THE POEMS AND PROSE

OF

ERNEST DOWSON


with a MEMOIR by ARTHUR SYMONS




CONTENTS


MEMOIR. By Arthur Symons


POEMS


IN PREFACE: FOR ADELAIDE

A CORONAL

VERSES:

  Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration
  Villanelle of Sunset
  My Lady April
  To One in Bedlam
  Ad Domnulam Suam
  Amor Umbratilis
  Amor Profanus
  Villanelle of Marguerites
  Yvonne of Brittany
  Benedictio Domini
  Growth
  Ad Manus Puellae
  Flos Lunae
  Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae
  Vanitas
  Exile
  Spleen
  O Mors! quam amara est memoria tua homini pacem
    habenti in substantiis suis
  "You would have understood me, had you waited"
  April Love
  Vain Hope
  Vain Resolves
  A Requiem
  Beata Solitudo
  Terre Promise
  Autumnal
  In Tempore Senectutis
  Villanelle of his Lady's Treasures
  Gray Nights
  Vesperal
  The Garden of Shadow
  Soli cantare periti Arcades
  On the Birth of a Friend's Child
  Extreme Unction
  Amantium Irae
  Impenitentia Ultima
  A Valediction
  Sapientia Lunae
  "Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad"
  Seraphita
  Epigram
  Quid non speremus, Amantes?
  Chanson sans Paroles

THE PIERROT OF THE MINUTE

DECORATIONS:

  Beyond
  De Amore
  The Dead Child
  Carthusians
  The Three Witches
  Villanelle of the Poet's Road
  Villanelle of Acheron
  Saint Germain-en-Laye
  After Paul Verlaine--I
  After Paul Verlaine--II
  After Paul Verlaine--III
  After Paul Verlaine--IV
  To his Mistress
  Jadis
  In a Breton Cemetery
  To William Theodore Peters on his Renaissance Cloak
  The Sea-Change
  Dregs
  A Song
  Breton Afternoon
  Venite Descendamus
  Transition
  Exchanges
  To a Lady asking Foolish Questions
  Rondeau
  Moritura
  Libera Me
  To a Lost Love
  Wisdom
  In Spring
  A Last Word


PROSE


  THE DIARY OF A SUCCESSFUL MAN
  A CASE OF CONSCIENCE
  AN ORCHESTRAL VIOLIN
  SOUVENIRS OF AN EGOIST
  THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS




ERNEST DOWSON was born in 1867 at Lea, in Kent, England. Most of his 
life was spent in France. He died February 21, 1900.

The poems in this volume were published at varying intervals from his 
Oxford days at Queens College to the time of his death. The prose 
works here included were published in 1886, 1890, 1892 and in 1893.




ERNEST DOWSON


I

The death of Ernest Dowson will mean very little to the world at 
large, but it will mean a great deal to the few people who care 
passionately for poetry. A little book of verses, the manuscript of 
another, a one-act play in verse, a few short stories, two novels 
written in collaboration, some translations from the French, done for 
money; that is all that was left by a man who was undoubtedly a man of 
genius, not a great poet, but a poet, one of the very few writers of 
our generation to whom that name can be applied in its most intimate 
sense. People will complain, probably, in his verses, of what will 
seem to them the factitious melancholy, the factitious idealism, and 
(peeping through at a few rare moments) the factitious suggestions of 
riot. They will see only a literary affectation, where in truth there 
is as genuine a note of personal sincerity as in the more explicit and 
arranged confessions of less admirable poets. Yes, in these few 
evasive, immaterial snatches of song, I find, implied for the most 
part, hidden away like a secret, all the fever and turmoil and the 
unattained dreams of a life which had itself so much of the swift, 
disastrous, and suicidal impetus of genius.

Ernest Christopher Dowson was born at The Grove, Belmont Hill, Lee, 
Kent, on August 2nd, 1867; he died at 26 Sandhurst Gardens, Catford, 
S.E., on Friday morning, February 23, 1900, and was buried in the 
Roman Catholic part of the Lewisham Cemetery on February 27. His 
great-uncle was Alfred Domett, Browning's "Waring," at one time Prime 
Minister of New Zealand, and author of "Ranolf and Amohia," and other 
poems. His father, who had himself a taste for literature, lived a 
good deal in France and on the Riviera, on account of the delicacy of 
his health, and Ernest had a somewhat irregular education, chiefly out 
of England, before he entered Queen's College, Oxford. He left in 1887 
without taking a degree, and came to London, where he lived for 
several years, often revisiting France, which was always his favourite 
country. Latterly, until the last year of his life, he lived almost 
entirely in Paris, Brittany, and Normandy. Never robust, and always 
reckless with himself, his health had been steadily getting worse for 
some years, and when he came back to London he looked, as indeed he 
was, a dying man. Morbidly shy, with a sensitive independence which 
shrank from any sort of obligation, he would not communicate with his 
relatives, who would gladly have helped him, or with any of the really 
large number of attached friends whom he had in London; and, as his 
disease weakened him more and more, he hid himself away in his 
miserable lodgings, refused to see a doctor, let himself half starve, 
and was found one day in a Bodega with only a few shillings in his 
pocket, and so weak as to be hardly able to walk, by a friend, himself 
in some difficulties, who immediately took him back to the 
bricklayer's cottage in a muddy outskirt of Catford, where he was 
himself living, and there generously looked after him for the last six 
weeks of his life.

He did not realise that he was going to die; and was full of projects 
for the future, when the £600 which was to come to him from the sale 
of some property should have given him a fresh chance in the world; 
began to read Dickens, whom he had never read before, with singular 
zest; and, on the last day of his life, sat up talking eagerly till 
five in the morning. At the very moment of his death he did not know 
that he was dying. He tried to cough, could not cough, and the heart 
quietly stopped.


II

I cannot remember my first meeting with Ernest Dowson. It may have 
been in 1891, at one of the meetings of the Rhymers' Club, in an upper 
room of the "Cheshire Cheese," where long clay pipes lay in slim heaps 
on the wooden tables, between tankards of ale; and young poets, then 
very young, recited their own verses to one another with a desperate 
and ineffectual attempt to get into key with the Latin Quarter. Though 
few of us were, as a matter of fact, Anglo-Saxon, we could not help 
feeling that we were in London, and the atmosphere of London is not 
the atmosphere of movements or of societies. In Paris it is the most 
natural thing in the world to meet and discuss literature, ideas, 
one's own and one another's work; and it can be done without 
pretentiousness or constraint, because, to the Latin mind, art, ideas, 
one's work and the work of one's friends, are definite and important 
things, which it would never occur to any one to take anything but 
seriously. In England art has to be protected not only against the 
world, but against one's self and one's fellow artist, by a kind of 
affected modesty which is the Englishman's natural pose, half pride 
and half self-distrust. So this brave venture of the Rhymers' Club, 
though it lasted for two or three years, and produced two little books 
of verse which will some day be literary curiosities, was not quite a 
satisfactory kind of _cénacle_. Dowson, who enjoyed the real thing so 
much in Paris, did not, I think, go very often; but his contributions 
to the first book of the club were at once the most delicate and the 
most distinguished poems which it contained. Was it, after all, at one 
of these meetings that I first saw him, or was it, perhaps, at another 
haunt of some of us at that time, a semi-literary tavern near 
Leicester Square, chosen for its convenient position between two 
stage-doors? It was at the time when one or two of us sincerely 
worshipped the ballet; Dowson, alas! never. I could never get him to 
see that charm in harmonious and coloured movement, like bright 
shadows seen through the floating gauze of the music, which held me 
night after night at the two theatres which alone seemed to me to give 
an amusing colour to one's dreams. Neither the stage nor the 
stage-door had any attraction for him; but he came to the tavern 
because it was a tavern, and because he could meet his friends there. 
Even before that time I have a vague impression of having met him, I 
forget where, certainly at night; and of having been struck, even 
then, by a look and manner of pathetic charm, a sort of Keats-like 
face, the face of a demoralised Keats, and by something curious in the 
contrast of a manner exquisitely refined, with an appearance generally 
somewhat dilapidated. That impression was only accentuated later on, 
when I came to know him, and the manner of his life, much more 
intimately.

I think I may date my first impression of what one calls "the real 
man" (as if it were more real than the poet of the disembodied 
verses!) from an evening in which he first introduced me to those 
charming supper-houses, open all night through, the cabmen's shelters. 
I had been talking over another vagabond poet, Lord Rochester, with a 
charming and sympathetic descendant of that poet, and somewhat late at 
night we had come upon Dowson and another man wandering aimlessly and 
excitedly about the streets. He invited us to supper, we did not quite 
realise where, and the cabman came in with us, as we were welcomed, 
cordially and without comment, at a little place near the Langham; 
and, I recollect, very hospitably entertained. The cooking differs, as 
I found in time, in these supper-houses, but there the rasher was 
excellent and the cups admirably clean. Dowson was known there, and I 
used to think he was always at his best in a cabmen's shelter. Without 
a certain sordidness in his surroundings he was never quite 
comfortable, never quite himself; and at those places you are obliged 
to drink nothing stronger than coffee or tea. I liked to see him 
occasionally, for a change, drinking nothing stronger than coffee or 
tea. At Oxford, I believe, his favourite form of intoxication had been 
haschisch; afterwards he gave up this somewhat elaborate experiment in 
visionary sensations for readier means of oblivion; but he returned to 
it, I remember, for at least one afternoon, in a company of which I 
had been the gatherer and of which I was the host. I remember him 
sitting a little anxiously, with his chin on his breast, awaiting the 
magic, half-shy in the midst of a bright company of young people whom 
he had only seen across the footlights. The experience was not a very 
successful one; it ended in what should have been its first symptom, 
immoderate laughter.

Always, perhaps, a little consciously, but at least always sincerely, 
in search of new sensations, my friend found what was for him the 
supreme sensation in a very passionate and tender adoration of the 
most escaping of all ideals, the ideal of youth. Cherished, as I 
imagine, first only in the abstract, this search after the immature, 
the ripening graces which time can only spoil in the ripening, found 
itself at the journey's end, as some of his friends thought, a little 
prematurely. I was never of their opinion. I only saw twice, and for a 
few moments only, the young girl to whom most of his verses were to be 
written, and whose presence in his life may be held to account for 
much of that astonishing contrast between the broad outlines of his 
life and work. The situation seemed to me of the most exquisite and 
appropriate impossibility. The daughter of a refugee, I believe of 
good family, reduced to keeping a humble restaurant in a foreign 
quarter of London, she listened to his verses, smiled charmingly, 
under her mother's eyes, on his two years' courtship, and at the end 
of two years married the waiter instead. Did she ever realise more 
than the obvious part of what was being offered to her, in this shy 
and eager devotion? Did it ever mean very much to her to have made and 
to have killed a poet? She had, at all events, the gift of evoking, 
and, in its way, of retaining, all that was most delicate, sensitive, 
shy, typically poetic, in a nature which I can only compare to a weedy 
garden, its grass trodden down by many feet, but with one small, 
carefully tended flowerbed, luminous with lilies. I used to think, 
sometimes, of Verlaine and his "girl-wife," the one really profound 
passion, certainly, of that passionate career; the charming, 
child-like creature, to whom he looked back, at the end of his life, 
with an unchanged tenderness and disappointment: "Vous n'avez rien 
compris à ma simplicité," as he lamented. In the case of Dowson, 
however, there was a sort of virginal devotion, as to a Madonna; and I 
think, had things gone happily, to a conventionally happy ending, he 
would have felt (dare I say?) that his ideal had been spoilt.

But, for the good fortune of poets, things rarely do go happily with 
them, or to conventionally happy endings. He used to dine every night 
at the little restaurant, and I can always see the picture, which I 
have so often seen through the window in passing: the narrow room with 
the rough tables, for the most part empty, except in the innermost 
corner, where Dowson would sit with that singularly sweet and 
singularly pathetic smile on his lips (a smile which seemed afraid of 
its right to be there, as if always dreading a rebuff), playing his 
invariable after-dinner game of cards. Friends would come in during 
the hour before closing time; and the girl, her game of cards 
finished, would quietly disappear, leaving him with hardly more than 
the desire to kill another night as swiftly as possible.

Meanwhile she and the mother knew that the fragile young man who dined 
there so quietly every day was apt to be quite another sort of person 
after he had been three hours outside. It was only when his life 
seemed to have been irretrievably ruined that Dowson quite 
deliberately abandoned himself to that craving for drink, which was 
doubtless lying in wait for him in his blood, as consumption was also; 
it was only latterly, when he had no longer any interest in life, that 
he really wished to die. But I have never known him when he could 
resist either the desire or the consequences of drink. Sober, he was 
the most gentle, in manner the most gentlemanly of men; unselfish to a 
fault, to the extent of weakness; a delightful companion, charm 
itself. Under the influence of drink, he became almost literally 
insane, certainly quite irresponsible. He fell into furious and 
unreasoning passions; a vocabulary unknown to him at other times 
sprang up like a whirlwind; he seemed always about to commit some act 
of absurd violence. Along with that forgetfulness came other memories. 
As long as he was conscious of himself, there was but one woman for 
him in the world, and for her he had an infinite tenderness and an 
infinite respect. When that face faded from him, he saw all the other 
faces, and he saw no more difference than between sheep and sheep. 
Indeed, that curious love of the sordid, so common an affectation of 
the modern decadent, and with him so genuine, grew upon him, and 
dragged him into more and more sorry corners of a life which was never 
exactly "gay" to him. His father, when he died, left him in possession 
of an old dock, where for a time he lived in a mouldering house, in 
that squalid part of the East End which he came to know so well, and 
to feel so strangely at home in. He drank the poisonous liquors of 
those pot-houses which swarm about the docks; he drifted about in 
whatever company came in his way; he let heedlessness develop into a 
curious disregard of personal tidiness. In Paris, Les Halles took the 
place of the docks. At Dieppe, where I saw so much, of him one summer, 
he discovered strange, squalid haunts about the harbour, where he made 
friends with amazing innkeepers, and got into rows with the fishermen 
who came in to drink after midnight. At Brussels, where I was with him 
at the time of the Kermesse, he flung himself into all that riotous 
Flemish life, with a zest for what was most sordidly riotous in it. It 
was his own way of escape from life.

To Dowson, as to all those who have not been "content to ask unlikely 
gifts in vain," nature, life, destiny, whatever one chooses to call 
it, that power which is strength to the strong, presented itself as a 
barrier against which all one's strength only served to dash one to 
more hopeless ruin. He was not a dreamer; destiny passes by the 
dreamer, sparing him because he clamours for nothing. He was a child, 
clamouring for so many things, all impossible. With a body too weak 
for ordinary existence, he desired all the enchantments of all the 
senses. With a soul too shy to tell its own secret, except in 
exquisite evasions, he desired the boundless confidence of love. He 
sang one tune, over and over, and no one listened to him. He had only 
to form the most simple wish, and it was denied him. He gave way to 
ill-luck, not knowing that he was giving way to his own weakness, and 
he tried to escape from the consciousness of things as they were at 
the best, by voluntarily choosing to accept them at their worst. For 
with him it was always voluntary. He was never quite without money; he 
had a little money of his own, and he had for many years a weekly 
allowance from a publisher, in return for translations from the 
French, or, if he chose to do it, original work. He was unhappy, and 
he dared not think. To unhappy men, thought, if it can be set at work 
on abstract questions, is the only substitute for happiness; if it has 
not strength to overleap the barrier which shuts one in upon oneself, 
it is the one unwearying torture. Dowson had exquisite sensibility, he 
vibrated in harmony with every delicate emotion; but he had no 
outlook, he had not the escape of intellect. His only escape, then, 
was to plunge into the crowd, to fancy that he lost sight of himself 
as he disappeared from the sight of others. The more he soiled himself 
at that gross contact, the further would he seem to be from what 
beckoned to him in one vain illusion after another vain illusion, in 
the delicate places of the world. Seeing himself moving to the sound 
of lutes, in some courtly disguise, down an alley of Watteau's 
Versailles, while he touched finger-tips with a divine creature in 
rose-leaf silks, what was there left for him, as the dream obstinately 
refused to realise itself, but a blind flight into some Teniers 
kitchen, where boors are making merry, without thought of yesterday or 
to-morrow? There, perhaps, in that ferment of animal life, he could 
forget life as he dreamed it, with too faint hold upon his dreams to 
make dreams come true.

For, there is not a dream which may not come true, if we have the 
energy which makes, or chooses, our own fate. We can always, in this 
world, get what we want, if we will it intensely and persistently 
enough. Whether we shall get it sooner or later is the concern of 
fate; but we shall get it. It may come when we have no longer any use 
for it, when we have gone on willing it out of habit, or so as not to 
confess that we have failed. But it will come. So few people succeed 
greatly because so few people can conceive a great end, and work 
towards that end without deviating and without tiring. But we all know 
that the man who works for money day and night gets rich; and the man 
who works day and night for no matter what kind of material power, 
gets the power. It is the same with the deeper, more spiritual, as it 
seems vaguer issues, which make for happiness and every intangible 
success. It is only the dreams of those light sleepers who dream 
faintly that do not come true.

We get out of life, all of us, what we bring to it; that, and that 
only, is what it can teach us. There are men whom Dowson's experiences 
would have made great men, or great writers; for him they did very 
little. Love and regret, with here and there the suggestion of an 
uncomforting pleasure snatched by the way, are all that he has to sing 
of; and he could have sung of them at much less "expense of spirit," 
and, one fancies, without the "waste of shame" at all. Think what 
Villon got directly out of his own life, what Verlaine, what Musset, 
what Byron, got directly out of their own lives! It requires a strong 
man to "sin strongly" and profit by it. To Dowson the tragedy of his 
own life could only have resulted in an elegy. "I have flung roses, 
roses, riotously with the throng," he confesses in his most beautiful 
poem; but it was as one who flings roses in a dream, as he passes with 
shut eyes through an unsubstantial throng. The depths into which he 
plunged were always waters of oblivion, and he returned forgetting 
them. He is always a very ghostly lover, wandering in a land of 
perpetual twilight, as he holds a whispered _colloque sentimental_ 
with the ghost of an old love:

  "Dans le vieux parc solitaire et glacé, Deux spectres ont évoqué le 
passé."

It was, indeed, almost a literal unconsciousness, as of one who leads 
two lives, severed from one another as completely as sleep is from 
waking. Thus we get in his work very little of the personal appeal of 
those to whom riotous living, misery, a cross destiny, have been of so 
real a value. And it is important to draw this distinction, if only 
for the benefit of those young men who are convinced that the first 
step towards genius is disorder. Dowson is precisely one of the people 
who are pointed out as confirming this theory. And yet Dowson was 
precisely one of those who owed least to circumstances; and, in 
succumbing to them, he did no more than succumb to the destructive 
forces which, shut up within him, pulled down the house of life upon 
his own head.

A soul "unspotted from the world," in a body which one sees visibly 
soiling under one's eyes; that improbability is what all who knew him 
saw in Dowson, as his youthful physical grace gave way year by year, 
and the personal charm underlying it remained unchanged. There never 
was a simpler or more attaching charm, because there never was a 
sweeter or more honest nature. It was not because he ever said 
anything particularly clever or particularly interesting, it was not 
because he gave you ideas, or impressed you by any strength or 
originality, that you liked to be with him; but because of a certain 
engaging quality, which seemed unconscious of itself, which was never 
anxious to be or to do anything, which simply existed, as perfume 
exists in a flower. Drink was like a heavy curtain, blotting out 
everything of a sudden; when the curtain lifted, nothing had changed. 
Living always that double life, he had his true and his false aspect, 
and the true life was the expression of that fresh, delicate, and 
uncontaminated nature which some of us knew in him, and which remains 
for us, untouched by the other, in every line that he wrote.


III

Dowson was the only poet I ever knew who cared more for his prose than 
his verse; but he was wrong, and it is not by his prose that he will 
live, exquisite as that prose was at its best. He wrote two novels in 
collaboration with Mr. Arthur Moore: "A Comedy of Masks," in 1893, and 
"Adrian Rome," in 1899, both done under the influence of Mr. Henry 
James, both interesting because they were personal studies, and 
studies of known surroundings, rather than for their actual value as 
novels. A volume of "Stories and Studies in Sentiment," called 
"Dilemmas," in which the influence of Mr. Wedmore was felt in addition 
to the influence of Mr. James, appeared in 1895. Several other short 
stories, among his best work in prose, have not yet been reprinted 
from the _Savoy_. Some translations from the French, done as 
hack-work, need not be mentioned here, though they were never without 
some traces of his peculiar quality of charm in language. The short 
stories were indeed rather "studies in sentiment" than stories; 
studies of singular delicacy, but with only a faint hold on life, so 
that perhaps the best of them was not unnaturally a study in the 
approaches of death: "The Dying of Francis Donne." For the most part 
they dealt with the same motives as the poems, hopeless and reverent 
love, the ethics of renunciation, the disappointment of those who are 
too weak or too unlucky to take what they desire. They have a sad and 
quiet beauty of their own, the beauty of second thoughts and subdued 
emotions, of choice and scholarly English, moving in the more fluid 
and reticent harmonies of prose almost as daintily as if it were 
moving to the measure of verse. Dowson's care over English prose was 
like that of a Frenchman writing his own language with the respect 
which Frenchmen pay to French. Even English things had to come to him 
through France, if he was to prize them very highly; and there is a 
passage in "Dilemmas" which I have always thought very characteristic 
of his own tastes, as it refers to an "infinitesimal library, a few 
French novels, an Horace, and some well-thumbed volumes of the modern 
English poets in the familiar edition of Tauchnitz." He was Latin by 
all his affinities, and that very quality of slightness, of parsimony 
almost in his dealings with life and the substance of art, connects 
him with the artists of Latin races, who have always been so 
fastidious in their rejection of mere nature, when it comes too 
nakedly or too clamorously into sight and hearing, and so gratefully 
content with a few choice things faultlessly done.

And Dowson, in his verse (the "Verses" of 1896, "The Pierrot of the 
Minute," a dramatic phantasy in one act, of 1897, the posthumous 
volume "Decorations"), was the same scrupulous artist as in his prose, 
and more felicitously at home there. He was quite Latin in his feeling 
for youth, and death, and "the old age of roses," and the pathos of 
our little hour in which to live and love; Latin in his elegance, 
reticence, and simple grace in the treatment of these motives; Latin, 
finally, in his sense of their sufficiency for the whole of one's 
mental attitude. He used the commonplaces of poetry frankly, making 
them his own by his belief in them: the Horatian Cynara or Neobule was 
still the natural symbol for him when he wished to be most personal. I 
remember his saying to me that his ideal of a line of verse was the 
line of Poe:

  "The viol, the violet, and the vine";

and the gracious, not remote or unreal beauty, which clings about such 
words and such images as these, was always to him the true poetical 
beauty. There never was a poet to whom verse came more naturally, for 
the song's sake; his theories were all æsthetic, almost technical 
ones, such as a theory, indicated by his preference for the line of 
Poe, that the letter "v" was the most beautiful of the letters, and 
could never be brought into verse too often. For any more abstract 
theories he had neither tolerance nor need. Poetry as a philosophy did 
not exist for him; it existed solely as the loveliest of the arts. He 
loved the elegance of Horace, all that was most complex in the 
simplicity of Poe, most birdlike in the human melodies of Verlaine. He 
had the pure lyric gift, unweighted or unballasted by any other 
quality of mind or emotion; and a song, for him, was music first, and 
then whatever you please afterwards, so long as it suggested, never 
told, some delicate sentiment, a sigh or a caress; finding words, at 
times, as perfect as the words of a poem headed, "O Mors! quam amara 
est memoria tua homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis."

There, surely, the music of silence speaks, if it has ever spoken. The 
words seem to tremble back into the silence which their whisper has 
interrupted, but not before they have created for us a mood, such a 
mood as the Venetian Pastoral of Giorgione renders in painting. 
Languid, half inarticulate, coming from the heart of a drowsy sorrow 
very conscious of itself, and not less sorrowful because it sees its 
own face looking mournfully back out of the water, the song seems to 
have been made by some fastidious amateur of grief, and it has all the 
sighs and tremors of the mood, wrought into a faultless strain of 
music. Stepping out of a paradise in which pain becomes so lovely, he 
can see the beauty which is the other side of madness, and, in a 
sonnet, "To One in Bedlam," can create a more positive, a more 
poignant mood, with fine subtlety.

Here, in the moment's intensity of this comradeship with madness, 
observe how beautiful the whole thing becomes; how instinctively the 
imagination of the poet turns what is sordid into a radiance, all 
stars and flowers and the divine part of forgetfulness! It is a symbol 
of the two sides of his own life: the side open to the street, and the 
side turned away from it, where he could "hush and bless himself with 
silence." No one ever worshipped beauty more devoutly, and just as we 
see him here transfiguring a dreadful thing with beauty, so we shall 
see, everywhere in his work, that he never admitted an emotion which 
he could not so transfigure. He knew his limits only too well; he knew 
that the deeper and graver things of life were for the most part 
outside the circle of his magic; he passed them by, leaving much of 
himself unexpressed, because he would not permit himself to express 
nothing imperfectly, or according to anything but his own conception 
of the dignity of poetry. In the lyric in which he has epitomised 
himself and his whole life, a lyric which is certainly one of the 
greatest lyrical poems of our time, "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub 
regno Cynarae," he has for once said everything, and he has said it to 
an intoxicating and perhaps immortal music.

Here, perpetuated by some unique energy of a temperament rarely so 
much the master of itself, is the song of passion and the passions, at 
their eternal war in the soul which they quicken or deaden, and in the 
body which they break down between them. In the second book, the book 
of "Decorations," there are a few pieces which repeat, only more 
faintly, this very personal note. Dowson could never have developed; 
he had already said, in his first book of verse, all that he had to 
say. Had he lived, had he gone on writing, he could only have echoed 
himself; and probably it would have been the less essential part of 
himself; his obligation to Swinburne, always evident, increasing as 
his own inspiration failed him. He was always without ambition, 
writing to please his own fastidious taste, with a kind of proud 
humility in his attitude towards the public, not expecting or 
requiring recognition. He died obscure, having ceased to care even for 
the delightful labour of writing. He died young, worn out by what was 
never really life to him, leaving a little verse which has the pathos 
of things too young and too frail ever to grow old.

ARTHUR SYMONS.
1900.




THE POEMS OF ERNEST DOWSON




TO MISSIE (A. P.)




IN PREFACE: FOR ADELAIDE


To you, who are my verses, as on some very future day, if you ever 
care to read them, you will understand, would it not be somewhat 
trivial to dedicate any one verse, as I may do, in all humility, to my 
friends? Trivial, too, perhaps, only to name you even here? Trivial, 
presumptuous? For I need not write your name for you at least to know 
that this and all my work is made for you in the first place, and I 
need not to be reminded by my critics that I have no silver tongue 
such as were fit to praise you. So for once you shall go indedicate, 
if not quite anonymous; and I will only commend my little book to you 
in sentences far beyond my poor compass which will help you perhaps to 
be kind to it:

"_Votre personne, vos moindres mouvements me semblaient avoir dans le 
monde une importance extrahumaine. Mon cœur comme de la poussière se 
soulevait derrière vos pas. Vous me faisiez l'effet d'un clair-de-lune 
par une nuit d'été, quand tout est parfums, ombres douces, blancheurs, 
infini; et les délices de la chair et de l'âme étaient contenues pour 
moi dans votre nom que je me répétais en tachant de le baiser sur mes 
lèvres.

"Quelquefois vos paroles me reviennent comme un écho lointain, comme 
le son d'une cloche apporté par le vent; et il me semble que vous êtes 
là quand je lis des passages de l'amour dans les livres.... Tout ce 
qu'on y blâme d'exagéré, vous me l'avez fait ressentir._"

PONT-AVEN, FINISTÈRE, 1896.




VERSES

_Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam_

  They are not long, the weeping and the laughter.
    Love and desire and hate:
  I think they have no portion in us after
    We pass the gate.

  They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
    Out of a misty dream
  Our path emerges for a while, then closes
    Within a dream.


A CORONAL

WITH HIS SONGS AND HER DAYS TO HIS LADY AND TO LOVE

  Violets and leaves of vine,
    Into a frail, fair wreath
  We gather and entwine:
    A wreath for Love to wear,
    Fragrant as his own breath,
  To crown his brow divine,
    All day till night is near.
  Violets and leaves of vine
  We gather and entwine.

  Violets and leaves of vine
    For Love that lives a day,
  We gather and entwine.
    All day till Love is dead,
    Till eve falls, cold and gray,
  These blossoms, yours and mine,
    Love wears upon his head,
  Violets and leaves of vine
  We gather and entwine.

  Violets and leaves of vine,
    For Love when poor Love dies
  We gather and entwine.
    This wreath that lives a day
    Over his pale, cold eyes,
  Kissed shut by Proserpine,
    At set of sun we lay:
  Violets and leaves of vine
  We gather and entwine.


NUNS OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION

  Calm, sad, secure; behind high convent walls,
    These watch the sacred lamp, these watch and pray:
  And it is one with them when evening falls,
    And one with them the cold return of day.

