University of Virginia Library

ACT IV

Crépy-Valois in snow.—The evening of the next day; a dark, small room of the castle, hung with tapestry. Dressed and roughly covered with skins, Raoul is discovered lying by the window on a couch. Fernando turns from the casement.
Fernando.
There is a creeping sunset on the plain
That dazzles me ...

Raoul.
Then it will soon be dark.
When darkness falls it is a sign to sleep—
The blest, brief journey! But death promises
No man shall ever wake us from our dreams;
Therefore I am not fearful of my death.
Have you no torches?
[Fernando springs from the window and takes a torch from its socket to illume it.]
Leave the lights alone!
I would remain neglected ...
You are dull.
Can you not gossip with me by the fire?
Tell me the news abroad?

Fernando.
Our Regent's dead.

Raoul.
Whence came that tale?

Fernando.
From Senlis.

Raoul.
Ah, I see,
A message for the Queen. She answers it,
Collects her jewels, that rare hyacinth,
King Henry's gift, her treasure, and departs
For Paris and the Regent's funeral,
To take the title she rejected once.
Fernando, do you know why I am dying?
Come close up to my pillows ... Men will say
'Tis of this feverish wound that I am grown
More feeble than a child. Is it, Fernando? ...
O Love, beloved,
Our life was paired so nobly, not an hour
Of life but had for us the self-same smack
And relish on the lips. After a year
Of full fidelity to grow of a sudden
So small and alien! I believed the woman
In her was equal to the man in me
By strength of Love's unmediated glory,
That she would leave all dreams and adorations
Before supremacy of love's own fact:
Henceforth we were one body and one life,
One world together, that no God, Madonna,
Priest, demon, all the names Love does away
By rising of himself, could ever yield
To chaos and the old, unmeaning night.
I thought that she was free within the kingdom
Where all are free who keep upon its shore,
And breathe the air its mountains and its groves,
And sap-bright valleys heave. O deep romance
Of truth's divine audacity—that land
She reached with me! And then, congealed by fear,
And with a murderer's lip, she left the shore,
And grew bond-woman to the hollow regions
Where popes and bishops and chill duties rule.
I was alone ... but in that bold, free air
To be alone is death.
[He starts and looks out.]
A light—out yonder!
Fernando, I have never seen a hut,
Not there. Keep close, close to the window-pane.
How my wound hurts! You do not turn your head.
Three horses! They are dark upon the stretches
Of recent whiteness ... horsemen! But a shadow,
Like a long branch's shadow in the sun
Of leafy June trails on one charger's flank,
And is not shadow in this winter-time.
Still hard upon the verge ...

Fernando.
Such space between!
And they must travel slowly; there is ice
On the rough, broken track.

Raoul.
Oh, they have patience,
So patiently they will pick out the path,
And spare the beasts and wile away the time;
They will not press. ...

[Silence and vigil.]
Fernando.
[Suddenly kneeling to Raoul.]
Think of your soul, my lord,
Your soul.

Raoul.
Fernando, does a drowning man
Think of his body? All my soul's at clutch
Of the eluding waves; I fight for life,
And, by the Holy Heart ...

Fernando.
Hush, hush, my lord.

Raoul.
Dare you deceive me with that track of light
You know is Jack-o'-lantern? Boy, be blunt,
The Queen's in Paris? ...
[Anna enters unperceived.]
And I cannot die
Without her; you must send for her again.
O Anna, Anna!

[With closed eyes he falls back moaning.]
Anna.
[Speaking quietly like a nurse.]
Do I hear my name?
How sweet! You have been thinking of me, dear,
All the long while that I have been away?
Look, I must shake my cloak to clear myself
From the snow, before I kiss you.
O beloved,
Out of an icy world I bring but this,
My love, my love, my love!

Raoul.
You love me—ay!
That may be so; you left me here to rove
At will among a thousand memories:
That is your faithfulness. I am forsaken,
Too near the grave for anything to reach me
That is not far away.
Oh, softly, Anna,
We should be speaking now of our first love.
The aged and dying in their solitude
Turn to their youth, and there they seat themselves
With one beside them ... Let me hold your hand.

Anna.
[Sitting by the couch.]
And I will speak to you of our first love.
Listen!

Raoul.
I will not. Did King Henry come
Into your childish dreams?

Anna.
I speak of youth.
One must be solitary to be young;
Youth is quite solitary. Love, the forest
Where I was born began hard by the Dnieper,
Began, and had no end.
[Raoul closes his eyes.]
I thought that there
The dark was made in the deep firs, enough
To cover all the world. I dreamed of heroes,
Of one ... While I was small he rescued children
From cruel packs of wolves, and afterward
He was a noble, like my ancestor,
Philip of Macedon. I dreamed he loved me,
And promised him my hand: in the deep woods
We met and hunted. I was torn away
To France, and then I did not dream again,
Till ...

