Part 29 (1/2)
”Alice, Alice, Alice!”
And Tray uttered a soft, cooing, nasal croon in his head register, though he was a barytone dog by nature, with portentous, warlike chest-notes of the jingo order.
”Tray, your mistress is a parson's daughter, and therefore twice as much of a mystery as any other woman in this puzzling world!
”Tray, if my heart weren't stopped with wax, like the ears of the companions of Ulysses when they rowed past the sirens--you've heard of Ulysses, Tray? he loved a dog--if my heart weren't stopped with wax, I should be deeply in love with your mistress; perhaps she would marry me if I asked her--there's no accounting for tastes!--and I know enough of myself to know that I should make her a good husband--that I should make her happy--and I should make two other women happy besides.
”As for myself personally, Tray, it doesn't very much matter. One good woman would do as well as another, if she's equally good-looking. You doubt it? Wait till you get a pimple inside your b.u.mp of--your b.u.mp of--wherever you keep your fondnesses, Tray.
”For that's what's the matter with me--a pimple--just a little clot of blood at the root of a nerve, and no bigger than a pin's point!
”That's a small thing to cause such a lot of wretchedness, and wreck a fellow's life, isn't it? Oh, curse it, curse it, curse it--every day and all day long!
”And just as small a thing will take it away, I'm told!
”Ah! grains of sand are small things--and so are diamonds! But diamond or grain of sand, only Alice has got that small thing! Alice alone, in all the world, has got the healing touch for me now; the hands, the lips, the eyes! I know it--I feel it! I dreamed it last night! She looked me well in the face, and took my hand--both hands--and kissed me, eyes and mouth, and told me how she loved me. Ah! what a dream it was!
And my little clot melted away like a snow-flake on the lips, and I was my old self again, after many years--and all through that kiss of a pure woman.
”I've never been kissed by a pure woman in my life--never! except by my dear mother and sister; and mothers and sisters don't count, when it comes to kissing.
”Ah! sweet physician that she is, and better than all! It will all come back again with a rush, just as I dreamed, and we will have a good time together, we three!...
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”MAY HEAVEN GO WITH HER!”]
”But your mistress is a parson's daughter, and believes everything she's been taught from a child, just as you do--at least, I hope so. And I like her for it--and you too.
”She has believed her father--will she ever believe me, who think so differently? And if she does, will it be good for her?--and then, where will her father come in?
”Oh! it's a bad thing to live, and no longer believe and trust in your father, Tray! to doubt either his honesty or his intelligence. For he (with your mother to help) has taught you all the best he knows, if he has been a good father--till some one else comes and teaches you better--or worse!
”And, then, what are you to believe of what good still remains of all that early teaching--and how are you to sift the wheat from the chaff?...
”Kneel undisturbed, fair saint! I, for one, will never seek to undermine thy faith in any father, on earth or above it!
”Yes, there she kneels in her father's church, her pretty head bowed over her clasped hands, her cloak and skirts falling in happy folds about her: I see it all!
”And underneath, that poor, sweet, soft, pathetic thing of flesh and blood, the eternal woman--great heart and slender brain--forever enslaved or enslaving, never self-sufficing, never free ... that dear, weak, delicate shape, so cherishable, so perishable, that I've had to paint so often, and know so well by heart! and love ... ah, how I love it! Only painter-fellows and sculptor-fellows can ever quite know the fulness of that pure love.
”There she kneels and pours forth her praise or plaint, meekly and duly.
Perhaps it's for me she's praying!
”'Leave thou thy sister when she prays.'
”She believes her poor little prayer will be heard and answered somewhere up aloft. The impossible will be done. She wants what she wants so badly, and prays for it so hard.
”She believes--she believes--what _doesn't_ she believe, Tray?
”The world was made in six days. It is just six thousand years old. Once it all lay smothered under rain-water for many weeks, miles deep, because there were so many wicked people about somewhere down in Jude_e_, where they didn't know everything! A costly kind of clearance!
And then there was Noah, who _wasn't_ wicked, and his most respectable family, and his ark--and Jonah and his whale--and Joshua and the sun, and what not. I remember it all, you see, and, oh! such wonderful things that have happened since! And there's everlasting agony for those who don't believe as she does; and yet she is happy, and good, and very kind; for the mere thought of any live creature in pain makes her wretched!