Love Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  Suddenly she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She passed through the grove like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed across the garden.

  In the centre of the grass-plot was standing a beautiful rose-tree, and when she saw it she flew over to it, and lit upon a spray.

  "Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest song."

  But the Tree shook its head.

  "My roses are white," it answered; "as white as the foam of the sea, and whiter than the snow upon the mountain. But go to my brother who grows round the old sun-dial, and perhaps he will give you what you want."

  So the Nightingale flew over to the rose-tree that was growing round the old sun-dial.

  "Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest song."

  But the Tree shook its head.

  "My roses are yellow," it answered; "as yellow as the hair of the mermaiden who sits upon an amber throne, and yellower than the daffodil that blooms in the meadow before the mower comes with his scythe. But go to my brother who grows beneath the Student's window, and perhaps he will give you what you want." So the Nightingale flew over to the rose-tree that was growing beneath the Student's window.

  "Give me a red rose," she cried, "and I will sing you my sweetest song."

  But the Tree shook its head.

  "My roses are red," it answered; "as red as the feet of the dove, and redder than the great fans of coral that wave and wave in the ocean-cavern. But the winter has chilled my veins, and the frost has nipped my buds, and the storm has broken my branches, and I shall have no roses at all this year."

  "One red rose is all I want," cried the Nightingale, "only one red rose! Is there no way by which I can get it?"

  "There is a way," answered the Tree; "but it is so terrible that I dare not tell it to you."

  "Tell it to me," said the Nightingale, "I am not afraid."

  "If you want a red rose," said the Tree, "you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart's-blood. You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into my veins, and become mine."

  "Death is a great price to pay for a red rose," cried the Nightingale, "and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?"

  So she spread her brown wings for flight, and soared into the air. She swept over the garden like a shadow, and like a shadow she sailed through the grove.

  The young Student was still lying on the grass, where she had left him, and the tears were not yet dry in his beautiful eyes.

  "Be happy," cried the Nightingale, "be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though he is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his wings, and coloured like flame is his body. His lips are sweet as honey, and his breath is like frankincense."

  The Student looked up from the grass, and listened, but he could not understand what the Nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the things that are written down in books.

  But the Oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of the little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches.

  "Sing me one last song," he whispered. "I shall feel lonely when you are gone."

  So the Nightingale sang to the Oak-tree, and her voice was like water bubbling from a silver jar.

  When she had finished her song, the Student got up and pulled a note-book and a lead-pencil out of his pocket.

  "She has form," he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove—"that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks merely of music, and everybody knows that the arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good!" And he went into his room, and lay down on his little pallet-bed, and began to think of his love; and, after a time, he fell asleep.

  And when the moon shone in the heavens, the Nightingale flew to the rose-tree, and set her breast against the thorn. All night long she sang, with her breast against the thorn, and the cold crystal Moon leaned down and listened. Alright long she sang, and the thorn went deeper and deeper into her breast, and her life-blood ebbed away from her.

  She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl. And on the topmost spray of the rose-tree there blossomed a marvellous rose, petal following petal, as song followed song. Pale was it, at first, as the mist that hangs over the river—pale as the feet of the morning, and silver as the wings of the dawn. As the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, as the shadow of a rose in a water-pool, so was the rose that blossomed on the topmost spray of the Tree.

  But the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. "Press closer, little Nightingale," cried the Tree, "or the Day will come before the rose is finished."

  So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and louder and louder grew her song, for she sang of the birth of passion in the soul of a man and a maid.

  And a delicate flush of pink came into the leaves of the rose, like the flush in the face of the bridegroom when he kisses the lips of the bride. But the thorn had not yet reached her heart, so the rose's heart remained white, for only a Nightingale's heart's-blood can crimson the heart of a rose.

  And the Tree cried to the Nightingale to press closer against the thorn. "Press closer, little Nightingale," cried the Tree, "or the Day will come before the rose is finished."

  So the Nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and the thorn touched her heart, and a fierce pang of pain shot through her. Bitter, bitter was the pain, and wilder and wilder grew her song, for she sang of the Love that is perfected by Death, of the Love that dies not in the tomb.

  And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart.

  But the Nightingale's voice grew fainter, and her little wings began to beat, and a film came over her eyes. Fainter and fainter grew her song, and she felt something choking her in her throat.

