YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 'T^]L]l«¥]MII¥EI^Sinnf« I93I ck 35 JOYZELLE THE WORKS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK ESSAYS The Treasure, of the Humslb Wisdom ahd Destihit The Life of the Bee The Buried Temple The Double Garden The Measure of the Hours Oh Emhksoh« and Other Essays Our Eternity The Unknown Gusbt The Wrack of the Storu Mountain Paths PLAYS Sister Beatrice, and Ardiane akd Barse Bleux Joyzelle, and Monna Vanna The Blue Bird, A Fairy Play Mary Maosalenb F£ll£as AN9 M:&LisANOE, and Other Plays Princess Maleine The Intruder, and Other Plays Aglavaine and Sblysette The Miracle of Saint Anthony The Betrothal; A Sequel to The Blue Bird FOSMS HOLIDAY EDITIONS Our Friend the Doc The Swaru DeathThoughts frou Maeterlinck The Blue Bird The Life of the Bee News of Spring and Other Nature Studies Tee Light Beyond Joyzelle Translated by A. TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS Monna Vanna Translated by ALFRED SUTRO BY MAURICE MAETERLINCK ^ NEW YORK DODD. MEAD AND COMPANY 1920' CoPTWaHT, 1903, B» Eugene FAsauELtE COPYKIOHT, 1907, BY DoDD, Mead and Company eK 3Z CHARACTERS Merlin Lanceok, Merlin's son Joyzelle AaiELLE, Merlin's genius, invisible to the others Scene : Merlin's Island, ACT I A Gallery in Merlin's Palace (Meelin is seated near Arielle, who is sleep-^ ing on the steps of a marble staircase. It is night.) merlin You sleep, my Arielle, you, my inner force, the neglected power which slum bers in every soul and which I alone, till now, awaken at will . . . You sleep, my docile and familiar little fairy, and your hair, straying like a blue mist, invisible to men, mingles with the moon, the perfumes of the night, the rays of the stars, the roses that shed their petals, the spreading sky, to remind us thus that nothing separates us from any existing thing and that our thought does not know where the light begins for which it hopes, nor where the shadow ends which it escapes . . . You are sleeping soundly and, while you sleep, I lose all my knowledge and become like my blind brethren I Joyzelle who do not yet know that on this earth there are as many hidden gods as there are hearts that throb . . . Alas, I am to them the genius to be avoided, the wicked sorcerer in league with their enemies! . . . They have no enemies, but only Subjects who know not where to find their king . . . They are per suaded that my secret virtue, which is obeyed by the plants and the stars, by water, stonfe and fire and to which the future at times re veals some of its features : they are persuaded that this new and yet so human virtue is hid den in philtres, in horrible charms, in hellish herbs and awful signs . . • No, it is in my self, even as it resides in them; it is in you, my frail Arielle, in you whd were once in me ... I have taken two or three bolder steps in the dark ... I have done a little earlier livhat they will do later . . . AH things wiU be subject to them when they have learnt at last to revive your goodwill even as I have re vived it . . . But it were vain for me to tell them that you are sleeping here and to point to your dazzling grace: they would not see you . . . Each one of them must find you within himself; each one of them must open 2 Joyzelle as I do the tomb of his life and come to awake you as I awake you now . . . j^He bends over Arielle and kisses her. J arielle [^Waking.] Master! . . . MEELIl^ This is the hour, Arielle, ^vhen love must watch ... I shall often trouble your sleep in these coming days. . . . ARIELLE My sleep was so long that I am always re lapsing into it; but I feel stronger and be come happier at each new awakening that your thought imposes on me ... MERLIN Whither are you taking ray son and when shall I see him again? . . . ARIELLE I was following him with my eyes in my attentive dream . . . He is approaching us . . . He thinks that he is lost; and his 3 Joyzelle destiny leads him where happiness awaits him . . . MERLIN Will he know me? .... It is many years since the prescribed proof exacted that we should live as strangers to each other; and I am eager to be able to embrace him as I did long ago, when he was a child . . . ARIELLE No, fate must be allowed to decide freely ; nor may the proof be falsified by the love of a father of whose existence he must not know . . . MERLIN But now that Joyzelle is here, close to us ; now that he is coming towards her, does the future become more clear, can you read fur ther into it? . . . ARIELLE [^Gazing upon the sea and the night, in a sort of trance.] I read in it what I read from the first moment . . . Your son's fate is wholly inscribed within a circle of love. If 4 Joyzelle he love, if he be loved with a wondrous love, which should be that of all men, but which is becoming so rare that at present it seems to them a dazzling foUy; if he love, if he be loved with an ingenuous and yet clear- seeing love, with a love simple and pure and all-powerful as the mountain stream, with an heroic love, yet one that shall be gentler than a flower, with a love which takes all and gives back more than it takes, which never hesitates, which is not deceived; a love which nothing disconcerts and nothing repels, a lov6 which hears and sees naught save a mysterious hap piness, invisible to all besides, which perceives it everywhere, in every form and every trial, and which, with a smile, will even commit crime to claim it ... If he obtain that love, which exists somewhere and is waiting for him in a heart that I seem to have re cognised, his life will be longer, fairer, and happier than that of other men. But, if he do not find it before the month is past, for the circle is closing ; if Joyzelle's love be not that which the future holds out to him from the high skies; if the flame do not burn its full span, if a regret veil or a doubt obscure S Joyzelle St, then death triumphs and your son is lost . . . MERLIN Ay, for all men the hour of love is an im portant hour ! . . .ARtELLB For Lanc^or, alas, it is the inexorable hour ! . . . Within these next few days, he will reach the summit of his life. With groping hands, he touches happiness and the tomb . . . He is dependent entirely on the last steps which he is taking and on the act of the virgin who is coming to meet him. . . . MERLIN And if Joyzelle be not she whom fate selects? . . . ARIELLB Indeed, I fear that the proof which we are about to attempt is the only one which it ofi'ers; but man must never lose courage in face of the future . . . MERLIN Why attempt the proof if it be uncer tain? . . . 6 Joyzelle ARIELLE If we do not off'er it, fate will offer it ; it is inevitable, but it is left to chance; and that is why I try to direct its course . . . MERLIN And if he love Joyzelle and she do not love him with the love which fate demands? . . . ARIELLE Then we shall have to intervene more openly. MERLIN How? ARIELLE I will try to learn. MERLIN Arielle, I conjure you, as this concerns the dearest being, much dearer than myself; as I have only one son and he can become what we well know that I could never be: is it not possible to make an unexampled, an almost desperate effort with regard to the future; to violate time; to snatch from the years, even were they to revenge themselves 7 Joyzelle upon us two, the secret which they conceal so strictly and which contains much more than our own Hfe and our own happiness? . • . ARIELLE No, strive as I may, I can reach no fur ther . . . The future is a world limited by ourselves, in which we discover only that which concerns us and sometimes, by chance, that which interests those whom we love the most ... I see very clearly all that un folds itself round Lanceor, until his road meets Joyzelle's road. But around Joyzelle the years are veiled. It is an effulgent veil, a veil of light, but it hides the days as pro foundly as a veil of darkness ... It interi- rupts life. Then, beyond the veil, I again find happiness and death awaiting him, like two equal, indifferent, inscrutable hosts ; and I cannot tell which is the nearer, the more im perious . . . It is not possible for me to know if Joyzelle is the predestined one . . . Everything promises that it is she, but no thing confirms it . . . Her face is stretched towards the coming years . . . and, call to her as I may, with all my might, she does not 8 Joyzelle answer, does not tum*her head. Nothing can distract her; and I have never seen her fea-* tures, which I can only imagine . . . One sign alone is certain: it is that of the very sharp and cruel proofs which she will have to overcome . . . By these proofs alone we shall know her. . . . MERLIN And therefore, starting from this point which I can suiroount, we must submit to un known powers, question facts like other men, await their reply and try to conquer them if they threaten harm to those whom we love . . . ARIELLE But here they come, in the breaking dawn . . . Let us hasten away; they are coming near . . . Let us leave to their destiny, which is beginning its work, the soli tude and the silence which it demands. {^Exeunt Merlin and Arielle. A few moments after, while the day light swiftly increases, Joyzelle and Lanceor enter from opposite sides and meet.] 9 Joyzelle JOYZELLE [Stopping, astonished, before Lanceor] j What are you seeking? LANcfOR I do not know where I am ... I was seeking a shelter . . . Who are you? joyzelle My name is Joyzelle. LANCEOR JoyzeUe ... I am saying the name . . . It is as caressing as a wing, the breath of a flower, a whisper of gladness, a ray of light ... It describes you completely, it sings in the heart, it lights the lips . . . JOYZELLE And you, who are you? LANCEOR I no longer myself know who I am . . . A few days ago, my name was Lanceor; 1 knew where I was and I knew myself . . . To-day, I seek myself, I grope within myself 10 Joyzelle and all around me, and I wander in the mist, amid mirages . . . JOYZELLE What mist? What mirages? . . . How long have you been on this island? . . . LANCEOR Since yesterday . . . JOYZELLE Strange, they did not tell me . . . LANCEOR No one saw me ... I was wandering on the shore, I was in despair . . . JOYZELLE Oh! Why? . . . LANCJBOR I was very far from here, I was very far from him, when a letter told me that my old father was dying ... I took ship at once. We were long at sea ; then, in the first port at which the ship put in, I learnt that it was too II Joyzelle late, that my father was no more. ... I continued my voyage, at least to be on the scene of his last thoughts and carry out his last wishes. . . . JOYZELLE Why are you here? LANCEOR Why? I do not know, nor do I know how. . . . The sea was very still and the sky was clear. . . . We saw only the water slumbering in the azure. . . . Suddenly, without warning, the waves were invaded by thick blue mists. . . . They rose like a veil, which clung to our hands, to the-rigging, to our faces. . . . Then the wind blew, our anchor broke loose and the blind ship, driven by a current that made her timbers creak, arrived towards evening in the unknown har bour of this unexpected island. . . . Sad and disheartened, I landed on the beach; I fell asleep in a cave overlooking the sea; and,' when I awoke, the fog had lifted and I saw the ship disappear like a radiant wing on the horizon of the waves. Joyzelle JOYZELLE What had happened? LANCEOR I do not know. ... I would have tried to follow her, but I could find no boat in the harbour. ... I must wait, therefore, until another vessel passes. . . . JOYZELLE That is curious. ... It is like myself. • . . LANCEOR Like you? . . . JOYZELLE Yes, I too came to the island through a thick fog. . . ' . But I was shipwrecked. . . . LANCEOR When was that? And how? . . . Where do you come from, Joyzelle? . . . JOYZELLE I was coming from another island. . t • 13 Joyzelle LANCEOR Where were you going? JOYZELLE Where some one was awaiting me. . . . LANCEOR Who? JOYZELLE One whom they had thought right to choose for me. . . . LANCEOR Were you betrothed? . . . JOYZELLE Yes, LANCEOR Do you love him? . . . JOYZELLE No. LANCEOR But then? . . . JOYZELLE My mother wished it. . . ¦ H Joyzelle LANCEOR Do you intend to obey her? ^ JOYZELLE No. LANCEOR Ah, that is well! ... I like that! . . . And my father, at the moment of his death, wished that I also should choose her whom he had chosen for me. . . . He had his reasons, very deep and serious reasons, it appears. . . . And, as he wished it and as he is no longer alive, I must obey him. . . . JOYZELLE Why? LANCEOR We cannot evade the wishes of the dead. JOYZELLE Why? LANCEOR They can no longer be altered. . . . We must have pity, we must respect them.^ . . . 15 Joyzelle JOYZELLE No . . . LANCEOR 'You would not obey? . . . JOYZELLE No. LANC:6oR Joyzelle ! . . . This is horrible ! . . . JOYZELLE No, the dead are horrible, if they want us to love those whom we do not love . . . LANCEOR Joyzelle! ... I am afraid of you . . . JOYZELLE I said . . . What did I say? . . . Per haps I was too quick . . . LANCEOR Joyzelle, your eyes are moist at the thought of the dead and belie your words . . . i6 Joyzelle JOYZELLE No, it is not for them . . . Perhaps I was harsh . • . And yet, they are wrong. LANCEOR Let us speak no more of the dead . . . You have not told me how your ship wreck . . . JOYZELLE We lost our way in a thick fog ... A fog so thick that it filled our hands, like white feathers . . . The pilot mistook the course . . . He thought he saw a bea con . . . The ship struck upon a hidden rpef . . . But no one perished . . . The waves bore me away; and then I saw the blue water glide before my eyes as though I were sinking in a stifling sky ... I went down and down . . . Then some one caught hold of me and I lost consciousness . . . LANCEOR Who caught hold of you? . . . JOYZELLE The lord of this island. 17 Joyzelle LANCEOR And who is this lord? . . . JOYZELLE He is an old man who wanders like a rest less shade about this marble palace . . . LANCEOR If I had been there! ... JOYZELLE What would you have done? . . . LANCEOR I should have saved you! . . . JOYZELLE Was I not saved? . . . LANCEOR It is not the same thing! , . . You would not have suffered, nothing would have come to you ... I should have carried you on the crest of the waves . . . Ah, I do not know how . . . Like a cup full of precious pearls, of which not one must be touched by i8 Joyzelle a shadow; like a flower of the dawn, from which we fear to shake a single dew-drop . . . When I think of the dangers which you, so fair, so fragile, ran among the cruel rocks, in that old man's arms! . . . What he did was fine; he did the impossible . . . But it was not enough . . . How did you reach the shore at last? . . . JOYZELLE I awoke lying on the sands . . . The old man was there. Then he had me carried to this palace . . . LANCEOR Is he king of this island? . . . JOYZELLE The island is almost desert, one sees none but a few servants who move about in si lence . . . He can have for his sub j ects only the trees, the flowers and the happy birds with which the island seems filled . . . LANCEOR What he did was well done . . . 19 Joyzelle JOYZELLE He is gbod and kind; and he received me as my father himself could not have re ceived me . . . Yet I do not like him . . . LANCEOR Why? JOYZELLE I believe he loves me . . . LANCEOR What ! . . . He dares ! . . . No, it is not possible, or else the years no longer have the weight they should have and reason escapes us when death draws near . . . JOYZELLE And yet I fear it . . . He gave me to un derstand . . . He is strange and sad . . . They say he has a son who is very far from here, who is lost, perhaps . . . He is always thinking of him . . . When he thinks that he will see him again, his face lights up, he . . . Here he is! . . . [Enter Merlin.] 20 Joyzelle MERLIN I was looking for you, Joyzelle . . . [Turning to Lanceor, with a threatening glance.] As for you, I know who you are and I know the reasons that have brought you to this island, the trick of this pretended shipwreck and the name of the enemy who sent you . . . LANCEOR Me? . . . But it was a mere accident that flung me on this coast . . < MERLIN Let us waste no phrases. JOYZELLE What has he done? MERLIN He intended, alas, to do the basest thing that man can do : to betray kindness, deceive friendship and sell to the enemy the too generous host who was going to welcome him ... 21 JoyzelleJOYZELLE No! MERLIN Why? Do you know him? JOYZELLE Yes. MERLIN Since when? , JOYZELLE Since I first saw him. MERLIN And when did you see him? JOYZELLE When he entered this room . . . MERLIN That is hardly . . . JOYZELLE It is enough. MERLIN No, Joyzelle, and soon proofs and facts 22 Joyzelle will show you that it is not enough and that an honest look, an innocent smile and ingen uous words often conceal more dangerous snares than those of thankless old age or of love that has but little hope . . . JOYZELLE What do you mean to do? MERLIN I am waiting for the last certainty; and then I shall do what it is lawful and necessary to do to remove all fear of an enemy who would stop at nothing. The pitiless measures which I shall take concern your safety as much as my own ; for the same plot surrounds us both and we are united by fate ... I can teU you no more to-day ; have confidence in me; perhaps you already know that your happiness is mine . . . JOYZELLE You saved my life, I remember that . . . MERLIN You remember it without any kindliness; 23 Joyzelle but I hope that one day you will do me jus tice . . . [To Lanceor] As for you, go! The information which I have received is not open to doubt. When the facts which I fear have confirmed it, I shall act. Meanwhile, you are my prisoner. You will be shown the part of the palace reserved for you. If you go beyond the limits laid down, you become your own judge and pronounce your own sentence. There will be no appeal. Go, my orders are given . . . LANCEOR I obey, but only until you recognise your error. We shall meet soon, Joyzelle . . . MERLIN No, bid her farewell; for it is doubtful if you will ever see her again . . . Neverthe less, JoyzeUe,. chance may bring you again in this man's presence. In that case, fly from him; your life and his depend most strictly on your prompt flight. If I learn that you have seen each other, you are irrevocably lost . . . [To Lanceor] Do you promise to fly from hel"? 24 Joyzelle LANCEOR If her life is at stake, yes. MERLIN And you, Joyzelle? JOYZELLE No. CURTAIN as ACT n {A wild, neglected garden, full of weeds and brambles. On the right, a very high and gloomy wall, pierced by a railed gate. Joyzelle is discovered in the garden, alone.) JOYZELLE THIS is the garden which no one visits. The sun does not enter here; the poor wild flowers upon which men wage war because they are not beautiful here await death; and the birds are silent. Here are the violet, which has lost its per fume, the trembling, shaking buttercup and the scarlet poppy, which sheds its petals with out ceasing . . . Here are the scabious beg ging for a Httle water, the deadly spurge hiding its green blossoms, the blue campa nula silently shaking its useless bells ... I know you all, you humble and despised flowers, so good and so ugly ! . . . You could 26 Joyzelle be beautiful ; it needs scarce anything : a ray of ,happiness, a minute's grace, a bolder smile to attract the bee . . . But no eye sees you, no hand sows you, no hand gathers you ; and I have come among you to be also alone . . . How gloomy everything looks! . . . The grass is neglected and parched, the leaves are sick, the old trees dying ; and spring itself and the dew of dawn are afraid lest they should grow sorrowful in this solitude . . . [Lanceor appears behind the railed gate.] LANCEOR JOYZELLE I.ANCEOR Joyzelle 1 . . Lanceor! . . Joyzelle! . . JOYZELLE Gro away ! . . . Go away ! . . . Take care! ... It is death if he sees you! . . . LANCiOR He will not see us ; he is very far from here, 27 Joyzelle JOYZELLE Where is he? . . . LANCEOR I saw him go away. I watched his depart ure from the top of that tower in which I am a prisoner . . . He is at the other end of the island, near the blue forest that shuts in the horizon . . . JOYZELLE But he may return; or some one will tell him ... Go away, go away, I tell you! . . . Your life is at stake! . . . LANCEOR The palace is deserted; I have gone through the rooms, the gardens and the courts, the long box hedges, the marble stair- CclScS * • ¦ JOYZELLE Go away, it is only a trap . . . He has a design upon your life ; I know it, he said so . . . He suspects that I love you . . . He is only seeking an excuse for what he 28 Joyzelle would like to do ... Go away! ... As it is, you have done too much . . . LANCEOR No. JOYZELLE If you do not go away, then I shall go • : • LANCEOR If you go, Joyzelle, I shall remain at this gate until night brings him back to the palace. . . . He will find me on this for bidden threshold ... I have passed the limits assigned to me; I have therefore dis obeyed him; and I wish him to see it and I wish him to know it ! . . . JOYZELLfi ^ Lanceor, have pity! I entreat you, Lan ceor! . . . You are risking all our hap piness! . . . Do not think only of your self! ... I will go where you please, if you will leave that gate! . . . We shall see each other elsewhere, later, another day . . . We must choose the time, we must take care, we 29 Joyzelle must make our preparations . . . See, I am stretching out my arms to you . . . what would you have me do? . . . What must I promise you? . . . LANCEOR Open the gate. JOYZELLE No, no, no, I cannot . . . LANCEOR Open, open, Joyzelle, if you would have me live ... JOYZELLE Why do you wish me to open? . . . LANCEOR /I want to see you closer, I want to touch your hands which I have not yet touched, to look at you once more as I looked at you on the first day . . . Open, or I am determined to be undone ; I shall not go away . . . JOYZELLE Will you go away then? . . . 30 Joyzelle , LANCEOR , I promise you, Joyzelle ... As soon as you open the gate, before a swallow, before a thought has time to hasten from wherever it may be to surprise my hand as it touches yours ... I beseech you, Joyzelle: this is too cruel ... I am standing at this gate like a blind beggar ... I can see only your shadow moving among the leaves . . . These bars are hateful and hide your face . . . One look alone, Joyzelle, in which I shall see you wholly ; and then I will go, like a robber flying with a great treasure dragging noisily behind him . . . No one will know and we shall be happy . . . JOYZELLE Lanceor, this is terrible! ... I never tremble, but I am trembling to-day . . . Perhaps it means your life; and it already means mine . . . What is that light which rises so quickly ? ... It has come to threaten us, it is going to betray us ! . . . LANCEOR No, no, it is the sun rising behind the 51 loyzelle wall ... It is the innocent sun, the goo'd May sun, which has come to delight us . . . Open, then, open quickly: each minute that, passes adds its dangers to the dangers which you fear ... A single movement, JoyzeUe ; a turn of your hand ; and you really open the gates of life to me! [Joyzelle turns the key; the gate opens; Lanceor crosses the threshold.] LANCEOR [Taking Joyzelle in his arms.] Joy zeUe! . . . JOYZELLE I am here ! . . . LANCEOR I hold your hands and your eyes, your hair and your lips, in the same kiss and at the same moment, aU the gifts of love which I have never had and aU its presence! . . . My arms are so surprised that they cannot *^rry them ; and my whole hfe cannot con tain therri"^ . . Do not turn away your face, do not draw back your lips ! . . . 32 Joyzelle JOYZELLE It is not to escape you, but to be closer to you . . . LANCEOR Do not turn your head ; do not deprive me of a shadow of your lashes, a gleam of your eyes : it is not the hours, but the very minutes that threaten our happiness . . . JOYZELLE I was seeking your smile . . . LANCEOR And your own meets mine in the first kiss that passes between our lips to unite our des tinies ... It seems to me to-day as though I had always seen you and always clasped you and as though I were repeating, in real ity, on the threshold of paradise, what I did on earth when embracing your shadow . . . JOYZELLE I used to embrace you at night when I em braced my dreams . . . LANCEOR I knew no doubt . . . 33 Joyzelle JOYZELLE / I knew no fear . . . LANCEOR And everything is granted me . . • JOYZELLE And everything makes me happy! . . . LANCEOR How deep your eyes are and how fuU of confidence! . . . JOYZELLE And how clear are yours and full of certainty! . . . LANCEOR How weU I recognise them? . . . JOYZELLE And how well I know yours! . . . LANCEOR Your hands rest on my shoulders just as when I lay waiting for them without daring to wake . . . 34 Joyzelle JOYZELLE And your arm is round my neck just as it ' was . . . LANCEOR It was thus that your eyelids used to close at the breath of love . . . JOYZELLE And it was thus, too, that the tears came to your eyes when they opened . . . LANCEOR When happiness is so great . . . JOYZELLE Unhappiness does not come so long as love binds it . . . LANCEOR Do you love me? . . . JOYZELLE Yes . . . LANCEOR Oh, how you said ' yes '!...' Yes ' from the depths of your heart, from the depths of 35 Joyzelle your thought, from the depths of your very soul! ... I knew it, perhaps; but it had to be said; and our kisses themselves did not count without it . . . Now it is enough, it will feed my life; aU the hatred on earth could not wipe it away nor thirty years of distress exhaust it! . . . I am in the light and the spring overwhelms me! ... I look up to the sky and the garden awakens! . . . Do you hear the birds making the trees sing and repeating your smile and that wonderful ' yes ' ; and do you see the rays that caress your hair like diamonds sparkling among the flames and the thousands of flowers that bend over us to surprise in our eyes the mystery of a love which they did not know? . . . JOYZELLE [Opening her eyes.] There was nothing here but poor, dead flowers . . . [She looks around her, stupefied; for, since Lanceor's entrance, without their noticing it, the gloomy garden has become gradually transfigured by magic. The wild plants, the weeds that poisoned it, have grown, and 36 Joyzelle each, according to its kind, has in creased its flowers, blossoming to a prodigious size. The puny bindweed has become a powerful creeper, whose wonderful blossoms engarland the trees weighed down with ripe fruits and peopled with marvellous birds. The white pimpernel is now a tall shrub of a warm and tender green, with bursting flowers larger than lilies. The pale scabious has lengthened its stalks, from which spring tufts like mauve heliotrope. . . . Butterflies flit to and fro, the bees hum, the birds sing, the fruits swing and fall, the light streams down. The perspective of the garden has become infinitely extended; and the audience now sees, to the right, a marble basin, half- hidden behind a hedge of oleanders and turnsoles cut into arches.] LANCEOR There is nothing here now but the flowers of life! . . . Look! . . . They are coming down, they are streaming down upon us ! . . . 37 Joyzelle They are bursting on the branches, they bend the trees, they entangle our steps, they press against one another, they crush one another, they open out wide, one within the other, they blind the leaves, they dazzle the grass ; I know none of them and the spring is drunk ; I have never seen flowers so disordered, so resplendent! . . . JOYZELLE Where are we? . . . LANCEOR We are in the garden which you would not open to my love ... JOYZELLE What have we done? LANCEOR I have given the kiss that is given but once; and you have spoken the word that is never respoken . . . JOYZELLE [Swoonmg.] Lanceor, I am mad, or else we are going to die . . . 