Chapter XCV: Epilogue: The Householder (5)

"Thanks,
Mister _Sufficiently-Instructed!_ Such
No doubt was bound to be the consequence
To suit your self-complacency: she liked
My head enough, but loved some heart beneath
Some head with plenty of brown hair a-top
After my young friend's fashion! What becomes
Of that fine speech you made a minute since
About the man of middle age you found
A formidable peer at twenty-one?
So much for your mock-modesty! and yet
I back your first against this second sprout
Of observation, insight, what you please.
My middle age, Sir, had too much success!
It 's odd: my case occurred four years ago--
I finished just while you commenced that turn
I' the wood of life that takes us to the wealth
Of honeysuckle, heaped for who can reach.
Now, I don't boast: it 's bad style, and beside,
The feat proves easier than it looks: I plucked
Full many a flower unnamed in that bouquet
(Mostly of peonies and poppies, though!)
Good-nature sticks into my buttonhole.
Therefore it was with nose in want of snuff
Rather than Ess or Psidium, that I chanced
On what--so far from '_rosebud beauty_' ... Well--
She 's dead: at least you never heard her name;
She was no courtly creature, had nor birth
Nor breeding--mere fine-lady-breeding; but
Oh, such a wonder of a woman! Grand
As a Greek statue! Stick fine clothes on that,
Style that a Duchess or a Queen,--you know,
Artists would make an outcry: all the more,
That she had just a statue's sleepy grace
Which broods o'er its own beauty. Nay, her fault
(Don't laugh!) was just perfection: for suppose
Only the little flaw, and I had peeped
Inside it, learned what soul inside was like.
At Rome some tourist raised the grit beneath
A Venus' forehead with his whittling-knife--
I wish--now--I had played that brute, brought blood
To surface from the depths I fancied chalk!
As it was, her mere face surprised so much
That I stopped short there, struck on heap, as stares
The cockney stranger at a certain bust
With drooped eyes,--she 's the thing I have in mind,--
Down at my Brother's. All sufficient prize--
Such outside! Now,--confound me for a prig!--
Who cares? I 'll make a clean breast once for all!
Beside, you 've heard the gossip. My life long
I 've been a woman-liker,--liking means
Loving and so on. There 's a lengthy list
By this time I shall have to answer for--
So say the good folk: and they don't guess half--
For the worst is, let once collecting-itch
Possess you, and, with perspicacity,
Keeps growing such a greediness that theft
Follows at no long distance,--there 's the fact!
I knew that on my Leporello-list
Might figure this, that, and the other name
Of feminine desirability,
But if I happened to desire inscribe,
Along with these, the only Beautiful--
Here was the unique specimen to snatch
Or now or never. 'Beautiful' I said--
'Beautiful' say in cold blood,--boiling then
To tune of '_Haste, secure whatever the cost_
_This rarity, die in the act, be damned,_
_So you complete collection, crown your list!_'
It seemed as though the whole world, once aroused
By the first notice of such wonder's birth,
Would break bounds to contest my prize with me
The first discoverer, should she but emerge
From that safe den of darkness where she dozed
Till I stole in, that country-parsonage
Where, country-parson's daughter, motherless,
Brotherless, sisterless, for eighteen years
She had been vegetating lily-like.
Her father was my brother's tutor, got
The living that way: him I chanced to see--
Her I saw--her the world would grow one eye
To see, I felt no sort of doubt at all!
'_Secure her!_' cried the devil: '_afterward_
_Arrange for the disposal of the prize!_'
The devil's doing! yet I seem to think--
Now, when all 's done,--think with '_a head reposed_'
In French phrase--hope I think I meant to do
All requisite for such a rarity
When I should be at leisure, have due time
To learn requirement. But in evil day--
Bless me, at week's end, long as any year,
The father must begin, '_Young Somebody,_
_Much recommended--for I break a rule--_
_Comes here to read, next Long Vacation._'--'_Young!_'
That did it. Had the epithet been '_rich_,'
'_Noble_,' '_a genius_,' even '_handsome_,'--but
--'_Young_'!"

"I say--just a word! I want to know--
You are not married?"

"I?"

"Nor ever were?"

"Never! Why?"

"Oh, then--never mind! Go on!
I had a reason for the question."

"Come,--
You could not be the young man?"

"No, indeed!
Certainly--if you never married her!"

"That I did not: and there 's the curse, you 'll see!
Nay, all of it 's one curse, my life's mistake
Which nourished with manure that 's warranted
To make the plant bear wisdom, blew out full
In folly beyond fieldflower-foolishness!
The lies I used to tell my womankind!
Knowing they disbelieved me all the time
Though they required my lies, their decent due,
This woman--not so much believed, I 'll say,
As just anticipated from my mouth:
Since being true, devoted, constant--she
Found constancy, devotion, truth, the plain
And easy commonplace of character.
No mock-heroics but seemed natural
To her who underneath the face, I knew
Was fairness' self, possessed a heart, I judged
Must correspond in folly just as far
Beyond the common,--and a mind to match,--
Not made to puzzle conjurers like me
Who, therein, proved the fool who fronts you, Sir,
And begs leave to cut short the ugly rest!
'_Trust me!_' I said: she trusted. '_Marry me!_'
Or rather, '_We are married: when, the rite?_'
That brought on the collector's next-day qualm
At counting acquisition's cost. There lay
My marvel, there my purse more light by much
Because of its late lie-expenditure:
Ill-judged such moment to make fresh demand--
To cage as well as catch my rarity!
So, I began explaining. At first word
Outbroke the horror. '_Then, my truths were lies!_'
I tell you, such an outbreak, such new strange
All-unsuspected revelation--soul
As supernaturally grand as face
Was fair beyond example--that at once
Either I lost--or, if it please you, found
My senses,--stammered somehow--'_Jest! and now,_
_Earnest! Forget all else but--heart has loved,_
_Does love, shall love you ever! take the hand!_'
Not she! no marriage for superb disdain,
Contempt incarnate!"

"Yes, it 's different,--
It 's only like in being four years since.
I see now!"

"Well, what did disdain do next,
Think you?"

