Sometimes days passed without her making a comment on her grief, but anon she would lament. ‘’Tis not that I love children, Diana, but that I love my spouse. Love him – said I – marry, I adore him! Such is my devotion that were I to die in travail I should be tenfold more happy than to live unchilded.’

  Each morning she writ an account of how the preceeding day had been spent; once by chance I tumbled on the unlocked book and read: ‘I am indeed weary, for what I know of his past assures me that I alone am to blame. Nay, I would yield up everything – cast away my riches – turn to the humblest wife in the land could I but once again wear him the flower of our passion. Yesterday I pondered, ‘twas as if between heaven and me hung a curtain of rusty steel God might not hear through. I have prayed and prayed and naught answers! I am tempted to turn to the Powers of Darkness. Are there no necromancers – no half-devils in human form who may help me? For now I am desperate and would travel over red hot plough-shares to compass my desire.’

  A thousand preparations were made for my cousin’s home-coming. Every friend and kinsman of note was ordered, for the earldom had been given to reward his successful embassy. The Princess Bice grew paler and paler as the day approached, and mention of him brought the poppies to her cheeks. She had devised quaint entertainments, and the thought of his return made her heart beat so loudly that I might hear.

  On an October evening she and I, hearing the beacon fired on Comber Knab, where had been stationed a watcher, set out to drive across the park, where the abysses writhed white vapours, like the steam from ever-shifting pots. She leaned from one window of the chariot; I from the other. The air was soft, but permeated with some subtle dullness; in the far landscape the basin-shaped depression of the Black Rake, surrounded by its tree-fringed cliffs, resembled an immense, solitary mere, with blackly glazed surface. The oaks of Hollym Chase wagged their heads above the underwood; the drowsy rooks wheeled to and fro. Twice the scritch-owl cried, and hills and valleys caught the horrid sound and echoed it with many reverberations; once a pike in the sullen stream sprang up and fell with heavy splashings. This was the good-night of all wild things; for after it the gloom deepened into inkiness, and across the sky was drawn a web denser than that of all former nights.

  At the Cammer-Gate, where the wooden bridge crosses the gulf, the chariot drew up sharply, for an old man barred the way. He spake no word to the drivers, but moved slowly to the door from which my mistress leaned, and in the glimmering light of the lamp I marked his strangeness. His countenance was that of a physician, his attire of velvet edged with sable. He spoke in a foreign tongue, and she answered, her voice full of sharp gladness. ‘Twas not Italian – that I knew full well – but rather a barbarous lingo. Soon he threw into her lap a small packet, and pointing with a yellow hand to a copse of beeches, allowed the vehicle to pass. In a few minutes my lord had met us, and taken his seat by his wife’s side.

  That night he was mightily loving. After supper, when the dance was opened, he was even handsomer than in the days when he had been lord of my own heart; and the Princess Bice seemed transfigured with delight. All the folk noted it; and many lamented that so fit a couple should be so unprofitable. Then, the morrow being Sunday, Dean Bastler, my mother’s uncle, who was deaf and decrepit, read his sermon on the relationship of Elkanah and his wife, taking for his text ‘Penninah had children, but Hannah had no children.’ He had never been a respecter of persons, and the discourse was little qualified to please, though, forsooth, the gaffer was eloquent enough. He told naught of Hannah’s joy, but recounted from history many instances of unprofitable wedlock, and declared that SIN alone was the cause. At the end he offered a lengthy prayer that the Almighty would see fit to bestow children on his host and hostess; and my lord, covering his face with his hands, which thing he was not wont to do, cried out Amen! As we left the chapel his lady fell on his bosom and whispered, ‘Am I not better to thee than ten sons?’ But he put her from him in silence.

  An hour later I was sent for to her chamber, where I found her worn out with the frenzy of weeping. “All is over,’ she said. ‘For love’s sake be it done.’

  My lord had cause to set out for London soon afterwards, and she bade him farewell with much tenderness. That night she drew me to a private place and undid before me the packet the old man had flung into her lap. ‘All it holds I know,’ she said, ‘but ‘twill be strange to you.’ And she showed me a handful of pastilicos. ‘Light one,’ she said.

