It was a poetic, almost a mystic dream. He was waiting for Donna
Maria--she had chosen this night of supernatural purity on which to
sacrifice her own purity to her lover's desire. All the white things
about her, cognisant of the great sacrifice about to be accomplished,
were waiting to cry _Ave_ and _Amen_ at the passage of their sister. The
silence was alive.
And behold, she comes! _Incedit per lilia et super nivem._ She comes,
robed in ermine; her tresses bound about with a fillet; her steps
lighter than a shadow; the moon and the snow are less pale than
she--_Ave_!
A shadow, azure as the light that tints the sapphire, accompanies her.
The great mis-shapen lilies bend not as she passes; the frost has
congealed them, has made them like the asphodels that illumine the paths
of Hades. And yet, like those of the Christian paradise, they have a
voice and say with one accord--_Amen_.
So be it--the Beloved glides on to the sacrifice. Already she nears the
watcher sitting mute and icy, but whose eyes are burning and eloquent.
And on her hands, the dear hands that close his wounds and open the
doors of dreams, he presses his kiss.--So be it.
Then on her lips, the dear lips that know no word of falseness, he lays
his kiss. Released from the fillet, her hair spreads like a glorious
flood in which all the shadows of the night put to flight by the moon
and the snow seem to have taken refuge.
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