Love Shuffles the Cards

A Comedy

Dramatis Personae

Page – 700

Act I

Scene 1

The King's Court at Salamanca.

King Philip, Conrad, Beltran, Roncedas, Guzman, Antonio, Basil, Ismenia, Brigida; Grandees.

This melancholy gains upon the King.

To lose the noble hours so emptily.

The King has left his toying with the tassels

Of the great chair and turns slow eyes to us.

Count Beltran.

What is your masque's device

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For which I still must thank your loyal pains

To cheer our stay in this so famous city?

Shall we hear it?

Castilians, forged iron of old time,

And hearts that beat to tread of empires, cannot

Keep pace with dances, entertainments, masques.

But here's my son, a piece of modern colour,

For now our forward children overstep

Their rough begetters — ask him, Sire; I doubt not

His answers shall reveal the grace men lend him

In attribution, — would 'twere used more nobly.

Your son, Lord Beltran? Surely you fatigued

The holy saints in heaven and perfect martyrs

In your yet hopeful youth, till they consented

To your best wish. What masque, Antonio?

That may excuse much error; 'tis the Judgment

Of Paris and the Rape of Spartan Helen.

Antonio? O my poor eyes misled,

Whither have you wandered?

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It has I think

Been staged a little often and though, Antonio,

I doubt not that fine pen and curious staging

Will raise it beyond new things rough conceived,

Yet is fresh subject something.

It were so; this is none. Pardon me, Sir,

I err in boldness, urge too far my answer.

Your boldness, youth, is others' modesty.

Speak freely.

Once only and in that once must all be grasped at

But the swift action of the stage speeds on,

While slow conception labouring after it

Roughens its subtleties, blurs over shades,

Sees masses only. If the plot is new,

The mind is like a traveller pressed for time,

And quite engrossed with incident, omits

To take the breath of flowers and lingering shade

From haste to reach a goal. But the plot old

Leaves it at leisure and it culls at ease

Those delicate, scarcely-heeded strokes, which art

Throws in, to justify genius. These being lost

Perfection's disappointed. Then if old

The subject amplifies creative labour,

For what's creation but to make old things

Admirably new; the other's mere invention,

A small gift, though a gracious. He's creator

Who greatly handles great material,

Calls order out of the abundant deep,

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Not who invents sweet shadows out of air.

You are blessed, Lord Beltran, in your son. His voice

Performs the promise of his eyes; he is

A taking speaker.

My heart out of my bosom.

You have, Lord Beltran, lands of which the fame

Gives much to Nature. I have not yet beheld them.

Indeed I grudge each rood of Spanish earth

My eyes have not perused, my heart stored up.

But what with foreign boyhood, strange extraction,

And hardly reaching with turmoil to power

I am a stranger merely. I have swept

Through beautiful Spain more like a wind than man,

Now fugitive, now blown into my right

On a great whirlwind of success. So tell me,

Have you not many lovely things to live with?

Whether this tree be like a tower or that

A dragon: and I never saw myself

Difference twixt field and field, save the main one

Of size, boundary and revenue; and those

Were great once, — why now lessened and by whom

I will not move you by repeating, Sire,

Although my heart speaks of it feelingly.

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I have not time for hatred or revenge.

Speak then, Antonio, but tell me not

Of formal French demesnes and careful parks,

Life dressed like a stone lady, statuesque.

They please the judging eye, but not the heart.

When Nature is disnatured, all her glowing

Great outlines chillingly disharmonised

Into stiff lines, the heart's dissatisfied,

Asks freedom, wideness; it compares the sweep

Of the large heavens above and feels a discord.

Your architects plan beauty by the yard,

Weigh sand with sand, parallel line with line

But miss the greatest, since uncultured force

Though rude, yet striking home by far exceeds

Artisan's work, mechanically good.

Not Nature carved.

Has she a voice to you?

Silent, she's not so fair.

Muttering through sedge and stone, and willows by them

Leaning dishevelled and forget-me-nots,

Wonders of lurking azure, rue and mallow,

Honeysuckle and painful meadowsweet,

And when we're tired of watching the rich bee

Murmur absorbed about one lonely flower,

Then we can turn and hear a noon of birds.

Each on his own heart's quite intent, yet all

Join sweetness at melodious intervals.

Page – 791

You have many trees?

And separate giants bending to each other

As if they longed to meet. Some are pranked out;

Others wear merely green like foresters.

Like hail of angels to the ear, Brigida?

Unblamed may praise sweet music when they hear it.

You have made me sorrowful. How different

Is this pale picture of a Court, these walls

Shut out from honest breathing; God kept not

His quarries in the wild and distant hills

For such perversion. It was sin when first

Hands serried stone with stone. Guzman, you are

A patient reasoner, — is it not better

To live in the great air God made for us,

A peasant in the open glory of earth,

Feeling it, yet not knowing it, like him

To drink the cool life-giving brook nor crave

The sour fermented madness of the grape

Nor the dull exquisiteness of far-fetched viands

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For the tired palate, but black bread or maize,

Mere wholesome ordinary corn. Think you not

A life so in the glorious sunlight bathed,

Straight nursed and suckled from the vigorous Earth

With shaping labour and the homely touch

Of the great hearty mother, edifies

A nobler kind than nourished is in courts?

For we are even as children, when removed

From those her streaming breasts, we of the sun

Defrauded and the lusty salutation

Of wind and rain, grow up amphibious nothing,

Not man, who are too sickly wise for earth

Nor angel, too corrupt for heirs of heaven.

Not so, Guzman?

Is not a peasant happier than a king?

For he has useful physical toil and sleep

Unbroken as a child's. He is not hedged

By swathing ceremony which forbids

A king to feel himself a man. He has friends,

For he has equals. And in youth he marries

The comrade of his boyhood whom he loved

And gets on that sweet helper stalwart children.

Then vigorously his days endure till age

Sees his grandchildren climbing on his knees,

A happy calm old man; because he lived

Man's genuine life and goes with task accomplished

Thro' death as thro' a gate, not questioning.

Desires another's and deems the heavy burden

Of his own fate the world's sole heaviness.

