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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Lady of Lyons, Edward Bulwer Lytton
+#6 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton
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+The Lady of Lyons
+or
+Love and Pride
+
+by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+January, 2001  [Etext #2461]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext The Lady of Lyons, Edward Bulwer Lytton
+*****This file should be named ladyl10.txt or ladyl10.zip******
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+
+The Lady of Lyons;
+
+Or,
+
+Love and Pride.
+
+
+
+by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+
+
+
+To the author of "Ion."
+
+Whose genius and example have alike contributed towards the regeneration of
+The National Drama,
+
+This play is inscribed.
+
+PREFACE.
+
+An indistinct recollection of the very pretty little tale, called "The Bellows-
+Mender," suggested the plot of this Drama. The incidents are, however, greatly
+altered from those in the tale, and the characters entirely re-cast.
+
+Having long had a wish to illustrate certain periods of the French history, so,
+in the selection of the date in which the scenes of this play are laid, I saw
+that the era of the Republic was that in which the incidents were rendered most
+probable, in which the probationary career of the hero could well be made
+sufficiently rapid for dramatic effect, and in which the character of the time
+itself was depicted by the agencies necessary to the conduct of the narrative.
+For during the early years of the first and most brilliant successes of the
+French Republic, in the general ferment of society, and the brief equalization
+of ranks, Claude's high-placed love; his ardent feelings, his unsettled
+principles (the struggle between which makes the passion of this drama), his
+ambition, and his career, were phenomena that characterized the age, and in
+which the spirit of the nation went along with the extravagance of the
+individual.
+
+The play itself was composed with a twofold object. In the first place,
+sympathizing with the enterprise of Mr. Macready, as Manager of Covent Garden,
+and believing that many of the higher interests of the Drama were involved in
+the success or failure of an enterprise equally hazardous and disinterested, I
+felt, if I may so presume to express myself, something of the Brotherhood of
+Art; and it was only for Mr. Macready to think it possible that I might serve
+him in order to induce me to make the attempt.
+
+Secondly, in that attempt I was mainly anxious to see whether or not, after the
+comparative failure on the stage of "The Duchess de la Valliere," certain
+critics had truly declared that it was not in my power to attain the art of
+dramatic construction and theatrical effect. I felt, indeed, that it was in this
+that a writer, accustomed to the narrative class of composition, would have the
+most both to learn and unlearn. Accordingly, it was to the development of the
+plot and the arrangement of the incidents that I directed my chief attention;--
+and I sought to throw whatever belongs to poetry less into the diction and the
+"felicity of words" than into the construction of the story, the creation of the
+characters, and the spirit of the pervading sentiment.
+
+The authorship of the play was neither avowed nor suspected until the play had
+established itself in public favor. The announcement of my name was the signal
+for attacks, chiefly political, to which it is now needless to refer. When a
+work has outlived for some time the earlier hostilities of criticism, there
+comes a new race of critics to which a writer may, for the most part, calmly
+trust for a fair consideration, whether of the faults or the merits of his
+performance.
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
+
+BEAUSEANT, a rich gentleman of Lyons, in love with,
+and refused by, Pauline Deschappelles                                 MR. ELTON.
+
+GLAVIS, his friend, also a rejected suitor to Pauline               MR. MEADOWS.
+
+COLONEL (afterwards General) DAMAS, cousin to Mme. Deschappelles,
+and an officer in the French army                                   MR. BARTLEY.
+
+MONSIEUR DESCHAPPELLES, a Lyonnese merchant father to Pauline    MR. STRICKLAND.
+
+GASPAR                                                              MR. DIDDEAR.
+
+CLAUDE MELNOTTE                                                    MR. MACREADY.
+
+FIRST OFFICER                                                          MR. HOWE.
+
+SECOND OFFICER                                                    MR. PRITCHARD.
+
+THIRD OFFICER                                                       MR. ROBERTS.
+
+Servants, Notary, etc.
+
+MADAME DESCHAPPELLES                                           MRS. W. CLIFFORD.
+
+PAULINE, her daughter                                         MISS HELEN FAUCIT.
+
+THE WIDOW MELNOTTE, mother to Claude                              MRS. GRIFFITH.
+
+JANET, the innkeeper's daughter                                       MRS. EAST.
+
+MARIAN, maid to Pauline                                            MISS GARRICK.
+
+
+
+Scene--Lyons and the neighborhood.
+
+Time--1795-1798
+
+First performed on Thursday, the 15th of February, 1838,
+at Covent Garden Theatre.
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF LYONS;
+
+or,
+
+LOVE AND PRIDE.
+
+ACT I.--SCENE I.
+
+A room in the house of M. DESCHAPPELLES, at Lyons. PAULINE reclining on a sofa;
+MARIAN, her maid, fanning her--Flowers and notes on a table beside the sofa--
+MADAME DESCHAPPELLES seated--The gardens are seen from the open window.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Marian, put that rose a little more to the left.--[MARIAN alters
+the position of a rose in PAULINE's hair.]--Ah, so!--that improves the hair,--
+the tournure, the j'e ne  sais quoi!--You are certainly very handsome, child!--
+quite my style;--I don't wonder that you make such a sensation!--Old, young,
+rich, and poor, do homage to the Beauty of Lyons!--Ah, we live again in our
+children,--especially when they have our eyes and complexion!
+
+Pauline [languidly]. Dear mother, you spoil your Pauline!--[Aside.] I wish I
+knew who sent me these flowers!
+
+Mme. Deschap. No, child!--If I praise you, it is only to inspire you with a
+proper ambition.--You are born to make a great marriage.--Beauty is valuable or
+worthless according as you invest the property to the best advantage. Marian, go
+and order the carriage! [Exit MARIAN.
+
+Pauline. Who can it be that sends me, every day, these beautiful flowers?--how
+sweet they are!
+
+Enter Servant.
+
+Servant. Monsieur Beauseant, Madam.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Let him enter. Pauline, this is another offer!--I know it is!--
+Your father should engage an additional clerk to keep the account-book of your
+conquests.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT.
+
+Beau. Ah, ladies how fortunate I am to find you at home!--[Aside.] How lovely
+she looks!--It is a great sacrifice I make in marrying into a family in trade!--
+they will be eternally grateful!--[Aloud.] Madam, you will permit me a word with
+your charming daughter.--[Approaches PAULINE, who rises disdainfully.]--
+Mademoiselle, I have ventured to wait upon you, in a hope that you must long
+since have divined. Last night, when you outshone all the beauty of Lyons, you
+completed your conquest over me! You know that my fortune is not exceeded by any
+estate in the province,--you know that, but for the Revolution, which has
+defrauded me of my titles, I should be noble. May I, then, trust that you will
+not reject my alliance? I offer you my hand and heart.
+
+Pauline [aside.] He has the air of a man who confers a favor!--[Aloud.] Sir, you
+are very condescending--I thank you humbly; but, being duly sensible of my own
+demerits, you must allow me to decline the honor you propose. [Curtsies, and
+turns away.
+
+Beau. Decline! Impossible!--you are not serious!--Madam, suffer me to appeal to
+you. I am a suitor for your daughter's hand--the settlements shall be worthy of
+her beauty and my station. May I wait on M. Deschappelles?
+
+Mme. Deschap. M. Deschappelles never interferes in the domestic arrangements,--
+you are very obliging. If you were still a marquis, or if my daughter were
+intended to marry a commoner,--why, perhaps, we might give you the preference.
+
+Beau. A commoner!--we are all commoners in France now.
+
+Mme. Deschap. In France, yes; but there is a nobility still left in the other
+countries in Europe. We are quite aware of your good qualities, and don't doubt
+that you will find some lady more suitable to your pretensions. We shall be
+always happy to see you as an acquaintance, M. Beauseant!--My dear child, the
+carriage will be here presently.
+
+Beau. Say no more, madam!--say no more!--[Aside.] Refused! and by a merchant's
+daughter!--refused! It will be all over Lyons before sunset!--I will go and bury
+myself in my chateau, study philosophy, and turn woman-hater. Refused! they
+ought to be sent to a madhouse!--Ladies, I have the honor to wish you a very
+good morning. [Exit.
+
+Mme. Deschap. How forward these men are!--I think, child, we kept up our
+dignity. Any girl, however inexperienced, knows how to accept an offer, but it
+requires a vast deal of address to refuse one with proper condescension and
+disdain. I used to practise it at school with the dancing-master.
+
+Enter DAMAS.
+
+Damas. Good morning, cousin Deschappelles.--Well, Pauline, are you recovered
+from last night's ball?--So many triumphs must be very fatiguing. Even M. Glavis
+sighed most piteously when you departed; but that might be the effect of the
+supper.
+
+Pauline. M. Glavis, indeed!
+
+Mme. Deschap. M. Glavis?--as if my daughter would think of M. Glavis!
+
+Damas. Hey-day!--why not?--His father left him a very pretty fortune, and his
+birth is higher than yours, cousin Deschappelles. But perhaps you are looking to
+M. Beauseant,--his father was a marquis before the Revolution.
+
+Pauline. M. Beauseant!--Cousin, you delight in tormenting me!
+
+Mme. Deschap. Don't mind him, Pauline!--Cousin Damas, you have no susceptibility
+of feeling,--there is a certain indelicacy in all your ideas.--M. Beauseant
+knows already that he is no match for my daughter!
+
+Damas. Pooh! pooh! one would think you intended your daughter to marry a prince!
+
+Mme. Deschap. Well, and if I did?--what then?--Many a foreign prince--
+
+Damas [interrupting her]. Foreign prince!--foreign fiddlestick!--you ought to be
+ashamed of such nonsense at your time of life.
+
+Mme. Deschap. My time of life!--That is an expression never applied to any lady
+till she is sixty-nine and three-quarters;--and only then by the clergyman of
+the parish.
+
+Enter Servant.
+
+Servant. Madame, the carriage is at the door. [Exit.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Come, child, put on your bonnet--you really have a very thorough-
+bred air--not at all like your poor father.--[Fondly]. Ah, you little coquette!
+when a young lady is always making mischief, it is a sure sign that she takes
+after her mother!
+
+Pauline. Good day, cousin Damas--and a better humor to you.--[Going back to the
+table and taking the flowers]. Who could have sent me these flowers? [Exeunt
+PAULINE and MADAME DESCHAPPELLES.
+
+Damas. That would be an excellent girl if her head had not been turned. I fear
+she is now become incorrigible! Zounds, what a lucky fellow I am to be still a
+bachelor! They may talk of the devotion of the sex--but the most faithful
+attachment in life is that of a woman in love--with herself. [Exit.
+
+SCENE II.
+
+The exterior of a small Village Inn--sign, the Golden Lion--A few leagues from
+Lyons, which is seen at a distance.
+
+Beau. [behind the scenes.] Yes, you may bait the horses; we shall rest here an
+hour.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Gla. Really, my dear Beauseant, consider that I have promised to spend a day or
+two with you at your chateau, that I am quite at your mercy for my
+entertainment,--and yet you are as silent and as gloomy as a mute at a funeral,
+or an Englishman at a party of pleasure.
+
+Beau. Bear with me!--the fact is that I am miserable.
+
+Gla. You--the richest and gayest bachelor in Lyons?
+
+Beau. It is because I am a bachelor that I am miserable.--Thou knowest Pauline--
+the only daughter of the rich merchant, Mons. Deschappelles?
+
+Gla. Know her?--who does not?--as pretty as Venus, and as proud as Juno.
+
+Beau. Her taste is worse than her pride.--[Drawing himself up.] Know, Glavis,
+she has actually refused me!
+
+Gla. [aside]. So she has me!--very consoling! In all cases of heart-ache, the
+application of another man's disappointment draws out the pain and allays the
+irritation.--[Aloud.] Refused you! and wherefore?
+
+Beau. I know not, unless it be because the Revolution swept away my father's
+title of Marquis,--and she will not marry a commoner. Now, as we have no
+noblemen left in France,--as we are all citizens and equals, she can only hope
+that, in spite of the war, some English Milord or German Count will risk his
+life, by coming to Lyons, that this fille du Roturier may condescend to accept
+him. Refused me, and with scorn!--By Heaven, I'll not submit to it tamely:--I'm
+in a perfect fever of mortification and rage.--Refuse me, indeed!
+
+Gla. Be comforted, my dear fellow,--I will tell you a secret. For the same
+reason she refused ME!
+
+Beau. You!--that's a very different matter! But give me your hand, Glavis,--
+we'll think of some plan to humble her. Mille diables! I should like to see her
+married to a strolling player!
+
+Enter Landlord and his Daughter from the Inn.
+
+Land. Your servant, citizen Beauseant,--servant, Sir. Perhaps you will take
+dinner before you proceed to your chateau; our larder is most plentifully
+supplied.
+
+Beau. I have no appetite.
+
+Gla. Nor I. Still it is bad travelling on an empty stomach. What have you got?
+[Takes and looks over the bill of fare.]
+
+[Shout without.] "Long live the Prince!--Long live the Prince!"
+
+Beau. The Prince!--what Prince is that? I thought we had no princes left in
+France.
+
+Land. Ha, ha! the lads always call him Prince. He has just won the prize in the
+shooting-match, and they are taking him home in triumph.
+
+Beau. Him! and who's Mr. Him?
+
+Land. Who should he be but the pride of the village, Claude Melnotte?--Of course
+you have heard of Claude Melnotte?
+
+Gla. [giving back the bill of fare.] Never had that honor. Soup--ragout of hare-
+-roast chicken, and, in short, all you have!
+
+Beau. The son of old Alelnotte, the gardener?
+
+Land. Exactly so--a wonderful young man.
+
+Beau. How, wonderful?--Are his cabbages better than other people's
+
+Land. Nay, he don't garden any more; his father left him well off. He's only a
+genus.
+
+Gla. A what?
+
+Land. A genus!--a man who can do everything in life except anything that's
+useful--that's a genus.
+
+Beau. You raise my curiosity;--proceed.
+
+Land. Well, then, about four years ago, old Melnotte died, and left his son well
+to do in the world. We then all observed that a great change came over young
+Claude: he took to reading and Latin, and hired a professor from Lyons, who had
+so much in his head that he was forced to wear a great full-bottom wig to cover
+it. Then he took a fencing-master, and a dancing-master, and a music-master; and
+then he learned to paint; and at last it was said that young Claude was to go to
+Paris, and set up for a painter. The lads laughed at him at first; but he is a
+stout fellow, is Claude, and as brave as a lion, and soon taught them to laugh
+the wrong side of their mouths; and now all the boys swear by him, and all the
+girls pray for him.
+
+Beau. A promising youth, certainly! And why do they call him Prince?
+
+Land. Partly because he is at the head of them all, and partly because he has
+such a proud way with him, and wears such fine clothes--and, in short, looks
+like a prince.
+
+Beau. And what could have turned the foolish fellow's brain? The Revolution, I
+suppose?
+
+Land. Yes--the revolution that turns us all topsy-turvy--the revolution of Love.
+
+Beau. Romantic young Corydon! And with whom is he in love?
+
+Land. Why--but it is a secret, gentlemen.
+
+Beau. Oh! certainly.
+
+Land. Why, then, I hear from his mother, good soul! that it is no less a person
+than the Beauty of Lyons, Pauline Deschappelles.
+
+Beau. and Glavis. Ha, ha!--Capital!
+
+Land. You may laugh, but it is as true as I stand here.
+
+Beau. And what does the Beauty of Lyons say to his suit?
+
+Land. Lord, sir, she never even condescended to look at him, though when he was
+a boy he worked in her father's garden.
+
+Beau. Are you sure of that?
+
+Land. His mother says that Mademoiselle does not know him by sight.
+
+Beau. [taking Glavis aside]. I have hit it,--I have it; here is our revenge!
+Here is a prince for our haughty damsel. Do you take me?
+
+Gla. Deuce take me if I do!
+
+Beau. Blockhead!--it's as clear as a map. What if we could make this elegant
+clown pass himself off as a foreign prince?--lend him money, clothes, equipage
+for the purpose?--make him propose to Pauline?--marry Pauline? Would it not be
+delicious?
+
+Gla. Ha, ha!--Excellent! But how shall we support the necessary expenses of his
+highness?
+
+Beau. Pshaw! Revenge is worth a much larger sacrifice than a few hundred louis;-
+-as for details, my valet is the trustiest fellow, in the world, and shall have
+the appointment of his highness's establishment. Let's go to him at once, and
+see if he be really this Admirable Crichton.
+
+Gla. With all my heart;--but the dinner?
+
+Beau. Always thinking of dinner! Hark ye, landlord; how far is it to young
+Melnotte's cottage? I should like to see such a prodigy.
+
+Land. Turn down the lane,--then strike across the common,--and you will see his
+mother's cottage.
+
+Beau. True, he lives with his mother.--[Aside.] We will not trust to an old
+woman's discretion; better send for him hither. I'll just step in and write a
+note. Come, Glavis.
+
+Gla. Yes,--Beauseant, Glavis, and Co., manufacturers of princes, wholesale and
+retail,--an uncommonly genteel line of business. But why so grave?
+
+Beau. You think only of the sport,--I of the revenge. [Exeunt within the Inn.
+
+SCENE III.
+
+The interior of MELNOTTE'S cottage; flowers placed here and there; a guitar on
+an oaken table, with a portfolio, etc.; a picture on an easel, covered by a
+curtain; fencing foils crossed over the mantelpiece; an attempt at refinement in
+site of the homeliness of the furniture, etc.; a staircase to the right conducts
+to the upper story.
+
+[Shout without]. "Long live Claude Melnotte!" "Long live the Prince!"
+
+The Widow Mel. Hark!--there's my dear son;--carried off the prize, I'm sure; and
+now he'll want to treat them all.
+
+Claude Mel. [opening the door]. What! you will not come in, my friends! Well,
+well,there's a trifle to make merry elsewhere. Good day to you all,--good day!
+
+[Shout]. "Hurrah! Long live Prince Claude!"
+
+Enter CLAUDE MELNOTTE, with a rifle in his hand.
+
+Mel. Give me joy, dear mother!--I've won the prize!--never missed one shot! Is
+it not handsome, this gun?
+
+Widow. Humph!--Well, what is it worth, Claude?
+
+Mel. Worth! What is a riband worth to a soldier? Worth! everything! Glory is
+priceless!
+
+Widow. Leave glory to great folks. Ah! Claude, Claude, castles in the air cost a
+vast deal to keep up! How is all this to end? What good does it do thee to learn
+Latin, and sing songs, and play on the guitar, and fence, and dance, and paint
+pictures? All very fine; but what does it bring in?
+
+Mel. Wealth! wealth, my mother! Wealth to the mind--wealth to the heart--high
+thoughts--bright dreams--the hope of fame--the ambition to be worthier to love
+Pauline.
+
+Widow. My poor son!--The young lady will never think of thee.
+
+Mel. Do the stars think of us? Yet if the prisoner see them shine into his
+dungeon, wouldst thou bid him turn away from their lustre? Even so from this low
+cell, poverty, I lift my eyes to Pauline and forget my chains.--[Goes to the
+picture and draws aside the curtain.]
+
+See, this is her image--painted from memory. Oh, how the canvas wrongs her!--
+[Takes up the brush and throws it aside.] I shall never be a painter! I can
+paint no likeness but one, and that is above all art. I would turn soldier--
+France needs soldiers! But to leave the air that Pauline breathes! What is the
+hour?--so late? I will tell thee a secret, mother. Thou knowest that for the
+last six weeks I have sent every day the rarest flowers to Pauline?--she wears
+them. I have seen them on her breast. Ah, and then the whole universe seemed
+filled with odors! I have now grown more bold--I have poured my worship into
+poetry--I have sent the verses to Pauline--I have signed them with my own name.
+My messenger ought to--be back by this time. I bade him wait for the answer.
+
+Widow. And what answer do you expect, Claude?
