Armgart: Scene V

ARMGART. Walpurga, have you walked this morning?

WALPURGA. No.

ARMGART. Go, then, and walk; I wish to be alone.

WALPURGA. I will not leave you.

ARMGART. Will not, at my wish?

WALPURGA. Will not, because you wish it. Say no more,But take this draught.

ARMGART. The Doctor gave it you?It is an anodyne. Put it away.He cured me of my voice, and now he wantsTo cure me of my vision and resolve—Drug me to sleep that I may wake againWithout a purpose, abject as the restTo bear the yoke of life. He shall not cheat meOf that fresh strength which anguish gives the soul,The inspiration of revolt, ere rageSlackens to faltering. Now I see the truth.

WALPURGA. (setting down the glass) Then you must see a future in your reach,With happiness enough to make a dowerFor two of modest claims.

ARMGART. Oh, you intoneThat chant of consolation, wherewith easeMakes itself easier in the sight of pain.

WALPURGA. No; I would not console you, but rebuke.

ARMGART. That is more bearable. Forgive me, dear.Say what you will. But now I want to write.

WALPURGA. I say then, you are simply fevered, mad,You cry aloud at horrors that would vanishIf you would change the light, throw into shadeThe loss you aggrandize, and let day fallOn good remaining, nay on good refusedWhich may be gain now. Did you not rejectA woman's lot more brilliant, as some held,Than any singer's? It may still be yours.Graf Dornberg loved you well.

ARMGART. Not me, not me.He loved one well who was like me in allSave in a voice which made that All unlikeAs diamond is to charcoal. Oh, a man's love!Think you he loves a woman's inner selfAching with loss of loveliness?—as mothersCleave to the palpitating pain that dwellsWithin their misformed offspring?

WALPURGA. But the GrafChose you as simple Armgart—had preferredThat you should never seek for any fameBut such as matrons have who rear great sons.And therefore you rejected him; but now—

ARMGART. Ay, now—now he would see me as I am,Russet and songless as a missel-thrush.An ordinary girl—a plain brown girl,Who, if some meaning flash from out her words,Shocks as a disproportioned thing—a WillThat, like an arm astretch and broken off,Has nought to hurl—the torso of a soul.I sang him into love of me: my songWas consecration, lifted me apartFrom the crowd chiselled like me, sister forms,But empty of divineness. Nay, my charmWas half that I could win fame yet renounce!A wife with glory possible absorbedInto her husband's actual.

WALPURGA. For shame!Armgart, you slander him. What would you sayIf now he came to you and asked againThat you would be his wife?

ARMGART. No, and thrice no!It would be pitying constancy, not love,That brought him to me now. I will not beA pensioner in marriage. SacramentsAre not to feed the paupers of the world.If he were generous—I am generous, too.

WALPURGA. Proud, Armgart, but not generous.

ARMGART. Say no more.He will not know until—

WALPURGA. He knows already.

ARMGART. (quickly) Is he come back?

WALPURGA. Yes, and will soon be here.The Doctor had twice seen him, and would goFrom hence again to see him.

ARMGART. Well, he knows.It is all one.

WALPURGA. What if he were outside?I hear a footstep in the ante-room.

ARMGART. (raising herself and assuming calmness) Why let him come, of course. I shall behaveLike what I am, a common personage,Who looks for nothing but civility.I shall not play the fallen heroine,Assume a tragic part and throw out cuesFor a beseeching lover.

WALPURGA. Some one raps.A letter—from the Graf.

ARMGART. Then open it.Nay, my head swims. Read it. I cannot see.Read it. Have done! No matter what it is.

ARMGART. (after a slight shudder, bitterly.) The Graf has much discretion. I am glad.He spares us both a pain, not seeing me.What I like least is that consoling hope—That empty cup, so neatly ciphered "Time,"Handed me as a cordial for despair.(Slowly and dreamily) Time—what a word to fling as charity!Bland, neutral word for slow, dull-beating pain—Days, months, and years!—If I would wait for them.Why, this is but beginning. (WALP. re-enters.) Kiss me, dear.I am going now—alone—out—for a walk,Say you will never wound me any moreWith such cajolery as nurses useTo patients amorous of a crippled life.Flatter the blind: I see.

WALPURGA. Well, I was wrong.In haste to soothe, I snatched at flickers merely.Believe me, I will flatter you no more.

