University of Virginia Library

SCENE VI.

Fra Rupert
(alone).
I have no malice in me: if I know
My secret heart, no heart so pure of malice:
But all my cares and vigils, hopes and dreams,
Blown by a boy, spurn'd by a brute, away!
So ends it? Blessed Stephen! not so ends it.
It ends with him, and with him only: me
No sword can touch. Why are not come those fools?
I thought the other would have kept them off.
I will have power without him, and not thro' him.
They must have clean forgotten. 'Tis the hour . .
'Tis past it . . no, not past it . . just the hour;
The bell now strikes for noon.
[A knocking.
One comes at last.

[Opens the door: Caraffa enters.
Fra Rupert.
Exactly to the moment.

Caraffa.
I was walking
About the cloister till I heard the bell,
For Father Rupert's hours are golden ones.

Fra Rupert.
May my friends spend them profitably for me!
Caraffa! thine are number'd.

Caraffa.
All men's are.

Fra Rupert.
But some are not notcht off like schoolboy's days
Anxious to see his parent. Thou may'st see
Thy parent too.

Caraffa.
I left him but just now.

Fra Rupert.
We all have one, one whom we all have left
Too often. Hast thou not some sins for me?

Caraffa.
As many as a man could wish to have.

Fra Rupert.
Are there none dangerous? none involving life?
Hast thou forgotten our last conference?

Caraffa.
No, nor shall ever. But what danger there?

Fra Rupert.
Need I to say, Francesco, that no breath
Transpired from me? We both were overheard.

Caraffa.
I think you hinted it.

Fra Rupert.
I fear'd it only.
Thou knowest my fond love . . I will not say
For thee . . thou art but second in my breast . .
Poor, poor Andrea!

Caraffa.
Never fear about him.
Giovanna, even tho' she did not love,
(O that she did not!) yet would never wrong him.

Fra Rupert.
Nay, God forbid she should! 'Twas not for me
To mark her looks, her blushes, gestures . . how
Faltered the word “Caraffa” as she spoke it.
Thy father then said nothing?

Caraffa.
Not a word;
What should he?

Fra Rupert.
Not a word. Old men are close:
And yet I doubted . . I am apt to doubt . .
Whether he might not . . for ambition stirs
Most fathers . . just let slip . . Why didst thou falter?
For never faltered child as thou didst falter.
Thou knowest then her mind better than we?

Caraffa.
I know it? I divine it? Would I did!

Fra Rupert.
Nay, rather let the bubble float along
Than break it: the rich colours are outside.
Everything in this world is but a bubble,
The world itself one mighty bubble, we
Mortals, small bubbles round it!

Caraffa.
Frate! Frate!
Thou art a soapy one! No catching thee! [Aside.
[Aloud.]

What hopes thou showest me! If these were solid
As thou, most glorious bubble who reflect'st them,
Then, then indeed, to me from this time forth
The world, and all within the world, were bubbles.

Fra Rupert.
A knight art thou, Caraffa! and no title
(Secular title, mind! secular title)
Save only royalty, surpasses knighthood.
There is no condescension in a queen
Placing her foot within the palm of knight,
And springing from it on her jewel'd saddle:
No condescension is there if she lend
To theirs the sceptre who lent hers the sword.
Knights there have been, and are, where kings are not,
Kings without knights what are they?

Caraffa.
Norman blood
Runs in my veins as in her own: no king
(Savage or tame) shall stand above those knights
Who raised his better to the throne he won:
Of such am I. But what am I before
Giovanna! to adore, to worship her,
Is glory far above the chiselling
Of uncouth kings, or dashing them to earth:
O be it mine!

Fra Rupert.
Perhaps some other Norman
May bear less tamely the new yoke; perhaps
A Filangieri may, this very night . .

Caraffa.
No Filangieri ever stoopt to treachery.
No sword of Norman ever struck by night.
Credulous monk! to me name Filangieri!
Quellers of France and England as we are,
And jealous of precedency, no name
(Offence to none) is higher than Filangieri.

Fra Rupert.
Boaster!

Caraffa.
I boast of others; few do that
Who merit such a title.

Fra Rupert.
Lower thy crest;
Pause! thou art in my hands.

Caraffa.
I am in God's.

Fra Rupert
(mildly, after hesitation).
Who knows but God hath chosen thee, amid
His ministers of wrath, to save thy country
And push oppression from her! Dreams and signs
Miraculous have haunted me.

Caraffa.
Thee, Frate!

Fra Rupert.
Me, even me. My ministry is over:
Marriage ends pupilage, and royalty
Ends friendship. Little is it short of treason
To say that kings have friends.

Caraffa.
How short of treason
I know not, but I know how wide of truth.

Fra Rupert.
Listen! There are designs against the life
Of young Andrea.

Caraffa.
By the saints above!
I hope there are not.

Fra Rupert.
If thy name be found
Among conspirators (and those are call'd
Conspirators who vindicate their country)
Where thy sword is, there must thy safety be.
The night for vengeance is the marriage-night.

Caraffa.
I draw the sword without defiance first?
I draw the sword uninjured? Whom against?
Against a life so young! so innocent
Of any guile! a bridegroom! in his bed!
O! is this horror only at the crime?
Or is it . . No, by heaven! 'tis heaven's own horror
At such unmanly deed. I, Frate! I,
Caraffa, stain with tears Giovanna's cheek!
I sprinkle poison on the flowers she smells!

