Do not move. Do not touch me with your mighty hands, O
child!"
As she spoke she made a step nearer, then another. Willems did not stir.
Pressing against him she stood on tiptoe to look into his eyes, and
her own seemed to grow bigger, glistening and tender, appealing and
promising. With that look she drew the man's soul away from him through
his immobile pupils, and from Willems' features the spark of reason
vanished under her gaze and was replaced by an appearance of physical
well-being, an ecstasy of the senses which had taken possession of his
rigid body; an ecstasy that drove out regrets, hesitation and doubt,
and proclaimed its terrible work by an appalling aspect of idiotic
beatitude. He never stirred a limb, hardly breathed, but stood in stiff
immobility, absorbing the delight of her close contact by every pore.
"Closer! Closer!" he murmured.
Slowly she raised her arms, put them over his shoulders, and clasping
her hands at the back of his neck, swung off the full length of her
arms. Her head fell back, the eyelids dropped slightly, and her thick
hair hung straight down: a mass of ebony touched by the red gleams of
the fire.
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