A Conversation

I rode one evening with Count MaddaloUpon the bank of land which breaks the flowOf Adria towards Venice: a bare strandOf hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand,Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds,Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds,Is this; an uninhabited sea-side,Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,Abandons; and no other object breaksThe waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakesBroken and unrepaired, and the tide makesA narrow space of level sand thereon,Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down.This ride was my delight. I love all wasteAnd solitary places; where we tasteThe pleasure of believing what we seeIs boundless, as we wish our souls to be:And such was this wide ocean, and this shoreMore barren than its billows; and yet moreThan all, with a remembered friend I loveTo ride as then I rode;--for the winds droveThe living spray along the sunny airInto our faces; the blue heavens were bare,Stripped to their depths by the awakening north;And, from the waves, sound like delight broke forthHarmonising with solitude, and sentInto our hearts aereal merriment.So, as we rode, we talked; and the swift thought,Winging itself with laughter, lingered not,But flew from brain to brain,--such glee was ours,Charged with light memories of remembered hours,None slow enough for sadness: till we cameHomeward, which always makes the spirit tame.This day had been cheerful but cold, and nowThe sun was sinking, and the wind also.Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may beTalk interrupted with such railleryAs mocks itself, because it cannot scornThe thoughts it would extinguish: --'twas forlorn,Yet pleasing, such as once, so poets tell,The devils held within the dales of HellConcerning God, freewill and destiny:Of all that earth has been or yet may be,All that vain men imagine or believe,Or hope can paint or suffering may achieve,We descanted; and I (for ever stillIs it not wise to make the best of ill?)Argued against despondency, but prideMade my companion take the darker side.The sense that he was greater than his kindHad struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blindBy gazing on its own exceeding light.Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight,Over the horizon of the mountains;--Oh,How beautiful is sunset, when the glowOf Heaven descends upon a land like thee,Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!Thy mountains, seas and vineyards, and the towersOf cities they encircle!--it was oursTo stand on thee, beholding it: and then,Just where we had dismounted, the Count's menWere waiting for us with the gondola.--As those who pause on some delightful wayThough bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stoodLooking upon the evening, and the floodWhich lay between the city and the shore,Paved with the image of the sky...the hoarAnd aery Alps towards the North appearedThrough mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark rearedBetween the East and West; and half the skyWas roofed with clouds of rich emblazonryDark purple at the zenith, which still grewDown the steep West into a wondrous hueBrighter than burning gold, even to the rentWhere the swift sun yet paused in his descentAmong the many-folded hills: they wereThose famous Euganean hills, which bear,As seen from Lido thro' the harbour piles,The likeness of a clump of peaked isles--And then--as if the Earth and Sea had beenDissolved into one lake of fire, were seenThose mountains towering as from waves of flameAround the vaporous sun, from which there cameThe inmost purple spirit of light, and madeTheir very peaks transparent. 'Ere it fade,'Said my companion, 'I will show you soonA better station'--so, o'er the laguneWe glided; and from that funereal barkI leaned, and saw the city, and could markHow from their many isles, in evening's gleam,Its temples and its palaces did seemLike fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven.I was about to speak, when--'We are evenNow at the point I meant,' said Maddalo,And bade the gondolieri cease to row.'Look, Julian, on the west, and listen wellIf you hear not a deep and heavy bell.'I looked, and saw between us and the sunA building on an island; such a oneAs age to age might add, for uses vile,A windowless, deformed and dreary pile;And on the top an open tower, where hungA bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung;We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue:The broad sun sunk behind it, and it tolledIn strong and black relief.--'What we beholdShall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,'Said Maddalo, 'and ever at this hourThose who may cross the water, hear that bellWhich calls the maniacs, each one from his cell,To vespers.'--'As much skill as need to prayIn thanks or hope for their dark lot have theyTo their stern maker,' I replied. 