The Argonauts by Eliza Orzeszkowa

Author:Eliza Orzeszkowa [Orzeszkowa, Eliza]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Novels

CHAPTER VII

Baron Emil said at times to Irene:

“You have the aristocracy of intellect. Your mind is original. There is in you much delicate irony. You are not deceived with painted pots.”

These words caused her pleasure of the same sort as that which the praise of a mountaineer causes an inexperienced traveller when he tells him that he knows how to climb neck-breaking summits. Much irony had flowed into her mind from certain mysterious sides of her life. But she had become conscious of this now for the first time, under the guidance and influence of the baron. He awed her by the originality of his language and ideas, by the absolute sincerity of his disbelief, and his egotism. During childhood she had seen a mask which astounded her, and struck her in the very heart. Thenceforth everything seemed better to her and more agreeable than masks. Moreover, the baron was to her thinking a finished aesthete, an excellent judge in the whole realm of art, and in this regard she did not deceive herself greatly. The opinions on art and philosophy, which he proclaimed, interested her through their novelty, and the expressions which he used purposely, though sometimes brutal and verging on the gutter, roused her curiosity by their singularity and insolence. She imitated him in speech; in his presence she guarded her lips lest they might let something escape through which she would earn the title of “shepherdess.”

“You are very far from the Arcadian condition, in which I meet people here at every step. You are intricate; you are like an orchid, one stem of which has a flower in the form of a butterfly, while the next seems like a death’s head.”

She interrupted him with a brief laugh:

“A butterfly is flat.”

Her laugh had a sharp sound, for the cold gleam of the baron’s eyes fell on her boldly and persistently.

“No,” contradicted he, “no; the combination of a death’s head with a butterfly makes a dissonance. That bites and sticks a new pin in the soul.”

“But the Greek harmony?” she inquired.

With a flattering smile, which conquered her, the baron answered:

“Never mention harmony. That is the milk with which babes were nourished. We subsist on something else. You like game, do you not? but only when it begins to decay. There is no good game, except that which is rank. Very well, we subsist on a world in decay. This is true, but you speak of that darned sock; namely, harmony—ha! ha! ha! You think sometimes one way and sometimes another. Your soul is full of bites! You are idyllic and also satirical. You jeer at idyls, and still, at odd times, you yearn for one somewhat. Have I touched the point accurately? Are my words true?”

“True,” answered Irene, dropping her eyelids.

She dropped her lids because she was ashamed of the discovery which the baron had made in her, and for this cause as well, that she felt his breath on her face, and caught the odor of certain strange perfumes which came from him.

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