{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69430/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69430","id":"gutenberg_69430","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69430","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Historical Novels","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Charleston (S.C.) -- Fiction","Fantasy fiction","Happiness -- Fiction","Mothers and daughters -- Fiction","Soul -- Fiction"],"text":"MADAME MARGOT\n\n\n\n\n  MADAME MARGOT\n\n  _A Grotesque Legend\n  of Old Charleston_\n\n  BY\n\n  JOHN BENNETT\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  NEW YORK\n  THE CENTURY CO.\n  1921\n\n\n\n\n  Copyright, 1921, by\n  JOHN BENNETT\n\n  Printed in U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n  TO\n\n  ... You, and you, and you,\n  ... who have gone greatly here\n  In friendship, making some delight, some true\n  Song in the dark, some story against fear.\n\n  ... Lovers yet shall tell the nightingale\n  Sometimes a song that we of old time made,\n  And gossips gathered at the twilight ale\n  Shall say, \u201cThose two were friends,\u201d or \u201cUnafraid\n  Of bitter thoughts were those because they loved\n  Better than most.\u201d\n\n  ... There in the midst of all those words shall be\n  Our names, our ghosts, our immortality.\n\n                                  --JOHN DRINKWATER.\n\n  _The above is reprinted by permission of the publishers._\n\n\n\n\nMADAME MARGOT\n\n\n\n\nMADAME MARGOT\n\n\nIn an age so glorious, so rich and fine, and so be-starred with\nsplendor that one almost forgets the bottomless abyss into which it\nplunged at last, there lived a woman in Charleston of whom a very odd\nstory is told.\n\nThe languid, lovely, tired old town was then a city brave and gay, with\nMediterranean manners and Caribbean ways.\n\nThe perfume of ten thousand flowers drifted upon the winds, which came\nand went over a thousand gardens, ebbing and flowing like the tide.\n\nClouds of snowy gold and roses rolled across the sky, like the vast\nrotundas of a city builded of colored ivory. Slowly rising overhead, in\nwindy and ethereal masses, they stood, carvings of pale porphyry upon a\nturquoise wall. The earth was transfigured with beauty.\n\nIt was a golden age, when all things were fair; nothing had grown\nold; even the tragic and the terrible were comely then. Wonder lay\non everything. Merely to exist was to be happy. It was a world of\nunextinguished youth; life was brimful to the lips with delight.\n\nIn the gardens rare flowers bloomed, and rare fruits\nripened,--pomegranates, oranges, medlars, figs, jujubes, and the purple\nIndian peach; and among the flowers, like winged flames, small and\nbright, sped the harlequins, the painted nonpareils, delicately beating\nthe soft wind with their pied wings; while in the pomegranate-tree,\namong the dull bronze fruit, the mocking-bird sang his love and\nrapture. Through the green-hedged close, women, beautiful and stately,\npaced the shade, with men beside them, slender and straight, passionate\nand haughty, with fierce, bright eyes as ardent as the goshawk\u2019s and\nas bold; and lovely girls, with dark hair and skins of alabaster, as\ngraceful and as timid as fawns, and with fawn\u2019s eyes, slipped among the\ngreen leaves like flowers alive.\n\nThose were charmed days indeed. The town has changed since then. The\nworld seems to have grown weary and gray, and the hearts of men bitter.\nThe young were younger then; the old not so sorry for everything as\nthey have been since. Then, somehow, it seemed to be always summer\nmorning, morning before the sun had burned the world to a dun crisp\nwith his meridian heat, scorching bitter and blinding bright; before\nthe advent of gasping afternoon with its languid leafage and evaporated\nsap. The calendar seemed to have paused among the daffodils, between\nthe jessamine and the June, in that paradise of the year. The delicate\nand virginal camellia bloomed then, untarnished by rough wind or rain;\nits petals were sweet, which since then have grown so bitter. The\nelm-trees did not then bloom thrice for one green coat. And no one ever\npaused to think that no good and lovely thing exists on earth without\nits corresponding shadow.\n\nThe world was full of the sound of sweet, flute-like voices of young\nwomen calling after their lovers; and the singing of small birds made\nslender, pleasant melodies among the cool myrtles. Life was simpler;\nperhaps more child-like though more passionate. Two who loved each\nother might walk together, hand in hand, along the path, singing their\nhappiness, without reproach, save, perchance, from some lugubrious,\ngray-bearded presbyter mourning, among mossy tombstones, life\u2019s\nevanescence.\n\nAnd happy youth was without a fault, unless it were a trivial one,\nsome _p\u00e9ch\u00e9 mignon_, a guileless, guiltless, girlish sin, like kissing\noneself in the looking-glass for lack of another lover.\n\nIn all the town there were none so pretty, none so graceful or so\nsweet, as the golden girls of San Domingo. They flowed along the\nwindy streets, their turbans nodding, like a stream of tulips. They\nfluttered down the byways in their white muslin dresses like bevies of\nbutterflies. The loveliness of their slender bodies and the beauty of\ntheir youthful faces were far beyond all dull description; they were\na bed of tiger-lilies in the sun. The earth loved the tread of their\nflying feet, which seemed to be forever dancing pastourelles; and the\nnarrow lanes of the city laughed with the lilt of their Creole tongue.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAmong the golden San Domingans the loveliest of all admittedly was\nMarguerite Lagoux, the milliner, by her patronage called Rita, by her\nfamiliars Margoton, by envious rivalry Madame Margot; and, after all\nwas over and done, known merely as Old Mother Go-go.\n\nHers was glorious physical loveliness in its fullest maturity. It was\nin an hour of inspiration the indolent god of beauty drew the lines on\nwhich her body was built.\n\nHer passionate, rich-colored, handsome face was like a line from an\nold enchantment which took men\u2019s souls captive, then cast them away\nwithout the least regret, or with a Circean spell turned them into\nbeasts. Her neck was a deep-colored, ivory tower poised perfectly\nover her breast. The dazzling, orange-tawny skin of her broad bust\nturned to golden-russet before it reached her cheeks, and was there\nflushed to dusky rose, like the skin of a ruddy-gold peach. In the\nburnt splendor of her cheek the darkly eloquent blood in her veins\nmade its golden proclamation. Her mouth was long and strangely curved\nlike a retroverted bow; the lips of a queer fruit-color, not crimson,\ncarmine, nor magenta, but a little of all three. The upper lip was\nbrief to a fault, and curled back on itself like a rich-pulped fruit\nwhich has parted in ripening. The full under-lip cast a heavier shade\nthan the lips the old masters chose, when they painted a picture of the\nMadonna. Her hair, like a dark, uncertain cloud, fell down in heavy\ncoils, gathered and knotted at the nape of the neck, bound there in a\ngolden net; or lay in an unfilleted band across the broad, low brow,\ndrawn back into braids over her ears, or collected into a turban tied\nwith peculiar dexterity. Her body was cast in a glorious mould: she was\ntall; in figure perfect, and full of a stately, tiger-like grace, the\nenvy of other women. She moved, when she walked, as an empress might if\nheaven but gave her grace, with an exquisite, perfect motion, devoid\nof every appearance of effort,--not striding, but seeming to glide like\na swan swimming on untroubled water. In the sluggish grace of her heavy\nlips and deep-lidded, brooding eyes, she was as full of an indolent,\nsleepy beauty as midsummer afternoon. Dressed in bright merino,\ncrimson, orange, and blue, with a kerchief of blood-colored silk around\nher head bound in oriental fashion, beads of amber around her neck, and\nin each ear a hoop of gold, she looked like a great golden lily dusted\nwith _sang-dieu_.\n\nOne day she was the lily; the next a yellow rose; and the next she was\na tulip,--gold, crimson, purple and black. She was a Caribbean summer\nincarnate, of flower-blooms, thunder and gold. The passing traveler,\nseeing her, stopped while he caught his breath. There was something\nabout her commanded attention besides her remarkable beauty. One spoke\nof Ducie Poincignon casually; but one spoke of Rita Lagoux with an\naccent.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf all the milliners of her day Margot was first beyond compare. Her\ntaste was perfect; her instinct for color was never at fault; her\nchoice of fabrics exquisite. None equaled her in dexterity; she was\nlike a marvelous spider weaving webs of gossamer. Those who sought\nbeauty found it; her patrons were patrician; all of the very best\nemployed her art; she had no successful competitor; beside her Eloise\nCouesnon was esteemed but maladroit.\n\nMargot\u2019s shop was in King street, near Mignot\u2019s Garden, a little above\nthe Bend. She lived in a little alley known as Lilac lane, a narrow,\ncrooked, private path between two large estates, which rambled into the\ninterspace like a brown brook into a wood. Beneath high green hedges\nit wandered into the solitude, growing narrower as it went, until the\nhedge boughs, meeting, knit themselves together, interlacing their\nelastic, leafy twigs. There the baffled foot-path seemed to lose its\nway and to abandon every purpose for which foot-paths are designed,\nran on a little, hesitated, crept on again uncertainly, then gave up\nhope and disappeared in a green perplexity. The unfamiliar traveler\npaused here, bewildered, and turned back to find a bolder thoroughfare;\nfamiliar feet alone pressed on through Lilac lane.\n\nWhere the strait way vanished into the wilderness stood Margot\u2019s\ncottage, tucked snug as a plum stone in a plum. Around it was a garden\nhedged by box and bay. Of all the hedges in Lilac lane the highest\nwere Margot\u2019s. They rose around her garden in an impenetrable thicket,\ntall, dark-tangled, dense and old, their green tops tossing against\nthe blue beyond the reach of the hedger\u2019s bill. Within lay a little\ntranquil space, withdrawn alike from curious gaze and the town\u2019s brawl,\nand overshadowed by the wide boughs of two great magnolias, whose\ndrowsy shade fell heavily on the sleepy oleanders and over the rows of\ntulips below, that lifted up their golden cups and filled the air with\nodor. Here day and night flowed by in undisturbed serenity; all noise\nwas hushed and tumult quelled; the shyest wild birds nested here in\nperfect confidence, fear cast away and foes forgot. No place in all\nthe town seemed more secure from rude intrusion. No apparition came by\nnight, no terror by day; so quiet it was, so full of peace, it seemed a\nsanctuary withdrawn from the interrupting clash and rude alarms of the\ntroubled world,--its tranquillity that of a convent close, with little,\ndistant, ringing bells, recurrent chimes and subdued voices, muffled\nby distance, as of nuns chanting an office in the peaceful choir of a\ngreen-nooked nunnery.