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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 07, May, 1858
Roger was not blind to this change; he did not see who had cast the first veil of darkness over the pure light that had shone so freely for him; and while he silently regretted what he deemed the desecration of the spotless image he had loved, nothing whispered that it was his own Shadow brooding above the true heart that had toiled so faithfully and long for his enlightening.
The most painful result of all to Violet was the new coldness of Roger's manner to her. Shadowed as he was, he did not perceive this change in himself; but Violet, in the silence of night, or in the solitary hours she spent in wood and field beside her growing Shadow, felt it with unmingled pain. Vainly did the Spirit of Light within her counsel her to persevere, looking only at the end she would achieve; subtler and more penetrative to her untuned ear were the words of the fiend at her side.
One day she had brooded long and drearily on the carelessness and coldness of her dear, her disregardful friend, and in her worn and weary soul revolved whatever sweetness of the past had now fled, and what pangs of love repulsed and devotion scorned lay before her in the miserable future; and as she held her throbbing head upon her hands, wasted with fiery pulses, it seemed to her as if the Shadow, inclining to her ear, whispered, almost audibly,—
"Think what you have given this man!—your hope and peace; the breath of your life and the beatings of your heart. All your soul is lavished on him, and see how he repays you!"
The weak and disheartened girl shivered; the time was past when she could have despised the voice of this dread companion, when the Shadow dared not have spoken thus; and with bitter tears swelling into her eyes she and the Shadow walked forth together to a haunt on the mountain-side where she had been used to meet Roger.
It was a bare rock, just below the summit of a peak crowned with a few old cedars, from whose laborious growth of dull, dark foliage long streamers of gray moss waved in the wind. There were scattered crags about their roots, against whose lichen-covered sides the autumn sun shone fruitlessly; and from the leafless forests in the deep valley beneath rose a whispering sound, as if they shuddered, and were stirred by some foreboding horror.
Violet made her way to this height as eagerly as her lessened strength and panting heart allowed; but as she lifted her eyes from the narrow path she had tracked upward, they rested on the last face she wished to meet, the gloomy visage of Roger Pierce. The girl hesitated, and would have drawn back, but Roger bade her come near.
"There is no need of your going, Violet," said he; and she crouched quietly on the rock at his feet, silently, but with fixed eyes, regarding the double nature before her, the Man and his Shadow.
Still upward from the valley crept that low shiver of dread; the pale sun shed its listless light on the gray rocks and dusky cedars; the silent unexpectant earth seemed to have paused; all things were wrapt in vague awe and dim apprehension; some inexpressible fatality seemed to oppress life and breath.
A sudden impulse of escape, desperate in its strength, possessed Violet; perhaps to name that Thing that clung so closely to Roger might shake its power,—and with a trembling, vibrating voice she spoke:—
"Roger,—you are thinking of the Shadow?"
He did not move, nor at once speak; no new expression stirred his dark face; at length he answered, in a voice that seemed to come from some lips far away, in an unechoing distance:—
"The Shadow?—Yes. I see it in all faces. It lies on the valley yonder; in the air; on every mortal brow and lip it gathers deeper yet. Violet, you, too, share the Shadow!"
Slowly, as if his words froze her, Violet rose and turned toward him; a light shone from her eyes that melted their dark depths into the radiance of high noon; and she spoke with a thrilled, yet unfaltering tone:—
"Yes, I share it, it is true. I feel and see the gloom; but if the Shadow haunts me, Roger Pierce, ask your own heart who cast it there! When we were first friends, I knew nothing of that darkness. I tried with all purity and compassion to draw you upward into light; and for reward, you have wrapped your own blackness round me, and hate your own doing. My work is over,—is in vain! It remains only that I free myself from this Shadow, and leave you to the mercy of a Power with whom no such Presence can cope,—in whom no darkness nor shadow may abide."
She turned to leave him with these words, but cast back a look of such love and tender pity, that she seemed to Roger the very Spirit that had borne Sunny away.
