As the reader ceased Ghisleri began to speak. His voice was strong, but capable of considerable softness and passionate expression, and he did his best to render his own irregular verses both intelligible and moving to his hearers, in which effort he was much helped by the dress he wore and by the gestures he made use of.
"So we meet at the last! You the saint, I the time-proved sinner;
You the young, I the old; I the world-worn, you the beginner;
At the end of the season here, with a glass of wine
To discuss the salvation and—well—the mine and thine
Of all the souls we have met this year, and dealt with,
Of those you have tried to make feel, and those I've felt with:
Though, after all, dear Saint, had we met in heaven
Before you got saintship, or I the infernal leaven
That works so hot to kill the old angel in me—
If you had seen the world then, as I was able to see
Before Sergeant-Major Michael gave me that fall,—
Not a right fall, mind you, taking the facts in all,—
We might have been on the same side both. But now
It is yours to cry over lost souls, as it's mine to show them how
They may stumble and tumble into the infernal slough.
So here we are. Now tell me—your honour true—
What do you think of our season? Which wins? I? You?
Ha, ha, ha! Sweet friend, you can hardly doubt
The result of this two months' hard-fought wrestling bout.
I have won. You have lost the game. I drive a trade
Which I invented—perhaps—but you have made.
Without your heaven, friend Saint, what would be my hell?
Without your goodness, could I hope to do well
With the poor little peddler's pack of original sin
They handed me down, when they turned me out to begin
My devil's trade with souls. But now I ask
Why for eternal penance they gave me so light a task?
You have not condescended from heaven to taste our carnival feast,
But if you had tasted it, you would admit at least
That the meats were passably sweet, and might allure
The nicest of angels, whose tastes are wholly pure.
Old friend—I hate you! I hate your saintly face,
Your holy eyes, your vague celestial grace!
You are too cold for me, whose soul must smelt
In fires whose fury you have never felt.
But come, unbend a little. Let us chatter
Of what we like best, of what our pride may flatter,—
Salvation and damnation—there's the theme—
Your trade and mine—what I am, and what you seem.
Come, count the souls we have played for, you and I,
The broken hearts you have lost on a careless jog of the die,
Hearts that were broken in ire, by one short, sharp fault of the head,
[Pg 45] Souls lifted on pinions of fire, to sink on wings of lead.
We have gambled, and I have won, while you have steadily lost,
I laughing, you weeping your senseless saintly tears each time you tossed.
So now—give it up! Dry your eyes; your heaven's a dream!
Sell your saintship for what it is worth, and come over—the Devil's supreme!
Make Judas Iscariot envy the sweets of our sin—
Poor Judas, who ended himself where I could have wished to begin!
A chosen complexion—hell's fruit would not have been wasted
Had he lived to eat his fill at the feast he barely tasted.
Ah, my friend, you are horribly good! Oh! I know you of old;
I know all your virtues, your graces, your beauties; I know they are cold!
But I know that far down in the depths of your crystalline soul
There's a spot the archangel physician might not pronounce whole.
There's a hell in your heaven; there's a heaven in my hell. There we meet.
What's perdition to you is salvation to me. Ah, the delicate sweet
Of mad meetings, of broken confessions, of nights unblest!
Oh, the shadowy horror of hate that haunts love's steps without rest,
The desire to be dead—to see dead both the beings one hates,
One's self and the other, twin victims of opposite fates!
How I hate you! You thing beyond Satan's supremest temptation,
You creature of light for whom God has ordained no damnation,
You escape me, the being whose searing hand lovingly lingers
On the neck of each sinner to brand him with five red-hot fingers!
You escape me—you dare scoff at me—and I, poor old pretender,
Must sue for your beautiful soul with temptation more tender
Than a man can find for a woman, when night in her moonlit glory
Silvers a word to a poem, makes a poem of a commonplace story!
So I sue here at your feet for your soul and the gold of your heart,
To break my own if I lose you—Lose you? No—do not start.
You angel—you bitter-sweet creature of heaven, I love you and hate you!
For I know what you are, and I know that my sin cannot mate you.
I know you are better than I—by the blessing of God!—
And I hate what is better than I by the blessing of God!
What right has the Being Magnificent, reigning supreme,
To wield the huge might that is his, in a measure extreme?
[Pg 46] What right has God got of his strength to make you all good,
And me bad from the first and weighed down in my sin's leaden hood?
What right have you to be pure, my angel, when I am foul?
What right have you to the light, while I, like an owl,
Must blink in hell's darkness and count my sins by the bead—
While you can get all you pray for, the wine and the mead
Of a heavenly blessing, showered upon you straight—
Because you chance to stand on the consecrate side of the gate?
Ah! Give me a little nature, give me a human truth!
Give me a heart that feels—and falls, as a heart should—without ruth!
Give me a woman who loves and a man who loves again,
Give me the instant's joy that ends in an age of pain,
Give me the one dear touch that I love—and that you fear—
And I will give my empire for the Kingdom you hold dear!
I will cease from tempting and torturing, I will let the poor sinner go,
I will turn my blind eyes heavenward and forget this world below,
I will change from lying to truth, and be forever true—
If you will only love me—and give the Devil his due!"
It had been previously arranged that at the last words the nun should thrust back his Satanic majesty and take refuge in the church. But it turned out otherwise. As he drew near the conclusion, Ghisleri crept stealthily up to the Contessa's side, and threw all the persuasion he possessed into his voice. But it was most probably the Contessa's love of surprising the world which led her to do the contrary of what was expected. At the last line of his speech, she made one wild gesture of despair, and threw herself backward upon Ghisleri's ready arm. For one moment he looked down into her white upturned face, and his own grew pale as his gleaming eyes met hers. With characteristic presence of mind, San Giacinto, the monk, bent his head, and stalked away in holy horror as the curtain fell.
CHAPTER IV.
As the curtain went down, a burst of applause rang through the room. The poetry, if it could be called poetry, had assuredly not been of a high order, and as for the sentiments it expressed, a good number of the audience were more than usually shocked. But the whole thing had been effective, unexpected, and striking, especially the ending, over which the world smacked its lips.
"I do not like it at all," said Laura Carlyon to Arden, as they left the seats where they had sat together through the little performance.
"They looked very well," he answered thoughtfully. "As for what he said, it was Ghisleri. That is the man's character. He will talk in that way while he does not believe a word he says, or only one out of ten."
"Then I do not like his character, nor him," returned the young lady, frankly. "But I should not say it to you, dear, because he is your best friend. He shows you all the good there is in him, I suppose, and he shows us all the bad."
"No one ever said a truer thing of him," said Arden, limping along by her side. "But I admire the man's careless strength in what he does."