  These heed not time; their nights and days they make
    Into a long, returning rosary,
  Whereon their lives are threaded for Christ's sake;
    Meekness and vigilance and chastity.

  A vowed patrol, in silent companies,
    Life-long they keep before the living Christ.
  In the dim church, their prayers and penances
    Are fragrant incense to the Sacrificed.

  Outside, the world is wild and passionate;
    Man's weary laughter and his sick despair
  Entreat at their impenetrable gate:
    They heed no voices in their dream of prayer.

  They saw the glory of the world displayed;
    They saw the bitter of it, and the sweet;
  They knew the roses of the world should fade,
    And be trod under by the hurrying feet.

  Therefore they rather put away desire,
    And crossed their hands and came to sanctuary
  And veiled their heads and put on coarse attire:
    Because their comeliness was vanity.

  And there they rest; they have serene insight
    Of the illuminating dawn to be:
  Mary's sweet Star dispels for them the night,
    The proper darkness of humanity.

  Calm, sad, secure; with faces worn and mild:
    Surely their choice of vigil is the best?
  Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild;
    But there, beside the altar, there, is rest.


VILLANELLE OF SUNSET

    Come hither, Child! and rest:
    This is the end of day,
  Behold the weary West!

    Sleep rounds with equal zest
    Man's toil and children's play:
  Come hither, Child! and rest.

    My white bird, seek thy nest,
    Thy drooping head down lay:
  Behold the weary West!

    Now are the flowers confest
    Of slumber: sleep, as they!
  Come hither, Child! and rest.

    Now eve is manifest,
    And homeward lies our way:
  Behold the weary West!

    Tired flower! upon my breast,
    I would wear thee alway:
  Come hither, Child! and rest;
  Behold, the weary West!


MY LADY APRIL

  Dew on her robe and on her tangled hair;
    Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass,
    With dainty step brushing the young, green grass,
  The while she trills some high, fantastic air,
  Full of all feathered sweetness: she is fair,
    And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass,
    Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas!
  Traces of tears her languid lashes wear.

  Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
    Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
  Across her youth the joys grow less and less
    The burden of the days that are to be:
    Autumn and withered leaves and vanity,
  And winter bringing end in barrenness.


TO ONE IN BEDLAM

  With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
  Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
  Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line
  His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares,

  Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars
  With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine
  Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine,
  And make his melancholy germane to the stars'?

  O lamentable brother! if those pity thee,
  Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me;
  Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap,
  All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers,
  Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep,
  The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours!


AD DOMNULAM SUAM

  Little lady of my heart!
    Just a little longer,
  Love me: we will pass and part,
    Ere this love grow stronger.

  I have loved thee, Child! too well,
    To do aught but leave thee:
  Nay! my lips should never tell
    Any tale, to grieve thee.

  Little lady of my heart!
    Just a little longer,
  I may love thee: we will part,
    Ere my love grow stronger.

  Soon thou leavest fairy-land;
    Darker grow thy tresses:
  Soon no more of hand in hand;
    Soon no more caresses!

  Little lady of my heart!
    Just a little longer,
  Be a child: then, we will part,
    Ere this love grow stronger.


AMOR UMBRATILIS

  A gift of Silence, sweet!
    Who may not ever hear:
  To lay down at your unobservant feet,
    Is all the gift I bear.

  I have no songs to sing,
    That you should heed or know:
  I have no lilies, in full hands, to fling
    Across the path you go.

  I cast my flowers away,
    Blossoms unmeet for you!
  The garland I have gathered in my day:
    My rosemary and rue.

  I watch you pass and pass,
    Serene and cold: I lay
  My lips upon your trodden, daisied grass,
    And turn my life away.

  Yea, for I cast you, sweet!
    This one gift, you shall take:
  Like ointment, on your unobservant feet,
    My silence, for your sake.


AMOR PROFANUS

  Beyond the pale of memory,
  In some mysterious dusky grove;
  A place of shadows utterly,
  Where never coos the turtle-dove,
  A world forgotten of the sun:
  I dreamed we met when day was done,
  And marvelled at our ancient love.

  Met there by chance, long kept apart,
  We wandered through the darkling glades;
  And that old language of the heart
  We sought to speak: alas! poor shades!
  Over our pallid lips had run
  The waters of oblivion,
  Which crown all loves of men or maids.

  In vain we stammered: from afar
  Our old desire shone cold and dead:
  That time was distant as a star,
  When eyes were bright and lips were red.
  And still we went with downcast eye
  And no delight in being nigh,
  Poor shadows most uncomforted.

  Ah, Lalage! while life is ours,
  Hoard not thy beauty rose and white,
  But pluck the pretty, fleeting flowers
  That deck our little path of light:
  For all too soon we twain shall tread
  The bitter pastures of the dead:
  Estranged, sad spectres of the night.


VILLANELLE OF MARGUERITE'S

    "A little, _passionately, not at all?_"
    She casts the snowy petals on the air:
  And what care we how many petals fall!

    Nay, wherefore seek the seasons to forestall?
    It is but playing, and she will not care,
  A little, passionately, not at all!

    She would not answer us if we should call
    Across the years: her visions are too fair;
  And what care we how many petals fall!

    She knows us not, nor recks if she enthrall
    With voice and eyes and fashion of her hair,
  A little, passionately, not at all!

    Knee-deep she goes in meadow grasses tall,
    Kissed by the daisies that her fingers tear:
  And what care we how many petals fall!

    We pass and go: but she shall not recall
    What men we were, nor all she made us bear:
  "_A little, passionately, not at all!_"
  And what care we how many petals fall!


YVONNE OF BRITTANY

  In your mother's apple-orchard,
    Just a year ago, last spring:
  Do you remember, Yvonne!
    The dear trees lavishing
  Rain of their starry blossoms
    To make you a coronet?
  Do you ever remember, Yvonne?
    As I remember yet.

  In your mother's apple-orchard,
    When the world was left behind:
  You were shy, so shy, Yvonne!
    But your eyes were calm and kind.
  We spoke of the apple harvest,
    When the cider press is set,
  And such-like trifles, Yvonne!
    That doubtless you forget.

  In the still, soft Breton twilight,
    We were silent; words were few,
  Till your mother came out chiding,
    For the grass was bright with dew:
  But I know your heart was beating,
    Like a fluttered, frightened dove.
  Do you ever remember, Yvonne?
    That first faint flush of love?

  In the fulness of midsummer,
    When the apple-bloom was shed,
  Oh, brave was your surrender,
    Though shy the words you said.
  I was glad, so glad, Yvonne!
    To have led you home at last;
  Do you ever remember, Yvonne!
    How swiftly the days passed?


YVONNE OF BRITTANY

  In your mother's apple-orchard
    It is grown too dark to stray,
  There is none to chide you, Yvonne!
    You are over far away.
  There is dew on your grave grass, Yvonne!
    But your feet it shall not wet:
  No, you never remember, Yvonne!
    And I shall soon forget.


BENEDICTIO DOMINI

  Without, the sullen noises of the street!
    The voice of London, inarticulate,
  Hoarse and blaspheming, surges in to meet
    The silent blessing of the Immaculate.

  Dark is the church, and dim the worshippers,
    Hushed with bowed heads as though by some old spell.
  While through the incense-laden air there stirs
    The admonition of a silver bell.

  Dark is the church, save where the altar stands,
    Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light,
  Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands
    The one true solace of man's fallen plight.

  Strange silence here: without, the sounding street
    Heralds the world's swift passage to the fire:
  O Benediction, perfect and complete!
    When shall men cease to suffer and desire?


GROWTH

  I watched the glory of her childhood change,
  Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew,
    (Loved long ago in lily-time)
  Become a maid, mysterious and strange,
  With fair, pure eyes--dear eyes, but not the eyes I knew
    Of old, in the olden time!

  Till on my doubting soul the ancient good
  Of her dear childhood in the new disguise
    Dawned, and I hastened to adore
  The glory of her waking maidenhood,
  And found the old tenderness within her deepening eyes,
    But kinder than before.


AD MANUS PUELLAE

  I was always a lover of ladies' hands!
    Or ever mine heart came here to tryst,
  For the sake of your carved white hands' commands;
    The tapering fingers, the dainty wrist;
    The hands of a girl were what I kissed.

  I remember an hand like a _fleur-de-lys_
    When it slid from its silken sheath, her glove;
  With its odours passing ambergris:
    And that was the empty husk of a love.
    Oh, how shall I kiss your hands enough?

  They are pale with the pallor of ivories;
    But they blush to the tips like a curled sea-shell:
  What treasure, in kingly treasuries,
    Of gold, and spice for the thurible,
    Is sweet as her hands to hoard and tell?

  I know not the way from your finger-tips,
    Nor how I shall gain the higher lands,
  The citadel of your sacred lips:
    I am captive still of my pleasant bands,
    The hands of a girl, and most your hands.


FLOS LUNAE

  I would not alter thy cold eyes,
  Nor trouble the calm fount of speech
  With aught of passion or surprise.
  The heart of thee I cannot reach:
  I would not alter thy cold eyes!

  I would not alter thy cold eyes;
  Nor have thee smile, nor make thee weep:
  Though all my life droops down and dies,
  Desiring thee, desiring sleep,
  I would not alter thy cold eyes.

  I would not alter thy cold eyes;
  I would not change thee if I might,
  To whom my prayers for incense rise,
  Daughter of dreams! my moon of night!
  I would not alter thy cold eyes.

  I would not alter thy cold eyes,
  With trouble of the human heart:
  Within their glance my spirit lies,
  A frozen thing, alone, apart;
  I would not alter thy cold eyes.


NON SUM QUALIS ERAM BONAE SUB REGNO CYNARAE

  Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
  There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
  Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
  And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
    Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
  I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

  All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
  Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
  Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
  But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
    When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
  I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

  I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
  Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
  Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
  But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
    Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
  I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

  I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
  But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
  Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
  And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
    Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
  I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.


VANITAS

  Beyond the need of weeping,
    Beyond the reach of hands,
  May she be quietly sleeping,
    In what dim nebulous lands?
  Ah, she who understands!

  The long, long winter weather,
    These many years and days,
  Since she, and Death, together,
    Left me the wearier ways:
  And now, these tardy bays!

  The crown and victor's token:
    How are they worth to-day?
  The one word left unspoken,
    It were late now to say:
  But cast the palm away!

  For once, ah once, to meet her,
    Drop laurel from tired hands:
  Her cypress were the sweeter,
    In her oblivious lands:
  Haply she understands!

  Yet, crossed that weary river,
    In some ulterior land,
  Or anywhere, or ever,
    Will she stretch out a hand?
  And will she understand?


EXILE

  By the sad waters of separation
    Where we have wandered by divers ways,
  I have but the shadow and imitation
    Of the old memorial days.

  In music I have no consolation,
    No roses are pale enough for me;
  The sound of the waters of separation
    Surpasseth roses and melody.

  By the sad waters of separation
    Dimly I hear from an hidden place
  The sigh of mine ancient adoration:
    Hardly can I remember your face.

  If you be dead, no proclamation
    Sprang to me over the waste, gray sea:
  Living, the waters of separation
    Sever for ever your soul from me.

  No man knoweth our desolation;
    Memory pales of the old delight;
  While the sad waters of separation
    Bear us on to the ultimate night.


SPLEEN

  I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
  And all my memories were put to sleep.

  I watched the river grow more white and strange,
  All day till evening I watched it change.

  All day till evening I watched the rain
  Beat wearily upon the window pane.

  I was not sorrowful, but only tired
  Of everything that ever I desired.

  Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
  The shadow of a shadow utterly.

  All day mine hunger for her heart became
  Oblivion, until the evening came,

  And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
  With all my memories that could not sleep.


O MORS! QUAM AMARA EST MEMORIA TUA HOMINI PACEM HABENTI IN SUBSTANTIIS
SUIS

  Exceeding sorrow
    Consumeth my sad heart!
  Because to-morrow
    We must depart,
  Now is exceeding sorrow
    All my part!

  Give over playing,
    Cast thy viol away:
  Merely laying
    Thine head my way:
  Prithee, give over playing,
    Grave or gay.

  Be no word spoken;
    Weep nothing: let a pale
  Silence, unbroken
    Silence prevail!
  Prithee, be no word spoken,
    Lest I fail!

  Forget to-morrow!
    Weep nothing: only lay
  In silent sorrow
    Thine head my way:
  Let us forget to-morrow,
    This one day!


          _Ah, dans ces mornes séjours
          Les jamais sont les toujours_
                              PAUL VERLAINE

  You would have understood me, had you waited;
    I could have loved you, dear! as well as he:
  Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated
      Always to disagree.

  What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:
    Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.
  Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,
      Shall I reproach you dead?

  Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover
    All the old anger, setting us apart:
  Always, in all, in truth was I your lover;
      Always, I held your heart.

  I have met other women who were tender,
    As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare.
  Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender,
      I who had found you fair?

  Had we been patient, dear! ah, had you waited,
    I had fought death for you, better than he:
  But from the very first, dear! we were fated
      Always to disagree.

  Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses
    Love that in life was not to be our part:
  On your low lying mound between the roses,
      Sadly I cast my heart.

  I would not waken you: nay! this is fitter;
    Death and the darkness give you unto me;
  Here we who loved so, were so cold and bitter,
      Hardly can disagree.


APRIL LOVE

  We have walked in Love's land a little way,
    We have learnt his lesson a little while,
  And shall we not part at the end of day,
      With a sigh, a smile?

  A little while in the shine of the sun,
    We were twined together, joined lips, forgot
  How the shadows fall when the day is done,
      And when Love is not.

  We have made no vows--there will none be broke,
    Our love was free as the wind on the hill,
  There was no word said we need wish unspoke,
      We have wrought no ill.

  So shall we not part at the end of day,
    Who have loved and lingered a little while,
  Join lips for the last time, go our way,
      With a sigh, a smile?


VAIN HOPE

  Sometimes, to solace my sad heart, I say,
    Though late it be, though lily-time be past,
    Though all the summer skies be overcast,
  Haply I will go down to her, some day,
    And cast my rests of life before her feet,
  That she may have her will of me, being so sweet
      And none gainsay!

  So might she look on me with pitying eyes,
    And lay calm hands of healing on my head:
    "_Because of thy long pains be comforted;
  For I, even I, am Love: sad soul, arise!_"
    So, for her graciousness, I might at last
  Gaze on the very face of Love, and hold Him fast
      In no disguise.

  Haply, I said, she will take pity on me,
    Though late I come, long after lily-time,
    With burden of waste days and drifted rhyme:
  Her kind, calm eyes, down drooping maidenly,
    Shall change, grow soft: there yet is time, meseems,
  I said, for solace; though I know these things are dreams
      And may not be!


VAIN RESOLVES

  I said: "There is an end of my desire:
    Now have I sown, and I have harvested,
  And these are ashes of an ancient fire,
    Which, verily, shall not be quickened.
  Now will I take me to a place of peace,
      Forget mine heart's desire;
  In solitude and prayer, work out my soul's release.

  "I shall forget her eyes, how cold they were;
    Forget her voice, how soft it was and low,
  With all my singing that she did not hear,
    And all my service that she did not know.
  I shall not hold the merest memory
      Of any days that were,
  Within those solitudes where I will fasten me."

  And once she passed, and once she raised her eyes,
    And smiled for courtesy, and nothing said:
  And suddenly the old flame did uprise,
    And all my dead desire was quickened.
  Yea! as it hath been, it shall ever be,
      Most passionless, pure eyes!
  Which never shall grow soft, nor change, nor pity me.


A REQUIEM

  Neobule, being tired,
  Far too tired to laugh or weep,
  From the hours, rosy and gray,
  Hid her golden face away.
  Neobule, fain of sleep,
  Slept at last as she desired!

  Neobule! is it well,
  That you haunt the hollow lands,
  Where the poor, dead people stray,
  Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
  Plucking, with their spectral hands,
  Scentless blooms of asphodel?

  Neobule, tired to death
  Of the flowers that I threw
  On her flower-like, fair feet,
  Sighed for blossoms not so sweet,
  Lunar roses pale and blue,
  Lilies of the world beneath.

  Neobule! ah, too tired
  Of the dreams and days above!
  Where the poor, dead people stray,
  Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
  Out of life and out of love,
  Sleeps the sleep which she desired.


BEATA SOLITUDO

  What land of Silence,
    Where pale stars shine
  On apple-blossom
    And dew-drenched vine,
    Is yours and mine?

  The silent valley
    That we will find,
  Where all the voices
    Of humankind
    Are left behind.

  There all forgetting,
    Forgotten quite,
  We will repose us,
    With our delight
    Hid out of sight.

  The world forsaken,
    And out of mind
  Honour and labour,
    We shall not find
    The stars unkind.

  And men shall travail,
    And laugh and weep;
  But we have vistas
    Of Gods asleep,
    With dreams as deep.

  A land of Silence,
    Where pale stars shine
  On apple-blossoms
    And dew-drenched vine,
    Be yours and mine!


TERRE PROMISE

  Even now the fragrant darkness of her hair
  Had brushed my cheek; and once, in passing by,
  Her hand upon my hand lay tranquilly:
  What things unspoken trembled in the air!

  Always I know, how little severs me
  From mine heart's country, that is yet so far;
  And must I lean and long across a bar,
  That half a word would shatter utterly?

  Ah might it be, that just by touch of hand,
  Or speaking silence, shall the barrier fall;
  And she shall pass, with no vain words at all,
  But droop into mine arms, and understand!


AUTUMNAL

  Pale amber sunlight falls across
    The reddening October trees,
    That hardly sway before a breeze
  As soft as summer: summer's loss
    Seems little, dear! on days like these.

  Let misty autumn be our part!
    The twilight of the year is sweet:
    Where shadow and the darkness meet
  Our love, a twilight of the heart
    Eludes a little time's deceit.

  Are we not better and at home
    In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
    No harvest joy is worth a dream?
  A little while and night shall come,
    A little while, then, let us dream.

  Beyond the pearled horizons lie
    Winter and night: awaiting these
    We garner this poor hour of ease,
  Until love turn from us and die
    Beneath the drear November trees.


IN TEMPORE SENECTUTIS

  When I am old,
    And sadly steal apart,
  Into the dark and cold,
    Friend of my heart!
  Remember, if you can,
  Not him who lingers, but that other man,
  Who loved and sang, and had a beating heart,--
      When I am old!

  When I am old,
    And all Love's ancient fire
  Be tremulous and cold:
    My soul's desire!
  Remember, if you may,
  Nothing of you and me but yesterday,
  When heart on heart we bid the years conspire
      To make us old.

  When I am old,
    And every star above
  Be pitiless and cold:
    My life's one love!
  Forbid me not to go:
  Remember nought of us but long ago,
  And not at last, how love and pity strove
      When I grew old!


VILLANELLE OF HIS LADY'S TREASURES

  I took her dainty eyes, as well
    As silken tendrils of her hair:
  And so I made a Villanelle!

  I took her voice, a silver bell,
    As clear as song, as soft as prayer;
  I took her dainty eyes as well.

  It may be, said I, who can tell,
    These things shall be my less despair?
  And so I made a Villanelle!

  I took her whiteness virginal
     And from her cheek two roses rare:
  I took her dainty eyes as well.

  I said: "It may be possible
    Her image from my heart to tear!"
  And so I made a Villanelle.

  I stole her laugh, most musical:
    I wrought it in with artful care;
  I took her dainty eyes as well;
  And so I made a Villanelle.


GRAY NIGHTS

  A while we wandered (thus it is I dream!)
  Through a long, sandy track of No Man's Land,
  Where only poppies grew among the sand,
  The which we, plucking, cast with scant esteem,
  And ever sadlier, into the sad stream,
  Which followed us, as we went, hand in hand,
  Under the estranged stars, a road unplanned,
  Seeing all things in the shadow of a dream.

  And ever sadlier, as the stars expired,
  We found the poppies rarer, till thine eyes
  Grown all my light, to light me were too tired,
  And at their darkening, that no surmise
  Might haunt me of the lost days we desired,
  After them all I flung those memories!


VESPERAL

  Strange grows the river on the sunless evenings!
  The river comforts me, grown spectral, vague and dumb:
  Long was the day; at last the consoling shadows come:
  _Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_

  Labour and longing and despair the long day brings;
  Patient till evening men watch the sun go west;
  Deferred, expected night at last brings sleep and rest:
  _Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_

  At last the tranquil Angelus of evening rings
  Night's curtain down for comfort and oblivion
  Of all the vanities observèd by the sun:
  _Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_

  So, some time, when the last of all our evenings
  Crowneth memorially the last of all our days,
  Not loth to take his poppies man goes down and says,
  "Sufficient for the day were the day's evil things!"


THE GARDEN OF SHADOW

  Love heeds no more the sighing of the wind
  Against the perfect flowers: thy garden's close
  Is grown a wilderness, where none shall find
  One strayed, last petal of one last year's rose.

  O bright, bright hair! O mount like a ripe fruit!
  Can famine be so nigh to harvesting?
  Love, that was songful, with a broken lute
  In grass of graveyards goeth murmuring.

  Let the wind blow against the perfect flowers,
  And all thy garden change and glow with spring:
  Love is grown blind with no more count of hours
  Nor part in seed-tune nor in harvesting.


SOLI CANTARE PERITI ARCADES

  Oh, I would live in a dairy,
    And its Colin I would be,
  And many a rustic fairy
    Should churn the milk with me.

  Or the fields should be my pleasure,
    And my flocks should follow me,
  Piping a frolic measure
    For Joan or Marjorie.

  For the town is black and weary,
    And I hate the London street;
  But the country ways are cheery,
    And country lanes are sweet.

  Good luck to you, Paris ladies!
    Ye are over fine and nice
  I know where the country maid is,
    Who needs not asking twice.

  Ye are brave in your silks and satins,
    As ye mince about the Town;
  But her feet go free in pattens,
    If she wear a russet gown.

  If she be not queen nor goddess
    She shall milk my brown-eyed herds,
  And the breasts beneath her bodice
    Are whiter than her curds.

  So I will live in a dairy,
    And its Colin I will be,
  And its Joan that I will marry,
    Or, haply, Marjorie.


ON THE BIRTH OF A FRIEND'S CHILD

  Mark the day white, on which the Fates have smiled:
  Eugenio and Egeria have a child.
  On whom abundant grace kind Jove imparts
  If she but copy either parent's parts.
  Then, Muses! long devoted to her race,
  Grant her Egeria's virtues and her face;
  Nor stop your bounty there, but add to it
  Eugenio's learning and Eugenio's wit.


EXTREME UNCTION

  Upon the eyes, the lips, the feet,
    On all the passages of sense,
  The atoning oil is spread with sweet
    Renewal of lost innocence.

  The feet, that lately ran so fast
    To meet desire, are soothly sealed;
  The eyes, that were so often cast
    On vanity, are touched and healed.

  From troublous sights and sounds set free;
    In such a twilight hour of breath,
  Shall one retrace his life, or see,
    Through shadows, the true face of death?

  Vials of mercy! Sacring oils!
    I know not where nor when I come,
  Nor through what wanderings and toils,
    To crave of you Viaticum.

  Yet, when the walls of flesh grow weak,
    In such an hour, it well may be,
  Through mist and darkness, light will break,
    And each anointed sense will see.


AMANTIUM IRAE

  When this, our rose, is faded,
    And these, our days, are done,
  In lands profoundly shaded
    From tempest and from sun:
  Ah, once more come together,
    Shall we forgive the past,
  And safe from worldly weather
    Possess our souls at last?

  Or in our place of shadows
    Shall still we stretch an hand
  To green, remembered meadows,
    Of that old pleasant land?
  And vainly there foregathered,
    Shall we regret the sun?
  The rose of love, ungathered?
    The bay, we have not won?

  Ah, child! the world's dark marges
    May lead to Nevermore,
  The stately funeral barges
    Sail for an unknown shore,
  And love we vow to-morrow,
    And pride we serve to-day:
  What if they both should borrow
    Sad hues of yesterday?

  Our pride! Ah, should we miss it,
    Or will it serve at last?
  Our anger, if we kiss it,
    Is like a sorrow past.
  While roses deck the garden,
    While yet the sun is high,
  Doff sorry pride for pardon,
    Or ever love go by.


IMPENITENTIA ULTIMA

  Before my light goes out for ever if God should give me a choice of
        graces,
    I would not reck of length of days, nor crave for things to be;
  But cry: "One day of the great lost days, one face of all the faces,
    Grant me to see and touch once more and nothing more to see.

  "For, Lord, I was free of all Thy flowers, but I chose the world's
        sad roses,
    And that is why my feet are torn and mine eyes are blind with sweat,
  But at Thy terrible judgment-seat, when this my tired life closes,
    I am ready to reap whereof I sowed, and pay my righteous debt.

  "But once before the sand is run and the silver thread is broken,
    Give me a grace and cast aside the veil of dolorous years,
  Grant me one hour of all mine hours, and let me see for a token
    Her pure and pitiful eyes shine out, and bathe her feet with tears."

  Her pitiful hands should calm, and her hair stream down and blind me,
    Out of the sight of night, and out of the reach of fear,
  And her eyes should be my light whilst the sun went out behind me,
    And the viols in her voice be the last sound in mine ear.

  Before the ruining waters fall and my life be carried under,
    And Thine anger cleave me through as a child cuts down a flower,
  I will praise Thee, Lord in Hell, while my limbs are racked asunder,
    For the last sad sight of her face and the little grace of an hour.


A VALEDICTION

  If we must part,
    Then let it be like this;
  Not heart on heart,
    Nor with the useless anguish of a kiss;
  But touch mine hand and say:
  "_Until to-morrow or some other day,
    If we must part._"

  Words are so weak
    When love hath been so strong:
  Let silence speak:
    "_Life is a little while, and love is long;
  A time to sow and reap,
  And after harvest a long time to sleep.
    But words are weak._"


SAPIENTIA LUNAE

  The wisdom of the world said unto me:
    "_Go forth and run, the race is to the brave;
  Perchance some honour tarrieth for thee!_"
    "As tarrieth," I said, "for sure, the grave."
    For I had pondered on a rune of roses,
    Which to her votaries the moon discloses.

  The wisdom of the world said: "_There are bays:
    Go forth and run, for victory is good,
  After the stress of the laborious days._"
    "Yet," said I, "shall I be the worms' sweet food,"
    As I went musing on a rune of roses,
    Which in her hour, the pale, soft moon discloses.

  Then said my voices: "_Wherefore strive or run,
    On dusty highways ever, a vain race?
  The long night cometh, starless, void of sun,
    What light shall serve thee like her golden face?_"
    For I had pondered on a rune of roses,
    And knew some secrets which the moon discloses.

  "Yea," said I, "for her eyes are pure and sweet
    As lilies, and the fragrance of her hair
  Is many laurels; and it is not meet
    To run for shadows when the prize is here";
    And I went reading in that rune of roses
    Which to her votaries the moon discloses.


_Dum nos fata sinunt, oculos satiemus Amore._--PROPERTIUS

  Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad,
    Here in the silence, under the wan moon;
  Sweet are thine eyes, but how can I be glad,
      Knowing they change so soon?

  For Love's sake, Dear, be silent! Cover me
    In the deep darkness of thy falling hair:
  Fear is upon me and the memory
      Of what is all men's share.

  O could this moment be perpetuate!
    Must we grow old, and leaden-eyed and gray,
  And taste no more the wild and passionate
      Love sorrows of to-day?

  Grown old, and faded, Sweet! and past desire,
    Let memory die, lest there be too much ruth,
  Remembering the old, extinguished fire
      Of our divine, lost youth.

  O red pomegranate of thy perfect mouth!
    My lips' life-fruitage, might I taste and die
  Here in thy garden, where the scented south
      Wind chastens agony;

  Reap death from thy live lips in one long kiss,
    And look my last into thine eyes and rest:
  What sweets had life to me sweeter than this
      Swift dying on thy breast?

  Or, if that may not be, for Love's sake, Dear!
    Keep silence still, and dream that we shall lie,
  Red mouth to mouth, entwined, and always hear
      The south wind's melody,

  Here in thy garden, through the sighing boughs,
    Beyond the reach of time and chance and change,
  And bitter life and death, and broken vows,
      That sadden and estrange.


SERAPHITA

  Come not before me now, O visionary face!
  Me tempest-tost, and borne along life's passionate sea;
  Troublous and dark and stormy though my passage be;
  Not here and now may we commingle or embrace,
  Lest the loud anguish of the waters should efface
  The bright illumination of thy memory,
  Which dominates the night; rest, far away from me,
  In the serenity of thine abiding place!

  But when the storm is highest, and the thunders blare,
  And sea and sky are riven, O moon of all my night!
  Stoop down but once in pity of my great despair,
  And let thine hand, though over late to help, alight
  But once upon my pale eyes and my drowning hair,
  Before the great waves conquer in the last vain fight.


EPIGRAM

  Because I am idolatrous and have besought,
  With grievous supplication and consuming prayer,
  The admirable image that my dreams have wrought
  Out of her swan's neck and her dark, abundant hair:
  The jealous gods, who brook no worship save their own,
  Turned my live idol marble and her heart to stone.