Bewildered and pained to the heart, he groped his way homeward, and night lapsed into morning, and returned and went again more than once, ere sleep returned to his eyes.
Violet kept no vigils; she wept herself asleep as a child against its mother's bosom, and loving eyes guarded that childlike rest. But Roger's waking was haunted with remorse and fearful expectation; and as days crept by, and Memory, like one who fastens the galley-slave to his oar, still pressed on his thoughts the constant patience, toil, and affection of Violet Channing, he felt how truly she had spoken of him, and from his soul abhorred the Shadow of his life.
Here he vanishes. Whether with successful conflict he fought with the evil and prevailed, and showed himself a man,—or whether the Thing renewed its dominion, and he drew to himself another nature, not for the good power of its pure contact, but for the further increase of that darkness, and the blinding of another soul, is never yet to be known.
Of Violet Channing he saw no more; with her his sole earthly redemption had fled; she went her way, free henceforward from the Shadow, and guarded in the arms of the shining Spirit.
The wind yet howls and dashes without; the rain, rushing in gusts on roof and casement, keeps no time nor tune; the fire is dead in the ashes; the red rose, in the lessening light, turns gray;—but far away to the south the cloud begins to scatter; faint amber steals along the crest of the distant hills; after all evils, hope remains,—even for a Man with two Shadows. Let us, perhaps his kindred after the spirit, not despair.
AMOURS DE VOYAGE
IV
I.—Claude to Eustace,—from Florence
Gone from Florence; indeed; and that is truly provoking;— Gone to Milan, it seems; then I go also to Milan. Five days now departed; but they can travel but slowly;— I quicker far; and I know, as it happens, the house they will go to.— Why, what else should I do? Stay here and look at the pictures, Statues, and churches? Alack, I am sick of the statues and pictures!— No, to Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Lodi, and Milan, Off go we to-night,—and the Venus go to the Devil!II.—Claude to Eustace,—from Bellaggio
Gone to Como, they said; and I have posted to Como. There was a letter left, but the cameriere had lost it. Could it have been for me? They came, however, to Como, And from Como went by the boat,—perhaps to the Splügen,— Or to the Stelvio, say, and the Tyrol; also it might be By Porlezza across to Lugano, and so to the Simplon Possibly, or the St. Gothard, or possibly, too, to Baveno, Orta, Turin, and elsewhere. Indeed, I am greatly bewildered.III.—Claude to Eustace,—from Bellaggio
I have been up the Splügen, and on the Stelvio also: Neither of these can I find they have followed; in no one inn, and This would be odd, have they written their names. I have been to Porlezza. There they have not been seen, and therefore not at Lugano. What shall I do? Go on through the Tyrol, Switzerland, Deutschland, Seeking, an inverse Saul, a kingdom, to find only asses? There is a tide, at least in the love affairs of mortals, Which, when taken at flood, leads on to the happiest fortune,— Leads to the marriage-morn and the orange-flowers and the altar, And the long lawful line of crowned joys to crowned joys succeeding.— Ah, it has ebbed with me! Ye gods, and when it was flowing, Pitiful fool that I was, to stand fiddle-faddling in that way!IV.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—from Bellaggio
I have returned and found their names in the book at Como. Certain it is I was right, and yet I am also in error. Added in feminine hand, I read, By the boat to Bellaggio.— So to Bellaggio again, with the words of her writing, to aid me. Yet at Bellaggio I find no trace, no sort of remembrance. So I am here, and wait, and know every hour will remove them.V.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—from Belaggio
