Читать книгу: «International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850», страница 2
LAMARTINE'S NEW ROMANCE
The great poet of affairs, philosophy, and sentiment, before leaving the scenes of his triumphs and misfortunes for his present visit to the East, confided to the proprietors of Le Constitutionel a new chapter of his romanticized memoirs to be published in the feuilleton of that journal, under the name of "Genevieve." This work, which promises to surpass in attractive interest anything Lamartine has given to the public in many years, will be translated as rapidly as the advanced sheets of it are received here, by Mr. Fayette Robinson, whose thorough apprehension and enjoyment of the nicest delicacies of the French language, and free and manly style of English, qualify him to do the fullest justice to such an author and subject. His version of "Genevieve" will be issued, upon its completion, by the publishers of The International. We give a specimen of its quality in the following characteristic description, of Marseilles, premising that the work is dedicated to "Mlle. Reine-Garde, seamstress, and formerly a servant, at Aix, in Provence."
"Before I commence with the history of Genevieve, this series of stories and dialogues used by country people, it is necessary to define the spirit which animated their composition and to tell why they were written. I must also tell why I dedicate this first story to Mlle. Reine-Garde, seamstress and servant at Aix in Provence. This is the reason.
"I had passed a portion of the summer of 1846 at that Smyrna of France, called Marseilles, that city, the commercial activity of which has become the chief ladder of national enterprise, and the general rendezvous, of those steam caravans of the West, our railroads; a city the Attic taste of which justifies it in assuming to itself all the intellectual cultivation, like the Asiatic Smyrna, inherent in the memory of great poets. I lived outside of the city, the heat of which was too great for an invalid, in one of those villas formerly called bastides, so contrived as to enable the occupants during the calmness of a summer evening—and no people in the world love nature so well—to watch the white sails and look on the motion of the southern breeze. Never did any other people imbibe more of the spirit of poetry than does that of Marseilles. So much does climate do for it.
"The garden of the little villa in which I dwelt opened by a gateway to the sandy shore of the sea. Between it and the water was a long avenue of plane trees, behind the mountain of Notre Dame de la Garde, and almost touching the little lily-bordered stream which surrounded the beautiful park and villa of the Borelli. We heard at our windows every motion of the sea as it tossed on its couch and pillow of sand, and when the garden gate was opened, the sea foam reached almost the wall of the house, and seemed to withdraw so gradually as if to deceive and laugh at any hand which would seek to bedew itself with its moisture. I thus passed hour after hour seated on a huge stone beneath a fig-tree, looking on that mingling of light and motion which we call the Sea. From time to time the sail of a fisherman's boat, or the smoke which hung like drapery above the pipe of a steamer, rose above the chord of the arc which formed the gulf, and afforded a relief to the monotony of the horizon.
"On working days, this vista was almost a desert, but when Sunday came, it was made lively by groups of sailors, rich and idle citizens, and whole families of mercantile men who came to bathe or rest themselves, there enjoying the luxury both of the shade and of the sea. The mingled murmur of the voices both of men, women and children, enchanted with sunlight and with repose, united with the babbling of the waves which seemed to fall on the shore light and elastic as sheets of steel. Many boats either by sails or oars, were wafted around the extremity of Cape Notre-Dame de la Garde, with its heavy grove of shadowy pines; as they crossed the gulf, they touched the very margin of the water, to be able to reach the opposite bank. Even the palpitations of the sail were audible, the cadence of the oars, conversation, song, the laughter of the merry flower and orange-girls of Marseilles, those true daughters of the gulf, so passionately fond of the wave, and devoted to the luxury of wild sports with their native element were heard.
"With the exception of the patriarchal family of the Rostand, that great house of ship-owners, which linked Smyrna, Athens, Syria and Egypt to France by their various enterprises, and to whom I had been indebted for all the pleasures of my first voyage to the East; with the exception of M. Miege, the general agent of all our maritime diplomacy in the Mediterranean, with the exception of Joseph Autran, that oriental poet who refuses to quit his native region because he prefers his natural elements to glory, I knew but few persons at Marseilles. I wished to make no acquaintances and sought isolation and leisure, leisure and study. I wrote the history of one revolution, without a suspicion that the spirit of another convulsion looked over my shoulder, hurrying me from the half finished page, to participate not with the pen, but manually, in another of the great Dramas of France.