QUID NON SUPREMUS, AMANTES?

  Why is there in the least touch of her hands
    More grace than other women's lips bestow,
  If love is but a slave in fleshly bands
    Of flesh to flesh, wherever love may go?

  Why choose vain grief and heavy-hearted hours
    For her lost voice, and dear remembered hair,
  If love may cull his honey from all flowers,
    And girls grow thick as violets, everywhere?

  Nay! She is gone, and all things fall apart;
    Or she is cold, and vainly have we prayed;
  And broken is the summer's splendid heart,
    And hope within a deep, dark grave is laid.

  As man aspires and falls, yet a soul springs
    Out of his agony of flesh at last,
  So love that flesh enthralls, shall rise on wings
    Soul-centred, when the rule of flesh is past.

  Then, most High Love, or wreathed with myrtle sprays,
    Or crownless and forlorn, nor less a star,
  Thee may I serve and follow, all my days,
    Whose thorns are sweet as never roses are!


CHANSON SANS PAROLES

  In the deep violet air,
    Not a leaf is stirred;
    There is no sound heard,
  But afar, the rare
    Trilled voice of a bird.

  Is the wood's dim heart,
    And the fragrant pine,
    Incense, and a shrine
  Of her coming? Apart,
    I wait for a sign.

  What the sudden hush said,
    She will hear, and forsake,
    Swift, for my sake,
  Her green, grassy bed:
    She will hear and awake!

  She will hearken and glide,
    From her place of deep rest,
    Dove-eyed, with the breast
  Of a dove, to my side:
    The pines bow their crest.

  I wait for a sign:
    The leaves to be waved,
    The tall tree-tops laved
  In a flood of sunshine,
    This world to be saved!

  _In the deep violet air,
    Not a leaf is stirred;
    There is no sound heard,
  But afar, the rare
    Trilled voice of a bird._




THE PIERROT OF THE MINUTE


_THE CHARACTERS_

A MOON MAIDEN
PIERROT


_THE SCENE_

_A glade in the Parc due Petit Trianon. In the centre a Doric temple 
with steps coming down the stage. On the left a little Cupid on a 
pedestal. Twilight._

[_Pierrot enters with his hands full of lilies. He is burdened with a
little basket. He stands gazing at the Temple and the Statue._]

PIERROT
  My journey's end! This surely is the glade
  Which I was promised: I have well obeyed!
  A clue of lilies was I bid to find,
  Where the green alleys most obscurely wind;
  Where tall oaks darkliest canopy o'erhead,
  And moss and violet make the softest bed;
  Where the path ends, and leagues behind me lie
  The gleaming courts and gardens of Versailles;
  The lilies streamed before me, green and white;
  I gathered, following; they led me right,
  To the bright temple and the sacred grove:
  This is, in truth, the very shrine of Love!

[_He gathers together his flowers and lays them at the foot of Cupid's 
statue; then he goes timidly up the first steps of the temple and 
stops._]

PIERROT
  It is so solitary, I grow afraid.
  Is there no priest here, no devoted maid?
  Is there no oracle, no voice to speak,
  Interpreting to me the word I seek?

[_A very gentle music of lutes floats out from the temple. Pierrot 
starts back; he shows extreme surprise; then he returns to the 
foreground, and crouches down in rapt attention until the music 
ceases. His face grows puzzled and petulant._]

PIERROT
  Too soon! too soon! in that enchanting strain,
  Days yet unlived, I almost lived again:
  It almost taught me that I most would know--
  Why am I here, and why am I Pierrot?

[_Absently he picks up a lily which has fallen to the ground, and
repeats:_]

PIERROT
  Why came I here, and why am I Pierrot?
  That music and this silence both affright;
  Pierrot can never be a friend of night.
  I never felt my solitude before--
  Once safe at home, I will return no more.
  Yet the commandment of the scroll was plain;
  While the light lingers let me read again.

[_He takes a scroll from his bosom and reads:_]

PIERROT
  "_He loves to-night who never loved before;
  Who ever loved, to-night shall love once more._"
  _I_ never loved! I know not what love is.
  I am so ignorant--but what is this?
[_Reads:_]
  "_Who would adventure to encounter Love
  Must rest one night within this hallowed grove.
  Cast down thy lilies, which have led thee on,
  Before the tender feet of Cupidon._"
  Thus much is done, the night remains to me.
  Well, Cupidon, be my security!
  Here is more writing, but too faint to read.

[_He puzzles for a moment, then casts the scroll down._]

PIERROT
  Hence, vain old parchment. I have learnt thy rede!

[_He looks round uneasily, starts at his shadow; then discovers his 
basket with glee. He takes out a flask of wine, pours it into a glass, 
and drinks._]

PIERROT
  _Courage, mon Ami!_ I shall never miss
  Society with such a friend as this.
  How merrily the rosy bubbles pass,
  Across the amber crystal of the glass.
  I had forgotten you. Methinks this quest
  Can wake no sweeter echo in my breast.

[_Looks round at the statue, and starts._]

PIERROT
  Nay, little god! forgive. I did but jest.

[_He fills another glass, and pours it upon the statue._]

PIERROT
  This libation, Cupid, take,
  With the lilies at thy feet;
  Cherish Pierrot for their sake:
  Send him visions strange and sweet,
  While he slumbers at thy feet.
  Only love kiss him awake!
  _Only love kiss him awake_!

[_Slowly falls the darkness, soft music plays, while Pierrot gathers 
together fern and foliage into a rough couch at the foot of the steps 
which lead to the Temple d'Amour. Then he lies down upon it, having 
made his prayer. It is night._]

PIERROT [_Softly._]
  Music, more music, far away and faint:
  It is an echo of mine heart's complaint.
  Why should I be so musical and sad?
  I wonder why I used to be so glad?
  In single glee I chased blue butterflies,
  Half butterfly myself, but not so wise,
  For they were twain, and I was only one.
  Ah me! how pitiful to be alone.
  My brown birds told me much, but in mine ear
  They never whispered this--I learned it here:
  The soft wood sounds, the rustlings in the breeze,
  Are but the stealthy kisses of the trees.
  Each flower and fern in this enchanted wood
  Leans to her fellow, and is understood;
  The eglantine, in loftier station set,
  Stoops down to woo the maidly violet.
  In gracile pairs the very lilies grow:
  None is companionless except Pierrot.
  Music, more music! how its echoes steal
  Upon my senses with unlooked for weal.
  Tired am I, tired, and far from this lone glade
  Seems mine old joy in rout and masquerade.
  Sleep cometh over me, now will I prove,
  By Cupid's grace, what is this thing called love.

[_Sleeps._]

[_There is more music of lutes for an interval, during which a bright 
radiance, white and cold, streams from the temple upon the face of 
Pierrot. Presently a Moon Maiden steps out of the temple; she descends 
and stands over the sleeper._]

THE LADY
  Who is this mortal
    Who ventures to-night
  To woo an immortal?
    Cold, cold the moon's light
  For sleep at this portal,
    Bold lover of night.

  Fair is the mortal
    In soft, silken white,
  Who seeks an immortal.
    Ah, lover of night,
  Be warned at the portal,
    And save thee in flight!

[_She stoops over him: Pierrot stirs in his sleep._]

PIERROT [_Murmuring._]
  Forget not, Cupid. Teach me all thy lore:
  "_He loves to-night who never loved before_."

THE LADY
  Unwitting boy! when, be it soon or late,
  What Pierrot ever has escaped his fate?
  What if I warned him! He might yet evade,
  Through the long windings of this verdant glade;
  Seek his companions in the blither way,
  Which, else, must be as lost as yesterday.
  So might he still pass some unheeding hours
  In the sweet company of birds and flowers.
  How fair he is, with red lips formed for joy,
  As softly curved as those of Venus' boy.
  Methinks his eyes, beneath their silver sheaves,
  Rest tranquilly like lilies under leaves.
  Arrayed in innocence, what touch of grace
  Reveals the scion of a courtly race?
  Well, I will warn him, though, I fear, too late--
  What Pierrot ever has escaped his fate?
  But, see, he stirs, new knowledge fires his brain,
  And Cupid's vision bids him wake again.
  Dione's Daughter! but how fair he is,
  Would it be wrong to rouse him with a kiss?

[_She stoops down and kisses him, then withdraws into the shadow._]

PIERROT [_Rubbing his eyes._]
  Celestial messenger! remain, remain;
  Or, if a Vision, visit me again!
  What is this light, and whither am I come
  To sleep beneath the stars so far from home?

[_Rises slowly to his feet._]

PIERROT
  Stay, I remember this is Venus' Grove,
  And I am hither come to encounter--

THE LADY [_Coming forward but veiled._]
  Love!

[_In ecstasy, throwing himself at her feet._]

PIERROT
  Then have I ventured and encountered Love?

THE LADY
  Not yet, rash boy! and, if thou wouldst be wise,
  Return unknowing; he is safe who flies.

PIERROT
  Never, sweet lady, will I leave this place
  Until I see the wonder of thy face.
  Goddess or Naiad! lady of this Grove,
  Made mortal for a night to teach me love,
  Unveil thyself, although thy beauty be
  Too luminous for my mortality.

THE LADY [_Unveiling._]
  Then, foolish boy, receive at length thy will:
  Now knowest thou the greatness of thine ill.

PIERROT
  Now have I lost my heart, and gained my goal.

THE LADY
  Didst thou not read the warning on the scroll?

[_Picking up the parchment._]

PIERROT
  I read it all, as on this quest I fared,
  Save where it was illegible and hard.

THE LADY
  Alack! poor scholar, wast thou never taught
  A little knowledge serveth less than naught?
  Hadst thou perused--but, stay, I will explain
  What was the writing which thou didst disdain.
[_Reads:_]
  "_Au Petit Trianon_, at night's full noon,
  Mortal, beware the kisses of the moon!
  Whoso seeks her she gathers like a flower--
  He gives a life, and only gains an hour."

PIERROT [_Laughing recklessly._]
  Bear me away to thine enchanted bower,
  All of my life I venture for an hour.

THE LADY
  Take up thy destiny of short delight;
  I am thy lady for a summer's night.
  Lift up your viols, maidens of my train,
  And work such havoc on this mortal's brain
  That for a moment he may touch and know
  Immortal things, and be full Pierrot.
  White music, Nymphs! Violet and Eglantine!
  To stir his tired veins like magic wine.
  What visitants across his spirit glance,
  Lying on lilies, while he watch me dance?
  Watch, and forget all weary things of earth,
  All memories and cares, all joy and mirth,
  While my dance woos him, light and rhythmical,
  And weaves his heart into my coronal.
  Music, more music for his soul's delight:
  Love is his lady for a summer's night.

[_Pierrot reclines, and gazes at her while she dances. The dance 
finished, she beckons to him: he rises dreamily, and stands at her 
side._]

PIERROT
  Whence came, dear Queen, such magic melody?

THE LADY
  Pan made it long ago in Arcady.

PIERROT
  I heard it long ago, I know not where,
  As I knew thee, or ever I came here.
  But I forget all things--my name and race,
  All that I ever knew except thy face.
  Who art thou, lady? Breathe a name to me,
  That I may tell it like a rosary.
  Thou, whom I sought, dear Dryad of the trees,
  How art thou designate--art thou Heart's-Ease?

THE LADY
  Waste not the night in idle questioning,
  Since Love departs at dawn's awakening.

PIERROT
  Nay, thou art right; what recks thy name or state,
  Since thou art lovely and compassionate.
  Play out thy will on me: I am thy lyre.

THE LADY
  I am to each the face of his desire.

PIERROT
  I am not Pierrot, but Venus' dove,
  Who craves a refuge on the breast of love.

THE LADY
  What wouldst thou of the maiden of the moon?
  Until the cock crow I may grant thy boon.

PIERROT
  Then, sweet Moon Maiden, in some magic car,
  Wrought wondrously of many a homeless star--
  Such must attend thy journeys through the skies,--
  Drawn by a team of milk-white butterflies,
  Whom, with soft voice and music of thy maids,
  Thou urgest gently through the heavenly glades;
  Mount me beside thee, bear me far away
  From the low regions of the solar day;
  Over the rainbow, up into the moon,
  Where is thy palace and thine opal throne;
  There on thy bosom--

THE LADY
  Too ambitious boy!
  I did but promise thee one hour of joy.
  This tour thou plannest, with a heart so light,
  Could hardly be completed in a night.
  Hast thou no craving less remote than this?

PIERROT
  Would it be impudent to beg a kiss?

THE LADY
  I say not that: yet prithee have a care!
  Often audacity has proved a snare.
  How wan and pale do moon-kissed roses grow--
  Dost thou not fear my kisses, Pierrot?

PIERROT
  As one who faints upon the Libyan plain
  Fears the oasis which brings life again!

THE LADY
  Where far away green palm trees seem to stand
  May be a mirage of the wreathing sand.

PIERROT
  Nay, dear enchantress, I consider naught,
  Save mine own ignorance, which would be taught.

THE LADY
  Dost thou persist?

PIERROT
  I do entreat this boon!

[_She bends forward, their lips meet: she withdraws with a petulant 
shiver. She utters a peal of clear laughter._]

THE LADY
  Why art thou pale, fond lover of the moon?

PIERROT
  Cold are thy lips, more cold than I can tell
  Yet would I hang on them, thine icicle!
  Cold is thy kiss, more cold than I could dream
  Arctus sits, watching the Boreal stream:
  But with its frost such sweetness did conspire
  That all my veins are filled with running fire;
  Never I knew that life contained such bliss
  As the divine completeness of a kiss.

THE LADY
  Apt scholar! so love's lesson has been taught,
  Warning, as usual, has gone for naught.

PIERROT
  Had all my schooling been of this soft kind,
  To play the truant I were less inclined.
  Teach me again! I am a sorry dunce--
  I never knew a task by conning once.

THE LADY
  Then come with me! below this pleasant shrine
  Of Venus we will presently recline,
  Until birds' twitter beckon me away
  To mine own home, beyond the milky-way.
  I will instruct thee, for I deem as yet
  Of Love thou knowest but the alphabet.

PIERROT
  In its sweet grammar I shall grow most wise,
  If all its rules be written in thine eyes.

[_The lady sits upon a step of the temple, And Pierrot leans upon his 
elbow at her feet, regarding her._]

PIERROT
  Sweet contemplation! how my senses yearn
  To be thy scholar always, always learn.
  Hold not so high from me thy radiant mouth,
  Fragrant with all the spices of the South;
  Nor turn, O sweet! thy golden face away,
  For with it goes the light of all my day.
  Let me peruse it, till I know by rote
  Each line of it, like music, note by note;
  Raise thy long lashes, Lady! smile again:
  These studies profit me.

[_Taking her hand._]

THE LADY
  Refrain, refrain!

PIERROT [_With passion._]
  I am but studious, so do not stir;
  Thou art my star, I thine astronomer!
  Geometry was founded on thy lip.

[_Kisses her hand._]

THE LADY
  This attitude becomes not scholarship!
  Thy zeal I praise; but, prithee, not so fast,
  Nor leave the rudiments until the last.
  Science applied is good, but 'twere a schism
  To study such before the catechism,
  Bear thee more modestly, while I submit
  Some easy problems to confirm thy wit.

PIERROT
  In all humility my mind I pit
  Against her problems which would test my wit.

THE LADY
[_Questioning him from a little book bound deliciously in
vellum._]
      What is Love?
  Is it a folly,
  Is it mirth, or melancholy?
      Joys above,
  Are there many, or not any?
      What is love?

PIERROT [_Answering in a very humble attitude of scholarship._]
      If you please,
      A most sweet folly!
  Full of mirth and melancholy;
      Both of these!
  In its sadness worth all gladness,
      If you please!

THE LADY
      Prithee where,
  Goes Love a-hiding?
  Is he long in his abiding
      Anywhere?
  Can you bind him when you find him;
      Prithee, where?

PIERROT
      With spring days
  Love comes and dallies:
  Upon the mountains, through the valleys
      Lie Love's ways.
  Then he leaves you and deceives you
      In spring days.

THE LADY
  Thine answers please me: 'tis thy turn to ask.
  To meet thy questioning be now my task.

PIERROT
  Since I know thee, dear Immortal,
  Is my heart become a blossom,
  To be worn upon thy bosom.
  When thou turn me from this portal,
  Whither shall I, hapless mortal,
  Seek love out and win again
  Heart of me that thou retain?

THE LADY
  In and out the woods and valleys,
  Circling, soaring like a swallow,
  Love shall flee and thou shalt follow:
  Though he stops awhile and dallies,
  Never shalt thou stay his malice!
  Moon-kissed mortals seek in vain
  To possess their hearts again!

PIERROT
  Tell me, Lady, shall I never
  Rid me of this grievous burden!
  Follow Love and find his guerdon
  In no maiden whatsoever?
  Wilt thou hold my heart for ever?
  Rather would I thine forget,
  In some earthly Pierrette!

THE LADY
  Thus thy fate, whate'er thy will is!
  Moon-struck child, go seek my traces
  Vainly in all mortal faces!
  In and out among the lilies,
  Court each rural Amaryllis:
  Seek the signet of Love's hand
  In each courtly Corisande!

PIERROT
  Now, verily, sweet maid, of school I tire:
  These answers are not such as I desire.

THE LADY
  Why art thou sad?

PIERROT
                   I dare not tell.

THE LADY
        [_Caressingly._]
                                    Come, say!

PIERROT
  Is love all schooling, with no time to play?

THE LADY
  Though all love's lessons be a holiday,
  Yet I will humour thee: what wouldst thou play?

PIERROT
  What are the games that small moon-maids enjoy.
  Or is their time all spent in staid employ?

THE LADY
  Sedate they are, yet games they much enjoy:
  They skip with stars, the rainbow is their toy.

PIERROT
  That is too hard!

THE LADY
                   For mortal's play.

PIERROT
                                      What then?

THE LADY
  Teach me some pastime from the world of men.

PIERROT
  I have it, maiden.

THE LADY
  Can it soon be taught?

PIERROT
  A simple game, I learnt it at the Court.
  I sit by thee.

THE LADY
                But, prithee, not so near.

PIERROT
  That is essential, as will soon appear,
  Lay here thine hand, which cold night dews anoint,
  Washing its white--

THE LADY
                     Now is this to the point?

PIERROT
  Prithee, forbear! Such is the game design.

THE LADY
  Here is my hand.

PIERROT
                  I cover it with mine.

THE LADY
  What must I next?

[_They play._]

PIERROT
                   Withdraw.

THE LADY
                            It goes too fast.

[_They continue playing, until Pierrot catches her hand._]

PIERROT [_Laughing._]
  'Tis done. I win my forfeit at the last.

[_He tries to embrace her. She escapes; he chases her round the stage; 
she eludes him._]

THE LADY
  Thou art not quick enough. Who hopes to catch
  A moon-beam, must use twice as much despatch.

PIERROT [_Sitting down sulkily._]
  I grow aweary, and my heart is sore,
  Thou dost not love me; I will play no more.
[_He buries his face in his hands: the lady stands over him._]

THE LADY
  What is this petulance?

PIERROT
                          'Tis quick to tell--
  Thou hast but mocked me.

THE LADY
                           Nay, I love thee well!

PIERROT
  Repeat those words, for still within my breast
  A whisper warns me they are said in jest.

THE LADY
  I jested not: at daybreak I must go,
  Yet loving thee far better than thou know.

PIERROT
  Then, by this altar, and this sacred shrine,
  Take my sworn troth, and swear thee wholly mine!
  The Gods have wedded mortals long ere this.

THE LADY
  There was enough betrothal in my kiss.
  What need of further oaths?

PIERROT
                              That bound not thee!

THE LADY
  Peace! since I tell thee that it may not be.
  But sit beside me whilst I soothe thy bale
  With some moon fancy or celestial tale.

PIERROT
  Tell me of thee, and that dim, happy place
  Where lies thine home, with maidens of thy race!

THE LADY [_Seating herself._]
  Calm is it yonder, very calm; the air
  For mortal's breath is too refined and rare;
  Hard by a green lagoon our palace rears
  Its dome of agate through a myriad years.
  A hundred chambers its bright walls enthrone,
  Each one carved strangely from a precious stone.
  Within the fairest, clad in purity,
  Our mother dwelleth immemorially:
  Moon-calm, moon-pale, with moon stones on her gown
  The floor she treads with little pearls is sown;
  She sits upon a throne of amethysts,
  And orders mortal fortunes as she lists;
  I, and my sisters, all around her stand,
  And, when she speaks, accomplish her demand.

PIERROT
  Methought grim Clotho and her sisters twain
  With shrivelled fingers spun this web of bane!

THE LADY
  Theirs and my mother's realm is far apart,
  Hers is the lustrous kingdom of the heart,
  And dreamers all, and all who sing and love,
  Her power acknowledge, and her rule approve.

PIERROT
  Me, even me, she hath led into this grove.

THE LADY
  Yea, thou art one of hers! But, ere this night,
  Often I watched my sisters take their flight
  Down heaven's stairway of the clustered stars
  To gaze on mortals through their lattice bars;
  And some in sleep they woo with dreams of bliss
  Too shadowy to tell, and some they kiss.
  But all to whom they come, my sisters say,
  Forthwith forget all joyance of the day,
  Forget their laughter and forget their tears,
  And dream away with singing all their years--
  Moon-lovers always!

[_She sighs._]

PIERROT
                      Why art sad, sweet Moon?

[_Laughing._]

THE LADY
  For this, my story, grant me now a boon.

PIERROT
  I am thy servitor.

THE LADY
                     Would, then, I knew
  More of the earth, what men and women do.

PIERROT
  I will explain.

THE LADY
                  Let brevity attend
  Thy wit, for night approaches to its end.

PIERROT
  Once was I a page at Court, so trust in me:
  That's the first lesson of society.

THE LADY
  Society?

PIERROT
           I mean the very best
  Pardy! thou wouldst not hear about the rest.
  I know it not, but am a _petit maître_
  At rout and festival and _bal champêtre_
  But since example be instruction's ease,
  Let's play the thing.--Now, Madame, if you please!

[_He helps her to rise, and leads her forward: then he kisses her hand,
bowing over it with a very courtly air._]

THE LADY
  What am I, then?

PIERROT
                   A most divine Marquise!
  Perhaps that attitude hath too much ease.
  [_Passes her._] Ah, that is better! To complete the plan,
  Nothing is necessary save a fan.

THE LADY
  Cool is the night, what needs it?

PIERROT
                                   Madame, pray
  Reflect, it is essential to our play.

THE LADY [_Taking a lily._]
  Here is my fan!

PIERROT
                  So, use it with intent:
  The deadliest arm in beauty's armament!

THE LADY
  What do we next?

PIERROT
                   We talk!

THE LADY                           But what about?

PIERROT
  We quiz the company and praise the rout;
  Are polished, petulant, malicious, sly,
  Or what you will, so reputations die.
  Observe the Duchess in Venetian lace,
  With the red eminence.

THE LADY
                         A pretty face!

PIERROT
  For something tarter set thy wits to search--
  "She loves the churchman better than the church."

THE LADY
  Her blush is charming; would it were her own!

PIERROT
  Madame is merciless!

THE LADY
                      Is that the tone?

PIERROT
  The very tone: I swear thou lackest naught.
  Madame was evidently bred at Court.

THE LADY
  Thou speakest glibly: 'tis not of thine age.

PIERROT
  I listened much, as best becomes a page.

THE LADY
  I like thy Court but little--

PIERROT
                               Hush! the Queen!
  Bow, but not low--thou knowest what I mean.

THE LADY
  Nay, that I know not!

PIERROT
                       Though she wear a crown,
  'Tis from La Pompadour one fears a frown.

THE LADY
  Thou art a child: thy malice is a game.

PIERROT
  A most sweet pastime--scandal is its name.

THE LADY
  Enough, it wearies me.

PIERROT
                         Then, rare Marquise,
  Desert the crowd to wander through the trees.

[_He bows low, and she curtsies; they move round the stage. When they 
pass before the Statue he seizes her hand and falls on his knee._]

THE LADY
  What wouldst thou now?

PIERROT
                        Ah, prithee, what, save thee!

THE LADY
  Was this included in thy comedy?

PIERROT
  Ah, mock me not! In vain with quirk and jest
  I strive to quench the passion in my breast;
  In vain thy blandishments would make me play:
  Still I desire far more than I can say.
  My knowledge halts, ah, sweet, be piteous,
  Instruct me still, while time remains to us,
  Be what thou wist, Goddess, moon-maid, _Marquise_,
  So that I gather from thy lips heart's ease,
  Nay, I implore thee, think thee how time flies!

THE LADY
  Hush! I beseech thee, even now night dies.

PIERROT
  Night, day, are one to me for thy soft sake.

[_He entreats her with imploring gestures, she hesitates: then puts her
finger on her lip hushing him._]

THE LADY
  It is too late, for hark! the birds awake.

PIERROT
  The birds awake! It is the voice of day!

THE LADY
  Farewell, dear youth! They summon me away.

[_The light changes, it grows daylights and music imitates the twitter 
of the birds. They stand gazing at the morning: then Pierrot sinks 
back upon his bed, he covers his face in his hands._]

THE LADY [_Bending over him_.]
  Music, my maids! His weary senses steep
  In soft untroubled and oblivious sleep,
  With mandragore anoint his tired eyes,
  That they may open on mere memories,
  Then shall a vision seem his lost delight,
  With love, his lady for a summer's night.
  Dream thou hast dreamt all this, when thou awake,
  Yet still be sorrowful, for a dream's sake.
  I leave thee, sleeper! Yea, I leave thee now,
  Yet take my legacy upon thy brow:
  Remember me, who was compassionate,
  And opened for thee once, the ivory gate.
  I come no more, thou shalt not see my face
  When I am gone to mine exalted place:
  Yet all thy days are mine, dreamer of dreams,
  All silvered over with the moon's pale beams:
  Go forth and seek in each fair face in vain,
  To find the image of thy love again.
  All maids are kind to thee, yet never one
  Shall hold thy truant heart till day be done.
  Whom once the moon has kissed, loves long and late,
  Yet never finds the maid to be his mate.
  Farewell, dear sleeper, follow out thy fate.

[_The Moon Maiden withdraws: a song is sung from behind: it is
full day_.]


THE MOON MAIDEN'S SONG.

  Sleep! Cast thy canopy
    Over this sleeper's brain,
  Dim grow his memory,
    When he awake again.

  Love stays a summer night,
    Till lights of morning come;
  Then takes her wingèd flight
    Back to her starry home.

  Sleep! Yet thy days are mine;
    Love's seal is over thee:
  Far though my ways from thine,
    Dim though thy memory.

  Love stays a summer night,
    Till lights of morning come;
  Then takes her winged flight
    Back to her starry home.

[_When the song is finished, the curtain falls upon Pierrot sleeping._]

THE END.




DECORATIONS


BEYOND

  Love's aftermath! I think the time is now
  That we must gather in, alone, apart
  The saddest crop of all the crops that grow,
               Love's aftermath.
  Ah, sweet,--sweet yesterday, the tears that start
  Can not put back the dial; this is, I trow,
  Our harvesting! Thy kisses chill my heart,
  Our lips are cold; averted eyes avow
  The twilight of poor love: we can but part,
  Dumbly and sadly, reaping as we sow,
              Love's aftermath.


DE AMORE

  Shall one be sorrowful because of love,
    Which hath no earthly crown,
    Which lives and dies, unknown?
  Because no words of his shall ever move
    Her maiden heart to own
    Him lord and destined master of her own:
  Is Love so weak a thing as this,
    Who can not lie awake,
    Solely for his own sake,
  For lack of the dear hands to hold, the lips to kiss,
      A mere heart-ache?

  Nay, though love's victories be great and sweet,
    Nor vain and foolish toys,
    His crowned, earthly joys,
  Is there no comfort then in love's defeat?
    Because he shall defer,
    For some short span of years all part in her,
    Submitting to forego
    The certain peace which happier lovers know;
  Because he shall be utterly disowned,
    Nor length of service bring
    Her least awakening:
  Foiled, frustrate and alone, misunderstood, discrowned,
      Is Love less King?

  Grows not the world to him a fairer place,
    How far soever his days
    Pass from his lady's ways,
  From mere encounter with her golden face?
    Though all his sighing be vain,
    Shall he be heavy-hearted and complain?
      Is she not still a star,
  Deeply to be desired, worshipped afar,
    A beacon-light to aid
    From bitter-sweet delights, Love's masquerade?
  Though he lose many things,
    Though much he miss:
  The heart upon his heart, the hand that clings,
    The memorable first kiss;
  Love that is love at all,
  Needs not an earthly coronal;
  Love is himself his own exceeding great reward,
      A mighty lord!

  Lord over life and all the ways of breath,
   Mighty and strong to save
   From the devouring grave;
  Yea, whose dominion doth out-tyrant death,
    Thou who art life and death in one,
    The night, the sun;
  Who art, when all things seem:
    Foiled, frustrate and forlorn, rejected of to-day
    Go with me all my way,
  And let me not blaspheme.


