In a Balcony/I

and.

Norbert.

Now!

Constance.

Not now!

Norbert.

Give me them again, those hands: Put them upon my forehead, how it throbs! Press them before my eyes, the fire comes through! You cruellest, you dearest in the world, Let me! The Queen must grant whate'er I ask— How can I gain you and not ask the Queen? There she stays waiting for me, here stand you; Some time or other this was to be asked; Now is the one time—what I ask, I gain: Let me ask now, Love!

Constance.

Do, and ruin us.

Norbert.

Let it be now, Love! All my soul breaks forth. How I do love you! Give my love its way! A man can have but one life and one death, One heaven, one hell. Let me fulfil my fate— Grant me my heaven now! Let me know you mine, Prove you mine, write my name upon your brow, Hold you and have you, and then die away, If God please, with completion in my soul!

Constance.

I am not yours then? How content this man! I am not his—who change into himself, Have passed into his heart and beat its beats, Who give my hands to him, my eyes, my hair, Give all that was of me away to him— So well, that now, my spirit turned his own, Takes part with him against the woman here, Bids him not stumble at so mere a straw As caring that the world be cognizant How he loves her and how she worships him. You have this woman, not as yet that world. Go on, I bid, nor stop to care for me By saving what I cease to care about, The courtly name and pride of circumstance— The name you'll pick up and be cumbered with Just for the poor parade's sake, nothing more; Just that the world may slip from under you— Just that the world may cry "So much for him— The man predestined to the heap of crowns: There goes his chance of winning one, at least!"

Norbert.

The world!

Constance.

You love it. Love me quite as well, And see if I shall pray for this in vain! Why must you ponder what it knows or thinks?

Norbert.

You pray for—what, in vain?

Constance.

Oh my heart's heart, How I do love you, Norbert! That is right: But listen, or I take my hands away! You say, "let it be now": you would go now And tell the Queen, perhaps six steps from us, You love me—so you do, thank God!

Norbert.

Thank God!

Constance.

Yes, Norbert,—but you fain would tell your love, And, what succeeds the telling, ask of her My hand. Now take this rose and look at it, Listening to me. You are the minister, The Queen's first favourite, nor without a cause. To-night completes your wonderful year's-work (This palace-feast is held to celebrate) Made memorable by her life's success, The junction of two crowns, on her sole head, Her house had only dreamed of anciently: That this mere dream is grown a stable truth, To-night's feast makes authentic. Whose the praise? Whose genius, patience, energy, achieved What turned the many heads and broke the hearts? You are the fate, your minute's in the heaven. Next comes the Queen's turn. "Name your own reward!" With leave to clench the past, chain the to-come, Put out an arm and touch and take the sun And fix it ever full-faced on your earth, Possess yourself supremely of her life,— You choose the single thing she will not grant; Nay, very declaration of which choice Will turn the scale and neutralize your work: At best she will forgive you, if she can. You think I'll let you choose—her cousin's hand?

Norbert.

Wait. First, do you retain your old belief The Queen is generous,—nay, is just?

Constance.

There, there! So men make women love them, while they know No more of women's hearts than. . . look you here, You that are just and generous beside, Make it your own case! For example now, I'll say—I let you kiss me, hold my hands— Why? do you know why? I'll instruct you, then— The kiss, because you have a name at court; This hand and this, that you may shut in each A jewel, if you please to pick up such. That's horrible? Apply it to the Queen— Suppose I am the Queen to whom you speak: "I was a nameless man; you needed me: Why did I proffer you my aid? there stood A certain pretty cousin by your side. Why did I make such common cause with you? Access to her had not been easy else. You give my labour here abundant praise? 'Faith, labour, while she overlooked, grew play. How shall your gratitude discharge itself? Give me her hand!"

Norbert.

And still I urge the same. Is the Queen just? just—generous or no!

Constance.

