of day seemed to caress her as she mingled in
it; rather it seemed that the light of her eyes was brighter than the
daylight itself; or some shadow passing over that fair face made a kind
of change there, altering its hues and its expression. Some thought
would often seem to glow on her white brows; her eyes appeared to
dilate, and her eyelids trembled; a smile rippled over her features;
the living coral of her lips grew full of meaning as they closed and
unclosed; an indistinguishable something in her hair made brown shadows
on her fair temples; in each new phase Foedora spoke. Every slight
variation in her beauty made a new pleasure for my eyes, disclosed
charms my heart had never known before; I tried to read a separate
emotion or a hope in every change that passed over her face. This mute
converse passed between soul and soul, like sound and answering echo;
and the short-lived delights then showered upon me have left indelible
impressions behind. Her voice would cause a frenzy in me that I could
hardly understand. I could have copied the example of some prince of
Lorraine, and held a live coal in the hollow of my hand, if her fingers
passed caressingly through my hair the while. I felt no longer mere
admiration and desire: I was under the spell; I had met my destiny. When
back again under my own roof, I still vaguely saw Foedora in her own
home, and had some indefinable share in her life; if she felt ill, I
suffered too. The next day I used to say to her:

"'You were not well yesterday.'

"How often has she not stood before me, called by the power of ecstasy,
in the silence of the night! Sometimes she would break in upon me like
a ray of light, make me drop my pen, and put science and study to flight
in grief and alarm, as she compelled my admiration by the alluring pose
I had seen but a short time before. Sometimes I went to seek her in the
spirit world, and would bow down to her as to a hope, entreating her to
let me hear the silver sounds of her voice, and I would wake at length
in tears.

"Once, when she had promised to go to the theatre with me, she took it
suddenly into her head to refuse to go out, and begged me to leave her
alone. I was in such despair over the perversity which cost me a day's
work, and (if I must confess it) my last shilling as well, that I went
alone where she was to have been, desiring to see the play she had
wished to see. I had scarcely seated myself when an electric shock went
thro