PART III
ADDRESSED TO J. S. K.——My dear K——, It is all over, and I know my fate. I told you I would send you word, if anything decisive happened; but an impenetrable mystery hung over the affair till lately. It is at last (by the merest accident in the world) dissipated; and I keep my promise, both for your satisfaction, and for the ease of my own mind.You remember the morning when I said “I will go and repose my sorrows at the foot of Ben Lomond”—and when from Dumbarton Bridge its giant-shadow, clad in air and sunshine, appeared in view. We had a pleasant day’s walk. We passed Smollett’s monument on the road (somehow these poets touch one in reflection more than most military heroes)—talked of old times; you repeated Logan’s beautiful verses to the cuckoo,* which I wanted to compare with Wordsworth’s, but my courage failed me; you then told me some passages of an early attachment which was suddenly broken off; we considered together which was the most to be pitied, a disappointment in love where the attachment was mutual or one where there has been no return, and we both agreed, I think, that the former was best to be endured, and that to have the consciousness of it a companion for life was the least evil of the two, as there was a secret sweetness that took off the bitterness and the sting of regret, and “the memory of what once had been” atoned, in some measure, and at intervals, for what “never more could be.” In the other case, there was nothing to look back to with tender satisfaction, no redeeming trait, not even a possibility of turning it to good. It left behind it not cherished sighs, but stifled pangs. The galling sense of it did not bring moisture into the eyes, but dried up the heart ever after. One had been my fate, the other had been yours![* “Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green,Thy sky is ever clear;Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,No winter in thy year.”So they begin. It was the month of May; the cuckoo sang shrouded in some woody copse; the showers fell between whiles; my friend repeated the lines with native enthusiasm in a clear manly voice, still resonant of youth and hope. Mr. Wordsworth will excuse me, if in these circumstances I declined entering the field with his profounder metaphysical strain, and kept my preference to myself.]You startled me every now and then from my reverie by the robust voice, in which you asked the country people (by no means prodigal of their answers)—“If there was any trout fishing in those streams?”—and our dinner at Luss set us up for the rest of our day’s march. The sky now became overcast; but this, I think, added to the effect of the scene. The road to Tarbet is superb. It is on the very verge of the lake—hard, level, rocky, with low stone bridges constantly flung across it, and fringed with birch trees, just then budding into spring, behind which, as through a slight veil, you saw the huge shadowy form of Ben Lomond. It lifts its enormous but graceful bulk direct from the edge of the water without any projecting lowlands, and has in this respect much the advantage of Skiddaw. Loch Lomond comes upon you by degrees as you advance, unfolding and then withdrawing its conscious beauties like an accomplished coquet. You are struck with the point of a rock, the arch of a bridge, the Highland huts (like the first rude habitations of men) dug out of the soil, built of turf, and covered with brown heather, a sheep-cote, some straggling cattle feeding half-way down a precipice; but as you advance farther on, the view expands into the perfection of lake scenery. It is nothing (or your eye is caught by nothing) but water, earth, and sky. Ben Lomond waves to the right, in its simple majesty, cloud-capt or bare, and descending to a point at the head of the lake, shews the Trossacs beyond, tumbling about their blue ridges like woods waving; to the left is the Cobler, whose top is like a castle shattered in pieces and nodding to its ruin; and at your side rise the shapes of round pastoral hills, green, fleeced with herds, and retiring into mountainous bays and upland valleys, where solitude and peace might make their lasting home, if peace were to be found in solitude! That it was not always so, I was a sufficient proof; for there was one image that alone haunted me in the midst of all this sublimity and beauty, and turned it to a mockery and a dream!The snow on the mountain would not let us ascend; and being weary of waiting and of being visited by the guide every two hours to let us know that the weather would not do, we returned, you homewards, and I to London—“Italiam, Italiam!”You know the anxious expectations with which I set out:—now hear the result—As the vessel sailed up the Thames, the air thickened with the consciousness of being near her, and I “heaved her name pantingly forth.” As I approached the house, I could not help thinking of the lines—“How near am I to a happiness,That earth exceeds not! Not another like it.The treasures of the deep are not so preciousAs are the conceal’d comforts of a manLock’d up in woman’s love. I scent the airOf blessings when I come but near the house.What a delicious breath true love sends forth!The violet-beds not sweeter. Now for a welcomeAble to draw men’s envies upon man:A kiss now that will hang upon my lip,As sweet as morning dew upon a rose,And full as long!”I saw her, but I saw at the first glance that there was something amiss. It was with