ARMGART. Bear witness, I am calm. I read my lotAs soberly as if it were a taleWrit by a creeping feuilletonist and called,"The Woman's Lot: a Tale of Everyday:"A middling woman's, to impress the worldWith high superfluousness; her thoughts a cropOf chick-weed, errors or of pot-herb facts,Smiled at like some child's drawing on a slate."Genteel?" "O yes, gives lessons; not so goodAs any man's would be, but cheaper far.""Pretty?" "No: yet she makes a figure fitFor good society. Poor thing, she sewsBoth late and early, turns and alters allTo suit the changing mode. Some widowerMight do well, marrying her; but in these days!Well, she can somewhat eke her narrow gainsBy writing, just to furnish her with glovesAnd droschkies in the rain. They print her thingsOften for charity."—Oh, a dog's life!A harnessed dog's, that draws a little cartVoted a nuisance! I am going now.

WALPURGA. Not now, the door is locked.

ARMGART. Give me the key!

WALPURGA. Locked on the outside. Gretchen has the key:She is gone on errands.

ARMGART. What, you dare to keep meYour prisoner?

WALPURGA. And have I not been yours?Your wish has been a bolt to keep me in.Perhaps that middling woman whom you paintWith far-off scorn . . . . .

ARMGART. I paint what I must be.What is my soul to me without the voiceThat gave it freedom?—gave it one grand touch,And made it nobly human?—Prisoned now,Prisoned in all the petty mimicriesCalled woman's knowledge, that will fit the worldAs doll-clothes fit a man. I can do naughtBetter than what a million women do—Must drudge among the crowd and feel my lifeBeating upon the world without response;Beating with passion through an insect's hornThat moves a millet-seed laboriously.If I would do it!

WALPURGA. (coldly) And why should you not?

ARMGART. (turning quickly) Because Heaven made me royal—wrought me outWith subtle finish towards pre-eminence,Made every channel of my soul convergeTo one high function, and then flung me down,That breaking I might turn to subtlest pain.An inborn passion gives a rebel's right:I would rebel and die in twenty worldsSooner than bear the yoke of thwarted life.Each keenest sense turned into keen distaste,Hunger not satisfied but kept alive,Breathing in languor half a century.All the world now is but a rack of threadsTo twist and dwarf me into pettinessAnd basely feigned content the placid maskOf women's misery.

WALPURGA. (indignantly) Ay, such a maskAs the few born like you to easy joy,Cradled in privilege, take for naturalOn all the lowly faces that must lookUpward to you! What revelation nowShows you the mask or gives presentimentOf sadness hidden? You, who every dayThese five years saw me limp to wait on you,And thought the order perfect which gave me,The girl without pretension to be aught,A splendid cousin for my happiness:To watch the night through when her brain was firedWith too much gladness—listen, always listenTo what she felt, who having power had rightTo feel exorbitantly, and submergeThe souls around her with the poured-out floodOf what must be ere she were satisfied!That was feigned patience, was it? Why not love,Love nurtured even with that strength of selfWhich found no room save in another's life?Oh, such as I know joy by negatives,And all their deepest passion is a pangTill they accept their pauper's heritage,And meekly live from out the general storeOf joy they were born stripped of. I accept—Nay, now would sooner choose it than the wealthOf natures you call royal, who can liveIn mere mock knowledge of their fellows' woe,Thinking their smiles may heal it.

ARMGART. (tremulously) Nay, Walpurga,I did not make a palace of my joyTo shut the world's truth from me. All my goodWas that I touched the world and made a partIn the world's dower of beauty, strength, and bliss;It was the glimpse of consciousness divineWhich pours out day and sees the day is good.Now I am fallen dark; I sit in gloom,Remembering bitterly. Yet you speak truth;I wearied you, it seems; took all your helpAs cushioned nobles use a weary serf,Not looking at his face.

WALPURGA. Oh, I but standAs a small symbol for the mighty sumOf claims unpaid to needy myriads;I think you never set your loss besideThat mighty deficit. Is your work gone—The prouder queenly work that paid itself,And yet was overpaid with men's applause?Are you no longer chartered, privileged,But sunk to simple woman's penury,To ruthless Nature's chary average—Where is the rebel's right for you alone?Noble rebellion lifts a common load:But what is he who flings his own load offAnd leaves his fellows toiling? Rebel's right?Say rather, the deserter's. Oh, you smiledFrom your clear height on all the million lotsWhich yet you brand as abject.

ARMGART. I was blindWith too much happiness: true vision comesOnly, it seems, with sorrow. Were there oneThis moment near me, suffering what I feel,And needing me for comfort in her pang—Then it were worth the while to live; not else.

WALPURGA. One—near you—why, they throng! you hardly stirBut your act touches them. We touch afar.For did not swarthy slaves of yesterdayLeap in their bondage at the Hebrews' flight,Which touched them through the thrice millennial dark?But you can find the sufferer you needWith touch less subtle.

