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diff --git a/23363.txt b/23363.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..91dcbed --- /dev/null +++ b/23363.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1159 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Midnight Fantasy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Midnight Fantasy + +Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23363] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MIDNIGHT FANTASY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +A MIDNIGHT FANTASY + +By Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company + +Copyright, 1873, 1885, and 1901 + + + + +I. + +It was close upon eleven o'clock when I stepped out of the rear +vestibule of the Boston Theatre, and, passing through the narrow court +that leads to West Street, struck across the Common diagonally. Indeed, +as I set foot on the Tremont Street mall, I heard the Old South drowsily +sounding the hour. + +It was a tranquil June night, with no moon, but clusters of sensitive +stars that seemed to shiver with cold as the wind swept by them; +for perhaps there was a swift current of air up there in the zenith. +However, not a leaf stirred on the Common; the foliage hung black and +massive, as if cut in bronze; even the gaslights appeared to be infected +by the prevailing calm, burning steadily behind their glass screens +and turning the neighboring leaves into the tenderest emerald. Here and +there, in the sombre row of houses stretching along Beacon Street, an +illuminated window gilded a few square feet of darkness; and now and +then a footfall sounded on a distant pavement. The pulse of the city +throbbed languidly. + +The lights far and near, the fantastic shadows of the elms and maples, +the gathering dew, the elusive odor of new grass, and that peculiar hush +which belongs only to midnight--as if Time had paused in his flight and +were holding his breath--gave to the place, so familiar to me by day, an +air of indescribable strangeness and remoteness. The vast, deserted park +had lost all its wonted outlines; I walked doubtfully on the flagstones +which I had many a time helped to wear smooth; I seemed to be wandering +in some lonely unknown garden across the seas--in that old garden in +Verona where Shakespeare's ill-starred lovers met and parted. The white +granite facade over yonder--the Somerset Club--might well have been +the house of Capulet: there was the clambering vine reaching up like a +pliant silken ladder; there, near by, was the low-hung balcony, wanting +only the slight girlish figure--immortal shape of fire and dew!--to make +the illusion perfect. + +I do not know what suggested it; perhaps it was something in the play +I had just witnessed--it is not always easy to put one's finger on the +invisible electric thread that runs from thought to thought--but as +I sauntered on I fell to thinking of the ill-assorted marriages I had +known. Suddenly there hurried along the gravelled path which crossed +mine obliquely a half-indistinguishable throng of pathetic men and +women: two by two they filed before me, each becoming startlingly +distinct for an instant as they passed--some with tears, some with +hollow smiles, and some with firm-set lips, bearing their fetters with +them. There was little Alice chained to old Bowlsby; there was Lucille, +"a daughter of the gods, divinely tall," linked forever to the dwarf +Perrywinkle; there was my friend Porphyro, the poet, with his delicate +genius shrivelled in the glare of the youngest Miss Lucifer's eyes; +there they were, Beauty and the Beast, Pride and Humility, Bluebeard and +Fatima, Prose and Poetry, Riches and Poverty, Youth and Crabbed Age-- +Oh, sorrowful procession! All so wretched, when perhaps all might have +been so happy if they had only paired differently! I halted a moment to +let the weird shapes drift by. As the last of the train melted into the +darkness, my vagabond fancy went wandering back to the theatre and the +play I had seen--Romeo and Juliet. Taking a lighter tint, but still of +the same sober color, my reflections continued. + +What a different kind of woman Juliet would have been if she had not +fallen in love with Romeo, but had bestowed her affection on some +thoughtful and stately signior--on one of the Delia Scalas, for example! +What Juliet needed was a firm and gentle hand to tame her high spirit +without breaking a pinion. She was a little too--vivacious, you might +say--"gushing" would perhaps be the word if you were speaking of a +modern maiden with so exuberant a disposition as Juliet's. She was +too romantic, too blossomy, too impetuous, too wilful; old Capulet had +brought her up injudiciously, and Lady Capulet was a nonentity. Yet in +spite of faults of training and some slight inherent flaws of character, +Juliet was a superb creature; there was a fascinating dash in her +frankness; her modesty and daring were as happy rhymes as ever touched +lips in a love-poem. But her impulses required curbing; her heart made +too many beats to the minute. It was an evil destiny that flung in the +path of so rich and passionate a nature