The Marshal.
Sir, if you wish to say a paternoster, make haste with it.
The Painter.
Your magnanimity affects me deeply, Marshal. But my soul carries light
baggage. Even so, it will journey to heaven. And instead of a last
testament, I present this portrait to you, so that, in the confusion,
no serious danger may happen to it.
The Marshal.
By your will, it has become mine, and I will gladly keep it. So, draw
your sword!
The Painter.
I, sir?
The Marshal.
So, draw!
The Painter.
No, that you will never live to see!
The Marshal.
Then why do you wear a sword?
The Painter.
Because I choose to.
The Marshal.
You are a coward.
The Painter.
(_Controlling himself, with a smiling bow_.) And you are a hero! (_In
the meanwhile the door at the centre is opened_. The Marquises _put
their heads in, listening_. The Painter _observes it and takes his
sword from the table where he has just laid it_.) See! As the traveller
uses the staff to defend himself against dogs, so I must wield it. Such
people are to be found at all doors where small men work and lie in
wait and play the parasite. (The Marquises _draw back. The door at the
centre is suddenly closed_.) Yet ever to bare the sword against you,
with whom, out of a timid trustfulness, a bond, a splendid bond of
pride, entwined me; whom of all the incompletely great men, I
admiringly called the only great man--if ever I were to be guilty of
such ignominy, I should not find my small share of peace even in the
shade of the most beautiful church-yard lindens.
The Marshal.
Are you still young?
The Painter.
I am not exactly old, yet my fortune has been so checkered and various
that I joyfully had given seven every-day lives for _one_ surfeit of
this. And in the end--however one may work and strive, it is man's
destiny: he dies of Woman. Therefore, instead of passing away slowly
by my own, I will quickly find my end by the wife of another. My
chariot of victory stops indeed suddenly. I greet its well-appointed
driver--and I greet my judge. Thrust on!
The Marshal.