ACT FOUR

_Scene._--_A chamber in the Castle, opening on the right to a hall, curtained on the left from another chamber. In the rear is a window through which may be seen silvery hills of olive resting under the late afternoon sun: by it a shrine. Enter the CAPTAIN of the Guard and a SOLDIER from the Hall._

SOLDIER: There is no more?

CAPTAIN: Not if you understand.

SOLDIER: That do I--every link of it! I've served Under the bold de Montreal, and he For stratagems--well, Italy knows him!

CAPTAIN: You must be quick and secret.

SOLDIER: As the end Of the world!

CAPTAIN: Our duty's with the duke. But then Antonio has our love.

SOLDIER: That has he! Ah, That has he!

CAPTAIN: Well, be close. None must escape, Remember, none be hurt. As for the princess, We'll hear the chink of ducats with her thanks.

SOLDIER: Madonna save her!--The Judas of a father Who robs her rest!

CAPTAIN (_looking down the hall_): 'Tis she who comes this way. So go, and haste. But fail not.

SOLDIER: If I do, Bury me with a pagan, next a Turk! (_Goes._

_Enter FULVIA._

CAPTAIN: Princess--

FULVIA: Our plans grow to fulfilment--are No way misplanted?

CAPTAIN: Lady, all seems now Seasonable for their expected fruit.

FULVIA: No accident appears to threat and thwart them?

CAPTAIN: Doubt not a fullest harvest of your hope. The duke himself shall for this deed at last Have benediction.

FULVIA: May it be! He's quick, Though quicker in forgetting. I will move Him as I may.

CAPTAIN: The kind and wise assaults Your words shall make must move him, gracious lady.

_Enter HAEMON._

HAEMON: I seek the duke.

FULVIA (_dismissing CAPTAIN with a gesture_): You would seek penitence Were you less far in folly.

HAEMON (_as going_): O--if he's Not here, then----

FULVIA: Sorrow too would strain your lips, Not cold defiance.

HAEMON: Pardon: if you know, Where is he?

FULVIA: Was it easy to o'erwhelm Under the ruin of her dreams a sister?

HAEMON: Better beneath her dreams than under shame.

FULVIA: Your rashness cloaks itself in that excuse, Your ruth, and your suspicion that has doomed One innocent.

HAEMON: One innocent! His thought Had but betrayal for her!

FULVIA: 'Tis the Greek In you avows it, no true voice.

HAEMON: Then 'tis My father murdered whose last moan I hear Driven about me in this castle's gray Cold spaces. And the dead speak not to lie.

FULVIA: No, no. You cannot brave your action with The spur of that belief.

HAEMON: What want you of me?

FULVIA: This: ache and restlessness are on you.

HAEMON (_impatiently_): No.

FULVIA: And doubt begins in you that as a wolf Will scent the wounded quarry of your conscience.

HAEMON: After he lured and wooed her under night And secrecy?

FULVIA: Not running there will you Escape its dread pursuit.

HAEMON: He frauded--duped His father's trust!

FULVIA: Or there! But one refuge Have you against its bitter ceaseless tooth, And that above the wilds of self-deceit.

HAEMON: Why do you wind so sinuously about me? No refuge can be from an hour that's done. Shall we invert the glass or tilt the dial To bring it back?

FULVIA: But if there were?

HAEMON: Where is The duke--I will not bauble.

FULVIA: If there were?

HAEMON: I will no longer listen to the worm, You set to feed upon me--torturing! The sun melts to an end, and with the night Antonio will not be.

FULVIA: Yet there is time.

HAEMON: The duke is fixed.

FULVIA: No matter: 'gainst the swell And power of this peril you must lean.

HAEMON: I----?

FULVIA: Yes.

HAEMON: You have a plan?

FULVIA: One that is sure. (_Steps are heard._) But through those curtains, quick. For more seek out The Captain of the guard. The duke comes hither. (_HAEMON goes through the curtains._

_CHARLES enters, worn, dishevelled, and followed by CECCO. He sees FULVIA and pauses._

FULVIA: I come to plead.

