It is perhaps useless to attempt to trace and recapitulate the causes
which had led Laura Carlyon to the state of mind in which she had found
courage to tell Arden that she loved him. There might be harder moments
in store for her, but this had been the hardest she had known hitherto.
Nothing short of a real and great love, she believed, could have carried
her through it, and she had been conscious for some days that if the
opportunity came she meant to do what she had done. In other words, she
had been quite sure that Arden loved her and that she loved him. This
being granted, it was in accordance with her character to take the
initiative. With far less sympathy than she felt in all her thoughts,
she would have understood that a man of his instincts would never speak
of his love to her unless almost directly bidden to do so. Laura was
slow to make up her mind, sure of her decision when reached, and
determined to act upon it without consulting any one. Many people said
later that she had sacrificed herself for Lord Herbert's expected
fortune, or for his position. A few said that she was a very good woman
and that, finding herself neglected, she had decided to devote her life
to the happiness of a very unhappy man for whom she felt a sincere
friendship. That was at least the more charitable view. But neither was
at all the right one. She honestly and really believed that she loved
the man: she saw beyond a doubt that he loved her, and she took the
shortest and most direct way of ending all doubts on the subject. On
that same night when Arden had quite recovered and had gone home with
Ghisleri, she spoke to her mother and told her exactly what had
happened.
The Princess of Gerano opened her quiet brown eyes very wide when she
heard the news. She was handsome still at five and forty, a little
stout, perhaps, but well proportioned. Her light brown hair was turning
grey at the temples, but there were few lines in her smooth, calm face,
and her complexion was still almost youthful, though with little
colouring. She looked what she was, a woman of the world, very far from
worldly, not conscious of half the evil that went on around her, and
much given to inward contemplation of a religious kind when not actively
engaged in social duty. She had seen Laura's growing appreciation of
Arden and had noticed the frequency of the latter's visits to the house.
But she had herself learned to like him very much during the last month,
and it never suggested itself to her that he could wish to marry Laura
nor that Laura could care for him, considering that he was undeniably a
cripple. It was no wonder that she was surprised.
"Dear child," she said, "I do not know what to say. Of course I have
found out what a really good man he is, though he is so fond of that
wild Ghisleri--they are always together. I have a great admiration for
Lord Herbert. As far as position goes, there is nothing better, and I
suppose he is rich enough to support you, though I do not know. You see,
darling, you have nothing but the little I can give you. But never mind
that--there is only that one other thing--I wish he were not--"
She checked herself, far too delicate to hurt her daughter by too direct
a reference to Arden's physical shortcomings. But Laura, strange to say,
was not sensitive on that point.
"I know, mother," she said, "he is deformed. It is of no use denying it,
as he says himself. But if I do not mind that--if I do not think of it
at all when I am with him, why should any one else care? After all, if I
marry him, it is to please myself, and not the people who will ask us to
dinner."
The young girl laughed happily as she thought of the new life before
her, and of how she would make everything easy for poor Arden, and make
him quite forget that he could hardly walk. Her mother looked at her
with quiet wonder.
"Think well before you act, dear," she said. "Marriage is a very serious
thing. There is no drawing back afterwards, and if you were to be at all
unkind after you are married--"
"O mother, how can you think that of me?"
"No--at least, you would never mean it. You are too good for that. But
it would break the poor man's heart. He is very sensitive, it is not
every man who faints when he finds out that a young girl loves
him--fortunately, not every man," she added with a smile.
"If every one loved as we do, the world would be much happier," said
Laura, kissing her mother. "Do not be afraid, I will not break his
heart."
"God grant you may not break your own, dear!" The Princess spoke in a
lower voice, and turned away her face to hide the tears that stood in
her eyes.
"Mine, mother!" Laura bent over her as she sat in her dressing-chair.
"What is it?" she asked anxiously, as she saw that her mother's cheek
was wet.
"You are very dear to me, child," murmured the Princess, drawing the
young head down to her breast, and kissing the thick black hair.
