The Day Boy and the Night Girl (The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris) by George MacDonald (1882)The 
Day Boy and the Night Girl
(The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris)
by George MacDonald
1882

 
Contents:
  I. Watho 
  II. Aurora 
  III. Vesper 
  IV. Photogen 
  V. Nycteris 
  VI. How Photogen Grew 
  VII. How Nycteris Grew 
  VIII. The Lamp 
  IX. Out 
  X. The Great Lamp 
  XI. The Sunset 
  XII. The Garden 
  XIII. Something Quite New 
  XIV. The Sun 
  XV. The Coward Hero 
  XVI. The Evil Nurse 
  XVII. Watho's Wolf 
  XVIII. Refuge 
  XIX. The Werewolf 
  XX. All Is Well. 
  [Translations of personal names in the story.] 

 
I. Watho
THERE was once a witch who desired to know everything. But the wiser a witch is, 
the harder she knocks her head against the wall when she comes to it. Her name 
was Watho, and she had a wolf in her mind. She cared for nothing in itself -- 
only for knowing it. She was not naturally cruel, but the wolf had made her 
cruel.
She was tall and graceful, with a white skin, red hair, and black eyes, which 
had a red fire in them. She was straight and strong, but now and then would fall 
bent together, shudder, and sit for a moment with her head turned over her 
shoulder, as if the wolf had got out of her mind onto her back.

 
II. Aurora
THIS witch got two ladies to visit her. One of them belonged to the court, and 
her husband had been sent on a far and difficult embassy. The other was a young 
widow whose husband had lately died, and who had since lost her sight. Watho 
lodged them in different parts of her castle, and they did not know of each 
other's existence.
The castle stood on the side of a hill sloping gently down into a arrow valley, 
in which was a river with a pebbly channel and a continual song. The garden went 
down to the bank of the river, enclosed by high walls, which crossed the river 
and there stopped. Each wall had a double row of battlements, and between the 
rows was a narrow walk.
In the topmost story of the castle, the Lady Aurora occupied a spacious 
apartment of several large rooms looking southward. The windows projected 
oriel-wise over the garden below, and there was a splendid view from them both 
up and down and across the river. The opposite side of the valley was steep, but 
not very high. Far away snowpeaks were visible. These rooms Aurora seldom left, 
but their airy spaces, the brilliant landscape and sky, the plentiful sunlight, 
the musical instruments, books, pictures, curiosities, with the company of 
Watho, who made herself charming, precluded all dullness. She had venison and 
feathered game to eat, milk and pale sunny sparkling wine to drink.
She had hair of the yellow gold, waved and rippled; her skin was fair, not white 
like Watho's, and her eyes were of the blue of the heavens when bluest; her 
features were delicate but strong, her mouth large and finely curved, and 
haunted with smiles.

 
III. Vesper
BEHIND the castle the hill rose abruptly; the northeastern tower, indeed, was in 
contact with the rock and communicated with the interior of it. For in the rock 
was a series of chambers, known only to Watho and the one servant whom she 
trusted, called Falca. Some former owner had constructed these chambers after 
the tomb of an Egyptian king, and probably with the same design, for in the 
center of one of them stood what could only be a sarcophagus, but that and 
others were walled off. The sides and roofs of them were carved in low relief, 
and curiously painted. Here the witch lodged the blind lady, whose name was 
Vesper. Her eyes were black, with long black lashes; her skin had a look of 
darkened silver, but was of purest tint and grain; her hair was black and fine 
and straight flowing; her features were exquisitely formed, and if less 
beautiful yet more lovely from sadness; she always looked as if she wanted to 
lie down and not rise again. She did not know she was lodged in a tomb, though 
now and then she wondered why she never touched a window. There were many 
couches, covered with richest silk, and soft as her own cheek, for her to lie 
upon; and the carpets were so thick, she might have cast herself down anywhere 
-- as befitted a tomb. The place was dry and warm, and cunningly pierced for 
air, so that it was always fresh, and lacked only sunlight. There the witch fed 
her upon milk, and wine dark as a carbuncle, and pomegranates, and purple 
grapes, and birds that dwell in marshy places; and she played to her mournful 
tunes, and caused wailful violins to attend her, and told her sad tales, thus 
holding her ever in an atmosphere of sweet sorrow.

 
IV. Photogen
WATHO at length had her desire, for witches often get what they want: a splendid 
boy was born to the fair Aurora. Just as the sun rose, he opened his eyes. Watho 
carried him immediately to a distant part of the castle, and persuaded the 
mother that he never cried but once, dying the moment he was born. Overcome with 
grief, Aurora left the castle as soon as she was able, and Watho never invited 
her again.
And now the witch's care was that the child should not know darkness. 
Persistently she trained him until at last he never slept during the day and 
never woke during the night. She never let him see anything black, and even kept 
all dull colors out of his way. Never, if she could help it, would she let a 
shadow fall upon him, watching against shadows as if they had been live things 
that would hurt him. All day he basked in the full splendor of the sun, in the 
same large rooms his mother had occupied. Watho used him to the sun, until he 
could bear more of it than any dark-blooded African. In the hottest of every 
day, she stripped him and laid him in it, that he might ripen like a peach; and 
the boy rejoiced in it, and would resist being dressed again. She brought all 
her knowledge to bear on making his muscles strong and elastic and swiftly 
responsive -- that his soul, she said laughingly, might sit in every fibre, be 
all in every part, and awake the moment of call. His hair was of the red gold, 
but his eyes grew darker as he grew, until they were as black as Vesper's. He 
was the merriest of creatures, always laughing, always loving, for a moment 
raging, then laughing afresh. Watho called him Photogen.

 
V. Nycteris
FIVE or six months after the birth of Photogen, the dark lady also gave birth to 
a baby: in the windowless tomb of a blind mother, in the dead of night, under 
the feeble rays of a lamp in an alabaster globe, a girl came into the darkness 
with a wail. And just as she was born for the first time, Vesper was born for 
the second, and passed into a world as unknown to her as this was to her child 
-- who would have to be born yet again before she could see her mother.
Watho called her Nycteris, and she grew as like Vesper as possible -- in all but 
one particular. She had the same dark skin, dark eyelashes and brows, dark hair, 
and gentle sad look; but she had just the eyes of Aurora, the mother of 
Photogen, and if they grew darker as she grew older, it was only a darker blue. 
Watho, with the help of Falca, took the greatest possible care of her -- in 
every way consistent with her plans, that is, -- the main point in which was 
that she should never see any light but what came from the lamp. Hence her optic 
nerves, and indeed her whole apparatus for seeing, grew both larger and more 
sensitive; her eyes, indeed, stopped short only of being too large. Under her 
dark hair and forehead and eyebrows, they looked like two breaks in a cloudy 
night-sky, through which peeped the heaven where the stars and no clouds live. 
She was a sadly dainty little creature. No one in the world except those two was 
aware of the being of the little bat. Watho trained her to sleep during the day 
and wake during the night. She taught her music, in which she was herself a 
proficient, and taught her scarcely anything else.

 
VI. How Photogen Grew
THE hollow in which the castle of Watho lay was a cleft in a plain rather than a 
valley among hills, for at the top of its steep sides, both north and south, was 
a tableland, large and wide. It was covered with rich grass and flowers, with 
here and there a wood, the outlying colony of a great forest. These grassy 
plains were the finest hunting grounds in the world. Great herds of small but 
fierce cattle, with humps and shaggy manes, roved about them, also antelopes and 
gnus, and the tiny roedeer, while the woods were swarming with wild creatures. 
The tables of the castle were mainly supplied from them. The chief of Watho's 
huntsmen was a fine fellow, and when Photogen began to outgrow the training she 
could give him, she handed him over to Fargu. He with a will set about teaching 
him all he knew. He got him pony after pony, larger and larger as he grew, every 
one less manageable than that which had preceded it, and advanced him from pony 
to horse, and from horse to horse, until he was equal to anything in that kind 
which the country produced. In similar fashion he trained him to the use of bow 
and arrow, substituting every three months a stronger bow and longer arrows; and 
soon he became, even on horseback, a wonderful archer. He was but fourteen when 
he killed his first bull, causing jubilation among the huntsmen, and indeed, 
through all the castle, for there too he was the favorite. Every day, almost as 
soon as the sun was up, he went out hunting, and would in general be out nearly 
the whole of the day. But Watho had laid upon Fargu just one commandment, 
namely, that Photogen should on no account, whatever the plea, be out until 
sundown, or so near it as to wake in him the desire of seeing what was going to 
happen; and this commandment Fargu was anxiously careful not to break; for 
although he would not have trembled had a whole herd of bulls come down upon 
him, charging at full speed across the level, and not an arrow left in his 
quiver, he was more than afraid of his mistress. When she looked at him in a 
certain way, he felt, he said, as if his heart turned to ashes in his breast, 
and what ran in his veins was no longer blood, but milk and water. So that, ere 
long, as Photogen grew older, Fargu began to tremble, for he found it steadily 
growing harder to restrain him. So full of life was he, as Fargu said to his 
mistress, much to her content, that he was more like a live thunderbolt than a 
human being. He did not know what fear was, and that not because he did not know 
danger; for he had had a severe laceration from the razor-like tusk of a boar -- 
whose spine, however, he had severed with one blow of his hunting knife, before 
Fargu could reach him with defense. When he would spur his horse into the midst 
of a herd of bulls, carrying only his bow and his short sword, or shoot an arrow 
into a herd, and go after it as if to reclaim it for a runaway shaft, arriving 
in time to follow it with a spear thrust before the wounded animal knew which 
way to charge, Fargu thought with terror how it would be when he came to know 
the temptation of the huddle-spot leopards, and the knife-clawed lynxes, with 
which the forest was haunted. For the boy had been so steeped in the sun, from 
childhood so saturated with his influence, that he looked upon every danger from 
a sovereign height of courage. When, therefore, he was approaching his sixteenth 
year, Fargu ventured to beg Watho that she would lay her commands upon the youth 
himself, and release him from responsibility for him. One might as soon hold a 
tawny-maned lion as Photogen, he said. Watho called the youth, and in the 
presence of Fargu laid her command upon him never to be out when the rim of the 
sun should touch the horizon, accompanying the prohibition with hints of 
consequences, none the less awful than they were obscure. Photogen listened 
respectfully, but, knowing neither the taste of fear nor the temptation of the 
night, her words were but sounds to him.

