Classic Poem

Scene I. — The room at head-quarters. Enter L A R OUSSE , borne wounded across the stage by his Servant and D E T ORCY .
La Rousse ( speaking at once with vivacity and difficulty ) Batiste, how frightened and how fierce you look!
You wish now — —
De Torcy . That you wouldn't babble your soul out
His shoulder, my good lad; — keep it more to him;
He bleeds but little, but his pain's unbearable; —
You see it in his face
La Rou. Then his face lies.
I bear the pain as well as you bear me;
Which, I must say, is not too cleverly.
I should prefer a litter, or two porters.
De Tor. ( to B ATISTE .) How came he, in that manner, to turn round
And stumble on my sword?
La Rou. Orange-peel, man,
Orange-peel; or a pip, or cheese-paring;
Or some such second for you. Little slips
Betray the mightiest men.
De Tor. ( to B ATISTE .) You'll bear me witness,
I could not find a second in the camp,
Will his friend hasten back to take my place?
He doesn't bring the surgeon.
La Rou. Oh, don't doubt him
Rohan's a devilish good fellow, and loves
To see an operation. All good fellows
In this world! capital good fellows all
And corresponding women! constant lovers!
De Tor. Monstrous! to see the fool play monkey tricks
I' the face, perhaps, of death. Be still
La Rou. Not I.
Had you shook hands, it had been another matter;
But not to be civil even in cutting one's throat!
I say again, man, that she loved me; ay,
Bear witness on't, whole evenings, while her grandam,
Rest her soul, snored; whole stationers' shops o' letters;
I'll give you a bundle of 'em, tied with old string.
Look to your trumps. But spotlessly, I grant;
Oh! devilish spotlessly.
De Tor. Vile fop! I'm vile
Myself, to be enraged with him. Soft now;
He's turning paler.
La Rou. Send to your friend Orleans
For a little of his rouge.
De Tor. Will nothing on earth
Give his light soul gravity for one moment?
La Rou. Gravity! what, with pain before me, and probes,
And plasters, perhaps death; certainly gruel;
And when I've need of all the jests on earth?
You are — unreasonable.
De Tor. He faints, — now softly;
Your heel against the door.
Batiste . His bed's to the left.
Scene II. — A room in a house in Paris. The C OUNTESS is discovered walking to and fro, looking through a window, and stopping at intervals to listen .

Countess . Nobody comes! Nobody comes to tell
Which lives or dies! Misery to me, whichever.
Owing to me. To words. To things which seem
So little, and which come back, armed, so great,
Taunting their framer; crushing houses, families.
No one. No sight; no sound. The messenger
I sent was young, but shrewd beyond his age:
He brought me the first news; what keeps the second?
Was ever great highway so still, and dumb,
And void, so long together? Ha; the carriage
Impetuously coming! Some one else
Looks out, but who, I cannot see for tears;
Stops; and the messenger alights, and hands,
The other from inside — a lady — ay,
Sister of Charity — Louise herself!
Oh, has she come in charity too dreadful,
Knowing the need that I shall have for all?

Enter L OUISE .

Louise . Be tranquil; be secure; your friend is safe,
Unhurt, untouched
Countess . The other?
Louise . Pained a little;
Nothing more. There seemed danger, but was none.
Be sure of it.
Countess . Are you? Do you affirm it?
Forgive me, but — —
Louise . By all that you and I
Ever held sacred!
Countess . O, my best Louise!
Louise la Motte! truth-telling, dear Louise!
Truth, truth. I clasp both it and you for ever.
Shall it not be so? Won't you come and live with me,
Or let me live with you? May we not have
One home, with arms about each other's waist,
As in the sweet and singing morn of life?
Louise . Dearest and ever-loving Gabrielle,
Never again can we be parted quite. —
But sit; and hear what I can tell you now,
With more than I designed to tell you ever.
Hear what a strange and fourfold link is ours.
But let me first repeat, and re-repeat, —
For certainty itself will doubt, when frightened, —
There is no danger. Be as blithe, and free
Of all that fancy, as if you and I
Were dancing still among the eglantines.
The surgeon, whose good face encountered mine
Just as I reached his patient, had no sooner
Gazed on the wound, than turning with a smile,
He said — " There is nought here, which a strong hand,
And one good twist of a big bone displaced,
May not set laughing in an hour or two."
'Twas but a broken sword-point and a sprain:
So judge if all goes well.
Countess . Would that it did!
Would that all else were sure and kind as you!
