Oh,
incommunicably
sweet!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v04 - Bes to Bro
"I thought over this thing a couple of days and some of the
nights too, and then the third day I drifted over to Morten's.
Ane Kirstine stood alone outside the gate with her back turned,
for she was busy whitewashing a wall, so I came upon her before
she knew it. 'Mercy on us! is that you? ' she cried, "where
have you been all these many days? '-'I have been at home,
and in the field, and on the heath, as it happened, and now I
come to take a look at you. '-'I am not worth looking at,' said
she, and thrust her clay-covered hands down into the pail to
rinse off the clay. 'I don't care,' says I, 'whether you are yel-
low or gray, for you are the best friend I've got in this world;
but I suppose I shall never be worthy of taking you in my arms
in all honor and virtue. '-'It would be bad if that couldn't be,'
said she, but it may happen we have got to wait awhile. '-
'I can't wait over-long,' said I, 'for my mother will have no
roof over her head, and either I shall have to take the farm or
else a sister; that is how it stands, and it cannot be otherwise. '-
Then she began to sniffle, and dried her eyes and sighed, but
said nothing. I felt sorry for her, but what was there for one
to do?
"Well, some one came who could tell us what to do, and it
was none other than that same Poorman. Along he tramps
with one of his women, and had his glass case on his back and
wanted to get into the farm. Then he turned toward us and
said: 'Well, well! what are you two doing there? Come along
in with me, little girl, and I'll see if I can't manage it for you;
but you stay out here, my little man! then we'll see what may
come of it. ' They went, and I sat down on a stone that was
lying there and folded my hands. I was not over-happy. I
don't know how long I sat there, for I had fallen asleep; but
then I was waked by some one kissing me, and it was no other
than Ane Kirstine. 'Are you sitting there sleeping? ' said she;
'come along in now, it is as it ought to be. The knacker has
spoken a good word for us to mother, and when nothing could
change her he said, "There is a black cock sitting on the perch:
maybe a red one will crow over you if you don't do as I say. "
At this she got a little bit scared, and said, "Then let it be! but
## p. 2069 (#263) ###########################################
STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER
2069
this I tell you, Ane Kirstine, I'll keep the black-headed cow for
milking, and I'll have all the hay that is my share. "-"That is no
more than reasonable," said I, "and now we have no more to
quarrel about, I suppose. " Now you can let them publish the
banns when you please. ' 'And now, Ane Kirstine,' said I,
'this tramp here, he must have a reward, and I'll give it with
a good will; and if we can get hold of him when we have our
feast, he shall have a pot of soup and a hen to himself and those
women and children. '—'That is right enough,' said she; 'and I
will give them a rag or so, or a few more of my half-worn
clothes. '
"Well, then my mother-in-law made a splendid feast, and there
was plenty of everything. The Poorman was there, too, with all
his following; but they had theirs by themselves, as you might
know, seeing that they were of the knacker kind.
Him I gave
a coat, and Ane Kirstine gave the women each a cap and a ker-
chief and a piece of homespun for a petticoat for each of the
young ones, and they were mighty well pleased.
"I and Ane Kirstine had lived happily together for about four
years, as we do still, and all that time we had seen nothing of
that Poorman, although we had spoken of him now and again.
Sometimes we thought he had perished, and sometimes that they
had put him into Viborghouse. Well, then it was that we were
to have our second boy christened, him we called Sören, and I
went to the parson to get this thing fixed up. As I came on the
marsh to the selfsame place where I saw that Poor-customer the
first time, there was somebody lying at one edge of the bog, on
his back in the heather and with his legs in the ditch. I knew
him well enough. 'Why are you lying here alone? ' said I: 'is
anything the matter with you? ' 'I think I am dying,' said he,
but he gasped so I could hardly understand him. 'Where are
those women,' said I, 'that you used to have with you? Have
they left you to lie here by the road? ' He nodded his head and
whispered, 'A drop of water. ' 'That I will give you,' said I,
and then I took some of the rainwater that stood in the ditch, in
the hollow of my hat, and held it to his mouth. But that was
of no use, for he could drink no longer, but drew up his legs
and opened his mouth wide, and then the spirit left him. I felt
so sorry for him that when I came to the parson's I begged that
his poor ghost might be sheltered in the churchyard. That he
gave me leave to do, and then I fetched him on my own wagon
## p. 2070 (#264) ###########################################
2070
STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER
and nailed a couple of boards together and laid him down in
the northwestern corner, and there he lies. "
"Well now, that was it," said Kristen Katballe, "but why do
you sit there so still, Marie Kjölvroe? Can you neither sing nor
tell us something? " "That is not impossible," said she, and
heaved a sigh, and sang so sadly that one might almost think it
had happened to her.
THE HOSIER
"The greatest sorrow of all down here,
Is to lose the one we hold most dear. »
S
OMETIMES, when I have wandered far out on the wide heath,
where I have had nothing but the brown heather around
me and the blue sky above me; when I walked far away
from mankind and the monuments of its busy doings here be-
low, which after all are only molehills to be leveled by time
or by some restless Tamerlane; - when I drifted, light-hearted,
free, and proud, like the Bedouin, whom no house, no narrowly
bounded field chains to the spot, but who owns, possesses, all he
sees, who does not dwell, but who goes wherever he pleases;
when my far-hovering eye caught a glimpse of a house in the
horizon, and was thus disagreeably arrested in its airy flight,
sometimes there came (God forgive me this passing thought,
it was no more than that) the wish-would that this dwelling
of man were not! there too is trouble and sorrow; there too they
quarrel and fight about mine and thine! -Oh! the happy desert
is mine, is thine, is everybody's, is nobody's. It is said that a
forester has proposed to disturb the settlements, to plant forests
on the fields of the peasants and in place of their torn-down
villages; the far more inhuman thought has taken possession of
me at times--what if the heather-grown heath were still here
the same as it was centuries ago, undisturbed, untouched by the
hand of man! But as I have said, I did not mean it seriously.
For when tired and weary, suffering from hunger and thirst, I
thought longingly of the Arab's tent and coffee-pot, I thanked
God that a heather-thatched roof- be it even miles away-
promised me shelter and refreshment.
On a still, warm September day, several years ago, I found
myself walking on this same heath, which, Arabically speaking,
## p. 2071 (#265) ###########################################
STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER
2071
I call mine. No wind stirred the blushing heather; the air
was heavy and misty with heat. The far-off hills that limited the
horizon seemed to hover like clouds around the immense plain,
and took many wonderful shapes: houses, towers, castles, men
and animals; but all of dark uncertain outline, changing like
dream pictures; now a cottage grew into a church, and that in
turn into a pyramid; here a spire arose, there another sank; a
man became a horse, and this in turn an elephant; here floated
a boat, there a ship with all sails set.
My eye found its pleasure for quite a while in watching these
fantastic figures-a panorama which only the sailor and the
desert-dweller have occasion to enjoy - when finally I began to
look for a real house among the many false ones; I wanted right
ardently to exchange all my beautiful fairy palaces for a single
human cottage.
Success was mine; I soon discovered a real farm without
spires and towers, whose outlines became distincter and sharper
the nearer I came to it, and which, flanked by peat-stacks,
looked much larger than it really was. Its inmates were
unknown to me. Their clothes were poor, their furniture simple,
but I knew that the heath-dweller often hides noble rental in an
unpainted box or in a miserable wardrobe, and a fat pocketbook
inside a patched coat; when therefore my eyes fell on an alcove
packed full of stockings, I concluded, and quite rightly, that I
was in the house of a rich hosier. (In parenthesis it may be
said that I do not know any poor ones. )
A middle-aged, gray-haired, but still strong man rose from
his slice and offered me his hand with these words: "Welcome!
- with permission to ask, where does the good friend come
from ? »
Do not jeer at so ill-mannered and straightforward a question!
the heath peasant is quite as hospitable as the Scotch laird, and
but a little more curious; after all, he cannot be blamed for
wanting to know who his guest is.
When I had told him who I was and whence I came, he
called his wife, who immediately put all the delicacies of the
house before me and begged me insistently, with good-hearted
kindness, to eat and drink, although my hunger and thirst made
all insistence unnecessary.
I was in the midst of the repast and a political talk with my
host, when a young and exceedingly beautiful peasant girl came
## p. 2072 (#266) ###########################################
2072
STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER
in, whom I should undoubtedly have declared a lady who had fled
from cruel parents and an unwished-for marriage, had not her
red hands and unadulterated peasant dialect convinced me that
no disguise had taken place. She nodded in a friendly way, cast
a passing glance under the table, went out and came in soon
again with a dish of milk and water, which she put down on the
floor with the words, "Your dog may need something too. "
I thanked her for her attention; but this was fully given to
the big dog, whose greediness soon made the dish empty, and
who now in his way thanked the giver by rubbing himself up
against her; and when she raised her arms, a little intimidated,
Chasseur misunderstood the movement, put himself on the alert,
and forced the screaming girl backwards toward the alcove. I
called the dog back and explained his good intentions.
I would not have invited the reader's attention to so trivial a
matter, but to remark that everything is becoming to the beauti-
ful; for indeed this peasant girl showed, in everything she said
and did, a certain natural grace which could not be called
coquetry unless you will so call an innate unconscious instinct.
When she had left the room I asked the parents if this was
their daughter. They answered in the affirmative, adding that
she was an only child.
"You won't keep her very long," I said.
"Dear me, what do you mean by that? " asked the father;
but a pleased smile showed that he understood my meaning.
"I think," I answered, "that she will hardly lack suitors. "
"Hm! " grumbled he, "of suitors we can get a plenty; but
if they are worth anything, that is the question. To go a-wooing
with a watch and a silver-mounted pipe does not set the matter
straight; it takes more to ride than to say 'Get up! ' Sure as I
live," he went on, putting both clenched hands on the table and
bending to look out of the low window, "if there is not one of
thema shepherd's boy just out of the heather-oh yes, one
of these customers who run about with a couple of dozen hose
in a wallet-stupid dog! wooes our daughter with two oxen and
two cows and a half-yes, I am on to him! - Beggar! "
All this was not addressed to me, but to the new-comer, on
whom he fastened his darkened eyes as the other came along
the heather path toward the house. The lad was still far enough
away to allow me time to ask my host about him, and I learned
that he was the son of the nearest neighbor-who, by the way,
## p. 2073 (#267) ###########################################
STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER
2073
lived at a distance of over two miles; * that the father owned
only a one-horse farm, and moreover owed the hosier two hun-
dred dollars; that the son had peddled woolen wares for some
years, and finally had dared to woo the fair Cecil, but had got a
flat refusal.
While I listened to this statement she had come in herself;
and her troubled look, divided between her father and the wan-
derer outside, made me think that she did not share the old man's
view of the matter.
As soon as the young peddler came in at one door she went
out of the other, but not without giving him a quick, tender,
and sad glance.
My host turned toward him, took hold of the table with both
hands as if he needed support, and answered the young man's
"God's peace and good day! " with a dry "Welcome! "
The latter stood still for a moment, let his eye wander around
the room, and then drew a pipe out of his inside pocket and a
tobacco-pouch out of his back pocket, knocked the pipe clean on
the stove at his side and stuffed it anew.
All this was done slowly, and as if in measured time, and my
host stayed motionless in his chosen position.
The stranger was a very handsome fellow, a true son of our
Northern nature, which goes slowly, but strongly and lastingly:
light-haired, blue-eyed, red-cheeked, whose finely downed chin
the razor had not yet touched, although he must have been fully
twenty years old. In the way of the peddlers, he was dressed
finer than an ordinary peasant, or even than the rich hosier, in
coat and wide trousers, red-striped waistcoat and blue-checked.
tie. He was no unworthy adorer of the fair Cecilia.
He pleased me, moreover, by a mild, open countenance which
spoke of patient perseverance one of the chief traits of the
Cimbric national character.
