Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (667 page)

Pressing a bruise. I loved her well, my lord :

A woman mixed of such fine elements

That were all virtue and religion dead

She’d make them newly, being what she was.

Don Silva.

Was ? say not was, Sephardo ! She still lives, —

Is, and is mine ; and I will not renounce

What heaven, nay, what she gave me. I will sin,

If sin I must, to win my life again.

The fault lie with those powers who have embroiled

The world in hopeless conflict, where all truth

Fights manacled with falsehood, and all good

Makes but one palpitating life with evil.

(DON SILVA pauses, SEPHARDO is silent.)

Sephardo, speak ! am I not justified ?

You taught my mind to use the wing that soars

Above the petty fences of the herd :

Now, when I need your doctrine, you are dumb.

SEPHARDO.

Patience ! Hidalgos want interpreters

Of untold dreams and riddles ; they insist

On horoscopes without a date, on formulas

To raise a possible spirit, nowhere named.

Science must be their wishing-cap, and all the stars

Speak plainer for high largesse. No, my lord !

I cannot counsel you to unknown deeds.

This much I can divine : you wish to find

Her whom you love, — to make a secret search.

DON SILVA.

That is begun already : a messenger

Unknown to all has been despatched this night.

But forecast must be used, a plan devised,

Ready for service when my scout returns,

Bringing the invisible thread to guide my steps

Toward that lost self my life is aching with.

Sephardo, I will go : and I must go

Unseen by all save you ; though, at our need,

We may trust Alvar.

SEPHARDO.

A grave task, my lord.

Have you a shapen purpose, or mere will

That sees the end alone and not the means ?

Resolve will melt no rocks.

DON SILVA.

But it can scale them.

This fortress has two private issues : one,

Which served the Gypsies’ flight, to me is closed :

Our bands must watch the outlet, now betrayed

To cunning enemies. Remains one other.

Known to no man save me : a secret left

As heirloom in our house : a secret safe

Even from him, — from Father Isidor.

‘T is he who forces me to use it, — he :

All’s virtue that cheats bloodhounds. Hear, Sephardo.

Given, my scout returns and brings me news

I can straight act on, I shall want your aid.

The issue lies below this tower, your fastness,

Where, by my charter, you. rule absolute.

I shall feign illness ; you with mystic air

Must speak of treatment asking vigilance

(Nay I am ill, — my life has half ebbed out).

I shall be whimsical, devolve command

On Don Diego, speak of poisoning,

Insist on being lodged within this tower,

And rid myself of tendance save from you

And perhaps from Alvar. So I shall escape

Unseen by spies, shall win the days I need

To ransom her and have her safe enshrined.

No matter, were my flight disclosed at last :

I shall come back as from a duel fought

Which no man can undo. Now you know all.

Say, can I count on you, Sephardo ?

SEPHARDO.

For faithfulness

In aught that I may promise, yes, my lord.

But, — for a pledge of faithfulness, — this warning.

I will betray naught for your personal harm :

I love you. But note this, — I am a Jew ;

And while the Christian persecutes my race,

I’ll turn at need even the Christian’s trust

Into a weapon and a shield for Jews.

Shall Cruelty crowned — wielding the savage force

Of multitudes, and calling savageness God

Who gives it victory — upbraid deceit

And ask for faithfulness? I love you well.

You are my friend. But yet you are a Christian,

Whose birth has bound you to the Catholic kings.

There may come moments when to share my joy

Would make you traitor, when to share your grief

Would make me other than a Jew....

DON SILVA.

What need

To urge that now, Sephardo ? I am one

Of many Spanish nobles who detest

The roaring bigotry of the herd, would fain

Dash from the lips of king and queen the cup

Filled with besotting venom, half infused

By avarice and half by priests. And now, —

Now when the cruelty you flout me with

Pierces me too in the apple of my eye,

Now when my kinship scorches me like hate

Flashed from a mother’s eye, you choose this time

To talk of birth as of inherited rage

Deep-down, volcanic, fatal, bursting forth

From under hard-taught reason ? Wondrous friendship !

My uncle Isidor’s echo, mocking me,

From the opposing quarter of the heavens,

With iteration of the thing I know,

That I’m a Christian knight and Spanish noble !

The consequence ? Why, that I know. It lies

In my own hands and not on raven tongues.

The knight and noble shall not wear the chain

Of false-linked thoughts in brains of other men.

What question was there ‘twixt us two, of aught

That makes division ? When I come to you

I come for other doctrine than the Prior’s.

SEPHARDO.

My lord, you are o’erwrought by pain. My words,

That carried innocent meaning, do but float

Like little emptied cups upon the flood

Your mind brings with it. I but answered you

With regular proviso, such as stands

In testaments and charters, to forefend

A possible case which none deem likelihood ;

Just turned my sleeve, and pointed to the brand

Of brotherhood that limits every pledge.

Superfluous nicety, — the student’s trick,

Who will not drink until he can define

What water is and is not. But enough.

My will to serve you now knows no division

Save the alternate beat of love and fear.

There’s danger in this quest, — name, honour, life, —

My lord, the stake is great and are you sure....

DON SILVA.

No, I am sure of naught but this, Sephardo,

That I will go. Prudence is but conceit

Hoodwinked by ignorance. There’s naught exists

That is not dangerous and holds not death

For souls or bodies. Prudence turns its helm

To flee the storm and lands ‘mid pestilence.

Wisdom must end by throwing dice with folly

But for dire passion which alone makes choice.

And I have chosen as the lion robbed

Chooses to turn upon the ravisher.

If love were slack, the Prior’s imperious will

Would move it to outmatch him. But, Sephardo,

Were all else mute, all passive as sea-calms,

My soul is one great hunger, — I must see her.

Now you are smiling. O, you merciful men

Pick up coarse griefs and fling them in the face

Of us whom life with long descent has trained

To subtler pains, mocking your ready balms.

You smile at my soul’s hunger.

SEPHARDO.

Science smiles

And sways our lips in spite of us, my lord,

When. thought weds fact, — when maiden prophecy

Waiting, believing, sees the bridal torch.

I use not vulgar measures for your grief,

My pity keeps no cruel feasts ; but thought

Has joys apart, even in blackest woe,

And seizing some fine thread of verity

Knows momentary godhead.

DON SILVA.

And your thought?

SEPHARDO.

Seized on the close agreement of your words

With what is written in your horoscope.