University of Virginia Library

Scene 4.

A Garden-room in Adzuma's house. Wataru and Adzuma together. She is perusing a Chinese book.
Wataru.
What read you, Sweetheart?

Adzuma.
Oh, a foreign scroll
About a far-off land,—quite far, I think,
Where, when they would adjudge some one accused,
The man, or woman, was close blindfolded,
And red-hot shards of brass from the furnace fire
Being then scattered in a Temple-ground,
This he, or she, arraigned, must bare-foot walk
In the fierce labyrinth of that ordeal.

Wat.
A dreadful test! And, if the naked feet
Touched the hot brass?

Adz.
Then that was guiltiness;
And guiltlessness showed only from good luck
To thread the perilous pathway harmlessly.

Wat.
I hope just Heaven would guide the true feet safe.

Adz.
Ah, if it did! but I must think—alas!
That, oftentimes, the false foot came through well,
While th'innocent stumbled 'gainst the blazing bars.
Life sometimes seems to me like that hard test.

Wat.
Wherein, my Pearl?

Adz.
Because,—tread as we will,
With never so much heed, the path of the years,—
Fate, or our foes, or relics of old faults
Sow the way with so many snares for us.
Oh, dost thou deem that gentle Heaven, indeed,
Would find a safe road 'mid the fires for those
Whose feet were clean of wrong?

Wat.
Surely I do;
At last—far-off—nothing befalls the good
Save good. That I hold firm.

Adz.
If you did see
My feet burned by the brass?

Wat.
Why, I should know
The dull brass blundered, though a thousand tongues
Called thy hurts justice.

Adz.
Dear and loving Lord!
Hold fast to that! Go you on guard to-day?

Wat.
'Till th'afternoon.

Adz.
Then shall I—by your leave
Ride with my mother to the holy shrines,
And pray the goddess that she keep you well,
Nor weary yet of granting Adzuma
Comfort and courage of Wataru's love.