Idolatry: Chapter 17

Chapter 17

FACE TO FACE.

The ground-plan of the house was like a capital H placed endwise
towards the river. The northern side consisted of the original brick
building and the additions of the second period; the southern was that
stone edifice which so few persons had been lucky enough to see. The
centre or cross-piece comprised the grand entrance-hall and staircase,
heavily panelled with dark oak, and the floor flagged with squares of
black and white marbles.

This entrance-hall opened eastward into a generous conservatory,
filling the whole square court between the wings at that end. The
corresponding western court was devoted to the roomy portico. Two or
three broad steps mounted to a balcony twenty feet deep and nearly
twice as wide, protected by a lofty roof supported on slender Moorish
columns. Crossing this, one came to the hall-door, likewise Moorish in
arch and ornamentation. Considered room by room and part by part, the
house was good and often beautiful; taken as a whole, it was the
craziest amalgamation of incongruities ever conceived by human brain.

Balder, approaching from the north, trod enjoyingly the silken grass.
No misgiving had he; his uncle would hardly be from home, nor would he
be apt to discredit his nephew's identity. His face had already been
evidence to more than one former knower of his father, and why not
also to his uncle?

The house was more than half a mile in a direct line from the
birch-tree, and presented an imposing appearance; but on drawing near,
the odd architectural discrepancies became noticeable. Side by side
with the prosy Americanism of the northern wing, sprang gracefully the
Moorish columns of the portico; beyond, uprose in massive granite,
quaintly inscribed and carved, and strengthened by heavy pilasters,
the ponderous Egyptian features of the southern portion. The latter
was neither storied nor windowed, and, as Balder conjectured, probably
contained but a single vast room, lighted from within.

Meanwhile there were no signs of an inhabitant, either in the house or
out of it. It wore in parts an air of emptiness and neglect, not
exactly as though gone to seed, but as if little human love and care
had been expended there. The deep-set windows of the brick wing, like
the sunken eyes of an old woman, peered at the visitor with dusky
forlornness. Lonely and stern on the other side stood the Egyptian
pilasters, as though unused to the eye of man; the hieroglyphics along
the cornice intensified the impression of desertion. As the young man
set foot beneath the portico, he laid a hand on one of the slender
pillars, to assure himself that it was real, and not a vision. Cool,
solid marble met his grasp; the building did not vanish in a peal of
thunder, with an echo of demoniac laughter. Yes, all was real!

But the stillness was impressive, and Balder struck the pillar sharply
with his palm, merely for the sake of hearing a noise. There was no
answering sound, so, after a moment's hesitation, he walked to the
door,--which stood ajar,--purposing to call in the aid of bell and
knocker. Neither of these civilized appliances was to be found. While
debating whether to use his voice or to enter and use his eyes, the
note of the hoopoe fell on his ear. An instant after came an answering
note, deeper, sweeter, and stronger,--it thrilled to Balder's heart,
bringing to his mind, by some subtile process, the goddess of the
cliff.

He crossed the oak-panelled hall (where the essence of medi�val
England lingered) and came to the threshold of the conservatory. It
was a scene confusedly beautiful. The air, as it touched his face, was
tropically warm and indolent with voluptuous fragrance of flowers and
plants. Luxuriant shrubs, with broad-drooping leaves, stood
motionless in the heat. Two palm-trees uplifted their heavy plumes
forty feet aloft, on slender stalks, brushing the high glass roof. In
the midst of the conservatory a pool slumbered between rocky margins,
overgrown with a profusion of reeds, grasses, and water-plants. There
floated the giant leaves and blossoms of the tropic water-lily; and on
a fragment of rock rising above the surface dozed a small crocodile,
not more than four feet long, but looking as old, dried up, and coldly
cruel as sin itself!

The place looked like an Indian jungle, and Balder half expected to
see the glancing spits of a tiger crouching beneath the overarching
leaves; or a naked savage with bow and arrows. But amid all this
vegetable luxuriance appeared no human being,--no animal save the evil
crocodile. Whence, then, that melodious voice,--clear essence of
nature's sweetest utterances?

At the left of the conservatory was a door, the entrance to the
Egyptian temple. It was square and heavy-browed, flanked by short
thick columns rising from a base of sculptured papyrus-leaves, and
flowering in lotus capitals. Three marble steps led to the threshold,
while on either side reclined a sphinx in polished granite, softened,
however, by a delicate flowering vine, which had been trained to cling
round their necks. On the deep panels of the door were mystic emblems
carved in relief. A line of hieroglyphics inscribed the lintel in deep
blue, red, and black,--to what purport Balder could not divine.

At the opposite side of the conservatory was a corresponding door,
veiled by an ample fold of silken tapestry, cunningly hand-worked in
representation of a moon half veiled in clouds, shining athwart a
stormy sea. By her light a laboring ship was warned off the rocks to
leeward. The room (one of the later additions) by its external promise
might have been the bower of some fashionable beauty thousands of
years ago.

Balder looked from one of these doors to the other, doubting at which
to apply. The tapestry curtain was swept aside at the base, leaving a
small passage clear to the room beyond. In this opening now appeared
the bright-crested head and eyes of the hoopoe, peeping mischievously
at the intruder, who forthwith stepped down into the conservatory,
holding forth to the little bird a friendly finger. The bird eyed him
critically, then launched itself on the air, and, alighting on a spray
above his head, warbled out a brilliant call.

