Hast thou no fear? Thou never yet hast walked
Alone. We dwell without the city wall.
Sobeide.
Dear friend, I feel above all weakling fear,
And light my foot, as never in the daytime.
[Exit.]
Merchant (after following her long with his eyes, with a
gesture of pain).
As if some plant were drawing quiet rootlets
From out my heart, to take wing after her,
And air were entering all the empty sockets!
[He steps away from the window.]
Does she not really seem to me less fair,
So hasty, so desirous to run thither,
Where scarce she knows if any wait her coming!
No: 'tis her youth that I must see aright;
This is a part of all things beautiful,
And all this haste becomes this creature just
As mute aspects become the fairest flowers.
[Pause.]
I think what I have done is of a part
With my conception of the world's great movement.
I will not have one set of lofty thoughts
When I behold high up the circling stars,
And others when a young girl stands before me.
What there is truth, must be so here as well,
And I must say, if yonder wedded child
Cannot endure to harbor in her spirit
Two things, of which the one belies the other,
Am I prepared to make my acts deny
What I have learned through groping premonition
And reason from that monstrous principle
That towers upon the earth and strikes the stars?
I call it Life, that monstrous thing, this too
Is life—and who might venture to divide them?
And what is ripeness, if not recognizing
That men and stars have but one law to guide them?
And so herein I see the hand of fate,
That bids me live as lonely as before,
And heirless—when I speak the last good-by—
And with no loving hand in mine, to die.
SCENE II
A wainscoted room in Shalnassar's house. An ascending stairway, narrow and steep, in the right background; a descending one at the left. A gallery of open woodwork with openings, inner balconies, runs about the entire stage. Unshaded hanging lamps. Curtained doorways to the left and right. Against the left wall a low bench, farther to the rear a table and seats.