a fire-brand like Romeo. Even if +no family feud had existed, the match would not have been a wise one. As +it was, the well-known result was inevitable. What could come of it but +clandestine meetings, secret marriage, flight, despair, poison, and +the Tomb of the Capulets? I had left the park behind, by this, and had +entered a thoroughfare where the street-lamps were closer together; but +the gloom of the trees seemed still to be overhanging me. The fact is, +the tragedy had laid a black finger on my imagination. I wished that the +play had ended a trifle more cheerfully. I wished--possibly because I +see enough tragedy all around me without going to the theatre for it, +or possibly it was because the lady who enacted the leading part was a +remarkably clean-cut little person, with a golden sweep of eyelashes--I +wished that Juliet could have had a more comfortable time of it. Instead +of a yawning sepulchre, with Romeo and Juliet dying in the middle +foreground, and that luckless young Paris stretched out on the left, +spitted like a spring-chicken with Montague's rapier, and Friar +Laurence, with a dark lantern, groping about under the melancholy +yews--in place of all this costly piled-up woe, I would have liked a +pretty, mediaeval chapel scene, with illuminated stained-glass windows, +and trim acolytes holding lighted candles, and the great green curtain +slowly descending to the first few bars of the Wedding March of +Mendelssohn. + +Of course Shakespeare was true to the life in making them all die +miserably. Besides, it was so they died in the novel of Matteo Bandello, +from which the poet indirectly took his plot. Under the circumstances +no other climax was practicable; and yet it was sad business. There were +Mercutio, and Tybalt, and Paris, and Juliet, and Romeo, come to a bloody +end in the bloom of their youth and strength and beauty. + +The ghosts of these five murdered persons seemed to be on my track as I +hurried down Revere Street to West Cedar. I fancied them hovering around +the corner opposite the small drug-store, where a meagre apothecary was +in the act of shutting up the fan-like jets of gas in his shop-window. + +"No, Master Booth," I muttered in the imagined teeth of the tragedian, +throwing an involuntary glance over my shoulder, "you 'll not catch me +assisting at any more of your Shakespearean revivals. I would rather eat +a pair of Welsh rarebits or a segment of mince-pie at midnight than sit +through the finest tragedy that was ever writ." + +As I said this I halted at the door of a house in Charles Place, and was +fumbling for my latch-key, when a most absurd idea came into my head. I +let the key slip back into my pocket, and strode down Charles Place into +Cambridge Street, and across the long bridge, and then swiftly forward. + +I remember, vaguely, that I paused for a moment on the draw of the +bridge, to look at the semi-circular fringe of lights duplicating itself +in the smooth Charles in the rear of Beacon Street--as lovely a bit of +Venetian effect as you will get outside of Venice; I remember meeting, +farther on, near a stiff wooden church in Cambridgeport, a lumbering +covered wagon, evidently from Brighton and bound for Quincy Market; and +still farther on, somewhere in the vicinity of Harvard Square and the +college buildings, I recollect catching a glimpse of a policeman, who, +probably observing something suspicious in my demeanor, discreetly +walked off in an opposite direction. I recall these trifles +indistinctly, for during this preposterous excursion I was at no time +sharply conscious of my surroundings; the material world presented +itself to me as if through a piece of stained glass. It was only when +I had reached a neighborhood where the houses were few and the gardens +many, a neighborhood where the closely-knitted town began to fringe +out into country, that I came to the end of my dream. And what was the +dream? The slightest of tissues, madam; a gossamer, a web of shadows, +a thing woven out of starlight. Looking at it by day, I find that its +colors are pallid, and its threaded diamonds--they were merely the +perishable dews of that June night--have evaporated in the sunshine; but +such as it is you shall have it. + + + + +II. + +The young prince Hamlet was not happy at Elsinore. It was not because +he missed the gay student-life of Wittenberg, and that the little +Danish court was intolerably dull. It was not because the didactic lord +chamberlain bored him with long speeches, or that the lord chamberlain's +daughter was become a shade wearisome. Hamlet had more serious cues for +unhappiness. He had been summoned suddenly from Wittenberg to attend his +father's funeral; close upon this, and while his grief was green, his +mother had married with his uncle Claudius, whom Hamlet had never liked. + +The indecorous haste of these nuptials--they took place within two +months after the king's death, the funeral-baked meats, as Hamlet +cursorily remarked, furnishing forth the marriage-tables--struck the +young prince aghast. He had loved the queen his mother, and had nearly +idolized the late king; but now he forgot to lament the death