The Poets' Wives Read Free Page B

mad?’ I ask. ‘I’ve not heard it.’
    ‘Only because your ears have been stopped by love. “Poor Blake” is how they refer to me when I’ve passed by.’
    ‘Then they are fools, they are the madmen.’
    ‘And I must prove them so, show them that their minds are manacled and silence every doubter. Nothing I do is the fashion of the age but some day I shall be known. Do you believe that, Catherine?’
    I tell him I believe it with all my heart and he kisses me on the cheek and then he holds me until it feels as if he has fallen into a trance and I have to remind him of the work that he has to do. Then as I am about to leave him I hear him say, ‘There is one thing I think of, Kate.’
    I stop in the doorway and try not to think of the pictures in the drawer that he’s never shown to me.
    ‘It’s that girl we saw when we walked at dawn.’
    ‘The one who cursed us even when you gave her money?’
    ‘Yes. There’s something about her that’s stayed with me – the fear in her eyes, the pretence of hatred in her voice that made her sound as if she was fending off the world itself. I’ve never been so close to someone so utterly lost.’
    ‘She’s the girl in the poem, isn’t she?’
    ‘I think so. Perhaps.’
    He goes to say something more but stops himself and as he returns to his work I leave him and turn to my own but as I make my way through the crowded street think only how the youthful harlot’s curse blights with plague the marriage hearse. And already her presence in the world seems to throw a shadow over us, a shadow that will soon lengthen and grow stronger.
     
    A new and a better house and there is work but not always the work that he wants to do and I see when his heart is not in it, his natural passion diverted into narrow tributaries unworthy of the man. And sometimes there is no laughter and he sinks into a black despair. Then for days he is beyond even the reach of love and all the light fades from his eyes and it’s as if he sees nothing but a trembling darkness. And at first I try to pull him free from this slough of despond but come to understand that there is nothing that can be done so I say little but stay by him and sometimes he asks me to read and then he appears a little cheered at first until his good spirits slowly melt away again like snow. It’s then I ask myself why our love is not sufficient and am hurt and fearful when it doesn’t prove strong enough to restore him to himself.
    There are times he sits at the table where he engraves but touches nothing, as if to lift the tools would be a burden too great to bear. And seeing him like this makes me pray that some good angel will carry him up on bright wings of hope to where his spirit will soar once more. And sometimes when he falls under what he calls his evil star I make him come with me, ignoring his excuses and pulling on his coat and hat, and then we walk without purpose or direction following whatever impulse takes me or stepping where the sunlight finds a way to slant its path through the houses. We talk little and I think he does not want my chatter and sometimes we journey along the river or into the country until his eyes begin to leave their inner world and see anew what lies at hand. Sometimes on these walks his lips move as if he is deep in conversation with an unseen presence and then I touch him only with the light lean of my shoulder and try to find us good paths in which to venture.
    The sound of the engraving tool is always what signals his restoration and then he goes anew to his work with a hunger like that of a man who has been starved and it can come at any time, so often I wake from a troubled sleep to hear its scratch and score in the adjoining room and I give thanks and in my shift I hurry to prove to myself that the sound has not been conjured from my imagination. And at such times he’ll look up and smile with all the morning light in his eyes once more and he’ll call me to him and kiss my hand