 | In The Name of Time |  |
58
ACT IV
Scene: The Hall of the Frankish Palace. Early morning; the remains of a banquet on the table, drinking-cups, wine bottles, faded leaves.[A Servant is wiping away the stains of wine from the floor.]
SERVANT.
It is a cheerful thing to make all clean
When one is brisk and cool: this early air
Before the sun gets up is fit for men
To breathe when they are working.
Spot on spot!
A stranger to the revel of last night
Would take it there had been a massacre
To daub the floor so thickly.
[Enter another Servant.]
2ND SERVANT.
What a strew
Of glass and muddy wine-drops! Come up close
And listen. There's a curious monk outside
Who asks to see the King—almost a beggar,
And yet a red embroidered riding-cloak
Flaunts round his ragged sackcloth; while his voice
Has such a wanton ring we need not trouble
Lest he should take the scandal of this room
Too much to heart. The jolly soul can pipe!
[A voice is heard richly humming.]
Wine is for drinking,
Glasses for chinking—
Fellowship, pleasure,
Of the full cup:
Lift it up, lift it up!
And let us be gay and be friends without measure.
59
A monk indeed! Why we must drink again!
A minstrel!
2ND SERVANT.
And his comrade took the horses
As he had been a squire.
1ST SERVANT.
Oh, but the song!
I never heard another one like this.
2ND SERVANT.
Man, they are all the same: but then he sings it
As if he had just learnt that grapes have juice,
That makes it sound so well. You're pouring wine?
1ST SERVANT.
Yes, he must drink for that. Ho, there again!
Have you not caught the line?
[They join in as the voice sings]
These are the treasure
Of the full cup;
Lift it up, lift it up!
And let us be gay and be friends without measure.
Ha, ha!
2ND SERVANT.
Come in!
[Enter Carloman.]
You praise deep drinking—you . . .
For shame! A churchman! But . . .
How thin!
1ST SERVANT.
What eyes!
CARLOMAN.
Shall I have long to wait? Is Pepin ill,
Or is he grown luxurious? I would say
That I remember how your King is famed
For industry. He does not lie abed?
60
No, father.
CARLOMAN.
Call me brother if you will.
Why do you choke with laughter? I am ready
To laugh with you, to laugh to very tears
At what I am and have been. Do not hide
A thing so good and bright as laughter—Eh?
2ND SERVANT.
Mad! It were best to leave him to himself.
[They draw back.]
CARLOMAN.
[Looking round the room]
Throw the door wide open. Here we need
Fresh air even more than water. How the wine
Cries from the ground—shut in with walls, and cast
Below men's feet, a slough where animals
Might wallow, and so sour! Let in the breeze.
Let in the dawn outside there!
1ST SERVANT.
[propping the door]
After all
He is abstemious and sad at sin.
Look how profoundly sad!
2ND SERVANT.
Such twins of temper
Are frequent with the crazy. Now he drops
His mantle, have you ever seen such limbs—
A very scare-crow's!
1ST SERVANT.
But a kindly smile.
2ND SERVANT.
He touches things and lifts them up and down
Just like an idiot. We must warn the King.
[Exeunt.
61
A feast, how nasty! Dabbled vine-leaves, vessels
Broken to shivers, the inspiring juice
Black on the boards—a feast! Can happiness
Leave refuse such as this? It visits slaves,
And then its track is loathsome. Ah, the air
Has entered like a wedge, keen, reaching me
Through all the mustiness . . . and now I breathe!
The door is not enough, the windows too . . .
[opening one]
There! How it enters!
[turning toward another window]
In this room I lived;
It is not altered? No, the fireplace, east;
My chair in front, and hers . . . but they are crowned
At present; and my name upon that bench.
It is more terrible than nightmare—this
Besieging of one's life by chairs and walls
And memories. Ah yes, the walls, the walls,
They do the mischief; and this reek of age
From every corner sickens worse than stale
Imprisoned fumes of wine. More air!
[He throws wide all the windows: then leans out of the last. While his back is turned, Geneviva staggers drowsily in, reels to the board, tries to drink, then flings herself against the throne sleeping.]
