Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 - Various
"This freedom is especially provocative of flirtation. We see each
fair brow touched with a halo whose colors are the reflection of our
own beautiful dreams. Loveliness is ten-fold more lovely, bathed in
this atmosphere of romance; and manhood is invested with ideal
graces. The love within us rushes, with swift, sweet heart-beats, to
meet the love responsive in some other. Don't think I am now artfully
preparing your mind to excuse what I am about to confess. Take these
things into consideration, if you will; then think as you please of
the weakness and wild impulse with which I fell in love with----
"We will call her Flora. The most superb, captivating creature that
ever ensnared the hearts of the sons of Adam. A fine olive
complexion; magnificent dark auburn hair; eyes full of fire and
softness; lips that could pout or smile with incomparable fascination;
a figure of surprising symmetry, just voluptuous enough. But, after
all, her great power lay in her freedom from all affectation and
conventionality,--in her spontaneity, her free, sparkling, and
vivacious manners. She was the most daring and dazzling of women,
without ever appearing immodest or repulsive. She walked with such
proud, secure steps over the commonly accepted barriers of social
intercourse, that even those who blamed her and pretended to be
shocked were compelled to admire. She was the belle, the Juno, of the
saloon, the supreme ornament of the upper deck. Just twenty,--not
without wit and culture,--full of poetry and enthusiasm. Do you blame
me?"
"Not a whit," I said; "but for Margaret"----
"Ah, Margaret!" said Westwood, with a sigh. "But, you see, I had given
her up. And when one love is lost, there sink such awful chasms into
the soul, that, though they cannot be filled, we must at least bridge
them over with a new affection. The number of marriages built in this
way, upon false foundations of hollowness and despair, is
incomputable. We talk of jilted lovers and disappointed girls
marrying 'out of spite.' No doubt, such petty feeling hurries forward
many premature matches. But it is the heart, left shaken, unsupported,
wretchedly sinking, which reaches out its feelers for sympathy,
catches at the first penetrable point, and clings like a helpless vine
to the sunny-sided wall of the nearest consolation. If you wish to
marry a girl and can't, and are weak enough to desire her still, this
is what you should do: get some capable man to jilt her. Then seize
your chance. All the affections which have gone out to him, unmet,
ready to droop, quivering with the painful, hungry instinct to grasp
some object, may possibly lay hold of you. Let the world sneer; but
God pity such natures, which lack the faith and fortitude to live and
die true to their best love!
"Out of my own mouth do I condemn myself? Very well, I condemn myself;
_peccavi_! I If I had ever loved Margaret, then I did not love
Flora. The same heart cannot find its counterpart indifferently in two
such opposites. What charmed me in one was her purity, softness, and
depth of soul. What fascinated me in the other was her bloom, beauty,
and passion. Which was the true sympathy?
"I did not stop to ask that question when it was most important that
it should be seriously considered. I rushed into the crowd of
competitors for Flora's smiles, and distanced them all. I was pleased
and proud that she took no pains to conceal her preference for me. We
played chess; we read poetry out of the same book; we ate at the same
table; we sat and watched the sea together, for hours, in those clear,
bright days; we promenaded the deck at sunset, her hand upon my arm,
her lips forever turning up tenderly towards me, her eyes pouring
their passion into me. Then those glorious nights, when the ocean was
a vast, wild, fluctuating stream, flashing and sparkling about the
ship, spanned with a quivering bridge of splendor on one side, and
rolling off into awful darkness and mystery, on the other; when the
moon seemed swinging among the shrouds like a ball of white fire; when
the few ships went by like silent ghosts; and Flora and I, in a long
trance of happiness, kept the deck, heedless of the throng of
promenaders, forgetful of the past, reckless of the future, aware only
of our own romance, and the richness of the present hour.
"Joseph, my travelling-companion, looked on, and wrote letters. He
showed me one of these, addressed to a friend of Margaret's. In it he
extolled Flora's beauty, piquancy, and supremacy; related how she made
all the women jealous and all the men mad; and hinted at my triumph. I
knew that that letter would meet Margaret's eyes, and was vain enough
to be pleased.
