University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

Cloisters in the Monastery of St. Ignazio.—A bell tolling.
Enter Savelli meeting Gerardo and Ludovico.
GERARDO.
The abbey lacks an abbot—we a father.

SAVELLI.
I learnt it from the bell.

LUDOVICO.
Alas! but now,
The good old man is taken to his rest!

SAVELLI.
How did his spirit pass?

LUDOVICO.
As we should pray
That yours may do and mine; it left behind
A smile to grace its dust.

GERARDO.
Yet one stood near
Who thought he called for help; but I did not,
Nor heard him speak.

LUDOVICO.
They held the rood before,
And there his eyes were steady till their sight
Was scaled and dimm'd by death.

SAVELLI.
So, peace be with him!
His end was happy.

LUDOVICO.
Such, as such a life
The best deserves.

GERARDO.
Yet good men die in fear
Sometimes, and ill ones calmly.

LUDOVICO.
While the flesh
Holds, yea though loosely, on the fluttering spirit,
It still hath power.

SAVELLI.
Well, may his sleep be bless'd;
We live to suffer here.

GERARDO.
It has been thought—
And men think what they wish—that one of you
Shall keep his chair from vacancy, and hold
The staff he leaves.

SAVELLI.
All look toward Ludovico.

LUDOVICO.
I think not so, nor wish it so: the duke
Will choose more wisely.
[Enter a Monk, who says to Ludovico—
One would speak without.

LUDOVICO.
To meet again. Adieu!

[Exeunt.
GERARDO.
He thinks not so,
Nor wishes that it should be so: good now,
This man of truth tells lies! there is not one
Amongst so many, from himself and thee,
To him that lights the lamps and swings the censor,
Cook, porter, verger, sacristan, or dean,
But would be abbot if he could. Men look,
Even as thou saidst, toward him. the duke, the while,
Our seedling Agamemnon out at sea,
The king of men, may look a different way
Toward good Savelli. From my soul I think
That none tell truth; that not a man who lives
But lies; that Ludovico lies—that he
For whom they ring those bells, did much the same,
And dying smiled to think how many fools
He left behind him. Thou and I, Savelli,
Do wrong to one another; thou dost hold
Thy friend a knave, an eminent knave; and I
Think worse, the while, of mine. Yet prithee, why?
Each knows his partner best, what cards he plays,
And when he cheats, how shuffles—if he knew
The others in the game as well—

SAVELLI.
Peace, peace!
It is not so Gerardo. Men like us
Are prone to err in this. There is a fault
Most dangerous in contempt, and some have fallen,
Who judged as thou. We should know well our brethren:
There are both bad and good, some wise, some foolish.

GERARDO.
So be it—the wise man's wisdom does but this,
It hides his follies; and the good man's goodness
Is fraud in luck. Should two as old as we are,
Whose puppets dance all day before the sun,
Doubt if some Punch abroad be not a god,
And call his candles stars? Name one man honest.

SAVELLI.
This Ludovico stands within his cell
The same as in the face of men and Heaven;
And so did he just dead.

GERARDO.
Now who knows that?
Why think not so of me? my gown is worn
As bare as theirs—a frail and mortified man,
Once frail, now mortified! and for thyself,
Thou hast a fasting face: fair Nature saves
Thee, her foul child, one lie, and kindly takes
That sin upon herself—makes thee look pale,
Grave, temperate, chaste, and pious. Some have said,
“What reverend man goes there?”—they might have stared
Indeed, if they had seen thee where thou wentest,
And striven with their own eyes. Then for thy words,
They drop upon men's hearts like showers in June,
When blows the south wind grossly. Who that hears
Thinks of the blight and worm!—

SAVELLI.
More than thou knowest,
If Heaven have made me what thou sayest, and art;
A sort of atmosphere surrounds the good—
Some subtile exhalation from within,
Not seen, but felt; another too the wicked,
Each as its kind in nature. Know thee not!
I hail'd thee at a league. In twenty years
This Ludovico wears unfray'd throughout,
And will do twenty more.

GERARDO.
If I were found,
It was by instinct, then: but other men
Lack something of that sympathy; and few
Can feel the wind, as thou canst, fair or foul,
And damp or dry, an hour before it blow.
A moral weathergage, a magnet primed
And pointing blank toward sin; a crow-beaked spirit
Which scents the carrion ere the man be dead,
Follows the marching carcase.

SAVELLI.
Prithee be quiet.
At present we have much to think and do.
The fleet comes homeward; it is seen, they say,
From Procita, far off. Let gales like these
Blow all night long, the duke will land to-morrow.

GERARDO.
We must not loiter then.

SAVELLI.
Brother be wary:
Greatness lies broad before us, ruin and shame
On either side.

GERARDO.
We shall go safely through.

[Exeunt.