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.It was the path into thetower-top, the Bird Tower they called it: doves had been kept there once.Now Heros dwelled in theapartment, as if upon a rock in that desert of wasted corridors and rooms.The door was abruptly above her.On its timber, a falcon's mask in iron, and an iron ring.As she put her hand on it she realised the door would be locked fast.She would have to sit down underthe door-sill and await his return.But the door gave at a pressure on the ring, without even a resistance.That frightened her.She saw at once all her temerity in daring to invade the sanctum where no servant, nokindred, would enter unasked.Yet it was too late, for the chamber opened before her, all its mystery, its spell, for it was his. She stepped straight off the stair into the room.It seemed to her the cell of a scholar.The bed was narrow and low, with a footstool by it, and a plainchest.No evidence of luxury was in these things.But across the floor, beneath a high, round, glassedwindow, that showed only air, was a table laid with a feast of objects and books, with measures andglobes, the bones of hideous creatures mounted up as if they lived, weird instruments of.alchemy andscience.There, on that board, his interest and his commitment were spread.She knew immediately, and with thejealous pang of a rival.Between the table and the wall a three-paned triptych had been raised upon a stand.Peering over the items on the table, careful to dislodge nothing, Helise did not pay the painting muchattention.But then something in the angle of it, catching the window light against the shadow of the wall,caught her eye.It was his, of his choosing.She went to see.How strange then, these images after all, strange as anything maybe in the room, or stranger&In the first painted panel was a fang-like mountain side parting a ravenous sky.A procession of men andwomen had ascended, with livid torches; they stood like mindless things, staring into the clouds.Something with black wings was carrying off a young girl in white.From her lolling limbs and head therestreamed draperies and hair, and a wreath of flowers went tumbling earthwards.This ominous tableauwas titled in gilt: Nuptiae.In the second panel, the scene was a bedchamber by night, a vast couch where something lay asleep.Inthe foreground, holding back the curtains with one hand, and tilting in the other an antique, flaming lamp,a pale girl leaned forward, her slenderness rigid in lines of anxiety and expectation, endeavouring to see -This picture was labelled: Noli me spectare.Helise knew now what the triptych portrayed.It was the legend of Cupido and Psyche.The maiden hadbeen left as a sacrifice for a demon, and was accordingly carried off.In a mountain mansion, cared for byinvisible sprites, the girl was visited in deepest darkness by one who claimed to be her husband and lord.He was to her only the best of lovers, but warned her in the blindfold black: Never attempt to look onme.(Hence the two titles - Nuptiae, an ironical "marriage", and the second, perhaps perversely mimicking theinstruction of Christ: 'See me not.")But Psyche had been persuaded by desire and doubt to forget this ban.When he slept she lit a lamp, andso beheld her spouse.He was the god of love himself, handsome and perfect.And in her amazement, hershaking hand let drop a scorch of oil upon his shoulder.He woke, he disowned her, and into the unkindworld she was cast out lamenting.Helise glanced at the third picture.Yes, here was the banishment of Psyche following her transgression.And yet, it seemed to Helise that something in the vision was awry.What could it be?The title exclaimed, once more with apparent irony, Femina varium et mutabile semper.Her Latin wasrestricted, but this was a quotation she had heard before."Fickle woman is always changeable."And indeed, Psyche had altered from carnal curiosity to frenzied terror.She was depicted rushing down a winding granite stair, her arms flung out, her face ugly and contorted with screaming.All the rest of the small canvas conveyed pitchy nothingness - but for one curiouswhorling hint of motion, seeming to come on behind her, somewhat like a flock of birds -The door of the tower room shut in a hollow clap."You are here with reason?"Helise darted about, guilty as a robber, almost afraid as one."I came to ask of you - ' But no, she had not come to ask.He stood before the closed door.His doublet and hose were the colour ice, his hair nearly whiter.Hisface appalled her, it was so fair, so inhuman.It occurred to her to throw herself on the floor at his feet.She did not do it.Etiquette, which had chainedher to a life of slavish unhappiness also prevented such servile extremes."Didn't they tell you, Helise, never to meddle with my possessions?""I've touched nothing - I was so careful - '"Why are you here?"She was too frightened even to cry.She loved him.But who? This god of ice and snow?"My lord," she said, in a little voice.Then, "Oh help me! Everywhere they accuse me - I didn't knowwhat I must do.""Who accuses you? What are you talking of?""Your mother, the lady - that old woman.I see - I don't please you - but I'd suffer anything - onlyeducate me, my Lord Heros - '"Crucifixion of Christ," he said.The partial blasphemy checked her.She bowed her head and now tears streamed from her eyes.Useless: he would not comfort her.Presently he moved across the room and going to the table, ran his hands recklessly, as she had not hadlicence to do, over all the compendium of scales and jars, parchments, mummies, vertebrae.It was evenviolent, this sweeping, for one of the wired skeletons gave way when his fingers encountered it.At that hetook the horror up and threw it across the room.It smashed to powder on a wall.But when he spoke, his voice had no edge or noise."I believe they must have asked you, Helise, if you're with child."Something gave way within her."Yes, my lord.""And naturally, you're not [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.It was the path into thetower-top, the Bird Tower they called it: doves had been kept there once.Now Heros dwelled in theapartment, as if upon a rock in that desert of wasted corridors and rooms.The door was abruptly above her.On its timber, a falcon's mask in iron, and an iron ring.As she put her hand on it she realised the door would be locked fast.She would have to sit down underthe door-sill and await his return.But the door gave at a pressure on the ring, without even a resistance.That frightened her.She saw at once all her temerity in daring to invade the sanctum where no servant, nokindred, would enter unasked.Yet it was too late, for the chamber opened before her, all its mystery, its spell, for it was his. She stepped straight off the stair into the room.It seemed to her the cell of a scholar.The bed was narrow and low, with a footstool by it, and a plainchest.No evidence of luxury was in these things.But across the floor, beneath a high, round, glassedwindow, that showed only air, was a table laid with a feast of objects and books, with measures andglobes, the bones of hideous creatures mounted up as if they lived, weird instruments of.alchemy andscience.There, on that board, his interest and his commitment were spread.She knew immediately, and with thejealous pang of a rival.Between the table and the wall a three-paned triptych had been raised upon a stand.Peering over the items on the table, careful to dislodge nothing, Helise did not pay the painting muchattention.But then something in the angle of it, catching the window light against the shadow of the wall,caught her eye.It was his, of his choosing.She went to see.How strange then, these images after all, strange as anything maybe in the room, or stranger&In the first painted panel was a fang-like mountain side parting a ravenous sky.A procession of men andwomen had ascended, with livid torches; they stood like mindless things, staring into the clouds.Something with black wings was carrying off a young girl in white.From her lolling limbs and head therestreamed draperies and hair, and a wreath of flowers went tumbling earthwards.This ominous tableauwas titled in gilt: Nuptiae.In the second panel, the scene was a bedchamber by night, a vast couch where something lay asleep.Inthe foreground, holding back the curtains with one hand, and tilting in the other an antique, flaming lamp,a pale girl leaned forward, her slenderness rigid in lines of anxiety and expectation, endeavouring to see -This picture was labelled: Noli me spectare.Helise knew now what the triptych portrayed.It was the legend of Cupido and Psyche.The maiden hadbeen left as a sacrifice for a demon, and was accordingly carried off.In a mountain mansion, cared for byinvisible sprites, the girl was visited in deepest darkness by one who claimed to be her husband and lord.He was to her only the best of lovers, but warned her in the blindfold black: Never attempt to look onme.(Hence the two titles - Nuptiae, an ironical "marriage", and the second, perhaps perversely mimicking theinstruction of Christ: 'See me not.")But Psyche had been persuaded by desire and doubt to forget this ban.When he slept she lit a lamp, andso beheld her spouse.He was the god of love himself, handsome and perfect.And in her amazement, hershaking hand let drop a scorch of oil upon his shoulder.He woke, he disowned her, and into the unkindworld she was cast out lamenting.Helise glanced at the third picture.Yes, here was the banishment of Psyche following her transgression.And yet, it seemed to Helise that something in the vision was awry.What could it be?The title exclaimed, once more with apparent irony, Femina varium et mutabile semper.Her Latin wasrestricted, but this was a quotation she had heard before."Fickle woman is always changeable."And indeed, Psyche had altered from carnal curiosity to frenzied terror.She was depicted rushing down a winding granite stair, her arms flung out, her face ugly and contorted with screaming.All the rest of the small canvas conveyed pitchy nothingness - but for one curiouswhorling hint of motion, seeming to come on behind her, somewhat like a flock of birds -The door of the tower room shut in a hollow clap."You are here with reason?"Helise darted about, guilty as a robber, almost afraid as one."I came to ask of you - ' But no, she had not come to ask.He stood before the closed door.His doublet and hose were the colour ice, his hair nearly whiter.Hisface appalled her, it was so fair, so inhuman.It occurred to her to throw herself on the floor at his feet.She did not do it.Etiquette, which had chainedher to a life of slavish unhappiness also prevented such servile extremes."Didn't they tell you, Helise, never to meddle with my possessions?""I've touched nothing - I was so careful - '"Why are you here?"She was too frightened even to cry.She loved him.But who? This god of ice and snow?"My lord," she said, in a little voice.Then, "Oh help me! Everywhere they accuse me - I didn't knowwhat I must do.""Who accuses you? What are you talking of?""Your mother, the lady - that old woman.I see - I don't please you - but I'd suffer anything - onlyeducate me, my Lord Heros - '"Crucifixion of Christ," he said.The partial blasphemy checked her.She bowed her head and now tears streamed from her eyes.Useless: he would not comfort her.Presently he moved across the room and going to the table, ran his hands recklessly, as she had not hadlicence to do, over all the compendium of scales and jars, parchments, mummies, vertebrae.It was evenviolent, this sweeping, for one of the wired skeletons gave way when his fingers encountered it.At that hetook the horror up and threw it across the room.It smashed to powder on a wall.But when he spoke, his voice had no edge or noise."I believe they must have asked you, Helise, if you're with child."Something gave way within her."Yes, my lord.""And naturally, you're not [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]