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMargot Lagoux had a daughter; her name was Gabrielle.\n\nThough Margot was lovely, Gabrielle was lovelier. They differed in\nbeauty as pompadour-pink differs from brier-rose. Margot\u2019s was a\ngolden beauty; Gabrielle\u2019s an ivory loveliness. Margot was a pottery\nfigurine moulded with marvelous skill; Gabrielle a statuette of\nexquisite porcelain. Margot was like the summer sun, dazzling, opulent,\nsumptuous; Gabrielle like the young spring moon in her slender\nloveliness; the lines of her flowed one into the other like the lines\nof a song. Her hands were delicate and fine, their touch as light as\nflowers blown by the wind, which drift like a whisper across the face\nof the passer-by. Her feet were arched like a Spanish girl\u2019s; her\nankles were the loveliest things that ever sandal-ribbon bound; she\nwalked like the wind of an April morning through meadows after rain.\n\nHer face, with its delicate high cheek-bones, was like the fair\nflower of Normandy; but her beauty was not Western, \u2019twas Eastern;\nit was like the pale Persian roses which blow by the gray-marbled\nwaterways among the fallen pillars of the forgotten gardens of\nIstakhr,--roses of yesterday, full of yesterday\u2019s unbearable\nloveliness, yesterday\u2019s happiness, yesterday\u2019s tragedy,--fragrant with\npassionate, heart-breaking perfume, piercingly sweet, with the pathos\nof swift-passing beauty, far keener than that of ruins and age. She was\nof a loveliness such as sometimes comes out of India unburned by the\nIndian sun, of which dreamers make dreams of unforgettable beauty.\n\nHer slender young body was like a piece of perfect ivory laid away to\nbe carved. Her long, dark, tangled eye-lashes fell upon her cheeks like\nsudden gusts of darkening rain; her cheeks were japonica-color; her\nlips pale pomegranate-red; her hair ebony; her temples were traced with\ncrocus-blue.\n\nHer cheeks japonica-color? They were the hue of peach flowers at dusk:\nGod who gave them knew whence came both peach flower color and dusk.\n\nAt every breath there came and went beneath her transparent skin a\nshadowy crimson under-dusk, ebbing and flowing with the beat of her\nheart like a somber, twilit tide,--San Domingo\u2019s _sang de cr\u00e9puscule_;\nand through her fingers the sunlight shone with a golden radiance like\nthe glow of a rose through a glass of madeira.\n\nShe might have been sister to Scheherazade in her exquisite, aquiline,\nhigh-born loveliness, a patrician beauty strangely like that of old\nFrench romance. Far and away beyond compare she was the loveliest\ngirl in St. Finbar\u2019s parish; and the faces of the young girls in St.\nFinbar\u2019s made that ancient, dim, gray parish bloom like the gardens of\nParadise.\n\nGod, who knows everything, knows whence she had her exquisite, slender\nbody, her aristocratic face, the dusky crimson tide, the touch of\nfantasy which made her lovely as a strain of wild, passionate music\nplayed on the deep strings of a gipsy violin.\n\nFor, as the rarest beauty remains imperfect without a touch of\nstrangeness, without something to haunt and to fret the mind,\nforbidding it to forget, there was a something almost, if not quite,\nfantastic, in Gabrielle\u2019s loveliness--a touch of irregularity difficult\nto define--making her beauty more significant through being peculiar,\nmore poignant through being strange. Something indefinite and\nconjectural tinged her being; the ghost of a vaguely intricate and\ntragical implication beneath her bright young innocence lurked shadowy\nand malign. Had her beauty been less perfect this, perhaps, had been\nless notable. Revealed in a casual attitude, for a moment startling in\nvividness, now for a moment it was lost, and now stole forth again in\nthe stress of unstudied emotion to accent a passing mood.\n\nAs one who, looking into her mirror, sees a face there not her own,\nMargot perceived in her daughter\u2019s face an intricately blended\nlikeness, to banish which into forgetfulness she strove desperately in\nvain,--the recollection of a wild, sweet, irrevocable hour whose memory\nwas fear. Gabrielle\u2019s beauty made her tremble.\n\nIt is a perilous privilege for a girl to possess loveliness rising\nabove her station in life; there is a price always to be paid for it,\nsorrow the common fee; such a heritage of beauty often proves but a\nlegacy of shame,--a beauty built for destruction, a loveliness for\nscorn; haggard wisdom reaps in tears what innocence sowed with laughter.\n\nThere was a thought from which Margot shrank as from a draught of\npoison: Gabrielle degraded and desolate. There was nothing to her more\nprecious than her daughter\u2019s innocence; nothing so important as her\nearthly happiness; these seemed to Margot even more necessary than her\neternal peace.\n\nYet ever a shadow hung over her child, from cradle to grave; her\ndelicate grace and refinement were signatures of dread. Margot\u2019s eyes\nhunted from side to side as do a deer\u2019s hard pressed by the dogs--can\none elude destiny?\n\nWhere were the lovely and the fair she had known in her own youth?\nDead, long ago; the graveyard sand lay cold upon their lips; their\npassion and their sweetness were forgotten long ago. Margot knew that\nyouth and summer night are made for ecstasy. She knew, too, that in\nforgotten graveyards are many unmarked graves of hapless beauty.\nLooking into the mirror where life is stripped of its illusions, and\ntruth stands stark and bare in its unmitigated ugliness, panic terror\nseized Margot.\n\nWas there no refuge, no escape, nor safety anywhere; no retreat, nor\nharbor, but in hopeless longing; always the far-off lightning and\nthreatening of storm? Peering into the future she was filled with\napprehension. In dreams she saw Gabrielle\u2019s innocence hanging over a\nblack abyss; in dreams saw a fawn torn by ravening wolves. She awoke,\nstarting up, crying out! There was nothing but the night. Yet she arose\nfrom her bed, and, crouched by her crucifix, prayed for her daughter as\nshe never had prayed for herself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAt adolescence Gabrielle was a vision of delight. In temperament she\nwas ardent as is a summer shower, which gives, when it gives, all that\nit has to give, in a rush of wind and rain. Unspoiled by knowledge,\nunruined by folly, too innocent to be perplexed by life\u2019s anxieties,\nher soul mistook Earth for the pathway to Paradise, and nothing as yet\nhad discovered her error. With her each hour began afresh the tale of\nlife, a long, sweet, glad surprise.\n\nRose-winged days and golden nights were come to Gabrielle, whose feet\nstood at the smiling gate of the Primrose Way. But Margot\u2019s days and\nnights were filled with passionate anxiety, as with increasing doubts\nand fears she confronted destiny.\n\nThe inner house-door gave upon a little paved court, where two twisted\nold fig-trees grew, many-branched candelabra, tipped in spring\nwith green-leaved lights. Green-leaved shadows wavered below on a\nduck-pool\u2019s marble bowl, stained green from the copper tenons which\ntied its stones together. Here ducks praised Jove with yellow bills,\nand splashed viridian wings. In the pool, glimmering, one saw the\nstuccoed cottage-wall, on the irregular surface of which old colors\nshowed in broken chequers through the new until the wall was patched\nwith unpremeditated beauty. Across the pool the silvery sunlight\nglimmered like a streak of flame. But the fairest thing reflected there\nwas Gabrielle, dancing on the old stones which paved the court,--dances\nfantastic as her mood; sarabands to the stately rhythm of odd old\nsongs, deliberately slow; canzons whose pathos was lost in a pirouette;\nminuets which mimicked the swallows overhead with their swift glissades\namong the trees and undulating sweeps among the flowers,--snatching\nthe poppies as she passed, and thrusting them in her hair, and\npausing at last like a wind-blown flower above her reflection in the\npool,--Gabrielle, singing old songs by the world forgotten,--strains\nof wild beauty, that by wayward loveliness have a peculiar power to\nplease, with old melodies, alluring and sweet; songs such as long ago\nstole the souls of saints determined upon salvation, and gave themes\nfor many troubadour lays, of which, though all are lovely, the greater\npart are sad, being memories of loveliness departed into the dust: one\nof life\u2019s paradoxes, that the memory of beauty should be bitter.\n\nHere, remote from the curious world, preserved by the cloistral hedges\nfrom prying indiscretion, flowed her secluded existence. Few ever saw\nher. Such as by chance observed her through some green interstice,\ndazzled by her beauty, hurried off to spread the tale of an enchanted\nprincess in an enchanted wood; hedge-balked and bewildered, few had\never seen her twice; by which she had been the more thought of through\nbeing the less seen.\n\nMany had sought the courtyard; but none had found the way. Margot\nkept it a solitude lest Gabrielle suffer corruption, and around her\nmaintained a veritable nunnery of care, hovered over her, and kept her\nas close withdrawn as a novice in a convent-garth.\n\nBut beauty cannot be sequestered always safely anywhere. Cloistral life\nis very well for souls of cloistral nature and of the convent sort;\nbut youth and spring hate convents, and will have life\u2019s novitiate,\nor none. There is a crevice in every hedge, no matter how tall or how\nthick it may be, and through it, ever, Gabrielle peeps.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSpring followed winter; May\u2019s warm slow, yellow, moonlit nights were\ncome.\n\nThen Gabrielle grew tired and white. Her hand became tremulous; her\nlight foot stumbled; she left off dancing in the garden. She sighed\nwistfully; her song ceased; her mouth showed scarcely a smile\u2019s wasted\nghost. Her eyes, like those of a wounded creature, followed everywhere;\nher tears flowed at nothing. She grew as languid as a withering flower.\nThe light of her seemed going out. The pallor of her face and the\nfeverish luster of her eyes startled and frightened Margot.