Book: Godolphin, Volume 4.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Godolphin, Volume 4.
"And the prophecy, perhaps, disposed you to the fact. You might never
have loved me, Lucilla, if your thoughts had not been driven to dwell upon
me by the prediction."
"Nay; I thought of thee before I heard the prophecy."
"But your father foretold me, dearest--cross and disappointment in my
love--was he not wrong? am I not blest with you?"
Lucilla threw herself into her lover's arms, and, as she kissed him,
murmured, "Ah, if I could make thee happy!" The next day Godolphin
departed for Rome. Lucilla was more dejected at his departure than she
had been even in his earliest absence. The winter was now slowly
approaching, and the weather was cold and dreary. That year it was
unusually rainy and tempestuous, and as the wild gusts howled around her
solitary home--how solitary now!--or she heard the big drops hurrying down
on the agitated lake, she shuddered at her own despondent thoughts, and
dreaded the gloom and loneliness of the lengthened night. For the first
time since she had lived with Godolphin she turned, but disconsolately, to
the company of books.
Works of all sorts filled their home, but the spell that once spoke to her
from the page was broken. If the book was not of love, it possessed no
interest;--if of love, she thought the description both tame and false.
No one ever painted love so as fully to satisfy another:--to some it is
too florid--to some too commonplace; the god, like other gods, has no
likeness on earth, and every wave on which the star of passion beams,
breaks the lustre into different refractions of light.
As one day she was turning listlessly over some books that had been put
aside by Godolphin in a closet, and hoping to find one that contained, as
sometimes happened, his comments or at least his marks--she was somewhat
startled to find among them several volumes which she remembered to have
belonged to her father. Godolphin had bought them after Volktman's death,
and put them by as relics of his singular friend, and as samples of the
laborious and selfwilled aberration of the human intellect.
Few among these works could Lucilla comprehend, for they were chiefly in
other tongues than the only two with which she was acquainted. But some,
among which were manuscripts by her father, beautifully written, and
curiously ornamented (some of the chief works on the vainer sciences are
only to be found in manuscript), she could contrive to decipher by a
little assistance from her memory, in recalling the signs and
hieroglyphics which her father had often explained to her, and, indeed,
caused her to copy out for him in his calculations. Always possessing an
untaxed and unquestioned belief in the astral powers, she now took some
interest in reading of their mysteries. Her father, secretly, perhaps,
hoping to bequeath his name to the gratitude of some future Hermes, had in
his manuscripts reduced into a system many scattered theories of others,
and many dogmas of his own. Over these, for they were simpler and easier
than the crabbed and mystical speculations in the printed books, she more
especially pored; and she was not sorry at finding fresh reasons for her
untutored adoration of the stars and apparitions of the heavens.
Still, however, these bewildering researches made but a small part,
comparatively speaking, of the occupation of her thoughts. To write to,
and hear from, Godolphin had become to her more necessary than ever, and
her letters were fuller and more minute in their details of love than even
in the period of their first passion. Wouldst thou know if the woman thou
lovest still loves thee, trust not her spoken words, her present smiles;
examine her letters in absence, see if she dwells, as she once did, upon
trifles--but trifles relating to thee. The things which the indifferent
forget are among the most treasured meditations of love.
But Lucilla was not satisfied with the letters--frequent as they
were--that she received in answer; they were kind, affectionate, but the
something was wanting. "The best part of beauty is that which no picture
can express." That which the heart most asks is that which no words
can convey. Honesty--patriotism--religion--these have had their
hypocrites for life;--but passion permits only momentary dissemblers.
[1] Rochefoucauld.
CHAPTER XXXV.
GODOLPHIN AT ROME.--THE CURE FOR A MORBID IDEALISM.--HIS EMBARRASSMENT IN
REGARD TO LUCILLA.--THE RENCONTRE WITH AN OLD FRIEND.--THE COLOSSEUM.--A
SURPRISE.
Godolphin arrived at Rome: it was thronged with English. Among them were
some whom he remembered with esteem in England. He had grown a little
weary of his long solitude, and he entered with eagerness into the society
of those who courted him. He was still an object of great interest to the
idle; and as men grow older they become less able to dispense with
attention.
