Greatest of all were their Hosts, Eagle and his Wife, though not too great to remember friends, or to invite our Villebecq household (with dependent) to a Tuileries dance. It was not a state-ball, but one of the Empress's "Mondays," an intimate little function for some thirty or forty guests. My orgilous delight was chilled by a swift reflection: I could not dance.
"Well," said the Countess, "you must learn."
I saw Grandmother's gentle eyes, appealing, mute in horror. My Mother came to me with a pleading No. Poor kept-in-his-place Resolution dared: What would Jesus do? I sent them packing, closed my eyes, barred up my heart. "Yes, Madame, and at once; there is no time to lose." I spoke so sharply that the poor lady started back in amaze.
Not that I danced very much at the ball, or cared to; I was the guest of an Empress, and that sufficed me. In a wide hall, the Salon of the First Consul, we stood ranged in double row. Eugenie, in a lovely robe of blue satin, of pure simplicity, without pattern or frill, swept into the room, preceded by sumptuous Officers of the Household, and followed by her ladies. Like the Emperor his soldiers, she passed us in review. To each a few gracious words. Yet what right had she to be so condescending? Who was she, anyway? Why should a few words from her lips be deemed our highest earthly privilege? It was vulgar resentment that some woman else was in a lordlier position than I; it was envy; it was democracy. I was ashamed of my unguestly thoughts when she stopped at me and said in beautiful English: "This is not worth Jumièges, do you think?"
The ball began. Most of the ladies were dressed far more gorgeously than the Empress. I remember a tall woman (a duchess, confided the Countess), gowned in shimmering black velvet flounced with gold guipure; another in crimson velvet sewn with great silver daffodils; another in white satin-tulle covered by a light overwork of golden feathers. Everywhere lace, fans, tiaras, jewels. How plain I was beside them! I despised their half-revealed bosoms, their selfish painted faces, their sensual lips. The old ways and the Meeting would keep appearing before me, and Grandmother, and the Lord: I knew that they were right, and these things wrong. Here was I, a saved young woman, one of the Lord's elected children—tricked out like a Jezebel, with flowers in my hair. The old hymn I had so often repeated to Aunt Jael forced its way into my memory, compelled me to repeat it to myself, verse by remorseless verse:
Shall the Christian maiden wear
Flowers or jewels in her hair,
When the blood-stained crown of thorn
On her Saviour's brow was borne?
Here in this King's palace I revelled, my bosom swelling with vanity,—
Shall the Christian maiden's breast
Swell beneath the broidered vest,
When the scarlet robe of shame
Girt her Saviour's tortured frame?
And I was dancing. The first moments showed me that our Brethren-hatred was good hatred, and Elise's description of men a just description. They pressed insinuatingly, their contact sickened me. O Lord, Lord, to what fleshliness was I sinking?—
Shall the Christian maiden's feet
Earth's unhallowed measures beat,
While beneath the Cross's load
Sank the suffering Son of God?