Original dramatic works and works of prose fiction. Plays include 'The Viziers of Bassora', 'Rodogune', 'Perseus the Deliverer', 'Eric', 'Vasavadutta' and others.
Original dramatic works and works of prose fiction. Plays include 'The Viziers of Bassora', 'Rodogune', 'Perseus the Deliverer', 'Eric', 'Vasavadutta' and others. The volume also contains incomplete or fragmentary plays and fictional stories.
A Comedy
CUPID.
ATE.
KING PHILIP OF SPAIN.
COUNT BELTRAN - a nobleman.
ANTONIO - his son.
BASIL - his nephew.
COUNT CONRAD - a young nobleman.
RONCEDAS, GUZMAN - Courtiers.
THE MILLER.
ACINTO - his son.
JERONIMO - a student.
CARLOS - a student.
FRIAR BALTASAR - a pedagogue.
EUPHROSYNE - the maid of the farm.
ISMENIA - sister of Conrad.
BRIGIDA - her cousin.
Page 821
The King's Court at Salamanca. King Philip, Conrad, Beltran, Roncedas, Guzman, Antonio, Basil, Ismenia, Brigida, Grandees.
KING PHILIP Count Beltran.
BELTRAN Sire?
KING PHILIP Shall we know the device?
BELTRAN It is no secret, Sire. And yet so little This toy is mine, the name's far off from me. Castilians, forgèd iron of old time Armies to wield and empires, we're astray With these smooth, silken things. We were never valiant Vega with Calderon to weigh and con Devices. But our sons, Sire, have outstripped Their rough begetters, almost they are Frenchmen. Speak you, Antonio.
ANTONIO 'Tis the Judgment, Sire, Of Paris and the Rape of Spartan Helen.
KING PHILIP That is an old device.
ISMENIA Antonio? He
Page 825
Antonio? O my poor eyes misled, Whither have you wandered?
BELTRAN Hush.
ANTONIO The older, Sire, The fitter for a masque that's heard but once. For the swift action of the stage speeds on And slow conception labouring after it Roughens its subtleties, blurs o'er its shades, Sees masses only. Then if the plot is new, The mind engrossed with incidents, omits To take the breath of flowers and lingering shade In hurrying with the stream. But the plot known, It is at leisure and may cull in running Those delicate, scarcely-heeded strokes, which lost Perfection's disappointed. There art comes in To justify genius. Being old besides The subject occupies1 creative labour To make old new. The other's but invention, A frail thing, though a gracious. He's creator Who greatly handles great material, Calls order out of the abundant deep, Not who invents sweet shadows out of air. Pardon, Sir, I forgot my limits thus To speak at random in so great a presence.
KING PHILIP You have a hopeful son, Lord Beltran, modest And witty, a fair conjunction, a large critic And taking speaker.
ISMENIA True, O true! He has taken
Page 826
My heart out of my bosom.
BRIGIDA Will you hush?
KING PHILIP Count, I have heard your lands are very lavish In Nature's best. I think I have not seen them. Indeed I grudge each rood of Spanish earth My eyes have not perused, my heart stored up. Yet what with foreign boyhood, strange extraction And hardly reaching with turmoil to power I am a stranger purely. I have swept Through beautiful Spain more like a wind than man, Now fugitive, now blown into my right On a mere whirlwind of success. But maybe Great occupation has disabled you From this poor trifle also.
BELTRAN I avow My son would answer better, Sire. I care not Whether this tree be like a tower or that A dragon: and I never saw myself Difference twixt field and field, save the main one Of size, boundary and revenue; and those Were great once,—why now lessened and by whom I will not move you by repeating, Sire, Although my heart speaks of it feelingly.
KING PHILIP Speak then, Antonio, but tell me not Of formal French demesnes and careful parks, Life dressed like a stone lady, statuesque, They please the judging eye, but not the heart. When Nature is disnatured, all her glowing Great outlines chillingly disharmonised
Page 827
Into stiff lines, the heart's dissatisfied, Asks freedom, wideness, it compares the sweep Of the large heavens above and feels a discord. Your architects plan beauty by the yard, Weigh sand with sand, parallel line with line But miss the greatest. Since uncultured force Though rude, yet striking home, by far exceeds Artisan's work, mechanically good.
ANTONIO Our fields, Sire, are a rural holiday, Not Nature carved?
KING PHILIP Has she a voice to you? Silent, she's not so fair.
ANTONIO Yes, we have brooks Muttering through sedge and stone, and willows by them Leaning dishevelled and forget-me-nots, Wonders of lurking azure, rue and mallow, Honeysuckle and painful meadowsweet, And when we're tired of watching the rich bee Murmur absorbed about one lonely flower Then we can turn and hear a noon of birds. Each on his own heart's quite intent, yet all Join sweetness at melodious intervals.
KING PHILIP You have many trees?
ANTONIO Glades, Sire, and green assemblies And separate giants bending to each other As if they longed to meet. Some are pranked out, Others wear merely green like foresters.
Page 828
ISMENIA Can hatred sound so sweet? Are enemies' voices Like hail of angels to the ear, Brigida?
BRIGIDA Hush, fool. We are too near. Someone will mark you.
ISMENIA Why, cousin, if they do, what harm? Sure all Unblamed may praise sweet music when they hear it.
BRIGIDA Rule your tongue, madam. Or must I leave you?
KING PHILIP You have made me sorrowful. How different Is this pale picture of a Court, these walls Shut out from honest breathing; God kept not His quarries in the wild and distant hills For such perversion. It was sin when first Hands serried stone with stone. Guzman, you are A wise, a patient reasoner,—is it not better To live in the great air God made for us, A peasant in the open glory of earth, Feeling it, yet not knowing it, like him To drink the cool life-giving brook nor crave The sour fermented madness of the grape Nor the dull exquisiteness of far-fetched viands For the tired palate, but black bread or maize, Mere wholesome ordinary corn. Think you not A life so in the glorious sunlight bathed, Straight nursed and suckled from the vigorous Earth With shaping labour and the homely touch Of the great hearty mother, edifies A nobler kind than nourished is in Courts? But we are even as children quite removed From those her streaming breasts, and of the sun
Page 829
Defrauded and the lusty salutation Of wind and rain, grow up amphibious nothing, Non-man, who are too sickly wise for earth And too corrupt to be the heirs of heaven.
GUZMAN I think not so, Your Highness.
KING PHILIP Not so, Guzman? Is not a peasant happier than a king? For he has useful physical toil and sleep Unbroken as a child's. He is not hedged By swathing ceremony which forbids A king to feel himself a man. He has friends, For he has equals. And in youth he marries The comrade of his boyhood whom he loved And gets on that sweet helper stalwart children, Then brings his grandchildren climbing on his knees, A happy calm old man; because he lived Man's genuine life and goes with task accomplished Thro' death as thro' a gate, not questioning.
