Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

Scarcely had the half-moulded words floated from him, as he stood gazing

into the mirror, when, striking him as with a flash of amazement that

fixed him in his posture, noiseless and unannounced, glided suddenly

through the door into the reflected room, with stately motion, yet

reluctant and faltering step, the graceful form of a woman, clothed all

in white. Her back only was visible as she walked slowly up to the

couch in the further end of the room, on which she laid herself

wearily, turning towards him a face of unutterable loveliness, in which

suffering, and dislike, and a sense of compulsion, strangely mingled

with the beauty. He stood without the power of motion for some moments,

with his eyes irrecoverably fixed upon her; and even after he was

conscious of the ability to move, he could not summon up courage to

turn and look on her, face to face, in the veritable chamber in which

he stood. At length, with a sudden effort, in which the exercise of the

will was so pure, that it seemed involuntary, he turned his face to the

couch. It was vacant. In bewilderment, mingled with terror, he turned

again to the mirror: there, on the reflected couch, lay the exquisite

lady-form. She lay with closed eyes, whence two large tears were just

welling from beneath the veiling lids; still as death, save for the

convulsive motion of her bosom.

Cosmo himself could not have described what he felt. His emotions were

of a kind that destroyed consciousness, and could never be clearly

recalled. He could not help standing yet by the mirror, and keeping his

eyes fixed on the lady, though he was painfully aware of his rudeness,

and feared every moment that she would open hers, and meet his fixed

regard. But he was, ere long, a little relieved; for, after a while, her

eyelids slowly rose, and her eyes remained uncovered, but unemployed for

a time; and when, at length, they began to wander about the room, as if

languidly seeking to make some acquaintance with her environment, they

were never directed towards him: it seemed nothing but what was in the

mirror could affect her vision; and, therefore, if she saw him at all,

it could only be his back, which, of necessity, was turned towards her

in the glass. The two figures in the mirror could not meet face to face,

except he turned and looked at her, present in his room; and, as she was

not there, he concluded that if he were to turn towards the part in his

room corresponding to that in which she lay, his reflection would either

be invisible to her altogether, or at least it must appear to her to

gaze vacantly towards her, and no meeting of the eyes would produce

the impression of spiritual proximity. By-and-by her eyes fell upon the

skeleton, and he saw her shudder and close them. She did not open them

again, but signs of repugnance continued evident on her countenance.

Cosmo would have removed the obnoxious thing at once, but he feared to

discompose her yet more by the assertion of his presence which the act

would involve. So he stood and watched her. The eyelids yet shrouded

the eyes, as a costly case the jewels within; the troubled expression

gradually faded from the countenance, leaving only a faint sorrow

behind; the features settled into an unchanging expression of rest; and

by these signs, and the slow regular motion of her breathing, Cosmo knew

that she slept. He could now gaze on her without embarrassment. He saw

that her figure, dressed in the simplest robe of white, was worthy of

her face; and so harmonious, that either the delicately moulded foot, or

any finger of the equally delicate hand, was an index to the whole. As

she lay, her whole form manifested the relaxation of perfect repose. He

gazed till he was weary, and at last seated himself near the new-found

shrine, and mechanically took up a book, like one who watches by a

sick-bed. But his eyes gathered no thoughts from the page before him.

His intellect had been stunned by the bold contradiction, to its face,

of all its experience, and now lay passive, without assertion, or

speculation, or even conscious astonishment; while his imagination sent

one wild dream of blessedness after another coursing through his soul.

How long he sat he knew not; but at length he roused himself, rose, and,

trembling in every portion of his frame, looked again into the mirror.

She was gone. The mirror reflected faithfully what his room presented,

and nothing more. It stood there like a golden setting whence the

central jewel has been stolen away--like a night-sky without the glory

of its stars. She had carried with her all the strangeness of the

reflected room. It had sunk to the level of the one without.