But suddenly the G.o.ddess stopped ... and at once all the nymphs following her stopped. The ringing laughter died away.

I see the face of the hushed G.o.ddess overspread with a deadly pallor; I saw her feet grew rooted to the ground, her lips parted in unutterable horror; her eyes grew wide, fixed on the distance ... What had she seen? What was she gazing upon?

I turned where she was gazing ...

And on the distant sky-line, above the low strip of fields, gleamed, like a point of fire the golden cross on the white bell-tower of a Christian church.... That cross the G.o.ddess had caught sight of.

I heard behind me a long, broken sigh, like the quiver of a broken string, and when I turned again, no trace was left of the nymphs.... The broad forest was green as before, and only here and there among the thick network of branches, were fading gleams of something white; whether the nymphs'

white robes, or a mist rising from the valley, I know not.

But how I mourned for those vanished G.o.ddesses!

_Dec. 1878._

FRIEND AND ENEMY

A prisoner, condemned to confinement for life, broke out of his prison and took to head-long flight.... After him, just on his heels flew his gaolers in pursuit.

He ran with all his might.... His pursuers began to be left behind.

But behold, before him was a river with precipitous banks, a narrow, but deep river.... And he could not swim!

A thin rotten plank had been thrown across from one bank to the other. The fugitive already had his foot upon it.... But it so happened that just there beside the river stood his best friend and his bitterest enemy.

His enemy said nothing, he merely folded his arms; but the friend shrieked at the top of his voice: 'Heavens! What are you doing? Madman, think what you're about! Don't you see the plank's utterly rotten? It will break under your weight, and you will inevitably perish!'

'But there is no other way to cross ... and don't you hear them in pursuit?' groaned the poor wretch in despair, and he stepped on to the plank.

'I won't allow it!... No, I won't allow you to rush to destruction!' cried the zealous friend, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed the plank from under the fugitive. The latter instantly fell into the boiling torrent, and was drowned.

The enemy smiled complacently, and walked away; but the friend sat down on the bank, and fell to weeping bitterly over his poor ... poor friend!

To blame himself for his destruction did not however occur to him ... not for an instant.

'He would not listen to me! He would not listen!' he murmured dejectedly.

'Though indeed,' he added at last. 'He would have had, to be sure, to languish his whole life long in an awful prison! At any rate, he is out of suffering now! He is better off now! Such was bound to be his fate, I suppose!

'And yet I am sorry, from humane feeling!'

And the kind soul continued to sob inconsolably over the fate of his misguided friend.

_Dec. 1878._

CHRIST

I saw myself, in dream, a youth, almost a boy, in a low-pitched wooden church. The slim wax candles gleamed, spots of red, before the old pictures of the saints.

A ring of coloured light encircled each tiny flame. Dark and dim it was in the church.... But there stood before me many people. All fair-haired, peasant heads. From time to time they began swaying, falling, rising again, like the ripe ears of wheat, when the wind of summer pa.s.ses in slow undulation over them.

All at once some man came up from behind and stood beside me.

I did not turn towards him; but at once I felt that this man was Christ.

Emotion, curiosity, awe overmastered me suddenly. I made an effort ... and looked at my neighbour.

A face like every one's, a face like all men's faces. The eyes looked a little upwards, quietly and intently. The lips closed, but not compressed; the upper lip, as it were, resting on the lower; a small beard parted in two. The hands folded and still. And the clothes on him like every one's.

'What sort of Christ is this?' I thought. 'Such an ordinary, ordinary man!

It can't be!'

I turned away. But I had hardly turned my eyes away from this ordinary man when I felt again that it really was none other than Christ standing beside me.

Again I made an effort over myself.... And again the same face, like all men's faces, the same everyday though unknown features.

And suddenly my heart sank, and I came to myself. Only then I realised that just such a face--a face like all men's faces--is the face of Christ.

_Dec. 1878._

THE STONE

[1879-1882]

Have you seen an old grey stone on the seash.o.r.e, when at high tide, on a sunny day of spring, the living waves break upon it on all sides--break and frolic and caress it--and sprinkle over its sea-mossed head the scattered pearls of sparkling foam?

The stone is still the same stone; but its sullen surface blossoms out into bright colours.

They tell of those far-off days when the molten granite had but begun to harden, and was all aglow with the hues of fire.

Even so of late was my old heart surrounded, broken in upon by a rush of fresh girls' souls ... and under their caressing touch it flushed with long-faded colours, the traces of burnt-out fires!

The waves have ebbed back ... but the colours are not yet dull, though a cutting wind is drying them.

_May 1879._