ACT IV
Evening. Scene. An Antechamber.
Enter the Courtiers.
Mau. Now, then, that we may speak—how spring this mine?
Gau. 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—
Gui. Well, she loves him, sir;
And more,—since you will have it I grow cool,—
She 's right: he 's worth it.
Gau. For his deeds to-day?
Say so!
Gui. What should I say beside?
Gau. 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.
Gui. Impossible!
Gau. —Nor say,
How sly and exquisite a trick, moreover,
Was this which—taking not their stand on facts
Boldly, for that had been endurable,
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.
Gau. 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 Chan. Incontrovertibly.
Gau. Guibert, your match, now, to the train!
Gui. Enough!
I 'm with you: selfishness is best again.
I thought of turning honest—what a dream!
Let 's wake now!
Gau. 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?
Gui.—Wait, I suppose, till Valence weds our lady,
And then, if we must needs revenge ourselves,
Apprise the Prince.
Gau. —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!
Gui.—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.
Gau. 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.
Gui. To-night, then, venture we!
Yet—if lost confidence might be renewed?
Gau. 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 ...
Gui. To the Prince!
Gau. [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!
Clug. [To Gaucelme as they retire.] You have not smiled so since your father died!
(As they retire, enter Valence with papers.)
Val. 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 't is 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.
Berth. So I hoped.
Val. 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.
Berth. That I need not ask.
Val. You need not: I have proved the lady's mind:
And, justice being to do, dare act for her.
Berth. Doubtless she has a very noble mind.
Val. 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 ...
Berth. 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?
Val. 'T is granted, sir!
My heart instructs me. I have scrutinized
Your claims ...
Berth. Ah—claims, you mean, at first preferred?
I come, before the hour appointed me,
To pray you let those claims at present rest,
In favor of a new and stronger one.
Val. 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!
Berth. I offer her my hand.
Val. Your hand?
Berth. 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!
Val. Your hand!
Berth. (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.
Val. You wed the Duchess?
Berth. 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.
Val. I am to say, you love her?
Berth. 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.
Val. [After a pause.] The heavens and earth stay as they were; my heart
Beats as it beat: the truth remains the truth.
What falls away, then, if not faith in her?
Was it my faith, that she could estimate
Love's value, and, such faith still guiding me,
Dare I now test her? Or grew faith so strong
Solely because no power of test was mine?
(Enter the Duchess.)
Duch. My fate, sir! Ah, you turn away. All 's over.
But you are sorry for me? Be not so!
What I might have become, and never was,
Regret with me! What I have merely been,
Rejoice I am no longer! What I seem
Beginning now, in my new state, to be,
Hope that I am!—for, once my rights proved void,
This heavy roof seems easy to exchange
For the blue sky outside—my lot henceforth.
Val. And what a lot is Berthold's!
Duch. How of him?
Val. He gathers earth's whole good into his arms;
Standing, as man now, stately, strong and wise,
Marching to fortune, not surprised by her.
One great aim, like a guiding-star, above—
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift
His manhood to the height that takes the prize;
A prize not near—lest overlooking earth
He rashly spring to seize it—nor remote,
So that he rest upon his path content:
But day by day, while shimmering grows shine,
And the faint circlet prophesies the orb,
He sees so much as, just evolving these,
The stateliness, the wisdom and the strength,
To due completion, will suffice this life,
And lead him at his grandest to the grave.
After this star, out of a night he springs;
A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones
He quits; so, mounting, feels each step he mounts,
Nor, as from each to each exultingly
He passes, overleaps one grade of joy.
This, for his own good:—with the world, each gift
Of God and man,—reality, tradition,
Fancy and fact—so well environ him,
That as a mystic panoply they serve—
Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind,
And work his purpose out with half the world,
While he, their master, dexterously slipt
From such encumbrance, is meantime employed
With his own prowess on the other half.
Thus shall he prosper, every day's success
Adding, to what is he, a solid strength—
An aëry might to what encircles him,
Till at the last, so life's routine lends help,
That as the Emperor only breathes and moves,
His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk
Become a comfort or a portent, how
He trails his ermine take significance,—
Till even his power shall cease to be most power,
And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare
Peril their earth its bravest, first and best,
Its typified invincibility.