-
It was a good while before either of them would break the
silence. Finally the host opened his mouth and asked slowly,
in a cold and indifferent tone, "Where lies your way to-day,
Esben ? "
The man whom he addressed took his time about striking the
fire for his pipe and lighting it with long draughts, and answered,
"No farther to-day; but to-morrow I am going to Holstein. ”
*2 English ½ Danish.
## p. 2074 (#268) ###########################################
2074
STEEN STEENSEN BLICHER
There was another pause, during which Esben examined the
chairs and chose one, on which he sat down. Meanwhile mother
and daughter came in; the young peddler nodded to them with
so unchanged and so perfectly quiet a look that I should have
thought the fair Cecilia was entirely indifferent to him, had I
not known that love in such a heart may be strong, however
quiet it may seem; that it is not a flame which blazes and
sparkles, but a glow of even and long heat.
Cecilia sat down at the lower end of the table with a sigh,
and began to knit industriously; her mother took her seat at the
spinning wheel with a low "Welcome, Esben! ”
"That is to be on account of business? " spoke up the host.
"As it may happen to come," replied his guest: "one had
better try what may be made out of the South. And my prayer
is this, that you do not hasten too much to marry off Cecil
before I get back and we see what my luck has been. "
Cecil blushed, but continued to look down at her work.
Her mother stopped the wheel with one hand, laid the other
in her lap, and looked fixedly at the speaker; but the father
said, turning to me, "While the grass grows the horse dies! '
How can you ask that Cecil shall wait for you? You may stay
away a long while- may happen that you never come back. "
"Then it will be your fault, Mikkel Krausen! " interrupted
Esben; "but this I tell you, that if you force Cecil to take
another you do a great sin to both her and me. "
Then he rose, shook hands with both of the old people, and
told them a short farewell. But to his sweetheart he said in a
gentler and softer tone, "Farewell, Cecil! and thanks for all
good! think the best of me, if you may be allowed to- God be
with you! and with you all! Farewell! "
He turned to the door, put
box, each in its own pocket;
without turning a single time.
his wife said, "Oh, well! "-and set the wheel going again; but
tear upon tear rolled down Cecilia's cheeks.
away his pipe, pouch, and tinder-
took his stick and walked away
The old man smiled as before;
## p. 2075 (#269) ###########################################
2075
MATHILDE BLIND
(1847-1896)
M
ATHILDE BLIND was born at Mannheim, Germany, March 21st,
1847. She was educated principally in London, and subse-
quently in Zürich. Since her early school days, with the
exception of this interval of study abroad, and numerous journeys to
the south of Europe and the East, she has lived in London. Upon
her return from Zürich she was thrown much into contact with Maz-
zini, in London, and her first essay in literature was a volume of
poems (which she published in 1867 under the pseudonym Claude
Lake) dedicated to him. She was also in
close personal relationship with Madox
Brown, W. M. Rossetti, and Swinburne.
Her first literary work to appear under
her own name was a critical essay on the
poetical works of Shelley in the West-
minster Review in 1870, based upon W.
M. Rossetti's edition of the poet. In 1872
she wrote an account of the life and
writings of Shelley, to serve as an intro-
duction to a selection of his poems in the
Tauchnitz edition. She afterwards edited
a selection of the letters of Lord Byron
with an introduction, and a selection of his
poems with a memoir. A translation of Strauss's 'The Old Faith
and the New' appeared in 1873, which contained in a subsequent
edition a biography of the author. In 1883, Miss Blind wrote the
initial volume, George Eliot,' for the 'Eminent Women Series,'
which she followed in 1886 in the same series with 'Madame
Roland. Her first novel, Tarantella,' appeared in 1885. Besides
these prose works, she has made frequent contributions of literary
criticism to the Athenæum and other reviews, and of papers and
essays to the magazines; among them translations of Goethe's 'Max-
ims and Reflections' in Fraser's Magazine, and 'Personal Recollec-
tions of Mazzini' in the Fortnightly Review.
MATHILDE BLIND
Her principal claim to literary fame is however based upon her
verse. This is from all periods of her productivity. In addition to
the book of poems already noticed, she has written 'The Prophecy
of St. Oran, and other Poems,' 1882; The Heather on Fire,' a
protest against the wrongs of the Highland crofters, 1886; The
## p. 2076 (#270) ###########################################
2076
MATHILDE BLIND
Ascent of Man,' her most ambitious work, 1889; 'Dramas in Minia-
ture,' 1892; Songs and Sonnets,' 1893; and 'Birds of Passage: Songs
of the Orient and Occident,' 1895.
'The Ascent of Man' is a poetical treatment of the modern idea
of evolution, and traces the progress of man from his primitive con-
dition in a state of savagery to his present development. Miss Blind
has been an ardent advocate of the betterment of the position of
woman in society and the State. To this end she has worked and
written for an improved education, and against a one-sided morality
for the sexes. In her verse she shows characteristically a keen appre-
ciation of nature. Her minor poems particularly, many of which are
strong in feeling and admirable in form, entitle her to a distinguished
place among the lyric poets of England.
She died in London near the end of November, 1896.
FROM LOVE IN EXILE'
CHARGE you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the
dove,
That ye blow o'er the brows of my Love, breathing low that I
sicken for love.
I charge you, O dews of the Dawn, O tears of the star of the morn,
That ye fall at the feet of my Love with the sound of one weeping
forlorn.
I charge you, O birds of the Air, O birds flying home to your nest,
That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled from my
breast.
I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most
fair,
That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels, consumed by
despair.
O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee,
A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be.
Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish, the flames of
love's fire,
Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it, and breaks its
desire.
I rise like one in a dream when I see the red sun flaring low,
That drags me back shuddering from sleep each morning to life with
its woe.
## p. 2077 (#271) ###########################################
MATHILDE BLIND
2077
go
I like one in a dream; unbidden my feet know the way
garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white
To that
hawthorn of May.
The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry to its
core;
The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds him no
more.
The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where I weep,
My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne'er soothed
into sleep.
