Chapter VII: Part 7

For these high-minded ones who can only bear the sight of classical pictures and the sound of classical music do not necessarily read classical books in any language--no Shakespeares or Dantes or Molières or Goethes for _them_. They know a trick worth two of that!

And the mere fact that these three immortal French writers of light books I have just named had never been heard of at this particular period doesn't very much matter; they had cognate predecessors whose names I happen to forget. Any stick will do to beat a dog with, and history is always repeating itself.

Feydeau, or Flaubert, let us say--or for those who don't know French and cultivate an innocent mind, Miss Austen (for to be dead and buried is almost as good as to be French and immoral!)--and Sebastian Bach, and Sandro Botticelli--that all the arts should be represented. These names are rather discrepant, but they made very good sticks for dog-beating; and with a thorough knowledge and appreciation of these (or the semblance thereof), you were well equipped in those days to hold your own among the elect of intellectual London circles, and snub the philistine to rights.

Then, very late, a tall, good-looking, swarthy foreigner came in, with a roll of music in his hands, and his entrance made quite a stir; you heard all round, "Here's Glorioli," or "Ecco Glorioli," or "Voici Glorioli," till Glorioli got on your nerves. And beautiful ladies, ambassadresses, female celebrities of all kinds, fluttered up to him and cajoled and fawned;--as Svengali would have said, "Prinzessen, Comtessen, Serene English Altessen!"--and they soon forgot their Highness and their Serenity!

For with very little pressing Glorioli stood up on the platform, with his accompanist by his side at the piano, and in his hands a sheet of music, at which he never looked. He looked at the beautiful ladies, and ogled and smiled; and from his scarcely parted, moist, thick, bearded lips, which he always licked before singing, there issued the most ravishing sounds that had ever been heard from throat of man or woman or boy! He could sing both high and low and soft and loud, and the frivolous were bewitched, as was only to be expected; but even the earnestest of all, caught, surprised, rapt, astounded, shaken, tickled, teased, harrowed, tortured, tantalized, aggravated, seduced, demoralized, corrupted into naturalness, forgot to dissemble their delight.

And Sebastian Bach (the especially adored of all really great musicians, and also, alas! of many priggish outsiders who don't know a single note and can't remember a single tune) was well forgotten for the night; and who were more enthusiastic than the two great players who had been playing Bach that evening? For these, at all events, were broad and catholic and sincere, and knew what was beautiful, whatever its kind.

It was but a simple little song that Glorioli sang, as light and pretty as it could well be, almost worthy of the words it was written to, and the words are De Musset's; and I love them so much I cannot resist the temptation of setting them down here, for the mere sensuous delight of writing them, as though I had just composed them myself:

"Bonjour, Suzon, ma fleur des bois!
Es-tu toujours la plus jolie?
Je reviens, tel que tu me vois,
D'un grand voyage en Italie!
Du paradis j'ai fait le tour--
J'ai fait des vers--j'ai fait l'amour....
Mais que t'importe!
Mais que t'importe!
Je passe devant ta maison:
Ouvre ta porte!
Ouvre ta porte!
Bonjour, Suzon!

"Je t'ai vue au temps des lilas.
Ton cœur joyeux venait d'éclore,
Et tu disais: 'je ne veux pas,
Je ne veux pas qu'on m'aime encore.'
Qu'as-tu fait depuis mon départ?
Qui part trop tôt revient trop tard.
Mais que m'importe?
Mais que m'importe?
Je passe devant ta maison:
Ouvre ta porte!
Ouvre ta porte!
Bonjour, Suzon!"

And when it began, and while it lasted, and after it was over, one felt really sorry for all the other singers. And nobody sang any more that night; for Glorioli was tired, and wouldn't sing again, and none were bold enough or disinterested enough to sing after him.

Some of my readers may remember that meteoric bird of song, who, though a mere amateur, would condescend to sing for a hundred guineas in the saloons of the great (as Monsieur Jourdain sold cloth); who would sing still better for love and glory in the studios of his friends.

For Glorioli--the biggest, handsomest, and most distinguished-looking Jew that ever was--one of the Sephardim (one of the Seraphim!)--hailed from Spain, where he was junior partner in the great firm of Moralés, Peralés, Gonzalés & Glorioli, wine-merchants, Malaga. He travelled for his own firm; his wine was good, and he sold much of it in England. But his voice would bring him far more gold in the month he spent here; for his wines have been equalled--even surpassed--but there was no voice like his anywhere in the world, and no more finished singer.

Anyhow, his voice got into Little Billee's head more than any wine, and the boy could talk of nothing else for days and weeks; and was so exuberant in his expressions of delight and gratitude that the great singer took a real fancy to him (especially when he was told that this fervent boyish admirer was one of the greatest of English painters); and as a mark of his esteem, privately confided to him after supper that every century two human nightingales were born--only two! a male and a female; and that he, Glorioli, was the representative "male rossignol of this soi-disant dix-neuvième siècle."

"I can well believe that! And the female, your mate that should be--_la rossignolle_, if there is such a word?" inquired Little Billee.

"Ah! mon ami ... it was Alboni till la petite Adelina Patti came out a year or two ago; and now it is _la Svengali_."

"La Svengali?"

"Oui, mon fy! You will hear her some day--et vous m'en direz des nouvelles!"

"Why, you don't mean to say that she's got a better voice than Madame Alboni?"

