Lilith
Lilith
Lilith
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I stood silent: she had struck me dumb with beauty; she held me dumb with sweetness.<br />
Taking me by the hand, she drew me to the spot of light, and again flashed upon me. An instant she stood<br />
there.<br />
"You have grown brown since last I saw you," she said.<br />
"This is almost the first roof I have been under since you left me," I replied.<br />
"Whose was the other?" she rejoined.<br />
"I do not know the woman's name."<br />
"I would gladly learn it! The instinct of hospitality is not strong in my people!" She took me again by the<br />
hand, and led me through the darkness many steps to a curtain of black. Beyond it was a white stair, up which<br />
she conducted me to a beautiful chamber.<br />
"How you must miss the hot flowing river!" she said. "But there is a bath in the corner with no white leeches<br />
in it! At the foot of your couch you will find a garment. When you come down, I shall be in the room to your<br />
left at the foot of the stair."<br />
I stood as she left me, accusing my presumption: how was I to treat this lovely woman as a thing of evil, who<br />
behaved to me like a sister?−−Whence the marvellous change in her? She left me with a blow; she received<br />
me almost with an embrace! She had reviled me; she said she knew I would follow and find her! Did she<br />
know my doubts concerning her−−how much I should want explained? COULD she explain all? Could I<br />
believe her if she did? As to her hospitality, I had surely earned and might accept that−−at least until I came<br />
to a definite judgment concerning her!<br />
Could such beauty as I saw, and such wickedness as I suspected, exist in the same person? If they could,<br />
HOW was it possible? Unable to answer the former question, I must let the latter wait!<br />
<strong>Lilith</strong><br />
Clear as crystal, the water in the great white bath sent a sparkling flash from the corner where it lay sunk in<br />
the marble floor, and seemed to invite me to its embrace. Except the hot stream, two draughts in the cottage<br />
of the veiled woman, and the pools in the track of the wounded leopardess, I had not seen water since leaving<br />
home: it looked a thing celestial. I plunged in.<br />
Immediately my brain was filled with an odour strange and delicate, which yet I did not altogether like. It<br />
made me doubt the princess afresh: had she medicated it? had she enchanted it? was she in any way working<br />
on me unlawfully? And how was there water in the palace, and not a drop in the city? I remembered the<br />
crushed paw of the leopardess, and sprang from the bath.<br />
What had I been bathing in? Again I saw the fleeing mother, again I heard the howl, again I saw the limping<br />
beast. But what matter whence it flowed? was not the water sweet? Was it not very water the pitcher−plant<br />
secreted from its heart, and stored for the weary traveller? Water came from heaven: what mattered the well<br />
where it gathered, or the spring whence it burst? But I did not re−enter the bath.<br />
I put on the robe of white wool, embroidered on the neck and hem, that lay ready for me, and went down the<br />
stair to the room whither my hostess had directed me. It was round, all of alabaster, and without a single<br />
window: the light came through everywhere, a soft, pearly shimmer rather than shine. Vague shadowy forms<br />
went flitting about over the walls and low dome, like loose rain−clouds over a grey−blue sky.<br />
<strong>Lilith</strong> 82