Lucile Part 20

"I have not done so,"

She said firmly. He hoa.r.s.ely resumed, "Not yet--no!

But can you with accents as firm promise me That you will not accept him?"

"Accept? Is he free?

Free to offer?" she said.

"You evade me, Lucile,"

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

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

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

While you deign to reply to one question from me?

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

What! silent? I alter my question. If quite Freed in faith from this troth, might he hope then?"

"He might,"

She said softly.

VI.

Those two whisper'd words, in his breast, As he heard them, in one maddening moment releast All that's evil and fierce in man's nature, to crush And extinguish in man all that's good. In the rush Of wild jealousy, all the fierce pa.s.sions that waste And darken and devastate intellect, chased From its realm human reason. The wild animal In the bosom of man was set free. And of all Human pa.s.sions the fiercest, fierce jealousy, fierce As the fire, and more wild than the whirlwind, to pierce And to rend, rush'd upon him; fierce jealousy, swell'd By all pa.s.sions bred from it, and ever impell'd To involve all things else in the anguish within it, And on others inflict its own pangs!

At that minute What pa.s.s'd through his mind, who shall say? who may tell The dark thoughts of man's heart, which the red glare of h.e.l.l Can illumine alone?

He stared wildly around That lone place, so lonely! That silence! no sound Reach'd that room, through the dark evening air, save drear Drip and roar of the cataract ceaseless and near!

It was midnight all round on the weird silent weather; Deep midnight in him! They two,--alone and together, Himself and that woman defenceless before him!

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

The abyss of his own black despair seem'd to ope At his feet, with that awful exclusion of hope Which Dante read over the city of doom.

All the Tarquin pa.s.s'd into his soul in the gloom, And uttering words he dared never recall, Words of insult and menace, he thunder'd down all The brew'd storm-cloud within him: its flashes scorch'd blind His own senses. His spirit was driven on the wind Of a reckless emotion beyond his control; A torrent seem'd loosen'd within him. His soul Surged up from that caldron of pa.s.sion that hiss'd And seeth'd in his heart.

VII.

He had thrown, and had miss'd His last stake.

VIII.

For, transfigured, she rose from the place Where he rested o'erawed: a saint's scorn on her face; Such a dread vade retro was written in light On her forehead, the fiend would himself, at that sight, Have sunk back abash'd to perdition. I know If Lucretia at Tarquin but once had looked so, She had needed no dagger next morning.

She rose And swept to the door, like that phantom the snows Feel at nightfall sweep o'er them, when daylight is gone, And Caucasus is with the moon all alone.

There she paused; and, as though from immeasurable, Insurpa.s.sable distance, she murmur'd-- "Farewell!

We, alas! have mistaken each other. Once more Illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er.

Duc de Luvois, adieu!"

From the heart-breaking gloom Of that vacant, reproachful, and desolate room, He felt she was gone--gone forever!

IX.

No word, The sharpest that ever was edged like a sword, Could have pierced to his heart with such keen accusation As the silence, the sudden profound isolation, In which he remain'd.

"O return; I repent!"

He exclaimed; but no sound through the stillness was sent, Save the roar of the water, in answer to him, And the beetle that, sleeping, yet humm'd her night-hymn: An indistinct anthem, that troubled the air With a searching, and wistful, and questioning prayer.

"Return," sung the wandering insect. The roar Of the waters replied, "Nevermore! nevermore!"

He walked to the window. The spray on his brow Was flung cold from the whirlpools of water below; The frail wooden balcony shook in the sound Of the torrent. The mountains gloom'd sullenly round.

A candle one ray from a closed cas.e.m.e.nt flung.

O'er the dim bal.u.s.trade all bewilder'd he hung, Vaguely watching the broken and shimmering blink Of the stars on the veering and vitreous brink Of that snake-like p.r.o.ne column of water; and listing Aloof o'er the languors of air the persisting Sharp horn of the gray gnat. Before he relinquish'd His unconscious employment, that light was extinguish'd.

Wheels at last, from the inn door aroused him. He ran Down the stairs; reached the door--just to see her depart.

Down the mountain the carriage was speeding.

X.

His heart Peal'd the knell of its last hope. He rush'd on; but whither He knew not--on, into the dark cloudy weather-- The midnight--the mountains--on, over the shelf Of the precipice--on, still--away from himself!

Till exhausted, he sank 'mid the dead leaves and moss At the mouth of the forest. A glimmering cross Of gray stone stood for prayer by the woodside. He sank Prayerless, powerless, down at its base, 'mid the dank Weeds and gra.s.ses; his face hid amongst them. He knew That the night had divided his whole life in two.

