Algernon Blackwood: The olive

He laughed involuntarily as the olive rolled towards his chair across the shiny parquet floor of the hotel dining-room.

His table in the cavernous _salle à manger_ was apart: he sat alone, a solitary guest; the table from which the olive fell and rolled towards him was some distance away. The angle, however, made him an unlikely objective. Yet the lob-sided, juicy thing, after hesitating once or twice _en route_ as it plopped along, came to rest finally against his feet.

It settled with an inviting, almost an aggressive air. And he stooped and picked it up, putting it rather self-consciously, because of the girl from whose table it had come, on the white tablecloth beside his plate.

Then, looking up, he caught her eye, and saw that she too was laughing, though not a bit self-consciously. As she helped herself to the _hors d'oeuvres_ a false move had sent it flying. She watched him pick the olive up and set it beside his plate. Her eyes then suddenly looked away again--at her mother--questioningly.

The incident was closed. But the little oblong, succulent olive lay beside his plate, so that his fingers played with it. He fingered it automatically from time to time until his lonely meal was finished.

When no one was looking he slipped it into his pocket, as though, having taken the trouble to pick it up, this was the very least he could do with it. Heaven alone knows why, but he then took it upstairs with him, setting it on the marble mantelpiece among his field glasses, tobacco tins, ink-bottles, pipes and candlestick. At any rate, he kept it--the moist, shiny, lob-sided, juicy little oblong olive. The hotel lounge wearied him; he came to his room after dinner to smoke at his ease, his coat off and his feet on a chair; to read another chapter of Freud, to write a letter or two he didn't in the least want to write, and then go to bed at ten o'clock. But this evening the olive kept rolling between him and the thing he read; it rolled between the paragraphs, between the lines; the olive was more vital than the interest of these eternal "complexes" and "suppressed desires."

The truth was that he kept seeing the eyes of the laughing girl beyond the bouncing olive. She had smiled at him in such a natural, spontaneous, friendly way before her mother's glance had checked her--a smile, he felt, that might lead to acquaintance on the morrow.

He wondered! A thrill of possible adventure ran through him.

She was a merry-looking sort of girl, with a happy, half-roguish face that seemed on the lookout for somebody to play with. Her mother, like most of the people in the big hotel, was an invalid; the girl, a

dutiful and patient daughter. They had arrived that very day apparently. A laugh is a revealing thing, he thought as he fell asleep to dream of a lob-sided olive rolling consciously towards him, and of a

girl's eyes that watched its awkward movements, then looked up into his own and laughed. In his dream the olive had been deliberately and cleverly dispatched upon its uncertain journey. It was a message.

He did not know, of course, that the mother, chiding her daughter's

awkwardness, had muttered:

"There you are again, child! True to your name, you never see an olive

without doing something queer and odd with it!"

A youngish man, whose knowledge of chemistry, including invisible inks

and such-like mysteries, had proved so valuable to the Censor's

Department that for five years he had overworked without a holiday, the

Italian Riviera had attracted him, and he had come out for a two

months' rest. It was his first visit. Sun, mimosa, blue seas and

brilliant skies had tempted him; exchange made a pound worth forty,

fifty, sixty and seventy shillings. He found the place lovely, but

somewhat untenanted.

Having chosen at random, he had come to a spot where the companionship

he hoped to find did not exist. The place languished after the war,

slow to recover; the colony of resident English was scattered still;

travellers preferred the coast of France with Mentone and Monte Carlo

to enliven them. The country, moreover, was distracted by strikes. The

electric light failed one week, letters the next, and as soon as the

electricians and postal-workers resumed, the railways stopped running.

Few visitors came, and the few who came soon left.

He stayed on, however, caught by the sunshine and the good exchange,

also without the physical energy to discover a better, livelier place.

He went for walks among the olive groves, he sat beside the sea and

palms, he visited shops and bought things he did not want because the

exchange made them seem cheap, he paid immense "extras" in his weekly

bill, then chuckled as he reduced them to shillings and found that a

few pence covered them; he lay with a book for hours among the olive

groves.

