The Night Before

Look you, Dominie; look you, and listen!

Look in my face, first; search every line there;

Mark every feature, — chin, lip, and forehead!

Look in my eyes, and tell me the lesson

You read there; measure my nose, and tell me

Where I am wanting! A man's nose, Dominie,

Is often the cast of his inward spirit;

So mark mine well. But why do you smile so?

Pity, or what? Is it written all over,

This face of mine, with a brute's confession?

Nothing but sin there? nothing but hell-scars?

Or is it because there is something better —

A glimmer of good, maybe — or a shadow

Of something that's followed me down from childhood —

Followed me all these years and kept me,

Spite of my slips and sins and follies,

Spite of my last red sin, my murder, —

Just out of hell? Yes? something of that kind?

And you smile for that? You're a good man, Dominie,

The one good man in the world who knows me, —

My one good friend in a world that mocks me,

Here in this hard stone cage. But I leave it

To-morrow. To-morrow! My God! am I crying?

Are these things tears? Tears! What! am I frightened?

I, who swore I should go to the scaffold

With big strong steps, and — No more. I thank you,

But no — I am all right now! No! — listen!

I am here to be hanged; to be hanged to-morrow

At six o'clock, when the sun is rising.

And why am I here? Not a soul can tell you

But this poor shivering thing before you,

This fluttering wreck of the man God made him,

For God knows what wild reason. Hear me,

And learn from my lips the truth of my story.

There's nothing strange in what I shall tell you,

Nothing mysterious, nothing unearthly, —

But damnably human, — and you shall hear it.

Not one of those little black lawyers had guessed it;

The judge, with his big bald head, never knew it;

And the jury ( God rest their poor souls! ) never dreamed it.

Once there were three in the world who could tell it;

Now there are two. There'll be two to-morrow, —

You, my friend, and — But there's the story: —

When I was a boy the world was heaven.

I never knew then that the men and the women

Who petted and called me a brave big fellow

Were ever less happy than I; but wisdom —

Which comes with the years, you know — soon showed me

The secret of all my glittering childhood,

The broken key to the fairies’ castle

That held my life in the fresh, glad season

When I was the king of the earth. Then slowly —

And yet so swiftly! — there came the knowledge

That the marvellous life I had lived was my life;

That the glorious world I had loved was my world;

And that every man, and every woman,

And every child was a different being,

Wrought with a different heat, and fired

With passions born of a single spirit;

That the pleasure I felt was not their pleasure,

Nor my sorrow — a kind of nameless pity

For something, I knew not what — their sorrow.

And thus was I taught my first hard lesson, —

The lesson we suffer the most in learning:

That a happy man is a man forgetful

Of all the torturing ills around him.

When or where I first met the woman

I cherished and made my wife, no matter.

Enough to say that I found her and kept her

Here in my heart with as pure a devotion

As ever Christ felt for his brothers. Forgive me

For naming His name in your patient presence;

But I feel my words, and the truth I utter

Is God's own truth. I loved that woman, —

Not for her face, but for something fairer,

Something diviner, I thought, than beauty:

I loved the spirit — the human something

That seemed to chime with my own condition,

And make soul-music when we were together;

And we were never apart, from the moment

My eyes flashed into her eyes the message

That swept itself in a quivering answer

Back through my strange lost being. My pulses

Leapt with an aching speed; and the measure

Of this great world grew small and smaller,

Till it seemed the sky and the land and the ocean

Closed at last in a mist all golden

Around us two. And we stood for a season

Like gods outflung from chaos, dreaming

That we were the king and the queen of the fire

That reddened the clouds of love that held us

Blind to the new world soon to be ours —

Ours to seize and sway. The passion

Of that great love was a nameless passion,

Bright as the blaze of the sun at noonday,

Wild as the flames of hell; but, mark you,

Never a whit less pure for its fervor.

The baseness in me ( for I was human )

Burned like a worm, and perished; and nothing

Was left me then but a soul that mingled

Itself with hers, and swayed and shuddered

In fearful triumph. When I consider

That helpless love and the cursed folly

That wrecked my life for the sake of a woman

Who broke with a laugh the chains of her marriage

( Whatever the word may mean ), I wonder

If all the woe was her sin, or whether

The chains themselves were enough to lead her

In love's despite to break them.... Sinners

And saints — I say — are rocked in the cradle,

But never are known till the will within them

Speaks in its own good time. So I foster

Even to-night for the woman who wronged me,

Nothing of hate, nor of love, but a feeling

Of still regret; for the man — But hear me,

And judge for yourself: —

For a time the seasons

Changed and passed in a sweet succession

That seemed to me like an endless music:

Life was a rolling psalm, and the choirs

Of God were glad for our love. I fancied

All this, and more than I dare to tell you

To-night, — yes, more than I dare to remember;

And then — well, the music stopped. There are moments

In all men's lives when it stops, I fancy, —

Or seems to stop, — till it comes to cheer them

Again with a larger sound. The curtain

Of life just then is lifted a little

To give to their sight new joys — new sorrows —

Or nothing at all, sometimes. I was watching

The slow, sweet scenes of a golden picture,

Flushed and alive with a long delusion

That made the murmur of home, when I shuddered

And felt like a knife that awful silence

That comes when the music goes — forever.

