The sky
was golden, the waters were dyed with gold, out of which rose the white
sails of boats. The mountains were shadowy purple. The little minarets
of the mosques rose into the gold like sticks of ivory. As I watched my
eyes filled with tears, and I felt a sort of aching in my heart, and as
if--Domini, it was as if at that moment a hand was laid, on mine, but
very gently, and pulled at my hand. It was as if at that moment someone
was beside me in the cemetery wishing to lead me out to those far-off
waters, those mosque towers, those purple mountains. Never before had I
had such a sensation. It frightened me. I felt as if the devil had come
into the cemetery, as if his hand was laid on mine, as if his voice were
whispering in my ear, 'Come out with me into that world, that beautiful
world, which God made for men. Why do you reject it?'
"That evening, Domini, was the beginning of this--this end. Day after
day I sat in the cemetery and looked out over the world, and wondered
what it was like: what were the lives of the men who sailed in the
white-winged boats, who crowded on the steamers whose smoke I could see
sometimes faintly trailing away into the track of the sun; who kept the
sheep upon the mountains; who--who--Domini, can you imagine--no, you
cannot--what, in a man of my age, of my blood, were these first, very
first, stirrings of the longing for life? Sometimes I think they were
like the first birth-pangs of a woman who is going to be a mother.
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