Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series
Page 284
THE DUCHESS.
I took them, sirs.
GUIBERT [apart to VALENCE].
And now, sir, I am simple knight again —
Guibert, of the great ancient house, as yet
That never bore affront; whate’er your birth, —
As things stand now, I recognize yourself
(If you’ll accept experience of some date)
As like to be the leading man o’ the time,
Therefore as much above me now, as I
Seemed above you this morning. Then, I offered
To fight you: will you be as generous
And now fight me?
VALENCE.
Ask when my life is mine!
GUIBERT.
(‘T is hers now!)
CLUGNET [apart to VALENCE, as GUIBERT turns from him.]
You, sir, have insulted me
Grossly, — will grant me, too, the selfsame favor
You — ve granted him, just now, I make no question?
VALENCE.
I promise you, as him, sir.
CLUGNET.
Do you so?
Handsomely said! I hold you to it, sir.
You’ll get me reinstated in my office
As you will Guibert!
THE DUCHESS.
I would be alone!
[Tbey begin to retire slowly; as VALENCE is about to follow]
Alone, sir — only with my heart: you stay!
GAUCELME.
You hear that? Ah, light breaks upon me! Cleves —
It was at Cleves some man harangued us all —
With great effect, — so those who listened said,
My thoughts being busy elsewhere: was this he?
Guibert, — your strange, disinterested man!
Your uncorrupted, if uncourtly friend!
The modest worth you mean to patronize!
He cares about no Duchesses, not he —
His sole concern is with the wrongs of Cleves!
What, Guibert? What, it breaks on you at last?
GUIBERT.
Would this hall’s floor were a mine’s roof! I’d back
And in her very face . . .
GAUCELME.
Apply the match
That fired the train, and where would you be, pray?
GUIBERT.
With him!
GAUCELME.
Stand, rather, safe outside with me!
The mine’s charged: shall I furnish you the match
And place you properly? To the antechamber!
GUIBERT.
Can you?
GAUCELME.
Try me! Your friend’s in fortune!
GUIBERT.
Quick —
To the antechamber! He is pale with bliss!
GAUCELME.
No wonder! Mark her eyes!
GUIBERT.
To the antechamber!
[The Courtiers retire.
THE DUCHESS.
Sir, could you know all you have done for me
You were content! You spoke, and I am saved.
VALENCE.
Be not too sanguine, lady! Ere you dream,
That transient flush of generosity
Fades off, perchance. The man, beside, is gone, —
Him we might bend; but see, the papers here —
Inalterably his requirement stays,
And cold hard words have we to deal with now.
In that large eye there seemed a latent pride,
To self-denial not incompetent,
But very like to hold itself dispensed
From such a grace: however, let us hope!
He is a noble spirit in noble form.
I wish he less had bent that brow to smile
As with the fancy how he could subject
Himself upon occasion — to himself!
From rudeness, violence, you rest secure;
But do not think your Duchy rescued yet!
THE DUCHESS.
You, — who have opened a new world to me,
Will never take the faded language up
Of that I leave? My Duchy — keeping it,
Or losing it — is that my sole world now?
VALENCE.
Ill have I spoken if you thence despise
Juliers; although the lowest, on true grounds,
Be worth more than the highest rule, on false:
Aspire to rule, on the true grounds!
THE DUCHESS.
Nay, hear —
False, I will never — rash, I would not be!
This is indeed my birthday — soul and body,
Its hours have done on me the work of years.
You hold the requisition: ponder it!
If I have right, my duty’s plain: if he —
Say so, nor ever change a tone of voice!
At night you meet the Prince; meet me at eve!
Till when, farewell! This discomposes you?
Believe in your own nature, and its force
Of renovating mine! I take my stand
Only as under me the earth is firm:
So, prove the first step stable, all will prove.
That first, I choose: [Laying her hand on his.] — the next to take, choose you!
[She withdraws.
VALENCE [after a pause].
What drew down this on me? — on me, dead once,
She thus bids live, — since all I hitherto
Thought dead in me, youth’s ardors and emprise,
Burst into life before her, as she bids
Who needs them. Whither will this reach, where end?
Her hand’s print burns on mine . . . Yet she’s above —
So very far above me! All’s too plain:
I served her when the others sank away,
And she rewards me as such souls reward —
The changed voice, the suffusion of the cheek,
The eye’s acceptance, the expressive hand,
— Reward, that’s little, in her generous thought,
Though all to me . . .
I cannot so disclaim
Heaven’s gift, nor call it other than it is!
She loves me!
[Looking at the PRINCE’S papers.] — Which love, these, perchance, forbid.
Can I decide against myself — pronounce
She is the Duchess and no mate for me?
