The Love Affairs of Lord Byron Part 18

To much that they did there the preachers, even those of Calvin's time, could have taken no exception. They talked--the sort of talk that would have been high over the heads of their censors of the d'Angleterre; they rowed on the lake, and sang in their boat in the moonlight; they read poetry, and wrote it. Sh.e.l.ley pressed Byron to read Wordsworth; and he did so, with results which are apparent in the Third Canto of "Childe Harold,"

where we find the Wordsworthian conception of the unity of man with Nature reproduced and spoiled, as Wordsworth most emphatically insisted, in the reproduction. There was a week of rain during which the friends decided to fleet the time by writing ghost stories, and Mary G.o.dwin wrote "Frankenstein." There was also a circular tour of the lake, undertaken without the ladies, in the course of which Sh.e.l.ley had a narrow escape from drowning near Saint Gingolph. These things were a part, and not the least important part, of the diversions which helped Byron to defy the slanderers whom he could not answer. So was his short trip to the Oberland with Hobhouse. And, finally, meaning so little to him that one naturally keeps it to the end and adds it as a detail, there was the "affair" with Miss Jane Clairmont.

On this branch of the subject he wrote to Mrs. Leigh, who had heard exaggerated rumours:

"As to all these 'mistresses,' Lord help me--I have had but one. Now don't scold; but what could I do?--a foolish girl, in spite of all I could say or do, would come after me, or rather went before--for I found her here--and I have had all the plague possible to persuade her to go back again; but at last she went. Now, dearest, I do most truly tell thee that I could not help this, that I did all I could to prevent it, and have at last put an end to it. I was not in love, nor have any love left for any; but I could not exactly play the Stoic with a woman who had scrambled eight hundred miles to unphilosophise me. Besides, I had been regaled of late with so many 'two courses and a _desert_' (Alas!) of aversion, that I was fain to take a little love (if pressed particularly) by way of novelty."

The love had been pressed, as we have seen, and as Miss Clairmont, in her age, admitted, very particularly indeed. She had dreamt, she admits--and she would have us think that Sh.e.l.ley and Mary G.o.dwin expected--that her alliance with "the great Lord Byron" was to be permanent; and this though she declares, elsewhere in her confessions, that she did not really love him, but was only dazzled by him, and that her heart, in truth, was Sh.e.l.ley's.

It was an ambitious dream; and it would be easy to make a list of reasons why it was impossible that it should come true. The mood in which she found Byron was only one of them. The defects and limitations of her own qualities furnish others. She was a tradesman's daughter, and, though well-educated, not without vulgarity; pretentious, but superficial; stage-struck, a romp, and a mimic. If she ever mimicked Byron--if, in particular, she ever mimicked his lameness--a good deal would be explained.

One does not know whether she did or not. What one does know is that he shook her off rather roughly, and, never having loved her, presently conceived a dislike for her; and that though she bore him a child--the little Allegra, so named after her birthplace, who only lived to be five years of age, and now lies buried at Harrow. To Allegra, indeed, Byron was good and kind--he looked forward, he told Moore and others, to the time when she would be a support to the loneliness of his old age; but to Allegra's mother he would have nothing more to say. How she hunted him down, and how she and the Countess Guiccioli made each other jealous--these are matters into which it is unnecessary to enter here. The conclusions which Miss Clairmont drew, as she told Mr. Graham, was that Byron's att.i.tude towards women was that of a Sultan towards the ladies of his harem. No doubt it was so in her case--and through her fault; for her plight was very much like that of the worshipper of Juggernaut who should prostrate himself before the oncoming car and then complain because the wheels pa.s.s over him.

Probably, if she had been less pressing, or less clinging, he would have been more grateful; for there a.s.suredly was cause for grat.i.tude even though there was no room for love. Vulgar, feather-headed, stage-struck little thing that she was, Jane Clairmont, by throwing herself at Byron's head, and telling him, without waiting to be asked, that she, at least, would count the world well lost for him--and still more perhaps by bringing him into relation with the Sh.e.l.leys--had rendered him real help in the second desperate crisis of his life. One may repeat, indeed, that she helped him to live through that dark period; and if she knew that, or guessed it, she may well have felt aggrieved that his return for her pa.s.sion was so inadequate.

But he could not help it. His heart was out of his keeping, and he could not give what he did not possess. A "pa.s.sade" was all that he was capable of just then; but that this "pa.s.sade" did really help him to feel his feet again in stormy waters, and bring him back once more to cheerfulness and self-respect, is amply proved, first by the change of tone which appears in his more intimate writings, and then by the new, and worse, way of life into which we see him falling after the curtain has been rung down on the episode.

