Part 14

Just then the sister of Elbert, gesturing toward The sister of Edith, Alice, whom she fetch’d, Cried, half-way introducing us, “My fan!” I stoop’d, and pick’d it up. Then, bowing low, “Your humble slave,” I said. “You know, some claim That genuine friends of either sex are slaves; And only want of love would snatch a whip, And snapping it, cry out: ‘This way—serve me.’”

“And I, like them,” said Edith, slightly flush’d, “Seem wholly loveless. You may mourn it less That yonder carriage waits me. For to-day, All thanks for coming! We may meet once more.”

XII.

My face flamed hot as if its veil of flesh Would burn, and bare the soul, to show I meant No rudeness. Elbert’s keen-eyed sister laugh’d, And, walking homeward then, kept bantering me, To storm my heart with courage womanly, So sure that love of sex controls us all. “So fortunate!” she cried; “Heaven favor’d me. They had no escort,—I no rival near; And I must ply my arts this very eve.”

“Ah, but my plans!” I said;—“I leave to-day For studies at Berlin.”

“Yes, yes; your plans!— You serve ideals, like all idiots. But you are more, much more, than out your teens; And—well, you are no hermit, any way.”

“Then must I find”—I laugh’d, yet half in earnest— “The charms to tempt me!” and my reckoning Fill’d all my fingers doubly with the traits Of perfect womanhood. “She owns,” I heard, “All these, and more. For once, my poet, dream; And full Elysium waits you when you wake. But mind you, Norman, maids of Edith’s kind, In whose one person love so womanly With intellect so manly has been join’d, Need not to marry for a hand or head. There, hearts alone can win. Bear this in mind; And fan your fancy till your words grow warm, Ay, glow to flash the white heat of the soul!” Then, crying from her door, “Farewell till eve,” True to her sex, unanswer’d yet assured, The woman left.

XIII.

And so my will was caught, The net so deftly drawn, I flounder’d first, Then, resting, smiled. We fight the hydra, we, Who war against our nature. Every head That reason clove would rise redoubled there. Forsooth, my rudeness:—that should be explain’d; For which a single visit would suffice; And this, for scarce a day, need check my work; Or, if I linger’d longer, all my life Lay still before me. Wherefore haste away? Fate might be beckoning!—“Nay, I should not leave,” Sigh’d hope, too warm, at last, by more than half; Then roused sweet echoes of faint hints, recall’d From churchly sources, of one’s need to wed, If he would work the best, for all, with all. Thus, like two cowards, clinging each to each, Weak wish nudged wisdom, and weak wisdom wish. Who gets on better?

XIV.

So that night we went. And, all the way, my gay guide rail’d at me. “Aha, my bachelor, your roving love, Aha, has had its day! Yon sunset hues But deck the curtains hung before its night.”

“Alas,” I cried, “if I must through them pass, Woe me who wish it! See, in front of them, The river in the horizon underneath—” “Your Jordan, ere your promis’d land!” she said; “You need baptizing for your harden’d heart.”

“Ah me!” I sigh’d, yet strangely; for there seem’d, While all the way the twilight thicker sank, Sweet silence luring dreamward wind and bird Until the reverent air lay hush’d where came The hallowing influence of holier stars. And, all the way, deep folding round my soul, With every nerve vibrating at its touch, Fell dim delight, through which, as through a veil, Some nearer presence breath’d of holier life. Ah, wandering Heart, and had I had my day?— With closing gates as golden as yon west? And whither was I moving in the dark?— “Who knows?” my spirit ask’d, “who knows or cares? On through the twilight threshold, trustingly! What halt thou, Night, that weary souls need fear? Thou home of love entranced, thou haunt of dreams, Thy halls alone can hoard the truth of heaven! Thy dome alone can rise to reach the stars!”

XV.

