Part 1
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THE IMMORTAL LURE
THE IMMORTAL LURE
BY CALE YOUNG RICE
AUTHOR OF A NIGHT IN AVIGNON, YOLANDA OF CYPRUS, CHARLES DI TOCCA, DAVID, MANY GODS, NOWANA DAYS, ETC.
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY MCMXI
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY CALE YOUNG RICE PUBLISHED, FEBRUARY, 1911
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
----infinite passion and pain Of finite hearts that yearn
CONTENTS
PAGE
GIORGIONE 1
ARDUIN 27
O-UME'S GODS 51
THE IMMORTAL LURE 73
GIORGIONE
CHARACTERS
GIORGIONE _A Young Painter_ ARETINO _A Dissolute Poet_ TITIAN _Another Painter_ BELLINI _The Former Master of Giorgione and Titian_ GIGIA _An old woman serving Giorgione_ and ISOTTA
GIORGIONE
SCENE: _A work-room of GIORGIONE on the edge of the Lagoon in which lie the Campo Santo and Murano. It is littered with brushes, canvases, casts, etc., and its walls are frescoed indiscriminately with saints and bacchantes, satyrs and Madonnas, on backgrounds religious or woodland. A door is on the right back; and foliate Gothic windows, in the rear, reveal the magic water with its gliding gondolas. On a support toward the centre of the room is a picture--covered, and not far from it, a couch._
_Late Afternoon._
_GIORGIONE, who has been sitting anguished on the couch, rises with determined bitterness. As he does so, BELLINI enters anxiously._
_Bellini._ Giorgione!
_Giorgione_ (_turning_). It is you?
_Bellini._ Your word came to me, In San Lazzario where I labored late, And shakes my troubled heart. You will not do this!
_Giorgione._ Yes!
_Bellini._ How my son! her picture! as a wanton's!
_Giorgione._ Tho it has been till now my adoration! The fairest of my dreams and the most holy! Yes, by the virtue of all honest women, If such there be in Venice, I swear it shall be borne by ribald hands Thro the very streets.
_Bellini._ My son!
_Giorgione._ A public thing!
[_Points to picture._
Fit for the most lascivious! who now Shall gaze on what I had beheld alone, On what was purer to me than the Virgin! The very pimps and panders of the Piazza Shall if they will whet appetite upon it, And smack their losel lips.
_Bellini._ And to what end?
_Giorgione._ Her shame!
_Bellini._ The deeds of wounded pride and love Work not so, but fall back upon the doer-- Or on some other.
_Giorgione._ I care not!
_Bellini._ Nor have, Ever, to heed me! as Aretino, Who turns your praise to Titian, has told. For your wild will runs ever without curb, And I who reared you, as my very own, Must pay the fall.
_Giorgione._ No!
_Bellini._ And the piety I would have won you to in the past days Is wasted. The Madonnas I painted with a heart inspired of Heaven You paint with pride.
_Giorgione._ But with all gratitude! Ah yes, believe me, And with a rich remembrance! For scarce oblivion could wipe from me How as a wasted lad I came to Venice-- A miserable, patched and pallid waif, With but an eye to see and hand to shape! You took me from the streets and taught me all The old can teach the young, until my name Is high in Venice-- Linked with that of Beauty-- "Giorgione! our Giorgione!" do they cry On the canals, the very gondoliers. And in a little while it should have glowed Immortal on the breast of Italy, As does Apelles on the page of Greece, For I was half-divine, until----
_Bellini._ Until A girl whom you had fixed your heart upon With boundless folly, you who should have lived With but one passion--that of brain and brush-- Until she----
_Giorgione._ Say it!
_Bellini._ This Isotta----
_Giorgione._ Ai! Whom I had chosen o'er a hundred others To soar with! To soar and then in wedded peace to prize! This false Isotta Whom in poverty I found, as you found me, and loved to madness. This fair Isotta Whom I would have made All Venice to be a halo for--as were Cities of old for queens of sceptred love: Until she leaves, departs, forsakes me, goes Away, worthless away, from my true arms, With Luzzi, a lank boy.
_Bellini._ So. And most strange.
_Giorgione._ No, nothing a woman does is ever strange! Will they not cloak a lie in innocence, A treachery in veiling soft caresses-- Tho to the Mass unceasingly they fare And say like her their aves night and noon? Have they a want that wantons not with guile, A tear that is not turgid with deceit? Are not their passions blown by every wind? Have they not all the straying heart of Helen? Then why must I, Who had in me a hope That rivalled Raphael's or Leonardo's, Keep, cozened so, that I contemn her shame?
