Part 7

But Haydn liked this not, would ward it off, And turn her chafing overcharge of nerve From tongue to foot, with “Here, Doretta, imp! You cannot climb the ledge,” or “leap the brook,” Or “find the flowers”;—then bending down to me, Say: “I abhor our German prudery. We too should walk alone, or else have four, Or six. When two agree they make a match. A third is but a wedge with which to split The two apart.” And once he paused with me; And while Doretta linger’d, hid from view, We two sat languidly upon the turf. “Who feel like springing in the Spring?” he said, “Yet all life may spring on as bodies do That draw first back, or down, and then leap up. To feel relax’d, perchance, prepares one best To leap the hedge of each untested year; First action, then reaction—eh, not so?— And think—The same may form the law of souls: They stoop, then rise; they kneel, then know of heaven,— And say, Pauline, if once there rose in view An aim sublime, to make one proud, so proud, Say, would he not do thus?”— “Ha!” laugh’d a voice; And soon Doretta’s curls a shade shook down Between his face and mine. She smooth’d his brow; And with a wreath of heart’s-ease crown’d it then. “There, there, my sweet heart, be at ease,” we heard. “You take my head then for my heart,” he said. “Nay, nay,” she answer’d, “nay—would crown them both; Your music with your muse; your head, the home; The mistress there, your heart.” “With all one’s heart But mistress of his head alone, would love Gain much?” he ask’d. “Immortal fame,” said she; “Not so?” “And do you think,” he sigh’d, “that this Could set the heart at ease?—or think you none, If set at ease, can thrill with drum-like throbs That marshal on the spirit to success?— You may be right. In life’s unending strife, The wrestler the most fit to win the palm May be the strong soul’s restlessness, while rest, Like sweetmeats, all too sweet, when served ere meats, But surfeits appetite before it acts.

“But look,” he added, starting suddenly; “The sun has touch’d the earth. See how its disk, Red-hot against the river, starts the mist, Like steam, to drive us home.” With that we all Walk’d home together; nor a chance was given For him to say the thing he would have said.

Yet, sister, I have lately often thought His lips, thus closed, were making ready then, When came Doretta there, to breathe to me What might have roused me, like a Gabriel’s trump When rise dead hearts at resurrection-time, And open’d for me here a life of love.

V.

Nay, do not bid me cease. I must confess. It is not discontentment with my lot. My heart, it suffocates. This feeling here, It stifles me. I think that one might die, Forbidden speech. Ah, friend, had you a babe, A little puny thing that needed air, And nursing too; and now and then a kiss, A mother’s kiss, to quiet it; and arms, Warm arms to wrap and rock it so to sleep; Would you deny it these? And yet there lives A far more tender babe that God calls love; And when He sends it, why, we mortals here,— I would not say we grudge the kiss, the clasp,— We grudge the little heavenling even air. The tears will come. It makes me weep to think Of this poor gentle babe, this heir of heaven, So wronged because men live ashamed of it. Not strange is it that earth knows little love While all so little dare of love to speak. For once (I ask no more) you must permit That I should nurse the stranger, give it air, Ay, ay, and food, if need be; let it grow. God’s child alone, I have no fear of it.

VI.

Long after that, our Haydn found no chance To talk with me; and this, I know not why. My father—I could never find out why My father aught surmised: we walk’d alone, Doretta, Haydn, I—my father though From this time seem’d less trustful; not that he Loved less his favorite, Haydn; but we both Were still so young. And he, poor man, who earn’d With all his toil not much, had form’d a plan (As one might form a rosary, stringing beads, Then spending all his hours in counting them), Where hung bright hopes, but strung on flimsy thread,— Mere lint, brush’d off a worldling’s flattery, That I for wealth should wed. So, like a gem For future pride, he lock’d me up in school.

VII.

And there strange faces drove my lonely thoughts Back into memory for companionship And there imagination moved anon To fill the void love felt in earth about, Invoking fancies where it found no facts, Beheld an earth about that seemed bewitch’d.

If Haydn’s presence had my love call’d forth, His absence, thus conjured, (could it do else?) call’d forth my worship. You remember, friend, Those heroes of old Rome appear’d not gods Till all were dead and veil’d from mortal eyes. And so with Haydn was it, and his world,— These never had appear’d so fill’d with light As when so far from me. The slightest hint Of home, that made me think this home was his, Made all things there as bright as heaven itself;— Yes, yes, though heaven so very bright must be!— For even here the past is bright; and there, Up there, we faith shall have, such perfect faith, That none can longer fear the future. No: As restful shall it seem as now the past; And then with all things bright, behind, before, Where could a place for gloom be? Even here, Could gloom be found if only men had faith?

VIII.