"That's past me: did not marry you!---
That 's the main thing I care for, I suppose.
Turned nun, or what?"

"Why, married in a month
Some parson, some smug crop-haired smooth-chinned sort
Of curate-creature, I suspect,--dived down,
Down, deeper still, and came up somewhere else--
I don't know where--I 've not tried much to know,--
In short, she 's happy: what the clodpoles call
'Countrified' with a vengeance! leads the life
Respectable and all that drives you mad:
Still--where, I don't know, and that 's best for both."

"Well, that she did not like you, I conceive.
But why should you hate her, I want to know?"

"My good young friend,--because or her or else
Malicious Providence I have to hate.
For, what I tell you proved the turning-point
Of my whole life and fortune toward success
Or failure. If I drown, I lay the fault
Much on myself who caught at reed not rope,
But more on reed which, with a packthread's pith,
Had buoyed me till the minute's cramp could thaw
And I strike out afresh and so be saved.
It 's easy saying--I had sunk before,
Disqualified myself by idle days
And busy nights, long since, from holding hard
On cable, even, had fate cast me such!
You boys don't know how many times men fail
Perforce o' the little to succeed i' the large,
Husband their strength, let slip the petty prey,
Collect the whole power for the final pounce!
My fault was the mistaking man's main prize
For intermediate boy's diversion; clap
Of boyish hands here frightened game away
Which, once gone, goes forever. Oh, at first
I took the anger easily, nor much
Minded the anguish--having learned that storms
Subside, and teapot-tempests are akin.
Time would arrange things, mend whate'er might be
Somewhat amiss; precipitation, eh?
Reason and rhyme prompt--reparation! Tiffs
End properly in marriage and a dance!
I said 'We 'll marry, make the past a blank'--
And never was such damnable mistake!
That interview, that laying bare my soul,
As it was first, so was it last chance--one
And only. Did I write? Back letter came
Unopened as it went. Inexorable
She fled, I don't know where, consoled herself
With the smug curate-creature: chop and change!
Sure am I, when she told her shaveling all
His Magdalen's adventure, tears were shed,
Forgiveness evangelically shown,
'Loose hair and lifted eye,'--as some one says.
And now, he 's worshipped for his pains, the sneak!"

"Well, but your turning-point of life,--what 's here
To hinder you contesting Finsbury
With Orton, next election? I don't see" ...

"Not you! But _I_ see. Slowly, surely, creeps
Day by day o'er me the conviction--here
Was life's prize grasped at, gained, and then let go!
--That with her--maybe, for her--I had felt
Ice in me melt, grow steam, drive to effect
Any or all the fancies sluggish here
I' the head that needs the hand she would not take
And I shall never lift now, Lo, your wood--
Its turnings which I likened life to! Well,--
There she stands, ending every avenue,
Her visionary presence on each goal
I might have gained had we kept side by side!
Still string nerve and strike foot? Her frown forbids:
The steam congeals once more: I 'm old again!
Therefore I hate myself--but how much worse
Do not I hate who would not understand,
Let me repair things--no, but sent a-slide
My folly falteringly, stumblingly
Down, down, and deeper down until I drop
Upon--the need of your ten thousand pounds
And consequently loss of mine! I lose
Character, cash, nay, common-sense itself
Recounting such a lengthy cock-and-bull
Adventure, lose my temper in the act" ...

"And lose beside,--if I may supplement
The list of losses,--train and ten-o'clock!
Hark, pant and puff, there travels the swart sign!
So much the better! You 're my captive now!
I 'm glad you trust a fellow: friends grow thick
This way--that 's twice said; we were thickish, though,
Even last night, and, ere night comes again,
I prophesy good luck to both of us!
For see now!--back to '_balmy eminence_'
Or '_calm acclivity_' or what 's the word!
Bestow you there an hour, concoct at ease
A sonnet for the Album, while I put
Bold face on, best foot forward, make for house,
March in to aunt and niece, and tell the truth--
(Even white-lying goes against my taste
After your little story.) Oh, the niece
Is rationality itself! The aunt--
If she 's amenable to reason too--
Why, you stopped short to pay her due respect,
And let the Duke wait (I 'll work well the Duke).
If she grows gracious, I return for you;
If thunder 's in the air, why--bear your doom,
Dine on rump-steaks and port, and shake the dust
Of aunty from your shoes as off you go
By evening-train, nor give the thing a thought
How you shall pay me--that 's as sure as fate.
Old fellow! Off with you, face left about!
Yonder 's the path I have to pad. You see,
I 'm in good spirits, God knows why! Perhaps
Because the woman did not marry you
--Who look so hard at me,--and have the right,
One must be fair and own."

The two stand still
Under an oak.

"Look here!" resumes the youth.
"I never quite knew how I came to like
You--so much--whom I ought not court at all:
Nor how you had a leaning just to me
Who am assuredly not worth your pains.
For there must needs be plenty such as you
Somewhere about,--although I can't say where,--
Able and willing to teach all you know;
While--how can you have missed a score like me
With money and no wit, precisely each
A pupil for your purpose, were it--ease
Fool's poke of tutor's _honorarium_-fee?
And yet, howe'er it came about, I felt
At once my master: you as prompt descried
Your man, warrant, so was bargain struck.
Now, these same lines of liking, loving, run
Sometimes so close together they converge--
Life's great adventures--you know what I mean--
In people. Do you know, as you advanced,
It got to be uncommonly like fact
We two had fallen in with--liked and loved
Just the same woman in our different ways?
I began life--poor groundling as I prove--
and ambitious to fly high: why not?
There 's something in 'Don Quixote' to the point,
My shrewd old father used to quote and praise--
'_Am I born man?_' asks Sancho; '_being man,_
_By possibility I may be Pope!_'
So, Pope I meant to make myself, by step
And step, whereof the first should be to find
A perfect woman; and I tell you this--
If what I fixed on, in the order due
Of undertakings, as next step, had first
Of all disposed itself to suit my tread,
And I had been, the day I came of age,
Returned at head of poll for Westminster
--Nay, and moreover summoned by the Queen
At week's end, when my maiden-speech bore fruit,
To form and head a Tory ministry--
It would not have seemed stranger, no, nor been
More strange to me, as now I estimate,
Than what did happen--sober truth, no dream.
I saw my wonder of a woman,--laugh,
I'm past that!--in Commemoration-week.
A plenty have I seen since, fair and foul,--
With eyes, too, helped by your sagacious wink;
But one to match that marvel--no least trace,
Least touch of kinship and community!
The end was--I did somehow state the fact,
Did, with no matter what imperfect words,
One way or other give to understand
That woman, soul and body were her slave
Would she but take, but try them--any test
Of will, and some poor test of power beside:
So did the strings within my brain grow tense
And capable of ... hang similitudes!
She answered kindly but beyond appeal.
'_No sort of hope for me, who came too late._
_She was another's. Love went--mine to her,_
_Hers just as loyally to some one else._'
Of course! I might expect it! Nature's law--
Given the peerless woman, certainly
Somewhere shall be the peerless man to match!
I acquiesced at once, submitted me
In something of a stupor, went my way.
I fancy there had been some talk before
Of somebody--her father or the like--
To coach me in the holidays,--that's how
I came to get the sight and speech of her,--
But I had sense enough to break off sharp,
Save both of us the pain."

