I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume.”
He permitted the audience to see the vast dimension and intensity of his love, doubt, agony, sorrow, despair, vengeance,—and the revelation was appalling in its solemnity. Henceforth even his invective was moderated and quiet. He seemed to fancy himself not so much revenging his personal wrong as vindicating himself and executing justice. He did not make a horror of the killing, as Kean did. He drew the curtains apart,—a slight struggle,—a choking murmur,—and as Emilia knocked at the door, and he turned, with the pillow in his hand, his listening attitude and his bronze face and glistening eyes formed a dramatic picture not to be forgotten. Then came the final revulsion of his agonizing sorrow:
“O, insupportable! O, heavy hour!
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon; and that the affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration.”
His deadly distress and paralyzing bewilderment now illustrated what he had before said, that he loved her so with the entirety of his being that the loss of her, even in thought, brought back chaos:
“Had she been true,
If heaven would make me such another world