University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Teresa and Carravagio.
TERESA.
How! here again! Whom seek you, signor, here?
You were not wont to walk in this saloon?

CARRAVAGIO.
This morning, Ferdinando has affairs,
And I am otherwise not very well.

TERESA.
Not very well?

CARRAVAGIO.
Ay! Why should that surprise you?

TERESA.
You walk too much, good signor, in the night.
Night is the season for refreshing sleep,
And those who trespass on its lonely hours,
Have cares, or fears, or troubled thoughts, or love?

CARRAVAGIO.
You speak oracular. My art requires
That I should mark the various falling light;
And who can see the moon-beam, or the lamp,
Shed their true bright'ning, but when night prevails.

TERESA.
Cannot you be content with sun-shine hues?
They charm the eye with more variety.

CARRAVAGIO.
It is my taste,—my genius prompts me so.

TERESA.
Pray what is that? What is this genius, sir?
I hear of it, yet know not what it is.

CARRAVAGIO.
'Tis some peculiarity of mood,
Which makes the difference between mind and mind,
That figure, feature, colour, gait and air,
Make between man and man.—From sense it comes.

TERESA.
How may that be? We feel, taste, hear, and smell;
And saving accidents, see things alike?

CARRAVAGIO.
True! but the working is unknown to me.

TERESA.
I understand: some have a keener relish
Of this or that, more than their neighbours have.

CARRAVAGIO.
'Tis so, I think. Some by the ear, are charm'd
With plaintive melodies, or cheerful sounds;
Some by the eye, with various forms and hues.
The senses are the portals of the mind;
And genius enters by the most frequented,
Or that which nature has constructed best.

TERESA.
Genius then makes, if I conceive aright,
By practice, or some liveliness of sense,
Men prone to find, and seize their means of pleasure;
And as you oft foregoe the midnight sleep,
To catch the shadows of the moony hour,
Or rise in company, as I have seen you,
Regardless of all decorous demeanour,
To bid a stranger beauty bend aslant;
Some other, by his different genius led,
Would seize on chance, nor fear he might offend.

CARRAVAGIO.
You're wond'rous metaphysical Teresa!—
But why so suddenly at odds in thought?

TERESA.
The moon, I think, went down at ten last night;
Nor were there any lights for you at two.—
How came you to be stirring at that hour?

CARRAVAGIO.
I! I Teresa? Wherefore ask you this?
Your lady chided me, and said I pry.
What has been done? What ill is thought of me?

TERESA.
It was at two that Ferdinando came.

CARRAVAGIO.
Well?

TERESA.
Saw you him not?

CARRAVAGIO.
At two last night, I?
I heard eleven strike when in my bed,
And slumb'ring soon, waked not before the dawn.

TERESA.
Was ever robb'ry more atrocious done?

CARRAVAGIO.
Robb'ry! am I suspected of a theft?

TERESA.
O no, no, no; it was not done by you.
Oh! my sweet lady to be plunder'd so!
How will her lov'd and loving lord deplore!