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_ ACT IV - SCENE II
A cell. A grating through which streams the sunlight.
A heavy door with a narrow spyhole. RAFI is fettered to
the wall, but PERVANEH has not been bound. TWO GUARDS
stand immobile on either side of the door.
RAFI.
They have changed our guard for the last time,
it will be sunset in an hour.
PERVANEH.
Still a long hour before your hands are freed to make me
a belt of love. O idle sun, I am weary of thy pattern on
the wall. Still a long hour!
RAFI.
And still a night and a day before our doom.
PERVANEH.
Why is your voice so sorrowful? Your words do
not keep step with your decision nor march like
standard-bearers of your great resolve.
PERVANEH.
What have I decided? What have I resolved? You came near.
I saw the wings of your spirit beating the air around you.
You locked the silver fetters around my neck and I forgot
these manacles of iron: you perfumed me with your hair
till this cell became a meadow: you turned toward me eyes
in whose night the seven deep oceans flashed their
drowned stars, and all your body asked without speech,
"Wilt thou die for love?"
PERVANEH.
Do you repent? Do you unsay the golden words?
RAFI.
Put but your lips on mine and seal my words against unsaying.
PERVANEH.
I did wrong to make you passionate. I see that in your heart
you do repent. I would not have you bound by a moment's madness
but wish with all your reason and with all your soul.
RAFI.
Ah, stand apart and veil your face, you who call in the
name of reason! You are all afire for martyrdom: can you
hear reason calling from her snows? Oh, you woman, Allah
curse you for blinding my eyes with love!
PERVANEH.
Ah, Rafi!
RAFI.
Be silent--be silent! Your voice is the voice of a garden
at daybreak, when all the birds are singing at the sun.
Forget your whirling dreams, your fires, your lightnings,
your splendours of the soul, and answer the passionless voice
that asks you--why should your lover die, and such a death?
PERVANEH.
I am listening.
RAFI.
I am very young. Shall I forget to laugh if I continue to live?
Shall I spend all my hours regretting you? Shall I not return
to my country and comfort the hearts of those that gave me birth?
Have I not my white-walled house, my books, my old friends,
my garden of flowers and trees? Has the stream forgotten to sing
at the end of my garden because Pervaneh comes no more?
"Love fades," saith Reason, with a gentler voice.
"Love fades but doth not fall. Love fadeth not to yellow
like the rose but to gold like the leaves upon the poplar
by the stream." And when my poplars are all gold,
I shall sit beneath their shade beside the stream to read my book.
When I am tired of my book I will lie on my back and watch the clouds.
There in the clouds I shall see your face, and remember you with a
wistful remembrance as if you had always been a dream and the
silver torment of your arms had never been more than the white mists
circling the round mountain snows.
PERVANEH.
(With growing anger)
And so, wrapped in pleasant fancies, you will forget
the woman you have sold to a tyrant. And so, while I,
far from my country and my home, am dying of shame and
confinement, you will dream and you will dream!
RAFI.
The plague on your dishonour! You are to be the Caliph's wife.
Is that not held for the highest honour to which a woman can attain?
Is that worse shame than being flayed by a foul negro? The shame!
the selling! the dishonour! A woman's vanity: am I to be tortured
to death to gratify your pride? If I must not have you, do I care
whose wife you are? I shall remember you as you are now--
rock water undefiled.
PERVANEH.
Cold and heartless coward; you are afraid of death!
RAFI.
By Allah, I am afraid of death, and the man who fears not death
is a dullard and a fool! Are we still making speeches in full Divan
to the admiration of the by-standers? Must we pose even now!
If you hate me for fearing death, go your way and leave this coward.
Ah, no, no, do not leave me, O Pervaneh! Forgive me that I am what I am.
I have not unsaid my promise. I will die with you. I will die!
I will endure the tortures that are thrice as terrible as death,
the tortures that parch my mouth with fear.
PERVANEH.
Shame on you, weak and shivering lover! What is pain for us?
RAFI.
You do not see--you do not see! Look at your hands, they shall be torn--
ah, I cannot speak of it. I shall see your blood flow like wine
from a white fountain drop by drop till you have painted the carpet
of execution all red lilies.
PERVANEH.
Ah--but will not even your poor love flow deep when I set
that crimson seal upon the story of our lives!
RAFI.
Alas, you are still dreaming: you are still blind with exaltation:
your speech is a metaphor. You do not see, you have never heard
the high, thin shriek of the tortured, you have not seen the shape
of their bodies when they are cast into the ditch. Come near,
Pervaneh. Do you know what they will do to you?
Come near: I cannot say it aloud.
(PERVANEH approaches.)
Ah, I dare not tell you...I dare not tell you!
PERVANEH.
Tell me, plain and clear.
RAFI.
(Whispers in PERVANEH's ear)...
PERVANEH.
(Covering her face with her hands)
Ah, God--they will not do that!
No, no; they will not do that to me.
RAFI.
Pitilessly.
PERVANEH.
