Chapter I: Morning (1)

SCENE.--_Up the Hillside, inside the Shrub-house._ LUCA'S _wife,_ OTTIMA, _and her paramour, the German_ SEBALD.

_Sebald_ [_sings_].

_Let the watching lids wink!
Day's ablaze with eyes, think!
Deep into the night, drink!_

_Ottima._ Night? Such may be your Rhineland nights, perhaps;
But this blood-red beam through the shutter's chink 5
--We call such light the morning: let us see!
Mind how you grope your way, though! How these tall
Naked geraniums straggle! Push the lattice
Behind that frame!--Nay, do I bid you?--Sebald,
It shakes the dust down on me! Why, of course 10
The slide-bolt catches. Well, are you content,
Or must I find you something else to spoil?
Kiss and be friends, my Sebald! Is 't full morning?
Oh, don't speak then!

_Sebald._ Aye, thus it used to be.
Ever your house was, I remember, shut 15
Till midday; I observed that, as I strolled
On mornings through the vale here; country girls
Were noisy, washing garments in the brook,
Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the hills;
But no, your house was mute, would ope no eye. 20
And wisely; you were plotting one thing there,
Nature, another outside. I looked up--
Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron bars,
Silent as death, blind in a flood of light,
Oh, I remember!--and the peasants laughed 25
And said, "The old man sleeps with the young wife."
This house was his, this chair, this window--his!

_Ottima._ Ah, the clear morning! I can see St. Mark's;
That black streak is the belfry. Stop: Vicenza
Should lie--there's Padua, plain enough, that blue! 30
Look o'er my shoulder, follow my finger!

_Sebald._ Morning?
It seems to me a night with a sun added.
Where's dew, where's freshness? That bruised plant, I bruised
In getting through the lattice yestereve,
Droops as it did. See, here's my elbow's mark 35
I' the dust o' the sill.

_Ottima._ Oh, shut the lattice, pray!

_Sebald._ Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here,
Foul as the morn may be.
There, shut the world out!
How do you feel now, Ottima? There, curse
The world and all outside! Let us throw off 40
This mask: how do you bear yourself? Let's out
With all of it.

_Ottima._ Best never speak of it.

_Sebald._ Best speak again and yet again of it.
Till words cease to be more than words. "His blood,"
For instance--let those two words mean "His blood" 45
And nothing more. Notice, I'll say them now,
"His blood."

_Ottima._ Assuredly if I repented
The deed--

_Sebald._ Repent? Who should repent, or why?
What puts that in your head? Did I once say
That I repented?

_Ottima._ No; I said the deed-- 50

_Sebald._ "The deed" and "the event"--just now it was
"Our passion's fruit"--the devil take such cant!
Say, once and always, Luca was a wittol,
I am his cutthroat, you are--

_Ottima._ Here's the wine;
I brought it when we left the house above, 55
And glasses too--wine of both sorts. Black? White then?

_Sebald._ But am not I his cutthroat? What are you?

_Ottima._ There trudges on his business from the Duomo
Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood
And bare feet; always in one place at church, 60
Close under the stone wall by the south entry.
I used to take him for a brown cold piece
Of the wall's self, as out of it he rose
To let me pass--at first, I say, I used--
Now, so has that dumb figure fastened on me, 65
I rather should account the plastered wall
A piece of him, so chilly does it strike.
This, Sebald?

_Sebald._ No, the white wine--the white wine!
Well, Ottima, I promised no new year
Should rise on us the ancient shameful way; 70
Nor does it rise. Pour on! To your black eyes!
Do you remember last damned New Year's day?

_Ottima._ You brought those foreign prints. We looked at them
Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme
To get him from the fire. Nothing but saying 75
His own set wants the proof-mark, roused him up
To hunt them out.

_Sebald._ 'Faith, he is not alive
To fondle you before my face.

