Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu, page 864
NEROEA. Why fear’st thou to say all,
If thou mean’st all?
SPALATRO. We all are cowards, lady.
NEROEA. Cowards? Thou sayest thou fearest nothing.
SPALATRO. Nothing — nothing! never! so long as I am safe.
NEROEA. Safe — and thy trade?
SPALATRO. Safe — because, being wise,
I am coward; being coward — safe.
NEROEA. Go on.
SPALATRO. Oh! not before your ladyship.
NEROEA. Thy life is in my hand.
(Spalatro smiles, and bows very low.)
Is poison sure
As witchcraft, villain? Ay, I’ve said it — speak!
SPALATRO. Some people think it surer — that is all.
NEROEA. Go on.
SPALATRO. I follow — rather — step by step.
NEROEA. Go on.
SPALATRO. Nay, not before your ladyship.
NEROEA. What? By St. Mark, wilt hold thy peace! Shall I
Play tempter to the Fiend, and drop again
Into his hollow ear his damned suggestion,
And wring my heart in syllables of terror,
That thou may’st smile? Gaunt blasphemy, away!
And elsewhere, saint-like, cowl thy murderous head,
And look like hell, and smile, and smell of death.
Oh God! Why did I call thee here?
(NEROEA passes through the curtain to the balcony.)
SPALATRO. Brava!
Ever the same. They’d murder prettily.
For us, the danger and the mire of murder;
For them its profit and romance. Is’t so?
Yea, by my soul! Thou’lt put thy dainty hand to’t,
Beautiful Cannibal! I know thy kind.
None of thine airs with me! I seat me here.
She’ll come back presently in her right mind;
And at my feet, a penitent — henceforth
Sit gentle, and as she ought to be, afraid.
SCENE.
The balcony; NEROEA alone, leaning over it. Moonlight.
NEROEA. Ah! ha, ha ha! Thank God! The air, the moonlight.
Oh! cooling floods, pour drowning o’er the fire
Of my hot temples, and my wild heart’s bounds
Against this close-ribbed cage. Away, away!
To die is better. Stars! — cold eyes of heaven
That wake and look and wake and never feel,
Is there no pity? Spirits! angels! — nothing,
No pity? Is there duty, truth, or peace?
Cares the great God for me or what I do?
Is there peace anywhere? tremendous God!
Is time, from birth to death an agony?
Were I a god, I could not deal in riddles;
And with unreal lights and voices scare
Poor creatures, starless, on a waste benighted.
The boatman’s daughter? — the boatman’s innocent daughter? —
That drowned herself for love. I’ve thought of her
For many a day. How beautiful she looked!
And God is truth they say. She could not be
Unhappy, sure, and look so like an Angel!
And to my aunt I said, “Preach as they may,
’Tis well — that girl did right — the girl’s in heaven!”
My poor aunt at her prayers — good, narrow soul,
So cold, and I — God makes us differently —
So reptile-cold some — some of fire — all fire!
The fire — the worm — the worm that dieth not —
The fire — the fire. And I who said she was
In heaven; that she did right — lo! here am I,
All lost for him! and he all lost to me —
And here am I, and there the dark sea sleeps.
’Twas in the night she did it. What am I?
She dared it, all alone, poor soul! From night
To darker night, so easy — and I dare not.
How black it looks, that blind, remorseless mirror.
Oh, death! Oh, death! Oh anodyne appalling!
Once quaffed, then cold for ever! I’m no more
The brave girl I once was — a coward grown.
I that was once so brave; yet if I live,
She cannot — no, she cannot. Fool! she cannot.
SCENE.
The same gorgeous chamber in the Palazzo of NEROEA, overlooking the canal.
(An hour later. SPALATRO, smiling, his hand on the door at which he stands. NEROEA, pale and seated near a lamp, looking sternly at him)
SPALATRO. Now, madam, all is clear. No oracles.
Each understands the other. It shall be —
Ay it shall come to pass, not by my hand,
But by a sure one, lady.
NEROEA. There, there, there — go!
SPALATRO. Thou know’st young Giacopo?
NEROEA. For God’s sake, go.
SPALATRO. Your Excellenza’s most devoted friend,
And grateful slave, I do obey thee, lady;
So — fare thee well, and Fortune grant thee — all things. — (Exit SPALATRO.
(An interval of silence, during which she gazes wildly at the door through which he departed.)
NEROEA.— ’Tis gone — and I am of the dead — alone.
I’ve talked with horror. They have murdered
me.
I fear myself and walk the world a ghost.
Hark! There he goes, a message on the wave,
And leaves me here this hour’s eternal slave.
SCENE.