of the one +in contemplating the life of the other. The billing and cooing of the +newly-married couple filled him with horror. Anger, shame, pity, and +despair seized upon him by turns. He fell into a forlorn condition, +forsaking his books, eating little save of the chameleon's dish, the +air, drinking deep of Rhenish, letting his long, black locks go unkempt, +and neglecting his dress--he who had hitherto been "the glass of fashion +and the mould of form," as Ophelia had prettily said of him. + +Often for half the night he would wander along the ramparts of the +castle, at the imminent risk of tumbling off, gazing seaward and +muttering strangely to himself, and evolving frightful spectres out +of the shadows cast by the turrets. Sometimes he lapsed into a gentle +melancholy; but not seldom his mood was ferocious, and at such times the +conversational Polonius, with a discretion that did him credit, steered +clear of my lord Hamlet. + +He turned no more graceful compliments for Ophelia. The thought of +marrying her, if he had ever seriously thought of it, was gone now. +He rather ruthlessly advised her to go into a nunnery. His mother +had sickened him of women. It was of her he spoke the notable words, +"Frailty, thy name is woman!" which, some time afterwards, an amiable +French gentleman had neatly engraved on the head-stone of his wife, who +had long been an invalid. Even the king and queen did not escape Hamlet +in his distempered moments. Passing his mother in a corridor or on a +staircase of the palace, he would suddenly plant a verbal dagger in +her heart; and frequently, in full court, he would deal the king such +a cutting reply as caused him to blanch, and gnaw his lip. If the +spectacle of Gertrude and Claudius was hateful to Hamlet, the presence +of + +Hamlet, on the other hand, was scarcely a comfort to the royal lovers. +At first his uncle had called him "our chiefest courtier, cousin, and +our son," trying to smooth over matters; but Hamlet would have none of +it. Therefore, one day, when the young prince abruptly announced +his intention to go abroad, neither the king nor the queen placed +impediments in his way, though, some months previously, they had both +protested strongly against his returning to Wittenberg. + +The small-fry of the court knew nothing of Prince Hamlet's determination +until he had sailed from Elsinore; their knowledge then was confined to +the fact of his departure. It was only to Horatio, his fellow-student +and friend, that Hamlet confided the real cause of his self-imposed +exile, though perhaps Ophelia half suspected it. + +Polonius had dropped an early hint to his daughter concerning Hamlet's +intent. She knew that everything was over between them, and the night +before he embarked Ophelia placed in the prince's hand the few letters +and trinkets he had given her, repeating, as she did so, a certain +distich which somehow haunted Hamlet's memory for several days after he +was on shipboard: + + "Take these again; for to the noble mind + Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind." + +"These could never have waxed poor," said Hamlet softly to himself, as +he leaned over the taffrail, the third day out, spreading the trinkets +in his palm, "being originally of but little worth. I fancy that that +allusion to 'rich gifts' was a trifle malicious on the part of the fair +Ophelia;" and he quietly dropped them into the sea. + +It was as a Danish gentleman voyaging for pleasure, and for mental +profit also, if that should happen, that Hamlet set forth on his +travels. Settled destination he had none, his sole plan being to get +clear of Denmark as speedily as possible, and then to drift whither his +fancy took him. His fancy naturally took him southward, as it would +have taken him northward if he had been a Southron. Many a time while +climbing the bleak crags around Elsinore he had thought of the land of +the citron and the palm; lying on his couch at night, and listening to +the wind as it howled along the machicolated battlements of the castle, +his dreams had turned from the cold, blonde ladies of his father's court +to the warmer beauties that ripen under sunny skies. He was free now to +test the visions of his boyhood. + +So it chanced, after various wanderings, all tending imperceptibly in +one direction, that Hamlet bent his steps towards Italy. + +In those rude days one did not accomplish a long journey without having +wonderful adventures befall, or encountering divers perils by the way. +It was a period when a stout blade on the thigh was a most excellent +travelling companion. Hamlet, though of a philosophical complexion, was +not slower than another man to scent an affront; he excelled at feats +of arms, and no doubt his skill, caught of the old fencing-master at +Elsinore, stood him in good stead more than once when his wit would not +have saved him. Certainly, he had hair-breadth escapes while toiling +through the wilds of Prussia and Bavaria and Switzerland. At all events, +he counted himself fortunate the night he arrived at Verona with nothing +more serious than a two-inch scratch on his sword arm. + +There he lodged himself, as became a gentleman of fortune, in a suite of +chambers in a comfortable palace overlooking the swift-flowing Adige--a +riotous yellow stream that cut the town into two parts, and was +spanned here and there by rough-hewn stone bridges, which it sometimes +sportively washed away. It was a brave old town that had stood sieges +and plagues, and was full of mouldy, picturesque buildings and a gayety +that has since grown somewhat mouldy. A goodly place to rest in for the +wayworn pilgrim! He dimly recollected that he had letters to one or two +illustrious families; but he cared not to deliver them at once. It was +pleasant to stroll about the city, unknown. There were sights to +see: the Roman amphitheatre, and the churches with their sculptured +sarcophagi and saintly relics--interesting joints and saddles of +martyrs, and enough fragments of the true cross to build a ship. The +life in the _piazze_ and on the streets, the crowds in the shops, the +pageants, the lights, the stir, the color, all mightily took the eye +of the young Dane. He was in a mood to be amused. Everything diverted +him--the faint pulsing of a guitar-string in an adjacent garden at +midnight, or the sharp clash of gleaming sword blades under his window, +when the Montecchi and the Cappelletti chanced to encounter each other +in the narrow footway. + +Meanwhile, Hamlet brushed up his Italian. He was well versed in the +literature of the language, particularly in its dramatic literature, and +had long meditated penning a gloss to "The Murther of Gonzago," a play +which Hamlet held in deservedly high estimation. + +He made acquaintances, too. In the same palace where he sojourned +lived a very valiant soldier and wit, a kinsman to Prince Escalus, one +Mercutio by name, with whom Hamlet exchanged civilities on the staircase +at first, and then fell into companionship. + +A number of Verona's noble youths, poets and light-hearted +men-about-town, frequented Mercutio's chambers, and with these Hamlet +soon became on terms. + +Among the rest were an agreeable gentleman, with hazel eyes, named +Benvolio, and a gallant young fellow called Romeo, whom Mercutio +bantered pitilessly and loved heartily. This Romeo, who belonged to one +of the first families, was a very susceptible spark, which the slightest +breath of a pretty woman was sufficient to blow into flame. To change +the metaphor, he fell from one love affair into another as easily and +logically as a ripe pomegranate drops from a bough. He was generally +unlucky in these matters, curiously enough, for he was a handsome youth +in his saffron satin doublet slashed with black, and his jaunty velvet +bonnet with its trailing plume of ostrich feather. + +At the time of Hamlet's coming to Verona, Romeo was in a great despair +of love in consequence of an unrequited passion for a certain lady of +the city, between whose family and his own a deadly feud had existed for +centuries. Somebody had stepped on somebody else's lap-dog in the far +ages, and the two families had been slashing and hacking at each other +ever since. It appeared that Romeo had scaled a garden wall, one night, +and broken upon the meditations of his inamorata, who, as chance would +have it, was sitting on her balcony enjoying the moonrise. No lady could +be insensible to such devotion, for it would have been death to Romeo +if any of her kinsmen had found him in that particular locality. Some +tender phrases passed between them, perhaps; but the lady was flurried, +taken unawares, and afterwards, it seemed, altered her mind, and would +have no further commerce with the Montague. This business furnished +Mercutio's quiver with innumerable sly shafts, which Romeo received for +the most part in good humor. + +With these three gentlemen--Mercutio, Benvolio, and Romeo--Hamlet saw +life in Verona, as young men will see life wherever they happen to be. +Many a time the nightingale ceased singing and the lark began before +they were abed; but perhaps it is not wise to inquire too closely into +this. A month had slipped away since Hamlet's arrival; the hyacinths +were opening in the gardens, and it was spring. + +One morning, as he and Mercutio were lounging arm in arm on a bridge +near their lodgings, they met a knave in livery puzzling over a +parchment which he was plainly unable to decipher. + +"Read it aloud, friend!" cried Mercutio, who always had a word to throw +away. + +"I would I could read it at all. I pray, sir, can you read?" + +"With ease--if it is not my tailor's score;" and Mercutio took the +parchment, which ran as follows:-- + +"_Signior Martino, and his wife and daughters; County Ansdmo, and his +beauteous sisters; the lady widow Vitrumo; Signior Placentio, and his +lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; mine uncle Capulet, +his wife and daughters; my fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, +and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena_." + +"A very select company, with the exception of that rogue Mercutio," said +the soldier, laughing. "What does it mean?" + +"My master, the Signior Capulet, gives a ball and supper to-night; these +the guests; I am his man