GUZMAN Each creature labouring in his own vocation Desires another's and deems the heavy burden Of his own fate the world's sole heaviness. Each thing's to its perceptions limited, Another's are to it intangible, A shadow far away, quite bodiless, Lost in conjecture's wide impalpable. On its unceasing errand through the void The earth rolls on, a blind and moaning sphere. It knows not Venus' sorrows, but it looks With envy crying, "These have light and beauty, I only am all dark and comfortless." The land yearning for life, endeavours seaward,
Page 830
The sea, weary of motion, pines to turn Into reposeful earth: yet were this done Each would repine again and hate the doer; The land would miss its flowers and grass and birds, The sea long for the coral and the cave. For he who made labour the base of life, Gave with it power, a thing so dear to existence, To lose't is death. Toil is the form of power; Nay, toil's self creates answering energy And makes the loss of toil a wretchedness. The labourer physically is divine, Inward a void, yet in his limits blest. But were the city's cultured son, who turns Watching an envious, crying "Were I simple, Primeval in my life as he, how happy!", Into such environs confined, how then His temperament would beat against the bars Of circumstance and rage for wider field. Uninterchangeable their natures stand And self-confined; for so Earth made them, Earth, The brute and kindly mother groping for mind. She of her vigorous nature bore her sons Made lusty with her milk and the warm force Redundant in her veins, else like the lark Aiming from her to heaven. And souls are there Who rooted in her puissant animalism Are greatly earthy, yet widen to the void And heighten to the sky. But these are rare And of no privileged country citizens Nor to the city bounded nor the field. They are wise and royal in the furrow, keep In schools their chastened vigour from the soil To base their spirits vastly. Man is strong Antaeuslike, based on his native Earth From which being lifted great communities Die in their intellectual grandeur. So then Let the soil's son and grafting of the city
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Keep their conditions, heightened or refreshed With breath and force of each a different spirit If may be; one not admit untutored envy The other vain imagination making Return to nature a misleading name For a reversion most unnatural.
KING PHILIP You reason well, Guzman; nor must we pine At stations where God and his saints have set us. And yet because I'd feel the rural air, Of greatness unreminded, I will go Tomorrow as a private nobleman. My lords, forget for one day I'm the king Nor watch my moods, nor with your eyes wait on me Nor disillusionize by high observance But keep as to an equal courtesy.
MAJORDOMO But, Your Majesty—
KING PHILIP Well, Sir, Your Ancient Wisdom—
MAJORDOMO The Kings of Spain—
KING PHILIP Are absolute, you'ld say, Over men only? Custom masters kings. I'll not be ruled by your stale ceremonies As kings are by an arrogating Senate, But will control them, wear them when I will, Walk disencumbered when I will. Enough You have done your part in protest. I have heard you. And now, my lords.
Page 832
LORDS Your Highness is obeyed.
KING PHILIP Tell on, Antonio, who perform the masque.
BELTRAN That can I tell Your Highness, rural girls, The daughters of the soil, whom country air Has given the ruddy health to bloom in their cheeks. Full of our Spanish sunlight are they, voiced Like Junos and will make our ladies pale Before them. There's a Miller's lovely daughter, A marvel. Robed in excellent apparel As she will be, there's not a maid in Spain Can stand beside her and stay happy. My sons Have spared nor words nor music nor array Nor beauty to express their loyal duty.
KING PHILIP I am much graced by this their gentle trouble And yet, Lord Beltran, there are nobler things Than these brocaded masques, not that I scorn these, Do not believe I would be so ungracious,— Nor anything belittle in which true hearts Interpret their rich silence. Yet there's one Desire, I would exchange for many masques, 'Tis noble: an easy word bestows it wholly, And yet, I fear, for you too difficult.
BELTRAN My lord, you know my service and should not Doubt my compliance. Name and take it. Else judge me.
KING PHILIP Why, noble reconcilement, Conde Beltran; Sweet friendship between mighty jarring houses
Page 833
And by great intercession war renounced Betwixt magnificent hearts: these are the masques Most sumptuous, these the glorious theatres That subjects should present to princes. Conrad And noble Beltran, I respect the wrath Sunders your pride: yet mildness has the blessing Of God and is religion's perfect mood. Admit that better weakness. Throw your hearts Wide to the knocks of entering peace: let not The ashes of a rage the world renounces Smoulder between you nor outdated griefs Keep living. What, quite silent? Will you, Conrad, Refuse to me your answer, who so often Have for my sake your very life renounced?
CONRAD My lord, the hate that I have never cherished I know not how to abandon. Not in the sway Of other men's affections I have lived But walked in the straight road my fortunes build me. Let any love who will or any hate who will, I take both with a calm, unburdened spirit, Inarm my lover as a friend, embrace My enemy as a wrestler: do my will, Because it is my will, go where I go, Because my path lies there. If any cross me, That is his choice, not mine. And if he suffer, Again it is his choice, not mine. It's I, That is my star. I curse him not for it: My fate's beyond his making as my spirit's Above affection by him. I hate no man, And if Lord Beltran give to me his hand, I will most gladly clasp it and forget Outdated injuries and wounds long healed.
BELTRAN O you are most noble, Conrad, most benign.
Page 834
Who now can say the ill-doer ne'er forgives? Conrad has dispossessed my kinsmen, slain My vassals, me of ancient lands relieved, Thinned my great house; but Beltran is forgiven. Will you not now enlarge your generous nature, Wrong me still more, have new and ampler room For exercise to your forgiving heart, I must embrace misfortune and fresh loss Before your friendship, lord.
KING PHILIP No more of this.
BELTRAN Pardon, Your Highness; this was little praise For so deep2 Christianity. Lord Conrad, I will not trouble you further. And perhaps With help of the good saints and holy Virgin I too shall make me some room to pardon in.
CONRAD I fear you not, Lord Count. Our swords have clashed: Mine was the stronger. For what I have won, I got it by decree of arms. So you Had won mine, had you taken sides with fortune And kept her faithful with your sword. Your satire Has no sharp edge till it cut that from me.
KING PHILIP This is unprofitable. No more of it. Lord Conrad, you go homeward with the dawn?
CONRAD Winning your gracious leave to have with me My sisters, Sir.
Page 835
KING PHILIP The Queen is very loth To lose her favourite, but to disappoint you Much more unwilling. You'll come with me, My lords, you too, Lord Beltran.
Exeunt King, Beltran, Guzman & Grandees.
RONCEDAS A word, with you Lord Conrad.
CONRAD As many as you will, Roncedas.
RONCEDAS This. (whispers) My lord, your good friend always.
