Elizaveta of the Island

A Book of Revelation

"I've grown a whole inch since you left," said Peter proudly. "I'm as tall as Raivis Galante now. Ain't I glad. He'll have to stop crowing about being bigger. Say, Elizaveta, did you know that Gilbert Beilschmidt is dying?" Elizaveta stood quite silent and motionless, looking at Peter. Her face had gone so white that Helena thought she was going to faint.

"Peter, hold your tongue," said Khemet angrily. "Elizaveta, don't look like that - DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT! We didn't mean to tell you so suddenly."

"Is - it - true?" asked Elizaveta in a voice that was not hers.

"Gilbert is very ill," said Khemet gravely. "He took down with typhoid fever just after you left. Did you never hear of it?"

"No," said that unknown voice.

"It was a very bad case from the start. The doctor said he'd been terribly run down. They've a trained nurse and everything's been done. DON'T look like that, Elizaveta. While there's life there's hope."

"Mr. Braginski was here this evening and he said they had no hope of him," reiterated Peter.

Helena, looking old and worn and tired, got up and marched Peter grimly out of the kitchen.

"Oh, DON'T look so, dear," said Khemet, putting her kind old arms about the pallid girl. "I haven't given up hope, indeed I haven't. He's got the Beilschmidt constitution in his favor, that's what."

Elizaveta gently put Khemet's arms away from her, walked blindly across the kitchen, through the hall, up the stairs to her old room. At its window she knelt down, staring out unseeingly. It was very dark. The rain was beating down over the shivering fields. The Haunted Woods was full of the groans of mighty trees wrung in the tempest, and the air throbbed with the thunderous crash of billows on the distant shore. And Gilbert was dying!

There is a book of Revelation in every one's life, as there is in the Bible. Elizaveta read hers that bitter night, as she kept her agonized vigil through the hours of storm and darkness. She loved Gilbert - had always loved him! She knew that now. She knew that she could no more cast him out of her life without agony than she could have cut off her right hand and cast it from her. And the knowledge had come too late - too late even for the bitter solace of being with him at the last. If she had not been so blind - so foolish - she would have had the right to go to him now. But he would never know that she loved him - he would go away from this life thinking that she did not care. Oh, the black years of emptiness stretching before her! She could not live through them - she could not! She cowered down by her window and wished, for the first time in her young life, that she could die, too. If Gilbert went away from her, without one word or sign or message, she could not live. Nothing was of any value without him. She belonged to him and he to her. In her hour of supreme agony she had no doubt of that. Oh, what a fool she had been not to realize what the bond was that had held her to Gilbert - to think that the flattered fancy she had felt for Roderich Edelstein had been love. And now she must pay for her folly as for a crime.

A storm raged all night, but when the dawn came it was spent. Elizaveta saw a fairy fringe of light on the skirts of darkness. Soon the eastern hilltops had a fire-shot ruby rim. The clouds rolled themselves away into great, soft, white masses on the horizon; the sky gleamed blue and silvery. A hush fell over the world.

Elizaveta rose from her knees and crept downstairs. The freshness of the rain-wind blew against her white face as she went out into the yard, and cooled her dry, burning eyes. A merry rollicking whistle was lilting up the lane. A moment later Feliciano Vargas came in sight.

Elizaveta's physical strength suddenly failed her. If she had not clutched at a low willow bough she would have fallen. Feliciano and Gilbert's brother, Ludwig, were fond of each other, and the Italian always spends time with the Beilschmidts. Feliciano would know if - if - Feliciano would know what there was to be known.

Feliciano strode sturdily on along the red lane, whistling. He did not see Elizaveta. She made three futile attempts to call him. He was almost past before she succeeded in making her quivering lips call, "Feliciano!"

Feliciano turned with a grin and a cheerful good morning.

"Did you hear how Gilbert Beilschmidt was this morning?" Elizaveta's desperation drove her to the question. Even the worst would be more endurable than this hideous suspense.

"He's better," said Feliciano. "He got the turn last night. The doctor said he'll be all right now this soon while. Had a close shave, though! That guy, he almost killed himself at college. Well, I must hurry. Fratello seems to be in a hurry to see me."

Feliciano resumed his walk and his whistle. Elizaveta gazed after him with eyes where joy was driving out the strained anguish of the night. He was a very lank, very ragged, very homely youth. But in her sight he was as beautiful as those who bring good tidings on the mountains. Never, as long as she lived, would Elizaveta see Feliciano's brown-haired, round, amber-eyed face without a warm remembrance of the moment when he had given to her the oil of joy for mourning.

Long after Feliciano's whistle had faded into the phantom of music and then into silence far up under the maples of Lover's Lane Elizaveta stood under the willows, tasting the poignant sweetness of life when some great dread has been removed from it. The morning was a cup filled with mist and glamor. In the corner near her was a rich surprise of new-blown, crystal-dewed roses. The trills and trickles of song from the birds in the big tree above her seemed in perfect accord with her mood. A sentence from a very old, very true, very wonderful Book came to her lips,

"Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning."