Fantastics and other Fancies/The Gipsy's Story
THE GIPSY'S STORY[1]
The summer's day had been buried in Charlemagne splendors of purple and gold; the Spanish sable of the night glittered with its jewel-belt of stars. The young moon had not yet lifted the silver horns of her Moslem standard in the far east. We were sailing over lukewarm waves, rising and falling softly as the breast of a sleeper; winds from the south bore to us a drowsy perfume of lemon-blossoms; and the yellow lights among the citron trees seemed, as we rocked upon the long swell, like the stars of Joseph's dream doing obeisance. Far beyond them a giant pharos glared at us with its single Cyclopean eye of bloodshot fire, dyeing the face of the pilot crimson as a pomegranate. At intervals the sea amorously lipped the smooth flanks of the vessel with a sharp sound; and ghostly fires played about our prow. Seated upon a coil of rope a guitarrista sang, improvising as he sang, one of those sweetly monotonous ballads which the Andalusian gypsies term soleariyas. Even now the rich tones of that solitary voice vibrate in our memory, almost as on that perfumed sea, under the light of summer stars:—
Sera,
Para mi er mayo delirio
Berte y no poerte habla.
Gacho,
Gacho que no hab ya motas
Es un barco sin timon.
Por ti.
Las horitas e la noche
Me las paso sin dormi.
Sereno,
No de oste la boz tan arta
Que quieo donni y no pueo.
Marina,
Con que te lavas la cara
Que la tienes tan dibina?
Why he told me his story I know not: I know only that our hearts understood each other.
*
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"Of my mother," he said, "I knew little when a child; I only remember her in memories vague as dreams, and perhaps in dreams also. For there are years of our childhood so mingled with dreams that we cannot discern through memory the shadow from the substance. But in those times I was forever haunted by a voice that spoke a tongue only familiar to me in after years, and by a face I do not ever remember to have kissed.
"A clear, dark face, strong and delicate, with sharp crescent brows and singularly large eyes, liquidly black, bending over me in my sleep—the face of a tall woman. There was something savage even in the tenderness of the great luminous eyes,—such a look as the hunter finds in the eyes of fierce birds when he climbs to their nests above the clouds; and this dark dream-face filled me with strange love and fear. The hair, flowing back from her temples in long ripples of jet, was confined by a broad silver comb curved and gleaming like a new moon.
"And at last when these dreams came upon me, and the half-fierce, loving eyes looked upon me in the night, I would awake and go out under the stars and sob.
"A vast unrest possessed me; a new heat throbbed in my veins, and I heard forever flute-tones of a strange voice, speaking in an unknown tongue;—but far, far off, like the sounds of words broken and borne away in fragments by some wandering wind.
"Ocean breezes sang in my ears the song of waves,—of waves chanting the deep hymn that no musician can learn,—the mystic hymn whereof no human ear may ever discern the words,—the magical hymn that is older than the world, and weirder than the moon.
"The winds of the woods bore me odors of tears of spicy gums and the sounds of bird-voices sweeter than the plaint of running water, and whispers of shaking shadows, and the refrain of that mighty harp-song which the pines sing, and the vaporous souls of flowers, and the mysteries of succubus-vines that strangle the oaks with love.
"Winds also, piercing and cold as Northern eyes, came to me from the abysses of the rocks, and from peaks whose ermine of snow has never since the being of the world felt the pressure of a bird's foot; and they sang Runic chants of mountain freedom, where the lightnings cross their flickerings. And with these winds came also shadows of birds, far circling above me, with eyes fierce and beautiful as the eyes of my dream.
*
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"So that a great envy came upon me of the winds and waves and birds that circle forever with the eternal circling of the world. Nightly the large eyes, half fierce, half tender, glimmered through my sleep:—phantom winds called to me, and shadowy seas chanted through their foam-flecked lips runes weird as the Runes of Odin.