"Mon ami, an apple is an excellent thing--until you have tried a peach! Her voice to that of Alboni is as a peach to an apple--I give you my word of honor! but bah! the voice is a detail. It's what she does with it--it's incredible! it gives one cold all down the back! it drives you mad! it makes you weep hot tears by the spoonful! Ah! the tear, mon fy! tenez! I can draw everything but _that_! Ça n'est pas dans mes cordes! _I_ can only madden with _love_! But la Svengali!... And then, in the middle of it all, prrrout!... she makes you laugh! Ah! le beau rire! faire rire avec des larmes plein les yeux--voilà qui me passe!... Mon ami, when I heard her it made me swear that even _I_ would never try to sing any more--it seemed _too_ absurd! and I kept my word for a month at least--and you know, je sais ce que je vaux, moi!"

"You are talking of la Svengali, I bet," said Signor Spartia.

"Oui, parbleu! You have heard her?"

"Yes--at Vienna last winter," rejoined the greatest singing-master in the world. "J'en suis fou! hélas! I thought _I_ could teach a woman how to sing till I heard that blackguard Svengali's pupil. He has married her, they say!"

"That _blackguard_ Svengali!" exclaimed Little Billee ... "why, that must be a Svengali I knew in Paris--a famous pianist! a friend of mine!"

"That's the man! also une fameuse crapule (sauf vot' respect); his real name is Adler; his mother was a Polish singer; and he was a pupil at the Leipsic Conservatorio. But he's an immense artist, and a great singing-master, to teach a woman like that! and such a woman! belle comme un ange--mais bête comme un pot. I tried to talk to her--all she can say is 'ja wohl,' or 'doch,' or 'nein,' or 'soh'! not a word of English or French or Italian, though she sings them, oh! but _divinely_! It is '_il bel canto_' come back to the world after a hundred years...."

"But what voice is it?" asked Little Billee.

"Every voice a mortal woman can have--three octaves--four! and of such a quality that people who can't tell one tune from another cry with pleasure at the mere sound of it directly they hear her; just like anybody else. Everything that Paganini could do with his violin she does with her voice--only better--and what a voice! un vrai baume!"

"Now I don't mind petting zat you are schbeaking of la Sfencali," said Herr Kreutzer, the famous composer, joining in. "Quelle merfeille, hein? I heard her in St. Betersburg, at ze Vinter Balace. Ze vomen all vent mat, and pulled off zeir bearls and tiamonts and kave zem to her--vent town on zeir knees and gried and gissed her hants. She tit not say vun vort! She tit not efen schmile! Ze men schnifelled in ze gorners, and looked at ze bictures, and tissempled--efen I, Johann Kreutzer! efen ze Emperor!"

"You're joking," said Little Billee.

"My vrent, I neffer choke ven I talk apout zinging. You vill hear her zum tay yourzellof, and you vill acree viz me zat zere are two classes of beoble who zing. In ze vun class, la Sfencali; in ze ozzer, all ze ozzer zingers!"

"And does she sing good music?"

"I ton't know. _All_ music is koot ven _she_ zings it. I forket ze zong; I can only sink of ze zinger. Any koot zinger can zing a peautiful zong and kif bleasure, I zubboce! But I voot zooner hear la Sfencali zing a scale zan anypotty else zing ze most peautiful zong in ze vorldt--efen vun of my own! Zat is berhaps how zung ze crate Italian zingers of ze last century. It vas a lost art, and she has found it; and she must haf pecun to zing pefore she pecan to schpeak--or else she voot not haf hat ze time to learn all zat she knows, for she is not yet zirty! She zings in Paris in Ogdoper, Gott sei dank! and gums here after Christmas to zing at Trury Lane. Chullien kifs her ten sousand bounts!"

"I wonder, now! Why, that must be the woman I heard at Warsaw two years ago--or three," said young Lord Witlow. "It was at Count Siloszech's. He'd heard her sing in the streets, with a tall, black-bearded ruffian, who accompanied her on a guitar, and a little fiddling gypsy fellow. She was a handsome woman, with hair down to her knees, but stupid as an owl. She sang at Siloszech's, and all the fellows went mad and gave her their watches and diamond studs and gold scarf-pins. By gad! I never heard or saw anything like it. I don't know much about music myself--couldn't tell 'God Save the Queen' from 'Pop Goes the Weasel,' if the people didn't get up and stand and take their hats off; but I was as mad as the rest--why, I gave her a little German silver vinaigrette I'd just bought for my wife; hanged if I didn't--and I was only just married, you know! It's the peculiar twang of her voice, I suppose!"

And hearing all this, Little Billee made up his mind that life had still something in store for him, since he would some day hear la Svengali. Anyhow, he wouldn't shoot himself till then!

* * * * *

Thus the night wore itself away. The Prinzessen, Comtessen, and Serene English Altessen (and other ladies of less exalted rank) departed home in cabs and carriages; and hostess and daughters went to bed. Late sitters of the ruder sex supped again, and smoked and chatted and listened to comic songs and recitations by celebrated actors. Noble dukes hobnobbed with low comedians; world-famous painters and sculptors sat at the feet of Hebrew capitalists and aitchless millionaires. Judges, cabinet ministers, eminent physicians, and warriors and philosophers saw Sunday morning steal over Campden Hill and through the many windows of Mechelen Lodge, and listened to the pipe of half-awakened birds, and smelled the freshness of the dark summer dawn. And as Taffy and the Laird walked home to the Old Hummums by daylight, they felt that last night was ages ago, and that since then they had foregathered with "much there was of the best in London." And then they reflected that "much there was of the best in London" were still strangers to them--except by reputation--for there had not been time for many introductions: and this had made them feel a little out of it; and they found they hadn't had such a very good time after all. And there were no cabs. And they were tired, and their boots were tight.

