Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (663 page)

It is a part of me, — a wakened thought

That, rising like a giant, masters me,

And grows into a doom. O mother life,

That seemed to nourish me so tenderly,

Even in the womb you vowed me to the fire,

Hung on my soul the burden of men’s hopes,

And pledged me to redeem ! — I’ll pay the debt.

You gave me strength that I should pour it all

Into this anguish. I can never shrink

Back into bliss, — my heart has grown too big

With things that might be. Father, I will go.

I will strip off these gems. Some happier bride

Shall wear them, since I should be dowered

With naught but curses, dowered with misery

Of men, — of women, who have hearts to bleed

As mine is bleeding.

(She sinks on a seat, and begins to take off her jewels.)

Now, good gems, we part.

Speak of me always tenderly to Silva.

(She pauses, turning to ZARCA.)

O father, will the women of our tribe

Suffer as I do, in the years to come

When you have made them great in Africa ?

Redeemed from ignorant ills only to feel

A conscious woe ? Then, — is it worth the pains ?

Were it not better when we reach that shore

To raise a funeral-pile and perish all ?

So closing up a myriad avenues

To misery yet unwrought ? My soul is faint, —

Will these sharp pangs buy any certain good?

ZARCA.

Nay, never falter : no great deed is done

By falterers who ask for certainty.

No good is certain, but the steadfast mind,

The undivided will to seek the good :

‘T is that compels the elements, and wrings

A human music from the indifferent air.

The greatest gift the hero leaves his race

Is to have been a hero. Say we fail ! —

We feed the high tradition of the world,

And leave our spirit in Zincalo breasts.

FEDALMA (unclasping her jewelled belt, and throwing it down).

Yes, I will say that we shall fail ! I will not count

On aught but being faithful. I will take

This yearning self of mine and strangle it.

I will not be half-hearted : never yet

Fedalma did aught with a wavering soul.

Die, my young joy, — die, all my hungry hopes, —

The milk you cry for from the breast of life

Is thick with curses. O, all fatness here

Snatches its meat from leanness, — feeds on graves.

I will seek nothing but to shun what’s base.

The saints were cowards who stood by to see

Christ crucified: they should have flung themselves

Upon the Roman spears, and died in vain, —

The grandest death, to die in vain, — for love

Greater than sways the forces of the world.

That death shall be my bridegroom. I will wed

The curse of the Zincali. Father, come !

ZARCA.

No curse has fallen on us till we cease

To help each other. You, if you are false

To that first fellowship, lay on the curse.

But write now to the Spaniard : briefly say

That I, your father, came ; that you obeyed

The fate which made you a Zincala, as his fate

Made him a Spanish duke and Christian knight.

He must not think....

FEDALMA.

Yes, I will write, but he, —

O, he would know it, — he would never think

The chain that dragged me from him could be aught

But scorching iron entering in my soul.

(She writes.)

Silva, sole love, — he came, — my father came.

I am the daughter of the Gypsy chief

Who means to be the Savior of our tribe.

He calls on me to live for his great end.

To live ? Nay, die for it. Fedalma dies

In leaving Silva : all that lives henceforth

Is the Zincala.

(She rises.)

Father, now I go

To wed my people’s lot.

ZARCA.

To wed a crown.

We will make royal the Zincali’s lot, —

Give it a country, homes, and monuments

Held sacred through the lofty memories

That we shall leave behind us. Come, my Queen !

FEDALMA.

Stay, my betrothal ring ! — one kiss, — farewell !

O love, you were my crown. No other crown

Is aught but thorns on my poor woman’s brow.

(Exeunt.)

BOOK II

SILVA was marching homeward while the moon

Still shed mild brightness like the far-off hope

Of those pale virgin lives that wait and pray.

The stars thin-scattered made the heavens large,

Bending in slow procession ; in the east

Emergent from the dark waves of the hills,

Seeming a little sister of the moon,

Glowed Venus all unquenched. Silva, in haste,

Exultant and yet anxious, urged his troop

To quick and quicker march : he had delight

In forward stretching shadows, in the gleams

That travelled on the armor of the van,

And in the many-hoofed sound : in all that told

Of hurrying movement to o’ertake his thought

Already in Bedmar, dose to Fedalma,

Leading her forth a wedded bride, fast vowed,

Defying Father Isidor. His glance

Took in with much content the priest who rode

Firm in his saddle, stalwart and broad-backed,

Crisp-curled, and comfortably secular,

Right in the front of him. But by degrees

Stealthily faint, disturbing with slow loss

That showed not yet full promise of a gain,

The light was changing, and the watch intense

Of moon and stars seemed weary, shivering :

The sharp white brightness passed from off the rocks

Carrying the shadows : beauteous Night lay dead

Under the pall of twilight, and the love-star

Sickened and shrank. The troop was winding now

Upward to where a pass between the peaks

Seemed like an opened gate, — to Silva seemed

An outer-gate of heaven, for through that pass

They entered his own valley, near Bedmar.

Sudden within the pass a horseman rose

One instant dark upon the banner pale

Of rock-cut sky, the next in motion swift

With hat and plume high shaken, — ominous.

