XXVI.
Matilda, despite of herself, sat and listen'd.
XXVII.
"Beneath an exterior which seems, and may be,
Worldly, frivolous, careless, my heart hides in me,"
He continued, "a sorrow which draws me to side
With all things that suffer. Nay, laugh not," he cried,
"At so strange an avowal.
"I seek at a ball,
For instance,—the beauty admired by all?
No! some plain, insignificant creature, who sits
Scorn'd of course by the beauties, and shunn'd by the wits.
All the world is accustom'd to wound, or neglect,
Or oppress, claims my heart and commands my respect.
No Quixote, I do not affect to belong,
I admit, to those charter'd redressers of wrong;
But I seek to console, where I can. 'Tis a part
Not brilliant, I own, yet its joys bring no smart."
These trite words, from the tone which he gave them, received
An appearance of truth which might well be believed
By a heart shrewder yet than Matilda's.
And so
He continued... "O lady! alas, could you know
What injustice and wrong in this world I have seen!
How many a woman, believed to have been
Without a regret, I have known turn aside
To burst into heartbroken tears undescried!
On how many a lip have I witness'd the smile
Which but hid what was breaking the poor heart the while!"
Said Matilda, "Your life, it would seem, then, must be
One long act of devotion"
"Perhaps so," said he;
"But at least that devotion small merit can boast,
For one day may yet come,—if ONE day at the most,—
When, perceiving at last all the difference—how great!—
Twixt the heart that neglects, and the heart that can wait,
Twixt the natures that pity, the natures that pain,
Some woman, that else might have pass'd in disdain
Or indifference by me,—in passing that day
Might pause with a word or a smile to repay
This devotion,—and then"...
XXVIII.
To Matilda's relief
At that moment her husband approach'd.
With some grief
I must own that her welcome, perchance, was express'd
The more eagerly just for one twinge in her breast
Of a conscience disturb'd, and her smile not less warm,
Though she saw the Comtesse de Nevers on his arm.
The Duke turn'd and adjusted his collar.
Thought he,
"Good! the gods fight my battle to-night. I foresee
That the family doctor's the part I must play.
Very well! but the patients my visits shall pay."
Lord Alfred presented Lucile to his wife;
And Matilda, repressing with effort the strife
Of emotions which made her voice shake, murmur'd low
Some faint, troubled greeting. The Duke, with a bow
Which betoken'd a distant defiance, replied
To Lucile's startled cry, as surprised she descried
Her former gay wooer. Anon, with the grace
Of that kindness which seeks to win kindness, her place
She assumed by Matilda, unconscious, perchance,
Or resolved not to notice the half-frighten'd glance,
That follow'd that movement.
The Duke to his feet
Arose; and, in silence, relinquish'd his seat.
One must own that the moment was awkward for all
But nevertheless, before long, the strange thrall
Of Lucile's gracious tact was by every one felt,
And from each the reserve seem'd, reluctant, to melt;
Thus, conversing together, the whole of the four
Thro' the crowd saunter'd smiling.
XXIX.
Approaching the door,
Eugene de Luvois, who had fallen behind,
By Lucile, after some hesitation, was join'd.
With a gesture of gentle and kindly appeal,
Which appear'd to imply, without words, "Let us feel
That the friendship between us in years that are fled,
Has survived one mad moment forgotten," she said:
"You remain, Duke, at Ems?"
He turn'd on her a look
Of frigid, resentful, and sullen rebuke;
And then, with a more than significant glance
At Matilda, maliciously answer'd, "Perchance.
I have here an attraction. And you?" he return'd.
Lucile's eyes had follow'd his own, and discern'd
The boast they implied.
He repeated, "And you?"
And, still watching Matilda, she answer'd, "I too."
And he thought, as with that word she left him, she sigh'd.
The next moment her place she resumed by the side
Of Matilda; and they soon shook hands at the gate
Of the selfsame hotel.