And the last they had seen of Little Billee before leaving was a glimpse of their old friend in a corner of Lady Cornelys's boudoir, gravely playing cup-and-ball with Fred Walker for sixpences--both so rapt in the game that they were unconscious of anything else, and both playing so well (with either hand) that they might have been professional champions!

And that saturnine young sawbones, Jakes Talboys (now Sir Jakes, and one of the most genial of Her Majesty's physicians), who sometimes after supper and champagne was given to thoughtful, sympathetic, and acute observation of his fellow-men, remarked to the Laird in a whisper that was almost convivial: "Rather an enviable pair! Their united ages amount to forty-eight or so, their united weights to about fifteen stone, and they couldn't carry you or me between them. But if you were to roll all the other brains that have been under this roof to-night into one, you wouldn't reach the sum of their united genius.... I wonder which of the two is the most unhappy!"

* * * * *

* * * * *

The season over, the song-birds flown, summer on the wane, his picture, the "Moon-Dial," sent to Moses Lyon's (the picture-dealer in Conduit Street), Little Billee felt the time had come to go and see his mother and sister in Devonshire, and make the sun shine twice as brightly for them during a month or so, and the dew fall softer!

So one fine August morning found him at the Great Western Station--the nicest station in all London, I think--except the stations that book you to France and far away.

It always seems so pleasant to be going west! Little Billee loved that station, and often went there for a mere stroll, to watch the people starting on their westward way, following the sun towards Heaven knows what joys or sorrows, and envy them their sorrows or their joys--any sorrows or joys that were not merely physical, like a chocolate drop or a pretty tune, a bad smell or a toothache.

And as he took a seat in a second-class carriage (it would be third in these democratic days), south corner, back to the engine, with _Silas Marner_, and Darwin's _Origin of Species_ (which he was reading for the third time), and _Punch_, and other literature of a lighter kind, to beguile him on his journey, he felt rather bitterly how happy he could be if the little spot, or knot, or blot, or clot which paralyzed that convolution of his brain where he kept his affections could but be conjured away!

The dearest mother, the dearest sister in the world, in the dearest little sea-side village (or town) that ever was! and other dear people--especially Alice, sweet Alice with hair so brown, his sister's friend, the simple, pure, and pious maiden of his boyish dreams: and himself, but for that wretched little kill-joy cerebral occlusion, as sound, as healthy, as full of life and energy as he had ever been!

And when he wasn't reading _Silas Marner_, or looking out of window at the flying landscape, and watching it revolve round its middle distance (as it always seems to do), he was sympathetically taking stock of his fellow-passengers, and mildly envying them, one after another, indiscriminately!

A fat, old, wheezy philistine, with a bulbous nose and only one eye, who had a plain, sickly daughter, to whom he seemed devoted, body and soul; an old lady, who still wept furtively at recollections of the parting with her grandchildren, which had taken place at the station (they had borne up wonderfully, as grandchildren do); a consumptive curate, on the opposite corner seat by the window, whose tender, anxious wife (sitting by his side) seemed to have no thoughts in the whole world but for him; and her patient eyes were his stars of consolation, since he turned to look into them almost every minute, and always seemed a little the happier for doing so. There is no better star-gazing than that!

So Little Billee gave her up _his_ corner seat, that the poor sufferer might have those stars where he could look into them comfortably without turning his head.

Indeed (as was his wont with everybody), Little Billee made himself useful and pleasant to his fellow-travellers in many ways--so many that long before they had reached their respective journeys' ends they had almost grown to love him as an old friend, and longed to know who this singularly attractive and brilliant youth, this genial, dainty, benevolent little princekin could possibly be, who was dressed so fashionably, and yet went second class, and took such kind thought of others; and they wondered at the happiness that must be his at merely being alive, and told him more of their troubles in six hours than they told many an old friend in a year.

But he told them nothing about himself--that self he was so sick of--and left them to wonder.

And at his own journey's end, the farthest end of all, he found his mother and sister waiting for him, in a beautiful little pony-carriage--his last gift--and with them sweet Alice, and in her eyes, for one brief moment, that unconscious look of love surprised which is not to be forgotten for years and years and years--which can only be seen by the eyes that meet it, and which, for the time it lasts (just a flash), makes all women's eyes look exactly the same (I'm told): and it seemed to Little Billee that, for the twentieth part of a second, Alice had looked at him with Trilby's eyes--or his mother's, when that he was a little tiny boy.

It all but gave him the thrill he thirsted for! Another twentieth part of a second, perhaps, and his brain-trouble would have melted away; and Little Billee would have come into his own again--the kingdom of love!

A beautiful human eye! _Any_ beautiful eye--a dog's, a deer's, a donkey's, an owl's even! To think of all that it can look, and all that it can see! all that it can even _seem_, sometimes! What a prince among gems! what a star!

But a beautiful eye that lets the broad white light of infinite space (so bewildering and garish and diffused) into one pure virgin heart, to be filtered there! and lets it out again, duly warmed, softened, concentrated, sublimated, focussed to a point as in a precious stone, that it may shed itself (a love-laden effulgence) into some stray fellow-heart close by--through pupil and iris, entre quatre-z-yeux--the very elixir of life!

