唐璜 Don Juan 06

She ceased, and turn'd upon her pillow; pale
       She lay, her dark eyes flashing through their tears,
     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,
     And louder than her breathing beats her heart.


     The Senhor Don Alfonso stood confused;
       Antonia bustled round the ransack'd room,
     And, turning up her nose, with looks abused
       Her master and his myrmidons, of whom
     Not one, except the attorney, was amused;
       He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb,
     So there were quarrels, cared not for the cause,
     Knowing they must be settled by the laws.


     With prying snub-nose, and small eyes, he stood,
       Following Antonia's motions here and there,
     With much suspicion in his attitude;
       For reputations he had little care;
     So that a suit or action were made good,
       Small pity had he for the young and fair,
     And ne'er believed in negatives, till these
     Were proved by competent false witnesses.


     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,
     He gain'd no point, except some self-rebukes,
       Added to those his lady with such vigour
     Had pour'd upon him for the last half-hour,
     Quick, thick, and heavy—as a thunder-shower.


     At first he tried to hammer an excuse,
       To which the sole reply was tears and sobs,
     And indications of hysterics, whose
       Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs,
     Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose:
       Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;
     He saw too, in perspective, her relations,
     And then he tried to muster all his patience.


     He stood in act to speak, or rather stammer,
       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 mutter'd, 'D—n her,'
       But nothing else, the time of words was o'er;
     He cast a rueful look or two, and did,
     He knew not wherefore, that which he was bid.


     With him retired his 'posse comitatus,'
       The attorney last, who linger'd near the door
     Reluctantly, still tarrying there as late as
       Antonia let him—not a little sore
     At this most strange and unexplain'd 'hiatus'
       In Don Alfonso's facts, which just now wore
     An awkward look; as he revolved the case,
     The door was fasten'd in his legal face.


     No sooner was it bolted, than—Oh shame!
       O 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 unfilch'd good name!
       But to proceed—for there is more behind:
     With much heartfelt reluctance be it said,
     Young Juan slipp'd half-smother'd, from the bed.


     He had been hid—I don't pretend to say
       How, nor can I indeed describe the where—
     Young, slender, and pack'd 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
     With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.


     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;
     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.


     Of his position I can give no notion:
       '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 answer'd very well;
     Perhaps 't was in a different way applied,
     For David lived, but Juan nearly died.


     What 's to be done? Alfonso will be back
       The moment he has sent his fools away.
     Antonia's skill was put upon the rack,
       But no device could be brought into play—
     And how to parry the renew'd attack?
       Besides, it wanted but few hours of day:
     Antonia puzzled; Julia did not speak,
     But press'd her bloodless lip to Juan's cheek.


     He turn'd his lip to hers, and with his hand
       Call'd back the tangles of her wandering hair;
     Even then their love they could not all command,
       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 whisper'd, in great wrath—'I must deposit
     This pretty gentleman within the closet:


     '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?
       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.


     'Had it but been for a stout cavalier
       Of twenty-five or thirty (come, make haste)—
     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
     Our counsel—(Juan, mind, you must not sleep).'