II.—­The Magic of the Forest

“The Creeks had stripped me almost naked, but Atala made me a dress out of the inner bark of the ash-tree and sewed some rat-skins into moccasins.  I, in turn, wove garlands of flowers for her head as we tramped along through the great forests of Florida.  Oh, how wildly beautiful the scenes were through which we passed.  Nearly all the trees in Florida are covered with a white moss which hangs from their branches to the ground.  At night-time, when the moonlight falls, pearly grey, on the indeterminate crest of the forests, the trees look like an army of phantoms in long, trailing veils.  In the daytime a crowd of large, beautiful butterflies, brilliant humming birds, and blue-winged jays and parroquets come and cling to the moss, which then resembles a white tapestry embroidered with splendid and varied hues.

“Every evening we made a great fire and built a shelter out of a large hollow piece of bark, fixed on four stakes.  The forests were full of game, which I easily brought down with the bow and arrows I took when we fled from the camp, and as it was now autumn, the forests were hung with fruit.  Every day I became more and more joyful, but Atala was strangely quiet.  Sometimes, as I suddenly turned my head to see why she was so silent, I would find her gazing at me, her eyes burning with passion.  Sometimes she would kneel down, and clasp her hands in prayer and weep like a woman with a broken heart.  What frightened me above all was the secret thought that she tried to conceal in the depths of her soul, but, now and then, half revealed in her wild, sorrowful, and lovely eyes.  Oh, how many times did she tell me: 

“‘Yes, I love you, Chactas, I love you!  But I can never be your wife!’

“I could not understand her.  One minute she would cling round my neck and kiss me; another, when I wished in turn to caress her, she would repulse me.

“’But as I intend, Atala, to become a Christian, what is there to prevent us marrying?’ I said, again and again.

“And every time I asked this question she burst into tears and would not answer.  But the wild loneliness, the continual presence of my beloved, yes, even the hardships of our wandering life, increased the force of my longing.  A hundred times I was ready to fold Atala to my breast.  A hundred times I proposed to build her a hut in the wide, uninhabited wilderness, and live my life out there by her side.

“Oh, Rene, my son, if your heart is ever deeply troubled by love, beware of loneliness.  Great passions are wild and solitary things; by transporting them into the wilderness you give them full power over your soul.  But in spite of this, Atala and I lived together in the great forests like brother and sister.  On and on we marched, through vaults of flowery smilax, where lianas with strange and gorgeous blossoms snared our feet in their twining ropy stems.  Enormous bats fluttered in our faces, rattlesnakes rattled around us, and bears and carcajous—­those little tigers that crouch on the branches of trees, and leap without warning on their prey—­made the latter part of our journey full of strange perils and difficulties.  For after travelling for twenty-seven days, we crossed the Alleghany mountains, and got into a tract of swampy, wooded ground.