Meanwhile, everything remained as before—shrouded in mystery. Being doubly haunted now, by the Duke's victims and by those earlier ones, the cave fell into greater neglect than ever. Simple folk avoided speaking of the place save in a hushed whisper. It became a proverb among the islanders when speaking of something outrageously improbable: "Don't tell me! Such things only happen in the Cave of Mercury." When someone disappeared from his house or hotel without leaving any trace behind—it happened now and then—or when anything disreputable happened to anyone, they always said "Try the Cave," or simply "Try Mercury." The path had crumbled away long ago. Nobody went there, except in broad daylight. It was as safe a place as you could desire, at night-time, for a murder or a love-affair. Such was the Cave of Mercury.
Denis had gone to the spot one morning not long after his arrival. He had climbed down the slippery stairs through that dank couloir or funnel in the rock overhung with drooping maidenhair and ivy and umbrageous carobs. He had rested on the little platform outside the cavern's vineyard far below, and upwards, at the narrow ribbon of sky overhead. Then he had gone within, to examine what was left of the old masonry, the phallic column and other relics of the past. That was ten days ago. Now he meant to follow Keith's advice and go there at midnight. The moon was full.
"This very night I'll go," he thought.
All was not well with Denis. And the worst of it was, he had no clear notion of what was the matter. He was changing. The world was changing too. It had suddenly expanded. He felt that he, also, ought to expand. There was so much to learn, to see, to know—so much, that it seemed to paralyse his initiative. Could he absorb all this? Would he ever get things in order once more, and recapture his self-possession? Would he ever again be satisfied with himself? It was an invasion of his tranquillity, from within and without. He was restless. Bright ideas never came to him, as of old; or else they were the ideas of other people. A miserable state of affairs! He was becoming an automaton—an echo.
An echo…. How right Keith had been!
"It's rotten," he concluded. "I'm a ludicrous figure, a pathetic idiot."
The novel impressions of Florence had helped in the disintegration. Nepenthe—it's sunshine, its relentless paganism—had done the rest. It shattered his earlier outlook and gave him nothing in exchange. Nothing, and yet everything. That vision of Angelina! It filled his inner being with luxurious content; content and uncertainty. It was there, at the back of every dream, of every intimate thought and every little worldly phrase that he uttered. He was like a man who, looking long at the sun, sees its image floating in heaven, on earth—wherever he casts his eye. Angelina! Nothing else was of any account. How would it all end? He drifted along in blissful apprehension of what the next day might bring. She seemed to have become genuinely well-disposed towards him of late, though in rather a mocking, maternal sort of fashion.
The poetic vein had definitely run dry. Impossible to make things rhyme, somehow. Perhaps his passion was too strong for technical restraints. He tried his hand at prose:
"Your eyes bewilder me. I would liken you to a shaft of sunlight, a withering flame—a black flame, if such there be—for your grace and ardour is even as a flame. Your step is laughter and song. Your hair is a torrent of starless night. The sun is your lover, you god. He takes joy in your perfection. Your slender body palpitates with his imprisoned beams. He has moulded your limbs and kissed your smooth skin in the days when you … nevermore will you whiten those kisses…."
"It won't do," he sadly reflected, laying down the pen. "The adaptation is too palpable. Why does everybody anticipate my ideas? The fact is, I have nothing to say. I can only feel. Everything went right, so long as I was in love with myself. Now everything goes wrong."