CHARLES: (_turning away_): Ah! Nature should have pled With her your mother, 'gainst conception.

FULVIA: Your trust is causelessly withdrawn. Yet for A breath again I beg it--for a moment!

CHARLES: A moment were too much--or not enough. Is trust a flower of sudden birth we may Bid bloom with a command?

FULVIA: Ah, that it were, Or bloomed as amaranth in those we love, Beyond all drought and withering of ill! But hear me----!

CHARLES: Leave these words.

FULVIA: Will you not turn Out of this rage?

CHARLES: Leave them, I say, and cease! Still down the vortex of this destiny I would not farther have you drawn.

FULVIA: Then from It draw yourself!

CHARLES: Myself am but a hulk Whose treasures have already been engulfed.

FULVIA: Yet shrink from it!

CHARLES: A son, a friend, a--No, She was not mine!--I will not turn.

FULVIA: It is Your fury that distorts us into guilt. Although he will not render up his heart, But flings you stony and unfilial speech, Fearing for her----

CHARLES: Leave!

FULVIA: We----

CHARLES: Thrice have I said it!

FULVIA: Yet must I not until your will is wasted.

CHARLES (_angrily_): Ah!

(_FULVIA sighs then goes slowly._)

CHARLES: Cecco!

CECCO: My lord?

CHARLES: The hour?

CECCO (_going to window_): It leans to sunset.

CHARLES: The sky--the sky?

CECCO: A murk moves slowly up.

CHARLES (_wearily_): There should be storm--gloating of wind and grind Of hopeless thunders. Lightnings should laugh out As tongues of fiends. There should be storm. (_His head sinks on his breast._) (_Suddenly._) Yet!--yet!----

CECCO: My lord?

CHARLES: The glow and glory of her seem Dead in me!

CECCO: Of--the Greek?

CHARLES: And yearning has Grown impotent--as 'twere a moment's folly, A left and quickly quenched desire of youth Kindled in me!--To youth alone love's sudden.

CECCO: Sir, dare I speak?

CHARLES: Speak.

CECCO: When Antonio----

CHARLES: Cease: but a whisper of his name and I Am frenzy--frenzy--though the stillness burns And bursts with it!

(_CECCO steps back. A pause._)

CHARLES: The sun, how hangs it now?

CECCO (_going to window_): Above the bloody waving of the sea, Eager to dip.

CHARLES (_staggering up_): Ah, I was in a foam---- Bitten by hounds of fury and despair! Did you not, Fulvia, pleading for them say They quailed but would not flee and leave me waste?

CECCO: She is not here, my liege.

CHARLES: Antonio! Ah, boy! thou ever wast to me as wafts Of light, of song, of summer on the hills! Soft now I feel thy baby arms about me, And all the burgeon of thy youth, ere proud And cruel years grew in me, comes again On wings and stealing winds of memory!

CECCO: O, then, sir----

CHARLES: Yes. Fly, fly! and stay the guard! He must not--Ah!--down fearful fathoms, down Into the roar! (_CECCO starts. He stops him._) Yet he has flung me from Immeasurable peaks, and I have sunk Forevermore beneath hope's horizon. Who falls so close the grave can rise no more.

CECCO: This your despair would wound him more than death. Forget the girl.

CHARLES: She? Ah, my sullen, wild, And gloomy pulse beat with a rightful scorn Against the hours that sieged it. Stony was Its solitude and fierce, bastioned against All danger of quick blisses--till, with fury For that mute tenderness which women's love Lays on the desolation of the world, She ravished it!--Yet now 'tis still and cold.

CECCO: But 'twas unknowingly.

CHARLES: A woman's smile Never was luring, never, but she knew it, As hawk the cruel rapture of his wings.

CECCO: She though is young, and youth----

CHARLES: Must pay with moan The shriving!--Ah, the sun--the sun--where burns it?

CECCO: Upon a cloud whence it must spring to night.

CHARLES: So low?

CECCO: Sir, yes.

CHARLES: Ah, 'tis? so low?

CECCO: Red now It rushes forth.

CHARLES: A breathing of the world, And then!--Antonio!

CECCO: Again a cloud Withholds.

