CANTO VI.

I.

"The huntsman has ridden too far on the chase,

And eldrich, and eerie, and strange is the place!

The castle betokens a date long gone by.

He crosses the courtyard with curious eye:

He wanders from chamber to chamber, and yet

From strangeness to strangeness his footsteps are set;

And the whole place grows wilder and wilder, and less

Like aught seen before. Each in obsolete dress,

Strange portraits regard him with looks of surprise,

Strange forms from the arras start forth to his eyes;

Strange epigraphs, blazon'd, burn out of the wall:

The spell of a wizard is over it all.

In her chamber, enchanted, the Princess is sleeping

The sleep which for centuries she has been keeping.

If she smile in her sleep, it must be to some lover

Whose lost golden locks the long grasses now cover:

If she moan in her dream, it must be to deplore

Some grief which the world cares to hear of no more.

But how fair is her forehead, how calm seems her cheek!

And how sweet must that voice be, if once she would speak!

He looks and he loves her; but knows he (not he!)

The clew to unravel this old mystery?

And he stoops to those shut lips. The shapes on the wall,

The mute men in armor around him, and all

The weird figures frown, as though striving to say,

'Halt! invade not the Past, reckless child of Today!

And give not, O madman! the heart in thy breast

To a phantom, the soul of whose sense is possess'd

By an Age not thine own!'

"But unconscious is he,

And he heeds not the warning, he cares not to see

Aught but ONE form before him!

"Rash, wild words are o'er,

And the vision is vanish'd from sight evermore!

And the gray morning sees, as it drearily moves

O'er a land long deserted, a madman that roves

Through a ruin, and seeks to recapture a dream.

Lost to life and its uses, withdrawn from the scheme

Of man's waking existence, he wanders apart."

And this is an old fairy-tale of the heart.

It is told in all lands, in a different tongue;

Told with tears by the old, heard with smiles by the young.

And the tale to each heart unto which it is known

Has a different sense. It has puzzled my own.

II.

Eugene de Luvois was a man who, in part

From strong physical health, and that vigor of heart

Which physical health gives, and partly, perchance,

From a generous vanity native to France,

With the heart of a hunter, whatever the quarry,

Pursued it, too hotly impatient to tarry

Or turn, till he took it. His trophies were trifles:

But trifler he was not. When rose-leaves it rifles,

No less than when oak-trees it ruins, the wind

Its pleasure pursues with impetuous mind.

Both Eugene de Luvois and Lord Alfred had been

Men of pleasure: but men's pleasant vices, which, seen

Floating faint in the sunshine of Alfred's soft mood,

Seem'd amiable foibles, by Luvois pursued

With impetuous passion, seemed semi-Satanic.

Half pleased you see brooks play with pebbles; in panic

You watch them whirl'd down by the torrent.

In truth,

To the sacred political creed of his youth

The century which he was born to denied

All realization. Its generous pride

To degenerate protest on all things was sunk;

Its principles each to a prejudice shrunk.

Down the path of a life that led nowhere he trod,

Where his whims were his guides, and his will was his god,

And his pastime his purpose.

From boyhood possess'd

Of inherited wealth, he had learned to invest

Both his wealth and those passions wealth frees from the cage

Which penury locks, in each vice of an age

All the virtues of which, by the creed he revered,

Were to him illegitimate.

Thus, he appear'd

To the world what the world chose to have him appear,--

The frivolous tyrant of Fashion, a mere

Reformer in coats, cards, and carriages! Still

'Twas the vigor of nature, and tension of will,

That found for the first time--perhaps for the last--

In Lucile what they lacked yet to free from the Past,

Force, and faith, in the Future.

And so, in his mind,

To the anguish of losing the woman was join'd

The terror of missing his life's destination,

Which in her had its mystical representation.

III.

And truly, the thought of it, scaring him, pass'd

O'er his heart, while he now through the twilight rode fast

As a shade from the wing of some great bird obscene

In a wide silent land may be suddenly seen,

Darkening over the sands, where it startles and scares

Some traveller stray'd in the waste unawares,

So that thought more than once darken'd over his heart

For a moment, and rapidly seem'd to depart.

Fast and furious he rode through the thickets which rose

Up the shaggy hillside: and the quarrelling crows

Clang'd above him, and clustering down the dim air

Dropp'd into the dark woods. By fits here and there

Shepherd fires faintly gleam'd from the valleys. Oh, how

He envied the wings of each wild bird, as now

He urged the steed over the dizzy ascent

Of the mountain! Behind him a murmur was sent

From the torrent--before him a sound from the tracts

Of the woodlands that waved o'er the wild cataracts,

And the loose earth and loose stones roll'd momently down

From the hoofs of his steed to abysses unknown.

The red day had fallen beneath the black woods,

And the Powers of the night through the vast solitudes

Walk'd abroad and conversed with each other. The trees

Were in sound and in motion, and mutter'd like seas

In Elfland. The road through the forest was hollow'd.

On he sped through the darkness, as though he were follow'd

Fast, fast by the Erl King!

The wild wizard-work

Of the forest at last open'd sharp, o'er the fork

Of a savage ravine, and behind the black stems

Of the last trees, whose leaves in the light gleam'd like gems,

Broke the broad moon above the voluminous

Rock-chaos,--the Hecate of that Tartarus!

With his horse reeking white, he at last reach'd the door

Of a small mountain inn, on the brow of a hoar

Craggy promontory, o'er a fissure as grim,

Through which, ever roaring, there leap'd o'er the limb

Of the rent rock a torrent of water, from sight,

Into pools that were feeding the roots of the night.

A balcony hung o'er the water. Above

In a glimmering casement a shade seem'd to move.

At the door the old negress was nodding her head

As he reach'd it. "My mistress awaits you," she said.

And up the rude stairway of creeking pine rafter

He follow'd her silent. A few moments after,

His heart almost stunned him, his head seem'd to reel,

For a door closed--Luvois was alone with Lucile.

IV.

In a gray travelling dress, her dark hair unconfined

Streaming o'er it, and tossed now and then by the wind

From the lattice, that waved the dull flame in a spire

From a brass lamp before her--a faint hectic fire

On her cheek, to her eyes lent the lustre of fever:

They seem'd to have wept themselves wider than ever,

Those dark eyes--so dark and so deep!

"You relent?

And your plans have been changed by the letter I sent?"

There his voice sank, borne down by a strong inward strife.

LUCILE.

Your letter! yes, Duke. For it threaten'd man's life--

Woman's honor.

Luvois.

The last, madam, NOT?

LUCILE.

Both. I glance

At your own words; blush, son of the knighthood of France,

As I read them! You say, in this letter...

"I know

Why now you refuse me: 'tis (is it not so?)

For the man who has trifled before, wantonly,

And now trifles again with the heart you deny

To myself. But he shall not! By man's last wild law,

I will seize on the right (the right, Duc de Luvois!)

To avenge for you, woman, the past, and to give

To the future its freedom. That man shalt not live

To make you as wretched as you have made me!"

LUVOIS.

Well, madam, in those words what words do you see

That threatens the honor of woman?

LUCILE.

See!... what,

What word, do you ask? Every word! would you not,

Had I taken your hand thus, have felt that your name

Was soil'd and dishonor'd by more than mere shame

If the woman that bore it had first been the cause

Of the crime which in these words is menaced? You pause!

Woman's honor, you ask? Is there, sir, no dishonor

In the smile of a woman, when men, gazing on her,

Can shudder, and say, "In that smile is a grave"?

No! you can have no cause, Duke, for no right you have

In the contest you menace. That contest but draws

Every right into ruin. By all human laws

Of man's heart I forbid it, by all sanctities

Of man's social honor!

The Duke droop'd his eyes.

"I obey you," he said, "but let woman beware

How she plays fast and loose thus with human despair,

And the storm in man's heart. Madam, yours was the right,

When you saw that I hoped, to extinguish hope quite.

But you should from the first have done this, for I feel

That you knew from the first that I loved you."

Lucile

This sudden reproach seem'd to startle.

She raised

A slow, wistful regard to his features, and gazed

On them silent awhile. His own looks were downcast.

Through her heart, whence its first wild alarm was now pass'd,

Pity crept, and perhaps o'er her conscience a tear,

Falling softly, awoke it.

However severe,

Were they unjust, these sudden upbraidings, to her?

Had she lightly misconstrued this man's character,

Which had seem'd, even when most impassion'd it seem'd,

Too self-conscious to lose all in love? Had she deem'd

That this airy, gay, insolent man of the world,

So proud of the place the world gave him, held furl'd

In his bosom no passion which once shaken wide

Might tug, till it snapped, that erect lofty pride?

Were those elements in him, which once roused to strife

Overthrow a whole nature, and change a whole life?

There are two kinds of strength. One, the strength of the river

Which through continents pushes its pathway forever

To fling its fond heart in the sea; if it lose

This, the aim of its life, it is lost to its use,

It goes mad, is diffused into deluge, and dies.