XXX.
One depress'd, one elate,
The Duke and Lord Alfred again, thro' the glooms
Of the thick linden alley, return'd to the Rooms.
His cigar each had lighted, a moment before,
At the inn, as they turn'd, arm-in-arm, from the door.
Ems cigars do not cheer a man's spirits, experto
(Me miserum quoties!) crede Roberto.
In silence, awhile, they walk'd onward.
At last
The Duke's thoughts to language half consciously pass'd.
LUVOIS.
Once more! yet once more!
ALFRED.
What?
LUVOIS.
We meet her, once more,
The woman for whom we two madmen of yore
(Laugh, mon cher Alfred, laugh!) were about to destroy
Each other!
ALFRED.
It is not with laughter that I
Raise the ghost of that once troubled time. Say! can you
Recall it with coolness and quietude now?
LUVOIS.
Now? yes! I, mon cher, am a true Parisien:
Now, the red revolution, the tocsin, and then
The dance and the play. I am now at the play.
ALFRED.
At the play, are you now? Then perchance I now may
Presume, Duke, to ask you what, ever until
Such a moment, I waited...
LUVOIS.
Oh! ask what you will.
Franc jeu! on the table my cards I spread out.
Ask!
ALFRED.
Duke, you were called to a meeting (no doubt
You remember it yet) with Lucile. It was night
When you went; and before you return'd it was light.
We met: you accosted me then with a brow
Bright with triumph: your words (you remember them now!)
Were "Let us be friends!"
LUVOIS.
Well?
ALFRED.
How then, after that
Can you and she meet as acquaintances?
LUVOIS.
What!
Did she not then, herself, the Comtesse de Nevers,
Solve your riddle to-night with those soft lips of hers?
ALFRED.
In our converse to-night we avoided the past.
But the question I ask should be answer'd at last:
By you, if you will; if you will not, by her.
LUVOIS.
Indeed? but that question, milord, can it stir
Such an interest in you, if your passion be o'er?
ALFRED.
Yes. Esteem may remain, although love be no more.
Lucile ask'd me, this night, to my wife (understand,
To MY WIFE!) to present her. I did so. Her hand
Has clasp'd that of Matilda. We gentlemen owe
Respect to the name that is ours: and, if so,
To the woman that bears it a twofold respect.
Answer, Duc de Luvois! Did Lucile then reject
The proffer you made of your hand and your name?
Or did you on her love then relinquish a claim
Urged before? I ask bluntly this question, because
My title to do so is clear by the laws
That all gentlemen honor. Make only one sign
That you know of Lucile de Nevers aught, in fine,
For which, if your own virgin sister were by,
From Lucile you would shield her acquaintance, and I
And Matilda leave Ems on the morrow.
XXXI.
The Duke
Hesitated and paused. He could tell, by the look
Of the man at his side, that he meant what he said,
And there flash'd in a moment these thoughts through his head:
"Leave Ems! would that suit me? no! that were again
To mar all. And besides, if I do not explain,
She herself will... et puis, il a raison: on est
Gentilhomme avant tout!" He replied therefore,
"Nay!
Madame de Nevers had rejected me. I,
In those days, I was mad; and in some mad reply
I threatened the life of the rival to whom
That rejection was due, I was led to presume.
She fear'd for his life; and the letter which then
She wrote me, I show'd you; we met: and again
My hand was refused, and my love was denied,
And the glance you mistook was the vizard which Pride
Lends to Humiliation.
"And so," half in jest,
He went on, "in this best world, 'tis all for the best;
You are wedded (bless'd Englishman!) wedded to one
Whose past can be called into question by none:
And I (fickle Frenchman!) can still laugh to feel
I am lord of myself; and the Mode: and Lucile
Still shines from her pedestal, frigid and fair
As yon German moon o'er the linden-tops there!
