The Yellow Book/Volume 5/Rosemary for Remembrance

The Yellow Book, Volume 5
Rosemary for Remembrance by Henry Harland
2612639The Yellow Book, Volume 5 — Rosemary for RemembranceHenry Harland

Rosemary for Remembrance

By Henry Harland

I

I WONDER why I dreamed last night of Zabetta. It is years since she made her brief little transit through my life, and passed out of it utterly. It is years since the very recollection of her—which for years, like an accusing spirit, had haunted me too often—like a spirit was laid. It is long enough, in all conscience, since I have even thought of her, casually, for an instant. And then, last night, after a perfectly usual London day and evening, I went to bed and dreamed of her vividly. What had happened to bring her to my mind? Or is it simply that the god of dreams is a capricious god?

The influence of my dream, at any rate,—the bitter-sweet savour of it,—has pursued me through my waking hours. All day long to-day Zabetta has been my phantom guest. She has walked with me in the streets; she has waited at my elbow while I wrote or talked or read. Now, at tea-time, she is present with me by my study fireside, in the twilight. Her voice sounds faintly, plaintively, in my ears; her eyes gaze at me sadly from a pale reproachful face. . . . She bids me to the theatre of memory, where my youth is rehearsed before me in mimic-show. There was one— Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/88 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/89 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/90 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/91 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/92 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/93 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/94 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/95 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/96 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/97 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/98 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/99 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/100 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/101 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/102 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/103 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/104 Page:The Yellow Book - 05.djvu/105 Youth faces forward, impatient of the present, panting to anticipate the future. But we who have crossed a certain sad meridian, we turn our gaze backwards, and tell the relentless gods what we would sacrifice to recover a little of the past, one of those shining days when to us also it was given to sojourn among the Fortunate Islands. Ah, si jeunesse savait! . . .