She roused me, crying out, “Look toward the porch!” I look’d, and there beheld our waiting friends, And, grouped with them, some ruddy German maids Whose deeper hues but finely rimmed with shade The subtler beauty of our special hosts. These came from out that western world wherein, By fresher breezes and by brighter suns, The Saxon tissue, sweeten’d and refined, Unfolds, each season, more ethereally.

The two then moving from their sister-maids, Like petals loos’d from roses when in bloom, Came forth to welcome us; and, greetings o’er, Of Europe, Edith spoke, and Germany, And books, and music—how the church of Greece Had carved earth’s pivot that earth whirls upon Within the centre of a flag-stone round That paves a chapel in Jerusalem. But she, who track’d that viewless whirl by sound, And deem’d all harmony to centre here, A Grecian only in her love of art, Had found that pivot fix’d in Germany.

XVI.

“True Grecian, she!” the sister of Elbert cried; “Each morning brings her fresh from shrines of art, All flush’d, a priestess from an oracle, To sanctify us grosser mortals here With vague suggestions! mutter’d mysteries! Ah me, to hear her rave once!” Edith smiled, “And eyes that see are blest!—and which sees most— My worship, or your wonder? Know you, friend,” She turn’d to me and asked,—“this critic’s ground?— The Sistine Babe it was, we spoke of Him. Because I find art’s glass, when rightly held, Revealing through the real the truth ideal, I said: ‘I seem to see not only Him, The Babe, but back of Him, His heavenly home. I seem to enter this—His handmaid there, And there commune until my soul is blest.’ I said: ‘From thence my spirit seems to come, And feel its arms to be the throne of Christ. And this,’ I said, ‘is wrought for me by art. Some hold that souls transmigrate after death, But art,’ I said, ‘makes mine transmigrate here.’ For this you hear of raving. Do I err? The soul of feeling is in thought, not so? Then one, to feel refresh’d, must think she bathes In rills that reach her from the freshest springs.”

XVII.

“Ah,” said the sister of Elbert, soothingly, “Our soaring lark here bathes in each bright pool. So be not frighten’d off; her plumes but shake A sprinkling from the bath they had to-day.”

“Some please the world,” said Edith; “I, myself,— My soul, I mean; nor long to clip that soul To suit mere worldling’s notions. Courting crowds, A soul lives crampt; but if one speak the truth, Crowds leave—good riddance!—place is clear’d for friends.”

“Clear’d verily!” her sister cried, “Long live These household pet-gods of our modern homes, Like sprites to fright the stranger off! Now own The fear you felt. It would appease her so!”

XVIII.

To this rose no reply to Edith’s lips. I mark’d, instead, a gentle trembling there, Like ripples roused upon a tranquil sea That rise from deep, unseen disturbances. “They fail to read her rightly,” thought I, then— You know no man can flinch it: woman’s grief, If there be any manhood left in him, Will rouse his efforts to bespeak her peace— I found myself her soul’s expositor To clear the channel of its overflow.

“And when the thought is in one, when it springs, Why, then, not let it spring? The world is not So fill’d with thoughts that it can spare our own. And if we startle folks, jog off the guise Of their deceit, we spy them as they are. Between souls thus discover’d, Edith deems That love must flow; while friendship caught by craft Is lost by confidence. I think her right. Why not? We all when in our noblest moods Crave homage for our souls’ nobility. But what our souls are in themselves, who know, Save as our rôles report us outwardly? Did not divine hands form us as we are? Who love us as we are, love higher things Than those who love what earth would make of us.”

“My champion!” Edith cried; and waved her thanks, With white sleeves fluttering from her shapely sides— Ah me, a wing’d one sent to save my soul Had scarcely stirr’d in me a greater joy.

XIX.

My mien must have reveal’d it. Like a lake, Whose fogs unfold, when comes a genial sun, Her moods unfolded to my sympathy; And, brightly imaged in her nature’s depths, I seem’d, at every turn, to face my own.