_Bellini._ Because she is a woman--whom you tempted, Tho with all trust to wed her--and you know not Whether her going was of shamelessness.
_Giorgione_ (_laughing bitterly_). Or whether she may not yet return, today, And with a heart that is a nymph's, a soul That is a nun's, Beguile me back to doting? Whether she may not-- With that body God Might once, deceived, have moulded angels after--? Then flaunt her thralling of me to the world, Whose ready lips should laugh where'er we went And whisper, "Isotta, there! Giorgione's mistress! Who makes a mocking of him?"
_Bellini._ Never! never! Only your unrelenting brain would think it. For this I know of her, that tho she has Deserted you for what must seem to be Only a new-found passion-- Yet is she womanly, and did you give her, As now you mean, to avid lusting eyes, Life would be smitten from her.
_Giorgione._ As it should!
_Bellini._ And then from you, repentant of her fate? No, no, my son, I have not seen you rise, A planet from the sea, the world's first painter, To set in this: You owe my fathering more. And listen, I have brought to you a way Of laurels for forgetting. I have come With a commission from the Signoria,
[_Takes it from his breast._
Which names you the chief glory of this city And votes you proud permission to adorn San Marco's highest altar with perfection.
_Giorgione._ And which I spurn, an insult in its pity!
[_Flings it from him._
As they shall learn--these silk and velvet Signors, Whose condescending ducats buy the dreams Of the immortal! Or no!... I meant not that--to wound a kindness.
_Bellini._ Your ways have ever been the ways of wounding.
_Giorgione._ And to the end must be. (_Brokenly_) For now my hand Is palsied! I can never paint again. Colour and shaping light turn in my soul To chaos and to blindness--to despair! The brush I lift, to sterile pain more loth! I yearn and impotence alone arises. That picture has dried beauty's vein within me And left me ... Ah!... She shall atone it! (_calls_) Gigia! Shameless she is and shall be seen it!--Gigia!--
[_Bitterly._
Aretino, who is the tongue of lewdness, And Titian, who trips to it, may gloat,
[_GIGIA hobbles in._
But they----
_Bellini._ Giorgione! you have sent for them?
_Giorgione (_to GIGIA_). Whoever seeks my door is bidden--all!
_Gigia._ Yes, Messer Giorgio.
_Giorgione_ (_as she delays_). Go.
_Gigia._ Before I speak?
_Giorgione._ Of what?
_Gigia._ How can I tell you, if I may Not speak? And you should hear ... (_Crossing herself_) It is the plague. A whisper is about That it has broken out at last in Venice.
[_GIORGIONE staring at her, trembles and seems slowly stricken--while his eyes fill as with some evil irrecoverable remembrance._
_Bellini_ (_fearing for him_). Giorgione!
_Giorgione._ Oh!... and yet ... nothing ... a dream That came to me last night--as if from death.
_Bellini._ Then, O my son, it is a premonition, A pall against this purpose! that you may Not let these ribald two-- Aretino, this poet and depraver, And Titian snared within his pagan senses, Enter and gaze upon.... O boy, you will not! Despoil the picture, Scatter it to the seas, And vow never again to paint another, Tho that would break my heart, but promise me----
[_A knocking interrupts, and a voice without calls lustily_:
_Voice_: The gods of paint and passion ever gird us!
Where's Messer Giorgione? Ho! Ho, ho!
[_GIGIA hurries out._
_Giorgione_ (_after a pause, calling_). Aretino!
_Aretino._ Ai, light of ladies' eyes! And with him a better! Shall we sing for entrance? (_Begins_)--A wench I had, But where is she--? A-ho! Old Gigia, is it? Then we come apace,
[_Enters leeringly with TITIAN._
Like satyrs to the piping of Adonis!
[_With irony._
A health to you, O heaven-born of Venice!
[_To BELLINI._
And to you, glorious dauber of Madonnas! But, bah! the smell of melancholy! Come, What is it? The tale is out about the maid? And therefore tears?
[_Laughs._
Well, by the lids of Venus, Giorgio, It serves you well--or Eve was not a woman! There were too many ripe for your assay. Why, I believe that every damsel's lips On the lagoons were pinched with longing for you!
_Titian._ Or enough, at least, to send spleen, Giorgio, Into my eyes.
_Giorgione._ They will no more, Titian.
