Don Juan
Page 29
They wondered how Gulbeyaz too could be
So silly as to buy slaves who might share
(If that His Highness wearied of his bride)
Her throne and power and everything beside.
37
But what was strangest in this virgin crew,
Although her beauty was enough to vex,
After the first investigating view,
They all found out as few, or fewer, specks
In the fair form of their companion new
Than is the custom of the gentle sex
When they survey with Christian eyes or heathen
In a new face ‘the ugliest creature breathing’.
38
And yet they had their little jealousies
Like all the rest; but upon this occasion,
Whether there are such things as sympathies
Without our knowledge or our approbation,
Although they could not see through his disguise,
All felt a soft kind of concatenation
Like magnetism or devilism or what
You please – we will not quarrel about that.
39
But certain ’tis they all felt for their new
Companion something newer still, as ‘twere
A sentimental friendship through and through,
Extremely pure, which made them all concur
In wishing her their sister, save a few
Who wished they had a brother just like her,
Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia,
They would prefer to padishah or pasha.
40
Of those who had most genius for this sort
Of sentimental friendship, there were three,
Lolah, Katinka, and Dudù. In short
(To save description) fair as fair can be
Were they according to the best report,
Though differing in stature and degree
And clime and time and country and complexion.
They all alike admired their new connexion.
41
Lolah was dusk as India and as warm;
Katinka was a Georgian, white and red,
With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm
And feet so small they scarce seemed made to tread,
But rather skim the earth; while Dudù’s form
Looked more adapted to be put to bed,
Being somewhat large and languishing and lazy,
Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy.
42
A kind of sleepy Venus seemed Dudù,
Yet very fit to ‘murder sleep’ in those
Who gazed upon her cheek’s transcendent hue,
Her Attic forehead and her Phidian nose.
Few angles were there in her form ‘tis true;
Thinner she might have been and yet scarce lose,
Yet after all ‘twould puzzle to say where
It would not spoil some separate charm to pare.
43
She was not violently lively, but
Stole on your spirit like a May day breaking.
Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet half-shut,
They put beholders in a tender taking.
She looked (this simile’s quite new) just cut
From marble, like Pygmalion’s statue waking,
The mortal and the marble still at strife,
And timidly expanding into life.
44
Lolah demanded the new damsel’s name.
‘Juanna.’ Well, a pretty name enough.
Katinka asked her also whence she came.
From Spain.’ ‘But where is Spain?’ ‘Don’t ask such stuff,
Nor show your Georgian ignorance – for shame!’
Said Lolah with an accent rather rough
To poor Katinka. ‘Spain’s an island near
Morocco betwixt Egypt and Tangier.’
45
Dudù said nothing, but sat down beside
Juanna, playing with her veil or hair;
And looking at her steadfastly, she sighed,
As if she pitied her for being there,
A pretty stranger without friend or guide
And all abashed too at the general stare
Which welcomes hapless strangers in all places,
With kind remarks upon their mien and faces.
46
But here the Mother of the Maids drew near,
With, ‘Ladies, it is time to go to rest.
I’m puzzled what to do with you, my dear, ’
She added to Juanna, their new guest.
‘Your coming has been unexpected here,
And every couch is occupied. You had best
Partake of mine, but by tomorrow early
We will have all things settled for you fairly.’
47
Here Lolah interposed, ‘Mamma, you know
You don’t sleep soundly, and I cannot bear
That anybody should disturb you so.
I’ll take Juanna; we’re a slenderer pair
Than you would make the half of. Don’t say no,
And I of your young charge will take due care.’
But here Katinka interfered and said
She also had compassion and a bed.
48
‘Besides, I hate to sleep alone, ’ quoth she.
The Matron frowned, ‘Why so?’ ‘For fear of ghosts, ’
Replied Katinka. ‘I am sure I see
A phantom upon each of the four posts;
And then I have the worst dreams that can be
Of guebres, giaours and ginns and gouls in hosts.’
The Dame replied, ‘Between your dreams and you,
I fear Juanna’s dreams would be but few.