The olive groves! His daily life could not escape the olive groves; to

olive groves, sooner or later, his walks, his expeditions, his

meanderings by the sea, his shopping--all led him to these ubiquitous

olive groves.

If he bought a picture postcard to send home, there was sure to be an

olive grove in one corner of it. The whole place was smothered with

olive groves, the people owed their incomes and existence to these

irrepressible trees. The villages among the hills swam roof-deep in

them. They swarmed even in the hotel gardens.

The guide books praised them as persistently as the residents brought

them, sooner or later, into every conversation. They grew lyrical over

them:

"And how do you like our olive trees? Ah, you think them pretty. At

first, most people are disappointed. They grow on one."

"They do," he agreed.

"I'm glad you appreciate them. I find them the embodiment of grace. And

when the wind lifts the under-leaves across a whole mountain

slope--why, it's wonderful, isn't it? One realises the meaning of

'olive-green'."

"One does," he sighed. "But all the same I should like to get one to

eat--an olive, I mean."

"Ah, to eat, yes. That's not so easy. You see, the crop is--"

"Exactly," he interrupted impatiently, weary of the habitual and

evasive explanations. "But I should like to taste the _fruit_. I should

like to enjoy one."

For, after a stay of six weeks, he had never once seen an olive on the

table, in the shops, nor even on the street barrows at the market

place. He had never tasted one. No one sold olives, though olive trees

were a drug in the place; no one bought them, no one asked for them; it

seemed that no one wanted them. The trees, when he looked closely, were

thick with a dark little berry that seemed more like a sour sloe than

the succulent, delicious spicy fruit associated with its name.

Men climbed the trunks, everywhere shaking the laden branches and

hitting them with long bamboo poles to knock the fruit off, while women

and children, squatting on their haunches, spent laborious hours

filling baskets underneath, then loading mules and donkeys with their

daily "catch." But an olive to eat was unobtainable. He had never cared

for olives, but now he craved with all his soul to feel his teeth in

one.

"Ach! But it is the Spanish olive that you _eat_," explained the head

waiter, a German "from Basel." "These are for oil only." After which he

disliked the olive more than ever--until that night when he saw the

first eatable specimen rolling across the shiny parquet floor,

propelled towards him by the careless hand of a pretty girl, who then

looked up into his eyes and smiled.

He was convinced that Eve, similarly, had rolled the apple towards Adam

across the emerald sward of the first garden in the world.

He slept usually like the dead. It must have been something very real

that made him open his eyes and sit up in bed alertly. There was a

noise against his door. He listened. The room was still quite dark. It

was early morning. The noise was not repeated.

"Who's there?" he asked in a sleepy whisper. "What is it?"

The noise came again. Some one was scratching on the door. No, it was

somebody tapping.

"What do you want?" he demanded in a louder voice. "Come in," he added,

wondering sleepily whether he was presentable. Either the hotel was on

fire or the porter was waking the wrong person for some sunrise

expedition.

Nothing happened. Wide awake now, he turned the switch on, but no light

flooded the room. The electricians, he remembered with a curse, were

out on strike. He fumbled for the matches, and as he did so a voice in

the corridor became distinctly audible. It was just outside his door.

"Aren't you ready?" he heard. "You sleep for ever."

And the voice, although never having heard it before, he could not have

recognised it, belonged, he knew suddenly, to the girl who had let the

olive fall. In an instant he was out of bed. He lit a candle.

"I'm coming," he called softly, as he slipped rapidly into some

clothes. "I'm sorry I've kept you. I shan't be a minute."

"Be quick then!" he heard, while the candle flame slowly grew, and he

found his garments. Less than three minutes later he opened the door

and, candle in hand, peered into the dark passage.

"Blow it out!" came a peremptory whisper. He obeyed, but not quick

enough. A pair of red lips emerged from the shadows. There was a puff,

and the candle was extinguished. "I've got my reputation to consider.