much difficulty and after several pressing intreaties thatshe was prevailed on to come up into the room; and when she did, she stood at the door, cold, distant, averse; and when at length she was persuaded by my repeated remonstrances to come and take my hand, and I offered to touch her lips, she turned her head and shrunk from my embraces, as if quite alienated or mortally offended. I asked what it could mean? What had I done in her absence to have incurred her displeasure? Why had she not written to me? I could get only short, sullen, disconnected answers, as if there was something labouring in her mind which she either could not or would not impart. I hardly knew how to bear this first reception after so long an absence, and so different from the one my sentiments towards her merited; but I thought it possible it might be prudery (as I had returned without having actually accomplished what I went about) or that she had taken offence at something in my letters. She saw how much I was hurt. I asked her, “If she was altered since I went away?”—“No.” “If there was any one else who had been so fortunate as to gain her favourable opinion?”—“No, there was no one else.” “What was it then? Was it any thing in my letters? Or had I displeased her by letting Mr. P—— know she wrote to me?”—“No, not at all; but she did not apprehend my last letter required any answer, or she would have replied to it.” All this appeared to me very unsatisfactory and evasive; but I could get no more from her, and was obliged to let her go with a heavy, foreboding heart. I however found that C—— was gone, and no one else had been there, of whom I had cause to be jealous.—“Should I see her on the morrow?”—“She believed so, but she could not promise.” The next morning she did not appear with the breakfast as usual. At this I grew somewhat uneasy. The little Buonaparte, however, was placed in its old position on the mantelpiece, which I considered as a sort of recognition of old times. I saw her once or twice casually; nothing particular happened till the next day, which was Sunday. I took occasion to go into the parlour for the newspaper, which she gave me with a gracious smile, and seemed tolerably frank and cordial. This of course acted as a spell upon me. I walked out with my little boy, intending to go and dine out at one or two places, but I found that I still contrived to bend my steps towards her, and I went back to take tea at home. While we were out, I talked to William about Sarah, saying that she too was unhappy, and asking him to make it up with her. He said, if she was unhappy, he would not bear her malice any more. When she came up with the tea-things, I said to her, “William has something to say to you—I believe he wants to be friends.” On which he said in his abrupt, hearty manner, “Sarah, I’m sorry if I’ve ever said anything to vex you”—so they shook hands, and she said, smiling affably—“THEN I’ll think no more of it!” I added—“I see you’ve brought me back my little Buonaparte”—She answered with tremulous softness—“I told you I’d keep it safe for you!”—as if her pride and pleasure in doing so had been equal, and she had, as it were, thought of nothing during my absence but how to greet me with this proof of her fidelity on my return. I cannot describe her manner. Her words are few and simple; but you can have no idea of the exquisite, unstudied, irresistible graces with which she accompanies them, unless you can suppose a Greek statue to smile, move, and speak. Those lines in Tibullus seem to have been written on purpose for her—Quicquid agit quoquo vestigià vertit,Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor.Or what do you think of those in a modern play, which might actually have been composed with an eye to this little trifler——“See with what a waving air she goesAlong the corridor. How like a fawn!Yet statelier. No sound (however soft)Nor gentlest echo telleth when she treads,But every motion of her shape doth seemHallowed by silence. So did Hebe growAmong the gods a paragon! Away, I’m grownThe very fool of Love!”The truth is, I never saw anything like her, nor I never shall again. How then do I console myself for the loss of her? Shall I tell you, but you will not mention it again? I am foolish enough to believe that she and I, in spite of every thing, shall be sitting together over a sea-coal fire, a comfortable good old couple, twenty years hence! But to my narrative.—I was delighted with the alteration in her manner, and said, referring to the bust—“You know it is not mine, but yours; I gave it you; nay, I have given you all—my heart, and whatever I possess, is yours! She seemed good-humouredly to decline this carte blanche offer, and waved, like a thing of enchantment, out of the room. False calm!—Deceitful smiles!