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Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Aurora Leigh: Book Sixth
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I pray you therefore to mistake me not
And treat me haply as I were alive;
For though you ran a pin into my soul,
I think it would not hurt nor trouble me.
Here`s proof, dear lady,—in the market-place
But now, you promised me to say a word
About . . . a friend, who once, long years ago,
Took God`s place toward me, when He leans and loves
And does not thunder, . . . whom at last I left,
As all of us leave God. You thought perhaps
I seemed to care for hearing of that friend?
Now, judge me! we have sat here half an hour
And talked together of the child and me,
And I not asked as much as `What`s the thing
`You had to tell me of the friend . . . the friend?`
He`s sad, I think you said,—he`s sick perhaps?
`Tis nought to Marian if he`s sad or sick.
Another would have crawled beside your foot
And prayed your words out. Why, a beast, a dog,
A starved cat, if he had fed it once with milk,
Would show less hardness. But I`m dead, you see,
And that explains it."


                        Poor, poor thing, she spoke
And shook her head, as white and calm as frost
On days too cold for raining any more,
But still with such a face, so much alive,
I could not choose but take it on my arm
And stroke the placid patience of its cheeks,—
Then told my story out, of Romney Leigh,
How, having lost her, sought her, missed her still,
He, broken-hearted for himself and her,
Had drawn the curtains of the world awhile
As if he had done with morning. There I stopped,
For when she gasped, and pressed me with her eyes,
"And now . . . how is it with him? tell me now,"
I felt the shame of compensated grief,
And chose my words with scruple—slowly stepped
Upon the slippery stones set here and there
Across the sliding water. "Certainly,
As evening empties morning into night,
Another morning takes the evening up
With healthful, providential interchange;
And, though he thought still of her—"


                                          "Yes, she knew,
She understood: she had supposed indeed
That, as one stops a hole upon a flute,
At which a new note comes and shapes the tune,
Excluding her would bring a worthier in,
And, long ere this, that Lady Waldemar
He loved so" . . .


                    "Loved," I started,—"loved her so!
Now tell me" . . .


                    "I will tell you," she replied:
"But, since we`re taking oaths, you`ll promise first
That he in England, he, shall never learn
In what a dreadful trap his creature here,
Round whose unworthy neck he had meant to tie
The honourable ribbon of his name,
Fell unaware and came to butchery:
Because,—I know him,—as he takes to heart
The grief of every stranger, he`s not like
To banish mine as far as I should choose
In wishing him most happy. Now he leaves
To think of me, perverse, who went my way,
Unkind, and left him,—but if once he knew . . .
Ah, then, the sharp nail of my cruel wrong
Would fasten me for ever in his sight,
Like some poor curious bird, through each spread wing
Nailed high up over a fierce hunter`s fire,
To spoil the dinner of all tenderer folk
Come in by chance. Nay, since your Marian`s dead,
You shall not hang her up, but dig a hole
And bury her in silence! ring no bells."


I answered gaily, though my whole voice wept,
"We`ll ring the joy-bells, not the funeral-bells,
Because we have her back, dead or alive."


She never answered that, but shook her head;
Then low and calm, as one who, safe in heaven,
Shall tell a story of his lower life,
Unmoved by shame or anger,—so she spoke.
She told me she had loved upon her knees,
As others pray, more perfectly absorbed
In the act and inspiration. She felt his
For just his uses, not her own at all,—
His stool, to sit on or put up his foot,
His cup, to fill with wine or vinegar,
Whichever drink might please him at the chance,
For that should please her always: let him write
His name upon her . . . it seemed natural;
It was most precious, standing on his shelf,
To wait until he chose to lift his hand.
Well, well,—I saw her then, and must have seen
How bright her life went floating on her love,
Like wicks the housewives send afloat on oil
Which feeds them to a flame that lasts the night.


To do good seemed so much his business,
That, having done it, she was fain to think,
Must fill up his capacity for joy.
At first she never mooted with herself
If he was happy, since he made her so,
Or if he loved her, being so much beloved.
Who thinks of asking if the sun is light,
Observing that it lightens? who`s so bold
To question God of His felicity?
Still less. And thus she took for granted first
What first of all she should have put to proof,
And sinned against him so, but only so.
"What could you hope," she said, "of such as she?
You take a kid you like, and turn it out
In some fair garden: though the creature`s fond
And gentle, it will leap upon the beds
And break your tulips, bite your tender trees;
The wonder would be if such innocence
Spoiled less: a garden is no place for kids."
And, by degrees, when he who had chosen her
Brought in his courteous and benignant friends
To spend their goodness on her, which she took
So very gladly, as a part of his,—
By slow degrees it broke on her slow sense
That she too in that Eden of delight
Was out of place, and, like the silly kid,
Still did most mischief where she meant most love.
A thought enough to make a woman mad
(No beast in this but she may well go mad),
That saying "I am thine to love and use"
May blow the plague in her protesting breath
To the very man for whom she claims to die,—
That, clinging round his neck, she pulls him down
And drowns him,—and that, lavishing her soul,
She hales perdition on him. "So, being mad,"
Said Marian . . .