The other, the strength of the sea; which supplies

Its deep life from mysterious sources, and draws

The river's life into its own life, by laws

Which it heeds not. The difference in each case is this:

The river is lost, if the ocean it miss;

If the sea miss the river, what matter? The sea

Is the sea still, forever. Its deep heart will be

Self-sufficing, unconscious of loss as of yore;

Its sources are infinite; still to the shore,

With no diminution of pride, it will say,

"I am here; I, the sea! stand aside, and make way!"

Was his love, then, the love of the river? and she,

Had she taken that love for the love of the sea?

V.

At that thought, from her aspect whatever had been

Stern or haughty departed; and, humble in mien,

She approach'd him and brokenly murmur'd, as though

To herself more than him, "Was I wrong? is it so?

Hear me, Duke! you must feel that, whatever you deem

Your right to reproach me in this, your esteem

I may claim on ONE ground--I at least am sincere.

You say that to me from the first it was clear

That you loved me. But what if this knowledge were known

At a moment in life when I felt most alone,

And least able to be so? a moment, in fact,

When I strove from one haunting regret to retract

And emancipate life, and once more to fulfil

Woman's destinies, duties, and hopes? would you still

So bitterly blame me, Eugene de Luvois,

If I hoped to see all this, or deem'd that I saw

For a moment the promise of this in the plighted

Affection of one who, in nature, united

So much that from others affection might claim,

If only affection were free? Do you blame

The hope of that moment? I deem'd my heart free

From all, saving sorrow. I deem'd that in me

There was yet strength to mould it once more to my will,

To uplift it once more to my hope. Do you still

Blame me, Duke, that I did not then bid you refrain

From hope? alas! I too then hoped!"

LUVOIS.

Oh, again,

Yet again, say that thrice blessed word! say, Lucile,

That you then deign'd to hope--

LUCILE.

Yes! to hope I could feel,

And could give to you, that without which all else given

Were but to deceive, and to injure you even:--

A heart free from thoughts of another. Say, then,

Do you blame that one hope?

LUVOIS.

O Lucile!

"Say again,"

She resumed, gazing down, and with faltering tone,

"Do you blame me that, when I at last had to own

To my heart that the hope it had cherish'd was o'er,

And forever, I said to you then, 'Hope no more'?

I myself hoped no more!"

With but ill-suppressed wrath

The Duke answer'd... "What, then! he recrosses your path,

This man, and you have but to see him, despite

Of his troth to another, to take back that light

Worthless heart to your own, which he wrong'd years ago!"

Lucile faintly, brokenly murmur'd... "No! no!

'Tis not that--but alas!--but I cannot conceal

That I have not forgotten the past--but I feel

That I cannot accept all these gifts on your part,--

In return for what... ah, Duke, what is it?... a heart

Which is only a ruin!"

With words warm and wild,

"Though a ruin it be, trust me yet to rebuild

And restore it," Luvois cried; "though ruin'd it be,

Since so dear is that ruin, ah, yield it to me!"

He approach'd her. She shrank back. The grief in her eyes

Answer'd, "No!"

An emotion more fierce seem'd to rise

And to break into flame, as though fired by the light

Of that look, in his heart. He exclaim'd, "Am I right?

You reject ME! Accept HIM?"

"I have not done so,"

She said firmly. He hoarsely resumed, "Not yet--no!

But can you with accents as firm promise me

That you will not accept him?"

"Accept? Is he free?

Free to offer?" she said.

"You evade me, Lucile,"

He replied; "ah, you will not avow what you feel!

He might make himself free? Oh, you blush--turn away!

Dare you openly look in my face, lady, say!

While you deign to reply to one question from me?

I may hope not, you tell me: but tell me, may he?

What! silent? I alter my question. If quite

Freed in faith from this troth, might he hope then?"

"He might,"

She said softly.

VI.

Those two whisper'd words, in his breast,

As he heard them, in one maddening moment releast

All that's evil and fierce in man's nature, to crush

And extinguish in man all that's good. In the rush

Of wild jealousy, all the fierce passions that waste

And darken and devastate intellect, chased

From its realm human reason. The wild animal

In the bosom of man was set free. And of all

Human passions the fiercest, fierce jealousy, fierce

As the fire, and more wild than the whirlwind, to pierce

And to rend, rush'd upon him; fierce jealousy, swell'd

By all passions bred from it, and ever impell'd

To involve all things else in the anguish within it,

And on others inflict its own pangs!

At that minute

What pass'd through his mind, who shall say? who may tell

The dark thoughts of man's heart, which the red glare of hell

Can illumine alone?

He stared wildly around

That lone place, so lonely! That silence! no sound

Reach'd that room, through the dark evening air, save drear

Drip and roar of the cataract ceaseless and near!

It was midnight all round on the weird silent weather;

Deep midnight in him! They two,--alone and together,

Himself and that woman defenceless before him!

The triumph and bliss of his rival flash'd o'er him.

The abyss of his own black despair seem'd to ope

At his feet, with that awful exclusion of hope

Which Dante read over the city of doom.

All the Tarquin pass'd into his soul in the gloom,

And uttering words he dared never recall,

Words of insult and menace, he thunder'd down all

The brew'd storm-cloud within him: its flashes scorch'd blind

His own senses. His spirit was driven on the wind

Of a reckless emotion beyond his control;

A torrent seem'd loosen'd within him. His soul

Surged up from that caldron of passion that hiss'd

And seeth'd in his heart.

VII.

He had thrown, and had miss'd

His last stake.

VIII.

For, transfigured, she rose from the place

Where he rested o'erawed: a saint's scorn on her face;

Such a dread vade retro was written in light

On her forehead, the fiend would himself, at that sight,

Have sunk back abash'd to perdition. I know

If Lucretia at Tarquin but once had looked so,

She had needed no dagger next morning.

She rose

And swept to the door, like that phantom the snows

Feel at nightfall sweep o'er them, when daylight is gone,

And Caucasus is with the moon all alone.

There she paused; and, as though from immeasurable,

Insurpassable distance, she murmur'd--

"Farewell!

We, alas! have mistaken each other. Once more

Illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er.

Duc de Luvois, adieu!"

From the heart-breaking gloom

Of that vacant, reproachful, and desolate room,

He felt she was gone--gone forever!

IX.

No word,

The sharpest that ever was edged like a sword,

Could have pierced to his heart with such keen accusation

As the silence, the sudden profound isolation,

In which he remain'd.

"O return; I repent!"

He exclaimed; but no sound through the stillness was sent,

Save the roar of the water, in answer to him,

And the beetle that, sleeping, yet humm'd her night-hymn:

An indistinct anthem, that troubled the air

With a searching, and wistful, and questioning prayer.

"Return," sung the wandering insect. The roar

Of the waters replied, "Nevermore! nevermore!"

He walked to the window. The spray on his brow

Was flung cold from the whirlpools of water below;

The frail wooden balcony shook in the sound

Of the torrent. The mountains gloom'd sullenly round.

A candle one ray from a closed casement flung.

O'er the dim balustrade all bewilder'd he hung,

Vaguely watching the broken and shimmering blink

Of the stars on the veering and vitreous brink

Of that snake-like prone column of water; and listing

Aloof o'er the languors of air the persisting

Sharp horn of the gray gnat. Before he relinquish'd

His unconscious employment, that light was extinguish'd.

Wheels at last, from the inn door aroused him. He ran

Down the stairs; reached the door--just to see her depart.

Down the mountain the carriage was speeding.

X.

His heart

Peal'd the knell of its last hope. He rush'd on; but whither

He knew not--on, into the dark cloudy weather--

The midnight--the mountains--on, over the shelf

Of the precipice--on, still--away from himself!

Till exhausted, he sank 'mid the dead leaves and moss

At the mouth of the forest. A glimmering cross

Of gray stone stood for prayer by the woodside. He sank

Prayerless, powerless, down at its base, 'mid the dank

Weeds and grasses; his face hid amongst them. He knew

That the night had divided his whole life in two.

Behind him a past that was over forever:

Before him a future devoid of endeavor

And purpose. He felt a remorse for the one,

Of the other a fear. What remain'd to be done?

Whither now should he turn? Turn again, as before,

To his old easy, careless existence of yore

He could not. He felt that for better or worse

A change had pass'd o'er him; an angry remorse

Of his own frantic failure and error had marr'd

Such a refuge forever. The future seem'd barr'd

By the corpse of a dead hope o'er which he must tread

To attain it. Life's wilderness round him was spread,

What clew there to cling by?

He clung by a name

To a dynasty fallen forever. He came

Of an old princely house, true through change to the race

And the sword of Saint Louis--a faith 'twere disgrace

To relinquish, and folly to live for! Nor less

Was his ancient religion (once potent to bless

Or to ban; and the crozier his ancestors kneel'd

To adore, when they fought for the Cross, in hard field

With the Crescent) become, ere it reach'd him, tradition;

A mere faded badge of a social position;

A thing to retain and say nothing about,

Lest, if used, it should draw degradation from doubt.

Thus, the first time he sought them, the creeds of his youth

Wholly fail'd the strong needs of his manhood, in truth!