Sh.e.l.ley departed, taking Miss Clairmont and her sister with him, sorely, as there is reason to believe, against the former's wish, towards the end of August; the honeymoon, such as it was, having lasted about three months. Towards the end of the time, visitors began to arrive--"Monk"

Lewis, and "Conversation" Sharp, and Scrope Davies, and Hobhouse--but most particularly Hobhouse who wrote Mrs. Leigh a rea.s.suring letter to the effect that her brother was "living with the strictest attention to decorum, and free from all offence, either to G.o.d or man or woman," having given up brandy and late hours and "quarts of magnesia" and "deluges of soda-water," and appearing to be "as happy as it is consistent for a man of honour and common feeling to be after the occurrence of a calamity involving a charge, whether just or unjust, against his honour and his feeling."

That was written on September 9; and it approximated to the truth. Having despatched his report, Hobhouse took Byron for the tour already referred to--over the Col de Jaman, down the Simmenthal to Thun, up the Lake of Thun to Interlaken, and thence to Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Brienz, and back by way of Berne, Fribourg, and Yverdon. Byron kept a journal of the journey for his sister to peruse. In the main it is merely a record, admirably written, of things seen; but now and again the diarist speaks out and shows how exactly his companion had read and interpreted his mind.

"It would be a great injustice," Hobhouse had continued to Mrs. Leigh, in reference to the "calamity" and the "charge," "to suppose that he has dismissed the subject from his thoughts, or indeed from his conversation, upon any other motive than that which the most bitter of his enemies would commend. The uniformly guarded and tranquil manner shows the effort which it is meant to hide." And there are just two pa.s.sages in the Diary in which we see the tranquil manner breaking down. In the first place at Grindelwald:

"Starlight, beautiful, but a devil of a path. Never mind, got safe in; a little lightning; but the whole of the day as fine in point of weather as the day on which Paradise was made. Pa.s.sed _whole woods of withered pines, all withered_; trunks stripped and barkless, branches lifeless; done by a single winter--their appearance reminded me of me and my family."

In the second place, at the very end of the tour:

"I ... have seen some of the n.o.blest views in the world. But in all this--the recollections of bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the Shepherd, the crashing of the Avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the Glacier, the Forest, nor the Cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my old wretched ident.i.ty in the majesty, and the power and the glory, around, above, and beneath me."

A striking admission truly of the unreality and insincerity of the Byronic presentation of Wordsworth's Pantheism, and concluding with an exclamation which shows clearly how distinct a thing Byron's individuality was to him, and how far he was from picturing himself, in sober prose, as "a portion of the tempest" or anything but his pa.s.sionate and suffering self:

"I am past reproaches; and there is a time for all things. I am past the wish of vengeance, and I know of none like for what I have suffered; but the hour will come when what I feel must be felt, and the--but enough."

And so up the Rhone valley and over the Simplon to Italy, where his life was to enter upon yet another phase.

CHAPTER XXIV

FROM GENEVA TO VENICE--THE AFFAIR WITH THE DRAPER'S WIFE

As long as Hobhouse remained with Byron nothing memorable happened. There was a good deal of the schoolmaster about Hobhouse, though he could sometimes unbend in a non-committal way; and in the presence of schoolmasters life is seldom a drama and never an extravaganza. The change, therefore, in the manner of Byron's life did not occur until, tiring of his friend's supervision, he declined to accompany him to Rome.

In the meantime, first at Milan and then at Verona, he held up his head, and pa.s.sed like a pageant through the salons of the best continental society.

Milan, he told Murray, was "very polite and hospitable." He parted there from Polidori, who was expelled from the territory on account of a brawl with an Austrian officer in a theatre; and he dined with the Marquis de Breme--an Italian n.o.bleman equally famous for his endeavours to popularise vaccination and suppress mendicity--to meet Monti the Italian poet and Stendhal the French novelist. "Never," wrote Stendhal of that meeting, "shall I forget the sublime expression of his countenance; it was the peaceful look of power united with genius." And a long account of Byron's sojourn at Milan was contributed by Stendhal to the _Foreign Literary Gazette_.

The introductions, Stendhal says, "pa.s.sed with as much ceremonious gravity as if our introducer had been de Breme's grandfather in days of yore amba.s.sador from the Duke of Savoy to the court of Louis XIV." He describes Byron as "a dandy" who "expressed a constant dread of augmenting the bulk of his outward man, concealed his right foot as much as possible, and endeavoured to render himself agreeable in female society;" and he proceeds to relate how female society sought to make itself agreeable to him:

"His fine eyes, his handsome horses, and his fame gained him the smiles of several young, lovely, and n.o.ble females, one of whom, in particular, performed a journey of more than a hundred miles for the pleasure of being present at a masked ball to which his Lordship was invited. Byron was apprised of the circ.u.mstance, but either from _hauteur_ or shyness, declined an introduction. 'Your poets are perfect clowns,' cried the fair one, as she indignantly quitted the ball-room."

