 | The Poison Flower |  |
93
Scene I
Guasconti's Chamber in the Palazzo Mattei.The scene represents an apartment with walls panelled in cedar to three-quarters of their height. Above the panelling is a frieze of stamped leather. The coved ceiling is painted with arabesques. In the R. corner at back of stage the R. wall forms a re-entrant angle: on the wall facing footlights of the angle so formed hangs a mirror; in the other wall of the angle is a secret door leading to a spiral staircase which descends to Rappaccini's garden. At back a window with leaded glass looks into the garden. On the back wall in the corner L. hangs a crucifix. A door L. near footlights leads to an ante-chamber. Beyond the door a table stands against L. wall, and above it a shelf with books. An arm-chair stands in front of the table, another chair between the table and the door, and a third chair against R. wall near the mirror. A curtain is drawn across the window.
Enter by the door L., Lisabetta ushering in Guasconti. He places his cloak, sword and hat upon the chair by the door, and looks round.
Guas.
Heigho!
Lisa.
Gesù, Maria! What a sigh from a young breast!
Are these apartments not to the gentleman's mind?
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Somewhat gloomy perhaps.
Lisa.
Ah! he gentleman is from the south, I see.
Guas.
From Naples.
Lisa.
His honour must love learning to come all that
way to Padua to study. But the good God sends us
His sunshine here as well as in the south. There!
[She draws back the curtain. The sunshine streams in.
Guas.
Ay, that is more cheerful. Whose arms are these?
Lisa.
Why, whose but the Count Mattei's.
Guas.
This, then, was his own house?
Lisa.
O surely, surely! These are his excellency's own
apartments, the only part of the palazzo he keeps now.
But he comes seldom to town, and quits us soon.
Guas.
Absit omen!
[Looking out of the window.]
But
what a quaint old garden! Is this the count's?
Lisa.
Ay, surely, the count's it is. But it is the queer
pot-herbs grow there now.
[In a low voice.]
'Tis given
over to Signor Rappaccini, the famous doctor; and
there he works early and late, and they tell strange
stories of his doings among the baleful plants he
grows in it.
Guas.
Rappaccini? I have heard his name. He must
be curious in poisons. A terrible garden indeed.
Lisa.
Poisons or cures, God knows. But they do say—
[crossing herself]
—that God Almighty never made half
the wicked-looking things that grow in that garden.
Guas.
It might well be.
Lisa.
Is there anything further his honour commands?
Guas.
A flask of good wine, dame. I expect a friend.
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That you shall have, signor, and welcome.
Exit Lisabetta. Guasconti, leaving the window, draws the arm-chair away from the table and seats himself.
Guas.
In Padua, at last in Padua!
So far upon the high road of my hopes,
Yet now— [sighs]
—The musk of cobwebbed ancientry
Breathes from the dusky panel of these walls.
This chamber haunts my sense with silent speech,
Words that veil mysteries, like the blanching tale
A ghost would tell, but may not.
[He rises and takes down a book from the shelf.
All I see
Is new, and yet familiar; and I act
As on a stage, the memory of a dream.
[He gazes at the crucifix.
Each moment whispers: “This thou hast lived before.”
[He turns towards the corner where the mirror hangs.
A mirror should hang here: and here it hangs!
How pale and strange my face looks! I'll not gaze,
Lest shuddering expectation make me mad.
[Beatrice's voice is heard singing in the garden.
Beatrice
's Song
Heap me a mound of holy spice,
With camphor, sandal, cinnamon,
Gums and rich balms, like that whereon
The magian phœnix burns and dies!
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To do in desolate array
Soft rites, and chant low litanies,
Till thunders roll around the skirts of day:
Then fling the torch and come away,
Come away, and leave the kindled pyre
Where love lies dead, that was the world's desire.
[Guasconti listens intently, then runs to the window, opens the casement, looks out, and draws back disappointed.
Guas.
I knew I should see nothing. But that voice!
Earth has her siren; all my senses sing,
And the lone caverns of my inward ear
Sound on, like musing shells that lull themselves
To sad content with ocean's lingering boom.
O rich remembrancer of worlds unknown
For which I am long homesick, sing once more!
[He draws the arm-chair to the window and sits.
Beatrice's
Song [farther off]
The aloe feels the year of years,
Wakes, and the wandering bees it calls—
[He looks out again, the song ends abruptly.
Guas.