O Earth,
How beautiful to think I travelled on
And on, yet rode against no wall, so freely
The outworks of your sky gave up their space.
My brain is tired with interest: what men do
Or speak enthrals me, I who often paced
This room as blind to anything alive
As if a child unborn.
[Impulsively beginning to pace.]
And yet, my God,
How great a Captain thou wilt have in me
If this bond-King, this Pepin can be freed;
62
The very gates of Rome.
[pausing at sight of Geneviva.]
But who is this
Strange, beautiful, wild woman?
Oh, how delicious
Her arms, her bosom! Through the sodden hair,
Trailing the ground, what glitter, and how clean
This naked shoulder lies against the floor.
Why, this is Sleep itself!
[He comes close.]
O Geneviva,
So you too have learnt freedom, and are grown
How marvellous in beauty!—Marcomir!—
[Marcomir stands at the door.]
He must not see her drunken and so flushed;
He shall not.
[moving quickly to the door]
I am looking every moment
For Pepin; do not enter.
[Marcomir turns and goes out.]
Oh, my shame,
If she should open her gray eyes on me,
And find me frocked and tonsured . . . for the sun
Strikes sheer across her face.
[He bends over her; she wakes, looks up, laughs in his face, and then speaks.]
GENEVIVA.
So young a guardian!
Most holy father, but I am not dead;
Do not bring rosemary, or sprinkle me
With holy drops.
[rubbing her eyes]
They call this morning sleep
A beauty sleep. You must not stare so hard.
CARLOMAN.
But do not laugh.
63
I must; you are a monk
Shame-faced and awkward. [rising]
Have you travelled far?
CARLOMAN.
I came on embassy: the Lombard King . . .
GENEVIVA.
These kings and princes! But whoever rules
Young men must have their pleasure. You and I—
Shall we not drink together?
[She pours wine into a goblet—he drinks]
God, what thirst!
Now you must rest awhile.
CARLOMAN.
Who are you, lady?
GENEVIVA.
So should a novice lisp. I am a woman.
CARLOMAN.
Glorious!
GENEVIVA.
And you? [she laughs.]
CARLOMAN.
Oh, do not jest with me;
You bring a devil to the paradise
It is to gaze on you. I am escaped
From convent-walls, the wrong, the bitterness!
GENEVIVA.
These monks are cruel, cruel, and I shudder
At their embrace; yet if I have a joy
It is to bring their manhood back to them.
Ha, ha! To see them look the murderer's guilt
64
You shall not slip me.
CARLOMAN.
I have left the convent
A novice, as you say. But who are you
So terrible in pity that you touch
My hand and draw me to you, though my habit
And shaven hair insult you worse, more grossly
Than the most wanton bearing you have met
In any other man? I am ashamed
That you should see me thus.
GENEVIVA.
My dearest lovers
Forsook me to be monks. You are as one
That comes to bring me tidings of the dead,
The holy dead who have no evil thoughts
Or trouble from temptation.
[She laughs bitterly]
For their sakes
You are beloved.
CARLOMAN.
Then put away all speech:
When love draws on me put it by as scholars
Their task when night falls thick upon the page.
Bend over me and kiss me. Do not laugh—
I love you.
GENEVIVA.
Did you ever love before?
CARLOMAN.
Never.
GENEVIVA.
Then I must tell you who I am:
A harlot . . . in my palace—Do not wince!
[she looks at him doubtfully]
65
And fled: I laugh now to remember it.
I loved once; he I loved became a monk,
And therefore I make sport of holy men.
I would not scoff at you, not tempt you even.
You have deep, burning eyes.
CARLOMAN.
He was a monk?
His name, who fled you? Would you have your pleasure
With me, his name!
GENEVIVA.
[to herself, shaking her head]
He had oblivious eyes!
[vindictively]
My lover's name was Marcomir.
CARLOMAN.
The monk
Who journeys with me on this embassy
Is Marcomir. If you are amorous still
Of him . . .
GENEVIVA.
Not now—no more. I am afraid . . .
Who are you? You are surely of my race,
Have known me in my youth. A flushing shame
Breaks on me—
CARLOMAN.
And to find you are beloved
Moves you?
GENEVIVA.
