“He has not yet learned that the day begins with sleep!” said the woman, turning to her husband. “Tell him he must rest before he can do anything!”
“Men,” he answered, “think so much of having done, that they fall asleep upon it. They cannot empty an egg but they turn into the shell, and lie down!”
The words drew my eyes from the woman to the raven.
I saw no raven, but the librarian--the same slender elderly man, in a rusty black coat, large in the body and long in the tails. I had seen only his back before; now for the first time I saw his face. It was so thin that it showed the shape of the bones under it, suggesting the skulls his last-claimed profession must have made him familiar with. But in truth I had never before seen a face so alive, or a look so keen or so friendly as that in his pale blue eyes, which yet had a haze about them as if they had done much weeping.
“You knew I was not a raven!” he said with a smile.
“I knew you were Mr. Raven,” I replied; “but somehow I thought you a bird too!”
“You looked a raven, and I saw you dig worms out of the earth with your beak.”
“Did you ever see a raven do that? I told you I was a sexton!”
“Does a sexton toss worms in the air, and turn them into butterflies?”
“You saw me do it!--But I am still librarian in your house, for I never was dismissed, and never gave up the office. Now I am librarian here as well.”
“But you have just told me you were sexton here!”
“So I am. It is much the same profession. Except you are a true sexton, books are but dead bodies to you, and a library nothing but a catacomb!”
A few moments he stood silent. The woman, moveless as a statue, stood silent also by the coffin-door.
“Upon occasion,” said the sexton at length, “it is more convenient to put one’s bird-self in front. Every one, as you ought to know, has a beast-self--and a bird-self, and a stupid fish-self, ay, and a creeping serpent-self too--which it takes a deal of crushing to kill! In truth he has also a tree-self and a crystal-self, and I don’t know how many selves more--all to get into harmony. You can tell what sort a man is by his creature that comes oftenest to the front.”
He turned to his wife, and I considered him more closely. He was above the ordinary height, and stood more erect than when last I saw him. His face was, like his wife’s, very pale; its nose handsomely encased the beak that had retired within it; its lips were very thin, and even they had no colour, but their curves were beautiful, and about them quivered a shadowy smile that had humour in it as well as love and pity.