Eva started, started with actual terror; she felt the name or language of love like a profanation of the moment, and told him that she was trying to recollect the substance of the sermon she had just heard, and impress it on her memory. Charles was silent; and silently accompanied her home, where nothing but the sermon was spoken of, and every division and subdivision of theological subtlety was run on it to exhaust the hour that must intervene till the bell was rung for the servants to attend the family devotions, and a long extempore prayer from Mr. Wentworth concluded the night.
There is, in the purity and innocence of Eva, something sublime that often makes Charles himself feel it almost a crime to intrude upon her with too vehement declarations of a worldly passion. The result of this is, however, that they never ‘love like lovers,’ and it is shown with much psychological insight how they gradually glide away from each other by reason of an unnatural spiritualization of their mutual relations. Their estrangement is subsequently hastened by the appearance of Zaira, whose society Charles from the first imprudently cultivates. In the person of Zaira critics have been wont to see an expression of the usual ‘extravagance’ of Maturin’s writings. Yet allowing for some casual exaggeration of her great talents, the general characterization stands on a very high level. The figure is not new in Maturin—both Lady Montrevor in The Wild Irish Boy and Armida Fitzalban in The Milesian Chief are studies of this kind; but Zaira is depicted with a moderation and veracity infinitely superior to either. She is none of those distinguished dilettantes that have acquired their accomplishments conveniently in their leisure hours; she is a professional artist and has attained her prominence through hard and unremitting work—work which, as a matter of fact, is the only way to the pinnacles of art. Her character is naturally noble, and she is free from all haughtiness and caprice. Under the bitter sorrow she has sustained, her heart has remained pure and tender, yearning ever for love which she has never met with. In the isolation she has suffered during the greater part of her existence, her mind has been cultivated and her abilities developed at the expense of her experience in practical affairs; she has become curiously unfamiliar with real life and displays, on several occasions, a naiveté almost equal to that of Eva herself. This contrast between her superior intellect and her incapacity of extricating herself from the difficulties of common life is presented with an exquisite skill, and to it she owes the tragedy of her fate. Zaira’s attachment to De Courcy originates, on her part, in a need of tenderness that has nothing to do with passion. The news of the loss of her child throws her into a desolation of mind in which she first receives his enthusiastic admiration with a feeling inspired by the instinct of self-preservation. She says in a letter to her friend:
How often! oh, how often! gazing on his perfect form, have I wished that, if it were possible, such had been the child I lost, such were the child I found! It is impossible, I feel, for the heart long to be vacant. One image filled mine for many years, and the very length and intensity of those feelings created a habit of the heart, which it might have been fatal to my existence, or my reason, not the have indulged.—
From this, indeed, there is but a short step to love, though she is, characteristically enough, herself the last to become aware of it. Knowing that Charles is engaged she tries to persuade herself that what she feels for him is only friendship which can well be extended to her rival; and she succeeds in building up a theory in which she, at the time, firmly believes:
The friendship, which will be the charm of my future existence, will be purified and ennobled by the certainty that the object of it is devoted to another, to whom he will shortly be united; and the security which is enough to satisfy my own heart, I do not hesitate to offer to the world careless whether it will accept or reject it.
But if the world could ever read a heart, the innocence of mine would astonish and convert it. At this moment, my whole pile of future happiness rests on the foundation of theirs—Yes, of theirs. To see two beings, equally amiable, equally beloved, enriched by my fortune—improved by my talents—and elevated by the distinction which I have not dishonourably attained, would be not only beyond all I have ever enjoyed, (alas! that has been but little hitherto,) but all that I have even conceived. I shall feel like the happy genius, who constructed a palace of gems for the favoured Aladdin and his bride, and then was seen no more.—
Her correspondent, a Frenchwoman of fashion, at once understands the situation; and her letters—which are very cleverly written and present an amusing mixture of frivolity and acute observation—tear down the theory of Zaira and open her eyes to the state of her own feelings. Once acknowledged, these feelings, rapidly grow stronger, and the end, in spite of desperate attempts at bridling her passion, is what has been told.—Neither does Charles leave Eva without a great deal of honest and painful struggling against his new infatuation, though he knows that his strength is not to be relied upon. He is induced to make a final appeal to Eva in a fine scene—: she is frightened by a thunderstorm into a swoon when Charles, supporting her, hears her whisper something about his intention of forsaking her—which she purposely never alludes to. The situation vividly reminds him of their first meeting, and his tenderness for her takes hold of him once more:
“Desert you—never, never—May the lightning strike me first!—Forsake you—never, never—Eva, my beloved—beloved of my soul—Yes, warm your cold cheek on mine; yes, rest your dear, dear head on my bosom; do not let its beatings startle you—Yes, twine your lovely fingers in mine—It is a heart that loves you, yours is prest to; it is a hand that soon will be yours you clasp—Why do your fingers wander so wildly among my hair, my love? one ringlet of yours is worth all that ever—And how often has this hair,” he continued wildly, “been damp with despair? how often has it been torn in anguish, since I knew Zaira?”
Eva revived, and her pure feelings acting instinctively, she started from his arms, and still pale with terror, she tried to falter out an apology for her terrors.
“No,” said De Courcy, pursuing, and kneeling at her feet, “no, you must not fly me. This is a decisive moment—a moment that must end many struggles. Eva, already are you cold, already silent? Is it only in terror and danger you cling to me? Is it only in the terrible intervals of paroxysm and insensibility that I am ever doomed to feel your arms twined round me, to hear your lips utter my name? Already I see your countenance averted from me, the moment it has the power to give a conscious look.”