Not that! I hear it every day.
It is too stale a story. Could I love—
CARLOMAN.
[Observing Marcomir passing and re-passing 'the windows]
How dare he watch us! But I recollect
You told me he had been your paramour.
66
You come . . . he comes, I mean, from Mount Soracte—
Then . . . yes, I will have speech with him.
CARLOMAN.
[bitterly]
Oh, gossip,
The convent's gossip. I can furnish that.
If you desire him carnally, I yield;
But if . . .
GENEVIVA.
He knows so much of long ago.
CARLOMAN.
[impulsively]
Then he shall speak.
GENEVIVA.
Not now; you must not call!
Not now; for he remembers—
CARLOMAN.
Ay, the harlot
Was once a girl, the monk was once a man.
If you would speak of life
Before it was apprenticed to these trades—
Of life and youth, virginity and love,
My ear will be as ripe for your confession
As his. We all remember; but our wisdom
Is to forget: our powers of penitence
Must be enfranchised, sin itself set free,
No clog or fetter on us!
GENEVIVA.
Carloman,
My husband!
CARLOMAN.
Your free lover. Oh, I burn,
Burn toward your beauty! How can you forgive
The years I simply owned you!
67
Am I sweet,
So sweet to you—these lips so many men
Have kissed, this body. . . . But you bid me speak
Of life and youth, virginity and love,
And by a miracle I can. We two
Can argue of such matters.
[As Marcomir passes she calls]
Marcomir!
[She restrains Carloman and goes to the door.]
No, I must summon him.
[Marcomir enters.]
Were we not happy,
Those days we sat together quite alone
Praising and talking of him? We adored,
We each adored him, but we had no part
In that lone heart of his. Now all is changed
He loves me—
MARCOMIR.
Lady Geneviva!
GENEVIVA.
No—
The harlot, loves the harlot. You can tell me
So much of him. What, with him every day!—
All through the golden summer and no rain,
All through the autumn and its violence!
Did he fall sick of fever?
MARCOMIR.
I have known
So little of the seasons. Day and night
I prayed that God would keep you chaste. No prayer
Of mine was ever answered.
CARLOMAN.
[to Marcomir]
Dare you pray
That this should be or that? The only prayer
That is not futile in impiety
68
To feel the strength and pureness of the life
That courses through the world.
GENEVIVA.
Ah, yes, to bathe,
And then to rise up clean.
[to Marcomir]
The very moment
He spoke of youth, virginity and love
I prayed: I am alive. O Marcomir,
And there are other words of fellowship,
Of joy and youth-time. Let us hold him dear
Because he has delivered us; together
Let us give thanks, give courage each to each
Unenvious; let us talk of him once more,
Though with a difference—I will not use
Your comradeship profanely as I did,
To set you up against him in caprice,
Then leave you wild and empty. He has much
To pardon; you have more.
MARCOMIR.
No, no!
CARLOMAN.
Ah, no—
Not pardon. Where's the need? We mortal men
Are brought to riot, brought to abstinence
That we may grow on either ready soil
The mustard-seed of pleasure, that is filled
With wings and sunny leaves. As time goes by
We shall have true relations each with each,
And with clean hearts receive the usufruct
Of what is best, and growing better still
In every soul among us.
[leading her up to Marcomir]
Geneviva,
His kiss will free your penitence, and teach you
He never could regret the past, because
It made to-day.
69
[kissing her]
Now, and beyond, beyond
Your friend—and lover.
I have prayed, like you,
The difficult is possible as once.
O life, O Geneviva, I were doomed
Indeed, if I should dare to rob myself
Of all the joy it is to be with you;
That were to die forever. What, reject
The gift you have for me, because for him
You have a different gift! But take my passion,
As I shall learn to take your friendship—each
Accepting what the other has to give,
All will be well between us.
[Enter Pepin.]
PEPIN.
Holy brothers,
At last I join you. Come, this is unseemly . . .
A pleasant dame—but not within my palace
Shall you be tempted to forsake your vows.
[to Geneviva.]
Go, get your lovers on the highway; here
You bring disgrace.
[to Carloman in a low voice)
A courtesan.
CARLOMAN.
