Doña Dolores

“ What had looked a low mountain proved to be a dome-shaped enclosure of such size that the curve on its either side sloped gradually into the perspective. Through the interstices of its barbed wall thousands upon thousands of manes, more female than male, could be seen moving within. From it blew a wind so malignant that Dolores’ eyes smarted and her ears roared—a wind of whispers from countless tongues all breathing forth hate at once. ”

“ Dolores’ eyes gazed out over the garden with a waiting look. It was as if, within their shadows of a purple that shamed the bourgainvillae bloom, hope was hiding in the arbor.
The King watched her in his considering way. His arm stretched along the back of the bench. When convinced that she had forgotten his presence, he suddenly snapped his strong, long fingers around the nape of her neck.
With a smothered scream, Dolores tried to shake off his clutch. Never from a mortal man had she felt a touch so offensive, yet so loathsomely attracting. ”

“ You! you, darling! you, Dolores!"
"Not the English maiden?" she asked.
"She!" said Ashby, contemptuously; "she is a doll—a butterfly—a kitten! She is nothing—a poor creature with no brains and no heart! Even her beauty is mere prettiness. There is no soul in her face, no lightning in her glance."
"And who has soul in her face and lightning in her glance?" asked Dolores, shyly.
"Who? You! you, my darling, dark-eyed Dolores! you, with your deep, unfathomable, glowing, soul-lit eyes that pierce to my inmost heart, and make me thrill at the recollection." ”

“ Sinking to one knee he lowered his lips to her bare ankle. The spot they pressed stung as though from nettles, then turned redder than the rose-bud tied against her instep.
“I am a suppliant, Queen Dolores—I who never was a suppliant before.” His lips increased in ardor through the contact. “I need you. I want you. But I want you to acknowledge the need of me. Always have I jeered at mortal men who plead for favor. I don’t know what’s come over me. I could take you and make you and break you all in one flash of my will. And yet—I ask you, Dolores. I ask you.” ”

“ Without daring to look up, he tugged at the hem of Dolores’ robe.
“You’re to go—to leave Gehenna,” he upflung in his immortal fright. “Don’t wait to prepare. Take this signet ring. It will pass you through the gates. Hurry, lest you ruin me with the rest of those that craved you. Go, Dolores. As you love me—as you hate—for Hell’s sake, go!”
For long after she had gone he lay. Only his lips moved, muttering.
“He could have finished me that time. He must have certain powers of His own, like—like her. Since He can come and go at will, I wonder why He waits. ”

“ They embraced hurriedly, and Dolores returned to the azotea to explain her sudden absence to Doña Serafina as best she could; while Jack, filled with joy at these proofs of her love, gaily danced down the street on his way to the Plaza de San Jago, where Philip waited him.
Everywhere soldiers, everywhere the beating of drums, the shrilling of trumpets, the waving of flags, and oftentimes the martial strains of the "Opal Fandango." The city of Tlatonac had awakened from its sleep of years, and in every street, in every house, activity prevailed. ”

“ Her mind opened to her master’s mind, her eyes to his eyes, her lips to his lips. A hideous impulse moved her, like the mania to leap from some incalculable height. Thought-pulse for thought-pulse, her sensation roused to his. A moan of torturing expectance escaped her.... She closed her eyes....
She wanted to want him.
In the blackness, Dolores saw the blacker truth. Her swooning sense of obligation to self was shocked into revival. Not him so much as something in herself must she resist—that desire put in woman to be mothers of men. Response meant utter degradation. ”

“ How her brilliant beauty is fading under drouth! You who suckled her as a babe, you cannot deny her just one drop? But alas, your bosoms are withered as your face. Surely, though, you’re not out of tears?” Over the rim he called: “The drink, the drink, Millicent! Mother’s tears—extra salt.”
Dolores understood that the struggles of the spirit-dame and the wail that came from the depths were in resistance of his mental brutality. Yet she, too, was moved to action by a thought.
Stepping close to the edge, she contested Satan’s clutch of the old shade; drew her back; bade her begone. ”

