Chapter 21

_Ottima._ To me--not of me! Ungrateful, perjured cheat! A coward, too: but ingrate's worse than all! Beggar--my slave--a fawning, cringing lie! Leave me! Betray me! I can see your drift! 245 A lie that walks and eats and drinks!

_Sebald._ My God! Those morbid, olive, faultless shoulder-blades-- I should have known there was no blood beneath!

_Ottima._ You hate me then? You hate me then?

_Sebald._ To think She would succeed in her absurd attempt, 250 And fascinate by sinning, show herself Superior--guilt from its excess superior To innocence! That little peasant's voice Has righted all again. Though I be lost, I know which is the better, never fear, 255 Of vice or virtue, purity or lust, Nature or trick! I see what I have done, Entirely now! Oh, I am proud to feel Such torments--let the world take credit thence-- I, having done my deed, pay too its price! 260 I hate, hate--curse you! God's in his heaven!

_Ottima._ --Me! Me! no, no, Sebald, not yourself--kill me! Mine is the whole crime. Do but kill me--then Yourself--then--presently--first hear me speak I always meant to kill myself--wait, you! 265 Lean on my breast--not as a breast; don't love me The more because you lean on me, my own Heart's Sebald! There, there, both deaths presently!

_Sebald._ My brain is drowned now--quite drowned: all I feel Is ... is, at swift-recurring intervals, 270 A hurry-down within me, as of waters Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit: There they go--whirls from a black, fiery sea!

_Ottima._ Not me--to him, O God, be merciful!

_Talk by the way, while_ PIPPA _is passing from the hillside to Orcana. Foreign Students of painting and sculpture, from Venice, assembled opposite the house of_ JULES, _a young French statuary, at Possagno_.

_1st Student._ Attention! My own post is beneath this window, but the pomegranate clump yonder will hide three or four of you with a little squeezing, and Schramm and his pipe must lie flat in the balcony. Four, five--who's a defaulter? We want everybody, for Jules must not be 5 suffered to hurt his bride when the jest's found out.

_2nd Student._ All here! Only our poet's away--never having much meant to be present, moonstrike him! The airs of that fellow, that Giovacchino! He was in violent love with himself, and had a fair prospect of thriving in 10 his suit, so unmolested was it--when suddenly a woman falls in love with him, too; and out of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, immortal poem and all--whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended already, as Bluphocks assures me--"_Here a mammoth-poem lies, 15 Fouled to death by butterflies._" His own fault, the simpleton! Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly.--_AEsculapius, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs: Hebe's plaister--One strip Cools_ 20 _your lip. Phoebus's emulsion--One bottle Clears your throttle. Mercury's bolus--One box Cures--_

_3rd Student._ Subside, my fine fellow! If the marriage was over by ten o'clock, Jules will certainly be here in a minute with his bride. 25

_2nd Student._ Good!--Only, so should the poet's muse have been universally acceptable, says Bluphocks, _et canibus nostris_--and Delia not better known to our literary dogs than the boy Giovacchino!

_1st Student._ To the point now. Where's Gottlieb, 30 the new-comer? Oh--listen, Gottlieb, to what has called down this piece of friendly vengeance on Jules, of which we now assemble to witness the winding-up. We are all agreed, all in a tale, observe, when Jules shall burst out on us in a fury by and by: I am spokesman--the verses 35 that are to undeceive Jules bear my name of Lutwyche--but each professes himself alike insulted by this strutting stone-squarer, who came alone from Paris to Munich, and thence with a crowd of us to Venice and Possagno here, but proceeds in a day or two alone again--oh, alone 40 indubitably!--to Rome and Florence. He, forsooth, take up his portion with these dissolute, brutalized, heartless bunglers!--so he was heard to call us all: now, is Schramm brutalized, I should like to know? Am I heartless?

_Gottlieb._ Why, somewhat heartless; for, suppose Jules 45 a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, you will have brushed off--what do folks style it?--the bloom of his life.

Is it too late to alter? These love-letters now, you call his--I can't laugh at them. 50

_4th Student._ Because you never read the sham letters of our inditing which drew forth these.

_Gottlieb._ His discovery of the truth will be frightful.

_4th Student._ That's the joke. But you should have joined us at the beginning; there's no doubt he loves the 55 girl--loves a model he might hire by the hour!

_Gottlieb._ See here! "He has been accustomed," he writes, "to have Canova's women about him, in stone, and the world's women beside him, in flesh; these being as much below, as those above, his soul's aspiration; 60 but now he is to have the reality." There you laugh again! I say, you wipe off the very dew of his youth.

_1st Student._ Schramm! (Take the pipe out of his mouth, somebody!) Will Jules lose the bloom of his youth? 65

_Schramm._ Nothing worth keeping is ever lost in this world: look at a blossom--it drops presently, having done its service and lasted its time; but fruits succeed, and where would be the blossom's place could it continue? As well affirm that your eye is no longer in your body, 70 because its earliest favorite, whatever it may have first loved to look on, is dead and done with--as that any affection is lost to the soul when its first object, whatever happened first to satisfy it, is superseded in due course. Keep but ever looking, whether with the body's eye or the 75 mind's, and you will soon find something to look on! Has a man done wondering at women?--there follow men, dead and alive, to wonder at. Has he done wondering at men?--there's God to wonder at; and the faculty of wonder may be, at the same time, old and tired enough with 80 respect to its first object, and yet young and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns its novel one. Thus--

_1st Student._ Put Schramm's pipe into his mouth again! There you see! Well, this Jules--a wretched fribble --oh, I watched his disportings at Possagno, the other 85 day! Canova's gallery--you know: there he marches first resolvedly past great works by the dozen without vouchsafing an eye; all at once he stops full at the _Psiche-fanciulla_--cannot pass that old acquaintance without a nod of encouragement--"In your new place, beauty? 90 Then behave yourself as well here as at Munich--I see you!" Next he posts himself deliberately before the unfinished _Pieta_ for half an hour without moving, till up he starts of a sudden, and thrusts his very nose into--I say, into--the group; by which gesture you are informed that 95 precisely the sole point he had not fully mastered in Canova's practice was a certain method of using the drill in the articulation of the knee-joint--and that, likewise, has he mastered at length! Good-by, therefore, to poor Canova--whose gallery no longer needs detain his successor 100 Jules, the predestinated novel thinker in marble!

_5th Student._ Tell him about the women; go on to the women!

_1st Student._ Why, on that matter he could never be supercilious enough. How should we be other (he said) 105 than the poor devils you see, with those debasing habits we cherish? He was not to wallow in that mire, at least; he would wait, and love only at the proper time, and meanwhile put up with the _Psiche-fanciulla_. Now, I happened to hear of a young Greek--real Greek girl at 110 Malamocco; a true Islander, do you see, with Alciphron's "hair like sea-moss"--Schramm knows!--white and quiet as an apparition, and fourteen years old at farthest--a daughter of Natalia, so she swears--that hag Natalia, who helps us to models at three _lire_ an hour. We selected 115 this girl for the heroine of our jest. So first, Jules received a scented letter--somebody had seen his Tydeus at the Academy, and my picture was nothing to it: a profound admirer bade him persevere--would make herself known to him ere long. (Paolina, my little friend of the _Fenice_, 120 transcribes divinely.) And in due time, the mysterious correspondent gave certain hints of her peculiar charms--the pale cheeks, the black hair--whatever, in short, had struck us in our Malamocco model: we retained her name, too--Phene, which is, by interpretation, sea-eagle. Now, 125 think of Jules finding himself distinguished from the herd of us by such a creature! In his very first answer he proposed marrying his monitress: and fancy us over these letters, two, three times a day, to receive and dispatch! I concocted the main of it: relations were in 130 the way--secrecy must be observed--in fine, would he wed her on trust, and only speak to her when they were indissolubly united? St--st--Here they come!

