“Helena, the sister of Demetrius, is the most wonderful creature in the
world.”
I verified the truth of his remark. It was indeed the echo of the popular
lip. Helena was an institution of Athens, sought, seen and admired like
its other wonders and beauties. No language can convey any adequate
description of this cunning masterpiece of nature. There was no statue in
all the rich collections of Grecian art, which excelled the matchless
symmetry of her form or the perfect beauty of her features. She was the
poet’s dream of perfection, embodied in the delicate tissues of a splendid
womanhood.
A neck and bust of immaculate beauty were surmounted by a head, every
attitude of which was a study for artists and lovers. Her hair was a cloud
of dark, brown waves faintly dashed with gold. Her broad imperial brow was
pure as the silver surface of some cloudless dawn. Her soft, hazel eyes
were radiant centres of inexpressible light and power. Her cheeks, nose,
mouth and chin were miracles of shape, warmth and color. Her shell-tinted
ears were hung with pearls less beautiful than themselves; and a necklace
of golden beads made conspicuous a throat which it could not beautify. Her
hands and fingers were so lucid, delicate and expressive, that they might
be called features also, revealing in part the movements of her mind.
Poor artist that I am, I throw my pencil down in disgust. I cannot
reproduce Helena to your eyes as she appeared to me.
To see this woman, for a young enthusiastic spirit, with his celestial
dream pressing downward for realization, was to love her. The shaft of
love flies from one eye to another; from the eye to the heart; from the
heart to the brain; from the brain to the soul. I looked, I loved. I was
smitten to the soul by that malady which has no cure but the cause which
inflicts it.
Helena had not only an irresistible sweetness of voice and grace of
manner, but she had a singular directness of attack, concentrating all her
charms upon you at once; so that few men ever left her presence without
feeling that she had absorbed and taken from them some portion of their
life, which they could only recover by returning into the enchanted
atmosphere which surrounded her beautiful person.
Thus bewildered by her beauty and bewitched by her fascinations, I lost my
life when away from her, and found it again, enhanced and glorified, when
I approached her footstool. I was attracted to her continually; and if I
tore myself away, and climbed the mountain-top, or walked by the
sea-shore, she became the inspiring genius of my solitary rambles; and the
beauties of nature were only beautiful, because in some inexplicable
manner they seemed akin to, or associated with her.
Thus, day after day, week after week passed by, and philosophy became as
dry as dust, and my companions silly and unprofitable; and Egypt became a
myth and Judea a dream; while the past was forgotten and the future
uncared for, except in connection with her. Solitude became sweet, and
reverie ecstatic, and the language of poetry the voice of common life. I
created for myself an ideal world, romantic, ethereal, felicitous; for the
greatest magician that ever lived is Love.
I was sometimes, however, sunk into the fathomless abyss of despair. I met
in the splendid halls of Calisthenes so many distinguished and wealthy and
powerful men; so many soldiers and statesmen; so many philosophers,
artists and poets; all many degrees superior to myself, and all paying the
same homage to the idol I worshiped, that my envy and jealousy were being
continually excited; and I frequently shrank within myself, taciturn and
melancholy, contemplating the awful distance which intervened between my
feeble pretensions and the transcendent object of my admiration.
Then Helena, observing my silence and grief, would single me out from the
crowd with a peculiar sweetness; would bestow a smile which seemed meant
only for me; would drop a sentence of pearl which I felt that I alone
comprehended; would solicit my early return in a manner so special and
impressive, that I was fired with new hope and endowed with new life;
spurned the dull earth beneath me, and was ready, like the daring boy of
Apollo, to drive the chariot of the sun.
“Let no one ever despair,” I would thus fondly say to myself, “of
conquering a woman by love. Concentrate the passion of your soul upon her,
like the rays of a burning glass, and sooner or later, you will melt her
heart. The best philter to excite love is love itself. If you would
ignite, you must burn.”
With all this magnificent exterior, with the blended adornments of nature
and art, this Helena was altogether unworthy of the pure and simple love I
lavished upon her. She studied men as the angler studies the character,
habits and locality of fish; solely to allure and capture them. She had
the thoughtful brow and the words of wisdom for one class; the smile of
the cupid and the laugh of the bacchante for another. She had an armory
full of weapons; the tear of sympathy, the corruscations of wit, the
meekness of modesty, the humility of religion, the splendor of dress, the
ornament and even the exposure of person. Everything about her was the
highest art in a garb of the sweetest nature.
She hesitated at nothing which would secure her a conquest. She was
unhappy unless many were kneeling at her shrine. She lived upon the breath
of adulation, the music of her own praises, the incense of delirious love.
