 | The Adversary |  |
125
Scene III.
[Again the dismantled chamber. Deep night. Fernando in an attitude of suspense is standing at that arras door, which now opens, and a white-haired physician enters slow and silent.]Fernando.
[With outstretched arms.]
The child? Still is there hope? Answer me.
[The physician makes no answer but bows his head in silence.]
Dead?
[The physician approaches him and mutely endeavours to console him, leading him to a chair, into which Fernando helplessly sinks.]
[The physician seeing his attempts at consolation are futile is about to retire, when Fernando stops him with a gesture.]
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Doctor, these cumulated miseries,
Of which this is the last and worst, I fear,
Have shaken my reason. It has seemed to me
That after each new fallen calamity,
Here in this very room, by yonder window,
A figure has appeared shrouded and masked,
Which, when I cried to heaven to show me cause
Of these extreme inflictions, answered “I.”
Yet could I draw from it no plainer word;
And when I have approached, it vanished straight.
Tell me, for you maintain an equal pulse,
Is this a self-created apparition,
Born of a fevered and tormented mind?
Or does it come for vengeance and alive?
Watch with me now and re-assure my brain.
Physician.
Small wonder that a mind so deeply torn
Should call up phantoms in mere ecstasy!
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A kind and drowsy syrup to bring sleep.
[After once again laying his hand on Fernando's shoulder he silently retires.]
Fernando.
Almighty God that sittest in the heavens,
Thou Who dost punish, yet with justice, I
Demand of Thee, as Thou wilt judge us all
On that last day when graves give up their dead,
Why I am thus afflicted and pursued;
First in the desolation of my hearth,
Then in the causeless fleeing of my wife,
Now in the dying of my only child;
What curse is on me?
The Figure.
[Again appearing.]
I.
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Again thou comest,
Now for a third time! 'tis not possible
Thou art a phantom; clearly I behold thee;
I know thee for mine enemy, thou hast said it,
Three times pronouncing thee the cause of woe.
I will pursue thee over land and sea,
No forest is so deep that it shall hide thee,
There is no wall so strong, no lock so fast,
That it shall shelter thee. As thou hast me,
So will I thee pursue unto the end.
I am a lonely man, bereaved and stripped;
To this bare task I now devote myself.
Here I take oath in this dismantled room,
By yonder still warm body of my child,
That I will hunt thee sleepless through the world,
Till I have called thee to a dread account.
[He rushes towards the figure as though to assail it, but again it vanishes as the curtain falls.]
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