_Ottima._ Do you
Fondle me then! Who means to take your life
For that, my Sebald? 80

_Sebald._ Hark you, Ottima!
One thing to guard against. We'll not make much
One of the other--that is, not make more
Parade of warmth, childish officious coil,
Than yesterday--as if, sweet, I supposed
Proof upon proof were needed now, now first, 85
To show I love you--yes, still love you--love you
In spite of Luca and what's come to him--
Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts,
White sneering old reproachful face and all!
We'll even quarrel, love, at times, as if 90
We still could lose each other, were not tied
By this--conceive you?

_Ottima._ Love!

_Sebald._ Not tied so sure!
Because though I was wrought upon, have struck
His insolence back into him--am I
So surely yours?--therefore forever yours? 95

_Ottima._ Love, to be wise (one counsel pays another),
Should we have--months ago, when first we loved,
For instance that May morning we two stole
Under the green ascent of sycamores--If
we had come upon a thing like that 100
Suddenly--

_Sebald._ "A thing"--there again--"a thing!"

_Ottima._ Then, Venus' body, had we come upon
My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpse
Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close--
Would you have pored upon it? Why persist 105
In poring now upon it? For 'tis here
As much as there in the deserted house;
You cannot rid your eyes of it. For me,
Now he is dead I hate him worse; I hate--
Dare you stay here? I would go back and hold 110
His two dead hands, and say, "I hate you worse,
Luca, than"--

_Sebald._ Off, off--take your hands off mine,
'Tis the hot evening--off! oh, morning, is it?

_Ottima._ There's one thing must be done--you know what thing.
Come in and help to carry. We may sleep 115
Anywhere in the whole wide house tonight.

_Sebald._ What would come, think you, if we let him lie
Just as he is? Let him lie there until
The angels take him! He is turned by this
Off from his face beside, as you will see. 120

_Ottima._ This dusty pane might serve for looking-glass.
Three, four--four gray hairs! Is it so you said
A plait of hair should wave across my neck?
No--this way.

_Sebald._ Ottima, I would give your neck,
Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours, 125
That this were undone! Killing! Kill the world,
So Luca lives again!--aye, lives to sputter
His fulsome dotage on you--yes, and feign
Surprise that I return at eve to sup,
When all the morning I was loitering here-- 130
Bid me dispatch my business and begone.
I would--

_Ottima._ See!

_Sebald._ No, I'll finish. Do you think
I fear to speak the bare truth once for all?
All we have talked of, is at bottom, fine
To suffer; there's a recompense in guilt; 135
One must be venturous and fortunate--
What is one young for, else? In age we'll sigh
O'er the wild, reckless, wicked days flown over;
Still, we have lived; the vice was in its place.
But to have eaten Luca's bread, have worn 140
His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse--
Do lovers in romances sin that way?
Why, I was starving when I used to call
And teach you music, starving while you plucked me
These flowers to smell! 145

_Ottima._ My poor lost friend!

_Sebald._ He gave me
Life, nothing else; what if he did reproach
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more--
Had he no right? What was to wonder at?
He sat by us at table quietly--
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched? 150
Could he do less than make pretense to strike?
'Tis not the crime's sake--I'd commit ten crimes
Greater, to have this crime wiped out, undone!
And you--oh, how feel you? Feel you for me?

_Ottima._ Well then, I love you better now than ever, 155
And best (look at me while I speak to you)--
Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth,
This mask, this simulated ignorance,
This affectation of simplicity,
Falls off our crime; this naked crime of ours 160
May not now be looked over--look it down!
Great? Let it be great; but the joys it brought,
Pay they or no its price? Come: they or it
Speak not! The past, would you give up the past
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together? 165
Give up that noon I owned my love for you?
The garden's silence! even the single bee
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped,
And where he hid you only could surmise
By some campanula chalice set a-swing. 170
Who stammered--"Yes, I love you?"

_Sebald._ And I drew
Back; put far back your face with both my hands
Lest you should grow too full of me--your face
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body!

_Ottima._ And when I ventured to receive you here, 175
Made you steal hither in the mornings--

_Sebald._ When
I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here,
Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread
To a yellow haze?

_Ottima._ Ah--my sign was, the sun
Inflamed the sear side of yon chestnut-tree 180
Nipped by the first frost.

_Sebald._ You would always laugh
At my wet boots: I had to stride through grass
Over my ankles.