  Then she gave one last burst of music. The white Moon heard it, and she forgot the dawn, and lingered on in the sky. The red rose heard it, and it trembled all over with ecstasy, and opened its petals to the cold morning air. Echo bore it to her purple cavern in the hills, and woke the sleeping shepherds from their dreams. It floated through the reeds of the river, and they carried its message to the sea.

  "Look, look!" cried the Tree, "the rose is finished now"; but the Nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the long grass, with the thorn in her heart.

  And at noon the Student opened his window and looked out.

  "Why, what a wonderful piece of luck!" he cried; "here is a red rose! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. It is so beautiful that I am sure it has a long Latin name"; and he leaned down and plucked it.

  Then he put on his hat, and ran up to the Professor's house with the rose in his hand.

  The daughter of the Professor was sitting in the doorway winding blue silk on a reel, and her little dog was lying at her feet.

  "You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose," cried the Student. "Here is the reddest rose in all the world. You will wear it tonight next to your heart, and as we dance together it will tell you how I love you."

  But the girl
frowned.

  "I am afraid it will not go with my dress," she answered; "and, besides, the Chamberlain's nephew has sent me some real jewels, and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers."

  "Well, upon my word, you are very ungrateful," said the Student angrily; and he threw the rose into the street, where it fell into the gutter, and a cart-wheel went over it.

  "Ungrateful!" said the girl. "I tell you what, you are very rude; and, after all, who are you? Only a Student. Why, I don't believe you have even got silver buckles to your shoes as the Chamberlain's nephew has"; and she got up from her chair and went into the house.

  "What a silly thing Love is!" said the Student as he walked away. "It is not half as useful as Logic, for it does not prove anything, and it is always telling one of things that are not going to happen, and making one believe things that are not true. In fact, it is quite unpractical, and, as in this age to be practical is everything, I shall go back to Philosophy and study Metaphysics."

  So he returned to his room and pulled out a great dusty book, and began to read.

  The Girl Called Marie

  BY PETER TIZACK

  A tender story of love lost and found again. But was it too late?

  er name was Marie. She was young and pretty, and he in love with her. He treated her very tenderly, for she was the first girl he had ever loved. They blushed when they met, and on days they were apart, they wrote each other long letters.

  She was French and he English, and one day circumstances took her back to her country, leaving him in his. For a while they wrote to each other, but new friends weakened the old ties. The intervals between their letters grew longer. At Christmas they sent each other printed and painted cards, and then the correspondence ceased altogether.

  Time went by, and he fell in love with other girls. He had, in fact, almost forgotten about Marie, and that they once whispered into each other's ears the words, "I love you." But when, four years later, change took him for a week to Paris, where she lived, he thought of her again, and decided to call on her.

  It was a late summer's day, with the leaves falling and the air filled with suggestions of intimacy and repose. Arriving at her house, he enquired of the concierge, who remembered her well. She had left that address, it seemed, and his journey had been in vain. However, the concierge went to a cupboard and, after a search, produced a slip of paper. "Here, monsieur," he said. "This is where she's gone," adding that Mademoiselle Calmy had moved a year before.

  Marie now was somewhere in the provinces where he had no intention of going, but, not to appear ungrateful, he copied the address down. Disappointed at his wasted journey, he walked out into the street, hailed a cab, and told the driver to take him to his hotel. On the way, however, he shouted to the driver: "No! No! To the railway station!" After all, she was only an hour's ride from Paris.

  It was a quiet, unimpressive journey. Trains going to the provinces are the same everywhere. There is a thinning out in the interest of the immediate surroundings, unless of course you are in pursuit of a girl you once loved____ He asked himself, as the train rushed over the French countryside, what his thoughts about Marie really were. He was now committed, it seemed, to meeting her, and had a whole hour to think about it.

  There entered his memory a story by Maupassant where a man finds a fat, unattractive woman with a baby sitting opposite him in a railway carriage. This boring woman suddenly smiles at the hero of the story and tells him that she was Miss So-and-So, a woman he was once mad about. Horrible!

  He arrived at the station he wanted, and jumped out quickly in case the train should carry him still further into the wilderness. Around him was a little town of red brick and newly-built streets. He soon found the one where Marie lived. It was not far from the station. The houses on either side were set in their own gardens, surrounded by trees and high walls, middle-class, secluded.