CHARLES: Antonio!

CECCO: It dips, my lord.

CHARLES (_frenzied_): O, will great Christ upon it lay no fear! Let it swoon down as if its sinking sent No signal unto Death--and plunge, plunge thee, Antonio, forever from the day! Has He no miracle will seize it yet! Nor will lend now His thunder to cry hold, His lightning to flame off the hands that grasp, Bidden to hurl thee o'er!

CECCO: 'Tis sunk!

CHARLES (_rushing to window_): Yes!--Yes! (_Starting back horrified._) The vision of it! Ah,--see you not, see! They lift him, swing him--Now! down, down, down, down! The rocks! the lash! the foam!

(_Sinks exhausted in his chair. CECCO pours out wine._)

_Enter hurriedly, a SOLDIER._

SOLDIER: Great lord!

CECCO: What now! It is ill-timed!

SOLDIER: Great lord, there's mutiny!

CECCO: And where?

SOLDIER: Hear me, great sir, there's mutiny!

CECCO: The town? the town?

CHARLES (_rousing_): Ay----?

SOLDIER: Mutiny! your haste!

CHARLES: O, mutiny.

SOLDIER: Sir, yes!

CHARLES: And do the ranks Of hell roar up at me?--It is not strange.

SOLDIER (_confused_): The ranks of--pardon, lord.

CHARLES: Do the skies rage----? They were else dead to madness.

SOLDIER: Sir, it is Your guard beyond the gates.

CHARLES: 'Tis every throat Of earth and realm unearthly has a cry Against me and against!

SOLDIER: No, but a few----

CHARLES: You doubt it?--Are my eyes not bloody? Say!

SOLDIER: Sir! sir!

CHARLES: My lips then are not pale with murder Bitterly done?

SOLDIER: Pale--no.

CHARLES: Yet have I killed; Spoke death with them--not reasonless--yet death. And all the lost have echoes of it: hear You not a spirit clamor on the air? Ploughing as storms of pain it passes through me. Mutiny? Go. I could call chaos fair, And fawn on infinite ruin--fawn and praise. (_SOLDIER goes._ Yet will not yield! (_To CECCO._) My robes and coronet! (_CECCO goes to obey._ I'll sit in them and mock at greatness that A passion may unthrone. If we weep not Calamity will leave to torture us, And fate for want of tears will thirst to death!

_Enter CARDINAL._

Ah, priestly sir.

CARDINAL: Infuriate man!

CHARLES: Speak so. I lust for bitterness.

CARDINAL: What have you done!

CHARLES (_shuddering, then smiling_): Watched the sun set. Did it not, think you, bleed Unwontedly along the waves?

CARDINAL: O horror! Horrible when a father slays and smiles!

CHARLES: Not so, lord Cardinal, not so!--but when He slays and smileth not.

CARDINAL: Beyond all mercy!

CHARLES: Therefore I smile. Men should not mid the trite Enchanting and vain trickery of earth Till they no longer hope of it, or want. Smiles should be kept for life's unbearable.

CARDINAL: Murderer!

CHARLES: Ah!

CARDINAL: Heretic!

CHARLES: Well. (_Goes to shrine and casts it out the window._)

CARDINAL: Fool! fool!

CHARLES: There are no wise men, O lord Cardinal.

CARDINAL: Heaven let Antonio's death under the sea Make every wave a tongue against your rest, And 'gainst the rock of this impenitence! (_CHARLES listens as to something afar off._) No wind should blow that has not sting of it, No light stream that it stains not!

CHARLES (_sighing_): You have loosed Your robe, lord prelate--see.

CARDINAL: O stone! thou stone!

CHARLES: Have peace. A keener cry comes up to me Than frenzy can invoke: a vaster pain Than justice from Omnipotence may call.

CARDINAL: My lips shall learn it.

CHARLES: "Father" moans it. "Father!"---- It is my ears' inheritance forever.

_Enter FULVIA_

FULVIA: Lord Cardinal, one of your servants has In quarrel been struck, and mortally 'tis feared. Quickly to him: then I may plead of you Escort to Rome.

CARDINAL: I do not understand.

