Page images
PDF
EPUB

To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook
All my locks loose, and covered you with them
You, Sebald, the same you!

Seb. Slower, Ottima !

Otti. And as we lay

Seb. Less vehemently! Love me!

Forgive me! take not words, mere words, to heart! Your breath is worse than wine. Breathe slow, speak slow!

Do not lean on me!

Otti. Sebald, as we lay,

Rising and falling only with our pants,

Who said, "Let death come now! 'tis right to die! Right to be punished! nought completes such bliss But woe!" Who said that?

Seb. How did we ever rise?

Was't that we slept? Why did it end?

Otti.

Tapering into a point the ruffled ends

I felt you

Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips— (My hair is fallen now: knot it again!)

Seb. I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now, and now! This way? Will you forgive me-be once more My great queen?

Otti.

Bind it thrice about my brow! Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress,

[blocks in formation]

(From without is heard the voice of PIPPA, singing)

The year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

[blocks in formation]

Otti.

Oh-that little ragged girl!
She must have rested on the step: we give them
But this one holiday the whole year round.
Did you ever see our silk-mills-their inside?
There are ten silk-mills now belong to you.
She stoops to pick my double heartsease. ..
She does not hear: call you out louder !
Seb.

Sh!

Leave me !

Go, get your clothes on-dress those shoulders!
Otti.

Seb. Wipe off that paint. I hate you!
Otti.

Sebald?

Miserable!

Seb. My God! and she is emptied of it now!
Outright now!-how miraculously gone
All of the grace-had she not strange grace once?
Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes,
No purpose holds the features up together,
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin
Stay in their places: and the very hair,
That seemed to have a sort of life in it,
Drops, a dead web!

Otti.

Speak to me-speak not of me!

Seb. That round great full-orbed face, where not

an angle

Broke the delicious indolence-all broken!

Otti. To me-not of me!-ungrateful, perjured

cheat!

A coward, too: but ingrate's worse than all !
Beggar-my slave-a fawning, cringing lie!
Leave me! Betray me! I can see your drift!
A lie that walks, and eats, and drinks!

Seb.
My God!
Those morbid, olive, faultless shoulder-blades-
I should have known there was no blood beneath!
Otti. You hate me, then? You hate me, then?
Seb.

She would succeed in her absurd attempt,
And fascinate by sinning, and show herself
Superior-Guilt from its excess, superior
To Innocence! That little peasant's voice
Has righted all again. Though I be lost,
I know which is the better, never fear,
Of vice or virtue, purity or lust,

Nature, or trick! I see what I have done,
Entirely now! Oh, I am proud to feel

To think

Such torments-let the world take credit thence-
I, having done my deed, pay too its price!

I hate, hate-curse you! God's in His heaven!
Otti.

-Me!

Me! no, no, Sebald-not yourself kill me !
Mine is the whole crime-do but kill me-then
Yourself-then-presently-first hear me speak-
I always meant to kill myself-wait, you!
Lean on my breast-not as a breast; don't love me
The more because you lean on me, my own

Heart's Sebald! There-there-both deaths presently! Seb. My brain is drowned now-quite drowned: all I feel

Is .

[ocr errors]

is at swift-recurring intervals,

A hurrying-down within me, as of waters
Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit—
There they go-whirls from a black, fiery sea!
Otti. Not to me, God-to him be merciful!

From KING VICTOR and KING CHARLES.

VICTOR AMADEUS, KING OF SARDINIA, HAVING ABDICATED IN FAVOUR OF HIS SON, CHARLES EMANUEL, DETERMINES, ON THE SUBSIDENCE OF THE POLITICAL DANGERS WHICH SUGGESTED THAT STEP, TO RESUME HIS DIGNITY, IN RELIANCE UPON THE DUTY OF HIS SON, THE INSIGNIFICANCY OF HIS DAUGHTER-IN-LAW, AND THE OBSEQUIOUSNESS OF HIS OLD MINISTER D'ORMEA. FOR THIS PURPOSE HE PROCEEDS TO RIVOLI PALACE, NEAR TURIN, DURING THE PRESUMED ABSENCE OF THE NEW KING.

Vic. Sure I heard voices? No! Well, I do best To make at once for this, the heart o' the place. The old room! Nothing changed! So near my seat, D'Ormea? [Pushing away the stool which is by the KING'S chair.

I want that meeting over first,

I know not why. Tush, D'Ormea won't be slow

To hearten me, the supple knave! That burst
Of spite so eased him! He'll inform me . . .

What?

Why come I hither? All's in rough; let all
Remain rough; there's full time to draw back-nay,
There's nought to draw back from, as yet: whereas,
If reason should be, to arrest a course

Of error-reason good, to interpose

And save, as I have saved so many times,
Our House, admonish my son's giddy youth,
Relieve him of a weight that proves too much,
Now is the time-or now or never.

This kind of step is pitiful, not due

'Faith,

To Charles, this stealing back-hither, because
He's from his capital! Oh, Victor! Victor!
But thus it is the age of crafty men

carry

Is loathsome; youth contrives to
Dissimulation; we may intersperse
Extenuating passages of strength,
Ardour, vivacity and wit-may turn
E'en guile into a voluntary grace:

oft

But one's old age, when graces drop away

And leave guile the pure staple of our lives-
Ah, loathsome!

Not so or why pause I ? Turin

Is mine to have, were I so minded, for

The asking; all the army's mine-I've witnessed
Each private fight beneath me; all the court's
Mine too; and, best of all, my D'Ormea's still
His D'Ormea; no! there's some grace clinging yet.
Had I decided on this step, ere midnight

I'd take the crown.

No! Just this step to rise

« PreviousContinue »