George Meredith
Sandra Belloni (originally Emilia in England). Complete
CHAPTER XXXIX
The pride of punctuality brought Sir Purcell to that appointed seat in the gardens about a minute in advance of Emilia. She came hurrying up to him with three fingers over her lips. The morning was cold; frost edged the flat brown chestnut and beech leaves lying about on rimy grass; so at first he made no remark on her evident unwillingness to open her mouth, but a feverish look of her eyes touched him with some kindly alarm for her.
“You should not have come out, if you think you are in any danger,” he said.
“Not if we walk fast,” she replied, in a visibly-controlled excitement. “It will be over in an hour. This way.”
She led the marvelling gentleman toward the row, and across it under the big black elms, begging him to walk faster. To accommodate her, he suggested, that if they had any distance to go, they might ride, and after a short calculating hesitation, she consented, letting him know that she would tell him on what expedition she was bound whilst they were riding. The accompaniment of the wheels, however, necessitated a higher pitch of her voice, which apparently caused her to suffer from a contraction of the throat, for she remained silent, with a discouraged aspect, her full brown eyes showing as in a sombre meditation beneath the thick brows. The direction had been given to the City. On they went with the torrent, and were presently engulfed in fog. The roar grew muffled, phantoms poured along the pavement, yellow beamless lights were in the shop-windows, all the vehicles went at a slow march.
“It looks as if Business were attending its own obsequies,” said Sir Purcell, whose spirits were enlivened by an atmosphere that confirmed his impression of things.
Emilia cried twice: “Oh! what cruel weather!” Her eyelids blinked, either with anger or in misery.
They were set down a little beyond the Bank, and when they turned from the cabman, Sir Purcell was warm in his offer of his arm to her, for he had seen her wistfully touching what money she had in her pocket, and approved her natural good breeding in allowing it to pass unmentioned.
“Now,” he said, “I must know what you want to do.”
“A quiet place! there is no quiet place in this City,” said Emilia fretfully.
A gentleman passing took off his hat, saying, with City politeness, “Pardon me: you are close to a quiet place. Through that door, and the hall, you will find a garden, where you will hear London as if it sounded fifty miles off.”
He bowed and retired, and the two (Emilia thankful, Sir Purcell tending to anger), following his indication, soon found themselves in a most perfect retreat, the solitude of which they had the misfortune, however, of destroying for another, and a scared, couple.
Here Emilia said: “I have determined to go to Italy at once. Mr. Pericles has offered to pay for me. It’s my father’s wish. And—and I cannot wait and feel like a beggar. I must go. I shall always love England—don’t fear that!”
Sir Purcell smiled at the simplicity of her pleading look.
“Now, I want to know where to find Mr. Pericles,” she pursued. “And if you will come to him with me! He is sure to be very angry—I thought you might protect me from that. But when he hears that I am really going at last—at once!—he can laugh sometimes! you will see him rub his hands.”
“I must enquire where his chambers are to be found,” said Sir Purcell.
“Oh! anybody in the City must know him, because he is so rich.” Emilia coughed. “This fog kills me. Pray make haste. Dear friend, I trouble you very much, but I want to get away from this. I can hardly breathe. I shall have no heart for my task, if I don’t see him soon.”
“Wait for me, then,” said Sir Purcell; “you cannot wait in a better place. And I must entreat you to be careful.” He half alluded to the adjustment of her shawl, and to anything else, as far as she might choose to apprehend him. Her dexterity in tossing him the letter, unseen by Madame Marini, might have frightened him and given him a dread, that albeit woman, there was germ of wickedness in her.
This pained him acutely, for he never forgot that she had been the means of his introduction to Cornelia, from whom he could not wholly dissociate her: and the idea that any prospective shred of impurity hung about one who had even looked on his beloved, was utter anguish to the keen sentimentalist. “Be very careful,” he would have repeated, but that he had a warning sense of the ludicrous, and Emilia’s large eyes when they fixed calmly on a face were not of a flighty east She stood, too, with the “dignity of sadness,” as he was pleased to phrase it.