FULVIA: But shall.

CARDINAL: To Rome?

FULVIA: Do not pause here to learn With the dear minutes of a dying man. (_CARDINAL goes._

CHARLES: You baffle and bewilder.

FULVIA: Well.

CHARLES: You--?--Yes! I am beat off by it.

FULVIA: Ten years of shelter Have you held over me.

CHARLES: Ten years----

FULVIA: Whose days, Whose every moment else had borne a torture.

CHARLES: Now----?

FULVIA: I, perhaps, must go.

CHARLES: Must?--Still I grope.

FULVIA: Must go! Though in this castle's aged calm And melancholy dusk no shadow is Or niche but may remember prayer for thee.

CHARLES: To Rome? You must?--I am under a spell.

FULVIA: We, thou and I, after the battle's foam Or chase's tired return, often have breathed The passionate deep hours away in rest And sympathy.

CHARLES: Say on. Your voice--I marvel----

FULVIA: And at the dawn have looked and sighed, then slow With quiet clasp of fingers turned apart.

CHARLES: You go?--But, on!--your tone--in it I feel----

FULVIA: Have we not fast been friends?

CHARLES: What hath your voice?

FULVIA: Such friends have we not been as grow up from Eternity?

CHARLES: You say it, and I wake.

Fulvia: Such friends--till yesterday you----

CHARLES: Ah!

FULVIA: Changed sudden as the sea when cometh storm.

CHARLES: I had forgot--forgot!--the sun!--the sea! The sea!--Antonio!--The cliff--the surf! The shroud and funeral fury of the waves!

FULVIA: Be calm.

CHARLES (_rising excitedly_): I'll stay it! Cecco, our fleetest foot! A rain of ducats if he shall outspeed This doom on us. More! more! a flood of them, If he----

FULVIA (_drawing him to his chair_): Be patient--calm.

CHARLES: I--I--remember, 'Tis night!

FULVIA: Yes, night.

CHARLES: The sun's no more! It hath Gone down beyond all mercy and recall.

FULVIA: Beyond?--Ah!

CHARLES (_quickly_): Fulvia?

FULVIA: 'Tis hard to think!

CHARLES: You utter and he seemeth still of life.

FULVIA: He was a child in mimic mail clad out When first this threshold poured its welcome to me.

CHARLES: Softly you muse it, and call to your eyes No quailing nor a flame of execration! You do not burst out on me? from me do Not shrink as from an executioner?

FULVIA: I am a woman who in tears came to Your strength, in tears depart.

CHARLES: And will not judge? But fear me--fear, and flee?--You shall not go!

FULVIA: Perhaps----

CHARLES: Again "perhaps"--this calm "perhaps!"---- To Rome?--I say you shall not.

FULVIA: Yet should he, Antonio, from those curtains come----

CHARLES: Should--should? You speak not reasonably. Why do you say "If he should come?"

FULVIA: Because----

CHARLES: You've touched And led me trembling from reality! Those curtains?--those?--just those?--You shall not go.

FULVIA: I will not then.

CHARLES: But something breaks from you, And as an air of resurrection stirs. Speak; on your words I wait unutterably.

FULVIA: Did not a soldier lately come, my lord, Breathless with eager speech of mutiny----?

CHARLES: Well--well----?

FULVIA: Within your guard?

CHARLES: My guard? No--yes---- What do I see yet cannot in your words?

FULVIA: The mutiny was roused at my command.

CHARLES: Say it--say all!

FULVIA: To save you the mad blot Of a son's blood.

CHARLES: Antonio----?

FULVIA: Lives!

CHARLES: Low--low---- Joy come too furious has piercing peril. He lives?--You have done this? With these soft hands, These little hands, held off the shears of Fate? Have dared? and have not feared?

FULVIA: Your danger was My fear--that, and no more.

CHARLES: He lives?--I have No worth, no gratitude, no gift that may Answer this deed--no glow, no eloquence But would ring poor in rarest words of earth. He lives?--Years yet are mine. Too brief they'll be To muse with love of this!

FULVIA: No, no, my lord.