 
VII. How Nycteris Grew
THE little education she intended Nycteris to have, Watho gave her by word of 
mouth. Not meaning she should have light enough to read by, to leave other 
reasons unmentioned, she never put a book in her hands. Nycteris, however, saw 
so much better than Watho imagined, that the light she gave her was quite 
sufficient, and she managed to coax Falca into teaching her the letters, after 
which she taught herself to read, and Falca now and then brought her a child's 
book. But her chief pleasure was in her instrument. Her very fingers loved it 
and would wander about its keys like feeding sheep. She was not unhappy. She 
knew nothing of the world except the tomb in which she dwelt, and had some 
pleasure in everything she did. But she desired, nevertheless, something more or 
different. She did not know what it was, and the nearest she could come to 
expressing it to herself was -- that she wanted more room. Watho and Falca would 
go from her beyond the shine of the lamp, and come again; therefore surely there 
must be more room somewhere. As often as she was left alone, she would fall to 
poring over the colored bas-reliefs on the walls. These were intended to 
represent various of the powers of Nature under allegorical similitudes, and as 
nothing can be made that does not belong to the general scheme, she could not 
fail at least to imagine a flicker of relationship between some of them, and 
thus a shadow of the reality of things found its way to her.
There was one thing, however, which moved and taught her more than all the rest 
-- the lamp, namely, that hung from the ceiling, which she always saw alight, 
though she never saw the flame, only the slight condensation towards the center 
of the alabaster globe. And besides the operation of the light itself after its 
kind, the indefiniteness of the globe, and the softness of the light, giving her 
the feeling as if her eyes could go in and into its whiteness, were somehow also 
associated with the idea of space and room. She would sit for an hour together 
gazing up at the lamp, and her heart would swell as she gazed. She would wonder 
what had hurt her when she found her face wet with tears, and then would wonder 
how she could have been hurt without knowing it. She never looked thus at the 
lamp except when she was alone.

 
VIII. The Lamp
WATHO, having given orders, took it for granted they were obeyed, and that Falca 
was all night long with Nycteris, whose day it was. But Falca could not get into 
the habit of sleeping through the day, and would often leave her alone half the 
night. Then it seemed to Nycteris that the white lamp was watching over her. As 
it was never permitted to go out -- while she was awake at least -- Nycteris, 
except by shutting her eyes, knew less about darkness than she did about light. 
Also, the lamp being fixed high overhead, and in the center of everything, she 
did not know much about shadows either. The few there were fell almost entirely 
on the floor, or kept like mice about the foot of the walls.
Once, when she was thus alone, there came the noise of a far-off rumbling: she 
had never before heard a sound of which she did not know the origin, and here 
therefore was a new sign of something beyond these chambers. Then came a 
trembling, then a shaking; the lamp dropped from the ceiling to the floor with a 
great crash, and she felt as if both her eyes were hard shut and both her hands 
over them. She concluded that it was the darkness that had made the rumbling and 
the shaking, and rushing into the room, had thrown down the lamp. She sat 
trembling. The noise and the shaking ceased, but the light did not return. The 
darkness had eaten it up!
Her lamp gone, the desire at once awoke to get out of her prison. She scarcely 
knew what out meant; out of one room into another, where there was not even a 
dividing door, only an open arch, was all she knew of the world. But suddenly 
she remembered that she had heard Falca speak of the lamp going out: this must 
be what she had meant? And if the lamp had gone out, where had it gone? Surely 
where Falca went, and like her it would come again. But she could not wait. The 
desire to go out grew irresistible. She must follow her beautiful lamp! She must 
find it! She must see what it was about!
Now, there was a curtain covering a recess in the wall, where some of her toys 
and gymnastic things were kept; and from behind that curtain Watho and Falca 
always appeared, and behind it they vanished. How they came out of solid wall, 
she had not an idea, all up to the wall was open space, and all beyond it seemed 
wall; but clearly the first and only thing she could do was to feel her way 
behind the curtain. It was so dark that a cat could not have caught the largest 
of mice. Nycteris could see better than any cat, but now her great eyes were not 
of the smallest use to her. As she went she trod upon a piece of the broken 
lamp. She had never worn shoes or stockings, and the fragment, though, being of 
soft alabaster, it did not cut, yet hurt her foot. She did not know what it was, 
but as it had not been there before the darkness came, she suspected that it had 
to do with the lamp. She kneeled therefore, and searched with her hands, and 
bringing two large pieces together, recognized the shape of the lamp. Therefore 
it flashed upon her that the lamp was dead, that this brokenness was the death 
of which she had read without understanding, that the darkness had killed the 
lamp. What then could Falca have meant when she spoke of the lamp going out? 
There was the lamp -- dead indeed, and so changed that she would never have 
taken it for a lamp, but for the shape! No, it was not the lamp anymore now it 
was dead, for all that made it a lamp was gone, namely, the bright shining of 
it. Then it must be the shine, the light, that had gone out! That must be what 
Falca meant -- and it must be somewhere in the other place in the wall. She 
started afresh after it, and groped her way to the curtain.
Now, she had never in her life tried to get out, and did not know how; but 
instinctively she began to move her hands about over one of the walls behind the 
curtain, half expecting them to go into it, as she supposed Watho and Falca did. 
But the wall repelled her with inexorable hardness, and she turned to the one 
opposite. In so doing, she set her foot upon an ivory die, and as it met sharply 
the same spot the broken alabaster had already hurt, she fell forward with her 
outstretched hands against the wall. Something gave way, and she tumbled out of 
the cavern.

