Chronicles and Characters :: :: University of Virginia Library

'T was neither day nor night, but both together
Mix'd in a muddy smudge of London weather,
And the dull pouring of perpetual
Dim rain was vague, and vast, and over all.

She stray'd on thro' the rain, and thro' the mud,
That did the slop-fed filmy city flood,
Meekly unmindful as are wretches, who,
Accustom'd to discomfortings, pursue
Their paths scarce conscious of the more or less
Of misery mingled with each day's distress.
Albeit the ghostly rag, too thin to call
Even the bodily remnant of a shawl,
(Mere heaps of holes to one another stitch'd)
That tightly was about her shoulders twitch'd,
As, at each step, the fretful cough, in vain
By its vext victim check'd, broke loose again,
And shiver'd thro' it, dripping drop by drop,

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Contrived the flaccid petticoat to sop
With the chill surcharge of its oozy welt.

The mud was everywhere. It seem'd to melt
Out of the grimy houses, trickling down
Those brick-work blocks that at each other frown,
Unsociable, tho' squeezed and jamm'd so close
Together; all monotonously morose,
And claiming each, behind his iron rail,
The smug importance of a private jail.
It seem'd to stuff the blurr'd and spongy sky;
To clog the slimy streets; and fiercely try
To climb the doorsteps; blind with spatter'd filth
The dismal lamps; and spew out its sick spilth
At unawares, from hidingplaces, known
In dark street-corners to its spite alone.
She stray'd on thro' the mud: 'twas nothing new:
And thro' the rain—the rain? it was mud too!
The woman still was young, and Nature meant,
Doubtless, she should be fair; but that intent
Hunger, in haste, had marr'd, or toil, or both.
There was no colour in the quiet mouth,
Nor fulness; yet it had a ghostly grace
Pathetically pale. The thin young face
Was interpenetrated tenderly
With soft significance. The warm brown eye,
And warm brown hair, had gentle gleams. Perchance
Those gracious tricks of gesture and of glance,

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Those dear and innocent arts,—a woman's ways
Of wearing pretty looks, and winning praise,
—The pleasantness of pleasing, and the skill,
Were native to this woman,—woman still,
Tho' woman wither'd. There's a last degree
Of misery that is sexless wholly. She
Was yet what ye are, mothers, sisters, wives,
That are so sweet and lovely in our lives;—
A woman still, for all her wither'd look,
Even as a faded flower in a book
Is still a flower.

II.

Dark darker grows. The lamps
Of London, flaring thro' the foggy damps,
Glare up and down the grey streets ghostily,
And the long roaring of loud wheels rolls by.
The huge hump-shoulder'd bridge is reach'd. She stops.
The shadowy stream beneath it slides and drops
With sulky sound between the arches old.

She eye'd it from the parapet. The cold
Clung to her, creeping up the creepy stream.
The enormous city, like a madman's dream,
Full of strange hummings and unnatural glare,
Beat on her brain. Some Tempter whisper'd
‘There,
‘Is quiet, and an end of long distress.
Leap down! leap in! One anguish more or less

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In this tense tangle of tormented souls
God keeps no strict account of. The stream rolls
Forever and forever. Death is swift,
And easy.’
Then soft shadows seem'd to lift
Long arms out of the streaming dark below,
Wooingly waving to her.
But ah no,
Ah no! She is still afraid of them to-night,
Those plausible familiars! Die? What right
Is hers to die?—a mother, and a wife,
Whose love hath given hostages to life!

The voices of the shadows make reply

‘Woman, no right to live is right to die.
What right to live,—which means, what right to eat
(What thou hast ceased to earn) the bread and meat
That's not enough for all,—what unearn'd right
Hast thou to say “I choose to live?”’
With might
The mocking shadows mounted, as they spoke,
Nearer, and clearer; and their voices broke
Into a groan that mingled with the roar
Of London, growing louder evermore
With multitudes of moanings from below,
Mysterious, wrathful, miserable.
‘Ah no,

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‘Ah no! For Willie waits for me at home,
And will not sleep all night till I am come.
'Tis late . . . but there were hopes of work to do:
I waited . . . tho' in vain. Ah, if he knew!
And how to meet to-morrow?’ . . .
A drunken man
Stumbled against her, stared, and then began
To troll a tavern stave, with husky voice,
(The subject coarse, the language strong, not choice)
And humming reel'd away.
Up stream'd again
The voices of the shadows, in disdain:

‘A mother? and a wife? Ill-gotten names,
Filch'd from earth's blisses to increase its shames!
What right have breadless mothers to give birth
To breadless babies? Children, meant for mirth,
And motherhood for rapture, and the bliss
Of wifehood crowning womanhood, the kiss
Of lips, whose kissing melts two lives in one:—
What right was thine, forsooth, because the sun
Is sweet in June, and blood beats high in youth,
To claim those blessings? Claim'd, what right, forsooth,
To change them into curses: craving love,
Who lackest bread? There is no room above
Earth's breast for amorous paupers. Creep below.
And hide thyself from failure!’
‘Is it so?’

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She murmur'd, ‘even so! and yet . . . dear heart,
‘I meant to comfort thee!’ Then, with a start,
‘And he is sick, poor man! No work to-day . . .
No work to-morrow . . . And the rent to pay . . .
And two small mouths to feed!’ . . .
Three tiny elves
As plump as Puck, at all things and themselves
Laughing, ran by her in the rain. They were
Chubby, and rosy-cheek'd, with golden hair,
Tossing behind: two girls, a boy: they held
Each other's hands, and so contrived to weld
Their gladnesses in one. No rain, tho' chill,
Could vex their joyous ignorance of ill.
Then, sorrowfully, her thoughts began to stray
Far out of London, many a mile away
Among the meadows:
In green Hertfordshire
When lanes are white with May, the breathing briar
Wafts sweet thoughts to our spirits, if we pass
Between the hedges, and the happy grass,
Beneath, is sprinkled with the o'erblown leaves
Of wild white roses. In the long long eves
The cuckoo calls from every glimmering bower
And lone dim-lighted glade. The small church tower
Smiles kindly at the village underneath.
Ah God! once more to smell the rose's breath
Among those cottage gardens! There's a field
Past the hill-farm, hard by the little weald,

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Was first to fill with cowslips every year;
The children used to play there. Could one hear
Once more that merry brook that leaves the leas
Quiet at eve, but thro' the low birch trees
Is ever noisy! Then, at nutting time
The woods are gayer than even in their prime,
And afterwards, there's something, hard to tell,
Full of home-feelings in the healthy smell
Wide over all the red plough'd uplands spread
From burning weeds, what time the woods are dead.

‘We were so young! we loved each other so!
Ah yet, . . . if one could live the winter thro’!
And winter's worst is o'er in March . . . who knows?
The times might mend.’
Then thro' her thoughts uprose
The menacing image of the imminent need
Of this bleak night.
‘Two little mouths to feed!
‘No work! . . . and Willie sick! . . . and how to pay
To-morrow's rent?’. . .
She pluck'd herself away
From the bewildering river; and again
Stray'd onwards, onwards, thro' the endless rain
Among the endless streets, with weary gait,
And dreary heart, trailing disconsolate
A draggled skirt with feeble feet slip-shod.
The sky seem'd one vast blackness without God,

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Or, if a god, a god like some that here
Be gods of earth, who, missing love, choose fear
For henchman, and so rule a multitude
They have subdued, but never understood.
The roaring of the wheels began anew.
And London down its dismal vortex drew
This wandering minim of the misery
Of millions.

III.

Grey and grisly 'neath this sky
Of bitter darkness, gleam'd the long blind wall
Of that grim institute, we English call
The Poor-House.
We build houses for our poor,
Pay poor-rates,—do our best, indeed, to cure
Their general sickness by all special ways,
If not successful, still deserving praise,
Because implying (which, for my part, I
Applaud intensely) that society
Is answerable, as a whole, to man,
—Ay, and to Christ, since self-styled Christian!
For how the poor, it brings to birth, may fare;
Tho' some French folks count this in chief the' affair
Of Government, which pays for its mistakes
To Revolution, when grim Hunger breaks
His social fetter sometimes. Still, remains
This fact, a sad one:—'spite of all our pains,

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The poor increase among us faster still
Than means to feed them, tho' we tax the till
To cram the alms-box. Which is passing strange,
Seeing that this England in the world's wide range
Ranks wealthiest of the nations of the earth.
But thereby hangs a riddle which is worth
The solving some day, if we can. That's all.

