University of Virginia Library

Scene VII.

A room in the Prophet's house.
DAVID
No, you are not the same! The simple trust
Which found content in what I was—and this
Includes whatever more I am become—
Hath left your eyes: your tongue is silenter:
You speak but matters which compel your speech,
And in your ways make hints of things unsaid.
I say not this in blame: you cannot be
More than you are, or other: I had hoped
There were a force in faith, a warmth in love,
To hold your nature side by side with mine,
And take a larger property in me
Through that which only seems to lessen it.
My hope is vain.

RHODA
Oh! wait a little while,
My husband,—as you still and ever are.
I vexed you sore in what I thought was good,
And that seems evil which you ask of me:
It was not so at first. I lean on you
With all my weight; when you would rest, in turn,
I've nothing but my simple, loving heart,
To stay your weariness. I cannot urge
Your spirit forward on its loftier ways;
Nor did you ask it, save my faith be aid,
When first we loved. Take what another brings:
You will not find me selfish: take so much,
But keep your heart for me.

DAVID
Why, it is yours,
No less than then! A very ghost of change
Is what you fancy. Shut your eyes, and call
My face into your memory: 'tis the same.

RHODA
Ah, David, David! I would shut their sight
Forever, could you in my ears again
So live. There's something in a woman's heart,
I think, so delicate, so soft a force,
That it will cling like steel, nor feel a bruise;
Yet, loose one fibre, it may bleed to death.

DAVID
I have not loosed, nor will! Nay, I have grieved,
Bent down to human sympathy with you,
And hoarded tenderness you have not claimed,
To soothe you till you see. What can I more?
Take back the revelation and the law?
Reverse the advancing work, and, step by step,
Make all things as they were? I see your eyes
Lighten at this, as they had nigh forgot
To shine: I do believe you wish so much!

RHODA
(Slowly.)
No, no! Not if your happiness depends,—
Not less of power,—not all the work undone—
Oh, understand me, David!

DAVID
Patience, first!
Suspend your feeling till around us springs
The newer life, then judge if it be false.
But if, indeed, arises primitive peace,
And all that in the patriarchal years
Made manhood pure, and womanhood content,
Then I, by others, not of mine own faith,
Am justified to you.

SARAH
(Entering.)
Where have you put
Jonas, my husband? Give him back to me,
Or I will raise a tumult in the land!

DAVID
Your husband?

SARAH
Ay, and I'm his only wife.
You have him hidden: set him free, I say!

DAVID
Wild words are these. I know no more of him
Than those report who hear his discontent.
He hath not sought me; nor should I receive,
Unless he came with penitence.

SARAH
You know,—
I'll not believe you! Since he held to me,
Nor with strange women would pollute my house,
You mean his ruin! Help me, Prophet's wife!
Although, perverted by his tongue, you take
Your rival home—
[Rhoda starts, and turns away her face.]
—yet you are woman still,
And my distress may somewhat touch your heart.
Find out what they have done with him, give back,
And we will go!

[She weeps.
DAVID
(Aside)
It is no acted fear:
Has he been taken? Is the answer come
To what I prayed,—come swiftly back to me
With all its helpless woe of consequence,
To make the wish a terror?

RHODA
In my heart
I feel your grief, and pity, and will help,
Can you but show the way.

DAVID
But I declare
Mine ignorance! I speak no further word
Since you believe not.

SARAH
Nay, I will believe!
His fear was less of you than Nimrod Kraft,
Whose tongue—but that might anger if I spake:
I know not what to do!

DAVID
Why, go to him
Whom most you fear! But, stay! no evidence
Of evil in your frightened clamor lies.
Come with me, and confess the things you know.

[Exit with her.
RHODA
(Solus.)
Already? My prophetic heart declared,
Then called itself a liar! Not dare tell?
Such cowardice conceals a little love!
The winter sun, that for a distant land
Makes summer, cannot turn all warmth away,
And slowly comes again: let me not be
A frozen field, but gather every beam
He may allow me! Oh! I'll prove my right
By life or death; but now, on this alone,
I dare not brood. That woman, wild with fear,
And charged with reason for it, which alarms
Because unspoken—something lurks behind,
A further outrage to be sanctified,
A guilt thrust under David's innocence!
The thought confuses me: I only feel
The danger closing round us like a mist,
Cold, formless, chilling to the very bone;
And he is helpless, save I love him still.