Raoul.
[Opening his eyes.]
Senlis, where you fooled your life away;
But now the Regent's dead—no fairy-tales!

Anna.
I had forgotten.

Raoul.
Anna, do not lie.
Forget the Regent's death?—you start aside—
Forget your duty to your son, to France,
What he was born to claim, what she demands,
All you neglected while a madness raged?
I know that you are come to say farewell
To one you leave behind: we always turn
And turn when we go forward on our way.
I catch the movement: I am not deceived,
But stay until the end, stay to the midnight;
Then fresh to Paris at the earliest dawn!
[Lifting himself violently.]
If I were absolute, you should not go,
Not even then. If death must saddle me
His own pale horse I would be swift astride,
Could you but dare the leap into my arms.
You dare not. You forget the Regent's death.
Liar!—forget your majesty.

Anna.
Fernando,
I cannot hold him longer in my arms:
I think I am half-swooning with the cold.

[She sinks down at the foot of the bed.]
Raoul.
That's nothing! Birds will drop down off the bough
If the cold strikes them. You! ...

[With a hollow laugh he falls back unconscious.]
Fernando.
[To Anna.]
But he is dying!

Anna.
And I have lacked the patience of a nurse,
The comfort, and I cannot be forgiven.

Fernando.
[Kneeling.]
Ave Maria, to thy gracious trust
And bosom of thy mercy I commend
Now, at his hour of death, my master's soul.
I think of him no more; I think of thee,
Thy plenitude, thy power. To sanctuary,
O clement Mother, of thine open arms
I carry him. Thy fugitive is safe.
Ave Maria!

Anna.
[Involuntarily kneels by Fernando, weeping.]
I cannot bear my love,
Except God help me. That is foolishness!
I think Love is himself a god who falters
To bear his cross without a mortal's help.
What shall I do? I am afraid, I shudder ...
For I have lacked the patience of a nurse:
It cannot be forgiven. When he wakes ...

[She rises and paces the room. Fernando fronts her.]
Fernando.
If that should be, if, by God's wondrous grace,
Life should return and my dear master live,
Will you upon whose lips I hear such words
As blow about in flames where love is cursed,
Say, will you tarry by his side and offer
His soul to hell, his earthly days to ban
That sucks them dry of hope? Say, are you come,
Now that he lies
On the pale confines of the body's death
To hold him back—you can? ... then to prepare
His spirit for the kingdom of hot shrieks?
You can, you can! But be more merciful.
Those hands of yours have been a saviour's hands,
Royal, divine in charity, a queen's,
A saint's. Oh, pardon, if I misconceive,
If in my terror I should take your action
Wrong in its gist.

Anna.
I come to flood this soul
With all that it has lost—love, virtue, trust,
Each golden whiteness, each enduring force;
I come to dwell beside it and be steeped
In all I had foresworn.

Fernando.
Declare the worst!
You come ...

Anna.
As excommunication. So
I bear the chiming truth of happiness
In hands made pure to touch it; so I sound
Its compass to the universe, to him
Here and hereafter.

[Anna continues pacing.]
Fernando.
Oh, how terrible!
Then I will pray, pray for his instant death.
What straits you put me to, what monstrous pangs!
I love him, love the master I can touch,
Whose eyes I waken with the morning call—
Love him until I tremble and grow weak
At thought I shall not serve him my whole life
With life on to the end: and of myself
You sentence me to kill him with my prayers.
I would far rather see that other one,
That woman who has tempted me to sin
Against him, my adored—that Aliénor,
Who is his wife, beside him in her shame,
Than see you here and know there is the burthen
Of his perdition on your smiles, most cruel,
Most sacrilegious! And the time is short.
[He moves to the far end of the room and prays.]
O Christ, Thou must be crucified afresh
To save him, for Thou didst but die in vain
On Calvary ... Thou must go down to Hades,
Thou wilt, Thou canst. I love him as Thyself,
As Thou must love him—Jesu!
Sacred Heart,
I pray with bleeding heart-wounds, let him die,
Let him not wake!

Anna.
[Still pacing.]
In my extremity
I rode forth swiftly, dashing from my lips
The rally of his bugle, till the stars
Twinkled for very joy. Love, love, O love!
But I have lacked the patience of a nurse,
The comfort, and I cannot be forgiven.