Hereupon was heard within a quick rustling movement; the curtain was
thrust aside, and a youthful woman issued forth amongst the warm
plants. She was within a few feet of Balder Helwyse before seeming to
realize his presence. She caught herself motionless in an instant. The
sparkle of laughter in her eyes sank in a black depth of wonder. Her
eyes filled themselves with Balder as a lake is filled with sunshine;
and he, the man of the Wilie and philosopher, could only return her
gaze in voiceless admiration.

Were a face and form of primal perfection to appear among men, might
not its divine originality repel an ordinary observer, used to
consider beautiful such abortions of the Creator's design as sin and
degeneration have produced? Not easily can one imagine what a real man
or woman would look like. Painting nor sculpture can teach us; we must
learn, if at all, from living, electric flesh and blood.

This young woman was tall and erect with youthful majesty. She stood
like the rejoicing upgush of a living fountain. Her contour was
subtile with womanly power,--suggesting the spring of the panther, the
glide of the serpent. Warm she seemed from the bosom of nature. One
felt from her the influence of trees, the calm of meadows, the high
freedom of the blue air, the happiness of hills. She might have been
the sister of the sun.

The moulding finger of God seemed freshly to have touched her face. It
was simple and harmonious as a chord of music, yet inexhaustible in
its variety. It recalled no other face, yet might be seen in it the
germs of a mighty nation, that should begin from her and among a
myriad resemblances evolve no perfect duplicate. No angel's
countenance, but warmest human clay, which must undergo some change
before reaching heaven. The sphinx, before the gloom of her riddle had
dimmed her primal joy,--before men vexed themselves to unravel God's
webs from without instead of from within,--might have looked thus; or
such perhaps was Isis in the first flush of her divinity,--fresh from
Him who made her immortally young and fair.

Her black hair was crowned with a low, compact turban,--a purple and
white twist of some fine cottony substance, striped with gold. Round
her wide, low brow fitted a band of jewelled gold, three fingers'
breadth, from which at each temple depended a broad, flat chain of
woven coral, following the margin of the cheeks and falling loose on
the shoulders. A golden serpent coiled round her smooth throat and
drooped its head low down in her bosom. Her elastic feet, arched like
a dolphin's back, were sandalled; the bright-colored straps, crossing
one another half-way to the knee, set dazzlingly off the clear, dusky
whiteness of the skin.

From her shoulders fell a long full robe of purple byssus, over an
underdress of white which readied the knee. This tunic was confined at
the waist by a hundred-fold girdle, embroidered with rainbow flowers
and fastened in a broad knot below the bosom, the low-hanging ends
heavy with fringe. The outer robe, with its long drooping sleeves
falling open at the elbow, was ample enough wholly to envelop the
figure, but was now girded up and one fold brought round and thrust
beneath the girdle in front, to give freedom of motion. A rare perfume
emanated from her like the evening breath of orange-blossoms.

Balder was no unworthy balance to this picture, though his else
stately features showed too much the stimulus of modern thought. He
was eminent by culture; she by nature only. But Balder's culture had
not greatened him. Greatness is not of the brain, save as allied to
the deep, pure chords which thrill at the base of the human symphony.
He might have stood for our age; she, for that more primitive but
profounder era which is at once man's beginning and his goal.

Balder's eyes could not frankly hold their own against her gaze of
awful simplicity. All he had ever done amiss arose and put him to the
blush. Nevertheless, he would not admit his inferiority; instead of
dropping his eyes he closed the soul behind them, and sharpened them
with a shallow, out-striking light. Without understanding the change,
she felt it and was troubled. Loftily majestic as were her form and
features, she was feminine to the core,--tender and finely perceptive.
The incisive masculine gaze abashed her. She raised one hand
deprecatingly, and her lips moved, though without sound.

He relented at this, and straightway her expression again shifted, and
she smiled so radiantly that Balder almost looked to see whence came
the light! The wondrous lines of her face curved and softened; all
that was grave vanished. A tree standing in the sober beauty of
shadow, when suddenly lit by the sun, changes as she changed; for
sunshine is the laughter of the world.

The smile refreshed her courage, for she came nearer and made a
sideways movement with her arm, apparently with the expectation that
it would pass through the stalwart young man as readily as through the
air. On encountering solid substance, she drew startled back, half in
alarm and wholly in surprise. Balder had felt her touch, first as a
benediction; then it chilled him, through remembrance of a deed
forever debarring him from aught so pure and innocent as she. The
subtleties of his philosophy might have cajoled him anywhere save in
her presence. There, he felt unmistakably guilty; yet from irrational
dread that she, whose intuitions seemed so swift and deep, might grasp
the cause of his discomposure, he strove to hide it. Last of all the
world should she know his crime!

Scarce two minutes since their meeting, yet perhaps a large proportion
of their lives had meanwhile been charmed away. No word had been
spoken,--eyes had superseded tongues. Nay, was ordinary conversation
possible with a young goddess such as this? So perfect seemed her
mastery over those profounder elements of intercourse underlying
speech, which are higher and more direct than the mechanism of
articulate words, that perhaps the latter method was unknown to her.

Nevertheless, one must say something. But what?--with what sentence of
supreme significance should he begin? Moreover, what language should
he use? for she, whose look and bearing were so alien to the land and
age, might likewise be a stranger to modern dialects. But Aryan or
Semitic was not precisely at the tip of Balder's tongue!

In the midst of his embarrassment, the startling note of the hoopoe
pierced his ear, and precipitated him into asking that great elemental
question which all created things are forever putting to one
another,--

"What is your name?"

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