THE DEAD CHILD

  Sleep on, dear, now
    The last sleep and the best,
  And on thy brow,
    And on thy quiet breast
  Violets I throw.

  Thy scanty years
    Were mine a little while;
  Life had no fears
    To trouble thy brief smile
  With toil or tears.

  Lie still, and be
    For evermore a child!
  Not grudgingly,
    Whom life has not defiled,
  I render thee.

  Slumber so deep,
    No man would rashly wake;
  I hardly weep,
    Fain only, for thy sake.
  To share thy sleep.

  Yes, to be dead,
    Dead, here with thee to-day,--
  When all is said
    'Twere good by thee to lay
  My weary head.

  The very best!
    Ah, child so tired of play,
  I stand confessed:
    I want to come thy way,
  And share thy rest.


CARTHUSIANS

  Through what long heaviness, assayed in what strange fire,
    Have these white monks been brought into the way of peace,
  Despising the world's wisdom and the world's desire,
    Which from the body of this death bring no release?

  Within their austere walls no voices penetrate;
    A sacred silence only, as of death, obtains;
  Nothing finds entry here of loud or passionate;
    This quiet is the exceeding profit of their pains.

  From many lands they came, in divers fiery ways;
    Each knew at last the vanity of earthly joys;
  And one was crowned with thorns, and one was crowned with bays,
    And each was tired at last of the world's foolish noise.

  It was not theirs with Dominic to preach God's holy wrath,
    They were too stern to bear sweet Francis' gentle sway;
  Theirs was a higher calling and a steeper path,
    To dwell alone with Christ, to meditate and pray.

  A cloistered company, they are companionless,
    None knoweth here the secret of his brother's heart:
  They are but come together for more loneliness,
    Whose bond is solitude and silence all their part.

  O beatific life! Who is there shall gainsay,
    Your great refusal's victory, your little loss,
  Deserting vanity for the more perfect way,
    The sweeter service of the most dolorous Cross.

  Ye shall prevail at last! Surely ye shall prevail!
    Your silence and austerity shall win at last:
  Desire and mirth, the world's ephemeral lights shall fail,
    The sweet star of your queen is never overcast.

  We fling up flowers and laugh, we laugh across the wine;
    With wine we dull our souls and careful strains of art;
  Our cups are polished skulls round which the roses twine:
    None dares to look at Death who leers and lurks apart.

  Move on, white company, whom that has not sufficed!
    Our viols cease, our wine is death, our roses fail:
  Pray for our heedlessness, O dwellers with the Christ!
    Though the world fall apart, surely ye shall prevail.


THE THREE WITCHES

  All the moon-shed nights are over,
    And the days of gray and dun;
  There is neither may nor clover,
    And the day and night are one.

  Not an hamlet, not a city
    Meets our strained and tearless eyes;
  In the plain without a pity,
    Where the wan grass droops and dies.

  We shall wander through the meaning
    Of a day and see no light,
  For our lichened arms are leaning
    On the ends of endless night.

  We, the children of Astarte,
    Dear abortions of the moon,
  In a gay and silent party,
    We are riding to you soon.

  Burning ramparts, ever burning!
    To the flame which never dies
  We are yearning, yearning, yearning,
    With our gay and tearless eyes.

  In the plain without a pity,
    (Not an hamlet, not a city)
    Where the wan grass droops and dies.


VILLANELLE OF THE POET'S ROAD

  Wine and woman and song,
    Three things garnish our way:
  Yet is day over long.

  Lest we do our youth wrong,
    Gather them while we may:
  Wine and woman and song.

  Three things render us strong,
    Vine leaves, kisses and bay;
  Yet is day over long.

  Unto us they belong,
    Us the bitter and gay,
  Wine and woman and song.

  We, as we pass along,
    Are sad that they will not stay;
  Yet is day over long.

  Fruits and flowers among,
    What is better than they:
  Wine and woman and song?
    Yet is day over long.


VILLANELLE OF ACHERON

  By the pale marge of Acheron,
    Me thinks we shall pass restfully,
  Beyond the scope of any sun.

  There all men hie them one by one,
    Far from the stress of earth and sea,
  By the pale marge of Acheron.

  'Tis well when life and love is done,
    'Tis very well at last to be,
  Beyond the scope of any sun.

  No busy voices there shall stun
    Our ears: the stream flows silently
  By the pale marge of Acheron.

  There is the crown of labour won,
    The sleep of immortality,
  Beyond the scope of any sun.

  Life, of thy gifts I will have none,
    My queen is that Persephone,
  By the pale marge of Acheron,
    Beyond the scope of any sun.


SAINT GERMAIN-EN-LAYE

(1887-1895)

  Through the green boughs I hardly saw thy face,
  They twined so close: the sun was in mine eyes;
  And now the sullen trees in sombre lace
  Stand bare beneath the sinister, sad skies.

  O sun and summer! Say in what far night,
  The gold and green, the glory of thine head,
  Of bough and branch have fallen? Oh, the white
  Gaunt ghosts that flutter where thy feet have sped,

  Across the terrace that is desolate,
  And rang then with thy laughter, ghost of thee,
  That holds its shroud up with most delicate,
  Dead fingers, and behind the ghost of me,

  Tripping fantastic with a mouth that jeers
  At roseal flowers of youth the turbid streams
  Toss in derision down the barren years
  To death the host of all our golden dreams.


AFTER PAUL VERLAINE

I

_Il pleut doucement sur la ville_.--RIMBAUD

  Tears fall within mine heart,
  As rain upon the town:
  Whence does this languor start,
  Possessing all mine heart?

  O sweet fall of the rain
  Upon the earth and roofs!
  Unto an heart in pain,
  O music of the rain!

  Tears that have no reason
  Fall in my sorry heart:
  What! there was no treason?
  This grief hath no reason.

  Nay! the more desolate,
  Because, I know not why,
  (Neither for love nor hate)
  Mine heart is desolate.


II

COLLOQUE SENTIMENTAL

  Into the lonely park all frozen fast,
  Awhile ago there were two forms who passed.

  Lo, are their lips fallen and their eyes dead,
  Hardly shall a man hear the words they said.

  Into the lonely park, all frozen fast,
  There came two shadows who recall the past.

  "Dost thou remember our old ecstasy?"--
  "Wherefore should I possess that memory?"--

  "Doth thine heart beat at my sole name alway?
  Still dost thou see my soul in visions?" "Nay!"--

  "They were fair days of joy unspeakable,
  Whereon our lips were joined?"--"I cannot tell."--

  "Were not the heavens blue, was not hope high?"--
  "Hope has fled vanquished down the darkling sky."--

  So through the barren oats they wanderèd,
  And the night only heard the words they said.


III

SPLEEN

  Around were all the roses red,
  The ivy all around was black.

  Dear, so thou only move thine head,
  Shall all mine old despairs awake!

  Too blue, too tender was the sky,
  The air too soft, too green the sea.

  Always I fear, I know not why,
  Some lamentable flight from thee.

  I am so tired of holly-sprays
  And weary of the bright box-tree,

  Of all the endless country ways;
  Of everything alas! save thee.


IV

  The sky is up above the roof
    So blue, so soft!
  A tree there, up above the roof,
    Swayeth aloft.

  A bell within that sky we see,
    Chimes low and faint:
  A bird upon that tree we see,
    Maketh complaint.

  Dear God! is not the life up there,
    Simple and sweet?
  How peacefully are borne up there
    Sounds of the street!

  What hast thou done, who comest
    To weep alway?
  Where hast thou laid, who comest here,
    Thy youth away?


TO HIS MISTRESS

  There comes an end to summer,
    To spring showers and hoar rime;
  His mumming to each mummer
    Has somewhere end in time,
  And since life ends and laughter,
    And leaves fall and tears dry,
  Who shall call love immortal,
    When all that is must die?

  Nay, sweet, let's leave unspoken
    The vows the fates gainsay,
  For all vows made are broken,
    We love but while we may.
  Let's kiss when kissing pleases,
    And part when kisses pall,
  Perchance, this time to-morrow,
    We shall not love at all.

  You ask my love completest,
    As strong next year as now,
  The devil take you, sweetest,
    Ere I make aught such vow.
  Life is a masque that changes,
    A fig for constancy!
  No love at all were better,
    Than love which is not free.


JADIS

  Erewhile, before the world was old,
  When violets grew and celandine,
  In Cupid's train we were enrolled:
            Erewhile!
  Your little hands were clasped in mine,
  Your head all ruddy and sun-gold
  Lay on my breast which was your shrine,
  And all the tale of love was told:
  Ah, God, that sweet things should decline,
  And fires fade out which were not cold,
            Erewhile.


IN A BRETON CEMETERY

  They sleep well here,
    These fisher-folk who passed their anxious days
    In fierce Atlantic ways;
  And found not there,
    Beneath the long curled wave,
    So quiet a grave.

  And they sleep well
    These peasant-folk, who told their lives away,
    From day to market-day,
  As one should tell,
    With patient industry,
    Some sad old rosary.

  And now night falls,
    Me, tempest-tost, and driven from pillar to post,
    A poor worn ghost,
  This quiet pasture calls;
    And dear dead people with pale hands
    Beckon me to their lands.


TO WILLIAM THEODORE PETERS ON HIS RENAISSANCE CLOAK

  The cherry-coloured velvet of your cloak
  Time hath not soiled: its fair embroideries
  Gleam as when centuries ago they spoke
  To what bright gallant of Her Daintiness,
  Whose slender fingers, long since dust and dead,
  For love or courtesy embroidered
  The cherry-coloured velvet of this cloak.

  Ah! cunning flowers of silk and silver thread,
  That mock mortality? the broidering dame,
  The page they decked, the kings and courts are dead:
  Gone the age beautiful; Lorenzo's name,
  The Borgia's pride are but an empty sound;
  But lustrous still upon their velvet ground,
  Time spares these flowers of silk and silver thread.

  Gone is that age of pageant and of pride:
  Yet don your cloak, and haply it shall seem,
  The curtain of old time is set aside;
  As through the sadder coloured throng you gleam;
  We see once more fair dame and gallant gay,
  The glamour and the grace of yesterday:
  The elder, brighter age of pomp and pride.


THE SEA-CHANGE

  Where river and ocean meet in a great tempestuous frown,
  Beyond the bar, where on the dunes the white-capped rollers break;
  Above, one windmill stands forlorn on the arid, grassy down:
  I will set my sail on a stormy day and cross the bar and seek
  That I have sought and never found, the exquisite one crown,
  Which crowns one day with all its calm the passionate and the weak.

  When the mad winds are unreined, wilt thou not storm, my sea?
  (I have ever loved thee so, I have ever done thee wrong
  In drear terrestrial ways.) When I trust myself to thee
  With a last great hope, arise and sing thine ultimate, great song
  Sung to so many better men, O sing at last to me,
  That which when once a man has heard, he heeds not over long.

  I will bend my sail when the great day comes; thy kisses on my face
  Shall seal all things that are old, outworn; and anger and regret
  Shall fade as the dreams and days shall fade, and in thy salt embrace,
  When thy fierce caresses blind mine eyes and my limbs grow stark
      and set,
  All that I know in all my mind shall no more have a place:
  The weary ways of men and one woman I shall forget.

_Point du Pouldu_.


DREGS

  The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof
  (This is the end of every song man sings!)
  The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain,
  Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain;
  And health and hope have gone the way of love
  Into the drear oblivion of lost things.
  Ghosts go along with us until the end;
  This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend.
  With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait
  For the dropt curtain and the closing gate:
  This is the end of all the songs man sings.


A SONG

  All that a man may pray,
    Have I not prayed to thee?
  What were praise left to say,
    Has not been said by me
      _O, ma mie?_

  Yet thine eyes and thine heart,
    Always were dumb to me:
  Only to be my part,
    Sorrow has come from thee,
      _O, ma mie?_

  Where shall I seek and hide
    My grief away with me?
  Lest my bitter tears should chide,
    Bring brief dismay to thee,
      _O, ma mie?_

  More than a man may pray,
    Have I not prayed to thee?
  What were praise left to say,
    Has not been said by me,
      _O, ma mie?_


BRETON AFTERNOON

  Here, where the breath of the scented-gorse floats through the
      sun-stained air,
  On a steep hill-side, on a grassy ledge, I have lain hours long
      and heard
  Only the faint breeze pass in a whisper like a prayer,
  And the river ripple by and the distant call of a bird.

  On the lone hill-side, in the gold sunshine, I will hush me and
      repose,
  And the world fades into a dream and a spell is cast on me;
  _And what was all the strife about, for the myrtle or the rose,
  And why have I wept for a white girl's paleness passing ivory!_

  Out of the tumult of angry tongues, in a land alone, apart,
  In a perfumed dream-land set betwixt the bounds of life and death,
  Here will I lie while the clouds fly by and delve an hole where my
      heart
  May sleep deep down with the gorse above and red, red earth beneath.

  Sleep and be quiet for an afternoon, till the rose-white angelus
  Softly steals my way from the village under the hill:
  _Mother of God, O Misericord, look down in pity on us,
  The weak and blind who stand in our light and wreak ourselves such
      ill_.


VENITE DESCENDAMUS

  Let be at last; give over words and sighing,
    Vainly were all things said:
  Better at last to find a place for lying,
    Only dead.

  Silence were best, with songs and sighing over;
    Now be the music mute;
  Now let the dead, red leaves of autumn cover
    A vain lute.

  Silence is best: for ever and for ever,
    We will go down and sleep,
  Somewhere beyond her ken, where she need never
    Come to weep.

  Let be at last: colder she grows and colder;
    Sleep and the night were best;
  Lying at last where we cannot behold her,
    We may rest.


TRANSITION

  A little while to walk with thee, dear child;
    To lean on thee my weak and weary head;
  Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild,
    The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead.

  A little while to hold thee and to stand,
    By harvest-fields of bending golden corn;
  Then the predestined silence, and thine hand,
    Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn.

  A little while to love thee, scarcely time
    To love thee well enough; then time to part,
  To fare through wintry fields alone and climb
    The frozen hills, not knowing where thou art.

  Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire,
    The winter and the darkness: one by one
  The roses fall, the pale roses expire
    Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.


EXCHANGES

  All that I had I brought,
    Little enough I know;
  A poor rhyme roughly wrought,
    A rose to match thy snow:
  All that I had I brought.

  Little enough I sought:
    But a word compassionate,
  A passing glance, or thought,
    For me outside the gate:
  Little enough I sought.

  Little enough I found:
    All that you had, perchance!
  With the dead leaves on the ground,
    I dance the devil's dance.
  All that you had I found.


TO A LADY ASKING FOOLISH QUESTIONS

  Why am I sorry, Chloe? Because the moon is far:
  And who am I to be straitened in a little earthly star?

  Because thy face is fair? And what if it had not been,
  The fairest face of all is the face I have not seen.

  Because the land is cold, and however I scheme and plot,
  I cannot find a ferry to the land where I am not.

  Because thy lips are red and thy breasts upbraid the snow?
  (There is neither white nor red in the pleasance where I go.)

  Because thy lips grow pale and thy breasts grow dun and fall?
  I go where the wind blows, Chloe, and am not sorry at all.


RONDEAU

  Ah, Manon, say, why is it we
  Are one and all so fain of thee?
  Thy rich red beauty debonnaire
  In very truth is not more fair,
  Than the shy grace and purity
  That clothe the maiden maidenly;
  Her gray eyes shine more tenderly
  And not less bright than thine her hair;
    Ah, Manon, say!
  Expound, I pray, the mystery
  Why wine-stained lip and languid eye,
  And most unsaintly Maenad air,
  Should move us more than all the rare
  White roses of virginity?
    Ah, Manon, say!


MORITURA

  A song of the setting sun!
    The sky in the west is red,
  And the day is all but done:
    While yonder up overhead,
      All too soon,
  There rises, so cold, the cynic moon.

  A song of a winter day!
    The wind of the north doth blow,
  From a sky that's chill and gray,
    On fields where no crops now grow,
      Fields long shorn
  Of bearded barley and golden corn.

  A song of an old, old man!
    His hairs are white and his gaze,
  Long bleared in his visage wan,
    With its weight of yesterdays,
      Joylessly
  He stands and mumbles and looks at me,

  A song of a faded flower!
    'Twas plucked in the tender bud,
  And fair and fresh for an hour,
    In a lady's hair it stood.
      Now, ah, now,
  Faded it lies in the dust and low.


LIBERA ME

  Goddess the laughter-loving, Aphrodite, befriend!
  Long have I served thine altars, serve me now at the end,
  Let me have peace of thee, truce of thee, golden one, send.

  Heart of my heart have I offered thee, pain of my pain,
  Yielding my life for the love of thee into thy chain;
  Lady and goddess be merciful, loose me again.

  All things I had that were fairest, my dearest and best,
  Fed the fierce flames on thine altar: ah, surely, my breast
  Shrined thee alone among goddesses, spurning the rest.

  Blossom of youth thou hast plucked of me, flower of my days;
  Stinted I nought in thine honouring, walked in thy ways,
  Song of my soul pouring out to thee, all in thy praise.

  Fierce was the flame while it lasted, and strong was thy wine,
  Meet for immortals that die not, for throats such as thine,
  Too fierce for bodies of mortals, too potent for mine.

  Blossom and bloom hast thou taken, now render to me
  Ashes of life that remain to me, few though they be,
  Truce of the love of thee, Cyprian, let me go free.

  Goddess the laughter-loving, Aphrodite, restore
  Life to the limbs of me, liberty, hold me no more
  Having the first-fruits and flower of me, cast me the core.


TO A LOST LOVE

  I seek no more to bridge the gulf that lies
    Betwixt our separate ways;
    For vainly my heart prays,
  Hope droops her head and dies;
  I see the sad, tired answer in your eyes.

  I did not heed, and yet the stars were clear;
    Dreaming that love could mate
    Lives grown so separate;--
  But at the best, my dear,
  I see we should not have been very near.

  I knew the end before the end was nigh:
    The stars have grown so plain;
    Vainly I sigh, in vain
  For things that come to some,
  But unto you and me will never come.


WISDOM

  Love wine and beauty and the spring,
    While wine is red and spring is here,
  And through the almond blossoms ring
    The dove-like voices of thy Dear.

  Love wine and spring and beauty while
    The wine hath flavour and spring masks
  Her treachery in so soft a smile
    That none may think of toil and tasks.

  But when spring goes on hurrying feet,
    Look not thy sorrow in the eyes,
  And bless thy freedom from thy sweet:
    This is the wisdom of the wise.


IN SPRING

  See how the trees and the osiers lithe
    Are green bedecked and the woods are blithe,
  The meadows have donned their cape of flowers,
  The air is soft with the sweet May showers,
    And the birds make melody:
  But the spring of the soul, the spring of the soul,
    Cometh no more for you or for me.

  The lazy hum of the busy bees
    Murmureth through the almond trees;
  The jonquil flaunteth a gay, blonde head,
  The primrose peeps from a mossy bed,
    And the violets scent the lane.
  But the flowers of the soul, the flowers of the soul,
    For you and for me bloom never again.


A LAST WORD

  Let us go hence: the night is now at hand;
    The day is overworn, the birds all flown;
    And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown
  Despair and death; deep darkness o'er the land,
  Broods like an owl; we cannot understand
    Laughter or tears, for we have only known
    Surpassing vanity: vain things alone
  Have driven our perverse and aimless band.

  Let us go hence, somewhither strange and cold,
    To Hollow Lands where just men and unjust
    Find end of labour, where's rest for the old,
  Freedom to all from love and fear and lust.
  Twine our torn hands!  O pray the earth enfold
  Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.




DILEMMAS

STORIES AND STUDIES IN SENTIMENT

First Published in Book Form in 1895




THE DIARY OF A SUCCESSFUL MAN

_1st October, 188--_
_Hotel du Lys, Bruges._

After all, few places appeal to my imagination more potently than this 
autumnal old city--the most mediæval town in Europe. I am glad that I 
have come back here at last. It is melancholy indeed, but then at my 
age one's pleasures are chiefly melancholy. One is essentially of the 
autumn, and it is always autumn at Bruges. I thought I had been given 
back my youth when I awoke this morning and heard the Carillon, 
chiming out, as it has done, no doubt, intermittently, since I heard 
it last--twenty years ago. Yes, for a moment, I thought I was young 
again--only for a moment. When I went out into the streets and resumed 
acquaintance with all my old haunts, the illusion had gone. I strolled 
into Saint Sauveur's, wandered a while through its dim, dusky aisles, 
and then sat down near the high altar, where the air was heaviest with 
stale incense, and indulged in retrospect. I was there for more than 
an hour. I doubt whether it was quite wise. At my time of life one had 
best keep out of cathedrals; they are vault-like places, pregnant with 
rheumatism--at best they are full of ghosts. And a good many 
_revenants_ visited me during that hour of meditation. Afterwards I 
paid a visit to the Memlings in the Hôpital. Nothing has altered very 
much; even the women, with their placid, ugly Flemish faces, sitting 
eternally in their doorways with the eternal lace-pillow, might be the 
same women. In the afternoon I went to the Béguinage, and sat there 
long in the shadow of a tree, which must have grown up since my time, 
I think. I sat there too long, I fear, until the dusk and the chill 
drove me home to dinner. On the whole perhaps it was a mistake to come 
back. The sameness of this terribly constant old city seems to 
intensify the change that has come to oneself. Perhaps if I had come 
back with Lorimer I should have noticed it less. For, after all, the 
years have been kind to me, on the whole; they have given me most 
things which I set my heart upon, and if they had not broken a most 
perfect friendship, I would forgive them the rest. I sometimes feel, 
however, that one sacrifices too much to one's success. To slave 
twenty years at the Indian bar has its drawbacks, even when it does 
leave one at fifty, prosperous _à mourir d'ennui_. Yes, I must admit 
that I am prosperous, disgustingly prosperous, and--my wife is dead, 
and Lorimer--Lorimer has altogether passed out of my life. Ah, it is a 
mistake to keep a journal--a mistake.


_3rd October._

I vowed yesterday that I would pack my portmanteau and move on to 
Brussels, but to-day finds me still at Bruges. The charm of the old 
Flemish city grows on me. To-day I carried my peregrinations further 
a-field. I wandered about the Quais and stood on the old bridge where 
one obtains such a perfect glimpse, through a trellis of chestnuts, of 
the red roof and spires of Notre Dame. But the particular locality 
matters nothing; every nook and corner of Bruges teems with 
reminiscences. And how fresh they are! At Bombay I had not time to 
remember or to regret; but to-day the whole dead and forgotten story 
rises up like a ghost to haunt me. At times, moreover, I have a 
curious, fantastic feeling, that some day or other, in some mildewing 
church, I shall come face to face with Lorimer. He was older than I, 
he must be greatly altered, but I should know him. It is strange how 
intensely I desire to meet him. I suppose it is chiefly curiosity. I 
should like to feel sure of him, to explain his silence. He cannot be 
dead. I am told that he had pictures in this last Academy--and yet, 
never to have written--never once, through all these years. I suppose 
there are few friendships which can stand the test of correspondence. 
Still it is inexplicable, it is not like Lorimer. He could not have 
harboured a grudge against me--for what? A boyish infatuation for a 
woman who adored him, and whom he adored. The idea is preposterous, 
they must have laughed over my folly often, of winter evenings by 
their fireside. For they married, they must have married, they were 
made for each other and they knew it. Was their marriage happy I 
wonder? Was it as successful as mine, though perhaps a little less 
commonplace? It is strange, though, that I never heard of it, that he 
never wrote to me once, not through all those years.


_4th October._

Inexplicable! Inexplicable! _Did_ they marry after all? Could there 
have been some gigantic misunderstanding? I paid a pilgrimage this 
morning which hitherto I had deferred, I know not precisely why. I 
went to the old house in the Rue d'Alva--where she lived, our 
Comtesse. And the sight of its grim, historic frontal made twenty 
years seem as yesterday. I meant to content myself with a mere glimpse 
at the barred windows, but the impulse seized me to ring the bell 
which I used to ring so often. It was a foolish, fantastic impulse, 
but I obeyed it. I found it was occupied by an Englishman, a Mr. 
Venables--there seem to be more English here than in my time--and I 
sent in my card and asked if I might see the famous dining-room. There 
was no objection raised, my host was most courteous, my name, he said, 
was familiar to him; he is evidently proud of his dilapidated old 
palace, and has had the grace to save it from the attentions of the 
upholsterer. No! twenty years have produced very little change in the 
room where we had so many pleasant sittings. The ancient stamped 
leather on the walls is perhaps a trifle more ragged, the old oak 
panels not blacker--that were impossible--but a trifle more 
worm-eaten; it is the same room. I must have seemed a sad boor to my 
polite cicerone as I stood, hat in hand, and silently took in all the 
old familiar details. The same smell of mildewed antiquity, I could 
almost believe the same furniture. And indeed my host tells me that he 
took over the house as it was, and that some of the chairs and tables 
are scarcely more youthful than the walls. Yes, there by the huge 
fireplace was the same quaintly carved chair where she always sat. Ah, 
those delicious evenings when one was five-and-twenty. For the moment 
I should not have been surprised if she had suddenly taken shape 
before my eyes, in the old seat, the slim, girlish woman in her white 
dress, her hands folded in her lap, her quiet eyes gazing dreamily 
into the red fire, a subtile air of distinction in her whole 
posture.... She would be old now, I suppose. Would she? Ah no, she was 
not one of the women who grow old.... I caught up the thread of my 
host's discourse just as he was pointing it with a sharp rap upon one 
of the most time-stained panels.

'Behind there,' he remarked, with pardonable pride, 'is the secret 
passage where the Duc d'Alva was assassinated.'

I smiled apologetically.

'Yes,' I said, 'I know it. I should explain perhaps--my excuse for 
troubling you was not merely historic curiosity. I have more personal 
associations with this room. I spent some charming hours in it a great 
many years ago--' and for the moment I had forgotten that I was 
nearly fifty.

'Ah,' he said, with interest, 'you know the late people, the 
Fontaines.'

'No,' I said, 'I am afraid I have never heard of them. I am very 
ancient. In my time it belonged to the Savaresse family.'

'So I have heard,' he said, 'but that was long ago. I have only had it 
a few years. Fontaine my landlord bought it from them. Did you know M. 
le Comte!'

'No,' I answered, 'Madame la Comtesse. She was left a widow very 
shortly after her marriage. I never knew M. le Comte.'

My host shrugged his shoulders.

'From all accounts,' he said, 'you did not lose very much.'

'It was an unhappy marriage,' I remarked, vaguely, 'most unhappy. Her 
second marriage promised greater felicity.'

Mr. Venables looked at me curiously.

'I understood,' he began, but he broke off abruptly. 'I did not know 
Madame de Savaresse married again.'

His tone had suddenly changed, it had grown less cordial, and we 
parted shortly afterwards with a certain constraint. And as I walked 
home pensively curious, his interrupted sentence puzzled me. Does he 
look upon me as an impostor, a vulgar gossip-monger? What has he 
heard, what does he know of her? Does he know anything? I cannot help 
believing so. I almost wish I had asked him definitely, but he would 
have misunderstood my motives. Yet, even so, I wish I had asked him.


_6th October._

I am still living constantly in the past, and the fantastic feeling, 
whenever I enter a church or turn a corner that I shall meet Lorimer 
again, has grown into a settled conviction. Yes, I shall meet him, and 
in Bruges.... It is strange how an episode which one has thrust away 
out of sight and forgotten for years will be started back into renewed 
life by the merest trifle. And for the last week it has all been as 
vivid as if it happened yesterday. To-night I have been putting 
questions to myself--so far with no very satisfactory answer. _Was_ it 
a boyish infatuation after all? Has it passed away as utterly as I 
believed? I can see her face now as I sit by the fire with the finest 
precision of detail. I can hear her voice, that soft, low voice, which 
was none the less sweet for its modulation of sadness. I think there 
are no women like her now-a-days--none, none! _Did_ she marry Lorimer? 
and if not--? It seems strange now that we should have both been so 
attracted, and yet not strange when one considers it. At least we were 
never jealous of one another. How the details rush back upon one! I 
think we must have fallen in love with her at the same moment--for we 
were together when we saw her for the first time, we were together 
when we went first to call on her in the Rue d'Alva--I doubt if we 
ever saw her except together. It was soon after we began to get 
intimate that she wore white again. She told us that we had given her 
back her youth. She joined our sketching expeditions with the most 
supreme contempt for _les convenances_; when she was not fluttering 
round, passing from Lorimer's canvas to mine with her sweetly 
inconsequent criticism, she sat in the long grass and read to 
us--André Chénier and Lamartine. In the evening we went to see her; 
she denied herself to the rest of the world, and we sat for hours in 
that ancient room in the delicious twilight, while she sang to us--she 
sang divinely--little French _chansons_, gay and sad, and snatches of 
_operette_. How we adored her! I think she knew from the first how it 
would be and postponed it as long as she could. But at last she saw 
that it was inevitable.... I remember the last evening that we were 
there--remember--shall I ever forget it? We had stayed beyond our 
usual hour and when we rose to go we all of us knew that those 
pleasant irresponsible evenings had come to an end. And both Lorimer 
and I stood for a moment on the threshold before we said good-night, 
feeling I suppose that one of us was there for the last time.

