Lucile [63]
presence her heart like a plague had infested. The whole spot with evil remembrance was haunted. Through the darkness there rose on the heart which it daunted, Each dreary detail of that desolate day, So full, and yet so incomplete. Far away The acacias were muttering, like mischievous elves, The whole story over again to themselves, Each word,--and each word was a wound! By degrees Her memory mingled its voice with the trees.
V.
Like the whisper Eve heard, when she paused by the root Of the sad tree of knowledge, and gazed on its fruit, To the heart of Matilda the trees seem'd to hiss Wild instructions, revealing man's last right, which is The right of reprisals. An image uncertain, And vague, dimly shaped itself forth on the curtain Of the darkness around her. It came, and it went; Through her senses a faint sense of peril it sent: It pass'd and repass'd her; it went and it came, Forever returning; forever the same; And forever more clearly defined; till her eyes In that outline obscure could at last recognize The man to whose image, the more and the more That her heart, now aroused from its calm sleep of yore, From her husband detach'd itself slowly, with pain. Her thoughts had return'd, and return'd to, again, As though by some secret indefinite law,-- The vigilant Frenchman--Eugene de Luvois!
VI.
A light sound behind her. She trembled. By some Night-witchcraft her vision a fact had become. On a sudden she felt, without turning to view, That a man was approaching behind her. She knew By the fluttering pulse which she could not restrain, And the quick-beating heart, that this man was Eugene. Her first instinct was flight; but she felt her slight foot As heavy as though to the soil it had root. And the Duke's voice retain'd her, like fear in a dream.
VII.
"Ah, lady! in life there are meetings which seem Like a fate. Dare I think like a sympathy too? Yet what else can I bless for this vision of you? Alone with my thoughts, on this starlighted lawn, By an instinct resistless, I felt myself drawn To revisit the memories left in the place Where so lately this evening I look'd in your face. And I find,--you, yourself,--my own dream! "Can there be In this world one thought common to you and to me? If so, . . . I, who deem'd but a moment ago My heart uncompanion'd, save only by woe, Should indeed be more bless'd than I dare to believe-- --Ah, but ONE word, but one from your lips to receive" . . . Interrupting him quickly, she murmur'd, "I sought, Here, a moment of solitude, silence, and thought, Which I needed." . . . "Lives solitude only for one? Must its charm by my presence so soon be undone? Ah, cannot two share it? What needs it for this?-- The same thought in both hearts,--be it sorrow or bliss; If my heart be the reflex of yours, lady--you, Are you not yet alone,--even though we be two?"
"For that," . . . said Matilda, . . . "needs were, you should read What I have in my heart" . . . "Think you, lady, indeed, You are yet of that age when a woman conceals In her heart so completely whatever she feels From the heart of the man whom it interests to know And find out what that feeling may be? Ah, not so, Lady Alfred? Forgive me that in it I look, But I read in your heart as I read in a book."
"Well, Duke! and what read you within it? unless It be, of a truth, a profound weariness, And some sadness?" "No doubt. To all facts there are laws. The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause."
VIII.
Matilda shrank back; for she suddenly found That a finger was press'd on the yet bleeding wound She, herself, had but that day perceived in her breast.
"You are sad," . . . said the Duke (and that finger yet press'd With a cruel persistence the wound it made bleed)-- "You are sad, Lady Alfred, because the first need Of a young and a beautiful woman is to be Beloved, and to love. You are sad: for you see That you are not beloved, as you deem'd
V.
Like the whisper Eve heard, when she paused by the root Of the sad tree of knowledge, and gazed on its fruit, To the heart of Matilda the trees seem'd to hiss Wild instructions, revealing man's last right, which is The right of reprisals. An image uncertain, And vague, dimly shaped itself forth on the curtain Of the darkness around her. It came, and it went; Through her senses a faint sense of peril it sent: It pass'd and repass'd her; it went and it came, Forever returning; forever the same; And forever more clearly defined; till her eyes In that outline obscure could at last recognize The man to whose image, the more and the more That her heart, now aroused from its calm sleep of yore, From her husband detach'd itself slowly, with pain. Her thoughts had return'd, and return'd to, again, As though by some secret indefinite law,-- The vigilant Frenchman--Eugene de Luvois!
VI.
A light sound behind her. She trembled. By some Night-witchcraft her vision a fact had become. On a sudden she felt, without turning to view, That a man was approaching behind her. She knew By the fluttering pulse which she could not restrain, And the quick-beating heart, that this man was Eugene. Her first instinct was flight; but she felt her slight foot As heavy as though to the soil it had root. And the Duke's voice retain'd her, like fear in a dream.
VII.
"Ah, lady! in life there are meetings which seem Like a fate. Dare I think like a sympathy too? Yet what else can I bless for this vision of you? Alone with my thoughts, on this starlighted lawn, By an instinct resistless, I felt myself drawn To revisit the memories left in the place Where so lately this evening I look'd in your face. And I find,--you, yourself,--my own dream! "Can there be In this world one thought common to you and to me? If so, . . . I, who deem'd but a moment ago My heart uncompanion'd, save only by woe, Should indeed be more bless'd than I dare to believe-- --Ah, but ONE word, but one from your lips to receive" . . . Interrupting him quickly, she murmur'd, "I sought, Here, a moment of solitude, silence, and thought, Which I needed." . . . "Lives solitude only for one? Must its charm by my presence so soon be undone? Ah, cannot two share it? What needs it for this?-- The same thought in both hearts,--be it sorrow or bliss; If my heart be the reflex of yours, lady--you, Are you not yet alone,--even though we be two?"
"For that," . . . said Matilda, . . . "needs were, you should read What I have in my heart" . . . "Think you, lady, indeed, You are yet of that age when a woman conceals In her heart so completely whatever she feels From the heart of the man whom it interests to know And find out what that feeling may be? Ah, not so, Lady Alfred? Forgive me that in it I look, But I read in your heart as I read in a book."
"Well, Duke! and what read you within it? unless It be, of a truth, a profound weariness, And some sadness?" "No doubt. To all facts there are laws. The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause."
VIII.
Matilda shrank back; for she suddenly found That a finger was press'd on the yet bleeding wound She, herself, had but that day perceived in her breast.
"You are sad," . . . said the Duke (and that finger yet press'd With a cruel persistence the wound it made bleed)-- "You are sad, Lady Alfred, because the first need Of a young and a beautiful woman is to be Beloved, and to love. You are sad: for you see That you are not beloved, as you deem'd