Читать книгу Heroines Of Fiction - William Dean Howells - Страница 37

One easily perceives that it is the author, and not a young mediaeval Jewess who is describing the scene in these literary terms; and it is no great wonder that Ivanhoe, finding himself in company with an elderly novelist instead of a beautiful girl, drops off to sleep upon the assurance of victory for his side, after a brief argument upholding the ideal of chivalry against that of humanity, which the supposed Jewess maintains. The passage must often have been praised, and the situation is so well imagined that the unreality of the heroine cannot spoil it quite. It may be said that she is as real as the hero, and she is certainly as well fitted to take the fancy of those boys of all ages to whom the romance of "Ivanhoe" has now almost wholly fallen. Rebecca is not much more probable or palpable in the scenes where she repels the wicked love of the Templar, or meets his accusation before the judges who condemn her to death, or even in that climax where Ivanhoe rises from a sick-bed to do battle for her against her enemy and his. But she is always so much more alive than Rowena, that she exists at least by contrast.

The story in which she has her being seems to have been the first which Scott wrote when he began to be afraid his Scotch stories were wearying his public. The romance which immediately preceded " Ivanhoe was "The Bride of Lammermoor," not perhaps the best of the Scotch stories, but a tale which has most deeply appealed to the hearts of gentle readers. Of all Scott s heroines Lucy Ashton is, after Jeanie Deans, perhaps the most persuasive of her reality. She is almost purely tragical. From the very beginning you can see her dark fate following the yielding and tender creature on ''that way madness lies," and it avails little that the Master of Ravenswood saves her from a mad bull in the opening chapters, or that they plight their troth and have their brief hour of happiness in the shadow of her doom. When you see her at last, gibbering and gloating over the bleeding body of the husband whom she had stabbed on her wedding-night, it is as if you had foreseen it all from the first. She has fewer words in her tragedy than even Ophelia in hers; but she remains in the memory with the like clinging hold upon the pity of the witness. The book is much better in construction than most of Scott's novels; it has far more form than he commonly knew how to give them, and, basing itself so largely as it does upon facts known to him, it has a truth that the others seldom had. This truth, strangely enough, is concentrated in the passive girl who scarcely speaks; who is blown about like a lily in the stormy events and the violent passions that surge around her, and suffers everything, but does nothing. She hardly utters a word in that last scene between Ravenswood and herself, when he returns to the house from which he has been driven with atrocious insult by her mother, to question the hapless creature of her own part in her betrothal to Bucklaw; yet she is the very soul of the tremendous incident.

" He planted himself full in the middle of the apartment, opposite to the table at which Lucy was seated, on whom, as if she had been alone in the chamber, he bent his eyes with a mingled expression of deep grief and deliberate indignation. His dark-colored riding cloak, displaced from one shoulder, hung around one side of his person in the ample folds of the Spanish mantle. His slouched hat, which he had not removed at entrance, gave an additional gloom to his dark features, which, wasted by sorrow and marked by the ghastly look communicated by long illness, added to a countenance naturally somewhat stern and wild, a fierce and even savage expression. . . . He said not a single word, and there was a deep silence in the company for more than two minutes. It was broken by Lady Ashton, who in that space partly recovered her natural audacity. She demanded to know the cause of this unauthorized intrusion. 'That is a question, madam,' said her son, 'which I have the best right to ask.' . . . Bucklaw interposed, saying, ' No man on earth should usurp his previous right in demanding an explanation from the Master.' . . . The passions of the two young men thus counteracting each other, gave Ravenswood leisure to exclaim, in a stern and steady voice, ' Silence!—let him who really seeks danger, take the fitting time when it may be found; my mission here will shortly be accomplished. Is that your handwriting, madam?' he added, in a softer tone, extending towards Miss Ashton her last letter. A faltering 'Yes,' seemed rather to escape from her lips than to be uttered as a voluntary answer. ' And is this your handwriting?' extending towards her their mutual engagement. Lucy remained silent. Terror and a yet stronger and more confused feeling so utterly disturbed her understanding that she probably scarcely comprehended the question that was put to her. . . . 'Sir William Ashton,' said Ravenswood . . . ' if this young lady of her own free will desires the restoration of this contract, as her letter would seem to imply, there is not a withered leaf which this autumn wind strews on the heath, that is more valueless in my eyes. But I must and will hear the truth from her own mouth . . . alone, and without witnesses. Lady Ashton is welcome to remain, but let all others depart.' Ravenswood, when the men had left the room, bolted the door, and returned, raised his hat from his forehead, and gazing upon Lucy with eyes in which an expression of sorrow overcame their late fierceness . . . said,' Do you know me. Miss Ashton? I am still Edgar Ravenswood.' She was silent, and he went on with increasing vehemence, ' I am still that Edgar Ravenswood, who . . . for your sake forgave, nay clasped hands with the oppressor and pillager of his house—the traducer and murderer of his father.' ' My daughter,' answered Lady Ashton, ' has no occasion to dispute the identity of your person; the venom of your present language is sufficient to remind her that she speaks with the mortal enemy of her father. ' ' I pray you to be patient, madam. . . . My answer must come from her own lips. Once more. Miss Lucy Ashton, I am that Ravenswood to whom you granted the solemn engagement which you now desire to retract and cancel.' Lucy's bloodless lips could only falter out the words, 'It was my mother.' 'She speaks truly,' said Lady Ashton. 'It teas I, who, authorized alike by the laws of God and man, advised her and concurred with her to set aside an unhappy and precipitate engagement—and to annul it by the authority of Scripture itself. . . . You have asked what questions you thought fit. You see the total incapacity of my daughter to answer you. You desire to know whether Lucy Ashton of her own free will desires to annul the engagement into which she has been trepanned. . . . Here is the contract which she this morning subscribed . . . with Mr. Hastings of Bucklaw.' Ravenswood gazed upon the deed as if petrified. 'This is, indeed, madam, an undeniable piece of evidence. . . . There, madam,' he said, laying down before Lucy the signed paper and the broken piece of gold—'there are the evidences of your first engagement; may you be more faithful to that which you have just formed. I will trouble you to return the corresponding tokens of my ill-placed confidence—I ought rather to say my egregious folly.' Lucy returned the scornful glance of her lover with a gaze from which perception seemed to have been banished; yet she seemed partly to have understood his meaning, for she raised her hands as if to undo a blue ribbon which she wore about her neck. She was unable to accomplish her purpose, but Lady Ashton cut the ribbon asunder, and detached the broken piece of gold, which Miss Ashton had till then worn in her bosom; the written counterpart of the lover's engagement she for some time had had in her own possession. With a haughty courtesy she delivered both to Ravenswood."

In spite of the slovenly construction of these passages, the repetitions, the touches of melodrama, the whole want of artistic delicacy and precision, the spirit of an immensely affecting tragedy is here present. Lucy's part is so greatly and simply imagined that a word more from her, the least expression of protest or imploring would detract from its heart-breaking beauty. Such a scene could not be the work of less than a master, who alone would know how a little later to add, stiffly and formally, indeed, but with skill to extract yet a drop more of pathos from the fact, "Miss Ashton never alluded to what had passed in the state room. It seemed doubtful if she was even conscious of it, for she was often observed to raise her hands to her neck, as if in search of the ribbon that had been taken from it, and to mutter in surprise and discontent, when she could not find it,' It was the link that bound me to life.' "