Oenone

“ PHAEDRA
Thanks be to Heav'n, my hands are free from stain.
Would that my soul were innocent as they!
OENONE
What awful project have you then conceived,
Whereat your conscience should be still alarm'd?
PHAEDRA
Have I not said enough? Spare me the rest.
I die to save myself a full confession.
OENONE
Die then, and keep a silence so inhuman;
But seek some other hand to close your eyes.
Tho' but a spark of life remains within you,
My soul shall go before you to the Shades.
A thousand roads are always open thither ”

“ There we have a mere tradition enlarged upon and the feelings of Œnone upon the desertion of Paris expressed with a richness of emotional fervor [Pg 332] in a setting of appropriate nature imagery which carries us back to the idyls of Theocritus. “Ulysses,” again gives the psychology of a wanderer who has become so habituated to adventures that he is quite incapable of settling down with Penelope for the remainder of his life. ”

“ At its end, her Paris comes back to her. Deprived of Helen, a broken and baffled man, he returns from the ruins of his native Troy, and entreats Oenone to heal him of a wound, which, unless she lends her aid, must be mortal. Oenone gnashes her teeth at him, refuses him the remedy, and lets him die. In the end, no doubt, she falls into remorse, and kills herself—this is quite in the spirit of classic legend; implacable vengeance, soul-sickened with its own victory, dies in despair. ”

“ A smile lifted his mustache, revealing the thick red mouth beneath. Indolently he breathed through half-parted lips.
"Payne," he said thickly, "there goes Love. There goes the dream of all young fools. Aren't you dreaming a little yourself, Payne, eh?—I see you are. You have looked upon the dream in the flesh, and hope has been born in your young, manly bosom. Hope? No; belief. Belief in the realization of ideals. What damn fools all you young cubs are, to be sure!"
"Well," said Roger calmly, "I like that. ”

“ Even to understand that office of glory and humility demands an enlightenment, such as those who do not love can never attain. To Oona it seemed that life itself became glorious in this service. It raised her above all earthly things. She looked at him with the pity of an angel, with something of the tenderness of a mother, with an identification and willingness to submit which was pure woman. ”

“ Oniata is here to say that she « 69 » has not asked for the smiles of the young braves. They came around her wigwam and drove away the dream-god with their cries and love-songs; but she covered her ears with the skins of the beaver and would not listen to them. When Oniata went forth to the forest they appeared before her like the thunder clouds, and she went back to her wigwam and could not look at her father, the sun. ”

“ Your most innocent acts are misunderstood; motives you never dreamed of are attributed to you; and in the end it comes to—" he hesitated a moment and then took the plunge, "—to the sidelong look and the leer."
She took his meaning with perfect ease. She merely shivered a little as she pronounced the name.
"Barrett?"
His silence told her the rest.
Anything further that was to be said must come from her. It came as the bus stopped at a stage and fresh passengers mounted the stairs.
"You'd better get down here and go back, Paul," she said. "I understand perfectly—perfectly. It isn't Barrett. ”

“ Beams settled with a tired sigh into their old mortices; creatures ticked in the walls; joints cracked, boards complained; with no palpable stirring of the air window-sashes changed their positions with a soft knock in their frames. And whether the place had life in this sense or not, it had at all events a winsome personality. It needed but an hour of musing for Oleron to conceive the idea that, as his own body stood in friendly relation to his soul, so, by an extension and an attenuation, his habitation might fantastically be supposed to stand in some relation to himself. ”

“ The morning star shone over the sea, and the first cock crowed down in Portsannet. The nightingale ceased to sing. The moon still rode high among the clouds; but a breeze came from the east, and a greyness and lifting altered the air. The cocks made an increasing din. A splendour of rose and gold, in the midst of which the sun burned like a brazier, turned the vault to an ineffable blue, and flushed the tops of the Ladyshaws. And as the earliest of the Pillers to rise trudged down the meadows for water, he saw that a man-o'-war, under half canvas, stood motionless beyond the headland. ”

