A Positive Romance, Edward Bellamy [best fantasy books to read TXT] 📗

arms, with tensely interlacing fingers and palms turned downward, all told the story of a shy and sensitive girl submitting from a sense of duty to a painful ordeal.

"The sudden and complete wreck of all my preconceptions as to her appearance, as well as the accessories of the scene, left me for a few moments fairly dazed. Not only were my highly wrought expectations as to the present interview brought to humiliating discomfiture, but the influence of the disillusionment instantly retroacted with the effect of making the entire noble and romantic cult which had led up to this unlucky confrontation seem a mere farrago of extravagant and baseless sentiment. What on earth had Regnier been thinking of, to plan deliberately a situation calculated to turn a cherished sentiment into ridicule? If he had seriously thought his daughter capable of supporting the role he had assigned her, had there ever been a like case of parental fatuity?

"But even as I indignantly asked myself this question, I saw a great light, and recognized that the trouble was neither with Regnier's fatuity nor with his daughter's lack of charms, but with myself, and a most unworthy misconception into which I had fallen as to the whole object and purport of this interview. What had the beauty or the lack of beauty of this girl to do with the present occasion? I was not here to render homage to her for the beauty of her sex, but for its perpetual consecration and everlasting martyrdom to my race. The revulsion of feeling which followed the recognition of the grossness of the mistake I had made had no doubt the effect of greatly intensifying my emotions. I was overcome with contrition for the unworthiness with which I had stood before this girl who had so trusted to my magnanimity, appraising her like a sensualist when I should have been on my knees before her. A reaction of compunctious loyalty made my very heartstrings ache. I saw now how well it had been for a weak-minded fool like myself that she had not chanced to be beautiful or even pretty, for then I should have cheated myself of all that distinguished this solemn meeting from the merest lover's antics. I won in that moment an impression of the tawdriness of mere beauty which I have never gotten over. It seemed to me then, and more or less has ever since, that the beauty of women is a sort of veil which hides from superficial eyes the true adorableness of womanhood.

"Unable longer to resist the magnetism of my gaze, her eyes rose slowly to mine. At their first meeting, her face became crimson; but as she did not avert her eyes, and continued to look into mine, the flush paled swiftly from her face, and with it all the other evidences of her embarrassment passed as quickly away, leaving her bearing wholly changed. It was plain that through my eyes, which in that moment must have been truly windows of my soul, she had read my inmost thoughts, and had perceived how altogether impertinent to their quality self-consciousness on her part would be. As with a gaze growing ever more serene and steadfast she continued to read my thoughts, her face changed, and from the look of a shy and timid maiden it gradually took on that of a conscious goddess. Then, as still she read on, there came another change. The soft black eyes grew softer and yet softer, and then slowly filled with tears till they were like brimming vases. She did not smile, but her brows and lips assumed a look of benignant sweetness indescribable.

"In that moment no supernatural aureole would have added sacredness to that head, or myth of heavenly origin have made that figure seem more adorable. With right good-will I sank upon my knees. She reached forth her hand to me and I pressed my lips to it. I lifted up the hem of her dress and kissed it. There was a rustle of garments. I looked up and she was gone.

"I suppose immediately after that I must have left the house. I only know that the dawn found me miles out of town, walking aimlessly about and talking to myself."

Hammond poured himself a glass of wine, drunk it slowly, and then fell into a profound reverie, apparently forgetful of my presence.

"Is that all?" I asked at last. "Did you not see her again?"

"No," he answered, "I never saw her again. Probably, as her father had intimated, he did not intend that I should. But circumstances also prevented. The very next day there was an explosion in college. There had been a Judas among my fellow-disciples, and the faculty had been informed of the Positivist propaganda going on under their noses. I was suspended for six months. When I returned to college, Regnier had disappeared. He had of course been promptly dismissed, and it was rumored that he had gone back to France. He had left no trace, and I never heard of him again or of his daughter. I don't even know the name of the woman I worshiped."
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Publication Date: 08-13-2010

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