SWANWHITE. [Throwing herself into his arms] Farewell, my great and valiant hero, my glorious father! May fortune follow you, and make you rich in years and friends and victories!
DUKE. Amen—and let your gentle prayers be my protection!
[He closes the visor of his golden helmet.
SWANWHITE. [Jumps up and plants a kiss on the visor] The golden gates are shut, but through the bars I still can see your kindly, watchful eyes. [Knocking at the visor] Let up, let up, for little Red Riding-hood. No one at home? "Well-away," said the wolf that lay in the bed!
DUKE. [Putting her down on the floor] Sweet flower of mine, grow fair and fragrant! If I return—well—I return! If not, then from the starry arch above my eye shall follow you, and never to my sight will you be lost, for there above all-seeing we become, even as the all-creating Lord himself.
Goes out firmly, with a gesture that bids her not to follow. SWANWHITE falls on her knees in prayer for the DUKE; all the rose-trees sway before a wind that passes with the sound of a sigh; the peacock shakes its wings and tail.
SWANWHITE. [Rises, goes to the peacock and begins to stroke its back and tail] Pavo, dear Pavo, what do you see and what do you hear? Is any one coming? Who is it? A little prince? Is he pretty and nice? You, with your many blue eyes, should be able to tell. [She lifts up one of the bird's tail feathers and gazes intently at its "eye".] Are you to keep your eyes on us, you nasty Argus? Are you to see that the little hearts of two young people don't beat too loudly?—You stupid thing—all I have to do is to close the curtain! [She closes the curtain, which hides the bird, but not the landscape outside; then she goes to the doves] My white doves—oh, so white, white, white—now you'll see what is whitest of all—Be silent, wind, and roses, and doves—my prince is coming!
She looks out for a moment; then she withdraws to the pewter-closet, leaving the door slightly ajar so that through the opening she can watch the PRINCE; there she remains standing, visible to the spectators but not to the PRINCE.
PRINCE. [Enters through the middle arch of the doorway. He wears armour of steel; what shows of his clothing is black. Having carefully observed everything in the room, he sits down at the table, takes off his helmet and begins to study it. His back is turned toward the door behind which SWANWHITE is hiding] If anybody be here, let him answer! [Silence] There is somebody here, for I can feel the warmth of a young body come billowing toward me like a southern wind. I can hear a breath—it carries the fragrance of roses—and, gentle though it be, it makes the plume on my helmet move. [He puts the helmet to his ear] 'Tis murmuring as if it were a huge shell. It's the thoughts within my own head that are crowding each other like a swarm of bees in a hive. "Zum, zum," say the thoughts—just like bees that are buzzing around their queen—the little queen of my thoughts and of my dreams! [He places the helmet on the table and gazes at it] Dark and arched as the sky at night, but starless, for the black plume is spreading darkness everywhere since my mother's death—[He turns the helmet around and gazes at it again] But there, in the midst of the darkness, deep down—there, on the other side, I see a rift of light!—Has the sky been split open?—And there, in the rift, I see—not a star, for it would look like a diamond—but a blue sapphire, queen of the precious stones—blue as the sky of summer—set in a cloud white as milk and curved as the dove's egg. What is it? My ring? And now another feathery cloud, black as velvet, passes by—and the sapphire is smiling—as if sapphires could smile! And there, the lightning flashed, but blue—heat-lightning mild, that brings no thunder!—What are you? Who? And where? [He looks at the back of the helmet] Not here! Not there! And nowhere else! [He puts his face close to the helmet] As I come nearer, you withdraw.
SWANWHITE steals forward on tiptoe.