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THE ADVERSARY
A DRAMA IN ONE ACT OF FOUR SCENES
[_]
The idea of this brief drama is based on that of a play by Calderon. Beyond this, it is entirely original.
- Fernando Del Castellano (a middle-aged, impoverished descendant of an ancient house).
- Marguerita (his youthful wife, daughter of a wealthy merchant).
- A Physician.
- An Old Family Servant.
- The Figure.
CHARACTERS
Scene I.
[The chamber of an ancient castle in Toledo. This chamber is evidently stripped and dismantled. Pedestals where statues have stood, outlines upon the walls where old117
Fernando.
O Marguerita, this dismantled room,
This old ancestral chamber stripped and bare,
A leafless forest ruined by the blast,
Strikes to my heart. Pictures and statues, blades,
Encrusted long ago with infidel blood,
And holy relics and memorials dear
Bequeathed through ages, sold or carried off!
The glory of our house is past away;
And, dearest, most for thee my heart is sore.
I took thee young from wealth and ease, and now
Though still but on the verge of womanhood,
Here have I pent thee in a house despoiled.
[She draws closer to the scanty fire as he rises excitedly and paces to and fro.]
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This ruin? ever thriftily I lived,
Drank not, nor gambled, yet each day, each hour
Some new misfortune bows me to the earth.
Some enemy remorselessly pursues me.
Marguerita.
An enemy! hark back into the past;
Canst thou remember any thou hast wronged
Who takes, though late, this vengeance? Had thy father
Some foe ancestral and still unappeased?
Fernando.
I know of none that ever I have wronged.
Marguerita.
Unconsciously, perhaps?
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Nor did my father
Warn me of any such descended wrath.
This only have I found, that field on field,
And all this long inheritance hath past
Into the hands of one whose name is hid;
Who lunges at my breast behind a mask.
Vainly I seek this foe for evermore.
[His wife rises, shivering, as the first grey of the dawn appears.]
Marguerita.
Dawn peereth, I must go in to the child.
[She kisses Fernando and passes through the decayed arras into an inner room.]
Fernando.
[Turning to the armed ancestral statues.]
Ye armed ancestral figures of my house,
Ye statesmen dim, captains of long ago,
Declare to me doth any ancient wrong,
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Evolve this dreadful consequence? Ah, thou,
Thou old Pizzaro of infamous memory,
Dark tales and legends grim are told of thee,
Thy rapes, thy rapines, and thy blasphemies.
Didst thou engender in a wilder day
A curse, which innocent I expiate?
Speak, one of you now glimmering in dawn.
[Dawn begins to touch the armed figures.]
All silent! Yet I cry again, invoke
The very dead for answer. Who is he,
That hath despoiled me thus and stripped me bare
And made me naked before all men?
The Figure.
[Appearing masked and muffled against the stained window.]
I. I.
Fernando.
[In slow horror.]
Thou? Who art thou? Art thou a breathing thing?
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O'ercharged? Thy face is hid. Who art thou? Speak!
[As Fernando slowly approaches the figure, it vanishes as the curtain falls.]
Scene II.
[The same chamber. Midnight. As the curtain rises the clock strikes twelve. Fernando is seen standing in the very place where the figure has disappeared in Scene one.]Fernando.
He then, that figure, muffled close and masked,
Visible suddenly in grey of dawn,
Accused by his own mouth of all this doom,
From him I wrung no answer. As I stole
To'ard him he vanished, silent as he came.
[He looks into the inner room.]
The child sleeps; but his mother! Midnight struck!
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[Enter an old servant of the house in shabby livery, bearing a letter.]
Servant.
Master, my mistress gave this in my hand
Enjoining I should not deliver it
Until the clock struck twelve.
[Fernando seizes the letter, breaks the seal and reads.]
Fernando.
[Reading.]
Husband, I have left thee and my home and I shall not return. But of this be at least assured, that my honour is unstained. I have not fled to the arms of any other. Forgive me and teach the child also to forgive. Marguerita.
[Fernando motions the servant to retire.]123
Was not this desolation of my hearth
Heavy enough, that she must now forsake me,
No reason given? Doubtless the gnawing care,
Anxiety for evermore renewed,
And bareness when in plenty she had lived,
Impelled her to inflict this final blow.
[Suddenly he starts and, softly opening the arras, gazes into the room within.]
