‘Dear Romney!’ ‘Evidently ’twould have been A fine sight for a poet, sweet, like you, To make the verse blaze after. I myself, Even I, felt something in the grand old trees, Which stood that moment like brute Druid gods Amazed upon the rim of ruin, where, As into a blackened socket, the great fire Had dropped,—still throwing up splinters now and then, To show them grey with all their centuries, Left there to witness that on such a day The house went out.’ ‘Ah!’ ‘While you counted five I seemed to feel a little like a Leigh,— But then it passed, Aurora. A child cried; And I had enough to think of what to do With all those houseless wretches in the dark, And ponder where they’d dance the next time, they Who had burnt the viol.’ ‘Did you think of that? Who burns his viol will not dance, I know, To cymbals, Romney.’ ‘O my sweet sad voice,’ He cried,—‘O voice that speaks and overcomes! The sun is silent, but Aurora speaks.’
‘Alas,’ I said; ‘I speak I know not what: I’m back in childhood, thinking as a child, A foolish fancy—will it make you smile? I shall not from the window of my room Catch sight of those old chimneys any more.’
‘No more,’ he answered. ‘If you pushed one day Through all the green hills to our fathers’ house, You’d come upon a great charred circle where The patient earth was singed an acre round; With one stone-stair, symbolic of my life, Ascending, winding, leading up to nought! ’Tis worth a poet’s seeing. Will you go?’
I made no answer. Had I any right To weep with this man, that I dared to speak? A woman stood between his soul and mine, And waved us off from touching evermore With those unclean white hands of hers. Enough. We had burnt our viols and were silent. So, The silence lengthened till it pressed. I spoke, To breathe: ‘I think you were ill afterward.’
‘More ill,’ he answered, ‘had been scarcely ill. I hoped this feeble fumbling at life’s knot Might end concisely,—but I failed to die, As formerly I failed to live,—and thus Grew willing, having tried all other ways, To try just God’s. Humility’s so good, When pride’s impossible. Mark us, how we make Our virtues, cousin, from our worn-out sins, Which smack of them from henceforth. Is it right, For instance, to wed here, while you love there? And yet because a man sins once, the sin Cleaves to him, in necessity to sin; That if he sin not so, to damn himself, He sins so, to damn others with himself: And thus, to wed here, loving there, becomes A duty. Virtue buds a dubious leaf Round mortal brows; your ivy’s better, dear. —Yet she, ’tis certain, is my very wife; The very lamb left mangled by the wolves Through my own bad shepherding: and could I choose But take her on my shoulder past this stretch Of rough, uneasy wilderness, poor lamb, Poor child, poor child?—Aurora, my belov’d, I will not vex you any more to-night; But, having spoken what I came to say, The rest shall please you. What she can, in me,— Protection, tender liking, freedom, ease, She shall have surely, liberally, for her And hers, Aurora. Small amends they’ll make For hideous evils (which she had not known Except by me) and for this imminent loss, This forfeit presence of a gracious friend, Which also she must forfeit for my sake, Since, ... drop your hand in mine a moment, sweet, We’re parting!—— Ah, my snowdrop, what a touch, As if the wind had swept it off! you grudge Your gelid sweetness on my palm but so, A moment? angry, that I could not bear You ... speaking, breathing, living, side by side With some one called my wife ... and live, myself? Nay, be not cruel—you must understand! Your lightest footfall on a floor of mine Would shake the house, my lintel being uncrossed ’Gainst angels: henceforth it is night with me, And so, henceforth, I put the shutters up; Auroras must not come to spoil my dark.’
He smiled so feebly, with an empty hand Stretched sideway from me,—as indeed he looked To any one but me to give him help,— And, while the moon came suddenly out full, The double-rose of our Italian moons, Sufficient, plainly, for the heaven and earth, (The stars, struck dumb and washed away in dews Of golden glory, and the mountains steeped In divine languor) he, the man, appeared So pale and patient, like the marble man A sculptor puts his personal sadness in To join his grandeur of ideal thought,— As if his mallet struck me from my height Of passionate indignation, I who had risen Pale,—doubting, paused, ... Was Romney mad indeed? Had all this wrong of heart made sick the brain?
