University of Virginia Library

Scene V.

Enter Raymond.
Raymond—Avice.
RAYMOND
Now the day is kind
Which keeps you here alone.

AVICE
Sir, with what reason?

RAYMOND
The reason that I longed to find you here
And without witness.

AVICE
This is but to shut
Door behind door.

RAYMOND
I will undo the bolt:
I am afraid that I have angered you,
And if I sue for grace in other ears
I make the sweet mistake a crime. You blush!
Are you offended?

AVICE
No.

RAYMOND
Am I forgiven?

AVICE
No.

RAYMOND
I'll explore this brief vocabulary
And ask you, do you hate me?

AVICE
Yes, I do.

RAYMOND
You shall not go till you have told me why.

AVICE
I'll speak without compulsion. You have brought
My uncle's wrath upon me—Hope is vexed,
I shamed, and for no cause. I am not good,
I know it, but my life was happy here;
I had forgotten that it was not home,
Though it be all I have instead of home,
For they were kind, and I am quick to love;
But now I learn my place—an alien I,
Nay, a mere pauper—if I claim too much
He hounds me from his threshold with fierce words.
You do not know the things he said to me,
And I had done no wrong.

RAYMOND
Yet, pardon me
Who did no wrong, but only what I must,
Else are you hard as he.

AVICE
Why should you care?

RAYMOND
I must not tell you.

AVICE
Is there ‘must’ for men?
I thought it was the privilege of men
To make their lives.

RAYMOND
O, Avice, if it were!
But I'll not speak of that. I never knew
That you lacked aught of home—you seemed to me
A princess, glancing with unthinking grace
About your court. And was there at your heart
This wistful pain?

AVICE
I should not speak of it,
For they are kind, and if you tell them this
I shall be held ungrateful.

RAYMOND
I am dumb—
The secret lies between us, undiscerned,
Save that henceforth your courage of bright words
Kindles my wonder, and your sadder hours
Must take me for their comforter, who know
What shadow dims them.

AVICE
But, before my uncle,
I pray you slight me still; some dream besets him
(Old brains we know are wrinkled up with whims),
That, praising me, you must disparage Hope;
And if one looks at me with eyes as kind
As yours (I know not why I shrink from them)
He storms and darkens, till I'm like to swoon
For mere dismay.

RAYMOND
(taking her hand)
The compact hath two sides:
If in his presence I disdain you well
Doing your bidding nobly, at what cost
You guess not, I must make the balance good
When he's away.

AVICE
But how?

RAYMOND
I'll show you how
When the time comes.

AVICE
Methinks we are too grave
For your first day of freedom. You are changed;
I cannot link you with the man I knew,
I am afraid of you without a cause.

RAYMOND
What! you afraid, who were so swift of tongue,
That we, before you, grew incapable
Merely for want of breath? Keep, I beseech you,
(Though it be feigned) this meek uncertainty
Which makes me man enough to comfort you!

AVICE
I shall be wanted.

RAYMOND
Yet a moment more—

AVICE
No, no, to-morrow I shall understand;
I am confused to-day.

[Exit Avice.
RAYMOND
(alone)
And what am I?
Do I perceive a change? Those rapid eyes
Have read me while I stumble at myself.
What do I feel? A little while ago
I had my place and fitted it—a loop
In the great web—patient, and indistinct,
And necessary, though I hardly knew
Why I was there, or why I lived at all,
Not finding any glory in my life;
The limit pressed me everywhere—I ruled
My daily motions like a household book,
So much for this, and such a space for that,
This abstinence to balance that expense,
And leave a decent fringe of charity
To trim but not encumber all the rest;
I loved, and knew the reason of my love,
And loved in reason—limits everywhere,
But a young soul within. Lo! it hath grown!
Not as seeds grow, which push the husk aside
And build a plant by slow development,
But as fire grows, a spark, a flame, a blaze,
Making the Darkness give its wonders up;
What have I here in common with my Past?
The unfathomable welcome of the Future
Beckons me, and I follow.