Two nights ago I went to the cave once more, hoping against hope. The sky was sharp and clear, star-pricked, yet holding the first hints of approaching winter. I knew the signs: what islander does not? There had been a sultry stillness at noon, with clouds gathering across the straits, eastward from Mytilene: monstrous storm-dark chimaeras that crouched, like mating lions, along the mountain ridges of Ionia. I walked in the garden, by the stump of the great fig-tree—memories, memories—and watched them. A flicker of summer lightning scrawled itself across the sky, as though the branching pain in my head had swollen to embrace the whole universe. I could feel the muscles flickering in and round my left eyelid—always the left, the unlucky side, the dark lobe of the brain.
My throat was raw, parched: yet I could not drink. Every sense in my body, each fold of skin and flesh seemed naked to the nerve beneath. All nature was a mirror to my passion and my despair: those obscene clouds spoke to me of more than winter. I shivered and sweated as though I had a fever, and the light linen robe I wore—too late for turning autumn—burnt my skin. It was ridiculous and humiliating, and the worst of all was—is—that I can no longer laugh at myself. Nothing frightens me more than that. All through my life one part of me has stood aside, amused by my own passions and inconsistencies, ready to prick the bubble of pretentious self-pity. But no longer. I am being pretentious and self-pitying now; I know it; there is no help for me.
The afternoon brought thunderous gusts of wind from the north-east, ripping down through streets and alleys with a noise like a split and bellying sail. I could hear, high above the city, the subdued roar of the great forest, and thought of other days when we had climbed the ridge, under a blue autumn sky, to gather fallen chestnuts and pine-cones.
(So still on the needle-carpet, the light slanting between tall tree-trunks, catching and glinting suddenly on a golden shoulder-clasp, the flush of a young girl's cheek, the wildness of blown hair.) The wind whipped up hard granular particles of dust, stung my face and lips: and with the dust came a few random rain-drops, hot, heavy, ominous. But by sunset all was clear again, and the wind had dropped.
I called Praxinoa and put on a light shawl, and together we walked down to the headland. Lanterns flared on the quayside below us: the black boats bobbed at anchor still, and fishermen called to each other across rows of barrels. I could smell tar and seaweed and the faint tang of fish. Praxinoa glanced at me, troubled, eyes half-shadowed in the fold of her hood. But she said nothing.
The sun was melting-crimson now, spreading over the dark water like coloured oil. In a soft lemon sky the evening star, Aphrodite's star, gleamed out clear. Now it seemed baleful, curse-laden; yet how often in past years had I not taken it as the very embodiment of fulfilled passion, the gatherer-home of beast, child, and lover? Aphrodite, Aphrodite, it has taken me a lifetime to see what lies behind that still, enigmatic smile. And now I know it is too late: the trap is sprung, my own remembered words mock my helplessness: Some say a host of cavalry or guardsmen, And some a fleet, is the finest sight of all On the dark earth; but I declare the best Is what you love.
I turned my back on the headland and the harbour, and the winking lights of Mytilene that lay beyond: still in silence we walked up towards the house. There was a smell of thyme and hay in the air, and when I looked out over the dark-glinting water I could see, where the male lion clouds had crouched, a refulgence, a radiance under the dazzled stars.