If to the husband still
The vestige of a generous soul remain,
Let him frequent another board; beside
Another lady sit, whose husband dines
Yet somewhere else beside another lady,
Whose spouse is likewise absent; and so add
New links unto the chain immense, wherewith
Love, alternating, binds the whole wide world.
Behold thy lady seated at the board:
Relinquish now her hand, and while the servant
Places the chair that not too far she sit,
And not so near that her soft bosom press
Too close against the table, with a spring
Stoop thou and gather round thy lady's feet
The wandering volume of her robe. Beside her
Then sit thee down; for the true cavalier
Is not permitted to forsake the side
Of her he serves, except there should arise
Some strange occasion warranting the use
Of so great freedom.
When one reads of these springs and little hops, which were once so
elegant, it is almost with a sigh for a world which no longer springs
or hops in the service of beauty, or even dreams of doing it. But a
passage which will touch the sympathetic with a still keener sense of
loss is one which hints how lovely a lady looked when carving, as she
then sometimes did:
Swiftly now the blade,
That sharp and polished at thy right hand lies,
Draw naked forth, and like the blade of Mars
Flash it upon the eyes of all. The point
Press 'twixt thy finger-tips, and bowing low
Offer the handle to her. Now is seen
The soft and delicate playing of the muscles
In the white hand upon its work intent.
The graces that around the lady stoop
Clothe themselves in new forms, and from her fingers
Sportively flying, flutter to the tips
Of her unconscious rosy knuckles, thence
To dip into the hollows of the dimples
That Love beside her knuckles has impressed.
Throughout the dinner it is the part of the well-bred husband--if so
ill-bred as to remain at all to sit impassive and quiescent while the
cavalier watches over the wife with tender care, prepares her food,
offers what agrees with her, and forbids what harms. He is virtually
master of the house; he can order the servants about; if the dinner is
not to his mind, it is even his high prerogative to scold the cook.
The poet reports something of the talk at table; and here occurs one
of the most admired passages of the poem, the light irony of which it
is hard to reproduce in a version. One of the guests, in a strain of
affected sensibility, has been denouncing man's cruelty to animals:
Thus he discourses; and a gentle tear
Springs, while he speaks, into thy lady's eyes.
She recalls the day--
Alas, the cruel day!--what time her lap-dog,
Her beauteous lap-dog, darling of the Graces,
Sporting in youthful gayety, impressed
The light mark of her ivory tooth upon
The rude foot of a menial; he, with bold
And sacrilegious toe, flung her away.
Over and over thrice she rolled, and thrice
Rumpled her silken coat, and thrice inhaled
With tender nostril the thick, choking dust,
Then raised imploring cries, and “Help, help, help!”
She seemed to call, while from the gilded vaults
Compassionate Echo answered her again,
And from their cloistral basements in dismay
The servants rushed, and from the upper rooms
The pallid maidens trembling flew; all came.
Thy lady's face was with reviving essence
Sprinkled, and she awakened from her swoon.
Anger and grief convulsed her still; she cast
A lightning glance upon the guilty menial,
And thrice with languid voice she called her pet,
Who rushed to her embrace and seemed to invoke
Vengeance with her shrill tenor. And revenge
Thou hadst, fair poodle, darling of the Graces.
The guilty menial trembled, and with eyes
Downcast received his doom. Naught him availed
His twenty years' desert; naught him availed
His zeal in secret services; for him
In vain were prayer and promise; forth he went,
Spoiled of the livery that till now had made him
Enviable with the vulgar. And in vain
He hoped another lord; the tender dames
Were horror-struck at his atrocious crime,
And loathed the author. The false wretch succumbed
With all his squalid brood, and in the streets
With his lean wife in tatters at his side
Vainly lamented to the passer-by.
It would be quite out of taste for the lover to sit as apathetic as
the husband in the presence of his lady's guests, and he is to mingle
gracefully in the talk from time to time, turning it to such topics
as may best serve to exploit his own accomplishments. As a man of the
first fashion, he must be in the habit of seeming to have read Horace
a little, and it will be a pretty effect to quote him now; one may
also show one's acquaintance with the new French philosophy, and
approve its skepticism, while keeping clear of its pernicious
doctrines, which insidiously teach--
That every mortal is his fellow's peer;
That not less dear to Nature and to God
Is he who drives thy carriage, or who guides
The plow across thy field, than thine own self.
But at last the lady makes a signal to the cavalier that it is time to
rise from the table:
Spring to thy feet
The first of all, and drawing near thy lady
Remove her chair and offer her thy hand,
And lead her to the other rooms, nor suffer longer
That the stale reek of viands shall offend
Her delicate sense. Thee with the rest invites
The grateful odor of the coffee, where
It smokes upon a smaller table hid
And graced with Indian webs. The redolent gums
That meanwhile burn sweeten and purify
The heavy atmosphere, and banish thence
All lingering traces of the feast.--Ye sick
And poor, whom misery or whom hope perchance
Has guided in the noonday to these doors,
Tumultuous, naked, and unsightly throng,
With mutilated limbs and squalid faces,
In litters and on crutches, from afar
Comfort yourselves, and with expanded nostrils
Drink in the nectar of the feast divine
That favorable zephyrs waft to you;
But do not dare besiege these noble precincts,
Importunately offering her that reigns
Within your loathsome spectacle of woe!
