Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (652 page)

She knew it and defied him ; all her soul

Rounded and hardened in its separateness

When they encountered. But this prisoner, —

This Gypsy, passing, gazing casually, —

Was he her enemy too ? She stood all quelled,

The impetuous joy that hurried in her veins

Seemed backward rushing turned to chillest awe,

Uneasy wonder, and a vague self-doubt.

The minute brief stretched measureless, dream-filled

By a dilated new-fraught consciousness.

Now it was gone ; the pious murmur ceased,

The Gypsy band moved onward at command

And careless noises blent confusedly.

But the ring closed again, and many ears

Waited for Pablo’s music, many eyes

Turned towards the carpet : it lay bare and dim,

Twilight was there, — the bright Fedalma gone.

A handsome room in the Castle. On a table a rich jewel-casket.

Silva had doffed his mail and with it all

The heavier harness of his warlike cares.

He had not seen Fedalma ; miser-like

He hoarded through the hour a costlier joy

By longing oft-repressed. Now it was earned ;

And with observance wonted he would send

To ask admission. Spanish gentlemen

Who wooed fair dames of noble ancestry

Did homage with rich tunics and slashed sleeves

And outward-surging linen’s costly snow ;

With broidered scarf transverse, and rosary

Handsomely wrought to fit high-blooded prayer ;

So hinting in how deep respect they held

That self they threw before their lady’s feet.

And Silva — that Fedalma’s rate should stand

No jot below the highest, that her love

Might seem to all the royal gift it was —

Turned every trifle in his mien and garb

To scrupulous language, uttering to the world

That since she loved him he went carefully,

Bearing a thing so precious in his hand.

A man of high-wrought strain, fastidious

In his acceptance, dreading all delight

That speedy dies and turns to carrion :

His senses much exacting, deep instilled

With keen imagination’s difficult needs ; —

Like strong-limbed monsters studded o’er with eyes,

Their hanger checked by overwhelming vision,

Or that fierce lion in symbolic dream

Snatched from the ground by wings and new-endowed

With a man’s thought-propelled relenting heart.

Silva was both the lion and the man ;

First hesitating shrank, then fiercely sprang,

Or having sprung, turned pallid at his deed

And loosed the prize, paying his blood for naught.

A nature half-transformed, with qualities

That oft bewrayed each other, elements

Not blent but struggling, breeding strange effects,

Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes.

Haughty and generous, grave and passionate ;

With tidal moments of devoutest awe,

Sinking anon to farthest ebb of doubt ;

Deliberating ever, till the sting

Of a recurrent ardour made him rush

Right against reasons that himself had drilled

And marshalled painfully. A spirit framed

Too proudly special for obedience,

Too subtly, pondering- for mastery :

Born of a goddess with a mortal sire,

Heir of flesh-fettered, weak divinity,

Doom-gifted with long resonant consciousness

And perilous heightening of the sentient soul.

But look less curiously : life itself

May not express us all, may leave the worst

And the best too, like tunes in a mechanism

Never awaked. In various catalogues

Objects stand variously. Silva stands

As a young Spaniard, handsome, noble, brave,

With titles many, high in pedigree ;

Or, as a nature quiveringly poised

In reach of storms whose qualities may turn

To murdered virtues that still walk as ghosts

Within the shuddering soul: and shriek remorse ;

Or, as a lover .... In the screening time

Of purple blossoms, when the petals crowd

And softly crush like cherub cheeks in heaven,

Who thinks of greenly withered fruit and worms ?

O the warm southern spring is beauteous !

And in love’s spring all good seems possible :

No threats, all promise, brooklets ripple full

And bathe the rushes, vicious crawling things

Are pretty eggs, the sun shines graciously

And parches not, the silent rain beats warm

As childhood’s kisses, days are young and grow,

And earth seems in its sweet beginning time

Fresh made for two who live in Paradise.

Silva is in love’s spring, its freshness breathed

Within his soul along the dusty ways

While marching homeward ; ‘t is around him now

As in a garden fenced in for delight, —

And he may seek delight. Smiling he lifts

A whistle from his belt, but lets it fall

Ere it has reached his lips, jarred by the sound

Of ushers’ knocking, and a voice that craves

Admission for the Prior of San Domingo.

PRIOR (entering).

You look perturbed, my son. I thrust myself

Between you and some beckoning intent

That wears a face more smiling than my own.

DON SILVA.

Father, enough that you are here. I wait,

As always, your commands, — nay, should have sought

An early audience.

PRIOR,

To give, I trust,

Good reasons for your change of policy?

DON SILVA.

Strong reasons, father.

PRIOR.

Ay, but good ?

I have known reasons strong, but strongly evil.

DON SILVA.

‘T is possible.
I but deliver mine

To your strict judgment. Late despatches sent

With urgence by the Count of Bavien,

No hint on my part prompting, with besides

The testified concurrence of the king

And our grand master, have made peremptory

The course which else had been but rational.

Without the forces furnished by allies

The siege of Guadix would, be madness. More,

El Zagal has his eyes upon Bedmar :

Let him attempt it : in three weeks from hence

The master and the Lord of Aguilar

Will bring their forces. We shall catch the Moors,

The last gleaned clusters of their bravest men,

As in a trap. You have my reasons, father.

PRIOR.

And they sound well. But free-tongued rumour adds

A pregnant supplement, — in substance this :

That inclination snatches arguments

To make indulgence seem judicious choice ;

That you, commanding in God’s Holy War,

Lift prayers to Satan to retard the fight

And give you time for feasting — wait a siege,

Call daring enterprise impossible,

Because you’d marry ! You, a Spaniard duke,

Christ’s general, would marry like a clown,

Who, selling fodder dearer for the war,

Is all the merrier; nay, like the brutes,

Who know no awe to check their appetite,

Coupling ‘mid heaps of slain, while still in front

The battle rages.

DON SILVA.

Rumor on your lips

Is eloquent, father.

PRIOR.

Is she true?

DON SILVA.

Perhaps.

I seek to justify my public acts

And not my private joy. Before the world

Enough if I am faithful in command,

Betray not by my deeds, swerve from no task

My knightly vows constrain me to: herein

I ask all men to test me.

PRIOR.

Knightly vows ?

Is it by their constraint that you must marry ?

DON SILVA.

Marriage is not a breach of them. I use