Richard Le Gallienne

“ And, as she gazed at herself in the clear water, with a girlish happiness in her own beauty, a shadow fell over the pond; and, startled, she saw beside her own face in the mirror the face of a beautiful young knight, so it seemed, bending over her shoulder. In fear and maiden modesty—for her hair was only half braided, and, whiter than any water-lily in the [Pg 44] pond, her bosom glowed bare in the morning sunlight—she turned around, and met the eyes of the King.
Without moving, each gazed at the other as in a dream—eyes lost fathom-deep in eyes. ”

“ And the man with the strange wheel answered:
"I am the maker of rainbows. I am the alchemist of hope. To me November is always May, tears are always laughter that is going to be, and darkness is light misunderstood. The sad heart makes its own sorrow, the happy heart makes its own joy. The harvest is made by the harvestman—and there is nothing hard or black or weary that is not waiting for the magic touch of hope to become soft as a spring flower, bright as the morning star, and valiant as a young runner in the dawn." ”

“ Surely our good angel heard us, and sent them in answer."
"It is true," said the young man. "They were sent to fulfil our dream."
"Our poor starved and tattered dream!" said the girl. "How splendidly we can clothe and feed it now! What a fine house we can build for it to live in! It shall eat from gold and silver plate, and it shall wear robes of wonderful silks and lawns like rainbows, and glitter with jewels, blue and yellow and ruby, jewels like fire fountains and the depths of the sea." ”

“ When, out of the great leathern bag, in Lord Mortimer's cabinet they poured upon the table the sorrows of Beethorpe, the young lord smiled to himself, turning over one sorrow after the other, as though they had been precious stones—for there was not one genuine sorrow among them.
But, later, there came news to him that there was one real sorrow in Beethorpe; and he rode alone on horseback to the village, and found a beautiful girl laying flowers on a grave. She was so beautiful that he forgot his ancient grief, and he thought that all his castles would be but a poor exchange for her face. ”

“ The nearest village was miles away on the mainland, and for months at a time the solitude would be undisturbed by sound of human voice or footstep—which was the poet's idea of happiness. The world of men had seemed to him a world of sorrow and foolishness and lies, and so he had forsaken it to dwell with silence and beauty and the sound of the sea. ”

“ The sun was hardly above the tops of the trees when she had awakened from sleep at the mossy foot of a giant beech, and its first beams were casting a solemn enchantment across a great pool of water-lilies and filling their ivory cups with strange gold. She had lain still a while, watching through her sleepy eyelids the unfolding marvel of the dawn; and then rousing herself, she had knelt by the pool, and letting down her long hair that fell almost to her feet had combed and braided it, with the pool for her mirror—a mirror with water-lilies for its frame. ”

“ And the longer he gazed on the fair, shining vision, the more the longing grew within him to possess it for himself.
"They shall have my treasure in exchange," he said to himself, approaching nearer to the sleepers, treading softly lest he should awaken them. But they slept on, lost in the profound slumber of innocent youth. As he drew near, the dream shrank from him, with fear in its starry eyes; but it seemed the more beautiful to the old man the closer he came to it and saw of what divine radiance it was made; and, with his desire, his confidence grew greater. ”

“ The priest looked, and then looked again into the duke's eyes, and ten years of weariness fell from his face also, and a great joy returned.
"Thank God! we are saved," the duke and the priest exclaimed together, and fell laughing upon each other's shoulders. For the arms floating from the tower of the palace were the arms of the usurper, and the king that cared not to be a king had lost his kingdom.
And, while they were still rejoicing together, there came the sound of many horsemen from the direction of the city, a cavalcade of many glittering spears. ”

“ It is seldom that courage fails to wrest for us some recompense from the hardest situation, and the sleepless man, as night after night he fought with his fate, did not miss such hard-wrung rewards. Often, as in the deepest hush of the night he wearily took up some great old book of philosopher or poet familiar to him from his youth, a sudden strange new light would shine out of its pages, as of some inner radiance of truth which he had missed in his daylight reading. ”

