Pelisse

“ At the usual hour you may reckon more than a hundred sledges of every form, most of them covered with rich rugs and furs, chasing each other through the streets, and each containing a gentleman and lady, and a driver furred from head to foot. This sort of amusement is an admirable aid to coquetry. Nothing can be more fascinating than those female figures wrapped up in pelisses, and with their faces dimly seen through their blonde veils ”

“ Pelleas said most wisely, “why there is likely to be some enchantment about. The more human you are the more wonderful things are likely to happen.”
That is true enough, and it was in very human fashion that next instant the figure in pink in the portico of the temple came swiftly toward us and took me in her arms. It was Avis, all tender regret for what she fancied to be her inhospitality and as perfectly the hostess as if it were usual for her to receive her guests in a white temple. ”

“ Since Pelleas and I have grown old together the events of our days lie rather among plants than people, or so we imagine.
“You know,” he said with a kind of happy importance, “we wondered who would be the first to find our motto on the sun-dial.”
“Yes,” I said eagerly.
“Just now,” imparted Pelleas, “I came through the rose-garden. And at the turn of the path by the Blush-rose tree, I surprised—but I took care they didn’t see me—two lovers, reading the motto.”
“Lovers!” cried I in fine excitement. “How do you know that they were lovers, Pelleas?” ”

“ At that we hesitated no longer but advanced boldly across the moonlit green. And when I saw that the figure in the portico wore a frock of pink and when I saw her lift her hand in a way sweetly familiar, I began to suspect that the time was not yet come when Pelleas and I were to vanish in such bright wise. Manifestly Pelleas had come to the same conclusion, for when he reached a broad, flat rock beneath a birch he beckoned me to sit there in the shadow where we could watch these strange offices. ”

“ SCENE I. Pentapolis. An open place by the sea-side. [Enter Pericles, wet.]
PERICLES. Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven! Wind, rain, and thunder, remember, earthly man Is but a substance that must yield to you; And I, as fits my nature, do obey you: Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks, Wash'd me from shore to shore, and left me breath Nothing to think on but ensuing death: Let it suffice the greatness of your powers To have bereft a prince of all his fortunes; And having thrown him from your watery grave, Here to have death in peace is all he'll crave. ”

“ The old magician took off his clothes and his face—yes, his face—for all the world as though it had been a mask, and there stood as handsome and noble a young man as ever the light looked on. Then, beckoning to the fisherman, dumb with wonder, he led the way up the great flight of marble steps to the palace door. As he came the door swung open with a blaze of light, and there stood hundreds of noblemen, all clad in silks and satins and velvets, who, when they saw the magician, bowed low before him, as though he had been a king. ”

“ Thereupon he smote his hands together like a clap of thunder, and instantly the walls of the room clove asunder, and there came out four-and-twenty handsome youths, clad in cloth of gold and silver. After these four-and-twenty there came another one who was the chief of them all, and before whom, splendid as they were, the four-and-twenty paled like stars in daylight. “Go to the king’s palace,” said the Demon to that one, “and deliver this message: The Tailor of Tailors, the Master of Masters, and One Greater than a King asks for his daughter to wife.” ”

“ Pelléas.
Let us enter... You must be able to describe the place where you lost the ring, if he questions you. It is very large and very beautiful. It is full of blue darkness. When one lights a little lamp, it is as if the vault were covered with stars, like the heavens. Give me your hand, do not tremble, do not tremble so. There is no danger: we will stop at the moment when we longer see the light of the sea... Is it the noise of the grotto that frightens you? ”

“ Could this be Little Rosemont, where we were to find Avis and Lawrence and Hobart Eddy and other happy realities of our uneventful lives?
“Oh, Pelleas,” I said in awe, “if only we can get inside before it disappears.”
“Maybe,” murmured Pelleas, “if we can do that we can disappear with it.”
For we have long had a dream—we are too frequently besieged by the ways of the world to call it a hope—that sometime They will come and take us, the Wind or the Day or any of the things that we love, and thus save us this dreary business of dying. ”

