The Night Before

Look you, Dominie; look you, and listen!Look in my face, first; search every line there;Mark every feature, -- chin, lip, and forehead!Look in my eyes, and tell me the lessonYou read there; measure my nose, and tell meWhere I am wanting! A man's nose, Dominie,Is often the cast of his inward spirit;So mark mine well. But why do you smile so?Pity, or what? Is it written all over,This face of mine, with a brute's confession?Nothing but sin there? nothing but hell-scars?Or is it because there is something better --A glimmer of good, maybe -- or a shadowOf something that's followed me down from childhood --Followed me all these years and kept me,Spite of my slips and sins and follies,Spite of my last red sin, my murder, --Just out of hell? Yes? something of that kind?And you smile for that? You're a good man, Dominie,The one good man in the world who knows me, --My one good friend in a world that mocks me,Here in this hard stone cage. But I leave itTo-morrow. To-morrow! My God! am I crying?Are these things tears? Tears! What! am I frightened?I, who swore I should go to the scaffoldWith big strong steps, and -- No more. I thank you,But no -- I am all right now! No! -- listen!I am here to be hanged; to be hanged to-morrowAt six o'clock, when the sun is rising.And why am I here? Not a soul can tell youBut this poor shivering thing before you,This fluttering wreck of the man God made him,For God knows what wild reason. Hear me,And learn from my lips the truth of my story.There's nothing strange in what I shall tell you,Nothing mysterious, nothing unearthly, --But damnably human, -- and you shall hear it.Not one of those little black lawyers had guessed it;The judge, with his big bald head, never knew it;And the jury (God rest their poor souls!) never dreamed it.Once there were three in the world who could tell it;Now there are two. There'll be two to-morrow, --You, my friend, and -- But there's the story: --

When I was a boy the world was heaven.I never knew then that the men and the womenWho petted and called me a brave big fellowWere ever less happy than I; but wisdom --Which comes with the years, you know -- soon showed meThe secret of all my glittering childhood,The broken key to the fairies' castleThat held my life in the fresh, glad seasonWhen I was the king of the earth. Then slowly --And yet so swiftly! -- there came the knowledgeThat the marvellous life I had lived was my life;That the glorious world I had loved was my world;And that every man, and every woman,And every child was a different being,Wrought with a different heat, and firedWith passions born of a single spirit;That the pleasure I felt was not their pleasure,Nor my sorrow -- a kind of nameless pityFor something, I knew not what -- their sorrow.And thus was I taught my first hard lesson, --The lesson we suffer the most in learning:That a happy man is a man forgetfulOf all the torturing ills around him.When or where I first met the womanI cherished and made my wife, no matter.Enough to say that I found her and kept herHere in my heart with as pure a devotionAs ever Christ felt for his brothers. Forgive meFor naming His name in your patient presence;But I feel my words, and the truth I utterIs God's own truth. I loved that woman, --Not for her face, but for something fairer,Something diviner, I thought, than beauty:I loved the spirit -- the human somethingThat seemed to chime with my own condition,And make soul-music when we were together;And we were never apart, from the momentMy eyes flashed into her eyes the messageThat swept itself in a quivering answerBack through my strange lost being. My pulsesLeapt with an aching speed; and the measureOf this great world grew small and smaller,Till it seemed the sky and the land and the oceanClosed at last in a mist all goldenAround us two. And we stood for a seasonLike gods outflung from chaos, dreamingThat we were the king and the queen of the fireThat reddened the clouds of love that held usBlind to the new world soon to be ours --Ours to seize and sway. The passionOf that great love was a nameless passion,Bright as the blaze of the sun at noonday,Wild as the flames of hell; but, mark you,Never a whit less pure for its fervor.The baseness in me (for I was human)Burned like a worm, and perished; and nothingWas left me then but a soul that mingledItself with hers, and swayed and shudderedIn fearful triumph. When I considerThat helpless love and the cursed follyThat wrecked my life for the sake of a womanWho broke with a laugh the chains of her marriage(Whatever the word may mean), I wonderIf all the woe was her sin, or whetherThe chains themselves were enough to lead herIn love's despite to break them. . . . SinnersAnd saints -- I say -- are rocked in the cradle,But never are known till the will within themSpeaks in its own good time. So I fosterEven to-night for the woman who wronged me,Nothing of hate, nor of love, but a feelingOf still regret; for the man -- But hear me,And judge for yourself: --