And how graceful, how gracious she was as she held out one little 
white hand to Lorimer and one to me. 'Good-night, dear friends,' she 
said, 'I like you both so much--so much. Believe me, I am grateful to 
you both--for having given me back my faith in life, in friendship, 
believe that, will you not, _mes amis_?' Then for just one delirious 
moment her eyes met mine and it seemed to me--ah, well, after all it 
was Lorimer she loved.


_7th October._

It seems a Quixotic piece of folly now, our proposal we would neither 
take advantage of the other, but we both of us _must_ speak. We wrote 
to her at the same time and likely enough, in the same words, we 
posted our letters by the same post. To-day I had the curiosity to 
take out her answer to me from my desk, and I read it quite calmly and 
dispassionately, the poor yellow letter with the faded ink, which 
wrote 'Finis' to my youth and made a man of me.

'_Pauvre cher Ami_,' she wrote to me, and when I had read that, for 
the first time in my life and the only time Lorimer's superiority was 
bitter to me. The rest I deciphered through scalding tears.

'_Pauvre cher Ami_, I am very sorry for you, and yet I think you 
should have guessed and have spared yourself this pain, and me too a 
little. No, my friend, that which you ask of me is impossible. You are 
my dear friend, but it is your brother whom I love--your brother, for 
are you not as brothers, and I cannot break your beautiful friendship. 
No, that must not be. See, I ask one favour of you--I have written 
also to him, only one little word "Viens,"--but will you not go to him 
and tell him for me? Ah, my brother, my heart bleeds for you. I too 
have suffered in my time. You will go away now, yes, that is best, but 
you will return when this fancy of yours has passed. Ah forgive 
me--that I am happy--forgive us, forgive me. Let us still be friends. 
Adieu! Au revoir.

'Thy Sister, 
DELPHINE.'

I suppose it was about an hour later that I took out my letter to 
Lorimer. I told him as I told myself, that it was the fortune of war, 
that she had chosen the better man, but I could not bear to stay and 
see their happiness. I was in London before the evening. I wanted 
work, hard, grinding work, I was tired of being a briefless barrister, 
and as it happened, an Indian opening offered itself at the very 
moment when I had decided that Europe had become impossible to me. I 
accepted it, and so those two happy ones passed out of my life.

Twenty years ago! and in spite of his promise he has never written 
from that day till this, not so much as a line to tell me of his 
marriage. I made a vow then that I would get over my folly, and it 
seemed to me that my vow was kept. And yet here to-day, in Bruges, I 
am asking myself whether after all it has been such a great success, 
whether sooner or later one does not have to pay for having been hard 
and strong, for refusing to suffer.... I must leave this place, it is 
too full of Madame de Savaresse.... Is it curiosity which is torturing 
me? I _must_ find Lorimer. If he married her, why has he been so 
persistently silent? If he did not marry her, what in Heaven's name 
does it mean? These are vexing questions.


_10th October._

In the Church of the Dames Rouges, I met to-day my old friend 
Sebastian Lorimer. Strange! Strange! He was greatly altered, I wonder 
almost that I recognised him. I had strolled into the church for 
benediction, for the first time since I have been back here, and when 
the service was over and I swung back the heavy door, with the 
exquisite music of the 'O Salutaris,' sung by those buried women 
behind the screen still echoing in my ear, I paused a moment to let a 
man pass by me. It was Lorimer, he looked wild and worn; it was no 
more than the ghost of my old friend. I was shocked and startled by 
his manner. We shook hands quite impassively as if we had parted 
yesterday. He talked in a rambling way as we walked towards my hotel, 
of the singing of the nuns, of the numerous religious processions, of 
the blessed doctrine of the intercession of saints. The old melodious 
voice was unchanged, but it was pitched in the singularly low key 
which I have noticed some foreign priests acquire who live much in 
churches. I gather that he has become a Catholic. I do not know what 
intangible instinct, or it may be fear, prevented me from putting to 
him the vital question which has so perplexed me. It is astonishing 
how his face has changed, what an extraordinary restlessness his 
speech and eye have acquired. It never was so of old. My first 
impression was that he was suffering from some acute form of nervous 
disorder, but before I left him a more unpleasant suspicion was 
gradually forced upon me. I cannot help thinking that there is more 
than a touch of insanity in my old friend. I tried from time to time 
to bring him down to personal topics, but he eluded them dexterously, 
and it was only for a moment or so that I could keep him away from the 
all absorbing subject of the Catholic Church, which seems in some of 
its more sombre aspects to exercise an extraordinary fascination over 
him. I asked him if he often visited Bruges.

He looked up at me with a curious expression of surprise.

'I live here,' he said, 'almost always.' I have done so for years....' 
Presently he added hurriedly, 'You have come back. I thought you would 
come back, but you have been gone a long time--oh, a long time! It 
seems years since we met. Do you remember--?' He checked himself; then 
he added in a low whisper, 'We all come back, we all come back.'

He uttered a quaint, short laugh.

'One can be near--very near, even if one can never be quite close.'

He tells me that he still paints, and that the Academy, to which he 
sends a picture yearly, has recently elected him an Associate. But his 
art does not seem to absorb him as it did of old, and he speaks of his 
success drily and as a matter of very secondary importance. He refused 
to dine with me, alleging an engagement, but that so hesitatingly and 
with such vagueness that I could perceive it was the merest pretext. 
His manner was so strange and remote that I did not venture to press 
him. I think he is unhappily conscious of his own frequent 
incoherencies and at moments there are quite painful pauses when he is 
obviously struggling with dumb piteousness to be lucid, to collect 
himself and pick up certain lost threads in his memory. He is coming 
to see me this evening, at his own suggestion, and I am waiting for 
him now with a strange terror oppressing me. I cannot help thinking 
that he possesses the key to all that has so puzzled me, and that 
to-night he will endeavour to speak.


_11th October._

Poor Lorimer! I have hardly yet got over the shock which his visit 
last night caused me, and the amazement with which I heard and read 
between the lines of his strange confession. His once clear reason is, 
I fear, hopelessly obscured, and how much of his story is 
hallucination, I cannot say. His notions of time and place are quite 
confused, and out of his rambling statement I can only be sure of one 
fact. It seems that he has done me a great wrong, an irreparable 
wrong, which he has since bitterly repented.

And in the light of this poor wretch's story, a great misunderstanding 
is rolled away, and I am left with the conviction that the last twenty 
years have been after all a huge blunder, an irrevocable and miserable 
mistake. Through my own rash precipitancy and Lorimer's weak 
treachery, a trivial mischance that a single word would have 
rectified, has been prolonged beyond hope of redress. It seems that 
after all it was not Lorimer whom she chose. Madame de Savaresse 
writing to us both twenty years ago, made a vital and yet not 
inexplicable mistake. She confused her envelopes, and the letter which 
I received was never meant for me, although it was couched in such 
ambiguous terms that until to-day the possibility of this error never 
dawned on me. And my letter, the one little word of which she spoke, 
was sent to Lorimer. Poor wretch! he did me a vital injury--yes, I can 
say that now--a vital injury, but on the whole I pity him. To have 
been suddenly dashed down from the pinnacles of happiness, it must 
have been a cruel blow. He tells me that when he saw her that 
afternoon and found out his mistake, he had no thought except to 
recall me. He actually came to London for that purpose, vowed to her 
solemnly that he would bring me back; it was only in England, that, to 
use his own distraught phrase, the Devil entered into possession of 
him. His half-insane ramblings gave me a very vivid idea of that 
fortnight during which he lay hid in London, trembling like a guilty 
thing, fearful at every moment that he might run across me and yet 
half longing for the meeting with the irresoluteness of the weak 
nature, which can conceive and to a certain extent execute a 
_lâcheté_, yet which would always gladly yield to circumstance and let 
chance or fate decide the issue. And to the very last Lorimer was 
wavering--had almost sought me out, and thrown himself on my mercy, 
when the news came that I had sailed.

Destiny who has no weak scruples, had stepped in and sealed Delphine's 
mistake for all time, after her grim fashion. When he went back to 
Bruges, and saw Madame de Savaresse, I think she must have partly 
guessed his baseness. Lorimer was not strong enough to be a successful 
hypocrite, and that meeting, I gather, was also their final parting. 
She must have said things to him in her beautiful quiet voice which he 
has never forgotten. He went away and each day he was going to write 
to me, and each day he deferred it, and then he took up the _Times_ 
one morning and read the announcement of my marriage. After that it 
seemed to him that he could only be silent....

Did _she_ know of it too? Did she suffer or did she understand? Poor 
woman! poor woman! I wonder if she consoled herself, as I did, and if 
so how she looks back on her success? I wonder whether she is happy, 
whether she is dead? I suppose these are questions which will remain 
unanswered. And yet when Lorimer left me at a late hour last night, it 
seemed to me that the air was full of unspoken words. Does he know 
anything of her now! I have a right to ask him these things. And 
to-morrow I am to meet him, he made the request most strangely--at the 
same place where we fell in with each other to-day--until to-morrow 
then!


_12th October._

I have just left Sebastian Lorimer at the Church of the Dames Rouges. 
I hope I was not cruel, but there are some things which one can 
neither forget nor forgive, and it seemed to me that when I knew the 
full measure of the ruin he had wrought, my pity for him withered 
away. 'I hope, Lorimer,' I said, 'that we may never meet again.' And, 
honestly, I cannot forgive him. If she had been happy, if she had let 
time deal gently with her--ah yes, even if she were dead--it might be 
easier. But that this living entombment, this hopeless death in life 
should befall her, she so magnificently fitted for life's finer 
offices, ah, the pity of it, the pity of it!... But let me set down 
the whole sad story as it dawned upon me this afternoon in that 
unearthly church. I was later than the hour appointed; vespers were 
over and a server, taper in hand, was gradually transforming the gloom 
of the high altar into a blaze of light. With a strange sense of 
completion I took my place next to the chair by which Lorimer, with 
bowed head, was kneeling, his eyes fixed with a strange intentness on 
the screen which separated the outer worshippers from the chapel or 
gallery which was set apart for the nuns. His lips moved from time to 
time spasmodically, in prayer or ejaculation: then as the jubilant 
organ burst out, and the officiating priest in his dalmatic of cloth 
of gold passed from the sacristy and genuflected at the altar, he 
seemed to be listening in a very passion of attention. But as the 
incense began to fill the air, and the Litany of Loreto smote on my 
ear to some sorrowful, undulating Gregorian, I lost thought of the 
wretched man beside me; I forgot the miserable mistake that he had 
perpetuated, and I was once more back in the past--with 
Delphine--kneeling by her side. Strophe by strophe that perfect litany 
rose and was lost in a cloud of incense, in the mazy arches of the 
roof.

  'Janua cœli,
  Stella matutina,
  Salus infirmorum, Ora pro nobis!'

In strophe and antistrophe: the melancholy, nasal intonation of the 
priest died away, and the exquisite women's voices in the gallery took 
it up with exultation, and yet with something like a sob--a sob of 
limitation.

  'Refugium peccatorum,
  Consolatrix afflictorum,
  Auxilium Christianorum, Ora pro nobis!'

And so on through all the exquisite changes of the hymn, until the 
time of the music changed, and the priest intoned the closing line.

  'Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genetrix!'

and the voices in the gallery answered:

  'Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.'

There was one voice which rose above all the others, a voice of 
marvellous sweetness and power, which from the first moment had caused 
me a curious thrill. And presently Lorimer bent down and whispered to 
me: 'So near,' he murmured, 'and yet so far away--so near, and yet 
never quite close!'

But before he had spoken I had read in his rigid face, in his eyes 
fixed with such a passion of regret on the screen, why we were 
there--whose voice it was we had listened to.

I rose and went out of the church quietly and hastily; I felt that to 
stay there one moment longer would be suffocation.... Poor woman! so 
this is how she sought consolation, in religion! Well, there are 
different ways for different persons--and for me--what is there left 
for me? Oh, many things, no doubt, many things. Still, for once and 
for the last time, let me set myself down as a dreary fraud. I never 
forgot her, not for one hour or day, not even when it seemed to me 
that I had forgotten her most, not even when I married. No woman ever 
represented to me the same idea as Madame de Savaresse. No woman's 
voice was ever sweet to me after hers, the touch of no woman's hand 
ever made my heart beat one moment quicker for pleasure or for pain, 
since I pressed hers for the last time on that fateful evening twenty 
years ago. Even so--!...

When the service was over and the people had streamed out and 
dispersed, I went back for the last time into the quiet church. A 
white robed server was extinguishing the last candle on the altar; 
only the one red light perpetually vigilant before the sanctuary, made 
more visible the deep shadows everywhere.

Lorimer was still kneeling with bowed head in his place. Presently he 
rose and came towards me. 'She was there--Delphine--you heard her. Ah, 
Dion, she loves you, she always loves you, you are avenged.'

I gather that for years he has spent hours daily in this church, to be 
near her, and hear her voice, the magnificent voice rising above all 
the other voices in the chants of her religion. But he will never see 
her, for is she not of the Dames Rouges! And I remember now all the 
stories of the Order, of its strictness, its austerity, its perfect 
isolation. And chiefly, I remember how they say that only twice after 
one of these nuns has taken her vows is she seen of any one except 
those of her community; once, when she enters the Order, the door of 
the convent is thrown back and she is seen for a single moment in the 
scarlet habit of the Order, by the world, by all who care to gaze; and 
once more, at the last, when clad in the same coarse red garb, they 
bear her out quietly, in her coffin, into the church.

And of this last meeting, Lorimer, I gather, is always restlessly 
expectant, his whole life concentrated, as it were, in a very passion 
of waiting for a moment which will surely come. His theory, I confess, 
escapes me, nor can I guess how far a certain feverish remorse, an 
intention of expiation may be set as a guiding spring in his unhinged 
mind, and account, at least in part, for the fantastic attitude which 
he must have adopted for many years. If I cannot forgive him, at least 
I bear him no malice, and for the rest, our paths will hardly cross 
again. One takes up one's life and expiates its errors, each after 
one's several fashion--and my way is not Lorimer's. And now that it is 
all so clear, there is nothing to keep me here any longer, nothing to 
bring me back again. For it seemed to me to-day, strangely enough, as 
though a certain candle of hope, of promise, of pleasant 
possibilities, which had flickered with more or less light for so many 
years, had suddenly gone out and left me alone in utter darkness, as 
the knowledge was borne in upon me that henceforth Madame de Savaresse 
had passed altogether and finally out of my life.

And so to-morrow--Brussels!




A CASE OF CONSCIENCE


I

It was in Brittany, and the apples were already acquiring a ruddier, 
autumnal tint, amid their greens and yellows, though Autumn was not 
yet; and the country lay very still and fair in the sunset which had 
befallen, softly and suddenly as is the fashion there. A man and a 
girl stood looking down in silence at the village, Ploumariel, from 
their post of vantage, half way up the hill: at its lichened church 
spire, dotted with little gables, like dove-cotes; at the slated roof 
of its market; at its quiet white houses. The man's eyes rested on it 
complacently, with the enjoyment of the painter, finding it charming: 
the girl's, a little absently, as one who had seen it very often 
before. She was pretty and very young, but her gray serious eyes, the 
poise of her head, with its rebellious brown hair braided plainly, 
gave her a little air of dignity, of reserve which sat piquantly upon 
her youth. In one ungloved hand, that was brown from the sun, but very 
beautiful, she held an old parasol, the other played occasionally with 
a bit of purple heather. Presently she began to speak, using English 
just coloured by a foreign accent, that made her speech prettier.

'You make me afraid,' she said, turning her large, troubled eyes on 
her companion, 'you make me afraid, of myself chiefly, but a little of 
you. You suggest so much to me that is new, strange, terrible. When 
you speak, I am troubled; all my old landmarks appear to vanish; I 
even hardly know right from wrong. I love you, my God, how I love you! 
but I want to go away from you and pray in the little quiet church, 
where I made my first Communion. I will come to the world's end with 
you; but oh, Sebastian, do not ask me, let me go. You will forget me, 
I am a little girl to you, Sebastian. You cannot care very much for 
me.'

The man looked down at her, smiling masterfully, but very kindly. He 
took the mutinous hand, with its little sprig of heather, and held it 
between his own. He seemed to find her insistence adorable; mentally, 
he was contrasting her with all other women whom he had known, 
frowning at the memory of so many years in which she had no part. He 
was a man of more than forty, built large to an uniform English 
pattern; there was a touch of military erectness in his carriage which 
often deceived people as to his vocation. Actually, he had never been 
anything but artist, though he came of a family of soldiers, and had 
once been war correspondent of an illustrated paper. A certain 
distinction had always adhered to him, never more than now when he was 
no longer young, was growing bald, had streaks of gray in his 
moustache. His face, without being handsome, possessed a certain 
charm; it was worn and rather pale, the lines about the firm mouth 
were full of lassitude, the eyes rather tired. He had the air of 
having tasted widely, curiously, of life in his day, prosperous as he 
seemed now, that had left its mark upon him. His voice, which usually 
took an intonation that his friends found supercilious, grew very 
tender in addressing this little French girl, with her quaint air of 
childish dignity.

'Marie-Yvonne, foolish child, I will not hear one word more. You are a 
little heretic; and I am sorely tempted to seal your lips from 
uttering heresy. You tell me that you love me, and you ask me to let 
you go, in one breath. The impossible conjuncture! Marie-Yvonne,' he 
added, more seriously, 'trust yourself to me, my child! You know, I 
will never give you up. You know that these months that I have been at 
Ploumariel, are worth all the rest of my life to me. It has been a 
difficult life, hitherto, little one: change it for me; make it worth 
while. You would let morbid fancies come between us. You have lived 
overmuch in that little church, with its worm-eaten benches, and its 
mildewed odour of dead people, and dead ideas. Take care, 
Marie-Yvonne: it had made you serious-eyed, before you have learnt to 
laugh; by and by, it will steal away your youth, before you have ever 
been young. I come to claim you, Marie-Yvonne, in the name of Life.' 
His words were half-jesting; his eyes were profoundly in earnest. He 
drew her to him gently; and when he bent down and kissed her forehead, 
and then her shy lips, she made no resistance: only, a little tremor 
ran through her. Presently, with equal gentleness, he put her away 
from him. 'You have already given me your answer, Marie-Yvonne. 
Believe me, you will never regret it. Let us go down.'

They took their way in silence towards the village; presently a bend 
of the road hid them from it, and he drew closer to her, helping her 
with his arm over the rough stones. Emerging, they had gone thirty 
yards so, before the scent of English tobacco drew their attention to 
a figure seated by the road-side, under a hedge; they recognised it, 
and started apart, a little consciously.

'It is M. Tregellan,' said the young girl, flushing: 'and he must have 
seen us.'

Her companion, frowning, hardly suppressed a little quick objurgation.

'It makes no matter,' he observed, after a moment: 'I shall see your 
uncle to-morrow and we know, good man, how he wishes this; and, in any 
case, I would have told Tregellan.'

The figure rose, as they drew near: he shook the ashes out of his 
briar, and removed it to his pocket. He was a slight man, with an 
ugly, clever face; his voice as he greeted them, was very low and 
pleasant.

'You must have had a charming walk, Mademoiselle. I have seldom seen 
Ploumariel look better.'

'Yes,' she said, gravely, 'it has been very pleasant. But I must not 
linger now,' she added breaking a little silence in which none of them 
seemed quite at ease. 'My uncle will be expecting me to supper.' She 
held out her hand, in the English fashion, to Tregellan, and then to 
Sebastian Murch, who gave the little fingers a private pressure.

They had come into the market-place round which most of the houses in 
Ploumariel were grouped. They watched the young girl cross it briskly; 
saw her blue gown pass out of sight down a bye street: then they 
turned to their own hotel. It was a low, white house, belted half way 
down the front with black stone; a pictorial object, as most Breton 
hostels. The ground floor was a _café_; and, outside it, a bench and 
long stained table enticed them to rest. They sat down, and ordered 
_absinthes_, as the hour suggested: these were brought to them 
presently by an old servant of the house; an admirable figure, with 
the white sleeves and apron relieving her linsey dress: with her good 
Breton face, and its effective wrinkles. For some time they sat in 
silence, drinking and smoking. The artist appeared to be absorbed in 
contemplation of his drink; considering its clouded green in various 
lights. After a while the other looked up, and remarked, abruptly.

'I may as well tell you that I happened to overlook you, just now, 
unintentionally.'

Sebastian Murch held up his glass, with absent eyes.

'Don't mention it, my dear fellow,' he remarked, at last, urbanely.

'I beg your pardon; but I am afraid I must.'

He spoke with an extreme deliberation which suggested nervousness; 
with the air of a person reciting a little set speech, learnt 
imperfectly: and he looked very straight in front of him, out into the 
street, at two dogs quarrelling over some offal.

'I daresay you will be angry: I can't avoid that; at least, I have 
known you long enough to hazard it. I have had it on my mind to say 
something. If I have been silent, it hasn't been because I have been 
blind, or approved. I have seen how it was all along. I gathered it 
from your letters when I was in England. Only until this afternoon I 
did not know how far it had gone, and now I am sorry I did not speak 
before.'

He stopped short, as though he expected his friend's subtilty to come 
to his assistance; with admissions or recriminations. But the other 
was still silent, absent: his face wore a look of annoyed 
indifference. After a while, as Tregellan still halted, he observed 
quietly:

'You must be a little more explicit. I confess I miss your meaning.'

'Ah, don't be paltry,' cried the other, quickly. 'You know my meaning. 
To be very plain, Sebastian, are you quite justified in playing with 
that charming girl, in compromising her?'

The artist looked up at last, smiling; his expressive mouth was set, 
not angrily, but with singular determination.

'With Mademoiselle Mitouard?'

'Exactly; with the niece of a man whose guest you have recently been.'

'My dear fellow!' he stopped a little, considering his words: 'You are 
hasty and uncharitable for such a very moral person! you jump at 
conclusions, Tregellan. I don't, you know, admit your right to 
question me: still, as you have introduced the subject, I may as well 
satisfy you. I have asked Mademoiselle Mitouard to marry me, and she 
has consented, subject to her uncle's approval. And that her uncle, 
who happens to prefer the English method of courtship, is not likely 
to refuse.'

The other held his cigar between two fingers, a little away; his 
curiously anxious face suggested that the question had become to him 
one of increased nicety.

'I am sorry,' he said, after a moment; 'this is worse than I imagined; 
it's impossible.'

'It is you that are impossible, Tregellan,' said Sebastian Murch. He 
looked at him now, quite frankly, absolutely: his eyes had a defiant 
light in them, as though he hoped to be criticised; wished nothing 
better than to stand on his defence, to argue the thing out. And 
Tregellan sat for a long time without speaking, appreciating his 
purpose. It seemed more monstrous the closer he considered it: natural 
enough withal, and so, harder to defeat; and yet, he was sure, that 
defeated it must be. He reflected how accidental it had all been: 
their presence there, in Ploumariel, and the rest! Touring in 
Brittany, as they had often done before, in their habit of old 
friends, they had fallen upon it by chance, a place unknown of Murray; 
and the merest chance had held them there. They had slept at the _Lion 
d'Or_, voted it magnificently picturesque, and would have gone away 
and forgotten it; but the chance of travel had for once defeated them. 
Hard by they heard of the little votive chapel of Saint Bernard; at 
the suggestion of their hostess they set off to visit it. It was built 
steeply on an edge of rock, amongst odorous pines overhanging a 
ravine, at the bottom of which they could discern a brown torrent 
purling tumidly along. For the convenience of devotees, iron rings, at 
short intervals, were driven into the wall; holding desperately to 
these, the pious pilgrim, at some peril, might compass the circuit; 
saying an oraison to Saint Bernard, and some ten _Aves_. Sebastian, 
who was charmed with the wild beauty of the scene, in a country 
ordinarily so placid, had been seized with a fit of emulation: not in 
any mood of devotion, but for the sake of a wider prospect. Tregellan 
had protested: and the Saint, resenting the purely æsthetic motive of 
the feat, had seemed to intervene. For, half-way round, growing giddy 
may be, the artist had made a false step, lost his hold. Tregellan, 
with a little cry of horror, saw him disappear amidst crumbling mortar 
and uprooted ferns. It was with a sensible relief, for the fall had 
the illusion of great depth, that, making his way rapidly down a 
winding path, he found him lying on a grass terrace, amidst _débris_ 
twenty feet lower, cursing his folly, and holding a lamentably 
sprained ankle, but for the rest uninjured! Tregellan had made off in 
haste to Ploumariel in search of assistance; and within the hour he 
had returned with two stalwart Bretons and M. le Docteur Mitouard.

Their tour had been, naturally, drawing to its close. Tregellan indeed 
had an imperative need to be in London within the week. It seemed, 
therefore, a clear dispensation of Providence, that the amiable doctor 
should prove an hospitable person, and one inspiring confidence no 
less. Caring greatly for things foreign, and with an especial passion 
for England, a country whence his brother had brought back a wife; M. 
le Docteur Mitouard insisted that the invalid could be cared for 
properly at his house alone. And there, in spite of protestations, 
earnest from Sebastian, from Tregellan halfhearted, he was installed. 
And there, two days later, Tregellan left him with an easy mind; 
bearing away with him, half enviously, the recollection of the young, 
charming face of a girl, the Doctor's niece, as he had seen her 
standing by his friend's sofa when he paid his _adieux_; in the 
beginnings of an intimacy, in which, as he foresaw, the petulance of 
the invalid, his impatience at an enforced detention, might be 
considerably forgot. And all that had been two months ago.


II

'I am sorry you don't see it,' continued Tregellan, after a pause, 'to 
me it seems impossible; considering your history it takes me by 
surprise.'

The other frowned slightly; finding this persistence perhaps a trifle 
crude, he remarked good-humouredly enough:

'Will you be good enough to explain your opposition? Do you object to 
the girl? You have been back a week now, during which you have seen 
almost as much of her as I.'

'She is a child, to begin with; there is five-and-twenty years' 
disparity between you. But it's the relation I object to, not the 
girl. Do you intend to live in Ploumariel?'

Sebastian smiled, with a suggestion of irony.

'Not precisely; I think it would interfere a little with my career; 
why do you ask?'

'I imagined not; you will go back to London with your little Breton 
wife, who is as charming here as the apple-blossom in her own garden. 
You will introduce her to your circle, who will receive her with open 
arms; all the clever bores, who write, and talk, and paint, and are 
talked about between Bloomsbury and Kensington. Everybody who is 
emancipated will know her, and everybody who has a "fad"; and they 
will come in a body and emancipate her, and teach her their "fads."'

'That is a caricature of my circle, as you call it, Tregellan! though 
I may remind you it is also yours. I think she is being starved in 
this corner, spiritually. She has a beautiful soul, and it has had no 
chance. I propose to give it one, and I am not afraid of the result.'

Tregellan threw away the stump of his cigar into the darkling street, 
with a little gesture of discouragement, of lassitude.

'She has had the chance to become what she is, a perfect thing.'

'My dear fellow,' exclaimed his friend, 'I could not have said more 
myself.'

The other continued, ignoring his interruption.

'She has had great luck. She has been brought up by an old eccentric, 
on the English system of growing up as she liked. And no harm has come 
of it, at least until it gave you the occasion of making love to her.'

'You are candid, Tregellan!'

'Let her go, Sebastian, let her go,' he continued, with increasing 
gravity. 'Consider what a transplantation; from this world of 
Ploumariel where everything is fixed for her by that venerable old 
_Curé_, where life is so easy, so ordered, to yours, ours; a world 
without definitions, where everything is an open question.'

'Exactly,' said the artist, 'why should she be so limited? I would 
give her scope, ideas. I can't see that I am wrong.'

'She will not accept them, your ideas. They will trouble her, terrify 
her; in the end, divide you. It is not an elastic nature. I have 
watched it.'

'At least, allow me to know her,' put in the artist, a little grimly.

Tregellan shook his head.

'The Breton blood; her English mother: passionate Catholicism! a touch 
of Puritan! Have you quite made up your mind, Sebastian?'

'I made it up long ago, Tregellan!'

The other looked at him, curiously, compassionately; with a touch of 
resentment at what he found his lack of subtilty. Then he said at 
last:

'I called it impossible; you force me to be very explicit, even cruel. 
I must remind you, that you are, of all my friends, the one I value 
most, could least afford to lose.'

'You must be going to say something extremely disagreeable! something 
horrible,' said the artist, slowly.

'I am,' said Tregellan, 'but I must say it. Have you explained to 
Mademoiselle, or her uncle, your--your peculiar position?'

Sebastian was silent for a moment, frowning: the lines about his mouth 
grew a little sterner; at last he said coldly:

'If I were to answer, Yes?'

'Then I should understand that there was no further question of your 
marriage.'

Presently the other commenced in a hard, leaden voice.

'No, I have not told Marie-Yvonne that. I shall not tell her. I have 
suffered enough for a youthful folly; an act of mad generosity. I 
refuse to allow an infamous woman to wreck my future life as she has 
disgraced my past. Legally, she has passed out of it; morally, 
legally, she is not my wife. For all I know she may be actually dead.'

