Four Phases of Love Part 4

"Yes, a woman!"

"And you love this woman?"

"I love her!" said the young man, in a low voice.

"I thought that it was thus." cried the old man. "The town has destroyed you. You have become one of the children of this world, following after strange women, and swaggering for them, and making of them the false idols of your folly! But I tell you that, so long as I live, I will labour to bring you back to the Lord, and will shatter your idols! Has G.o.d wrought a miracle in you that you should deny him?

Aye, it were better that you sate still in darkness, and that the door had for ever remained shut through which the spirit of lies has crept into your heart!"

The young man restrained himself with difficulty. "Who has given you the right, father," he cried at last, "who has given you the right of accusing me of ign.o.ble inclinations? Because I must do what must be done in this world to restrain the insolence of the base, am _I_ therefore base? There are different ways of fighting against the spirit of evil. Yours is the way of peace, because you have to deal with men in the aggregate. I stand opposed to a single man, and know what I have to do."

"_Thou_ canst not change him," the old man cried angrily: "wilt thou tread G.o.d's ordinances under thy feet? He is no son of mine who raises his hand against his brother. I forbid the meeting in the strength of my priestly and paternal power. Beware how you brave it."

"So you cast me from your house," said Clement gloomily. The mother, who had burst into tears, arose, and rushed towards her son. "Mother,"

he said sternly, "I am a man, and may not be false to myself." He approached the door, and glanced over towards Mary, who sought him sorrowfully with her great blind eyes. His mother followed him; her sobs choked her voice. "Do not retain him, wife," cried the old man; "he is no longer a child of ours if he be not a child of G.o.d. Let him go whither he will; he is dead to us."

Mary heard the door shut, and the mother fall to the ground with a cry from her inmost mother's heart. Then the palsied feeling which had kept her seated went from her. She arose, went to the door, and with a powerful effort bore the fainting woman to her bed. The old man stood by the window and spoke not a word; his clasped hands trembled violently.

A quarter of an hour later, some one knocked at the door of Clement's room. He opened it, and Mary stood before him. The room was in confusion. She struck her foot against his travelling trunk, and said sorrowfully, "What are you going to do, Clement?" Then his rigid grief gave way; he seized her hands, and pressed his eyes, in which the hot tears stood, against them. "I _must_ do it," he said; "I have long felt that I have lost his love; perhaps he will feel, when I am far away from him, that I have never ceased to be his son."

She raised him up. "Do not weep so, or I shall never have the strength to utter what I _must_ say. Your mother would say it, did your father not forbid her. The sound of his voice told me how hard it was for him to be so stern; but thus he will remain. I know him well. He believes that his sternness is a duty to G.o.d, to make him offer up his own heart as a sacrifice."

"And do _you_ think that it is required of him?"

"No, Clement! I know but little of the world, and know not the nature of the laws which force men of honour to fight. But I know you well enough to know that the mere opinion of the world would never prevent your considering honestly what is right and what is wrong--even in this case. You may owe it to the world, and to the woman you love;--but still, you owe more to your parents than to either. I know not the girl they have slandered, and may not be able quite to understand the depth of the pain it must give you not to do all for her.--Do not interrupt me. Do not think that I have any fear that for her sake you might withdraw from me those last scanty remains of friendship these last years of separation have spared me.--I give you up utterly to her, if she but makes you happy.--But you have no right to do, even for her sake, what you contemplate doing, even were she a thousand times dearer to you than father or mother. You have no right to leave your father's house in anger, and so close the door for ever on yourself. Your father is old, and will take his opinions to the grave with him. He would have had to sacrifice the essence and substance of his whole life if he had given way. You sacrifice to him the pa.s.sing respect that you may possess in the eyes of strangers. For if the girl you love so can desert you because you refuse to bring down your father's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave, she has never, never been worthy of you"--

Her voice failed her. He had thrown himself on a chair, and groaned bitterly. She stood ever near the door, and waited for his answer.

Across her brow lay a strange anxious expression, as if she listened even to him with her very eyes. Suddenly he sprang up, laid his hands upon her shoulders, and cried, "It was for _thee_ that I would have done it, and for _thy_ sake alone will conquer my own heart!" Then he rushed past her, and down the narrow stairs.

She remained above. His last words had quivered in her very soul, and a stream of blissful thoughts swept through her fearful, half-incredulous heart. She seated herself trembling on the travelling-trunk. "For thee!

For thee!" still rang in her ears. She almost feared his return. If he should have meant differently?--and how was it possible that he should not mean differently? What was she to him?

At last she heard him returning--her agitation gained on her; she arose, and moved towards the door. He entered, clasped her in his arms, and told her all!

