Armgart: Scene II

GRAF. Armgart, to many minds the first successIs reason for desisting. I have knownA man so versatile, he tried all arts,But when in each by turns he had achievedJust so much mastery as made men say,"He could be King here if he would," he threwThe lauded skill aside. He hates, said one,The level of achieved pre-eminence,He must be conquering still; but others said—

ARMGART. The truth, I hope: he had a meagre soul,Holding no depth where love could root itself."Could if he would?" True greatness ever wills—It lives in wholeness if it live at all,And all its strength is knit with constancy.

GRAF. He used to say himself he was too saneTo give his life away for excellenceWhich yet must stand, an ivory statuetteBrought to perfection through long lonely years,Huddled in the mart of mediocrities.He said, the very finest doing winsThe admiring only; but to leave undone,Promise and not fulfil, like buried youth,Wins all the envious, makes them sigh your nameAs that fair Absent, blameless Possible,Which could alone impassion them; and thusSerene negation has free gift of all,Panting achievement struggles, is denied,Or wins to lose again. What say you, Armgart?Truth has rough flavors if we bite it through;I think this sarcasm came from out its coreOf bitter irony.

ARMGART. It is the truthMean souls select to feed upon. What then?Their meanness is a truth, which I will spurn.The praise I seek lives not in envious breathUsing my name to blight another's deed.I sing for love of song, and that renownWhich is the spreading act, the world-wide share,Of good that I was born with. Had I failed—Well, that had been a truth most pitiable,I cannot bear to think what life would beWith high hope shrunk to endurance, stunted aimsLike broken lances ground to eating-knives.A self sunk down to look with level eyesAt low achievement, doomed from day to dayTo distaste of its consciousness. But I—

GRAF. Have won, not lost, in your decisive throwAnd I, too, glory in this issue; yet,The public verdict has no potencyTo sway my judgment of what Armgart is:My pure delight in her would be but sullied,If it o'erflowed with mixture of men's praise.And had she failed, I should have said, "The pearlRemains a pearl for me, reflects the lightWith the same fitness that first charmed my gaze—Is worth as fine a setting now as then."

ARMGART. (rising) Ah, you are good! But why will you rehearseThe talk of cynics, who with insect eyesExplore the secrets of the rubbish-heap?I hate your epigrams and pointed saws,Whose narrow truth is but broad falsity,Confess your friend was shallow

GRAF. I confessLife is not rounded in an epigram,And saying aught, we leave a world unsaid.I quoted, merely to shape forth my thoughtThat high success has terrors when achieved—Like preternatural spouses, whose dire loveHangs perilous on slight observances:Whence it were possible that Armgart crownedMight turn and listen to a pleading voice,Though Armgart striving in the race was deaf.You said you dared not think what life had beenWithout the stamp of eminence; have you thoughtHow you will bear the poise of eminenceWith dread of sliding? Paint the future outAs an unchecked and glorious career,'Twill grow more strenuous by the very loveYou bear to excellence, the very fateOf human powers, which tread at every stepOn possible verges.

ARMGART. I accept the peril.I choose to walk high with sublimer dreadRather then crawl in safety. And, besides,I am an artist as you are a noble:I ought to bear the burthen of my rank.

GRAF. Such parallels, dear Armgart, are but snaresTo catch the mind with seeming argument—Small baits of likeness 'mid disparity.Men rise the higher as their task is high,The task being well achieved. A woman's rankLies in the fulness of her womanhood:Therein alone she is royal.

ARMGART. Yes, I knowThe oft-taught Gospel: "Woman, thy desireShall be that all superlatives on earthBelong to men, save the one highest kind—To be a mother. Thou shall not desireTo do aught best save pure subservience:Nature has willed it so!" O blessèd Nature!Let her be arbitress; she gave me voiceSuch as she only gives a woman child,Best of its kind; gave me ambition too,That sense transcendent which can taste the joyOf swaying multitudes, of being adoredFor such achievement, needed excellence,As man's best art must wait for, or be dumb.Men did not say, when I had sung last night,"'Twas good, nay, wonderful, consideringShe is a woman"—and then turn to add,"Tenor or baritone had sung her songsBetter, of course: she's but a woman spoiled."I beg your pardon, Graf, you said it.

GRAF. No!How should I say it, Armgart? I, who ownThe magic of your nature-given artAs sweetest effluence of your womanhood,Which, being to my choice the best, must findThe best of utterance. But this I say:Your fervid youth beguiles you; you mistakeA strain of lyric passion for a lifeWhich in the spending is a chronicleWith ugly pages. Trust me, Armgart, trust me;Ambition exquisite as yours, which soarsToward something quintessential you call fame,Is not robust enough for this gross world,Whose fame is dense with false and foolish breath,Ardor, a-twin with nice refining thought,Prepares a double pain. Pain had been saved,Nay, purer glory reached, had you been thronedAs woman only, holding all your artAs attribute to that dear sovereignty—Concentering your power in home delightsWhich penetrate and purify the world.

