"I LOVED madly," said my friend Annabel Lee. "There came one down out of the north country that was dark and strong and brave and full of life's fire. All my short life had been bathed in summer. I had dreamed my thirteen years beneath cherry-blossoms upon a high hill.
"But at the coming of this man from the north country I opened my two sloe-eyes, and the world turned white—exquisite, rapturous, divine white.
"And afterward all was heavy gray.
"Away from the high hill of the cherry-blossoms there lay a stretch of red barren waste with towering rocks—and beyond that a quiet, quiet sea that was only blue.
"At the left of the high hill of the cherry-blossoms there was a mountain covered with green ivy—dark green ivy that defined its own green shape against the brilliant yellow sky behind it. Green and yellow, green and yellow, green and yellow, said the sky and the mountain covered with ivy.
"The high hill of the cherry-blossoms was colored with all the colors of Japan.
"I lived there with people—my mother and my father and some others—all with pale faces and sloe-eyes.
"But some of them were very ugly.
"Then came one down out of the north country that was dark and strong and brave and full of life's fire.
"He was ugly, but his face was perfect.
"Straightway I fell in love with this one. Of all things in Japan, what a thing it is to fall in love!
"Where the red barren waste lay spread below me I saw manifold softnesses, like a dove's breast, like a fawn's eyes, like melted lilies, and the towering, gloomy rocks were the home of violet dreams.
"In the deep green of the ivy mountain my soul found rest at nightfall among mystery and shadow. It wandered there in marvelous peace. And the coolness and damp and the low muttering of the wind and the night birds went into it with a stirring, powerful influence. Also the voices out of the very long ago came from among the green, dark ivy, and from the crevices of gray stones beneath it, and they told me true things in the stillness.
"From the deepness of the brilliant yellow sky—the yellow of burnished brass—there came legion earth-old contradictions. And wondrous paradox and parallel that had not been among the cherry-blossoms appeared to me as my mind contemplated these. I said, Am I thus in love because that I am weak, or that I am strong? For I see here that it is both weakness and strength. And I said, Am I myself when I do this thing? or was that I who lived among the cherry-blossoms? I said, Who am I? What am I?
"Below all there was the blue, broad sea. This sea gave out a white mist that rose and spread over the earth. I knew that I was in love, once and for all.
"The world was white. The world was beautiful. The world was divine.
"Life shone out of the mist unspeakable in its countless possibilities. Voices spoke near me and infinite voices called to me from afar—they sounded clear and faint and maddening-soft and tender, and the soul of me answered them with deafening, joyous silent music.
"He from the north country that was dark and strong and brave and full of life's fire came, some days, to the high hill of the cherry-blossoms. He spoke often and of many things. He spoke to people—to my mother and to my father, and to others. And rarely he spoke to me. Rarely he looked at me. He had been in the great world. He knew wonderful women and wonderful men. He had been touched with all things.
"What a human being was he!
"And of all things in Japan, what a thing it is to fall in love!
"When three days had gone my heart knew rapture beyond any that it had dreamed. It knew the mysteries and the fullnesses.
"After three days the world turned to that divine white, and was white for seven days.
"And afterward all was heavy gray.
"The one from the north country returned back to the north country.
"Of all things in Japan, what a thing it is to fall in love!
"I was not in love with this one because he was a man, or because he was strange and fascinating—but because he was a glorious human being.
"My heart was not turned to this one to marry him. Marrying and giving in marriage are for such as are in love unconsciously.
"To see this one from the north country—to hear his voice—that was life and all for me—life and all.
"But he was gone.
"He left a silence and a weariness.
"These came and crowded out the white from my heart, and themselves found lodgment there.
"And all was heavy gray.
"The picture of life and the mystery and shadow that was revealed to me when the world was white has never gone. It has filled me in the days of my youth with an old terror.
"Of all things in Japan, what a thing it is to fall in love!
"To fall in love!"—said my friend Annable Lee, the while her two eyes and her two white hands, in their expression, their position, told of a thing that is heart-breaking to see.