_6th Student._ Both of them! Heaven's love, speak softly, speak within yourselves! 135

_5th Student._ Look at the bridegroom! Half his hair in storm and half in calm--patted down over the left temple--like a frothy cup one blows on to cool it! and the same old blouse that he murders the marble in!

_2nd Student._ Not a rich vest like yours, Hannibal 140 Scratchy!--rich, that your face may the better set it off.

_6th Student._ And the bride! Yes, sure enough, our Phene! Should you have known her in her clothes? How magnificently pale!

_Gottlieb._ She does not also take it for earnest, I 145 hope?

_1st Student._ Oh, Natalia's concern, that is! We settle with Natalia.

_6th Student._ She does not speak--has evidently let out no word. The only thing is, will she equally remember 150 the rest of her lesson, and repeat correctly all those verses which are to break the secret to Jules?

_Gottlieb._ How he gazes on her! Pity--pity!

_1st Student._ They go in; now, silence! You three--not nearer the window, mind, than that pomegranate--just 155 where the little girl, who a few minutes ago passed us singing, is seated!

II.--NOON

SCENE--_Over Orcana. The house of_ JULES, _who crosses its threshold with_ PHENE: _she is silent, on which_ JULES _begins--_

Do not die, Phene! I am yours now, you Are mine now; let fate reach me how she likes, If you'll not die: so, never die! Sit here-- My workroom's single seat. I over-lean This length of hair and lustrous front; they turn 5 Like an entire flower upward: eyes, lips, last Your chin--no, last your throat turns: 'tis their scent Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, look ever This one way till I change, grow you--I could Change into you, beloved! You by me, 10 And I by you; this is your hand in mine, And side by side we sit: all's true. Thank God! I have spoken: speak you! O my life to come! My Tydeus must be carved that's there in clay; Yet how be carved, with you about the room? 15 Where must I place you? When I think that once This roomfull of rough block-work seemed my heaven Without you! Shall I ever work again, Get fairly into my old ways again, Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait, 20 My hand transfers its lineaments to stone? Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth-- The live truth, passing and repassing me, Sitting beside me? Now speak! Only first, See, all your letters! Was't not well contrived? 25 Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe; she keeps Your letters next her skin: which drops out foremost? Ah--this that swam down like a first moonbeam Into my world! Again those eyes complete Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, 30 Of beauty--to the human archetype. On me, with pity, yet some wonder too: As if God bade some spirit plague a world, And this were the one moment of surprise And sorrow while she took her station, pausing 35 O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy! What gaze you at? Those? Books, I told you of; Let your first word to me rejoice them, too: This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red Bister and azure by Bessarion's scribe-- 40 Read this line--no, shame--Homer's be the Greek First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl! This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page, To mark great places with due gratitude; 45 _"He said, and on Antinous directed_ _A bitter shaft"_--a flower blots out the rest! Again upon your search? My statues, then! --Ah, do not mind that--better that will look When cast in bronze--an Almaign Kaiser, that, 50 Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip. This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized? I thought you would have seen that here you sit As I imagined you--Hippolyta, Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. 55 Recall you this, then? "Carve in bold relief"-- So you commanded--"carve, against I come, A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was, Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free, Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. 60 'Praise Those who slew Hipparchus!' cry the guests, 'While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves As erst above our champion: stand up all!'" See, I have labored to express your thought. Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms, 65 (Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides, Only consenting at the branch's end They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole face, The Praiser's, in the center: who with eyes Sightless, so bend they back to light inside 70 His brain where visionary forms throng up, Sings, minding not that palpitating arch Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast off, Violet and parsley crowns to trample on-- 75 Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve, Devoutly their unconquerable hymn. But you must say a "well" to that--say "well!" Because you gaze--am I fantastic, sweet? Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble--marbly 80 Even to the silence! Why, before I found The real flesh Phene, I inured myself To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff For better nature's birth by means of art: With me, each substance tended to one form 85 Of beauty--to the human archetype. On every side occurred suggestive germs Of that--the tree, the flower--or take the fruit-- Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, Curved beewise o'er its bough; as rosy limbs, 90 Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang. But of the stuffs one can be master of, How I divined their capabilities! From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk 95 That yields your outline to the air's embrace, Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom; Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure To cut its one confided thought clean out Of all the world. But marble!--'neath my tools 100 More pliable than jelly--as it were Some clear primordial creature dug from depths In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself, And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it off to air, you may--condense it 105 Down to the diamond--is not metal there, When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips? --Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep? Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised 110 By the swift implement sent home at once, Flushes and glowings radiate and hover About its track? Phene? what--why is this? That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes! Ah, you will die--I knew that you would die! 115