  I did as she bade me, and instantly a silence fell upon the place, so that even the crackling of the sea-coal was no longer heard. The air became redolent with marvellous perfumes, and I heard one tap-tapping at a door I wot not of, and felt unseen hands touching mine. She laughed, ‘Tonight I will lie in the state bed,’ she said. ‘A whimzie has taken me; see that the purest linen is laid, and every window tightly fastened.’

  Midnight was near when she withdrew from the company that was still in the house. At the foot of the staircase she trembled violently, and would have me clasp her waist; and when I had helped her undress she delayed me with a thousand pretexts, sitting uneasily in her chair by the fire and talking feverishly. On a table I saw in a copper chafing dish a charm of pastilicos; I made as though I would disturb its symmetry, but she called me to her side. ‘Nay, Diana, do not destroy my plan! She gasped. ‘Give me the taper.’

  I placed it in her hands; she lighted it, and moved to the chafing dish and touched the pastilicos one by one. Then I flew to the door, but she followed me open mouthed and caught me in her arms. Her lips said, though no sound came,

  ‘Stay with me! stay with me!’

  My limbs lost all power and I fell to the floor. The Princess Bice crawled into the bed. From the pastilicos arose an angry melody; then all was silent. Soon the air of the chamber trembled and gathered together over the smoulderings; and hovering there I beheld the figure of a man so fearfully and miraculously beautiful that my eyes were dazzled. The curtains parted and fell to, and I saw no more.

  At daybreak I felt her breath upon my cheek, and heard her command of silence. Some time before noon all the servants were called together in the Council Room, where my mistress, very haggard but full of triumph, sat in the great seat from which Mall of Broadlow had dispensed judgment.

  ‘Friends,’ she said sogtly, ‘for I may call you friends, I have news of import. Your master’s trouble will soon be removed, for I have cause – and ‘tis not hope now, but truth certainly – to believe that in due time I shall bring him a child.’ So unexpected was her announcement that even those who had regarded her with disfavour, fell to their knees, and, as she passed through their midst, caught the edges of her skirt to kiss. Dean Bastler had stood at the door and one had repeated her words loudly, and he raised his hands in benediction; but she passed without any sign, and, although she spoke not of it to her guests, all matrons divined the cause of her vapourish spirits. And when my lord returned ‘twas to find the house mad with delight. The months passed quickly; all preparations were made for the lying-in; but the Princess Bice herself took interest in naught save her husband’s devotion.

  The night of her lightening came at last, and by her request I sat with her before her labour. She had instructed me to light at a certain time the pastilico that still remained. As the clock struck I obeyed, and saw her rise from her bed and leave the chamber, ever increasing the space between us; I followed – sank upon the stairs – strove vainly to cry for succour.

  Afterwards I crawled on hands and knees through many long deserted passages, and into the open park. Her bare feet passed hurriedly over the grass in the distance, then turned across to the road, and to the wooden bridge where we had met the old man. She reached the beech copse, and ere she entered a flame leapt forward to embrace her; I heard a long and terrible sigh. From the house came a crowd of searchers, headed by my lord; amidst the heart-burnt wood they found Bab lying on a bed of charred leaves.

  UNDER THE HILL

  Aubrey Beardsley (1894)

