It is not generally known that the Lady of Shalott lived last summer in
an attic, at the east end of South Street.
The wee-est, thinnest, whitest little lady! And yet the brightest,
stillest, and withal such a smiling little lady!
If you had held her up by the window,--for she could not hold up
herself,--she would have hung like a porcelain transparency in your
hands. And if you had said, laying her gently down, and giving the
tears a smart dash, that they should not fall on her lifted face, "Poor
child!" the Lady of Shalott would have said, "O, don't!" and smiled.
And you would have smiled yourself, for very surprise that she should
outdo you; and between the two there would have been so much smiling
done that one would have fairly thought it was a delightful thing to
live last summer in an attic at the east end of South Street.
This perhaps was the more natural in the Lady of Shalott because she
had never lived anywhere else.
When the Lady of Shalott was five years old, her mother threw her down
stairs one day, by mistake, instead of the whiskey-jug.
This is a fact which I think Mr. Tennyson has omitted to mention in his
poem.
They picked up the Lady of Shalott and put her on the bed; and there
she lay from that day until last summer, unless, as I said, somebody
had occasion to use her for a transparency.
The mother and the jug both went down the stairs together a few years
after, and never came up at all,--and that was a great convenience, for
the Lady of Shalott's palace in the attic was not large, and they took
up much unnecessary room.
Since that the Lady of Shalott had lived with her sister, Sary Jane.
Sary Jane made nankeen vests, at sixteen and three quarters cents a
dozen.
Sary Jane had red hair, and crooked shoulders, and a voice so much like
a rat-trap which she sometimes set on the stairs that the Lady of
Shalott could seldom tell which was which until she had thought about
it a little while. When there was a rat caught, she was apt to ask
"What?" and when Sary Jane spoke, she more often than not said,
"There's another!"
Her crooked shoulders Sary Jane had acquired from sitting under the
eaves of the palace to sew. That physiological problem was simple.
There was not room enough under the eaves to sit straight.
Sary Jane's red hair was the result of sitting in the sun on July noons
under those eaves, to see to thread her needle. There was no question
about that. The Lady of Shalott had settled it in her own mind, past
dispute. Sary Jane's hair had been--what was it? brown? once. Sary Jane
was slowly taking fire. Who would not, to sit in the sun in that
palace? The only matter of surprise to the Lady of Shalott was that the
palace itself did not smoke. Sometimes, when Sary Jane hit the rafters,
she was sure that she saw sparks.
As for Sary Jane's voice, when one knew that she made nankeen vests at
sixteen and three quarters cents a dozen, that was a matter of no
surprise. It never surprised the Lady of Shalott.
But Sary Jane was very cross; there was no denying that; very cross.
And the palace. Let me tell you about the palace. It measured just
twelve by nine feet. It would have been seven feet post,--if there had
been a post in the middle of it. From the centre it sloped away to the
windows, where Sary Jane had just room enough to sit crooked under the
eaves at work. There were two windows and a loose scuttle to let in the
snow in winter and the sun in summer, and the rain and wind at all
times. It was quite a diversion to the Lady of Shalott to see how many
different ways of doing a disagreeable thing seemed to be practicable
to that scuttle. Besides the bed on which the Lady of Shalott lay,
there was a stove in the palace, two chairs, a very ragged rag-mat, a
shelf with two notched cups and plates upon it, one pewter teaspoon,
and a looking-glass. On washing-days Sary Jane climbed upon the chair
and hung her clothes out through the scuttle on the roof; or else she
ran a little rope from one of the windows to the other for a
drying-rope. It would have been more exact to have said on
washing-nights; for Sary Jane always did her washing after dark. The
reason was evident. If the rest of us were in the habit of wearing all
the clothes we had, like Sary Jane, I have little doubt that we should
do the same.
I should mention that there was no sink in the Lady of Shalott's
palace; no water. There was a dirty hydrant in the yard, four flights
below, which supplied the Lady of Shalott and all her neighbors. The
Lady of Shalott kept her coal under the bed; her flour, a pound at a
time, in a paper parcel, on the shelf, with the teacups and the pewter
spoon. If she had anything else to keep, it went out through the palace
scuttle and lay on the roof. The Lady of Shalott's palace opened
directly upon a precipice. The lessor of the house called it a flight
of stairs. When Sary Jane went up and down she went sidewise to
preserve her balance. There were no bannisters to the precipice, and
about once a week a baby patronized the rat-trap, instead. Once, when
there was a fire-alarm, the precipice was very serviceable. Four women
and an old man went over. With one exception (she was eighteen, and
could bear a broken collar-bone), they will not, I am informed, go over
again.
The Lady of Shalott paid one dollar a week for the rent of her palace.
But then there was a looking-glass in the palace. I think I noticed it.
It hung on the slope of the rafters, just opposite the Lady of
Shalott's window,--for she considered that her window at which Sary
Jane did not make nankeen vests at sixteen and three quarters cents a
dozen.
