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Corinna became Helena's ideal: the divinely inspired poetess who like the nun of the middle-ages, had vowed a vow of chastity, so that she might lead a life of purity, who was, of course, admired by a brilliant throng, rose to immeasurable heights above the heads of the petty every-day mortals.
'It is a graceful act on the sea's part, she said. 'Wotan is so clumsy he knocks over the bowl, and flap-flap-flap go the gasping fishes, pizzicato! but the sea Helena's speech was often difficult to render into plain terms. She was not lucid. 'But life's so full of anti-climax, she concluded. Siegmund smiled softly at her. She had him too much in love to disagree or to examine her words.
Though Bertram did not like the marriage forced on him by the king, it seems he was not insensible to love, for since he had been stationed with the army at Florence, he had fallen in love with Diana, a fair young gentlewoman, the daughter of this widow who was Helena's hostess; and every night, with music of all sorts, and songs composed in praise of Diana's beauty, he would come under her window, and solicit her love; and all his suit to her was, that she would permit him to visit her by stealth after the family were retired to rest; but Diana would by no means be persuaded to grant this improper request, nor give any encouragement to his suit, knowing him to be a married man; for Diana had been brought up under the counsels of a prudent mother, who, though she was now in reduced circumstances, was well born, and descended from the noble family of the Capulets.
Helena laughed, and he did not detect her extreme bitterness of spirit. They walked on in silence for some time. He was thinking back, before Helena's day. This left her very much alone, and forced on her the idea that, after all, love, which she chose to consider as single and wonderful a thing in a man's life as birth, or adolescence, or death, was temporary, and formed only an episode.
There can be no other reason." "Oh, yes, dear there can." "What is the reason, then?" "That, my sweet girl, is one of the things that we have got to find out." The post of this morning brought a letter from my sister. We were to expect her return by the next day's train. This was good news. Philip and I might stand in need of clever Helena's help, and we might be sure of getting it now.
The night passed without inconvenience beneath a vast mass of bushy ferns, under which enormous bats, properly called flying foxes, were flapping about. The next day's journey was good; there were no new calamities. The health of the expedition remained satisfactory; horses and cattle did their task cheerily. Lady Helena's drawing-room was very lively, thanks to the number of visitors.
Cyril of Jerusalem about A.C. 350; and Eusebius, who gives an account of Helena's visit to Jerusalem, does not mention any such occurrence as that in question; a sure sign that it was an invention of later date.
There was still light in Helena's room as he passed her door on tip-toe so as not to wake her. He heard her cough. He went straight to bed, smoked his cigar and read his paper. He was absorbed in an article on conscription, when all of a sudden Helena's door was flung open, and footsteps and screams from the drawing-room fell on his ears.
Then Helena, her fingers in her ears, had made a violent descent upon the kitchen, and carried off the "limb" to the river, where, being given something to do in the shape of damming up a brook that ran into the main stream, he had suddenly developed angelic qualities, and tied himself to Helena's skirts.
As usual, good Selina expressed her sentiments without reserve. I had to keep my appointment; and the sooner Helena Gracedieu and I understood each other the better. I knocked at the door. It was loudly unlocked, and violently thrown open. Helena's temper had risen to boiling heat; she stammered with rage when she spoke to me. "I mean to come to the point at once," she said.
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