"Quite right there!"

"Eh?
Quite wrong, it happens! Now comes worst of all!
Yes, I did sulk aloof and let alone
The lovers--_I_ disturb the angel-mates?"

"Seraph paired off with cherub!"

"Thank you! While
I never plucked up courage to inquire
Who he was, even,--certain-sure of this,
That nobody I knew of had blue wings
And wore a star-crown as he needs must do,--
Some little lady,--plainish, pock-marked girl,--
Finds out my secret in my woeful face,
Comes up to me at the Apollo Ball,
And pityingly pours her wine and oil
This way into the wound: '_Dear f-f-friend,_
_Why waste affection thus on--must I say,_
_A somewhat worthless object? Who's her choice--_
_Irrevocable as deliberate--_
_Out of the wide world? I shall name no names--_
_But there's a person in society,_
_Who, blessed with rank and talent, has grown gray_
_In idleness and sin of every sort_
_Except hypocrisy: he's thrice her age,_
_A byword for 'successes with the sex'_
_As the French say--and, as we ought to say._
_Consummately a liar and a rogue,_
_Since--show me where's the woman won without_
_The help of this one lie which she believes--_
_That--never mind how things have come to pass,_
_And let who loves have loved a thousand times--_
_All the same he now loves her only, loves_
_Her ever! if by 'won' you just mean 'sold,'_
_That's quite another compact. Well, this scamp,_
_Continuing descent from bad to worse,_
_Must leave his fine and fashionable prey_
_(Who--fathered, brothered, husbanded,--are hedged_
_About with thorny danger) and apply_
_His arts to this poor country ignorance_
_Who sees forthwith in the first rag of man_
_Her model hero! Why continue waste_
_On such a woman treasures of a heart_
_Would yet find solace,--yes, my f-f-friend--_
_In some congenial_--fiddle-diddle-dee?'"

"Pray, is the pleasant gentleman described
Exact the portrait which my '_f-f-friends_'
Recognize as so like? 'Tis evident
You half surmised the sweet original
Could be no other than myself, just now!
Your stop and start were flattering!"

"Of course
Caricature's allowed for in a sketch!
The longish nose becomes a foot in length,
The swarthy cheek gets copper-colored,--still,
Prominent beak and dark-hued skin are facts:
And '_parson's daughter_'--'_young man coachable_'--
'_Elderly party_'--'_four years since_'--were facts
To fasten on, a moment! Marriage, though--
That made the difference, I hope."

"All right!
I never married; wish I had--and then
Unwish it: people kill their wives, sometimes!
I hate my mistress, but I'm murder-free.
In your case, where's the grievance? You came last,
The earlier bird picked up the worm. Suppose
You, in the glory of your twenty-one,
Had happened to precede myself! 'tis odds
But this gigantic juvenility,
This offering of a big arm's bony hand--
I'd rather shake than feel shake me, I know--
Had moved _my_ dainty mistress to admire
An altogether new Ideal--deem
Idolatry less due to life's decline
Productive of experience, powers mature
By dint of usage, the made man--no boy
That's all to make! I was the earlier bird--
And what I found, I let fall; what you missed,
Who is the fool that blames you for?"

"Myself--
For nothing, everything! For finding out
She, whom I worshipped, was a worshipper
In turn of ... but why stir up settled mud?
She married him--the fifty-years-old rake--
How you have teased the talk from me! At last
My secret's told you. I inquired no more,
Nay, stopped ears when informants unshut mouth;
Enough that she and he live, deuce take where,
Married and happy, or else miserable--
It's 'Cut-the-pack;' she turned up ace or knave,
And I left Oxford, England, dug my hole
Out in Dalmatia, till you drew me thence
Badger-like,--'_Back to London_' was the word--
'_Do things, a many, there, you fancy hard,_
_I'll undertake are easy!_'--the advice.
I took it, had my twelvemonth's fling with you--
(Little hand holding large hand pretty tight
For all its delicacy--eh, my lord?)
Until when, t'other day, I got a turn
Somehow and gave up tired: and '_Rest!_' bade you,
'_Marry your cousin, double your estate,_
_And take your ease by all means!_' So, I loll
On this the springy sofa, mine next month--
Or should loll, but that you must needs beat rough
The very down you spread me out so smooth.
I wish this confidence were still to make!
Ten thousand pounds? You owe me twice the sum
For stirring up the black depths! There's repose
Or, at least, silence when misfortune seems
All that one has to bear; but folly--yes,
Folly, it all was! Fool to be so meek,
So humble,--such a coward rather say!
Fool, to adore the adorer of a fool!
Not to have faced him, tried (a useful hint)
My big and bony, here, against the bunch
Of lily-colored five with signet-ring,
Most like, for little-finger's sole defence--
Much as you flaunt the blazon there! I grind
My teeth, that bite my very heart, to think--
To know I might have made that woman mine
But for the folly of the coward--know--
Or what's the good of my apprenticeship
This twelvemonth to a master in the art?
Mine--had she been mine--just one moment mine
For honor, for dishonor--anyhow,
So that my life, instead of stagnant ... Well,
You've poked and proved stagnation is not sleep--
Hang you!"