Now, because the looking-glass was opposite the window at which Sary
Jane did _not_ make vests, and because the rafters sloped, and because
the bed lay almost between the looking-glass and the window, the Lady
of Shalott was happy. And because, to the patient heart that is a
seeker after happiness, "the little more, and how much it is!" (and the
little less, what worlds away!) the Lady of Shalott was proud as well
as happy. The looking-glass measured in inches 10 X 6. I think that the
Lady of Shalott would have experienced rather a touch of mortification
than of envy if she had known that there was a mirror in a house just
round the corner measuring almost as many feet. But that was one of the
advantages of being the Lady of Shalott. She never parsed life in the
comparative degree.
I suppose that one must be the Lady of Shalott to understand what
comfort there may be in a 10 X 6 inch looking-glass. All the world came
for the Lady of Shalott into her looking-glass,--the joy of it, the
anguish of it, the hope and fear of it, the health and hurt,--10 X 6
inches of it exactly.
"It is next best to not having been thrown down stairs yourself!" said
the Lady of Shalott.
To tell the truth, it sometimes occurred to her that there was a
monotony about the world. A garret window like her own, for instance,
would fill her sight if she did not tip the glass a little. Children
sat in it, and did not play. They made lean faces at her. They were
locked in for the day and were hungry. She could not help knowing how
hungry they were, and so tipped the glass. Then there was the trap-door
in the sidewalk. She became occasionally tired of that trap-door. Seven
people lived under the sidewalk; and when they lifted and slammed the
trap, coming in and out, they reminded her of something which Sary Jane
bought her once, when she was a very little child, at Christmas
time,--long ago, when rents were cheaper and flour low. It was a
monkey, with whiskers and a calico jacket, who jumped out of a box when
the cover was lifted; and then you crushed him down and hasped him in.
Sometimes she wished that she had never had that monkey, he was so much
like the people coming in and out of the sidewalk.
In fact, there was a monotony about all the people in the Lady of
Shalott's looking-glass. If their faces were not dirty, their hands
were. If they had hats, they went without shoes. If they did not sit in
the sun with their heads on their knees, they lay in the mud with their
heads on a jug.
"Their faces look blue!" she said to Sary Jane.
"No wonder!" snapped Sary Jane.
"Why?" asked the Lady of Shalott.
"Wonder is we ain't all dead!" barked Sary Jane.
The people in the Lady of Shalott's glass died, however,
sometimes,--often in the summer; more often last summer, when the attic
smoked continually, and she mistook Sary Jane's voice for the rat-trap
every day.
The people were jostled into pine boxes (in the glass), and carried
away (in the glass) by twilight, in a cart. Three of the monkeys from
the spring-box in the sidewalk went, in one week, out into the foul,
purple twilight, away from the looking-glass, in carts.
"I'm glad of that, poor things!" said the Lady of Shalott, for she had
always felt a kind of sorrow for the monkeys. Principally, I think,
because they had no glass.
When the monkeys had gone, the sickly twilight folded itself up, over
the spring-box, into great feathers, like the feathers of a wing. That
was pleasant. The Lady of Shalott could almost put out her fingers and
stroke it, it hung so near, and was so clear, and gathered such a
peacefulness into the looking-glass.
"Sary Jane, dear, it's very pleasant," said the Lady of Shalott. Sary
Jane said it was very dangerous, the Lord knew, and bit her threads
off.
"And, Sary Jane, dear!" added the Lady of Shalott, "I see so many other
pleasant things."
"The more fool you!" said Sary Jane.
But she wondered about it that day over her tenth nankeen vest. What,
for example, _could_ the Lady of Shalott see?
"Waves!" said the Lady of Shalott, suddenly, as if she had been asked
the question. Sary Jane jumped. She said, "Nonsense!" For the Lady of
Shalott had only seen the little wash-tub full of dingy water on Sunday
nights, and the dirty little hydrant (in the glass) spouting dingy
jets. She would not have known a wave if she had seen it.
"But I see waves," said the Lady of Shalott. She felt sure of it. They
ran up and down across the glass. They had green faces and gray hair.
They threw back their hands, like cool people resting, and it seemed
unaccountable, at the east end of South Street last summer, that
anything, anywhere, if only a wave in a looking-glass, could be cool or
at rest. Besides this, they kept their faces clean. Therefore the Lady
of Shalott took pleasure in watching them run up and down across the
glass. That a thing could be clean, and green, and white, was only less
a wonder than cool and rest last summer in South Street.
"Sary Jane, dear," said the Lady of Shalott, one day, "how hot _is_ it
up here?"
"Hot as Hell!" said Sary Jane.
"I thought it was a little warm," said the Lady of Shalott. "Sary Jane,
dear, isn't the yard down there a little--dirty?"
Sary Jane put down her needle, and looked out of the blazing, blindless
window. It had always been a subject of satisfaction to Sary Jane,
somewhere down below her lean shoulders and in the very teeth of the
rat-trap, that the Lady of Shalott could not see out of that window. So
she winked at the window, as if she would caution it to hold its
burning tongue, and said never a word.