My wife.
PEPIN.
Thor! are you crazy?
CARLOMAN.
And I trusted you,
I left her in your charge. Where is my child?
PEPIN.
Dead in the cloister half a year ago . . .
That was no fault of mine. As for your wife—
CARLOMAN.
[to Marcomir]
Take Lady Geneviva to her rooms,
70
[to Geneviva, as she goes from him]
So our boy
Is dead! Can you forgive me?
[He shudders and bows his head. Exeunt Marcomir and Geneviva.]
PEPIN.
On my oath,
I could not be her keeper, Carloman.
CARLOMAN.
No, that is no man's office. Of herself
She was what she has been, and each of us
Should say no word against her to our shame,
Nor any word to one another more
Than what we just have said. These fearful things
Should be within a fosse below all speech;
While we live sound above them and forget.
I come to you. . . .
PEPIN.
The same, magnanimous,
My brother, as of old.
[laying his hand on Carloman's shoulder]
What bones!
CARLOMAN.
Ah, yes.
I have not flesh as full of life as yours;
Why, your mere touch can warm one like the sun.
PEPIN.
Six years ago! You come as if the dead
Could rise and make a visit.
CARLOMAN.
[gasping]
Pepin, hush!
I have been dead, and yet I am no ghost;
You strike me through with anguish.
71
But you suffer
Unnecessary pain. I give you welcome
With all my heart; yet you yourself must know
Your presence in the place where once you ruled
Is—well, unlooked for.
CARLOMAN.
[vehemently]
Brother, I can prove
I am no spectre, outcast from the fortunes
Of breathing men,—that I too have a part
Once more in worldly business. I am come. . . .
PEPIN.
[close to him]
What are you come for?
CARLOMAN.
I am come to live,
To share again your counsels.
PEPIN.
You are come
For what?
CARLOMAN.
Once more to think of France, and act
As you and I determine.
PEPIN.
Willingly
I hear advice; but now the throne is mine
Decision rests with me and not with you,
Who have been shut away from everything
But prayers and convent-policy. Forgive,
We are no longer equals—you a Saint,
I a mere statesman. But you have not said
One word about the cloister.
72
Do we waste
Much talk on vaults, we men who are alive?
PEPIN.
And yet you chose it!
CARLOMAN.
Now I choose again.
PEPIN.
You cannot. Are you mad? Who sent you here?
CARLOMAN.
Astolph the Lombard.
PEPIN.
Humph! What prelate gave
Authority to him? He could not use
Your services by force.
CARLOMAN.
I left the convent
At his request alone, in opposition
To bishop Damiani. I am free!
I proved it, acting freely.
PEPIN.
Whew!—this Astolph . . .?
CARLOMAN.
Would save you from alliance with the Pope,
Alliance with a foreign tyranny,
Opposed to human life and thwarting it.
Astolph is on your borders, and a King
Is more your natural fellow than this Pope,
Who seizes on the natural power of Kings,
Confusing his tiara with their crowns.
73
In haste to put his yoke on France and you.
Before he can arrive . . .
PEPIN.
The Pope is here.
CARLOMAN.
Impossible!
PEPIN.
He reached us yesterday.
CARLOMAN.
Pepin, you are in league with him?
PEPIN.
I am.
CARLOMAN.
As you are wise and manly, break your promise;
It injures France, the freedom-loving plains,
The aweless stock we come of. Will you give
The future of your people to a priest,
You who profess the tonsure round my head
Disables for a crown?
PEPIN.
I, break my treaty,
And ruin my whole scheme!
CARLOMAN.
The Pope is gray,
And Astolph young and sound in force as you.
Which is the deadlier foe?
PEPIN.
The Pope and I
Are age and youth together. Carloman,
I love you still; you take me at the heart
74
For either you are mad, or have forgotten
How deeds are judged here in the actual world.
You are a monk, a runaway, and worse—
A heretic blasphemer, one who tempts
Both to rebellion and to perjury,
Yourself as disobedient as forsworn.
You must go back and bear your punishment
Without the least delay; for you are lost
If Zacharias find you here.
CARLOMAN.
Go back!
Go back!
PEPIN.
