Lucina

“ Lucina looked out of the green gloom of the summer-house at the same old carnival of flowers, swarming as lightly as if untethered by stems, upon wings of pink and white and purpling blue, blazing out to sight as with a very rustle of color from the hearts of green bushes and the sides of tall green-sheathed stalks, in spikes and plumes, and soft rosettes of silken bloom. ”

“ Luci. Farewel for ever Sir.
Max. That's a sad saying,
But such a one becomes ye well Lucina:
And yet me thinks we should not part so lightly,
Our loves have been of longer growth, more rooted
Than the sharp word of one farewel can scatter,
Kiss me: I find no Cæsar here; these lips
Taste not of Ravisher in my opinion.
Was it not so?
Luc. O yes.
Max. I dare believe thee,
For thou wert ever truth it self, and sweetness;
Indeed she was, Æcius.
Æcius. So she is still.
Max. Once more, O my Lucina, O my Comfort,
The blessing of my Youth, the life of my life. ”

“ Lucina had begun, almost whether she would or not, to dream again those old sweet dreams, whose reality she had never yet tasted. Had life ever broken in upon the dreams, had a word or a caress ever become a fact, it is probable she would have looked now upon it all as upon some childish fruit of delight, whose sweetness she had proved and exhausted to insipidity. ”

“ But she knew that Lucina had cared for none of her lovers away from home, and at home there were none feasible, unless, perhaps, Lawrence Prescott. Lawrence had not been to see her lately; could it be possible the child was hurt by it? Abigail sounded cautiously the depths of her daughter's heart, and found to her satisfaction no image of Lawrence Prescott therein.
“Lawrence is a good boy,” said Lucina; “it is a pity he is no taller, and looks so like his father; but he is very good. I do think, though, he might go to ride with me sometimes and save father from going. ”

“ Lucina felt none of the languor which is sometimes caused by extreme heat. Instead, there was a fierce electric tension through all her nerves. She was weary almost to death, the cool of this dark room was unutterably grateful to her, yet she could not remain quiet. She had left her parasol and hat on the hall-table. She stole out softly, with scarcely the faintest rustle of skirts, tied on her hat, took her parasol, and went through the house to the back-garden door.
Looking back, she saw the old servant-woman's broadly interrogatory face in a vine-wreathed kitchen-window. ”

“ Ferdinando.
O, sir, not I.
Lucina.
Here is none but friends; yet let me challenge you.
For gracing me with a malignant style,
That I was fairest, and yet Perseda fairer;
We ladies stand upon our beauties much.
Perseda.
Herein, Lucina, let me buckler him.
[Pg 292]
Basilisco.
Not Mars himself had e'er so fair a buckler.
Perseda.
Love makes him blind; and blind can judge no colour. [401]
Lucina.
Why, then, the mends is made, and we still friends.
Perseda.
Still friends? still foes! she wears my carcanet.
Ah, false Erastus, how am I betray'd! ”

“ Yes, heav'ns are just, but thou art so corrupt,
That in thee all their influence doth change,
As in the spider good things turn to poison.
Ah, false Erastus, how had I misdone,
That thou shouldst pawn my true affection's pledge
To her, whose worth will never equal mine?
What, is Lucina's wealth exceeding mine?
Yet mine sufficient to encounter thine.
Is she more fair than I? that's not my fault,
Nor her desert: what's beauty but a blast,
Soon cropp'd with age or with infirmities?
Is she more wise? her years are more than mine. ”

“ He's a hero in his way. I was telling Lucina the other day what he'd done. But when it comes to his lifting his eyes to her, to her—by the Lord Harry, Jack, nobody shall have her, rich or poor, good or bad. I don't care if he's a prince, or an angel from heaven. Don't I know what men are? I'm going to keep my angel of a child a while myself. I'll tell you one thing, sir, and that is, Lucina thinks more to-day of her old father than any man living; I'll bet you a thousand she does!” Squire Eben's voice fairly broke with loving emotion and indignation. ”

“ She gave it the furthest inflections of graciousness and coolness of which she could have been capable, and puzzled sorely as to which she had used.
“It makes so much difference as to how you say a thing,” thought poor Lucina, “and I know I was afraid lest he think me too glad to have him come. ”

