Browning's England Part 34

I challenge you!

_Guendolen._ Witchcraft's a fault in him, For you're bewitched.

_Tresham._ What's urgent we obtain Is, that she soon receive him--say, to-morrow-- Next day at furthest.

_Guendolen._ Ne'er instruct me!

_Tresham._ Come!

--He's out of your good graces, since forsooth, He stood not as he'd carry us by storm With his perfections! You're for the composed Manly a.s.sured becoming confidence!

--Get her to say, "to-morrow," and I'll give you ...

I'll give you black Urganda, to be spoiled With petting and snail-paces. Will you? Come!

The story of the love of Mildred and Mertoun is the universally human one, and belongs to no one country or no one period of civilization more than another, but the att.i.tude of all the actors in the tragedy belongs distinctively to the phase of moral culture which we saw ill.u.s.trated in the youth of Sir Philip Sidney, and is characteristic of English ways of thinking whenever their moral force comes uppermost, as for example in the Puritan thought of the Cromwellian era.

The play is in a sense a problem play, though to most modern readers the tragedy of its ending is all too horrible a consequence of the sin.

Dramatically and psychically, however, the tragedy is much more inevitable than that of Romeo and Juliet, whose love one naturally thinks of in the same connection. The catastrophe in the Shakespeare play is almost mechanically pushed to its conclusion through mere external blundering, easily to have been prevented. Juliet saw clearly where Mildred does not, that loyalty to a deep and true love should triumph over all minor considerations, so that in her case the tragedy is, in no sense, due to her blindness of vision. In the "Blot," lack of perception of the true values in life makes it impossible for Mildred or Tresham to act otherwise than they did. But having worked out their problem according to their lights, a new light of a more glorious day dawns upon them.

The ideal by which Tresham lives and moves and has his being is that of pride of birth, with honor and chast.i.ty as its watchwords. At the same time the idol of his life is his sister Mildred, over whom he has watched with a father's and mother's care. When the blow to his ideal comes at the hands of this much cherished sister, it is not to be wondered at that his reason almost deserts him. The greatest agony possible to the human soul is to have its ideals, the very food which has been the sustenance of its being, utterly ruined. The ideal may be a wrong one, or an impartial one, and through the wrack and ruin may dawn larger vision, but, unless the nature be a marvelously developed one the storm that breaks when an ideal is shattered is overwhelming.

It would be equally true of Mildred that, nurtured as she had been and as young English girls usually are, in great purity, even ignorance of all things pertaining to life, the sense of her sin would be so overwhelming as to blind her to any possible means of expiation except the most extreme. And indeed may it not be said that only those who can see as Mertoun and Guendolen did that genuine and loyal love is no less love because, in a conventional sense, it has sinned,--only those would acknowledge, as Tresham, indeed, does after he has murdered Mertoun, how perfect the love of Mildred and Mertoun was. Sin flourishes only when insincerity tricks itself out in the garb of love, and on the whole it is well that human beings should have an abiding sense of their own and others insincerity, and test themselves by their willingness to acknowledge their love before G.o.d and man. There are many Mildreds but few Mertouns. It is little wonder that d.i.c.kens wrote with such enthusiasm of this play that he knew no love like that of Mildred and Mertoun, no pa.s.sion like it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: An English Park]

One does not need to discuss whether murders were possible in English social life. They are possible in all life at all times as long as men and women allow their pa.s.sions to overthrow their reason. The last act, however, ill.u.s.trates the English poise already referred to; Tresham regains his equilibrium with enlarged vision, his salvation is accomplished, his soul awakened.

ACT III

SCENE I.--_The end of the Yew-tree Avenue under MILDRED'S window. A light seen through a central red pane._

_Enter TRESHAM through the trees._

Again here! But I cannot lose myself.