"Hang _you_ for an ungrateful goose!
All this means--I who since I knew you first
Have helped you to conceit yourself this cock
O' the dunghill with all hens to pick and choose--
Ought to have helped you when shell first was chipped
By chick that wanted prompting '_Use the spur!_'
While I was elsewhere putting mine to use.
As well might I blame you who kept aloof,
Seeing you could not guess I was alive,
Never advised me '_Do as I have done--_
_Reverence such a jewel as your luck_
_Has scratched up to enrich unworthiness!_'
As your behavior was, should mine have been,
--Faults which we both, too late, are sorry for:
Opposite ages, each with its mistake:
'_If youth but would--if age but could_,' you know.
Don't let us quarrel! Come, we're--young and old--
Neither so badly off. Go you your way,
Cut to the Cousin! I'll to Inn, await
The issue of diplomacy with Aunt,
And wait my hour on '_calm acclivity_'
In rumination manifold--perhaps
About ten thousand pounds I have to pay!"

III

Now, as the elder lights the fresh cigar
Conducive to resource, and saunteringly
Betakes him to the left-hand backward path,--
While, much sedate, the younger strides away
To right and makes for--islanded in lawn
And edged with shrubbery--the brilliant bit
Of Barry's building that's the Place,--a pair
Of women, at this nick of time, one young,
One very young, are ushered with due pomp
Into the same Inn-parlor--"_disengaged_
_Entirely now!_" the obsequious landlord smiles,
"_Since the late occupants--whereof but one_
_Was quite a stranger_"--(smile enforced by bow)
"_Left, a full two hours since, to catch the train,_
_Probably for the stranger's sake!_" (Bow, smile,
And backing out from door soft-closed behind.)

Woman and girl, the two, alone inside,
Begin their talk: the girl, with sparkling eyes--
"Oh, I forewent him purposely! but you,
Who joined at--journeyed from the Junction here--
I wonder how he failed your notice. Few
Stop at our station: fellow-passengers
Assuredly you were--I saw indeed
His servant, therefore he arrived all right.
I wanted, you know why, to have you safe
Inside here first of all, so dodged about
The dark end of the platform; that's his way--
To swing from station straight to avenue
And stride the half a mile for exercise.
I fancied you might notice the huge boy.
He soon gets o'er the distance; at the house
He'll hear I went to meet him and have missed;
He'll wait. No minute of the hour's too much
Meantime for our preliminary talk:
First word of which must be--oh, good beyond
Expression of all goodness--you to come!"

The elder, the superb one, answers slow.

"There was no helping that. You called for me,
Cried, rather: and my old heart answered you.
Still, thank me! since the effort breaks a vow--
At least, a promise to myself."

"I know!
How selfish get you happy folk to be!
If I should love my husband, must I needs
Sacrifice straightway all the world to him,
As you do? Must I never dare leave house
On this dread Arctic expedition, out
And in again, six mortal hours, though you,
You even, my own friend forevermore,
Adjure me--fast your friend till rude love pushed
Poor friendship from her vantage--just to grant
The quarter of a whole day's company
And counsel? This makes counsel so much more
Need and necessity. For here's my block
Of stumbling: in the face of happiness
So absolute, fear chills me. If such change
In heart be but love's easy consequence,
Do I love? If to marry mean--let go
All I now live for, should my marriage be?"

The other never once has ceased to gaze
On the great elm-tree in the open, posed
Placidly full in front, smooth bole, broad branch,
And leafage, one green plenitude of May.
The gathered thought runs into speech at last.

"O you exceeding beauty, bosomful
Of lights and shades, murmurs and silences,
Sun-warmth, dew-coolness,--squirrel, bee and bird,
High, higher, highest, till the blue proclaims
'_Leave earth, there's nothing better till next step_
_Heavenward!_'--so, off flies what has wings to help!"

And henceforth they alternate. Says the girl--

"That's saved then: marriage spares the early taste."

"Four years now, since my eye took note of tree!"

"If I had seen no other tree but this
My life long, while yourself came straight, you said,
From tree which overstretched you and was just
One fairy tent with pitcher-leaves that held
Wine, and a flowery wealth of suns and moons,
And magic fruits whereon the angels feed--
I looking out of window on a tree
Like yonder--otherwise well-known, much-liked,
Yet just an English ordinary elm--
What marvel if you cured me of conceit
My elm's bird-bee-and-squirrel tenantry
Was quite the proud possession I supposed?
And there is evidence you tell me true.
The fairy marriage-tree reports itself
Good guardian of the perfect face and form,
Fruits of four years' protection! Married friend,
You are more beautiful than ever!"

"Yes:
I think that likely. I could well dispense
With all thought fair in feature, mine or no,
Leave but enough of face to know me by--
With all found fresh in youth except such strength
As lets a life-long labor earn repose
Death sells at just that price, they say; and so,
Possibly, what I care not for, I keep."

"How you must know he loves you! Chill, before,
Fear sinks to freezing. Could I sacrifice--
Assured my lover simply loves my soul--
One nose-breadth of fair feature? No, indeed!
Your own love" ...

"The preliminary hour--
Don't waste it!"

