University of Virginia Library

ACT II

Scene.—The courtyard of Anna's Hunting Lodge at Senlis: in the midst there is a fountain with a stone basin, and on the left a little oratory to the Virgin. The woods lie brown and red on the horizon, and the Tower of St. Vincent is full in sight.
Anna, attired for the chase; Fernando.
Anna.
Fernando, how uneasily
You move about! You are impetuous
And yet forgetful, an uncertain page.

Fernando.
My pardon.

Anna.
And the jesses? Have you served
Your lord so long, and dare to tax his patience?
I dare not, and I will not. Once again
In the woods of Senlis, and so fine a morning ...
Fetch me my hood.

Fernando.
The Count is busy, madam,
With the Archbishop.

Anna.
Child, how plain it is
You never have served royalty. A Queen
Commands Archbishops. Put me on my hood.

Fernando.
But I have seen my lord. Ah, had you seen him
In the last anger when his will is braved,
You would not hope to ride down to the forest.
Madam, my lord will never hunt again.

[He buries his face in his hands, sobbing.]
Anna.
Ah, now I see you have ill news to break.
The Count is killed? Fernando, speak! You love him.
I am almost jealous of the way you love.
Be merciful; for if you do not speak
I must indeed believe that he is dead,
Or in the grip of some calamity
That holds him alien as death.

Fernando.
'Tis so,
'Tis that: my lord is doomed.

Anna.
By whom—to what?
How doomed? He lives, and he is well beloved;
His power is absolute.

Fernando.
Will you blaspheme?
God loved him; all his power he had from God.
I looked into his secret when one day
I loosed his visor on the battle-field.
As I held up the crucifix he smiled;
There was his power: and now he is cut off
And now ... Oh, horror! If you loved my way—
I know you cannot—if indeed you loved
Through circumstance, without one curbing fear,
Down to the very soul, you would burn up
Those Senlis woods where you have tempted him,
Burn them to ash behind you.

Anna.
The event?

Fernando.
My master follows quickly. Oh, prepare
To face and overcome him. The Archbishop
Fronts him unmoved; but in his violence
My lord is in ascendant, as a wave
Dashed up against a rock and shattered by it
Seems in the crash to shatter. Do not meet him.
Flee! The Archbishop brings with him the curse
Of excommunication from the Pope,
If instantly you do not yield your place
Beside him to the Countess Aliénor.
Lady, you cannot stay to bring despair
And infinite staining sorrow ...

Anna.
You mistake.
I love your way, could burn these pleasant woods,
And even—yes, I could cast down that tower,
Raised, as it were by my own hands, to save
My lord from any staining grief: all sorrow
I lighten and remove. But to your story!
No menaces, the facts! Where is this vile,
Repudiated woman?

Fernando.
At the doors.

Anna.
Not here, not in the woods. I shall not see her? ...
If once her footsteps ... Oh, my dewy woods!
Where is her lodging?

Fernando.
Madam, in the convent.

Anna.
My convent?

Fernando.
Under the Archbishop's charge
She waits for your submission.

Anna.
While my lord
Chafes like an angry billow on the rock.
Oh, let him come to me!

Fernando.
You are related
Unlawfully, within the sixth degree:
'Tis so affirmed at Rome. You cannot wed:
You never have been wedded to my lord.
Therefore, O lady ...

Anna.
Shall you cease to serve him
When he is outcast, or remain his page?
Tell me, Fernando!

Fernando.
I!—my life is his.
If I might wait on him to dip my finger
In a clear fount and cool his tongue in hell
I should be happy; so a page attends.

Anna.
I am glad you love my lord; I will not boast.
[Enter at a distance Raoul and Gervais.]
Look up, Fernando! He is coming towards us;
Draw back my hood.
He is the goodliest man—
How the sun strikes him down the avenue!—
The goodliest man that I have ever seen.
[She curtseys to Raoul, and bows with stateliness to Gervais.]
Good-morrow, sir.

Raoul.
Archbishop, to your work!
You see this lady, this fair Dian, this
Blond majesty, apparent as the sun
In the arched heavens—encounter her pure face,
And read her the new titles that the Pope
Salutes her with.

Gervais.
Madam, our Holy Father,
Declares Dame Aliénor the lawful wife
Of the Count of Valois, and pronounces you,
His leman, guilty, were our lord not bound
By honourable marriage, of incest,
Being so near in kin.

Raoul.
You hear the titles,
Incestuous, adulterous, my whore,
That the Church gives you.