49
‘You, Lolah, must continue still to lie
Alone, for reasons which don’t matter. You
The same, Katinka, until by and by;
And I shall place Juanna with Dudù,
Who’s quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy,
And will not toss and chatter the night through.
What say you, child?’ Dudù said nothing, as
Her talents were of the more silent class.
50
But she rose up and kissed the matron’s brow
Between the eyes and Lolah on both cheeks,
Katinka too; and with a gentle bow
(Curtsies are neither used by Turks nor Greeks)
She took Juanna by the hand to show
Their place of rest, and left to both their piques,
The others pouting at the matron’s preference
Of Dudù, though they held their tongues from deference.
51
It was a spacious chamber (oda is
The Turkish title) and ranged round the wall
Were couches, toilets, and much more than this
I might describe, as I have seen it all;
But it suffices – little was amiss.
’Twas on the whole a nobly furnished hall
With all things ladies want, save one or two,
And even those were nearer than they knew.
52
Dudù, as has been said, was a sweet creature,
Not very dashing, but extremely winning
With the most regulated charms of feature,
Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning
Against proportion – the wild strokes of nature
Which they hit off at once in the beginning,
Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike
And pleasing or unpleasing still are like.
53
But she was a soft landscape of mild earth,
Where all was harmony and calm and quiet,
Luxuriant, budding, cheerful without mirth,
Which if not happiness is much more nigh it
Than are your mighty passions and so forth,
Which some call ‘the sublime’
. I wish they’d try it;
I’ve seen your stormy seas and stormy women
And pity lovers rather more than seamen.
54
But she was pensive more than melancholy,
And serious more than pensive, and serene
It may be more than either. Not unholy
Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been.
The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly
Unconscious, albeit turned of quick seventeen,
That she was fair or dark or short or tall;
She never thought about herself at all.
55
And therefore was she kind and gentle as
The Age of Gold. (When gold was yet unknown,
By which its nomenclature came to pass;
Thus most appropriately has been shown
Lucus a non lucendo, not what was,
But what was not, a sort of style that’s grown
Extremely common in this age, whose metal
The devil may decompose but never settle.
56
I think it may be of Corinthian brass,
Which was a mixture of all metals, but
The brazen uppermost.) Kind reader, pass
This long parenthesis (I could not shut
It sooner for the soul of me) and class
My faults even with your own, which meaneth, put
A kind construction upon them and me,
But that you won’t. Then don’t; I am not less free.
57
’Tis time we should return to plain narration,
And thus my narrative proceeds. Dudù
With every kindness short of ostentation
Showed Juan or Juanna through and through
This labyrinth of females, and each station
Described – what’s strange – in words extremely few.
I have but one simile, and that’s a blunder,
For wordless woman, which is silent thunder.
58
And next she gave her (I say her, because
The gender still was epicene, at least
In outward show, which is a saving clause)
An outline of the customs of the East,
With all their chaste integrity of laws,
By which the more a harem is increased,
The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties
Of any supernumerary beauties.
59
And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss.
Dudù was fond of kissing, which I’m sure
That nobody can ever take amiss,
Because ’tis pleasant, so that it be pure,
And between females means no more than this:
That they have nothing better near or newer.
‘Kiss’ rhymes to ‘bliss’ in fact as well as verse;
I wish it never led to something worse.
60
In perfect innocence she then unmade
Her toilet, which cost little, for she was
A child of Nature, carelessly arrayed.
If fond of a chance ogle at her glass,
’Twas like the fawn which in the lake displayed
Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass
When first she starts and then returns to peep,
Admiring this new native of the deep.
61
And one by one her articles of dress
Were laid aside, but not before she offered
Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess
Of modesty declined the assistance proffered,
Which past well off, as she could do no less,
Though by this politesse she rather suffered,
Pricking her fingers with those cursèd pins,
Which surely were invented for our sins,
62
Making a woman like a porcupine,
Not to be rashly touched. But still more dread,
Oh ye, whose fate it is, as once ’twas mine
In early youth to turn a lady’s maid.
I did my very boyish best to shine
In tricking her out for a masquerade.
The pins were placed sufficiently, but not
Stuck all exactly in the proper spot.