38 Joyzelle LANCEOR [Supporting her.] Joyzelle, you are turn ing pale and your dear arms are press ing me as though you feared that a hidden enemy . . . JOYZELLE Have you not seen it? . . . LANCEOR What? JOYZELLE We are caught in a trap and those flowers are betraying us . . . The birds were silent, the trees were dead, there was nothing here but weeds, which no one dug up ... I recognize them all and remem ber their names, which still remind me of their former wretchedness . . . Here is the but tercup, laden with golden disks ; the poor pale pimpernel is changed into a bush of lilies; the tall scabious are dropping their petals over our heads ; and those purple bells, which shoot up over the waU to tell to the world that they have seen us, are the fox- 39 Joyzelle glove, which was pining in the shade . . . It is as though the sky had shed its flowers . . . Do not look at them; they are here to ruin us . . . Ah, I am wrong to seek and I should have understood! . . . He muttered confused threats . . . Yes, yes, I knew he had spells at his command . . . They told me so one day, but I did not believe them . . . Now it is his time; it is well, it is too late ; but ^perhaps we shall see that love also knows . . . [A horn sounds.] LANCEOR Hark! . . . JOYZELLE It is the horses' hoofs and the horn sound ing the recall. He is returning. Fly ! . . . LANCEdR But you? . . . JOYZELLE I have nothing to fear but his hateful love . . . Go! . . . 40 Joyzelle LANCEOR I wiU stay with you; and, if his vio lence'. . . JOYZELLE You will ruin us both . . . Go! . . . Hide there, behind those spurges . . . Whatever he may say, whatever he may do, do not show yourself and fear nothing for me: I shall know how to defend myself . . . Go! . . . He is coming! . . . Go! ... I hear his voice . . . [Lanceor hides behind a cluster of tcdl spurges. The railed gate opens and Merlin enters the garden.] MERLIN Is he here, Joyzelle? . . . JOYZELLE No. MERLIN Those flowers do not lie; they inform against love . . . They were your keep ers and have been faithful to me ... I 41 Joyzelle am not cruel and I forgive more than once . . . You can save him by pointing to ,the bush which hides him . . . [Joy zelle stands motionless.] Do not look at me with those eyes of hatred . . . You will love me one day, for love goes by dark and generous paths . . .Do you not be lieve that I wiU keep my promises? . . . JOYZELLE No! . . . MERLIN I have done nothing, Joyzelle, to deserve such hatred or such an insult . . . Since you wish it, I wiU let fate take its course . . . [A cry of pain is heard from behind the cluster of spurges.] JOYZELLE [Rushing behind the cluster.] Lan ceor! . . . LANCEOR JoyzeUe! ... I am hurt . . . An addei* has stung me . . . 42 Joyzelle JOYZELLE It ^s not an adder ... It is a horrible animal ... It is lifting itself against you! . . . Let me crush it underfoot ... It is foaming ... It is dead. . . . Lanceor, you are turning pale! . . . Lean on my neck . . . Fear nothing, I am strong . . . Show me your wound . . . Lanceor, I am here . . . Lanceor, answer me ! , . . MERLIN [Approaching them and examining the bite.] The wound is mortal . . . The poi son is very slow and its action is strange . . . Do not despair ... I alone know the remedy . . . JOYZELLE Lanceor! Lanceor! Answer me! Answer me! . . . MERLIN He will not answer, he Is sound asleep . . . Withdraw, Joyzelle, unless you wish this mere sleep to end in the grave . . . With draw, Joyzdle: you will not be betraying him ; JOU wiU be warding off death . . . 43 Joyzelle JOYZELLE First make the sign that shaU restore him to life! MERLIN [Looking at her gravely.] I wiU make the sign, JoyzeUe, [Joyzelle exit slowly, turns back and withdraws at last, before a grave and imperious gesture from Merlin. Mer lin, left alone with Lanceor, kneels down be-^ side him to dress his wound.] There, have no fear, my son, there, it is for your happiness ; and may all my heart open in the first kiss that I am able to give you. [He embraces him long and fervently. Enter Arielle.] arielle Master, we must hasten and lay the new trap. merlin WiU he faU into it? ARIELLE Man always f aUs into a trap, when his in stinct leads him; but let us veil his reason, let us change his character; we shaU behold a sight that wiU make us smile^ , ^ . 44 Joyzelle MERLIN I shall not smile, for the sight is a sad one and I do not like to see a noble and beautiful love, a love that beUeves itself predestined •and unparaUeled, thus reduced to nothing, at the first proof, in the arms of a phantom . . . ARIELLE Lanceor is not free, for he is no longer himself and I have abandoned him to his instinct during the past hour . . . MERLIN He ought to have conquered it . . • ARIELLE You speak like that because I am submis sive: but remember the time when I was less docile. MERLIN You think yourself very docile because I have conquered you; but you retain some shadow even in the light in which I have been 45 Joyzelle able to train you and I find in you a certain cruelty that takes too great a pleasure in men's weaknesses . . . ARIELLE Men's weaknesses are often necessary to the purposes of life . . . MERLIN ^ What will happen if he yields? . . . ARIELLE He wiU yield: it is written. The question is if Joyzelle's love will surmount the proof. MERLIN And do you not know? ARIELLE No; she has a mind which is not wholly within my sphere, which depends upon a prin ciple which I do not know, which I have never seen except in her and which changes the fu ture ... I have tried to subdue her; but she obeys me only in little things. But it is 46 Joyzelle, time to act. Go and find Joyzelle and leave your son to me ... Go, lest you should spoil the proof ... I shaU revive him, I shaU renew and make still deeper and bUnder the intoxication into which I have plunged him ; and I shall become visible to his eyes in order to deceive his kisses . . . MERLIN [In a voice of smiling reproach.] Arielle . . . ARIELLE Go, let me be ... .You know that kisses given to poor ArieUe pass like the flash of a wing that closes over running water . . . [Merlin retires to a distance. Ari elle goes towards the marble basin; and there, half-hidden behind the hedge of oleanders, she half opens the veils that cover her, sits on the grassy steps that surround the basin and slowly unties her long hair, while Lanceor awakes, groping with his hands.] 47 Joyzelle lanceor Where did I faU asleep? Some strange poison ba^ entered my heart ... I am no longer the same and my mind* is wander ing ... I am struggling against the intox ication and I do not know where I am going . . . [Catches sight of Arielle.] But who is that woman behind the oleanders ? [Approaching the hedge and looking.] She is beautiful! . . . She is half unclad and her curved foot, like a prudent flower, is try ing the water, which smiles and encircles it with pearls . . . She raises her arms to bind her hair; and the light of the sky glides between her shoulders, like gleaming water over marble wings. [Approaching closer.] She is beautiful, she is beauti ful! ... I must see her . . . She is turn ing round and one of her bare breasts, peep ing through her tresses, adds rays to the rays that strike it . . . She is listening, she hears"; and her wide-open eyes are questioning the roses . . . She has seen me, she hides herself, she is going to fly ... [Passing through the hedge.] No, no, do not fly from me! ... I have seen you ... It is too 48 Joyzelle late! . . . [Taking AS.IEX.Z.T: in his arms.] I Want to know the name of so pure a vision, which plunges into darkness all that I have loved! ... I want to know also what too faithful shadow, what profound retreat con cealed the marvel which I hold in my arms! . . . What trees, what caves, what towers, what waUs were able to stifle the brilliancy of that flesh, the fragrance of that life, the fire -of those eyes? . . . Where were you hiding, you whom even a blind man would find without difficulty in a holiday crowd? . . . No, do not thrust me away: this is not the passion, the intoxication of a moment; it is the lasting dizziness of love ! . . . I am at your knees ; I humbly embrace them ... I give myself to you alone ... I am only yours ... I ask for nothing but a kiss from your lips to forget the rest and seal the future . . . Bow down your head ... I see it bending towards me, I see it consenting; and I caU for the token which nothing can efface henceforth . . . [He kisses her passionately. A. cry of dis tress is heard from behind the bushes.] What is it? . . . 49 Joyzelle [Arielle releases herself from his em brace, flies and disappears. Enter Joyzelle.] joyzelle [Dismayed.] Lanceor! . . . lanceor Why, where do you come from, Joyzelle? JOYZELLE I have seen and heard . . . LANCEOR WeU, what? . . . What have you seen? . . . Look around you: there is nothing to see ... The oleanders are in flower, the water in the basin sleeps, the doves are coo ing, the water-lilies are opening their petals : that is aU that I see, aU that you can S66 • • • JOYZELLE Do you love her? 50 Joyzelle LANCEOR • Whom? JOYZELLE The woman who has just fled. LANCEOR How should I love her? ... I had never seen her . . . The woman was there ; I hap pened to pass . . . She gave a loud scream ... I ran up . . . She seemed to have lost her footing and, as I held out my hand to her, she gave me the kiss which you heard . . . JOYZELLE Is it really you speaking? . . . LANCEOR Yes, look at me: it is really and whoUy I . . . Come nearer, touch me if you doubt it . . . JOYZELLE The proof was terrible; but this is mortal ... 51 Joyzelle LANCioS What? . . . JOYZELLE Was this the first time that you saw that woman? ... LANCEOR Yes. JOYZELLE I shall not speak of it again ... I shall understand, perhaps; in any case, I for give . . . LANCEOR There is nothing to forgive. JOYZELLE What do you say? . . . LANCEOR I say that I have no need for the pardon with which you overwhelm a fault which I have not committed. Joyzelle JOYZELLE Which you haVe not committed? . . . Then I did not see what I saw nor hear what I heard? . . . LANCEOR JOYZELLE No. Lanceor! . . . LANCEOR Lanceor ! Lanceor ! ... If you called me by my name for a thousand years and more, it would alter nothing in what was no thing! ... ^ JOYZELLE I do not know what is passing between your happiness and mine . . . Oh,, look at me and touch my hands, that I may know where you are! . . . Oh, if you speak like that, the^ it was not you whom I saw this morning in the wonderful garden where I gave away my soul ! . . . No, there is some thing that is mocking our strength . . . It is not possible that all is thus lost because of a single word ... I am seeking, I am 53 Joyzelle aU astray ... I saw you, then, and saw all truth and all trust, as one suddenly sees the sea between the trees! ... I was sure, I knew . . . Love did not deceive me . . . It deceives me now! ... It cannot be that all this should crumble away for a yea or a nay . . . No, no, I will not have it! . . . Come, it is not too late; we have not yet lost our happiness ... It is aU in our hands, which close upon it. . . . What you have just done was mad, perhaps ... I forget it, I laugh at it, I saw nothing, I tell you! ... It does not exist: you can wipe it out with a word . . . You weU know, as I do, that love has words which nothing can resist and that the greatest fault, when confessed in a loyal kiss, becomes a truth more beauti ful than innocence . . . Speak that word to me ; give me that kiss : confess the truth, con fess what I saw, what I heard; and all will again be pure as it was and I shaU recover aU that you gave me . . . LANCEOR I have said what I have said ; if you do not beUeve me, go away, you annoy me . . . 54 Joyzelle JOYZELLE Look me in the face . . . Do you love her, since you lie like that? . . . LANCEOR No, I love no one; and you less than the others . . . JOYZELLE Lanceor! . . . What have I done? . . . Perhaps, without knowing . . . LANCEOR Nothing ; it is not that . . . But I am not what you thought and I do not care to be ... I am like other men ; I wish you to know it and make the best of it ... I want all our promises to be scattered to the wind of some new dream, like this dead leaf which I crumple in my hand . . . Ah, the love of women! . . . Well, so much the worse for them! ... I shall Uve Uke other men in a faithless world, where no one loves, where all oaths yield to the first test . . . Ah, tears ! . . . They were bound to come, I ex pected them! . . . You are hard, I know, 55 Joyzelle and your tears are scarce ... I count them drop by drop! . . . You did not love me! . . . Love which comes thus, at the first caU, is not that on which happiness is based . . ¦ In any case, it is not that which I hoped for . . . More tears! . . . They flow too late ! . . . You did not love me, I did not love you . . . Another would have said . . . Ah, another would have known! . . . But you, no, no; go away! . . . Go away, go away, I say! . . . [Joyzelle moves away silently, sobbing. When she has taken a few steps, she turns back, hesitates, looks sadly at Lanceor and disappears with a sup pressed cry, " I love you ! . . - " Lanceor, overwhelmed, bewildered, staggers away and leans against the trunk of a tree.] LANCEOK What have I done? ... I am obey ing . . . what? ... I do not know . . . What have I said? ... It is not I speak ing ... I have lost happiness, the present, 56 Joyzelle the future ... I am no longer my own master . . . I do what I hate to do ... I do not know who I am . . . Joyzelle! . . . Ah, my Joyzelle! . . . [He falls, sobbing, with his face to the ground.] CURTAIN 57 ACT m SCENE I A Room in the Palace (Lanceor is discovered before a mirror. He appears emaciated, bent, aged, unrec ognisable.) LANCiOR WHO am I? In a few hours I have aged thirty years . . . The poison is doing its work and sorrow too ... I see myself with terror in this mirror which shows me the wreck of myself . . . Yet it does not lie. [Going to another mir ror.] For here is another that says the same thing . . . unless they aU Ue, just as every thing seems to lie and to mock at me in this extraordinary island. [He feels his face.] Alas, they are right! . . . These wrinkles which my hand foUows are not formed by 58 Joyzelle their malevolent crystal . . . They are in my flesh! . . . And these hideous blem ishes which will not come away, I feel them under my fingers . . . These bent shoulders refuse to straighten themselves ; my hair is colourless, Uke pale ashes after the flame has died away ; my eyes, even my eyes hardly recognise themselves . . . They used to open, to laugh, to welcome Ufe . . . Now they blink and their glances avoid me like the glances of a knave . . . Not a thing remains to me of what I was; my mother would pass by me and not see me . . . -It is finished . . . [Drawing the curtain of a tall window.] Let us hide ourselves; let com plete dusk cover all this ! . . . [He lies down in a dark corner of the room.] I give up, I consent ... I have done what love can never forgive ... I am losing my Ufe at last, as I have lost Joyzelle . . . She will not see me again, I shaU not see her again . . . [A door opens. Enter Joyzelle.] Joyzelle [Surprised by the darkness, she stands a 59 Joyzelle moment on the threshold. Then, casting her eyes around the room, she perceives Lanceor lying in a comer and rushes towards him with outstretched arms.] Lanceor ! . . . Ah, these last three days I have lived like a mad thing ! I looked for you everywhere. I went to the tower. . . . The doors were closed, the windows too. I crouched on the sill to catch a glimpse of your shadow, I called, I screamed, no one answered. . . . But how pale you are, how thin! ... I am talking to you without thinking. . . . Give me your two hands. . . . LANciOB You know me? • . . \ JOYZELLE Why not? LANCEOR But then I am not? ... I am still my self? . . . Look at me! . . . What trace of me remains? . . . [Going to the window and tearing aside the curtain.] Look! Look! 60 Joyzelle . . . What do you know me by? . . . Tell me, is it here? ... Is it my hands, my eyes, my clothes, perhaps? , . . JOYZELLE [Looking at him and throwing herself, weeping, in his arms.] Oh, how you have suffered! . . . LANCEOR I have suffered, yes, I have suffered! . . . I deserved it but too well, after what I said, after what I did! . . . But that is not what matters or overwhelms me ... I would wilUngly die, if you could but see once more, were it only for the flash of an eye, that which you once loved ... I cling to my self, to the Uttle that remains of me ... I should Uke to hide myself, to bury my distress; and yet I want you to see me first, so that you may know at last what you would have to love, if you stUl loved me . . . Come, come, nearer, nearer . . . Not nearer to me, but nearer to the rays that shine upon my wretchedness . . . Look at these wrinkles, these dead eyes, these lips 6i Joyzelle . . . No, no, do not approach, lest dis gust ... I am less like myself than if I had returned from a world which Ufe had never visited . . . You do not recoil? You are not astonished? . . . You do not see me as Ithese mirrors see me? . . . JOYZELLE I see that you are pale and that you seem tired . . . Do not put away my arms . . . Bring your face closer . . . Why not let me put my lips to it, as I did when all things smiled to us in the garden of flowers? . . . Love knows many days when nothing smiles .... What matter, if it be there to smile when we weep ? . . . I am pushing back your hair which hid your face and made it look so sad . . . See, it is just like that which I pushed back in our first kiss . . . Come, come, do not think about the Ues of the mir rors . . . They do not know what they say; but love knows . . . Already life is returning to those eyes which see me again . . . Have no fear, for I have none ... I know what we must do and I shaU have the secret that wiU cure your pain . . . 62 Joyzelle LANCEOR Joyzelle! . JOYZELLE Yes, yes, come nearer; I love you more dearly than at the happy moment when aU united us . . . LANCEOR Ah, I understand that; but the other, the other thing! . . . JOYZELLE What thing? LANCEOR I understand that one can find one's love in ruins, that one can gather up its remnants and love them still . . . But whei-e are the remnants of our love? Nothing is left of it; for, before fate struck me as you see, I had crushed out of existence all that it could not destroy ... I have lied and deceived; and, at the very moment when the least Ue begins again in a sphere where nothing is wiped 63 Joyzelle out, a fault which love might have pardoned . . . Truth is dead in our one heart ... I have lost the confidence in which aU my thoughts surrounded your thoughts, even as a transparent water surrounds a stiU clearer water ... I myself no longer beUeve in it, I no longer beUeve in myself; I have nothing pure left into which you can bend to find my shadow ; and my soul is even sadder than my body . . . JOYZELLE Did you kiss that woman?, . . . LANCEOR Yes. JOYZELLE Did she call you? . . . LANCEOR No.. JOYZELLE And why did you say that I was miff- taken? . . . 64 Joyzelle LANCEOR What good would it be to tell you, Joy zeUe? It is too late . . . You would not believe me, for you would have to beUeve the incredible ... I was walking in a trance, in a sort of invincible, mocking dream . . . My mind, my reason, my will were all further from themselves than is this shattered body from what it was ... I would have liked to tell you, to shout to you again and again that I was a lie that had escaped control and that the shameful speeches that defiled my lips stifled, in spite of myself, the tearful con fession and the ardent words of desperate love that were leaping towards you ... I made efforts fit to burst my throat, to break my heart; and I heard my faithless voice betray me ; and my arms, my hands, my eyes, my kisses were powerless to disown it; for, except my soul, which you did not see, I felt myself a prey to a hostile force, irresistible, alas, and incomprehensible! • . . JOYZELLE But ah, I did see it! . . . And I knew at 65 Joyzelle once that it was not you that were lying; that it was impossible . . . LANCEOR How did you know? . . . JOYZELLE Because I love you. . . . LANCEOR But what am I, Joyzelle, what do you love in me, in whom I have profaned and others destroyed all that you once loved? . . . JOYZELLE You. LANCEOR What remains of me? . . . Not these hands, which have lost their strength; not these eyes, which no longer have their bright ness; not this heart, which has betrayed love . . . JOYZELLE It is you and still you and none but you yourself ! . . . What matter who you are, so 66 Joyzelle long as I find you! . . . Oh, I cannot teU how to explain that! . . . When one loves as I love you, she is blind and deaf, because she looks beyond and listens elsewhere . . . When she loves as I love you, it is not what he says, it is not what he does, it is not what he is tjiat she loves in the man she loves: it is he and only he, who remains the same, through the passing years and troubles . . . It is he alone, it is you alone, in whom no change can come but that which increases love . . . He who is all in you, you who are aU in him, whom I see, whom I hear, to whom I listen incessantly and whom I love al- LANCfOB JoyzeUe 1 . . . JOYZELLE Yes, yes, embrace me, crush me in your arms I . . . We have to struggle, we shaU have to suffer; we are here in a world that seems full of snares . . . We are only two, but we are all love ! . . . 67 Joyzelle SCENE n {A grove. Joyzelle lies sleeping on a grassy bank, before a box hedge, cut into arches, in which lilies are flower ing. It is night. A fotmtain ripples gently. The moon is shining.) [Enter Arielle.] ARIELLE She sleeps . . . The breaths of the garden are hushed around her to Usten to her breath ; and the nightingale alone, deputed by the night which bathes her in silver, comes to soothe her slumbers . . . How beautiful and peaceful she is; and how pure she looks, a thousand times purer than the water that trickles yonder, flowing from the glaciers, in the snowy whiteness that sings under the pale leaves ! . . . Her sweet hair lies spread Uke a flood of motionless light ; and the moon cannot tell to whom belongs the gold that mingles with the azure in which its beams float . . . Her bright eyes are closed ; and yet the Ught 68 Joyzelle that falls from the stars tremulously raises her loving eyeUds to seek beneath them the last memory of the fair day that is past . . . Her mouth is a moist, breathing flower ; and the Ulies have poured dew-drops on her bare shoulder, to give her her share of the pearls which night distributes in silence, in the name of the heavens that open over the treasure of the worlds . . . Ah, Joyzelle, JoyzeUe! I am but a phantom lost in the night, more lost than you, for all my clear sightedness, and nearer the tomb where happi ness expires ... I am not my own mis tress; 1 1 obey my master, I can give nothing but an invisible kiss, which cannot wake you and is not even mine . . . But I love you, I love you, as a less happy sister loves her whom love has chosen first ... I love you, I encompass you with all the powers that are not named in the prayers of men; and I would that my master had met you earlier, before fate, which hurries forward that incomparable hour, had fixed the tearful future that awaits him and awaits me with him ... I spread my powerless, troubled affection over your calm sleep . . . Here ia 69 Joyzelle the only kiss that I can give you . . . Ah, why does not he of whom I am but the uncon scious and docile shadow come himself to lay it on your lips, which call to mine even as all that is beautiful caUs to mystery ! . . . [She kisses Joyzelle on the forehead.] JOYZELLE [In her sleep.] Lanceor! . . . ARIELLE One more . . . The last, even as we drink of the well defended by the angels who keep the secrets of time and space, the well at whose brink we shall never rest again . . . JOYZELLE [Sleeping, talking as in a dream.] Is that I you, Lanceor? . . . How sweet your lips are at the breath of dawn ! . . . I sink beneath the flowers that faU from paradise . . . ARIELLE Faithful in sleep and constant in her dreams! . . . The demons of the night will steal nothing from the love that fiUs the past 70 Joyzelle and future of a heart! . . . Ah, my master and father! ... It is she whom your only hope awaited. In vain, to avert the fate that threatens your old age! ... O master, if you be wiUIng, there is yet time ; and happi ness is here : you have but to gather It ! . . . It sways uncertain between your son and you ; a gesture would be enough to fix it upon our selves . . - ' Come hither, she is yours ! . . . Come, come, come, I am calling you ... I know that I am right and that man must not renounce life and ruin himself to save those whom he loves . . . MERLIN [In the distance, in a voice of grave re proach.] Arielle! . . . \HJ enters, wrapped in a long cloak.] ARIELLE I am speaking for you and my voice is your voice ... I speak In the name of your heart, which loves deeply and dares not con fess it . . . You had, at this prescribed moment, to meet that sleeping woman, In 71 Joyzelle order to avoid one who wiU destroy your old age . . . MERLIN Begone, it is too late . . . ARIELLE No, it is not too late; this is the one mo ment ; and your destiny depends on the move ment which yoli make . . . MERLIN Begone, do not tempt me, or I wiU plunge you back into your impotent shade ... I drew you from it to open my eyes and not to mislead me . . . ARIELLE To listen to the instinct by which alone men are saved Is not to be misled . . . Think of the terrible days which Vivlane is prepar ing: Vivlane, whom you must love if you do not love this one ... MERLIN Vlviane? ... Is it In this life or in some other world that that name resounds within 73 Joyzelle (ny secret heart like a name of madness, sor row and shame? . . . ARIELLE No, it is in this life, the only one that you possess ... It Is the name of the fairy who, in Broceliande, where your fate leads you, awaits your coming to shatter your old age . . . O master, I see her! . . . Have a care, she approaches and wiU win your, heart! ... So soon as this love, so pure, so healthful, shaU have lost its claims, hers crawls out of the shadow . . . Master, I en treat you! . . . My eyes are counting her wiles: she entwines you with her arms which travesty love; she takes away your power, your reason, your wisdom ; she snatches from you at last the secret of your strength ; and, Uke an old, drunken man, you fall to the ground . . . Then she strips you, mocks at you, stands erect again and closes on us the door of the mortal cavern which will never open again . . . MERLIN It is inevitable, then? . . . 