This woman, passing by that Poor-House wall,
Shudder'd, and thought . . . no matter! 'twas a thought
Only that made her shudder,—till she caught
Her foot against a heap of something strange,
And wet, and soft; which made that shudder change
To one of physical terror.
'Twas as tho'
The multitudinous mud, to scare her so,
Had heap'd itself into a hideous heap,
Not human sure, but living. With a creep
The thing, whate'er it was, her chance foot spurn'd,
Began to move; like humid earth upturn'd
By a snouted mole, disturb'd; or else,—suppose
A swarm of feeding flies, when cluster'd close
About a lump of carrion, or a hive
Of brown-back'd bees. It seem'd to be alive
After this fashion. A collective mass
Of movement, making from the life it has,
Or seems to have, in common, tho' so small,
A sort of monstrous individual.

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For, from the inward to the outward moved,
The hideous lump heaved slowly; slowly shoved
Layer after layer of soak'd and rotting rags
On each side, down it, to the sloppy flags
Beneath its headless bulk; thus making space
For the upthrusting of the creature's face,
Or creature's self, whate'er that might have been.
Whence, suddenly emerging,—to be seen,
One must imagine, rather than to see,
Since it look'd nowhere, neither seem'd to be
Surprised, or even conscious,—there was thrust
(As tho' it came up thus because it must,
And not because it would) a human head,
With sexless countenance, that neither said
To man, nor woman . . . ‘I belong to you,’
But seem'd a fearful mixture of the two
United in a failure horrible
Of features, meant for human you might tell
By just so much as their lean wolfishness
Contrived more intense meaning to express
Than hunger-heated eye or snarling jaw
Of any real wolf.
Stricken with awe,
The woman, only very poor indeed,
Recoil'd before that creature past all need,
And past all help, too, being past all hope.
For, stern and stark, against the stolid cope
Of the sad, rainy, and enormous night,

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That sexless face had fix'd itself upright
At once, and, as it were, mechanically,
With no surprise; as much as to imply
That it had done with this world everywhere,
And henceforth look'd to Heaven; yet look'd not there
With any sort of hope, or thankfulness
For things expected, but in grim distress,
From the mere wont of gazing constantly
On darkness.
London's Life went roaring by,
And took no notice of this thing at all.
It seem'd a heap of mud against the wall.
And if it were a vagrant . . . well? why, there
The Poor-House stands. The thing is its affair,
Not yours, nor mine; who pay the rates when due,
And trust in God, as all good Christians do.
And yet,—if you or I had pass'd that way,
And noticed (which we did not do, I say.
Not ours the fault!) the creature crouching there,
I swear to you, O Brother, and declare
For my part, on my conscience, that, altho'
I never yet was so opprest, I know,
By instant awe of any king or queen,
Prelate, or prince, whate'er the chance hath been,
As to have felt my heart's calm beating stopp'd,
Or my knees faulter, yet I must have dropp'd
(Ay, and you too, friend whom my heart knows well!)
In presence of that unapproachable

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Appalling Majesty of Misery;
Lifting its pale-faced protest to the sky
Silently against you, and me, no doubt,
And all the others of this social rout
That calls itself fine names in modern books.

IV.

The woman, stone-cold 'neath the stony looks
Of this rag-robed Medusa, shrank away
Abasht; not daring, at the first, to say
Such words as, meant for comfort, might have been
Too much like insult to that grim-faced Queen,
Or King, whiche'er it was, of Wretchedness.
Her own much misery seem'd so much less
Than this, flung down before her,—by God sent,
It may have been, for her admonishment.
But, at the last, she timidly drew near
And whisper'd faintly in the creature's ear
‘Have you no home?’
No look even made reply,
Much less a word. But on the stolid sky
The stolid face stared ever.
‘Are you cold?’
A sort of inward creepy movement roll'd
The rustled rags. And still the stolid face
Perused the stolid sky. Perhaps the case
Supposed was too self-evident to claim
More confirmation than what creeping came

