Idolatry: Chapter 22

Chapter 22

HEART AND HEAD.

Balder easily found his way to the conservatory, but it was
empty,--Gnulemah, at least, was not there! The tapestry curtain in her
doorway was pushed aside, the door itself open. Where should he seek
her?

As he stood in doubt, he saw lying at his feet a violet. Picking it
up, he saw another some distance beyond it, and still another on the
threshold which he had just crossed. They were Gnulemah's
footsteps,--the scent of this sweet quarry, teaching him how to follow
her. So he followed, nor let one fragrant trace escape him; and
presently he had a nosegay of them.

She was out of doors, then. Truly, on such a day as this, where else
should she be? What walls could presume to hold her? Her loveliness
was at one with nature's, and they attracted each other. To the
solitary nymph, her mighty playmate had been all-sufficient; for she
saw not the earth and sky as they appear nowadays to mankind, but the
divine meaning which they clothe. Thus she could converse with
animals, and could read plants and stones more profoundly than
botanist or geologist. She followed inward to her own fresh and
beautiful soul the sympathies which allied her to outward things, and
found there their true prototypes.

But when the strong magnetism of a new human spirit began to act upon
her, these fine communings with nature suffered disturbance. In such
thunderstorms as the meeting of the electric forces must engender,
there was need of a trustworthier safeguard than simple perception of
a divine purpose underlying creation. Only the personal God is strong
enough to govern the relations of soul with soul. Barren of Eve, Adam
would not have fallen; but with her he will one day not only retrieve
his fall, but climb to a sublimer height than any to which he could
have aspired alone.

Balder strolled out on the wide lawn. Southwestward wound an avenue of
great trees, overshadowing the narrow footpath that stole beneath
them. To the right, round the northern corner of the house, he could
see far off the white tops of the blossoming apple-trees; and beyond,
the river. The orchard perfume came riding on the untamed breeze, and
whispered a fragrant secret in the young man's ear. Orchardward he
pursued his search.

As he went on, Gnulemah grew every moment nearer. At length he caught
the flutter of her mantle amidst the foliage, and presently saw her
on the brink of the precipice, looking out across the broad blue
river. Thus had he, through his glass, darkly, seen her stand the day
before. Were the crossing a river and the flight of a day all that
divided his past life from what he thought awaited him now!

While yet at a distance, he called to her,--not from impatience, but
because he stood in awe of the meeting, and wanted the first moments
over. His voice touched Gnulemah like a beloved hand, and turned her
towards him. Her face, which had not learned to be the mask of
emotion, but was instead the full and immediate index thereof,
brightened with joy; and as he came near, the joy increased. Yet a
seriousness deep down in her eyes, marked the shadow of a night and
the dawn of another day. A spiritual chemistry had been working in
her.

She did not move forward to meet him but stood delighting in the sense
of his ever-growing nearness. When at length he stood close before
her, she drew a long, pleasant breath and said,--

"A beautiful morning!"

This was no commonplace greeting, for it was not made in a commonplace
manner. It said that his coming had consummated the else imperfect
beauty of nature, and won its expression from Gnulemah's lips. The
commonplace wondered to find itself transmuted into a compliment of
fine gold!

Gnulemah's attire to-day was more Diana-like than yesterday's, and
looked as appropriate to her as leaves to trees or clouds to the sky.
Her dress, indeed, was not so much a conventional appendage as a
living, sensitive part of her, which might be supposed to change its
color and style in sympathy with her shifting moods and surroundings,
yet never losing certain distinctive traits which had their foundation
in her individual nature.

"A beautiful morning!" returned Balder, taking her hand. "Were you
expecting me?"

"I feared you might not show yourself to me again," she answered, with
sudden tears twinkling on her eyelashes. She seemed more tenderly
human and approachable to-day than heretofore. Had she found her
mountain-height of unmated solitude untenable?--found in herself a
yielding woman, and in Balder the strength that is a man? This
descent, which was a sweet ascent, made her endlessly more lovable.

"I come here always when I feel lonely," continued she. "If it had not
been for this place, with its great outlook, I should often have been
too lonely to stay in the world."

"We all need an outlook to a larger, world, Gnulemah."

"Besides, you came to me from the other side!" said she glancing in
his face.

"Did you see me there?" Balder was on the point of asking; but he was
wise enough to refrain. If he could believe it true, let him not tempt
his happiness; if faith were weak, why build a barrier against it? So
he kept silence.

"You found my violets!" whispered Gnulemah, with a shy smile. "You
understand all I do and am; it is happiness to be with you."

They sat down by mutual consent beneath a crooked old apple-tree,
which yet blossomed as pure and fresh as did the youngest in the
orchard. From beneath this white and perfumed tent was a view of the
distant city.

Gnulemah could not be called talkative, yet in giving her thoughts
expression she outdid vocabularies. Many fine muscles there were
around her eyes, at the corners of her mouth, and especially in the
upper lip,--whose subtile curvings and contractions spoke volumes of
question, appeal, observation. Her form by its endless shiftings
uttered delicate phrases of pleasure, surprise, or love; her hands and
fingers were orators, and eloquent were the curlings and tappings of
her Arab feet.