"Marseilles is however hospitable as its sea, its port, and its climate. A beautiful nature there expands the heart. Where heaven smiles man also is tempted to be mirthful. Scarcely had I fixed myself in the faubourg, when the men of letters, of politics,—the merchants who had proposed great objects to themselves, and who entertained extended views; the youth, in the ears of whom yet dwelt the echoes of my old poems; the men who lived by the labor of their own hands, many of whom however write, study, sing, and make verses, come to my retreat, bringing with them, however, that delicate reserve which is the modesty and grace of hospitality. I received pleasure without any annoyances from this hospitality and attention. I devoted my mornings to study, my days to solitude and to the sea, my evenings to a small number of unknown friends, who came from the city to speak to me of travels, literature, and commerce.
"Commerce at Marseilles is not a matter of paltry traffic, or trifling parsimony and retrenchments of capital. Marseilles looks on all questions of commerce as a dilation and expansion of French capital, and of the raw material exported and imported from Europe and Asia. Commerce at Marseilles is a lucrative diplomacy, at the same time, both local and national. Patriotism animates its enterprises, honor floats with its flag, and policy presides over every departure. Their commerce is one eternal battle, waged on the ocean at their own peril and risk, with those rivals who contend with France for Asia and Africa, and for the purpose of extending the French name and fame over the opposite continents which touch on the Mediterranean.
"One Sunday, after a long excursion on the sea with Madame Lamartine, we were told that a woman, modest and timid in her deportment, had come in the diligence from Aix to Marseilles, and for four or five hours had been waiting for us in a little orange grove next between the villa and the garden. I suffered my wife to go into the house, and passed myself into the orange grove to receive the stranger. I had no acquaintance with any one at Aix, and was utterly ignorant of the motive which could have induced my visitor to wait so long and so patiently for me.
"When I went into the orange grove, I saw a woman still youthful, of about thirty-six or forty years of age. She wore a working-dress which betokened little ease and less luxury, a robe of striped Indienne, discolored and faded; a cotton handkerchief on her neck, her black hair neatly braided, but like her shoes, somewhat soiled by the dust of the road. Her features were fine and graceful, with that mild and docile Asiatic expression, which renders any muscular tension impossible, and gives utterance only to inspiring and attractive candor. Her mouth was possibly a line too large, and her brow was unwrinkled as that of a child. The lower part of her face was very full, and was joined by full undulations, altogether feminine however in their character, to a throat which was large and somewhat distended at the middle, like that of the old Greek statues. Her glance had the expression of the moonlight of her country rather than of its sun. It was the expression of timidity mingled with confidence in the indulgence of another, emanating from a forgetfulness of her own nature. In fine, it was the image of good-feeling, impressed as well on her air as on her heart, and which seem confident that others are like her. It was evident that this woman, who was yet so agreeable, must in her youth have been most attractive. She yet had what the people (the language of which is so expressive) call the seed of beauty, that prestige, that ray, that star, that essence, that indescribable something, which attracts, charms, and enslaves us. When she saw me, her embarrassment and blushes enabled me to contemplate her calmly and to feel myself at once at ease with her. I begged her to sit down at once on an orange-box over which was thrown a Syrian mat, and to encourage her sat down in front of her. Her blushes continued to increase, and she passed her dimpled but rather large hand more than once over her eyes. She did not know how to begin nor what to say. I sought to give her confidence, and by one or two questions assisted her in opening the conversation she seemed both to wish for and to fear."
[This girl is Reine-Garde, a peasant woman, attracted by a passionate love of his poetry to visit Lamartine. She unfolds to him much that is exquisitely reproduced in Genevieve. The romance bids fair to be one of the most interesting this author has yet produced.]
"Madame ——," said I to her. She blushed yet more.
"I have no husband, Monsieur. I am an unmarried woman."
"Ah! Mlle, will you be pleased to tell me why you have come so far, and why you waited so long to speak with me? Can I be useful to you in any manner? Have you any letter to give me from any one in your neighborhood?"
"Ah, Monsieur, I have no letter, I have nothing to ask of you, and the last thing in the world that I should have done, would have been to get a letter from any of the gentlemen in my neighborhood to you. I would not even have suffered them to know that I came to Marseilles to see you. They would have thought me a vain creature, who sought to magnify her importance by visiting people who are so famous. Ah, that would never do!"
"What then do you wish to say?"
"Nothing, Monsieur."
