Part 17

She looked me in the face and answered not, Nor signed she was unworthy, nor gave thanks, But took the sleeping child and held it out To meet my kiss, as if requiting me And trusting me at once. And thus, at once, I carried him and her to where I lived; She’s there now, in the little room, asleep, I hear the soft child-breathing through the door; And all three of us, at to-morrow’s break, Pass onward, homeward, to our Italy. Oh, Romney Leigh, I have your debts to pay, And I’ll be just and pay them. But yourself! To pay your debts is scarcely difficult; To buy your life is nearly impossible, Being sold away to Lamia. My head aches; I cannot see my road along this dark; Nor can I creep and grope, as fits the dark, For these foot-catching robes of womanhood: A man might walk a little ... but I!—He loves The Lamia-woman,—and I, write to him What stops his marriage, and destroys his peace,— Or what, perhaps, shall simply trouble him, Until she only need to touch his sleeve With just a finger’s tremulous white flame, Saying, ‘Ah,—Aurora Leigh! a pretty tale, A very pretty poet! I can guess The motive’—then, to catch his eyes in hers, And vow she does not wonder,—and they two To break in laughter, as the sea along A melancholy coast, and float up higher, In such a laugh, their fatal weeds of love! Ay, fatal, ay. And who shall answer me Fate has not hurried tides; and if to-night My letter would not be a night too late,— An arrow shot into a man that’s dead, To prove a vain intention? Would I show The new wife vile, to make the husband mad? No, Lamia! shut the shutters, bar the doors From every glimmer on thy serpent-skin! I will not let thy hideous secret out To agonise the man I love—I mean The friend I love ... as friends love. It is strange, To-day while Marian told her story, like To absorb most listeners, how I listened chief To a voice not hers, nor yet that enemy’s, Nor God’s in wrath, ... but one that mixed with mine Long years ago, among the garden-trees, And said to _me_, to _me_ too, ‘Be my wife, Aurora!’ It is strange, with what a swell Of yearning passion, as snow of ghosts Might beat against the impervious doors of heaven, I thought, ‘Now, if I had been a woman, such As God made women, to save men by love,— By just my love I might have saved this man, And made a nobler poem for the world Than all I have failed in.’ But I failed besides In this; and now he’s lost! through me alone! And, by my only fault, his empty house Sucks in, at this same hour, a wind from hell To keep his hearth cold, make his casements creak For ever to the tune of plague and sin— O Romney, O my Romney, O my friend! My cousin and friend! my helper, when I would, My love, that might be! mine! Why, how one weeps When one’s too weary! Were a witness by, He’d say some folly ... that I loved the man, Who knows?... and make me laugh again for scorn. At strongest, women are as weak in flesh, As men, at weakest, vilest, are in soul: So, hard for women to keep pace with men! As well give up at once, sit down at once, And weep as I do. Tears, tears! _why_, we weep? ’Tis worth enquiry?—That we’ve shamed a life, Or lost a love, or missed a world, perhaps? By no means. Simply, that we’ve walked too far, Or talked too much, or felt the wind i’ the east,— And so we weep, as if both body and soul Broke up in water—this way. Poor mixed rags Forsooth we’re made of, like those other dolls That lean with pretty faces into fairs. It seems as if I had a man in me, Despising such a woman. Yet indeed, To see a wrong or suffering moves us all To undo it, though we should undo ourselves; Ay, all the more, that we undo ourselves; That’s womanly, past doubt, and not ill-moved. A natural movement, therefore, on my part, To fill the chair up of my cousin’s wife, And save him from a devil’s company! We’re all so,—made so—’tis our woman’s trade To suffer torment for another’s ease. The world’s male chivalry has perished out, But women are knights-errant to the last; And, if Cervantes had been greater still, He had made his Don a Donna. So it clears, And so we rain our skies blue. Put away This weakness. If, as I have just now said, A man’s within me,—let him act himself, Ignoring the poor conscious trouble of blood That’s called the woman merely. I will write Plain words to England,—if too late, too late,— If ill-accounted, then accounted ill; We’ll trust the heavens with something. ‘Dear Lord Howe, You’ll find a story on another leaf That’s Marian Erle’s,—what noble friend of yours She trusted once, through what flagitious means To what disastrous ends;—the story’s true. I found her wandering on the Paris quays, A babe upon her breast,—unnatural Unseasonable outcast on such snows Unthawed to this time. I will tax in this Your friendship, friend,—if that convicted She Be not his wife yet, to denounce the facts To himself,—but, otherwise, to let them pass On tip-toe like escaping murderers, And tell my cousin, merely—Marian lives, Is found, and finds her home with such a friend, Myself, Aurora. Which good news, ‘She’s found,’ Will help to make him merry in his love: I send it, tell him, for my marriage gift, As good as orange-water for the nerves, Or perfumed gloves for headaches,—though aware That he, except of love, is scarcely sick; I mean the new love this time, ... since last year. Such quick forgetting on the part of men! Is any shrewder trick upon the cards To enrich them? pray instruct me how it’s done. First, clubs,—and while you look at clubs, it’s spades; That’s prodigy. The lightning strikes a man, And when we think to find him dead and charred ... Why, there he is on a sudden, playing pipes Beneath the splintered elm-tree! Crime and shame And all their hoggery trample your smooth world, Nor leave more foot-marks than Apollo’s kine, Whose hoofs were muffled by the thieving god In tamarisk-leaves and myrtle. I’m so sad, So weary and sad to-night, I’m somewhat sour,— Forgive me. To be blue and shrew at once, Exceeds all toleration except yours; But yours, I know, is infinite. Farewell. To-morrow we take train for Italy. Speak gently of me to your gracious wife, As one, however far, shall yet be near In loving wishes to your house.’ I sign. And now I’ll loose my heart upon a page, This— ‘Lady Waldemar, I’m very glad I never liked you; which you knew so well, You spared me, in your turn, to like me much. Your liking surely had done worse for me Than has your loathing, though the last appears Sufficiently unscrupulous to hurt, And not afraid of judgment. Now, there’s space Between our faces,—I stand off, as if I judged a stranger’s portrait and pronounced Indifferently the type was good or bad: What matter to me that the lines are false, I ask you? Did I ever ink my lips By drawing your name through them as a friend’s, Or touch your hands as lovers do? thank God I never did: and, since you’re proved so vile, Ay, vile, I say,—we’ll show it presently,— I’m not obliged to nurse my friend in you, Or wash out my own blots, in counting yours, Or even excuse myself to honest souls Who seek to touch my lip or clasp my palm,— ‘Alas, but Lady Waldemar came first!’ ‘’Tis true, by this time, you may near me so That you’re my cousin’s wife. You’ve gambled deep As Lucifer, and won the morning-star In that case,—and the noble house of Leigh Must henceforth with its good roof shelter you: I cannot speak and burn you up between Those rafters, I who am born a Leigh,—nor speak And pierce your breast through Romney’s, I who live His friend and cousin!—so, you are safe. You two Must grow together like the tares and wheat Till God’s great fire.—But make the best of time.