Alas! that such a crown-jewel should ever lose its lustre and go blind!

Not so blind or dim, however, but it can still see well enough to look before and after, and inward and upward, and drown itself in tears, and yet not die! And that's the dreadful pity of it. And this is a quite uncalled-for digression; and I can't think why I should have gone out of my way (at considerable pains) to invent it! In fact--

"Of this here song, should I be axed the reason for to show,
I don't exactly know, I don't exactly know!
_But all my fancy dwells upon Nancy._" ...

"How pretty Alice has grown, mother! quite lovely, I think! and so nice; but she was always as nice as she could be!"

So observed Little Billee to his mother that evening as they sat in the garden and watched the crescent moon sink to the Atlantic.

"Ah! my darling Willie! If you _could_ only guess how happy you would make your poor old mammy by growing fond of Alice.... And Blanche, too! what a joy for _her_!"

"Good heavens! mother.... Alice is not for the likes of _me_! She's for some splendid young Devon squire, six foot high, and acred and whiskered within an inch of his life!..."

"Ah, my darling Willie! you are not of those who ask for love in vain.... If you only _knew_ how she believes in you! She almost beats your poor old mammy at _that_!"

And that night he dreamed of Alice--that he loved her as a sweet good woman should be loved; and knew, even in his dream, that it was but a dream; but, oh! it was good! and he managed not to wake; and it was a night to be marked with a white stone! And (still in his dream) she had kissed him, and healed him of his brain-trouble forever. But when he woke next morning, alas! his brain-trouble was with him still, and he felt that no dream kiss would ever cure it--nothing but a real kiss from Alice's own pure lips!

And he rose thinking of Alice, and dressed and breakfasted thinking of her--and how fair she was, and how innocent, and how well and carefully trained up the way she should go--the beau ideal of a wife.... Could she possibly care for a shrimp like himself?

For in his love of outward form he could not understand that any woman who had eyes to see should ever quite condone the signs of physical weakness in man, in favor of any mental gifts or graces whatsoever.

Little Greek that he was, he worshipped the athlete, and opined that all women without exception--all English women especially--must see with the same eyes as himself.

He had once been vain and weak enough to believe in Trilby's love (with a Taffy standing by--a careless, unsusceptible Taffy, who was like unto the gods of Olympus!)--and Trilby had given him up at a word, a hint--for all his frantic clinging.

She would not have given up Taffy, _pour si peu_, had Taffy but lifted a little finger! It is always "just whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad!" with the likes of Taffy ... but Taffy hadn't even whistled! Yet still he kept thinking of Alice--and he felt he couldn't think of her well enough till he went out for a stroll by himself on a sheep-trimmed down. So he took his pipe and his Darwin, and out he strolled into the early sunshine--up the green Red Lane, past the pretty church, Alice's father's church--and there, at the gate, patiently waiting for his mistress, sat Alice's dog--an old friend of his, whose welcome was a very warm one.

Little Billee thought of Thackeray's lovely poem in _Pendennis_:

"She comes--she's here--she's past!
May heaven go with her!..."

Then he and the dog went on together to a little bench on the edge of the cliff--within sight of Alice's bedroom window. It was called "the Honeymooners' Bench."

"That look--that look--that look! Ah--but Trilby had looked like that, too! And there are many Taffys in Devon!"

He sat himself down and smoked and gazed at the sea below, which the sun (still in the east) had not yet filled with glare and robbed of the lovely sapphire-blue, shot with purple and dark green, that comes over it now and again of a morning on that most beautiful coast.

There was a fresh breeze from the west, and the long, slow billows broke into creamier foam than ever, which reflected itself as a tender white gleam in the blue concavities of their shining shoreward curves as they came rolling in. The sky was all of turquoise but for the smoke of a distant steamer--a long thin horizontal streak of dun--and there were little brown or white sails here and there, dotting; and the stately ships went on....

Little Billee tried hard to feel all this beauty with his heart as well as his brain--as he had so often done when a boy--and cursed his insensibility out loud for at least the thousand and first time.

Why couldn't these waves of air and water be turned into equivalent waves of sound, that he might feel them through the only channel that reached his emotions! That one joy was still left to him--but, alas! alas! he was only a painter of pictures--and not a maker of music!

He recited "Break, break, break," to Alice's dog, who loved him, and looked up into his face with sapient, affectionate eyes--and whose name, like that of so many dogs in fiction and so few in fact, was simply Tray. For Little Billee was much given to monologues out loud, and profuse quotations from his favorite bards.

Everybody quoted that particular poem either mentally or aloud when they sat on that particular bench--except a few old-fashioned people, who still said,

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!"

or people of the very highest culture, who only quoted the nascent (and crescent) Robert Browning; or people of no culture at all, who simply held their tongues--and only felt the more!

Tray listened silently.

"Ah, Tray, the best thing but one to do with the sea is to paint it. The next best thing to that is to bathe in it. The best of all is to lie asleep at the bottom. How would _you_ like that?

"'And on thy ribs the limpet sticks,
And in thy heart the scrawl shall play....'"

Tray's tail became as a wagging point of interrogation, and he turned his head first on one side and then on the other--his eyes fixed on Little Billee's, his face irresistible in its genial doggy wistfulness.

"Tray, what a singularly good listener you are--and therefore what singularly good manners you've got! I suppose all dogs have!" said Little Billee; and then, in a very tender voice, he exclaimed,

"Alice, Alice, Alice!"

