Lucile Part 24

At the same time, pursued by a spell much the same, To these waters two other worn pilgrims there came: One a man, one a woman: just now, at the latter, As the Reader I mean by and by to look at her And judge for himself, I will not even glance.

IX.

Of the self-crown'd young kings of the Fashion in France Whose resplendent regalia so dazzled the sight, Whose horse was so perfect, whose boots were so bright, Who so hail'd in the salon, so mark'd in the Bois, Who so welcomed by all, as Eugene de Luvois?

Of all the smooth-brow'd premature debauchees In that town of all towns, where Debauchery sees On the forehead of youth her mark everywhere graven,-- In Paris I mean,--where the streets are all paven By those two fiends whom Milton saw bridging the way From h.e.l.l to this planet,--who, haughty and gay, The free rebel of life, bound or led by no law, Walk'd that causeway as bold as Eugene de Luvois?

Yes! he march'd through the great masquerade, loud of tongue, Bold of brow: but the motley he mask'd in, it hung So loose, trail'd so wide, and appear'd to impede So strangely at times the vex'd effort at speed, That a keen eye might guess it was made--not for him, But some brawler more stalwart of stature and limb.

That it irk'd him, in truth, you at times could divine, For when low was the music, and spilt was the wine, He would clutch at the garment, as though it oppress'd And stifled some impulse that choked in his breast.

X.

What! he,... the light sport of his frivolous ease!

Was he, too, a prey to a mortal disease?

My friend, hear a parable: ponder it well: For a moral there is in the tale that I tell.

One evening I sat in the Palais Royal, And there, while I laugh'd at Gra.s.sot and Arnal, My eye fell on the face of a man at my side; Every time that he laugh'd I observed that he sigh'd, As though vex'd to be pleased. I remark'd that he sat Ill at ease on his seat, and kept twirling his hat In his hand, with a look of unquiet abstraction.

I inquired the cause of his dissatisfaction.

"Sir," he said, "if what vexes me here you would know, Learn that, pa.s.sing this way some few half-hours ago, I walk'd into the Francais, to look at Rachel.

(Sir, that woman in Phedre is a miracle!)--Well, I ask'd for a box: they were occupied all: For a seat in the balcony: all taken! a stall: Taken too: the whole house was as full as could be,-- Not a hole for a rat! I had just time to see The lady I love tete-a-tete with a friend In a box out of reach at the opposite end: Then the crowd push'd me out. What was left me to do?

I tried for the tragedy... que voulez-vous?

Every place for the tragedy book'd!... mon ami.

The farce was close by:... at the farce me voici.

The piece is a new one: and Gra.s.sot plays well: There is drollery, too, in that fellow Ravel: And Hyacinth's nose is superb:... yet I meant My evening elsewhere, and not thus to have spent.

Fate orders these things by her will, not by ours!

Sir, mankind is the sport of invisible powers."

I once met the Duc de Luvois for a moment; And I mark'd, when his features I fix'd in my comment, O'er those features the same vague disquietude stray I had seen on the face of my friend at the play; And I thought that he too, very probably, spent His evenings not wholly as first he had meant.

XI.

O source of the holiest joys we inherit, O Sorrow, thou solemn, invisible spirit!

Ill fares it with man when, through life's desert sand, Grown impatient too soon for the long-promised land, He turns from the worship of thee, as thou art, An expressless and imageless truth in the heart, And takes of the jewels of Egypt, the pelf And the gold of the G.o.dless, to make to himself A gaudy, idolatrous image of thee, And then bows to the sound of the cymbal the knee.

The sorrows we make to ourselves are false G.o.ds: Like the prophets of Baal, our bosoms with rods We may smite, we may gash at our hearts till they bleed, But these idols are blind, deaf, and dumb to our need.

The land is athirst, and cries out!... 'tis in vain; The great blessing of Heaven descends not in rain.

XII.

It was night; and the lamps were beginning to gleam Through the long linden-trees, folded each in his dream, From that building which looks like a temple... and is The Temple of--Health? Nay, but enter! I wis That never the rosy-hued deity knew One votary out of that sallow-cheek'd crew Of Courlanders, Wallacs, Greeks, affable Russians, Explosive Parisians, potato-faced Prussians; Jews--Hamburghers chiefly;--pure patriots,--Suabians;-- "Cappadocians and Elamites, Cretes and Arabians, And the dwellers in Pontus"... My muse will not weary More lines with the list of them... cur fremuere?

What is it they murmur, and mutter, and hum?

Into what Pandemonium is Pentecost come?

