[He breaks the neck of a bottle of champagne, fills a tumbler, and gives her to drink]
Alive still in the world
Of lust and lush! Oh, Warwick, strike me, hurt me!
My withered fancy flounders in the mire;
My memory chooses words I never loved,
Ideas foreign to my prime. Pure pain,
Absorbing every sense, would clean my soul.—
Is this the Parthenon or the Grosvenor, Warwick?
Groom. The Grosvenor, Martha.
Lady S. Something is happening here.
Groom. Something abnormal for the stage! I passed
Unnoticed in the tumult!
Lady S. Listen, Warwick,
As if you were the Universe itself.
No one would give an ear, or understand;
But you will, Warwick; I belong to you;
You had the bloom and scent, the flower of me.
I think of that unhallowed, holy week
A hundred times a day, a hundred times.
You were my lover, Warwick, and my friend;
My child, my doll: I used to dress you, dear.
I live in that: that wonder-working time,
When all my senses and my soul, aroused
From the sweet slumber of virginity,
Became one instinct and ardour of womanhood.
Lay your proud head upon my bosom, love—
My faded bosom.—Now, my dear, now, now!
If we could fall asleep and never waken.—
Why did I marry Tristram! Why? Not once
Have you demanded that.
Groom. Because I guessed.
He showed me to you——
Lady S. Hush! He did: and more—
He told me you were any woman's man.
Groom. That was true, too.
Lady S. But you adored me, Warwick?
You had a passion for me, a passion, Warwick?