The moon returns, and the spring; birds warble, trees burst into
leaf;
But Love, once gone, goes for ever, and all that endures is the grief.
SEEKING
I
N MANY a shape and fleeting apparition,
Sublime in age or with clear morning eyes,
Ever I seek thee, tantalizing Vision,
Which beckoning flies.
Ever I seek Thee, O evasive Presence,
Which on the far horizon's utmost verge,
Like some wild star in luminous evanescence,
Shoots o'er the surge.
Ever I seek Thy features ever flying,
Which, ne'er beheld, I never can forget:
Lightning which flames through love, and mimics dying
In souls that set.
Ever I seek Thee through all clouds of error;
As when the moon behind earth's shadow slips,
She wears a momentary mask of terror
In brief eclipse.
Ever I seek Thee, passionately yearning;
Like altar fire on some forgotten fane,
My life flames up irrevocably burning,
And burnt in vain.
## p. 2078 (#272) ###########################################
2078
MATHILDE BLIND
THE SONGS OF SUMMER
THE
HE songs of summer are over and past!
The swallow's forsaken the dripping eaves;
Ruined and black 'mid the sodden leaves
The nests are rudely swung in the blast:
And ever the wind like a soul in pain
Knocks and knocks at the window-pane.
The songs of summer are over and past!
Woe's me for a music sweeter than theirs -
The quick, light bound of a step on the stairs,
The greeting of lovers too sweet to last:
And ever the wind like a soul in pain
Knocks and knocks at the window-pane.
A PARABLE
B
ETWEEN the sandhills and the sea
A narrow strip of silver sand,
Whereon a little maid doth stand,
Who picks up shells continually,
Between the sandhills and the sea.
Far as her wondering eyes can reach,
A vastness heaving gray in gray
To the frayed edges of the day
Furls his red standard on the breach
Between the sky-line and the beach.
The waters of the flowing tide
Cast up the sea-pink shells and weed;
She toys with shells, and doth not heed
The ocean, which on every side
Is closing round her vast and wide.
It creeps her way as if in play,
Pink shells at her pink feet to cast;
But now the wild waves hold her fast,
And bear her off and melt away,
A vastness heaving gray in gray.
## p. 2079 (#273) ###########################################
MATHILDE BLIND
2079
LOVE'S SOMNAMBULIST
L
IKE some wild sleeper who alone at night
Walks with unseeing eyes along a height,
With death below and only stars above,
I, in broad daylight, walk as if in sleep
Along the edges of life's perilous steep,
The lost somnambulist of love.
I,, in broad day, go walking in a dream,
Led on in safety by the starry gleam
Of thy blue eyes that hold my heart in thrall;
Let no one wake me rudely, lest one day,
Startled to find how far I've gone astray,
I dash my life out in my fall.
Α΄
THE MYSTIC'S VISION
H! I shall kill myself with dreams!
These dreams that softly lap me round
Through trance-like hours, in which meseems
That I am swallowed up and drowned;
Drowned in your love, which flows o'er me
As o'er the seaweed flows the sea.
In watches of the middle night,
'Twixt vesper and 'twixt matin bell,
With rigid arms and straining sight,
I wait within my narrow cell;
With muttered prayers, suspended will,
I wait your advent-statue-still.
Across the convent garden walls
The wind blows from the silver seas;
Black shadow of the cypress falls
Between the moon-meshed olive-trees;
Sleep-walking from their golden bowers,
Flit disembodied orange flowers.
And in God's consecrated house,
All motionless from head to feet,
My heart awaits her heavenly Spouse,
As white I lie on my white sheet;
With body lulled and soul awake,
I watch in anguish for your sake.
## p. 2080 (#274) ###########################################
2080
MATHILDE BLIND
And suddenly, across the gloom,
The naked moonlight sharply swings;
A Presence stirs within the room,
A breath of flowers and hovering wings:
Your presence without form and void,
Beyond all earthly joys enjoyed.
My heart is hushed, my tongue is mute,
My life is centred in your will;
You play upon me like a lute
Which answers to its master's skill,
Till passionately vibrating,
Each nerve becomes a throbbing string.
Oh, incommunicably sweet!
No longer aching and apart,
As rain upon the tender wheat,
You pour upon my thirsty heart;
As scent is bound up in the rose,
Your love within my bosom glows.
FROM TARANTELLA ›
Sou
OUNDS of human mirth and laughter from somewhere among
them were borne from time to time to the desolate spot I
had reached. It was a Festa day, and a number of young
people were apparently enjoying their games and dances, to judge
by the shouts and laughter which woke echoes of ghostly mirth
in the vaults and galleries that looked as though they had lain
dumb under the pressure of centuries.
There was I know not what of weird contrast between this
gaping ruin, with its fragments confusedly scattered about like
the bleaching bones of some antediluvian monster, and the clear
youthful ring of those joyous voices.
I had sat down on some fragment of wall directly overhang-
ing the sea. In my present mood it afforded me a singular kind
of pleasure to take up stones or pieces of marble and throw
them down the precipice. From time to time I could hear them
striking against the sharp projections of the rocks as they leaped
down the giddy height. Should I let my violin follow in their
wake?
I was in a mood of savage despair; a mood in which my
heart turned at bay on what I had best loved. Hither it had
## p. 2081 (#275) ###########################################
MATHILDE BLIND
2081
led me, this art I had worshiped! After years of patient toil,
after sacrificing to it hearth and home, and the security of a set-
tled profession, I was not a tittle further advanced than at the
commencement of my career. For requital of my devoted serv-
ice, starvation stared me in the face. My miserable subsistence
was barely earned by giving lessons to females, young and old,
who, while inflicting prolonged tortures on their victim, still
exacted the tribute of smiles and compliments.
Weakened and ill, I shuddered to think of returning and bow-
ing my neck once more to that detested yoke.
"No! I'll never go back to that! " I cried, jumping up. "I'll
sooner earn a precarious livelihood by turning fisherman in this
island! Any labor will be preferable to that daily renewing tor-
ture. " I seized my violin in a desperate clutch, and feverishly
leant over the wall, where I could hear the dirge-like boom of
the breakers in the hollow caves.