\n\nDays dragged a laggard length; night still more oppressed her. She lay\nawake, whispering with dry lips she knew not what; calling she knew\nnot whom; her trembling hands pressed against her breast. Fancies for\nwhich she found no name, thoughts for which she had no words, and\nvisions inexpressible, would not let her sleep. Night after night she\nlay awake, consuming the hours with wonder; or, if she slept, awoke in\ntears, fell asleep to tears again, and waking, tear-wet, trembling,\nwith darkened lids and drawn face, grew daily worse.\n\nVague, moody wants annoyed her; the night was harassed by melancholy\ndreams; the day vexed with formless fancies.\n\nWalking alone in the garden, answerless questionings beset and\nfrightened her; she listened where there was nothing to be heard;\nstared where there was nothing to be seen; found peace nowhere.\n\nHer heart ached with unreasoning pain; she grew as gusty as a storm;\nthe speechless, inexplicable wonder within her breast throbbed like a\nfestered thorn.\n\nMargot too well knew the cause: there was but one alleviation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSpring, with its universal song, from grove and garden lifted up its\ndeathless melody of bloomy verdure and warm-breathed sweetness. All\nliving creatures voiced the universal theme: \u201cRejoice with the partner\nof thine heart in the happy days of thy youth!\u201d\n\nThe blue dove moaned out his heart\u2019s desire; the copper beetle wooed\nand won his lady in the dust; butterflies and dragon-flies glittered\nin the wind, happy in their airy ecstasy--they fluttered among the\nhedges; they sported among the flowers--and all the earth rejoiced in\nhaving its heart\u2019s desire. Thrush and mocker sang, \u201cPassion, passion\n... heart-breaking passion!\u201d to their pretty feathered paramours. From\nevery spray the vireo cried shrill, in shreds of melody, \u201cHeart\u2019s\ndesire! Heart\u2019s desire!\u201d In the fragrant green-bay the painted\nbunting\u2019s love-call rang incessantly; while from the tufted grove\narose the stirring chant of earth\u2019s universal choir, the canticle, all\npassionate and shrill, of \u201cLove, love, love!\u201d and yet again of \u201cLove!\u201d\n\nHow can one keep it from the heart of youth, that, all unknowing, yet\nnumb with longing, breathlessly awaits its coming, and trembles like a\nleaf with the wordless yearning of unrecognized desire.\n\nGabrielle was intoxicated with the passion of her own heart, without\nan object or an aim; her throat was almost choked with youth\u2019s sweet,\ninnocent desire; and, ever, within her shaking heart, the questioning\nwonder grew.\n\n\u201cMother,\u201d she said wistfully, \u201cwhat is it fills the world with music\nday and night? What is it makes the whole world sing?\u201d\n\n\u201cHappiness,\u201d replied Margot, \u201cand joy of the spring.\u201d\n\n\u201cHappiness?\u201d rejoined Gabrielle. \u201cIf it be happiness, why does it make\nmy heart ache? Why does spring hurt me so?\u201d\n\nMargot, startled, sat staring, wrung with sudden fear.\n\n\u201cAnd what is this love of which every one sings--we women most of all?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe source of all wretchedness. Leave it alone!\u201d cried Margot. She\nlooked at her daughter in terror.\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d replied Gabrielle, wondering, \u201cif love be the source of all\nwretchedness, why is it\u2019s song so sweet?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause fools have their folly!\u201d cried Margot. \u201cLove-songs are sweet\nto a lover, as folly is dear to a fool. Worship thy God,\u201d she said\nharshly, \u201cand leave foolishness to the fool!\u201d\n\n\u201cLove--foolishness?\u201d said Gabrielle, puzzled. \u201cYou told me that God is\nlove!\u201d She turned the riddle over and over in her mind.\n\n\u201cWhat ails you?\u201d asked Margot.\n\n\u201cNothing,\u201d said Gabrielle. But a flush stole up her cheeks. \u201cHow does\na woman know, Mother, that she loves, so that she may say certainly,\n\u2018This is love\u2019?\u201d\n\n\u201cBy the utter despair that tears her heart in two.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, Mother,\u201d protested Gabrielle, \u201cthey tell me that love is sweet!\u201d\n\n\u201cSweet? As wormwood!\u201d said Margot hoarsely. \u201cIt is nothing but fever\nand fret.\u201d\n\n\u201cMany I see who have it; but none who fret. Might I not know for myself\na little of this pretty play of lovers and beloved?\u201d besought Gabrielle.\n\nMargot looked at Gabrielle and trembled, seeing the shadow upon her,\nforeseeing the fate of her loveliness, perceiving indiscretion\u2019s lips\nat the rim of the cup of terror. \u201cWhat man has snared your silly\nheart?\u201d she asked.\n\nGabrielle stared at her. \u201cWhy should any man snare my heart?\u201d she asked\nin pitiful wonder. \u201cI have never harmed any man, nor any living thing.\u201d\nShe caught her breath. \u201cOh, Mother, feel my heart beating! It beats as\nif it would burst. Why does my heart beat so? Am I dying? Do you think\nthat I must die? Yet, Mother, my heart is aching so that I would that\nI could die! Is not what God made good ... you told me that God was\nlove ... was not mankind made by God ... and is not love the world\u2019s\ndelight?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is its direst misery,\u201d said Margot bitterly. \u201cGod keep you from it.\nTwo parts are pain, two sorrow, and the other two parts are death.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t fear death,\u201d said Gabrielle. \u201cThen why should I fear love?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause it is a lie,\u201d cried Margot, beside herself. \u201cI conjure you, by\nGod\u2019s sorrow, close your ears against it.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow can I close my ears against it when I hear it in my sleep?\u201d\n\nMargot\u2019s delight in her daughter\u2019s beauty was turned into bitterness.\n\u201cPeace!\u201d she cried. \u201cAnd leave me. All this will pass away.\u201d But, deep\nwithin, her heart said, \u201cNever!\u201d Innocence will be indiscreet. Sin\nalone is always clever. And in youth great things are lightly asked and\nlightly given. \u201cGo!\u201d she cried to Gabrielle.\n\nGabrielle left the room. Margot buried her face in her hands.\n\nIt is hard for woman to stand alone and to resist temptation forever.\nSoon or late the black moment comes; reason is off guard; prudence\nabandons her; caution is thrown to the winds: passion betrays. Here\nis an irremediable disease which baffles the skill of the physicians.\nMargot recoiled as she faced the future. Time had become a terror.\nBurning tears flowed down her cheeks. There is no woe so sickening\nas the monotone of fear, the shuddering, interior sense of impending\ncatastrophe. Nor is it eased by the strange apathy which is granted\nto the doomed. Margot groaned in an agony, half remorse, half\napprehension. Could God set so foul a seal upon so fair a thing?\n\nAgain on a day Gabrielle came in from the garden, her eyes dry-burning\nand famine-bright. \u201cMother, give me a lover!\u201d she cried. \u201cNietta\nPascault has one!\u201d\n\n\u201cThen alas and alack for Nietta Pascault!\u201d cried Margot.\n\n\u201cBut, Mother, he called her his heart\u2019s delight; she did not speak, but\nshe kissed him; and he kissed her until he must have bruised her lips;\nyet she did not seem to care ... rather she seemed to like it. And all\nhe said was \u2018Love me! Love me!\u2019 and all she said was \u2018Yes,\u2019 and \u2018Yes!\u2019\nAnd when he kissed her she grew pale; I thought that she was dead, ...\nbut he held her in his arms, Mother, and kissed her again and again, as\nthough he would kiss her back to life. Will kisses bring one back from\nthe dead? For, Mother, suddenly she opened her eyes as if she lived\nonly for love; and then all he said was \u2018Love me!\u2019 and all she said was\n\u2018Yes!\u2019\u201d\n\nMargot\u2019s heart fainted.\n\nDay after day Gabrielle knelt in the garden and plead for her heart\u2019s\ndesire. Night after night Margot crouched on her floor and prayed, in\ndespair and agony, that it might not be given her. Heaven\u2019s custodian\nmingled their prayers in fatal entanglement; one was answered, and one\nwas not: he is responsible.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSunset lay on Margot\u2019s garden. The paths still shimmered with the\nday\u2019s heat, though the lax grass lifted in the shadows. Nameless\nperfumes wandered among the drowsily-bending flowers; the odor of warm\nboxwood rose from the hedge. The hedge stood black against the sky; in\nits glistening, fragrant deeps small birds moved swiftly to and fro in\ncurious agitation.\n\nGabrielle, puzzling upon life\u2019s unanswered riddle, stood listening to\nsounds beyond the hedge. Everywhere was the patter of hurrying feet,\nand the whisper of wordless laughter, mockingly borne on the evening\nwind. The air was full of the golden vision of light-footed maidens\nwith fluttering garments, flying through Lilac lane, pursued by ardent\nand breathless lovers, eagerly following where they fled. The sound of\nlaughter floated back along the narrow way, and the little faint echo\nof flying feet. It was that time of the year when all maids are sweet\nas freshly gathered flowers, and all men are a little mad. Even the\nearth, drab clod, was astir with the ecstasy of approaching night.\n\nBeneath the broad-boughed magnolia grew a pomegranate-tree whose\nbranches shrouded the greater tree\u2019s bole. The scarlet pomegranate\nflowers hung over Gabrielle; the green leaves folded her in. Faint\ncolor came fitfully over her cheek; her eyes roamed restlessly through\nthe garden, but found no solace there. As she stood thus, brooding on\nlife\u2019s inexplicable theme, she was aware of a sudden shadow which fell\non the grass beside her, and turned in voiceless terror.\n\nThere was a face in the green hedge, smiling, two butterflies hovering\nover it,--a lad\u2019s face, laughing and debonair, with yellow hair\ncurling around it like crisp little golden flames; his cheeks were\nas ruddy and smooth as a child\u2019s; his eyes were blue as the morning,\nswift and bright; the leaves stirred all around him as if to the beat\nof wings; there was confidence in his bearing, easy lordship and high\npride.\n\nGabrielle, startled and terrified, shrank back against the magnolia\u2019s\nblack bole, one trembling, hesitant hand extended in doubt.\nSpeechless she stared at that bright, boyish face with its nimbus of\nsunlit, yellow hair, until her dry eyes gushed tears, dimming her\nsight,--stared in wonder and adoration.\n\nHis eyes were audaciously bright as wild stars, incessantly roving,\nand alight with golden fire. He was tall, well-set and slender, with a\nbeautiful, straight body; there was something godlike in his air as he\nleaned through the matted hedge, eagerly scanning her,--her pale rose\ncheeks, snowy gown, moth-green kerchief, her lips, her neck matching\nthe ivory of the blossoms in her hair,--half-veiled by a screen of\nleafy green, dull gold and pomegranate flowers.