Act IV: Scene VI

ANNICCA.Father, you called me?

RIBERA.Aye, to bid good-night.Why do you kiss me? To betray to-morrow?

ANNICCA.Dear father, you are better; you have slept.Are you not rested?

RIBERA.Child, I was not weary.There was some cloud pressed here (pointing to his forehead) butthat is past,I have no pain nor any sense of ill.Now, while my brain is clear, I have a wordTo speak. I think not I have been to thee,Nor to that other one, an unkind father.I do not now remember any act,Or any word of mine, could cause thee grief.But I am old--perchance my memoryDeceives in this? Speak! Am I right, Annicca?

ANNICCA (weeping).Oh, father, father, why will you torture me?You were too good, too good.

RIBERA.Why, so I thought.Since it appears the guerdon of such goodnessIs treachery, abandonment, disgrace,I here renounce my fatherhood. No childWill I acknowledge mine. Thou art a wife;Thy duty is thy husband's. When AntonioReturns from Seville, tell him that his fatherIs long since dead. Henceforward I will ownNo kin, no home, no tie. I will away,To-morrow morn, and live an anchorite.One thing ye cannot rob me of--my work.My name shall still outsoar these low, mirk vapors--Not the Ribera, stained with sin and shame,As she hath left it, but the Spagnoletto.My glory is mine own. I have done with it,But I bequeath it to my country. NowI will make friends with beasts--they'll prove less savageThan she that was my daughter. I have spokenFor the last time that word. Thee I curse not;Thou hast not set thy heel upon my heart;But yet I will not bless thee. Go. Good-night.

ANNICCA (embracing him).What! will you spurn me thus? Nay, I will bide,And be to thee all that she should have been,Soothe thy declining years, and heal the woundOf this sharp sorrow. Thou shalt bless me still,Father--

RIBERA.Away! I know thee. Thou art oneWith her who duped me with like words last night.Then I believed; but now my sense is closed,My heart is dead as stone. I cast thee forth.By heaven, I own thee not! Thou dost forgetI am the Spagnoletto. Away, I say,Or ere I strike thee.

ANNICCA.Woe is me! Help, help!

RIBERA.So, the last link is snapt. Had I not steeledMy heart, I fain had kissed her farewell.'T is better so. I leave my work unfinished.Could I arise each day to face this spectre,Or sleep with it at night?--to yearn for herEven while I curse her? No! The dead remainSacred and sweet in our remembrance still;They seem not to have left us; they abideAnd linger nigh us in the viewless air.The fallen, the guilty, must be rooted outFrom heart and thought and memory. With themNo hope of blest reunion; they must beAs though they had not been; their spoken nameCuts like a knife. When I essay to thinkOf what hath passed to-day, my sick brain reels.The letter I remember, but all sinceFloats in a mist of horror, and I graspNo actual form. Did I not wander forth?A mob surrounded me. All Naples knewMy downfall, and the street was paved with eyesThat stared into my soul. Then friendly handsGuided me hither. When I woke, I feltAs though a stone had rolled from off my brain.But still this nightmare bides the truth. I knowThey watch me, they suspect me. I will waitTill the whole household sleep, and then steal forth,Nor unavenged return.