—Short interval of peace, followed by lasting woe! I sought an interview with her that same evening. I could not get her to come any farther than the door. “She was busy—she could hear what I had to say there.” Why do you seem to avoid me as you do? Not one five minutes’ conversation, for the sake of old acquaintance? Well, then, for the sake of THE LITTLE IMAGE!” The appeal seemed to have lost its efficacy; the charm was broken; she remained immoveable. “Well, then I must come to you, if you will not run away.” I went and sat down in a chair near the door, and took her hand, and talked to her for three quarters of an hour; and she listened patiently, thoughtfully, and seemed a good deal affected by what I said. I told her how much I had felt, how much I had suffered for her in my absence, and how much I had been hurt by her sudden silence, for which I knew not how to account. I could have done nothing to offend her while I was away; and my letters were, I hoped, tender and respectful. I had had but one thought ever present with me; her image never quitted my side, alone or in company, to delight or distract me. Without her I could have no peace, nor ever should again, unless she would behave to me as she had done formerly. There was no abatement of my regard to her; why was she so changed? I said to her, “Ah! Sarah, when I think that it is only a year ago that you were everything to me I could wish, and that now you seem lost to me for ever, the month of May (the name of which ought to be a signal for joy and hope) strikes chill to my heart.—How different is this meeting from that delicious parting, when you seemed never weary of repeating the proofs of your regard and tenderness, and it was with difficulty we tore ourselves asunder at last! I am ten thousand times fonder of you than I was then, and ten thousand times more unhappy!” “You have no reason to be so; my feelings towards you are the same as they ever were.” I told her “She was my all of hope or comfort: my passion for her grew stronger every time I saw her.” She answered, “She was sorry for it; for THAT she never could return.” I said something about looking ill: she said in her pretty, mincing, emphatic way, “I despise looks!” So, thought I, it is not that; and she says there’s no one else: it must be some strange air she gives herself, in consequence of the approaching change in my circumstances. She has been probably advised not to give up till all is fairly over, and then she will be my own sweet girl again. All this time she was standing just outside the door, my hand in hers (would that they could have grown together!) she was dressed in a loose morning-gown, her hair curled beautifully; she stood with her profile to me, and looked down the whole time. No expression was ever more soft or perfect. Her whole attitude, her whole form, was dignity and bewitching grace. I said to her, “You look like a queen, my love, adorned with your own graces!” I grew idolatrous, and would have kneeled to her. She made a movement, as if she was displeased. I tried to draw her towards me. She wouldn’t. I then got up, and offered to kiss her at parting. I found she obstinately refused. This stung me to the quick. It was the first time in her life she had ever done so. There must be some new bar between us to produce these continued denials; and she had not even esteem enough left to tell me so. I followed her half-way down-stairs, but to no purpose, and returned into my room, confirmed in my most dreadful surmises. I could bear it no longer. I gave way to all the fury of disappointed hope and jealous passion. I was made the dupe of trick and cunning, killed with cold, sullen scorn; and, after all the agony I had suffered, could obtain no explanation why I was subjected to it. I was still to be tantalized, tortured, made the cruel sport of one, for whom I would have sacrificed all. I tore the locket which contained her hair (and which I used to wear continually in my bosom, as the precious token of her dear regard) from my neck, and trampled it in pieces. I then dashed the little Buonaparte on the ground, and stamped upon it, as one of her instruments of mockery. I could not stay in the room; I could not leave it; my rage, my despair were uncontrollable. I shrieked curses on her name, and on her false love; and the scream I uttered (so pitiful and so piercing was it, that the sound of it terrified me) instantly brought the whole house, father, mother, lodgers and all, into the room. They thought I was destroying her and myself. I had gone into the bedroom, merely to hide away from myself, and as I came out of it, raging-mad with the new sense of present shame and lasting misery, Mrs. F—— said, “She’s in there! He has got her in there!” thinking the cries had proceeded from her, and that I had been offering her violence. “Oh! no,” I said, “She’s in no danger from me; I am not the person;” and tried to burst from this scene of degradation. The mother endeavoured to stop me, and said, “For God’s sake, don’t go out, Mr. ——! for God’s sake, don’t!” Her father, who was not, I believe, in the secret, and was therefore justly scandalised at such outrageous conduct, said angrily, “Let him go! Why should he stay?” I however sprang down stairs, and as they called out to me, “What is it?—What has she done to you?” I answered, “She has murdered me!—She has destroyed me for ever!