Only he who is familiar with the violin knows the love one
may bear it.
-a love keen as that felt for some frail human crea-
ture of exquisitely delicate mold. Caressingly I passed my fingers.
over its ever-responsive strings, thinking, feeling rather, that I
could endure no hand to handle it save mine!
No! rather than that it should belong to another, its strings
should for ever render up the ghost of music in one prolonged
wail, as it plunged shivering from this fearful height.
For the last time, I thought, my fingers erred over its familiar
chords. A thrill of horrid exultation possessed me, such as the
fell Tiberius may have experienced when he bade his men hurl
the shrinking form of a soft-limbed favorite from this precipice.
Possibly my shaken nerves were affected by the hideous mem-
ories clinging to these unhallowed ruins; possibly also by the
oppressive heat of the day.
Sea and sky, indeed, looked in harmony with unnatural sensa-
tions; as though some dread burst of passion were gathering
intensity under their apparently sluggish calm.
Though the sky overhead was of a sultry blue, yet above the
coast-line of Naples, standing out with preternatural distinctness,
uncouth, livid clouds straggled chaotically to the upper sky, here
and there reaching lank, shadowy films, like gigantic arms, far
into the zenith. Flocks of sea-birds were uneasily flying land-
ward; screaming, they wheeled round the sphinx-like rocks, and
disappeared by degrees in their red clefts and fissures.
IV-131
## p. 2082 (#276) ###########################################
2082
MATHILDE BLIND
All at once I was startled in my fitful, half-mechanical playing
by a piercing scream; this was almost immediately followed by a
confused noise of sobs and cries, and a running of people to and
fro, which seemed, however, to be approaching nearer.
I was
just going to hurry to the spot whence the noise proceeded, when
some dozen of girls came rushing towards me.
But before I had time to inquire into the cause of their ex-
citement, or to observe them more closely, a gray-haired woman,
with a pale, terror-stricken face, seized hold of my hand, crying:
"The Madonna be praised, he has a violin! Hasten, hasten!
Follow us or she will die! "
And then the girls, beckoning and gesticulating, laid hold of
my arm, my coat, my hand, some pulling, some pushing me
along, all jabbering and crying together, and repeating more and
more urgently the only words that I could make out — «Musica!
Musica! "
-
But while I stared at them in blank amazement, thinking
they must all have lost their wits together, I was unconsciously
being dragged and pulled along till we came to a kind of ruined
marble staircase, down which they hurried me into something
still resembling a spacious chamber; for though the wild fig-tree
and cactus pushed their fantastic branches through gaps in the
walls, these stood partly upright as yet, discovering in places the
dull red glow of weather-stained wall-paintings.
The floor, too, was better preserved than any I had seen;
though cracked and in part overrun by ivy, it showed portions of
the original white and black tessellated work.
On this floor, with her head pillowed on a shattered capital,
lay a prostrate figure without life or motion, and with limbs
rigidly extended as in death.
The old woman, throwing herself on her knees before this
lifeless figure, loosened the handkerchief round her neck, and
then, as though to feel whether life yet lingered, she put her
hand on the heart of the unconscious girl, when, suddenly jump-
ing up again, she ran to me, panting:-
"O sir, good sir, play, play for the love of the Madonna! "
And the others all echoed as with one voice, "Musica! Musica! "
"Is this a time to make music? " cried I, in angry bewilder-
ment. "The girl seems dying or dead. Run quick for a doctor
or stay, if you
will tell me where he lives I will go myself
and bring him hither with all speed. "
## p. 2083 (#277) ###########################################
MATHILDE BLIND
2083
•
For all answer the gray-haired woman, who was evidently the
girl's mother, fell at my feet, and clasping my knees, cried in a
voice broken by sobs, "O good sir, kind sir, my girl has been
bitten by the tarantula! Nothing in the world can save her but
you, if with your playing you can make her rise up and dance! "
Then darting back once more to the girl, who lay as motion-
less as before, she screamed in shrill despair, "She's getting as
cold as ice; the death-damps will be on her if you will not play
for my darling. "
And all the girls, pointing as with one accord to my violin,
chimed in once again, crying more peremptorily than before,
"Musica! Musica! "
There was no arguing with these terror-stricken, imploring
creatures, so I took the instrument that had been doomed to
destruction, to call the seemingly dead to life with it.
What possessed me then I know not: but never before or
since did the music thus waken within the strings of its own
demoniacal will and leap responsive to my fingers.
Perhaps the charm lay in the devout belief which the listeners
had in the efficacy of my playing. They say your fool would
cease to be one if nobody believed in his folly.
Well, I played, beginning with an andante, at the very first
notes of which the seemingly lifeless girl rose to her feet as
if by enchantment, and stood there, taller by the head than
the ordinary Capri girls her companions, who were breathlessly
watching her. So still she stood, that with her shut eyes and
face of unearthly pallor she might have been taken for a statue;
till, as I slightly quickened the tempo, a convulsive tremor passed
through her rigid, exquisitely molded limbs, and then with meas-
ured gestures of inexpressible grace she began slowly swaying
herself to and fro. Softly her eyes unclosed now, and mistily as
yet their gaze dwelt upon me. There was intoxication in their
fixed stare, and almost involuntarily I struck into an impassioned
allegro.
No sooner had the tempo changed than a spirit of new life
seemingly entered the girl's frame. A smile, transforming her
features, wavered over her countenance, kindling fitful lightnings
of returning consciousness in her dark, mysterious eyes. Looking
about her with an expression of wide-eyed surprise, she eagerly
drank in the sounds of the violin; her graceful movements
became more and more violent, till she whirled in ever-widening
## p. 2084 (#278) ###########################################
2084
MATHILDE BLIND
circles round about the roofless palace chamber, athwart which
flurried bats swirled noiselessly through the gathering twilight.