Yes, just. You love a rose; no harm in that: But was it for the rose's sake or mine You put it in your bosom? mine, you said— Then, mine you still must say or else be false. You told the Queen you served her for herself; If so, to serve her was to serve yourself, She thinks, for all your unbelieving face! I know her. In the hall, six steps from us, One sees the twenty pictures; there's a life Better than life, and yet no life at all. Conceive her born in such a magic dome, Pictures all round her! why, she sees the world, Can recognize its given things and facts, The fight of giants or the feast of gods, Sages in senate, beauties at the bath, Chases and battles, the whole earth's display, Landscape and sea-piece, down to flowers and fruit— And who shall question that she knows them all, In better semblance than the things outside? Yet bring into the silent gallery Some live thing to contrast in breath and blood, Some lion, with the painted lion there— You think she'll understand composedly? —Say, "that's his fellow in the hunting-piece Yonder, I've turned to praise a hundred times?" Not so. Her knowledge of our actual earth, Its hopes and fears, concerns and sympathies, Must be too far, too mediate, too unreal. The real exists for us outside, not her: How should it, with that life in these four walls— That father and that mother, first to last No father and no mother—friends, a heap, Lovers, no lack—a husband in due time, And every one of them alike a lie! Things painted by a Rubens out of nought Into what kindness, friendship, love should be; All better, all more grandiose than the life, Only no life; mere cloth and surface-paint, You feel, while you admire. How should she feel? Yet now that she has stood thus fifty years The sole spectator in that gallery, You think to bring this warm real struggling love In to her of a sudden, and suppose She'll keep her state untroubled? Here's the truth— She'll apprehend its value at a glance, Prefer it to the pictured loyalty? You only have to say "so men are made, For this they act; the thing has many names But this the right one: and now, Queen, be just!" And life slips back; you lose her at the word: You do not even for amends gain me. He will not understand; oh, Norbert, Norbert, Do you not understand?

Norbert.

The Queen's the Queen: I am myself—no picture, but alive In every nerve and every muscle, here At the palace-window o'er the people's street, As she in the gallery where the pictures glow: The good of life is precious to us both. She cannot love; what do I want with rule? When first I saw your face a year ago I knew my life's good, my soul heard one voice— "The woman yonder, there's no use of life But just to obtain her! heap earth's woes in one And bear them—make a pile of all earth's joys And spurn them, as they help or help not this; Only, obtain her!" How was it to be? I found she was the cousin of the Queen; I must then serve the Queen to get to you. No other way. Suppose there had been one, And I, by saying prayers to some white star With promise of my body and my soul Might gain you,—should I pray the star or no? Instead, there was the Queen to serve! I served, Helped, did what other servants failed to do. Neither she sought nor I declared my end. Her good is hers, my recompense be mine,— I therefore name you as that recompense. She dreamed that such a thing could never be? Let her wake now. She thinks there was more cause In love of power, high fame, pure loyalty? Perhaps she fancies men wear out their lives Chasing such shades. Then, I've a fancy too; I worked because I want you with my soul: I therefore ask your hand. Let it be now!

Constance.

Had I not loved you from the very first, Were I not yours, could we not steal out thus So wickedly, so wildly, and so well, You might become impatient. What's conceived Of us without here, by the folks within? Where are you now? immersed in cares of state— Where am I now? intent on festal robes— We two, embracing under death's spread hand! What was this thought for, what that scruple of yours Which broke the council up?—to bring about One minute's meeting in the corridor! And then the sudden sleights, strange secrecies, Complots inscrutable, deep telegraphs, Long-planned chance-meetings, hazards of a look, "Does she know? does she not know? saved or lost?" A year of this compression's ecstasy All goes for nothing! you would give this up For the old way, the open way, the world's, His way who beats, and his who sells his wife! What tempts you?—their notorious happiness Makes you ashamed of ours? The best you'll gain Will be—the Queen grants all that you require, Concedes the cousin, rids herself of you And me at once, and gives us ample leave To live like our five hundred happy friends. The world will show us with officious hand Our chamber-entry, and stand sentinel Where we so oft have stolen across its traps! Get the world's warrant, ring the falcons' feet, And make it duty to be bold and swift, Which long ago was nature. Have it so! We never hawked by rights till flung from fist? Oh, the man's thought! no woman's such a fool.

Norbert.