ARMGART. What! leave the opera with my part ill-sungWhile I was warbling in a drawing-room?Sing in the chimney-corner to inspireMy husband reading news? Let the world hearMy music only in his morning speechLess stammering than most honorable men's?No! tell me that my song is poor, my artThe piteous feat of weakness aping strength—That were fit proem to your argument.Till then, I am an artist by my birth—By the same warrant that I am a woman:Nay, in the added rarer gift I seeSupreme vocation: if a conflict comes,Perish—no, not the woman, but the joysWhich men make narrow by their narrowness.Oh, I am happy! The great masters writeFor women's voices, and great Music wants me!I need not crush myself within a mouldOf theory called Nature: I have roomTo breathe and grow unstunted.

GRAF. Armgart, hear me.I mean not that our talk should hurry onTo such collision. Foresight of the illsThick shadowing your path, drew on my speechBeyond intention. True, I came to askA great renunciation, but not thisTowards which my words at first perversely strayed,As if in memory of their earlier suit,Forgetful ..........Armgart, do you remember, too? the suitHad but postponement, was not quite disdained—Was told to wait and learn—what it has learned—A more submissive speech.

ARMGART. (with some agitation) Then it forgotIts lesson cruelly. As I remember,'Twas not to speak save to the artist crowned,Nor speak to her of casting off her crown.Nor will it, Armgart. I came not to seekAny renunciation save the wife's,Which turns away from other possible loveFuture and worthier, to take his loveWho asks the name of husband. He who soughtArmgart obscure, and heard her answer, "Wait"—May come without suspicion now to seekArmgart applauded.

ARMGART. (turning towards him) Yes, without suspicionOf aught save what consists with faithfulnessIn all expressed intent. Forgive me, Graf—I am ungrateful to no soul that loves me—To you most grateful. Yet the best intentGrasps but a living present which may growLike any unfledged bird. You are a noble,And have a high career; just now you said'Twas higher far than aught a woman seeksBeyond mere womanhood. Yet claim to beMore than a husband but could not rejoiceThat I were more than wife. What follows, then?You choosing me with such persistencyAs is but stretched-out rashness, soon must findOur marriage asks concessions, asks resolveTo share renunciation or demand it.Either we both renounce a mutual ease,As in a nation's need both man and wifeDo public services, or one of usMust yield that something else for which each livesBesides the other. Men are reasoners:That premiss of superior claims perforceUrges conclusion—" Armgart, it is you."

GRAF. But if I say I have considered thisWith strict prevision, counted all the costWhich that great good of loving you demands—Questioned my stores of patience, half resolvedTo live resigned without a bliss whose threatTouched you as well as me—and finally,With impetus of undivided willReturned to say, "You shall be free as now,Only accept the refuge, shelter, guard,My love will give you freedom,"-then your wordsAre hard accusal.

ARMGART. Well, I accuse myself.My love would be accomplice of your will.

GRAF. Again—my will?

ARMGART. Oh, your unspoken will.Your silent tolerance would torture me,And on that rack I should deny the goodI yet believed in.

GRAF. Then I am the manWhom you would love?

ARMGART. Whom I refuse to love!No; I will live alone and pour my painWith passion into music, where it turnsTo what is best within my better self.I will not take for a husband one who deemsThe thing my soul acknowledges as good—The thing I hold worth striving, suffering for,To be a thing dispensed with easily,Or else the idol of a mind infirm.

GRAF. Armgart, you are ungenerous; you strainMy thought beyond its mark. Our differenceLies not so deep as love—as unionThrough a mysterious fitness that transcendsFormal agreement.

ARMGART. It lies deep enoughTo chafe the union. If many a manRefrains, degraded, from the utmost right,Because the pleadings of his wife's small fearsAre little serpents biting at his heel,—How shall a woman keep her steadfastnessBeneath a frost within her husband's eyesWhere coldness scorches? Graf, it is your sorrowThat you love Armgart. Nay, it is her sorrowThat she may not love you.

GRAF. Woman, it seems,Has enviable power to love or not,According to her will—

ARMGART. She has the will—I have—who am one woman—not to takeDisloyal pledges that divide her will—The man who marries me must wed my Art—Honor and cherish it, not tolerate.

GRAF. The man is yet to come whose theoryWill weigh as naught with you against his love.

ARMGART. Whose theory will plead beside his love.

GRAF. Himself a singer, then? who knows no lifeOut of the opera books, where tenor partsAre found to suit him?

ARMGART. You are bitter, Graf.Forgive me; seek the woman you deserve,All grace, all goodness, who has not yet foundA meaning in her life, nor any endBeyond fulfilling yours. The type abounds.

GRAF. And happily, for the world.

ARMGART. Yes, happily.Let it excuse me that my kind is rare:Commonness is its own security.

GRAF. Armgart, I would with all my soul I knewThe man so rare that he could make your lifeAs woman sweet to you, as artist safe.

ARMGART. Oh, I can live unmated, but not liveWithout the bliss of singing to the world,And feeling all my world respond to me.

GRAF. May it be lasting. Then, we two must part?

ARMGART. I thank you from my heart for all. Farewell!