and which if broken are found to contain a serpent. That
serpent is my love--a love which is all-powerful, for it has brought you
to me. An impossible distance was between us. I was in Sirius, and you
were in Allioth. You have crossed the immeasurable space, and here you
are. 'Tis well. Be silent. Take me."

She ceased; he trembled. Then she went on, smiling, "You see,
Gwynplaine, to dream is to create; to desire is to summon. To build up
the chimera is to provoke the reality. The all-powerful and terrible
mystery will not be defied. It produces result. You are here. Do I dare
to lose caste? Yes. Do I dare to be your mistress--your concubine--your
slave--your chattel? Joyfully. Gwynplaine, I am woman. Woman is clay
longing to become mire. I want to despise myself. That lends a zest to
pride. The alloy of greatness is baseness. They combine in perfection.
Despise me, you who are despised. Nothing can be better. Degradation on
degradation. What joy! I pluck the double blossom of ignominy. Trample
me under foot. You will only love me the more. I am sure of it. Do you
understand why I idolize you? Because I despise you. You are so
immeasurably below me that I place you on an altar. Bring the highest
and lowest depths together, and you have Chaos, and I delight in
Chaos--Chaos, the beginning and end of everything. What is Chaos? A huge
blot. Out of that blot God made light, and out of that sink the world.
You don't know how perverse I can be. Knead a star in mud, and you will
have my likeness."

She went on,--

"A wolf to all beside; a faithful dog to you. How astonished they will
all be! The astonishment of fools is amusing. I understand myself. Am I
a goddess? Amphitrite gave herself to the Cyclops. _Fluctivoma
Amphitrite_. Am I a fairy? Urgele gave herself to Bugryx, a winged man,
with eight webbed hands. Am I a princess? Marie Stuart had Rizzio. Three
beauties, three monsters. I am greater than they, for you are lower than
they. Gwynplaine, we were made for one another. The monster that you are
outwardly, I am within. Thence my love for you. A caprice? Just so. What
is a hurricane but a caprice? Our stars have a certain affinity.
Together we are things of night--you in your face, I in my mind. As your
countenance is defaced, so is my mind. You, in your turn, create me. You
come, and my real soul shows itself. I did not know it. It is
astonishing. Your coming has evoked the hydra in me, who am a goddess.
You reveal my