"Then we shall be happy together, dear Anavalt, and for your sake I am
well content to throw my bonnet over the windmill."
She took the red bonnet from her head, and turned. She flung her
bonnet fair and high. So was courteous Anavalt assured that the Queen
of Elfhame was as he had hoped. For when seen thus, from behind, the
witless Queen was hollow and shadow-colored, because Maid Vae is just
the bright thin mask of a woman, and, if looked at from behind, she is
like any other mask, with no more thickness than has canvas or paper.
So when she faced him now and smiled,--and as if in embarrassment
looked down and pushed aside a thigh bone with her little foot,--then
Anavalt could see that the Elle Maid was, when properly regarded, a
lovely and most dear illusion.
He kissed her. He was content. Here was the woman he desired, the woman
who did not exist in the world where people have souls. The Elle Maid
had no mortal body that time would parody and ruin, she had no brain to
fashion dreams of which he would fall short, she had no heart that he
would hurt. There was an abiding peace in this quiet Wood of Elfhame
wherein no love could enter, and nobody could, in consequence, hurt
anybody else very deeply. At court the silken ladies wept for Anavalt,
and three women were not ever to be healed of their memories: but in
the Wood of Elfhame, where all were soulless masks, there were no
memories and no weeping, there were no longer two sides to everything,
and a man need look for no reverses.
"I think we shall do very well here," said courteous Anavalt, as yet
again he kissed Maid Vae.
V