Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe
Page 107
propounding futile inquiries about Madame Lalande to every male
acquaintance I met. By report she was known, I found, to all- to many
by sight -- but she had been in town only a few weeks, and there were
very few, therefore, who claimed her personal acquaintance. These
few, being still comparatively strangers, could not, or would not,
take the liberty of introducing me through the formality of a morning
call. While I stood thus in despair, conversing with a trio of
friends upon the all absorbing subject of my heart, it so happened
that the subject itself passed by.
"As I live, there she is!" cried one.
"Surprisingly beautiful!" exclaimed a second.
"An angel upon earth!" ejaculated a third.
I looked; and in an open carriage which approached us, passing slowly
down the street, sat the enchanting vision of the opera, accompanied
by the younger lady who had occupied a portion of her box.
"Her companion also wears remarkably well," said the one of my trio
who had spoken first.
"Astonishingly," said the second; "still quite a brilliant air, but
art will do wonders. Upon my word, she looks better than she did at
Paris five years ago. A beautiful woman still; -- don't you think so,
Froissart? -- Simpson, I mean."
"Still!" said I, "and why shouldn't she be? But compared with her
friend she is as a rush -- light to the evening star -- a glow --
worm to Antares.
"Ha! ha! ha! -- why, Simpson, you have an astonishing tact at making
discoveries -- original ones, I mean." And here we separated, while
one of the trio began humming a gay vaudeville, of which I caught
only the lines-
Ninon, Ninon, Ninon a bas-
A bas Ninon De L'Enclos!
During this little scene, however, one thing had served greatly to
console me, although it fed the passion by which I was consumed. As
the carriage of Madame Lalande rolled by our group, I had observed
that she recognized me; and more than this, she had blessed me, by
the most seraphic of all imaginable smiles, with no equivocal mark of
the recognition.
As for an introduction, I was obliged to abandon all hope of it until
such time as Talbot should think proper to return from the country.
In the meantime I perseveringly frequented every reputable place of
public amusement; and, at length, at the theatre, where I first saw
her, I had the supreme bliss of meeting her, and of exchanging
glances with her once again. This did not occur, however, until the
lapse of a fortnight. Every day, in the interim, I had inquired for
Talbot at his hotel, and every day had been thrown into a spasm of
wrath by the everlasting "Not come home yet" of his footman.
Upon the evening in question, therefore, I was in a condition little
short of madness. Madame Lalande, I had been told, was a Parisian --
had lately arrived from Paris -- might she not suddenly return? --
return before Talbot came back -- and might she not be thus lost to
me forever? The thought was too terrible to bear. Since my future
happiness was at issue, I resolved to act with a manly decision. In a
word, upon the breaking up of the play, I traced the lady to her
residence, noted the address, and the next morning sent her a full
and elaborate letter, in which I poured out my whole heart.
I spoke boldly, freely -- in a word, I spoke with passion. I
concealed nothing -- nothing even of my weakness. I alluded to the
romantic circumstances of our first meeting -- even to the glances
which had passed between us. I went so far as to say that I felt
assured of her love; while I offered this assurance, and my own
intensity of devotion, as two excuses for my otherwise unpardonable
conduct. As a third, I spoke of my fear that she might quit the city
before I could have the opportunity of a formal introduction. I
concluded the most wildly enthusiastic epistle ever penned, with a
frank declaration of my worldly circumstances -- of my affluence --
and with an offer of my heart and of my hand.
In an agony of expectation I awaited the reply. After what seemed the
lapse of a century it came.
Yes, actually came. Romantic as all this may appear, I really
received a letter from Madame Lalande -- the beautiful, the wealthy,
the idolized Madame Lalande. Her eyes -- her magnificent eyes, had
not belied her noble heart. Like a true Frenchwoman as she was she
had obeyed the frank dictates of her reason -- the generous impulses
of her nature -- despising the conventional pruderies of the world.
She had not scorned my proposals. She had not sheltered herself in
silence. She had not returned my letter unopened. She had even sent
me, in reply, one penned by her own exquisite fingers. It ran thus:
"Monsieur Simpson vill pardonne me for not compose de butefulle tong
of his contree so vell as might. It is only de late dat I am arrive,
and not yet ave do opportunite for to -- l'etudier.
"Vid dis apologie for the maniere, I vill now say dat, helas!-
Monsieur Simpson ave guess but de too true. Need I say de more?
Helas! am I not ready speak de too moshe?
"EUGENIE LALAND."