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Each thing's to its perceptions limited,

Another's are to it intangible,

A shadow far away, quite bodiless,

Lost in conjecture's wide impalpable.

On its unceasing errand through the void

The earth rolls on, a blind and moaning sphere;

It knows not Venus' sorrows, but it looks

With envy crying, "These have light and beauty,

I only am all dark and comfortless."

The land yearning for life, endeavours seaward,

The sea, weary of motion, pines to turn

Into reposeful earth: yet were this done

Each would repine again and hate the doer,

The land would miss its flowers and grass and birds,

The sea long for the coral and the cave.

For he who made expenditure of life

Condition of that life prolonged, made also

Each mortal gift dependent on defect

And truth to one's own self the only virtue.

The labourer physically is divine,

Inward a void; yet in his limits blest.

But were the city's cultured son, who turns

Watching and envious, crying "Were I simple,

Primeval in my life as he, how happy!",

Into such environs confined, how then

His temperament would beat against the bars

Of circumstance and rage for wider field.

Uninterchangeable their natures stand

And self-confined; for so Earth made them, Earth,

The brute and kindly mother groping for mind.

She of her vigorous nature bore her sons,

Made lusty with her milk and strengthening motion

Abundant in her veins; her dumb attraction

Is as their mother's arms, else like the lark

Aiming from her to heaven. And Souls are there

Who rooted in her puissant animalism

Are greatly earthy, yet widen to the bound

Page – 794

And heighten towards the sun. But these are rare

And of no privileged country citizens

Nor to the city bounded nor the field.

They are wise and royal in the furrow, keep

In schools their chastened vigour from the soil

Full-tempered. Man Antaeuslike is strong

While he is natural and feels the soil

From which being lifted great communities

Die in their intellectual grandeur. Let then

The city's many-minded son preserve

And the clear-natured peasant unabridged

Their just, great uses, heighten or refresh

By breath and force of each a different spirit

If may be; one not admit untutored envy,

The other vain imagination making

Return to nature a misleading name

For a reversion most unnatural.

You reason well, Guzman; nor must we pine

At stations where God and his saints have set us.

And yet because I'ld feel the rural air,

Of greatness unreminded, I will go

Tomorrow as a private noble, you,

My lords, forget for one day I'm the king,

Nor watch my moods, nor with your eyes wait on me

Nor disillusionize by close observance

But keep as to an equal courtesy.

Well, sir, Your Ancient Wisdom —

Page – 795

Are absolute, you'ld say,

Over men only? Custom masters kings.

I'll not be ruled by your stale ceremonies

As kings are by an arrogating Senate,

But will control them, wear them when I will,

Walk disencumbered when I will. Enough.

You have done your part in protest. I have heard you.

And now, my lords.

Tell on, Antonio. Who perform the masque?

The daughters of the soil, whom country air

Has given the red-blooded health to bloom.

Full of our Spanish sunlight are they, voiced

Like Junos and will make our ladies pale

Before them. And there's a Farmer's lovely daughter,

A marvel. Robed in excellent apparel,

As she will be, there's not a maid in Spain

Can stand beside her and stay happy. My sons

Have spared nor words nor music nor array

Nor beauty, to express their loyal duty.

I am much graced by this their gentle trouble

And yet, Lord Beltran, there are nobler things

Than these brocaded masques; not that I scorn these, —

Do not believe I would be so ungracious, —

Nor anything belittle in which true hearts

Interpret their rich silence. Yet there's one

Desire, I would exchange for many masques.

Page – 796

'Tis little: an easy word bestows it wholly,

And yet, I fear, for you too difficult.

Doubt my compliance. Name and take it. Else judge me.

Why, noble reconcilement, Conde Beltran,

Sweet friendship between mighty jarring houses

And by great intercession war renounced

Betwixt magnificent hearts: these are the masques

Most sumptuous, these the glorious theatres

That subjects should present to princes. Conrad

And noble Beltran, I respect the wrath

Sunders your pride: yet mildness has the blessing

Of God and is religion's perfect mood.

Admit that better weakness. Throw your hearts

Wide to the low knock of entering peace: let not

The ashes of a rage the world renounces

Smoulder between you nor outdated griefs

Keep living. What, quite silent? Will you, Conrad,

Refuse to me your anger, who so often

Have for my sake your very life renounced?

I know not how to abandon. Not in the sway

Of other men's affections I have lived

But walked in the straight road my fortunes build me.

Let any love who will or any hate who will,

I take both with a calm, unburdened spirit,

Inarm my lover as a friend, embrace

My enemy as a wrestler: do my will,

Because it is my will, go where I go

Because my path lies there. If any cross me,

That is his choice, not mine. And if he suffer,

Page – 797

Again it is his choice, not mine. If I,

That is my star: I curse him not for it:

My fate's beyond his making as my spirit's

Above affection by him. I hate no man

And if Lord Beltran give to me his hand,

Gladly I'll clasp it, easily forget

Outdated injuries and wounds long healed.

Who now can say the ill-doer ne'er forgives?

Conrad has dispossessed my kinsmen, slain

My vassals, me of ancient lands relieved,

Thinned my great house; but Beltran is forgiven.

Will you not now enlarge your generous nature,

Wrong me still more, have new and ampler room

For exercise to your forgiving heart?

I do embrace misfortune and fresh loss

Before your friendship, lord.

No more of this.

For so much Christianity. Lord Conrad,

I will not trouble you further. And perhaps

With help of the good saints and holy Virgin

I too shall make me some room to pardon in.

Mine was the stronger. When I was but a boy

I carved your lands out. So had you won mine

If you had simply grappled fortune to you

And kept her faithful with your sword. 'Tis not

Crooked dexterity that has the secret

Page – 798

To win her. Briefly I hold your lands and satire

Has no sharp edge, till it cut that from me.

KING PHILIP

This is unprofitable. No more of it.

Lord Conrad, you go homeward with the dawn?

CONRAD

Winning your gracious leave to have with me

My sisters, Sir.

KING PHILIP

The Queen is very loth

To lose her favourites, but to disappoint you

Much more unwilling.

Exeunt King, Beltran, Guzman and Grandees.

RONCEDAS

A word with you, Lord Conrad.