And beyond them, what region of refuge? what field

For employment, this civilized age, did it yield,

In that civilized land? or to thought? or to action?

Blind deliriums, bewilder'd and endless distraction!

Not even a desert, not even the cell

Of a hermit to flee to, wherein he might quell

The wild devil-instincts which now, unreprest,

Ran riot through that ruin'd world in his breast.

XI.

So he lay there, like Lucifer, fresh from the sight

Of a heaven scaled and lost; in the wide arms of night

O'er the howling abysses of nothingness! There

As he lay, Nature's deep voice was teaching him prayer;

But what had he to pray to?

The winds in the woods,

The voices abroad o'er those vast solitudes,

Were in commune all round with the invisible

Power that walk'd the dim world by Himself at that hour.

But their language he had not yet learn'd--in despite

Of the much he HAD learn'd--or forgotten it quite,

With its once native accents. Alas! what had he

To add to that deep-toned sublime symphony

Of thanksgiving?... A fiery finger was still

Scorching into his heart some dread sentence. His will,

Like a wind that is put to no purpose, was wild

At its work of destruction within him. The child

Of an infidel age, he had been his own god,

His own devil.

He sat on the damp mountain sod,

and stared sullenly up at the dark sky.

The clouds

Had heap'd themselves over the bare west in crowds

Of misshapen, incongruous potents. A green

Streak of dreary, cold, luminous ether, between

The base of their black barricades, and the ridge

Of the grim world, gleam'd ghastly, as under some bridge,

Cyclop-sized, in a city of ruins o'erthrown

By sieges forgotten, some river, unknown

And unnamed, widens on into desolate lands.

While he gazed, that cloud-city invisible hands

Dismantled and rent; and reveal'd, through a loop

In the breach'd dark, the blemish'd and half-broken hoop

Of the moon, which soon silently sank; and anon

The whole supernatural pageant was gone.

The wide night, discomforted, conscious of loss,

Darken'd round him. One object alone--that gray cross--

Glimmer'd faint on the dark. Gazing up, he descried,

Through the void air, its desolate arms outstretch'd, wide,

As though to embrace him.

He turn'd from the sight,

Set his face to the darkness, and fled.

XII.

When the light

Of the dawn grayly flicker'd and glared on the spent

Wearied ends of the night, like a hope that is sent

To the need of some grief when its need is the sorest,

He was sullenly riding across the dark forest

Toward Luchon.

Thus riding, with eyes of defiance

Set against the young day, as disclaiming alliance

With aught that the day brings to man, he perceived

Faintly, suddenly, fleetingly, through the damp-leaved

Autumn branches that put forth gaunt arms on his way,

The face of a man pale and wistful, and gray

With the gray glare of morning. Eugene de Luvois,

With the sense of a strange second sight, when he saw

That phantom-like face, could at once recognize,

By the sole instinct now left to guide him, the eyes

Of his rival, though fleeting the vision and dim,

With a stern sad inquiry fix'd keenly on him,

And, to meet it, a lie leap'd at once to his own;

A lie born of that lying darkness now grown

Over all in his nature! He answer'd that gaze

With a look which, if ever a man's look conveys

More intensely than words what a man means convey'd

Beyond doubt in its smile an announcement which said,

"I have triumph'd. The question your eyes would imply

Comes too late, Alfred Vargrave!"

And so he rode by,

And rode on, and rode gayly, and rode out of sight,

Leaving that look behind him to rankle and bite.

XIII.

And it bit, and it rankled.

XIV.

Lord Alfred, scarce knowing,

Or choosing, or heeding the way he was going,

By one wild hope impell'd, by one wild fear pursued,

And led by one instinct, which seem'd to exclude

From his mind every human sensation, save one

The torture of doubt--had stray'd moodily on,

Down the highway deserted, that evening in which

With the Duke he had parted; stray'd on, through rich

Haze of sunset, or into the gradual night,

Which darken'd, unnoticed, the land from his sight,

Toward Saint Saviour; nor did the changed aspect of all

The wild scenery around him avail to recall

To his senses their normal perceptions, until,

As he stood on the black shaggy brow of the hill

At the mouth of the forest, the moon, which had hung

Two dark hours in a cloud, slipp'd on fire from among

The rent vapors, and sunk o'er the ridge of the world.

Then he lifted his eyes, and saw round him unfurl'd,

In one moment of splendor, the leagues of dark trees,

And the long rocky line of the wild Pyrenees.

And he knew by the milestone scored rough on the face

Of the bare rock, he was but two hours from the place

Where Lucile and Luvois must have met. This same track

The Duke must have traversed, perforce, to get back

To Luchon; not yet then the Duke had returned!

He listen'd, he look'd up the dark, but discern'd

Not a trace, not a sound of a horse by the way.

He knew that the night was approaching to day.

He resolved to proceed to Saint Saviour. The morn,

Which, at last, through the forest broke chill and forlorn,

Reveal'd to him, riding toward Luchon, the Duke.

'Twas then that the two men exchanged look for look.

XV.

And the Duke's rankled in him.

XVI.

He rush'd on. He tore

His path through the thicket. He reach'd the inn door,

Roused the yet drowsing porter, reluctant to rise,

And inquired for the Countess. The man rubb'd his eyes,

The Countess was gone. And the Duke?

The man stared

A sleepy inquiry.

With accents that scared

The man's dull sense awake, "He, the stranger," he cried,

"Who had been there that night!"

The man grinn'd and replied,

With a vacant intelligence, "He, oh ay, ay!

He went after the lady."

No further reply

Could he give. Alfred Vargrave demanded no more,

Flung a coin to the man, and so turn'd from the door.

"What! the Duke, then, the night in that lone inn had pass'd?

In that lone inn--with her!" Was that look he had cast

When they met in the forest, that look which remain'd

On his mind with its terrible smile, thus explain'd?

XVII.

The day was half turn'd to the evening, before

He re-entered Luchon, with a heart sick and sore.

In the midst of a light crowd of babblers, his look,

By their voices attracted, distinguished the Duke,

Gay, insolent, noisy, with eyes sparkling bright,

With laughter, shrill, airy, continuous.

Right

Through the throng Alfred Vargrave, with swift sombre stride,

Glided on. The Duke noticed him, turn'd, stepp'd aside,

And, cordially grasping his hand, whisper'd low,

"O, how right have you been! There can never be--no,

Never--any more contest between us! Milord,

Let us henceforth be friends!"

Having utter'd that word,

He turn'd lightly round on his heel, and again

His gay laughter was heard, echoed loud by that train

Of his young imitators.

Lord Alfred stood still,

Rooted, stunn'd, to the spot. He felt weary and ill,

Out of heart with his own heart, and sick to the soul

With a dull, stifling anguish he could not control.

Does he hear in a dream, through the buzz of the crowd,

The Duke's blithe associates, babbling aloud

Some comment upon his gay humor that day?

He never was gayer: what makes him so gay?

'Tis, no doubt, say the flatterers, flattering in tune,

Some vestal whose virtue no tongue dare impugn

Has at last found a Mars--who, of course, shall be nameless,

That vestal that yields to Mars ONLY is blameless!

Hark! hears he a name which, thus syllabled, stirs

All his heart into tumult?... Lucile de Nevers

With the Duke's coupled gayly, in some laughing, light,

Free allusion? Not so as might give him the right

To turn fiercely round on the speaker, but yet

To a trite and irreverent compliment set!

XVIII.

Slowly, slowly, usurping that place in his soul

Where the thought of Lucile was enshrined, did there roll

Back again, back again, on its smooth downward course

O'er his nature, with gather'd momentum and force,

THE WORLD.

XIX.

"No!" he mutter'd, "she cannot have sinn'd!

True! women there are (self-named women of mind!)

Who love rather liberty--liberty, yes!

To choose and to leave--than the legalized stress

Of the lovingest marriage. But she--is she so?

I will not believe it. Lucile! O no, no!

Not Lucile!

"But the world? and, ah, what would it say?

O the look of that man, and his laughter, to-day!

The gossip's light question! the slanderous jest!

She is right! no, we could not be happy. 'Tis best

As it is. I will write to her--write, O my heart!

And accept her farewell. OUR farewell! must we part--

Part thus, then--forever, Lucile? Is it so?

Yes! I feel it. We could not be happy, I know.

'Twas a dream! we must waken!"

XX.

With head bow'd, as though

By the weight of the heart's resignation, and slow

Moody footsteps, he turned to his inn.

Drawn apart

From the gate, in the courtyard, and ready to start,

Postboys mounted, portmanteaus packed up and made fast,

A travelling-carriage, unnoticed, he pass'd.

He order'd his horse to be ready anon:

Sent, and paid, for the reckoning, and slowly pass'd on,

And ascended the staircase, and enter'd his room.

It was twilight. The chamber was dark in the gloom

Of the evening. He listlessly kindled a light

On the mantel-piece; there a large card caught his sight--

A large card, a stout card, well-printed and plain,

Nothing flourishing, flimsy, affected, or vain.