Hither and thither she glided, no sooner completing the circle in
one direction than, snapping her fingers with a passionate cry,
she wheeled round in an opposite course, sometimes clapping her
hands together and catching up snatches of my own melody,
sometimes waving aloft or pressing to her bosom the red ker-
chief or mucadore she had worn knotted in her hair, which, now
unloosened, twined about her ivory-like neck and shoulders in a
serpentine coil.
Fear, love, anguish, and pleasure seemed alternately to pos-
sess her mobile countenance. Her face indicated violent trans-
itions of passion; her hands appeared as if struggling after
articulate expression of their own; her limbs were contorted with
emotion: in short, every nerve and fibre in her body seemed to
translate the music into movement.
As I looked on, a demon seemed to enter my brain and
fingers, hurrying me into a Bacchanalian frenzy of sound; and
the faster I played, the more furiously her dizzily gliding feet
flashed hither and thither in a bewildering, still-renewing maze,
so that from her to me and me to her an electric impulse of
rhythmical movement perpetually vibrated to and fro.
Ever and anon the semicircle of eagerly watching girls, sym-
pathetically thrilled by the spectacle, clapped their hands, shout-
ing for joy; and balancing themselves on tiptoe, joined in the
headlong dance. And as they glided to and fro, the wild roses
and ivy and long tendrils of the vine, flaunting it on the
crumbling walls, seemed to wave in unison and dance round the
dancing girls.
As I went on playing the never-ending, still-beginning tune,
night overtook us, and we should have been in profound obscurity
but for continuous brilliant flashes of lightning shooting up from
the horizon, like the gleaming lances hurled as from the van-
guard of an army of Titans.
In the absorbing interest, however, with which we watched
the deliriously whirling figure, unconscious of aught but the
music, we took but little note of the lightning. Sometimes,
when from some black turreted thunder-cloud, a triple-pronged
dart came hissing and crackling to the earth as though launched
by the very hand of Jove, I saw thirteen hands suddenly lifted,
thirteen fingers instinctively flying from brow to breast making
## p. 2085 (#279) ###########################################
MATHILDE BLIND
2085
the sign of the cross, and heard thirteen voices mutter as one,
"Nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo. "
But the ecstatic dancer paused not nor rested in her incredi-
ble exertions; the excited girls alternately told their beads and
then joined in the dance again, while the gray-haired mother,
kneeling on the marble pediment of what might have been the
fragment of a temple of Bacchus, lifted her hands in prayer to
a little shrine of the Madonna, placed there, strangely enough,
amidst the relics of paganism.
All of a sudden, however, a horrific blaze, emitted from a
huge focus of intolerable light, set the whole heavens aflame.
As from a fresh-created baleful sun, blue and livid and golden-
colored lightnings were shivered from it on all sides; dull, how-
ever, in comparison to the central ball, which, bursting instan-
taneously, bathed the sky, earth, and air in one insufferable glare
of phosphorescent light. The deadly blue flame lit up every-
thing with a livid brightness unknown to day.
Walls and faded wall-paintings, limbs of decapitated god-
desses gleaming white through the grass and rioting weeds, tot-
tering columns, arches, and vaults, and deserted galleries receding
in endless perspective, leaped out lifelike on a background of
night and storm.
With piercing shrieks the horrified maidens scattered and fled
to the remotest corner of the ruin, where they fell prone on their
faces, quivering in a heap. In a voice strangled by fear, the
kneeling mother called for protection on the Virgin and all the
saints! The violin dropped from my nerveless grasp, and at
the self-same moment the beautiful dancer, like one struck by a
bullet, tottered and dropped to the ground, where she lay with-
out sense or motion.
At that instant a clap of thunder so awful, so heaven-rend-
ing, rattled overhead, so roared and banged and clattered among
the clouds, that I thought the shadowy ruin, tottering and rock-
ing with the shock, would come crashing about us and bury us
under its remains.
But as the thunder rolled on farther and farther, seemingly
rebounding from cloud to cloud, I recovered my self-possession,
and in mortal fear rushed to the side of the prostrate girl. I
was trembling all over like a coward as I bent down to examine
her. Had the lightning struck her when she fell so abruptly to
the ground? Had life forever forsaken that magnificent form,
## p. 2086 (#280) ###########################################
2086
MATHILDE BLIND
those divinest limbs? Would those heavy eyelashes never again
be raised from those dazzling eyes? Breathlessly I moved aside
the dusky hair covering her like a pall. Breathlessly I placed
my hand on her heart; a strange shiver and spark quivered
through it to my heart. Yet she was chill as ice and motionless
as a stone. "She is dead, she is dead! " I moaned; and the
pang for one I had never known exceeded everything I had felt
in my life.
"You mistake, signor," some one said close beside me; and
on looking up I saw the mother intently gazing down on her
senseless child. "My Tolla is not hurt," she cried: "she only fell
when you left off playing the tarantella; she will arise as soon as
you go on. ”
Pointing to the lightning still flickering and darting overhead,
I cried, "But you are risking your lives for some fantastic whim,
some wild superstition of yours. You are mad to brave such a
storm! You expose your child to undoubted peril that you may
ward off some illusory evil. Let me bear her to the inn, and
follow me thither. " And I was going to lift the senseless form
in my arms when the woman sternly prevented me.
In vain I argued, pleaded, reasoned with her. She only shook
her head and cried piteously, "Give her music, for the love of
the dear Madonna! " And the girls, who by this time had
plucked up courage and gathered round us, echoed as with one.
voice, "Musica! Musica! "
What was I to do? I could not drag them away by force,
and certainly, for aught I knew, she might have been in equal
danger from the poison or the storm, wherever we were.
As for
peril to myself, I cared not. I was in a devil of a mood, and all
the pent-up bitter passion of my soul seemed to find a vent and
safety-valve in that stupendous commotion of the elements.
So I searched for my instrument on the ground, and now
noticed, to my astonishment, that although the storm had swept
away from us, the whole ruin was nevertheless brightly illu
minated. On looking up I saw the topmost branches of a solitary
stone-pine one dazzle of flames. Rising straight on high from a
gap in the wall which its roots had shattered, it looked a colos-
sal chandelier on which the lightning had kindled a thousand
tapers. There was not a breath of air, not a drop of rain, so
that the flames burned clear and steady as under cover of a
mighty dome.
