The Dramas of Victor Hugo: Mary Tudor, Marion de Lorme, Esmeralda. Виктор Мари Гюго
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the headsman, at their door, makes widows and orphans! Oh, their Italian guitar is too well accompanied by the clank of chains! Madame Queen! you send to the chapel of Avignon for your singers; every day in your palace, you have comedies, plays, and a stage crowded with musicians! Upon my life, madame, less joy at your house and less mourning at ours, if you please; fewer dancers there, and fewer executioners here; fewer farces at Westminster, and fewer scaffolds at Tyburn!
LORD MONTAGUE.
Have a care, my Lord Clinton! We are loyal subjects! Not a word against the Queen, everything against Fabiani.
SIMON RENARD (laying his hand on Lord Clinton's shoulder).
Have patience!
LORD CLINTON.
Patience! That is easy enough for you to say, Mr. Simon Renard! You are bailiff of Amont in Franche-Comte, subject of the Emperor, and his embassador at London. You represent the Prince of Spain, the Queen's future husband. Your person is sacred to the favorite. But it is different with us. You see, for you, Fabiani is the lover; for us he is the butcher! [It is night.
SIMON RENARD.
This man troubles me as much as you! You tremble only for your life. I tremble for my power. That means much more. I do not talk; I act. I feel less anger than you, perhaps, but I feel more hate. I will destroy the favorite.
LORD MONTAGUE.
Yes! but how to do it! I think of it all day.
SIMON RENARD.
It is not in the daytime that the favorites of queens are made and unmade; it is at night.
LORD CHANDOS.
This night is dark and frightful.
SIMON RENARD.
I find it good for what I wish to do.
LORD CHANDOS.
What do you mean to do?
SIMON RENARD.
You shall see. My Lord Chandos, when a woman reigns, caprice reigns. Politics are no longer a matter of calculation then, but of chance. You can count upon nothing. To-day does not logically bring to-morrow. Public affairs are no longer like a game of chess, but a game of cards.
LORD CLINTON.
That is all very well; but let us come to the point. When will you deliver us from the favorite? Time is pressing. To-morrow Tyrconnel will be beheaded.
SIMON RENARD.
If I find the man I am looking for, to-night, Tyrconnel will sup with you to-morrow.
LORD CLINTON.
What do you mean? What will have become of Fabiani?
SIMON RENARD.
Have you good eyes, my lord?
LORD CLINTON.
Yes, although I am old and the night is dark.
SIMON RENARD.
Do you see London on the other side of the water?
LORD CLINTON.
Yes. Why?
SIMON RENARD.
Look well! From here you can see the height and the depth of every favorite's fortune—Westminster and the Tower of London.
LORD CLINTON.
Well?
SIMON RENARD.
If God is with me, there is a man who at this moment is yet there [pointing to Westminster], and who to-morrow, at the same time, will be here [pointing to the Tower].
LORD CLINTON.
Pray God be with you!
LORD MONTAGUE.
The people hate him no less than we do. What a festival will his fall make in London!
LORD CHANDOS.
We have placed ourselves in your hands, Sir Bailiff. Dispose of us. What must we do?
SIMON RENARD (indicating a house, near to the water).
You all see that house. It is the house of Gilbert the engraver. Do not lose sight of it. Now go away with your people, but don't go too far. Above all, do nothing without me.
LORD CHANDOS.
It is agreed. [They all exit at different sides.
SIMON RENARD (alone).
The man I need is not easy to find.
[He exits. Jane and Gilbert enter, arm in arm; they go toward the house. Joshua Farnaby, enveloped in a long cloak, accompanies them.
SCENE II
Jane, Gilbert, Joshua Farnaby
JOSHUA.
I must leave you here, my good friends. It is midnight, and I must go back to my post of turnkey of the Tower of London. I am not as free as you are, you see! A turnkey is only another kind of prisoner! Good-by, Jane! Good-by, Gilbert. Ah, my friends, how glad I am to see you happy! When is the wedding, Gilbert?
GILBERT.
In one week, isn't it, Jane?
JOSHUA.
Faith! day after to-morrow is Christmas. This is the day of good wishes and presents. But I have nothing to wish you. It would be impossible to wish more beauty to the bride or more love to the bridegroom. You are fortunate.
GILBERT.
Good Joshua! And you, are you not happy?
JOSHUA.
Neither happy nor unhappy. As for me, I have given up everything. Look you, Gilbert [opening his cloak and disclosing a bunch of keys hanging to his belt], prison keys always jingling at your side, talk to you, suggest all sorts of philosophical ideas to you. When I was young, I was like the rest—in love for a day, ambitious for a month, mad a whole year. It was during the reign of Henry VIII. that I was young. Strange man that Henry VIII.! A man who changed his wives as a woman changes her dresses. He repudiated the first, had the second beheaded, had the third's womb cut open; as for the fourth, he had mercy on her—he sent her off; but for revenge he had the fifth's head cut off! This isn't the story of Bluebeard I am telling you, my beautiful Jane; it is the history of Henry VIII. In those days I interested myself in the religious wars; I fought first for one side and then for the other. That was the wisest thing to do. The whole business was very ticklish. It was whether to be for or against the Pope. The King's officers hanged those who were for, but they burned those who were against. The neutral people—those who neither were for nor against—they hanged them or they burned them indiscriminately. We managed as we could. Yes, the rope; no, the fagot. I, who am speaking to you, I smelled of burning very often, and I am not sure that I was not un-hanged two or three times. Those were great times; very much like the times now. The devil take me if I know now whom I fought for or what I fought about. If people speak to me now about Master Luther and Pope Paul III., I shrug my shoulders. You see, Gilbert, when a man has gray hairs he shouldn't go back to the opinions he fought for nor the women he loved when he was twenty. The women and the opinions will seem very ugly, very old, very paltry, very silly, very much wrinkled and out of date. Such is my history. Now I am through with public affairs. I am no longer the King's soldier nor the Pope's soldier; I am jailer of the Tower of London. I don't fight any more for anybody, and I put everybody under lock and key. I am turnkey and I am old. I have one foot in a prison and the other in the grave. I am the one who picks up the remnants of all the ministers and favorites who go to pieces in the Queen's palace. It is very amusing. I have also a little child whom I love, and you both whom I love too; and if you are happy, I am happy also.
GILBERT.
If