"How can that be? You should not for nothing have wasted two days in coming from Aix to Marseilles, and should not have waited for me here until sunset, when to-morrow you must return home."
"It is, however, true, Monsieur. I know you will think me very foolish, but ... I have nothing to tell you, and not for a fortune would I consent that people at Aix should know whither I am gone."
"Something however induced you to come—you are not one of those triflers who go hither and thither without a motive. I think you are intellectual and intelligent. Reflect. What induced you to take a place in the diligence and come to see me? Eh!"
"Well, sir," said she, passing her hands over her cheeks as if to wipe away all blushes and embarrassment, and at the same time pushing her long black curls, moist as they were with perspiration, beyond her ears, "I had an idea which permitted me neither to sleep by day nor night; I said to myself, Reine, you must be satisfied. You must say nothing to any one. You must shut up your shop on Saturday night as you are in the habit of doing. You must take a place in the night diligence and go on Sunday to Marseilles. You will go to see that gentleman, and on Monday morning you can again be at work. All will then be over and for once in your life you will have been satisfied without your neighbors having once fancied for a moment that you have passed the limits of the street in which you live."
"Why, however, did you wish so much to see me? How did you even know that I was here?"
"Thus, Monsieur: a person came to Aix who was very kind to me, for I am the dressmaker of his daughters, having previously been a servant in his mother's country-house. The family has always been kind and attentive, because in Provence, the nobles do not despise the peasants. Ah! it is far otherwise—some are lofty and others humble, but their hearts are all alike. Monsieur and the young ladies knew how I loved to read, and that I am unable to buy books and newspapers. They sometimes lent books to me, when they saw anything which they fancied would interest me, such as fashion plates, engravings of ladies' bonnets, interesting stories, like that of Reboul, the baker of Nimes, Jasmin, the hairdresser of Agen, or Monsieur, the history of your own life. They know, Monsieur, that above all things I love poetry, especially that which brings tears into the eyes."
"Ah, I know," said I with a smile, "you are poetical as the winds which sigh amid your olive-groves, or the dews which drip from your fig trees."
"No, Monsieur, I am only a mantua-maker—a poor seamstress in ... street, in Aix, the name of which I am almost ashamed to tell you. I am no finer lady than was my mother. Once I was servant and nurse in the house of M.... Ah! they were good people and treated me always as if I belonged to the family. I too thought I did. My health however, obliged me to leave them and establish myself as a mantua-maker, in one room, with no companion but a goldfinch. That, however, is not the question you asked me,—why I have come hither? I will tell you."
Truth is altogether ineffably, holily beautiful. Beauty has always truth in it, but seldom unadulterated.
The poet's soul should be like the ocean, able to carry navies, yet yielding to the touch of a finger.
Original Poetry
AZELA
BY MISS ALICE CAREY
From the pale, broken ruins of the heart,
The soul's bright wing, uplifted silently,
Sweeps thro' the steadfast depths of the mind's heaven,
Like the fixed splendor of the morning star—
Nearer and nearer to the wasteless flame
That in the centres of the universe
Burns through the o'erlapping centuries of time.
And shall it stagger midway on its path,
And sink its radiance low as the dull dust,
For the death-flutter of a fledgling hope?
Or, with the headlong phrensy of a fiend,
Front the keen arrows of Love's sunken sun,
For that, with nearer vision it discerns
What in the distance like ripe roses seemed
Crimsoning with odorous beauty the gray rocks
Are the red lights of wreckers!
Just as well
The obstinate traveler might in pride oppose
His puny shoulder to the icy slip
Of the blind avalanche, and hope for life;
Or Beauty press her forehead in the grave,
And think to rise as from the bridal bed.
But let the soul resolve its course shall be
Onward and upward, and the walls of pain
May build themselves about it as they will,
Yet leave it all-sufficient to itself.
How like the very truth a lie may seem!—
Led by that bright curse, Genius, some have gone
On the broad wake of visions wonderful
And seemed, to the dull mortals far below,
Unraveling the web of fate, at will.
And leaning on their own creative power,
As on the confident arm of buoyant Love.
But from the climbing of their wildering way
Many have faltered, fallen,—some have died,
Still wooing from across the lapse of years
The faded splendour of a morning dream,
And feeding sorrow with remembered smiles.