I have but one chance left,—and that is, going to Florence. But it is cruel to turn. The mountains seem to demand me,— Peak and valley from far to beckon and motion me onward. Somewhere amid their folds she passes whom fain I would follow; Somewhere among those heights she haply calls me to seek her. Ah, could I hear her call! could I catch the glimpse of her raiment! Turn, however, I must, though it seem I turn to desert her; For the sense of the thing is simply to hurry to Florence, Where the certainty yet may be learnt, I suppose, from the Ropers.VI.—MARY TREVELLYN, from Lucerne, TO MISS ROPER, at Florence
Dear Miss Roper,—By this you are safely away, we are hoping, Many a league from Rome; ere long we trust we shall see you. How have you travelled? I wonder;—was Mr. Claude your companion? As for ourselves, we went from Como straight to Lugano; So by the Mount St. Gothard;—we meant to go by Porlezza, Taking the steamer, and stopping, as you had advised, at Bellaggio; Two or three days or more; but this was suddenly altered, After we left the hotel, on the very way to the steamer. So we have seen, I fear, not one of the lakes in perfection. Well, he is not come; and now, I suppose, he will not come. What will you think, meantime?—and yet I must really confess it;— What will you say? I wrote him a note. We left in a hurry, Went from Milan to Como three days before we expected. But I thought, if he came all the way to Milan, he really Ought not to be disappointed; and so I wrote three lines to Say I had heard he was coming, desirous of joining our party;— If so, then I said, we had started for Como, and meant to Cross the St. Gothard, and stay, we believed, at Lucerne, for the summer. Was it wrong? and why, if it was, has it failed to bring him? Did he not think it worth while to come to Milan? He knew (you Told him) the house we should go to. Or may it, perhaps, have miscarried? Any way, now, I repent, and am heartily vexed that I wrote it. There is a home on the shore of the Alpine sea, that upswelling High up the mountain-sides spreads in the hollow between; Wilderness, mountain, and snow from the land of the olive conceal it; Under Pilatus's hill low by its river it lies: Italy, utter one word, and the olive and vine will allure not,— Wilderness, forest, and snow will not the passage impede; Italy, unto thy cities receding, the clue to recover, Hither, recovered the clue, shall not the traveller haste?V
I.—MARY TREVELLYN, at Lucerne, TO MISS ROPER, at Florence
So you are really free, and living in quiet at Florence; That is delightful news;—you travelled slowly and safely; Mr. Claude got you out; took rooms at Florence before you; Wrote from Milan to say so; had left directly for Milan, Hoping to find us soon;—if he could, he would, you are certain.— Dear Miss Roper, your letter has made me exceedingly happy. You are quite sure, you say, he asked you about our intentions; You had not heard of Lucerne as yet, but told him of Como.— Well, perhaps he will come;—however, I will not expect it. Though you say you are sure,—if he can, he will, you are certain. O my dear, many thanks from your ever affectionate Mary.II.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
Florence.
Action will furnish belief,—but will that belief be the true one? This is the point, you know. However, it doesn't much matter What one wants, I suppose, is to predetermine the action, So as to make it entail, not a chance-belief, but the true one. Out of the question, you say, if a thing isn't wrong, we may do it. Ah! but this wrong, you see;—but I do not know that it matters. Eustace, the Ropers are gone, and no one can tell me about them.Pisa.
Pisa, they say they think; and so I follow to Pisa, Hither and thither inquiring. I weary of making inquiries; I am ashamed, I declare, of asking people about it.— Who are your friends? You said you had friends who would certainly know them.Florence.