+
+Mel. That which the Queen of Navarre sent to the poor troubadour:--"Let me see
+the Oracle that can tell nations I am beautiful!" She will admit me. I shall
+hear her speak--I shall meet her eyes--I shall read upon her cheek the sweet
+thoughts that translate themselves into blushes. Then--then, oh, then--she may
+forget that I am the peasant's son!.
+
+Widow. Nay, if she will but hear thee talk, Claude?
+
+Mel. I foresee it all. She will tell me that desert is the true rank. She will
+give me a badge--a flower--a glove! Oh rapture! I shall join the armies of the
+republic--I shall rise--I shall win a name that beauty will not blush to hear. I
+shall return with the right to say to her--"See, how love does not level the
+proud, but raise the--humble!" Oh, how my heart swells within me!--Oh, what
+glorious prophets of the future are youth and hope!
+
+[Knock at the door.]
+
+Widow. Come in.
+
+Enter GASPAR.
+
+Mel. Welcome, Gaspar, welcome. Where is the letter? Why do you turn away, man?
+where is the letter? [GASPAR gives him one.] This! This is mine, the one I
+intrusted to thee. Didst thou not leave it?
+
+Gaspar. Yes, I left it.
+
+Mel. My own verses returned to me. Nothing else!
+
+Gaspar. Thou wilt be proud to hear how thy messenger was honored. For thy sake,
+Melnotte, I have borne that which no Frenchman can bear without disgrace.
+
+Mel. Disgrace, Gaspar! Disgrace?
+
+Gaspar. I gave thy letter to the porter, who passed it from lackey to lackey
+till it reached the lady it was meant for.
+
+Mel. It reached her, then; you are sure of that! It reached her,--well, well!
+
+Gaspar. It reached her, and was returned to me with blows. Dost hear, Melnotte?
+with blows! Death! are we slaves still, that we are to be thus dealt with, we
+peasants?
+
+Mel. With blows? No, Gaspar, no; not blows!
+
+Gaspar. I could show thee the marks if it were not so deep a shame to bear them.
+The lackey who tossed thy letter into the mire swore that his lady and her
+mother never were so insulted. What could thy letter contain, Claude?
+
+Mel. [looking over the letter]. Not a line that a serf might not have written to
+an empress. No, not one.
+
+Gaspar. They promise thee the same greeting they gave me, if thou wilt pass that
+way. Shall we endure this, Claude?
+
+Mel. [wringing GASPAR's hand]. Forgive me, the fault was mine, I have brought
+this on thee; I will not forget it; thou shalt be avenged! The heartless
+insolence!
+
+Gaspar. Thou art moved, Melnotte; think not of me; I would go through fire and
+water to serve thee; but,--a blow! It is not the bruise that galls,--it is the
+blush, Melnotte.
+
+Mel. Say, what message?--How insulted!--Wherefore?--What the offence?
+
+Gaspar. Did you not write to Pauline Deschappelles, the daughter of the rich
+merchant?
+
+Mel. Well?
+
+Gaspar. And are you not a peasant--a gardener's son?--that was the offence.
+Sleep on it, Melnotte. Blows to a French citizen, blows! [Exit.
+
+Widow. Now you are cured, Claude!
+
+Mel. tearing the letter. So do I scatter her image to the winds--I will stop her
+in the open streets--I will insult her--I will beat her menial ruffians--I will-
+-[Turns suddenly to Widow.] Mother, am I humpbacked--deformed--hideous? Widow.
+You!
+
+Mel. A coward--a thief--a liar?
+
+Widow. You!
+
+Mel. Or a dull fool--a vain, drivelling, brainless idiot? Widow. No, no. Mel.
+What am I then--worse than all these? Why, I am a peasant! What has a peasant to
+do with love? Vain revolutions, why lavish your cruelty on the great? Oh that
+we--we, the hewers of wood and drawers of water--had been swept away, so that
+the proud might learn what the world would be without us! [Knock at the door.
+
+Enter Servant from the Inn.
+
+Servant. A letter for Citizen Melnotte.
+
+Mel. A letter! from her perhaps--who sent thee?
+
+Servant. Why, Monsieur--I mean Citizen--Beauseant, who stops to dine at the
+Golden Lion, on his way to his chateau.
+
+Mel. Beauseant!--[Reads].
+
+"Young man, I know thy secret--thou lovest above thy station: if thou hast wit,
+courage, and discretion, I can secure to thee the realization of thy most
+sanguine hopes; and the sole condition I ask in return is, that thou shalt be
+steadfast to thine own ends. I shall demand from thee a solemn oath to marry.
+her whom thou lovest; to bear her to thine home on thy wedding night. I am
+serious--if thou wouldst learn more, lose not a moment, but follow the bearer of
+this letter to thy friend and patron,--CHARLES BEAUSEANT."
+
+Mel. Can I believe my eyes? Are our own passions the sorcerers that raise up for
+us spirits of good or evil? I will go instantly.
+
+Widow. What is this, Claude?
+
+Mel. "Marry her whom thou lovest"--"bear her to thine own home."--Oh, revenge
+and love; which of you is the stronger?--[Gazing on the picture.] Sweet face,
+thou smilest on me from the canvas: weak fool that I am, do I then love her
+still? No, it is the vision of my own romance that I have worshipped: it is the
+reality to which I bring scorn for scorn. Adieu, mother: I will return anon. My
+brain reels--the earth swims before me.--[Looks again at the letter.] No, it is
+not a mockery; I do not dream! [Exit.
+
+ACT II.--SCENE I.
+
+The Gardens of M. DESCHAPPELLEs' house at Lyons--the house seen at the back of
+the stage.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Beau. Well, what think you of my plot? Has it not succeeded to a miracle? The
+instant that I introduced his Highness the Prince of Como to the pompous mother
+and the scornful daughter, it was all over with them: he came--he saw--he
+conquered: and, though it is not many days since he arrived, they have already
+promised him the hand of Pauline.
+
+Gla. It is lucky, though, that you told them his highness travelled incognito,
+for fear the Directory (who are not very fond of princes) should lay him by the
+heels; for he has a wonderful wish to keep up his rank, and scatters our gold
+about with as much coolness as if he were watering his own flower-pots.
+
+Beau. True, he is damnably extravagant; I think the sly dog does it out of
+malice. How ever, it must be owned that he reflects credit on his loyal
+subjects, and makes a very pretty figure in his fine clothes, with my diamond
+snuff-box.
+
+Gla. And my diamond ring! But do you think he will be firm to the last? I fancy
+I see symptoms of relenting: he will never keep up his rank, if he once let out
+his conscience.
+
+Beau. His oath binds him! he cannot retract without being foresworn, and those
+low fellows are always superstitious! But, as it is, I tremble lest he be
+discovered: that bluff Colonel Damas (Madame Deschappelles' cousin) evidently
+suspects him: we must make haste and conclude the farce: I have thought of a
+plan to end it this very day.
+
+Gla. This very day! Poor Pauline: her dream will be soon over.
+
+Beau. Yes, this day they shall be married; this evening, according to his oath,
+he shall carry his bride to the Golden Lion, and then pomp, equipage, retinue,
+and title, all shall vanish at once; and her Highness the Princess shall find
+that she has refused the son of a Marquis, to marry the son of a gardener.--Oh,
+Pauline! once loved, now hated, yet still not relinquished, thou shalt drain the
+cup to the dregs,--thou shalt know what it is to be humbled!
+
+Enter from the house, MELNOTTE, as the Prince of Como, Ieading in PAULINE;
+MADAME
+
+DESCHAPPELLES, fanning herself; and COLONEL DAMAS.
+
+[BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS bow respectfully. fully. PAULINE and MELNOTTE walk apart.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Good morning, gentlemen; really I am so fatigued with laughter;
+the dear Prince is so entertaining. What wit he has! Any one may see that he has
+spent his whole life in courts.
+
+Damas. And what the deuce do you know about courts, cousin Deschappelles? You
+women regard men just as you buy books--you never care about what is in them,
+but how they are bound and lettered. 'Sdeath, I don't think you would even look
+at your Bible if it had not a title to it.
+
+Mme. Deschap. How coarse you are, cousin Damas!--quite the manners of a barrack-
+-you don't deserve to be one of our family; really we must drop your
+acquaintance when Pauline marries. I cannot patronize any relations that would
+discredit my future son-in-law, the Prince of Como.
+
+Mel. [advancing]. These are beautifui gardens, madame, (BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS
+retire--who planned them
+
+Mme. Deschap. A gardener named Melnotte, your highness--an honest man who knew
+his station. I can't say as much for his son--a presuming fellow, who,--ha! ha!
+actually wrote verses--such doggerel!--to my daughter.
+
+Pauline. Yes, how you would have laughed at them, Prince! you, who write such
+beautiful verses!
+
+Mel. This Melnotte must be a monstrous impudent person!
+
+Damas. Is he good-looking?
+
+Mme. Deschap. I never notice such canaille--an ugly, mean-looking clown, if I
+remember right.
+
+Damas. Yet I heard your porter say he was wonderfully like his highness.
+
+Mel. [taking snuff]. You are complimentary.
+
+Mme. Deschap. For shame, cousin Damas!--like the Prince, indeed!
+
+Pauline. Like you! Ah, mother, like our beautiful prince! I'll never speak to
+you again, cousin Damas.
+
+Mel. [aside]. Humph!--rank is a great beautifier! I never passed for an Apollo
+while I was a peasant; if I am so handsome as a prince, what should I be as an
+emperor! [Aloud.] Monsieur Beauseant, will you honor me? [Offers snuff.
+
+Beau. No, your highness; I have no small vices.
+
+Mel. Nay, if it were a vice, you'd be sure to have it, Monsieur Beauseant.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Ha! ha!--how very severe!--what wit!
+
+Beau. [in a rage and aside]. Curse his impertinence!
+
+Mme. Deschap. What a superb snuff-box! Pauline. And what a beautiful ring!
+
+Mel. You like the box--a trifle--interesting perhaps from associations--a
+present from Louis XIV. to my great-great grandmother. Honor me by--accepting
+it.
+
+Beau. plucking him by the sleeve. How!--what the devil! My box--are you mad? It
+is worth five hundred louis.
+
+Mel. [unheeding him, and turning to PAULINE]. And you like this ring? Ah, it
+has, indeed a lustre since your eyes have shone on it placing it on her finger.
+Henceforth hold me, sweet enchantress, the Slave of the Ring.
+
+Gla. [pulling him]. Stay, stay--what are you about? My maiden aunt's legacy--a
+diamond of the first water. You shall be hanged for swindling, sir.
+
+Mel. [pretending not to hear]. It is curious, this ring; it is the one with
+which my grandfather, the Doge of Venice, married the Adriatic!
+
+(Madame and PAULINE examine the ring. Mel. [to BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS]. Fie,
+gentlemen! princes must be generous?--[Turns to DAMAS, who watches them
+closely.] These kind friends have my interest so much at heart, that they are as
+careful of my property as if it were their own!
+
+Beau and Gla. [confusedly]. Ha! ha!--very good joke that!
+
+[Appears to remonstrate with MELNOTTE in dumb show.
+
+Damas. What's all that whispering? . I am sure there is some juggle here: hang
+me, if I think he is an Italian after all. Gad, I'll try him. Servitore
+umillissimo, Eccellenza.*
+(* Your Excellency's most humble servant.)
+
+Mel. Hum--what does he mean, I wonder?
+
+Damas. Godo di vedervi in buona salute.*
+(* I am glad to see you in good health.)
+
+Mel. Hem--hem!
+
+Damas. Fa bel tempo--the si dice di nuovo? *
+(* Fine weather. What news is there?)
+
+Mel. Well, sir, what's all that gibberish?
+
+Damas. Oh, oh!--only Italian, your highness!--The Prince of Como does not
+understand his own language!
+
+Mel. Not as you pronounce it; who the deuce could?
+
+Mme. Deschap. Ha! ha! cousin Damas, never pretend to what you don't know.
+
+Pauline. Ha! ha! cousin Damas; you speak Italian, indeed!
+
+[Makes a mocking gesture at him.
+
+Beau. [to GLAVIS]. Clever dog!--how ready!
+
+Gla. Ready, yes; with my diamond ring!--Damn his readiness!
+
+Damas. Laugh at me!--laugh at a Colonel in the French army!--the fellow's an
+impostor; I know he is. I'll see if he understands fighting as well as he does
+Italian.--[Goes up to him, and aside.] Sir, you are a jackanapes.--Can you
+construe that?
+
+Mel. No, sir; I never construe affronts in the presence of ladies; by-and-by I
+shall be happy to take a lesson--or give one.
+
+Damas. I'll find the occasion, never fear!
+
+Mme. Deschap. Where are you going, cousin?
+
+Damas. To correct my Italian. [Exit.
+
+Beau. [to GLAVIS]. Let us after, and pacify him; he evidently suspects
+something.
+
+Gla. Yes!--but my diamond ring!
+
+Beau. And my box!--We are over-taxed fellow-subjects!--we must stop the
+supplies, and dethrone the prince.
+
+Gla. Prince!--he ought to be heir-apparent to King Stork.
+
+[Exeunt BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Dare I ask your highness to forgive my cousin's insufferable
+vulgarity?
+
+Pauline. Oh yes!--you will forgive his manner for the sake of his heart.
+
+Mel. And the sake of his cousin.--Ah, madam, there is one comfort in rank,--we
+are so sure of our position that we are not easily affronted. Besides, M. Damas
+has bought the right of indulgence from his friends, by never showing it to his
+enemies.
+
+Pauline. Ah! he is, indeed, as brave in action as he is rude in speech. He rose
+from the ranks to his present grade, and in two years!
+
+Mel. In two years!--two years, did you say?
+
+Mme. Deschap. [aside]. I don't like leaving girls alone with their lovers; but,
+with a prince, it would be so ill-bred to be prudish. (Exit.
+
+Mel. You can be proud of your connection with one who owes his position to
+merit--not birth.
+
+Pauline. Why, yes; but still
+
+Mel. Still what, Pauline!
+
+Pauline. There is something glorious in the heritage of command. A man who has
+ancestors is like a representative of the past.
+
+Mel. True; but, like other representatives, nine times out of ten he is a silent
+member. Ah, Pauline! not to the past, but to the future, looks true nobility,
+and finds its blazon in posterity.
+
+Pauline. You say this to please me, who have no ancestors; but you, prince, must
+be proud of so illustrious a race!
+
+Mel. No, no! I would not, were I fifty times a prince, be a pensioner on the
+dead! I honor birth and ancestry when they are regarded as the incentives to
+exertion, not the titledeeds to sloth! I honor the laurels that overshadow the
+graves of our fathers; it is our fathers I emulate, when I desire that beneath
+the evergreen I myself have planted, my own ashes may repose! Dearest! couldst
+thou but see with my eyes!
+
+Pauline. I cannot forego pride when I look on thee, and think that thou lovest
+me. Sweet Prince, tell me again of thy palace by the Lake of Como; it is so
+pleasant to hear of thy splendors since thou didst swear to me that they would
+be desolate without Pauline; and when thou describest them, it is with a mocking
+lip and a noble scorn, as if custom had made thee disdain greatness.
+
+Mel. Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint
+The home to which, could love fulfil its prayers,
+This hand would lead thee, listen!*--A deep vale
+
+(* The reader will observe that Melnotte evades the request of Pauline. He
+proceeds to describe a home, which be does not say he possesses, but to which he
+would lead her, "could Love fulfil its prayers." This caution is intended as a
+reply to a sagacious critic who censures the description, because it is not an
+exact and prosaic inventory of the characteristics of the Lake of Como!--When
+Melnotte, for instance, talks of birds "that syllable the name of Pauline" (by
+the way, a literal translation from an Italian poet), he is not thinking of
+ornithology, but probably of the Arabian Nights. He is venting the extravagant,
+but natural, enthusiasm of the poet and the lover.)
+
+Shut out by Alphine hills from the rude world;
+Near a clear lake, margin'd by fruits of gold
+And whispering myrtles; glassing softest skies,
+As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows,
+As I would have thy fate!
+
+Pauline. My own dear love!
+
+Mel. A palace lifting to eternal summer
+Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower
+Of coolest foliage musical with birds,
+Whose songs should syllable thy name! At noon
+We'd sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder
+Why Earth could be unhappy, while the Heavens
+Still left us youth and love! We'd have no friends
+That were not lovers; no ambition, save
+To excel them all in love; we'd read no books
+That were not tales of love--that we might smile
+To think how poorly eloquence of words
+Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!
+And when night came, amidst the breathless Heavens
+We'd guess what star should be our home when love
+Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light
+Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps,
+And every air was heavy with the sighs
+Of orange-groves and music from sweet lutes,
+And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth
+I' the midst of roses!--Dost thou like the picture?
+
+Pauline. Oh, as the bee upon the flower, I hang
+Upon the honey of thy eloquent tongue!
+Am I not blest? And if I love too wildly,
+Who would not love thee like Pauline?
+
+Mel. [bitterly.] Oh, false one!
+It is the prince thou lovest, not the man
+If in the stead of luxury, pomp, and power,
+I had painted poverty, and toil, and care,
+Thou hadst found no honey on my tongue;--Pauline,
+That is not love!
+
+Pauline. Thou wrong'st me, cruel Prince!
+At first, in truth, I might not have been won,
+Save through the weakness of a flatter'd pride;
+But now,--oh! trust me,--couldst thou fall from power
+And sink--
+
+Mel. As low as that poor gardener's son
+Who dared to lift his eyes to thee?--
+
+Pauline. Even then,
+Methinks thou wouldst be only made more dear
+By the sweet thought that I could prove how deep
+Is woman's love! We are like the insects, caught
+By the poor glittering of a garish flame;
+But, oh, the wings once scorch'd, the brightest star
+Lures us no more; and by the fatal light
+We cling till death!
+
+Mel. Angel! [Aside.] O conscience! conscience!
+It must not be; her love hath grown a torture
+Worse than her hate. I will at once to Beauseant,
+And--ha! he comes. Sweet love, one moment leave me.
+I have business with these gentlemen--I--I
+Will forwith join you.
+
+Pauline. Do not tarry long! [Exit.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Mel. Release me from my oath,--I will not marry her!
+
+Beau Then thou art perjured.
+
+Mel. No, I was not in my senses when I swore to thee to marry her! I was blind
+to all but her scorn!--deaf to all but my passion and my rage! Give me back my
+poverty and my honor!
+
+Beau. It is too late,--you must marry her! and this day. I have a story already
+coined, and sure to pass current. This Damas suspects thee,--he will set the
+police to work!--thou wilt be detected--Pauline will despise and execrate thee.
+Thou wilt be sent to the common gaol as a swindler.
+
+Mel. Fiend!
+
+Beau. And in the heat of the girl's resentment (you know of what resentment is
+capable) and the parents' shame, she will be induced to marry the first that
+offers--even perhaps your humble servant.
+
+Mel. You! No; that were worse--for thou hast no mercy! I will marry her.--I will
+keep my oath. Quick, then, with the damnable invention thou art hatching;--
+quick, if thou wouldst not have me strangle thee or myself.
+
+Gla. What a tiger! Too fierce for a prince; he ought to have been the Grand
+Turk.
+
+Beau. Enough--I will dispatch; be prepared.
+
+[Exeunt BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Enter DAMAS with two swords.
+
+Damas. Now, then, sir, the ladies are no longer your excuse. I have brought you
+a couple of dictionaries; let us see if your highness can find out the Latin for
+bilbo.
+
+Mel. Away, sir! I am in no humor for jesting.  Damas. I see you understand
+something of the grammar; you decline the non-substantive "small-swords" with
+great ease; but that won't do--you must take a lesson in parsing.
+
+Mel. Fool! Damas. Sir, as sons take after their mother, so the man who calls me
+a fool insults the lady who bore me; there's no escape for you--fight you shall,
+or--
+
+Mel. Oh, enough! enough!--take your ground.
+
+They fight; DAMAS is disarmed. MELNOTTE takes up the sword and returns it to
+DAMAS respectfully. A just punishment to the brave soldier who robs the state of
+its best property--the sole right to his valor and his life.
