Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (628 page)

News! stirring news to-day! wonders come thick.

ARMGART (starting up at the first sound of his voice, and speaking vehemently.)

Yes, thick, thick, thick! and you have murdered it!

Murdered my voice — poisoned the soul in me,

And kept me living.

You never told me that your cruel cures

Were clogging films — a mouldy, dead’ning blight —

A lava-mud to crust and bury me,

Yet hold me living in a deep, deep tomb,

Crying unheard forever! Oh, your cures

Are devil’s triumphs: you can rob, maim, slay,

And keep a hell on the other side your cure

Where you can see your victim quivering

Between the teeth of torture — see a soul

Made keen by loss — all anguish with a good

Once known and gone!

(Turns and sinks back on her chair.)

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misery, misery!

You might have killed me, might have let me sleep

After my happy day and wake — not here !

In some new unremembered world — not here,

Where all is faded, flat — a feast broke off —

Banners all meaningless — exulting words

Dull, dull — a drum that lingers in the air

Beating to melody which no man hears.

DOCTOR (after a moment’s silence).

A sudden check has shaken you, poor child!

All things seem livid, tottering to your sense,

From inward tumult. Stricken by a threat

You see your terrors only. Tell me, Leo:

‘T is not such utter loss.

(LEO, with a shrug, goes quietly out.)

The freshest bloom

Merely, has left the fruit; the fruit itself . . . .

ARMGART.

Is ruined, withered, is a thing to hide

Away from scorn or pity. Oh, you stand

And look compassionate now, but when Death came

With mercy in his hands, you hindered him.

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did not choose to live and have your pity.

You never told me, never gave me choice

To die a singer, lightning-struck, unmaimed.

Or live what you would make me with your cures —

A self accursed with consciousness of change,

A mind that lives in nought but members lopped,

A power turned to pain — as meaningless

As letters fallen asunder that once made

A hymn of rapture. Oh, I had meaning once

Like day and sweetest air. What am I now?

The millionth woman in superfluous herds.

Why should I be, do, think? ‘T is thistle-seed,

That grows and grows to feed the rubbish-heap.

Leave me alone!

DOCTOR.

Well, I will come again;

Send for me when you will, though but to rate me.

That is medicinal — a letting blood.

ARMGART.

Oh, there is one physician, only one,

Who cures and never spoils. Him I shall send for;

He comes readily.

DOCTOR (to WALPURGA).

One word, dear Fraulein.

SCENE V.

ARMGART, WALPURGA.

ARMGART.

Walpurga, have you walked this morning?

WALPURGA.

No.

ARMGART.

Go, then, and walk; I wish to be alone.

WALPURGA.

I will not leave you.

ARMGART.

Will not at my wish?

WALPURGA.

Will not, because you wish it. Say no more,

But take this draught.

ARMGART.

The Doctor gave it you?

It is an anodyne. Put it away.

He cured me of my voice, and now he wants

To cure me of my vision and resolve —

Drug me to sleep that I may wake again

Without a purpose, abject as the rest

To bear the yoke of life. He shall not cheat me

Of that fresh strength which anguish gives the soul,

The inspiration of revolt, ere rage

Slackens to faltering. Now I see the truth.

WALPURGA (setting down the glass).

Then you must see a future in your reach,

With happiness enough to make a dower

For two of modest claims.

ARMGART.

Oh, you intone

That chant of consolation wherewith ease

Makes itself easier in the sight of pain.

WALPURGA.

No; I would not console you, but rebuke.

ARMGART.

That is more bearable. Forgive me, dear.

Say what you will. But now I want to write.

(She rises and moves toward a table.)

WALPURGA.

I say then, you are simply fevered, mad;

You cry aloud at horrors that would vanish

If you would change the light, throw into shade

The loss you aggrandize, and let day fall

On good remaining, nay, on good refused

Which may be gain now. Did you not reject

A woman’s lot more brilliant, as some held,

Than any singer’s? It may still be yours.

Graf Dornberg loved you well.

ARMGART.

Not me, not me.

He loved one well who was like me in all

Save in a voice which made that All unlike

As diamond is to charcoal. Oh, a man’s love!

Think you he loves a woman’s inner self

Aching with loss of loveliness? — as mothers

Cleave to the palpitating pain that dwells

Within their misformed offspring?

WALPURGA.

But the Graf

Chose you as simple Armgart — had preferred

That you should never seek for any fame

But such as matrons have who rear great sons

And therefore you rejected him; but now —

ARMGART.

Ay, now — now he would see me as I am.

(She takes up a hand-mirror.)

Russet and songless as a missel-thrush.

An ordinary girl — a plain brown girl,

Who, if some meaning flash from out her words,

Shocks as a disproportioned thing — a Will

That, like an arm astretch and broken off,

Has nought to hurl — the torso of a soul.

I sang him into love of me: my song

Was consecration, lifted me apart

From the crowd chiselled like me, sister forms,

But empty of divineness. Nay, my charm

Was half that I could win fame yet renounce!

A wife with glory possible absorbed

Into her husband’s actual.

WALPURGA.

For shame!

Armgart, you slander him. What would you say

If now he came to you and asked again

That you would be his wife?

ARMGART.

No, and thrice no!

It would be pitying constancy, not love,

That brought him to me now. I will not be

A pensioner in marriage. Sacraments

Are not to feed the paupers of the world.

If he were generous — I am generous too.

WALPURGA.

Proud, Armgart, but not generous.

ARMGART.

Say no more.

He will not know until —

WALPURGA.

He knows already.

ARMGART (quickly).

Is he come back?

WALPURGA.

Yes, and will soon be here.

The Doctor had twice seen him and would go

From hence again to see him.

ARMGART.

Well, he knows.

It is all one.

WALPURGA.

What if he were outside?

I hear a footstep in the ante-room.

ARMGART (raising herself and assuming calmness).

Why let him come, of course. I shall behave

Like what I am, a common personage

Who looks for nothing but civility.

I shall not play the fallen heroine.