The truth came over my life like a darkness

Over a forest where one man wanders,

Worse than alone. For a time I staggered

And stumbled on with a weak persistence

After the phantom of hope that darted

And dodged like a frightened thing before me,

To quit me at last, and vanish. Nothing

Was left me then but the curse of living

And bearing through all my days the fever

And thirst of a poisoned love. Were I stronger,

Or weaker, perhaps my scorn had saved me,

Given me strength to crush my sorrow

With hate for her and the world that praised her —

To have left her, then and there — to have conquered

That old false life with a new and a wiser, —

Such things are easy in words. You listen,

And frown, I suppose, that I never mention

That beautiful word, FORGIVE! — I forgave her

First of all; and I praised kind Heaven

That I was a brave, clean man to do it;

And then I tried to forget. Forgiveness!

What does it mean when the one forgiven

Shivers and weeps and clings and kisses

The credulous fool that holds her, and tells him

A thousand things of a good man's mercy,

And then slips off with a laugh and plunges

Back to the sin she has quit for a season,

To tell him that hell and the world are better

For her than a prophet's heaven? Believe me,

The love that dies ere its flames are wasted

In search of an alien soul is better,

Better by far than the lonely passion

That burns back into the heart that feeds it.

For I loved her still, and the more she mocked me, —

Fooled with her endless pleading promise

Of future faith, — the more I believed her

The penitent thing she seemed; and the stronger

Her choking arms and her small hot kisses

Bound me and burned my brain to pity,

The more she grew to the heavenly creature

That brightened the life I had lost forever.

The truth was gone somehow for the moment;

The curtain fell for a time; and I fancied

We were again like gods together,

Loving again with the old glad rapture.

But scenes like these, too often repeated,

Failed at last, and her guile was wasted.

I made an end of her shrewd caresses

And told her a few straight words. She took them

Full at their worth — and the farce was over.

At first my dreams of the past upheld me,

But they were a short support: the present

Pushed them away, and I fell. The mission

Of life ( whatever it was ) was blasted;

My game was lost. And I met the winner

Of that foul deal as a sick slave gathers

His painful strength at the sight of his master;

And when he was past I cursed him, fearful

Of that strange chance which makes us mighty

Or mean, or both. I cursed him and hated

The stones he pressed with his heel; I followed

His easy march with a backward envy,

And cursed myself for the beast within me.

But pride is the master of love, and the vision

Of those old days grew faint and fainter:

The counterfeit wife my mercy sheltered

Was nothing now but a woman, — a woman

Out of my way and out of my nature.

My battle with blinded love was over,

My battle with aching pride beginning.

If I was the loser at first, I wonder

If I am the winner now!... I doubt it.

My life is a losing game; and to-morrow —

To-morrow! — Christ! did I say to-morrow?...

Is your brandy good for death?... There, — listen: —

When love goes out, and a man is driven

To shun mankind for the scars that make him

A joke for all chattering tongues, he carries

A double burden. The woes I suffered

After that hard betrayal made me

Pity, at first, all breathing creatures

On this bewildered earth. I studied

Their faces and made for myself the story

Of all their scattered lives. Like brothers

And sisters they seemed to me then; and I nourished

A stranger friendship wrought in my fancy

Between those people and me. But somehow,

As time went on, there came queer glances

Out of their eyes, and the shame that stung me

Harassed my pride with a crazed impression

That every face in the surging city

Was turned to me; and I saw sly whispers,

Now and then, as I walked and wearied

My wasted life twice over in bearing

With all my sorrow the sorrows of others, —

Till I found myself their fool. Then I trembled, —

A poor scared thing, — and their prying faces

Told me the ghastly truth: they were laughing

At me and my fate. My God, I could feel it —

That laughter! And then the children caught it;

And I, like a struck dog, crept and listened.

And then when I met the man who had weakened

A woman's love to his own desire,

It seemed to me that all hell were laughing

In fiendish concert! I was their victim —

And his, and hate's. And there was the struggle!