Love, that pale passion-flower of the heart,
Nursed into bloom and beauty by a breath,
With the resplendence of its broken light,
Even on the outposts of mortality,
Dims the still watchfires of the waiting soul.
O, tender-visaged Pity, stoop from heaven,
And from the much-loved bosom of the past
Draw back the nestling hand of Memory,
Though it be quivering and pale with pain;
And with the dead dust of departed Hope
Choke up and wither into barrenness
The sweetest fountain of the human heart,
And stay its channels everlastingly
From the endeavor of the loftier soul.
Nay, 'twere a task outbalancing thy power,
Nor can the almost-omnipotence of mind
Away from aching bind the bleeding heart,
Or keep at will its mighty sorrow down.
And, were the white flames of the world below
Binding my forehead with undying pain,
The lily crowns of heaven I would put back,
If thou wert there, lost light of my young dream!—
Hope, opening with the faint flowers of the wood,
Bloomed crimson with the summer's heavy kiss,
But autumn's dim feet left it in the dust,
And like tired reapers my lorn thoughts went down
To the gloom-harvest of a hopeless love,
For past all thought I loved thee: Listening close
From the soft hour when twilight's rosy hedge
Sprang from the fires of sunset, till deep night
Swept with her cloud of stars the face of heaven,
For the quick music, from the pavement rung
Where beat the impatient hoof-strokes of the steed,
Whose mane of silver, like a wave of light,
Bathed the caressing hand I pined to clasp!
It is as if a song-lark, towering high
In pride of place, should stoop her sun-bathed wing,
Low as the poor hum of the grasshopper.
I scorn thee not, old man; no haunting ghost
Born of the darkness of thy perjury
Crosses the white tent of my dreaming now
But for myself, that I should so have loved!—
The sweet folds of that blessed charity,
Pure as the cold veins of Pentelicus,
Were all too narrow now to hide away
One burning spot of shame—the wretched price
Of proving traitor to the wondrous star
That with a cloud of splendor wraps my way.
And yet, from the bright wine-cup of my life,
The rosy vintage, bubbling to the brim,
Thou With a passionate lip didst drain away
And to God's sweet gift—human sympathy—
Making my bosom dumb as the dark grave,
Didst leave me drifting on the waste of life,
A fruitless pillar of the desert dust;
For, from the ashes of a ruined hope
There springs no life but an unwearied woe
That feeding upon sunken lip and cheek
Pushes its victims from mortality.
Vainly the light rain of the summer time
Waters the dead limbs of the blasted oak.
Love is the worker of all miracles;
And if within some cold and sunless cave
Thou hadst lain lost and dying, prompted not
My feet had struck that pathway, and I could,
With the neglected sunshine of my hair,
Have clasped thee from the hungry jaws of Death,
And on my heart, as on a wave of light
Have lulled thee to the beauty of soft dreams.
Weak, weak imagination! be dissolved
Like a chance snowflake in a sea of fire.
Let the poor-spirited children of Despair
Hang on the sepulchre of buried Hope
The fadeless garlands of undying song.
Though such gift turned on its pearly hinge
Sweet Mercy's gate, I would not so debase me.
Shut out from heaven, I, by the arch-fiend's wing,
As by a star, would move, and radiantly
Go down to sleep in Fame's bright arms the while
Hard by, her handmaids, the still centuries
Lilies and sunshine braided for my brow.
Angel of Darkness, give, O give me hate
For the blind weakness of my passionate love!
And if thou knowest sweet pity, stretch thy wing,
Spotted with sin and seamed with veins of fire,
Between the gate of heaven and my life's prayer.
For loving, thou didst leave me; and, for that
The lowly straw-roof of a peasant's shed
Sheltered my cradle slumbers, and that Morn,
Clasping about my neck her dewy arms,
Drew to the mountains my unfashioned youth,
Where sunbeams built bright arches, and the wind
Winnowed the roses down about my feet
And as their drift of leaves my bosom was,
Till the cursed hour, when pride was pillowed there,
Crimsoned its beauty with the fires of hell.
God hide from me the time when first I knew
Thy shame to call a low-born maiden, Bride!
Methinks I could have lifted my pale hands
Though bandaged back with grave-clothes, in that hour
To cover my hot forehead from thy kiss.
For the heart strengthens when its food is truth,
And o'er the passion-shaken bosom, trail
And burn the lightnings of its love-lit fires
Like a bright banner streaming on the storm.