73 Joyzelle ARIELLE You know as I do, that nothing can deceive me where you are concerned . . . Master, I beseech you, both for yourself and for me, who love the light and who must lose it with you ! . . . This is the irrevocable hour ! . . . Choose, choose life! ... It still offers Itself and therefore it belongs to us, and you have a right to it! . . . MERLIN Begone, It is useless . . . Besides, this one would never have loved me . . . ARIELLE It is enough that you love her and that he whom she loves no longer stands between you . . . That is what I read in the two fu tures . . . MERLIN [Wiping the sweat of anguish from his brow.] Begone, for I know . . . And so it was written that, by loving this child, I could have saved myself . . . But she is not for me; and my hour Is past . . . This is the 74 Joyzelle hour of those who come and who have met as time ordained, as life ordained . . . Begone, begone, I say! . . . [Arielle, veiling her features, exit silently.] I surrender my share ; and it is for you, m}' son, that I complete the proof . . . [He takes off his cloak and appears taller and younger, dressed in clothes similar to Lance or's and presenting a strange resemblance to him. Approaching Joyzelle.] Ah, my innocent Joyzelle! . . . You wiU suffer too, you must suffer still more, since destiny lies hidden in your tears ; but what matter the sorrows that lead to love? ... I would gladly exchange all the joys that I have known In my poor life for the most cruel of those happy sorrows . . . [He leans over Joyzelle.] Arielle spoke truly. I have but to make a movement to put back the hours and the days and thus escape the horri ble end which fate reserves for me . . . Yes, but that movement destroys him whom I love more than myself, him whom the years have 75 Joyzelle chosen for the love for which I had hoped . . . Ah, when we thus hold in our hands our own happiness and that of another man ; when we must crush one so that the gather may sur vive: it is then that we feel how deep are the roots that bind us to the earth on which we suffer ; it is then that life utters a superhuman cry to make itself heard and to defend its rights ! . . . But It is then also that we must give ear to the other voice that speaks, to the voice that has nothing definite or sure to teU us, that has nothing to promise and that Is only a murmur more sacred than llfe?s inarticulate cries . . . Lanceor and JoyzeUe, love each other, love me, for I have loved you ... I am weak and frail and made for happiness Uke other men ; nor do I surrender my share without a struggle . . . Love each other, my children; I am Ustening to the Uttle voice which has nothing to tell me, but which alone is right . . . [He kneels before Joyzelle and kisses her on the forehead.] JOYZELLE [Waking with a start.] Lanceor! . ; . 76 Joyzelle MERLIN Yes, it is I : the darkness has led me to you ; and I come to wake you with a new kiss, so that you may . . . JOYZELLE [Springing up and looking at him in ter ror.] Who are you? . . . MERLIN [Putting out his arms to embrace her:] You know who I am, JoyzeUe, and love must teU you . . . JOYZELLE [Drawing back violently.] Ah, do not touch me, or I shaU summon death to come to put an end to this horrible dream! . . . I know not what phantoms have haunted this night, but this is the vilest, the basest, the most cowardly that the darkness has sent! ... I do not believe in it yet! ... I am bruising my eyes in trying to awake my self! . . . Ah, do not come near me! . . . 77 Joyzelle Back! . . . Begone! . . . You fill me w;ith horror ! . . . MERLIN Look at me, Joyzelle! ... I do not understand you ; and doubtless sleep still troubles ... , JOYZELLE Where is he ? . . . MERLIN Wake, Joyzelle . . . JOYZELLE Where is he and what have you done with him? . . . MERLIN He is wherever I am ; and. If your eyes mis lead you ... JOYZELLE Do you not know that I carry him here, in these eyes which see you and compare what he is with what you are? . . . Have you not seen what he Is in my heart, that you should 78 Joyzelle copy him thus? . . . You, beside him; you, in his clothes and under his aspect: ah, it is as though death pretended to be life ! . . . But there might be twenty thousand of you resembling him and he alone be changed from what he was yesterday; and I would sweep away the twenty thousand phantoms, to go to the only man who is not a dream among the other dreams ! . . . Oh, do not try to hide In the shadow . . . You retreat too late; I have discovered you and I know who you are ... I know your spells ; and how I should laugh at them, did I not fear that, by your witchcraft, when usurping that dear and un recognisable shape, you have caused him to suffer! . . . What have you done to him? . . . Where is he? ... I will know . . . You shall not go without answering . . . [Seizing Merlin's hand.] I am alone, I am weak . . . But I insist, I insist ... I wiU know, I wiU know ! . . . merlin I love you too much, Joyzelle, to do him any harm, so long as you love him . . . He 79 Joyzelle has therefore nothing to fear . . . Do you not fear me either. I am not here to take ad-' vantage of the darkness and surprise your heart. I had another object . . . Listen to me, JoyzeUe; it is no longer the rival or the unhappy lover that speaks to you; It is a prudent and anxious father . . . Before he came who conquered you, as never man in this world conquered woman, I had, I confess, caught a glimpse of a happiness which it is idle to pursue In the decline of years . . . To-day I retire, sadly, but in good faith . . . I know how much you love the poor uncon scious being whom malevolent chance has placed upon your road . . . And do ^ not mistake me ; I am speaking of him now with out hatred or envy, but not without dismay, when I think of the heart-rending days which he is preparing for you . . . That is why I insist on enlightening you as regards him, at the risk of displeasing you ... I have no other care than to make you turn away from an unhappy love in which nothing but tears and disillusion await you ... I have no hope for myself ... I do not ask you to love me In his stead . . . You have shown me 80 Joyzelle fuUy that that is impossible ... I desire only that you will cease to love him: that is all that I implore of the kindness of fate; and fate to-night hears my prayer . . . JOYZELLE How? . . . MERLIN The proof is grave and sad ; I would have Uked to spare you . . . But you know better than I that there are salutary sufferings, before which it is shameful to fly ... A sign will be enough to overturn a world ... A Uttle movement of that neck which as yet bends without anxiety, a single glance of those eyes, too confident and too full of In nocence, will destroy before my sight the mo§,t beautiful thing that love has created in a woman's heart . . . And yet, it must be ... It is right, it is well that this thing should to-day be lost In tears which it may yet be possible to wipe away; for later It would hav,e had to sink In sorrows which nothing could have consoled . . . 8i Joyzelle JOYZELLE What do you mean? . . . MERLIN That, at this very moment, when all that is spotless and true, Umpid and ardent in your heart, when all the transparent virtues of your soul, all the faithfulness, all the loyalty and all the Innocence of your virgin blood mount up towards him whom you had selected to make of him the purest, the happiest of men, he Is there, behind us, at t^vo steps from this bank, sheltered by those leaves which he thinks impenetrable, In the arms of the woman with whom, the other day, as you yourself saw, he profaned the marvellous love which you have given him ! . . . JOYZELLE No. MERLIN Why do you say no, without looking?- . . . JOYZELLE Because he Is myself . . . 82 Joyzelle MERLIN I do not ask you to believe my words : I simply ask you to turn your head . . . JOYZELLE No. MERLIN Do you hear the murmur of their voices mingling and the song of kisses ansv^ering kisses? . , . JOYZELLE No. MERLIN Do not raise your voice to interrupt a crime which you do not wish to see . . . They will not hear you; they Usten only to the . sound of their lips ! . . . But turn, Joyzelle, I beseech you! . . . Your life is 'at stake and all the happiness to which you have a right! . . . Do not reject the proffered truth that comes to save you If you have the courage at last to accept it! It will not re turn except to make you weep, when it is 83 Joyzelle too late! . . . But look! Look! . . . You need not even turn your head! . . . Your star is kind to you and does not tire! • . . Do not close your eyes, it is coming to un seal them! . . . See! . . . The shadow of their arms, lengthened by the moonUght, is creeping through that arch and covering your knees ! . . . Open your eyes ! Look ! ... It Is coming to defy you, it Is rising to your Ups ! . . . JOYZELLE No. [A pause.] MERLIN I understand you, Joyzelle . . . You must not deny what remains of your love while I am here ... I leave you to yourself, face to face with your duty, face to face with your destiny . . . Such sacrifices ask for no wit nesses: they demand silence . . . The truth is there; It Is cowardly to fly from it . . . You will know how to face it when you are alone . . . There is yet time ... I ad mire you, Joyzelle. . . . Your Ufe and your 84 Joyzelle happiness invoke your courage and depend upon a glance . . . [Exit Merlin. Joyzelle, for a long moment, remains seated on the bank, motionless, with wide-open eyes, staring fixedly before her. Then she rises, draws herself up and goes out slowly, without turning her head.] CURTAIN 85 ACT IV A Room in the Palace (At the back, to the right, is a large marble bed, on which Lanceor is lying lifeless. Joyzelle, anxious, dishevelled, is busy ing herself around him.) JOYZELLE Lanceor! Lanceor! . . . He cannot hear me . . . His eyes are wide open . . . Lanceor, I am here, I am bending over your eyes . . . Look at me, look at me ! . . . No, he does not see me ! . . . Lanceor, for pity's sake! ... If your voice Is too weak, give a sign of life ! . . . I take you In my arms, my arms that love you! . . . Come, come, come to yourself, in our great love! . . . See, see, it is my hands that are Ufting your head . . . Do you recognise my hands, as they stroke your hair? . . . You so often told me, when we were happy, that the least 86 Joyzelle caress of these dear hands would recall your soul, even from the greatest happiness of paradise, from the greatest darkness of . . . No, no, it is not there! . . . But his head Is drooping, his~ arm falls back lifeless and his fingers seem to me colder than this marble . . . [Mechanically feeling one of the columns of the bed.] No, It Is not that . . . But I mus^ know . . . And his eyes are no longer . . . [Raising his head.] Is it bis or mine that are so dim? . . . No, it is impossible ! . . . No, no, I will not have it ! Ah, I will open your lips! , . . [She places her lips on Lanceor's.] Lanceor! Lanceor! All the ardour of my Ufe shall enter your heart! . . . Do not fear, do not fear! It is the saving flame and life that re stores life! . . . Breathe It all in the last efforts of my breath which loves you ! . . . I would gladly suffocate In exchanging my life for yours ! . . . I give you my strength, my hours, my years ! . . . Here they are, here they are! . . . You have but to make a movement, to open your lips! ... It must be so ! . . . It must be possible thus to give new life to those whom we love better than 87 Joyzelle ourselves ! . . . When we give them aU, they cannot but take it! . . . [Raising her head to look at Lanceor.] He is faUing back! He is going from me! . . . [Infatuated, she takes him in her arms again.] Help! . . . No, this Is too much! . . . Help! Hasten! Hasten ! . . . Ah no, I know better, no, no, it Is not that . . . Death does not come Uke this when love threatens it! . . . No, no, I fear nothing, no, no, I will not have it ! . . . But I am crying for help ! I cannot remain alone, I cannot fight alone against all the str^gth of death approaching ! ... If no one comes, it wiU end by conquering! . . . Help, I say ! . . . You must come to my aid ! . . . Life must help me, or it is no longer possible and we shall succumb! . . . [She falls sobbing on Lanceor's lifeless body.] [Enter Merlin.] MERLIN I am here, JoyzeUe . . . JOYZELLE [Starting up, as though to go to him. Joyzelle while still holding Lanceor in a close em brace.] Ah, it is you! ... So it is you! ... At last there is help and life coming! . . . Look at him! See! ... It Is time, he is falling back! ... I fling myself at your feet! . . . Yes, yes, you can do all; and I have seen clear In all things! . . . Ah, at such moments as this, one would see clear In the depths of- a darkness which worlds have never traversed ! . . . Oh, I entreat you, tell me what to do ! . . .1 am no longer Joy zelle, I am no longer fierce and I have no more pride ... I am broken and dead: I drag myself at your feet ; and it Is no more a ques tion of this or that, of love or kisses, or of trifling things ! . . . Life and death stand face to face, they are fighting under our eyes and must be separated . . . You do not move a step ! . . . Ah, I know how great your hatred is and how you detest that de fenceless man . . . Yes, you are right, he Is anything you please, he Is a coward, he is a rascal, he is your enemy, he is a twenty-fold traitor, since you will have it so! . . . Yes, I admit it, I was wrong, I confess it, and I no longer love him, since you wish it, and I 89 Joyzelle am ready for anything, provided he be saved ! . . . But that must be done and that counts and all the rest is madness ! . . . But come, come, come, I tell you death is triumphing and will carry him off! . . . See, his hands are turning blue and his eyes are growing dull and It is horrible ! . . . MERLIN JoyzeUe, fear nothing; his life Is in my hands and I will save him. If you wish me to save him . . . JOYZELLE If I wish you to save him! . . . But do you not see that, if you were to hesitate, do you not know that. If for his sake, I had to . . . No, no, I meant to say . . . my distress bewilders me . . . He has ceased to breathe, I no longer hear his heart . . . You seem to me so slow ! . . . Do you think that there is no danger, no need for haste? ... I will speak no more ; I am making you lose minutes which perhaps were passing to save him . . . . If you will not help him yourself — and I can understand that, for you do not love him — 90 Joyzelle tell me only what I must do to assist him ; and I shall know how to do it ... But I can see, I am sure that he cannot wait and that we must make haste . . . MERLIN I have told you, Joyzelle, his Ufe Is in my hajids and cannot escape without my con sent. I warned you of it. The poison is doing its work and I can see it. I alone can cure him, snatch him from death, caU back his vigour, his beauty, which are fading away, and restore him to you as he was before . . . JOYZELLE Ah, I entreat you, do not daUy thus! . . . What is his beauty to me. If his life escapes us ! . . . Give him back to me as he is, what ever he may be; what care I, if only I have him back, if only he breathes ! . . . MERLIN Yes, I wIU give him back to you. I have already twice done — and each time repented — ^what I wiU do again for the last time, since you ask it: but it is a sacrifice which none 91 Joyzelle but you could have obtained. By restoring his Ufe, I risk my own. To rouse his strength, to recall his soul, I must give him a part of my strength, a part of my soul. It may be that he wiU take from me more than I have left and that I shaU fall dead beside the rival whom I shall have restored to Ufe . . . Time was when I would thus risk my existence to save a stranger by the wayside, almost with out hesitating and without asking anything in exchange . . . But to-day I am more prudent and more wise. As I am offering my Ufe, it is but fair that I should be paid for it and paid in advance ; and I wIU give it to him only if you promise me the dearest moment of your own . . . JOYZELLE How? . . . What am I to do? . . . MERLIN [Aside.] O poor and aU too innocent child ! . . . And you, my chaste thoughts, oh, take no part in the odious words which my voice must now spread around their love! ... I blush at the proof and am ashamed of what I 92 Joyzelle am now compelled to say . . . You will for give me when you know all ... It is not I that speak: it is the future, which man ought not to know, the shameless, pitiless fu ture, which reveals a day and throws light upon a destiny only to conceal the rest and which wishes that I should know whether you are she whom it marks out . .^. JOYZELLE What are you saying? . . . Why do you hesitate? . . . There is nothing in the world ; examine myself as I may, I see nothing In the world. In our world or in the other, that I could be asked and not be ready to . . . MERLIN See: I wiU cease talking in riddles . . . That man whom you see and whom you hold pressed in your arms lies stretched as near death as though he were laid on the slab of his tomb ... A movement can bring him back to life; a movement can make him faU on the other side . . . Well, at the very mo ment when you say yes and before the echo which slijmbers yonder under those marble 93 Joyzelle vaults has time to repeat that you have con sented, I will make the certain movement which will snatch him from the darkness, pro vided that you promise to come to-night, here, In this room in which I shall restore him to you and on this same bed over which .^ you are leaning, to give yourself to me, with out shame, without reserve . . . JOYZELLE I? . . . Give myself to you? . . . MERLIN Yes. JOYZELLE I, give myself to you, when he is restored to me? . . . MERLIN So that he may be restored to you. JOYZELLE No, I have not understood . . . Tbere are words, no doubt, which I do not understand . . . No, It Is not possible that a man who Is not one of the princes of heU should come thus, at the moment when all love's sorrow 94 Joyzelle knows not what to hope for or what to un dertake . . . No, I have mistaken you and am doing you an injury . -. . You must forgive me ; I am a virgin, I am Ignorant,. I do not quite know what those words Imply . . . But I see now . . . Yes, you are right . . . Yes, yes, you mean to say that it Is fair that I should bear a share of the danger and that my Ufe should be joined for a mo ment to yours, in order to create the other life which is to revive him . . . But I want that share, I want It for myself alone, I want the whole of It, the greatest possible share, and I never hoped that it could be given me ! . . . MERLIN Joyzelle, time presses . . . Do not seek elsewhere: you know what I am asking and the word means aU that you dare not be lieve . . . JOYZELLE Then, at the very moment when he comes back to me, when I see him once more breath ing in my arms and smiling at the love which he wUl have found again, I shaU have to 95 Joyzelle snatch from him aU that I have given? . . . But what remains for him if you take every thing from us ; and what shaU I teU him when he kisses me? . . . MERLIN You wiU teU him nothing, if you wish for his happiness . . . JOYZELLE But I must tell him everything, since i love him ! . . . No, no, I can see clearly, that cannot be, that does not exist ; and there must be gods or demons to prevent such things : if not, I cannot see why one should wish to live ... I have confidence in them, I have confi dence in you ... It was only a proof ; and aU this is not, cannot be real ... It seems to me that already you look at me with less iU-wIU . . . See, I beseech you, I throw myself at your feet and kiss your hands ... I will confess all to you ... I did not love you, you hated him too much ; but I never beUeved that you were unjust or un worthy of love . . . When you came in, I did not hesitatCj I went up to you^ I asked 96 ' Joyzelle you to snatch from death the only man I love; and yet I knew that you loved me too . . . But, I do not know why, my instinct told me that you were generous and capable of doing what I would have done for you, what he himself would have done; and, when you have done what we would have done, you shall have in our hearts a part of our love that is not the least good part, nor the least fine, nor the most perishable ., . . MERLIN ' Yes, I know: when I have given him back his life, at the risk of my own, he will have the kisses, the lips and the eyes, the days and nights, all, in short, that forms love's vain and ephemeral happiness! . . . But I, I shaU have something much better ; and some times, by chance, in passing, I shall be vouchsafed a kindly smile, which will not perish, provided that I refrain from demand ing it too often . . . No, Joyzelle, at my age we are no longer satisfied with Illusions of that kind nor with those deceptive dregs. The hour of heroic falsehoods is past for me. I wish to have what he will have. I care Uttle 97 Joyzelle for your smile, which I know to be impossible: I want yourself ; I want you absolutely, were it only for a moment; but I shaU have that moment: he wiU give it me . . . [Ap proaching Lanceor.] Look at him, Joy zeUe : his features are becoming distorted ; we have waited too long and the danger in creases with each minute that passes . . . Will you come? ... > JOYZELLE [Casting a bewildered glance around her.] Nothing bursts, nothing faUs and I am alone in the world! ... MERLIN [Feeling Lanceor's body.] The danger is becoming grave. ... I know the symp toms . . . JOYZELLE WeU, then, yes, I will come! ... I will come to-night ! I wiU come this eyening ! . . . But save him first and restore him to life! . . . See, his eyes are hollowing and his lips are fading and I stand here bargain- 98 Joyzelle ing for his life, as though it were a ques tion of . . . MERLIN He shall be restored to you ; but remember, Joyzelle, If you are not true to your promise, the hand that cures him will strike him mercUessly . . . JOYZELLE But I shall be true to It and I would go on . my knees to the end of the other world to remain true to it! . . . Ah, I will come, I teU you! I give myself absolutely and I am whoUy yours! . . . What more do you want? ... I have nothing left! . . . MERLIN It is well ; I have your promise ; I will fulfill mine. . . . [Aside, taking Lanceor in his arms.] Forgive me, my son, in the name of your destiny, which demands this torture . . . [He leans over Lanceor and presses a long kiss on his eyelids and lips. Aloud.] See, he returns from the regions without light . . . Life is restored to him, but he 99 Joyzelle wIU awake only In your eager arms. I leave you to your work. Remember your word . . . [Exit Merlin. Joyzelle has taken Lanceor in her arms and looks at him in anguish. Soon her lover's eyes half open and his hands move feebly.] JOYZELLE Lanceor! . . . His eyes have opened and closed again and I saw the Ught bathe in their blue! And here are his hands, which seem to seek mine! . . . Here they are, Lanceor, here they are in your own, which are no longer frozen ! . . . They dare not leave them, lest they should lose them; and yet I would support your shoulder and em brace your neck which droops upon my breast . . . Ah, aU the good things are re turning and returning together ! . . . I hear his heart beat, I breathe his breath: they took all away from me, but they have given it all back! . . . Listen to me, Lanceor: I want to see you, I am looking for your face, do not hide your forehead in my hair, ICO Joyzelle which loves you; -my eyes love you stiU more and want their share too! • • • [Lan ceor lifts his head a little.] Oh, he has heard me and listened to me! . . . He Is here, he is here, there is no doubt of it now, he is here, before me, more Uving than life! . . . He is here before me ; and the roses of dawn and the flowers of awakening have brought colour to his cheeks and are covering his smile, for he smiles already as though he saw me! . . . Ah, the gods are too good! . . . They have pity on men ! . . . There are skies that open! There are gods of love! There are gods of Ufe! . . . We must thank them and love one another, since they also love! . . . Come, come, come to my arms ; your eyes still seek me, but your Ups find me . . . They open at last to caU to mine ; and mine are here, carrying all love! . . . [A pause; she kisses him long and eagerly.] lanceor [Recovering consciousness.] Joyzelle. . . . JOYZELLE Yes, yes, it is I, it is I; look at me, lOI Joyzelle look! . . . Here are my hands, my forehead, my hair, my shoulder. . . . And here are my kisses, which yours recognise! . . . lanceor Yes, it is you, it is indeed you, it is you and the light . . . And then this room^ too, which I saw before. . . . Wait a little . . . What happened to me? ... I remember, I remember ... I was lying yonder, yonder, I know not where, before great doors which some one was trying to open ... I was burled and was turning cold . . . And then I called to you, I caUed without ceasing and you did not come . . . JOYZELLE 'But I did, I came, I was there, I was there! . . . LANCEOR No, you were not there ... I was seized with icy coldness, I was seized with darkness and I was losing my Ufe . . . But now it is you! . . . Yes, yes, my eyes see you, they behold you suddenly as they emerge from the 102 Joyzelle dark . . . Scared though they be by the glaring light, it is you they see and I am passing from the tomb to the joy of the sunlight In the arms of love! That seems impossible to one coming from so far! . . . I must touch you, I must cling to the caresses of your hands, to the light of your eyes, I must seize the real gold of the hair that bears witness to the daylight! . . . Oh, you could never beUeve how one loves when dying, nor how I mean to love you after losing you and finding you again! . . . JOYZELLE I too; I too! . . . LANCEOR And the joy of returning to the arms which press you and which still tremble, because they had ceased to hope! . . . Do you feel yours quiver and mine adore you ? . . . They seek, they enlace one another, they fear lest they should lose one another, they no longer dare to open . . . They no longer obey, they do not know that they are hurting us and are' Uke to stifle us In their bUnd intoxi- 103 Joyzelle cation ! . . . Ah, they know at last the worth of clasping a glowing body; and one would die to learn Ufe and to know love! . . . JOYZELLE Yes, one would die . . . LANCEOR It is strange: when I was down there, in the frozen region, some one approached whom I thought I recognised . . . JOYZELLE It was he. LANCEOR Who? JOYZELLE The lord of the island. LANCEOR He? . . . But he hated me . . i JOYZELLE It was he. LANCEOR I do not quite understand . . . Did he 104 Joyzelle then bring me back to love, to Ufe? . . . Was he wlUing to restore me to her who loved me and whom he loved himself? . . . JOYZELLE Yes. LANCEOR But why did he do it? . . . JOYZELLE I besought him until he consented. LANCEOR Did he hesitate? JOYZELLE Yes. LANCEOR Why? JOYZELLE He said that, in saving your Ufe, he risked his own. LANCEOR Nothing compelled him to it ... And then, quite simply, he gave back life to the only man who is taking away all hope of the 105 Joyzelle love that would make the happiness of his life? . . . JOYZELLE - Yes. LANCEOR And without asking anything, from kind ness, from pity, from generosity? . . . JOYZELLE Yes. LANCEOR Ah, we were unjust and our worst enemies are better than we believe! . . . There are treasures of nobility and love even in the heart of hatred! . . . And this thing which he has done! . . . No, I really do not know that I could have done as much ; and I would never have thought that that poor old man . . . But is it not almost incredible, Joy zelle, and is it not heroic? . . . JOYZELLE Yes. LANCEOR Where is he? We must go and fling our- io6 Joyzelle selves at his feet, confess our error, wipe out the injustice of which we were guilty when we did not love him . . . He must have his part and the best part of the happiness which he restores to us ! . . . He must have our hearts, our joy, our smile and our tears of love, all that one can give to those who give aU! . . . JOYZELLE We will go, we wiU go . . . LANCEOR JoyzeUe, what is it? . . . You scarcely answer me ... I do not know if my senses are stiU In the power of the night whence I am issuing, but I do not recognise your words and your movements . . . You seem to be seeking, doubting, dreaming . . . And I, who return to you full of love and joy, find so Uttle of either In your eyes, which avoid me. In your hands, which forget me . . . What has happened? . . . Why recaU me and restore me to Ufe, if, during my absence, I have lost what I love ? . . . 