_Three months later. Another part of the Palace of Mantua: the
hanging gardens in the_ DUKE'S _apartments. It is the first
warm night of Spring. The lemon trees have been brought out
that day, and fill the air with fragrance. Terraces and
flights of steps; in the background the dark mass of the
palace, with its cupolas and fortified towers; here and there
a lit window picking out the dark; and from above the
principal yards, the flare of torches rising into the deep
blue of the sky. In the course of the scene, the moon
gradually emerges from behind a group of poplars on the
opposite side of the lake into which the palace is built.
During the earlier part of the act, darkness. Great stillness,
with, only occasionally, the plash of a fisherman's oar, or a
very distant thrum of mandolines.--The_ DUKE _and_ DIEGO _are
walking up and down the terrace_.
DUKE
Thou askedst me once, dear Diego, the meaning of that
labyrinth which I have had carved, a shapeless pattern enough,
but well suited, methinks, to blue and gold, upon the ceiling
of my new music room. And wouldst have asked, I fancy, as
many have done, the hidden meaning of the device surrounding
it.--I left thee in the dark, dear lad, and treated thy
curiosity in a peevish manner. Thou hast long forgiven and
perhaps forgotten, deeming my lack of courtesy but another
ailment of thy poor sick master; another of those odd
ungracious moods with which, kindest of healing creatures,
thou hast had such wise and cheerful patience. I have often
wished to tell thee; but I could not. 'Tis only now, in some
mysterious fashion, I seem myself once more,--able to do my
judgment's bidding, and to dispose, in memory and words, of my
own past. My strange sickness, which thou hast cured, melting
its mists away with thy beneficent music even as the sun
penetrates and sucks away the fogs of dawn from our lakes--my
sickness, Diego, the sufferings of my flight from Barbary; the
horror, perhaps, of that shipwreck which cast me (so they say,
for I remember nothing) senseless on the Illyrian
coast----these things, or Heaven's judgment on but a lukewarm
Crusader,--had somehow played strange havoc with my will and
recollections. I could not think; or thinking, not speak; or
recollecting, feel that he whom I thought of in the past was
this same man, myself.
_The_ DUKE _pauses, and leaning on the parapet, watches the
long reflections of the big stars in the water_.
But now, and thanks to thee, Diego, I am another; I am myself.
DIEGO'S _face, invisible in the darkness, has undergone
dreadful convulsions. His breast heaves, and he stops for
breath before answering; but when he does so, controls his
voice into its usual rather artificially cadenced tone_.
DIEGO
And now, dear Master, you can recollect----all?
DUKE
Recollect, sweet friend, and tell thee. For it is seemly that
I should break through this churlish silence with thee. Thou
didst cure the weltering distress of my poor darkened mind; I
would have thee, now, know somewhat of the past of thy
grateful patient. The maze, Diego, carved and gilded on that
ceiling is but a symbol of my former life; and the device
which, being interpreted, means "I seek straight ways," the
expression of my wish and duty.
DIEGO
You loathed the maze, my Lord?
DUKE
Not so. I loved it then. And I still love it now. But I have
issued from it--issued to recognise that the maze was good.
Though it is good I left it. When I entered it, I was a raw
youth, although in years a man; full of easy theory, and
thinking all practice simple; unconscious of passion; ready to
govern the world with a few learned notions; moreover never
having known either happiness or grief, never loved and
wondered at a creature different from myself; acquainted, not
with the straight roads which I now seek, but only with the
rectangular walls of schoolrooms. The maze, and all the maze
implied, made me a man.
DIEGO
(_who has listened with conflicting feelings, and now unable
to conceal his joy_)
A man, dear Master; and the gentlest, most just of men. Then,
that maze----But idle stories, interpreting all spiritual
meaning as prosy fact, would have it, that this symbol was a
reality. The legend of your captivity, my Lord, has turned the
pattern on that ceiling into a real labyrinth, some cunningly
built fortress or prison, where the Infidels kept you, and
whose clue----you found, and with the clue, freedom, after
five weary years.
DUKE
Whose clue, dear Diego, was given into my hands,--the clue
meaning freedom, but also eternal parting--by the most
faithful, intrepid, magnanimous, the most loving----and the
most beloved of women!
_The_ Duke _has raised his arms from the parapet, and drawn
himself erect, folding them on his breast, and seeking for_
Diego's _face in the darkness. But_ Diego, _unseen by the_
Duke, _has clutched the parapet and sunk on to a bench_.
DUKE
(_walking up and down, slowly and meditatively, after a
pause_)
The poets have fabled many things concerning virtuous women.
