- end_line
- 7244
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.027Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7173
- text
- loved voice she could have heard.
No wonder, that as her thoughts now wandered to the unreturning ship,
and were beaten back again, the hope against hope so struggled in her
soul, that at length she desperately said, “Not yet, not yet; my
foolish heart runs on too fast.” So she forced patience for some
further weeks. But to those whom earth’s sure indraft draws, patience
or impatience is still the same.
Hunilla now sought to settle precisely in her mind, to an hour, how
long it was since the ship had sailed; and then, with the same
precision, how long a space remained to pass. But this proved
impossible. What present day or month it was she could not say. Time
was her labyrinth, in which Hunilla was entirely lost.
And now follows—
Against my own purposes a pause descends upon me here. One knows not
whether nature doth not impose some secrecy upon him who has been privy
to certain things. At least, it is to be doubted whether it be good to
blazon such. If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale
forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those
whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not
books, should be forbid. But in all things man sows upon the wind,
which bloweth just there whither it listeth; for ill or good, man
cannot know. Often ill comes from the good, as good from ill.
When Hunilla—
Dire sight it is to see some silken beast long dally with a golden
lizard ere she devour. More terrible, to see how feline Fate will
sometimes dally with a human soul, and by a nameless magic make it
repulse a sane despair with a hope which is but mad. Unwittingly I imp
this cat-like thing, sporting with the heart of him who reads; for if
he feel not he reads in vain.
—“The ship sails this day, to-day,” at last said Hunilla to herself;
“this gives me certain time to stand on; without certainty I go mad. In
loose ignorance I have hoped and hoped; now in firm knowledge I will
but wait. Now I live and no longer perish in bewilderings. Holy Virgin,
aid me! Thou wilt waft back the ship. Oh, past length of weary
weeks—all to be dragged over—to buy the certainty of to-day, I freely
give ye, though I tear ye from me!”
As mariners, tost in tempest on some desolate ledge, patch them a boat
out of the remnants of their vessel’s wreck, and launch it in the
self-same waves, see here Hunilla, this lone shipwrecked soul, out of
treachery invoking trust. Humanity, thou strong thing, I worship thee,
not in the laureled victor, but in this vanquished one.
Truly Hunilla leaned upon a reed, a real one; no metaphor; a real
Eastern reed. A piece of hollow cane, drifted from unknown isles, and
found upon the beach, its once jagged ends rubbed smoothly even as by
sand-paper; its golden glazing gone. Long ground between the sea and
land, upper and nether stone, the unvarnished substance was filed bare,
and wore another polish now, one with itself, the polish of its agony.
Circular lines at intervals cut all round this surface, divided it into
six panels of unequal length. In the first were scored the days, each
tenth one marked by a longer and deeper notch; the second was scored
for the number of sea-fowl eggs for sustenance, picked out from the
rocky nests; the third, how many fish had been caught from the shore;
the fourth, how many small tortoises found inland; the fifth, how many
days of sun; the sixth, of clouds; which last, of the two, was the
greater one. Long night of busy numbering, misery’s mathematics, to
weary her too-wakeful soul to sleep; yet sleep for that was none.
The panel of the days was deeply worn—the long tenth notches half
effaced, as alphabets of the blind. Ten thousand times the longing
widow had traced her finger over the bamboo—dull flute, which played,
on, gave no sound—as if counting birds flown by in air would hasten
tortoises creeping through the woods.
- title
- Chunk 5