I knew I should see nothing, save the glow
Of noon o'er that dread garden, where I see
Each venomous thing sprouts rankly as the weeds
Upon forgotten graves. In the deep hush
No cricket's tune is heard, only the stir
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Bask on hot stones, coiled furies, in the sun,
Enough to furnish cold Medusa's hair;
And snake-like plants, nameless in mortal tongue,
Pant from their gorgeous flowers, drinking the blaze.
Subtle intoxication. I grow faint
With the sweet horror. O that song! that song
Voluptuous Lilith sang o'er Adam's sleep
And flushed his blood with sensuous sorcery!
[A knock heard.
Come in.
Re-enter Lisabetta with wine and flowers which she sets on the table.
Lisa.
The wine, signor.
Guas.
Thanks, dame.
Lisa.
And I have made bold to bring your honour
some homely flowers from wholesome gardens, to
brighten up the chamber.
Guas.
[Rising and coming forward.]
A thousand thanks,
good mother.
Lisa.
[Placing the flowers in a vase.]
Lilies of the
Madonna—there is no poison in them I warrant you.
[Beatrice sings.]
Love is reborn, that is the world's desire.
Guas.
What rare creature sings in the garden?
Lisa.
[Crossing herself.]
Sings, signor? Holy Virgin, and
you have heard Rappaccini's daughter sing?
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She or some siren.
Lisa.
That bodes no good, for they say her song can
drive men mad.
Guas.
Well, well, be that as it may. When my friend
comes, show him up. Thanks for the flowers.
Lisa.
Now St. Anthony of Padua be your guard,
young man!
Guas.
Amen, good dame.
[Exit Lisabetta.
If 'twere my fate to see her?
[He returns to the window.
Lords of life,
'Tis she! How all the garden's potencies
Burn clear in her, the goddess of the garden!
She treads the earth like purple Ashtaroth,
The splendid flower of earth's dread motherhood,
Yet virginal as lilies of the chamber
Where Mary knelt, and heard the angels' “Hail!”
Oh, she draws near! her subtle effluence fills
The air with rapture! Nay, I dare not look,
Lest I should meet her eyes.
[He draws back from the window.
Yet I will dare—
I must—these flowers shall be my messengers.
[He takes a spray of lilies from the vase and looks out.
She doth enrich the sunshine, for its flame,
Transfigured in her blood, glows on her cheek,
And in her beauty wins superbest life.
Voice of Bea.
Hail, hail, my sister splendour!
Guas.
Oh, she speaks!
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With sinuous course, a flower among the flowers
Which as she bends mingle their breath with hers.
Horror grows beauty, poison hath no bale,
But finds a wholesome use now she is by.
What doth she now?
[He leans out of the window, then draws back
What rank two-natured thing
Is that huge plant wherewith she stands commingled,
Branches and arms?
Voice of Bea.
Embrace me, sister mine!
Give me thy deadly kisses, which are life
To the unmated passion of my heart.
[Guasconti looks out again.
Guas.
She kisses those dark flowers, whose lurid hues
Glow like the wedded colours of her gown,
Purple and orange. Now the rites are done.
She goes. Now must I dare it. She looks up,
Her lips half parted in a wondering smile.
Hail, mystery of the garden, lady, hail!
Voice of Bea.
Hail to thee, stranger youth! What is thy name?
Guas.
Giovanni dei Guasconti. And thine, thine!
Voice of Bea.
Beatrice Rappaccini.
Guas.
Beatrice!
[Aside.]
O more to me than Dante's Beatrice!
[He lets the flowers fall from the window.
Take these pure lilies and remember me,
If I should never see thy face again.
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Thanks for thy flowers, Giovanni dei Guasconti,
And yet they shoot a pang into my heart.
Guas.
Thou wilt not go?
Voice of Bea.
The powers I serve constrain.
But we must speak once more. Farewell! farewell!
Guas.
Farewell! So swiftly gone? She laid my flowers
Upon her breast, and straightway she grew pale.
And they, I saw, or else my sight was dazed,
They withered at her touch—Some wine, some wine!
[He sits at the table, pours out wine and drinks. A knock. Then re-enter Lisabetta, ushering in Ruffini.
Lisa.
Signor Ruffini!
[Exit Lisabetta.
Guas.
Ah, Celio!
[He rises and grasps his hand.
Ruff.
Thou look'st strangely.
Guas.
Nay, be welcome.
Ruff.
And welcome thou to Padua!
Guas.
[Bringing forward a chair.]
Sit and pledge me.
[They sit and drink to each other.
Ruff.
To the grave Muse of the Humanities,
And thy fair nuptial with her! Lord, I have climbed
Higher than Helicon to reach thy eyrie,
And I arrive still panting.
[He looks around.
But, sweet saints!