(Wildly)
They will do that!--Ah, the shame of it! They will do that--
Ah the pain of it! I see! I feel! I hear! O save me, Rafi!
RAFI.
Alas! Why did I tell you this?
PERVANEH.
It is beyond endurance: it is foul: my veins will burst at
the very thought. I am between a shame and a shame and there
is no escape....But at least they shall not do this to you, Rafi.
Hush...talk low: the soldiers must not hear.
(Glancing at the GUARDs and whispering low)
Will you die here between my hands, instantly, and with no pain?
RAFI.
(In a hushed voice)
Quickly! How can you do it? We are guarded--
have you a knife?
PERVANEH.
My hands will be cunning round your neck, beloved.
Did I not say you should die between my hands?
RAFI.
Be quick: be quiet: I will cast back my head.
A GUARD.
(Thrusting PERVANEH back with his drawn sword as she
lays her hands on her lover's neck)
Back, in the Caliph's name!
RAFI.
(To PERVANEH) Run in upon his sword....
PERVANEH.
(Shrinking away from the GUARD's sword) I cannot!
RAFI.
Quick--quick! Fall on the sword and save all shame.
PERVANEH.
My breast, my breast: I am afraid...
(Prostrate on the ground)
I am utterly shamed--I have missed your death and mine.
RAFI.
You have flinched.
PERVANEH.
The point was on my breast, and it might have been
all ended for you and me.
RAFI.
You have been afraid.
PERVANEH.
It would have driven to my heart. Ah, the woman that I am!
RAFI.
It is so small a thing, a pricking of the steel.
PERVANEH.
Ah!--it is a little thing, you say? It is like ice,
so sharp and cold. I am a vile coward.
RAFI.
We are both cowards, you and I. The sunlight changes on the wall
from white to gold. It is evening. Our time has come.
Shall we choose life? Shall we choose the sky and the sea,
the mountains, the rivers and the plains? Shall we choose
the flowers and the bees, and all the birds of heaven?
Shall we choose laughter and tears, sorrow and desire,
speech and silence, and the shout of the man behind the hill?
PERVANEH.
Ah, empty, empty without your heart!
(She weeps.)
RAFI.
Empty as death, Pervaneh, empty as death?
PERVANEH.
The wall reddens: the last minute has come: we must choose.
RAFI.
Choose for me: I follow. Did I talk of life? My heart is breaking
for desire of you. If you bid me depart I will not live without you.
Choose for me--and choose well. Phantoms of pain! Let me but have you
in my arms, and one day of love shall widen into eternity.
Who knows? The earth may crack to-night, or the sun stay down for ever
in his grave. Who knows--tomorrow--God will begin and finish the judgment
of the world--and when it is all over find you sleeping in my arms?
PERVANEH.
(Rising slowly to her feet and laying
her hands on the shoulders of her lover):
Oh, let us die! Not for my dishonour, Rafi.
What is my dishonour to me or to you, beloved, or the shame
of a girl's virginity to him who made the sea? This clay of mine
is fair enough, I think, but God hath cast it in the common mould.
O lover, lover, I would walk beneath the walls and sell my body
to the gipsy and the Jew ere you should cry "I am hungry"
or "I am cold."
RAFI.
Die for love of me--for a day and a night of love!
PERVANEH.
I die for love of you, Rafi! Behold, the Spirit grows
bright around you: you are one with the Eternal Lover,
the Friend of the World. His spirit flashes in thine
eyes and hovers round thy lips:
thy body is all fire!
RAFI.
Comfort me, comfort me! I do not understand thy dreams.
PERVANEH.
(Her arms stiffening in ecstasy)
The splendour pours from the window--the spirits in
red and gold. Death with thee, O lover, death for thee,
death to attain thee, O lover--and then the garden--then
the fountain--then the walking side by side.
RAFI.
O my sweet life,
O my sweet life--must this mad dreaming end thee?
PERVANEH.
Sweet life--we die for thy sweetness, O Lord of the Garden of Peace.
Come, love, and die for the fire that beats within us, for the air
that blows around us, for the mountains of our country and the wind
among their pines you and I accept torture and confront our end.
We are in the service of the World. The voice of the rolling deep
is shouting: "Suffer that my waves may moan." The company of the stars
sing out: "Be brave that we may shine." The spirits of children
not yet born whisper as they crowd around us: "Endure that we may conquer."
RAFI.
Pervaneh, Pervaneh!
PERVANEH.
Hark! Hark!--down through the spheres--the Trumpeter of Immortality!
"Die, lest I be shamed, lovers. Die, lest I be shamed!"
RAFI.
Die then, Pervaneh, for thy great reasons. Me no ecstasy can help
through the hours of pain. I die for love alone.
HERALD.
(Entering)
The Caliph demands your choice.
RAFI.
Death!
HASSAN.
(Bursting in)
No, no. O God!
ISHAK.
They have chosen too well.
(Exit HERALD. PERVANEH is still in ecstasy when the curtain falls.)
END OF ACT IV _
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