________________________________________________
_ ACT III
Three months later. Another part of the Palace of Mantua: the hanging gardens in the DUKE'S apartments. It is the first warm night of Spring. The lemon trees have been brought out that day, and fill the air with fragrance. Terraces and flights of steps; in the background the dark mass of the palace, with its cupolas and fortified towers; here and there a lit window picking out the dark; and from above the principal yards, the flare of torches rising into the deep blue of the sky. In the course of the scene, the moon gradually emerges from behind a group of poplars on the opposite side of the lake into which the palace is built. During the earlier part of the act, darkness. Great stillness, with, only occasionally, the plash of a fisherman's oar, or a very distant thrum of mandolines.--The DUKE and DIEGO are walking up and down the terrace.
DUKE.
Thou askedst me once, dear Diego, the meaning of that labyrinth which I have had carved, a shapeless pattern enough, but well suited, methinks, to blue and gold, upon the ceiling of my new music room. And wouldst have asked, I fancy, as many have done, the hidden meaning of the device surrounding it.--I left thee in the dark, dear lad, and treated thy curiosity in a peevish manner. Thou hast long forgiven and perhaps forgotten, deeming my lack of courtesy but another ailment of thy poor sick master; another of those odd ungracious moods with which, kindest of healing creatures, thou hast had such wise and cheerful patience. I have often wished to tell thee; but I could not. 'Tis only now, in some mysterious fashion, I seem myself once more,--able to do my judgment's bidding, and to dispose, in memory and words, of my own past. My strange sickness, which thou hast cured, melting its mists away with thy beneficent music even as the sun penetrates and sucks away the fogs of dawn from our lakes--my sickness, Diego, the sufferings of my flight from Barbary; the horror, perhaps, of that shipwreck which cast me (so they say, for I remember nothing) senseless on the Illyrian coast----these things, or Heaven's judgment on but a lukewarm Crusader,--had somehow played strange havoc with my will and recollections. I could not think; or thinking, not speak; or recollecting, feel that he whom I thought of in the past was this same man, myself.
[The DUKE pauses, and leaning on the parapet, watches the long reflections of the big stars in the water.]
But now, and thanks to thee, Diego, I am another; I am myself.
[DIEGO'S face, invisible in the darkness, has undergone dreadful convulsions. His breast heaves, and he stops for breath before answering; but when he does so, controls his voice into its usual rather artificially cadenced tone.]
DIEGO.
And now, dear Master, you can recollect----all?
DUKE.
Recollect, sweet friend, and tell thee. For it is seemly that I should break through this churlish silence with thee. Thou didst cure the weltering distress of my poor darkened mind; I would have thee, now, know somewhat of the past of thy grateful patient. The maze, Diego, carved and gilded on that ceiling is but a symbol of my former life; and the device which, being interpreted, means "I seek straight ways," the expression of my wish and duty.
DIEGO.
You loathed the maze, my Lord?
DUKE.
Not so. I loved it then. And I still love it now. But I have issued from it--issued to recognise that the maze was good. Though it is good I left it. When I entered it, I was a raw youth, although in years a man; full of easy theory, and thinking all practice simple; unconscious of passion; ready to govern the world with a few learned notions; moreover never having known either happiness or grief, never loved and wondered at a creature different from myself; acquainted, not with the straight roads which I now seek, but only with the rectangular walls of schoolrooms. The maze, and all the maze implied, made me a man.
DIEGO.
(who has listened with conflicting feelings, and now unable to conceal his joy)
A man, dear Master; and the gentlest, most just of men. Then, that maze----But idle stories, interpreting all spiritual meaning as prosy fact, would have it, that this symbol was a reality. The legend of your captivity, my Lord, has turned the pattern on that ceiling into a real labyrinth, some cunningly built fortress or prison, where the Infidels kept you, and whose clue----you found, and with the clue, freedom, after five weary years.
DUKE.
Whose clue, dear Diego, was given into my hands,--the clue meaning freedom, but also eternal parting--by the most faithful, intrepid, magnanimous, the most loving----and the most beloved of women!
[The Duke has raised his arms from the parapet, and drawn himself erect, folding them on his breast, and seeking for Diego's face in the darkness. But Diego, unseen by the Duke, has clutched the parapet and sunk on to a bench.]
DUKE.
