Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (650 page)

Find way made gladly to the inmost round

Studded with heads. Lorenzo knits the crowd

Into one family by showing all

Good-will and recognition. Juan casts

His large and rapid-measuring glance around ;

But — with faint quivering, transient as a breath

Shaking a flame — his eyes make sudden pause

Where by the jutting angle of a street

Castle-ward leading, stands a female form,

A kerchief pale square-drooping o’er the brow,

About her shoulders dim brown serge, — in garb

Most like a peasant woman from the vale,

Who might have lingered after marketing

To see the show. What thrill mysterious,

Ray-borne from orb to orb of conscious eyes,

The swift observing sweep of Juan’s glance

Arrests an instant, then with prompting fresh

Diverts it lastingly ? He turns at once

To watch the gilded balls, and nod and smile

At little round Pepfta, blondest maid

In all Bedmar, — Pepfta, fair yet flecked,

Saucy of lip and nose, of hair as red

As breasts of robins stepping on the snow, —

Who stands in front with little tapping feet,

And baby-dimpled hands that hide enclosed

Those sleeping crickets, the dark castanets.

But soon the gilded balls have ceased to play

And Annibal is leaping through the hoops,

That turn to twelve, meeting him as he flies

In the swift circle. Shuddering he leaps,

But with each spring flies swift and swifter still

To loud and louder shouts, while the great hoops

Are changed to smaller. Now the crowd is fired.

The motion swift, the living victim urged,

The imminent failure and repeated scape

Hurry all pulses and intoxicate

With subtle wine of passion many-mixt.

‘Tis all about a monkey leaping hard

Till near to gasping ; but it serves as well

As the great circus or arena dire,

Where these are lacking. Roldan cautiously

Slackens the leaps and lays the hoops to rest,

And Annibal retires with reeling brain

And backward stagger, — pity, he could not smile!

Now Roldan spreads, his carpet, now he shows

Strange metamorphoses : the pebble black

Changes to whitest egg within his hand ;

A staring rabbit, with retreating ears,

Is swallowed by the air and vanishes;

He tells men’s thoughts about the shaken dice,

Their secret choosings ; makes the white beans pass

With causeless act sublime from cup to cup

Turned empty on the ground, — diablerie

That pales the girls and puzzles all the boys :

These tricks are samples hinting to the town

Roldan’s great mastery. He tumbles next,

And Annibal is called. to mock each feat

With arduous comicality and save

By rule romantic the great public mind

(And Roldan’s body) from too serious strain.

But with the tumbling, lest the feats should fail,

And so need veiling in a haze of sound,

Pablo awakes the viol and the bow, —

The masculine bow that draws the woman’s heart

From out the strings and makes them cry, yearn, plead,

Tremble, exult, with mystic union

Of joy acute and tender suffering.

To play the viol and discreetly mix

Alternate with the bow’s keen biting tones

The throb responsive to the finger’s touch,

Was rarest skill that Pablo half had caught

From an old blind and wandering Catalan ;

The other half was rather heritage

From treasure stored by generations past

In winding chambers of receptive sense.

The winged sounds exalt the thick-pressed crowd

With a new pulse in common, blending all

The gazing life into one larger soul

With dimly widened consciousness : as waves

In heightened movement tell of waves far off.

And the light changes ; westward stationed clouds,

The sun’s ranged outposts, luminous message spread,

Rousing quiescent things to doff their shade

And show themselves as added audience.

Now Pablo, letting fall the eager bow,

Solicits softer murmurs from the strings,

And now above them pours a wondrous voice

(Such as Greek reapers heard in Sicily)

With wounding rapture in it, like love’s arrows ;

And clear upon clear air as colored gems

Dropped in a crystal cup of water pure,

Fall words of sadness, simple, lyrical :

Spring comes hither,

Buds the rose ;

Roses wither,

Sweet spring goes.

Ojala would she carry me !

Summer soars, —

Wide-winged day

White light pours,

Flies away.

Ojala would he carry me !

Soft winds blow,

Westward borne,

Onward go

Toward the morn.

Ojala, would they carry me !

Sweet birds sing

O’er the graves,

Then take wing

Oer the waves.

Ojala would they carry me !

When the voice paused and left the viol’s note

To plead forsaken, ‘t was as when a cloud

Hiding the sun, makes all the leaves and flowers

Shiver. But when with measured change the strings

Had taught regret new longing, clear again,

Welcome as hope recovered, flowed the voice.

Warm whispering through the slender olive leaves

Came to me a gentle sound,

Whispering of a secret found

In the clear sunshine ‘mid the golden sheaves :

Said it was sleeping for me in the morn,

Called it gladness, called it joy,

Drew me on — “ Come hither, boy “ —

To where the blue wings rested on the corn.

I thought the gentle sound had whispered true, —

Thought the little heaven mine.

Leaned to clutch the thing divine,

And saw the blue wings melt within the blue.

The long notes linger on the trembling air,

With subtle penetration enter all

The myriad corridors of the passionate soul,

Message-like spread, and- answering action rouse.

Not angular jigs that warm the chilly limbs

In hoary northern mists, but action curved

To soft andante strains pitched plaintively.

Vibrations sympathetic stir all limbs :

Old men live backward in their dancing prime,

And move in memory ; small legs and arms

With pleasant agitation purposeless

Go up and down like pretty fruits in gales.

All long in common for the expressive act

Yet wait for it ; as in the olden time

Men waited for the bard to tell their thought.

“The dance ! the dance !” is shouted all around.

Now Pablo lifts the bow, Pepfta now,

Ready as bird that sees the sprinkled corn,

When Juan nods and smiles, puts forth her foot

And lifted her arm to wake the castanets.

Juan advances, too, from out the ring

And bends to quit his lute ; for now the scene

Is empty ; Roldan, weary, gathers pence,

Followed by Annibal with purse and stick.

The carpet lies a colored isle untrod,

Inviting feet : “ The dance, the dance,” resounds,

The bow entreats with slow melodic strain,

And all the air with expectation yearns.

Sudden, with gliding motion like a flame

That through dim vapor makes a path of glory,

A figure lithe, all white and saffron-robed,

Flashed right across the circle, and now stood

With ripened arms uplift and regal head,

Like some tall flower whose dark and intense heart

Lies half within a tulip-tinted cup.

Juan stood fixed and pale ; Pepfta stepped

Backward within the ring : the voices fell

From shouts insistent to more passive tones