‘And hide this letter! let it speak no more Than I shall, how you tricked poor Marian Erle, And set her own love digging her own grave Within her green hope’s pretty garden-ground; Ay, sent her forth with some one of your sort To a wicked house in France,—from which she fled With curses in her eyes and ears and throat, Her whole soul choked with curses,—mad, in short, And madly scouring up and down for weeks The foreign hedgeless country, lone and lost,— So innocent, male-fiends might slink within Remote hell-corners, seeing her so defiled!

‘But you,—you are a woman and more bold. To do you justice, you’d not shrink to face ... We’ll say, the unfledged life in the other room, Which, treading down God’s corn, you trod in sight Of all the dogs, in reach of all the guns,— Ay, Marian’s babe, her poor unfathered child, Her yearling babe!—you’d face him when he wakes And opens up his wonderful blue eyes: You’d meet them and not wink perhaps, nor fear God’s triumph in them and supreme revenge, So, righting His creation’s balance-scale (You pulled as low as Tophet) to the top Of most celestial innocence! For me Who am not as bold, I own those infant eyes Have set me praying. ‘While they look at heaven, No need of protestation in my words Against the place you’ve made them! let them look! They’ll do your business with the heavens, be sure: I spare you common curses. ‘Ponder this. If haply you’re the wife of Romney Leigh, (For which inheritance beyond your birth You sold that poisonous porridge called your soul) I charge you, be his faithful and true wife! Keep warm his hearth and clean his board, and, when He speaks, be quick with your obedience; Still grind your paltry wants and low desires To dust beneath his heel; though, even thus, The ground must hurt him,—it was writ of old, ‘Ye shall not yoke together ox and ass,’ The nobler and ignobler. Ay, but you Shall do your part as well as such ill things Can do aught good. You shall not vex him,—mark, You shall not vex him, ... jar him when he’s sad, Or cross him when he’s eager. Understand To trick him with apparent sympathies, Nor let him see thee in the face too near And unlearn thy sweet seeming. Pay the price Of lies, by being constrained to lie on still; ’Tis easy for thy sort: a million more Will scarcely damn thee deeper. ‘Doing which, You are very safe from Marian and myself: We’ll breathe as softly as the infant here, And stir no dangerous embers. Fail a point, And show our Romney wounded, ill-content, Tormented in his home, ... we open mouth, And such a noise will follow, the last trump’s Will scarcely seem more dreadful, even to you; You’ll have no pipers after: Romney will (I know him) push you forth as none of his, All other men declaring it well done; While women, even the worst, your like, will draw Their skirts back, not to brush you in the street; And so I warn you. I’m ... Aurora Leigh.’

The letter written, I felt satisfied. The ashes, smouldering in me, were thrown out By handfuls from me: I had writ my heart And wept my tears, and now was cool and calm; And, going straightway to the neighbouring room, I lifted up the curtains of the bed Where Marian Erle, the babe upon her arm, Both faces leaned together like a pair Of folded innocences, self-complete, Each smiling from the other, smiled and slept. There seemed no sin, no shame, no wrath, no grief. I felt, she too, had spoken words that night, But softer certainly, and said to God,— Who laughs in heaven perhaps, that such as I Should make ado for such as she.—‘Defiled’ I wrote? ‘defiled’ I thought her? Stoop, Stoop lower, Aurora! get the angels’ leave To creep in somewhere, humbly, on your knees, Within this round of sequestration white In which they have wrapt earth’s foundlings, heaven’s elect!