"Sary Jane, dear," said the Lady of Shalott, once more, "had you ever
thought that perhaps I was a little--weaker--than I was--once?"
"I guess you can stand it if I can!" said the rat-trap.
"O, yes, dear," said the Lady of Shalott. "I can stand it if you can."
"Well, then!" said Sary Jane. But she sat and winked at the bald
window, and the window held its burning tongue.
It grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in South Street. The lean
children in the attic opposite fell sick, and sat no longer in the
window making faces, in the Lady of Shalott's glass.
Two more monkeys from the spring-box were carried away one ugly
twilight in a cart. The purple wing that hung over the spring-box
lifted to let them pass; and then fell, as if it had brushed them away.
"It has such a soft color!" said the Lady of Shalott, smiling.
"So has nightshade!" said Sary Jane.
One day a beautiful thing happened. One can scarcely understand how a
beautiful thing _could_ happen at the east end of South Street. The
Lady of Shalott herself did not entirely understand.
"It is all the glass," she said.
She was lying very still when she said it. She had folded her hands,
which were hot, to keep them quiet too. She had closed her eyes, which
ached, to close away the glare of the noon. At once she opened them,
and said:--
"It is the glass."
Sary Jane stood in the glass. Now Sary Jane, she well knew, was not in
the room that noon. She had gone out to see what she could find for
dinner. She had five cents to spend on dinner. Yet Sary Jane stood in
the glass. And in the glass, ah! what a beautiful thing!
"Flowers!" cried the Lady of Shalott aloud. But she had never seen
flowers. But neither had she seen waves. So she said, "They come as the
waves come." And knew them, and lay smiling. Ah! what a beautiful,
beautiful thing!
Sary Jane's hair was fiery and tumbled (in the glass), as if she had
walked fast and far. Sary Jane (in the glass) was winking, as she had
winked at the blazing window; as if she said to what she held in her
arms, Don't tell! And in her arms (in the glass), where the waves
were--oh! beautiful, beautiful! The Lady of Shalott lay whispering:
"Beautiful, beautiful!" She did not know what else to do. She dared not
stir. Sary Jane's lean arms (in the glass) were full of silver bells;
they hung out of a soft green shadow, like a church tower; they nodded
to and fro; when they shook, they shook out sweetness.
"Will they ring?" asked the Lady of Shalott of the little glass.
I doubt, in my own mind, if you or I, being in South Street, and seeing
a lily of the valley (in a 10 X 6 inch looking-glass) for the very
first time, would have asked so sensible a question.
"Try 'em and see," said the looking-glass. Was it the looking-glass? Or
the rat-trap? Or was it--
O, the beautiful thing! That the glass should have nothing to do with
it, after all! That Sary Jane, in flesh and blood, and tumbled hair,
and trembling, lean arms, should stand and shake an armful of church
towers and silver bells down into the Lady of Shalott's little puzzled
face and burning hands!
And that the Lady of Shalott should think that she must have got into
the glass herself, by a blunder,--as the only explanation possible of
such a beautiful thing!
"No, it isn't glass-dreams," said Sary Jane, winking at the church
towers, where they made a solemn, green shadow against the Lady of
Shalott's bent cheek. "Smell 'em and see. You can 'most stand the yard
with them round. Smell 'em and see! It ain't the glass; it's the Flower
Charity."
"The what?" asked the Lady of Shalott slowly.
"The Flower Charity."
"Heaven bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott. But she said nothing more.
She laid her cheek over into the shadow of the green church towers.
"And there'll be more," said Sary Jane, hunting for her wax. "There'll
be more, whenever I can call for 'em,--bless it!"
"Heaven bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott again.
"But I only got a lemon for dinner," said Sary Jane.
"Heaven bless it!" said the Lady of Shalott, with her face hidden under
the church towers. But I don't think that she meant the lemon, though
Sary Jane did.
"They _do_ ring," said the Lady of Shalott by and by. She drew the tip
of her thin fingers across the tip of the tiny bells. "I thought they
would."
"Humph!" said Sary Jane, squeezing her lemon under her work-box. "I
never see your beat for glass-dreams. What do they say? Come, now!"
Now the Lady of Shalott knew very well what they said. Very well! But
she only drew the tips of her poor fingers over the tips of the silver
bells. Clever mind! It was not necessary to tell Sary Jane.
But it grew hot in South Street. It grew very hot in South Street. Even
the Flower Charity (bless it!) could not sweeten the dreadfulness of
that yard. Even the purple wing above the spring-box fell heavily upon
the Lady of Shalott's strained eyes, across the glass. Even the
gray-haired waves ceased running up and down and throwing back their
hands before her; they sat still, in heaps upon a blistering beach, and
gasped for breath. The Lady of Shalott herself gasped sometimes, in
watching them.