_Ottima._ Then our crowning night!

_Sebald._ The July night?

_Ottima._ The day of it too, Sebald!
When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat, 185
Its black-blue canopy suffered descend
Close on us both, to weigh down each to each,
And smother up all life except our life.
So lay we till the storm came.

_Sebald._ How it came!

_Ottima._ Buried in woods we lay, you recollect; 190
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead;
And ever and anon some bright white shaft
Burned through the pine-tree roof, here burned and there,
As if God's messenger through the close wood screen
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, 195
Feeling for guilty thee and me; then broke
The thunder like a whole sea overhead--

* * * * *

_Sebald._ Slower, Ottima!
Do not lean on me!

_Ottima._ Sebald, as we lay,
Who said, "Let death come now! 'Tis right to die!
Right to be punished! Naught completes such bliss 200
But woe!" Who said that?

_Sebald._ How did we ever rise?
Was't that we slept? Why did it end?

_Ottima._ I felt you
Taper into a point the ruffled ends
Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips.
My hair is fallen now: knot it again! 205

_Sebald._ I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now and now!
This way? Will you forgive me--be once more
My great queen?

_Ottima._ Bind it thrice about my brow;
Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress,
Magnificent in sin. Say that!

_Sebald._ I crown you 210
My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress,
Magnificent--

[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA _singing_--

_The year's at the spring_
_And day's at the morn;_
_Morning's at seven;_ 215
_The hillside's dew-pearled;_
_The lark's on the wing;_
_The snail's on the thorn:_
_God's in his heaven--_
_All's right with the world!_ 220

[PIPPA _passes_.

_Sebald._ God's in his heaven! Do you hear that?
Who spoke?
You, you spoke!

_Ottima._ Oh--that little ragged girl!
She must have rested on the step: we give them
But this one holiday the whole year round.
Did you ever see our silk-mills--their inside? 225
There are ten silk-mills now belong to you.
She stoops to pick my double heartsease--Sh!
She does not hear: call you out louder!

_Sebald._ Leave me!
Go, get your clothes on--dress, those shoulders!

_Ottima._ Sebald?

_Sebald._ Wipe off that paint! I hate you. 230

_Ottima._ Miserable!

_Sebald._ My God, and she is emptied of it now!
Outright now!--how miraculously gone
All of the grace--had she not strange grace once?
Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes,
No purpose holds the features up together, 235
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin
Stay in their places; and the very hair,
That seemed to have a sort of life in it,
Drops, a dead web!

_Ottima._ Speak to me--not of me.

_Sebald._ That round great full-orbed face, where not an 240
angle
Broke the delicious indolence--all broken!

_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.--_Æsculapius, 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
_Pietà_ 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--

_So I grew wise in Love and Hate,_ 205
_From simple that I was of late._
_Once when I loved, I would enlace_
_Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form, and face_
_Of her I loved, in one embrace--_
_As if by mere love I could love immensely!_ 210
_Once, when I hated, I would plunge_
_My sword, and wipe with the first lunge_
_My foe's whole life out like a sponge--_
_As if by mere hate I could hate intensely!_
_But now I am wiser, know better the fashion_ 215
_How passion seeks aid from its opposite passion;_
_And if I see cause to love more, hate more_
_Than ever man loved, ever hated before--_
_And seek in the Valley of Love,_
_The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove,_ 220
_Where my soul may surely reach_
_The essence, naught less, of each,_
_The Hate of all Hates, the Love_
_Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove--_
_I find them the very warders_ 225
_Each of the other's borders._
_When I love most, Love is disguised_
_In Hate; and when Hate is surprised_
_In Love, then I hate most: ask_
_How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque,_ 230
_Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask--_
_And how, having hated thee,_
_I sought long and painfully_
_To reach thy heart, nor prick_
_The skin but pierce to the quick--_ 235
_Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight_
_By thy bride--how the painter Lutwyche can hate!_

JULES _interposes_

Lutwyche! Who else? But all of them, no doubt,
Hated me: they at Venice--presently
Their turn, however! You I shall not meet: 240
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me.
Keep
What's here, the gold--we cannot meet again,
Consider! and the money was but meant
For two years' travel, which is over now,
All chance or hope or care or need of it. 245
This--and what comes from selling these, my casts
And books and medals, except--let them go
Together, so the produce keeps you safe
Out of Natalia's clutches! If by chance
(For all's chance here) I should survive the gang 250
At Venice, root out all fifteen of them,
We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide.