The Island of Torcello. Moonlight. (The fisherman’s cottage; a small lamp in the casement. The door is open. BEATRICE leans upon the doorpost, her hand from within upon the hatch; JULIO on the rude steps, without, his hand on hers.)
CHORUS.
As on that night they talked alone,
Changed, on a sudden, Julio’s tone;
.Paled his cheek, and thrilled his tone
As if a changeless dark or light —
Deathless summer — mortal blight —
The chance or fear of all his life
With that hour began or ended,
On a girlish word depended.
“Oh! Beatrice, be thou my wife!”
Well had the tiny shaft been shot,
And Cytherea’s graceful son,
Laughing saw his work was done;
And in a true love knot
Tied up all his arrows now,
Fancy-tipt and fiery-shafted,
Smiling too, unstrung his bow.
Through her heart the sweet voice wafted
O’er the frowning hills of life —
Down the shadowy steeps of life — A call of unseen Fate resembled.
Then upleapt a sudden fear,
Love for a moment chilled and trembled.
She heard the voice so sweetly rise,
Like a bugle in the skies,
And she looked in Julio’s eyes
Now so awful, yet so dear.
Days of childhood glad and kind
Away with all their treasures fleet,
Like early bloom on autumn wind,
Whirled before her pausing feet.
Vanishes the cottage wall,
The homely stair, the roses — all —
And the old lamp’s friendly spark —
The sameness and the safety o’er her —
And the great wide world before her
Flashes through the weltering dark!
Long although the journey — colder,
Darker than these fears of mine —
With my hand upon thy shoulder
And the other locked in thine;
And my head upon thy breast,
All is light and all is rest!
So she thought, and both were still,
Then she, trembling, sighed, “I will.”
SCENE.
The Island of Torcello. The night following.
(BEATRICE is seen approaching the window of a ruinous building.)
CHORUS.
In red and golden billows
Across the waning skies
The sunset glory wafted
In eastern darkness dies:
Soft floats the gray of twilight
Against the rosy tide,
And now the hosts of heaven
The welkin radiant ride.
From Lido and Murano
The bells have ceased their ringing,
In groves of island gardens
The nightingales are singing;
The cheer of distant mariners,
The ripple of the sea,
The song upon the waters
Sound sweet and lonelily.
The Moon reginal sailing
Down Adria’s mighty lake
A silver largess showers,
That sparkles in her wake.
Cowering from the silvery beams,
The shadowed evergreens among,
Mid leafy crags and dewy bowers,
And ruin-haunting flowers,
Grimly couchant, dreams
A building of another age
Bowed and furrowed as a sage,
And as a monster strong;
And through their shattered sockets deep,
Flashed by a hellish furnace,
Its wicked windows wince and peep
From under their beetling cornice.
Here in these glimmering dungeons sunk,
Dwells Spalatro, mysterious monk.
Holy, perchance, or darkly wise,
Some hinted he projected gold,
Some whispered that he poisons sold,
And up and down the gamut told
Of Magic’s impious mysteries.
About this Friar
All fain had known — or more or less.
But the web of thought for all was ravelled,
They could not tell,
They dared not guess
For his knowledge where he travelled,
Than the door of Heaven higher,
Or lower than the gates of Hell.
With Spalatro there dwelt another
Slave — or brother,
An ugly, loathsome wight,
All as Gehazi white
With mildew of a leprosy.
Him Spalatro, with cynic joy,
Called his Beauty and his Boy.
He looked the child of Death and Sin;
Bald were his leprous head and chin,
Impish the bestial peak of his ear,
His hanging mouth and goggle leer.
O’er his warped shape this hideous knave
Wore the red frock of a galley slave.
He ever busy, ever by,
Hung like his parted shadow nigh,
That could not quit him quite.
Glooming, hovering hither and forth,
Now stretched a still stain on the earth,
Watching him as he walked or stood,
Watching as he pondered — or passed,
With the glare of a Fiend in servitude,
Who in his master eyes a prey,
Will be commanded, will obey,
But will suffer him never to win away,
Knowing well that his labour o’er,
His hour of lordship will come at last;
Will come, and change no more.
In those lone, cavernous rooms,
Like the foul spirits in the tombs,
By that furnace throbbing redly,
Among the phials sealed with clay,
Glasses crooked and ashes gray,
Pottering o’er their business deadly,
The two thus smouldered life away.
The glow this night
Of furnace light,
While around the moonlight reigns,
Trembles through the deep-barred panes
That stare, like the eyes of a sullen beast,
Blood red upon the holy east.
(BEATRICE taps at the window.)
SPALATRO. What makest thou, tapping at my window, hey?
BEATRICE. Pardon, good father, I know not
where else
In all the world to look for help.
