Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (220 page)

January
13.

Perhaps
it
would
have
been
wiser
after
all
if
I
had
packed
away the
mirror.
I
had
an
extraordinary
experience
with
it
last
night.

And
yet
I
find
it
so
interesting,
so
fascinating,
that
even
now
I
will keep
it
in
its
place.
What
on
earth
is
the
meaning
of
it
all?

I
suppose
it
was
about
one
in
the
morning,
and
I
was
closing my
books
preparatory
to
staggering
off
to
bed,
when
I
saw
her
there in
front
of
me.
The
stage
of
mistiness
and
development
must
have passed
unobserved,
and
there
she
was
in
all
her
beauty
and
passion
and distress,
as
clear-cut
as
if
she
were
really
in
the
flesh
before
me.
The figure
was
small,
but
very
distinct—so
much
so
that
every
feature, and
every
detail
of
dress,
are
stamped
in
my
memory.
She
is
seated on
the
extreme
left
of
the
mirror.
A
sort
of
shadowy
figure
crouches down
beside
her—I
can
dimly
discern
that
it
is
a
man—and
then behind
them
is
cloud,
in
which
I
see
figures—figures
which
move.
It
is not
a
mere
picture
upon
which
I
look.
It
is
a
scene
in
life,
an
actual episode.
She
crouches
and
quivers.
The
man
beside
her
cowers down.
The
vague
figures
make
abrupt
movements
and
gestures.
All
my fears
were
swallowed
up
in
my
interest.
It
was
maddening
to
see so
much
and
not
to
see
more.

But
I
can
at
least
describe
the
woman
to
the
smallest
point.
She is
very
beautiful
and
quite
young—not
more
than
five-and-twenty, I
should
judge.
Her
hair
is
of
a
very
rich
brown,
with
a
warm
chestnut shade
fining
into
gold
at
the
edges.
A
little
flat-pointed
cap
comes to
an
angle
in
front
and
is
made
of
lace
edged
with
pearls.
The forehead
is
high,
too
high
perhaps
for
perfect
beauty;
but
one
would not
have
it
otherwise,
as
it
gives
a
touch
of
power
and
strength
to what
would
otherwise
be
a
softly
feminine
face.
The
brows
are
most delicately
curved
over
heavy
eyelids,
and
then
come
those
wonderful eyes—so
large,
so
dark,
so
full
of
overmastering
emotion,
of
rage
and horror,
contending
with
a
pride
of
self-control
which
holds
her from
sheer
frenzy!
The
cheeks
are
pale,
the
lips
white
with
agony, the
chin
and
throat
most
exquisitely
rounded.
The
figure
sits
and leans
forward
in
the
chair,
straining
and
rigid,
cataleptic
with
horror. The
dress
is
black
velvet,
a
jewel
gleams
like
a
flame
in
the
breast, and
a
golden
crucifix
smoulders
in
the
shadow
of
a
fold.
This
is
the lady
whose
image
still
lives
in
the
old
silver
mirror.
What
dire
deed could
it
be
which
has
left
its
impress
there,
so
that
now,
in
another age,
if
the
spirit
of
a
man
be
but
worn
down
to
it,
he
may
be
conscious
of
its
presence?