Friar Laurence had done his best for the young lovers, and he
carried out his scheme with speed and vigilance. But an unfortunate
accident prevented the letters he wrote to Romeo ever reaching their
destination. The friar to whom he entrusted them went to find a
brother friar of their order to go with him. This man was occupied
in visiting the sick; the plague was then raging in Verona, and the
searchers of the town, finding Friar John and his companion, and
suspecting they were both in a house where the pestilence was, sealed
up the doors, and refused to let them forth. Thus Friar John never
got to Mantua at all, and he was even unable to forward the letter to
Romeo or to return it to Friar Laurence, so fearful was everyone of
infection.
On his release, two days later, he hurried back to the cell of Friar
Laurence, and the latter learnt with dismay how his plan had failed.
There was now only one thing to be done: he must go to the vault
alone, to be there when Juliet awakened, for in three hours’ time the
power of the sleeping potion would be exhausted.
Though Friar Laurence’s message never got to Romeo, other tidings of
sadder import reached him. When Romeo had started for Mantua, he left
his servant, Balthasar, to follow him later with all news. Balthasar,
of course, like all Verona, had heard of the tragedy at the Capulets’
house, and never doubted of the truth of Juliet’s death. At the moment
he reached Mantua, it happened that Romeo was in the highest spirits;
an unaccustomed lightness of heart seemed that day to have taken
possession of him. As he strolled through the streets of Mantua just
before Balthasar’s arrival, Romeo was musing happily over a dream of
good omen that he had had the night before.
“My dream foretells some joyful news at hand,” he thought.“ I dreamt
my lady came and found me dead--strange dream that gives a dead man
leave to think!--and breathed such life with kisses on my lips that I
revived, and was an emperor. Ah me! how sweet is love itself, when but
love’s shadows are so rich in joy!”
At that moment Balthasar appeared, just as he had come off his
journey. Romeo’s heart leapt up anew at the sight of him.
“News from Verona!” he cried. “How now, Balthasar? Do you not bring me
letters from the Friar? How doth my lady? Is my father well? How fares
my Juliet? I ask that again, for nothing can be ill if she be well.”
Balthasar bowed his head, and spoke sadly and solemnly.
“Then she is well, and nothing can be ill. Her body sleeps in
Capulet’s monument, and her immortal part with angels lives. I saw
her laid low in her kindred’s vault, and took post at once to tell it
you. Oh, pardon me for bringing this ill news, since you left it for
my office, sir.”
Stunned by the blow. Romeo made no loud outcry; those who are stricken
to the heart have no power to bewail their misery.
“Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!” was all he said, when
he heard the fatal tidings. The boyish turbulence, the violent
outpourings of grief, the noisy despair that had followed his former
woes found no voice in his present calamity. His was the calmness of
one who knows that for him all hope is over. “You know my lodging; get
me ink and paper,” he said to Balthasar. “And hire post-horses. I will
hence to-night.”
“I do beseech you, sir, have patience,” said the serving-man. “Your
looks are wild and pale, and import some misadventure.”
“Tush! You are deceived,” said Romeo. “Leave me, and do the thing I
bid you do. Have you no letters to me from the Friar?”
“No, my good lord.”
“No matter. Get you gone, and hire those horses. I’ll be with you
directly.”
Romeo’s resolution was taken. Juliet was dead. Well, he would die too.
Now for the means. Then Romeo remembered that near the very spot where
he was standing dwelt an old apothecary--a meagre wretch, wasted with
misery and famine, whose sordid little shop contained a few musty odds
and ends of rubbish, thinly scattered to make up a show. Noting this
penury when he had first seen him, Romeo had said to himself: “Now,
if a man needed a poison whose sale would be instant death in Mantua,
here lives a caitiff wretch who would sell it him.” That thought had
only been the forerunner of his present need, and now he found that,
won over by the handsome bribe offered, the starving apothecary could
indeed supply him with a fatal drug of deadly power.
* * * * *
The hour of awakening had not yet come, and Juliet still slept
peacefully in her strange abode of death.
To the churchyard at night came the gallant County Paris, to lay
flowers at the tomb of the young bride who had been so untimely
snatched away. His little page kept watch at a distance, while Paris
laid the flowers with loving words at the door of the tomb.
“Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,--
O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;--
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans;
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.”
Warned by a whistle from the page, Paris retired into the shadow,
as other footsteps were heard approaching. Romeo, accompanied by
Balthasar, bearing a torch and some tools for opening the vault,
now came near, and Paris could hear the instructions Romeo gave his
servant.
“Give me the mattock and the wrenching iron. Hold, take this letter.
Early in the morning see you deliver it to my lord and father. Give me
the light. I charge you on your life, whatever you hear or see, stand
quite aloof, and do not interrupt me in what I am doing. The reason I
descend into this abode of death is partly to behold my lady’s face,
but chiefly to take from her dead finger a precious ring. Therefore,
hence, begone! But if you jealously return to pry into what I further
intend to do, by heaven, I will tear you joint from joint!”