                   "Ah—who stirred such thoughts,you ask?
Whose fault it was, that she should have such thoughts?
None`s fault, none`s fault. The light comes, and we see:
But if it were not truly for our eyes,
There would be nothing seen, for all the light.
And so with Marian: if she saw at last,
The sense was in her,—Lady Waldemar
Had spoken all in vain else."


                                "O my heart,
O prophet in my heart," I cried aloud,
"Then Lady Waldemar spoke!"


                              "Did she speak,"
Mused Marian softly, "or did she only sign?
Or did she put a word into her face
And look, and so impress you with the word?
Or leave it in the foldings of her gown,
Like rosemary smells a movement will shake out
When no one`s conscious? who shall say, or guess?
One thing alone was certain—from the day
The gracious lady paid a visit first,
She, Marian, saw things different,—felt distrust
Of all that sheltering roof of circumstance
Her hopes were building into with clay nests:
Her heart was restless, pacing up and down
And fluttering, like dumb creatures before storms,
Not knowing wherefore she was ill at ease."


"And still the lady came," said Marian Erle,
"Much oftener than he knew it, Mister Leigh.
She bade me never tell him she had come,
She liked to love me better than he knew,
So very kind was Lady Waldemar:
And every time she brought with her more light,
And every light made sorrow clearer . . . Well,
Ah, well! we cannot give her blame for that;
`Twould be the same thing if an angel came,
Whose right should prove our wrong. And every time
The lady came, she looked more beautiful
And spoke more like a flute among green trees,
Until at last, as one, whose heart being sad
On hearing lovely music, suddenly
Dissolves in weeping, I brake out in tears
Before her, asked her counsel,—`Had I erred
`In being too happy? would she set me straight?
`For she, being wise and good and born above
`The flats I had never climbed from, could perceive
`If such as I might grow upon the hills;
`And whether such poor herb sufficed to grow,
`For Romney Leigh to break his fast upon`t,—
`Or would he pine on such, or haply starve?`
She wrapped me in her generous arms at once,
And let me dream a moment how it feels
To have a real mother, like some girls:
But when I looked, her face was younger . . . ay,
Youth`s too bright not to be a little hard,
And beauty keeps itself still uppermost,
That`s true!—Though Lady Waldemar was kind
She hurt me, hurt, as if the morning-sun
Should smite us on the eyelids when we sleep,
And wake us up with headache. Ay, and soon
Was light enough to make my heart ache too:
She told me truths I asked for,—`twas my fault,—
`That Romney could not love me, if he would,
`As men call loving: there are bloods that flow
`Together like some rivers and not mix,
`Through contraries of nature. He indeed
`Was set to wed me, to espouse my class,
`Act out a rash opinion,—and, once wed,
`So just a man and gentle could not choose
`But make my life as smooth as marriage-ring,
`Bespeak me mildly, keep me a cheerful house,
`With servants, brooches, all the flowers I liked,
`And pretty dresses, silk the whole year round` . . .
At which I stopped her,—`This for me. And now
`For him.`—She hesitated,—truth grew hard;
She owned ``Twas plain a man like Romney Leigh
`Required a wife more level to himself.
`If day by day he had to bend his height
`To pick up sympathies, opinions, thoughts,
`And interchange the common talk of life
`Which helps a man to live as well as talk,
`His days were heavily taxed. Who buys a staff
`To fit the hand, that reaches but the knee?
`He`d feel it bitter to be forced to miss
`The perfect joy of married suited pairs,
`Who, bursting through the separating hedge
`Of personal dues with that sweet eglantine
`Of equal love, keep saying, "So we think,
`"It strikes us,—that`s our fancy."`—When I asked
If earnest will, devoted love, employed
In youth like mine, would fail to raise me up
As two strong arms will always raise a child
To a fruit hung overhead, she sighed and sighed . . .
`That could not be,` she feared. `You take a pink,
`You dig about its roots and water it
`And so improve it to a garden-pink,
`But will not change it to a heliotrope,
`The kind remains. And then, the harder truth—
`This Romney Leigh, so rash to leap a pale,
`So bold for conscience, quick for martyrdom,
`Would suffer steadily and never flinch,
`But suffer surely and keenly, when his class
`Turned shoulder on him for a shameful match,
`And set him up as nine-pin in their talk
`To bowl him down with jestings.`—There, she paused.
And when I used the pause in doubting that
We wronged him after all in what we feared—
`Suppose such things could never touch him more
`In his high conscience (if the things should be)
`Than, when the queen sits in an upper room,
`The horses in the street can spatter her!`—
A moment, hope came,—but the lady closed
That door and nicked the lock and shut it out,
Observing wisely that `the tender heart
`Which made him over-soft to a lower class,
`Would scarcely fail to make him sensitive
`To a higher,—how they thought and what they felt.`