A year pass’d over me. Can I forget That wondrous April day that set me free? At first, as though I own’d no soul at all, I seem’d myself a part of that wide air, And all things else had souls. The very earth Beneath me seem’d alive! its pulse to throb Through every trembling bush! its lungs to heave Where soft-blown wind-sighs thrill’d the wooded hills! And then, this great life broke in many lives, All one through sympathy. In lieu of clouds, The gusty breeze caught up the fluttering lark And shook down showers of trills that made bare rocks More sweet than fount-spray’d flowers, while all the leaves Went buzzing on their boughs like swarming bees. Then reverence hush’d the whole; for, greeting me, Our dear church spire seem’d soon to mount the hill, Our home to reach around a slow-turn’d rock,— And all stood still with Haydn. Chill as ice, My hot cheek felt my sister’s kiss then, then my father’s, And then bewilder’d, as from out a dream, At last I woke. And what a dawn was that! As if the sun had drawn the earth to itself, I dwelt in central light; and heaven, high heaven— Could feel some rays, perhaps, was touch’d by them, At star-points in the sky, but own’d no more.

IX.

Doretta in the year had grown so fair That, in her first ripe flush of maidenhood, I did not wonder, while I watch’d his eyes, My Haydn’s eyes, that he could crave the fruit. And intimate they were. Right merrily Through all the house I heard their voices chime. But me our Haydn did not seem to know; So quiet was he, and reserved with me. Yet all my heart would flutter like a bird’s At his approach; and all my will fly off, And, as if poised in air and not in me, Leave half my words and ways without control, Until I seem’d as if I prized him not.

X.

But this he little mark’d. Doretta’s form Had cast a shade, perhaps, that dimm’d his view. Then, too, within the year, still subtler charms Had cast their spells about him: work had come. He needed now no more to earn his bread By joining us wig-makers while we plied— My sister and myself—our father’s trade. The church that had dismiss’d him, when from change It could now keep that voice, whose tones, of yore, Had touch’d my father so that heart and house Had both sprung open that the sweet-voiced boy Might find a home,—the church had called him back To aid again, but in the orchestra, The fresher singing of his younger mates. With this had pupils fill’d his vacant hours And, far away, an organ, play’d at Mass, Besiren’d all the Sundays. Thus cheer’d on, His brighten’d prospects had renew’d the charms Of music rivalling all things else with him. Full often, could we watch him, listless, gaze, Ay, even toward Doretta’s voice and form; Then turn, like one bewildered by a dream Fast-closing every sense to all besides, And seek our small bare attic, where anon, For hours together, pausing not for aught, The ringing strings within his harpsichord Would seem to call toward form that formless force Enrapturing so the spirit. When his moods Would note Doretta not, nor waiting meals, Nor sunset hues, nor moonlight at its full, Nor e’en the striking of the midnight bell, What could I think that he could care for me?

XI.

At last his illness came. How pale he lay! We fear’d for him, lest life should slip its net: The fleshly cords were worn to film so thin! But how the soul would shine through them! Its light, I would not say that it could gladden me, Yet—strange is it?—while sitting near him then, The fresh air fanning toward him, which his lungs Were all too weak to draw there for themselves, For that so gentle, babelike sufferer, I lost all fear; and, true to womanhood, I loved him more for low and helpless moans Than ever I had loved him when in health.

XII.

How oft I thank’d the Power that gave me power To think and do for him what he could not. I knelt: I gave my body to his needs: Brain, hands, and all things would I yield to him. And was I not paid back?—His dear, sweet heart, Each slightest beat of it, would seem to thrill Through all my veins, twice dear when serving two. And this was love! You know the Master’s words, That they alone who lose it find their life. ’Tis true. No soul can feel full consciousness Of full existence till it really love, And yield its own to serve another’s life. “To serve Christ’s life,” you say?—But part of that By Christ’s humaneness is to serve mankind. I speak a law of life, a truth of God: To heaven I dare as little limit it As to the earth; whatever be our sphere, We know not life therein until we love.

XIII.

True love has life eternal, infinite. Complete within itself, and craving naught, It needs no future far, nor outlet vast, Nor aught to feel or touch in time or space. A sense within, itself its own reward, It waits not on return. For it, to love Is better than to be loved, better far To be a God than man. At least, my love More further’d me than Haydn. With all I long’d And all I toil’d, Doretta was the one Who could the best succeed in aiding him. For she at home had dwelt, knew household ways; And I was but a bungler, knew them not. And so to me was mainly given the task, To fan him while he slept. But, when he woke, Although his lips would move with no complaint, Nor eyes would glance for other than myself, I could not do for him as then could she. For she would turn his pillow, tell him tales, Bring books and pictures, just what pleas’d him most. But, ah, to me those patient eyes of his Appear’d such holy things! My deeds were hush’d: I did not dare disturb the silence there. It could not all have been mere selfishness; Yet I to look at him was all content.