'O ho!You talk as in years past,' said Maddalo.''Tis strange men change not. You were ever stillAmong Christ's flock a perilous infidel,A wolf for the meek lambs--if you can't swimBeware of Providence.' I looked on him,But the gay smile had faded in his eye.'And such,'--he cried, 'is our mortality,And this must be the emblem and the signOf what should be eternal and divine!--And like that black and dreary bell, the soul,Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must tollOur thoughts and our desires to meet belowRound the rent heart and pray--as madmen doFor what? they know not,--till the night of deathAs sunset that strange vision, severethOur memory from itself, and us from allWe sought and yet were baffled.' I recallThe sense of what he said, although I marThe force of his expressions. The broad starOf day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill,And the black bell became invisible,And the red tower looked gray, and all betweenThe churches, ships and palaces were seenHuddled in gloom;--into the purple seaThe orange hues of heaven sunk silently.We hardly spoke, and soon the gondolaConveyed me to my lodging by the way.The following morn was rainy, cold, and dim:Ere Maddalo arose, I called on him,And whilst I waited with his child I played;A lovelier toy sweet Nature never made;A serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being,Graceful without design and unforeseeing,With eyes--Oh speak not of her eyes!--which seemTwin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleamWith such deep meaning, as we never seeBut in the human countenance: with meShe was a special favourite: I had nursedHer fine and feeble limbs when she came firstTo this bleak world; and she yet seemed to knowOn second sight her ancient playfellow,Less changed than she was by six months or so;For after her first shyness was worn outWe sate there, rolling billiard balls about,When the Count entered. Salutations past--'The word you spoke last night might well have castA darkness on my spirit--if man beThe passive thing you say, I should not seeMuch harm in the religions and old saws(Tho' I may never own such leaden laws)Which break a teachless nature to the yoke:Mine is another faith.'--thus much I spokeAnd noting he replied not, added: 'SeeThis lovely child, blithe, innocent and free;She spends a happy time with little care,While we to such sick thoughts subjected areAs came on you last night. It is our willThat thus enchains us to permitted ill--We might be otherwise--we might be allWe dream of happy, high, majestical.Where is the love, beauty, and truth we seek,But in our mind? and if we were not weakShould we be less in deed than in desire?''Ay, if we were not weak--and we aspireHow vainly to be strong!' said Maddalo:'You talk Utopia.' 'It remains to know,'I then rejoined, 'and those who try may findHow strong the chains are which our spirit bind;Brittle perchance as straw...We are assuredMuch may be conquered, much may be endured,Of what degrades and crushes us. We knowThat we have power over ourselves to doAnd suffer--what, we know not till we try;But something nobler than to live and die--So taught those kings of old philosophyWho reigned, before Religion made men blind;And those who suffer with their suffering kindYet feel their faith, religion.' 'My dear friend,'Said Maddalo, 'my judgement will not bendTo your opinion, though I think you mightMake such a system refutation-tightAs far as words go. I knew one like youWho to this city came some months ago,With whom I argued in this sort, and heIs now gone mad,--and so he answered me,--Poor fellow! but if you would like to go,We'll visit him, and his wild talk will showHow vain are such aspiring theories.''I hope to prove the induction otherwise,And that a want of that true theory, still,Which seeks a "soul of goodness" in things illOr in himself or others, has thus bowedHis being--there are some by nature proud,Who patient in all else demand but this--To love and be beloved with gentleness;And being scorned, what wonder if they dieSome living death? this is not destinyBut man's own wilful ill.'As thus I spokeServants announced the gondola, and weThrough the fast-falling rain and high-wrought seaSailed to the island where the madhouse stands.We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands,Fierce yells and howlings and lamentings keen,And laughter where complaint had merrier been,Moans, shrieks, and curses, and blaspheming prayersAccosted us. We climbed the oozy stairsInto an old courtyard. I heard on high,Then, fragments of most touching melody,But looking up saw not the singer there--Through the black bars in the tempestuous airI saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing,Long tangled locks flung wildly forth, and flowing,Of those who on a sudden were beguiledInto strange silence, and looked forth and smiledHearing sweet sounds. Then I: 'Methinks there wereA cure of these with patience and kind care,If music can thus move...but what is heWhom we seek here?' 