(walking up and down, slowly and meditatively, after a pause)
The poets have fabled many things concerning virtuous women. The Roman Arria, who stabbed herself to make honourable suicide easier for her husband; Antigone, who buried her brother at the risk of death; and the Thracian Alkestis, who descended into the kingdom of Death in place of Admetus. But none, to my mind, comes up to her. For fancy is but thin and simple, a web of few bright threads; whereas reality is closely knitted out of the numberless fibres of life, of pain and joy. For note it, Diego--those antique women whom we read of were daughters of kings, or of Romans more than kings; bred of a race of heroes, and trained, while still playing with dolls, to pride themselves on austere duty, and look upon the wounds and maimings of their soul as their brothers and husbands looked upon the mutilations of battle. Whereas here; here was a creature infinitely humble; a waif, a poor spurned toy of brutal mankind's pleasure; accustomed only to bear contumely, or to snatch, unthinking, what scanty happiness lay along her difficult and despised path,--a wild creature, who had never heard such words as duty or virtue; and yet whose acts first taught me what they truly meant.
DIEGO.
(who has recovered himself, and is now leaning in his turn on the parapet)
Ah----a light woman, bought and sold many times over, my Lord; but who loved, at last.
DUKE.
That is the shallow and contemptuous way in which men think, Diego,--and boys like thee pretend to; those to whom life is but a chess-board, a neatly painted surface alternate black and white, most suitable for skilful games, with a soul clean lost or gained at the end! I thought like that. But I grew to understand life as a solid world: rock, fertile earth, veins of pure metal, mere mud, all strangely mixed and overlaid; and eternal fire at the core! I learned it, knowing Magdalen.
DIEGO.
Her name was Magdalen?
DUKE.
So she bade me call her.
DIEGO.
And the name explained the trade?
DUKE.
(after a pause)
I cannot understand thee Diego,--cannot understand thy lack of understanding----Well yes! Her trade. All in this universe is trade, trade of prince, pope, philosopher or harlot; and once the badge put on, the licence signed--the badge a crown or a hot iron's brand, as the case may be,--why then we ply it according to prescription, and that's all! Yes, Diego,--since thou obligest me to say it in its harshness, I do so, and I glory for her in every contemptuous word I use!--The woman I speak of was but a poor Venetian courtesan; some drab's child, sold to the Infidels as to the Christians; and my cruel pirate master's--shall we say?--mistress. There! For the first time, Diego, thou dost not understand me; or is it----that I misjudged thee, thinking thee, dear boy----(breaks off hurriedly).
DIEGO.
(very slowly)
Thinking me what, my Lord?
DUKE.
(lightly, but with effort)
Less of a little Sir Paragon of Virtue than a dear child, who is only a child, must be.
DIEGO.
It is better, perhaps, that your Highness should be certain of my limitations----But I crave your Highness's pardon. I had meant to say that being a waif myself, pure gutter-bred, I have known, though young, more Magdalens than you, my Lord. They are, in a way, my sisters; and had I been a woman, I should, likely enough, have been one myself.
DUKE.
You mean, Diego?
DIEGO.
I mean, that knowing them well, I also know that women such as your Highness has described, occasionally learn to love most truly. Nay, let me finish, my Lord; I was not going to repeat a mere sentimental commonplace. Briefly then, that such women, being expert in love, sometimes understand, quicker than virtuous dames brought up to heroism, when love for them is cloyed. They can walk out of a man's house or life with due alacrity, being trained to such flittings. Or, recognising the first signs of weariness before 'tis known to him who feels it, they can open the door for the other--hand him the clue of the labyrinth with a fine theatric gesture!--But I crave your Highness's pardon for enlarging on this theme.
DUKE.
Thou speakest Diego, as if thou hadst a mind to wound thy Master. Is this, my friend, the reward of my confiding in thee, even if tardily?
DIEGO.
I stand rebuked, my Lord. But, in my own defence----how shall I say it?----Your Highness has a manner to-night which disconcerts me by its novelty; a saying things and then unsaying them; suggesting and then, somehow, treading down the suggestion like a spark of your lightning. Lovers, I have been told, use such a manner to revive their flagging feeling by playing on the other one's. Even in so plain and solid a thing as friendship, such ways--I say it subject to your Highness's displeasure--are dangerous. But in love, I have known cases where, carried to certain lengths, such ways of speaking undermined a woman's faith and led her to desperate things. Women, despite their strength, which often surprises us, are brittle creatures. Did you never, perhaps, make trial of this----Magdalen, with----
DUKE.
With what? Good God, Diego, 'tis I who ask thy pardon; and thou sheddest a dreadful light upon the past. But it is not possible. I am not such a cur that, after all she did, after all she was,--my life saved by her audacity a hundred times, made rich and lovely by her love, her wit, her power,--that I could ever have whimpered for my freedom, or made her suspect I wanted it more than I wanted her? Is it possible, Diego?
DIEGO.
(slowly)
Why more than you wanted her? She may have thought the two compatible.
DUKE.
