It is many years now since I went South to visit my sister Helen. I had not seen her since the day of her marriage, three years before, till she met me at the door of her own home and welcomed me in her old sweet and quiet manner. It seemed to me, at the first glance, that her face had aged too much, and that a certain once fine expression—a suggestion of latent determination—had overdeveloped, and marked her with stern lines. From the first moment, too, I feared the existence of a trouble in her life, of which her letters had given no hint.
She seemed, though, cheerful enough. She led the way into a great room that was shaded and cool and full of the scent of lilacs. With a motion of her hand, she dismissed three or four black maids, whom she had been assisting or instructing at some sewing work, and they went out, courtesying and showing their white, even teeth at the door.
A fourth did not leave, but retired to a far end of the room and went on with the sewing. I noticed what a tiny garment she was making, and what a sharply cut silhouette her face made against the white curtain of the window by which she sat.
Helen chatted away, apologizing for her husband’s absence, asking a host of questions, and planning some pleasure for every one of the days of my stay with her. I lay back in my chair, with a feeling of languid content, and listened. When Helen suggested sleep and refreshment, I declined both, feeling no need of anything but her presence and that delicious room, the atmosphere of which was laden with rest as with the scent of the lilacs.
The black woman sat directly in the line of my vision, and I remember now that my gaze never strayed from her. I noticed, idly at first, then with interest, the regularity of her features and the grand proportions of her head and bust. Her hair, brownish in color, with dull copper tints, was as straight as my own, and she had a hand and arm so perfectly molded that, except for their black skin, they might have been those of a lady of high degree. But it was the pride, speaking from every line of that dark face, that most attracted my notice. There was in it, too, an exultant sense of power, and it was the most resolute face, black or white, that I ever saw.
Presently I began to feel that it required an effort to keep the thread of what Helen said, and to reply. Her voice seemed to get faint, then to come in snatches, with an indistinct murmur between them; at last, not at all, though I knew she was still speaking.
I was not unconscious, but perception was contracted and concentrated upon one abnormal effort. From me a narrow path of light stretched down the room to the black woman. She seemed to expand and to grow luminous; a vapor exhaled from her, floated to the middle of the pathway, and there assumed her own form, almost nude, perfect like her face in its every line, motionless as if carved from ebony, but with fierce, impure eyes that looked straight into mine and from which there seemed to be no escape.
Their gaze begot an overwhelming sense of disgust. My soul shuddered, but my body could not move. The evil face smiled. A cloud floated over the form of ebony, slowly passed away, revealing one like polished ivory, but the eyes changed not.
How long their gaze held me motionless and helpless I do not know. Suddenly, something white shut out the vision, and my sister’s voice, now harsh and loud, struck upon my hearing like a lash. Instantly the room assumed its ordinary appearance, the scent of the lilacs greeted me as if I had newly come into the atmosphere, and Helen, in her white dress, stood before me, trembling.
The negress at the window looked at us both with insolent amusement. It was to her that Helen spoke.