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(From Don Juan: Canto I. 1819)
CIV ’T WAS on the sixth of June, about the hour | |
| Of half-past six—perhaps still nearer seven— | |
| When Julia sate within as pretty a bower | |
| As e’er held houri in that heathenish heaven | |
| Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore, | 5 |
| To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, | |
| With all the trophies of triumphant song— | |
| He won them well, and may he wear them long! | |
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CV She sate, but not alone; I know not well | |
| How this same interview had taken place, | 10 |
| And even if I knew, I shall not tell— | |
| People should hold their tongues in any case; | |
| No matter how or why the thing befell, | |
| But there were she and Juan, face to face— | |
| When two such faces are so, ’t would be wise, | 15 |
| But very difficult, to shut their eyes. | |
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CVI How beautiful she looked! her conscious heart | |
| Glowed in her cheek, and yet she felt no wrong. | |
| Oh Love! how perfect is thy mystic art, | |
| Strengthening the weak, and trampling on the strong! | 20 |
| How self-deceitful is the sagest part | |
| Of mortals whom thy lure hath led along!— | |
| The precipice she stood on was immense, | |
| So was her creed in her own innocence. | |
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CVII She thought of her own strength, and Juan’s youth, | 25 |
| And of the folly of all prudish fears, | |
| Victorious virtue, and domestic truth, | |
| And then of Don Alfonso’s fifty years: | |
| I wish these last had not occurred, in sooth, | |
| Because that number rarely much endears, | 30 |
| And through all climes, the snowy and the sunny, | |
| Sounds ill in love, whate’er it may in money. * * * * * | |
CXI The hand which still held Juan’s, by degrees | |
| Gently, but palpably confirmed its grasp, | |
| As if it said, “Detain me, if you please;” | 35 |
| Yet there’s no doubt she only meant to clasp | |
| His fingers with a pure Platonic squeeze; | |
| She would have shrunk as from a toad, or asp, | |
| Had she imagined such a thing could rouse | |
| A feeling dangerous to a prudent spouse. | 40 |
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CXII I cannot know what Juan thought of this, | |
| But what he did, is much what you would do; | |
| His young lip thanked it with a grateful kiss, | |
| And then, abashed at its own joy, withdrew | |
| In deep despair, lest he had done amiss,— | 45 |
| Love is so very timid when ’t is new: | |
| She blushed, and frowned not, but she strove to speak, | |
| And held her tongue, her voice was grown so weak. * * * * * | |
CXV And Julia sate with Juan, half embraced | |
| And half retiring from the glowing arm, | 50 |
| Which trembled like the bosom where ’t was placed; | |
| Yet still she must have thought there was no harm, | |
| Or else ’t were easy to withdraw her waist; | |
| But then the situation had its charm, | |
| And then——God knows what next—I can’t go on; | 55 |
| I’m almost sorry that I e’er begun. * * * * * | |
CXXXVI ’T was midnight—Donna Julia was in bed, | |
| Sleeping, most probably,—when at her door | |
| Arose a clatter might awake the dead, | |
| If they had never been awoke before, | 60 |
| And that they have been so we all have read, | |
| And are to be so, at the least, once more;— | |
| The door was fastened, but with voice and fist | |
| First knocks were heard, then “Madam—Madam—hist! | |
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CXXXVII “For God’s sake, Madam—Madam—here ’s my master, | 65 |
| With more than half the city at his back— | |
| Was ever heard of such a curst disaster! | |
| ’T is not my fault—I kept good watch—Alack! | |
| Do pray undo the bolt a little faster— | |
| They ’re on the stair just now, and in a crack | 70 |
| Will all be here; perhaps he yet may fly— | |
| Surely the window’s not so very high!” * * * * * | |
CXXXIX I can’t tell how, or why, or what suspicion | |
| Could enter into Don Alfonso’s head; | |
| But for a cavalier of his condition | 75 |
| It surely was exceedingly ill-bred, | |
| Without a word of previous admonition, | |
| To hold a levee round his lady’s bed, | |
| And summon lackeys, armed with fire and sword, | |
| To prove himself the thing he most abhorred. | 80 |
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CXL Poor Donna Julia! starting as from sleep, | |
| (Mind—that I do not say—she had not slept), | |
| Began at once to scream, and yawn, and weep; | |
| Her maid, Antonia, who was an adept, | |
| Contrived to fling the bed-clothes in a heap, | 85 |
| As if she had just now from out them crept: | |
| I can’t tell why she should take all this trouble | |
| To prove her mistress had been sleeping double. * * * * * | |
CXLII Now Julia found at length a voice, and cried, | |
| “In Heaven’s name, Don Alfonso, what d’ye mean? | 90 |
| Has madness seized you? would that I had died | |
| Ere such a monster’s victim I had been! | |
| What may this midnight violence betide, | |
| A sudden fit of drunkenness or spleen? | |
| Dare you suspect me, whom the thought would kill? | 95 |
| Search, then, the room!”—Alfonso said, “I will.” * * * * * | |
CXLIV Under the bed they searched, and there they found— | |
| No matter what—it was not what they sought; | |
| They opened windows, gazing if the ground | |
| Had signs of footmarks, but the earth said nought; | 100 |
| And then they stared each others’ faces round: | |
| ’T is odd, not one of all these seekers thought, | |
| And seems to me almost a sort of blunder, | |
| Of looking in the bed as well as under. | |
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CXLV During this inquisition Julia’s tongue | 105 |
| Was not asleep—“Yes, search and search,” she cried, | |
| “Insult on insult heap, and wrong on wrong! | |
| It was for this that I became a bride! | |
| For this in silence I have suffered long | |
| A husband like Alfonso at my side; | 110 |
