2ND SERVANT.
He touches things and lifts them up and down
Just like an idiot. We must warn the King.
CARLOMAN.
A feast, how nasty! Dabbled vine-leaves, vessels
Broken to shivers, the inspiring juice
Black on the boards—a feast! Can happiness
Leave refuse such as this? It visits slaves,
And then its track is loathsome. Ah, the air
Has entered like a wedge, keen, reaching me
Through all the mustiness ... and now I breathe!
The door is not enough, the windows too ...
[opening one]
There! How it enters!
[turning toward another window]
In this room I lived;
It is not altered? No, the fireplace, east;
My chair in front, and hers ... but they are crowned
At present; and my name upon that bench.
It is more terrible than nightmare—this
Besieging of one’s life by chairs and walls
And memories. Ah yes, the walls, the walls,
They do the mischief; and this reek of age
From every corner sickens worse than stale
Imprisoned fumes of wine. More air!
[He throws wide all the windows: then leans out of the last. While his back is turned, Geneviva staggers drowsily in, reels to the board, tries to drink, then flings herself against the throne sleeping.]
O Earth,
How beautiful to think I travelled on
And on, yet rode against no wall, so freely
The outworks of your sky gave up their space.
My brain is tired with interest: what men do
Or speak enthrals me, I who often paced
This room as blind to anything alive
As if a child unborn.
[Impulsively beginning to pace.]
And yet, my God,
How great a Captain thou wilt have in me
If this bond-King, this Pepin can be freed;
If I can do this thing, while Astolph batters
The very gates of Rome.
[pausing at sight of Geneviva.]