Chapter 4

TIME: Three hours later. SCENE: A Dungeon on the ground-floor of the Palazzo Civico.

The stage is bisected from top to bottom by a wall, on one side of which is seen the interior of LUCREZIA’S cell, on the other that of SAVONAROLA’S.

Neither he nor she knows that the other is in the next cell. The audience, however, knows this.

Each cell (because of the width and height of the proscenium) is of more than the average Florentine size, but is bare even to the point of severity, its sole amenities being some straw, a hunk of bread, and a stone pitcher. The door of each is facing the audience. Dimish light.

LUCREZIA wears long and clanking chains on her wrists, as does also SAVONAROLA. Imprisonment has left its mark on both of them. SAVONAROLA’S hair has turned white. His whole aspect is that of a very old, old man. LUCREZIA looks no older than before, but has gone mad.

SAV. Alas, how long ago this morning seems This evening! A thousand thousand eons Are scarce the measure of the gulf betwixt My then and now. Methinks I must have been Here since the dim creation of the world And never in that interval have seen The tremulous hawthorn burgeon in the brake, Nor heard the hum o’ bees, nor woven chains Of buttercups on Mount Fiesole What time the sap lept in the cypresses, Imbuing with the friskfulness of Spring Those melancholy trees. I do forget The aspect of the sun. Yet I was born A freeman, and the Saints of Heaven smiled Down on my crib. What would my sire have said, And what my dam, had anybody told them The time would come when I should occupy A felon’s cell? O the disgrace of it The scandal, the incredible come-down! It masters me. I see i’ my mind’s eye The public prints--‘Sharp Sentence on a Monk.’ What then? I thought I was of sterner stuff Than is affrighted by what people think. Yet thought I so because ‘twas thought of me, And so ‘twas thought of me because I had A hawk-like profile and a baleful eye. Lo! my soul’s chin recedes, soft to the touch As half-churn’d butter. Seeming hawk is dove, And dove’s a gaol-bird now. Fie out upon ‘t!

LUC. How comes it? I am Empress Dowager Of China--yet was never crown’d. This must Be seen to. [Quickly gathers some straw and weaves a crown, which she puts on.]

SAV. O, what a degringolade! The great career I had mapp’d out for me-- Nipp’d i’ the bud. What life, when I come out, Awaits me? Why, the very Novices And callow Postulants will draw aside As I pass by, and say ‘That man hath done Time!’ And yet shall I wince? The worst of Time Is not in having done it, but in doing ‘t.

LUC. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Eleven billion pig-tails Do tremble at my nod imperial,-- The which is as it should be.

SAV. I have heard That gaolers oft are willing to carouse With them they watch o’er, and do sink at last Into a drunken sleep, and then’s the time To snatch the keys and make a bid for freedom. Gaoler! Ho, Gaoler! [Sounds of lock being turned and bolts withdrawn. Enter the Borgias’ FOOL, in plain clothes, carrying bunch of keys.] I have seen thy face Before.

FOOL I saved thy life this afternoon, Sir.

SAV. Thou art the Borgias’ Fool?

FOOL Say rather, was. Unfortunately I have been discharg’d For my betrayal of Lucrezia, So that I have to speak like other men-- Decasyllabically, and with sense. An hour ago the gaoler of this dungeon Died of an apoplexy. Hearing which, I ask’d for and obtain’d his billet.

SAV. Fetch A stoup o’ liquor for thyself and me. [Exit GAOLER.] Freedom! there’s nothing that thy votaries Grudge in the cause of thee. That decent man Is doom’d by me to lose his place again To-morrow morning when he wakes from out His hoggish slumber. Yet I care not. [Re-enter GAOLER with a leathern bottle and two glasses.] Ho! This is the stuff to warm our vitals, this The panacea for all mortal ills And sure elixir of eternal youth. Drink, bonniman! [GAOLER drains a glass and shows signs of instant intoxication. SAV. claps him on shoulder and replenishes glass. GAOLER drinks again, lies down on floor, and snores. SAV. snatches the bunch of keys, laughs long but silently, and creeps out on tip-toe, leaving door ajar. LUC. meanwhile has lain down on the straw in her cell, and fallen asleep. Noise of bolts being shot back, jangling of keys, grating of lock, and the door of LUC.’S cell flies open. SAV. takes two steps across the threshold, his arms outstretched and his upturned face transfigured with a great joy.] How sweet the open air Leaps to my nostrils! O the good brown earth That yields once more to my elastic tread And laves these feet with its remember’d dew! [Takes a few more steps, still looking upwards.] Free!--I am free! O naked arc of heaven, Enspangled with innumerable--no, Stars are not there. Yet neither are there clouds! The thing looks like a ceiling! [Gazes downward.] And this thing Looks like a floor. [Gazes around.] And that white bundle yonder Looks curiously like Lucrezia. [LUC. awakes at sound of her name, and sits up sane.] There must be some mistake.

