University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

Enter Grey and Second Gentleman.
GREY
If you will give me leave to wait for him
I'll undertake you blameless.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Since I know you
For what you are—his father—I've no choice.
Pray seat yourself. He may be long.

GREY
I thank you.

[Exit Second Gentleman.
GREY
(alone)
The Fates who crown our moments, keep their crowns
Till we have ceased to covet them. Time was
When all this lackeyed greatness would have thrilled me
To perfect rapture; now it pierces me,
As it should him, with only the sharp thought
Of her who should have shared it. Ha, he comes
Before I looked for him.

Enter Raymond.
[Grey stands with averted face.
RAYMOND
(speaking to himself as he enters)
I was too hard.
I'll talk to her again. What, Avice?

[Grey turns and faces him.
RAYMOND
(starting back)
Father!

GREY
Aye, if you call me so.

RAYMOND
(trying to recover himself)
You are as welcome
As you will let me make you, though you come
More like an apparition than a guest,
Sudden and solemn.

GREY
As I seem, I am.
The message which compels me to your presence
Comes from the confines of another world.

RAYMOND
Compels you to my presence! So, you leave me
With no soft pretext for a doubt! So be it!
Yet if you only face me like my fate
Searching the weaker points to strike the deeper,
Inexorable as that frosty hand
Which touches summer thickets in the dark,
And warns them of sure winter—yet I give you
The heartiest welcome which these lips have uttered
Since I became a host. This is my house,
Father, and therefore yours. Command the whole;
I your chief servant will solicit you
To take such entertainment as you can
And pardon all defects.

GREY
There's much to pardon.

RAYMOND
I know it.

GREY
I am come to do an errand
And so return. The time is short—as short
As the last pause of an advancing tide
Ere the wave breaks and covers all. Your cousin—
Do you remember her? She that was once
Light of your life and mine—do you remember?
Hath bid me fetch you to her.

RAYMOND
Father, tell her
I cannot come.

GREY
Will you be so consistent
To the last moment? Executioners
Allow a dying boon.

RAYMOND
I am afraid
To ask your meaning.

GREY
You are slow to read it.
She has touched the farther edge of that sweet life
Which you have made so sad. It is her will
To see you once; and I must do her will:
There's nothing left but this to do for her,
Except to hide our faces when she dies,
And hold our sobs back lest they vex her soul
Which ever grieved for grief of others.

RAYMOND
Dying?
Why has she lived so long in such a world
Not worth a moment of her! I remember
Things which I cannot speak of! Just a smile—
Just one, which came before she smiled no longer
And looked a lifetime of such innocent joy
As seems impossible. Will it come back?
Will she smile so in heaven, forgetting me
Who sent her there? I cannot understand
Why that which was so sweet should be so bitter;
But the image of that little tender smile,
Which had no pathos in it, breaks my heart.
I saw it, and I shrank to darkness from it,
Longing to see no more, before I knew
That she was dying. O, I'll go to her!
I think I wish that I may be too late;
That's base—but I was always base to her.
Each way is terrible; to see her face,
Or to think always of it. Is she changed?
Shall I have power to bear it?

GREY
Calm yourself:
She must not see you thus.

RAYMOND
I know, I know.
Doctor and nurse speak ever so—be quiet
Under the pressure grinding you to dust;
Come softly through the half-closed door, stand still,
Hush! Be not troublesome with your despair,
For she is dying. O! what is it to her,
So near the insensibilities of heaven,
That any worthless heartstrings, left for ever,
Crack audibly? She shall have no more pain;
She never knew, she never guessed, what 'tis
To stare into this inner darkness, seeing
No star, and yet discerning everything
And saying to the inseparable Self
Which writhes and hesitates beside the pit,
‘Thou hast done this. Go down!’

GREY
I did not think
You could have felt so deeply.

RAYMOND
No—you thought
Because I did the wrong, I had no heart
To feel the wrong I did. If there be such,
Why, make their torments ready—but for me
Hell is unnecessary.

GREY
Cease, my son.
The foulest Past is cleansed by penitence,
And sure I am you shall be pleaded for
By angel's prayers.

RAYMOND
By hers? If God be just
They should be millstones at my neck. Come, father,
Since I must lay my head upon this block
Let not the stroke be slow. To show the sword,
Whetted, and poised, and pausing, is not mercy.
Lead and I follow—yet a word—I fear
I may take flight upon the threshold. Tell me
That I may know how to constrain myself.
What shall I see.

GREY
O, nothing terrible.
Dying is not so different from living.
For fairness, pallor; and for speaking, sighing;
And for the careless shining of young eyes
Washed bright by easy tears, a faint far glory
Reflected from the place at which they gaze,
To which they go.

RAYMOND
O, how you touch my wounds!
If Death be so like Life, that revelation,
Which is so gentle for the purer sort,
Must be, for some, exposure and dishonour
Which mountains cannot cover.

GREY
She shall bring you
To better thoughts.

[Exeunt Grey and Raymond.