“ I had no right to let George make any sacrifice for me. You—you were my man. Do you understand?”
“Yes, dear.”
“And when I called to poor Captain Brack that night, Gardy, I was calling to you with my heart. Oh! I was calling so to you. Do you understand that, too, dear?”
“Yes; yes!”
“And—and you heard, too, didn’t you, Gardy? You heard me, because you wanted to hear it, didn’t you? And when we came here this morning, and you were so far-awayish I was afraid you hadn’t heard at all. Oh, Gardy!” She looked up with eyes wet from happiness too great to be suppressed. “Isn’t life good to us? ”

“ So do we all when our Fair Ones beckon. Quite at the beginning we wink, and promise ourselves that we will put Her Ladyship through her paces, neglect her for a day, turn her own jealous wiles against her, flout and ignore her when she comes wheedling; perhaps there lurks within us all the time a heartless sprite who is never fooled; but in the end all falls away. She beckons, beckons, and all goes....
And so Oleron kept his strategic post within the frame of his bedroom door, and watched, and waited, and smiled, with his finger on his lips.... ”

“ She began to tremble. “What is it, Arthur?” she asked quickly.
“Don't ask me, except that this is my finish with it. I'll tell you what it is I offer you now. All's closing in, and they won't stop at this; and I offer you danger for a portion, and not so much as a roof to your head it may be, and it may be, Cicely, just the same lot as hers stretched on the bed yonder. But a new man goes with it, Cis——”
“Arthur!” she cried, sharply, as if transfixed with a sudden pain; and for the first time since he had entered he looked up at her face. ”

“ Sorest tries the household band.
Closer favourite's kisses cling,
Favourite's fingers sharper sting.'"
"Very likely," replied Eunané. "I cannot understand any more than you can why Eveena screens instead of punishing us; why she endures what a word to him would put down under her sandal; but she does. Does she cast no shadow because it never darkens his presence to us? And after all, her mind is not a deeper darkness to me than his. He enjoys life as no man here does; but what he enjoys most is a good chance of losing it; while those who find it so tedious guard it like watch-dragons. ”

“ Oona went slowly, full of thought, up to the battlements, and looked out upon the familiar landscape, full of light and freshness, and all the natural sounds of the golden afternoon—the lapping of the water upon the rocks, the rustle of the wind in the trees, the far-off murmurs of life, voices cheerful, yet inarticulate, from the village, distant sounds of horses and wheels on the unseen roads, the bark of a dog, all the easy, honest utterance, unthought of, like simple breathing, of common life. ”

“ Mrs. Barrett usually tapped, not at his door, but at the wooden wall beyond which lay Oleron's bed; and then Oleron rose, put on his dressing-gown, and admitted her. He was not conscious that as he did so that morning he hummed an air; but Mrs. Barrett lingered with her hand on the door-knob and her face a little averted and smiling.
"De-ar me!" her soft falsetto rose. "But that will be a very o-ald tune, Mr. Oleron! ”

“ Oh no. He would be looked after. He wouldn't be left, ill, to shift for himself. If everybody else had forsaken him, he could trust Elsie Bengough, the dearest chum he had, for that ... bless her faithful heart!
But suddenly a short, stifled, spluttering cry rang sharply out:
"Paul!"
It came from the kitchen.
And in the same moment it flashed upon Oleron, he knew not how, that two, three, five, he knew not how many minutes before, another sound, unmarked at the time but suddenly transfixing his attention now, had striven to reach his intelligence. ”

“ You say you can't look on your own blood. Stand off, then, for I'll cut a vein with the shears if you don't!”
He drew his hand quickly away at her menacing gesture, and she sprang back, the teazels plucking at her skirt. She breathed tumultuously, but her lips were closed, and as she retreated through the spiny teazels he began to advance again. Two or three ash-trees were behind her, but she did not dare to run for their shelter. Suddenly with all her force she began to call, “Arthur! Arthur!” Ellah plunged forward through the blue mist of bloom. ”

“ Oleron was tired of it all....
And it was time he told her so.
"I suppose," he said tremblingly, looking down between his knees, "I suppose the real trouble is in the life women who earn their own living are obliged to lead."
He could not tell in what sense she took the lame generality; she merely replied, "I suppose so."
"It can't be helped," he continued, "but you do sacrifice a good deal."
She agreed: a good deal; and then she added after a moment, "What, for instance?"
"You may or may not be gradually attaining a new status, but you're in a false position to-day." ”

