CHAPTER XLV.
UNDER THE STARS.
Hoping, yet scarcely expecting to see her, I went out upon my balconythe next night at the same hour; but the light of her lamp was brightwithin, no shadow obscured it, and no window opened. So, after waitingfor more than an hour, I gave her up, and returned to my work. I didthis for six nights in succession. On the seventh she came.
"You are fond of your balcony, fellow-student," said she. "I often hearyou out here."
"My room gets heated," I replied, "and my eyes weary, after severalhours of hard reading; and this keen, clear air puts new life intoone's brains."
"Yes, it is delicious," said she, looking up into the night. "How darkthe space of heaven is, and, how bright are the stars! What a night forthe Alps! What a night to be upon some Alpine height, watching the moonthrough a good telescope, and waiting for the sunrise!"
"Defer that wish for a few months," I replied smiling. "You wouldscarcely like Switzerland in her winter robes."
"Nay, I prefer Switzerland in winter," she said. "I passed through partof the Jura about ten days ago, and saw nothing but snow. It wasmagnificent--like a paradise of pure marble awaiting the souls of allthe sculptors of all the ages."
"A fantastic idea," said I, "and spoken like an artist."
"Like an artist!" she repeated, musingly. "Well, are not all studentsartists?"
"Not those who study the exact sciences--not the student of law ordivinity--nor he who, like myself, is a student of medicine. He is theslave of Fact, and Art is the Eden of his banishment. His imagination isfor ever captive. His horizon is for ever bounded. He is fettered byroutine, and paralyzed by tradition. His very ideas must put on thelivery of his predecessors; for in a profession where originality ofthought stands for the blackest shade of original sin, skill--mereskill--must be the end of his ambition."
She looked at me, and the moonlight showed me that sad smile which herlips so often wore.
"You do not love your profession," she said.
"I do not, indeed."
"And yet you labor zealously to acquire it--how is that?"
"How is it with hundreds of others? My profession was chosen for me. Iam not my own master."
"But are you sure you would be happier in some other pursuit? Supposing,for instance, that you were free to begin again, what career do youthink you would prefer?"
"I scarcely know, and I should scarcely care, so long as there wasfreedom of thought and speculation in it."
"Geology, perhaps--or astronomy," she suggested, laughingly.
"Merci! The bowels of the earth are too profound, and the heavens toolofty for me. I should choose some pursuit that would set the Ariel ofthe imagination free. That is to say, I could be very happy if my lifewere devoted to Science, but my soul echoes to the name of Art."
"'The artist creates--the man of science discovers," said Hortense."Beware lest you fancy you would prefer the work of creation onlybecause you lack patience to pursue the work of discovery. Pardon me, ifI suggest that you may, perhaps, be fitted for neither. Your sphere, Ifancy, is reflection--comparison--criticism. You are not made foraction, or work. Your taste is higher than your ambition, and you lovelearning better than fame. Am I right?"
"So right that I regret I can be read so easily."
"And therefore, it may be that you would find yourself no happier withArt than with Science. You might even fall into deeper discouragement;for in Science every onward step is at least certain gain, but in Artevery step is groping, and success is only another form of effort. Art,in so far as it is more divine, is more unattainable, more evanescent,more unsubstantial. It needs as much patience as Science, and thepassionate devotion of an entire life is as nothing in comparison withthe magnitude of the work. Self-sacrifice, self-distrust, infinitepatience, infinite disappointment--such is the lot of the artist, suchthe law of aspiration."
"A melancholy creed."
"But a true one. The divine is doomed to suffering, and under the haysof the poet lurk ever the thorns of the self-immolator."
"But, amid all this record of his pains, do you render no account of hispleasures?" I asked. "You forget that he has moments of enjoyment loftyas his aims, and deep as his devotion.
"I do not forget it," she said. "I know it but too well. Alas! is notthe catalogue of his pleasures the more melancholy record of the two?Hopes which sharpen disappointment; visions which cheat while theyenrapture; dreams that embitter his waking hours--fellow-student, do youenvy him these?"