But it is idle, moping, and thinking, and trying to fix her Image more and more in, to write the old perfect inscription Over and over again upon every page of remembrance. I have settled to stay at Florence to wait for your answer. Who are your friends? Write quickly and tell me. I wait for your answer.III.—MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER, at Lucca Baths
You are at Lucca Baths, you tell me, to stay for the summer; Florence was quite too hot; you can't move further at present. Will you not come, do you think, before the summer is over? Mr. C. got you out with very considerable trouble; And he was useful and kind, and seemed so happy to serve you; Didn't stay with you long, but talked very openly to you; Made you almost his confessor, without appearing to know it,— What about?—and you say you didn't need his confessions. O my dear Miss Roper, I dare not trust what you tell me! Will he come, do you think? I am really so sorry for him! They didn't give him my letter at Milan, I feel pretty certain. You had told him Bellaggio. We didn't go to Bellaggio; So he would miss our track, and perhaps never come to Lugano, Where we were written in full, To Lucerne, across the St. Gothard. But he could write to you;—you would tell him where you were going.IV.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
Let me, then, bear to forget her. I will not cling to her falsely; Nothing factitious or forced shall impair the old happy relation. I will let myself go, forget, not try to remember; I will walk on my way, accept the chances that meet me, Freely encounter the world, imbibe these alien airs, and Never ask if new feelings and thoughts are of her or of others. Is she not changing, herself?—the old image would only delude me. I will be bold, too, and change,—if it must be. Yet if in all things, Yet if I do but aspire evermore to the Absolute only, I shall be doing, I think, somehow, what she will be doing;— I shall be thine, O my child, some way, though I know not in what way. Let me submit to forget her; I must; I already forget her.V.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
Utterly vain is, alas, this attempt at the Absolute,—wholly! I, who believed not in her, because I would fain believe nothing, Have to believe as I may, with a wilful, unmeaning acceptance. I, who refused to enfasten the roots of my floating existence In the rich earth, cling now to the hard, naked rock that is left me.— Ah! she was worthy, Eustace,—and that, indeed, is my comfort,— Worthy a nobler heart than a fool such as I could have given.VI.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
Yes, it relieves me to write, though I do not send; and the chance that Takes may destroy my fragments. But as men pray, without asking Whether One really exist to hear or do anything for them,— Simply impelled by the need of the moment to turn to a Being In a conception of whom there is freedom from all limitation,— So in your image I turn to an ens rationis of friendship. Even to write in your name I know not to whom nor in what wise.VII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
There was a time, methought it was but lately departed, When, if a thing was denied me, I felt I was bound to attempt it; Choice alone should take, and choice alone should surrender. There was a time, indeed, when I had not retired thus early, Languidly thus, from pursuit of a purpose I once had adopted. But it is over, all that! I have slunk from the perilous field in Whose wild struggle of forces the prizes of life are contested. It is over, all that! I am a coward, and know it. Courage in me could be only factitious, unnatural, useless.VIII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
Rome is fallen, I hear, the gallant Medici taken, Noble Manara slain, and Garibaldi has lost il Moro;— Rome is fallen; and fallen, or falling, heroical Venice. I, meanwhile, for the loss of a single small chit of a girl, sit Moping and mourning here,—for her, and myself much smaller. Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle, Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them? Are they upborne from the field on the slumberous pinions of angels Unto a far-off home, where the weary rest from their labor, And the deep wounds are healed, and the bitter and burning moisture Wiped from the generous eyes? or do they linger, unhappy, Pining, and haunting the grave of their by-gone hope and endeavor? All declamation, alas! though I talk, I care not for Rome, nor Italy; feebly and faintly, and but with the lips, can lament the Wreck of the Lombard youth and the victory of the oppressor. Whither depart the brave?—God knows; I certainly do not.IX.—MARY TREVELLYN TO MISS ROPER
He has not come as yet; and now I must not expect it. You have written, you say, to friends at Florence, to see him, If he perhaps should return;—but that is surely unlikely. Has he not written to you?—he did not know your direction. Oh, how strange never once to have told him where you were going! Yet if he only wrote to Florence, that would have reached you. If what you say he said was true, why has he not done so? Is he gone back to Rome, do you think, to his Vatican marbles?— O my dear Miss Roper, forgive me! do not be angry!— You have written to Florence;—your friends would certainly find him. Might you not write to him?—but yet it is so little likely! I shall expect nothing more.—Ever yours, your affectionate Mary.X.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