Thus shall he go on, greatening, till he ends—
The man of men, the spirit of all flesh,
The fiery centre of an earthly world!
Duch. Some such a fortune I had dreamed should rise
Out of my own—that is, above my power
Seemed other, greater potencies to stretch—
Val. For you?
Duch. It was not I moved there, I think:
But one I could,—though constantly beside,
And aye approaching,—still keep distant from,
And so adore. 'T was a man moved there.
Val. Who?
Duch. I felt the spirit, never saw the face.
Val. See it! 'T is Berthold's! He enables you
To realize your vision.
Duch. Berthold?
Val. Duke—
Emperor to be: he proffers you his hand.
Duch. Generous and princely!
Val. He is all of this.
Duch. Thanks, Berthold, for my father's sake. No hand
Degrades me!
Val. You accept the proffered hand?
Duch. That he should love me!
Val. "Loved" I did not say.
Had that been—love might so incline the Prince
To the world's good, the world that 's at his foot,—
I do not know, this moment, I should dare
Desire that you refused the world—and Cleves—
The sacrifice he asks.
Duch. Not love me, sir?
Val. He scarce affirmed it.
Duch. May not deeds affirm?
Val. What does he? ... Yes, yes, very much he does!
All the shame saved, he thinks, and sorrow saved—
Immitigable sorrow, so he thinks,—
Sorrow that 's deeper than we dream, perchance!
Duch. Is not this love?
Val. So very much he does!
For look, you can descend now gracefully:
All doubts are banished, that the world might have,
Or worst, the doubts yourself, in after-time,
May call up of your heart's sincereness now.
To such, reply, "I could have kept my rule—
Increased it to the utmost of my dreams—
Yet I abjured it." This, he does for you:
It is munificently much.
Duch. Still "much!"
But why is it not love, sir? Answer me!
Val. Because not one of Berthold's words and looks
Had gone with love's presentment of a flower
To the beloved: because bold confidence,
Open superiority, free pride—
Love owns not, yet were all that Berthold owned:
Because where reason, even, finds no flaw,
Unerringly a lover's instinct may.
Duch. You reason, then, and doubt?
Val. I love, and know.
Duch. You love? How strange! I never cast a thought
On that! Just see our selfishness! You seemed
So much my own ... I had no ground—and yet,
I never dreamed another might divide
My power with you, much less exceed it.
Val. Lady,
I am yours wholly.
Duch. Oh, no, no, not mine!
'T is not the same now, never more can be.
—Your first love, doubtless. Well, what's gone from me?
What have I lost in you?
Val. My heart replies—
No loss there! So, to Berthold back again:
This offer of his hand, he bids me make—
Its obvious magnitude is well to weigh.
Duch. She 's ... yes, she must be very fair for you!
Val. I am a simple advocate of Cleves.
Duch. You! With the heart and brain that so helped me,
I fancied them exclusively my own,
Yet find are subject to a stronger sway!
She must be ... tell me, is she very fair?
Val. Most fair, beyond conception or belief.
Duch. Black eyes?—no matter! Colombe, the world leads
Its life without you, whom your friends professed
The only woman—see how true they spoke!
One lived this while, who never saw your face,
Nor heard your voice—unless ... Is she from Cleves?
Val. Cleves knows her well.
Duch. Ah—just a fancy, now!
When you poured forth the wrongs of Cleves,—I said,
—Thought, that is, afterward ...
Val. You thought of me?
Duch. Of whom else? Only such great cause, I thought,
For such effect: see what true love can do!
Cleves is his love. I almost fear to ask
... And will not. This is idling: to our work!
Admit before the Prince, without reserve,
My claims misgrounded; then may follow better
... When you poured out Cleves' wrongs impetuously,
Was she in your mind?
Val. All done was done for her
—To humble me!
Duch. She will be proud at least.
Val. She?
Duch. When you tell her.
Val. That will never be.