“ Of what use is a dream to any one? And what more dream do you want than gold and precious stones?"
"Ah! our dream," said the lovers, "is worth all the gold and jewels in the world."
Sometimes others would come, bringing their own dreams.
"Take this," they would say, "and give us your treasure."
But the lovers would shake their heads sadly.
"No, your dreams are not so beautiful as ours. No other dream can take its place. We can only be happy with our own dream." ”

“ And again they smiled together; but the [Pg 79] smile on the face of the king was weary beyond all human words: because of all the perils that beset a man, the one peril he had feared was the peril of being made a king, of all the sorrows that sorrow, of all the foolishness that foolishness; for vanity had long since passed away from his heart, and the bees and the blossoms of his garden seemed just as worthy of his care as that swarming hive of ambitious human wasps and earwigs over which he was thus summoned by sound of trumpet, that happy summer afternoon—to be the king. ”

“ A thousand villages and ten thousand farms were in the hollow of his hand, and into his coffers flowed the fruitfulness and labor of all these. Therefore, as you can imagine, he was a very rich lord. He had more beautiful titles, denoting the various principalities over which he was lord, than the deepest-lunged herald could proclaim without taking breath at least three times. In person he was most noble and beautiful to look upon, and his voice was like the rippling of waters under the moon, save when it was like the call of a golden trumpet. ”

“ The King's love was still hers as when he found her at dawn by the pool in the forest; and, in exchange for the tattered rags which had barely concealed the water-lily whiteness of her body, countless wardrobes were filled with garments of every variety of subtle design and exquisite fabric, textures light as the golden sun, purple as the wine-dark sea, iridescent as the rainbow, and soft as summer clouds—the better [Pg 43] to set off her strange beauty for the eyes of the King. ”

“ THE PRINCESS'S MIRROR
he sun was scarcely risen, but the young princess was already seated by her window. Never did window open upon a scene of such enchantment. Never has the dawn risen over so fair a land. Meadows so fresh and grass so green, rivers of such mystic silver and far mountains so majestically purple, no eye has seen outside of Paradise; and over all was now outspread the fairy-land of the morning sky.
Even a princess might rise early to behold so magic a spectacle. ”

“ And, after its fashion, the world had decided that here was plainly the work of the devil, and that the poet was a wizard in league with the powers of darkness. So the ignorant world has ever interpreted the beauty it could not understand, and the happiness it could not give.
Thus a cloud began to gather of which the poet and his mer-wife and little Mother-of-Pearl knew nothing, and one evening at moonrise, as they were disporting themselves in their innocent happiness by the sea, it burst upon them from the beech-trees with a gathering murmur and a sudden roar. ”

“ So, at length, after a day's journey, the peaceful valley was reached where the poet lay at rest among the simple peasants whom he had loved—kindly folk who still carried his songs in their hearts, and sang them at evening to their babies [Pg 84] and sweethearts, and each day brought flowers to his green, bird-haunted grave.
When the duke came and bowed his head in that quiet place, carrying in his hands a wreath of laurel, his heart was much moved by their simple flowers lying there, fresh and glittering, as with new-shed tears ”

“ Meanwhile, he starved and wandered the country roads, homeless and foodless: his breakfast the morning star, his supper the rising moon. But, sad as was his heart, and empty as was his stomach, laughter still flickered in his tired eyes; and he possessed, too, a very shrewd mind, as a man who sells butterflies must. Making his breakfast of blackberries one September morning, in the middle of an old wood, with the great cages of bramble overladen with the fruit of the solitude, an idea came to him. ”

“ THE KING ON HIS WAY TO BE CROWNED
n a green outlying corner of the kingdom of Bohemia, one summer afternoon, the Grand Duke Stanislaus was busy in his garden, swarming a hive of bees. He was a tall, middle-aged man of a scholarly, almost priest-like, type, a gentle-mannered recluse, living only in his books and his garden, and much loved by the country-folk for the simple kindness of his heart. He had the most winning of smiles, and a playful wisdom radiated from his wise, rather weary eyes. No man had ever heard him utter a harsh word ”