[She bows her face in her hands and again crouches by the foot of the bed.]
Raoul.
[Murmuring to himself.]
Fernando! They have all forsaken me.
And yet I will not call—
Her cloak is there,
And I remember she is fast asleep.
I will not waken her, for then I fear
She would desert me for a funeral.
And yet I must. Did she not challenge me
To ride through the dark bramble of the stars?
Anna, my love! [Snatching back the curtain.]
But you are on your knees
And praying for me. So you feigned a swoon.

Anna.
[Rising.]
I am not praying.

Raoul.
[Springing up and steadying himself on her arm.]
In the very act.
O liar, you forget the Regent's death;
You are not praying. Faugh! You will not steal
To Paris in the dawnlight, giant lie!
You did not love me on the cruel steppes
Beyond the pale of light. You love my tomb,
And you are praying for me by the fire.

Anna.
[Pointing to Fernando.]
Listen, he prays.

Raoul.
With that averted face.
And you were praying too, I saw you both
With the red firelight playing on your hands.
I saw you so at Senlis in the sun
The day that you betrayed me. Nay ... no touch
Of those soft hands. Where is your wedding-ring?
Hid by the rubies? ... Let me strip it off.
I have a consort ... This is not the end.
You think I will die tamely by the fire!—
I cannot perish in a hissing sea,
The levin of my mast-head on my eyes,
Like my great Viking ancestor, I cannot:
But I will stop those prayers.
Get from your knees,
Fernando! There is something to be done.
Is the boy deaf?

Anna.
[Supporting him as he staggers.]
What is your will, my lord,
For I, your wife, will be obedient.
Trust me.

Raoul.
Then I will trust. Fetch Aliénor:
Bid the boy fetch her.

Fernando.
Oh, how happy! O
My blessèd master! I will run at once
To speed fulfilment of my urgent prayer.
I prayed for this, and it is come to pass.

Anna.
Not yet: you must await the miracle,
And pray her to my presence on your knees.
Now, say, my lord, if I believe in prayer—
I would rather see you dead before me, dead,
Than for an instant you should catch her face,
And yet I bid this boy pray on. I know
I shall be safe while he is on his knees.
Fernando, pray.

Fernando.
It is to test my faith ...
Mother, accept this perfect sacrifice:
Thou dost not need a mortal messenger.
Send of thy legion angels the least page
To do this service.

[Raoul, held by Anna, sinks back on the bed.]
Raoul.
But fetch Aliénor.
I do not understand: you say you will,
And yet I do not see her. I am weary;
I cannot listen. Pull me back that arras,
I think there is a moon.
[Anna uncovers the casement further.]
Ah, now I see her!
How fast she travels! You may leave me now,
She speeds along so fast. But I am sinking
To a darkness in my head. Fetch Aliénor ...

[Anna brings down the curtain.]
Anna.
St. Vladimir, but I will disobey!
Let there be utter darkness, lamentation
Wild as my heart. These uncaressing hands!
But I will curse him with old cradle-songs
And snatches of fierce music. One can sleep
In the full darkness, if one hear a voice,
The living beat of life about the room—
I know that from a child; and I will play
The nurse's part, and keep the regular,
Low singing as abateless as a clock,
While I arraign my lover. Love, beloved,
Is it not hard enough that I must call you,
That of your own accord you will not come?
You will come swift enough when you are dead,
Life keeps us so apart. Remember, dear,
Remember how we two in autumn nights,
My own, would wander, just we two together,
And whisper secret words. O winds, warm winds,
Warm autumn winds! ... but, no, I must not sob,
For now he breathes more gently, he is sleeping,
And I must keep him in forgetfulness
With any childish memories of my brain.
If God would give my love a little health—
And if it were but for an idle day,
A single hour, to tread the mossy turf,
To pluck the magic gentians ...
He will wake.
O God, O God! I cannot keep the chaunt,
I love him to such fierce extremity,
And he rejects my loving.
What temptation
Urged me to leave him? Did I not abide
With my great lover for a year secure
From every qualm. Did he not say to me,
When the mute Church stood 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 bosom's captive founts.”
That faith was good
For autumn, for the hunting-field. The winter—
That changes all. If the warm life's to come
In winter, it must be by miracle.
I thought of my great hero in the cold
Of Pagan death ... With energy of pain
And absolute surrender, I went forth,
Eager to yield him up, to leave his side,
So from my hands he might receive the gift
Of Christian burial and an honoured tomb;
But still there was no miracle. At Senlis
I prayed for spring to touch my sterile heart
As once before ...
He stirs uneasily.
Again the measure! Come to us, O Spring,
Come to us, Springtide, with thy joy, thy goodness,
With thy tall flax, deep roots and plenteous corn,
Thy healthful springtide water. Give us health,
Beautiful, joyous Spring.
It is the same,
Whether at Senlis or far down the banks
Of glorious Dnieper: there are many gods,
And we may make them idols every one
By prayer and sacrifice, but not by song;
No singing is idolatry.
O welcome,
Beautiful, joyous Spring!
I feel it now—
Fernando crying to the clement Virgin,
Or my own people on the flowered steppes
Prostrate to black-haired Perun who brings forth
From earth the living water, I myself
Praying for motherhood, we have one cry
Come to us, Spring! O healthful, springtide streams,
Even to us give health!
When he awakes ...
Ah, but how deeply I have sinned against him,
Fearing and doubting. Of my many gods
I must ask pardon.
O forgive me, all
Ye heavenly host; forgive, O sky, O sun;
Ye stars, forgive! And thou, damp Mother-Earth,
Green mother-grave, and thou, O very holy
Mother of God, forgive! I have blasphemed.
Forgive, all earthly, heavenly elements;
Fountain of Life, forgive!
When he awakes,
He shall not need the lady Aliénor;
I do not think that he will ask for her.
But, oh!—the time is short, and he is sighing
That terrible short sigh that like an arrow
Pierces my heart. I will let in the moon.
[Singing at the casement.]

