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1Then he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries that performed the office of frescoes in the chill
2rooms of the northern nations of Europe. As he investigated the subject--and he always had an extraordinary faculty of
3becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the ruin
4that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things. He, at any rate, had escaped that. Summer followed summer, and the
5yellow jonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the story of their shame, but he was
6unchanged. No winter marred his face or stained his flowerlike bloom. How different it was with material things! Where
7had they passed to? Where was the great crocus-coloured robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been
8worked by brown girls for the pleasure of Athena? Where the huge velarium that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum
9at Rome, that Titan sail of purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by white,
10gilt-reined steeds? He longed to see the curious table-napkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were
11displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast; the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its
12three hundred golden bees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus and were figured
13with "lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature"; and the
14coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which were embroidered the verses of a song beginning "Madame,
15je suis tout joyeux," the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold thread, and each note, of square
16shape in those days, formed with four pearls. He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims for the use
17of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with "thirteen hundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and
18blazoned with the king's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings were similarly ornamented with
19the arms of the queen, the whole worked in gold." Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her of black velvet
20powdered with crescents and suns. Its curtains were of damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and
21silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it stood in a room hung with rows of the
22queen's devices in cut black velvet upon cloth of silver. Louis XIV. had gold embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high
23in his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises
24with verses from the Koran. Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully chased, and profusely set with enamelled and
25jewelled medallions. It had been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of Mohammed had stood
26beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy. And so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite specimens
27that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread
28palmates and stitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, that from their transparency are known in
29the East as "woven air," and "running water," and "evening dew"; strange figured cloths from Java; elaborate yellow
30Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair blue silks and wrought with fleurs-de-lis, birds and images; veils
31of lacis worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish velvets; Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and
32Japanese Foukousas, with their green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds. He had a special passion, also,
33for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed he had for everything connected with the service of the Church. In the long
34cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house, he had stored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is
35really the raiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and fine linen that she may hide the pallid
36macerated body that is worn by the suffering that she seeks for and wounded by self-inflicted pain. He possessed a
37gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask, figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in
38six-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the pine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys
39were divided into panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the coronation of the Virgin was figured
40in coloured silks upon the hood. This was Italian work of the fifteenth century. Another cope was of green velvet,
41embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves, from which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of
42which were picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals. The morse bore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised
43work. The orphreys were woven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with medallions of many saints and
44martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian. He had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold brocade,
45and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with representations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and
46embroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of white satin and pink silk damask, decorated with
47tulips and dolphins and fleurs-de-lis; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and many corporals,
48chalice-veils, and sudaria. In the mystic offices to which such things were put, there was something that quickened his
49imagination. For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely house, were to be to him means of
50forgetfulness, modes by which he could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times to be almost too
51great to be borne. Upon the walls of the lonely locked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with
52his own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him the real degradation of his life, and in front of
53it had draped the purple-and-gold pall as a curtain. For weeks he would not go there, would forget the hideous painted
54thing, and get back his light heart, his wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence. Then,
55suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to dreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there,
56day after day, until he was driven away. On his return he would sit in front of the picture, sometimes loathing it and
57himself, but filled, at other times, with that pride of individualism that is half the fascination of sin, and smiling
58with secret pleasure at the misshapen shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own. After a few
59years he could not endure to be long out of England, and gave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord
60Henry, as well as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they had more than once spent the winter. He hated
61to be separated from the picture that was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his absence some one
62might gain access to the room, in spite of the elaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door. He was
63quite conscious that this would tell them nothing. It was true that the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness
64and ugliness of the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn from that? He would laugh at any one
65who tried to taunt him. He had not painted it. What was it to him how vile and full of shame it looked? Even if he told
66them, would they believe it? Yet he was afraid. Sometimes when he was down at his great house in Nottinghamshire,
67entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank who were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the
68wanton luxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly leave his guests and rush back to town to
69see that the door had not been tampered with and that the picture was still there. What if it should be stolen? The mere
70thought made him cold with horror. Surely the world would know his secret then. Perhaps the world already suspected it.
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