You are a danger to yourself
Remaining, and a danger to my throne.
All I have said is true. Have you not broken
Your vow?
CARLOMAN.
I have.
PEPIN.
And are you not a rebel?
CARLOMAN.
I am, I am, because I am alive—
And not a slave who sleeps through Time, unable
To share its agitation. What, go back!
You might as well dismiss me to the womb
From which I was delivered.
PEPIN.
Of yourself
You left the world.
CARLOMAN.
[trembling]
O Pepin, the same mother,
75
And breathed in common till I went away—
PEPIN.
We cannot any more. Why will you fix
A look so obstinate and hot?
By heaven, you are a fool. I cannot change
Myself, nor you, nor what has come to pass
I soon shall hate you, wish that you were dead.
CARLOMAN.
How horrible! I never will go back;
But I can live without my brother's love,
For ties are not existence.
PEPIN.
Will you raise
Divisions in my kingdom?
CARLOMAN.
I must live.
[Enter Pope Zacharias, Boniface and a number of Churchmen and nobles.]
PEPIN.
[to Zacharias.]
There stands my brother and your enemy.
ZACHARIAS.
Who?—Carloman? You wrong him. But what mission
Has brought him to the palace?
PEPIN.
He has left
His convent, and is here to plead the cause
Of Astolph, the arch-heretic.
ZACHARIAS.
My son,
Defend yourself.
76
[putting his hands over his brow as if in confusion]
But I can never say
What he could comprehend. How strange to feel
So slow, as if I walked without the light,
Deep in a valley.
[Boniface touches him]
Ah!
BONIFACE.
You do not listen!
Beloved, the Pope is speaking.
CARLOMAN.
[to Boniface]
But you know
What drove you forth to wander foreign lands,
With joy in every limb and faculty:
That drove me from the convent.
BONIFACE.
As a monk
I left the English cloister, with a blessing
From him who ruled me. Is it as a monk,
Oh, is it—that we see you in our midst?
CARLOMAN.
No, no, enfranchised!
[suddenly standing forth]
Hear me! The I am
Has sent me to you and has given me power
To rend your idols, for you have not known
The God I worship. He is just to-day—
Not dreaming of the future,—in itself,
Breath after breath divine! Oh, He becomes!
He cannot be of yesterday, for youth
Could not then walk beside Him, and the young
Must walk with God: and He is most alive
Wherever life is of each living thing.
To-morrow and to-morrow—those to-days
Of unborn generations; the I am
To none of them a memory or a hope,
77
The craving, the satiety—my God!
O Holy Father, you who sway the world
Through Him, must not deny Him.
ZACHARIAS.
I deny!
God does not alter; you have changed to Him
Who is Eternal.
CARLOMAN.
Yes, in change, and free
As we are free who move within His life,
And shape ourselves by what is moulding Earth
And men and ages. In my cell I lost
The motion of His presence. I was dead.
ZACHARIAS.
No, you are dead to what you dare blaspheme,
To what the cloister holds, if any place
Can hold it, the immutability
Of God's inherent nature, while without
His words are trying men by chance and change
And manifold desires. You left His works
Behind, you chose Himself: your oath was taken
To His deep heart; and now you would forswear
That oath, you cannot. No one who blasphemes
The light of God shall see the light of day:
For him the darkness and for him the grave.
I am no more your father, but your judge,
Who represents the God you have disowned,
Insulted and forgotten. He requites—
And you shall answer to the uttermost.
CARLOMAN.
I can.
ZACHARIAS.
You still persist in carnal thoughts,
Confounding Deity with things that pass?
78
God is the Movement, if He is the Life
Of all—I live in Him.
ZACHARIAS.
You left the convent
Against command?
CARLOMAN.
Against command of men.
ZACHARIAS.
And leagued with Astolph?
CARLOMAN.
In fast brotherhood.
ZACHARIAS.
You hear his full confession. O apostate
In vain, weep at your sentence.
PEPIN.
Holy Father,
I pray you send him back, but spare his life—
Spare him, if I have power with you.
ZACHARIAS.
His doom
Is but his choice made permanent on earth.