For a time the seasonsChanged and passed in a sweet successionThat seemed to me like an endless music:Life was a rolling psalm, and the choirsOf God were glad for our love. I fanciedAll this, and more than I dare to tell youTo-night, -- yes, more than I dare to remember;And then -- well, the music stopped. There are momentsIn all men's lives when it stops, I fancy, --Or seems to stop, -- till it comes to cheer themAgain with a larger sound. The curtainOf life just then is lifted a littleTo give to their sight new joys -- new sorrows --Or nothing at all, sometimes. I was watchingThe slow, sweet scenes of a golden picture,Flushed and alive with a long delusionThat made the murmur of home, when I shudderedAnd felt like a knife that awful silenceThat comes when the music goes -- forever.The truth came over my life like a darknessOver a forest where one man wanders,Worse than alone. For a time I staggeredAnd stumbled on with a weak persistenceAfter the phantom of hope that dartedAnd dodged like a frightened thing before me,To quit me at last, and vanish. NothingWas left me then but the curse of livingAnd bearing through all my days the feverAnd thirst of a poisoned love. Were I stronger,Or weaker, perhaps my scorn had saved me,Given me strength to crush my sorrowWith hate for her and the world that praised her --To have left her, then and there -- to have conqueredThat old false life with a new and a wiser, --Such things are easy in words. You listen,And frown, I suppose, that I never mentionThat beautiful word, FORGIVE! -- I forgave herFirst of all; and I praised kind HeavenThat I was a brave, clean man to do it;And then I tried to forget. Forgiveness!What does it mean when the one forgivenShivers and weeps and clings and kissesThe credulous fool that holds her, and tells himA thousand things of a good man's mercy,And then slips off with a laugh and plungesBack to the sin she has quit for a season,To tell him that hell and the world are betterFor her than a prophet's heaven? Believe me,The love that dies ere its flames are wastedIn search of an alien soul is better,Better by far than the lonely passionThat burns back into the heart that feeds it.For I loved her still, and the more she mocked me, --Fooled with her endless pleading promiseOf future faith, -- the more I believed herThe penitent thing she seemed; and the strongerHer choking arms and her small hot kissesBound me and burned my brain to pity,The more she grew to the heavenly creatureThat brightened the life I had lost forever.The truth was gone somehow for the moment;The curtain fell for a time; and I fanciedWe were again like gods together,Loving again with the old glad rapture.But scenes like these, too often repeated,Failed at last, and her guile was wasted.I made an end of her shrewd caressesAnd told her a few straight words. She took themFull at their worth -- and the farce was over.At first my dreams of the past upheld me,But they were a short support: the presentPushed them away, and I fell. The missionOf life (whatever it was) was blasted;My game was lost. And I met the winnerOf that foul deal as a sick slave gathersHis painful strength at the sight of his master;And when he was past I cursed him, fearfulOf that strange chance which makes us mightyOr mean, or both. I cursed him and hatedThe stones he pressed with his heel; I followedHis easy march with a backward envy,And cursed myself for the beast within me.But pride is the master of love, and the visionOf those old days grew faint and fainter:The counterfeit wife my mercy shelteredWas nothing now but a woman, -- a womanOut of my way and out of my nature.My battle with blinded love was over,My battle with aching pride beginning.If I was the loser at first, I wonderIf I am the winner now! . . . I doubt it.My life is a losing game; and to-morrow --To-morrow! -- Christ! did I say to-morrow? . . .Is your brandy good for death? . . . There, -- listen: --

When love goes out, and a man is drivenTo shun mankind for the scars that make himA joke for all chattering tongues, he carriesA double burden. The woes I sufferedAfter that hard betrayal made mePity, at first, all breathing creaturesOn this bewildered earth. I studiedTheir faces and made for myself the storyOf all their scattered lives. Like brothersAnd sisters they seemed to me then; and I nourishedA stranger friendship wrought in my fancyBetween those people and me. But somehow,As time went on, there came queer glancesOut of their eyes, and the shame that stung meHarassed my pride with a crazed impressionThat every face in the surging cityWas turned to me; and I saw sly whispers,Now and then, as I walked and weariedMy wasted life twice over in bearingWith all my sorrow the sorrows of others, --Till I found myself their fool. Then I trembled, --A poor scared thing, -- and their prying facesTold me the ghastly truth: they were laughingAt me and my fate. My God, I could feel it --That laughter! And then the children caught it;And I, like a struck dog, crept and listened.And then when I met the man who had weakenedA woman's love to his own desire,It seemed to me that all hell were laughingIn fiendish concert! I was their victim --And his, and hate's. And there was the struggle!As long as the earth we tread holds somethingA tortured heart can love, the meaningOf life is not wholly blurred; but afterThe last loved thing in the world has left us,We know the triumph of hate. The gloryOf good goes out forever; the beaconOf sin is the light that leads us downward --Down to the fiery end. The road runsRight through hell; and the souls that followThe cursed ways where its windings lead themSuffer enough, I say, to meritAll grace that a God can give. -- The fashionOf our belief is to lift all beingsBorn for a life that knows no struggleIn sin's tight snares to eternal glory --All apart from the branded millionsWho carry through life their faces gravenWith sure brute scars that tell the storyOf their foul, fated passions. ScienceHas yet no salve to smooth or softenThe cradle-scars of a tyrant's visage;No drug to purge from the vital essenceOf souls the sleeping venom. VirtueMay flower in hell, when its roots are twistedAnd wound with the roots of vice; but the strongerNever is known till there comes that battleWith sin to prove the victor. PerilousThings are these demons we call our passions:Slaves are we of their roving fancies,Fools of their devilish glee. -- You think me,I know, in this maundering way designingTo lighten the load of my guilt and cast itHalf on the shoulders of God. But hear me!I'm partly a man, -- for all my weakness, --If weakness it were to stand and murderBefore men's eyes the man who had murderedMe, and driven my burning foreheadWith horns for the world to laugh at. Trust me!And try to believe my words but a portionOf what God's purpose made me! The cowardWithin me cries for this; and I beg youNow, as I come to the end, to rememberThat women and men are on earth to travelAll on a different road. HereafterThe roads may meet. . . . I trust in something --I know not what. . . .