A Dian in marble that scorns any troth
With the little love gods, whom I thank for us both,
While she smiles from her lonely Olympus apart,
That her arrows are marble as well as her heart.
Stay at Ems, Alfred Vargrave!"
XXXII.
The Duke, with a smile,
Turn'd and enter'd the Rooms which, thus talking, meanwhile,
They had reach'd.
XXXIII.
Alfred Vargrave strode on (overthrown
Heart and mind!) in the darkness bewilder'd, alone:
"And so," to himself did he mutter, "and so
'Twas to rescue my life, gentle spirit! and, oh,
For this did I doubt her?... a light word—a look—
The mistake of a moment!... for this I forsook—
For this? Pardon, pardon, Lucile! O Lucile!"
Thought and memory rang, like a funeral peal,
Weary changes on one dirge-like note through his brain,
As he stray'd down the darkness.
XXXIV.
Re-entering again
The Casino, the Duke smiled. He turned to roulette,
And sat down, and play'd fast, and lost largely, and yet
He still smiled: night deepen'd: he play'd his last number:
Went home: and soon slept: and still smil'd in his slumber.
XXXV.
In his desolate Maxims, La Rochefoucauld wrote,
"In the grief or mischance of a friend you may note,
There is something which always gives pleasure."
Alas!
That reflection fell short of the truth as it was.
La Rochefoucauld might have as truly set down—
"No misfortune, but what some one turns to his own
Advantage its mischief: no sorrow, but of it
There ever is somebody ready to profit:
No affliction without its stock-jobbers, who all
Gamble, speculate, play on the rise and the fall
Of another man's heart, and make traffic in it."
Burn thy book, O La Rochefoucauld!
Fool! one man's wit
All men's selfishness how should it fathom?
O sage,
Dost thou satirize Nature?
She laughs at thy page.
CANTO II.
I.
COUSIN JOHN TO COUSIN ALFRED.
LONDON, 18—
"My dear Alfred,
Your last letters put me in pain.
This contempt of existence, this listless disdain
Of your own life,—its joys and its duties,—the deuce
Take my wits if they find for it half an excuse!
I wish that some Frenchman would shoot off your leg,
And compel you to stump through the world on a peg.
I wish that you had, like myself (more's the pity!),
To sit seven hours on this cursed committee.
I wish that you knew, sir, how salt is the bread
Of another—(what is it that Dante has said?)
And the trouble of other men's stairs. In a word,
I wish fate had some real affliction conferr'd
On your whimsical self, that, at least, you had cause
For neglecting life's duties, and damning its laws!
This pressure against all the purpose of life,
This self-ebullition, and ferment, and strife,
Betoken'd, I grant that it may be in truth,
The richness and strength of the new wine of youth.
But if, when the wine should have mellow'd with time,
Being bottled and binn'd, to a flavor sublime,
It retains the same acrid, incongruous taste,
Why, the sooner to throw it away that we haste
The better, I take it. And this vice of snarling,
Self-love's little lapdog, the overfed darling
Of a hypochondriacal fancy appears,
To my thinking, at least, in a man of your years,
At the midnoon of manhood with plenty to do,
And every incentive for doing it too,
With the duties of life just sufficiently pressing
For prayer, and of joys more than most men for blessing;
With a pretty young wife, and a pretty full purse,
Like poltroonery, puerile truly, or worse!
I wish I could get you at least to agree
To take life as it is, and consider with me,
If it be not all smiles, that it is not all sneers;
It admits honest laughter, and needs honest tears.
Do you think none have known but yourself all the pain
Of hopes that retreat, and regrets that remain?
And all the wide distance fate fixes, no doubt,
'Twixt the life that's within, and the life that's without?
What one of us finds the world just as he likes?
Or gets what he wants when he wants it? Or strikes
Without missing the thing that he strikes at the first?
Or walks without stumbling? Or quenches his thirst
At one draught? Bah! I tell you! I, bachelor John,
Have had griefs of my own. But what then? I push on
All the faster perchance that I yet feel the pain
Of my last fall, albeit I may stumble again.
