The theatre was full. I cannot remember what they were playing. I did
not have time to observe the actors. I only remember how vast the
building seemed. Looking back, I saw an ocean of faces stretching away
almost beyond the eye's power of definition to the far circles where
the seats rose tier above tier in lines of illumination. The ceiling
was blue, and in the midst a great mellow lamp hung suspended like a
moon, at a height so lofty that I could not see the suspending chain.
All the seats were black. I fancied that the theatre was hung with
hangings of black velvet, bordered with a silver fringe that glimmered
like tears. The audience were all in white.
All in white!--I asked myself whether I was not in some theatre of
some tropical city--why all in white? I could not guess. I fancied at
moments that I could perceive a moonlit landscape through far distant
oriel windows, and the crests of palms casting moving shadows like
gigantic spiders. The air was sweet with a strange and a new perfume;
it was a drowsy air--a poppied air, in which the waving of innumerable
white fans made no rustle, no sound.
There was a strange stillness and a strange silence. All eyes were
turned toward the stage, except my own. I gazed in every direction but
that of the stage! I cannot imagine why it was that I rarely looked
toward the stage. No one noticed me; no one appeared to perceive that
I was the only person in all that vast assembly clad in black--a tiny
dark speck in a sea of white light.
Gradually the voices of the actors seemed to me to become fainter and
fainter--thin sounds like whispers from another world--a world of
ghosts!--and the music seemed not music, but only an echo in the mind
of the hearer, like a memory of songs heard and forgotten in forgotten
years.
There were faces that I thought strangely familiar--faces I fancied I
had seen somewhere else in some other time. But none recognized me.
A woman sat before me--a fair woman with hair as brightly golden as the
locks of Aphrodite. I asked my heart why it beat so strangely when I
turned my eyes upon her. I felt as if it sought to leap from my breast
and fling itself all palpitating under her feet. I watched the delicate
movements of her neck, where a few loose bright curls were straying,
like strands of gold clinging to a column of ivory;--the soft curve of
the cheek flushed by a faint ruddiness like the velvet surface of a
half-ripe peach;--the grace of the curving lips--lips sweet as those
of the Cnidian Venus, which even after two thousand years still seem
humid, as with the kisses of the last lover. But the eyes I could not
see.
And a strange desire rose within me--an intense wish to kiss those
lips. My heart said, Yes;--my reason whispered, No. I thought of the
ten thousand thousand eyes that might suddenly be turned upon me. I
looked back; and it seemed to me as if the whole theatre had grown
vaster! The circles of seats had receded;--the great centre lamp seemed
to have mounted higher;--the audience seemed vast as that we dream of
in visions of the Last Judgment. And my heart beat so violently that I
heard its passionate pulsation, louder than the voices of the actors,
and I feared lest it should betray me to all the host of white-clad men
and women above me. But none seemed to hear or to see me. I trembled as
I thought of the consequences of obeying the mad impulse that became
every moment more overpowering and uncontrollable.
And my heart answered, "One kiss of those lips were worth the pain of
ten thousand deaths."
I do not remember that I arose. I only remember finding myself beside
her, close to her, breathing her perfumed breath, and gazing into eyes
deep as the amethystine heaven of a tropical night. I pressed my lips
passionately to hers; I felt a thrill of inexpressible delight and
triumph; I felt the warm soft lips curl back to meet mine, and give me
back my kiss!
And a great fear suddenly came upon me. And all the multitude of
white-clad men and women arose in silence; and ten thousand thousand
eyes looked upon me.
I heard a voice, faint, sweet--such a voice as we hear when dead loves
visit us in dreams:
"Thou hast kissed me: the compact is sealed forever."
And raising my eyes once more I saw that all the seats were graves and
all the white dresses shrouds. Above me a light still shone in the
blue roof, but only the light of a white moon in the eternal azure of
heaven. White tombs stretched away in weird file to the verge of the
horizon; where it had seemed to me that I beheld a play, I saw only a
lofty mausoleum; and I knew that the perfume of the night was but the
breath of flowers dying upon the tombs!