The other was watching his face, very gray and old now, with an 
anxious compassion.

'You know she is not dead, Sebastian,' he said simply. Then he added 
very quietly as one breaks supreme bad tidings, 'I must tell you 
something which I fear you have not realised. The Catholic Church does 
not recognise divorce. If she marry you and find out, rightly or 
wrongly, she will believe that she has been living in sin; some day 
she will find it out. No damnable secret like that keeps itself for 
ever: an old newspaper, a chance remark from one of your dear friends, 
and the deluge. Do you see the tragedy, the misery of it? By God, 
Sebastian, to save you both somebody shall tell her; and if it be not 
you, it must be I.'

There was extremest peace in the quiet square; the houses seemed 
sleepy at last, after a day of exhausting tranquillity, and the 
chestnuts, under which a few children, with tangled hair and fair 
dirty faces, still played. The last glow of the sun fell on the gray 
roofs opposite; dying hard it seemed over the street in which the 
Mitouards lived; and they heard suddenly the tinkle of an _Angelus_ 
bell. Very placid! the place and the few peasants in their pictorial 
hats and caps who lingered. Only the two Englishmen sitting, their 
glasses empty, and their smoking over, looking out on it all with 
their anxious faces, brought in a contrasting note of modern life; of 
the complex aching life of cities, with its troubles and its 
difficulties.

'Is that your final word, Tregellan?' asked the artist at last, a 
little wearily.

'It must be, Sebastian! Believe me, I am infinitely sorry.'

'Yes, of course,' he answered quickly, acidly; 'well, I will sleep
on it.'


III

They made their first breakfast in an almost total silence; both wore 
the bruised harassed air which tells of a night passed without benefit 
of sleep. Immediately afterwards Murch went out alone: Tregellan could 
guess the direction of his visit, but not its object; he wondered if 
the artist was making his difficult confession. Presently they brought 
him in a pencilled note; he recognised, with some surprise, his 
friend's tortuous hand.

'I have considered our conversation, and your unjustifiable 
interference. I am entirely in your hands: at the mercy of your 
extraordinary notions of duty. Tell her what you will, if you must; 
and pave the way to your own success. I shall say nothing; but I swear 
you love the girl yourself; and are no right arbiter here. Sebastian 
Murch.'

He read the note through twice before he grasped its purport; then sat 
holding it in lax fingers, his face grown singularly gray.

'It's not true, it's not true,' he cried aloud, but a moment later 
knew himself for a self-deceiver all along. Never had 
self-consciousness been more sudden, unexpected, or complete. There 
was no more to do or say; this knowledge tied his hands. _Ite! missa 
est!_...

He spent an hour painfully invoking casuistry, tossed to and fro 
irresolutely, but never for a moment disputing that plain fact which 
Sebastian had so brutally illuminated. Yes! he loved her, had loved 
her all along. Marie-Yvonne! how the name expressed her! at once sweet 
and serious, arch and sad as her nature. The little Breton wild 
flower! how cruel it seemed to gather her! And he could do no more; 
Sebastian had tied his hands. Things must be! He was a man nicely 
conscientious, and now all the elaborate devices of his honour, which 
had persuaded him to a disagreeable interference, were contraposed 
against him. This suspicion of an ulterior motive had altered it, and 
so at last he was left to decide with a sigh, that because he loved 
these two so well, he must let them go their own way to misery.

Coming in later in the day, Sebastian Murch found his friend packing.

'I have come to get your answer,' he said; 'I have been walking about 
the hills like a madman for hours. I have not been near her; I am 
afraid. Tell me what you mean to do?'

Tregellan rose, shrugged his shoulders, pointed to his valise.

'God help you both! I would have saved you if you had let me. The 
Quimperlé _Courrier_ passes in half-an-hour. I am going by it. I shall 
catch a night train to Paris.'

As Sebastian said nothing; continued to regard him with the same dull, 
anxious gaze, he went on after a moment:

'You did me a grave injustice; you should have known me better than 
that. God knows I meant nothing shameful, only the best; the least 
misery for you and her.'

'It was true then?' said Sebastian, curiously. His voice was very 
cold; Tregellan found him altered. He regarded the thing as it had 
been very remote, and outside them both.

'I did not know it then,' said Tregellan, shortly.

He knelt down again and resumed his packing. Sebastian, leaning 
against the bed, watched him with absent intensity, which was yet 
alive to trivial things, and he handed him from time to time a book, a 
brush, which the other packed mechanically with elaborate care. There 
was no more to say, and presently, when the chambermaid entered for 
his luggage, they went down and out into the splendid sunshine, 
silently. They had to cross the Square to reach the carriage, a dusty 
ancient vehicle, hooded, with places for four, which waited outside 
the postoffice. A man in a blue blouse preceded them, carrying 
Tregellan's things. From the corner they could look down the road to 
Quimperlé, and their eyes both sought the white house of Doctor 
Mitouard, standing back a little in its trim garden, with its one 
incongruous apple tree; but there was no one visible.

Presently, Sebastian asked, suddenly:

'Is it true, that you said last night: divorce to a Catholic--?'

Tregellan interrupted him.

'It is absolutely true, my poor friend.'

He had climbed into his place at the back, settled himself on the 
shiny leather cushion: he appeared to be the only passenger. Sebastian 
stood looking drearily in at the window, the glass of which had long 
perished.

'I wish I had never known, Tregellan! How could I ever tell her!'

Inside, Tregellan shrugged his shoulders: not impatiently, or angrily, 
but in sheer impotence; as one who gave it up.

'I can't help you,' he said, 'you must arrange it with your own 
conscience.'

'Ah, it's too difficult!' cried the other: 'I can't find my way.'

The driver cracked his whip, suggestively; Sebastian drew back a 
little further from the off wheel.

'Well,' said the other, 'if you find it, write and tell me. I am very 
sorry, Sebastian.'

'Good-bye,' he replied. 'Yes! I will write.'

The carriage lumbered off, with a lurch to the right, as it turned the 
corner; it rattled down the hill, raising a cloud of white dust. As it 
passed the Mitouards' house, a young girl, in a large straw hat, came 
down the garden, too late to discover whom it contained. She watched 
it out of sight, indifferently, leaning on the little iron gate; then 
she turned, to recognize the long stooping figure of Sebastian Murch, 
who advanced to meet her.




AN ORCHESTRAL VIOLIN


I

At my dining-place in old Soho--I call it mine because there was a 
time when I became somewhat inveterate there, keeping my napkin 
(changed once a week) in a ring recognisable by myself and the waiter, 
my bottle of Beaune (replenished more frequently), and my accustomed 
seat--at this restaurant of mine, with its confusion of tongues, its 
various, foreign _clientèle_, amid all the coming and going, the 
nightly change of faces, there were some which remained the same, 
persons with whom, though one might never have spoken, one had 
nevertheless from the mere continuity of juxtaposition a certain sense 
of intimacy.

There was one old gentleman in particular, as inveterate as myself, 
who especially aroused my interest. A courteous, punctual, mild old 
man with an air which deprecated notice; who conversed each evening 
for a minute or two with the proprietor, as he rolled, always at the 
same hour, a valedictory cigarette, in a language that arrested my ear 
by its strangeness; and which proved to be his own, Hungarian; who 
addressed a brief remark to me at times, half apologetically, in the 
precisest of English. We sat next each other at the same table, came 
and went at much the same hour; and for a long while our intercourse 
was restricted to formal courtesies; mutual inquiries after each 
other's health, a few urbane strictures on the climate. The little old 
gentleman in spite of his aspect of shabby gentility,--for his coat 
was sadly inefficient, and the nap of his carefully brushed hat did 
not indicate prosperity--perhaps even because of this suggestion of 
fallen fortunes, bore himself with pathetic erectness, almost 
haughtily. He did not seem amenable to advances. It was a long time 
before I knew him well enough to value rightly this appearance, the 
timid defences, behind which a very shy and delicate nature took 
refuge from the world's coarse curiosity. I can smile now, with a 
certain sadness, when I remind myself that at one time I was somewhat 
in awe of M. Maurice Cristich and his little air of proud humility. 
Now that his place in that dim, foreign eating-house knows him no 
more, and his yellow napkin-ring, with its distinguishing number, has 
been passed on to some other customer; I have it in my mind to set 
down my impressions of him, the short history of our acquaintance. It 
began with an exchange of cards; a form to which he evidently attached 
a ceremonial value, for after that piece of ritual his manner 
underwent a sensible softening, and he showed by many subtile 
indefinable shades in his courteous address, that he did me the honour 
of including me in his friendship. I have his card before me now; a 
large, oblong piece of pasteboard, with _M. Maurice Cristich, Theatre 
Royal_, inscribed upon it, amid many florid flourishes. It enabled me 
to form my first definite notion of his calling, upon which I had 
previously wasted much conjecture; though I had all along, and rightly 
as it appeared, associated him in some manner with music.

In time he was good enough to inform me further. He was a musician, a 
violinist; and formerly, and in his own country, he had been a 
composer. But whether for some lack in him of original talent, or of 
patience, whether for some grossness in the public taste, on which the 
nervous delicacy and refinement of his execution was lost, he had not 
continued. He had been driven by poverty to London, had given lessons, 
and then for many years had played a second violin in the orchestra of 
the Opera.

'It is not much, Monsieur!' he observed, deprecatingly, smoothing his 
hat with the cuff of his frayed coat-sleeve. 'But it is sufficient; 
and I prefer it to teaching. In effect, they are very charming, the 
seraphic young girls of your country! But they seem to care little for 
music; and I am a difficult master, and have not enough patience. 
Once, you see, a long time ago, I had a perfect pupil, and perhaps 
that spoilt me. Yes! I prefer the theatre, though it is less 
profitable. It is not as it once was,' he added, with a half sigh; 'I 
am no longer ambitious. Yes, Monsieur, when I was young, I was 
ambitious. I wrote a symphony and several concertos. I even brought 
out at Vienna an opera, which I thought would make me famous; but the 
good folk of Vienna did not appreciate me, and they would have none of 
my music. They said it was antiquated, my opera, and absurd; and yet, 
it seemed to me good. I think that Gluck, that great genius, would 
have liked it; and that is what I should have wished. Ah! how long ago 
it seems, that time when I was ambitious! But you must excuse me, 
Monsieur! your good company makes me garrulous. I must be at the 
theatre. If I am not in my place at the half-hour, they fine me two 
shillings and sixpence, and that I can ill afford, you know, 
Monsieur!'

In spite of his defeats, his long and ineffectual struggle with 
adversity, M. Cristich, I discovered, as our acquaintance ripened, had 
none of the spleen and little of the vanity of the unsuccessful 
artist. He seemed in his forlorn old age to have accepted his 
discomfiture with touching resignation, having acquired neither 
cynicism nor indifference. He was simply an innocent old man, in love 
with his violin and with his art, who had acquiesced in 
disappointment; and it was impossible to decide, whether he even 
believed in his talent, or had not silently accredited the verdict of 
musical Vienna, which had condemned his opera in those days when he 
was ambitious. The precariousness of the London Opera was the one fact 
which I ever knew to excite him to expressions of personal resentment. 
When its doors were closed, his hard poverty (it was the only occasion 
when he protested against it), drove him, with his dear instrument and 
his accomplished fingers, into the orchestras of lighter houses, where 
he was compelled to play music which he despised. He grew silent and 
rueful during these periods of irksome servitude, rolled innumerable 
cigarettes, which he smoked with fierceness and great rapidity. When 
dinner was done, he was often volubly indignant, in Hungarian, to the 
proprietor. But with the beginning of the season his mood lightened. 
He bore himself more sprucely, and would leave me, to assist at a 
representation of _Don Giovanni_, or _Tannhauser_, with a face which 
was almost radiant. I had known him a year before it struck me that I 
should like to see him in his professional capacity. I told him of my 
desire a little diffidently, not knowing how my purpose might strike 
him. He responded graciously, but with an air of intrigue, laying a 
gentle hand upon my coat sleeve and bidding me wait. A day or two 
later, as we sat over our coffee, M. Cristich with an hesitating 
urbanity offered me an order.

'If you would do me the honour to accept it, Monsieur! It is a stall, 
and a good one! I have never asked for one before, all these years, so 
they gave it to me easily. You see, I have few friends. It is for 
to-morrow, as you observe, I demanded it especially; it is an occasion 
of great interest to me,--ah! an occasion! You will come?'

'You are too good, M. Cristich!' I said with genuine gratitude, for 
indeed the gift came in season, the opera being at that time a luxury 
I could seldom command. 'Need I say that I shall be delighted? And to 
hear Madame Romanoff, a chance one has so seldom!'

The old gentleman's mild, dull eyes glistened. 'Madame Romanoff!' he 
repeated, 'the marvellous Leonora! yes, yes! She has sung only once 
before in London. Ah, when I remember--' He broke off suddenly. As he 
rose, and prepared for departure, he held my hand a little longer than 
usual, giving it a more intimate pressure.

'My dear young friend, will you think me a presumptuous old man, if I 
ask you to come and see me to-morrow in my apartment, when it is over? 
I will give you a glass of whisky, and we will smoke pipes, and you 
shall tell me your impressions--and then I will tell you why to-morrow 
I shall be so proud, why I show this emotion.'


II

The Opera was _Fidelio_, that stately, splendid work, whose melody, if 
one may make a pictorial comparison, has something of that rich and 
sun-warm colour which, certainly, on the canvasses of Rubens, affects 
one as an almost musical quality. It offered brilliant opportunities, 
and the incomparable singer had wasted none of them. So that when, at 
last, I pushed my way out of the crowded house and joined M. Cristich 
at the stage door, where he waited with eyes full of expectancy, the 
music still lingered about me, like the faint, past fragrance of 
incense, and I had no need to speak my thanks. He rested a light hand 
on my arm, and we walked towards his lodging silently; the musician 
carrying his instrument in its sombre case, and shivering from time to 
time, a tribute to the keen spring night. He stooped as he walked, his 
eyes trailing the ground; and a certain listlessness in his manner 
struck me a little strangely, as though he came fresh from some solemn 
or hieratic experience, of which the reaction had already begun to set 
in tediously, leaving him at the last unstrung and jaded, a little 
weary, of himself and the too strenuous occasion. It was not until we 
had crossed the threshold of a dingy, high house in a byway of 
Bloomsbury, and he had ushered me, with apologies, into his shabby 
room, near the sky, that the sense of his hospitable duties seemed to 
renovate him. He produced tumblers from an obscure recess behind his 
bed; set a kettle on the fire, a lodging-house fire, which scarcely 
smouldered with flickers of depressing, sulphurous flame, talking of 
indifferent subjects, as he watched for it to boil.

Only when we had settled ourselves, in uneasy chairs, opposite each 
other, and he had composed me, what he termed 'a grog': himself 
preferring the more innocent mixture known as _eau sucrée_, did he 
allude to _Fidelio_. I praised heartily the discipline of the 
orchestra, the prima donna, whom report made his country-woman, with 
her strong, sweet voice and her extraordinary beauty, the magnificence 
of the music, the fine impression of the whole.

M. Cristich, his glass in hand, nodded approval. He looked intently 
into the fire, which cast mocking shadows over his quaint, incongruous 
figure, his antiquated dress coat, which seemed to skimp him, his 
frost-bitten countenance, his cropped grey hair. 'Yes,' he said, 'Yes! 
So it pleased you, and you thought her beautiful? I am glad.'

He turned round to me abruptly, and laid a thin hand impressively on 
my knee.

'You know I invented her, the Romanoff, discovered her, taught her all 
she learnt. Yes, Monsieur, I was proud to-night, very proud, to be 
there, playing for her, though she did not know. Ah! the beautiful 
creature!... and how badly I played! execrably! You could not notice 
that, Monsieur, but they did, my confrères, and could not understand. 
How should they? How should they dream, that I, Maurice Cristich, 
second violin in the orchestra of the opera, had to do with the 
Leonora; even I! Her voice thrilled them; ah, but it was I who taught 
her her notes! They praised her diamonds; yes, but once I gave her 
that she wanted more than diamonds, bread, and lodging and love. 
Beautiful they called her; she was beautiful too, when I carried her 
in my arms through Vienna. I am an old man now, and good for very 
little; and there have been days, God forgive me! when I have been 
angry with her; but it was not to-night. To see her there, so 
beautiful and so great; and to feel that after all I had a hand in it, 
that I invented her. Yes, yes! I had my victory to-night too; though 
it was so private; a secret between you and me, Monsieur? Is it not?'

I assured him of my discretion, but he hardly seemed to hear. His sad 
eyes had wandered away to the live coals, and he considered them 
pensively, as though he found them full of charming memories. I sat 
back, respecting his remoteness; but my silence was replete with 
surprised conjecture, and indeed the quaint figure of the old 
musician, every line of his garments redolent of ill success, had 
become to me, of a sudden, strangely romantic. Destiny, so amorous of 
surprises, of pathetic or cynical contrasts, had in this instance 
excelled herself. My obscure acquaintance, Maurice Cristich! The 
renowned Romanoff! Her name and acknowledged genius had been often in 
men's mouths of late, a certain luminous, scarcely sacred, glamour 
attaching to it, in an hundred idle stories, due perhaps as much to 
the wonder of her sorrowful beauty, as to any justification in 
knowledge, of her boundless extravagance, her magnificent fantasies, 
her various perversity, rumour pointing specially at those priceless 
diamonds, the favours not altogether gratuitous it was said of exalted 
personages. And with all deductions made, for malice, for the 
ingenuity of the curious, the impression of her perversity was left; 
she remained enigmatical and notorious, a somewhat scandalous heroine! 
And Cristich had known her; he had, as he declared, and his accent was 
not that of bragadoccio, invented her. The conjuncture puzzled and 
fascinated me. It did not make Cristich less interesting, nor the 
prima-donna more perspicuous.

By-and-by the violinist looked up at me; he smiled with a little dazed 
air, as though his thoughts had been a far journey.

'Pardon me, Monsieur! I beg you to fill your glass. I seem a poor 
host; but to tell you the truth, I was dreaming; I was quite away, 
quite away.'

He threw out his hands, with a vague expansive gesture.

'Dear child!' he said to the flames, in French; 'good little one! I do 
not forget thee.' And he began to tell me.

'It was when I was at Vienna, ah! a long while ago. I was not rich, 
but neither was I very poor; I still had my little patrimony, and I 
lived in the ---- Strasse, very economically; it is a quarter which 
many artists frequent. I husbanded my resources, that I might be able 
to work away at my art without the tedium of making it a means of 
livelihood. I refused many offers to play in public, that I might have 
more leisure. I should not do that now; but then, I was very 
confident; I had great faith in me. And I worked very hard at my 
symphony, and I was full of desire to write an opera. It was a tall 
dark house, where I lived; there were many other lodgers, but I knew 
scarcely any of them. I went about with my head full of music and I 
had my violin; I had no time to seek acquaintance. Only my neighbour, 
at the other side of my passage, I knew slightly and bowed to him when 
we met on the stairs. He was a dark, lean man, of a very distinguished 
air; he must have lived very hard, he had death in his face. He was 
not an artist, like the rest of us: I suspect he was a great 
profligate, and a gambler; but he had the manners of a gentleman. And 
when I came to talk to him, he displayed the greatest knowledge of 
music that I have ever known. And it was the same with all; he talked 
divinely, of everything in the world, but very wildly and bitterly. He 
seemed to have been everywhere, and done everything; and at last to be 
tired of it all; and of himself the most. From the people of the house 
I heard that he was a Pole; noble, and very poor; and, what surprised 
me, that he had a daughter with him, a little girl. I used to pity 
this child, who must have lived quite alone. For the Count was always 
out, and the child never appeared with him; and, for the rest, with 
his black spleen and tempers, he must have been but sorry company for 
a little girl. I wished much to see her, for you see, Monsieur! I am 
fond of children, almost as much as of music; and one day it came 
about. I was at home with my violin; I had been playing all the 
evening some songs I had made; and once or twice I had seemed to be 
interrupted by little, tedious sounds. At last I stopped, and opened 
the door; and there, crouching down, I found the most beautiful little 
creature I had ever seen in my life. It was the child of my neighbour. 
Yes, Monsieur! you divine, you divine! That was the Leonora!'

'And she is not your compatriot,' I asked.

'A Hungarian? ah, no! yet every piece of her pure Slav. But I weary 
you, Monsieur; I make a long story.'

I protested my interest; and after a little side glance of dubious 
scrutiny, he continued in a constrained monotone, as one who told over 
to himself some rosary of sad enchanting memories.

'Ah, yes! she was beautiful; that mysterious, sad Slavonic beauty! a 
thing quite special and apart. And, as a child, it was more tragical 
and strange; that dusky hair! those profound and luminous eyes! 
seeming to mourn over tragedies they have never known. A strange, 
wild, silent child! She might have been eight or nine, then; but her 
little soul was hungry for music. It was a veritable passion; and when 
she became at last my good friend, she told me how often she had lain 
for long hours outside my door, listening to my violin. I gave her a 
kind of scolding, such as one could to so beautiful a little creature, 
for the passage was draughty and cold, and sent her away with some 
_bon-bons_. She shook back her long, dark hair: 'You are not angry, 
and I am not naughty,' she said: 'and I shall come back. I thank you 
for your _bon-bons_; but I like your music better than _bon-bons_, or 
fairy tales, or anything in the world.'

'But she never came back to the passage again, Monsieur! The next time 
I came across the Count, I sent her an invitation, a little 
diffidently, for he had never spoken to me of her, and he was a 
strange and difficult man. Now, he simply shrugged his shoulders, with 
a smile, in which, for once, there seemed more entertainment than 
malice. The child could visit me when she chose; if it amused either 
of us, so much the better. And we were content, and she came to me 
often; after a while, indeed, she was with me almost always. Child as 
she was, she had already the promise of her magnificent voice; and I 
taught her to use it, to sing, and to play on the piano and on the 
violin, to which she took the most readily. She was like a singing 
bird in the room, such pure, clear notes! And she grew very fond of 
me; she would fall asleep at last in my arms, and so stay until the 
Count would take her with him when he entered, long after midnight. He 
came to me naturally for her soon; and they never seemed long those 
hours that I watched over her sleep. I never knew him harsh or unkind 
to the child; he seemed simply indifferent to her as to everything 
else. He had exhausted life and he hated it; and he knew that death 
was on him, and he hated that even more. And yet he was careful of her 
after a fashion, buying her _bon-bons_ and little costumes, when he 
was in the vein, pitching his voice softly when he would stay and talk 
to me, as though he relished her sleep. One night he did not come to 
fetch her at all, I had wrapped a blanket round the child where she 
lay on my bed, and had sat down to watch by her and presently I too 
fell asleep. I do not know how long I slept but when I woke there was 
a gray light in the room, I was very cold and stiff, but I could hear 
close by, the soft, regular breathing of the child. There was a great 
uneasiness on me, and after a while I stole out across the passage and 
knocked at the Count's door, there was no answer but it gave when I 
tried it, and so I went in. The lamp had smouldered out, there was a 
sick odour of _pétrol_ everywhere, and the shutters were closed: but 
through the chinks the merciless gray dawn streamed in and showed me 
the Count sitting very still by the table. His face wore a most 
curious smile, and had not his great cavernous eyes been open, I 
should have believed him asleep: suddenly it came to me that he was 
dead. He was not a good man, monsieur, nor an amiable, but a true 
_virtuoso_ and full of information, and I grieved. I have had Masses 
said for the repose of his soul.'

He paid a tribute of silence to the dead man's memory, and then he 
went on.

'It seemed quite natural that I should take his child. There was no 
one to care, no one to object; it happened quite easily. We went, the 
little one and I, to another part of the city. We made quite a new 
life. Oh! my God! it is a very long time ago.'

Quite suddenly his voice went tremulous; but after a pause, hardly 
perceptible, he recovered himself and continued with an accent of 
apology.

'I am a foolish old man, and very garrulous. It is not good to think 
of that, nor to talk of it; I do not know why I do. But what would you 
have? She loved me then, and she had the voice and the disposition of 
an angel. I have never been very happy. I think sometimes, monsieur, 
that we others, who care much for art, are not permitted that. But 
certainly those few, rapid days, when she was a child, were good; and 
yet they were the days of my defeat. I found myself out then. I was 
never to be a great artist, a _maestro_: a second-rate man, a good 
music-teacher for young ladies, a capable performer in an orchestra, 
what you will, but a great artist, never! Yet in those days, even when 
my opera failed, I had consolation, I could say, I have a child! I 
would have kept her with me always but it could not be, from the very 
first she would be a singer. I knew always that a day would come when 
she would not need me, she was meant to be the world's delight, and I 
had no right to keep her, even if I could. I held my beautiful, 
strange bird in her cage, until she beat her wings against the bars, 
then I opened the door. At the last, I think, that is all we can do 
for our children, our best beloved, our very heart-strings, stand free 
of them, let them go. The world is very weary, but we must all find 
that out for ourselves, perhaps when they are tired they will come 
home, perhaps not, perhaps not. It was to the Conservatoire, at Milan, 
that I sent her finally, and it was at La Scala that she afterwards 
appeared, and at La Scala too, poor child, she met her evil genius, 
the man named Romanoff, a baritone in her company, own son of the 
devil, whom she married. Ah, if I could have prevented it, if I could 
have prevented it!'

He lapsed into a long silence; a great weariness seemed to have come 
over him, and in the gray light which filtered in through the dingy 
window blinds, his face was pinched and wasted, unutterably old and 
forlorn.

'But I did not prevent it,' he said at last, 'for all my good will, 
perhaps merely hastened it by unseasonable interference. And so we 
went in different ways, with anger I fear, and at least with sore 
hearts and misunderstanding.'

He spoke with an accent of finality, and so sadly that in a sudden 
rush of pity I was moved to protest.

'But, surely you meet sometimes; surely this woman, who was as your 
own child--'

He stopped me with a solemn, appealing gesture.

'You are young, and you do not altogether understand. You must not 
judge her; you must not believe, that she forgets, that she does not 
care. Only, it is better like this, because it could never be as 
before. I could not help her. I want nothing that she can give me, no 
not anything; I have my memories! I hear of her, from time to time; I 
hear what the world says of her, the imbecile world, and I smile. Do I 
not know best? I, who carried her in my arms, when she was that high!'

And in effect the old violinist smiled, it was as though he had 
surprised my secret of dissatisfaction, and found it, like the malice 
of the world, too ignorant to resent. The edge of his old, passionate 
adoration had remained bright and keen through the years; and it 
imparted a strange brilliancy to his eyes, which half convinced me, as 
presently, with a resumption of his usual air of diffident courtesy, 
he ushered me out into the vague, spring dawn. And yet, when I had 
parted from him and was making my way somewhat wearily to my own 
quarters, my first dubious impression remained. My imagination was 
busy with the story I had heard, striving quite vainly to supply 
omissions, to fill in meagre outlines. Yes! quite vainly! the figure 
of the Romanoff was left, ambiguous and unexplained; hardly acquitted 
in my mind of a certain callousness, an ingratitude almost vulgar as 
it started out from time to time, in contraposition against that 
forlorn old age.


III

I saw him once more at the little restaurant in Soho, before a sudden 
change of fortune, calling me abroad for an absence, as it happened, 
of years, closed the habit of our society. He gave me the god-speed of 
a brother artist, though mine was not the way of music, with many 
prophesies of my success; and the pressure of his hand, as he took 
leave of me, was tremulous.

'I am an old man, monsieur, and we may not meet again, in this world. 
I wish you all the chances you deserve in Paris; but I--I shall 
greatly miss you. If you come back in time, you will find me in the 
old places; and if not--there are things of mine, which I should wish 
you to have, that shall be sent you.'