Yet am I happy; happy in a sort;
Light, yes, — and strong; — with something like disdain
For what is past, as far as I was right,
And something anger-like at what may come;
Nay, something even of triumphant joy.
Louise . Continue that Continue crowned with right
And with your wrongs. Nay, hear me. I became
A novice of the Sisterhood of Charity,
Partly to see if I could take their vows
At the year's end —
Countess ( interrupting ). Which you must never do,
For reasons which I'll give them.
Louise . Well, I sought them,
Chiefly to learn how to contemn small griefs,
By the bedside of wants and agonies.
Countess . And to pour balm on those. But what is coming?
For I am selfish still.
Louise . Why first, hear this: —
'Twas I that sent you both your suitors.
Countess . You!
Louise . Yes; with my praises of my school-fellow;
Not with my will; not to my knowledge. Never,
Till this strange morning, knew I both had come,
The chattering officer, who came for help,
To the good sisters, told me by the way.
The first of your two visitors, De L'Orme,
Who now is called La Rousse, and who, I thought,
From never having heard such vows before,
Loved my own silly self, dear Gabrielle,
As surely as — Out with it, honesty!
There are no vulgar misconceivers here —
As surely as the silly self loved him —
Countess . Dearest Louise!
Louise . Nay, pity not, but laugh
De L'Orme's a name which I can utter now,
With sighs for his sake, rather than my own;
And so I've brought back the old cheerfulness
To the new knowledge; and can sing again
Like any nightingale; whose dress, you know,
Is plain as mine. Well, this unloving lover,
Witty and brave, full of amusing thoughts
And pleasant ways, yet wounding one's belief
In best and noblest things, and his own heart,
With ignorant levity —
Countess . The man I found him,
Drawn to the life —
Louise . Left me because my tears
Too often made my own self-love, I fear,
Disquiet his; and so, he came to you,
In hopes to find the rich and flattered beauty
Easier of faith than the grieved simpleton
But then, I wept him off, which only vexed him;
You cast him off, which humbled and enraged him.
Countess . Not for one moment did I love, nor he;
How could he, having missed a faith like yours?
But neither did you love him. No; you took
Some god your heart had painted for this fop;
And he, with that unconscious better knowledge,
Which is our very self-love's jealousy,
Resented the fine face you drew for his,
Alas! e'en I, that better knew the world, —
That is to say, had more of that experience
Of its least people and its hollowest modes,
Which the poor dupes, by a grand form of words,
Call knowledge of the world (O, mighty world!
O, universe!) — e'en I, too, let myself
Be followed, nay, be flattered by the wit
Of this same fop; answered it with my pen,
To please the foppery of my own pretensions
To the wit's art; nay, might have grown to love him,
(Own it, good blush) till I discerned how heartless,
Ay, and how senseless, wit itself can be;
How ignorant of one half, and the best half,
Of very brain; of whatsoe'er is wise
In grave and good, and sweet in pure and true;
A one-eyed, scoffing, unperceiving thing.
Oh, why was I ashamed to own all this,
Instead of being ashamed to feel the shame?
Louise . Mourn it no more. Of all these strange events
In our joint history hear now the strangest.
Not many months after De L'Orme had gone,
De Torcy met me; pitied me, I think,
For a soft manner which he deemed his work,
And took his pity for —
Countess . The love it was.
Own it, Louise. Heed not my vanity.
I honour it, since it was love for you;
I welcome it, for balms it brings to me.
Louise . Love it was not. I told him what I could,
To save his pride; and it was saved so well,
That though he had addressed to me some score
Of endless ineffaceable epistles,
Long as from that day to eternity,
He told me, two days after, that he found,
What it would please my generous soul to hear;
To-wit, that when a lady proved heart-whole,
His heart felt speedily as whole as hers.
Countess . Should I be glad, and laugh? or should I grieve?
Louise . Be glad, if still you love him; for be sure,
He still loves you. His quarrel in your cause,
His anger with yourself, is no poor pique,
Re-dressed at the same mirror of self-love
Which saw it ruffled. Grief has changed his face
In three short hours: the very lad observed it —
Now be attentive, for my words must hasten,
And their import is equal to their speed.
When I arrived beside the patient's bed,
De L'Orme perceived me not, for he had swooned;
De Torcy knew me not, for I was veiled.
No sooner had the surgeon closed his work,
Which all assisted, friend and enemy,
Than I perceived De Torcy step aside,
And from the servant of the wounded man
Receive a packet. Hastily he read
Some words on the outside; then, with knit brows,
And lips which I saw tremble, raised his hand,
As though he threatened some result elsewhere;
Then turned as if in tears. Now the chevalier
Seemed, in that packet, to possess himself
Of those same answers to the wit you spoke of
Countess . Doubt not he did.
