The Ruinous Face | Page 2

asked of her by
him who had her. And she was gentle and very modest, and never
dejected or low of heart; but when comfort was asked of her she gave it,
and when solace, solace; and when he cried, "Oh for a deep draught of
thee!" she gave him his desire. In these days he seldom left his hall,
where she sat at the loom with her maids, or had them comb and braid
her long hair. But of other women, wives and widows of heroes,
Andromache mourned Hector dead and outraged, and Cassandra the
wrath to come. Through the halls of the King's house came little sound
but of women weeping loss; therefore, if love made Helen laugh
sometimes, she laughed low and softly, lest some other should be
offended. The streets were all silent, and the dogs ate one another. In
the temples of the Gods they neglected the sacrifice, and what little
might be offered was eaten by clouds of birds. Anniversaries and feasts
were like common days. If the Gods were offended with Troy, there
was no help for it. Men must live first, before they can serve God.
* * * * *
Now the tenth year was come to the Spring, when young men and
virgins worship Artemis the Bright; and abroad on the plains the crocus
was aflower, and the anemone; and the blades of the iris were like
swords stuck hilt downward in the earth. A green veil spread lightly
over the land, and men might see a tree scorched black upon one side
and budded with gold upon the other. Melted snow brimmed Simois

and Scamander; cranes and storks built their nests, and one stood
sentinel while his mate sat close, watchful in the reeds. On the mild,
westerly airs came tenderness to bedew the hearts of men war-weary.
They stepped carefully lest they should crush young flowers, thinking
in their minds, "God's pity must restrain me. If so fair a thing can thrive
in place so foul, who am I to mar it?" But upon Menelaus, the King, the
season worked like a ferment, so that he could never stay long in one
place. All night long he turned and stretched himself out; but in the
gray of the morning he would rise, and walk abroad by himself over the
silent land, and about the sleeping walls of the city. So found he balm
for his ache, and so he did every day.
* * * * *
The house of Paris stood by the wall, and the garden upon the roof of
the women's side was there upon it, and stretched far along the
ramparts of Troy. King Menelaus knew it very well, for he had often
seen Helen there with her maids when, with a veil to cover her face up
to the eyes, she had stood there to watch the fighting, or the games
about the pyre of some chieftain dead, or the manège of the ships lying
off Tenedos. Indeed, when he had been there in his chariot, urging an
attack upon the gate, he had seen Paris come out of the house to Helen
where she stood in the garden; and he saw that deceiver take the lovely
woman in his arm, and with his hand withdraw the veil from her mouth
that he might look at it. The maids were all about her, and below raged
a battle among men; but he cared nothing for these. No, but he lifted up
her face by the chin, and stooped his head, and kissed her twice; and
would have kissed her a third time, but that by chance he saw King
Menelaus below him, who stood up in his chariot and watched. Then he
turned lightly and left her, and went in, and so presently she too, with
her veil in her hand, not yet over her mouth, looked down from the wall
and saw the King, her husband. Long and deeply looked she; and he
looked up at her; and so they stood, gazing each at the other. Then
came women from the house and veiled her mouth, and took her away.
Other times, too, he had seen her there, but she not him; and now, at
this turn of the year, the memory of her came bright and hard before
him; and he walked under the wall of the house in the gray of the

morning. And as he walked there fiercely on a day, behold she stood
above him on the wall, veiled, and in a brown robe, looking down at
him. And they looked at each other for a space of time. And nobody
was by.
[Illustration: THE ABDUCTION OF HELEN FROM THE PAINTING
BY RUDOLPH VON DEUTSCH]
Shaking, he said, "O Ruinous