“ Every little flower upon which his idle gaze fell was no flower, but an eye of love—a bird called to his mate with the call of his own heart. Every sight, and sound, and sweetness of the wood wooed and tempted him, with the reflex motion of his own new ardor of love and passion. He had not gone to meeting lest he see Lucina Merritt again, and wished to drive her image from his mind, and here he was peopling his solitude with symbols of her which were bolder than she, and made his hunger worse to bear. ”

“ Then I'le thank ye,
I am betrai'd for certain; well Lucina,
If thou do'st fall from vertue, may the Earth
That after death should shoot up gardens of thee,
Spreading thy living goodness into branches,
Fly from thee, and the hot Sun find thy vices.
Pho. You are a welcom woman. ”

“ Nor did their women invoke Lucina when their offspring was being incredibly multiplied; and that nation having increased incredibly, He Himself delivered, He Himself saved them from the hands of the Egyptians, who persecuted them, and wished to kill all their infants. ”

“ Mean time the mis-begotten Infant grows,
And ripe for Birth, distends with deadly Throws
The swelling Rind, with unavailing Strife,
To leave the wooden Womb, and pushes into Life.
The Mother Tree, as if oppress'd with Pain,
Wriths here, and there, to break the Bark, in vain;
And, like a lab'ring Woman, wou'd have pray'd,
But wants a Voice to call Lucina's Aid:
The bending Bole sends out a hollow Sound,
And trickling Tears fall thicker on the Ground. ”

“ She nodded and laughed dutifully when her father, going forth at last to the still pools and the brook courses, with his tackle in hand, looked back and nodded whimsically at her.
However, her childish heart was sore beyond immediate healing, for the wounds received from kindness spurned and turned back as a weapon against one's self are deep.
Chapter VII
In every household which includes a beloved child there is apt to be one above another, who acts as an intercessor towards furthering its little plans and ends. Little Lucina's was her father. ”

“ Out of jealousy that Alcmena should bear a child to Jupiter, Juno employed Lucina to hinder the birth of Hercules. The malevolence of the goddess was defeated through the ingenuity of Galanthis, who was straightway turned into a weasel by the baffled and irritated Lucina.
[5] Sandys' translation:
Of all the Œchalides
For form few might with Dryope compare.
[6] This flowing couplet he has transferred into more places than one of his version of Homer.—Wakefield.
[7] Dryden, Æn. iii. 54:
The violated myrtle ran with gore.—Wakefield. ”

“ A gold piece! It was several days of rest and riches for the beggar, and Lucien was on the point of waking her to tell her this, when he heard near his ear, as in an hallucination, a voice—the voice of the Pole, with its coarse drawling accent, almost whispering: "It's now two days since I stirred out of the club, and for two days the 'seventeen' has never turned up; I'll suffer my hand to be cut off, if that number does not turn up on the stroke of midnight." ”

“ So Lucien may perhaps succeed to admiration in spite of his mistakes; he has only to profit by some happy vein or to be among good companions; but if an evil angel crosses his path, he will go to the very depths of hell. ‘Tis a brilliant assemblage of good qualities embroidered upon too slight a tissue; time wears the flowers away till nothing but the web is left; and if that is poor stuff, you behold a rag at the last. So long as Lucien is young, people will like him; but where will he be as a man of thirty? That is the question which those who love him sincerely are bound to ask themselves. ”

“ A few moments later Lucien appeared, half awake and hastily dressed. He was handsome, it is true; but his clothes, his last year's nankeen trousers, and his shabby tight jacket were ridiculous. Put Antinous or the Apollo Belvedere himself into a water-carrier's blouse, and how shall you recognize the godlike creature of the Greek or Roman chisel? The eyes note and compare before the heart has time to revise the swift involuntary judgment; and the contrast between Lucien and Chatelet was so abrupt that it could not fail to strike Louise. ”

“ Many people have sworn oaths to me which they have not kept."
Lucien was not at all pleased at this change of residence. Lucien was not a prince at that time; Lucien was not wealthy; Lucien made love to her as a scholar; Lucien laid claim to the position of lover, which is always a rather difficult matter when one's apartments are dingy and cupboards bare: he was present one evening, I repeat, when Hermione's chambermaid came into her apartment, thoroughly scared, and told her that the First Consul's valet de chambre had come. ”

