University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—An underground Cemetery.
The Count and Mordax are dimly scen descending a broad flight of steps in the distance.
MORDAX
(entering).
Adieu, Sir Phosphor! For thy light, take thanks!
We've barred the world out bravely, noble count!

COUNT.
Where are we? What! is this the road? 'tis dark.

MORDAX.
Ay; but as fire is struck from out cold stone,
We'll pluck bright wonders from this world of night.
One of earth's wisest sons, 'tis said, taught men
That they should seek her subtle secrets, not
In their near likeness, but in opposite shapes.

COUNT.
Ho, speak! Who goes? I thought—but no; 'twas nothing.

MORDAX.
'Tis nought. Look up! This is a cemetery.
Take care, else you may stumble on a king.
Holla! Methought I trod on a fool's skull.
This is a learned spot; perhaps a bed
Of full blown doctors:—they are harmless now!

COUNT.
You are a nice observer.

MORDAX.
Oh! I am used
To choose 'tween knave and fool. Dost thou not see,
There,—a pale stream of light, run to and fro,
Threading the darkness?—'tis a madman's wits.

COUNT.
Where are we? Let us go. The air is close:
And noises as of falling waters, mixed
With strange laments and hummings of fierce insects,
Take my ears captive.

MORDAX.
O fine harmony!
'Faith, they have dexterous fiddlers here. Who blows
The trumpet honeysuckle in my ear?
Speak out, Sir Gnome. Hush! hark! That gentleman
Who beats the drum must be a cricket?

COUNT.
'Tis one.

MORDAX.
Right, or a death-watch. Now, sir, what's the matter?

COUNT.
I felt a clammy touch, as cold as death,
Flap on my cheek, and something breathed on me
An earthy odour—faugh! as though the tongue
O'er which 't had passed had fed on worms and dust.
Again,—who goes? Dost thou not hear a trampling?

MORDAX.
Be calm: 'tis but some people from the moon,
Or the star Venus, or from Mercury,
Madmen, or rakes; or monks,—fellows who feed
On air, and rail against our homely dishes.
A plague upon the spiritual rogues,
They always abuse their betters!

COUNT.
Hush,—sweet music!
The air is vital: every pore seems stung
Until it whispers with a thousand tongues!

Voices are heard; faintly at first, but becoming gradually more distinct.
SPIRITS
(below).
Come away! come away!

SPIRITS
(above).
Whither? whither?

SPIRITS
(below).

SPIRITS
(above).
We come; we are coming; but whither?

SPIRITS
(below).
Come hither, come hither, come hither!

CHORUS.
Hark! hark! hark! hark!
A power is peopling all the dark
With wonder; life, and death, and terror;
And dreams which fill the brain with error.
The elves are coming in glittering streams,
Loaded with light from the moon beams;
And the gnomes are behind in a dusky legion,
Hurrying all to their earthen fare:

A VOICE.
Stand, and gaze! for now ye are
In the midst of a magic region!

MORDAX.
Dost hear, Count? Look about! What see you, sir?

COUNT.
I see a vault,—spectral,—immeasurable,
Save that at times its gaunt and stony ribs
Bulge through the darkness and betray its bounds:
And now come countless crowds (millions on millions),
Whirling like glittering fire-flies round about us.
By hell, the things seem human! Let me pass.

MORDAX.
Stay, stay, sir: use more patience: you'll dislodge
These piles of coffins. Kings and counts lie here, sir,
Shouldering each other from their places still.
The villanous lifeless lump of clay—

COUNT.
What's that?
Methought I heard the arches crack:—Look, Look!
The pillars are alive! Each one turns round,
And scowls, as though the weight crushed in his brain!
Dead faces leer upon me; figures chatter;
And from the darkest depths watch horrid eyes!
Let me come near thee.

MORDAX.
Rest here.

COUNT.
Ha! I feel
As though I leant against an iron shape.
Thy sinews (and thy heart?) are firmly knit.

MORDAX.
Never did nerve or muscle yet give way,
From fear, or pity, or remorse, or love!
Never did yet the bounding blood go back
Into its springs, or leave my dusk cheek pale.
But, I'll not boast at present. Some dull day
I'll tell you all I've done,—since Cain went mad.
Meantime, let's see what comes. How fare you now?

COUNT.
I feel more firm since I did lean on thee.
But, hark! the ground labours with some strange birth.
What volumes of dark smoke it sends abroad!
Blow off the cloud!
[Mordax blows, and a Mirror is seen.
What's here? Methinks I see
A mighty glass, set in an ebon frame.

