Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (171 page)

All
worship
your
fields
can
bring! Let
the
hind
that
tills
you
feel
my
mirth At
the
early
harrowing."

"Yes,
it's
the
early
harrowing,
past
a
doubt,"
I
said,
with
a
dread at
my
heart.
Charlie
smiled,
but
did
not
answer.

"Red
cloud
of
the
sunset,
tell
it
abroad; I
am
victor.
Greet
me
O
Sun, Dominant
master
and
absolute
lord Over
the
soul
of
one!"

"Well?"
said
Charlie,
looking
over
my
shoulder.

I
thought
it
far
from
well,
and
very
evil
indeed,
when
he
silently laid
a
photograph
on
the
paper—the
photograph
of
a
girl
with
a curly
head,
and
a
foolish
slack
mouth.

"Isn't
it—isn't
it
wonderful?"
he
whispered,
pink
to
the
tips
of his
ears,
wrapped
in
the
rosy
mystery
of
first
love.
"I
didn't
know; I
didn't
think—it
came
like
a
thunderclap."

"Yes.
It
comes
like
a
thunderclap.
Are
you
very
happy,
Charlie?"

"My
God—she—she
loves
me!"
He
sat
down
repeating
the
last words
to
himself.
I
looked
at
the
hairless
face,
the
narrow
shoulders already
bowed
by
desk-work,
and
wondered
when,
where,
and
how he
had
loved
in
his
past
lives.

"What
will
your
mother
say?"
I
asked,
cheerfully.

"I
don't
care
a
damn
what
she
says."

At
twenty
the
things
for
which
one
does
not
care
a
damn
should, properly,
be
many,
but
one
must
not
include
mothers
in
the
list.
I
told him
this
gently;
and
he
described
Her,
even
as
Adam
must
have
described
to
the
newly
named
beasts
the
glory
and
tenderness
and
beauty of
Eve.
Incidentally
I
learned
that
She
was
a
tobacconist's
assistant with
a
weakness
for
pretty
dress,
and
had
told
him
four
or
five
times already
that
She
had
never
been
kissed
by
a
man
before.

Charlie
spoke
on
and
on,
and
on;
while
I,
separated
from
him
by thousands
of
years,
was
considering
the
beginnings
of
things.
Now
I understood
why
the
Lords
of
Life
and
Death
shut
the
doors
so
carefully
behind
us.
It
is
that
we
may
not
remember
our
first
wooings. Were
it
not
so,
our
world
would
be
without
inhabitants
in
a
hundred years.

"Now,
about
that
galley-story,"
I
said,
still
more
cheerfully,
in
a pause
in
the
rush
of
the
speech. Charlie
looked
up
as
though
he
had
been
hit.
"The
galley—what galley?
Good
heavens,
don't
joke,
man!
This
is
serious!
You
don't know
how
serious
it
is!"

Grish
Chunder
was
right.
Charlie
had
tasted
the
love
of
woman that
kills
remembrance,
and
the
finest
story
in
the
world
would
never be
written.

From
Etched in Moonlight,
by James Stephens, reprinted by permission
of The Macmillan Company, New York, and Macmillan &
Co.
Ltd., London.

Etcked in Moonligkt

By JAMES STEPHENS