Elinor Glyn

“ And if it had been the most important document concerning the fate of nations the lady could not have examined it with more enthralled interest and attention than she did this snapshot photograph of a rough terrier dog.
"What a sweet fellow!" she said. "Look at his eye! so intelligent; look at that patte! See, even he is asking one to love him—and I do—I do—"
"Darling!" said Paul in ecstasy, "oh, if we only had him here, wouldn't that be good!"
And he never knew why his lady suddenly threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him with passionate tenderness and love, her eyes soft as a dove's. ”

“ Paul stood still. The room swam; his head swam. Then he stumbled out on to the terrace, under the night sky, the white blossoms still pressed against his heart.
He must have walked about for hours. The grey dawn was creeping over the silent world when at last he went back to the hotel and to his bed.
There he slept and dreamt—never a dream! For youth and health are glorious things. And he was tired out.
The great sun was high in the heavens when next he awoke. And the room was full of the scent of tuberoses, scattered on the pillow beside him. ”

“ Have you seen the tints of the beeches, of the pines, of the firs, clinging like some cloak of life to the hoary-headed mountains, a reminder that spring is eternal, and youth must have its day, however grey beards and white heads may frown?
Ah—it is good!
And so is the air up there. Hungry and strong and—young.
Paul and his lady stood and looked down in rapt silence. It was giving her, as she said, an emotion, but of what sort he was not sure. They were all alone. No living soul was anywhere in view.
She had been in a mood, all day when she seldom raised her eyes. ”

“ Decide, sweetheart—decide!"
"Whatever you would wish, my Queen," said Paul.
Then the lady frowned, and summer lightnings flashed from her eyes.
"Of course, what I shall wish! But I have told you to choose, feeble Paul! There is nothing so irritates me as these English answers. Should I have asked you to select our day had I decided myself? I would have commanded Dmitry to make the arrangements, that is all. But no! to-day I am thy obedient one. I ask my Love to choose for me. To-morrow I may want my own will; to-day I desire only thine, beloved," and she leant forward and looked into his eyes. ”

“ The moon, still slender and fine, was drawing to her setting, and a few cloudlets floated over the sky, obscuring the stars here and there.
The lady was quiet and tender, her eyes melting upon Paul, and something of her ring-dove mood was upon her again. Not once, since they had been on the Bürgenstock, had she shown any of the tigerish waywardness that he had had glimpses of at first. It seemed as if her moods, like her chameleon eyes, took colour from her surroundings, and there all was primitive simplicity and nature and peace. ”

“ It had no coloured lights, this gondola, or merry musicians; it was just a black object of silence, tenanted by one man.
Dmitry whispered, and the lady listened, a quiver of rage going through her lithe body. Then she turned and surveyed the moored gondola, the same storm of passion and hate in her eyes as once before had come there, at the Rigi Kaltbad Belvedere.
"Shall I kill the miserable spy? Vasili would do it this night," she hissed between her clenched teeth. "But to what end? A day's respite, perhaps, and then another, and another to face." ”

“ The Lady Henrietta's delicate shell-tinted cheeks flushed rose with joy at the recollection.
"Darling mother," said Paul, as he kissed her, "how you loved me. And how cold I have often been. Forgive me—"
Then he was silent while she fondled him in peace, his thoughts turning as ever to his lady. She, too, probably, would be foolish, and tender, and sweet over her son—and how his mother would love her grandchild. Oh! how cruel, how cruel was fate!
Then he asked: "Mother, does it take women a long time to get well when they have children? Ladies, I mean, who are finely nurtured? ”

“ Paul's head swam, he felt intoxicated with bliss.
"This Venice is for you and me, my Paul," she said. "The air is full of love and dreams; we have left the slender moon behind us in Switzerland; here she is nearing her full, and the summer is upon us with all her richness and completeness—the spring of our love has passed." Her voice fell into its rhythmical cadence, as if she were whispering a prophecy inspired by some presence beyond.
"We will drink deep of the cup of delight, my lover, and bathe in the wine of the gods. ”

“ How did you come by it?—tell me, beloved. If he gave it to you, then it means danger, Paul—danger—"
"My darling," said Paul, in his strong young pride "fear nothing, I shall never leave you. I will protect you from any danger in the world, only depend upon me, sweetheart. Nothing can hurt you while I am here."
"Do you think I care a sou for my life?" she said, while she stood straight up again with the majesty of a queen. "Do you think I feared for me—for myself? Oh! no, my own lover, never that! They can kill me when they choose, but they won't; it is you for whom I fear. ”

“ The immense rush of passion in Venice came from her knowledge that they soon must part. Notice the effect of the two griefs on Paul. The first, with its undefined hope, making him do well in all things—even his prowess as a hunter—to raise himself to be more worthy in her eyes; the second and paralysing one of death, turning him into adamant until his soul awakens again with the returning spring of her spirit in his heart, and the consolation of the living essence of their love in the child.
The minds of some human beings are as moles, grubbing in the earth for worms. ”

