Chapter XXV: Delirium

“The balcony whence our Juliet leaned to whisper to her Romeo.” Do you recall how it was mentioned earlier, with wondering if in these days lunatics still came there to gibber to the moon? I say “still,” for if passion is the reverse of reason, then is not love a sort of madness? And were not these two demented things, to think that, in a chief province of despotism, love would be allowed to override all distinctions of rank and fortune? Or did they really think so, or think that disgrace and ostracism were the worst alternatives they had to face? What does it matter what they thought, or failed to think; their need was not in thinking; the fire of immortality is in the transcendent passions which take no thought, and of their seed is born all that beauty which redeems the ignoble materialism of the world.

At night all the eastern side of the palace, where it faced upon the sunk gardens, was veiled in deep shadow. Only in one place, above a secluded myrtle-grown terrace, a faintly luminous oblong showed where secret wakefulness kept still its vigil in a lighted room.

The hangings in the window parted, revealing momentarily a running shaft of gold, and a man stepped forth, paused an instant on the balcony, then climbed its stone parapet and dropped to the turf beneath. Even as he alighted, another form, that of a “slim, enamoured, sweet-fleshed girl,” appeared, catching light draperies about its neck and bosom, in the opening, and, letting the curtains fall to behind it, stood, ghostly-pale in the darkness, leaning down.

“O, love! You are not hurt?”

He laughed, low and musical. As she leaned, he could reach even up to her shoulders with his hands.

“Only in my vanity.”

“O! why?”

“That I should have outstayed my welcome.”

“Sweet, not your welcome, but my terror.”

“Then, if I’ve outstayed it, your terror’s gone?”

“Alas, no! This night has made it tenfold. It increases with every minute that you linger.”

“Why, Isabel, what’s to fear? All the world’s asleep.”

“Is there nothing to fear indeed?”

“Nothing, on my soul.”

“Will you not go, dear love?”

“Not while you ask me. See how your voice holds me in its silken leash.”

“I will not speak, then.”

“So I shall know you weary of me? Well, I will go.”

“No, stay a little. I cannot spare you to the dark. There is something fearful in it. The trees look as if they were watching us. Everything seems as if it draws near.”

It was one of those crystal-clear nights which give the impression as of an unnaturally close approach of all objects, earthly and celestial. There was no moon, but every star was like a sharp splint of light cut upon a background of purple glass. Austere, immense, the inky masses of the ilexes seemed, in their apparent contiguity, as if their very shadows had taken root, filling the vacant spaces of the lawn between with menacing growth. A night when all things seemed to stop and listen, as in the deep-midmost of sleep when breathing almost ceases, and the soul hangs at the neutral poise between life and death.

“Even the stars,” he said--“and most that beautiful bright one that stoops to guide us on our way. Look to the North, faint heart.”

She caught his two wandering hands in hers, and, imprisoning them, brushed them with kisses as soft as flowers.

“Home,” she whispered--“‘where the strange thing is’--where we can love and be good. O, sweet! I would you could sing to me!”

“Shall I sing?”

“It is not the time of nightingales. No, I dare not let you.”

“As well, perhaps. I have been out of tune of late.”

“Ah me! Were you so sick at heart?”

“Have I not told you?”

“Tell it me all again a thousand times; and a thousand times my tears shall drop like hot rain upon that winter, until not a speck of frost is left to upbraid me.”

“It is already melted in your arms. O, love! am I not a villain?”

“If you are, I love a villain.”

“Isabel?”

“My dear lord?”

“Think always well of that other.”

“I obey my lord.”

“He is a noble heart--princely, magnanimous. He deserves you more than I.”

“Well, he has his deserts to keep him.”

“His claim was open, palpable: mine, only visionary.”

“I will think well of him--when I think of him. Look, when you turn that way, the stars make little babies in your eyes.”

“Isabel, if it were not I, I think I could say, Make _him_ happy.”

“What do you mean, if it were not you? O, God! what have I done to forfeit my love?”

“To _forfeit_, child?”

“Have I been too forward, too complying--cheapening in myself the thing you held so dear? Will you give me to him, as one having too easily betrayed her easy nature? I am not like that--not fickle--indeed, indeed I am not. I will be cold, forbidding, if it please you; more maidenly; chary of my favours; no smiles, no kisses--Ah, no, I cannot! It is too late. In pity do not despise and cast me off!”

“You very woman! Come, bend lower. Give me your lips, I say.”

“How can I help it when you bid me?”

“My gentle slave! What reprisals your fond loveliness does invite! I could almost wound you just to taste that lust of dear submission. And yet, I did not mean to wound you, girl; but only to say, were I to die, atone as best you can.”

“As best I can, then. Shall I promise to marry him?”

“Promise what you like.”

“Ah! now I hear you set your teeth, as if clinched on some secret pain. And I am happy once more. If you were to die, did you say?”

“Yes, my own love.”

“Look! you cannot forbear the truth. Give him the empty husk, you mean, so long as the sweet kernel remains your own. You called me your own love.”

“Are you not?”

“By every fibre of my soul that clings to yours. How could I live, then, if you were dead?”

“Make room. I must come up to you again.”

“No, no--you shall not. I am content at last in everything but your safety. Hush--O, hush! What was that noise?”