\n\nShe had bound her hair with a bit of gold braid which shone like an\naureole round her brow, and in it had thrust two butterfly lilies,\nwhiter than ivory; her eyes were wide open, round and unwinking,\ntheir frightened depths full of tears; her lips had fallen slightly\napart to free her fluttering breath; she sighed, a little, shuddering\nsigh, and crossed her hands upon her breast. Her beauty startled him:\ndelicate-frail, almost translucent in the golden sun, she seemed a\nbeing not of flesh and gross mortality, but a spirit by enchantment\nmade visible, a dryad out of the ancient wood, a maiden saint stepped\nout of a missal or fled from a chapel window, with a halo around her\nbrow. With her head poised like a flower; her little, perfect hands and\nfeet; her ankles slim and beautiful; each line aristocratic; everything\nproclaiming patrician blood; nothing asserting a baser thing: saint,\nmaid, dryad, nymph, or sprite, who could tell which?\n\nSilently drinking her loveliness he leaned through the hedge. Among the\nfire-colored flowers and green, her color was exquisite as the violet\nsky is, seen through yellow leaves.\n\nAgain she sighed softly; stared at his face, and shivered a little. Was\nit a god or a man in the hedge? Had he sprouted out of the boxwood, or\nfallen from the clouds?\n\nThe perfect beauty of her figure, outlined on green by her thin white\ngown, charmed and enchanted him. He stared at her, trying to focus\nher face more clearly upon his sight; her loveliness struck him dumb.\nShe seemed a statue of ivory, hung with garlands of gold, crimson and\ngreen, half-hidden by a rood-screen of shimmering emerald. It seemed to\nhim that he looked on more than mortal beauty.\n\nLeaning forward a little, one hand outstretched, one clasping her\nthroat, she watched his face with its golden hair aglow in the last\nred sunlight. How could she tell if it were a god or a man,--that\nface with its shimmering locks like living fire around it, a gleaming\nnimbus whose dancing flames were fashioned of burnished gold, a face\nlike a blazing seraph\u2019s, or Ariel\u2019s? She looked at that proud young\ncountenance in wordless adoration.\n\nHer own face was now intensely bright with the sunset\u2019s declining\nglory. Into the crevice between her lips the sunshine had slipped; her\nlips were translucent; her mouth was aglow as if she breathed ethereal\nfire.\n\nSuddenly he drew his breath with a sharply audible sound; for, as he\ngazed, longing seized the boy\u2019s heart and wrung it bitterly.\n\nThe flame which blazed in his bright eyes put an answering glow in her\nown. She was aware that her beauty had startled him. For the first time\nin her life she was awake to her own loveliness, a sense wonderful\nand sweet. A delicate, throbbing fire came fluttering up through her\nbreast; a flush stole into her cheeks and warmed their ashy pallor. Her\neyes met his: in his eyes were joy, surprise, and longing. His eyes\nmet hers: and all her doubts went out in wordless joy. For, when she\nperceived that look in his face, she, too, was thrilled with longing;\nthe silence sang; fire thrilled her heart; suddenly neck and cheeks\nflamed red.\n\nShe answered his look with glorious eyes, humid, terrified, alight.\nThen her frightened eyes fell and her shy face. But, like a wave which\nbreaks along a beach in a passionate surge, her heart rushed out to\ngreet him.\n\nHe saw her neck and her cheeks flame red; passion struck him to the\nheart. With a gesture of haughty but boyish humility he pushed through\nthe hedge, seized the sheltering pomegranate branches, and swept\nthem aside. She stood uncurtained before him. He gazed at her. \u201cSt.\nJacques!\u201d he cried. \u201cAre you a living creature?\u201d\n\nShe regarded him for an instant with a look of undisguised terror,\ncatching her breath with a sobbing sound right pitiful to hear; then\nher quivering, piteous face was made exquisite by tears.\n\nA back-wash of timidity held him silently staring at her,--a boy, hot\nand hasty, sure of himself, impulsively bold, but abashed,--admiration\nand longing ablaze in his eyes. Gabrielle stammered, but could not\nfind words; her breast heaved and sank; she could not control it.\nOverwhelmed by the sudden strange rush of emotion, she swayed giddily,\ndizzily put out one hand to steady herself, and laid it upon his arm:\na tremulous smile came over her face; her tears, like an April shower,\nwere gone.\n\nHis hand sought her other hand; found it; held it; thus their hands\nmet. Half a step timidly they approached each other; then stood at a\nhalt as if turned to stone. Her frightened breath was the only sound\nsave the stirring of the night-wind in the dark boughs overhead.\n\nShaking like a wind-blown leaf, \u201c_Que d\u00e9sirez-vous de moi?_\u201d she gasped.\n\nHis voice, too, was trembling. \u201cThat you should love me a little, for\npity\u2019s sake, ... and quite forget to fear!\u201d\n\nHis voice seemed to Gabrielle godlike.\n\n\u201cSee, then ... I fear nothing.... I should as soon think of fearing the\nair we breathe!\u201d she said, adoring her slender young demigod out of\nthe hedge. Then suddenly she raised her hand and laid it caressingly on\nhis cheek; her trembling fingers felt like flowers trailed across his\nface.\n\nHe laughed. There was an infectious sweetness and merriment in his\nlaughter. Then they laughed together, softly,--first love and joy are\nsilent things.\n\n\u201cYou are the god of love,\u201d she said, with infinite simplicity. \u201cElse,\nhow could you fly over the hedge?\u201d\n\nHer flute-like voice was like the music of a half-awakened song, and\nexquisitely moving; her words trailed slowly like speech asleep.\n\nAgain he laughed. \u201cThe god of love? _Bien!_ Then what shall I have that\nis godlike?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat you will,\u201d she said. \u201cYou may ask.\u201d For the innocent are\ntrustful as doves, helpless as the least creatures, weak as the small\nbirds among the little branches.\n\nHe drew a quick breath. \u201cMost of all things on earth I would have a\nkiss from your mouth. Shall I have it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d she said. \u201cTake it!\u201d and put up her lips. So their mouths met. A\nthousand tingling darts of fire pierced through her as his lips touched\nhers.\n\nHer heart was wrung by that first kiss; for an instant it stood still;\nthe blood had left it, and had fled through her like flame; she\nalmost swooned. For first passion is like the wind in the blossoming\nlocust-tree, too sweet to be easily breathed or borne; youth\u2019s first\ncaress is almost an agony. Gabrielle gasped; his lips had burned on\nhers like a celestial fire. Both shook as love\u2019s consuming flame\nrushed through them.\n\nAs he to her was first, so she to him; each gave the other life\u2019s\nimmaculate gift, the unmeasured, unmeasurable fire of love\u2019s first\nembrace, that passionate anguish of delicate, uncalculated delight,\nardent and boundless.\n\nTheir lips hurried to the meeting. How could they delay? Youth and love\nbrook no delays. Yet, as she felt his lips upon her own, she regarded\nhim with a writhen countenance of unqualified terror. Love comes to\nthe maiden spirit with sudden tumult, and strikes it, not as a blithe\ndiscovery, or an all-Elysian joy, but as a birth and an agony, from\nwhich, if the soul survives, comes unspeakable happiness. His lips\nsought hers and seeking, met; in the meeting her soul flew out at her\nmouth.\n\nThe world seemed suddenly remote, withdrawn into the depths of\nuncalculated space. There remained but these two young, love-stunned\nsouls, groping to each other in the garden under the shadow of the\ngreat magnolia-trees.\n\nThe enchantment of love was upon them. The happy girl lay close upon\nhis heart, and all she said was, \u201cLove me! Love me!\u201d and, \u201cIf ever\nI cease to love you perdition take my soul!\u201d he said. With utter\nconfidence her eyes looked up into his, glowing with a passion that\nknows no change; and all she said, as she lay against his heart, was,\n\u201cLove me! Only love me!\u201d That is all a woman asks. Her fingers stroked\nhis yellow hair; the mere touch thrilled her with unspeakable happiness.\n\nNight came, and darkness voyaged the uncharted sky. Overhead the blue\ndome blazed with the innumerable stars and golden planets heaving up\nheaven\u2019s arch; the tremulous green lamps of the fireflies filled the\nearth with twinkling constellations all around them. But the heavens\nand the earth were as nothing to them: love was there, and he, and\nshe, and the utterly forgotten starlight. And where youth and love\nare, life, death, good or ill, the bright stars or the black mould, or\nbetter or worse, are nothing, and wisdom is of little worth.\n\nThey gazed into each other\u2019s eyes with wordless tenderness. Youth has\nnot words, nor waits to find them; age finds words, and nothing else.\n\nAcross the city boomed the hour,--at last.\n\n\u201cOh! I must go!\u201d\n\n\u201cNot yet! Not yet!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I must go. Good-night!\u201d\n\n\u201cNot yet!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I must go! Good-night! Good-night! I pray you, leave me go ... for\ntruly I must go!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ll come again?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo-morrow.\u201d\n\n\u201cShow me the way into the garden,\u201d he said. She showed him the\nquickest way in, kissed him, and was gone through the garden; for him\nthe night was darkened, and the stars put out. Her breath was still\nupon his face, the smell of the flowers in his nostrils; and in his\nears was the sound of her voice, calling after him, low and sweet,\nlike a half-awakened song,--or was it but a bird which called, that\nsoftly-fluting, lonely note.\n\nAnd when he was gone the garden to Gabrielle was emptied of delight;\nbut all her soul was singing.\n\nHer lips stung; her cheeks were on fire. Into the house she came, one\nlittle slipper upon its little foot, one slipper gone,--what became of\nthat lost little slipper God knows!--and her stockinged foot was damp\nwith the dew which had dripped from the leaves overhead. A flame was\nin her eyes which is in a maiden\u2019s eyes but once, when love first lays\nhis hands upon her heart. So transfigured was she, she seemed a winged\ncreature. She loved; she was beloved; inarticulate ecstasy! Hands,\nfeet, neck, and face told but one story. Her eyes shone like blazing\nstars; the roses had returned to her pale lips, the freshness to her\nwan cheeks.