He was pleased to find his own importance, and he tasted the sweets of
companionship with more gust than he had yet done. His talents, buried
in obscurity, and uncalled for by the society of Lucilla, were now
perpetually tempted into action, and stimulated by reward. It had never
before appeared to him so charming a thing to shine; for, before, he had
been sated with even that pleasure. Now, from long relaxation, it had
become new; vanity had recovered its nice perception. He was no longer so
absorbed as he had been by visionary images. He had given his fancy food
in his long solitude, and with its wild co-mate; and being somewhat
disappointed in the result, the living world became to him a fairer
prospect than it had seemed while the world of imagination was untried.
Nothing more confirms the health of the mind than indulging its favourite
infirmity to its own cure. So Goethe, in his memoirs, speaking of
Werther, remarks, that "the composition of that extravagant work cured his
character of extravagance."
Godolphin thought often of Lucilla; but perhaps, if the truth of his heart
were known even to himself, a certain sentiment of pain and humiliation
was associated with the tenderness of his remembrance. With her he had
led a life, romantic, it is true, but somewhat effeminate; and he thought
now, surrounded by the gay and freshening tide of the world, somewhat
mawkish in its romance. He did not experience a desire to return to the
still lake and the gloomy pines;--he felt that Lucilla did not suffice to
make his world. He would have wished to bring her to Rome; to live with
her more in public than he had hitherto done; to conjoin, in short, her
society, with the more recreative dissipation of the world: but there were
many obstacles to this plan in his fastidious imagination. So new to the
world, its ways, its fashions, so strange and infantine in all things, as
Lucilla was, he trembled to expose her inexperience to the dangers that
would beset it. He knew that his "friends" would pay very little respect
to her reserve; and that for one so lovely and unhackneyed, the snares of
the wildest and most subtle adepts of intrigue would be set. Godolphin
did not undervalue Lucilla's pure and devoted heart; but he knew that the
only sure antidote against the dangers of the world is the knowledge of
the world. There was nothing in Lucilla that ever promised to attain that
knowledge; her very nature seemed to depend on her ignorance of the nature
of others. Joined to this fear and a confused sentiment of delicacy
towards her, a certain remorseful feeling in himself made him dislike
bringing their connexion immediately before the curious and malignant
world: so much had circumstance, and Lucilla's own self-willed temper and
uncalculating love, contributed to drive the poor girl into his arms,--and
so truly had he chosen the generous not the selfish part, until passion
and nature were exposed to a temptation that could have been withstood by
none but the adherent to sterner principles than he (the creature of
indolence and feeling) had ever clung to--that Godolphin, viewing his
habits--his education--his whole bias and frame of mind--the estimates and
customs of the world--may not, perhaps be very rigidly judged for the
nature of his tie to Lucilla. But I do not seek to excuse it, nor did he
wholly excuse it to himself. The image of Volktman often occurred to him,
and always in reproach. Living with Lucilla in a spot only trod by
Italians, so indulgent to love, and where the whisper of shame could never
reach her ear, or awaken his remorse, her state did not, however, seem to
her or himself degraded, and the purity of her girlish mind almost forbade
the intrusion of the idea. But to bring her into public--among his own
countrymen--and to feel that the generous and devoted girl, now so
unconscious of sin, would be rated by English eyes with the basest and
most abandoned of the sex,--with the glorifiers in vice or the hypocrites
for money,--this was a thought which he could not contemplate, and which
he felt he would rather pass his life in solitude than endure. But this
very feeling gave an embarrassment to his situation with Lucilla, and yet
more fixedly combined her image with that of a wearisome seclusion and an
eternal ennui.
From the thought of Lucilla, coupled with its many embarrassments,
Godolphin turned with avidity to the easy enjoyments of life--enjoyments
that ask no care and dispense with the trouble of reflection.
But among the visitors to Rome, the one whose sight gave to Godolphin the
greatest pleasure was his old friend Augustus Saville. A decaying
constitution, and a pulmonary attack in especial, had driven the
accomplished voluptuary to a warmer climate. The meeting of the two
friends was quite characteristic: it was at a soiree at an English house.
Saville had managed to get up a whist-table.
"Look, Saville, there is Godolphin, your old friend!" cried the host, who
was looking on the game, and waiting to cut in.
"Hist!" said Saville; "don't direct his attention to me until after the
odd trick!"
Notwithstanding this coolness when a point was in question, Saville was
extremely glad to meet his former pupil. They retired into a corner of
the room, and talked over the world. Godolphin hastened to turn the
conversation on Lady Erpingham.
"Ah!" said Saville, "I see from your questions, and yet more your tone of
voice, that although it is now several years since you met, you still
preserve the sentiment--the weakness--Ah!--bah!"
