Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (968 page)

  Will you adopt a soul without its thoughts,
  Or grasp a life apart from flesh and blood?
  Till then you cannot wed a Spanish Duke
  And not wed shame at mention of your race,
  And not wed hardness to their miseries —
  Nay, wed not murder.

Zarca and the Prior are each faithful to race, religion and social tradition. Each knows his duty, is content with the opportunities given him by social inheritance, is thoroughly in harmony with his own past. Both are consequently strong, resolute, successful. Zarca is a grand character, and though a hero in a nation of vagabonds, he wholly identifies himself with his people and accepts their destiny as his own. The Prior is a haughty Spanish Churchman, who has inherited all the traits of a noble family, and is proud of his priestly functions.

In the case of Don Silva and Fedalma there is a conflict between love and race. The one is a Spanish nobleman, the other the daughter of a Zincala chief. Yet they love, and feel that no outward circumstances are sufficient to separate them. This verdict of their hearts is the verdict of mankind in all ages; but it is not the one arrived at by George Eliot in obedience to her philosophy. The reasons why these two should not wed grew entirely out of the social circumstances of the time. An English nobleman of to-day could marry such a woman as Fedalma without social or other loss. The capacities of soul are superior to conditions of race. Virtue and genius do not depend on social circumstances. Yet
The Spanish Gypsy
has for its motive the attempt to prove that the life of tradition and inheritance is the one which provides all our moral and social and religious obligations. In conformity with this theory the conflict of the poem arises, because Don Silva is not in intellectual harmony with his own character. A thoughtful, fastidious, sensitive soul was his, not resolute and concentrated in purpose, He was no bigot, could not be content with any narrow aim, saw good on many sides.

  A man of high-wrought strain, fastidious
  In his acceptance, dreading all delight
  That speedy dies and turns to carrion:
  His senses much exacting, deep instilled
  With keen imagination’s airy needs; —
  Like strong-limbed monsters studded o’er with eyes,
  Their hunger checked by overwhelming vision,
  Or that fierce lion in symbolic dream
  Snatched from the ground by wings and new-endowed
  With a man’s thought-propelled relenting heart.
  Silva was both the lion and the man;
  First hesitating shrank, then fiercely sprang,
  Or having sprung, turned pallid at his deed
  And loosed the prize, paying his blood for naught.
  A nature half-transformed, with qualities
  That oft betrayed each other, elements
  Not blent but struggling, breeding strange effects,
  Passing the reckoning of his friends or foes.
  Haughty and generous, grave and passionate;
  With tidal moments of devoutest awe,
  Sinking anon to furthest ebb of doubt;
  Deliberating ever, till the sting
  Of a recurrent ardor made him rush
  Right against reasons that himself had drilled
  And marshalled painfully. A spirit framed
  Too proudly special for obedience,
  Too subtly pondering for mastery:
  Born of a goddess with a mortal sire,
  Heir of flesh-fettered, weak divinity,
  Doom-gifted with long resonant consciousness
  And perilous heightening of the sentient soul.

Too noble and generous to accept the narrow views of his uncle, Don Silva insisted on marrying Fedalma, because he loved her and because she was a pure and true woman. He had a poet’s nature, was sensitive to all beauty, and his heart vibrated to all ideal excellence. His love became to him a thing apart, a sacred shrine; and Fedalma was made one with all joy and beauty.

  He thought all loveliness was lovelier,
  She crowning it; all goodness credible,
  Because of that great trust her goodness bred.

His love gave a delicious content and melody to his day dreams.