Peter, and if you be not one of the house of +Montague, I pray come and crush a cup of wine with us. Rest you merry;" +and the knave, having got his billet deciphered for him, made off. + +"One must needs go, being asked by both man and master; but since I am +asked doubly, I 'll not go singly; I 'll bring you with me, Hamlet. It +is a masquerade; I have had wind of it. The flower of the city will be +there--all the high-bosomed roses and low-necked lilies." + +Hamlet had seen nothing of society in Verona, properly speaking, and +did not require much urging to assent to Mercutio's proposal, far from +foreseeing that so slight a freak would have a fateful sequence. + +It was late in the night when they presented themselves, in mask and +domino, at the Capulet mansion. The music was at its sweetest and the +torches were at their brightest, as the pair entered the dancing-hall. +They had scarcely crossed the threshold when Hamlet's eyes rested upon +a lady clad in a white silk robe, who held to her features, as she moved +through the figure of the dance, a white satin mask, on each side of +which was disclosed so much of the rosy oval of her face as made one +long to look upon the rest. The ornaments this lady wore were pearls; +her fan and slippers, like the robe and mask, were white--nothing but +white. Her eyes shone almost black contrasted with the braids of warm +gold hair that glistened through a misty veil of Venetian stuff, which +floated about her from time to time and enveloped her, as the blossoms +do a tree. Hamlet could think of nothing but the almond-tree that stood +in full bloom in the little _cortile_ near his lodging. She seemed to +him the incarnation of that exquisite spring-time which had touched +and awakened all the leaves and buds in the sleepy old gardens around +Verona. + +"Mercutio! who is that lady?" + +"The daughter of old Capulet, by her stature." + +"And he that dances with her?" + +"Paris, a kinsman to Can Grande della Scala." + +"Her lover?" + +"One of them." + +"She has others?" + +"Enough to make a squadron; only the blind and aged are exempt." + +Here the music ceased and the dancers dispersed. Hamlet followed the +lady with his eyes, and, seeing her left alone a moment, approached her. +She received him graciously, as a mask receives a mask, and the two +fell to talking, as people do who--have nothing to say to each other and +possess the art of saying it. Presently something in his voice struck +on her ear, a new note, an intonation sweet and strange, that made her +curious. Who was it? It could not be Valentine, nor Anselmo; he was too +tall for Signior Placentio, not stout enough for Lucio; it was not her +cousin Tybalt. Could it be that rash Montague who--Would he dare? Here, +on the very points of their swords? The stream of maskers ebbed and +flowed and surged around them, and the music began again, and Juliet +listened and listened. + +"Who are you, sir," she cried, at last, "that speak our tongue with +feigned accent?" + +"A stranger; an idler in Verona, though not a gay one--a black +butterfly." + +"Our Italian sun will gild your wings for you. Black edged with gilt +goes gay." + +"I am already not so sad-colored as I was." + +"I would fain see your face, sir; if it match your voice, it needs must +be a kindly one." + +"I would we could change faces." + +"So we shall at supper!" + +"And hearts, too?" + +"Nay, I would not give a merry heart for a sorrowful one; but I will +quit my mask, and you yours; yet," and she spoke under her breath, "if +you are, as I think, a gentleman of Verona--a Montague--do not unmask." + +"I am not of Verona, lady; no one knows me here;" and Hamlet threw back +the hood of his domino. Juliet held her mask aside for a moment, and the +two stood looking into each other's eyes. + +"Lady, we have in faith changed faces, at least as I shall carry yours +forever in my memory." + +"And I yours, sir," said Juliet, softly, "wishing it looked not so pale +and melancholy." + +"Hamlet," whispered Mercutio, plucking at his friend's skirt, "the +fellow there, talking with old Capulet--his wife's nephew, Tybalt, +a quarrelsome dog--suspects we are Montagues. Let us get out of this +peaceably, like soldiers who are too much gentlemen to cause a brawl +under a host's roof." + +With this Mercutio pushed Hamlet to the door, where they were joined by +Benvolio. + +Juliet, with her eyes fixed upon the retreating maskers, stretched out +her hand and grasped the arm of an ancient serving-woman who happened to +be passing. + +"Quick, good Nurse! go ask his name of yonder gentleman. Nay, not the +one in green, dear! but he that hath the black domino and purple mask. +What, did I touch your poor rheumatic arm? Ah, go now, sweet Nurse!" + +As the Nurse hobbled off querulously on her errand, Juliet murmured to +herself an old rhyme she knew:-- + + "If he be married, + My grave is like to be my wedding bed!" + +When Hamlet got back to his own chambers he sat on the edge of his couch +in a brown study. The silvery moonlight, struggling through the swaying +branches of a tree outside the window, drifted doubtfully into the room, +and made a parody of that