Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/113

Rh wind-tost, that took place in the priapic orgies of the annual Fair.

During a moment, Blandine had caught the look in his half-open eyes. What abyss did she discover there? The abyss attracts, and love is partly made up of dizziness. Without abandoning herself to the fulness of the joy which she had hoped for, without swooning as in the midst of the phosphorescent heather, in the arms of the King of the Winnowers, she felt throughout her being a tenderness more tragic for the young Count of Kehlmark. She had surprised in Henry's expression an infinite anguish, in his embrace the tight clinging of a drowning person, in his kiss the suffocation of a man being murdered, who cries for help.

She had given herself up to him, dominated by his superiority of mind; and she was always respectful and humble in their relations. Ariaan, that fine healthy brute, had never, Blandine was now convinced, been consumed with erotic terrors comparable to those which stirred the flesh and the imagination of this too intellectual and too speculative young patrician.

While worshipping him absolutely, she always approached him with a certain