*
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"And I hated cities with the hatred of the camel,—the camel that sobs and moans on beholding afar, on the yellow rim of the desert, the corpse-white finger of a minaret pointing to the dome of Mahomet's heaven.
"Also I hated the rumble of traffic and the roar of the race for gold; the shadows of palaces on burning streets; the sound of toiling feet; the black breath of towered chimneys; and the vast machines, forever laboring with sinews of brass, and panting with heart of steam and steel.
"Only loved I the eyes of night and the women eyes that haunted me,—the silence of rolling plains, the whispers of untrodden woods, the shadows of flying birds and fleeting clouds, the heaving emerald of waves, the silver lamentation of brooks, the thunder roll of that mighty hymn of hexameters which the ocean must eternally sing to the stars.
*
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"Once, and once only, did I speak to my father of the dark and beautiful dream that floated to me on the misty waves of sleep. Once, and once only; for I beheld his face grow whiter than the face of Death.
*
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"Encompassed about by wealth and pleasure, I still felt like a bird in a cage of gold. Books I loved only because they taught me mysteries of sky and sea—the alchemy of suns, the magic of seasons, the marvels of lands to which we long forever to sail, yet may never see. But I loved wild rides by night, and long wrestling with waves silver-kissed by the moon, and the musky breath of woods, where wild doves wandered from shadow to shadow, cooing love. And the strange beauty of the falcon face, that haunted me forever, chilled my heart to the sun-haired maidens who sought our home, fair like tall idols of ivory and gold.
"Often, in the first pinkness of dawn, I rose from a restless sleep to look upon a mirror; thirsting to find in my own eyes some dark kindred with the eyes of my dreams; and often I felt in my veins the blood of a strange race, not my father's.
"I saw birds flying to the perfumed South; I watched the sea gulls seeking warmer coasts; I cursed the hawks for their freedom,—I cursed the riches that were the price of my bondage to civilization, the pleasures that were the guerdon of my isolation among a people not my own.
—"'O that I were a cloud,' I cried, 'to drift forever with the hollow wind!—O that I were a wave to pass from ocean to ocean, and chant my freedom in foam upon the rocks of a thousand coasts!—that I might live even as the eagle, who may look into the face of the everlasting sun!'
"So the summer of my life came upon me, with a madness of longing for freedom—a freedom as of winds and waves and birds—and a vague love for that unknown people whose wild blood made fever in my veins,—until one starless night I fled my home forever.
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"I slumbered in the woods at last; the birds were singing in the emerald shadows above when I awoke. A tall girl, lithe as a palm, swarthy as Egypt, was gazing upon me. My heart almost ceased to beat. I beheld in the wild beauty of her dark face as it were the shadow of the face that had haunted me; and in the midnight of her eyes the eyes of my dream. Circles of thin gold were in her ears;—her brown arms and feet were bare. She smiled not; but, keeping her great wild eyes fixed upon mine, addressed me in a strange tongue. Strange as India—yet not all strange to me; for at the sound of its savage syllables dusky chambers of memory long unvisited reopened their doors and revealed forgotten things. The tongue was the tongue spoken to me in dreams through all those restless years. And she, perceiving that I understood, although I spoke not, pointed to far tents beyond the trees, and ascending spirals of lazy smoke.
" 'Whithersoever we go, thou shalt also go.' she murmured. 'Thou art of our people; the blood that flows in thy veins is also mine. We have long waited and watched for thee, summer by summer, in those months when the great longing comes upon us all. For thy mother was of my people; and thou who hast sucked her breasts mayst not live with the pale children of another race. The heaven is our tent; the birds guide our footsteps south and north; the stars lead us to the east and west. My people have sought word of thee even while wandering in lands of sunrise. Our blood is stronger than wine; our kindred dearer than gold. Thou wilt leave riches, pleasures, honors, and the life of cities for thy heart's sake; and I will be thy sister.'
"And I, having kissed her, followed her to the tents of her people,—my people,—the world wanderers of the most ancient East."
- ↑ Item, August 18, 1881.