“She must be safe here,” he said to himself. And yet, upon reflection, he decided not to leave her, peremptorily informing her to that effect. Emilia took his arm, and as they were passing through the hall of entrance they met the same gentleman who had directed them to the spot of quiet. Both she and Sir Purcell heard him say to a companion: “There she is.” A deep glow covered Emilia’s face. “Do they know you?” asked Sir Purcell. “No,” she said: and then he turned, but the couple had gone on.
“That deserves chastisement,” he muttered. Briefly telling her to wait, he pursued them. Emilia was standing in the gateway, not at all comprehending why she was alone. “Sandra Belloni!” struck her ear. Looking forward she perceived a hand and a head gesticulating from a cab-window. She sprang out into the street, and instantly the hand clenched and the head glared savagely. It was Mr. Pericles himself, in travelling costume.
“I am your fool?” he began, overbearing Emilia’s most irritating “How are you?” and “Are you quite well?
“I am your fool? hein? You send me to Paris! to Geneve! I go over Lago Maggiore, and aha! it is your joke, meess! I juste return. Oh capital! At Milano I wait—I enquire—till a letter from old Belloni, and I learn I am your fool—of you all! Jomp in.”
“A gentleman is coming,” said Emilia, by no means intimidated, though the forehead of Mr. Pericles looked portentous. “He was bringing me to you.”
“Zen, jomp in!” cried Mr. Pericles.
Here Sir Purcell came up.
Emilia said softly: “Mr. Pericles.”
There was the form of a bow of moderate recognition between them, but other hats were off to Emilia. The two gentlemen who had offended Sir Purcell had insisted, on learning the nature of their offence, that they had a right to present their regrets to the lady in person, and beg an excuse from her lips. Sir Purcell stood white with a futile effort at self-control, as one of them, preluding “Pardon me,” said: “I had the misfortune to remark to my friend, as I passed you, ‘There she is.’ May I, indeed, ask your pardon? My friend is an artist. I met him after I had first seen you. He, at least, does not think foolish my recommendation to him that he should look on you at all hazards. Let me petition you to overlook the impertinence.”
“I think, gentlemen, you have now made the most of the advantage my folly, in supposing you would regret or apologize fittingly for an impropriety, has given you,” interposed Sir Purcell.
His new and superior tone (for he had previously lost his temper and spoken with a silly vehemence) caused them to hesitate. One begged the word of pardon from Emilia to cover his retreat. She gave it with an air of thorough-bred repose, saying, “I willingly pardon you,” and looking at them no more, whereupon they vanished. Ten minutes later, Emilia and Sir Purcell were in the chambers of Mr. Pericles.
The Greek had done nothing but grin obnoxiously to every word spoken on the way, drawing his hand down across his jaw, to efface the hard pale wrinkles, and eyeing Emilia’s cavalier with his shrewdest suspicious look.
“You will excuse,”—he pointed to the confusion of the room they were in, and the heap of unopened letters,—“I am from ze Continent; I do not expect ze pleasure. A seat?”
Mr. Pericles handed chairs to his visitors.
“It is a climate, is it not,” he resumed.
Emilia said a word, and he snapped at her, immediately adding, “Hein? Ah! so!” with a charming urbanity.
“How lucky that we should meet you,” exclaimed Emilia. “We were just coming to you—to find out, I mean, where you were, and call on you.”
“Ough! do not tell me lies,” said Mr. Pericles, clasping the hollow of his cheeks between thumb and forefinger.
“Allow me to assure you that what Miss Belloni has said is perfectly correct,” Sir Purcell remarked.
Mr. Pericles gave a short bow. “It is ze same; I am much obliged.”
“And you have just come from Italy?” said Emilia.
“Where you did me ze favour to send me, it is true. Sanks!”
“Oh, what a difference between Italy and this!” Emilia turned her face to the mottled yellow windows.
“Many sanks,” repeated Mr. Pericles, after which the three continued silent for a time.
At last Emilia said, bluntly, “I have come to ask you to take me to Italy.”
