Limbo and Other Essays Part 11

DIEGO

(_who has recovered himself, and is now leaning in his turn on the parapet_)

Ah----a light woman, bought and sold many times over, my Lord; but who loved, at last.

DUKE

That is the shallow and contemptuous way in which men think, Diego,--and boys like thee pretend to; those to whom life is but a chess-board, a neatly painted surface alternate black and white, most suitable for skilful games, with a soul clean lost or gained at the end! I thought like that. But I grew to understand life as a solid world: rock, fertile earth, veins of pure metal, mere mud, all strangely mixed and overlaid; and eternal fire at the core! I learned it, knowing Magdalen.

DIEGO

Her name was Magdalen?

DUKE

So she bade me call her.

DIEGO

And the name explained the trade?

DUKE (_after a pause_)

I cannot understand thee Diego,--cannot understand thy lack of understanding----Well yes! Her trade. All in this universe is trade, trade of prince, pope, philosopher or harlot; and once the badge put on, the licence signed--the badge a crown or a hot iron's brand, as the case may be,--why then we ply it according to prescription, and that's all!

Yes, Diego,--since thou obligest me to say it in its harshness, I do so, and I glory for her in every contemptuous word I use!--The woman I speak of was but a poor Venetian courtesan; some drab's child, sold to the Infidels as to the Christians; and my cruel pirate master's--shall we say?--mistress. There! For the first time, Diego, thou dost not understand me; or is it----that I misjudged thee, thinking thee, dear boy----(_breaks off hurriedly_).

DIEGO (_very slowly_)

Thinking me what, my Lord?

DUKE (_lightly, but with effort_)

Less of a little Sir Paragon of Virtue than a dear child, who is only a child, must be.

DIEGO

It is better, perhaps, that your Highness should be certain of my limitations----But I crave your Highness's pardon. I had meant to say that being a waif myself, pure gutter-bred, I have known, though young, more Magdalens than you, my Lord. They are, in a way, my sisters; and had I been a woman, I should, likely enough, have been one myself.

DUKE

You mean, Diego?

DIEGO

I mean, that knowing them well, I also know that women such as your Highness has described, occasionally learn to love most truly. Nay, let me finish, my Lord; I was not going to repeat a mere sentimental commonplace. Briefly then, that such women, being expert in love, sometimes understand, quicker than virtuous dames brought up to heroism, when love for them is cloyed. They can walk out of a man's house or life with due alacrity, being trained to such flittings. Or, recognising the first signs of weariness before 'tis known to him who feels it, they can open the door for the other--hand him the clue of the labyrinth with a fine theatric gesture!--But I crave your Highness's pardon for enlarging on this theme.

DUKE

Thou speakest Diego, as if thou hadst a mind to wound thy Master. Is this, my friend, the reward of my confiding in thee, even if tardily?

DIEGO

I stand rebuked, my Lord. But, in my own defence----how shall I say it?----Your Highness has a manner to-night which disconcerts me by its novelty; a saying things and then unsaying them; suggesting and then, somehow, treading down the suggestion like a spark of your lightning.

Lovers, I have been told, use such a manner to revive their flagging feeling by playing on the other one's. Even in so plain and solid a thing as friendship, such ways--I say it subject to your Highness's displeasure--are dangerous. But in love, I have known cases where, carried to certain lengths, such ways of speaking undermined a woman's faith and led her to desperate things. Women, despite their strength, which often surprises us, are brittle creatures. Did you never, perhaps, make trial of this----Magdalen, with----

DUKE

With what? Good G.o.d, Diego, 'tis I who ask thy pardon; and thou sheddest a dreadful light upon the past. But it is not possible. I am not such a cur that, after all she did, after all she was,--my life saved by her audacity a hundred times, made rich and lovely by her love, her wit, her power,--that I could ever have whimpered for my freedom, or made her suspect I wanted it more than I wanted her? Is it possible, Diego?

DIEGO (_slowly_)

Why more than you wanted her? She may have thought the two compatible.

DUKE

Never. First, because my escape could not be compa.s.sed save by her staying behind; and then because---she knew, in fact, what thing I was, or must become, once set at liberty.

DIEGO (_after a pause_)

I see. You mean, my Lord, that you being Duke of Mantua, while she----If she knew that; knew it not merely as a fact, but as one knows the full savour of grief,--well, she was indeed the paragon you think; one might indeed say, bating one point, a virtuous woman.

DUKE

Thou hast understood, dear Diego, and I thank thee for it.

DIEGO

But I fear, my Lord, she did not know these things. Such as she, as yourself remarked, are not trained to conceive of duty, even in others.

Pa.s.sion moves them; and they believe in pa.s.sion. You loved her; good.

Why then, at Mantua as in Barbary. No, my dear Master, believe me; she had seen your love was turning stale, and set you free, rather than taste its staleness. Pa.s.sion, like duty, has its pride; and even we waifs, as gypsies, have our point of honour.

DUKE

Stale! My love grown stale! You make me laugh, boy, instead of angering.

Stale! You never knew her. She was not like a song--even your sweetest song--which, heard too often, cloys, its phrases dropping to senseless notes. She was like music,--the whole art: new modes, new melodies, new rhythms, with every day and hour, pa.s.sionate or sad, or gay, or very quiet; more wondrous notes than in thy voice; and more strangely sweet, even when they grated, than the tone of those newfangled fiddles, which wound the ear and pour balm in, they make now at Cremona.

DIEGO

You loved her then, sincerely?

DUKE

Methinks it may be Diego now, tormenting his Master with needless questions. Loved her, boy! I love her.

_A long pause_. Diego _has covered his face, with a gesture as if about to speak. But the moon has suddenly risen from behind the poplars, and put scales of silver light upon the ripples of the lake, and a pale luminous mist around the palace. As the light invades the terrace, a sort of chill has come upon both speakers; they walk up and down further from one another_.

DIEGO