Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (658 page)

I understand your care. But I am brave, —

O, and so cunning ! — always I prevail.

Now, honoured Troubadour, if you will be

Your pupil’s servant, bear this casket hence.

Nay, not the necklace : it is hard to place.

Pray go before me ; Inez will be there.

(Exit JUAN with the casket)

FEDALMA (looking again at the necklace).

It is his past clings to you, not my, own.

If we have each our angels, good and bad,

Fates, separate from ourselves, who act for us

When we are blind, or sleep, then this man’s fate,

Hovering about the thing he used to wear,

Has laid its grasp on mine appealingly.

Dangerous, is he ? — well, a Spanish knight

Would have his enemy strong, — defy, not bind, him.

I can dare all things when my soul is moved

By something hidden that possesses me.

If Silva said this man must keep his chains

I should find ways to free him, — disobey

And free him as I did the birds. But no !

As soon as we are wed, I’ll put my prayer,

And he will not deny me : he is good.

O, I shall have much power as well as joy !

Duchess Fedalma may do what she will.

A Street by the Castle, JUAN leans against a parapet, in moonlight, and

touches his lute half unconsciously. PEPITA stands on tiptoe watching him,

and then advances till her shadow falls in front of him. He looks towards

her. A piece of white drapery thrown over her head catches the moon-light.

JUAN.

Ha ! my Pepfta ! see how thin and long

Your shadow is. ‘T is so your ghost will be,

When you are dead.

PEPITA (crossing herself).

Dead ! — O the blessed saints !

You would be glad, then, if Pepfta died ?

JUAN.

Glad ! why? Dead maidens are not merry.

Their ghosts are thin. I like you living better.

PEPITA.

I think you like me not. I wish you did.

Sometimes you sing to me and make me dance.

Another time you take no heed of me,

Not though I kiss my hand to you and smile.

But Andres would be glad if I kissed him.

JUAN.

My poor Pepfta, I am old.

PEPTA.

No, no.

You have no wrinkles.

JUAN.

Yes, I have — within ;

The wrinkles are within, my little bird.

Why, I have lived through twice a thousand years,

And kept the company of men whose bones

Crumbled before the blessed Virgin lived.

PEPffA (crossing herself).

Nay, God defend us, that is wicked talk !

You say it but to scorn me. (With a sob) I will go.

JUAN.

Stay, little pigeon. I am not unkind.

Come, sit upon the wall. Nay, never cry.

Give me your cheek to kiss. There, there !

(PEPITA, sitting on the low parapet, puts up her cheek to JUAN, who kisses

it, putting his hand under her chin. She takes his hand and kisses it.)

PEPITA.

I like to kiss your hand. It is so good, —

So smooth and soft.

JUAN.

Well, well, I’ll sing to you.

PEPITA.

A pretty song, loving and merry?

JUAN.

Yes

(Juan sings.)

Memory,

Tell to me

What is fair,

Past compare,

In the land of Tubal ?

Is it Spring’s

Lovely things,

Blossoms white,

Rosy dight ?

Then it is Pepita.

Summer’s crest

Red-gold tressed,

Corn-flowers peeping under ? —

Idle noons,

Lingering moons,

Sudden cloud,

LightningA’s shroud,

Sudden rain,

Quick again

Smiles where late was thunder ? —

Are all these

Made to please ?

So too is Pepita.

Autumn’s prime,

Apple-time,

Smooth cheek round,

Heart all sound ? —

Is it this

You would kiss ?

Then it is Pepita.

You can bring

No sweet thing,

But my mind

Still shall find

It is my Pepita.

Memory

Says to me

It is she, —

She is fair

Past compare

In the land of Tubal

Pepita (seizing JUAN’S hand again)

O, then, you do love me ?

JUAN.

Yes, in the song.

PEPITA (sadly).

Not out of it ? — not love me out of it ?

JUAN.

Only a little out of it, my bird.

When I was singing I was Andres, say,

Or one who loves you better still than Andres.

PEPITA.

Not yourself ?

JUAN.

No!

PEPITA (throwing his hand down pettishly).

Then take it back again !

I will not have it !

JUAN.

Listen, little one.

Juan is not a living man by himself:

His life is breathed in him by other men,

And they speak out of him. He is their voice.

Juan’s own life he gave once quite away.

It was Pepita’s lover singing then, — not Juan.

We old, old poets, if we kept our hearts,

Should hardly know them from another man’s.

They shrink to make room for the many more

We keep within us. There, now, — one more kiss,

And then go home again.

PEPITA (a little frightened, after letting JUAN kiss her).

You are not wicked ?