"At last, one morning, at daybreak, I went on deck, and saw the shores
of England. Only a few days before, we had left America behind us,
brown and leafless, just emerging from the long gloom of winter; and
now the slopes of another world arose green and inviting in the flush
of spring. There was a bracing breeze; the dingy waters of the Mersey
rolled up in wreaths of beauty; the fleets of ships, steamers, sloops,
lighters, pilot-boats, bounding over the waves, meeting, tacking,
plunging, swaying gracefully under the full-swelling canvas, presented
a picture of wonderful animation; and the mingling hues of sunshine
and mist hung over all. I paced the deck, solemnly joyful, swift
thoughts pulsing through me of a dim far-off Margaret, of a near
radiant Flora, of hope and happiness superior to fate. It was one of
those times when the excited soul transfigures the world, and we
marvel how we could ever succumb to a transient sorrow while the whole
universe blooms, and an infinite future waits to open for us its doors
of wonder and joy.
"In this state of mind I was joined by Flora. She laid her hand on my
arm, and we walked up and down together. She was serious, almost sad,
and she viewed the English hills with a pensiveness which became her
better than mirth.
"'So,' she sighed, 'all our little romances come to an end!'
"'Not so,' I said; 'or if one romance ends, it is to give place to
another, still truer and sweeter. Our lives may be all a succession of
romances, if we will make them so. I think now I will never doubt the
future; for I find, that, when I have given up my dearest hopes, my
best-beloved friends, and accepted the gloomy belief that all life
besides is barren,--then comes some new experience, filling my empty
cup with a still more delicious wine.'
"'Don't vex me with your philosophy!' said Flora. 'I don't know
anything about it. All I know is this present,--this sky, this earth,
this sea, and the joy between, which I can't give up quite so easily
as you can, with your beautiful theory, that something better awaits
you.'
"'I have told you,' I replied,--for I had been quite frank with
her,--'how I left America,--what a blank life was to me then; and did
I not turn my back upon all that to meet face to face the greatest
happiness which I have ever yet known? Ought not this to give me faith
in the divinity that shapes our ends?'
"'And so,' she answered, 'when I have lost you, I shall have the
satisfaction of thinking that you are enjoying some still more
exquisite consolation for the slight pangs you may have felt at
parting from me! Your philosophy will make it easy for you to say,
"Good-bye! it was a pretty romance; I go to find prettier ones
still"; and then forget me altogether!'
"'And you,' I said, 'will that be easy for you?'
"'Yes,' she cried, with spirit,--'anything is easy to a proud,
impetuous woman, who finds that the brief romance of a ten-days'
acquaintance has already become tiresome to the second party. I am
glad I have enjoyed what I have; that is so much gain, of which you
cannot rob me; and now I can say good-bye as coolly as you, or I can
die of shame, or I can at once walk over this single rail into the
water, and quench this little candle, and so an end!'
"She sprang upon a bench, and, I swear to you, I thought she was going
down! I was so exalted by this passionate demonstration, that I should
certainly have gone over with her, and felt perfectly content to die
in her arms,--at least, until I began to realize what a very
disagreeable bath we had chosen to drown in.
"I drew her away; I walked up and down with that superb creature
panting and palpitating almost upon my heart; I poured into her ear I
know not what extravagant vows; and before the slow-handed sailors had
fastened their cable to the buoy in the channel, we had knotted a more
subtile and difficult noose, not to be so easily undone!
"Now see what strange, variable fools we are! Months of tender
intercourse had failed to bring about anything like a positive
engagement between Margaret and myself; and here behold me irrevocably
pledged to Flora, after a brief ten-days' acquaintance!