“ In your way as perfect as this tiger. But we must talk—oh! such a great, great deal—first."
A rage of passion was racing through Paul, his incoherent thoughts were that he did not want to talk—only to kiss her—to devour her—to strangle her with love if necessary.
He bit the rose.
"You see, Paul, love is a purely physical emotion," she continued. "We could speak an immense amount about souls, and sympathy, and understanding, and devotion. All beautiful things in their way, and possible to be enjoyed at a distance from one another. ”

“ Gentle, pleasant women longed to lavish worship upon him, and Paul talked and was polite, but all their sweetness touched him no more than summer ripples stir the bottom of a lake. He seemed impervious to any human influence, though when the look of a mountain or the colour of beech-trees would remind him of the Bürgenstock anguish as fresh as ever stabbed his heart. Yet all this while, unknown to himself, his faculties were developing. He read deeply. He had unconsciously grown to apply his darling's lucid reasoning to every detail of his judgment of life. ”

“ An eloquence seemed to come to Paul and loosen his tongue, so that he whispered back paeans of worship in language as fine as her own. And the moon flooded the loggia with her light, and the roses gave forth their scent. It was the supreme effort of art and nature to cover them with glorious joy.
"My darling one," the lady whispered in his ear, as she lay in his arms on the couch of roses, crushed deep and half buried in their velvet leaves, "this is our souls' wedding. In life and in death they can never part more." ”

“ And when she came to the evening of their wedding, when the young priest had placed their hands together, and listened to their vows—when Undine had found her soul at last, in Huldebrand's arms—her voice faltered, and she stopped and looked down.
"And then?" said Paul, and his breath came rather fast. "And then?"
"He was a man, you see, Paul; so when he had won her love, he did not value it—he threw it away."
"Oh, no! I don't believe it!" Paul exclaimed vehemently. "It was just this brute Huldebrand. But you don't know men—to think they do not value what they win—you don't know them, indeed!" ”

“ And she touched his lids with her slender fingers.
Paul quivered in his chair.
"You know!" he gasped. "You make me mad—I——But won't you teach me to see? No one wants to be blind! Teach me to see with your eyes, lady—my lady."
"Yes, I will teach you!" she said. "Teach you a number of things. Together we will put on the hat of darkness and go down into Hades. We shall taste the apples of the Hesperides—we will rob Mercure of his sandals—and Gyges of his ring. And one day, Paul—when together we have fathomed the meaning of it all—what will happen then, enfant?" ”

“ All because the law made us swear a vow to keep for ever stationary an emotion! Emotion which we can no more control than the trees can which way the wind will blow their branches! To love! Oh! yes, they call it that at the altar—'joined together by God!' As likely as not two human creatures who hate each other, and are standing there swearing those impossibilities for some political purpose and advantage of their family. They desecrate the word love. Love is for us, Paul, who came together because our beings cried, 'This is my mate!' I should say nothing of it—oh no! ”

“ And he lifted her in his strong arms and carried her to the couch as if she had been a baby, and settled her there, every touch a caress.
His lady delighted in these exhibitions of his strength. He had grown to understand that he could always affect her when he pretended to dominate her by sheer brute force. She had explained it to him thus one day:
"You see, Paul, a man can always keep a woman loving him if he kiss her enough, and make her feel that there is no use struggling because he is too strong to resist. A woman will stand almost anything from a passionate lover. ”

“ His lady! His Queen!
And, indeed, she seemed a queen when at last he held her at arms'-length to look at her. She was garbed all ready for dinner in a marvellous garment of shimmering purple, while round her shoulders a scarf of brilliant pale emerald gauze, all fringed with gold, fell in two long ends, and on her neck and in her ears great emeralds gleamed—a pear-shaped one of unusual brilliancy fell at the parting of her waves of hair on to her white smooth forehead. But the colour of her eyes he could not be sure of—only they were two wells of love and passion gazing into his own. ”

“ Stay still in our nest if you will, but do not come on to Lucerne."
"I could not stand it," said Paul. "Oh! darling, don't kill me with aching for your presence two whole days! It is a lifetime! not to be endured—"
"Impatient one!" she laughed softly. "No—neither could I bear not to see you, sweetheart, but we must not be foolish. You must stay on in our rooms and each morning I will meet you somewhere in the launch. Dmitry knows every inch of the lake, and we can pass most of days thus, happy at last—"
"But the nights!" said Paul, deep distress in his voice. ”

“ At the first glow of dawn, he awoke, a strange sensation, almost of strangling and suffocation, upon him. There, bending over, framed in a mist of blue-black waves, he saw his lady's face. Its milky whiteness lit by her strange eyes—green as cats' they seemed, and blazing with the fiercest passion of love—while twisted round his throat he felt a great strand of her splendid hair. The wildest thrill as yet his life had known then came to Paul; he clasped her in his arms with a frenzy of mad, passionate joy. ”

