, I couldnot suppose that you would count up the days. You are ... considerate.Perhaps--but--'

  'Tell Leda?'

  'Perhaps.... I was going to say ... you might come fishing with me....'

  'O luck!' she went softly.

  I was pierced by a sense of my base cowardice, my incredible weakness:but I could not at all help it.

  I took the flowers, and we went down to the south side, where my boatlay; I threw out some of the fish from the well; arranged the tackle,and then the stern cushions for her; got up the sails; and out we went,she steering, I in the bows, with every possible inch of space betweenus, receiving delicious intermittent whiffs from her of ambergris,frangipane, or some blending of perfumes, the morning being bright andhot, with very little breeze on the water, which looked mottled, likecolourless water imperfectly mixed with indigo-wash, we making littleheadway; so it was some time before I moved nearer her to get the parfor fixing on the three-triangle flight, for I was going to trail forsalmon or large lake-trout; and during all that time we spoke not a wordtogether.

  Afterwards I said:

  'Who told you that flowers are proper to birthdays? or that birthdaysare of any importance?'

  'I suppose that nothing can happen so important as birth,' says she:'and perfumes must be ploper to birth, because the wise men bloughtspices to the young Jesus.'

  This _naivete_ was the cause of my immediate recovery: for to laugh isto be saved: and I laughed right out, saying:

  'But you read the Bible too much! all your notions are biblical. Youshould read the quite modern books.'

  'I have tlied,' says she: 'but I cannot lead them long, nor often. Thewhole world seems to have got so collupted. It makes me shudder.'

  'Ah, well now, you see, you quite come round to my point of view,' saidI.

  'Yes, and no,' says she: 'they had got so _spoiled_, that is all.Everlybody seems to have become quite dull-witted--the plainest tluthsthey could not see. I can imagine that those faculties which aided themin their stlain to become lich themselves, and make the lest more poor,must have been gleatly sharpened, while all the other facultieswithered: as I can imagine a person with one eye seeing double thloughit, and quite blind on the other side.'

  'Ah,' said I, 'I do not think they even _wanted_ to see on the otherside. There were some few tolerably good and clear-sighted ones amongthem, you know: and these all agreed in pointing out how, by changingone or two of their old man-in-the-moon Bedlam arrangements, they couldgreatly better themselves: but they heard with listless ears: I don'tknow that they ever made any considerable effort. For they had becomemore or less unconscious of their misery, so miserable were they: likethe man in Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon," who, when his deliverers came,was quite indifferent, for he says:

  "It was at length the same to me Fettered or fetterless to be: I had learned to love Despair."'

  'Oh my God,' she went, covering her face a moment, 'how dleadful! Andit is tlue, it seems tlue:--they had learned to love Despair, to be evenploud of Despair. Yet all the time, I feel _sure_ flom what I have lead,flom what I scent, that the individual man was stluggling to see, tolive light, but without power, like one's leg when it is asleep: that isso pletty of them all! that they meant well--everly one. But they weretoo tloubled and sad, too awfully burdened: they had no chance at all.Such a queer, unnatulal feeling it gives me to lead of all that world: Ican't desclibe it; all their motives seem so tainted, their life solopsided. Tluely, the whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint.'

  'Quite so,' said I: 'and observe that this was no new thing: in the verybeginning of the Book we read how God saw that the wickedness of man wasgreat on the earth, and every imagination of his heart evil....'

  'Yes,' she interrupted, 'that is tlue: but there must have been some_cause!_ We can be quite _sure_ that it was not natulal, because you andI are men, and our hearts are not evil.'

  This was her great argument which she always trotted out, because shefound that I had usually no answer to give to it. But this time I said:

  'Our hearts not evil? Say yours: but as to mine you know nothing,Leda.'

  The semicircles under her eyes had that morning, as often, a certainmoist, heavy, pensive and weary something, as of one fresh from a revel,very sweet and tender: and, looking softly at me with it, she answered:

  'I know my own heart, and it is not evil: not at all: not even in thevery least: and I know yours, too.'

  'You know _mine!_' cried I, with a half-laugh of surprise.

  'Quite well,' says she.

  I was so troubled by this cool assurance, that I said not a word, butgoing to her, handed her the baited flight, swivel-trace, and line,which she paid out; then I got back again almost into the bows.

  After a ten-
minutes I spoke again:

  'So this is news to me: you know all about my heart. Well, come, tell mewhat is in it!'

  Now she was silent, pretending to be busy with the trail, till she said,speaking with low-bent face, and a voice that I could only just hear:

  'I will tell you what is in it: in it is a lebellion which you thinkgood, but is not good. If a stleam will just flow, neither tlying toclimb upward, nor over-flowing its banks, but lunning modestly in itsfated channel just wherever it is led, then it will finally leach thesea--the mighty ocean--and lose itself in fulness.'

  'Ah,' said I, 'but that counsel is not new. It is what the philosophersused to call "yielding to Destiny," and "following Nature." And Destinyand Nature, I give you my word, often