“ When Dolores’ eyes had recovered from their momentary confusion, she saw His Majesty standing just without. His pleased look reminded her of the fearing wretch she had saved from a like attack yesterday. Only the hope born of her happiness had defeated his power to hurt her. Although not happy now, she was far from despair. Should he turn next on her, only faith could save her. She must believe that, despite appearances on Earth and in Shadow Land, good was stronger than evil. ”

“ Then he gulps from pleasure at the desirable sight of her; lurches toward her; makes a clutch at her scant draperies.
But not for a moment does she allow herself to be caught to his moist, palpitant breast. Something immediate demands her attention. She makes excuse—a monster beetle without wings then appearing from the direction of land. With sweet-soft adjurations that her lazy old Sea fall not again into a doze, she hurries to meet and greet the gleaming thing.
Nothing had Dolores seen of the dirigibles of Earth, save far-up glimpses of those which occasionally passed over her New York. ”

“ For the first time she understood those women of earth who adorned themselves to enslave men whom they had come to hate. Those they feared most, they must charm. Poor, poor women of Earth!
In the lower reaches of the garden she came upon an illustration of her thought—a fountain effect whose central figure was the sculped, naked body of a woman bent beneath the club of her man and master, on her lips a seductive smile, from her eyes spouting twin founts of electric spray—tears of terror.
Hearing footsteps behind, Dolores stopped, as if in admiration of the ghoulish conceit. ”

“ An aged female manes, sear-looking and fate-limned as would have been a relief map of this Erubian Realm, had tottered up behind them unheard. Her silvered hair writhed backward in the blast from The Well. Her hands shook toward it as shake withered grasses over a dry creek bed.
“Sire, she cannot stand it much longer down there, my Millie,” the crone-soul quavered.
“Ha, Grandma Nuisance again!” Unconventionally Satan introduced her to Dolores. “An oldish lady who has seen better days. Ever notice that most oldish ladies have seen better days?” ”

“ No longer need she fear for the fate of the Universe. The All-Power which had restrained itself toward her that she might work out her own development, would strike when the souls of men cried out, even as she had cried, their dependence. Come The Day, His Majesty would fail of his own impotency. Faith, then, was not the fear of fools. Faith was the courage of gods and men, a heritage divine.
No voice of sad women or of sobbing winds was Dolores’ as, peering and hurrying, her joy lifted in fragments of lines learned from a singer on Earth. ”

“ Never should he know, hence should not fear defeat. With a super-divine intolerance, he would accept and hold his sovereignty. Although of the spirit, he should inherit a talent for strong visibility, taking his form from his father and from his mother a subtlety of appeal such as god nor man yet had possessed. A beauty of countenance irresistible should be his—features of marble pale as the ghosts of Dolores’ victims—lips that quivered from the very delicacy of the lies they lied, eyes that veiled in mists of mercy the utmost truculence. ”

“ The love-lad’s head threw back in defiance at the jibe. But Innocentia flushed as she took up the defense.
“I have been with our dear Dolores always, more a part of her than the blood in her veins, since that has ceased to flow and I am come with her into Shadow Land. She has heeded all my cautions against the wiles of men. Never once has she offended me.”
“More sinned against than sinning, eh?” His Highness plucked an imaginary tear from one eye. “Often as a woman has been damned have I heard that plea.” ”

“ Having only John, I’d be less than inhuman to give up taking it out on him. Besides that great experiment on myself, there’s a lesser one I wish to try out on you. Now, now, sweet Grief, don’t worry! Nothing painful. Rather one whose success will bring you delight.”
“Please to—tell me—what you mean?” faltered Dolores.
“I’ve noticed that when the only man a woman earthling ever really loved demises—shuffles quite beyond her reach, you know—she proceeds to love, as soon as she can locate him, the second only ever man. I’d like to demonstrate that the rule holds down here. ”

