The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 07, May, 1858

"Think what you have given this man!—your hope and peace; the breath of your life and the beatings of your heart. All your soul is lavished on him, and see how he repays you!"

The weak and disheartened girl shivered; the time was past when she could have despised the voice of this dread companion, when the Shadow dared not have spoken thus; and with bitter tears swelling into her eyes she and the Shadow walked forth together to a haunt on the mountain-side where she had been used to meet Roger.

It was a bare rock, just below the summit of a peak crowned with a few old cedars, from whose laborious growth of dull, dark foliage long streamers of gray moss waved in the wind. There were scattered crags about their roots, against whose lichen-covered sides the autumn sun shone fruitlessly; and from the leafless forests in the deep valley beneath rose a whispering sound, as if they shuddered, and were stirred by some foreboding horror.

Violet made her way to this height as eagerly as her lessened strength and panting heart allowed; but as she lifted her eyes from the narrow path she had tracked upward, they rested on the last face she wished to meet, the gloomy visage of Roger Pierce. The girl hesitated, and would have drawn back, but Roger bade her come near.

"There is no need of your going, Violet," said he; and she crouched quietly on the rock at his feet, silently, but with fixed eyes, regarding the double nature before her, the Man and his Shadow.

Still upward from the valley crept that low shiver of dread; the pale sun shed its listless light on the gray rocks and dusky cedars; the silent unexpectant earth seemed to have paused; all things were wrapt in vague awe and dim apprehension; some inexpressible fatality seemed to oppress life and breath.

A sudden impulse of escape, desperate in its strength, possessed Violet; perhaps to name that Thing that clung so closely to Roger might shake its power,—and with a trembling, vibrating voice she spoke:—

"Roger,—you are thinking of the Shadow?"

He did not move, nor at once speak; no new expression stirred his dark face; at length he answered, in a voice that seemed to come from some lips far away, in an unechoing distance:—

"The Shadow?—Yes. I see it in all faces. It lies on the valley yonder; in the air; on every mortal brow and lip it gathers deeper yet. Violet, you, too, share the Shadow!"

Slowly, as if his words froze her, Violet rose and turned toward him; a light shone from her eyes that melted their dark depths into the radiance of high noon; and she spoke with a thrilled, yet unfaltering tone:—

"Yes, I share it, it is true. I feel and see the gloom; but if the Shadow haunts me, Roger Pierce, ask your own heart who cast it there! When we were first friends, I knew nothing of that darkness. I tried with all purity and compassion to draw you upward into light; and for reward, you have wrapped your own blackness round me, and hate your own doing. My work is over,—is in vain! It remains only that I free myself from this Shadow, and leave you to the mercy of a Power with whom no such Presence can cope,—in whom no darkness nor shadow may abide."

She turned to leave him with these words, but cast back a look of such love and tender pity, that she seemed to Roger the very Spirit that had borne Sunny away.

Bewildered and pained to the heart, he groped his way homeward, and night lapsed into morning, and returned and went again more than once, ere sleep returned to his eyes.

Violet kept no vigils; she wept herself asleep as a child against its mother's bosom, and loving eyes guarded that childlike rest. But Roger's waking was haunted with remorse and fearful expectation; and as days crept by, and Memory, like one who fastens the galley-slave to his oar, still pressed on his thoughts the constant patience, toil, and affection of Violet Channing, he felt how truly she had spoken of him, and from his soul abhorred the Shadow of his life.

Here he vanishes. Whether with successful conflict he fought with the evil and prevailed, and showed himself a man,—or whether the Thing renewed its dominion, and he drew to himself another nature, not for the good power of its pure contact, but for the further increase of that darkness, and the blinding of another soul, is never yet to be known.

Of Violet Channing he saw no more; with her his sole earthly redemption had fled; she went her way, free henceforward from the Shadow, and guarded in the arms of the shining Spirit.

The wind yet howls and dashes without; the rain, rushing in gusts on roof and casement, keeps no time nor tune; the fire is dead in the ashes; the red rose, in the lessening light, turns gray;—but far away to the south the cloud begins to scatter; faint amber steals along the crest of the distant hills; after all evils, hope remains,—even for a Man with two Shadows. Let us, perhaps his kindred after the spirit, not despair.

AMOURS DE VOYAGE

[Concluded.]

IV

Eastward, or Northward, or West? I wander, and ask as I wander,
Weary, yet eager and sure, where shall I come to my love?
Whitherward hasten to seek her? Ye daughters of Italy, tell me,
Graceful and tender and dark, is she consorting with you?
Thou that out-climbest the torrent, that tendest thy goats to the summit,
Call to me, child of the Alp, has she been seen on the heights?
Italy, farewell I bid thee! for, whither she leads me, I follow.
Farewell the vineyard! for I, where I but guess her, must go.
Weariness welcome, and labor, wherever it be, if at last it
Bring me in mountain or plain into the sight of my love.

I.—Claude to Eustace,—from Florence

Gone from Florence; indeed; and that is truly provoking;—
Gone to Milan, it seems; then I go also to Milan.
Five days now departed; but they can travel but slowly;—
I quicker far; and I know, as it happens, the house they will go to.—
Why, what else should I do? Stay here and look at the pictures,
Statues, and churches? Alack, I am sick of the statues and pictures!—
No, to Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Lodi, and Milan,
Off go we to-night,—and the Venus go to the Devil!

II.—Claude to Eustace,—from Bellaggio

Gone to Como, they said; and I have posted to Como.
There was a letter left, but the cameriere had lost it.
Could it have been for me? They came, however, to Como,
And from Como went by the boat,—perhaps to the Splügen,—
Or to the Stelvio, say, and the Tyrol; also it might be
By Porlezza across to Lugano, and so to the Simplon
Possibly, or the St. Gothard, or possibly, too, to Baveno,
Orta, Turin, and elsewhere. Indeed, I am greatly bewildered.

III.—Claude to Eustace,—from Bellaggio

I have been up the Splügen, and on the Stelvio also:
Neither of these can I find they have followed; in no one inn, and
This would be odd, have they written their names. I have been to
Porlezza.
There they have not been seen, and therefore not at Lugano.
What shall I do? Go on through the Tyrol, Switzerland, Deutschland,
Seeking, an inverse Saul, a kingdom, to find only asses?
There is a tide, at least in the love affairs of mortals,
Which, when taken at flood, leads on to the happiest fortune,—
Leads to the marriage-morn and the orange-flowers and the altar,
And the long lawful line of crowned joys to crowned joys succeeding.—
Ah, it has ebbed with me! Ye gods, and when it was flowing,
Pitiful fool that I was, to stand fiddle-faddling in that way!

IV.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE,—from Bellaggio

I have returned and found their names in the book at Como.
Certain it is I was right, and yet I am also in error.
Added in feminine hand, I read, By the boat to Bellaggio.—
So to Bellaggio again, with the words of her writing, to aid me.
Yet at Bellaggio I find no trace, no sort of remembrance.
So I am here, and wait, and know every hour will remove them.