Anna.
You have hailed me Dian;
I am whatever name you call me by,
All that you find me; since to-day your goddess,
I must command you to attend the chase.
Put on your hunting-gear. I am surprised
That you should waste an hour of this fair day
Listening to slander. History must flow
The way we will who are current of the stream.
My lord, there is dispute among your grooms
Which horse you choose—that is the only matter
Of moment to decide. Determine that,
I promise you a day in the woods of Senlis
As full of chequered sunshine and of joy
As autumn's golden leaves and the gold heart
Of a Queen can make it.

Raoul.
[Putting his arm round her and turning defiantly to Gervais.]
Say, my lord of Rheims,
Are you not envious? These are woodland sports,
And this a heathen deity.
O France,
And Russia's royal daughter, evermore
Queen to the furthest inch of my dominion,
Let the mute Church stand by us like a tomb!
Henceforth our comfort must be in ourselves,
The creatures that we are, the love we love,
And those deep wells we draw from for our life,
Our bosoms' captive founts. There shall be triumph
Within the magic kingdom where we rule
As in deep faerïe; yea, our fearful vassals
Shall slowly serve us, looking toward the sky;
While our brave knights proffer their souls as simply
As their lives in war, and all our noble youth
Follows our fervid doings as religion,
Dinning our ears with fables and new verse.
My lord of Rheims, our future! You would damn me,
Would brand a harlot's brand across her forehead
Who stands there so august in the trembling dew,
And bids me follow her. You found the words
To charge her with; you made her understand
She has no innocence! You trailed your slime
Across my rose to canker it. You devil,
I will defend my love. See, in your sight
I kiss her. It is thus that lovers love,
And thus and thus, and in the woods is Eden.
My sovereign and my mistress.

Anna.
[Disengaging herself.]
Do my pleasure.
Dearest, I ever love you in the woods,
And I have much to pardon.

Raoul.
I return
To a long revelry
Of laughter and forgiveness.

[Exit.]
Anna.
[To Fernando.]
Do not follow,
Fernando ... there is water in that fount;
Fill me a cup. I thank you.
Now, Archbishop,
Your worst of tidings. You have sentence there
Of excommunication on the Count.
Read the provisions.

Gervais.
As abhorred of God,
To be abhorred of all on earth who covet
Their own salvation: to be deemed as refuse
Of an infecting stench: to be denied
Our Saviour's body and His mother's prayers—
That is the sentence and the doom.

Anna.
[Rocking to and fro.]
You read!
You sentence! Those who sit on royal thrones,
I know it, when they hear such sentences
Put justice by. The leniency of kings
Flows as sweet honey from the rock. I will not,
I cannot think this doom will come to pass.

Gervais.
I read the doom, but you have written it,
And can revoke it: if you have indeed
This piteous, royal heart you make your boast,
You must revoke it. I appeal to you
As our most sovereign lady, Queen of France,
Fall not so low as to condemn a subject,
And one withal the noblest of our realm,
To such humiliation as the Church
Heaps on the disobedient. Think a little
How he will suffer, being no vacant churl,
But the very pith of men, a soldier bound
By oath and by investiture to God,
When outcast from all noble war, from glory,
From fellowship in arms and from restraint
Of knighthood's order. Scornful, absolute,
You know him: you will see the merest hind
Question his will and laugh at him unserved.

Anna.
His wife, his household, and there is Fernando.
We shall attend our lord.

Gervais.
O callous woman,
Have you no pity? Reinstate his wife,
The noble lady you have wronged, who loves him,
And who has travelled in great jeopardy
To Rome for leave but to reclaim his love.
Have you no pity?

Anna.
But there is Fernando
Indisputably his—I speak of him.
My lord will not be comfortless.

Gervais.
Then still
You hold by your harsh sentence and take hands
With the apostate as his paramour?

Anna.
The way is very long to Rome. She travelled,
You say, at peril of her life, and under
The shadow of Count Raoul's wrath, and simply
For leave to love him ... that was wanton's love!

Gervais.
Then you must prove your own of other sort,
Of nobler scope. I listen. [Anna is silent.]
When defiant
Of the Church's punishment you promised pleasure
To the adulterer, what change was wrought
Of honour to his spirit? He at once
Addressed you as a heathen deity,
And half unclasped the buckles of your belt,
Dragging you to him. If your lustfulness ...

Fernando.
[On his knees before the Archbishop.]
Madonna—pardon!—from the heart of God
Madonna loves my lord!

