Ere it produced L’Ingegno’s piece of work —
So to become musician that his ear
Should judge, by its own tickling and turmoil,
Who made the Solemn Mass might well die deaf —
So cultivate a literary knack
That, by experience how it wiles the time,
He might imagine how a poet, rapt
In rhyming wholly, grew so poor at last
By carelessness about his banker’s-book,
That the Sieur Boileau (to provoke our smile)
Began abruptly, — when he paid devoir
To Louis Quatorze as he dined in state, —
“Sire, send a drop of broth to Pierre Corneille
Now dying and in want of sustenance!”
— I say, these half-hour playings at life’s toil,
Diversified by billiards, riding, sport —
With now and then a visitor — Dumas,
Hertford — to check no aspiration’s flight —
While Clara, like a diamond in the dark,
Should extract shining from what else were shade,
And multiply chance rays a million-fold, —
How could he doubt that all offence outside, —
Wrong to the towers, which, pillowed on the turf,
He thus shut eyes to, — were as good as gone?
So, down went Clairvaux-Priory to dust,
And up there rose, in lieu, yon structure gay
Above the Norman ghosts: and where the stretch
Of barren country girdled house about,
Behold the Park, the English preference!
Thus made undoubtedly a desert smile
Monsieur Léonce Miranda.
Ay, but she?
One should not so merge soul in soul, you think?
And I think: only, let us wait, nor want
Two things at once — her turn will come in time.
A cork-float danced upon the tide, we saw,
This morning, blinding-bright with briny dews:
There was no disengaging soaked from sound,
Earth-product from the sister-element.
But when we turn, the tide will turn, I think,
And bare on beach will lie exposed the buoy:
A very proper time to try, with foot
And even finger, which was buoying wave,
Which merely buoyant substance, — power to lift,
And power to be sent skyward passively.
Meanwhile, no separation of the pair!
III.
And so slipt pleasantly away five years
Of Paradisiac dream; till, as there flit
Premonitory symptoms, pricks of pain,
Because the dreamer has to start awake
And find disease dwelt active all the while
In head or stomach through his night-long sleep, —
So happened here disturbance to content.
Monsieur Léonce Miranda’s last of cares,
Ere he composed himself, had been to make
Provision that, while sleeping safe he lay,
Somebody else should, dragon-like, let fall
Never a lid, coiled round the apple-stem,
But watch the precious fruitage. Somebody
Kept shop, in short, played Paris-substitute.
Himself, shrewd, well-trained, early-exercised,
Could take in, at an eye-glance, luck or loss —
Know commerce throze, though lazily uplift
On elbow merely: leave his bed, forsooth?
Such active service was the substitute’s.
But one October morning, at first drop
Of appled gold, first summons to be grave
Because rough Autumn’s play turns earnest now,
Monsieur Léonce Miranda was required
In Paris to take counsel, face to face,
With Madame-mother: and be rated, too,
Roundly at certain items of expense
Whereat the government provisional,
The Paris substitute and shopkeeper,
Shook head, and talked of funds inadequate:
Oh, in the long run, — not if remedy
Occurred betimes! Else, — tap the generous bole
Too near the quick, — it withers to the root —
Leafy, prolific, golden apple-tree,
“Miranda,” sturdy in the Place Vendôme!
“What is this reckless life you lead?” began
Her greeting she whom most he feared and loved,
Madame Miranda. “Luxury, extravagance
Sardanapalus’ self might emulate, —
Did your good father’s money go for this?
Where are the fruits of education, where
The morals which at first distinguished you,
The faith which promised to adorn your age?
And why such wastefulness outbreaking now,
When heretofore you loved economy?
Explain this pulling-down and building-up
Poor Clairvaux, which your father bought because
Clairvaux he found it, and so left to you,
Not a gilt-gingerbread big baby-house!
True, we could somehow shake head and shut eye
To what was past prevention on our part —
This reprehensible illicit bond:
We, in a manner, winking, watched consort
Our modest well-conducted pious son
With Dalilah: we thought the smoking flax
Would smoulder soon away and end in snuff.
Is spark to strengthen, prove consuming fire?
No lawful family calls Clairvaux ‘home’ —
Why play that fool of Scripture whom the voice
Admonished ‘Whose to-night shall be those things
Provided for thy morning jollity?’
To take one specimen of pure caprice
Out of the heap conspicuous in the plan, —
Puzzle of change, I call it, — titled big
‘Clairvaux Restored:’ what means this Belvedere?
This Tower, stuck like a fool’s-cap on the roof —
Do you intend to soar to heaven from thence?
Tower, truly! Better had you planted turf —
More fitly would you dig yourself a hole
Beneath it for the final journey’s help!