It gave a respectable look to the slab

That it lay on. The name was--

SIR RIDLEY MACNAB.

Full familiar to him was the name that he saw,

For 'twas that of his own future uncle-in-law.

Mrs. Darcy's rich brother, the banker, well known

As wearing the longest philacteried gown

Of all the rich Pharisees England can boast of,

A shrewd Puritan Scot, whose sharp wits made the most of

This world and the next; having largely invested

Not only where treasure is never molested

By thieves, moth, or rust; but on this earthly ball

Where interest was high, and security small.

Of mankind there was never a theory yet

Not by some individual instance upset:

And so to that sorrowful verse of the Psalm

Which declares that the wicked expand like the palm

In a world where the righteous are stunted and pent,

A cheering exception did Ridley present.

Like the worthy of Uz, Heaven prosper'd his piety.

The leader of every religious society,

Christian knowledge he labor'd t though life to promote

With personal profit, and knew how to quote

Both the Stocks and the Scripture, with equal advantage

To himself and admiring friends, in this Cant-Age.

XXI.

Whilst over this card Alfred vacantly brooded,

A waiter his head through the doorway protruded;

"Sir Ridley MacNab with Milord wish'd to speak."

Alfred Vargrave could feel there were tears on his cheek;

He brushed them away with a gesture of pride.

He glanced at the glass; when his own face he eyed,

He was scared by its pallor. Inclining his head,

He with tones calm, unshaken, and silvery, said,

"Sir Ridley may enter."

In three minutes more

That benign apparition appeared at the door.

Sir Ridley, released for a while from the cares

Of business, and minded to breathe the pure airs

Of the blue Pyrenees, and enjoy his release,

In company there with his sister and niece,

Found himself now at Luchon--distributing tracts,

Sowing seed by the way, and collecting new facts

For Exeter Hall; he was starting that night

For Bigorre: he had heard, to his cordial delight,

That Lord Alfred was there, and, himself, setting out

For the same destination: impatient, no doubt!

Here some commonplace compliments as to "the marriage

Through his speech trickled softly, like honey: his carriage

Was ready. A storm seem'd to threaten the weather;

If his young friend agreed, why not travel together?

With a footstep uncertain and restless, a frown

Of perplexity, during this speech, up and down

Alfred Vargrave was striding; but, after a pause

And a slight hesitation, the which seem'd to cause

Some surprise to Sir Ridley, he answer'd--"My dear

Sir Ridley, allow me a few moments here--

Half an hour at the most--to conclude an affair

Of a nature so urgent as hardly to spare

My presence (which brought me, indeed, to this spot),

Before I accept your kind offer."

"Why not?"

Said Sir Ridley, and smiled. Alfred Vargrave, before

Sir Ridley observed it, had pass'd through the door.

A few moments later, with footsteps revealing

Intense agitation of uncontroll'd feeling,

He was rapidly pacing the garden below.

What pass'd through his mind then is more than I know.

But before one half-hour into darkness had fled,

In the courtyard he stood with Sir Ridley. His tread

Was firm and composed. Not a sign on his face

Betrayed there the least agitation. "The place

You so kindly have offer'd," he said, "I accept."

And he stretch'd out his hand. The two travellers stepp'd

Smiling into the carriage.

And thus, out of sight,

They drove down the dark road, and into the night.

XXII.

Sir Ridley was one of those wise men who, so far

As their power of saying it goes, say with Zophar,

"We, no doubt, are the people, and wisdom shall die with us!"

Though of wisdom like theirs there is no small supply with us.

Side by side in the carriage ensconced, the two men

Began to converse somewhat drowsily, when

Alfred suddenly thought--"Here's a man of ripe age,

At my side, by his fellows reputed as sage,

Who looks happy, and therefore who must have been wise;

Suppose I with caution reveal to his eyes

Some few of the reasons which make me believe

That I neither am happy nor wise? 'twould relieve

And enlighten, perchance, my own darkness and doubt."

For which purpose a feeler he softly put out.

It was snapp'd up at once.

"What is truth? "jesting Pilate

Ask'd, and pass'd from the question at once with a smile at

Its utter futility. Had he address'd it

To Ridley MacNab, he at least had confess'd it

Admitted discussion! and certainly no man

Could more promptly have answer'd the sceptical Roman

Than Ridley. Hear some street astronomer talk!

Grant him two or three hearers, a morsel of chalk,

And forthwith on the pavement he'll sketch you the scheme

Of the heavens. Then hear him enlarge on his theme!

Not afraid of La Place, nor of Arago, he!

He'll prove you the whole plan in plain A B C.

Here's your sun--call him A; B's the moon; it is clear

How the rest of the alphabet brings up the rear

Of the planets. Now ask Arago, ask La Place,

(Your sages, who speak with the heavens face to face!)

Their science in plain A B C to accord

To your point-blank inquiry, my friends! not a word

Will you get for your pains from their sad lips. Alas!

Not a drop from the bottle that's quite full will pass.

'Tis the half-empty vessel that freest emits

The water that's in it. 'Tis thus with men's wits;

Or at least with their knowledge. A man's capability

Of imparting to others a truth with facility

Is proportion'd forever with painful exactness

To the portable nature, the vulgar compactness,

The minuteness in size, or the lightness in weight,

Of the truth he imparts. So small coins circulate

More freely than large ones. A beggar asks alms,

And we fling him a sixpence, nor feel any qualms;

But if every street charity shook an investment,

Or each beggar to clothe we must strip off a vestment,

The length of the process would limit the act;

And therefore the truth that's summ'd up in a tract

Is most lightly dispensed.

As for Alfred, indeed,

On what spoonfuls of truth he was suffer'd to feed

By Sir Ridley, I know not. This only I know,

That the two men thus talking continued to go

Onward somehow, together--on into the night--

The midnight--in which they escape from our sight.

XXIII.

And meanwhile a world had been changed in its place,

And those glittering chains that o'er blue balmy space

Hang the blessing of darkness, had drawn out of sight

To solace unseen hemispheres, the soft night;

And the dew of the dayspring benignly descended,

And the fair morn to all things new sanction extended,

In the smile of the East. And the lark soaring on,

Lost in light, shook the dawn with a song from the sun.

And the world laugh'd.

It wanted but two rosy hours

From the noon, when they pass'd through the thick passion flowers

Of the little wild garden that dimpled before

The small house where their carriage now stopp'd at Bigorre.

And more fair than the flowers, more fresh than the dew,

With her white morning robe flitting joyously through

The dark shrubs with which the soft hillside was clothed,

Alfred Vargrave perceived, where he paused, his betrothed.

Matilda sprang to him, at once, with a face

Of such sunny sweetness, such gladness, such grace,

And radiant confidence, childlike delight,

That his whole heart upbraided itself at that sight.

And he murmur'd, or sigh'd, "O, how could I have stray'd

From this sweet child, or suffer'd in aught to invade

Her young claim on my life, though it were for an hour,

The thought of another?"

"Look up, my sweet flower!"

He whisper'd her softly," my heart unto thee

Is return'd, as returns to the rose the wild bee!"

"And will wander no more?" laughed Matilda.

"No more,"

He repeated. And, low to himself, "Yes, 'tis o'er!

My course, too, is decided, Lucile! Was I blind

To have dream'd that these clever Frenchwomen of mind

Could satisfy simply a plain English heart,

Or sympathize with it?"

XXIV.

And here the first part

Of the drama is over. The curtain falls furl'd

On the actors within it--the Heart, and the World.

Woo'd and wooer have play'd with the riddle of life,--

Have they solved it?

Appear! answer, Husband and Wife.

XXV.

Yet, ere bidding farewell to Lucile de Nevers,

Hear her own heart's farewell in this letter of hers.

THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS TO A FRIEND IN INDIA.

"Once more, O my friend, to your arms and your heart,

And the places of old... never, never to part!

Once more to the palm, and the fountain! Once more

To the land of my birth, and the deep skies of yore

From the cities of Europe, pursued by the fret

Of their turmoil wherever my footsteps are set;

From the children that cry for the birth, and behold,

There is no strength to bear them--old Time is SO old!

From the world's weary masters, that come upon earth

Sapp'd and mined by the fever they bear from their birth:

From the men of small stature, mere parts of a crowd,

Born too late, when the strength of the world hath been bow'd;

Back,--back to the Orient, from whose sunbright womb

Sprang the giants which now are no more, in the bloom

And the beauty of times that are faded forever!

To the palms! to the tombs! to the still Sacred River!

Where I too, the child of a day that is done,

First leaped into life, and look'd up at the sun,

Back again, back again, to the hill-tops of home

I come, O my friend, my consoler, I come!

Are the three intense stars, that we watch'd night by night

Burning broad on the band of Orion, as bright?

Are the large Indian moons as serene as of old,

When, as children, we gather'd the moonbeams for gold?

Do you yet recollect me, my friend? Do you still

Remember the free games we play'd on the hill,

'Mid those huge stones up-heav'd, where we recklessly trod

O'er the old ruin'd fane of the old ruin'd god?