LUC. [Rises to her feet.] There is indeed! A pretty sort of prison I have come to, In which a self-respecting lady’s cell Is treated as a lounge!

SAV. I had no notion You were in here. I thought I was out there. I will explain--but first I’ll make amends. Here are the keys by which your durance ends. The gate is somewhere in this corridor, And so good-bye to this interior! [Exeunt SAV. and LUC. Noise, a moment later, of a key grating in a lock, then of gate creaking on its hinges; triumphant laughs of fugitives; loud slamming of gate behind them. In SAV.’s cell the GAOLER starts in his sleep, turns his face to the wall, and snores more than ever deeply. Through open door comes a cloaked figure.]

CLOAKED FIGURE Sleep on, Savonarola, and awake Not in this dungeon but in ruby Hell! [Stabs Gaoler, whose snores cease abruptly. Enter POPE JULIUS II, with Papal retinue carrying torches. MURDERER steps quickly back into shadow.]

POPE [To body of GAOLER.] Savonarola, I am come to taunt Thee in thy misery and dire abjection. Rise, Sir, and hear me out.

MURD. [Steps forward.] Great Julius, Waste not thy breath. Savonarola’s dead. I murder’d him.

POPE Thou hadst no right to do so. Who art thou, pray?

MURD. Cesare Borgia, Lucrezia’s brother, and I claim a brother’s Right to assassinate whatever man Shall wantonly and in cold blood reject Her timid offer of a poison’d ring.

POPE Of this anon. [Stands over body of GAOLER.] Our present business Is general woe. No nobler corse hath ever Impress’d the ground. O let the trumpets speak it! [Flourish of trumpets.] This was the noblest of the Florentines. His character was flawless, and the world Held not his parallel. O bear him hence With all such honours as our State can offer. He shall interred be with noise of cannon, As doth befit so militant a nature. Prepare these obsequies. [Papal officers lift body of GAOLER.]

A PAPAL OFFICER But this is not Savonarola. It is some one else.

CESARE Lo! ‘tis none other than the Fool that I Hoof’d from my household but two hours agone. I deem’d him no good riddance, for he had The knack of setting tables on a roar. What shadows we pursue! Good night, sweet Fool, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

POPE Interred shall he be with signal pomp. No honour is too great that we can pay him. He leaves the world a vacuum. Meanwhile, Go we in chase of the accursed villain That hath made escapado from this cell. To horse! Away! We’ll scour the country round For Sav’narola till we hold him bound. Then shall you see a cinder, not a man, Beneath the lightnings of the Vatican! [Flourish, alarums and excursions, flashes of Vatican lightning, roll of drums, etc. Through open door of cell is led in a large milk-white horse, which the POPE mounts as the Curtain falls.]

Remember, please, before you formulate your impressions, that saying of Brown’s: ‘The thing must be judged as a whole.’ I like to think that whatever may seem amiss to us in these Four Acts of his would have been righted by collation with that Fifth which he did not live to achieve.

I like, too, to measure with my eyes the yawning gulf between stage and study. Very different from the message of cold print to our imagination are the messages of flesh and blood across footlights to our eyes and ears. In the warmth and brightness of a crowded theatre ‘Savonarola’ might, for aught one knows, seem perfect. ‘Then why,’ I hear my gentle readers asking, ‘did you thrust the play on US, and not on a theatrical manager?’