The Roman Arria, who stabbed herself to make honourable
suicide easier for her husband; Antigone, who buried her
brother at the risk of death; and the Thracian Alkestis, who
descended into the kingdom of Death in place of Admetus. But
none, to my mind, comes up to _her_. For fancy is but thin and
simple, a web of few bright threads; whereas reality is
closely knitted out of the numberless fibres of life, of pain
and joy. For note it, Diego--those antique women whom we read
of were daughters of kings, or of Romans more than kings; bred
of a race of heroes, and trained, while still playing with
dolls, to pride themselves on austere duty, and look upon the
wounds and maimings of their soul as their brothers and
husbands looked upon the mutilations of battle. Whereas here;
here was a creature infinitely humble; a waif, a poor spurned
toy of brutal mankind's pleasure; accustomed only to bear
contumely, or to snatch, unthinking, what scanty happiness lay
along her difficult and despised path,--a wild creature, who
had never heard such words as duty or virtue; and yet whose
acts first taught me what they truly meant.
DIEGO
(_who has recovered himself, and is now leaning in his turn on
the parapet_)
Ah----a light woman, bought and sold many times over, my Lord;
but who loved, at last.
DUKE
That is the shallow and contemptuous way in which men think,
Diego,--and boys like thee pretend to; those to whom life is
but a chess-board, a neatly painted surface alternate black
and white, most suitable for skilful games, with a soul clean
lost or gained at the end! I thought like that. But I grew to
understand life as a solid world: rock, fertile earth, veins
of pure metal, mere mud, all strangely mixed and overlaid; and
eternal fire at the core! I learned it, knowing Magdalen.
DIEGO
Her name was Magdalen?
DUKE
So she bade me call her.
DIEGO
And the name explained the trade?
DUKE (_after a pause_)
I cannot understand thee Diego,--cannot understand thy lack of
understanding----Well yes! Her trade. All in this universe is
trade, trade of prince, pope, philosopher or harlot; and once
the badge put on, the licence signed--the badge a crown or a
hot iron's brand, as the case may be,--why then we ply it
according to prescription, and that's all! Yes, Diego,--since
thou obligest me to say it in its harshness, I do so, and I
glory for her in every contemptuous word I use!--The woman I
speak of was but a poor Venetian courtesan; some drab's child,
sold to the Infidels as to the Christians; and my cruel pirate
master's--shall we say?--mistress. There! For the first time,
Diego, thou dost not understand me; or is it----that I
misjudged thee, thinking thee, dear boy----(_breaks off
hurriedly_).
DIEGO (_very slowly_)
Thinking me what, my Lord?
DUKE (_lightly, but with effort_)
Less of a little Sir Paragon of Virtue than a dear child, who
is only a child, must be.
DIEGO
It is better, perhaps, that your Highness should be certain of
my limitations----But I crave your Highness's pardon. I had
meant to say that being a waif myself, pure gutter-bred, I
have known, though young, more Magdalens than you, my Lord.
They are, in a way, my sisters; and had I been a woman, I
should, likely enough, have been one myself.
DUKE
You mean, Diego?
DIEGO
I mean, that knowing them well, I also know that women such as
your Highness has described, occasionally learn to love most
truly. Nay, let me finish, my Lord; I was not going to repeat
a mere sentimental commonplace. Briefly then, that such women,
being expert in love, sometimes understand, quicker than
virtuous dames brought up to heroism, when love for them is
cloyed. They can walk out of a man's house or life with due
alacrity, being trained to such flittings. Or, recognising the
first signs of weariness before 'tis known to him who feels
it, they can open the door for the other--hand him the clue of
the labyrinth with a fine theatric gesture!--But I crave your
Highness's pardon for enlarging on this theme.
DUKE
Thou speakest Diego, as if thou hadst a mind to wound thy
Master. Is this, my friend, the reward of my confiding in
thee, even if tardily?
DIEGO
I stand rebuked, my Lord. But, in my own defence----how shall
I say it?----Your Highness has a manner to-night which
disconcerts me by its novelty; a saying things and then
unsaying them; suggesting and then, somehow, treading down the
suggestion like a spark of your lightning. Lovers, I have been
told, use such a manner to revive their flagging feeling by
playing on the other one's. Even in so plain and solid a thing
as friendship, such ways--I say it subject to your Highness's
displeasure--are dangerous. But in love, I have known cases
where, carried to certain lengths, such ways of speaking
undermined a woman's faith and led her to desperate things.
Women, despite their strength, which often surprises us, are
brittle creatures. Did you never, perhaps, make trial of
this----Magdalen, with----
DUKE
With what? Good God, Diego, 'tis I who ask thy pardon; and
thou sheddest a dreadful light upon the past. But it is not
possible. I am not such a cur that, after all she did, after
all she was,--my life saved by her audacity a hundred times,
made rich and lovely by her love, her wit, her power,--that I
could ever have whimpered for my freedom, or made her suspect
I wanted it more than I wanted her? Is it possible, Diego?
DIEGO (_slowly_)
Why more than you wanted her? She may have thought the two
compatible.
