University of Virginia Library

ACT V

Scene: The Prison at Vienne.
[Carloman lying on a plank bed.]
CARLOMAN.
Though Time has played me false—it is not that:
It is the fading colours in my soul,
And all the brilliant darkness through that chink;
It is—
[The door opens and a Warder enters.]
O Warder, put the food away;
But come and chat with me.

WARDER.
I have instructions
I must not speak a word.

CARLOMAN.
Is that the sentence?
Sit down.

WARDER.
But I must see you drink this wine.
The Pope, King Pepin too—they all are anxious
Your life should be preserved.

CARLOMAN.
Sit down and drink.
Now you will chat with me!

WARDER.
[drinking, and speaking always in an undertone]
How do you feel?
Here's to your health.

CARLOMAN.
Why, that is like a prayer—
Warmed by your voice. They who would shut men up,
And bar them from their fellows' kindly voices,
God cripple every motion of their soul!
So I am here for ever.
Take that bread:
I like to see you eat. Now talk again.

WARDER.
But you will eat some too?

CARLOMAN.
No, my good jailer,
You shall not forge that chain. You know I'm dying;
Bring me my food and eat it here and talk,
Then you will stay a little longer. Tell me,
How is it with the sky to-day, the winds
And the flowers crying after them? O God!

[He buries his face in his hand.]
WARDER.
Sir, it's a south wind.

CARLOMAN.
Do the birds fly high?
I watched them in great circles as I travelled—

WARDER.
I have not noticed them.

CARLOMAN.
In wheeling flocks
They mounted . . .
Have you nothing more to say?
It must be early morning in the world
Where all is changing.

WARDER.
Ah, you'd know the time;
Most prisoners get confused.

CARLOMAN.
No night nor day;
God promised them forever—morn and eve,
The gathering of the shadows, the decline,
The darkness with no footfall: then the day
And all things reappearing. That's for all—
Most for the prisoners, if you'd have them gentle.
Throw down this shutter!

WARDER.
[shaking his head]
That is just the point—
In prison you get thwarted every way;
You won't ask that to-morrow.

[He rises, shakes the crumbs from his lap, sets the half-empty wine-bottle on a ledge within Carloman's reach and goes out.]
CARLOMAN.
Is he gone?
[Carloman drags himself up and props himself by the wall with his ear against it.]
I hear the river rushing past the walls,
Rushing and rushing, and through all my dreams
I labour to keep pace with it: awake,
I give myself to rest. It comforts me,
To hear the bounding current pass along,
To think of the far travel of the drops,
Crisping the tiny waves. Away, away!
It is great peace to follow: to pursue
Is misery.
And if I kneel down here,
I can just catch the glitter of the sun
A-tumble down the stream. . . .

[He crouches and looks through the chinks.]
[Enter Zacharias and two Monks.]
ZACHARIAS.
Where is he?

MONK.
There,
Peering between the loosened stones.

CARLOMAN.
[turning]
The Pope!
Leave me in peace. You promised me seclusion.
I told you I would be alone with God.
Leave me!

ZACHARIAS.
But you are shut up with the devil!
Deep as you lie, you dare not make pretence
That you have found your God.

CARLOMAN.
[laughing nervously]
The seeker lost
More than the thing to find. Leave me alone—
You break the thread, you break it!
O the stream,
It flows and flows, and there are waterfalls
Somewhere, great, heaving torrents . . .

ZACHARIAS.
[bending over him]
To Vienne
Pilate, they say, was banished—here to die.

CARLOMAN.
What, Pilate!

ZACHARIAS.
Do you tremble at the name?

CARLOMAN.
O God, he saw the light and knew it not,
He had worse memories than Iscariot had
Misusing his great office. He had power,
Power to avert even Calvary . . . and yet
We owe salvation to him.
[lifting himself up from the ground]
Can it be
My blunder, my effacement shall prevail?
[to Zacharias]
So he was banished and came here to die—
As you have banished me; it is enough;
In chains and soon to die. There, hear them rattle;
Now you have done your part.

ZACHARIAS.
Not till you yield,
Not till I see you suffer. [aside]
Are hell's rings
Of fire prepared in vain for him?—Repent!

CARLOMAN.
Leave me!

ZACHARIAS.
No sinner has withstood me yet.
You shall repent.

CARLOMAN.
But I am strong as you:
I will not.

ZACHARIAS.
Oh, you must, for God's own sake,
His Majesty—He cannot strive and fail;
His heart is set on you and He must have you,
If but to bind in hell. Repent the past,
Repent, repent!

CARLOMAN.
Not anything—the whole
Strange journey and its perils that have brought me
Here to the brink of Death: and all will come
And touch that wonder, all will enter in,
And rest and be revived. Why should one trouble?
Death comes to all, you cannot banish him,
And Death has all we seek for!

ZACHARIAS.
These are words
For men the Church has blessed: but if you die
Without the holy Sacraments, unshriven,
And unabsolved, you will be flung away
To yonder stream, shroudless and like a dog.
Thus heretics are judged.

CARLOMAN.
[excitedly]
Be borne along,
Borne with the current. Is that possible?
Borne dead—well, each man takes his full desert—
Mine . . . is it possible? And further on
Past towns and cities . . . then at last the sea.

ZACHARIAS.
Vain hope! You are God's prisoner. No escape,
No waves to hide you and no help of man;
For prayer itself like hope is quenched before
The everlasting Prison-house. Farewell!

