University of Virginia Library

ACT II.

SCENE I.

Countess,
alone.
'Gainst men we vindicate by blood our rights;
And who does not is a poor slave whose bondage
'Twere weakness to compassionate. Why not
'Gainst Fortune wage like war, and seize our own?
Me she has cheated,—lest injustice be
Fate's law; and is it, that which made me know
What justice is, commands me to exact it.
Oppression is not thence more light, because
Its source is unassailable; but that
It is, and thereby we in our self-righting
Divested are of a chief due of justice,
Revenge,—for this, in the retributing
May we with freer hand carve for ourselves.
For me the first of womanly lots was markt,—
On love's soft wings to win a lofty seat.
With love I'd been contented, and above me
Unheeded had ambition's clangor rung.
Wrench'd from my bosom was the hearted hope,
And I was nearly blest, only to be
Completely curst. The one deep-tinted flower,
The woman's blossom, folding in its heart
Her being's fragrance, harshly and with scorn
Was plucked. I was unsex'd. Haste flooded quick
My soul's drain'd passages, capacious made
By warm affection's motion, and with wrath
I conquer'd what with love I ought to have own'd.
My husband should have been my husband's brother,
And I;—but wherefore from their sleepless tomb
Call now the spectre of my murder'd hopes.
Berobb'd, I did regrasp the little part
Of my great loss; and this far-looking castle
Is token of my wrongs and my redress.
(Enter Rudolf equipt for the chase.)
What, Rudolf, to the woods again alone?

Rudolf.
Aye, mother. My new comrade will not with me.
He'd rather talk to-day of deeds than do them.
And by my soul, but he does pitch his words
As featly as his spear. This fresh morn's prime
I've squander'd, listening his so clear discourse,
Whose free and winnow'd phrase approves his say,
That he and his a higher state have known.
I have committed him the while to Ada,
With charge that so his senses she will surfeit
Upon the sights and wonders of the castle,
That his to-morrow's wishes may be outward,
And I shall find him eager for the chase.
He's company for Nimrod.

Countess.
Stay, my son,
At home to-day.

Rudolf.
Ride with me to the hunt
To-day, dear mother.

Countess.
What dost mean?

Rudolf.
Why, mother,
You compass your content within. My pleasure
I find abroad. For us to counterchange
Intents, were viciously to thwart desire,
Upon whose even satisfaction hangs
The day's enjoyment.

Countess.
Thankless boy! Is this
Your use of parent-suckt instruction, me
To mock with wordy subtleties? Show me
'Tis for your good or truly for your pleasure,
And I will with you, following to-day,
The thousandth day, your steps, against my comfort.
But like the toil that, tilling precious grain
Cultures the weeds that choke it, worse than wasted
Are mothers' pains on an ungrateful child.

Rudolf.
You teach me anger by your wrong rebuke.
Why for each small refusal will you chide me
For black ingratitude? Lightly I answer'd
A light request.

Countess.
Thence easier to be granted.
But to the heedless every thing is light.
And so you have his service for your sport,
'Twould scarce obstruct you to behold the sun
Back to the Orient his arch'd motion bend
Convulsive.—Portents to make dumb the wise
And take from the expert all faculty,
Are to th' unthinking transient spectacles;
While hours that he deems passive fractions only
Of a diurnal unit, to th' observant
Are potent ministers from Time's abysm
Uplifted to o'er-rule a life.—
Well, go.

Rudolf.
Nay mother,—

Countess.
No: my wish has died
In th' asking.

Rudolf.
Let my willingness revive it.

Countess.
It were not granted by a forced consent.

Rudolf.
Your thought, whate'er it was, more capable
Will find me now to give it satisfaction,
Than if my duty at the first had shone
Becomingly. I have a fault to mend.

Countess.
Rudolf, you knew my thought. But follow now
Your bent. Instant fruition is of youth
The natural happiness. The living present,
Unladen from the past, bounds under you.
But we who bear time's load should sometimes cast
Athwart your path the shadow of our burden,
Foretokening the future.—Go, my son:
I'll not detain you. But return betimes.
Let not another night bring to your mother
A double gloom.

Rudolf.
The sun shall light me home.