Gervais.
If lustfulness
So riots in your blood, to gratify
Your senses you can cast away religion,
Cut off your lover from his chivalry,
From all fair service of his God, from honour,
And from the worship of your womanhood,
How stands your love?

Anna.
I shall prevail with him.

Gervais.
Ay, to his ruin. Madam, by whose power
Have you prevailed? You were a barren woman,
Worthless to France, and through the murmuring crowd
And past your silent husband I have watched you
Walk with unguided feet. Look to that tower;
You raised it—it is adverse to you now
As citadel of your arch-enemy.
You may not pray, you must not pray for him;
You have locked every door against his God,
The saints, his guardian angel—shut him up,
Not with himself, with you. How stands your love?

Anna.
Fetch Aliénor ...
[With a gesture of blessing Gervais leaves her.]
How grim it is and cold
Before the little shrine. O Virgin Mother,
Is it the Judgment Day? Thou must not plead,
Nor offer intercession any more,
Thou must not, for the damned. O welling heart.
And I have checked thee at thy privilege,
Thy function, thy delight! Thou must not pray ...
Then thou art no more woman but a stone.
Ave Maria!
She does not catch the words,
She does not hear me. I must give him back
Myself to the dear earth, back to his God,
The saints, his guardian angel. [A horn-call.]
Do I hear
His horn blown toward the woods? We were to hunt;
But I have sent for Aliénor—that deed
Can never be revoked.
I have no courage
To ask him for my soul, nor any voice
To bid him curse me from his side. But Love ...
If he extort the answer of my lips ...
Though it were madness ... I must speak of Love.
It is my only theme. [Another horn-call.]
Again his note!
And I must take it as the general call,
The wide, indifferent summons to the dead.

[She averts her face, fixing it on the image of the Virgin.]
[Re-enter Raoul.]
Raoul.
Anna, my love!

Fernando.
[Advancing from the distance.]
Yonder our lady prays
Dear lord, disturb her not.

Raoul.
But, by St. Hubert,
Except the vision of a crucifix
Arise between the antlers of a stag,
We will not be arrested in our sport
To-day, we are so reckless. Come, my sweet;
It is your pleasure I attend the chase,
Mine that you mount. Your hand! [Perceiving a change in Anna.]
A plague on you!
What trick is this?
[To Squires who are leading in horses.]
The Countess is afraid
Of something in the air; withdraw a little.
[They retire.]
I dissipate all humours. Well, my free,
Unclouded huntress, what is my offence?
You have so much to pardon in the woods—
Then to the woods that you may pardon it!
And I may take revenge that you receive me
With lids bent on the ground and pallor spreading
A veritable darkness on your face.
Dearest, you turn; you lay your hands on me,
Your eyes have lost their speech! What troubles you?
What change is come?

Anna.
I love you.

Raoul.
Can I doubt!
I do not doubt it. Through the fallen leaves,
And through the tempest ... and you will not blench;
You will not tremble to be made accurst,
To travel any whither that I wend,
So fast you love me.
Am I learning this,
Sweet, from your face? There is so much to pardon,
And yet ...

Anna.
I love you.

Raoul.
Ah, too passionate
The little, piercing cry, too like farewell.
Kiss me and pardon. This warm breath is all
I ask in life. Softly! Again your lips!
Is it my soul your soul is trembling for
In this soft bosom? Speak! Is it the future,
With all the bells rung backward and the churches
Fast as the portals of a town at siege,
That strikes you faithless?
You have chosen me
In the hour of my setting sun. There is no creature
So solitary as the setting sun;
That should have warned me: I have watched him sink
Far from the orchards, the warm poplar plains,
Into the chill and sorrow of the earth
Plumb as a drowning mortal.
So you leave me?
You can? There is no courage in your joy!
No memory in your love! We two together
Have climbed the light and plumbed the deeps of fire
That flow through springtide to the months of gold
And kindle every altar. Are you blind
To the bright utterness of how we loved,
Blind, blind, as you are dumb?
If you keep silence,
Our love is incest, is adultery;
The Church brands naked truth on us. Oh come!
You will not? Is it that the Church forbids?
No, if I take you at your cuckoo-note,
Your chime and iteration, 'tis your love.
Anna, a love that proffers stones and thorns
And wormwood for the generous Trinity,
Roses and bread and wine ... Away with it;
It is the very leavings of the priest,
Who has prevailed with you so easily
To count yourself no wife. A hundred lovers
Could not have severed us as this Archbishop
With his most sacred gallantry. Your husband
Doffs to his triumph. Ah, your bosom heaves,
You tremble at the falsehood ... Yet you leave me.
You can? And for what flaw? Arraign our marriage.