| But now I’ll bear no more, nor here remain, | |
| If there be law or lawyers in all Spain. * * * * * | |
CLIII “There is the closet, there the toilet, there | |
| The antechamber—search them under, over; | |
| There is the sofa, there the great arm-chair, | 115 |
| The chimney—which would really hold a lover. | |
| I wish to sleep, and beg you will take care | |
| And make no further noise, till you discover | |
| The secret cavern of this lurking treasure— | |
| And when ’t is found, let me, too, have that pleasure. | 120 |
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CLIV “And now, Hidalgo! now that you have thrown | |
| Doubt upon me, confusion over all, | |
| Pray have the courtesy to make it known | |
| Who is the man you search for? how d’ ye call | |
| Him? what ’s his lineage? let him but be shown— | 125 |
| I hope he ’s young and handsome—is he tall? | |
| Tell me—and be assured, that since you stain | |
| My honour thus, it shall not be in vain. * * * * * | |
CLVIII She ceased, and turned upon her pillow; pale | |
| She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears, | 130 |
| Like skies that rain and lighten; as a veil, | |
| Waved and o’ershading her wan cheek, appears | |
| Her streaming hair; the black curls strive, but fail, | |
| To hide the glossy shoulder, which uprears | |
| Its snow through all;—her soft lips lie apart, | 135 |
| And louder than her breathing beats her heart. * * * * * | |
CLXI But Don Alfonso stood with downcast looks, | |
| And, truth to say, he made a foolish figure; | |
| When, after searching in five hundred nooks, | |
| And treating a young wife with so much rigour, | 140 |
| He gained no point, except some self-rebukes, | |
| Added to those his lady with such vigour | |
| Had poured upon him for the last half hour, | |
| Quick, thick, and heavy—as a thunder-shower. * * * * * | |
CLXIII He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer, | 145 |
| But sage Antonia cut him short before | |
| The anvil of his speech received the hammer, | |
| With “Pray, sir, leave the room, and say no more, | |
| Or madam dies.”—Alfonso muttered, “D—n her.” | |
| But nothing else, the time of words was o’er; | 150 |
| He cast a rueful look or two, and did, | |
| He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid. | |
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CLXIV With him retired his “posse comitatus,” | |
| The attorney last, who lingered near the door | |
| Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as | 155 |
| Antonia let him—not a little sore | |
| At this most strange and unexplained “hiatus” | |
| In Don Alfonso’s facts, which just now wore | |
| An awkward look; as he resolved the case, | |
| The door was fastened in his legal face. | 160 |
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CLXV No sooner was it bolted, than—Oh shame! | |
| Oh sin! Oh sorrow, and Oh womankind! | |
| How can you do such things and keep your fame, | |
| Unless this world, and t’ other too, be blind? | |
| Nothing so dear as an unfilched good name! | 165 |
| But to proceed—for there is more behind: | |
| With much heartfelt reluctance be it said, | |
| Young Juan slipped, half-smothered, from the bed. | |
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CLXVI He had been hid—I don’t pretend to say | |
| How, nor can I indeed describe the where— | 170 |
| Young, slender, and packed easily, he lay, | |
| No doubt, in little compass, round or square; | |
| But pity him I neither must nor may | |
| His suffocation by that pretty pair; | |
| ’T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut | 175 |
| With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt. | |
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CLXVII And, secondly, I pity not, because | |
| He had no business to commit a sin, | |
| Forbid by heavenly, fined by human laws, | |
| At least ’t was rather early to begin; | 180 |
| But at sixteen the conscience rarely gnaws | |
| So much as when we call our old debts in | |
| At sixty years, and draw the accompts of evil, | |
| And find a deuced balance with the devil. | |
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CLXVIII Of his position I can give no notion: | 185 |
| ’T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle, | |
| How the physicians, leaving pill and potion, | |
| Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle, | |
| When old King David’s blood grew dull in motion, | |
| And that the medicine answered very well; | 190 |
| Perhaps ’t was in a different way applied, | |
| For David lived, but Juan nearly died. * * * * * | |
CLXX He turned his lip to hers, and with his hand | |
| Called back the tangles of her wandering hair; | |
| Even then their love they could not all command, | 195 |
| And half forgot their danger and despair: | |
| Antonia’s patience now was at a stand— | |
| “Come, come, ’t is no time now for fooling there,” | |
| She whispered, in great wrath—“I must deposit | |
| This pretty gentleman within the closet: | 200 |
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CLXXI “Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night— | |
| Who can have put my master in this mood? | |
| What will become on ’t—I ’m in such a fright, | |
| The devil’s in the urchin, and no good— | |
| Is this a time for giggling? this a plight? | 205 |
| Why, don’t you know that it may end in blood? | |
| You ’ll lose your life, and I shall lose my place, | |
| My mistress all, for that half-girlish face. | |
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CLXXII “Had it but been for a stout cavalier | |
| Of twenty-five or thirty—(come, make haste) | 210 |
| But for a child, what piece of work is here! | |
| I really, madam, wonder at your taste— | |
| (Come, sir, get in)—my master must be near: | |
| There, for the present, at the least, he ’s fast, | |
| And if we can but till the morning keep | 215 |
| Our counsel—(Juan, mind, you must not sleep).” | |
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