“ Dolores, from her earth-habit of fear, cried out against such recklessness.
His Majesty’s dazed look suggested that her protest had recalled him from some evil spell. The emanations from his body thinned and ceased.
“Too much joy in our ride, my child? You’d forgive my abstraction if you realized how I am ulcering from the trick the teetotalers put over on me—and only because I felt too strong to fear their weakness.”
A scorching glance he threw across at her, as though she had spoken objection. “You’ve got to take what you get when you’re dead, you know. I am what most of you get. ”

“ The very first mind I sought was that of a girl who calls herself Maria Dolores. Often her mind turns in upon itself and she reflects like this, 'Maria Dolores, you have behaved badly to your papa today. Now you must go and ask him to forgive you and give him a kiss.' In this way she scolds herself for small misdemeanors. Her world is composed of happy, innocent trivialities, though as her purity touches on them and causes them to glow briefly before they are left behind, it seems that there are no more divine and lovely things in existence than those in the world of my Maria Dolores. ”

“ And now you would dirty the reputation of Dolores! And she's a saint! A saint, do you hear! And a woman like you isn't good enough to kiss the bottom of her shoe, you snake! And now, get out of here, and do it quick, damn quick! Get out of here, or I'll kill you like a rat!"
But Rosario stood there impassively. The calm determination in her did not shrink before those insults and those menacing fists.
"Pascualo, Dolores is not being true to you," she repeated slowly, and with despairing firmness. "She is making a fool of you. And the man ... is ... Tonet!" ”

“ The tortured protest of the spirit-girl Dolores was as the breath of a blower to her demon audience. It fanned the tinder of their evil imaginations and inflamed their desires for intimate details.
A clamor of profanity arose as the marble-pale, but fervid face which had wrought such grief among men lowered to the shield of hands that looked too weak to have torn to bits a strong man’s honor. The shudder of crucified modesty caused the jewel-like lights that adorned her hair, her throat, her breast to wink, as from carnal thoughts “indestructible” as their source of life. ”

“ But I believe in you. You swore once to believe in me. Do you remember? Come with me, Dolores. Let me fight your way up to the Fields as I fought mine down. Have courage to come.”
“I’d only hold you back,” she sighed.
“The harder the fight, the dearer the victory,” he urged. “And we should be together. Does that mean nothing to you? Whatever your fate, I should feel honored to share it—to serve you through Eternity in atonement. Where faith lives there is love.”
“Faith?” A rasping sob shook her—or was it a laugh? “Faith, he says, is the fear of fools.”
“Faith is fear? I do not understand.” ”

“ Courage came to Dolores with the thought. She, an immortal woman soul, would not bow the neck to an undeserved club. She must lift her head believing that even the winds of Hell would cool her brow; must delight in fragrances, strong from her own expectation; must open wide her ears to the Seraphs’ song of hope.
Ready to meet His Majesty, she turned. Her disappointment was keen as her courage to see in him who was approaching the lame old soldier-soul, Samuel Cummings. At first only his face and crutch were recognizable, so resplendent was he in the uniform of an officer of the Hadean Hordes. ”

“ Aunt Lilias took the unwilling hand, led Dolores into the schoolroom, and for half an hour she went over the verses with her, explaining what was new to the girl, and vividly describing the agitation of Plymouth, and the flocks of people thronging in. ‘I must show her that I will be minded, but I will make it pleasant to her, poor child,’ she thought. ”

“ Dolores sniffed. "Vaya! Old, indeed! What does he care for a husband? He only cares that you have long, bright hair, redder than rust, and eyes like blue flowers, and a skin like milk. An angel could not be so beautiful."
"Ah, Dolores, you flatterer! Seriously, though, don't you realize that we are Americans, and people of position? An injury to us would bring terrible consequences upon General Longorio's head. ”

“ Indeed, the aunt came to the conclusion that though Dolores alone might still have been sullen, morose and disagreeable, perhaps very reserved, she never would have kept up the systematic deceit but for Constance. The errors, regarded as sin, weighed on Lady Merrifield’s mind, but she judged it wiser not to press that thought on an unprepared spirit, trusting that just as Dolores had wakened to the sense of the human love that surrounded her, hitherto disbelieved and disregarded, so she might yet awake to the feeling of the Divine love and her offence against it. ”