And then again:

"Perhaps few cities could boast such an a.s.semblage of lovely women as that which chance had collected at Milan in 1817. Many of them had flattered themselves with the idea that Byron would seek an introduction; but whether from pride, timidity, or a remnant of dandyism, which induced him to do exactly the contrary of what was expected, he invariably declined the honour. He seemed to prefer a conversation on poetical or philosophical subjects."

The explanation of his aloofness, Stendhal thought, might be that he "had some guilty stain upon his conscience, similar to that which wrecked Oth.e.l.lo's fame." He suspected him of having, in a frenzy of jealousy, "shortened the days of some fair Grecian slave, faithless to her vows of love." That, it seemed to him, might account for the fact that he so often "appeared to us like one labouring under an access of folly, often approaching to madness." But, of course, as this narrative has demonstrated, Stendhal was guessing wildly and guessing wrong; and the thoughts which really troubled Byron were thoughts of the wreck of his household G.o.ds, and the failure of his sentimental life, and perhaps also of the failure of Miss Clairmont's free offering of a nave and pa.s.sionate heart to awaken any answering emotion in his breast, or do more than tide him over the first critical weeks following upon the separation. So he wrote Moore a long letter from Verona, relating his kind reception by the Milanese, discoursing of Milanese manners and morals, but then concluding:

"If I do not speak to you of my own affairs, it is not from want of confidence, but to spare you and myself. My day is over--what then--I have had it. To be sure, I have shortened it."

From Verona, too, he wrote on the same day to his sister, saying, after compliments and small-talk: "I am also growing _grey_ and _giddy_, and cannot help thinking my head will decay; I wish my memory would, at least my remembrance." All of which seems to show Byron defiant, but not yet reckless, preferring, if not actually enjoying, the society of his equals, and still paying a very proper regard to appearances. The change occurred when he got to Venice and Hobhouse left him there. Then there was a moral collapse, just as if a moral support had been withdrawn--a collapse of which the first outward sign was a new kind of intrigue.

Hitherto his amours had been with his social equals; and the daughters of the people had, since his celebrity, had very little attraction for him.

Now the decline begins--a decline which was to conduct him to very degraded depths; and our first intimation of it is in a letter written to Moore within a week of his arrival. He begins with a comment on the decay of Venice--"I have been familiar with ruins too long to dislike desolation"--and he proceeds:

"Besides, I have fallen in love, which next to falling into the ca.n.a.l (which would be of no use as I can swim), is the best or the worst thing I could do. I have got some extremely good apartments in the house of a 'Merchant of Venice,' who is a good deal occupied with business, and has a wife in her twenty-second year. Marianna (that is her name) is in her appearance altogether like an antelope.... Her features are regular and rather aquiline--mouth small--skin clear and soft, with a kind of hectic colour--forehead remarkably good: her hair is of the dark gloss, curl, and colour of Lady Jersey's: her figure is light and pretty, and she is a famous songstress."

And so on at some length. Our only other witness to Marianna's charms and character--a ma.n.u.script note to Moore's Life quoted in Murray's edition of the Letters--describes her as "a demon of avarice and libidinousness who intrigued with every resident in the house and every guest who visited it." It is possible--it is even probable--that this description, made from a different point of view than Byron's, fits her. Byron's enthusiasm was for her physical, not her moral, attributes; and it does not appear that he was under any illusion as to the latter. The former, however, fascinated him; and we find him dwelling on them, in letter after letter, to Murray as well as Moore--the publisher, indeed, being the first recipient of the confidence that "Our little arrangement is completed; the usual oaths having been taken, and everything fulfilled according to the 'understood relations' of such liaisons." Which means, very clearly, that the draper's wife has become the poet's mistress, with the knowledge of her husband, and to his pecuniary advantage.

The story is not one on which to dwell. It is less a story, indeed, than a string of unrelated incidents. Though spun out and protracted, it does not end but leaves off; and of the circ.u.mstances of its termination there is no record. Marianna's avarice may have had something to do with it. So may her habit, above referred to, of intriguing with all comers. But nothing is known; and the one thing certain is that, though Byron was attracted, sentiment played no part in the attraction. It would seem too that he was only relatively faithful.

One gathers that from the account which he gives to Moore of a visit received from Marianna's sister-in-law, whom Marianna caught in his apartment, and seized by the hair, and slapped:

"I need not describe the screaming which ensued. The luckless visitor took flight. I seized Marianna, who, after several vain attempts to get away in pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, in spite of reasoning, eau de Cologne, vinegar, half a pint of water, and G.o.d knows what other waters beside, continued so till past midnight."