 
IX. Out
BUT alas! out was very much like in, for the same enemy, the darkness, was here 
also. The next moment, however, came a great gladness -- a firefly, which had 
wandered in from the garden. She saw the tiny spark in the distance. With slow 
pulsing ebb and throb of light, it came pushing itself through the air, drawing 
nearer and nearer, with that motion which more resembles swimming than flying, 
and the light seemed the source of its own motion.
``My lamp! my lamp!'' cried Nycteris. ``It is the shiningness of my lamp, which 
the cruel darkness drove out. My good lamp has been waiting for me here all the 
time! It knew I would come after it, and waited to take me with it.''
She followed the firefly, which, like herself, was seeking the way out. If it 
did not know the way, it was yet light; and, because all light is one, any light 
may serve to guide to more light. If she was mistaken in thinking it the spirit 
of her lamp, it was of the same spirit as her lamp and had wings. The gold-green 
jet-boat, driven by light, went throbbing before her through a long narrow 
passage. Suddenly it rose higher, and the same moment Nycteris fell upon an 
ascending stair. She had never seen a stair before, and found going-up a curious 
sensation. Just as she reached what seemed the top, the firefly ceased to shine, 
and so disappeared. She was in utter darkness once more. But when we are 
following the light, even its extinction is a guide. If the firefly had gone on 
shining, Nycteris would have seen the stair turn and would have gone up to 
Watho's bedroom; whereas now, feeling straight before her, she came to a latched 
door, which after a good deal of trying she managed to open -- and stood in a 
maze of wondering perplexity, awe, and delight. What was it? Was it outside of 
her, or something taking place in her head? Before her was a very long and very 
narrow passage, broken up she could not tell how, and spreading out above and on 
all sides to an infinite height and breadth and distance -- as if space itself 
were growing out of a trough. It was brighter than her rooms had ever been -- 
brighter than if six alabaster lamps had been burning in them. There was a 
quantity of strange streaking and mottling about it, very different from the 
shapes on her walls. She was in a dream of pleasant perplexity, of delightful 
bewilderment. She could not tell whether she was upon her feet or drifting about 
like the firefly, driven by the pulses of an inward bliss. But she knew little 
as yet of her inheritance. Unconsciously, she took one step forward from the 
threshold, and the girl who had been from her very birth a troglodyte stood in 
the ravishing glory of a southern night, lit by a perfect moon -- not the moon 
of our northern clime, but a moon like silver glowing in a furnace -- a moon one 
could see to be a globe -- not far off, a mere flat disk on the face of the 
blue, but hanging down halfway, and looking as if one could see all around it by 
a mere bending of the neck.
``It is my lamp,'' she said, and stood dumb with parted lips. She looked and 
felt as if she had been standing there in silent ecstasy from the beginning.
``No, it is not my lamp,'' she said after a while; ``it is the mother of all the 
lamps.''
And with that she fell on her knees and spread out her hands to the moon. She 
could not in the least have told what was in her mind, but the action was in 
reality just a begging of the moon to be what she was -- that precise incredible 
splendor hung in the far-off roof, that very glory essential to the being of 
poor girls born and bred in caverns. It was a resurrection -- nay, a birth 
itself, to Nycteris. What the vast blue sky, studded with tiny sparks like the 
heads of diamond nails, could be; what the moon, looking so absolutely content 
with light -- why, she knew less about them than you and I! but the greatest of 
astronomers might envy the rapture of such a first impression at the age of 
sixteen. Immeasurably imperfect it was, but false the impression could not be, 
for she saw with the eyes made for seeing, and saw indeed what many men are too 
wise to see.
As she knelt, something softly flapped her, embraced her, stroked her, fondled 
her. She rose to her feet but saw nothing, did not know what it was. It was 
likest a woman's breath. For she knew nothing of the air even, had never 
breathed the still, newborn freshness of the world. Her breath had come to her 
only through long passages and spirals in the rock. Still less did she know of 
the air alive with motion -- of that thrice-blessed thing, the wind of a summer 
night. It was like a spiritual wine, filling her whole being with an 
intoxication of purest joy. To breathe was a perfect existence. It seemed to her 
the light itself she drew into her lungs. Possessed by the power of the gorgeous 
night, she seemed at one and the same moment annihilated and glorified.
She was in the open passage or gallery that ran around the top of the garden 
walls, between the cleft battlements, but she did not once look down to see what 
lay beneath. Her soul was drawn to the vault above her with its lamp and its 
endless room. At last she burst into tears, and her heart was relieved, as the 
night itself is relieved by its lightning and rain.
And now she grew thoughtful. She must hoard this splendor! What a little 
ignorance her jailers had made of her! Life was a mighty bliss, and they had 
scraped hers to the bare bone! They must not know that she knew. She must hide 
her knowledge -- hide it even from her own eyes, keeping it close in her bosom, 
content to know that she had it, even when she could not brood on its presence, 
feasting her eyes with its glory. She turned from the vision, therefore, with a 
sigh of utter bliss, and with soft quiet steps and groping hands stole back into 
the darkness of the rock. What was darkness or the laziness of Time's feet to 
one who had seen what she had that night seen? She was lifted above all 
weariness -- above all wrong.
When Falca entered, she uttered a cry of terror. But Nycteris called to her not 
to be afraid, and told her how there had come a rumbling and shaking, and the 
lamp had fallen. Then Falca went and told her mistress, and within an hour a new 
globe hung in the place of the old one. Nycteris thought it did not look so 
bright and clear as the former, but she made no lamentation over the change; she 
was far too rich to heed it. For now, prisoner as she knew herself, her heart 
was full of glory and gladness; at times she had to hold herself from jumping 
up, and going dancing and singing about the room. When she slept, instead of 
dull dreams, she had splendid visions. There were times, it is true, when she 
became restless, and impatient to look upon her riches, but then she would 
reason with herself, saying, ``What does it matter if I sit here for ages with 
my poor pale lamp, when out there a lamp is burning at which ten thousand little 
lamps are glowing with wonder?''
She never doubted she had looked upon the day and the sun, of which she had 
read; and always when she read of the day and the sun, she had the night and the 
moon in her mind; and when she read of the night and the moon, she thought only 
of the cave and the lamp that hung there.

 
X. The Great Lamp
IT was some time before she had a second opportunity of going out, for Falca 
since the fall of the lamp had been a little more careful, and seldom left her 
for long. But one night, having a little headache, Nycteris lay down upon her 
bed, and was lying with her eyes closed, when she heard Falca come to her, and 
felt she was bending over her. Disinclined to talk, she did not open her eyes, 
and lay quite still. Satisfied that she was asleep, Falca left her, moving so 
softly that her very caution made Nycteris open her eyes and look after her -- 
just in time to see her vanish -- through a picture, as it seemed, that hung on 
the wall a long way from the usual place of issue. She jumped up, her headache 
forgotten, and ran in the opposite direction; got out, groped her way to the 
stair, climbed, and reached the top of the wall. -- Alas! the great room was not 
so light as the little one she had left! Why? -- Sorrow of sorrows! the great 
lamp was gone! Had its globe fallen? and its lovely light gone out upon great 
wings, a resplendent firefly, oaring itself through a yet grander and lovelier 
room? She looked down to see if it lay anywhere broken to pieces on the carpet 
below; but she could not even see the carpet. But surely nothing very dreadful 
could have happened -- no rumbling or shaking; for there were all the little 
lamps shining brighter than before, not one of them looking as if any unusual 
matter had befallen. What if each of those little lamps was growing into a big 
lamp, and after being a big lamp for a while, had to go out and grow a bigger 
lamp still -- out there, beyond this out? -- Ah! here was the living thing that 
could not be seen, come to her again -- bigger tonight! with such loving kisses, 
and such liquid strokings of her cheeks and forehead, gently tossing her hair, 
and delicately toying with it! But it ceased, and all was still. Had it gone 
out? What would happen next? Perhaps the little lamps had not to grow great 
lamps, but to fall one by one and go out first? -- With that came from below a 
sweet scent, then another, and another. Ah, how delicious! Perhaps they were all 
coming to her only on their way out after the great lamp! -- Then came the music 
of the river, which she had been too absorbed in the sky to note the first time. 
What was it? Alas! alas! another sweet living thing on its way out. They were 
all marching slowly out in long lovely file, one after the other, each taking 
its leave of her as it passed! It must be so: here were more and more sweet 
sounds, following and fading! The whole of the Out was going out again; it was 
all going after the great lovely lamp! She would be left the only creature in 
the solitary day! Was there nobody to hang up a new lamp for the old one, and 
keep the creatures from going? -- She crept back to her rock very sad. She tried 
to comfort herself by saying that anyhow there would be room out there; but as 
she said it she shuddered at the thought of empty room.
When next she succeeded in getting out, a half-moon hung in the east: a new lamp 
had come, she thought, and all would be well.
It would be endless to describe the phases of feeling through which Nycteris 
passed, more numerous and delicate than those of a thousand changing moons. A 
fresh bliss bloomed in her soul with every varying aspect of infinite nature. 
Ere long she began to suspect that the new moon was the old moon, gone out and 
come in again like herself; also that, unlike herself, it wasted and grew again; 
that it was indeed a live thing, subject like herself to caverns, and keepers, 
and solitudes, escaping and shining when it could. Was it a prison like hers it 
was shut in? and did it grow dark when the lamp left it? Where could be the way 
into it? -- With that, first she began to look below, as well as above and 
around her; and then first noted the tops of the trees between her and the 
floor. There were palms with their red-fingered hands full of fruit; eucalyptus 
trees crowded with little boxes of powder puffs; oleanders with their half-caste 
roses; and orange trees with their clouds of young silver stars and their aged 
balls of gold. Her eyes could see colors invisible to ours in the moonlight, and 
all these she could distinguish well, though at first she took them for the 
shapes and colors of the carpet of the great room. She longed to get down among 
them, now she saw they were real creatures, but she did not know how. She went 
along the whole length of the wall to the end that crossed the river, but found 
no way of going down. Above the river she stopped to gaze with awe upon the 
rushing water. She knew nothing of water but from what she drank and what she 
bathed in; and as the moon shone on the dark, swift stream, singing lustily as 
it flowed, she did not doubt the river was alive, a swift rushing serpent of 
life, going -- out? -- whither? And then she wondered if what was brought into 
her rooms had been killed that she might drink it, and have her bath in it.
Once when she stepped out upon the wall, it was into the midst of a fierce wind. 
The trees were all roaring. Great clouds were rushing along the skies and 
tumbling over the little lamps: the great lamp had not come yet. All was in 
tumult. The wind seized her garments and hair and shook them as if it would tear 
them from her. What could she have done to make the gentle creature so angry? Or 
was this another creature altogether -- of the same kind, but hugely bigger, and 
of a very different temper and behavior? But the whole place was angry! Or was 
it that the creatures dwelling in it, the wind, and the trees, and the clouds, 
and the river, had all quarreled, each with all the rest? Would the whole come 
to confusion and disorder? But as she gazed wondering and disquieted, the moon, 
larger than ever she had seen her, came lifting herself above the horizon to 
look, broad and red, as if she, too, were swollen with anger that she had been 
roused from her rest by their noise, and compelled to hurry up to see what her 
children were about, thus rioting in her absence, lest they should rack the 
whole frame of things. And as she rose, the loud wind grew quieter and scolded 
less fiercely, the trees grew stiller and moaned with a lower complaint, and the 
clouds hunted and hurled themselves less wildly across the sky. And as if she 
were pleased that her children obeyed her very presence, the moon grew smaller 
as she ascended the heavenly stair; her puffed cheeks sank, her complexion grew 
clearer, and a sweet smile spread over her countenance, as peacefully she rose 
and rose. But there was treason and rebellion in her court; for ere she reached 
the top of her great stairs, the clouds had assembled, forgetting their late 
wars, and very still they were as they laid their heads together and conspired. 
Then combining, and lying silently in wait until she came near, they threw 
themselves upon her and swallowed her up. Down from the roof came spots of wet, 
faster and faster, and they wetted the cheeks of Nycteris; and what could they 
be but the tears of the moon, crying because her children were smothering her? 
Nycteris wept too and, not knowing what to think, stole back in dismay to her 
room.
The next time, she came out in fear and trembling. There was the moon still! 
away in the west -- poor, indeed, and old, and looking dreadfully worn, as if 
all the wild beasts in the sky had been gnawing at her -- but there she was, 
alive still, and able to shine!