  UNDER THE HILL

  OR THE STORY OF VENUS AND TANNHÄUSER,

  IN WHICH IS SET FORTH AN EXACT ACCOUNT

  OF THE MANNER OF STATE HELD BY

  MADAME VENUS, GODDESS AND MERETRIX,

  UNDER THE FAMOUS HORSELBERG,

  AND CONTAINING THE ADVENTURES OF

  TANNHÄUSER IN THAT PLACE,

  HIS JOURNEYING TO ROME,

  AND RETURN TO THE LOVING MOUNTAIN,

  BY

  AUBREY BEARDSLEY

  TO

  THE MOST EMINENT AND REVERED PRINCE

  GIULIO POLDO PEZZOLI

  CARDINAL OF THE HOLY ROMAN CHURCH

  TITULAR BISHOP OF S. MARIA IN TRASTEVERE

  ARCHBISHOP OF OSTIA AND VELLETRI

  NUNCIO TO THE HOLY SEE

  IN NICARAGUA AND PATAGONIA

  A FATHER TO THE POOR

  A REFORMER OF ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE

  A PATTERN OF LEARNING

  WISDOM AND HOLINESS OF LIFE

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH DUE REVERENCE

  BY HIS HUMBLE SERVITOR

  A SCRIVENER AND LIMNER OF WORDLY THINGS

  WHO MADE THIS BOOK

  AUBREY BEARDSLEY

  MOST EMINENT PRINCE,

  I KNOW NOT BY WHAT MISCHANCE THE WRITING OF EPISTLES DEDICATORY HAS FALLEN INTO DISUSE, WHETHER THROUGH THE VANITY OF AUTHORS OR THE HUMILITY OF PATRONS. BUT THE PRACTICE SEEMS TO ME SO VERY BEAUTIFUL AND BECOMING THAT I HAVE VENTURED TO MAKE AN ESSAY IN THE MODEST ART, AND LAY WITH FORMALITIES MY FIRST BOOK AT YOUR FEET. I HAVE, IT MUST BE CONFESSED, MANY FEARS LEST I SHALL BE ARRAIGNED OF PRESUMPTION IN CHOOSING SO EXALTED A NAME AS YOUR OWN TO PLACE AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS HISTORY; BUT I HOPE THAT SUCH A CENSURE WILL NOT BE TOO LIGHTLY PASSED UPON ME, FOR IF I AM GUILTY IT IS BUT OF A MOST NATURAL PRIDE THAT THE ACCIDENTS OF MY LIFE SHOULD ALLOW ME TO SAIL THE LITTLE PINNACE OF MY WIT UNDER YOUR PROTECTION.

  BUT THOUGH I CAN CLEAR MYSELF OF SUCH A CHARGE, I AM STILL MINDED TO USE THE TONGUE OF APOLOGY, FOR WITH WHAT FACE CAN I OFFER YOU A BOOK TREATING OF SO VAIN AND FANTASTICAL A THING AS LOVE? I KNOW THAT IN THE JUDGMENT OF MANY THE AMOROUS PASSION IS ACCOUNTED A SHAMEFUL THING AND RIDICULOUS; INDEED IT MUST BE CONFESSED THAT MORE BLUSHES HAVE RISEN FOR LOVE’S SAKE THAN FOR ANY OTHER CAUSE, AND THAT LOVERS ARE AN ETERNAL LAUGHING-STOCK. STILL, AS THE BOOK WILL BE FOUND TO CONTAIN MATTER OF DEEPER IMPORT THAN MERE VENERY, INASMUCH AS IT TREATS OF THE GREAT CONTRITION OF ITS CHIEFEST CHARACTER, AND OF CANONICAL THINGS IN CERTAIN PAGES, I AM NOT WITHOUT HOPES THAT YOUR EMINENCE WILL PARDON MY WRITING OF THE HILL OF VENUS, FOR WHICH EXTRAVAGANCE LET MY YOUTH EXCUSE ME.

  THEN I MUST CRAVE YOUR FORGIVENESS FOR ADDRESSING YOU IN A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN THE ROMAN, BUT MY SMALL FREEDOM IN LATINITY FORBIDS ME TO WANDER BEYOND THE IDIOM OF MY VERNACULAR. I WOULD NOT FOR THE WORLD THAT YOUR DELICATE SOUTHERN EAR SHOULD BE OFFENDED BY A BARBAROUS ASSAULT OF RUDE AND GOTHIC WORDS; BUT METHINKS NO LANGUAGE IS RUDE THAT CAN BOAST POLITE WRITERS, AND NOT A FEW SUCH HAVE FLOURISHED IN THIS COUNTRY IN TIMES& PAST, BRINGING OUR COMMON SPEECH TO VERY GREAT PERFECTION. IN THE PRESENT AGE, ALAS! OUR PENS ARE RAVISHED BY UNLETTERED& AUTHORS AND UNMANNERED CRITICS, THAT MAKE A HAVOC RATHER THAN A BUILDING, A WILDERNESS RATHER THAN A GARDEN. BUT, ALACK! WHAT BOOTS IT TO DROP TEARS UPON THE PRETERIT?