—She has doomed my soul to perdition!” I rushed out of the house, thinking to quit it forever; but I was no sooner in the street, than the desolation and the darkness became greater, more intolerable; and the eddying violence of my passion drove me back to the source, from whence it sprung. This unexpected explosion, with the conjectures to which it would give rise, could not be very agreeable to the precieuse or her family; and when I went back, the father was waiting at the door, as if anticipating this sudden turn of my feelings, with no friendly aspect. I said, “I have to beg pardon, Sir; but my mad fit is over, and I wish to say a few words to you in private.” He seemed to hesitate, but some uneasy forebodings on his own account, probably, prevailed over his resentment; or, perhaps (as philosophers have a desire to know the cause of thunder) it was a natural curiosity to know what circumstances of provocation had given rise to such an extraordinary scene of confusion. When we reached my room, I requested him to be seated. I said, “It is true, Sir, I have lost my peace of mind for ever, but at present I am quite calm and collected, and I wish to explain to you why I have behaved in so extravagant a way, and to ask for your advice and intercession.” He appeared satisfied, and I went on. I had no chance either of exculpating myself, or of probing the question to the bottom, but by stating the naked truth, and therefore I said at once, “Sarah told me, Sir (and I never shall forget the way in which she told me, fixing her dove’s eyes upon me, and looking a thousand tender reproaches for the loss of that good opinion, which she held dearer than all the world) she told me, Sir, that as you one day passed the door, which stood a-jar, you saw her in an attitude which a good deal startled you; I mean sitting in my lap, with her arms round my neck, and mine twined round her in the fondest manner. What I wished to ask was, whether this was actually the case, or whether it was a mere invention of her own, to enhance the sense of my obligations to her; for I begin to doubt everything?”—“Indeed, it was so; and very much surprised and hurt I was to see it.” “Well then, Sir, I can only say, that as you saw her sitting then, so she had been sitting for the last year and a half, almost every day of her life, by the hour together; and you may judge yourself, knowing what a nice modest-looking girl she is, whether, after having been admitted to such intimacy with so sweet a creature, and for so long a time, it is not enough to make any one frantic to be received by her as I have been since my return, without any provocation given or cause assigned for it.” The old man answered very seriously, and, as I think, sincerely, “What you now tell me, Sir, mortifies and shocks me as much as it can do yourself. I had no idea such a thing was possible. I was much pained at what I saw; but I thought it an accident, and that it would never happen again.”—“It was a constant habit; it has happened a hundred times since, and a thousand before. I lived on her caresses as my daily food, nor can I live without them.” So I told him the whole story, “what conjurations, and what mighty magic I won his daughter with,” to be anything but MINE FOR LIFE. Nothing could well exceed his astonishment and apparent mortification. “What I had said,” he owned, “had left a weight upon his mind that he should not easily get rid of.” I told him, “For myself, I never could recover the blow I had received. I thought, however, for her own sake, she ought to alter her present behaviour. Her marked neglect and dislike, so far from justifying, left her former intimacies without excuse; for nothing could reconcile them to propriety, or even a pretence to common decency, but either love, or friendship so strong and pure that it could put on the guise of love. She was certainly a singular girl. Did she think it right and becoming to be free with strangers, and strange to old friends?” I frankly declared, “I did not see how it was in human nature for any one who was not rendered callous to such familiarities by bestowing them indiscriminately on every one, to grant the extreme and continued indulgences she had done to me, without either liking the man at first, or coming to like him in the end, in spite of herself. When my addresses had nothing, and could have nothing honourable in them, she gave them every encouragement; when I wished to make them honourable, she treated them with the utmost contempt. The terms we had been all along on were such as if she had been to be my bride next day. It was only when I wished her actually to become so, to ensure her own character and my happiness, that she shrunk back with precipitation and panic-fear. There seemed to me something wrong in all this; a want both of common propriety, and I might say, of natural feeling; yet, with all her faults, I loved her, and ever should, beyond any other human being. I had drank in the poison of her sweetness too long ever to be cured of it; and though I might find it to be poison in the end, it was still in my veins. My only ambition was to be permitted to live with her, and to die in her arms. Be she what she would, treat me how she would, I felt that my soul was wedded to hers; and were she a mere lost creature, I would try to snatch her from perdition, and marry her to-morrow if she would have me. That was the question—“Would she have me, or would she not?” He said he could not tell; but should not attempt to put any constraint upon her inclinations, one way or other. I acquiesced, and added, that “I had brought all this upon myself, by acting contrary to the suggestions of my friend, Mr. ——, who had desired me to take no notice whether she came near me or kept away, whether she smiled or frowned, was kind or contemptuous—all you have to do, is to wait patiently for a month till you are your own man, as you will be in all probability; then make her an offer of your hand, and if she refuses, there’s an end of the matter.” Mr. L. said, “Well, Sir, and I don’t think you can follow a better advice!” I took this as at least a sort of negative encouragement, and so we parted.