 
XI. The Sunset.
KNOWING nothing of darkness, or stars, or moon, Photogen spent his days in 
hunting. On a great white horse he swept over the grassy plains, glorying in the 
sun, fighting the wind, and killing the buffaloes.
One morning, when he happened to be on the ground a little earlier than usual, 
and before his attendants, he caught sight of an animal unknown to him, stealing 
from a hollow into which the sunrays had not yet reached. Like a swift shadow it 
sped over the grass, slinking southward to the forest. He gave chase, noted the 
body of a buffalo it had half eaten, and pursued it the harder. But with great 
leaps and bounds the creature shot farther and farther ahead of him, and 
vanished. Turning therefore defeated, he met Fargu, who had been following him 
as fast as his horse could carry him.
``What animal was that, Fargu?'' he asked. ``How he did run!''
Fargu answered he might be a leopard, but he rather thought from his pace and 
look that he was a young lion.
``What a coward he must be!'' said Photogen.
``Don't be too sure of that,'' rejoined Fargu. ``He is one of the creatures the 
sun makes umcomfortable. As soon as the sun is down, he will be brave enough.''
He had scarcely said it, when he repented; nor did he regret it the less when he 
found that Photogen made no reply. But alas! said was said.
``Then,'' said Photogen to himself, ``that contemptible beast is one of the 
terrors of sundown, of which Madame Watho spoke!''
He hunted all day, but not with his usual spirit. He did not ride so hard, and 
did not kill one buffalo. Fargu to his dismay observed also that he took every 
pretext for moving farther south, nearer to the forest. But all at once, the sun 
now sinking in the west, he seemed to change his mind, for he turned his horse's 
head and rode home so fast that the rest could not keep him in sight. When they 
arrived, they found his horse in the stable and concluded that he had gone into 
the castle. But he had in truth set out again by the back of it. Crossing the 
river a good way up the valley, he reascended to the ground they had left, and 
just before sunset reached the skirts of the forest.
The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying to himself he 
could not fail to find the beast, he rushed into the wood. But even as he 
entered, he turned and looked to the west. The rim of the red was touching the 
horizon, all jagged with broken hills. ``Now,'' said Photogen, ``we shall see''; 
but he said it in the face of a darkness he had not proved. The moment the sun 
began to sink among the spikes and saw edges, with a kind of sudden flap at his 
heart a fear inexplicable laid hold of the youth; and as he had never felt 
anything of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun 
sank, it rose like the shadow of the world and grew deeper and darker. He could 
not even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When the last 
flaming scimitar edge of the sun went out like a lamp, his horror seemed to 
blossom into very madness. Like the closing lids of an eye -- for there was no 
twilight, and this night no moon -- the terror and the darkness rushed together, 
and he knew them for one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather 
thought himself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own -- he had only 
had courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he could scarcely stand 
-- certainly not stand straight, for not one of his joints could he make stiff 
or keep from trembling. He was but a spark of the sun, in himself nothing.
The beast was behind him -- stealing upon him! He turned. All was dark in the 
wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there broke into pairs of green 
eyes, and he had not the power even to raise his bow hand from his side. In the 
strength of despair he strove to rouse courage enough -- not to fight -- that he 
did not even desire -- but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could ever 
imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not was ignominiously given him. 
A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a 
boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear that had 
come alive in his legs; he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew 
able to run -- gained courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave a little 
light. Over the grass he sped, and nothing followed him. ``How fallen, how 
changed,'' from the youth who had climbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere 
contempt to himself, the self that contemned was a coward with the self it 
contemned! There lay the shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass. He 
made a wide circuit and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the wind 
had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. He reached the 
brow of the valley and shot down the steep descent like a falling star. 
Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose and pursued him! The wind 
came howling after him, filled with screams, shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, 
and chattering, as if all the animals of the forest were careering with it. In 
his ears was a trampling rush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle, in career 
from every quarter of the wide plains to the brow of the hill above him. He fled 
straight for the castle, scarcely with breath enough to pant.
As he reached the bottom of the valley, the moon peered up over its edge. He had 
never seen the moon before -- except in the daytime, when he had taken her for a 
thin bright cloud. She was a fresh terror to him -- so ghostly! so ghastly! so 
gruesome! -- so knowing as she looked over the top of her garden wall upon the 
world outside! That was the night itself! the darkness alive -- and after him! 
the horror of horrors coming down the sky to curdle his blood and turn his brain 
to a cinder! He gave a sob and made straight for the river, where it ran between 
the two walls, at the bottom of the garden. He plunged in, struggled through, 
clambered up the bank, and fell senseless on the grass.

 
XII. The Garden
ALTHOUGH Nycteris took care not to stay out long at a time, and used every 
precaution, she could hardly have escaped discovery so long had it not been that 
the strange attacks to which Watho was subject had been more frequent of late, 
and had at last settled into an illness which kept her to her bed. But whether 
from an excess of caution or from suspicion, Falca, having now to be much with 
her mistress both day and night, took it at length into her head to fasten the 
door as often as she went by her usual place of exit, so that one night, when 
Nycteris pushed, she found, to her surprise and dismay, that the wall pushed her 
again, and would not let her through; nor with all her searching could she 
discover wherein lay the cause of the change. Then first she felt the pressure 
of her prison walls, and turning, half in despair, groped her way to the picture 
where she had once seen Falca disappear. There she soon found the spot by 
pressing upon which the wall yielded. It let her through into a sort of cellar, 
where was a glimmer of light from a sky whose blue was paled by the moon. From 
the cellar she got into a long passage, into which the moon was shining, and 
came to a door. She managed to open it, and to her great joy found herself in 
the other place, not on the top of the wall, however, but in the garden she had 
longed to enter. Noiseless as a fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of 
the trees and shrubs, her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets, which, 
by the very touch, her feet knew to be alive, whence it came that it was so 
sweet and friendly to them. A soft little wind was out among the trees, running 
now here, now there, like a child that had got its will. She went dancing over 
the grass, looking behind her at her shadow as she went. At first she had taken 
it for a little black creature that made game of her, but when she perceived 
that it was only where she kept the moon away, and that every tree, however 
great and grand a creature, had also one of these strange attendants, she soon 
learned not to mind it, and by and by it became the source of as much amusement 
to her as to any kitten its tail. It was long before she was quite at home with 
the trees, however. At one time they seemed to disapprove of her; at another not 
even to know she was there, and to be altogether taken up with their own 
business. Suddenly, as she went from one to another of them, looking up with awe 
at the murmuring mystery of their branches and leaves, she spied one a little 
way off, which was very different from all the rest. It was white, and dark, and 
sparkling, and spread like a palm -- a small slender palm, without much head; 
and it grew very fast, and sang as it grew. But it never grew any bigger, for 
just as fast as she could see it growing, it kept falling to pieces. When she 
got close to it, she discovered that it was a water tree -- made of just such 
water as she washed with -- only it was alive of course, like the river -- a 
different sort of water from that, doubtless, seeing the one crept swiftly along 
the floor, and the other shot straight up, and fell, and swallowed itself, and 
rose again. She put her feet into the marble basin, which was the flowerpot in 
which it grew. It was full of real water, living and cool -- so nice, for the 
night was hot!
But the flowers! ah, the flowers! she was friends with them from the very first. 
What wonderful creatures they were! -- and so kind and beautiful -- always 
sending out such colors and such scents -- red scent, and white scent, and 
yellow scent -- for the other creatures! The one that was invisible and 
everywhere took such a quantity of their scents, and carried it away! yet they 
did not seem to mind. It was their talk, to show they were alive, and not 
painted like those on the walls of her rooms, and on the carpets.
She wandered along down the garden, until she reached the river. Unable then to 
get any further -- for she was a little afraid, and justly, of the swift watery 
serpent -- she dropped on the grassy bank, dipped her feet in the water, and 
felt it running and pushing against them. For a long time she sat thus, and her 
bliss seemed complete, as she gazed at the river and watched the broken picture 
of the great lamp overhead, moving up one side of the roof, to go down the 
other.