“ Meanwhile I rearranged my old gown, longing for Nichola, who has a genius in more than cookery. To be sure Pelleas did his best to help me, though he knows no more of such matters than the spirits [Pg 104] of the air; he can button very well but to hook is utterly beyond his simple art. However, he attended to everything else. After dark on Thursday he smuggled some roses into the house and though I set the pitcher in my closet I could smell the flowers distinctly while we were at dinner. It is frightful to have a conscience that can produce not only terrors but fragrances. ”

“ The Prince was in despair. “Now what are we to do?” cried he. “If we follow the ball, we are like to be drowned in the deep waters of the lough, and if we do not follow it, we will never win to the palace of the Water King.”
But the shaggy steed bade him take heart. “We must indeed still follow the ball,” said he, “but even so it is possible no harm may come to us. ”

“ Our neighbour is none so long eared an animal as you imagine. You do not possess the power of reflection, no not you. I grin and joke; but afterwards I reflect. Every low-born clown can stamp and roar, as we do here. Grant a little more real cheerfulness, a spark more of charity, a bit more faith in the blessing of heaven;--what do you imagine that all this would be a sign of?" "Now, that I also reflect," replied one, "I fancy it would be a sign of being a little less of a brute." ”

“ Pelleas turned the glasses on the magnolias. “On my soul,” he exclaimed, “I thought I saw a tanager!” And when we had stood for a moment to watch hopefully and had been disappointed (“Why shouldn’t an early tanager come, to help us to believe?” he wondered) , he gave a vital spark to what I had said about the path:—
“I suppose that that little path really has no ending,” he said; “you cannot end direction. Yes, the path of In-the-Spring must run right away to the end of the world.” ”

“ In the fourth act the moon shone on a little châlet in the leaves and one saw that there are love and sacrifice and good will enough to carry on the world in spite of its other connections. It was a play which made me thankful that Pelleas and I have clung to each other through society and poverty [Pg 36] and dyspepsia and never have allied ourselves with the other side. And if any one thinks that there is a middle ground I, who am seventy, know far better. ”

“ For no sooner did the fresh wind of the hillside ruffle up their fur than away they fled, this way and that, kicking up their heels behind them. It was in 207 vain the lad chased after them and shouted and sweated; he could not keep them together. In the end he had scarcely threescore of them to drive back to the palace in the evening.
And the King was waiting for him with a cudgel in his hands, and if the lad did not get a good drubbing that day, then nobody ever did. ”

“ You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings;
Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,
Would draw heaven down, and all the gods to hearken;
But being play’d upon before your time,
Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.
Good sooth, I care not for you.
ANTIOCHUS.
Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,
For that’s an article within our law,
As dangerous as the rest. Your time’s expired:
Either expound now, or receive your sentence.
PERICLES.
Great king,
Few love to hear the sins they love to act ”

“ Is it not better to have so luminous a thing ever trembling over one’s head than to see, through one’s tears, its fragments float away? If happiness be a bubble, Pelleas and I know of one that has outlasted many a stouter element and will last to the end. ”

“ The gods requite his charity.
If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart
That even cracks for woe! This chanced tonight.
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Most likely, sir.
CERIMON.
Nay, certainly tonight;
For look how fresh she looks! They were too rough
That threw her in the sea. Make a fire within
Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet.
[Exit a Servant.]
Death may usurp on nature many hours,
And yet the fire of life kindle again
The o’erpress’d spirits. ”

“ Pelistes had brought with him to the camp his only son, who had never drawn a sword except in tourney. When the young man saw that the veterans held their peace, the blood mantled in his cheek, and, overcoming his modesty, he broke forth with a generous warmth: ‘I know not, cavaliers,’ said he, ‘what is passing in your minds, but I believe this pilgrim to be an envoy from the devil; for none else could have given such dastard and perfidious counsel. For my own part, I stand ready to defend my king, my country, and my faith. ”