So new to me such views were, that I felt As thrill’d as feels the savage maid, when first She finds her own face in a stranger’s glass, Then spell-bound lingers, learning of herself. So wrapt, my wonder hung, all wistfully, About that spirit bright. What meant it all? I could not then believe,—I scout it yet,— That mortals can afford to slight the souls Reflecting theirs, who make them mind themselves And prize the good they own, and dread the ill.

You smile, friend: yes; and often so would I. My head would oft, made jealous of my heart, Deny that reason ruled my impulses. And oft my heart, to bear such weight of joy, Would faint from too much feeling. I would ask Could I be sane yet find my life so sweet?— At least I would be sure; so like a friend Who finds a long-lost friend amid a crowd, And stares, and holds him at arm’s length, a time, Ere clasping him with courage to his breast That wellnigh bursts the while, I held her off, This long-sought soul that mine had found a friend; And did not dare to trust her as I would.

XX.

What struggles then were mine! Too cautious grown, To dare to risk a fall, though but in love, How would I brace my powers against her charms That might unbalance me! How would my will, That strove to master my reluctant mien, Make stiff my every smile! or, were my heart Too strong to be suppress’d, how would I thwart And turn each glance that could reveal one glimpse Of how I loved her, toward her sister first! Unconscious Edith,—could she read deceit?— ’Twas all I dared to use. How could I else, Poor fool, that then I felt myself to be, Hide my infatuation!

XXI.

What of her?— How could she know me when a mask I wore? Was not her sister pleased, when pleasing me? Did Edith not please me, when pleasing her? And so for Alice only seem’d her care; And Alice was a fair and flippant naught, An empty echo only of my love. The sweetness of the family all had gone To fill the elder Edith. Then alas, Too late, I learn’d my error. How I chafed, Kept back from midnight strolls for sake of Alice! And jogg’d from tête-a-têtes to give her place! Then with her left, inspired alone to wish To be like her a dunce; and thus to be Like her, in some way, Edith’s all-in-all.

XXII.

Nor could I hint this truth to Edith; nay. Unselfish, all ethereal in her thought, A disembodied soul had held less moods Touch’d through the senses. One had sooner snared With tatter’d nets of tow a wind of spring, Or with his own breath warm’d the wintry air. Her love’s regard in no way could be reach’d. At times, I would essay philosophy, Or try to freight her fancy’s wings with facts. Like merest sand, flung off a nervous bird, My pleas were shaken back. She “There,” would cry; “Some everlasting everybody’s law Applied again to me! Nay, nay, this world Would grind one’s very soul to common dust!”

XXIII.

“And what else are we?” turn’d I once to ask; “Would God we all could free ourselves from laws; But half our lives we spend in learning them; And half in learning how to love them then. And but in souls that learn life’s laws by heart, Has wisdom, so it seems, a sway complete.”

“’Tis thus with earthly wisdom,” she rejoin’d; “But earth is ruled by folly,—idiot child Of freedom fetter’d. You may live the slave; But I choose freedom!”

And, as then she left, “You lawless,” thought I, “will you always prove The water Undine of my wilderness, All maddening, with strange metamorphoses, My faint love thirsting to refresh itself?”—

XXIV.

Oft while I this would moot, she changed, and seem’d A fount of laughter now that sprang within, O’er-rill’d her lips and rippled round her guise, The very train’s hem shaken by the flow. “Nay, nay, but I shall trust you yet,” I thought; “And still believe you good, and hold it true That maids, like minnows, rarely show themselves Till, caught and drawn from out the open sea, They frisk in safety in some household pond!”

Like this, my moods moved on,—life’s usual way, The mainspring sped by balanced contraries, And every pulse, whose beating proves we live, Anon with deathlike voids alternating. One hour, my faith in her was like the sun, The next, my doubt was lightless as the night. All prefaced fitly that which you shall hear.

XXV.

I, once, recurring to my youth, had said Of Elbert, that he soon, fulfilling plans Long form’d, would join me here in Germany.

“Why,” Alice cried, “to think you know so well Our Elbert!” “Yours?” I ask’d. “Ours,” Edith said, “Ay, ay; our families have been friends for years.” But spite her careless tone, her eyes appear’d, Slipping through lashes long, to shun my own.