CHARLES: But where is he? Belief, tho' risen, strains In me as if 'twere fast in cerements That seeing must unbind.

FULVIA: Turn then, and see.

(_ANTONIO steps from the curtains._)

CHARLES: Antonio!--boy! boy!

ANTONIO: My father! (_They embrace._)

_Re-enter CARDINAL._

CARDINAL: Princess, If your decision and desire are still----

(_Sees ANTONIO._)

FULVIA: Your eyes look upon flesh, lord Cardinal.

(_A cry is heard, then weeping._)

ANTONIO (_startled_): Whose pain is this?--strangely it hurts me--strangely!

_Enter CECCO hastily, bearing robe and coronet._

CECCO: My lord, the lady Helen's little maid----

(_Sees ANTONIO. Shrinks from him._)

ANTONIO: What of her? Are you horrified to stone! Her maid?--There are than risen dead worse things And worse to dread!--her maid?

CECCO: Sir----

ANTONIO: Forth with it! She direness of her mistress brings? some tale That earth elsewhere abyssless gaped her up? That butterfly or bud turn asp to bite her?

CECCO: Sir--she--the maid craves audience with the duke.

ANTONIO: Fetch her, and quickly. (_CECCO goes._

FULVIA: Reason, Antonio. She will but whimper, tell what overmuch Of grief her mistress makes for you: of tears Your sunny coming will dry in her.

ANTONIO (_putting her aside_): These Hours come not of any good, but are Infected with resolved adversity. This dread!----

FULVIA: They ever dread who have but quit The shadow of some doom and the dismay.

_Re-enter CECCO, with PAULA weeping._

ANTONIO: Girl! girl! Thy mistress?

PAULA (_shrinking_): O!----

ANTONIO: I am no ghost. Thy mistress?

PAULA: Mary, Mother! (_Sinks praying._)

ANTONIO (_lifting her up_): Look on me. See! I have not been down in the grave, nor ev'n A moment beyond earth. Do you not hear!

PAULA (_looking at him_): Sir!

ANTONIO: Tell me.

PAULA (_hysterically_): Go to her, O, go to her.

ANTONIO: But, child----?

PAULA: She, O!--go seek her, O, she is----

ANTONIO: Where, Paula?

PAULA: Blind all day she moaned and wept.

ANTONIO: My Helena!

PAULA: And when the sun was gone, Came quiet, kissed me--O, go seek her, sir!

ANTONIO: Kissed you----?

PAULA: Then to me gave these jewels. O! And darkly cloaked stole out into the night.

CHARLES: Alone?

ANTONIO: Whither, quick, whither?

PAULA: Ah, I do Not know: but she----

ANTONIO: Pray, pray, tell out your dread.

PAULA: Last night she said, "My heart is in my lord Antonio's to beat or cease with it." I learned her words--they seemed so pretty.

Charles (_gasping_): Ah!

ANTONIO: Why do you gasp?--Paula----

CHARLES: If she--the cliff!

ANTONIO: The cliff! The--? (_Staggers dizzily, then rushes out._

CHARLES: Let one go with him--bring Us what hath passed--hath passed. (_A SOLDIER goes._

PAULA (_with uncontrollable terror_): My lady!

CHARLES: Child, I cannot bear thy voice upon my heart! It hath a tone--a clutch--no more, no more! I cannot bear it! We must wait. No hap Has been--no hap, I think--surely no hap.

_Enter BARDAS deprecatingly, followed by ANTONIO._

BARDAS: Antonio! not in the sea? You live?

ANTONIO: I say, where is she?

BARDAS: You are mortal?

ANTONIO (_groaning with impatience_): O This utter superstition! (_Pricking his arm._) Is it not blood?

BARDAS: You live! and live? but let her think your death! You let her! still devising for yourself Safety and preservation!

ANTONIO: She's not safe?

BARDAS: O, safe--if she had shrift!

CHARLES (_hoarsely_): The dead are so!

BARDAS: Ay, so.

ANTONIO: And none above the grave?--no answer?

BARDAS: She came unto the cliff amid her tears-- Her being all into one want was fused, You down the wave to follow.