God means every man to be happy, be sure.
He sends us no sorrows that have not some cure.
Our duty down here is to do, not to know.
Live as though life were earnest, and life will be so.
Let each moment, like Time's last ambassador, come:
It will wait to deliver its message; and some
Sort of answer it merits. It is not the deed
A man does, but the way that he does it, should plead
For the man's compensation in doing it.
"Here,
My next neighbor's a man with twelve thousand a year,
Who deems that life has not a pastime more pleasant
Than to follow a fox, or to slaughter a pheasant.
Yet this fellow goes through a contested election,
Lives in London, and sits, like the soul of dejection,
All the day through upon a committee, and late
To the last, every night, through the dreary debate,
As though he were getting each speaker by heart,
Though amongst them he never presumes to take part.
One asks himself why, without murmur or question,
He foregoes all his tastes, and destroys his digestion,
For a labor of which the result seems so small.
'The man is ambitious,' you say. Not at all.
He has just sense enough to be fully aware
That he never can hope to be Premier, or share
The renown of a Tully;—or even to hold
A subordinate office. He is not so bold
As to fancy the House for ten minutes would bear
With patience his modest opinions to hear.
'But he wants something!'
"What! with twelve thousand a year?
What could Government give him would be half so dear
To his heart as a walk with a dog and a gun
Through his own pheasant woods, or a capital run?
'No; but vanity fills out the emptiest brain;
The man would be more than his neighbor, 'tis plain;
And the drudgery drearily gone through in town
Is more than repaid by provincial renown.
Enough if some Marchioness, lively and loose,
Shall have eyed him with passing complaisance; the goose,
If the Fashion to him open one of its doors,
As proud as a sultan returns to his boors.'
Wrong again! if you think so,
"For, primo; my friend
Is the head of a family known from one end
Of his shire to the other as the oldest; and therefore
He despises fine lords and fine ladies. HE care for
A peerage? no truly! Secondo; he rarely
Or never goes out: dines at Bellamy's sparely,
And abhors what you call the gay world.
"Then, I ask,
What inspires, and consoles, such a self-imposed task
As the life of this man,—but the sense of its duty?
And I swear that the eyes of the haughtiest beauty
Have never inspired in my soul that intense,
Reverential, and loving, and absolute sense
Of heart-felt admiration I feel for this man,
As I see him beside me;—there, wearing the wan
London daylight away, on his humdrum committee;
So unconscious of all that awakens my pity,
And wonder—and worship, I might say?
"To me
There seems something nobler than genius to be
In that dull patient labor no genius relieves,
That absence of all joy which yet never grieves;
The humility of it! the grandeur withal!
The sublimity of it! And yet, should you call
The man's own very slow apprehension to this,
He would ask, with a stare, what sublimity is!
His work is the duty to which he was born;
He accepts it, without ostentation or scorn:
And this man is no uncommon type (I thank Heaven!)
Of this land's common men. In all other lands, even
The type's self is wanting. Perchance, 'tis the reason
That Government oscillates ever 'twixt treason
And tyranny elsewhere.
"I wander away
Too far, though, from what I was wishing to say.
You, for instance, read Plato. You know that the soul
Is immortal; and put this in rhyme, on the whole,
Very well, with sublime illustration. Man's heart
Is a mystery, doubtless. You trace it in art:—
The Greek Psyche,—that's beauty,—the perfect ideal.
But then comes the imperfect, perfectible real,
With its pain'd aspiration and strife. In those pale
Ill-drawn virgins of Giotto you see it prevail.
You have studied all this. Then, the universe, too,
Is not a mere house to be lived in, for you.
Geology opens the mind. So you know
Something also of strata and fossils; these show
The bases of cosmical structure: some mention
Of the nebulous theory demands your attention;
And so on.
