Prinzivalle. Had there come ten thousand of you into my tent, all clad alike, all equally fair, ten thousand sisters whom even their mother would not know apart, I should have risen, should have taken your hand, and said, "This is she!" Is it not strange that a beloved image can live thus in a man's heart? For yours lived so in mine that each day it changed as in real life—the image of to-day replaced that of yesterday—it blossomed out, it became always fairer; and the years adorned it with all that they add to a child that grows in grace and beauty. But when I saw you again, it seemed to me at first that my eyes deceived me. My memories were so fair and so fond—but they had been too slow and too timid—they had not dared to give you all the splendor which appeared so suddenly to dazzle me. I was as a man that recalled to mind a flower he had but seen in passing through a garden on a gray day, and should be suddenly confronted with a hundred thousand as fair in a field bathed with sunshine. I saw once more your hair, your brow, your eyes, and I found all the soul of the face I had adored—but how its beauty shames that which I had treasured in silence through endless days, through years whose only light was a memory that had taken too long a road and found itself outshone by the reality!... Ah! I knew not too well what I meant to do. I felt that I was lost—and I desired to drag with me all I could.... And I hated you, because of the love.... Yes, I should have gone to the end had it not been you.... Yet any other would have seemed odious to me—you yourself would have had to be other than you are.... I lose my reason when I think of it.... One word would have been enough that was different from your words—one gesture that was not yours—the slightest thing would have inflamed my hate and let loose the monster. But when I saw you, I saw in that same moment that it was impossible.
Vanna. I felt a change, too.... I marveled that I could speak to you as I have spoken since the first moment.... I am silent by nature—I have never spoken thus to any man, unless it be to Marco, Guido's father.... And even with him it is not the same. He has a thousand dreams that take up all his mind, ... and we have talked but a few times. The others have always a desire in their eyes that will not suffer one to tell them that one loves them and would fain know what they have in their hearts. In your eyes, too, a longing burns; but it is not the same—it does not affright me nor fill me with loathing. I felt at once that I knew you before I remembered that I had ever seen you....
Vanna, awed by the character and personality of this despised and hated outlaw, pleads with him to come with her to Pisa under the protection of herself and her husband. She is sure that he will be safe with them, and that he will be hailed as the redeemer of the people of Pisa. Like innocent children they walk to their doom.
Vanna is honored by the people whom she has saved, but scorned by her husband who, like the true male, does not credit her story.
Vanna. Hear me, I say! I have never lied—but to-day, above all days, I tell the deepest truth, the truth that can be told but once and brings life or death.... Hearken, Guido, then—and look upon me, if you have never known me until this hour, the first and only hour when you have it in your power to love me as I would be loved. I speak in the name of our life, of all that I am, of all that you are to me.... Be strong enough to believe that which is incredible. This man has spared my honor.... He had all power—I was given over to him. Yet he has not touched me—I have issued from his tent as I might from my brother's house.... I gave him one only kiss upon the brow—and he gave it me again.
Guido. Ah, that was what you were to tell us—that was the miracle! Ay, already, at the first words, I divined something beneath them that I understood not.... It passed me like a flash—I took no heed of it.... But I see now that I must look more closely. So, when he had you in his tent, alone, with a cloak for all your covering, all night long, you say he spared you?... Am I a man to believe that the stars are fragments of hellebore, or that one may drop something into a well and put out the moon?... What! a man desires you so utterly that he will betray his country, stake all that he has for one single night, ruin himself forever, and do it basely, do such a deed as no man ever thought to do before him, and make the world uninhabitable to himself forever! And this man has you there in his tent, alone and defenseless, and he has but this single night that he has bought at such a price—and he contents himself with a kiss upon the brow, and comes even hither to make us give him credence! No, let us reason fairly and not too long mock at misfortune. If he asked but that, what need was there that he should plunge a whole people into sadness, sink me in an abyss of misery such that I have come from it crushed and older by ten years? Ah! Had he craved but a kiss upon the brow, he might have saved us without torturing us so! He had but to come like a god to our rescue.... But a kiss upon the brow is not demanded and prepared for after his fashion.... The truth is found in our cries of anguish and despair....
It is only at this psychological moment, a moment that sometimes changes all our conceptions, all our thoughts, our very life, that Monna Vanna feels the new love for Prinzivalle stirring in her soul, a love that knows no doubt. The conception of such a love is revolutionary in the scope of its possibilities—a love that is pregnant with the spirit of daring, of freedom, that lifts woman out of the ordinary and inspires her with the strength and joy of molding a new and free race.
[EDMOND ROSTAND]
[CHANTECLER]
In view of the progress the modern drama has made as an interpreter of social ideas and portrayer of the human struggle against internal and external barriers, it is difficult to say what the future may bring in the way of great dramatic achievement. So far, however, there is hardly anything to compare with "Chantecler" in philosophic depth and poetic beauty.