“I heard none. Where is Fanchette?”

“She is waiting within to take you to the gate. Stop, while I fetch her.”

“Not yet. Let me listen at your heart. Child, how it beats.”

“It is your own caged bird. It beats to get at you.”

“Come into my hand, dear bird, and lie warm and rest. There is a long flight waits you on the morrow.”

“O, I die to think of it!”

“What?--of fear or rapture?”

“Of rapture that is fear. Listen--Bonbec!”

“It is midnight striking--the hour of sweet augury. You will not fail me, will you, by a minute--here, at the window?”

“I will put the clock forward.”

“If we can reach the mountains, and thence make by way of Zurich across the German border, and so northward.”

“To the wild green gardens! O, heaven speed us!”

“Never doubt it will. Think of my mascot.”

“What mascot?”

“That to which I owe my immortality--Cinderella’s slipper.”

Two arms came lovingly about his neck, and the tiniest cooing laugh was smothered there.

“What tickles you, you rogue?”

“I do not know. It was either that or crying, and the laugh came first. Shall we not exchange talismans? My lord, will you give me your jack-boot to keep?”

“So you will wear it in your bosom. In very truth, Isabel, I should have died but for it.”

“I believe--I am sure. Yet it did not save you this.” Very pitifully her fingers fluttered over the scar on his temple. “Ah, love!” she sighed, “how could you leave me so?”

For a minute she held him close, with little murmurs like a dove; then looked up fearfully:

“The trees draw nearer. Is it not deadly still? Indeed you must be going.”

“Well,” he said: “shall we begin to speak good-bye?”

“O, no! the briefest parting. Must it not be so?”

“’Tis for you to say.”

“I say it then. Bonbec?”

“Good-bye, lady!”

“One moment. There was something--one last thing I had to say. What was it? It has slipped my mind.”

“Consider on it, while I hold you.”

“It will come in a minute----”

“Or ten, or twenty.”

“No; you must go. How prettily your hair grows from your forehead.”

“Was that it?”

“Wait! It is always on the tip of my tongue--yet it will not come.”

“The basil-flower, perchance?”

“No. But let that serve. Was it not a strange dream of ours?”

“Not strange that I should come to you in dreams. It had been my practice, had you known. Shall I come again to-night? Sweetheart, do you call the basil by the name I told you?”

“Yes, Bonbec.”

“A tiny whisper, faith! I’ll whisper back. Isabel, we’ll make the pretty darling flower between us yet.”

So they lingered out their parting, postponing and always postponing the dread moment that was to separate them--to what issue? By ways of bliss and pain they had reached this supreme crisis, whence, if they would, the blind ecstatic plunge. Now, aware in truth that he must delay his going no longer, the man closed fast his arms about their enamoured burden, and spoke his last words very low and impassioned:

“Isabel--before I go--there is a thing to say. It is as a woman--do you realise it--that you lie here?”

“I would be anything, so to lie here for ever.”

“So to lie and dream? But dreams must wake to reality, when childhood ends, as with the dropping of the flower comes the fruit. Are you prepared?”

“For what?”

“For what’s to come?”

“Tell me what is to come.”

“God knows! Only, for what it cannot be, think of all you must forego--name, honour, luxury--an empire.”

“I thought them all shadows. Are they the realities?”

“Think, before you decide. The whole world against a sentiment.”

“Is it only that, indeed, to you?”

“Ah! to me! But I lose nothing and gain all.”

“An empty gain, when I shall have lost my all.”

“It is the gain of the deathless, child. What is the value of the mortal residue to that?”

“So, after all, you think I cannot love like you?”

“O, I would prove my love, no more than that--even to this last renunciation! Do you fear? Then, I say, it is not too late yet to draw back.”

She gave a little gasp, and would have withdrawn from him; but he caught at her hands and held them fast.

“Isabel!”

“O!” she said despairingly, “after all that has been between us.”

“Listen to me. It is only to free you if you will, so that free you can choose.”

“How can you hurt me so, when you say you love me? I would not be so cruel to my love.”

“O, child, child! cannot you understand?”

She gazed at him a moment with impassioned eyes; then let herself slip once more into his arms.

“I cannot lose you, Bonbec. No, not for all the world.”

“Now,” he said deeply, “the last is said; and we are one and inseparable to eternity.”

“Yes, to eternity!”

“That I could have doubted you! O, my soul, forgive me!”

Presently she stirred, and, the starlight shining on her wet lashes, yielded herself to one last long kiss; then gently put him from her.

“Good-bye, beloved--O, good-bye, good-bye!”

“It is like death to leave you, Isabel.”

“Then do not go. Come back--here, into my room--only till the day breaks. There is something fearful in the night. I feel as if, once we were parted, it will never give you to me again.”

He laughed, whispering away her terrors.

“The dark is my true friend. How but for it could I creep back into hiding?”

“The long, long way! O, go warily, for fear of hateful things!”

“Be comforted. I hold my life too dear. Send Fanchette to the little door. Remember--at midnight. The horses will be waiting.”

“Bonbec?”

“Yes, dearest?”

“Call me your slave.”

“My gentle, pretty slave, good-night: kiss the basil for us both.”

“O, yes, yes!”