MORDAX.
Right, sir; true Madagascar; black as hate.
Now then we'll show you what our art can do:
Wilt have a ghost from Lapland or Japan?
Speak! for 'twill cost a minute, and some rhyme.

COUNT.
You're pleasant?

MORDAX.
Sir, they'll not obey plain prose.
Whate'er my friends, the utilitarians, preach,
Verse has its use, you see: but listen, senor.
—Come!
Without torch, or trump, or drum,
Every fine audacious spirit
Who doth vice or spite inherit!
By His name, long-worshipped 'round
All the red realms underground,
I bid and bind ye to my spell!
By the sinner who doth dwell
In the temple, like a saint!
By the unbeliever's taint!
By the human beasts who riot
O'er their brothers graved in quiet!

COUNT.
You have a choice collection of quaint phrases.

MORDAX.
I picked 'em up, as men of reputation
Steal musty phrases from forgotten books.
But how's this? 'Wake, dust o' the earth! Are ye deaf?
Mischievous? mad? or spelled? or bound in brass?
Away! a million of you tumbling imps
That jump about here! Hence, and drag before us
A squadron of sea-buried bones. Begone!
Ravage the deep, and let us see your backs
Crack with a ship load from the ooze. Oh, ho!
Dost thou not hear him?

COUNT.
A strange noise I hear.

MORDAX.
It is the Atlantic stirring in his depths.
Dost hear his spouting floods? Hark! Banks and cliffs
Are broken, and the boiling billows run
Over the land and lay the sea-depths bare!
Now shall the lean ghosts laugh and shake their sides,
Cramped by the waves no more!

COUNT.
How the winds blow!

A Throng of Shadows rush in.
SHADOWS.
We come: we have burst the chain
Of slumber, and death, and pain.
The ice bolts could not bind us,
Though they shot through our shrunken forms;
And we left the swift light behind us,
The wrack and the howling storms.

A Group of Spirits descend.
FIRST SPIRIT.
I have trod the frozen mountains.

SECOND SPIRIT.
I have winged the burning air.

THIRD SPIRIT.
I have left the boiling fountains,
Which, like flowers rich and rare,
Spread their leaves of crystal high,
In the lonely polar sky!

A Crowd of Indian Spirits are driven in.
INDIAN SPIRITS.
We are come: we came in legions
From the flat and dusky regions,
Where a wooden God they own.
We have perished bone by bone,
Crushed beneath the giant's car,
While our mothers shouted far,
Over jungle, over plain,
And drowned the discord of our pain!

MORDAX.
You see, sir, you may choose your company.

COUNT.
No more of this; which may be false,—or true.
[Spirits fade away.
Let me see one I know to be now dead.

MORDAX.
Dost see this tawdry coffin? It is now
A prelate's palace,—Bishop Nunez' see.
The poor at last can come quite near this saint:
Nay, 'round him, now the worms are met in council:
Cossus and Lumbricus are chosen presidents;
The one because he is a judge of learning,
And t'other has taste in flesh. Wilt see your friend?

COUNT.
No, let him rest: poor Nunez! What lies here
Beneath this heap of rough and rotting boards?
A felon's body! Well, what shall be done?

MORDAX.
Kick it, as you would spurn an enemy!

[Count touches it with his foot: the boards crumble away and a body is seen.
COUNT.
Ha! Sanchez! Thou false friend! Rise up, ye rocks,
Pillars, and floors of stone! Rise up and crush
The villain downwards! Hell hath let him 'scape.

MORDAX.
This rogue looks paler than his shirt.

COUNT.
Look there!
The name of Sathan is not on his brow.

MORDAX
(looking).
N—o: there's no name.

COUNT.
And yet, in his black heart,
The devil lived, and swayed him like a slave,
And laughed, and lied, and with a glozing tongue
Cheated the world of love.

MORDAX.
What, this poor worm?
What, he with his throat cut from ear to ear?
Ha! ha! O mighty man!

COUNT.
He slew my sister,
So good, so fair, so young!

MORDAX.
I warrant you
The gallant's sorry enough now. Begone!
[The figure sinks.
But how's this? you look pale, sir. Lean on me:
I'll be the reed, at least, if not the rock.
But, hush! strange music, like a swarm of bees,
Seems oozing from the ground!

VOICES
from below.
Hush! there is a creature forming:
Earth is into beauty warming;
Between dust, and death, and life,
There is now a crimson strife:
Between fire and frozen clay,
Water, ether, darkness, day,
There is now a magic motion,
Like the slumber of the ocean
Heaving in the sullen dawn!
Is the cloud withdrawn?

