Remembering Marcellus

I've spent a few days with a nasty cold this past week. But I'm ever so much better now, rejoicing in simple things like breathing and swallowing. I love getting well. It always reminds me of Marcellus, after his encounter with the Robe.

Not since that summer when, at fifteen, Mardellus was slowly convalescing from a serious illness, had he experienced so keen an awareness of life's elemental properties. The wasting fever had left him weak and emaciated; but through those days of his recovery his senses had been abnormally alert. Especially in the early morning: all colors were luminous, all sounds were intensified, all scents were heady concentrates of familiar fragrances.

Until then, the birds chirped and whistled, each species shrieking its own identifying cry; but it was silly to say that they sang. Now the birds sang, their songs melodious and choral. The dawn breeze was saturated with a subtle blend of newmown clover and sweetish honeysuckle, of jasmine and narcissus, welcoming him back to life's brightness and goodness. . .

For those few days, as a youth, Marcellus had been impressed by his kinship with all created things. It stilled and steadied his spirit to find himself so closely integrated with Nature. Then, as he regained his bodily vigor, this peculiar sensitivity gradually ceased to function. He still enjoyed the colors and perfumes of the flowers, the liquid calls of the birds, and the insistent hum of little winged creatures; but his brief understanding of their languatge was lost in the confusion of ordinary work and play. Nor did he expect ever to reclaim that transient rapture. Perhaps it could be experienced only when one's physical resources had ebbed to low tide, and one's fragility had made common cause with such other fragile things as hummingbirds and heliotrope.