Amy Levy

“ Friends, I am very hungry, give me love!
’Tis all I ask! is it so hard to give?
You stand and front me with your hostile eyes;
You only give me hatred?
Yet I know
Ye are not all unloving. Oft I see
The men and women walking in the ways,
Hand within hand, and tender-bated breath,
On summer evenings when the sky is fair.
O men and women, are ye then so hard?
Will ye not give a little of your love
To me that am so hungry?
[Enter Ægeus and Nikias, on the opposite side. Medea steps back on the threshold and pauses.]
Ha, that word!
’Tis Jason’s name they bandy to and fro. ”

“ Here was Reuben, here was she, face to face—alive—together.
He came slowly forwards, his eyelids drooping, an air of almost wooden immobility on his face. The black frock-coat which he wore, and in which he had that day attended Mr. Ronaldson’s funeral, brought out the unusual sallowness of his complexion. There was a withered, yellow look about him to-night which forcibly recalled his mother.
Judith’s heart grew very soft as she watched him shaking hands with her aunt and uncle.
“He is not well,” she thought; then: “He always comes last to me.” ”

“ The long limbs lay on the sand with an eagle eating the heart.{69}
Repose for the rotting head and peace for the putrid breast,
But for that which is “I” indeed the gods have decreed no rest;
No rest but an endless aching, a sorrow which grows amain:—
I am caught in the Circle of Being and held in the Circle of Pain.
Bitter indeed is Life, and bitter of Life the breath,
But give me life and its ways and its men, if this be Death.
Wearied I once of the Sun and the voices which clamour’d around:
Give them me back—in the sightless depths there is neither light nor sound. ”

“ It was one of the intensely good things of life which cannot happen often even in the happiest careers; one of the little bits of perfection which start up now and then to astonish us, plants of such delicate growth that only by an unforeseen succession of accidents are they ever brought to birth. With what ease my partner skimmed about that crowded hall! How skilfully he steered among the bounding complex! Was ever such music heard out of heaven; and was ever such a kind, comfortable, reassuring presence as that of Andrea? ”

“ Of this fair world, and of the holy gods?
Then followed days of sadness, as I grew
To learn my woman-mind had gone astray,
And I was sinning in those very thoughts—
For maidens, mark, such are not woman’s thoughts—
(And yet, ’tis strange, the gods who fashion us
Have given us such promptings) ....
Fled the years,
Till seventeen had found me tall and strong,
And fairer, runs it, than Athenian maids
Are wont to seem; I had not learnt it well—
My lesson of dumb patience—and I stood
At Life’s great threshold with a beating heart,
And soul resolved to conquer and attain.... ”

“ Judith sat there listening, cutting open her novel, and throwing in a remark from time to time.
Every word that was uttered seemed a brick in the wall that was building between herself and Reuben.
In this crisis of his career, so long looked forward to, so often discussed, he had no need, no thought of her. Adelaide, Esther, Rose, all had more claim on him than she; she was shut out from his life.
Reuben, disappointed, defeated: in such a one she would always, in spite of himself, have felt her rights. ”

“ Poor little thing, she has no money to speak of, and, even if she had, who are the Di Rossas? Andrea, for all he is so free and easy, is as proud as the devil, and the very last man to make a mésalliance. A convent, say I, will be the end of the Di Rossa." And she sighed contentedly.
Was it possible that she was insulting me? Was this a warning, a warning to me, Elsie Meredith? Did she think me an adventuress, setting traps for a rich and noble husband, or merely an eager fool liable to put a misconstruction on the simplest acts of kindliness and courtesy? ”

“ The people take the thing of course,
They marvel not to see
This strange, unnatural divorce
Betwixt delight and me.
I KNOW the face of sorrow, and I know
Her voice with all its varied cadences;
Which way she turns and treads; how at her ease
Thinks fit her dreary largess to bestow.
Where sorrow long abides, some be that grow
To hold her dear, but I am not of these;
Joy is my friend, not sorrow; by strange seas,
In some far land we wandered, long ago.
O faith, long tried, that knows no faltering! ”

