The Day Boy and the Night Girl | Page 7

since the fall of the lamp had been a little more careful, and
seldom left her for long. But one night, having a little headache,
Nycteris lay down upon her bed, and was lying with her eyes closed,
when she heard Falca come to her, and felt she was bending over her.
Disinclined to talk, she did not open her eyes, and lay quite still.
Satisfied that she was asleep, Falca left her, moving so softly that her
very caution made Nycteris open her eyes and look after her -- just in
time to see her vanish -- through a picture, as it seemed, that hung on
the wall a long way from the usual place of issue. She jumped up, her
headache forgotten, and ran in the opposite direction; got out, groped
her way to the stair, climbed, and reached the top of the wall. -- Alas!
the great room was not so light as the little one she had left! Why? --

Sorrow of sorrows! the great lamp was gone! Had its globe fallen? and
its lovely light gone out upon great wings, a resplendent firefly, oaring
itself through a yet grander and lovelier room? She looked down to see
if it lay anywhere broken to pieces on the carpet below; but she could
not even see the carpet. But surely nothing very dreadful could have
happened -- no rumbling or shaking; for there were all the little lamps
shining brighter than before, not one of them looking as if any unusual
matter had befallen. What if each of those little lamps was growing into
a big lamp, and after being a big lamp for a while, had to go out and
grow a bigger lamp still -- out there, beyond this out? -- Ah! here was
the living thing that could not be seen, come to her again -- bigger
tonight! with such loving kisses, and such liquid strokings of her
cheeks and forehead, gently tossing her hair, and delicately toying with
it! But it ceased, and all was still. Had it gone out? What would happen
next? Perhaps the little lamps had not to grow great lamps, but to fall
one by one and go out first? -- With that came from below a sweet
scent, then another, and another. Ah, how delicious! Perhaps they were
all coming to her only on their way out after the great lamp! -- Then
came the music of the river, which she had been too absorbed in the sky
to note the first time. What was it? Alas! alas! another sweet living
thing on its way out. They were all marching slowly out in long lovely
file, one after the other, each taking its leave of her as it passed! It must
be so: here were more and more sweet sounds, following and fading!
The whole of the Out was going out again; it was all going after the
great lovely lamp! She would be left the only creature in the solitary
day! Was there nobody to hang up a new lamp for the old one, and
keep the creatures from going? -- She crept back to her rock very sad.
She tried to comfort herself by saying that anyhow there would be
room out there; but as she said it she shuddered at the thought of empty
room.
When next she succeeded in getting out, a half-moon hung in the east: a
new lamp had come, she thought, and all would be well.
It would be endless to describe the phases of feeling through which
Nycteris passed, more numerous and delicate than those of a thousand
changing moons. A fresh bliss bloomed in her soul with every varying

aspect of infinite nature. Ere long she began to suspect that the new
moon was the old moon, gone out and come in again like herself; also
that, unlike herself, it wasted and grew again; that it was indeed a live
thing, subject like herself to caverns, and keepers, and solitudes,
escaping and shining when it could. Was it a prison like hers it was
shut in? and did it grow dark when the lamp left it? Where could be the
way into it? -- With that, first she began to look below, as well as above
and around her; and then first noted the tops of the trees between her
and the floor. There were palms with their red-fingered hands full of
fruit; eucalyptus trees crowded with little boxes of powder puffs;
oleanders with their half-caste roses; and orange trees with their clouds
of young silver stars and their aged balls of gold. Her eyes could see
colors invisible to ours in the moonlight, and all these she could
distinguish well, though at first she took them for the shapes and