O we poor parents — could we prophesy!”
Léonce was found affectionate enough
To man, to woman, child, bird, beast, alike;
But all affection, all one fire of heart
Flaming toward Madame-mother. Had she posed
The question plainly at the outset “Choose!
Cut clean in half your all-the-world of love,
The mother and the mistress: then resolve,
Take me or take her, throw away the one!” —
He might have made the choice and marred my tale.
But, much I apprehend, the problem put
Was “Keep both halves, yet do no detriment
To either! Prize each opposite in turn!”
Hence, while he prized at worth the Clairvaux-life
With all its tolerated naughtiness,
He, visiting in fancy Quai Rousseau,
Saw, cornered in the cosiest nook of all
That range of rooms through number Thirty-three,
The lady-mother bent o’er her bézique ;
While Monsieur Curé This, and Sister That —
Superior of no matter what good House —
Did duty for Duke Hertford and Dumas,
Nay — at his mother’s age — for Clara’s self.
At Quai Rousseau, things comfortable thus,
Why should poor Clairvaux prove so troublesome?
She played at cards, he built a Belvedere.
But here’s the difference: she had reached the Towers
And there took pastime: he was still on Turf —
Though fully minded that, when once he marched,
>
No sportive fancy should distract him more.
In brief, the man was angry with himself,
With her, with all the world and much beside:
And so the unseemly words were interchanged
Which crystallize what else evaporates,
And make mere misty petulance grow hard
And sharp inside each softness, heart and soul.
Monsieur Léonce Miranda flung at last
Out of doors, fever-flushed: and there the Seine
Rolled at his feet, obsequious remedy
For fever, in a cold Autumnal flow.
“Go and be rid of memory in a bath!”
Craftily whispered Who besets the ear
On such occasions.
Done as soon as dreamed.
Back shivers poor Léonce to bed — where else?
And there he lies a month ‘twixt life and death,
Raving. “Remorse of conscience!” friends opine.
“Sirs, it may partly prove so,” represents
Beaumont — (the family physician, he
Whom last year’s Commune murdered, do you mind?)
Beaumont reports “There is some active cause,
More than mere pungency of quarrel past, —
Cause that keeps adding other food to fire.
I hear the words and know the signs, I say!
Dear Madame, you have read the Book of Saints,
How Antony was tempted? As for me,
Poor heathen, ‘t is by pictures I am taught.
I say then, I see standing here, — between
Me and my patient, and that crucifix
You very properly would interpose, —
A certain woman-shape, one white appeal
‘Will you leave me, then, me, me, me for her?’
Since cold Seine could not quench this flame, since flare
Of fever does not redden it away, —
Be rational, indulgent, mute — should chance
Come to the rescue — Providence, I mean —
The while I blister and phlebotomize!”
Well, somehow rescued by whatever power,
At month’s end, back again conveyed himself
Monsieur Léonce Miranda, worn to rags,
Nay, tinder: stuff irreparably spoiled,
Though kindly hand should stitch and patch its best.
Clairvaux in Autumn is restorative.
A friend stitched on, patched ever. All the same,
Clairvaux looked greyer than a month ago.
Unglossed was shrubbery, unglorified
Each copse, so wealthy once; the garden-plots,
The orchard-walks showed dearth and dreariness.
The sea lay out at distance crammed by cloud
Into a leaden wedge; and sorrowful
Sulked field and pasture with persistent rain.
Nobody came so far from Paris now:
Friends did their duty by an invalid
Whose convalescence claimed entire repose.
Only a single ministrant was staunch
At quiet reparation of the stuff —
Monsieur Léonce Miranda, worn to rags:
But she was Clara and the world beside.
Another month, the year packed up his plagues
And sullenly departed, pedlar-like,
As apprehensive old-world ware might show
To disadvantage when the new-comer,
Merchant of novelties, young ‘Sixty-eight,
With brand-new bargains, whistled o’er the lea.
Things brightened somewhat o’er the Christmas hearth,
As Clara plied assiduously her task.
“Words are but words and wind. Why let the wind
Sing in your ear, bite, sounding, to your brain?
Old folk and young folk, still at odds, of course!
Age quarrels because spring puts forth a leaf
While winter has a mind that boughs stay bare;
Or rather — worse than quarrel — age descries
Propriety in preaching life to death.
‘Enjoy nor youth, nor Clairvaux, nor poor me?’
Dear Madame, you enjoy your age, ‘t is thought!
Your number Thirty-three on Quai Rousseau
Cost fifty times the price of Clairvaux, tipped
Even with our prodigious Belvedere;
You entertain the Curé, — we, Dumas:
We play charades, while you prefer bézique :
Do lead your own life and let ours alone!