So the matter was settled, and Laura had her way. It is not easy to say
how most mothers would have behaved under the circumstances. There are
worldly ones enough who would have received the news far more gladly
than the Princess of Gerano did; and there are doubtless many who would
refuse a cripple for a son-in-law on any condition whatever. Laura's
mother did what she thought right, which is more than most of us can say
of our actions.
The Prince was almost as much surprised as his wife when he learned the
news, but he was convinced that he had nothing to say in the matter.
Laura was quite free to do as she pleased, and, moreover, it was a good
thing that she should marry a man of her own faith, and ultimately live
among her own people, since nothing could make either a Catholic or a
Roman of her. But he was not altogether pleased with her choice. He had
an Italian's exaggerated horror of deformity, and though he liked Lord
Herbert, he could never quite overcome his repulsion for his outward
defects. There was nothing to be done, however, and on the whole the
marriage had much in its favour in his eyes.
The engagement was accordingly announced with due formality, and the
wedding day was fixed for the Saturday after Easter, which fell early in
that year. Not until the day before the Princess told the news to every
one did Arden communicate it to Ghisleri. He had perfect confidence in
his friend's discretion, but having said that he would not speak of the
engagement to any one until the Princess wished it, he kept his word to
the letter. He asked Pietro to drive with him, far out upon the
campagna. When they had passed the last houses and were in the open
country he spoke.
"I am going to marry Miss Carlyon," he said simply, but he glanced at
Ghisleri's face to see the look of surprise he expected.
"Since you announce it, my dear friend, I congratulate you with all my
heart," answered Pietro. "Of course I knew it some time ago."
"You knew it?" Arden was very much astonished.
"It was not very hard to guess. You loved each other, you went
constantly to the house and you spent your evenings with her in other
people's houses, there was no reason why you should not
marry--accordingly, I took it for granted that you would be married. You
see that I was right. I am delighted. Ask me to the wedding."
Arden laughed.
"I thought you would never enter one of our churches!" he exclaimed.
"I did not know that I had such a reputation for devout obedience to
general rules," answered Ghisleri.
"As for your reputation, my dear fellow, it is not that of a saint. But
I once saw you saying your prayers."
"I dare say," replied Pietro, indifferently. "I sometimes do, but not
generally in the Corso, nor on the Pincio. How long ago was that? Do you
happen to remember?"
"Six or seven years, I fancy--oh, yes! It was in that little church in
Dieppe, just before you went off on that long cruise--you remember it,
too, I fancy."
"I suppose I thought I was going to be drowned, and was seized with a
passing ague of premature repentance," said Ghisleri, lighting a
cigarette.
"What a queer fellow you are!" observed Arden, striking a light in his
turn. "I was talking with Miss Carlyon about you some time ago, and I
told her you were a sinner, but a righteous one."
"A shade worse than others, perhaps, because I know a little better what
I am doing," answered Ghisleri, with a sneer, evidently intended for
himself.
He was looking at the tomb of Cecilia Metella, as it rose in sight above
the horses' heads at the turn of the road, and he thought of what had
happened to him there years ago, and of the consequences. Arden knew
nothing of the associations the ruin had for his friend, and laughed
again. He was in a very happy humour on that day, as he was for many
days afterwards.
"I can never quite make you out," he said. "Are you good, bad, or a
humbug? You cannot be both good and bad at once, you know."
"No. But one may be often bad, and sometimes do decently good deeds,"
observed Ghisleri, with a dry laugh. "Let us talk of your marriage
instead of speculating on my salvation, or more probable perdition, if
there really is such a thing. When is the wedding day?"
Arden was full of plans for the future, and they drove far out, talking
of all that was before the young couple.
On the following day the news was announced to the city and the world.
