University of Virginia Library

ACT II

SCENE I

[The Village Street.]
FIRST PEASANT.
Good-night. The stars gleam sharply.

ADAM.
Aye, there is
An undistinguished multitude of stars,
That hinder not the darkness.

SECOND PEASANT.
Ho! 'Tis Adam.
Know you the hour, friend?

ADAM.
Wherefore should I know it?
Eternity moves indivisibly.
We men are but the hands that feign the time,
Expedients of a fiction.

FIRST PEASANT.
Well, good-night!

[The peasants pass on.]
SECOND PEASANT.
Whenever from his clammy trade he comes,
He mumbles thus. Look! he has got his spade,
Uncanny weapon. . . . Go you with the Saints!

FIRST PEASANT.
Saint Michael guard you! [They part.
[The clock in the tower of the village church strikes.]


ADAM.
(alone).
Now you wit the hour.
Does it not feel as though the scranny dead
Were tugging at the chain that tolls that sound?
The days devour the days, the minutes feed
On the slow minutes that preceded them:
Time is himself an hourly murderer.
He hath assassinated worlds of life,
That we may live; whom he in turn will slay,
To grow him further victims. Homeward now.
[Elspeth comes down the street.]
Where go you, child, so lately in the night?

ELSPETH.
To Father Gabriel.

ADAM.
(shouldering his spade).
She is troubled, then.
Our hearts are graveyards, wherein dead woes sleep;
But flowers should grow above them.

[They both pass on. Abdiel comes out from the shadow of the Church.]
ELSPETH.
What do you here?

ABDIEL.
Await your footstep, as the night awaits
The movement of the morning.

ELSPETH.
Touch me not;
Nor think in me to find love's simpleton.
Go, pass your pretty counterfeits elsewhere.

ABDIEL.
I swear I love you, and I swear again—

ELSPETH.
When, like the cuckoo, love repeats its note,
And doubles all it says, one knows, full sure,
'Twill soon depart.

ABDIEL.
Mine is no cuckoo love.

ELSPETH.
Come with me then to Father Gabriel,
And tell him firmly what in faltering tones
You oft have told to me.

ABDIEL.
To-night! To-night?
Wait till to-morrow.

ELSPETH.
Love knows no to-morrow,
No night, no day, only the present minute.
Yours are all yesterdays. Alack! too sure,
Within the waning crescent of your love
Another do I full foreshadowed see.

ABDIEL.
Tush! Tush! In truth you are the only maid,
Or in the vale or on the mountain-side,
Whose kirtle I have watched.

ELSPETH.
Watch it no more.
'Tis only crawling love, when hacked in twain,
Will piece again. My love lived in the air,
And you have hurt its wing. Now, what is left?
Only these bootless flutterings. . . Hush! One comes.

[Abdiel disappears behind the wall of the Church. Eve comes down the village street.]
EVE.
My timid Elspeth, whither at this hour?
The loosened wains stand tilted in the lodge,
And the warm steers lie blinking in their stalls.
There's not one truant chirrup in the eaves.
The very bats are weary of their flight.
Only the owls about the belfry whoop,
Mischristened birds of wisdom. They who are wise
Move only in the daylight.

ELSPETH.
Wherefore then
Is Eve abroad?

EVE.
I? I was in my way
To Father Gabriel; safe and innocent tryst.

ELSPETH.
And so was I.

EVE.
Come then.

ELSPETH.
I cannot.

EVE.
Why?
Do I not hear you sobbing?
[She puts her hand to Elspeth's face.]
What is this?
All moist with weeping! These untimely tears
Will pale the young carnation in your cheeks,
As April washes all the gold away
From March's primroses. What is it, dear?
Or if to me you will not whisper it,
Breathe it to Father Gabriel. Come, sweet, come.

ELSPETH.
I cannot. And why should I? None was near.
Only the darkling blossoms of the wood
Or saw or heard it. Shall I tell it you?
It is so sweet to sin. But was it sin?
I deemed it love; and can his falsehood change
My trustfulness to shame? I cannot bear it.

EVE.
Be angry with your tears, and they will pass,
As a strong wind can blow the rain away.
Now, come along with me.

ELSPETH.
No, not to-night!
Let me tell you, instead. Absolve me, dear.
All the shrill amorous voices of the Spring
Seemed echoing in my brain and in my blood,
Until—until—you cannot see me, can you?—
Come just a little nearer me—until—
[She embraces Eve.]
He kissed me—so!

EVE.
Be married to him, dear.
Who may it be?

ELSPETH.
Nay, ask me not to-night?

EVE.
I will not. Best tell Father Gabriel.
For to my darkened sense it seems our hearts
Throb toward the stroke of some dread mystery,
Whose hour awaits us. I can help you not,
For you have known what I have never dreamed,
Nor must until—forgive me!—I forgot.
'Tis nothing surely. You, instruct me, dear;
'Tis I that am the baby.

ELSPETH.
Sweet! how sweet!
Too sweet to be forgotten, well or ill!
Too sweet to be forgiven, if not well!
Too sweet to be foregone, even if ill!
The very mouth and portal of the hive,
Limed with its honey!

[She covers her face with her hands.]
EVE.
Best come, Elspeth, come!
And in the dark of the Confessional
Find light and peace.

ELSPETH.
What! Tell it all again!
No, rather do it! That, if shame, were sweet.
The other is too bitter.

EVE.
How you weep!
Well, not to-night. I will not press you more.
There! go and sleep under the thatch of home.
[Kisses her.]
My kisses will not hurt you. And, meanwhile,
Do with your sorrow as tired vagrants do,
Who fling their heavy pack on the hard ground,
And use it for a pillow. Woe sleeps sound,
With woe beneath it.

ELSPETH.
Yes. I must indeed
Shake off this pain, or it will throttle me.
Good-night! Forget it! Understand it not!
Though sweet, yet bitter, best not understood!

[They kiss, and Elspeth turns homeward.]

SCENE II

[The Interior of the Church. Eve in the Confessional.]
EVE.

I confess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary ever Virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the Saints, that I have sinned in thought, word, and deed; through my fault, through my fault, through my exceeding fault.

FATHER GABRIEL.
Doth he love you, daughter dear?

EVE.

For these and for all the other sins I cannot bring to my remembrance, I am heartily contrite, and I humbly beg pardon of God, and penance and absolution from you, my Ghostly Father.

FATHER GABRIEL.
[Eve rises, and leaves the Confessional.]

SCENE III

[Eve in her bed, with her hands crossed on her breast.]
EVE.
[She sleeps.]

SCENE IV

[Father Gabriel comes out of the Church, and locks the door.]
FATHER GABRIEL.
All is still in the little town;
And the belfry sounds eleven.
All is still, and the stars look down
On the snowpeaks far, on the near ones brown,
On hoary Tourbillon's feudal frown,
From an untroubled Heaven.