107 Joyzelle JOYZELLE Oh no, no, Lanceor, you have not lost me! . . . LANCiOR Your voice seeks a smile and finds but a sob . . . JOYZELLE Yes, I wanted to smile and I am smiUng now . . . But do not be surprised: I have , wept so long and so desperately that the tears stiU rise in spite of myself . . . Joy was so far away that it could not return with the first kisses ... It wiU need many be fore it recovers confidence in my heart ; and I am almost sad in the midst of my hap piness . . . LANCEOR Oh, my poor JoyzeUe! ... Is that what your grave silence means? . . . And I was distressing myself like a stupid child! ... I am thinking only of myself, I am drunk with life and understand nothing . . . I was forgetting that in your place I should have lost courage ... It is true, you are io8 Joyzelle right, it is you, not I, returning from death ; and, when two beings love as we do, the one that does not die is the only one that really dies . . . Do not hide your tears . . . The sadder you appear, the more I feel that you love me . . . Now it Is for me to take care of you, now it Is for me to caU back your soul, to warm your disconcerted hands, to pursue your lips and bring you back to the midst of the happiness which we had lost '. . . We shall soon be there, since love is our guide ... It triumphs over everything when it finds two hearts that give themselves to it fearlessly and without re serve . . . AU the rest is nothing, all the rest Is forgotten, all the rest withdraws to make way for love . . . JOYZELLE [Staring fixedly before her.] All the rest withdraws to make way for love . . . CURTAIN 109 ACT V SCENE I A Gallery in the Palace [Enter Merlin and Lanceor.] FATHER ! . . . Then it Is true and you are my father! . . . And Indeed it seems to me, since you told me, as though I had always known It in my far- seeing heart . . . [Coming closer.] But how wonderful it is ! ... I see you again at last as I saw you amid my child ish sports ; and, when I look at you, I see myself In a graver, nobler and more powerful mirror than those which reflect my features along this room. But what wiU Joyzelle say? . . . How she will laugh when she remembers her fears, for she imag- iio. Joyzelle ined . . . No, she herself shall tell you what she thought, to punish her for her senseless terror . . . She used to hate you, but with a softened hatred that already smiled like one about to be pierced by the rays of love . . . Biit where is she hiding? ... I have been seeking her for nearly two hours In vain - . . Have you seen her? I must tell her at once of the unspeakable happiness which this evening has brought us . . . MERLIN Not yet. I must remain in her eyes, until the close of the day, the pitiless tyrant whom she curses In her heart. My poor, dear child ! . . . How I have tortured your adora ble love! . . . But I have already told you the object of these proofs ... In making you suffer, I have but been the Instrument of fate and the unworthy slave of another will, whose source I do not know, which' seems to demand that the slightest happiness should be surrounded by tears ... I have but hastened, in order to bring happiness more quickly, the coming of those tears which hung in suspense between your two des- III Joyzelle tinies . . . You shall know some day by what power, a power which has no magical or supernatural quaUty, but which still lies hid den at the bottom of men's lives, I at times command certain phenomena, certain appear ances that bewildered you. You shall also learn that I have acquired the gift, often a useless one, of reading the future a little more clearly and a little further than the rest of men . . . And so I saw you, groping for each other, in time and space, for an un paralleled love, the most perfect perhaps that the two or three centuries over which my eyes have turned concealed within their shade . . . You might have met each other after many wanderings ; but it was necessary to hasten the expected meeting, because of you, my son, whom death claimed in the absence of love . . . And, on the other side, nothing marked out Joyzelle for the hoped-for love, save a few scattered and uncertain points and the proofs themselves which she was to surmount. I therefore hurried on the pre scribed proofs : they have all been painful, but necessary; the last will be decisive and more serious ... 112 Joyzelle lanceor Serious? . . . What do you mean? . . . It will not be dangerous for Joyzelle, or for others? . . . MERLIN It will not be dangerous for Joyzelle, but it imperils, for the last time, the predestined love to which your life is linked . . . That is why, despite of all,^ despite of my confi dence, despite of my anticipations, my cer tainty even, I am afraid, I tremble a little at the approach of the decisive hour . . . LANCEOR If Joyzelle is to decide, love has nothing to fear . . . Come, do not hesitate, JoyzeUe will always be the source of joy ... But I do not understand how, knowing the future, you are not able to see her triumph before hand? . . . MERLIN I already told you, before we came in here, that Joyzelle can change the future which she faces . . . She possesses a force which 113 Joyzelle I have seen in none save her; that is why I do not know whether the great victory which your love expects will not be mingled with some little shadow and tears . . . LANCEOR What do you mean? . . . You seem per turbed . . . What are you hiding from me? . . . How can you believe that Joyzelle would ever be the cause of a tear or the cause of a jhadow? . . . There is nothing In Joy zelle, not even the suffering which she might inflict, there is nothing in her but brings health, happiness and love! . . . Ah, how weU I see that you know Uttle of the liv ing triumph, the endless dawn contained in her voice, her eyes, her heart ! . . . One must have held her in his arms to know what treasures of hope, what torrents of certainty issue from the least word murmured by her lips, from the slightest smile that plays upon jher face . . . But I am too long delaying the impatient victory. Go, father, go . . . I will remain here, I will wait, I wiU watch the happy moments pass, until my JoyzeUe 114 Joyzelle utters a great cry of joy which shall tell me that love has determined destiny . . . [Merlin embraces Lanceor and goes out slowly.] SCENE n (The same room as in Act IV. The moon lights it with its blue radiance. On the right, Merlin is seated on the great marble bed. Arielle is kneeling at the head of the bed, on the steps of the dais that supports it.) MERLIN Arielle, the hour is striking and Joyzelle is approaching ... I have made the sacrifice, of my useless life ; and yet I would that my death, If possible, should not come to sadden the most ardent and Innocent love that the world has known . . . But you tremble, you weep, you hide from me your eyes swollen with tears . . . What do you see, my child, that you contemplate with so great a dread? . . . "3 Joyzelle ARIELLE Master, I beseech you, abandon this proof : there is yet time! . . . My eyes cannot see through the mist that surrounds it ... It may be mortal, I see it, I feel it ; and chance has placed our two lives in the hand of a blind and infatuated virgin ... I do not want to die! . . . There are other outlets ... I have always served you as your very thought . . . But to-dky I am afraid, I can follow you no longer. . . . You well know that my death is the echo of yours . . . Abandon this : we wiU look elsewhere, in the future ; and we can stiU escape the danger . . . MERLIN I cannot abandon the last proof ... It is for you to see that it does not turn to dis aster. It is for you to grasp the as yet un certain weapon which JoyzeUe is preparing to raise against us . . . ARIELLE But I do not know that I shall suc ceed! . . . Joyzelle's strength Is so swift, so profound, that it escapes my arm, escapes ii6 Joyzelle my eyes, escapes destiny ! . . . I see only the flash of faUIng steel . . . All is confused in a shadow ; and my life and yours depend on a movement of my unskilful hand . . . MERLIN She is there, I hear her, she is feeUng for the door . . . Be obedient and silent; I am obedient too. Watch and be 'quick and strong ... I will close my eyes and await my fate . . , ARIELLE [Dismayed and maddened.] Abandon the proof!.. . . I cannot go through with it! ... I refuse! ... I want to fly! . . . MERUN [Imperiously.] Silence! . . - [He stretches himself on the bed, closes his eyes and appears to be sleeping soundly. Arielle, overcome by her sobs, sinks down on the steps of the dais. On the left, at the opposite end of the room, a little door opens and Joyzelle enters, wrapped in a long cloak and carrying a lamp m her hand. She takes two or three steps "7 Joyzelle and stops. Arielle rises and stands invisi ble behind the heavy curtains at the foot of the bed.] JOYZELLE [Stopping, haggard, hesitating, trem bling.] Now and here ... I have taken the last step . . . Until this moment, which time can no longer keep back and which is about to see a thing that will never be wiped but ; until I came to that little door which has just closed upon two captive destinies, I knew, I knew all that I had to do ' . . . Ah, I had reflected and I had judged so weU ! . . . There was nothing but that, there was no thing else: it was certain, it was just, it was inevitable! . . . But now all changes and I have forgotten aU . . . There are other powers, there are other voices and I am aU alone against all that speaks in the uncertain night . . . Justice, where are you? . . . Justice, what must I do? ... I shaU act because you wished it . . . You convinced me and urged me on ... There, but now, under the thousands of stars which shone upon the door and which you invoked to reas- ii8 Joyzelle sure my soul ! . . . There was no doubt, then, and all the certainty of all that breathes and of all that quivers and of aU that loves and has a right to love illumined my heart ! . . . But, in face of the deed, you yourself draw back, you deny your laws and abandon me! . . . Ah, I feel too much alone, deUv- ered like a blind slave to the unknown . . . I shall walk without looking ... I see no thing and I shall not raise my mad eyes to the bed until the moment when the thing . . . [She advances with a mechanical step to the foot of the bed.] Now, fate itself shall say yes . . . [She lifts the lamp, looks at the bed, sees Merlin sleeping and, in her sur prise, takes a step back.] He sleeps ! . . . what is this? ... I had not foreseen . . . Anything but this . . . Must I wait still? . . . Oh, I should like to wait! . . . He is sound asleep . . . Then he did not wish . . . But, if he were not asleep, I could not have done It ... He would have dis armed me, he would have mastered me . . . It must be true, it Is fate, it is a good and just fate that delivers him to me thus ... I, who was looking for a sign! 119 Joyzelle . . . But there is the sign! . . . What more do I want, if I want anything more? .... And yet, as he is asleep, I can not know . . . Perhaps he has pity, perhaps he renounces and would bid me go! . . . He was not without soul; and often, at moments, he spoke Uke a father . . . Ah, if he had risen, if he had been there, with arms held out to me, in an attitude of . . . Then, then I should have been strong and should have conquered! . . . But a man asleep . . . That shatters hatred . . . And then, one no longer knows . . . And to change this sleep which one word puts to flight into that which no human or super human power can disturb! . . . Oh, I would at least that one word of forgiveness . . . Ah no, I am too great a coward! . . . This is terror seeking an outlet ... I did not come for further meditation . . . There is no doubt, after what he did, after what he said! ... I Usten only to my voice, the voice of my destiny, which wills that I should' save us both! ... So much the worse if I am wrong! ... I am right! I am right! ... Go out, my lamp: I have seen aU that 120 Joyzelle I need see . . . [She puts out the lamp, places it on one of the' marble stairs, seizes the dagger which she held concealed, raises it and looks at it for a moment.] Now, it is your turn! . . . Ah, if you could do what my thought, my desperate pity wish, and If the death that gleams at the point of this blade were not real death. Irrevocable death! . . . But enough ... It is time ... It is said, it is done, I strike! . . . [She raises the dagger to strike Mer lin. Arielle, invisible, seizes her wrist and, without apparent effort, paralyses her gesture. At the same moment. Merlin opens his eyes, smiling, rises and, with a movement of delight, takes Joy zelle tenderly in his arms.] MERLIN It is well! . . . Joyzelle is great and Joy zeUe triumphs! . . . She has conquered fate by listening to love ; and it is you, my child, whom destiny marks out . . . 121 Joyzelle JOYZELLE [Still failing to understand and strug gling.] No, no, no! ... I could not . . . Ah, though my heart fail me, I have courage yet ! . . . And I have all my Ufe, if I no longer have my strength, and never, no, never, so long as I have breath . . . MERLIN Look at me, Joyzelle ... I am restoring its strength to the arm which you raised In love's defence ... I leave it its weapon which tried to strike me and which was strik ing true . . . Until that movement, all was undecided ; now, aU is clear, all is radiant and sure . . . Look at me, Joyzelle, and no longer fear my lips . . . They seek your brow, there at last to place the kiss which the father lays on the brow of his daughter . . . JOYZELLE What is this and what do you mean that I cannot understand? . . . Yes, I see in your eyes that you seem to love me as one . loves a child ... So I was mistaken and I was on the point of . . . ? 122 Joyzelle MERLIN No, you were right; you would not have been she whom love demands if you had not done what you were going to do. JOYZELLE I do not know. I am dreaming . . . But since it Is not the abominable thing, I aban don myself to my dream . . . MERLIN Yes, it is true, my Joyzelle, I am yearning to enjoy your delighted surprise, to fol low your glances which seem to me so beauti ful in their astonished flight, in which confi dence dawns and which no longer know where to rest their wings, like sea-birds that have lost the shore ... I am taking my share of the happiness which I am bestowing ... I shall have no other . . . But do not be anxious, we shall together enter into the secrets of fate ; and, when Lanceor . . . JOYZELLE Where is he? 123 Joyzelle MERLIN Ah, that name rouses you; and see, the shore appears to those glances lost in space! . . . Listen, I hear him . . . Your heart, without our knowing it, has gone to teU him that you loved him to the point which love cannot surpass . . . He is hastening, he Is here! . . . [Th^ door opens. Enter Lanceor, followed by Arielle, invisible.] lanceor Father ! . . . She is mine ! . . . MERLIN My son, she has triumphed; destiny gives her to you . . . LANCEOR [Taking Joyzelle in his arms and cover ing her with wild kisses.] Ah, I knew It and I was sure of it! . . . Joyzelle, my Joyzelle! ... I do not ask what you can have done to disarm fate ... I know no thing yet; but we know all beforehand who love each other as you and I love ; and already 124 Joyzelle I hail the new truth that must have been revealed at the first touch of your heart! . . . Ah, father, father, I told you, I told you ! . . . But she does not understand why I am embracing you ... It is true, I go too fast . . . Come here, Joyzelle, that I may unite you both In my arms . . . We had with us an enemy who loves us; he was obliged to make us suffer; and that gentle enemy was my own father, whom I thought lost, my father here, my father found again, who awaits but a smile to embrace you too . . . Oh, do not turn away, do not look at me with those eyes already laden with re proaches ... I have hidden nothing from you ... I knew it to-day, this evening, the moment you left me; and, so soon as I knew it, I had to fly far from you, lest I should betray myself, for all our happiness, it appears, depended on this last secret; and, when a secret is committed to love. It is as though one hid a lighted lamp In a crystal vase . . . You would have learnt all merely by seeing my eyes, my hands, my very shadow ; and I could not show you my happi ness . . . You were not to know of it till 125 Joyzelle the great proof ... It was necessary that you should do an impossible thing . . . What thing I do not know; but, smile as I might, I had to yield; I had to wait and patiently count the minutes of the hour which thus separated our two impatient pas sions . . . But now, I hasten, I listen, I want to know . . . Speak, speak, I am listening . . . JOYZELLE Since you are happy, I am happy, too . . . I know nothing more ... I have scarce awakened from a horrible and Incomprehensi ble dream . . . MERLIN Yes, my poor Joyzelle, the dream was hor rible ; but now it is overcome and the proof is past, establishing a happiness which no thing threatens now, except the enemy that threatens all men . . . LANCEOR But what, when all is told, was that fearful proof? . . . 126 Joyzelle MERLIN JoyzeUe will tell you in the first kisses, free from all anxiety, which you will exchange after this victory. They will veil better than my poor words what, in this proof, ap pears unpardonable . . . The proof Was dangerous and almost insurmountable . . . Joyzelle could have chosen a different course . . . She might have yielded, sacrificed her self, sacrificed her love, despaired, I know not what ! . . . She would not have been the Joy zelle that was expected . . . There was but one path traced by destiny ; she entered upon it, followed it to the end and saved your life in saving her own love . . . JOYZELLE It Is ordained, then, that love strikes and kills all that tries to bar Its way? . . . MERLIN No, Joyzelle, I do not know . . . Let us not make laws with a few scraps picked up in the darkness that surrounds our thoughts . . . But she who was to do what you were wilUng to do was she whom fate intended 127 Joyzelle for my son ... It was therefore written, for you and for you alone and perhaps for those who resemble you a little, that they have a right to the love which fate points out to them; and that that love must break down injustice ... I do not judge you: it is fate that approves you; but I am overjoyed that It has thus chosen you among aU women . . . JOYZELLE Father! ... I tremble still when I see that weapon which, for a moment . . . For give me, father, I loved you already . . . MERLIN It Is I who ask you now to offer me a for giving hand . . . JOYZELLE No, no, these are not the cold hands of for giveness! . . . These are the hands that caress, worship and give thanks ! . . . I know now why, despite my hatred, I could not hate ! . . . What you have done was more difficult than aU that I have done, because it 128 Joyzelle was cruel; and, when I think again on what has happened, it is you, it is you, father, who have endured the heaviest and the most deserving proof . . . MERLIN No, the most deserving was not among those which you can discover ... It will remain the secret of this heart which loves you both and unites you within itself and which, to change this too-deep secret Into happiness, asks my two children for but a moment of their joy and perhaps for a kiss a little longer than those granted in passing to old men whose time on earth is short . . . LANCEOR [Throwing himself in Merlin's arms.] Father! . . . JOYZELLE [Also embracing Merlin.] My father too! . . . arielle [Trying to mingle with the closely entwined growp.] No one sees me and no one thinks 129 Joyzelle of giving me my share of the love snatched by my invisible hands from the miserly hands of the days and years . . . MERLIN [Smiling.] I see you, ArieUe: you love aU three of us; but a more ardent kiss ascends towards Joyzelle than those which you give to us ... There', kiss her; the proof is finished In my old heart too . . . Yet a little while and we shaU be far from her and far from aU love . . . [Arielle kisses Joyzelle long and slowly.] JOYZELLE What are you saying, father, and to whom are you speaking? ... It seems as though flowers which I cannot gather were Ughtly touching my forehead and caressing my lips . . . merlin Do not repel them, they are sad and pure ... It is my poor Arielle who spreads 130 Joyzelle them over you; it is my invisible daughter, the good fairy of the Island, who discovered and protected you and Lanceor. She wishes to mingle, for the last time, in your great love and asks for a share, as discreet as her self, of the happiness which we owe her . . . JOYZELLE Where is she? ... I see no one near me but you and Lanceor . . . MERLIN And do you think, my child, that we see all that lives deep down in our lives? . . . Be kind and gentle to poor Arielle . . . She is now giving you a parting kiss before going far away to disappear with me In the regions where fate wills that my destiny should be fulfiUed . . . LANCEOR To disappear with you? . . . Father, I do not know . . . MERLIN Let us not question those who have nothing 131 Joyzelle more to say . . . All is now determined . . . Thanks to the unknown gods, I have been able to give happiness to the two hearts that were dearest to me ; but I can do no more, nor can you do anything, for my own happi ness ... I am going towards my destiny and I go in silence, lest I should sadden this smiling hour, which is yours alone ... I know what awaits me ; and nevertheless I am going ... JOYZELLE No, no, no, no, father, you shall not go! . . . We are around you and, if some danger which we cannot see threatens your old age, we shall try at least to alleviate the dread of It ... When there are three to undergo a misfortune and those three love one another, then the misfortune changes to a burden of love, which we bear with de light . . . MERLIN Alas, no, my Joyzelle: it would all be use less! . . . Would to the gods that men had to pass only through kindly evilSj as yours 132 Joyzelle were ! . . . But aU life's secret purposes are not so clear, are not so good . . . But we speak in vain of what is written ... I am still here, in the arms of those who love me . . . The day of my distress Is not this day . . . Let us enjoy our hour, in the sweet sadness that follows on great joys, by Ustening to our minutes of love, passing and fleeting, one by one, in that frail ray of noc turnal light in which we clasp one another for our greater happiness . . . The rest does not as yet belong to men . . . CURTAIN 133 APPENDIX I (Act III., Scene H., p. 75). If this trans figuration of Merlin's cannot be real ised in a satisfactory manner on the stage, it may be easily avoided by cut ting, on pp. 77 to 81, all that follows on Joyzelle's exclamation. The scene will then be as follows: JOYZELLE [Waking with a start.] Lanceor! . . . [Recognising Merlin, with a movement of horror.] You! . . . MERLIN Yes, it is I : the proof is grave and sad, etc, (^The rest as on pp. 81 and 85.) 135 APPENDIX II (Act v.. Scene II., p. 129). Should there be a fear of " tedious passages " {as Vil- liers de L'isle-Adam said, " To be or not to be," and generally speaking, all Ham let's speeches would be described to-day as "tedious passages"), the denoue ment could be hastened on, beginning with Arielle's speech (p. 129), as follows: arielle [Who has remained standing at the foot of the bed; in a sad and solemn voice.] Master ! MERLIN I see you, Arielle, and I will obey . . . JOYZELLE What are you saying, father, and to whom are you speaking? 136 Appendix MERLIN To her who opened up to you the road to happiness. She is now giving you a parting kiss, which I also give you . . . JOYZELLE A parting kiss ? LANCEOR Father! JOYZELLE What does this mean and what has happened? MERLIN \ Let us not question those who have nothing more to say. Would to the gods that, etc {The rest as in Merlin's final speech.) the end 137 MONNA VANNA TRANSLATOR'S NOTE This version of " Monna Vanna " advances no claim to absolute literalness. It has been prepared for stage presentation ; and certain expressions, perfectly inoffensive in the orig inal, have been modified, brought into line with EngUsh ways of speech. There are words in our language that, to use Mr. Mere dith's phrase, " for the sake of dignity, blush to be named," and such blushes may fitly be spared when a paraphrase is ready to hand. It remains only to be said that M. Maeter linck's work, pure and lofty throughout, has been altered only at most immaterial points ; and that no alteration whatever has been' made without the fuU approval of the author. 141 CHARACTERS Gumo CoLONNA, Commander of the Piscm garrison Marco Colonna, Guido's father Prinzivalle, General in the pay of Florence Trivulzio, Commissioner of the Florentine Republic ToRELLo, ] Guidons lieutenants BORSO, ) Vedio, Secretary to Prinzivalle GiovANNA (Monna Vanna), Guido's wife Period — The end of the Fifteenth Century The first and third Acts take place in Pisa; the second outside the city 142 ACT I A Room in the Palace of Guido Colonna (Gumo and his lieutenants, Borso and Tor- ello, are standing by an open window, from which there is a view of the country around Pisa.) GUIDO OUR present extremity is so great that the Seigniory have been compeUed to reveal to me disasters they had long kept back. The two armies that Venice despatched to our relief are both hemmed in by the Florentines ; the one at Bibbiena, the other at Elci. Chiusi, Montalone, the passes of the Vemla, Arezzo, and the defiles of the Casen- tlne — these are all held by the enemy. We are Isolated and helpless, given over to the hatred of Florence ; and_ Florence is unfor giving when she no longer trembles. Our soldiers, the people, are still unaware of these 143 Monna Yanna disasters, but strange rumours are afoot, and daily becoming more definite. What will the Pisans do, when they learn the truth? Their rage wiU turn upon us, upon the Seigniory ; we shaU be the first to fall victim to their terror and blind despair. They have endured so much, during this long siege, that has lasted more than three months; they have borne their suffering so heroicaUy, that it need not surprise us if famine and misery goad them now to madness. One hope was left to them; that is gone, and, with It, the last vestige of our authority. We shaU be powerless. The enemy wIU batter down our waUs, and Pisa cease to be ... BORSO My men have shot their last arrow; their ammunition is spent. One may search the vaults from end to end without finding an ounce of powder . . . TORELLO We fired our last cannon ball two days ago at the batteries of Sant' Antonio; and even the Stradiotes, who now have nothing left but 144 Monna Vanna their swords, refuse to man the ^ ram parts . . . BORSO From this window the breach can be seen that Prinzlvalle's cannon have made in our walls ... It is fifty paces wide; a flock of , sheep could pass through . . . The place is untenable; and the Romagnlans, the Scla- vonlans, and the Albanians have signified their intention to desert In a body should the capit ulation not be signed to-night ... GUIDO Thrice within the last ten days have the Seigniory sent ancients of the College to treat for capitulation. These have none of them returned . . . TORELLO Prinzivalle does not forgive us the murder of his Ueutenant, Antonio Reno, whom the frenzied peasants hacked to death in our streets. Florence avails herself of this mur der to proclaim us outside the law, and treat us as barbarians . . . 