Mr. Pericles made no sign, but Sir Purcell leaned forward to her with a gaze of astonishment, almost of horror.
“Will you take me?” persisted Emilia.
Still the sullen Greek refused either to look at her or to answer.
“Because I am ready to go,” she went on. “I want to go at once; to-day, if you like. I am getting too old to waste an hour.”
Mr. Pericles uncrossed his legs, ejaculating, “What a fog! Ah!” and that was all. He rose, and went to a cupboard.
Sir Purcell murmured hurriedly in Emilia’s ear, “Have you considered what you’ve been saying?”
“Yes, yes. It is only a journey,” Emilia replied, in a like tone.
“A journey!”
“My father wishes it.”
“Your mother?”
“Hush! I intend to make him take the Madre with me.”
She designated Mr. Pericles, who had poured into a small liqueur glass some green Chartreuse, smelling strong of pines. His visitors declined to eject the London fog by this aid of the mountain monks, and Mr. Pericles warmed himself alone.
“You are wiz old Belloni,” he called out.
“I am not staying with my father,” said Emilia.
“Where?” Mr. Pericles shed a baleful glance on Sir Purcell.
“I am staying with Signor Marini.”
“Servente!” Mr. Pericles ducked his head quite low, while his hand swept the floor with an imaginary cap. Malice had lighted up his features, and finding, after the first burst of sarcasm, that it was vain to indulge it toward an absent person, he altered his style. “Look,” he cried to Emilia, “it is Marini stops you and old Belloni—a conspirator, aha! Is it for an artist to conspire, and be carbonaro, and kiss books, and, mon Dieu! bon! it is Marini plays me zis trick. I mark him. I mark him, I say! He is paid by young Pole. I hold zat family in my hand, I say! So I go to be met by you, and on I go to Italy. I get a letter at Milano,—‘Marini stop me at Dover,’ signed ‘Giuseppe Belloni.’ Ze letter have been spied into by ze Austrians. I am watched—I am dogged—I am imprisoned—I am examined. ‘You know zis Giuseppe Belloni?’ ‘Meine Herrn! he was to come. I leave word at Paris for him, at Geneve, at Stresa, to bring his daughter to ze Conservatoire, for which I pay. She has a voice—or she had.’”
“Has!” exclaimed Emilia.
“Had!” Mr. Pericles repeated.
“She has!”
“Zen sing!” with which thunder of command, Mr. Pericles gave up his vindictive narration of the points of his injuries sustained, and, pitching into a chair, pressed his fingers to his temples, frowning attention. His eyes were on the floor. Presently he glanced up, and saw Emilia’s chest rising quickly. No voice issued.
“It is to commence,” cried Mr. Pericles. “Hein! now sing.”
Emilia laid her hand under her throat. “Not now! Oh, not now! When you have told me what those Austrians did to you. I want to hear; I am very anxious to hear. And what they said of my father. How could he have come to Milan without a passport? He had only a passport to Paris.”
“And at Paris I leave instructions for ze procuration of a passport over Lombardy. Am I not Antonio Pericles Agriolopoulos? Sing, I say!”
“Ah, but what voices you must have heard in Italy,” said Emilia softly. “I am afraid to sing after them. Si: I dare not.”
She panted, little in keeping with the cajolery of her tones, but she had got Mr. Pericles upon a theme serious to his mind.
“Not a voice! not one!” he cried, stamping his foot. “All is French. I go twice wizin six monz, and if I go to a goose-yard I hear better. Oh, yes! it is tune—‘ta-ta-ta—ti-ti-ti—to!’ and of ze heart—where is zat? Mon Dieu! I despair. I see music go dead. Let me hear you, Sandra.”
His enthusiasm had always affected Emilia, and painfully since her love had given her a consciousness of infidelity to her Art, but now the pathetic appeal to her took away her strength, and tears rose in her eyes at the thought of his faith in her. His repetition of her name—the ‘Sandra’ being uttered with unwonted softness—plunged her into a fit of weeping.