CONRAD

As many as you will, Roncedas.

RONCEDAS

This. (whispers)

My lord, your good friend always.

CONRAD

So you have been.

Exit Roncedas.

Cousin, and sweetest sister, I am bound

Homeward upon a task that needs my presence.

Don Mario and his wife will bring you there.

Are you content or shall I stay for you?

ISMENIA

With all you do, dear brother, yet would have

Page – 799

Your blessing by me.

CONRAD

May your happiness

Greatly exceed my widest wishes.

Exit Conrad.

ISMENIA

So

It must do, brother, or I am unhappy.

What task?

BRIGIDA

Some girl-lifting. What other task

Will he have now? Shall we go, cousin?

ISMENIA

Stay.

Let us not press so closely after them.

BRIGIDA

Good manners? Oh, your pardon. I was blind.

BASIL

Are you a lover or a fish, Antonio?

Speak. She yet lingers.

ANTONIO

Speak?

BASIL

The devil remove you

Where you can never more have sight of her.

I lose all patience.

BRIGIDA

Cousin, I know you're tired

Page – 800

With standing. Sit, and if you tire with that,

As perseverance is a powerful virtue,

For your reward the dumb may speak to you.

ISMENIA

What shall I do, dear girl?

BRIGIDA

Why, speak the first,

Count Conrad's sister! Be the Mahomet

To your poor mountain. Hang me if I think not

The prophet's hill more moveable of the two;

An earthquake stirs not this. What ails the man?

He has made a wager with some lamp-post surely.

ISMENIA

Brigida, are you mad? Be so immodest?

A stranger and my house's enemy!

BRIGIDA

No, never speak to him. It would be indeed

Horribly forward.

ISMENIA

Why, you jest, Brigida.

I'm no such light thing that I must be dumb

Lest men mistake my speaking. Let hidden frailness

Or men suspect to their own purity

Guard every issue of speech and gesture. Wherefore

Should I be hedged so meanly in? To greet

With few words, cold and grave, as is befitting

This gentle youth, why do you call immodest?

BRIGIDA

You must not.

Page – 801

ISMENIA

Must not? Why, I will.

BRIGIDA

I say,

You must not, child.

ISMENIA

I will then, not because

I wish (why should I?), but because you always

Provoke me with your idle prudities.

BRIGIDA

Good! you've been wishing it the last half hour

And now you are provoked to't. Charge him, charge him.

I stand here as reserve.

ISMENIA

Impossible creature!

But no! You shall not turn me.

BRIGIDA

'Twas not my meaning.

ISMENIA

Sir —

BASIL

Rouse yourself, Antonio. Gather back

Your manhood, or you're shamed without retrieval.

ISMENIA

Help me, Brigida.

BRIGIDA

Not I, cousin.

Page – 802

ISMENIA

Sir,

You spoke divinely well. I say this, Sir,

Not to recall to you that we have met —

Since you will not remember —  but because

I would not have you —  anyone think this of me

That since you are Antonio and my enemy

And much have hurt me —  to the heart, therefore

When one speaks or does worthily, I can

Admire not, nor love merit, whosoe'er

Be its receptacle. This was my meaning.

I could not bear one should not know this of me.

Therefore I spoke.

BASIL

Speak or be dumb for ever.

ISMENIA

I see, you have mistook me why I spoke

And scorn me. Sir, you may be right to think

You have so sweet a tongue would snare the birds

From off the branches, ravish an enemy, —

Some such poor wretch there may be —  witch her heart out,

If you could care for anything so cheap,

And hold it in your hand, lost, —  lost —  Oh me!

Brigida!

BASIL

O base silence! Speak! She is

Confounded. Speak, you sheep, you!

ISMENIA

Though this is so,

You do me wrong to think me such an one,

Most flagrant wrong, Antonio. To think that I

Wait one word of your lips to woo you, yearn

To be your loving servant at a word

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From you, —  one only word and I am yours.

BASIL

Admirable lady! Saints, can you be dumb

Who hear this?

ISMENIA

Still you scorn me. For all this

You shall not make me angry. Do you imagine

Because you know I am Lord Conrad's sister

And lodge with Donna Clara Santa Cruz

In the street Velasquez, and you have seen it

With marble front and the quaint mullioned windows,

That you need only after vespers, when

The streets are empty, stand there, and I will

Send one to you? Indeed, indeed I merit not

You should think poorly of me. If you're noble

And do not scorn me, you will carefully

Observe the tenour of my prohibition.

Brigida!

BRIGIDA

Come away with your few words,

Your cold grave words. You've frozen his speech with them.

Exeunt.

ANTONIO

Heavens! it was she —  her words were not a dream,

Yet I was dumb. There was a majesty

Even in her tremulous playfulness, a thrill

When she smiled most, made my heart beat too quickly

For speech. O that I should be dumb and shamefast,

When with one step I might grasp Paradise.

BASIL

Antonio!

Page – 804

ANTONIO

I was not deceived. She blushed,

And the magnificent scarlet to her cheeks

Welled from her heart an ocean inexhaustible.

Rose but outcrimsoned rose. Yes, every word

Royally marred the whiteness of her cheeks

With new impossibilities of beauty.

She blushed, and yet as with an angry shame

Of that delicious weakness, gallantly

Her small imperious head she held erect

And strove in vain to encourage those sweet lids

That fluttered lower and lower. O that but once

My tongue had been as bold as were mine eyes!

But these were fastened to her as with cords,

Courage in them naked necessity.

BASIL

Ah poor Antonio. You're bewitched, you're maimed,

Antonio. You must make her groan who did this.

One sense will always now be absent from him.

Lately he had no tongue. Now that's returned

His ears are gone on leave. Hark you, Antonio!

Why do we stay here?

ANTONIO

I am in a dream.

Lead where you will, since there is no place now

In all the world, but only she or silence.

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Scene 2

Antonio, Basil.

BASIL

I am abashed for you. What, make a lady

Woo you, and she a face so excellent,

Of an address so admirably lovely

It shows a goddess in her —  at each sentence

Let pause to give you opportunity,

Then shame with the dead silence of the hall

For her continual answer. Fie, you're not

Antonio, you're not Beltran's issue. Seek

Your kindred in the snowdrifts of the Alps,

Or call a post your father.

