Kophetua the Thirteenth

by Julian Stafford Corbett

In bitter contempt of what he called his weakness, he laughed unsteadily as he rose and went to the door. Lightly he mounted the winding stairs, jesting wildly in a low, excited voice to the key as he went. "Hey! little rogue," he muttered, as he reached the room he sought. "Hey! little rogue. In with thee now, and have thy way." He thrust it into the lock, and turned it sharply with another "Hey! little rogue!" Then in a moment his whole aspect was changed, and he stopped listening outside the closed door.

It was a sob he had heard. Just a woman's sob, low and tender, and heartrending beyond all that words can tell. What sound has power like that? The voice that tells of a gentle soul that is bruised and rent; of a tender spirit that can battle no more with its grief; of a staunch little heart that is stricken down at last, and is lying helpless in its anguish, while the woes it has so bravely fought trample it in triumph under foot.

Then another—and another—like voices that called to him out of heaven, and bade him imperiously be a man. Quietly he opened the door and looked in. She was lying on a rough pallet, still in her paint and shameless dress, sobbing herself to sleep like a child. The soft red light of the dying day shed a false glow of reality over the picture. Her little sylph-like figure glistened with an unearthly radiance as she sobbed, and the spangles on her elfish costume caught and lost the light. The colour on her cheeks glowed rich and warm, and her white breast and arms shone from out her littered hair with a fairy light of their own. She seemed an elf that was imprisoned and enchanted there; and Kophetua, moved with the beautiful sight, advanced into the room and closed the door with beating heart.

At the snap of the lock she looked up, and for a moment stared at him vacantly, as though her reason were unhinged. Then she started up on the bed with the wild, helpless look of a fawn, when its captor visits it for the first time.

"What!" she cried, "not you too! Surely you have not come to mock me like the rest? Go, go! for the love of Heaven! You must not see me thus. My shame will never end if you look on it once. Go, for the love of Heaven, and come not near me! It is more than I can bear that you, too, should look at me!"

She was sitting up on the bed, resting on one arm, with her feet curled under her. The other was stretched out against him, as though to keep his presence away. Still he came near, not knowing what he did. Her beauty drew him like a charm. In the anguish of her shame Penelophon made one more effort, and, springing from her pallet, she fell on her knees before him. In wild entreaty she was gazing up out of her dark eyes, which still shone with all the added radiance of Frampa's art, and she held the hem of his coat convulsively in her little white hands as she poured forth her passionate prayer.

"Leave me, leave me!" she cried, "for the love of God! Do not be angry that I ask this thing. I have not forgotten; but you cannot understand the anguish you bring. Indeed, it is more than I can bear. You cannot tell what it is to crouch here, befouled as I am, for a man to see. If you were a woman, you would guess. I know your greatness and nobleness and spotless honour. I have not forgotten; indeed, I have not, though you see me so changed. I know you cannot think an evil thought or do an evil thing, yet even you I cannot endure to see me thus. You have come in kindness, I know, to help and comfort me, as you always did. I have not forgotten. But oh! my angel, for you to see my shame is greater pain than even you can heal! So leave me—leave me, as you are great and godlike, before the anguish kills me. You have power above all to take away sorrow and drive out sin. It is you who bring down heaven to me on earth; but not even for heaven can I be seen like this. To be near you was like paradise. I have not forgotten; I cannot forget. You are all the world to me; but not as I am—not as I am!"

"But why are you thus," he said, irresolute and unable to comprehend whether it was play or earnest, "if it was not your desire? Was it not for this you ran away to the players? What else did you expect? You should be glad, they have made you so pretty."

"Don't! don't!" she said in anguish, as she hid her painted face in her hands; "I cannot bear it. I never dreamed they would be so wicked when your good mother took me to them. She would punish them if she knew."

"What!" exclaimed the astonished King, "my mother took you to them? What do you mean? Tell me quickly."