My dear K——, It is all over, and I know my fate. I told you I would send you word, if anything decisive happened; but an impenetrable mystery hung over the affair till lately. It is at last (by the merest accident in the world) dissipated; and I keep my promise, both for your satisfaction, and for the ease of my own mind.
You remember the morning when I said “I will go and repose my sorrows at the foot of Ben Lomond”—and when from Dumbarton Bridge its giant-shadow, clad in air and sunshine, appeared in view. We had a pleasant day’s walk. We passed Smollett’s monument on the road (somehow these poets touch one in reflection more than most military heroes)—talked of old times; you repeated Logan’s beautiful verses to the cuckoo,* which I wanted to compare with Wordsworth’s, but my courage failed me; you then told me some passages of an early attachment which was suddenly broken off; we considered together which was the most to be pitied, a disappointment in love where the attachment was mutual or one where there has been no return, and we both agreed, I think, that the former was best to be endured, and that to have the consciousness of it a companion for life was the least evil of the two, as there was a secret sweetness that took off the bitterness and the sting of regret, and “the memory of what once had been” atoned, in some measure, and at intervals, for what “never more could be.” In the other case, there was nothing to look back to with tender satisfaction, no redeeming trait, not even a possibility of turning it to good. It left behind it not cherished sighs, but stifled pangs. The galling sense of it did not bring moisture into the eyes, but dried up the heart ever after. One had been my fate, the other had been yours!
[* “Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green,Thy sky is ever clear;Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,No winter in thy year.”
So they begin. It was the month of May; the cuckoo sang shrouded in some woody copse; the showers fell between whiles; my friend repeated the lines with native enthusiasm in a clear manly voice, still resonant of youth and hope. Mr. Wordsworth will excuse me, if in these circumstances I declined entering the field with his profounder metaphysical strain, and kept my preference to myself.]
You startled me every now and then from my reverie by the robust voice, in which you asked the country people (by no means prodigal of their answers)—“If there was any trout fishing in those streams?”—and our dinner at Luss set us up for the rest of our day’s march. The sky now became overcast; but this, I think, added to the effect of the scene. The road to Tarbet is superb. It is on the very verge of the lake—hard, level, rocky, with low stone bridges constantly flung across it, and fringed with birch trees, just then budding into spring, behind which, as through a slight veil, you saw the huge shadowy form of Ben Lomond. It lifts its enormous but graceful bulk direct from the edge of the water without any projecting lowlands, and has in this respect much the advantage of Skiddaw. Loch Lomond comes upon you by degrees as you advance, unfolding and then withdrawing its conscious beauties like an accomplished coquet. You are struck with the point of a rock, the arch of a bridge, the Highland huts (like the first rude habitations of men) dug out of the soil, built of turf, and covered with brown heather, a sheep-cote, some straggling cattle feeding half-way down a precipice; but as you advance farther on, the view expands into the perfection of lake scenery. It is nothing (or your eye is caught by nothing) but water, earth, and sky. Ben Lomond waves to the right, in its simple majesty, cloud-capt or bare, and descending to a point at the head of the lake, shews the Trossacs beyond, tumbling about their blue ridges like woods waving; to the left is the Cobler, whose top is like a castle shattered in pieces and nodding to its ruin; and at your side rise the shapes of round pastoral hills, green, fleeced with herds, and retiring into mountainous bays and upland valleys, where solitude and peace might make their lasting home, if peace were to be found in solitude! That it was not always so, I was a sufficient proof; for there was one image that alone haunted me in the midst of all this sublimity and beauty, and turned it to a mockery and a dream!
The snow on the mountain would not let us ascend; and being weary of waiting and of being visited by the guide every two hours to let us know that the weather would not do, we returned, you homewards, and I to London—
“Italiam, Italiam!”
You know the anxious expectations with which I set out:—now hear the result—
As the vessel sailed up the Thames, the air thickened with the consciousness of being near her, and I “heaved her name pantingly forth.” As I approached the house, I could not help thinking of the lines—
“How near am I to a happiness,That earth exceeds not! Not another like it.The treasures of the deep are not so preciousAs are the conceal’d comforts of a manLock’d up in woman’s love. I scent the airOf blessings when I come but near the house.What a delicious breath true love sends forth!The violet-beds not sweeter. Now for a welcomeAble to draw men’s envies upon man:A kiss now that will hang upon my lip,As sweet as morning dew upon a rose,And full as long!”
