El Ideal · II

Deep in his brain, Señor Recaredo, artist and sculptor, asked himself: “What can ail my little wife?” She ate almost nothing. Those fine books opened by her ivory paper-knife stood upon the small black shelf, their leaves closed, yearning for the soft rosy hands and the warm, fragrant lap. Señor Recaredo saw her sad. What can ail my little wife? At table she would not eat. She was grave—so very grave! At times she looked at him from the corner of her eye, and the husband saw those dark, dewy pupils, as though on the verge of tears. And when answering, she spoke like children who have been denied a sweetmeat. What can ail my little wife? “Nothing!” That ‘nothing’ she uttered in a plaintive voice, and between syllable and syllable hovered tears.

Oh, Señor Recaredo! What ails your little wife is that you are an abominable man. Have you not noticed that ever since that good Empress of China arrived in your home, the little blue salon has grown mournful, and the blackbird neither sings nor laughs with its pearly chuckles? Suzette awakens Chopin, and slowly draws the sick, melancholic melody from the resonant black piano. She is jealous, Señor Recaredo! She has the sickness of jealousy, suffocating and burning, like a fiery serpent that constricts the soul. Jealousy! Perhaps he grasped it, for one afternoon he addressed these words to the maiden of his heart, face to face, through the steam of a cup of coffee: “Thou art overly unjust. Do I not love thee with all my soul? Canst thou not read in mine eyes what lies within my heart?”

Suzette burst into tears. That he loved her! No, he loved her no longer. The good and radiant hours had fled, and the resounding kisses had likewise departed, like birds in flight. He cared for her no more. And her—whom he was wont to regard as his religion, his delight, his dream, his king—her, Suzette, he had abandoned for the other.

The other! Recaredo started. She was deceived. Could she mean blond Eulogia, to whom he had once addressed madrigals?

She shook her head: “No.” Was it rich Gabriela, with long black tresses, white as alabaster, whose bust he had sculpted? Or that Luisa, the dancer, who had a wasp waist, the bosom of a bounteous wet-nurse, and incendiary eyes? Or the young widow Andrea, who when laughing showed the tip of her tongue, red and feline, between her bright, ivory teeth?

No, it was none of those. Recaredo remained in great astonishment. “Look, little girl, tell me the truth. Who is she? Thou knowest how I adore thee, my Elsa, my Juliet, my love...”

So much truth of love trembled in those broken, quivering words that Suzette, with reddened eyes now dry of tears, rose, lifting her lovely heraldic head.

“Dost thou love me?”

“Thou knowest it well!”

“Allow me, then, to avenge myself upon my rival. She or I: choose. If it is true that thou adorest me, wilt thou permit me to remove her forever from thy path, that I may remain alone, confident in thy passion?”

“Be it so,” said Recaredo. And watching his jealous, stubborn little bird depart, he resumed sipping his coffee, black as ink.

He had not taken three sips when he heard a great crash within his studio.

He hastened thither: what met his eyes? The bust had vanished from its black-and-gold pedestal, and amidst fallen miniature mandarins and unhooked fans, pieces of porcelain lay upon the floor, crunching beneath the small shoes of Suzette, who, all flushed, with hair unbound and awaiting kisses, said amidst silvery laughter to her frightened little husband: “I am avenged. The Empress of China is dead for thee at last!”

And when the ardent reconciliation of lips began in the little blue salon, overflowing with rejoicing, the blackbird in its cage was dying of laughter.

TO A STAR

(A PROSE ROMANCE)

Princess of the divine azure realm, who would not kiss thy luminous lips!

I am the ecstatic lover who, dreaming my dream of love, kneel with eyes fixed upon thine ineffable clarity, my star, who art so far away! Oh, how I burn with jealousy, how my soul trembles when I reflect that thou, candid daughter of the Dawn, canst fix thy gaze upon the handsome Prince Sun who comes from the East—gallant and fair in his golden car, victorious celestial archer in adamantine armor, bearing upon his back the glittering quiver filled with arrows of fire! But nay, thou hast smiled upon me beneath thy canopy, and thy smile was sweet as hope. How often has my spirit longed to fly toward thee, only to fall back dismayed! So distant is thy fortress! I have sung in my sonnets and madrigals thy mystical flowering, thy tresses of light, thy white vesture. I have beheld thee like a pale Beatrice of the firmament, lyrical and loving in thy sublime luster. Princess of the divine azure realm, who would not kiss thy luminous lips!