The world held up its hands in wonder, and its tongue wagged for a whole
week and a few days more. Laura Carlyon was to marry a penniless cripple
of the most dissipated habits. How shocking! Of course every one knew
that Lord Herbert had not fainted at all on that night at the Palazzo
Braccio, but had succumbed, in the natural course of events, to the
effects of the champagne he had taken at dinner. That was now quite
certain. And the whole world was well aware that his father had cut him
off with a pittance on account of his evil ways, and that his brother
had twice paid his gambling debts to save the family name from disgrace.
Englishmen as a race, and English cripples in particular, were given to
drink and high play. The man had actually been the worse for wine when
talking to Laura Carlyon in her mother's house, and Ghisleri had been
obliged to carry him out for decency's sake before anything worse
happened. Scandalous! It was a wonder that Ghisleri, who, after all, was
a gentleman, could associate with such a fellow. After all, nobody ever
liked Laura Carlyon since she had first appeared in society, soon after
dear Donna Adele's marriage. It was as well that she should go to
England and live with her tipsy cripple. She was good-looking, as some
people admitted. She might win the heart of her brother-in-law and
induce him to pay her husband's debts a third time. They were said to be
enormous.
The men were, on the whole, more charitable. Conscious of their own
shortcomings, they did not blame Lord Herbert very severely for taking a
little too much "extra dry." They did, however, abuse him somewhat
roundly at the club, for having gone to the Gerano party at all when he
should have known that he was not steady. Of the facts themselves they
had not the slightest doubt. Unfortunately for one of them who happened
to be declaiming on the subject, but who was really by no means a bad
fellow, he did not notice that Ghisleri had entered the room before he
had finished his speech. When he had quite done, Ghisleri came forward.
"Arden is my old friend," he said quietly. "He never drinks. He has a
disease of the heart and he fainted from the heat. The doctor and I took
him home together. I hope that none of you will take up this disgusting
story, which was started by the women. And I hope Pietrasanta, there,
will do me the honour to believe what I say, and to tell you that he was
mistaken."
Ghisleri was not a pleasant person to quarrel with, and moreover had the
reputation of being truthful. His story, too, was quite as probable as
the other, to say the least of it. Don Gianbattista Pietrasanta glanced
quickly from one to the other of the men who were seated around him as
though to ask their advice in the matter. Several of them nodded almost
imperceptibly, as though counselling him to do as Ghisleri requested.
There was nothing at all aggressive in the latter's manner, either, as
he quietly lit a cigarette while waiting for the other's answer.
Suddenly a deep voice was heard from another corner of the room. The
Marchese di San Giacinto, giant in body and fortune, had been reading
the paper with the utmost indifference during all the previous
conversation. All at once he spoke, deliberately and to the point.
"It is no business of mine," he said, "as I do not know Lord Herbert
Arden except by sight. But I was at the dance the other night, and half
an hour before the occurrence you are discussing, Lord Herbert was
standing beside me, talking of the Egyptian difficulty with the French
ambassador. I have often seen men drunk. Lord Herbert Arden was, in my
opinion, perfectly sober."
Having delivered himself of this statement, San Giacinto put his very
black cigar between his teeth again and took up the evening paper he had
been reading.
In the face of such men as Ghisleri and the Marchese, it would have been
the merest folly to continue any opposition. Moreover, Pietrasanta was
neither stupid nor bad, and he was not a coward.
"I do not know Lord Herbert Arden myself," he said without affectation.
"What I said I got on hearsay, and the whole story is evidently a
fabrication which we ought to deny. For the rest, Ghisleri, if you are
not quite satisfied--" He stopped and looked at Pietro.
"My dear fellow," said the latter, "what more could I have to say about
the affair? You all seemed to be in the dark, and I wanted to clear the
matter up for the sake of my old friend. That is all. I am very much
obliged to you."
After this incident there was less talk at the clubs, and in a few days
the subject dropped. But the world said, as usual, that all the men were
afraid of Ghisleri, who was a duellist, and of San Giacinto, who was a
giant, and who had taken the trouble to learn to fence when he first
came to Rome, and that they had basely eaten their words. Men were such
cowards, said the world.