"Six mortal hours were exhausted in making the steamer fast,--in
sending off her Majesty's mails, of which the cockney speaks with a
tone of reverence altogether disgusting to us free-minded
Yankees,--and in entertaining the custom-house inspectors, who paid a
long and tedious visit to the saloon and our luggage. Then we were
suffered to land, and enter the noisy, solid streets of Liverpool,
amid the donkeys and beggars and quaint scenes which strike the
American so oddly upon a first visit. All this delay, the weariness
and impatience, the contrast between the morning and the hard, grim
reality of mid-day, brought me down from my elevation. I felt alarmed
to think of what had passed. I seemed to have been doing some wild,
unadvised act in a fit of intoxication. Margaret came up before me,
sad, silent, reproachful; and as I gazed upon Flora's bedimmed face, I
wondered how I had been so charmed.
"We took the first train for London, where we arrived at midnight. Two
weeks in that vast Babel,--then, ho! for Paris! Twelve hours by rail
and steamer carried us out of John Bull's dominions into the brilliant
metropolis of his French neighbor. Joseph accompanied us, and wrote
letters home, filled with gossip which I knew, or hoped, would make
Margaret writhe. I had not found it so easy to forget her as I had
supposed it would be. Flora's power over me was sovereign; but when I
was weary of the dazzle and whirl of the life she led me,--when I
looked into the depths of my heart, and saw what the thin film of
passion and pleasure concealed,--in those serious moments which
would come, and my soul put stern questions to me,--then,
Sir,--then--Margaret had her revenge.
"A month, crowded and glittering with novelty and incident, preceded
our departure for Switzerland. I accompanied Flora's party; Joseph
remained behind. We left Paris about the middle of June, and returned
in September. I have no words to speak of that era in my life. I saw,
enjoyed, suffered, learned so much! Flora was always glad,
magnificent, irresistible. But, as I knew her longer, my moments of
misgiving became more frequent and profound. If I had aspired to
nothing higher than a life of sensuous delights, she would have been
all I could wish. But----
"We were to spend the winter in Italy. Meanwhile, we had another month
in Paris. Here I had found Joseph again, who troubled me a good deal
with certain rumors he had received concerning Margaret. According to
these, she had been in feeble health ever since we left, and her
increasing delicacy was beginning to alarm her friends. 'But,' added
another of Joseph's correspondents, 'don't let Westwood flatter
himself that he is the cause, for she is cured of him; and there is
talk of an engagement between her and a handsome young clergyman, who
is both eloquent and fascinating.'
"This bit of gossip made me very bitter and angry. 'Forget me so
soon?' I said; 'and receive the attentions of another man?' You see
how consistent I was, to condemn her for the very fault I had myself
been so eager to commit!
"Well, the round of rides, excursions, soirees, visits to the operas
and theatres, walks on the Boulevards, and in the galleries of the
Louvre, ended at last. The evening before we were to set out for the
South of France, I was at my lodgings, unpacking and repacking the
luggage which I had left in Joseph's care during my absence among the
Alps; I was melancholy, dissatisfied with the dissipations which had
exhausted my time and energies, and thinking of Margaret. I had not
preserved a single memento of her; and now I wished I had one,--if
only a withered leaf, or a line of her writing. In this mood, I
chanced to cast my eye upon a stray glove, in the bottom of my
trunk. I snatched at it eagerly, and, in the impulse of the
moment,--before I reflected that I was wronging Flora,--pressed it to
my lips. Yes, I found the place where it had been mended, the spot
Margaret's fingers had touched, and gave it a kiss for every
stitch. Then, incensed at myself, I flung it from me, and hurried from
the room. I walked towards the Place de la Concorde, where the
brilliant lamps burned like a constellation. I strolled through the
Elysian Fields, and watched the lights of the carriages swarming like
fire-flies up the long avenue; stopped by the concert gardens, and
listened to the glorified girls singing under rosy and golden
pavilions the last songs of the season; wandered about the
fountains,--by the gardens of the Tuileries, where the trees stood so
shadowy and still, and the statues gleamed so pale,--along the quays
of the Seine, where the waves rolled so dark below,--trying to settle
my thoughts, to master myself, to put Margaret from me.