"Pshaw!" said Godolphin; "I owe her revenge, not love. But Erpingham?
Does she love him? He is handsome."
"Erpingham? What--you have not heard----"
"Heard what?"
"Oh, nothing: but, pardon me, they wait for me at the card-table. I
should like to stay with you, but you know one must not be selfish; the
table would be broken up without me. No virtue without
self-sacrifice--eh?"
"But one moment. What is the matter with the Erpinghams? have they
quarrelled?"
"Quarrelled?--bah! Quarrelled--no; I dare say she likes him better now
than ever she did before." And Saville limped away to the table.
Godolphin remained for some time abstracted and thoughtful. At length,
just as he was going away, Saville, who, having an unplayable hand and a
bad partner, had somewhat lost his interest in the game, looked up and
beckoned to him.
"Godolphin, my clear fellow, I am to escort a lady to see the lions
to-morrow; a widow--a rich widow; handsome, too. Do, for charity's sake,
accompany us, or meet us at the Colosseum. How well that sounds--eh?
About two."
Godolphin refused at first, but being pressed, assented.
Not surrounded by the lesser glories of modern Rome, but girt with the
mighty desolation of the old city of Romulus, stands the most wonderful
monument, perhaps, in the world, of imperial magnificence--the Flavian
Amphitheatre, to which, it has been believed, the colossal statue of the
worst of emperors gave that name (the Colosseum), allied with the least
ennobling remembrances yet giving food to the loftiest thoughts. The
least ennobling remembrances; for what can be more degrading than the
amusements of a degraded people, who reserved meekness for their tyrants,
and lavished ferocity on their shows? From that of the wild beast to that
of the Christian martyr, blood has been the only sanctification of this
temple to the Arts. The history of the Past broods like an air over those
mighty arches; but Memory can find no reminiscence worthy of the spot.
The amphitheatre was not built until history had become a record of the
vice and debasement of the human race. The Faun and the Dryad had
deserted the earth, no sweet superstition, the faith of the grotto and the
green hill, could stamp with a delicate and undying spell the labours of
man. Nor could the ruder but august virtues of the heroic age give to the
tradition of the arch and column some stirring remembrance or exalting
thought. Not only the warmth of fancy, but the greatness of soul was
gone; the only triumph left to genius was to fix on its page the gloomy
vices which made the annals of the world. Tacitus is the Historian of the
Colosseum. But the very darkness of the past gives to the thoughts
excited within that immense pile a lofty but mournful character. A sense
of vastness--for which, as we gaze, we cannot find words, but which
bequeaths thoughts that our higher faculties would not willingly
forego--creeps within us as we gaze on this Titan relic of gigantic crimes
for ever passed away from the world.
And not only within the scene, but around the scene, what voices of old
float upon the air? Yonder the triumphal arch of Constantine, its
Corinthian arcades, and the history of Trajan sculptured upon its marble;
the dark and gloomy verdure of the Palatine; the ruins of the palace of
the Caesars; the mount of Fable, of Fame, of Luxury (the Three Epochs of
Nations); the habitation of Saturn; the home of Tully; the sight of the
Golden House of Nero! Look at your feet,--look around; the waving weed,
the broken column--Time's witness, and the Earthquake's. In that contrast
between grandeur and decay,--in the unutterable and awful solemnity that,
while rife with the records of past ages, is sad also with their ravage,
you have felt the nature of eternity!
Through this vast amphitheatre, and giving way to such meditations,
Godolphin passed on alone, the day after his meeting with Saville; and at
the hour he had promised the latter to seek him, he mounted the wooden
staircase which conducts the stranger to the wonders above the arena, and
by one of the arches that looked over the still pines that slept afar off
in the sun of noon, he saw a female in deep mourning, whom Saville
appeared to be addressing. He joined them; the female turned round, and
he beheld, pale and saddened, but how glorious still, the face of
Constance! To him the interview was unexpected, by her foreseen. The
colour flushed over her cheek, the voice sank inaudible within. But
Godolphin's emotion was more powerful and uncontrolled: violent tremblings
literally shook him as he stood; he gasped for breath: the sight of the
dead returned to earth would have affected him less.
