Page 119 - 401_

118

"Thou art mad to say so," cried the Star- Child angrily. "I am
no son of thine, for thou art a beggar, and ugly, and in rags. Therefore
get thee hence, and let me see thy foul face no more."
"Nay, but thou art indeed my little son, whom I bare in the
forest," she cried, and she fell on her knees, and held out her arms to
him. "The robbers stole thee from me, and left thee to die," she
murmured, "but I recognised thee when I saw thee, and the signs also
have I recognised, the cloak of golden tissue and the amber chain.
Therefore I pray thee come with me, for over the whole world have I
wandered in search of thee. Come with me, my son, for I have need
of thy love."
But the Star-Child stirred not from his place, but shut the doors
of his heart against her, nor was there any sound heard save the sound
of the woman weeping for pain.
And at last he spoke to her, and his voice was hard and bitter.
"If in very truth thou art my mother," he said, "it had been better
hadst thou stayed away, and not come here to bring me to shame,
seeing that I thought I was the child of some Star, and not a beggar's
child, as thou tellest me that I am. Therefore get thee hence, and let
me see thee no more."
"Alas! my son," she cried, "wilt thou not kiss me before I go?
For I have suffered much to find thee."
"Nay," said the Star-Child, "but thou art too foul to look at, and
rather would I kiss the adder or the toad than thee."
So the woman rose up, and went away into the forest weeping
bitterly, and when the Star-Child saw that she had gone, he was glad,
and ran back to his playmates that he might play with them.
But when they beheld him coming, they mocked him and said,
"Why, thou art as foul as the toad, and as loathsome as the adder. Get
thee hence, for we will not suffer thee to play with us," and they
drove him out of the garden. And the Star-Child frowned and said to
himself, "What is this that they say to me? I will go to the well of
water and look into it, and it shall tell me of my beauty."
So he went to the well of water and looked into it, and lo! his
face was as the face of a toad, and his body was scaled like an adder.
And he flung himself down on the grass and wept, and said to
himself, "Surely this has come upon me by reason of my sin. For I
have denied my mother, and driven her away, and been proud, and