Part 3

HILDA. Had I a boy's light love when I, to win Thy favour, cut off all thy kith and kin? Run through the list! Measure my love by that! Two great-grandfathers (one, I own, was fat); Five brothers; fourteen uncles; half a score Of nephews (and I dare say even more); A brace of maiden-aunts; a second-cousin; And family connections by the dozen. Does it not melt that pitiless heart of ice To see thyself secured at such a price?

GIOCONDA. My lord----

HILDA. Or if indeed thy heart requires Flame fiercer than my love's Etnaean fires-- Ask what thou wilt, but do not ask that I Live on. Command me, rather, how to die. Say in what style thou'dst have me perish here, So that at least my ardour win one tear! Choose what thou wilt--I'll execute thy charge-- Nor fear to speak: my repertoire is large. I can suspend myself upon a rafter; Fall on my blade, and die with horrid laughter; Leap from a height; read Bennett's books; or swallow Poison--and, mark you, with no sweet to follow.

GIOCONDA. My lord----

HILDA. Thy choice is made?

GIOCONDA. My lord----

HILDA. Alack!

GIOCONDA. I have accepted thee ten minutes back.

HILDA. Then--I will deign to live. My castle stands Four-towered among its olive-silvered lands. Away! Away! Thou art all heaven to me!

(_She drags_ GIOCONDA _right. They break._)

GIOCONDA. Wonderful! That's Pandolfo to a tee!

HILDA. I should adore him!

GIOCONDA. And I Harry, too If only you were I and I were you! But soft! since here we stand beyond the range Of Time, why don't we swop?

HILDA. You mean 'exchange'? Why not? We will! (_Moving quickly, right._) May Titian's age enfold me!

GIOCONDA. Stop! Stop! You can't go yet. You haven't told me Where I can find the Twentieth Century.

HILDA (_leading her front, and pointing to the audience_). Then, Behold its ladies and its gentlemen.

GIOCONDA. What lovely people!... All the same, you know, They're not as I have pictured them.

HILDA. How so?

GIOCONDA. They're all so still.... And then--my fancy boggles To see not one who's wearing motor-goggles. How can I get among them?

HILDA. You must jump Down there.

GIOCONDA. But that would mean a dreadful bump!

HILDA. You want to go from fifteen-sixty sheer To nineteen-twenty. 'Tis a jump, my dear.... And so--farewell! I come, I come at last-- O fire and sound and perfumes of the Past! (_She goes out quickly, right._)

GIOCONDA. Her eyes were green. However hard he tries, Pandolfo never can resist green eyes. I know he'll die for her and not for me. Why did I let her go? It shall not be!

(HILDA _enters, right_.)

HILDA. It shall not be! Why did I let her go? Harry will love her more than me, I know. Gioconda!

GIOCONDA. Hilda!

HILDA. Somehow, after all, I can't let Harry go beyond recall. I think of his good heart: I know how proud I'll be to watch him through a dusty cloud When his new car, balanced upon one tire, Rolls roistering through the lanes of Devonshire.

GIOCONDA. I too, fair friend, perceive with sudden terror The greatness of my momentary error. I mustn't let you risk the enterprise.... Pandolfo never could endure green eyes!

HILDA. Let us each make the best of her own age!

GIOCONDA. But sometimes you will write me--just a page?

HILDA. I will indeed. And you?

GIOCONDA. And so will I. Hilda--farewell!

HILDA. Gioconda, dear--good-bye!

(_Standing in the middle of the stage, they take hands and kiss. Then they come to the front, left and right._)

So ends our fantasy--the slight design Arisen and gone like sound in summer trees,

GIOCONDA. The burden such as every mind may seize-- That in all centuries life is goodly wine!

HILDA. Which has the more of joy, her age or mine, We leave you to determine as you please.

GIOCONDA. Mine has the painting-schools--the Sienese, Venetian and unchallenged Florentine.

HILDA. Mine has the knowledge that our mortal pains Are fleeing from the skilled physician's arts.

GIOCONDA. Mine the delight of unspoiled hills and plains, Fair speech, adventure, and romantic hearts.

HILDA. And mine a sense that, by the single sun That all men share, the world for man is one.

1920.

_Printed at the CURWEN PRESS Plaistow, E.13_