CONRAD So you have been.
Exit Roncedas.
Cousin, and sweetest sister, I am bound Homeward upon a task that needs my presence. Don Mario and his wife will bring you there. Are you content or shall I stay for you?
ISMENIA With all you do, dear brother, yet would have Your blessing by me.
CONRAD May your happiness Greatly exceed my widest wishes.
ISMENIA So It must do, brother or I am unhappy.
Page 836
BRIGIDA What task will he have now? Some girl-lifting. What other task! Shall we go, cousin?
ISMENIA Stay. Let us not press so closely after them.
BRIGIDA Good manners? Oh, your pardon. I was blind.
BASIL Are you a lover or a fish,3 Antonio? Speak. She yet lingers.
ANTONIO Speak?
BASIL The devil remove you Where you can never more have sight of her. I lose all patience.
BRIGIDA Cousin, I know you're tired With standing. Sit, and if you tire with that, As perseverance is a powerful virtue, For your reward the dumb may speak to you.
ISMENIA What shall I do, dear girl?
BRIGIDA Why, speak the first, Count Conrad's sister! Be the Mahomet To your poor mountain. Hang me if I think not
Page 837
The prophet's hill more moveable of the two; An earthquake stirs not this. What ails the man? He has made a wager with some lamp-post surely.
ISMENIA Brigida, are you mad? Be so immodest? A stranger and my house's enemy!
BRIGIDA No, never speak to him. It would be indeed Horribly forward.
ISMENIA Why, you jest, Brigida. I'm no such light thing that I must be dumb Lest men mistake my speaking. Let frail men Or men suspect to their own purity Guard every issue of speech and gesture. Wherefore Should I be hedged so meanly in? To greet With few words, cold and grave, as is befitting This gentle youth, why do you call immodest?
BRIGIDA You must not.
ISMENIA Must not? Why, I will.
BRIGIDA I say You must not, child.
ISMENIA I will then, not because I wish (why should I?), but because you always Provoke me with your idle prudities.
Page 838
BRIGIDA Good! You've been wishing it the last half-hour And now you are provoked to't. Charge him, charge him. I stand here as reserve.
ISMENIA Impossible creature! But no! You shall not turn me.
BRIGIDA 'Twas not my meaning.
ISMENIA Sir—
BASIL Rouse yourself, Antonio. Gather back Your manhood, or you're shamed without retrieval.
ISMENIA Help me, Brigida.
BRIGIDA Not I, cousin.
ISMENIA Sir, You spoke divinely well. I say this, Sir, Not to recall to you that we have met— Since you will not remember—but because I would not have you—anyone—think this of me That since you are Antonio and my enemy And much have hurt me—to the heart, therefore When one speaks or does worthily, I can Admire not, nor love merit, whosoe'er Be its receptacle. This was my meaning. I could not bear one should not know this of me.
Page 839
Therefore I spoke.
BASIL Speak or be dumb forever.
ISMENIA I see, you have mistook me why I spoke And scorn me. Sir, you may be right to think You have so sweet a tongue would snare the birds From off the branches, ravish an enemy, —Some such poor wretch there may be—witch her heart out, If you could care for anything so cheap And hold it in your hand, lost,—lost,—Oh me! Brigida!
BASIL O base silence! Speak! She is Confounded. Speak, you sheep, you!
ISMENIA Though this is so, You do me wrong to think me such an one, Most flagrant wrong, Antonio. To think that I Wait one word of your lips to woo you, yearn To be your loving servant at a word From you,—one only word and I am yours.
BASIL Admirable lady! Saints, can you be dumb Who hear this?
ISMENIA Still you scorn me. For all this You shall not make me angry. Do you imagine Because you know I am Lord Conrad's sister And lodge with Donna Clara Santa Cruz In the street Velasquez, and you have seen it
Page 840
With marble front and the quaint mullioned windows, That you need only after vespers, when The streets are empty, stand there, and I will Send one to you? Indeed, indeed I merit not You should think poorly of me. If you're noble And do not scorn me, you will carefully Observe the tenour of my prohibition, Brigida.
BRIGIDA Come away with your few words, Your cold grave words. You have frozen his speech with them.
Exeunt.
ANTONIO Heavens! it was she—her words were not a dream, Yet I was dumb. There was a majesty Even in her tremulous playfulness, a thrill When she smiled most, made my heart beat too quickly For speech. O that I should be dumb and shamefast, When with one step I might grasp Paradise.
BASIL Antonio!
ANTONIO I was not deceived. She blushed, And the magnificent scarlet to her cheeks Welled from her heart an ocean inexhaustible. Rose but outcrimsoned rose. Yes, every word Royally marred the whiteness of her cheeks With new impossibilities of beauty. She blushed, and yet as with an angry shame Of that delicious weakness, gallantly Her small imperious head she held erect And strove in vain to encourage those sweet lids That fluttered lower and lower. O that but once
Page 841
My tongue had been as bold as were mine eyes! But these were fastened to her as with cords, Courage in them naked necessity.
BASIL Ah poor Antonio. You're bewitched, you're maimed, Antonio. You must make her groan who did this. One sense will always now be absent from him. Lately he had no tongue. Now that's returned His ears are gone on leave. Hark you, Antonio Why do we stay here?
ANTONIO I am in a dream. Lead where you will; since there is no place now In all the world, but only she or silence.
Page 842
A garden at the town-house of Count Beltran. Antonio, Basil.
BASIL I am abashed of4 you. What, make a lady Woo you, and she a face so excellent, Of an address so admirably lovely It shows a goddess in her—at each sentence Let pause to give you opportunity Then shame with the dead silence of the hall For her continual answer. Fie, you're not Antonio, you are not Beltran's issue. Seek Your kindred in the snowdrifts of the Alps Or call a post your father.
ANTONIO I deserve Your censure, Basil. Yet were it done again, I know I should again be dumb. My tongue Teems in imagination but is barren In actuality. When I am from her, I woo her with the accent of a god, My mind o'erflows with words as the wide Nile With waters. Let her but appear and I Am her poor mute. She may do her will with me And O remember but her words. When she, Ah she, my white divinity with that kindness Celestial in the smiling of her eyes And in her voice the world's great music, rose Of blushing frankness, half woman and half angel, Crowned me unwooed, lavished on me her heart In her prodigious liberality, Could I then speak? O to have language then Had been the index to a shallow love.
Page 843
BASIL Away! You modest lovers are the blot Of manhood, traitors to our sovereignty. I'd have you banished, all of you, and kept In desert islands, where no petticoat Should enter, so the brood of you might perish.
ANTONIO You speak against the very sense of love Which lives by service.