How he frown'd while around him we carelessly play'd!

That frown on my life ever after hath stay'd,

Like the shade of a solemn experience upcast

From some vague supernatural grief in the past.

For the poor god, in pain, more than anger, he frown'd,

To perceive that our youth, though so fleeting, had found,

In its transient and ignorant gladness, the bliss

Which his science divine seem'd divinely to miss.

Alas! you may haply remember me yet

The free child, whose glad childhood myself I forget.

I come--a sad woman, defrauded of rest:

I bear to you only a laboring breast:

My heart is a storm-beaten ark, wildly hurl'd

O'er the whirlpools of time, with the wrecks of a world:

The dove from my bosom hath flown far away:

It is flown and returns not, though many a day

Have I watch'd from the windows of life for its coming.

Friend, I sigh for repose, I am weary of roaming.

I know not what Ararat rises for me

Far away, o'er the waves of the wandering sea:

I know not what rainbow may yet, from far hills,

Lift the promise of hope, the cessation of ills:

But a voice, like the voice of my youth, in my breast

Wakes and whispers me on--to the East! to the East!

Shall I find the child's heart that I left there? or find

The lost youth I recall with its pure peace of mind?

Alas! who shall number the drops of the rain?

Or give to the dead leaves their greenness again?

Who shall seal up the caverns the earthquake hath rent?

Who shall bring forth the winds that within them are pent?

To a voice who shall render an image? or who

From the heats of the noontide shall gather the dew?

I have burn'd out within me the fuel of life.

Wherefore lingers the flame? Rest is sweet after strife.

I would sleep for a while. I am weary.

"My friend,

I had meant in these lines to regather, and send

To our old home, my life's scatter'd links. But 'tis vain!

Each attempt seems to shatter the chaplet again;

Only fit now for fingers like mine to run o'er,

Who return, a recluse, to those cloisters of yore

Whence too far I have wander'd.

"How many long years

Does it seem to me now since the quick, scorching tears,

While I wrote to you, splash'd out a girl's premature

Moans of pain at what women in silence endure!

To your eyes, friend of mine, and to your eyes alone,

That now long-faded page of my life hath been shown

Which recorded my heart's birth, and death, as you know,

Many years since,--how many!

"A few months ago

I seem'd reading it backward, that page! Why explain

Whence or how? The old dream of my life rose again.

The old superstition! the idol of old!

It is over. The leaf trodden down in the mould

Is not to the forest more lost than to me

That emotion. I bury it here by the sea

Which will bear me anon far away from the shore

Of a land which my footsteps will visit no more.

And a heart's requiescat I write on that grave.

Hark! the sigh of the wind, and the sound of the wave,

Seem like voices of spirits that whisper me home!

I come, O you whispering voices, I come!

My friend, ask me nothing.

"Receive me alone

As a Santon receives to his dwelling of stone

In silence some pilgrim the midnight may bring:

It may be an angel that, weary of wing,

Hath paused in his flight from some city of doom,

Or only a wayfarer stray'd in the gloom.

This only I know: that in Europe at least

Lives the craft or the power that must master our East.

Wherefore strive where the gods must themselves yield at last?

Both they and their altars pass by with the Past.

The gods of the household Time thrust from the shelf;

And I seem as unreal and weird to myself

As those idols of old.

"Other times, other men,

Other men, other passions!

"So be it! yet again

I turned to my birthplace, the birthplace of morn,

And the light of those lands where the great sun is born!

Spread your arms, O my friend! on your breast let me feel

The repose which hath fled from my own.

"Your LUCILE."

PART II.

CANTO I.

I.

Hail, Muse! But each Muse by this time has, I know,

Been used up, and Apollo has bent his own bow

All too long; so I leave unassaulted the portal

Of Olympus, and only invoke here a mortal.

Hail, Murray!--not Lindley,--but Murray and Son.

Hail, omniscient, beneficent, great Two-in-One!

In Albermarle Street may thy temple long stand!

Long enlighten'd and led by thine erudite hand,

May each novice in science nomadic unravel

Statistical mazes of modernized travel!

May each inn-keeper knave long thy judgment revere,

And the postboys of Europe regard thee with fear;

While they feel, in the silence of baffled extortion,

That knowledge is power! Long, long, like that portion

Of the national soil which the Greek exile took

In his baggage wherever he went, may thy book

Cheer each poor British pilgrim, who trusts to thy wit

Not to pay through his nose just for following it!

May'st thou long, O instructor! preside o'er his way,

And teach him alike what to praise and to pay!

Thee, pursuing this pathway of song, once again

I invoke, lest, unskill'd, I should wander in vain.

To my call be propitious, nor, churlish, refuse

Thy great accents to lend to the lips of my Muse;

For I sing of the Naiads who dwell 'mid the stems

Of the green linden-trees by the waters of Ems.

Yes! thy spirit descends upon mine, O John Murray!

And I start--with thy book--for the Baths in a hurry.

II.

"At Coblentz a bridge of boats crosses the Rhine;

And from thence the road, winding by Ehrenbreitstein,

Passes over the frontier of Nassua.

("N. B.

No custom-house here since the Zollverein." See

Murray, paragraph 30.)

"The route, at each turn,

Here the lover of nature allows to discern,

In varying prospect, a rich wooded dale:

The vine and acacia-tree mostly prevail

In the foliage observable here: and, moreover,

The soil is carbonic. The road, under cover

Of the grape-clad and mountainous upland that hems

Round this beautiful spot, brings the traveller to--"EMS.

A Schnellpost from Frankfort arrives every day.

At the Kurhaus (the old Ducal mansion) you pay

Eight florins for lodgings. A Restaurateur

Is attach'd to the place; but most travellers prefer

(Including, indeed, many persons of note)

To dine at the usual-priced table d'hote.

Through the town runs the Lahn, the steep green banks of which

Two rows of white picturesque houses enrich;

And between the high road and the river is laid

Out a sort of a garden, call'd 'THE Promenade.'

Female visitors here, who may make up their mind

To ascend to the top of these mountains, will find

On the banks of the stream, saddled all the day long,

Troops of donkeys--sure-footed--proverbially strong;"

And the traveller at Ems may remark, as he passes,

Here, as elsewhere, the women run after the asses.

III.

'Mid the world's weary denizens bound for these springs

In the month when the merle on the maple-bough sings,

Pursued to the place from dissimilar paths

By a similar sickness, there came to the Baths

Four sufferers--each stricken deep through the heart,

Or the head, by the self-same invisible dart

Of the arrow that flieth unheard in the noon,

From the sickness that walketh unseen in the moon,

Through this great lazaretto of life, wherein each

Infects with his own sores the next within reach.

First of these were a young English husband and wife,

Grown weary ere half through the journey of life.

O Nature, say where, thou gray mother of earth,

Is the strength of thy youth? that thy womb brings to birth

Only old men to-day! On the winds, as of old,

Thy voice in its accent is joyous and bold;

Thy forests are green as of yore; and thine oceans

Yet move in the might of their ancient emotions:

But man--thy last birth and thy best--is no more

Life's free lord, that look'd up to the starlight of yore,

With the faith on the brow, and the fire in the eyes,

The firm foot on the earth, the high heart in the skies;

But a gray-headed infant, defrauded of youth,

Born too late or too early.

The lady, in truth,

Was young, fair, and gentle; and never was given

To more heavenly eyes the pure azure of heaven.

Never yet did the sun touch to ripples of gold

Tresses brighter than those which her soft hand unroll'd

From her noble and innocent brow, when she rose,

An Aurora, at dawn, from her balmy repose,

And into the mirror the bloom and the blush

Of her beauty broke, glowing; like light in a gush

From the sunrise in summer.

Love, roaming, shall meet

But rarely a nature more sound or more sweet--

Eyes brighter--brows whiter--a figure more fair--

Or lovelier lengths of more radiant hair--

Than thine, Lady Alfred! And here I aver

(May those that have seen thee declare if I err)

That not all the oysters in Britain contain

A pearl pure as thou art.

Let some one explain,--

Who may know more than I of the intimate life

Of the pearl with the oyster,--why yet in his wife,

In despite of her beauty--and most when he felt

His soul to the sense of her loveliness melt--

Lord Alfred miss'd something he sought for: indeed,

The more that he miss'd it the greater the need;

Till it seem'd to himself he could willingly spare

All the charms that he found for the one charm not there.

IV.

For the blessings Life lends us, it strictly demands

The worth of their full usufruct at our hands.

And the value of all things exists, not indeed

In themselves, but man's use of them, feeding man's need.

Alfred Vargrave, in wedding with beauty and youth,

Had embraced both Ambition and Wealth. Yet in truth

Unfulfill'd the ambition, and sterile the wealth

(In a life paralyzed by a moral ill-health),

Had remain'd, while the beauty and youth, unredeem'd

From a vague disappointment at all things, but seem'd

Day by day to reproach him in silence for all

That lost youth in himself they had fail'd to recall.