"But I can't begin at once!
The angel's self that comes to hear me speak
Drives away all the care about the speech.
What an angelic mystery you are--
Now--that is certain! when I knew you first,
No break of halo and no bud of wing!
I thought I knew you, saw you, round and through,
Like a glass ball; suddenly, four years since,
You vanished, how and whither? Mystery!
Wherefore? No mystery at all: you loved,
Were loved again, and left the world of course:
Who would not? Lapped four years in fairyland,
Out comes, by no less wonderful a chance,
The changeling, touched athwart her trellised bliss
Of blush-rose bower by just the old friend's voice
That's now struck dumb at her own potency.
_I_ talk of my small fortunes? Tell me yours
Rather! The fool I ever was--I am,
You see that: the true friend you ever had,
You have, you also recognize. Perhaps,
Giving you all the love of all my heart,
Nature, that's niggard in me, has denied
The after-birth of love there 's some one claims,
--This huge boy, swinging up the avenue;
And I want counsel: is defect in me,
Or him who has no right to raise the love?
My cousin asks my hand: he's young enough,
Handsome,--my maid thinks,--manly's more the word:
He asked my leave to '_drop_' the elm-tree there,
Some morning before breakfast. Gentleness
Goes with the strength, of course. He's honest too,
Limpidly truthful. For ability--
All's in the rough yet. His first taste of life
Seems to have somehow gone against the tongue:
He travelled, tried things--came back, tried still more--
He says he 's sick of all. He 's fond of me
After a certain careless-earnest way
I like: the iron 's crude,--no polished steel
Somebody forged before me. I am rich--
That 's not the reason, he 's far richer: no,
Nor is it that he thinks me pretty,--frank
Undoubtedly on that point! He saw once
The pink of face-perfection--oh, not you--
Content yourself, my beauty!--for she proved
So thoroughly a cheat, his charmer ... nay,
He runs into extremes, I 'll say at once,
Lest you say! Well, I understand he wants
Some one to serve, something to do: and both
Requisites so abound in me and mine
That here 's the obstacle which stops consent--
The smoothness is too smooth, and I mistrust
The unseen cat beneath the counterpane.
Therefore I thought--'_Would she but judge for me,_
_Who, judging for herself succeeded so!_'
Do I love him, does he love me, do both
Mistake for knowledge--easy ignorance?
Appeal to its proficient in each art!
I got rough-smooth through a piano-piece,
Rattled away last week till tutor came,
Heard me to end, then grunted '_Ach, mein Gott!_
_Sagen Sie "easy"? Every note is wrong!_
_All thumped mit wrist--we 'll trouble fingers now._
_The Fräulein will please roll up Raff again_
_And exercise at Czerny for one month!_'
Am I to roll up cousin, exercise
At Trollope's novels for one month? Pronounce!"

"Now, place each in the right position first,
Adviser and advised one! I perhaps
Am three--nay, four years older; am, beside,
A wife: advantages--to balance which,
You have a full fresh joyous sense of life
That finds you out life's fit food everywhere,
Detects enjoyment where I, slow and dull,
Fumble at fault. Already, these four years,
Your merest glimpses at the world without
Have shown you more than ever met my gaze;
And now, by joyance you inspire joy,--learn
While you profess to teach, and teach, although
Avowedly a learner. I am dazed
Like any owl by sunshine which just sets
The sparrow preening plumage! Here 's to spy
--Your cousin! You have scanned him all your life,
Little or much; I never saw his face.
You have determined on a marriage--used
Deliberation therefore--I 'll believe
No otherwise, with opportunity
For judgment so abounding! Here stand I--
Summoned to give my sentence, for a whim,
(Well, at first cloud-fleck thrown athwart your blue,)
Judge what is strangeness' self to me,--say '_Wed!_'
Or '_Wed not!_' whom you promise I shall judge
Presently, at propitious lunch-time, just
While he carves chicken! Sends he leg for wing?
That revelation into character
And conduct must suffice me! Quite as well
Consult with yonder solitary crow
That eyes us from your elm-top!"

"Still the same!
Do you remember, at the library
We saw together somewhere, those two books
Somebody said were notice-worthy? One
Lay wide on table, sprawled its painted leaves
For all the world's inspection; shut on shelf
Reclined the other volume, closed, clasped, locked--
Clear to be let alone. Which page had we
Preferred the turning over of? You were,
Are, ever will be the locked lady, hold
Inside you secrets written,--soul absorbed,
My ink upon your blotting-paper. _I_--
What trace of you have I to show in turn?
Delicate secrets! No one juvenile
Ever essayed at croquet and performed
Superiorly but I confided you
The sort of hat he wore and hair it held.
While you? One day a calm note comes by post--
'_I am just married, you may like to hear._'
Most men would hate you, or they ought; we love
What we fear,--_I_ do! '_Cold_' I shall expect
My cousin calls you. I--dislike not him,
But (if I comprehend what loving means)
Love you immeasurably more--more--more
Than even he who, loving you his wife,
Would turn up nose at who impertinent,
Frivolous, forward--_loves_ that excellence
Of all the earth he bows in worship to!
And who 's this paragon of privilege?
Simply a country parson: his the charm
That worked the miracle! Oh, too absurd--
But that you stand before me as you stand!
Such beauty does prove something, everything!
Beauty 's the prize-flower which dispenses eye
From peering into what has nourished root--
Dew or manure: the plant best knows its place.
Enough, from teaching youth and tending age
And hearing sermons,--haply writing tracts,--
From such strange love-besprinkled compost, lo,
Out blows this triumph! Therefore love 's the soil
Plants find or fail of. You, with wit to find,
Exercise wit on the old friend's behalf,
Keep me from failure! Scan and scrutinize
This cousin! Surely he 's as worth your pains
To study as my elm-tree, crow and all,
You still keep staring at. I read your thoughts."

"At last?"

"At first! '_Would, tree, a-top of thee_
_I wingèd were, like crow perched moveless there,_
_And so could straightway soar, escape this bore,_
_Back to my nest where broods whom I love best--_
_The parson o'er his parish--garish--rarish_,'--
Oh, I could bring the rhyme in if I tried:
The Album here inspires me! Quite apart
From lyrical expression, have I read
The stare aright, and sings not soul just so?"

"Or rather _so?_ '_Cool comfortable elm_
_That men make coffins out of,--none for me_
_At thy expense, so thou permit I glide_
_Under thy ferny feet, and there sleep, sleep,_
_Nor dread awaking though in heaven itself!_'"

The younger looks with face struck sudden white.
The elder answers its inquiry.

