The Purple Cloud

by M. P. Shiel

one just under the crane that is anair-boat--you have seen me turn on the air, haven't you?--that handle onthe right as you descend the steps under the dial-thing--get first abucket of oil from the shop next to the clock-tower in the quay-street,and throw it over everything that you see rusted. Only, spend notime--for me, my heaven! You can steer by the tiller and compass: well,the wheel is quite the same, only just the opposite. First unmoor, thento the handle, then to the wheel. The course is directly North-East byNorth. I will meet you on the sea--go now--'

  I was wild with bliss. I thought that I should take her between my arms,and have the little freckles against my face, and taste her shortfirm-fleshed upper-lip, and moan upon her, and whimper upon her, andmutter upon her, and say 'My wife.' And even when I knew that she wasgone from the telephone, I still stood there, hoarsely calling afterher: 'My wife! My wife!'

  * * * * *

  I flew down to where the steamer lay moored that had borne me theprevious day. Her joint speed with the speed of Leda's boat would beforty knots: in three hours we must meet. I had not the least fear ofher dying before I saw her: for, apart from the deliberate movement ofthe vapour that first time, I fore-tasted and trusted my love, that shewould surely come, and not fail: as dying saints fore-tasted and trustedEternal Life.

  I was no sooner on board the _Stettin_ than her engines were strainingunder what was equivalent to forced draught. On the previous day itwould have little surprised me at any moment, while I drove her, to becarried to the clouds in an explosion from her deep-rusted steel tanks:but this day such a fear never crossed my mind: for I knew very wellthat I was immortal till I saw her.

  The sea was not only perfectly smooth, but placid, as on the previousday: only it seemed far placider, and the sun brighter, and there was alevity in the breezes that frilled the sea in fugitive dark patches,like _frissons_ of tickling; and I thought that the morning was a truemarriage-morning, and remembered that it was a Sabbath; and sweet odoursour wedding would not lack of peach and almond, though, lookingeastward, I could see no faintest sign of any purple cloud, but onlyrags of chiffon under the sun; and it would be an eternal wedding, forone day in our sight would be as a thousand years, and our thousandyears of bliss would be but one day, and in the evening of all thateternity death would come and sweetly lay its finger upon our languidlids, and we should die of weary bliss; and all manner of dancings andsingings--fandango and light galliard, corantoes and the solemngavotte--were a-tune in my heart that happy day; and running by thechart-house to the wheel, I saw under the table a great roll of oldflags, and presently they were flying in a long curve of gala from themain; and the sea rumpled in a long tract of tumbling milk behind me;and I hasted homeward, to meet my heart.

  * * * * *

  No purple cloud could I see as, on and on, for two hours, I toresouthward: but at hot noon, on the weather beam I spied through theglass across the water something else which moved, and it was you whocame to me, Oh Leda, my spirit's breath!

  I bore down upon her, waving: and soon I saw her stand like an ancientmariner, but in white muslins that fluttered, at her wheel on thebridge--it was one of those little old Havre-Antwerp craft very high inthe bows--and she waved a little white thing. And we came nearer, till Icould spy her face, her smile, and I shouted her to stop, and in aminute stopped myself, and by happy steering came with slowing headwayto a slight crash by her side, and ran down the trellised steps to her,and led her up; and on the deck, without saying a word, I fell to myknees before her, and I bowed my brow to the floor, with obeisance, andI worshipped her there as Heaven.

  And we were wedded: for she, too, bowed the knee with me under thejovial blue sky; and under her eyes were the little moist semicircles ofdreamy pensive fatigue, so dear and wifish: and God was there, and sawher kneel: for He loves the girl.

  And I got the two ships apart, and they rested there some yards dividedall the day, and we were in the main-deck cabin, where I had locked adoor, so that no one might come in to be with my love and me.

  * * * * *

  I said to her:

  'We will fly west to one of the Somersetshire coal-mines, or to one ofthe Cornwall tin-mines, and we will barricade ourselves against thecloud, and provision ourselves for six months--for it is perfectlyfeasible, and we have plenty of time, and no crowds to break down ourbarricades--and there in the deep earth we will live sweetly together,till the danger is overpast.'

  And she smiled, and drew her hand across my face, and said:

  'No, no: don't you tlust in my God? do you think He would leally let medie?'

  For she has appropriated the Almighty God to herself, naming Him '_my_God'--the impudence: though she generally knows what she is saying, too.And she would not fly the cloud.

  And I am now writing three weeks later at a little place calledChateau-les-Roses, and no poison-cloud, and no sign of any poison-cloud,has come. And this I do not understand.

  It may be that she divined that I was about to destroy myself ... shemay be quite capable.... But no, I do not understand, and shall neverask her.

  But _this_ I understand: that it is _the White_ who is Master here: thatthough he wins but by a hair, yet he wins, he wins: and since he wins,dance, dance, my heart.

  I look for a race that shall resemble its Mother: nimble-witted,light-minded, pious--like her; all-human, ambidextrous, ambicephalous,two-eyed--like her; and if, like her, they talk the English languagewith all the r's turned into l's, I shall not care.

  They will be vegetable-eaters, I suppose, when all the meat now extantis eaten up: but it is not certain that meat is good for men: and if itis really good, then they will _invent_ a meat: for they will be _her_sons, and she, to the furthest cycle in which the female human mind ispermitted to orbit, is, I swear, all-wise.

  There was a preaching man--a Scotchman he was, named Macintosh, orsomething like that--who said that the last end of Man shall be well,and very well: and she says the same: and the agreement of these twomakes a Truth. And to that I now say: Amen, Amen.

  For I, Adam Jeffson, second Parent of the world, hereby lay down,ordain, and decree for all time, clearly perceiving it now: That the oneMotto and Watch-word essentially proper to each human individual, and tothe whole Race of Man, as distinct from other races in heaven or inearth, was always, and remains, even this: 'Though He slay me, yet willI trust in Him.'

  THE END.