A whole day in the southern gorges of the Balkan
Mountains the slow train went tearing its way through many a mile of
bind-weed tendrils, a continuous curtain, flaming with large flowers,
but sombre as the falling shades of night, rather resembling jungles of
Ceylon and the Filipinas; and she, that day, lying in the single car
behind, where I had made her a little yatag-bed from Tatar Bazardjik,
continually played the kittur, barely touching the strings, and crooning
low, low, in her rich contralto, eternally the same air, over and over
again, crooning, crooning, some melancholy tune of her own dreaming,
just audible to me through the slow-travailing monotony of the engine;
till I was drunken with so sweet a woe, my God, a woe that was sweet as
life, and a dolour that lulled like nepenthe, and a grief that soothed
like kisses, so sweet, so sweet, that all that world of wood and gloom
lost locality and realness for me, and became nothing but a charmed and
pensive Heaven for her to moan and lullaby in; and from between my
fingers streamed plenteous tears that day, and all that I could keep on
mourning was 'O Leda, O Leda, O Leda,' till my heart was near to break.
Pages:
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435