"In short, it is clear the interior
Of your brain, my dear Alfred, is vastly superior
In fibre, and fulness, and function, and fire,
To that of my poor parliamentary squire;
But your life leaves upon me (forgive me this heat
Due to friendship) the sense of a thing incomplete.
You fly high. But what is it, in truth, you fly at?
My mind is not satisfied quite as to that.
An old illustration's as good as a new,
Provided the old illustration be true.
We are children. Mere kites are the fancies we fly,
Though we marvel to see them ascending so high;
Things slight in themselves,—long-tail'd toys, and no more:
What is it that makes the kite steadily soar
Through the realms where the cloud and the whirlwind have birth
But the tie that attaches the kite to the earth?
I remember the lessons of childhood, you see,
And the hornbook I learn'd on my poor mother's knee.
In truth, I suspect little else do we learn
From this great book of life, which so shrewdly we turn,
Saving how to apply, with a good or bad grace,
What we learn'd in the hornbook of childhood.
"Your case
Is exactly in point.
"Fly your kite, if you please,
Out of sight: let it go where it will, on the breeze;
But cut not the one thread by which it is bound,
Be it never so high, to this poor human ground.
No man is the absolute lord of his life.
You, my friend, have a home, and a sweet and dear wife.
If I often have sigh'd by my own silent fire,
With the sense of a sometimes recurring desire
For a voice sweet and low, or a face fond and fair,
Some dull winter evening to solace and share
With the love which the world its good children allows
To shake hands with,—in short, a legitimate spouse,
This thought has consoled me: 'At least I have given
For my own good behavior no hostage to heaven.'
You have, though. Forget it not! faith, if you do,
I would rather break stones on a road than be you.
If any man wilfully injured, or led
That little girl wrong, I would sit on his head,
Even though you yourself were the sinner!
"And this
Leads me back (do not take it, dear cousin, amiss!)
To the matter I meant to have mention'd at once,
But these thoughts put it out of my head for the nonce.
Of all the preposterous humbugs and shams,
Of all the old wolves ever taken for lambs,
The wolf best received by the flock he devours
Is that uncle-in-law, my dear Alfred, of yours.
At least, this has long been my unsettled conviction,
And I almost would venture at once the prediction
That before very long—but no matter! I trust,
For his sake and our own, that I may be unjust.
But Heaven forgive me, if cautious I am on
The score of such men as with both God and Mammon
Seem so shrewdly familiar.
"Neglect not this warning.
There were rumors afloat in the City this morning
Which I scarce like the sound of. Who knows? would he fleece
At a pinch, the old hypocrite, even his own niece?
For the sake of Matilda I cannot importune
Your attention too early. If all your wife's fortune
Is yet in the hands of that specious old sinner,
Who would dice with the devil, and yet rise up winner,
I say, lose no time! get it out of the grab
Of her trustee and uncle, Sir Ridley McNab.
I trust those deposits, at least, are drawn out,
And safe at this moment from danger or doubt.
A wink is as good as a nod to the wise.
Verbum sap. I admit nothing yet justifies
My mistrust; but I have in my own mind a notion
That old Ridley's white waistcoat, and airs of devotion,
Have long been the only ostensible capital
On which he does business. If so, time must sap it all,
Sooner or later. Look sharp. Do not wait,
Draw at once. In a fortnight it may be too late.
I admit I know nothing. I can but suspect;
I give you my notions. Form yours and reflect.
My love to Matilda. Her mother looks well.
I saw her last week. I have nothing to tell
Worth your hearing. We think that the Government here
Will not last our next session. Fitz Funk is a peer,
You will see by the Times. There are symptoms which show
That the ministers now are preparing to go,
And finish their feast of the loaves and the fishes.
