SCENE III.--_The Churchyard.
_Enter_ CHARLEMONT.--BORACHIO _dogging him. The clock strikes twelve._
_Charl._ Twelve.
_Bor._ 'Tis a good hour: 'twill strike one anon.
_Charl._ How fit a place for contemplation is this dead of night, among the dwellings of the dead.--This grave--Perhaps the inhabitant was in his lifetime the possessor of his own desires. Yet in the midst of all his greatness and his wealth he was less rich and less contented than in this poor piece of earth lower and lesser than a cottage. For here he neither wants nor cares. Now that his body savours of corruption He enjoys a sweeter rest than e'er he did Amongst the sweetest pleasures of this life, For here there's nothing troubles him.--And there --In that grave lies another. He, perhaps, Was in his life as full of misery As this of happiness. And here's an end Of both. Now both their states are equal. O That man with so much labour should aspire To worldly height, when in the humble earth The world's condition's at the best, or scorn Inferior men, since to be lower than A worm is to be higher than a king.
_Bor._ Then fall and rise. [_Discharges the pistol, which misses fire._
_Charl._ What villain's hand was that? Save thee, or thou shalt perish. [_They fight._
_Bor._ Zounds! unsaved I think. [_Falls._
_Charl._ What? Have I killed him? Whatsoe'er thou beest, I would thy hand had prospered. For I was Unfit to live and well prepared to die. What shall I do? Accuse myself? Submit Me to the law? And that will quickly end This violent increase of misery. But 'tis a murder to be accessory To mine own death. I will not. I will take This opportunity to 'scape. It may Be Heaven reserves me to some better end. [_Exit._
_Enter_ LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE _and_ SOQUETTE.
_Soqu._ Nay, good sir, I dare not. In good sooth I come of a generation both by father and mother that were all as fruitful as costermongers' wives.
_Lang._ Tush! then a tympany[170] is the greatest danger can be feared. Their fruitfulness turns but to a certain kind of phlegmatic windy disease.
_Soqu._ I must put my understanding to your trust, sir. I would be loth to be deceived.
_Lang._ No, conceive thou sha't not. Yet thou shalt profit by my instruction too. My body is not every day drawn dry, wench.
_Soqu._ Yet methinks, sir, your want of use should rather make your body like a well,--the lesser 'tis drawn, the sooner it grows dry.
_Lang._ Thou shalt try that instantly.
_Soqu._ But we want place and opportunity.
_Lang._ We have both. This is the back side of the house which the superstitious call St. Winifred's church, and is verily a convenient unfrequented place.-- Where under the close curtains of the night--
_Soqu._ You purpose i' the dark to make me light. [SNUFFE _pulls out a sheet, a hair, and a beard._ But what ha' you there?
_Lang._ This disguise is for security's sake, wench. There's a talk, thou know'st, that the ghost of old Montferrers walks. In this church he was buried. Now if any stranger fall upon us before our business be ended, in this disguise I shall be taken for that ghost, and never be called to examination, I warrant thee. Thus we shall 'scape both prevention and discovery. How do I look in this habit, wench?
_Soqu._ So like a ghost that notwithstanding I have some foreknowledge of you, you make my hair stand almost on end.
_Lang._ I will try how I can kiss in this beard. O, fie, fie, fie! I will put it off and then kiss, and then put it on. I can do the rest without kissing.
_Re-enter_ CHARLEMONT _doubtfully, with his sword drawn; he comes upon them before they are aware. They run out different ways, leaving the disguise behind._
_Charl._ What ha' we here? A sheet! a hair! a beard! What end was this disguise intended for? No matter what. I'll not expostulate The purpose of a friendly accident.[171] Perhaps it may accommodate my 'scape. --I fear I am pursued. For more assurance, I'll hide me here i' th' charnel house, This convocation-house of dead men's skulls. [_In getting into the charnel house he takes hold of a death's head; it slips, and he staggers._ Death's head, deceivest my hold? Such is the trust to all mortality. [_Hides himself in the charnel house._
_Enter_ D'AMVILLE _and_ CASTABELLA.
_Cast._ My lord, the night grows late. Your lordship spake Of something you desired to move in private.
_D'Am._ Yes. Now I'll speak it. The argument is love. The smallest ornament of thy sweet form (That abstract of all pleasure) can command The senses into passion and thy entire Perfection is my object, yet I love thee With the freedom of my reason. I can give Thee reason for my love.
_Cast._ Love me, my lord? I do believe it, for I am the wife Of him you love.
_D'Am._ 'Tis true. By my persuasion thou wert forced To marry one unable to perform The office of a husband. I was the author Of the wrong. My conscience suffers under't, and I would Disburthen it by satisfaction.
