“She came at last. Oh, joy! she was the loveliest Merle in the world. Was it possible that a creature so charming had lived and been reared for me? All my father’s curses, and, above all, my sufferings were welcome, since Heaven had reserved such an unexpected consolation for me. Till to-day I thought myself doomed to an eternal solitariness, but now I feel, while gazing on my lovely bride, all the nobler qualities of a father fully developed within me. Accept my claw, fair one, let us wed in the Anglo-Saxon fashion, and start for Switzerland.
“Nay,” replied my love, “our wedding must be on a truly magnificent scale, all the Blackbirds of good birth must be invited. Birds in our position ought to observe the nicest ceremony, and not wed like water-spout cats. I have brought a provision of bank-notes with me. Arrange your invitations, and spare no cost in ordering the feast. I am of French origin and love display.”
Blindly yielding to the wishes of my charmer, our wedding was of extraordinary brilliancy. Ten thousand flies were slaughtered for the feast, and we received the nuptial benediction from an old father Cormorant, archbishop in partibus, and the happy day’s festivities concluded with a splendid ball.
The more I studied the character of my wife, the greater became my love. She combined in her dainty person every imaginable grace of body and mind. Only she was given to gossip, which I attributed to the influence of the English fog, and never had a moment’s doubt that our genial climate would dissipate this little cloud.
There was some mystery hedging her round, which troubled me with grave forebodings. She used to shut herself up with her maids, under lock and key, for hours together, engaged, so she said, at her toilet. Husbands as a rule have no patience with such proceedings. More than a score of times have I knocked at my wife’s door without receiving the slightest response. One day I insisted with such violence that she was compelled to open the door, but not without favouring me with a sample of her temper. On entering, the first thing that met my gaze was a huge bottle of a sort of paste made up of flour and whitewash. I inquired of my wife what she used that stuff for, to which she replied, it was a mixture for chilblains. This seemed rather strange, yet how could so charming a creature inspire me with anything but confidence.
Up to the present time I had remained ignorant of the fact that my wife had cultivated letters. Imagine my joy on discovering that she was the author of a romance modelled after the style of the illustrious Sir Walter Scott. I was then not only the husband of an incomparable beauty, but of a truly gifted companion. From that instant we worked together; while I composed my poems, she covered reams of paper and displayed the rare gift of listening to my recitations without pausing in her task of composition. She composed her romances with a facility almost equal to my own, always choosing subjects of rare dramatic value; homicides, murders, and highway robberies, taking care in passing, to shoot poisoned shafts at the Government by advocating the cause of the Merula vulgaris. In a word, no efforts were too great for her mind, or tricks for her modesty. Never had she need to cross through a line, or lay her plans before beginning to work.
One day while my wife was toiling with unusual ardour, she perspired freely, and to my horror I beheld a black patch on her back. “Bless my soul, dear!” I said “what is that? Are you plague-stricken? Are you ill?” She at first seemed frightened and speechless, but her knowledge of the world soon restored her habitual self-composure, and she replied that it was a spot of ink, a stain to which she was subject in moments of inspiration. Inwardly I was greatly troubled. Does my wife lose her whiteness? was a question which cost me many wakeful nights. The paste bottle rose like a phantom before me. Oh heavens! what doubts. Can this celestial creature, after all, only be a painting, a work of art? Is she varnished to deceive me? Had I been wooed and won by a mixture of flour and whitewash? Haunted by doubt, I took measures to lay the apparition by investing in a barometer, and watching for signs of coming rain. I planned to decoy my wife some doubtful Sunday into the country, and try the effect of an impromptu wash, but we were in the middle of July, and the weather provokingly fine. Real happiness, and long habit of writing, had much increased my sensitiveness. While at work it sometimes happened that my affections were stronger than my inspiration, and I gave way to tears, while waiting for my rhyme. My wife loved these rare occasions, and strove to soothe my masculine weakness.
One evening while dashing through my writing according to Boileu’s precept, my heart opened. “Oh thou, my queen!” I said, “thou my only truly loved one, thou without whom my life is a dream, thou whose look, whose smile, fills my world with light. Life of my heart! dost thou know the height, the breadth, the depth of my love? Before thou camest to me my lot was that of an exiled orphan, now it is that of a king. In my poor breast thine image shall be enshrined till death. All! All my hopes and aspirations are centred in thee.”
While thus raving, I wept over my wife, and as each tear-drop fell upon her back, she visibly changed colour. Feathers, one by one, not even black, but red appeared—she must have coloured red to fill some other rôle. Soon I found myself vis-à-vis with a creature unpasted, unfloured, and nothing more than a vulgar Blackbird. How dare I publish my shame! I plucked up courage and resolved to quit the gay world, to give up my career, to flee to a desert, if that were possible, to shun the sight of every living creature.