She wished to absorb everything; she gave nothing in return. She demanded
for herself affection, thought, worship, life. She returned only smiles,
hopes, dreams, shadows. She was a beautiful demon of selfishness. There
were fascination, magic, spiritual death in her sphere; but the soul died
listening to invisible music and dreaming of heaven.
This adoration of men and envy of women was more to be pitied than
admired. She had a mother whose influence was a dark shadow cast upon her
life. Neither beautiful nor gifted herself, she had determined that the
gifts and beauty of her child should be turned to the utmost account. She
had planted a wild ambition in her girlish spirit, as one plants a rose in
a garden. She had nourished it and watered it carefully, until she brought
it to baneful perfection. Her own evil nature was transfused into the
child.
She taught her that power, wealth, fashion, glory, were the true objects
of rational pursuit. She cultivated her vanity, her petulance, her
imperiousness. She basked in the sunshine of her beauty and power. Fatal
parasite! she drew from the virgin tree upon which she fastened, the
sustenance she could not herself extract from the earth and air. The too
pliant pupil accepted and improved all the lessons of the teacher; and
behold the result!
Of the true character of Helena I knew nothing at the time. That discovery
was the result of subsequent information and experience. Nothing occurred
in those blissful days to break the spell of the enchantress. I did,
indeed, once or twice notice the contrast between this Athenian goddess
and my pure and sweet sisters. I did once or twice wonder that Sappho and
Horace should be her favorite poets, and Aspasia her model of female
character. But these shadowy doubts, like the faint threat of clouds which
sometimes appear in the clearest heaven, soon passed away.
Helena, petted and spoiled, set all the regulations of fashion and
propriety at defiance. She did as she pleased, and every one was pleased
with what she did. Not every one; for she was the terror of rigid mothers
and the scandal of prudish maidens. She walked unveiled in the streets.
She made herself conspicuous at the theatre and the racing-grounds. She
visited artists in their studios and poets in their chambers. She received
very questionable visitors at very unseasonable hours. Her dressing-room
even opened its doors to favorite lovers, or to those of whom she wished
to make a convenience. All this was done so boldly, so gracefully, so
naïvely, that no one dared to express a hint against her virtue.
She admitted me to her presence on a very familiar footing. One evening I
called to see her, when she was dressing for a grand supper, and the
servant ushered me into her boudoir. She was one bright blaze of jewels
and beauty. The dressing-maid was giving the last caressing touches to her
hair. She was scrutinizing the work in a metallic mirror with an ivory
handle, which she held like a fan.
“Come! my Judean!” she said, casting upon me one of her most bewitching
glances—“come and put this ring into my ear.”
This captivating service I rendered with trembling hands and palpitating
heart. The dressing-maid smiled at my awkwardness and trepidation. Helena
never looked more resplendent. I felt helplessly bound to the
chariot-wheels of her destiny.
The waiting-girl left the room, and falling at the feet of the
unimpassioned beauty, I stammered forth my passion.
“Helena! do you know that I love you?”
She was contemplating her chin in the mirror, and replied without looking
at me:
“Of course you do. Everybody does.”
“But, Helena! I cannot live without loving you.”
“That is charming. Love me then and live.”
“Helena!” said I, sternly, “you mock me. You allure me as if I were a man;
and then you treat me as if I were a boy. You invite me; you evade me; you
tantalize me. Can you not love me?”
“Let me see,” said she, looking up at the Judgment of Paris beautifully
frescoed on the ceiling; “let me see: I love wisdom, riches, power and
glory. When you are wise as Socrates, rich as Crœsus, eloquent as Cicero,
and powerful as Cæsar, I will love you and give myself to you.”
“Your combination is impossible,” said I, proudly, biting my lip with
failing heart and unconcealed vexation.
Her face suddenly became radiant with a yielding, tender and beautiful
expression, and I added:—
“But if it existed, Helena, you would be worthy of it.”
“To love such as yours,” she said, sweetly, pressing my hands, “all things
are possible. We have been dreaming in the boudoir; let us converse in the
parlor.”
She led the way and overwhelmed me with such civilities that I forgot the
past which had wounded me, and had golden glimpses of that magical future
which was to console and bless me. Such is the dream-land of love!
My sisters continued to write the most glowing letters, full of piety and
tender affection. Their rehearsal of miracles and parables, and of voices
from heaven, their enthusiasm, their faith, their zeal, all fell as dull
and cold upon my ear as the monotonous songs of an old nurse.
[Illustration: Ornament]