“I will begone, sir, and not trouble you,” replied Balthasar; but, all
the same, he intended to hide himself somewhere near, for he feared
the looks of Romeo, and doubted his intention.
When the serving-man had retired, Romeo took up the tools, and began
to wrench open the door of the tomb. But now Paris came forward to
interfere.
“This is that banished, haughty Montague,” he said to himself, “who
murdered my love’s cousin, out of grief for whom it is supposed she
died. Now he has come here to do some villainous shame to the dead
bodies. I will seize him. Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague! Can
vengeance be pursued further than death? Villain, I seize thee! Obey,
and go with me, for thou must die.”
“I must indeed, and therefore came I hither,” said Romeo. “Good,
gentle youth, do not tempt a desperate man. Fly hence and leave me;
think on those who are dead. I beseech thee, youth, do not put another
sin on my head by urging me to fury. Oh, begone! By heaven, I love
thee better than myself. Stay not; begone!”
“I defy all thy entreaties,” cried Paris hotly, “and seize thee here
for a felon.”
“Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!” said Romeo, compelled
to draw in self-defence.
They fought, and Paris was wounded.
“Oh, I am slain!” he moaned. “If thou be merciful, open the tomb, lay
me with Juliet.”
[Illustration: “Oh, I am slain!”]
“In faith, I will. Let me see this face,” said Romeo, and he took up
the torch to look at the dead man. “Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County
Paris! What was it my man said when my troubled soul paid no heed to
him as we rode hither? I think he told me Paris should have married
Juliet. Said he not so? Or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing
him talk of Juliet, to think it was so?--Oh, give me thy hand, one
writ with me in sour misfortune’s book! I’ll bury thee in a triumphant
grave.”
Taking up the dead body of the gallant youth, Romeo laid it gently
inside the tomb. Then all other thoughts faded from his mind, for
there, uncovered on the bier, clad in her wedding-robes, radiant in
all her beauty, lay the young wife from whom he had only parted a few
days before.
“O my love! my wife!” he sighed. “Death, that hath sucked the honey
of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.... Ah, dear
Juliet! why art thou yet so fair?... I will stay here with thee, and
never from this palace of dim night depart again. Oh, here will I set
up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from
this world-wearied flesh! Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last
embrace!... Here’s to my love! O true apothecary, thy drugs are quick!
Thus with a kiss I die.”
* * * * *
At the further end of the churchyard, Friar Laurence, with a lantern,
crowbar, and spade, was picking his way through the crowded ranks of
graves, when he stumbled across a friend. This was Balthasar, who
told him that Romeo had gone to the Capulets’ vault, but from fear
of his master, did not dare accompany the Friar there. Dreading some
fresh misfortune, Friar Laurence hurried onwards. At the entrance
to the vault he was horrified to see fresh stains of blood, and on
entering it he found, to his dismay, Romeo lying there beside the bier
of Juliet, and Paris newly slain. But there was no time to spare for
lament or wonder; Juliet was awakening.
“O comforting Friar, where is my lord?” she asked, opening her
sweet eyes, and glancing about a little fearfully at her dreary
surroundings. “I remember well where I should be, and there I am.
Where is my Romeo?”
At this moment a noise was heard outside. Paris’s little page had
warned the night-watchmen of Verona, and they were now approaching.
Friar Laurence implored Juliet to leave the place at once. A greater
power than theirs had thwarted their plans; her husband lay dead
beside her, and Paris, too, was slain. The Friar said he would place
Juliet in safety among a sisterhood of holy nuns, only let her come at
once; he dared stay no longer.
“Go, get thee hence, for I will not go,” replied Juliet firmly; and
seeing it was useless to attempt to argue with her, Friar Laurence
slipped away.
Left alone, for one brief terrified moment Juliet glanced around her,
but when her gaze fell on her dead husband all doubt and hesitation
fled for ever.
“What’s here? A cup, closed in my true love’s hand?” she said, bending
over him tenderly. “Poison, I see, has been his untimely end. O churl!
drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me to follow thee? I
will kiss thy lips; haply some poison yet hangs on them.” She leant
forward and kissed him, and in the same moment caught sight of the
dagger in Romeo’s belt. “Thy lips are warm.”
“Lead, boy! Which way?” said the voice of a watchman outside.
“Yea, noise! Then I’ll be brief,” said Juliet, snatching the dagger.
“O happy dagger, this is thy sheath; there rest and let me die!” And
she fell back dead on Romeo’s body.
* * * * *
When the watchmen, followed by the Prince of Verona and the parents of
the ill-fated lovers, entered the vault, there was nothing to be done.
All was over now--the joy and the sorrow, the hatred and the strife.
Revenge was silenced; henceforth the voice of dissension was mute.
In the presence of those unseeing witnesses the bitter enemies were
reconciled.
In this “palace of dim night,” this dark abode of death, nothing was
left now but peace and the abiding memory of undying love.