Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (662 page)

Life that will bleed to death if it be severed.

Have pity, father ! Wait the morning ; say

You will wait the morning. I will win

Your freedom openly : you shall go forth

With aid and honors. Silva will deny

Naught to my asking....

ZARCA (with contemptuous decision).

Till you ask him aught

Wherein he is powerless. Soldiers even now

Murmur against him that he risks the town,

And forfeits all the prizes of a foray

To get his bridal pleasure with a bride

Too low for him. They’ll murmur more and louder

If captives of our pith and sinew, fit

For all the work the Spaniard hates, are freed, —

Now, too, when Spanish hands are scanty. What,

Turn Gypsies loose instead of hanging them !

‘T is flat against the edict. Nay, perchance

Murmurs aloud may turn to silent threats

Of some well-sharpened dagger ; for your Duke

Has to his heir a pious cousin, who deems

The Cross were better served if he were Duke.

Such good you’ll work your lover by your prayers.

FEDALMA.

Then, I will free you now ! You shall be safe,

Nor he be blamed, save for his love to me.

I will declare what I have done : the deed

May put our marriage off....

ZARCA.

Ay, till the time

When you shall be a queen in Africa,

And he be prince enough to sue for you.

You cannot free us and come back to him.

FEDALMA.

And why ?

ZARCA.

I would compel you to go forth.

FEDALMA.

You tell me that ?

ZARCA.

Yes, for I’d have you choose ;

Though, being of the blood you are, — my blood, —

You have no right to choose.

FEDALMA.

I only owe

A daughter’s debt ; I was not born a slave.

ZARCA.

No, not a slave ; but you were born to reign.

‘T is a compulsion of a higher sort,

Whose fetters are the net invisible

That hold all life together. Royal deeds

May make long destinies for multitudes,

And you are called to do them. You belong

Not to the petty round of circumstance

That makes a woman’s lot, but to your tribe,

Who trust in me and in my blood with trust

That men call blind ; but it is blind

Only as unyeaned reason is, that stirs

Within the womb of superstition.

FEDALMA.

No!

I belong to him who loves me — whom I love —

Who chose me — whom I chose — to whom I pledged

As woman’s truth. And that is nature too,

Issuing a fresher law than laws of birth.

ZARCA.

Well, then, unmake yourself from a Zincala, —

Unmake yourself from being child of mine !

Take holy water, cross your dark skin white ;

Round your proud eyes to foolish kitten looks ;

Walk mincingly, and smirk, and twitch your robe :

Unmake yourself, — doff all the eagle plumes

And be a parrot, chained to a ring that slips

Upon a Spaniard’s thumb, at will of his

That you should prattle o’er his words again !

Get a small heart that flutters at the smiles

Of that plump penitent and greedy saint

Who breaks all treaties in the name of God,

Saves souls by confiscation, sends to heaven

The altar-fumes of burning heretics,

And chaffers with the Levite for the gold ;

Holds Gypsies beasts unfit for sacrifice,

So sweeps them out like worms alive or dead.

Go, trail your gold and velvet in her presence ! —

Conscious Zincala, smile at your rare luck,

While half your brethren....

FEDALMA.

I am not so vile !

It is not to such mockeries that I cling,

Not to the flaring tow of gala-lights :

It is to him — my love — the face of day.

ZARCA.

What, will you part him from the air he breathes,

Never inhale with him although you kiss him ?

Will you adopt a soul without its thoughts,

Or grasp a life apart from flesh and blood ?

Till then you cannot wed a Spanish Duke

And not wed shame at mention of your race,

And not wed hardness to their miseries, —

Nay, not wed murder. Would you save my life

Yet stab my purpose ? maim my every limb,

Put out my eyes, and turn me loose to feed ?

Is that salvation ? rather drink my blood.

That child of mine who weds my enemy, —

Adores a God who took no heed of Gypsies, —

Forsakes her people, leaves their poverty

To join the luckier crowd that mocks their woes, —

That child of mine is doubly murderess,

Murdering her father’s hope, her people’s trust.

Such draughts are mingled in your cup of love.

And when you have become a thing so poor,

Your life is all a fashion without law

Save frail conjecture of a changing wish,

Your worshipped sun, your smiling face of day,

Will turn to cloudiness, and you will shiver

In your thin finery of vain desire.

Men call his passion madness ; and he, too,

May learn to think it madness : ‘t is a thought

Of ducal sanity.

FEDALMA.

No, he is true !

And if I part from him I part from joy.

O, it was morning with us, — I seemed young.

But now I know I am an aged sorrow, —

My people’s sorrow. Father, since I am yours, —

Since I must walk an unslain sacrifice,

Carrying the knife within me, quivering, —

Put cords upon me, drag me to the doom

My birth has laid upon me. See, I kneel :

I cannot will to go.

ZARCA.

Will then to stay !

Say you will take your better, painted such

By blind desire, and choose the hideous worse

For thousands who were happier but for you.

My thirty followers are assembled now

Without this terrace : I your father wait

That you may lead us forth to liberty, —

Restore me to my tribe, — five hundred men

Whom I alone can save, alone can rule,

And plant them as a mighty nation’s seed.

Why, vagabonds who clustered round one man,

Their voice of God, their prophet, and their king,

Twice grew to empire on the teeming shores

Of Africa, and sent new royalties

To feed afresh the Arab sway in Spain.

My vagabonds are a seed more generous,

Quick as the serpent, loving as the hound,

And beautiful as disinherited gods.

They have a promised land beyond the sea :

There I may lead them, raise my standard, call

The wandering Zincali to that home,

And make a nation, — bring light, order, law,

Instead of chaos. You, my only heir,

Are called to reign for me when I am gone.

Now choose your deed : to save or to destroy.

You, woman and Zincala, fortunate

Above your fellows, — you who hold a curse

Or blessing in the hollow of your hand, —

Say you will loose that band from fellowship,

Let go the rescuing rope, hurl all the tribes,

Children and countless beings yet to come,

Down from the upward path of light and joy,

Back to the dark and marshy wilderness

Where life is naught but blind tenacity

Of that which is. Say you will curse your race !

FEDALMA (rising and stretching out her arms in deprecation).

No, no, — I will not say it, — I will go !

Father, I choose ! I will not take a heaven

Haunted by shrieks of far-off misery.

This deed and I have ripened with the hours: