‘That is superficial,’ said Helen. ‘Beside, it isn’t. It’s oval.’
‘So is a ham. And she’s a prig. Ampthump! Good Lord!’
I am afraid I shouted this, because she said: ‘Hush! Legs will hear.’
‘Not he. Or if he does, he will think it is only the wind whispering the beloved name.’
‘Yes, but you didn’t whisper it. Oh, do take the brush. You made me send my maid away, so you must do it yourself. I can’t brush from here, because my arms are in front.’
Now in my heart I pity everybody who has not seen Helen with her hair down. All such folk, in all their millions, lead impoverished existences. There is a wave in it that is like the big unbroken billows which succeed a storm, when the clouds have passed and the sun shines. It is lit from within, even as they seem to be irradiated from the depths. Those billows must go over a sandy foreshore, for they are yellow, and the sun—I know not how—must be foggy, for there is a little red light in them. And brushing, as I did now, I held my hand over them, and the hair rose to it with a tiny cracking sound. Her hair came to my hand, lifted towards it that unminted gold that framed her face, and covered her ears. And for a little while it was no wonder that I forgot about Legs and his Charlotte.
I suppose every one knows the sensation of being lost. You can be lost all by yourself, as I was once, as I have said, in the western desert of Egypt, on which occasion the bray of a donkey was to me the trumpet of the Seraphin. That was a dreadful experience, since it implied being out of touch with life. But I should be glad to know if there is anything the world holds which is more enraptured than the sense of being lost with one other person, to feel the world swim away, and be dissolved, so that you and the comrade you are with are quite alone. To feel that there is no existence except the existence of her who is lost with you.... It was Helen’s hair.
‘That’s the world’s side; there’s the wonder!’ That lover understood. Everyone saw Helen’s hair.
‘“But the best is when I glide from out them,
Cross a step or two of dubious moonshine,
Come out on the other side....”’
I never could quote correctly. The point is that the beloved has another face, the face she turns to her lover. No one else sees it; it is ‘blind to Keats, him even.’