'Of his sad historyI know but this,' said Maddalo: 'he cameTo Venice a dejected man, and fameSaid he was wealthy, or he had been so;Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe;But he was ever talking in such sortAs you do--far more sadly--he seemed hurt,Even as a man with his peculiar wrong,To hear but of the oppression of the strong,Or those absurd deceits (I think with youIn some respects, you know) which carry throughThe excellent impostors of this earthWhen they outface detection--he had worth,Poor fellow! but a humorist in his way'--'Alas, what drove him mad?' 'I cannot say:A lady came with him from France, and whenShe left him and returned, he wandered thenAbout yon lonely isles of desert sandTill he grew wild--he had no cash or landRemaining,--the police had brought him here--Some fancy took him and he would not bearRemoval; so I fitted up for himThose rooms beside the sea, to please his whim,And sent him busts and books and urns for flowers,Which had adorned his life in happier hours,And instruments of music--you may guessA stranger could do little more or lessFor one so gentle and unfortunate:And those are his sweet strains which charm the weightFrom madmen's chains, and make this Hell appearA heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear.'--'Nay, this was kind of you--he had no claim,As the world says'--'None--but the very sameWhich I on all mankind were I as heFallen to such deep reverse;--his melodyIs interrupted--now we hear the dinOf madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin;Let us now visit him; after this strainHe ever communes with himself again,And sees nor hears not any.' Having saidThese words, we called the keeper, and he ledTo an apartment opening on the sea--There the poor wretch was sitting mournfullyNear a piano, his pale fingers twinedOne with the other, and the ooze and windRushed through an open casement, and did swayHis hair, and starred it with the brackish spray;His head was leaning on a music book,And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook;His lips were pressed against a folded leafIn hue too beautiful for health, and griefSmiled in their motions as they lay apart--As one who wrought from his own fervid heartThe eloquence of passion, soon he raisedHis sad meek face and eyes lustrous and glazedAnd spoke--sometimes as one who wrote, and thoughtHis words might move some heart that heeded not,If sent to distant lands: and then as oneReproaching deeds never to be undoneWith wondering self-compassion; then his speechWas lost in grief, and then his words came eachUnmodulated, cold, expressionless,--But that from one jarred accent you might guessIt was despair made them so uniform:And all the while the loud and gusty stormHissed through the window, and we stood behindStealing his accents from the envious windUnseen. I yet remember what he saidDistinctly: such impression his words made.

'Month after month,' he cried, 'to bear this loadAnd as a jade urged by the whip and goadTo drag life on, which like a heavy chainLengthens behind with many a link of pain!--And not to speak my grief--O, not to dareTo give a human voice to my despair,But live, and move, and, wretched thing! smile onAs if I never went aside to groan,And wear this mask of falsehood even to thoseWho are most dear--not for my own repose--Alas! no scorn or pain or hate could beSo heavy as that falsehood is to me--But that I cannot bear more altered facesThan needs must be, more changed and cold embraces,More misery, disappointment, and mistrustTo own me for their father...Would the dustWere covered in upon my body now!That the life ceased to toil within my brow!And then these thoughts would at the least be fled;Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead.

'What Power delights to torture us? I knowThat to myself I do not wholly oweWhat now I suffer, though in part I may.Alas! none strewed sweet flowers upon the wayWhere wandering heedlessly, I met pale PainMy shadow, which will leave me not again--If I have erred, there was no joy in error,But pain and insult and unrest and terror;I have not as some do, bought penitenceWith pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence,For then,--if love and tenderness and truthHad overlived hope's momentary youth,My creed should have redeemed me from repenting;But loathed scorn and outrage unrelentingMet love excited by far other seemingUntil the end was gained...as one from dreamingOf sweetest peace, I woke, and found my stateSuch as it is.--'O Thou, my spirit's mateWho, for thou art compassionate and wise,Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyesIf this sad writing thou shouldst ever see--My secret groans must be unheard by thee,Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to knowThy lost friend's incommunicable woe.