As long as the earth we tread holds something

A tortured heart can love, the meaning

Of life is not wholly blurred; but after

The last loved thing in the world has left us,

We know the triumph of hate. The glory

Of good goes out forever; the beacon

Of sin is the light that leads us downward —

Down to the fiery end. The road runs

Right through hell; and the souls that follow

The cursed ways where its windings lead them

Suffer enough, I say, to merit

All grace that a God can give. — The fashion

Of our belief is to lift all beings

Born for a life that knows no struggle

In sin's tight snares to eternal glory —

All apart from the branded millions

Who carry through life their faces graven

With sure brute scars that tell the story

Of their foul, fated passions. Science

Has yet no salve to smooth or soften

The cradle-scars of a tyrant's visage;

No drug to purge from the vital essence

Of souls the sleeping venom. Virtue

May flower in hell, when its roots are twisted

And wound with the roots of vice; but the stronger

Never is known till there comes that battle

With sin to prove the victor. Perilous

Things are these demons we call our passions:

Slaves are we of their roving fancies,

Fools of their devilish glee. — You think me,

I know, in this maundering way designing

To lighten the load of my guilt and cast it

Half on the shoulders of God. But hear me!

I'm partly a man, — for all my weakness, —

If weakness it were to stand and murder

Before men's eyes the man who had murdered

Me, and driven my burning forehead

With horns for the world to laugh at. Trust me!

And try to believe my words but a portion

Of what God's purpose made me! The coward

Within me cries for this; and I beg you

Now, as I come to the end, to remember

That women and men are on earth to travel

All on a different road. Hereafter

The roads may meet.... I trust in something —

I know not what....

Well, this was the way of it: —

Stung with the shame and the secret fury

That comes to the man who has thrown his pittance

Of self at a traitor's feet, I wandered

Weeks and weeks in a baffled frenzy,

Till at last the devil spoke. I heard him,

And laughed at the love that strove to touch me, —

The dead, lost love; and I gripped the demon

Close to my breast, and held him, praising

The fates and the furies that gave me the courage

To follow his wild command. Forgetful

Of all to come when the work was over, —

There came to me then no stony vision

Of these three hundred days, — I cherished

An awful joy in my brain. I pondered

And weighed the thing in my mind, and gloried

In life to think that I was to conquer

Death at his own dark door, — and chuckled

To think of it done so cleanly. One evening

I knew that my time had come. I shuddered

A little, but rather for doubt than terror,

And followed him, — led by the nameless devil

I worshipped and called my brother. The city

Shone like a dream that night; the windows

Flashed with a piercing flame, and the pavements

Pulsed and swayed with a warmth — or something

That seemed so then to my feet — and thrilled me

With a quick, dizzy joy; and the women

And men, like marvellous things of magic,

Floated and laughed and sang by my shoulder,

Sent with a wizard motion. Through it

And over and under it all there sounded

A murmur of life, like bees; and I listened

And laughed again to think of the flower

That grew, blood-red, for me!... This fellow

Was one of the popular sort who flourish

Unruffled where gods would fall. For a conscience

He carried a snug deceit that made him

The man of the time and the place, whatever

The time or the place might be. Were he sounding,

With a genial craft that cloaked its purpose,

Nigh to itself, the depth of a woman

Fooled with his brainless art, or sending

The midnight home with songs and bottles, —

The cad was there, and his ease forever

Shone with the smooth and slippery polish

That tells the snake. That night he drifted

Into an up-town haunt and ordered —

Whatever it was — with a soft assurance

That made me mad as I stood behind him,

Gripping his death, and waited. Coward,

I think, is the name the world has given

To men like me; but I'll swear I never

Thought of my own disgrace when I shot him —

Yes, in the back, — I know it, I know it

Now; but what if I do?... As I watched him

Lying there dead in the scattered sawdust,

Wet with a day's blown froth, I noted

That things were still; that the walnut tables,

Where men but a moment before were sitting,

Were gone; that a screen of something around me

Shut them out of my sight. But the gilded

Signs of a hundred beers and whiskeys

Flashed from the walls above, and the mirrors

And glasses behind the bar were lighted

In some strange way, and into my spirit

A thousand shafts of terrible fire

Burned like death, and I fell. The story

Of what came then, you know.

But tell me,

What does the whole thing mean? What are we, —

Slaves of an awful ignorance? puppets

Pulled by a fiend? or gods, without knowing it?

Do we shut from ourselves our own salvation, —

Or what do we do! I tell you, Dominie,

There are times in the lives of us poor devils

When heaven and hell get mixed. Though conscience

May come like a whisper of Christ to warn us

Away from our sins, it is lost or laughed at, —

And then we fall. And for all who have fallen —

Even for him — I hold no malice,

Nor much compassion: a mightier mercy

Than mine must shrive him. — And I — I am going

Into the light? — or into the darkness?

Why do I sit through these sickening hours,

And hope? Good God! are they hours? — hours?

Yes! I am done with days. And to-morrow —

We two may meet! To-morrow! — To-morrow!...