## p. 2087 (#281) ###########################################
MATHILDE BLIND
2087
•
By this brilliant light, by which every object, from a human
form to a marble acanthus leaf, cast sharp-edged shadows, I soon
discovered my violin on a tangle of flowering clematis, and began
tuning its strings.
No sooner had I struck into the same lively tune, than the
strange being rose again as by magic, and, slowly opening her
intoxicating eyes, began swaying herself to and fro with the
same graceful gestures and movements that I had already
observed.
Thus I played all through the night, long after the rear-guard
of the thunder-storm had disappeared below the opposite horizon
whence it first arose― played indefatigably on and on like a man
possessed, and still, by the torch of the burning pine, I saw the
beautiful mænad-like figure whirling to and fro with miraculous
endurance. Now and then, through the deep silence, I heard a
scarred pine-bough come crackling to the earth; now and then I
heard the lowing of the stabled cattle in some distant part of
the ruin; once and again, smiting like a cry, I heard one string
snapping after another under my pitiless hands.
Still I played on, though a misty quiver of sparks was dan-
cing about my eyes, till the fallow-tinted dawn gleamed faintly
in the east.
At last, at last, a change stole over the form and features
of the indefatigable dancer. Her companions, overcome with
fatigue, had long ago sunk to the ground, where, with their little
ruffled heads resting on any bit of marble, they lay sleeping
calmly like little children. Only the mother still watched and
prayed for her child, the unnatural tension of whose nerves and
muscles now seemed visibly to relax; for the mad light of ex-
altation in her eyes veiled itself in softness, her feet moved
more and more slowly, and her arms, which had heretofore been
in constant motion, dropped languidly to her side. I too relaxed
in my tempo, and the thrilling, vivacious tune melted away in a
dying strain.
At the expiring notes, when I had but one string left, her
tired eyes closed as in gentlest sleep, a smile hovered about her
lips, her head sank heavily forward on her bosom, and she would
have fallen had not her mother received the swooning form into
her outstretched arms.
At the same moment my last string snapped, a swarming
darkness clouded my sight, the violin fell from my wet, burning
## p. 2088 (#282) ###########################################
2088
MATHILDE BLIND
hands, and I reeled back, faint and dizzy, when I felt soft arms
embracing me, and somebody sobbed and laughed, "You have
saved her, Maestro; praise be to God and all His saints in
heaven! May the Madonna bless you forever and ever—»
I heard no more, but fell into a death-like swoon.
"O MOON, LARGE GOLDEN SUMMER MOON! »
MOON, large golden summer moon,
O
Hanging between the linden trees,
Which in the intermittent breeze
Beat with the rhythmic pulse of June!
O night-air, scented through and through
With honey-colored flower of lime,
Sweet now as in that other time
When all my heart was sweet as you!
The sorcery of this breathing bloom
Works like enchantment in my brain,
Till, shuddering back to life again,
My dead self rises from its tomb.
And lovely with the love of yore,
Its white ghost haunts the moon-white ways;
But when it meets me face to face,
Flies trembling to the grave once more.
GREEN LEAVES AND SERE
THR
HREE tall poplars beside the pool
Shiver and moan in the gusty blast;
The carded clouds are blown like wool,
And the yellowing leaves fly thick and fast.
The leaves, now driven before the blast,
Now flung by fits on the curdling pool,
Are tossed heaven-high and dropped at last
As if at the whim of a jabbering fool.
O leaves, once rustling green and cool!
Two met here where one moans aghast
With wild heart heaving towards the past:
Three tall poplars beside the pool.
## p. 2088 (#283) ###########################################
## p. 2088 (#284) ###########################################
BOCCACCIO.
## p. 2088 (#285) ###########################################
2680
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with whitt
Born in 1313, at seven years of age he showed signs of a literary
fully, and his father, a merchant of Florence, put bin to school
## p. 2088 (#286) ###########################################
BOCCACS 9.
"
## p. 2089 (#287) ###########################################
2089
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
(1313-1375)
BY W. J. STILLMAN
T HAS been justly observed, and confirmed by all that we
know of the early history of literature, that the first forms
of it were in verse. This is in accordance with a principle
which is stated by Herbert Spencer on a different but related theme,
that "Ornament was before dress," the artistic instincts underlying
and preceding the utilitarian preoccupations. History indeed was first
poetry, as we had Homer before Thucydides, and as in all countries
the traditions of the past take the form of metrical, and generally
musical, recitation. An excellent and polished school of prose writers
is the product of a tendency in national life of later origin than that
which calls out the bards and ballad-singers, and is proof of a more
advanced culture. The Renaissance in Italy was but the resumption
of a life long suspended, and the succession of the phenomena in
which was therefore far more rapid than was possible in a nation
which had to trace the path without any survivals of a prior awaken-
ing; and while centuries necessarily intervened between Homer and
the "Father of History," a generation sufficed between Dante and
Boccaccio, for Italian literature had only to throw off the leaden garb
of Latin form to find its new dress in the vernacular. Dante cer-
tainly wrote Italian prose, but he was more at ease in verse; and
while the latter provoked in him an abundance of those happy phrases
which seem to have been born with the thought they express, and
which pass into the familiar stock of imagery of all later time, the
prose of the 'Convito' and the Vita Nuova' hardly ever recalls itself
in common speech by any parallel of felicity.
And Boccaccio too wrote poetry of no ignoble type, but proba-
bly because he was part of an age when verse had become the habit-
ual form of culture, and all who could write caught the habit of
versification,— —a habit easier to fall into in Italian than in any other
language. But while the consecration of time has been given to the
'Commedia,' and the 'Convito' passes into the shadow and perspective
of lesser things, so the many verses of Boccaccio are overlooked, and
his greatest prose work, the 'Decameron,' is that with which his
fame is mostly bound up.