145 Monna Vanna GUIDO I have sent my own father to Prinzivalle to express our profound regret, and explain how powerless we were to control a mob whom hunger had driven frantic. My father was a sacred hostage. He has not yet re turned, . . . BORSO For more than a week now the city has lain open, and exposed on every side; our waUs are a mass of ruin, our cannon silent. Why does Prinzivalle not give the order for assault? Can it be that his courage has failed him, or does he dread some ambush? Florence, perhaps, may have sent mysterious orders . . . Gumo The orders of Florence are ever myste rious, but her designs are clear. Pisa, by her unswerving loyalty to Venice, has set a dangerous example to the little Tuscan cities ; the RepubUc of Pisa, therefore, must cease to be ... Florence has displayed rare arti fice and cunning. She has contrived, little by little, to embitter this war, to poison it with strange acts of treachery and cruelty, 146 Monna Vanna that shall be held to warrant her pitiless revenge. It is not without cause that I sus pect her emissaries of having incited our peasants to massacre Reno. So, too, was it part of her scheme to entrust this siege to PrinzivaUe, the most barbarous mercenary In her employ — the man who won for himself such sinister fame at the sack of Placenza, where he put every man who bore arms to the sword — though he declared later this was done against his orders ! — and sold five thou sand free women into slavery . . . BORSO Such is the report, I know, but it is not correct. It was not Prinzivalle, but the Flor entine Commissioners, who were responsible both for the massacre and the sale. I have never seen Prinzivalle, but one of my brothers knew him well. He is of barbarian origin. His father would seem to have been a Basque or a Breton, who kept a goldsmith's shop in Venice. He is undoubtedly of humble birth, but stiU not the savage that people hold him. From what I hear he Is a dangerous creature, of dissolute habits, fantastic and violent, but, 147 Monna Vanna for all that, loyal ; and I would unhesitatingly hand him my sword . . . GUIDO Wait till your arm can no longer wield it ! And very soon now he wIU be stirring, and show us what he is ! In the meanwhile we have one chance left: such of us, at least, as dare to meet death bravely, and to look It In the face . . . We must tell the whole truth to the soldiers, the citizens, and the peasants who have found shelter In our walls. They shall learn that no offer of capitulation has been made to us; and that we have not here one of those mimic wars in which two great armies fight from dawn to sunset, leaving three wounded on the field; not a fraternal siege that ends by the victor becoming the guest and the cherished friend of the van quished. This Is a bitter struggle for life or death; a struggle in which no mercy Is shown; In which our wives and our chil dren . . . [Enter Marco. Gumo sees him and rushes eagerly to embrace him.] 148 Monna Vanna GUIDO Father! . . . By what happy miracle, what stroke of good fortune In this calamity of ours, have you been restored to us, when I had almost given up hope . . . You are not wounded? You drag your foot behind you! Have they tortured you? How did you escape? What have they done to you? MARCO Nothing. They are not barbarians, thank God! They received me as an honoured guest. Prinzivalle had read my works; he spoke to me of the three dialogues of Plato, that I had found and translated. I am lame. It is true, but then I had far to go, and I am very old . . . Do you know whom I met In Prinzlvalle's tent? GUIDO The merciless Commissioners from Flor ence! MARCO Yes, they were there — or, at least, one of them, for I saw only one . . . But the first 149 Monna Vanna name I heard was that of Marsilio Ficino, the man who revealed Plato to the world . . . Plato would seem to live again in Marsilio Ficino ... I would have given ten years of my life to see him, before going whither all must go . . . We were like two brothers who had come together at last . . . We spoke of Heslod, of Homer, Aristotle . . . Close to the camp, beside the banks of the Arno, he had unearthed, in a grove of oUve, the torso of a goddess that had lain buried in the sand: it was so strangely beautiful that if you saw it you would forget the war. We dug on a little further ; he found an arm, and I two hands . . . These hands were so pure, so delicate, they held such a radiant happi ness, that one fancied them formed for naught else than to scatter the dew, or caress the dawn . . . One was curved ten derly, as though it had lain against a woman's breast; the other stIU clasped the handle of a mirror . . . Gumo Father, father! Let us not forget that, here, people are perishing of hunger, and ISO Monna Vanna have Uttle to do with delicate hands, or bronze torsos ! MARCO This one is of marble . . . Gumo Be it so ! But let us speak rather of the thirty thousand lives to whom a moment's delay, a , single imprudent act, spells ruin ; whereas a word could save them: a whisper of good news ... It was not for a torso or a mutilated hand that you went yonder! What did they say to you? What de signs has Florence, or Prinzivalle? Tell us quickly! Why do they dally with us? Do you hear those cries underneath our win dow? The poor wretches are fighting for the grass that has grown between the stones . . . MARCO You are right. I was forgetting that men were at war with each other now that spring is here, and the glad sky smiling upon the earth, and the sea stretching towards the blue like a radiant cup that a goddess presents to the gods of heaven ; and the earth so fait and 151 Monna Vanna so fuU of love for men! . . . But you have your joys; I dweU too long on mine . . . Besides, you are right. I should have told you at once the news that I bring ... I bear a message fraught with salvation to thirty thousand lives, and with heavy afflic tion to one . . . But this one may find therein most noble occasion for glory, of a kind that seems greater to me than all the glories of war . . . Love for one person Is good, and brings Its own happiness ; but the love that enfolds the many is greater and finer still . . . The virtues that all men ad mire are good; yet there come days when our eye travels beyond them, and then their value seems less . . . Listen! . . . And prepare yourself for what I have to say, lest my first words should wring from you one of those oaths that bar our retreat, and enchain the reason that fain would retrace her steps . . . GUIDO [Dismissing his officers with a gesture.] Leave us! MARCO No ! Remain ... It is our fate, the fate IJ2 Monna Vanna of us all, that we are about to decide! In deed, I could wish that this room overflowed with the victims whom we shall save! That aU the poor wretches to whom we bring com fort might be at the window there, to hear and retain for ever the tidings I bring; for I bring salvation. If reason will but accept it ! Nor could ten thousand reasons turn the scale against one overpowering error, whereof I fear the weight the more, inasmuch as I myself ... GUIDO Have done with enigmas, father, I entreat you ! What can this matter be that calls for so many words? TeU us all! There is nothing can frighten us now ! MARCO Be it so, then! Listen! I saw Prinzi valle ; I have had speech with him ... It is strange how false is the picture men draw of one whom they hold in dread ... I went to him as Priam to the tent of Achilles. I thought, to meet a drunken, bloodstained savage — a madman whose only quality was a certain talent for war . . . For as such had 153 Monna Vanna he always been represented to me ... I ex pected to find the Incarnate fiend of battle, headstrong and incoherent, vain, debauched, treacherous, cruel . . . GUIDO And all this Is PrinzivaUe, save that he be no traitor ! BORSO Nay, traitor he is not; and, though he serve Florence, his loyalty is unstained . . . MARCO The man I met 'bowed down before me as though he were my disciple, and I the master whom he revered. He Is learned, studious, wise, eager in search of knowledge. He listens patiently, and his eyes are open to all things that are beautiful. He is humane and generous, and has no liking for war; he is conscientious and sincere, the reluctant servant of a perfidious Republic. The hazards of life — destiny. It may be — made him a soldier, and hold him captive still to a glory that he detests, and fain would abandon, but not before he has gratified a 154 Monna Vanna desire; a fearful desire, such as would seem to fall on some men who are boril beneath the perilous star of a great, unique, and unreal- isable love . . . Gumo Father, father, you forget that men who are dying of hunger can ill brook this delay ! What are this man's qualities to us? You spoke of salvation; give us the word you promised ! MARCO It is true. I do wrong to hesitate; for cruel as this thing may be to the two crea tures I love best of all on this earth . . . GUIDO My share I accept, though it be what it may; but who is the other? MARCO Listen, I wiU ... As I entered this room it seemed strange and difficult to me ; and yet the chance of salvation was so overwhelm ing . . . GUIDO Speak ! 155 Monna Vanna MARCO Florence is determined on our annihilation. The decemvirs of war have judged it neces sary, the Seigniory have approved their decree; the decision is irrevocable. But Florence is too prudent, too wise in her hypoc risy, to allow the world that she is civUising to lay the charge of Indiscriminate bloodshed at her door. She wiU declare, therefore, that we refused the merciful capitulation she had offered. The city will be taken by assault; Spanish and German mercenaries wiU be hurled against her. And these need no urg ing, when there is chance of plUage or burn ing, of rapine or slaughter ! A mere matter of slipping the muzzle: and the leaders, that day, wiU take care to seem helpless, to have lost all control . . . Such is the fate held in store for us ; and the city of the red lily will be the first to deplore the disaster, and will ascribe it wholly to the unforeseen licence of the foreign mercenaries, whom she wIU dis band with every expression of horror, so soon as our ruin shall enable her to dispense with their services . . . 156 Monna Vanna GUIDO Yes. That is the way of Florence . . . MARCO These are the private instructions that PrinzivaUe has received from the Commis sioners of the Republic. Day after day, through this last week, they have urged him to deUver the final assault. Hitherto he has delayed it under various pretexts. Further, he has Intercepted letters wherein the Com missioners, who spy upon his every move ment, accuse him of treachery to the Seign iory. Pisa destroyed, and the war over, con demnation, torture, and death await him in Florence, as they have awaited more than one dangerous general. So that he knows his fate . . . GUIDO Very weU then, what does he propose? MARCO He is certain — as far, at least, as one can be certain where these shiftly savages are con cerned — of a fair proportion of the archers, 157 Monna Vanna whom he himself enrolled. But, in any event, he has a bodyguard of a hundred men, who are devoted to him; and on these he can absolutely rely. His proposal Is that aU who may choose to follow him shall be brought Into Pisa, and help to defend her against the, army he wiU abandon . . . Gumo It is not men we need ; and these dangerous auxiliaries do not tempt us. Let him give us buUets, provisions, powder. MARCO He foresaw that his offer might appear suspicious to you, and perhaps be rejected. He will undertake, therefore, to pass into the city a convoy of three hundred waggons, laden with ammunition and food, that have just entered his camp. GUIDO How can he do this? MARCO I know not. ' The ways of war and politics are strange to me. But he does what he 158 Monna Vanna will . . . The Florentine Commissioners not- - withstanding, he is absolute master In his camp so long as the Seigniory have not re moved him from his command. And this they dare not do on the eve of victory, in the midst of an army that has faith in him, and already clutches its prey. Florence must wait her hour ! GUIDO Good, I understand; he saves us that he may save himself. He seeks revenge. But this, I imagine, could be achieved in other fashions, and more skilfully too. What can his interest be in saving his enemies? Whither wIU he go, and what will become of him? What does he demand in return? MARCO The moment has come, my son, when words turn cruel and all-powerful, when two or three syllables suddenly borrow the force of destiny, and fasten upon their victims . . . I tremble when I think that the sound of my voice, the way In which I may say what has to be said, can cause so many deaths, or save so many Uves . . . I59_ Monna Vanna GUIDO Why do you hesitate? . . . The cruellest words can add nothing to such a misfortune as ours . . . MARCO I have told you that PrinzivaUe seems wise ; that he is reasonable, humane . . . But where is the man so wise as to have no moment of folly; so virtuous as never to have har boured some monstrous idea within him? . . . Are not our reason, our pity and justice, for ever at war with desire, with passion, with the madness that lies so near to our soul? . . . I, myself, have succumbed more than once, and I shall again, and so, perhaps, wiU you . . . For it happens thus with us aU ! A sor row awaits you that should be no sorrow perhaps, could you consider it rightly ... And I who see so clearly that this sorrow Is out of all proportion to the wrong that will cause it, I, for my part, have made a prom ise stiU more fooUsh than is this foolish sorrow . . . And my foolish projnise wiU be fooUshly kept by the sage I fain would be; the sage who ventures to speak in the 1 60 Monna Vanna name of reason . . . Should you reject this offer, I have undertaken to return to the enemy's camp . . . And what will await me there? Death and torture will prob ably be the reward of my absurd loyalty . . . And none the less I shall go ... Tell myself as I may that I am merely trick ing out folly in purple that I may delude myself, I still shall do the foolish thing I deplore; for I, also, lack the strength that he must possess who would listen to reason alone . . . But I have not yet told you. Ah, see how I lose my thread, how I weave phrase after phrase, pile word upon word, to retard, be it ever so little, the moment that must decide! But I wrong you, perhaps, by my doubts . . . See them ! This mighty convoy that my own eyes have beheld; these waggons laden with com and wine and fruit ; these flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, enough, and more than enough, to feed a people for weeks ; these barrels of powder and bars of lead with which Florence may be over come and prosperity brought back to Pisa; all these shall be introduced this very night into our city if you wiU send in exchange and i6i Monna Vanna deliver to Prinzivalle — and she shall return with the first rays of dawn — ^but he demands, in token of victory and submission, that she come alone, and clad only in her mantle. . . . GUIDO Who? Who is to go? You have not told me . . . MARCO Giovanna. Guroo What! My wife? . . . Vanna? . . . MARCO Yes, your Vanna ... At last I have said it ! Gumo But, why Vanna? Are there not a thou sand women? MARCO It is because she is the most beautiful, and he loves her . . . GUIDO He loves her! . . . Where has he seen her? He does not know her ! 162 Monna Vanna MARCO He has seen her. He knows her, but would not say when or how . . . GUIDO But she, has she seen him? Where have they met? MARCO She has never seen him, or, at least, she does not remember . . . GUIDO How do you know this ? MARCO She told me herself . . . Gumo What! MARCO Before I came here to you . , , Gumo And you told her? MARCO All . . . 163 Monna Vanna Gumo What! you cannot have dared to hint at this infamous bargain? MARCO GUIDO Yes . . . And she said? MARCO Nothing . . . Her face grew white: sho> left me . . . Guroo Ah, she did well! . . . That was better perhaps than loading you with reproaches, and throwing herself at your feet . . . Yes, that was better . . . She turned white and left you ... So would an angel have done; that is like Vanna . . . What was there to say? Nothing! And we, too, shaU say nothing . . . Come, my friends, we wIU re turn to the ramparts, and die, at least, since die we must, without staining ourselves with dishonour . . . MARCO Ah, Guido, the ordeal is terrible, I know! 164 Monna Vanna Now that the blow has fallen let us be pa tient, and give reason time to discriminate between duty and private sorrow! . . . Gumo Duty! My duty is clear. Your mon strous offer entails one duty on me, and one duty alone. I need no time to reflect. MARCO And yet must you ask yourself whether you have a right to sacrifice a whole people; whether thousands of Uves be not too high a price to pay . . . Did your happiness alone depend on this choice I could under stand your preferring death; though to me who am near the end of Ufe — ^to me who have seen many men and therefore much human sorrow, to me there can be no moral or physical evil that Is not preferable to death, cold and horrible death, with its eternal silence . . . And here many thousands of Uves are at stake ; here your brothers in arms are concerned, their wives and children ! . . . If you yield to a madman's frenzy, then the thing that seems monstrous to you shaU be 165 Monna Vanna called heroic by those who come after. For they will judge with calmer eyes, with more justice, and more humanity . . . Believe me, nothing can equal the saving of life. Virtues, ideals, aU that we know as honour and loyalty, are mere trifles compared with that . . . You would seek to pass through this ordeal like a hero, unstained; but it is wrong to believe that death is the loftiest peak of hero ism . . . The most heroic deed is the one that costs us most, and death is often far easier than Ufe ... GUIDO Are you my father? MARCO" Yes, and proud to be your father ... In .opposing you to-day I oppose myself also, and I should love you less did you submit too readily . . . GUIDO Yes, you are my father, you have given your proof; for you, too, shall choose death for your share; and since I reject this loath some compact, you shall return to the enemy's 1 66 Monna Vanna camp, and there meet the fate that Florence reserves for you . . . MARCO My son, here I alone am concerned — a feeble and useless old man, with few years to live, a man of no value to any — and therefore did I tell myself that I might still humour an ancient folly, nor struggle to do what I know should be done if one indeed sought to be wise ... I know not why I shall go yon der . , • My soul has remained too young in this old body of mine; and I belong to a time in which reason had little to say . . , But I regret that so many influences of the past should keep me from breaking a foolish promise . . . Gumo I shaU act Uke you . . . MARCO What do you mean? Gumo I shall follow your example. I, too, shaU remain faithful to those Influences of the past 167 Monna Vanna that you now regard as absurd, though you fortunately stiU permit them to regulate your conduct . . . MARCO Where others are concerned I cast them from me; and since it appears that your soul demands my encouragement, demands the poor sacrifice of my word, then I re nounce In my heart the fulfilment of my promise, and come what may, and decide as you wiU, I shall not return yonder . . . Gumo Enough ! There are things a son must not say to an erring father . . . MARCO Say what you would, my son: let your in dignant words flow freely from your heart ... I shall regard them as the token of your most legitimate grief ... Words cannot alter my love for you . . . But, while curs ing me, let reason and gentle pity take the place in your soul of the maledictions that leave it . . . 168 Monna Vanna Gumo Enough : I will hear no more . . . Think ; and try to consider what it is you would have me do. For at this moment it is you who are lacking in reason, in noble and lofty reason ; you whose wisdom is troubled by the fear of death . . . Death does not frighten me ... I can stiU remember the time when you enjoined courage upon me, before your own was weakened by age and the vain study of books . . . We are alone In this room. No one has beheld your pitiful weakness; and my two lieutenants and I will keep the secret that we shaU, alas, not have to keep very long ! We shall bury all this in our hearts ; and now let us turn our thoughts to the final struggle . . . MARCO Nay, my son, buried it cannot be; for years, and the studies that you deem so vain, have taught me that it can never be right, whatever the reason, to bury the life of a single man; and though I Indeed should no longer possess the courage that alone finds favour in your eyes, I still have another, less dazzling, perhaps, less highly esteemed by, 169 Monna Vanna men, since it achieves less, and men admire most that which brings suffering to them . . . This wiU enable me to accomplish the rest of my duty . . . GUIDO And what may that duty be? MARCO I shall complete what I have so unsuc- cessfuUy begun . . . You were one of the judges, but not the only judge; and all those whose life or death hangs on this hour have a right to know their fate, and to be told upon what their salvation depends . . . GUIDO I do not understand you. At least, I hope I do not. You were saying . . . MARCO That on leaving this room I shall at once inform the people of the offer that Prinzivalle has made and you have rejected ... Guroo It is well! Now I understand. I regret 170 Monna Vanna that idle words should have brought us to this, as I regret also that your delusions should compel me to be wanting in the respect that is due to your age . . . But It is a son's duty to protect a deluded father against himself; and while Pisa stands I am master here, and the custodian of her honour . . . Borso and ToreUo, I entrust my father to your care, until such time as his conscience shall reawaken within him. Nothing has happened! . , . No one shall know . . . Father, I forgive you; and you will forgive me, too, when, at the last hour, you remember how you once taught me to become master of myself, and unafraid . . . MARCO I have no need to wait for the last hour in order to forgive you, my son ... I should have acted like you . . . And you may Im prison me, but not my secret; for that is free, and can no longer be stifled ... Gumo What is this ? What is this you say ? 171 Monna Vanna MARCO That at this very moment PrinzivaUe's proposal is being discussed by the Seign iory . . . Gumo The Seigniory ! Who can have told them? MARCO I told them before I came here . . . Gumo You! No. No, it is impossible! How ever great your fear, or the havoc that age has wrought in your heart, you cannot have delivered the one joy of my soul, my love, the purity and beauty of our wedded life, into the hands of strangers, of miserable shopkeep ers, who would weigh it and measure It as though it were salt or oil ! ... I cannot be lieve it. ... I shaU not, till my own eyes have seen it . . . And then I shall look upon you, you the father whom I loved and thought I knew, whom I took as my model, I shall look on you with no less horror and hatred than I do on the vile and cowardly monster who has besmirched us to-day with aU this infamy ! 172 Monna Varina MARCO You Speak truly, my son. You do not know me ; and for that I am to blame. When old age came upon me I did not tell you what I learned from It every day concerning Ufe, and love, and the joys and sorrows of men . . . Had I acquainted you sooner with all that was passing in my heart, with all the vanities that were slowly departing, and the truths that were taking their place, then should I not be standing before you to-day like some unhappy stranger whom you are beginning to hate . . . GUIDO At least I rejoice that I did know you sooner . . . And as for the rest ... it is not difficult to foretell what the Seigniory will decide. To save themselves they have only to sacrifice one man, and that is so simple ! Such a temptation would force a nobler courage than one has the right to expect from these poor traders. And yet, let them beware! That is asking too much. That Is more than they have a right to ask. I have shed my blood for them ; by day and by night have I 173 Monna Vanna toiled and endured; through this whole long siege I have never spared myself. But that is enough: and I will do no more! Vanna Is mine! She belongs to me, and I am yet In command! My Stradiotes will at least re main faithful ; I have three hundred men who will listen to me alone, and turn a deaf ear to the counsels of cowards ! MARCO You are in error, my son. The Seigniory of Pisa, the citizens whom you speak of so sUghtingly, before even knowing what their decision may be, have in this crisis given proof of an admirable nobiUty and courage. They have refused to owe their safety to the sacrifice of a woman's love; and as I left them and hastened to you, they were sum moning Vanna, to tell her that they placed In her hands the fate of the city . . . GUIDO What ! They have dared ! In my absence, they have dared to repeat to her the foul words of that loathsome satyr! . . . My Vanna! . . . When I think of her tender 174 Monna Vanna face, that fires at a glance — of the shrinking modesty that makes her beauty lovelier still — my Vanna to have stood before these lecherous old men, these little pale-faced hypocritical traders, who have always looked upon her as something holy ! " Go," they will have said to her, " go yonder, naked and alone, to the barbarian's tent! Do his bid ding ! " Ah, truly, it was noble Indeed of them to have used no violence! They knew that I am still here. They ask her consent, you say! And mine — ^who will dare ask mine? MARCO Have I not done so, my son? And if you refuse me they will come in their turn . . . GUIDO Let them ! Vanna will have spoken for us both . . . MARCO I trust that it may be so, and that you will accept her answer , . . GUIDO Her answer! Can you doubt it, you who 175 Monna Vanna Know her, who have seen her every day since the one when, with smiles of love in her eyes, she first crossed the threshold of this very room, in which now you wish to sell her? You doubt her answer? . . . MARCO My son, each of us sees only in others what he sees in himself, and knows himself only to the extent of his own consciousness . . . Gumo That is doubtless why I knew you so ill! But rather than that these eyes of mine should a second time be so cruelly deceived, I would pray God that they be closed for ever ! MARCO They may be about to open, my son, be neath a very great light ... I say this be cause I have noticed a certain strength in Vanna that you have not seen, and it is this that leaves me in no doubt as to what her reply will be . . . Gumo You have no doubt! Ah, believe me, neither have I! And I accept her reply in Monna Vanna advance, blindly, irrevocably! If it be not the same as mine, then have we both been de ceived In each other, from the very first hour unto this one of sorrow . . . And our love wiU have been a mere lie, that now crumbles to dust; and all I adored in her will have existed only In this poor credulous head of mine. In this poor faithful heart that knew of one happiness only and worshipped a phan tom . . . [Cries of " Vanna, Vanna," arise from the crowd outside, at first as a mur mur, and then growing louder and louder. The door, at back, opens, and Vanna, alone and pale, ad vances into the room, while men and women, who seem afraid to enter, try to hide themselves against the door. Gumo sees her, and rushes towards her. He throws his arms round her and embraces her feverishly.] Guroo My Vanna! . . . What have they done, what have they said to you ! . . . No, no, do not tell me ... I need only look into your 177 Monna Vanna eyes — there all Is still pure and loyal, like a fountain that angels bathe in . . . Ah, those foolish men! They could harm nothing of what I loved; they have been like children who throw stones in the. air, and imagine they can hit the sky ... As they gazed Into your eyes their words will have shrivelled on their lips . . . You had no need to answer — you wiU merely have looked at them . . . And then, between them and you, between their thoughts and yours, a lake wiU have sprung up, a Umltless ocean of life and love . . . But see, there is one here, a man whom I caU father . . . He sinks his head; his white hairs hide it . . . We must forgive him; he is old and blinded. We must be merciful; we must make a great effort; your eyes say nothing to him — he is so far from us ! . . . He has become a stranger ; our love has passed over his sad old age Uke an April shower that falls upon flints . . . Our love is nothing to him; it has all escaped him . . . He thinks that we love as they do who know not what the word means . . . He cannot understand, he needs words . . . Give him words ; give him your answer ! 