“Ah!” Mr. Pericles shouted. “See what she has come to!” and he walked two or three paces off to turn upon her spitefully, “she will be vapeurs, nerfs, I know not! when it wants a physique of a saint! Sandra Belloni,” he added, gravely, “lift up ze head! Sing, ‘Sempre al tuo santo nome.’”
Emilia checked her tears. His hand being raised to beat time, she could not withstand the signal. “Sempre;”—there came two struggling notes, to which another clung, shuddering like two creatures on the deeps.
She stopped; herself oddly calling out “Stop.”
“Stop who, donc?” Mr. Pericles postured an indignant interrogation.
“I mean, I must stop,” Emilia faltered. “It’s the fog. I cannot sing in this fog. It chokes me.”
Apparently Mr. Pericles was about to say something frightfully savage, which was restrained by the presence of Sir Purcell. He went to the door in answer to a knock, while Emilia drew breath as calmly as she might; her head moving a little backward with her breathing, in a sad mechanical way painful to witness. Sir Purcell stretched his hand out to her, but she did not take it. She was listening to voices at the door. Was it really Mr. Pole who was there? Quite unaware of the effect the sight of her would produce on him, Emilia rose and walked to the doorway. She heard Mr. Pole abusing Mr. Pericles half banteringly for his absence while business was urgent, saying that they must lay their heads together and consult, otherwise—a significant indication appeared to close the sentence.
“But if you’ve just come off your journey, and have got a lady in there, we must postpone, I suppose. Say, this afternoon. I’ll keep up to the mark, if nothing happens....”
Emilia pushed the door from the hand of Mr. Pericles, and was advancing toward the old man on the landing; but no sooner did the latter verify to his startled understanding that he had seen her, than with an exclamation of “All right! good-bye!” he began a rapid descent, of the stairs. A distance below, he bade Mr. Pericles take care of her, and as an excuse for his abrupt retreat, the word “busy” sounded up.
“Does my face frighten him?” Emilia thought. It made her look on herself with a foreign eye. This is a dreadful but instructive piece of contemplation; acting as if the rich warm blood of self should have ceased to hug about us, and we stand forth to be dissected unresistingly. All Emilia’s vital strength now seemed to vanish. At the renewal of Mr. Pericles’ peremptory mandate for her to sing, she could neither appeal to him, nor resist; but, raising her chest, she made her best effort, and then covered her face. This was done less for concealment of her shame-stricken features than to avoid sight of the stupefaction imprinted upon Mr. Pericles.
“Again, zat A flat!” he called sternly.
She tried it.
“Again!”
Again she did her utmost to accomplish the task. If you have seen a girl in a fit of sobs elevate her head, with hard-shut eyelids, while her nostrils convulsively take in a long breath, as if for speech, but it is expended in one quick vacant sigh, you know how Emilia looked. And it requires a humane nature to pardon such an aspect in a person from whom we have expected triumphing glances and strong thrilling tones.
“What is zis?” Mr. Pericles came nearer to her.
He would listen to no charges against the atmosphere. Commanding her to give one simple run of notes, a contralto octave, he stood over her with keenly watchful eyes. Sir Purcell bade him observe her distress.
“I am much obliged,” Mr. Pericles bowed, “she is ruined. I have suspected. Ha! But I ask for a note! One!”
This imperious signal drew her to another attempt. The deplorable sound that came sent Emilia sinking down with a groan.
“Basta, basta! So, it is zis tale,” said Mr. Pericles, after an observation of her huddled shape. “Did I not say—”
His voice was so menacingly loud and harsh that Sir Purcell remarked: “This is not the time to repeat it—pardon me—whatever you said.”
“Ze fool—she play ze fool! Sir, I forget ze Christian—ah! Purcell!—I say she play ze fool, and look at her! Why is it she comes to me now? A dozen times I warn her. To Italy! to Italy! all is ready: you will have a place at ze Conservatorio. No: she refuse. I say ‘Go, and you are a queen. You are a Prima at twenty, and Europe is beneas you.’ No: she refuse, and she is ruined. ‘What,’ I say, ‘what zat dam silly smile mean?’ Oh, no! I am not lazy!’ ‘But you area fool!’ ‘Oh, no!’ ‘And what are you, zen? And what shall you do?’ Nussing! nussing! nussing! And, dam! zere is an end.”
