Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (673 page)

You.

JUAN.

I never had the virtue to hide aught,

Save what a man is whipped for publishing.

I’m no more reticent than the voluble air, —

Dote on disclosure, — never could contain

The latter half of all my sentences,

But for the need to utter the beginning.

My lust to tell is so importunate

That it abridges every other vice,

And makes me temperate for want of time.

I dull sensation in the haste to say

‘T is this or that, and choke report with surmise.

Judge, then, dear lady, if I could be mute

When but a glance of yours had bid me speak.

FEDALMA.

Nay, sing such falsities ! — you mock me worse

By speech that gravely seems to ask belief.

You are but babbling in a part you play

To please my father. O, ‘t is well meant, say you, —

Pity for woman’s weakness. Take my thanks.

JUAN.

Thanks angrily bestowed are red-hot coin

Burning your servant’s palm.

FEDALMA.

Deny it not,

You know how many leagues this camp of ours

Lies from Bedmar, — what mountains lie between, —

Could tell me if you would about the Duke, —

That he is comforted, sees how he gains

Losing the Zincala, finds how slight

The thread Fedalma made in that rich web,

A Spanish noble’s life. No, that is false !

He never would think lightly of our love.

Some evil has befallen him, — he’s slain, —

Has sought for danger and has beckoned death

Because I made all life seem treachery.

Tell me the worst, — be merciful, — no worst,

Against the hideous painting of my fear,

Would not show like a better.

JUAN.

If I speak,

Will you believe your slave ? For truth is scant ;

And where the appetite is still to hear

And not believe, falsehood would stint it less.

How say you ? Does your hunger’s fancy choose

The meagre fact ?

FEDALMA {seating herself on the ground).

Yes, yes, the truth, dear Juan.

Sit now, and tell me all.

JUAN.

That all is naught.

I can unleash my fancy if you wish

And hunt for phantoms : shoot an airy guess

And bring down airy likelihood, — some lie

Masked cunningly to look like royal truth

And cheat the shooter, while King Fact goes free,

Or else some image of reality

That doubt will handle and reject as false.

As for conjecture, — I can thread the sky

Like any swallow, but, if you insist

On knowledge that would guide a pair of feet

Right to Bedmar, across the Moorish bounds,

A mule that dreams of stumbling over stones

Is better stored.

FEDALMA.

And you have gathered naught

About the border wars ? No news, no hint

Of any rumors that concern the Duke, —

Rumors kept from me by my father ?

JUAN.

None.

Your father trusts no secret to the echoes.

Of late his movements have been hid from all

Save those few hundred picked Zincali breasts

He carries with him. Think you he’s a man

To let his projects slip from out his belt,

Then whisper him who haps to find them strayed

To be so kind as keep his counsel well ?

Why, if he found me knowing aught too much,

He would straight gag or strangle me, and say,

“Poor hound ! it was a pity that his bark

Could chance to mar my plans : he loved my daughter, —

The idle hound had naught to do but love,

So followed to the battle and got crushed.”

FEDALMA (holding out her hand, which JUAN kisses).

Good Juan, I could have no nobler friend.

You’d ope your veins and let your life-blood out.

To save another’s pain, yet hide the deed

With jesting, — say, ‘t was merest accident,

A sportive scratch that went by chance too deep, —

And die content with men’s slight thoughts of you,

Finding your glory in another’s joy.

JUAN.

Enough, great Queen !

Dub not my likings virtues, lest they get

A drug-like taste, and breed a nausea.

Honey’s not sweet, commended as cathartic.

Such names are parchment labels upon gems

Hiding their colour. What is lovely seen

Priced in a tariff ? — lapis lazuli,

Such bulk, so many drachmas : amethysts

Quoted at so much ; sapphires higher still.

The stone like solid heaven in its blueness

Is what I care for, not its name or price.

So, if I live or die to serve my friend,

‘T is for my love, — ‘t is for my friend alone,

And not for any rate that friendship bears

In heaven or on earth. Nay, I romance, —

I talk of Roland and the ancient peers.

In me ‘t is hardly friendship, only lack

Of a substantial self that holds a weight ;

So I kiss larger things and roll with them.

FEDALMA.

Nay, you will never hide your soul from me ;

I’ve seen the jewels flash, and know ‘t is there,

Muffle it as you will. That foam-like talk

Will not wash out a fear which blots the good

Your presence brings me. Oft I’m pierced afresh

Through all the pressure of my selfish griefs

By thought of you. It was a rash resolve

Made you disclose yourself when you kept watch

About the terrace wall :- your pity leaped,

Seeing my ills alone and not your loss,

Self-doomed to exile. Juan, you must repent.

‘T is not in nature that resolve, which feeds

On strenuous actions, should not pine arid die

In these long days of empty listlessness.

JUAN.

Repent ? Not I. Repentance is the weight

Of indigested meals eat yesterday.

‘T is for large animals that gorge on prey,

Not for a honey-sipping butterfly.

I am a thing of rhythm and redondillas, —

The momentary rainbow on the spray

Made by the thundering torrent of men’s lives :

No matter whether I am here or there ;

I still catch sunbeams. And in Africa,

Where melons and all fruits, they say, grow large,

Fables are real, and the apes polite,

A poet, too, may prosper past belief :

I shall grow epic, like the Florentine,

And sing the founding of our infant state,

Sing the new Gypsy Carthage.

FEDALMA.

Africa !

Would we were there ! Under another heaven,

In lands where neither love nor memory

Can plant a selfish hope, — in lands so far

I should not seem to see the outstretched arms

That seek me, or to hear the voice that calls.

I should feel distance only and despair ;

So rest for ever from the thought of bliss,

And wear my weight of life’s great chain unstruggling.

Juan, if I could know he would forget, —

Nay, not forget, forgive me, — be content

That I forsook him for no joy, but sorrow ;

For sorrow chosen rather than a joy

That destiny made base ! Then he would taste

No bitterness in sweet, sad memory,

And I should live unblemished in his thought.

Hallowed like her who dies an unwed bride.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

Could mine but reach him, Juan !

JUAN.

Speak but the wish, —

My feet have wings, — I’ll be your Mercury.

I fear no shadowed perils by the way.

No man will wear the sharpness of his sword

On me. Nay, I’m a herald of the Muse,

Sacred for Moors and Spaniards. I will go, —