— Cleves, help me! Teach me, — every haggard face,
To sorrow and endure! I will do right
Whatever be the issue. Help me, Cleves!
Act IV
Evening.
SCENE. An Antechamber.
Enter the COURTIERS.
MAUFROY.
Now, then, that we may speak — how spring this mine?
GAUCELME.
Is Guibert ready for its match? He cools!
Not so friend Valence with the Duchess there!
“Stay, Valence! Are not you my better self? “
And her cheek mantled —
GUIBERT.
Well, she loves him, sir:
And more, — since you will have it I grow cool, —
She’s right: he’s worth it.
GAUCELME.
For his deeds to-day?
Say so!
GUIBERT.
What should I say beside?
GAUCELME.
Not this —
For friendship’s sake leave this for me to say —
That we’re the dupes of an egregious cheat!
This plain unpractised suitor, who found way
To the Duchess through the merest die’s turn-up
A year ago, had seen her and been seen,
Loved and been loved.
GUIBERT.
Impossible!
GAUCELME.
— Nor say,
How sly and exquisite a trick, moreover,
Was this which — taking not their stand on facts
Boldly, for that had been endurable,
&n
bsp; But worming on their way by craft, they choose
Resort to, rather, — and which you and we,
Sheep-like, assist them in the playing-off!
The Duchess thus parades him as preferred,
Not on the honest ground of preference,
Seeing first, liking more, and there an end —
But as we all had started equally,
And at the close of a fair race he proved
The only valiant, sage and loyal man.
Herself, too, with the pretty fits and starts, —
The careless, winning, candid ignorance
Of what the Prince might challenge or forego —
She had a hero in reserve! What risk
Ran she? This deferential easy Prince
Who brings his claims for her to ratify
— He’s just her puppet for the nonce! You’ll see,
Valence pronounces, as is equitable,
Against him: off goes the confederate:
As equitably, Valence takes her hand!
THE CHANCELLOR.
You run too fast: her hand, no subject takes.
Do not our archives hold her father’s will?
That will provides against such accident,
And gives next heir, Prince Berthold, the reversion
Of Juliers, which she forfeits, wedding so.
GAUCELME.
I know that, well as you, — but does the Prince?
Knows Berthold, think you, that this plan, he helps,
For Valence’s ennoblement, — would end,
If crowned with the success which seems its due,
In making him the very thing he plays,
The actual Duke of Juliers? All agree
That Colombe’s title waived or set aside,
He is next heir.
THE CHANCELLOR.
Incontrovertibly.
GAUCELME.
Guibert, your match, now, to the train!
GUIBERT.
Enough!
I’m with you: selfishness is best again.
I thought of turning honest — what a dream!
Let’s wake now!
GAUCELME.
Selfish, friend, you never were:
‘T was but a series of revenges taken
On your unselfishness for prospering ill.
But now that you’re grown wiser, what’s our course?
GUIBERT.
— Wait, I suppose, till Valence weds our lady,
And then, if we must needs revenge ourselves,
Apprise the Prince.
GAUCELME.
— The Prince, ere then dismissed
With thanks for playing his mock part so well?
Tell the Prince now, sir! Ay, this very night,
Ere he accepts his dole and goes his way,
Explain how such a marriage makes him Duke,
Then trust his gratitude for the surprise!
GUIBERT.
— Our lady wedding Valence all the same
As if the penalty were undisclosed?
Good! If she loves, she’ll not disown her love,
Throw Valence up. I wonder you see that.
GAUCELME.
The shame of it — the suddenness and shame!
Within her, the inclining heart without,
A terrible array of witnesses —
And Valence by, to keep her to her word,
With Berthold’s indignation or disgust!
We’ll try it! — Not that we can venture much.
Her confidence we’ve lost forever: Berthold’s
Is all to gain.
GUIBERT.
To-night, then, venture we!
Yet — if lost confidence might be renewed?
GAUCELME.
Never in noble natures! With the base ones, —
Twist off the crab’s claw, wait a smarting-while,
And something grows and grows and gets to be
A mimic of the lost joint, just so like
As keeps in mind it never, never will
Replace its predecessor! Crabs do that:
But lop the lion’s foot — and . . .
GUIBERT.
To the Prince!
GAUCElme [aside.]
And come what will to the lion’s foot, I pay you,
My cat’s-paw, as I long have yearned to pay.
[Aloud.] Footsteps! Himself! ‘T is Valence breaks on us,
Exulting that their scheme succeeds. We’ll hence —
And perfect ours! Consult the archives, first —
Then, fortified with knowledge, seek the Hall!
CLUGNET [to GAUCELME as they retire].
You have not smiled so since your father died!
[As tbey retire, enter VALENCE with papers.]
