764 | 765 | 766 | 767 | 768 |
1 | 236 | 472 | 708 | 944 |
stars. Such paroxysms raged in the mysterious dances in the grove of
Dodona. This woman was as if transfigured--if, indeed, we can term that
transfiguration which is the antithesis of heaven.
Her hair quivered like a mane; her robe opened and closed. The sunshine
of the blue eye mingled with the fire of the black one. She was
unearthly.
Gwynplaine, giving way, felt himself vanquished by the deep subtilty of
this attack.
"I love you!" she cried. And she bit him with a kiss.
Homeric clouds were, perhaps, about to be required to encompass
Gwynplaine and Josiana, as they did Jupiter and Juno. For Gwynplaine to
be loved by a woman who could see and who saw him, to feel on his
deformed mouth the pressure of divine lips, was exquisite and
maddening. Before this woman, full of enigmas, all else faded away in
his mind. The remembrance of Dea struggled in the shadows with weak
cries. There is an antique bas-relief representing the Sphinx devouring
a Cupid. The wings of the sweet celestial are bleeding between the
fierce, grinning fangs.
Did Gwynplaine love this woman? Has man, like the globe, two poles? Are
we, on our inflexible axis, a moving sphere, a star when seen from afar,
mud when seen more closely, in which night alternates with day? Has the
heart two aspects--one on which its love is poured forth in light; the
766
Page
Quick Jump
|