“I do not believe a word of it” she said. “I would not lose my recollection for all Mexico.”
I took leave of her soon: for I saw that my presence agitated and wearied her. When I had parted from her before, she had given me a miniature of herself, which she had painted in all the glow of health and spirits, and ardent affections, which then so well became her. Now she gave me another which had been her task or pleasure in sickness and solitude. I do not know why I turn from the first with its fine hues and sparkling lustre, to gaze upon the paleness and languor of the other, with a deeper feeling of melancholy delight.[Pg 256]
When I returned from Scotland after the lapse of two months, Leonora was dead. I found the sexton of the village, and desired him to point out to me the spot where she rested. There was a small marble slab over her remains, with the brief inscription, “Leonora.—Addio!” I stood for a few minutes there, and began to moralize and murmur. “It seems only yesterday,” I said, “that she was moving and breathing before me, with all the buoyancy and beauty of her blameless form and her stainless spirit; and now she lies in her purity and her loveliness.”
“She lies in a pretty grave,” said the old sexton, looking with apparent satisfaction on his handiwork.
“She does, indeed, good Nicholas; and her loveliness is but little to the purpose!”
DAMASIPPUS.
|
Damasippus. Syrinx. Cyane. |
Geta. Marsyas. A Messenger. |
Scene—Rome. A Cook’s Shop. Time—Night.
Dam. [entering.] Hilloa! black dweller in darkness! Hilloa! monarch of perfumes and placentæ! How long am I to kick my royal feet before thy damnable dwelling-place, like a half-buried ghost before Charon, or a half-witted Grecian before Troy? Shrivelled imp of Hades, answer me! Was it for me—for me, reptile, the lord of all misrule, the bosom friend of every felon and flagon in Rome, the deepest drinker that ever kissed Chian—saving always the Emperor, whom the Fates and the Furies preserve!—was it for me to stand for an hour, roaring “Syrinx, Syrinx,” louder than ever poet cried Evoe! over his sour verses and sour vinegar, with not a hand of those[Pg 257] who live by me to take the bolt from the door and the seal from the bottle? Now, by Pollux——