XIV.

And my inaptitude my sister knew. And partly since as well as I she knew it. And partly since as well as I she loved, Whene’er she heard him waking, she would come And by him sit till fast asleep again; And only when there thus was little left That could be done, would I be left to do it.

At times then I would lean above his couch, And grieve to think that I could do no more; At times would rise in thankfulness that God Would let me do so much. A thought like this Perhaps He chose to bless. I came to think That even though I might not have her art, Doretta’s art, that I at least might have As much, perhaps, as guardian angels have, Without our hands or voices, keeping watch In spirit only. Still, when sister came, The thought would come that, if their souls unseen Could envy, sometimes they might envy men.

XV.

How hard I strove against this jealousy!— Would plead with Mary, and would kneel to Christ; And seek the priestly father and confess The feeling all to him. Nor would he chide One half as much as I would chide myself. How would he shame me that I dared to love “A man who had not ask’d me for my love! A man who loved my sister and not me!”— Then bid me count my beads for hours and hours A week or more I slept not, counting them; But, while my thought was fixt but on my sin, It seem’d my sin but grew. It grew in fact: For on this voyage of life, not seas alone, But skies—all things about us—mirror back The souls that they surround. With each to him That hath, is given back more of what he hath: One smiles at aught, it gives him back a smile; He frowns, it gives a frown; he looks with love, He finds love; but without love, none can find it. Alas, that men should think one secret fault Can hide itself. Their sin will find them out. Before, behind, from every quarter flash Their moods reflected. Let them tell the tale, Nay, let them whisper, glance, or shrug one hint Of what they find in earth about, and lo! In this, their tale of it, all read their own.

XVI.

I wander much. There came a change at last. Our charge was better; and, one afternoon, Almost before I found that he had waked, Upon my cheeks arose a burning heat, While, past a mist of tears that flow’d, there dawn’d The light that waited in his clear, blue eye. “Pauline,” he murmur’d then, “Pauline, my friend— And what?—You weep for me! I shall not die.— Nay, do not rise, nor call Doretta yet. Hist, hist!—nor let her hear us. Why is this, That you stay never with me when I wake?

“You think you ‘cannot do for me’?—do what? And have I ask’d you any thing to do?— I pray you stay: do not do any thing,— What pretty cuffs!—There, there: it still shall lie, The little hand; I like to look at it.— Who said I wish’d for books, and prints, and tales, And bustlings all about?—Who told you this? Your sister?—She a good, kind nurse has been: And you, you too, have been a good, kind nurse. Think you that I have never lain awake, Nor known the long hours you have watch’d with me?—

“What say?—‘Done’ but ‘your duty’?—Say not so. A friend most pleases when, forgetting due, He seems to do his pleasure; but a foe,— Who does not shrink to feel him near enough To freeze one with a chill though duteous touch? Mere duty forms the body-part of love: Let love be present, and this body seems The fitting vestment of a finer life: Let love be gone, it leaves a hideous corpse! Pauline, I crave the life, I crave the soul: Would you content me with a skeleton?

“I ‘meant’ your ‘sister’? Why?—who named her?—I?— Name her, did I, as being duteous?— Who ‘mean’ I then?—You little fluttering bird Suppose you were some actual little bird, How would you tell whence came or whither went The wind that ruff’d your feathers?—Do you know, You women always will match thoughts to things? You chat as birds chirp, when their mates grow bright: You love when comes a look that smiles on you. We men are more creative. We love love, Our own ideal long before aught real: Our halo of young fancy circles naught Save empty sky far off.—And yet those rays Fit like a crown, at last, about the face That fortune drives between our goal and us.

“Yet, all may fail of truth; none fail like those Who deem themselves the most infallible: None more than men who, fallible in proof, Yet flout the failure of a woman’s guess. And your guess?—it went right. I thought of her, Your sister. We both honor her, and much. And yet I fear her, lest her will so strong Should overmatch by aught your strength of will. For God has given you your own moods, friend; And are you not responsible for them? And if you yield them up too readily, Not meaning wrong, yet may you not mistake? Our lives, remember, are not sounding-boards, Not senseless things, resounding for a world That nothing new can find in what we give. If one but echo back another’s note, Can he give forth God’s message through his own? Yet,—Nay, I would not chide, I caution you. Wit heeds a hint; ’tis dulness questions it.

