religious passion, was bold to touch with hers his divine hand, on the
finger of which demoniacally glittered the murder-token. The hand was
so cold and lax that even the smooth warmth of her soft fingers failed
to put life in it.
"You have taken Hiero to yourself,--take me also! be my God as well as
his, for I shall be alone now he is gone. This ring which he always
wore--"
Balder roughly snatched back his hand.
"Hiero's ring?"
"Why do you look so?--is it not a sign to me from him?"
"Hiero's ring?--tell me, Gnulemah, is this Hiero's ring?--Stop--stand
up! No--call me Satan!--Hiero's ring!"
"Where is Hiero, then?" demanded Gnulemah, rising and dilating. "You
wear his ring,--what have you done with him?--Is there no God?"
The words came riding on the waves of deep-drawn breaths, for her soul
was in a tumult. Her life had thus far been like a quiet sequestered
pool, reflecting only the sky, and the ferns and flowers that bent
above its margin; ignorant, moreover, of its own depth and nature.
Now, invaded by storm, God and nature seemed swept away and lost, and
a terror of loneliness darkened over it.
"Is there no Balder?" reiterated Gnulemah. But all at once the
fierceness in her eyes melted, as lightning is followed by summer
rain. She came so near,--he standing dulled with horror of his
discovery,--came so near that her breath touched him, and he could
hear the faint rustling of the white byssus on her bosom, and the soft
tinkle of the broad pendants that glowed against her black hair; and
could see how profoundly real her beauty was. Mighty and beneficent
must be the force or the law which could combine the rude elements
into such a form of life as this!
"Let me live for you and serve you! Though the world has no Balder,
may not I have mine? You shall be everything to me! Without you I
cannot be; but I want no other God if I have my Balder!"
This was another matter! Nevertheless,--so subtle is the boundary
between love human and divine,--Gnulemah in these first passionate
moments may easily have deemed the one no less sublime than the other.
But there was no danger of Balder's falling into such an error. The
distinction was clear to him. Yet with remorse and abasement strove
the defiant impulse to pluck and eat--forgetful of this world and the
next the royal fruit so fairly held to his lips! For herein fails the
divinity of nature,--she can minister as well to man's depravity as to
his exaltation; which could not happen were she one with God. Nay,
man had need be strong with Divine inspiration, before communing
unharmed with nature's dangerous loveliness.
His hand in Gnulemah's was now neither cold nor lax. She raised it in
impetuous homage to her forehead. The diamond left a mark there; first
white, then red. For a breath or two, their eyes saw depths in each
other beyond words' fathoming....
A door was closed above; and the echo stole down stairs and crept with
a hollow whisper into the conservatory. The little lord chamberlain
fluttered down from his lofty perch and hovered between the two faces,
his penetrating note sounding like a warning, Gnulemah drew back, and
a swift blush let fall its rosy veil from the golden gleam of her
jewelled forehead-band to below the head of the serpent which twisted
round her neck.
One parting look she gave Balder, pregnant of new wonder, fear, and
joy. Then she turned and glided with quick ophidian grace to the
doorway from which she had first appeared, and was eclipsed by the
curtain. The inner door shut; she was gone. Dull, dull and colorless
was the conservatory. The hoopoe had flown out through the hall to the
open air. Only the crocodile continued to keep Balder company.
After standing a few moments, he once more threw himself down on the
moss couch beneath the palm-trees. There he reclined as before,
supported on his elbow, and turned the diamond ring this way and that
on his finger in moody preoccupation.
Was the crocodile asleep, or stealthily watching him?
XIX.
BEFORE SUNDOWN.
If Balder Helwyse had been in a vein for self-criticism at this
juncture, the review might probably have dissatisfied him. He
possessed qualities which make men great. He could have discharged
august offices, for he saw things in large relations and yet minutely.
His mind and courage could rise to any enterprise, and carry it with
ease and cheerfully. His nature was even more receptive than active.
He had force of thought to electrify nations.
