University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

A Room in the House of Brangonar.
Evoya, Zorasi.
ZORASI.
I comprehend too well your current fears.

EVOYA.
I try to think them false, and to persuade me
They are but shadows which the backward time,
So black to all, casts on a woman's heart.
'T is vain: the thoughts I send in quest of hope
Never return, and thus,—like a sieg'd town
Whose desperate foragers are always ta'en,—
Each effort for relief but leaves me weaker.
I will be strong to-day, if not in hope,
At least in joy; and should be strong in hope,
For thou art here, with whom I 've scarcely dared
To trust a thought that peered into the future.
Methinks I was not wont to be despondent,
And thou being come I will be so no more.

ZORASI.
When I am near to thee I have two strengths.
To-day I feel as I could dare the worst,
And outface danger in his hottest rage.
And thou, I 've seen thee brave thy brother's mood;
With accents wrought of love and fearlessness
Hushing the billows of his willful wrath.

EVOYA.
The wrath I would again as freely front.
What drew those billows from their haughty height
Was the strong charm of love. That spell is broken:
Poor Brangonar now loves naught but himself.
That 't is that daunts and makes me dread the worst.
We have had scenes: this unto you alone.
The gentle Jesola, his wife, hath wept.

ZORASI.
Her brother, loved Lovéro, how doth he?

EVOYA.
Lovéro hopes too much: his nobleness
Would throw its sunshine in the darkest breast.
But here he is.

Enter Lovéro.
LOVÉRO.
Zorasi! (embraces him)
welcome home!
Most welcome. Much we need our better men,
To seize, among the possibilities
That press them on th' impassioned reeking day,
Those most enheartened with humanity.
Time hath been long in travail with a brood
Of men so fiery new, they make events
Of such far drift, these rouse old History
From a late bed to dress her laggard self
In prodigies.

EVOYA.
A spawn of tainted Time
Are they who late have ruled, or rather, wrecked us.
They undid but to be themselves undone.

LOVÉRO.
They did far more than they undid; and when
They were themselves undone, this was the work
Of what had first by them been done. They taught,—
And 't was a manful lesson,—how to cut
The rot away that had for centuries
Gnawed at a sorrowing Nation's core. Themselves
Grew quickly foul; and then they fell as swift
As they had struck. But first they did a work
That cannot be undone, a mighty work.
Their death gave life. Their death was forwardness,
It was not retrogression.

EVOYA.
Would it had been!

LOVÉRO.
The past comes never back. Can you refold
The apple in its blossom? or unbuild
The majesty of manhood's puissant frame,
And shrink it to an infant's littleness?
You can as easily re-live the past
As make your food of mouldiness.

ZORASI.
But still,
Events and men repeat themselves at times.

LOVÉRO.
To those who only read their surfaces
They seem to do so. History,—to Peoples
Within whose blood ripens the finer juice
Whence are distilled life's higher essences,—
Is an unfolding—

Enter abruptly Brangonar.
BRANGONAR.
Max is come, Lovéro.
I 've bid him speak with you. Let this affair
Be closed. We will not have these petty strokes
Thrust from the bygone to deflect our gait.
The past be done with: 't is not in our reach:
'T is dead. We live, and 'bout us howleth life.
'T is much that by the present we are stayed,
We whose far swoop at the great future strikes,
The burnished, fair, the undistainéd future.—
Let this be done at once: he waits to see you.

[Exit Lovéro.
ZORASI.
General, hath exile so deformed my face,
You know it not?

EVOYA.
Brother, this is Zorasi.

BRANGONAR.
Ha! I remember—yes—Captain Zorasi?
You were deported for the affair of Sarnec.
It might have been much worse: you had strong friends.
The Colonel of your regiment—a brave
And loyal soldier—died but yesterday.
Take you his post, and be as true as he.
I know your courage and your skill.—No thanks:
Thanks should be kept for things unmerited.
Evoya, I would have some speech with you.
[Exit Zorasi.
I do not have, Evoya, from my kin
That kindly aidance which should grace the ascent
They all are mounting on my single leap.
Greatness and power and the reluctant gaze
Of th' envious world, that veils its stealthy sight
At the first swing of genius' flashing sceptre,—
All this is close to their upstretching grasp.
'T is little that I ask. Concert I ask
With my prophetic plans, and furtherance meet,
For them and me, on the steep rifted road
I swiftly build with th' engines of my invention.
Something to me they may be: I to them
Am all. I lift them to the stately heights
Of circumstance, whence they, enfreed, shall wonder
At the lean belt where they now grope unknown.
My dreams are worth more than their noon-day senses.
To you, my chosen sister, I impart
Some of my soaring mind. You can conceive
What they cannot. Help them to see the greatness
That hovers near them. Happy words from you
Will be a light to them.—No answer now.
To-morrow I will speak with you again.
[Kisses her forehead. Exit Evoya.
I must have tools. Most men are dull or false;
And if you win one competent to seize
A nimble onward thought, and drive it home
Through shattering act straight to a sure success,
This ableness undoes his agency:
He plies to make of you a tool for him.
Of my own blood there is not one I can
Entirely trust. This one has too much will;
This not enough; another is not swift;
One is too scrupulous; too venal one.
The women all by love are ruled. Evoya
Is most like me; but she hath women's whims.
Her brain is not yet dry of girlish fumes,
Vapors, with the dear self sweet-scented soft,
That in dim incense steep th' unchastened eye.
So long hath boiled within her swollen veins
This passion for Zorasi, 't is herself:
Her blood is all of his one color dyed.
Capable he is, and brave, and resolute;
But troublesome with supersubtleties,
And poor. E'en could I break this foolish bond,
'T were certain loss of her. That were a loss
I ill can bear; for she will serve me if,—
And 't is a burly if,—if I serve her.
I'd serve them all, would they but help me serve them.
If they could bask, but for an hour, with me
In the hot lustre of my noontide hopes!
But no: the big-eyed brood that quickens there
They would not know, they could not even see.
Daily I hug them closer to my soul,—
Which feeds them and by them in turn is fed,—
These secret nurselings in my breeding brain,
Vast progeny of thought, to which my will
Must be the midwife, startling this old world
With a new history.
Enter in haste a courier, booted and spurred.
Ha! Sesto! what news?

SESTO
(handing a despatch)
Rulesti has retreated.

BRANGONAR.
In good order?

SESTO.
Unbroken order, without loss.

BRANGONAR.
'T is well.
I looked for this. Sesto, go take your rest.
I'll talk with you anon.
[Exit Sesto.
This is the bane
Of power: its instruments have not its soul.
Retreated! An advance and victory
Lay couched within the circuits of the ground
For one who had the vision to espy them.
He asks more cohorts, and wants wit to wield
Those that he has.
Enter Alardo.
How now? Is the pear ripe?

ALARDO.
And ready to be pluckt. The Council Six
Are met for business, and will swift resolve
Your deposition. This from Tesafo
I 've learnt, who, with his friend Catalba, will
Absent him from the meeting. Can you count
Upon Lovéro?

BRANGONAR.
As on you.

ALARDO.
I doubt him.
It matters not: he is alone. The rest,
Riordo, Carlan, and Trifone, are
Compact against you, and in special pay
They hold two legions sure.

BRANGONAR.
Whose chiefs are mine.
The Council, then, of Six is shrunk to three.
Of this triumvirate Riordo rash
Would be the Cæsar. I could let them rise,
Then bring them down. The wisest way is here
The quickest:—clutch them ere they spring.

[Exeunt.