It is evident that they are clearing the dishes,
And cramming their pockets with bonbons. Your news
Will be always acceptable. Vere, of the Blues,
Has bolted with Lady Selina. And so
You have met with that hot-headed Frenchman? I know
That the man is a sad mauvais sujet. Take care
Of Matilda. I wish I could join you both there;
But before I am free, you are sure to be gone.
Good-by, my dear fellow. Yours, anxiously,
JOHN."
II.
This is just the advice I myself would have given
To Lord Alfred, had I been his cousin, which, Heaven
Be praised, I am not. But it reach'd him indeed
In an unlucky hour, and received little heed.
A half-languid glance was the most that he lent at
That time to these homilies. Primum dementat
Quem Deus vult perdere. Alfred in fact
Was behaving just then in a way to distract
Job's self had Job known him. The more you'd have thought
The Duke's court to Matilda his eye would have caught,
The more did his aspect grow listless to hers,
And the more did it beam to Lucile de Nevers.
And Matilda, the less she found love in the look
Of her husband, the less did she shrink from the Duke.
With each day that pass'd o'er them, they each, heart from heart,
Woke to feel themselves further and further apart.
More and more of his time Alfred pass'd at the table;
Played high; and lost more than to lose he was able.
He grew feverish, querulous, absent, perverse,—
And here I must mention, what made matters worse,
That Lucile and the Duke at the selfsame hotel
With the Vargraves resided. It needs not to tell
That they all saw too much of each other. The weather
Was so fine that it brought them each day all together
In the garden, to listen, of course, to the band.
The house was a sort of phalanstery; and
Lucile and Matilda were pleased to discover
A mutual passion for music. Moreover,
The Duke was an excellent tenor; could sing
"Ange si pure" in a way to bring down on the wing
All the angels St. Cicely play'd to. My lord
Would also, at times, when he was not too bored,
Play Beethoven, and Wagner's new music, not ill;
With some little things of his own, showing skill.
For which reason, as well as for some others too,
Their rooms were a pleasant enough rendezvous.
Did Lucile, then, encourage (the heartless coquette!)
All the mischief she could not but mark?
Patience yet!
III.
In that garden, an arbor, withdrawn from the sun,
By laburnum and lilac with blooms overrun,
Form'd a vault of cool verdure, which made, when the heat
Of the noontide hung heavy, a gracious retreat.
And here, with some friends of their own little world,
In the warm afternoons, till the shadows uncurl'd
From the feet of the lindens, and crept through the grass,
Their blue hours would this gay little colony pass.
The men loved to smoke, and the women to bring,
Undeterr'd by tobacco, their work there, and sing
Or converse, till the dew fell, and homeward the bee
Floated, heavy with honey. Towards eve there was tea
(A luxury due to Matilda), and ice,
Fruit and coffee. [Greek text omitted]!
Such an evening it was, while Matilda presided
O'er the rustic arrangements thus daily provided,
With the Duke, and a small German Prince with a thick head,
And an old Russian Countess both witty and wicked,
And two Austrian Colonels,—that Alfred, who yet
Was lounging alone with his last cigarette,
Saw Lucile de Nevers by herself pacing slow
'Neath the shade of the cool linden-trees to and fro,
And joining her, cried, "Thank the good stars, we meet!
I have so much to say to you!"
"Yes?... "with her sweet
Serene voice, she replied to him.... "Yes? and I too
Was wishing, indeed, to say somewhat to you."
She was paler just then than her wont was. The sound
Of her voice had within it a sadness profound.
"You are ill?" he exclaim'd.
"No!" she hurriedly said.
"No, no!"
"You alarm me!"
She droop'd down her head.
"If your thoughts have of late sought, or cared, to divine
The purpose of what has been passing in mine,
My farewell can scarcely alarm you."
ALFRED.
Lucile!
Your farewell! you go!
LUCILE.
Yes, Lord Alfred.
ALFRED.
Reveal
The cause of this sudden unkindness.
LUCILE.
Unkind?
ALFRED.
Yes! what else is this parting?