DUKE
Never. First, because my escape could not be compassed save by
her staying behind; and then because---she knew, in fact, what
thing I was, or must become, once set at liberty.
DIEGO (_after a pause_)
I see. You mean, my Lord, that you being Duke of Mantua, while
she----If she knew that; knew it not merely as a fact, but as
one knows the full savour of grief,--well, she was indeed the
paragon you think; one might indeed say, bating one point, a
virtuous woman.
DUKE
Thou hast understood, dear Diego, and I thank thee for it.
DIEGO
But I fear, my Lord, she did not know these things. Such as
she, as yourself remarked, are not trained to conceive of
duty, even in others. Passion moves them; and they believe in
passion. You loved her; good. Why then, at Mantua as in
Barbary. No, my dear Master, believe me; she had seen your
love was turning stale, and set you free, rather than taste
its staleness. Passion, like duty, has its pride; and even we
waifs, as gypsies, have our point of honour.
DUKE
Stale! My love grown stale! You make me laugh, boy, instead of
angering. Stale! You never knew her. She was not like a
song--even your sweetest song--which, heard too often, cloys,
its phrases dropping to senseless notes. She was like
music,--the whole art: new modes, new melodies, new rhythms,
with every day and hour, passionate or sad, or gay, or very
quiet; more wondrous notes than in thy voice; and more
strangely sweet, even when they grated, than the tone of those
newfangled fiddles, which wound the ear and pour balm in, they
make now at Cremona.
DIEGO
You loved her then, sincerely?
DUKE
Methinks it may be Diego now, tormenting his Master with
needless questions. Loved her, boy! I love her.
_A long pause_. Diego _has covered his face, with a gesture as
if about to speak. But the moon has suddenly risen from behind
the poplars, and put scales of silver light upon the ripples
of the lake, and a pale luminous mist around the palace. As
the light invades the terrace, a sort of chill has come upon
both speakers; they walk up and down further from one
another_.
DIEGO
A marvellous story, dear Master. And I thank you from my heart
for having told it me. I always loved you, and I thought I
knew you. I know you better still, now. You are--a most
magnanimous prince.
DUKE
Alas, dear lad, I am but a poor prisoner of my duties; a
poorer prisoner, and a sadder far, than there in Barbary----O
Diego, how I have longed for her! How deeply I still long,
sometimes! But I open my eyes, force myself to stare reality
in the face, whenever her image comes behind closed lids,
driving her from me----And to end my confession. At the
beginning, Diego, there seemed in thy voice and manner
something of _her_; I saw her sometimes in thee, as children
see the elves they fear and hope for in stains on walls and
flickers on the path. And all thy wondrous power, thy
miraculous cure--nay, forgive what seems ingratitude--was due,
Diego, to my sick fancy making me see glances of her in thy
eyes and hear her voice in thine. Not music but love, love's
delusion, was what worked my cure.
DIEGO
Do you speak truly, Master? Was it so? And now?
DUKE
Now, dear lad, I am cured--completely; I know bushes from
ghosts; and I know thee, dearest friend, to be Diego.
DIEGO
When these imaginations still held you, my Lord, did it ever
happen that you wondered: what if the bush had been a ghost;
if Diego had turned into--what was she called?----
DUKE
Magdalen. My fancy never went so far, good Diego. There was a
grain of reason left. But if it had----Well, I should have
taken Magdalen's hand, and said, "Welcome, dear sister. This
is a world of spells; let us repeat some. Become henceforth
my brother; be the Duke of Mantua's best and truest friend;
turn into Diego, Magdalen."
_The_ DUKE _presses_ DIEGO'S _arm, and, letting it go, walks
away into the moonlight with an enigmatic air. A long pause_.
Hark, they are singing within; the idle pages making songs to
their ladies' eyebrows. Shall we go and listen?
(_They walk in the direction of the palace_.)
And (_with a little hesitation_) that makes me say, Diego,
before we close this past of mine, and bury it for ever in our
silence, that there is a little Moorish song, plaintive and
quaint, she used to sing, which some day I will write down,
and thou shalt sing it to me--on my deathbed.
DIEGO
Why not before? Speaking of songs, that mandolin, though out
of tune, and vilely played, has got hold of a ditty I like
well enough. Hark, the words are Tuscan, well known in the
mountains. (_Sings_.)
I'd like to die, but die a little death only,
I'd like to die, but look down from the window;
I'd like to die, but stand upon the doorstep;
I'd like to die, but follow the procession;
I'd like to die, but see who smiles and weepeth;
I'd like to die, but die a little death only.
(_While_ DIEGO _sings very loud, the mandolin inside the
palace thrums faster and faster. As he ends, with a long
defiant leap into a high note, a burst of applause from the
palace_.)
DIEGO (_clapping his hands_)
Well sung, Diego!