I saw her, but I saw at the first glance that there was something amiss. It was with much difficulty and after several pressing intreaties thatshe was prevailed on to come up into the room; and when she did, she stood at the door, cold, distant, averse; and when at length she was persuaded by my repeated remonstrances to come and take my hand, and I offered to touch her lips, she turned her head and shrunk from my embraces, as if quite alienated or mortally offended. I asked what it could mean? What had I done in her absence to have incurred her displeasure? Why had she not written to me? I could get only short, sullen, disconnected answers, as if there was something labouring in her mind which she either could not or would not impart. I hardly knew how to bear this first reception after so long an absence, and so different from the one my sentiments towards her merited; but I thought it possible it might be prudery (as I had returned without having actually accomplished what I went about) or that she had taken offence at something in my letters. She saw how much I was hurt. I asked her, “If she was altered since I went away?”—“No.” “If there was any one else who had been so fortunate as to gain her favourable opinion?”—“No, there was no one else.” “What was it then? Was it any thing in my letters? Or had I displeased her by letting Mr. P—— know she wrote to me?”—“No, not at all; but she did not apprehend my last letter required any answer, or she would have replied to it.” All this appeared to me very unsatisfactory and evasive; but I could get no more from her, and was obliged to let her go with a heavy, foreboding heart. I however found that C—— was gone, and no one else had been there, of whom I had cause to be jealous.—“Should I see her on the morrow?”—“She believed so, but she could not promise.” The next morning she did not appear with the breakfast as usual. At this I grew somewhat uneasy. The little Buonaparte, however, was placed in its old position on the mantelpiece, which I considered as a sort of recognition of old times. I saw her once or twice casually; nothing particular happened till the next day, which was Sunday. I took occasion to go into the parlour for the newspaper, which she gave me with a gracious smile, and seemed tolerably frank and cordial. This of course acted as a spell upon me. I walked out with my little boy, intending to go and dine out at one or two places, but I found that I still contrived to bend my steps towards her, and I went back to take tea at home. While we were out, I talked to William about Sarah, saying that she too was unhappy, and asking him to make it up with her. He said, if she was unhappy, he would not bear her malice any more. When she came up with the tea-things, I said to her, “William has something to say to you—I believe he wants to be friends.” On which he said in his abrupt, hearty manner, “Sarah, I’m sorry if I’ve ever said anything to vex you”—so they shook hands, and she said, smiling affably—“THEN I’ll think no more of it!” I added—“I see you’ve brought me back my little Buonaparte”—She answered with tremulous softness—“I told you I’d keep it safe for you!”—as if her pride and pleasure in doing so had been equal, and she had, as it were, thought of nothing during my absence but how to greet me with this proof of her fidelity on my return. I cannot describe her manner. Her words are few and simple; but you can have no idea of the exquisite, unstudied, irresistible graces with which she accompanies them, unless you can suppose a Greek statue to smile, move, and speak. Those lines in Tibullus seem to have been written on purpose for her—
Quicquid agit quoquo vestigià vertit,Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor.
Or what do you think of those in a modern play, which might actually have been composed with an eye to this little trifler—
—“See with what a waving air she goesAlong the corridor. How like a fawn!Yet statelier. No sound (however soft)Nor gentlest echo telleth when she treads,But every motion of her shape doth seemHallowed by silence. So did Hebe growAmong the gods a paragon! Away, I’m grownThe very fool of Love!”