How com'st thou here, Giovanni? These are surely—
Guas.
The Count Mattei's chambers.
Ruff.
Knowest thou, then.
This Count Mattei?
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He was my father's friend.
[Ruffini rises and looks out of the window.
Ruff.
Oh, thou art fooled—betrayed! 'Tis as I thought,
This window looks on Rappaccini's garden.
Guas.
Well, what of that?
Ruff.
I tell thee there's no chink
In all the town that on the accursed place
Yields an eye's peeping, save this window here.
Its fellows, see, along the garden front,
Are all made blind with solid masonry.
[He comes back into the room and begins tapping the walls with his dagger hilt. In the corner where the mirror hangs he pauses.
Ay, here's the secret stair, this panel slides—
So—facilis descensus! 'Tis locked now,
But—
Guas.
How! A secret passage to the garden?
[He drinks nervously.
Ruff.
Ha! thou may'st well turn pale! This Count Mattei
Is that grey sorcerer's famulus, his gull.
All his estates and fortune are sequestered
For Rappaccini's use.
Guas.
And he, what is he?
Ruff.
A sorcerer, man, a sorcerer, in whose hands
This garden's hoarded poisons are the tools
Wherewith he works. They say he has a daughter—
Why leaps the blood into thy kindling cheek?
Thou hast not seen her?
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Well, suppose I had?
Ruff.
Then art thou lost, soul, body, all that makes
A man a man. Better thou mad'st thy mistress
The vilest—
Voice of Rappa.
Beatrice! Beatrice!
[They start up and look out.
Ruff.
His voice! Oh, look you there! Mark that black spider
Which in the garden spreads his web for thee.
Guas.
What wears he on his face?
Ruff.
A glass mask. See
How delicately poisoners handle poison.
He fears the thing he gloats on, gloves his hands,
A guard upon his face. They say he feeds
His hell-brood with men's flesh, pours infants' blood
For waters on those beds of death—
Guas.
Mere slander:
I see no blood. Sweet heaven, she comes again!
Ruff.
Back from the window! O thou flower of sin!
Guas.
She seeks the fountain.
Ruff.
I did ne'er believe it;
But there the monstrous mandrake grows indeed.
What is that image with the awful face
Which 'midst the thronging branches sits enthroned?
Guas.
'Tis pale Persephone, the triple queen,
Potent in earth, and heaven and deepest hell.
Ruff.
Ha! saw'st thou that?
Guas.
What? I saw nothing.
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Nothing?
How when she plucked the glowing purple flower—
Guas.
I thought the shuddering plant gave a deep groan.
Ruff.
And from the severed stalk fell gouts of blood.
One on that lizard on the fountain's rim
Dropped, and the beast writhed, and anon lay dead.
Guas.
I saw but the swift pity in her face.
Ruff.
Ha! there again. Those butterflies!
Guas.
They drop
Out of the air—
Ruff.
Slain by her venomed breath.
Guas.
It cannot be.
Ruff.
O thou weak, amorous fool!
That vampire Succuba is poison-proof,
Because she feeds on poisons. Back, man, back!
The swart enchanter shot a furtive look
From his snake's eyes at thee.
Guas.
I felt it not.
Now they pass out of sight. Let us sit down.
[He retires from the window. They sit and drink.
For God's sake, Celio, tell me what strange tales
Are current of this garden? Rappaccini?
What secrets has he read behind the veil
That covers Nature's face?
Ruff.
That the Devil knows.
Well, heaven be praised, I am not of his sect,
But orthodox, of old Baglioni's school.
Guas.
Is there, then, controversy 'twixt the pair?
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Good Lord! the world rings with it. They have ransacked
Old classic dunghills for opprobrious terms
To daub each other with.
Guas.
What is the issue?
Ruff.
A hundred several issues—this in chief:
This Rappaccini with rank heresy
Would postulate a dual sex in God.
Guas.
A dual sex?
Ruff.
His lewd philosophy
Turns all on sex; and, further, he proclaims
The female elder in its origin,
And nobler in its essence—heresies!
But we have swinged him in three several tracts,
And have the latest word.
Guas.
But for his practice?
Ruff.
They say—
[He drinks.
Guas.
What do they say?
Ruff.
He would search out
In life's red core the mystery of evil,
By cursed means.
Guas.
What means?
Ruff.
He would explore
The principle of life, track generation
Through earth's protean forms, watch it in operance,
Where like the Ancient Snake it eats the dust
And works through cosmic change.
Guas.
A glorious aim.
He has dared nobly.
