_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!