They looked at each other in silence.
"Yes--I know what you mean. I can read it in your eyes." He laid one hand tenderly on the girl"s head.
"Life is so strange. And human beings strangest of all. I have loved--but now I feel as one that had only dreamed strange fancies."
"But have you loved them really--in earnest? I mean, did you give them all you had to give--and can anyone give that more than once in life?"
The girl spoke softly, but with such deep feeling that the young man found no words to answer, and sat silently staring before him.
"Who can tell," he said, after a while. "I thought I had given all I had long since, and had all that could ever be given me. I felt myself poor as the poorest beggar. Then you came, unlike all the others, a wealth of hidden treasure in yourself--none had ever given me what you gave. And now--I feel myself rich, young and unspoiled, as if I were crossing the threshold of life for the first time."
"Rich--ay, you are rich--as a prince. And I am your poorest little slave, sitting at your feet. But how can anyone ever be so rich--how can it be? I can never understand."
"Do you know what I think? I think that human beings are endlessly rich and deep, like Nature itself, that is always young, and only changes from one season to another. All that has happened to me before seems now only the rising of sap in spring. Now summer comes for the first time--all calm and warmth and happiness. I have been like a fairy palace, with a splendid hall to which none could find the key.
But you had it all the time--the others could enter this little room or that, but only you had the key to the best of all."
"Is it really true, Olof? Oh, I shall remember those words for ever!"
"It is true--you were the first that taught me how deep and mysterious, how wonderful, the love of a man and a woman can be.
That it is not just a chance meeting, and after that all kisses and embraces and overflow of feeling. But a quiet, calm happiness in the blood, like the sap in the trees, invisible, yet bearing all life in itself; speechless, yet saying everything without a single touch of our lips."
"Yes," said the girl earnestly. "But did you not know that before? I have always felt it so."
"No--I did not realise that it was so intimate a part of our nature; that it was the foundation of life and happiness for all on earth. Now at last I understand that we are nothing without one another--we are as earth without water, trees without roots or mould; or as the sky without sun and moon. And I know now much that I did not know before--the secret of all existence, the power that sustains us all."
"And you know that it is _love_--the greatest of all! But why does no one ever speak of it--I mean, of love itself, not merely the name?"
"I think it must be because it is too deep and sacred a thing to talk about; we do not understand it ever until we have experienced it each for himself. And those that have--they must be silent--for it is a thing to live on, not to talk about. Do you know, I have just remembered something I once saw. Just a scene in a poor little hut--but it explains it all...."
"Something you have seen yourself?"
"Yes. It was many years ago. It was a cold winter day, and I came to this hut I was speaking of--"twas a miserable place to look at. The windows were covered with frost, and an icy draught came through cracks in the walls. Two children were sitting by the stove, warming their feet that were all red with cold; the other two were quarrelling over the last crust of bread."
"Were they so poor as that?" asked the girl, her voice quivering with sympathy.
"Poor as could be. And in a heap of rags on the bed lay the mother, with a newborn child--the fifth. The man was sitting at the table. He looked at the children on the floor, and then at the mother and her little one in bed--looked at them--and laughed! And the joy in his pale, thin face--it was a wonderful sight...."
"And the mother?" asked the girl eagerly. "Was she happy too--more than he?"
"Yes, she laughed too for joy at everything--the children, and the rags, and the draughty hut, and all. And I was so astounded I didn"t know where to look. Happy--in all that misery and wretchedness! Were they so utterly without feeling, then, that they could not cry? But now I understand it all. I know what made those poor folk happy in it all: they had found that thing we spoke of--the great secret. And it made the hut a palace for them, and the ragged children as dear as those of any king and queen--yes, they were happy."
The two sat in silence for a while. Olof felt a slight thrill pa.s.s through the girl"s body to his own.
"I see it now," said the girl at last. "A little while ago I could not see what it was that made life so deep and wonderful. And do you know, Olof--I should like to be just such a poor woman as that--frost on the windows and rags for a bed, but ... but...." Bright tears shone in her eyes.
"But--what?" he asked tenderly, taking her head in his hands.
"But with the one I loved--to be mine--all mine, for ever!" she answered, looking straight into his eyes.
Olof started. It was as if something had come between them, something restless and ill-boding that broke the soft swell of the waves on which they drifted happily--something, he knew not what, that made its presence felt.
"Or--not that perhaps--but to have something of his--something he had given me--to lie beside me in a bed of rags and smile," said the girl.
And laying her head in his lap she clung to him as if her body had been one with his.
The lamp was lit, and a little fire was burning on the hearth. The girl sat on the floor, as was her way, holding her lover"s feet in her lap--wrapped in her ap.r.o.n, as if they were her own.
"Go on working--I won"t disturb you," she said, "only sit here and warm your feet and look at you."
Olof gave her a quick, warm glance, and turned to his work again.
"Olof," said the girl, after a pause, "what shall I have to hold in my lap when you are gone?"
She looked up at him helplessly, as if he alone could aid her.
Olof made a movement of impatience, as if he had made an error in his reckoning that was hard to put right.
"Nothing, I suppose," he said at last, trying to speak lightly. "You had nothing before, you know."
"Ah, but that was different. Now, I must have something."
There was a strange ring in her voice--the young man laid down his pen and sat staring into the fire. It was like talking to a child--a queer child, full of feeling, knowing and imagining more than its elders often did. But still and for ever a child, asking simple questions now that were hard to answer without hurt.
The girl watched him anxiously.
"Don"t be angry, Olof," she said entreatingly. "It"s very silly of me, I know. Go on with your work, and don"t bother about me. Do--or I shall be so sorry."
"You are so quick to feel things," said he, pressing her hand. "I"ll talk to you about it all another time--do you understand?"
"Yes--another time. Don"t think any more about it now."
But the words echoed insistently in his ears, with a hollow ring--as if he had spoken carelessly, to be rid of a child"s questioning for the time. He took up his pen again, but could not work, only sat drawing squares and interrogations on the margin of the paper.
The girl moved closer, laid her cheek against his knee, and closed her eyes. But her mind was working still, and the light of a sudden impulse shone in her eyes when she looked up at him.
"Olof," she asked eagerly, "are you very busy?"
"No--no. What then?" From the tone of her voice he knew she had something important to say.
"There was just an old story that came into my mind--may I tell it to you, now?"
"Yes, yes, do," said Olof, with a sense of relief. "You are the only girl I have ever met who could tell fairy tales--and make them up yourself too."
"This is not one I made up myself. I heard it long ago," she answered.
"Well, and how does it begin?" said Olof briskly, taking her hands.
""Once upon a time..."?"