Pacchiarotto/A Forgiveness
For works with similar titles, see Forgiveness.
A FORGIVENESS.
I am indeed the personage you know.As for my wife,—what happened long ago—You have a right to question me, as IAm bound to answer.
"Son, a fit reply!"The monk half spoke, half ground through his clenched teeth,At the confession-grate I knelt beneath.
Thus then all happened, Father! Power and placeI had as still I have. I ran life's race, With the whole world to see, as only strainsHis strength some athlete whose prodigious gains Of good appall him: happy to excess,—Work freely done should balance happinessFully enjoyed; and, since beneath my roofHoused she who made home heaven, in heaven's behoofI went forth every day, and all day longWorked for the world. Look, how the labourer's songCheers him! Thus sang my soul, at each sharp throeOf labouring flesh and blood—"She loves me so!"
One day, perhaps such song so knit the nerveThat work grew play and vanished. "I deserve Haply my heaven an hour before the time!" I laughed, as silverly the clockhouse-chimeSurprised me passing through the postern-gate—Not the main entry where the menials waitAnd wonder why the world's affairs allowThe master sudden leisure. That was howI took the private garden-way for once.
Forth from the alcove, I saw start, ensconceHimself behind the porphyry vase, a man.
My fancies in the natural order ran:"A spy,—perhaps a foe in ambuscade,—A thief,—more like, a sweetheart of some maidWho pitched on the alcove for tryst perhaps"
"Stand there!" I bid.
Whereat my man but wrapsHis face the closelier with uplifted armWhereon the cloak lies, strikes in blind alarmThis and that pedestal as,—stretch and stoop,—Now in, now out of sight, he thrids the groupOf statues, marble god and goddess rangedEach side the pathway, till the gate 's exchangedFor safety: one step thence, the street, you know!
Thus far I followed with my gaze. Then, slow,Near on admiringly, I breathed again,And—back to that last fancy of the train—"A danger risked for hope of just a wordWith—which of all my nest may be the birdThis poacher covets for her plumage, pray? Carmen? Juana? Carmen seems too gayFor such adventure, while Juana 's grave—Would scorn the folly. I applaud the knave!He had the eye, could single from my broodHis proper fledgeling!"
As I turned, there stoodIn face of me, my wife stone-still stone-white.Whether one bound had brought her,—at first sightOf what she judged the encounter, sure to beNext moment, of the venturous man and me,—Brought her to clutch and keep me from my preyWhether impelled because her death no dayCould come so absolutely opportuneAs now at joy's height, like a year in June Stayed at the fall of its first ripened rose;Or whether hungry for my hate—who knows?—Eager to end an irksome lie, and tasteOur tingling true relation, hate embracedBy hate one naked moment:—anyhowThere stone-still stone-white stood my wife, but nowThe woman who made heaven within my house.Ay, she who faced me was my very spouseAs well as love—you are to recollect!
"Stay!" she said. "Keep at least one soul unspeckedWith crime, that's spotless hitherto—your own!Kill me who court the blessing, who aloneWas, am, and shall be guilty, first to last!The man lay helpless in the toils I cast About him, helpless as the statue thereAgainst that strangling bell-flower's bondage: tearAway and tread to dust the parasite,But do the passive marble no despite!I love him as I hate you. Kill me! StrikeAt one blow both infinitudes alikeOut of existence hate and love! Whence love?That 's safe inside my heart, nor will removeFor any searching of your steel, I think.Whence hate? The secret lay on lip, at brinkOf speech, in one fierce tremble to escape,At every form wherein your love took shape,At each new provocation of your kiss.Kill me!
We went in.
Next day after this,I felt as if the speech might come. I spoke—Easily, after all.