No career had he follow'd, no object obtain'd

In the world by those worldly advantages gain'd

From nuptials beyond which once seem'd to appear,

Lit by love, the broad path of a brilliant career.

All that glitter'd and gleam'd through the moonlight of youth

With a glory so fair, now that manhood in truth

Grasp'd and gather'd it, seem'd like that false fairy gold

Which leaves in the hand only moss, leaves, and mould!

V.

Fairy gold! moss and leaves! and the young Fairy Bride?

Lived there yet fairy-lands in the face at his side?

Say, O friend, if at evening thou ever hast watch'd

Some pale and impalpable vapor, detach'd

From the dim and disconsolate earth, rise and fall

O'er the light of a sweet serene star, until all

The chill'd splendor reluctantly waned in the deep

Of its own native heaven? Even so seem'd to creep

O'er that fair and ethereal face, day by day,

While the radiant vermeil, subsiding away,

Hid its light in the heart, the faint gradual veil

Of a sadness unconscious.

The lady grew pale

As silent her lord grew: and both, as they eyed

Each the other askance, turn'd, and secretly sigh'd.

Ah, wise friend, what avails all experience can give?

True, we know what life is--but, alas! do we live?

The grammar of life we have gotten by heart,

But life's self we have made a dead language--an art,

Not a voice. Could we speak it, but once, as 'twas spoken

When the silence of passion the first time was broken!

Cuvier knew the world better than Adam, no doubt;

But the last man, at best, was but learned about

What the first, without learning, ENJOYED. What art thou

To the man of to-day, O Leviathan, now?

A science. What wert thou to him that from ocean

First beheld thee appear? A surprise,--an emotion!

When life leaps in the veins, when it beats in the heart,

When it thrills as it fills every animate part,

Where lurks it? how works it?... We scarcely detect it.

But life goes: the heart dies: haste, O leech, and dissect it!

This accursed aesthetical, ethical age

Hath so finger'd life's hornbook, so blurr'd every page,

That the old glad romance, the gay chivalrous story

With its fables of faery, its legends of glory,

Is turn'd to a tedious instruction, not new

To the children that read it insipidly through.

We know too much of Love ere we love. We can trace

Nothing new, unexpected, or strange in his face

When we see it at last. 'Tis the same little Cupid,

With the same dimpled cheek, and the smile almost stupid,

We have seen in our pictures, and stuck on our shelves,

And copied a hundred times over, ourselves,

And wherever we turn, and whatever we do,

Still, that horrible sense of the deja connu!

VI.

Perchance 'twas the fault of the life that they led;

Perchance 'twas the fault of the novels they read;

Perchance 'twas a fault in themselves; I am bound not

To say: this I know--that these two creatures found not

In each other some sign they expected to find

Of a something unnamed in the heart or the mind;

And, missing it, each felt a right to complain

Of a sadness which each found no word to explain.

Whatever it was, the world noticed not it

In the light-hearted beauty, the light-hearted wit.

Still, as once with the actors in Greece, 'tis the case,

Each must speak to the crowd with a mask on his face.

Praise follow'd Matilda wherever she went,

She was flatter'd. Can flattery purchase content?

Yes. While to its voice for a moment she listen'd,

The young cheek still bloom'd and the soft eyes still glisten'd;

And her lord, when, like one of those light vivid things

That glide down the gauzes of summer with wings

Of rapturous radiance, unconscious she moved

Through that buzz of inferior creatures, which proved

Her beauty, their envy, one moment forgot,

'Mid the many charms there, the one charm that was not:

And when o'er her beauty enraptured he bow'd,

(As they turn'd to each other, each flush'd from the crowd,)

And murmur'd those praises which yet seem'd more dear

Than the praises of others had grown to her ear,

She, too, ceased awhile her own fate to regret:

"Yes!... he loves me," she sigh'd; "this is love, then--and YET!"

VII.

Ah, that YET! fatal word! 'tis the moral of all

Thought and felt, seen or done, in this world since the Fall!

It stands at the end of each sentence we learn;

It flits in the vista of all we discern;

It leads us, forever and ever, away

To find in to-morrow what flies with to-day.

'Twas the same little fatal and mystical word

That now, like a mirage, led my lady and lord

To the waters of Ems from the waters of Marah;

Drooping Pilgrims in Fashion's blank, arid Sahara!

VIII.

At the same time, pursued by a spell much the same,

To these waters two other worn pilgrims there came:

One a man, one a woman: just now, at the latter,

As the Reader I mean by and by to look at her

And judge for himself, I will not even glance.

IX.

Of the self-crown'd young kings of the Fashion in France

Whose resplendent regalia so dazzled the sight,

Whose horse was so perfect, whose boots were so bright,

Who so hail'd in the salon, so mark'd in the Bois,

Who so welcomed by all, as Eugene de Luvois?

Of all the smooth-brow'd premature debauchees

In that town of all towns, where Debauchery sees

On the forehead of youth her mark everywhere graven,--

In Paris I mean,--where the streets are all paven

By those two fiends whom Milton saw bridging the way

From Hell to this planet,--who, haughty and gay,

The free rebel of life, bound or led by no law,

Walk'd that causeway as bold as Eugene de Luvois?

Yes! he march'd through the great masquerade, loud of tongue,

Bold of brow: but the motley he mask'd in, it hung

So loose, trail'd so wide, and appear'd to impede

So strangely at times the vex'd effort at speed,

That a keen eye might guess it was made--not for him,

But some brawler more stalwart of stature and limb.

That it irk'd him, in truth, you at times could divine,

For when low was the music, and spilt was the wine,

He would clutch at the garment, as though it oppress'd

And stifled some impulse that choked in his breast.

X.

What! he,... the light sport of his frivolous ease!

Was he, too, a prey to a mortal disease?

My friend, hear a parable: ponder it well:

For a moral there is in the tale that I tell.

One evening I sat in the Palais Royal,

And there, while I laugh'd at Grassot and Arnal,

My eye fell on the face of a man at my side;

Every time that he laugh'd I observed that he sigh'd,

As though vex'd to be pleased. I remark'd that he sat

Ill at ease on his seat, and kept twirling his hat

In his hand, with a look of unquiet abstraction.

I inquired the cause of his dissatisfaction.

"Sir," he said, "if what vexes me here you would know,

Learn that, passing this way some few half-hours ago,

I walk'd into the Francais, to look at Rachel.

(Sir, that woman in Phedre is a miracle!)--Well,

I ask'd for a box: they were occupied all:

For a seat in the balcony: all taken! a stall:

Taken too: the whole house was as full as could be,--

Not a hole for a rat! I had just time to see

The lady I love tete-a-tete with a friend

In a box out of reach at the opposite end:

Then the crowd push'd me out. What was left me to do?

I tried for the tragedy... que voulez-vous?

Every place for the tragedy book'd!... mon ami.

The farce was close by:... at the farce me voici.

The piece is a new one: and Grassot plays well:

There is drollery, too, in that fellow Ravel:

And Hyacinth's nose is superb:... yet I meant

My evening elsewhere, and not thus to have spent.

Fate orders these things by her will, not by ours!

Sir, mankind is the sport of invisible powers."

I once met the Duc de Luvois for a moment;

And I mark'd, when his features I fix'd in my comment,

O'er those features the same vague disquietude stray

I had seen on the face of my friend at the play;

And I thought that he too, very probably, spent

His evenings not wholly as first he had meant.

XI.

O source of the holiest joys we inherit,

O Sorrow, thou solemn, invisible spirit!

Ill fares it with man when, through life's desert sand,

Grown impatient too soon for the long-promised land,

He turns from the worship of thee, as thou art,

An expressless and imageless truth in the heart,

And takes of the jewels of Egypt, the pelf

And the gold of the Godless, to make to himself

A gaudy, idolatrous image of thee,

And then bows to the sound of the cymbal the knee.

The sorrows we make to ourselves are false gods:

Like the prophets of Baal, our bosoms with rods

We may smite, we may gash at our hearts till they bleed,

But these idols are blind, deaf, and dumb to our need.

The land is athirst, and cries out!... 'tis in vain;

The great blessing of Heaven descends not in rain.

XII.

It was night; and the lamps were beginning to gleam

Through the long linden-trees, folded each in his dream,

From that building which looks like a temple... and is

The Temple of--Health? Nay, but enter! I wis

That never the rosy-hued deity knew

One votary out of that sallow-cheek'd crew

Of Courlanders, Wallacs, Greeks, affable Russians,

Explosive Parisians, potato-faced Prussians;

Jews--Hamburghers chiefly;--pure patriots,--Suabians;--

"Cappadocians and Elamites, Cretes and Arabians,

And the dwellers in Pontus"... My muse will not weary

More lines with the list of them... cur fremuere?

What is it they murmur, and mutter, and hum?

Into what Pandemonium is Pentecost come?

Oh, what is the name of the god at whose fane

Every nation is mix'd in so motley a train?

What weird Kabala lies on those tables outspread?

To what oracle turns with attention each head?

