University of Virginia Library

Scene II

Interior of a Chapel, with painted Windows.
Enter Teresa.
Teresa.
When first I entered this pure spot, forebodings
Press'd heavy on my heart: but as I knelt,
Such calm unwonted bliss possess'd my spirit,
A trance so cloudless, that those sounds, hard by,
Of trampling uproar fell upon mine ear
As alien and unnoticed as the rain-storm
Beats on the roof of some fair banquet-room,
While sweetest melodies are warbling—

Enter Valdez.
Valdez.
Ye pitying saints, forgive a father's blindness,
And extricate us from this net of peril!

Teresa.
Who wakes anew my fears, and speaks of peril?

Valdez.
O best Teresa, wisely wert thou prompted!
This was no feat of mortal agency!
That picture—Oh, that picture tells me all!
With a flash of light it came, in flames it vanished,
Self-kindled, self-consum'd: bright as thy life,
Sudden and unexpected as thy fate,
Alvar! My son! My son!—The Inquisitor—

Teresa.
Torture me not! But Alvar—Oh of Alvar?

Valdez.
How often would he plead for these Morescoes!
The brood accurst! remorseless, coward murderers!

Teresa.
So? so?—I comprehend you—He is—

Valdez.
He is no more!

Teresa.
O sorrow! that a father's voice should say this,
A Father's Heart believe it!

Valdez.
A worse sorrow
Are fancy's wild hopes to a heart despairing!

Teresa.
These rays that slant in through those gorgeous windows,
From yon bright orb—though coloured as they pass,
Are they not light?—Even so that voice, Lord Valdez!
Which whispers to my soul, though haply varied
By many a fancy, many a wishful hope,
Speaks yet the truth: and Alvar lives for me!

Valdez.
Yes, for three wasting years, thus and no other,
He has lived for thee—a spirit for thy spirit!
My child, we must not give religious faith
To every voice which makes the heart a listener
To its own wish.

Teresa.
I breath'd to the Unerring
Permitted prayers. Must those remain unanswer'd,
Yet impious sorcery, that holds no commune
Save with the lying spirit, claim belief?

Valdez.
O not to-day, not now for the first time
Was Alvar lost to thee—
Accurst assassins!
Disarmed, o'erpowered, despairing of defence,
At his bared breast he seem'd to grasp some relique
More dear than was his life—

Teresa.
O Heavens! my portrait!
And he did grasp it in his death pang!
Off, false demon,
That beat'st thy black wings close above my head!
[Ordonio enters with the keys of the dungeon in his hand.
Hush! who comes here? The wizard Moor's employer!
Moors were his murderers, you say? Saints shield us
From wicked thoughts—
[Valdez moves towards the back of the stage to meet Ordonio, and during the concluding lines of Teresa's speech appears as eagerly conversing with him.
Is Alvar dead? what then?
The nuptial rites and funeral shall be one!
Here's no abiding-place for thee, Teresa.—
Away! they see me not—Thou seest me, Alvar!
To thee I bend my course.—But first one question,
One question to Ordonio.—My limbs tremble—
There I may sit unmark'd—a moment will restore me.

[Retires out of sight.
Ordonio
(as he advances with Valdez).
These are the dungeon keys. Monviedro knew not,
That I too had received the wizard's message,
‘He that can bring the dead to life again.’
But now he is satisfied, I plann'd this scheme
To work a full conviction on the culprit,
And he entrusts him wholly to my keeping.

Valdez.
'Tis well, my son! But have you yet discovered
(Where is Teresa?) what those speeches meant—
Pride, and hypocrisy, and guilt, and cunning?
Then when the wizard fix'd his eye on you,
And you, I know not why, look'd pale and trembled—
Why—why, what ails you now?—

Ordonio.
Me? what ails me?
A pricking of the blood—It might have happen'd
At any other time.—Why scan you me?

Valdez.
His speech about the corse, and stabs and murderers,
Bore reference to the assassins—

Ordonio.
Dup'd! dup'd! dup'd!
The traitor, Isidore!
[A pause, then wildly.
I tell thee, my dear father!
I am most glad of this.

Valdez.
True—sorcery
Merits its doom; and this perchance may guide us
To the discovery of the murderers.
I have their statures and their several faces
So present to me, that but once to meet them
Would be to recognize.

Ordonio.
Yes! yes! we recognize them.
I was benumb'd, and staggered up and down
Through darkness without light—dark—dark—dark!
My flesh crept chill, my limbs felt manacled
As had a snake coil'd round them!—Now 'tis sunshine,
And the blood dances freely through its channels!
[Then to himself.
This is my virtuous, grateful Isidore!
[Then mimicking Isidore's manner and voice.
‘A common trick of gratitude, my lord!’
Old Gratitude! a dagger would dissect
His ‘own full heart’—'twere good to see its colour.

Valdez.
These magic sights! O that I ne'er had yielded
To your entreaties! Neither had I yielded,
But that in spite of your own seeming faith
I held it for some innocent stratagem,
Which love had prompted, to remove the doubts
Of wild Teresa—by fancies quelling fancies!

Ordonio.
Love! love! and then we hate! and what? and wherefore?
Hatred and love! fancies opposed by fancies!
What? if one reptile sting another reptile?
Where is the crime? The goodly face of nature
Hath one disfeaturing stain the less upon it.
Are we not all predestined transiency,
And cold dishonour? Grant it, that this hand
Had given a morsel to the hungry worms
Somewhat too early—Where's the crime of this?
That this must needs bring on the idiotcy
Of moist-eyed penitence—'tis like a dream!

Valdez.
Wild talk, my son! But thy excess of feeling—
Almost I fear it hath unhinged his brain.

Ordonio
(Teresa reappears and advances slowly).
Say, I had laid a body in the sun!
Well! in a month there swarm forth from the corse
A thousand, nay, ten thousand sentient beings
In place of that one man.—Say, I had kill'd him!
[Teresa stops listening.
Yet who shall tell me, that each one and all
Of these ten thousand lives is not as happy,
As that one life, which being push'd aside,
Made room for these unnumbered—

Valdez.
O mere madness!

[Teresa moves hastily forwards, and places herself directly before Ordonio.
Ordonio.
Teresa? or the phantom of Teresa?

Teresa.
Alas! the phantom only, if in truth
The substance of her being, her life's life,
Have ta'en its flight through Alvar's death-wound—
[A pause.
Where—
(Even coward murder grants the dead a grave)
O tell me, Valdez!—answer me, Ordonio!
Where lies the corse of my betrothéd husband?

Ordonio.
There, where Ordonio likewise would fain lie!
In the sleep-compelling earth, in unpierc'd darkness!
For while we live—
An inward day that never, never sets,
Glares round the soul, and mocks the closing eyelids!
Over his rocky grave the fir-grove sighs
A lulling ceaseless dirge! 'Tis well with him.

[Strides off towards the altar, but returns as Valdez is speaking.
Teresa.
The rock! the fir-grove!
[To Valdez.
Did'st thou hear him say it?
Hush! I will ask him!

Valdez.
Urge him not—not now!
This we beheld. Nor he nor I know more,
Than what the magic imagery revealed.
The assassin, who pressed foremost of the three—

Ordonio.
A tender-hearted, scrupulous, grateful villain,
Whom I will strangle!

Valdez.
While his two companions—

Ordonio.
Dead! dead already! what care we for the dead?

Valdez
(to Teresa).
Pity him! soothe him! disenchant his spirit!
These supernatural shews, this strange disclosure,
And this too fond affection, which still broods
O'er Alvar's fate, and still burns to avenge it—
These, struggling with his hopeless love for you,
Distemper him, and give reality
To the creatures of his fancy.

Ordonio.
Is it so?
Yes! yes! even like a child, that too abruptly
Roused by a glare of light from deepest sleep
Starts up bewildered and talks idly.
Father!
What if the Moors that made my brother's grave,
Even now were digging ours? What if the bolt,
Though aim'd, I doubt not, at the son of Valdez,
Yet miss'd its true aim when it fell on Alvar?

Valdez.
Alvar ne'er fought against the Moors,—say rather,
He was their advocate; but you had march'd
With fire and desolation through their villages.—
Yet he by chance was captured.

Ordonio.
Unknown, perhaps,
Captured, yet as the son of Valdez, murdered.
Leave all to me. Nay, whither, gentle lady?

Valdez.
What seek you now?

Teresa.
A better, surer light
To guide me—

Both Valdez and Ordonio.
Whither?

Teresa.
To the only place
Where life yet dwells for me, and ease of heart.
These walls seem threatening to fall in upon me!
Detain me not! a dim power drives me hence,
And that will be my guide.

Valdez.
To find a lover!
Suits that a high-born maiden's modesty?
O folly and shame! Tempt not my rage, Teresa!

Teresa.
Hopeless, I fear no human being's rage.
And am I hastening to the arms—O Heaven!
I haste but to the grave of my belov'd!

[Exit, Valdez following after her.
Ordonio.
This, then, is my reward! and I must love her?
Scorn'd! shudder'd at! yet love her still? yes! yes!
By the deep feelings of revenge and hate
I will still love her—woo her—win her too!
[A pause.
Isidore safe and silent, and the portrait
Found on the wizard—he, belike, self-poison'd
To escape the crueller flames—My soul shouts triumph!
The mine is undermined! blood! blood! blood!
They thirst for thy blood! thy blood, Ordonio!
[A pause.
The hunt is up! and in the midnight wood
With lights to dazzle and with nets they seek
A timid prey: and lo! the tiger's eye
Glares in the red flame of his hunter's torch!
To Isidore I will dispatch a message,
And lure him to the cavern! aye, that cavern!
He cannot fail to find it. Thither I'll lure him,
Whence he shall never, never more return!
[Looks through the side window.
A rim of the sun lies yet upon the sea,
And now 'tis gone! All shall be done to-night.

[Exit.