Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (679 page)

But your imagined pains : in my own steps

See your feet bleeding, taste your silent tears,

And feel no presence but your loneliness.

No, I will never leave you !

ZARCA.

My lord Duke,

I have been patient, given room for speech,

Bent not to move my daughter by command,

Save that of her own faithfulness. But now,

All further words are idle elegies

Unfitting times of action. You are here

With the safe-conduct of that trust you showed

Coming alone to the Zincolo camp.

I would fain meet all trust with courtesy

As well as honor ; but my utmost power

Is to afford you Gypsy guard to-night

Within the tents that keep the northward lines,

And for the morrow, escort on your way

Back to the Moorish bounds.

DON SILVA.

What if my words

Were meant for deeds, decisive as a leap

Into the current ? It is not my wont

To utter hollow words, and speak resolves

Like verses bandied in a madrigal.

I spoke in action first : I faced all risks

To find Fedalma. Action speaks again

When I, a Spanish noble, here declare

That I abide with her, adopt her lot,

Claiming alone fulfilment of her vows

As my betrothed wife.

FEDALMA (wresting herself from him and standing opposite with a look of

terror).

Nay, Silva, nay !

You could not live so ; spring from your high place....

DON SILVA.

Yes, I have said it. And you, chief, are bound

By her strict vows, no stronger fealty

Being left to cancel them.

ZARCA.

Strong words, my lord !

Sounds fatal as the hammer-strokes that shape

The glowing metal : they must shape your life.

That you will claim my daughter is to say

That you will leave your Spanish dignities,

Your home, your wealth, your people, to become

A true Zincalo : share your wanderings,

And be a match meet for my daughter’s dower

By living for her tribe ; take the deep oath

That binds you to us ; rest within our camp,

Show yourself no more in the Spanish ranks,

And keep my orders. See, my lord, you lock

A chain of many links, — a heavy chain.

DON SILVA.

I have but one resolve : let the rest follow.

What is my rank ? To-morrow it will be filled

By one who eyes it like a carrion bird,

Waiting for death. I shall be no more missed

Than waves are missed that leaping on the rock

Find there a bed and rest? Life’s a vast sea

That does its mighty errand without fail,

Panting in unchanged strength though waves are changing.

And I have said it. She shall be my people,

And where she gives her life I will give mine.

She shall not live alone, nor die alone.

I will elect my deeds, and be the liege,

Not of my birth, but of that good alone

I have discerned and chosen.

ZARCA.

Our poor faith

Allows not rightful choice, save of the right

Our birth has made for us. And you, my lord,

Can still defer your choice, for some day’s space.

I march perforce to-night ; you, if you will,

Under Zincalo guard, can keep the heights

With silent Time that slowly opes the scroll

Of change inevitable ; can reserve your oath

Till my accomplished task leave me at large

To see you keep your purpose or renounce it.

DON SILVA.

Chief, do I hear amiss, or does your speech

Ring with a doubleness which I had held

Most alien to you ? You would put me off,

And cloak evasion with allowance ? No !

We will complete our pledges. I will take

That oath which binds not me alone, but you,

To join my life for ever with Fedalma’s.

ZARCA.

Enough. I wrangle not, — time presses. But the oath

Will leave you that same post upon the heights ;

Pledged to remain there while my absence lasts.

You are agreed, my lord ?

DON SILVA.

Agreed to all.

ZARCA.

Then I will give the summons to our camp.

We will adopt you as a brother now,

In the Zincalo’s fashion.

[Exit Zarca.

(SILVA takes FEDALMA’S hands.)

FEDALMA.

0
            
my lord !

1
            
think the earth is trembling : naught is firm.

Some terror chills me with a shadowy grasp.

Am I about to wake, or do you breathe

Here in this valley ? Did the outer air

Vibrate to fatal words, or did they shake

Only my dreaming soul ? You a Zincalo ?

DON SILVA.

Is then your love too faint to raise belief

Up to that height?

FEDALMA.

Silva, had you but said

That you would die, — that were an easy task

For you who oft have fronted death in war.

But so to live for me, — you, used to rule, —

You could not breathe the air my father breathes :

His presence is subjection. Go, my lord !

