_THE SHADOWS LENGTHEN_
(1881–1885)
O tired heart!
God knows,
Not you nor I.
The next four or five years were comparatively uneventful. There was
little hope of promotion from the new Government, so the Burtons
resigned themselves to Trieste with what grace they might; and though
they were constantly agitating for promotion and change, neither the
promotion nor the change came. Burton hated Trieste; he chafed at the
restricted field for his energies which it afforded him; and had it
not been for frequent expeditions of a more or less hazardous nature,
and his literary labours, life at the Austrian seaport would have
been intolerable to him. With Isabel it was different. As the years
went on she grew to love the place and the people, and to form many
ties and interests which it would have been hard for her to break.
Notwithstanding this she warmly seconded her husband’s efforts to
obtain from the Foreign Office some other post, and she was never
weary of bringing his claims before the notice of the Government,
the public, and any influential friends who might be likely to help.
Indeed the record of her diary during these years is one of continuous
struggle on her husband’s behalf, which is varied only by anxiety for
his health.
“I am like a swimmer battling against strong waves,” she writes to a
friend about this time, “and I think my life will always be thus. Were
I struggling only for myself, I should long before have tired; but
since it is for my dear one’s sake I shall fight on so long as life
lasts. Every now and then one seems to reach the crest of the wave, and
that gives one courage; but how long a time it is when one is in the
depths!”
To another friend she wrote:
“We have dropped into our old Triestine lives. We have made our Opçina
den very comfortable. We have taken the big room and Dick’s old one,
opened them, and shut the end one, which is too cold, and put in
lamps, stoves, and stores and comforts of all kinds; in fact partly
refurnished. I am much better, and can walk a little now; so I walk up
half-way from Trieste on Saturday, Dick all the way; Sunday Mass in
village, and walk; and Monday walk down. We keep all the week’s letters
for here (Opçina) and all the week’s newspapers to read, and do our
translations. I have begun _Ariosto_, but am rather disheartened.
We have set up a _tir au pistolet_ in the rooms, which are long
enough (opened) to give twenty-two paces, and we have brought up some
foils. The Triestines think us as mad as hatters to come up here, on
account of the weather, which is ‘seasonable’--_bora_, snow, and
frozen fingers. I am interesting myself in the two hundred and twenty
badly behaved Slav children in the village. Dick’s _Lusiads_ are
making a stir. My Indian sketches and our Oberammergau have gone to
the bad. My publisher, as I told you, took to evil ways, failed, and
eventually died December 10. However, I hope to rise like a phœnix out
of my ashes. The rest of our week is passed in fencing three times a
week, twice a week Italian, twice a week German. Friday I receive the
Trieste world from twelve noon to 6 p.m., with accompaniments of Arab
coffee, cigarettes, and liqueurs. Dick is always grinding at literature
as usual; so what with helping Dick (we are studying something
together), literature, looking after the little _ménage_, and
philanthropic business, Church work, the animals, and the poor, I am
very happy and busy, and I think stronger; albeit I have little rest
or _amusement_, according to the doctor’s ideas. In fact I have a
winter I love, a quiet Darby and Joan by our own fireside, which I so
seldom get.”[19]
The principal event at Trieste in 1881 appears to have been the arrival
of the British squadron in July. Burton and his wife were always of
a most hospitable nature; they would have spent their last penny in
entertaining their friends. The first thing they did on the arrival
of the squadron was to invite the captains and officers of every ship
to an evening _fête champêtre_ and ball at Opçina. In addition
to this they sent out about eight hundred invitations to the captains
and officers of the Austrian navy and other men-of-war anchored at
Trieste, the officers of the Austrian regiments stationed there, the
Governor and Staff, and the Austrian authorities, the Consular corps,
and all their private friends, to the number of about one hundred and
fifty of the principal people of Trieste. They turned the gardens of
the little inn at Opçina into a sort of Vauxhall or Rosherville for the
occasion. There were refreshment tents, and seats, and benches, and
barrels of wine and beer, and elaborate decorations of flowers, and
coloured lamps and flags, and no end of fireworks. When the eventful
evening arrived, and everything was in full swing, the weather, which
had been perfectly fine heretofore, broke up with the startling
suddenness which is peculiar to the Adriatic. The heavens opened, and
to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning the rain descended in
torrents, flooding the tents, quenching the illuminations, and reducing
the whole ground to a Slough of Despond. The guests naturally rushed
for shelter to the little inn, which was much too small to accommodate
them. The police made for the barrels of beer, and were soon incapable
of keeping order, and a mob of villagers, who had assembled to witness
the festivities from without, broke through the barricades, made a raid
on the refreshment tent, smashed the dishes, and carried off all the
best things to eat and drink. Burton took it very philosophically; but
Isabel, overcome with vexation and disappointment, burst into tears.
