University of Virginia Library

ACT III.

SCENE I.

A Room in Agolanti's Villa.
Enter Agolanti.
Agolanti.
What have I done, great heavens! to be thus tortured?
My gates beset with these inquisitive fools;
A wife, strong as her hate, so I be dumb,
Falling in gulfs of weakness for a word;
And all the while, dastardly nameless foes,
Who know where I am weak, filling my household
With talk of ominous things,—sad mourning shapes
That walk my grounds, none knowing how they enter'd;
And in the dead of night, outcries for help,
As of a female crouching to the door.
Let me be met by daylight, man to man,
If 'tis to come to this; and to loud lies
Answer with my contempt, and with my sword.

Enter a Servant.
Servant.
The gentlemen that were here the other day,
Signor Da Riva, and the Roman gentleman,
Desire to kiss your hands.

Agolanti.
Fool! were not orders
Given you to admit no one?

Servant.
To my lady, sir;
We did not understand, to you.

Agolanti.
Idiots and torments!

Enter Da Riva and Colonna.
Exit Servant.
Colonna.
We kiss your hands, courteous Signor Francesco.

Da Riva.
And come to thank you for the seats you have given us.
In all the city there is no such throne
Of comfort, for a sovereign command
Of the best part o'the show; which will be glorious.

Colonna.
And with your lady for the queen o'the throne,
The Pope himself may look up as he walks,
And worship you with envy.

Agolanti.
Nay, sirs, you are too flattering. Perhaps
The lady—

Colonna.
And what makes us the more delighted
With your determination thus to give her
Unto the grateful spectacle, is a certain
Vile talk, sir, that has come to our disdainful
And most incredulous ears of—What do you think?

Da Riva.
Ay, sir, 'twill tax your fancy.

Colonna.
Of your jealousy;
Nay cruelty, forsooth!

Da Riva.
We laugh'd it down;
Look'd it i'the foolish face, and made it blush.
Yes, sir, the absurdity was put out of countenance;
But then, you know, that countenance was but one;
And twenty absurd grave faces, going about,
Big with a scandal, are as fertile as bees,
And make as busy multitudes of fools.

Agolanti.
Sirs, with this sudden incursion of strange news—
And your as strange, I must say, though well-meant
Fancy, of the necessity of refuting it—

Colonna.
Fancy, good sir!—Dear sir, we are most loath
To shock your noble knowledge of yourself
With the whole truth—with the whole credulous fiction;
But to convince you how requisite is the step
Thus to be taken in the truth's behalf,
The theme is constant, both in court and market-place,
That you're a very tyrant!

Da Riva.
And to a saint!
Vex her from morn to night—

Colonna.
Frighten her—

Da Riva.
Cast her
Into strange swoons, and monstrous shows of death.

Agolanti.
Monstrous indeed! and shows! That is most true.
Those are the shows! and I am to be at the spectacle
To let her face make what display it can
Of the mean lie, and mock me to the world.
Pardon me—I'm disturb'd—I'm not myself—
My house is not quite happy—you see it—Whose is?
But look, sir,—Why should Florence fall on me?
Why select me, as the scape-goat of a common
And self-resented misery? 'Tis a lie,
A boy's lie, a turn'd-off servant's lie,
That mine is a worse misery than their own,
Or more deserved. You know the Strozzi family,
You know the Baldi, Rossi, Brunelleschi—
You do, Signor Da Riva,—the Guidi also,
And Arregucci:—well,—are they all smiles?
All comfort? Is there, on the husbands' sides,
No roughness? no plain-speaking? or, on the wives',
No answering, tart or otherwise?—no black looks?
No softest spite; nor meekness, pale with malice?
No smile with the teeth set, shivering forth a sneer?
Take any dozen couples, the first you think of,
Those you know best; and see, if matrimony
Has been success with them, or a dull failure;
Dull at the best; probably, damn'd with discord;
A hell, the worse for being carried about
With quiet looks; or, horriblest of all,
Betwixt habitual hate and fulsome holiday.

Da Riva.
Oh, sir, you wrong poor mix'd humanity,
And think not how much nobleness relieves it,
Nor what a heap of good old love there lies
Sometimes in seeming quarrel. I thought you, sir,
I must confess, a more enduring Christian.

Colonna.
And churchman, sir. I own I have been astonish'd—
Pardon one somewhat nearer than yourself
Unto the church's prince—to hear you speak
Thus strangely of a holy ordinance.

Agolanti
(aside).
These men will make me mad. Have they come here
To warn me, or to torment me?—Sir, the earth
Holds not a man bows down with lowlier front
To holy church and to all holy ordinances:
It is their worldly violation mads me.
If my poor name be ever in sacred mouths,
I pray thee say so; and add, I am a man
Not happy quite perhaps, more than some others
Of mankind's fallen race, in my home's Eve;
Who, with some humours, yet is good as fair,
And only makes me unhappy in the excess
Of my desire to make herself most blessed.
My conscience thus discharged, look'ye, fair sir,—
A man of a less trusting sort—

Enter a Servant.
Servant.
My lady, sir,
Being worse since her last seizure at day-break,
The Nurse would fain send in the neighbourhood
For—

Agolanti.
Bid her do so. Tell her to send instantly
For whom she pleases. (Exit Servant.)
You will pardon me;—
This troubled house of mine—At the good spectacle,
I shall behold you.