We mustn't be seen, of course!"

The face vanished in the darkness, but he had recognised it--the

shining skin, the bright glancing eyes. The sweet breath touched his

cheek. The candlestick was taken from him by a swift, deft movement. He

heard it knock the wainscoting as it was set down. He went out into a

pitch-black corridor, where a soft hand seized his own and led him--by

a back door, it seemed--out into the open air of the hill-side

immediately behind the hotel.

He saw the stars. The morning was cool and fragrant, the sharp air

waked him, and the last vestiges of sleep went flying. He had been

drowsy and confused, had obeyed the summons without thinking. He now

realised suddenly that he was engaged in an act of madness.

The girl, dressed in some flimsy material thrown loosely about her head

and body, stood a few feet away, looking, he thought, like some figure

called out of dreams and slumber of a forgotten world, out of legend

almost. He saw her evening shoes peep out; he divined an evening dress

beneath the gauzy covering. The light wind blew it close against her

figure. He thought of a nymph.

"I say--but haven't you been to bed?" he asked stupidly. He had meant

to expostulate, to apologise for his foolish rashness, to scold and say

they must go back at once. Instead, this sentence came. He guessed she

had been sitting up all night. He stood still a second, staring in mute

admiration, his eyes full of bewildered question.

"Watching the stars," she met his thought with a happy laugh. "Orion

has touched the horizon. I came for you at once. We've got just four

hours!" The voice, the smile, the eyes, the reference to Orion, swept

him off his feet. Something in him broke loose, and flew wildly,

recklessly to the stars.

"Let us be off!" he cried, "before the Bear tilts down. Already Alcyone

begins to fade. I'm ready. Come!"

She laughed. The wind blew the gauze aside to show two ivory white

limbs. She caught his hand again, and they scampered together up the

steep hill-side towards the woods. Soon the big hotel, the villas, the

white houses of the little town where natives and visitors still lay

soundly sleeping, were out of sight. The farther sky came down to meet

them. The stars were paling, but no sign of actual dawn was yet

visible. The freshness stung their cheeks.

Slowly, the heavens grew lighter, the east turned rose, the outline of

the trees defined themselves, there was a stirring of the silvery green

leaves. They were among olive groves--but the spirits of the trees were

dancing. Far below them, a pool of deep colour, they saw the ancient

sea. They saw the tiny specks of distant fishing-boats. The sailors

were singing to the dawn, and birds among the mimosa of the hanging

gardens answered them.

Pausing a moment at length beneath a gaunt old tree, whose struggle to

leave the clinging earth had tortured its great writhing arms and

trunk, they took their breath, gazing at one another with eyes full of

happy dreams.

"You understood so quickly," said the girl, "my little message. I knew

by your eyes and ears you would." And she first tweaked his ears with

two slender fingers mischievously, then laid her soft palm with a

momentary light pressure on both eyes.

"You're half-and-half, at any rate," she added, looking him up and down

for a swift instant of appraisement, "if you're not altogether." The

laughter showed her white, even little teeth.

"You know how to play, and that's something," she added. Then, as if to

herself, "You'll be altogether before I've done with you."

"Shall I?" he stammered, afraid to look at her.

Puzzled, some spirit of compromise still lingering in him, he knew not

what she meant; he knew only that the current of life flowed

increasingly through his veins, but that her eyes confused him.

"I'm longing for it," he added. "How wonderfully you did it! They roll

so awkwardly----"

"Oh, that!" She peered at him through a wisp of hair. "You've kept it,

I hope."

"Rather. It's on my mantelpiece----"

"You're sure you haven't eaten it?" and she made a delicious mimicry

with her red lips, so that he saw the tip of a small pointed tongue.

"I shall keep it," he swore, "as long as these arms have life in them,"

and he seized her just as she was crouching to escape, and covered her

with kisses.

"I knew you longed to play," she panted, when he released her. "Still,

it was sweet of you to pick it up before another got it."