The sight, however, of the raiders soon turned her grief to anger.
She pulled herself together, got a party of young braves, sallied
forth into the grounds, and made a rush for the tent. With her little
band she rescued all that was left of the food and drink, and then
cleared away the furniture in the lower part of the inn, told the band
to play, and set her guests dancing, while she rigged up an impromptu
supper-room in the garret. This spirited conduct soon restored the
chaos to something like order. The guests--the majority of whom were
English--unconscious of the havoc which had been wrought, enjoyed
themselves right merrily, and the party did not break up until five
o’clock in the morning.
The British squadron, both officers and men, were well received at
Trieste, and became most popular during their stay there. Isabel made
great friends with the sailors, and she rescued one of them from what
might have been a serious squabble. One day she saw a sailor picking
the apples off a tree in the Austrian Admiral’s garden, which overhung
the road. The sentry came out, and a crowd of people assembled. Jack
Tar looked at them scornfully, and went on munching his apple until
they laid hands on him, when he gave a sweeping backhander, which
knocked one or two of them over. Everything was ripe for a row, when
Isabel stepped in between the combatants, and said to the sailor, “I
am your Consul’s wife, and they are trying to make you understand that
these are the Austrian Admiral’s apples, and you must not eat them.”
The sailor apologized, said he did not know he had done any wrong, and
did not understand what they were all jabbering about; and he saluted
and went. Then Isabel explained to the sentry, and generally poured
oil on the troubled waters. The sailor told the story to his comrades,
and thus she became very popular among them. The sailors liked Trieste
so much that, when the squadron was to leave, eighteen of them did not
join their ship; and when they were caught Isabel went and interceded
for them, and begged the captain not to punish them severely. He said,
“Oh no, the darlings; wait till I get them on board ship! I will have
them tucked up comfortably in bed with nice hot grog.” Whether her
intercession availed is not related.
In August, 1881, the Burtons started on a trip somewhat farther afield
than was their wont for short expeditions. They went up to Veldes, a
lovely spot, where there was a good inn and first-rate fishing. Burton
was absent without leave from the Foreign Office; and though he had
left the Consulate in charge of the Vice-Consul, his conduct was,
officially speaking, irregular, and both he and his wife were afraid
of meeting any one they knew. The first person they saw at the inn was
the Chaplain of the British Embassy at Vienna, who might have reported
the absentee Consul to his Ambassador. Burton bolted up to bed to avoid
him; but Isabel thought that the better plan would be to take the bull
by the horns. So she went to the Chaplain, and made a frank confession
that they were truants. He burst out laughing, and said, “My dear lady,
I am doing exactly the same thing myself.” She then went upstairs,
brought Burton down again, and the three had a convivial evening
together.
After this they went on by stages to Ischl, where they parted company,
Burton going to Vienna, and Isabel to Marienbad for a cure. Her stay
at Marienbad she notes as mainly interesting because she made the
acquaintance of Madame Olga Novikoff. Her cure over, with no good
result, she joined her husband at Trieste. They stopped there one night
to change baggage, and went across to Venice, where there was a great
meeting of the Geographical Congress. Burton was not asked to meet his
fellow-geographers, or to take any part in the Congress. The slight was
very marked, and both he and his wife felt it keenly. It was only one
more instance of the undying prejudice against him in certain quarters.