"Dear,
You are a guesser, not a '_clairvoyante_.'
I 'll so far open you the locked and shelved
Volume, my soul, that you desire to see,
As let you profit by the title-page"--

"_Paradise Lost?_"

"_Inferno!_--All which comes
Of tempting me to break my vow. Stop here!
Friend, whom I love the best in the whole world,
Come at your call, be sure that I will do
All your requirement--see and say my mind.
It may be that by sad apprenticeship
I have a keener sense: I 'll task the same.
Only indulge me,--here let sight and speech
Happen,--this Inn is neutral ground, you know!
I cannot visit the old house and home,
Encounter the old sociality
Abjured forever. Peril quite enough
In even this first--last, I pray it prove--
Renunciation of my solitude!
Back, you, to house and cousin! Leave me here,
Who want no entertainment, carry still
My occupation with me. While I watch
The shadow inching round those ferny feet,
Tell him '_A school-friend wants a word with me_
_Up at the inn: time, tide, and train won't wait:_
_I must go see her--on and off again--_
_You 'll keep me company?_' Ten minutes' talk,
With you in presence, ten more afterward
With who, alone, convoys me station-bound,
And I see clearly--and say honestly
To-morrow: pen shall play tongue's part, you know.
Go--quick! for I have made our hand-in-hand
Return impossible. So scared you look,--
If cousin does not greet you with '_What ghost_
_Has crossed your path?_' I set him down obtuse."

And after one more look, with face still white,
The younger does go, while the elder stands
Occupied by the elm at window there.

IV

Occupied by the elm; and, as its shade
Has crept clock-hand-wise till it ticks at fern
Five inches further to the South,--the door
Opens abruptly, some one enters sharp,
The elder man returned to wait the youth:
Never observes the room's new occupant,
Throws hat on table, stoops quick, elbow propped
Over the Album wide there, bends down brow
A cogitative minute, whistles shrill,
Then,--with a cheery-hopeless laugh-and-lose
Air of defiance to fate visibly
Casting the toils about him--mouths once more
'_Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!_'
Then clasps-to cover, sends book spinning off
T' other side table, looks up, starts erect
Full-face with her who--roused from that abstruse
Question '_Will next tick tip the fern or no?_'--
Fronts him as fully.

All her languor breaks,
Away withers at once the weariness
From the black-blooded brow, anger and hate
Convulse. Speech follows slowlier, but at last--

"You here! I felt, I knew it would befall!
Knew, by some subtle undivinable
Trick of the trickster, I should, silly-sooth,
Late or soon, somehow be allured to leave
Safe hiding and come take of him arrears,
My torment due on four years' respite! Time
To pluck the bird's healed, breast of down o'er wound!
Have your success! Be satisfied this sole
Seeing you has undone all heaven could do
These four years, puts me back to you and hell!
What will next trick be, next success? No doubt
When I shall think to glide into the grave,
There will you wait disguised as beckoning Death,
And catch and capture me forevermore!
But, God, though I am nothing, be thou all!
Contest him for me! Strive, for he is strong!"

Already his surprise dies palely out
In laugh of acquiescing impotence.
He neither gasps nor hisses: calm and plain--

"I also felt and knew--but otherwise!
_You_ out of hand and sight and care of me
These four years, whom I felt, knew, all the while ...
Oh, it 's no superstition! It 's a gift
O' the gamester that he snuffs the unseen powers
Which help or harm him. Well I knew what lurked,
Lay perdue paralyzing me,--drugged, drowsed
And damnified my soul and body both!
Down and down, see where you have dragged me to,
You and your malice! I was, four years since,
--Well, a poor creature! I became a knave.
I squandered my own pence: I plump my purse
With other people's pounds. I practised play
Because I liked it: play turns labor now
Because there 's profit also in the sport.
I gamed with men of equal age and craft:
I steal here with a boy as green as grass
Whom I have tightened hold on slow and sure
This long while, just to bring about to-day
When the boy beats me hollow, buries me
In ruin who was sure to beggar him.
Oh, time indeed I should look up and laugh
'_Surely she closes on me!_' Here you stand!"

And stand she does: while volubility,
With him, keeps on the increase, for his tongue
After long locking-up is loosed for once.