Behind him a past that was over forever: Before him a future devoid of endeavor And purpose. He felt a remorse for the one, Of the other a fear. What remain'd to be done?

Whither now should he turn? Turn again, as before, To his old easy, careless existence of yore He could not. He felt that for better or worse A change had pa.s.s'd o'er him; an angry remorse Of his own frantic failure and error had marr'd Such a refuge forever. The future seem'd barr'd By the corpse of a dead hope o'er which he must tread To attain it. Life's wilderness round him was spread, What clew there to cling by?

He clung by a name To a dynasty fallen forever. He came Of an old princely house, true through change to the race And the sword of Saint Louis--a faith 'twere disgrace To relinquish, and folly to live for! Nor less Was his ancient religion (once potent to bless Or to ban; and the crozier his ancestors kneel'd To adore, when they fought for the Cross, in hard field With the Crescent) become, ere it reach'd him, tradition; A mere faded badge of a social position; A thing to retain and say nothing about, Lest, if used, it should draw degradation from doubt.

Thus, the first time he sought them, the creeds of his youth Wholly fail'd the strong needs of his manhood, in truth!

And beyond them, what region of refuge? what field For employment, this civilized age, did it yield, In that civilized land? or to thought? or to action?

Blind deliriums, bewilder'd and endless distraction!

Not even a desert, not even the cell Of a hermit to flee to, wherein he might quell The wild devil-instincts which now, unreprest, Ran riot through that ruin'd world in his breast.

XI.

So he lay there, like Lucifer, fresh from the sight Of a heaven scaled and lost; in the wide arms of night O'er the howling abysses of nothingness! There As he lay, Nature's deep voice was teaching him prayer; But what had he to pray to?

The winds in the woods, The voices abroad o'er those vast solitudes, Were in commune all round with the invisible Power that walk'd the dim world by Himself at that hour.

But their language he had not yet learn'd--in despite Of the much he HAD learn'd--or forgotten it quite, With its once native accents. Alas! what had he To add to that deep-toned sublime symphony Of thanksgiving?... A fiery finger was still Scorching into his heart some dread sentence. His will, Like a wind that is put to no purpose, was wild At its work of destruction within him. The child Of an infidel age, he had been his own G.o.d, His own devil.

He sat on the damp mountain sod, and stared sullenly up at the dark sky.

The clouds Had heap'd themselves over the bare west in crowds Of misshapen, incongruous potents. A green Streak of dreary, cold, luminous ether, between The base of their black barricades, and the ridge Of the grim world, gleam'd ghastly, as under some bridge, Cyclop-sized, in a city of ruins o'erthrown By sieges forgotten, some river, unknown And unnamed, widens on into desolate lands.

While he gazed, that cloud-city invisible hands Dismantled and rent; and reveal'd, through a loop In the breach'd dark, the blemish'd and half-broken hoop Of the moon, which soon silently sank; and anon The whole supernatural pageant was gone.

The wide night, discomforted, conscious of loss, Darken'd round him. One object alone--that gray cross-- Glimmer'd faint on the dark. Gazing up, he descried, Through the void air, its desolate arms outstretch'd, wide, As though to embrace him.

He turn'd from the sight, Set his face to the darkness, and fled.

XII.

When the light Of the dawn grayly flicker'd and glared on the spent Wearied ends of the night, like a hope that is sent To the need of some grief when its need is the sorest, He was sullenly riding across the dark forest Toward Luchon.

Thus riding, with eyes of defiance Set against the young day, as disclaiming alliance With aught that the day brings to man, he perceived Faintly, suddenly, fleetingly, through the damp-leaved Autumn branches that put forth gaunt arms on his way, The face of a man pale and wistful, and gray With the gray glare of morning. Eugene de Luvois, With the sense of a strange second sight, when he saw That phantom-like face, could at once recognize, By the sole instinct now left to guide him, the eyes Of his rival, though fleeting the vision and dim, With a stern sad inquiry fix'd keenly on him, And, to meet it, a lie leap'd at once to his own; A lie born of that lying darkness now grown Over all in his nature! He answer'd that gaze With a look which, if ever a man's look conveys More intensely than words what a man means convey'd Beyond doubt in its smile an announcement which said, "I have triumph'd. The question your eyes would imply Comes too late, Alfred Vargrave!"

And so he rode by, And rode on, and rode gayly, and rode out of sight, Leaving that look behind him to rankle and bite.

XIII.

And it bit, and it rankled.