They met many friends, including Captain Verney Lovett Cameron. In
November Burton went with him to the west coast of Africa, to report on
certain mines which Burton had discovered when Consul at Fernando Po.
Isabel was anxious to accompany them; but it was the usual tale, “My
expenses were not paid, and we personally hadn’t enough money for two,
so I was left behind.”
The first part of 1882 Isabel spent without her husband, as he was
absent on the Guinea coast. She fretted very much at his long absence,
and made herself ill with disappointment because she was not able to
join him. The following letter shows _inter alia_ how much she
felt the separation[20]:
“I was so pleased you liked the scourging I gave the reviewers.[21]
No one has answered me, and it has well spread. I don’t know how they
could. All Dick’s friends were very glad. The Commentary is out, two
vols. (that makes four out and four to come). The ‘Reviewers Reviewed’
is a postscript to the Commentary, and the Glossary is in that too. I
wrote the ‘Reviewers’ at Duino in June last, and I enjoyed doing it
immensely. I put all the reviews in a row on a big table, and lashed
myself into a spiteful humour one by one, so that my usually suave
pen was dipped with gall and caustic. You will have had my last, I
think, from Marienbad. I then joined Dick at Vienna, where we spent
a few days; and then went to Venice for the _fêtes_, which were
marvellous, and the Queen was lovely. Then we came home, and had two
charming, quiet, delicious months together; and to my joy he gave up
dining out and dined at home _tête-à-tête_; but of course it was
overshadowed by the knowledge of the coming parting, which I feel
terribly this time, as I go on getting older. We left together in the
Cunarder _Demerara_. Her route was Trieste, Venice, Fiume, Patras,
Gibraltar, England. By dropping off at Fiume I got ten days on board
with him. He leaves her at Gibraltar about the 7th; goes to Cadiz,
Lisbon, Madeira, and Axim on the West Coast. He has to change ship four
times, and this is a great anxiety to me in this stormy weather. God
keep him safe! Once at Axim, the mines are all round the coast, and
then I dread fever for him. He wishes to make a little trip to the Kong
Mountains, and then I fear natives and beasts. Perhaps Cameron will be
with him; but _entre nous_ Cameron is not very solid, and requires
a leading hand. If all goes well (D.V., and may He be merciful), we are
to meet in London in March, and I hope we shall get a glimpse of you.
“I am, as you may think, fearfully sad. I have been nowhere; I neither
visit, nor receive, nor go out. Men drink when they are sad, women fly
into company; but I must fight the battle with my own heart, learn to
live alone and work, and when I have conquered I will allow myself to
see something of my friends. I dreaded my empty home without children
or relatives; but I have braved the worst now. I am cleaning and
tidying his room, putting each thing down in its own place; but I won’t
make it luxurious this time; I have learnt by experience.”
Isabel passed the next three months at Trieste busily studying,
writing, and carrying out the numerous directions contained in her
husband’s letters.
Early in April her doctor discovered that she had the germs of the
internal complaint of which she ultimately died. She had noticed
all the year that she had been getting weaker and weaker in the
fencing-school, until one day she turned faint, and the fencing-master
said to her, “Why, what’s the matter with you? Your arms are getting
quite limp in using the broad-sword.” She did not know what was the
matter with her at the time; but soon after she became so ill that she
had to take to her bed, and then her doctor discovered the nature of
the malady. She did not go to the fencing-school any more after that.
In the Life of her husband, speaking of this matter, Lady Burton says
that her internal complaint possibly resulted from her fall downstairs
in Paris in 1879; but in talking the matter over with her sister,
Mrs. Fitzgerald, a year or two before her death, she recalled another
accident which seems the more likely origin of her distressing malady.
