THE CHILDREN OF THE EAGLE
Towards twilight begins the reign of spirits. Then the eternal struggle between the spirits of day and those of night is fought. You can't distinguish this struggle but you can see thousands of giant shadows pursuing each other and closing in upon each other. You hear faintly as if from a distance, a restless murmer, a rustling, a mysterious buzzing —the sigh of the vanquished and the victorious chant of the conqueror. And the struggle is resumed, spectre-arms stretch forth, phantom bows and arrows rustle and sigh until one side is wholly exterminated. The day is dead and total silence reigns round his tomb.
A white covering of snow is spread over the house of the peasant. And the neighboring stream flows no longer,—it presents in the distance an endlessly white plain, and millions of sparkling snow-crystals.
The day is declining, evening is approaching. Into the hut fall the shadows of giant fir-trees, their stiffened branches swayed by a light breeze, oddly outlined against the walls and the white plains; they dance and balance themselves and seem to mock at those who observe them.
Inside, the little room is as though hung with velvet, bathed in a sweet warmth. Kate, little five-year-old Kate, is on the sofa trying to sleep but cannot. She is restless, casts her little head to one side and the other, and seems to spy out something, stealthily, like a hare. She sees the twilight, the strange dancing of the shadows, the dying day; she becomes timid, disquieted.
"Papa, tell me a story, please, please!"
Children are always happy; they find so easily the password that delivers them.
The father looked through the window and saw the white tops of the fir-trees lose themselves in a sea of sun-rays gilded red. But he also saw the coldness of this beautiful piercing sunlight, he saw that frozen hand which began to stretch out over all life, he saw death.
"What kind of a story would you like, child?"
"A beautiful story; it can even be sad, but it must be beautiful."
And the father began:
Once upon a time there was an eagle who used to fly high up in the air, so high that he almost touched the blue, serene sky with his wings. And by his side flew his mate, the good Lady Eagle. Beneath them they saw the clouds, the mountains and all the creatures of the earth. And when a voice from this earthly kingdom strayed within their reach they would smile disdainfully. They would think: What sort of creatures were those who passed their lives below there and in the earth!
But one day as this couple was noisily traversing the ether, a forest warden passed and aimed at them two arrows. The two shots hit their marks.
The eagles fell from the pure blue ether down into a deep and unclean marsh; they were not dead, but they were bruised.
Do you know, Kate, what lives in a marsh? Frogs and crabs and toads and all kinds of vermin.
And these were not prepared to receive the unexpected guests: they could not foresee that the fine dreamy tranquillity of their native marsh would be destroyed in this manner.
In the beginning they received these big strangers with timidity and respect; then they became conceited and insolent. It was not long before the frogs began to croak, the crabs to pinch and the toads to bite.
And the eagles, my child, what do you think they did?
They thought of nothing but flight. They sighed for the beautiful pure ether of the skies, for their nests built on the highest summits of the rocks, and they longed to fly, to fly. Their wings were paralyzed, but their yearning was terrible, they tried to fly: they raised themselves, leaped forward, and fell back more deeply into the