“ You think so, beloved, and it may be so because you do not know from moment to moment how I shall be—if I shall stay here in your arms, or fly far away beyond your reach. You love me because I give you the stimulus of uncertainty, and so keep bright your passion, but once you were sure, I should become a duty, as all women become, and then my Paul would yawn and grow to see I was no longer young, and that the expected is always an ennui when it comes! ”

“ She seized a guitar that lay near, and began in a soft voice in some language he knew not—a cadence of melody he had never heard, but one whose notes made strange quivers all up his spine. An exquisite pleasure of sound that was almost pain. And when he felt he could bear no more, she flung the instrument aside, and leant over his chair again—caressing his curls with her dainty fingers, and purring unknown strange words in his ear.
Paul was young and unlearned in many things. He was completely enthralled and under her dominion—but he was naturally no weakling of body or mind. ”

“ Captain Grigsby had eventually caught Sir Charles' eye:
"You will have the boy fainting if you don't get him off alone soon," he said. "These girls would tire a man in strong health!"
And at last Paul had escaped to his own room.
He leant out of his window, and looked at the gibbous moon. Pike was there on the broad sill beside him, under his arm, and he could feel the golden collar on the soft fur neck—a wave of perhaps the most hopeless anguish he had yet felt was upon his spirit now. ”

“ A man so recently parted from the only woman he could ever love had no right to look at such things, he thought. How young and chivalrous and honest he was—poor Paul!
So he took to visiting Versailles and Fontainebleau and Compiègne with a guide-book, and came to the conclusion it was all "beastly rot."
So he turned his back upon France and fled to Switzerland.
Do you know Switzerland?—you who read. Do you know it at the beginning of May? A feast of blue lakes, and snow-peaks, and the divinest green of young beeches, and the sombre shadow of dark firs, and the exhilaration of the air. ”

“ All the things which make passion noble—but without love—which is passion—these things dwindle and become duties presently, when the hysterical exaltation cools. Love is tangible—it means to be close—close—to be clasped—to be touching—to be One!"
Her voice was low—so concentrated as to be startling in contrast to the drip of the rain outside, and her eyes—half closed and gleaming—burnt into his brain. It seemed as if strange flames of green darted from their pupils.
"But that is what I want!" Paul said, unsteadily. ”

“ And the lady laughed in pure ecstatic joy. "Oh! I love you, my Paul—like this, like this! Beautiful one! Just a splendid primitive savage beneath the grace, as a man should be. When I feel how strong you are my heart melts with bliss!"
And Paul, to show her it was true, seized her in his arms, and ran with her, placing her on a high rock, where he made her pay him with kisses and tell him she loved him before he would lift her down.
And it was his lady's caprice, as she said, that this state of things should last all day. ”

“ Not a soul was in sight in this quiet corner. He bounded on to the bench to be nearer—if she should come. If she were there hiding in the shadows. This was maddening—unbearable. He would climb the balustrade to see. Then out of the blackest gloom came a laugh of silver. A soft laugh that was almost a caress. And suddenly she crept close and leant down over the ivy.
"Paul," she whispered. "I have come, you see, to wish you—good-night!"
Paul stood up to his full height. He put out his arms to draw her to him, but she eluded him and darted aside. ”

“ The lady was sweet and sympathetic and gay; she ceased startling him with wild fancies; indeed, she spoke of simple everyday things, and got him to tell her of his home and Oxford, and his horses and his dogs. And when they arrived at the subject of Pike, her sympathy drew Paul nearer to her than ever. Of course she would love Pike if she only knew him! Who could help loving a dog like Pike? And his master waxed eloquent. Then, when he looked away, the lady's weird chameleon eyes melted upon him in that strange tenderness which might have been a mother's watching the gambols of her babe. ”

“ That is immoral—deliberately to still one's conscience and indulge in a pleasure against it. But to live a life with one's love, if it engenders the most lofty aspirations, to me is highly moral and good. I feel myself ennobled, exalted, because you are my lover, and our child, when it comes to us, will have a noble mind."
The thought of this, as ever, made Paul thrill; he forgot all other arguments, and a quiver ran through him of intense emotion; his eyes swam and he clasped more tightly her hand. The lady, too, leant back and closed her eyes. ”

“ Sweetheart—listen! Beyond all of this there is that thought, that hope, ever in my heart that one day a son of ours shall worthily fill a throne, so we must not think of ourselves, my Paul, of the Thou, and the I, and the Now, beloved. A throne which is filled most ignobly at present, and only filled at all through my birth and my family's influence. Think not I want to plant a cheat. No! I have a right to find an heir as I will, a splendid heir who shall redeem the land—the spirit of our two selves given being by love, and endowed by the gods. Ah! think of it, Paul. ”