“ He was suddenly wondering whether he dared go into the kitchen. It was such a frightfully long way; no man knew what horror might not leap and huddle on his shoulders if he went so far; when a man has an overmastering impulse to get back into bed he ought to take heed of the warning and obey it. Besides, why should he go? What was there to go for? If it was that Bengough creature again, let her look after herself; Oleron was not going to have things cramp themselves on his defenceless back for the sake of such a spoilsport as she!... ”

“ He strutted as he walked, and stood for a moment framed between two palm trees where the path entered the pergola.
"Little Annette!" he murmured, beaming patronizingly upon the girl. "Happy again. I knew you would be. But I haven't heard you laugh for a long time."
"No," said the girl, looking at him intently, "I haven't laughed since we came here."
"But you are happy now. Yes, yes, quite happy, quite happy. Up early this morning and all round the place like a little lark."
"Because I couldn't sleep. And because—early in the morning—others are not up—and I can be alone." ”

“ Oleron smothered a low laugh. It somehow amused him that she, in such danger herself, should talk to him of his danger!... Well, if she was, serve her right; she knew, or said she knew, all about it....
"Paul!... Paul!..."
"Paul!... Paul!..." He mimicked her under his breath.
"Oh, Paul, it's horrible!..."
Horrible, was it? thought Oleron. Then let her get away....
"I only want to help you, Paul.... I didn't promise not to come if you needed me...."
He was impervious to the pitiful sob that interrupted the low cry. The devil take the woman! Should he shout to her to go away and not come back? ”

“ But in truth I could never have paused to ask what in such a case oath or law permitted, "Listen, Eunané," I said, "and be calm. Not only Eveena, not only I, but hundreds, thousands, of the best and kindliest men and women of your world hold this faith as fast as we do. You feel what Eveena is. What she is and what others are not, she owes to this trust:—to the assurance of a Power unseen, that rules our lives and fortunes and watches our conduct, that will exact an account thereof, that holds us as His children, and will never part with us. ”

“ Too weak now to reason, or to resist the impression enforced upon her mind by minds always far more powerful than her own in its brightest hours, she turned instinctively from the thought of blackness, senselessness eternal, to that of a Father whose hand could uphold, of the wings that can leap the grave. Her left hand clasped in mine, her right in Eveena's,— looking most in my face, because weakness leant on strength even more than love appealed to love—Eunané spent the remaining hours of that night in calm contentment and peace. ”

“ All the time, he thought how exceedingly lucky he was to get the place. He put up a hat-rack in the little square hall, and hung up his hats and caps and coats; and passers through the small triangular square late at night, looking up over the little serried row of wooden "To Let" hatchets, could see the light within Oleron's red blinds, or else the sudden darkening of one blind and the illumination of another, as Oleron, candlestick in hand, passed from room to room, making final settlings of his furniture, or preparing to resume the work that his removal had interrupted. ”

“ Every now and then he raised his head, often clasping and unclasping his hands, swaying to and fro the while, and speaking or chanting rapidly, with wild, scarce coherent words. He was as one in an ecstasy. Oona, for the first time, feared him. She stood, only a few yards behind him now, and listened.
"Ochan, ochone, arone! and so fair too, and so fair! ”

“ They fixed another spar for a double-tree, and set oars across at intervals to keep that monstrous cat's-cradle in something like position: men were told off specially to watch it. A fellow came shouting up with some oxen; but we couldn't begin to make yokes for his oxen—the fool hadn't brought any; and they were sent back with the lads and worn-out horses to High Lee.
“I forget lots of things that happened just then; but I remember one thing distinctly—I laughed at the High Lee men when we set off again, for they cheered. ”

“ Not long was Owen asleep when there came a knock at the door.
"Get up, Owen O'Mulready, and go with a letter from the master to America."
Owen got up, and put his feet into his boots, saying to himself, "It's late you come, messenger."
He took the letter, and he went forward and never tarried till he came to the foot of Sliabh Charn, where he met a cow-boy, and he herding cows.
"The blessing of God be with you, Owen O'Mulready," says the boy.
"The blessing of God and Mary be with you, my boy," says Owen. "Every one knows me, and I don't know any one at all." ”