And it was with a half feeling
of shame that she prepared herself that afternoon for one more, perhaps
one last attempt, to scale the heavens, as she recollected how many
an illiterate monk and nun, from Constantinople to the Thebaid, was
probably employed at that moment exactly as she was. Still, the attempt
must be made. In that terrible abyss of doubt, she must have something
palpable, real; something beyond her own thoughts, and hopes, and
speculations, whereon to rest her weary faith, her weary heart....
Perhaps this time, at least, in her extremest need, a god might
vouchsafe some glimpse of his own beauty .... Athene might pity at
last.... Or, if not Athene, some archetype, angel, demon.... And then
she shuddered at the thought of those evil and deceiving spirits, whose
delight it was to delude and tempt the votaries of the gods, in the
forms of angels of light. But even in the face of that danger, she must
make the trial once again. Was she not pure and spotless as Athene's
self? Would not her innate purity enable her to discern, by an
instinctive antipathy, those foul beings beneath the fairest mask? At
least, she must make the trial....

And so, with a look of intense humility, she began to lay aside her
jewels and her upper robes. Then, baring her bosom and her feet, and
shaking her golden tresses loose, she laid herself down upon the conch,
crossed her hands upon her breast, and, with upturned ecstatic eyes,
waited for that which might befall.

There she lay, hour after hour, as her eye gradually kindled, her bosom
heaved, her breath came fast: but there was no more sign of life
in those straight still limbs, and listless feet and hands, than in
Pygmalion's ivory bride, before she bloomed into human flesh and blood.
The sun sank towards his rest; the roar of the city grew louder and
louder without; the soldiers revelled and laughed below: but every sound
passed through unconscious ears, and went its way unheeded. Faith, hope,
reason itself, were staked upon the result of that daring effort to
scale the highest heaven. And, by one continuous effort of her practised
will, which reached its highest virtue, as mystics hold, in its own
suicide, she chained down her senses from every sight and sound,
and even her mind from every thought, and lay utterly self-resigned,
self-emptied, till consciousness of time and place had vanished, and she
seemed to herself alone in the abyss.

She dared not reflect, she dared