[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA, _singing_--

_Give her but a least excuse to love me!_
_When--where--_
_How--can this arm establish her above me,_ 255
_If fortune fixed her as my lady there,_
_There already, to eternally reprove me?_
_("Hist!"--said Kate the Queen;_
_But "Oh!" cried the maiden, binding her tresses,_
_"'Tis only a page that carols unseen,_ 260
_Crumbling your hounds their messes!")_

_Is she wronged?--To the rescue of her honor,_
_My heart!_
_Is she poor?--What costs it to be styled a donor?_
_Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part_. 265
_But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!_
_("Nay, list!"--bade Kate the Queen;_
_And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,_
_"'Tis only a page that carols unseen_
_Fitting your hawks their jesses!")_ 270

[PIPPA _passes._

JULES _resumes_

What name was that the little girl sang forth?
Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced
The crown of Cyprus to be lady here
At Asolo, where still her memory stays,
And peasants sing how once a certain page 275
Pined for the grace of her so far above
His power of doing good to, "Kate the Queen--
She never could be wronged, be poor," he sighed,
"Need him to help her!"
Yes, a bitter thing
To see our lady above all need of us; 280
Yet so we look ere we will love; not I,
But the world looks so. If whoever loves
Must be, in some sort, god or worshiper,
The blessing or the blest-one, queen or page,
Why should we always choose the page's part? 285
Here is a woman with utter need of me--
I find myself queen here, it seems!
How strange!
Look at the woman here with the new soul,
Like my own Psyche--fresh upon her lips
Alit the visionary butterfly, 290
Waiting my word to enter and make bright,
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first.
This body had no soul before, but slept
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free
From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 295
Fastened their image on its passiveness;
Now, it will wake, feel, live--or die again!
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff
Be Art--and further, to evoke a soul
From form be nothing? This new soul is mine! 300

Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do?--save
A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death
Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to hear
God's voice plain as I heard it first, before
They broke in with their laughter! I heard them 305
Henceforth, not God.
To Ancona--Greece--some isle!
I wanted silence only; there is clay
Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes
In Art; the only thing is, to make sure
That one does like it--which takes pains to know. 310
Scatter all this, my Phene--this mad dream!
Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends,
What the whole world except our love--my own,
Own Phene? But I told you, did I not,
Ere night we travel for your land--some isle 315
With the sea's silence on it? Stand aside--
I do but break these paltry models up
To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I--
And save him from my statue meeting him?
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas! 320
Like a god going through his world, there stands
One mountain for a moment in the dusk,
Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow;
And you are ever by me while I gaze
--Are in my arms as now--as now--as now! 325
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas!
Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas!

_Talk by the way, while_ PIPPA _is passing from Orcana to the Turret. Two or three of the Austrian Police loitering with_ BLUPHOCKS, _an English vagabond, just in view of the Turret._