(Exit.)
Countess.
(Alone.)
'Tis so; and I did cast beyond my mark,
When under the same roof I sought to weave
Between these two the strongest tie in nature.
Affection now the soul of both so fills
There is no room for love. For love is curious,
And, palling on familiarity,
Is fed by ignorance. They should apart
Have lived, till the first flush of womanhood
Had dyed her beauty.—Yet have I their words,
Which quickly must by act be ratified,
While still,—their hearts' deep'st secret unreveal'd
To them,—they can believe themselves prepar'd
To sign together the great bond of marriage.
My stewardship must not be called to account.
Ada is dower'd like a princess, rich
From nature, and withall pliant to my will.
Wisdom to choose whose choice were limitless
More fitly could not match my son.

(Exit.)

SCENE II.

A Park near the Castle.
Ada. Rupert.
Ada.
'Tis strange the huntsman's music had not sooner
Led thitherward your quick pursuing footsteps.

Rupert.
The forest guards itself with vastness. I
But range its skirts, snatching brief hours from toil,
Wherewith I am assistant to my father,
Who often chides me that I will not give
Days to the forest, sighing as he tells me,
I was not born to such hard labour.

Ada.
Wherefore
This chiding heed you not?

Rupert.
That higher state
By him reported, I ne'er knew. The distance
'Twixt our condition and our birth, which clogs
His life, have I unconsciously o'erleapt.
The tyranny of custom which to him
Makes wearisome our lot lights it to me.

Ada.
Nor can you learn aught of your first condition?

Rupert.
When of my birth I've questioned him, his answers
With varying purport have been fraught; my words
Now seeming to upstir dark memories,
And now tow'rds the dim future his wak'd thought
Directing, when, as on some smiling vision
His look were bent, he'll gaze entranc'd awhile,
And then his countenance all suddenly
Will fall, as though what wrought him so had faded.
But me he never satisfies.

Ada.
'Tis strange!
But O! you were not born to lowness. I
Am skilless in the human visage; but
On thine Heaven has so plainly writ its favour,
I need no usage to peruse it right.
It is a wisdom quickly learnt, they say,
To foresee ill. Send we while yet we have them,
Our hopes before us. On their ray-strewn path
We shall pass by much adverse circumstance
That else had fronted us.

Rupert.
Almost I wish
A coil of hopeless thoughts around my heart
Were wrapt, that I might know the blessedness
To hav't unwound by thy soft words, whose sounds,
Like choicest music in the silent night,
Take from the mind all sense of darkness.

Ada.
Think you
That we too shall grow wise and melancholy?

Rupert.
Nay; wisdom is not so bethrall'd to sadness.
Contentment's gladdening presence ne'er my heart
So filled as in this hour; and yet, methinks,
With every moment of't I do grow wiser.

Ada.
So heedful are you, I would play the mistress,
To teach so apt a learner: but in truth,
Our life here in the Castle is so mute
And with the world so uncommunicative,
I am but poorly stor'd for such a part.

Rupert.
Speak only.—In a wild spot of the forest,
Deep-set in unbruis'd verdure, is a spring,
Whereon the farthest stars a resting place
Do make in their still visits to the earth.
By its own motion ever full and pure,
No drop of the clear waters (in whose depths
The numerous eyes of Heaven bathe them brighter)
But it contains sweet nourishment. E'en so
Each gentle word that issues from your lips,
Where'er it falls spreads bloom and fruitfulness.

Ada.
I best should please myself by silence, if
With such persuasion you would move me break it.
But see where comes my uncle.

(Enter at a distance Count Julian.)
Count.
Help me strong Heaven! Fixt in the rotting earth
Where guilt its victim sinks, thy freshening airs,
E'en they, as when they rock a stranded ship,
Shake me to quicker ruin. Thoughts that were wont
To come to sport them with mine innocence
Bewail or sting me now. O! what a pit
The mind is, wherein beams of upper light,
Like angels hovering near Hell, but enter
To set in writhing motion a hideous darkness.

(Exit.)
Rupert.
Something so weighs upon his soul, it turns
The necessary pulses of his heart
To throbs of anguish. Strangely were his words,
When first he met me, shar'd twixt gloom and kindness.
Know you the cause of his so sore oppression?

Ada.
The unknown death, I've heard, of a dear nephew.
'Twas ere I came, an infant, to the castle.
I never saw him smile, or ope his mind
To customary calls. He walks about
In bland and speechless sadness, as he were
A moving sepulchre of carved earth
Consecrate to the dead, and not a form
Partaking of our life. Your coming hither,
With the dear cause thereof, has wrought him to
Unwonted utterance. See, he returns.

