DOI Artikel:
Le Gallienne, Richard: Four Prose Francies
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26392#0242
Four Prose Fancies
238
go Benvolio and Mercutio calling him; and now—che jests at
scars who never felt a wound ’—the other young fool is coming
out on the balcony. God help them both ! They have no eyes—
no eyes—or surely they would see the shadow that sings c Love !
Love ! Love ! ’ like a fountain in the moonlight, and then shrinks
away to chuckle c Death ! Death ! Death ! ’ in the darkness ! ”
But, soft, what light from yonder window breaks !
The Sphinx turned to me for sympathy—this time it was the
soul of Shakespeare in her eyes.
“Yes!” I whispered; “it is the Opening of the Eternal
Rose, sung by the Eternal Nightingale ! ”
She pressed my hand approvingly ; and while the lovely voices
made their heavenly love, I slipped out my silver-bound pocket-
book of ivory, and pressed within it the rose which had just fallen
from my lips.
The worst of a great play is that one is so dull between the
acts. Wit is sacrilege, and sentiment is bathos. Not another
rose fell from my lips during the performance, though that I
minded little, as I was the more able to count the pearls that fell
from the Sphinx’s eyes.
It took quite half a bottle of champagne to pull us up to our
usual spirits, as we sat at supper at a window where we could see
London spread out beneath us like a huge black velvet flower,
dotted with fiery embroideries, sudden flaring stamens, and rows
of ant-like fireflies moving in slow zig-zag processions along and
across its petals.
“ How strange it seems,” said the Sphinx, “ to think that for
every two of those moving double-lights, which we know to be
the eyes of hansoms, but which seem up here nothing but gold
dots in a very barbaric pattern of black and gold, there are two
human beings, no doubt at this time of night two lovers, throb-
bing
238
go Benvolio and Mercutio calling him; and now—che jests at
scars who never felt a wound ’—the other young fool is coming
out on the balcony. God help them both ! They have no eyes—
no eyes—or surely they would see the shadow that sings c Love !
Love ! Love ! ’ like a fountain in the moonlight, and then shrinks
away to chuckle c Death ! Death ! Death ! ’ in the darkness ! ”
But, soft, what light from yonder window breaks !
The Sphinx turned to me for sympathy—this time it was the
soul of Shakespeare in her eyes.
“Yes!” I whispered; “it is the Opening of the Eternal
Rose, sung by the Eternal Nightingale ! ”
She pressed my hand approvingly ; and while the lovely voices
made their heavenly love, I slipped out my silver-bound pocket-
book of ivory, and pressed within it the rose which had just fallen
from my lips.
The worst of a great play is that one is so dull between the
acts. Wit is sacrilege, and sentiment is bathos. Not another
rose fell from my lips during the performance, though that I
minded little, as I was the more able to count the pearls that fell
from the Sphinx’s eyes.
It took quite half a bottle of champagne to pull us up to our
usual spirits, as we sat at supper at a window where we could see
London spread out beneath us like a huge black velvet flower,
dotted with fiery embroideries, sudden flaring stamens, and rows
of ant-like fireflies moving in slow zig-zag processions along and
across its petals.
“ How strange it seems,” said the Sphinx, “ to think that for
every two of those moving double-lights, which we know to be
the eyes of hansoms, but which seem up here nothing but gold
dots in a very barbaric pattern of black and gold, there are two
human beings, no doubt at this time of night two lovers, throb-
bing