178 Monna Vanna VANNA [Approaching Marco.] My father, I shall go to-night. MARCO [Kissing her brow.] My daughter, I know . • . GUIDO What! What do you say? VANNA Guido, I shall go. I must; I must obey . . . Gumo Obey? Obey whom? Tell me! VANNA I shall go to Prinzlvalle's tent to night . . . GUIDO To die with him, to kill him? That had not occurred to me. Yes, yes, I can under stand that! VANNA Were I to kill him our city would not be saved . . . J7qi Monna Vanna Gumo What! You, you love him then! Since when do you love him? VANNA I do not know him; I have never seen him . . . Gumo But you have heard. Yes, yes, you have heard, people have told you . . . VANNA Nothing. Some one said just now that he was a very old man . . . Gumo He is not! He Is young, he is handsome, much younger than I. God! had he asked anything else I would have gone to him, crawled on my hands and knees, to save our city ! Or wandered away with her and spent the rest of our life, unknown and forgotten, begging for alms at the cross-roads ! . . . But this, this! Never In the history of the world has a conqueror dared — [Going to Vanna and flinging his arms round her.'\ 1 80 Monna Vanna Ah, Vanna, my Vanna, I cannot believe it ! It is not your voice that I heard, but my father's and his alone! No, I have heard nothing; all Is as it was . . . You shaU teU me that I am mistaken, that your love, that all that was you, cried out, " No, no ! " ashamed even at having to speak! ... I tell you I have heard nothing, nothing; the silence has been unbroken . . . But, see, now you must speak . . . AU are listening . . . No one has heard . . . All are waiting for the word you must say . . . Sayjt quickly, Vanna, that they may know you! Quickly! De clare our love, and dispel this dream . . . Speak the word I wait for, the word that must be spoken If all things are not to crumble in ruins around me! . . . VANNA O Guido, I know how hard it must be to bear . . . GUIDO [Instinctively thrusting her from him.] How hard it must be! You know, you know? Have I not to bear It all, I who loved? You never have loved me! No, I begin to see! i8i Monna Vanna What am I to make of all this ? . . . You are glad to leave me; you love this man, who knows! Ah, but here I still am the master, say what they will! . . . And you think I shall stand calmly by and let these things be? Beneith this room Is a dungeon, a dark, cold dungeon, and there you shall stay while my Stradiotes keep watch, until such time as your heroism shall have cooled, and you learn where your duty Ues . . . Take her away! ... I have spoken ; it is my command ! Go, and obey! VANNA Guido, Guido, I need surely not tell you . . . GUIDO They do not obey ! No one here to do my bidding ! You, Borso, ToreUo, have your arms turned to stone? Can ray voice not make itself heard! . . . You, down there, you others, who stand and listen, can you not hear me ? I shout to them ; they do not move . . . Take her away, I say! . . . Away, away! . . . Ah, I see what it is! They are afraid; they want to Uve — to live, that is all they care for! I must die that they may 182 Monna Vanna live; but not that way! . . . No, no, that were surely too easy . . . Here am I alone against the crowd, and I am to pay for it all ... Why I, and not you ! You all have wives! . . . [Half drawing his sword and approaching Vanna.] And what If I prefer death to dishonour? . . . That had not occurred to you! . . . But, see, I have only to raise my hand VANNA If your love bids you, Guido . . . Guroo " If your love bids you " ! Ah, yes, speak of love, you who never have known what It means ! You, in whose soul there can never have been any love ! Now as I look at you I see a desert — a desert where all is swallowed up, parched and dying . . . not even a tear, not a tear! . . . What was I, what was I to you? A man whose arms offered shelter, that was all! . . . Had you but for an instant . . . VANNA Guido, look at me, look at me! Can you 183 Monna Vanna not see? What shall I say to you, Guido? Have I words to tell what I feel? Let me speak but one single word and all my strength goes ! . . . I cannot ... I love you, I owe everything to you ! . . . And yet I shaU go ; I must, I must . . . Gumo [Thrusting her from him.] It is well! Go; get you hence! Go to him, I give you up. Go ! You are mine no longer . . . VANNA [Seizing his hand.] Guido! . . . Gumo [Pushing her away.] Ah, do not clutch at me with those warm, soft hands . . . My father was right; he knew you better . . . Father, here she is. This Is your work, finish it now to the end . . . Lead her to this man's tent. I shall stay here and watch you go off together . . . But do not imagine that I claim a share In the bread and meat she will buy . . . There remains but one thing for me, and that you shall know very soon . . . 184 Monna Vanna VANNA [Clinging to him.] Guido, look at me; do not turn your eyes from me — ^that is too dreadful . . . Let me see your eyes, Guido . . . Gumo See then! Look into my eyes, and read . . . Go, I know -you no longer! Time presses — out yonder he waits: night Is fall ing ... Go! what have you to fear? I shall not kill myself. I am not mad ; it is only when love Is triumphant that reason totters, not when love crumbles ... I have gazed Into the very depths of love, ay, of love and fidelity ... I have no more to say. No, no, unclasp your fingers ; they can not detain a vanishing love. All Is over, finished, done with ; there remains not a trace ! ... The past is engulfed, and the future too . . . Ah, yes, those pure white fingers, those noble eyes, those lips ; there was a time when I believed . . . Now nothing remains . . . [Casting Vanna's hands from him.] Nothing, nothing, less than nothing ! Fare well, Vanna ! Get you gone. Farewell . . . You go yonder? . . . 185 Monna Vanna VANNA Yes . . . GUIDO You will not return? . . . VANNA Yes, I shall return . . . GUIDO As to that, we shall see . . . Ah, we shall see . . . Who could have told me that my father knew her better than I ! . . . [He totters, and clings to one of the marble columns. Vanna goes out slowly and alone, without another glance at him.] i86 ACT II Prlnzivalle's Tent {Sumptuous disorder. Hangings of silk and gold. Arms and precious furs are strewn about the place. Great chests lie half open, revealing quantities of jewels and glittering stuffs. The en trance to the tent is from the back, through a heavy curtain. Prinzi valle, standing by a table, is arrang ing documents, plans, and arms. Enter Vedio.) H VEDIO ERE is a letter from the Commissioner of the RepubUc. PRINZIVALLE From Trivulzio? VEDIO Yes. Messer Maladura, the second Com missioner, has not yet returned. 187 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE The Venetian army, that threatens Flor ence from the Casentine, is probably offering unexpected resistance. Give me the letter. [He takes it and reads.] He sends me the formal command, under penalty of immediate arrest, and for the very last time, to deUver the assault at dawn ... It is well. The night, at least, is mine . . . Immediate ar rest . . . Ah, how Uttle they know! . . . Do they really imagine that stale, hackneyed words like these can bring terror to the man who awaits the unique hour of his life! . . . Threats, arrest, calumny, trial, judgment — what are all these to me? . . . They would have arrested me long ago, had they been able, had they dared . . . VEDIO Messer Trivulzio told me, as he gave me the letter, that he would follow. He desires to speak with you . . . PRINZIVALLE Ah, so he has made up his mind at last . . . Our interview wiU decide many things ; Monna Vanna and this wizened little scribe, who stands here for all the occult power of Florence, and yet dares ndt raise his eyes to mine; this wretched, pale-faced dwarf who hates me more than death, shall spend an hour he has not looked for . . . Grave orders must have reached him that he ventures to beard the monster in his den . . . What guards are at my door? VEDIO Two old soldiers of your Galician band. I thought I recognised Hernando, and the other, I believe, is Diego. PRINZIVALLE Good ; they would obey me, those two, did I tell them to put all the saints of heaven in chains ... It is growing dark; have the lamp Ut. What is the time? VEDIO It is past nine. PRINZIVALLE Marco Colonna has not returned? 189 Monna Vanna VEDIO The sentries at the moat wiU bring him to you the moment he arrives. PRINZIVALLE He had been here ere this were my offer rejected . . . This hour decides ; and it holds all my life, like the great ships with flowing sails that prisoners dream of, as they stare into the darkness around them ... It is strange that a man should thus confide aU his destiny, his brain, his soul, his joy and his sorrow, to a thing so frail as the love of a woman ! . . . I could smile at it myself, were it not stronger than my smile . . . Marco does not return . . . She will come, there fore . . . Gro, look for the beacon which de clares her consent . . . See whether the light be there that heralds the trembling footsteps of the woman who gives herself that the others may Uve, and saves me at the same time as she saves her people . . . No, stay — I will go myself. ' I have waited for this hour since my boyhood, waited and yearned ; and no eyes but mine, not even those of a friend, must be the first to greet its coming 190 Monna Vanna . . . [He goes to the entrdnce of the tent, flings back the curtain and looks into the night.] See, the light, Vedio, the light ! See how it shines and flares into the blackness! . . . From the Campanile — that is well, that is as it should be . . . See how it pierces the gloom ! . . . It is the only Ught that shines on the town . . . Ah, never yet has Pisa lifted to the skies so glorious a flower, waited for so long and with so little hope ! . . . Ah, my brave Pisans ! You shall hold festival to-night that will Unger long in your annals ; while I shaU know a diviner joy than had I saved my native city • . . VEDIO [Touching his arm.] Let us return to the tent. Messer Trivulzio comes from yonder. PRINZIVALLE [C(yming back and dropping the curtain.] That is so. We must still . . . The inter view wiU be brief . . . [He goes to the table and fingers the papers there.] Have you his three letters? 191 Monna Vanna VEDIO There are only two. PRINZIVALLE The two that I intercepted, and this even ing's order . . . VEDIO Here are the first two. You are crum- jiUng the other in your hand . . . PRINZIVALLE He is coming . . . [The guard raises the curtain. Enter Trivulzio.] trivulzio Have you observed the strange light that appears to be flashing signals from the Cam panile? . . . PRINZIVALLE You think they are signals? TRIVULZIO I have no doubt of it ... I must speak with you, PrinzivaUe. 192 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE Say on. Leave us, Vedioj but do not go far away; I shaU want you. [Vedio goes.] TRIVULZIO You are aware, PrinzivaUe, of the high esteem In which I hold you. This, indeed, I have already proved to you more than once, but there Is much besides of which you are ignorant; for the policy of Florence, which people term perfidious, though it be merely prudent, demands that many things should be concealed even from those whom she ad mits to her most intimate secrets. We all obey her profound orders; and each one of us must courageously support the weight of her mysteries, which are the emanation of her supreme intelUgence. Let it suffice, then, that I tell you that I had a very good share in your election, notwithstanding your youth and unknown origin, to the command of the most magnificent army the Republic has ever put into the field ; nor, indeed, has there ever been cause to regret this choice. But for some time now a party has been forming against you. I am not sure whether, in re- 193 Monna Vanna vealing this to you, I am not allowing the sincere friendship in which I hold you to In fringe somewhat upon my duty. There are often occasions, however, when a too narrow clinging to duty may work more mischief than the very rashest generosity. Know, there fore, that you have enemies who accuse you most bitterly of indecision, vacillation, sloth. Others even go so far as to throw doubt upon your loyalty. Carefully framed slanders have been set on foot, which lend colour to these insinuations. They have produced a disastrous effect upon that section of the Assembly that already eyed you with dis favour. These have gone so far as to dis cuss your arrest, and your trial. Fortu nately, I was advised in time. I hastened to Florence, and had no difficulty in opposing proof to proof. I stood surety for you. It remains for you now to justify my confidence, which has never for an instant wavered; for we are lost if you do not act. My colleague, Messer Maladura, is held in check at Bib biena by the troops of the Venetian Provedi- tor. Another army is marching upon Flor ence from the North. The city is in danger. 194 Monna Vanna AU may yet be well if on the morrow you de Uver the assault for which we have waited so long. This wiU set free our finest army, as well as the only captain whom victory has never forsaken ; and we shall be able to return proudly to Florence, amidst the pomp and triumph that shall turn your enemies of yes terday into your most fervent admirers and partisans . . . PRINZIVALLE Is this aU you have to say to me? TRrvULZIO Very nearly ; though I have passed over in silence the very real affection in which I hold you, which has indeed grown with every day of our intercourse. And this,, notwithstand ing the difficult position in which we are often placed by laws that seem contradictory ; laws which demand that the authority of the gen eral should at times — at moments of danger ¦ — ^be balanced by the mysterious power of Florence, whereof I am to-day the humble representative . . . 195 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE This order that I have just received was written by you? TRIVULZIO Yes. PRINZIVALLE By your own hand? TRIVULZIO Undoubtedly. Why this question? PRINZIVALLE These two letters — ^you recognise them? TRIVULZIO Perhaps. I know not; what do they con tain? ... I must first . . . PRINZIVALLE There is no need. I know. ^ TRIVULZIO Are they the two letters you intercepted, as I hoped you might? ... I see that the test was good. 196 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE You are not dealing with a child. Let us not fall back on such wretched tricks as these; or prolong an Interview that I am eager to end, that, indeed, delays a reward which no triumph In Florence could ever equal! ... In these letters you have most basely and falsely denounced every action of mine. Was this from pure malice, or to pro vide the treacherous avarice of Florence with the indispensable excuse for dealing cheaply with a victorious mercenary? ... In these letters all things are distorted with so fiend ish a sklU, that there are moments when I doubt my own Innocence. My every action has been disfigured, degraded, besmirched; and this from the very first week of the siege, down to the hour when my eyes were opened — the fortunate hour when I resolved to justify your suspicions. I have had your letters carefully copied — I have sent them to Flor ence. I Intercepted the answer. Your word is accepted, you are believed : the more readily inasmuch as you had been supplied with the theme of your accusation. I am judged, un- 197 Monna Vanna heard; I am condemned to death . . . And I know full weU that not all the innocence of the archangels could help me to escape from the damning proofs that you have provided . . . And therefore do I now spring forward, burst your puny chains, and take the initia tive. Hitherto, I have been no traitor; but since these two letters fell Into my hands I have been preparing your ruin. This night I shall seU you, you and your sorry masters ; I shall deal you the crueUest, the most fatal blow that Ues in my power. And I shaU re gard it as the noblest deed of aU my life, thus to have humbled the one city that exalts treachery to a virtue, and seeks to govern the universe by means of fraud and hypocrisy, lies, ingratitude, and villainy . . . For this evening, thanks to me, Pisa, your ancient enemy, who prevents you, and shaU prevent you, whilst her waUs stand, from spreading corruption over aU the world — this evening Pisa shall be saved, and shaU lift her head to breathe defiance once more . . .^ Ah, do not rise, or make vain gestures . . . My meas ures have all been taken, and they are inevit able; you are in my power; and even as I 198 Monna Vanna hold you now do I seem to hold In my hand the destiny of Florence ... [Trivulzio draws his dagger and aims a swift blow at Prinzivalle.] TRIVULZIO Not yet . . . Not while my hands are free . . , [Prinzivalle, warding off the blow with his arm, has thrown up the weapon, which strikes him in the face. He seizes Trivulzio by the wrist.] PRINZIVALLE I was not prepared for this spasm of terror . . . See, I hold you now, and can crush you with one hand ... I have only to lower this dagger ... It would seem al ready to be seeking your throat. What, you say nothing? are you not afraid, then? TRIVULZIO [Coldly.] No; use the dagger, it is your right. I knew my life was forfeit, 199 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE [Loosening his hold.] Ah . . . But, truly, then, this thing is strange that you have done . . . And even very rare . . . There are not many soldiers who would so readily clasp the hand of death; and I should not have thought that within so feeble a body . . . TRIVULZIO You men of the sword are only too apt to beUeve that there Is no other courage than that which dwells at the end of a blade . . . PRINZIVALLE You may be right ... It is well . . . You are not free, but no harm shall be done you . . . We serve different gods, you and I. [He wipes the blood from his face.] Ah, the blow was not unskilful ... A little too hasty, but not lacking In vigour ... It went within an ace of . . . And now, tell me, what would you do. If you held a man In your hands who had been so nigh despatching you to a world whither no one is anxious to go? 200 Monna Vanna TRIVULZ16 I should not spare him. PRINZIVALLE I do not understand you . . . You are strange . . . Confess that it was a despic able thing to write those letters. I have shed my blood for Florence In three great battles ; I have never spared myself, I have strained every nerve, the gain was all yours. I was a faithful servant to the Republic, nor did one single thought of disloyalty ever enter my heart . . . You must have known this, you who were always spying upon me . . . And yet, in your letters, some vile malice or hatred caused you to distort every action of mine, every step that I took. I thought only of Florence; you heaped slander on slander, and lie upon Ue . . . TRIVULZIO The facts were fallacious — that mattered but little. It was for me to guard against the dangerous hour when the soldier, flushed by two or three victories, Is on the point of no longer obeying the master he serves, whose 201 Monna Vanna mission is loftier than his. That hour had sounded, as this hour proves. The people of Florence held you too fondly. It is for us to shatter their idols. They show some resent ment at the time, but they have created us that we may oppose their dangerous caprices ; and It seemed to me that the hour had come to mark out their idol for destruction. I warned Florence. She knew what my false hoods meant . . . PRINZIVALLE The hour had not come, and would never have come, but for your shameful let ters . .' . TRIVULZIO It might have come, and that was suffi cient ... PRINZIVALLE What ! Is an innocent man to be sacrificed to a mere possibility? Offered up in cold blood to a danger that never might threaten? TRIVULZIO What is the life of one man to the safety of Florence ! 202 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE You beUeve, then, in the destiny of Flor ence, in her work, her existence? She must be something, then, that I do not under stand? . . . TRIVULZIO Yes, I beUeve only in her; the rest is nothing to me . . . PRINZIVALLE After all, it may be so . . . And you are right, since you believe ... I have no country, I cannot tell. There are times when I regret that I have no country . . . But I have something that you never shaU have — ¦ that no man ever has had as much as I . . . That atones for all . . . Go ; let us part ; we have no time to weigh these enigmas . . . We are far removed from each other, and yet there are points where we almost touch . . . Each man has his destiny . . . Some follow an Idea, and others a desire; and it would be as hard for you to change your idea as for me to change my desire . . . Fare you well, Trivulzio; we go different ways . . . Give me your hand. 203 Monna Vanna TRIVULZIO Not yet. I shaU give you my hand on the day of punishment . . . PRINZIVALLE Be it so ; to-day you have lost ; you wiU win to-morrow . . . [He calls " Vedio ! "] [Vedio comes in.] VEDIO Master ! . . . What, you are wounded, the blood is flowing . . . PRINZIVALLE No matter . . . Summon the two guards. Let them take this man away; but see that they do him no injury. . . . He is an enemy whom I love . . . Let them bestow him in some safe place, where no one shall see him . , . They answer for his safety, and shaU set him free at my command . . . [Vedio goes, leading Trivulzio. Prinzivalle stands before a mirror and examines his wound.] PRINZIVALLE The wound is not deep, but it has bitten 204 Monna Vanna into my face . . . Who could have thought that so feeble and haggard a man . . . [YEmo return^,] You have done as I bid you? VEDIO Yes. Master, this will mean ruin . . . PRINZIVALLE Ruin! , . . Ah, that I could be ruined thus each day to the day of my death ! . . . Ruin, Vedio! . . . Why, never yet in this world wiU a legitimate revenge have brought to a man a happiness like mine — a happiness of which he has dreamed ever since he first learnt to dream ... I have waited and prayed for it! I would have allowed no crime to stop me, for it was mine, it be longed to me, and I was bound to have It; and now that my star, urged on by justice,- by pity, sends It to me, upon its silvery rays, you speak of ruin! . . . Oh, poor men with cold hearts! . . . Poor men without love! . . . Do you not know, then, that at this moment my destiny Is being balanced in the sky, and that they are granting me the share of a hundred lovers, the share of a thousand 205 Monna Vanna joys ! . . . 'Ah, I know it ! ... I touch the moment when those marked out for grand disaster' or triumph suddenly find themselves on the topmost peak of their life, where all things belong to them and obey them, and become moulded to their hand! . . . And what matters the rest, and all that comes after ! . . . There is an ecstasy too great for man, and it crushes him who achieves it ! . . ¦ VEDIO [Approaching him with a linen bandage.] The blood still flows; let me bind up your face. PRINZIVALLE Yes. Since it must be . . . But see that your bandages do not cover my eyes. [Look ing into the mirror.] Ah, I seem more Uke a patient shrinking from a surgeon's knife than a loVer who soon will be joyfully welcom ing his love! . . . [He shifts the bandage.] And you, Vedio, my poor Vedio, what wiU become of you? VEDIO Master, where you go I go too . . . 206 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE Nay, you must leave me ... I know not whither I shall go, nor what will become of me . . . Do you make good your escape; none wiU follow you, whereas If you go with your master ... In these coffers is gold ; take it, it is yours, I need It no longer . . . Are the waggons ready, the flocks aU gathered? VEDIO They are in front of the tent. PRINZIVALLE Good. When I give the signal you wIU do' what has to be done. [The sound of a gunshot is heard from afar.] What is that? VEDIO A shot has been fired at the outposts. PRINZIVALLE Who gave the order? ... It must be a mistake ... If they should have fired at her ! Did you not tell . . . 207 Monna Vanna VEDIO Yes. It is impossible. I placed a num ber of guards there, who will bring her to you the moment that she arrives. PRINZIVALLE Go and see. [Exit Vedio.] [For a moment Prinzivalle remains alone. Vedio returns, raises the curtain at the entrance, and mur murs " Master." Then he with draws and Monna Vanna, wrapped in a long mantle, appears, and pauses on the threshold. Prinzi valle trembles, and moves toward her.] VANNA ' [In a stifled voice.] I have come as you bade me . . . PRINZIVALLE There is blood on your hand: are you wounded? . . . VANNA A baU touched my shoulder . . . 208 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE What? When? . . . This is terrible VANNA As I drew near the camp. PRINZIVALLE Who fired the shot? . . . VANNA I know not ; the man fled. PRINZIVALLE Are you in pain? ... VANNA No. PRINZIVALLE ShaU I have the wound dressed? VANNA No. It is nothing. [A moment's silence.] PRINZIVALLE Your mind is made up? . . . 209 Monna Vanna VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE ShaU I remind you of the conditions? VANNA There is no need. PRINZIVALLE You have no regrets? . . . VANNA Was it stipulated that I should come with out regrets? PRINZIVALLE Your husband consents? . . . VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE There still is time if you wish to re nounce . . . VANNA No. PRINZIVALLE But why are you doing this? 2IO Monna Vanna VANNA Because out yonder they perish of hunger, and to-morrow a still swifter death would await them . . . PRINZIVALLE There is no other reason? VANNA What other could there be? . , . PRINZIVALLE I can conceive that a virtuous woman . . , VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE One who loves her husband . . . VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE Deeply? VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE You are clad only in your mantle? 211 Monna Vanna VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE You have seen the chariots and flocks in front of the tent? VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE There are two hundred waggons filled with the best Tuscan wheat ; two hundred others laden with forage, and with fruit and wine from Sienna. There are thirty more filled with German powder, and fifteen smaller ones laden with lead ; and around them are six hundred oxen from Apulia, and twelve hun dred sheep. They await your order to march into Pisa. Would you care to see them start? VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE Come then to the door of my tent. [He raises the tapestry, gives the order, and makes a signal. A sound is heard as of a vague and mighty movement. Torches are 212 Monna .Vanna kindled and waved to and fro. Whips are cracked and waggons creak. There is the bleating of sheep and the lowing of oxen. Vanna and Prinzivalle, erect on the threshold of the tent, watch for a moment the enormous convoy as it starts forth, with torches flaming in the starry night.] prinzivalle From this night, thanks to you, Pisa will cease to be hungry. She ^s invincible now, and to-morrow wIU know the glory of a joy and triumph for which none had dared any longer to hope . . . Are you satisfied? vanna Yes, PRINZIVALLE Let us close the tent then; and give me your hand. The evening is still mild, but the night will be cold. You have no weapons concealed about you, no poison? 