Confessions of a Young Man Part 7

Not even to Marshall did I confide my foreboding that Paris would pa.s.s out of my life, that it would henceforth be with me a beautiful memory, but never more a practical delight. He and I were no longer living together; we had parted a second time, but this time without bitterness of any kind; he had learnt to feel that I wanted to live alone, and had moved away into the Latin quarter, whither I made occasional expeditions. I accompanied him once to the old haunts, but various terms of penal servitude had scattered our friends, and I could not interest myself in the new. Nor did Marshall himself interest me as he had once done. To my eager taste, he had grown just a little trite. My affection for him was as deep and sincere as ever; were I to meet him now I would grasp his hand and hail him with firm, loyal friendship; but I had made friends in the Nouvelle Athenes who interested me pa.s.sionately, and my thoughts were absorbed by and set on new ideals, which Marshall had failed to find sympathy for, or even to understand. I had introduced him to Degas and Manet, but he had spoken of Jules Lefebvre and Bouguereau, and generally shown himself incapable of any higher education; he could not enter where I had entered, and this was alienation. We could no longer even talk of the same people; when I spoke of a certain _marquise_, he answered with an indifferent "Do you really think so"?

and proceeded to drag me away from my glitter of satin to the dinginess of print dresses. It was more than alienation, it was almost separation; but he was still my friend, he was the man, and he always will be, to whom my youth, with all its aspirations, was most closely united. So I turned to say good-bye to him and to my past life. Rap--rap--rap!

"Who's there?"

"I--George Moore."

"I've got a model."

"Never mind your model. Open the door. How are you? what are you painting?"

"This; what do you think of it?"

"It is prettily composed. I think it will come out all right. I am going to England; come to say good-bye."

"Going to England! What will you do in England?"

"I have to go about money matters, very tiresome. I had really begun to forget there was such a place."

"But you are not going to stay there?"

"Oh, no!"

"You will be just in time to see the Academy."

The conversation turned on art, and we aestheticised for an hour. At last Marshall said, "I am really sorry, old chap, but I must send you away; there's that model."

The girl sat waiting, her pale hair hanging down her back, a very picture of discontent.

"Send her away."

"I asked her to come out to dinner."

"D--n her.... Well, never mind, I must spend this last evening with you; you shall both dine with me. _Je quitte Paris demain matin, peut-etre pour longtemps; je voudrais pa.s.ser ma derniere soiree avec mon ami; alors si vous voulez bien me permettre, mademoiselle, je vous invite tous les deux a diner; nous pa.s.serons la soiree ensemble si cela vous est agreable_?"

"_Je veux bien, monsieur_."

Poor Marie! Marshall and I were absorbed in each other and art. It was always so. We dined in a _gargote_, and afterwards we went to a students' ball; and it seems like yesterday. I can see the moon sailing through a clear sky, and on the pavement's edge Marshall's beautiful, slim, manly figure, and Marie's exquisite gracefulness. She was Lefebvre's Chloe; so every one sees her now. Her end was a tragic one.

She invited her friends to dinner, and with the few pence that remained she bought some boxes of matches, boiled them, and drank the water. No one knew why; some said it was love.

I went to London in an exuberant necktie, a tiny hat; I wore large trousers and a Capoul beard; looking, I believe, as unlike an Englishman as a drawing by Grevin. In the smoking-room of Morley's Hotel I met my agent, an immense nose, and a wisp of hair drawn over a bald skull. He explained, after some hesitation, that I owed him a few thousands, and that the accounts were in his portmanteau. I suggested taking them to a solicitor to have them examined. The solicitor advised me strongly to contest them. I did not take the advice, but raised some money instead, and so the matter ended so far as the immediate future was concerned.

