True that I went away from you and wed
Another——
Giorgione.Ah!
Isotta.And yet it was not Luzzi!
[As he gazes.
Do you not know? you who so oft have told
On saintly walls the Magdalen's sad tears?
Sin, sin had seized me!
Sin with you to whom
I gave my body and soul unboundedly.
We revelled in unwedded ecstasy,
Laughed in our love over the starred lagoons.
Sang till the lute was like a thing that lived,
Danced happy as the fauns and nereids
That oft you told me of—
And clasped and kissed,
O kissed—until I knew that but one way
Was left to save my soul, Giorgione, one—
To wed me with the vows and veil to Christ.
[Gazes at a crucifix.
Giorgione. Isotta!
Isotta. I am His! I fled to Him!
The Convent opened its grey arms to take me,
Santa Cecilia of the Healing Heart,
And Luzzi kindly led me to its door—
That you might so be foiled of following.
And with long vigils, fasts and penances
And prayers I sought oblivion of your face.
Until this illness strangely fell upon me.
I could not die until you, shriven too....
Giorgione. Isotta! My Isotta!
[Falls penitent before her, weeping.
Isotta (her heart eased). Peace, at last.
Giorgione (rising). Ah yes! and I am viler than the vilest!
For who remembers not that purity
Is priceless, ends impoverished of honour.
And yet ... there is no wrong irreparable!
And you must live tho all the angels die—
Live and be loosed from vows too vainly breathed,
That wedded we may win again delight!
Still I am Giorgione, and the sin
That we have sinned shall be painted away
With holy pictures....
Isotta.Only the dead are holy,
Or they who die, tho living, to the world.
[Sees the picture.
And eyes have looked upon me—
Hot eyes that burn my body up with shame.
Farewell, the tide will cool me, the lone wave
That washes in from Lido to my grave.
[Looks toward the Campo Santo.