RAVENSBANE Fear not, mistress, I will kill the thing. [Drawing his sword, he rushes at the glass. Within, the scarecrow, with a drawn wheel-spoke, approaches him at equal speed. They come face to face and recoil.] Ah! ah! fear’st thou me? What art thou? Why, ’tis a glass. Thou mockest me? Look, look, mistress, it mocks me! O God, no! no! Take it away. Dear God, do not look!—It is I!
ALL [Rushing to the doors.] Witchcraft! Witchcraft!
[As Ravensbane stands frantically confronting his abject reflection, struck in a like posture of despair, the curtain falls.]
ACT IV
The same. Night. The moon, shining in broadly at the window, discovers Ravensbane alone, prostrate before the mirror. Raised on one arm to a half-sitting posture, he gazes fixedly at the vaguely seen image of the scarecrow prostrate in the glass.
RAVENSBANE
All have left me—but not thou. Rachel has left me; her eyes have turned away from me; she is gone. And with her, the great light itself from heaven has drawn her glorious skirts, contemptuous, from me—and they are gone together. Dickon, he too has left me—but not thou. All that I loved, all that loved me, have left me. A thousand ages—a thousand ages ago, they went away; and thou and I have gazed upon each other’s desertedness. Speak! and be pitiful! If thou art I, inscrutable image, if thou dost feel these pangs thine own, show then self-mercy; speak! What art thou? What am I? Why are we here? How comes it that we feel and guess and suffer? Nay, though thou answer not these doubts, yet mock them, mock them aloud, even as there, monstrous, thou counterfeitest mine actions. Speak, abject enigma!—Ah! with what vacant horror it looks out and yearns toward me. Peace to thee! Thou poor delirious mute, prisoned in glass and moonlight, peace! Thou canst not escape thy gaol, nor I break in to thee. Poor shadow, thou—
[Recoiling wildly.]