But his was the old story of the star-gazer walking into the well, who
might have studied the stars in the well, but could not be warned of
the well by the stars. He had whistled grand chances down the wind,
reaching after what was superhuman. His hunger had been vast, but the
food wherewith he had filled himself nourished him not, and suddenly
he had collapsed. His first actual step towards realizing his lofty
aspirations had landed him low amongst earth's common criminals,--nor
had the harm stopped there. That defiant impulse to which he had just
now been on the point of yielding had not dared so much as to have
shown its face before his unvitiated will. He was disorganized and at
the mercy of events, because without law sufficient to keep and guide
himself.
Though fallen, there was in him somewhat giant-like, perhaps easier to
see now than before,--as the ruin seems vaster than the perfect
building. The travail of a soul like Balder's must issue greatly,
whether for good or ill. He could not remain long inchoate, but the
elements would combine to make something either darker or fairer than
had been before. Meanwhile, in the uncrystallized solution the curious
analyst might detect traits bright or sinister, ordinarily invisible.
Here were softness, impetuosity, romantic imagination, and tender
fire, enough to set up half a dozen poets. Again, there was a fund of
malignity, coldness, and subtlety adequate to the making an Iago.
Here, too, were the clear sceptical intellect, the fertility and
versatile power of brain, which only the loftier minds of the world
have shown.
Such seemingly incongruous qualities are, in the human crucible, so
mingled, proportioned, and refined, as to form a seeming simple and
transparent whole. We may feel the presence of a spirit weighty,
strong, deep, without understanding the how and why of impression.
Only at critical moments, such as this in Balder's life, can we point
out the joining lines.
Balder's present attitude, viewed from whatever side, was no less
irksome than ignoble. One misfortune was with diabolic ingenuity
dovetailed into another. It was bad enough to have killed a man; but
the victim was his own uncle, and the father--at least the
foster-father--of Gnulemah. And she, forsooth, must idolize the
murderer; and, finally, his heart must leap forth in passionate
response to hers at the moment--partly perhaps for the reason--that
every honest motive forbade it. That look and touch, at the molten
point of various emotions, had welded their spirits together at once
and lastingly.
What next? For Gnulemah and for himself what course was least
disastrous?--the heroic line,--to leave her without a word?--or,
concealing what he was, should he stay and be happy in her arms? Was
there a third alternative?
"To part would be yet worse for her than for me. She would think I had
deceived her. And, love apart, how can I leave her whose only
protector I have killed? That deed puts me in his place; so love and
duty are at one for once. Her Balder,--her God,--she calls me. She is
my universe; the depth and limit of my knowledge and power are gauged
by her. Such is the issue of my aspirations!"
He breathed out a half-laugh, ending in a sigh. "But loving her is
sweeter than to inform creation!" he added, aloud.
The crocodile made no reply. Balder went on, fingering the telltale
ring and talking with himself; the earth, meanwhile, slowly turning
her warm shoulder to the western sun. A still half-light filled the
conservatory as with a clear mellow liquor, and the rich leaves, and
blossoms stood breathless with delight. The painfully rigid
contraction of Balder's features was softening away; he was coming
into harmony with the sensuous beauty of the scene, or its refined
voluptuousness--serene, unambitious, content with time and careless of
eternity--interpreted his altered temper.
Be happy in the sunlight, O men and women! Love and kiss,--bow down
and worship each the other! Who can tell of another joy like this?
Everlasting knows it not, for only the flavor of death can give it
perfection! Save for the foreshadow of midnight, noonday were not
beautiful. But when night comes, sink ye in one another's arms, and
sleep! Heaven on earth is a richer, stronger draught than Heaven; but
pray that in vouchsafing death, it cheat ye not of annihilation!
He had forgotten that there was anything ugly in the world, or that
the blindest cannot always escape the Gorgon. He recked not the risk
of bringing a being such as Gnulemah face to face with modern life,
nor bethought him that the secret in his heart would still be nearer
it than love could come. Neither, during this fortunate moment, did
fear of discovery harass him.
Oddly, too, it was not to domestic comforts,--the love of wife,
children, and friends,--nor yet to the absorbing duties of a
profession, that Balder looked for a shield against inward trouble.
