Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/274

266 herself. For some long years yet, she must keep herself in peace and the shade; but when she is a woman, and the Spark can no more be hidden,—since to be a woman is to have power and pain,—then let her veil herself, and with a staff and scrip go abroad into the world, for her time is come. Now in this kingdom of Larrièrepensée there stand many houses, all empty, but swept and garnished, and a fire laid ready on the hearth for the hand of the Coming to kindle. But sometimes, nay, often, this fire is a cheat: for there be men who carve the semblance of it in stone, and are so content to have the chill for the blaze all their lives; and on some hearths the logs are green wood, set up before their time; and on some they are but ashes, for the fire has burned and died, and left the ghostly shape of boughs behind; and sometimes, again, they are but icicles clothed in bark, to save the shame of the possessor. But there are some hearths laid with dry and goodly timber; and if the Princess Maya does not fail, but chooses a real and honest heap of wood, and kindles it from the Spark within her, then will she have a most perfect life; for the fire that consumes her shall leave its evil work, and make the light and warmth of a household, and rescue her forever from the accursed crown of the Spark. But I grieve to tell you, yet one of my name cannot lie—if the Princess mistake the false for the true, if she flashes her fire upon stone, or ice, or embers, either the Spark will recoil and burn her to ashes, or it will die where she placed it and turn her to stone, or—worst fate of all, yet likeliest to befall the tenderest and best—it will reënter her at her lips, and turn her whole nature to the bitterness of gall, so that neither food shall refresh her, sleep rest her, water quench her thirst, nor fire warm her body. Is it worth the trial? or shall she live and burn slowly to her death, with the unquenchable fire of the Spark?"

"Ah! let her, at the least, try for that perfect life," said Queen Lura.

Then the Fairy Cordis drew from her delicate finger a ring of twisted gold, in which was set an opal wrought into the shape of a heart, and in it palpitated, like throbbing blood, one scarlet flash of flame.

"Let her keep this always on her hand," said Cordis. "It will serve to test the truth of the fire she strives to kindle; for if it be not true wood, this heart will grow cold, the throb cease, the glow become dim. The talisman may, will, save her, unless in the madness of joy she forget to ask its aid, or the Spark flashing upon its surface seems to create anew the fire within, and thus deceives her."

So the Fairy put the ring upon Queen Lura's hand, and kissed Maya's fair brow, already shaded with sleep. The bees upon the ceiling followed her, dropping honey as they went; the maids-of-honor wheeled away the couch of state; the castle-maids swept up the fading leaves and blossoms, drew the tulip-tree curtains down, fastened the great door with a sandal-wood bar, sprinkled the corridors with rosewater; and by moonrise, when the nightingales sung loud from the laurel thickets, all the country slept,—even Maya; but the Spark burned bright, and she dreamed.

So the night came on, and many another night, and many a new day,—till Maya, grown a girl, looked onward to the life before her with strange foreboding, for still the Spark burned.

Hitherto it had been but a glad light on all things, except men and women; for into their souls the Spark looked too far, and Maya's open brow was shadowed deeply and often with sorrows not her own, and her heart ached many a day for pains she could not or dared not relieve; but if she were left alone, the illumination of the Spark filled everything about her with glory. The sky's rapturous blue, the vivid tints of grass and leaves, the dismaying splendor of blood-red roses, the milky strawberry-flower, the brilliant whiteness of the lily, the turquoise eyes of water-plants,—all