The Piazza Tales | Page 6

you think that?
You judge some rich one lives there?"
"Rich or not, I never thought; but it looks so happy, I can't tell how; and
it is so far away. Sometimes I think I do but dream it is there. You
should see it in a sunset."
"No doubt the sunset gilds it finely; but not more than the sunrise does
this house, perhaps."
"This house? The sun is a good sun, but it never gilds this house. Why
should it? This old house is rotting. That makes it so mossy. In the
morning, the sun comes in at this old window, to be sure--boarded up,
when first we came; a window I can't keep clean, do what I may--and
half burns, and nearly blinds me at my sewing, besides setting the flies
and wasps astir--such flies and wasps as only lone mountain houses
know. See, here is the curtain--this apron--I try to shut it out with then.
It fades it, you see. Sun gild this house? not that ever Marianna saw."
"Because when this roof is gilded most, then you stay here within."
"The hottest, weariest hour of day, you mean? Sir, the sun gilds not this
roof. It leaked so, brother newly shingled all one side. Did you not see
it? The north side, where the sun strikes most on what the rain has
wetted. The sun is a good sun; but this roof, in first scorches, and then
rots. An old house. They went West, and are long dead, they say, who
built it. A mountain house. In winter no fox could den in it. That
chimney-place has been blocked up with snow, just like a hollow
stump."

"Yours are strange fancies, Marianna."
"They but reflect the things."
"Then I should have said, 'These are strange things,' rather than, 'Yours
are strange fancies.'"
"As you will;" and took up her sewing.
Something in those quiet words, or in that quiet act, it made me mute
again; while, noting, through the fairy window, a broad shadow
stealing on, as cast by some gigantic condor, floating at brooding poise
on outstretched wings, I marked how, by its deeper and inclusive dusk,
it wiped away into itself all lesser shades of rock or fern.
"You watch the cloud," said Marianna.
"No, a shadow; a cloud's, no doubt--though that I cannot see. How did
you know it? Your eyes are on your work."
"It dusked my work. There, now the cloud is gone, Tray comes back."
"How?"
"The dog, the shaggy dog. At noon, he steals off, of himself, to change
his shape--returns, and lies down awhile, nigh the door. Don't you see
him? His head is turned round at you; though, when you came, he
looked before him."
"Your eyes rest but on your work; what do you speak of?"
"By the window, crossing."
"You mean this shaggy shadow--the nigh one? And, yes, now that I
mark it, it is not unlike a large, black Newfoundland dog. The invading
shadow gone, the invaded one returns. But I do not see what casts it."
"For that, you must go without."
"One of those grassy rocks, no doubt."
"You see his head, his face?"
"The shadow's? You speak as if you saw it, and all the time your eyes
are on your work."
"Tray looks at you," still without glancing up; "this is his hour; I see
him."
"Have you then, so long sat at this mountain-window, where but clouds
and, vapors pass, that, to you, shadows are as things, though you speak
of them as of phantoms; that, by familiar knowledge, working like a
second sight, you can, without looking for them, tell just where they are,
though, as having mice-like feet, they creep about, and come and go;
that, to you, these lifeless shadows are as living friends, who, though

out of sight, are not out of mind, even in their faces--is it so?"
"That way I never thought of it. But the friendliest one, that used to
soothe my weariness so much, coolly quivering on the ferns, it was
taken from me, never to return, as Tray did just now. The shadow of a
birch. The tree was struck by lightning, and brother cut it up. You saw
the cross-pile out-doors--the buried root lies under it; but not the
shadow. That is flown, and never will come back, nor ever anywhere
stir again."
Another cloud here stole along, once more blotting out the dog, and
blackening all the mountain; while the stillness was so still, deafness
might have forgot itself, or else believed that noiseless shadow spoke.
"Birds, Marianna, singing-birds, I hear none; I hear nothing. Boys and
bob-o-links, do they never come a-berrying up here?"
"Birds, I seldom hear; boys, never. The berries mostly ripe and
fall--few, but me,