What holds these pale worshippers each so devout,

And what are those hierophants busied about?

XIII.

Here passes, repasses, and flits to and fro,

And rolls without ceasing the great Yes and No:

Round this altar alternate the weird Passions dance,

And the God worshipp'd here is the old God of Chance.

Through the wide-open doors of the distant saloon

Flute, hautboy, and fiddle are squeaking in tune;

And an indistinct music forever is roll'd,

That mixes and chimes with the chink of the gold,

From a vision, that flits in a luminous haze,

Of figures forever eluding the gaze;

It fleets through the doorway, it gleams on the glass,

And the weird words pursue it--Rouge, Impair, et Passe!

Like a sound borne in sleep through such dreams as encumber

With haggard emotions the wild wicked slumber

Of some witch when she seeks, through a nightmare, to grab at

The hot hoof of the fiend, on her way to the Sabbat.

XIV.

The Duc de Luvois and Lord Alfred had met

Some few evenings ago (for the season as yet

Was but young) in this selfsame Pavilion of Chance.

The idler from England, the idler from France,

Shook hands, each, of course, with much cordial pleasure:

An acquaintance at Ems is to most men a treasure,

And they both were too well-bred in aught to betray

One discourteous remembrance of things pass'd away.

'Twas a sight that was pleasant, indeed, to be seen,

These friends exchange greetings;--the men who had been

Foes so nearly in days that were past.

This, no doubt,

Is why, on the night I am speaking about,

My Lord Alfred sat down by himself at roulette,

Without one suspicion his bosom to fret,

Although he had left, with his pleasant French friend,

Matilda, half vex'd, at the room's farthest end.

XV.

Lord Alfred his combat with Fortune began

With a few modest thalers--away they all ran--

The reserve follow'd fast in the rear. As his purse

Grew lighter his spirits grew sensibly worse.

One needs not a Bacon to find a cause for it:

'Tis an old law in physics--Natura abhorret

Vacuum--and my lord, as he watch'd his last crown

Tumble into the bank, turn'd away with a frown

Which the brows of Napoleon himself might have deck'd

On that day of all days when an empire was wreck'd

On thy plain, Waterloo, and he witness'd the last

Of his favorite Guard cut to pieces, aghast!

Just then Alfred felt, he could scarcely tell why,

Within him the sudden strange sense that some eye

Had long been intently regarding him there,--

That some gaze was upon him too searching to bear.

He rose and look'd up. Was it fact? Was it fable?

Was it dream? Was it waking? Across the green table,

That face, with its features so fatally known--

Those eyes, whose deep gaze answer'd strangely his own

What was it? Some ghost from its grave come again?

Some cheat of a feverish, fanciful brain?

Or was it herself with those deep eyes of hers,

And that face unforgotten?--Lucile de Nevers!

XVI.

Ah, well that pale woman a phantom might seem,

Who appear'd to herself but the dream of a dream!

'Neath those features so calm, that fair forehead so hush'd,

That pale cheek forever by passion unflush'd,

There yawn'd an insatiate void, and there heaved

A tumult of restless regrets unrelieved.

The brief noon of beauty was passing away,

And the chill of the twilight fell, silent and gray,

O'er that deep, self-perceived isolation of soul.

And now, as all around her the dim evening stole,

With its weird desolations, she inwardly grieved

For the want of that tender assurance received

From the warmth of a whisper, the glance of an eye,

Which should say, or should look, "Fear thou naught,--I am by!"

And thus, through that lonely and self-fix'd existence,

Crept a vague sense of silence, and horror, and distance:

A strange sort of faint-footed fear,--like a mouse

That comes out, when 'tis dark, in some old ducal house

Long deserted, where no one the creature can scare,

And the forms on the arras are all that move there.

In Rome,--in the Forum,--there open'd one night

A gulf. All the augurs turn'd pale at the sight.

In this omen the anger of Heaven they read.

Men consulted the gods: then the oracle said:--

"Ever open this gulf shall endure, till at last

That which Rome hath most precious within it be cast."

The Romans threw in it their corn and their stuff,

But the gulf yawn'd as wide. Rome seem'd likely enough

To be ruin'd ere this rent in her heart she could choke.

Then Curtius, revering the oracle, spoke:

"O Quirites! to this Heaven's question is come:

What to Rome is most precious? The manhood of Rome."

He plunged, and the gulf closed.

The tale is not new;

But the moral applies many ways, and is true.

How, for hearts rent in twain, shall the curse be destroy'd?

'Tis a warm human one that must fill up the void.

Through many a heart runs the rent in the fable;

But who to discover a Curtius is able?

XVII.

Back she came from her long hiding-place, at the source

Of the sunrise; where, fair in their fabulous course,

Run the rivers of Eden: an exile again,

To the cities of Europe--the scenes, and the men,

And the life, and the ways, she had left: still oppress'd

With the same hungry heart, and unpeaceable breast.

The same, to the same things! The world she had quitted

With a sigh, with a sigh she re-enter'd. Soon flitted

Through the salons and clubs, to the great satisfaction

Of Paris, the news of a novel attraction.

The enchanting Lucile, the gay Countess, once more,

To her old friend, the World, had reopen'd her door;

The World came, and shook hands, and was pleased and amused

With what the World then went away and abused.

From the woman's fair fame it in naught could detract:

'Twas the woman's free genius it vex'd and attack'd

With a sneer at her freedom of action and speech.

But its light careless cavils, in truth, could not reach

The lone heart they aim'd at. Her tears fell beyond

The world's limit, to feel that the world could respond

To that heart's deepest, innermost yearning, in naught,

'Twas no longer this earth's idle inmates she sought:

The wit of the woman sufficed to engage

In the woman's gay court the first men of the age.

Some had genius; and all, wealth of mind to confer

On the world: but that wealth was not lavish'd for her.

For the genius of man, though so human indeed,

When call'd out to man's help by some great human need,

The right to a man's chance acquaintance refuses

To use what it hoards for mankind's nobler uses.

Genius touches the world at but one point alone

Of that spacious circumference, never quite known

To the world; all the infinite number of lines

That radiate thither a mere point combines,

But one only,--some central affection apart

From the reach of the world, in which Genius is Heart,

And love, life's fine centre, includes heart and mind,

And therefore it was that Lucile sigh'd to find

Men of genius appear, one and all in her ken,

When they stoop'd themselves to it, as mere clever men;

Artists, statesmen, and they in whose works are unfurl'd

Worlds new-fashioned for man, as mere men of the world.

And so, as alone now she stood, in the sight

Of the sunset of youth, with her face from the light,

And watch'd her own shadow grow long at her feet,

As though stretch'd out, the shade of some OTHER to meet,

The woman felt homeless and childless: in scorn

She seem'd mock'd by the voices of children unborn;

And when from these sombre reflections away

She turn'd, with a sigh, to that gay world, more gay

For her presence within it, she knew herself friendless;

That her path led from peace, and that path appear'd endless!

That even her beauty had been but a snare,

And her wit sharpen'd only the edge of despair.

XVIII.

With a face all transfigured and flush'd by surprise,

Alfred turn'd to Lucile. With those deep searching eyes

She look'd into his own. Not a word that she said,

Not a look, not a blush, one emotion betray'd.

She seem'd to smile through him, at something beyond:

When she answer'd his questions, she seem'd to respond

To some voice in herself. With no trouble descried,

To each troubled inquiry she calmly replied.

Not so he. At the sight of that face back again

To his mind came the ghost of a long-stifled pain,

A remember'd resentment, half check'd by a wild

And relentful regret like a motherless child

Softly seeking admittance, with plaintive appeal,

To the heart which resisted its entrance.

Lucile

And himself thus, however, with freedom allow'd

To old friends, talking still side by side, left the crowd

By the crowd unobserved. Not unnoticed, however,

By the Duke and Matilda. Matilda had never

Seen her husband's new friend.

She had follow'd by chance,

Or by instinct, the sudden half-menacing glance

Which the Duke, when he witness'd their meeting, had turn'd

On Lucile and Lord Alfred; and, scared, she discern'd

On his feature the shade of a gloom so profound

That she shudder'd instinctively. Deaf to the sound

Of her voice, to some startled inquiry of hers

He replied not, but murmur'd, "Lucile de Nevers

Once again then? so be it!" In the mind of that man,

At that moment, there shaped itself vaguely the plan

Of a purpose malignant and dark, such alone

(To his own secret heart but imperfectly shown)

As could spring from the cloudy, fierce chaos of thought

By which all his nature to tumult was wrought.

XIX.

"So!" he thought, "they meet thus: and reweave the old charm!

And she hangs on his voice, and she leans on his arm,

And she heeds me not, seeks me not, recks not of me!

Oh, what if I show'd her that I, too, can be

Loved by one--her own rival--more fair and more young?"

The serpent rose in him; a serpent which, stung,

Sought to sting.

Each unconscious, indeed, of the eye

Fix'd upon them, Lucile and my lord saunter'd by,

In converse which seem'd to be earnest. A smile

Now and then seem'd to show where their thoughts touch'd. Meanwhile

The muse of this story, convinced that they need her,

To the Duke and Matilda returns, gentle Reader.