ANTONIO

I deserve

Your censure, Basil. Yet were it done again,

I know I should again be dumb. My tongue

Teems in imagination but is barren

In actuality. When I am from her,

I woo her with the accent of a god,

My mind o'erflows with words as the wide Nile

With waters. Let her but appear and I

Am her poor mute. She may do her will with me

And O remember but her words. When she,

Ah she, my white divinity with that kindness

Celestial in the smiling of her eyes

And in her voice the world's great music, rose

Of blushing frankness, half woman and half angel,

Crowned me unwooed, lavished on me her heart

Page – 806

In her prodigious liberality,

Could I then speak? O to have language then

Had been the index to a shallow love.

BASIL

Away! you modest lovers are the blot

Of manhood, traitors to our sovereignty.

I'ld have you banished, all of you, and kept

In desert islands, where no petticoat

Should enter, so the breed of you might perish.

ANTONIO

You speak against the very sense of Love

Which lives by service.

BASIL

Flat treason! Was not man made

Woman's superior that he might control her,

In strength to exact obedience and in wisdom

To guide her will, in wit to keep her silent,

Three Herculean labours. O were women

Once loose, they would new-deluge earth with words,

Sapiently base creation on its apex,

Logic would be new-modelled, arithmetic

Grow drunk and reason despairing abdicate.

No thunderbolt could stop a woman's will,

Once it is started.

ANTONIO

O you speak at ease.

Loved you, you would recant this and without small

Torture to quicken you.

BASIL

I? I recant?

I wish, Antonio, I had known your case

Earlier. I would have taught you how to love.

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ANTONIO

Come, will you woo a woman? Teach me at least

By diagram upon a blackboard.

BASIL

Well,

I will so, if it should hearten your weak spirits.

And now I think of it, I am resolved

I'll publish a new Art of Love, shall be

The only Ovid memorable.

ANTONIO

Well, quickly teach

Your diagram. Suppose your maid and win her.

BASIL

First, I would kiss her.

ANTONIO

What, without leave asked?

BASIL

Leave? Ask a woman leave to kiss her! Why,

What was she made for else?

ANTONIO

If she is angry?

BASIL

So much the better. Then you by repetition

Convince her of your manly strength, which is

A great point gained at the outset and moreover

Your duty, comfortable to yourself.

Besides she likes it. On the same occasion

When she will scold, I'll silence her with wit.

Laughter breaks down impregnable battlements.

Let me but make her smile and there is conquest

Page – 808

Won by the triple strength, horse, foot, artillery,

Of eloquence, wit and muscle. Then but remains

Pacification, with or else without

The Church's help; that's a mere form and makes

No difference to the principle.

ANTONIO

There should be

Inquisitions for such as you. What after?

BASIL

Nothing unless you wish to assure the conquest,

Not plunder it merely like a Tamerlane.

I'll teach that also. 'Tis but making her

Realise her inferiority.

Unanswerably and o'erwhelmingly

Show her how fortunate she is to get you

And all her life too short for gratitude;

That you have robbed her merely for her good,

To civilize her or to train her up:

Punish each word that shows want of affection.

Plague her to death and make her thank you for it.

Accustom her to sing hosannas to you

When you beat her. All this is ordinary,

And every wise benevolent conqueror

Has learnt the trick of it. Then she'll love for ever.

ANTONIO

You are a Pagan and would burn for this

If Love still kept his Holy Office.

BASIL

I

Am safe from him.

ANTONIO

And therefore boast securely

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Conducting in imagination wars

That others have the burden of. I've seen

The critical civilian in his chair

Win famous victories with wordy carnage,

Guide his strategic finger o'er a map,

Cry "Eugene's fault! Here Marlborough was to blame;

And look, a child might see it, Villars' plain error

That lost him Malplaquet!" I think you are

Just such a pen-and-paper strategist.

A wooer!

BASIL

Death! I will have pity on you,

Antonio. You shall see my great example

And learn by me.

ANTONIO

Good! I'm your pupil. But hear,

A pretty face or I'll not enter for her,

Wellborn or I shall much discount your prowess.

BASIL

Agreed. And yet they say, Experimentum

In corpore vili. But I take your terms

Lest you substract me for advantages.

ANTONIO

Look where the enemy comes. You are well off

If you can win her.

BASIL

A rare face, by Heaven.

Almost too costly a piece of goods for this

Mad trial.

ANTONIO

You sound retreat?

Page – 810

BASIL

Not I an inch.

Watch how I'll overcrow her.

ANTONIO

Hush, she's here.

Enter Brigida.

BRIGIDA

Señor, I was bidden to deliver this letter to you.

BASIL

To me, sweetheart?

BRIGIDA

I have the inventory of you in my pock, if you be he truly. I will study it. Hair of the ordinary poetic length —  no; dress indefinable —  no; a modest address —  I think not you, Señor; a noble manner —  Pooh, no! that fits not in; a handsome face —  I am sure not you, Señor.

BASIL

Humph.

ANTONIO

Well, cousin. All silent? Open your batteries, open your batteries.

BASIL

Wait, wait. Ought a conqueror to be hurried? Caesar himself must study his ground before he attempts it. You will hear my trumpets instanter.

BRIGIDA

Will you take your letter, Sir?

Page – 811

ANTONIO

To me then, maiden? A dainty-looking note, and I marvel much from whom it can be. I do not know the handwriting. A lady's, seemingly, yet it has a touch of the masculine too —  there is rapidity and initiative in its flow. Fair one, from whom comes this?

BRIGIDA

Why, sir, I am not her signature; which if you will look within, I think you will find unforgotten.

BASIL

Here is a clever woman, Antonio, to think of that, and she but eighteen or a miracle.

ANTONIO

Well, cousin?

BRIGIDA

This Don Witty-pate eyes me strangely. I fear he will recognise me.

ANTONIO

Ismenia Ostrocadiz. O my joy!

BRIGIDA

You're ill, sir, you change colour.

ANTONIO

Now, by heaven,

Were death within my heart's door or his blast

Upon my eyelids, this would exile him.

