University of Virginia Library

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

Cottage.—Enter St. Evermont and Godfrey.
St. Evermont.
The day has climbed the mountain's golden top,
And to the dreary tempest of the night
The rosy flush of opening morn succeeds.
A black and heavy gloom still deepens here,
In which no twilight reddens. Through the dusk
The spectre of departed greatness stalks.

Godf.
Your sword, my lord. (gives the sword)


St. Ever.
My last, my only friend.
And yet not so. I wrong thee much, old man.
Thy youth attended my prosperity:
And now thine age hath not deserted me.

Godf.
Alas! my noble lord!

St. Ever.
I charge thee, Godfrey,
Call me no more thy lord: for who am I?
Yes: I was once the Count St. Evermont!
It was a name that, down through centuries,
Came freighted with the weight of glorious deeds,
Entailed on time hereafter. I have spent
The precious hoard, and now disgrace remains.
And yet my sword! my sword is left me still.
Come forth, thou minister of great revenge,
And let me feel that thou canst pierce his heart,
And vindicate a father.

Godf.
I have seen it,
When nations met in death's hot revelry,
Where all the onset burst with fiercer rage,
Flash swift destruction from your whirling arm,
And fall with ruin's weight upon the crest
Of high plumed war. I well remember me,
(For I had followed) with this very sword
You climbed the steep, and scaled the battlements;
Then plucked the standard of our France's foe
From off the tower that flamed with batteries.

St. Ever.
'Tis gone: and as it had never been.
'Tis gone, and like the golden palaces,
That, on the ridges of a gorgeous mount,
The setting sun-beam in the purple west
Builds with the vapours of a summer's eve,
The pageantry of fame has passed away.
Why is not memory buried in the tomb
Where hope is laid at peace? Who cannot hope,
Ought not to recollect. This little sword!
'Twas given me by my king, to be the mark
That I had merited. It is as bright
As from the scabbard when I drew it first;
And on the polished surface of the steel
There's not a tarnish of consuming rust.

Godf.
'Twill yet be true: it is an ancient friend.

St. Ever.
And therefore, Godfrey, should it not be trusted.
For friend is now another name for villain.
Friend is indeed less grating to the ear:
'Tis like the crooked adder's speckled skin,
And hides beneath the venomed perfidy.
And yet, perhaps, this sword will not desert me.
For, though the load of time is on my frame,
(Misfortune has leagued itself with time)
There will be that within a father's heart,
To rise triumphant o'er its withering sway.
Thou follower of calamity, come with me.

Enter Madame St. Evermont, Adelaide, and Julia.
Mad.
You shall not go.

Adel.
I will entwine my wretchedness.
The bony gripe of death shall never tear
A father from my arms—

Mad.
I am your wife:
With you I have been blest and miserable:
And misery doth endear—

Julia.
Look upon me:
Oh! hear the wailing sounds of supplication!

Adel.
I left you: infamy is on my head:
My soul is black: I am not fit to live:
But yet I am your daughter. Hear it, hear!
You shall not shed your blood upon my soul:
By the great parent of the universe,
I will not, must not be a parricide.
My father! oh! you shall not burst from hence;
You shall not break the chain that nature links;
For I will hold you with a furious strength.
I feel the force of madness in my arm:
Now who shall tear me hence?

St. Ever.
Hold! honor, honor!

Julia.
Honor! Shall honor case you o'er in iron?
Shall that fantastic thing that's made of air,
An empty sound, a word without a meaning,
The fruit of fashion's ideot wantonness,
Impel you on destruction?

Mad.
Hear me, hear me!
See nature flings herself upon your way:
She clasps her hands, and, weeping in entreaty,
Arrests your course. If you have ever loved,
(And sure you often swore it) in the name
Of that blest day when first I called you mine,
By all the happiness which we have known,
And by the recollection of our joys,
And by the mitigation of our sorrows,
And by the memory of our murdered Albert—

St. Ever.
Thy tears, my Emmiline, unman my purpose.

Mad.
Tell me, St. Evermont, have you e'er thought
That I have taken from adversity
A single pang, and been of comfort to you?

St. Ever.
Ah! Emmiline!

Mad.
Then you will not desert us?

Adel.
Why do you weep? why do you fear it now?
For, see how fast I hold him chained around,
And oh! he gently lifts me to his bosom.
I will not let him die for Adelaide.

