________________________________________________
_ PART FIRST. ACT SIXTH. SCENE VIII.
[PITT'S bedchamber, from the landing without. It is afternoon. At the back of the room as seen through the doorway is a curtained bed, beside which a woman sits, the LADY HESTER STANHOPE. Bending over a table at the front of the room is SIR WALTER FARQUHAR, the physician. PARSLOW the footman and another servant are near the door. TOMLINE, the Bishop of Lincoln, enters.]
FARQUHAR (in a subdued voice)
I grieve to call your lordship up again,
But symptoms lately have disclosed themselves
That mean the knell to the frail life in him.
And whatsoever thing of gravity
It may be needful to communicate,
Let them be spoken now. Time may not serve
If they be much delayed.
TOMLINE
Ah, stands it this? . . .
The name of his disease is--Austerlitz!
His brow's inscription has been Austerlitz
From that dire morning in the month just past
When tongues of rumour twanged the word across
From its hid nook on the Moravian plains.
FARQUHAR
And yet he might have borne it, had the weight
Of governmental shackles been unclasped,
Even partly, from his limbs last Lammastide,
When that despairing journey to the King
At Gloucester Lodge by Wessex shore was made
To beg such. But relief the King refused.
"Why want you Fox? What--Grenville and his friends?"
He harped. "You are sufficient without these--
Rather than Fox, why, give me civil war!"
And fibre that would rather snap than shrink
Held out no longer. Now the upshot nears.
[LADY HESTER STANHOPE turns her head and comes forward.]
LADY HESTER
I am grateful you are here again, good friend!
He's sleeping some light seconds; but once more
Has asked for tidings of Lord Harrowby,
And murmured of his mission to Berlin
As Europe's haggard hope; if, sure, it be
That any hope remain!
TOMLINE
There's no news yet.--
These several days while I have been sitting by him
He has inquired the quarter of the wind,
And where that moment beaked the stable-cock.
When I said "East," he answered "That is well!
Those are the breezes that will speed him home!"
So cling his heart-strings to his country's cause.
FARQUHAR
I fear that Wellesley's visit here by now
Strung him to tensest strain. He quite broke down,
And has fast faded since.
LADY HESTER
Ah! now he wakes.
Please come and speak to him as you would wish (to TOMLINE).
[LADY HESTER, TOMLINE,and FARQUHAR retire behind the bed, where in a short time voices are heard in prayer. Afterwards the Bishop goes to a writing-table, and LADY HESTER comes to the doorway. Steps are heard on the stairs, and PITT'S friend ROSE,
the President of the Board of Trade, appears on the landing and makes inquiries.]
LADY HESTER (whispering)
He wills the wardenry of his affairs
To his old friend the Bishop. But his words
Bespeak too much anxiety for me,
And underrate his services so far
That he has doubts if his high deeds deserve
Such size of recognition by the State
As would award slim pensions to his kin.
He had been fain to write down his intents,
But the quill dropped from his unmuscled hand.--
Now his friend Tomline pens what he dictates
And gleans the lippings of his last desires.
[ROSE and LADY HESTER turn. They see the Bishop bending over the bed with a sheet of paper on which he has previously been writing. A little later he dips a quill and holds it within the bed-curtain, spreading the paper beneath. A thin white hand emerges from behind the curtain and signs the paper. The Bishop beckons forward the two servants, who also sign.
FARQUHAR on one side of the bed, and TOMLINE on the other, are spoken to by the dying man. The Bishop afterwards withdraws from the bed and comes to the landing where the others are.]
TOMLINE
A list of his directions has been drawn,
And feeling somewhat more at mental ease
He asks Sir Walter if he has long to live.
Farquhar just answered, in a soothing tone,
That hope still frailly breathed recovery.
At this my dear friend smiled and shook his head,
As if to say: "I can translate your words,
But I reproach not friendship's lullabies."
ROSE
Rest he required; and rest was not for him.
[FARQUHAR comes forward as they wait.]
FARQUHAR
His spell of concentration on these things,
Determined now, that long have wasted him,
Have left him in a numbing lethargy,
From which I fear he may not rouse to strength
For speech with earth again.
ROSE
But hark. He does.
[The listen.]
PITT
My country! How I leave my country! . . .
TOMLINE
Ah,--
Immense the matter those poor words contain!
ROSE
Still does his soul stay wrestling with that theme,
And still it will, even semi-consciously,
Until the drama's done.
[They continue to converse by the doorway in whispers. PITT sinks slowly into a stupor, from which he never awakens.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES (to Spirit of the Years)
Do you intend to speak to him ere the close?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Nay, I have spoke too often! Time and time,
When all Earth's light has lain on the nether side,
And yapping midnight winds have leapt on the roofs,
And raised for him an evil harlequinade
Of national disasters in long train,
That tortured him with harrowing grimace,
Now I would leave him to pass out in peace,
And seek the silence unperturbedly.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Even ITS official Spirit can show ruth
At man's fag end, when his destruction's sure!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
It suits us ill to cavil each with each.
I might retort. I only say to thee
ITS slaves we are: ITS slaves must ever be!
CHORUS (aerial music)
Yea, from the Void we fetch, like these,
And tarry till That please
To null us by Whose stress we emanate.--
Our incorporeal sense,
Our overseeings, our supernal state,
Our readings Why and Whence,
Are but the flower of Man's intelligence;
And that but an unreckoned incident
Of the all-urging Will, raptly magnipotent.
[A gauze of shadow overdraws.] _
Read next: Part 2: Characters: Phantom Intelligences. Persons
Read previous: Part 1: Act 6: Scene 7. Paris. A Street Leading To The Tuileries
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