The Worshipper of the Image | Page 3

to Beatrice, she had at first taken that delight in her which every created thing takes in a perfect, or even an imperfect, reflection of itself. To have been anticipated in a manner so unusual gave back in romantic suggestiveness what at first sight it seemed to steal from one's personal originality. Only at first sight--for, if like Beatrice, you were the possessor of a face so uncommon in type that your lover might, with little fear of disproof, declare, at all events in England, that there was none other like it, you might grow superstitious as you looked at an anticipation so creepily identical, and conceive strange fancies of re-incarnation. What if this had been you in some former existence! Or at all events, if there is any truth in those who tell us that in the mould and lines of our faces and hands--yes! and in every secret marking of our bodies--our fates are written as in a parchment; would it not be reasonable to surmise, perhaps to fear, that the writing should mean the same on one face as on the other, and the fates as well as the faces prove identical?
Beatrice gave the mask back to Antony, with a little shiver.
"It is very wonderful, very strange, but she makes me frightened. What was the story the man told you, Antony?"
"No doubt it was all nonsense," Antony replied, "but he said that it was the death-mask of an unknown girl found drowned in the Seine."
"Drowned in the Seine!" exclaimed Beatrice, growing almost as white as the image.
"Yes! and he said too that the story went that the sculptor who moulded it had fallen so in love with the dead girl, that he had gone mad and drowned himself in the Seine also."
"Can it be true, Antony?"
"I hope so, for it is so beautiful,--and nothing is really beautiful till it has come true."
"But the pain, the pity of it--Antony."
"That is a part of the beauty, surely--the very essence of its beauty--"
"Beauty! beauty! O Antony, that is always your cry. I can only think of the terror, the human anguish. Poor girl--" and she turned again to the image as it lay upon the table,--"see how the hair lies moulded round her ears with the water, and how her eyelashes stick to her cheek--Poor girl."
"But see how happy she looks. Why should we pity one who can smile like that? See how peaceful she looks;" and with a sudden whim, Antony took the image and set it lying back on a soft cushion in a corner of the couch, at the same time throwing round its neck his black cloak, which he had cast off as he came in.
The image nestled into the cushion as though it had veritably been a living woman weary for sleep, and softly smiling that it was near at last. So comfortable she seemed, you could have sworn she breathed.
Antony lifted her head once or twice with his fingers, to delight himself with seeing her sink back luxuriously once more.
Beatrice grew more and more white.
"Antony, please stop. I cannot bear it. She looks so terribly alive."
At that moment Antony's touch had been a little too forcible, the image hung poised for a moment and then began to fall in the direction of Beatrice.
"Oh, she is falling," she almost screamed, as Antony saved the cast from the floor. "For God's sake, stop!"
"How childish of you, Beatrice. She is only plaster. I never knew you such a baby."
"I cannot help it, Antony. I know it is foolish, but I cannot help it. I think living in this place has made me morbid. She seems so alive--so evil, so cruel. I am sorry you bought her, Antony. I cannot bear to look at her. Won't you take her away? Take her up into the wood. Keep her there. Take her now. I shall not be able to sleep all night if I know she is in the house."
She was half hysterical, and Antony soothed her gently.
"Yes, yes, dear. I'm sorry. I'll take her up the wood now this minute. Wait till I light the lantern. Poor Beatrice, I never dreamed she would affect you so. I loved her, dear--because I love you; but I would rather break her in pieces than that she should make you unhappy. Though to break any image of you, dear," he added tenderly, "would seem a kind of sacrilege. You know how I love you, Beatrice, don't you?"
"Of course I do, dear; and it was sweet of you to buy her for my sake, and I'm quite silly to-night. To-morrow I shall think nothing about her. Still, dear, she does frighten me, I can't tell why. There seems something malignant about her, something that threatens our happiness. Oh, how silly I am--"
Meanwhile,