Colonna.
We take anxious leave, sir,
Wishing you all good speed with the sweet lady.
But something we had forgotten, in our zeal
To tell our own poor story, tho' we came
Partly to give it you,—a letter, sir,
From a most dear and excellent friend of ours;
Who, we dare say it, for reasons which your delicacy
Will be glad, too, to turn to like fair grace
Of liberal trust and gentle interpretation,
Wishes your house all good and quiet fame.
'Tis something very special that he writes of,
So he assures us, and of instant urgency;
But what we know not.

[Exeunt.
Agolanti
(reads).

“If Signor Agolanti values his wife's
peace, and life, he will meet the writer of this letter instantly;
who will wait for him, an hour from the receipt of it, in the
wood near his gate, by the road-side leading to Cortona.

“Antonio Rondinelli.”

'Tis as I fear'd. He knows them, as I thought,
And well? Is it a league? Conspiracy?
And face to face too! He! This beats all boldness.
'Sdeath, must my time be his too! What strange matter
Can give him right of speech! “Her life!” Who seeks it?
What bloody juggle is to beset me now?
I'll meet thee, Antonio; and before we part,
Strange mystery shall be pluck'd from some one's heart.

[Exit.

SCENE II.

A Wood. Rondinelli discovered waiting.
Rondinelli.
My bosom is so full, my heart wants air;
It fears even want of utterance; fears the man,
For very loathing; fears his horrible right,
His lawless claim of lawfulness; and feels
Shame at his poisonous want of shame and manhood.
Yet she endures him; she can smile to him,
Would have him better. Oh, heavenly Ginevra!
Name, which to breathe puts pity in the air,
I know that to deserve to be thy friend
Should be to show all proofs of gentlest right.
Oh be the spirit of thine hand on mine;—
Hang by me, like a light, a face, an angel,
To whom I turn for privilege of blest patience,
Letting me call thee my soul's wife!
He comes.

Enter Agolanti.
Agolanti.
I recognise the Signor Rondinelli;
And in him, if I err not, the inditer
Of a strange letter.—He would speak with me?

Rondinelli.
Pardon me. I am sensible that I trespass
On many delicacies, which at first confuse me.
Be pleased to look upon them all as summ'd
In this acknowledgment, and as permitted me
To hold acquitted in your coming hither.
I would fain speak all calmly and christianly.

Agolanti.
You spoke of my wife's life. 'Twas that that brought me.

Rondinelli.
Many speak of it.

Agolanti.
To what end?

Rondinelli.
They doubt
If you are aware on what a delicate thread
It hangs.

Agolanti.
Mean you of health?

Rondinelli.
I do.

Agolanti.
'Twere strange,
If I knew not the substance of the tenure,
Seeing it daily.

Rondinelli.
A daily sight—pardon me—
May, on that very account, be but a dull one.—
I pray you, do not think I use plain words
From wish to offend: I have but one object—such
As all must have, who know, or ever have known,
The lady,—you above all others.

Agolanti.
Truly, sir,
You, and these knowing friends of yours, or hers,
Whom I know not, might leave the proverb alone,
Which says that a fool knows better what occurs
In his own house, than a wise man does in another's.
Good Signor Antonio, I endure you
Out of a sort of pity: you understand me;
Perhaps not quite a just one. This same letter
Is not the first of yours, that has intruded
Into my walls.

Rondinelli.
We understand each other
In some things, Signor Agolanti, and well;
In some things one of us is much mistaken;
But one thing we know perfectly, both of us,—
The spotlessness of her, concerning whom
We speak, with conscious souls, thus face to face.—
Signor Agolanti, I humbly beg of you,
Well nigh with tears, which you may pity, and welcome,
So you deny them not, that it will please you
To recollect, that the best daily eyes,
The wisest and the kindest, made secure
By custom and gradation, may see not
In the fine dreadful fading of a face
What others see.

Agolanti.
Signor Antonio,—
When others allow others to rule their houses,
To dictate commonplaces, and to substitute
For long experience and uncanting love
Their meddling self-sufficiency, their envious
Wish to find fault, and most impertinent finding it,
When this is the custom and the fashion, then,
And not till then, will I throw open my doors
To all my kind good masters of fair Florence,
To come and know more in my house than I do;
To see more, hear more, have a more inward taste
Of whatsoever is sweet and sacred in it,
And then vouchsafe me their opinions: order me
About, like some new household animal
Call'd servant-husband, they being husband-gods,
Yet condescending to all collateral offices
Of gossip, eaves-dropper, consulting-doctor,
Beggarly paymaster of discarded page,
Themselves discarded suitor.