The years that are most impressionable, from twenty to thirty, when the senses and the mind are the widest awake, I, the most impressionable of human beings, had spent in France, not among English residents, but among that which is the quintessence of the nation, not an indifferent spectator, but an enthusiast, striving heart and soul to identify himself with his environment, to shake himself free from race and language and to recreate himself as it were in the womb of a new nationality, a.s.suming its ideals, its morals, and its modes of thought, and I had succeeded strangely well, and when I returned home England was a new country to me; I had, as it were, forgotten everything. Every aspect of street and suburban garden was new to me; of the manner of life of Londoners I knew nothing. This sounds incredible, but it is so; I saw, but I could realise nothing. I went into a drawing-room, but everything seemed far away--a dream, a presentment, nothing more; I was in touch with nothing; of the thoughts and feelings of those I met I could understand nothing, nor could I sympathise with them: an Englishman was at that time as much out of my mental reach as an Esquimaux would be now. Women were nearer to me than men, and I will take this opportunity to note my observation, for I am not aware that any one else has observed that the difference between the two races is found in the men, not in the women. French and English women are psychologically very similar; the standpoint from which they see life is the same, the same thoughts interest and amuse them; but the att.i.tude of a Frenchman's mind is absolutely opposed to that of an Englishman; they stand on either side of a vast abyss, two animals different in colour, form, and temperament;--two ideas destined to remain irrevocably separate and distinct.

I have heard of writing and speaking two languages equally well: this was impossible to me, and I am convinced that if I had remained two more years in France I should never have been able to identify my thoughts with the language I am now writing in, and I should have written it as an alien. As it was I only just escaped this detestable fate. And it was in the last two years, when I began to write French verse and occasional _chroniques_ in the papers, that the great damage was done. I remember very well indeed one day, while arranging an act of a play I was writing with a friend, finding suddenly to my surprise that I could think more easily and rapidly in French that in English; but with all this I did not learn French. I chattered, and I felt intensely at home in it; yes, I could write a sonnet or a ballade almost without a slip, but my prose required a good deal of alteration, for a greater command of language is required to write in prose than in verse. I found this in French and also in English. When I returned from Paris, my English terribly corrupt with French ideas and forms of thought, I could write acceptable English verse, but even ordinary newspaper prose was beyond my reach, and an attempt I made to write a novel drifted into a miserable failure.

Here is a poem that Cabaner admired; he liked it in the French prose translation which I made for him one night in the Nouvelle Athenes:--

We are alone! Listen, a little while, And hear the reason why your weary smile And lute-toned speaking is so very sweet, And how my love of you is more complete Than any love of any lover. They Have only been attracted by the gray Delicious softness of your eyes, your slim And delicate form, or some such other whim, The simple pretexts of all lovers;--I For other reason. Listen whilst I try To say. I joy to see the sunset slope Beyond the weak hours' hopeless horoscope, Leaving the heavens a melancholy calm Of quiet colour chaunted like a psalm, In mildly modulated phrases; thus Your life shall fade like a voluptuous Vision beyond the sight, and you shall die Like some soft evening's sad serenity...

I would possess your dying hours; indeed My love is worthy of the gift, I plead For them. Although I never loved as yet, Methinks that I might love you; I would get From out the knowledge that the time was brief, That tenderness, whose pity grows to grief, And grief that sanctifies, a joy, a charm Beyond all other loves, for now the arm Of Death is stretched to you-ward, and he claims You as his bride. Maybe my soul misnames Its pa.s.sion; love perhaps it is not, yet To see you fading like a violet, Or some sweet thought away, would be a strange And costly pleasure, far beyond the range Of formal man's emotion. Listen, I Will choose a country spot where fields of rye And wheat extend in rustling yellow plains, Broken with wooded hills and leafy lanes, To pa.s.s our honeymoon; a cottage where, The porch and windows are festooned with fair Green wreaths of eglantine, and look upon A shady garden where we'll walk alone In the autumn sunny evenings; each will see Our walks grow shorter, till to the orange tree, The garden's length, is far, and you will rest From time to time, leaning upon my breast Your languid lily face. Then later still Unto the sofa by the window-sill Your wasted body I shall carry, so That you may drink the last left lingering glow Of evening, when the air is filled with scent Of blossoms; and my spirit shall be rent The while with many griefs. Like some blue day That grows more lovely as it fades away, Gaining that calm serenity and height Of colour wanted, as the solemn night Steals forward you will sweetly fall asleep For ever and for ever; I shall weep A day and night large tears upon your face, Laying you then beneath a rose-red place Where I may muse and dedicate and dream Volumes of poesy of you; and deem It happiness to know that you are far From any base desires as that fair star Set in the evening magnitude of heaven.