Duch. How—are there sweeter things you hope to tell?
No, sir! You counselled me,—I counsel you
In the one point I—any woman—can.
Your worth, the first thing; let her own come next—
Say what you did through her, and she through you—
The praises of her beauty afterward!
Will you?
Val. I dare not.
Duch. Dare not?
Val. She I love
Suspects not such a love in me.
Duch. You jest.
Val. The lady is above me and away.
Not only the brave form, and the bright mind,
And the great heart, combine to press me low—
But all the world calls rank divides us.
Duch. Rank!
Now grant me patience! Here 's a man declares
Oracularly in another's case—
Sees the true value and the false, for them—
Nay, bids them see it, and they straight do see.
You called my court's love worthless—so it turned:
I threw away as dross my heap of wealth,
And here you stickle for a piece or two!
First—has she seen you?
Val. Yes.
Duch. She loves you, then.
Val. One flash of hope burst; then succeeded night:
And all 's at darkest now. Impossible!
Duch. We 'll try: you are—so to speak—my subject yet?
Val. As ever—to the death.
Duch. Obey me, then!
Val. I must.
Duch. Approach her, and ... no! first of all
Get more assurance. "My instructress," say,
"Was great, descended from a line of kings,
And even fair"—(wait why I say this folly)—
"She said, of all men, none for eloquence,
Courage, and" (what cast even these to shade)
"The heart they sprung from,—none deserved like him
Who saved her at her need: if she said this,
What should not one I love, say?"
Val. Heaven—this hope—
Oh, lady, you are filling me with fire!
Duch. Say this!—nor think I bid you cast aside
One touch of all the awe and reverence;
Nay, make her proud for once to heart's content
That all this wealth of heart and soul's her own!
Think you are all of this,—and, thinking it,
... (Obey!)
Val. I cannot choose.
Duch. Then, kneel to her!
[Valence sinks on his knee.
I dream!
Val. Have mercy! Yours, unto the death,—
I have obeyed. Despise, and let me die!
Duch. Alas, sir, is it to be ever thus?
Even with you as with the world? I know
This morning's service was no vulgar deed
Whose motive, once it dares avow itself,
Explains all done and infinitely more,
So, takes the shelter of a nobler cause.
Your service named its true source,—loyalty!
The rest 's unsaid again. The Duchess bids you,
Rise, sir! The Prince's words were in debate.
Val. [Rising.] Rise? Truth, as ever, lady, comes from you!
I should rise—I who spoke for Cleves, can speak
For Man—yet tremble now, who stood firm then.
I laughed—for 't was past tears—that Cleves should starve
With all hearts beating loud the infamy,
And no tongue daring trust as much to air:
Yet here, where all hearts speak, shall I be mute?
Oh, lady, for your own sake look on me!
On all I am, and have, and do—heart, brain,
Body and soul,—this Valence and his gifts!
I was proud once: I saw you, and they sank,
So that each, magnified a thousand times,
Were nothing to you—but such nothingness,
Would a crown gild it, or a sceptre prop,
A treasure speed, a laurel-wreath enhance?
What is my own desert? But should your love
Have ... there 's no language helps here ... singled me,—
Then—oh, that wild word "then!"—be just to love,
In generosity its attribute!
Love, since you pleased to love! All 's cleared—a stage
For trial of the question kept so long:
Judge you—Is love or vanity the best?
You, solve it for the world's sake—you, speak first
What all will shout one day—you, vindicate
Our earth and be its angel! All is said.
Lady, I offer nothing—I am yours:
But, for the cause' sake, look on me and him,
And speak!
Duch. I have received the Prince's message:
Say, I prepare my answer!
Val. Take me, Cleves! [He withdraws.
Duch. Mournful—that nothing 's what it calls itself!
Devotion, zeal, faith, loyalty—mere love!
And, love in question, what may Berthold's be?
I did ill to mistrust the world so soon:
Already was this Berthold at my side.
The valley-level has its hawks, no doubt:
May not the rock-top have its eagles, too?
Yet Valence ... let me see his rival then!