Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (654 page)

He must be angry having cause. Yet love

Shot like a stifled cry of tenderness

All through the harshness he would fain have given

To the dear word,]

DON SILVA.

Fedalma !

FEDALMA.

O my lord !

You are come back, and I was wandering !

DON SILVA (coldly but with suppressed agitation)

You meant I should be ignorant.

FEDALMA.

0
            
no,

1
            
should have told you after, — not before,

Lest you should hinder me.

DON SILVA.

Then my known wish

Can make no hindrance ?

FEDALMA (archly).

That depends

On what the wish may be. You wished me once

Not to uncage the birds. I meant to obey:

But in a moment something — something stronger,

Forced me to let them out. It did no harm.

They all came back again, — the silly birds !

I told you, after.

DON SILVA (with haughty coldness).

Will you tell me now

What was the prompting stronger than my wish

That made you wander?

FEDALMA (advancing a step towards him with a sudden look of anxiety).

Are you angry ?

DON SILVA (smiling bitterly).

Angry ?

A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain

To feel much anger.

FEDALMA (still more anxiously).

You — deep-wounded ?

DON SILVA.

Have I not made your place and dignity

The very heart of my ambition ? You, —

No enemy could do it, — you alone

Can strike it mortally.

FEDALMA.

Nay, Silva, nay.

Has some one told you false ? I only went

To see the world with Inez, — see the town,

The people, everything. It was no harm.

I did not mean to dance : it happened so

At last . . . .

DON SILVA.

O God, it’s true then ! — true that you,

A maiden nurtured as rare flowers are,

The very air of heaven sifted fine

Lest motes should mar your purity,

Have flung yourself out on the dusty way

For common eyes to see your beauty soiled !

You own it true, — you danced upon the Pla9a ?

FEDALMA (proudly).

Yes, it is true. I was not wrong to dance.

The air was filled with music, with a song

That seemed the voice of the sweet eventide, —

The glowing light entering through eye and ear, —

That seemed our love, — mine, yours — they are but one, —

Trembling through all my limbs, as fervent words

Tremble within my soul and must be spoken.

And all the people felt a common joy

And shouted for the dance. A brightness soft

As of the angels moving down to see

Illumined the broad space. The joy, the life

Around, within me, were one heaven : I longed

To blend them visibly: I longed to dance

Before the people, — be as mounting flame

To all that burned within them ! Nay, I danced ;

There was no longing : I but did the deed

Being moved to do it.

(As FEDALMA speaks she and DON SILVA are gradually drawn nearer to

each other.)

O, I seemed new-waked

To life in unison with a multitude, —

Feeling my soul upborne by all their souls,

Floating within their gladness ! Soon I lost

All sense of separateness : Fedalma died

As a star dies, and melts into the light.

I was not, but joy was, and love and triumph.

Nay, my dear lord, I never could do aught

But I must feel you present. And once done,

Why, you must love it better than your wish.

I pray you, say so, — say, it was not wrong !

(While FEDALMA has been making this last appeal, they have gradually

come close together, and at last embrace.)

DON SILVA (holding her hands).

Dangerous rebel ! if the world without

Were pure as that within . .. . but ‘t is a book

Wherein you only read the poesy

And miss all wicked meanings. Hence the need

For trust — obedience, — call it what you will, —

Towards him whose life will be your guard, — towards me

Who now am soon to be your husband.

FEDALMA.

Yes !

That very thing that when I am your wife

I shall be something different, — shall be

I know not what, a Duchess with new thoughts, —

For nobles never think like common men,

Nor wives like maidens (O, you wot not yet

How much I note, with all my ignorance), —

That very thing has made me more resolve

To have my will before I am your wife.

How can the Duchess ever satisfy

Fedalma’s unwed eyes ? and so to-day

I scolded Inez till she cried and went.

DON SILVA.

It was a guilty weakness : she knows well

That since you pleaded to be left more free

From tedious tendance and control of dames

Whose rank matched better with your destiny,

Her charge — my trust — was weightier.

FEDALMA.

Nay, my lord,

Yon must not blame her, dear old nurse. She cried.

Why, you would have consented too, at last

I said such things ! I was resolved to go,

And see the streets, the shops, the men at work,

The women, little children, — everything,

Just as it is when nobody looks on.

And I have done it ! We were out four hours.

I feel so wise.

DON SILVA.

Had you but seen the town,

You innocent naughtiness, not shown yourself, —

Shown yourself dancing, — you bewilder me ! —

Frustrate my judgment with strange negatives

That seem like poverty, and yet are wealth

In precious womanliness, beyond the dower

Of other women : wealth in virgin gold,

Outweighing all their petty currency.

You daring modesty ! You shrink no more

From gazing men than from the gazing flowers

That, dreaming sunshine, open as you pass.

FEDALMA.

No, I should like the world to look at me

With eyes of love that make a second day.

I think your eyes would keep the life in me

Though I had naught to feed on, else. Their blue

Is better than the heavens’, — hold more love

For me, Fedalma — is a little heaven

For this one little world that looks up now.

DON SILVA.

O precious little world ! you make the heaven

As the earth makes the sky. But, dear, all eyes,

Though looking even on you, have not a glance

That cherishes . . . .

FEDALMA.

Ah no, I meant to tell you, —

Tell how my dancing ended with a pang.

There came a man, one among many more,

But he came first, with iron on his limbs.

And when the bell tolled, and the people prayed,

And I stood pausing, — then he looked at me.

O Silva, such a man ! I thought he rose

From the dark place of long-imprisoned souls,

To say that Christ had never. come to them.

It was a look to shame a seraph’s joy

And make him sad in heaven. It found me there, —

Seemed to have travelled far to find me there

And grasp me, — claim this festal life of mine

As heritage of sorrow, chill my blood

With the cold iron of some unknown bonds.

The gladness hurrying full within my veins

Was sudden frozen, and I danced no more.

But seeing you let loose the stream of joy,

Mingling the present with the sweetest past.