'Ye few by whom my nature has been weighedIn friendship, let me not that name degradeBy placing on your hearts the secret loadWhich crushes mine to dust. There is one roadTo peace and that is truth, which follow ye!Love sometimes leads astray to misery.Yet think not though subdued--and I may wellSay that I am subdued--that the full HellWithin me would infect the untainted breastOf sacred nature with its own unrest;As some perverted beings think to findIn scorn or hate a medicine for the mindWhich scorn or hate have wounded--O how vain!The dagger heals not but may rend again...Believe that I am ever still the sameIn creed as in resolve, and what may tameMy heart, must leave the understanding free,Or all would sink in this keen agony--Nor dream that I will join the vulgar cry;Or with my silence sanction tyranny;Or seek a moment's shelter from my painIn any madness which the world calls gain,Ambition or revenge or thoughts as sternAs those which make me what I am; or turnTo avarice or misanthropy or lust...Heap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust!Till then the dungeon may demand its prey,And Poverty and Shame may meet and say--Halting beside me on the public way--"That love-devoted youth is ours--let's sitBeside him--he may live some six months yet."Or the red scaffold, as our country bends,May ask some willing victim; or ye friendsMay fall under some sorrow which this heartOr hand may share or vanquish or avert;I am prepared--in truth, with no proud joy--To do or suffer aught, as when a boyI did devote to justice and to loveMy nature, worthless now!...'I must removeA veil from my pent mind. 'Tis torn aside!O, pallid as Death's dedicated bride,Thou mockery which art sitting by my side,Am I not wan like thee? at the grave's callI haste, invited to thy wedding-ballTo greet the ghastly paramour, for whomThou hast deserted me...and made the tombThy bridal bed...But I beside your feetWill lie and watch ye from my winding-sheet--Thus...wide awake tho' dead...yet stay, O stay!Go not so soon--I know not what I say--Hear but my reasons...I am mad, I fear,My fancy is o'erwrought...thou art not here...Pale art thou, 'tis most true...but thou art gone,Thy work is finished...I am left alone!--'Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breastWhich, like a serpent, thou envenomestAs in repayment of the warmth it lent?Didst thou not seek me for thine own content?Did not thy love awaken mine? I thoughtThat thou wert she who said, "You kiss me notEver, I fear you do not love me now"--In truth I loved even to my overthrowHer, who would fain forget these words: but theyCling to her mind, and cannot pass away.'You say that I am proud--that when I speakMy lip is tortured with the wrongs which breakThe spirit it expresses...Never oneHumbled himself before, as I have done!Even the instinctive worm on which we treadTurns, though it wound not--then with prostrate headSinks in the dusk and writhes like me--and dies?No: wears a living death of agonies!As the slow shadows of the pointed grassMark the eternal periods, his pangs pass,Slow, ever-moving,--making moments beAs mine seem--each an immortality!'That you had never seen me--never heardMy voice, and more than all had ne'er enduredThe deep pollution of my loathed embrace--That your eyes ne'er had lied love in my face--That, like some maniac monk, I had torn outThe nerves of manhood by their bleeding rootWith mine own quivering fingers, so that ne'erOur hearts had for a moment mingled thereTo disunite in horror--these were notWith thee, like some suppressed and hideous thoughtWhich flits athwart our musings, but can findNo rest within a pure and gentle mind...Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word,And searedst my memory o'er them,--for I heardAnd can forget not...they were ministeredOne after one, those curses. Mix them upLike self-destroying poisons in one cup,And they will make one blessing which thou ne'erDidst imprecate for, on me,--death.'It wereA cruel punishment for one most cruel,If such can love, to make that love the fuelOf the mind's hell; hate, scorn, remorse, despair:But ME--whose heart a stranger's tear might wearAs water-drops the sandy fountain-stone,Who loved and pitied all things, and could moanFor woes which others hear not, and could seeThe absent with the glance of phantasy,And with the poor and trampled sit and weep,Following the captive to his dungeon deep;ME--who am as a nerve o'er which do creepThe else unfelt oppressions of this earth,And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth,When all beside was cold--that thou on meShouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony--Such curses are from lips once eloquentWith love's too partial praise--let none relentWho intend deeds too dreadful for a nameHenceforth, if an example for the sameThey seek...for thou on me lookedst so, and so--And didst speak thus...and thus...I live to showHow much men bear and die not!'Thou wilt tellWith the grimace of hate, how horribleIt was to meet my love when thine grew less;Thou wilt admire how I could e'er addressSuch features to love's work...this taunt, though true,(For indeed Nature nor in form nor hueBestowed on me her choicest workmanship)Shall not be thy defence...for since thy lipMet mine first, years long past, since thine eye kindledWith soft fire under mine, I have not dwindledNor changed in mind or body, or in aughtBut as love changes what it loveth notAfter long years and many trials.

'How vainAre words! I thought never to speak again,Not even in secret,--not to mine own heart--But from my lips the unwilling accents start,And from my pen the words flow as I write,Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears...my sightIs dim to see that charactered in vainOn this unfeeling leaf which burns the brainAnd eats into it...blotting all things fairAnd wise and good which time had written there.