"Another!" he exclaimed.

"The gods decide. It's a lob-sided thing, remember. It can't roll

straight." She looked oddly mischievous, elusive.

He stared at her.

"If it had rolled elsewhere--and another had picked it up----?" he

began.

"I should be with that other now!" And this time she was off and away

before he could prevent her, and the sound of her silvery laughter

mocked him among the olive trees beyond. He was up and after her in a

second, following her slim whiteness in and out of the old-world grove,

as she flitted lightly, her hair flying in the wind, her figure

flashing like a ray of sunlight or the race of foaming water--till at

last he caught her and drew her down upon his knees, and kissed her

wildly, forgetting who and where and what he was.

"Hark!" she whispered breathlessly, one arm close about his neck. "I

hear their footsteps. Listen! It is the pipe!"

"The pipe----!" he repeated, conscious of a tiny but delicious shudder.

For a sudden chill ran through him as she said it. He gazed at her. The

hair fell loose about her cheeks, flushed and rosy with his hot kisses.

Her eyes were bright and wild for all their softness. Her face, turned

sideways to him as she listened, wore an extraordinary look that for an

instant made his blood run cold. He saw the parted lips, the small

white teeth, the slim neck of ivory, the young bosom panting from his

tempestuous embrace. Of an unearthly loveliness and brightness she

seemed to him, yet with this strange, remote expression that touched

his soul with sudden terror.

Her face turned slowly.

"Who _are_ you?" he whispered. He sprang to his feet without waiting

for her answer.

He was young and agile; strong, too, with that quick response of muscle

they have who keep their bodies well; but he was no match for her. Her

speed and agility out-classed his own with ease. She leapt. Before he

had moved one leg forward towards escape, she was clinging with soft,

supple arms and limbs about him, so that he could not free himself, and

as her weight bore him downwards to the ground, her lips found his own

and kissed them into silence. She lay buried again in his embrace, her

hair across his eyes, her heart against his heart, and he forgot his

question, forgot his little fear, forgot the very world he knew....

"They come, they come," she cried gaily. "The Dawn is here. Are you

ready?"

"I've been ready for five thousand years," he answered, leaping to his

feet beside her.

"Altogether!" came upon a sparkling laugh that was like wind among the

olive leaves.

Shaking her last gauzy covering from her, she snatched his hand, and

they ran forward together to join the dancing throng now crowding up

the slope beneath the trees. Their happy singing filled the sky. Decked

with vine and ivy, and trailing silvery green branches, they poured in

a flood of radiant life along the mountain side. Slowly they melted

away into the blue distance of the breaking dawn, and, as the last

figure disappeared, the sun came up slowly out of a purple sea.

They came to the place he knew--the deserted earthquake village--and a

faint memory stirred in him. He did not actually recall that he had

visited it already, had eaten his sandwiches with "hotel friends"

beneath its crumbling walls; but there was a dim troubling sense of

familiarity--nothing more. The houses still stood, but pigeons lived in

them, and weasels, stoats and snakes had their uncertain homes in

ancient bedrooms. Not twenty years ago the peasants thronged its narrow

streets, through which the dawn now peered and cool wind breathed among

dew-laden brambles.

"I know the house," she cried, "the house where we would live!" and

raced, a flying form of air and sunlight, into a tumbled cottage that

had no roof, no floor or windows. Wild bees had hung a nest against the

broken wall.

He followed her. There was sunlight in the room, and there were

flowers. Upon a rude, simple table lay a bowl of cream, with eggs and

honey and butter close against a home-made loaf. They sank into each

other's arms upon a couch of fragrant grass and boughs against the

window where wild roses bloomed ... and the bees flew in and out.

It was Bussana, the so-called earthquake village, because a sudden

earthquake had fallen on it one summer morning when all the inhabitants

were at church. The crashing roof killed sixty, the tumbling walls

another hundred, and the rest had left it where it stood.