BASIL Flat treason! Was not man made Woman's superior that he might control her, In strength to exact obedience and in wisdom To guide her will, in wit to keep her silent, Three Herculean labours. O were women Once loose, they would new-deluge earth with words, Sapiently base creation on its apex, Logic would be new-modelled, arithmetic Grow drunk and reason despairing abdicate. No thunderbolt could stop a woman's will Once it is started.
ANTONIO O you speak at ease, Loved you, you would recant this without small Torture to quicken you.
BASIL I? I recant? I wish, Antonio, I had known your case Earlier. I would have taught you how to love.
ANTONIO Come, will you woo a woman? Teach me at least
Page 844
By diagram, upon a blackboard.
BASIL Well, I will so, if it should hearten your weak spirits. And now I think of it, I am resolved I'll publish a new Art of Love, shall be The only Ovid memorable.
ANTONIO On, on! Let's hear you.
BASIL First, I would kiss her.
ANTONIO What, without leave asked?
BASIL Leave? Ask a woman leave to kiss her! Why What was she made for else?
ANTONIO If she is angry?
BASIL So much the better. Then you by repetition Convince her of your manly strength, which is A great point gained at the outset and moreover Your duty, comfortable to yourself. Besides she likes it. On the same occasion When she will scold, I'll silence her with wit. Laughter breaks down impregnable battlements. Let me but make her smile and there is conquest Won by the triple strength, horse, foot, artillery, Of eloquence, wit and muscle. Then but remains Pacification, with or else without
Page 845
The Church's help, that's a mere form and makes No difference to the principle.
ANTONIO There should be Inquisitions for such as you. What after?
BASIL Nothing unless you wish to assure the conquest, Not plunder it merely like a Tamerlane. I'll teach that also. 'Tis but making her Realise her inferiority. Unanswerably and o'erwhelmingly Show her how fortunate she is to get you And all her life too short for gratitude; That you have robbed her merely for her good, To civilize her or to train her up: Punish each word that shows want of affection. Plague her to death and make her thank you for it. Accustom her to sing hosannas to you When you beat her. All this is ordinary, And every wise benevolent conqueror Has learnt the trick of it. Then she'll love you for ever.
ANTONIO You are a Pagan and would burn for this If Love still kept his Holy Office.
BASIL Am safe from him.
ANTONIO And therefore boast securely Conducting in imagination wars That others have the burden of. I've seen The critical civilian in his chair Win famous victories with wordy carnage,
Page 846
Guide his strategic finger o'er a map, Cry "Eugene's fault! here Marlboro' was to blame, And look, a child might see it, Villars' plain error That lost him Malplaquet!" I think you are Just such a pen-and-paper strategist. A wooer!
BASIL Death, I will have pity on you, Antonio. You shall see my great example And learn by me.
ANTONIO Good, I'm your pupil. But hear, A pretty face or I'll not enter for her, Wellborn or I shall much discount your prowess.
BASIL Agreed. And yet they say experimentum In corpore vili. But I take your terms Lest you substract me for advantages.
ANTONIO Look where the enemy comes. You are well off If you can win her.
BASIL A rare face, by Heaven. Almost too costly a piece of goods for this Mad trial.
ANTONIO You sound retreat?
BASIL Not I an inch. Watch how I'll overcrow her.
Page 847
ANTONIO Hush, she's here.
Enter Brigida.
BRIGIDA Señor, I was bidden to deliver this letter to you.
BASIL To me, sweetheart?
BRIGIDA I have the inventory of you in my books, if you be he truly. I will study it. Hair of the ordinary poetic length, dress indefinable, a modest address,—I think not you, Señor,—a noble manner,—Pooh, no!—a handsome face. I am sure not to you, Señor.
BASIL Humph.
ANTONIO Well, cousin. All silent? Open your batteries, open your batteries!
BASIL Wait, wait. Ought a conqueror to be hurried? Caesar himself must study his ground before he attempts it. You will hear my trumpets instanter.
BRIGIDA Will you take your letter, Sir?
ANTONIO To me then, maiden? A dainty-looking note, and I marvel much from whom it can be. I do not know the handwriting. A lady's, seemingly, yet it has a touch of the masculine too—there is rapidity and initiative in its flow. Fair one, from whom comes this?
Page 848
BRIGIDA Why, Sir, I am not her signature; which if you will look within, there I doubt not you will find a solution of your difficulty.
BASIL Here's a clever woman, Antonio, to think of that, and she but eighteen or a miracle.
ANTONIO Well, cousin.
BRIGIDA This Don Witty-pate eyes me strangely. I fear he will recognize me.
ANTONIO Ismenia Ostrocadiz! O my joy.
BRIGIDA You're ill, sir, you change colour.
ANTONIO Now, by Heaven Were death within my heart's door or his blast Upon my eyelids, this would exile him. The writing swims before me.
BRIGIDA Sir, you pale Extremely. Is there no poison in that letter?
ANTONIO O might I so be poisoned hourly. Let me No longer dally with my happiness, Let it take wings or turn a dream. Hail, letter,
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For thou hast come from that white hand I worship.
"To Lord Antonio: Señor, how you may deem of my bold wooing, How cruelly I suffer in your thoughts, I dread to think. Take the plain truth, Antonio. I cannot live without your love. If you From this misdoubt my nobleness or infer A wanton haste or instability,— As men pretend quick love is quickly spent— Tear up this letter, and with it my heart. And yet I hope you will not tear it. I love you And since I saw our family variance And your too noble fearfulness withhold me From my heart's lord I have thrown from me shame And the admirèd dalliance of women To bridge it. Come to me, Antonio! Come, But come in honour. I am not nor can be So far degenerate from my house's greatness Or my pure self to love ignobly. Dear, I have thrown from me modesty's coy pretences But the reality I'll grapple to me Close as your image. I am loth to end, Yet must, and therefore will I end with this 'Beloved, love me, respect me or forget me'."
Writing more sweet than any yet that came From heaven to earth, O thou dear revelation. Make my lips holy. Ah, could I imagine Thee the white hand that wrote thee, I were blest Utterly. Thou hast made me twice myself. I think I am another than Antonio. The sky seems nearer to me or the earth Environed with a sacred light. O come! I'll study to imprint this on my heart, That when death comes he'll find it there and leave it, A monument and an immortal writing.
Page 850
BASIL Damsel, you are of the Lady Ismenia's household?
BRIGIDA A poor relative of hers, Señor.
BASIL Your face seems strangely familiar to me. Have I not seen you in some place where I constantly resort?
BRIGIDA O Sir, I hope you do not think so meanly of me. I am a poor girl but an honest.
BASIL How, how?
BRIGIDA I know not how. I spoke only as the spirit moved me.
BASIL You have a marvellously nimble tongue. Two words with you.
BRIGIDA Willingly, Señor, if you exceed not measure.