Never. First, because my escape could not be compassed save by her staying behind; and then because---she knew, in fact, what thing I was, or must become, once set at liberty.
DIEGO.
(after a pause)
I see. You mean, my Lord, that you being Duke of Mantua, while she----If she knew that; knew it not merely as a fact, but as one knows the full savour of grief,--well, she was indeed the paragon you think; one might indeed say, bating one point, a virtuous woman.
DUKE.
Thou hast understood, dear Diego, and I thank thee for it.
DIEGO.
But I fear, my Lord, she did not know these things. Such as she, as yourself remarked, are not trained to conceive of duty, even in others. Passion moves them; and they believe in passion. You loved her; good. Why then, at Mantua as in Barbary. No, my dear Master, believe me; she had seen your love was turning stale, and set you free, rather than taste its staleness. Passion, like duty, has its pride; and even we waifs, as gypsies, have our point of honour.
DUKE.
Stale! My love grown stale! You make me laugh, boy, instead of angering. Stale! You never knew her. She was not like a song--even your sweetest song--which, heard too often, cloys, its phrases dropping to senseless notes. She was like music,--the whole art: new modes, new melodies, new rhythms, with every day and hour, passionate or sad, or gay, or very quiet; more wondrous notes than in thy voice; and more strangely sweet, even when they grated, than the tone of those newfangled fiddles, which wound the ear and pour balm in, they make now at Cremona.
DIEGO.
You loved her then, sincerely?
DUKE.
Methinks it may be Diego now, tormenting his Master with needless questions. Loved her, boy! I love her.
[A long pause. Diego has covered his face, with a gesture as if about to speak. But the moon has suddenly risen from behind the poplars, and put scales of silver light upon the ripples of the lake, and a pale luminous mist around the palace. As the light invades the terrace, a sort of chill has come upon both speakers; they walk up and down further from one another.]
DIEGO.
A marvellous story, dear Master. And I thank you from my heart for having told it me. I always loved you, and I thought I knew you. I know you better still, now. You are--a most magnanimous prince.
DUKE.
Alas, dear lad, I am but a poor prisoner of my duties; a poorer prisoner, and a sadder far, than there in Barbary----O Diego, how I have longed for her! How deeply I still long, sometimes! But I open my eyes, force myself to stare reality in the face, whenever her image comes behind closed lids, driving her from me----And to end my confession. At the beginning, Diego, there seemed in thy voice and manner something of her; I saw her sometimes in thee, as children see the elves they fear and hope for in stains on walls and flickers on the path. And all thy wondrous power, thy miraculous cure--nay, forgive what seems ingratitude--was due, Diego, to my sick fancy making me see glances of her in thy eyes and hear her voice in thine. Not music but love, love's delusion, was what worked my cure.
DIEGO.
Do you speak truly, Master? Was it so? And now?
DUKE.
Now, dear lad, I am cured--completely; I know bushes from ghosts; and I know thee, dearest friend, to be Diego.
DIEGO.
When these imaginations still held you, my Lord, did it ever happen that you wondered: what if the bush had been a ghost; if Diego had turned into--what was she called?----
DUKE.
Magdalen. My fancy never went so far, good Diego. There was a grain of reason left. But if it had----Well, I should have taken Magdalen's hand, and said, "Welcome, dear sister. This is a world of spells; let us repeat some. Become henceforth my brother; be the Duke of Mantua's best and truest friend; turn into Diego, Magdalen."
[The DUKE presses DIEGO'S arm, and, letting it go, walks away into the moonlight with an enigmatic air. A long pause.]
Hark, they are singing within; the idle pages making songs to their ladies' eyebrows. Shall we go and listen?
(They walk in the direction of the palace.)
And (with a little hesitation) that makes me say, Diego, before we close this past of mine, and bury it for ever in our silence, that there is a little Moorish song, plaintive and quaint, she used to sing, which some day I will write down, and thou shalt sing it to me--on my deathbed.
DIEGO.
Why not before? Speaking of songs, that mandolin, though out of tune, and vilely played, has got hold of a ditty I like well enough. Hark, the words are Tuscan, well known in the mountains. (Sings.)
I'd like to die, but die a little death only, I'd like to die, but look down from the window; I'd like to die, but stand upon the doorstep; I'd like to die, but follow the procession; I'd like to die, but see who smiles and weepeth; I'd like to die, but die a little death only.
(While DIEGO sings very loud, the mandolin inside the palace thrums faster and faster. As he ends, with a long defiant leap into a high note, a burst of applause from the palace.)
DIEGO.
(clapping his hands)
Well sung, Diego! _
Read next: Act 4
Read previous: Act 2
Table of content of Ariadne in Mantua
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