Emilia had caught blindly at Sir Purcell’s hand, by which she raised herself, and then uncovering her face, looked furtively at the malign furnace-white face of Mr. Pericles.
“It cannot have gone,”—she spoke, as if mentally balancing the possibility.
“It has gone, I say; and you know why, Mademoiselle ze Fool!” Mr. Pericles retorted.
“No, no; it can’t be gone. Gone? voices never go!”
The reiteration of the “You know why,” from Mr. Pericles, and all the wretchedness of loss it suggested, robbed her of the little spark of nervous fire by which she felt half-reviving in courage and confidence.
“Let me try once more,” she appealed to him, in a frenzy.
Mr. Pericles, though fully believing in his heart that it might only be a temporary deprivation of voice, affected to scout the notion of another trial, but finally extended his forefinger: “Well, now; start! ‘Sempre al tuo Santo!’ Commence: Sem—” and Mr. Pericles hummed the opening bar, not as an unhopeful man would do. The next moment he was laughing horribly. Emilia, to make sure of the thing she dreaded, forced the note, and would not be denied. What voice there was in her came to the summons. It issued, if I may so express it, ragged, as if it had torn through a briar-hedge: then there was a whimper of tones, and the effect was like the lamentation of a hardly-used urchin, lacking a certain music that there is in his undoubted heartfelt earnestness. No single note poised firmly for the instant, but swayed, trembling on its neighbour to right and to left when pressed for articulate sound, it went into a ghastly whisper. The laughter of Mr. Pericles was pleasing discord in comparison.
CHAPTER XL
Emilia stretched out her hand and said, “Good-bye.” Seeing that the hardened girl, with her dead eyelids, did not appear to feel herself at his mercy, and also that Sir Purcell’s forehead looked threatening, Mr. Pericles stopped his sardonic noise. He went straight to the door, which he opened with alacrity, and mimicking very wretchedly her words of adieu, stood prepared to bow her out. She astonished him by passing without another word. Before he could point a phrase bitter enough for expression, Sir Purcell had likewise passed, and in going had given him a quietly admonishing look.
“Zose Poles are beggars!” Mr. Pericles roared after them over the stairs, and slammed his door for emphasis. Almost immediately there was a knock at it. Mr. Pericles stood bent and cat-like as Sir Purcell reappeared. The latter, avoiding all preliminaries, demanded of the Greek that he should promise not to use the names of his friends publicly in such a manner again.
“I require a promise for the future. An apology will be needless from you.”
“I shall not give it,” said Mr. Pericles, with a sharp lift of his upper lip.
“But you will give me the promise I have returned for.”
In answer Mr. Pericles announced that he had spoken what was simply true: that the prosperity of the Poles was fictitious: that he, or any unfavourable chance, could ruin them: and that their friends might do better to protect their interests than by menacing one who had them in his power.
Sir Purcell merely reiterated his demand for the promise, which was ultimately snarled to him; whereupon he retired, joy on his features. For, Cornelia poor, she might be claimed by him fearlessly: that is to say, without the fear of people whispering that the penniless baronet had sued for gold, and without the fear of her father rejecting his suit. At least he might, with this knowledge that he had gained, appoint to meet her now! All the morning Sir Purcell had been combative, owing to that subordinate or secondary post he occupied in a situation of some excitement;—which combativeness is one method whereby men thus placed, imagining that they are acting devotedly for their friends, contrive still to assert themselves. He descended to the foot of the stairs, where he had told Emilia to wait for him, full of kind feelings and ready cheerful counsels; as thus: “Nothing that we possess belongs to us;—All will come round rightly in the end; Be patient, look about for amusement, and improve your mind.” And more of this copper coinage of wisdom in the way of proverbs. But Emilia was nowhere visible to receive the administration of comfort. Outside the house the fog appeared to have swallowed her. With some chagrin on her behalf (partly a sense of duty unfulfilled) Sir Purcell made his way to the residence of the Marinis, to report of her there, if she should not have arrived. The punishment he inflicted on himself in keeping his hand an hour from that letter to be written to Cornelia, was almost pleasing; and he was rewarded by it, for the projected sentences grew mellow and rich, condensed and throbbed eloquently. What wonder, that with such a mental occupation, he should pass Emilia and not notice her? She let him go.
