CHARLES: Now you frown?
FULVIA: The hope you nurse, then, if it prove a pang
Of serpent bitterness----
CHARLES: Prove pang? I then
But for an "if" must pluck it from me?
FULVIA: So
I must believe.
CHARLES: Pluck it from me! Will you--
Now will you have me mouth and foam and thresh
The quiet in me to a maelstrom! This
Is mine, this joy; and still is mine, though I
To keep it must bring on me bitterness
And bleeding and--I rage!
FULVIA: Then shall I cease,
And say no more? No, you are on a flood
Whose sinking may be rapid down to horror.
And she--this girl! It has been long since you
Gave license rein upon your will, and spur.
Do not so now.
CHARLES: License?
FULVIA: She is all morn
And dream and dew: make her not dark!
CHARLES: You think--!
FULVIA: Wake her not, ah, not suddenly on terror!