Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/421

 "Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd, And 'tis not done: the attempt, and not the deed, Confounds us."

Shakspeare makes us aware that Macbeth, after killing Duncan, must pass along a passage and descend some stairs to the next story. What a walk of a few moments, protracted into endless awe, with Duncan disembodied close at his heels! The brave soldier's feet weaken at the distance which his own soul creates. Will he ever annihilate a space that is made by a crime and reach his wife again?

"I have done the deed! Did'st thou not hear a noise?"

They listen, looking sidelong at each other:—

"I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry. Did not you speak?                   When?                          Now.                                As I descended? Ay. Hark! Who lies i' the second chamber?"

The scene is full of pauses of startled listening: it waits with a husband absent upstairs upon an errand, retreats with him through a haunted corridor, thenceforth for ever haunted, and shudders in us as midnight never shuddered before; and the crickets, those carollers of a sacred hearth, cry, as blood drips through it and quenches their content.

When Macbeth relates to her his sensations while he was upstairs, the amen that stuck in his throat, the voice that threatened him with nights devoid of sleep