University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—In London. Dipsychus in his Study.
Dipsychus.
O God! O God! and must I still go on
Doing this work—I know not, hell's or thine;
And these rewards receiving—sure not thine;
The adulation of a foolish crowd,
Half foolish and half greedy; upright judge—
Lawyer acute—the Mansfield and the Hale
In one united to bless modern Courts.
O God! O God! According to the law,
With solemn face to solemn sentence fit,
Doing the justice that is but half just;
Punishing wrong that is not truly wrong!
Administering, alas, God! not Thy law. (Knock at the door.)

What? Is the hour already for the Court?
Come in. Now, Lord Chief Justice, to thy work.

(Enter a Servant.)
Serv.
My lord, a woman begging to be seen.

Di.
A woman begging to be seen? What's this?
'Tis not the duty of your post, my friend,
To give admittance on the busy days
Of a hard labourer in this great world
To all poor creatures begging to be seen.
Something unusual in it? Bid her wait
In the room below, I'll see her as I pass.
Is the horse there?

Serv.
He's coming round, my lord.

Di.

Wom.
Once you knew me well enough.

Di.
Oh, you! I had been told that you were dead.

Wom.
So your creatures said;
But I shall live, I think, till you die too.

Di.
What do you want? Money, subsistence, bread?

Wom.
I wanted bread, money, all things, 'tis true,
But wanted, above all things, to see you.

Di.
This cannot be. What has been done is o'er.
You have no claim or right against me more;
I have dealt justly with you to the uttermost.

Wom.
I did not come to say you were unjust—
I came to see you only.

Di.
Hear me now.
Remember, it was not the marriage vow,
Nor promise e'er of chaste fidelity,
That joined us thirty years ago in a tie
Which I, I think, scarce sought. It was not I
That took your innocence; you spoiled me of mine.
And yet, as though the vow had been divine,
Was I not faithful? Were you so to me?
Had you been white in spotless purity,
Could I have clung to you more faithfully?
I left you, after wrongs I blush with shame
E'en now through all my fifty years to name.
I left you; yet I stinted still my ease,—
Curtailed my pleasures—toil still extra toil,—
To repay you for what you never gave.
Is it not true?

Wom.
Go on, say all and more.
Upon this body, as the basis, lies
The ladder that has raised you to the skies.

Di.
Is that so much? am I indeed so high?
Am I not rather
The slave and servant of the wretched world,
Liveried and finely dressed—yet all the same
A menial and lacquey seeking place
For hire, and for his hire's sake doing work?

Wom.
I do not know; you have wife and child, I know,
Domestic comfort and a noble name,
And people speak in my ears too your praise.
O man, O man! do you not know in your heart
It was for this you came to me—
It was for this I took you to my breast?
O man, man, man!
You come to us with your dalliance in the street,
You pay us with your miserable gold,
You do not know how in the—

Di.
(looks at his watch).
You must go now. Justice calls me elsewhere;
Justice—might keep you here.
You may return again; stay, let me see—
Six weeks to-morrow you shall see me again;
Now you must go. Do you need money? here,
It is your due: take it, that you may live;
And see me, six weeks from to-morrow, elsewhere.

Wom.
I will not go;
You must stay here and hear me, or I shall die!
It were ill for you that I should.

Di.
What! shall the nation wait?
Woman, if I have wronged you, it was for good—
Good has come of it. Lo, I have done some work.
Over the blasted and the blackened spot
Of our unhappy and unhallowed deed
I have raised a mausoleum of such acts
As in this world do honour unto me,
But in the next to thee.

Wom.
Hear me, I cannot go!

Di.
It cannot be; the court, the nation waits.
Is not the work, too, yours?

Wom.
I go, to die this night!

Di.
I cannot help it. Duty lies here. Depart!

Wom.
Listen; before I die, one word! In old times
You called me Pleasure—my name now is Guilt.