'For me the day is transparent and shrivelling. I can see the darkness
through its petals. But for him it is a fresh bell-flower, in which he
fumbles with delights like a bee.
'For me, quivering in the interspaces of the atmosphere, is the darkness
the same that fills in my soul. I can see death urging itself into life,
the shadow supporting the substance. For my life is burning an invisible
flame. The glare of the light of myself, as I burn on the fuel of death,
is not enough to hide from me the source and the issue. For what is a
life but a flame that bursts off the surface of darkness, and tapers
into the darkness again? But the death that issues differs from the
death that was the source. At least, I shall enrich death with a potent
shadow, if I do not enrich life.' 'Wasn't that woman fine!' said Helena.
'So perfectly still,' he answered.
'The child realized nothing,' she said.
Siegmund laughed, then leaned forward impulsively to her.
'I am always so sorry,' he said, 'that the human race is urged
inevitably into a deeper and deeper realization of life.' She looked at him, wondering what provoked such a remark.
'I guess,' she said slowly, after a while, 'that the man, the sailor,
will have a bad time. He was abominably careless.' 'He was careful of something else just then,' said Siegmund, who hated
to hear her speak in cold condemnation. 'He was attending to the
machinery or something.' 'That was scarcely his first business,' said she, rather sarcastic.
Siegmund looked at her. She seemed very hard in judgement--very blind.
Sometimes his soul surged against her in hatred.
'Do you think the man _wanted_ to drown the boat?' he asked.
'He nearly succeeded,' she replied.
There was antagonism between them. Siegmund recognized in Helena the
world sitting in judgement, and he hated it. 'But, after all,' he
thought, I suppose it is the only way to get along, to judge the event
and not the person. I have a disease of sympathy, a vice of
exoneration.' Nevertheless, he did not love Helena as a judge. He thought rather of
the woman in the boat. She was evidently one who watched the sources of
life, saw it great and impersonal.
'Would the woman cry, or hug and kiss the boy when she got on board?' he
asked.
'I rather think not. Why?' she replied.
'I hope she didn't,' he said.
Helena sat watching the water spurt back from the bows. She was very
much in love with Siegmund. He was suggestive; he stimulated her. But to
her mind he had not her own dark eyes of hesitation; he was swift and
proud as the wind. She never realized his helplessness.