But when he was out of sight, all seemed gone. The dismally-lighted city wore a look of Judgement terrible to see. Her brain was slave to her senses: she fancied she had dropped into an underground kingdom, among a mysterious people. The anguish through which action had just hurried her, now fell with a conscious weight upon her heart. She stood a moment, seeing her desolation stretch outwardly into endless labyrinths; and then it narrowed and took hold of her as a force within: changing thus, almost with each breathing of her body.
The fog had thickened. Up and down the groping city went muffled men, few women. Emilia looked for one of her sex who might have a tender face. Desire to be kissed and loved by a creature strange to her, and to lay her head upon a woman’s bosom, moved her to gaze around with a longing once or twice; but no eyes met hers, and the fancy recurred vividly that she was not in the world she had known. Otherwise, what had robbed her of her voice? She played with her fancy for comfort, long after any real vitality in it had oozed out. Her having strength to play at fancies showed that a spark of hope was alive. In truth, firm of flesh as she was, to believe that all worth had departed from her was impossible, and when she reposed simply on her sensations, very little trouble beset her: only when she looked abroad did the aspect of numerous indifferent faces, and the harsh flowing of the world its own way, tell her she had lost her power. Could it be lost? The prospect of her desolation grew so wide to her that she shut her eyes, abandoning herself to feeling; and this by degrees moved her to turn back and throw herself at the feet of Mr. Pericles. For, if he said, “Wait, my child, and all will come round well,” she was prepared blindly to think so. The projection of the words in her mind made her ready to weep: but as she neared the house of his office the wish to hear him speak that, became passionate; she counted all that depended on it, and discovered the size of the fabric she had built on so thin a plank. After a while, her steps were mechanically swift. Before she reached the chambers of Mr. Pericles she had walked, she knew not why, once round the little quiet enclosed city-garden, and a cold memory of those men who had looked at her face gave her some wonder, to be quickly kindled into fuller comprehension.
Beholding Emilia once more, Mr. Pericles enjoyed a revival of his taste for vengeance; but, unhappily for her, he found it languid, and when he had rubbed his hands, stared, and by sundry sharp utterances brought her to his feet, his satisfaction was less poignant than he had expected. As a consequence, instead of speaking outrageously, according to his habit, in wrath, he was now frigidly considerate, informing Emilia that it would be good for her if she were dead, seeing that she was of no use whatever; but, as she was alive, she had better go to her father and mother, and learn knitting, or some such industrial employment. “Unless zat man for whom you play fool!—” Mr. Pericles shrugged the rest of his meaning.
“But my voice may not be gone,” urged Emilia. “I may sing to you to-morrow—this evening. It must be the fog. Why do you think it lost? It can’t be—”
“Cracked!” cried Mr. Pericles.
“It is not! No; do not think it. I may stay here. Don’t tell me to go yet. The streets make me wish to die. And I feel I may, perhaps, sing presently. Wait. Will you wait?”
A hideous imitation of her lamentable tones burst from Mr. Pericles. “Cracked!” he cried again.
Emilia lifted her eyes, and looked at him steadily. She saw the idea grow in the eyes fronting her that she had a pleasant face, and she at once staked this little bit of newly-conceived worth on an immediate chance. Remember; that she was as near despair as a creature constituted so healthily could go. Speaking no longer in a girlish style, but with the grave pleading manner of a woman, she begged Mr. Pericles to take her to Italy, and have faith in the recovery of her voice. He, however, far from being softened, as he grew aware of her sweetness of feature, waxed violent and insulting.