fleecy veil which erewhile had floated about +the lissome form of the lovely Capulet. That he loved her, and must +tell her that he loved her, was a foregone conclusion; but how should +he contrive to see Juliet again? No one knew him in Verona; he had +carefully preserved his incognito; even Mercutio regarded him as simply +a young gentleman from Denmark, taking his ease in a foreign city. +Presented, by Mercutio, as a rich Danish tourist, the Capulets would +receive him courteously, of course; as a visitor, but not as a suitor. +It was in another character that he must be presented--his own. + +He was pondering what steps he could take to establish his identity, +when he remembered the two or three letters which he had stuffed +into his wallet on quitting Elsi-nore. He lighted a taper, and began +examining the papers. Among them were the half dozen billet-doux which +Ophelia had returned to him the night before his departure. They were, +neatly tied together by a length of black ribbon, to which was attached +a sprig of rosemary. + +"That was just like Ophelia!" muttered the young man, tossing the +package into the wallet again; "she was always having cheerful ideas +like that." + +How long ago seemed the night she had handed him these love-letters, in +her demure little way! How misty and remote seemed everything connected +with the old life at Elsinore! His father's death, his mother's +marriage, his anguish and isolation--they were like things that had +befallen somebody else. There was something incredible, too, in his +present situation. Was he dreaming? Was he really in Italy, and in love? + +He hastily bent forward and picked up a square folded paper lying half +concealed under the others. + +"How could I have forgotten it!" he exclaimed. + +It was a missive addressed, in Horatio's angular hand, to the Signior +Capulet of Verona, containing a few lines of introduction from Horatio, +whose father had dealings with some of the rich Lombardy merchants and +knew many of the leading families in the city. With this and several +epistles, preserved by chance, written to him by Queen Gertrude while +he was at the university, Hamlet saw that he would have no difficulty in +proving to the Capulets that he was the Prince of Denmark. + +At an unseemly hour the next morning Mercutio was roused from his +slumbers by Hamlet, who counted every minute a hundred years until he +saw Juliet. Mercutio did not take this interruption too patiently, for +the honest humorist was very serious as a sleeper; but his equilibrium +was quickly restored by Hamlet's revelation. + +The friends were long closeted together, and at the proper, ceremonious +hour for visitors they repaired to the house of Capulet, who did not +hide his sense of the honor done him by the prince. With scarcely any +prelude Hamlet unfolded the motive of his visit, and was listened to +with rapt attention by old Capulet, who inwardly blessed his stars that +he had not given his daughter's hand to the County Paris, as he was on +the point of doing. The ladies were not visible on this occasion; the +fatigues of the ball overnight, etc.; but that same evening Hamlet +was accorded an interview with Juliet and Lady Capulet, and a few days +subsequently all Verona was talking of nothing but the new engagement. + +The destructive Tybalt scowled at first, and twirled his fierce +mustache, and young Paris took to writing dejected poetry; but they both +soon recovered their serenity, seeing that nobody minded them, and went +together arm in arm to pay their respects to Hamlet. + +A new life began now for Hamlet---he shed his inky cloak, and came out +in a doublet of insolent splendor, looking like a dagger-handle newly +gilt. With his funereal gear he appeared to have thrown off something +of his sepulchral gloom. It was impossible to be gloomy with Juliet, +in whom each day developed some sunny charm un-guessed before. Her +freshness and coquettish candor were constant surprises. She had had +many lovers, and she confessed them to Hamlet in the prettiest way. +"Perhaps, my dear," she said to him one evening, with an ineffable +smile, "I might have liked young Romeo very well, but the family were so +opposed to it from the very first. And then he was so--so demonstrative, +don't you know?" + +Hamlet had known of Romeo's futile passion, but he had not been aware +until then that his betrothed was the heroine of the balcony adventure. +On leaving Juliet he-went to look up the Montague; not for the purpose +of crossing rapiers with him, as another man might have done, but to +compliment him on his unexceptionable taste in admiring so rare a lady. + +But Romeo had disappeared in a most unaccountable manner, and his family +were in great tribulation concerning him. It was thought that perhaps +the unrelenting Rosaline (who had been Juliet's frigid predecessor) had +relented, and Montague's man Abram was dispatched to seek Romeo at her +residence; but the Lady Rosaline, who was embroidering on her piazza, +placidly denied all knowledge of him. It was then feared that he had +fallen in one of the customary encounters; but there had been no fight, +and nobody had been