And Tray uttered a soft, cooing, nasal croon in his head register, though he was a barytone dog by nature, with portentous, warlike chest-notes of the jingo order.

"Tray, your mistress is a parson's daughter, and therefore twice as much of a mystery as any other woman in this puzzling world!

"Tray, if my heart weren't stopped with wax, like the ears of the companions of Ulysses when they rowed past the sirens--you've heard of Ulysses, Tray? he loved a dog--if my heart weren't stopped with wax, I should be deeply in love with your mistress; perhaps she would marry me if I asked her--there's no accounting for tastes!--and I know enough of myself to know that I should make her a good husband--that I should make her happy--and I should make two other women happy besides.

"As for myself personally, Tray, it doesn't very much matter. One good woman would do as well as another, if she's equally good-looking. You doubt it? Wait till you get a pimple inside your bump of--your bump of--wherever you keep your fondnesses, Tray.

"For that's what's the matter with me--a pimple--just a little clot of blood at the root of a nerve, and no bigger than a pin's point!

"That's a small thing to cause such a lot of wretchedness, and wreck a fellow's life, isn't it? Oh, curse it, curse it, curse it--every day and all day long!

"And just as small a thing will take it away, I'm told!

"Ah! grains of sand are small things--and so are diamonds! But diamond or grain of sand, only Alice has got that small thing! Alice alone, in all the world, has got the healing touch for me now; the hands, the lips, the eyes! I know it--I feel it! I dreamed it last night! She looked me well in the face, and took my hand--both hands--and kissed me, eyes and mouth, and told me how she loved me. Ah! what a dream it was! And my little clot melted away like a snow-flake on the lips, and I was my old self again, after many years--and all through that kiss of a pure woman.

"I've never been kissed by a pure woman in my life--never! except by my dear mother and sister; and mothers and sisters don't count, when it comes to kissing.

"Ah! sweet physician that she is, and better than all! It will all come back again with a rush, just as I dreamed, and we will have a good time together, we three!...

"But your mistress is a parson's daughter, and believes everything she's been taught from a child, just as you do--at least, I hope so. And I like her for it--and you too.

"She has believed her father--will she ever believe me, who think so differently? And if she does, will it be good for her?--and then, where will her father come in?

"Oh! it's a bad thing to live, and no longer believe and trust in your father, Tray! to doubt either his honesty or his intelligence. For he (with your mother to help) has taught you all the best he knows, if he has been a good father--till some one else comes and teaches you better--or worse!

"And, then, what are you to believe of what good still remains of all that early teaching--and how are you to sift the wheat from the chaff?...

"Kneel undisturbed, fair saint! I, for one, will never seek to undermine thy faith in any father, on earth or above it!

"Yes, there she kneels in her father's church, her pretty head bowed over her clasped hands, her cloak and skirts falling in happy folds about her: I see it all!

"And underneath, that poor, sweet, soft, pathetic thing of flesh and blood, the eternal woman--great heart and slender brain--forever enslaved or enslaving, never self-sufficing, never free ... that dear, weak, delicate shape, so cherishable, so perishable, that I've had to paint so often, and know so well by heart! and love ... ah, how I love it! Only painter-fellows and sculptor-fellows can ever quite know the fulness of that pure love.

"There she kneels and pours forth her praise or plaint, meekly and duly. Perhaps it's for me she's praying!

"'Leave thou thy sister when she prays.'

"She believes her poor little prayer will be heard and answered somewhere up aloft. The impossible will be done. She wants what she wants so badly, and prays for it so hard.

"She believes--she believes--what _doesn't_ she believe, Tray?

"The world was made in six days. It is just six thousand years old. Once it all lay smothered under rain-water for many weeks, miles deep, because there were so many wicked people about somewhere down in Jude_e_, where they didn't know everything! A costly kind of clearance! And then there was Noah, who _wasn't_ wicked, and his most respectable family, and his ark--and Jonah and his whale--and Joshua and the sun, and what not. I remember it all, you see, and, oh! such wonderful things that have happened since! And there's everlasting agony for those who don't believe as she does; and yet she is happy, and good, and very kind; for the mere thought of any live creature in pain makes her wretched!

"After all, if she believes in me, she'll believe in anything; let her!

"Indeed, I'm not sure that it's not rather ungainly for a pretty woman _not_ to believe in all these good old cosmic taradiddles, as it is for a pretty child not to believe in Little Red Riding-hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk, and Morgiana and the Forty Thieves; we learn them at our mother's knee, and how nice they are! Let us go on believing them as long as we can, till the child grows up and the woman dies and it's all found out.

"Yes, Tray, I will be dishonest for her dear sake. I will kneel by her side, if ever I have the happy chance, and ever after, night and morning, and all day long on Sundays if she wants me to! What will I _not_ do for that one pretty woman who believes in _me_? I will respect even _that_ belief, and do my little best to keep it alive forever. It is much too precious an earthly boon for _me_ to play ducks and drakes with....

"So much for Alice, Tray--your sweet mistress and mine.

"But, then, there's Alice's papa--and that's another pair of sleeves, as we say in France.

"Ought one ever to play at make-believe with a full-grown man for any consideration whatever--even though he be a parson, and a possible father-in-law? _There's_ a case of conscience for you!

"When I ask him for his daughter, as I must, and he asks me for my profession of faith, as he will, what can I tell him? The truth?