 
XIII. Something Quite New
A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris. She sprang to 
her feet to follow it -- not in the spirit of the hunter, but of the lover. Her 
heart -- like every heart, if only its fallen sides were cleared away -- was an 
inexhaustible fountain of love: she loved everything she saw. But as she 
followed the moth, she caught sight of something lying on the bank of the river, 
and not yet having learned to be afraid of anything, ran straight to see what it 
was. Reaching it, she stood amazed. Another girl like herself! But what a 
strange-looking girl! -- so curiously dressed too! -- and not able to move! Was 
she dead? Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, lifted Photogen's head, laid 
it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her warm hands brought him to 
himself. He opened his black eyes, out of which had gone all the fire, and 
looked up with a strange sound of fear, half moan, half gasp. But when he saw 
her face, he drew a deep breath and lay motionless -- gazing at her: those blue 
marvels above him, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage 
his terror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half whisper, he said, 
``Who are you?''
``I am Nycteris,'' she answered
``You are a creature of the darkness, and love the night,'' he said, his fear 
beginning to move again.
``I may be a creature of the darkness,'' she replied. ``I hardly know what you 
mean. But I do not love the night. I love the day -- with all my heart; and I 
sleep all the night long.''
``How can that be?'' said Photogen, rising on his elbow, but dropping his head 
on her lap again the moment he saw the moon; ``-- how can it be,'' he repeated, 
``when I see your eyes there -- wide awake?''
She only smiled and stroked him, for she did not understand him, and thought he 
did not know what he was saying.
``Was it a dream then?'' resumed Photogen, rubbing his eyes. But with that his 
memory came clear, and he shuddered and cried, ``Oh, horrible! horrible! to be 
turned all at once into a coward! a shameful, contemptible, disgraceful coward! 
I am ashamed -- ashamed -- and so frightened! It is all so frightful!''
``What is so frightful?'' asked Nycteris, with a smile like that of a mother to 
her child waked from a bad dream.
``All, all,'' he answered; ``all this darkness and the roaring.''
``My dear,'' said Nycteris, ``there is no roaring. How sensitive you must be! 
What you hear is only the walking of the water, and the running about of the 
sweetest of all the creatures. She is invisible, and I call her Everywhere, for 
she goes through all the other creatures, and comforts them. Now she is amusing 
herself, and them too, with shaking them and kissing them, and blowing in their 
faces. Listen: do you call that roaring? You should hear her when she is rather 
angry though! I don't know why, but she is sometimes, and then she does roar a 
little.''
``It is so horribly dark!'' said Photogen, who, listening while she spoke, had 
satisfied himself that there was no roaring.
``Dark!'' she echoed. ``You should be in my room when an earthquake has killed 
my lamp. I do not understand. How can you call this dark? Let me see: yes, you 
have eyes, and big ones, bigger than Madame Watho's or Falca's -- not so big as 
mine, I fancy -- only I never saw mine. But then -- oh, yes! -- I know now what 
is the matter! You can't see with them, because they are so black. Darkness 
can't see, of course. Never mind: I will be your eyes, and teach you to see. 
Look here -- at these lovely white things in the grass, with red sharp points 
all folded together into one. Oh, I love them so! I could sit looking at them 
all day, the darlings!''
Photogen looked close at the flowers, and thought he had seen something like 
them before, but could not make them out. As Nycteris had never seen an open 
daisy, so had he never seen a closed one.
Thus instinctively Nycteris tried to turn him away from his fear; and the 
beautiful creature's strange lovely talk helped not a little to make him forget 
it.
``You call it dark!'' she said again, as if she could not get rid of the 
absurdity of the idea; ``why, I could count every blade of the green hair -- I 
suppose it is what the books call grass -- within two yards of me! And just look 
at the great lamp! It is brighter than usual today, and I can't think why you 
should be frightened, or call it dark!''
As she spoke, she went on stroking his cheeks and hair, and trying to comfort 
him. But oh how miserable he was! and how plainly he looked it! He was on the 
point of saying that her great lamp was dreadful to him, looking like a witch, 
walking in the sleep of death; but he was not so ignorant as Nycteris, and knew 
even in the moonlight that she was a woman, though he had never seen one so 
young or so lovely before; and while she comforted his fear, her presence made 
him the more ashamed of it. Besides, not knowing her nature, he might annoy her, 
and make her leave him to his misery. He lay still therefore, hardly daring to 
move: all the little life he had seemed to come from her, and if he were to 
move, she might move: and if she were to leave him, he must weep like a child.
``How did you come here?'' asked Nycteris, taking his face between her hands.
``Down the hill,'' he answered.
``Where do you sleep?'' she asked.
He signed in the direction of the house. She gave a little laugh of delight.
``When you have learned not to be frightened, you will always be wanting to come 
out with me,'' she said.
She thought with herself she would ask her presently, when she had come to 
herself a little, how she had made her escape, for she must, of course, like 
herself, have got out of a cave, in which Watho and Falca had been keeping her.
``Look at the lovely colors,'' she went on, pointing to a rose bush, on which 
Photogen could not see a single flower. ``They are far more beautiful -- are 
they not? -- than any of the colors upon your walls. And then they are alive, 
and smell so sweet!''
He wished she would not make him keep opening his eyes to look at things he 
could not see; and every other moment would start and grasp tight hold of her, 
as some fresh pang of terror shot into him.
``Come, come, dear!'' said Nycteris, ``you must not go on this way. You must be 
a brave girl, and --''
``A girl!'' shouted Photogen, and started to his feet in wrath. ``If you were a 
man, I should kill you.''
``A man?'' repeated Nycteris. ``What is that? How could I be that? We are both 
girls -- are we not?''
``No, I am not a girl,'' he answered; ``-- although,'' he added, changing his 
tone, and casting himself on the ground at her feet, ``I have given you too good 
reason to call me one.''
``Oh, I see!'' returned Nycteris. ``No, of course! -- you can't be a girl: girls 
are not afraid -- without reason. I understand now: it is because you are not a 
girl that you are so frightened.''
Photogen twisted and writhed upon the grass.
``No, it is not,'' he said sulkily; ``it is this horrible darkness that creeps 
into me, goes all through me, into the very marrow of my bones -- that is what 
makes me behave like a girl. If only the sun would rise!''
``The sun! what is it?'' cried Nycteris, now in her turn conceiving a vague 
fear.
Then Photogen broke into a rhapsody, in which he vainly sought to forget his.
``It is the soul, the life, the heart, the glory of the universe,'' he said. 
``The worlds dance like motes in his beams. The heart of man is strong and brave 
in his light, and when it departs his courage gows from him -- goes with the 
sun, and he becomes such as you see me now.''
``Then that is not the sun?'' said Nycteris, thoughtfully, pointing up to the 
moon.
``That!'' cried Photogen, with utter scorn. ``I know nothing about that, except 
that it is ugly and horrible. At best it can be only the ghost of a dead sun. 
Yes, that is it! That is what makes it look so frightful.''
``No,'' said Nycteris, after a long, thoughtful pause; ``you must be wrong 
there. I think the sun is the ghost of a dead moon, and that is how he is so 
much more splendid as you say. -- Is there, then, another big room, where the 
sun lives in the roof?''
``I do not know what you mean,'' replied Photogen. ``But you mean to be kind, I 
know, though you should not call a poor fellow in the dark a girl. If you will 
let me lie here, with my head in your lap, I should like to sleep. Will you 
watch me, and take care of me?''
``Yes, that I will,'' answered Nycteris, forgetting all her own danger.
So Photogen fell asleep