(Re-enter Count.)
Rupert.
Let us accost him.

Count.
Ha! you are not gone.
You must not go. You will not? Why you shall
Here riot in youth's wealth, sweet liberty.
Beware it squander not itself. For though
Upon the brow of youth freedom sits thron'd
As in an angel's seat, behind it crouch
Of malice-grinning devils a keen pack,
Which the free function of the reaching arm
Subtly so sway, that when we think to grasp
A golden ornament, ourselves engird
With a coarse bond, which round the labouring brain
With every movement tightens, till at last,
The weight-oppressed faculties benumb'd,
The very will itself suffers a palsy.
Yet you:—no, no:—You they cannot benet.
No, no:—'tis not a universal curse.
Were no white innocence, guilt were not black.
'Tis herein lies the guilty's curse:—they've miss'd
A possible blessedness.—No more: no more.—
My gentle Ada.

Ada.
Sir! Sir!

Count.
In thy face
Is nature's beauty painted in fresh tints
As delicate as virgin blossomings.
Thy temper-sweeten'd blood spends evenly
Its ripening current. Thy desires are like
Dew-freshen'd flowers, that looking heavenward
Shed still their fragrance on the neighbour earth.—
Thy friendly ministerings are register'd.
I will remember them. I will: I will.

(Exit.)
Rupert.
How grief arrays itself, coming from him.
Sorrow is so familiar in his bosom,
It takes unscann'd possession of its chambers;
And from their healthy services so wrests
The gathering mind's internal instruments,
That every thought and image from without,
Even of loveliest things, is ground to food
For bitter self-communing. 'Tis a trouble
Infects the very soul, that can thus freight
Syllables of such sweet sound with jarring moans.

Ada.
You've loss'd his heart; and as from its stirr'd depths
(Whence till to-day flow'd but a rill of life)
The grief-beladen waves on the strange shore
Of words have broken, my new joy did tremble,
Lest midst the breathings of his tenderness,
From the deep'st recess of his soul should leap
A frightful secret.—I know not what to feel.
Light shoots through the black cloud, that o'er our house
Slumbering so long, has quench'd our daily life
With an unceasing shade. Yet, fearfuller
Than its dull stillness is its sullen motion.
A chill fear stifles a fluttering hope;
As in the mourning watcher's heart to whom
The heavy features of reputed death
Lighten with life anew. O! speak to me.

Rupert.
Be not thy tender soul assail'd by dread.
Guilt's scowling mate he is. And do the angels
Love earthly sights, Heav'n's vault but now was hung
With smiles, as thy soul-shaken uncle started
From the dark current of his inmost thoughts
To picture thy twinn'd beauty. 'Twas as when
The storm's harsh discord suddenly is wrought
By Æol's magic harp to tearful music.
His words to thee bespoke a world of thanks;
To his rack'd spirit thou'st been a daily balm.
Heaven pities him through thee, electing thee
Its minister to win him from despair.

Ada.
You mark'd his joy when here he found you still,
And what an earnestness was in his voice
As he besought you stay. O! go not hence.
I dread your going; and being gone, I dread
The having then the wish you had not come.

Rupert.
Go hence! Naught could beget in me the wish,—
Not even your command, how quick so e'er
Obey'd.

Ada.
I thank you for your willingness.
So great a boon I never asked before.
'Tis sweet to have a prayer so freely granted.

Rupert.
Speak but thy wish; and if or hand or thought
Can compass it, my sinews and my brain
Shall crack, or thou be satisfied. Or let
A sign but distantly denote thy will
And all my powers shall leap before thy path
To greet thee as thou go'st with every hope's
Fulfilment. O! what a joy-crowning task,
Forethinking thy sweet thoughts, to celebrate
Each wish's birth with its accomplishment.

Ada.
Pardon my tears. This hour has been so full
And sudden. I could listen to you still.
But follow we my uncle: 't will so soothe
His harrow'd heart to know you will not hence.

(Exeunt.)
(Enter Countess.)
Countess.
So liberal of her presence? Palm to palm?
Poor child! Ere thy quick senses have drunk in
The maddening poison, I must pluck thee back.—
Will then no plan move smoothly to its end?
Impediments rise ever in my path.
Aye but they rise only to be thrust down.
Young man, come not 'twixt me and a fixt purpose.