\n\nMargot watched her with narrowed eyes.\n\n\u201cMother, I am happy; so happy that I do not want to die; I want to live\nforever!\u201d\n\nMargot eyed her narrowly. \u201cWhat has changed your mind?\u201d\n\n\u201cI was walking in the garden,\u201d rejoined Gabrielle, \u201cand the god of love\nwas there. He kissed me on my mouth, Mother; and oh, Mother, love is\nsweet!\u201d\n\nMargot\u2019s heart stopped beating. \u201cAre you quite mad?\u201d she said.\n\nThen the truth dawned upon her. She lost all sense of balance in the\ncrossed tides of dismay. She strained her daughter to her heart,\nthen thrust her away; dropped speech unuttered; gave a choked cry of\ndespair, while her face went gray as ashes.\n\nShe clutched Gabrielle by the arms, steadying herself, for she could\nscarcely have stood alone. She blinked like a person purblind, and\npeered into the girl\u2019s wondering eyes. The lines of her face became\nfurrows. \u201cOh, my God!\u201d she whispered, \u201cI should have known! I should\nhave known!\u201d\n\nMargot cowered as if to avoid a blow; her eyes dilated; yet she seemed\nincapable of seeing; her mouth fell open, she seemed to scream, yet\nmade no sound but that of the whistling breath through her nostrils, as\none who sustains the torture of the rack.\n\nShe thrust Gabrielle from her. \u201cGo!\u201d she gasped, and struck herself on\nhead and breast, crying out, \u201cMother of God! I should have known! Fool,\nfool, fool!\u201d Then, as if stunned, her head fell down upon her breast.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the dark and breathless stillness of the night there was a stern,\nstrange loveliness; and now something akin to terror, the terror of a\nchild that dreams, and, waking in the darkness, cries out from dread\nof unknown things.\n\nAn ill wind, which had been blowing since sunset with a far-off,\nmoaning sound, had arisen to a melancholy, screaming note, with an\nextraordinary rumbling in the chimney. Clouds of soot and ashes, blown\nfrom the fireplace, whirled in drifts around the floor. The sound of\ndistant thunder, the velocity of the wind, the increasing turmoil and\nconfusion, filled the night with keen disease. A bird sped round the\nhouse with a shrill cry; the wind bellowed hoarsely in the chimney;\nthe house shook with the blast; over the housetops could be heard\nthe coming of the rain; the light of the flickering candles served\nonly to increase the gloom; the draft from the window swelled out the\nprint curtain and floated it half-way across the room, straining and\nwhipping at its pole; the black magnolias bent, and rose, and bent\nagain, as if beneath the beating of gigantic wings: it was close upon\nmidnight.\n\nBefore her crucifix Margot knelt, regardless of the storm, praying in\nanguish for the safety of her child. Ever before her imagining was\nGabrielle, dishonored and betrayed, abandoned to scorn and poverty. Her\nhands twisted in desperate appeal.\n\n\u201cBlessed St. Dominique, lover of souls, preserve my daughter!\u201d she\nplead. She listened motionless; all that she heard was the roar of the\nwind.\n\n\u201cMary, Mother, great in grace, defend and preserve my child! Mary,\nMother of Sorrows, have mercy upon my daughter!\u201d\n\nAgain she listened; but for the howl of the gale the silence was\nprofound.\n\n\u201cAll ye Holy Virgins, intercede for us!\u201d Her panting voice broke. \u201cLord\nof Compassion, hear me! Lord of Infinite Mercy, hear me! Have mercy\nupon my child! O Thou, Most Pitiful Lord of the Innocent, answer my\nprayer!\u201d\n\nAgain she listened. There was no sound but the roar of the storm, the\ncreak of the house, and the gnawing of the great rats in the timbers\nof the wall. She cringed and shivered, and in extreme entreaty cried,\n\u201cLord, Seigneur Dieu, preserve and spare my child! You see her young\nand fair, her soul as pure as the flowers that bloom in Paradise! You\nbreathed into her life; by your law she was made; but for you she\nnever had been; dare you then let her fall?\u201d\n\nBut all was still. Heaven, to mortal anguish, seems intolerably serene,\nso far beyond comprehension is the inscrutable leisure of God. It was\ntaking too long for her sorrow to reach the foot of the throne. She was\nseeking her daughter\u2019s safety, though it should be at the hazard of her\nsoul; but all she had was the bitterness of unanswered supplication.\nTo hearts dismayed there is nothing so appallingly still as God. The\nconfident faithful may await the ultimate reply; but the desperate\nstorm heaven, they have not time to wait.\n\nShe beat her breast; her hair was moist; her garments disarrayed;\nher voice grew sharp; by vicars, saints and intercessors, by all\nintermediaries, she plead with Almighty God to listen and to reply.\nThere was no answer. \u201cMary, Mother of Sorrows!\u201d she gasped. \u201cDoes God\nnot understand?\u201d\n\nHer appeal arose piercing shrill: \u201c_Dieu, Dieu, Eternel Dieu, \u00e9coute\nmes cris! H\u00e2te-toi de ma secourir! H\u00e2te-toi d\u2019elle delivrer! O Toi, qui\n\u00e9coutes la pri\u00e8re, aie piti\u00e9 de nous! Ne tarde-pas! \u00c9coute, mes cris!_\u201d\nShe waited; there was no answer; and suddenly her voice went up like\nthe cry of delirium:\n\n\u201c_O Dieu Tr\u00e8s-haut, r\u00e9veille-toi! R\u00e9veille-toi, mon Dieu!_\u201d Then in a\ntone of amazement and pathos, \u201cMary, Mother of Sorrows,\u201d she said, \u201cdo\nI have to explain to God?\u201d\n\nShe paused a moment while despair rose like a swelling flood; then\nthrough the darkness and the night went up a bitter cry: \u201c_Seigneur\nDieu! Tout-puissant Dieu! sois attentif \u00e0 ma pri\u00e8re: tu m\u2019arrosarez\navec l\u2019hysope, et je serai purifi\u00e9e; vous me laveras, et je deviendrai\nplus blanche que la neige! Plus blanche que la neige, mon Dieu! Plus\nblanche que la neige! Gabrielle, ma fille, mon Dieu! plus blanche que\nla neige!_ Forgive in her my transgressions; pardon in her my sins;\ndeliver her from her inheritance.... O my God!... let her be white!\u201d\n\nA tremendous gust blew through the house; the wind sucked in the\nchimney with a sound like awful laughter; the blinds recoiled with\nthunderous shock; but from Heaven there was no answer.\n\nAt this she cried out pitifully as He who long ago cried out the cry,\nwhich through unending ages shall stand archetype of despair: \u201c_Mon\nDieu, mon Dieu! pourquoi m\u2019as-tu abandonn\u00e9?_\u201d\n\nThe wind screamed round about her with the sound of many voices; far\noff arose a tumult as of many people running; borne on the wind came a\ntorrent of hideous sound, not mad music, but awful dissonance, swiftly\nnearing, suddenly checked: after the clamor a silence like death; the\nroom was fantastically still. Margot clung to the foot of the crucifix.\n\u201c_Pourquoi, O Dieu, rejettes-tu?_\u201d she asked in a voice grown shriveled\nand thin. She crouched a moment, motionless, her head on one side,\nlistening. There was no reply. Heaven maintained its brassy silence.\nHer face went gray; her eyes were hard as stones; she turned her back\non the crucifix, saying, \u201cI will call upon You no more!\u201d\n\nThere was a queer shuffling sound as of footsteps in the entry. The\ncandles sank to dull blue sparks devoid of radiance; yet, instead\nof darkness there was light. Outside was darkness, vast, pitmirk;\ninside, appalling light. All the place was stunned and blinded by an\noverwhelming light which cast no shadows anywhere, but, vehemently\nstreaming, searched crack and cranny; not a crevice escaped. It lapped\nand flowed like waves, and penetrated everything; even the gross\nmaterial of the walls, saturated by that flame, gave back a superfluous\nglow, a white excess of light, and every pointed thing within the room\nwas peaked and capped with flame. Round and round the room a bewildered\nhost of moths in little wavering flights and drops went fluttering,\nwith a light rustle of powdery wings, and, among them, bats splashed\nthrough the light with a low, continuous whirr. Round and round, like\nfroth-clots on flood-water swinging around a vortex, whirled slantbat\nand moth in a dizzy, irregular ring, in the midst of which, crouched in\na high-backed chair, sat a shriveled, dead-alive, mummy-like figure, as\nthin and fleshless as a skeleton,--an apparition, sinister, white, and\nwasted as a corpse new-risen from the grave.\n\nIts chin upon its folded hands, its hands about one knee, the knee\nupheld by the heel crooked at the chair-seat\u2019s edge, the other gaunt\nleg dangling across the upraised foot, the specter smiled on Margot\na bleak, Saturnine smile. Its face was greatly wasted; all the life\nof it seemed gathered into the brilliant, terrible eyes, which blazed\nwith infernal light, in splendid scorn, without remorse, sardonical;\na countenance such as God alone endures to look upon unmoved; a\nfigure terrible.... Deity, deformed, might look like this, grotesquely\nmajestical, hideous, baleful, glorious, accursed, malign; an archangel,\nfallen, outcast, depraved: Satan, god of the discontent.\n\nA twisted smile wreathing his evil lips, with his chin hooked over his\nhands,--a smile of cool confidence mingled with nonchalance, \u201cWhy not\ntry me?\u201d he said.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nStaring into the abyss of blinding terror and light which encircled\nthat thunder-scarred visage, with its thin, sleepless eyelids and\ntwisted, ironic smile, Margot shrank against the wall, shivering as\nwith cold; one hand shielding her blinded eyes, one groping along the\nwall, she listened, breathlessly.\n\nIn a voice whose deep and hollow sound seemed part of the midnight\nstorm, Satan spoke.\n\n\u201cGod has forgotten you; that is plain,\u201d he said. \u201cThen why not pray\nunto me? I remember when God forgets.\n\n\u201cWhat did ye hope? That He who left Jesus to die on the cross, would\nstoop to succor you? Nay, then; you have been cajoled. He has never so\nmuch as kept one man from the withering breath of time, but leaves a\nthousand ills on earth to work their wills upon him. Yet you thought He\nwould harken to you? _Fi donc!_ Neither for life nor death, nor angels,\nnor principalities, nor for all the powers that ever were, or shall\nforever be, will He alter for you, or for any, one iota of His law.\n\n\u201cNay, though your heart break with its burden, not a jot of His law\nshall be altered to ease your load.\n\n\u201cI have seen all the piety under the sun; and its wages are vanity.\nWhat profit have you of all your labor; what recompense of your\ntoil? Heaven hath sent you sorrow; it hath not sent a cure, nor had\ncompassion upon you.\n\n\u201cIf this be loving-kindness, why not try damnation awhile; not forfeit\nriches, power, and place, for a fool\u2019s hope of treasures in heaven?