Death takes but little, yea, your death has given Me that deep peace, and that secure possession Which man may never find in earthly pa.s.sion.

And here are two specimens of my French verse. I like to print them, for they tell me how I have held together, and they are not worse than my English verse, and is my English verse worse than the verse of our minor poets?

NUIT DE SEPTEMBRE

La nuit est pleine de silence, Et dans une etrange lueur, Et dans une douce indolence La lune dort comme une fleur.

Parmi rochers, dans le sable Sous les grands pins d'un calme amer Surgit mon amour perissable, Faim de tes yeux, soif de ta chair.

Je suis ton amant, et la blonde Gorge tremble sous mon baiser, Et le feu de l'amour inonde Nos deux curs sans les apaiser.

Rien ne peut durer, mais ta bouche Est telle qu'un fruit fait de sang; Tout pa.s.se, mais ta main me touche Et je me donne en fremissant,

Tes yeux verts me regardent: j'aime Le clair de lune de tes yeux, Et je ne vois dans le ciel meme Que ton corps rare et radieux.

POUR UN TABLEAU DE LORD LEIGHTON

De quoi revent-elles? de fleurs, D'ombres, d'etoiles ou de pleurs?

De quoi revent ces douces femmes De leurs amours ou de leurs ames?

Parcilles aux lis abattus Elles dorment les reves tus Dans la grande fenetre ovale Ou s'ouvre la nuit estivale.

But I realised before I was thirty that minor poetry is not sufficient occupation for a life-time--I realised that fact suddenly--I remember the very place at the corner of Wellington Street in the Strand; and these poems were the last efforts of my muse.

THE SWEETNESS OF THE PAST

As sailors watch from their prison For the faint grey line of the coasts, I look to the past re-arisen, And joys come over in hosts Like the white sea birds from their roosts.

I love not the indelicate present, The future's unknown to our quest, To-day is the life of the peasant, But the past is a haven of rest-- The things of the past are the best.

The rose of the past is better Than the rose we ravish to-day, 'Tis holier, purer, and fitter To place on the shrine where we pray For the secret thoughts we obey.

In the past nothing dies, nothing changes, In the past all is lovely and still; No grief nor fate that estranges, Nor hope that no life can fulfil, But ethereal shelter from ill.

The coa.r.s.er delights of the hour Tempt, and debauch, and deprave, And we joy in a flitting flower, Knowing that nothing can save Our flesh from the fate of the grave.

But sooner or later returning In grief to the well-loved nest, Our souls filled with infinite yearning, We cry, there is rest, there is rest In the past, its joys are the best.

NOSTALGIA

Fair were the dreamful days of old, When in the summer's sleepy shade, Beneath the beeches on the wold, The shepherds lay and gently played Music to maidens, who, afraid, Drew all together rapturously, Their white soft hands like white leaves laid, In the old dear days of Arcady.

Men were not then as they are now Haunted and terrified by creeds, They sought not then, nor cared to know The end that as a magnet leads, Nor told with austere fingers beads, Nor reasoned with their grief and glee, But rioted in pleasant meads In the old dear days of Arcady.

The future may be wrong or right, The present is a hopeless wrong, For life and love have lost delight, And bitter even is our song; And year by year grey doubt grows strong, And death is all that seems to dree.

Wherefore with weary hearts we long For the old dear days of Arcady.

Envoi.