Anna.
I do—look there!
[Re-enter Gervais, with Aliénor at a distance.]
I ordered this to pass.
And now you must not speak again: the Archbishop
Will lead me to my convent.

Raoul.
O my God!
Anne, are you mad? You do not see her—snake
And temptress and invincible. She walks
Along as simply as a pestilence;
A cloud of locusts settling on the fields
Is not more impudently sure. You order
That this should come to pass?
Oh, then for orgies
In your chaste sight; the Archbishop to restore her
Safe to my arms, and you to bear the smart
Of our conjugal embraces. [Seizing her hand.]
Anna, say,
One instant, is it veritably you
Who will this?

Anna.
As I love you.

Raoul.
There's a flaw!
You love and love me, and yet presently
You dig my grave. Look at that lissome beauty—
She loves indeed, and as a creature's cunning
Goes to obtain its food, she lies in wait
To feed her appetites. A penitent,
And you the spangled huntress!
[Gervais and Aliénor are now close.]
[To Aliénor.]
Ah, my snake,
After a little season you return.
[Pointing to Anna.]
Archbishop, this your charge!

Aliénor.
Who is this lady
On whom you turn your back?

Raoul.
The Queen of France.

Aliénor.
You ever loved lithe women, and this statue
Has the ample breasts of Caritas, the age,
And the honest, noble grace. Your Countess, sir?
Let me salute her.

Raoul.
Ask her what she is;
She knows her titles; she will answer simply
From the very heart of truth.

Aliénor.
Lady, your name,
Your dignities? I am Count Raoul's wife.

Anna.
And I his paramour.

Raoul.
[Apart, as the women face each other.]
A scorpion whip
To her tender innocence. What white and red,
Flushing the cheek that feels its nakedness!
These are the cheeks for a nun's bands and hood,
Or for a husband's lips.

Gervais.
[To Raoul.]
I intervene:
This lady is indeed my charge. Her penance
Must be to stand apart and see you humbled
And yet exalted as I draw you back
To the life of innocence. I bid you kneel
To your sore-injured consort, bid you bow
In deep submission to the Holy Church,
And on your knees in penitence and shame
Re-knit your contract. [To Aliénor.]
Lady, to your place.

Raoul.
[Repulsing Aliénor.]
Not at my side. I will make no more contracts
With any woman. I have cast her off
For ever as my wife. Is this the lady
That once besieged St. Anthony's hot sleep,
A pretty temptress, with her silver eyes
And clumps of frizzled hair, one of those devils
The Church breeds secretly? I have no wife,
And therefore am more open to assault.

Gervais.
Cease from profanity. It is her will
Whom you affect to honour that at once
You should restore this woman to her rights:
She makes and she exacts the sacrifice.

Anna.
I make and I exact ...

Raoul.
You bring me wills,
Wills of another, pleasure of a woman,
Threats of that subtle courtesan, the Church;
You bring me letters—this or this shall happen,
Or else ...
But bastard William took his will
On Britain, with the lusty Normans, else
King Harold had not rotted on the beach.
I put this woman from me as my wife.
Take her to convent, if you will, or else ...

Gervais.
My lord, you are an ageing man, near death;
Think of your soul.

Raoul.
My soul—the hasty flower
Sprung on life's battlefield!

Gervais.
I say your soul.
Think of your sins.

Raoul.
Name me my enemy
Or yours, name any dragon I can fight,
And we will brood upon his funeral.
Name any action that is perilous,
Ay, to my soul—the soul, too, loves adventure—
I will not spare my soul.
[With a glance at Aliénor.]
How spend the days
'Twixt now and the sudden fire? A boon-companion
This lady may remain, if she elect
To wake the recollection in my flesh
Of the seven deadly sins—of idleness,
Concupiscence ...
You smile! Say, Aliénor,
You who have many lovers, am I one?
And will you be content to spend your days
Under my roof, my mistress?

Gervais.
Do not scruple,
Lady, to take this offer. You are blest,
Your union sanctified; you are a wife,
Knit to your husband as the Church to Christ,
And if he plant you in his home ...

