Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (646 page)

And wag your head as it were set on wires.

Here’s fresh sherbet Sit, be good company.

(To Blasco) You are a stranger, sir, and cannot know

How our Duke’s nature suits his princely frame.

BLASCO.

Nay, but I marked his spurs — chased cunningly !

A duke should know good gold and silver plate ;

Then he will know the quality of mine.

I’ve ware for tables and for altars too,

Our Lady in all sizes, crosses, bells :

He’ll need such weapons full as much as swords

If he would capture any Moorish town.

For, let me tell you, when a mosque is cleansed . . .

JUAN.

The demons fly so thick from sound of bells

And smell of incense, you may see the air

Streaked as with smoke. Why, they are spirits:

You may well think how crowded they must be

To make a sort of haze.

BLASCO.

I knew not that.

Still, they’re of smoky nature, demons are ;

And since you say so — well, it proves the more

The need of bells and censers. Ay, your Duke

Sat well : a true hidalgo. I can judge —

Of harness specially. I saw the camp,

The royal camp at Velez Malaga.

‘T was like the court of heaven, — such liveries !

And torches carried by the score at night

Before the nobles. Sirs, I made a dish

To set an emerald in would fit a crown,

For Don Alonzo, lord of Aguilar.

Your Duke’s no whit behind him in his mien

Or harness either. But you seem to say

The people love him not.

HOST.

They’ve naught against him.

But certain winds will make men’s temper bad.

When the Solano blows hot venomed breath,

It acts upon men’s knives : steel takes to stabbing

Which else, with cooler winds, were honest steel,

Cutting but garlick. There’s a wind just now

Blows right from Seville —

BLASCO

Ay, you mean the wind....

Yes, yes, a wind that’s rather hot....

HOST.

With fagots.

JUAN.

A wind that suits not with oar townsmen’s blood

Abram, ‘t is said, objected to be scorched,

And, as the learned Arabs vouch, he gave

The antipathy, in full to Ishmael.

‘T is true, these patriarchs had their oddities.

BLASCO.

Oddities ? I’m of their mind, I know.

Though, as to Abraham and Ishmael,

Tm an old Christian, and owe naught to them

Or any Jew among them. But I know

We made a stir in Saragossa — we :

The men of Aragon ring hard, — ttrue metal.

Sirs, I’m no friend to heresy, but then

A Christian’s money is not safe. As how ?

A lapsing Jew or any heretic

May owe me twenty ounces : suddenly

He’s prisoned, suffers penalties, — ‘t is well :

If men will not believe, ‘t is good to make them,

But let the penalties fall on them alone.

The Jew is stripped, his goods are confiscate;

Now, where, I pray you, go my twenty ounces ?

God knows, and perhaps the King may, but not I.

And more, my son may lose his young wife’s dower

Because ‘t was promised since her father’s soul

Fell to wrong thinking. How was I to know ?

I could but use my sense and cross myself.

Christian is Christian — I give in, — but still

Taxing is taxing, though you call it holy.

We Saragossans liked not this new tax

They call the — nonsense, I’m from Aragon !

I speak too bluntly. But, for Holy Church,

No man believes more.

HOST.

Nay, sir, never fear.

Good Master Roldan here is no delator.

ROLDAN (starting from a revery)

You speak to me sirs ? I perform to-night —

The Pla9a Santiago. Twenty tricks,

All different. I dance, too. And the boy

Sings like a bird. I crave your patronage.

BLASCO.

Faith, you shall have it, sir. In travelling

I take a little freedom, and am gay.

You marked not what I said just now?

ROLDAN.

I? No .

I pray your pardon. I’ve a twinging knee,

That makes it hard to listen. You were saying?

BLASCO.

Nay, it was naught. {Aside to Host) Is it his deepness?

HOST.

He’s deep in nothing but his poverty.

BLASCO.

But ‘t was his poverty that made me think....

HOST.

His piety might wish to keep the feasts

As well as fasts. No fear; he hears not.

BLASCO.

Good .

I speak my mind about the penalties,

But, look you, I’m against assassination.

You know my meaning — Master Arbues,

The grand Inquisitor in Aragon.

I knew naught, — paid no copper towards the deed.

But I was there, at prayers, within the church.

How could I help it ? Why, the saints were there,

And looked straight on above the altars. I . . . .

JUAN.

Looked carefully another way.

BLASCO.

Why, at my beads.

‘T was after midnight, and the canons all

Were chanting matins. I was not in church

To gape and stare. I saw the martyr kneel :

I never liked the look of him alive, —

He was no martyr then. I thought he made

An ugly shadow as he crept athwart

The bands of light, then passed within the gloom

By the broad pillar. ‘T was in our great Seo,

At Saragossa. The pillars tower so large

You cross yourself to see them, lest white Death

Should hide behind their dark. And so it was.

I looked away again and told my beads

Unthinkingly ; but still a man has ears ;

And right across the chanting came a sound

As if a tree had crashed above the roar

Of some great torrent. So it seemed to me ;

For when yon listen long and shut your eyes

Small sounds get thunderous. And he’d a shell

Like any lobster : a good iron suit

From top to toe beneath the innocent serge.

That made the telltale sound. But then came shrieks.

The chanting stopped and tamed to rushing feet,

And in the midst lay Master Arbues,

Felled like an ox. ‘T was wicked butchery.

Some honest men had hoped it would have scared

The Inquisition out of Aragon.

‘T was money thrown away, — I would say, crime, —

Clean thrown away.

HOST,

That was a pity now.

Next to a missing thrust, what irks me most

Is a neat well-aimed stroke that kills your man,

Yet ends in mischief, — as in Aragon.

It was a lesson to our people here.

Else there’s a monk within our city walls,

A holy, high-born, stern Dominican,

They might have made the great mistake to kill.

BLASCO.

What! Is he? ....

HOST.

Yes ; a Master Arbues

Of finer quality. The Prior here

And uncle to our Duke.

BLASCO.

He will want plate:

A holy pillar or a crucifix.

But, did you say, he was like Arbues?

JUAN.

As a black eagle with gold beak and claws

Is like a raven. Even in his cowl,

Covered from head to foot, the Prior is known

From all the black herd round. When he uncovers

And stands white-frocked, with ivory face, his eyes

Black-gleaming, black his crown of hair

Like shredded jasper, he seems less a man

With struggling aims than pure incarnate Will,