I remember that dark night, oh genius of Dismay, when thou didst visit my workroom to torment me, to leave almost desolate the poor garden of my illusions, wherein thou didst reap so many fresh ideals in bloom! Thy voice sounded to me like iron, and I listened trembling, for thy word was sharp and cold, falling like an ax. Thou didst speak to me of the path to Glory, where one must tread barefoot upon brambles and thistles; naked, beneath an eternal hailstorm; and in darkness, hard by deep chasms filled with shadow like death. Thou didst speak to me of the orchard of Love, where it is well-nigh impossible to pluck a rose without dying, for rare is the blossom wherein an asp does not nest. And thou didst tell me of the terrible, mute bronze sphinx that stands at the entrance to the tomb. And I was terrified, for glory had beckoned me with its fair palm in hand, and Love had filled me with its drunkenness, and life was to me enchanting and merry as flowers and birds perceive it. And now, a prey to despair, thy thrall, dark genius of Dismay, I fled my sorrowful workplace—where amidst a court of ancient bards and modern poets the god Hugo shone in Hetzel’s edition—and sought the open air beneath the night sky. It was then, adorable and white princess, that thou tookest pity on that poor poet, and lookedst upon him with thine ineffable gaze and smiledst upon him, and from thy smile arose the divine verse of hope! My star that art so far away, who would not kiss thy luminous lips!

I wished to recount to thee a sidereal poem that thou mightest hear; I wished to be thy loving nightingale and offer thee my passionate ritornello, my ethereal, fair dreamer. And thus from the earth where we walk upon the clay, to send my offering of harmony to thy sphere where the apotheosis dazzles and wonder reigns without end.

Thy diadem astonishes the stars and thy light makes poets sing: pearl in the infinite Ocean, fleur-de-lis of the immense oriflamme of the great God.

I have seen thee appear one night upon the horizon over the sea, and the gigantic old man, drunken with brine, greeted thee with the salvos of his loud, husky billows. Thou didst walk in a tenuous, golden mantle; thy reflections gladdened the vast, throbbing waters.

Another time it was in a dark forest where monotonous crickets peopled the air with the shrill notes of their crude, nocturnal violins. Through a bower I contemplated thee in thy delectable serenity, and beheld upon the black trees tremulous threads of light as though strands of thy hair had fallen from on high. Princess of the divine azure realm, who would not kiss thy luminous lips!

The morning lark sings to thee and flies to thee at the dawn of spring, when the breeze bears vibrations of Aeolian lyres and the echo of silver cymbals sounded by sylphs. From thy realm it pours the harmonic, crystalline pearls of its throat, which fall and merge with the grand, universal symphony that fills the awakened earth.

And in that hour I think of thee, for it is the hour of supreme trysts in the deep sky and of hidden, fervent whisperings in the warm glades of the forest where the laburnum blooms to gladden the eclogue! My star that art so far away, who would not kiss thy luminous lips!

SPRINGTIME

Month of roses. My rhymes go in circling dance to the vast forest, to gather honey and perfumes among the half-opened blossoms. Come, beloved. The great wood is our temple; therein waves and floats a holy perfume of love. The bird flies from one bough to another, greeting thy fair and rosy brow as if greeting a dawn; and the oaks, sturdy, lofty, proud, as thou passest stir their green, tremulous leaves, and arch their branches as for a passing queen. Oh, my beloved! It is the sweet season of spring.

Behold: mine eyes in thine; give thy tresses to the wind, and let the sun bathe that ring of wild and splendid light. Grant that my hands may clasp thine own of rose and silk, and laugh, and let thy lips display their fresh, moist purple. I will speak rhymes to thee, thou shalt listen smiling; if perchance some nightingale should come to perch nearby and recount some tale of nymph, of roses, or of stars, thou shalt hear neither notes nor trills, but enamored and regal, thou shalt listen to my songs, fastened upon my trembling lips. Oh, my beloved! It is the sweet season of spring.

Yonder lies a limpid spring bursting from a cavern, where naked, sporting, bathe the white nymphs. They laugh to the sound of foam, cleave the serene stream; amidst crystalline dust they fluff their tresses; and they know hymns of love in the lovely Greek tongue, which in glorious ancient days Pan invented in the woodlands. Beloved, I will place in my rhymes the proudest word from the phrases of the verses of the hymns of that tongue; and I will speak that word to thee steeped in Hyblaean honey... Oh, my beloved, in the sweet season of spring!

In their vibrant clusters hover the bees like a golden whirlwind gladdened by white light; and above the resonant water pass radiant and swift, with their crystalline wings, the iridescent dragonflies. Listen: the cicada sings for love of the sun, which in the wood sifts its golden dust among the dense leaves. Its breath in a fertile sigh Mother Earth gives us, with the soul of the blossoms and the aroma of the grasses.

Seest thou that nest? There is a bird. There are two: the male and the female. Her crop is white, his plumage is black. In the throat is the warble, the wings white and tremulous; and their beaks touch like lips that kiss. The nest is a song. The bird broods the trill, oh poets! From the universal lyre the bird plucks a string. Blessed be the sacred warmth that burst the buds, oh, my beloved, in the sweet season of spring!

My sweet muse Delight brought me a Greek amphora chiseled in alabaster, filled with wine of Naxos; and a lovely golden cup, its base studded with pearls, that I might drink the wine that is propitious to poets. Upon the amphora is Diana, regal, proud, and slender, in her divine nakedness and in her huntress posture. And upon the luminous cup is Cytherean Venus, reclining near Adonis who disdains her caresses. I desire neither Naxos wine nor the amphora with lovely handles, nor the cup where Cypris pleads with gallant Adonis. I desire to drink of love only from thy crimson mouth, oh, my beloved, in the sweet season of spring!

SUMMER