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_ ACT IV
[Vast subterranean crypts. ALLADINE and PALOMIDES.]
PALOMIDES.
They have bound my eyes with bands; they have tied my hands with cords.
ALLADINE.
They have tied my hands with cords; they have bound my eyes with bands.... I think my hands are bleeding....
PALOMIDES.
Wait. To-day I bless my strength.... I feel the knots beginning to give way.... One struggle more, and let my fists burst! One struggle more! I have my hands! [_Tearing away the bandage_.] And my eyes!...
ALLADINE.
You see now?
PALOMIDES.
Yes.
ALLADINE.
Where are we?
PALOMIDES.
Where are you?
ALLADINE.
Here; can you not see me?
PALOMIDES.
My eyes weep still where the band has left its trace.... We are not in darkness.... Is it you I hear toward where I can just see?
ALLADINE.
I am here; come.
PALOMIDES.
You are at the edge of that which gives us light. Do not stir; I cannot see all that there is about you. My eyes have not forgot the bandage yet. They bound it tight enough to burst my eyelids.
ALLADINE.
Come; the knots stifle me. I can wait no longer....
PALOMIDES.
I hear only a voice coming out of the light....
ALLADINE.
Where are you?
PALOMIDES.
I have no idea myself. I walk still in darkness.... Speak again, that I may find you. You seem to be on the edge of an unbounded light....
ALLADINE.
Come! come! I have borne without a word, but I can bear no more....
PALOMIDES
(_groping forward_).
You are there? I thought you so far away!... My tears deceived me. I am here, and I see you. Oh, your hands are wounded! They have bled upon your gown, and the knots have entered into the flesh. I have no longer any weapons. They have taken away my poniard. I will tear them off. Wait! wait! I have the knots.
ALLADINE.
Take off the bandage first that makes me blind....
PALOMIDES.
I cannot.... I do not see.... It seems to be surrounded by a net of golden threads....
ALLADINE.
My hands, then, my hands!
PALOMIDES.
They have taken silken cords.... Wait, the knots come undone. The cord has thirty turns.... There, there!--Oh, your hands are all blood!... You would say they were dead....
ALLADINE.
No, no!... They are alive! they are alive! See!...
[With her hands hardly yet unbound, she clasps Palomides about the neck and kisses him passionately.]
PALOMIDES.
Alladine!
ALLADINE.
Palomides!
PALOMIDES.
Alladine, Alladine!...
ALLADINE.
I am happy!... I have waited a long while!...
PALOMIDES.
I was afraid to come....
ALLADINE.
I am happy ... and I would that I could see thee....
PALOMIDES.
They have tied down the bandage like a casque....--Do not turn round; I have found the golden threads....
ALLADINE.
Yes, yes, I will turn round....
[She turns about, to kiss him again.]
PALOMIDES.
Have a care. Do not stir. I am afraid of wounding thee....
ALLADINE.
Tear it away! Fear nothing. I can bear no more!...
PALOMIDES.
I would see thee too....
ALLADINE.
Tear it away! Tear it away! I am no longer within reach of woe!... Tear it away!... Thou dost not know that one could wish to die.... Where are we?
PALOMIDES.
Thou'lt see, thou'lt see.... It is innumerable crypts ... great blue halls, gleaming pillars, and deep vaults....
ALLADINE.
Why dost thou answer when I question thee?
PALOMIDES.
What matter where we be, if we be but together?...
ALLADINE.
Thou lovest me less already?
PALOMIDES.
Why, what ails thee?
ALLADINE.
I know well where I am when I am on thy heart.... Oh, tear the bandage off!... I would not enter blind into thy soul.... What doest thou, Palomides? Thou dost not laugh when I laugh. Thou dost not weep when I weep. Thou dost not clap thy hands when I clap mine; and thou tremblest not when I speak trembling to the bottom of my soul.... The band! The band!... I will see!... There, there, above my hair!... [_She tears away the bandage_.] Oh!...
PALOMIDES.
Seest thou?
ALLADINE.
Yes.... I see thee only....
PALOMIDES.
What is it, Alladine? Thou kissest me as if thou wert already sad....
ALLADINE.
Where are we?
PALOMIDES.
Why dost thou ask so sadly?
ALLADINE.
No, I am not sad; but my eyes will hardly open....
PALOMIDES.
One would say your joy had fallen on my lips like a child at the threshold of the house.... Do not turn away.... I fear lest you should flee, and I fear lest I dream....
ALLADINE.
Where are we?
PALOMIDES.
We are in crypts that I have never seen.... Doth it not seem to thee the light increases? When I unclosed my eyes, I could distinguish nothing; now little by little it is all revealed. I have been often told of wondrous caverns whereon the halls of Ablamore were built. It must be these. No one descends here ever; and the king only has the keys. I knew the sea flooded the lowest vaults; and it is probably the reflex of the sea which thus illumines us.... They thought to bury us in night. They came down here with torches and flambeaus and saw the darkness only, while the light came out to meet us, seeing we had none.... It brightens without ceasing.... I am sure the dawn pierces the ocean and sends down to us through all its greening waves the purest of its child-soul....
ALLADINE.
How long have we been here?
PALOMIDES.
