Imaginary Conversations and Poems Part 53

_Countess._ Are they dead? Was the plague abroad.

_Count._ I will not dissemble ... such was never my intention ... that my deliverance was brought about by means of----

_Countess._ Say it at once ... a lady.

_Count._ It was.

_Countess._ She fled with you.

_Count._ She did.

_Countess._ And have you left her, sir?

_Count._ Alas! alas! I have not; and never can.

_Countess._ Now come to my arms, brave, honourable Ludolph! Did I not say thou couldst not be ungrateful? Where, where is she who has given me back my husband?

_Count._ Dare I utter it! in this house.

_Countess._ Call the children.

_Count._ No; they must not affront her: they must not even stare at her: other eyes, not theirs, must stab me to the heart.

_Countess._ They shall bless her; we will all. Bring her in.

[_Zaida is led in by the Count._]

_Countess._ We three have stood silent long enough: and much there may be on which we will for ever keep silence. But, sweet young creature! can I refuse my protection, or my love, to the preserver of my husband? Can I think it a crime, or even a folly, to have pitied the brave and the unfortunate? to have pressed (but alas! that it ever should have been so here!) a generous heart to a tender one?

Why do you begin to weep?

_Zaida._ Under your kindness, O lady, lie the sources of these tears.

But why has he left us? He might help me to say many things which I want to say.

_Countess._ Did he never tell you he was married?

_Zaida._ He did indeed.

_Countess._ That he had children?

_Zaida._ It comforted me a little to hear it.

_Countess._ Why? prithee why?

_Zaida._ When I was in grief at the certainty of holding but the second place in his bosom, I thought I could at least go and play with them, and win perhaps their love.

_Countess._ According to our religion, a man must have only one wife.

_Zaida._ That troubled me again. But the dispenser of your religion, who binds and unbinds, does for sequins or services what our Prophet does purely through kindness.

_Countess._ We can love but one.

_Zaida._ We indeed can love only one: but men have large hearts.

_Countess._ Unhappy girl!

_Zaida._ The very happiest in the world.

_Countess._ Ah! inexperienced creature!

_Zaida._ The happier for that perhaps.

_Countess._ But the sin!

_Zaida._ Where sin is, there must be sorrow: and I, my sweet sister, feel none whatever. Even when tears fall from my eyes, they fall only to cool my breast: I would not have one the fewer: they all are for him: whatever he does, whatever he causes, is dear to me.

_Countess._ [_Aside._] This is too much. I could hardly endure to have him so beloved by another, even at the extremity of the earth. [_To Zaida._] You would not lead him into perdition?

_Zaida._ I have led him (Allah be praised!) to his wife and children.

It was for those I left my father. He whom we love might have stayed with me at home: but there he would have been only half happy, even had he been free. I could not often let him see me through the lattice; I was too afraid; and I dared only once let fall the water-melon; it made such a noise in dropping and rolling on the terrace: but, another day, when I had pared it nicely, and had swathed it up well among vine-leaves, dipped in sugar and sherbet, I was quite happy. I leaped and danced to have been so ingenious. I wonder what creature could have found and eaten it. I wish he were here, that I might ask him if he knew.

_Countess._ He quite forgot home then!

_Zaida._ When we could speak together at all, he spoke perpetually of those whom the calamity of war had separated from him.

_Countess._ It appears that you could comfort him in his distress, and did it willingly.

_Zaida._ It is delightful to kiss the eye-lashes of the beloved: is it not? but never so delightful as when fresh tears are on them.

_Countess._ And even this too? you did this?

_Zaida._ Fifty times.

_Countess._ Insupportable!

He often then spoke about me?

_Zaida._ As sure as ever we met: for he knew I loved him the better when I heard him speak so fondly.

_Countess._ [_To herself._] Is this possible? It may be ... of the absent, the unknown, the unfeared, the unsuspected.

_Zaida._ We shall now be so happy, all three.

_Countess._ How can we all live together?

_Zaida._ Now he is here, is there no bond of union?

_Countess._ Of union? of union? [_Aside_.] Slavery is a frightful thing! slavery for life, too! And she released him from it. What then?