Mariane

“ Oh! say not so, Mariane! he proves to be most admirable!
Mar. Well, be it so, he cannot prove better than I wish him to do, and I can make up my list without him. I have a love letter from an Irish baronet in my pocket, and Opal will declare himself presently.—I thought once he meant only to plead for his friend, but I would not let him off so, for I know he is a mercenary creature. I have flattered him a little at the expence of Sir Loftus, and I hope ere long to see him set up for a great man upon his own bottom. ”

“ Mother Eve—wide as the distance is between her who yielded to the Serpent and her who set her heel on his head; but the beauty of a lovely girl is enough to betray us into such unlucky blunders. To put a finishing touch to this imperfect description of the divine vision which had so utterly dismayed poor Marianela, it must be said that her complexion was of that faded rose color, or warm clear brown which gives an enchanting glow to the faces of those glorious pictures which successive generations, of believers and heretics alike, have worshipped in ecstasy. ”

“ Nothing could be more natural than this impulse in a human soul growing up in total solitude, so far as society and teaching were concerned, and in constant intercourse, in close intimacy we may say, with Nature and all its sublime or gracious beauty—light, color, eloquent inarticulate voices, and infinite variety of form. And Marianela's admiration had assumed the guise of worship; in obedience to a law, which also governs the primitive race, she had personified all the beauty she saw around her and worshipped it in a single incarnation, ideal but human. ”

“ In Mariana, expanded from a hint of the forsaken maid in Shakspere's Measure for Measure, "Mariana at the moated grange," the poet showed an art then peculiar, but since grown familiar, of heightening the central feeling by landscape accessories. The level waste, the stagnant sluices, the neglected garden, the wind in the single poplar, re-enforce, by their monotonous sympathy, the loneliness, the hopeless waiting and weariness of life in the one human figure of the poem. ”

“ MARIAN
Sir, English maidens do; and I am plighted
Not to a prince, but to an outlawed man.
JOHN
Listen to me! One word! Marian, one word!
I never meant you harm! Indeed, what harm
Could come of this? Is not your father poor?
I'd make him rich! Is not your lover outlawed?
I'd save him from the certain death that waits him.
You say the forest-laws afflict your soul
And his—you say you'd die for their repeal!
Well—I'll repeal them. All the churls in England
Shall bless your name and mix it in their prayers
With heaven itself. [Pg 156]
MARIAN
The price?
JOHN
You call it that! ”

“ Marianna tried, but vainly, every simple cure she knew.
Then the doctor gave up hoping, and his long attendance ceased:
"I can do no more," he told her; "you had better call the priest.
To her husband I have written; he will have the news to-day:
If he cares again to see her, he had best be on his way!"
Now the priest has done his office; at the open door he stands,
And he says to Marianna: "I can leave her in your hands,—
I have other work that calls me; if to-night she chance to die,
You can say the prayers, good sister, for her soul as well as I." ”

“ It seemed a symbol of the Marian of grace and girlhood whom he had loved with such ardent presage of eternal faith, and of this Marian sitting quietly in her saddened and accepted life, not changed except in so far as she was yet more worthy of fidelity. He saw that she had passed through her ordeal and transcended it; he saw that she would never again show him jealousy; and he saw that as the old Marian he had, perhaps, forever lost her. A lover must always show jealousy. ”

“ You will think of Marianna, and her vision by the fire.
In a convent, old and quiet, near a little country town,
On a chestnut-shaded hillside, to the river sloping down,
Dwelt a few of those good sisters who go out among the poor,
Who must labour late and early, and much weariness endure;
And the one who did in patience and in all good works excel
Was the Sister Marianna, she whose story now I tell.
She was ever kind and willing, for each heavy task prepared:
No one ever thought to spare her, and herself she never spared. ”

“ Fra Mariano understood human nature, as priests often do; he had seen the envious rivalship growing between them, as the friends, who should have worked together, took separate compartments, and cast jealous criticising glances on each other's designs and method of work. Having ambition of his own, he knew how to work on that of others to further his own aspirations, which were, to be considered a patron of art and a benefactor to his convent. ”