"The lifted cloakWas screen sufficient: I concern myself Hardly with laying hands on who for pelf—Whate'er the ignoble kind—may prowl and brave Cuffing and kicking proper to a knave Detected by my household's vigilance. Enough of such! As for my love-romance—I, like our good Hidalgo, rub my eyes And wake and wonder how the film could rise Which changed for me a barber's bason straightInto—Mambrino's helm? I hesitateNowise to say—God's sacramental cup!Why should I blame the brass which, burnished up,Will blaze, to all but me, as good as gold?To me—a warning I was overboldIn judging metals. The Hidalgo wakedOnly to die, if I remember,—stakedHis life upon the bason's worth, and lost:While I confess torpidity at mostIn here and there a limb; but, lame and halt,Still should I work on, still repair my faultEre I took rest in death,—no fear at all!Now, work—no word before the curtain fall!" The "curtain?" That of death on life, I meant:My "word" permissible in death's event,Would be—truth, soul to soul; for, otherwise, Day by day, three years long, there had to rise And, night by night, to fall upon our stage— Ours, doomed to public play by heritage— Another curtain, when the world, perforceOur critical assembly, in due courseCame and went, witnessing, gave praise or blame To art-mimetic. It had spoiled the gameIf, suffered to set foot behind our scene,The world had witnessed how stage-king and queen,Gallant and lady, but a minute since Enarming each the other, would evinceNo sign of recognition as they took His way and her way to whatever nookWaited them in the darkness either sideOf that bright stage where lately groom and brideHad fired the audience to a frenzy-fitOf sympathetic rapture—every whitEarned as the curtain fell on her and me,—Actors. Three whole years, nothing was to seeBut calm and concord: where a speech was dueThere came the speech; when smiles were wanted tooSmiles were as ready. In a place like mine,Where foreign and domestic cares combine,There's audience every day and all day long;But finally the last of the whole throngWho linger lets one see his back. For her—Why, liberty and liking: I aver, Liking and liberty! For me—I breathed,Let my face rest from every wrinkle wreathedSmile-like about the mouth, unlearned my taskOf personation till next day bade mask,And quietly betook me from that worldTo the real world, not pageant: there unfurledIn work, its wings, my soul, the fretted power.Three years I worked, each minute of each hourNot claimed by acting:—work I may dispenseWith talk about, since work in evidence,Perhaps in history; who knows or cares?
After three years, this way, all unawares,Our acting ended. She and I, at closeOf a loud night-feast, led, between two rows Of bending male and female loyalty,Our lord the king down staircase, while, held highAt arm's length did the twisted tapers' flareHerald his passage from our palace whereSuch visiting left glory evermore.Again the ascent in public, till at doorAs we two stood by the saloon—now blankAnd disencumbered of its guests—there sankA whisper in my ear, so low and yetSo unmistakable!
"I half forgetThe chamber you repair to, and I want Occasion for one short word—if you grant That grace—within a certain room you called Our 'Study,' for you wrote there while I scrawledSome paper full of faces for my sport.That room I can remember. Just one shortWord with you there, for the remembrance' sake!"
"Follow me thither!" I replied.
We breakThe gloom a little, as with guiding lampI lead the way, leave warmth and cheer, by dampBlind disused serpentining ways afarFrom where the habitable chambers are,—Ascend, descend stairs tunneled through the stone,—Always in silence,—till I reach the loneChamber sepulchred for my very own Out of the palace-quarry. When a boy,Here was my fortress, stronghold from annoy,Proof-positive of ownership; in youthI garnered up my gleanings here—uncouthBut precious relics of vain hopes, vain fears;Finally, this became in after yearsMy closet of entrenchment to withstandInvasion of the foe on every hand—The multifarious herd in bower and hall,State-room,—rooms whatsoe'er the style, which callOn masters to be mindful that, beforeMen, they must look like men and something more.Here,—when our lord the king's bestowment ceased To deck me on the day that, golden-fleeced, I touched ambition's height,—'t was here, releasedFrom glory (always symboled by a chain!)No sooner was I privileged to gainMy secret domicile than glad I flungThat last toy on the table—gazed where hungOn hook my father's gift, the arquebuss—And asked myself "Shall I envisage thusThe new prize and the old prize, when I reachAnother year's experience?—own that eachEqualed advantage—sportsman's—statesman's tool?That brought me down an eagle, this—a fool!"