  IT IS NOT OF OUR OWN SHORTCOMINGS THOUGH, BUT OF YOUR NOW GREAT MERITS THAT I SHOULD SPEAK, ELSE I SHOULD BE FORGETFUL OF THE DUTIES I HAVE DRAWN UPON MYSELF IN ELECTING TO ADDRESS YOU IN A DEDICATION. IT IS OF YOUR NOBLE VIRTUES (THOUGH ALL THE WORLD KNOW OF ‘EM), YOUR TASTE AND WIT, YOUR CARE FOR LETTERS, AND VERY REAL REGARD FOR THE ARTS THAT I MUST BE THE PROCLAIMER.

  THOUGH IT BE TRUE THAT ALL MEN HAVE SUFFICIENT WIT TO PASS A JUDGMENT ON THIS OR THAT, AND NOT A FEW SUFFICIENT IMPUDENCE TO PRINT THE SAME (THE LAST BEING COMMONLY ACCOUNTED CRITICS), I HAVE EVER HELD THAT THE CRITICAL FACULTY IS MORE RARE THAN THE INVENTIVE. IT IS A FACULTY YOUR EMINENCE POSSESSES IN SO GREAT A DEGREE THAT YOUR PRAISE OR BLAME IS SOMETHING ORACULAR, YOUR UTTERANCE INFALLIBLE AS GREAT GENIUS OR AS A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. YOUR MIND, I KNOW, REJOICING IN FINE DISTINCTIONS AND SUBTLE PROCEDURES OF THOUGHT, BEAUTIFULLY DISCURSIVE RATHER THAN HASTILY CONTRIBUTED, HAS FOUND IN CRITICISM ITS HAPPIEST EXERCISE. IT IS A PITY THAT SO PERFECT A MECENAS SHOULD HAVE NO HORACE TO BEFRIEND, NO GEORGICS TO ACCEPT; FOR THE OFFICES AND FUNCTION OF PATRON OR CRITIC MUST OF NECESSITY BE LESSENED IN AN AGE OF LITTLE MEN AND LITTLE WORK. IN TIMES PAST IT WAS NOTHING DEROGATORY FOR GREAT PRINCES AND MEN OF STATE TO EXTEND THEIR LOVES AND FAVOUR TO POETS, FOR THEREBY THEY RECEIVED AS MUCH HONOUR AS THEY CONFERRED. DID NOT PRINCE FESTUS WITH PRIDE TAKE THE MASTERWORK OF JULIAN INTO HIS PROTECTION, AND WAS NOT THE ÆNEIS A PRETTY THING TO OFFER CÆSAR?

  LEARNING WITHOUT APPRECIATION IS A THING OF NAUGHT, BUT KNOW NOT WHICH IS GREATEST IN YOU — YOUR LOVE OF THE ARTS, OR YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF ‘EM. WHAT WONDER THEN THAT I AM STUDIOUS TO PLEASE YOU, AND DESIROUS OF YOUR PROTECTION? HOW DEEPLY THANKFUL I AM FOR YOUR PAST AFFECTIONS YOU KNOW WELL, YOUR GREAT KINDNESS AND LIBERALITY HAVING FAR OUTGONE MY SLIGHT MERITS AND SMALL ACCOMPLISHMENTS THAT SEEMED SCARCE TO WAR RANT ANY FAVOUR. ALAS! ‘TIS A SLIGHT OFFERING I MAKE YOU NOW, BUT IF AFTER GLANCING INTO ITS PACES (SAY OF AN EVENING UPON YOUR TERRACE) YOU SHOULD DEEM IT WORTHY OF THE REMOTEST PLACE IN YOUR PRINCELY LIBRARY, THE KNOWLEDGE THAT IT RESTED THERE WOULD BE REWARD SUFFICIENT FOR MY LABOURS, AND A CROWNING HAPPINESS TO MY PLEASURE IN THE WRITING OF THIS SLENDER BOOK.

  THE HUMBLE AND OBEDIENT SERVANT OF YOUR EMINENCE,

  AUBREY BEARDSLEY.

  CHAPTER I

  How the Chevalier Tannhäuser entered into the Hill of Venus

  The Chevalier Tannhäuser, having lighted off his horse, stood doubt fully for a moment beneath the sombre gateway of the mysterious Hill, troubled with an exquisite fear lest a day’s travel should have too cruelly undone the laboured niceness of his dress. His hand, slim and gracious as La Marquise du Deffand’s in the drawing by Carmontelle, played nervously about the gold hair that fell upon his shoulders like a finely-curled peruke, and from point to point of a precise toilet the fingers wandered, quelling the little mutinies of cravat and ruffle.

