University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

The Forest.—Rocks are seen in the back-ground.
Enter Madame St. Evermont and Julia.
Mad.
Talk not to me of marriage—I'll not hear it.
I know but this, that Lunenberg's returned
And Adelaide is gone. Where is my child?
Speak, tell me where thou art: oh! answer me.

Julia.
She said that in the very deep of night,
Amid the abbey's ruined solitude,
The holy rite was done.

Mad.
(who has not listened)
Oh! do not speak,
Lest you disturb the quiet of the air,
And then—Hark! there—a step—it comes this way.
'Tis she. 'Twas nothing but the fitful breeze
That rustled through the multitude of leaves.

Julia.
Perhaps—

Mad.
Perhaps! It is a blessed sound,
And hope is fond of it. The sable slave
Stands on the beach of western India's isles
In evening's breathing hour, and says ‘perhaps.’
The captive in his darksome prison house
Doth watch a ray of light upon the wall,
And gives an utterance to the holy word.
'Tis heard within Potosi's silver tombs,
Gasps in the fetid air of hospitals,
And in the naked hut of poverty.
Why is that comfort then denied to me?
Why then not say ‘perhaps’? Speak it again:
It is a drop of balm upon my heart.

Julia.
(pointing to the rocks)
Look there: it is the Count St. Evermont.
He rushes up the rocks: he has ascended:
See where he stands upon the precipice.

Mad.
Let me not lose him too!

[Enter St. Evermont, descending from the rocks.]
St. Ever.
I'll tell thee, woman,
The horrid hope that, like a lightning's glare,
Flashed on my soul, and winged me to that height.
I stood upon the gulf's terrific verge,
That I might see one drop of pendent blood
Upon a bramble's leaf. 'Twere exstacy
To find the bleeding bosom of my child
Burst on the pointed ridges of a rock:
Some scattered limb—to hear a dying groan!

Mad.
What! hope her dead! my child, my Adelaide!

St. Ever.
The child were lost—but honor had been mine—
I would have followed her.

Mad.
Almighty power!

St. Ever.
Thou shalt not pray: the angels laugh at thee.
I dwelled in palaces, and ruled in courts:
Thou wert my wife. Oh! I was very happy.
Hark thee, and wither! I beheld the blood
Reek from my consecrated monarch's head,
And then I prayed: I saw my house in flames:
Thy frenzied shriek is yet within my brain:
At morn I knelt me on the smoking pile,
And still I prayed: I saw thee shrink away
Beneath the pelting of the warring tempest,
And still I prayed: at last I found a friend
Who did receive my sorrows, soothed my grief,
And robbed me of my child. I'll pray no more.

[Enter Godfrey.]
Mad.
Speak, is she safe? I'll kneel, and at thy feet
I'll pay thee with a mother's burning tears.

Godf.
I sought the abbey's aisles, for there I knew
That she was wont to linger.

Mad.
And you found her?
You found my child?

Godf.
Within a villain's arms.

(Madame St. Evermont faints in Julia's arms.)
Godf.
I threw myself upon my aged knees,
And strove to wake a pity in his heart:
And when he spurned my supplicating hands,
I roused a vigor in my trembling frame
And rushed to save her from his impious clasp,
When with a blow he threw me to the ground.
The flakes of many winters have descended
Upon this whitened head, and time has bent
This feeble form, or I had never brooked
To see the child of Count St. Evermont—

St. Ever.
Oh! wake me, wake me from this horrid dream,
And drive these phantoms off.

Godf.
Have mercy on him!

St. Ever.
Ha! there it is again—
He rifles all the treasures of her bosom.
Hold! ruffian, hold! That kiss—I'll kneel to thee,
I will entreat thy mercy, Lunenberg,
Spare, spare the consolation of a father.
Behold me kneel who never knelt before:
Be not more cruel than my cruel fortune,
And rob me not of what my fortune left.
It is the central fibre of the heart
That knits the parent and the child together.
Thou wilt not? I will dare thee to the fight:
Villain, come on.
(St. Evermont in his frenzy imagines he is fighting Lunenberg.)
He falls: do not forgive him.

[Rushes out, followed by Godfrey.
Julia.
Where does he rush? where does his frenzy lead him?
And here is yet another spectacle
Of utter wretchedness. Returning life
Dawns on her face, and she awakes to grief:
Her eyes are oped in horrid vacancy.
There yet is room for hope.

Mad.
Hope is a cheat:
I'll none of it. Bring back my child to me:
Then only bid me hope. Oh! do not press me,
Thine arms are not so soft as Adelaide's,
Nor canst thou fill me with thy cold embrace.
What was my sin in my prosperity
That she should leave me too? Do I deserve
To be this childless desolated wretch?

[Exeunt.