"Weary at length, I returned to my chamber, seated myself composedly,
and looked down at the glove which lay where I had thrown it, upon the
polished floor. Mechanically I stooped and took up a bit of folded
paper. It was written upon,--I unrolled it, and read. It was as if I
had opened the record of doom! Had the apparition of Margaret herself
risen suddenly before me, I could not have been more astounded. It was
a note from her,--and such a note!--full of love, suffering, and
humility,--poured out of a heart so deep and tender and true, that the
shallowness of my own seemed utterly contemptible, in comparison with
it. I cannot tell you what was written, but it was more than even my
most cruel and exacting pride could have asked. It was what would once
have made me wild with joy,--now it almost maddened me with
despair. I, who had often talked fine philosophy to others, had not a
grain of that article left to physic my own malady. But one course
seemed plain before me, and that was, to go quietly and drown myself
in the Seine, which I had seen flowing so swift and dark under the
bridges, an hour ago, when I stood and mused upon the tragical corpses
its solemn flood had swallowed.
"I am a little given to superstition, and the mystery of the note
excited me. I have no doubt but there was some subtile connection
between it and the near presence of Margaret's spirit, of which I had
that night been conscious. But the note had reached me by no
supernatural method, as I was at first half inclined to believe. It
was, probably, the touch, the atmosphere, the ineffably fine influence
which surrounded it, which had penetrated my unconscious perceptions,
and brought her near. The paper, the glove, were full of
Margaret,--full of something besides what we vaguely call mental
associations,--full of emanations of the very love and suffering which
she had breathed into the writing.
"How the note came there upon the floor was a riddle which I was too
much bewildered to explain by any natural means. Joseph, who burst in
upon me, in my extremity of pain and difficulty, solved it at once. It
had fallen out of the glove, where it had lain folded, silent,
unnoticed, during all this intervening period of folly and vexation of
soul. Margaret had done her duty, in time; I had only myself to blame
for the tangle in which I now found myself. I was thinking of Flora,
upon the deck of the steamship, when, in a moment of chagrin, she had
been so near throwing herself over; wondering to what fate her passion
and impetuosity would hurry her now, if she knew; cursing myself for
my weakness and perfidy; while Joseph kept asking me what I intended
to do.
"'Do? do?' I said, furiously,--'I shall kill you, that is what I shall
do, if you drive me mad with questions which neither angels nor fiends
can answer!'
"'I know what you will do,' said Joseph; 'you will go home and marry
Margaret.'
"You can have no conception of the effect of these words,--_Go home
and marry Margaret_. I shook as I have seen men shake with the
ague. All that might have been,--what might be still,--the happiness
cast away, and perhaps yet within my reach,--the temptation of the
Devil, who appealed to my cowardice, to fly from Flora, break my vows,
risk my honor and her life, for Margaret,--all this rushed through me
tumultuously. At length I said,--
"'No, Joseph; I shall do no such thing. I can never be worthy of
Margaret; it will be only by fasting and prayer that I can make myself
worthy of Flora.'
"'Will you start for Italy in the morning?' he asked, pitilessly.
"'For Italy in the morning?' I groaned. Meet Flora, travel with her,
play the hypocrite, with smiles on my lips and hell in my heart,--or
thunderstrike her at once with the truth;--what was I to do? To some
men the question would, perhaps, have presented few difficulties. But
for me, Sir, who am not quite devoid of conscience, whatever you may
think,--let me tell you, I'd rather hang by sharp hooks over a
roasting fire than be again suspended as I was betwixt two such
alternatives, and feel the torture of both!
"Having driven Joseph away, I locked myself into my room, and suffered
the torments of the damned in as quiet a manner as possible, until
morning. Then Joseph returned, and looked at me with dismay.
"'For Heaven's sake!' he said, 'you ought not to let this thing kill
you,--and it will, if you keep on.'
"'So much the better,' I said, 'if it kills nobody but me. But don't
be alarmed. Keep perfectly cool, and attend to the commission I am
going to trust to you. I can't see Flora this morning; I must gain a
little time. Go to the station of the Lyons railway, where I have
engaged to meet her party; say to her that I am detained, but that I
will join her on the journey. Give her no time to question you, and be
sure that she does not stay behind.'
