“Eidolon is not as cheerful as usual,” Eva said to Christian. “What has happened? Eidolon mustn’t be sad.”
He smiled and shook his head. But she had heard of the happening at the circus and also knew in what relation Adda Castillo had stood to Christian.
“I had a bad dream,” he said and told her of it.
“I dreamed that I was in a railroad station and wanted to take a train. Many trains came in but roared and passed with indescribable swiftness. I wanted to ask after the meaning of this. But when I turned around I saw behind me in a semi-circle an innumerable throng. And all these people looked at me; but when I approached them, they all drew away slowly and silently with outstretched arms. All about in that monstrous circle they drew silently away from me. It was horrible.”
She passed her hand over his forehead to chase the horror away. But she recognized the power of her touch and was frightened by her image in his eye.
When from the stage where she was bowing amid the flowers and the applause she perceived the touch of his glances she felt in them a threat of enslavement. When on his arm she approached a table and heard the delighted whisper of people at them both, she seemed to herself the victim of a conspiracy, and a hesitation crept into her bearing. When Crammon, practising a strange self-abnegation, spoke of Christian in extravagant terms, and Susan, even in their nocturnal talks, grew mythical concerning his high descent, when Cardillac grew restless and Cornelius Ermelang, the young German poet who adored her, asked questions with his timid eyes--when these things came to pass she feigned coldness and became unapproachable.
She scolded Susan, she made fun of Crammon, she laughed at Jean Cardillac, jestingly she bent her knee to the poet. She confused her entire court of painters, politicians, journalists, and dandies with her incomprehensible mimicry and flexibility, and said that Eidolon was only an illusion and a symbol.
Christian did not understand this--neither this nor her swift withdrawals from him, and then her turning back and luring him anew. A passionate gesture would arise and suddenly turn to reproof, and one of delight would turn into estrangement. It was useless to try to bind her by her own words. She would join the tips of her fingers and turn her head aside and look out of the corners of her eyes at the floor with a cool astuteness.