And why was this?—And why, too, had she flush’d?— What subtle weapon had been used to cut Beneath the surface of her mien, and bring The heart-blood from its core? Then I recall’d How Elbert’s moods, of late, had hid themselves In strange far mists of fancy.—Could it be That Edith, she was his?—And he, my friend, Was he the one then that had caged her love, And placed it where my soul in reaching forth Could sense but bars of chill indifference?— I could not ask her nor her sister this; Nor even Elbert’s now, for in the week When first I met her, she had sail’d for home. But soon, like worms that would not wait for death, Fear-fretted jealousies clung round the form Of dying hope that now prized Edith more, To feel that Elbert too had prized her so.

XXVI.

A few days later, as we sat and talk’d, He on us burst, and brought a sudden light Illuminating her, and paling me, Blanch’d, ash-like, in the flame of that hot flush That warm’d her welcome. All my heart and breath Seem’d sunk in silence like the buzzing bees When autumn steals the sunlight from the flowers, And frost seals down their sweets. I heard them talk Like one who just has walk’d a glacier path With boist’rous friends; then, stumbling, slips away, Far suck’d through freezing fathoms down to death, Yet hears the cruel laughter crackling still.

XXVII.

This hardly tuned my mood for Elbert’s glee, When then we left the sisters. “Ah, good friend, So glad to see you! Such a desert, life! And friendship, such an oasis!—Your health! Our dusty throats need clearing first, and then Shall drafts drawn deeper clear our dusty souls.”

Thus led he, hurrying on from thought to thought, Yet not one breath for Edith could he spare.— Why not? Could he not trust my friendship yet? Half anxious then, half curious to detect, Though wary still of love so subtly hid, My lips, bold-braced yet trembling at the deed, Essay’d a note to touch him,—Edith’s praise.

XXVIII.

“She looks well,” said he, somewhat absently. “She looks well!” cried I, half-way nettled now; Should Edith be abused, forsooth, to show What brutes men are who lose their trust! “She looks— For what then do you take her? for a frame, An empty effigy of human shape, Like what a shopman hangs his gowns upon?— Her soul is what I spoke of,—of her soul.”

“Her soul?” he said; “may be; but I, may be, Have never seen it.” “How?—this too!” I thought, “A slight is it?—or triumph that he vaunts?”

He caught my feeling from my fever’d mien, And words confused and few; and, warming then, Made answer: “Norman, if I loved you less, I more might love, and more might spare myself. The thing my sister wrote, I deemed her whim; Could not conceive it true, yet can it be?— I swear, it staggers half one’s faith to find A man, devoted to the aims you claim, So little circumspect.” What meant he now? Could he believe that I had form’d a plan To woo his Edith, knowing she was his?— And could my sleepless nights, my troubled heart, My prayerful deeds, my nature that he knew, Be so misjudged, without some fault in him?— “So little circumspect in what?” I ask’d.

And then with words that could but anger me, “In what but choice of company?” he said; “No more you think of study, duty, church, But waste the whole day long with one like this!— Nay, check me not. I understand my words.— This actress, though right artless in her way, This actress here, would play”— “With me!” I cried; “This ‘actress!’” and I know not what I said; But yet recall what kept him forcing in, “You err!”—“You do me wrong!”—“You know her not!”— Wild words, the which he ended, saying then: “Not such am I as you profess to be; But had you common-sense, no piety, You might perceive a farce, if not a fault: A broad church yours will be then, when your mate, Attracting toward the stage by charms you lack, Will draw the sinner, while you draw the saint.”

XXIX.