The writing swims before me.

BRIGIDA

Sir, you pale

Extremely. Is there no poison in the letter?

Page – 812

ANTONIO

O might I so be poisoned hourly. Let me

No longer dally with my happiness,

Lest it take wings or turn a dream. Hail, letter,

For thou hast come from that white hand I worship.

"To Lord Antonio.

Señor, how you may deem of my bold wooing,

How cruelly I suffer in your thoughts,

I dread to think. Take the plain truth, Antonio.

I cannot live without your love. If you

From this misdoubt my nobleness or infer

A wanton haste or instability, —

As men pretend quick love is quickly spent —

Tear up this letter, and with it my heart.

And yet I hope you will not tear it. I love you

And since I saw our family variance

And your too noble fearfulness withhold me

From my heart's lord, I have thrown from me shame

And the admired dalliance of women

To bridge it. Come to me, Antonio! Come,

But come in honour. I am not nor can be

So far degenerate from my house's greatness

Or my pure self to love ignobly. Dear,

I have thrown from me modesty's coy pretences

But the reality I'll grapple to me

Close as your image. I am loth to end,

Yet must, and therefore will I end with this,

Beloved, love me, respect me or forget me."

Writing more sweet than any yet that came

From heaven to earth, O thou dear revelation,

Make my lips holy. Ah, could I imagine

Thee the white hand that wrote thee, I were blest

Utterly. Thou hast made me twice myself.

I think I am another than Antonio:

The sky seems nearer to me or the earth

Environed with a sacred light. O come!

I'll study to imprint this on my heart,

Page – 813

That when death comes he'll find it there and leave it,

A monument and an immortal writing.

BASIL

Damsel, you are of the Lady Ismenia's household?

BRIGIDA

A poor relative of hers, Señor.

BASIL

Your face seems strangely familiar to me. Have I not seen you in some place where I constantly resort?

BRIGIDA

O Sir, I hope you do not think so meanly of me. I am a poor girl but an honest.

BASIL

How, how?

BRIGIDA

I know not how. I spoke only as the spirit moved me.

BASIL

You have a marvellously nimble tongue. Two words with you.

BRIGIDA

Willingly, Señor, if you exceed not measure.

BASIL

Fair one —

BRIGIDA

Oh, sir, I am glad I listened. I like your two words extremely.

God be with you.

Page – 814

BASIL

Why, I have not begun yet.

BRIGIDA

The more shame to your arithmetic. If your teacher had reckoned as loosely with his cane-cuts, he would have made the carefuller scholar.

BASIL

God's wounds, will you listen to me?

BRIGIDA

Well, Sir, I will not insist upon numbers. But pray, for your own sake, swear no more. No eloquence will long stand such drafts upon it.

BASIL

If you would listen, I would tell you a piece of news that might please you.

BRIGIDA

Let it be good news, new news and repeatable news and I will thank you for it.

BASIL

Sure, maiden, you are wondrous beautiful.

BRIGIDA

Señor, Queen Anne is dead. Tell me the next.

BASIL

The next is, I will kiss you.

BRIGIDA

Oh, Sir, that's a prophecy. Well, death and kissing come to all of us, and by what disease the one or by whom the other, wise men care not to forecast. It profits little to study calamities

Page – 815

beforehand. When it comes, I pray God I may learn to take it with resignation, if I cannot do better.

BASIL

By my life, I will kiss you and without farther respite.

BRIGIDA

On what ground?

BASIL

Have I not told you, you are beautiful?

BRIGIDA

So has my mirror, not once but a hundred times, and never yet offered to kiss me. When it does, I'll allow your logic. No, we are already near  enough to each other. Pray keep your distance.

BASIL

I will establish my argument with my lips.

BRIGIDA

I will defend mine with my hand. I promise you 'twill prove the abler dialectician of the two.

BASIL

Well.

BRIGIDA

I am glad you think so, Señor. My lord, I cannot stay. What shall I tell my lady?

ANTONIO

Tell her my heart is at her feet, and I

Am hers, hers only until heaven ceases

And after. Tell her that I am more blest

In her sweet condescension to my humbleness

Than Ilian Anchises when Love's mother

Page – 816

Stooped from her golden heavens into his lap.

Tell her that as a goddess I revere her

And as a saint adore; that she and life

Are one to me, for I've no heart but her,

No atmosphere beyond her pleasure, light

But what her eyes allow me. Tell, O tell her —

BRIGIDA

Hold, hold, Señor. You may tell her all this yourself. I would not remember the half of it and could not understand the other half. Shall I tell her, you will come surely?

ANTONIO

As sure as is the sun to its fixed hour

Or midnight to its duty. I will come.

BRIGIDA

Good! there are at last three words a poor girl can understand. Mark then, you will wait a while after nightfall, less than half a bowshot from the place you know towards the Square Velasquez, within sight of the Donna's windows. There I will come to you. Sir, if your sword be half as ready and irresistible as your tongue, I would gladly have you there with him, though Saint Iago grant that neither prove necessary. You look sad, Sir. God save you for a witty and eloquent gentleman.

Exit.

ANTONIO

O cousin, I am bewitched with happiness.

Pardon me that I leave you. Solitude

Demands a god and godlike I am grown

Unto myself. This letter deifies me.

I will be sole with my felicity.

Exit.

BASIL

God grant that I am not bewitched also! Saints and angels! How

Page – 817

is it? How did it happen? Is the sun still in heaven? Is that the song of a bird or a barrel-organ? I am not drunk either. I can still distinguish between a tree and the squirrel upon it. What, am I not Basil? whom men call the witty and eloquent Basil? Did I not laugh from the womb? Was not my first cry a jest upon the world I came into? Did I not invent a conceit upon  y mother's milk ere I had sucked of it? Death! and have I been bashed and beaten by the tongue of a girl? silenced by a common purveyor of impertinences? It is so and yet it cannot be. I begin to believe in the dogmas of the materialist. The gastric juice rises in my estimation. Genius is after all only a form of indigestion, a line of Shakespeare the apotheosis of a leg of mutton and the peculations of Plato an escape of diseased tissue arrested in the permanency of ink.  What did I break my fast with this morning? Kippered herring? bread? marmalade? tea? O kippered herring, art thou the material form of  stupidity and is marmalade an enemy of wit? It must be so. O mighty gastric juice! Mother and Saviour! I bow down before thee. Be propitious, fair goddess, to thy adorer.