killed on either side for nearly twelve hours. +Nevertheless, his exit had the appearance of being final. When Hamlet +questioned Mercutio, the honest soldier laughed and stroked his blonde +mustache. + +"The boy has gone off in a heat, I don't know where--to the icy ends of +the earth, I believe, to cool himself." + +Hamlet regretted that Romeo should have had any feeling in the matter; +but regret was a bitter weed that did not thrive well in the atmosphere +in which the fortunate lover was moving. He saw Juliet every day, and +there was not a fleck upon his happiness, unless it was the garrulous +Nurse, against whom Hamlet had taken a singular prejudice. He considered +her a tiresome old person, not too decent in her discourse at times, and +advised Juliet to get rid of her; but the ancient serving-woman had been +in the family for years, and it was not quite expedient to discharge her +at that late day. + +With the subtile penetration of old age the Nurse instantly detected +Hamlet's dislike, and returned it heartily. + +"Ah, ladybird," she cried one night, "ah, well-a-day! you know not how +to choose a man. An I could choose for you, Jule! By God's lady, there's +Signior Mercutio, a brave gentleman, a merry gentleman, and a virtuous, +I warrant ye, whose little finger-joint is worth all the body of this +blackbird prince, dropping down from Lord knows where to fly off with +the sweetest bit of flesh in Verona. Marry, come up!" + +But this was only a ripple on the stream that flowed so smoothly. Now +and then, indeed, Hamlet felt called upon playfully to chide Juliet for +her extravagance of language, as when, for instance, she prayed that +when he died he might be cut out in little stars to deck the face of +night. Hamlet objected, under any circumstances, to being cut out +in little stars for any illuminating purposes whatsoever. Once she +suggested to her lover that he should come to the garden after the +family retired, and she would speak with him a moment from the balcony. +Now, as there was no obstacle to their seeing each other whenever they +pleased, and as Hamlet was of a nice sense of honor, and since his +engagement a most exquisite practicer of propriety, he did not encourage +Juliet in her thoughtlessness. + +"What!" he cried, lifting his finger at her reprovingly, "romantic +again!" + +This was their nearest approach to a lovers' quarrel. The next day +Hamlet brought her, as peace-offering, a slender gold flask curiously +wrought in niello, which he had had filled with a costly odor at an +apothecary's as he came along. + +"I never saw so lean a thing as that same culler of simples," said +Hamlet, laughing; "a matter of ribs and shanks, a mere skeleton painted +black. It is a rare essence, though. He told me its barbaric botanical +name, but it escapes me." + +"That which we call a rose," said Juliet, holding the perfumery to her +nostrils and inclining herself prettily towards him, "would smell as +sweet by any other name." + +O Youth and Love! O fortunate Time! + +There was a banquet almost every night at the Capulets', and the +Montagues, up the street, kept their blinds drawn down, and Lady +Montague, who had four marriageable, tawny daughters on her hands, was +livid with envy at her neighbor's success. She would rather have had two +or three Montagues prodded through the body than that the prince should +have gone to the rival house. + +Happy Prince! + +If Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Laertes, and the rest of the dismal +people at Elsinore, could have seen him now, they would not have known +him. Where were his wan looks and biting speeches? His eyes were no +longer filled with mournful speculation. He went in glad apparel, and +took the sunshine as his natural inheritance. If he ever fell into +moodiness--it was partly constitutional with him--the shadow fled away +at the first approach of that "loveliest weight on lightest foot." The +sweet Veronese had nestled in his empty heart, and filled it with music. +The ghosts and visions that used to haunt him were laid forever by +Juliet's magic. + +Happy Juliet! + +Her beauty had taken a new gloss. The bud bad grown into a flower, +redeeming the promises of the bud. If her heart beat less wildly, it +throbbed more strongly. If she had given Hamlet of her superabundance of +spirits, he had given her of his wisdom and discretion. She had always +been a great favorite in society; but Verona thought her ravishing now. +The mantua-makers cut their dresses by her patterns, and when she wore +turquoise, garnets went ont of style. Instead of the groans and tears, +and all those distressing events which might possibly have happened if +Juliet had persisted in loving Romeo--listen to her laugh and behold her +merry eyes! + +Every morning either Peter or Gregory might have been seen going up +Hamlet's staircase with a note from Juliet--she had ceased to send the +Nurse on discovering her lover's antipathy to that person--and some +minutes later either Gregory or Peter might have been observed coming +down the staircase with a missive from Hamlet. Juliet had detected his +gift for verse, and insisted, rather