University of Virginia Library

SCENE III

ABDIEL.
I am come
To crave your leave, Prince, to depart me hence.

LUCIFER.
Nay, say not “crave.” You are as free as I.
If I have valued your fidelity,
It was not as a forfeit, but a gift.
But 'tis a quality of blood to weary
Of life devoid of action. Here, is nothing
Save ripening contemplation, that slow fruit
We never gather.

ABDIEL.
No, it is not that.
The comedy of human nature needs
No city apparatus; and in sooth
Not the dimensions of the stage, nor yet
The trappings of the audience, make the play.
There's action everywhere. One village lass,
Skittish in blood, helped by two liquorish swains,
Is dramaturge enough. Nay, less will do,
If hazard be obsequious. You yourself
Act without cost the prettiest pastoral,
Which possibly the great scene-shifter, Fate,
Will follow with a tragedy.

LUCIFER.
Then stay,
And witness the performance to the end.
For never think, Count, I so jealous am
Of perfect happiness, I cannot brook
That you should look on it.

ABDIEL.
Too near the lights,
One misses the illusion. I would stand
A trifle farther off, but only stretch
The tether of my exile just so far,
You, when you will, can draw me back again.

LUCIFER.
Where may that be?

ABDIEL.
Down in the village, yonder!

LUCIFER.
The village! You? A pretty villager.
A sybarite asleep on hempen sheets;
Lucullus with some garlic for his supper.
What is your humour, now?

ABDIEL.
The one you have taught me.
You bring the village to the castle; I
The castle to the village carry down.
Where lies the difference? The sand will run
As glibly through the hour-glass every jot,
Whichever way you set it; and, meseems,
My topsy-turvy is as just as yours.

LUCIFER.
A cynic jest. Yet mark the difference.
Love lifts the village to the castle. What
May level you with yokels?

ABDIEL.
Love, again.
For one may love, though lacking theories
To glorify one's hunger. I have a tooth,
Well, like another; like yourself, dear Prince;
And, like yourself, my appetite selects
A mountain morsel.

LUCIFER.
Choice I must approve,
Since patterned on my own. What like is she?
I fain would see the fair simplicity
Makes Abdiel forget to be a critic.

ABDIEL.
Sure one may love and criticise as well.
Perfection is in fragments; piece them all,
And make a monster. She is well enough;
A fitting portrait for a mountain frame,
No city picture.

LUCIFER.
Bring her to the castle.
Think you I am not satisfied to have
My share of life? There is enough for all.
Felicity is infinite, and grows
Richer by spending.

ABDIEL.
Spoken like yourself,
And pity, so magnanimous a Prince
Should reign not, while the world's conspicuous thrones
Are ballasted with churls. Yet even you
Would not in your dominions house me here,
If I were at your frontier line to halt,
And crave to cross it.

LUCIFER.
Wherefore not? Come, test me.

ABDIEL.
What if I married her?

LUCIFER.
No fear of that.

ABDIEL.
In truth I shall.

LUCIFER.
She does not love you then,
And therefore makes a barter of the bond.

ABDIEL.
Nay, since you think no ill of those who give
Nor take precaution lest the gift thus given
Ruin the giver, I can throw away
The thing I wanted, wanted and have gained.
'Tis I propose the bond. You wonder why.
My practice 'gainst your theory, generous Prince;
My humble jest 'gainst your high sentiment;
Time must assay them. I may serve you still,
An exile from your exile.

LUCIFER.
Have your whim.
But true it is you part us: not in grudge;
Nay, as two friends who sever to explore
Some doubtful region, with the firm intent
To meet again.

[Abdiel descends the mountain.]
LUCIFER.
(alone).
'Tis better so; for thus
The problem stands propounded: fettered love
Against a love unfettered, Heaven against Earth.
'Tis not the scene nor yet the audience
That makes the play; there, Abdiel is right.
For any human hearts on any stage,
How mean, or tame, or circumscribed soe'er,
With their affections can compose a knot
The end unravels. We will play it out.
But for these cynic nuptials in the vale,
The action were imperfect. Now, 'twill move
To its fulfilment, full and manifest.
The kingdom I abandoned was too vast
For this our fine experiment. The hills
Fence a commodious narrowness for the test,
Excluding nothing needful. Hackneyed world,
Go thy trite road, so the free mind may make
A pathway of its own, and top the heights
Where habit comes not!