The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye (Vintage International) Read Online Free

with her, and a man hurt in his pride will take what he may, and he took, for she had seen him dance, and she was all twisted and turned in her mind and herself by his pride and his dancing.
    And he said, if he went away again, and found some future in any part of the world, would she wait till he came again and asked her father for her.
    And she said, ‘Long must I wait, and you with a woman waiting in every port, and a ribbon fluttering in every breeze on every quay, if I wait for you.’
    And he said, ‘You will wait.’
    And she would not say yes or no, she would wait or not wait.
    And he said, ‘You are a woman with a cursed temper, but I will come again and you will see.’
    And after a time, the people saw that her beauty dimmed, and her step grew creeping, and she did not lift her head, and she grew heavy all over. And she took to waiting in the harbour, to see the ships come in, and though she asked after none, everyone knew well enough why she was there, and who it was she waited for. But she said nothing to anyone. Only she was seen up on the point, where the Lady Chapel is, praying, it must be thought, though none heard her prayers.
    And after more time, when many ships had come and gone, and others had been wrecked, and their men swallowed, but his had not been seen or heard of, the miller thought he heard an owl cry, or a cat miawl in his barn, but when he came there was no one and nothing, only blood on the straw. So he called his daughter and she came, deathly-white, rubbing her eyes as if in sleep, and he said, ‘Here is blood on the straw,’ and she said, ‘I would thank you not to wake me from my good sleep to tell me the dog has killed a rat, or the cat eaten a mouse here in the barn.’
    And they all saw she was white, but she stood upright, holding her candle, and they all went in again.
    And then the ship came home, over the line of sea and into the harbour, and the young man leaped to the shore to see if she was waiting, and she was not. Now he had seen her in his mind’s eye, all round the globe, as clear as clear, waiting there, with her proud pretty face, and the coloured ribbon in the breeze, and his heart hardened, you will understand, that she had not come. But he did not ask after her, only kissed the girls and smiled and ran up the hill to his house.
    And by and by he saw a pale thin thing creeping along in the shadow of a wall, all slow and halting. And he did not know her at first. And she thought to creep past him like that, because she was so altered.
    He said, ‘You did not come.’
    And she said, ‘I could not.’
    And he said, ‘You are here in the street all the same.’
    And she said, ‘I am not what I was.’
    And he said, ‘What is that to me? But you did not come.’
    And she said, ‘If it is nothing to you, it is much to me. Time has passed. What is past is past. I must go.’
    And she did go.
    And that night he danced with Jeanne, the smith’s daughter, who had fine white teeth and little plump hands like fat rosebuds.
    And the next day he went to seek the miller’s daughter and found her in the chapel on the hill.
    He said, ‘Come down with me.’
    And she said, ‘Do you hear little feet, little bare feet, dancing?’
    And he said, ‘No, I hear the sea on the shore, and the air running over the dry grass, and the weathercock grinding round in the wind.’
    And she said, ‘All night they danced in my head, round this way and back that, so that I did not sleep.’
    And he, ‘Come down with me.’
    And she, ‘But can you not hear the dancer?’
    And so it went on for a week or a month, or two months, he dancing with Jeanne, and going up to the chapel and getting only the one answer from the miller’s daughter, and in the end he wearied, as rash and handsome men will, and said, ‘I have waited as you would not, come now, or I shall wait no more.’
    And she, ‘How can I come if you cannot hear the little thing dancing?’
    And he said, ‘Stay with your little