Lord Herbert and Laura lived in blissful ignorance of what was said
about them. The preparations for the wedding were already begun, and
Laura's modest trousseau was almost all ordered. She and Arden had
discussed their future, and having realised that they must live in a
very economical fashion for the present and so long as it pleased Heaven
to preserve Arden's maternal uncle among the living, they decided that
the wedding should be as quiet and unostentatious as possible. The old
Prince, however, though far too conscientious to have settled a penny of
his inherited fortune upon Laura, even if she had chosen to marry a
pauper, was not ungenerous in other ways, and considered himself at
liberty to offer the pair some very magnificent silver, which he was
able to pay for out of his private economies. As for Donna Adele, she
presented them with a couple of handsome wine-coolers--doubtless in
delicate allusion to the fictitious story about the champagne Lord
Herbert was supposed to have taken. The implied insult, if there was
any, was not at all noticed by those who had never heard the tale,
however, and Adele had to bide her time for the present.
Meanwhile the season tore along at a break-neck pace, and Lent was fast
approaching. Everybody saw and danced with almost everybody else every
night, and some of them supped afterwards and gambled till midday, and
were surprised to find that their nerves were shaky, and their livers
slightly eccentric, and their eyes anything but limpid. But they all
knew that the quiet time was coming, the Lent wherein no man can dance,
nor woman either, and they amused themselves with a contempt for human
life which would have amounted to heroism if displayed in a good cause.
"They" of course means the gay set of that particular year. As the
Princess of Gerano gave regular informal dances, and two balls at the
end of Carnival, she and her daughter were considered to belong more or
less to the company of the chief merry-makers. The Savelli couple were
in it, also, as a matter of course. Gouache was in it when he pleased, a
dozen or fifteen young members of the diplomatic corps, old Spicca, who
always went everywhere, the Contessa dell' Armi, whose husband was in
parliament and rarely went into society, Ghisleri and twenty or thirty
others, men and women who were young or thought themselves so.
About three weeks before Ash Wednesday, Anastase Gouache, the
perennially young, had a brilliant inspiration. His studio was in an
historical palace, and consisted of three halls which might have passed
for churches in any other country, so far as their size was concerned.
He determined to give a Shrove Tuesday supper to the gay set, with a
tableau, and a long final waltz afterwards, by way of interring the
mangled remains of the season, as he expressed it. The supper should be
at the usual dinner hour instead of at one o'clock, because the gay set
was not altogether as scarlet as it was painted, and did not, as a
whole, care to dance into the morning of Ash Wednesday. The tableau
should represent Carnival meeting Lent. The Contessa dell' Armi should
be in it, and Ghisleri, and Donna Adele, and possibly San Giacinto might
be induced to appear as a mask. His enormous stature would be very
imposing. The Contessa, with her classic features and violet eyes, would
make an admirable nun, and there would be no difficulty in getting
together a train of revellers. Ghisleri, lean, straight, and tall, would
do for a Satanic being of some kind, and could head the Carnival
procession. The whole thing would not last five minutes and the dancing
should begin at once.
"Could you not say something, my friend?" asked Gouache, as he talked
the matter over with Ghisleri.
"I could, if you could find something for me to say," answered the
latter. "But of what use would it be?"
"The density of the public," replied the great painter, "is, to use the
jargon of science, as cotton wool multiplied into cast iron. You either
sink into it and make no noise at all, or you knock your head against
and cannot get through it. You have never sent a picture to the Salon
without naming it, or you would understand exactly what I mean. They
took a picture I once painted, as an altar piece, for a scene from the
Decameron, I believe--but that was when I was young and had illusions.
On the whole, you had better find something to say, and say it--verse,
if possible. They say you have a knack at verses."
"Carnival meeting Lent," said Ghisleri, thoughtfully. Then he laughed.
"I will try--though I am no poet. I will trust a little to my acting to
help my lame feet."