 
XIV. The Sun
THERE Nycteris sat, and there the youth lay all night long, in the heart of the 
great cone-shadow of the earth, like two Pharaohs in one Pyramid. Photogen 
slept, and slept; and Nycteris sat motionless lest she should wake him, and so 
betray him to his fear.
The moon rode high in the blue eternity; it was a very triumph of glorious 
night; the river ran babble-murmuring in deep soft syllables; the fountain kept 
rushing moonward, and blossoming momently to a great silvery flower, whose 
petals were forever falling like snow, but with a continuous musical clash, into 
the bed of its exhaustion beneath; the wind woke, took a run among the trees, 
went to sleep, and woke again; the daisies slept on their feet at hers, but she 
did not know they slept; the roses might well seem awake, for their scent filled 
the air, but in truth they slept also, and the odor was that of their dreams; 
the oranges hung like gold lamps in the trees, and their silvery flowers were 
the souls of their yet unembodied children; the scent of the acacia blooms 
filled the air like the very odor of the moon herself.
At last, unused to the living air, and weary with sitting so still and so long, 
Nycteris grew drowsy. The air began to grow cool. It was getting near the time 
when she too was accustomed to sleep. She closed her eyes just a moment, and 
nodded -- opened them suddenly wide, for she had promised to watch.
In that moment a change had come. The moon had got round and was fronting her 
from the west, and she saw that her face was altered, that she had grown pale, 
as if she too were wan with fear, and from her lofty place espied a coming 
terror. The light seemed to be dissolving out of her; she was dying -- she was 
going out! And yet everything around looked strangely clear -- clearer than ever 
she had seen anything before; how could the lamp be shedding more light when she 
herself had less? Ah, that was just it! See how faint she looked! It was because 
the light was forsaking her, and spreading itself over the room, that she grew 
so thin and pale! She was giving up everything! She was melting away from the 
roof like a bit of sugar in water.
Nycteris was fast growing afraid, and sought refuge with the face upon her lap. 
How beautiful the creature was! -- what to call it she could not think, for it 
had been angry when she called it what Watho called her. And, wonder upon 
wonders! now, even in the cold change that was passing upon the great room, the 
color as of a red rose was rising in the wan cheek. What beautiful yellow hair 
it was that spread over her lap! What great huge breaths the creature took! And 
what were those curious things it carried? She had seen them on her walls, she 
was sure.
Thus she talked to herself while the lamp grew paler and paler, and everything 
kept growing yet clearer. What could it mean? The lamp was dying -- going out 
into the other place of which the creature in her lap had spoken, to be a sun! 
But why were the things growing clearer before it was yet a sun? That was the 
point. Was it her growing into a sun that did it? Yes! yes! it was coming death! 
She knew it, for it was coming upon her also! She felt it coming! What was she 
about to grow into? Something beautiful, like the creature in her lap? It might 
be! Anyhow, it must be death; for all her strength was going out of her, while 
all around her was growing so light she could not bear it! She must be blind 
soon! Would she be blind or dead first?
For the sun was rushing up behind her. Photogen woke, lifted his head from her 
lap, and sprang to his feet. His face was one radiant smile. His heart was full 
of daring -- that of the hunter who will creep into the tiger's den. Nycteris 
gave a cry, covered her face with her hands, and pressed her eyelids close. Then 
blindly she stretched out her arms to Photogen, crying, ``Oh, I am so 
frightened! What is this? It must be death! I don't wish to die yet. I love this 
room and the old lamp. I do not want the other place. This is terrible. I want 
to hide. I want to get into the sweet, soft, dark hands of all the other 
creatures. Ah me! ah me!''
``What is the matter with you, girl?'' said Photogen, with the arrogance of all 
male creatures until they have been taught by the other kind. He stood looking 
down upon her over his bow, of which he was examining the string. ``There is no 
fear of anything now, child! It is day. The sun is all but up. Look! he will be 
above the brow of yon hill in one moment more! Good-bye. Thank you for my 
night's lodging. I'm off. Don't be a goose. If ever I can do anything for you -- 
and all that, you know!''
``Don't leave me; oh, don't leave me!'' cried Nycteris. ``I am dying! I am 
dying! I can't move. The light sucks all the strength out of me. And oh, I am so 
frightened!''
But already Photogen had splashed through the river, holding high his bow that 
it might not get wet. He rushed across the level and strained up the opposing 
hill. Hearing no answer, Nycteris removed her hands. Photogen had reached the 
top, and the same moment the sun rays alighted upon him; the glory of the king 
of day crowded blazing upon the golden-haired youth. Radiant as Apollo, he stood 
in mighty strength, a flashing shape in the midst of flame. He fitted a glowing 
arrow to a gleaming bow. The arrow parted with a keen musical twang of the 
bowstring, and Photogen, darting after it, vanished with a shout. Up shot Apollo 
himself, and from his quiver scattered astonishment and exultation. But the 
brain of poor Nycteris was pierced through and through. She fell down in utter 
darkness. All around her was a flaming furnace. In despair and feebleness and 
agony, she crept back, feeling her way with doubt and difficulty and enforced 
persistence to her cell. When at last the friendly darkness of her chamber 
folded her about with its cooling and consoling arms, she threw herself on her 
bed and fell fast asleep. And there she slept on, one alive in a tomb, while 
Photogen, above in the sun-glory, pursued the buffaloes on the lofty plain, 
thinking not once of her where she lay dark and forsaken, whose presence had 
been his refuge, her eyes and her hands his guardians through the night. He was 
in his glory and his pride; and the darkness and its disgrace had vanished for a 
time.

 
XV. The Coward Hero
But no sooner had the sun reached the noonstead, than Photogen began to remember 
the past night in the shadow of that which was at hand, and to remember it with 
shame. He had proved himself -- and not to himself only, but to a girl as well 
-- a coward! -- one bold in the daylight, while there was nothing to fear, but 
trembling like any slave when the night arrived. There was, there must be, 
something unfair in it! A spell had been cast upon him! He had eaten, he had 
drunk something that did not agree with courage! In any case he had been taken 
unprepared! How was he to know what the going down of the sun would be like? It 
was no wonder he should have been surprised into terror, seeing it was what it 
was -- in its very nature so terrible! Also, one could not see where danger 
might be coming from! You might be torn in pieces, carried off, or swallowed up, 
without even seeing where to strike a blow! Every possible excuse he caught at, 
eager as a self-lover to lighten his self-contempt. That day he astonished the 
huntsmen -- terrified them with his reckless daring -- all to prove to himself 
he was no coward. But nothing eased his shame. One thing only had hope in it -- 
the resolve to encounter the dark in solemn earnest, now that he knew something 
of what it was. It was nobler to meet a recognized danger than to rush 
contemptuously into what seemed nothing -- nobler still to encounter a nameless 
horror. He could conquer fear and wipe out disgrace together. For a marksman and 
swordsman like him, he said, one with his strength and courage, there was but 
danger. Defeat there was not. He knew the darkness now, and when it came he 
would meet it as fearless and cool as now he felt himself. And again he said, 
``We shall see!''
He stood under the boughs of a great beech as the sun was going down, far away 
over the jagged hills: before it was half down, he was trembling like one of the 
leaves behind him in the first sigh of the night wind. The moment the last of 
the glowing disk vanished, he bounded away in terror to gain the valley, and his 
fear grew as he ran. Down the side of the hill, an abject creature, he went 
bounding and rolling and running; fell rather than plunged into the river, and 
came to himself, as before, lying on the grassy bank in the garden.
But when he opened his eyes, there were no girl-eyes looking down into his; 
there were only the stars in the waste of the sunless Night -- the awful 
all-enemy he had again dared, but could not encounter. Perhaps the girl was not 
yet come out of the water! He would try to sleep, for he dared not move, and 
perhaps when he woke he would find his head on her lap, and the beautiful dark 
face, with its deep blue eyes, bending over him. But when he woke he found his 
head on the grass, and although he sprang up with all his courage, such as it 
was, restored, he did not set out for the chase with such an élan as the day 
before; and, despite the sun-glory in his heart and veins, his hunting was this 
day less eager; he ate little, and from the first was thoughtful even to 
sadness. A second time he was defeated and disgraced! Was his courage nothing 
more than the play of the sunlight on his brain? Was he a mere ball tossed 
between the light and the dark? Then what a poor contemptible creature he was! 
But a third chance lay before him. If he failed the third time, he dared not 
foreshadow what he must then think of himself! It was bad enough now -- but 
then!
Alas! it went no better. The moment the sun was down, he fled as if from a 
legion of devils.
Seven times in all, he tried to face the coming night in the strength of the 
past day, and seven times he failed -- failed with such increase of failure, 
with such a growing sense of ignominy, overwhelming at length all the sunny 
hours and joining night to night, that, what with misery, self-accusation, and 
loss of confidence, his daylight courage too began to fade, and at length, from 
exhaustion, from getting wet, and then lying out of doors all night, and night 
after night, -- worst of all, from the consuming of the deathly fear, and the 
shame of shame, his sleep forsook him, and on the seventh morning, instead of 
going to the hunt, he crawled into the castle and went to bed. The grand health, 
over which the witch had taken such pains, had yielded, and in an hour or two he 
was moaning and crying out in delirium.

 
XVI. An Evil Nurse
WATHO was herself ill, as I have said, and was the worse tempered; and besides, 
it is a peculiarity of witches that what works in others to sympathy works in 
them to repulsion. Also, Watho had a poor, helpless, rudimentary spleen of a 
conscience left, just enough to make her uncomfortable, and therefore more 
wicked. So, when she heard that Photogen was ill, she was angry. Ill, indeed! 
after all she had done to saturate him with the life of the system, with the 
solar might itself? He was a wretched failure, the boy! And because he was her 
failure, she was annoyed with him, began to dislike him, grew to hate him. She 
looked on him as a painter might upon a picture, or a poet upon a poem, which he 
had only succeeded in getting into an irrecoverable mess. In the hearts of 
witches, love and hate lie close together, and often tumble over each other. And 
whether it was that her failure with Photogen foiled also her plans in regard to 
Nycteris, or that her illness made her yet more of a devil's wife, certainly 
Watho now got sick of the girl too, and hated to know her about the castle.
She was not too ill, however, to go to poor Photogen's room and torment him. She 
told him she hated him like a serpent, and hissed like one as she said it, 
looking very sharp in the nose and chin, and flat in the forehead. Photogen 
thought she meant to kill him, and hardly ventured to take anything brought him. 
She ordered every ray of light to be shut out of his room; but by means of this 
he got a little used to the darkness. She would take one of his arrows, and now 
tickle him with the feather end of it, now prick him with the point till the 
blood ran down. What she meant finally I cannot tell, but she brought Photogen 
speedily to the determination of making his escape from the castle: what he 
should do then he would think afterwards. Who could tell but he might find his 
mother somewhere beyond the forest! If it were not for the broad patches of 
darkness that divided day from day, he would fear nothing!
But now, as he lay helpless in the dark, ever and anon would come dawning 
through it the face of the lovely creature who on that first awful night nursed 
him so sweetly: was he never to see her again? If she was, as he had concluded, 
the nymph of the river, why had she not reappeared? She might have taught him 
not to fear the night, for plainly she had no fear of it herself! But then, when 
the day came, she did seem frightened -- why was that, seeing there was nothing 
to be afraid of then? Perhaps one so much at home in the darkness was 
correspondingly afraid of the light! Then his selfish joy at the rising of the 
sun, blinding him to her condition, had made him behave to her, in ill return 
for her kindness, as cruelly as Watho behaved to him! How sweet and dear and 
lovely she was! If there were wild beasts that came out only at night, and were 
afraid of the light, why should there not be girls too, made the same way -- who 
could not endure the light, as he could not bear the darkness? If only he could 
find her again! Ah, how differently he would behave to her! But alas! perhaps 
the sun had killed her -- melted her -- burned her up! -- dried her up -- that 
was it, if she was the nymph of the river!