Then quiet, with a sort of tremulous pride, ‘Go, cousin,’ I said coldly. ‘A farewell Was sooner spoken ’twixt a pair of friends In those old days, than seems to suit you now: And if, since then, I’ve writ a book or two, I’m somewhat dull still in the manly art Of phrase and metaphrase. Why, any man Can carve a score of white Loves out of snow, As Buonarroti down in Florence there, And set them on the wall in some safe shade, As safe, sir, as your marriage! very good; Though if a woman took one from the ledge To put it on the table by her flowers, And let it mind her of a certain friend, ’Twould drop at once, (so better,) would not bear Her nail-mark even, where she took it up A little tenderly; so best, I say: For me, I would not touch so light a thing, And risk to spoil it half an hour before The sun shall shine to melt it: leave it there. I’m plain at speech, direct in purpose: when I speak, you’ll take the meaning as it is, And not allow for puckerings in the silks By clever stitches. I’m a woman, sir, And use the woman’s figures naturally, As you, the male license. So, I wish you well. I’m simply sorry for the griefs you’ve had— And not for your sake only, but mankind’s. This race is never grateful: from the first, One fills their cup at supper with pure wine, Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge, In bitter vinegar.’ ‘If gratefuller,’ He murmured,—‘by so much less pitiable! God’s self would never have come down to die, Could man have thanked him for it.’ ‘Happily ’Tis patent that, whatever,’ I resumed, ‘You suffered from this thanklessness of men, You sink no more than Moses’ bulrush-boat, When once relieved of Moses; for you’re light, You’re light, my cousin! which is well for you, And manly. For myself,—now mark me, sir, They burnt Leigh Hall; but if, consummated To devils, heightened beyond Lucifers, They had burnt instead a star or two, of those We saw above there just a moment back, Before the moon abolished them,—destroyed And riddled them in ashes through a sieve On the head of the foundering universe,—what then? If you and I remained still you and I, It would not shift our places as mere friends, Nor render decent you should toss a phrase Beyond the point of actual feeling!—nay, You shall not interrupt me: as you said, We’re parting. Certainly, not once or twice, To-night you’ve mocked me somewhat, or yourself; And I, at least, have not deserved it so That I should meet it unsurprised. But now, Enough: we’re parting ... parting. Cousin Leigh, I wish you well through all the acts of life And life’s relations, wedlock, not the least; And it shall ‘please me,’ in your words, to know You yield your wife, protection, freedom, ease, And very tender liking. May you live So happy with her, Romney, that your friends May praise her for it. Meantime, some of us Are wholly dull in keeping ignorant Of what she has suffered by you, and what debt Of sorrow your rich love sits down to pay: But if ’tis sweet for love to pay its debt, ’Tis sweeter still for love to give its gift; And you, be liberal in the sweeter way,— You can, I think. At least, as touches me, You owe her, cousin Romney, no amends; She is not used to hold my gown so fast, You need entreat her now to let it go: The lady never was a friend of mine, Nor capable,—I thought you knew as much,— Of losing for your sake so poor a prize As such a worthless friendship. Be content, Good cousin, therefore, both for her and you! I’ll never spoil your dark, nor dull your noon, Nor vex you when you’re merry, nor when you rest: You shall not need to put a shutter up To keep out this Aurora. Ah, your north Can make Auroras which vex nobody, Scarce known from evenings! also, let me say, My larks fly higher than some windows. Right; You’ve read your Leighs. Indeed ’twould shake a house, If such as I came in with outstretched hand, Still warm and thrilling from the clasp of one ... Of one we know, ... to acknowledge, palm to palm, As mistress there ... the Lady Waldemar.’
‘Now God be with us’ ... with a sudden clash Of voice he interrupted—‘what name’s that? You spoke a name, Aurora.’ ‘Pardon me; I would that, Romney, I could name your wife Nor wound you, yet be worthy.’ ‘Are we mad?’ He echoed—‘wife! mine! Lady Waldemar! I think you said my wife.’ He sprang to his feet, And threw his noble head back toward the moon As one who swims against a stormy sea, And laughed with such a helpless, hopeless scorn, I stood and trembled. ‘May God judge me so,’ He said at last,—‘I came convicted here, And humbled sorely if not enough. I came, Because this woman from her crystal soul Had shown me something which a man calls light: Because too, formerly, I sinned by her As, then and ever since, I have, by God, Through arrogance of nature,—though I loved ... Whom best, I need not say, ... since that is writ Too plainly in the book of my misdeeds; And thus I came here to abase myself, And fasten, kneeling, on her regent brows A garland which I startled thence one day Of her beautiful June-youth. But here again I’m baffled!—fail in my abasement as My aggrandisement: there’s no room left for me, At any woman’s foot, who misconceives My nature, purpose, possible actions. What! Are you the Aurora who made large my dreams To frame your greatness? you conceive so small? You stand so less than woman, through being more, And lose your natural instinct, like a beast, Through intellectual culture? since indeed I do not think that any common she Would dare adopt such fancy-forgeries For the legible life-signature of such As I, with all my blots: with all my blots! At last then, peerless cousin, we are peers— At last we’re even. Ah, you’ve left your height; And here upon my level we take hands, And here I reach you to forgive you, sweet, And that’s a fall, Aurora. Long ago You seldom understood me,—but, before, I could not blame you. Then, you only seemed So high above, you could not see below; But now I breathe,—but now I pardon!—nay, We’re parting. Dearest, men have burnt my house, Maligned my motives,—but not one, I swear, Has wronged my soul as this Aurora has, Who called the Lady Waldemar my wife.’
‘Not married to her! yet you said’ ... ‘Again? Nay, read the lines’ (he held a letter out) ‘She sent you through me.’ By the moonlight there, I tore the meaning out with passionate haste Much rather than I read it. Thus it ran.