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To crumble those chill rags; subsiding soon,
As tho' to be unnoticed were a boon,
All kinds of notice having proved unkind.
Such creatures as men hunt are loth to find
The hole discovered where they hide; and, when
By chance you stir them out of it, they then
Make haste to feign to be already dead,
Hoping escape that way.
The woman said
More faintly ‘Are you hungry?’
There, at once
Finding intensest utterance for the nonce,
With such a howl 'twould chill your blood to hear
The wolf-jaws wail'd out ‘Hungry? ha, look here!’
And, therewith, fingers of a skeleton claw
Tearing asunder those foul rags, you saw
. . . . Was it a woman's breast? It might be so.
It look'd like nothing human that I know.
She, whose faint question such shrill response woke,
Stood stupified, stunn'd, sick.

V.

Just then there broke
Down the dim street (and any sound just then,
Shaped from the natural utterance of men,
To still that echoed howl, had brought relief
To her sick senses) a loud shout . . . ‘Stop thief!
Stop thief!’

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A man rush'd by those women,—rush'd
So vehemently by them, that he brush'd
Their raggedness together,—as he pass'd,
Dropp'd something on the pavement,—and was fast
Wrapp'd in the rainy vapours of the night,
That, in a moment, smear'd him out of sight,
And, in a moment after, let emerge
The trampling crowd; which, all in haste to urge
Its honest chase, swept o'er those women twain,
Regardless, and rush'd on into the rain,
Leaving them both, upon the slippery flags,
Bruised, trampled,—rags in colloquy with rags,
And so,—alone.

VI.

Meanwhile the wolfish face,
Resettled to its customary place,
Was staring as before, into the sky,
Stolid. The other woman heavily
Gather'd herself together, bruised, in pain,
Half rose up, slipp'd on something, and again
Sank feebly back upon her hand.
But now
What new emotion shakes her? Doth she know
What this is, that her fingers on the stone
Have felt, and, feeling, close so fiercely on?
This pocketbook? with gold enough within
To feed . . . . Alas! and must it be a sin

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To keep it? Were it possible to pay
With what its very robber flings away
For bread . . . bread!. . . bread!. . . and still not starve, yet still
Be honest!
‘Were one doing very ill
If . . . One should pray . . . if one could pray, that's sure,
The strength would come at last. We are so poor!
So poor . . . 'tis terrible! To understand
Such things, one should be learn'd, and have at hand
Ever so many good religious books,
And texts, and things. And then one starves. It looks
So like a godsend. What does the Book say
About “the lions, roaring, seek their prey”?
And the young ravens? “Ye are more than these.”
Ah, but one starves, tho'!'
Crouch'd upon her knees
She dragg'd herself up close against the wall,
And counted the gold pieces.
‘Food for all?
‘Us four? And that makes five. The rent to pay
To-morrow? Father, give me strength, to pray
Thy will be done!. . . What, if it were His will
That one should keep it, . . . since one finds it? Still
Have bread to eat? . . . till one can work, of course.
Why else should God have sent it? Which is worse
To starve, or . . . 'Tis as long as it is broad.

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And then, consider this, I pray, dear God!
Two little mouths already, and no bread.
And my poor man this three days sick in bed.
And no more needlework, it seems, for me
Till times turn round. Who knows when that will be?
Ah, . . . and consider yet again. That's four
To feed already. Then a fifth? One more!
However can we eke it out? Ah me,
God's creatures to be left like this! Just see
How thin she is!’
Her hands about the thing
They clutch'd began to twitch. Still fingering
The gold convulsively, again she thought,
Or tried to think, of lessons early taught,
Easy to learn once, in the village school,
When to be honest seem'd the simple rule
For being happy; and of many a text
That task'd old Sundays; growing more perplext,
As, more and more, her giddy memory made
Haphazard catches at the words.
‘Who said
“Therefore I say unto you” (ah! 'twere sweet)
“Have no thought for your lives, what ye shall eat”
(If that were possible!)—“nor what to wear”?
Have no thought? that should mean, then, have no care!
“Your Father knoweth of what things ye need
Before ye ask”. . .“The morrow shall take heed
For its own things”. . .? And still, 'tis sure He bade