Struck blind, I scarcely could have felt more stunn’d. Was this the truth? An actress would she be? Why had that sister of his not told me this?—

“Not told you this?” cried Elbert; “What? not told? Ay, ay, I see.—She hoped that love, perchance— It is a woman’s balm for every ill— Might woo this Edith from her present life. She knows her not.—And you—have you told her?— Does Edith know your plans?” “She must have known”— I answer’d back; and then I check’d myself. Did not she blush to hear that Elbert came?— For fear was it, lest he should tell the truth?— To me, her friend? to me, deceived, her dupe? To me, whose love she might have known, yet knew That all that she had seem’d was not her all?— If she had meant deception, could my love Survive the test? Those watching death-beds, mark That souls, when dying, ere above they spring, Breathe deep, then pass away. And so with minds, When come the deadliest woes. Down deep in thought, I scarce had deem’d that aught from hell could roil Such dregs of bitterness long undisturb’d.

XXX.

The fault, sigh’d conscience, had been all my own: How safely might one sail the sea of life If all his reckonings were but true to heaven! Ah, siren-like, a rivalling earthly love May lure to realms whose mountain heights are clouds, Clouds warmly hued above a cold gray shoal, Whose only outlines are the breakers’ caps, Whose only stir, the fury of the storm.

And I, who now had learn’d the truth, what now?— Should I turn back to aims I knew were safe?— I swore to do it; yet I thought—and thrill’d— Could I but hold her soul, but own herself, Though all things else were lost, this gain were sweet!— Were sweet, though all were lost? Why need this be? All might be saved. Did I believe in God?— That he could change a life through human means? Might not her life be chang’d then?—What were I But faithless wholly, did I try this not?

XXXI.

So, soon, to draw her thoughts out, baiting mine, Some slur I dropt, suggested by a church: It touch’d a theatre. “Extremes,” I said, “Have met.” “Extremes have met,” she said, “before! I take your meaning. Elbert has disclosed— Not what I am, but what I seem to be To those who will not view me as I am. You join their lists?—I hoped for better things.”

“But was it right to keep me ignorant?”

“I hoped it right,” she said, “to keep you wise. What Elbert thought, I knew. With you, had hopes, That she who might not seem so wholly wrong Might better represent a class unknown,—”

“Without design, might represent amiss,” I answer’d. “As for you, however class’d, I fear no class could claim you, all in all. For all rules have exceptions.” “Take but rules For this time,” said she. “Did you ever find That ever, when the seers look forth through heaven, They view there pews and pulpits?—Nay, not so: Yet oft they note a stage and galleries, All throng’d with white-robed hosts attendant there. So these, you see, at times may hint of good.”

“They may,” I said, “but do they, as a rule?”

“Ah, as a rule,” she said, “they hint of life—”

“But mainly life to laugh at or to fear,” I answer’d. “When emotion swells and shrinks, The spirit’s wings are moving,” she replied. “And that art moves them most, which mirrors most The life that is, and therefore is the truth. So often have I heard my father say: ‘We read of truth who spell from nature’s page; And art can best make out the meanings there; For ’tis the artist’s thought that finds each form A form of thought,—imagination’s glass That views the infinite in the finite fact. Here moves a man, you say. What see you?—man?— Nay, nay; that guise material fashions there The image only of his manliness. And you can only know his life within, As from the image you imagine it. Yon little girl that skips beside the porch,— I know her, love her, not, save as I pass Behind that face to reach a region rare Where dolls are sentient babes, and brothers kings. And yonder maidens, musing in delight, I know not, love not, till, in sacrifice, My spirit seems to yield to their desires, To wait a watchful servant unto them, To move with motives that inspire their deeds, To look through their own eyes and see their views, And thrill with rhythm when their ear-drums throb; Then, joining all with all, imagine thus The movements of their hidden inner moods. Thus too, through all of life, how know we more? All things are fitful images alone, Reflecting glory from the Absolute; And he who can imagine from the part What marks the whole, walks in the light of heaven. Find then a life where every child becomes Earth’s animated toy of manliness, Each man the mass from which to mould a god, And earth the pit whence all heaven’s wealth is mined, You find for thought a life worth living for, A life the artist gives us: it is he Discerns a spirit always veil’d in shape, A soul in man, and reason everywhere.’”

XXXII.