Hope held him no more than fear; his happiness must consist in freedom
from both. He thought only of the Gnulemah of to-day,--unique,
beautiful, untamed, divinely ignorant; but whose heart walked before,
leading the giddy mind by paths the wisest dared not tempt. The sounds
of her voice, the shiftings of her expression, her look, her
touch,--he recalled them all. He centred time and space in her.
Change, new conditions, succession of events,--these came not near
her. Their life should know neither past nor future, but abide a
constant Now,--until the end!
His lips followed his thought with soundless movement. Handsome lips
they were,--the under, full, but sharply defined from the
bulwark-chin; the upper, slender, boldly curved, firm, yet
sensitive;--the mouth was a compendium of the man's physical nature.
His eyes, large and almost as dark as Gnulemah's, albeit far different
in effect,--were now in-looking; the pupils, always extraordinarily
large and brilliant, almost filled the space between the eyelids. His
hair clung round his head in yellow curls; the dark dense eyebrows
arched at ease. With velvet doublet and well-moulded limbs, in the
enchanted evening-glow, he looked the ideal fairy prince,--noble,
wise, and valiant; conquering fate for love's sake. They were brave
princes,--they of old time. But one wonders whether the giants and
enchanters, nowadays, are not stronger and subtler than they used to
be!
XX.
BETWEEN WAKING AND SLEEPING.
There was an old woman in the house who went by the name of Nurse; her
duties being to cook the meals and preserve a sort of order in such of
the rooms as were occupied by the family. Since the greater part of
the house was uninhabited, and there were only two mouths to feed
beside her own, Nurse was not without leisure moments. How were they
employed?
Not in gossiping, for she had no cronies. Not in millinery and
dressmaking, for there were no admiring eyes to reward such labors.
Not in gadding, for she might not pass the imprisoning wall. Not even
in reading, perhaps because she was not much of a proficient in that
art.
The truth is that--to the outward eye at least--she was uniformly
idle. For years past she had spent many hours of each night in the
corner of the kitchen fireplace, which was as large, roomy, and
smoke-seasoned as any in story-books or mediæval halls. Here sat she,
winter and summer, her body bent forward over her knees, her
disfigured face supported on one hand, while the other lay across her
breast. This was her common position, and she seldom moved to change
it. She hummed tunes to herself sometimes,--not hymn tunes,--but never
was heard to utter an articulate word. Often you might have thought
her asleep,--but no! when you least expected it a shining black eye
was fixed oh you; an eye which, two hundred years ago, would have
convicted its owner of witchcraft. It was the only bright thing about
the poor woman.
Whenever the master of the house came to the kitchen, Nurse's
witch-eye followed him animal-like; no movement of his, no expression,
seemed to escape it. A curious observer might sometimes have remarked
in her, during the few moments after the man's entrance, a muffled
agitation, an irregularity of the breath, an obscure anxiety and
suspense. This, however, would soon subside, and rarely recur during
his stay. The phenomenon had been observable daily for nearly a score
of years, yet nothing had meantime happened to explain or justify it.
Had an original dread--groundless or not--prolonged its phantom
existence precisely because it had never met with justification?
Often for weeks at a time, complete silence would obtain between
master and Nurse. He would enter and ramble hither and thither the
ample kitchen; eat what had been prepared for him, and be off again
without a word or glance of acknowledgment. Or, again, pacing
irregularly to and fro before the fireplace, he would pour forth long
disjointed rhapsodies, wild speculations, hopes, and misgivings; his
mood changing from solemn to gay, and round through gusty passion to
morbid gloom. But never did he address his words to Nurse so much as
to himself or to some imaginary interlocutor; and she for her part
never answered him a syllable, but sat in silence through it all. Yet
was she ever alert to listen, and sometimes the subdued trembling
would come on and the obstruction of breath. But when the talker, in
mid-excitement of speech, snatched his violin and drew from it
melodies weirdly exquisite, soothing his diseased thoughts and
harmonizing them, Nurse would become once more composed; the phantom
danger was again put off, and the violinist would presently fall into
silence,--sometimes into sleep. But still, while he slept, the
witch-eye watched him; though with an expression of yearning, uncouth
intensity which seldom ventured forth while he was awake.