This noble -- spirited note I kissed a million times, and committed,
no doubt, on its account, a thousand other extravagances that have
now escaped my memory. Still Talbot would not return. Alas! could he
have formed even the vaguest idea of the suffering his absence had
occasioned his friend, would not his sympathizing nature have flown
immediately to my relief? Still, however, he came not. I wrote. He
replied. He was detained by urgent business -- but would shortly
return. He begged me not to be impatient -- to moderate my transports
-- to read soothing books -- to drink nothing stronger than Hock --
and to bring the consolations of philosophy to my aid. The fool! if
he could not come himself, why, in the name of every thing rational,
could he not have enclosed me a letter of presentation? I wrote him
again, entreating him to forward one forthwith. My letter was
returned by that footman, with the following endorsement in pencil.
The scoundrel had joined his master in the country:
"Left S- -- yesterday, for parts unknown -- did not say where -- or
when be back -- so thought best to return letter, knowing your
handwriting, and as how you is always, more or less, in a hurry.
"Yours sincerely,
"STUBBS."
After this, it is needless to say, that I devoted to the infernal
deities both master and valet: -- but there was little use in anger,
and no consolation at all in complaint.
But I had yet a resource left, in my constitutional audacity.
Hitherto it had served me well, and I now resolved to make it avail
me to the end. Besides, after the correspondence which had passed
between us, what act of mere informality could I commit, within
bounds, that ought to be regarded as indecorous by Madame Lalande?
Since the affair of the letter, I had been in the habit of watching
her house, and thus discovered that, about twilight, it was her
square overlooked by her windows. Here, amid the luxuriant and
shadowing groves, in the gray gloom of a sweet midsummer evening, I
observed my opportunity and accosted her.
The better to deceive the servant in attendance, I did this with the
assured air of an old and familiar acquaintance. With a presence of
mind truly Parisian, she took the cue at once, and, to greet me, held
out the most bewitchingly little of hands. The valet at once fell
into the rear, and now, with hearts full to overflowing, we
discoursed long and unreservedly of our love.
As Madame Lalande spoke English even less fluently than she wrote it,
our conversation was necessarily in French. In this sweet tongue, so
adapted to passion, I gave loose to the impetuous enthusiasm of my
nature, and, with all the eloquence I could command, besought her to
consent to an immediate marriage.
At this impatience she smiled. She urged the old story of decorum-
that bug-bear which deters so many from bliss until the opportunity
for bliss has forever gone by. I had most imprudently made it known
among my friends, she observed, that I desired her acquaintance- thus
that I did not possess it -- thus, again, there was no possibility of
concealing the date of our first knowledge of each other. And then
she adverted, with a blush, to the extreme recency of this date. To
wed immediately would be improper -- would be indecorous -- would be
outre. All this she said with a charming air of naivete which
enraptured while it grieved and convinced me. She went even so far as
to accuse me, laughingly, of rashness -- of imprudence. She bade me
remember that I really even know not who she was -- what were her
prospects, her connections, her standing in society. She begged me,
but with a sigh, to reconsider my proposal, and termed my love an
infatuation -- a will o' the wisp -- a fancy or fantasy of the moment
-- a baseless and unstable creation rather of the imagination than of
the heart. These things she uttered as the shadows of the sweet
twilight gathered darkly and more darkly around us -- and then, with
a gentle pressure of her fairy-like hand, overthrew, in a single
sweet instant, all the argumentative fabric she had reared.
I replied as best I could -- as only a true lover can. I spoke at
length, and perseveringly of my devotion, of my passion -- of her
exceeding beauty, and of my own enthusiastic admiration. In
conclusion, I dwelt, with a convincing energy, upon the perils that
encompass the course of love -- that course of true love that never
did run smooth -- and thus deduced the manifest danger of rendering
that course unnecessarily long.
This latter argument seemed finally to soften the rigor of her
determination. She relented; but there was yet an obstacle, she said,
which she felt assured I had not properly considered. This was a
delicate point -- for a woman to urge, especially so; in mentioning
it, she saw that she must make a sacrifice of her feelings; still,
for me, every sacrifice should be made. She alluded to the topic of
age. Was I aware -- was I fully aware of the discrepancy between us?
That the age of the husband, should surpass by a few years -- even by
fifteen or twenty -- the age of the wife, was regarded by the world
as admissible, and, indeed, as even proper, but she had always
entertained the belief that the years of the wife should never exceed
in number those of the husband. A discrepancy of this unnatural kind
gave rise, too frequently, alas! to a life of unhappiness. Now she
was aware that my own age did not exceed two and twenty; and I, on
the contrary, perhaps, was not aware that the years of my Eugenie
extended very considerably beyond that sum.
