The Day Boy and the Night Girl | Page 6

not my lamp," she said after a while; "it is the mother of all
the lamps."
And with that she fell on her knees and spread out her hands to the
moon. She could not in the least have told what was in her mind, but
the action was in reality just a begging of the moon to be what she was
-- that precise incredible splendor hung in the far-off roof, that very
glory essential to the being of poor girls born and bred in caverns. It
was a resurrection -- nay, a birth itself, to Nycteris. What the vast blue

sky, studded with tiny sparks like the heads of diamond nails, could be;
what the moon, looking so absolutely content with light -- why, she
knew less about them than you and I! but the greatest of astronomers
might envy the rapture of such a first impression at the age of sixteen.
Immeasurably imperfect it was, but false the impression could not be,
for she saw with the eyes made for seeing, and saw indeed what many
men are too wise to see.
As she knelt, something softly flapped her, embraced her, stroked her,
fondled her. She rose to her feet but saw nothing, did not know what it
was. It was likest
a woman's breath. For she knew nothing of the air even, had never
breathed the still, newborn freshness of the world. Her breath had come
to her only through long passages and spirals in the rock. Still less did
she know of the air alive with motion -- of that thrice-blessed thing, the
wind of a summer night. It was like a spiritual wine, filling her whole
being with an intoxication of purest joy. To breathe was a perfect
existence. It seemed to her the light itself she drew into her lungs.
Possessed by the power of the gorgeous night, she seemed at one and
the same moment annihilated and glorified.
She was in the open passage or gallery that ran around the top of the
garden walls, between the cleft battlements, but she did not once look
down to see what lay beneath. Her soul was drawn to the vault above
her with its lamp and its endless room. At last she burst into tears, and
her heart was relieved, as the night itself is relieved by its lightning and
rain.
And now she grew thoughtful. She must hoard this splendor! What a
little ignorance her jailers had made of her! Life was a mighty bliss,
and they had scraped hers to the bare bone! They must not know that
she knew. She must hide her knowledge -- hide it even from her own
eyes, keeping it close in her bosom, content to know that she had it,
even when she could not brood on its presence, feasting her eyes with
its glory. She turned from the vision, therefore, with a sigh of utter bliss,
and with soft quiet steps and groping hands stole back into the darkness
of the rock. What was darkness or the laziness of Time's feet to one

who had seen what she had that night seen? She was lifted above all
weariness -- above all wrong.
When Falca entered, she uttered a cry of terror. But Nycteris called to
her not to be afraid, and told her how there had come a rumbling and
shaking, and the lamp had fallen. Then Falca went and told her mistress,
and within an hour a new globe hung in the place of the old one.
Nycteris thought it did not look so bright and clear as the former, but
she made no lamentation over the change; she was far too rich to heed
it. For now, prisoner as she knew herself, her heart was full of glory
and gladness; at times she had to hold herself from jumping up, and
going dancing and singing about the room. When she slept, instead of
dull dreams, she had splendid visions. There were times, it is true,
when she became restless, and impatient to look upon her riches, but
then she would reason with herself, saying, "What does it matter if I sit
here for ages with my poor pale lamp, when out there a lamp is burning
at which ten thousand little lamps are glowing with wonder?"
She never doubted she had looked upon the day and the sun, of which
she had read; and always when she read of the day and the sun, she had
the night and the moon in her mind; and when she read of the night and
the moon, she thought only of the cave and the lamp that hung there.
X. The Great Lamp
IT was some time before she had a second opportunity of going out, for
Falca