Ghisleri laughed again, as though an amusing idea had struck him. That
night he went home early, and as very often happened, in a bad humour
with himself and with most things. He was a very unhappy man, who felt
himself to be always the centre of a conflict between opposing passions,
and he had long been in the habit of throwing into a rough, impersonal
shape, the thoughts that crossed his mind about himself and others, when
he was alone at night. Being, as he very truly said, no poet, he quickly
tore up such odds and ends of halting rhyme or stumbling prose, either
as soon as they were written, or the next morning. Whatever the form of
these productions might be, the ideas they expressed were rarely feeble
and were indeed sometimes so strong that they might have even shocked
some unusually sensitive person in the gay set.
Being, as has been said, in a bad humour on that particular evening, he
naturally had something to say to himself on paper, and as he took his
pencil he thought of Gouache's suggestion. In a couple of hours he had
got what he wanted and went to sleep. The great artist liked the verses
when Ghisleri read them to him on the following day, the Contessa
consented to act the part of the nun, and the affair was settled.
It was a great success. Gouache's wife, Donna Faustina, had entered into
her husband's plans with all her heart. She was of the Montevarchi
family, sister to the Marchesa di San Giacinto, the latter's husband
being a Saracinesca, as every Italian knows. Gouache did things in a
princely fashion, and sixty people, including all the gay set and a few
others, sat down to the dinner which Anastase was pleased to call a
supper. Every one was very gay. Almost every one was in some fancy dress
or mask, there was no order of precedence, and all were placed where
they would have the best chance of amusing themselves. The halls of the
studio, with their magnificent tapestries and almost priceless objects
of art, were wonderful to see in the bright light. Many of the costumes
were really superb and all were brilliant. No one knew what was to take
place after supper, but every one was sure there was to be dancing, and
all were aware that it was the last dance before Easter, and that the
best dancers in Rome were all present.
One of the halls had been hastily fitted up as a theatre, with a little
stage, a row of footlights, and a background representing a dark wall,
with a deep archway in the middle, like the door of a church. When every
one was seated, a deep, clear voice spoke out a little prologue from
behind the scenes, and the figures, as they were described, moved out
from opposite sides of the stage to meet and group themselves before the
painted doorway. Let prologue and verse speak for themselves.
"It was nearly midnight--the midnight that ends Shrove Tuesday and
begins Ash Wednesday, dividing Carnival from Lent. I left the tables,
where all the world of Rome was feasting, and pretending that the feast
was the last of the year. The brilliant light flashed upon silver and
gold, dyed itself in amber and purple wine, ran riot amongst jewels, and
blazed upon many a fair face and snowy neck. The clocks were all
stopped, lest some tinkling bell should warn men and women that the day
of laughter was over, and that the hour of tears had struck. But I,
broken-hearted, sick in soul and weary of the two months' struggle with
evil fate, turned away from them and left them to all they loved, and to
all that I could never love again.
"I passed through the deserted ball-room, and my heart sank as I thought
of what was over and done. The polished floor was strewn with withered
blossoms, with torn and crumpled favours from the dance, with shreds of
gauze and lace; many chairs were overturned; the light streamed down
like day upon a great desolation; the heated air was faint with the sad
odour of dead flowers. There was the corner where we sat, she and I,
to-night, last week, a week before that--where we shall never sit again,
for neither of us would. I shivered as I went out into the night.
"Through the dark streets I went, not knowing and not caring whither,
nor hearing the tinkling mandolines and changing songs of the revellers
who passed me on their homeward way."
At this point a mandoline was really heard in the very faintest tones
from behind the scenes, playing scarcely above a whisper, as it were,
the famous "Tout pour l'amour" waltz of Waldteuffel.
"Suddenly," the voice resumed, above the delicate notes of the
instrument, "the bells rang out and I knew that my last Carnival was
dead." Here deep-toned bells struck twelve, while the mandoline still
continued. "Then, all at once, I was aware of two figures in the gloom,
advancing towards the door of a church in front of me. The one was a
woman, a nun in white robe and black hood, whose saintly violet eyes
seemed to shine in the darkness. The other was a monk."