ANTONIO: But you grasped----? You held her?

BARDAS: Yes----

ANTONIO: Then--well?

BARDAS: She had a phial.

ANTONIO: God! God!

BARDAS: Out of her breast she drew it swift, And instant of it drank.

ANTONIO: Drank? and she fell? No?--no?--Ah but you dashed it from her lips? She did but taste?----

BARDAS: Only: and then----

ANTONIO: More? more?

BARDAS: "Is 't not enough," she pled to me, "Enough That I must wander the cold way of death Unto his arms? Go hence! There is no rest. I will go down and clasp him, drift with him To some unhabited gray ocean vale God hath forgot. There will we dwell away From destiny and weeping, from despair!"

CHARLES: You left her?

BARDAS: As I held her piteous hand Came revellers who saw us--jested her Of taking a new love. She broke my grasp----

ANTONIO: And leapt?--down the wide air?

BARDAS: Swifter than all Prevention.

ANTONIO: Helena! O Helena! That all thy loveliness should fare to this, Thy glory go in dark calamity!

BARDAS: I saw her as she leapt and until death Shall see no more.

ANTONIO (_drawing_): Blot it from you! Her face, Her sorrow and her fairness shall not stand Imprisoned in your eye, tho' 'twere to cry Relentlessly your crime.--But no--but no!

(_Sheathing his sword, he pauses, then staggers suddenly out._)

PAULA: Let me go to my lady!

CHARLES: Still her! She Forever hath a fluttering, a cry, Undurably. It presses the lone air With sensitive and aching agony.

PAULA (_witlessly, in tears_): I know thy song, my lady, I know, I know! 'Twas pretty and 'twas strange, but now I know.

(_Sings._) Sappho! Sappho! In maiden woe (Let alone love, it spurns and burns!) Wept--wept, and leapt-- O love is so! (Let alone love, it burns!)

My lady! O my lady! my sweet lady!

(_She is led out._)

FULVIA: This is most sad--most sad, and pitiful.

CHARLES: I cannot bear her voice upon my heart

_Enter AGABUS gazing into the air._

Again this monk? this dog of death?--and now?

AGABUS: My trusty Shadow (_Laughs madly._) Ha, he has been here! My king o' the worms and all corruption!-- (_Approaching CHARLES._) Lovers, and lovers! O she leapt as 'twere To Christ and not sin's Pit! And he is gone To follow her! The devil's nine wits are Too many! (_Wanders about._)

FULVIA: My lord! Your limbs are frozen, And bloodlessly you stand! Move, rouse, O breathe! It is not truth but madness that he speaks.

(_A cry and clanking of armor are heard in the Hall. A SOLDIER bursts into the chamber._)

SOLDIER: O duke! O duke! (_Sinks to his knee._)

CHARLES: (_gazes at him, struggling to speak_): Rise--go--and, if thou canst-- To pray.

SOLDIER: O sir----!

CHARLES: You have no tidings.

SOLDIER: Sir----

CHARLES (_desperately_): None, fool! but come to say what silence groans, What earth numb and in deadness raves to me. To tell Antonio hath gone out and o'er A precipice hath stepped for sake of love. This is not tidings--hath it not on me Been fixed forever? It is older than Despair, as old as pain! (_To HAEMON, who has entered._) Your sister----

BARDAS: Haemon----!

CARDINAL: Hold him not in this anguish.

FULVIA: She and our Antonio have left us to our tears.

(_HAEMON stands motionless._)

CHARLES: Let no one groan. I say let no one groan-- Fury on him that groans! (_He blindly rocks to and fro._)

FULVIA: My lord!

CHARLES (_taking her hand_): Well--come. (_As in a trance._) There's much to do. We will think of the dead. Perchance 'twill keep them near us: speak to them, And they may answer while we wait, may float Dim words on moonbeams to us. O for one That shall sound of forgiveness and of rest! (_More wildly._) O I have started on the mountain's brow A tremor that has loosed the avalanche; And penitence too late--too late--too late-- Was powerless as flowers along its path!

(_He sinks back into his chair and stares hopelessly before him._)

CURTAIN.