TRANSFORMATION.
Daphne’s first thought was, that the hour of her destruction had come
at last. She clung to her dagger, and in the presence of actual danger
her courage was restored to the full.
Her face was pale, but her eyes flashed.
She looked at Thoth, expecting him to utter her doom, but he stood
silently with his eyes fixed on the ground, apparently in deep thought.
How long they remained thus she could never tell,—whether moments or
hours. Time was effaced, and she and this man were all that was left
in the universe.
At last Daphne broke the silence.
“What is my fate? Wilt thou keep to thy first promise or thy last
threat?”
Then Thoth raised his eyes and filled her heart with wonder. A thrill
of fearful pleasure passed through her frame as she thought she saw in
his regard no trace of hatred or cruelty, but the overpowering love of
a strong nature.
She was not left long in suspense, for Thoth said to her, with a
trembling voice—
“Daphne, I love thee as never yet man loved woman. Against my will,
against my belief, in a moment, love has seized me—love as strong and
irrevocable as death that, too, comes in a moment.”
Then he advanced towards her, and seizing her hand, kissed it
passionately. He tried to embrace her, but she drew back, afraid. The
change in the man was too sudden and unexpected. She knew not what to
think. Delight was mingled with distrust, and she knew not which would
gain the victory. His kisses inflamed her heart, but the horror of the
past was too recent to be altogether forgotten.
She longed to be alone, and yet, at the same time, she wished to ask
Thoth a multitude of questions. She wished to know his whole nature,
and as yet she was afraid to give him her finger-tip. Overpowered by
the conflict of emotions, she sank down on the couch, and listened to
Thoth as if in a dream.
Thoth respected her diffidence, and for a time reason again seemed to
take command of his nature, and he spoke calmly even of his new-born
passion. The words of love which she had spoken to him, and which, at
first, had made no impression, had, he related, as soon as he left her,
begun to recur to him as if she were still present.
He was quite frank. He told her that he had ordered her imprisonment,
and had even tried to think of the details of her punishment; but
in spite of his strongest efforts, whenever he thought of her he
recalled her passionate appeal of love. At first he was astonished and
bewildered—the whole affair seemed to him incredible and ridiculous.
But the memory of her grasp made his hand burn, and her beautiful face
chased away every thought. Then came her message, and he felt drawn by
an irresistible force to see her. It seemed to him as if hitherto he
had lived in a dream, and had only just awaked to the reality of life.
Again and again he described to her the revolution in his nature,—by
endless comparisons sought to show her how sudden and complete it had
been. His love was the sun banishing night, and hiding the stars from
the cold contemplation of the astronomer. It was the sudden rebound of
a tall young palm which had been bent to the earth with thongs. It was
a storm of burning sand, effacing alike the road before and behind. It
was the cleaving by an earthquake of the solid ground, swallowing up
in a moment man’s handiwork for ages. It was the tree which blossomed
once in a thousand years, the first flight of a bird released from
captivity, the first living prey of the young lion.
Then after he had exhausted language and imagination in portraying
the degree and violence of his passion, the natural bent of his mind
made him seek for an explanation which would make the unreasonable
reasonable, and the ludicrous full of dignity and pathos. He proved to
Daphne that life is not truly in the individual but in the race: his
race was a giant whose nature had been distorted for a long period,
and then suddenly had asserted its strength. The loveless lives of
his predecessors had, by a necessary reaction, made him capable of
an infinite depth of passion. Love, instead of being stamped out and
crushed, as the first Thoth had supposed, had only been stored up from
generation to generation. It was a transcendent passion, which did not
obey the ordinary laws of life and descent. It was part of the very
nature of life, and could only be destroyed by death. Besides this, his
mother was by birth a child of the instincts and passions common to the
races of mankind.
The search for reasons brought back Thoth, as far as was possible, to
his former calmness of demeanour, and he began to talk of the future.
He assumed all the time that the declaration of his passion was all
that Daphne had required of him, and she had been too much overcome by
surprise to interrupt the torrent of his eloquence.
When, however, he spoke in a definite manner of their union in a short
time, she was driven to take up an attitude of defence. Much as Thoth
had advanced in her esteem, she could not at once respond to his
passion, and she was troubled by painful reminiscences. She said to
him—
“Tell me one thing in all sincerity. Wilt thou still, if I wish it,
send me back to Greece?”
His face became gloomy, but he answered at once—
“I swear it.”
“Even if I do not love thee?”
“Even so.”
“And if I wish it, thou wilt never trouble me again?”
“Never.”
“And thou wilt tell me everything, and explain every mystery in this
place?”
“Everything; but, Daphne, judge not hastily and harshly. For I will
change every law and custom that is to thee displeasing. With thy
love,” he continued, in a vein of enthusiasm, “I shall be greater in
every way than my great ancestor. He has impressed his will on this
race for hundreds of years, and I will impress mine for thousands, and
thy will shall be mine. Thou shalt be queen of the whole world, and the
lives of the races of men shall be fashioned by thee. No goddess was
ever fated to have such might as my love shall give thee for a dower.”
* * * * *
Thoth seemed completely transformed, and his whole being was tremulous
with passion. Daphne felt her power of resistance failing, as the
strength of a mortal fails before the desire of some deity. Thoth
became to her the perfect embodiment of manhood and of love.
She rose from her seat, and drew nearer to him.
She looked through his eyes, and the depth of his devotion seemed
unfathomable. She could doubt no longer.
She raised her face to his, and he covered it with kisses.
Then he whispered to her, “Tell me what more I must do or promise.
Must love such as ours await some ceremonial for its fulfilment? This
is to me the beginning of life. Choose thou for us what form the
marriage-rites shall take, for I, alas! know nothing.”
At once the spell was broken, for Daphne remembered the horrible unions
which the haters of women had hitherto made. She shrank from Thoth, and
cried—
“Leave me! leave me! How can I forget that the women of thy race have
been wooed with torture, and that thou thyself in all likelihood hast
gone through rites of ingenious cruelty. I cannot believe in a future
that rests on such a past.”
But Thoth rejoined with passionate eagerness, and with every sign of
truth, “Believe me, Daphne, I myself ordained none of these things.”
“But,” she said, “thou hast permitted these terrible customs to live,
and thy fellow-rulers have been guilty.”
“Canst thou not,” he replied, “separate the past from the future? I,
at least, have not offended, in this manner.”
But Daphne made no response, and Thoth continued—
“Every one who has thus done shall be punished in any way thou mayest
choose—if thou wilt, with death.”
“Nay,” she said, “I will be guilty of no man’s death.”
“Then,” said Thoth, “I will change their natures, as mine has been
changed. Wilt thou be mine if, in a full assembly of our ruling race,
thou art chosen as the honoured queen of the new era?”
Daphne remained silent, and Thoth said abruptly—
“I must give thee time for reflection. I know that I shall never
change. In seven days I will come for thy answer.”
He saluted her with reverence, and departed.