CHAPTER X
They received her with the scant show of surprise which youth, so proud of appearances, so jealous of its own dignity, extends to the unknown, and, after the brief word of welcome, and swift surmising glance, the conversation which she had interrupted renewed itself, perhaps a shade more boisterously because they had been surprised, a little more hardily because they knew one was listening who was not of their company and might be critical.
Soon, in their own despite, something ceremonious crept on them, overpowering their boisterousness and making each self-conscious, until, by the inevitable degrees, silence hovered and threatened about the fire, and for moments nothing moved but the eye that flickered and wandered into woodland vistas, where delicate dark trees stood rimmed in silver, and everything on the ground crept and fled as the boughs swayed and the moon spilled through them.
But the silence only endured long enough for the look to become frank and the mutual examination a judgement. Then the eldest of the three boys seized the conversation to himself and upheld it, for he saw that their guest was so afflicted with shyness that she could not move hand or foot, and could not have replied if one had addressed her.
He spoke for occupation also, because, having looked at her, he feared or was too shy to look again; feared, too, that the others might observe his embarrassment; and, being one to whom action was a first habit, he did what he could do when he found that there was something which he could not do.
He did it well.
Listening to him Deirdre knew what was the mid surge of the stream she had listened to, the top singing of the song she had heard. This was the lark sustained at the top of flight, and the others the mazy pattern of the swallows’ wings. Listening she could collect herself; and, in a while, daring to hear, she dared to see, and then she heard no more; for when the eye is filled the ear is no more attended, and all that may be of beauty is there englobed, radiant, sufficient, excessive.
How should I paint Naoise[7] as Deirdre saw him, or show Deirdre as she appeared to the son of Uisneac? For than Deirdre there was no girl so beautiful unless it might be Emer the daughter of Forgall, soon to be wooed by Cúchulinn; and Naoise himself could not be bettered by any among the men of his land unless it was by the “small, dark man, comeliest of the men of Eirè,” Cúchulinn himself.
When we endeavour to tell of these things words cannot stand the trial. It may be done by music, or by allusion, as the poets have always done, saying that this girl is like the moon, or like the Sky-Woman of the Dawn, when they would indicate a beauty beyond what we know; and that she is like a rose when they would tell of a gentle and proud sweetness; that her wrist is crisp and delicate like the delicate foam that mantles on a sunny tide; that the wise bee nestled in her bosom, finding more of delight there than the hive gives; that she walks as a cloud, or as a queen-woman of the sky, seen only in vision, so that all other sights are but half seen thereafter and are scarcely remembered.
In these grave ways we may approach perfection, indicating distantly that which cannot be unveiled in speech; or we may tell of the abasement which comes on the heart when beauty is seen; the sadness which is sharper than every other sadness; the despair that overshadows us when the abashed will concedes that though it would overbear everything it cannot master this, and that here we renounce all claim; for beauty is beyond the beast, and like all else of quality it can only be apprehended by its equal and enjoyed where it gives itself.