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Page 56
This was another matter! Nevertheless,--so subtle is the boundary
between love human and divine,--Gnulemah in these first passionate
moments may easily have deemed the one no less sublime than the other.
But there was no danger of Balder's falling into such an error. The
distinction was clear to him. Yet with remorse and abasement strove
the defiant impulse to pluck and eat--forgetful of this world and the
next the royal fruit so fairly held to his lips! For herein fails the
divinity of nature,--she can minister as well to man's depravity as to
his exaltation; which could not happen were she one with God. Nay,
man had need be strong with Divine inspiration, before communing
unharmed with nature's dangerous loveliness.
His hand in Gnulemah's was now neither cold nor lax. She raised it in
impetuous homage to her forehead. The diamond left a mark there; first
white, then red. For a breath or two, their eyes saw depths in each
other beyond words' fathoming....
A door was closed above; and the echo stole down stairs and crept with
a hollow whisper into the conservatory. The little lord chamberlain
fluttered down from his lofty perch and hovered between the two faces,
his penetrating note sounding like a warning, Gnulemah drew back, and
a swift blush let fall its rosy veil from the golden gleam of her
jewelled forehead-band to below the head of the serpent which twisted
round her neck.
One parting look she gave Balder, pregnant of new wonder, fear, and
joy. Then she turned and glided with quick ophidian grace to the
doorway from which she had first appeared, and was eclipsed by the
curtain. The inner door shut; she was gone. Dull, dull and colorless
was the conservatory. The hoopoe had flown out through the hall to the
open air. Only the crocodile continued to keep Balder company.
After standing a few moments, he once more threw himself down on the
moss couch beneath the palm-trees. There he reclined as before,
supported on his elbow, and turned the diamond ring this way and that
on his finger in moody preoccupation.
Was the crocodile asleep, or stealthily watching him?
XIX.
BEFORE SUNDOWN.
If Balder Helwyse had been in a vein for self-criticism at this
juncture, the review might probably have dissatisfied him. He
possessed qualities which make men great. He could have discharged
august offices, for he saw things in large relations and yet minutely.
His mind and courage could rise to any enterprise, and carry it with
ease and cheerfully. His nature was even more receptive than active.
He had force of thought to electrify nations.
But his was the old story of the star-gazer walking into the well, who
might have studied the stars in the well, but could not be warned of
the well by the stars. He had whistled grand chances down the wind,
reaching after what was superhuman. His hunger had been vast, but the
food wherewith he had filled himself nourished him not, and suddenly
he had collapsed. His first actual step towards realizing his lofty
aspirations had landed him low amongst earth's common criminals,--nor
had the harm stopped there. That defiant impulse to which he had just
now been on the point of yielding had not dared so much as to have
shown its face before his unvitiated will. He was disorganized and at
the mercy of events, because without law sufficient to keep and guide
himself.
Though fallen, there was in him somewhat giant-like, perhaps easier to
see now than before,--as the ruin seems vaster than the perfect
building. The travail of a soul like Balder's must issue greatly,
whether for good or ill. He could not remain long inchoate, but the
elements would combine to make something either darker or fairer than
had been before. Meanwhile, in the uncrystallized solution the curious
analyst might detect traits bright or sinister, ordinarily invisible.
Here were softness, impetuosity, romantic imagination, and tender
fire, enough to set up half a dozen poets. Again, there was a fund of
malignity, coldness, and subtlety adequate to the making an Iago.
Here, too, were the clear sceptical intellect, the fertility and
versatile power of brain, which only the loftier minds of the world
have shown.
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