"But, then, what will _he_ say? What allowances will _he_ make for a poor little weak-kneed, well-meaning waif of a painter-fellow like me, whose only choice lay between Mr. Darwin and the Pope of Rome, and who has chosen once and forever--and that long ago--before he'd ever even heard of Mr. Darwin's name.

"Besides, why should he make allowances for me? I don't for him. I think no more of a parson than he does of a painter-fellow--and that's precious little, I'm afraid.

"What will he think of a man who says:

"'Look here! the God of your belief isn't mine and never will be--but I love your daughter, and she loves me, and I'm the only man to make her happy!'

"He's no Jephthah; he's made of flesh and blood, although he's a parson--and loves his daughter as much as Shylock loved his.

"Tell me, Tray--thou that livest among parsons--what man, not being a parson himself, can guess how a parson would think, an average parson, confronted by such a poser as that?

"Does he, dare he, _can_ he ever think straight or simply on any subject as any other man thinks, hedged in as he is by so many limitations?

"He is as shrewd, vain, worldly, self-seeking, ambitious, jealous, censorious, and all the rest, as you or I, Tray--for all his Christian profession--and just as fond of his kith and kin!

"He is considered a gentleman--which perhaps you and I are not--unless we happen to behave as such; it is a condition of his noble calling. Perhaps it's in order to become a gentleman that he's become a parson! It's about as short a royal road as any to that enviable distinction--as short almost as her Majesty's commission, and much safer, and much less expensive--within reach of the sons of most fairly successful butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers.

"While still a boy he has bound himself irrevocably to certain beliefs, which he will be paid to preserve and preach and enforce through life, and act up to through thick and thin--at all events, in the eyes of others--even his nearest and dearest--even the wife of his bosom.

"They are his bread and butter, these beliefs--and a man mustn't quarrel with his bread and butter. But a parson must quarrel with those who don't believe as he tells them!

"Yet a few years' thinking and reading and experience of life, one would suppose, might possibly just shake his faith a little (just as though, instead of being parson, he had been tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy, thief), and teach him that many of these beliefs are simply childish--and some of them very wicked indeed--and most immoral.

"It is very wicked and most immoral to believe, or affect to believe, and tell others to believe, that the unseen, unspeakable, unthinkable Immensity we're all part and parcel of, source of eternal, infinite, indestructible life and light and might, is a kind of wrathful, glorified, and self-glorifying ogre in human shape, with human passions, and most inhuman hates--who suddenly made us out of nothing, one fine day--just for a freak--and made us so badly that we fell the next--and turned us adrift the day after--damned us from the very beginning--_ab ovo--ab ovo usque ad malum_--ha, ha!--and ever since! never gave us a chance!

"All-merciful Father, indeed! Why, the Prince of Darkness was an angel in comparison (and a gentleman into the bargain).

"Just think of it, Tray--a finger in every little paltry pie--an eye and an ear at every key-hole, even that of the larder, to catch us tripping, and find out if we're praising loud enough, or grovelling low enough, or fasting hard enough--poor god-forsaken worms!

"And if we're naughty and disobedient, everlasting torment for us; torture of so hideous a kind that we wouldn't inflict it on the basest criminal, not for one single moment!

"Or else, if we're good and do as we are bid, an eternity of bliss so futile, so idle, and so tame that we couldn't stand it for a week, but for thinking of its one horrible alternative, and of our poor brother for ever and ever roasting away, and howling for the drop of water he never gets.

"Everlasting flame, or everlasting dishonor--nothing between!

"Isn't it ludicrous as well as pitiful--a thing to make one snigger through one's tears? Isn't it a grievous sin to believe in such things as these, and go about teaching and preaching them, and being paid for it--a sin to be heavily chastised, and a shame? What a legacy!

"They were shocking bad artists, those conceited, narrow-minded Jews, those poor old doting monks and priests and bigots of the grewsome, dark age of faith! They couldn't draw a bit--no perspective, no chiaro-oscuro; and it's a woful image they managed to evolve for us out of the depths of their fathomless ignorance, in their zeal to keep us off all the forbidden fruit we're all so fond of, because we were built like that! And by whom? By our Maker, I suppose (who also made the forbidden fruit, and made it very nice--and put it so conveniently for you and me to see and smell and reach, Tray--and sometimes even pick, alas!).

"And even at that it's a failure. Only the very foolish little birds are frightened into good behavior. The naughty ones laugh and wink at each other, and pull out its hair and beard when nobody's looking, and build their nests out of the straw it's stuffed with (the naughty little birds in black, especially), and pick up what they want under its very nose, and thrive uncommonly well; and the good ones fly away out of sight; and some day, perhaps, find a home in some happy, useful father-land far away, where the Father isn't a bit like this. Who knows?

"And I'm one of the good little birds, Tray--at least, I hope so. And that unknown Father lives in me whether I will or no, and I love Him whether He be or not, just because I can't help it, and with the best and bravest love that can be--the perfect love that believeth no evil, and seeketh no reward, and casteth out fear. For I'm His father as much as He's mine, since I've conceived the thought of Him after my own fashion!

"And He lives in you too, Tray--you and all your kind. Yes, good dog, you king of beasts, I see it in your eyes....

"Ah, bon Dieu Père, le Dieu des bonnes gens! Oh! if we only knew for _certain_, Tray! what martyrdom would we not endure, you and I, with a happy smile and a grateful heart--for sheer _love_ of such a father! How little should _we_ care for the things of this earth!

"But the poor parson?