\n\n\u201cDoubtless the priest hath said unto you, \u2018What shall it profit a man\nif he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?\u2019 Faw! I say unto\nyou, \u2018What profit hath a man, though he save his own soul, if he lose\nhis heart\u2019s desire?\u2019\n\n\u201cWhen you are dead and done for, and lie sleeping in the dust; when\nworms destroy your body, when your days upon earth are become as\nshadows, and you have no more a portion forever in anything under the\nsun, what shall it profit you to have saved your soul at the cost of\nyour heart\u2019s desire? Nay; ye have been cajoled! Your way is without\nhope.\n\n\u201cBut come unto me, ye anxious, whose hearts are bowed with care, and I\nwill give you your hearts\u2019 desire! No man calls on me in vain; I turn\nnone empty away; the world is full of my mercies upon those who trust\nin me; and my benefits fall like the summer rain on all who covenant\nwith me. Ask, and ye shall receive, whatsoever your hearts may wish;\nyea, though it lie at the ends of the earth it shall be given unto\nyou; your house shall be full of good things, riches, and place, and\npower; ye shall heap up gold like dust from the streets; ye shall have\nyour hearts\u2019 desire!\n\n\u201cCome unto me, ye weary, whose hearts are bent with trouble; lay down\nyour burden, and follow me; I will give you your heart\u2019s desire!\u201d\n\nMargot\u2019s hand went up the wall a little way toward the crucifix, then\nslipped back with fumbling fingers.\n\n\u201cLord ... Lord!\u201d she whispered hoarsely, \u201cgive me my heart\u2019s desire!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what is your heart\u2019s desire?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat my daughter, Gabrielle, should be white to all eternity! All that\nI have, and all that I am, will I give, ... yea, for this would I give\nmy soul.\u201d\n\nSatan smiled.\n\n\u201cThen lay down your burden, my daughter; you shall have your heart\u2019s\ndesire!\u201d\n\nMargot, with a sobbing cry, laid down her life\u2019s unbearable burden at\nthe feet of the Prince of the Powers of Darkness.\n\nBy his eternal damnation he swore she should have her heart\u2019s desire;\nby her rejected salvation she swore to abide by the covenant.\n\n\u201c_Consummatum est!_\u201d he said, and was gone on the black blast.\n\nThe candles sent up a thin flare of flame and smoke, and went out in\nutter darkness. Crouched on the floor against the wall Margot still\nknelt in a stupor. A rat came out of a hole in the wall and gnawed at\nher rosary. Dawn came in at the windows; the twilit gray grew pink. The\nwalls were blotched and spotted; everything exhaled an odor of mildew;\nMargot still huddled upon the floor beneath the crucifix; over her head\nthe crucified Christ hung mute in His agony.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe flight of hours, the decline of day, the season\u2019s turn, all things\nwhich preface change are presages of parting, and, like the proximity\nof the tomb, though wreathed in bloomy myrtle, are subtly fraught with\nsadness and regret. All love\u2019s farewells are so oppressed. Though\nwith absolute confidence in themselves and in each other, sure of the\nimperishable structure of their love, a nameless apprehension fills\nthe hearts of all who part, and casts a melancholy shade on partings.\n\u201cUntil to-morrow!\u201d Ah, to-morrow! \u201cTo-morrow I will come again!\u201d she\nsays. They go, with trembling hands, each, shaken by departure,\nsaying, \u201cShall we meet again?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo-morrow!\u201d Gabrielle had said, as she took her lips away. \u201cTo-morrow\nI will come again!\u201d and was gone.\n\nIn the warm heart of the midsummer night he dreamed again among the\nhedges, a boy\u2019s dream, a dream of joy, a dream of heart\u2019s delight. Her\nlips were pomegranate blossoms; her cheeks were wild peach flowers;\nit was a boy\u2019s dream, a dream of joy, a dream of heart\u2019s delight! Her\nwaist was as a willow-withe, her voice a bird in the deep wood calling;\nher feet danced fantasies in his heart. He came all in the daze of a\nboy\u2019s dream, a dream of joy, a dream of heart\u2019s desire. With every\neager breath he drew in the hyacinthine fragrance of the night.\n\nAll day long, like a sullen army, a great cloud heaved and gloomed\nalong the west, with wind-blown vapors streaming around its thunderous\nheights. All day long, in awe of it, men put off going here and there,\ngave over plans, and stood oppressed by its tremendous imminence. The\nday was darkened by the dominion of the cloud. At evening it rolled\noff across the plain, obliterating leagues of lesser storms, with fire\nstabbing at its breast, and distant bellowings of tremendous sound.\nHeaving slowly against the twilight stars, rolling in sullen majesty\nupon the gale, pale moonlight falling on its peaks, and the gray rain\ntrailing down below, in its heart innumerable lightnings, thunder\ngrumbling in its front, it left the drenched field to the moon. Beyond\nthe edge of the world it hung, gloomily brooding upon the splendor of\nthe night.\n\nIn the magic of the moonlight Lilac lane lay ghostly as a dream,\nhushed, alluring, unfamiliar. The strange, white light of the immense\nfull moon lay dead on everything; the hedge-rows were hung with\nthe shadows and darkness of strange delight; the cicada chittered\nin the almond tree; the great moths flapped heavily among the wet\nmoon-flowers; a slow, scarcely perceptible wind blew, languid-sweet,\nhardly moving the heavy leaves of the magnolias; a gray bird pitched a\nwild song somewhere deep within a hedge.\n\nIn Margot\u2019s garden everything was wrapped in night\u2019s singular fantasy.\nIn the pallor of the moonlight the garden lay like an enchanted realm\nof goblin loveliness. The lilies stood as pale and chill as flowers\ncarved of marble; among the drowsy poppies hung garlands of nocturnal\nvine whose folded blooms in chaplets clustered colorless in the pallid\nmoonshine. The whole place trembled in a pale, strange beauty which\nthe silence made lovelier still. Like an island in a silvery mist\nMargot\u2019s house stood blind asleep, its little windows curtained deep\nwith shadows, dim, blue, and dark, and on the woodwork of the door,\nlike petals of dismantled flowers, wax-wet, wind-blown, walked moths\nthrown there by the whining wind, slowly blowing across leagues of\nlonely marsh; and, among the moths, the glow-worms, faintly lighted and\nphosphor-green, crawled up and down, up and down, to nowhere: it looked\nlike the door of the way to oblivion, so lonely it seemed and so still.\nThe garden was utterly empty; the house yard was deserted.\n\nHe looked; he listened; and his heart stood still; save for the\nglow-worm and the moth there was nothing alive there but him. Like\nthe chill which creeps across the matted grass of evening in the last\nfair days of autumn, full of the faded fragrance and haunted dusk of\nfall, a wordless dread stole over him. The moonlight gleamed on the\ncottage-wall with a singular, mournful splendor; a heavy wind began to\nstir the trees; immensely mournful, faint and far-away, there came a\nboom of thunder from beyond the rim of the world; joy all at once was\ngone from the midsummer night; the haunting strangeness crept into his\nheart. The place was full of the heavy fragrance of dead flowers. Here\nand there a palsied rose, its faded leaves relaxed, broke, and fell\nwithout a sound.\n\nUnder the fig-trees he paused a moment, undecided,--to listen,\nshivering a little, and peering along the wall. There was no sound of\nhuman life. Though the wind had set the great leaves stirring, all was\nghostly as a dream. One white star above the roof-peak sailed among\nthe broken clouds; the moon, desolate, splendid, hung in the magnolia,\nmournfully gleaming through the black boughs; in the still air the\nmoonlight stood; the shadows lay like solid things upon the cottage\nwall.\n\nAt the corner of the house he paused and listened again. In the\nstrange, unanswering silence a sense of disaster gripped him. There was\nno sound anywhere; his heart almost ceased beating.\n\nWith premonition of catastrophe he ran along the wall:--nothing, but\nwindows, battened or curtained, blank as a blindman\u2019s eyes; not a sign\nof humanity.\n\nWhere he had dreamed to stand speechless with happiness, he stood\nshaken by nameless fear.\n\nDeep within the house he heard a relaxed beam \u201cpung\u201d with a sound\nlike a viol string softly struck by a hand in passing: the deep, slow\nsound reverberated through the hollow house, and died away in vacant\nwhispering.\n\nThrough the crevice of the shutter he saw the cold moonlight fall along\nthe deserted floor. The house was absolutely empty.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a convent-school for orphaned girls kept by the nuns in New\nOrleans. The loveliest girl seen there in years was Gabrielle Lagoux,\ncarried there between two nights, lest young love, like death, insist.\n\nDawn and departure. She had trembled like a leaf, half comprehending\nonly; her mother kissed her twice, in feverish haste, with lips like\ndry leaves: that was their parting. Some one called \u201cGabrielle!\u201d at the\ndoor. The coach was at the gate. She stopped at the wicket, looked down\nthe lane, said a few words to the coachboy who guarded her gown from\nthe wheels: \u201cTell him,\u201d she said, \u201cthat I love him. Tell him remember\nme.\u201d She paused again at the door of the coach, her foot on the step,\na dazed look in her eyes, saying, \u201cTell him not to forget me. I love\nhim!\u201d The wheels rumbled over the cobbles. She never came back. When\nshe entered the coach young love was done for forever: she never saw\nher golden lad again. Love beat his rose-red wings in vain; he could\nnot overtake the coach; for the coach was fate; all was over; his\ndusty feet halted in the heat of the dusty road; \u201cGood-by!... Good-by,\nforever!\u201d\n\nDays became weeks, weeks months, months grew into years; she never came\nagain. She passed through the convent\u2019s sheltering door, was safe from\nmischance and folly; passed into a world remote of unfamiliar faces,\nand forgot.\n\nGod made memory cruel, that men might know remorse; but the Devil\ndevised forgetfulness, anodyne of regret.\n\nReputed heiress to vast estates, provided with boundless means and\ngifted with great beauty, coming to marriageable age in all the\nfreshness of her youthful loveliness, she was wedded to a wealthy\nplanter\u2019s only son whose love for her was very great.\n\nPure happiness was theirs prolonged far beyond the honeymoon.