And indeed it proved to be our last meeting. I went to Paris; a fitful 
correspondence intervened, grew infrequent, ceased; then a little 
later, came to me the notification, very brief and official, of his 
death in the French Hospital of pneumonia. It was followed by a few 
remembrances of him, sent at his request, I learnt, by the priest who 
had administered to him the last offices: some books that he had 
greatly cherished, works of Glück, for the most part; an antique ivory 
crucifix of very curious workmanship; and his violin, a beautiful 
instrument dated 1670 and made at Nuremberg, yet with a tone which 
seemed to me, at least, as fine as that of the Cremonas. It had an 
intrinsic value to me, apart from its associations; for I too was 
something of an amateur, and since this seasoned melodious wood had 
come into my possession, I was inspired to take my facility more 
seriously. To play in public, indeed, I had neither leisure nor 
desire: but in certain _salons_ of my acquaintance, where music was 
much in vogue, I made from time to time a desultory appearance. I set 
down these facts, because as it happened, this ineffectual talent of 
mine, which poor Cristich's legacy had recalled to life, was to 
procure me an interesting encounter. I remember the occasion well, it 
was too appropriate to be forgotten--as though my old friend's 
lifeless fiddle, which had yet survived so many _maestri_, was to be a 
direct instrument of the completion of his story, the resurrection of 
those dormant and unsatisfied curiosities which still now and again 
concerned me. I had played at an house where I was a stranger; brought 
there by a friend, to whose insistence I had yielded somewhat 
reluctantly; although he had assured me, and, I believe, with reason, 
that it was a house where the indirect, or Attic invitation greatly 
prevailed, in brief, a place where one met very queer people. The 
hostess was American, a charming woman, of unimpeachable antecedents; 
but her passion for society, which, while it should always be 
interesting, was not always equally reputable, had exposed her 
evenings to the suspicion of her compatriots. And when I had 
discharged my part in the programme and had leisure to look around me, 
I saw at a glance that their suspicion was justified; very queer 
people indeed were there. The large hot rooms were cosmopolitan: 
infidels and Jews, everybody and nobody; a scandalously promiscuous 
assemblage! And there, with a half start, which was not at first 
recognition, my eyes stopped before a face which brought to me a 
confused rush of memories. It was that of a woman who sat on an 
ottoman in the smallest room which was almost empty. Her companion was 
a small, vivacious man with a gray imperial, and the red ribbon in his 
buttonhole, to whose continuous stream of talk, eked out with 
meridional gestures, she had the air of being listlessly resigned. Her 
dress, a marvel of discretion, its colour the yellow of old ivory, was 
of some very rich and stiff stuff cut square to her neck; that, and 
her great black hair, clustered to a crimson rose at the top of her 
head, made the pallor of her face a thing to marvel at. Her beauty was 
at once sombre and illuminating, and youthful no less. The woman of 
thirty: but her complexion, and her arms, which were bare, were soft 
in texture as a young girl's.

I made my way as well as I could for the crowd, to my hostess, 
listened, with what patience I might, to some polite praise of my 
playing, and made my request.

'Mrs. Destrier, I have an immense favour to ask; introduce me to 
Madame Romanoff!'

She gave me a quick, shrewd smile; then I remembered stories of her 
intimate quaintness.

'My dear young man! I have no objection. Only I warn you, she is not 
conversational; you will make no good of it, and you will be 
disappointed; perhaps that will be best. Please remember, I am 
responsible for nobody.'

'Is she so dangerous?' I asked. 'But never mind; I believe that I have 
something to say which may interest her.'

'Oh, for that!' she smiled elliptically; 'yes, she is most dangerous. 
But I will introduce you; you shall tell me how you succeed.'

I bowed and smiled; she laid a light hand on my arm; and I piloted her 
to the desired corner. It seemed that the chance was with me. The 
little fluent Provençal had just vacated his seat; and when the 
prima-donna had acknowledged the hasty mention of my name, with a bare 
inclination of her head, I was emboldened to succeed to it. And then I 
was silent. In the perfection of that dolorous face, I could not but 
be reminded of the tradition which has always ascribed something fatal 
and inevitable to the possession of great gifts: of genius or uncommon 
fortune, or singular personal beauty; and the common-place of 
conversation failed me.

After a while she looked askance at me, with a sudden flash of 
resentment.

'You speak no French, Monsieur! And yet you write it well enough; I 
have read your stories.'

I acknowledged Madame's irony, permitted myself to hope that my 
efforts had met with Madame's approval.

'_A la bonne heure!_ I perceive you also speak it. Is that why you 
wished to be presented, to hear my criticisms?'

'Let me answer that question when you have answered mine.'

She glanced curiously over her feathered fan, then with the slightest 
upward inclination of her statuesque shoulders--'I admire your books; 
but are your women quite just? I prefer your playing.'

'That is better, Madame! It was to talk of that I came.'

'Your playing?'

'My violin.'

'You want me to look at it? It is a Cremona?'

'It is not a Cremona; but if you like, I will give it you.'

Her dark eyes shone out in amazed amusement.

'You are eccentric, Monsieur! but your nation has a privilege of 
eccentricity. At least, you amuse me; and I have wearied myself enough 
this long evening. Show me your violin; I am something of a 
_virtuosa_.'

I took the instrument from its case, handed it to her in silence, 
watching her gravely. She received it with the dexterous hands of a 
musician, looked at the splendid stains on the back, then bent over 
towards the light in a curious scrutiny of the little, faded signature 
of its maker, the _fecit_ of an obscure Bavarian of the seventeenth 
century; and it was a long time before she raised her eyes.

When she spoke, her rich voice had a note of imperious entreaty in it. 
'Your violin interests me, Monsieur! Oh, I know that wood! It came to 
you--?'

'A legacy from an esteemed friend.'

She shot back. 'His name?' with the flash which I waited for.

'Maurice Cristich, Madame!'

We were deserted in our corner. The company had strayed in, one by 
one, to the large _salon_ with the great piano, where a young Russian 
musician, a pupil of Chopin, sat down to play, with no conventional 
essay of preliminary chords, an expected morsel. The strains of it 
wailed in just then, through the heavy, screening curtains; a mad 
_valse_ of his own, that no human feet could dance to, a pitiful, 
passionate thing that thrilled the nerves painfully, ringing the 
changes between voluptuous sorrow and the merriment of devils, and 
burdened always with the weariness of 'all the Russias,' the proper 
_Welt-schmerz_ of a young, disconsolate people. It seemed to charge 
the air, like electricity, with passionate undertones; it gave 
intimate facilities, and a tense personal note to our interview.

'A legacy! so he is gone.' She swayed to me with a wail in her voice, 
in a sort of childish abandonment: 'and _you_ tell me! Ah!' she drew 
back, chilling suddenly with a touch of visible suspicion. 'You hurt 
me, Monsieur! Is it a stroke at random? You spoke of a gift; you say 
you knew, esteemed him. You were with him? Perhaps, a message ...?'

'He died alone, Madame! I have no message. If there were none, it 
might be, perhaps, that he believed you had not cared for it. If that 
were wrong, I could tell you that you were not forgotten. Oh! he loved 
you! I had his word for it, and the story. The violin is yours--do not 
mistake me; it is not for your sake but his. He died alone; value it, 
as I should, Madame!'

They were insolent words, perhaps cruel, provoked from me by the mixed 
nature of my attraction to her; the need of turning a reasonable and 
cool front to that pathetic beauty, that artful music, which whipped 
jaded nerves to mutiny. The arrow in them struck so true, that I was 
shocked at my work. It transfixed the child in her, latent in most 
women, which moaned at my feet; so that for sheer shame as though it 
were actually a child I had hurt, I could have fallen and kissed her 
hands.

'Oh, you judge me hard, you believe the worst of me and why not? I am 
against the world! At least he might have taught you to be generous, 
that kind old man! Have I forgotten do you think! Am I so happy then? 
Oh it is a just question, the world busies itself with me, and you are 
in the lap of its tongues. Has it ever accused me of that, of 
happiness? Cruel, cruel! I have paid my penalties, and a woman is not 
free to do as she will, but would not I have gone to him, for a word, 
a sign? Yes, for the sake of my childhood. And to-night when you 
showed me that,' her white hand swept over the violin with something 
of a caress, 'I thought it had come, yes, from the grave, and you make 
it more bitter by readings of your own. You strike me hard.'

I bent forward in real humility, her voice had tears in it, though her 
splendid eyes were hard.

'Forgive me, Madame! a vulgar stroke at random. I had no right to make 
it, he told me only good of you. Forgive me, and for proof of your 
pardon--I am serious now--take his violin.'

Her smile, as she refused me, was full of sad dignity.

'You have made it impossible, Monsieur! It would remind me only now of 
how ill you think of me. I beg you to keep it.'

The music had died away suddenly, and its ceasing had been followed by 
a loud murmur of applause. The prima-donna rose, and stood for a 
moment observing me, irresolutely.

'I leave you and your violin, Monsieur! I have to sing presently, with 
such voice as our talk has left me. I bid you both adieu!'

'Ah, Madame!' I deprecated, 'you will think again of this, I will send 
it you in the morning. I have no right....'

She shook her head, then with a sudden flash of amusement, or 
fantasy--'I agree, Monsieur! on a condition. To prove your penitence, 
you shall bring it to me yourself.'

I professed that her favour overpowered me. She named an hour when she 
would be at home: an address in the Avenue des Champs Elysées, which I 
noted on my tablets.

'Not adieu then, Monsieur! but _au revoir_.'

I bowed perplexedly, holding the curtain aside to let her sweep 
through; and once more she turned back, gathering up her voluminous 
train, to repeat with a glance and accent, which I found mystifying: 
'Remember, Monsieur! It is only _au revoir_.'

That last glimpse of her, with the strange mockery and an almost 
elfish malice in her fine eyes, went home with me later to cause vague 
disquiet and fresh suspicion of her truth. The spell of her 
extraordinary, personal charm removed, doubt would assert itself. Was 
she quite sincere? Was her fascination not a questionable one? Might 
not that almost childish outburst of a grief so touching, and at the 
time convincing, be after all factitious; the movement of a born 
actress and enchantress of men, quick to seize as by a nice 
professional instinct the opportunity of an effect? Had her whole 
attitude been a deliberate pose, a sort of trick? The sudden changes 
in her subtile voice, the under current of mockery in an invitation 
which seemed inconsequent, put me on my guard, reinforced all my 
deep-seated prejudices against the candor of the feminine soul. It 
left me with a vision of her, fantastically vivid, raccounting to an 
intimate circle, to an accompaniment of some discreet laughter and the 
popping of champagne corks, the success of her imposition, the 
sentimental concessions which she had extorted from a notorious 
student of cynical moods.

A dangerous woman! cried Mrs. Destrier with the world, which might 
conceivably be right; at least I was fain to add, a woman whose 
laughter would be merciless. Certainly, I had no temper for 
adventures; and a visit to Madame Romanoff on so sentimental an errand 
seemed to me, the more I pondered it, to partake of this quality to be 
rich in distasteful possibilities. Must I write myself pusillanimous, 
if I confess that I never made it, that I committed my old friend's 
violin into the hands of the woman who had been his pupil by the 
vulgar aid of a _commissionaire_?

Pusillanimous or simply prudent; or perhaps cruelly unjust, to a 
person who had paid penalties and greatly needed kindness? It is a 
point I have never been able to decide, though I have tried to raise 
theories on the ground of her acquiescence. It seemed to me on the 
cards, that my fiddle bestowed so cavalierly, should be refused. And 
yet even the fact of her retaining it is open to two interpretations, 
and Cristich testified for her. Maurice Cristich! Madame Romanoff! the 
renowned Romanoff, Maurice Cristich! Have I been pusillanimous, 
prudent or merely cruel? For the life of me I cannot say!




SOUVENIRS OF AN EGOIST


Eheu fugaces! How that air carries me back, that air ground away so 
unmercifully, _sans_ tune, _sans_ time on a hopelessly discordant 
barrel-organ, right underneath my window. It is being bitterly 
execrated, I know, by the literary gentleman who lives in chambers 
above me, and by the convivial gentleman who has a dinner party 
underneath. It has certainly made it impossible for me to continue the 
passage in my new Fugue in A minor, which was being transferred so 
flowingly from my own brain on to the score when it interrupted me. 
But for all that, I have a shrewd suspicion that I shall bear its 
unmusical torture as long as it lasts, and eventually send away the 
frowsy foreigner, who no doubt is playing it, happy with a fairly 
large coin.

Yes: for the sake of old times, for the old emotion's sake--for 
Ninette's sake, I put up with it, not altogether sorry for the 
recollections it has aroused.

How vividly it brings it all back! Though I am a rich man now, and so 
comfortably domiciled; though the fashionable world are so eager to 
lionise me, and the musical world look upon me almost as a god, and 
to-morrow hundreds of people will be turned away, for want of space, 
from the Hall where I am to play, just I alone, my last Fantaisie, it 
was not so very many years ago that I trudged along, fiddling for 
half-pence in the streets. Ninette and I--Ninette with her 
barrel-organ, and I fiddling. Poor little Ninette--that air was one of 
the four her organ played. I wonder what has become of her? Dead, I 
should hope, poor child. Now that I am successful and famous, a Baron 
of the French Empire, it is not altogether unpleasant to think of the 
old, penniless, vagrant days, by a blazing fire in a thick carpeted 
room, with the November night shut outside. I am rather an epicure of 
my emotions, and my work is none the worse for it.

'Little egoist,' I remember Lady Greville once said of me, 'he has the 
true artistic susceptibility. All his sensations are so much grist for 
his art.'

But it is of Ninette, not Lady Greville, that I think to-night, 
Ninette's childish face that the dreary grinding organ brings up 
before me, not Lady Greville's aquiline nose and delicate artificial 
complexion.

Although I am such a great man now, I should find it very awkward to 
be obliged to answer questions as to my parentage and infancy.

Even my nationality I could not state precisely, though I know I am as 
much Italian as English, perhaps rather more. From Italy I have 
inherited my genius and enthusiasm for art, from England I think I 
must have got my common-sense, and the capacity of keeping the money 
which I make; also a certain natural coldness of disposition, which 
those who only know me as a public character do not dream of. All my 
earliest memories are very vague and indistinct. I remember tramping 
over France and Italy with a man and woman--they were Italian, I 
believe--who beat me, and a fiddle, which I loved passionately, and 
which I cannot remember having ever been without. They are very 
shadowy presences now, and the name of the man I have forgotten. The 
woman, I think, was called Maddalena. I am ignorant whether they were 
related to me in any way: I know that I hated them bitterly, and 
eventually, after a worse beating than usual, ran away from them. I 
never cared for any one except my fiddle, until I knew Ninette.

I was very hungry and miserable indeed when that rencontre came about. 
I wonder sometimes what would have happened if Ninette had not come to 
the rescue, just at that particular juncture. Would some other 
salvation have appeared, or would--well, well, if one once begins 
wondering what would have happened if certain accidents in one's life 
had not befallen one when they did, where will one come to a stop? 
Anyhow, when I had escaped from my taskmasters, a wretched, puny child 
of ten, undersized and shivering, clasping a cheap fiddle in my arms, 
lost in the huge labyrinth of Paris, without a _sou_ in my rags to 
save me from starvation, I _did_ meet Ninette, and that, after all, is 
the main point.

It was at the close of my first day of independence, a wretched 
November evening, very much like this one. I had wandered about all 
day, but my efforts had not been rewarded by a single coin. My fiddle 
was old and warped, and injured by the rain; its whining was even more 
repugnant to my own sensitive ear, than to that of the casual 
passer-by. I was in despair. How I hated all the few well-dressed, 
well-to-do people who were but on the Boulevards, on that inclement 
night. I wandered up and down hoping against hope, until I was too 
tired to stand, and then I crawled under the shelter of a covered 
passage, and flung myself down on the ground, to die, as I hoped, 
crying bitterly.

The alley was dark and narrow, and I did not see at first that it had 
another occupant. Presently a hand was put out and touched me on the 
shoulder.

I started up in terror, though the touch was soft and need not have 
alarmed me. I found it came from a little girl, for she was really 
about my own age, though then she seemed to me very big and 
protecting. But she was tall and strong for her age, and I, as I have 
said, was weak and undersized.

'Chut! little boy,' said Ninette; 'what are you crying for?'

And I told her my story, as clearly as I could, through my sobs; and 
soon a pair of small arms were thrown round my neck, and a smooth 
little face laid against my wet one caressingly. I felt as if half my 
troubles were over.

'Don't cry, little boy,' said Ninette, grandly; 'I will take care of 
you. If you like, you shall live with me. We will make a _ménage_ 
together. What is your profession?'

I showed her my fiddle, and the sight of its condition caused fresh 
tears to flow.

'Ah!' she said, with a smile of approval, 'a violinist--good! I too am 
an artiste. You ask my instrument? There it is!'

And she pointed to an object on the ground beside her, which I had, at 
first, taken to be a big box, and dimly hoped might contain eatables. 
My respect for my new friend suffered a little diminution. Already I 
felt instinctively that to play the fiddle, even though it is an old, 
a poor one, is to be something above a mere organ-grinder.

But I did not express this feeling--was not this little girl going to 
take me home with her? would not she, doubtless, give me something to 
eat?

My first impulse was an artistic one; that was of Italy. The 
concealment of it was due to the English side of me--the practical 
side.

I crept close to the little girl; she drew me to her protectingly.

'What is thy name, _p'tit_?' she said.

'Anton,' I answered, for that was what the woman Maddalena had called 
me. Her husband, if he was her husband, never gave me any title, 
except when he was abusing me, and then my names were many and 
unmentionable. Nowadays I am the Baron Antonio Antonelli, of the 
Legion of Honour, but that is merely an extension of the old concise 
Anton, so far as I know, the only name I ever had.'

'Anton?' repeated the little girl, that is a nice name to say. Mine is 
Ninette.'

We sat in silence in our sheltered nook, waiting until the rain should 
stop, and very soon I began to whimper again.

'I am so hungry, Ninette,' I said; 'I have eaten nothing to-day.'

In the literal sense this was a lie; I had eaten some stale crusts in 
the early morning, before I gave my taskmasters the slip, but the 
hunger was true enough.

Ninette began to reproach herself for not thinking of this before. 
After much fumbling in her pocket, she produced a bit of _brioche_, an 
apple, and some cold chestnuts.

'_V'la_, Anton,' she said, 'pop those in your mouth. When we get home 
we will have supper together. I have bread and milk at home. And we 
will buy two hot potatoes from the man on the _quai_.'

I ate the unsatisfying morsels ravenously, Ninette watching me with an 
approving nod the while. When they were finished, the weather was a 
little better, and Ninette said we might move. She slung the organ 
over her shoulder--it was a small organ, though heavy for a child; but 
she was used to it, and trudged along under its weight like a woman. 
With her free hand she caught hold of me and led me along the wet 
streets, proudly home. Ninette's home! Poor little Ninette! It was 
colder and barer than these rooms of mine now; it had no grand piano, 
and no thick carpets; and in the place of pictures and _bibelots_, its 
walls were only wreathed in cobwebs. Still it was drier than the 
streets of Paris, and if it had been a palace it could not have been 
more welcome to me than it was that night.

The _ménage_ of Ninette was a strange one! There was a tumbledown 
deserted house in the Montparnasse district. It stood apart, in an 
overgrown weedy garden, and has long ago been pulled down. It was 
uninhabited; no one but a Parisian _gamine_ could have lived in it, 
and Ninette had long occupied it, unmolested, save by the rats. 
Through the broken palings in the garden she had no difficulty in 
passing, and as its back door had fallen to pieces, there was nothing 
to bar her further entry. In one of the few rooms which had its window 
intact, right at the top of the house, a mere attic, Ninette had 
installed herself and her scanty goods, and henceforward this became 
my home also.

It has struck me since as strange that the child's presence should not 
have been resented by the owner. But I fancy the house had some story 
connected with it. It was, I believe, the property of an old and 
infirm miser, who in his reluctance to part with any of his money in 
repairs had overreached himself, and let his property become 
valueless. He could not let it, and he would not pull it down. It 
remained therefore an eyesore to the neighbourhood, until his death 
put it in the possession of a less avaricious successor. The 
proprietor never came near the place, and with the neighbours it had a 
bad repute, and they avoided it as much as possible. It stood, as I 
have said, alone, and in its own garden, and Ninette's occupation of 
it may have passed unnoticed, while even if any one of the poor people 
living around had known of her, it was, after all, nobody's business 
to interfere.

When I was last in Paris I went to look for the house, but all traces 
of it had vanished, and over the site, so far as I could fix it, a 
narrow street of poor houses flourished.

Ninette introduced me to her domain with a proud air of ownership. She 
had a little store of charcoal, with which she proceeded to light a 
fire in the grate, and by its fitful light prepared our common 
supper--bread and radishes, washed down by a pennyworth of milk, of 
which, I have no doubt, I received the lion's share. As a dessert we 
munched, with much relish, the steaming potatoes that Ninette had 
bought from a stall in the street, and had kept warm in the pocket of 
her apron.

And so, as Ninette said, we made a _ménage_ together. How that old 
organ brings it all back. My fiddle was useless after the hard usage 
it received that day. Ninette and I went out on our rounds together, 
but for the present I was a sleeping partner in the firm, and all I 
could do was to grind occasionally when Ninette's arm ached, or pick 
up the sous that were thrown us. Ninette was, as a rule, fairly 
successful. Since her mother had died, a year before, leaving her the 
organ as her sole legacy, she had lived mainly by that instrument; 
although she often increased her income in the evenings, when 
organ-grinding was more than ever at a discount, by selling bunches of 
violets and other flowers as button-holes.

With her organ she had a regular beat, and a distinct _clientèle_. 
Children playing with their _bonnes_ in the gardens of the Tuileries 
and the Luxembourg were her most productive patrons. Of course we had 
bad days as well as good, and in winter it was especially bad; but as 
a rule we managed fairly to make both ends meet. Sometimes we carried 
home as much as five francs as the result of the day's campaign, but 
this, of course, was unusual.

Ninette was not precisely a pretty child, but she had a very bright 
face, and wonderful gray eyes. When she smiled, which was often, her 
face was very attractive, and a good many people were induced to throw 
a sou for the smile which they would have assuredly grudged to the 
music.

Though we were about the same age, the position which it might have 
been expected we should occupy was reversed. It was Ninette who petted 
and protected me--I who clung to her.

I was very fond of Ninette, certainly. I should have died in those 
days if it had not been for her, and sometimes I am surprised at the 
tenacity of my tenderness for her. As much as I ever cared for 
anything except my art, I cared for Ninette. But still she was never 
the first with me, as I must have been with her. I was often fretful 
and discontented, sometimes, I fear, ready to reproach her for not 
taking more pains to alleviate our misery, but all the time of our 
partnership Ninette never gave me a cross word. There was something 
maternal about her affection, which withstood all ungratefulness. She 
was always ready to console me when I was miserable, and throw her 
arms round me and kiss me when I was cold; and many a time, I am sure, 
when the day's earnings had been scanty, the little girl must have 
gone to sleep hungry, that I might not be stinted in my supper.

One of my grievances, and that the sorest of all, was the loss of my 
beloved fiddle. This, for all her goodwill, Ninette was powerless to 
allay.

'Dear Anton,' she said, 'do not mind about it. I earn enough for both 
with my organ, and some day we shall save enough to buy thee a new 
fiddle. When we are together, and have got food and charcoal, what 
does it matter about an old fiddle? Come, eat thy supper, Anton, and I 
will light the fire. Never mind, dear Anton.' And she laid her soft 
little cheek against mine with a pleading look.

'Don't,' I cried, pushing her away, 'you can't understand, Ninette; 
you can only grind an organ--just four tunes, always the same. But I 
loved my fiddle, loved it! loved it!' I cried passionately. 'It could 
talk to me, Ninette, and tell me beautiful, new things, always 
beautiful, and always new. Oh, Ninette, I shall die if I cannot play!'

It was always the same cry, and Ninette, if she could not understand, 
and was secretly a little jealous, was as distressed as I was; but 
what could she do?

Eventually, I got my violin, and it was Ninette who gave it me. The 
manner of its acquirement was in this wise.

Ninette would sometimes invest some of her savings in violets, which 
she divided with me, and made into nosegays for us to sell in the 
streets at night.

Theatre doors and frequented placed on the Boulevards were our 
favorite spots.

One night we had taken up our station outside the Opera, when a 
gentleman stopped on his way in, and asked Ninette for a button-hole. 
He was in evening dress and in a great hurry.

'How much?' he asked shortly.

'Ten _sous_, M'sieu,' said exorbitant little Ninette, expecting to get 
two at the most.

The gentleman drew out some coins hastily and selected a bunch from 
the basket.

'Here is a franc,' he said, 'I cannot wait for change,' and putting a 
coin into Ninette's hand he turned into the theatre.

Ninette ran towards me with her eyes gleaming; she held up the piece 
of money exultantly.

'Tiens, Anton!' she cried, and I saw that it was not a franc, as we 
had though at first, but a gold Napoleon.

I believe the good little boy and girl in the story-books would have 
immediately sought out the unfortunate gentleman and bid him rectify 
his mistake, generally receiving, so the legend runs, a far larger 
bonus as a reward of their integrity. I have never been a particularly 
good little boy, however, and I don't think it ever struck either 
Ninette or myself--perhaps we were not sufficiently speculative--that 
any other course was open to us than to profit by the mistake. Ninette 
began to consider how we were to spend it.

'Think of it, Anton, a whole gold _louis_. A _louis_,' said Ninette, 
counting laboriously, 'is twenty francs, a franc is twenty sous, 
Anton; how many sous are there in a louis? More than an hundred?'

But this piece of arithmetic was beyond me; I shook my head dubiously.

'What shall we buy first, Anton?' said Ninette, with sparkling eyes. 
'You shall have new things, Anton, a pair of new shoes and an hat; and 
I--'

But I had other things than clothes in my mind's eye; I interrupted 
her.

'Ninette, dear little Ninette,' I said coaxingly, 'remember the 
fiddle.'

Ninette's face fell, but she was a tender little thing, and she showed 
no hesitation.

'Certainly, Anton,' she said, but with less enthusiasm, 'we will get 
it to-morrow--one of the fiddles you showed me in M. Boudinot's shop 
on the Quai. Do you think the ten-franc one will do, or the light one 
for fifteen francs?'

'Oh, the light one, dear Ninette,' I said; 'it is worth more than the 
extra money. Besides, we shall soon earn it back now. Why if you could 
earn such a lot as you have with your old organ, when you only have to 
turn an handle, think what a lot I shall make, fiddling. For you have 
to be something to play the fiddle, Ninette.'

'Yes,' said the little girl, wincing; 'you are right, dear Anton. 
Perhaps you will get rich and go away and leave me?'

'No, Ninette,' I declared grandly, 'I will always take care of you. I 
have no doubt I shall get rich, because I am going to be a great 
musician, but I shall not leave you. I will have a big house on the 
Champs Elysées, and then you shall come and live with me, and be my 
housekeeper. And in the evenings, I will play to you and make you open 
your eyes, Ninette. You will like me to play, you know; we are often 
dull in the evenings.'

'Yes,' said Ninette meekly, 'we will buy your fiddle to-morrow, dear 
Anton. Let us go home now.'

Poor vanished Ninette! I must often have made the little heart sore 
with some of the careless things I said. Yet looking back at it now, I 
know that I never cared for any living person so much as I did for 
Ninette.

I have very few illusions left now; a childhood, such as mine, does 
not tend to preserve them, and time and success have not made me less 
cynical. Still I have never let my scepticism touch that childish 
presence. Lady Greville once said to me, in the presence of her nephew 
Felix Leominster, a musician too, like myself, that we three were 
curiously suited, for that we were, without exception, the three most 
cynical persons in the universe, Perhaps in a way she was right. Yet 
for all her cynicism Lady Greville I know has a bundle of old and 
faded letters, tied up in black ribbon in some hidden drawer, that 
perhaps she never reads now, but that she cannot forget or destroy. 
They are in a bold handwriting, that is, not, I think, that of the 
miserable, old debauchee, her husband, from whom she has been 
separated since the first year of her marriage, and their envelopes 
bear Indian postmarks.

And Felix, who told me the history of those letters with a smile of 
pity on his thin, ironical lips--Felix, whose principles are adapted 
to his conscience and whose conscience is bounded by the law, and in 
whom I believe as little as he does in me, I found out by accident not 
so very long ago. It was on the day of All Souls, the melancholy 
festival of souvenirs, celebrated once a year, under the November 
fogs, that I strayed into the Montparnasse Cemetery, to seek 
inspiration for my art. And though he did not see me, I saw Felix, the 
prince of railers, who believes in nothing and cares for nothing 
except himself, for music is not with him a passion but an _agrément_. 
Felix bareheaded, and without his usual smile, putting fresh flowers 
on the grave of a little Parisian grisette, who had been his mistress 
and died five years ago. I thought of Balzac's 'Messe de l'Athée' and 
ranked Felix's inconsistency with it, feeling at the same time how 
natural such a paradox is. And myself, the last of the trio, at the 
mercy of a street organ, I cannot forget Ninette.

Though it was not until many years had passed that I heard that little 
criticism, the purchase of my fiddle was destined very shortly to 
bring my life in contact with its author. Those were the days when a 
certain restraint grew up between Ninette and myself. Ninette, it must 
be confessed, was jealous of the fiddle. Perhaps she knew 
instinctively that music was with me a single and absorbing passion, 
from which she was excluded. She was no genius, little Ninette, and 
her organ was nothing more to her than the means of making a 
livelihood; she felt not the smallest _tendresse_ for it, and could 
not understand why a dead and inanimate fiddle, made of mere wood and 
catgut, should be any more to me than that. How could she know that to 
me it was never a dead thing, that even when it hung hopelessly out of 
my reach, in the window of M. Boudinot, before ever it had given out 
wild, impassioned music beneath my hands, it was always a live thing 
to me, alive and with a human, throbbing heart, vibrating with hope 
and passion.

