Scene.—Up the Hill-side, inside the Shrub-house.
Luca's wife,
Ottima, and her paramour, the German Sebald.
Sebald[sings]Let the watching lids wink!
Day's a-blaze with eyes, think!
Deep into the night, drink!
Night?
Such may be your Rhine-land nights perhaps;
But this blood-red beam through the shutter's chink—We call such light, the morning: let us see!
Mind how you grope your way, though!
How these
Naked geraniums straggle!
Push the
Behind that frame!—Nay, do I bid you?—Sebald,
It shakes the dust down on me!
Why, of
The slide-bolt catches.
Well, are you content,
Or must I find you something else to spoil?
Kiss and be friends, my Sebald!
Is 't full morning?
Oh, don't speak then!
Sebald. Ay, thus it used to be.
Ever your house was,
I remember,
Till mid-day;
I observed that, as I
On mornings through the vale here; country
Were noisy, washing garments in the brook,
Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the hills:
But no, your house was mute, would ope no eye.
And wisely: you were plotting one thing there,
Nature, another outside.
I looked up—Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron bars,
Silent as death, blind in a flood of light.
Oh,
I remember!—and the peasants
And said, "The old man sleeps with the young wife."This house was his, this chair, this window—his.
Ah, the clear morning!
I can see St.
Mark's;
That black streak is the belfry.
Stop:
Should lie . . . there's Padua, plain enough, that blue!
Look o'er my shoulder, follow my finger!
Sebald Morning?
It seems to me a night with a sun added.
Where's dew, where's freshness?
That bruised plant,
I
In getting through the lattice yestereve,
Droops as it did.
See, here's my elbow's markI' the dust o' the sill.
Ottima Oh, shut the lattice, pray!
Let me lean out.
I cannot scent blood here,
Foul as the morn may be. There, shut the world out!
How do you feel now,
Ottima?
There,
The world and all outside!
Let us throw
This mask: how do you bear yourself?
Let's
With all of it.
Ottima Best never speak of it.
Best speak again and yet again of it,
Till words cease to be more than words. "His blood,"For instance—let those two words mean "His blood"And nothing more.
Notice,
I'll say them now,"His blood."Ottima Assuredly if I
The deed—Sebald Repent?
Who should repent, or why?
What puts that in your head?
Did I once
That I repented?
Ottima No,
I said the deed . . .
Sebald"The deed" and "the event"—just now it was"Our passion's fruit"—the devil take such cant!
Say, once and always,
Luca was a wittol,
I am his cut-throat, you are . . .
Ottima Here's the wine;
I brought it when we left the house above,
And glasses too—wine of both sorts.
Black?
White then?
But am not I his cut-throat?
What are you?
There trudges on his business from the
Benet the Capuchin, with his brown
And bare feet; always in one place at church,
Close under the stone wall by the south entry.
I used to take him for a brown cold
Of the wall's self, as out of it he
To let me pass—at first,
I say,
I used:
Now, so has that dumb figure fastened on me,
I rather should account the plastered wallA piece of him, so chilly does it strike.
This,
Sebald?
Sebald No, the white wine—the white wine!
Well,
Ottima,
I promised no new
Should rise on us the ancient shameful way;
Nor does it rise.
Pour on!
To your black eyes!
Do you remember last damned New Year's day?
You brought those foreign prints.
We looked at
Over the wine and fruit.
I had to
To get him from the fire.
Nothing but
His own set wants the proof-mark, roused him
To hunt them out.
Sebald 'Faith, he is not
To fondle you before my face.
Ottima Do
Fondle me then!
Who means to take your
For that, my Sebald?
Sebald Hark you,
Ottima!
One thing to guard against.
We'll not make
One of the other—that is, not make
Parade of warmth, childish officious coil,
Than yesterday: as if, sweet,
I
Proof upon proof were needed now, now first,
To show I love you—yes, still love you—love
In spite of Luca and what's come to him—Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts,
White sneering old reproachful face and all!
We'll even quarrel, love, at times, as
We still could lose each other, were not
By this: conceive you?
Ottima Love!
Sebald Not tied so sure.
Because though I was wrought upon, have
His insolence back into him—am
So surely yours?—therefore forever yours?
Love, to be wise, (one counsel pays another)Should we have—months ago, when first we loved,
For instance that May morning we two
Under the green ascent of sycamores—If we had come upon a thing like
Suddenly . . .
