Benvolio

“ Benvolio raged inwardly at the cruel limitations of the human mind, and declared it was a great outrage that a man should not be personally able to do everything he could imagine doing. I hardly know how she contrived it, but the Countess was at this time a more engaging woman than she had ever been. Her beauty acquired an ampler and richer cast, and she had a manner of looking at you, as she slowly turned away, which had lighted a hopeless flame in many a youthful breast. Benvolio one day felt in the mood for finishing his comedy, and the Countess and her friends acted it. ”

“ Benvolio perceived that she was not in the least a woman of genius. The passion for knowledge, of its own motion, would never have carried her far. But she had a clear, tranquil, natural mind, which gave back an exact, definite image of everything that was presented to it; the sort of intelligence, Benvolio said, which had been, as a minimum, every one's portion in the golden age, and would be again the golden mean in the millennium. ”

“ For a while this answer satisfied her, but as the winter went by she began to wonder whether there was not such a thing as a man being in love with two women at once. During many months that followed Benvolio led a kind of double life. Sometimes it charmed him and gave him an inspiring sense of personal power. He haunted the domicile of his gentle neighbors, and drank deep of philosophy, history, and all the garnered wisdom of the ages; and he made appearances as frequent in the Countess's drawing-room, where he played his part with magnificent zest and ardor. ”

“ This was its maximum; no smile could do more, and Benvolio desired nothing better. Yet I cannot say he was in love with the young girl; he only liked her. But he liked her, no doubt, as a man likes a thing but once in his life. As he knew her better the oddity of her learning quite faded away; it seemed delightfully natural, and he only wondered why there were not more women of the same pattern. Scholastica had imbibed the wine of science instead of her mother's milk. ”

“ As there was no name on the parcel, Benvolio, on reaching the old gray house, over the wall of whose court an adventurous creeper stretched its long arm into the street, found himself wondering in what terms he should ask to have speech of the person for whom the books were intended. At any hazard he was determined not to retreat until he had caught a glimpse of the interior and its inhabitants; for this was the same man, you must remember, who had scaled the moonlit wall of the Countess's garden. ”

“ Mercutio laughed at Benvolio’s caution, and accused him of being as hot-tempered a man as any in Italy.
“Nay, if there were two such we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other,” he said jeeringly. “Thou! Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast; thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat. ”

“ She was human beyond a doubt, and duly familiar with headaches and heartaches. He felt an irresistible desire to see her and to tell her that he adored her. This satisfaction was not unattainable, and before the day was over he was well on his way toward enjoying it. He found the Countess holding her usual court, and making a merry world of it. He had meant to stay with her a week; he stayed two months—the most entertaining months of his life. I cannot pretend, of course, to enumerate the diversions of this fortunate circle, nor to say just how Benvolio spent every hour of his time. ”

“ Over a wall, beside it, there tumbled into the street some stray tendrils of a wild vine from Benvolio's garden. Suddenly Benvolio began to fancy that the book the young girl in the garden was reading was none other than a volume of his own, put forth some six months before. His volume had a white cover and so had this; white covers are rather rare, and there was nothing impossible either in this young lady's reading his book or in her finding it interesting. Very many other women had done the same. ”

“ After a couple of days of sunshine the rain came back again, to our hero's infinite annoyance, and this time it lasted several days. The garden lay dripping and desolate; its charm had quite departed. These days passed gloomily for Benvolio; he decided that rainy weather, in summer, in town, was intolerable. He began to think of the Countess again. He was sure that over her broad lands the summer sun was shining. He saw them, in envious fancy, studded with joyous Watteau groups, feasting and making music under the shade of ancestral beeches. What a charming life! ”

“ His play was acted with brilliant success, the Countess herself representing the heroine. Benvolio had never seen her act, and had no idea she possessed the talent; but she was inimitable, she was a natural artist. What gives charm to life, Benvolio hereupon said to himself, is the element of the unexpected, the unforeseen; and this one finds only in women of the Countess's type. And I should do wrong to imply that he here made an invidious comparison, because he did not even think of Scholastica. ”

“ For helping a man, Benvolio thought it was an exquisite organism. What a work he might do on summer mornings and winter nights with that brightly demure little creature at his side, transcribing, recollecting, sympathizing! He wondered how much she cared for these things herself; whether a woman could care for them without being dry and harsh. ”

“ He was her only companion, and when they were established in the castle the hospitality extended to the resident gentry was less abundant than had been promised. Benvolio, however, did not complain of the absence of it, because, for the week or so, he was passionately in love with his hostess. They took long sleigh-rides and drank deep of the poetry of winter. The blue shadows on the snow, the cold amber lights in the west, the leafless twigs against the snow-charged sky, all gave them extraordinary pleasure. ”

“ Was it divine philosophy that made Scholastica charming, or was it she that made philosophy divine? I cannot relate everything that came to pass between these young people, and I must leave a great deal to your imagination. The summer waned, and when the autumnal shadow began to gnaw the bright edge of the days, the quiet couple in the old gray house had expanded to a talkative trio. For Benvolio the days had passed very fast; the trio had talked of so many things. He had spent many an hour in the garden with the young girl, strolling in the weedy paths, or resting on a moss-grown bench. ”