Arise, Basil. Today thou shalt retrieve thy tarnished laurels or be expunged for ever from the book of the witty. Arm thyself in full panoply of allusion and irony, gird on raillery like a sword and repartee like a buckler. I will meet this girl tonight. I will tund her with conceits, torture her  with ironies, tickle her with jests, prick her all over with epigrams. My wit shall smother her,  tear her, burst her sides, press her to death, hang her, draw her, quarter her, and if all this fails, Death! as a last revenge, I'll —  I'll beat her. Saints!

Page – 818

Scene 3

ISMENIA

Brigida lingers. O, he has denied me

And therefore she is loth to come, for she

Knows she will bring me death. It is not so.

He has detained her to return an answer.

Yet I asked none. I am full of fear. O heart,

I have staked thee upon a desperate cast,

Which if I win not, I am miserable.

'Tis she. O that my hope could give her wings

Or lift her through the window bodily

To shorten this age of waiting. I could not

Discern her look. Her steps sound hopefully.

Enter Brigida.

Dearest Brigida! at last! What says Antonio? Tell me quickly.

Heavens! you look melancholy.

BRIGIDA

Santa Catarina! How weary I am! My ears too! I think they have listened to more nonsense in these twenty minutes than  in all their natural  eighteen years before. Sure, child, thou hast committed some unpardonable sin to have such a moonstruck  lover as this Antonio.

ISMENIA

But, Brigida!

BRIGIDA

And his shadow too, his Cerberus of wit who guards this poetical treasure. He would have eaten me, I think, if I had not given him

Page – 819

the wherewithal to stop the three mouths of him.

ISMENIA

Why, Brigida, Brigida.

BRIGIDA

Saints! to think how men lie! I have heard this Basil reputed loudly for the Caesar of wits, the tongue and laughter of the  time; but never credit me, child, if I did not silence him with a few stale pertnesses a market-girl might have devised for her customers. A wit, truly! and not a word  in his mouth bullet-head Pedro could not better.

ISMENIA

Distraction! What is this to Antonio? Sure, your wits are bewildered, Brigida. What said Antonio? Girl, I am on thorns.

BRIGIDA

I am coming to that as fast as possible. Jesus! What a burning hurry you are in, Ismenia! You have not your colour, child. I will  bring you sal volatile from my chamber. 'Tis in a marvellous cut bottle with a different hue to each facet! I filched it from Donna Clara's room when she was at matins yesterday.

ISMENIA

Tell me, you magpie, tell me.

BRIGIDA

What am I doing else? You must know I found Antonio was in his garden. Oh, did I tell you, Ismenia? Donna Clara chooses the seeds for me  this season and I think she has as rare a notion of nasturtiums as any woman living. I was speaking to Pedro in the summer house yesterday; for you remember it thundered terrifically before one had time to know light from darkness; and there I stood miles from the garden door — 

Page – 820

ISMENIA

In the name of pity, Brigida.

BRIGIDA

Saints! how you hurry me. Well, when I went to Antonio in his garden —  There's an excellent garden, Ismenia. I wonder where  Don Beltran's gardener had his bignonias.

ISMENIA

Oh-h-h!

BRIGIDA

Well, where was I? Oh, giving the letter to Antonio. Why, would you believe it, in thrust Don Wit, Don Cerberus, Don Subtle- three-mouths.

ISMENIA

Will you tell me, you ogress, you paragon of tyrannesses, you she-Nero, you compound of impossible cruelties?

BRIGIDA

Saints, what have I done to be abused so? I was coming to it faster  than a mail-coach and four. You would not be so unconscionable  as to ask me for the appendage of a story, all tail and nothing to hang it on? Well, Antonio took the letter.

ISMENIA

Yes, yes and what answer gave he?

BRIGIDA

He looked all over the envelope to see whence it came, dissertated learnedly on this knotty question, abused me your handwriting foully.

ISMENIA

Dear cousin, sweet cousin, excellent Brigida! On my knees, I entreat you, do not tease me longer. Though I know you would

Page – 821

not do it, if all were not well, yet consider what a weak tremulous thing is the heart of woman when she loves and have pity on me. On my knees, sweetest.

BRIGIDA

Why, Ismenia, I never knew you so humble in my life, —  save indeed to your brother; but him indeed I do not reckon. He would rule even me if I let him. On your knees, too! This is excellent. May I be lost, if I am not tempted to try how long I can keep you so. But I will be merciful. Well, he scanned your handwriting and reviled it for the script of a virago, an Amazon.

ISMENIA

Brigida, if you will not tell me directly, without phrase and plainly, just what I want to know and nothing else, by heaven, I will beat you.

BRIGIDA

Now, this is foul. Can you not keep your better mood for fifty seconds by the clock? O temper, temper. Ah well, where was I? Oh yes, your handwriting. Oh! Oh! Oh! What mean you, cousin? Lord deliver me. Cousin! Cousin! He will come! He will come! He will come!

ISMENIA

Does he love me?

BRIGIDA

Madly! distractedly! like a moonstruck natural! Saints!

ISMENIA

Dearest, dearest Brigida! You are an angel. How can I thank you?

BRIGIDA

Child, you have thanked me out of breath already. If you have not dislocated my shoulder and torn half my hair out.

Page – 822

ISMENIA

Hear her, the Pagan! A gentle physical agitation and some rearrangement of tresses, 'twas less punishment than you deserved. But there! that is salve for you. And now be sober, sweet. What said Antonio? Come, tell me. I am greedy to know.

BRIGIDA

I'll be hanged if I do. Besides I could not if I would. He talked poetry.

ISMENIA

But did he not despise me for my forwardness?