Whereupon enter Signor Segati himself, "her lord and master, and finds me with his wife fainting upon the sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion, dishevelled hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smelling-bottles--and the lady as pale as ashes, without sense or motion." And then, explanations more or less suitable having been offered and accepted, "The sister-in-law, very much discomposed at being treated in such wise, has (not having her own shame before her eyes) told the affair to half Venice, and the servants (who were summoned by the fight and the fainting) to the other half."

And so forth, and so forth. It is all very vulgar, and none of it of the faintest importance except for the sake of the light which it throws on Byron's mind and disposition, though its importance is, from that point of view, considerable. It shows Byron sick of sentiment because sentiment has failed him and played him false, but grasping at the sensual pleasures of love as the solid realities about which no mistake is possible. It shows him, moreover, socially as well as sentimentally, on the down grade, consorting with inferiors, and in some danger of unfitting himself for the company of his equals.

The reckless note of the man resolved to enjoy himself, or at any rate to keep up the pretence that he is doing so, although his heart is bankrupt, is struck in one of the letters to Augusta. It refers to a previous letter, not published, in which the tidings of the "new attachment" has already been communicated, and to a letter addressed, some time previously, to Lady Byron; and it continues:

"I was wretched enough when I wrote it, and had been so for many a long day and month: at present I am less so, for reasons explained in my late letter; and as I never pretend to be what I am not, you may tell her, if you please, that I am recovering, and the reason also if you like it."

Which is to say that he wishes Lady Byron to be told, _totidem verbis_, and on authority which she cannot question, that, having lived connubially with both, he very much prefers the draper's wife to her. And so, no doubt, he did; for though the draper's wife, as well as Lady Byron, had her faults, they were the faults of a naughty child rather than a pedantic schoolmistress, and therefore less exasperating to a man in the mood to which Byron had been driven. She might be--indeed she was--very jealous and very violent; but at least she did not a.s.sume airs of moral superiority and deliver lectures, or parade the heartlessness of one who is determined to be always in the right.

So that Byron delighted to have her about him. "I am very well off with Marianna, who is not at all a person to tire me," he told Murray in one letter; and in another he wrote: "She is very pretty and pleasing, and talks Venetian, which amuses me, and is nave, and I can besides see her, and make love with her at all or any hours, which is convenient to my temperament." Just that, and nothing more than that; for such occasional outbursts of sentiment and yearnings after higher things as we do find in the letters of this date leave Signora Segati altogether on one side.

There is something of sentiment, for instance, in a letter to Mrs. Leigh informing her that Miss Clairmont has borne Byron a daughter. The mother, he says, is in England, and he prays G.o.d to keep her there; but then he thinks of the child, and continues:

"They tell me it is very pretty, with blue eyes and _dark_ hair; and, although I never was attached nor pretended attachment to the mother, still in case of the eternal war and alienation which I foresee about my legitimate daughter, Ada, it may be as well to have something to repose a hope upon. I must love something in my old age, and probably circ.u.mstances will render this poor little creature a great, and, perhaps, my only comfort."

There is sentiment there; and there also is sentiment, although of a different kind, in a letter written at about the same date to Moore:

"If I live ten years longer you will see, however, that it is not over with me--I don't mean in literature, for that is nothing; and it may seem odd enough to say, I do not think it my vocation. But you will see that I shall do something or other--the times and fortune permitting--that, 'like the cosmogony, or creation of the world, will puzzle the philosophers of all ages.' But I doubt whether my const.i.tution will hold out. I have exorcised it most devilishly."

This is a strikingly interesting, because an unconsciously prophetic, pa.s.sage. Byron's ultimate efforts to "do something"--something quite unconnected with literature--is the most famous, and some would say the most glorious, incident in his life. We shall come to it very soon, and we shall see how his const.i.tution, so sorely tried by an indiscreet diet and excessive indulgence in all things from love to Epsom Salts, just allowed him to begin his task, but did not suffer him to finish it. Enough to note here that Byron saw the better even when he preferred the worse, and never lost faith in himself even in his most degraded years, but always looked forward, even then, to the day when he would shake off sloth and sensuality in order to be worthy of his higher self.

He divined that the power to do that would be restored to him in the end--that social outlawry, though it might daze him, could not crush him--that it would come to be, in the end, a kind of education, and a source of self-reliance. But not yet, and not for a good many years to come. Before the moral recovery could begin, the moral collapse had to be completed; and the affair with the draper's wife was only the first milestone on the downward path. We shall have to follow him past other milestones before we see him turning back.