“ Is life indeed over for Judith, or at least all that makes life beautiful, worthy—a thing in any way tolerable?
The ways of joy like the ways of sorrow are many; and hidden away in the depths of Judith’s life—though as yet she knows it not—is the germ of another life, which shall quicken, grow, and come forth at last. Shall bring with it no doubt, pain and sorrow, and tears; but shall bring also{267} hope and joy, and that quickening of purpose which is perhaps as much as any of us should expect or demand from Fate. ”

“ Light of sweet sunlight, play and spray of waves?
When all around the air is charged and chill,
And all the place is drear and dark with hate?
Alas, alas, this people loves me not!
This strong, fair people, marble-cold and smooth
As modelled marble. I, an alien here,
That well can speak the language of their lips,
The language of their souls may never learn.
And in their hands, I, that did know myself
Ere now, a creature in whose veins ran blood
Redder, more rapid, than flows round most hearts,
Do seem a creature reft of life and soul. ”

“ So she says," cried the Marchesina, with a frankness that astonished me, even from her; "so she says; but between ourselves, Andrea was very attentive last night to Emilia di Rossa. Costanza ought to understand what he is by now. She has known him all her life; she ought certainly to be aware that his one little weakness—Andrea is as good as gold—is the ladies."
I bent my head low over my work, with an indignant, shame-stricken consciousness that I was blushing. "He is evidently engaged to Costanza," I thought, and I wished the earth would open and swallow me. ”

“ Judith listened passively as the advantages of her future position were laid before her.
Then she made her protest, fully conscious of its weakness.
“I do not like Mr. Lee-Harrison.”
“Of course not,” said Mrs. Quixano. “I should be sorry to hear that you did. No girl likes her intended—at first.”
Judith bowed her head, conscious, ashamed.
Only that afternoon Rose had said to her:
“We all have to marry the men we don’t care for. I shall, I know, although I have a lot of money. I am not sure that it is not best in the end.” ”

“ There were no points of agreement in our practice of waltzing, and after a few turns we subsided on to one of the damask sofas, exchanging commonplaces and watching the dancers, whose rapid twists and bounding action filled my heart with despair.
"I shall never be able to dance like that," I reflected. It was by no means an ungraceful performance. They leapt high, it is true, but in no vulgar fashion of mere jumping; rather they rose into the air with something of the ease and elasticity of an indiarubber ball, maintaining throughout an appearance of great seriousness and dignity. ”

“ Ægeus.
Cease, my friend;
It is enough. You judged this thing aright;
This woman was dark and evil in her soul;
Black to her fiend-heart’s root; a festering plague
In our fair city’s midst.
{56} Nikias.
Spake I not true?
[Night; outside the city. Medea leaning against a rock.]
Here let me rest; beyond men’s eyes, beyond
The city’s hissing hate. Why am I here?
Why have I fled from death? There’s sun on the earth,
And in the shades no sun;—thus much I know;
And sunlight’s good. ”

“ Judith was looking very well. Her short, diaphanous white ball-gown, with its low-cut, tight-fitting satin bodice was not exactly a dignified garment, but she managed to maintain, in spite of it, her customary air of stateliness.
Moreover to-night some indefinable change had come over the character of her beauty, heightening it, intensifying it, giving it new life and colour. The calm, unawakened look which many people had{151} found so baffling, had left her face; the eyes, always curiously mournful, shone out with a new soft fire. ”

“ The wide and straggling grass-grown piazza, bounded on one side by the city wall, on the other by the low wall of the Campo Santo, with the wind whistling drearily across it, struck me as the very type and symbol of desolation.
At one end rose the Leaning Tower, pallid, melancholy, defying the laws of nature in a disappointingly spiritless fashion. Close against it the magnificent bulk of the cathedral reared itself, a marvel of mellow tints, of splendid outline, and richly modelled surfaces. ”

