"Then go after the witch!" retorted the governor, who, racked by sudden wrath and consuming jealousy, sprang to his feet, and had his secretary beheaded that same hour.
Thus Theophilus was, after all, united for ever to Dorothea on that same day. She welcomed him with the restful look of the blessed. Like two doves, separated by the tempest, who have found each other again, and first fly in a wide circuit round their home, so the united pair swept hand in hand swiftly, swiftly, and unceasingly around the outmost circles of Heaven, freed from every weight, yet still themselves. Then they separated sportively and lost themselves in wide infinity, while each knew where the other tarried, and what the other thought, and joined with him in embracing every creature and all existence in sweet love. Then they sought each other again with waxing desire, which knew no pain and no impatience. They found each other, and once more eddied about, or reposed in contemplation of themselves and gazed near and far into the world of infinitude. But once in blissful forgetfulness they ventured too near the crystal habitation of the Holy Trinity, and entered within. There they lost all consciousness, and like twins beneath a mother's heart they fell on sleep, and no doubt are sleeping still, unless meantime they have been able to make their way out.
[A LEGEND OF THE DANCE]
O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances.... Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together.
Jeremiah, xxxi. 4, 13.
According to Saint Gregory, Musa was the dancer among the saints. The child of good people, she was a bright young lady, a diligent servant of the Mother of God, and subject only to one weakness, such an uncontrollable passion for the dance, that when the child was not praying she was dancing without fail, and that on all imaginable occasions. Musa danced with her playmates, with children, with the young men, and even by herself. She danced in her own room and every other room in the house, in the garden, in the meadows. Even when she went to the altar, it was to a gracious measure rather than at a walk, and even on the smooth marble flags before the church-door she did not scruple to practise a few hasty steps.
In fact, one day when she found herself alone in the church, she could not refrain from executing some figures before the altar, and, so to speak, dancing a pretty prayer to the Virgin Mary. She became so oblivious of all else that she fancied she was merely dreaming when she saw an oldish but handsome gentleman dancing opposite her, and supplementing her figures so skilfully that the pair got into the most elaborate dance imaginable. The gentleman had a royal purple robe, a golden crown on his head, and a glossy black curled beard, which the silvery streaks of age had touched as with distant starlight. At the same time music sounded from the choir, where half-a-dozen small angels stood or sat with their chubby little legs hanging over the screen, and fingered or blew their various instruments. The urchins were very pleasant and skilful. Each rested his music on one of the stone angels with which the choir-screen was adorned, except the smallest, a puffy-cheeked piper, who sat cross-legged, and contrived to hold his music with his pink toes. He was the most diligent of them all. The others dangled their feet, kept spreading their pinions, one or other of them, with a rustle, so that their colours shimmered like doves' breasts, and they teased each other as they played.
Musa found no time to wonder at all this until the dance, which lasted a pretty long time, was over; for the merry gentleman seemed to enjoy himself as much as the maid, who felt as if she were dancing about in Heaven. But when the music ceased, and Musa stood there panting, she began to be scared in good earnest, and looked in astonishment at the ancient, who was neither out of breath nor warm, and who now began to speak. He introduced himself as David, the Virgin Mary's royal ancestor and her ambassador. And he asked if she would like to pass eternal bliss in an unending pleasure-dance, compared with which the dance they had just finished could only be called a miserable crawl.
To this she promptly answered that there was nothing she desired better. Whereupon the blessed King David said again that in that case she had nothing more to do than to renounce all pleasure and all dancing for the rest of her days on earth, and devote herself wholly to penance and spiritual exercises, and that without hesitation or relapse.
The maiden was taken aback at these conditions, and she asked whether she must really give up dancing altogether. She questioned, indeed, whether there was any dancing in Heaven; for there was a time for everything: this earth looked very fit and proper for dancing; it stood to reason that Heaven must have very different attractions, else death were a superfluity.