's
sacred fire, I was moving amongst them, nursing my love for Sera-phina.
The words of Carlos were like oil upon a flame; it enveloped me from
head to foot with a leap. I had the physical sensation of breathing it,
of seeing it, of being at the same time driven on and restrained. One
moment I strode blindly over the sand, the next I stood still; and
Castro, coming up panting, would remark from behind that, on such a hot
day as this, it was a shame to disturb even a dog sleeping in the shade.
I had the feeling of absolute absorption into one idea. I was ravaged by
a thought. It was as if I had never before imagined, heard spoken of, or
seen a woman.

It was true. She was a revelation to my eye and my ear, as much as to my
heart and mind. Indeed, I seemed never before to have seen a woman. Whom
had I seen? Veronica? We had been too poor, and my mother too proud, to
keep up a social intercourse with our neighbours; the village girls had
been devoid of even the most rustic kind of charm; the people were too
poor to be handsome. I had never been tempted to look at a woman's face;
and the manner of my going from home is known. In Jamaica, sharing with
an exaggerated loyalty the unpopularity of the Mac-donalds, I had led
a lonely life; for I had no taste for their friends' society, and the
others, after a time, would have nothing to do with me. I had made a
sort of hermitage for myself out of a house in a distant plantation, and
sometimes I would see no white face for whole weeks together. She was
the first woman to me--a strange new being, a marvel as great as Eve
herself to Adam's wondering awakening.

It may be that a close intimacy stands in the way of love springing up
between two young people, but in our case it was different. My passion
seemed to spring from our understanding, because the understanding was
in the face of danger. We were like two people in a slowly sinking
ship; the feeling of the abyss under our feet was our bond, not the real
comprehension of each other. Apart from that, she remained to me always
unattainable and romantic?--unique, with all the unexpressed promises
of love such as no world had ever known. And naturally, because for
me, hitherto, the world had held no woman. She was an apparition of
dreams--the girl with the lizard, the girl with the dagger, a wonder to
stretch out my hands to from afar; and yet I was permitted to whisper
intimately to this my dream, to this vision. We had to put our