“All things look pallid in these rooms, for the light is bluish, reflected from carpet, furniture, and curtains.”
“I have noticed that you invariably wear blue, to the exclusion of all other colors.”
“Yes. Throughout the Levant it is considered a mortuary color; and, moreover, I like its symbolism. The Mater dolorosa often wears blue vestments; also the priests during Lent; and even the images of Christ are veiled in blue, as holy week approaches. Azure, in its absolute significance, represents truth, and is the symbol of the soul after death; so, as I walk the earth,—a fleshy ‘death in life,’—I clothe myself symbolically. In pagan cosmogonies the Creator is always colored blue. Jupiter Ammon, Vischnou, Cneph, Krischna,—all are azure. And because it is a solemn, consecrated color, mystic and mournful, I wear it.”
“My dear madam, this is a morbid whimsicality that trenches closely upon monomania, and would be more tolerable in a lackadaisical school-girl, than in a mature, intelligent, and gifted woman. Some of your fantasies would be positively respectable in a Bedlamite, and you seem an anomalous compound of eccentricities peculiar to extreme youth and to advanced age.”
“I believe, sir, that you are entirely correct in your analysis. I stand before you, young in years, but forsaken by that ‘blue-eyed Hope’ who frolics hand in hand with youth; and yet utterly devoid of that philosophy and wisdom which justly belong to the old age of my heart.”
Her tone was indescribably weary, and, as she laid aside her brush and folded her hands together on the cross-beam of the easel, the transient light died out of her countenance, and the worn, tired look, came back and settled on every feature.
|
... “The soft, sad eyes,
Set like twilight planets in the rainy skies,— With the brow all patience, and the lips all pain,” |
wove a strange spell over the visitor, whose gaze was riveted on the only woman who had ever aroused even temporary interest in his heart.