very slowly, withdrew some fastening beneath her
hair. Then all of a sudden the long, corpse-like wrappings fell from her
to the ground, and my eyes travelled up her form, now only robed in
a garb of clinging white that did but serve to show its perfect and
imperial shape, instinct with a life that was more than life, and with a
certain serpent-like grace that was more than human. On her little feet
were sandals, fastened with studs of gold. Then came ankles more perfect
than ever sculptor dreamed of. About the waist her white kirtle was
fastened by a double-headed snake of solid gold, above which her
gracious form swelled up in lines as pure as they were lovely, till the
kirtle ended on the snowy argent of her breast, whereon her arms were
folded. I gazed above them at her face, and--I do not exaggerate--shrank
back blinded and amazed. I have heard of the beauty of celestial beings,
now I saw it; only this beauty, with all its awful loveliness and
purity, was _evil_--at least, at the time, it struck me as evil. How am
I to describe it? I cannot--simply I cannot! The man does not live
whose pen could convey a sense of what I saw. I might talk of the great
changing eyes of deepest, softest black, of the tinted face, of the
broad and noble brow, on which the hair grew low, and delicate, straight
features. But, beautiful, surpassingly beautiful as they all were, her
loveliness did not lie in them. It lay rather, if it can be said to have
had any fixed abiding place, in a visible majesty, in an imperial grace,
in a godlike stamp of softened power, which shone upon that radiant
countenance like a living halo. Never before had I guessed what beauty
made sublime could be--and yet, the sublimity was a dark one--the glory
was not all of heaven--though none the less was it glorious. Though
the face before me was that of a young woman of certainly not more than
thirty years, in perfect health, and the first flush of ripened beauty,
yet it had stamped upon it a look of unutterable experience, and of
deep acquaintance with grief and passion. Not even the lovely smile that
crept about the dimples of her mouth could hide this shadow of sin and
sorrow. It shone even in the light of the glorious eyes, it was present
in the air of majesty, and it seemed to say: "Behold me, lovely as no
woman was or is, undying and half-divine; memory haunts me from age to
age, and passion leads me by the hand--evil have I done, and from age to
age evil I s