"The Church," he said, vaguely remembering the story. "They were at

prayer----"

The girl laughed carelessly in his ear, setting his blood in a rush and

quiver of delicious joy. He felt himself untamed, wild as the wind and

animals. "The true God claimed His own," she whispered. "He came back.

Ah, they were not ready--the old priests had seen to that. But he came.

They heard his music. Then his tread shook the olive groves, the old

ground danced, the hills leapt for joy----"

"And the houses crumbled," he laughed as he pressed her closer to his

heart--

"And now we've come back!" she cried merrily. "We've come back to

worship and be glad!" She nestled into him, while the sun rose higher.

"I hear them--hark!" she cried, and again leapt, dancing from his side.

Again he followed her like wind. Through the broken window they saw the

naked fauns and nymphs and satyrs rolling, dancing, shaking their soft

hoofs amid the ferns and brambles. Towards the appalling, ruptured

church they sped with feet of light and air. A roar of happy song and

laughter rose.

"Come!" he cried. "We must go too."

Hand in hand they raced to join the tumbling, dancing throng. She was

in his arms and on his back and flung across his shoulders, as he ran.

They reached the broken building, its whole roof gone sliding years

ago, its walls a-tremble still, its shattered shrines alive with

nesting birds.

"Hush!" she whispered in a tone of awe, yet pleasure. "He is there!"

She pointed, her bare arm outstretched above the bending heads.

There, in the empty space, where once stood sacred Host and Cup, he

sat, filling the niche sublimely and with awful power. His shaggy form,

benign yet terrible, rose through the broken stone. The great eyes

shone and smiled. The feet were lost in brambles.

"God!" cried a wild, frightened voice yet with deep worship in it--and

the old familiar panic came with portentous swiftness. The great Figure

rose.

The birds flew screaming, the animals sought holes, the worshippers,

laughing and glad a moment ago, rushed tumbling over one another for

the doors.

"He goes again! Who called? Who called like that? His feet shake the

ground!"

"It is the earthquake!" screamed a woman's shrill accents in ghastly

terror.

"Kiss me--one kiss before we forget again...!" sighed a laughing,

passionate voice against his ear. "Once more your arms, your heart

beating on my lips...! You recognised his power. You are now

altogether! We shall remember!"

But he woke, with the heavy bed-clothes stuffed against his mouth and

the wind of early morning sighing mournfully about the hotel walls.

* * * * *

"Have they left again--those ladies?" he inquired casually of the head

waiter, pointing to the table. "They were here last night at dinner."

"Who do you mean?" replied the man, stupidly, gazing at the spot

indicated with a face quite blank. "Last night--at dinner?" He tried to

think.

"An English lady, elderly, with--her daughter----" at which moment

precisely the girl came in alone. Lunch was over, the room empty.

There was a second's difficult pause. It seemed ridiculous not to

speak. Their eyes met. The girl blushed furiously.

He was very quick for an Englishman. "I was allowing myself to ask

after your mother," he began. "I was afraid"--he glanced at the table

laid for one--"she was not well, perhaps?"

"Oh, but that's very kind of you, I'm sure." She smiled. He saw the

small white even teeth....

And before three days had passed, he was so deeply in love that he

simply couldn't help himself.

"I believe," he said lamely, "this is yours. You dropped it, you know.

Er--may I keep it? It's only an olive."

They were, of course, in an olive grove when he asked it, and the sun

was setting.

She looked at him, looked him up and down, looked at his ears, his

eyes. He felt that in another second her little fingers would slip up

and tweak the first, or close the second with a soft pressure----

"Tell me," he begged: "did you dream anything--that first night I saw

you?"

She took a quick step backwards. "No," she said, as he followed her

more quickly still, "I don't think I did. But," she went on

breathlessly as he caught her up, "I knew--from the way you picked it

up----"

"Knew what?" he demanded, holding her tightly so that she could not get

away again.

"That you were already half and half, but would soon be altogether."

And, as he kissed her, he felt her soft little fingers tweak his ears.