+
+Damas. Sir, you fence exceedingly well; you must be a man of honor--I don't care
+a jot whether you are a prince; but a man who has carte and tierce at his
+fingers' ends must be a  gentleman.
+
+Mel. [aside.] Gentleman! Ay, I was a gentleman before I turned conspirator; for
+honest men are the gentlemen of Nature! Colonel, they tell me you rose from the
+ranks.
+
+Damas. I did.
+
+Mel. And in two years!
+
+Damas. It is true; that's no wonder in our army at present. Why the oldest
+general in the service is scarcely thirty, and we have some of two-and-twenty.
+
+Mel. Two-and-twenty!
+
+Damas. Yes; in the French army, now a days, promotion is not a matter of
+purchase. We are all heroes, because we may. be all generals. We have no fear of
+the cypress, because we may all hope for the laurel.
+
+Mel. A general at two-and-twenty! [turning away]--Sir, I may ask you a favor one
+of these days.
+
+Damas. Sir, I shall be proud to grant it. It is astonishing how much I like a
+man after I've fought with him. [Hides the swords.
+
+Enter MADAME DESCHAPPELLES and BEAUSEANT.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Oh, prince,--prince!--What do I hear? You must fly--you must quit
+us!
+
+Mel. I!
+
+Beau. Yes, prince: read this letter, just received from my friend at Paris, one
+of the Directory; they suspect you of designs against the Republic: they are
+very suspicious of princes, and your family take.part with the Austrians.
+Knowing that I introduced your highness at Lyons, my friend writes to me to say
+that you must quit the town immediately, or you will be arrested,--thrown into
+prison, perhaps guillotined! Fly!--I will order horses to your carriage
+instantly. Fly to Marsailles; there you can take ship to Leghorn.
+
+Mme. Deschap. And what's to become of Pauline? Am I not to be mother to a
+princess, after all?
+
+Enter PAULINE and MONSIEUR DESCHAPPELLES.
+
+Pauline [throwing herself into MELNOTTE's arms.] You must leave us!--Leave
+Pauline!
+
+Beau. Not a moment is to be wasted.
+
+M. Deschap. I will go to the magistrates and inquire--
+
+Beau. Then he is lost; the magistrates, hearing he is suspected, will order his
+arrest.
+
+Mme. Deschap. And I shall not be a princess-dowager!
+
+Beau. Why not? There is only one thing to be done:--send for the priest--let the
+marriage take place at once, and the prince carry home a bride?
+
+Mel. Impossible!--[Aside.] Villain.
+
+Mme. Deschap. What, lose my child?
+
+Beau. And gain a princess!
+
+Mme Deschap. Oh, Monsieur Beauseant, you are so very kind, it must be so,--we
+ought not to be selfish, my daughter's happiness at stake. She will go away,
+too, in a carriage and six!
+
+Pauline. Thou art here still,--I cannot part from my heart will break.
+
+Mel. But thou wilt not consent to this hasty union?--thou wilt not wed an
+outcast--a fugitive?
+
+Pauline. Ah! if thou art in danger, who should share it but Pauline?
+
+Mel. [aside]. Distraction!--If the earth could swallow me!
+
+M. Deschap. Gently! gently! The settlements--the contracts--my daughter's dowry!
+
+Mel. The dowry!--I am not base enough for that; no, not one farthing!
+
+Beau. [to MADAM]. Noble fellow!--Really your good husband is too mercantile in
+these matters. Monsieur Deschappelles, you hear his highness: we can arrange the
+settlements by proxy; 'tis the way with people of quality.
+
+M. Deschap. But--
+
+Mme. Deschap. Hold your tongue!--Don't expose yourself!
+
+Beau. I will bring the priest in a trice. Go in all of you and prepare; the
+carriage shall be at the door before the ceremony is over.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Be sure there are six horses, Beauseant! You are very good to have
+forgiven us for refusing you; but you see--a prince!
+
+Beau. And such a prince! Madam, I cannot blush at the success of so illustrious
+a rival.--[Aside.] Now will I follow them to the village, enjoy my triumph, and
+to-morrow, in the hour of thy shame and grief, I think, proud girl, thou wilt
+prefer even these arms to those of the gardener's son. (Exit.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Come, Monsieur Deschappelles, give your arm to her highness that
+is to be.
+
+M. Deschap. I don't like doing business in such a hurry; 'tis not the way with
+the house of Deschappelles & Co.
+
+Mme. Deschap. There, now, you fancy you are in the counting-house, don't you?
+
+[Pushes him to PAULINE.
+
+Mel. Stay, stay, Pauline--one word. Have you no scruple, no fear? Speak--it is
+not yet too late.
+
+Pauline. When I loved thee, thy fate became mine. Triumph or danger--joy or
+sorrow--I am by thy side.
+
+Damas. Well, well, prince, thou art a lucky man to be so loved. She is a good
+little girl in spite of her foibles make her as happy as if she were not to be a
+princess [slapping him on the shoulder]. Come, sir, I wish you joy--young--
+tender--lovely;--zounds, I envy you!
+
+Mel. [who has stood apart in gloomy abstraction]. Do you?*
+
+(* On the stage the following lines are added:--
+
+"Do you? Wise judges are we of each other.
+'Woo, wed, and bear her home! So runs the bond
+To which I sold myself,--and then--what then?
+Away?--I will not look beyond the hour.
+Like children in the dark, I dare not face
+The shades that gather sound me in the distance.
+You envy me--I thank you--you may read
+My joy upon my brow--I thank you, sir!
+If hearts had audible language, you would hear
+What mine would answer when you talk of ENVY!"
+
+ACT III.--SCENE I.
+
+The exterior of the Golden Leon--time, twilight. The moon rises during the
+scene.
+
+Enter Landlord and his Daughter from the Inn.
+
+Land. Ha--ha--ha! Well, I never shall get over it. Our Claude is a prince with a
+vengeance now. His carriage breaks down at my inn--ha--ha!
+
+Janet. And what airs the young lady gives herself! "Is this the best room you
+have, young woman?" with such a toss of the head.
+
+Land. Well, get in, Janet: get in and see to the supper: the servants must sup
+before they go back. [Exeunt.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Beau. You see our princess is lodged at last--one stage more, and she'll be at
+her journey's end--the beautiful palace at the foot of the Alps!--ha--ha!
+
+Gla. Faith, I pity the poor Pauline--especially if she's going to sup at the
+Golden Lion [makes a wry face]. I shall never forget that cursed ragout.
+
+Enter MELNOTTE from the Inn.
+
+Beau. Your servant, my prince; you reigned most worthily, I condole with you on
+your abdication. I am afraid that your highness's retinue are not very faithful
+servants. I think they will quit you in the moment of your fall 'tis the fate of
+greatness. But you are welcome to your fine clothes--also the diamond snuff-box,
+which Louis XIV. gave to your great-great-grandmother.
+
+Gla. And the ring, with which your grandfather the Dodge of Venice married the
+Adriatic.
+
+Mel. I have kept my oath, gentlemen--say, have I kept my oath?
+
+Beau. Most religiously.
+
+Mel. Then you have done with me and mine--away with you!
+
+Beau. How, knave?
+
+Mel. Look you, our bond is over. Proud conquerors that we are, we have won the
+victory over a simple girl compromised her honor--embittered her life--blasted,
+in their very blossoms, all the flowers of her youth. This is your triumph,--it
+is my shame! [Turns to BEAUSEANT.] Enjoy thy triumph, but not in my sight. I was
+her betrayer--I am her protector! Cross but her path--one word of scorn, one
+look of insult--nay, but one quiver of that mocking lip, and I will teach thee
+that bitter word thou hast graven eternally in this heart--Repentance
+
+Beau. His highness is most grandiloquent.
+
+Mel. Highness me no more! Beware! Remorse has made me a new being. Away with
+you! There is danger in me. Away!
+
+Gla. [aside]. He's an awkward fellow to deal with: come away, Beauseant.
+
+Beau. I know the respect clue to rank. Adieu, my prince. Any commands at Lyons?
+Yet hold--I promised you 200 Louis on your wedding-day; here they are.
+
+Mel. [dashing the purse to the ground]. I gave you revenge, I did not sell it.
+Take up your silver, Judas; take it. Ay, it is fit you should learn to stoop.
+
+Beau. You will beg my pardon for this some clay. [Aside to GLAVIS.] Come to my
+chateau--I shall return hither to morrow, to learn how Pauline likes her new
+dignity.
+
+Mel. Are you not gone yet?
+
+Beau. Your highness's most obedient, most faithful
+
+Gla. And most humble servants. Ha! ha! [Exeunt BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Mel. Thank heaven I had no weapon, or I should have slaln them. Wretch! what can
+I say? Where turn? On all sides mockery--the very boors within--[Laughter from
+the Inn].--'Sdeath, if even in this short absence the exposure should have
+chanced. I will call her. We will go hence. I have already sent one I can trust
+to my mother's house. There, at least, none can insult her agony--gloat upon her
+shame! There alone must she learn what a villain she has sworn to love. [As he
+turns to the door enter PAULINE from the Inn.
+
+Pauline. Ah! my lord, what a place! I never saw such rude people. They stare and
+wink so. I think the very sight of a prince, though he travels incognito, turns
+their honest heads. What a pity the carriage should break down in such a spot!
+You are not well--the drops stand on your brow--your hand is feverish.
+
+Mel. Nay, it is but a passing spasm;--the air
+
+Pauline. Is not the soft air of your native south--
+How pale he is!--indeed thou art not well.
+Where are our people? I will call them.
+
+Mel. Hold! I--I am well.
+
+Pauline. Thou art!--Ah! now I know it.
+Thou fanciest, my kind lord--I know thou dost--
+Thou fanciest these rude walls, these rustic gossips,
+Brick'd floors, sour wine, coarse viands, vex Pauline;
+And so they might, but thou art by my side,
+And I forget all else.
+
+Enter Landlord, the Servants peeping and laughing over his shoulder.
+
+Land. My lord--your highness--Will your most noble excellency choose--
+
+Mel. Begone, sir! [Exit Landlord laughing.
+
+Pauline. How could they have learn'd thy rank?
+One's servants are so vain!--nay, let it not
+Chafe thee, sweet prince!--a few short days and we
+Shall see thy palace by its lake of silver,
+And--nay, nay, spendthrift, is thy wealth of smiles,
+Already drain'd, or dost thou play the miser?
+
+Mel. Thine eyes would call up smiles in deserts, fair one.
+Let us escape these rustics: close at hand
+There is a cot, where I have bid prepare
+Our evening lodgment--a rude, homely roof,
+But honest, where our welcome will not be
+Made torture by the vulgar eyes and tongues
+That are as death to Love! A heavenly night!
+The wooing air and the soft moon invite us.
+Wilt walk? I pray thee, now,--I know the path,
+Ay, every inch of it!
+
+Pauline. What, thou! Methought
+Thou wert a stranger in these parts? Ah, truant,
+Some village beauty lured thee;--thou art now
+Grown constant?
+
+Mel. Trust me.
+
+Pauline. Princes are so changeful!
+
+Mel. Come, dearest, come.
+
+Pauline. Shall I not call our people To light us?
+
+Mel. Heaven will lend its stars for torches! It is not far.
+
+Pauline. The night breeze chills me.
+
+Mel. Nay, Let me thus mantle thee;--it is not cold.
+
+Pauline. Never beneath thy smile!
+
+Mel. [aside.] O Heaven! forgive me! [Exeunt
+
+SCENE II.
+
+MELNOTTE'S cottage--Widow bustling about--a table spread for supper.
+
+Widow. So, I think that looks very neat. He sent me a line, so blotted that I
+can scarcely read it, to say he would be here almost immediately. She must have
+loved him well indeed to have forgotten his birth; for though he was introduced
+to her in disguise, he is too honorable not to have revealed to her the
+artifice, which her love only could forgive. Well, I do not wonder at it; for
+though my son is not a prince, he ought to be one, and that's almost as good,
+[Knock at the door.] Ah! here they are.
+
+Enter MELNOTTE and PAULINE.
+
+Widow. Oh, my boy--the pride of my heart!--welcome, welcome! I beg pardon,
+ma'am, but I do love him so!
+
+Pauline. Good woman, I really--why prince, what is this?--does the old lady know
+you? Oh, I guess, you have done her some service. Another proof of your kind
+heart? is it not?
+
+Mel. Of my kind heart, ay!
+
+Pauline. So you know the prince?
+
+Widow. Know him, madam?--Ah, I begin to fear it is you who know him not!
+
+Pauline. Do you think she is mad? Can we stay here, my lord? I think there's
+something very wild about her.
+
+Mel. Madam, I--no, I cannot tell her; my knees knock together: what a coward is
+a man who has lost his honor! Speak to her--speak to her [to his mother]--tell
+her that--O Heaven, that I were dead!
+
+Pauline. How confused he looks!--this strange place?--this woman--what can it
+mean?--I half suspect--Who are you, madam!--who are you! can't you speak? are
+you struck dumb?
+
+Widow. Claude, you have not deceived her?--Ah, shame upon you 1 I thought that,
+before you went to the altar, she was to have known all.
+
+Pauline. All! what!--My blood freezes in my veins!
+
+Widow. Poor lady!--dare I tell her, Claude? [MELNOTTE makes a sign of assent.]
+Know you not then, madam, that this young man is of poor though honest parents?
+Know you not that you are wedded to my son, Claude Melnotte?
+
+Pauline. Your son! hold--hold! do not speak to me.--[Approaches MELNOTTE, and
+lays her hand on his arm.]--Is this a jest? is it? I know it is, only speak--one
+word--one look one smile. I cannot believe--I who loved thee so--I cannot
+believe that thou art such a--No, I will not wrong thee by a harsh word--Speak!
+
+Mel. Leave us--have pity on her, on me: leave us.
+
+Widow. Oh, Claude, that I should live to see thee bowed by shame! thee of whom I
+was so proud!(Exit by the staircase.
+
+Pauline. Her son--her son!
+
+Mel. Now, lady, hear me.
+
+Pauline. Hear thee!
+Ay, speak--her son! have fiends a parent? speak,
+That thou mayst silence curses--speak!
+
+Mel. No, curse me:
+Thy curse would blast me less than thy forgiveness.
+
+Pauline [laughing wildly]. "This is thy palace, where the perfumed light
+Steals through the mist of alabaster lamps,
+And every air is heavy with the sighs
+Of orange-groves, and music from the sweet lutes,
+And murmurs of low fountains, that gush forth
+I' the midst of roses!" Dost thou like the picture?
+This is my bridal home, and thou my bridegroom.
+O fool--O dupe--O wretch!--I see it all
+Thy by-word and the jeer of every tongue
+In Lyons. Hast thou in thy heart one touch
+Of human kindness? if thou hast, why, kill me,
+And save thy wife from madness. No, it cannot
+It cannot be: this is some horrid dream:
+I shall wake soon.--[Touching him.] Art flesh art man? or but
+The shadows seen in sleep? It is too real.
+What have I done to thee? how sinn'd against thee,
+That thou shouldst crush me thus?
+
+Mel. Pauline, by pride
+Angels have fallen ere thy time: by pride
+That sole alloy of thy most lovely mould
+The evil spirit of a bitter love,
+And a revengeful heart, had power upon thee.
+From my first years my soul was fill'd with thee:
+I saw thee midst the flow'rs the lowly boy
+Tended, unmark'd by thee--a spirit of bloom,
+And joy, and freshness, as if Spring itself
+Were made a living thing, and wore thy shape!
+I saw thee, and the passionate heart of man
+Enter'd the breast of the wild-dreaming boy.
+And from that hour I grew--what to the last
+I shall be--thine adorer! Well, this love
+Vain, frantic, guilty, if thou wilt, became
+A fountain of ambition and bright hope;
+I thought of tales that by the winter hearth
+Old gossips tell--how maidens sprung from kings
+Have stoop'd from their high sphere; how love, like death
+Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook
+Beside the sceptre. Thus I made my home
+In the soft palace of a fairy Future!
+My father died; and I, the peasant-born,
+Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise
+Out of the prison of my mean estate;
+And, with such jewels as the exploring mind
+Brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom
+From those twin gaolers of the daring heart
+Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image
+Glass'd in my soul, took all the hues of glory,
+And lured me on to those inspiring toils
+By which man masters men! For thee I grew
+A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages.
+For thee I sought to borrow from each grace,
+And every muse, such attributes as lend
+Ideal charms to love. I thought of thee,
+And passion taught me poesy--of thee,
+And on the painter's canvas grew the life
+Of beauty! Art became the shadow
+Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes
+Men call'd me vain--some mad--I heeded not;
+But still toil'd on--hoped on--for it was sweet,
+If not to win, to feel more worthy thee?
+
+Pauline. Has he a magic to exorcise hate!
+
+Mel. At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour
+The thoughts that burst their channels into song,
+And sent them to thee--such a tribute, lady,
+As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest.
+The name--appended by the burning heart
+That long'd to show its idol what bright things
+It had created--yea, the enthusiast's name,
+That should have been thy triumph, was thy scorn!
+That very hour--when passion, turn'd to wrath,
+Resembled hatred most--when thy disdain
+Made my whole soul a chaos--in that hour
+The tempters found me a revengeful tool
+For their revenge! Thou hadst trampled on the worm
+It turn'd and stung thee!
+
+Pauline. Love, sir, hath no sting.
+What was the slight of a poor powerless girl
+To the deep wrong of this most vile revenge?
+Oh, how I loved this man!--a serf!--a slave!
+
+Mel. Hold, lady! No, not slave! Despair is free!
+I will not tell thee of the throes--the struggles
+The anguish--the remorse: No, let it pass!
+And let me come to such most poor atonement
+Yet in my power. Pauline!
+
+(Approaching her with great emotion, and about to take her hand.
+
+Pauline. No, touch me not!
+I know my fate. You are, by law, my tyrant;
+And I--O Heaven!--a peasant's wife! I'll work
+Toil--drudge--do what thou wilt--but touch me not;
+Let my wrongs make me sacred!
+
+Mel. Do not fear me.
+Thou dost not know me, madam: at the altar
+My vengeance ceased--my guilty oath expired!
+Henceforth, no image of some marble saint,
+Niched in cathedral aisles, is hallow'd more
+From the rude hand of sacrilegious wrong.
+I am thy husband--nay, thou need'st not shudder;
+Here, at thy feet, I lay a husband's rights.
+A marriage thus unholy--unfulfill'd--
+A bond of fraud--is, by the laws of France,
+Made void and null. To-night sleep--sleep in peace.
+To-morrow, pure and virgin as this morn
+I bore thee, bathed in blushes, from the shrine,
+Thy father's arms shall take thee to thy home.
+The law shall do thee justice, and restore
+Thy right to bless another with thy love.
+And when thou art happy, and hast half forgot
+Him who so loved--so wrong'd thee, think at least
+Heaven left some remnant of the angel still
+In that poor peasant's nature!
+
+Ho! my mother! [Enter Widow.
+
+Conduct this lady--(she is not my wife;
+She is our guest,--our honor'd guest, my mother)--
+To the poor chamber, where the sleep of virtue,
+Never, beneath my father's honest roof,
+Ev'n villains dared to mar! Now, lady, now,
+I think thou wilt believe me. Go, my mother!
+
+Widow. She is not thy wife!
+
+Mel. Hush, hush! for mercy's sake!
+Speak not, but go.
+
+[Widow ascends the stairs; PAULINE follows weeping--turns to look back.
+
+Mel. [sinking down]. All angels bless and guard her!
+
+ACT IV.--SCENE I.
+
+The cottage as before--MELNOTTE seated before a table--writing implements, etc.-
+-(Day breaking.)
+
+Mel. Hush, hush!--she sleeps at last!--thank Heaven, for a while she forgets
+even that I live! Her sobs, which have gone to my heart the whole, long,
+desolate night, have ceased!--all calm--all still! I will go now; I will send
+this letter to Pauline's father: when he arrives, I will place in his hands my
+own consent to the divorce, and then, O France! my country! accept among thy
+protectors, thy defenders--the peasant's Son! Our country is less proud than
+custom, and does not refuse the blood, the heart, the right hand of the poor
+man.
