Many a fair woman have I seen in my life; but, at her sight, I overflowed with admiration. As soon as I beheld her, I had a desire to laugh aloud, and kneel down, and thank her for that she was so marvellously fair.
All that had hitherto fascinated me now seemed to be effete and colourless. I would never have believed that any being so majestical, so like a classical antique, so royally more than beautiful, could exist in the real world. All there was of pure nature in her was—that she lived; the rest appeared like a masterpiece of painting, of sculpture, of poetry. She was indeed fairer than anything in nature—whether in the azure heavens, or in the meadows, or in the forests—fairer than a Midsummer night!
She kissed Gina as she went forward to welcome her. To me she gave her hand only, with a courteous but frigid mien. Her eyes, looking into mine, expressed distrust and scrutiny, though she strove to appear icily serene.
The other woman present belonged without question to “good society”; a pleasant, handsome, dreamy blonde. Radlowski, when he introduced us to each other, artfully found means to avoid uttering her name. She was one of the irréprochables, come here incognito. All the men were already known to me by name: two painters, a few literary men, and a poet. Like Emma, they too had unnaturally dilated pupils; Radlowski, Gina, and the irreproachable unknown lady were all alike in this respect.
On making acquaintance with these people, I remarked, not without a pleasant surprise, that all the collars were immaculate, and none turned down; that not one tie was eccentric, not one head of hair superabundant. On the contrary, their dress was in good taste, their behaviour unaffected, their bearing quietly refined. Seen in the midst of this company, Emma was a far greater anachronism—twice as striking, twice as fantastic.
They all speak under their breath; no one contradicts, no one is excited. There is no general conversation, only a few utterances here and there. They talk neither of literature, nor of painting; life, and the present day, is all they speak of. They hold discourse about frivolous or ordinary matters, with elaborate elegance; and their fashion of taking things, their tone and temper, shows at once what manner of men they are. They are of those who have now left behind them the Past—the stress and storm of finally triumphant Decadentism—and have arrived at some sort of fragmentary synthesis, which they have set up as their standard. Their mental equilibrium has bestowed upon them an amazing excellence of form, a philosophical calm in their way of looking upon the world, and an ecstatic cult of life, which, from their standpoint, becomes all but synonymous with the Beautiful. They are all characterized by great enlightenment, mental distinction, contempt for all unsightly mediocrity, picturesque in their life, and a moderation inexpressibly artistic and reposeful—something like the Greek soul.
One of the painters exclaimed: “I should like to remind Emma of the promise she made us last night, which was so gratifying to us all.”
“Ah, yes: we are all expectant.”
“Emma is something of a littérateur, and writes poetry,” a slender fair-haired young man beside me explained.
An exception to the universal custom took place. She made no bashful excuses.
“As you like,” she said.
With exquisite grace in every movement, she rose from the sofa, and traversed the studio slowly, that we might feast our enchanted eyes on the spectacle of that fairy-like beauty.
Enamoured, not unlike Narcissus, of her own goodly form, and radiant with her lofty queenlike head, her shoulders moulded as perfectly as a Greek statue, her cream-hued limbs just visible beneath the clinging tissue that she wore—she came to a standstill opposite me. With a motion as harmoniously entrancing as a strain of music, she adjusted the golden fillet on her superbly chiselled Pagan brow, and began her recitation:
“She is in love, the Ice-Queen—charmed and spellbound;
Strings of cold pearls fall from her iced cascades;
Flowers in her frozen cisterns weirdly blossom;
Flowers in her chilly grottoes flame like gold.“I have this night guessed the stars’ Runic riddle: …
There, on the verdant banks of Life—alas!
Some one hath rent in twain the shroud sepulchral. …
Under that shroud sepulchral Sleep lies dead.“Why should I yearn impatient for the morning,
Since it is writ that I expire at dawn?
Oh—for my heart distraught still loves Life madly—
I will my true love call to me today!“Come to me, dear one! greet me, but in silence,
Lest thou shouldst wake sad Memory’s sleeping ghosts;
Quietly let them down, the ice-cold curtains:
Quietly draw the silken veils aside.“Come to my tent, though dark it is around us:
Fear not; the stars are twinkling soft above;
(Fain would my wings of silver soar to join them!):
Cover thine eyes, love, from the dread black night!“Wilt thou two clusters—grapes with warm blood swelling?
Lay twixt my breasts, O lay thy golden head!
Me let thine arms, mighty with youth’s keen transport,
Clasp in embraces like the serpent’s coil.“Here is no skiey vault unfathomable;
Here are no stars that gleam athwart the blue.—
They are a silken tent, my silky tresses;
Stars, too, shine bright:—naught but mine eyes are they!“Take thou my blood, take all that is my being:
Give me my memories, my sleep of yore!—
I had a dream that froze my founts of gladness—
I had a dream, … dim ghosts with muffled sobs!“Dreams are but dreams!—Seest thou the sun’s red circle;
Huge, tinged with gore o’ the early dawn?—Thy lips—
Oh, how I love them—they are crimson roses,
Roses of kingly purple, … and are mine!“Broken my wings are: at thy feet I lay them
(Soaring aloft i’ the airy void, they broke):
Oh, how I love thee! Thou’rt a golden garland
Glinting resplendent in my