_Aretino._ In sooth! for since one wench in all the world Prefers another, he will play the monk! Since she, the amorous sun-kissed Isotta, Had charms too fair for _one_ to satisfy! And yet--to choose this Luzzi, This swaddling acolyte of Innocence, For her new light-o'-love! to choose him out, When, for a whiff, she might have had my arms----
[_GIORGIONE quivers._
O, Titian, by the gods!
_Bellini._ Aretino!...
_Giorgione._ Stay, let him speak, my master, as he wills.
_Aretino._ I say then, Seraph, of your amorosa, That she deceived me-- That I thought her dreams Were chaster than the moon, or by my beard, Which is not born, I should have tricked her senses Away from you ... if lies and treachery And tempting honeyed verses could have done it! For an Elysium like her warm round body I never looked upon.
_Bellini._ Aretino!
_Giorgione._ Peace! he shall speak! for this is what should be.
_Aretino._ Ai, Messer Bellini, and your age forgets That he is well consoled with the dear thought That her first joy was his.
_Bellini._ Ah!...
_Aretino._ And that vision--! Why, I have peeped upon her face, no farther. But to have seen the beauty he has seen, The Aphrodite-dream of loveliness, I would have dared virginity's last door.
_Giorgione._ Then you shall see it.
_Bellini._ My son!
_Giorgione._ Yes, tho I die!
_Aretino._ How, what is this?
_Giorgione_ (_going to picture_). Aretino, Titian-- You are here, tho there is less than love between us: For, pardon, if I say that you sometimes Have loathed my triumphs.
_Titian._ That is so, Giorgione. But with the brush I yet shall equal them.
_Giorgione._ You shall surpass them. For my last is done.
_Titian._ Come, do you jest?
_Giorgione._ My last, and it is there!
[_Points to picture._
There that you two whose tongues have been so busy About the streets with laughing and innuendo, From ear to ear with jest and utter joy-- You, Titian, a sycophant of Fame, And you, Aretino, who incarnate lust, May know that Giorgione is above you. You coveted Isotta with your eyes, Now you shall have her as shall all the world!
[_Flings the curtain back from the picture then sinks to the couch._
_As they gaze on the unclothed form, BELLINI turns away, when he sees ISOTTA enter. She is pale and ill, but moves smilingly down toward GIORGIONE, till happening to see the picture, she gives a deep cry._
_GIORGIONE, springing to his feet, dazedly beholds her._
_Bellini_ (_speechless till he sees ISOTTA'S pallor_). Isotta! you are ill!... O would my breath Had never lasted to this evil hour--! Shall I not bring the leech? (_when she does not answer; to GIORGIONE_) This price has pride!
[_He goes: then ARETINO and TITIAN. The curtain falls back._
_Isotta_ (_whose eyes have closed_). The flesh of women is their fate forever! My poor, poor body! all I had to give So desecrated.
_Giorgione_ (_hoarsely_). Why have you come here?
_Isotta._ To see Messer Giorgione--who is brave.
[_Smiles as one shattered._
To hear Messer Giorgione--who is gentle And honourable to women who are weak. To--heal Messer Giorgione--then to die!
_Giorgione._ Rather to kill!
_Isotta._ Why, it may be. If love Still leads me, it were best that it be slain.
_Giorgione._ The love of a wanton?
_Isotta_ (_slowly_). Who beholds her body Given ... to unabated eyes--yet lives? I think it must be so.
_Giorgione._ Alluring lies! Out of pale lips of treachery but lies! You have returned to me, whom you have cursed With craving for you, With an immortal love, Because this lisping Luzzi, With whom you fled, weary of falsity, Has cast you off.
_Isotta_ (_gently_). Kind Luzzi!
_Giorgione._ Ah! and blind? Not knowing that you now are here again, Where you disrobed to my adoring soul, But thinking that you wait him with fair eyes Of fond expectancy--as once for me! Believing that your breath is beating only With ecstasy for him!
_Isotta._ He is--but Luzzi!
_Giorgione._ And I but Giorgione, smiling quean!
[_She turns paler._
But Giorgione, a vassal to your sway? Back to your orgies! and may Venus, goddess Of black adulteries, but not of love, Be with them! May your blood, that I believed Vestal to all but me, run vile with passions As any nymph's of Bacchus! May your body, That I have painted here, be to all time An image of soul-cheating chastity!
[_His words have struck her down--and overwhelm him._
O, I am lost, lost, lost forevermore.
[_Falls into a seat._
_Isotta_ (_at length, from the couch, gathering strength_). No, I have come for saving, Giorgione. Now I can speak--but there is little time, (_Strangely_) For Night is coming.