[He moves on his couch; she holds herself from going to him, and keeps motionless at the window.]
Raoul.
Is Anna gone? I must have slept awhile,
Listening to music—'tis as something stopt
That pressed beside me like a brimming stream,
A current in procession to the sun.
It saved me, drove back chaos from my brain.
If it would sing again! The light is lost
Together with the music—that must be!
When the angels sang there was a flood of light.
Nothing can ever move the dark away,
Except a madrigal. O Anna, Anna!
How softly she is singing to the moon,
Beside the casement at the window-bars,
Or is she singing? It is all of gold.

Anna.
Barushi-balu! 'Tis the lullaby
They sing in Russia, where the pines are rocked,
Where the great forests fall asleep at even,
Where the snow binds the hurricane. O moon,
O lovely moon, shine clear upon the bed
With thy great crystals from the Caucasus.
Pour light upon my hero!

Raoul.
I am faint ...
I wake to find myself in shattered walls.
Anna ... I wonder is she dreaming now
Of the rushing stream of darkness through the firs?
For if she dreams I know that it will be
Of Scythia, of her youth. How good it is
To meet in the deep passes of a dream,
How good to know she loved me even then
In the days of youth, of dreaming.
Anna, there!
And will you sing in Russian to the moon,
While I am dying? Pour me out some wine,
And chafe my hands ...

Anna.
Fernando!

[She motions him to reach wine.]
Raoul.
I could drink it
Better from you.
[She chafes his hands.]
You have a touch that passes
Right through me like a whisper. You are false!
What matter! I am dying. Give me wine.

Anna.
I will not. Speak, Fernando, bid him drink.
Your lord believes you faithful. Pour the wine!

Fernando.
[Offering the cup.]
Dear master, as I love you ...

Raoul.
There, a pledge!
To my fair wife whoever she may be,
And to this fairer lady of the hour.
I drink to each.

Anna.
[Dashing the wine-cup from his lips.]
Better to faint and die
Than rail upon my faith.

Raoul.
You dropped the arras,
And in the darkness I am tossed about
As under choking water. Anna, come!

Anna.
I will not.

Raoul.
Then your voice—that song again.
Anna!

Anna.
I will not sing. What! let a drop
Of the freshness of my spirit fall on you,
Who, as you die, would take indifferent
My kiss, or any wanton's ...

Raoul.
Anna, Anna,
You do not understand. Though you desert me,
And hymn your Pagan heroes to the moon,
I have you in my blood, and you can pulse it
To any tune you will. Come hither, child—
It were a royal action. I am helpless,
I cry you mercy ... In the stony dark
I cannot catch your hand.
[Enter suddenly the King, Gervais, Courtiers, Priests and Torch-bearers.]
Oh, here are lights,
The very flare of hell, and noise enough
To maze the devil. Did I order lights?
Who is it ... visits me?

Philip.
[To Anna.]
Mother, your son.

Gervais.
[To Raoul.]
The Church, your mother.
We have ridden fast
To Senlis with petition to the Queen
That she should rule now at Count Beaudoin's death
Her young son's realm, left regentless. At Senlis
We learnt that she was here, that all her saintship
Had been abjured, that by your devilry,
The fever and the madness of your spells,
She had again been mastered. Lo, again
The curse of severance from man, from God,
Hangs over you, if stubbornly you keep
This woman as your wife, and with the bonds
Of sin encompass her.