[Exit with the Monks.]
CARLOMAN.
Ha! ha! He shuts the door—so blank a sound!
And now the river comes about my brain,
And now the music foams incessantly,
The music of my funeral. Enough
For me that I shall lie against the heart
Of that on-pouring volume . . .
I am left
By every creature I have breathed beside—
They do not want me. God—He least of all!
He has a King to crown.
All's well, all are provided for. . . . My brother
Is in my place; my friend will take my wife.
How Geneviva shuddered at my chains
And clung to her old paramour! So easy
The world's wounds are to heal. A little time,
Ten years, a year—and all is found defeat
In any life, all turned to ridicule.

[Enter Marcomir in lay dress.]
MARCOMIR.
I have great news for you.

CARLOMAN.
But I am dying!
And now if all the doors were open wide
I should not move to pass through any one.
You cannot bring great news; I know it all,
All that must come now: I can alter nothing.
Rome will be succoured.

MARCOMIR.
Yes, the siege is raised,
And Astolph in retreat. I am not come
To talk of politics.

CARLOMAN.
Of private matters?
My Astolph, Lombardy . . .

MARCOMIR.
To say farewell,
To bless you. I am here as from the King;
I showed the monks a parchment with the seal
You used when you were ruler: it was found
Among her jewels . . .

CARLOMAN.
Ah, I see, a gift.
So you too play the King. My signet yours,
Ay, and all else that ever bore my name.
Keep it.

MARCOMIR.
But Carloman—

CARLOMAN.
I cannot wait
To hear; I have so very little time
To speak in and such hatred; hate that burns
My heart through to the core. You, all of you,
So glad that I am sunk here; Geneviva
Moving no step to me; and that great Pope,
I gave my soul to in a wondering love,
Vexed that he cannot tame me, not desiring
My help, my pardon. You must hear it all—
I am not in despair: I have a treasure,
A burthen at my heart—where it belongs
I do not know. I have tried many names,
Tried God's . . . You see me dying, that may be;
But not till I have cast my burthen down
Can I be certain of my journey's end.
How very still your face is! Are you dreaming,
You look so happy? And that scarlet cloak—
Where is your habit?

MARCOMIR.
I have cast it off
Forever; all my oaths are pushed aside,
With all my penitence, by something holy,
And the world seems new-born about me now;
I live as in a kind of bliss,—such joy,
Such fresh, warm sorrow.

CARLOMAN.
Geneviva—yes
I know she loves you. Wait till I am dead.

MARCOMIR.
O Carloman, I dare not break my news,
Not yet, you are not worthy. Do you hear
How the Rhone sings outside?

CARLOMAN.
Beyond these shutters—
The light, the lightning music!

MARCOMIR.
So life sweeps
Down through my blood; at last I have its secret.

CARLOMAN.
Go, dash yourself into the Rhone and die!
There is no secret hid in life—illusion,
That is the great discovery.

MARCOMIR.
O listen!
I am left poor and lonely in the world,
So poor, so lonely, not a soul that needs,
That ever can have need of me! Unloved
And undesired, with just the sun to hail,
The spring to welcome till I die, no more.
And yet—
If they should thrust me in a prison-cell
I should sing on in rapture.

CARLOMAN.
Undesired!
She desires no one . . . but you dote on her,
And that will set you singing.

MARCOMIR.
On my lips
Already there is savour of rich song.
That is the joy I spoke of. Oh, to spread
The fame of my dead lady through the lands,
To sing of Geneviva!

CARLOMAN.
She is dead?
Come closer. Chafe my hands—

MARCOMIR.
They mocked at her:
“If the Monk-King should ask now for his wife,
And we presented him the prostitute,
Would he not feel the ribaldry!” She stood
Quite silent, and the ashen lines turned black
On cheek and forehead; and they mocked her more:
“The harlot and the monk!” Then suddenly
A young, wild, girlish glory crossed her face,
She grasped me by the hand—but how we went
Through the hot streets I know not.
On the bridge
She turned to me—“Tell Carloman his wife
Is dead”—and looking down, I saw her stretched
Across the buoyant waters: from my sight
Sucked under by the current 'neath the bridge,
She did not rise.

CARLOMAN.
[triumphantly]
And Marcomir, they promise
To cast my body to the river there,
And let it sweep along.

MARCOMIR.
But I shall sing
Of life and youth, virginity and love.
You leave me in the world; O Carloman,
You leave me here delivered.

CARLOMAN.
We shall meet;
And yet such life wells up in me I fear
Lest I should not be dying. Geneviva!
[turning to Marcomir]
And you will sing to me?

[He lies back, wrapt in ecstasy.]
MARCOMIR.
To you, to all.
A tax is laid upon my very heart
To sing the sweeping music of the Rhone,
That rushes through my ears, that chants of her,
Of all you have delivered. In its depths
You will be buried, but the very burthen
You die to utter, far away in France
Will be caught up; Love will be free, and life
Free to make change as childhood.
Someone comes—
Hush, very softly, do not be afraid.

[Boniface enters and steals up to Carloman.]
BONIFACE.
Beloved—

CARLOMAN.
[putting his hand on the lips of Boniface]
No more! Dear voice, end with that word:
Beloved is not a prelude, it is all
A dying man can bear.

BONIFACE.
[blessing him]
All that I go
To publish to the folk in heathen lands.
Tho' very often it means martyrdom
To listen to my story, I am blest
Proclaiming it.

CARLOMAN.
[opening his eyes wide and raising himself]

[He sinks back and dies.]