The Contessa dell' Armi came slowly forward, her pale, clear face lifted
and thrown into strong relief by the black head-dress, grasping a heavy
rosary in her folded hands. Behind her came San Giacinto, recognisable
only by his colossal stature, his face hidden in the shadow of a black
cowl. Both were admirable, and a murmur of satisfaction ran through the
room.
"As they reached the door," continued the reader, "a wild train of
maskers broke into the street."
Ghisleri entered from the opposite side, arrayed somewhat in the manner
of Mephistopheles, a mandoline slung over his shoulder, on which he was
playing. Donna Adele and a dozen others followed him closely, in every
variety of brilliant Carnival dress, dancing forward with tambourines
and castanets, their eyes bright, their steps cadenced to the rhythm of
the waltz tune which now broke out loud and clear--fair young women with
flushed cheeks, all life, and motion, and laughter; and young men
following them closely, laughing, and talking, and singing, all dancing
in and out with changing steps. Then all at once the music died away to
a whisper; the nun and the monk stood back as though in horror against
the church door, while the revellers grouped themselves together in
varied poses around them, Ghisleri the central figure in the midst,
bowing with a diabolical smile before the white-robed nun.
"In front of all," said the voice again, "stood one whose face I shall
never forget, for it was like my own. The features were mine, but upon
them were reflected all the sins of my life, and all the evil I have
done. I thought the other revellers did not see him."
Again the music swelled and rose, and the train of dancers passed on
with song and laughter, and disappeared on the opposite side of the
stage. Ghisleri alone stood still before the saint-like figure of the
Contessa dell' Armi, bowing low and holding out to her a tall red glass.
"He who was like me stayed behind," continued the reader, "and the light
from his glass seemed to shine upon the saintly woman's face, and she
drew back as though from contamination, to the monk's side for
protection. I knew her face when I saw it--the face I have known too
long, too well. Then he who was like me spoke to her, and the voice was
my own, but as I would have had it when I have been worst."
As the reader ceased Ghisleri began to speak. His voice was strong, but
capable of considerable softness and passionate expression, and he did
his best to render his own irregular verses both intelligible and moving
to his hearers, in which effort he was much helped by the dress he wore
and by the gestures he made use of.
"So we meet at the last! You the saint, I the time-proved sinner;
You the young, I the old; I the world-worn, you the beginner;
At the end of the season here, with a glass of wine
To discuss the salvation and--well--the mine and thine
Of all the souls we have met this year, and dealt with,
Of those you have tried to make feel, and those I've felt with:
Though, after all, dear Saint, had we met in heaven
Before you got saintship, or I the infernal leaven
That works so hot to kill the old angel in me--
If you had seen the world then, as I was able to see
Before Sergeant-Major Michael gave me that fall,--
Not a right fall, mind you, taking the facts in all,--
We might have been on the same side both. But now
It is yours to cry over lost souls, as it's mine to show them how
They may stumble and tumble into the infernal slough.
So here we are. Now tell me--your honour true--
What do you think of our season? Which wins? I? You?
Ha, ha, ha! Sweet friend, you can hardly doubt
The result of this two months' hard-fought wrestling bout.
I have won. You have lost the game. I drive a trade
Which I invented--perhaps--but you have made.
Without your heaven, friend Saint, what would be my hell?
Without your goodness, could I hope to do well
With the poor little peddler's pack of original sin
They handed me down, when they turned me out to begin
My devil's trade with souls. But now I ask
Why for eternal penance they gave me so light a task?
You have not condescended from heaven to taste our carnival feast,
But if you had tasted it, you would admit at least
That the meats were passably sweet, and might allure
The nicest of angels, whose tastes are wholly pure.
Old friend--I hate you! I hate your saintly face,
Your holy eyes, your vague celestial grace!
You are too cold for me, whose soul must smelt
In fires whose fury you have never felt.