+
+Enter Widow.
+
+Widow. My son, thou hast acted ill; but sin brings its own punishment. In the
+hour of thy remorse, it is not for a mother to reproach thee.
+
+Mel. What is past is past. There is a future left to all men, who have the
+virtue to repent, and the energy to atone. Thou shalt be proud of thy son yet.
+Meanwhile, remember this poor lady has been grievously injured. For the sake of
+thy son's conscience, respect, honor, bear with her. If she weep, console--if
+she chide, be silent. 'Tis but a little while more--I shall send an express fast
+as horse can speed to her father. Farewell! I shall return shortly.
+
+Widow. It is the only course left to thee--thou wert led astray, but thou art
+not hardened. Thy heart is right still, as ever it was when, in thy most
+ambitious hopes thou wert never ashamed of thy poor mother.
+
+Mel. Ashamed of thee; No, if I yet endure, yet live, yet hope,--it is only
+because I would not die till I have redeemed the noble heritage I have lost--the
+heritage I took unstained from thee and my dead father--a proud conscience and
+an honest name. I shall win them back yet--heaven bless you! [Exit.
+
+Widow. My dear Claude! How my heart bleeds for him.
+
+[PAULINE looks down from above, and after a pause descends
+
+Pauline. Not here!--he spares me that pain at least: so far he is considerate--
+yet the place seems still more desolate without him. Oh, that I could hate him--
+the gardener's son!--and yet how nobly he--no--no--no I will not be so mean a
+thing as to forgive him!
+
+Widow. Good morning, madam; I would have waited on you if I had known you were
+stirring.
+
+Pauline. It is no matter, ma'am--your son's wife ought to wait on herself.
+
+Widow. My son's wife--let not that thought vex you, madam--he tells me that you
+will have your divorce. And I hope I shall live to see him smile again. There
+are maidens in this village, young and fair, madam, who may yet console him.
+
+Pauline. I dare say--they are very welcome--and when the divorce is got--he will
+marry again. I am sure I hope so. [Weeps.
+
+Widow. He could have married the richest girl in the province, if he had pleased
+it; but his head was turned, poor child! he could think of nothing but you.
+[Weeps.
+
+Pauline. Don't weep, mother.
+
+Widow. Ah, he has behaved very ill, I know, but love is so headstrong in the
+young. Don't weep, madam.
+
+Pauline. So, as you were saying--go on.
+
+Widow. Oh, I cannot excuse him, ma'am--he was not in his right senses.
+
+Pauline. But he always--always [sobbing] loved--loved me then?
+
+Widow. He thought of nothing else. See here--he learnt to paint that he might
+take your likeness [uncovers the picture]. But that's all over now--I trust you
+have cured him of his folly;--but, dear heart, you have had no breakfast!
+
+Pauline. I can't take anything--don't trouble yourself.
+
+Widow. Nay, madam, be persuaded; a little coffee will refresh you. Our milk and
+eggs are excellent. I will get out Claude's coffee-cup--It is of real Sevres; he
+saved up all his money to buy it three years ago, because the name of Pauline
+was inscribed on it.
+
+Pauline. Three years ago! Poor Claude!--Thank you; I think I will have some
+coffee. Oh! if he were but a poor gentleman, even a merchant: but a gardener's
+son--and what a home!--Oh no,--it is too dreadful!
+
+They seat themselves at the table, BEAUSEANT opens the lattice and looks in.
+
+Beau. So--so--the coast is clear! I saw Claude in the lane--I shall have an
+excellent opportunity.Shuts the lattice and knocks at the door.
+
+Pauline. [starting]. Can it be my father?--he has not sent for--him yet? No, he
+cannot be in such a hurry to get rid of me.
+
+Widow. It is not time for your father to arrive yet; it must be some neighbor.
+
+Pauline. Don't admit any one.
+
+[Widow opens the door, BEAUSEANT pushes her aside and enters. Ha! Heavens! that
+hateful Beauseant! This is indeed bitter!
+
+Beau. Good morning, madam! O widow, your son begs you will have the goodness to
+go to him in the village he wants to speak to you on particular business; you'll
+find him at the inn, or the grocer's shop, or the baker's, or at some other
+friend's of your family--make haste.
+
+Pauline. Don't leave me, mother!--don't leave me.
+
+Beau. [with great respect]. Be not alarmed, madam. Believe me your friend--your
+servant.
+
+Pauline. Sir, I have no fear of you, even in this house! Go, madam, if your son
+wishes it; I will not contradict his commands whilst, at least he has still the
+right to be obeyed.
+
+Widow. I don't understand this; however, I sha'n't be long gone. [Exit.
+
+Pauline. Sir, I divine the object of your visit--you wish to exult in the
+humiliation of one who humbled you. Be it so; I am prepared to endure all--even
+your presence!
+
+Beau. You mistake me, madam--Pauline, you mistake me! I come to lay my fortune
+at your feet. You must already be disenchanted with this impostor; these walls
+are not worthy to be hallowed by your beauty! Shall that form be clasped in the
+arms of a base-born peasant? Beloved, beautiful Pauline! fly with me--my
+carriage waits without--I will bear you to a home more meet for your reception.
+Wealth, luxury, station--all shall yet be yours. I forget your past disdain--I
+remember only your beauty and my unconquerable love!
+
+Pauline. Sir! leave this house--it is humble: but a husband's roof, however
+lowly, is, in the eyes of God and man, the temple of a wife's honor! Know that I
+would rather starve--yes--with him who has betrayed me, than accept your lawful
+hand, even were you the prince whose name he bore.--Go.
+
+Beau. What! is not your pride humbled yet?
+
+Pauline. Sir, what was pride in prosperity in affliction becomes virtue.
+
+Beau. Look round: these rugged floors--these homely walls--this wretched
+struggle of poverty for comfort--think of this! and contrast with such a picture
+the refinement, the luxury, the pomp, that the wealthiest gentleman of Lyons
+offers to the loveliest lady. Ah, hear me!
+
+Pauline. Oh! my father!--why did I leave you?--why am I thus friendless? Sir,
+you see before you a betrayed, injured, miserable woman!--respect her anguish
+
+[MELNOTTE opens the door silently, and pauses at the threshold.
+
+Beau. No! let me rather thus console it; let me snatch from those lips one
+breath of that fragrance which never should be wasted on the low churl thy
+husband.
+
+Pauline. Help! Claude!--Claude!--Have I no protector?'
+
+Beau. Be silent! [showing a pistol.] See, I do not come unprepared even for
+violence. I will brave all things--thy husband and all his race--for thy sake.
+Thus, then, I clasp thee!
+
+Mel. [dashing him to the other end of the stage]. Pauline--look up, Pauline!
+thou art safe.
+
+Beau. [levelling his pistol]. Dare you thus insult a man of my birth, ruffian?
+
+Pauline. Oh, spare him--spare my husband!--Beauseant--Claude--no--no [faints].
+
+Mel. Miserable trickster! shame upon you! brave devices to terrify a woman!
+Coward!--you tremble--you have outraged the laws--you know that your weapon is
+harmless--you have the courage of the mountebank, not the bravo!--Pauline, there
+is no danger.
+
+Beau. I wish thou wert a gentleman--as it is, thou art beneath me.--Good day,
+and a happy honeymoon.--[Aside.] I will not die till I am avenged. [Exit.
+
+Mel. I hold her in these arms--the last embrace
+Never, ah never more, shall this dear head
+Be pillow'd on the heart that should have shelter'd
+And has betray'd!--Soft--soft! one kiss--poor wretch!
+No scorn on that pale lip forbids me now!
+One kiss--so ends all record of my crime!
+It is the seal upon the tomb of hope,
+By which, like some lost, sorrowing angel, sits
+Sad memory evermore; she breathes--she moves
+She wakes to scorn, to hate, but not to shudder
+Beneath the touch of my abhorred love.
+Places her on a seat. There--we are strangers now!
+
+Pauline. All gone--all calm
+Is every thing a dream? thou art safe, unhurt
+I do not love thee;--but--but I am woman,
+And--and--no blood is spilt?
+
+Mel. No, lady, no; My guilt hath not deserved so rich a blessing As even danger
+in thy cause.
+
+Enter WIDOW.
+
+Widow. My son, I have been everywhere in search of you; why did you send for me?
+
+Mel. I did not send for you.
+
+Widow. No! but I must tell you your express has returned.
+
+Mel. So soon! impossible!
+
+Widow. Yes, he met the lady's father and mother on the road; they were going
+into the country on a visit. Your messenger says that Monsieur Deschappelles
+turned almost white with anger when he read your letter. They will be here
+almost immediately. Oh, Claude, Claude! what will they do to you? How I tremble!
+Ah, madam! do not let them injure him--if you knew how he doated on you.
+
+Pauline. Injure him! no, ma'am, be not afraid;--my father! how shall I meet him?
+how go back to Lyons? the scoff of the whole city! Cruel, cruel, Claude [in
+great agitation]. Sir, you have acted most treacherously.
+
+Mel. I know it, madam.
+
+Pauline [aside.] If he would but ask me to forgive him!--I never can forgive
+you, sir.
+
+Mel. I never dared to hope it.
+
+Pauline. But you are my husband now, and I have sworn to--to love you, sir.
+
+Mel. That was under a false belief, madam; Heaven and the laws will release you
+from your vow.
+
+Pauline. He will drive me mad! if he were but less proud--if he would but ask me
+to remain--hark, hark--I hear the wheels of the carriage--Sir--Claude, they are
+coming; have you no word to say ere it is loo late? Quick speak.
+
+Mel. I can only congratulate you on your release. Behold your parents
+
+Enter MONSIEUR and MADAME DESCHAPPELLES and COLONEL DAMAS.
+
+M. Deschap. My child! my child!
+
+Mme. Deschap. Oh, my poor Pauline!--what a villanous hovel this is! Old woman,
+get me a chair--I shall faint I certainly shall. What will the world say? Child,
+you have been a fool. A mother's heart is easily broken.
+
+Damas. Ha, ha! most noble Prince--I am sorry to see a man of your quality in
+such a condition; I am afraid your highness will go to the House of Correction.
+
+Mel. Taunt on, sir; I spared you when you were unarmed--I am unarmed now. A man
+who has no excuse for crime is indeed defenceless!
+
+Damas. There's something fine in the rascal, after all!
+
+M. Deschap. Where is the impostor?--Are you thus shameless, traitor? Can you
+brave the presence of that girl's father?
+
+Mel. Strike me, if it please you--you are her father.
+
+Pauline. Sir--sir, for my sake; whatever his guilt, he has acted nobly in
+atonement.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Nobly! Are you mad, girl? I have no patience with you--to disgrace
+all your family thus! Nobly! Oh you abominable, hardened, pitiful, mean, ugly
+villain!
+
+Damas. Ugly! Why he was beautiful yesterday!
+
+Pauline. Madame, this is his roof, and he is my husband. Respect your daughter,
+or let blame fall alone on her.
+
+Mme. Deschap. You--you--Oh, I'm choking.
+
+M. Deschap. Sir, it were idle to waste reproach upon a conscience like yours--
+you renounce all pretensions to the person of this lady?
+
+Mel. I do. [Gives a paper.] Here is my consent to a divorce--my full confession
+of the fraud which annuls the marriage. Your daughter has been foully wronged--I
+grant it, sir; but her own lips will tell you that, from the hour in which she
+crossed this threshold, I returned to my own station, and respected hers. Pure
+and inviolate, as when yestermorn you laid your hand upon her head, and blessed
+her, I yield her back to you. For myself--I deliver you for ever from my
+presence. An outcast and a criminal, I seek some distant land, where I may mourn
+my sin, and pray for your daughter's peace. Farewell--farewell to you all, for
+ever!
+
+Willow. Claude, Claude, you will not leave your poor old mother? She does not
+disown you in your sorrow no, not even in your guilt. No divorce can separate a
+mother from her son.
+
+Pauline. This poor widow teaches me my duty. No, mother,--no, for you are now my
+mother also!--nor should any law, human or divine, separate the wife from her
+husband's sorrows. Claude--Claude--all is forgotten forgiven--I am. thine for
+ever!
+
+Mme. Deschap. What do I hear?--Come away, or never see my face again.
+
+M. Deschap. Pauline, we never betrayed you!--do you forsake us for him?
+
+Pauline. [going back to her father]. Oh no--but you will forgive him too; we
+will live together--he shall be your son.
+
+M. Deschap. Never! Cling to him and forsake your parents! His home shall be
+yours--his fortune yours--his fate yours: the wealth I have acquired by honest
+industry shall never enrich the dishonest man.
+
+Pauline. And you would have a wife enjoy luxury while a husband toils! Claude,
+take me; thou canst not give me wealth, titles, station--but thou canst give me
+a true heart I will work for thee, tend thee, bear with thee, and never, never
+shall these lips reproach thee for the past.
+
+Damas. I'll be hanged if I am not going to blubber!
+
+Mel. This is the heaviest blow of all!--What a heart I have wronged!--Do not
+fear me, sir; I am not all hardened--I will not rob her of a holier love than
+mine. Pauline!--angel of love and mercy!--your memory shall lead me back to
+virtue!--The husband of a being so beautiful in her noble and sublime tenderness
+may be poor--may be low born;--(there is no guilt in the decrees of
+providence!)--but he should be one who can look thee in the face without a
+blush,--to whom thy love does not bring remorse,--who can fold thee to his
+heart, and say,--"Here there is no deceit!" I am not that man!
+
+Damas. [aside to MELNOTTE]. Thou art a noble fellow, notwithstanding; and
+wouldst make an excellent soldier. Serve in my regiment. I have had a letter
+from the Directory--our young general takes the command of the army in Italy,--I
+am to join him at Marseilles,I will depart this day, if thou wilt go with me.
+
+Mel. It is the favor I would have asked thee, if I dared. Place me wherever a
+foe is most dreaded,--wherever France most needs a life!
+
+Damas. There shall not be a forlorn hope without thee!
+
+Mel. There is my hand!--mother, your blessing. I shall see you again,--a better
+man than a prince,--a man who has bought the right to high thoughts by brave
+deeds. And thou!--thou! so wildly worshipped, so guiltily betrayed, all is not
+yet lost!--for thy memory, at least, must be mine till death! If I live, the
+name of him thou hast once loved shall not rest dishonored;--if I fall, amidst
+the carnage and the roar of battle, my soul will fly back to thee, and love
+shall share with death my last sigh!--More--more would I speak to thee!--to
+pray!--to bless! But no; When I am less unworthy I will utter it to Heaven!--I
+cannot trust myself to [turning to DESCHAPPELLES] Your pardon, sir; they are my
+last words Farewell! [Exit.
+
+Damas. I will go after him.--France will thank me for this.
+
+Pauline [starting from her father's arms]. Claude!--Claude!--my husband!
+
+M. Deschap. You have a father still!
+
+ACT V.
+
+Two years and a half from the date of Act IV.
+
+SCENE I.
+
+The Streets of Lyons.
+
+Enter First, Second, and Third Officers.
+
+First Officer. Well, here we are at Lyons, with gallant old Damas: it is his
+native place.
+
+Second Officer. Yes; he has gained a step in the army since he was here last.
+The Lyonnese ought to be very proud of stout General Damas.
+
+Third Officer. Promotion is quick in the French army. This mysterious Morier,--
+the hero of Lodi, and the favorite of the commander-in-chief,--has risen to a
+colonel's rank to two years and a half. Enter DAMAS, as a General.
+
+Damas. Good morrow, gentlemen; I hope you will amuse yourselves during our short
+stay at Lyons. It is a fine city: improved since I left it. Ah! it is a pleasure
+to grow old,when the years that bring decay to ourselves do but ripen the
+prosperity of our country. You have not met with Morier?
+
+First Officer. No: we were just speaking of him.
+
+Second Officer. Pray, general, can you tell us who this Morier really is?
+
+Damas. Is!--why a colonel in the French army.
+
+Third Officer. True. But what was he at first?
+
+Damas. At first? Why a baby in long clothes, I suppose.
+
+First Officer. Ha, ha! Ever facetious, general.
+
+Second Officer. [to Third]. The general is sore upon this point; you will only
+chafe him.--Any commands, general?
+
+Damas. None. Good day to you. [Exeunt Second and Third Officers.
+
+Damas. Our comrades are very inquisitive. Poor Morier is the subject of a vast
+deal of curiosity.
+
+First Officer. Say interest, rather, general. His constant melancholy, the
+loneliness of his habits,--his daring valor, his brilliant rise in the
+profession,--your friendship, and the favors of the commander-in-chief,--all
+tend to make him as much the matter of gossip as of admiration. But where is he,
+general? I have missed him all the morning.
+
+Damas. Why, captain, I'll let you into a secret. My young friend has come with
+me to Lyons in hopes of finding a miracle.
+
+First Officer. A miracle!
+
+Damas. Yes, a miracle! in other words,--a constant woman.
+
+First Officer. Oh! an affair of love!
+
+Damas. Exactly so. No sooner did he enter Lyons than he waved his hand to me,
+threw himself from his horse, and is now, I warrant, asking every one who can
+know anything about the matter, whether a certain lady is still true to a
+certain gentleman!
+
+First Officer. Success to him! and of that success there can be no doubt. The
+gallant Colonel Morier, the hero of Lodi, might make his choice out of the
+proudest families in France.
+
+Damas. Oh, if pride be a recommendation, the lady and her mother are most
+handsomely endowed. By the way, captain, if you should chance to meet with
+Morier, tell him he will find me at the hotel.
+
+First Officer. I will, general. [Exit.
+
+Damas. Now will I go to the Deschappelles, and make a report to my young
+Colonel. Ha! by Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, Virorum,--here comes Monsieur Beauseant!
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT.
+
+Good morrow, Monsieur Beauseant! How fares it with you?
+
+Beau. [aside.] Damas! that is unfortunate;--if the Italian campaign should have
+filled his pockets, he may seek to baffle me in the moment of my victory.
+[Aloud]. Your servant, general,--for such, I think, is your new distinction!
+Just arrived in Lyons?
+
+Damas. Not an hour ago. Well, how go on the Deschappelles? Have they forgiven
+you in that affair of young Melnotte? You had some hand in that notable device,-
+-eh?
+
+Beau. Why, less than you think for! The fellow imposed upon me. I have set it
+all right now. What has become of him? He could not have joined the army, after
+all. There is no such name in the books.
+
+Damas. I know nothing about Melnotte. As you say, I never heard the name in the
+Grand Army.
+
+Beau. Hem!--You are not married, general?
+
+Damas. Do I look like a married man, sir?--No, thank Heaven! My profession is to
+make widows, not wives.
+
+Beau. You must have gained much booty in Italy! Pauline will be your heiress--
+eh?
+
+Damas. Booty! Not I! Heiress to what? Two trunks and a portmanteau,--four
+horses,--three swords, two suits of regimentals, and six pair of white leather
+inexpressibles! A pretty fortune for a young lady!
+
+Beau. [aside.] Then all is safe! [Aloud]. Ha! ha! Is that really all your
+capital, General Damas? Why, I thought Italy had been a second Mexico to you
+soldiers.
+
+Damas. All a toss-up, sir. I was not one of the lucky ones! My friend Morier,
+indeed, saved something handsome. But our commander-in-chief took care of him,
+and Morier is a thrifty, economical dog,--not like the rest of us soldiers, who
+spend our money as carelessly as if it were our blood.
+
+Beau. Well, it is no matter! I do not want fortune with Pauline. And you must
+know, General Damas, that your fair cousin has at length consented to reward my
+long and ardent attachment.
+
+Damas. You!--the devil! Why, she is already married! There is no divorce!