“ We know some things together, you and I!
Hold there, you rangèd row of books! In vain
You beckon from your shelf. You’ve stood my friends
Where all things else were foes; yet now I’ll turn
My back upon you, even as the world
Turns it on me. And yet—farewell, farewell!
You, lofty Shakespere, with the tattered leaves
And fathomless great heart, your binding’s bruised
Yet did I love you less? Goethe, farewell;
Farewell, triumphant smile and tragic eyes,
And pitiless world-wisdom!{17}
For all men
These two. ”

“ The greater subtlety of ambition which had made him while, comparatively speaking, a poor man, prefer the chances of a professional career to the certainties of a good berth in Capel Court, appealed to some kindred feeling, had set vibrating some responsive cord in his grandfather’s breast. Such a personality as Reuben’s seemed the crowning splendour of that structure of gold which it had been his life-work to build up; a luxury only to be afforded by the rich.
For poor Leo’s attainments, his violin-playing, his classical scholarship, he had no respect whatever. ”

“ I do not wonder that you are afraid of me."
"Marchesino!"
"To make engagements and to break them is not thought good behaviour either in Italy or in America. Perhaps in England it is different."
I looked up, and meeting his eyes forgot everything else in the world. Forgot the Marchesa hovering near, only prevented by a certain awe of her son from swooping down on us; forgot Costanza champing the bit, as it were, in the doorway; forgot the cold, unfriendly glances which had made life dark for me throughout the day. ”

“ Nikias.
O ye gods,
She is a pregnant horror as she stands.
Ægeus.
She speaks; her voice sounds as a sound far off.
Medea.
As you have said, O Jason, let it be.{47}
I for my part am nothing loth to break
A compact never in fair justice framed,
Seeing how much one gave and one how much.
For you, you thought: This maid has served me well,
And yet may serve me. When I touch her palm
The blood is set a-tingle in my veins;
For these things I will make her body mine.
And I, I stood before you, clean and straight,
A woman some deemed fair and all deemed wise ”

“ It will come into play when it is least expected. Jew will gravitate to Jew, though each may call himself by another name. If prejudice died, if difference of opinion died, if all the world, metaphorically speaking, thought one thought and spoke one language, there would still remain those unspeakable mysteries, affinity and—love.”
Reuben’s voice sounded curiously moved, and in his eyes, as he spoke, glowed a dreamy flame, as of some deep and tender emotion.
Judith, leaning forward with parted lips, lifted her shining eyes to his face in a long, unconscious gaze. ”

“ Anything less homelike, less suggestive of a place where ordinary human beings carried on the daily, pleasant avocations of life, it would be impossible to conceive. A stifling sensation rose in my throat as we passed through a folding glass-door, across a dim corridor, into a large room, where my guide left me [Pg 24] with a remark which of course I did not understand. With a sense of unutterable relief I perceived the room to be empty, and I sat down on a yellow damask sofa, feeling an ignominious desire to cry. ”

“ Steeped to the lips in sordidness, as we have all been from the cradle, how is it possible that any one among us, by any effort of his own, can wipe off from his soul the hereditary stain?”
“My dear boy,” said Reuben, touched by the personal note which sounded at the close of poor Leo’s heroics, and speaking with sudden earnestness, “you put things in too lurid a light. We have our faults; you seem to forget what our virtues are. Have you forgotten for how long, and at what a cruel disadvantage, the Jewish people has gone its way, until at last it has shamed the nations into respect? ”

“ And through the changing guises all things wear
Inevitable Law I recognise:
Yet in my heart a hint of feeling lies
Which half a hope and half is a despair.
{90}
Translated from Geibel.
O SAY, thou wild, thou oft-deceived heart,
What mean these noisy throbbings in my breast?
After thy long, unutterable woe
Wouldst thou not rest?
Fall’n from Life’s tree the sweet rose-blossom lies,
And fragrant youth has fled. What made to seem
This earth as fair to thee as Paradise,
Was all a dream. ”