Raoul.
Nay, she is bound
By you, herself, her God, her lies—by me
She is not bound.
Leave me! I hate you all.
My former Countess will herself appoint
Her widowhood.

[He turns to the wall.]
Philip.
Then, mother, if indeed
A mother's name is never of the past,
And never can be former, but, like God,
'Tis first of its own nature and endures ...
Be loyal to him whose blood is from you, hold
For him your dignity. You stain the fountain,
Staining the source that flows in desecration,
Once foul, through all its waters.
Straight forsake
This subject castle, and beside your son
Be seated as the queen of his whole realm,
Till years full crown him.
I was tender young,
When first you left me; I was innocent.
I climb toward adolescence ... Cruelly
Knowledge burns through me that reproaches you
Here at this vassal's bedside. By your prayers
You called me into life; by mine, by mine
I call you back to motherhood.

Gervais.
This voice,
Hear it—the echo of your anguished cry
To the most Holy Mother of our God,
The very tones!

Anna.
[To Raoul, who gradually turns his eyes to hers as if at watch.]
I am a Russian Princess,
A stranger to this France of yours, and if
You die I shall return to my own land,
Where there is skyless forest: by the Dnieper
I can be solitary and forget
These titles I have borne.

Philip.
Madam, your son
Claims some authority.

Anna.
My child, my child!
Put those armed looks away. I have a portrait
All gentleness and smiles.

Philip.
I cannot, mother,
I cannot leave you with your paramour:
You bring disgrace on me and shame to France.

Anna.
I am a Russian Princess and a stranger;
I must go back soon to my native land,
I feel I must go back, away from all
That ever happened to me in my life.
I bore you to the King ... go home and rule.
My part has here its end.

Raoul.
[In a murmur.]
O love and love!

[Philip turns his back on Anna and joins his courtiers.]
Gervais.
You drive the child God gave you from your sight,
Child of your prayers and heart-sick vow: he leaves you
With alienated face and such despair
As clothes itself like hate. Recall with him
The blessing of your past, the blessings promised
In future to all futures! Oh, call back
Your womanhood, your queenship, your religion,
Your sainted victory, call back the love
That once has triumphed. Shall this sinner die
Looking to you who are indeed his death?

Fernando.
Save him from death! He is your loved one, save!

Anna.
I am most absolute. If it be death
For him to look on me, then I am Death.
Leave us, each one of you.
Farewell, my son,
I shall not see you any more. Forget,
In the wide thoughts of state, my name; remember
You are King Henry's heir ... and prospering Time
Be golden till your season pass away.
You frown, you will not kiss me. It is well.
I go from you as choosing my own fate,
And in my choice I seek what others blame
And have dark brows against.
Farewell, Archbishop!
It is too late; your power is broken.

Gervais.
Nay,
'Tis at the prime, unspent.
Raoul of Valois
I here pronounce is excommunicate,
Curse to himself and curse to every one
Who shall approach or aid him; he shall wither
Unburied as a criminal, and find
His portion with the lost who wail in shame
Their destitute rebellion. He is dead
To God, his God, and to all Christian souls!

Anna.
I plunge into his dark; I take his curse.
[Exeunt all but Fernando, who has sunk on the ground with a cry of agony.]
Oh, this is happiness! my lord, my life!

Raoul.
[Laying his cheek against hers.]
At last, close-wedded! There is nothing, heart,
We would obliterate: all, all the hours
Of love in wrath, of love in blasphemy,
Are precious to us; I would carry them
Far on into my soul.

Anna.
Where do you go?
Belovèd, where? For in the old religion
The soul that's dead must sail on a wide sea,
Or travel over plains.

Raoul.
[Stroking her hands.]
Love travels so,
Across the sea and wilds.

Anna.
I have no terror.
I would go with you wheresoe'er you wend;
But tell me where!

Raoul.
A-wandering. And your goal
Is in the Russian forest: then our tryst
Be there, 'mid the great fir-boughs, where the dark
Begins and has no end.

Anna.
Yes, in the forest
Of the black firs and snow. There will be freedom
And silence there. I shall not be afraid
However you may come to me—a ghost,
An apparition ...
[Raoul sinks back, then draws her down to him in a strait embrace.]
In the deep fir-shades,
As thus, together!
[He dies.]
[After a while Anna rises and completely shrouds herself in her mantle of ermine. As she turns to go she perceives Fernando.]
And the boy still prays.
Fernando, will you come with me?

Fernando.
The corpse!

[He goes to Raoul's body, lays a crucifix on it, and kneels again by the bedside. Anna, without looking back, walks through the open doorway.]