--And now, sir, 'tis your office to prepare
The tiny cup that then shall minister,
Slow sipped, its liquor to thy lady's lips;
And now bethink thee whether she prefer
The boiling beverage much or little tempered
With sweet; or if perchance she like it best
As doth the barbarous spouse, then, when she sits
Upon brocades of Persia, with light fingers
The bearded visage of her lord caressing.
With the dinner the second part of the poem, entitled The Noon,
concludes, and The Afternoon begins with the visit which the hero and
his lady pay to one of her friends. He has already thought with which
of the husband's horses they shall drive out; he has suggested which
dress his lady shall wear and which fan she shall carry; he has
witnessed the agonizing scene of her parting with her lap-dog,--her
children are at nurse and never intrude,--and they have arrived in
the palace of the lady on whom they are to call:
And now the ardent friends to greet each other
Impatient fly, and pressing breast to breast
They tenderly embrace, and with alternate kisses
Their cheeks resound; then, clasping hands, they drop
Plummet-like down upon the sofa, both
Together. Seated thus, one flings a phrase,
Subtle and pointed, at the other's heart,
Hinting of certain things that rumor tells,
And in her turn the other with a sting
Assails. The lovely face of one is flushed
With beauteous anger, and the other bites
Her pretty lips a little; evermore
At every instant waxes violent
The anxious agitation of the fans.
So, in the age of Turpin, if two knights
Illustrious and well cased in mail encountered
Upon the way, each cavalier aspired
To prove the valor of the other in arms,
And, after greetings courteous and fair,
They lowered their lances and their chargers dashed
Ferociously together; then they flung
The splintered fragments of their spears aside,
And, fired with generous fury, drew their huge,
Two-handed swords and rushed upon each other!
But in the distance through a savage wood
The clamor of a messenger is heard,
Who comes full gallop to recall the one
Unto King Charles, and th' other to the camp
Of the young Agramante. Dare thou, too,
Dare thou, invincible youth, to expose the curls
And the toupet, so exquisitely dressed
This very morning, to the deadly shock
Of the infuriate fans; to new emprises
Thy fair invite, and thus the extreme effects
Of their periculous enmity suspend.
Is not this most charmingly done? It seems to me that the warlike
interpretation of the scene is delightful; and those embattled
fans--their perfumed breath comes down a hundred years in the verse!
The cavalier and his lady now betake them to the promenade, where
all the fair world of Milan is walking or driving, with a punctual
regularity which still distinguishes Italians in their walks and
drives. The place is full of their common acquaintance, and the
carriages are at rest for the exchange of greetings and gossip, in
which the hero must take his part. All this is described in the
same note of ironical seriousness as the rest of the poem, and The
Afternoon closes with a strain of stately and grave poetry which
admirably heightens the desired effect:
Behold the servants
Ready for thy descent; and now skip down
And smooth the creases from thy coat, and order
The laces on thy breast; a little stoop,
And on thy snowy stockings bend a glance,
And then erect thyself and strut away
Either to pace the promenade alone,--
'T is thine, if 't please thee walk; or else to draw
Anigh the carriages of other dames.
Thou clamberest up, and thrustest in thy head
And arms and shoulders, half thyself within
The carriage door. There let thy laughter rise
So loud that from afar thy lady hear,
And rage to hear, and interrupt the wit
Of other heroes who had swiftly run
Amid the dusk to keep her company
While thou wast absent. O ye powers supreme,
Suspend the night, and let the noble deeds
Of my young hero shine upon the world
In the clear day! Nay, night must follow still
Her own inviolable laws, and droop
With silent shades over one half the globe;
And slowly moving on her dewy feet,
She blends the varied colors infinite,
And with the border of her mighty garments
Blots everything; the sister she of Death
Leaves but one aspect indistinct, one guise
To fields and trees, to flowers, to birds and beasts,
And to the great and to the lowly born,
Confounding with the painted cheek of beauty
The haggard face of want, and gold with tatters.
Nor me will the blind air permit to see
Which carriages depart, and which remain,
Secret amidst the shades; but from my hand
The pencil caught, my hero is involved
Within the tenebrous and humid veil.
The concluding section of the poem, by chance or by wise design of
the author, remains a fragment. In this he follows his hero from the
promenade to the evening party, with an account of which The Night is
mainly occupied, so far as it goes. There are many lively pictures in
it, with light sketches of expression and attitude; but on the whole
it has not so many distinctly quotable passages as the other parts
of the poem. The perfunctory devotion of the cavalier and the lady
continues throughout, and the same ironical reverence depicts them
alighting from their carriage, arriving in the presence of the
hostess, sharing in the gossip of the guests, supping, and sitting
down at those games of chance with which every fashionable house was
provided and at which the lady loses or doubles her pin-money. In
Milan long trains were then the mode, and any woman might wear them,
but only patricians were allowed to have them carried by servants;
the rich plebeian must drag her costly skirts in the dust; and the
nobility of our hero's lady is honored by the flunkeys who lift her
train as she enters the house. The hostess, seated on a sofa, receives
her guests with a few murmured greetings, and then abandons herself to
the arduous task of arranging the various partners at cards. When the
cavalier serves his lady at supper, he takes his handkerchief from his
pocket and spreads it on her lap; such usages and the differences of
costume distinguished an evening party at Milan then from the like joy
in our time and country.