BRIGIDA

Tut, you are childish. But to speak the bare fact, Ismenia, I think he is most poetically in love with you. He made preparations to swoon when he no more than saw your name; but I build nothing on that; there are some faint when they smell a pinch of garlic or spy a cockchafer. But he wasted ten minutes copying your letter into his heart or some such note-book of love affairs; yet that was nothing either; I doubt if he found room for you, unless on the margin. Then he began drawing cheques on Olympus for comparisons, left that presently as antique and out of date, confounded Ovid and his breviary in the same quest; left that too for mediaeval, and diverged into Light and Heat, but came not to the very modernness of electricity. But Lord! Cousin, what a career he ran! He had imagined himself blind and breathless when I stopped him. I tremble to think what calamities might have ensued, had I not thrown myself under the wheels of his metaphor. The upshot is, he loves you, worships you and will come to you.

ISMENIA

O Brigida, Brigida, be you as happy as you have made me.

BRIGIDA

Truly, the happiness of lovers, children with a new plaything and

Page – 823

mad to handle it. But when they are tired of the game —  No, I'll

be the type and patroness of all spinsters and the noble army of

old maids shall gather about my tomb to do homage to me.

ISMENIA

And he will come tonight?

BRIGIDA

Yes, if his love lasts so long.

ISMENIA

For a thousand years. Come with me, Brigida, and help me to bear my happiness. Till tonight!

Page – 824

Scene 4

Antonio, Basil.

ANTONIO

This is the place.

BASIL

'Tis farther.

ANTONIO

This, I know it.

Here's the square Velasquez. There in his saddle

Imperial Charles watches the silent city

His progeny could not keep. Where the one light

Stands beckoning to us, is Don Mario's dwelling.

O thou celestial lustre, wast thou kindled

To be her light who is my sun? If so,

Thou art most happy. For thou dost inherit

The sanctuary of her dear sleep and art

The confidant of those sweet secrecies.

Though thou live for a night, yet is thy short

And noble ministry more rich and costly

Than ages of the sun. For thou hast seen,

O blessed, her unveiled and gleaming shoulder

Make her thick-treasured hair more precious. Thou

Hast watched that face upon her heavenly pillow

Slumbering amid its peaceful curls. O more!

For thou perhaps hast laid one brilliant finger

On her white breast mastered with sacred sleep,

And there known Paradise. Therefore thou'rt famous

Above all lights that human hands have kindled.

Page – 825

BASIL

Here's a whole epic on an ounce of oil,

A poor, drowned wick bought from the nearest chandler

And a fly sodden in it.

ANTONIO

Listen! one comes.

BASIL

Stand back, abide not question.

ANTONIO

They'll not doubt us.

We are far from the building.

BASIL

Am I mad?

Do you think I'll trust a lover? Why, you could not

Even ask the time but you would say, "Good sir,

How many minutes to Ismenia?"

ANTONIO

Well,

Stand back.

BASIL

No need. I see it. 'Tis the she-guide,

The feminine Mercury, the tongue, the woman.

Enter Brigida.

Hark to the bell now.

BRIGIDA

You, my lord Antonio?

This way, my lord.

ANTONIO

Which way you will. I know

Page – 826

You are my guide to heaven.

BRIGIDA

O you have come?

I take this kindly of you, Señor. Tell me,

Were you not hiding when I came up to you?

What was it, Sir? A constable or perhaps

A creditor? For to be dashed by a weak girl

I know you are too bold. What did you say?

I did not hear you. We are there, my lord.

Now quietly, if you love her, your sweet lady.

(to Basil)

Can you be silent, Señor? We are lost else.

Page – 827

Scene 5

Ismenia waiting.

ISMENIA

It is too dark. I can see nothing. Hark!

Surely it was the door that fastened then.

My heart, control thyself! Thou beatst too quickly

And wilt break in the arms of happiness.

Brigida.

BRIGIDA

Here. Enter, my lord, and take her.

ANTONIO

Ismenia!

ISMENIA

Antonio, O Antonio!

ANTONIO

My heart's dearest.

BRIGIDA

Bring your wit this way, Sir.

It is not needed.

Exit with Basil.

ISMENIA

O not thus! You shame me.

This is my place, dear, at your feet; and then

Higher than is my right.

Page – 828

Blasphemy to touch my heaven, though your lips

Have hallowed it. Highest were low for you.

You are a goddess and adorable.

ISMENIA

Alas, Antonio, this is not the way.

I fear you do not love me, you despise me.

Come, do you not despise me?

ANTONIO

The leaf might then

Despise the moonbeam that has come to kiss it.

I love and reverence.

ISMENIA

Then you must take me,

As I have given myself to you, your servant,

Yours wholly, not to be prayed to and hymned

As a divinity but to be commanded

As a dear handmaid. You must rule me, sweet,

Or I shall spoil with liberty and lose you.

I needs must smile when I attempt it. Come,

Shall I command you?

Upon my shoulder so and do not dare

To lift it till I give you leave.

Page – 829

ISMENIA

Alas,

I fear you'll be a tyrant. And I meant

To bear at most a limited monarchy.

ANTONIO

No murmuring. Answer my questions.

ISMENIA

Well,

That's easy and I will.

But that's almost impossible. I'll try.

ANTONIO

Come, when did you first love me?

ISMENIA

Dear, today.

ANTONIO

When will you marry me?

ISMENIA

Tomorrow, dear.

ANTONIO

Here is a mutinous kingdom to my hands.

Now truly.

Page – 830

No more than seven, at the court I saw you,

And with the sight my life was troubled, heard you

And your voice tore my heart out. O Antonio,

I was an empty thing until today.

I saw you daily, but because I feared

What now I know, you were Lord Beltran's son,

I dared not ask your name, nay shut my ears

To knowledge. O my love, I am afraid.

Your father seems a hard vindictive man.

What will you do with me, Antonio?

ANTONIO

Fasten

My jewel safe from separating hands

Holily on my bosom. My father? He

Shall know not of our love, till we are sure

From rude disunion. Though he will be angry

I am his eldest and beloved son,

And when he feels your sweetness and your charm

He will repent and thank me for a daughter.

Impossibilities. Well, let me know —

You've made me blush, Antonio, and I wish

I could retaliate —  were you not amazed

At my mad forwardness, to woo you first,

A youth unknown?

ANTONIO

Yes, even as Adam was

When he first saw the sunrise over Eden.