In this immense ruin--in the spot where, most of earth, man feels the
significance of an individual life, or of the rapid years over which it
extends, he had encountered, suddenly, the being who had coloured all his
existence. He was reminded at once of the grand epoch of his life and of
its utter unimportance. But these are the thoughts that would occur
rather to us than him. Thought at that moment was an intolerable flash
that burst on him for an instant, and then left all in darkness. He clung
to the shattered corridor for support. Constance seemed touched and
surprised by so overwhelming an emotion, and the habitual hypocrisy in
which women are reared, and by which they learn to conceal the sentiments
they experience, and affect those they do not, came to her assistance and
his own.
"It is many years, Mr. Godolphin," said she in a collected but soft voice,
"since we met."
"Years!" repeated Godolphin, vaguely; and approaching her with a slow and
faltering step. "Years! you have not numbered them!"
Saville had retired a few steps on Godolphin's arrival, and had watched
with a sardonic yet indifferent smile the proof of his friend's weakness.
He joined Godolphin, and said,--
"You must forgive me, my dear Godolphin, for not apprising you before of
Lady Erpingham's arrival at Rome. But a delight is perhaps the greater
for being sudden."
The word Erpingham thrilled displeasingly through Godolphin's veins; in
some measure it restored him to himself. He bowed coldly, and muttered a
few ceremonious words; and while he was yet speaking, some stragglers that
had belonged to Lady Erpingham's party came up. Fortunately, perhaps, for
the self-possession of both, they, the once lovers, were separated from
each other. But whenever Constance turned her glance to Godolphin, she
saw those large, searching, melancholy eyes, whose power she well
recalled, fixed unmovingly on her, as seeking to read in her cheek the
history of the years which had ripened its beauties--for another.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN GODOLPHIN AND SAVILLE.--CERTAIN EVENTS
EXPLAINED.--SAVILLE'S APOLOGY FOR A BAD HEART.--GODOLPHIN'S CONFUSED
SENTIMENTS FOR LADY ERPINGHAM.
"Good Heavens! Constance Vernon once more free!"
"And did you not really know it? Your retreat by the lake must have been
indeed seclusion. It is seven months since Lord Erpingham died."
"Do I dream?" murmured Godolphin, as he strode hurriedly to and fro the
apartment of his friend.
Saville, stretched on the sofa, diverted himself with mixing snuffs on a
little table beside him. Nothing is so mournfully amusing in life as to
see what trifles the most striking occurrences to us appear to our
friends.
"But," said Saville, not looking up, "you seem very incurious to know how
he died, and where. You must learn that Erpingham had two ruling
passions--one for horses, the other for fiddlers. In setting off for
Italy he expected, naturally enough, to find the latter, but he thought he
might as well export the former. He accordingly filled the vessel with
quadrupeds, and the second day after landing he diverted the tedium of a
foreign clime with a gentle ride. He met with a fall, and was brought
home speechless. The loss of speech was not of great importance to his
acquaintance; but he died that night, and the loss of his life was! for he
gave very fair dinners--ah,--bah!" And Saville inhaled the fragrance of a
new mixture.
Saville had a very pleasant way of telling a story, particularly if it
related to a friend's death, or some such agreeable incident. "Poor Lady
Erpingham was exceedingly shocked; and well she might be, for I don't
think weeds become her. She came here by slow stages, in order that the
illustrious Dead might chase away the remembrance of the deceased."
Your heart has not improved, Saville."
"Heart! What's that? Oh, a thing servant-maids have, and break for John
the footman. Heart! my dear fellow, you are turned canter, and make use
of words without meaning."
Godolphin was not prepared for a conversation of this order; and Saville,
in a somewhat more serious air, continued:--"Every person, Godolphin,
talks about the world. The world! it conveys different meanings to each,
according to the nature of the circle which makes his world. But we all
agree in one thing,--the worldliness of the world. Now, no man's world is
so void of affection as ours--the polished, the courtly, the great world:
the higher the air, the more pernicious to vegetation. Our very charm,
our very fascination, depends upon a certain mockery; a subtle and fine
ridicule on all persons and all things constitutes the essence of our
conversation. Judge if that tone be friendly to the seriousness of the
affections. Some poor dog among us marries, and household plebeianisms
corrupt the most refined. Custom attaches the creature to his ugly wife
and his squalling children; he grows affectionate, and becomes out of
fashion. But we single men, dear Godolphin, have no one to care for but
ourselves: the deaths that happen, unlike the ties that fall from the
married men, do not interfere with our domestic comforts. We miss no one
to make our tea, or give us our appetite-pills before dinner. Our losses
are not intimate and household. We shrug our shoulders and are not a whit
the worse for them. Thus, for want of grieving, and caring, and fretting,
we are happy enough to grow--come, I will use an epithet to please
you--hard-hearted! We congeal into philosophy; and are we not then wise
in adopting this life of isolation and indifference?"