"I do; believing that he would not forego them for a life ofcommon-place annoyances and placid pleasures."
"Forego them! Never. Who that had once been the guest of the gods wouldforego the Divine for the Human? No--it is better to suffer than tostagnate. The artist and poet is overpaid in his brief snatches of joy.While they last, his soul sings 'at heaven's gate,' and his foreheadstrikes the stars."
She spoke with a rare and passionate enthusiasm; sometimes pacing to andfro; sometimes pausing with upturned face--
"A dauntless muse who eyes a dreadful fate!"
There was a long, long silence--she looking at the stars, I upon herface.
By-and-by she came over to where I stood, and leaned upon the railingthat divided our separate territories.
"Friend," said she, gravely, "be content. Art is the Sphinx, and toquestion her is destruction. Enjoy books, pictures, music,statues--rifle the world of beauty to satiety, if satiety bepossible--but there pause Drink the wine; seek not to crush the grape.Be happy, be useful, labor honestly upon the task that is thine, and beassured that the work will itself achieve its reward. Is it nothing torelieve pain--to prolong the days of the sickly--to restore health tothe suffering--to soothe the last pangs of the dying? Is it nothing tobe followed by the prayers and blessing of those whom you have restoredto love, to fame, to the world's service? To my thinking, thephysician's trade hath something god-like in it. Be content. Harvey'sdiscovery was as sublime as Newton's, and it were hard to say which didGod's work best--Shakespeare or Jenner."
"And you," I said, the passion that I could not conceal trembling in myvoice; "and you--what are you, poet, or painter, or musician, that youknow and reason of all these things?"
She laughed with a sudden change of mood, and shook her head.
"I am a woman," said she. "Simply a woman--no more. One of the inferiorsex; and, as I told you long ago, only half civilized."
"You are unlike every other woman!"
"Possibly, because I am more useless. Strange as it may seem, do youknow I love art better than sewing, or gossip, or dress; and hold myliberty to be a dower more precious than either beauty or riches? Andyet--I am a woman!"
"The wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best!"
"By no means. You are comparing me with Eve; but I am not in the leastlike Eve, I assure you. She was an excellent housewife, and, if we maybelieve Milton, knew how to prepare 'dulcet creams,' and all sorts ofParadisaical dainties for her husband's dinner. I, on the contrary,could not make a cream if Adam's life depended on it."
"_Eh bien!_ of the theology of creams I know nothing. I only know thatEve was the first and fairest of her sex, and that you are as wise asyou are beautiful."
"Nay, that is what Titania said to the ass," laughed Hortense. "Yourcompliments become equivocal, fellow-student. But hush! what houris that?"
She stood with uplifted finger. The air was keen, and over the silenceof the house-tops chimed the church-clocks--Two.
"It is late, and cold," said she, drawing her cloak more closely roundher.
"Not later than you usually sit up," I replied. "Don't go yet. 'Tis nowthe very witching hour of night, when churchyards yawn--"
"I beg your pardon," she interrupted. "The churchyards have done yawningby this time, and, like other respectable citizens, are sound asleep.Let us follow their example. Good-night."
"Good-night," I replied, reluctantly; but almost before I had said it,she was gone.
After this, as the win
ter wore away, and spring drew on, Hortense'sbalcony became once more a garden, and she used to attend to her flowersevery evening. She always found me on my balcony when she came out, andsoon our open-air meetings became such an established fact that, insteadof parting with "good-night," we said "_au revoir_--till to-morrow." Atthese times we talked of many things; sometimes of subjects abstract andmystical--of futurity, of death, of the spiritual life--but oftenest ofArt in its manifold developments. And sometimes our speculationswandered on into the late hours of the night.
And yet, for all our talking and all our community of tastes, we becamenot one jot more intimate. I still loved in silence--she still lived ina world apart.
In the Days of My Youth: A Novel Page 39