BASIL Fair one—
BRIGIDA Oh, Sir, I am glad I listened. I like your two words extremely. God be with you.
BASIL Why, I have not begun yet.
BRIGIDA The more shame to your arithmetic. If your teacher had reckoned
Page 851
as loosely with his cane-cuts, he would have made the carefuller scholar.
BASIL God's wounds, will you listen to me?
BRIGIDA Well, Sir, I will not insist upon numbers. But pray, for your own sake, swear no more. No eloquence will long stand such draft upon it.
BASIL If you would listen, I would tell you a piece of news that might please you.
BRIGIDA Let it be good news, new news and repeatable news and I will thank you for it.
BASIL Sure, maiden, you are wondrous beautiful.
BRIGIDA Señor, Queen Anne is dead. Tell me the next.
BASIL The next is, I will kiss you.
BRIGIDA Oh, Sir, that's a prophecy. Well, death and kissing come to all of us, and by what disease the one or by whom the other, wise men care not to forecast. It profits little to study calamities beforehand. When it comes, I pray God I may learn to take it with resignation, if I cannot do better.
BASIL By my life, I will kiss you and without farther respite.
Page 852
BRIGIDA On what ground?
BASIL Have I not told you, you are beautiful.
BRIGIDA So has my mirror, not once but a hundred times, and never yet offered to kiss me. When it does, I'll allow your logic. No, we are already near enough to each other. Pray, keep your distance.
BASIL I will establish my argument with my lips.
BRIGIDA I will defend mine with my hand. I promise you 'twill prove the abler dialectician of the two.
BASIL Well.
BRIGIDA I am glad you think so, Señor. My lord, I cannot stay. What shall I tell my lady?
ANTONIO Tell her my heart is at her feet, and I Am hers, hers only until heaven ceases And after. Tell her that I am more blest In her sweet condescension to my humbleness Than Ilian Anchises when Love's mother Stooped from her golden heavens into his lap. Tell her that as a goddess I revere her And as a saint adore; that she and life Are one to me, for I've no heart but her, No atmosphere beyond her pleasure, light But what her eyes allow me. Tell, O tell her—
Page 853
BRIGIDA Hold, hold, Señor. You may tell her all this yourself. I would not remember the half of it and could not understand the other half. Shall I tell her, you will come surely?
ANTONIO As sure as is the sun to its fixed hour Or midnight to its duty. I will come.
BRIGIDA Good! there are at last three words a poor girl can understand. Mark then, you will wait a while after nightfall, less than half a bowshot from the place you know towards the Square Velasquez, within sight of the Donna's windows. Then I will come to you. Sir, if your sword be half as ready and irresistible as your tongue, I would gladly have you there with him, though Saint Iago grant that neither prove necessary. You look sad, Sir. God save you for a witty and eloquent gentleman.
Exit.
ANTONIO O cousin, I am bewitched with happiness. Pardon me that I leave you. Solitude Demands a god and godlike I am grown Unto myself. This letter deifies me. I will be sole with my felicity.
BASIL God grant that I am not bewitched also! Saints and angels! How is it? How did it happen? Is the sun still in heaven? Is that the song of a bird or a barrel-organ? I am not drunk either. I can still distinguish between a tree and the squirrel upon it. What, am I not Basil? whom men call the witty and eloquent Basil? Did I not laugh from the womb? Was not my first cry a jest upon the world I came into? Did I not invent a conceit upon my mother's milk ere I had sucked of it? Death! And have I
Page 854
been bashed and beaten by the tongue of a girl? silenced by a common purveyor of impertinences? It is so and yet it cannot be. I begin to believe in the dogmas of the materialist. The gastric juice rises in my estimation. Genius is after all only a form of indigestion, a line of Shakespeare the apotheosis of a leg of mutton and the speculations of Plato an escape of diseased tissue arrested in the permanency of ink. What did I break my fast with this morning? Kippered herring? Bread? Marmalade? Tea? O kippered herring, art thou the material form of stupidity and is marmalade an enemy of wit? It must be so. O mighty gastric juice! Mother and Saviour! I bow down before thee. Be propitious, fair goddess, to thy adorer.
Arise, Basil. Today thou shalt retrieve thy tarnished laurels or be expunged for ever from the book of the witty. Arm thyself in full panoply of allusion and irony, gird on raillery like a sword and repartee like a buckler. I will meet this girl tonight. I will tund her with conceits, torture her with ironies, tickle her with jests, prick her all over with epigrams. My wit shall smother her, tear her, burst her sides, press her to death, hang her, draw her, quarter her, and if all this fails, Death! as a last revenge, I'll marry5 her. Saints!
Page 855
Ismenia's chamber.
ISMENIA Brigida lingers. O he has denied me And therefore she is loth to come, for she Knows she will bring me death. It is not so. He has detained her to return an answer. Yet I asked none. I am full of fear, O heart, I have staked thee upon a desperate cast, Which if I win not, I am miserable. 'Tis she. O that my hope could give her wings Or lift her through the window bodily To shorten this age of waiting. I could not Discern her look. Her steps sound hopefully.
Dearest Brigida! at last! What says Antonio? Tell me quickly. Heavens! you look melancholy.
BRIGIDA Santa Catarina! How weary I am! My ears too! I think they have listened to more nonsense in these twenty minutes than in all their natural eighteen years before. Sure, child, thou hast committed some unpardonable sin to have such a moonstruck lover as this Antonio.
ISMENIA But, Brigida!
BRIGIDA And his shadow too, his Cerberus of wit who guards this poetical treasure. He would have eaten me, I think, if I had not given him the wherewithal to stop the three mouths of him.
ISMENIA Why, Brigida, Brigida.
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BRIGIDA Saints! to think how men lie! I have heard this Basil reputed loudly for the Caesar of wits, the tongue and laughter of the time; but never credit me, child, if I did not silence him with a few stale pertnesses a market-girl might have devised for her customers. A wit, truly! and not a word in his mouth bullet-head Pedro could not better.
ISMENIA Distraction! What is this to Antonio? Sure, your wits are bewildered, Brigida. What said Antonio? Girl, I am on thorns.
BRIGIDA I am coming to that as fast as possible. Jesus! What a burning hurry you are in, Ismenia! You have not your colour, child. I will bring you salvolatile from my chamber. 'Tis in a marvellous cut-bottle with a different hue to each facet! I filched it from Donna Clara's room when she was at matins yesterday.
ISMENIA Tell me, you magpie, tell me.