 
XVII. Watho's Wolf
FROM that dreadful morning Nycteris had never got to be herself again. The 
sudden light had been almost death to her: and now she lay in the dark with the 
memory of a terrific sharpness -- a something she dared scarcely recall, lest 
the very thought of it should sting her beyond endurance. But this was as 
nothing to the pain which the recollection of the rudeness of the shining 
creature whom she had nursed through his fear caused her; for the moment his 
suffering passed over to her, and he was free, the first use he made of his 
returning strength had been to scorn her! She wondered and wondered; it was all 
beyond her comprehension.
Before long, Watho was plotting evil against her. The witch was like a sick 
child weary of his toy: she would pull her to pieces and see how she liked it. 
She would set her in the sun and see her die, like a jelly from the salt ocean 
cast out on a hot rock. It would be a sight to soothe her wolf-pain. One day, 
therefore, a little before noon, while Nycteris was in her deepest sleep, she 
had a darkened litter brought to the door, and in that she made two of her men 
carry her to the plain above. There they took her out, laid her on the grass, 
and left her.
Watho watched it all from the top of her high tower, through her telescope; and 
scarcely was Nycteris left, when she saw her sit up, and the same moment cast 
herself down again with her face to the ground.
``She'll have a sunstroke,'' said Watho, ``and that'll be the end of her.''
Presently, tormented by a fly, a huge-humped buffalo, with great shaggy mane, 
came galloping along, straight for where she lay. At the sight of the thing on 
the grass, he started, swerved yards aside, stopped dead, and then came slowly 
up, looking malicious. Nycteris lay quite still and never even saw the animal.
``Now she'll be trodden to death!'' said Watho. ``That's the way those creatures 
do.''
When the buffalo reached her, he sniffed at her all over and went away; then 
came back and sniffed again: then all at once went off as if a demon had him by 
the tail.
Next came a gnu, a more dangerous animal still, and did much the same; then a 
gaunt wild boar. But no creature hurt her, and Watho was angry with the whole 
creation.
At length, in the shade of her hair, the blue eyes of Nycteris began to come to 
themselves a little, and the first thing they saw was a comfort. I have told 
already how she knew the night daisies, each a sharp-pointed little cone with a 
red tip; and once she had parted the rays of one of them, with trembling 
fingers, for she was afraid she was dreadfully rude, and perhaps was hurting it; 
but she did want, she said to herself, to see what secret it carried so 
carefully hidden; and she found its golden heart. But now, right under her eyes, 
inside the veil of her hair, in the sweet twilight of whose blackness she could 
see it perfectly, stood a daisy with its red tip opened wide into a carmine 
ring, displaying its heart of gold on a platter of silver. She did not at first 
recognize it as one of those cones come awake, but a moment's notice revealed 
what it was. Who then could have been so cruel to the lovely little creature as 
to force it open like that, and spread it heart-bare to the terrible death-lamp? 
Whoever it was, it must be the same that had thrown her out there to be burned 
to death in its fire. But she had her hair, and could hang her head, and make a 
small sweet night of her own about her! She tried to bend the daisy down and 
away from the sun, and to make its petals hang about it like her hair, but she 
could not. Alas! it was burned and dead already! She did not know that it could 
not yield to her gentle force because it was drinking life, with all the 
eagerness of life, from what she called the death-lamp. Oh, how the lamp burned 
her!
But she went on thinking -- she did not know how; and by and by began to reflect 
that, as there was no roof to the room except that in which the great fire went 
rolling about, the little Red-tip must have seen the lamp a thousand times, and 
must know it quite well! and it had not killed it! Nay, thinking about farther, 
she began to ask the question whether this, in which she now saw it, might not 
be its more perfect condition. For not only now did the whole seem perfect, as 
indeed it did before, but every part showed its own individual perfection as 
well, which perfection made it capable of combining with the rest into the 
higher perfection of a whole. The flower was a lamp itself! The golden heart was 
the light, and the silver border was the alabaster globe, skillfully broken, and 
spread wide to let out the glory. Yes: the radiant shape was plainly its 
perfection! If, then, it was the lamp which had opened it into that shape, the 
lamp could not be unfriendly to it, but must be of its own kind, seeing it made 
it perfect! And again, when she thought of it, there was clearly no little 
resemblance between them. What if the flower then was the little 
great-grandchild of the lamp and he was loving it all the time? And what if the 
lamp did not mean to hurt her, only could not help it? The red tips looked as if 
the flower had some time or other been hurt: what if the lamp was making the 
best it could of her -- opening her out somehow like the flower? She would bear 
it patiently, and see. But how coarse the color of the grass was! Perhaps, 
however, her eyes not being made for the bright lamp, she did not see them as 
they were! Then she remembered how different were the eyes of the creature that 
was not a girl and was afraid of the darkness! Ah, if the darkness would only 
come again, all arms, friendly and soft everywhere about her! She would wait and 
wait, and bear, and be patient.
She lay so still that Watho did not doubt she had fainted. She was pretty sure 
she would be dead before the night came to revive her.

 
XVIII. Refuge
FIXING her telescope on the motionless form, that she might see it at once when 
the morning came, Watho went down from the tower to Photogen's room. He was much 
better by this time, and before she left him, he had resolved to leave the 
castle that very night. The darkness was terrible indeed, but Watho was worse 
than even the darkness, and he could not escape in the day. As soon, therefore, 
as the house seemed still, he tightened his belt, hung to it his hunting knife, 
put a flask of wine and some bread in his pocket, and took his bow and arrows. 
He got from the house and made his way at once up to the plain. But what with 
his illness, the terrors of the night, and his dread of the wild beasts, when he 
got to the level he could not walk a step further, and sat down, thinking it 
better to die than to live. In spite of his fears, however, sleep contrived to 
overcome him, and he fell at full length on the soft grass.
He had not slept long when he woke with such a strange sense of comfort and 
security that he thought the dawn at last must have arrived. But it was dark 
night about him. And the sky -- no, it was not the sky, but the blue eyes of his 
naiad looking down upon him! Once more he lay with his head in her lap, and all 
was well, for plainly the girl feared the darkness as little as he the day.
``Thank you,'' he said. ``You are like live armor to my heart; you keep the fear 
off me. I have been very ill since then. Did you come up out of the river when 
you saw me cross?''
``I don't live in the water,'' she answered. ``I live under the pale lamp, and I 
die under the bright one.''
``Ah, yes! I understand now,'' he returned. ``I would not have behaved as I did 
last time if I had understood; but I thought you were mocking me; and I am so 
made that I cannot help being frightened at the darkness. I beg your pardon for 
leaving you as I did, for, as I say, I did not understand. Now I believe you 
were really frightened. Were you not?''
``I was, indeed,'' answered Nycteris, ``and shall be again. But why you should 
be, I cannot in the least understand. You must know how gentle and sweet the 
darkness is, how kind and friendly, how soft and velvety! It holds you to its 
bosom and loves you. A little while ago, I lay faint and dying under your hot 
lamp. -- What is it you call it?''
``The sun,'' murmured Photogen. ``How I wish he would make haste!''
``Ah! do not wish that. Do not, for my sake, hurry him. I can take care of you 
from the darkness, but I have no one to take care of me from the light. -- As I 
was telling you, I lay dying in the sun. All at once I drew a deep breath. A 
cool wind came and ran over my face. I looked up. The torture was gone, for the 
death-lamp itself was gone. I hope he does not die and grow brighter yet. My 
terrible headache was all gone, and my sight was come back. I felt as if I were 
new made. But I did not get up at once, for I was tired still. The grass grew 
cool about me and turned soft in color. Something wet came upon it, and it was 
now so pleasant to my feet that I rose and ran about. And when I had been 
running about a long time, all at once I found you lying, just as I had been 
lying a little while before. So I sat down beside you to take care of you, till 
your life -- and my death -- should come again.''
``How good you are, you beautiful creature! -- Why, you forgave me before ever I 
asked you!'' cried Photogen.
Thus they fell a-talking, and he told her what he knew of his history, and she 
told him what she knew of hers, and they agreed they must get away from Watho as 
far as ever they could.
``And we must set out at once,'' said Nycteris.
``The moment the morning comes,'' returned Photogen.
``We must not wait for the morning,'' said Nycteris, ``for then I shall not be 
able to move, and what would you do the next night? Besides, Watho sees best in 
the daytime. Indeed, you must come now, Photogen. -- You must.''
``I cannot; I dare not,'' said Photogen. ``I cannot move. If I but lift my head 
from your lap, the very sickness of terror seizes me.''
``I shall be with you,'' said Nycteris, soothingly. ``I will take care of you 
till your dreadful sun comes, and then you may leave me, and go away as fast as 
you can. Only please put me in a dark place first, if there is one to be 
found.''
``I will never leave you again, Nycteris,'' cried Photogen. ``Only wait till the 
sun comes, and brings me back my strength, and we will go together, and never, 
never part anymore.''
``No, no,'' persisted Nycteris; ``we must go now. And you must learn to be 
strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half 
brave. I have begun already -- not to fight your sun, but to try to get at peace 
with him, and understand what he really is, and what he means with me -- whether 
to hurt me or to make the best of me. You must do the same with my darkness.''
``But you don't know what mad animals there are away there towards the south,'' 
said Photogen. ``They have huge green eyes, and they would eat you up like a bit 
of celery, you beautiful creature!''
``Come, come! you must,'' said Nycteris, ``or I shall have to pretend to leave 
you, to make you come. I have seen the green eyes you speak of, and I will take 
care of you from them.''
``You! How can you do that? If it were day now, I could take care of you from 
the worst of them. But as it is, I can't even see them for this abominable 
darkness. I could not see your lovely eyes but for the light that is in them; 
that lets me see straight into heaven through them. They are windows into the 
very heaven beyond the sky. I believe they are the very place where the stars 
are made.''
``You come then, or I shall shut them,'' said Nycteris, ``and you shan't see 
them anymore till you are good. Come. If you can't see the wild beasts, I can.''
``You can! and you ask me to come!'' cried Photogen.
``Yes,'' answered Nycteris. ``And more than that, I see them long before they 
can see me, so that I am able to take care of you.''
``But how?'' persisted Photogen. ``You can't shoot with bow and arrow, or stab 
with a hunting knife.''
``No, but I can keep out of the way of them all. Why, just when I found you, I 
was having a game with two or three of them at once. I see, and scent them too, 
long before they are near me -- long before they can see or scent me.''
``You don't see or scent any now, do you?'' said Photogen uneasily, rising on 
his elbow.
``No -- none at present. I will look,'' replied Nycteris, and sprang to her 
feet.
``Oh, oh! do not leave me -- not for a moment,'' cried Photogen, straining his 
eyes to keep her face in sight through the darkness.
``Be quiet, or they will hear you,'' she returned. ``The wind is from the south, 
and they cannot scent us. I have found out all about that. Ever since the dear 
dark came, I have been amusing myself with them, getting every now and then just 
into the edge of the wind, and letting one have a sniff of me.''
``Oh, horrible!'' cried Photogen. ``I hope you will not insist on doing so 
anymore. What was the consequence?''
``Always, the very instant, he turned with dashing eyes, and bounded towards me 
-- only he could not see me, you must remember. But my eyes being so much better 
than his, I could see him perfectly well, and would run away around him until I 
scented him, and then I knew he could not find me anyhow. If the wind were to 
turn, and run the other way now, there might be a whole army of them down upon 
us, leaving no room to keep out of their way. You had better come.''
She took him by the hand. He yielded and rose, and she led him away. But his 
steps were feeble, and as the night went on, he seemed more and more ready to 
sink.
``Oh dear! I am so tired! and so frightened!'' he would say.
``Lean on me,'' Nycteris would return, putting her arm around him, or patting 
his cheek. ``Take a few steps more. Every step away from the castle is clear 
gain. Lean harder on me. I am quite strong and well now.''
So they went on. The piercing night-eyes of Nycteris descried not a few pairs of 
green ones gleaming like holes in the darkness, and many a round she made to 
keep far out of their way; but she never said to Photogen she saw them. 
Carefully she kept him off the uneven places, and on the softest and smoothest 
of the grass, talking to him gently all the way as they went -- of the lovely 
flowers and the stars -- how comfortable the flowers looked, down in their green 
beds, and how happy the stars up in their blue beds!
When the morning began to come, he began to grow better, but was dreadfully 
tired with walking instead of sleeping, especially after being so long ill. 
Nycteris too, what with supporting him, what with growing fear of the light 
which was beginning to ooze out of the east, was very tired. At length, both 
equally exhausted, neither was able to help the other. As if by consent they 
stopped. Embracing each the other, they stood in the midst of the wide grassy 
land, neither of them able to move a step, each supported only by the leaning 
weakness of the other, each ready to fall if the other should move. But while 
the one grew weaker still, the other had begun to grow stronger. When the tide 
of the night began to ebb, the tide of the day began to flow; and now the sun 
was rushing to the horizon, borne upon its foaming billows. And ever as he came, 
Photogen revived. At last the sun shot up into the air, like a bird from the 
hand of the Father of Lights. Nycteris gave a cry of pain and hid her face in 
her hands.
``Oh me!'' she sighed; ``I am so frightened! The terrible light stings so!''
But the same instant, through her blindness, she heard Photogen give a low 
exultant laugh, and the next felt herself caught up; she who all night long had 
tended and protected him like a child was now in his arms, borne along like a 
baby, with her head lying on his shoulder. But she was the greater, for 
suffering more, she feared nothing.

