by John Crowley
‘Have you not heard? Buonaparte has escaped from Elba, Paris is taken!’
‘What, again? I suppose it will be an annual event—every summer, Paris is taken—well, I am sorry for it, I say.’
Said Ali to Susanna, ‘’Tis this third fellow on the table’s the troublesome one! Could he but be removed, the game were soon won.’
‘Is it not the essence of the game, that there he be?’
‘I care not,’ said Ali—‘I’d gladly knock him in a corner—so these two could go their way together.’ He chanced at that moment to raise his eyes, and found with a cold horror that Mr Enoch Whitehead—the very one he had spoke of, tho’ allegorically—had without his noticing come to stand not two yards’ length from them—whereupon Ali looked stricken upon Susanna.
‘He hears nothing,’ said Susanna softly to him, ‘or little enough. You need not fear.’ And with that she chalked her cue in unconcern. Ali, though, with profoundest shame, bethought him of his last Interview with his Father—which had taken place beside a billiards table!—and of that Lord’s words to him concerning Mr Whitehead—how he was deaf, and would not notice, so the Lady might do as she liked—as all the world likes, said he. Shame—and horror—but not repentance—for Mr Whitehead’s disability now entered Ali’s calculations, those calculations that the master Arithmetician, Venus’ child, is always about, as he must be if the world is to go round. They two play’d on, and spoke low, and the balls rolled—yet now they counted not the hazards.
More such collisions (and deflections the more painful) took place among those three social molecules, till Ali retreated altogether from Society to the solitude of his apartments, to read ancient Authors for wisdom—stern good sense he got there, too, till his eyelids droop’d upon the midnight—yet this is not a copy-book, and none of it shall be repeated here. On a certain gloomy morning the Post brought a letter, not from Susanna but from Miss Catherine Delaunay. It was, like the young lady herself, both precise and feeling—it adverted to their recent meetings, which seemed to have been more full of significance than Ali (whose thoughts were often elsewhere) had thought them to be. ‘I am not one who can show what I do not feel,’ quoth she. ‘Indeed I have learned to my cost that I do not always show what I do feel, and may leave those whom I would most wish to know my heart, in some puzzlement—which may cause them to turn away from me—when that would be to me a very great sorrow. I remember that in our conversation I dwelt upon that Ideal Man whose qualities I have long pondered—and so I have, and I believe my picture to be perfect in all respects—but I surely meant not to assert, that only he could win my favor who matched my Ideal in every detail—nor could, perhaps, any living man! Well—dear Friend—as I hope I may always call you—I shall say no more, lest I say that which I do not precisely mean—a Fault against which I struggle daily!’
As these gentle sentiments—which indeed did credit to their Author—pass’d beneath Ali’s view, and the many compliments too with which she closed, a thought began to form within him, or even to hatch, like an egg.
‘Why, then, should I not wed?’ thought he. ‘At a stroke I should decapitate all my troubles. I would be as a ship who comes into port—I might lower my sails at last, and drop anchor. This lady seems to think me worthy of her—if I read her right—and perhaps she is right to think so—and if not, still she thinks so, and if I do naught to disillusion her—she may go on thinking so. What dreams have haunted me may pass, if I lie in a bed with one who loves me. I might not walk in sleep—if I have. Such a one, if she be kind, might make the double, one!’
His valet disturbed these thoughts to announce that a young gentleman was below, come to see him, who would not give his name—should he be sent up? Ali asked, ‘What sort of young gentleman?’—‘A Soldier,’ reply’d the valet—‘A young officer, insofar as his coat could be glimpsed beneath a mantle.’ And Ali idly waved the fellow an assent—his mind already turning to his dilemma and its horns again. ‘And yet—and yet,’ thought he, and hugged himself, and crossed his legs, and stared into the fire, dissatisfied—‘And yet—’
At the opening of the door again, he rose, and turned to greet—a ghost! For before him stood the young Lord Corydon, as he once was—in his uniform—the mantle drawn up before his mouth, but his eyes sapphire and laughing—no ghost at all, but flesh, as Ali was himself!