_Giorgione_ (_startled to questioning_). Isotta?
_Isotta._ The still Night, With Death's dark Gondola to waft me o'er.
[_Then as he realizes._
Nay, stay, stay! leave me not. There is no help. For it must be.... A voice Beyond has said it. And ere I drift out on the darkening ebb----
_Giorgione._ Isotta!
_Isotta._ Peace must be Giorgione's too.
_Giorgione._ Speak--yet it cannot be--my heart is dead.
_Isotta._ Then it shall rise again.--O Giorgione, My lover once and lord, could you believe, Even tho I went away from you and with Another, that unchastity could touch This body which had been holy to you?
_Giorgione._ Isotta!
_Isotta._ It is true that I deceived you,
[_With mystic fervor._
True that I went away from you and wed Another----
_Giorgione._ Ah!
_Isotta._ And yet it was not Luzzi!
[_As he gazes._
Do you not know? you who so oft have told On saintly walls the Magdalen's sad tears? Sin, sin had seized me! Sin with you to whom I gave my body and soul unboundedly. We revelled in unwedded ecstasy, Laughed in our love over the starred lagoons. Sang till the lute was like a thing that lived, Danced happy as the fauns and nereids That oft you told me of-- And clasped and kissed, O kissed--until I knew that but one way Was left to save my soul, Giorgione, one-- To wed me with the vows and veil to Christ.
[_Gazes at a crucifix._
_Giorgione._ Isotta!
_Isotta._ I am His! I fled to Him! The Convent opened its grey arms to take me, Santa Cecilia of the Healing Heart, And Luzzi kindly led me to its door-- That you might so be foiled of following. And with long vigils, fasts and penances And prayers I sought oblivion of your face. Until this illness strangely fell upon me. I could not die until you, shriven too....
_Giorgione._ Isotta! My Isotta!
[_Falls penitent before her, weeping._
_Isotta_ (_her heart eased_). Peace, at last.
_Giorgione_ (_rising_). Ah yes! and I am viler than the vilest! For who remembers not that purity Is priceless, ends impoverished of honour. And yet ... there is no wrong irreparable! And you must live tho all the angels die-- Live and be loosed from vows too vainly breathed, That wedded we may win again delight! Still I am Giorgione, and the sin That we have sinned shall be painted away With holy pictures ...
_Isotta._ Only the dead are holy, Or they who die, tho living, to the world.
[_Sees the picture._
And eyes have looked upon me-- Hot eyes that burn my body up with shame. Farewell, the tide will cool me, the lone wave That washes in from Lido to my grave.
[_Looks toward the Campo Santo._
_Giorgione._ Isotta!
_Isotta_ (_fainter_). Night, the Night!...
_Giorgione._ O stay!...
_Isotta_ (_in a fixed vision_) It comes, The Gondola! (_as if to an unseen Presence_) Row on, row on.
[_She dies. He sinks beside her stricken and still._
_GIGIA enters._
_Gigia._ Messer Giorgione, one has come to say----
[_Sees them, goes near and lifts ISOTTA'S hand. Then, dropping it with terror._
The plague! the plague! Ah!
_Giorgione_ (_rising_). Woman, is it true?
[_GIGIA flees._
(_Mortally moved_) Isotta, this kiss then of all the kisses That I have slain thee with will God who dwells In universal chastity forgive.
[_He kneels and presses his lips fervently to hers._
CURTAIN
ARDUIN
CHARACTERS
ARDUIN (_of Provence_) _An Alchemist_ ION _His Nephew_ RHASIS _An Arab, his attendant and assistant_ MYRRHA _A Greek Girl_
ARDUIN
TIME: _The Fifteenth Century._
PLACE: _Egypt._
SCENE: _The laboratory of ARDUIN in a house on Nile opposite Cairo. It is a large room on the walls of which mystic figures of the Hermetic philosophy are drawn, together with the zodiac and other astronomical signs; and many strange objects, animal and mineral, are to be seen placed about. In the rear centre is a large sarcophagus. On either side broad window openings reveal the Egyptian night, and one frames the moonlit Sphinx and Pyramids. Toward the right front is a furnace with alembics, retorts, etc.; right and left are doors, and on the left and back another alcove before which hang curtains. Lamps burn._
_RHASIS, who is busy about the furnace, in a troubled manner, lifts a skull and is gazing at it, when ION enters suddenly and stops, pale with purpose._
_Ion._ Rhasis----
_Rhasis_ (_starting and looking round_). Young master Ion! what is this?
