Hermine Is In Hell.
As a marionette whose thread the operator has let go for a moment wakes to new life after a brief paralysis of death and coma and once more plays its lively part, so did I at this jerk of the magic thread throw myself with the elasticity and eagerness of youth into the tumult from which I had just retreated in the listlessness and weariness of elderly years. Never did sinner show more haste to get to hell. A moment before my patent-leather shoes had galled me, the heavily scented air disgusted me, and the heat undone me. Now on my winged feet I nimbly one-stepped through every room on the way to hell. The very air had a charm. The warmth embedded me and wafted me on, and so no less did the riotous music, the intoxication of colours, the perfume of women’s shoulders, the clamour of the hundred tongues, the laughter, the rhythm of the dance, and the glances of all the kindled eyes. A Spanish dancing girl flung herself into my arms: “Dance with me!” “Can’t,” said I. “I’m bound for hell. But I’ll gladly take a kiss with me.” The red mouth beneath the mask met mine and with the kiss I recognised Maria. I caught her tight in my arms and like a June rose bloomed her full lips. By this time we were dancing, our lips still joined. Past Pablo we danced, who hung like a lover over his softly wailing instrument. Those lovely animal eyes embraced us with their half-abstracted radiance. But before we had gone twenty steps the music broke off and regretfully I let go of Maria.
“I’d have loved to have danced with you again,” I said, intoxicated with her warmth. “Come with me a step or two, Maria. I’m in love with your beautiful arm. Let me have it a moment longer! But, you see, Hermine has summoned me. She is in hell.”
“I thought so. Farewell, Harry. I won’t forget you.” She left me—left me indeed. Yes, it was autumn, it was fate, that had given the summer rose so full and ripe a scent.
On I went through the long corridors, luxuriously thronged, and down the stairs to hell. There, on pitch-black walls shone wicked garish lights, and the orchestra of devils was playing feverishly. On a high stool at the bar there was seated a pretty young fellow without a mask and in evening dress who scrutinised me with a cursory and mocking glance. Pressed to the wall by the swirl of dancers—about twenty couples were dancing in this very confined space—I examined all the women with eager suspense. Most were still in masks and smiled at me, but none was Hermine. The handsome youth on the high stool glanced mockingly at me. At the next pause, thought I, she will come and summon me. The dance ended but no one came.
I went over to the bar which was squeezed into a corner of the small and low room, and taking a seat near the young man ordered a whisky. While I drank it I saw his profile. It had a familiar charm, like a picture from long ago, precious for the very dust that has settled on it from the past. Oh, then it flashed through me. It was Herman, the friend of my youth.
“Herman!” I stammered.
She smiled. “Harry? Have you found me?”
It was Hermine, barely disguised by the makeup of her hair and a little paint. The stylish collar gave an unfamiliar look to the pallor of her intelligent face, the wide black sleeves of her dress-coat and the white cuffs made her hands look curiously small, and the long black trousers gave a curious elegance to her feet in their black and white silk socks.
“Is this the costume, Hermine, in which you mean to make me fall in love with you?”
“So far,” she said, “I have contented myself with turning the heads of the ladies. But now your turn has come. First, let’s have a glass of champagne.”
So we did, perched on our stools, while the dance went on around us to the lively and fevered strain of the strings. And without Hermine appearing to give herself the least trouble I was very soon in love with her. As she was dressed as a boy, I could not dance with her nor allow myself any tender advances, and while she seemed distant and neutral in her male mask, her looks and words and gestures encircled me with all her feminine charm. Without so much as having touched her I surrendered to her spell, and this spell itself kept within the part she played. It was the spell of a hermaphrodite. For she talked to me about Herman and about childhood, mine and her own, and about those years of childhood when the capacity for love, in its first youth, embraces not only both sexes, but all and everything, sensuous and spiritual, and endows all things with a spell of love and a fairy-like ease of transformation such as in later years comes again only to a chosen few and to poets, and to them rarely. Throughout she kept up the part of a young man, smoking cigarettes and talking with a spirited ease that often had a little mockery in it; and yet it was all iridescent with the rays of desire and transformed, as it reached my senses, into a charming seduction.
How well and thoroughly I thought I knew Hermine, and yet what a completely new revelation of herself she opened up to me that night! How gently and inconspicuously she cast the net I longed for around me, and how playfully and how like a pixie she gave the sweet poison to drink!
We sat and talked and drank champagne. We strolled through the rooms and looked about us. We went on voyages of exploration to discover couples whose lovemaking it amused us to spy upon. She pointed out women whom