Once when she was riding alone in the woods in Brazil she was pursued
by a brigand. As she was unarmed, she fled as fast as her horse would
carry her. The brigand gave chase, and in the course of an hour’s
exciting ride Isabel’s horse stumbled and threw her violently against
the pommel of her saddle. Fortunately the horse recovered its footing,
and she was able to get safely away from her pursuer; but the bruise
was a serious one (though she thought little of it at the time), and
many years later she came to the conclusion that this was the probable
origin of her illness.
The third week in April she left Trieste for England to meet her
husband, who was due at Liverpool in May. While she was in London she
consulted an eminent surgeon on the subject of her illness, which was
then at its beginning. He advised an operation, which he said would be
a trifling matter. There is every probability, if she had consented,
that she would have recovered, and been alive to this day. But she
had a horror of the knife and anæsthetics. Nevertheless she would
have braved them if it had not been for another consideration, which
weighed with her most of all. She knew that an operation of this kind
would lay her up for some time, and she would not be able to look after
her husband on his return from his long absence. She was afraid too
that the knowledge of her illness might worry him, so for his sake
she refused the operation, and she kept the knowledge of her malady
a secret from him. It is perhaps a little far-fetched to say that by
doing this she sacrificed her life for her husband’s sake, yet in a
sense she may be said to have done so. Her first thought, and her only
thought, was always of him, and it is literally true to say that she
would at any moment cheerfully have laid down her life that he might
gain.
Isabel went to Liverpool to meet Burton on his return from the west
coast of Africa. He came back with Captain Lovett Cameron. There was a
great dinner given at Liverpool to welcome the wanderers. The next day
the Burtons went to London, where they stayed for a couple of months
through the season, met many interesting people, and were entertained
largely. On the last day of July they returned to Trieste.
In September Isabel went again to Marienbad for the baths, which did
her no good. While there she wrote a letter to _Vanity Fair_ anent
a certain article which spoke of Burton and his “much-prized post.”
She took occasion to point out his public services, and to show that
the “much-prized post” was “the poor, hard-earned, little six hundred
a year, well earned by forty years’ hard toil in the public service.”
On returning to Trieste, she entertained many friends who arrived there
for the Exhibition, and after that settled down to the usual round
again.
In October Burton was suddenly ordered by the Foreign Office to go to
Ghazzeh in Syria in search of Professor Palmer, their old friend and
travelling companion, who was lost in the desert. There was then a
chance of his being still alive, though the bodies of his companions
had been found. Burton’s knowledge of the Bedawin and Sinai country was
of course specially valuable in such a quest. He started at once.
After he had left Isabel went into retreat at the Convent della Osolini
at Gorizia. The following were among her reflections at this period[22]:
“In retreat at last. I have so long felt the want of one. My life seems
to be like an express train, every day bringing fresh things which
_must_ be done. I am goaded on by time and circumstances, and
God, my first beginning and last end, is always put off, thrust out of
the way, to make place for the unimportant, and gets served last and
badly. This cannot continue. What friend would have such long-enduring
patience with me? None! Certainly less a king! far less a husband! How
then? Shall God be kept waiting until nobody else wants me? How ashamed
and miserable I feel! How my heart twinges at the thought of my
ingratitude, and the poor return I make for such favours and graces as
I have received! God has called me into retreat once more, perhaps for
the last time. He has created an unexpected opportunity for me, since
my husband has been sent to look for poor Palmer’s body. I thought I
heard Him cry, ‘Beware! Do not wait until I drive you by misfortune,
but go voluntarily into solitude, prepare for Me, and wait for Me, till
I come to abide with you.’
“I am here, my God, according to Thy command; Thou and I, I and Thou,
face to face in the silence. Oh, speak to my heart, and clear out from
it everything that is not of Thee, and let me abide with Thee awhile!
Not only speak, but make me understand, and turn my body and spirit and
soul into feelings and actions, not words and thoughts alone.
“My health and nerves for the past three years have rendered me less
practical and assiduous in religion than I was. Then I used to essay
fine, large, good works, travel, write, and lead a noble and virile
life. Now I am weaker, and feel a lassitude incidental to my time of
life, which I trust may pass away. I am left at home to town life, and
I seem to have declined to petty details, small works, dreaming, and
making lists and plans of noble things not carried out. It looks like
the beginning of the end.
