Lucile Part 31

And the bee in the blossom, the bird on the bough, Through the shadowy garden were slumbering now.

The trees only, o'er every unvisited walk, Began on a sudden to whisper and talk.

And, as each little sprightly and garrulous leaf Woke up with an evident sense of relief, They all seem'd to be saying... "Once more we're alone, And, thank Heaven, those tiresome people are gone!"

III.

Through the deep blue concave of the luminous air, Large, loving, and languid, the stars here and there, Like the eyes of shy pa.s.sionate women, look'd down O'er the dim world whose sole tender light was their own, When Matilda, alone, from her chamber descended, And enter'd the garden, unseen, unattended.

Her forehead was aching and parch'd, and her breast By a vague inexpressible sadness oppress'd: A sadness which led her, she scarcely knew how, And she scarcely knew why... (save, indeed, that just now The house, out of which with a gasp she had fled Half stifled, seem'd ready to sink on her head)...

Out into the night air, the silence, the bright Boundless starlight, the cool isolation of night!

Her husband that day had look'd once in her face, And press'd both her hands in a silent embrace, And reproachfully noticed her recent dejection With a smile of kind wonder and tacit affection.

He, of late so indifferent and listless!... at last Was he startled and awed by the change which had pa.s.s'd O'er the once radiant face of his young wife? Whence came That long look of solicitous fondness?... the same Look and language of quiet affection--the look And the language, alas! which so often she took For pure love in the simple repose of its purity-- Her own heart thus lull'd to a fatal security!

Ha! would he deceive her again by this kindness?

Had she been, then, O fool! in her innocent blindness, The sport of transparent illusion? ah folly!

And that feeling, so tranquil, so happy, so holy, She had taken, till then, in the heart, not alone Of her husband, but also, indeed, in her own, For true love, nothing else, after all, did it prove But a friendship profanely familiar?

"And love?...

What was love, then?... not calm, not secure--scarcely kind, But in one, all intensest emotions combined: Life and death: pain and rapture?"

Thus wandering astray, Led by doubt, through the darkness she wander'd away.

All silently crossing, recrossing the night.

With faint, meteoric, miraculous light, The swift-shooting stars through the infinite burn'd, And into the infinite ever return'd.

And silently o'er the obscure and unknown In the heart of Matilda there darted and shone Thoughts, enkindling like meteors the deeps, to expire, Leaving traces behind them of tremulous fire.

IV.

She enter'd that arbor of lilacs, in which The dark air with odors hung heavy and rich, Like a soul that grows faint with desire.

'Twas the place In which she so lately had sat face to face, With her husband,--and her, the pale stranger detested Whose presence her heart like a plague had infested.

The whole spot with evil remembrance was haunted.

Through the darkness there rose on the heart which it daunted, Each dreary detail of that desolate day, So full, and yet so incomplete. Far away The acacias were muttering, like mischievous elves, The whole story over again to themselves, Each word,--and each word was a wound! By degrees Her memory mingled its voice with the trees.

V.

Like the whisper Eve heard, when she paused by the root Of the sad tree of knowledge, and gazed on its fruit, To the heart of Matilda the trees seem'd to hiss Wild instructions, revealing man's last right, which is The right of reprisals.

An image uncertain, And vague, dimly shaped itself forth on the curtain Of the darkness around her. It came, and it went; Through her senses a faint sense of peril it sent: It pa.s.s'd and repa.s.s'd her; it went and it came, Forever returning; forever the same; And forever more clearly defined; till her eyes In that outline obscure could at last recognize The man to whose image, the more and the more That her heart, now aroused from its calm sleep of yore, From her husband detach'd itself slowly, with pain.

Her thoughts had return'd, and return'd to, again, As though by some secret indefinite law,-- The vigilant Frenchman--Eugene de Luvois!

VI.

A light sound behind her. She trembled. By some Night-witchcraft her vision a fact had become.