This kind of language would be blank to one used rather to hear words
than to feel them; but Balder, in, his present exalted mood, delighted
in it. Was there any enjoyment more refined than to see his thought,
before he had given it breath, lighten in the eyes of this daughter
of fire? and with his own eyes to catch the first pure glimmer of her
yet unborn fancies? A language genial of intimacy, for the talkers
must feel in order to utterance,--must meet each other, from the heart
outward, at every point. The human form is made of meanings. It is the
full thought of its Creator, comprising all other thoughts. Is it
blind chance or lifeless expediency that moulds the curves of woman's
bosom, builds up man's forehead like a citadel, and sets his head on
his shoulders? Is beauty beautiful, or are we cozened by congenial
ugliness? But Balder's philosophic scepticism should never have braved
a test like Gnulemah!

Except music, painting, sculpture,--all the arts and inspiration of
them,--waited on the nib of the pen, such talk as passed between these
two could not be written. Some things--and those not the least
profound and admirable of life--transcend the cunning of man to
interpret them, unless to an apprehension as fine as they! We are fain
to content ourselves with the husks.

"It must be happy there!" said Gnulemah, looking cityward. "So many
Balders and Gnulemahs!"

"Why happy?" asked the man of the world, with a faint smile.

"We are only two, and have known each other to-day and yesterday. But
they, you said, are as many as the stars, and have been together many
yesterdays."

Such was the woman's unclinched argument, leaving her listener to draw
the inference. He would not forestall her enlightenment from the grim
page of his own experience. But do not many pure and loving souls pass
through the world without once noticing how bad most of the roads are,
and how vexed the climates? So might not the earthly heaven of
Gnulemah's imagination tenderly blind her to the unheavenly earth of
Balder's knowledge?

Through his abstraction Balder felt on his hand a touch soft as the
flowing of a breath, yet pregnant of indefinite apprehension. When two
clouds meet, there is a hush and calm; but the first seeming-trifling
lightning-flash brings on the storm whereby earth's face is altered.
So Balder, full-charged as the thunder-cloud, awaited fearfully the
first vivid word which should light the way for those he had resolved
to speak.

"I see you with my open eyes, Balder, and touch you and hear you. Is
this the end I thought would come? Balder, are you greatest?" With
full trust she appealed to him to testify concerning himself. This was
the seriousness he had marked beneath the smile.

"Are you content it should be so?"

She plucked a blade of grass and tied it in a knot, and began,
drawing a trembling breath between each few words,--

"O Balder,--if I must kneel to you as to the last and greatest of
all,--if there is nothing too holy to be seen and touched,--if there
is no Presence too sublime for me to comprehend--"

"What then?" asked he, meeting her troubled look with a strong,
cheerful glance.

"Then the world is less beautiful than I thought it; the sun is less
bright, and I am no more pleasing to myself." Tears began to flow down
her noble cheeks; but Balder's eyes grew brighter, seeing which,
Gnulemah was encouraged to continue.

"How could I be happy? for either must I draw myself apart from you--O
Balder!--or else live as your equal, and so degrade you; for I am not
a goddess!"

"Then there are no goddesses on earth, nor gods! Gnulemah, you need
not shrink from me for that."

The beautiful woman smiled through her sparkling eyelashes. She could
love and reverence the man who, as a deity, bewildered and
disappointed her. But was the intuition therefore false which had
revealed to her the grand conception of a supreme, eternal God?

They sat silent for a while, and neither looked in the other's face.
They had struck a sacred chord, and the sweet, powerful sound thrilled
Balder no less than Gnulemah. But presently he looked up; his cheeks
warmed, and his heart swelled out. He was about to put in jeopardy his
most immediate jewel, and the very greatness of the risk gave him
courage. Not to the world, that could not judge him righteously, would
he confess his crime,--but to the woman he loved and who loved him.
Her verdict could not fail to be just and true.

Could a woman's judgment of her lover be impartial? Yes, if her
instincts be pure and harmonious, and her worldly knowledge that of a
child. Her discrimination between right and wrong would be at once
accurate and involuntary, like the test of poison. Love for the
criminal would but sharpen her intuition. The sentence would not be
spoken, but would be readable in eyes untainted alike by prejudice or
sophistry.

Gnulemah was thus made the touchstone of Balder's morality. He stood
ready to abide by her decision. Her understanding of the case should
first be made full; then, if condemned by her look, he would publish
his crime to the world, and suffer its penalty. But should her eyes
absolve him, then was crime an illusion, evil but undeveloped good,
the stain of blood a prejudice, and Cain no outcast, but the venerable
forefather of true freedom.

Unsearchable is the heart of man. Balder had looked forward to
condemnation with a wholesome solemnity which cheered while it
chastened him. But the thought of acquittal, and at Gnulemah's hands,
appalled him. The implicit consequences to humanity seemed more
formidable than the worst which condemnation could bring upon himself.
So much had he lately changed his point of view, that only the fear of
seeing his former creed confirmed could have now availed to stifle his
confession.

But that fear did not much disquiet him; he trusted too deeply in his
judge to believe that she would justify it. In short, Gnulemah was in
his opinion right-minded, exactly in proportion as she should convict
him of being in the wrong. Balder resigned the helm of his vessel,
laden as she was with the fruits of years of thought and speculation,
at the critical moment of her voyage,--resigned her to the guidance of
a woman's unreasoning intuition. He might almost as well have averred
that the highest reach of intellect is to a perception of the better
worth and wisdom of an unlearned heart.

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