St. Ever.
O thou! if on this sphere of misery
Thy providence looks down from mercy's throne;
If man be still thy care, and one whose head
All ills of human life have hailed upon,
May dare to pray: Creator of the world,
When I am laid within that silent place,
Where not one sigh can reach, and not one tear,
Protect these wretched ones. Without a friend,
Upon this earth all desolate and lost,
They need the fostering of thy vigilance.
Be thou the husband of the widow's grief;
Be thou the orphan's father. O my wife,
My Julia, and my child! do you not feel
With what an agony I hold you here?
It is my last embrace.

Mad.
Your last embrace!

St. Ever.
There is a prophet here—

Adel.
Then kill me first:
I shall be judged before a father's blood
Can dye my spectre red! When I appear,
A thunder will be heard in frighted heaven,
And from its cloud a trumpet will proclaim
‘Behold the parricide!’

St. Ever.
No, Adelaide!
If I should perish; and perhaps the dew,
In twilight's hour, will fall upon my corpse,
I'll go before thee, and I will implore
That he should pardon.

Mad.
Think, there will be none
To be the sentinel of misery:
There will be none, with tender watchfulness,
And all a parent's sweet solicitude,
To guard our Adelaide. Do not abandon her:
I then shall be no more, and in the tomb
Lie down with thee to an eternal sleep.
What will become of her?

St. Ever.
Spare, spare me this!

Mad.
The bitter blast of poverty will blow
The garb of virtue from her shrinking form.

St. Ever.
Revenge, revenge! by hell's eternal flame!
Away, unloose me! I will hear no more.

Adel.
My father!

Mad.
O my husband!

Julia.
Hear me, hear!

St. Ever.
Yet one last look; one glance of human weakness;
And now for ever! Heaven have mercy on them!

[Exit, followed by Godfrey.
Julia.
Where shall I lead you?

Mad.
Julia, to my grave.

[Exeunt.
[Manet Adelaide.]
Adel.
Gone to be slain: the fountain of my being!
The deep of hell hath heard it, and the damned
Hold festival below: the shout of joy
Bursts from the center and assails my brain.

Enter Albert.
Alb.
'Tis she: and if that wild and woeful look
Proclaims aright, grief maddens in her soul.
My sister? no! Yet horror shakes my frame:
Six years have passed away since last I saw
Her morn of beauty, when a convent's walls
Received her in their holiness. My sister?
I dare not ask: I fear to be resolved

Adel.
Why do you look upon me? Has a voice
Gone forth, and through the world proclaimed the deed?
Is all mankind then risen up in arms
To purge the earth of its contamination?
What would'st thou then with me? If 'tis to see
The child that slew her father; here, behold me.

Alb.
To know the worst is better than to doubt it.
If it be she: if it be Adelaide!

Adel.
Call me not Adelaide: it is a name
Too sweet, too tender, and too innocent.
It was the name of her whose father raised
His arms to heaven, to call down blessings on her.
But he was never heard: for curses fell
As thick as midnight dew upon the night-shade.

Alb.
Whate'er thou art, still will I pity thee.

Adel.
And can you pity me? You are a man,
And I'll not trust your tears. You do but mock me.

Alb.
Be comforted.

Adel.
Be comforted! Alas!
You mock me now indeed.

Alb.
I cannot bear it.
I'll burst this veil of mystery at once.
What art thou? Speak.

Adel.
My name is parricide.
My father lived upon my very smiles:
He used to say they were the cure of grief:
And when he pressed me closely to his breast,
He called me by each gentle little word
That can endear. I ope'd the sepulchre
To his old age: I'm covered with his blood.

Alb.
I'll work a horrid vengeance: I am Albert,
Albert St. Evermont!

Adel.
(shrieks)
Preserve me, save me!
If from the regions of the dead thou comest,
To bear me with thee: if thou art the shade
Of Albert, sent a delegate of wrath,
To lead me to the pestilential tomb,
Oh! mercy, mercy!

Alb.
Think not I am dead.
Would that I were, and had not lived to see
My name polluted by thy loose desires,
Thy damned incontinence. To hell's abyss
I'll hurl thy lover first; then fling thee after,
On beds of fire to dally in his arms.

Adel.
But thou wilt save my father? Do with me
E'en as thou wilt. But fly: be swift as light,
And overtake the fates. E'en now, perhaps—
Wilt thou not save him? Wilt thou let his blood
Be spilt upon my head? Away, away!
Nor tarry here to kill me! I myself—
Oh! for a bowl of cold and freezing death
To quench this raging furnace.

[Rushes out.
Alb.
Oh! distraction!

Enter Julia.
Julia.
It was a burst of louder grief, and came
To rouse the weeping stillness of my sorrows—
What do I see? Is this a sweet illusion,
The conjured image of my buried love?
Or is it Albert? Art thou here indeed,
That destiny may never part us more?