"Certain the taunt is happy!" he resumes:
"So, I it was allured you--only I
--I, and none other--to this spectacle--
Your triumph, my despair--you woman-fiend
That front me! Well, I have my wish, then! See
The low wide brow oppressed by sweeps of hair
Darker and darker as they coil and swathe
The crowned corpse-wanness whence the eyes burn black,
Not asleep now! not pin-points dwarfed beneath
Either great bridging eyebrow--poor blank beads--
Babies, I 've pleased to pity in my time:
How they protrude and glow immense with hate!
The long-triumphant nose attains--retains
Just the perfection; and there 's scarlet-skein
My ancient enemy, her lip and lip,
Sense-free, sense-frighting lips clenched cold and bold
Because of chin, that based resolve beneath!
Then the columnar neck completes the whole
Greek-sculpture-baffling body! Do I see?
Can I observe? You wait next word to come?
Well, wait and want! since no one blight I bid
Consume one least perfection. Each and all,
As they are rightly shocking now to me,
So may they still continue! Value them?
Ay, as the vendor knows the money-worth
O£ his Greek statue, fools aspire to buy,
And he to see the back of! Let as laugh!
You have absolved me from my sin at least!
You stand stout, strong, in the rude health of hate,
No touch of the tame timid nullity
My cowardice, forsooth, has practised on!
Ay, while you seemed to hint some fine fifth act
Of tragedy should freeze blood, end the farce,
I never doubted all was joke. I kept,
Maybe, an eye alert on paragraphs,
Newspaper-notice,--let no inquest slip,
Accident, disappearance: sound and safe
Were you, my victim, not of mind to die!
So, my worst fancy that could spoil the smooth
Of pillow, and arrest descent of sleep,
Was '_Into what dim hole can she have dived,_
_She and her wrongs, her woe that 's wearing flesh_
_And blood away?_' Whereas, see, sorrow swells!
Or, fattened, fulsome, have you fed on me,
Sucked out my substance? How much gloss, I pray,
O'erbloomed those hair-swathes when there crept from you
To me that craze, else unaccountable,
Which urged me to contest our county-seat
With whom but my own brother's nominee?
Did that mouth's pulp glow ruby from carmine
While I misused my moment, pushed,--one word,--
One hair's-breadth more of gesture,--idiot-like
Past passion, floundered on to the grotesque,
And lost the heiress in a grin? At least,
You made no such mistake! You tickled fish,
Landed your prize the true artistic way!
How did the smug young curate rise to tune
Of '_Friend, a fatal fact divides us. Love_
_Suits me no longer. I have suffered shame,_
_Betrayal: past is past; the future--yours--_
_Shall never be contaminate by mine!_
_I might have spared me this confession, not_
_--Oh, never by some hideousest of lies,_
_Easy, impenetrable! No! but say,_
_By just the quiet answer--"I am cold."_
_Falsehood avaunt, each shadow of thee, hence!_
_Had happier fortune willed ... but dreams are vain._
_Now, leave me--yes, for pity's sake!_' Aha,
Who fails to see the curate as his face
Reddened and whitened, wanted handkerchief
At wrinkling brow and twinkling eye, until
Out burst the proper '_Angel, whom the fiend_
_Has thought to smirch,--thy whiteness, at one wipe_
_Of holy cambric, shall disgrace the swan!_
_Mine be the task_' ... and so forth! Fool? not he!
Cunning in flavors, rather! What but sour
Suspected makes the sweetness doubly sweet,
And what stings love from faint to flamboyant
But the fear-sprinkle? Even horror helps--
_Love's flame in me by such recited wrong_
_Drenched, quenched, indeed? It burns the fiercelier thence!_'
Why, I have known men never love their wives
Till somebody--myself, suppose--had '_drenched_
_And quenched love_,' so the blockheads whined: as if
The fluid fire that lifts the torpid limb
Were a wrong done to palsy. But I thrilled
No palsied person: half my age, or less,
The curate was, I 'll wager: o'er young blood
Your beauty triumphed! Eh, but--was it _he?_
Then, it _was_ he, I heard of! None beside!
How frank you were about the audacious boy
Who fell upon you like a thunderbolt--
Passion and protestation! He it was
Reserved _in petto!_ Ay, and '_rich_' beside--
'_Rich_'--how supremely did disdain curl nose!
All that I heard was--'_wedded to a priest;_'
Informants sunk youth, riches and the rest.
And so my lawless love disparted loves,
That loves might come together with a rush!
Surely this last achievement sucked me dry:
Indeed, that way my wits went. Mistress-queen,
Be merciful and let your subject slink
Into dark safety! He 's a beggar, see--
Do not turn back his ship, Australia-bound,
And bid her land him right amid some crowd
Of creditors, assembled by your curse!
Don't cause the very rope to crack (you can!)
Whereon he spends his last (friend's) sixpence, just
The moment when he hoped to hang himself!
Be satisfied you beat him!"

She replies--

"Beat him! I do. To all that you confess
Of abject failure, I extend belief.
Your very face confirms it: God is just!
Let my face--fix your eyes!--in turn confirm
What I shall say. All-abject's but half truth;
Add to all-abject knave as perfect fool!
_So_ is it you probed human nature, _so_
Prognosticated of me? Lay these words
To heart then, or where God meant heart should lurk!
That moment when you first revealed yourself,
My simple impulse prompted--end forthwith
The ruin of a life uprooted thus
To surely perish! How should such spoiled tree
Henceforward balk the wind of its worst sport,
Fail to go falling deeper, falling down
From sin to sin until some depth were reached
Doomed to the weakest by the wickedest
Of weak and wicked human-kind? But when,
That self-display made absolute,--behold
A new revealment!--round you pleased to veer,
Propose me what should prompt annul the past,
Make me '_amends by marriage_'--in your phrase,
Incorporate me henceforth, body and soul,
With soul and body which mere brushing past
Brought leprosy upon me--'_marry_' these!
Why, then despair broke, reassurance dawned,
Clear-sighted was I that who hurled contempt
As I--thank God!--at the contemptible,
Was scarce an utter weakling. Rent away
By treason from my rightful pride of place,
I was not destined to the shame below.
A cleft had caught me: I might perish there,
But thence to be dislodged and whirled at last
Where the black torrent sweeps the sewage--no!
'_Bare breast be on hard rock_,' laughed out my soul
In gratitude, '_howe'er rock's grip may grind!_
_The plain, rough, wretched holdfast shall suffice_
_This wreck of me!_' The wind,--I broke in bloom
At passage of,--which stripped me bole and branch,
Twisted me up and tossed me here,--turns back,
And, playful ever, would replant the spoil?
Be satisfied, not one least leaf that's mine
Shall henceforth help wind's sport to exercise!
Rather I give such remnant to the rock
Which never dreamed a straw would settle there.
Rock may not thank me, may not feel my breast,
Even: enough that _I_ feel, hard and cold,
Its safety my salvation. Safe and saved,
I lived, live. When the tempter shall persuade
His prey to slip down, slide off, trust the wind,--
Now that I know if God or Satan be
Prince of the Power of the Air,--then, then, indeed,
Let my life end and degradation too!"

"Good!" he smiles, "true Lord Byron!" '_Tree and rock:_
_Rock_,'--there's advancement! He's at first a youth,
Rich, worthless therefore; next he grows a priest:
Youth, riches prove a notable resource,
When to leave me for their possessor gluts
Malice abundantly; and now, last change,
The young rich parson represents a rock
--Bloodstone, no doubt. He's Evangelical?
Your Ritualists prefer the Church for spouse!"

She speaks.