_Bluphocks._ So, that is your Pippa, the little girl who
passed us singing? Well, your Bishop's Intendant's
money shall be honestly earned:--now, don't make me
that sour face because I bring the Bishop's name into the
business; we know he can have nothing to do with such 5
horrors; we know that he is a saint and all that a bishop
should be, who is a great man beside. _Oh, were but every
worm a maggot, Every fly a grig, Every bough a Christmas
faggot, Every tune a jig!_ In fact, I have abjured all religions;
but the last I inclined to was the Armenian: for 10
I have traveled, do you see, and at Koenigsberg, Prussia
Improper (so styled because there's a sort of bleak hungry
sun there), you might remark over a venerable house-porch
a certain Chaldee inscription; and brief as it is, a
mere glance at it used absolutely to change the mood of 15
every bearded passenger. In they turned, one and all; the
young and lightsome, with no irreverent pause, the aged
and decrepit, with a sensible alacrity: 'twas the Grand
Rabbi's abode, in short. Struck with curiosity, I lost no
time in learning Syriac--(these are vowels, you dogs--follow 20
my stick's end in the mud--_Celarent, Darii, Ferio!_)
and one morning presented myself, spelling-book in hand,
a, b, c--I picked it out letter by letter, and what was the
purport of this miraculous posy? Some cherished legend
of the past, you'll say--"_How Moses hocus-pocussed_ 25
_Egypt's land with fly and locust_"--or, "_How to Jonah
sounded harshish, Get thee up and go to Tarshish_"--or,
"_How the angel meeting Balaam, Straight his ass returned
a salaam._" In no wise! "_Shackabrack--Boach--somebody
or other--Isaach, Re-cei-ver, Pur-cha-ser, and_ 30
_Ex-chan-ger of--Stolen Goods!_" So, talk to me of the
religion of a bishop! I have renounced all bishops save
Bishop Beveridge--mean to live so--and die--_As some
Greek dog-sage, dead and merry, Hellward bound in
Charon's wherry with food for both worlds, under and_ 35
_upper, Lupine-seed and Hecate's supper, and never an
obolus._ (Though thanks to you, or this Intendant through
you, or this Bishop through his Intendant--I possess a
burning pocketful of _zwanzigers_) _To pay Stygian Ferry!_

_1st Policeman._ There is the girl, then; go and deserve 40
them the moment you have pointed out to us Signor
Luigi and his mother. [_To the rest._] I have been
noticing a house yonder, this long while--not a shutter
unclosed since morning!

_2nd Policeman._ Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns the silk-mills 45
here: he dozes by the hour, wakes up, sighs deeply,
says he should like to be Prince Metternich, and then
dozes again, after having bidden young Sebald, the
foreigner, set his wife to playing draughts. Never
molest such a household; they mean well. 50

_Bluphocks._ Only, cannot you tell me something of
this little Pippa I must have to do with? One could
make something of that name. Pippa--that is, short for
Felippa--rhyming to _Panurge consults Hertrippa--Believest
thou, King Agrippa?_ Something might be done 55
with that name.

_2nd Policeman._ Put into rhyme that your head and a
ripe muskmelon would not be dear at half a _zwanziger_!
Leave this fooling, and look out; the afternoon 's over
or nearly so. 60

_3rd Policeman._ Where in this passport of Signor
Luigi does our Principal instruct you to watch him so
narrowly? There? What's there beside a simple signature?
(That English fool's busy watching.)

_2nd Policeman._ Flourish all round--"Put all possible 65
obstacles in his way"; oblong dot at the end--"Detain
him till further advices reach you"; scratch at bottom--"Send
him back on pretense of some informality in the
above"; ink-spirt on right-hand side (which is the case
here)--"Arrest him at once." Why and wherefore, I 70
don't concern myself, but my instructions amount to
this: if Signor Luigi leaves home tonight for Vienna--well
and good, the passport deposed with us for our
visa is really for his own use, they have misinformed the
Office, and he means well; but let him stay over tonight--there 75
has been the pretense we suspect, the accounts of
his corresponding and holding intelligence with the Carbonari
are correct, we arrest him at once, tomorrow
comes Venice, and presently Spielberg. Bluphocks
makes the signal, sure enough! That is he, entering the 80
turret with his mother, no doubt.

III.--EVENING

SCENE.--_Inside the Turret on the Hill above Asolo._ LUIGI _and his_ Mother _entering._

_Mother._ If there blew wind, you'd hear a long sigh, easing
The utmost heaviness of music's heart.

_Luigi._ Here in the archway?

_Mother._ Oh, no, no--in farther,
Where the echo is made, on the ridge.