About all this there was a nobility of soul -- a dignity of candor-
which delighted -- which enchanted me -- which eternally riveted my
chains. I could scarcely restrain the excessive transport which
possessed me.
"My sweetest Eugenie," I cried, "what is all this about which you are
discoursing? Your years surpass in some measure my own. But what
then? The customs of the world are so many conventional follies. To
those who love as ourselves, in what respect differs a year from an
hour? I am twenty-two, you say, granted: indeed, you may as well call
me, at once, twenty-three. Now you yourself, my dearest Eugenie, can
have numbered no more than -- can have numbered no more than -- no
more than -- than -- than -- than-"
Here I paused for an instant, in the expectation that Madame Lalande
would interrupt me by supplying her true age. But a Frenchwoman is
seldom direct, and has always, by way of answer to an embarrassing
query, some little practical reply of her own. In the present
instance, Eugenie, who for a few moments past had seemed to be
searching for something in her bosom, at length let fall upon the
grass a miniature, which I immediately picked up and presented to
her.
"Keep it!" she said, with one of her most ravishing smiles. "Keep it
for my sake -- for the sake of her whom it too flatteringly
represents. Besides, upon the back of the trinket you may discover,
perhaps, the very information you seem to desire. It is now, to be
sure, growing rather dark -- but you can examine it at your leisure
in the morning. In the meantime, you shall be my escort home
to-night. My friends are about holding a little musical levee. I can
promise you, too, some good singing. We French are not nearly so
punctilious as you Americans, and I shall have no difficulty in
smuggling you in, in the character of an old acquaintance."
With this, she took my arm, and I attended her home. The mansion was
quite a fine one, and, I believe, furnished in good taste. Of this
latter point, however, I am scarcely qualified to judge; for it was
just dark as we arrived; and in American mansions of the better sort
lights seldom, during the heat of summer, make their appearance at
this, the most pleasant period of the day. In about an hour after my
arrival, to be sure, a single shaded solar lamp was lit in the
principal drawing-room; and this apartment, I could thus see, was
arranged with unusual good taste and even splendor; but two other
rooms of the suite, and in which the company chiefly assembled,
remained, during the whole evening, in a very agreeable shadow. This
is a well-conceived custom, giving the party at least a choice of
light or shade, and one which our friends over the water could not do
better than immediately adopt.
The evening thus spent was unquestionably the most delicious of my
life. Madame Lalande had not overrated the musical abilities of her
friends; and the singing I here heard I had never heard excelled in
any private circle out of Vienna. The instrumental performers were
many and of superior talents. The vocalists were chiefly ladies, and
no individual sang less than well. At length, upon a peremptory call
for "Madame Lalande," she
arose at once, without affectation or
demur, from the chaise longue upon which she had sat by my side, and,
accompanied by one or two gentlemen and her female friend of the
opera, repaired to the piano in the main drawing-room. I would have
escorted her myself, but felt that, under the circumstances of my
introduction to the house, I had better remain unobserved where I
was. I was thus deprived of the pleasure of seeing, although not of
hearing, her sing.
The impression she produced upon the company seemed electrical but
the effect upon myself was something even more. I know not how
adequately to describe it. It arose in part, no doubt, from the
sentiment of love with which I was imbued; but chiefly from my
conviction of the extreme sensibility of the singer. It is beyond the
reach of art to endow either air or recitative with more impassioned
expression than was hers. Her utterance of the romance in Otello --
the tone with which she gave the words "Sul mio sasso," in the
Capuletti -- is ringing in my memory yet. Her lower tones were
absolutely miraculous. Her voice embraced three complete octaves,
extending from the contralto D to the D upper soprano, and, though
sufficiently powerful to have filled the San Carlos, executed, with
the minutest precision, every difficulty of vocal
composition-ascending and descending scales, cadences, or fiorituri.
In the final of the Somnambula, she brought about a most remarkable
effect at the words:
Ah! non guinge uman pensiero
Al contento ond 'io son piena.
Here, in imitation of Malibran, she modified the original phrase of
Bellini, so as to let her voice descend to the tenor G, when, by a
rapid transition, she struck the G above the treble stave, springing
over an interval of two octaves.
Upon rising from the piano after these miracles of vocal execution,