+
+Beau. True; but this very day she is formally to authorize the necessary
+proceedings, this very day she is to sign the contract that is to make her mine
+within one week from the day on which her present illegal marriage is annulled.
+
+Damas. You tell me wonders!--Wonders! No; I believe anything of women!
+
+Beau. I must wish you good morning. [As he is going, enter DESCHAPPELLES.
+
+M. Deschap. Oh, Beauseant! well met. Let us come to the notary at once.
+
+Damas [to Deschap.]. Why, cousin!
+
+M. Deschap. Damas, welcome to Lyons. Pray call on us; my wife will be delighted
+to see you.
+
+Damas. Your wife be-blessed for her condescension! But [taking him aside] what
+do I hear? Is it possible that your daughter has consented to a divorce?--that
+she will marry Monsieur Beauseant?
+
+M. Deschap. Certainly. What have you to say against it? A gentleman of birth,
+fortune, character. We are not so proud as we were; even my wife has had enough
+of nobility and princes!
+
+Damas. But Pauline loved that young man so tenderly!
+
+M. Deschap. [taking snuff]. That was two years and a half ago.
+
+Damas. Very true. Poor Melnotte!
+
+M. Deschap. But do not talk of that impostor; I hope he is dead or has left the
+country. Nay, even were he in Lyons at this moment, he ought to rejoice that, in
+an honorable and suitable alliance, my daughter may forget her sufferings and
+his crime.
+
+Damas.--Nay, if it be all settled, I have no more to say. Monsieur Beauseant
+informs me that the contract is to be signed this very day.
+
+M. Deschap, It is; at one o'clock precisely. Will you be one of the witnesses?
+
+Damas. I?--No; that is to say--yes, certainly!--at one o'clock I will wait on
+you.
+
+M. Deschap. Till then, adieu--come Beauseant.
+
+[Exeunt BEAUSEANT and DESCHAPELLES
+
+Damas. The man who sets his heart upon a woman
+Is a chameleon, and doth feed on air;
+From air he takes his colors--holds his life,--
+Changes with every wind,--grows lean or fat,
+Rosy with hope, or green with jealousy,
+Or pallid with despair--just as the gale
+Varies from North to South--from heat to cold!
+Oh, woman! woman! thou shouldst have few sins
+Of thine own to answer for! Thou art the author
+Of such a book of follies in a man,
+That it would need the tears of all the angels
+To blot the record out!
+
+[Enter MELNOTTE, pale and agitated.
+
+I need not tell thee! Thou hast heard--
+
+Mel. The worst!
+I have!
+
+Damas. Be cheer'd; others are fair as she is!
+
+Mel. Others! The world is crumbled at my feet!
+She was my world; fill'd up the whole of being--
+Smiled in the sunshine--walk'd the glorious earth--
+Sate in my heart--was the sweet life of life.
+The Past was hers; I dreamt not of a Future
+That did not wear her shape! Mem'ry and Hope
+Alike are gone. Pauline is faithless! Henceforth
+The universal space is desolate!
+
+Damas. Hope yet.
+
+Mel. Hope, yes!--one hope is left me still--
+A soldier's grave! Glory has died with love.
+I look into my heart, and, where I saw
+Pauline, see Death!
+
+[After a pause].--But am I not deceived?
+I went but by the rumor of the town;
+Rumor is false,--I was too hasty! Damas,
+Whom hast thou seen?
+
+Damas. Thy rival and her father.
+Arm thyself for the truth.--He heeds not.
+
+Mel. She.
+
+Will never know how deeply she was loved!
+The charitable night, that wont to bring
+Comfort to-day, in bright and eloquent dreams,
+Is henceforth leagued with misery! Sleep, farewell,
+Or else become eternal! Oh, the waking
+From false oblivion, and to see the sun,
+And know she is another's!
+
+Damas. Be a man!
+
+Mel. I am a man!--it is the sting of woe
+Like mine that tells us we are men!,
+
+Damas. The false one
+Did not deserve thee.
+
+Mel. Hush!--No word against her!
+Why should she keep, through years and silent absence,
+The holy tablets of her virgin faith
+True to a traitor's name! Oh, blame her not;
+It were a sharper grief to think her worthless
+Than to be what I am! To-day,--to-day!
+They, said "To-day!" This day, so wildly welcomed--
+This clay, my soul had singled out of time
+And mark'd for bliss! This day! oh, could I see her,
+See her once more unknown; but hear her voice.
+So that one echo of its music might
+Make ruin less appalling in its silence.
+
+Damas. Easily done! Come with me to her house;
+Your dress--your cloak--moustache--the bronzed hues
+Of time and toil--the name you bear--belief
+In your absence, all will ward away suspicion.
+Keep in the shade. Ay, I would have you come
+There may be hope? Pauline is yet so young,
+They may have forced her to these second bridals
+Out of mistaken love.
+
+Mel. No, bid me hope not!
+Bid me not hope! I could not bear again
+To fall from such a heaven! One gleam of sunshine,
+And the ice breaks and I am lost! Oh, Damas,
+There's no such thing as courage in a man;
+The veriest slave that ever crawl'd from danger
+Might spurn me now. When first I lost her, Damas,
+I bore it, did I not? I still had hope,
+And now I--I--(Bursts into an agony of grief.
+
+Damas. What, comrade! all the women
+That ever smiled destruction on brave hearts
+Were not worth tears like these!
+
+Mel. 'Tis past--forget it.
+I am prepared; life has no further ills!
+The cloud has broken in that stormy rain,
+And on the waste I stand, alone with Heaven.
+
+Damas. His very face is changed; a breaking heart
+Does its work soon!--Come, Melnotte, rouse thyself:
+One effort more. Again thou'lt see her.
+
+Mel. See her!
+There is a passion in that simple sentence
+That shivers all the pride and power of reason
+Into a chaos!
+
+Damas. Time wanes; come, ere yet It be too late.
+
+Mel. Terrible words--"Too late!" Lead on. One last look more, and then--
+
+Damas. Forget her!
+
+Mel. Forget her! yes--For death remembers not. [Exeunt.
+
+SCENE II.
+
+A room in the house of MONSIEUR DESCHAPPELLES; PAULINE seated in great
+dejection.
+
+Pauline. It is so, then. I must be false to Love,
+Or sacrifice a father! Oh, my Claude,
+My lover, and my husband! Have I lived
+To pray that thou mayest find some fairer boon
+Than the deep faith of this devoted heart--
+Nourish'd till now--now broken?
+
+Enter MONSIEUR DESCHAPPELLES.
+
+M. Deschap. My dear child,
+How shall I thank--how bless thee? Thou hast saved,
+I will not say my fortune--I could bear
+Reverse, and shrink not--but that prouder wealth
+Which merchants value most--my name, my credit--
+The hard--won honors of a toilsome life:--
+These thou hast saved, my child!
+
+Pauline. Is there no hope?
+No hope but this?
+
+M. Deschap. None. If, without the sum
+Which Beauseant offers for thy hand, this day
+Sinks to the west--to-morrow brings our ruin!
+And hundreds, mingled in that ruin, curse
+The bankrupt merchant! and the insolvent herd
+We feasted and made merry cry in scorn,
+"How pride has fallen!--Lo, the bankrupt merchant!"
+My daughter, thou hast saved us!
+
+Pauline. And am lost!
+
+M. Deschap. Come, let me hope that Beauseant's love--
+
+Pauline. His love!
+Talk not of love. Love has no thought of self!
+Love buys not with the ruthless usurer's gold
+The loathsome prostitution of a hand
+Without a heart? Love sacrifices all things
+To bless the thing it loves! He knows not love.
+Father, his love is hate--his hope revenge!
+My tears, my anguish, my remorse for falsehood--
+These are the joys that he wrings from our despair!
+
+M. Deschap. If thou deem'st thus, reject him! Shame and ruin
+Were better than thy misery;--think no more on't.
+My sand is wellnigh run--what boots it when
+The glass is broken? We'll annul the contract:
+And if to-morrow in the prisoner's cell
+These aged limbs are laid, why still, my child,
+I'll think thou art spared; and wait the Liberal Hour
+That lays the beggar by the side of kings!
+
+Pauline, No--no--forgive me! You, my honor'd father,--
+You, who so loved, so cherish'd me, whose lips
+Never knew one harsh word! I'm not ungrateful;
+I am but human!--hush! Now, call the bridegroom--
+You see I am prepared--no tears--all calm;
+But, father, talk no more of love
+
+M. Deschap. My child,
+Tis but one struggle; he is young, rich, noble;
+Thy state will rank first 'mid the dames of Lyons;
+And when this heart can shelter thee no more,
+Thy youth will not be guardianless.
+
+Pauline. I have set
+My foot upon the ploughshare--I will pass
+The fiery ordeal. [Aside.] Merciful Heaven, support me;
+And on the absent wanderer shed the light
+Of happier stars--lost evermore to me!
+
+Enter MADAME DESCHAPPELLES, BEAUSEANT, GLAVIS, and Notary.
+
+Mme. Deschap. Why, Pauline, you are quite in deshabille--you ought to be more
+alive to the importance of this joyful occasion. We had once looked higher, it
+is true; but you see, after all, Monsieur Beauseant's father was a Marquis, and
+that's a great comfort. Pedigree and jointure!--you have them both in Monsieur
+Beauseant. A young lady decorously brought up should only have two
+considerations in her choice of a husband; first, is his birth honorable?
+secondly, will his death be advantageous? All other trifling details should be
+left to parental anxiety.
+
+Beau. [approaching and waving aside Madame]. Ah, Pauline! let me hope that you
+are reconciled to an event which confers such rapture upon me.
+
+Pauline. I am reconciled to my doom.
+
+Beau. Doom is a harsh word, sweet lady.
+
+Pauline [aside.] This man must have some mercy--his heart cannot be marble.
+[Aloud.] Oh, sir, be just--be generous! Seize a noble triumph--a great revenge!
+Save the father, and spare the child.
+
+Beau. [aside.] joy--joy alike to my hatred and my passion! The haughty Pauline
+is at last my suppliant. [Aloud.] You ask from me what I have not the sublime
+virtue to grant--a virtue reserved only for the gardener's son! I cannot forego
+my hopes in the moment of their fulfilment! I adhere to the contract--your
+father's ruin or your hand.
+
+Pauline. Then all is over. Sir, I have decided.
+
+[The clock strikes one.
+
+Enter DAMAS and MELNOTTE.
+
+Damas. Your servant, cousin Deschappelles. Let me introduce Colonel Morier.
+
+Mme. Deschap. [curtsying very low]. What, the celebrated hero? This is, indeed,
+an honor! [MELNOTTE bows, and remains in the background.
+
+Damas [to Pauline]. My little cousin, I congratulate you. What, no smile--no
+blush? You are going to be divorced from poor Melnotte, and marry this rich
+gentleman. You ought to be excessively happy!
+
+Pauline. Happy!
+
+Damas. Why, how pale you are, child!--Poor Pauline! Hist--confide in me! Do they
+force you to this?
+
+Pauline. No!
+
+Damas. You act with your own free consent?
+
+Pauline. My own consent--yes.
+
+Damas. Then you are the most--I will not say what you are.
+
+Pauline. You think ill of me--be it so--yet if you knew all--
+
+Damas. There is some mystery--speak out, Pauline.
+
+Pauline [suddenly]. Oh, perhaps you.can save me! you are our relation--our
+friend. My father is on the verge of bankruptcy--this day he requires a large
+sum to meet demands that cannot be denied; that sum Beauseant will advance--this
+hand the condition of the barter. Save me if you have the means--save me! You
+will be repaid above!
+
+Damas. aside. I recant--Women are not so bad after all! [Aloud.] Humph, child! I
+cannot help you--I am too poor.
+
+Pauline. The last plank to which I clung is shivered.
+
+Damas. Hold--you see my friend Morier: Melnotte is his most intimate friend--
+fought in the same fields--slept in the same tent. Have you any message to send
+to Melnotte? any word to soften this blow?
+
+Pauline. He knows Melnotte--he will see him--he will bear to him my last
+farewell--[approaches MELNOTTE] He has a stern air--he turns away from me--he
+despises me!--Sir one word I beseech you.
+
+Mel. Her voice again! How the old time comes o'er me!
+
+Damas [to Madame.] Don't interrupt them.--He is going to tell her what a rascal
+young Melnotte is; he knows him well, I promise you.
+
+Mme. Deschap. So considerate in you, cousin Damas!
+
+[DAMAS approaches DESCHAPPELLES; converses apart with hint in dumb show--
+DESCHAPPELLES shows him a paper, which he inspects and takes.
+
+Pauline. Thrice have I sought to speak; my courage fails me.--
+Sir, is it true that you have known--nay, are
+The friend of--Melnotte.
+
+Mel. Lady, yes!--
+Myself And misery know the man!
+
+Pauline. And you will see him,
+And you will bear to him--ay--word for word,
+All that this heart, which breaks in parting from him,
+Would send, ere still for ever?
+
+Mel. He hath told me
+You have the right to choose from out the world
+A worthier bridegroom;--he forgoes all claim,
+Even to murmur at his doom. Speak on!
+
+Pauline. Tell him, for years I never nursed a thought
+That was not his;--that on his wandering way,
+Daily and nightly, pour'd a mourner's prayers.
+Tell him ev'n now that I would rather share
+His lowliest lot,--walk by his side, an outcast--
+Work for him, beg with him,--live upon the light
+Of one kind smile from him,--than wear the crown
+The Bourbon lost!
+
+Mel. [aside.] Am I already mad?
+And does delirium utter such sweet words
+Into a dreamer's ear? [Aloud]. You love him thus,
+And yet desert him?
+
+Pauline. Say, that, if his eye--
+Could read this heart,--its struggles, its temptations,--
+His love itself would pardon that desertion!
+Look on that poor old man,--he is my father;
+He stands upon the verge of an abyss!--
+He calls his child to save him! Shall I shrink
+From him who gave me birth?--withhold my hand,
+And see a parent perish? Tell him this,
+And say--that we shall meet again in Heaven!
+
+Mel. Lady--I--I--what is this riddle?--what
+The nature of this sacrifice?
+
+Pauline [pointing to DAMAS]. Go, ask him!
+
+Beau. [from the table]. The papers are prepared--we only need
+Your hand and seal.
+
+Mel. Stay, lady--one word more.
+Were but your duty with your faith united,
+Would you still share the low-born peasant's lot?
+
+Pauline. Would I? Ah, better death with him I love
+Than all the pomp--which is but as the flowers
+That crown the victim!--[Turning away.] I am ready.
+
+[MELNOTTE rushes to DAMAS.
+
+Damas. There--This is the schedule--this the total.
+
+Beau. [to DESCHAPPELLES, showing notes]. These
+Are yours the instant she has sign'd; you are
+Still the great House of Lyons!
+
+[The Notary is about to hand the contract to PAULINE, when MELNOTTE seizes it
+and tears it.
+
+Beau. Are you mad?
+
+M. Deschap. How, Sir! What means this insult?
+
+Mel. Peace, old man!
+I have a prior claim. Before the face
+Of man and Heaven I urge it; I outbid
+Yon sordid huckster for your priceless jewel. [Giving a pocket-book.
+There is the sum twice told! Blush not to take it:
+There's not a coin that is not bought and hallow'd
+In the cause of nations with a soldier's blood!
+
+Beau. Torments and death!
+
+Pauline. That voice! Thou art--
+
+Mel. Thy husband!
+
+[PAULINE rushes into his arms.
+
+Look up! Look up, Pauline!--for I can bear
+Thine eyes! The stain is blotted from my name.
+I have redeem'd mine honor. I can call
+On France to sanction thy divine forgiveness!
+Oh, joy!--Oh, rapture! By the midnight watchfires
+Thus have I seen thee! thus foretold this hour!
+And 'midst the roar of battle, thus have heard
+The beating of thy heart against my own!
+
+Beau. Fool'd, duped, and triumph'd over in the hour
+Of mine own victory! Curses on ye both!
+May thorns be planted in the marriage-bed!
+And love grow sour'd and blacken'd into hate
+Such as the hate that gnaws me!
+
+Damas. Curse away
+And let me tell thee, Beauseant, a wise proverb
+The Arabs have,--"Curses are like young chickens,
+[Solemnly.]  And still come home to roost!"
+
+Beau. Their happiness
+Maddens my soul! I am powerless and revengeless! [To MADAME.
+I wish you joy! Ha! ha! the gardener's son! [Exit.
+
+Damas [to GLAVIS]. Your friend intends to hang himself! Methinks
+You ought to be his travelling companion!
+
+Gla. Sir, you are exceedingly obliging! [Exit.
+
+Pauline. Oh
+My father, you are saved,--and by my husband!
+Ah, blessed hour!
+
+Mel. Yet you weep still, Pauline.
+
+Pauline. But on thy breast!--these tears are sweet and holy!
+
+M. Deschap. You have won love and honor nobly, sir!
+Take her;--be happy both!
+
+Mme. Deschap.I'm all astonish'd!
+Who, then, is Colonel Morier?
+
+Damas.You behold him!
+
+Mel. Morier no more after this happy day!
+I would not bear again my father's name
+Till I could deem it spotless! The hour's come!
+Heaven smiled on conscience! As the soldier rose
+From rank to rank, how sacred was the fame
+That cancell'd crime, and raised him nearer thee!
+
+Mme. Deschap. A Colonel and a hero! Well, that's something!
+He's wondrously improved! I wish you joy, sir!
+
+Mel. Ah! the same love that tempts us into sin,
+If it be true love, works out its redemption;
+And he who seeks repentance for the Past
+Should woo the Angel Virtue in the Future.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Lady of Lyons, Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
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+Project Gutenberg Etext The Lady of Lyons, Edward Bulwer Lytton
+#6 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
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+The Lady of Lyons
+or
+Love and Pride
+
+by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+January, 2001  [Etext #2461]
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etext The Lady of Lyons, Edward Bulwer Lytton
+*****This file should be named ladyl11.txt or ladyl11.zip******
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+
+The Lady of Lyons;
+
+Or,
+
+Love and Pride.
+
+
+
+by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+
+
+
+To the author of "Ion."
+
+Whose genius and example have alike contributed towards the regeneration
+of The National Drama,
+
+This play is inscribed.
+
+PREFACE.
+
+An indistinct recollection of the very pretty little tale,
+called "The Bellows-Mender," suggested the plot of this Drama.
+The incidents are, however, greatly altered from those in the tale,
+and the characters entirely re-cast.
+
+Having long had a wish to illustrate certain periods of the French
+history, so, in the selection of the date in which the scenes of this
+play are laid, I saw that the era of the Republic was that in which
+the incidents were rendered most probable, in which the probationary
+career of the hero could well be made sufficiently rapid for
+dramatic effect, and in which the character of the time itself was
+depicted by the agencies necessary to the conduct of the narrative.
+For during the early years of the first and most brilliant successes
+of the French Republic, in the general ferment of society,
+and the brief equalization of ranks, Claude's high-placed love;
+his ardent feelings, his unsettled principles (the struggle between
+which makes the passion of this drama), his ambition, and his career,
+were phenomena that characterized the age, and in which the spirit
+of the nation went along with the extravagance of the individual.
+
+The play itself was composed with a twofold object.
+In the first place, sympathizing with the enterprise of Mr. Macready,
+as Manager of Covent Garden, and believing that many of the higher
+interests of the Drama were involved in the success or failure
+of an enterprise equally hazardous and disinterested, I felt, if I
+may so presume to express myself, something of the Brotherhood of Art;
+and it was only for Mr. Macready to think it possible that I might
+serve him in order to induce me to make the attempt.
+
+Secondly, in that attempt I was mainly anxious to see whether
+or not, after the comparative failure on the stage of "The Duchess
+de la Valliere," certain critics had truly declared that it
+was not in my power to attain the art of dramatic construction
+and theatrical effect.  I felt, indeed, that it was in this
+that a writer, accustomed to the narrative class of composition,
+would have the most both to learn and unlearn.  Accordingly, it was
+to the development of the plot and the arrangement of the incidents
+that I directed my chief attention;--and I sought to throw whatever
+belongs to poetry less into the diction and the "felicity of words"
+than into the construction of the story, the creation of the characters,
+and the spirit of the pervading sentiment.
