Charles Di Tocca Part 17

FULVIA: May it be! He's quick, Though quicker in forgetting. I will move Him as I may.

CAPTAIN: The kind and wise a.s.saults Your words shall make must move him, gracious lady.

_Enter HaeMON._

HaeMON: I seek the duke.

FULVIA (_dismissing CAPTAIN with a gesture_): You would seek penitence Were you less far in folly.

HaeMON (_as going_): O--if he's Not here, then----

FULVIA: Sorrow too would strain your lips, Not cold defiance.

HaeMON: Pardon: if you know, Where is he?

FULVIA: Was it easy to o'erwhelm Under the ruin of her dreams a sister?

HaeMON: Better beneath her dreams than under shame.

FULVIA: Your rashness cloaks itself in that excuse, Your ruth, and your suspicion that has doomed One innocent.

HaeMON: One innocent! His thought Had but betrayal for her!

FULVIA: 'Tis the Greek In you avows it, no true voice.

HaeMON: Then 'tis My father murdered whose last moan I hear Driven about me in this castle's gray Cold s.p.a.ces. And the dead speak not to lie.

FULVIA: No, no. You cannot brave your action with The spur of that belief.

HaeMON: What want you of me?

FULVIA: This: ache and restlessness are on you.

HaeMON (_impatiently_): No.

FULVIA: And doubt begins in you that as a wolf Will scent the wounded quarry of your conscience.

HaeMON: After he lured and wooed her under night And secrecy?

FULVIA: Not running there will you Escape its dread pursuit.

HaeMON: He frauded--duped His father's trust!

FULVIA: Or there! But one refuge Have you against its bitter ceaseless tooth, And that above the wilds of self-deceit.

HaeMON: Why do you wind so sinuously about me?

No refuge can be from an hour that's done.

Shall we invert the gla.s.s or tilt the dial To bring it back?

FULVIA: But if there were?

HaeMON: Where is The duke--I will not bauble.

FULVIA: If there were?

HaeMON: I will no longer listen to the worm, You set to feed upon me--torturing!

The sun melts to an end, and with the night Antonio will not be.

FULVIA: Yet there is time.

HaeMON: The duke is fixed.

FULVIA: No matter: 'gainst the swell And power of this peril you must lean.

HaeMON: I----?

FULVIA: Yes.

HaeMON: You have a plan?

FULVIA: One that is sure.

(_Steps are heard._) But through those curtains, quick. For more seek out The Captain of the guard. The duke comes. .h.i.ther.

(_HaeMON goes through the curtains._

_CHARLES enters, worn, dishevelled, and followed by CECCO. He sees FULVIA and pauses._

FULVIA: I come to plead.

CHARLES: (_turning away_): Ah! Nature should have pled With her your mother, 'gainst conception.

FULVIA: Your trust is causelessly withdrawn. Yet for A breath again I beg it--for a moment!

CHARLES: A moment were too much--or not enough.

Is trust a flower of sudden birth we may Bid bloom with a command?

FULVIA: Ah, that it were, Or bloomed as amaranth in those we love, Beyond all drought and withering of ill!

But hear me----!

CHARLES: Leave these words.

FULVIA: Will you not turn Out of this rage?

CHARLES: Leave them, I say, and cease!

Still down the vortex of this destiny I would not farther have you drawn.

FULVIA: Then from It draw yourself!

CHARLES: Myself am but a hulk Whose treasures have already been engulfed.