Silva had dreamed his future, and the dream

Held not this messenger. A minute more, —

It was his friend Don Alvar whom he saw

Reining his horse up, face to face with him,

Sad as the twilight, all his clothes ill-girt, —

As if he had been roused to see one die,

And brought the news to him whom death had robbed.

Silva believed he saw the worst, — the town

Stormed by the infidel — or, could it be

Fedalma dragged ? — no, there was not yet time.

But with a marble face, he only said,

“ What evil, Alvar ? “

“What this paper speaks.”

It was Fedalma’s letter folded close

And mute as yet for Silva. But his friend

Keeping it still sharp-pinched against his breast,

“ It will smite hard, my lord : a private grief.

I would not have you pause to read it here.

Let us ride on, — we use the moments best,

Reaching the town with speed. The smaller ill

Is that our Gypsy prisoners have escaped.”

“ No more. Give me the paper, — nay, I know, — .

‘T will make no difference. Bid them march on faster.”

Silva pushed forward, — held the paper crushed

Close in his right. “ They have imprisoned her,”

He said to Alvar in low, hard-cut tones,

Like a dream-speech of slumbering revenge.

“ No, — when they came to fetch her she was gone.”

Swift as the right touch on a spring, that word .

Made Silva read the letter. She was gone !

But not into locked darkness, — only gone

Into free air, — where he might find her yet.

The bitter loss had triumph in it, — what !

They would have seized her with their holy claws ?

The Prior’s sweet morsel of despotic hate

Was snatched from off his lips. This misery

Had yet a taste of joy.

But she was gone !

The sun had risen, and in the castle walls

The light grew strong and stronger. Silva walked.

Through the long corridor where dimness yet

Cherished a lingering, flickering, dying hope :

Fedalma still was there, — he could not see

The vacant place that once her presence filled.

Can we believe that the dear dead are gone ?

Love in sad weeds forgets the funeral day,

Opens the chamber door and almost smiles, —

Then sees the sunbeams pierce athwart the bed

Where the pale face is not. So Silva’s joy,

Like the sweet habit of caressing hands

That seek the memory of another hand,

Still lived on fitfully in spite of words,

And, numbing thought with vague illusion, dulled

The slow and steadfast beat of certainty.

But in the rooms inexorable light

Streamed through the open window where she fled,

Streamed on the belt and coronet thrown down, —

Mute witnesses, — sought out the ring

That sparkled on the crimson, solitary,

Wounding him like a word. O hateful light !

It filled the chambers with her absence, glared

On all the motionless things her hand had touched,

Motionless all, — save where old Inez lay

Sunk on the floor holding her rosary,

Making its shadow tremble with her fear.

And Silva passed her by because she grieved :

It was the lute, the gems, the pictured heads,

He longed to crush, because they made no sign

But of insistance that she was not there,

She who had filled his sight and hidden them.

He went forth on the terrace tow’rd the stairs,

Saw the rained petals of the cistus flowers

Crushed by large feet ; but on one shady spot

Far down the steps, where dampness made a home,

He saw a footprint delicate-slippered, small,

So dear to him, he searched for sister-prints,

Searched in the rock-hewn passage with a Iamp

For other trace of her, and found a glove ;

But not Fedalma’s. It was Juan’s glove,

Tasselled, perfumed, embroidered with his name,

A gift of dames. Then Juan, too, was gone?

Full-mouthed conjecture, hurrying through the town,

Had spread the tale already, — it was he

That helped the Gypsies’ flight. He talked and sang

Of nothing but the Gypsies and Fedalma.

He drew the threads together, wove the plan.

Had lingered out by moonlight, had been seen

Strolling, as was his wont, within the walls,

Humming his ditties. So Don Alvar told,

Conveying outside rumour. But the Duke

Keeping his haughtiness as a visor closed

Would show no agitated front in busy quest

For small disclosures. What her writing bore

Had been enough. He knew that she was gone,

Knew why.

“ The Duke,” some said, “will send a force,

Retake the prisoners, and bring back his bride.”

But others, winking, “Nay, her wedding dress

Would be the san-benito, ‘T is a fight

Between the Duke and Prior. Wise bets will choose

The churchman : he’s the iron, and the Duke”

“Is a fine piece of pottery,” said mine host

Softening the epigram with a bland regret.

There was the thread that in the new-made knot

Of obstinate circumstance seemed hardest drawn,

Vexed most the sense of Silva, in these hours

Of fresh and angry pain, — there, in that fight

Against a foe whose sword was magical,

His shield invisible terrors, — against a foe

Who stood as if upon the smoking mount

Ordaining plagues. All else, Fedalma’s flight,

The father’s claim, her Gypsy birth disclosed,

Were momentary crosses, hindrances

A Spanish noble might despise. This Gypsy Chief

Might still be treated with, would not refuse

A proffered ransom, which would better serve

Gypsy prosperity, give him more power

Over his tribe, than any fatherhood :

Nay, all the father in him must plead loud

For marriage of his daughter where she loved, —

Her love being placed so high and lustrously.

The keen Zinlaco had foreseen a price