Act 2

SCENE 2.1:

LUCRETIA:Weep not, my gentle boy; he struck but meWho have borne deeper wrongs. In truth, if heHad killed me, he had done a kinder deed.O God Almighty, do Thou look upon us,We have no other friend but only Thee!Yet weep not; though I love you as my own,I am not your true mother.

BERNARDO:Oh, more, more,Than ever mother was to any child,That have you been to me! Had he not beenMy father, do you think that I should weep!

LUCRETIA:Alas! Poor boy, what else couldst thou have done?

Did he pass this way? Have you seen him, brother?Ah, no! that is his step upon the stairs;'Tis nearer now; his hand is on the door;Mother, if I to thee have ever beenA duteous child, now save me! Thou, great God,Whose image upon earth a father is,Dost thou indeed abandon me? He comes;The door is opening now; I see his face;He frowns on others, but he smiles on me,Even as he did after the feast last night.Almighty God, how merciful Thou art!'Tis but Orsino's servant.--Well, what news?

SERVANT:My master bids me say, the Holy FatherHas sent back your petition thus unopened.And he demands at what hour 'twere secureTo visit you again?

LUCRETIA:At the Ave Mary.So, daughter, our last hope has failed. Ah me!How pale you look; you tremble, and you standWrapped in some fixed and fearful meditation,As if one thought were over strong for you:Your eyes have a chill glare; O, dearest child!Are you gone mad? If not, pray speak to me.

BEATRICE:You see I am not mad: I speak to you.

LUCRETIA:You talked of something that your father didAfter that dreadful feast? Could it be worseThan when he smiled, and cried, 'My sons are dead!'And every one looked in his neighbour's faceTo see if others were as white as he?At the first word he spoke I felt the bloodRush to my heart, and fell into a trance;And when it passed I sat all weak and wild;Whilst you alone stood up, and with strong wordsChecked his unnatural pride; and I could seeThe devil was rebuked that lives in him.Until this hour thus you have ever stoodBetween us and your father's moody wrathLike a protecting presence; your firm mindHas been our only refuge and defence:What can have thus subdued it? What can nowHave given you that cold melancholy look,Succeeding to your unaccustomed fear?

BEATRICE:What is it that you say? I was just thinking'Twere better not to struggle any more.Men, like my father, have been dark and bloody,Yet never--Oh! Before worse comes of it'Twere wise to die: it ends in that at last.

LUCRETIA:Oh, talk not so, dear child! Tell me at onceWhat did your father do or say to you?He stayed not after that accursed feastOne moment in your chamber.--Speak to me.

BERNARDO:Oh, sister, sister, prithee, speak to us!

It was one word, Mother, one little word;One look, one smile.Oh! He has trampled meUnder his feet, and made the blood stream downMy pallid cheeks. And he has given us allDitch-water, and the fever-stricken fleshOf buffaloes, and bade us eat or starve,And we have eaten.--He has made me lookOn my beloved Bernardo, when the rustOf heavy chains has gangrened his sweet limbs,And I have never yet despaired--but now!What could I say?Ah, no! 'tis nothing new.The sufferings we all share have made me wild:He only struck and cursed me as he passed;He said, he looked, he did;--nothing at allBeyond his wont, yet it disordered me.Alas! I am forgetful of my duty,I should preserve my senses for your sake.

LUCRETIA:Nay, Beatrice; have courage, my sweet girl.If any one despairs it should be IWho loved him once, and now must live with himTill God in pity call for him or me.For you may, like your sister, find some husband,And smile, years hence, with children round your knees;Whilst I, then dead, and all this hideous coilShall be remembered only as a dream.

BEATRICE:Talk not to me, dear lady, of a husband.Did you not nurse me when my mother died?Did you not shield me and that dearest boy?And had we any other friend but youIn infancy, with gentle words and looks,To win our father not to murder us?And shall I now desert you? May the ghostOf my dead Mother plead against my soulIf I abandon her who filled the placeShe left, with more, even, than a mother's love!

BERNARDO:And I am of my sister's mind. IndeedI would not leave you in this wretchedness,Even though the Pope should make me free to liveIn some blithe place, like others of my age,With sports, and delicate food, and the fresh air.Oh, never think that I will leave you, Mother!

LUCRETIA:My dear, dear children!

CENCI:What! Beatrice here!Come hither!Nay, hide not your face, 'tis fair;Look up! Why, yesternight you dared to lookWith disobedient insolence upon me,Bending a stern and an inquiring browOn what I meant; whilst I then sought to hideThat which I came to tell you--but in vain.

Oh, that the earth would gape! Hide me, O God!

