Chapter 9

Interior of the Cathedral of Burgos. The High Altar illuminated; in the distance, various Chapels lighted, and in each of which Mass is celebrating: in all directions groups of kneeling Worshippers. Before the High Altar the Prior of Burgos officiates, attended by his Sacerdotal Retinue. In the front of the Stage, opposite to the Audience, a Confessional. The chanting of a solemn Mass here commences; as it ceases,

[Enter ALARCOS.]

III:1:1 ALAR. Would it were done! and yet I dare not say It should be done. O, that some natural cause, Or superhuman agent, would step in, And save me from its practice! Will no pest Descend upon her blood? Must thousands die Daily, and her charmed life be spared? As young Are hourly plucked from out their hearths. A life! Why, what’s a life? A loan that must return To a capricious creditor; recalled Often as soon as lent. I’d wager mine To-morrow like the dice, were my blood pricked. Yet now, When all that endows life with all its price, Hangs on some flickering breath I could puff out, I stand agape. I’ll dream ‘tis done: what then? Mercy remains? For ever, not for ever I charge my soul? Will no contrition ransom, Or expiatory torments compensate The awful penalty? Ye kneeling worshippers, That gaze in silent ecstacy before Yon flaming altar, you come here to bow Before a God of mercy. Is’t not so?

[ALARCOS walks towards the High Altar and kneels.]

[A Procession advances front the back of the Scene, singing a solemn Mass, and preceding the Prior of Burgos, who seats himself in the Confessional his Train filing of on each side of the Scene: the lights of the High Altar are extinguished, but the Chapels remain illuminated.]

III:1:2 THE PRIOR. Within this chair I sit, and hold the keys That open realms no conqueror can subdue, And where the monarchs of the earth must fain Solicit to be subjects: Heaven and Hades, Lands of Immortal light and shores of gloom. Eternal as the chorus of their wail, And the dim isthmus of that middle space, Where the compassioned soul may purge its sins In pious expiation. Then advance Ye children of all sorrows, and all sins, Doubts that perplex, and hopes that tantalize, All the wild forms the fiend Temptation takes To tamper with the soul! Come with the care That eats your daily life; come with the thought That is conceived in the noon of night, And makes us stare around us though alone; Come with the engendering sin, and with the crime That is full-born. To counsel and to soothe, I sit within this chair.

[ALARCOS advances and kneels by the Confessional.]

III:1:3 ALAR. O, holy father My soul is burthened with a crime.

III:1:4 PRIOR. My son, The church awaits thy sin.

III:1:5 ALAR. It is a sin Most black and terrible. Prepare thine ear For what must make it tremble.

III:1:6 PRIOR. Thou dost speak To Power above all passion, not to man.

III:1:7 ALAR. There was a lady, father, whom I loved, And with a holy love, and she loved me As holily. Our vows were blessed, if favour Hang on a father’s benediction.

III:1:8 PRIOR. Her Mother?

III:1:9 ALAR. She had a mother, if to bear Children be all that makes a mother: one Who looked on me, about to be her child, With eyes of lust.

III:1:10 PRIOR. And thou?

III:1:11 ALAR. O, if to trace But with the memory’s too veracious aid This tale be anguish, what must be its life And terrible action? Father, I abjured This lewd she-wolf. But ah! her fatal vengeance Struck to my heart. A banished scatterling I wandered on the earth.

III:1:12 PRIOR. Thou didst return?

III:1:13 ALAR. And found the being that I loved, and found Her faithful still.

III:1:14 PRIOR. And thou, my son, wert happy?

III:1:15 ALAR. Alas! I was no longer free. Strange ties Had bound a hopeless exile. But she I had loved, And never ceased to love, for in the form, Not in the spirit was her faith more pure, She looked upon me with a glance that told Her death but in my love. I struggled, nay, ‘Twas not a struggle, ‘twas an agony. Her aged sire, her dark impending doom, And the overwhelming passion of my soul: My wife died suddenly.

III:1:16 PRIOR. And by a life That should have shielded hers?