“And so you thought I wish’d my pillow turn’d, And books, and tales, and bustlings all about? Does not the world, then, worry life enough,— That one should crave for more to worry him? Do I so lack for exercise? Ah me! Some nervous mothers—bless them!—shake their babes. I never deem’d it wise; oh, no—am sure The friction frets the temper of the child.— Not natural, you see: God never shakes The ground with earthquakes when we wish for spring. He does not drive life from its germ, He draws By still, bright warmth. Pauline, but look at me. Too weak am I now to be driven to life; Nay, nay, but must be drawn.—And ah! could tell Where orbs there are more bright than suns could be— Nay, do nor blush nor turn that face away. You dream, aha, that I want sunset?—what?— The colors come right pretty, but—there, there—

“What say?—I ‘dare not face’ you now?—Those eyes, Too bright, are they? or loving? Love, like God, So brightly dear is it, that lives like ours, Poor vapory lives, mere dews before the dawn, Dare not to face it lest we melt away?— Then be it so. Then look, Pauline, I dare Am I not yours? Should you not use your own?— Ay, darling, draw me all within yourself.”

XVII.

Then, while he spoke with hands there clasping mine, And eyes that tired mine own with so much light Their trembling lids were vext by feeble tears, Doretta came. But startled, seeing me, She only smiled; said: “Haydn, what! awake?— And you, Pauline?—You good have been, so good; Nor call’d me; no. How very kind in you! Why, after all, some little training thus Might make you like, perhaps, to be a nurse,— Or housekeeper.—To-day, how wreck’d it look’d, Your room! Our father just now came from there; So vex’d, you know.” I flush’d, and thought, at least, That she to speak of it had not been kind. And could have told her so, but check’d the words, And went my way; and sought my father first, And told him what the cause had been, and then I sought my room, and pray’d that I might know If it were well to tell my father too Of Haydn’s love; or tell my own to Haydn; Or if he loved me, since my sister’s words. If only he could know my soul in truth, I felt that I could suffer all things then; Could die, if so the veil about my heart Withdrawn could be, and show him how I loved. Alas, I did not know then, had not learn’d, That love may more endure than even death.

XVIII.

The sunset brought Doretta to my room; And she began, and chided me, and said: “How dared you talk! and what were Haydn’s words?— He lay so ill, with fever high, so high. He could but rave. How dared you lead him on? He worse may grow,—Who knows, Pauline?—may die; And all the cause may be your nursing him!— When will you learn to learn what you know not?”

XIX.

And then she told me such a long, sad tale, Of how great store she placed upon his life; And how they two had thought the self-same thing: She knew each inner chamber in his heart, And what key could unlock it; and she named First one and then another of our friends, Whom she could never love as him she loved. Then sigh’d she: “Ah, Pauline, had you explored The world about, with all its barren wastes, And found one little nook; and had you work’d And till’d it well, and form’d a garden there; And had you watch’d the plantlets grow until Their dainty bowers bent over you with shade, All sweet with bursting buds and carolling birds, What could you think of one who came and stript Your life of this, the thing that so you prized?— Alas, and what could I,—if any power Should wrest from me my Haydn, all that soil Where spring all hopes that bless my lonely hours, And make it sweet for me to live my life,— What could I think of her? Though you, Pauline, You have not known and tired of many men. You have not search’d, as I have, through the world”—

“Nay, sister, I have not,” I said. Then she— “Quite right: and cannot yet know love, true love. Kept close at school you were, and hard it was; And harder still to-day that you must wait, As I have done,—at your age too. But yet Right love is ripe love. Life must be exposed In sun and storm—to frost and bruising too: The fruit grows mellow by and by alone.”

“Why, dear,” said I, “I think that I can love! You know what Haydn sings,—that maids, like flowers, Are sweetest, pluck’d when in the bud?” “There now, You always will be quoting him!” she cried,— “Because, forsooth, a man, your first man-friend! Yet, not compared by you with other men, How know you him, what sort of man he is?— Girls unsophisticated are like bees: They buzz for all, and yet sip all their sweets From the first flowery lips that open to them.”

XX.

“Nay,” answer’d I, “I like him not for that,— Because a man!” “What?—not for that?” she said: “Aha, have shrewder plans?—I know, I know It would be well if you, or I, could feel That all were settled for our wedded life; So many ifs and ifs, it vexes one; It would be better, were we done with them. But we, poor girls, too trusting natures have. Weak parasites at best, each tall stout man Seems just the thing that we should cling about. But, dear, I think that half these trunks give way:— The wonder is we dare to cling at all!”

“But Haydn,” said I, “Haydn”— “As for him,” She sigh’d, “may be he is not trustless all; Yet if he be, or be not, how know you Who know not human nature, nor have learn’d The way to work it, and bring out its worth? A friend grows grain and chaff. Sift out the first And cultivate it well, some gain may come— Some profit from your friendship.” “But,” said I, “If you should change yourself who change your friend, Or change but his relations to yourself, Or, some way, make a new, strange man of him?”—

“Then would I make,” she said, “what pleases me; And with what pleases me preserve my love.”

XXI.