The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE DREAM CIRCEAN “The room, though exquisitely decorated, was entirely bare of furniture, unless one could dignify by that name a heap of dirty straw in one corner, by which stood a flattish wooden bowl, half full of what looked like a crust of bread mashed into pulp with water. “ Half turned away from me stood the owner of the harsh voice and soul abominable. It wasa woman of perhaps sixty years of age, the head of an angel—so regular were the features, so silver-white the hair—set upon the deformed body of a dwarf. Hairy hands and twisted arms, a hunched back and bandy legs; in the gnarled right hand a terrible whip, the carved jade handle blossoming into a rose of fine cords, shin- ing with silver—sharp, three-cornered chips of silver! The whole dripped black with blood. Upon the angel face stood asneer, a snarl,a malediction. The effect upon one’s sense of something beyond the ordinary was, too, heightened by her costume; for though the summer was at its height she was clad from head to foot in ermine, starred, more heavily than is usual, with the little black tails in the form offleurs-de-lis. “In extreme contrast to this monster was a young girl crouching upon the floor. At first sight one would have hardly suspected a human form at all, for from her head flowed down on all sides a torrent of exquisite blonde gold, that completely hid her. Only two little hands looked out, clasped, pleading for mercy, and a fairy child-face, looking up—in vain—to that black heart of hatred. Even as I gazed the woman hissed out so frightful a menace that my blood ran chill. The child shrank back into herself. The other raised her whip. I leapt into the room. The old hag spat one infamous word at me, turned on me with the whip. 117