III:1:17 ALAR. Is there hope of mercy? Can prayers, can penances, can they avail? What consecration of my wealth, for I’m rich, Can aid me? Can it aid me? Can endowments? Nay, set no bounds to thy unlimited schemes Of saving charity. Can shrines, can chauntries, Monastic piles, can they avail? What if I raise a temple not less proud than this, Enriched with all my wealth, with all, with all? Will endless masses, will eternal prayers, Redeem me from perdition?

III:1:18 PRIOR. What, would gold Redeem the sin it prompted?

III:1:19 ALAR. No, by Heaven! No, Fate had dowered me with wealth might feed All but a royal hunger.

III:1:20 PRIOR. And alone Thy fatal passion urged thee

III:1:21 ALAR. Hah!

III:1:22 PRIOR. Probe deep Thy wounded soul.

III:1:23 ALAR. ‘Tis torture: fathomless I feel the fell incision.

III:1:24 PRIOR. There is a lure Thou dost not own, and yet its awful shade Lowers in the back-ground of thy soul: thy tongue Trifles the church’s ear. Beware, my son, And tamper not with Paradise.

III:1:25 ALAR. A breath, A shadow, essence subtler far than love: And yet I loved her, and for love had dared All that I ventured for this twin-born lure Cradled with love, for which I soiled my soul. O, father, it was Power.

III:1:26 PRIOR. And this dominion Purchased by thy soul’s mortgage, still is’t thine?

III:1:27 ALAR. Yea, thousands bow to him, who bows to thee.

III:1:28 PRIOR. Thine is a fearful deed.

III:1:29 ALAR. O, is there mercy?

III:1:30 PRIOR. Say, is there penitence?

III:1:31 ALAR. How shall I gauge it? What temper of contrition might the church Require from such a sinner?

III:1:32 PRIOR. Is’t thy wish, Nay, search the very caverns of thy thought, Is it thy wish this deed were now undone?

III:1:33 ALAR. Undone, undone! It is; O, say it were, And what am I? O, father, wer’t not done, I should not be less tortured than I’m now; My life less like a dream of haunting thoughts Tempting to unknown enormities. The sun Would rise as beamless on my darkened days, Night proffer the same torments. Food would fly My lips the same, and the same restless blood Quicken my harassed limbs. Undone! undone! I have no metaphysic faculty To deem this deed undone.

III:1:34 PRIOR. Thou must repent This terrible deed. Look through thy heart. Thy wife, There was a time thou lov’dst her?

III:1:35 ALAR. I’ll not think There was a time.

III:1:36 PRIOR. And was she fair?

III:1:37 ALAR. A form Dazzling all eyes but mine.

III:1:38 PRIOR. And pure?

III:1:39 ALAR. No saint More chaste than she. Her consecrated shape She kept as ‘twere a shrine, and just as full Of holy thoughts; her very breath was incense, And all her gestures sacred as the forms Of priestly offices!

III:1:40 PRIOR. I’ll save thy soul. Thou must repent that one so fair and pure, And loving thee so well--

III:1:41 ALAR. Father, in vain. There is a bar betwixt me and repentance. And yet--

III:1:42 PRIOR. Ay, yet--

III:1:43 ALAR. The day may come, I’ll kneel In such a mood, and might there then be hope?

III:1:44 PRIOR. We hold the keys that bind and loosen all: But penitence alone is mercy’s portal. The obdurate soul is doomed. Remorseful tears Are sinners’ sole ablution. O, my son, Bethink thee yet, to die in sin like thine; Eternal masses profit not thy soul, Thy consecrated wealth will but upraise The monument of thy despair. Once more, Ere yet the vesper lights shall fade away, I do adjure thee, on the church’s bosom Pour forth thy contrite heart.

III:1:45 ALAR. A contrite heart! A stainless hand would count for more. I see No drops on mine. My head is weak, my heart A wilderness of passion. Prayers, thy prayers!

[ALARCOS rises suddenly and exit.]