The truth is, I never saw anything like her, nor I never shall again. How then do I console myself for the loss of her? Shall I tell you, but you will not mention it again? I am foolish enough to believe that she and I, in spite of every thing, shall be sitting together over a sea-coal fire, a comfortable good old couple, twenty years hence! But to my narrative.—
I was delighted with the alteration in her manner, and said, referring to the bust—“You know it is not mine, but yours; I gave it you; nay, I have given you all—my heart, and whatever I possess, is yours! She seemed good-humouredly to decline this carte blanche offer, and waved, like a thing of enchantment, out of the room. False calm!—Deceitful smiles!—Short interval of peace, followed by lasting woe! I sought an interview with her that same evening. I could not get her to come any farther than the door. “She was busy—she could hear what I had to say there.” Why do you seem to avoid me as you do? Not one five minutes’ conversation, for the sake of old acquaintance? Well, then, for the sake of THE LITTLE IMAGE!” The appeal seemed to have lost its efficacy; the charm was broken; she remained immoveable. “Well, then I must come to you, if you will not run away.” I went and sat down in a chair near the door, and took her hand, and talked to her for three quarters of an hour; and she listened patiently, thoughtfully, and seemed a good deal affected by what I said. I told her how much I had felt, how much I had suffered for her in my absence, and how much I had been hurt by her sudden silence, for which I knew not how to account. I could have done nothing to offend her while I was away; and my letters were, I hoped, tender and respectful. I had had but one thought ever present with me; her image never quitted my side, alone or in company, to delight or distract me. Without her I could have no peace, nor ever should again, unless she would behave to me as she had done formerly. There was no abatement of my regard to her; why was she so changed? I said to her, “Ah! Sarah, when I think that it is only a year ago that you were everything to me I could wish, and that now you seem lost to me for ever, the month of May (the name of which ought to be a signal for joy and hope) strikes chill to my heart.—How different is this meeting from that delicious parting, when you seemed never weary of repeating the proofs of your regard and tenderness, and it was with difficulty we tore ourselves asunder at last! I am ten thousand times fonder of you than I was then, and ten thousand times more unhappy!” “You have no reason to be so; my feelings towards you are the same as they ever were.” I told her “She was my all of hope or comfort: my passion for her grew stronger every time I saw her.” She answered, “She was sorry for it; for THAT she never could return.” I said something about looking ill: she said in her pretty, mincing, emphatic way, “I despise looks!” So, thought I, it is not that; and she says there’s no one else: it must be some strange air she gives herself, in consequence of the approaching change in my circumstances. She has been probably advised not to give up till all is fairly over, and then she will be my own sweet girl again. All this time she was standing just outside the door, my hand in hers (would that they could have grown together!) she was dressed in a loose morning-gown, her hair curled beautifully; she stood with her profile to me, and looked down the whole time. No expression was ever more soft or perfect. Her whole attitude, her whole form, was dignity and bewitching grace. I said to her, “You look like a queen, my love, adorned with your own graces!” I grew idolatrous, and would have kneeled to her. She made a movement, as if she was displeased. I tried to draw her towards me. She wouldn’t. I then got up, and offered to kiss her at parting. I found she obstinately refused. This stung me to the quick. It was the first time in her life she had ever done so. There must be some new bar between us to produce these continued denials; and she had not even esteem enough left to tell me so. I followed her half-way down-stairs, but to no purpose, and returned into my room, confirmed in my most dreadful surmises. I could bear it no longer. I gave way to all the fury of disappointed hope and jealous passion. I was made the dupe of trick and cunning, killed with cold, sullen scorn; and, after all the agony I had suffered, could obtain no explanation why I was subjected to it. I was still to be tantalized, tortured, made the cruel sport of one, for whom I would have sacrificed all. I tore the locket which contained her hair (and which I used to wear continually in my bosom, as the precious token of her dear regard) from my neck, and trampled it in pieces. I then dashed the little Buonaparte on the ground, and stamped upon it, as one of her instruments of mockery. I could not stay in the room; I could not leave it; my rage, my despair were uncontrollable. I shrieked curses on her name, and on her false love; and the scream I uttered (so pitiful and so piercing was it, that the sound of it terrified me) instantly brought the whole house, father, mother, lodgers and all, into the room. They thought I was destroying her and myself. I had gone into the bedroom, merely to hide away from myself, and as I came out of it, raging-mad with the new sense of present shame and lasting misery, Mrs. F—— said, “She’s in there! He has got her in there!” thinking the cries had proceeded from her, and that I had been offering her violence. “Oh! no,” I said, “She’s in no danger from me; I am not the person;” and tried to burst from this scene of degradation. The mother endeavoured to stop me, and said, “For God’s sake, don’t go out, Mr. ——! for God’s sake, don’t!” Her father, who was not, I believe, in the secret, and was therefore justly scandalised at such outrageous conduct, said angrily, “Let him go! Why should he stay?” I however sprang down stairs, and as they called out to me, “What is it?—What has she done to you?” I answered, “She has murdered me!—She has destroyed me for ever!