The next day, we took train to Italy And fled on southward in the roar of steam. The marriage-bells of Romney must be loud, To sound so clear through all! I was not well; And truly, though the truth is like a jest, I could not choose but fancy, half the way, I stood alone i’ the belfry, fifty bells Of naked iron, mad with merriment, (As one who laughs and cannot stop himself) All clanking at me, in me, over me, Until I shrieked a shriek I could not hear, And swooned with noise,—but still, along my swoon, Was ’ware the baffled changes backward rang, Prepared, at each emerging sense, to beat And crash it out with clangour. I was weak; I struggled for the posture of my soul In upright consciousness of place and time, But evermore, ’twixt waking and asleep, Slipped somehow, staggered, caught at Marian’s eyes A moment, (it is very good for strength To know that some one needs you to be strong) And so recovered what I called myself, For that time. I just knew it when we swept Above the old roofs of Dijon. Lyons dropped A spark into the night, half trodden out Unseen. But presently the winding Rhone Washed out the moonlight large along his banks, Which strained their yielding curves out clear and clean To hold it,—shadow of town and castle blurred Upon the hurrying river. Such an air Blew thence upon the forehead,—half an air And half a water,—that I leaned and looked; Then, turning back on Marian, smiled to mark That she looked only on her child, who slept, His face towards the moon too. So we passed The liberal open country and the close, And shot through tunnels, like a lightning-wedge By great Thor-hammers driven through the rock, Which, quivering through the intestine blackness, splits, And lets it in at once: the train swept in Athrob with effort, trembling with resolve, The fierce denouncing whistle wailing on And dying off smothered in the shuddering dark, While we, self-awed, drew troubled breath, oppressed As other Titans, underneath the pile And nightmare of the mountains. Out, at last, To catch the dawn afloat upon the land! —Hills, slung forth broadly and gauntly everywhere, Not crampt in their foundations, pushing wide Rich outspreads of the vineyards and the corn, (As if they entertained i’ the name of France) While, down their straining sides, streamed manifest A soil as red as Charlemagne’s knightly blood, To consecrate the verdure. Some one said, ‘Marseilles!’ And lo, the city of Marseilles, With all her ships behind her, and beyond, The scimitar of ever-shining sea, For right-hand use, bared blue against the sky!

That night we spent between the purple heaven And purple water: I think Marian slept; But I, as a dog a-watch for his master’s foot, Who cannot sleep or eat before he hears, I sate upon the deck and watched all night, And listened through the stars for Italy. Those marriage-bells I spoke of, sounded far, As some child’s go-cart in the street beneath To a dying man who will not pass the day, And knows it, holding by a hand he loves. I, too, sate quiet, satisfied with death, Sate silent: I could hear my own soul speak, And had my friend,—for Nature comes sometimes And says, ‘I am ambassador for God.’ I felt the wind soft from the land of souls; The old miraculous mountains heaved in sight, One straining past another along the shore, The way of grand dull Odyssean ghosts Athirst to drink the cool blue wine of seas And stare on voyagers. Peak pushing peak They stood: I watched beyond that Tyrian belt Of intense sea betwixt them and the ship, Down all their sides the misty olive-woods Dissolving in the weak congenial moon, And still disclosing some brown convent-tower That seems as if it grew from some brown rock,— Or many a little lighted village, dropt Like a fallen star, upon so high a point, You wonder what can keep it in its place From sliding headlong with the waterfalls Which drop and powder all the myrtle-groves With spray of silver. Thus my Italy Was stealing on us. Genoa broke with day; The Doria’s long pale palace striking out, From green hills in advance of the white town, A marble finger dominant to ships, Seen glimmering through the uncertain grey of dawn.

But then I did not think, ‘my Italy,’ I thought, ‘my father!’ O my father’s house, Without his presence!—Places are too much Or else too little, for immortal man; Too little, when love’s May o’ergrows the ground,— Too much, when that luxuriant wealth of green Is rustling to our ankles in dead leaves. ’Tis only good to be, or here or there, Because we had a dream on such a stone, Or this or that,—but, once beings wholly waked, And come back to the stone without the dream, We trip upon’t,—alas! and hurt ourselves; Or else it falls on us and grinds us flat, The heaviest grave-stone on this burying earth. —But while I stood and mused, a quiet touch Fell light upon my arm, and, turning round, A pair of moistened eyes convicted mine. ‘What, Marian! is the babe astir so soon?’ ‘He sleeps,’ she answered; ‘I have crept up thrice, And seen you sitting, standing, still at watch. I thought it did you good till now, but now’ ... ‘But now,’ I said, ‘you leave the child alone.’ ‘And _you’re_ alone,’ she answered,—and she looked As if I, too, were something. Sweet the help Of one we have helped! Thanks, Marian, for that help.