The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (5.1895)

Rosemary for Remembrance

By Henry Harland

I

Iwonder why I dreamed last night of Zabetta. It is years
since she made her brief little transit through my life, and
passed out of it utterly. It is years since the very recollection of
her—which for years, like an accusing spirit, had haunted me too
often—like a spirit was laid. It is long enough, in all conscience,
since I have even thought of her, casually, for an instant. And
then, last night, after a perfectly usual London day and evening, I
went to bed and dreamed of her vividly. What had happened to
bring her to my mind ? Or is it simply that the god of dreams is
a capricious god ?

The influence of my dream, at any rate,—-the bitter-sweet
savour of it,—has pursued me through my waking hours. All day
long to-day Zabetta has been my phantom guest. She has walked
with me in the streets ; she has waited at my elbow while I wrote
or talked or read. Now, at tea-time, she is present with me by
my study fireside, in the twilight. Her voice sounds faintly,
plaintively, in my ears ; her eyes gaze at me sadly from a pale
reproachful face. . . . She bids me to the theatre of memory, where
my youth is rehearsed before me in mimic-show. There was one—