Page:Poet Lore, volume 34, 1923.djvu/49

 these hands fondled thee, and from these breasts didst thou suck thy life! Stay, stay, I command thee!

Mahulena.—Let me be Radúz; my feet turn to stone—

Radúz (Clasping her about the waist)—Come! If thou wilt not come I will drag thee away by force!—

Runa.—Listen, Mahulena; but one word—then go!

Mahulena.—That word, mother!

Runa.—I hurl a curse on thee, a heavy curse, a terrible curse!

Mahulena.—Mother! Mother!

Runa.—I hurl upon thee a curse most powerful, which will follow thee and hound thee, hound thee until death as a pack of furious dogs pursues a timid fawn! By heaven I curse thee, I curse thee by earth! O earth, thou art a mother too; thou wilt hear me, thou must hear me: destruction to thee if thou remainest deaf! My curse is mighty as the wind, the fire, the sea! As a magic word, full of horror, which drags down the stars from heaven. Even fate itself will not overpower my curse!

Mahulena.—O, cease, cease!

Radúz.—Come, Mahulena! (Pulls her after him.)

Mahulena.—I stumble I cannot

Runa.—May thy heart know all tortures and thy soul all anguish, Mahulena! Thou livest in him and he in thee? Then I curse your love! May Radúz forget thee, may he not even recognize thee, mayst thou become strange to him as thou art now strange to me! Mayst thou die of yearning, perish with sorrow; mayst thou so suffer that thy heart, heavy as a stone, may know but one longing, that it sink into the depths of oblivion! May thy life and all thy thoughts through mighty suffering be involved in one vague prayer; even in that terrible stupefaction may there remain to thee but one consciousness; thine own woe! May sorrow be thy breath, sorrow thy bread, sorrow thy single element!

Radúz.—O Mahulena do not grieve, but come. Love is mightier than hatred, thou shalt see!

Runa.—Thou shalt learn thine error, Radúz. My curse falls on thee as well as on her! No less shall be thy suffering, though it shall be a grievous riddle to thee! As soon as another woman’s loving lips touch thy cheek, then shall my curse upon thee begin! And that instant thou wilt forget her, wilt not recognize her, thine own Mahulena, even if thou shouldst gaze upon her constantly! Of her being no trace will remain in thine enchanted memory! And a wound which thou shalt not detect shall bleed