LUCILE.
No, no! are you blind?
Look into your own heart and home. Can you see
No reason for this, save unkindness in me?
Look into the eyes of your wife—those true eyes,
Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise
The sweet soul shining through them.
ALFRED.
Lucile! (first and last
Be the word, if you will!) let me speak of the past.
I know now, alas! though I know it too late,
What pass'd at that meeting which settled my fate.
Nay, nay, interrupt me not yet! let it be!
I but say what is due to yourself—due to me,
And must say it.
He rushed incoherently on,
Describing how, lately, the truth he had known,
To explain how, and whence, he had wrong'd her before,
All the complicate coil wound about him of yore,
All the hopes that had flown with the faith that was fled,
"And then, O Lucile, what was left me," he said,
"When my life was defrauded of you, but to take
That life, as 'twas left, and endeavor to make
Unobserved by another, the void which remain'd
Unconceal'd to myself? If I have not attain'd,
I have striven. One word of unkindness has never
Pass'd my lips to Matilda. Her least wish has ever
Received my submission. And if, of a truth,
I have fail'd to renew what I felt in my youth,
I at least have been loyal to what I DO feel,
Respect, duty, honor, affection. Lucile,
I speak not of love now, nor love's long regret:
I would not offend you, nor dare I forget
The ties that are round me. But may there not be
A friendship yet hallow'd between you and me?
May we not be yet friends—friends the dearest?"
"Alas!"
She replied, "for one moment, perchance, did it pass
Through my own heart, that dream which forever hath brought
To those who indulge it in innocent thought
So fatal an evil awaking! But no.
For in lives such as ours are, the Dream-tree would grow
On the borders of Hades: beyond it, what lies?
The wheel of Ixion, alas! and the cries
Of the lost and tormented. Departed, for us,
Are the days when with innocence we could discuss
Dreams like these. Fled, indeed, are the dreams of my life!
Oh trust me, the best friend you have is your wife.
And I—in that pure child's pure virtue, I bow
To the beauty of virtue. I felt on my brow
Not one blush when I first took her hand. With no blush
Shall I clasp it to-night, when I leave you.
"Hush! hush!
I would say what I wish'd to have said when you came.
Do not think that years leave us and find us the same!
The woman you knew long ago, long ago,
Is no more. You yourself have within you, I know,
The germ of a joy in the years yet to be,
Whereby the past years will bear fruit. As for me,
I go my own way,—onward, upward!
"O yet,
Let me thank you for that which ennobled regret
When it came, as it beautified hope ere it fled,—
The love I once felt for you. True, it is dead,
But it is not corrupted. I too have at last
Lived to learn that love is not—such love as is past,
Such love as youth dreams of at least—the sole part
Of life, which is able to fill up the heart;
Even that of a woman.
"Between you and me
Heaven fixes a gulf, over which you must see
That our guardian angels can bear us no more.
We each of us stand on an opposite shore.
Trust a woman's opinion for once. Women learn,
By an instinct men never attain, to discern
Each other's true natures. Matilda is fair,
Matilda is young—see her now, sitting there!—
How tenderly fashion'd—(oh, is she not? say,)
To love and be loved!"
IV.
He turn'd sharply away—
"Matilda is young, and Matilda is fair;
Of all that you tell me pray deem me aware;
But Matilda's a statue, Matilda's a child;
Matilda loves not—"
Lucile quietly smiled
As she answer'd him—"Yesterday, all that you say
Might be true; it is false, wholly false, though, today."
"How?—what mean you?"
"I mean that to-day," she replied,
"The statue with life has become vivified:
I mean that the child to a woman has grown:
And that woman is jealous."
"What, she!" with a tone
Of ironical wonder, he answer'd—what, she!
She jealous!—Matilda!—of whom, pray?—not me!"
"My lord, you deceive yourself; no one but you
Is she jealous of. Trust me. And thank Heaven, too,
That so lately this passion within her hath grown.
