"Beautiful? -
only that! Do you see nothing more?"
I answered, looking back into her eyes: "Yes - I think there is
something more but I don't know what it is. Does it come from you - your
eyes - your voice, all this that is passing in my mind?"
"What is passing in your mind?" she asked.
"I don't know. Thoughts - perhaps memories: hundreds, thousands - they
come and go like lightning so that I can't arrest them - not even one!"
She laughed, and the laugh was like her eyes and her voice and the
touch of her hand on my temples.
Was it sad or glad? I don't know, but it was the most beautiful sound I
had ever heard, yet it seemed familiar and stirred me in the strangest
way.
"Let me think," I said.
"Yes, think!" they all together cried laughingly; and then instantly
when I cast my eyes down there was a perfect stillness as if they were
all holding their breath and watching me.
That sudden strange stillness startled me: I lifted my eyes and they
were gone - the radiant beautiful people who had surrounded and
interrogated me, and with them their shining golden village, had all
vanished.
