University of Virginia Library

SCENE III

Scene: The same as Scene I. Ursyne enters bearing a torch, followed by Count Geoffrey.
URSYNE.
Why are you late? Colder now grows this room.
[She goes back to her place by the window. Count Geoffrey watches her from where he stands by the fire.
The wind, more dismal still, howls the lament
Of everlasting love, bound in the air,
To feel both fire and frost and chilly rain,
But never the sweet flowering of the Spring.
My element is earth, yet I could sob
With thee! O, dark, cold night—if I had wings!

COUNT GEOFFREY.
The night is quiet and I hear no wind.

URSYNE.
Then it must be presentiment of woe
That gnaws my heart whilst I sit watching here.
Watching—for whom? Waiting—for whom?

COUNT GEOFFREY.
I bring
Strange news that will interpret well these portents.
[She comes down the stage.
Turn thy white face toward me. It is sad.
How old art thou?

URSYNE.
Twenty, and that's too long.

COUNT GEOFFREY.
Dost thou hate all men?

URSYNE.
All living men save thee.

COUNT GEOFFREY.
Many brave knights have begged thy hand, Ursyne.
Though thou art poor, thy beauty looks more rare
Than all the land and dower of Arlette.

URSYNE.
Let Arlette be.

COUNT GEOFFREY.
No envy need afflict
Thy girlhood's pride because of this rich cousin.
Arlette may buy a husband, while for thee
There's the devotion that a man achieves
When he's competitor and not the prize.

URSYNE.
My mind is not for marriage. Oft I think
That my wild heart is with some damned soul
Already suffering all the pangs of hell.
My body's here, my spirit's far away,
Driven and tossed, and tortured on a rack,
Which does not rend the less because it is
Invisible! O God!

COUNT GEOFFREY.
Go and confess.
Thy solitude is shared by whispering fiends.
Thou art too much alone. Acts of contrition
Will drive away these mad and gloomy thoughts.
Come, be not sullen. What? She loves no man?
She has no curiosity—perverse!
I have great news. Wilt thou not beg for them?

URSYNE.
All tidings come full soon. Is England lost?
Is Normandy become a wilderness?
Has the day's sport been somewhat better or worse
Than the day's sport this day, this month, last year?

COUNT GEOFFREY.
Now wide astonishment, larger than any hope,
Will catch these roving eyes, and light these cheeks.
My news affects thy cousin more than thee,
And her young soul, more womanish and frail
Than thine, may grow distraught from th'violence
Of unexpected joy. Tranquillity
Broods o'er thy nature and to thee emotion
Is but a lake that sleeps among high hills.
Therefore, I'll make no phrase. Hear the plain truth.
Hugh of Carliol is not dead. He lives!

URSYNE.
[Stupefied.]
Hugh of Carliol is not dead! He lives!

COUNT GEOFFREY.
Send for thy cousin, and, if thou hast a heart
Under that iron shell which seems a girl,
Say this: Kind Heaven, perceiving her distress,
Has heard our supplications and preserved
Her bridegroom from that sleep the sword doth give
More certainly than either drug or herb.

URSYNE.
[Repeating mechanically.]
That sleep the sword doth give more certainly
Than either drug or herb.

COUNT GEOFFREY.
What dost thou say?

URSYNE.
I say thy news is strange.

COUNT GEOFFREY.
I'll call Arlette, and, at the curfew bell,
Th'assembled household shall give thanks to God
For this deliverance from the enemy.

[Count Geoffrey goes out.
URSYNE.
O, at his rumoured death my spirit left me
To join its wild associate in pain.
Then we were one—to-night we are dissevered.
I fall again to life as one that wakes
From fierce delirium to the surgeon's knife,
But to exchange the anguish of the mind
For butchery's cold steel.—O, who would live,
Or who would love this world or any on it,
When penalties await each pitiful joy
Snatched from the aching littleness of time!
And he was mine, being dead, no barrier
Could stay the dear approach of our two wills.
Supreme, insatiable was the thirst
Each owned for the other's self, till, made one wave,
We lashed the world's harsh shore, and ever gained,
Recoiling, newer force to smite that sand!
This is no more. Already, love, thou'rt gone,
And, as the amber east of this bleak morning
Was fast obscured by clinging, feverous mists,
So doth thy spirit fade from my desire,
And all I journey with is emptiness!

Enter Osbern.
OSBERN.
Ursyne!

URSYNE.
Alas!

OSBERN.

Alas! Hast thou no word save this? I
hate Carliol and I curse the good news. So
much, then, for my hate. But is thy love of
such ethereal quality that neither death nor
life affects it? Is it “Alas!” both ways?

URSYNE.

