me, and bear me up, for I may never again despise that which she
hath loved as she hath loved me. And yet again a thought smote me,
and it was as an arrow of the lightning, and its barb was the truth:
But she will grow old, it said, and will wither before thy face, and
be as the waning moon in the heavens. And my heart cried out in an
agony. But my will sought to comfort my heart, and said, Cry not
out, for, in spite of old age as in spite of death, I will love her
still. Then something began to writhe within me, and to hiss out
words that gathered themselves unto this purpose: But she will grow
unlovely, and wrinkled, and dark of hue, and the shape of her body
will vanish, and her form be unformed, and her eyes will grow small
and dim, and creep back into her head, and her hair will fall from
her, and she shall be as the unsightly figure of Death with a skin
drawn over his unseemly bones; and the damsel of thy love, with the
round limbs and the flying hair, and the clear eyes out of which
looketh a soul clear as they, will be nowhere--nowhere, for
evermore, for thou wilt not be able to believe that she it is who
standeth before thee: how will it be with thee then? And what mercy
is his who hath sent thee a growing loss in the company of this
woman? Thereupon I rose in the strength of my agony and went forth.
And I said nothing unto my wife, but strode to the foot of the great
mountain, whose entrails were all aglow, and on whose sides grew the
palm and the tree-bread and the nut of milk. And I climbed the
mountain, nor once looked behind me, but climbed to the top. And
there for one moment I stood in the stock-dullness of despair. And
beneath me was the great fiery gulf, outstretched like a red lake
skinned over with black ice, through the cracks wherein shone the
blinding fire. Every moment here and there a great liquid bubbling
would break through the crust, and make a wallowing heap upon the
flat, then sink again, leaving an open red well-pool of fire whence