—She has doomed my soul to perdition!” I rushed out of the house, thinking to quit it forever; but I was no sooner in the street, than the desolation and the darkness became greater, more intolerable; and the eddying violence of my passion drove me back to the source, from whence it sprung. This unexpected explosion, with the conjectures to which it would give rise, could not be very agreeable to the precieuse or her family; and when I went back, the father was waiting at the door, as if anticipating this sudden turn of my feelings, with no friendly aspect. I said, “I have to beg pardon, Sir; but my mad fit is over, and I wish to say a few words to you in private.” He seemed to hesitate, but some uneasy forebodings on his own account, probably, prevailed over his resentment; or, perhaps (as philosophers have a desire to know the cause of thunder) it was a natural curiosity to know what circumstances of provocation had given rise to such an extraordinary scene of confusion. When we reached my room, I requested him to be seated. I said, “It is true, Sir, I have lost my peace of mind for ever, but at present I am quite calm and collected, and I wish to explain to you why I have behaved in so extravagant a way, and to ask for your advice and intercession.” He appeared satisfied, and I went on. I had no chance either of exculpating myself, or of probing the question to the bottom, but by stating the naked truth, and therefore I said at once, “Sarah told me, Sir (and I never shall forget the way in which she told me, fixing her dove’s eyes upon me, and looking a thousand tender reproaches for the loss of that good opinion, which she held dearer than all the world) she told me, Sir, that as you one day passed the door, which stood a-jar, you saw her in an attitude which a good deal startled you; I mean sitting in my lap, with her arms round my neck, and mine twined round her in the fondest manner. What I wished to ask was, whether this was actually the case, or whether it was a mere invention of her own, to enhance the sense of my obligations to her; for I begin to doubt everything?”—“Indeed, it was so; and very much surprised and hurt I was to see it.” “Well then, Sir, I can only say, that as you saw her sitting then, so she had been sitting for the last year and a half, almost every day of her life, by the hour together; and you may judge yourself, knowing what a nice modest-looking girl she is, whether, after having been admitted to such intimacy with so sweet a creature, and for so long a time, it is not enough to make any one frantic to be received by her as I have been since my return, without any provocation given or cause assigned for it.” The old man answered very seriously, and, as I think, sincerely, “What you now tell me, Sir, mortifies and shocks me as much as it can do yourself. I had no idea such a thing was possible. I was much pained at what I saw; but I thought it an accident, and that it would never happen again.”—“It was a constant habit; it has happened a hundred times since, and a thousand before. I lived on her caresses as my daily food, nor can I live without them.” So I told him the whole story, “what conjurations, and what mighty magic I won his daughter with,” to be anything but MINE FOR LIFE. Nothing could well exceed his astonishment and apparent mortification. “What I had said,” he owned, “had left a weight upon his mind that he should not easily get rid of.” I told him, “For myself, I never could recover the blow I had received. I thought, however, for her own sake, she ought to alter her present behaviour. Her marked neglect and dislike, so far from justifying, left her former intimacies without excuse; for nothing could reconcile them to propriety, or even a pretence to common decency, but either love, or friendship so strong and pure that it could put on the guise of love. She was certainly a singular girl. Did she think it right and becoming to be free with strangers, and strange to old friends?” I frankly declared, “I did not see how it was in human nature for any one who was not rendered callous to such familiarities by bestowing them indiscriminately on every one, to grant the extreme and continued indulgences she had done to me, without either liking the man at first, or coming to like him in the end, in spite of herself. When my addresses had nothing, and could have nothing honourable in them, she gave them every encouragement; when I wished to make them honourable, she treated them with the utmost contempt. The terms we had been all along on were such as if she had been to be my bride next day. It was only when I wished her actually to become so, to ensure her own character and my happiness, that she shrunk back with precipitation and panic-fear. There seemed to me something wrong in all this; a want both of common propriety, and I might say, of natural feeling; yet, with all her faults, I loved her, and ever should, beyond any other human being. I had drank in the poison of her sweetness too long ever to be cured of it; and though I might find it to be poison in the end, it was still in my veins. My only ambition was to be permitted to live with her, and to die in her arms. Be she what she would, treat me how she would, I felt that my soul was wedded to hers; and were she a mere lost creature, I would try to snatch her from perdition, and marry her to-morrow if she would have me. That was the question—“Would she have me, or would she not?” He said he could not tell; but should not attempt to put any constraint upon her inclinations, one way or other. I acquiesced, and added, that “I had brought all this upon myself, by acting contrary to the suggestions of my friend, Mr. ——, who had desired me to take no notice whether she came near me or kept away, whether she smiled or frowned, was kind or contemptuous—all you have to do, is to wait patiently for a month till you are your own man, as you will be in all probability; then make her an offer of your hand, and if she refuses, there’s an end of the matter.” Mr. L. said, “Well, Sir, and I don’t think you can follow a better advice!” I took this as at least a sort of negative encouragement, and so we parted.