[to Carloman]
O fallen from blessedness of will, become
The friend of heretics, the false of word
To everlasting Truth, you are condemned
Life-long to be a prisoner in your cell,
Life-long to watch the scourge and crucifix.
You chose them, as the God whom you abjure
Chose them, forever; you have lapsed and they
Become tormentors, till they force contrition
At last and save you.
79
[with a low, panting moan]
Prison!
ZACHARIAS.
At Vienne,
There till you die the prison you have made
Of an eternal vow shall compass you.
CARLOMAN.
Think what it is—by God Himself, remember
What you would do to me. The very dead
Rise . . . Everything must have escape to live,
And I shall still be living.
[He throws both arms over his face, then suddenly removing them, makes a frenzied movement closer to the Pope.]
Let me die
Here, now! It is most impious, horrible
To bury me, full to the lips with life.
Sharpness-of-death, give that, but not to feel
The prison walls close on an energy
Beating its claim to worlds.
ZACHARIAS.
What I have spoken
Is and remains irrevocable.
BONIFACE.
[gently to Carloman]
Yield,—
Yield to a God Who compasses you round
With love so strong it binds you.
CARLOMAN.
And is hell—
But I reject such love.
O Pepin, listen!
I see so far! Your pact with Rome undoes
Long centuries, and yields your country up
80
Entombed alive, as mine will be, in night.
Simply renounce your promise, bid your soldiers
Seize the old man who numbs us. You and I
Could set to music that would never end
The forces of our people.
PEPIN.
You are crazy
Or worse, and I disown you.
[to Zacharias]
On his head
Let fall what curse you will.
ZACHARIAS.
Then he shall see
The sacred pact between us re-confirmed.
[to Monks]
Fetch Chilperic!
[Exeunt Monks.]
And meanwhile bring fetters in
To bind this renegade.
[moving up to the royal board that crosses the hall at the further end]
The treaty—sign!
[Pepin and his nobles follow Zacharias: Attendants bring in fetters. Carloman submits mechanically to be bound, staring at Pepin, who affixes his signature to the treaty.]
[Boniface goes round to Carloman.]
BONIFACE.
Son, you do well to take your shame so meekly,
And bear in patience.
CARLOMAN.
[sharply]
Have they bound me then?
Look, Boniface! And Pepin is a slave.
81
That pact!
[Chilperic is taken before Zacharias and Pepin; they appear to address him, to consult with each other: then a monk advances and cuts off Chilperic's long hair, while he weeps bitterly. Geneviva and Marcomir re-enter hurriedly as if they had heard bad news and see Carloman bound.]
GENEVIVA.
Be true to him.
MARCOMIR.
I will.
GENEVIVA.
Then share
His prison—say you left his monastery,
Step forth and save him from his loneliness,
My Marcomir, his friend. This is the moment;
And, as you love him, speak.
MARCOMIR.
[drawing his cowl closer]
No! Once before
I went along with him: I went to hell.
Renew that pain and foulness for his sake,
Because I love him—?
GENEVIVA.
Then because I love,
If nothing else will urge you—for my sake,
Only for mine.
MARCOMIR.
And would you be a harlot
Again, for him?
GENEVIVA.
Hush, never!
82
No, we two
Should understand each other, for we dare not
Become what we have been. For my own sake
I will not leave the world.
GENEVIVA.
He watches us . . .
O agony! And he is turned away,
And casts me off for ever. Go to him—
I cannot; for he sees me as I am,
The glory dropt away.
[Marcomir makes a forward movement]
You shall not go!
What do I say? I should not have the strength,
Not all alone. Stay with me! It is plain
What I must do to win him, and so hard—
It smiles so in the stream. Oh, hush! Look there!
That is worse dying. How they pass before him,
There, standing in his chains.
And Pepin looks
And hurries on, but all his gaze is fixed
On Chilperic's shorn head.
See, how they pass!
Now Zacharias—
And he curses him:
The earth is trembling.
CARLOMAN.
[making a movement as if to curse Zacharias]
But I have no God
To curse you with. I cannot do you harm.
I have no God, no friend, no glowing hate:
You all will pass before me in procession
Day after day as shadows.
ZACHARIAS.
To his cell!
| In The Name of Time | |