Yes, for my will is struggling against
treason. If I kill the treason—as I shall—
I must die for the sorrowful victory! And
if my will is overpowered—as it must not be
—I shall perish from the shame of defeat.
And thus—it is “Alas!” both ways!

OSBERN.

What wilt thou say to Carliol when he
comes?

URSYNE.

There is nothing left to say. My heart—
which holds my words—is broken.

OSBERN.

[Passionately.]
And me? and me? and
me? Do you never think of me, or understand
me? There are women who will give
love for love. There are women who, seeing
that they may save a soul by loving it, do
love it for that reason! But you are cold,
dumb, merciless!

URSYNE.

No, no If I still live, Osbern, it is
because of thee.

OSBERN.

Ah! [Touches her hand.]
Is this true?

URSYNE.

And I know more—I would not have thee
marry another. Take vows, dear Osbern—
take vows. Never marry. No woman could
make thee happy.

OSBERN.

No other woman could make me unhappy!
When I see some beauty, I ask myself, Could
this paragon give me one minute of despair?

I laugh! Ah, Ursyne, thou hast no cause
for jealousy. Thou art the one source of my
undying wretchedness. In this you have no
rival!

URSYNE.

When I look at you, and hear you, I think
it is well I do not love you.

OSBERN.
Why?

URSYNE.
Because I should have loved you far too well!
Ah, had I known you ere Carliol came,
Then all my life had changed from woe to rest,
Then, as some poor white sail shines by the sun
And seems a wing of brightness till the night,
So I had been rejoicing in your love.
But you were born for more than woman's praise,
And I come as a sad song in your way,
You'll hear me and pass on, and think at last,
“I wonder was that song some winter's dream?”

OSBERN.
Extreme grief hath no fear, nor limit, nor shame ...
Its violence, impalpable as the wind,
Scatters our inmost nature till we seem
Bare empty trees with neither wood nor leaves—
But only bark that's brittle, and soon dust!

[Arlette enters, and Osbern goes out. Arlette comes timidly and takes a stool by the fire. Ursyne hesitates a moment and then goes to her.
URSYNE.
Why do you sit apart so white and still,
And colour suddenly when footsteps follow?
Why do you watch the burning embers till
They flush too bright and in the ashes die?
And, ever through your laugh, a cutting sigh
Pricks through the mirth. My bird, Arlette, say truly.
Is it because you mourn the dead unduly?

ARLETTE.
[Surprised.]
The dead! Now, speak not of the dead! I pray
Their souls may rest in peace. Thoughts more prolonged
Spoil what remains to us, and, shedding tears,
We miss an immediate glory. Is it not so?

URSYNE.
How love will teach the purest heart deception!
My bird chirps well the teaching of the Church!

ARLETTE.
Those great long words, I know, are not my own,
Yet I feel all their sense.

URSYNE.
[With mockery.]
Why then this pallor!
This pensive look when, supperless at night,
You steal away to watch the glittering sky,
And rise at dawn ere the empurpled clouds
Have risen like mountains on the east horizon?
When the last morning stars retreat to heaven,
When the moon's light doth mingle with the sun's
First radiance—my Arlette then doth wake,
It may be, murmuring prayers, but I think not!

ARLETTE.
Ah, dear Ursyne ...

[She pauses.
URSYNE.
Now is the white face red,
The bud becomes a flower, the thought a blush.
Denials would be vain, my accusation
Blames not the purity of your dreaming mind,
For, where's the harm, though you are sick with love.
The state is unfamiliar to your knowledge.
How could you guess that when you search the clouds,
Or sigh because a melancholy note
Drives you to think the passingness of life
Is all too swift—that this is love—not wisdom!

ARLETTE.
I think if I did love I could discern
The difference between an orison
And this compelling, sweet, perpetual spell.
I say, if I did love, Ursyne.

URSYNE.
And do you?

ARLETTE.
Should I declare outright that intimate secret
I scarce could breathe even to him who holds
My heart's allegiance? Help me, Ursyne.

URSYNE.
Here's woe indeed!

[Osbern enters during following speech, unperceived by the two women.
ARLETTE.
Let me come near thee now.
Stay with me but a while. It frightens me
When, in a sombre mood, you fly away
From my poor presence, and ominously talk
To unseen ears. Somewhat I have to tell ...

URSYNE.
Nay, tell it not, save to the one who holds
Thy heart's allegiance! The Earl still lives.
Thy lover was not slain. Carliol comes
To claim thy promised faith.

[Voices heard from the chapel chanting the Te Deum. Arlette falls in a swoon.
URSYNE.
[Contemptuously.]
Why does she fall?

OSBERN.
[With a sinister laugh.]
I think it must be joy! Te Deum laudamus.