As to women, he had once already been drawn headlong by impetuous
folly, which he meant to be final, since marriage at some distant
period would of course not be impetuous. For those who want to be
acquainted with Lydgate it will be good to know what was that case of
impetuous folly, for it may stand as an example of the fitful swerving
of passion to which he was prone, together with the chivalrous kindness
which helped to make him morally lovable. The story can be told
without many words. It happened when he was studying in Paris, and
just at the time when, over and above his other work, he was occupied
with some galvanic experiments. One evening, tired with his
experimenting, and not being able to elicit the facts he needed, he
left his frogs and rabbits to some repose under their trying and
mysterious dispensation of unexplained shocks, and went to finish his
evening at the theatre of the Porte Saint Martin, where there was a
melodrama which he had already seen several times; attracted, not by
the ingenious work of the collaborating authors, but by an actress
whose part it was to stab her lover, mistaking him for the
evil-designing duke of the piece. Lydgate was in love with this
actress, as a man is in love with a woman whom he never expects to
speak to. She was a Provencale, with dark eyes, a Greek profile, and
rounded majestic form, having that sort of beauty which carries a sweet
matronliness even in youth, and her voice was a soft cooing. She had
but lately come to Paris, and bore a virtuous reputation, her husband
acting with her as the unfortunate lover. It was her acting which was
"no better than it should be," but the public was satisfied. Lydgate's
only relaxation now was to go and look at this woman, just as he might
have thrown himself under the breath of the sweet south on a bank of
violets for a while, without prejudice to his galvanism, to which he
would presently return. But this evening the old drama had a new
catastrophe. At the moment when the heroine was to act the stabbing of
her lover, and he was to fall gracefully, the wife veritably stabbed
her husband, who fell as death willed. A wild shriek pierced the
house, and the Provencale fell swooning: a shriek and a swoon were
demanded by the play, but the swooning too was real this time. Lydgate
leaped and climbed, he hardly knew how, on to the stage, and was active
in help, making the acquaintance of his heroine by finding a contusion
on her head and lifting her gently in his arms. Paris rang with the
story of this death:--was it a murder? Some of the actress's warmest
admirers were inclined to believe in her guilt, and liked her the
better for it (such was the taste of those times); but Lydgate was not
one of these. He vehemently contended for her innocence, and the
remote impersonal passion for her beauty which he had felt before, had
passed now into personal devotion, and tender thought of her lot. The
notion of murder was absurd: no motive was discoverable, the young
couple being understood to dote on each other; and it was not
unprecedented that an accidental slip of the foot should have brought
these grave consequences. The legal investigation ended in Madame
Laure's release. Lydgate by this time had had many interviews with
her, and found her more and more adorable. She talked little; but that
was an additional charm. She was melancholy, and seemed grateful; her
presence was enough, like that of the evening light. Lydgate was madly
anxious about her affection, and jealous lest any other man than
himself should win it and ask her to marry him. But instead of
reopening her engagement at the Porte Saint Martin, where she would
have been all the more popular for the fatal episode, she left Paris
without warning, forsaking her little court of admirers. Perhaps no
one carried inquiry far except Lydgate, who felt that all science had
come to a stand-still while he imagined the unhappy Laure, stricken by
ever-wandering sorrow, herself wandering, and finding no faithful
comforter. Hidden actresses, however, are not so difficult to find as
some other hidden facts, and it was not long before Lydgate gathered
indications that Laure had taken the route to Lyons. He found her at
last acting with great success at Avignon under the same name, looking
more majestic than ever as a forsaken wife carrying her child in her
arms. He spoke to her after the play, was received with the usual
quietude which seemed to him beautiful as clear depths of water, and
obtained leave to visit her the next day; when he was bent on telling
her that he adored her, and on asking her to marry him. He knew that
this was like the sudden impulse of a madman--incongruous even with his
habitual foibles. No matter! It was the one thing which he was
resolved to do. He had two selves within him apparently, and they must
learn to accommodate each other and bear reciprocal impediments.
Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our
infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide
plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us.