CENCI:Then it was I whose inarticulate wordsFell from my lips, and who with tottering stepsFled from your presence, as you now from mine.Stay, I command you--from this day and hourNever again, I think, with fearless eye,And brow superior, and unaltered cheek,And that lip made for tenderness or scorn,Shalt thou strike dumb the meanest of mankind;Me least of all. Now get thee to thy chamber!Thou too, loathed image of thy cursed mother,Thy milky, meek face makes me sick with hate!So much has passed between us as must makeMe bold, her fearful.--'Tis an awful thingTo touch such mischief as I now conceive:So men sit shivering on the dewy bank,And try the chill stream with their feet; once in...How the delighted spirit pants for joy!

O husband! Pray forgive poor Beatrice.She meant not any ill.

CENCI:Nor you perhaps?Nor that young imp, whom you have taught by roteParricide with his alphabet? Nor Giacomo?Nor those two most unnatural sons, who stirredEnmity up against me with the Pope?Whom in one night merciful God cut off:Innocent lambs! They thought not any ill.You were not here conspiring? You said nothingOf how I might be dungeoned as a madman;Or be condemned to death for some offence,And you would be the witnesses?--This failing,How just it were to hire assassins, orPut sudden poison in my evening drink?Or smother me when overcome by wine?Seeing we had no other judge but God,And He had sentenced me, and there were noneBut you to be the executionersOf His decree enregistered in heaven?Oh, no! You said not this?

LUCRETIA:So help me God,I never thought the things you charge me with!

CENCI:If you dare to speak that wicked lie againI'll kill you. What! It was not by your counselThat Beatrice disturbed the feast last night?You did not hope to stir some enemiesAgainst me, and escape, and laugh to scornWhat every nerve of you now trembles at?You judged that men were bolder than they are;Few dare to stand between their grave and me.

LUCRETIA:Look not so dreadfully! By my salvationI knew not aught that Beatrice designed;Nor do I think she designed any thingUntil she heard you talk of her dead brothers.

CENCI:Blaspheming liar! You are damned for this!But I will take you where you may persuadeThe stones you tread on to deliver you:For men shall there be none but those who dareAll things--not question that which I command.On Wednesday next I shall set out: you knowThat savage rock, the Castle of Petrella:'Tis safely walled, and moated round about:Its dungeons underground, and its thick towersNever told tales; though they have heard and seenWhat might make dumb things speak.--Why do you linger?Make speediest preparation for the journey!The all-beholding sun yet shines; I hearA busy stir of men about the streets;I see the bright sky through the window panes:It is a garish, broad, and peering day;Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears,And every little corner, nook, and holeIs penetrated with the insolent light.Come darkness! Yet, what is the day to me?And wherefore should I wish for night, who doA deed which shall confound both night and day?'Tis she shall grope through a bewildering mistOf horror: if there be a sun in heavenShe shall not dare to look upon its beams;Nor feel its warmth. Let her then wish for night;The act I think shall soon extinguish allFor me: I bear a darker deadlier gloomThan the earth's shade, or interlunar air,Or constellations quenched in murkiest cloud,In which I walk secure and unbeheldTowards my purpose.--Would that it were done!

SCENE 2.2:

CAMILLO:There is an obsolete and doubtful lawBy which you might obtain a bare provisionOf food and clothing--

GIACOMO:Nothing more? Alas!Bare must be the provision which strict lawAwards, and aged, sullen avarice pays.Why did my father not apprentice meTo some mechanic trade? I should have thenBeen trained in no highborn necessitiesWhich I could meet not by my daily toil.The eldest son of a rich noblemanIs heir to all his incapacities;He has wide wants, and narrow powers. If you,Cardinal Camillo, were reduced at onceFrom thrice-driven beds of down, and delicate food,An hundred servants, and six palaces,To that which nature doth indeed require?--

CAMILLO:Nay, there is reason in your plea; 'twere hard.

GIACOMO:'Tis hard for a firm man to bear: but IHave a dear wife, a lady of high birth,Whose dowry in ill hour I lent my fatherWithout a bond or witness to the deed:And children, who inherit her fine senses,The fairest creatures in this breathing world;And she and they reproach me not. Cardinal,Do you not think the Pope would interposeAnd stretch authority beyond the law?

CAMILLO:Though your peculiar case is hard, I knowThe Pope will not divert the course of law.After that impious feast the other nightI spoke with him, and urged him then to checkYour father's cruel hand; he frowned and said,'Children are disobedient, and they stingTheir fathers' hearts to madness and despair,Requiting years of care with contumely.I pity the Count Cenci from my heart;His outraged love perhaps awakened hate,And thus he is exasperated to ill.In the great war between the old and youngI, who have white hairs and a tottering body,Will keep at least blameless neutrality.'You, my good Lord Orsino, heard those words.