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Has dared damnably
For a fantastic dream. A vaulted cell,
Deep underground, he makes his laboratory;
And there, they say, with purposed cruelty
He tortures living things, and with the dead
Works impious enchantments. Marry, his philtres,
Elixirs, balsams, salves have wrought, they say,
Strange cures.
Guas.
Some dim remembrance comes to me:
Did he not stay the plague in Padua?
Ruff.
Ay, so the vulgar deem. This and his interest
With some lewd potentates whose debauchèd blood
He has renewed with his foul wizard's broth,
Have kept him from the sorcerer's rightful doom.
Guas.
But tell me, Celio, of that magic plant
Which o'er the fountain casts its evil shade.
Ruff.
I never yet gave credence to the story
Till now. 'Tis his new Eden's tree of life,
Sprung from the old root of knowledge. In his tractate,
De Sexu, he discourses in vague jargon
Of such a plant, which he names Ashtaroth.
Guas.
Ashtaroth? Yes, that name! what notes he by it?
Ruff.
[Laughing.]
Why, womanhood, whose essence, earth's rich blood,
Is symbolled in its colours.
Guas.
It moves my soul
Like wizard's words, with an ecstatic dread
Ruff.
Bah! 'tis mere folly.
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But this poison-flower,
Whence hath it sprung? From what mysterious seed?
Ruff.
The fairest woman in fair Italy
Fled from her friends for love of this grey ghoul,
To share his secret-lore; young, highly born,
A widow left well-dowered, and thronged about
With suitors, gave her beauty to this wretch,
Was Rappaccini's mistress.
Guas.
She was then—
Ruff.
Thy Beatrice's mother. But still worse.
I ne'er believed the tale till now. She died:
Or as some say, with a new babe unborn
Was coffined quick there by the marble fountain,
In yon great marble tomb. See where it stands,
That monstrous plant, fruit of its cursèd womb.
Guas.
O horrible! yet the horror fascinates.
Ruff.
Thou shalt not stay to nurse thy soul's sick dream.
Come, thou shalt share my chamber for to-night.
Guas.
No, no, begone—leave me alone—my fate
Is in that garden.
Ruff.
Come with me, Giovanni!
Guas.
Nay, Celio, do not vex me: for by Bacchus
A foot I will not budge! Here is my home.
Ruff.
By Bacchus and his vats, thou art an ass!
Come, I can show thee women in this town
To whom thy siren is a rustic jade.
I'll steep thy sense in pleasures that shall make
This garden fade with dreams forgotten.
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Pleasures?
Ruff.
Sin wholesome sins that are youth's natural spice,
And leave mere outward smutches, which but show
Upon the man some varnish of this world.
Guas.
I hold in loathing every vulgar pleasure.
Ruff.
Good Lord! when virtue leads men to the devil,
It grows a fiend; and now thou hast a devil
Which I would fain cast out. Dice, drink, be wanton
In human fashion, revel it like a man;
But deal not in unnatural sorceries,
Lose not thy soul, Giovanni.
Guas.
Oh, that soul
Is lost indeed, which dares not shape itself
In action by the laws of its own being!
Life holds eternity, there is no other.
Ruff.
Madman, abjure thy rash impiety!
Come with me.
[Seizing Guasconti by the arm, he endeavours to lead him away.
Guas.
Never!
[He frees himself, snatches his sword from the chair and draws it.
Hence, upon thy life!
Ruff.
There is no parleying with thee in this mood;
But I will save thee yet. Farewell, my hero,
Heaven keep thee in thy wits.
[Exit Ruffini L.
Guas.
Amen! Amen!
We are both mad. So madmen carp at madmen,
As poison wars with poison. I could weep now
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Where pleasure grovels in a filthy sty.
But here's my world. How shall I enter? How?
[He taps with his dagger upon the secret door.
Beat out my life upon this iron door
Like a caged bird. [Knocking heard.]
Come in!
Re-enter Lisabetta with a letter
Lisa.
A letter for Signor Guasconti.
Guas.
Thanks, leave me.
[Exit Lisabetta.
What subtle perfume steals into my sense
From this white packet? Wax, yield up thy secret.
[He opens the packet and reads.
“Signor Giovanni dei Guasconti,—If thy soul
be pure and thy heart bold to explore the thy mysteries
of my realm, the way is open to thee; the key is in
thy hand. Wear this talisman upon thy breast.—
Beatrice.”
Graved in a scroll, the legend: Medicatrix
Naturæ Vis. Upon the reverse—what?
Beatrice's name. And here the key, the key!
Drop Scene Falls
| The Poison Flower | |