Aliénor.
[To Raoul.]
My lord,
I have so many lovers—you are one,
And if the only one! ... But I am faint;
I travelled for you all the way to Rome,
Since the way backward to your breast lay so.
But I am faint, a pilgrim at the goal,
Half swooning. Can you give me wine?

Anna.
Fernando,
Show this great lady hospitality.

Aliénor.
Not from your hands; I will not touch his bread
Or drink his wine from you.
[Fernando brings a goblet and flask. Raoul fills the goblet, and offers it.]
Ah, thanks, my lord.
Now I revive a little. And a kiss.
That is a drop from the wine-blood of your heart!
Raoul, you know the remedy. 'Tis good
To plunge my hands deep in this bushy hair,
To play with you: but when my strength returns
I will remember your offence, avenge it
Love's awful way, with wilder vehemence,
Venus accoutred as a very Mars.
You shall not be my husband any more;
I will not share the name ... I am content
To have no name but woman, no credentials
But youth and beauty, no desire but love,
Your love, my lord: not Gosport's and not Hugo's.
I have forgotten them as this fair dame
Forgets her youth, it is so long ago.
But see—the Father blushes. Surely now
We may dismiss him with his penitent
Waiting to say farewell. Raoul, you choose:
I am content to be your paramour,
But not to see those eyes in solitude,
As I have seen them since they learnt the way
To the woods of Senlis. Those fierce, raven eyes,
Sighting their prey so far, preoccupied!
Oh, that is absence! Raoul, you dismiss her
Now on the instant, or I take my place
At the Archbishop's side.

Anna.
[Advancing to Raoul.]
I would not rate
My love against another's, and the way
Is very far to Rome. She loves you so,
To a great journey's end, a mighty love.
Almost I tremble; but there is a measure
She cannot mete: she cannot give her soul
To be your soul.

Raoul.
Anna!

Anna.
I do not speak
Of her; there is no other when I speak,
And no comparison. [Going up to her horse and patting him.]
Be kind to Senlac.
I shall not ride again; but you will ride
Senlac, my palfrey.

Raoul.
And caparisoned
For you! Be my companion down my woods,
Give me my golden day, or I will lift
This gaudy beauty to your seat.

Anna.
Fernando,
Take Senlac for your own, a parting gift.
[To Raoul.]
I will leave nothing with you for misuse.

Raoul.
Where will you go—to Court?
Why do I ask?
You pass from out my life; that is enough.
You are a Queen.

Anna.
I am a Russian Princess:
We all are buried in our native land
Wherever we may die: from very far
I came, and I shall pass.

Raoul.
Barbarian,
Howl in your steppes! This mystery in woman
Is but the savage in them puzzles us:
A Scythian, a creature that is wolf,
Then bitch that licks your hand, then—

Anna.
I remember
So little of my language; but this French ...
God keep it from my ears! [Repulsing Gervais, who approaches.]
No, no, Archbishop:
No guidance—and no error!

[Exit.]
Raoul.
She is gone.
[To Aliénor.]
You think I do not see you, what you are,
You spotted toad. [To Gervais.]
You think that I submit!
For me there is no Church, no wife, no God.
I brave all curses and I snap all ties.
Go!

Gervais.
But my blessing rest with you, my son.
Rebellious in your words, by deed you render
Obedience to the Church.

Raoul.
[Flinging Aliénor toward the Archbishop.]
Away with him,
Pass with him, an adultress with the priest.

Aliénor.
I will not. Raoul, once you flung me down
Into the Seine, and I swam back to you,
And then ... I will not leave you for a name.
I love you carnally—with stronger colours
Now I have felt your force. I love your curses,
Your blows and curses. You shall never live
The cramped life of a monk, my libertine.
Take me, your leman.

Raoul.
So my Countess wills,
And so the Church approves and I comply.
Obedient—ah, to whom?
Fling wide the doors!
[He shouts to the Pages and Women who have gathered round the courtyard to watch.]
We will keep open revel in the sight
Of the Archbishop. Pages, choose your own,
Choose from the Queen's bower-maidens; ask no leave,
But take your will and riot, this fair lady,
Queen of the revels. Dance!

[A minstrel strikes up a measure. While they dance the courtyard darkens, and lightning zig-zags among the dancers.]
Aliénor.
[As, borne along in the dance, she passes Gervais.]
Father, your blessing, for I am a wife.

Pages and Bower-Maidens.
Father, your blessing, for she is a wife.

Raoul.
Father, your blessing on my paramour.

Gervais.
May heaven direct the lightning! You blaspheme.