A VOICE.
'Tis withdrawn!
Friends and foes are met together,
Like a day of April weather,
Beauty hand in hand with death;
What is wanting?—only breath!

The Shadow of the Body of a Girl rises.
COUNT.
Speak, ere I look. What comes?

MORDAX.
A sleeping girl.
Yet—round her white throat winds a dark red line:
What can it mean?

COUNT
(looking up).
Ha! 'tis herself, dead, dead!
Poor girl, poor girl, too early lost! Was Fate
(Who gives to all the wretched store of years)
A niggard but to thee?

MORDAX.
Now, let her pass.

COUNT.
Yet one look; for methinks it is (though pale)
A pretty picture. When stern tyrants perish,
False slaves, or lustful men, we look and loathe
The ghastly bulks; but Beauty, pale and cold,
(Albeit washed never in Cimolian earth),
Like the crushed rose which will not lose its sweets,
Commands us after death. She sleeps, she sleeps!
Have you no power to wake her from her sleep?
To give the old sad accents to her tongue?

MORDAX.
'Tis past my power.

COUNT.
I'll give thee—

MORDAX.
Noble Count,
Dost think I'm bought with gold?

COUNT.
I'll worship thee—

MORDAX.
Umph! that sounds better. Yet,
I cannot do't; or must not. Wouldst thou have
The dead turn traitors and betray the grave?

COUNT.
Didst thou not swear that I should look through time?
See joy and sorrow? wherefore drag me here?

MORDAX.
Sir, you shall see the future, if you will.
But, patience! This fair thing must vanish first;
And then we'll try your fortune. Say farewell!

COUNT.
(Dirge, during which the Body sinks.)

COUNT.
Now let us look on that which is to be.

MORDAX.
My glass is there: yet, ere you gaze, think well.
The future—

COUNT.
Bid it come, as terrible
As tempest or the plague, I'll look upon't,
And dare it to an answer. Methinks I feel
Swollen with courage or some grand despair,
That lifts me above fortune. Quick! unveil
Your dusky mirror, you, lords of the mansion!

MORDAX.
Base goblins, quick! Unveil your lying glass,
And let my lord look in. Now, noble Count,
What see you?

[Shadows appear on the mirror.
COUNT.
Ha!

MORDAX.
Two figures, like ourselves!
We're linked together, Count?

COUNT.
True; but thy shadow
Wears a strange cunning look and quivering eye,
And the face changes—Ha! from young to old,
From fair to dark—from calm to smiles—to mirth!
From mirth, look! into—Ha! Diabolus?

[Turns round quickly.
MORDAX.
What is't?

COUNT.
'Tis gone!
Methought thou didst assume a fearful visage.
Let me look on thee, nearer: no, thou'rt fair,
As fair as truth.

MORDAX.
No fairer?

COUNT.
Wouldst thou be
Whiter than truth?

MORDAX.
Why,—no: in fact, my notion
Is that she wears a much too cold complexion.
Now, sir, I like the olive,—or the black.
Then, she was naked, too, or poets lie:
Give me some covering, though't be but a mask.

COUNT.
That was a fearful face I saw!

MORDAX.
Forget it.
Let us consult the mirror once again.

[Other Shadows appear.
COUNT.
Heaven! 'tis herself, my love, my dear, dear Inez!
She will be mine. After Love's fears and pains,
The god sits crowned with roses! What are they?

MORDAX.
Your children.

COUNT.
Both?—How fair! no lily fairer.
See, with what matron smiles the mother bends,
Kissing their veinèd temples with her lips!
Mine? mine? all mine? O, Fate, why did I swear
Hate everlasting to thee? I abjure
My rashness at thy feet.

MORDAX.
Had you not better
Dip once again in the dark lottery?
Perhaps this spring may change. But see, what comes?

[The Shadows alter.
COUNT.
A thin shape comes: 'tis like myself; so like,
That, but 'tis younger and more spare and pale,
I'd say—'twas I.

MORDAX.
This phantom never lived.

COUNT.
I'll call it. Thou—!

MORDAX.
Be still! You must not talk
To that which ne'er was flesh. Unto my ears
Confide your transports: We may talk together;
Though not to them. These pigmies are as proud
As a rich tradesman, or a new-made lord.

COUNT.
Who is the vision? Speak!

MORDAX.
It is—your son.

COUNT.
Forbid it, Heaven! Sickness or want hath struck
This pale thin boy with death. Must he then bear
Youth without blossom? without age, decay?
After all childhood's ills and pains endured,
(Before life's sweets are blown) 'tis hard to die.
Let him not perish!