For who shall declare, if for months she had known
What for days she has known all too keenly, I fear,
That knowledge perchance might have cost you more dear?"
"Explain! explain, madam!" he cried, in surprise;
And terror and anger enkindled his eyes.
"How blind are you men!" she replied. "Can you doubt
That a woman, young, fair, and neglected—"
"Speak out!"
He gasp'd with emotion. "Lucile! you mean—what!
Do you doubt her fidelity?"
"Certainly not.
Listen to me, my friend. What I wish to explain
Is so hard to shape forth. I could almost refrain
From touching a subject so fragile. However,
Bear with me awhile, if I frankly endeavor
To invade for one moment your innermost life.
Your honor, Lord Alfred, and that of your wife,
Are dear to me,—most dear! And I am convinced
That you rashly are risking that honor."
He winced,
And turn'd pale, as she spoke.
She had aim'd at his heart,
And she saw, by his sudden and terrified start,
That her aim had not miss'd.
"Stay, Lucile!" he exclaim'd,
"What in truth do you mean by these words, vaguely framed
To alarm me? Matilda?—my wife?—do you know?"—
"I know that your wife is as spotless as snow.
But I know not how far your continued neglect
Her nature, as well as her heart, might affect.
Till at last, by degrees, that serene atmosphere
Of her unconscious purity, faint and yet dear,
Like the indistinct golden and vaporous fleece
Which surrounded and hid the celestials in Greece
From the glances of men, would disperse and depart
At the sighs of a sick and delirious heart,—
For jealousy is to a woman, be sure,
A disease heal'd too oft by a criminal cure;
And the heart left too long to its ravage in time
May find weakness in virtue, reprisal in crime."
V.
"Such thoughts could have never," he falter'd, "I know,
Reach'd the heart of Matilda."
"Matilda? oh no!
But reflect! when such thoughts do not come of themselves
To the heart of a woman neglected, like elves
That seek lonely places,—there rarely is wanting
Some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting
To conjure them to her."
"O lady, beware!
At this moment, around me I search everywhere
For a clew to your words"—
"You mistake them," she said,
Half fearing, indeed, the effect they had made.
"I was putting a mere hypothetical case."
With a long look of trouble he gazed in her face.
"Woe to him,..." he exclaim'd... "woe to him that shall feel
Such a hope! for I swear, if he did but reveal
One glimpse,—it should be the last hope of his life!"
The clench'd hand and bent eyebrow betoken'd the strife
She had roused in his heart.
"You forget," she began,
"That you menace yourself. You yourself are the man
That is guilty. Alas! must it ever be so?
Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
And fight our own shadows forever? O think!
The trial from which you, the stronger ones, shrink,
You ask woman, the weaker one, still to endure;
You bid her be true to the laws you abjure;
To abide by the ties you yourselves rend asunder,
With the force that has fail'd you; and that too, when under
The assumption of rights which to her you refuse,
The immunity claim'd for yourselves you abuse!
Where the contract exists, it involves obligation
To both husband and wife, in an equal relation.
You unloose, in asserting your own liberty,
A knot, which, unloosed, leaves another as free.
Then, O Alfred! be juster at heart: and thank Heaven
That Heaven to your wife such a nature has given
That you have not wherewith to reproach her, albeit
You have cause to reproach your own self, could you see it!"
VI.
In the silence that follow'd the last word she said,
In the heave of his chest, and the droop of his head,
Poor Lucile mark'd her words had sufficed to impart
A new germ of motion and life to that heart
Of which he himself had so recently spoken
As dead to emotion—exhausted, or broken!
New fears would awaken new hopes in his life.
In the husband indifferent no more to the wife
She already, as she had foreseen, could discover
That Matilda had gain'd at her hands, a new lover.
So after some moments of silence, whose spell
They both felt, she extended her hand to him....
VII.
"Well?"
VIII.