ORSINO:What words?

GIACOMO:Alas, repeat them not again!There then is no redress for me, at leastNone but that which I may achieve myself,Since I am driven to the brink.--But, say,My innocent sister and my only brotherAre dying underneath my father's eye.The memorable torturers of this land,Galeaz Visconti, Borgia, Ezzelin,Never inflicted on their meanest slaveWhat these endure; shall they have no protection?

CAMILLO:Why, if they would petition to the PopeI see not how he could refuse it--yetHe holds it of most dangerous exampleIn aught to weaken the paternal power,Being, as 'twere, the shadow of his own.I pray you now excuse me. I have businessThat will not bear delay.

GIACOMO:But you, Orsino,Have the petition: wherefore not present it?

ORSINO:I have presented it, and backed it withMy earnest prayers, and urgent interest;It was returned unanswered. I doubt notBut that the strange and execrable deedsAlleged in it--in truth they might well baffleAny belief--have turned the Pope's displeasureUpon the accusers from the criminal:So I should guess from what Camillo said.

GIACOMO:My friend, that palace-walking devil GoldHas whispered silence to his Holiness:And we are left, as scorpions ringed with fire.What should we do but strike ourselves to death?For he who is our murderous persecutorIs shielded by a father's holy name,Or I would--

ORSINO:What? Fear not to speak your thought.Words are but holy as the deeds they cover:A priest who has forsworn the God he serves;A judge who makes Truth weep at his decree;A friend who should weave counsel, as I now,But as the mantle of some selfish guile;A father who is all a tyrant seems,Were the profaner for his sacred name.

GIACOMO:Ask me not what I think; the unwilling brainFeigns often what it would not; and we trustImagination with such fantasiesAs the tongue dares not fashion into words,Which have no words, their horror makes them dimTo the mind's eye.--My heart denies itselfTo think what you demand.

ORSINO:But a friend's bosomIs as the inmost cave of our own mindWhere we sit shut from the wide gaze of day,And from the all-communicating air.You look what I suspected--

GIACOMO:Spare me now!I am as one lost in a midnight wood,Who dares not ask some harmless passengerThe path across the wilderness, lest he,As my thoughts are, should be--a murderer.I know you are my friend, and all I dareSpeak to my soul that will I trust with thee.But now my heart is heavy, and would takeLone counsel from a night of sleepless care.Pardon me, that I say farewell--farewell!I would that to my own suspected selfI could address a word so full of peace.

ORSINO:Farewell!--Be your thoughts better or more bold.I had disposed the Cardinal CamilloTo feed his hope with cold encouragement:It fortunately serves my close designsThat 'tis a trick of this same familyTo analyse their own and other minds.Such self-anatomy shall teach the willDangerous secrets: for it tempts our powers,Knowing what must be thought, and may be done.Into the depth of darkest purposes:So Cenci fell into the pit; even I,Since Beatrice unveiled me to myself,And made me shrink from what I cannot shun,Show a poor figure to my own esteem,To which I grow half reconciled. I'll doAs little mischief as I can; that thoughtShall fee the accuser conscience.Now what harmIf Cenci should be murdered?--Yet, if murdered,Wherefore by me? And what if I could takeThe profit, yet omit the sin and perilIn such an action? Of all earthly thingsI fear a man whose blows outspeed his wordsAnd such is Cenci: and while Cenci livesHis daughter's dowry were a secret graveIf a priest wins her.--Oh, fair Beatrice!Would that I loved thee not, or loving thee,Could but despise danger and gold and allThat frowns between my wish and its effect.Or smiles beyond it! There is no escape...Her bright form kneels beside me at the altar,And follows me to the resort of men,And fills my slumber with tumultuous dreams,So when I wake my blood seems liquid fire;And if I strike my damp and dizzy headMy hot palm scorches it: her very name,But spoken by a stranger, makes my heartSicken and pant; and thus unprofitablyI clasp the phantom of unfelt delightsTill weak imagination half possessesThe self-created shadow. Yet much longerWill I not nurse this life of feverous hours:From the unravelled hopes of GiacomoI must work out my own dear purposes.I see, as from a tower, the end of all:Her father dead; her brother bound to meBy a dark secret, surer than the grave;Her mother scared and unexpostulatingFrom the dread manner of her wish achieved;And she!--Once more take courage, my faint heart;What dares a friendless maiden matched with thee?I have such foresight as assures success:Some unbeheld divinity doth ever,When dread events are near, stir up men's mindsTo black suggestions; and he prospers best,Not who becomes the instrument of ill,But who can flatter the dark spirit, that makesIts empire and its prey of other heartsTill it become his slave...as I will do.