LITMIR.BIZ

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"stood one whose face I shall never forget, for it was like my own. The features were mine, but upon them were reflected all the sins of my life, and all the evil I have done. I thought the other revellers did not see him."

      Again the music swelled and rose, and the train of dancers passed on with song and laughter, and disappeared on the opposite side of the stage. Ghisleri alone stood still before the saint-like figure of the Contessa dell' Armi, bowing low and holding out to her a tall red glass.

      "He who was like me stayed behind," continued the reader, "and the light from his glass seemed to shine upon the saintly woman's face, and she drew back as though from contamination, to the monk's side for protection. I knew her face when I saw it—the face I have known too long, too well. Then he who was like me spoke to her, and the voice was my own, but as I would have had it when I have been worst."

      As the reader ceased Ghisleri began to speak. His voice was strong, but capable of considerable softness and passionate expression, and he did his best to render his own irregular verses both intelligible and moving to his hearers, in which effort he was much helped by the dress he wore and by the gestures he made use of.

      "So we meet at the last! You the saint, I the time-proved sinner;

       You the young, I the old; I the world-worn, you the beginner;

       At the end of the season here, with a glass of wine

       To discuss the salvation and—well—the mine and thine

       Of all the souls we have met this year, and dealt with,

       Of those you have tried to make feel, and those I've felt with:

       Though, after all, dear Saint, had we met in heaven

       Before you got saintship, or I the infernal leaven

       That works so hot to kill the old angel in me—

       If you had seen the world then, as I was able to see

       Before Sergeant-Major Michael gave me that fall—

       Not a right fall, mind you, taking the facts in all—

       We might have been on the same side both. But now

       It is yours to cry over lost souls, as it's mine to show them how

       They may stumble and tumble into the infernal slough.

       So here we are. Now tell me—your honour true—

       What do you think of our season? Which wins? I? You?

       Ha, ha, ha! Sweet friend, you can hardly doubt

       The result of this two months' hard-fought wrestling bout.

       I have won. You have lost the game. I drive a trade

       Which I invented—perhaps—but you have made.

       Without your heaven, friend Saint, what would be my hell?

       Without your goodness, could I hope to do well

       With the poor little peddler's pack of original sin

       They handed me down, when they turned me out to begin

       My devil's trade with souls. But now I ask

       Why for eternal penance they gave me so light a task?

       You have not condescended from heaven to taste our carnival feast,

       But if you had tasted it, you would admit at least

       That the meats were passably sweet, and might allure

       The nicest of angels, whose tastes are wholly pure.

       Old friend—I hate you! I hate your saintly face,

       Your holy eyes, your vague celestial grace!

       You are too cold for me, whose soul must smelt

       In fires whose fury you have never felt.

       But come, unbend a little. Let us chatter

       Of what we like best, of what our pride may flatter—

       Salvation and damnation—there's the theme—

       Your trade and mine—what I am, and what you seem.

       Come, count the souls we have played for, you and I,

       The broken hearts you have lost on a careless jog of the die,

       Hearts that were broken in ire, by one short, sharp fault of the head,

      [Pg 45] Souls lifted on pinions of fire, to sink on wings of lead.

       We have gambled, and I have won, while you have steadily lost,

       I laughing, you weeping your senseless saintly tears each time you tossed.

       So now—give it up! Dry your eyes; your heaven's a dream!

       Sell your saintship for what it is worth, and come over—the Devil's supreme!

       Make Judas Iscariot envy the sweets of our sin—

       Poor Judas, who ended himself where I could have wished to begin!

       A chosen complexion—hell's fruit would not have been wasted

       Had he lived to eat his fill at the feast he barely tasted.

       Ah, my friend, you are horribly good! Oh! I know you of old;

       I know all your virtues, your graces, your beauties; I know they are cold!

       But I know that far down in the depths of your crystalline soul

       There's a spot the archangel physician might not pronounce whole.

       There's a hell in your heaven; there's a heaven in my hell. There we meet.

       What's perdition to you is salvation to me. Ah, the delicate sweet

       Of mad meetings, of broken confessions, of nights unblest!

       Oh, the shadowy horror of hate that haunts love's steps without rest,

       The desire to be dead—to see dead both the beings one hates,

       One's self and the other, twin victims of opposite fates!

       How I hate you! You thing beyond Satan's supremest temptation,

       You creature of light for whom God has ordained no damnation,

       You escape me, the being whose searing hand lovingly lingers

       On the neck of each sinner to brand him with five red-hot fingers!

       You escape me—you dare scoff at me—and I, poor old pretender,

       Must sue for your beautiful soul with temptation more tender

       Than a man can find for a woman, when night in her moonlit glory

       Silvers a word to a poem, makes a poem of a commonplace story!

       So I sue here at your feet for your soul and the gold of your heart,

       To break my own if I lose you—Lose you? No—do not start.

       You angel—you bitter-sweet creature of heaven, I love you and hate you!

       For I know what you are, and I know that my sin cannot mate you.

       I know you are better than I—by the blessing of God!—

       And I hate what is better than I by the blessing of God!

       What right has the Being Magnificent, reigning supreme,

       To wield the huge might that is his, in a measure extreme?

      [Pg 46] What right has God got of his strength to make you all good,

       And me bad from the first and weighed down in my sin's leaden hood?

       What right have you to be pure, my angel, when I am foul?

       What right have you to the light, while I, like an owl,

       Must blink in hell's darkness and count my sins by the bead—

       While you can get all you pray for, the wine and the mead

       Of a heavenly blessing, showered upon you straight—

      

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