                      O, all comforters,
  All soothing things that bring mild ecstasy,
  Came with her coming, in her presence lived.
  Spring afternoons, when delicate shadows fall
  Pencilled upon the grass; high summer morns
  When white light rains upon the quiet sea
  And cornfields flush with ripeness; odors soft —
  Dumb vagrant bliss that seems to seek a home
  And find it deep within ‘mid stirrings vague
  Of far-off moments when our life was fresh;
  All sweetly tempered music, gentle change
  Of sound, form, color, as on wide lagoons
  At sunset when from black far-floating prows
  Comes a clear wafted song; all exquisite joy
  Of a subdued desire, like some strong stream
  Made placid in the fulness of a lake —
  All came with her sweet presence, for she brought
  The love supreme which gathers to its realm
  All powers of loving. Subtle nature’s hand
  Waked with a touch the far-linked harmonies
  In her own manifold work. Fedalma there,
  Fastidiousness became the prelude fine
  For full contentment; and young melancholy,
  Lost for its origin, seemed but the pain
  Of waiting for that perfect happiness.

So strong was Don Silva’s love, so ardent his passion for Fedalma, that he forsook all duties and social obligations and became a Zincala for her sake. Yet once awakened to the real consequences of his act, he killed Zarca and sought to regain by hard penances his lost knighthood.

With Fedalma also love was an absorbing passion. The passionate devotion of a woman is in her words.

  No ills on earth, though you should count them up
  With grains to make a mountain, can outweigh
  For me his ill who is my supreme love.
  All sorrows else are but imagined flames,
  Making me shudder at an unfelt smart;
  But his imagined sorrow is a fire
  That scorches me.

With great earnestness she says she will —

  Never forsake that chief half of her soul
  Where lies her love.

With what depth of love does she utter these words:

  I belong to him who loves me — whom I love —
  Who chose me — whom I chose — to whom I pledged
  A woman’s truth. And that is nature too,
  Issuing a fresher law than laws of birth.

Though her love is deep and passionate and full of a woman’s devotedness, the mark of race is set deep within her soul. The moment the claim of race is brought clearly before her as the claim of duty, as the claim of father and of kindred, she accepts it. Her love is not thrown hastily aside, for she loves deeply and truly, and it tears her heart in sunder to renounce it; but she is faithful to duty. Her love grows not less, loses none of its hold upon her heart.

                          No other crown
  Is aught but thorns on my poor woman’s brow.

Hers is not a divided self, however; to see the way of duty with her, was to follow in it. Her father’s invincible will, courage and patient purpose are her own by inheritance. Once realizing the claim of birth and race, she does not falter, love is resolutely put aside, all delight in culture and refinement becomes dross in her eyes.

                         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 base joy.
  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 that blights my people. Father, come!

The poem distinctly teaches that Fedalma was strong, because the ties of blood were strongly marked upon her mind and willingly accepted by her intellect and conscience; while Don Silva was weak, because he did not acknowledge those ties and accept their law. In the end, however, both declare that the inherited life is the only one which gives joy or duty, and that all individual aims and wishes are to be renounced. The closing scene of this great poem is full of sadness, and yet is strong with moral purpose. Don Silva and Fedalma meet for the last time, she on her way to Africa with her tribe to find a home for it there, he on his way to Rome, to seek the privilege of again using his knightly sword. Both are sad, both feel that life has lost all its joy, both believe it is a bitter destiny which divides them from the fulfilment of their love, and yet both are convinced that love must be forsworn for a higher duty. Their last conversation, opened by Don Silva, is full of power, and concentrates into its last words the total meaning of the poem.

  I bring no puling prayer, Fedalma — ask
  No balm of pardon that may soothe my soul
  For others’ bleeding wounds: I am not come
  To say, “Forgive me:” you must not forgive,
  For you must see me ever as I am —
  Your father’s…

FEDALMA.

                 Speak it not! Calamity
  Comes like a deluge and o’erfloods our crimes,
  Till sin is hidden in woe. You — I — we two,
  Grasping we knew not what, that seemed delight,
  Opened the sluices of that deep.

DON SILVA.

                                We two? —
  Fedalma, you were blameless, helpless.

FEDALMA.

                                    No!
  It shall not be that you did aught alone.
  For when we loved I willed to reign in you,
  And I was jealous even of the day
  If it could gladden you apart from me.