Yes, the man's thought and my thought, which is more— One made to love you, let the world take note! Have I done worthy work? be love's the praise, Though hampered by restrictions, barred against By set forms, blinded by forced secrecies! Set free my love, and see what love can do Shown in my life—what work will spring from that! The world is used to have its business done On other grounds, find great effects produced For power's sake, fame's sake, motives in men's mouth. So, good: but let my low ground shame their high! Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true! And love's the truth of mine. Time prove the rest! I choose to wear you stamped all over me, Your name upon my forehead and my breast, You, from the sword's blade to the ribbon's edge, That men may see, all over, you in me— That pale loves may die out of their pretence In face of mine, shames thrown on love fall off. Permit this, Constance! Love has been so long Subdued in me, eating me through and through, That now 'tis all of me and must have way. Think of my work, that chaos of intrigues, Those hopes and fears, surprises and delays, That long endeavour, earnest, patient, slow, Trembling at last to its assured result: Then think of this revulsion! I resume Life, after death, (it is no less than life After such long unlovely labouring days) And liberate to beauty life's great need O' the beautiful, which, while it prompted work, Suppressed itself erewhile. This eve's the time, This eve intense with yon first trembling star We seem to pant and reach; scarce aught between The earth that rises and the heaven that bends; All nature self-abandoned, every tree Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts And fixed so, every flower and every weed, No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat; All under God, each measured by itself. These statues round us stand abrupt, distinct, The strong in strength, the weak in weakness fixed, The Muse for ever wedded to her lyre, Nymph to her fawn, and Silence to her rose: See God's approval on his universe! Let us do so—aspire to live as these In harmony with truth, ourselves being true! Take the first way, and let the second come! My first is to possess myself of you; The music sets the march-step—forward, then! And there's the Queen, I go to claim you of, The world to witness, wonder and applaud. Our flower of life breaks open. No delay!

Constance.

And so shall we be ruined, both of us. Norbert, I know her to the skin and bone: You do not know her, were not born to it, To feel what she can see or cannot see. Love, she is generous,—ay, despite your smile, Generous as you are: for, in that thin frame, Pain-twisted, punctured through and through with cares, There lived a lavish soul until it starved, Debarred of healthy food. Look to the soul— Pity that, stoop to that, ere you begin (The true man's-way) on justice and your rights, Exactions and acquittance of the past! Begin so—see what justice she will deal! We women hate a debt as men a gift. Suppose her some poor keeper of a school Whose business is to sit thro' summer-months And dole out children's leave to go and play, Herself superior to such lightness—she In the arm-chair's state and pædagogic pomp— To the life, the laughter, sun and youth outside: We wonder such a face looks black on us? I do not bid you wake her tenderness, (That were vain truly—none is left to wake) But, let her think her justice is engaged To take the shape of tenderness, and mark If she'll not coldly pay its warmest debt! Does she love me, I ask you? not a whit: Yet, thinking that her justice was engaged To help a kinswoman, she took me up— Did more on that bare ground than other loves Would do on greater argument. For me, I have no equivalent of that cold kind To pay her with, but love alone to give If I give anything. I give her love: I feel I ought to help her, and I will. So, for her sake, as yours, I tell you twice That women hate a debt as men a gift. If I were you, I could obtain this grace— Could lay the whole I did to love's account, Nor yet be very false as courtiers go— Declaring my success was recompense; It would be so, in fact: what were it else? And then, once loose her generosity,— Oh, how I see it!—then, were I but you, To turn it, let it seem to move itself, And make it offer what I really take, Accepting just, in the poor cousin's hand, Her value as the next thing to the Queen's— Since none love Queens directly, none dare that, And a thing's shadow or a name's mere echo Suffices those who miss the name and thing! You pick up just a ribbon she has worn, To keep in proof how near her breath you came. Say, I'm so near I seem a piece of her— Ask for me that way—(oh, you understand) You'd find the same gift yielded with a grace, Which, if you make the least show to extort. . . —You'll see! and when you have ruined both of us, Dissertate on the Queen's ingratitude!

Norbert.

Then, if I turn it that way, you consent? 'Tis not my way; I have more hope in truth: Still, if you won't have truth—why, this indeed, Were scarcely false, as I'd express the sense. Will you remain here?

Constance.

O best heart of mine, How I have loved you! then, you take my way? Are mine as you have been her minister, Work out my thought, give it effect for me, Paint plain my poor conceit and make it serve? I owe that withered woman everything— Life, fortune, you, remember! Take my part— Help me to pay her! Stand upon your rights? You, with my rose, my hands, my heart on you? Your rights are mine—you have no rights but mine.

Norbert.

Remain here. How you know me!

Constance.

Ah, but still——

[He breaks from her: she remains.

Dance music from within.