Mirabelle

“ So with all haste, once anchored in the cove, the men must go [156] ashore, bring back palm fronds and leafy branches and camouflage—as you say in your time—the Mirabelle from her topmost mast to the water's edge.
"Let the men rest, but by midafternoon have them hide along the shore facing the sea, for they shall all be witnesses to what is to transpire. Then you must do your part, for you must board Claggett Chew's ship and see to it that his vessel does not gain many days' advantage over the Mirabelle. ”

“ She was very beautiful, very inconsequent, very gay; but the same light insouciance which in Margery distressed and humiliated him, because of the unsounded deeps which lay below, attracted and amused him in Mirabelle, by simple reason of its essential shallowness. She was altogether different from any woman he had ever known, but her novelty meant no more to him than a part of that charmingly sparkling and intoxicating wine of Paris of which he was learning to take deep draughts. ”

“ Paris, the Bois, your diamonds, your amusements, your little affaires — they’re as necessary to you as light or air. So, go by all means, and enjoy your vacation to your heart’s content. I’ll not disturb you. Au revoir, ma chère!”
“Ah!” said Mirabelle brokenly. “How little, with all your cleverness, you understand a woman! Where she can be happy in her lover’s happiness, no matter at what cost to her, she must be unhappy in his distress, no matter how free from personal suffering she herself may be! ”

“ Yet does a man ever forget that woman, through his intimacy with whom these perceptions were first born, like golden threads newly discovered in the warp and woof of some familiar fabric? And that woman was Mirabelle Tremonceau.
So it was this — all this— Paris, and her luxury, charm, and infinite, bewildering appeal — with which he had merely toyed, because, at the back of his appreciation, lay ever the thought of what Margery Palffy meant to him, and what he had come to ask of her! ”

“ As a matter of fact, I've always had Mirabelle sized up as a near-vamp who had worked up the act to boost sales and cinch her job. Anyway, I never knew of her lurin' her victims into anything more desperate than a red-ink table d'hôte dinner or a six-dollar orgie at a cabaret. And somehow they all seem to wriggle out of the net within a week or so with no worse casualties than a feverish yearnin' for next pay day and a wise look in the eyes. I've watched some of them young sports from the bond room have their little fling with Mirabelle and not one of 'em has come out a human wreck. ”

“ So I mumbles something about having forgotten an errand, makes a round trip in the elevator, and am back at the candy counter almost as soon as Vincent has hung up his hat.
"Yes-s-s, sir?" says Mirabelle inquirin', with300 her best dollar-fifty-quality smile playin' around where the lip-stick has given nature a boost.
"Hard gum drops," says I, "or chocolate marshmallows, or most anything in half-pound size. The main idea is a little chat with you."
"Naughty, naughty!" says Mirabelle, shaking her head until the jet ear danglers are doing a one-step. "But you men are all alike, aren't you?" ”

“ For a moment his temper well-nigh claimed the upper hand, but he was shrewd enough to match this curious unconcern with something quite as non-committal.
“You mean that you love him, I suppose,” he observed.
“Love?” repeated Mirabelle. “Mon Dieu, monsieur! what right have I to love, or you to speak of it? Haven’t we grovelled enough in the mud outside of the cathedral? Must we further degrade it, as well as ourselves, by entering and laying hands upon the very shrine?” ”

“ This is straight heart-to-heart stuff. You know you've been stringin' Vincent along."
"Suppose I have?" demands Mirabelle. "Where do you get a license to crash in?"301
"Just what I was working up to," says I. "For one thing, he's the only perfect office boy in captivity. The Corrugated can't spare him. Then again, there's Mother. Honest, Mirabelle, you ought to see Mother—reg'lar stage widow, with the sad sweet smile, the soft gray hair, 'n'everything. If you could, you'd lay off this Theda Bara act the next minute."
It was a poor hunch, pullin' out that sympathy stop for Mirabelle. ”