213 Monna Vanna VANNA I have only my sandals and this mantle. Search me if you are afraid . . . PRINZIVALLE It is not for myself that I fear, but for you . . . VANNA I place the life of my people high above all ... PRINZIVALLE It is weU, and you have done right . . . Come, sit here ... It Is a warrior's couch, rugged and fierce, narrow as a tomb, and but Uttle worthy of you . . . Lie here, on these tiger-skins, that have never yet felt the gentle touch of a woman . . . Place this soft fur I at your feet ... It is the skin of a lynx I that an African monarch gave me on the night of a victory . . . [Vanna sits, closely wrapped in her mantle.] PRINZIVALLE The light of the lamp is falling on your eyes; shall I move it? 214 Monna Vanna VANNA It matters not ... PRINZIVALLE [Krieeling at the foot of the couch and seiz ing YA^iSA's hand.] Giovanna! . . . [Vanna starts up in surpise and looks at him.] Oh, Vanna, my Vanna . , . for I, too, used to call you thus . , . Now I tremble as I speak your name ... It has so long re mained trebly sealed in my heart that it can not escape without breaking its prison . . . Indeed, it Is my heart. It Is all I have . . . In each one of its syUables lies all my life, and as I pronounce them I feel my life flow from me ... It was familiar to me; I thought I knew it; I had said it again and again to myself, until I ceased to be afraid: I had spoken It every hour of every day, Uke a great word of love that one yearns to utter, if it be only once, in the presence of her whom it has so long evoked In vain ... I thought that my lips had shaped themselves to its form; that at the long-sought-for moment they would pronounce it so softly, so meekly, so humbly, with so profound and mighty a 215 Monna Vanna yearning, that she who should hear it wpuld know the distress and the love that It held. . . . Whereas to-day it is merely a shadow. It is no longer the same . . . My fears and sorrows have bruised it and crushed It, and I can scarcely recognise it as it leaves my lips. AU the meaning and adoration that I have placed within it come now to break my strength and extinguish my voice . . . VANNA Who are you? PRINZIVALLE You do not know me? ... I recall no memory? . . . Ah, the marvels that time effaces ! . . . But it Is true that I alone had seen those marvels . . . And it is better, perhaps, that they should be forgotten . . . I shaU hope no longer, I shall have fewer re grets ! . . . No, I am nothing to you • . . A poor wretch, who for one single instant wistfully gazes at what has been the aim of his life; an unhappy man who asks nothing, who knows not even what it is he should ask ; and yet he would, were it possible to him, teU 2i6 Monna Vanna you before you go of what you have been to him, and wiU be, to the very end of his life . . . VANNA You know me then? . . . Who are you? . . . PRINZIVALLE You do not remember the man who is look ing at you now, as. In a fairy world, one would look at the very source of one's joy and existence? . . . VANNA No ... At least I do not beUeve . . . PRINZIVALLE Yes, you have forgotten. . . . And I was sure, alas, that you had forgotten ! . . . You were eight years old and I twelve when I met you for the first time . . . VANNA Where? . . . PRINZIVALLE At Venice, one Sunday In June . . . My father, the old goldsmith, brought your 217 Monna Vanna mother a necklace of pearls. She was ad miring the necklace — I strayed Into the garden ... I found you there, by the side of a pond, in a grove of myrtle ... A slender golden, ring had f aUen into the water . . . You were crying on the bank ... I sprang into the pond . . . The ring was glittering on the marble basin ; I seized it and placed It on your finger ... I was nearly drowned . . . But you kissed me and were happy . . . VANNA It was a fair-haired child named Gianello. Are you Gianello ? PRINZIVALLE Yes. , VANNA Who could have recognised you? . . . And besides, your face is covered with band ages ... I can only see your eyes . . . PRINZIVALLE [Shifting the bandages.] Do you know me now that I move them? 2i8 Monna Vanna VANNA Yes, perhaps ... I seem to . . . For your smile is still that of a child ... But your are wounded, the blood Is flowing . . . PRINZIVALLE Ah, It is not my first wound . . . But that any one should have hurt you . . . VANNA ' Let me adjust your bandage, it is badly tied. [She winds the linen round his cheek.] I have often tended the wounded in this war . . . Yes, yes, I remember ... I can see the garden again, with its pomegranates, its roses and laurels. We played there more than once. In the afternoon, when the sun shone hot on the sand . . . PRINZIVALLE Twelve times in all — ^I kept count ... I can tell you each game that we played, and every word that you said . . . VANNA Then, one day, I remember, I waited — for 219 Monna Vanna I loved you weU, you were so solemn, so quiet, and treated me like a little queen . . . But you never came back . . . PRINZIVALLE My father took me to Africa . . . There we got lost in the desert . . . Then I was taken prisoner by the Arabs, the Turks, the Spaniards — that was my Ufe. When I saw Venice again your mother was dead; the garden lay waste ... I sought you in vain . . . TiU, at last, I heard of you, thanks to your beauty, which no man could ever forget who once had beheld it . . . VANNA You knew me at once when I came in? PRINZIVALLE Had ten thousand women come into my tent, every one with a face like yours and clad alike and equally beautiful, ten thousand sisters whom their own kindred could not dis tinguish, I should have risen and taken you by the hand and said, " This is she." ... It is strange, is it not, that an image one loves 220 Monna Vanna should thus be able to dweU in the heart; for In this heart of mine yours lived so pro foundly that it grew and it changed ... It was different to-day from what it was yes terday ; it blossomed, it became more beauti ful; and the years adorned it with the gifts they bring to the budding child . . . And yet, when I saw you again It seemed at first as though my eyes deceived me . . . My memory, that had so faithfully treasured your beauty, had yet been too timid, too halt ing; It had not dared to endow you with all the glory which so suddenly flashed on my sight. I was Uke a man who remembers a flower he has only seen once as he crossed the garden in twilight, and suddenly beholds a hundred thousand flowers beneath the radiant Ught of the sun . . . You came in, and I saw the brow again that I knew so well, the hair, and the eyes ; I saw the soul In the face I adored . . . But its beauty humbled the one that I had been silently storing for days and days, and months without end, and year after year — ^the beauty that had fed on a halting memory, and faUen so immeasurably short of the real . . . 221 Monna Vanna VANNA Yes, you loved me as one loves at that age ; but time and absence throw a glamour over love . . . PRINZIVALLE Men often say they have loved only once in their life, but It rarely is true . . . To disguise their indifference, or their desire, they lay claim to the wonderful sorrow of those who were born for a single love; and when one of these tries to tell of the deep and the dolorous truth that has furrowed his life, the words that the fortunate lovers have used so freely have lost aU their strength, all their gravity: and she who listens wiU uncon sciously degrade the poor sacred words, often so full of sadness, to the trivial, playful meaning they have for the majority of men . . . VANNA I shall not do that. I can understand the love for which we aU yearn when our Ufe begins ; the love we renounce because years — although mine are few — put an end to many things . . . But, tell me, when you passed 222 Monna Vanna through Venice again and had found trace of me — tell me what happened then ? You made no effort to see the woman whom you had loved so deeply? . . . PRINZIVALLE At Venice I learned that your mother was dead, that her fortune was lost, and that you were about to marry a great Tuscan noble, the richest and most powerful of all In Pisa, to whom you would be as a queen, adored and happy ... I was an adventurer with out a home, without a country — what was there that I could offer? . . . Destiny seemed to demand the sacrifice I grudgingly made to my love. Ah, how often have I wandered around the walls of this city, and clung to the chains of the gate, in my fear lest my longing to see you should overwhelm me, and disturb the love and the happiness that you had found ... I hired out my sword, I engaged in two or three wars ; I was a mercenary, and my name became known ... I waited for the days to come, though hope had left me; till at last Florence despatched me to Pisa . . . 223 Monna Vanna VANNA How feeble and cowardly men become when they love ! . . . Understand me well ; I do not love you, nor can I tell whether I could ever have loved you . . . But it makes the very soul of love leap and cry in my heart when I find that a man who pretended to love as I might myself have loved, had not more cour age in the face of love . . . PRINZIVALLE It was not courage that failed me ... I had need of more than you think to be able to go . . . But it was too late . . . VANNA It was not too late when you left Venice. When one finds a love that fills a Ufe, it never can be too late . . . Such a love never re nounces. Expecting nothing, it hopes. And it persists, still, when it has ceased to hope. Had I loved as you say you loved, then I would have . . . Ah, one cannot say what one would have done . . . But this much I know : fate should not have wrenched my hap piness from me without a struggle ... I 224 Monna Vanna should have cried to fate, "Hence, hence, 1 pass here !"...! should have forced the very stones to side with me! And whatever the cost, the man whom I loved should have learnt of my love, and himself have pro nounced the sentence, and pronounced it more than once! . . . PRINZIVALLE [Seeking her hand.] You do not love him, Vanna? Whom? Guido. VANNA PRINZIVALLE VANNA * [Withdrawing her hand.] Do not take my hand. I cannot give it to you. I see I must make myself clear. When Guido married me I was alone, almost poor; and the woman who is alone and poor soon falls victim to calumny, especially If her face be fair, and she scornful of artifice or falsehood . . . To these calumnies Guido paid no heed; he had faith in me, and his faith pleased me. He made me happy ; at least as happy as one can 225 Monna Vanna be when one has renounced the vague and extravagant dreams which seem beyond human Ufe ; and I almost hope to convince you, too, that one can be happy without spending one's days in search of a happiness that no man ever has known. I love Guido to-day with a love less strange than the one you imagine. you feel; but mine, at least, is steadier, calmer, more faithful, and more sure . . . That is the love that fortune has given me ; I accepted it with my eyes open ; I shaU have no other; and if anyone breaks it that one will not be I ... So you see you have misun derstood me. . . . When I tried to point out to you what I thought was an error of yours, it was not of you that I spoke, it was not of us : I spoke in the name of a love of which a gUmpse descends on the heart at the very first dawn: a love which exists, perhaps, but that is not mine or yours ; for you have not done what such a love would do . . . PRINZIVALLE You judge me harshly, Vanna, or rather this love of mine. You judge it with aU too little knowledge of what it has done, and bad 226 Monna Vanna to suffer, in order to bring about this one happy moment that would most surely plunge every other love Into despair . • . But though It had done nothing, and attempted nothing, I know of its existence, I who am its victim, whose life it has seized: I who bear it within me, and have lost all that makes for the joy and glory of man! . . . Ah, believe me, Vanna, and you miist believe me, for I am of those who ask for nothing and hope for nothing! . . . You are in my tent now, and at my mercy ... I have only to say a word, to stretch out my hand, and all is mine that the ordinary lover demands . . . But you know as well as I that the love of which I have spoken craves other things; therefore I ask that you no longer doubt me ... I took your hand because I thought you would be lieve me ... I shall not touch It again, my Ups shall not press it; but, at least, Vanna, when we shall part to meet no more, at least know what kind of love mine has been, that it halted only before the impossible ! VANNA From the moment that it could regard any- 227 Monna Vanna thing as impossible, is not doubt permitted? I demand no superhuman ordeals, no terrible obstacles to be overcome. I ask for no proofs of this kind, I am only too willing to believe . . . Indeed, it is for the sake of your happi ness, and mine, that I still would try to doubt ... In a love as mighty as yours there is something sacred, that could not but disturb the coldest of women . . . And therefore do I probe into what you have done, and should be almost happy could I discover nothing that bears the stamp of this mortal passion, on which fate so seldom smiles . . . And I should have been convinced that I had found nothing, but for this last act of yours; for when I remember that you have madly wrecked your future, your fame, all that you have in the world, to bring me here for an hour beneath this tent, then am I forced to admit tKat possibly your love may be what you say . . . PRINZIVALLE This last act is the only one that proves nothing . . . VANNA How? . . . 228 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE I prefer that you should know the truth. In causing you to come to me here. In saving Pisa in your name, I have sacrificed nothing. VANNA I do not understand . • . Have you not betrayed your country, effaced your past services, ruined your future? What stands before you? Is it not exile or death? PRINZIVALLE In the first place I have no country. Other wise, had my love been never so great, I should not have, betrayed it for that love . . . But I am only a mercenary, faithful when others are faithful, a traitor when they betray ... I have been falsely accused by the Florentine Commissioners, and condemned without trial by a Republic of merchants, whose ways you know as well as I. I was aware that I was lost; and the thing I have done to-night, far from hastening my ruin, wiU perhaps save me, if that still be possi ble . . . 229 Monna Vanna VANNA So what you have sacrificed for my sake counts but Uttle? PRINZIVALLE It counts nothing at all ... I could not but tell you. I should have no joy in a smile of yours that I had purchased with a lie ... VANNA Ah, Gianello, Gianello, this is worth more than love and its noblest proofs ! . . . You need no longer seek the hand that fied from you before. Take it . . . PRINZIVALLE I had rather that love had won it! . . . But what matter, after all! ... It belongs to me, Vanna: I hold It between mine, I drink its fragrance, I Uve its life, it is one with me — I lose myself for a moment in the sweet illusion . . . Ah, the dear hand! I open it, close it, as though It could answer me in the secret, mysterious language of lovers ; I press my kisses upon it, and you still let It lie here . . . You forgive me, then, the cruel ordeal to which I exposed you? . . . 23Q Monna Vanna VANNA I should have done the same thing ; better, perhaps, or worse, had I been In your place ... PRINZIVALLE Did- you know who I was when you agreed to come to my tent? . . . VANNA , No one knew. There were strange rumours . . . Acco^rding to some, Prinzivalle was a horrible old man ; others declared him a young prince of marveUous beauty . . . PRINZIVALLE ( I But Guido's father saw me; did he say nothing? . . . VANNA No. PRINZIVALLE You did not question him? . . . VANNA No. PRINZIVALLE But did your heart not fail you when you 231 Monna Vanna came in the night, helpless, to the tent of an unknown savage? . . . VANNA The sacrifice had to be made . . . PRINZIVALLE And when you saw me? VANNA At first the bandages hid your face . . . PRINZIVALLE Yes, but afterwards, Vanna, when I raised them? VANNA Then it was different, and I already knew you . . . But you, when you saw me enter the tent — what was in your mind then; what 'had you intended to do? . . . PRINZIVALLE Ah, how can I tell ! . . . I knew I was lost, I had the wild craving to drag all things down with me . . . And I hated you because 232 Monna Vanna of this love of mine ! I marvel now at myself when I think of it ... There needed but a word that was not yours, a gesture different from your gestures, to unchain the brute within me and fan my hatred . . . But the moment I saw you I reaUsed how impossible it was . . . VANNA So did I realise It, too, and all fear left me, for we understood each other without a word being said. And it is all very strange . . . I should have done this thing, too, I believe, had I loved like you . . . Indeed, there are moments, as I Usten to you, when I fancy that I am speaking, and that your words are my words, and you hearing what I am say ing ... PRINZIVALLE I, too, Vanna, I felt at once that the wall which divides us from all other beings was growing transparent ; It was as though I had plunged my hands Into a flowing stream, and withdrawn them sparkling with light, shin ing with confidence and sincerity . . . And I it seemed to me that men were changed, 23S. Monna Vanna that all I had hitherto thought had been wrong . . . Most of all did I feel that I myself was changed, emerging at last as from a long imprisonment ; that the gates were opening, flowers and leaves entwining around the bars; that the snows were melting on the far horizon, and the -pure air of the morning entering my soul and breathing upon my love ! . . . VANNA . In me, too, there was a change. I was sur prised to find myself speaking to you as I did from the very beginning ... I am habitu ally silent ... I have never spoken thus to any man, save it be to Marco, Guido's father, and even with him It is different . . . He is wrapped In a thousand dreams ; our conversa tions are rare . . . and, as for the others, there is always a look in their eyes that chills me. How dare I tell them I love them, or that I yearn to know what is passing in their heart? . . .Your eyes do not repel, they do not alarm ... I felt at once that I knew you, though I could not recaU where it was I had seen you before . , . 234 Mohna Vanna PRINZIVALLE Could you have loved me, Vanna, had my evil star not brought me to you when it was too late? . . . VANNA Were I to tell you that I could have loved you, It would be the same as my telling you that I love you now, Gianello, and you know as well as I that cannot be . . . But we speak to each other here as though we were on a desert island . . . Were I alone in the world there would be no more to say . . . But we forget the suffering that another en dures, while w^ two smile at the past . . . When I think of Guido's sorrow as I left Pisa, the despair in his eyes, his haggard face — oh, I can wait no longer! . . . Dawn must be close at hand, and I am so eager to know! ... I hear a footstep, some one Is passing the tent . . . People are whispering behind the curtain . . . Listen, Usten! . . . What is it? [The sound of whispers and hurried footsteps^is heard outside the tent. Then the voice of Vedio from with out.] 235 Monna Vanna vedio [0/f.] Master! PRINZIVALLE It is Vedio. Come in ! WeU? VEDIO [At the entrance of the tent.] Quick, quick ! Master, you must fly ! Lose not an instant ! Messer Maladura, the second Com missioner of Florence . . . PRINZIVALLE He was at Bibbiena . . . VEDIO He has returned . . • Six hundred Flor entines are with him ... I saw them pass. The camp is in uproar . . . He brings orders . . . He proclaims you traitor . . . He now seeks Trivulzio, and if he should find him while you are still here . . . PRINZIVALLE Come, Vanna . . . 236 Monna Vanna VANNA Whither shall I go? PRINZIVALLE Vedio, with two men on whom I can rely, shaU escort you to Pisa . . . VANNA And you, what wiU you do? PRINZIVALLE I know not, and It matters little. The world is wide enough — I shaU find shelter. VEDIO Oh, master, beware ! They hold the coun try aU round the town, and Tuscany is full of spies . . . VANNA Come to Pisa. PRINZIVALLE With you? . . . VANNA Yes. PRINZIVALLE I cannot . . . 237 Monna Vanna VANNA If only for a few days ... to put them off the scent . . . PRINZIVALLE What will your husband do? . . . VANNA He will not fail In his duty to a guest . . . PRINZIVALLE Will he believe you when you tell him? . . . VANNA Yes . . . — If he did not believe me . . . But he wiU, he must . . . — Come . . . PRINZIVALLE No. VANNA Why.? — ^What do you fear? PRINZIVALLE It is for y6u that I fear . . . VANNA For me? For me the danger is the same 238 Monna Vanna whether I be alone or with you. It is for you we must fear, for you who have saved Pisa; now it is right that Pisa should save you . . . You come under my protection, and I stand surety for you . . . PRINZIVALLE So be it: I wiU go with you . . . VANNA You could give me no better proof of your love. . . . Come. Let us lose no time . . . Throw open the tent . . . [Prinzivalle, followed by Vanna, moves to the entrance and throws the tapestry wide open. There is a vast murmur of voices and clash ing of arms; but above all is heard the sound of distant bells, pealing joyfully, that burst sharply upon the silence of the night. Far away in the distance Pisa is seen on the horizon, brilliantly illuminated. Great bonfires throw a mighty glare on the dark sky.] 239 Monna Vanna PRINZIVALLE Look, Vanna, look! VANNA What is it, GianeUo? . . . Oh, I under stand! . . . These are the fires of joy that they have kindled, to celebrate what you have done . . . The walls are aglow, tl^e ram parts glitter, the Campanile shines Uke a torch of gladness. See how the radiant towers are whispering to the stars ! . . . And the very streets are reflected in the sky : I can recognise the road I trod this evening! . . . There is the piazza with its dome of fire; and the Camp Santo, that makes an island of shadows ! . . . One could almost imagine that life, but now at its very last gasp, had rushed back to Pisa, leaping from spire to spire, flinging itself across the skies, flooding the waUs, the whole country, and now mak ing signals to us, and calling us back . . . Listen, listen! . . . Hark to the shouts, the ecstasy, the deUrium, rising and swelling, as though the sea were invading Pisa! . . . Hark to the beUs, the beUs that sound as they did at my wedding . . . Ah, I am happy, 240 Monna Vanna happy, and happiest of all to owe my happi ness to you, to you who have loved me best! . . . Come, my Gianello ! [She kisses him on the brow.] That Is the only kiss I can give you . . , j PRINZIVALLE Oh, my Giovanna, it is the most exquisite kiss that love could hope for! . . . But see, you tremble ; your knees bend under you ! . . . Come, lean on me, put your arm round me . . . VANNA It is nothing: I am faint — I have over taxed my strength. Help me, carry me ! Let nothing hinder my first happy steps . . . How beautiful is the night beneath the wakening dawn! . . . Quick! Let us hasten, it is time. We must arrive before the joy has faded . . . [They go out together, Prinzivalle supporting Vanna.] 241 ACT III State Apartment of Gumo Colonna {Lofty windows, porticos, marble columns, ^•c. To the left, at back, a~ terrace, the approach to which is by a great double staircase. On the balustrade of the terrace are huge vases filled with flowers. In the centre of the room, between the columns, ample marble steps lead to the terrace, which com mands a view over a great part of the town. Enter Marco, Gumo, Borso, and ToRELLo.) Gumo I YIELDED to you, to her, to every one ; but now it is only just that I should have my turn. I have been silent, I have held my breath, I have hidden — as a coward might hide while thieves are plundering his house. 2i2 Monna Vanna But, in my degradation, I have still re tained my honour . . . You have made a tradesman of me, a huckster, a weaver of cun ning bargains . . . But now the dawn has come ... I have not budged from my place ... A contract was made, I had to respect it: I had to purchase your food . . . This night, this noble night, belonged to the buyer . . . Ah, who knows, It was not too high a price, perhaps, to pay for this wheat, for all these sheep and oxen . . . Now you have eaten your fill, and I have paid . . . Now I am free, I am master once more; and I huri my shame from me! . . . MARCO My son, I know not what your intentions may be, and no one has the right to Intrude upon a grief like yours . . . Words cannot soften it, and I can well understand that the happiness which it has caused, which sur rounds you on every side, can only embitter it, and render It more poignant . . . The city is saved, but we almost regret the salva tion which has cost you so dear; and we bend our heads before you who have had to 243 Monna Vanna bear the whole burden , . . And yet, could we recall yesterday, I should stiU have to act as I did, mark out the same victims, and plead for the same injustice ; for the man who would be just is compelled all his life sorrow- fuUy to choose between two or three acts of varying injustice ... I know not what to say to you; but if this voice of mine that once you loved could for the last time reach your heart, I would beg of you, my son, not bUndly to foUow the first counsels of anger and grief . . . Wait, at least, until the dangerous hour be past which impels us to utter words that cannot be recalled . . . Vanna will soon be here. Do not judge her to-day. Do nothing irrevocable . . . For all that one does and says beneath the empire of an overpowering grief is so naturally, so cruelly, irrevocable! . . . Vanna will return, rejoicing, despairing . . . Do not reproach her ... If you do not feel yourself strong enough to speak to her as you wIU speak after many days, let some time pass before you see her . . . For in us poor creatures, who are merely the playthings of irresistible forces, there resides so much goodness, and justice, 244 Monna Vanna and wisdom, in the years that pass; and the only words that count, that we must eagerly grope for when misfortune blinds us, are those that we shaU pronounce when full un derstanding has come, when we have forgiven and once more begun to love . . . GUIDO You have finished? It Is weU. This is no longer the hour for honeyed phrases, nor is there any one here to-day whom they still can deceive ... I have suffered you, and for the last time, to say what you had to say ; for I was curious to know what your wisdom could offer me in exchange for the life It has so effectuaUy ruined . . . See what it gives me! To wait, to be patient, to accept, for get, to pardon and weep! . ., . Well, no! That does not suffice! ... I had rather not be wise, and get rid of my shame! Words cannot do this for me . . • And as for my intentions, they are very siiiiple — I shall act as you would have urged me to act but a few years ago. A man has taken Vanna from me; Vanna is no longer mine while this man exists. For I, you see, am guided by 245 Monna Vanna other rules than those that govern the verb and the adjective. I obey the great law be fore which every man bends whose heart is alive within him . . . Pisa has food now, weapons; she can eat, she can fight; very well, I claim my share. From this day on wards her fighting men are mine, or, at least, the best of them — those I myself recruited and paid for, out of my purse. I have dis charged my duty to Pisa — now I demand my own. These men shall not go back to her un til they have done what I in my turn have now the right to exact ... As for the rest — for Vanna — I forgive her, or shall forgive her when this man has ceased to be ... She has been deceived, she has been led astray ; but, at least, there was heroism in what she did . . . The foulest advantage was taken of her mercy, her greatness of soul . . . Be it so ... To forget may be impossible ; but at least this deed of hers may fade so remotely into the past that It shall hide itself from the love that seeks it . . . But there exists one creature whom I shaU never behold with out shame and horror ... A man Is here whose sole mission in life was to be the guide, 246 Monna Vanna the prop, of a great and noble happiness. He has become its enemy, and Its scourge; and there shall happen before you all a thing that is terrible and yet is just . . . You shall see a son, who. In a world for a moment out of gear, judges his own father, denies him, and curses him; thrusts him from his pres ence, despises and hates him! . . . MARCO Curse me, my son, but pardon her ... If there be in this heroic act that has saved so many Uves a fault that cannot be pardoned, then is that fault all mine, but the heroism hers . . . My advice was good; but advice was easy for me, who bore no share In the sacrifice; and to-day, when It deprives me of all that I hold dearest in the world, It seems stIU better to me than It did before ... I have no right to quarrel with your judgment ; when I was younger I should have judged like you ... I go, my son, and y^ou shall behold me no more; I can well understand that my presence Is odious to you — and yet I shall try to see you again without being -seen by you . . . And since I depart, scarce daring to 247 Monna Vanna hope that I may Uve to see the hour when you wiU pardon the wrong I have done you — for my own past reminds me that pardon comes slowly when one is still in the prime of Ufe — since I leave you thus, let me, at least, be convinced that I take with me aU your hatred and bitterness, aU your cruel memories; and that none will remain for her who is to come . . . Beyond this I have but one prayer . . . Let me, and for the last time, see her throw herself into your arms . . . Then I shall gq without a murmur, without deeming you un just ... It Is good that In human sorrow the oldest should take on his shoulders all that he can bear ; seeing that he has but few steps before him ere his burden shall fall aside . . . [Already during Marco's last words, a vague and mighty murmur has been heard from without. In the silence that follows, this noise in creases, drawing nearer andbecom- ing more and more distinct. First there is an expectant stir, then still distant shouts of a crowd rushing from point to point. Soon the 248 Monna Vanna vague cries take form, and one hears from all sides, more and more clehrly, repeated a thousand times, " Vanna, Vanna, our Monna Vanna! Glory to Monna Vanna, Vanna, Vanna, Vanna! "] MARCO [Rushing to the porticos that open on to the terrace.] It Is Vanna! . . . She returns! . . . She is there! . . . They acclaim her; they acclaim her ! Listen, listen ! [Borso and Torello follow him to the terrace, while Guido remains alone, leaning against a pillar and looking straight before him. All this time the noise from without be comes louder and draws rapidly nearer.] MARCO [On the terrace.] Ah, see! The square, the streets, the windows, the trees, are all black with waving heads and arms! The roofs, the tiles, the leaves, would seem to be changed into men ! . . . But where is Vanna? 