“ Suddenly a look of fear came over his face; he seemed to hear voices coming up the wood, and, huddling his treasure swiftly back again into the leathern bag, and the bag into the folds of his pack, he rose and sought some bushes near by to hide himself from the sight of whomsoever it was that approached. But, as he shouldered his pack, he half staggered, for the pack was of great weight and he heaved a deep sigh.
"It grows heavier and heavier," he muttered. "I cannot carry it much longer. I shall never be able to carry it with me to the grave." ”

“ As the minstrel gazed and gazed at the beautiful face, he understood that he could no more sell the mirror than he could sell his own soul—and, in his pilgrimage through the world, he had received many offers for his soul. ”

“ But meanwhile the two lovers had gone from village to village, and city to city, vainly asking news of their dream. And to every one they asked they showed their treasure and said:
"This is all yours if you can but give us back our dream."
But nowhere could they learn any tidings, but gleaned only mockery and derision.
"You must be mad," said some, "to seek a dream when you have all that wealth in your pack. ”

“ So he sat his horse, while the villagers of Beethorpe were paid out of a great leathern bag by the steward—for the steward understood the mind of his master, and, without troubling him, paid each weeping and whimpering peasant as he thought fit.
In another great bag the steward had collected the sorrows of the Village of Beethorpe; and, by this, the moon was rising, and, with another blast of trumpet by way of farewell, the three horsemen took the road again to Lord Mortimer's castle. ”

“ Think of being the king of so foul a kingdom—when one might be the king—of a garden.
But in spite of his reluctance, the good duke at length admitted the truth urged upon him by the good priest—that there are sacred duties inherited by those born in high places and to noble destinies from which there is no honorable escape, and, on the priest agreeing to be the Archbishop of Bohemia, he resigned himself to being its king. ”

“ Tenderly would the good duke step from his carriage and watch her with his gentle smile—not, doubtless, without sly laughter in his heart, and an understanding glance from the priest, that so humble and helpless a creature should for once have it in its power thus to delay so much worldly pomp and vanity. ”

“ Thus he came in contact with all the vast nocturnal labor of the world, the toil of sleepless men who keep watch over the sleeping earth, and work through the night to make it ready for the new-born day; all that labor which is put away and forgotten with the rising of the sun, and of which the day asks no questions, so that the result be there. ”

“ The King placed the coffer in a secret gallery attached to the royal apartments, and very tenderly he placed therein the little tattered gown and the lute with which his Queen was wont to wander from village to village and town to town, singing her little songs.
Often at evening, when his heart brimmed over with the tenderness of his love, he would persuade his Queen to doff her beautiful royal garments and clothe herself again in that little tattered gown, through the rents of which her white body showed whiter than any water-lilies. ”

“ As he disappeared among the bushes, a young man and a young woman, with arms twined round each other, came slowly up the glade and presently sat down at the foot of the tree where the old man had been resting a moment or two before.
"Why, what is this?" presently exclaimed the young girl, picking up something bright out of the grass. It was a gold coin, which, in his haste, the old man had let slip through his fingers. ”

“ The little clown explained his profession and his need of an engagement; and stood there, hat in hand, with tremulous knees.
The circus proprietor looked at him a long time in contemptuous silence, and then, with an ugly sneer, said:
"Have you ever had your heart broken?"
"Indeed I have," answered the clown. "For to have your heart broken is part of the business of a clown."
"How many times?"
"Six."
"Not enough," answered the proprietor, roughly, turning again to his lunch with the Columbine. "Get it broken again and come back; then perhaps we can talk business." ”

“ By whatever means he might weary himself in the day—in study, in sport, in recreation, or in the business of the realm—night found him sleepless, and all the dark hours the lights burned in his bedchamber and in his library, as he would pace from one to the other, with eyes tragically awake and brain torturingly alert and clear. ”

“ She must always leave him at the edge of the mysterious woods in which her heart ached to wander, and, however far out into the wide waters he would swim at her side, there would always be those deep-sea grottoes and flower-gardens whither he could never follow. ”