It was unsunlike to uplift the glory

Of those life-giving rays, unwooed, uncourted.

Page – 831

ANTONIO

Three days before I had the bliss to win

The wonder of your eyes.

Three days, Antonio? Three whole days before

I loved you?

You've made me jealous. I am angry. Three

Whole days! How could it happen?

You compensation, dear; for in revenge

I'll love you three whole days, when you have ceased

To love me.

ISMENIA

O not even in jest, Antonio,

Speak of such separation. Sooner shall

The sun divorce his light than we two sunder.

But you have given me a spur. I must

Love you too much, I must, Antonio, more

Than you love me, or the account's not even.

A noise?

ANTONIO

One passes in the street.

ISMENIA

We are

Page – 832

Too near the window and too heedless, love.

Come this way; here 'tis safe; I fear your danger.

Exeunt. After a while enter Brigida.

Enter Basil.

Is all quiet?

BASIL

Not a mouse stirring.

BRIGIDA

Put up your sword, pray you; I think there is no danger, and if one comes, you may draw again in time to cut its tail off.

Page – 833

begin to feel this strip of a girl is making an ass of me. I am transformed; I feel it. I shall hear myself bray presently. But  I will defy enchantment, I will handle her. A plague! Must I continually be stalemated by a will-o'-the-wisp, all sparkle and nowhere? Courage, Basil.

BASIL

In bare truth, Señorita, I am so chilled that I was even about to beg of you a most sweet and warming cordial.

BRIGIDA

For a small matter like that, I would be loth to deny you. You shall have it immediately.

Page – 834

BRIGIDA

That is too compound an interest. I do entreat you, Sir, have a care. This usury is punishable by the law.

BRIGIDA

O sir, you are as wasteful an accountant of kisses as of words. I foresee you will go bankrupt. No more. Señor, what noise was that on the stair? Good, now you have your distance. I will ev'n trouble you to keep it. No nearer, I tell you. You do not observe the laws of the duello. You take advantages.

BASIL

Well.

BRIGIDA

O no, Señor, it is not well; indeed it is not well. You shall not do this again. If I must die, I must die. You are scatheless. Pray now, disburden your intellect of all the brilliant things it has so painfully kept to itself. Plethora is unwholesome and I would not have you perish of an apoplexy of wit. Pour it out on me, conceit, epigram, irony, satire, vituperation; flout and invective, tu quoque and double-entendre, pun and quibble, rhyme and

Page – 835

unreason, catcall and onomatopoeia; all, all, though it be an avalanche. It will be terrible, but I will stand the charge of it.

BASIL

St Iago! I think she has the whole dictionary in her stomach. I grow desperate.

BASIL

I am bewitched certainly.

BRIGIDA

Señor, is it still pity? But why on me alone? O sir, have pity on the whole world and be always silent. Well, I see your benevolence is unconquerable. With your leave, we will pass from unprofitable talk; I would be glad to recall the sound of your voice. You may come nearer, since you decline the duello.

Page – 836

BRIGIDA

Don Basil, shall we talk soberly?

BASIL

At your pleasure, Madam.

BRIGIDA

No Madam, Señor, but a poor companion. You go to Count Beltran's house tomorrow?

BASIL

It is so intended.

BRIGIDA

O the masque, who play it?

BASIL

Masquers, Señorita.

BASIL

They are so.

BRIGIDA

Are they indeed so lovely?

BASIL

Euphrosyne, Christofir's daughter, is simply the most exquisite beauty of the kingdom.

Page – 837

BASIL

I speak it with unwillingness, but honestly the Lady Ismenia, rarely lovely as she is, could not stand beside this farmer's daughter.

BRIGIDA

I think I have seen her and I do not remember so outshining a beauty.

BRIGIDA

Pardon me if I take you to speak in the pitch of a lover's eulogy.

BASIL

Were it so, her beauty and gentleness deserve it; I have seen none worthier.

Page – 838

BASIL

O 'tis not so much as that either. 'Twas only an orange-girl I saw once at Cadiz.

BASIL

Venus; and in the after-scene, Helen.

BRIGIDA

So? May I know the others? You may find one of them to be a poor cousin of mine.

BRIGIDA

True, for such long parts must be a heavy tax on the quickest.

Page – 839

BASIL

There are but two such, Venus-Helen and Paris. The rest are only a Zephyr's dance in, a speech and a song to help the situation and out again with a scurry.

BRIGIDA

God be with you. You have a learned conversation and a sober, and for such I will always report you. But here comes a colon to it. We will keep the full stop for tomorrow.

Enter Antonio and Ismenia.

Pray you, unlock the door, but noiselessly.

BRIGIDA

Teach me not. Though the wild torrent of this gentleman's conversation have swept away half my wit, I have at a desperate peril, saved the other half for your service. Come, Sir, I have need of you to frighten the mice away.

Exit Brigida with Basil.

ISMENIA

Dear, we must part. I would have you my necklace,

That I might feel you round my neck for ever;

Or life be night and all men sleep, then we

Need never part: but we must part, Antonio.

Will you forget me?

ANTONIO

When I cease to feel.

ISMENIA

I know you cannot, but I am so happy,

Page – 840

I love to play with my own happiness

And ask it questions. Dear, we shall meet soon.

I'll make a compact with you, sweet. You shall

Do all my will and make no question, till

We're married; then you know, I am your servant.

Will you, till then?

ANTONIO

Till then and after.

ISMENIA

Go now,

Love, I must drive you out or you'll not go.

One only or I shall never let you part.

Enter Brigida.

Exit with Antonio.

ISMENIA

O I have given all myself and kept

Nothing to live with when he's gone from me.

My life's his moon and I'm all dark and sad

Without him. Yesterday I was Ismenia,

Strong in myself, an individual woman.

Today I'm but the body of another,

No longer separate reality.

Page – 841

Well, if I gain him, let me lose myself

And I'm still happy. The door shuts. He is gone.

Re-enter Brigida.

Ah, Brigida.

BRIGIDA

Come, get in, get in. Snatch a little sleep, for I promise you, you shall have none tomorrow.

Exeunt.

Page – 842