I have no idea.... I made no effort till I heard thee speak....
ALLADINE.
I do not know how this took place. I was asleep in the room where thou didst find me; and when I waked, my eyes were bound across, and both my hands were pinioned in my girdle....
PALOMIDES.
I too was sleeping. I heard nothing, and I had a band across my eyes ere I could open them. I struggled in the darkness; but they were stronger than I.... I must have passed under deep vaults, for I felt the cold fall on my shoulders; and I went down so far I could not count the steps.... Did no one speak to thee?
ALLADINE.
No; no one spoke. I heard some one weeping as he walked; and then I fainted....
PALOMIDES
(_kissing her_).
Alladine!
ALLADINE.
How gravely thou dost kiss me!...
PALOMIDES.
Close not thine eyes when I do kiss thee so.... I would see the kisses trembling in thy heart, and all the dew that rises in thy soul.... We shall not find such kisses any more....
ALLADINE.
Always, always!
PALOMIDES.
No, no; there is no kissing twice upon the heart of death.... How fair thou art so!... It is the first time I have seen thee near.... It is strange, we think that we have seen each other because we have gone by two steps apart; but everything changes the moment the lips touch.... There, thou must be let to have thy will.... I stretch my arms wide to admire thee, as if thou wert no longer mine; and then I draw them nearer till I touch thy kisses and perceive only eternal bliss.... There needed us this supernatural light!... [_He kisses her again_.] Ah! What hast thou done? Take care! we are upon a crest of rock that overhangs the water that gives us light. Do not step back. It was time.... Do not turn too abruptly. I was dazzled....
ALLADINE.
[_Turning and looking at the blue water that illuminates them_.]
Oh!...
PALOMIDES.
It is as if the sky had flowed hither....
ALLADINE.
It is full of moveless flowers....
PALOMIDES.
It is full of moveless flowers and strange.... Hast thou seen the largest there that blooms beneath the others? It seems to live a cadenced life.... And the water ... Is it water?... It seems more beautiful, more pure, more blue than all the water in the world....
ALLADINE.
I dare not look upon it longer....
PALOMIDES.
See how about us all is luminous.... The light dares hesitate no longer, and we kiss each other in the vestibules of heaven.... Seest thou the precious stones that gem the vaults, drunken with life, that seem to smile on us; and the thousands and thousands of glowing blue roses that climb along the pillars?...
ALLADINE.
Oh!... I heard!...
PALOMIDES.
What?
ALLADINE.
Some one striking the rocks....
PALOMIDES.
No, no; it is the golden gates of a new Paradise, that open in our souls and sing upon their hinges!...
ALLADINE.
Listen.... again, again!...
PALOMIDES
(_with voice suddenly changed_).
Yes; it is there.... It is at the bottom of the bluest vaults....
ALLADINE.
They are coming to....
PALOMIDES.
I hear the sound of iron on the rock.... They have walled up the door or cannot open it.... It is the picks grating against the stone.... His soul has told him we were happy....
[A silence; then a stone is detached at the very end of the vault, and a ray of daylight breaks into the cavern.]
ALLADINE.
Oh!...
PALOMIDES.
It is another light....
[Motionless and anxious, they watch other stones detach themselves slowly in an insufferable light, and fall one by one; while the light, entering in more and more resistless floods, reveals to them little by little the gloom of the cavern they had thought marvellous. The miraculous lake becomes wan and sinister; the precious stones about them are extinguished, and the glowing roses appear as the stains and rotten rubbish that they are. At last, the whole side of rock falls abruptly into the crypt. The sunlight enters, dazzling. Calls and songs are heard without. Alladine and Palomides recoil.]
PALOMIDES.
Where are we?
ALLADINE
(embracing him).
I love thee still, Palomides....
PALOMIDES.
I love thee too, my Alladine....
ALLADINE.
They come....
PALOMIDES.
[Looking behind him as they still recoil.]
Have a care....
ALLADINE.
No, no; have no more care....
PALOMIDES
(looking at her).
Alladine?
ALLADINE.
Yes ...
[They still recoil before the invasion of light or peril, until they lose their footing; and they fall and disappear behind the rock that overhangs the underground and now gloomy water.--A silence. Astolaine and the sisters of Palomides enter the crypt.]
ASTOLAINE.
Where are they?
ONE OF THE SISTERS OF PALOMIDES.
Palomides!...
ASTOLAINE.
Alladine! Alladine!...
ANOTHER SISTER.
Palomides!... It is we!...
THIRD SISTER.
Fear nothing; we are alone!...
ASTOLAINE.
Come! come! we have come to rescue you!...
FOURTH SISTER.
Ablamore has fled....
FIFTH SISTER.
He is no longer in the palace....
SIXTH SISTER.
They do not answer....
ASTOLAINE.
I heard the water stirred!... This way, this way!
[They run to the rock that overlooks the underground.]
ONE OF THE SISTERS.
They are there!...
ANOTHER SISTER.
Yes, yes; at the very bottom of the black water.... They embrace.
THIRD SISTER.
They are dead.
FOURTH SISTER.
No, no; they are alive! they are alive!... See....
THE OTHER SISTERS.
Help! help!... Call!...
ASTOLAINE.
They make no effort to save themselves!... _
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