came. And she showed him her empty hands, the hands that held nothing now.
But still he looked. Then at length she opened her bosom and took out of
it one small flower she had hidden there, and laid it on the sand. She had
nothing more to give now, and she wandered away, and the grey sand whirled
about her.
IV. IN A FAR-OFF WORLD.
There is a world in one of the far-off stars, and things do not happen here
as they happen there.
In that world were a man and
woman; they had one work, and they walked
together side by side on many days, and were friends--and that is a thing
that happens now and then in this world also.
But there was something in that star-world that there is not here. There
was a thick wood: where the trees grew closest, and the stems were
interlocked, and the summer sun never shone, there stood a shrine. In the
day all was quiet, but at night, when the stars shone or the moon glinted
on the tree-tops, and all was quiet below, if one crept here quite alone
and knelt on the steps of the stone altar, and uncovering one's breast, so
wounded it that the blood fell down on the altar steps, then whatever he
who knelt there wished for was granted him. And all this happens, as I
said, because it is a far-off world, and things often happen there as they
do not happen here.
Now, the man and
woman walked together; and the
woman wished well to the
man. One night when the moon was shining so that the leaves of all the
trees glinted, and the waves of the sea were silvery, the
woman walked
alone to the forest. It was dark there; the moonlight fell only in little
flecks on the dead leaves under her feet, and the branches were knotted
tight overhead. Farther in it got darker, not even a fleck of moonlight
shone. Then she came to the shrine; she knelt down before it and prayed;
there came no answer. Then she uncovered her breast; with a sharp two-
edged stone that lay there she wounded it. The drops dripped slowly down
on to the stone, and a voice cried, "What do you seek?"
She answered, "There is a man; I hold him nearer than anything. I would
give him the best of all blessings."