Into which room on entry, I set downThe lamp, and turning saw whose rustled gownHad told me my wife followed, pace for pace. Each of us looked the other in the face, She spoke. "Since I could die now . . ."
(To explain Why that first struck me, know—not once again Since the adventure at the porphyry's edge Three years before, which sundered like a wedge Her soul from mine,—though daily, smile to smile, We stood before the public,—all the while Not once had I distinguished, in that face I paid observance to, the faintest trace Of feature more than requisite for eyes To do their duty by and recognize: So did I force mine to obey my will And pry no further. There exists such skill,— Those know who need it. What physician shrinksFrom needful contact with a corpse? He drinksNo plague so long as thirst for knowledge,—notAn idler impulse,—prompts inquiry. What,And will you disbelieve in power to bidOur spirit back to bounds, as though we chidA child from scrutiny that 's just and rightIn manhood? Sense, not soul, accomplished sight,Reported daily she it was—not howNor why a change had come to cheek and brow.)
"Since I could die now of the truth concealed, Yet dare not, must not die,—so seems revealed The Virgin's mind to me,—for death means peace, Wherein no lawful part have I, whose lease Of life and punishment the truth avowedMay haply lengthen,—let me push the shroudAway, that steals to muffle ere is justMy penance-fire in snow! I dare—I mustLive, by avowal of the truth—this truth—I loved you! Thanks for the fresh serpent's toothThat, by a prompt new pang more exquisiteThan all preceding torture, proves me right!I loved you yet I lost you! May I goBurn to the ashes, now my shame you know?"
I think there never was such—how express?— Horror coquetting with voluptuousness, As in those arms of Eastern workmanship— Yataghan, kandjar, things that rend and rip, Gash rough, slash smooth, help hate so many ways, Yet ever keep a beauty that betrays Love still at work with the artificer Throughout his quaint devising. Why prefer, Except for love's sake, that a blade should writhe And bicker like a flame?—now play the scythe As if some broad neck tempted,—now contract And needle off into a fineness lacked For just that puncture which the heart demands? Then, such adornment! Wherefore need our hands Enclose not ivory alone, nor gold Roughened for use, but jewels? Nay, behold! Fancy my favorite—which I seem to grasp While I describe the luxury. No asp Is diapered more delicate round throat Than this below the handle! These denote—These mazy lines meandering, to endOnly in flesh they open—what intendThey else but water-purlings—pale contrastWith the life-crimson where they blend at last?And mark the handle's dim pellucid green,Carved, the hard jadestone, as you pinch a bean,Into a sort of parrot-bird! He pecksA grape-bunch; his two eyes are ruby-specksPure from the mine: seen this way,—glassy blank,But turn them,—lo the inmost fire, that shrankFrom sparkling, sends a red dart right to aim!Why did I choose such toys? Perhaps the gameOf peaceful men is warlike, just as menWar-wearied get amusement from that pen And paper we grow sick of—statesfolk tiredOf merely (when such measures are required)Dealing out doom to people by three words,A signature and seal: we play with swordsSuggestive of quick process. That is howI came to like the toys described you now,Store of which glittered on the walls and strewedThe table, even, while my wife pursuedHer purpose to its ending. "Now you knowThis shame, my three years' torture, let me go,Burn to the very ashes! You—I lost,Yet you—I loved!"
The thing I pity mostIn men is—action prompted by surprise Of anger: men? nay, bulls—whose onset liesAt instance of the firework and the goad!Once the foe prostrate,—trampling once bestowed,—Prompt follows placability, regret,Atonement. Trust me, blood-warmth never yetBetokened strong will! As no leap of pulsePricked me, that first time, so did none convulseMy veins at this occasion for resolve.Had that devolved which did not then devolveUpon me, I had done—what now to doWas quietly apparent.