“ Pell, ‘dining with him on one occasion; there was only us two, but everything as splendid as if twenty people had been expected—the great seal on a dumb–waiter at his right hand, and a man in a bag–wig and suit of armour guarding the mace with a drawn sword and silk stockings—which is perpetually done, gentlemen, night and day; when he said, “Pell,” he said, “no false delicacy, Pell. You’re a man of talent; you can get anybody through the Insolvent Court, Pell; and your country should be proud of you.” ”

“ Then, as the great round sun sank red behind the trees, the Demon knew that he was beaten. “I am conquered! I am conquered!” he howled, and flew away, bellowing so dreadfully that all the world trembled.
So ends the story, with only this to say:
Where man’s strength fails, woman’s wit prevails.
For, to my mind, the princess—not to speak of her husband the little Tailor—did more with a single little hair and her mother wit than King Solomon with all his wisdom.
“Whose turn is it next to tell us a story?” ”

“ I looked up at Pelleas almost fearfully in the flood of Spring moonlight. The radiance was full on his white hair and tranquil face, and he met my eyes with the knowledge that we were suddenly become the custodians of an exquisite secret. The words of the young servant of God came to me understandingly.
“‘And the house shall be filled with the odour of the ointment,’” I said over. “O, Pelleas,” I added, tremulously, “do you think....”
Pelleas lifted his face and I thought that it shone in the dimness.
“Ah, well,” he answered, “we must believe all the beautiful things we can.” ”

“ I put the rose in the lace of my dress, and, being a very foolish old woman, failed to keep back my tears.
Pelleas was in the library across the hall from the drawing-room where those two dear little people were. I opened the library-door softly and went in and stood close beside his chair before he turned. Pelleas is not in the least deaf, as we both know; he is simply no longer distracted by small, unnecessary noises. ”

“ Hobart Eddy came forward, twitching an amazing shepherd’s cloak about him, and shook his shepherd’s crook at us.
“I’m head goat,” he explained, “but they let me [Pg 252] call myself a goatherd because they think I won’t see through the offence.”
Then Avis, laughing, drew Pelleas and me away to tell us how at last her dream had come true and that the white temple was the theater which she had wanted for her guests at Little Rosemont, and that on Monday it was to be opened with some tableaux and an open-air play on the grass-plot, under the moon. ”

“ But thou hast counselled like a loyal and a Christian knight, and I thank God for having given me a son worthy to perpetuate the honors of my line. As to this pilgrim, be he saint or be he devil, I care not; this much I promise, that if I am to die in defence of my country and my king, my life shall be a costly purchase to the foe. Let each man make the same resolve, and I trust we shall yet prove the pilgrim a lying prophet.’ The words of Pelistes roused the spirits of many of the cavaliers ”

“ The sorrows, the estrangements, the failures, the ill-health, the little stabs at us, above all the cursed mistakes of my own—do you think we have not had these? Do you think we don’t know, Hobart? Do you think we haven’t paid, to the last farthing? Good God!” said Pelleas. “And yet we are not beaten. And we never shall be beaten, dead or alive. ”

“ Pericles acquired not only an elevation of sentiment, and a loftiness and purity of style far removed from the low expression of the vulgar, but likewise a gravity of countenance which relaxed not into laughter, a firm and even tone of voice, an easy deportment, and a decency of dress which no vehemence of speaking ever put into disorder. ”

“ When one is seventy and closes one’s eyes it is wonderful how the whole world grows youthful. And when I had almost dozed that tender rustling brought me back so happily that I could hardly tell which was memory of that other little head upon my arm and which was now. At midnight and twice later when the baby’s food had to be warmed it was I who did this, and the old familiar helplessness of Pelleas in this little presence delighted me beyond measure. ”

“ For Pelleas and I, merely because we are seventy and white-haired and frightened to cross streets, are not near enough to death to treat each other so coldly as do half the middle-aged. I cannot imagine a breakfast at which we two would separate the morning paper and intrude stocks and society upon our companionship and our omelet. ”

“ It is one sign of our advancing years, we must believe, that Pelleas and I dislike to be laughed at. Our old servant scolds us all day long and we are philosophical; but if she laughs at either of us Pelleas grieves and I rage. Nichola’s “You’ll be laughed at for fashionable” humbled me. ”