BRIGIDA What am I doing else? You must know I found Antonio was in his garden. Oh, did I tell you, Ismenia? Donna Clara chooses the seeds for me this season and I think she has as rare a notion of nasturtiums as any woman living. I was speaking to Pedro in the summer house yesterday; for you remember it thundered terrifically before one had time to know light from darkness; and there I stood miles from the garden door—
ISMENIA In the name of pity, Brigida—
BRIGIDA Saints! how you hurry me. Well, when I went to Antonio in his garden—There's an excellent garden, Ismenia. I wonder
Page 857
where Don Beltran's gardener had his bignolias.
ISMENIA Oh-h-h!
BRIGIDA Well, where was I? Oh, giving the letter to Antonio. Why, would you believe it, in thrust Don Wit, Don Cerberus, Don Subtle-three-mouths.
ISMENIA Will you tell me, you ogress, you paragon of Tyrannesses, you she-Nero, you compound of impossible cruelties?
BRIGIDA Saints, what have I done to be abused so? I was coming to it faster than a mail-coach and four. You would not be so unconscionable as to ask me for the appendage of a story, all tail and nothing to hang it on? Well, Antonio took the letter.
ISMENIA Yes, yes and what answer gave he?
BRIGIDA He looked all over the envelope to see whence it came, dissertated learnedly on this knotty question, abused me your handwriting foully.
ISMENIA Dear cousin, sweet cousin, excellent Brigida! On my knees, I entreat you, do not tease me longer. Though I know you would not do it, if all were not well, yet consider what a weak tremulous thing is the heart of woman when she loves and have pity on me. On my knees, sweetest.
BRIGIDA Why, Ismenia, I never knew you so humble in my life,—save
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indeed to your brother; but him indeed I do not reckon. He would rule even me, if I let him. On your knees, too! This is excellent. May I be lost, if I am not tempted to try how long I can keep you so. But I will be merciful. Well, he scanned your handwriting and reviled it for the script of a virago, an Amazon.
ISMENIA Brigida, if you will not tell me directly, without phrase and plainly, just what I want to know and nothing else, by heaven, I will beat you.
BRIGIDA Now, this is foul. Can you not keep your better mood for fifty seconds by the clock? O temper, temper. Ah, well, where was I? Oh, yes, your handwriting. Oh! Oh! Oh! What mean you, cousin? Lord deliver me. Cousin! Cousin! He will come! He will come! He will come!
ISMENIA Does he love me?
BRIGIDA Madly! distractedly! like a moonstruck natural! Saints!
ISMENIA Dearest, dearest Brigida! You are an angel. How can I thank you?
BRIGIDA Child, you have thanked me out of breath already. If you have not dislocated my shoulder and torn half of my hair out—
ISMENIA Hear her, the Pagan! A gentle physical agitation and some rearrangement of tresses, 'twas less punishment than you deserved. But there! that is salve for you. And now be sober, sweet. What said Antonio? Come, tell me. I am greedy to know.
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BRIGIDA I'll be hanged if I do. Besides I could not if I would. He talked poetry.
ISMENIA But did he not despise me for my forwardness?
BRIGIDA Tut, you are childish. But to speak the bare fact, Ismenia, I think he is most poetically in love with you. He made preparations to swoon when he saw no more than your name; but I build nothing on that;6 there are some faint when they smell a pinch of garlic or spy a cockchafer. But he waited ten minutes copying your letter into his heart or some such note-book of love affairs; yet that was nothing either; I doubt if he found room for you, unless on the margin. Then he began drawing cheques on Olympus for comparisons, left that presently as antique and out of date, confounded Ovid and his breviary in the same quest; left that too for mediaeval, and diverged into Light and Heat, but came not to the very modernness of electricity. But Lord! cousin, what a career he ran! He had imagined himself blind and breathless when I stopped him. I tremble to think what calamities might have ensued had I not thrown myself under the wheels of his metaphor. The upshot is, he loves you, worships you and will come to you.
ISMENIA Brigida, Brigida, be you as happy as you have made me.
BRIGIDA Truly, the happiness of lovers, children, with a new plaything and mad to handle it. But when they are tired of the game—ah, well, I will have nothing of it. No, I will be the type and patroness of spinsters, the noble army of old maids shall gather about my
Page 860
tomb to do homage to me.
ISMENIA And he will come tonight?
BRIGIDA Yes, if his love lasts so long.
ISMENIA For a thousand years. Come with me, Brigida, and help me to bear my happiness. Till tonight!
Page 861
A street in Madrid.
ANTONIO This is the place.
BASIL 'Tis farther.
ANTONIO This, I know it. Here's the square Velasquez. There in his saddle Imperial Charles watches the silent city His progeny could not keep. Where the one light Stands beckoning to us, is Don Mario's dwelling. O thou celestial lustre, wast thou kindled To be her light who is my sun? If so, Thou art most happy. For thou dost inherit The sanctuary of her dear sleep and art The confidant of those sweet secrecies. Though thou live for a night, yet is thy short And noble ministry, more rich and costly, Than ages of the sun. For thou hast seen, O blessed, her unveiled and gleaming shoulder Make her thick-treasured hair more precious. Thou Hast watched that face upon her heavenly pillow Slumbering amid its peaceful curls. O more! For thou perhaps hast laid one brilliant finger On her white breast mastered with sacred sleep, And there known Paradise. Therefore thou'rt famous Above all lights that human hands have kindled.
BASIL Here's a whole epic on an ounce of oil A poor, drowned wick bought from the nearest chandler And a fly sodden in it.
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ANTONIO Listen! one comes.
BASIL Stand back, abide not question.
ANTONIO They'll not doubt us. We are far from the building.
BASIL Am I mad? Do you think I'll trust a lover? Why, you could not Even ask the time but you would say, "Good Sir, How many minutes to Ismenia?"
ANTONIO Well, Stand back.
BASIL No need. I see it. 'Tis the she-guide, The feminine Mercury, the tongue, the woman.
Hark to the bell now.
BRIGIDA You, my lord Antonio? This way, my lord.
ANTONIO Which way you will. I know You are my guide to heaven.
BRIGIDA O you have come? I take this kindly of you, Señor. Tell me,
Page 863
Were you not hiding when I came up to you? What was it, Sir? A constable or perhaps A creditor? For to be dashed by a weak girl I know you are too bold. What did you say? I did not hear you. We are there, my lord. Now quietly, if you love her, your sweet lady. (To Basil) Can you be silent, Señor? We are lost else.
Page 864
Ismenia's antechamber.
ISMENIA waiting It is too dark. I can see nothing. Hark! Surely it was the door that fastened then. My heart, control thyself! Thou beat'st too quickly And wilt break in the arms of happiness. Brigida.
BRIGIDA Here. Enter, my lord, and take her.
ANTONIO Ismenia!
ISMENIA Antonio! Oh Antonio!
ANTONIO My heart's dearest!
BRIGIDA Bring your wit this way, Sir. It is not needed.