"It is _I_ who am blind," he cried; "_you_ are the seeing one--the prophetess! What were I now without thy light? Lost for all eternity!

driven from all the hearts I love through mine own miserable blindness!

And now--now--all again mine--aye, and more than I knew of--more than I dared to hope for!"

She hung mute and agitated upon his neck; all her long-suppressed love burst forth, and glowed in her kisses, despising the tepid rendering of mere words.

The day dawned upon their happiness.

Now he learned, too, what she had so long kept silent, and what this same room had seen, in which they now, for ever irrevocably united, pressed each other's hands, and parted in the light of the breaking day.

In the course of the day a letter arrived from Wolf, dated the night before, from the next village. "Clement need not trouble himself," he wrote. "He retracted all he had said; he knew best that it was all an idle lie; anger and wine had put it into his head. He had really thought, when he saw him so cold about it, that it would only have cost him a word to win the girl; and when he saw that Clement was in earnest, he had slandered what he felt was for ever beyond his reach.

He should not think him worse than he was, and excuse him to the girl and his parents, and not quite give him up for ever."

When Clement read these lines to Mary, she said, with some emotion, "I only pity him. I never felt comfortable when he was near me, and how much he might have spared both us and himself! But I can think of him calmly now. How much have I to thank him for!"

MARION.

When holy Saint Louis wore the crown of France, the good old town of Arras was just six hundred years younger than it is now. That she was a thousand times merrier she had to thank, not her youth alone, but, before even that, the n.o.ble guild of poets who resided within her walls, and who, by their ballads and miracle-plays, and pleasant rhyming romances, spread her fame over all fair France.

Now it happened one early spring about the time, that in a garden in Arras, behind the house of one of these valiant singers, a young woman was busied tying up vines to their trellises. She was beautifully formed, of that pleasant roundness that usually indicates a cheerful soul within, and she had a sweet, gentle face. Her calm dark eyes swept now and then over the garden as if they knew neither joy nor sorrow; but her hands were active and dreamed not. After the fashion of well-to-do townswomen, she wore her fair hair adorned with many an artful ribbon ornament, and her gown was tucked up for work, and, perhaps, possibly also, for the sake of her darling little feet.

As the charming vision wandered in her tranquil activity still further into the garden, there appeared at the door of the house which opened into it, a man, who formed both in face and manner a most remarkable contrast to her. He was of middle size, with a keen eye, and irregular features. His black cloak indifferently concealed his high left shoulder, and his legs seemed to have been made after very different patterns. But still his figure, however incongruous its parts might seem, was brought into a striking unison by the boldness and vivacity of his carriage; and about his mouth there played an expression that must have made him dangerous in sarcasm, or very charming in a more kindly humour.

He gazed for a while at the fair young gardener, and seemed to enjoy her beauty. He shook his head irresolutely. At last he plucked the barrel-cap with the green c.o.c.k's-feather deeper over his forehead, and strode towards her.

The fair woman looked round, her cheek coloured slightly, and her eyes brightened. She let her hands fall by her side, and gazed silently at him as he neared her.

"Good-day, Marion!" said the man, almost roughly. "Is there any one beside yourself in the garden?"

"No, Adam."

"It is well--I wish to speak with you. You are a good wife, Marion, and do your duty; but yet I must tell you that I cannot endure you any longer!"

The bright cheeks grew pale as death; but she was silent and looked steadily before her.

"No!" continued Adam; "longer I cannot bear it! You are very lovely, Marion, and that I know now, four weeks after our wedding, better than I did when I courted you, but--you are so wearisome, Marion! I will not say that you are absolutely without sense; but the Holy Virgin only knows whether it is asleep, or waiting in good hope of some mighty thought, when it is to appear. I have waited long for it, and now my patience is at an end. Have you once, only once, since we have been man and wife chattered amusingly, or made one single joke? or have my brightest strokes of wit ever found more favour from you than half a smile? Have you not ever gone calmly on your way like a statue? What is the use of my now and then making the discovery that you really are flesh and blood, when from morning to night I am obliged to laugh at my own jokes by myself, and so applaud my own rhymes with my own hands.

Fool that I was! I should have thought of it sooner--when I fell in love with you! _Now_, I thought, she will begin to thaw! Confess yourself--have we not wearied each other as thoroughly as any wedded pair in Christendom?"