“ How the ardent lover became the careless husband, the cold master, the unfeeling tyrant, and, at last, the brutal despot. Marian came home to die—the seeds of that invincible disease were sown deep in her bosom—her exquisitely rounded shape was angular and thin, emaciated by disease, and suffering, and sorrow. A burning hectic spot on either cheek were now the only remnants of that once all-radiant complexion; her step so slow and faltering, her breath drawn sob by sob with actual agony, her quick, short cough, all told too certainly the truth! ”

“ The priest of the coming generation is the pariah of the present, and the dogma of to-morrow the heresy of to-day.
To Mariana's ignorant eyes Anthony seemed one in whom passion had been annihilated. In reality it was only smothered beneath the weight of a strenuous will. Let the pressure be removed, and it would burst forth the fiercer for its long confinement, ingulfing perhaps the whole organism in its destructive flame.
"Oh, hush!" Mariana had said, and turned from him. "You seem to delight in unpleasant things. I make it a point to believe that suffering and death do not exist. ”

“ MARIANA. Borne to mishap, my self am only she On whom the Sun of Fortune never shined: But Planets ruled by retrogard aspect Foretold mine ill in my nativity. LUBECK. Sweet Lady, cease, let my intreaty serve To pacify the passion of thy grief, Which, well I know, proceeds of ardent love. MARIANA. But Lubeck now regards not Mariana. LUBECK. Even as my life, so love I Mariana. MARIANA. Why do you post me to another then? LUBECK. He is my friend, and I do love the man. MARIANA. Then will Duke William rob me of my Love? LUBECK. No, as his life Mariana he doth love. ”

“ The way in which Marianna received the old fellow when we took him home has quite reformed him. He is fully convinced that she no longer loves you, but that she has given him at least one half of her heart, and that all he has to do is to win the other half. And Marianna, since she imbibed the poison of your kisses, has advanced three years in shrewdness, artfulness, and experience. ”

“ But Mariana shook her head.
“I heard from the Master you had gained strength from weakness; and I heard from Everard you had jewels of your own that you have worn to counteract the fatal charm of these.”
“Not of my own, Mariana; they were of God.” “Ah, God! I had forgotten Him. The dream has passed so long ago.”
“God is no dream, but a living reality, Mariana.”
“I was once bitten by a snake, and here they call the Serpent God. I love not such an image, but live in the never-ending twilight. I think it is the shadowed light the idol throws, placing itself betwixt the world and God.” ”

“ So it was that Marianus came to the convent, and we gave him our seven young hearts with unresisting enthusiasm. Viola’s heart, indeed, was held of small account, she being only ten years old; but Elizabeth was twelve, and Marie and Annie were thirteen,—ages [Pg 8] ripe for passion, and remote from the taunt of immaturity. It was understood from the beginning that we all loved Marianus with equal right and fervour. We shared the emotion fairly and squarely, just as we shared an occasional box of candy, or any other benefaction. ”

“ Perhaps no landscape says so little and is yet so richly eloquent as the elegiac landscape of a fen country. How beyond all speech is its silence, how beyond the shallow, spectacular changes of showier natural effects is its solemn art of imperturbability! Mariana was strangely silent—but, indeed, not speechless. The lesson of the nature about her seemed to have entered into her whole being, the lesson that such silence must only be broken by very significant, very beautiful words—as though silence were an exquisite, unsullied sky, only now and again to be interrupted by stars. ”

“ The haze of idealism with which he had surrounded her was suffused with a roseate glow. He caught her hands. His face had grown dark and set, and the lines upon his forehead seemed ineffaceable.
Mariana was conscious of a sudden uplifting within her. It was as if her heart had broken into song. She stood motionless, her hands closing upon his detaining ones. Her face was vivid with animation, and there was a suggestion of frank surrender in her attitude. He caught his breath sharply. Then his accustomed composure fell upon him. ”

“ As for Mariana, she was vividly alive. Beneath the warmth of emotion her nature expanded into fulfilment, and with fulfilment awoke the subtle charm of her personality.
"Have you seen Mariana?" inquired Nevins of Ardly one day. "If so, you have seen a woman in love." ”