_Cast._ How?
_D'Am._ I will supply that pleasure to thee which he cannot.
_Cast._ Are ye a devil or a man?
_D'Am._ A man, and such a man as can return Thy entertainment with as prodigal A body as the covetous desire, Or woman ever was delighted with. So that, besides the full performance of Thy empty husband's duty, thou shalt have The joy of children to continue the Succession of thy blood. For the appetite That steals her pleasure, draws the forces of The body to an united strength, and puts 'em Altogether into action, never fails Of procreation. All the purposes Of man aim but at one of these two ends-- Pleasure or profit; and in this one sweet Conjunction of our loves they both will meet. Would it not grieve thee that a stranger to Thy blood should lay the first foundation of His house upon the ruins of thy family?
_Cast._ Now Heaven defend me! May my memory Be utterly extinguished, and the heir Of him that was my father's enemy Raise his eternal monument upon Our ruins, ere the greatest pleasure or The greatest profit ever tempt me to Continue it by incest.
_D'Am._ Incest? Tush! These distances affinity observes Are articles of bondage cast upon Our freedoms by our own objections. Nature allows a general liberty Of generation to all creatures else. Shall man, To whose command and use all creatures were Made subject, be less free than they?
_Cast._ O God! Is Thy unlimited and infinite Omnipotence less free because thou doest No ill? Or if you argue merely out of nature, Do you not degenerate from that, and are You not unworthy the prerogative Of Nature's masterpiece, when basely you Prescribe yourself authority and law From their examples whom you should command? I could confute you, but the horror of The argument confutes my understanding.-- Sir, I know you do but try me in Your son's behalf, suspecting that My strength And youth of blood cannot contain themselves With impotence.--Believe me, sir, I never wronged him. If it be your lust, O quench it on their prostituted flesh Whose trade of sin can please desire with more Delight and less offence.--The poison o' your breath, Evaporated from so foul a soul, Infects the air more than the damps that rise From bodies but half rotten in their graves.
_D'Am._ Kiss me. I warrant thee my breath is sweet. These dead men's bones lie here of purpose to Invite us to supply the number of The living. Come we'll get young bones, and do't. I will enjoy thee. No? Nay then invoke Your great supposed protector; I will do't.
_Cast._ Supposed protector! Are ye an atheist? Then I know my prayers and tears are spent in vain. O patient Heaven! Why dost thou not express Thy wrath in thunderbolts to tear the frame Of man in pieces? How can earth endure The burthen of this wickedness without An earthquake? Or the angry face of Heaven Be not inflamed with lightning?
_D'Am._ Conjure up The devil and his dam: cry to the graves: The dead can hear thee: invocate their help.
_Cast._ O would this grave might open and my body Were bound to the dead carcass of a man, For ever, ere it entertain the lust Of this detested villain!
_D'Am._ Tereus-like Thus I will force my passage to--
_Charl._ The Devil! [CHARLEMONT _rises in the disguise, and frightens_ D'AMVILLE _away._ Now, lady, with the hand of Charlemont I thus redeem you from the arm of lust. --My Castabella!
_Cast._ My dear Charlemont!
_Charl._ For all my wrongs I thank thee, gracious Heaven. Th'ast made me satisfaction to reserve Me for this blessed purpose. Now, sweet Death, I'll bid thee welcome. Come, I'll guide thee home, And then I'll cast myself into the arms Of apprehension,[172] that the law may make This worthy work the crown of all my actions, Being the best and last.
_Cast._ The last? The law? Now Heaven forbid! What ha' you done?
_Charl._ Why, I have Killed a man; not murdered him, my Castabella. He would ha' murdered me.
_Cast._ Then, Charlemont, The hand of Heaven directed thy defence. That wicked atheist! I suspect his plot.
_Charl._ My life he seeks. I would he had it, since He has deprived me of those blessings that Should make me love it. Come, I'll give it him.
_Cast._ You sha' not. I will first expose myself To certain danger than for my defence Destroy the man that saved me from destruction.
_Charl._ Thou canst not satisfy me better than To be the instrument of my release From misery.
_Cast._ Then work it by escape. Leave me to this protection that still guards The innocent. Or I will be a partner In your destiny.
_Charl._ My soul is heavy. Come, lie down to rest; These are the pillows whereon men sleep best. [_They lie down, each of them with a death's head for a pillow._
_Re-enter_ LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE, _seeking_ SOQUETTE.
_Lang._ Soquette, Soquette, Soquette! O art thou there? [_He mistakes the body of_ BORACHIO _for_ SOQUETTE.