The young wife remained obstinately silent, but her eyes filled with heavy drops. Adam broke a young twig hastily from the tree, and continued--

"I will not say that other women are, in the long-run, better, or more amusing--I do not say so; and I have at least to thank you for showing me so early that I have made a great mistake in taking a wife. But, for the third time--I can stand it no longer! Am I to mope and fritter away my young life in this hole, merely because I had the luck to think you pretty? And am I never to set foot in Paris, at the king's court, in the chambers of princes, where my talent would bring me honour and distinction?--and never set a foot in the houses of learned doctors of the University, where there are more clever things said in one hour than you produce in a year? and all this because you are a pretty woman--for you are one--and, by chance, my proper wife! May the devil bake me into a pancake if I stand it!"

He paced up and down a few times, gesticulating vehemently, glanced sideways at his wife, and began again.

"Are you not a standing proof that I am right? Why don't you cry, as any other ordinary woman would do, and fall upon my neck and beseech me to remain, and say that I am your darling Adam--your only love--your handsome Adam, though, by-the-bye, I am not handsome, and promise everything, whether you can perform it or not? There you stand, and don't know how to help yourself! Am I to give up my art and my young years for the pleasure of staring at you? And supposing we should have children, and they take after you! Do you expect that I shall be able to compose the stupidest birthday ode, with six or seven boys and girls, all as lovely as pictures, and as stupid, sitting round me and staring at me? But we will not part in enmity; and so I tell you, in all love and friendship, that you can no longer be my wife! I will away to Paris as soon as I can raise money enough for the journey; you can return to your parents, or, if you like, you can go to my old uncle, who is so fond of you; he will take good care of you--you shall want for nothing; and if you should have a child, I will keep it as my own--but, remain with you I _cannot_, Marion! By my soul's salvation! a poet I am, and a poet I will remain--and weariness is poison to the merrie art! Now I am going to my uncle--be a good girl, and let us part friends."

He stretched out his hand towards her, but she saw it not for tears. He thought it needless on that account to wait and see whether she would behave as he had told her other women would do under the circ.u.mstances; he turned hastily towards the door and disappeared into the house.

An hour after the wedded pair had thus parted "in friendship," the door of a stately house, in which lived the rich senator, Adam's uncle, was thrown open, and Adam stepped hastily out, in high excitement. He hurried onwards without regarding which way he took, and now and then sc.r.a.ps of his internal conversation with himself burst forth, as he clenched his fist or twisted his fingers in his long round-cut hair.

"The old shark!" he growled. "And yet he had got rags of virtuous poverty to cover the nakedness of his avarice! What is it to him if I and my wife choose to agree to a friendly separation? I wish he would take her himself, if it were not a pity for her, pretty young thing!

Truly, whether I moulder here or not touches not his money-bags; but, to travel and to see the world, and gain wisdom--ay! that pinches Master Money-bags sore! Pah! because he gave me the cottage, and arranged my household, am I to freeze in Arras, and blunder about with those rogues of balladmakers, and hide my light under a bushel? If I am obliged to travel like a mountebank, and train dogs and apes to get to Paris, I'll do it! I'll show the old gold-scratcher that Adam de la Halle is no petticoat knight, but knows how to follow his own way."

And this same way of his own carried him this time to the Three Golden Lilies, the best tavern in the good old town of Arras. There were but few guests in the drinking-room at this hour. Adam seated himself in a corner, and did not look up until the host, bringing him wine, greeted him respectfully,

"You come as if called for, Master Adam," said mine host of the Lilies.

"There is one of my guests, see you--the man sitting yonder by the stove and looking towards you. Well, a week ago he brought a troop of players into the town, to play the great pa.s.sion-piece at Easter, in the cathedral The reverend gentlemen there sent for them; and now it wants fourteen days to the time, and they are all loitering about idle and eating their pay before they get it; and their director lodges with me, and drinks stoutly on the score. 'Sir,' I said to him just before you came in, 'sir,' said I, 'if you could manage to sc.r.a.pe together a little money by your art in the mean time, it would do both you and me good.'--'Ay!' said he, 'if we had only a decent piece, a mystery, or a miracle; for I have left my whole bundle of plays behind at Cambria, all except the pa.s.sion-piece.'--'Eh, sir!' said I. 'Here with us the country is alive with gay minstrels, troubadours, and ballad-singers and there is Master Adam de la Halle, who is worth them all put together.'--'By St. Nicholas,' said my man, 'I would give him half the receipts if he would write me a piece, and it succeeded'--and just at that moment you came through the door, and so he sent me to ask you."

Adam rose up, swallowed his wine hastily, and then went straight to the leader of the strollers, who sprang from his seat respectfully, and bowed low. They conversed for a short time, and then shook hands. "So be it," said Adam; "within eight days your people shall play. And the day after I shall receive my money, and now our Lady preserve you. I will go and set about your affair at once." So he went, and after his fashion, he growled something between his teeth, that sounded very much like "I'll make them remember me."