"'I'll manage it,--trust me!' said Joseph. And off he started. At the
end of two hours, which seemed twenty, he burst into my room,
crying,--
"'Good news! she is gone! I told her you had lost your passport, and
would have to get another from our minister.'
"'What!' I exclaimed, 'you lied to her?'
"'Oh! there was no other way!' said Joseph, ingenuously,--'she is so
sharp! They're to wait for you at Marseilles. But I'll manage that,
too. On their arrival at the Hotel d'Orient, they'll find a
telegraphic dispatch from me. I wager a hat, they'll leave in the
first steamer for Naples. Then you can follow at your leisure.'
"'Thank you, Joseph.'
"I felt relieved. Then came a reaction. The next day I was attacked
by fever. I know not how long I struggled against it, but it mastered
me. The last things I remember were the visits of friends, the strange
talk of a French physician, whispers and consultations, which I knew
were about me, yet took no interest in,--and at length Joseph rushing
to my bedside, in a flutter of agitation, and gasping,--
"'Flora!'
"'What of Flora?' I demanded.
"'I telegraphed, but she wouldn't go; she has come back; she is here!'
"I was sinking back into the stupor from which I had been roused, when
I heard a rustling which seemed afar off, yet was in my chamber; then
a vision appeared to my sickened sight,--a face which I dimly thought
I had seen before,--a flood of curls and a rain of kisses showering
upon me,--sobs and devouring caresses,--Flora's voice calling me
passionate names; and I lying so passive, faintly struggling to
remember, until my soul sank whirling in darkness, and I knew no more.
"One morning, I cannot tell you how long after, I awoke and found
myself in a strange-looking room, filled with strange objects, not the
least strange of which was the thing that seemed myself. At first I
looked with vague and motionless curiosity out of the Lethe from which
my mind slowly emerged; painless, and at peace; listlessly questioning
whether I was alive or dead,--whether the limp weight lying in bed
there was my body,--the meaning of the silence and the closed
curtains. Then, with a succession of painful flashes, as if the pole
of an electrical battery had been applied to my brain, memory
returned,--Margaret, Flora, Paris, delirium. I next remember hearing
myself groan aloud,--then seeing Joseph at my side. I tried to speak,
but could not. Upon my pillow was a glove, and he placed it against my
cheek. An indescribable, excruciating thrill shot through me; still I
could not speak. After that, came a relapse. Like Mrs. Browning's
poet, I lay
''Twixt gloom and gleam,
With Death and Life at each extreme.'
"But one morning I was better. I could talk. Joseph bent over me,
weeping for joy.
"'The danger is past!' he said. 'The doctors say you will get well!'
"'Have I been so ill, then?'
"'Ill?' echoed Joseph. 'Nobody thought you could live. We all gave you
up, except her;--and she'----
"'She!' I said,--'is she here?'
"'From the moment of her arrival,' replied Joseph, 'she has never left
you. Oh, if you don't thank God for her,'--he lowered his
voice,--'and live all the rest of your life just to reward her, you
are the most ungrateful wretch! You would certainly have died but for
her. She has scarcely slept, till this morning, when they said you
would recover.'
"Joseph paused. Every word he spoke went down like a weight of lead
into my soul. I had, indeed, been conscious of a tender hand soothing
my pillow, of a lovely form flitting through my dreams, of a breath
and magnetic touch of love infusing warm, sweet life into me,--but it
had always seemed Margaret, never Flora.
"'The glove?' I asked.
"'Here it is,' said Joseph. 'In your delirium you demanded it; you
would not be without it; you caressed it, and addressed to it the
tenderest apostrophes.'
"'And Flora,--she heard?'
"'Flora?' repeated Joseph. 'Don't you know--haven't you any idea--what
has happened? It has been terrible!'
"'Tell me at once!' I said. 'Keep nothing back!'
