The Worshipper of the Image | Page 4

Antony had lit an old brass lantern, and presently he was flashing his way up among the dark sounds of the black old wood, with that ghostly face tenderly pressed against his side.
He stopped once to turn his lantern upon her. How mysterious she looked, here in the night, under the dark pines!
He too felt a little haunted as he climbed his chalet staircase and unlocked the door, every sound he made echoing fatefully in the silent wood; and when he had found a place for the image and hung her there, she certainly looked a ghostly companion for the midnight lamp, in the middle of a wood.
How strangely she smiled, the smile almost of one taking possession.
No wonder Beatrice had been frightened. Was there some mysterious life in the thing, after all? Why should these indefinite forebodings come over him as he looked at her!--But he was growing as childish as Beatrice. Surely midnight, a dark wood, a lantern, and a death-mask, with two owls whistling to each other across the valley, were enough to account for any number of forebodings! But Antony shivered, for all that, as he locked the door and hastened back again down the wood.
CHAPTER III
THE NORTHERN SPHINX
Antony had not written a poem to his wife since their little girl Wonder had been born, now some four years ago. Surely it was from no lack of love, this silence, but merely due to the working of what would seem to be a law of the artistic temperament: that to turn a muse into a wife, however long and faithfully loved, is to bid good-bye to the muse. But a day or two after the coming of Silencieux, Antony found himself suddenly inspired once more to sing of his wife. It was the best poem he had written for a long time, and when it was finished, he came down the wood impatient to read it to Beatrice. This was the poem, which he called "The Northern Sphinx":--
Sphinx of the North, with subtler smile Than hers who in the yellow South, With make-believe mysterious mouth, Deepens the ennui of the Nile;
And, with no secret left to tell, A worn and withered old coquette, Dreams sadly that she draws us yet, With antiquated charm and spell:
Tell me your secret, Sphinx,--for mine!-- What means the colour of your eyes, Half innocent and all so wise, Blue as the smoke whose wavering line
Curls upward from the sacred pyre Of sacrifice or holy death, Pale twisting wreaths of opal breath, From fire mounting into fire.
What is the meaning of your hair? That little fairy palace wrought With many a grave fantastic thought; I send a kiss to wander there,
To climb from golden stair to stair, Wind in and out its cunning bowers,-- O garden gold with golden flowers, O little palace built of hair!
The meaning of your mouth, who knows? O mouth, where many meanings meet-- Death kissed it stern, Love kissed it sweet, And each has shaped its mystic rose.
Mouth of all sweets, whose sweetness sips Its tribute honey from all hives, The sweetest of the sweetest lives, Soft flowers and little children's lips;
Yet rather learnt its heavenly smile From sorrow, God's divinest art, Sorrow that breaks and breaks the heart, Yet makes a music all the while.
Ah! what is that within your eyes, Upon your lips, within your hair, The sacred art that makes you fair, The wisdom that hath made you wise?
Tell me your secret, Sphinx,--for mine!-- The mystic word that from afar God spake and made you rose and star, The fiat lux that bade you shine.
While Antony read, Beatrice's face grew sadder and sadder. When he had finished she said:--
"It is very beautiful, Antony--but it is not written for me."
"What can you mean, Beatrice? Who else can it be written for?"
"To the Image of me that you have set up in my place."
"Beatrice, are you going mad?"
"It is quite true, all the same. Time will show. Perhaps you don't know it yourself as yet, but you will before long."
"But, Beatrice, the poem shows its own origin. Has your image blue eyes, or curiously coiled hair--"
"Oh, yes, of course, you thought of me. You filled in from me. But the inspiration, the wish to write it, came from the image--"
"It is certainly true that I love to look at it, as I love to look at a picture of you--because it is you--"
"As yet, no doubt, but you will soon love it for its own sake. You are already beginning."
"I love an image! You are too ridiculous, Beatrice."
"Does it really seem so strange, dear? I sometimes think you have never loved anything else."
Antony had laughed down Beatrice's fancies, yet all the time she had been talking he was conscious that the idea she had suggested was