University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

A wooded valley near Nazareth. Ben-Aaron and Mary Magdalene engaged in conversation.
Ben-Aaron.
You love me not? It matters little, that,
For you will learn to love me. Though our world
Be dark and sad, there is this good thing in it,
The fact that, once the crowning gift is won,
Passion must surely follow.

Mary.
Your wise brain
Deludes itself. I cannot love you.

Ben-Aaron.
Nay,
I said not that; I said that you would learn
After due time to love me. Mary, listen:
The love of man, unlike the love of woman,
Increases in its value with the years;
A youth loves not the maid—he loves to prove
With amplest force to his conceited self
His kingly strength by conquest after conquest;
When once the woman's won, the youth must turn
To other lips, if but again to prove
By a new conquest that the first was sweet.

Mary.
Was that your manner, Sir, when you were young?
Nay, doubtless you've forgotten. Pardon me.

Ben-Aaron.
I was about to say no woman knows
What woman is to age; each year of life
Makes woman far more precious unto man.
The sun, the stars, the flowers, these things are fair,
But fairer than all these the gift divine
That woman's youth bestows on man's old age.
The ancient legend erred; 'tis Eve who brings
Creation unto man—through her he sees,
Unchanged, again the golden light that shone
Down the green dells and vales of Paradise.
Moreover, as man older, wearier grows
He learns not love for all things, but contempt
For all things—proud contempt for those who preach
Of heaven and God the while they know they lie,
Contempt for rites that brainless fools ordain,
Strong-browed contempt for all things saving one,
The wild delight that woman's passion brings.

Mary.
But, Sir, your reverend life has been devoted
To holiest ends, to labour and to works
Whereof all tongues bear witness, while they praise.
What can a girl do for you?

Ben-Aaron.
Much indeed,
And in the sphere of labour. History speaks
Through woman, he who loves her apprehends
The past—aye, every woman's touch reveals
Some phase of history; one with amorous rays
Of old Assyrian moonlight floods the room
Wherein to-day her soft arms clasp her lover,
Another's kiss within her lover's brain
Renews the vision of strange sunlight poured
Across ancestral deserts.

Mary.
Great indeed
Must be the gifts of woman What could I
Reveal, I wonder?

Ben-Aaron
(drawing nearer to her).
Through her sovereign kiss
Comes woman's revelation unto man.

Mary
(drawing back slightly).
But if I love a younger—

Ben-Aaron.
Still there's place
For me. Gaze deep within a young girl's eyes;
You'll see two powers at once there manifest—
The power of loving youth, the power besides
That (at the same time) seeks and sways the old.
The youngest girl is older by an age
Than her fair youthful lover, and her eyes
Reveal it, for their amorous depths contain
The very looks, even as her heart inherits
The very modes, whereby in ancient days
Old hearts were lured and won to wildest worship.
Will you not kiss me—once?

Mary.
I kiss you? No.
And now pray let us part. There are bright girls
In Galilee—aye, many and many a one—
Who will be glad, for your gold's sake, to love you;
But I care nought for gold.

Ben-Aaron.
If you will love me,
I'll powder that superb black hair of yours
With diamonds, as God powders all the night
With stars. Some girls care not a jot for gold
Whom diamonds madden.

Mary.
Diamonds, rubies, gold,
Are good, but love is better. I love you not.

Ben-Aaron.
Come without love—what matters love to me?
Indeed I'd rather win you half reluctant;
That adds the charm to love, the joyous zest,
For when the woman half reluctant gives
Kisses that one by one grow less reluctant
Then man becomes a god.

Mary.
Choice godship, this!
What would good Joseph who believes in you
Think, if he heard you speak?

Ben-Aaron.
Joseph is nought,
Aye less than nought, but you are everything.
Life, youth, the sense of sweetness in the air
Of summer, all the glory of the stars,
The faith in some vast Power behind the stars,
All these things, Mary, these and more than these,
Thou canst restore, for I have come to know
(Long years have taught me this) that age and grief
And pain and death are conquerable alone
By painless griefless deathless youth like thine.
Thou canst on me the aging man bestow
Not life eternal, something nobler far,
Eternal rapture in a moment's space.
Mary, I love thee.

Mary.
Never till the stars
Drop out from heaven, and leave mankind aghast
At their black eyeless sockets in the sky,
Never till then—nay, never, even then—
Shalt thou lay hand upon me.

(Exit Mary).
Ben-Aaron
(gazing after her).
Is it so?
I cannot wrench the stars from out the sky
To please you—I'll do better—I will wrench
Your heart from its red socket, then will hurl
The quivering live thing bleeding at your feet.

(Exit Ben-Aaron).