XX.

The Duke with that sort of aggressive false praise

Which is meant a resentful remonstrance to raise

From a listener (as sometimes a judge, just before

He pulls down the black cap, very gently goes o'er

The case for the prisoner, and deals tenderly

With the man he is minded to hang by and by),

Had referr'd to Lucile, and then stopp'd to detect

In the face of Matilda the growing effect

Of the words he had dropp'd. There's no weapon that slays

Its victim so surely (if well aim'd) as praise.

Thus, a pause on their converse had fallen: and now

Each was silent, preoccupied; thoughtful.

You know

There are moments when silence, prolong'd and unbroken,

More expressive may be than all words ever spoken.

It is when the heart has an instinct of what

In the heart of another is passing. And that

In the heart of Matilda, what was it? Whence came

To her cheek on a sudden that tremulous flame?

What weighed down her head?

All your eye could discover

Was the fact that Matilda was troubled. Moreover

That trouble the Duke's presence seem'd to renew.

She, however, broke silence, the first of the two.

The Duke was too prudent to shatter the spell

Of a silence which suited his purpose so well.

She was plucking the leaves from a pale blush rose blossom

Which had fall'n from the nosegay she wore in her bosom.

"This poor flower," she said, "seems it not out of place

In this hot, lamplit air, with its fresh, fragile grace?"

She bent her head low as she spoke. With a smile

The Duke watch'd her caressing the leaves all the while,

And continued on his side the silence. He knew

This would force his companion their talk to renew

At the point that he wish'd; and Matilda divined

The significant pause with new trouble of mind.

She lifted one moment her head; but her look

Encounter'd the ardent regard of the Duke,

And dropp'd back on her flowret abash'd. Then, still seeking

The assurance she fancied she show'd him by speaking,

She conceived herself safe in adopting again

The theme she should most have avoided just then.

XXI.

"Duke," she said,... and she felt, as she spoke, her cheek burn'd,

"You know, then, this... lady?"

"Too well!" he return'd.

MATILDA.

True; you drew with emotion her portrait just now.

LUVOIS.

With emotion?

MATILDA.

Yes, yes! you described her, I know,

As possess'd of a charm all unrivall'd.

LUVOIS.

Alas!

You mistook me completely! You, madam, surpass

This lady as moonlight does lamplight; as youth

Surpasses its best imitations; as truth

The fairest of falsehood surpasses; as nature

Surpasses art's masterpiece; ay, as the creature

Fresh and pure in its native adornment surpasses

All the charms got by heart at the world's looking-glasses!

"Yet you said,"--she continued with some trepidation,

"That you quite comprehended"... a slight hesitation

Shook the sentence,... "a passion so strong as"...

LUVOIS.

"True, true!

But not in a man that had once look'd at you.

Nor can I conceive, or excuse, or"...

Hush, hush!"

She broke in, all more fair for one innocent blush.

"Between man and woman these things differ so!

It may be that the world pardons... (how should I know?)

In you what it visits on us; or 'tis true,

It may be that we women are better than you."

LUVOIS.

Who denies it? Yet, madam, once more you mistake.

The world, in its judgment, some difference may make

'Twixt the man and the woman, so far as respects

Its social enchantments; but not as affects

The one sentiment which it were easy to prove,

Is the sole law we look to the moment we love.

MATILDA.

That may be. Yet I think I should be less severe.

Although so inexperienced in such things, I fear

I have learn'd that the heart cannot always repress

Or account for the feelings which sway it.

"Yes! yes!

That is too true, indeed!"... the Duke sigh'd.

And again

For one moment in silence continued the twain.

XXII.

At length the Duke slowly, as though he had needed

All this time to repress his emotions, proceeded:

"And yet!... what avails, then, to woman the gift

Of a beauty like yours, if it cannot uplift

Her heart from the reach of one doubt, one despair,

One pang of wrong'd love, to which women less fair

Are exposed, when they love?"

With a quick change of tone,

As though by resentment impell'd he went on:--

"The name that you bear, it is whisper'd, you took

From love, not convention. Well, lady,... that look

So excited, so keen, on the face you must know

Throughout all its expressions--that rapturous glow,

Those eloquent features--significant eyes--

Which that pale woman sees, yet betrays no surprise,"

(He pointed his hand, as he spoke, to the door,

Fixing with it Lucile and Lord Alfred)... "before,

Have you ever once seen what just now you may view

In that face so familiar?... no, lady, 'tis new.

Young, lovely, and loving, no doubt, as you are,

Are you loved?"...

XXIII.

He look'd at her--paused--felt if thus far

The ground held yet. The ardor with which he had spoken,

This close, rapid question, thus suddenly broken,

Inspired in Matilda a vague sense of fear,

As though some indefinite danger were near.

With composure, however, at once she replied:--

"'Tis three years since the day when I first was a bride,

And my husband I never had cause to suspect;

Nor ever have stoop'd, sir, such cause to detect.

Yet if in his looks or his acts I should see--

See, or fancy--some moment's oblivion of me,

I trust that I too should forget it,--for you

Must have seen that my heart is my husband's."

The hue

On her cheek, with the effort wherewith to the Duke

She had uttered this vague and half-frightened rebuke,

Was white as the rose in her hand. The last word

Seem'd to die on her lip, and could scarcely be heard.

There was silence again.

A great step had been made

By the Duke in the words he that evening had said.

There, half drown'd by the music, Matilda, that night,

Had listen'd--long listen'd--no doubt, in despite

Of herself, to a voice she should never have heard,

And her heart by that voice had been troubled and stirr'd.

And so having suffer'd in silence his eye

To fathom her own, he resumed, with a sigh:

XXIV.

"Will you suffer me, lady, your thoughts to invade

By disclosing my own? The position," he said,

"In which we so strangely seem placed may excuse

The frankness and force of the words which I use.

You say that your heart is your husband's: You say

That you love him. You think so, of course, lady... nay,

Such a love, I admit, were a merit, no doubt.

But, trust me, no true love there can be without

Its dread penalty--jealousy.

"Well, do not start!

Until now,--either thanks to a singular art

Of supreme self-control, you have held them all down

Unreveal'd in your heart,--or you never have known

Even one of those fierce irresistible pangs

Which deep passion engenders; that anguish which hangs

On the heart like a nightmare, by jealousy bred.

But if, lady, the love you describe, in the bed

Of a blissful security thus hath reposed

Undisturb'd, with mild eyelids on happiness closed,

Were it not to expose to a peril unjust,

And most cruel, that happy repose you so trust,

To meet, to receive, and, indeed, it may be,

For how long I know not, continue to see

A woman whose place rivals yours in the life

And the heart which not only your title of wife,

But also (forgive me!) your beauty alone,

Should have made wholly yours?--You, who gave all your own!

Reflect!--'tis the peace of existence you stake

On the turn of a die. And for whose--for his sake?

While you witness this woman, the false point of view

From which she must now be regarded by you

Will exaggerate to you, whatever they be,

The charms I admit she possesses. To me

They are trivial indeed; yet to your eyes, I fear

And foresee, they will true and intrinsic appear.

Self-unconscious, and sweetly unable to guess

How more lovely by far is the grace you possess,

You will wrong your own beauty. The graces of art,

You will take for the natural charm of the heart;

Studied manners, the brilliant and bold repartee,

Will too soon in that fatal comparison be

To your fancy more fair than the sweet timid sense

Which, in shrinking, betrays its own best eloquence.

O then, lady, then, you will feel in your heart

The poisonous pain of a fierce jealous dart!

While you see her, yourself you no longer will see,--

You will hear her, and hear not yourself,--you will be

Unhappy; unhappy, because you will deem

Your own power less great than her power will seem.

And I shall not be by your side, day by day,

In despite of your noble displeasure, to say

'You are fairer than she, as the star is more fair

Than the diamond, the brightest that beauty can wear'"

XXV.

This appeal, both by looks and by language, increased

The trouble Matilda felt grow in her breast.

Still she spoke with what calmness she could--

"Sir, the while

I thank you," she said, with a faint scornful smile,

"For your fervor in painting my fancied distress:

Allow me the right some surprise to express

At the zeal you betray in disclosing to me

The possible depth of my own misery."

"That zeal would not startle you, madam," he said,

"Could you read in my heart, as myself I have read,

The peculiar interest which causes that zeal--"

Matilda her terror no more could conceal.

"Duke," she answer'd in accents short, cold and severe,

As she rose from her seat, "I continue to hear;

But permit me to say, I no more understand."

"Forgive!" with a nervous appeal of the hand,

And a well-feign'd confusion of voice and of look,

"Forgive, oh, forgive me!" at once cried the Duke

"I forgot that you know me so slightly. Your leave

I entreat (from your anger those words to retrieve)

For one moment to speak of myself,--for I think

That you wrong me--"

His voice, as in pain, seem'd to sink

And tears in his eyes, as he lifted them, glisten'd.

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.