The wild fancy faded in a moment—Ali having staggered, and righted himself with a chair’s back—the Soldier dropt the mantle, and Ali saw that it was not the dead lad redivivus but Susanna his sister. Her hair cut short in downy curls as his had been, her cheek as smooth as his had remained—she took a soldier’s stance, and saluted Ali with a soldierly salute, yet smiling a questioning, a hesitant smile.
‘Is it his—your dress?’ Ali asked her.
‘He never wore these—they were by mischance made too small.’ She approached—but a step. ‘Ali!’ said she. ‘I passed thro’ public streets—I turned not a head—your valet knew me not, but for what I seemed to be.’
‘Clothes make the man,’ Ali said—and with that the young Cornet laughed in delight, and rushed to embrace him—and he refused her not. Now she was not a demure wife in silks and petticoats—she had left that personage in her dressing-room, and stood here as another—bold—frank—arms akimbo now, after releasing him, and her eye even subduing his, as she would say How like you THAT—and now Ali too laughed, at this Transformation Scene.
‘Must you soon rejoin your Regiment, young Sir?’ Ali asked—‘Or may you stop awhile?’
‘I am on furlough,’ was Susanna’s rejoinder, ‘and I may do just as I like, as any Officer may.’
It need not be said how they occupied themselves that day, except that it was not as Soldiers—no smoking of Cheroots, or roaring at tales, or making tuns of themselves into which cavalry-punch is poured—not those pleasures. I shall relate, that Ali wept, remembering Corydon, his Friend—wept, at last, as he had not in his rage and horror before done!—And Susanna wept too—wept for the loss of what she had surely brought here to sacrifice—and yet might we not shed real tears at parting with our Honour, however coldly we may have contrived to be done with it? And when they had wept, they laughed again—as the three of them had so oft, when together they had wandered the green ways, and spoke wonderful nonsense, only for the delight of seeing the other two smile—or throw back their heads in laughter. How easy and common is Love—how quick are its delights achieved and done—how rare and lasting is lovers’ laughter, the greater gift of the ungenerous Gods!
But now the evening is fallen—the young Soldier will be missed, if longer she linger—and yet another candle burns away before she will pull on her buff breetches again, and do up the frogs of her red coat—and still, even as her person is part-way out the door, still her fingers are extended to keep touch with his—and her gaze, last of all to be broken!
Thus did Ali and Susanna embark upon that unfortunate course of conduct so common in Society, and in Novels too—a course that in its perfect form is mark’d by being at once invisible and patent—for no-one would see evil, but all are disappointed if hearing of it be kept from them—and for that to be so, those who delight in speaking it are everywhere welcome, tho’ they may be disparaged in absentia. If I did not so cherish these two, and wish for them all that they desired so much (nay, it must be said, so blindly now and then), I would face the telling of it all with some ennui, and might beg leave to dispense with the account—how they believed themselves secure—yet were prattled of—they two alone being ignorant of how well known were their comings and goings—just as the Husband was the only one ignorant of the comings and goings themselves. The Honourable Peter Piper indeed was loyal to his friend—he dismissed this loose and invidious talk, descanting on the beautiful friendship of Ali and the deceased Lord Corydon—Mrs Whitehead’s desire to continue an Intercourse through which her Brother might be remembered—their mutual passion for the Stage—&c., &c.—all of which had of course an effect
opposite to that intended.
In that Grand Chain of the dance called the Lancers—which is what Society in its amours most resembles, as the best men and the boldest women are pass’d along in a gallop from partner to partner, sometimes to find themselves at length back in the embrace of their dizzied Spouses, who have spent the dance elsewhere, and have only just come round again—it is of the greatest importance to take nothing as permanent, and to be ready upon the instant to part hands, and spin smiling away. Yet it has been noted that Ali was one given to Fixation, rather than to Variety—he saw his course as Fate’s election, and his heart was One. Where another actor on that bright stage, seeing how near to Disaster he draws, and how the rubber of Society has stretch’d as far as it may go before snapping, might indite a pretty letter, and then go abroad for a while—or agree with the object of his attention that after all the best is past, and only the Dregs remain, which might best be poured out, and an end made—or pack off his unsuitable Paramour with a gift of nicely calculated value—or any of these and others, which are all as though written in a book, a book all have read—Ali could not—he would not! Therefore, if the affaire could not be broken, then all else must be.