JUAN.

Ask your confessor, — tell him what I said.

(PEP^A goes, while JUAN thrums his lute again, and sings.)

Came a pretty maid

By the moon’s pure light,

Loved me well, she said,

Eyes with tears all bright,

A pretty maid!

But too late she strayed,

Moonlight pure was there ;

She was nought but shade

Hiding the more fair,

The heavenly maid !

A vaulted room all stone. The light shed from a high lamp. Wooden chairs, a

desk, book-shelves. The PRIOR, in white frock, a black rosary with a

crucifix of ebony and ivory at his side, is walking up and down, holding a

written paper in his hands, which are clasped behind him.

What if this witness lies ? he says he heard her

Counting her blasphemies on a rosary,

And in a bold discourse with Salomo,

Say that the Host was naught but ill-mixed flour,

That it was mean to pray, — she never prayed.

I know the man who wrote this for a cur,

Who follows Don Diego, sees life’s good

In scraps my nephew flings to him. What then ?

Particular lies may speak a general truth.

I guess him false, but know her heretic, —

Know her for Satan’s instrument, bedecked

With heathenish charms, luring the souls of men

To damning trust in good unsanctified.

Let her be prisoned, — questioned, — she will give

Witness against herself, that were this false . . . .

(He looks at the paper again and reads, then again thrusts it behind him.)

The matter and the colour are not false :

The form concerns the witness not the judge ;

For proof is gathered by the sifting mind,

Not given in crude and formal circumstance.

Suspicion is a heaven-sent lamp, and I, —

I, watchman of the Holy Office, bear

That lamp in trust. I will keep faithful watch.

The Holy Inquisition’s discipline

Is mercy, saving her, if penitent, —

God grant it ! — else, — root up the poison-plant,

Though ‘t were a lily with a golden heart !

This spotless maiden with her pagan soul

Is the arch-enemy’s trap : he turns his back

On all the prostitutes, and watches her

To see her poison men with false belief

In rebel virtues. She has poisoned Silva ;

His shifting mind, dangerous in fitfulness,

Strong in the contradiction of itself,

Carries his young ambitions wearily,

As holy vows regretted. Once he seemed

The fresh-oped flower of Christian knighthood, born

For feats of holy daring ; and I said :

“ That half of life which I, as monk, renounce,

Shall be fulfilled in him : Silva will be

That saintly noble, that wise warrior,

That blameless excellence in worldly gifts

I would have been, had I not asked to live

The higher life of man impersonal

Who reigns o’er all things by refusing all.

What is his promise now? Apostasy

From every high intent : — languid, nay, gone,

The prompt devoutness of a generous heart,

The strong obedience of a reverent will,

That breathes the Church’s air and sees her light,

He peers and strains with feeble questioning,

Or else he jests. He thinks I know it not, —

I who have read the history of his lapse,

As clear as it is writ in the angel’s book.

He will defy me, — flings great words at me, —

Me who have governed all our house’s acts,

Since I, a stripling, ruled his stripling father.

This maiden is the cause, and if they wed,

The Holy War may count a captain lost.

For better he were dead than keep his place,

And fill it infamously : in God’s war

Slackness is infamy. Shall I stand by

And let the tempter win ? defraud Christ’s cause,

And blot his banner ? — all for scruples weak

Of pity towards their young and frolicsome blood ;

Or nice discrimination of the tool

By which my hand shall work a sacred rescue ?

The fence of rules is for the purblind crowd ;

They walk by averaged precepts ; sovereign men,

Seeing by God’s light, see the general

By seeing all the special, — own no rule

But their full vision of the moment’s worth.

‘T is so God governs, using wicked men, —

Nay, scheming fiends, to work his purposes.

Evil that good may come ? Measure the good

Before you say what’s evil. Perjury ?

I scorn the purjurer, but I will use him

To serve the truth. There is no lie

Save in his soul, and let his soul be judged.

I know the truth, and act upon the truth.

O God, thou knowest that my will is pure.

Thy servant owns naught for himself, his wealth

Is but obedience. And I have sinned

In keeping small respects of human love, —

Calling it mercy. Mercy ? Where evil is

True mercy must be terrible. Mercy would save.

Save whom ? Save serpents, locusts, wolves ?

Or out of pity let the idiots gorge

Within a famished town ? Or save the gains

Of men who trade in poison lest they starve ?

Save all things mean and foul that clog the earth

Stifling the better ? Save the fools who cling

For refuge round their hideous idol’s limbs,

So leave the idol grinning unconsumed,

And save the fools to breed idolaters ?

O mercy worthy of the licking hound