‘The only punishment of heresy—you have yourself said so—is ... flame,’ says Madeleine, gazing straight into the eyes of Sappho. This time she is almost certain she can perceive a blush on that admirable person’s cheek—almost certain, for the expression of such delicate things as the Passions of Sappho must need itself be very delicate. Descartes has said that a blush proceeds from one of two passions—love or hate. En voilà un problème galant!
‘To justify my heresy, permit me, Madame, to recall to your mind a poem by your namesake, the Grecian Sappho,—
‘That man seems to me greater than the gods who doth sit facing thee and sees thee and hears thy delicate laughter. When this befalls me my senses clean depart ... all is void ... my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth, drop by drop flame steals down my slender veins ... there is a singing in mine ears ... my eyes are covered with a twin night.
She pauses, but Sappho laughs—perhaps not quite naturally—and cries,—
‘Mademoiselle, your heresy still stands unjustified!’
‘Why, Madame, how could any one of taste take pleasure in verse so devoid of wit, of grace, of galanterie ... so bare, so barbarous, after they have been initiated into the Parnassian Mysteries of your incomparable verse and prose? Why, what I have quoted is the language of lexicographers and philosophers, not the divine cadences of a poet. Put in metre Descartes’ description of the signs by which the movements of the Passions may be detected, namely,—
‘“The chief signs by which the Passions show themselves are the motions of the eyes and the face, changes of colour, trembling, languor, faintness, laughter, tears, moans, and sighs,” and you will have a poem every whit as graceful and well-turned!
‘The poem of Sappho I. is a “small thing” ... but if it had proceeded from the delicious pen of Sappho II. it would have been a “rose”!’
‘And how should I have effected this miracle?’ asks Sappho with a smile.