Oh! still be thus! Oh, yes, be ever thus!—
While thus I see thee calm, I deem thee kind.
Those eyes will ope—to turn their light from me;
Those arms will wave, to chide me with their softness;
And, oh! that lip,—that rubied cup of bliss,
That flows with joy for all, pour hate on me!
Of a creature who can speak like this it can hardly be said that he is no human being at all. As for the prophecy expressed in the last lines, it is verified the moment Urilda revives; and as Berthold then resolves upon his vengeance it is not difficult to understand that a being with his wild and primitive standpoint shuns no means in order to effect it. The part was considered an important one by Maturin, who wished particular care to be bestowed upon it. In his letter to Watts[114] about the performance of Fredolfo he says: ‘I must revert to the part of Berthold, which is sufficiently eccentric and extravagant. Don’t let him, on my account, appear a ludicrous figure. Perhaps his deformity may be best expressed by a certain savage picturesqueness of costume, which I could sketch were I upon the spot, but which I readily submit to your taste in my absence; but don’t let him be ludicrous, that must be the ruin of the play. No one could bear a kitchen Richard. Much depends on Berthold.’—A certain resemblance of Berthold to Richard III is indeed obvious. Their criminal instincts are excited by bitterness arising from a sense of their personal disadvantages. Some reflections of Berthold:
I could, such is my heart’s o’erflowing spleen
To all that loved, and lovely are—methinks,
I could, even with a look,—as thus—dart through him