‘Why may we not flee together? What holds us here?’ So says he to Susanna, as upon a Sopha in the Library of a great house, to which they have both contrived to be invited, they sit alone to study an album, of Pictures they hardly see, showing Cities they have not visited. ‘What matters it where we are, so that we are together? What matters Opinion, or what others may think? I tell you that there is nothing that holds me in this land—nothing but yourself, Susanna, and the little part of its earth, where he lies buried—nothing more!’
Yet at this Susanna has lifted her eyes, and now presses her hand against his lips, and stops his words even as they issue. ‘Ali,’ said she, ‘O my dearest Ali!—But consider what you say—true it may be that nothing holds you here—but I—my heart is divided, my love owed to more than one!’
‘Speak not of him,’ Ali cries. ‘He forced your hand—bought you as a slave!’
‘Not him,’ quoth Susanna. ‘I mean my babes—my son, my daughter. From them I cannot part—I cannot.’
Long Ali gazed in that hour upon her face, in which Truth shone unmistakeably, and Pity too. He stood then, and went away, and faced the fire. ‘I knew naught of a mother,’ said he. ‘Naught of that solicitude, that constancy—well. I am told it is of all things the most precious, that a man proceeds through life as though wounded, who has not known it. Yet I cannot say this of my own knowledge. I well believe that those babes of yours will forever profit by your love.’
‘Be not so cold.’
‘Not cold! Never cold!’ He turned again to her, and knelt by her where she sat. ‘Think, though, what now I must do. No—no—take not my hand! If we cannot flee, we must part, Susanna, before you are dishonoured—put away, perhaps—and perhaps lose those babes—and gain nothing by it. Do you not see?’
‘You have killed me to say so. I could not say it.’
‘No—not killed—not you. That cannot be. ’Tis not so. You shall live. You must—or this is all for naught.’ He spoke it with certainty—as a man may who knows the ship upon whose broken deck he stands, is sinking—yet watches the ship’s boat pull away, bearing all he cares for—’tis enough! For Love has her claims, and they are just, and great—yet she may not claim all, not to Ruin—so think the Wise, who are not to be confounded with the timid—but are rather those who know how little may be the mede of happiness in the normal course of any life—ask for all, and we are in the way of losing all.
‘What then—what then?’ said she.
‘I shall go away,’ said he—‘I cannot be in the same City—no matter how large—I shall go away, and learn how I may live, though without you.’
‘Where will you go? Surely not forever—say not so!’
‘It matters not,’ said Ali. ‘Perhaps I shall embark on a long journey. I know not. I ask but this—Susanna! Avoid those places where by chance we may meet!’
‘What! Must we give up all friendship—all kindness? Do not say so—I will not permit it.’
‘No—that we shall not—if you desire it—and I can bear it—you shall have my friendship—and all else of mine you may want—always!’
So they resolved—so they vowed—so they abjured—But oh! Is there any spur to our tender feelings that is as sharp as Renunciation? We say we must part—we gaze upon each other—we feel every reason why we should not part, thrown as it were into relief, even by our resolution—we see the drear and empty desert of our Future, lived alone, for surely no other can ever—no, no, never! And we cling again, to comfort one another, in close embrace, whispering we must part—and part not! How long Ali and Susanna thus hung upon the wave’s lip in trembling hesitation, not either could afterward say—and they would still be there, did they not hear the approach of boots, and the Library door tried—and they ‘started like guilty things’, and were sundered!
WHAT EVENTS MAY befall one who is becalmed—who is removed from Society—who bestirs himself but to dress, and to eat, and that not frequently—whose evenings in that Company which now and then draws him from his couch, is given to the consumption of waters of Lethe in such amounts that it is just as if the night had not been spent at all (save for the head-ache, and the soda-water, and the crapula, upon the morrow, whose very source is forgot)—I say, such events may perhaps be recorded—but were best not.
