Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

·164· You have the right. [ A pause .]

You do not understand

There lies between you and the headsman’s axe

Hardly so much sand in the hour-glass

As a child’s palm could carry: here is the ring:

I have washed my hand: there is no blood upon it:

You need not fear. Will you not take the ring?

guido [ takes ring and kisses it ]

Ay! gladly, Madam.

duchess

And leave Padua.

guido

Leave Padua.

duchess

But it must be to-night.

guido

To-night it shall be.

duchess

Oh, thank God for that!

guido

So I can live; life never seemed so sweet

As at this moment.

·165· duchess

Do not tarry, Guido,

There is my cloak: the horse is at the bridge,

The second bridge below the ferry house:

Why do you tarry? Can your ears not hear

This dreadful bell, whose every ringing stroke

Robs one brief minute from your boyish life.

Go quickly.

guido

Ay! he will come soon enough.

duchess

Who?

guido [ calmly ]

Why, the headsman.

duchess

No, no.

guido

Only he

Can bring me out of Padua.

duchess

You dare not!

You dare not burden my o’erburdened soul

With two dead men! I think one is enough.

·166· For when I stand before God, face to face,

I would not have you, with a scarlet thread

Around your white throat, coming up behind

To say I did it.

guido

Madam, I wait.

duchess

No, no, you cannot: you do not understand,

I have less power in Padua to-night

Than any common woman; they will kill you.

I saw the scaffold as I crossed the square,

Already the low rabble throng about it

With fearful jests, and horrid merriment,

As though it were a morris-dancer’s platform,

And not Death’s sable throne. O Guido, Guido,

You must escape!

guido

Madam, I tarry here.

duchess

Guido, you shall not: it would be a thing

So terrible that the amazed stars

Would fall from heaven, and the palsied moon

Be in her sphere eclipsed, and the great sun

·167· Refuse to shine upon the unjust earth

Which saw thee die.

guido

Be sure I shall not stir.

duchess [ wringing her hands ]

Is one sin not enough, but must it breed

A second sin more horrible again

Than was the one that bare it? O God, God,

Seal up sin’s teeming womb, and make it barren,

I will not have more blood upon my hand

Than I have now.

guido [ seizing her hand ]

What! am I fallen so low

That I may not have leave to die for you?

duchess [ tearing her hand away ]

Die for me?—no, my life is a vile thing,

Thrown to the miry highways of this world;

You shall not die for me, you shall not, Guido;

I am a guilty woman.

guido

Guilty?—let those

Who know what a thing temptation is,

·168· Let those who have not walked as we have done,

In the red fire of passion, those whose lives

Are dull and colourless, in a word let those,

If any such there be, who have not loved,

Cast stones against you. As for me——

duchess

Alas!

guido [ falling at her feet ]

You are my lady, and you are my love!

O hair of gold, O crimson lips, O face

Made for the luring and the love of man!

Incarnate image of pure loveliness!

Worshipping thee I do forget the past,

Worshipping thee my soul comes close to thine,

Worshipping thee I seem to be a god,

And though they give my body to the block,

Yet is my love eternal!

[ Duchess puts her hands over her face: Guido draws them down .]

Sweet, lift up

The trailing curtains that overhang your eyes

That I may look into those eyes, and tell you

·169· I love you, never more than now when Death

Thrusts his cold lips between us: Beatrice,

I love you: have you no word left to say?

Oh, I can bear the executioner,

But not this silence: will you not say you love me?

Speak but that word and Death shall lose his sting,

But speak it not, and fifty thousand deaths

Are, in comparison, mercy. Oh, you are cruel,

And do not love me.

duchess

Alas! I have no right.

For I have stained the innocent hands of love

With spilt-out blood: there is blood on the ground;

I set it there.

guido

Sweet, it was not yourself,

It was some devil tempted you.

duchess [ rising suddenly ]

No, no,

We are each our own devil, and we make

This world our hell.

·170· guido

Then let high Paradise

Fall into Tartarus! for I shall make

This world my heaven for a little space.

The sin was mine, if any sin there was.

’Twas I who nurtured murder in my heart,

Sweetened my meats, seasoned my wine with it,

And in my fancy slew the accursed Duke

A hundred times a day. Why, had this man

Died half so often as I wished him to,

Death had been stalking ever through the house,

And murder had not slept.

But you, fond heart,

Whose little eyes grew tender over a whipt hound,

You whom the little children laughed to see

Because you brought the sunlight where you passed,

You the white angel of God’s purity,

This which men call your sin, what was it?

duchess

Ay!

What was it? There are times it seems a dream,

·171· An evil dream sent by an evil god,

And then I see the dead face in the coffin

And know it is no dream, but that my hand

Is red with blood, and that my desperate soul

Striving to find some haven for its love

From the wild tempest of this raging world,

Has wrecked its bark upon the rocks of sin.

What was it, said you?—murder merely? Nothing

But murder, horrible murder.

guido

Nay, nay, nay,

’Twas but the passion-flower of your love

That in one moment leapt to terrible life,

And in one moment bare this gory fruit,

Which I had plucked in thought a thousand times.

My soul was murderous, but my hand refused;

Your hand wrought murder, but your soul was pure.

And so I love you, Beatrice, and let him

Who has no mercy for your stricken head,

Lack mercy up in heaven! Kiss me, sweet.

[ Tries to kiss her .]

·172· duchess

No, no, your lips are pure, and mine are soiled,

For Guilt has been my paramour, and Sin

Lain in my bed: O Guido, if you love me

Get hence, for every moment is a worm

Which gnaws your life away: nay, sweet, get hence,

And if in after time you think of me,

Think of me as of one who loved you more

Than anything on earth; think of me, Guido,

As of a woman merely, one who tried

To make her life a sacrifice to love,

And slew love in the trial: Oh, what is that?

The bell has stopped from ringing, and I hear

The feet of armed men upon the stair.

guido [ aside ]

That is the signal for the guard to come.

duchess

Why has the bell stopped ringing?

guido

If you must know,

That stops my life on this side of the grave,

But on the other we shall meet again.

·173· duchess

No, no, ’tis not too late: you must get hence;

The horse is by the bridge, there is still time.

Away, away, you must not tarry here!

[ Noise of Soldiers in the passage .]

a voice outside

Room for the Lord Justice of Padua!

[ The Lord Justice is seen through the grated window passing down the corridor preceded by men bearing torches .]