Debts of Honor Part 84

The nightingale! The song-bird of love! Why was it entrusted with singing at night when every other bird is sitting on its nest, and hiding its head under its wing. Who had sent it, saying, "Rise and announce that love is always waking?"

Who had entrusted it to awake the sleepers?

Why, even the popular song says:

"Sleep is better far than love For sleep is tranquillity; Love is anguish of the heart."

Fly away, bird of song!

Czipra tried to sleep again. The bird's song did not allow her.

She rose, leaned upon her elbows and continued to listen.

And there came back to her mind that old gypsy woman's enchantment,--the enchantment of love.

"At midnight--the nightingale ... barefooted--... plant it in a flower-pot ... before it droops, thy lover will return, and will never leave thee."

Ah! who would walk in the open at night?

The nightingale continued:

"Go out bare-footed and tear down the branch."

No, no. How ridiculous it would be! If somebody should see her, and tell others, they would laugh at her for her pains.

The nightingale began its song anew.

Malicious bird, that will not allow sleep!

Yet how easy it would be to try: a little branch in a flower-pot. Who could know what it was? A girl's innocent jest, with which she does harm to no one. Love's childish enchantment.

It would be easy to attempt it.

And if it were true? If there were something in it? How often people say, "this or that woman has given her husband something to make him love her so truly, and not even see her faults?" If it were true?

How often people wondered, how two people could love each other? With what did they enchant each other? If it were true?

Suppose there were spirits that could be captured with a talisman, which would do all one bade them?

Czipra involuntarily shuddered: she did not know why, but her whole body trembled and s.h.i.+vered.

"No, not so," she said to herself. "If he does not give heart for heart,--mine must not deceive him. If he cannot love me because I deserve it, he must not love me for my spells. If he does not love, he must not despise me. Away, bird of song, I do not want thee."

Then she drew the coverlet over her head and turned to the wall. But sleep did not return again: the trembling did not pa.s.s: and the singing bird in the bushes did not hold his peace.

It had come right under the window; it sang, "Come, come."

Sometimes it seemed as if the song of the nightingale contained the words "Czipra, Czipra, Czipra!"

The warm mist of pa.s.sion swept away the maiden's reason.

Her heart beat so, it almost burst her bosom, and her every limb trembled.

She was no longer mistress of her mind.

She left her bed, and therewith left that magic circle which the inspiration of the Lord forms around those who fly to Him for protection, and which guards them so well from all apparitions of the lower world.

"Go bare-footed!"

Why it was only a few steps from the door to the bushes.

Who could see her? What could happen in so short a time?

It was merely the satisfaction of an innocent desire.

It was no deed of darkness.

Every nerve was trembling.

She was merely going to break a little branch, and yet she felt as if she was about to commit the most heinous crime, for which she needed the s.h.i.+eld of a sleepless night.

She opened the door very quietly so that it should not creak.

Lorand was sleeping in the room vis-a-vis: perhaps he might hear something.

She darted with bare feet before Lorand's door, she carefully undid the bolt of the door leading into the garden and turned the key with such precaution that it did not make a sound.

Noiselessly she opened the door and peered out.

It was a quiet night of reveries: the stars, as is their wont when seen through falling dew, were changing their colors, flas.h.i.+ng green and red.

The nightingale was now cooing in the bushes, as it does when it has found its mate.

Czipra looked around her. It was a deep slumbering night: no one could see her now.

Yet she drew her linen garment closer round her, and was ashamed to show her bare feet to the starry night.

Ah! it would last only a minute.

The gra.s.s was warm and soft, wet with dew as far as the bushes: no sharp pebble would hurt her feet, no cracking stick betray her footsteps.

She stepped out into the open, and left the door ajar behind her.

She trembled so, she feared she would fall, and looked around her: for all the world like someone bent on thieving.

She crept quietly towards the bushes.

The nightingale was warbling there in the thickest part.