"Tell me whoThe man was, crouching by the porphyry vase!"
"No, never! All was folly in his case,All guilt in mine. I tempted, he complied."
"And yet you loved me?"
"Loved you. Double-dyedIn folly and in guilt, I thought you gaveYour heart and soul away from me to slave At statecraft. Since my right in you seemed lost,I stung myself to teach you, to your cost,What you rejected could be prized beyondLife, heaven, by the first fool I threw a fondLook on, a fatal word to."
"And you stillLove me? Do I conjecture well or ill?"
"Conjecture—well or ill! I had three yearsTo spend in learning you."
"We both are peersIn knowledge, therefore: since three years are spentEre thus much of yourself I learn—who wentBack to the house, that day, and brought my mindTo bear upon your action, uncombinedMotive from motive, till the dross, deprivedOf every purer particle, survivedAt last in native simple hideousness,Utter contemptibility, nor lessNor more. Contemptibility—exemptHow could I, from its proper due—contempt?I have too much despised you to divert My life from its set course by help or hurtOf your all-despicable life—perturbThe calm I work in, by—men's mouths to curb,Which at such news were clamorous enough—Men's eyes to shut before my broidered stuffWith the huge hole there, my emblazoned wallBlank where a scutcheon hung,—by, worse than all,Each day's procession, my paraded lifeRobbed and impoverished through the wanting wife—Now that my life (which means—my work) was grownRiches indeed! Once, just this worth alone Seemed work to have, that profit gained therebyOf good and praise would—how rewardingly!—Fall at your feet,—a crown I hoped to cast Before your love, my love should crown at last.No love remaining to cast crown before,My love stopped work now: but contempt the moreImpelled me task as ever head and hand,Because the very fiends weave ropes of sandRather than taste pure hell in idleness.Therefore I kept my memory down by stressOf daily work I had no mind to stayFor the world's wonder at the wife away.Oh, it was easy all of it, believe,For I despised you! But your words retrieveImportantly the past. No hate assumedThe mask of love at any time! There gloomedA moment when love took hate's semblance, urgedBy causes you declare; but love's self purged Away a fancied wrong I did both loves—Yours and my own: by no hate's help, it proves,Purgation was attempted. Then, you riseHigh by how many a grade! I did despise—I do but hate you. Let hate's punishmentReplace contempt's! First step to which ascent—Write down your own words I re-utter you!'I loved my husband and I hated—whoHe was, I took up as my first chance, mereMud-ball to fling and make love foul with!' HereLies paper!"
"Would my blood for ink suffice!"
"It may: this minion from a land of spice, Silk, feather—every bird of jewelled breast—This poniard's beauty, ne'er so lightly prestAbove your heart there . . ."
"Thus?"
"It flows, I see. Dip there the point and write!"
"Dictate to me!Nay, I remember." And she wrote the words. I read them. Then—"Since love, in you, affordsLicence for hate, in me, to quench (I say)Contempt—why, hate itself has passed away In vengeance—foreign to contempt. DepartPeacefully to that death which Eastern artImbued this weapon with, if tales be true!Love will succeed to hate. I pardon you—Dead in our chamber!"
True as truth the tale.She died ere morning; then, I saw how paleHer cheek was ere it wore day's paint-disguise,And what a hollow darkened 'neath her eyes,Now that I used my own. She sleeps, as erstBeloved, in this your church: ay, yours!ImmersedIn thought so deeply, Father? Sad, perhaps? For whose sake, hers or mine or his who wraps—Still plain I seem to see!—about his headThe idle cloak,—about his heart (insteadOf cuirass) some fond hope he may eludeMy vengeance in the cloister's solitude?Hardly, I think! As little helped his browThe cloak then, Father—as your grate helps now!