Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (678 page)

Of fatherhood, — will offer up her youth

To mere grim idols of your fantasy !

Worse than all Pagans, with no oracle

To bid you, no sure good to win,

Will sacrifice your daughter, — to no god,

But to a hungry fire within your soul,

Mad hopes, blind hate, that like possessing fiends

Shriek at a name ! This sweetest virgin, reared

As garden flowers, to give the sordid world

Glimpses of perfectness, you snatch and thrust

On dreary wilds ; in visions mad, proclaim

Semiramis of Gypsy wanderers ;

Doom, with a broken arrow in her heart,

To wait for death ‘mid squalid savages :

For what ? You would be savior of your tribe ;

So said Fedalma’s letter ; rather say,

You have the will to save by ruling men.

But first to rule ; and with that flinty will

You cut your way, though the first cut you give

Gash your child’s bosom.

(While SILVA has been speaking, with growing passion, FEDALMA has

placed herself between him and her father.)

ZARCA (with calm irony).

You are loud, my lord !

You only are the reasonable man ;

You have a heart, I none. Fedalma’s’ good

Is what you see, you care for; while I seek

No good, not even my own, urged on by naught

But hellish hunger, which must still be fed

Though in the feeding it I suffer throes.

Fume at your own opinion, as you will :

I speak not now to you, but to my daughter.

If she still calls it good to mate with you,

To be a Spanish duchess, kneel at court,

And hope her beauty is excuse to men

When women whisper, “ She was a Zincala “ ;

If she still calls it good to take a lot

That measures joy for her as she forgets

Her kindred and her kindred’s misery,

Nor feel the softness of her downy couch

Marred by remembrance that she once forsook

The place that she was born to, — let her go !

If life for her still lies in alien love,

That forces her to shut her soul from truth

As men in shameful pleasures shut out day ;

And death, for her, is to do rarest deeds,

Which, even failing, leave new faith to men,

The faith in human hearts, — then, let her go !

She is my only offspring ; in her veins

She bears the blood her tribe has trusted in ;

Her heritage is their obedience,

And if I died, she might still lead them forth

To plant the race her lover now reviles

Where they may make a nation, and may rise

To grander manhood than his race can show ;

Then live a goddess, sanctifying oaths,

Enforcing right, and ruling consciences,

By law deep-graven in exalting deeds,

Through the long ages of her people’s life.

If she can leave that lot for silken shame,

For kisses honeyed by oblivion, —

The bliss of drunkards or the blank of fools, —

Then let her go ! You Spanish Catholics,

When you are cruel, base, and treacherous,

For ends not pious, tender gifts to God,

And for men’s wounds offer much oil to churches :

We have no altars for such healing gifts

As soothe the heavens for outrage done on earth.

We have no priesthood and no creed to teach

That the Zincala who might save her race

And yet abandons it, may cleanse that blot,

And mend the curse her life has been to men,

By saving her own soul. Her one base choice

Is wrong unchangeable, is poison shed

Where men must drink, shed by her poisoning will.

Now choose, Fedalma !

[But her choice was made.

Slowly, while yet her father spoke, she moved

From where oblique with deprecating arms

She stood between the two who swayed her heart :

Slowly she moved to choose sublimer pain ;

Yearning, yet shrinking ; wrought upon by awe,

Her own brief life seeming a little isle

Remote through visions of a wider world

With fates close-crowded ; firm to slay her joy

That cut her heart with smiles beneath the knife,

Like a sweet babe foredoomed by prophecy.

She stood apart, yet near her father : stood

Hand clutching hand, her limbs all tense with will

That strove against her anguish, eyes that seemed a soul

Yearning in death towards him she loved and left.

He faced her, pale with passion and a will

Fierce to resist whatever might seem strong

And ask him to submit : he saw one end, —

He must be conqueror ; monarch of his lot

And not its tributary. But she spoke

Tenderly, pleadingly.]

FEDALMA.

My lord, farewell !

‘T was well we met once more ; now we must part.

I think we had the chief of all love’s joys

Only in knowing that we loved each other.

SILVA.

I thought we loved with love that clings till death,

Clings as brute mothers bleeding to their young,

Still sheltering, clutching it, though it were dead;

Taking the death-wound sooner than divide.

I thought we loved so.

FEDALMA.

Silva, it is fate.

Great Fate has made me heiress of this woe.

You must forgive Fedalma all her debt :

She is quite beggared : if she gave herself,

‘T would be a self corrupt with stifled thoughts

Of a forsaken better. It is truth

My father speaks : the Spanish noble’s wife

Would be false Zincala. I will bear

The heavy trust of my inheritance.

See, ‘t was my people’s life that throbbed in me ;

An unknown need stirred darkly in my soul,

And made me restless even in my bliss.

O, all my bliss was in our love ; but now

I may not taste it : some deep energy

Compels me to choose hunger. Dear, farewell !

I must go with my people.

[She stretched forth

Her tender hands, that oft had lain in his,

The hands he knew so well, that sight of them

Seemed like their touch. But he stood still as death ;

Locked motionless by forces opposite :

His frustrate hopes still battled with despair ;

His will was prisoner to the double grasp

Of rage and hesitancy. All the travelled way

Behind him, he had trodden confident,

Ruling munificently in his thought

This Gypsy father. Now the father stood

Present and silent and unchangeable

As a celestial portent. Backward lay

The traversed road, the town’s forsaken wall,

The risk, the daring ; all around him now

Was obstacle, save where the rising flood

Of love close pressed by anguish of denial

Was sweeping him resistless ; save where she

Gazing stretched forth her tender hands, that hurt

Like parting kisses. Then at last he spoke.]

DON SILVA.

No, I can never take those hands in mine,

Then let them go for ever !

FEDALMA.

It must be.

We may not make this world a paradise

By walking it together hand in hand,

With eyes that meeting feed a double strength.

We must be only joined by pains divine

Of spirits blent in mutual memories.

Silva, our joy is dead.

DON SILVA.

But love still lives,

And has a safer guard in wretchedness.

Fedalma, women know no perfect love :

Loving the strong, they can forsake the strong ;

Man clings because the being whom he loves

Is weak and needs him. I can never turn

And leave you to your difficult wandering ;

Know that you tread the desert, bear the storm,

Shed tears, see terrors, faint with weariness,

Yet live away from you, I should feel naught