Exit with Basil.
ISMENIA O not thus! You shame me. This is my place, dear, at your feet; and then Higher than is my right.
ANTONIO I cannot suffer Blasphemy to touch my heaven, though your lips
Page 865
Have hallowed it. Highest were low for you. You are a goddess and adorable.
ISMENIA Alas, Antonio, this is not the way. I fear you do not love me, you despise me. Come, do you not despise me?
ANTONIO The leaf might then Despise the moonbeam that has come to kiss it. I love and reverence.
ISMENIA Then you must take me, As I have given myself to you, your servant, Yours wholly, not to be prayed to and hymned As a divinity but to be commanded As a dear handmaid. You must rule me, sweet, Or I shall spoil with liberty and lose you.
ANTONIO Must I? I will then. Yet you are so queenly, I needs must smile when I attempt it. Come, Shall I command you?
ISMENIA Do, sweet.
ANTONIO Lay your head Upon my shoulder so and do not dare To lift it till I give you leave.
ISMENIA Alas, I fear you'll be a tyrant. And I meant
Page 866
To bear at most a limited monarchy.
ANTONIO No murmuring. Answer my questions.
ISMENIA Well, That's easy and I will.
ANTONIO And truly.
ISMENIA Oh, But that's almost impossible. I'll try.
ANTONIO Come, when did you first love me?
ISMENIA Dear, today.
ANTONIO When will you marry me?
ISMENIA Tomorrow, dear.
ANTONIO Here is a mutinous kingdom to my hands. Now truly.
ISMENIA Truly then, seven days ago, No more than seven, at the court I saw you, And with the sight my life was troubled; heard you And your voice tore my heart out. O Antonio,
Page 867
I was an empty thing until today. I saw you daily, but because I feared What now I know, you were Lord Beltran's son I dared not ask your name, nay shut my ears To knowledge. O my love, I am afraid Your father seems a hard vindictive man. What will you do with me, Antonio?
ANTONIO Fasten My jewel safe from separating hands Holily on my bosom. My father? He Shall know not of our love, till we are sure From rude disunion. Though he will be angry I am his eldest and beloved son, And when he feels your sweetness and your charm He will repent and thank me for a daughter.
ISMENIA When 'tis your voice that tells me, I believe Impossibilities. Well, let me know— You've made me blush, Antonio, and I wish I could retaliate—were you not amazed At my mad forwardness, to woo you first, A youth unknown?
ANTONIO Yes, even as Adam was When he first saw the sunrise over Eden. It was unsunlike to uplift the glory Of those life-giving rays, unwooed, uncourted.
ISMENIA Alas, you flatter. Did you love me, Antonio?
ANTONIO Three days before I had the bliss to win
Page 868
The wonder of your eyes.
ISMENIA Three days! Oh me, Three days, Antonio? Three whole days before I loved you?
ANTONIO Three days, dearest.
ISMENIA Oh, You've made me jealous. I am angry. Three Whole days! How could it happen?
ANTONIO I will make You compensation, dear; for in revenge I'll love you three whole days, when you have ceased To love me.
ISMENIA O not even in jest, Antonio, Speak of such separation. Sooner shall The sun divorce his light than we two sunder. But you have given me a spur. I must Love you too much, I must, Antonio, more Than you love me, or the account's not even. A noise?
ANTONIO One passes in the street.
ISMENIA We are Too near the window and too heedless, love. Come this way; here 'tis safe; I fear your danger.
Page 869
Exeunt. After a while enter Brigida.
BRIGIDA No sound? Señor! Ismenia! Surely they cannot have embraced each other into invisibility. No, Cupid has flown away with them. It cannot have been the devil, for I smell no brimstone. Well, if they are so tedious I will not mortify myself with solitude either. I have set Don Cerberus on the stairs out of respect for the mythology. There he stands with his sword at point like the picture of a sentinel and protects us against a surprise of rats from the cellar; for what other wild beasts there may be to menace us, I know not. Don Mario snores hard and Donna Clara plays the violin to his bassoon. I have heard them three rooms off. These men! these men! and yet they call themselves our masters. I would I could find a man fit to measure tongues with me. I begin to feel lonely in the Alpine elevation of my own wit. The meditations of Matterhorn come home to me and I feel a sister to Monte Rosa. Certainly this woman's fever is catching, and spreads a most calamitous infection. I have overheard myself sighing; it is a symptom incubatory. Heighho! when turtles pair, I never heard that the magpie lives lonely. I have at this moment a kindly thought for all suffering animals. I begin to pity Cerberus even. I will relieve him from guard. Hist! Señor! Don Basil!
Enter Basil.
Is all quiet?
BASIL Not a mouse stirring!
BRIGIDA Put up your sword, pray you; I think there is no danger, and if one comes, you may draw again in time to cut its tail off.
BASIL At your service, Señorita. If it were not treason to my wit, I begin to feel this strip of a girl is making an ass of me. I am transformed;
Page 870
I feel it. I shall hear myself bray presently. But I will defy enchantment, I will handle her. A plague! Must I continually be stale-mated by a will-o'-the-wisp, all sparkle and nowhere? Courage, Basil.
BRIGIDA You meditate, Señor? If it be to allay the warmth you have brought from the stairs, with the coolness of reflection, I would not hinder you.
BASIL In bare truth, Señorita, I am so chilled that I was even about to beg of you a most sweet and warming cordial.
BRIGIDA For a small matter like that, I would be loth to deny you. You shall have it immediately.
BASIL With your permission, then.
BRIGIDA Ah, Señor, beware. Living coals are dangerous; they burn, Señor.
BASIL I am proof.
BRIGIDA As the man said when he was bitten by the dog they thought mad; but it was the dog that died. Pray, Sir, have a care. You will put the fire out.
BASIL Come, I have you. I will take ten kisses for the one you refused me this forenoon.
Page 871
BRIGIDA That is too compound an interest. I do entreat you, Sir, have a care. This usury is punishable by the law.
BASIL I have the rich man's trick for that. With the very coin I have unlawfully gathered, I will stop her mouth.
BRIGIDA O Sir, you are as wasteful an accountant of kisses as of words. I foresee you will go bankrupt. No more, Señor, what noise was that on the stair? Good, now you have your distance. I will even trouble you to keep it. No nearer, I tell you. You do not observe the laws of the duello. You take advantages.
BASIL With me? Pooh, you grow ambitious. Because I knew that to stop your mouth was to stop your life, therefore in pity I have refused your encounter.
BRIGIDA Was it, truly? Alas, I could weep to think of the violence you have done yourself for my sake. Pray, sir, do not torture yourself so. To see how goodness is misunderstood in this world! Out of pity? And made me take you for a fool!