“ One was often idle when one seemed to be ardently occupied; one was always idle (it might be concluded) when one's occupations had not a high aim. One was idle therefore when one was working simply for one's self. Curiosity for curiosity's sake, art for art's sake, these were essentially broken-winded steeds. Ennui was at the end of everything that did not entangle us somehow with human life. To get entangled, therefore, pondered Benvolio, should be the wise man's aim. Poor Benvolio had to ponder all this, because, as I say, he was a poet and not a man of action. ”

“ Benvolio's neighbor had a pencil in her pocket, which she every now and then drew forth, to make with it a little mark on her page. This quiet gesture gave the young man an exquisite pleasure.
I am ashamed to say how much time he spent, for a week, at his window. Every day the young girl came into the garden. At last there befell a rainy day a long, warm summer's rain and she stayed within doors. He missed her quite acutely, and wondered, half-smiling, half-frowning, at her absence making such a difference with him. He actually depended upon her. ”

“ He took leave abruptly and coldly, and puzzled his brain for a long time afterward over the mystery of Scholastica's reserve.
The Countess had said that travelling was a test of friendship; in this case friendship (or whatever the passion was to be called) bade fair for some time to resist the test. Benvolio passed six months of the liveliest felicity. The world has nothing better to offer to a man of sensibility than a first visit to Italy during those years of life when perception is at its keenest, when discretion has arrived, and yet youth has not departed. ”

“ The Countess would say nothing more than that the fancy had taken her one day to go and see Scholastica. "I suppose I may go where I please!" she cried in the tone of the great lady who is accustomed to believe that her glance confers honor wherever it falls. "I'm sure I did her no harm. She's a good little creature, and it's not her fault if she's so unfortunately plain." Benvolio looked at her intently, but he saw that he would learn nothing from her that she did not choose to tell. ”

“ Benvolio, who had been eyewitness to the fray, was commanded by the prince to relate the origin of it, which he did, keeping as near the truth as he could without injury to Romeo, softening and excusing the part which his friends took in it. Lady Capulet, whose extreme grief for the loss of her kinsman Tybalt made her keep no bounds in her revenge, exhorted the prince to do strict justice upon his murderer, and to pay no attention to Benvolio's representation, who, being Romeo's friend and a Montague, spoke partially. ”

“ Most pictures that are remarkable for their color (especially if they have been painted a couple of centuries) need a flood of sunshine on the canvas to bring it out. But this one seemed to have a hidden radiance of its own, which showed brightest when the room was half darkened. When Benvolio wished especially to enjoy his treasure he dropped his Venetian blinds, and the picture glowed forth into the cool dusk with enchanting effect. ”

“ Scholastica lived so much out of the world that she was not obliged to trouble herself about gossip. Whatever jests were aimed at the young man for his visible devotion to a mysterious charmer, he was very sure that her ear was never wounded by base insinuations. The old serving-woman sat in a corner, nodding over her distaff, and the two friends held long confabulations over yellow manuscripts in which the commentary, it must be confessed, did not always adhere very closely to the text. Six months elapsed, and Benvolio found an ineffable charm in this mild mixture of sentiment and study. ”

“ But they rendered the Countess eminent service: she gained by comparison, and Benvolio began to miss her. All that other charming women were who led the life of the world (as it is called) the Countess was in a superior, in a perfect degree; she was the ripest fruit of a high civilization; her companions and rivals, beside her, had but a pallid bloom, an acrid savor. Benvolio had a relish in all things for the best, and he found himself breathing sighs under the Countess's darkened windows. ”

“ But she interested him; he liked her; he found her little indefinite, black-dressed figure sympathetic. He used to find the Countess sympathetic, and certainly the Countess was as unlike this quiet garden nymph as she could very well be and be yet a charming woman. Benvolio's sympathies, as we know, were broad. After the rain the young girl came out again, and now she had another book, having apparently finished Benvolio's. ”

“ Benvolio fell in love with her on the spot, and only abstained from telling her so because he remembered just in time that he had an engagement with the Countess which had not yet been formally rescinded. He paid her a long visit, and they went in together and rummaged over her father's books and papers. The old scholar's literary memoranda proved to be extremely valuable. It would be a great work and a most interesting enterprise to give them to the world. When Scholastica heard Benvolio's high estimate of them her cheek began to glow and her spirit to revive. ”

“ Enter Benvolio and Romeo.
Ben. Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning;
One pain is lessened by another's anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another's languish. ”

“ Venoni. (weakly and despondingly) Benvolio—I am wretched! I have lost every thing; my strength of mind is broken; my heart is the prey of despair.
Vice. Of despair? oh, blush to own it! true, you have met with sorrows; and who then is exempt from them? true, your hopes have been deceived; accident has dissolved your dream of happiness; death has deprived you of the mistress of your choice: but you are a man and a citizen; you have a country which requires your services, and yet, oh shame! you resign yourself to despair, Venoni, where is your fortitude?
Venoni. Fortitude? ”

“ There were frivolous people and wise people; people whose fortune was in their pockets, and people whose fortune was in their brains; people deeply concerned in public affairs, and people concerned only with the fit of their garments or with the number of the people who looked round when their names were announced. Benvolio, who liked a large and various social spectacle, appreciated all this; but he was best pleased, as a general thing, when he found the Countess alone. ”

“ They were very well in their way, he said, but their way was not his way, or could not be in the long run; for him, he was convinced, the only happiness was in seclusion, meditation, concentration. Scholastica answered that it gave her extreme pleasure to hear this, for it was her father's belief that Benvolio had a great aptitude for philosophical research, and that it was a sacred duty with him to devote his days and his nights to it. ”