MORDAX.
Do you pray to me?

COUNT.
I had forgot: methought the thing was real.
But, see, he comes alone!. Shew me the rest,
All the fair shapes, and she, the first and fairest,
Whose beauty crowns my dreams, whose heart is mine,
My own! Not all your juggling tricks can shake
My trust in her unmatched fidelity.

MORDAX.
I said not she was false: she is most true.

COUNT.
O, my fast friend!

MORDAX.
But beauty still is frail;
And what dishonour could not, Death has struck!

COUNT.
Ah!

MORDAX.
Stand up, Count! What, fall at the first word?
Why, this is but the future. (Aside.)
The weak fool!

COUNT.
O thou false friend! (He turns his back on me.)
Is there no hope, no way, no—?

MORDAX.
None; yes,—one!

COUNT.
Quick, quick!

MORDAX.
You need but change your livery, Count.
You've served one thankless king in camps and councils,
Have got hard knocks, no rank, and little pay;
Have been dishonoured! What else need be said?
Push him aside, and choose a better master.

COUNT
(pauses).
Umph!—he must be a king.

MORDAX.
He is.

COUNT.
A great one.

MORDAX.
He is a king more vast and terrible
Than any one whose cannon shakes the world.
He hath huge hosts, wide realms, and such a power
As the strong tempest hath when it is wroth.
Fate cannot awe him: Death is sworn his slave.

COUNT.
What devil—

MORDAX.
Hu—sh! You've guessed well. Hark! his name—

[Whispers.
COUNT.
Avaunt! What art thou? Who art thou?

MORDAX.
Your friend!
[The figure of Mordax changes.
Your fellow, too, who'll save all those you love:
But, still, you must be prompt. Your vow runs thus—

COUNT.
I will not hear him. Ears, shut up your sense!

MORDAX.
Choose and be quick, Count; for you're in some peril.
The Inquisitors have scented out your path,
(They are brave bloodhounds), and will soon be here.

COUNT.
I care not.

MORDAX.
But they've racks, which change men's humours.
Then, for the things thou lovest, their graves are open:
Wilt save, or thrust them in?

COUNT.
Be dumb, thou tempter.
Turn your red eyeballs from me. O, 'tis fable,
Black, base, unfounded, false: what else? what else?
Yet, if it be,—and I can save them thus?

[A noise is heard at a distance.
MORDAX.
Hark! they are on thee.

COUNT.
Ha! is death so near?
No matter; let it come. I shake like fear!

MORDAX.
I still can save thee, thee and all thou lovest:
Quick, speak the word.

COUNT.
The word! what word? Speak on.

[Voices are heard without.
MORDAX.
They're at the door. Say thus: “I give my soul—”

COUNT.
Stay! stop! What shall be done? Now, life or death?
The grave for her,—or love? God help me! Ha!
I'm safe: 'twas a wild struggle; but I'm safe.
Fiend! I abjure thee, (falls down),
loathe thee.

OFFICER
(without).
Open the doors,
In the name of the most Holy Inquisition!

MORDAX.
Ha, ha! the holy rogues!— (whispering)
You still may choose,
Life, love, and wealth? or the rack and scaffold? Quick!

OFFICER
(without).
Burst through the doors!
[The doors are broken open, and Officers, &c., of the Inquisition enter.
Ho! seize upon him. Ha!
My lord of Ortiz? Sir, Count Melchior heard
You were beset by some fierce enemy,
And sent us here to save you. Raise him up!
Now, where's your foe? Seize on him!

A VOICE
laughs.
Ha, ha, ha!

OFFICER.
I hear a horrid voice, but nothing see.
Spread yourselves out, and search the vaults with care.
Haste, and let none escape.

COUNT
(faintly).
'Tis vain: he's gone!
Wherefore he came, or who he is, or was—

OFFICER.
We do not ask: Our master bade us say
He'd speak in private with you.

COUNT.
He is wise;
Wise, good, and gentle, as a great man should be.
Bring me before him: I will try to thank him.
I'd go, but cannot.

VOICE
laughs again.
Ha, ha!

OFFICER.
Lean on me.
Now let us haste: Methinks strange sin and horror
Tenant these lonely vaults: Perhaps they sit
Watching the couches of the wicked dead!
Come, let us go: to the Count's house, my lord?

COUNT.
Ay, strait, strait, strait: (Aside)
and strait to Inez' bosom;
Which was (and must once more be) my sweet home!

[Count, &c. exeunt.