Louise . Well then, I came away
Faster than he (for he, I'd lay my life,
Is coming too) and sweeping off your page,
Brought you the best rejoinders to those letters;
Namely, the love-letters he wrote to me.
Countess ( looking at the direction ). He said he never felt a serious love,
Until he met with poor, all-perfect me;
And yet I doubt, if pleading to Louise,
He laughed as I did, chattering to De L'Orme.
But I was " false". Is this then being true?
Louise . At all events, if true, 'tis a good text
To hear him preach the truth on ( bell rings ), and the bell
Rings you to church. I am a heretic,
Who needs must pass the preacher as he comes;
And so I hide my blushes ( She drops her veil ) Heaven be with you!

Enter D E T ORCY and exit L OUISE , whom he looks at in passing .

De Tor. I come, madam, unasked, perhaps unwished,
Chiefly to put in your possession matters
Best in such keeping; partly to inform you,
That the vile fop who could abase those eyes,
And beard the man who worshipped them, has tasted
Sharply, though briefly, of an honest sword,
And with no consequence so grave as death.
The news, perhaps, has found a harbinger —
The lady, I presume, seen here but now —
A lady who professes charity,
And who, if I mistake not, is the same
I saw in tremours by the wounded man.
Countess . Friendship has saved what love would have destroyed,
My peace of mind.
De Tor. So threatened? gone for ever
Had the fool perished?
Countess . I permit myself
To say, — Had any one
De Tor. He or his foe;
Or, had there been such, either of the seconds!
Countess . Truly.
De Tor. Is't nobleness, or is 't contempt,
That puts a price on each so strange in value?
Countess . I know not by what right of courtesy,
Of benefits conferred, or griefs withheld,
Or noble and contrasting self-esteem,
You take this tone in questioning a lady;
But —
De Tor. And is this the tone in which the lady
Should amaze anguish in the questioner?
Has love no rights? has trust? has disappointment?
Anger itself? meetings of mad extremes?
When in the very heart of confidence,
Lured there, accustomed there, thinking I lived there.
I and an angel by my side for ever,
Heaven itself turned into a hell of doubt?
How was it, madam (perish the absurd,
Fantastic sound), how was it, Gabrielle,
You that once loved me, or professed you did,
How was it that I left you bowed in tears —
Countess . Which you refused to see —
De Tor. And find you high
In anger and in scorn?
Countess . When you had hoped
To see me bending still, to flatter you. —
I shall not do it; nor shall answer more.
Doubt would still follow doubt, say what I might,
De Tor. Would it? And what a frightful change is that?
And who first brought its hideous face between us?
Who sowed the poison of suspicion first,
In past, in present, and in all to come?
Made things discordant as in ghastly dreams?
Showed mockeries lurking under maiden faces,
Poisons in kisses, pits in household floors,
And young and good, old as grey-headed evil?
Countess . Truly, a host of creditable fancies!
Ask the poor dreamer when he wakes. You'll hear
Of some infirmity he has, that prompts them.
Yes, if he 's wise; else he may dream again,
And stab the bosom that he loved for nothing.
De Tor. Nothing! and was it nothing then to hear
This braggart whom you knew not, boast you did?
Boast of his visits, of his walks, his heaven
That the world envied him? boast of all this
Before you, before me ? boast of it to me,
Afterwards, on the field, with more besides,
And in the face of death?
Countess . 'Twas much; ( she weeps ) but nothing
Which a great love might not have spared resenting
After the truth was owned, and question challenged.
Was it on my side nothing — sir, this weeping
Is for myself alone — did I bear nothing,
When the poor tears at which I now must blush,
Poured forth the truth, the whole truth, and nought else,
As we two walked together down the passage,
And my arm pressed yours; pressed it to my heart;
And I begged pardon; pardon for myself,
Of you , sir, and entreated scorn for him ,
And pity for us both, and for our friends,
And all in vain; you deigning not to cast
Your eyes once on me, but must needs go forth
And tear the man to pieces, to make whole
The wound inflicted, sir, not on your love, —
Oh, no, it wasn't that — 'twas never that —
But your self-love. Love would have pardoned love;
Would have believed it; known what to believe;
Understood language which its own heart speaks;
But self-love, being nought but self, is ruined,
Till it be quite its whole poor self again.