  And so, it must be that I shared each deed
  Our love was root of.

DON SILVA.

                          Dear! you share the woe —
  Nay, the worst part of vengeance fell on you.

FEDALMA.

  Vengeance! She does but sweep us with her skirts.
  She takes large space, and lies a baleful light
  Revolving with long years — sees children’s children,
  Blights them in their prime. Oh, if two lovers leane
  To breathe one air and spread a pestilence,
  They would but lie two livid victims dead
  Amid the city of the dying. We
  With our poor petty lives have strangled one
  That ages watch for vainly.

DON SILVA.

                                 Deep despair
  Fills all your tones as with slow agony.
  Speak words that narrow anguish to some shape:
  Tell me what dread is close before you?

FEDALMA.

                                         None.
  No dread, but clear assurance of the end.
  My father held within his mighty frame
  A people’s life: great futures died with him
  Never to rise, until the time shall ripe
  Some other hero with the will to save
  The outcast Zincali.

DON SILVA.

                          And yet their shout —
  I heard it — sounded as the plenteous rush
  Of full-fed sources, shaking their wild souls
  With power that promised sway.

FEDALMA.

                                  Ah yes, that shout
  Came from full hearts: they meant obedience.
  But they are orphaned: their poor childish feet
  Are vagabond in spite of love, and stray
  Forgetful after little lures. For me —
  I am but as the funeral urn that bears
  The ashes of a leader.

DON SILVA.

                             O great God!
  What am I but a miserable brand
  Lit by mysterious wrath? I lie cast down
  A blackened branch upon the desolate ground.
  Where once I kindled ruin. I shall drink
  No cup of purest water but will taste
  Bitter with thy lone hopelessness, Fedalma.

FEDALMA.

  Nay, Silva, think of me as one who sees
  A light serene and strong on one sole path
  Which she will tread till death…
  He trusted me, and I will keep his trust:
  My life shall be its temple. I will plant
  His sacred hope within the sanctuary
  And die its priestess — though I die alone,
  A hoary woman on the altar-step,
  Cold ‘mid cold ashes. That is my chief good.
  The deepest hunger of a faithful heart
  Is faithfulness. Wish me naught else. And you —
  You too will live….

DON SILVA.

                            I go to Rome, to seek
  The right to use my knightly sword again;
  The right to fill my place and live or die
  So that all Spaniards shall not curse my name.
  I sate one hour upon the barren rock
  And longed to kill myself; but then I said,
  I will not leave my name in infamy,
  I will not be perpetual rottenness
  Upon the Spaniard’s air. If I must sink
  At last to hell, I will not take my stand
  Among the coward crew who could not bear
  The harm themselves had done, which others bore.
  My young life yet may fill some fatal breach,
  And I will take no pardon, not my own,
  Not God’s — no pardon idly on my knees;
  But it shall come to me upon my feet
  And in the thick of action, and each deed
  That carried shame and wrong shall be the sting
  That drives me higher up the steep of honor
  In deeds of duteous service to that Spain
  Who nourished me on her expectant breast,
  The heir of highest gifts. I will not fling
  My earthly being down for carrion
  To fill the air with loathing: I will be
  The living prey of some fierce noble death
  That leaps upon me while I move. Aloud
  I said, “I will redeem my name,” and then —
  I know not if aloud: I felt the words
  Drinking up all my senses — “She still lives.
  I would not quit the dear familiar earth
  Where both of us behold the self-same sun,
  Where there can be no strangeness ‘twixt our thoughts
  So deep as their communion.” Resolute
  I rose and walked. — Fedalma, think of me
  As one who will regain the only life
  Where he is other than apostate — one
  Who seeks but to renew and keep the vows
  Of Spanish knight and noble. But the breach —
  Outside those vows — the fatal second breach —
  Lies a dark gulf where I have naught to cast,
  Not even expiation — poor pretence,
  Which changes naught but what survives the past,
  And raises not the dead. That deep dark gulf
  Divide us.