The Worshipper of the Image | Page 4

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, 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 châlet 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