“Take me,” she said. “My voice will reward you. I feel that you can cure it.”
“For zat man! to go to him again!” Mr. Pericles sneered.
“I never shall do that.” There sprang a glitter as of steel in Emilia’s eyes. “I will make myself yours for life, if you like. Take my hand, and let me swear. I do not break my word. I will swear, that if I recover my voice to become what you expected,—I will marry you whenever you ask me, and then—”
More she was saying, but Mr. Pericles, sputtering a laugh of “Sanks!” presented a postured supplication for silence.
“I am not a man who marries.”
He plainly stated the relations that the woman whom he had distinguished by the honours of selection must hold toward him.
Emilia’s cheeks did not redden; but, without any notion of shame at the words she listened to, she felt herself falling lower and lower the more her spirit clung to Mr. Pericles: yet he alone was her visible personification of hope, and she could not turn from him. If he cast her off, it seemed to her that her voice was condemned. She stood there still, and the cold-eyed Greek formed his opinion.
He was evidently undecided as regards his own course of proceeding, for his chin was pressed by thumb and forefinger hard into his throat, while his eyebrows were wrinkled up to their highest elevation. From this attitude, expressive of the accurate balancing of the claims of an internal debate, he emerged into the posture of a cock crowing, and Emilia heard again his bitter mimicry of her miserable broken tones, followed by, “Ha! dam! Basta! basta!”
“Sit here,” cried Mr. Pericles. He had thrown himself into a chair, and pointed to his knee.
Emilia remained where she was standing.
He caught at her hand, but she plucked that from him. Mr. Pericles rose, sounding a cynical “Hein!”
“Don’t touch me,” said Emilia.
Nothing exasperates certain natures so much as the effort of the visibly weak to intimidate them.
“I shall not touch you?” Mr. Pericles sneered. “Zen, why are you here?”
“I came to my friend,” was Emilia’s reply.
“Your friend! He is not ze friend of a couac-couac. Once, if you please: but now” (Mr. Pericles shrugged), “now you are like ze rest of women. You are game. Come to me.”
He caught once more at her hand, which she lifted; then at her elbow.
“Will you touch me when I tell you not to?”
There was the soft line of an involuntary frown over her white face, and as he held her arm from the doubled elbow, with her clenched hand aloft, she appeared ready to strike a tragic blow.
Anger and every other sentiment vanished from Mr. Pericles in the rapturous contemplation of her admirable artistic pose.
“Mon Dieu! and wiz a voice!” he exclaimed, dashing his fist in a delirium of forgetfulness against the one plastered lock of hair on his shining head. “Little fool! little dam fool!—zat might have been”—(Mr. Pericles figured in air with his fingers to signify the exaltation she was to have attained)—“Mon Dieu! and look at you! Did I not warn you? non a vero? Did I not say ‘Ruin, ruin, if you go so? For a man!—a voice! You will not come to me? Zen, hear! you shall go to old Belloni. I do not want you, my pretty dear. Woman is a trouble, a drug. You shall go to old Belloni; and, crack! if ze voice will come back to a whip,—bravo, old Belloni!”
Mr. Pericles turned to reach down his hat from a peg. At the same instant Emilia quitted the room.
Dusk was deepening the yellow atmosphere, and the crowd was now steadily flowing in one direction. The bereaved creature went with the stream, glad to be surrounded and unseen, till it struck her, at last, that she was moving homeward. She stopped with a pang of grief, turned, and met all those people to whom the fireside was a beacon. For some time she bore against the pressure, but her loneliness overwhelmed her. None seemed to go her way. For a refuge, she turned into one of the city side streets, where she was quite alone. Unhappily, the street was of no length, and she soon came to the end of it. There was the choice of retracing her steps, or entering a strange street; and while she hesitated a troop of sheep went by, that made a piteous noise. She followed them, thinking curiously of the something broken that appeared to be in their throats. By-and-by, the thought flashed in her that they were going to be slaughtered. She held her step, looking at them, but without any tender movement of the heart. They came to a butcher’s yard, and went in.