But come, unbend a little. Let us chatter
Of what we like best, of what our pride may flatter,--
Salvation and damnation--there's the theme--
Your trade and mine--what I am, and what you seem.
Come, count the souls we have played for, you and I,
The broken hearts you have lost on a careless jog of the die,
Hearts that were broken in ire, by one short, sharp fault of the head,
Souls lifted on pinions of fire, to sink on wings of lead.
We have gambled, and I have won, while you have steadily lost,
I laughing, you weeping your senseless saintly tears each time you
tossed.
So now--give it up! Dry your eyes; your heaven's a dream!
Sell your saintship for what it is worth, and come over--the Devil's
supreme!
Make Judas Iscariot envy the sweets of our sin--
Poor Judas, who ended himself where I could have wished to begin!
A chosen complexion--hell's fruit would not have been wasted
Had he lived to eat his fill at the feast he barely tasted.
Ah, my friend, you are horribly good! Oh! I know you of old;
I know all your virtues, your graces, your beauties; I know they are
cold!
But I know that far down in the depths of your crystalline soul
There's a spot the archangel physician might not pronounce whole.
There's a hell in your heaven; there's a heaven in my hell. There we
meet.
What's perdition to you is salvation to me. Ah, the delicate sweet
Of mad meetings, of broken confessions, of nights unblest!
Oh, the shadowy horror of hate that haunts love's steps without rest,
The desire to be dead--to see dead both the beings one hates,
One's self and the other, twin victims of opposite fates!
How I hate you! You thing beyond Satan's supremest temptation,
You creature of light for whom God has ordained no damnation,
You escape me, the being whose searing hand lovingly lingers
On the neck of each sinner to brand him with five red-hot fingers!
You escape me--you dare scoff at me--and I, poor old pretender,
Must sue for your beautiful soul with temptation more tender
Than a man can find for a woman, when night in her moonlit glory
Silvers a word to a poem, makes a poem of a commonplace story!
So I sue here at your feet for your soul and the gold of your heart,
To break my own if I lose you--Lose you? No--do not start.
You angel--you bitter-sweet creature of heaven, I love you and hate
you!
For I know what you are, and I know that my sin cannot mate you.
I know you are better than I--by the blessing of God!--
And I hate what is better than I by the blessing of God!
What right has the Being Magnificent, reigning supreme,
To wield the huge might that is his, in a measure extreme?
What right has God got of his strength to make you all good,
And me bad from the first and weighed down in my sin's leaden hood?
What right have you to be pure, my angel, when I am foul?
What right have you to the light, while I, like an owl,
Must blink in hell's darkness and count my sins by the bead--
While you can get all you pray for, the wine and the mead
Of a heavenly blessing, showered upon you straight--
Because you chance to stand on the consecrate side of the gate?
Ah! Give me a little nature, give me a human truth!
Give me a heart that feels--and falls, as a heart should--without
ruth!
Give me a woman who loves and a man who loves again,
Give me the instant's joy that ends in an age of pain,
Give me the one dear touch that I love--and that you fear--
And I will give my empire for the Kingdom you hold dear!
I will cease from tempting and torturing, I will let the poor sinner
go,
I will turn my blind eyes heavenward and forget this world below,
I will change from lying to truth, and be forever true--
If you will only love me--and give the Devil his due!"
It had been previously arranged that at the last words the nun should
thrust back his Satanic majesty and take refuge in the church. But it
turned out otherwise. As he drew near the conclusion, Ghisleri crept
stealthily up to the Contessa's side, and threw all the persuasion he
possessed into his voice. But it was most probably the Contessa's love
of surprising the world which led her to do the contrary of what was
expected. At the last line of his speech, she made one wild gesture of
despair, and threw herself backward upon Ghisleri's ready arm. For one
moment he looked down into her white upturned face, and his own grew
pale as his gleaming eyes met hers. With characteristic presence of
mind, San Giacinto, the monk, bent his head, and stalked away in holy
horror as the curtain fell.