Cross Old Year shall have done his worst, my friend!
Here comes gay New Year with a gift, no doubt.
Look up and let in light that longs to shine —
One flash of light, and where will darkness hide?
Your cold makes me too cold, love! Keep me warm!”
Whereat Léonce Miranda raised his head
From his two white thin hands, and forced a smile,
And spoke: “I do look up, and see your light
Above me! Let New Year contribute warmth —
I shall refuse no fuel that may blaze.”
Nor did he. Three days after, just a spark
From Paris, answered by a snap at Caen
Or whither reached the telegraphic wire:
“Quickly to Paris! On arrival, learn
Why you are wanted!” Curt and critical!
Off starts Léonce, one fear from head to foot;
Caen, Rouen, Paris, as the railway helps;
Then come the Quai and Number Thirty-three.
“What is the matter, concierge?” — a grimace!
He mounts the staircase, makes for the main seat
Of dreadful mystery which draws him there —
Bursts in upon a bedroom known too well —
There lies all left now of the mother once.
Tapers define the stretch of rigid white,
Nor want there ghastly velvets of the grave.
A blackness sits on either side at watch,
Sisters, good souls but frightful all the same,
Silent: a priest is spokesman for his corpse.
“Dead, through Léonce Miranda! stricken down
Without a minute’s warning, yesterday!
What did she say to you, and you to her,
Two months ago? This is the consequence!
The doctors have their name for the disease;
I, you, and God say — heart-break, nothing more!”
Monsieur Léonce Miranda, like a stone
Fell at the bedfoot and found respite so,
While the priest went to tell the company.
What follows you are free to disbelieve.
It may be true or false that this good priest
Had taken his instructions, — who shall blame? —
From quite another quarter than, perchance,
Monsieur Léonce Miranda might suppose
Would offer solace in such pressing need.
All he remembered of his kith and kin
Was they were worthily his substitutes
In commerce, did their work and drew their pay.
But they remembered, in addition, this —
They fairly might expect inheritance,
As nearest kin, called Family by law
And gospel both. Now, since Miranda’s life
Showed nothing like abatement of distaste
For conjugality, but preference
Continued and confirmed of that smooth chain
Which slips and leaves no knot behind, no heir —
Presumption was, the man, become mature,
Would at a calculable day discard
His old and outworn . . . what we blush to name,
And make society the just amends;
Scarce by a new attachment — Heaven forbid!
Still less by lawful marriage: that’s reserved
For those who make a proper choice at first —
Not try both courses and would grasp i
n age
The very treasure youth preferred to spurn.
No! putting decently such thought aside,
The penitent must rather give his powers
To such a reparation of the past
As, edifying kindred, makes them rich.
Now, how would it enrich prospectively
The Cousins, if he lavished such expense
On Clairvaux? — pretty as a toy, but then
As toy, so much productive and no more!
If all the outcome of the goldsmith’s shop
Went to gild Clairvaux, where remain the funds
For Cousinry to spread out lap and take?
This must be thought of and provided for.
I give it you as mere conjecture, mind!
To help explain the wholesome unannounced
Intelligence, the shock that startled guilt,
The scenic show, much yellow, black and white
By taper-shine, the nuns — portentous pair,
And, more than all, the priest’s admonishment —
“No flattery of self! You murdered her!
The grey lips, silent now, reprove by mine.
You wasted all your living, rioted
In harlotry — she warned and I repeat!
No warning had she, for she needed none:
If this should be the last yourself receive?”
Done for the best, no doubt, though clumsily, —
Such, and so startling, the reception here,
You hardly wonder if down fell at once
The tawdry tent, pictorial, musical,
Poetical, besprent with hearts and darts;
Its cobweb-work, betinseled stitchery,
Lay dust about our sleeper on the turf,
And showed the outer towers distinct and dread.
Senseless he fell, and long he lay, and much
Seemed salutary in his punishment
To planners and performers of the piece.
When pain ends, pardon prompt may operate.
There was a good attendance close at hand,
Waiting the issue in the great saloon,
Cousins with consolation and advice.
All things thus happily performed to point,
No wonder at success commensurate.
Once swooning stopped, once anguish subsequent
Raved out, — a sudden resolution chilled
His blood and changed his swimming eyes to stone,
As the poor fellow raised himself upright,
Collected strength, looked, once for all, his look,
Then, turning, put officious help aside
And passed from out the chamber. “For affairs!”
So he announced himself to the saloon:
“We owe a duty to the living too!” —
Monsieur Léonce Miranda tried to smile.
How did the hearts of Cousinry rejoice
At their stray sheep returning thus to fold,
As, with a dignity, precision, sense,
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 169