\nSurrounded by every creature comfort wealth could procure or affection\ndevise, secure in a faithful man\u2019s unaltering love, she dwelt serene,\nin a country where the fruits of the earth and the flowers of the\nforest spread natural loveliness about fields of unsurpassed fertility.\n\nShe never knew winter, want, nor war; her years were filled with peace;\nher estates increased to vast proportions; a thousand slaves were\nhappy, being hers. Admired for her beauty, greatly loved, she returned\nan adoring husband\u2019s devotion, and bore him children with eyes like\nthe morning and hair like wreathed flames. Her daughters married and\nwere fruitful, bearing children fair as an April day, with eyes like\nthe sky of the morning. For them, for her, the world rolled on in\nunperturbed peace.\n\nBut she never saw her golden lad again.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSomething inscrutable, deeper than whim, had come over Margot Lagoux.\nHer work was oddly altered: it had more air, less ease; more spell,\nless charm; more force, and less dexterity. The stuffs she chose no\nlonger were notable for the exquisite, wan delicacy which so becomes\nthe pallor of high-bred beauty; she took an incomprehensible joy in\nvivid color; but what was gained in vividness was lost in harmony. Her\nwork retained distinction, but of a queer sort; reserve gave way to\nnovelty; simple beauty was replaced by meretricious charm; her taste,\nwhich had been perfect, seemed suffering gradual corruption; her craft\nwas marred by crudities. Her turbans began to look as if there were\nonly barbaric plumes in the world, of parrakeets and cockatoos, trogons\nand flamingos, gay toucan wings, and extraordinary quills; florid\ncolors and distempered stains were mingled in inharmonious contrast;\nmango-yellow, peacock-green, Egyptian blue, and Congo scarlet, flaunted\ntheir discordant tones together.\n\nStyle she had; but it was style _malade du rouvieux_; her trade-mark\nhad become gaucherie, her art artifice; good taste had departed.\nHer work no more was garnished, but bedizened with excess, nowhere\nrestrained, but having unrestricted vent in tawdry fripperies. Her\nhandicraft was stamped by power and energy misapplied; the sole\ndistinction it had left was whimsical device. Everything she did was\nlike sweet wine soured, the worse for having been so much better. Her\nbonnets were like songs in forced falsetto, every line slurred by\nsubtle default, every sweet note out; always too much or too little,\nnever the happy mean. Even the pearls or marguerites, which she had\nformerly employed in bordures as trade-marks of her craft, had become\ncheap beads of colored pottery and glass. In tarnished bowls, in\ncorners of obscure pawnshop windows, among the dead flies and the dust,\nare still occasionally to be found beads, often called \u201cmargots\u201d or\n\u201cmargotons,\u201d like those employed by Margot Lagoux in her practice of\nmillinery, but said to be thread-plummets employed by makers of lace.\nOne, a Greek dealer in old gold and stolen silver, tells the enquiring\ntraveler that these are Dead Sea pebbles, worn to their peculiar\nshapes by the ceaseless fret of that gloomy sea. But beads like them,\ngrotesques, baroques, were laced on toques and turbans of her make, and\nnow and then were found among the laces on bonnets which had no need of\nthem: men, seeing them, narrowed their glances, and took new note of\nthe wearer. Those aware permitted none near or dear to adorn her person\nwith them.\n\nA queerly degenerated taste marked everything that Margot did. With\nsingular obliquity she set everything awry; from rich goods produced\nunspeakably poor results; and with cheap cunning vexed priceless stuffs\nbeyond recovery or repair.\n\nHer custom fell from _vendre cher_ to _bon march\u00e9_. With the\ndiminishing stream of patronage the material in her shop went down\nfrom _velours ras, velours fa\u00e7onn\u00e9_, and _velours de soie_, to _velours\nde coton_ and _coton crois\u00e9_, from velvet to velveteens. The air of\ndistinction which attracted gentility utterly faded away; the coarse,\ncrude stuffs and rude handiwork repelled the aristocratic. Calls for\nher work became infrequent; more infrequent; came no more. One morning\nthe milliner\u2019s shop was shut. It never was opened again. The stuffs on\nthe dusty shelves grew faded, discolored, and stained; cobwebs hung\nfrom the mouldy walls; the trade which had known and frequented the\nplace knew it no more.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut out of this end, like a paradox, above the apparent wreck Margot\narose in prosperity: the Devil was good as his word.\n\nShe dwelt in a massive great house, a mansion, handsome, stately, and\nsomber, by a courtyard paved in marble, approached through a vaulted\ntunnel lit by a dull-flaming torch and closed by an iron gate. From\nthe side of the court a staircase of marble rose to her private door,\nornate as a public office\u2019s entry and massively carved in flowers;\nstairs within, of blue-veined marble, went up through wide corridors\nheavily panelled in dark Spanish wood. Beneath the house vast cellars\nboomed and echoed; the chimneys rose like turrets grouped against the\ndarkling sky. The house throughout was furnished with every luxury\nbefitting persons of circumstance: broad hearths for the burning of\nlong wood in winter, vaulted corridors, burnished fittings of latten,\nand jalousies of saffron-wood with retaining rosettes of porcelain;\nmahogany tables of rare design, deep-carved, and adorned with brass.\nCurtains of saffron-colored silk cinctured with gold braid hung from\nthe ceiling to the floor in heavy golden folds. Day was made night,\nnight day by many subterfuges, with blinds and saffron jalousies ironed\nfast against the noon. By night the light shone out to the red stars,\nand the house was full of the swift, rich sweeping of heavy silk\ncurtains waved by the wind, and the glow of the wax candles chequered\nthe courtyard below with gold. In the middle of the courtyard, at\nthe foot of the staircase, a fountain played in a yellow basin,\nwith a pleasant, incessant noise of whispering green water, falling\nperpetually with a delicate patter over seven brown stone dolphins,\nspouting from whose pouted mouths went up contending streams; the\nwaters gushed, white-laced, babbling, from the green-coppered vents in\nthe dolphins\u2019 mouths, and descended in spray to the bowl below; and\nunder the bowl the drain-pipe murmured subterranean cool. About the\ncourtyard stood a row of crimson-flowered pomegranate-trees: through\nthe split brown rinds the garnet pulp and silver seeds showed, clotted\nthick as crystals in a stone; and purple fruits in heavy clusters, of\nmyriad, uncounted drupes, hung from the superior privets ranged along\nthe courtyard wall, dropping green shadows, like vast laces, over the\nblind-arched bricks below. A garden lay beyond the court, its gate\nhung thick and deep with yellow roses, clinging to the iron lantern,\ndrooping and swaying in unconstrained festoons. Beyond the garden the\nplace debouched into a forgotten graveyard.\n\nBy night alive, by day the place was sunk in dreams, with lavish beauty\neverywhere composed to sleep in sunlit sloth, luxurious and deep. The\nplace seemed fallen in a trance. The pigeons dozed along the eaves;\nand on the grass below, where the garden stretched, the peacock slowly\ndanced his stiff and stately dance, an iris feather bubble, green as\njade, purple as wine, blue as lazuli. The courtyard seemed the very\nhome of sleep. The sun lay stupid on the silent walls and drowsily beat\non the blue-doored cellars shut with cautious bars, closed fast and\nlocked beneath the arcaded porch; the shadows of the slim pillars slept\nin the graceful galleries. All was hushed but the peacock\u2019s cry, while\nthat iridescent bubble, on toes black as ebony, danced, here and there,\nthere and here, his slow \u201cpavone\u201d among the yellow roses.\n\nBy night beneath the windows ancient tombs bared their sculptured\nbreasts to the stars and stared up at the golden arches; and dank,\nblack, cracked sarcophagi, chequered with light, laid broad their\ntime-worn, sculptured emblems and tragical inscriptions,--skulls with\nwings, and urns, and hour-glasses whose un-refluent, palsied sands meet\nmeasure of eternity kept with motionless registry, and stony garlands\nof stone flowers which never bloomed, nor ever were sweet, as that\nbeneath them had been sweet to man\u2019s all quivering sense. Here lay the\nlong dead, day and night, communicant in death; and wraiths of old\nunhappiness rose sighing with regret, or dreamed, beneath the stones,\nof love as futile as regret. The wind among the tombstones, like a\nstream from a windy fountain, murmured among the pomegranate-trees,\nstirred the shadows under the privets, rustled between the silken\ncurtains, whispering, much as dead men do, chill, wordless, fluttering\nbreaths of unsolved mystery. And when the wind from the graveyard\nwhispered, all the place stood listening, hushed. The wind from the\ngraveyard whispered among the saffron curtains; the ceaseless fountain\nwaters fell; else all was still but the peacock\u2019s wild night-cry,\nsounding through the unfathomable silence like the rending of an\nillusion,--deep and singular and strange,--by a harsh trumpet\u2019s blast.\nHeh! The Devil keeps his promises in the way that suits him best.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMargot\u2019s existence here was a thing apart from everything plebeian:\nshe was immensely wealthy; had riches such as are won by few, though\nsought by many, plantations in the country, houses in town, money on\ncall in quantity that made great bankers bow; women to wait upon her,\ndeferential men, boys to run at her beck, maidservants, bond and free,\nto go before her; her cellar was famous for its wines, her dress for\nits wild and extravagant beauty; all that she touched she took; all\nthat she took she kept; everything that she kept increased beyond\nthe bounds of reason; she was spoken to with deference and referred\nto with finesse. She had her carriage, lined with silk, with yellow\nhammer-cloths and bands; in the license of her beauty she laughed at\nsumptuary laws, and in her illegal equipage rolled insolently on; in\namber gown and canary turban fastened with a golden brooch, despite\nthe law, she rode the streets like a charioted queen; or, dressed in\nwild, unstudied colors such as are used in Barbary, she wandered in her\ngarden in the after-hours of the day, making wreaths of the saffron\nroses, a cockatoo upon her arm the color of a wild peach flower.\n\nA shapely, splendid creature, with her handsome, heavy hands, neck like\na tower, glorious hair hanging rich beneath its turban, her embroidered\nrobe but carelessly worn and recklessly adjusted--oddly, the coarser\nthe more becoming,--a goddess made of beautiful earth, but coarse as\nthe cotton-flower, with confident face and insolent mien she took her\nway through the streets with a supple stride which was the despair of\nenvious rivalry; hers was a regal beauty like the tiger\u2019s loveliness.