“I ask for two worldly petitions, quite submitted to God’s will: (1)
That I may be cured, and that Dick and I may have good, strong health
to be able to work and do good--if we are destined to live. (2) That
if it be God’s will, and not bad for us, we may get a comfortable
independence, without working any more for our bread, and independent
of any master save God.”
Isabel returned to Trieste when her retreat was concluded; and soon
after--much sooner than she expected--her husband returned to her.
When he reached Ghazzeh, Burton found Sir Charles Warren already in the
field, and he did not want to be interfered with, so that Burton came
home again and spent Christmas with his wife at Trieste. Thus ended
1882. Isabel notes: “After this year misfortunes began to come upon us
all, and we have never had another like it.”
[Illustration: THE BURTONS’ HOUSE AT TRIESTE.]
Early next year the Burtons left their flat in Trieste, where they had
been for over ten years. Something went wrong with the drainage for one
thing, and Burton took an intense dislike to it for another; and when
he took a dislike to a house nothing would ever induce him to remain
in it. The only thing to do was to move. They looked all over Trieste
in search of something suitable, and only saw one house that would do
for them, and that was a palazzo, which then seemed quite beyond their
means; yet six months later they got into it. It was a large house in
a large garden on a wooded eminence looking out to the sea. It had
been built in the palmy days of Trieste by an English merchant prince,
and was one of the best houses in the place. It had a good entrance,
so wide that it would have been possible to drive a carriage into
the hall. A marble staircase led to the interior, which contained some
twenty large rooms, magnificent in size. The house was full of air and
light, and the views were charming. One looked over the Adriatic, one
over the wooded promontory, another towards the open country, and the
fourth into gardens and orchards.
The early part of 1883 was sad to Isabel by reason of her husband’s
failing health and her own illness. In May she went alone to Bologna,
at her husband’s request, for she then told him of the nature of her
illness, to consult Count Mattei, of whom they had heard much from
their friend Lady Paget, Ambassadress at Vienna. When she arrived
at Bologna, she found he had gone on to Riola, and she followed him
thither. Mattei’s castle was perched on a rock, and to it Isabel
repaired.
“First,” she says, “I had to consult a very doubtful-looking mastiff;
then appeared a tall, robust, well-made, soldierlike-looking form in
English costume of blue serge, brigand felt hat, with a long pipe,
who looked about fifty, and not at all like a doctor. He received me
very kindly, and took me up flights of stairs, through courts, into
a wainscoted oak room, with fruits and sweets on the table, with
barred-iron gates and drawbridges and chains in different parts of the
room, that looked as if he could pull one up and put one down into a
hole. He talked French and Italian; but I soon perceived that he liked
Italian better, and stuck to it; and I also noticed that, by his mouth
and eyes, instead of fifty, he must be about seventy-five. A sumptuous
dinner-table was laid out in an adjoining room, with fruit and flowers.
I told him I could not be content, having come so far to see him, to
have only a passing quarter of an hour. He listened to all my long
complaints about my health most patiently, asked me every question;
but he did not ask to examine me, nor look at my tongue, nor feel my
pulse, as other doctors do. He said that I did not look like a person
with the complaint mentioned, but as if circulation and nerves were out
of order. He prescribed four internal and four external remedies and
baths. I wrote down all his suggestions, and rehearsed them that he
might correct any mistakes.”[23]
After the interview with Count Mattei Isabel did not remain at Riola,
but with all her medicines returned to Trieste. The remedies were not,
however, of any avail.