With Gnulemah, Nurse's intercourse became yearly more and more
infrequent. As the child arose to womanhood, she grew apart from the
voiceless creature who had cared for her infancy. It was not
Gnulemah's fault, whose heart was never barren of loving impulses.
But mother, father, were words whose meaning she had never been
taught; and had Nurse comprehended the unconscious thirst and hunger
of the girl's soul,--unconscious, but not therefore harmless,--she
might have tried, by dint of affectionate observances and
companionship, to represent the motherly office which she had filled
in the beginning. But this was not to be. Some hidden agency had
forced the two ever farther asunder. Moreover, Gnulemah developed
rapidly, while Nurse underwent a process of gradual congealment,--her
wits and emotions became torpid. Besides this, she was the victim of
disfigurement, physical as well as spiritual; while Gnulemah, both
naturally and by training, was sensitive to beauty and ugliness. Other
surface causes no doubt there were, in addition to the hidden one,
which was perhaps the most potent of all.
A considerable time had passed since Gnulemah's departure, when Balder
became aware that he was not alone in the conservatory. His thoughts
were all of Gnulemah, and he looked quickly round in expectation of
seeing her. The apparition of a widely different object startled him
to his feet.
A female figure stood before him, wrapped in sad-colored garments of
anomalous description, her head tied up in dark turban-like folds of
cloth. A lock of rusty black hair escaped from beneath this head-dress
and hung down beside her face. She might once have been tall and
erect, but her form now sagged to the left, losing both height and
dignity. Her visage, seamed and furrowed by the scar of some terrible
calamity, had lost its natural contour. The left eye was extinguished,
but the right remained,--the only feature in its original state. It
was dark and bright, and possessed, by very virtue of its disfigured
environment, a repulsive kind of beauty. Its influence was peculiar.
In itself, it postulated an owner in the prime of life, handsome and
graceful. But, one's attention wandering, the woman's actual ugliness
impressed itself with an intensity enhanced by the imaginary contrast.
A grotesque analogy was thus brought to light. The woman was dual. Her
right side lived; the left--blind, inert, and soulless--was dragged
about a dead weight. It was an unnatural emphasizing of the
spiritual-material composition of mankind. Observable, moreover, was
her strange method of disguising emotion. There was no muscular
constraint; she simply turned her blank left side to the spectator,
with an effect like the interposition of a dead wall!
Such, on Balder's perhaps abnormally excited apprehension, was the
impression the nurse produced. She, on her part, was perhaps more
disconcerted than he. Her single eye settled upon him in a panic of
surprise. The dressing of the scene gave Balder a grisly reminder of
the first moments of Gnulemah's eloquent astonishment. There was as
great an apparent difference between the superb Egyptian and this poor
creature, as between good and evil; but there was also the
disagreeable suggestion of a similar kind of relationship. Gnulemah,
withered, stifled, and degraded by some unmentionable curse, might
have become a thing not unlike this woman.
"Have we met before, madam?" asked Helwyse, impelled to the question
by what he took for a bewildered recognition in her eye.
She moved her lips, but made no audible answer.
"I am Balder Helwyse," he added; for he had made up his mind that all
concealments (save one) were unnecessary.
A grotesque quake of emotion travelled through the woman's body, and
she gave utterance to a harsh inarticulate sound. She came confusedly
forwards, groping with hands outstretched. Balder, though not wont to
fail in courtesy to the sorriest hag, could scarce forbear recoiling;
especially because he fancied that an expression of affectionate
interest was struggling to get through the scarred incrustation of the
woman's nature.
Perhaps she marked his inward shrinking, for she checked herself, and,
slowly turning her lifeless screen, hid behind it. It was impotent
deprecation translated into flesh,--at once ludicrous and painful. The
young man found so much difficulty in restraining the manifestation
of his distaste, that he blushed in the twilight at his own rudeness.
He would do his best to redeem himself.
"Doctor Hiero Glyphic is my uncle," said he, moving to get on Nurse's
right side, and speaking in his pleasantest tone. "Is he at home? I
have come a long way to see him."
