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My body was to theirs no obstacle: was I a body, and were they but
forms? or was I but a form, and were they bodies? The moment one
of the dancers came close against me, that moment he or she was
on the other side of me, and I could tell, without seeing, which,
whether man or woman, had passed through my house.
On many of the skulls the hair held its place, and however dressed,
or in itself however beautiful, to my eyes looked frightful on the
bones of the forehead and temples. In such case, the outer ear
often remained also, and at its tip, the jewel of the ear as Sidney
calls it, would hang, glimmering, gleaming, or sparkling, pearl or
opal or diamond--under the night of brown or of raven locks, the
sunrise of golden ripples, or the moonshine of pale, interclouded,
fluffy cirri--lichenous all on the ivory-white or damp-yellow naked
bone. I looked down and saw the daintily domed instep; I looked
up and saw the plump shoulders basing the spring of the round full
neck--which withered at half-height to the fluted shaft of a gibbose
cranium.
The music became wilder, the dance faster and faster; eyes flared
and flashed, jewels twinkled and glittered, casting colour and fire
on the pallid grins that glode through the hall, weaving a ghastly
rhythmic woof in intricate maze of multitudinous motion, when sudden
came a pause, and every eye turned to the same spot:--in the doorway
stood a woman, perfect in form, in holding, and in hue, regarding
the company as from the pedestal of a goddess, while the dancers
stood "like one forbid," frozen to a new death by the vision of a
life that killed. "Dead things, I live!" said her scornful glance.
Then, at once, like leaves in which an instant wind awakes, they
turned each to another, and broke afresh into melodious consorted
motion, a new expression in their eyes, late solitary, now filled
with the interchange of a common triumph. "Thou also," they seemed
to say, "wilt soon become weak as we! thou wilt soon become like
unto us!" I turned mine again to the woman--and saw upon her side
a small dark shadow.
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