  Standing at last before her house, he found himself shut out in the street. The high wooden gate with its lattice work in the upper half would not open. He thought it was jammed and tried to force it. Then, noticing a bell at the side, he rang and peered through the crossed bars at the house within.

  The door of the house opened, and what appeared to be a little old lady stepped out, descended to the garden, and came towards him. She was withered and walked with difficulty. As she approached the gate, she looked intently through the spaces in the green-painted trellis. Then she unlocked the gate, and gazed at him again. Her face was yellow. Her large eyes seemed to be hypnotic.

  In awkward French he began to ask for Marie, but some impatient movement on her part, or the realisation that he was about to make a dreadful blunder, stopped him in time. He was speaking to Marie, it was she, transformed, aged, made ugly— but nevertheless Marie, the once-pretty girl he had set out to find. He wanted to take her hand, behave as if nothing were wrong, but could not. Had he loved her, he might have done, but as it was____

  She gave an exclamation of pleasure and surprise. Together they walked along the garden path to the house and climbed the white steps. Her English once quite fluent, was now halting and inaccurate. She apologised, explaining that she hadn't spoken English since she came back to France.

  He was almost afraid to look at her. The walls of the large back room into which she led him were covered with books. She was alone in the house, and he found the stillness oppressive. In a corner was a couch covered with disarranged rugs. Explaining that she was not well, she lay down upon it, while he turned aside to examine the books. They were mainly in French, but some were in English, German, Russian even, on literary, scientific and philosophic subjects.

  "Whose are these books?" he asked. Marie lay back on the couch, her head looking towards the far corner of the ceiling. Her eyes travelled to his face, and she smiled, as if to say, "Have you come all the way from England to ask me this?" but replied, "My father's."

  That it was Marie who was speaking to him and not some strange, old woman he had continually to remind himself She began to ask him how he was, and how friends of his in England (whom she had met) were getting on, but she could not keep up this artificial silence about herself.

  He drew a chair up to the couch and sat beside her. He had noticed that her legs, now covered by rugs, were terribly thin.

  She began to tell him that some time ago she had fallen ill. No one knew what was the cause. Finally it was thought to be something psychological, and she was at present undergoing treatment. "My husband," she said, "is a doctor."

  So she has married! he thought with surprise.

  Her husband was away for some months in the South of France. They lived with her father, who had gone to Paris for the day. And he could only think that she was alone in this big house, married and ill. Such were the changes in so short a time!

  Soon they began to talk with less restraint, even laughing sometimes. Together they went into the kitchen and made coffee, reviving old times and their life in London four years before. He began slowly to forget about her illness; she no longer seemed to him like an old woman. Her large brown eyes were the eyes of Marie, the girl he used to love. He even forgot about her yellow complexion, which now no longer seemed so yellow, and her terribly thin limbs. The afternoon sped on. Once the telephone called Marie away into another room, and someone at the gate disturbed them a second time. He noticed her absence as if they were still lovers.

  Now he had to be getting back to Paris. What, anyhow, was the point of staying on? Their ways had parted, and there was more than one barrier between them. "Ah, well, it was a good idea coming to see Marie," he thought.

  Although he protested the walk would be too much for her, she insisted on seeing him to the station. She took his arm, their conversation grew more lively, and her eyes shone with a strange excitement. They climbed the station steps, the train came in, and he said goodbye.

  At the last moment Marie sprang into his arms and held him tight. He pressed his cheek against hers and kissed her. The love he
once felt for her returned, and with greater strength. There were tears in his eyes when he began to wave to her from the carriage window as the train drew away.

  He asked himself whether he loved her, and had to admit that he did. In fact he believed she was the only woman he had ever really loved.

  In London he asked a psychologist what Marie's illness could possibly be. How could a young girl become an old woman in four years? What did it mean? What was the matter with her? The psychologist was thoughtful for a moment.

  "It's hard to say.... Perhaps she made an unhappy marriage. Her illness could have been caused through an intense love for someone other than her husband. I've known such cases."

  The Gift of the Magi

  BY O. HENRY

  O. Henry (1862-1910) took up journalism after a spell in prison. He wrote hundreds of memorable stories, but this is probably his best-loved story and no anthology of love stories would be complete without it...

  ne dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty percents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheek burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Delia counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

  There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Delia did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

  While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad.

  In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger' could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr James Dillingham Young."