'Those who inflict must suffer, for they seeThe work of their own hearts, and this must beOur chastisement or recompense--O child!I would that thine were like to be more mildFor both our wretched sakes...for thine the mostWho feelest already all that thou hast lostWithout the power to wish it thine again;And as slow years pass, a funereal trainEach with the ghost of some lost hope or friendFollowing it like its shadow, wilt thou bendNo thought on my dead memory?'Alas, love!Fear me not...against thee I would not moveA finger in despite. Do I not liveThat thou mayst have less bitter cause to grieve?I give thee tears for scorn and love for hate;And that thy lot may be less desolateThan his on whom thou tramplest, I refrainFrom that sweet sleep which medicines all pain.Then, when thou speakest of me, never say"He could forgive not." Here I cast awayAll human passions, all revenge, all pride;I think, speak, act no ill; I do but hideUnder these words, like embers, every sparkOf that which has consumed me--quick and darkThe grave is yawning...as its roof shall coverMy limbs with dust and worms under and overSo let Oblivion hide this grief...the airCloses upon my accents, as despairUpon my heart--let death upon despair!'

He ceased, and overcome leant back awhile,Then rising, with a melancholy smileWent to a sofa, and lay down, and sleptA heavy sleep, and in his dreams he weptAnd muttered some familiar name, and weWept without shame in his society.I think I never was impressed so much;The man who were not, must have lacked a touchOf human nature...then we lingered not,Although our argument was quite forgot,But calling the attendants, went to dineAt Maddalo's; yet neither cheer nor wineCould give us spirits, for we talked of himAnd nothing else, till daylight made stars dim;And we agreed his was some dreadful illWrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable,By a dear friend; some deadly change in loveOf one vowed deeply which he dreamed not of;For whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blotOf falsehood on his mind which flourished notBut in the light of all-beholding truth;And having stamped this canker on his youthShe had abandoned him--and how much moreMight be his woe, we guessed not--he had storeOf friends and fortune once, as we could guessFrom his nice habits and his gentleness;These were now lost...it were a grief indeedIf he had changed one unsustaining reedFor all that such a man might else adorn.The colours of his mind seemed yet unworn;For the wild language of his grief was high,Such as in measure were called poetry;And I remember one remark which thenMaddalo made. He said: 'Most wretched menAre cradled into poetry by wrong,They learn in suffering what they teach in song.'

If I had been an unconnected man,I, from this moment, should have formed some planNever to leave sweet Venice,--for to meIt was delight to ride by the lone sea;And then, the town is silent--one may writeOr read in gondolas by day or night,Having the little brazen lamp alight,Unseen, uninterrupted; books are there,Pictures, and casts from all those statues fairWhich were twin-born with poetry, and allWe seek in towns, with little to recallRegrets for the green country. I might sitIn Maddalo's great palace, and his witAnd subtle talk would cheer the winter nightAnd make me know myself, and the firelightWould flash upon our faces, till the dayMight dawn and make me wonder at my stay:But I had friends in London too: the chiefAttraction here, was that I sought reliefFrom the deep tenderness that maniac wroughtWithin me--'twas perhaps an idle thought--But I imagined that if day by dayI watched him, and but seldom went away,And studied all the beatings of his heartWith zeal, as men study some stubborn artFor their own good, and could by patience findAn entrance to the caverns of his mind,I might reclaim him from this dark estate:In friendships I had been most fortunate--Yet never saw I one whom I would callMore willingly my friend; and this was allAccomplished not; such dreams of baseless goodOft come and go in crowds or solitudeAnd leave no trace--but what I now designedMade for long years impression on my mind.The following morning, urged by my affairs,I left bright Venice.After many yearsAnd many changes I returned; the nameOf Venice, and its aspect, was the same;But Maddalo was travelling far awayAmong the mountains of Armenia.His dog was dead. His child had now becomeA woman; such as it has been my doomTo meet with few,--a wonder of this earth,Where there is little of transcendent worth,Like one of Shakespeare's women: kindly she,And, with a manner beyond courtesy,Received her father's friend; and when I askedOf the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked,And told as she had heard the mournful tale:'That the poor sufferer's health began to failTwo years from my departure, but that thenThe lady who had left him, came again.Her mien had been imperious, but she nowLooked meek--perhaps remorse had brought her low.Her coming made him better, and they stayedTogether at my father's--for I played,As I remember, with the lady's shawl--I might be six years old--but after allShe left him.'...'Why, her heart must have been tough:How did it end?' 'And was not this enough?They met--they parted.'--'Child, is there no more?''Something within that interval which boreThe stamp of WHY they parted, HOW they met:Yet if thine aged eyes disdain to wetThose wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears,Ask me no more, but let the silent yearsBe closed and cered over their memoryAs yon mute marble where their corpses lie.'I urged and questioned still, she told me howAll happened--but the cold world shall not know.