+
+The authorship of the play was neither avowed nor suspected
+until the play had established itself in public favor.
+The announcement of my name was the signal for attacks,
+chiefly political, to which it is now needless to refer.
+When a work has outlived for some time the earlier hostilities
+of criticism, there comes a new race of critics to which a writer may,
+for the most part, calmly trust for a fair consideration,
+whether of the faults or the merits of his performance.
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
+
+BEAUSEANT, a rich gentleman of Lyons, in love with,
+and refused by, Pauline Deschappelles                            MR. ELTON.
+
+GLAVIS, his friend, also a rejected suitor to Pauline          MR. MEADOWS.
+
+COLONEL (afterwards General) DAMAS, cousin to Mme. Deschappelles,
+and an officer in the French army                              MR. BARTLEY.
+
+MONSIEUR DESCHAPPELLES, a Lyonnese merchant father to Pauline
+                                                            MR. STRICKLAND.
+
+
+GASPAR                                                         MR. DIDDEAR.
+
+CLAUDE MELNOTTE                                               MR. MACREADY.
+
+FIRST OFFICER                                                     MR. HOWE.
+
+SECOND OFFICER                                               MR. PRITCHARD.
+
+THIRD OFFICER                                                  MR. ROBERTS.
+
+Servants, Notary, etc.
+
+MADAME DESCHAPPELLES                                      MRS. W. CLIFFORD.
+
+PAULINE, her daughter                                    MISS HELEN FAUCIT.
+
+THE WIDOW MELNOTTE, mother to Claude                         MRS. GRIFFITH.
+
+JANET, the innkeeper's daughter                                  MRS. EAST.
+
+MARIAN, maid to Pauline                                       MISS GARRICK.
+
+
+
+Scene--Lyons and the neighborhood.
+
+Time--1795-1798
+
+First performed on Thursday, the 15th of February, 1838,
+at Covent Garden Theatre.
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF LYONS;
+
+or,
+
+LOVE AND PRIDE.
+
+ACT I.--SCENE I.
+
+A room in the house of M. DESCHAPPELLES, at Lyons.  PAULINE reclining
+on a sofa; MARIAN, her maid, fanning her--Flowers and notes on
+a table beside the sofa--MADAME DESCHAPPELLES seated--The gardens
+are seen from the open window.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Marian, put that rose a little more to the left.--[MARIAN
+alters the position of a rose in PAULINE's hair.]--Ah, so!--
+that improves the hair,--the tournure, the j'e ne sais quoi!--
+You are certainly very handsome, child!--quite my style;--I don't
+wonder that you make such a sensation!--Old, young, rich, and poor,
+do homage to the Beauty of Lyons!--Ah, we live again in our children,--
+especially when they have our eyes and complexion!
+
+Pauline [languidly]. Dear mother, you spoil your Pauline!--[Aside.] I
+wish I knew who sent me these flowers!
+
+Mme. Deschap.  No, child!--If I praise you, it is only to inspire
+you with a proper ambition.--You are born to make a great marriage.--
+Beauty is valuable or worthless according as you invest the property
+to the best advantage.  Marian, go and order the carriage!
+[Exit MARIAN.
+
+Pauline.  Who can it be that sends me, every day, these beautiful flowers?--
+how sweet they are!
+
+Enter Servant.
+
+Servant.  Monsieur Beauseant, Madam.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Let him enter.  Pauline, this is another offer!--
+I know it is!--Your father should engage an additional clerk to keep
+the account-book of your conquests.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT.
+
+Beau.  Ah, ladies how fortunate I am to find you at home!--[Aside.] How
+lovely she looks!--It is a great sacrifice I make in marrying into a
+family in trade!--they will be eternally grateful!--[Aloud.] Madam, you
+will permit me a word with your charming daughter.--[Approaches PAULINE,
+who rises disdainfully.]--Mademoiselle, I have ventured to wait
+upon you, in a hope that you must long since have divined.
+Last night, when you outshone all the beauty of Lyons, you completed
+your conquest over me!  You know that my fortune is not exceeded
+by any estate in the province,--you know that, but for the Revolution,
+which has defrauded me of my titles, I should be noble.
+May I, then, trust that you will not reject my alliance?
+I offer you my hand and heart.
+
+Pauline [aside.] He has the air of a man who confers a
+favor!--[Aloud.] Sir, you are very condescending--I thank you humbly;
+but, being duly sensible of my own demerits, you must allow me
+to decline the honor you propose.  [Curtsies, and turns away.
+
+Beau.  Decline!  Impossible!--you are not serious!--Madam, suffer me
+to appeal to you.  I am a suitor for your daughter's hand--
+the settlements shall be worthy of her beauty and my station.
+May I wait on M. Deschappelles?
+
+Mme. Deschap.  M. Deschappelles never interferes in the domestic
+arrangements,--you are very obliging.  If you were still a marquis,
+or if my daughter were intended to marry a commoner,--why, perhaps,
+we might give you the preference.
+
+Beau.  A commoner!--we are all commoners in France now.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  In France, yes; but there is a nobility still left
+in the other countries in Europe.  We are quite aware of your
+good qualities, and don't doubt that you will find some lady more
+suitable to your pretensions.  We shall be always happy to see you
+as an acquaintance, M. Beauseant!--My dear child, the carriage
+will be here presently.
+
+Beau.  Say no more, madam!--say no more!--[Aside.] Refused! and by a
+merchant's daughter!--refused!  It will be all over Lyons before sunset!--
+I will go and bury myself in my chateau, study philosophy,
+and turn woman-hater. Refused! they ought to be sent to a madhouse!--
+Ladies, I have the honor to wish you a very good morning.  [Exit.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  How forward these men are!--I think, child,
+we kept up our dignity.  Any girl, however inexperienced,
+knows how to accept an offer, but it requires a vast deal
+of address to refuse one with proper condescension and disdain.
+I used to practise it at school with the dancing-master.
+
+Enter DAMAS.
+
+Damas.  Good morning, cousin Deschappelles.--Well, Pauline, are you
+recovered from last night's ball?--So many triumphs must be
+very fatiguing.  Even M. Glavis sighed most piteously when you departed;
+but that might be the effect of the supper.
+
+Pauline.  M. Glavis, indeed!
+
+Mme. Deschap.  M. Glavis?--as if my daughter would think of M. Glavis!
+
+Damas.  Hey-day!--why not?--His father left him a very pretty fortune,
+and his birth is higher than yours, cousin Deschappelles.  But perhaps
+you are looking to M. Beauseant,--his father was a marquis
+before the Revolution.
+
+Pauline.  M. Beauseant!--Cousin, you delight in tormenting me!
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Don't mind him, Pauline!--Cousin Damas, you have
+no susceptibility of feeling,--there is a certain indelicacy
+in all your ideas.--M. Beauseant knows already that he is no match
+for my daughter!
+
+Damas.  Pooh! pooh! one would think you intended your daughter
+to marry a prince!
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Well, and if I did?--what then?--Many a foreign prince--
+
+Damas [interrupting her]. Foreign prince!--foreign fiddlestick!--
+you ought to be ashamed of such nonsense at your time of life.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  My time of life!--That is an expression never
+applied to any lady till she is sixty-nine and three-quarters;--
+and only then by the clergyman of the parish.
+
+Enter Servant.
+
+Servant.  Madame, the carriage is at the door.  [Exit.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Come, child, put on your bonnet--you really have a very
+thorough-bred air--not at all like your poor father.--[Fondly]. Ah,
+you little coquette! when a young lady is always making mischief,
+it is a sure sign that she takes after her mother!
+
+Pauline.  Good day, cousin Damas--and a better humor to you.--[Going
+back to the table and taking the flowers]. Who could have sent me
+these flowers?  [Exeunt PAULINE and MADAME DESCHAPPELLES.
+
+Damas.  That would be an excellent girl if her head had not been turned.
+I fear she is now become incorrigible!  Zounds, what a lucky fellow I
+am to be still a bachelor!  They may talk of the devotion of the sex--
+but the most faithful attachment in life is that of a woman in love--
+with herself.  [Exit.
+
+SCENE II.
+
+The exterior of a small Village Inn--sign, the Golden Lion--A few
+leagues from Lyons, which is seen at a distance.
+
+Beau.  [behind the scenes.] Yes, you may bait the horses; we shall
+rest here an hour.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Gla.  Really, my dear Beauseant, consider that I have promised to spend
+a day or two with you at your chateau, that I am quite at your mercy
+for my entertainment,--and yet you are as silent and as gloomy
+as a mute at a funeral, or an Englishman at a party of pleasure.
+
+Beau.  Bear with me!--the fact is that I am miserable.
+
+Gla.  You--the richest and gayest bachelor in Lyons?
+
+Beau.  It is because I am a bachelor that I am miserable.--Thou knowest
+Pauline--the only daughter of the rich merchant, Mons.  Deschappelles?
+
+Gla.  Know her?--who does not?--as pretty as Venus, and as proud as Juno.
+
+Beau.  Her taste is worse than her pride.--[Drawing himself
+up.] Know, Glavis, she has actually refused me!
+
+Gla.  [aside]. So she has me!--very consoling!  In all cases
+of heart-ache, the application of another man's disappointment
+draws out the pain and allays the irritation.--[Aloud.] Refused
+you! and wherefore?
+
+Beau.  I know not, unless it be because the Revolution swept away
+my father's title of Marquis,--and she will not marry a commoner.
+Now, as we have no noblemen left in France,--as we are all
+citizens and equals, she can only hope that, in spite of the war,
+some English Milord or German Count will risk his life, by coming
+to Lyons, that this fille du Roturier may condescend to accept him.
+Refused me, and with scorn!--By Heaven, I'll not submit to it tamely:--
+I'm in a perfect fever of mortification and rage.--Refuse me, indeed!
+
+Gla.  Be comforted, my dear fellow,--I will tell you a secret.
+For the same reason she refused ME!
+
+Beau.  You!--that's a very different matter!  But give me your hand,
+Glavis,--we'll think of some plan to humble her.  Mille diables!
+I should like to see her married to a strolling player!
+
+Enter Landlord and his Daughter from the Inn.
+
+Land.  Your servant, citizen Beauseant,--servant, Sir.  Perhaps you
+will take dinner before you proceed to your chateau; our larder
+is most plentifully supplied.
+
+Beau.  I have no appetite.
+
+Gla.  Nor I. Still it is bad travelling on an empty stomach.
+What have you got?  [Takes and looks over the bill of fare.]
+
+[Shout without.] "Long live the Prince!--Long live the Prince!"
+
+Beau.  The Prince!--what Prince is that?  I thought we had no princes
+left in France.
+
+Land.  Ha, ha! the lads always call him Prince.  He has just won the prize
+in the shooting-match, and they are taking him home in triumph.
+
+Beau.  Him! and who's Mr. Him?
+
+Land.  Who should he be but the pride of the village,
+Claude Melnotte?--Of course you have heard of Claude Melnotte?
+
+Gla.  [giving back the bill of fare.] Never had that honor.
+Soup--ragout of hare--roast chicken, and, in short, all you have!
+
+Beau.  The son of old Alelnotte, the gardener?
+
+Land.  Exactly so--a wonderful young man.
+
+Beau.  How, wonderful?--Are his cabbages better than other people's
+
+Land.  Nay, he don't garden any more; his father left him well off.
+He's only a genus.
+
+Gla.  A what?
+
+Land.  A genus!--a man who can do everything in life except anything
+that's useful--that's a genus.
+
+Beau.  You raise my curiosity;--proceed.
+
+Land.  Well, then, about four years ago, old Melnotte died, and left
+his son well to do in the world.  We then all observed that a great
+change came over young Claude:  he took to reading and Latin,
+and hired a professor from Lyons, who had so much in his head
+that he was forced to wear a great full-bottom wig to cover it.
+Then he took a fencing-master, and a dancing-master, and a music-master;
+and then he learned to paint; and at last it was said that
+young Claude was to go to Paris, and set up for a painter.
+The lads laughed at him at first; but he is a stout fellow,
+is Claude, and as brave as a lion, and soon taught them to laugh
+the wrong side of their mouths; and now all the boys swear by him,
+and all the girls pray for him.
+
+Beau.  A promising youth, certainly!  And why do they call him Prince?
+
+Land.  Partly because he is at the head of them all, and partly
+because he has such a proud way with him, and wears such fine clothes--
+and, in short, looks like a prince.
+
+Beau.  And what could have turned the foolish fellow's brain?
+The Revolution, I suppose?
+
+Land.  Yes--the revolution that turns us all topsy-turvy--
+the revolution of Love.
+
+Beau.  Romantic young Corydon!  And with whom is he in love?
+
+Land.  Why--but it is a secret, gentlemen.
+
+Beau.  Oh! certainly.
+
+Land.  Why, then, I hear from his mother, good soul! that it is no
+less a person than the Beauty of Lyons, Pauline Deschappelles.
+
+Beau.  and Glavis.  Ha, ha!--Capital!
+
+Land.  You may laugh, but it is as true as I stand here.
+
+Beau.  And what does the Beauty of Lyons say to his suit?
+
+Land.  Lord, sir, she never even condescended to look at him,
+though when he was a boy he worked in her father's garden.
+
+Beau.  Are you sure of that?
+
+Land.  His mother says that Mademoiselle does not know him by sight.
+
+Beau.  [taking Glavis aside]. I have hit it,--I have it;
+here is our revenge!  Here is a prince for our haughty damsel.
+Do you take me?
+
+Gla.  Deuce take me if I do!
+
+Beau.  Blockhead!--it's as clear as a map.  What if we could
+make this elegant clown pass himself off as a foreign prince?--
+lend him money, clothes, equipage for the purpose?--make him propose
+to Pauline?--marry Pauline?  Would it not be delicious?
+
+Gla.  Ha, ha!--Excellent!  But how shall we support the necessary
+expenses of his highness?
+
+Beau.  Pshaw!  Revenge is worth a much larger sacrifice than a few hundred
+louis;- -as for details, my valet is the trustiest fellow, in the world,
+and shall have the appointment of his highness's establishment.
+Let's go to him at once, and see if he be really this Admirable Crichton.
+
+Gla.  With all my heart;--but the dinner?
+
+Beau.  Always thinking of dinner!  Hark ye, landlord; how far is it
+to young Melnotte's cottage?  I should like to see such a prodigy.
+
+Land.  Turn down the lane,--then strike across the common,--
+and you will see his mother's cottage.
+
+Beau.  True, he lives with his mother.--[Aside.] We will not trust
+to an old woman's discretion; better send for him hither.
+I'll just step in and write a note.  Come, Glavis.
+
+Gla.  Yes,--Beauseant, Glavis, and Co., manufacturers of princes,
+wholesale and retail,--an uncommonly genteel line of business.
+But why so grave?
+
+Beau.  You think only of the sport,--I of the revenge.
+[Exeunt within the Inn.
+
+SCENE III.
+
+The interior of MELNOTTE'S cottage; flowers placed here and there;
+a guitar on an oaken table, with a portfolio, etc.; a picture on an easel,
+covered by a curtain; fencing foils crossed over the mantelpiece;
+an attempt at refinement in site of the homeliness of the furniture, etc.;
+a staircase to the right conducts to the upper story.
+
+[Shout without]. "Long live Claude Melnotte!"  "Long live the Prince!"
+
+The Widow Mel.  Hark!--there's my dear son;--carried off the prize,
+I'm sure; and now he'll want to treat them all.
+
+Claude Mel.  [opening the door]. What! you will not come in,
+my friends!  Well, well,there's a trifle to make merry elsewhere.
+Good day to you all,--good day!
+
+[Shout]. "Hurrah!  Long live Prince Claude!"
+
+Enter CLAUDE MELNOTTE, with a rifle in his hand.
+
+Mel.  Give me joy, dear mother!--I've won the prize!--never missed
+one shot!  Is it not handsome, this gun?
+
+Widow.  Humph!--Well, what is it worth, Claude?
+
+Mel.  Worth!  What is a riband worth to a soldier?  Worth! everything!
+Glory is priceless!
+
+Widow.  Leave glory to great folks.  Ah!  Claude, Claude, castles in
+the air cost a vast deal to keep up!  How is all this to end?
+What good does it do thee to learn Latin, and sing songs,
+and play on the guitar, and fence, and dance, and paint pictures?
+All very fine; but what does it bring in?
+
+Mel.  Wealth! wealth, my mother!  Wealth to the mind--wealth to the heart--
+high thoughts--bright dreams--the hope of fame--the ambition to be
+worthier to love Pauline.
+
+Widow.  My poor son!--The young lady will never think of thee.
+
+Mel.  Do the stars think of us?  Yet if the prisoner see them shine
+into his dungeon, wouldst thou bid him turn away from their lustre?
+Even so from this low cell, poverty, I lift my eyes to Pauline and
+forget my chains.--[Goes to the picture and draws aside the curtain.]
+
+See, this is her image--painted from memory.  Oh, how the canvas
+wrongs her!--[Takes up the brush and throws it aside.] I shall
+never be a painter!  I can paint no likeness but one, and that is
+above all art.  I would turn soldier--France needs soldiers!
+But to leave the air that Pauline breathes!  What is the hour?--
+so late?  I will tell thee a secret, mother.  Thou knowest that
+for the last six weeks I have sent every day the rarest flowers
+to Pauline?--she wears them.  I have seen them on her breast.
+Ah, and then the whole universe seemed filled with odors!
+I have now grown more bold--I have poured my worship into poetry--
+I have sent the verses to Pauline--I have signed them with my own name.
+My messenger ought to--be back by this time.  I bade him wait
+for the answer.
+
+Widow.  And what answer do you expect, Claude?
+
+Mel.  That which the Queen of Navarre sent to the poor troubadour:--"Let
+me see the Oracle that can tell nations I am beautiful!"
+She will admit me.  I shall hear her speak--I shall meet her eyes--
+I shall read upon her cheek the sweet thoughts that translate
+themselves into blushes.  Then--then, oh, then--she may forget
+that I am the peasant's son!.
+
+Widow.  Nay, if she will but hear thee talk, Claude?
+
+Mel.  I foresee it all.  She will tell me that desert is the true rank.
+She will give me a badge--a flower--a glove!  Oh rapture!
+I shall join the armies of the republic--I shall rise--
+I shall win a name that beauty will not blush to hear.
+I shall return with the right to say to her--"See, how love does
+not level the proud, but raise the--humble!"  Oh, how my heart
+swells within me!--Oh, what glorious prophets of the future are
+youth and hope!
+
+[Knock at the door.]
+
+Widow.  Come in.
+
+Enter GASPAR.
+
+Mel.  Welcome, Gaspar, welcome.  Where is the letter?
+Why do you turn away, man? where is the letter?  [GASPAR gives
+him one.] This!  This is mine, the one I intrusted to thee.
+Didst thou not leave it?
+
+Gaspar.  Yes, I left it.
+
+Mel.  My own verses returned to me.  Nothing else!
+
+Gaspar.  Thou wilt be proud to hear how thy messenger was honored.
+For thy sake, Melnotte, I have borne that which no Frenchman can
+bear without disgrace.
+
+Mel.  Disgrace, Gaspar!  Disgrace?
+
+Gaspar.  I gave thy letter to the porter, who passed it from lackey
+to lackey till it reached the lady it was meant for.
+
+Mel.  It reached her, then; you are sure of that!
+It reached her,--well, well!
+
+Gaspar.  It reached her, and was returned to me with blows.
+Dost hear, Melnotte? with blows!  Death! are we slaves still,
+that we are to be thus dealt with, we peasants?
+
+Mel.  With blows?  No, Gaspar, no; not blows!
+
+Gaspar.  I could show thee the marks if it were not so deep a shame
+to bear them.  The lackey who tossed thy letter into the mire
+swore that his lady and her mother never were so insulted.