Born in 1313, at seven years of age he showed signs of a literary
facility, and his father, a merchant of Florence, put him to school
## p. 2090 (#288) ###########################################
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
2090
with a reputable grammarian; but afterward, deciding to devote him.
to merchandise, sent him to study arithmetic,- restive and profitless
in which, he was sent to study canon law, and finding his level no
better there, went back to traffic and to Naples in his father's busi-
ness when he was about twenty. The story runs that the sight of
the tomb of Virgil turned his thoughts to poetry; but this confusion
of the post hoc with the propter hoc is too common in remote and
romantic legend to value much. The presence of Petrarch in the
court of Robert, King of Naples, is far more likely to have been the
kindling of his genius to its subsequent activity: and the passion he
acquired while there for the illegitimate daughter of the King, Maria,—
the Fiammetta of his later life,-furnished the fuel for its burning;
his first work, the 'Filocopo,' being written as an offering to her.
It is a prose love story, mixed with mythological allusions,— after
the fashion of the day, which thought more of the classics than of
nature; and like all his earlier works, prolix and pedantic.
The Theseide,' a purely classic theme, the war of Theseus with
the Amazons, is in verse; and was followed by the 'Ameto,' or
'Florentine Nymphs,' a story of the loves of Ameto, a rustic swain,
with one of the nymphs of the valley of the Affrico, a stream which
flows into the Arno not far from where the poet was born, or where
at least he passed his youth; and to which valley he seems always
greatly attached, putting there the scene of most of his work, in-
cluding the 'Decameron. ' 'Ameto' is a mythological fiction, in
which the characters mingle recitations of verse with the prose nar-
ration, and in which the gods of Greece and Rome masque in the
familiar scenes. Following these came the Amorosa Visione,' and
'Filostrato,' in verse; Fiammetta,' in prose, being the imaginary
complaint of his beloved at their separation; 'Nimfale Fiesolano,' in
verse, the scene also laid on the Affrico; and then the 'Decameron,'
begun in 1348 and finished in 1353, after which he seems to have
gradually acquired a disgust for the world he had lived in as he had
known it, and turned to more serious studies. He wrote a life of
Dante, 'Il Corbaccio,' a piece of satirical savagery, the 'Genealogy
of the Gods,' and various minor works; and spent much of his
time in intercourse with Petrarch, whose conversation and influence
were of a different character from that of his earlier life.
Boccaccio died at Certaldo in the Val d'Elsa, December 2d, 1375.
Of the numerous works he left, that by which his fame as a writer
is established is beyond any question the 'Decameron,' or Ten Days'
Entertainment; in which a merry company of gentlemen and ladies,
appalled by the plague raging in their Florence, take refuge in the
villas near the city, and pass their time in story-telling and rambles
in the beautiful country around, only returning when the plague
## p. 2091 (#289) ###########################################
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
2091
has to a great extent abated. The superiority of the 'Decameron'
is not only in the polish and grace of its style, the first complete
departure from the stilted classicism of contemporary narrative, the
happy naturalness of good story-telling,—but in the conception of
the work as a whole, and the marvelous imagination of the filling-in
between the framework of the story of the plague by the hundred
tales from all lands and times, with the fine thread of the narrative
of the day-by-day doings of the merry and gracious company, their
wanderings, the exquisite painting of the Tuscan landscape (in which
one recognizes the Val d'Arno even to-day), and the delicate drawing
of their various characters. It is only when all these elements have
been taken into consideration, and the unity wrought through such
a maze of interest and mass of material without ever becoming dull
or being driven to repetition, that we understand the power of Boc-
caccio as an artist.
-
We must take the ten days' holiday as it is painted: a gay and
entrancing record of a fortunate and brilliant summer vacation, every
one of its hundred pictures united with the rest by a delicate tracery
of flowers and landscape, with bird-songs and laughter, bits of tender
and chaste by-play- for there were recognized lovers in the com-
pany; and when this is conceived in its entirety, we must set it in
the massive frame of terrible gloom of the great plague, through
which Boccaccio makes us look at his picture. And then the frame
itself becomes a picture; and its ghastly horror-the apparent fidelity
of the descriptions, which makes one feel as if he had before him
the evidence of an eye-witness-gives a measure of the power of
the artist and the range of his imagination, from an earthly inferno
to an earthly paradise, such as even the Commedia does not give
us. In this stupendous ensemble, the individual tales become mere
details, filling in of the space or time; and, taken out of it, the whole
falls into a mere story-book, in which the only charm is the polish
of the parts, the shine of the fragments that made the mosaic. The
tales came from all quarters, and only needed to be amusing or
interesting enough to make one suppose that they had been listened
to with pleasure: stories from the 'Gesta Romanorum,' the mediæval
chronicles, or any gossip of the past or present, just to make a
whole; the criticism one might pass on them, I imagine, never gave
Boccaccio a thought, only the way they were placed being important.
The elaborate preparation for the story-telling; the grouping of them
as a whole, in contrast with the greater story he put as their con-
trast and foil; the solemn gloom, the deep chiaroscuro of this framing,
painted like a miniature; the artful way in which he prepares for his
lieta brigata the way out of the charnel-house: these are the real
'Decameron. ' The author presents it in a prelude which has for its
## p. 2092 (#290) ###########################################
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
2092
scope only to give the air of reality to the whole, as if not only the
plague, but the 'Decameron,' had been history; and the proof of his
perfect success is in the fact that for centuries the world has been
trying to identify the villas where the merry men and maidens met,
as if they really had met.
"Whenever, most gracious ladies, I reflect how pitiful you all are by
nature, I recognize that this work will in your opinion have a sad and
repulsive beginning, as the painful memory of the pestilence gone by, fraught
with loss to all who saw or knew of it, and which memory the work will bear
on its front. But I would not that for this you read no further, through
fear that your reading should be always through sighs and tears.
This
frightful beginning I prepare for you as for travelers a rough and steep
mountain, beyond which lies a most beautiful and delightful plain, by so
much the more pleasurable as the difficulty of the ascent and passage of
the mountain had been great.
