Yes. I fear, Since our road is the same, that our journey must be Somewhat closer than is our acquaintance. You see How narrow the path is. I'm tempted to ask Your permission to finish (no difficult task!)
The cigar you have given me (really a prize!)
In your company.
ALFRED.
Charm'd, Sir, to find your road lies In the way of my own inclinations! Indeed The dream of your nation I find in this weed.
In the distant Savannahs a talisman grows That makes all men brothers that use it . . . who knows?
That blaze which erewhile from the Boulevart out-broke, It has ended where wisdom begins, Sir,--in smoke.
Messieurs Lopez (whatever your publicists write)
Have done more in their way human kind to unite, Perchance, than ten Prudhons.
STRANGER.
Yes. Ah, what a scene!
ALFRED.
Humph! Nature is here too pretentious. Her mien Is too haughty. One likes to be coax'd, not compell'd, To the notice such beauty resents if withheld.
She seems to be saying too plainly, "Admire me!"
And I answer, "Yes, madam, I do: but you tire me."
STRANGER.
That sunset, just now though . . .
ALFRED.
A very old trick!
One would think that the sun by this time must be sick Of blushing at what, by this time, he must know Too well to be shocked by--this world.
STRANGER.
Ah, 'tis so With us all. 'Tis the sinner that best knew the world At Twenty, whose lip is, at sixty, most curl'd With disdain of its follies. You stay at Luchon?
ALFRED.
A day or two only.
STRANGER.
The season is done.
ALFRED.
Already?
STRANGER.
'Twas shorter this year than the last.
Folly soon wears her shoes out. She dances so fast We are all of us tired.
ALFRED.
You know the place well?
STRANGER.
I have been there two seasons.
ALFRED.
Pray who is the Belle Of the Baths at this moment?
STRANGER.
The same who has been The belle of all places in which she is seen;
The belle of all Paris last winter; last spring The belle of all Baden.
ALFRED.
An uncommon thing!
STRANGER.
Sir, an uncommon beauty! . . . I rather should say An uncommon character. Truly, each day One meets women whose beauty is equal to hers, But none with the charm of Lucile de Nevers.
ALFRED.
Madame de Nevers!
STRANGER.
Do you know her?
ALFRED.
I know Or, rather, I knew her--a long time ago.
I almost forget . . .
STRANGER.
What a wit! what a grace In her language! her movements! what play in her face!
And yet what a sadness she seems to conceal!
ALFRED.
You speak like a lover.
STRANGER.
I speak as I feel, But not like a lover. What interests me so In Lucile, at the same time forbids me, I know, To give to that interest, whate'er the sensation, The name we men give to an hour's admiration, A night's passing passion, an actress's eyes, A dancing girl's ankles, a fine lady's sighs.
ALFRED.
Yes, I quite comprehend. But this sadness--this shade Which you speak of? . . . it almost would make me afraid Your gay countrymen, Sir, less adroit must have grown, Since when, as a stripling, at Paris, I own I found in them terrible rivals,--if yet They have all lack'd the skill to console this regret (If regret be the word I should use), or fulfil This desire (if desire be the word), which seems still To endure unappeased. For I take it for granted, From all that you say, that the will was not wanted.
XV.
The stranger replied, not without irritation:
"I have heard that an Englishman--one of your nation I presume--and if so, I must beg you, indeed, To excuse the contempt which I . . ."
ALFRED.
Pray, Sir, proceed With your tale. My compatriot, what was his crime?
STRANGER.
Oh, nothing! His folly was not so sublime As to merit that term. If I blamed him just now, It was not for the sin, but the silliness.
ALFRED.
How?
STRANGER.
I own I hate Botany. Still, . . . dmit, Although I myself have no passion for it, And do not understand, yet I cannot despise The cold man of science, who walks with his eyes All alert through a garden of flowers, and strips The lilies' gold tongues, and the roses' red lips, With a ruthless dissection; since he, I suppose, Has some purpose beyond the mere mischief he does.
But the stupid and mischievous boy, that uproots The exotics, and tramples the tender young shoots, For a boy's brutal pastime, and only because He knows no distinction 'twixt heartsease and haws,--
One would wish, for the sake of each nursling so nipp'd, To catch the young rascal and have him well whipp'd!
ALFRED.
Some compatriot of mine, do I then understand, With a cold Northern heart, and a rude English hand, Has injured your Rosebud of France?
STRANGER.
Sir, I know But little, or nothing. Yet some faces show The last act of a tragedy in their regard:
Though the first scenes be wanting, it yet is not hard To divine, more or less, what the plot may have been, And what sort of actors have pass'd o'er the scene.
And whenever I gaze on the face of Lucile, With its pensive and passionless languor, I feel That some feeling hath burnt there . . . burnt out, and burnt up Health and hope. So you feel when you gaze down the cup Of extinguish'd volcanoes: you judge of the fire Once there, by the ravage you see;--the desire, By the apathy left in its wake, and that sense Of a moral, immovable, mute impotence.
ALFRED.
Humph! . . . I see you have finished, at last, your cigar;
Can I offer another?
STRANGER.
No, thank you. We are Not two miles from Luchon.
ALFRED.
You know the road well?
STRANGER.
I have often been over it.
XVI.
Here a pause fell On their converse. Still musingly on, side by side, In the moonlight, the two men continued to ride Down the dim mountain pathway. But each for the rest Of their journey, although they still rode on abreast, Continued to follow in silence the train Of the different feelings that haunted his brain;
And each, as though roused from a deep revery, Almost shouted, descending the mountain, to see Burst at once on the moonlight the silvery Baths, The long lime-tree alley, the dark gleaming paths, With the lamps twinkling through them--the quaint wooden roofs--
The little white houses.
