I did not learn this for many months. Meanwhile Narcissus chose to
deceive me for the first and only time. At last he told me all; and how
different was his manner of telling it from his former gay relations of
conquest. One needed not to hear the words to see he was unveiling a
sacred thing, a holiness so white and hidden, the most reverent word
seemed a profanation; and, as he laboured for the least soiled wherein
to enfold the revelation, his soul seemed as a maid torn with the
blushing tremors of a new knowledge. Men only speak so after great and
wonderful travail, and by that token I knew Narcissus loved at last. It
had seemed unlikely ground from which love had first sprung forth, that
of a self-worship that could forgo no slightest indulgence--but thence
indeed it had come. The silent service my words had given him to know
that Hesper's heart was offering to him was not enough; he must hear it
articulate, his nostrils craved an actual incense. To gain this he must
deceive two--his friend, and her whose poor face would kindle with
hectic hope, at the false words he must say for the true words he _must_
hear. It was pitifully mean; but whom has not his own hidden lust made
to crawl like a thief, afraid of a shadow, in his own house? Narcissus'
young lust was himself, and Moloch knew no more ruthless hunger than
burns in such. Of course, it did not present itself quite nakedly to
him; he persuaded himself there could be little harm--he meant none.
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