“ Again, as Mariana sat in the lamplight, her swift fingers busy with some useless bit of millinery, he would regard her with a sudden tightening of his pulses, and a thrill of fear at the prospect of a coming separation. The droop of her head, the contour of her face where the bone of her chin was accentuated by thinness, the soft line of throat above the full collar, the nimbus of hair shining in the light, the fall of her skirt, the slender slippered feet, aroused in him a tumultuous sense of possession. ”

“ Beneath the fir-trees’ welcome shade, we’ll wander as at eve.
Have you that happy hour forgot—my murmur’d vows and sighs?
Dear Marian, turn, and let me read my answer in thine eyes!”
Fair Marian at his bidding turns; they pace beneath the trees,
Whose tall and tender columns wave and mutter with each breeze.
But those sweet eyes are filled with tears, the blush forsakes her cheek.
“What is it troubles Marian so? Speak, little maiden, speak.”
But Marian, resting on a bank, looks down and thinks awhile;
The handsome noble, lounging near, looks on with careless smile. ”

“ All his old wounds had been torn up afresh, and the sentiment that Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love had again been brought to life. The interest the old man had shown about her fate, the praises he gave her against his will, displayed her again in all her attractiveness. ”

“ All hope is at an end."
"Why not, indeed?" said Salvator, laughing. "For my part, I think, rather, that your affairs could not possibly be in a better position. Marianna loves you--you know that well enough--and all that has to be done is to get her out of the clutches of this old lunatic. Now I really do not see what should prevent two adventurous, sturdy fellows, like you and me, from accomplishing this. Keep up your heart, Antonio! Instead of lamenting, and getting to be love-sick and powerless, the thing to do is to keep thinking on Marianna's rescue. ”

“ Mariana sighed. "You are as depressing as Mr. Paul," she complained.
"I only speak of what I know," explained Ardly, complacently. "Upon other matters I have no opinions, and I calmly repeat that I have found appetite and gratification to be situated upon opposite sides of a revolving globe. When one's up the other's down."
"I shall cut a passage through," said Mariana. "If life doesn't equalize things, I will." ”

“ When Mariana had gone to him, an emotional and aspiring soprano of nineteen, he had listened to her quietly and advised patience.
"You must wait," he said. "All art is waiting."
"I will not wait," said Mariana. "Waiting is starvation."
He looked at her critically.
"More of us starve than the world suspects," he answered. "It is the privilege of genius. This is a planet, my dear child, where mediocrity is exalted and genius brought low. It is a living fulfilment of the scriptural prophecy, 'The first shall be last and the last shall be first.'" Then he added: "Sing again." ”

“ Several hours later Mariana was wandering along a cross-street near Ninth Avenue. Rain was falling, descending in level sheets from the gray sky to the stone pavement, where it lay in still pools. A fog had rolled up over the city. She had walked unthinkingly, spurred at first by the impulse to collect her thoughts and later by the thoughts themselves. It was all over; this was what she saw clearly—the finality of all things. What was she that she should think herself strong enough to contend with a man's creed?—faith?—God? ”

“ Little Marian hung on the swinging gate which 14 opened onto the apology for a wagon road. She liked quaint French Pete and looked forward to his return with eagerness. Like her grandfather, he always spoiled her, slavishly submitting to her every whim because she reminded him of his own p’tit bébé, in his far-away, Pyrenean home. Marian was used to being spoiled. She was as beautiful as a flower and, already, a veritable tyrant over men. ”

“ Marion looked—“What is it?”
“Your hand.”
“That then is the price of my father’s life?”
“It is.”
“Captain Scarthe! what can my hand be worth to you, without—”
“Your heart, you would say? I must live in hopes to win that. Fair Marion, reflect! A woman’s heart may be won more than once.”
“Only once can it be lost.”
“Be it so. I must bear the chagrin. I shall bear it all the better, by having your hand. Marion Wade! I scorn further circumlocution. Give me what I have asked, and your father lives. Refuse it, and he must forfeit his head.” ”