“ Mirabelle looked at him coolly, with a slightly contemptuous droop of her eyelids.
“I believe that it’s a characteristic of both the visits I make and those I receive,” she said lazily, “that they’re seldom without an object. As for the hour, I’m not to be judged by the conventionality for which you manifest so commendable — and so abrupt — a concern. We Parisians are like our allies, the Russians: we go by standards of time which differ from those of the rest of the world. ”

“ Running up to the bridge he was startled at first, at coming on deck, at the sudden green shade everywhere. Then looking up he saw that to their very peaks the masts and rigging of the Mirabelle had been hidden with palm fronds. That side of the ship that could be seen from the sea through the narrow channel entrance had been completely covered with green. The work was not yet finished, but most of the crew were sleeping during the hot hours, while a handful had volunteered to complete the job. [170]
The cove by daylight was even lovelier than it had seemed by starlight the night before. ”

“ Happen your eyes are sharper than Abner's. Sing out when you spy the reef. We will heave to, and then God be with you, my lad, to find us out the channel to the cove!"
Chris ran forward to the bow of the Mirabelle, and out along the bowsprit where, at the tip, he could see the long [165] form of Abner Cloud stretched out at full length. They murmured a greeting and waited, eyes straining ahead.
Then both saw the phosphorus gleam and fade, gleam and fade as the waves broke over the coral. Eerie jade-green and white-gold, the phosphorus shone in the starlight. ”

“ Then must he heave to, and you will go over the side, and as a fish, find out the channel, for the coral is dangerous and the way into the cove almost impossible to find even by day.
"The land there is like a cup with a chip in its rim; the chip is the entrance to the cove. This entrance, overhung by slanting trees and jungle, is just large enough to allow for the passage of the Mirabelle.
"Nevertheless," went on Mr. Wicker's voice in the shell, "the masts and the sides of the ship could be seen from the sea. ”

“ Mirabell and he are at some distance, as my Lady Wishfort has been told; and you know she hates Mirabell worse than a quaker hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger hates a hard frost. Whether this uncle has seen Mrs. Millamant or not, I cannot say; but there were items of such a treaty being in embryo; and if it should come to life, poor Mirabell would be in some sort unfortunately fobbed, i’faith.
FAIN. ’Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it.
WIT. Faith, my dear, I can’t tell; she’s a woman and a kind of a humorist. ”

“ The most striking lesson ever read to levity and licentiousness, is in the last act of the Inconstant, where young Mirabel is preserved by the fidelity of his mistress, Orinda, in the disguise of a page, from the hands of assassins, into whose power he has been allured by the temptations of vice and beauty. There never was a rake who did not become in imagination a reformed man, during the representation of the last trying scenes of this admirable comedy. ”

“ Says I to Mirabell an hour ago,—you know that is my name for Charles, for 'twas when he played Mirabell to my Millamant that we fell in love,—'Well,' says I, 'I'll lay a gold-furbelowed scarf to a yard of oznaburg that Mr. Darden, riding home through the night, and in liquor, perhaps, has fallen and broken his neck, and Deborah can't come.' And says Mirabell—But la, my dear, there you stand in your safeguard, and I'm keeping the gate shut on you! Come in. Come in, Audrey. Why, you've grown to be a woman! ”

“ You are going to revive, little friend of my lips, revive under my caresses and the perfumes of my mouth.” She moistened Clara's forehead with a violent
perfume, and made her inhale the salts: “Yes, yes! dear little soul. You have fainted... and you cannot hear me! and you cannot feel my gentle fingers... but your heart beats, beats, beats. And love gallops in your veins like a young horse... love bounds in your veins like a young tiger.” She turned to me: “You must not be sad, because she has always fainted when she comes here. ”

“ For to arrive somewhere means to die! Yet, here I was about to get off, plunge into that green and that red, disappear over there in that unknown... more frightfully alone than ever! And here was Clara, soon to be no more than a phantom, then a little grey speck scarcely visible in space... then nothing... nothing... nothing! Ah, anything rather than that! Ah, let the sea engulf us both. The sea was gentle, calm and radiant. It exhaled the perfumes of a Utopian shore, a blossoming orchard and a bed of love, which made me weep. The deck was thronged ”