\n\nWith her face like beauty seen in dreams, incredible and untrue, she\nwent through the community like a lovely malady: even wise men\u2019s souls\nwere troubled; sturdy hearts that had laughed at passion shook with the\nfairness of her face; piety was troubled by her golden loveliness.\nMore than one sermon from Solomon\u2019s Song was inspired by Rita Lagoux;\nshe was known as the woman with a face like a beautiful blasphemy.\n\nTime but increased the wildness and singularity of her beauty: it\nwas gossiped about in the market-stalls; it was babbled about in the\nstreets.\n\nThen a torpor fell on her loveliness, a dull and leaden look; her\nbeauty grew sullen and lowering as the flame of a fallen fire. Though\nnot much altered in appearance she was somehow greatly changed. Her\nlooks had lost something, no one could say what, gained something none\ncould define. It was not that she was less the unforgettable being she\nhad been, or that her sullen beauty made less mark on memory, but that\nthe ecstasy of beauty was replaced by a queer unrest. Though as never\nbefore she was possessed of a singular comeliness, men began to regard\nher with an odd uneasiness: there was a foreignness in her face, and\nthe look of alien things.\n\nShe looked like a portrait of herself painted in irony.\n\nOn the day that her daughter was married in far-away New Orleans,\nMargot stood motionless by her mirror, staring at her own reflection.\nThe day seemed oddly overcast. Suddenly she burst into wild, shrill\nlaughter, cheerless and tragic, her body shaking, her hands wrung\ntogether, turned away with an epithet, reversed the glass, and never\nlooked into a mirror again. Something had passed across her face like a\nstrange, ambiguous stain.\n\nA shadow had fallen upon her like an unexpected dusk, or the dimness\nunder a passing cloud, and had overcast her beauty.\n\nNot time with his pinching seam, nor age with its ugliness, but a\nsubtle and more peculiar change had come over Margot Lagoux.\n\nThere is a half-light in the hour of an eclipse which casts a weird\nspell on the world, when the sun is but a narrow crescent at high noon\nand the earth grows oddly dim in an untimely dusk. Such a dusk was\nfallen upon Margot Lagoux.\n\nSultry beauty such as hers has ever an early afternoon; but this was\nmore than sultry beauty\u2019s early afternoon. Not day, not darkness yet,\nbut dusk went with her everywhere like twilight in the woods. The sun\nshone brightly everywhere along a sparkling world, but on Margot lay\na shadow, strange and sinister. As unbleached muslin sallows to dingy\nisabella, as metal tarnishes from neglect, as white paper dulls in\nthe sun, as the spot on bruised fruit turns brown, Margot Lagoux was\nchanging; she was becoming tawny, swart, _bisblanc_ as the Creoles say.\nHer golden-ruddy cheeks had turned a morbid olive-brown as if a somber\nfountain were playing in her blood.\n\nThere were many women at that day on whom fate laid dreadful hands:\nLouise Briaud, who was blinded by smallpox; Fanchette Bourie, whom God\npitied with death; Helene Richemont, the leper; Floride Biez, Doucie\nBaramont, Francesca Villeponteaux, wrecked by disfiguring maladies.\nGod give them peace! But on none was laid so ruthless, unrelenting,\ndeliberate a hand as fell upon Rita Lagoux.\n\nShe changed like a portrait whose shadows, painted in bitumen, have\nstruck through and distempered the rest. Like a strange, nocturnal\ncreature she seemed to absorb the gloom. Her glorious eyes grew\njaundiced; her rose-brown lips grew dun; the delicate webs that joined\nher fingers grew yellow as bakers\u2019 saffron. Malice laughed at her\nthickening lips.\n\nWeeks turned months, months years; swarthy she grew and ugly. She\nput aside beauty as a worn, bright garment, and took on grotesquery\nstark and medieval as a Chinese teak-wood carving. She became both\ngrotesque and contorted, gross, misshapen, sullied and debased. The\nold enchantment was gone like a necromancer\u2019s spell. The perfect\ngait had faltered down to a lurching trot, a hurrying waddle with\nan irregular, unsure motion, hesitating a moment, then hastening on\nwith vague uncertainty. Her soft, sleepy laugh had grown violent, her\nmelodious voice coarse; of her fair face there was nothing left, no,\nnot remembrance even.\n\nA young man came to her threshold one morning and looked in eagerly;\nhe would speak with Margot Lagoux: but \u201cIs that Margot Lagoux?\u201d he\nasked, a curious look coming over his face,--that woman, obese, with\nlow brows, huge fat eyelids, round bare forehead, short, strained and\ncorded neck enormously thick, yellowed teeth irregularly shown between\nthick, sallowed lips, cheeks wrinkled, flecked and blotched with brown\nlike spotted peaches. \u201cNo!\u201d he said, hastily, shrinking away. \u201cThat\nis not the woman I mean. The woman I meant was comely ... and had a\nbeautiful daughter named Gabrielle!\u201d He turned away, shuddering.\n\nShe wore old rags for robes, an old _freloche_ upon her head, in nowise\nrestraining the unkempt coils of her hair hanging matted upon her neck.\nHer cheeks hung slack and dark and dingy; her lusterless locks were\nfelted into a tangled web that had grown gray with lint; her frowsy\nchin was stained as with walnut hulls. She was falling apart like an\nold house with nobody living in it, swore black oaths with a foul\nmouth, cursed all who crossed her path, ate like a beast food fit for\nbeasts, her fevered sun of glory set,--gone, gone, gone. Down she went,\nlike the stuffs in her shop, from _velours ras_ to _coton crois\u00e9_,\ndown, down to oblivion, down to the dusty corner of death. She spat in\nthe dirt: \u201c_Je m\u2019en fiche!_\u201d she said.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nShe hated a priest, and never knelt at a confessional again.\n\nShe did not die in the great house where she had passed the days of her\npower; every place she dwelt in sank into decay, the swifter where its\nintegrity seemed permanent and secure; nothing purged the ambiguous\nspell which dragged them down together to the dust. The great house\nstood a ruin above a ruined court, a wreck of its former pride and\nsplendor, black and foul; the fountain had fallen long ago, its pipes\nstrangled and eaten away to crusts of lead and thready ribs of iron\nin the sand. Lilac lane was gone; there was no lane there any more,\nand had been none for years; there was no trace of where it ran,\nits hedge-rows or its gardens, or of Margot\u2019s cottage other than a\nmouldering heap of broken brick, bleak rafters of the fallen roof, and\none stark, fallen gable; of Gabrielle\u2019s garden nothing remained.\n\nMargot died in a dirty hovel in an unkempt alleyway, in the midst of\na negro quarter, where, if one beat a drum or caused an instrument of\nan orchestra to sound, the people swarmed from the tenements like ants\nout of a hill. The place was fallen and foul, and filled with beggary;\nand that is the end of a tenement; for beggars are like distemper, the\nplace where they have lived is hard to cure. All the houses in the\nalley were filthy; but none was filthy as hers.\n\nThere was a tremendous storm that night. Her house was ablaze with\nlight; the little tailor who lived next door said, \u201cAha! Mother Go-go\nhas company!\u201d But the only person seen was one of the religious sort, a\ntall man, with a face like an unpleasant taste.\n\nThe thunder was terrific; the storm wild beyond compare. The wind blew\nwith a sound like wild, gigantic laughter. \u201cFf-ff-ff!\u201d went the gale;\nthe gusts howled through the tailor\u2019s house; the whole place shook; the\nblinds banged and crashed; the wind wailed, and sucked down the chimney\nwith a sound like awful weeping; the little tailor\u2019s soul was filled\nwith a sense of enormous terror.\n\nAll night long the thunder rolled like the laughter of an angry god.\nDislodged by the tremendous concussions the cockroaches flew out of\nthe walls; and, in the morning, after the storm, the parrakeets which\nlived in the trees were all turned gray as ashes.\n\nThe windows and doors of Old Mother Go-go\u2019s house were standing open\nwide. It was plain that they had stood open all night, and that the\nrain had beaten into the house unopposed.\n\nThis, however, occasioned but brief surprise. When they peered in at\nthe door the rats were playing around the floor with the beads of a\nbroken rosary.\n\nA priest came, hurrying in. He did not stay in long. When he came out\nhis face was white as a sheet and his lips were drawn and gray.\n\nThose who prepare the dead came. They stood on the threshold peeping\nand queerly looking in at the door.\n\nA gray mist filled the place like a cloud, through which things were\nvisible. The rooms were damp as an old vault, and full of a death-like\nsmell; the walls were covered with green mould; the woodwork was\nrotten. The candles had guttered and dripped and gone out; the floor\nwas bespattered with tallow. All around the rooms were coffers of\nlinen and lace, \u201c_coffres tr\u00e8s beaux, coffres mignons, de dressouer\ncompagnons; coffres de boys qui point n\u2019empire; madres et jaunes comme\ncire_.\u201d All the coffers were open, and everything that was in them was\ntossed wildly about the floor; not one piece of the lovely old stuffs,\nas yellow as wax, but was blackened by showers of soot and trampled\nunder foot by the neighbor\u2019s goat, the print of whose hoofs was\neverywhere.\n\nAnd Madame Margot?\n\nHeh! God had designed her for tragedy; but here was comedy. Margot lay\nstretched out on the floor, as black as ebony; dead, among the ashes\nand soot, charred like a fallen star.\n\nThe coroner found that the woman had died of the visitation of God; but\nDoe Gou, the tailor, said simply, \u201cHas God feet like a goat?\u201d\n\nThe bishop refused to have masses said for the repose of her pitiful\nsoul; and they would not allow her to be buried in St. Sebastian\u2019s\ngraveyard. The potter\u2019s field was the place for her; her color was too\npeculiar.\n\nToo black to be buried among the white, too white to lie down with\nthe black, she was buried, in secret, in her own garden, under the\nmagnolia-trees.\n\nAnd that was the end of Madame Margot.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES:\n\n\n  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.\n\n  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.\n\n  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.","title":"Madame Margot: A grotesque legend of old Charleston","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":13975}