VALENCE.
So must it be! I have examined these
With scarce a palpitating heart — so calm,
Keeping her image almost wholly off,
Setting upon myself determined watch,
Repelling to the uttermost his claims:
And the result is — all men would pronounce
And not I, only, the result to be —
Berthold is heir; she has no shade of right
To the distinction which divided us,
But, suffered to rule first, I know not why,
Her rule connived at by those Kings and Popes,
To serve some devil’s-purpose, — now ‘tis gained,
Whate’er it was, the rule expires as well.
— Valence, this rapture . . . selfish can it be?
Eject it from your heart, her home! It stays!
Ah, the brave world that opens on us both!
— Do my poor townsmen so esteem it? Cleves, —
I need not your pale faces! This, reward
For service done to you? Too horrible!
I never served you: ‘t was myself I served —
Nay, served not — rather saved from punishment
Which, had I failed you then, would plague me now.
My life continues yours, and your life, mine.
But if, to take God’s gift, I swerve no step —
Cleves! If I breathe no prayer for it — if she,
[Footsteps without.]
Colombe, that comes now, freely gives herself —
Will Cleves require, that, turning thus to her,
I . . .
Enter PRINCE BERTHOLD.
Pardon, sir! I did not look for you
Till night, i’ the Hall; nor have as yet declared
My judgment to the lady.
BERTHOLD.
So I hoped.
VALENCE.
And yet I scarcely know why that should check
The frank disclosure of it first to you —
What her right seems, and what, in consequence,
She will decide on.
BERTHOLD.
That I need not ask.
VALENCE.
You need not: I have proved the lady’s mind:
And, justice being to do, dare act for her.
BERTHOLD.
Doubtless she has a very noble mind.
VALENCE.
Oh, never fear but she’ll in each conjuncture
Bear herself bravely! She no whit depends
On circumstance; as she adorns a throne,
She had adorned . . .
BERTHOLD.
A cottage — in what book
Have I read that, of every queen that lived?
A throne! You have not been instructed, sure,
To forestall my request?
VALENCE.
’T is granted, sir!
My heart instructs me. I have scrutinized
Your claims . . .
BERTHOLD.
Ah — claims, you mean, at first preferred?
I come, before the hour appointed me,
To pray you let those claims at present rest,
In favour of a new and stronger one.
VALENCE.
You shall not need a stronger: on the part
O’ the lady, all you offer I accept,
Since one clear right suffices: yours is clear.
Propose!
BERTHOLD.
I offer her my hand.
VALENCE.
Your hand?
BERTHOLD.
A Duke’s, yourself say; and, at no far time,
Something here whispers me — an Emperor’s.
The lady’s mind is noble: which induced
This seizure of occasion ere my claims
Were — settled, let us amicably say!
VALENCE.
Your hand!
BERTBOLD.
(He will fall down and kiss it next!)
Sir, this astonishment’s too flattering,
Nor must you hold your mistress’ worth so cheap.
Enhance it, rather, — urge that blood is blood —
The daughter of the Burgraves, Landgraves, Markgraves,
Remains their daughter! I shall scarce gainsay.
Elsewhere or here, the lady needs must rule:
Like the imperial crown’s great chrysoprase,
They talk of — somewhat out of keeping there,
And yet no jewel for a meaner cap.
VALENCE.
You wed the Duchess?
BERTBOLD.
Cry you mercy, friend!
Will the match also influence fortunes here?
A natural solicitude enough.
Be certain, no bad chance it proves for you!
However high you take your present stand,
There’s prospect of a higher still remove —
For Juliers will not be my resting-place,
And, when I have to choose a substitute
To rule the little burgh, I’ll think of you
Who need not give your mates a character.
And yet I doubt your fitness to supplant
The gray smooth Chamberlain: he’d hesitate
A doubt his lady could demean herself
So low as to accept me. Courage, sir!
I like your method better: feeling’s play
Is franker much, and flatters me beside.
VALENCE.
I am to say, you love her?
BERTBOLD.
Say that too!
Love has no great concernment, thinks the world,
With a Duke’s marriage. How go precedents
In Juliers’ story — how use Juliers’ Dukes?
I see you have them here in goodly row;
Yon must be Luitpold — ay, a stalwart sire!
Say, I have been arrested suddenly
In my ambition’s course, its rocky course,
By this sweet flower: I fain would gather it
And then proceed: so say and speedily
— (Nor stand there like Duke Luitpold’s brazen self!)
Enough, sir: you possess my mind, I think.
This is my claim, the others being withdrawn,
And to this be it that, i’ the Hall to-night,
Your lady’s answer comes; till when, farewell!
He retires.
VALENCE [after a pause].