“ But I can pray for you. With all my heart and soul I do. God keep you safe and unharmed, and give you success.
“Miralda.”
It is difficult even to suggest how this letter moved me.
Like a pause of peace and hope and love in the midst of the strenuous hurly-burly of the struggle, it seemed; a favour on the lance of a knight setting out to battle for the woman of his heart; a kiss imprinted on the shield with love’s whispered blessing. For the moment all else in the world was nothing, and Miralda was all in all. ”

“ A young girl who has never felt the impure breath of man upon her, whose ears are chaste, whose lips have never known lewd kisses, what a joy it would be to love her, to love her as angels do!
The white veil was fluttering above her like the wings of a sea-gull. And suddenly she disappeared behind the lighthouse. At the bottom of the jetty the sea splashed back and forth like a child's cradle rocked by a nurse who hums a lullaby, and the sky was cloudless ”

“ Clara!” I implored. “Let's go away, I beg you!” “Oh, how pale you are! And why! Isn't it a lot of fun?” “Clara, dear Clara!” I insisted, “I can't possibly stand this odor any longer.” “But it doesn't smell bad, my love. It smells of death, that's all.” She did not seem to be affected. No grimace of disgust wrinkled her white skin, fresh as a cherry blossom. From the veiled ardor of her eyes, from the fluttering of her nostrils, she seemed to be experiencing thrills of passion. She inhaled the
stench with delight, like a perfume. ”

“ They are represented here as men of fashion; they are theatrical lovers, heroes, and as such they manage to get hold of an heiress. We must go to Mirabell for an example of this medley of corruption and elegance. Mrs. Fainall, his former mistress, married by him to a common friend, a miserable wretch, complains to him of this hateful marriage. He appeases her, gives her advice, shows her the precise mode, the true expedient for setting things on a comfortable footing. "You should have just so much disgust for your husband, as may be sufficient to make you relish your lover." ”

“ You know there is none other but you. Is it not enough, Miralda?
MIRALDA
It is not enough. I will be queen.
JOHN
Tchah!... Miralda, I know you are a wonderful woman, the most wonderful in the East; how you ever came to be in the West I don't know, and a train of all places; but, Miralda, you must not have petty whims, they don't become you.
MIRALDA
Is it a petty whim to wish to be a queen?
JOHN
Yes, when it is only the name you want. You are a queen. You have all you wish for. Are you not my beloved? And have I not power here over all men? Could I not close the pass? ”

“ The sand of the alley cries out beneath her little feet, and I hear the noise of the sand, like a cry of desire, like a kiss, in which I distinguish, clear and rhythmical, the name which is everywhere—which was in the creaking of the stake
and the death rattle of the dying men, and fills the twilight now with its exquisite, funereal murmur that fades and rises: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” The gecko is silent now, to hear that name more clearly. Everything is silent. The twilight is enchanting, infinitely sweet, and with a caressing coolness which intoxicates. We walk amid perfumes. ”

“ Nothing remains of the horror of the garden; only its beauty remains, trembles and heightens as the night falls more and more deliciously about us. I feel recovered. It seems my fever is gone. My limbs become lighter, stronger, and more elastic. As I walk along, my fatigue vanishes, and I feel something like a violent need of love rising in me. I have caught up to Clara and I walk beside her... quite near her... excited by her. But Clara's face is no longer sinful, as when she was chewing the thalictrum blossom and passionately peppering her
lips with its bitter pollen. ”

“ Sometimes twenty males are required for; the delight of a single female.” This time a shrug of her shoulders is her reply. She does not even deign to be irritated by my words. Then, urged by crude desire, I clumsily try to embrace Clara, and with brutal hands I grasp her breasts. “I want you... here... you hear me?... in this garden... in this silence... at the foot of these gallows.” ”

“ Clara said with a pout of disgust. “They're only painted wood, my love. Look this way, where it's real—Look! There's my poet—right there!” And she halted abruptly before his cage. Pale, fleshless, slashed with a skeletal grin, its
cheek bones bursting the gangrenous skin, its jaws bare beneath the flaps of its trembling lips—a face was pressed against the bars, between two long, bony hands, like the dry feet of a bird. ”