"I have a story to relate.
There was a parish-priest, my father knew,
Elderly, poor: I used to pity him
Before I learned what woes are pity-worth.
Elderly was grown old now, scanty means
Were straitening fast to poverty, beside
The ailments which await in such a case.
Limited every way, a perfect man
Within the bounds built up and up since birth
Breast-high about him till the outside world
Was blank save o'erhead one blue bit of sky--
Faith: he had faith in dogma, small or great,
As in the fact that if he clave his skull
He'd find a brain there: who proves such a fact
No falsehood by experiment at price
Of soul and body? The one rule of life
Delivered him in childhood was '_Obey!_
_Labor!_' He had obeyed and labored--tame,
True to the mill-track blinked on from above.
Some scholarship he may have gained in youth:
Gone--dropt or flung behind. Some blossom-flake,
Spring's boon, descends on every vernal head,
I used to think; but January joins
December, as his year had known no May;
Trouble its snow-deposit,--cold and old!
I heard it was his will to take a wife,
A helpmate. Duty bade him tend and teach--
How? with experience null, nor sympathy
Abundant,--while himself worked dogma dead,
Who would play ministrant to sickness, age,
Womankind, childhood? These demand a wife.
Supply the want, then! theirs the wife; for him--
No coarsest sample of the proper sex
But would have served his purpose equally
With God's own angel,--let but knowledge match
Her coarseness: zeal does only half the work.
I saw this--knew the purblind honest drudge
Was wearing out his simple blameless life,
And wanted help beneath a burden--borne
To treasure-house or dust-heap, what cared I?
Partner he needed: I proposed myself,
Nor much surprised him--duty was so clear!
Gratitude? What for? Gain of Paradise--
Escape, perhaps, from the dire penalty
Of who hides talent in a napkin? No:
His scruple was--should I be strong enough
--In body? since of weakness in the mind,
Weariness in the heart--no fear of these?
He took me as these Arctic voyagers
Take an aspirant to their toil and pain:
Can he endure them?--that 's the point, and not
--Will he? Who would not, rather! Whereupon,
I pleaded far more earnestly for leave
To give myself away, than you to gain
What you called priceless till you gained the heart
And soul and body! which, as beggars serve
Extorted alms, you straightway spat upon.
Not so my husband,--for I gained my suit,
And had my value put at once to proof.
Ask him! These four years I have died away
In village-life. The village? Ugliness
At best and filthiness at worst, inside.
Outside, sterility--earth sown with salt
Or what keeps even grass from growing fresh.
The life? I teach the poor and learn, myself,
That commonplace to such stupidity
Is all-recondite. Being brutalized
Their true need is brute-language, cheery grunts
And kindly cluckings, no articulate
Nonsense that 's elsewhere knowledge. Tend the sick,
Sickened myself at pig-perversity,
Cat-craft, dog-snarling--maybe, snapping" ...

"Brief:
You eat that root of bitterness called Man
--Raw: I prefer it cooked, with social sauce!
So, he was not the rich youth after all!
Well, I mistook. But somewhere needs must be
The compensation. If not young nor rich" ...

"You interrupt!"

"Because you 've daubed enough
Bistre for background. Play the artist now,
Produce your figure well-relieved in front!
The contrast--do not I anticipate?
Though neither rich nor young--what then? 'T is all
Forgotten, all this ignobility,
In the dear home, the darling word, the smile,
The something sweeter" ...

"Yes, you interrupt.
I have my purpose and proceed. Who lives
With beasts assumes beast-nature, look and voice,
And, much more, thought, for beasts think. Selfishness
In us met selfishness in them, deserved
Such answer as it gained. My husband, bent
On saving his own soul by saving theirs,--
They, bent on being saved if saving soul
Included body's getting bread and cheese
Somehow in life and somehow after death,--
Both parties were alike in the same boat,
One danger, therefore one equality.
Safety induces culture: culture seeks
To institute, extend and multiply
The difference between safe man and man,
Able to live alone now; progress means
What but abandonment of fellowship?
We were in common danger, still stuck close.
No new books,--were the old ones mastered yet?
No pictures and no music: these divert
--What from? the staving danger off! You paint
The waterspout above, you set to words
The roaring of the tempest round you? Thanks!
Amusement? Talk at end of the tired day
Of the more tiresome morrow! I transcribed
The page on page of sermon-scrawlings--stopped
Intellect's eye and ear to sense and sound--
Vainly: the sound and sense would penetrate
To brain and plague there in despite of me
Maddened to know more moral good were done
Had we two simply sallied forth and preached
I' the '_Green_' they call their grimy,--I with twang
Of long-disused guitar,--with cut and slash
Of much-misvalued horsewhip he,--to bid
The peaceable come dance, the peace-breaker
Pay in his person! Whereas--Heaven and Hell,
Excite with that, restrain with this!--so dealt
His drugs my husband; as he dosed himself,
He drenched his cattle: and, for all my part
Was just to dub the mortar, never fear
But drugs, hand pestled at, have poisoned nose!
Heaven he let pass, left wisely undescribed:
As applicable therefore to the sleep
I want, that knows no waking--as to what 's
Conceived of as the proper prize to tempt
Souls less world-weary: there, no fault to find!
But Hell he made explicit. After death,
Life: man created new, ingeniously
Perfect for a vindictive purpose now,
That man, first fashioned in beneficence,
Was proved a failure; intellect at length
Replacing old obtuseness, memory
Made mindful of delinquent's bygone deeds
Now that remorse was vain, which life-long lay
Dormant when lesson might be laid to heart;
New gift of observation up and down
And round man's self, new power to apprehend
Each necessary consequence of act
In man for well or ill--things obsolete--
Just granted to supplant the idiocy
Man's only guide while act was yet to choose,
With ill or well momentously its fruit;
A faculty of immense suffering
Conferred on mind and body,--mind, erewhile
Unvisited by one compunctious dream
During sin's drunken slumber, startled up,
Stung through and through by sin's significance
Now that the holy was abolished--just
As body which, alive, broke down beneath
Knowledge, lay helpless in the path to good,
Failed to accomplish aught legitimate,
Achieve aught worthy,--which grew old in youth,
And at its longest fell a cut-down flower,--
Dying, this too revived by miracle
To bear no end of burden now that back
Supported torture to no use at all,
And live imperishably potent--since
Life's potency was impotent to ward
One plague off which made earth a hell before.
This doctrine, which one healthy view of things,
One sane sight of the general ordinance--
Nature--and its particular object--man,--
Which one mere eye-cast at the character
Of Who made these and gave man sense to boot,
Had dissipated once and evermore,--
This doctrine I have dosed our flock withal.
Why? Because none believed it. _They_ desire
Such Heaven and dread such Hell, whom every day
The alehouse tempts from one, a dog-fight bids
Defy the other? All the harm is done
Ourselves--done my good husband who in youth
Perhaps read Dickens, done myself who still
Could play both Bach and Brahms. Such life I lead--
Thanks to you, knave! You learn its quality--
Thanks to me, fool!"

He eyes her earnestly,
But she continues.