Francesca Carrara/Chapter 60
FRANCESCA CARRARA.
CHAPTER I.
"It is the past that maketh my despair—
The dark, the sad, the irrevocable past!"
L. E. L.
Of all the melancholy days consecrated to the memory of the dead, perhaps the most mournful—the one jarring most immediately by strong contrast with its predecessors—is the day when the coffin has been carried from the house, and the light of heaven admitted through the recently darkened windows. Every object looks so unfamiliar. We have become accustomed to the dim atmosphere and the long shadows,—they seemed to sympathise with us. Now, the cheerful sun looks in mockingly; we rejoice not in the face of day; it brings not hope, but memory to our minds; and we only watch the gladdening beams to think that they are shining on the narrow grave.
During Guido's long illness Francesca had been occupied with the thousand cares which his state required; to smooth his pillow, to bathe his feverish temples, to bend over him, and to try to lighten the languid hours of his weary waking, had unconsciously beguiled the time. Moreover, though she knew that his disease was fatal—though every morning she dreaded lest he should not live till night, and every night lest it should bring no morrow—still she was not prepared. Death came, and then she knew that in her heart she had believed, she had trusted, that Guido would not die. For the first time in her life, she felt that existence could be a blank. I believe this is a feeling which sooner or later is known to all. Who has not paused upon some portion of their existence, and felt its burden greater than they could bear?—who has not looked back to the past with that passion of hopelessness, which deems that life can never more be what it has been,—with a consciousness that the dearer emotions are exhausted, while in their place have arisen but vacancy and weariness? You feel as if you could never be interested in any thing again—nay you do not even desire it;—your heart is divided between bitterness and indifference.
Francesca was conscious that this moral torpor increased upon her every hour. She loathed any sort of occupation; she left her books unopened, her lute unstrung; she took no pleasure in flowers. Lucy one day called her to come and look at a tree, whose late roses were beautiful—a second growth of summer, though summer was gone. Slowly she obeyed the summons. She gazed at the painted leaves—so fresh in colour and in fragrance; but they gave her no delight. Carelessly she said, "They are lovely!" and turned away. She felt grateful for Lucy's kindness, who sought to win her attention by every little art that feminine affection could suggest; but she would rather have been without it. Every thing was an exertion to her, for the animating impulse from within was wanting. She took long and lonely walks through the forest; but she marked not its autumn splendour,—she only desired in fatigue of body to lose the fatigue of mind.
Rumours of many changes were abroad, and Lord Avonleigh's return to his paternal domain was confidently reported. Francesca looked forward to it with no other sensation than dread,—new ties, new interests! she had not energy enough left to form them. Evil had been the experience of her youth,—the bitterness of ill-requited love only those may tell who have known it! Her memory was laden with mortifications, neglect, and unkindness; and now all better recollections ended in the tomb. Evelyn, how vainly had her heart wasted itself upon him! and Henriette and Guido were cold in that grave, over whose gloom her spirit perpetually brooded. I have said that such a state of exhaustion and loneliness is one of general experience,—I was wrong. The lots of our days are differently cast. Some few have fallen in pleasant places; it is folly to say that we share and share alike. I have known many to whom the words of utter wretchedness were as a strange tongue, such as never had fallen from their own quiet lips; they grew up the darlings and delight of a circle, whose best hope was their happiness; they exchanged one home for another, girdled round by yet deeper love. To such as these, how many of the melancholy records of the poet's page—and there alone are they recorded—must seem wholly unintelligible! We need to suffer ere we understand the language of suffering; but, Heaven above knows! it is very generally understood. And hence the charm of the sad, sweet page, which idealises our anguish, and makes sorrow musical: if it does not come home to all, it does to the mass.
I have often been told that my writings are too melancholy. How can that be a reproach if they are true? and that they are true, I attest the sympathy of others and my own experience. If I have just painted a state of moral lassitude, when the heart is left like a ruined and deserted city, where the winged step of joy, and the seven-stringed lute of hope, have ceased each to echo the other; where happiness lies cold and dead on its own threshold; where dust lies dry and arid over all, and there is no sign of vegetation, no promise of change—if I paint such a state, it is because I know it well. Alas! over how many things now does my regret take its last and deepest tone—despondency! I regret not the pleasures that have passed, but that I have no longer any relish for them. I remember so much which but a little while ago would have made my heart beat with delight, and which I now think even tiresome. The society which once excited, is now wearisome—the book which would have been a fairy-gift to my solitude, I can now scarcely read. So much for the real world; and as for the imaginary world, I have overworked my golden vein. Some of the ore has been fashioned into fantastic, perhaps beautiful, shapes; but they are now for others, and not for me! Once, a sweet face, a favourite flower, a thought of sorrow, touched every pulse with music. Now, half my time, my mood is too troubled, too worldly, and too sullen for song. Alas for pleasure, and still more for what made it pleasure!
But, still more, I regret the energy of industry which I once knew. I no longer delight in employment for the mere exertion—I am so easily fatigued and disheartened. I see too clearly the worthlessness of fulfilled hope. How vain seems so much that I once so passionately desired!—and yet, not always. The more disgusted I am with the present—with its faithless friends, its petty vanities, and its degrading interests—the more intensely does my existence blend itself with the future—the more do I look forward with an engrossing and enduring belief, that the creative feeling, the ardent thought, have not poured themselves forth wholly in vain. Good Heaven! even to myself how strange appears the faculty, or rather the passion, of composition! how the inmost soul developes its inmost nature on the written page! I, who lack sufficient confidence in my most intimate friends to lay bare even an ordinary emotion—who never dream of speaking of what occupies the larger portion of my time to even my most familiar companions—yet rely on the sympathy of the stranger, the comprehension of those to whom I am utterly unknown. But I neither ordered my own mind, nor made my own fate. My world is in the afar-off and the hereafter,—to them I leave it. Still, the spirit's wing will melt in the feverish exertion, and the lofty aspiration grovel for a time dejected on the earth. Where are the lips from which words have not, at some period or another, escaped in all the bitterness of discontent?—such moods are the key-notes of universal sympathy; and it matters little whether the worn-out feeling, or the exhausted imagination, produced that melancholy, which is half apathy, half mournfulness.
Day after day passed by, and Francesca felt the burden of time more insupportable. To the period of Lord Avonleigh's return she looked with growing terror; for strangely does the fancy exaggerate every subject on which it is permitted to dwell unchecked. The sadness and monotony of her actual state were infinitely preferable to the restraint, to the exertion, of forming new ties, and forcing herself to answer to their duties and to their affections.
Charles Aubyn, the young clergyman who had performed the last sacred offices at the grave of Guido, sometimes deemed himself privileged, in right of his spiritual calling, to break in upon her seclusion with words of comfort, and even rebuke for such utter yielding to grief; but as yet Francesca could only turn to his remonstrances an uncharmed ear. He found, however, a very attentive listener in the gentle Lucy.