"He must willy-nilly go on believing, or affecting to believe, just as he is told, _word for word_, or else good-bye to his wife and children's bread and butter, his own preferment, perhaps even his very gentility--that gentility of which his Master thought so little, and he and his are apt to think so much--with possibly the Archbishopric of Canterbury at the end of it, the bâton de maréchal that lies in every clerical knapsack.

"What a temptation! one is but human!

"So how can he be honest without believing certain things, to believe which (without shame) one must be as simple as a little child; as, by-the-way, he is so cleverly told to be in these matters, and so cleverly tells us--and so seldom is himself in any other matter whatever--his own interests, other people's affairs, the world, the flesh, and the devil! And that's clever of him too....

"And if he chooses to be as simple as a little child, why shouldn't I treat him as a little child, for his own good, and fool him to the top of his little bent for his dear daughter's sake, that I may make her happy, and thereby him too?

"And if he's _not_ quite so simple as all that, and makes artful little compromises with his conscience--for a good purpose, of course--why shouldn't I make artful little compromises with mine, and for a better purpose still, and try to get what I want in the way _he_ does? I want to marry his daughter far worse than he can ever want to live in a palace, and ride in a carriage and pair with a mitre on the panels.

"If he _cheats_, why shouldn't I cheat too?

"If _he_ cheats, he cheats everybody all round--the wide, wide world, and something wider and higher still that can't be measured, something in himself. _I_ only cheat _him_!

"_If_ he cheats, he cheats for the sake of very worldly things indeed--tithes, honors, influence, power, authority, social consideration and respect--not to speak of bread and butter! _I_ only cheat for the love of a lady fair--and cheating for cheating, I like my cheating best.

"So, whether he cheats or not, I'll--

"Confound it! what would old Taffy do in such a case, I wonder?...

"Oh, bother! it's no good wondering what old Taffy would do.

"Taffy never wants to marry _anybody's_ daughter; he doesn't even want to paint her! He only wants to paint his beastly ragamuffins and thieves and drunkards, and be left alone.

"Besides, Taffy's as simple as a little child himself, and couldn't fool any one, and wouldn't if he could--not even a parson. But if any one tries to fool _him_, my eyes! don't he cut up rough, and call names, and kick up a shindy, and even knock people down! That's the worst of fellows like Taffy. They're too good for this world and too solemn. They're impossible, and lack all sense of humor. In point of fact, Taffy's a _gentleman_--poor fellow! _et puis voilà!_

"I'm not simple--worse luck; and I can't knock people down--I only wish I could! I can only paint them! and not even _that_ 'as they really are!' ... Good old Taffy!...

"Faint heart never won fair lady!

"Oh, happy, happy thought--I'll be brave and win!

"I can't knock people down, or do doughty deeds, but I'll be brave in my own little way--the only way I can....

"I'll simply lie through thick and thin--I must--I will--nobody need ever be a bit the wiser! I can do more good by lying than by telling the truth, and make more deserving people happy, including myself and the sweetest girl alive--the end shall justify the means: that's my excuse, my only excuse! and this lie of mine is on so stupendous a scale that it will have to last me for life. It's my only one, but its name is _Lion_! and I'll never tell another as long as I live.

"And now that I know what temptation really is, I'll never think any harm of any parson any more ... never, never, never!"

So the little man went on, as if he knew all about it, had found it all out for himself, and nobody else had ever found it out before! and I am not responsible for his ways of thinking (which are not necessarily my own).

It must be remembered, in extenuation, that he was very young, and not very wise: no philosopher, no scholar--just a painter of lovely pictures; only that and nothing more. Also, that he was reading Mr. Darwin's immortal book for the third time, and it was a little too strong for him; also, that all this happened in the early sixties, long ere Religion had made up her mind to meet Science half-way, and hobnob and kiss and be friends. Alas! before such a lying down of the lion and the lamb can ever come to pass, Religion will have to perform a larger share of the journey than half, I fear!

Then, still carried away by the flood of his own eloquence (for he had never had such an innings as this, no such a listener), he again apostrophized the dog Tray, who had been growing somewhat inattentive (like the reader, perhaps), in language more beautiful than ever:

"Oh, to be like you, Tray--and secrete love and good-will from morn till night, from night till morning--like saliva, without effort! with never a moment's cessation of flow, even in disgrace and humiliation! How much better to love than to be loved--to love as you do, my Tray--so warmly, so easily, so unremittingly--to forgive all wrongs and neglect and injustice so quickly and so well--and forget a kindness never! Lucky dog that you are!

"'Oh! could I feel as I have felt, or be as I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene,
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish tho' they be,
So 'midst this withered waste of life those tears would flow to me!'

"What do you think of those lines, Tray? I _love_ them, because my mother taught them to me when I was about your age--six years old, or seven! and before the bard who wrote them had fallen; like Lucifer, son of the morning! Have you ever heard of Lord Byron, Tray? He too, like Ulysses, loved a dog, and many people think that's about the best there is to be said of him nowadays! Poor Humpty Dumpty! Such a swell as he once was! 'Not all the king's horses, nor all the--'"

Here Tray jumped up suddenly and bolted--he saw some one else he was fond of, and ran to meet him. It was the vicar, coming out of his vicarage.

A very nice-looking vicar--fresh, clean, alert, well tanned by sun and wind and weather--a youngish vicar still; tall, stout, gentlemanlike, shrewd, kindly, wordly, a trifle pompous, and authoritative more than a trifle; not much given to abstract speculation, and thinking fifty times more of any sporting and orthodox young country squire, well-inched and well-acred (and well-whiskered), than of all the painters in Christendom.