249 Monna Vanna I see only a cloud that shuts and opens . . . Borso, my poor eyes play me false and betray my love . . . Old age and tears are blinding them . • . They cannot see the one creature they yearn for . . . Where is she, where is she? . . . Which way must I go to meet her? ... BORSO [Holding him back.] No ; do not go down ; the people are wild, they have lost all control. They are mad with excitement; women are fainting, men trodden under foot ! . . . Be sides, it is useless; she comes, there she is, there she is ! . . . See, she raises her head ! . . . She sees us ! . . . She Is hurrying to us! Ah, she looks up and smiles! . . . 1 MARCO You see her, but I cannot! . . . These moribund eyes of mine can distinguish noth ing! . . . For the first time I curse the old age that has taught me so much, and now hides this one thing from me ! . . . But you who can see her, teU me how does she look? . . . Can you see her face? 250 Monna Vanna BORSO She returns In triumph . . . She seems to shine on the people . . . TORELLO But who is the man who is walking by her side? BORSO I know not ... I never have seen him; he hides his face . . • MARCO Hark, how they shout! . . . The whole palace trembles; the flowers fall from the vases on to the steps . . . The very flag stones seem to be rising beneath us to sweep us along in this overpowering gladness . . . Ah, I begin to see . . . They are close to the gates! The crowd divides . . . BORSO Yes, before Vanna. They are making a lane for her, a lane of triumph, of love . . . In her path they throw flowers, palm leaves, jewels .... Mothers hold out their chil dren for her to touch; men stoop to kiss the 251 Monna Vanna stones her feet have trodden ... Be careful, they are too near us. They are mad with joy ... If they reach these steps we shall aU be swept away . . . Ah, it is well ! The guards are rushing from the other side to bar the entrance! ... I wiU give orders to shut out the people and close the gates, if there be yet time . . . MARCO No, no! Let joy blossom here as it blos soms in the people's hearts ! It is their vast love that speaks — let it do what It wiU ! They have suffered enough! . . . Now that salva tion has come let no barrier hold them back! Ah, my poor brave people, I, too, am drunk with joy; I raise my voice with yours! . . . Ah, Vanna, my Vanna! Is it you whom I see on the steps? . . . [He rushes forward to meet Vanna, but Borso and Torello hold him back.] Come, Vanna, come ! They are keeping me back! They are alarmed at this mighty joy! Come, Vanna, come! More beautiful than Judith, and purer than Lucrece! . . . Come! . . . Here, in the midst of the flowers ! [He runs to the marble 252 Monna Vanna vases and seizes handfuls of flowers that he hurls to the foot of the stairs.] I, too, have flowers with which to greet the Ught ! I, too, have UUes, laurels, and roses with which to crown glory! [The clamour becomes more and more delirious. Vanna, accompanied by PjRiNzivALLE, appears on the top of the steps and throws herself into Marco's arms. The crowd invade the palace stairs and the terrace; but, nevertheless, remain at a cer tain distance from the group formed by Vanna, Prinzivalle, Marco, Borso, and Torello.] VANNA My father, I am happy . . . MARCO [Holding her close to him.] And I, too, my child, since I behold you again ! . . . Let me look at you through my tears ... I see you more radiant than had you descended from the depths of the sky, that now acclaims your return! . . . The horrible foe has not 253 Monna Vanna been able to rob your eyes of their light, nor a single smile from your lips! . . . VANNA Father, I will teU you . . . But where is Guido? . . . He must be the first to hear-;— to be comforted, for how can he know? MARCO Vanna, Vanna, he is there . . . Come . . . Me he repels, and justly, perhaps, but there Is forgiveness for you, for your glo rious fault ; and I yearn to see you sink Into his arms, that my last glance may fall upon your love . . . [Gumo steps forward to Vanna. She is about to speak — to throw herself into his arms — but Gumo, with a brusque movement, stops and repels her, and addresses himself to those round about him.] GUIDO '[In a strident and imperious voice,] Go, aU! . . . 254 Monna Vanna vanna No, no! They must wait! . . . Guido, I must tell you; I must tell them all ... Guido, listen! GUIDO [Stopping her and pushing her back, rais ing his voice in growing anger.] Do not come near me, do not touch me! [He ad vances towards the crowd, which has invaded the hall, but now recoils before him.] Have you not heard me? I bade you go ! Leave us ! You are the masters in your own homes, but here I rule ! Borso, Torello, summon the guard ! Ah ! I see what it means ! You have had your food, and now you would feast your eyes on this merry spectacle ! . . . No, no, you have meat and wine ; I have paid for you ail; is that not enough? Go, I tell you! [Silent movement in the crowd, which slowly disperses.] Let none venture to linger! [He seizes his father violently by the arm.] You, too! You, above all! You more than the others, since the fault is yours ! You shall not see my tears ! I desire to be alone. Lonelier than the tomb, to know what I have to know ! [Seeing Prinzivalle, who has not 255 Monna Vanna stirred.] And you? . . . Who are you who stand there like a veiled statue? . . . Are you death, or shame? Have you not under stood that I told you to go? [He snatches a halberd from a guard.] Must I drive you hence with this halberd? . . . You touch your sword? . . . 1, too, have a sword, but have other ^ uses Tor it . , . Henceforth it serves against one man, and one man alone. . . . What veils are those that hide your ,head? ... I am in no mood for a masquer ade . . . You make no answer ... I ask who you are? . . . Wait {He approaches and is about to tear away the bandages, Vanna rushes between and stops him.] VANNA Do not touch him! . . . Gumo [In amazement.] Vanna, what, Vanna? Whence comes this sudden strength? VANNA It is he who saved me . . g 256 Monna Vanna Gumo Hah! He saved you . . . When it was too late ... A noble action, truly . . • It would have been better . . . VANNA [Feverishly.] But let me teU you, Guido, I implore you! One word, but one word! . . . He saved me, he spared me, respected me! . . . He comes here wlth^me, under my protection ... I have given my word, your word, ours! . . . You are angry now, but Usten to me; only Usten! . . . Gumo Who is this man? VANNA PrinzivaUe . . . Gumo Who? .... What? . . . He, that man? That man PrinzivaUe! VANNA Yes, yes! He is your guest! He puts 257 Monna Vanna himself into your hands! It Is he who has saved me, Guido . . . GUIDO [After a moment's stupor, with growing exultation and vehemence that render it im possible for Vanna to interrupt him.] Ah, this, my Vanna! . . . Ah, this falls on my soul Uke dew from the innermost heaven! . . . Ah, Vanna, my Vanna! . . . Yes, you are right; since it had to be done, that was the way to do it! Ah, I understand your stratagem now! Yes, I see It aU! . . . But I did not know, I could not Imagine! . There are women who would have killed him; as Judith killed Holophernes! . . . But his crime is greater than that of Holophernes and calls for a greater vengeance! . . Therefore you brought him here; therefore you have led him into the midst of his victims who now shall become his executioners ! . . Ah, the magnificent triumph! . . . He fol lowed you meekly, tenderly ; and did not sus pect that the kisses you gave him were kisses of hatred ! . . . Here he is, caught in a trap ! . . . Yes, you were right! To have killed 258 Monna Vanna . him down there, alone in his tent, after his horrible crime — that would not have sufficed! ... A doubt would have remained, we should not have seen him . . . All had known of the abominable compact; it was needful, there fore, that all should know the price to be paid for such treachery! . . . But how did you do it? . . . It Is the greatest triumph that ever a woman . . . Ah, you shall tell them! [He rushes to the terrace and shouts at the top of his voice.] Prinzivalle! Prin zivaUe ! The enemy is here ! We hold him ! VANNA [Clinging to him and trying to keep him back.] No,' no! Listen! Listen, Guido, I implore you ! Guido, Guido, you are wrong ! X Gumo [Shaking himself free, and shouting still louder.] ^ Let me go ! You shall see ! They must all of them know, all ! [Shouting to the crowd.^ Come back, all of you! You may, you must! . . . And you, too, my father ! You who are crouching there behind the piUars, as though expecting a god to 259 Monna Vanna spring forth to repair the wrong you caused, and restore me my happiness ! Come back ! This is joy, joy! There has been a great miracle ! I want the very stones to hear what has happened! I need skulk In comers no longer — that Is all over — I shall go hence purer than the purest, richer than those who have lost nothing ! Ah, now you can acclaim my Vanna! I acclaim her with you, and louder than you all ! [The people hasten on to the terrace, he drags them into the hall.] Gumo This time you shall see a spectacle ! There is a justice, after all! . . . Ah, I knew it' weU, but could not believe that It could act so promptly! ... I thought years and years must pass ; that I should have to spend my life seeking my foe, in towns, in forests, in mountains ! And, see, suddenly he springs up before me here, in this very room, on these steps. In front of us! An overpowering miracle! . . . But we shall hear ... It is Vanna has done this ! . . . And there shaU be 260 Monna Vanna justice! [To Marco, whom he seizes by the arm.] You see that man? . . . MARCO Yes; who is he? GumO You have seen him before . . . You have spoken to him . . . You were his complais ant messenger . . . [Prinzivalle turns his face' to Marco, who recognises him.] MARCO Prinzivalle ! [Movement in the crowd.] GUIDO Yes, yes, it is he; there Is not the least doubt . . . Come nearer. Look at him, touch him ! He may have some new message to send, perhaps . . . Ah, he Is no longer the magnificent Prinzivalle! But for him there shall be no pity . . . He took, by a vile and monstrous artifice, the one thing in the world that I cOuld not give ; and now he he has comei to me. He has been brought 261 Monna Vanna hither by justice, by a strategem more mar vellous than justice, to ask of me the one recompense I can afford . . . Am I not right to call it a miracle? Come nearer, nearer! Have no fear; he cannot escape! And yet, see that the doors are shut; we must not aUow another miracle to snatch him from us . . . We shall not deal with him at once . . . There shall be prolonged pleasures in store for him . . . Ah, you, my brothers, to whom he caused so much suffering; you whom he sought to massacre, whose wives and children he sold into slavery, look at him now! Yes, this is he; and he is mine, he is yours, he is ours, I tell you! . . . He has made you suffer, but what has your suffering been com pared with mine? . . . He shaU be yours, very soon . . . My Vanna has led l^im to us, that our vengeance may blot out our shame ! . . . [Addressing the crowd.]^ Stand wit ness, all of you! There must not be one shadow of doubt . . . Have you thoroughly realised what a miracle of heroism this is? . . . That man took Vanna from me . . . I was helpless, I could do nothing; you said her ... I have curses for none . . . The 262 . Monna Vanna past is past . . . You had the right to pre fer your life to my poor happiness . . . But Vanna, my Vanna, has known how to build love anew with the thing that had kUled it . . . You destroyed; she has recreated . . . Vanna has done it! . . . She is greater than Lucrece or Judith, Lucrece who killed herself, and Judith who slew Holophernes ! Ah, that, truly, would have been too mUd, too simple, too sUent! . . . Vanna does not slay in a closed tent ; she brings the victim to us, alive, and offers him to us aU! . . . And how has she done this? • . . Listen, she wiU teU ! , , . VANNA Yes, I wiU teU you; but it is aU quite different • . . GUIDO [Stopping her and thowing his arms round her.]\ Let me kiss you first, before them aU . . . VANNA {Thrusting him violently back.] No, no! Not yet! . . . No, no, never again If you wiU not hear me ! Listen, Guido ! I speak of 263 Monna Vanna an honour more real, of a happiness greater than those that are blinding you! Ah, I am glad they have all returned ! They will hear me, perhaps, before you wiU: they will un derstand before you understand! Listen, Guido! . . . You shaU not touch me until you know . . . Guroo [Interrupting her, and again trying to em brace her.] Yes, yes, I know — ^but first of all I wiU . . . VANNA Listen, I teU you! In aU my life I have never lied, but to-day I am telling the pro- foundest truth, the truth one speaks only once, that brings life or death in its train . . . Listen ; and look at me weU ; look at me as though you had never seen me before this hour, which Is the first, the only one when you truly can love me as I wish to be loved . . . I speak to you now in the name of the life we have lived together; in the name of aU that I am, of all that you are to me! . . . Be capable of beUeving what, perhaps, can 264 Monna Vanna be scarcely beUeved ... I was in this man's power ... I had been handed over to him: he did not come near me, he did not touch me ... I come from his tent as from the home of a brother • . . Gumoi Why? VANNA Because he loves me . . * GumO Ah! so that was what you had to say to us! That was the miracle? . . . Yes, yes, at your very first 'words I saw there was ¦ something strange ... It was only a flash, and I paid no heed ... I thought that the trouble, the horror had . . . But I see now that we must look Into it ... So he did not come near you, you say; he did not touch you? . . . VANNA No. Gumd Not even kiss you? 265 ' Monna Vanna VANNA I gave him one kiss on the brow, which he returned. GUIDO And you can teU this to me ! . . . Vanna, Vanna, has this fearful night driven you' mad? VANNA I tell you the truth. GUIDO The truth! Great God! it Is that, and that alone, that I seek ! But the truth must be human . . . What! a man who betrays his country, ruins his Ufe, sets all the world against him for ever — and does aU this that you should go to his tent alone — ^thls man de mands but a kiss on the brow ; and comes to us here with you to make us beUeve it? . . . No, no; we must be just, and not gibe too much at misfortune ... If this was all that he asked, why Inflict so much misery upon our whole people? And flood me with such despair? . . . This night has lasted ten years : I have scarcely survived it ! . . . Ah, had this been aU he sought he could have 266 Monna Vanna saved us without this torture! . . . We should have welcomed him like a god, like a deUverer! You shake your head . . . See, the people shaU judge, the people shall an swer. [Addressing the crowd.] Have you heard?' I know not why she has said these things ; but what she has said Is said, and you shaU be judges . . . You will believe her, perhaps, since she has saved you ... If you believe her, speak . . . Let those who believe her step out from the crowd ! . . . Let them come to us here, and give the lie to poor human reason ! . . . Let them come, all those who beUeve! ... I am anxious to look at them, and see what sort of men they are! . . . [Marco c^one stands forth from the crowd. One hears only faint, dim, and indistinct murmurs,] MARCO [Rushing forward,] I believe her! GUIDO You! You are their accompUce . . . But the others, the others, where are the rest 267 Monna Vanna who believe? . . . [To Vanna.] Have you heard? The people you saved shrink from the laughter that would burst from every corner of the hall . . . The few who mur mured have not dared to show themselves, and I VANNA They have no cause to believe me ; but you, you who loved me ! GUIDO Ah, I who loved you should therefore be come your dupe! No, no! Now listen to me ! I speak to you calmly, I have ceased to be angry ... I have gone through too much, I begin suddenly to feel old . . . No, I am not angry . . . There is no anger left in me — something else will take its place, I suppose — old age, madness, I know not yet ... At present I look, I search, I grope in myself, to discover the happiness that once was mine ... I have one hope, one -hope alone; a hope so frail that I scarcely can grasp it ... A word would destroy it ; and yet, in my despair, I must make the attempt . . . Vanna, I was wrong to caU back the crowd before knowing ... I should have 268 Monna Vanna remembered how galling it must be to you to proclaim to them all that that monster had caused you to suffer . . . Yes, I should have waited until we were alone; then you would have confessed the truth, the hor rible truth. But I know it, alas! and the others all know. Of what avail to hide it, Vanna? ... It is too late . . . There is no help for it now ; and you, too, must under stand ... In moments like these reason is incapable of VANNA Look at me, Guido ; aU my loyalty, all my strength and my truth are in my eyes now as I speak! . . . The truth, the truth, beUeve it! . . . He did not touch me. Gumo Good ! It is good. It is very good ! Now I know all, and aU is gone from me . . . Yes, it is the truth ; or rather, it is love. Ah, I understand; you seek to save him. I did not realise that the woman I loved could change so quickly. But not that way can he be saved! [He raises his voice.] Hear 269 Monna Vanna me, all of you ! I will for the last time swear an oath . . . To restrain myself now de mands superhuman effort ; my hold on myself is weakening. I make one final effort, there is one moment yet before I break down . . . That moment I will not lose . . . Can you hear me, you aU; or Is my voice grown too weak? Come nearer, nearer! . . . You see this woman, that man; they love each other . . . Well. Now hear me. I am weighing all my words as scrupulously as one weighs the medicine given to the dying . . . These two shaU go from me here, with my consent, shaU go freely, unmolested, untouched, un harmed. They shall take with them what ever they choose. You shall open your ranks to afford them passage. You shall strew their path with flowers, if it so please you. They shall go wheresoever their love may guide their footsteps; and aU I ask in ex change is that this woman shaU first of all tell me the truth, the only possible truth . . . That is the one thing left tp me now that I can still love in her ... I demand the truth that she owes me, in exchange for what I will give her . . . You understand, 270 Monna Vanna Vanna? you have only one word to say All here are witness . . . vanna I have told you the truth . , . He did not touch me . . . GUIDO It is well. You have spoken — ^you have condemned him. Now there is nothing more to be done. [He calls the guards and points to Prinzivalle.] That man belongs to me; take him and bind him; thrust him into the lowest dungeon beneath this hall. I shaU go with you. [To Vanna.] You wiU never see him again; but on my return I shall report to you his last words . . . VANNA [Throwing herself in the midst of the guards, who are seizing Prinzivalle and leading him away.] No, no ! I have lied, I have lied. [To Guido.J Yes, what you say is true! [Pushing the guards away.] Go, you must not take what is mine! For he is mine, he belongs to me, not to you ! To me 271 Monna Vanna alone! It is for me to punish — ^the coward who when I was helpless, defenceless . . . prinzivalle [Trying to drown her voice,] She lies! She lies ! She Ues to save me, but torture me as you wiU VANNA Be silent! [Turning to the crowd.] He is afraid! [Approaching Prinzivalle, as though enforcing silence upon Prinzivalle.] Give me chains, and irons ! Now that I dare speak out my hatred, it is I who shaU bind him, I who brought him here. [Whispering to Prinzivalle as she ties his hands.] Be silent! He saves us, be sUent! He has joined us. I belong to you, I love you! I love you, my Gianello! I put these chains on you, but I shall guard you, and free you ! We two shall fly together! [Shouting as though enforcing silence upon Prinzivalle.] Be sUent! [Addressing the crowd,] He pleads for mercy! [Uncovering his face.] Look at his face; it was my dagger, my dagger inflicted that wound! Look at him! 272 Monna Vanna He, the coward, the monster! [Seeing that the guards make a movement as though to re move Prinzivalle.] No, no, leave him to me I He is my victim, my prey ! It is I who have bought him ! He belongs to me ! GUIDO Why did he come, and why did you Ue to me? VANNA [Hesitating and picking her words.] Why I lied ... I scarcely know, I did not want to say . . . Ah, well, I must tell you now . . . There are times when one scarcely knows what one does, and Is groping in the dark . . . Yes, you shall know, you shall know, for now I have torn away the veil . . . It was the thought of your love, of your despair, that alarmed me . . . But I will tell you. [In a calmer voice and with more assurance.] No, no, I had not the idea you speak of ... I did not bring him here that we two, you and I, should be publicly avenged in the midst of a crowd; my idea, perhaps, was less noble, but my love for you prompted me ... I yearned to inflict a cruel death '273 Monna Vanna upon him, but was anxious also that the horrible memory of this horrible night should not weigh upon you to the end of your days ... It was my intention to revenge myself in the dark . . . To infilct a slow, Ungering death upon him . . . Do you see? . . . KIU him slowly, Uttle by little, till his blood, faU ing drop by drop, should have wiped out his crime . . . You would never have known the awful truth, and there would have been no spectre between us ... I feared, I confess, that the memory of this would lessen' your love for me ... I was fooUsh, I know . . . It was mad to expect you to believe . . . But now you shall learn aU , . . [Address ing the crowd.] Hear me, and you shall judge me! What I said before I said for Guido's sake, for the sake of our love . . . Now I shall tell you aU . . . I tried to kill that man; I wounded him, as you see ... But he disarmed me , . . Then I thought of a deeper revenge, and I smiled on him ; and he, the fool, had faith in my smile . . . And now he is here in his tomb, that I myself shall seal down ... I kissed him, and he believed in my kiss ; and he followed me, like a lamb 274 Monna Vanna And I hold him now in my hands, and my hands shaU close down on him ! . . . Gumo [Approaching.] Vanna! . . . VANNA Look at me weU ! ... So mad Is this man, he beUeved me at once when I said " Prin zivaUe, I love you ! " . . . Ah, he would have followed me down to the heart of hell! . . . And now he is my man; he is mine, before God and the world! I have won, I have bought him! . . . [She totters and supports herself against the column.] Take care, I faU. There is too much joy now, in the thought of the vengeance to come! [To Marco.] Father, I entrust him to your care, till I am stronger . . . You shall take charge of him, find a prison for him, a pro found dungeon into which no one shall enter . . . And give me the key ; I must have the key; I want it at once No one shall touch him, go near him; he belongs to me, to me; he is mine; I alone shall punish . . . Guido, he belongs to me! [Stepping towards 275 Monna Vanna Marco.] Father, he is mine; you shaU an swer for him. [She looks fixedly at him.] You understand, you are his guardian. You are responsible for him ; not a hand shaU ap proach himj and when I go to him he shaU be as he is, now that I give him to you. [Prin zivalle is taken away.] Fare you weU, my Prinzivalle! Ah, we shall meet again! [While Gumoi is in the midst of the soldiers, who brutally remove Prinzivalle, Vanna screams, tot ters, and falls into the arms of Marco, who rushes forward to sup port her.] MARCO [Rapidly, in a low voice, bending over Vanna as she lies in his arms.] Yes, Vanna, I understand; I understand your falsehood. You have achieved the impossible ... It Is just and very unjust, like all the things that one does . . . and still It is life that is right . . . Collect yourself, Vanna; you will have to lie again, since he refuses to believe . . . [Calling Gumo. J Guido, she asks for you . . . Guido, she is coming to herself . . . 276 Monna Vanna GUIDO [Rushing up and taking her in his arms.] My Vanna! See, she smiles! . . - Vanna, teU me! ... I never doubted . . . Now it is over, and aU wIU be forgotten — ^wiped away in our good revenge ... It was all a bad jdream . . . VANNA [Opening Tier eyes, and speaking in a feeble voice.] Where is he? Yes, yes, I know, I remember . . . Give me the key . . . The key of his prison ; none but myself must . . . GUIDO The moment the guards come back they shall bring the key to you, and all shall be as you wish . . . VANNA I want It for myself alone. So that I may be quite sure, and that no one else . . . Yes, it has been a bad dream . . . but the beauti ful one wIU begin. The beautiful one will begin . . . CURTAIN 277 ¦ l~ Jill- ¦> ^MiUIB^riO^MjJi