_Luigi._ Here surely, then.
How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up! 5
Hark--"Lucius Junius!" The very ghost of a voice
Whose body is caught and kept by--what are those?
Mere withered wall flowers, waving overhead?
They seem an elvish group with thin bleached hair
That lean out of their topmost fortress--look 10
And listen, mountain men, to what we say,
Hand under chin of each grave earthy face.
Up and show faces all of you!--"All of you!"
That's the king dwarf with the scarlet comb; old Franz,
Come down and meet your fate? Hark--"Meet your fate!" 15

_Mother._ Let him not meet it, my Luigi--do not
Go to his City! Putting crime aside,
Half of these ills of Italy are feigned:
Your Pellicos and writers for effect,
Write for effect. 20

_Luigi._ Hush! Say A writes, and B.

_Mother._ These A's and B's write for effect, I say.
Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good
Is silent; you hear each petty injury,
None of his virtues; he is old beside,
Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. Why 25
Do A and B not kill him themselves?

_Luigi._ They teach
Others to kill him--me--and, if I fail,
Others to succeed; now, if A tried and failed,
I could not teach that: mine's the lesser task.
Mother, they visit night by night--

_Mother._ --You, Luigi? 30
Ah, will you let me tell you what you are?

_Luigi._ Why not? Oh, the one thing you fear to hint,
You may assure yourself I say and say
Ever to myself! At times--nay, even as now
We sit--I think my mind is touched, suspect 35
All is not sound; but is not knowing that
What constitutes one sane or otherwise?
I know I am thus--so, all is right again.
I laugh at myself as through the town I walk,
And see men merry as if no Italy 40
Were suffering; then I ponder--"I am rich,
Young, healthy; why should this fact trouble me,
More than it troubles these?" But it does trouble.
No, trouble's a bad word; for as I walk
There's springing and melody and giddiness, 45
And old quaint turns and passages of my youth,
Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves,
Return to me--whatever may amuse me,
And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven
Accords with me, all things suspend their strife, 50
The very cicala laughs, "There goes he, and there!
Feast him, the time is short; he is on his way
For the world's sake: feast him this once, our friend!"
And in return for all this, I can trip
Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go 55
This evening, mother!

_Mother._ But mistrust yourself--
Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him!

_Luigi._ Oh, there I feel--am sure that I am right!

_Mother._ Mistrust your judgment, then, of the mere means
To this wild enterprise. Say you are right-- 60
How should one in your state e'er bring to pass
What would require a cool head, a cold heart,
And a calm hand? You never will escape.

_Luigi._ Escape? To even wish that would spoil all.
The dying is best part of it. Too much 65
Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine,
To leave myself excuse for longer life:
Was not life pressed down, running o'er with joy,
That I might finish with it ere my fellows
Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay? 70
I was put at the board-head, helped to all
At first; I rise up happy and content.
God must be glad one loves his world so much.
I can give news of earth to all the dead
Who ask me:--last year's sunsets, and great stars 75
Which had a right to come first and see ebb
The crimson wave that drifts the sun away--
Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims
That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood,
Impatient of the azure--and that day 80
In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm--
May's warm, slow, yellow moonlit summer nights--
Gone are they, but I have them in my soul!

_Mother._ (He will not go!)

_Luigi._ You smile at me? 'Tis true--
Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness, 85
Environ my devotedness as quaintly
As round about some antique altar wreathe
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls.

_Mother._ See now: you reach the city, you must cross
His threshold--how?

_Luigi._ Oh, that's if we conspired! 90
Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess--
But guess not how the qualities most fit
For such an office, qualities I have,
Would little stead me, otherwise employed,
Yet prove of rarest merit only here. 95
Everyone knows for what his excellence
Will serve, but no one ever will consider
For what his worst defect might serve; and yet
Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder
In search of a distorted ash?--I find 100
The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow.
Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man
Arriving at the palace on my errand!
No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up--
White satin here, to set off my black hair; 105
In I shall march--for you may watch your life out
Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you;
More than one man spoils everything. March straight--
Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for.
Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 110
Through guards and guards--I have rehearsed it all
Inside the turret here a hundred times
Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe!
But where they cluster thickliest is the door
Of doors; they'll let you pass--they'll never blab 115
Each to the other, he knows not the favorite,
Whence he is bound and what's his business now.
Walk in--straight up to him; you have no knife:
Be prompt, how should he scream? Then, out with you!
Italy, Italy, my Italy! 120
You're free, you're free! Oh, mother, I could dream
They got about me--Andrea from his exile,
Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his grave!

