Yonder it lay in the sunlight, with the snow-tipped heights above it, a white blaze surrounded by orange orchards.
But how dizzy he was! How the world went round! How the earth trembled!
Was the glare of the sun too fierce that morning, or had his eyes grown dim? Going blind? Well, even so, he would not repine, for Naomi could see now.She would see for him also.How sweet to see through Naomi's eyes! Naomi was young and joyous, and bright and blithe.All the world was new to her, and strange and beautiful.It would be a second and far sweeter youth.
Naomi--Naomi--always Naomi! He had thought of her hitherto as she had appeared to him during the few days of their happy lives at Semsa.But now he began to wonder if time had not changed her since then.Two months and a half--it seemed so long! He had visions of Naomi grown from a sweet girl to a lovely woman.A great soul beamed out of her big, slow eyes.He himself approached her meekly, humbly, reverently.Nevertheless, he was her father still--her old, tired, dim-eyed father; and she led him here and there, and described things to him.He could see and hear it all.
First Naomi's voice: "A bow in the sky--red, blue, crimson--oh!"Then his own deeper one, out of its lightsome darkness:
"A rainbow, child!" Ah! the dreams were beautiful!
He tried to recall the very tones of Naomi's voice--the voice of his poor dead Ruth--and to remember the song that she used to sing--the song she sang in the patio on that great night of the moonlight, when he was returning home from the Bab Ramooz, and heard her singing from the street--Within my heart a voice Bids earth and heaven rejoice.
He sang the song to himself as he toiled along.With a little lisp he sang it, so that he might cheat himself and think that the voice he was making was Naomi's voice and not his own.