Well, this was the way of it: --Stung with the shame and the secret furyThat comes to the man who has thrown his pittanceOf self at a traitor's feet, I wanderedWeeks and weeks in a baffled frenzy,Till at last the devil spoke. I heard him,And laughed at the love that strove to touch me, --The dead, lost love; and I gripped the demonClose to my breast, and held him, praisingThe fates and the furies that gave me the courageTo follow his wild command. ForgetfulOf all to come when the work was over, --There came to me then no stony visionOf these three hundred days, -- I cherishedAn awful joy in my brain. I ponderedAnd weighed the thing in my mind, and gloriedIn life to think that I was to conquerDeath at his own dark door, -- and chuckledTo think of it done so cleanly. One eveningI knew that my time had come. I shudderedA little, but rather for doubt than terror,And followed him, -- led by the nameless devilI worshipped and called my brother. The cityShone like a dream that night; the windowsFlashed with a piercing flame, and the pavementsPulsed and swayed with a warmth -- or somethingThat seemed so then to my feet -- and thrilled meWith a quick, dizzy joy; and the womenAnd men, like marvellous things of magic,Floated and laughed and sang by my shoulder,Sent with a wizard motion. Through itAnd over and under it all there soundedA murmur of life, like bees; and I listenedAnd laughed again to think of the flowerThat grew, blood-red, for me! . . . This fellowWas one of the popular sort who flourishUnruffled where gods would fall. For a conscienceHe carried a snug deceit that made himThe man of the time and the place, whateverThe time or the place might be. Were he sounding,With a genial craft that cloaked its purpose,Nigh to itself, the depth of a womanFooled with his brainless art, or sendingThe midnight home with songs and bottles, --The cad was there, and his ease foreverShone with the smooth and slippery polishThat tells the snake. That night he driftedInto an up-town haunt and ordered --Whatever it was -- with a soft assuranceThat made me mad as I stood behind him,Gripping his death, and waited. Coward,I think, is the name the world has givenTo men like me; but I'll swear I neverThought of my own disgrace when I shot him --Yes, in the back, -- I know it, I know itNow; but what if I do? . . . As I watched himLying there dead in the scattered sawdust,Wet with a day's blown froth, I notedThat things were still; that the walnut tables,Where men but a moment before were sitting,Were gone; that a screen of something around meShut them out of my sight. But the gildedSigns of a hundred beers and whiskeysFlashed from the walls above, and the mirrorsAnd glasses behind the bar were lightedIn some strange way, and into my spiritA thousand shafts of terrible fireBurned like death, and I fell. The storyOf what came then, you know.

But tell me,What does the whole thing mean? What are we, --Slaves of an awful ignorance? puppetsPulled by a fiend? or gods, without knowing it?Do we shut from ourselves our own salvation, --Or what do we do! I tell you, Dominie,There are times in the lives of us poor devilsWhen heaven and hell get mixed. Though conscienceMay come like a whisper of Christ to warn usAway from our sins, it is lost or laughed at, --And then we fall. And for all who have fallen --Even for him -- I hold no malice,Nor much compassion: a mightier mercyThan mine must shrive him. -- And I -- I am goingInto the light? -- or into the darkness?Why do I sit through these sickening hours,And hope? Good God! are they hours? -- hours?Yes! I am done with days. And to-morrow --We two may meet! To-morrow! -- To-morrow! . . .