_Mother._ Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotism
The easiest virtue for a selfish man 125
To acquire: he loves himself--and next, the world--
If he must love beyond--but naught between:
As a short-sighted man sees naught midway
His body and the sun above. But you
Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient 130
To my least wish, and running o'er with love;
I could not call you cruel or unkind.
Once more, your ground for killing him!--then go!

_Luigi._ Now do you try me, or make sport of me?
How first the Austrians got these provinces-- 135
(If that is all, I'll satisfy you soon)
--Never by conquest but by cunning, for
That treaty whereby--

_Mother._ Well?

_Luigi._ (Sure, he's arrived,
The telltale cuckoo; spring's his confidant,
And he lets out her April purposes!) 140
Or--better go at once to modern time,
He has--they have--in fact, I understand
But can't restate the matter; that's my boast:
Others could reason it out to you, and prove
Things they have made me feel.

_Mother._ Why go tonight? 145
Morn's for adventure. Jupiter is now
A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi!

_Luigi._ "I am the bright and morning-star," saith God--
And, "to such an one I give the morning-star."
The gift of the morning-star! Have I God's gift 150
Of the morning-star?

_Mother._ Chiara will love to see
That Jupiter an evening-star next June.

_Luigi._ True, mother. Well for those who live through June!
Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pomps
That triumph at the heels of June the god 155
Leading his revel through our leafy world.
Yes, Chiara will be here.

_Mother._ In June: remember,
Yourself appointed that month for her coming.

_Luigi._ Was that low noise the echo?

_Mother._ The night-wind.
She must be grown--with her blue eyes upturned 160
As if life were one long and sweet surprise:
In June she comes.

_Luigi._ We were to see together
The Titian at Treviso. There, again!

[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA, _singing_--

_A king lived long ago,_
_In the morning of the world,_ 165
_When earth was nigher heaven than now._
_And the king's locks curled,_
_Disparting o'er a forehead full_
_As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn_
_Of some sacrificial bull--_ 170
_Only calm as a babe new-born:_
_For he was got to a sleepy mood,_
_So safe from all decrepitude,_
_Age with its bane, so sure gone by,_
_(The gods so loved him while he dreamed)_ 175
_That, having lived thus long, there seemed_
_No need the king should ever die._

_Luigi._ No need that sort of king should ever die!

_Among the rocks his city was:_
_Before his palace, in the sun,_ 180
_He sat to see his people pass,_
_And judge them every one_
_From its threshold of smooth stone._
_They haled him many a valley-thief_
_Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief_ 185
_Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat,_
_Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found_
_On the sea-sand left aground;_
_And sometimes clung about his feet,_
_With bleeding lid and burning cheek,_ 190
_A woman, bitterest wrong to speak_
_Of one with sullen thickset brows:_
_And sometimes from the prison-house_
_The angry priests a pale wretch brought,_
_Who through some chink had pushed and pressed_ 195
_On knees and elbows, belly and breast,_
_Worm-like into the temple--caught_
_He was by the very god,_
_Whoever in the darkness strode_
_Backward and forward, keeping watch_ 200
_O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch!_
_These, all and everyone,_
_The king judged, sitting in the sun._

_Luigi._ That king should still judge sitting in the sun!

_His councilors, on left and right,_ 205
_Looked anxious up--but no surprise_
_Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes,_
_Where the very blue had turned to white._
_'Tis said, a Python scared one day_
_The breathless city, till he came,_ 210
_With forky tongue and eyes on flame,_
_Where the old king sat to judge alway;_
_But when he saw the sweepy hair_
_Girt with a crown of berries rare_
_Which the god will hardly give to wear_ 215
_To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare_
_In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights,_
_At his wondrous forest rites--_
_Seeing this, he did not dare_
_Approach that threshold in the sun,_ 220
_Assault the old king smiling there._
_Such grace had kings when the world begun!_

[PIPPA _passes_.