Fra Rupert
(resolutely).
Hark ye, Caraffa! If the public good . .

Caraffa.
Away with public good! Was never book
Put in my hand? was never story told me?
Show me one villain vile beyond the rest,
Did not that villain talk of public good?

Fra Rupert.
Only at friars are Caraffa's stabs.
Valiant and proud and wealthy as thou art,
Thou may'st have nothing left on earth to-morrow.

Caraffa.
I shall have more to-morrow than to-day.
My honour may shoot up all in one night,
As did some tree we read of.

Fra Rupert.
Thou art rash.

Caraffa.
Rashness may mellow into courage; time
Is left me.

Fra Rupert.
For thy prayers.

Caraffa.
My prayer then is,
Peace, safety, glory, joy, to our Giovanna!

Fra Rupert.
Thou may'st depart.

Caraffa
(indignantly).
For ever.

[Goes.
Fra Rupert.
He says well.

Caraccioli enters.
Fra Rupert
(smiling and embracing him).
Caraccioli! without our friend Caraffa!

Caraccioli.
He should have been here first.

Fra Rupert
(aside).
Perfectly safe!
I did not follow him into the cloister.

Caraccioli.
Father! you seem as pondering to yourself
How that wild fellow kept his word so ill;
Caraffa-like!

Fra Rupert.
I keep mine well with him.

Caraccioli.
He should have thought of that.

Fra Rupert.
He had no time.

Caraccioli.
Always so kind! so ready with your plea
For little imperfections! Our Francesco,
Somewhat hot-headed, is warm-hearted too.

Fra Rupert.
His petty jealousy about the queen
(Were there no sin behind it) we might smile at.
Caraffa stands not with Caraccioli.

Caraccioli.
On the same level . . there particularly.

Fra Rupert.
Ho! ho! you laugh and jeer about each other?

Caraccioli.
We might. How she would laugh at two such ninnies!

Fra Rupert.
At one, most certainly. But laughing girls
Often like grave men best. There's something grand
As well as grave even in the sound “Caraccioli.”

Caraccioli.
I have no hopes.

Fra Rupert.
How I rejoice to hear it!
Hopes are but wishes, wishes are but sin,
And, fed with ranker exhalations, poison.

Caraccioli.
The subtilest consumes me.

Fra Rupert.
What?

Caraccioli.
Despair.

Fra Rupert.
Violets and primroses lie under thorns
Often as asps and adders; and we find
The unexpected often as the expected,
The pleasant as the hideous.

Caraccioli.
That may be,
But what avails your lesson? whither tends it?

Fra Rupert.
My son! I hear from those who know the world
And sweep its noisome litter to my cell,
There are mild days when love calls love abroad
As birds call birds, and even leaves call leaves:
Moments there are, my poor Caraccioli!
Moments in which the labyrinth of the ear
At every turn of its proclivity
Grows warmer, and holds out the clue, itself:
Severity should not beget despair.
I would not much encourage thee, nor yet
Dash all thy hopes, however inconsiderate,
For hopes there may be, though there should not be,
Flickering even upon despondency.
There may be sounds in certain names to smite
The stagnant heart, and swell its billows high
Over wide spaces, over distant years . .
There may; but who would utter them and know it?
Delicate is the female sense, yet strong
In cherishing and resenting; very prompt
At hiding both, and hating the discoverer.
Never, my Paolo! look too deeply in,
Or thou may'st find what thou art looking for.
Not that she ever said one word against thee;
She even lower'd her voice in naming thee,
Seeing her sister and the rest sit giggling,
“Anything else! anything else!” said she,
And snapt the thread she workt with, out of spite.
A friend, who hopes the best, may tell the worst.
Patience will weary; even Giovanna's patience.
I could go farther, and relate . . but why
Why ('tis too light to touch upon) relate
The little hurt she gave Filippa's ancle
With that lark heel of hers, by twitching it
Uneasily? O the impatient sex!
She did shed . . tears I will not say . . a tear . .
Shed it! no, I am wrong: it came, it stayed,
As hangs one star, the first and only one,
Twinkling, upon some vernal evening.

Caraccioli.
I am but clay beneath her feet. Alas!
Clay there would quicken into primal man,
Glorified and immortal once again.

Fra Rupert.
Thou art too hot, my Paolo! One pulse less
In the half-hour might have been rather better.
Lovest thou our Francesco?

Caraccioli.
Like a brother.

Fra Rupert.
He should not then have brought thy life in peril.
Andrea is quite furious: all at court
Are sworn upon thy ruin.

Caraccioli.
Upon mine?
I will then calmly tell them they are wrong.

Fra Rupert.
Will they as calmly hear? Francesco said,
Imprudent youth! you boasted of remembering
Every the lightest mole about Giovanna.

Caraccioli.
I say it?

Fra Rupert.
Those were not your words?

Caraccioli.
My words!

Fra Rupert.
Certainly not . . precisely.

Caraccioli.
Holy Mary!
Is there in Naples, Hungary, or Hell,
The monster who dares utter them?

Fra Rupert.
'Tis hard
Our friend should be the very man.

Caraccioli.
'Tis false,
Frate! 'tis false: my friend is not the man.

[Bursts away.
Fra Rupert
(sneering).
I will not follow him into the cloister.