"'Immediately on her return from Marseilles,--you remember that?'
"'Yes, yes! go on!'
"'She established herself here. Nobody could come between her and you;
and a brave, true girl she proved herself. Oh, but she was wild about
you! She offered the doctors extravagant sums--she would have bribed
Heaven itself, if she could--not to let you die. But there came a
time,--one night, when you were raving about Margaret,--I tell
you, it was terrible! She would have the truth, and so I told
her,--everything, from the beginning. It makes me shudder now to think
of it,--it struck her so like death!'
"'What did she say?--what did she do?'
"'She didn't say much,--"Oh, my God! my God!"--something like that.
The next morning she showed me a letter which she had written to
Margaret.'
"'To Margaret?' I started up, but fell back again, helpless, with a
groan.
"'Yes,' said Joseph,--'and it was a letter worthy of the noblest
woman. I wrote another, for I thought Margaret ought to know
everything. It might save her life, and yours, too. In the mean time,
I had got worse news from her still,--that her health continued to
decline, and that her physician saw no hope for her except in a voyage
to Italy. But that she resolutely refused to undertake, until she got
those letters. You know the rest.'
"'The rest?' I said, as a horrible suspicion flashed upon me. 'You
told me something terrible had happened.'
"'Yes,--to Flora. But you have heard the worst. She is gone; she is by
this time in Rome.'
"'Flora gone? But you said she was here.'
"'_She?_ So _she_ is! But did you think I meant Flora? I
supposed you knew. Not Flora,--but Margaret! Margaret!'
"I shrieked out, 'Margaret?' That's the last I remember,--at least,
the last I can tell. She was there,--I was in her arms;--she had
crossed the sea, not to save her own life, but mine. And Flora had
gone, and my dreams were true; and the breath and magnetic touch of
love, which infused warm, sweet life into me, and seemed not Flora's,
but Margaret's, were no illusion, and----what more can I tell?
"From the moment of receiving those letters, Margaret's energies were
roused, and she had begun to regain her health. There is no such
potent medicine as hope and love. It had saved her, and it saved
me. My recovery was sure and speedy. The happiness which had seemed
too great, too dear to be ever possible, was now mine. She was with me
again, all my own! Only the convalescent, who feels the glow of love
quicken the pure pulses of returning health, knows what perfect bliss
is.
"As soon as I was strong enough to travel, we set out for Italy, the
faithful Joseph accompanying us. We enjoyed Florence, its palaces and
galleries of art, the quaint old churches, about which the religious
sentiment of ages seems to hang like an atmosphere, the morning and
evening clamor of musical bells, the Arno, and the olive-crowned
Tuscan hills,--all so delightful to the senses and the soul. After
Florence, Naples, with its beautiful, dangerous, volcanic environs,
where the ancients aptly located their heaven and hell, and where a
luxurious, passionate people absorbs into its blood the spirit of the
soil, and the fire and languor of the clime. From Naples to Rome,
where we saw St Peter's, that bubble on the surface of the globe,
which the next earthquake may burst, the Vatican, with its marvels of
statuary, the ruined temples of the old gods and heroes, the Campagna,
the Pope, and--Flora. We had but a glimpse of her. It was one night,
at the Colosseum. We had been musing about that vast and solemn pile
by the moonlight, which silvered it over with indescribable beauty,
and at last, accompanied by our guides, bearing torches, we ascended
through dark and broken passages to the upper benches of the
amphitheatre. As we were passing along one side, we saw picturesquely
moving through the shadows of the opposite walls, with the immense
arena between, the red-flaring torches and half-illuminated figures of
another party of visitors. I don't know whether it was instinct, or
acuteness of vision, that suggested Flora; but, with a sudden leap of
the heart, I felt that she was there. We descended, and passed out
under the dark arches of the stupendous ruin. The other visitors
walked a little in advance of us,--two of the number lingering behind
their companions; and certain words of tenderness and passion we
heard, which strangely brought to my mind those nights on the
ocean-steamer.