Yolanda of Cyprus. Rice Cale Young
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your heart:
Yet you are innocent – oh innocent! —
O'er what abyss she hangs!
Yolanda. O'er no abyss.
Vittia. But to her lord is constant!
Yolanda (desperate). She is constant.
Vittia. And to his bed is true!
Yolanda. True.
Vittia. And this baron
Of Paphos – Camarin – is but her friend,
And deeply yours – as oft you feign to shield her!
Yolanda. He is no more.
Vittia. Your heart belies your lips,
Knows better than believing what you say.
Yolanda. Were, were he then … (struggles) lord Renier knows it not!
And never must. I have misled his thought
From her to me. The danger thus may pass,
The open shame.
Sir Camarin departed, her release
From the remorse and fettering will seem
Sweet as a vista into fairyland.
For none e'er will betray her.
Vittia. None?
Yolanda. Your tone …!
(Realising.) The still insinuation! You would do it!
This is the beast then of the labyrinth!
And this your heart is!
Vittia. No, not ever: no.
But now, if you deny me.
Yolanda. Speak as a woman,
If there is womanhood in you to speak.
The name of Berengere Lusignan must
Go clean unto the years, fair and unsullied.
Nor must the bloody leap
Of death fall on her from lord Renier's sword,
A death too ready if he but suspect.
No, she is holy!
And holy are my lips
Remembering that they may call her mother!
All the bright world I breathe because of her,
Laughter and roses, day-song of the sea,
Not bitterness and loneliness and blight!
All the bright world,
Of voices, dear as waking to the dead —
Voices of love and tender earthly hopes —
O, all the beauty I was once forbid!
For O! —
She lifted me, a lonely convent weed,
A cloister thing unvisited of dew,
Withering and untended and afar
From the remembered ruin of my home,
And here has planted me in happiness.
Then, for her, all I am!
Vittia. Or – hope to be?
Yolanda. The price, say, of your silence. – I am weary.
Vittia. And would be rid of me.
Yolanda. The price, the price.
Vittia. It is (low and ashamed) that you renounce Amaury's love.
[A pause.
Yolanda. Amaury's love… You then would rend me there
Where not Eternity could heal the wound
Though all the River of God might be for balm!
Cruelty like to this you could not do?
[Waits a moment.
A swallow on the battlements to-day
Fell from the hawk: you soothed and set it free.
This, then, you would not – !
Vittia. Yes.
Yolanda. You cannot!
Vittia. Yes.
Yolanda (wrung for a moment then calm).
I had forgotten, you are of Venice – Venice
Whose burdening is vast upon this land.
Good-night.
Vittia. And you despise me!
Yolanda. More I loathe
That love of him has led your thought so low.
[Is going.
Vittia. Stay! If you leave and do not choose at once —
[Sounds are heard at the gates.
Who's that?.. (starts). Amaury?.. You've expected him?
[The chains fall.
Your purpose, then! Is it now to renounce
And force him from you or to have me breathe
To Renier Lusignan the one word
That will transmute his wrong to madness?
Say it! For centuries have stained these walls
But never a wife; never —
Enter Berengere.
Yolanda. Mother?..
Berengere. Amaury
Has spurred to us, Yolanda, from his post,
And is below. But … what has befallen?
[Looks from one to the other.
Yolanda. He comes here, mother?
Berengere. At once.
Yolanda (in dread). Ah!
Berengere. Child?..
Vittia (to Yolanda). To-night
Must be the end.
Yolanda. Go, go.
Berengere (as Vittia passes out). What thing is this?
Yolanda. Mother, I cannot have him – here – Amaury!
Defer him but a little – till to-morrow.
I cannot see him now.
Berengere. This is o'erstrange.
Yolanda. Help me to think. Go to him, go, and say
Some woman thing – that I am ill – that I
Am at confession – penance – that – Ah, say
But anything!
Berengere. Yolanda!
Yolanda. Say… No use.
Too late.
Berengere. His step?
Yolanda. Oh, unmistakable;
Along the corridor. Go!
[The curtains are thrown back.
Amaury (at the threshold). My Yolanda!
[Hastens down and takes her, passive, in his arms. Berengere goes.
My, my Yolanda!..
[Kisses her.
To touch you is as triumph to the blood,
Is as the boon of battle to the strong!
Yolanda.