Rondinelli.
(Aside.)
Help me, angel,
Against a pride, that, seeing thee, is nothing.—
You know full well, Francesco Agolanti,
That though a suitor for the prize you won
(Oh! what a prize! and what a winning! enough
Surely to make you bear with him that lost),
Discarded I could not be, never, alas!
Having found acceptation. My acquaintance
Not long preceded yours; and was too brief
To let my love win on her filial eyes,
Before your own came beaming with that wealth,
Which, with all other shows of good and prosperous,
Her parents justly thought her due. For writing to her
Since, with whatever innocence (as you know)
And for any opinions of yourself
In which I may have wrong'd you, I am desirous
To hold my own will in a constant state
Of pardon-begging and self-sacrifice,
And will engage never to trouble more
Your blessed doors (for such I'll hope they will be)
One thing provided.—Sir, it is,—
That in consideration of your possessing
A treasure, which all men will think and speak of
(The more to the just pride of him that owns it),
You will be pleased to show, even ostentatiously,
What more than care, at this supposed sad juncture,
You take of it: will call in learned eyes
To judge of what your own too happy ones
May slide o'er too securely; will thus revenge
Your wrong on ill mouths, by refuting them;
And secure kindlier ones from the misfortune
Of being uncharitable towards yourself.

Agolanti.
I will not suffer, more than other men,
That wrong should be assumed of me, and bend me
To what it pleases. What I know, I know;
What in that knowledge have done, shall still do.
The more you speak, the greater is the insult
To one that asks not your advice, nor needs it;
Nor am I to be trick'd into submission
To a pedantic and o'erweening insolence,
Because it treats me like a child, with gross
Self-reconciling needs and sugary fulsomeness.
Go back to the world you speak of, you yourself,
True infant; and learn better from its own school.
You tire me.

Rondinelli.
Stay; my last words must be heard.—
In nothing then will there be any difference
From what the world now see?

Agolanti.
In nothing, fool!—
Why should there? Am I a painter's posture-figure?
A glove to be made to fit? a public humour?
To hear you is preposterous; not to trample you
A favour, which I know not why I show.

Rondinelli.
I'll tell you.
'Tis because you, with cowardly tyranny,
Presume on the bless'd shape that stands between us;
Ay, with an impudence of your own, immeasurable,
Skulk at an angel's skirts.

Agolanti.
I laugh at you.
And let me tell you at parting, that the way
To serve a lady best, and have her faults
Lightliest admonish'd by her lawful helper,
Is not to thrust a lawless vanity
'Twixt him and his vex'd love.

Rondinelli.
Utter that word
No second time. Blaspheme not its religion.
And mark me, once for all. I know you proud,
Rich, sanguine during passion, sullen after it,
Purchasing shows of mutual respect,
With bows as low, as their recoil is lofty;
And thinking that the world and you, being each
No better than each other, may thus ever,
In smooth accommodation of absurdity,
Move prosperous to your graves. But also I know you
Misgiving amidst all of it; more violent
Than bold, more superstitious ev'n than formal;
More propp'd up by the public breath, than vital
In very self-conceit. Now mark me—

Agolanti.
A beggar
Mad with detection, barking like his cur!

Rondinelli.
Mark me, impostor. Let that saint be worse
By one hair's-breadth of sickness, and you take
No step to show that you would have prevented it,
And every soul in Florence, from the beggar
Up to the princely sacredness now coming,
Shall be loud on you, and loathe you. Boys shall follow you,
Plucking your shuddering skirts; women forego,
For woman's sake, their bashfulness, and speak
Words at you, as you pass; old friends not know you;
Enemies meet you, friend-like; and when, for shame,
You shut yourself in-doors, and take to your bed,
And die of this world by day, and the next by night,
The nurse, that makes a penny of your pillow,
And would desire you gone, but your groans pay her,
Shall turn from the last agony in your throat,
And count her wages!

Agolanti
(drawing his sword).
Death in thine own throat.

Rondinelli.
Tempt me not.

Agolanti.
Coward!

Rondinelli
(drawing his sword).
All you saints bear witness!

[Cries of “Agolanti! Signor Agolanti!”
Enter Servants in disorder.
First Servant.
My lady, sir.

Agolanti.
What of her?

Servant.
Sir, she is dead.

Agolanti.
Thou say'st what cannot be. A hundred times
I've seen her worse than she is now.

Rondinelli.
Oh horror!
To hear such words, knowing the end!—Oh dreadful!
But is it true, good fellow? Thou art a man,
And hast moist eyes. Say that they served thee dimly.

Servant.
Hark, sir.

[The passing-bell is heard. They all take off their caps, except Agolanti.
Rondinelli.
She's gone; and I am alone. Earth's blank;
Misery certain.—The cause, alas! the cause!
[Passionately to Agolanti.
Uncover thee, irreverent infamy!

Agolanti
(uncovering).
Infamy thou, to treat thus ruffianly
A mute-struck sorrow.

Rondinelli.
Oh God! to hear him talk!
To hear him talk, and know that he has slain her!
Bear witness, you—you of his household—you,
That knew him best, and what a poison he was—
He has slain her.—What you all fear'd would be, has come,
And the mild thread that held her heart, is broken.

Agolanti
(going off with the Servants).
Pietro, I say, and
Giotto! away! away!

[Exit with Servants.
Rondinelli.
Ay, ay; to justice with him! Whither with me?

[Exeunt opposite.