Verily thou liest in a fine premeditated readiness for the purpose. Come, kiss me, sweet Soquette.--Now purity defend me from the sin of Sodom!--This is a creature of the masculine gender.--Verily the man is blasted.--Yea, cold and stiff!--Murder, murder, murder! [_Exit._
_Re-enter_ D'AMVILLE _distractedly: he starts at the sight of a death's head._
_D'Am._ Why dost thou stare upon me? Thou art not The soul of him I murdered. What hast thou To do to vex my conscience? Sure thou wert The head of a most doggèd usurer, Th'art so uncharitable. And that bawd, The sky there: she could shut the windows and The doors of this great chamber of the world, And draw the curtains of the clouds between Those lights and me, above this bed of earth, When that same strumpet Murder and myself Committed sin together. Then she could Leave us i' the dark till the close deed was done. But now that I begin to feel the loathsome horror of my sin, and, like a lecher emptied of his lust, desire to bury face under my eye-brows, and would steal from my shame unseen, she meets me I' the face with all her light corrupted eyes To challenge payment o' me. O behold! Yonder's the ghost of old Montferrers, in A long white sheet climbing yon lofty mountain To complain to Heaven of me.-- Montferrers! pox o' fearfulness! 'Tis nothing But a fair white cloud. Why, was I born a coward? He lies that says so. Yet the countenance of A bloodless worm might ha' the courage now To turn my blood to water. The trembling motion of an aspen leaf Would make me, like the shadow of that leaf, Lie shaking under 't. I could now commit A murder were it but to drink the fresh Warm blood of him I murdered to supply The want and weakness o' mine own, 'Tis grown so cold and phlegmatic.
_Lang._ Murder, murder, murder! [_Within._
_D'Am._ Mountains o'erwhelm me: the ghost of old Montferrers haunts me.
_Lang._ Murder, murder, murder!
_D'Am._ O were my body circumvolved Within that cloud, that when the thunder tears His passage open, it might scatter me To nothing in the air!
_Re-enter_ LANGUEBEAU SNUFFE _with the_ Watch.
_Lang._ Here you shall find The murdered body.
_D'Am._ Black Beelzebub, And all his hell-hounds, come to apprehend me?
_Lang._ No, my good lord, we come to apprehend The murderer.
_D'Am._ The ghost (great Pluto!) was A fool unfit to be employed in Any serious business for the state of hell. Why could not he ha' suffered me to raise The mountains o' my sins with one as damnable As all the rest, and then ha' tumbled me To ruin? But apprehend me e'en between The purpose and the act before it was Committed!
_Watch._ Is this the murderer? He speaks suspiciously.
_Lang._ No, verily. This is my Lord D'Amville. And his distraction, I think, grows out of his grief for the loss of a faithful servant. For surely I take him to be Borachio that is slain.
_D'Am._ Hah! Borachio slain? Thou look'st like Snuffe, dost not?
_Lang._ Yes, in sincerity, my lord.
_D'Am._ Hark thee--sawest thou not a ghost?
_Lang._ A ghost? Where, my lord?--I smell a fox.
_D'Am._ Here i' the churchyard.
_Lang._ Tush! tush! their walking spirits are mere imaginary fables. There's no such thing _in rerum natura_. Here is a man slain. And with the spirit of consideration I rather think him to be the murderer got into that disguise than any such fantastic toy.
_D'Am._ My brains begin to put themselves in order. I apprehend thee now.--'Tis e'en so.--Borachio, I will search the centre, but I'll find the murderer.
_Watch._ Here, here, here.
_D'Am._ Stay. Asleep? so soundly, So sweetly upon Death's heads? and in a place So full of fear and horror? Sure there is Some other happiness within the freedom Of the conscience than my knowledge e'er attained to.--Ho, ho, ho!
_Charl._ Y'are welcome, uncle. Had you sooner come You had been sooner welcome. I'm the man You seek. You sha' not need examine me.
_D'Am._ My nephew and my daughter! O my dear Lamented blood, what fate has cast you thus Unhappily upon this accident?
_Charl._ You know, sir, she's as clear as chastity.
_D'Am._ As her own chastity. The time, the place All circumstances argue that unclear.
_Cast._ Sir, I confess it; and repentantly Will undergo the selfsame punishment That justice shall inflict on Charlemont.
_Charl._ Unjustly she betrays her innocence.
_Watch._ But, sir, she's taken with you, and she must To prison with you.
_D'Am._ There's no remedy. Yet were it not my son's bed she abused, My land should fly, but both should be excused. [_Exeunt._