On a sudden she felt, without turning to view, That a man was approaching behind her. She knew By the fluttering pulse which she could not restrain, And the quick-beating heart, that this man was Eugene.

Her first instinct was flight; but she felt her slight foot As heavy as though to the soil it had root.

And the Duke's voice retain'd her, like fear in a dream.

VII.

"Ah, lady! in life there are meetings which seem Like a fate. Dare I think like a sympathy too?

Yet what else can I bless for this vision of you?

Alone with my thoughts, on this starlighted lawn, By an instinct resistless, I felt myself drawn To revisit the memories left in the place Where so lately this evening I look'd in your face.

And I find,--you, yourself,--my own dream!

"Can there be In this world one thought common to you and to me?

If so,... I, who deem'd but a moment ago My heart uncompanion'd, save only by woe, Should indeed be more bless'd than I dare to believe-- --Ah, but ONE word, but one from your lips to receive"...

Interrupting him quickly, she murmur'd, "I sought, Here, a moment of solitude, silence, and thought, Which I needed."...

"Lives solitude only for one?

Must its charm by my presence so soon be undone?

Ah, cannot two share it? What needs it for this?-- The same thought in both hearts,--be it sorrow or bliss; If my heart be the reflex of yours, lady--you, Are you not yet alone,--even though we be two?"

"For that,"... said Matilda,... "needs were, you should read What I have in my heart"...

"Think you, lady, indeed, You are yet of that age when a woman conceals In her heart so completely whatever she feels From the heart of the man whom it interests to know And find out what that feeling may be? Ah, not so, Lady Alfred? Forgive me that in it I look, But I read in your heart as I read in a book."

"Well, Duke! and what read you within it? unless It be, of a truth, a profound weariness, And some sadness?"

"No doubt. To all facts there are laws.

The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause."

VIII.

Matilda shrank back; for she suddenly found That a finger was press'd on the yet bleeding wound She, herself, had but that day perceived in her breast.

"You are sad,"... said the Duke (and that finger yet press'd With a cruel persistence the wound it made bleed)-- "You are sad, Lady Alfred, because the first need Of a young and a beautiful woman is to be Beloved, and to love. You are sad: for you see That you are not beloved, as you deem'd that you were: You are sad: for that knowledge hath left you aware That you have not yet loved, though you thought that you had.

"Yes, yes!... you are sad--because knowledge is sad!"

He could not have read more profoundly her heart.

"What gave you," she cried, with a terrified start, "Such strange power?"

"To read in your thoughts?" he exclaim'd "O lady,--a love, deep, profound--be it blamed Or rejected,--a love, true, intense--such, at least, As you, and you only, could wake in my breast!"

"Hush, hush!... I beseech you... for pity!' she gasp'd, s.n.a.t.c.hing hurriedly from him the hand he had clasp'd, In her effort instinctive to fly from the spot.

"For pity?"... he echoed, "for pity! and what Is the pity you owe him? his pity for you!

He, the lord of a life, fresh as new-fallen dew!

The guardian and guide of a woman, young, fair, And matchless! (whose happiness did he not swear To cherish through life?) he neglects her--for whom?

For a fairer than she? No! the rose in the bloom Of that beauty which, even when hidd'n, can prevail To keep sleepless with song the aroused nightingale, Is not fairer; for even in the pure world of flowers Her symbol is not, and this pure world of ours Has no second Matilda! For whom? Let that pa.s.s!

'Tis not I, 'tis not you, that can name her, alas!

And I dare not question or judge her. But why, Why cherish the cause of your own misery?

Why think of one, lady, who thinks not of you?

Why be bound by a chain which himself he breaks through?

And why, since you have but to stretch forth your hand, The love which you need and deserve to command, Why shrink? Why repel it?"

"O hush, sir! O hush!"

Cried Matilda, as though her whole heart were one blush.

"Cease, cease, I conjure you, to trouble my life!

Is not Alfred your friend? and am I not his wife?"