Page 186
She was sitting alone, artfully dressed in her fashionable clothes, her satin bodice very tight and graceful, her ornate skirts huge, and her lovely white face framed by her natural brown hair drawn back and up in a fancy style with rubies and diamonds.
I leant against the clavichord, smiling benevolently at the musician who played it with such skill, and then I turned to gaze at her.
How sad was her expression, how remote, how unutterably beautiful.
Was she watching the colors of the room as I watched them? Did she feel the same gentle love for mortals which I felt? What would she do when she realized I was watching her?
I didn't know. I was afraid. I couldn't know anything until I heard the sound of her voice. I continued to look. I continued to savor this moment of bliss and safety.
Suddenly, she saw me. She picked me out of the hundreds of faces. Her eyes fixed on me, and I saw the blood rush into her beautiful cheeks and her mouth opened to speak the name Marius.
I heard it over the thin sweet music.
I raised my fingers to my lips, just as Bianca had done only a little while ago, and I blew a kiss to her.
How sad and happy at once she seemed, her mouth opened in a half smile as she gazed at me. She seemed as frozen in her place as I was.
But this was intolerable. What were these volumes of silence which divided us!
Quickly I crossed the dance floor and bowed before her. I lifted her cold white hand, and led her out and into the dance, and would take no resistance from her.
"No, you're mine, you're mine, do you hear?" I whispered. "Don't pull away from me. "
"Marius, I fear him and he is strong," she whispered in my ear. "I must explain to him that we've found each other. "
"I don't fear him. Besides he knows. What does it matter?"
We were dancing as if we said no such things to one another. I held her tight and kissed her cheeks. I didn't care what the mortals around us might think of this impropriety. How very absurd was the whole notion.
"Pandora, my blessed love, if only you could know how long I've waited. What use is it to tell you now that from the very beginning I have missed you in pure agony? Pandora, listen to me, don't close your eyes, don't look away. I knew within the year, the very year, that I had made a dreadful error!"
I realized that I was turning her too violently: I was pressing her hand too hard. I had lost the cadence of the dance. The music was a strange shrill noise in my ears. I had lost control of everything.
She pulled back to look into my eyes. "Take me out on the pavilion," she said. "We can talk in the river breeze. The music makes me dizzy. " Immediately I led her through a huge pair of doors and we found ourselves on a stone bench overlooking the river.
I shall never forget how clear it was that night, how much the stars seemed in my favor, and how brilliant the light of the moon on the Elbe. All around us were pots of flowers, and other couples or groups of mortals who had come to gain a little air before returning to the ballroom.
But in the main we had the shadows to ourselves and I gave way to kissing her. I felt her perfect cheeks beneath my lips. I kissed her throat. I felt her brown hair with its tight waves, which I had so often painted on my wild nymphs as they ran through my thick gardens. I wanted to pull it loose.
"Don't leave me again," I said. "No matter what is said between us tonight. Don't leave me. "
"Marius, it was you who left me," she said, and I heard a tremor in her voice which frightened me. "Marius, that was so long ago," she said sadly. "Marius, I wandered so far and wide searching for you. "
"Yes, yes, I admit to all," I said. "I admit to every error. How could I guess what it meant to break the tie? Pandora, I didn't know! Yea gods, I didn't know! Believe me, I didn't know. Tell me you will leave this creature, Arjun, and come back to me. Pandora, I want nothing short of this! I can't make pretty words. I can't recite old poems.
Pand
ora, look at me. "
"I am looking at you!" she declared. "Don't you see, you blind me! Marius, don't think I too haven't dreamt of this reunion. And now you see me in this shame, this weakness. "
"What? I don't care! What shame and weakness?"
"That I'm a slave to my companion, Arjun, that I let him move me through the world, that on my own, I possess no will, no momentum. Marius, I am nothing now. "
"No, that's not true, and besides it doesn't matter. I'll free you from Arjun. I have no fear of him whatsoever, and then you'll be with me and all your old spirit will come back to you. "
"You dream," she said and the first coldness came into her face and into her voice. It was in her brown eyes, a coldness that comes from sorrow.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186 (Reading here)
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203