Upon a certain day no different from the others before, Ali chanced to see, from some distance, Miss Delaunay enter a coach—with as much aplomb as the thing may be done, and yet perforce granting the vision of a very little foot, and a slim ankle, to the passersby. He walked on, deep in thought—if thought it may be called—and when he regained his own quarters, he sat down and wrote the letter whose lines had run all that afternoon through his brain:
MY DEAREST CATHERINE—I know not by what rights I may address you in this manner—if I offend I am heartily sorry for it, and at your word I shall cease any attentions you may find oppressive to yourself—believe me that to cause you pain would be the greatest pain to myself I can presently imagine—and yet I will risk all to say to you, my very dearest Friend, that your spirit and your kindness to me have so penetrated my soul that I find I may not give them up—I would find Life so much the less tolerable without them, and the prospect of being forever deprived of them so unwelcome, that all I am able to do (indeed I desire to do no other) is to present to you my Petition, that you accept me for your own, to serve and to love you despite every handicap under which I may labour in so doing, and my great inadequacies therein. I am well aware, that I am not one whose History or Forebears are such as would win the hand of one like yourself, if they alone were to be counted in my favour; and there are further flaws I have not owned to but shall, should you entertain in the slightest degree this suit of mine——
——Here Ali paused, and lifted his pen from the foolscap, as though stopping his mouth before too much was said. For a crowd of misadventures bustled then into his brain, that he might enumerate, if he would, in a bill of particulars—but he did not so. Instead he hurried to his end—beginning to feel the wind die down that had carried his bark so fast and far, and eager to reach the harbour of a last Compliment and a Subscription before he should find himself becalmed. When he had done (and his conclusions may easily be imagined, they were not so rare nor so new as to be inconceivable), and the letter was blotted and doubled, he dropt it upon the table, and sat to look upon it—did not move to carry it farther—did not move at all. At about midnight—when a tomcat, in the mews behind, announced the hour, a-calling to his love—he leapt up, put his first letter into the Fire, and wrote another, to a different recipient:
I was wrong to think I could live without you—I shall not live, if you instruct me not to live—I shall take that as your intention, if you will not meet with me and prove to me that you do not wish it—If you will meet me
, I care not for the cost—do not you either. If you will not meet me—where and when, you may decide, so it be ours alone—then you shall never see me more.—ALI
This missive, without Salutation, he sent immediately to the female Accomplice whose good offices he had often before employed—a woman to whom, be it said, he gave no more thought than he might to the Post-men who carry all the rest of the world’s missives so reliably, and anonymously. He then proceeded to wait—which to certain natures is galling beyond expression—the minutes fall like the water-drops in that Chinese torture, which we commonly employ for comparison, though I think none of us have undergone it—I have not—indeed I should try to imagine it, by thinking ‘Perhaps it is like waiting for a Letter that may mean Life, or Death, and listening to the clock tick’—but then again it may be quite unlike. No answer came—and when even Hope could see that none would come, then he found himself no longer able to bear his rooms—the streets around—the Town, the Ton, the Monde—and bethought him where he might go to hide himself, perhaps for ever—a wigwam among the red Indians, a kraal among the Hottentot! There came to him just at that moment, in the same Post that brought no answer from Susanna, a letter from Lieutenant Upward, that very Military Surgeon who once upon a time—in another land, another Planet seemed it then to Ali—had befriended him. The Military Surgeon had had excellent luck, it appeared, in the common matters that so bedeviled Ali—for he was married, to a good woman, and a fruitful one—he heartily recommended the wedded state to Ali, as all do who find themselves happy in that Republic, and would expand its borders till it encompass all Mankind, and Womankind. His House upon the Welsh sea-coast was blest with little Upwards, lilting in Welsh; and he wished Ali to come to him, to rejoice in his happiness. Ali wrote by return that he would be delighted to see him, and all appurtenances pertaining, and as soon as he might he would depart the City—whether to return ever, he knew not—though this he said only to that bruised and panting organ within him, his Heart. At any rate he made solemn oath—tho’ he knew not to what Gods, or Powers—that he would remain forever far off from anywhere Susanna Whitehead, or her husband, or her children, or her ox, or her ass, or anything that was hers, might be met with in any wise whatsoever, until that Heart had grown so strong again as to grant assent to his returning, and ceased to swell hotly in grief even at the thought.