  It was taper-time; when the tired earth puts on its cloak of mists and shadows, when the enchanted woods are stirred with light foot falls and slender voices of the fairies, when all the air is full of delicate influences, and even the beaux, seated at their dressing-tables, dream a little.

  A delicious moment, thought Tannhäuser, to slip into exile.

  The place where he stood waved drowsily with strange flowers, heavy with perfume, dripping with odours.

  Gloomy and nameless weeds not to be found in Mentzelius.

  Huge moths, so richly winged they must have banqueted upon tapestries and royal stuffs, slept on the pillars that flanked either side of the gateway, and the eyes of all the moths remained open and were burning and bursting with a mesh of veins. The pillars were fashioned in some pale stone and rose up like hymns in the praise of pleasure, for from cap to base, each one was carved with loving sculptures, showing such a cunning invention and such a curious knowledge, that Tannhäuser lingered not a little in reviewing them. They surpassed all that Japan has ever pictured from her maisons vertes, all that was ever painted in the cool bath rooms of Cardinal La Motte, and even outdid the astonishing illus trations to Jones’s “Nursery Numbers”.

  “A pretty portal,” murmured the Chevalier, correcting his sash.

  As he spoke, a faint sound of singing was breathed out from the mountain, faint music as strange and distant as sea-legends that are heard in shells.

  “The Vespers of Venus, I take it,” said Tannhäuser, and struck a few chords of accompaniment, ever so lightly, upon his little lute. Softly across the spell-bound threshold the song floated and wreathed itself about the subtle columns, till the moths were touched with passion and moved quaintly in their sleep. One of them was awakened by the intenser notes of the Chevalier’s lute-strings, and fluttered into the cave. Tannhäuser felt it was his cue for entry.

  “Adieu,” he exclaimed with an inclusive gesture, “and goodbye, Madonna,” as the cold circle of the moon began to show, beautiful and full of enchantments. There was a shadow of sentiment in his voice as he spoke the words.

  “Would to heaven,” he sighed, “I might receive the assurance of a looking-glass before I make my debut! However, as she is a goddess, I doubt not her eyes are a little sated with perfection, and may not be displeased to see it crowned with a tiny fault.”

  A wild rose had caught upon the trimmings of his ruff, and in the first flush of displeasure he would have struck it brusquely away, and most severely punished the offending flower. But the ruffled mood lasted only a moment, for there was something so deliciously incongruous in the hardy petal’s invasion of so delicate a thing, that Tannhäuser withheld the finger of resentment and vowed that the wild rose should stay where it had clung — a passport, as it were, from the upper to the lower world.

  “The very excess and violence of the fault,” he said, “will be its excuse;” and, undoing a tangle in the tassel of his stick, stepped into the shadowy corridor that ran into the bosom of the wan hill — stepped with the admirable aplomb and unwrinkled suavity of Don Juan.

  CHAPTER II

  Of the manner in which Venus was coiffed and prepared for supper

  Before a toilet that shone like the altar of Notre Dame des Victoires, Venus was seated in a little dressing-gown of black and heliotrope. The coiffeur Cosmé was caring for her scented chevelure, and with tiny silver tongs, warm from the caresses of the flame, made delicious intelligent curls that fell as lightly as a breath about her forehead and over her eyebrows, and clustered like tendrils round her neck. Her three favourite girls, Pappelarde, Blanchemains and Loreyne, waited immediately upon her with perfume and powder in delicate flacons and frail cassolettes, and held in porcelain jars the ravishing paints prepared by Châteline for those cheeks and lips that had grown a little pale with anguish of exile. Her three favourite boys, Claude, Clair and Sarrasine, stood amorously about with salver, fan and napkin. Millamant held a slight tray of slippers, Minette some tender gloves, La Popelinière — mistress of the robes — was ready with a frock of yellow and white, La Zambinella bore the jewels, Florizel some flowers, Amadour a box of various pins, and Vadius a box of sweets.