Fly, while there yet is time. Wait not to speak.

I will declare that I refused your love, —

Would keep no vows to you

DON SILVA

It is too late.

You shall not thrust me back to seek a good

Apart from you. And what good ? Why, to face

Your absence, — all the want that drove me forth

To work the will of a more tyrannous friend

Than any uncowled father. Life at least

Gives choice of ills ; forces me to defy,

But shall not force me to a weak defiance.

The power that threatened you, to master me,

That scorches like a cave-hid dragon’s breath,

Sure of its victory in spite of hate,

Is what I last will bend to, — most defy.

Your father has a chieftain’s ends, befitting

A soldier’s eye and arm : were he as strong

As the Moors’ prophet, yet the prophet too

Had younger captains of illustrious fame

Among the infidels. Let him command,

For when your father speaks, I shall hear you.

Life were no gain if you were lost to me :

I would straight go and seek the Moorish walls,

Challenge their bravest, and embrace swift death.

The Glorious Mother and her pitying Son

Are not Inquisitors, else their heaven were hell.

Perhaps they hate their cruel worshippers,

And let them feed on lies. I’ll rather trust

They love you and have sent me to defend you.

FEDALMA.

I made my creed so, just to suit my mood

And smooth all hardship, till my father came

And taught my soul by ruling it. Since then

I cannot weave a dreaming happy creed

Where our love’s happiness is not accursed.

My father shook my soul awake. And you, —

What the Zincala may not quit for you,

I cannot joy that you should quit for her.

DON SILVA.

O, Spanish men are not a petty band

Where one deserter makes a fatal breach.

Men, even nobles, are more plenteous

Than steeds and armor ; and my weapons left

Will find new hands to wield them. Arrogance

Makes itself champion of mankind, and holds

God’s purpose maimed for one hidalgo lost.

See where your father comes and brings a crowd

Of witnesses to hear my oath of love ;

The low red sun glows on them like a fire ;

This seems a valley in some strange new world,

Where we have found each other, my Fedalma.

BOOK IV

Now twice the day bad sunk from off the hills

While Silva kept his watch there, with the band

Of strong Zincali. When the sun was high

He slept, then, waking, strained impatient eyes

To catch the promise of some moving form

That might be Juan, — Juan who went and came

To soothe two hearts, and claimed naught for his own :

Friend more divine than all divinities,

Quenching his human thirst in others’ joy.

All through the lingering nights and pale chill dawns

Juan had hovered near ; with delicate sense,

As of some breath from every changing mood,

Had spoken or kept silence ; touched his lute

To hint of melody, or poured brief strains

That seemed to make all sorrows natural,

Hardly worth weeping for, since life was short,

And shared by loving souls. Such pity welled

Within the minstrels heart of light-tongued Juan

For this doomed man, who with dream-shrouded eyes

Had stepped into a torrent as a brook,

Thinking to ford it and return at will,

And now waked helpless in the eddying flood,

Hemmed by its raging hurry. Once that thought,

How easy wandering is, how hard and strict

The homeward way, had slipped from revery

Into low-murmured song ; — (brief Spanish song

‘Scaped him as sighs escape from other men.)

Push off the boat,

Quit, quit the shore,

The- stars will guide us back : —

O gathering cloud,

O wide, wide sea,

O waves that keep no track !

On through the pines !

The pillared woods,

Where silence breathes sweet breath : —

O labyrinth,

0
            
sunless gloom,

The other side of death !

Such plaintive song had seemed to please the Duke, —

Had seemed to melt all voices of reproach

To sympathetic sadness ; but his moods

Had grown more fitful with the growing hours,

And this soft murmur. had the iterant voice

Of heartless Echo, whom no pain can move

To say aught else than we have said to her.

He spoke, impatient : “ Juan, cease th song.

Our whimpering poesy and small-paced tunes

Have no more utterance than the cricket’s chirp

For souls that carry heaven and hell within. “

Then Juan, lightly : “ True, my lord, I chirp

For lack of soul ; some hungry poets chirp

For lack of bread, ‘T were wiser to sit down

And count the star-seed, till I fell asleep

With the cheap wine of pure stupidity. “

And Silva, checked by courtesy : “ Nay, Juan,

Were speech once good, thy song were best of speech.