+What could thy letter contain, Claude?
+
+Mel.  [looking over the letter]. Not a line that a serf might not
+have written to an empress.  No, not one.
+
+Gaspar.  They promise thee the same greeting they gave me, if thou
+wilt pass that way.  Shall we endure this, Claude?
+
+Mel.  [wringing GASPAR's hand]. Forgive me, the fault was mine, I have
+brought this on thee; I will not forget it; thou shalt be avenged!
+The heartless insolence!
+
+Gaspar.  Thou art moved, Melnotte; think not of me; I would
+go through fire and water to serve thee; but,--a blow!
+It is not the bruise that galls,--it is the blush, Melnotte.
+
+Mel.  Say, what message?--How insulted!--Wherefore?--What the offence?
+
+Gaspar.  Did you not write to Pauline Deschappelles, the daughter
+of the rich merchant?
+
+Mel.  Well?
+
+Gaspar.  And are you not a peasant--a gardener's son?--
+that was the offence.  Sleep on it, Melnotte.  Blows to a French
+citizen, blows!  [Exit.
+
+Widow.  Now you are cured, Claude!
+
+Mel.  tearing the letter.  So do I scatter her image to the winds--
+I will stop her in the open streets--I will insult her--I will beat
+her menial ruffians--I will--[Turns suddenly to Widow.] Mother,
+am I humpbacked--deformed--hideous?  Widow.  You!
+
+Mel.  A coward--a thief--a liar?
+
+Widow.  You!
+
+Mel.  Or a dull fool--a vain, drivelling, brainless idiot?
+Widow.  No, no.  Mel.  What am I then--worse than all these?
+Why, I am a peasant!  What has a peasant to do with love?
+Vain revolutions, why lavish your cruelty on the great?  Oh that we--
+we, the hewers of wood and drawers of water--had been swept away,
+so that the proud might learn what the world would be without us!
+[Knock at the door.
+
+Enter Servant from the Inn.
+
+Servant.  A letter for Citizen Melnotte.
+
+Mel.  A letter! from her perhaps--who sent thee?
+
+Servant.  Why, Monsieur--I mean Citizen--Beauseant, who stops to dine
+at the Golden Lion, on his way to his chateau.
+
+Mel.  Beauseant!--[Reads].
+
+"Young man, I know thy secret--thou lovest above thy station:
+if thou hast wit, courage, and discretion, I can secure to thee
+the realization of thy most sanguine hopes; and the sole condition I
+ask in return is, that thou shalt be steadfast to thine own ends.
+I shall demand from thee a solemn oath to marry.  her whom thou lovest;
+to bear her to thine home on thy wedding night.  I am serious--
+if thou wouldst learn more, lose not a moment, but follow the bearer
+of this letter to thy friend and patron,--CHARLES BEAUSEANT."
+
+Mel.  Can I believe my eyes?  Are our own passions the sorcerers
+that raise up for us spirits of good or evil?  I will go instantly.
+
+Widow.  What is this, Claude?
+
+Mel.  "Marry her whom thou lovest"--"bear her to thine own home."--
+Oh, revenge and love; which of you is the stronger?--[Gazing
+on the picture.] Sweet face, thou smilest on me from the canvas:
+weak fool that I am, do I then love her still?  No, it is the vision
+of my own romance that I have worshipped:  it is the reality to
+which I bring scorn for scorn.  Adieu, mother:  I will return anon.
+My brain reels--the earth swims before me.--[Looks again at
+the letter.] No, it is not a mockery; I do not dream!  [Exit.
+
+ACT II.--SCENE I.
+
+The Gardens of M. DESCHAPPELLEs' house at Lyons--the house seen
+at the back of the stage.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Beau.  Well, what think you of my plot?  Has it not succeeded
+to a miracle?  The instant that I introduced his Highness
+the Prince of Como to the pompous mother and the scornful daughter,
+it was all over with them:  he came--he saw--he conquered:
+and, though it is not many days since he arrived, they have already
+promised him the hand of Pauline.
+
+Gla.  It is lucky, though, that you told them his highness travelled
+incognito, for fear the Directory (who are not very fond of princes)
+should lay him by the heels; for he has a wonderful wish to keep
+up his rank, and scatters our gold about with as much coolness
+as if he were watering his own flower-pots.
+
+Beau.  True, he is damnably extravagant; I think the sly dog does it
+out of malice.  How ever, it must be owned that he reflects credit on
+his loyal subjects, and makes a very pretty figure in his fine clothes,
+with my diamond snuff-box.
+
+Gla.  And my diamond ring!  But do you think he will be firm to the last?
+I fancy I see symptoms of relenting:  he will never keep up his rank,
+if he once let out his conscience.
+
+Beau.  His oath binds him! he cannot retract without being
+foresworn, and those low fellows are always superstitious!
+But, as it is, I tremble lest he be discovered:  that bluff
+Colonel Damas (Madame Deschappelles' cousin) evidently suspects him:
+we must make haste and conclude the farce:  I have thought of a plan
+to end it this very day.
+
+Gla.  This very day!  Poor Pauline:  her dream will be soon over.
+
+Beau.  Yes, this day they shall be married; this evening,
+according to his oath, he shall carry his bride to the Golden Lion,
+and then pomp, equipage, retinue, and title, all shall vanish at once;
+and her Highness the Princess shall find that she has refused the son
+of a Marquis, to marry the son of a gardener.--Oh, Pauline! once loved,
+now hated, yet still not relinquished, thou shalt drain the cup
+to the dregs,--thou shalt know what it is to be humbled!
+
+Enter from the house, MELNOTTE, as the Prince of Como, Ieading
+in PAULINE; MADAME
+
+DESCHAPPELLES, fanning herself; and COLONEL DAMAS.
+
+[BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS bow respectfully.  fully.  PAULINE and
+MELNOTTE walk apart.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Good morning, gentlemen; really I am so fatigued
+with laughter; the dear Prince is so entertaining.  What wit he has!
+Any one may see that he has spent his whole life in courts.
+
+Damas.  And what the deuce do you know about courts,
+cousin Deschappelles?  You women regard men just as you buy books--
+you never care about what is in them, but how they are bound
+and lettered.  'Sdeath, I don't think you would even look at your
+Bible if it had not a title to it.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  How coarse you are, cousin Damas!--quite the manners
+of a barrack--you don't deserve to be one of our family;
+really we must drop your acquaintance when Pauline marries.
+I cannot patronize any relations that would discredit my future
+son-in-law, the Prince of Como.
+
+Mel.  [advancing]. These are beautifui gardens, madame, (BEAUSEANT and
+GLAVIS retire--who planned them
+
+Mme. Deschap.  A gardener named Melnotte, your highness--
+an honest man who knew his station.  I can't say as much for his son--
+a presuming fellow, who,--ha! ha! actually wrote verses--such doggerel!--
+to my daughter.
+
+Pauline.  Yes, how you would have laughed at them, Prince! you,
+who write such beautiful verses!
+
+Mel.  This Melnotte must be a monstrous impudent person!
+
+Damas.  Is he good-looking?
+
+Mme. Deschap.  I never notice such canaille--an ugly, mean-looking clown,
+if I remember right.
+
+Damas.  Yet I heard your porter say he was wonderfully like his highness.
+
+Mel.  [taking snuff]. You are complimentary.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  For shame, cousin Damas!--like the Prince, indeed!
+
+Pauline.  Like you!  Ah, mother, like our beautiful prince!
+I'll never speak to you again, cousin Damas.
+
+Mel.  [aside]. Humph!--rank is a great beautifier!  I never passed
+for an Apollo while I was a peasant; if I am so handsome as a prince,
+what should I be as an emperor!  [Aloud.] Monsieur Beauseant,
+will you honor me?  [Offers snuff.
+
+Beau.  No, your highness; I have no small vices.
+
+Mel.  Nay, if it were a vice, you'd be sure to have it, Monsieur Beauseant.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Ha! ha!--how very severe!--what wit!
+
+Beau.  [in a rage and aside]. Curse his impertinence!
+
+Mme. Deschap.  What a superb snuff-box! Pauline.  And what
+a beautiful ring!
+
+Mel.  You like the box--a trifle--interesting perhaps from associations--
+a present from Louis XIV.  to my great-great grandmother.
+Honor me by--accepting it.
+
+Beau.  plucking him by the sleeve.  How!--what the devil!
+My box--are you mad?  It is worth five hundred louis.
+
+Mel.  [unheeding him, and turning to PAULINE]. And you like this ring?
+Ah, it has, indeed a lustre since your eyes have shone on it
+placing it on her finger.  Henceforth hold me, sweet enchantress,
+the Slave of the Ring.
+
+Gla.  [pulling him]. Stay, stay--what are you about?
+My maiden aunt's legacy--a diamond of the first water.
+You shall be hanged for swindling, sir.
+
+Mel.  [pretending not to hear]. It is curious, this ring;
+it is the one with which my grandfather, the Doge of Venice,
+married the Adriatic!
+
+(Madame and PAULINE examine the ring.  Mel.  [to BEAUSEANT and
+GLAVIS]. Fie, gentlemen! princes must be generous?--[Turns to DAMAS,
+who watches them closely.] These kind friends have my interest
+so much at heart, that they are as careful of my property as if it
+were their own!
+
+Beau and Gla.  [confusedly]. Ha! ha!--very good joke that!
+
+[Appears to remonstrate with MELNOTTE in dumb show.
+
+Damas.  What's all that whispering?  I am sure there is some juggle here:
+hang me, if I think he is an Italian after all.  Gad, I'll try him.
+Servitore umillissimo, Eccellenza.*
+(* Your Excellency's most humble servant.)
+
+Mel. Hum--what does he mean, I wonder?
+
+Damas. Godo di vedervi in buona salute.*
+(* I am glad to see you in good health.)
+
+Mel. Hem--hem!
+
+Damas. Fa bel tempo--the si dice di nuovo? *
+(* Fine weather. What news is there?)
+
+Mel.  Well, sir, what's all that gibberish?
+
+Damas.  Oh, oh!--only Italian, your highness!--The Prince of Como
+does not understand his own language!
+
+Mel.  Not as you pronounce it; who the deuce could?
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Ha! ha! cousin Damas, never pretend to what
+you don't know.
+
+Pauline.  Ha! ha! cousin Damas; you speak Italian, indeed!
+
+[Makes a mocking gesture at him.
+
+Beau.  [to GLAVIS]. Clever dog!--how ready!
+
+Gla.  Ready, yes; with my diamond ring!--Damn his readiness!
+
+Damas.  Laugh at me!--laugh at a Colonel in the French army!--
+the fellow's an impostor; I know he is.  I'll see if he understands
+fighting as well as he does Italian.--[Goes up to him, and aside.] Sir,
+you are a jackanapes.--Can you construe that?
+
+Mel.  No, sir; I never construe affronts in the presence of ladies;
+by-and-by I shall be happy to take a lesson--or give one.
+
+Damas.  I'll find the occasion, never fear!
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Where are you going, cousin?
+
+Damas.  To correct my Italian.  [Exit.
+
+Beau.  [to GLAVIS]. Let us after, and pacify him; he evidently
+suspects something.
+
+Gla.  Yes!--but my diamond ring!
+
+Beau.  And my box!--We are over-taxed fellow-subjects!--we must stop
+the supplies, and dethrone the prince.
+
+Gla.  Prince!--he ought to be heir-apparent to King Stork.
+
+[Exeunt BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Dare I ask your highness to forgive my
+cousin's insufferable vulgarity?
+
+Pauline.  Oh yes!--you will forgive his manner for the sake
+of his heart.
+
+Mel.  And the sake of his cousin.--Ah, madam, there is one
+comfort in rank,--we are so sure of our position that we are not
+easily affronted.  Besides, M. Damas has bought the right of indulgence
+from his friends, by never showing it to his enemies.
+
+Pauline.  Ah! he is, indeed, as brave in action as he is rude in speech.
+He rose from the ranks to his present grade, and in two years!
+
+Mel.  In two years!--two years, did you say?
+
+Mme. Deschap.  [aside]. I don't like leaving girls alone with
+their lovers; but, with a prince, it would be so ill-bred to be prudish.
+(Exit.
+
+Mel.  You can be proud of your connection with one who owes his
+position to merit--not birth.
+
+Pauline.  Why, yes; but still
+
+Mel.  Still what, Pauline!
+
+Pauline.  There is something glorious in the heritage of command.
+A man who has ancestors is like a representative of the past.
+
+Mel.  True; but, like other representatives, nine times out of ten
+he is a silent member.  Ah, Pauline! not to the past, but to the future,
+looks true nobility, and finds its blazon in posterity.
+
+Pauline.  You say this to please me, who have no ancestors;
+but you, prince, must be proud of so illustrious a race!
+
+Mel.  No, no!  I would not, were I fifty times a prince, be a pensioner
+on the dead!  I honor birth and ancestry when they are regarded
+as the incentives to exertion, not the titledeeds to sloth!
+I honor the laurels that overshadow the graves of our fathers;
+it is our fathers I emulate, when I desire that beneath
+the evergreen I myself have planted, my own ashes may repose!
+Dearest! couldst thou but see with my eyes!
+
+Pauline.  I cannot forego pride when I look on thee, and think that thou
+lovest me.  Sweet Prince, tell me again of thy palace by the Lake
+of Como; it is so pleasant to hear of thy splendors since thou
+didst swear to me that they would be desolate without Pauline;
+and when thou describest them, it is with a mocking lip and a noble scorn,
+as if custom had made thee disdain greatness.
+
+Mel.  Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint The home to which,
+could love fulfil its prayers, This hand would lead thee, listen!*--
+A deep vale
+
+(* The reader will observe that Melnotte evades the request of Pauline.
+He proceeds to describe a home, which be does not say he possesses,
+but to which he would lead her, "could Love fulfil its prayers."
+This caution is intended as a reply to a sagacious critic who censures
+the description, because it is not an exact and prosaic inventory
+of the characteristics of the Lake of Como!--When Melnotte,
+for instance, talks of birds "that syllable the name of Pauline"
+(by the way, a literal translation from an Italian poet), he is not
+thinking of ornithology, but probably of the Arabian Nights.  He is
+venting the extravagant, but natural, enthusiasm of the poet
+and the lover.)
+
+Shut out by Alphine hills from the rude world;
+Near a clear lake, margin'd by fruits of gold
+And whispering myrtles; glassing softest skies,
+As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows,
+As I would have thy fate!
+
+Pauline. My own dear love!
+
+Mel. A palace lifting to eternal summer
+Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower
+Of coolest foliage musical with birds,
+Whose songs should syllable thy name! At noon
+We'd sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder
+Why Earth could be unhappy, while the Heavens
+Still left us youth and love! We'd have no friends
+That were not lovers; no ambition, save
+To excel them all in love; we'd read no books
+That were not tales of love--that we might smile
+To think how poorly eloquence of words
+Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!
+And when night came, amidst the breathless Heavens
+We'd guess what star should be our home when love
+Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light
+Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps,
+And every air was heavy with the sighs
+Of orange-groves and music from sweet lutes,
+And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth
+I' the midst of roses!--Dost thou like the picture?
+
+Pauline. Oh, as the bee upon the flower, I hang
+Upon the honey of thy eloquent tongue!
+Am I not blest? And if I love too wildly,
+Who would not love thee like Pauline?
+
+Mel. [bitterly.] Oh, false one!
+It is the prince thou lovest, not the man
+If in the stead of luxury, pomp, and power,
+I had painted poverty, and toil, and care,
+Thou hadst found no honey on my tongue;--Pauline,
+That is not love!
+
+Pauline. Thou wrong'st me, cruel Prince!
+At first, in truth, I might not have been won,
+Save through the weakness of a flatter'd pride;
+But now,--oh! trust me,--couldst thou fall from power
+And sink--
+
+Mel. As low as that poor gardener's son
+Who dared to lift his eyes to thee?--
+
+Pauline. Even then,
+Methinks thou wouldst be only made more dear
+By the sweet thought that I could prove how deep
+Is woman's love! We are like the insects, caught
+By the poor glittering of a garish flame;
+But, oh, the wings once scorch'd, the brightest star
+Lures us no more; and by the fatal light
+We cling till death!
+
+Mel. Angel! [Aside.] O conscience! conscience!
+It must not be; her love hath grown a torture
+Worse than her hate. I will at once to Beauseant,
+And--ha! he comes. Sweet love, one moment leave me.
+I have business with these gentlemen--I--I
+Will forwith join you.
+
+Pauline.  Do not tarry long!  [Exit.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Mel.  Release me from my oath,--I will not marry her!
+
+Beau Then thou art perjured.
+
+Mel.  No, I was not in my senses when I swore to thee to marry her!
+I was blind to all but her scorn!--deaf to all but my passion
+and my rage!  Give me back my poverty and my honor!
+
+Beau.  It is too late,--you must marry her! and this day.
+I have a story already coined, and sure to pass current.
+This Damas suspects thee,--he will set the police to work!--
+thou wilt be detected--Pauline will despise and execrate thee.
+Thou wilt be sent to the common gaol as a swindler.
+
+Mel.  Fiend!
+
+Beau.  And in the heat of the girl's resentment (you know of what
+resentment is capable) and the parents' shame, she will be induced
+to marry the first that offers--even perhaps your humble servant.
+
+Mel.  You!  No; that were worse--for thou hast no mercy!
+I will marry her.--I will keep my oath.  Quick, then, with the damnable
+invention thou art hatching;--quick, if thou wouldst not have me
+strangle thee or myself.
+
+Gla.  What a tiger!  Too fierce for a prince; he ought to have been
+the Grand Turk.
+
+Beau.  Enough--I will dispatch; be prepared.
+
+[Exeunt BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Enter DAMAS with two swords.
+
+Damas.  Now, then, sir, the ladies are no longer your excuse.
+I have brought you a couple of dictionaries; let us see if your
+highness can find out the Latin for bilbo.
+
+Mel.  Away, sir!  I am in no humor for jesting.  Damas.  I see you
+understand something of the grammar; you decline the non-substantive
+"small-swords" with great ease; but that won't do--you must take
+a lesson in parsing.
+
+Mel.  Fool!  Damas.  Sir, as sons take after their mother,
+so the man who calls me a fool insults the lady who bore me;
+there's no escape for you--fight you shall, or--
+
+Mel.  Oh, enough! enough!--take your ground.
+
+They fight; DAMAS is disarmed.  MELNOTTE takes up the sword and returns
+it to DAMAS respectfully.  A just punishment to the brave soldier
+who robs the state of its best property--the sole right to his valor
+and his life.
+
+Damas.  Sir, you fence exceedingly well; you must be a man of honor--
+I don't care a jot whether you are a prince; but a man who has
+carte and tierce at his fingers' ends must be a gentleman.
+
+Mel.  [aside.] Gentleman!  Ay, I was a gentleman before I
+turned conspirator; for honest men are the gentlemen
+of Nature!  Colonel, they tell me you rose from the ranks.
+
+Damas.  I did.
+
+Mel.  And in two years!
+
+Damas.  It is true; that's no wonder in our army at present.
+Why the oldest general in the service is scarcely thirty, and we
+have some of two-and-twenty.
+
+Mel.  Two-and-twenty!
+
+Damas.  Yes; in the French army, now a days, promotion is not a matter
+of purchase.  We are all heroes, because we may.  be all generals.
+We have no fear of the cypress, because we may all hope for the laurel.
+
+Mel.  A general at two-and-twenty! [turning away]--Sir, I may ask
+you a favor one of these days.
+
+Damas.  Sir, I shall be proud to grant it.  It is astonishing how much
+I like a man after I've fought with him.  [Hides the swords.
+
+Enter MADAME DESCHAPPELLES and BEAUSEANT.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Oh, prince,--prince!--What do I hear?  You must fly--
+you must quit us!
+
+Mel.  I!
