And so, abandoned to a bitter mirth, I loitered to my inn. O world, O world, O jurists, rhymers, dreamers, what you please, We play a weary game of hide-and-seek! We shape a figure of our fantasy, Call nothing something, and run after it And lose it, lose ourselves too in the search; Till, clash against us, comes a somebody Who also has lost something and is lost, Philosopher against philanthropist, Academician against poet, man Against woman, against the living, the dead,— Then home, with a bad headache and worse jest!
To change the water for my heliotropes And yellow roses. Paris has such flowers. But England, also. ’Twas a yellow rose, By that south window of the little house, My cousin Romney gathered with his hand On all my birthdays for me, save the last; And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough, For roses to stay after. Now, my maps. I must not linger here from Italy Till the last nightingale is tired of song, And the last fire-fly dies off in the maize. My soul’s in haste to leap into the sun And scorch and seethe itself to a finer mood, Which here, in this chill north, is apt to stand Too stiffly in former moulds. That-face persists. It floats up, it turns over in my mind, As like to Marian, as one dead is like The same alive. In very deed a face And not a fancy, though it vanished so; The small fair face between the darks of hair, I used to liken, when I saw her first, To a point of moonlit, water down a well: The low brow, the frank space between the eyes, Which always had the brown pathetic look Of a dumb creature who had been beaten once, And never since was easy with the world. Ah, ah—now I remember perfectly Those eyes, to-day,—how overlarge they seemed, As if some patient passionate despair (Like a coal dropt and forgot on tapestry, Which slowly burns a widening circle out) Had burnt them larger, larger. And those eyes To-day, I do remember, saw me too, As I saw them, with conscious lids astrain In recognition. Now, a fantasy, A simple shade or image of the brain, Is merely passive, does not retro-act, Is seen, but sees not. ’Twas a real face, Perhaps a real Marian. Which being so, I ought to write to Romney, ‘Marian’s here. Be comforted for Marian.’ My pen fell, My hands struck sharp together, as hands do Which hold at nothing. Can I write to him A half truth? can I keep my own soul blind To the other half, ... the worse? What are our souls, If still, to run on straight a sober pace Nor start at every pebble or dead leaf, They must wear blinkers, ignore facts, suppress Six tenths of the road? Confront the truth, my soul! And oh, as truly as that was Marian’s face, The arms of that same Marian clasped a thing ... Not hid so well beneath the scanty shawl, I cannot name it now for what it was.
A child. Small business has a cast-away Like Marian, with that crown of prosperous wives, At which the gentlest she grows arrogant And says, ‘my child.’ Who’ll find an emerald ring On a beggar’s middle finger, and require More testimony to convict a thief? A child’s too costly for so mere a wretch; She filched it somewhere; and it means, with her, Instead of honour, blessing, ... merely shame. I cannot write to Romney, ‘Here she is, Here’s Marian found! I’ll set you on her track: I saw her here, in Paris, ... and her child. She put away your love two years ago, But, plainly, not to starve. You suffered then; And, now that you’ve forgot her utterly As any last year’s annual, in whose place You’ve planted a thick flowering evergreen, I choose, being kind, to write and tell you this To make you wholly easy—she’s not dead, But only ... damned.’ Stop there: I go too fast; I’m cruel like the rest,—in haste to take The first stir in the arras for a rat, And set my barking, biting thoughts upon’t. —A child! what then? Suppose a neighbour’s sick And asked her, ‘Marian, carry out my child In this Spring air,’—I punish her for that? Or say, the child should hold her round the neck For good child-reasons, that he liked it so And would not leave her—she had winning ways— I brand her therefore, that she took the child? Not so. I will not write to Romney Leigh. For now he’s happy,—and she may indeed Be guilty,—and the knowledge of her fault Would draggle his smooth time. But I, whose days Are not so fine they cannot bear the rain, And who, moreover, having seen her face, Must see it again, ... will see it, by my hopes Of one day seeing heaven too. The police Shall track her, hound her, ferret their own soil; We’ll dig this Paris to its catacombs But certainly we’ll find her, have her out, And save her, if she will or will not—child Or no child,—if a child, then one to save!