De Tor. ( aside .) She moves me; but her scorn sustains me too,
And something which is yet to test those pearls
Which drop such precious flattery on the past. —
( Aloud ) This is deep rhetoric, madam, and sounds well;
Is moving too: and if it had more hearers,
Haply might set them arming on your side,
Out of that very self-love which it scorns;
For most of us, the more self-love we have,
Are eager to pretend we have it not.
Countess . I pretend nothing, having cleared my breast
Of the sole falsehood fear had stained it with.
Are you as sure of crystal unreserve?
What is this truth which women must maintain
In deed and word, at every dread expense,
While man may cheat, shame, agonize, destroy
The very virtues which his very strength
Demands of those he calls the weaker vessel?
De Tor. Infamy hound such men. I own them not.
Nevertheless, weakness, for its own sake,
May need more bonds than strength does; and that " truth"
You think so hard, have reasons many and grave;
Some grosser than might fit a lady's ear;
To question them at all might stain her lips.
Countess . Not one of them shall I, or do I, question;
Only, methinks, 'twere fit that those who framed them,
Being of wisdom so beyond our taxing,
Might in their own deeds be less taxable;
As they are wise, so they might be less wilful;
As they are strong, so the more merciful;
As they hate closeness and deceit, so candid;
As they love triumph over fops and secrets,
So be more cautious how they tempted falls.
De Tor. ( aside ). What can she mean?
Countess . But time, methinks, is pressing.
Come, sir, what more is there for truth to hear?
De Tor. Nothing to hear, madam. Something there is
For truth to see; something for the whole truth
Perhaps to own; something, at all events,
Into which no eye will have looked, but yours,
Since I received it from unworthy hands.
'Tis a fair packet of some dozen letters,
Directed, madam, to the Sieur De L'Orme.
Countess ( taking it ). Thanks. I expected it; and in return
I have the honour to present you, sir,
A counter packet.
De Tor. ( indignantly ). Nay, this is but insult:
What! give me back the letters I wrote you!
Give me them now! and in return for his!
Countess ( giving him the packet )
Pardon me; 'tis, as you will please to see,
Directed to one Ma'amselle De La Motte.
Now, sir, I have to beg, that as you told me
You had not read these letters of my writing,
Which was behaviour that became a gentleman;
And as, with a mistrust not quite so noble,
You have persisted to the last in doubting me,
Spite of the truth you should, and would, have recognized
In tone, air, manner, tears, laughs, every thing,
Had your own truth been such as knew its like,
I have to beg, nay, to demand, insist,
You will be pleased to take those letters back,
And read them utterly.
You will not? Then
I must impugn the grace of the refusal
By asking, whether, making all allowance
For the man's right of being in the wrong,
You feel as happy, and as high of brow,
In thinking I may read these your own letters,
As my weak self does, daring you to mine?
De Tor. You know the lady; therefore —
Countess . Know you vowed
As serious and as earnest love to her,
As ever to myself.
De Tor. Not such I found it.
Countess . No; because love was but self-love with you;
I told you so; and when it found no love
To worship it, even from one most lovable
It turned aside, and for its own poor sake
Mocked its own seeming.
De Tor. 'Twas before I saw you;
Deem of it as you will.
Countess . And so was mine; —
So was my writing to this gentleman; —
For on my conscience, fop as he may be,
I do believe him more a gentleman
Than to have shown you letters from a lady,
Had he not known that they were laughing at you;
Laughing with his poor jest and their own innocence.
And if I told you that I knew him not,
(Which is a blush upon my cheek for ever)
You also, sir, implied, on your own side,
A freedom from all tax on recollection,
Serious as mine; implied it to match mine;
To warrant having hoped for it and found it;
And then, because mine failed, were merciless
De Tor. The world —
Countess . The world! oh, sir! no more of that.
I give you all the pleas it helps you to;
Which were not those you brought to help your suit;
Your suit, and truth, and all unworldliness.
Let your sex guard and keep its lofty right,
Its noble corporate privilege, of using
Armours and arguments it grants not us;
Of setting, in a high and general sense,
Its mighty wits against poor womankind;
But in the special instance, I conceive,
'Twill be allowed us still to watch and ward;
And since the chance is, that in any question
Possible to have risen 'twixt us two
In any time to come, you would still doubt,
And as I could not bear still to be doubted, — —
De Tor. Suffer me —
Countess . I must tell you —
De Tor. One word —
Countess . Give
A lady leave, in common courtesy,
To utter for herself what the stern gentleman
Had, when he first came in, methinks, intended,
Whether in anger or in grief, to dictate;
May I not count my very breath my own?
Thanks, — if it be so. Sir, then, I must say,
Your presence hurts me: and we part for ever.