1
            
meant, all life is but poor mockery :

Action, place, power, the visible wide world

Are tattered masquerading of this self,

This pulse of conscious mystery : all change,

Whether to high or low, is change of rags.

But for her love, I would not take a good

Save to burn out in battle, in a flame

Of madness that would feel no mangled limbs,

And die not knowing death, but passing straight

Well, well, to other flames — in purgatory. “

Keen Juan’s ear caught the self-discontent

That vibrated beneath the changing tones

Of life-contemning scorn. Gently he said :

“ But with her love, my lord, the world deserves

A higher rate ; were it but masquerade,

The rags were surely worth the wearing ? “ “Yes.

No misery shall force me to repent

That I have loved her.”

So with wilful talk,

Fencing the wounded soul from beating winds

Of truth that came unasked, companionship

Made the hours lighter. And the Gypsy guard,

Trusting familiar Juan, were content,

At friendly hint from him, to still their songs

And busy jargon round the nightly fires.

Such sounds, the quick-conceiving poet knew

Would strike on Silva’s agitated soul

Like mocking repetition of the oath

That bound him in strange clanship with the tribe

Of human panthers, flame-eyed, lithe-limbed, fierce,

Unrecking of time-woven subtleties

And high tribunals of a phantom-world.

But the third day, though Silva southward gazed

Till all the shadows slanted towards him, gazed

Till all the shadows died, no Juan came.

Now in his stead came loneliness, and thought

Inexorable, fastening with firm chain

What is to what hath been. Now awful Night,

Ancestral mystery of mysteries, came down

Past all the generations of the stars,

And visited his soul with touch more close

Than when he kept that younger, briefer watch

Under the church’s roof beside his arms,

And won his knighthood.

Well, this solitude,

This company with the enduring universe,

Whose mighty silence carrying all the past

Absorbs our history as with a breath,

Should give him more assurance, make him strong

In all contempt of that poor circumstance

Called human life, — customs and bonds and laws

Wherewith mien make a better or a worse,

Like children playing on a barren mound

Feigning a thing to strive for or avoid.

Thus Silvia urged, answering his many-voiced self,

Whose hungry needs, like petulant multitudes,

Lured from the home that nurtured them to strength,

Made loud insurgence. Thus he called on Thought,

On dexterous Thought, with its swift alchemy

To change all forms, dissolve all prejudice

Of man’s long heritage, and yield him up

A crude fused world to fashion as he would.

Thought played him double; seemed to wear the yoke

Of sovereign passion in the noon-day height

Of passion’s prevalence ; but served anon

As tribune to the larger soul which brought

Loud-mingled cries from every human need

That ages had instructed into life.

He could not grasp Night’s black blank mystery

And wear it for a spiritual garb

Creed-proof: he shuddered at its passionless touch

On solitary souls, the universe

Looks down inhospitable ; the human heart

Finds nowhere shelter but in human kind.

He yearned towards images that had breath in them,

That sprang warm palpitant with memories

From streets and altars, from ancestral homes,

Banners and trophies and the cherishing rays

Of shame and honor in the eyes of man.

These made the speech articulate of his soul,

That could not move to utterance of scorn

Save in words bred by fellowship ; could not feel

Resolve of hardest constancy to love,

The firmer for the sorrows of the loved,

Save by concurrent energies high-wrought

To sensibilities transcending sense

Through closest citizenship, and long-shared pains

Of far-off laboring ancestors. In vain

He sought the outlaw’s strength, and made a right

Contemning that hereditary right

Which held dim habitations in his frame,

Mysterious haunts of echoes old and far,

The voice divine of human loyalty.

At home, among his people, he had played

In sceptic ease with saints and images

And thunders of the Church that deadened fell

Through screens of priests plethoric. Awe, unscathed

By deeper trespass, slept without a dream.

But for such trespass as made outcasts, still

The ancient Furies lived with faces new

And lurked with lighter slumber’ than of old

O’er Catholic Spain, the land of sacred oaths

That might be broken.

Now the former life

Of close-linked fellowship, the life that made