“Lucio—Lucio!” she murmured—“Have you a heart? Can you reject me when I pray to you thus?—when I offer you all myself,—all that I am, or ever hope to be? Am I so repugnant to you? Many men would give their lives if I would say to them what I say to you,—but they are nothing to me—you alone are my world,—the breath of my existence!—ah, Lucio, can you not believe, will you not realize how deeply I love you!”
He turned towards her with a sudden fierce movement that [p 361] startled me,—and the cloud of scorn upon his brows grew darker.
“I know you love me!” he said, and from where I stood I saw the cold derisive smile flash from his lips to his eyes in lightning-like mockery—“I have always known it! Your vampire soul leaped to mine at the first glance I ever gave you,—you were a false foul thing from the first, and you recognized your master! Yes—your Master!” for she had uttered a faint cry as if in fear,—and he, stooping, snatched her two hands and grasped them hard in his own—“Listen to the truth of yourself for once from one who is not afraid to speak it!—you love me,—and truly your body and soul are mine to claim, if I so choose! You married with a lie upon your lips; you swore fidelity to your husband before God, with infidelity already in your thoughts, and by your own act made the mystical blessing a blasphemy and a curse! Wonder not then that the curse has fallen! I knew it all!—the kiss I gave you on your wedding-day put fire in your blood and sealed you mine!—why, you would have fled to me that very night, had I demanded it,—had I loved you as you love me,—that is, if you choose to call the disease of vanity and desire that riots in your veins, by such a name as love! But now hear me!” and as he held her two wrists he looked down upon her with such black wrath depicted in his face as seemed to create a darkness round him where he stood,—“I hate you! Yes—I hate you, and all such women as you! For you corrupt the world,—you turn good to evil,—you deepen folly into crime,—with the seduction of your nude limbs and lying eyes, you make fools, cowards and beasts of men! When you die, your bodies generate foulness,—things of the mould and slime are formed out of the flesh that was once fair for man’s delight,—you are no use in life—you become poison in death,—I hate you all! I read your soul—it is an open book to me—and it is branded with a name given to those who are publicly vile, but which should, of strict right and justice, be equally bestowed on women of your position and type, who occupy [p 362] pride and place in this world’s standing, and who have not the excuse of poverty for selling themselves to the devil!”
He ceased abruptly and with passion, making a movement as though to fling her from him,—but she clung to his arm,—clung with all the pertinacity of the loathly insect he had taken from the bosom of the dead Egyptian woman and made a toy of to amuse his leisure! And I, looking on and listening, honoured him for his plain speaking, for his courage in telling this shameless creature what she was in the opinion of an honest man, without glozing over her outrageous conduct for the sake of civility or social observance. My friend,—my more than friend! He was true,—he was loyal—he had neither desire nor intent to betray or dishonour me. My heart swelled with gratitude to him, and also with a curious sense of feeble self-pity,—compassionating myself intensely, I could have sobbed aloud in nervous fury and pain, had not my desire to hear more, repressed my personal excitement and emotion. I watched my wife wonderingly—what had become of her pride that she still knelt before the man who had taunted her with such words as should have been beyond all endurance?
“Lucio! ... Lucio!” she whispered, and her whisper sounded through the long gallery like the hiss of a snake—“Say what you will—say all you will of me,—you can say nothing that is not true. I am vile—I own it. But is it of much avail to be virtuous? What pleasure comes from goodness?—what gratification from self-denial? There is no God to care! A few years, and we all die, and are forgotten even by those who loved us,—why should we lose such joys as we may have for the mere asking? Surely it is not difficult to love even me for an hour?—am I not fair to look upon?—and is all this beauty of my face and form worthless in your sight, and you no more than man? Murder me as you may with all the cruelty of cruel words, I care nothing!—I love you—love you!”—and in a perfect passion of self-abandonment she sprang to her feet, tossing back her rich hair over her shoulders, and stood erect, a very bacchante of wild loveliness—“Look at me! You shall not,—you dare not spurn such a love as mine!”
[p 363]
Dead silence followed her outburst,—and I stared in fascinated awe at Lucio as he turned more fully round and confronted her. The expression of his countenance struck me then as quite unearthly,—his beautiful broad brows were knitted in a darkling line of menace,—his eyes literally blazed with scorn, and yet he laughed,—a low laugh, resonant with satire.
“Shall not!—dare not!” he echoed disdainfully—“Woman’s words,—woman’s ranting!—the shriek of the outraged feminine animal who fails to attract, as she thinks, her chosen mate. Such a love as yours!—what is it? Degradation to whosoever shall accept it,—shame to whosoever shall rely upon it! You make a boast of your beauty; your mirror shows you a pleasing image,—but your mirror lies!—as admirably as you do! You see within it not the reflection of yourself, for that would cause you to recoil in horror, ... you merely look upon your fleshly covering, a garment of tissues, shrinkable, perishable, and only fit to mingle with the dust from which it sprang. Your beauty! I see none of it,—I see You! and to me you are hideous, and will remain hideous for ever. I hate you!—I hate you with the bitterness of an immeasurable and unforgiving hatred,—for you have done me a wrong,—you have wrought an injury upon me,—you have added another burden to the load of punishment I carry!”
She made a forward movement with outstretched arms,—he repulsed her by a fierce gesture.
“Stand back!” he said—“Be afraid of me, as of an unknown Terror! O pitiless Heaven!—to think of it!—but a night ago I was lifted a step nearer to my lost delight!—and now this woman drags me back, and down!—and yet again I hear the barring of the gates of Paradise! O infinite torture! O wicked souls of men and women!—is there no touch of grace or thought of God left in you!—and will ye make my sorrows eternal!”
He stood, lifting his face to the light where it streamed through the oriel window, and the moonbeams colouring themselves faintly roseate as they filtered through the painted [p 364] garments of St Stephen, showed a great and terrible anguish in his eyes. I heard him with amazement and awe,—I could not imagine what he meant by his strange words,—and it was evident by her expression, that my reckless and abandoned wife was equally mystified.