Sebald "A thing"—there again—"a
Then,
Venus' body, had we come
My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered
Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close—Would you have pored upon it?
Why
In poring now upon it?
For't is
As much as there in the deserted house:
You cannot rid your eyes of it.
For me,
Now he is dead I hate him worse:
I hate . . .
Dare you stay here?
I would go back and
His two dead hands, and say, "I hate you worse,"Luca, than . . ."Sebald Off, off—take your hands off mine,'T is the hot evening—off! oh, morning is it?
There's one thing must be done; you know what thing.
Come in and help to carry.
We may
Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night.
What would come, think you, if we let him
Just as he is?
Let him lie there
The angels take him!
He is turned by
Off from his face beside, as you will see.
This dusty pane might serve for looking glass.
Three, four—four grey hairs!
Is it so you saidA plait of hair should wave across my neck?
No—this way.
Sebald Ottima,
I would give your neck,
Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours,
That this were undone!
Killing!
Kill the world,
So Luca lives again!—ay, lives to
His fulsome dotage on you—yes, and
Surprise that I return at eve to sup,
When all the morning I was loitering here—Bid me despatch my business and begone.
I would . . .
Ottima See!
Sebald No,
I'll finish.
Do you thinkI fear to speak the bare truth once for all?
All we have talked of, is, at bottom,
To suffer; there's a recompense in guilt;
One must be venturous and fortunate:
What is one young for, else?
In age we'll sighO'er the wild reckless wicked days flown over;
Still, we have lived: the vice was in its place.
But to have eaten Luca's bread, have
His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse—Do lovers in romances sin that way?
Why,
I was starving when I used to
And teach you music, starving while you plucked
These flowers to smell!
Ottima My poor lost friend!
Sebald He gave
Life, nothing less: what if he did
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more—Had he no right?
What was to wonder at?
He sat by us at table quietly:
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched?
Could he do less than make pretence to strike?'T is not the crime's sake—I'd commit ten
Greater, to have this crime wiped out, undone!
And you—O how feel you?
Feel you for me?
Well then,
I love you better now than ever,
And best (look at me while I speak to you)—Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth,
This mask, this simulated ignorance,
This affectation of simplicity,
Falls off our crime; this naked crime of
May not now be looked over: look it down!
Great? let it be great; but the joys it brought,
Pay they or no its price?
Come: they or it!
Speak not!
The past, would you give up the
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together?
Give up that noon I owned my love for you?
The garden's silence: even the single
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped,
And where he hid you only could
By some campanula chalice set a-swing.
Who stammered—"Yes,
I love you?"Sebald And I
Back; put far back your face with both my
Lest you should grow too full of me—your
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body!
And when I ventured to receive you here,
Made you steal hither in the mornings—Sebald WhenI used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here,
Till the red fire on its glazed windows
To a yellow haze?
Ottima Ah—my sign was, the
Inflamed the sere side of yon
Nipped by the first frost.
Sebald You would always
At my wet boots:
I had to stride thro'
Over my ankles.
Ottima Then our crowning night!
The July night?
Ottima The day of it too,
Sebald!
When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat,
Its black-blue canopy suffered
Close on us both, to weigh down each to each,
And smother up all life except our life.
So lay we till the storm came.
Sebald How it came!
Buried in woods we lay, you recollect;
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead;
And ever and anon some bright white
Burned thro' the pine-tree roof, here burned and there,
As if God's messenger thro' the close wood
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture,
Feeling for guilty thee and me: then
The thunder like a whole sea
Yes!
Ottima—While I stretched myself upon you,
To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and
All my locks loose, and covered you with them—You,
Sebald, the same you!
Sebald Slower,
Ottima!
And as we lay—Sebald 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!
Ottima Sebald, as we lay,
Rising and falling only with our pants,
Who said, "Let death come now! 'T is right to die!"Right to be punished!
Nought completes such bliss"But woe!" Who said that?
Sebald How did we ever rise?
Was't that we slept?
Why did it end?
Ottima I felt
Taper into a point the ruffled
Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips.
My hair is fallen now: knot it again!
SebaldI kiss you now, dear Ottima, now and now!
This way?
Will you forgive me—be once
My great queen?
Ottima Bind it thrice about my brow;
Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress,
Magnificent in sin.
Say that!
Sebald I crown
My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress,
Magnificent . . .[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing—The year's at the
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven—All's right with the world