63
But these are foolish things to all the wise,
And I love wisdom more than she loves me.
My tendency is to philosophize
On most things from a tyrant to a tree,
But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies.
What are we and whence came we, what shall be
Our ultimate existence, what’s our present
Are questions answerless and yet incessant.
64
There was deep silence in the chamber. Dim
And distant from each other burned the lights,
And Slumber hovered o’er each lovely limb
Of the fair occupants. If there be sprites,
They should have walked there in their spriteliest trim,
By way of change from their sepulchral sites,
And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste
Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste.
65
Many and beautiful lay those around,
Like flowers of different hue and clime and root
In some exotic garden sometimes found,
With cost and care and warmth induced to shoot.
One with her auburn tresses lightly bound
And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath
And lips apart, which showed the pearls beneath.
66
One with her flushed cheek laid on her white arm,
And raven ringlets gathered in dark crowd
Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm
And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud
The moon breaks, half unveiled each further charm,
As slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,
Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night
All bashfully to struggle into light.
67
This is no bull, although it sounds so, for
’Twas night, but there were lamps, as hath been said.
A third’s all pallid aspect offered more
The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betrayed
Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore,
Belovèd and deplored, while slowly strayed
(As night dew on a cypress glittering tinges
The black bough) teardrops through her eyes’ dark fringes.
68
A fourth as marble, statue-like and still,
Lay in a breathless, hushed, and stony sleep,
White, cold and pure, as looks a frozen rill,
Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep,
Or Lot’s wife done in salt – or what you will.
My similes are gathered in a heap,
So pick and choose; perhaps you’ll be content
With a carved lady on a monument.
69
And lo! a fifth appears, and what is she?
A lady of ‘a certain age’, which means
Certainly agèd; what her years might be
I know not, never counting past their teens.
But there she slept, not quite so fair to see,
As ere that awful period intervenes
Which lays both men and women on the shelf,
To meditate upon their sins and self.
70
But all this time how slept or dreamed Dudù?
With strict inquiry I could ne’er discover
And scorn to add a syllable untrue.
But ere the middle watch was hardly over,
Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue,
And phantoms hovered, or might seem to hover
To those who like their company, about
The apartm
ent, on a sudden she screamed out,
71
And that so loudly that upstarted all
The oda in a general commotion.
Matrons and maids and those whom you may call
Neither came crowding like the waves of ocean,
One on the other throughout the whole hall,
All trembling, wondering, without the least notion,
More than I have myself, of what could make
The calm Dudù so turbulently wake.
72
But wide awake she was, and round her bed
With floating draperies and with flying hair,
With eager eyes and light but hurried tread,
And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare
And bright as any meteor ever bred
By the North Pole, they sought her cause of care,
For she seemed agitated, flushed and frightened,
Her eye dilated and her colour heightened.
73
But what is strange – and a strong proof how great
A blessing is sound sleep – Juanna lay
As fast as ever husband by his mate
In holy matrimony snores away.
Not all the clamour broke her happy state
Of slumber, ere they shook her – so they say
At least, and then she too unclosed her eyes
And yawned a good deal with discreet surprise.
74
And now commenced a strict investigation,
Which as all spoke at once and more than once,
Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration,
Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce
To answer in a very clear oration.
Dudù had never passed for wanting sense,
But being ‘no orator as Brutus is’,
Could not at first expound what was amiss.
75
At length she said that in a slumber sound
She dreamed a dream of walking in a wood –
A ‘wood obscure’ like that where Dante found
Himself in at the age when all grow good,
Life’s halfway house, where dames with virtue crowned
Run much less risk of lovers turning rude –
And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits
And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots;
76
And in the midst a golden apple grew,
A most prodigious pippin, but it hung
Rather too high and distant; that she threw
Her glances on it, and then longing, flung
Stones and whatever she could pick up to
Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung
To its own bough and dangled yet in sight,
But always at a most provoking height;
77
That on a sudden when she least had hope,
It fell down of its own accord before
Her feet; that her first movement was to stoop
And pick it up and bite it to the core;
That just as her young lip began to ope