"'When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war,'" thought Little Billee; and he felt a little uncomfortable. Alice's father had never loomed so big and impressive before, or so distressingly nice to look at.

"Welcome, my Apelles, to your ain countree, which is growing quite proud of you, I declare! Young Lord Archie Waring was saying only last night that he wished he had half your talent! He's _crazed_ about painting, you know, and actually wants to be a painter himself! The poor dear old marquis is quite sore about it!"

With this happy exordium the parson stopped and shook hands; and they both stood for a while, looking seaward. The parson said the usual things about the sea--its blueness; its grayness; its greenness; its beauty; its sadness; its treachery.

"'Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable sea!'"

"Who indeed!" answered Little Billee, quite agreeing. "I vote _we_ don't, at all events." So they turned inland.

The parson said the usual things about the land (from the country-gentleman's point of view), and the talk began to flow quite pleasantly, with quoting of the usual poets, and capping of quotations in the usual way--for they had known each other many years, both here and in London. Indeed, the vicar had once been Little Billee's tutor.

And thus, amicably, they entered a small wooded hollow. Then the vicar, turning of a sudden his full blue gaze on the painter, asked, sternly:

"What book's that you've got in your hand, Willie?"

"A--a--it's the _Origin of Species_, by Charles Darwin. I'm very f-f-fond of it. I'm reading it for the third time.... It's very g-g-good. It _accounts_ for things, you know."

Then, after a pause, and still more sternly:

"What place of worship do you most attend in London--especially of an evening, William?"

Then stammered Little Billee, all self-control forsaking him:

"I d-d-don't attend any place of worship at all, morning, afternoon, or evening. I've long given up going to church altogether. I can only be frank with you; I'll tell you why...."

And as they walked along the talk drifted on to very momentous subjects indeed, and led, unfortunately, to a serious falling out--for which probably both were to blame--and closed in a distressful way at the other end of the little wooded hollow--a way most sudden and unexpected, and quite grievous to relate. When they emerged into the open the parson was quite white, and the painter crimson.

"Sir," said the parson, squaring himself up to more than his full height and breadth and dignity, his face big with righteous wrath, his voice full of strong menace--"sir, you're--you're a--you're a _thief_, sir, a _thief_! You're trying to _rob me of my Saviour_! Never you dare to darken _my_ door-step again!"

"Sir," said Little Billee, with a bow, "if it comes to calling names, you're--you're a--no; you're Alice's father; and whatever else you are besides, I'm another for trying to be honest with a parson; so good-morning to you."

And each walked off in an opposite direction, stiff as pokers; and Tray stood between, looking first at one receding figure, then at the other, disconsolate.

And thus Little Billee found out that he could no more lie than he could fly. And so he did not marry sweet Alice after all, and no doubt it was ordered for her good and his. But there was tribulation for many days in the house of Bagot, and for many months in one tender, pure, and pious bosom.

And the best and the worst of it all is that, not very many years after, the good vicar--more fortunate than most clergymen who dabble in stocks and shares--grew suddenly very rich through a lucky speculation in Irish beer, and suddenly, also, took to thinking seriously about things (as a man of business should)--more seriously than he had ever thought before. So at least the story goes in North Devon, and it is not so new as to be incredible. Little doubts grew into big ones--big doubts resolved themselves into downright negations. He quarrelled with his bishop; he quarrelled with his dean; he even quarrelled with his "poor dear old marquis," who died before there was time to make it up again. And finally he felt it his duty, in conscience, to secede from a Church which had become too narrow to hold him, and took himself and his belongings to London, where at least he could breathe. But there he fell into a great disquiet, for the long habit of feeling himself always _en évidence_--of being looked up to and listened to without contradiction; of exercising influence and authority in spiritual matters (and even temporal); of impressing women, especially, with his commanding presence, his fine sonorous voice, his lofty brow, so serious and smooth, his soft, big, waving hands, which soon lost their country tan--all this had grown as a second nature to him, the breath of his nostrils, a necessity of his life. So he rose to be the most popular Unitarian preacher of his day, and pretty broad at that.

But his dear daughter Alice, she stuck to the old faith, and married a venerable High-Church archdeacon, who very cleverly clutched at and caught her and saved her for himself just as she stood shivering on the very brink of Rome; and they were neither happy nor unhappy together--_un ménage bourgeois, ni beau ni laid, ni bon ni mauvais_. And thus, alas! the bond of religious sympathy, that counts for so much in united families, no longer existed between father and daughter, and the heart's division divided them. _Ce que c'est que de nous!_ ... The pity of it!

And so no more of sweet Alice with hair so brown.

Part Sixth

'"Vraiment, la reine auprès d'elle était laide
Quand, vers le soir,
Elle passait sur le pont de Tolède
En corset noir!
Un chapelet du temps de Charlemagne
Ornait son cou....
_La vent qui vient à travers la montagne
Me rendra fou!_

"'Dansez, chantez, villageois! la nuit tombe....
Sabine, un jour,
A tout donné--sa beauté de colombe,
Et son amour--
Pour l'anneau d'or du Comte de Soldagne,
Pour un bijou....
_La vent qui vient à travers la montagne
M'a rendu fou!_'"

Behold our three musketeers of the brush once more reunited in Paris, famous, after long years.

In emulation of the good Dumas, we will call it "cinq ans après." It was a little more.