[_Drops the skull._
Why have you left the city and come here? Are you aware what hour you have chosen?
_Ion._ That of his dreams. I learned today: yet came.
_Rhasis._ And wherefore?
_Ion._ To restrain calamity, Which must await his reasonless belief-- And to regain his love that I have lost.
_Rhasis._ And have not pondered what calamity Would fall on you Who would not learn his Art, But from its heritage to penury turned, If here and now he saw you At this hour When he believes that he shall raise the dead?
_Ion._ His curse; for he would think me come to thwart him, And that I had forgot whatever wrong, Unexpiated still, my father did him;
[_Looks at sarcophagus._
And yet I will not go, for I have purposed-- And you tonight shall help me--(_pauses_)
_Rhasis._ Unto what?
_Ion._ Forgiveness of my disobedience-- That may be won from him with Myrrha's face.
_Rhasis._ Myrrha's!
_Ion._ Which can alone of earthly sights, If what you tell of his dead wife be true: And well you know it is!--He must behold her-- And hear our pleading.
_Rhasis._ At an hour like this!
_Ion._ Let her be placed yonder within those curtains, While he is mingling here his mysteries, And when he----
_Rhasis._ By the Prophet who is Allah's, Myrrha! Within this chamber! and tonight!
[_Ion goes to the door and leads Myrrha in._
Is there no heed in youth or hesitation, But only hurrying want! Do you not know He is without there, at this moment, saying Unto the seven planets in their spheres, The seven incantations against death? And that he----
_Ion._ I know only he must see her.
_Rhasis._ And of all nights in the world, only tonight!
_Myrrha._ No, Ion! let us go. I fear this place, Its strangeness and that still sarcophagus Appal me.
_Ion._ And make you forget our love, And the long bridal-hope of it deferred?
_Rhasis._ Young master, she does not, in penury too! But pleas tonight would ope no nuptial way. Better than you I know it is not wise. For ten years is it I have dwelt with him While he has sought in vain this great Elixir. Ten passings of the pilgrims off to Mecca His wife has lain in that sarcophagus, Embalmed and waiting, as he thinks, to rise. And now, this hour, he hopes that it shall be.
_Ion._ And should it, will he not the more forgive me? Or should it not, then seeing Myrrha's face, Myrrha whom you have said is so much like her, Will he not----
_Myrrha._ Ion, no! but might--I fear! So fond his grief is and unfaceable! Let us return again unto the city And to my kindred who will hold us dear.
[_Starting._
Listen, is it not he? (_Rhasis goes to window_) Take me away!
_Ion._ And have him at the breaking of his dream With none near--and our love's desire be lost?
_Myrrha._ It will not: let us wait another time!
_Ion._ Than this when most your face would deeply move him? I cannot, and 'twould shame me! for you know How dear to him is his dead wife who lies there,
[_Takes her hand._
And know our severed days! And shall we bend the knee to cowardice, Which ever has a premonition ready, When you who are so like her might tonight----
[_She starts back, for RHASIS, exclaiming, leaves the window._
_Rhasis._ He comes.
_Ion._ Now?
_Rhasis._ Go: or take this on yourselves.
_Ion._ Upon me be it! For there is no rest Until his pardon weds us--and I pay him.
_Rhasis._ Then but a word remains, young master, more: To tell you--that I fear--lest thro long toil, His mind....
_Myrrha._ Oh! (_recoils_)
_Ion._ It is not true!... No Myrrha! no!
[_Takes her in his arms._
And is ingratitude I scorn to heed.
[_Turns away._
Come then and by your beauty's likeness win him.
[_He leads her behind the curtains then goes, door left. A moment, which leaves RHASIS distraught, and ARDUIN enters. He pauses, as if at some presence; then, gazing on the sarcophagus, shudders with hope and comes down._
_Arduin._ The night at last when I again shall clasp her And banish death to biers beyond the stars!
_Rhasis_ (_kneeling_). Master!
_Arduin._ Rise up and never kneel again! For from henceforth I shall be lord of life, The secret of the phoenix in my hand.
[_Lifts an alembic._
Gray have I grown in quest of it and old, Youthless and as a leper to delight, But it has come at last--at last has come!
[_Sets vessel down._
_Rhasis._ And I rejoice, master, for I have toiled With you these many years--but is it sure?
_Arduin._ As the moon is in heaven! as the skies!
[_In an ecstasy._