One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
innocent, he shook that dreadful coat of his! He had displaced
the prophylactic cover of the scarf.
He drove them in a despair to speculate on the contention
between the perfume and the stench in junction, with such
a doubt of the victory of which of the two, as drags us to fear
our worst. It steals into our nostrils, possesses them. As the
History of Mankind has informed us, we were led up to our
civilization by the nose. But Philosophy warns us on that
eminence; to beware of trusting exclusively to our conductor,
lest the mind of us at least be plunged back into barbarism.
The ladies hated both the cause and the consequence,
they had a revulsion from the object, of the above contention.
But call it not a contention: there is nobility in that.
This was a compromise, a degrading union, with very sickening
results. Whether they came of an excess of the sprinkling,
could not well be guessed. The drenching at least was
righteously intended.
Beneath their shut eyelids, they felt more and more the
oppression of a darkness not laden with slumber. They saw
it insolidity; themselves as restless billows, driven dashing to
the despondent sigh. Sleep was denied them.
Tasso slept. He had sinned unknowingly, and that is not a
spiritual sin; the chastisement confers the pardon.
But why was this ineffable blessing denied to them? Was it
that they might have a survey of all the day’s deeds and examine
them under the cruel black beams of Insomnia?
Virginia said: ‘You are wakeful.’
‘Thoughtful,’ was the answer.
A century of the midnight rolled on.
Dorothea said: ‘He behaved very beautifully.’
‘I looked at the General’s portrait while he besought us,’
Virginia replied.
‘One sees him in Victor, at Victor’s age. Try to sleep.’
‘I do. I pray that you may.’
Silence courted slumber. Their interchange of speech from
the posture of bodies on their backs, had been low and deliberate,
in the tone of the vaults. Dead silence recalled the
strangeness of it. The night was breathless; their open window
a peril bestowing no boon. They were mutually haunted
by sound of the gloomy query at the nostrils of each when
drawing the vital breath. But for that, they thought they might
have slept.
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