The heath--the orchard--I have traversed glades And dells and bosky paths which used to lead Into green wild-wood depths, bewildering My boy's adventurous step. And now they tend Hither or soon or late; the blackest shade Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope wide, And the dim turret I have fled from, fronts Again my step: the very river put Its arm about me and conducted me To this detested spot. Why then, I'll shun Their will no longer: do your will with me!

Oh, bitter! To have reared a towering scheme Of happiness, and to behold it razed, Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew.

But I ... to hope that from a line like ours No horrid prodigy like this would spring, Were just as though I hoped that from these old Confederates against the sovereign day, Children of older and yet older sires, Whose living coral berries dropped, as now On me, on many a baron's surcoat once, On many a beauty's wimple--would proceed No poison-tree, to thrust, from h.e.l.l its root, Hither and thither its strange snaky arms.

Why came I here? What must I do? [_A bell strikes._] A bell?

Midnight! and 'tis at midnight.... Ah, I catch --Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now, And I obey you! Hist! This tree will serve.

[_He retires behind one of the trees. After a pause, enter MERTOUN cloaked as before._

_Mertoun._ Not time! Beat out thy last voluptuous beat Of hope and fear, my heart! I thought the clock I' the chapel struck as I was pushing through The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise My love-star! Oh, no matter for the past!

So much the more delicious task to watch Mildred revive: to pluck out, thorn by thorn, All traces of the rough forbidden path My rash love lured her to! Each day must see Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed: Then there will be surprises, unforeseen Delights in store. I'll not regret the past.

[_The light is placed above in the purple pane._

And see, my signal rises, Mildred's star!

I never saw it lovelier than now It rises for the last time. If it sets, 'Tis that the re-a.s.suring sun may dawn.

[_As he prepares to ascend the last tree of the avenue, TRESHAM arrests his arm._

Unhand me--peasant, by your grasp! Here's gold.

'Twas a mad freak of mine. I said I'd pluck A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath The cas.e.m.e.nt there. Take this, and hold your peace.

_Tresham._ Into the moonlight yonder, come with me!

Out of the shadow!

_Mertoun._ I am armed, fool!

_Tresham._ Yes, Or no? You'll come into the light, or no?

My hand is on your throat--refuse!--

_Mertoun._ That voice!

Where have I heard ... no--that was mild and slow.

I'll come with you.

[_They advance._

_Tresham._ You're armed: that's well. Declare Your name: who are you?

_Mertoun._ (Tresham!--she is lost!)

_Tresham._ Oh, silent? Do you know, you bear yourself Exactly as, in curious dreams I've had How felons, this wild earth is full of, look When they're detected, still your kind has looked!

The bravo holds an a.s.sured countenance, The thief is voluble and plausible, But silently the slave of l.u.s.t has crouched When I have fancied it before a man.

Your name!

_Mertoun._ I do conjure Lord Tresham--ay, Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail-- That he for his own sake forbear to ask My name! As heaven's above, his future weal Or woe depends upon my silence! Vain!

I read your white inexorable face.

Know me, Lord Tresham!

[_He throws off his disguises._

_Tresham._ Mertoun!

[_After a pause._] Draw now!

_Mertoun._ Hear me But speak first!

_Tresham._ Not one least word on your life!

Be sure that I will strangle in your throat The least word that informs me how you live And yet seem what you seem! No doubt 'twas you Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin.

We should join hands in frantic sympathy If you once taught me the unteachable, Explained how you can live so, and so lie.

With G.o.d's help I retain, despite my sense, The old belief--a life like yours is still Impossible. Now draw!

_Mertoun._ Not for my sake, Do I entreat a hearing--for your sake, And most, for her sake!

_Tresham._ Ha ha, what should I Know of your ways? A miscreant like yourself, How must one rouse his ire? A blow?--that's pride No doubt, to him! One spurns him, does one not?

Or sets the foot upon his mouth, or spits Into his face! Come! Which, or all of these?

_Mertoun._ 'Twixt him and me and Mildred, Heaven be judge!

Can I avoid this? Have your will, my lord!