PHENE _begins, on his having long remained silent._

Now the end's coming; to be sure, it must Have ended sometime! Tush, why need I speak Their foolish speech? I cannot bring to mind One half of it, beside; and do not care For old Natalia now, nor any of them. 120 Oh, you--what are you?--if I do not try To say the words Natalia made me learn; To please your friends--it is to keep myself Where your voice lifted me, by letting that Proceed; but can it? Even you, perhaps, 125 Cannot take up, now you have once let fall, The music's life, and me along with that-- No, or you would! We'll stay, then, as we are-- Above the world. You creature with the eyes! If I could look forever up to them, 130 As now you let me--I believe all sin, All memory of wrong done, suffering borne, Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and stay --Never to overtake the rest of me, 135 All that, unspotted, reaches up to you, Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself, Not me the shame and suffering; but they sink, Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so, Above the world! 140 But you sink, for your eyes Are altering--altered! Stay--"I love you, love"-- I could prevent it if I understood: More of your words to me; was 't in the tone Or the words, your power? Or stay--I will repeat Their speech, if that contents you! Only change 145 No more, and I shall find it presently Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up. Natalia threatened me that harm should follow Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you. 150 Your friends--Natalia said they were your friends And meant you well--because, I doubted it, Observing (what was very strange to see) On every face, so different in all else, The same smile girls like me are used to bear, 155 But never men, men cannot stoop so low; Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit Which seems to take possession of the world And make of God a tame confederate, 160 Purveyor to their appetites--you know! But still Natalia said they were your friends, And they assented though they smiled the more, And all came round me--that thin Englishman With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest; 165 He held a paper--"What we want," said he, Ending some explanation to his friends, "Is something slow, involved, and mystical, To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste And lure him on until, at innermost 170 Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may find--this! --As in the apple's core, the noisome fly; For insects on the rind are seen at once, And brushed aside as soon, but this is found Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." 175 And so he read what I have got by heart: I'll speak it--"Do not die, love! I am yours"-- No--is not that, or like that, part of words Yourself began by speaking? Strange to lose What cost such pains to learn! Is this more right? 180

_I am a painter who cannot paint;_ _In my life, a devil rather than saint;_ _In my brain, as poor a creature too:_ _No end to all I cannot do!_ _Yet do one thing at least I can--_ 185 _Love a man or hate a man_ _Supremely: thus my lore began._ _Through the Valley of Love I went,_ _In the lovingest spot to abide,_ _And just on the verge where I pitched my tent,_ 190 _I found Hate dwelling beside._ _(Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant,_ _Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride!)_ _And further, I traversed Hate's grove,_ _In the hatefullest nook to dwell;_ 195 _But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love_ _Where the shadow threefold fell._ _(The meaning--those black bride's-eyes above,_ _Not a painter's lip should tell!)_

"And here," said he, "Jules probably will ask, 200 'You have black eyes, Love--you are, sure enough, My peerless bride--then do you tell indeed What needs some explanation! What means this?'" --And I am to go on, without a word--