ARMGART. Who has need of me?

WALPURGA. Love finds the need it fills. But you are hard.

ARMGART. Is it not you, Walpurga, who are hard?You humored all my wishes till to-day,When fate has blighted me.

WALPURGA. You would not hearThe "chant of consolation:" words of hopeOnly embittered you. Then hear the truth—A lame girl's truth, whom no one ever praisedFor being cheerful: "It is well," they said:"Were she cross-grained she could not be endured."A word of truth from her had startled you;But you—you claimed the universe; naught lessThan all existence working in sure tracksTowards your supremacy. The wheels might scatheA myriad destinies—nay, must perforce;But yours they must keep clear of; just for youThe seething atoms through the firmamentMust bear a human heart—which you had not!For what is it to you that women, men,Plod, faint, are weary, and espouse despairOf aught but fellowship? Save that you spurnTo be among them? Now, then, you are lame—Maimed, as you said, and levelled with the crowd:Call it new birth—birth from that monstrous Self,Which, smiling down upon a race oppressed,Says, "All is good, for I am throned at ease,"Dear Armgart—nay, you tremble—I am cruel.

ARMGART. O no! hark! Some one knocks. Come in!—come in!

LEO. See, Gretchen let me in. I could not restLonger away from you.

ARMGART. Sit down, dear Leo.Walpurga, I would speak with him alone.

LEO. (hesitatingly) You mean to walk?

ARMGART. No, I shall stay within.How old are you?

LEO. Threescore and five.

ARMGART. That's old,I never thought till now how you have lived.They hardly ever play your music?

LEO. (raising his eyebrows and throwing out his lip) No!Schubert, too, wrote for silence: half his workLay like a frozen Rhine till summers cameThat warmed the grass above him. Even so!His music lives now with a mighty youth.

ARMGART. Do you think yours will live when you are dead?

LEO. Pfui! The time was, I drank that home-brewed wineAnd found it heady, while my blood was young.Now it scarce warms me. Tipple it as I may,I am sober still, and say: "My old friend Leo,Much grain is wasted in the world and rots;Why not thy handful?"

ARMGART. Strange! since I have known youTill now I never wondered how you livedWhen I sang well—that was your jubilee.But you were old already.

LEO. Yes, child, yes:Youth thinks itself the goal of each old life;Age has but travelled from a far-off timeJust to be ready for youth's service. Well!It was my chief delight to perfect you.

ARMGART. Good Leo! You have lived on little joys.But your delight in me is crushed for everYour pains, where are they now? They shaped intentWhich action frustrates; shaped an inward senseWhich is but keen despair, the agonyOf highest vision in the lowest pit.

LEO. Nay, nay, I have a thought: keep to the stage,To drama without song; for you can act—Who knows how well, when all the soul is pouredInto that sluice alone?

ARMGART. I know, and you.The second or third best in tragediesThat cease to touch the fibre of the time.No; song is gone, but nature's other gift,Self-judgment, is not gone. Song was my speech,And with its impulse only, action came:Song was the battle's onset, when cool purposeGlows into rage, becomes a warring godAnd moves the limbs with miracle. But now—Oh, I should stand hemmed in with thoughts and rules—Say "This way passion acts," yet never feelThe might of passion. How should I declaim?As monsters write, with feet instead of hands.I will not feed on doing great tasks ill,Dull the world's sense with mediocrity,And live by trash that smothers excellence.One gift I had that ranked me with the best—The secret of my frame—and that is gone.For all life now I am a broken thing.But silence there! Good Leo, advise me now.I would take humble work and do it well—Teach music, singing—what I can—not here,But in some smaller town where I may bringThe method you have taught me, pass your giftTo others who can use it for delight.You think I can do that?

LEO. Yes, yes, dear child!And it were well, perhaps, to change the place—Begin afresh, as I did when I leftVienna with a heart half broken.

ARMGART. (roused by surprise) You?

LEO. Well, it is long ago. But I had lost—No matter! We must bury our dead joysAnd live above them with a living world.But whither, think you, you would like to go?

ARMGART. To Freiburg.

LEO. In the Breisgau? And why there?It is too small.

ARMGART. Walpurga was born there,And loves the place. She quitted it for meThese five years past. Now I will take her there.Dear Leo, I will bury my dead joy.

LEO. Mothers do so, bereaved; then learn to loveAnother's living child.

ARMGART. Oh, it is hardTo take the little corpse, and lay it low,And say, "None misses it but me."She sings . . .I mean, Paulina sings Fidelio,And they will welcome her to-night.

LEO. Well, well,'Tis better that our griefs should not spread far.