"Alas, alas!" said Marian, rocking slow
The pretty baby who was near asleep,
The eyelids creeping over the blue balls,—
"She made it clear, too clear—I saw the whole!
And yet who knows if I had seen my way
Straight out of it by looking, though `twas clear,
Unless the generous lady, `ware of this,
Had set her own house all a-fire for me
To light me forwards? Leaning on my face
Her heavy agate eyes which crushed my will,
She told me tenderly (as when men come
To a bedside to tell people they must die),
`She knew of knowledge,—ay, of knowledge knew,
`That Romney Leigh had loved her formerly.
`And she loved him, she might say, now the chance
`Was past,—but that, of course, he never guessed,—
`For something came between them, something thin
`As a cobweb, catching every fly of doubt
`To hold it buzzing at the window-pane
`And help to dim the daylight. Ah, man`s pride
`Or woman`s—which is greatest? most averse
`To brushing cobwebs? Well, but she and he
`Remained fast friends; it seemed not more than so,
`Because he had bound his hands and could not stir.
`An honourable man, if somewhat rash;
`And she, not even for Romney, would she spill
`A blot . . . as little even as a tear . . .
`Upon his marriage-contract,—not to gain
`A better joy for two than came by that:
`For, though I stood between her heart and heaven,
`She loved me wholly.`"


                         Did I laugh or curse?
I think I sat there silent, hearing all,
Ay, hearing double,—Marian`s tale, at once,
And Romney`s marriage vow, "I`ll keep to thee,"
Which means that woman-serpent. Is it time
For church now?


                 "Lady Waldemar spoke more,"
Continued Marian, "but, as when a soul
Will pass out through the sweetness of a song
Beyond it, voyaging the uphill road,
Even so mine wandered from the things I heard
To those I suffered. It was afterward
I shaped the resolution to the act.
For many hours we talked. What need to talk?
The fate was clear and close; it touched my eyes;
But still the generous lady tried to keep
The case afloat, and would not let it go,
And argued, struggled upon Marian`s side,
Which was not Romney`s! though she little knew
What ugly monster would take up the end,—
What griping death within the drowning death
Was ready to complete my sum of death."


I thought,—Perhaps he`s sliding now the ring
Upon that woman`s finger . . .


                                 She went on:
"The lady, failing to prevail her way,
Upgathered my torn wishes from the ground
And pieced them with her strong benevolence;
And, as I thought I could breathe freer air
Away from England, going without pause,
Without farewell, just breaking with a jerk
The blossomed offshoot from my thorny life,—
She promised kindly to provide the means,
With instant passage to the colonies
And full protection,—`would commit me straight
`To one who once had been her waiting-maid
`And had the customs of the world, intent
`On changing England for Australia
`Herself, to carry out her fortune so.`
For which I thanked the Lady Waldemar,
As men upon their death-beds thank last friends
Who lay the pillow straight: it is not much,
And yet `tis all of which they are capable,
This lying smoothly in a bed to die.
And so, `twas fixed;—and so, from day to day,
The woman named came in to visit me."


Just then the girl stopped speaking,—sat erect,
And stared at me as if I had been a ghost
(Perhaps I looked as white as any ghost),
With large-eyed horror. "Does God make," she said,
"All sorts of creatures really, do you think?
Or is it that the Devil slavers them
So excellently, that we come to doubt
Who`s stronger, He who makes, or he who mars?
I never liked the woman`s face or voice
Or ways: it made me blush to look at her;
It made me tremble if she touched my hand;
And when she spoke a fondling word I shrank
As if one hated me who had power to hurt;
And, every time she came, my veins ran cold
As somebody were walking on my grave.
At last I spoke to Lady Waldemar:
`Could such an one be good to trust?` I asked.
Whereat the lady stroked my cheek and laughed
Her silver-laugh (one must be born to laugh,
To put such music in it),—`Foolish girl,
`Your scattered wits are gathering wool beyond
`The sheep-walk reaches!—leave the thing to me.`
And therefore, half in trust, and half in scorn
That I had heart still for another fear
In such a safe despair, I left the thing.


