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Scene II.
Another apartment in the alchemist's house. Enter Rosalia and Bernardo.ROSALIA.
You tell me he has not been seen to-day?
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Save by your trusty servant here, who says
He saw his master, from without, unclose
The shutters of his laboratory while
The sun was yet unrisen. It is well;
This turning to the past pursuits of youth
Argues how much the aspect of to-day
Hath driven the ancient darkness from his brain.
And now, my dear Rosalia, let thy face
And thoughts and speech be drest in summer smiles,
And nought shall make a winter in our house.
ROSALIA.
Ah, sir, I think that I am happy!
BERNARDO.
Happy?
Why so, indeed, dear love, I trust thou art!
But thou dost sigh and look along the floor
So vaguely, that thy happiness seems rather
The constant sense of duty than true joy.
ROSALIA.
Nay, chide me not, good sir; the world to me
A riddle is at best—my heart has had
No tutor. From my childhood until now
My thoughts have been on simple honest things.
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On honest things? Then let them dwell henceforth
On love, for nothing is more honest than
True love.
ROSALIA.
I hope so, sir—it must be so!
And if to wear thy happiness at heart
With constant watchfulness, and if to breathe
Thy welfare in my orisons, be love,
Thou never shalt have cause to question mine.
To-day I feel, and yet I know not why,
A sadness which I never knew before;
A puzzling shadow swims upon my brain,
Of something which has been or is to be.
My mother coming to me in my dream,
My father taking to that room again,
Have somehow thrilled me with mysterious awe.
BERNARDO.
Nay, let not that o'ercast thy gentle mind:
For dreams are but as floating gossamer,
And should not blind or bar the steady reason;
And alchemy is innocent enough,
Save when it feeds too greedily on gold,
A crime the world not easily forgives.
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Her sire engages in, my plan shall be
To lead him quietly to other things.
But see, the door uncloses and he comes.
Enter Giacomo in loose gown and dishevelled hair.
GIACOMO.
(Not perceiving them.)
Ha, precious villains, ye are caught at last!
BOTH.
Good-morrow, father.
GIACOMO.
Ah, my pretty doves!
BERNARDO.
Come, father, we are jealous of the art
Which hath deprived us all the day of thee.
GIACOMO.
Are ye indeed? (Aside.)
How smoothly to the air
Slides that word father from his slippery tongue!
Come hither, daughter, let me gaze on thee;
For I have dreamed that thou wert beautiful,
So beautiful our very Duke did stop
To smile upon thy brightness! What say'st thou,
Bernardo, didst thou ever dream such things?
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That she is beautiful I had no cause to dream,
Mine eyes have known the fact for many a day.
What villains didst thou speak of even now?
GIACOMO.
Two precious villains—Carbon and Azote—
They have perplexed me heretofore; but now
The thing is plain enough. This morning, ere
I left my chamber, all the mystery stood
Asudden in an awful revelation!
BERNARDO.
I'm glad success has crowned thy task to-day;
But do not overtoil thy brain. These themes
Are dangerous things, and they who mastered most
Have fallen at last but victims to their slaves.
GIACOMO.
It is a glorious thing to fall and die
The victim of a noble cause.
BERNARDO.
Ay, true—
The man who battles for his country's right
Hath compensation in the world's applause;
The victor when returning from the field
Is crowned with laurel, and his shining way
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His nation builds his monument of glory.
But mark the alchemist who walks the streets:
His look is down, his step infirm, his hair
And cheeks are burned to ashes by his thought;
The volumes he consumes, consume in turn;
They are but fuel to his fiery brain,
Which being fed requires the more to feed on.
The people gaze on him with curious looks,
And step aside to let him pass untouched,
Believing Satan hath him arm in arm.
GIACOMO.
Are there no wrongs but what a nation feels?
No heroes but among the martial throng?
Nay, there are patriot souls who never grasped
A sword, or heard the crowd applaud their names;
Who lived and laboured, died and were forgot,
And after whom the world came out and reapt
The field, and never questioned who had sown.
BERNARDO.
I did not think of that.
GIACOMO.
Now mark ye well,
I am not one to follow phantom themes,
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Or crystallizing carbon to o'erflood
The world with riches which would keep it poor;
Nor do I seek the elixir that would make
Not life alone, but misery immortal;
But something far more glorious than these.
BERNARDO.
Pray what is that?
GIACOMO.
A cure, sir, for the heart-ache.
Come, thou shalt see. The day is on the wane—
Mark how the moon, as by some unseen arm,
Is thrust towards heaven like a bloody shield!
On such an hour the experiment must begin.
Come, thou shalt be the first to witness this
Most marvellous discovery. And thou,
My pretty one, betake thee to thy bower,
And I will dream thou 'rt lovelier than ever.
Come, follow me. (To Bernardo.)
ROSALIA.
Nay, father, stay; I'm sure
Thou art not well—thine eyes are strangely lit;
The task, I fear, has overworked thy brain.
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Dearest Rosalia, what were eyes or brain
Compared with banishment of sorrow? Come.
BERNARDO.
(Aside to Rosalia.)
I will indulge awhile this curious humour;
Adieu; I shall be with thee soon again.
GIACOMO.
(Overhearing him.)
When Satan shall regain his wings, and sit
Approved in heaven, perchance, but not till then.
BERNARDO.
What, “not till then?”
GIACOMO.
Shall he be worthy deemed
To walk, as thou hast said the people thought,
Linked with the mighty-souled philosopher:—
And yet the people sometimes are quite right—
The devil 's at our elbow oftener than
We know.
(He gives Bernardo his arm, and they enter the laboratory.)
ROSALIA.
(Alone.)
He never looked so strange before;
His cheeks are suddenly grown pale and thin;
His very hair seems whiter than it did.
Oh, surely, 't is a fearful trade that crowds
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It may be that the sadness which I wear
Hath clothed him in its own peculiar hue.
The very sunshine of this cloudless morn
Seemed but a world of broad, white desolation—
While in my ears small melancholy bells
Knolled their long, solemn and prophetic chime;—
But hark! a louder and a holier toll,
Shedding its benediction on the air,
Proclaims the vesper hour—Ave Maria!
[Exit Rosalia.
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