Part Seventh
"The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;
The wind made thy bosom chill;
The night did shed
On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will."
NEXT morning our three friends lay late abed, and breakfasted in their rooms.
They had all three passed "white nights"—even the Laird, who had tossed about and pressed a sleepless pillow till dawn, so excited had he been by the wonder of Trilby's reincarnation, so perplexed by his own doubts as to whether it was really Trilby or not.
And certain haunting tones of her voice, that voice so cruelly sweet (which clove the stillness with a clang so utterly new, so strangely heart-piercing and seductive, that the desire to hear it once more became nostalgic—almost an ache!), certain bits and bars and phrases of the music she had sung, unspeakable felicities and facilities of execution; sudden exotic warmths, fragrances, tendernesses, graces, depths, and breadths; quick changes from grave to gay, from rough to smooth, from great metallic brazen clangors to soft golden suavities; all the varied modes of sound we try so vainly to borrow from vocal nature by means of wind and reed and string—all this new "Trilbyness" kept echoing in his brain all night (for he was of a nature deeply musical), and sleep had been impossible to him.
"As when we dwell upon a word we know,
Repeating, till the word we know so well
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why,"
so dwelt the Laird upon the poor old tune "Ben Bolt," which kept singing itself over and over again in his tired consciousness, and maddened him with novel, strange, unhackneyed, unsuspected beauties such as he had never dreamed of in any earthly music.
It had become a wonder, and he knew not why!
They spent what was left of the morning at the Louvre, and tried to interest themselves in the "Marriage of Cana," and the "Woman at the Well," and Vandyck's man with the glove, and the little princess of Velasquez, and Lisa Gioconda's smile: it was of no use trying. There was no sight worth looking at in all Paris but Trilby in her golden raiment; no other princess in the world; no smile but hers, when through her parted lips came bubbling Chopin's Impromptu. They had not long to stay in Paris, and they must drink of that bubbling fountain once more—coûte que coûte! They went to the Salle des Bashibazoucks, and found that all seats all over the house had been taken for days and weeks; and the "queue" at the door had already begun! and they had to give up all hopes of slaking this particular thirst.
Then they went and lunched perfunctorily, and talked desultorily over lunch, and read criticisms of la Svengali's début in the morning papers—a chorus of journalistic acclamation gone mad, a frenzied eulogy in every key—but nothing was good enough for them! Brand-new words were wanted—another language!