 
XIX. The Werewolf
AT the very moment when Photogen caught up Nycteris, the telescope of Watho was 
angrily sweeping the tableland. She swung it from her in rage and, running to 
her room, shut herself up. There she anointed herself from top to toe with a 
certain ointment; shook down her long red hair, and tied it around her waist; 
then began to dance, whirling around and around faster and faster, growing 
angrier and angrier, until she was foaming at the mouth with fury. When Falca 
went looking for her, she could not find her anywhere.
As the sun rose, the wind slowly changed and went around, until it blew straight 
from the north. Photogen and Nycteris were drawing near the edge of the forest, 
Photogen still carrying Nycteris, when she moved a little on his shoulder 
uneasily and murmured in his ear.
``I smell a wild beast -- that way, the way the wind is coming.''
Photogen turned back towards the castle, and saw a dark speck on the plain. As 
he looked, it grew larger: it was coming across the grass with the speed of the 
wind. It came nearer and nearer. It looked long and low, but that might be 
because it was running at a great stretch. He set Nycteris down under a tree, in 
the black shadow of its bole, strung his bow, and picked out his heaviest, 
longest, sharpest arrow. Just as he set the notch on the string, he saw that the 
creature was a tremendous wolf, rushing straight at him. He loosened his knife 
in its sheath, drew another arrow halfway from the quiver, lest the first should 
fail, and took his aim-at a good distance, to leave time for a second chance. He 
shot. The arrow rose, flew straight, descended, struck the beast, and started 
again into the air, doubled like a letter V. Quickly Photogen snatched the 
other, shot, cast his bow from him, and drew his knife. But the arrow was in the 
brute's chest, up to the feather; it tumbled heels over head with a great thud 
of its back on the earth, gave a groan, made a struggle or two, and lay 
stretched out motionless.
``I've killed it, Nycteris,'' cried Photogen. ``It is a great red wolf.''
``Oh, thank you!'' answered Nycteris feebly from behind the tree. ``I was sure 
you would. I was not a bit afraid.''
Photogen went up to the wolf. It was a monster! But he was vexed that his first 
arrow had behaved so badly, and was the less willing to lose the one that had 
done him such good service: with a long and a strong pull, he drew it from the 
brute's chest. Could he believe his eyes? There lay -- no wolf, but Watho, with 
her hair tied around her waist! The foolish witch had made herself invulnerable, 
as she supposed, but had forgotten that, to torment Photogen therewith, she had 
handled one of his arrows. He ran back to Nycteris and told her.
She shuddered and wept, and would not look.

 
XX. All Is Well
THERE was now no occasion to fly a step farther. Neither of them feared anyone 
but Watho. They left her there and went back. A great cloud came over the sun, 
and rain began to fall heavily, and Nycteris was much refreshed, grew able to 
see a little, and with Photogen's help walked gently over the cool wet grass.
They had not gone far before they met Fargu and the other huntsmen. Photogen 
told them he had killed a great red wolf, and it was Madame Watho. The huntsmen 
looked grave, but gladness shone through.
``Then,'' said Fargu, ``I will go and bury my mistress.''
But when they reached the place, they found she was already buried -- in the 
maws of sundry birds and beasts which had made their breakfast of her.
Then Fargu, overtaking them, would, very wisely, have Photogen go to the king 
and tell him the whole story. But Photogen, yet wiser than Fargu, would not set 
out until he had married Nycteris; ``for then,'' he said, ``the king himself 
can't part us; and if ever two people couldn't do the one without the other, 
those two are Nycteris and I. She has got to teach me to be a brave man in the 
dark, and I have got to look after her until she can bear the heat of the sun, 
and he helps her to see, instead of blinding her.''
They were married that very day. And the next day they went together to the king 
and told him the whole story. But whom should they find at the court but the 
father and mother of Photogen, both in high favor with the king and queen. 
Aurora nearly died with joy, and told them all how Watho had lied and made her 
believe her child was dead.
No one knew anything of the father or mother of Nycteris; but when Aurora saw in 
the lovely girl her own azure eyes shining through night and its clouds, it made 
her think strange things, and wonder how even the wicked themselves may be a 
link to join together the good. Through Watho, the mothers, who had never seen 
each other, had changed eyes in their children.
The king gave them the castle and lands of Watho, and there they lived and 
taught each other for many years that were not long. But hardly had one of them 
passed, before Nycteris had come to love the day best, because it was the 
clothing and crown of Photogen, and she saw that the day was greater than the 
night, and the sun more lordly than the moon; and Photogen had come to love the 
night best, because it was the mother and home of Nycteris.
``But who knows,'' Nycteris would say to Photogen, ``that when we go out, we 
shall not go into a day as much greater than your day as your day is greater 
than my night?''

 
Translations of personal names in the story:
  Aurora 
  ``dawn'' (Latin) 
  Vesper 
  ``evening'' (Latin) 
  Photogen 
  ``light-maker'' (Greek) 
  Nycteris 
  ``night-lover'' ?? (Greek; not sure about meaning of the second element). 

 


      This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
      at Calvin College. Last updated on July 16, 1999.
      Contacting the CCEL.