BRIGIDA O no, Señor, it is not well, indeed it is not well. You shall not do this again. If I must die, I must die. You are scatheless. Pray now, disburden your intellect of all the brilliant things it has so painfully kept to itself. Plethora is unwholesome and I would not have you perish of an apoplexy of wit. Pour it out on me, conceit, epigram, irony, satire, vituperation; flout and invective, tuquoque
Page 872
and double-entendre, pun and quibble, rhyme and unreason, catcall and onomatopoeia; all, all, though it be an avalanche. It will be terrible, but I will stand the charge of it.
BASIL St. Iago! I think she has the whole dictionary in her stomach. I grow desperate.
BRIGIDA Pray, do not be afraid. I do not indeed press you to throw yourself at my head, but for a small matter like your wit, I will bear up against it.
BASIL This girl has a devil.
BRIGIDA Why are you silent, Señor? Are you angry with me? I have given you no cause. This is cruel. Don Basil, I have heard you cited everywhere for absolutely the most free and witty speaker of the age. They told me that if none other offer, you will jest with the statues in the Plaza Mayor and so wittily they cannot answer a word to you. What have I done that with me alone you are dumb?
BASIL I am bewitched certainly.
BRIGIDA Señor, is it still pity? But why on me alone? O Sir, have pity on the whole world and be always silent. Well I see your benevolence is unconquerable. With your leave, we will pass from unprofitable talk; I would be glad to recall the sound of your voice. You may come nearer, since you decline the duello.
BASIL I thank you, Señorita. Whose sheep baaed then?
Page 873
BRIGIDA Don Basil, shall we talk soberly?
BASIL At your pleasure, Madam.
BRIGIDA No Madam, Señor, but a poor companion. You go to Count Beltran's house tomorrow?
BASIL It is so intended.
BRIGIDA O the masque, who play it?
BASIL Masquers, Señorita.
BRIGIDA O Sir, is this your pity? I told you, you would burst if you kept in your wit too long. But who are they by condition? Goddesses are the characters and by rule modern they should be live goddesses who play them.
BASIL They are so.
BRIGIDA Are they indeed so lovely?
BASIL Euphrosyne, Christofir's daughter, is simply the most exquisite beauty of the kingdom.
BRIGIDA You speak very absolutely, Señor. Fairer than Ismenia?
Page 874
BASIL I speak it with unwillingness, but honestly the Lady Ismenia, rarely lovely as she is, could not stand beside this miller's daughter.
BRIGIDA I think I have seen her and I do not remember so outshining a beauty.
BASIL Then cannot you have seen her, for the wonders she eclipses, themselves speak to their disgrace, even when they are women.
BRIGIDA Pardon me if I take you to speak in the pitch of a lover's eulogy.
BASIL Were it so, her beauty and gentleness deserve it; I have seen none worthier.
BRIGIDA I wish you joy of her. I pray you for permission to leave you, Señor.
BASIL Save one indeed.
BRIGIDA Ah! and who was she?
BASIL You will pardon me.
BRIGIDA I will not press you, Sir, I do not know her, do I?
BASIL O 'tis not so much as that either. 'Twas only an orange-girl I
Page 875
saw once at Cadiz.
BRIGIDA Oh!
BASIL Ha! she is galled, positively. This is as sweet to me as honey.
BRIGIDA Well, Señor, your taste is as undeniable as your wit. Flour is the staff of life and oranges are good for a season. What does this paragon play?
BASIL Venus; and in the after-scene, Helen.
BRIGIDA So? May I know the others? You may find one of them to be a poor cousin of mine.
BASIL Catriona, the bailly's daughter to Count Conrad, and Sofronia, the student Geronimo's sister; she too is of the Count's household.
BRIGIDA It is not then difficult to act in a masque.
BASIL A masque demands little, Señorita. A taking figure, a flowing step, a good voice, a quick memory—but for that a speaking memory hard by in a box will do much at an emergency.
BRIGIDA True, for such long parts must be a heavy tax on the quickest.
BASIL There are but two such, Venus-Helen and Paris. The rest are
Page 876
only a Zephyr's dance in, a speech and a song to help the situation and out again with a scurry.
BRIGIDA God be with you. You have a learned conversation and a sober, and for such I will always report you. But here comes a colon to it. We will keep the full stop for tomorrow.
Enter Antonio and Ismenia.
ISMENIA I think the dawn moves in the east, Brigida. Pray you, unlock the door, but noiselessly.
BRIGIDA Teach me not. Though the wild torrent of this gentleman's conversation have swept away half my wit, I have at a desperate peril saved the other half for your service. Come, Sir, I have need of you to frighten the mice away.
BASIL St. Iago!
Exit Brigida with Basil.
ISMENIA Dear, we must part. I would have you my necklace That I might feel you round my neck for ever, Or life be night and all men sleep that we Need never part: but we must part, Antonio. Will you forget me?
ANTONIO When I cease to feel.
ISMENIA I know you cannot, but I am so happy. I love to play with my own happiness And ask it questions. Dear, we shall meet soon.
Page 877
I'll make a compact with you, sweet. You shall Do all my will and make no question, till We're married; then you know, I am your servant. Will you, till then?
ANTONIO Till then and after.
ISMENIA Go now, Love, I must drive you out or you'll not go.
ANTONIO One kiss.
ISMENIA You've had one thousand. Well, one more, One only or I shall never let you part.
BRIGIDA Are you both distracted? Is this, I pray you, a time for lingering and near dawn over the east? Out with you, Señor, or I will set your own Cerberus upon you, and I wager he bites well, though I think poorly of his bark.
Exit with Antonio.
ISMENIA O I have given all myself and kept Nothing to live with when he's gone from me. My life's his moon and I'm all dark and sad Without him. Yesterday I was Ismenia, Strong in myself, an individual woman. Today I'm but the body of another, No longer separate reality. Well, if I gain him, let me lose myself, And I'm still happy. The door shuts. He's gone.
Page 878
Re-enter Brigida.
Ah, Brigida.
BRIGIDA Come, get in, get in. Snatch a little sleep, for I promise you, you shall have none tomorrow.
ISMENIA How do you mean by that? Or is it jest merely?
BRIGIDA Leave me alone. I have a whole drama in my head, a play in a play and yet no play. I have only to rearrange the parts a little and tomorrow's sunlight shall see it staged, scened, enacted and concluded. To bed with you.
Curtain
Page 879
A room in Conrad's house. Conrad, a servant.
CONRAD Where is Flaminia?
SERVANT He's in waiting, Sir.
CONRAD Call him.
Exit servant.
I never loved before. Fortune, I ask one day of thee and one great night, Then do thy will. I shall have reached my summit.
Enter Flaminia.
FLAMINIA My lord!
(Incomplete)
Page 880
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