Preoccupied by his amiable purpose to reassure the woman, Helwyse had
got to the end of this speech before realizing the ghastly mockery
involved in it. Nevertheless, it was well. Even thus falsely and
boldly must he henceforth speak and act. By a happy accident he had
opened the path, and must see to it that his further steps did not
retrograde.
Still Nurse answered not a word, which was the less surprising,
inasmuch as she had been dumb for a quarter of a century past. But
Balder, supposing her silence to proceed from stupidity or deafness,
repeated more loudly and peremptorily,--
"Doctor Glyphic,--is he here? is he alive?"
He felt a morbid curiosity to hear what reply would be made to the
question whose answer only he could know. But he was puzzled to
observe that it appeared to throw Nurse into a state of agitation as
great as though she had herself been the perpetrator of Balder's
crime! She stood quaking and irresolute, now peeping for a moment
from behind her screen, then dodging back with an increase of panic.
This display--rendered more uncouth by its voicelessness--revolted the
æsthetic sensibilities of Helwyse. Besides, what was the meaning of
it? Had it actually been Davy Jones with whom he had striven on the
midnight sea? and had his adversary, instead of drowning, spread his
bat-wings for home, and left his supposititious murderer to disquiet
himself in vain? Verily, a practical joke worthy its author!
This conceit revealed others, as a lightning-flash the midnight
landscape. Balder was encircled by witchcraft,--had been ferried by a
real Charon to no imaginary Hades. The quaint secluded beauty of
circumstance was an illusion, soon to be dispelled. Gnulemah
herself--miserable thought!--was perhaps a thing of evil; what if this
very hag were she in another form? Glancing round in the deepening
twilight, Balder fancied the dark, still plants and tropic shrubs
assumed demoniac forms, bending and crowding about him. The old witch
yonder was muttering some infernal spell; already he felt numbness in
his limbs, dizziness in his brain.
The devils are gathering nearer. A heavy, heated atmosphere quivers
before his eyes, or else the witch and her unholy crew are uniting in
a reeling dance. In vain does Balder try to shut his eyes and escape
the giddy spectacle; they stare widely open and see things
supernatural. Nor can he ward off these with his hands, which are
rigid before him, and defy his will. The devilish jig becomes wilder,
and careers through the air, Balder sweeping with it. In mid-whirl, he
sees the crocodile,--cold, motionless, waiting with long, dry
jaws--for what?
A cry breaks from him. With a wrench that strains his heart he bursts
loose from the devil's bonds that confine his limbs. The witch has
vanished, and Helwyse seems to himself to fall headlong from a vast
height, striking the earth at last helpless and broken.
"Gnulemah!"
Gasping out that name, he becomes insensible.
Beneath an outside of respectable composure have turmoiled the tides
of such remorse and pain as only a man at once largely and finely made
can feel. Added to the mental excitement carried through many phases
to the point of distraction, have been bodily exertion and want of
food and sleep. The apparition of unnatural ugliness, of behavior
strange as her looks, coming upon him in this untoward condition,
needed not the heat of the conservatory and stupefying perfume of the
flowers to bring on the brief delirium and final unconsciousness. As
he lies there let us remember that his last word threw back the
unworthy, dark misgiving, that beauty and deformity, good and bad,
could by any jugglery become convertible.
As a mere matter of fact, Nurse was no witch, nor had she, of her own
will and knowledge, done Balder any harm. On the contrary, she was
already at work, with trembling hands and painfully thumping heart, to
relieve his sad case. She was touched and agitated to a singular
degree. It was not the first time in the patient's life that she had
tended him. The reader has guessed her secret,--that she had known
Balder before he knew himself, and cared for him when his only cares
had been to eat and sleep. She knew her baby through his manly stature
and mature features, less from his likeness to his father than from
certain uneffaced traces of infantine form and expression. She was of
gypsy blood, and had looked on few human faces since last seeing his.
He did not recognize her until some time afterwards. All things
considered, it was hardly possible he should do so.
It was curious to observe how awkwardly she now managed emotions that
had once flowed but too readily. She was moved by impulses which she
had long forgotten how to interpret. Her only outlet for tenderness
was her solitary eye, which might well have given way under the strain
thus put upon it.