That question has a false assumption in it. In the course of the past eight years I have thrust ‘Savonarola’ on any number of theatrical managers. They have all of them been (to use the technical phrase) ‘very kind.’ All have seen great merits in the work; and if I added together all the various merits thus seen I should have no doubt that ‘Savonarola’ was the best play never produced. The point on which all the managers are unanimous is that they have no use for a play without an ending. This is why I have fallen back, at last, on gentle readers, whom now I hear asking why I did not, as Brown’s literary executor, try to finish the play myself. Can they never ask a question without a false assumption in it? I did try, hard, to finish ‘Savonarola.’

Artistically, of course, the making of such an attempt was indefensible. Humanly, not so. It is clear throughout the play--especially perhaps in Acts III and IV--that if Brown had not steadfastly in his mind the hope of production on the stage, he had nothing in his mind at all. Horrified though he would have been by the idea of letting me kill his Monk, he would rather have done even this than doom his play to everlasting unactedness. I took, therefore, my courage in both hands, and made out a scenario....

Dawn on summit of Mount Fiesole. Outspread view of Florence (Duomo, Giotto’s Tower, etc.) as seen from that eminence.--NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, asleep on grass, wakes as sun rises. Deplores his exile from Florence, LORENZO’S unappeasable hostility, etc. Wonders if he could not somehow secure the POPE’S favour. Very cynical. Breaks off: But who are these that scale the mountain-side? | Savonarola and Lucrezia | Borgia!--Enter through a trap-door, back c. [trap-door veiled from audience by a grassy ridge], SAV. and LUC. Both gasping and footsore from their climb. [Still, with chains on their wrists? or not?]--MACH. steps unobserved behind a cypress and listens.--SAV. has a speech to the rising sun--Th’ effulgent hope that westers from the east | Daily. Says that his hope, on the contrary, lies in escape To that which easters not from out the west, | That fix’d abode of freedom which men call | America! Very bitter against POPE.--LUC. says that she, for her part, means To start afresh in that uncharted land | Which austers not from out the antipod, | Australia!--Exit MACH., unobserved, down trap-door behind ridge, to betray LUC. and SAV.--Several longish speeches by SAV. and LUC. Time is thus given for MACH. to get into touch with POPE, and time for POPE and retinue to reach the slope of Fiesole. SAV., glancing down across ridge, sees these sleuth-hounds, points them out to LUC. and cries Bewray’d! LUC. By whom? SAV. I know not, but suspect | The hand of that sleek serpent Niccolo | Machiavelli.--SAV. and LUC. rush down c., but find their way barred by the footlights.--LUC. We will not be ta’en Alive. And here availeth us my lore | In what pertains to poison. Yonder herb | [points to a herb growing down r.] Is deadly nightshade. Quick, Monk! Pluck we it!--SAV. and LUC. die just as POPE appears over ridge, followed by retinue in full cry.--POPE’S annoyance at being foiled is quickly swept away on the great wave of Shakespearean chivalry and charity that again rises in him. He gives SAV. a funeral oration similar to the one meant for him in Act IV, but even more laudatory and more stricken. Of LUC., too, he enumerates the virtues, and hints that the whole terrestrial globe shall be hollowed to receive her bones. Ends by saying: In deference to this our double sorrow | Sun shall not shine to-day nor shine to-morrow.--Sun drops quickly back behind eastern horizon, leaving a great darkness on which the Curtain slowly falls.

All this might be worse, yes. The skeleton passes muster. But in the attempt to incarnate and ensanguine it I failed wretchedly. I saw that Brown was, in comparison with me, a master. Thinking I might possibly fare better in his method of work than in my own, I threw the skeleton into a cupboard, sat down, and waited to see what Savonarola and those others would do.

They did absolutely nothing. I sat watching them, pen in hand, ready to record their slightest movement. Not a little finger did they raise. Yet I knew they must be alive. Brown had always told me they were quite independent of him. Absurd to suppose that by the accident of his own death they had ceased to breathe.... Now and then, overcome with weariness, I dozed at my desk, and whenever I woke I felt that these rigid creatures had been doing all sorts of wonderful things while my eyes were shut. I felt that they disliked me. I came to dislike them in return, and forbade them my room.

Some of you, my readers, might have better luck with them than I. Invite them, propitiate them, watch them! The writer of the best Fifth Act sent to me shall have his work tacked on to Brown’s; and I suppose I could get him a free pass for the second night.