The long weeks passed on without consequence. As easy find a footstep on the sand The morning after spring-tide, as the trace Of Marian’s feet between the incessant surfs Of this live flood. She may have moved this way,— But so the star-fish does, and crosses out The dent of her small shoe. The foiled police Renounced me; ‘Could they find a girl and child, No other signalment but girl and child? No data shown, but noticeable eyes And hair in masses, low upon the brow, As if it were an iron crown and pressed? Friends heighten, and suppose they specify: Why, girls with hair and eyes, are everywhere In Paris; they had turned me up in vain No Marian Erle indeed, but certainly Mathildes, Justines, Victoires, ... or, if I sought The English, Betsies, Saras, by the score. They might as well go out into the fields To find a speckled bean, that’s somehow specked, And somewhere in the pod.’—They left me so. Shall I leave Marian? have I dreamed a dream? —I thank God I have found her! I must say ‘Thank God,’ for finding her, although ’tis true I find the world more sad and wicked for’t. But she— I’ll write about her, presently; My hand’s a-tremble as I had just caught up My heart to write with, in the place of it. At least you’d take these letters to be writ At sea, in storm!—wait now.... A simple chance Did all. I could not sleep last night, and, tired Of turning on my pillow and harder thoughts, Went out at early morning, when the air Is delicate with some last starry touch, To wander through the Market-place of Flowers (The prettiest haunt in Paris), and make sure At worst, that there were roses in the world. So, wandering, musing, with the artist’s eye, That keeps the shade-side of the thing it loves, Half-absent, whole-observing, while the crowd Of young vivacious and black-braided heads Dipped, quick as finches in a blossomed tree, Among the nosegays, cheapening this and that In such a cheerful twitter of rapid speech,— My heart leapt in me, startled by a voice That slowly, faintly, with long breaths that marked The interval between the wish and word, Inquired in stranger’s French, ‘Would that be much, That branch of flowering mountain-gorse?’—‘So much? Too much for me, then!’ turning the face round So close upon me, that I felt the sigh It turned with. ‘Marian, Marian!’—face to face— ‘Marian! I find you. Shall I let you go?’ I held her two slight wrists with both my hands; ‘Ah Marian, Marian, can I let you go?’ —She fluttered from me like a cyclamen, As white, which, taken in a sudden wind, Beats on against the palisade.—‘Let pass,’ She said at last. ‘I will not,’ I replied; ‘I lost my sister Marian many days, And sought her ever in my walks and prayers, And, now I find her ... do we throw away The bread we worked and prayed for,—crumble it And drop it, ... to do even so by thee Whom still I’ve hungered after more than bread, My sister Marian?—can I hurt thee, dear? Then why distrust me? Never tremble so. Come with me rather, where we’ll talk and live, And none shall vex us. I’ve a home for you And me and no one else’.... She shook her head. ‘A home for you and me and no one else Ill-suits one of us: I prefer to such, A roof of grass on which a flower might spring, Less costly to me than the cheapest here; And yet I could not, at this hour, afford A like home, even. That you offer yours, I thank you. You are good as heaven itself— As good as one I knew before.... Farewell.’ I loosed her hands.—‘In his name, no farewell!’ (She stood as if I held her.) ‘For his sake, For his sake, Romney’s! by the good he meant, Ay, always! by the love he pressed for once,— And by the grief, reproach, abandonment, He took in change’.... ‘He, Romney! who grieved him? Who had the heart for’t? what reproach touched him? Be merciful,—speak quickly.’ ‘Therefore come,’ I answered with authority,—‘I think We dare to speak such things, and name such names, In the open squares of Paris!’ Not a word She said, but, in a gentle humbled way, (As one who had forgot herself in grief) Turned round and followed closely where I went, As if I led her by a narrow plank, Across devouring waters, step by step,— And so in silence we walked on a mile.
And then she stopped: her face was white as wax. ‘We go much farther?’ ‘You are ill,’ I asked, ‘Or tired?’ She looked the whiter for her smile. ‘There’s one at home,’ she said, ‘has need of me By this time,—and I must not let him wait.’
‘Not even,’ I asked, ‘to hear of Romney Leigh?’ ‘Not even,’ she said, ‘to hear of Mister Leigh.’
‘In that case,’ I resumed, ‘I go with you, And we can talk the same thing there as here. None waits for me: I have my day to spend.’
Her lips moved in a spasm without a sound,— But then she spoke. ‘It shall be as you please; And better so—’tis shorter seen than told. And though you will not find me worth your pains, That even, may be worth some pains to know, For one as good as you are.’ Then she led The way, and I, as by a narrow plank Across devouring waters, followed her, Stepping by her footsteps, breathing by her breath, And holding her with eyes that would not slip; And so, without a word, we walked a mile, And so, another mile, without a word.
Until the peopled streets being all dismissed, House-rows and groups all scattered like a flock, The market-gardens thickened, and the long White walls beyond, like spiders’ outside threads, Stretched, feeling blindly toward the country-fields Through half-built habitations and half-dug Foundations,—intervals of trenchant chalk, That bite betwixt the grassy uneven turfs Where goats (vine-tendrils trailing from their mouths) Stood perched on edges of the cellarage Which should be, staring as about to leap To find their coming Bacchus. All the place Seemed less a cultivation than a waste: Men work here, only,—scarce begin to live: All’s sad, the country struggling with the town, Like an untamed hawk upon a strong man’s fist, That beats its wings and tries to get away, And cannot choose be satisfied so soon To hop through court-yards with its right foot tied, The vintage plains and pastoral hills in sight!
We stopped beside a house too high and slim To stand there by itself, but waiting till Five others, two on this side, three on that, Should grow up from the sullen second floor They pause at now, to build it to a row. The upper windows partly were unglazed Meantime,—a meagre, unripe house: a line Of rigid poplars elbowed it behind, And, just in front, beyond the lime and bricks That wronged the grass between it and the road, A great acacia, with its slender trunk And overpoise of multitudinous leaves, (In which a hundred fields might spill their dew And intense verdure, yet find room enough) Stood, reconciling all the place with green.