Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

[ Guido recoils: she seizes his hands as she kneels .]

Nay, Guido, listen for a while:

Until you came to Padua I lived

Wretched indeed, but with no murderous thought,

Very submissive to a cruel Lord,

Very obedient to unjust commands,

·102· As pure I think as any gentle girl

Who now would turn in horror from my hands—

[ Stands up .]

You came: ah! Guido, the first kindly words

I ever heard since I had come from France

Were from your lips: well, well, that is no matter.

You came, and in the passion of your eyes

I read love’s meaning; everything you said

Touched my dumb soul to music, so I loved you.

And yet I did not tell you of my love.

’Twas you who sought me out, knelt at my feet

As I kneel now at yours, and with sweet vows,

[ Kneels .]

Whose music seems to linger in my ears,

Swore that you loved me, and I trusted you.

I think there are many women in the world

Who would have tempted you to kill the man.

I did not.

Yet I know that had I done so,

I had not been thus humbled in the dust,

[ Stands up .]

But you had loved me very faithfully.

[ After a pause approaches him timidly .]

·103· I do not think you understand me, Guido:

It was for your sake that I wrought this deed

Whose horror now chills my young blood to ice,

For your sake only. [ Stretching out her arm .]

Will you not speak to me?

Love me a little: in my girlish life

I have been starved for love, and kindliness

Has passed me by.

guido

I dare not look at you:

You come to me with too pronounced a favour;

Get to your tirewomen.

duchess

Ay, there it is!

There speaks the man! yet had you come to me

With any heavy sin upon your soul,

Some murder done for hire, not for love,

Why, I had sat and watched at your bedside

All through the night-time, lest Remorse might come

And pour his poisons in your ear, and so

Keep you from sleeping! Sure it is the guilty,

Who, being very wretched, need love most.

·104· guido

There is no love where there is any guilt.

duchess

No love where there is any guilt! O God,

How differently do we love from men!

There is many a woman here in Padua,

Some workman’s wife, or ruder artisan’s,

Whose husband spends the wages of the week

In a coarse revel, or a tavern brawl,

And reeling home late on the Saturday night,

Finds his wife sitting by a fireless hearth,

Trying to hush the child who cries for hunger,

And then sets to and beats his wife because

The child is hungry, and the fire black.

Yet the wife loves him! and will rise next day

With some red bruise across a careworn face,

And sweep the house, and do the common service,

And try and smile, and only be too glad

If he does not beat her a second time

Before her child!—that is how women love.

[ A pause: Guido says nothing .]

I think you will not drive me from your side.

·105· Where have I got to go if you reject me?—

You for whose sake this hand has murdered life,

You for whose sake my soul has wrecked itself

Beyond all hope of pardon.

guido

Get thee gone:

The dead man is a ghost, and our love too,

Flits like a ghost about its desolate tomb,

And wanders through this charnel house, and weeps

That when you slew your lord you slew it also.

Do you not see?

duchess

I see when men love women

They give them but a little of their lives,

But women when they love give everything;

I see that, Guido, now.

guido

Away, away,

And come not back till you have waked your dead.

·106· duchess

I would to God that I could wake the dead,

Put vision in the glazéd eyes, and give

The tongue its natural utterance, and bid

The heart to beat again: that cannot be:

For what is done, is done: and what is dead

Is dead for ever: the fire cannot warm him:

The winter cannot hurt him with its snows;

Something has gone from him; if you call him now,

He will not answer; if you mock him now,

He will not laugh; and if you stab him now

He will not bleed.

I would that I could wake him!

O God, put back the sun a little space,

And from the roll of time blot out to-night,

And bid it not have been! Put back the sun,

And make me what I was an hour ago!

No, no, time will not stop for anything,

Nor the sun stay its courses, though Repentance

Calling it back grow hoarse; but you, my love,

Have you no word of pity even for me?

O Guido, Guido, will you not kiss me once?

·107· Drive me not to some desperate resolve:

Women grow mad when they are treated thus:

Will you not kiss me once?

guido [ holding up knife ]

I will not kiss you

Until the blood grows dry upon this knife,

[ Wildly ] Back to your dead!

duchess [ going up the stairs ]

Why, then I will be gone! and may you find

More mercy than you showed to me to-night!

guido

Let me find mercy when I go at night

And do foul murder.

duchess [ coming down a few steps ]

Murder did you say?

Murder is hungry, and still cries for more,

And Death, his brother, is not satisfied,

But walks the house, and will not go away,

Unless he has a comrade! Tarry, Death,

For I will give thee a most faithful lackey

To travel with thee! Murder, call no more,

·108· For thou shalt eat thy fill.

There is a storm

Will break upon this house before the morning,

So horrible, that the white moon already

Turns grey and sick with terror, the low wind

Goes moaning round the house, and the high stars

Run madly through the vaulted firmament,

As though the night wept tears of liquid fire

For what the day shall look upon. Oh, weep,

Thou lamentable heaven! Weep thy fill!

Though sorrow like a cataract drench the fields,

And make the earth one bitter lake of tears,

It would not be enough. [ A peal of thunder .]

Do you not hear,

There is artillery in the Heaven to-night.

Vengeance is wakened up, and has unloosed

His dogs upon the world, and in this matter

Which lies between us two, let him who draws

The thunder on his head beware the ruin

Which the forked flame brings after.

[ A flash of lightning followed by a peal of thunder .]

·109· guido

Away! away!

[ Exit the Duchess, who as she lifts the crimson curtain looks back for a moment at Guido, but he makes no sign. More thunder .]

Now is life fallen in ashes at my feet

And noble love self-slain; and in its place

Crept murder with its silent bloody feet.

And she who wrought it—Oh! and yet she loved me,

And for my sake did do this dreadful thing.

I have been cruel to her: Beatrice!

Beatrice, I say, come back.

[ Begins to ascend staircase, when the noise of Soldiers is heard .]

Ah! what is that?

Torches ablaze, and noise of hurrying feet.

Pray God they have not seized her.

[ Noise grows louder .]

Beatrice!

There is yet time to escape. Come down, come out!

[ The voice of the Duchess outside .]

This way went he, the man who slew my lord.

·110· [ Down the staircase comes hurrying a confused body of Soldiers; Guido is not seen at first, till the Duchess surrounded by Servants carrying torches appears at the top of the staircase, and points to Guido, who is seized at once, one of the Soldiers dragging the knife from his hand and showing it to the Captain of the Guard in sight of the audience. Tableau .]