FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28  
29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>   >|  
ms the obstacle. They cannot marry, for Rezanov is a heretic. And now the passion flames. This child woman will go with him. Ah, but the church, the king of Spain, will they permit? And the Czar! Rezanov will see to it that the Czar will clear the way for them through power exercised at Rome and at Madrid. Conditioned upon this, the girl's parents consent. These lovers prate very little of love. Their desire runs too deep for mere speech. It is a desire made up of as much spiritual as carnal fire. It is fierce but steady in ecstacy and agony, indistinguishable the one from the other. Rezanov, man of the great world, it purifies. Concha it strengthens and makes indomitable. They will abide delay. They will endure in faith and hope--the faith and hope both dimmed by the vague and unshakable intuition or premonition that fate has marked them for derision. Nevertheless, they will endure. There is a meeting on a path that overlooks where the white seas strike their tents. It is a meeting of little action, of few words. It is tense with the almost inexpressible, but at its end, confronting the doubtful future, realizing that when Rezanov goes he may not return, this girl tells him: "I will give myself to you forever, how much or little that may mean here on earth. Forever!" And then that scene in the moonlight amid the scent of the Castilian roses, when Concha, as signal of her trust in her lover, lifts the little wisps of hair that conceal her ears and shows them to him--it throbs with passionate purity in memory yet. Rezanov sails away to Sitka with provisions, thence to Siberia, and then begins the long ride over endless versts of land, across streams in icy flood, in rain and cold and snow towards the capitol and the Czar. Delays, disasters to vehicles and horses and the maddening lengthening of time. From drenchings and freezing comes the fever that calls for more speed. Krasnoiarsk is reached. The fever mounts, the traveler must stop and rest and be cared for. His visions commingle his objective and his memories ... CONCHA! ... The snowy steppes and the inky rivers.... His servant enters the room in the inn ... Why ... "Where has Jon found Castilian roses in this barren land?" ... "and his unconquerably sanguine spirit flared high before a vision of eternal and unthinkable happiness" ... Castilian roses! Concha Arguello waits among them, immortal, sainted in her purity and fidelity, minist
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28  
29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Rezanov

 

Concha

 

Castilian

 

desire

 
endure
 

meeting

 

purity

 

begins

 

happiness

 

Siberia


provisions
 

unthinkable

 
streams
 
endless
 

versts

 

eternal

 
vision
 

memory

 
sainted
 
fidelity

signal

 

immortal

 

Forever

 

minist

 
moonlight
 
throbs
 

passionate

 

Arguello

 

conceal

 

barren


traveler

 
visions
 

commingle

 

steppes

 

enters

 
servant
 

CONCHA

 

objective

 
memories
 

mounts


vehicles

 

horses

 

sanguine

 
maddening
 

disasters

 

Delays

 

flared

 

spirit

 

capitol

 

lengthening