But he, our child, how calmly slumbering.
So that but for the colour in his cheek
That sleep might well appear the sleep of death,
Him even she leaves; a creature of the waste,
And scenting death, will not desert her young.
What influence then, what terror so could urge her,
Since not into another's arms she fled?
Then what compulsion irresistible?
The Figure.
[Again visible as before.]
I.
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Thou again, and masked and muffled still!
And with thy own lips dost again pronounce
Thyself the cause of headlong misery.
Thy name! Thou canst not now withhold thy name!
[A pause.]
How have I wronged thee?—Yet what wrong so deep,
That could this desolation justify?
[A pause.]
No answer still? Art thou of flesh and blood?
Or com'st thou from the grave, even in death
Bearing me malice from the underworld?
Art thou perchance a spirit deep incensed,
Still nursing hot a far off injury,
That thus thou dost pursue me hour by hour?
This vengeance seemeth more than mortal work.
Whate'er ensues I'll put thee to the proof.
[He rushes towards the figure as though to grasp it but again it vanishes as the curtain falls.]
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Scene III.
[Again the dismantled chamber. Deep night. Fernando in an attitude of suspense is standing at that arras door, which now opens, and a white-haired physician enters slow and silent.]Fernando.
[With outstretched arms.]
The child? Still is there hope? Answer me.
[The physician makes no answer but bows his head in silence.]
Dead?
[The physician approaches him and mutely endeavours to console him, leading him to a chair, into which Fernando helplessly sinks.]
[The physician seeing his attempts at consolation are futile is about to retire, when Fernando stops him with a gesture.]
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Doctor, these cumulated miseries,
Of which this is the last and worst, I fear,
Have shaken my reason. It has seemed to me
That after each new fallen calamity,
Here in this very room, by yonder window,
A figure has appeared shrouded and masked,
Which, when I cried to heaven to show me cause
Of these extreme inflictions, answered “I.”
Yet could I draw from it no plainer word;
And when I have approached, it vanished straight.
Tell me, for you maintain an equal pulse,
Is this a self-created apparition,
Born of a fevered and tormented mind?
Or does it come for vengeance and alive?
Watch with me now and re-assure my brain.
Physician.
Small wonder that a mind so deeply torn
Should call up phantoms in mere ecstasy!
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A kind and drowsy syrup to bring sleep.
[After once again laying his hand on Fernando's shoulder he silently retires.]
Fernando.
Almighty God that sittest in the heavens,
Thou Who dost punish, yet with justice, I
Demand of Thee, as Thou wilt judge us all
On that last day when graves give up their dead,
Why I am thus afflicted and pursued;
First in the desolation of my hearth,
Then in the causeless fleeing of my wife,
Now in the dying of my only child;
What curse is on me?
The Figure.
[Again appearing.]
I.
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Again thou comest,
Now for a third time! 'tis not possible
Thou art a phantom; clearly I behold thee;
I know thee for mine enemy, thou hast said it,
Three times pronouncing thee the cause of woe.
I will pursue thee over land and sea,
No forest is so deep that it shall hide thee,
There is no wall so strong, no lock so fast,
That it shall shelter thee. As thou hast me,
So will I thee pursue unto the end.
I am a lonely man, bereaved and stripped;
To this bare task I now devote myself.
Here I take oath in this dismantled room,
By yonder still warm body of my child,
That I will hunt thee sleepless through the world,
Till I have called thee to a dread account.
[He rushes towards the figure as though to assail it, but again it vanishes as the curtain falls.]
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Scene IV.
[A narrow street ending in a cul de sac. Lurid sunset. The figure is seen striding slowly towards the cul de sac. Fernando suddenly appears pursuing, breathless, haggard and unkempt.]Fernando.
At last I have thee. Hence is no escape!
Here must thou turn at last, at last reveal thee.
Remove thy vizor or I tear it from thee!
[Drawing his sword.]
Here, if thou art a thing of flesh and blood,
Thou canst not still refuse me satisfaction,
On guard, sir! I'll not stab thee in the back.
The Figure.
[Slowly turning and removing his mask discloses the very features of Fernando himself.]
Fernando, art thou satisfied?
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[With a loud cry.]
Myself!
[He falls dead at the feet of the figure, which stands over him, beginning to fade as the curtain falls.]
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