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The people pray “Give us our daily bread.”
And elsewhere. . . “Ask, and ye shall have”. . .
‘And yet
One starves, I say.
‘Ay! They that have shall get.
That's somewhere, too, and nearer fact, no doubt.
If the rich knew what the poor go without
Sometimes! They do their best for us, that's sure.
But still, the poor. . . they are so very poor!
“Whoever giveth to the least of these
Giveth to Me” . . .? Why one can give with ease
What is one's own . . . when anything's one's own!
Ha! whose is this? There is no owner known.
God sent it here. Whose is it now?’
She stopp'd,
And trembled. And the tempting treasure dropp'd
From her faint hand.
She snatch'd it up again,
And cried ‘Mine! mine! be it the Devil's gain
Or God's good gift! Sure, what folks must, folks may,
And folks must live.’
She gazed out every way
Along the gloomy street. In desert land
To tempted saints mankind was more at hand
Than now it seem'd to this poor spirit pent
In populous city.

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VII.

Hurriedly, she bent
Above her grim companion, in whose ear
She mutter'd, hoarse and quick. . .‘Make haste! see here.
‘There's bread enough for all of us. Get up!
Quick! quick! and come away. To-night we'll sup,
To-morrow we'll not starve ... another day,
Another . . . and then, let come what come may!
Off! off!’
No answer.
To the stolid sky
The stolid face was turn'd immovably.
The sky was dark: the face was dark. The face
And sky were silent both: you could not trace
The faintest gleam of light in the dark look
Of either.
Vehemently the woman shook
That miserable mass of rags. It let
Itself be shaken: did not strive to get
Up, or away: said nought. A worried rat
So lets itself be shaken by a cat
Or mastiff, when the vermin's back, 'tis clear,
Is snapp'd, and there's no more to feel, or fear.
‘O haste!’
No answer.
‘It is late. . .late! come!’
No answer.

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Those lean jaws were lock'd and dumb.
Then o'er the living woman's face there spread
Death's hue reflected.
‘Late!. . .too late!’ she said.
‘O Heaven, to die thus!’
With a broken wail
She turn'd, and fled fast, fast.
Fled whither?

VIII.

Pale
Thro' the thick vagueness of the vaporous night,
From the dark alley, with a clouded light
Two rheumy, melancholy lampions flare.
They are the eyes of the Police.
In there,
Down the dark archway, thro' the greasy door,
Passionately pushing past the three or four
Complacent constables that cluster'd round
A costermonger, in the gutter found
Incapably, but combatively, drunk,
The woman hurried. Thro' the doorway slunk
A peaky pinch'd-up child with frighten'd face,
Important witness in some murder case
About to come before the magistrate
To-morrow. At a dingy table sat
The slim Inspector, spectacled, severe,
Rapidly writing.

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In a sort of fear
Of seeing it again, she shut her eyes
And flung it down there. With sedate surprise
The man look'd up.

‘Because I do not know
The owner, sir’. . . she said. ‘A while ago
I found it. And there's money in it . . . much,
Oh, so much money, sir!’
A hungry touch
Of the defeated Tempter made her wince
To see him count it. Such a short while since
She, too, had done the same.

‘Your name? address?’
She gave them. Easy, from the last to guess
Their wretchedness who dwelt in such a place!
The shrewd and practised eye perused her face
Contented, not surprised; for they that see
Crime oftenest, oftenest, too, see honesty
Where most of us would seldom look for it,
Or find it with surprise . . . in rags, to wit.

‘Honest and poor. Deserves a large reward.
No doubt there'll be one.’

‘Ah, the times are hard,
So hard, God help us all! and, sir, indeed

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We are so poor. Two little mouths to feed.
If one could only get some work to do!’

‘Ah . . . married? out of work? and children? two?
Mem. Let the owner know, if found. Good night.’

But still she stood there. He had turn'd to write.
She stood, and eyed him with a dreary eye,
And did not move. He look'd up presently.
‘Not gone, yet? eh? what more?’

‘And, sir’ . . . she said,
‘There's by the Work-House wall a woman. . .dead.
There was no room within, sir, I suppose.
There are so many of them. Heaven knows
'Tis hard for such as we to understand
How such things happen in a Christian land.’

Her face twitch'd, and her cough grew fierce again,
As she pass'd out into the night and rain.