capriciously, on having all his +replies in that shape. Hamlet humored her, though he was often hard put +to it; for the Muse is a coy immortal, and will not always come when she +is wanted. Sometimes he was forced to fall back upon previous efforts, +as when he translated these lines into very choice Italian:-- + + "Doubt thou the stars are fire, + Doubt that the sun doth move; + Doubt Truth to be a liar, + But never doubt I love." + +To be sure, he had originally composed this quatrain for Ophelia; but +what would you have? He had scarcely meant it then; he meant it now; +besides, a felicitous rhyme never goes out of fashion. It always fits. + +While transcribing the verse his thoughts naturally reverted to Ophelia, +for the little poesy was full of a faint scent of the past, like a +pressed flower. His conscience did not prick him at all. How fortunate +for him and for her that matters had gone no further between them? +Predisposed to melancholy, and inheriting a not very strong mind from +her father, Ophelia was a lady who needed cheering up, if ever poor lady +did. He, Hamlet, was the last man on the globe with whom she should have +had any tender affiliation. If they had wed, they would have caught +each other's despondency, and died, like a pair of sick ravens, within a +fortnight. What had become of her? Had she gone into a nunnery? He would +make her abbess, if he ever returned to Elsinore. + +After a month or two of courtship, there being no earthly reason to +prolong it, Hamlet and Juliet were privately married in the Franciscan +Chapel, Friar Laurence officiating; but there was a grand banquet +that night at the Capulets', to which all Verona went. At Hamlet's +intercession, the Montagues were courteously asked to this festival. +To the amazement of every one the Montagues accepted the invitation and +came, and were treated royally, and the long, lamentable feud--it would +have sorely puzzled either house to explain what it was all about--was +at an end. The adherents of the Capulets and the Montagues were +forbidden on the spot to bite any more thumbs at each other. + +"It will detract from the general gayety of the town," Mercutio +remarked. "Signior Tybalt, my friend, I shall never have the pleasure of +running you through the diaphragm; a cup of wine with you!" + +The guests were still at supper in the great pavilion erected in +the garden, which was as light as day with the glare of innumerable +flambeaux set among the shrubbery. Hamlet and Juliet, with several +others, had withdrawn from the tables, and were standing in the doorway +of the pavilion, when Hamlet's glance fell upon the familiar form of a +young man who stood with one foot on the lower step, holding his plumed +bonnet in his hand. His hose and doublet were travel-worn, but his +honest face was as fresh as daybreak. + +"What! Horatio?" + +"The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever." + +"Sir, my good friend: I 'll change that name with you. What brings you +to Verona?" + +"I fetch you news, my lord." + +"Good news? Then the king is dead." + +"The king lives, but Ophelia is no more." + +"Ophelia dead!" + +"Not so, my lord; she 's married." + +"I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student." + +"As I do live, my honored lord, 't is true." + +"Married, say you?" + +"Married to him that sent me hither--a gentleman of winning ways and +a most choice conceit, the scion of a noble house here in Verona--one +Romeo." + +The oddest little expression flitted over Juliet's face. There was +never woman yet, even on her bridal day, could forgive a jilted lover +marrying. + +"Ophelia wed!" murmured the bridegroom. + +"Do you know the lady, dear?" + +"Excellent well," replied Hamlet, turning to Juliet; "a most estimable +young person, the daughter of my father's chamberlain. She is rather +given to singing ballads of an elegiac nature," added the prince, +reflectingly, "but our madcap Romeo will cure her of that. Methinks I +see them now"-- + +"Oh, where, my lord?" + +"In my mind's eye, Horatio, surrounded by their little ones--noble +youths and graceful maidens, in whom the impetuosity of the fiery Romeo +is tempered by the pensiveness of the fair Ophelia. I shall take it most +unkindly of them, love," toying with Juliet's fingers, "if they do not +name their first boy Hamlet." + +It was just as my lord Hamlet finished speaking that the last horse-car +for Boston--providentially belated between Water-town and Mount +Auburn--swept round the curve of the track on which I was walking. The +amber glow of the car-lantern lighted up my figure in the gloom, the +driver gave a quick turn on the brake, and the conductor, making +a sudden dexterous clutch at the strap over his head, sounded the +death-knell of my fantasy as I stepped upon the rear platform. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Midnight Fantasy, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MIDNIGHT FANTASY *** + +***** This file should be named 23363.txt or 23363.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23363/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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