In June Isabel presided over a _fête_ of her Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and made a long speech, in which
she reviewed the work from the beginning, and the difficulties and
successes. She wound up as follows:
“May none of you ever know the fatigue, anxiety, disgust, heartaches,
nervousness, self-abnegation, and disappointments of this mission, and
the small good drawn out of years of it; for so it seems to me. Old
residents, and people living up the country, do say that you would not
know the town to be the same it was eleven years ago, when I first
came. They tell me there is quite a new stamp of horse, a new mode of
working and treatment and feeling. I, the workwoman, cannot see it or
feel it. I think I am always rolling a stone uphill. I know that you
all hear something of what I have to put up with to carry it out--the
opposition, and contentions, treachery, abuse, threats, and ridicule;
and therefore I all the more cherish the friendly hand such a large
assembly has gathered together to hold out to me to-day to give me
fresh courage. You all know how fond I am of Trieste; but it is the
very hardest place I ever worked in, and eleven years of it have pretty
nearly broken me up. Nevertheless I shall always, please God, wherever
I am, ‘open my mouth for the dumb,’ and adhere to my favourite motto:
‘Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.’”
For the first time this summer Isabel and her husband found that
swimming in the sea, which had been one of their favourite recreations
at Trieste, no longer agreed with them, and they came reluctantly to
the conclusion that their swimming must go the way of the fencing,
and that the days of their more active physical exercises were over.
For the first time also in all the twenty-two years of their married
life they began to shirk the early rising, and now no longer got up at
3 or 4 a.m., but at the comparatively late hour of 6 or 6.30 a.m. In
November Burton had a serious attack of gout, which gave him agonies of
pain; and it was at last borne in upon him that he would have to make
up his mind henceforth to be more or less of an invalid. Simultaneously
Isabel was ill from peritonitis. There seemed to be a curious sympathy
between the two, which extended to all things, even to their physical
health. On December 6 Burton put the following in his diary in red ink:
“_This day eleven years I came here. What a shame!_”
Early in 1884 Isabel came in for a small legacy of £500, which was
useful to them at the time, as they were far from being well off,
and had incurred many expenses consequent on their change of house.
She expended the whole of it in additional comforts for her husband
during his illness, which unfortunately seemed to get more serious as
time went on. In February he quite lost the use of his legs for eight
months, which of necessity kept him much in the house. It was during
this period that he began his great work _Alf Laylah wa Laylah_,
or _The Arabian Nights_. When I say he began it, that is not
strictly speaking correct, for he had been gathering material for
years. He merely took in hand the matter which he had already collected
thirty years before. He worked at it _con amore_, and it was very
soon necessary to call in an amanuensis to copy his manuscript.
This year was uneventful. They were absent from Trieste a good deal on
“cures” and short excursions. Burton’s health gave him a great deal
of trouble; but whenever he was well enough, or could find time from
his official duties, he devoted himself to his translation of _The
Arabian Nights_. Isabel also worked hard in connexion with it in
another way. She had undertaken the financial part of the business, and
sent out no less than thirty-four thousand circulars to people with a
view to their buying copies of the book as it came out.
In January and February, 1885, Burton was so ill that his wife implored
him to throw up the Consular Service, and live in a place which suited
him, away from Trieste. Of course that meant that they would have to
live in a very small way; for if they gave up their appointment at that
time and forfeited the salary, they would have been very poor. Still,
so impressed was Isabel that the winter in Trieste did not agree with
her husband, that she said, “You must never winter here again”; but he
said, “I quite agree with you there--we will never winter here again;
but I won’t throw up the Service until I either get Morocco or they let
me retire on full pension.” She then said, “When we go home again, that
is what we will try for, that you may retire on full pension, which
will be only six years before your time.” Henceforth she tried for only
two things: one, that he might be promoted to Morocco, because it was
his pet ambition to be Consul there before he died; the other, failing
Morocco, he should be allowed to retire on full pension on account of
his health. Notwithstanding that she moved heaven and earth to obtain
this latter request, it was never granted.
In the meantime they were busy writing together the index to _The
Arabian Nights_. On Thursday, February 12, she said to him, “Now
mind, to-morrow is Friday the 13th. It is our unlucky day, and we have
got to be very careful.”
When the morning dawned, they heard of the death of one of their
greatest friends, General Gordon, which had taken place on January 26
at Kartoum; but the news had been kept from them. At this sad event
Isabel writes, “We both collapsed together, were ill all day, and
profoundly melancholy.”