"The rest is short. I was obedient:
I wrote my letter which delivered him 
From Marian to his own prosperities,
And followed that bad guide. The lady?—hush,
I never blame the lady. Ladies who
Sit high, however willing to look down,
Will scarce see lower than their dainty feet;
And Lady Waldemar saw less than I
With what a Devil`s daughter I went forth
Along the swine`s road, down the precipice,
In such a curl of hell-foam caught and choked,
No shriek of soul in anguish could pierce through
To fetch some help. They say there`s help in heaven
For all such cries. But if one cries from hell . . .
What then?—the heavens are deaf upon that side.


"A woman . . . hear me, let me make it plain, . . .
A woman . . . not a monster . . . both her breasts
Made right to suckle babes . . . she took me off
A woman also, young and ignorant
And heavy with my grief, my two poor eyes
Near washed away with weeping, till the trees,
The blessed unaccustomed trees and fields
Ran either side the train like stranger dogs
Unworthy of any notice,—took me off
So dull, so blind, so only half-alive,
Not seeing by what road, nor by what ship,
Nor toward what place, nor to what end of all.
Men carry a corpse thus,—past the doorway, past
The garden-gate, the children`s playground, up
The green lane,—then they leave it in the pit,
To sleep and find corruption, cheek to cheek
With him who stinks since Friday.


                                    "But suppose;
To go down with one`s soul into the grave,
To go down half-dead, half-alive, I say,
And wake up with corruption, . . . cheek to cheek
With him who stinks since Friday! There it is,
And that`s the horror of`t, Miss Leigh.


                                           "You feel?
You understand?—no, do not look at me,
But understand. The blank, blind, weary way,
Which led, where`er it led, away at least;
The shifted ship, to Sydney or to France,
Still bound, wherever else, to another land;
The swooning sickness on the dismal sea,
The foreign shore, the shameful house, the night,
The feeble blood, the heavy-headed grief, . . .
No need to bring their damnable drugged cup,
And yet they brought it. Hell`s so prodigal
Of devil`s gifts, hunts liberally in packs,
Will kill no poor small creature of the wilds
But fifty red wide throats must smoke at it,
As his at me . . . when waking up at last . . .
I told you that I waked up in the grave.


"Enough so!—it is plain enough so. True,
We wretches cannot tell out all our wrong
Without offence to decent happy folk.
I know that we must scrupulously hint
With half-words, delicate reserves, the thing
Which no one scrupled we should feel in full.
Let pass the rest, then; only leave my oath
Upon this sleeping child,—man`s violence,
Not man`s seduction, made me what I am,
As lost as . . . I told him I should be lost.
When mothers fail us, can we help ourselves?
That`s fatal!—And you call it being lost,
That down came next day`s noon and caught me there,
Half-gibbering and half-raving on the floor,
And wondering what had happened up in heaven,
That suns should dare to shine when God Himself
Was certainly abolished.


                          "I was mad,
How many weeks, I know not,—many weeks.
I think they let me go when I was mad,
They feared my eyes and loosed me, as boys might
A mad dog which they had tortured. Up and down
I went, by road and village, over tracts
Of open foreign country, large and strange,
Crossed everywhere by long thin poplar-lines
Like fingers of some ghastly skeleton Hand
Through sunlight and through moonlight evermore
Pushed out from hell itself to pluck me back,
And resolute to get me, slow and sure;
While every roadside Christ upon his cross
Hung reddening through his gory wounds at me,
And shook his nails in anger, and came down
To follow a mile after, wading up
The low vines and green wheat, crying `Take the girl!
`She`s none of mine from henceforth.` Then I knew
(But this is somewhat dimmer than the rest)
The charitable peasants gave me bread
And leave to sleep in straw: and twice they tied,
At parting, Mary`s image round my neck—
How heavy it seemed! as heavy as a stone;
A woman has been strangled with less weight:
I threw it in a ditch to keep it clean
And ease my breath a little, when none looked;
I did not need such safeguards:—brutal men
Stopped short, Miss Leigh, in insult, when they had seen
My face,—I must have had an awful look.
And so I lived: the weeks passed on,—I lived.
`Twas living my old tramp-life o`er again,
But, this time, in a dream, and hunted round
By some prodigious Dream-fear at my back,
Which ended yet: my brain cleared presently;
And there I sat, one evening, by the road,
I, Marian Erle, myself, alone, undone,
Facing a sunset low upon the flats
As if it were the finish of all time,
The great red stone upon my sepulchre,
Which angels were too weak to roll away.
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