SPALATRO. Ay, help!
Ay, always help. The same cry, ever help!
BEATRICE. My soul is troubled, and thy holy
counsel —
SPALATRO. Bah! Holy Policinello! Penance —
shrift!
How know’st thou I’m in orders? If I be,
’Tis all one; for I’m here by the Abbot’s order,
Preparing medicines, not to hear confessions.
Trouble! ha, ha! We’ve all our troubles, Baby.
Go to the Carmelites.
(Shutting the window.)
BEATRICE. One moment, Father!
SPALATRO. Moment! I crave my meat like any
other;
I must work for it. Life’s made up of moments.
BEATRICE. Here, Father, are two sequins — I’ve
no more.
Oh! sir, for Jesus’ love, do not refuse me.
(He takes the money.)
Oh! thanks, good Signor!
SPALATRO. But I can’t confess thee.
BEATRICE.— ’Tis no confession— ’tis an omen, sir.
I’m frighted by an omen, and implore —
SPALATRO. Omen! what omen! Come, come,
in a word.
BEATRICE. A dream, good sir.
SPALATRO. Ho! dreams! and what’s thy name?
BEATRICE.— ’Tis Beatrice, Signor.
SPALATRO. SO, Beatrice,
Whose daughter art thou, girl, hey?
BEATRICE. Leonardo’s,
The fisherman’s, who dwells hard by.
SPALATRO. I know,
I’ve heard — (aside — By heaven, ’tis she) — an
honest man.
His cottage hangs above the water, eh?
A worthy fisherman as there’s in Venice;
And a steep flight of steps down to the water;
I’ve seen his cottage in the creek hard by.
Is it not so?
BEATRICE. Just so — (Aside — How friendly grows
he!)
SPALATRO. (Aside — Ha! by St. Mark, I knew it!) Aye, I know
Thy mother’s dead? I know — and now, good child,
Pray what’s the matter?
BEATRICE. In my sleep a dream there came,
Voices talking first I heard,
Talking of a wedding coming,
Of my wedding, as I think.
“With a Doge’s ring he’ll wed me,”
Said a voice I thought was mine!
’Twas not I who spoke, and yet
I thought within myself ’twas mine.
SPALATRO. Oh! ho!
By Lido many a Doge’s ring
Under the surges’ boom and swing,
Mid the dip and wheel of the sea-bird’s wing,
Full fathom five,
Deeper than maiden cares to dive,
Lies low.
BEATRICE. And my mother was beside me,
White and cold, and smiling sweetly,
Like an angel, smiling sweetly.
Blessed mother, white and cold,
In a nun-like robe of white —
White and cold as if cold moonlight,
Warp and woof, were spun and shuttled,
Cold the hand she stirred my hand with.
Up got I, and went forth with her.
Smiling, white and cold, she led me
Down the steps and into the ripple.
Nothing felt I of the water;
Though deeper into the water,
Side by side, we trod together —
Deeper and deeper — beneath the water.
And when I waked, I felt the water
From my face receding cold,
From my face and feet receding.
Water over my bosom gliding,
Coldly from my limbs subsiding,
Gliding like my sleep from me,
And while from death I was emerging
From the wide and lonely sea,
Gentlest winds and waves were dirgeing
With a far, faint melody —
A far, faint, fearful minstrelsy,
O’er the dead men in the sea.
SPALATRO. A broken dream, and fancies wild
Away with them, thou silly child!
BEATRICE. I cannot, Father— ’tis in vain,
The fancies of my dream remain
Wheeling wildly in my brain,
Till my eyes are drowsed with pain.
SPALATRO. Into the sea, and down the stairs?
Folly, child! Go — say thy prayers.
BEATRICE. Stay, Father! When I try to
pray,
’Tis lips and beads, and only they,
Thought and spirit are far away!
SPALATRO. Try it again; the saints will soften;
A good thing can’t be tried too often;
Ave and pater — every tittle;
Try all the saints, the big and little.
BEATRICE. The mighty mill-wheel over-shot
With solemn feet and bearded spray
That spins and spins for aye and aye,
Ever changing, changes not,
But with circling foam and feet
Will the selfsame measure beat —
Ever coming, ever going,
Parting now, now backward flowing
So these fancies in my brain
Rise and sink, and rise again.
SPALATRO (calling). Boy! how is the crucible?
BOY (within). Candescent only, not yet candent.
SPALATRO. Let it burn a little stronger,
Now! — I cannot stay much longer.
What’s the matter?
BEATRICE. I saw the dream ‘twixt night and
morning.
Father! think you ’tis a warning?
SPALATRO. Tell me — no one hears within —
