“So this is the world,” she said, “your world! The blue bits are the seas, and that soiled yellow the countries. How ugly the countries are, and how jagged! They look like a cheese at which mice have nibbled. O world, the things that creep about on you! The things that happen on you! I hold you now, world, and carry you! I like that!”
The three men smiled, but a psychical shudder passed through them. For they could no longer stand in human erectness on this little round earth. A breath of the dancer could blow them down into the immeasurable depths of the cosmos.
And Christian saw that Denis, fighting with an impulse, regarded him. Suddenly the Englishman came up to him and held out his hand. And Christian took the hand of his victorious rival, and knew in his secretest mind that an ultimate advantage was his. For between Eva’s face and the smudged globe he seemed to see a ghostly little figure which charmed her with its glance and which was a tiny image of himself—Eidolon.
They planned that summer to return to the manor and hunt the deer, as was the custom of the gentlemen of that region. But when summer came all things had changed, and Denis had glided from the smooth sphere of earth into the depth.
XIV
One day in London Crammon came to Christian, sat down affectionately beside him, and said: “I am leaving.”
“Where are you going?” Christian asked in surprise.
“North, to fish salmon,” Crammon replied. “I’ll join you later or you can join me.”
“But why go at all?”
“Because I’ll go straight to the dogs if I have to see this woman any longer without possessing her. That’s all.”