“ He says he is a poet; I say he is god.—Forgive me! You priests, you see, don’t know what love is. But, in fact, only girls like me know enough of men to appreciate such as Lucien. A Lucien, you see, is as rare as a woman without sin. When you come across him you can love no one else; so there! But such a being must have his fellow; so I want to be worthy to be loved by my Lucien. That is where my trouble began. Last evening, at the opera, I was recognized by some young men who have no more feeling than a tiger has pity—for that matter, I could come round the tiger! ”

“ Your Lucien is not a poet, he has the poetic temper; he dreams, he does not think; he spends himself in emotion, he does not create. He is, in fact—permit me to say it —a womanish creature that loves to shine, the Frenchman’s great failing. Lucien will always sacrifice his best friend for the pleasure of displaying his own wit. He would not hesitate to sign a pact with the Devil to-morrow if so he might secure a few years of luxurious and glorious life. Nay, has he not done worse already? He has bartered his future for the short-lived delights of living openly with an actress. ”

“ Sir Lucien lighted a cigarette.
“I sometimes wonder, Sin Sin Wa,” he said slowly, “what your aim in life can be. Your father was neither a ship’s carpenter nor a shopkeeper. This I know. Your age I do not know and cannot guess, but you are no longer young. You covet wealth. For what purpose, Sin Sin Wa?”
Standing behind the Chinaman, Sir Lucien’s dark face, since he made no effort to hide his feelings, revealed the fact that he attached to this seemingly abstract discussion a greater importance than his tone of voice might have led one to suppose. ”

“ Being given to exaggeration, she set an exaggerated value upon her person. She looked upon herself as a sovereign lady, a Beatrice, a Laura. She enthroned herself, like some dame of the Middle Ages, upon a dais, looking down upon the tourney of literature, and meant that Lucien, as in duty bound, should win her by his prowess in the field; he must eclipse “the sublime child,” and Lamartine, and Sir Walter Scott, and Byron. The noble creature regarded her love as a stimulating power; the desire which she had kindled in Lucien should give him the energy to win glory for himself. ”

“ The harvests that are watered with ink are only reaped ten or twelve years after the sowing, if indeed there is any harvest after all. Lucien has taken the green wheat for the sheaves. He will have learned something of life, at any rate. He was the dupe of a woman at the outset; he was sure to be duped afterwards by the world and false friends. He has bought his experience dear, that is all. Our ancestors used to say, 'If the son of the house brings back his two ears and his honor safe, all is well——'"
"Honor!" poor Eve broke in. "Oh, but Lucien has fallen in so many ways! ”

“ A divine graciousness transfused the white temples that caught that golden gleam; a matchless nobleness had set its seal in the short chin raised, but not abruptly. The smile that hovered about the coral lips, yet redder as they seemed by force of contrast with the even teeth, was the smile of some sorrowing angel. Lucien’s hands denoted race; they were shapely hands; hands that men obey at a sign, and women love to kiss. Lucien was slender and of middle height. ”

“ Lucien has too much spirit to accept help from her; and he cannot afford, as we know, to cultivate her society, twice ruinous as it is for him. Sooner or later that woman will throw over this dear brother of ours, but not before she has spoiled him for hard work, and given him a taste for luxury and a contempt for our humdrum life. She will develop his love of enjoyment, his inclination for idleness, that debauches a poetic soul. Yes, it makes me tremble to think that this great lady may make a plaything of Lucien. ”

“ This juggler completely bewitched Lucien; he dragged him into a life which a man cannot lead and respect himself, and, unluckily for Lucien, love shed its magic over the path. The admiration that is given too readily is a sign of want of judgment; a poet ought not to be paid in the same coin as a dancer on the tight-rope. We all felt hurt when intrigue and literary rascality were preferred to the courage and honor of those who counseled Lucien rather to face the battle than to filch success, to spring down into the arena rather than become a trumpet in the orchestra. ”

“ The wish to support Lucien will give me a better will to work than I ever should have had for myself alone; but it rests with you to give me the right to devote myself to him. Some day, perhaps, he will go to Paris, the only place that can bring out all that is in him, and where his talents will be appreciated and rewarded. Living in Paris is expensive, and the earnings of all three of us will be needed for his support. And besides, will not you and your mother need some one to lean upon then? Dear Eve, marry me for love of Lucien ”