I cannot stay at Florence, not even to wait for a letter. Galleries only oppress me. Remembrance of hope I had cherished (Almost more than as hope, when I passed through Florence the first time) Lies like a sword in my soul. I am more a coward than ever, Chicken-hearted, past thought. The caffes and waiters distress me. All is unkind, and, alas, I am ready for any one's kindness. Oh, I knew it of old, and knew it, I thought, to perfection, If there is any one thing in the world to preclude all kindness, It is the need of it,—it is this sad self-defeating dependence. Why is this, Eustace? Myself, were I stronger, I think I could tell you. But it is odd when it comes. So plumb I the deeps of depression, Daily in deeper, and find no support, no will, no purpose. All my old strengths are gone. And yet I shall have to do something. Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards, opens all locks, Is not I will, but I must. I must,—I must,—and I do it.XI—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
At the last moment I have your letter, for which I was waiting. I have taken my place, and see no good in inquiries. Do nothing more, good Eustace, I pray you. It only will vex me. Take no measures. Indeed, should we meet, I could not be certain; All might be changed, you know. Or perhaps there was nothing to be changed. It is a curious history, this; and yet I foresaw it; I could have told it before. The Fates, it is clear, are against us; For it is certain enough that I met with the people you mention; They were at Florence the day I returned there, and spoke to me even; Staid a week, saw me often; departed, and whither I know not. Great is Fate, and is best. I believe in Providence, partly. What is ordained is right, and all that happens is ordered. Ah, no, that isn't it. But yet I retain my conclusion: I will go where I am led, and will not dictate to the chances. Do nothing more, I beg. If you love me, forbear interfering.XII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE
Shall we come out of it all, some day, as one does from a tunnel? Will it be all at once, without our doing or asking, We shall behold clear day, the trees and meadows about us, And the faces of friends, and the eyes we loved looking at us? Who knows? Who can say? It will not do to suppose it.XIII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—from Rome
Rome will not suit me, Eustace; the priests and soldiers possess it; Priests and soldiers;—and, ah! which is worst, the priest or the soldier? Politics farewell, however! For what could I do? with inquiring, Talking, collating the journals, go fever my brain about things o'er Which I can have no control. No, happen whatever may happen, Time, I suppose, will subsist; the earth will revolve on its axis; People will travel; the stranger will wander as now in the city; Rome will be here, and the Pope the custode of Vatican marbles. I have no heart, however, for any marble or fresco; I have essayed it in vain; 'tis vain as yet to essay it: But I may haply resume some day my studies in this kind. Not as the Scripture says, is, I think, the fact. Ere our death-day, Faith, I think, does pass, and Love; but Knowledge abideth. Let us seek Knowledge;—the rest must come and go as it happens. Knowledge is hard to seek, and harder yet to adhere to. Knowledge is painful often; and yet when we know, we are happy. Seek it, and leave mere Faith and Love to come with the chances. As for Hope,—to-morrow I hope to be starting for Naples. Rome will not do, I see; for many very good reasons. Eastward, then, I suppose, with the coming of winter, to Egypt.XIV.—Mary Trevellyn to Miss Roper
You have heard nothing; of course, I know you can have heard nothing. Ah, well, more than once I have broken my purpose, and sometimes, Only too often, have looked for the little lake-steamer to bring him. But it is only fancy,—I do not really expect it. Oh, and you see I know so exactly how he would take it: Finding the chances prevail against meeting again, he would banish Forthwith every thought of the poor little possible hope, which I myself could not help, perhaps, thinking only too much of; He would resign himself, and go. I see it exactly. So I also submit, although in a different manner. Can you not really come? We go very shortly to England.* * * * * So go forth to the world, to the good report and the evil! Go, little book! thy tale, is it not evil and good? Go, and if strangers revile, pass quietly by without answer. Go, and if curious friends ask of thy rearing and age, Say, I am flitting about many years from brain unto brain of Feeble and restless youths born to inglorious days; But, so finish the word, I was writ in a Roman chamber, When from Janiculan heights thundered the cannon of France.