The day was almost over; on the hills
The parting light was flitting like a ghost,
And like a trembling lover eve's sweet star,
In the dim leafy reach of the thick woods,
Stood gazing in the blue eyes of the night.
But not the beauty of the place nor hour
Moved my wild heart with tempests of such bliss
As shake the bosom of a god, new-winged,
When first in his blue pathway up the skies
He feels the embrace of immortality.
A little moment, and the world was changed—
Truth, like a planet striking through the dark,
Shone cold and clear, and I was what I am,
Listening along the wilderness of life
For faint echoes of lost melody.
The moonlight gather'd itself back from me
And slanted its pale pinions to the dust.
The drowsy gust, bedded in luscious blooms,
Startled, as 'twere at the death-throes of peace,
Down through the darkness moaningly fled off.
O mournful Past! how thou dost cling and cling—
Like a forsaken maiden to false hope—
To the tired bosom of the living hour,
Which, from thy weak embrace, the future time
Jocundly beckons with a roseate hand.
And, round about me honeyed memories drift
From the fair eminences of young hope,
Like flowers blown down the hills of Paradise,
By some soft wave of golden harmony,
Until the glorious smile of summers gone
Lights the dull offing of the sea of Death.
And though no friend nor brother ever made
My soul the burden of one prayer to Heaven,
I dread to go alone into the grave,
And fold my cold arms emptily away
From the bright shadow of such loveliness.
Can the dull mist where swart October hides
His wrinkled front and tawny cheek, wind-shorn,
Be sprinkled with the orange fire that binds
Away from her soft lap o'erbrimmed with flowers,
The dew-wet tresses of the virgin May?
Or can the heart just sunken from the day
Feed on the beauty of the noontide smile?—
O it is well life's fair things fade so soon,
Else we could never take our clinging hands
From Beauty's nestling bosom—never put
The red wine of love's kisses sternly back,
And feel the dull dust sitting on our lips
Until the very grass grew over us.
O it is well! else for this beautiful life
Our overtempted hearts would sell away
The shining coronals of Paradise.
In the gray branches of the oaks, starlit,
I hear the heavy murmurs of the winds,
Like the low plains of evil witches, held
By drear enchantments from their demon loves.
Another night-time, and I shall have found
A refuge from their mournful prophecies.
Come, dear one, from my forehead smooth away
Those long and heavy tresses, still as bright
As when they lay 'neath the caressing hand
That unto death betrayed me. Nay, 'tis well!
I pray you do not weep; or soon or late,
Were this sad doom unsaid, their light had filled
The empty bosom of the waiting grave.
There, now I think I have no further need—
For unto all at last there comes a time
When no sweet care can do us any good!
Not in my life that I remember of,
Could my neglect have injured any one,
And if I have by my officious love,
Thrown harmful shadows in the way of some,
Be piteous to my natural weakness, friends:
I never shall offend you any more!
And now, most melancholy messenger,
Touch my eyes gently with Sleep's heavy dew.
I have no wish to struggle from thy arms,
Nor is there any hand would hold me back.
To die, is but the common heritage;
But to unloose the clasp that to the heart
Folds the dear dream of love, is terrible—
To see the wildering visions fade away,
As the bright petals of the young June rose
Shook by some sudden tempest. On the grave
Light from the open sepulchre is laid,
And Faith leans yearningly away to heaven,
But life hath glooms wherein no light may come!
The night methinks is dismal, yet I see
Over yon hill one bright and steady star
Divide the darkness with its fiery wedge,
And sprinkle glory on the lap of earth.
Even so, above the still homes of the dead
The benedictions of the living lie.
Gatherers of waifs of beauty are we here,
Building up homes of love for alien hearts
That hate us for our trouble. When we see
The tempest hiding from us the sun's face,
About our naked souls we build a wall
Of unsubstantial shadows, and sit down
Hugging false peace upon the edge of doom.
From the voluptuous lap of time that is,
Like a sick child from a kind nurse's arms,
We lean away, and long for the far off.
And when our feet through weariness and toll
Have gained the heights that showed so brightly well,
Our blind and dizzied vision sees too late
The cool broad shadows trailing at the base.
And then our wasted arms let slip the flowers,
And our pained bosoms wrinkle from the fair
And smooth proportions of our primal years,
And so our sun goes down, and wistful death
Withdraws love's last delusion from our hearts,
And mates us with the darkness. Well, 'tis well!