Godolphin, wrapt in reflection, scarcely heeded the voluptuary, but
Saville continued: he had grown to that height in loneliness that he even
loved talking to himself.
"Yes, wise! For this world is so filled with the selfish, that he who is
not so labours under a disadvantage. Nor are we the worse for our apathy.
If we jest at a man's misfortune, we do not do it to his face. Why not
out of the ill, which is misfortune, extract good, which is amusement?
Three men in this room are made cheerful by a jest at a broken leg in the
next. Is the broken leg the worse for it? No; but the three men are made
merry by the jest. Is the jest wicked, then? Nay, it is benevolence.
But some cry, 'Ay, but this habit of disregarding misfortunes blunts your
wills when you have the power to relieve them.' Relieve! was ever such
delusion? What can we relieve in the vast mass of human misfortunes? As
well might we take a drop from the ocean, and cry, 'Ha, ha! we have
lessened the sea!' What are even your public charities? what your best
institutions? How few of the multitude are relieved at all; how few of
that few relieved permanently! Men die, suffer, starve just as soon, and
just as numerously; these public institutions are only trees for the
public conscience to go to roost upon. No, my dear fellow, everything I
see in the world says, Take care of thyself. This is the true moral of
life; every one who minds it gets on, thrives, and fattens; they who
don't, come to us to borrow money, if gentlemen; or fall upon the parish,
if plebeians. I mind it, my dear Godolphin; I have minded it all my life;
I am very contented--content is the sign of virtue,--ah,--bah!"
Yes; Constance was a widow. The hand of her whom Percy Godolphin had
loved so passionately, and whose voice even now thrilled to his inmost
heart, and awakened the echoes that had slept for years, it was once more
within her power to bestow, and within his to demand. What a host of
emotions this thought gave birth to! Like the coming of the Hindoo god,
she had appeared, and lo, there was a new world! "And her look," he
thought, "was kind, her voice full of a gentle promise, her agitation was
visible. She loves me still. Shall I fly to her feet? Shall I press for
hope? And, oh what, what happiness!----but Lucilla!"
This recollection was indeed a barrier that never failed to present itself
to every prospect of hope and joy which the image of Constance coloured
and called forth. Even for the object of his first love, could he desert
one who had forsaken all for him, whose life was wrapt up in his
affection? The very coolness with which he was sensible he had returned
the attachment of this poor girl made him more alive to the duties he owed
her. If not bound to her by marriage, he considered with a
generosity--barely, in truth, but justice, yet how rare in the world--that
the tie between them was sacred, that only death could dissolve it. And
now that tie was, perhaps, all that held him from attaining the dream of
his past life.
Absorbed in these ideas, Godolphin contrived to let Saville's
unsympathising discourse glide unheeded along, without reflecting its
images on the sense, until the name of Lady Erpingham again awakened his
attention.
"You are going to her this evening," said Saville; "and you may thank me
for that; for I asked you if you were thither bound in her hearing, in
order to force her into granting you an invitation. She only sees her
most intimate friends--you, me, and Lady Charlotte Deerham. Widows are
shy of acquaintance during their first affliction. I always manage,
however, to be among the admitted--caustic is good for some wounds."
"Nay," said Godolphin, smiling, "it is your friendly disposition that
makes them sure of sympathy."
"You have hit it. But," continued Saville, "do you think Madame likely to
marry again, or shall you yourself adventure? Erpingham has left her
nearly his whole fortune."
Irritated and impatient at Saville's tone, Godolphin rose. "Between you
and me," said Saville, in wishing him goodbye, "I don't think she will
ever marry again. Lady Erpingham is fond of power and liberty; even the
young Godolphin--and you are not so handsome as you were--will find it a
hopeless suit."
"Pshaw!" muttered Godolphin, as he departed. But the last words of
Saville had created a new feeling in his breast. It was then possible,
nay, highly probable, that he might have spared himself the contest he
had undergone, and that the choice between Lucilla and Constance might
never be permitted him. "At all events," said he, almost aloud, "I will
see if this conjecture be true: if Constance, yet remembering our early
love, yet feeling for the years of secret pining which her ambition
bequeathed me, should appear willing to grant me the atonement fate has
placed within her power, then, then, it will be time for this
self-sacrifice."