Alb.
Alas! that we should part in adverse chance,
And meet in agony! These tears, my Julia,
Are not of joy. Alas! why do I live?
And yet 'tis sweet to see thee ere I die.
It was a prayer was heard indeed above,
But oh! how is it granted?

Julia.
Alas! my Albert!
I never thought to look again upon thee.
I wept unceasingly: full many a kerchief
Grew heavy with the weight of fallen sorrow.
Yet is there a forgetfulness of grief
In thus beholding thee.

Alb.
I must not hear thee!
A woman's softness melts within my heart,
When great revenge should halloo in my ear,
And give the tyger's fury to my purpose.

Julia.
You know then all.

Alb.
Aye, all! I know that shame
Is piled in mountains. Say, where is my father?

Julia.
Thou wilt not, Albert!

Alb.
When she bade me fly,
It seemed the wandering of a frenzied mind:
But now thy face speaks horror. Heaven! my mother!
These limbs refuse to bear me to her arms.

Enter Madame St. Evermont.
Mad.
What voice, more lovely than a seraph's hymn,
Arising in the sadness of the night,
Came on my ear? 'Twas memory's melody.
Oh! 'twas a voice I oft have heard before,
And most familiar to a mother's ear.
And there—it is his vision, sent on earth
To mitigate the excess of desperation.
And do I see thee? Dost thou weep upon me,
Thou image of my Albert? Dost thou come
To bless and solace my distracted heart?

Alb.
I do not marvel that you gaze upon me,
E'en as the stranger of another world:
But while I press thee to my bosom's heave,
Let every sense inform thee that I live,
And live to love thee.

Mad.
If it be a dream,
Let me dream on for ever. Closer still
Clasp me yet nearer; strain me to thy bosom,
That I may feel that fond and sweet embrace,
That would persuade me that my Albert lives.
It is himself: my son: it is my Albert:
My son: my triumph.

Julia.
Thou wilt pity her,
Howe'er thou deal'st with me.

Mad.
My son, my joy, weep not: or, if thou dost,
Shed tears of wild o'erflowing happiness.
Dost thou not live? Art not come back to me?
Yes! heaven is merciful, and sends thy love
To lift me up from prostrate misery,
And cure me of affliction. Tell me, Albert,
What angel came in death's terrific hour,
And saved thee for thy mother? Tell me all,
Didst thou oft think of her who wept for thee,
Who bore thee, suffered for thee, loves thee, Albert?

Alb.
Do you not feel convulsion in my heart?
'Twere better that I ne'er had seen you more,
Than in the place of high impetuous joy,
Which fancy promised, horror should await me.

Mad.
What means that sigh? Why dost thou turn away,
And wilt not let me gaze upon thine eyes,
And feed my soul with nature's exultation?
Oh! I am happy! let all ills rain down:
Let me be poor, unpitied, and despised:
Let me go forth in shivering beggary,
To ask a crumb of bread, and be refused:
Let me behold the closing of the night,
And strew my bed upon the drifted snow:
Be heaven my roof, the world my habitation,
I will be happy still, for I have found him.
My son! my son! (kneeling down and praying)
I thank ye, heavens! I thank ye.

Alb.
Where is my father?

Mad.
(shrieks)
Ha!

Alb.
That blasted form,
That dreadful cry, proclaim it to my soul.
Oh! for the movement of a spirit's wing,
Borne on a thought across the universe,
To be salvation's minister.

Julia.
My Albert!
One glance, one last kind look of parting love,
To treasure in remembrance. Albert! Albert!

[Exeunt Julia and Albert.
Mad.
Why am I made the very jest of heaven?
It was enough to weep upon his grave,
And see him dying in my midnight dream:
But 'tis too much to raise him from the tomb,
To give him to my arms, that death might rush
And tear him back again? It is too much.
But I will bid defiance to the stars,
And laugh at destiny. My son, my daughter,
My husband, all! a widowed childless thing!
Fate, try to make me feel another pang,
To rack me with another agony.
Know, when you spoil a mother of her joys,
And take her children, she may laugh at you.
Welcome despair! come, fiend, possess me all,
Give to mine eye thy stony vacancy,
And blast my cheek with thoughtless desolation,
That wheresoe'er thy spirit lead my walk,
All may be horror. Let no mother dare
To meet me then, for I will look upon her
With such a fixed, a wild and hopeless eye,
That she will catch contagion from the gaze,
And kill the infant sleeping on her breast:
To clasp it there, and hug the certainty
That it is dead indeed, and ne'er will come
To make her fierce, and desperate, and mad.

[Rushes out.