Oh, what is the name of the G.o.d at whose fane Every nation is mix'd in so motley a train?

What weird Kabala lies on those tables outspread?

To what oracle turns with attention each head?

What holds these pale worshippers each so devout, And what are those hierophants busied about?

XIII.

Here pa.s.ses, repa.s.ses, and flits to and fro, And rolls without ceasing the great Yes and No: Round this altar alternate the weird Pa.s.sions dance, And the G.o.d worshipp'd here is the old G.o.d of Chance.

Through the wide-open doors of the distant saloon Flute, hautboy, and fiddle are squeaking in tune; And an indistinct music forever is roll'd, That mixes and chimes with the c.h.i.n.k of the gold, From a vision, that flits in a luminous haze, Of figures forever eluding the gaze; It fleets through the doorway, it gleams on the gla.s.s, And the weird words pursue it--Rouge, Impair, et Pa.s.se!

Like a sound borne in sleep through such dreams as enc.u.mber With haggard emotions the wild wicked slumber Of some witch when she seeks, through a nightmare, to grab at The hot hoof of the fiend, on her way to the Sabbat.

XIV.

The Duc de Luvois and Lord Alfred had met Some few evenings ago (for the season as yet Was but young) in this selfsame Pavilion of Chance.

The idler from England, the idler from France, Shook hands, each, of course, with much cordial pleasure: An acquaintance at Ems is to most men a treasure, And they both were too well-bred in aught to betray One discourteous remembrance of things pa.s.s'd away.

'Twas a sight that was pleasant, indeed, to be seen, These friends exchange greetings;--the men who had been Foes so nearly in days that were past.

This, no doubt, Is why, on the night I am speaking about, My Lord Alfred sat down by himself at roulette, Without one suspicion his bosom to fret, Although he had left, with his pleasant French friend, Matilda, half vex'd, at the room's farthest end.

XV.

Lord Alfred his combat with Fortune began With a few modest thalers--away they all ran-- The reserve follow'd fast in the rear. As his purse Grew lighter his spirits grew sensibly worse.

One needs not a Bacon to find a cause for it: 'Tis an old law in physics--Natura abhorret Vacuum--and my lord, as he watch'd his last crown Tumble into the bank, turn'd away with a frown Which the brows of Napoleon himself might have deck'd On that day of all days when an empire was wreck'd On thy plain, Waterloo, and he witness'd the last Of his favorite Guard cut to pieces, aghast!

Just then Alfred felt, he could scarcely tell why, Within him the sudden strange sense that some eye Had long been intently regarding him there,-- That some gaze was upon him too searching to bear.

He rose and look'd up. Was it fact? Was it fable?

Was it dream? Was it waking? Across the green table, That face, with its features so fatally known-- Those eyes, whose deep gaze answer'd strangely his own What was it? Some ghost from its grave come again?

Some cheat of a feverish, fanciful brain?

Or was it herself with those deep eyes of hers, And that face unforgotten?--Lucile de Nevers!

XVI.

Ah, well that pale woman a phantom might seem, Who appear'd to herself but the dream of a dream!

'Neath those features so calm, that fair forehead so hush'd, That pale cheek forever by pa.s.sion unflush'd, There yawn'd an insatiate void, and there heaved A tumult of restless regrets unrelieved.

The brief noon of beauty was pa.s.sing away, And the chill of the twilight fell, silent and gray, O'er that deep, self-perceived isolation of soul.

And now, as all around her the dim evening stole, With its weird desolations, she inwardly grieved For the want of that tender a.s.surance received From the warmth of a whisper, the glance of an eye, Which should say, or should look, "Fear thou naught,--I am by!"

And thus, through that lonely and self-fix'd existence, Crept a vague sense of silence, and horror, and distance: A strange sort of faint-footed fear,--like a mouse That comes out, when 'tis dark, in some old ducal house Long deserted, where no one the creature can scare, And the forms on the arras are all that move there.

In Rome,--in the Forum,--there open'd one night A gulf. All the augurs turn'd pale at the sight.

In this omen the anger of Heaven they read.

Men consulted the G.o.ds: then the oracle said:-- "Ever open this gulf shall endure, till at last That which Rome hath most precious within it be cast."

The Romans threw in it their corn and their stuff, But the gulf yawn'd as wide. Rome seem'd likely enough To be ruin'd ere this rent in her heart she could choke.

Then Curtius, revering the oracle, spoke: "O Quirites! to this Heaven's question is come: What to Rome is most precious? The manhood of Rome."

He plunged, and the gulf closed.

The tale is not new; But the moral applies many ways, and is true.