So Ninette was jealous of the fiddle, and being proud in her way, she 
became more and more quiet and reticent, and drew herself aloof from 
me, although, wrapped up as I was in the double egoism of art and 
boyhood, I failed to notice this. I have been sorry since that any 
shadow of misunderstanding should have clouded the closing days of our 
partnership. It is late to regret now, however. When my fiddle was 
added to our belongings, we took to going out separately. It was more 
profitable, and, besides, Ninette, I think, saw that I was growing a 
little ashamed of her organ. On one of these occasions, as I played 
before a house in the Faubourg St. Germain, the turning point of my 
life befell me. The house, outside which I had taken my station was a 
large, white one, with a balcony on the first floor. This balcony was 
unoccupied, but the window looking to it was open, and through the 
lace curtains I could distinguish the sound of voices. I began to 
play; at first, one of the airs that Maddalena had taught me; but 
before it was finished, I had glided off, as usual, into an 
improvisation.

When I was playing like that, I threw all my soul into my fingers, and 
I had neither ears nor eyes for anything round me. I did not therefore 
notice until I had finished playing that a lady and a young man had 
come out into the balcony, and were beckoning to me.

'Bravo!' cried the lady enthusiastically, but she did not throw me the 
reward I had expected. She turned and said something to her companion, 
who smiled and disappeared. I waited expectantly, thinking perhaps she 
had sent him for her purse. Presently the door opened, and the young 
man issued from it. He came to me and touched me on the shoulder.

'You are to come with me,' he said, authoritatively, speaking in 
French, but with an English accent. I followed him, my heart beating 
with excitement, through the big door, into a large, handsome hall and 
up a broad staircase, thinking that in all my life I had never seen 
such a beautiful house.

He led me into a large and luxurious _salon_, which seemed to my 
astonished eyes like a wonderful museum. The walls were crowded with 
pictures, a charming composition by Gustave Moreau was lying on the 
grand piano, waiting until a nook could be found for it to hang. 
Renaissance bronzes and the work of eighteenth century silversmiths 
jostled one another on brackets, and on a table lay a handsome 
violin-case. The pale blinds were drawn down, and there was a 
delicious smell of flowers diffused everywhere. A lady was lying on a 
sofa near the window, a handsome woman of about thirty, whose dress 
was a miracle of lace and flimsiness.

The young man led me towards her, and she placed two delicate, 
jewelled hands on my shoulders, looking me steadily in the face.

'Where did you learn to play like that, my boy?' she asked.

'I cannot remember when I could not fiddle, Madame,' I answered, and 
that was true.

'The boy is a born musician, Felix,' said Lady Greville. 'Look at his 
hands.'

And she held up mine to the young man's notice; he glanced at them 
carelessly.

'Yes, Miladi,' said the young man, 'they are real violin hands. What 
were you playing just now, my lad?'

'I don't know, sir,' I said. 'I play just what comes into my head.'

Lady Greville looked at her nephew with a glance of triumph.

'What did I tell you?' she cried. 'The boy is a genius, Felix. I shall 
have him educated.'

'All your geese are swans, Auntie,' said the young man in English.

Lady Greville, however, ignored this thrust.

'Will you play for me now, my dear,' she said, 'as you did 
before--just what comes into your head?'

I nodded, and was getting my fiddle to my chin, when she stopped me.

'Not that thing,' bestowing a glance of contempt at my instrument. 
'Felix, the Stradivarius.'

The young man went to the other side of the room, and returned with 
the case which I had noticed. He put it in my hand, with the 
injunction to handle it gently. I had never heard of Cremona violins, 
nor of my namesake Stradivarius; but at the sight of the dark seasoned 
wood, reposing on its blue velvet, I could not restrain a cry of 
admiration.

I have that same instrument in my room now, and I would not trust it 
in the hands of another for a million.

I lifted the violin tenderly from its case, and ran my bow up the 
gamut.

I felt almost intoxicated at the mellow sounds it uttered. I could 
have kissed the dark wood, that looked to me stained through and 
through with melody.

I began to play. My improvisation was a song of triumph and delight; 
the music, at first rapid and joyous, became slower and more solemn, 
as the inspiration seized on me, until at last, in spite of myself, it 
grew into a wild and indescribable dirge, fading away in a long wail 
of unutterable sadness and regret. When it was over I felt exhausted 
and unstrung, as though virtue had gone out from me. I had played as I 
had never played before. The young man had turned away, and was 
looking out of the window. The lady on the sofa was transfigured. The 
languor had altogether left her, and the tears were streaming down her 
face, to the great detriment of the powder and enamel which composed 
her complexion.

She pulled me towards her, and kissed me.

'It is beautiful, terrible!' she said; 'I have never heard such 
strange music in my life. You must stay with me now and have masters. 
If you can play like that now, without culture and education, in time, 
when you have been taught, you will be the greatest violinist that 
ever lived.'

I will say of Lady Greville that, in spite of her frivolity and 
affectations, she does love music at the bottom of her soul, with the 
absorbing passion that in my eyes would absolve a person for 
committing all the sins in the Decalogue. If her heart could be taken 
out and examined I can fancy it as a shield, divided into equal 
fields. Perhaps, as her friends declare, one of these might bear the 
device 'Modes et Confections'; but I am sure that you would see on the 
other, even more deeply graven, the divine word 'Music.'

She is one of the few persons whose praise of any of my compositions 
gives me real satisfaction; and almost alone, when everybody is 
running, in true goose fashion, to hear my piano recitals, she knows 
and tells me to stick to my true vocation--the violin.

'My dear Baron,' she said, 'why waste your time playing on an 
instrument which is not suited to you, when you have Stradivarius 
waiting at home for the magic touch?'

She was right, though it is the fashion to speak of me now as a second 
Rubenstein. There are two or three finer pianists than I, even here in 
England. But I am quite sure, yes, and you are sure, too, oh my 
Stradivarius, that in the whole world there is nobody who can make 
such music out of you as I can, no one to whom you tell such stories 
as you tell to me. Any one, who knows, could see by merely looking at 
my hands that they are violin and not piano hands.

'Will you come and live with me, Anton?' said Lady Greville, more 
calmly. 'I am rich, and childless; you shall live just as if you were 
my child. The best masters in Europe shall teach you. Tell me where to 
find your parents, Anton, and I will see them to-night.'

'I have no parents,' I said, 'only Ninette. I cannot leave Ninette.'

'Shade of Musset, who is Ninette?' asked Felix, turning round from the 
window.

I told him.

'What is to be done?' cried Lady Greville in perplexity. 'I cannot 
have the girl here as well, and I will not let my Phoenix go.'

'Send her to the Sœurs de la Misericorde,' said the young man 
carelessly; 'you have a nomination.'

'Have I?' said Lady Greville, with a laugh. 'I am sure I did not know 
it. It is an excellent idea; but do you think he will come without the 
other? I suppose they were like brother and sister?'

'Look at him now,' said Felix, pointing to where I stood caressing the 
precious wood; 'he would sell his soul for that fiddle.'

Lady Greville took the hint. 'Here, Anton,' said she, 'I cannot have 
Ninette here--you understand, once and for all. But I will see that 
she is sent to a kind home, where she will want for nothing and be 
trained up as a servant. You need not bother about her. You will live 
with me and be taught, and some day, if you are good and behave, you 
shall go and see Ninette.'

I was irresolute, but I only said doggedly, feeling what would be the 
end, 'I do not want to come, if Ninette may not.'

Then Lady Greville played her trump card.

'Look, Anton,' she said, 'you see that violin. I have no need, I see, 
to tell you its value. If you will come with me and make no scene, you 
shall have it for your very own. Ninette will be perfectly happy. Do 
you agree?'

I looked at my old fiddle, lying on the floor. How yellow and trashy 
it looked beside the grand old Cremona, bedded in its blue velvet.

'I will do what you like, Madame,' I said.

'Human nature is pretty much the same in geniuses and dullards,' said 
Felix. 'I congratulate you, Auntie.'

And so the bargain was struck, and the new life entered upon that very 
day. Lady Greville sought out Ninette at once, though I was not 
allowed to accompany her.

I never saw Ninette again. She made no opposition to Lady Greville's 
scheme. She let herself be taken to the Orphanage, and she never 
asked, so they said, to see me again.

'She's a stupid little thing,' said Lady Greville to her nephew, on 
her return, 'and as plain as possible; but I suppose she was kind to 
the boy. They will forget each other now I hope. It is not as if they 
were related.'

'In that case they would already be hating each other. However, I am 
quite sure your protégé will forget soon enough; and, after all, you 
have nothing to do with the girl.'

I suppose I did not think very much of Ninette then; but what would 
you have? It was such a change from the old vagrant days, that there 
is a good deal to excuse me. I was absorbed too in the new and 
wonderful symmetry which music began to assume, as taught me by the 
master Lady Greville procured for me. When the news was broken to me, 
with great gentleness, that my little companion had run away from the 
sisters with whom she had been placed--run away, and left no traces 
behind her, I hardly realised how completely she would have passed 
away from me. I thought of her for a little while with some regret; 
then I remembered Stradivarius, and I could not be sorry long. So by 
degrees I ceased to think of her.

I lived on in Lady Greville's house, going with her, wherever she 
stayed--London, Paris, and Nice--until I was thirteen. Then she sent 
me away to study music at a small German capital, in the house of one 
of the few surviving pupils of Weber. We parted as we had lived 
together, without affection.

Personally Lady Greville did not like me; if anything, she felt an 
actual repugnance towards me. All the care she lavished on me was for 
the sake of my talent, not for myself. She took a great deal of 
trouble in superintending, not only my musical education, but my 
general culture. She designed little mediæval costumes for me, and was 
indefatigable in her endeavours to impart to my manners that finish 
which a gutter education had denied me.

There is a charming portrait of me, by a well-known English artist, 
that hangs now in her ladyship's drawing-room. A pale boy of twelve, 
clad in an old-fashioned suit of ruby velvet; a boy with huge, black 
eyes, and long curls of the same colour, is standing by an oak 
music-stand, holding before him a Cremona violin, whose rich colouring 
is relieved admirably by the beautiful old point lace with which the 
boy's doublet is slashed. It is a charming picture. The famous artist 
who painted it considers it his best portrait, and Lady Greville is 
proud of it.

But her pride is of the same quality as that which made her value my 
presence. I was in her eyes merely the complement of her famous 
fiddle.

I heard her one day express a certain feeling of relief at my 
approaching departure.

'You regret having taken him up?' asked her nephew curiously.

'No,' she said, 'that would be folly. He repays all one's trouble, as 
soon as he touches his fiddle--but I don't like him.'

'He can play like the great Pan,' says Felix.

'Yes, and like Pan he is half a beast.'

'You may make a musician out of him,' answered the young man, 
examining his pink nails with a certain admiration, 'but you will 
never make him a gentleman.'

'Perhaps not,' said Lady Greville carelessly. 'Still, Felix, he is 
very refined.'

_Dame!_ I think he would own himself mistaken now. Mr. Felix 
Leominster himself is not a greater social success than the Baron 
Antonio Antonelli, of the Legion of Honour. I am as sensitive as any 
one to the smallest spot on my linen, and Duchesses rave about my 
charming manners.

For the rest my souvenirs are not very numerous. I lived in Germany 
until I made my _début_, and I never heard anything more of Ninette.

The history of my life is very much the history of my art: and that 
you know. I have always been an art-concentrated 
man--self-concentrated, my friend Felix Leominster tells me 
frankly--and since I was a boy nothing has ever troubled the serene 
repose of my egoism.

It is strange considering the way people rant about the 'passionate 
sympathy' of my playing, the 'enormous potentiality of suffering' 
revealed in my music, how singularly free from passion and disturbance 
my life has been.

I have never let myself be troubled by what is commonly called 'love.' 
To be frank with you, I do not much believe in it. Of the two 
principal elements of which it is composed, vanity and egoism, I have 
too little of the former, too much of the latter, too much coldness 
withal in my character to suffer from it. My life has been notoriously 
irreproachable. I figure in polemical literature as an instance of a 
man who has lived in contact with the demoralising influence of the 
stage, and will yet go to Heaven. _A la bonne heure!_

I am coming to the end of my souvenirs and of my cigar at the same 
time. I must convey a coin somehow to that dreary person outside, who 
is grinding now half-way down the street.

On consideration, I decide emphatically against opening the window and 
presenting it that way. If the fog once gets in, it will utterly spoil 
me for any work this evening. I feel myself in travail also of two 
charming little _Lieder_ that all this thinking about Ninette has 
suggested. How would 'Chansons de Gamine' do for a title? I think it 
best, on second thoughts, to ring for Giacomo, my man, and send him 
out with the half-crown I propose to sacrifice on the altar of 
sentiment. Doubtless the musician is a country-woman of his, and if he 
pockets the coin, that is his look out.

Now if I was writing a romance, what a chance I have got. I should 
tell you how my organ-grinder turned out to be no other than Ninette. 
Of course she would not be spoilt or changed by the years--just the 
same Ninette. Then what scope for a pathetic scene of reconciliation 
and forgiveness--the whole to conclude with a peal of marriage bells, 
two people living together 'happy ever after.' But I am not writing a 
romance, and I am a musician, not a poet.

Sometimes, however, it strikes me that I should like to see Ninette 
again, and I find myself seeking traces of her in childish faces in 
the street.

The absurdity of such an expectation strikes me very forcibly 
afterwards, when I look at my reflection in the glass, and tell myself 
that I must be careful in the disposition of my parting.

Ninette, too, was my contemporary. Still I cannot conceive of her as a 
woman. To me she is always a child. Ninette grown up, with a draggled 
dress and squalling babies, is an incongruous thing that shocks my 
sense of artistic fitness. My fiddle is my only mistress, and while I 
can summon its consolation at command, I may not be troubled by the 
pettiness of a merely human love. But once when I was down with Roman 
fever, and tossed on a hotel bed, all the long, hot night, while 
Giacomo drowsed in a corner over 'Il Diavolo Rosa,' I seemed to miss 
Ninette.

Remembering that time, I sometimes fancy that when the inevitable hour 
strikes, and this hand is too weak to raise the soul of melody out of 
Stradivarius--when, my brief dream of life and music over, I go down 
into the dark land, where there is no more music, and no Ninette, into 
the sleep from which there comes no awaking, I should like to see her 
again, not the woman but the child. I should like to look into the 
wonderful eyes of the old Ninette, to feel the soft cheek laid against 
mine, to hold the little brown hands, as in the old _gamin_ days.

It is a foolish thought, because I am not forty yet, and with the 
moderate life I lead I may live to play Stradivarius for another 
thirty years.

There is always the hope, too, that it, when it comes, may seize me 
suddenly. To see it coming, that is the horrible part. I should like 
to be struck by lightning, with you in my arms, Stradivarius, oh, my 
beloved--to die playing.

The literary gentleman over my head is stamping viciously about his 
room. What would his language be if he knew how I have rewarded his 
tormentress--he whose principles are so strict that he would bear the 
agony for hours, sooner than give a barrel-organ sixpence to go to 
another street. He would be capable of giving Giacomo a sovereign to 
pocket my coin, if he only knew. Yet I owe that unmusical old organ a 
charming evening, tinged with the faint _soupçon_ of melancholy which 
is necessary to and enhances the highest pleasure. Over the memories 
it has excited I have smoked a pleasant cigar--peace to its ashes!




THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS


During five years of an almost daily association with Michael Garth, 
in a solitude of Chili, which threw us, men of common speech, though 
scarcely of common interests, largely on each other's tolerance, I had 
grown, if not into an intimacy with him, at least into a certain 
familiarity, through which the salient feature of his history, his 
character reached me. It was a singular character, and an history rich 
in instruction. So much I gathered from hints, which he let drop long 
before I had heard the end of it. Unsympathetic as the man was to me, 
it was impossible not to be interested by it. As our acquaintance 
advanced, it took (his character I mean) more and more the aspect of a 
difficult problem in psychology, that I was passionately interested in 
solving: to study it was my recreation, after watching the fluctuating 
course of nitrates. So that when I had achieved fortune, and might 
have started home immediately, my interest induced me to wait more 
than three months, and return in the same ship with him. It was 
through this delay that I am enabled to transcribe the issue of my 
impressions: I found them edifying, if only for their singular irony.

From his own mouth indeed I gleaned but little; although during our 
voyage home, in those long nights when we paced the deck together 
under the Southern Cross, his reticence occasionally gave way, and I 
obtained glimpses of a more intimate knowledge of him than the whole 
of our juxtaposition on the station had ever afforded me. I guessed 
more, however, than he told me; and what was lacking I pieced together 
later, from the talk of the girl to whom I broke the news of his 
death. He named her to me, for the first time, a day or two before 
that happened: a piece of confidence so unprecedented, that I must 
have been blind, indeed, not to have foreseen what it prefaced. I had 
seen her face the first time I entered his house, where her photograph 
hung on a conspicuous wall: the charming, oval face of a young girl, 
little more than a child, with great eyes, that one guessed, one knew 
not why, to be the colour of violets, looking out with singular 
wistfulness from a waving cloud of dark hair. Afterwards, he told me 
that it was the picture of his _fiancée_: but, before that, signs had 
not been wanting by which I had read a woman in his life.

Iquique is not Paris; it is not even Valparaiso; but it is a city of 
civilisation; and but two days' ride from the pestilential stew, where 
we nursed our lives doggedly on quinine and hope, the ultimate hope of 
evasion. The lives of most Englishmen yonder, who superintend works in 
the interior, are held on the same tenure: you know them by a certain 
savage, hungry look in their eyes. In the meantime, while they wait 
for their luck, most of them are glad enough when business calls them 
down for a day or two to Iquique. There are shops and streets, lit 
streets through which blackeyed Senoritas pass in their lace mantilas; 
there are _cafés_ too; and faro for those who reck of it; and bull 
fights, and newspapers younger than six weeks; and in the harbour, 
taking in their fill of nitrates, many ships, not to be considered 
without envy, because they are coming, within a limit of days to 
England. But Iquique had no charm for Michael Garth, and when one of 
us must go, it was usually I, his subordinate, who being delegated, 
congratulated myself on his indifference. Hard-earned dollars melted 
at Iquique; and to Garth, life in Chili had long been solely a matter 
of amassing them. So he stayed on, in the prickly heat of Agnas 
Blancas, and grimly counted the days, and the money (although his 
nature, I believe, was fundamentally generous, in his set 
concentration of purpose, he had grown morbidly avaricious) which 
should restore him to his beautiful mistress. Morose, reticent, 
unsociable as he had become, he had still, I discovered by degrees, a 
leaning towards the humanities, a nice taste, such as could only be 
the result of much knowledge, in the fine things of literature. His 
infinitesimal library, a few French novels, an Horace, and some well 
thumbed volumes of the modern English poets in the familiar edition of 
Tauchnitz, he put at my disposal, in return for a collection, somewhat 
similar, although a little larger, of my own. In his rare moments of 
amiability, he could talk on such matters with _verve_ and 
originality: more usually he preferred to pursue with the bitterest 
animosity an abstract fetish which he called his "luck." He was by 
temperament an enraged pessimist; and I could believe, that he 
seriously attributed to Providence, some quality inconceivably 
malignant, directed in all things personally against himself. His 
immense bitterness and his careful avarice, alike, I could explain, 
and in a measure justify, when I came to understand that he had felt 
the sharpest stings of poverty, and, moreover, was passionately in 
love, in love _comme on ne l'est plus_. As to what his previous 
resources had been, I knew nothing, nor why they had failed him; but I 
gathered that the crisis had come, just when his life was complicated 
by the sudden blossoming of an old friendship into love, in his case, 
at least, to be complete and final. The girl too was poor; they were 
poorer than most poor persons: how could he refuse the post, which, 
through the good offices of a friend, was just then unexpectedly 
offered him? Certainly, it was abroad; it implied five years' solitude 
in Equatorial America. Separation and change were to be accounted; 
perhaps, diseases and death, and certainly his 'luck,' which seemed to 
include all these. But it also promised, when the term of his exile 
was up, and there were means of shortening it, a certain competence, 
and very likely wealth; escaping those other contingencies, marriage. 
There seemed no other way. The girl was very young: there was no 
question of an early marriage; there was not even a definite 
engagement. Garth would take no promise from her: only for himself, he 
was her bound lover while he breathed; would keep himself free to 
claim her, when he came back in five years, or ten, or twenty, if she 
had not chosen better. He would not bind her; but I can imagine how 
impressive his dark, bitter face must have made this renunciation to 
the little girl with the violet eyes; how tenderly she repudiated her 
freedom. She went out as a governess, and sat down to wait. And 
absence only rivetted faster the chain of her affection: it set Garth 
more securely on the pedestal of her idea; for in love it is most 
usually the reverse of that social maxim, _les absents ont toujours 
tort_, which is true.

Garth, on his side, writing to her, month by month, while her picture 
smiled on him from the wall, if he was careful always to insist on her 
perfect freedom, added, in effect, so much more than this, that the 
renunciation lost its benefit. He lived in a dream of her; and the 
memory of her eyes and her hair was a perpetual presence with him, 
less ghostly than the real company among whom he mechanically 
transacted his daily business. Burnt away and consumed by desire of 
her living arms, he was counting the hours which still prevented him 
from them. Yet, when his five years were done, he delayed his return, 
although his economies had justified it; settled down for another term 
of five years, which was to be prolonged to seven. Actually, the 
memory of his old poverty, with its attendant dishonours, was grown a 
fury, pursuing him ceaselessly with whips. The lust of gain, always 
for the girl's sake, and so, as it were, sanctified, had become a 
second nature to him; an intimate madness, which left him no peace. 
His worst nightmare was to wake with a sudden shock, imagining that he 
had lost everything, that he was reduced to his former poverty: a cold 
sweat would break all over him before he had mastered the horror. The 
recurrence of it, time after time, made him vow grimly, that he would 
go home a rich man, rich enough to laugh at the fantasies of his luck. 
Latterly, indeed, this seemed to have changed; so that his vow was 
fortunately kept. He made money lavishly at last: all his operations 
were successful, even those which seemed the wildest gambling: and the 
most forlorn speculations turned round, and shewed a pretty harvest, 
when Garth meddled with their stock.

And all the time he was waiting there, and scheming, at Agnas Blancas, 
in a feverish concentration of himself upon his ultimate reunion with 
the girl at home, the man was growing old: gradually at first, and 
insensibly; but towards the end, by leaps and starts, with an 
increasing consciousness of how he aged and altered, which did but 
feed his black melancholy. It was borne upon him, perhaps, a little 
brutally, and not by direct self-examination, when there came another 
photograph from England. A beautiful face still, but certainly the 
face of a woman, who had passed from the grace of girlhood (seven 
years now separated her from it), to a dignity touched with sadness: a 
face, upon which life had already written some of its cruelties. For 
many days after this arrival, Garth was silent and moody, even beyond 
his wont: then he studiously concealed it. He threw himself again 
furiously into his economic battle; he had gone back to the 
inspiration of that other, older portrait: the charming, oval face of 
a young girl, almost a child, with great eyes, that one guessed one 
knew not why, to be the colour of violets.

As the time of our departure approached, a week or two before we had 
gone down to Valparaiso, where Garth had business to wind up, I was 
enabled to study more intimately the morbid demon which possessed him. 
It was the most singular thing in the world: no man had hated the 
country more, had been more passionately determined for a period of 
years to escape from it; and now that his chance was come the emotion 
with which he viewed it was nearer akin to terror than to the joy of a 
reasonable man who is about to compass the desire of his life. He had 
kept the covenant which he had made with himself; he was a rich man, 
richer than he had ever meant to be. Even now he was full of vigour, 
and not much past the threshold of middle age, and he was going home 
to the woman whom for the best part of fifteen years he had adored 
with an unexampled constancy, whose fidelity had been to him all 
through that exile as the shadow of a rock in a desert land: he was 
going home to an honourable marriage. But withal he was a man with an 
incurable sadness; miserable and afraid. It seemed to me at times that 
he would have been glad if she had kept her troth less well, had only 
availed herself of that freedom which he gave her, to disregard her 
promise. And this was the more strange in that I never doubted the 
strength of his attachment; it remained engrossing and unchanged, the 
largest part of his life. No alien shadow had ever come between him 
and the memory of the little girl with the violet eyes, to whom he at 
least was bound. But a shadow was there; fantastic it seemed to me at 
first, too grotesque to be met with argument, but in whose very lack 
of substance, as I came to see, lay its ultimate strength. The notion 
of the woman, which now she was, came between him and the girl whom he 
had loved, whom he still loved with passion, and separated them. It 
was only on our voyage home, when we walked the deck together 
interminably during the hot, sleepless nights, that he first revealed 
to me without subterfuge, the slow agony by which this phantom slew 
him. And his old bitter conviction of the malignity of his luck, which 
had lain dormant in the first flush of his material prosperity, 
returned to him. The apparent change in it seemed to him just then, 
the last irony of those hostile powers which had pursued him.

'It came to me suddenly,' he said, 'just before I left Agnas, when I 
had been adding up my pile and saw there was nothing to keep me, that 
it was all wrong. I had been a blamed fool! I might have gone home 
years ago. Where is the best of my life? Burnt out, wasted, buried in 
that cursed oven! Dollars? If I had all the metal in Chili, I couldn't 
buy one day of youth. Her youth too; that has gone with the rest; 
that's the worst part!'

Despite all my protests, his despondency increased as the steamer 
ploughed her way towards England, with the ceaseless throb of her 
screw, which was like the panting of a great beast. Once, when we had 
been talking of other matters, of certain living poets whom he 
favoured, he broke off with a quotation from the 'Prince's Progress' 
of Miss Rossetti:

  'Ten years ago, five years ago,
    One year ago,
  Even then you had arrived in time;
    Though somewhat slow;
  Then you had known her living face
    Which now you cannot know.'

He stopped sharply, with a tone in his voice which seemed to intend, 
in the lines, a personal instance.

'I beg your pardon!' I protested. 'I don't see the analogy. You 
haven't loitered; you don't come too late. A brave woman has waited 
for you; you have a fine felicity before you: it should be all the 
better, because you have won it laboriously. For heaven's sake, be 
reasonable!' He shook his head sadly; then added, with a gesture of 
sudden passion, looking out over the taffrail, at the heaving gray 
waters: 'It's finished. I haven't any longer the courage.' 'Ah!' I 
exclaimed impatiently, 'say once for all, outright, that you are tired 
of her, that you want to back out of it.' 'No,' he said drearily, 'it 
isn't that. I can't reproach myself with the least wavering. I have 
had a single passion; I have given my life to it; it is there still, 
consuming me. Only the girl I loved: it's as if she had died. Yes, she 
is dead, as dead as Helen: and I have not the consolation of knowing 
where they have laid her. Our marriage will be a ghastly mockery: a 
marriage of corpses. Her heart, how can she give it me? She gave it 
years ago to the man I was, the man who is dead. We, who are left, are 
nothing to one another, mere strangers.'

One could not argue with a perversity so infatuate: it was useless to 
point out, that in life a distinction so arbitrary as the one which 
haunted him does not exist. It was only left me to wait, hoping that 
in the actual event of their meeting, his malady would be healed. But 
this meeting, would it ever be compassed? There were moments when his 
dread of it seemed to have grown so extreme, that he would be capable 
of any cowardice, any compromise to postpone it, to render it 
impossible. He was afraid that she would read his revulsion in his 
eyes, would suspect how time and his very constancy had given her the 
one rival with whom she could never compete; the memory of her old 
self, of her gracious girlhood, which was dead. Might not she too, 
actually, welcome a reprieve; however readily she would have submitted 
out of honour or lassitude, to a marriage which could only be a parody 
of what might have been?

At Lisbon, I hoped that he had settled these questions, had grown 
reasonable and sane, for he wrote a long letter to her which was 
subsequently a matter of much curiosity to me; and he wore, for a day 
or two afterwards, an air almost of assurance which deceived me. I 
wondered what he had put in that epistle, how far he had explained 
himself, justified his curious attitude. Or was it simply a _résumé_, 
a conclusion to those many letters which he had written at Agnas 
Blancas, the last one which he would ever address to the little girl 
of the earlier photograph?

Later, I would have given much to decide this, but she herself, the 
woman who read it, maintained unbroken silence. In return, I kept a 
secret from her, my private interpretation of the accident of his 
death. It seemed to me a knowledge tragical enough for her, that he 
should have died as he did, so nearly in English waters; within a few 
days of the home coming, which they had passionately expected for 
years.

It would have been mere brutality to afflict her further, by lifting 
the veil of obscurity, which hangs over that calm, moonless night, by 
pointing to the note of intention in it. For it is in my experience, 
that accidents so opportune do not in real life occur, and I could not 
forget that, from Garth's point of view, death was certainly a 
solution. Was it not, moreover, precisely a solution, which so little 
time before he had the appearance of having found? Indeed when the 
first shock of his death was past, I could feel that it was after all 
a solution: with his 'luck' to handicap him, he had perhaps avoided 
worse things than the death he met. For the luck of such a man, is it 
not his temperament, his character? Can any one escape from that? May 
it not have been an escape for the poor devil himself, an escape too 
for the woman who loved him, that he chose to drop down, fathoms down, 
into the calm, irrecoverable depths of the Atlantic, when he did, 
bearing with him at least an unspoilt ideal, and leaving her a memory 
that experience could never tarnish, nor custom stale?