+
+Beau.  Yes, prince:  read this letter, just received from my friend
+at Paris, one of the Directory; they suspect you of designs
+against the Republic:  they are very suspicious of princes,
+and your family take.part with the Austrians.  Knowing that I
+introduced your highness at Lyons, my friend writes to me to say
+that you must quit the town immediately, or you will be arrested,--
+thrown into prison, perhaps guillotined!  Fly!--I will order horses
+to your carriage instantly.  Fly to Marsailles; there you can take
+ship to Leghorn.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  And what's to become of Pauline?  Am I not to be
+mother to a princess, after all?
+
+Enter PAULINE and MONSIEUR DESCHAPPELLES.
+
+Pauline [throwing herself into MELNOTTE's arms.] You must
+leave us!--Leave Pauline!
+
+Beau.  Not a moment is to be wasted.
+
+M. Deschap.  I will go to the magistrates and inquire--
+
+Beau.  Then he is lost; the magistrates, hearing he is suspected,
+will order his arrest.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  And I shall not be a princess-dowager!
+
+Beau.  Why not?  There is only one thing to be done:--send for the priest--
+let the marriage take place at once, and the prince carry home a bride?
+
+Mel.  Impossible!--[Aside.] Villain.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  What, lose my child?
+
+Beau.  And gain a princess!
+
+Mme Deschap.  Oh, Monsieur Beauseant, you are so very kind, it must
+be so,--we ought not to be selfish, my daughter's happiness at stake.
+She will go away, too, in a carriage and six!
+
+Pauline.  Thou art here still,--I cannot part from my heart will break.
+
+Mel.  But thou wilt not consent to this hasty union?--thou wilt
+not wed an outcast--a fugitive?
+
+Pauline.  Ah! if thou art in danger, who should share it but Pauline?
+
+Mel.  [aside]. Distraction!--If the earth could swallow me!
+
+M. Deschap.  Gently! gently!  The settlements--the contracts--
+my daughter's dowry!
+
+Mel.  The dowry!--I am not base enough for that; no, not one farthing!
+
+Beau.  [to MADAM]. Noble fellow!--Really your good husband
+is too mercantile in these matters.  Monsieur Deschappelles,
+you hear his highness:  we can arrange the settlements by proxy;
+'tis the way with people of quality.
+
+M. Deschap.  But--
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Hold your tongue!--Don't expose yourself!
+
+Beau.  I will bring the priest in a trice.  Go in all of you and prepare;
+the carriage shall be at the door before the ceremony is over.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Be sure there are six horses, Beauseant!  You are very
+good to have forgiven us for refusing you; but you see--a prince!
+
+Beau.  And such a prince!  Madam, I cannot blush at the success of so
+illustrious a rival.--[Aside.] Now will I follow them to the village,
+enjoy my triumph, and to-morrow, in the hour of thy shame and grief,
+I think, proud girl, thou wilt prefer even these arms to those of
+the gardener's son.  (Exit.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Come, Monsieur Deschappelles, give your arm to her
+highness that is to be.
+
+M. Deschap.  I don't like doing business in such a hurry;
+'tis not the way with the house of Deschappelles & Co.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  There, now, you fancy you are in the counting-house,
+don't you?
+
+[Pushes him to PAULINE.
+
+Mel.  Stay, stay, Pauline--one word.  Have you no scruple, no fear?
+Speak--it is not yet too late.
+
+Pauline.  When I loved thee, thy fate became mine.  Triumph or danger--
+joy or sorrow--I am by thy side.
+
+Damas.  Well, well, prince, thou art a lucky man to be so loved.
+She is a good little girl in spite of her foibles make her as happy
+as if she were not to be a princess [slapping him on the shoulder]. Come,
+sir, I wish you joy--young tender--lovely;--zounds, I envy you!
+
+Mel.  [who has stood apart in gloomy abstraction]. Do you?*
+
+(* On the stage the following lines are added:--
+
+"Do you? Wise judges are we of each other.
+'Woo, wed, and bear her home! So runs the bond
+To which I sold myself,--and then--what then?
+Away?--I will not look beyond the hour.
+Like children in the dark, I dare not face
+The shades that gather sound me in the distance.
+You envy me--I thank you--you may read
+My joy upon my brow--I thank you, sir!
+If hearts had audible language, you would hear
+What mine would answer when you talk of ENVY!"
+
+ACT III.--SCENE I.
+
+The exterior of the Golden Leon--time, twilight.  The moon rises
+during the scene.
+
+Enter Landlord and his Daughter from the Inn.
+
+Land.  Ha--ha--ha!  Well, I never shall get over it.
+Our Claude is a prince with a vengeance now.  His carriage breaks
+down at my inn--ha--ha!
+
+Janet.  And what airs the young lady gives herself!  "Is this the best
+room you have, young woman?" with such a toss of the head.
+
+Land.  Well, get in, Janet:  get in and see to the supper:
+the servants must sup before they go back.  [Exeunt.
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Beau.  You see our princess is lodged at last--one stage more,
+and she'll be at her journey's end--the beautiful palace at the foot
+of the Alps!--ha--ha!
+
+Gla.  Faith, I pity the poor Pauline--especially if she's going
+to sup at the Golden Lion [makes a wry face]. I shall never forget
+that cursed ragout.
+
+Enter MELNOTTE from the Inn.
+
+Beau.  Your servant, my prince; you reigned most worthily, I condole
+with you on your abdication.  I am afraid that your highness's
+retinue are not very faithful servants.  I think they will quit
+you in the moment of your fall 'tis the fate of greatness.
+But you are welcome to your fine clothes--also the diamond snuff-box,
+which Louis XIV.  gave to your great-great-grandmother.
+
+Gla.  And the ring, with which your grandfather the Dodge of Venice
+married the Adriatic.
+
+Mel.  I have kept my oath, gentlemen--say, have I kept my oath?
+
+Beau.  Most religiously.
+
+Mel.  Then you have done with me and mine--away with you!
+
+Beau.  How, knave?
+
+Mel.  Look you, our bond is over.  Proud conquerors that we are,
+we have won the victory over a simple girl compromised her honor--
+embittered her life--blasted, in their very blossoms, all the
+flowers of her youth.  This is your triumph,--it is my shame!
+[Turns to BEAUSEANT.] Enjoy thy triumph, but not in my sight.
+I was her betrayer--I am her protector!  Cross but her path--
+one word of scorn, one look of insult--nay, but one quiver of that
+mocking lip, and I will teach thee that bitter word thou hast graven
+eternally in this heart--Repentance
+
+Beau.  His highness is most grandiloquent.
+
+Mel.  Highness me no more!  Beware!  Remorse has made me a new being.
+Away with you!  There is danger in me.  Away!
+
+Gla.  [aside]. He's an awkward fellow to deal with:
+come away, Beauseant.
+
+Beau.  I know the respect clue to rank.  Adieu, my prince.
+Any commands at Lyons?  Yet hold--I promised you 200 Louis on
+your wedding-day; here they are.
+
+Mel.  [dashing the purse to the ground]. I gave you revenge,
+I did not sell it.  Take up your silver, Judas; take it.
+Ay, it is fit you should learn to stoop.
+
+Beau.  You will beg my pardon for this some clay.  [Aside to
+GLAVIS.] Come to my chateau--I shall return hither to morrow,
+to learn how Pauline likes her new dignity.
+
+Mel.  Are you not gone yet?
+
+Beau.  Your highness's most obedient, most faithful
+
+Gla.  And most humble servants.  Ha! ha!  [Exeunt BEAUSEANT and GLAVIS.
+
+Mel.  Thank heaven I had no weapon, or I should have slaln them.
+Wretch! what can I say?  Where turn?  On all sides mockery--the very boors
+within--[Laughter from the Inn].--'Sdeath, if even in this short absence
+the exposure should have chanced.  I will call her.  We will go hence.
+I have already sent one I can trust to my mother's house.
+There, at least, none can insult her agony--gloat upon her shame!
+There alone must she learn what a villain she has sworn to love.
+[As he turns to the door enter PAULINE from the Inn.
+
+Pauline.  Ah! my lord, what a place!  I never saw such rude people.
+They stare and wink so.  I think the very sight of a prince,
+though he travels incognito, turns their honest heads.
+What a pity the carriage should break down in such a spot!
+You are not well--the drops stand on your brow--your hand is feverish.
+
+Mel.  Nay, it is but a passing spasm;--the air
+
+Pauline. Is not the soft air of your native south--
+How pale he is!--indeed thou art not well.
+Where are our people? I will call them.
+
+Mel. Hold! I--I am well.
+
+Pauline. Thou art!--Ah! now I know it.
+Thou fanciest, my kind lord--I know thou dost--
+Thou fanciest these rude walls, these rustic gossips,
+Brick'd floors, sour wine, coarse viands, vex Pauline;
+And so they might, but thou art by my side,
+And I forget all else.
+
+Enter Landlord, the Servants peeping and laughing over his shoulder.
+
+Land. My lord--your highness--Will your most noble excellency choose--
+
+Mel. Begone, sir! [Exit Landlord laughing.
+
+Pauline. How could they have learn'd thy rank?
+One's servants are so vain!--nay, let it not
+Chafe thee, sweet prince!--a few short days and we
+Shall see thy palace by its lake of silver,
+And--nay, nay, spendthrift, is thy wealth of smiles,
+Already drain'd, or dost thou play the miser?
+
+Mel. Thine eyes would call up smiles in deserts, fair one.
+Let us escape these rustics: close at hand
+There is a cot, where I have bid prepare
+Our evening lodgment--a rude, homely roof,
+But honest, where our welcome will not be
+Made torture by the vulgar eyes and tongues
+That are as death to Love! A heavenly night!
+The wooing air and the soft moon invite us.
+Wilt walk? I pray thee, now,--I know the path,
+Ay, every inch of it!
+
+Pauline. What, thou! Methought
+Thou wert a stranger in these parts? Ah, truant,
+Some village beauty lured thee;--thou art now
+Grown constant?
+
+Mel. Trust me.
+
+Pauline. Princes are so changeful!
+
+Mel. Come, dearest, come.
+
+Pauline. Shall I not call our people To light us?
+
+Mel. Heaven will lend its stars for torches! It is not far.
+
+Pauline. The night breeze chills me.
+
+Mel. Nay, Let me thus mantle thee;--it is not cold.
+
+Pauline. Never beneath thy smile!
+
+Mel. [aside.] O Heaven! forgive me! [Exeunt
+
+SCENE II.
+
+MELNOTTE'S cottage--Widow bustling about--a table spread for supper.
+
+Widow.  So, I think that looks very neat.  He sent me a line,
+so blotted that I can scarcely read it, to say he would be here
+almost immediately.  She must have loved him well indeed to have
+forgotten his birth; for though he was introduced to her in disguise,
+he is too honorable not to have revealed to her the artifice,
+which her love only could forgive.  Well, I do not wonder at it;
+for though my son is not a prince, he ought to be one, and that's
+almost as good, [Knock at the door.] Ah! here they are.
+
+Enter MELNOTTE and PAULINE.
+
+Widow.  Oh, my boy--the pride of my heart!--welcome, welcome!
+I beg pardon, ma'am, but I do love him so!
+
+Pauline.  Good woman, I really--why prince, what is this?--does the old
+lady know you?  Oh, I guess, you have done her some service.
+Another proof of your kind heart? is it not?
+
+Mel.  Of my kind heart, ay!
+
+Pauline.  So you know the prince?
+
+Widow.  Know him, madam?--Ah, I begin to fear it is you who know him not!
+
+Pauline.  Do you think she is mad?  Can we stay here, my lord?
+I think there's something very wild about her.
+
+Mel.  Madam, I--no, I cannot tell her; my knees knock together:
+what a coward is a man who has lost his honor!  Speak to her--
+speak to her [to his mother]--tell her that--O Heaven, that I were dead!
+
+Pauline.  How confused he looks!--this strange place?--this woman--
+what can it mean?--I half suspect--Who are you, madam!--who are you!
+can't you speak? are you struck dumb?
+
+Widow.  Claude, you have not deceived her?--Ah, shame upon you 1 I
+thought that, before you went to the altar, she was to have known all.
+
+Pauline.  All! what!--My blood freezes in my veins!
+
+Widow.  Poor lady!--dare I tell her, Claude?  [MELNOTTE makes
+a sign of assent.] Know you not then, madam, that this young man
+is of poor though honest parents?  Know you not that you are wedded
+to my son, Claude Melnotte?
+
+Pauline.  Your son! hold--hold! do not speak to me.--[Approaches MELNOTTE,
+and lays her hand on his arm.]--Is this a jest? is it?
+I know it is, only speak--one word--one look one smile.
+I cannot believe--I who loved thee so--I cannot believe that thou
+art such a--No, I will not wrong thee by a harsh word--Speak!
+
+Mel.  Leave us--have pity on her, on me:  leave us.
+
+Widow.  Oh, Claude, that I should live to see thee bowed by shame!
+thee of whom I was so proud!(Exit by the staircase.
+
+Pauline.  Her son--her son!
+
+Mel.  Now, lady, hear me.
+
+Pauline. Hear thee!
+Ay, speak--her son! have fiends a parent? speak,
+That thou mayst silence curses--speak!
+
+Mel. No, curse me:
+Thy curse would blast me less than thy forgiveness.
+
+Pauline [laughing wildly]. "This is thy palace, where the perfumed light
+Steals through the mist of alabaster lamps,
+And every air is heavy with the sighs
+Of orange-groves, and music from the sweet lutes,
+And murmurs of low fountains, that gush forth
+I' the midst of roses!" Dost thou like the picture?
+This is my bridal home, and thou my bridegroom.
+O fool--O dupe--O wretch!--I see it all
+Thy by-word and the jeer of every tongue
+In Lyons. Hast thou in thy heart one touch
+Of human kindness? if thou hast, why, kill me,
+And save thy wife from madness. No, it cannot
+It cannot be: this is some horrid dream:
+I shall wake soon.--[Touching him.] Art flesh art man? or but
+The shadows seen in sleep? It is too real.
+What have I done to thee? how sinn'd against thee,
+That thou shouldst crush me thus?
+
+Mel. Pauline, by pride
+Angels have fallen ere thy time: by pride
+That sole alloy of thy most lovely mould
+The evil spirit of a bitter love,
+And a revengeful heart, had power upon thee.
+From my first years my soul was fill'd with thee:
+I saw thee midst the flow'rs the lowly boy
+Tended, unmark'd by thee--a spirit of bloom,
+And joy, and freshness, as if Spring itself
+Were made a living thing, and wore thy shape!
+I saw thee, and the passionate heart of man
+Enter'd the breast of the wild-dreaming boy.
+And from that hour I grew--what to the last
+I shall be--thine adorer! Well, this love
+Vain, frantic, guilty, if thou wilt, became
+A fountain of ambition and bright hope;
+I thought of tales that by the winter hearth
+Old gossips tell--how maidens sprung from kings
+Have stoop'd from their high sphere; how love, like death
+Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook
+Beside the sceptre. Thus I made my home
+In the soft palace of a fairy Future!
+My father died; and I, the peasant-born,
+Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise
+Out of the prison of my mean estate;
+And, with such jewels as the exploring mind
+Brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom
+From those twin gaolers of the daring heart
+Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image
+Glass'd in my soul, took all the hues of glory,
+And lured me on to those inspiring toils
+By which man masters men! For thee I grew
+A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages.
+For thee I sought to borrow from each grace,
+And every muse, such attributes as lend
+Ideal charms to love. I thought of thee,
+And passion taught me poesy--of thee,
+And on the painter's canvas grew the life
+Of beauty! Art became the shadow
+Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes
+Men call'd me vain--some mad--I heeded not;
+But still toil'd on--hoped on--for it was sweet,
+If not to win, to feel more worthy thee?
+
+Pauline. Has he a magic to exorcise hate!
+
+Mel. At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour
+The thoughts that burst their channels into song,
+And sent them to thee--such a tribute, lady,
+As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest.
+The name--appended by the burning heart
+That long'd to show its idol what bright things
+It had created--yea, the enthusiast's name,
+That should have been thy triumph, was thy scorn!
+That very hour--when passion, turn'd to wrath,
+Resembled hatred most--when thy disdain
+Made my whole soul a chaos--in that hour
+The tempters found me a revengeful tool
+For their revenge! Thou hadst trampled on the worm
+It turn'd and stung thee!
+
+Pauline. Love, sir, hath no sting.
+What was the slight of a poor powerless girl
+To the deep wrong of this most vile revenge?
+Oh, how I loved this man!--a serf!--a slave!
+
+Mel. Hold, lady! No, not slave! Despair is free!
+I will not tell thee of the throes--the struggles
+The anguish--the remorse: No, let it pass!
+And let me come to such most poor atonement
+Yet in my power. Pauline!
+
+(Approaching her with great emotion, and about to take her hand.
+
+Pauline. No, touch me not!
+I know my fate. You are, by law, my tyrant;
+And I--O Heaven!--a peasant's wife! I'll work
+Toil--drudge--do what thou wilt--but touch me not;
+Let my wrongs make me sacred!
+
+Mel. Do not fear me.
+Thou dost not know me, madam: at the altar
+My vengeance ceased--my guilty oath expired!
+Henceforth, no image of some marble saint,
+Niched in cathedral aisles, is hallow'd more
+From the rude hand of sacrilegious wrong.
+I am thy husband--nay, thou need'st not shudder;
+Here, at thy feet, I lay a husband's rights.
+A marriage thus unholy--unfulfill'd--
+A bond of fraud--is, by the laws of France,
+Made void and null. To-night sleep--sleep in peace.
+To-morrow, pure and virgin as this morn
+I bore thee, bathed in blushes, from the shrine,
+Thy father's arms shall take thee to thy home.
+The law shall do thee justice, and restore
+Thy right to bless another with thy love.
+And when thou art happy, and hast half forgot
+Him who so loved--so wrong'd thee, think at least
+Heaven left some remnant of the angel still
+In that poor peasant's nature!
+
+Ho! my mother! [Enter Widow.
+
+Conduct this lady--(she is not my wife;
+She is our guest,--our honor'd guest, my mother)--
+To the poor chamber, where the sleep of virtue,
+Never, beneath my father's honest roof,
+Ev'n villains dared to mar! Now, lady, now,
+I think thou wilt believe me. Go, my mother!
+
+Widow. She is not thy wife!
+
+Mel. Hush, hush! for mercy's sake!
+Speak not, but go.
+
+[Widow ascends the stairs; PAULINE follows weeping--turns to look back.
+
+Mel.  [sinking down]. All angels bless and guard her!
+
+ACT IV.--SCENE I.
+
+The cottage as before--MELNOTTE seated before a table--writing implements,
+etc.- -(Day breaking.)
+
+Mel.  Hush, hush!--she sleeps at last!--thank Heaven, for a while she
+forgets even that I live!  Her sobs, which have gone to my heart
+the whole, long, desolate night, have ceased!--all calm--all still!
+I will go now; I will send this letter to Pauline's father:
+when he arrives, I will place in his hands my own consent to the divorce,
+and then, O France! my country! accept among thy protectors,
+thy defenders--the peasant's Son!  Our country is less proud
+than custom, and does not refuse the blood, the heart, the right
+hand of the poor man.
+
+Enter Widow.
+
+Widow.  My son, thou hast acted ill; but sin brings its own punishment.
+In the hour of thy remorse, it is not for a mother to reproach thee.
+
+Mel.  What is past is past.  There is a future left to all men, who have
+the virtue to repent, and the energy to atone.  Thou shalt be proud of thy
+son yet.  Meanwhile, remember this poor lady has been grievously injured.
+For the sake of thy son's conscience, respect, honor, bear with her.
+If she weep, console--if she chide, be silent.  'Tis but a little
+while more--I shall send an express fast as horse can speed
+to her father.  Farewell!  I shall return shortly.
+
+Widow.  It is the only course left to thee--thou wert led astray,
+but thou art not hardened.  Thy heart is right still, as ever it
+was when, in thy most ambitious hopes thou wert never ashamed
+of thy poor mother.
+
+Mel.  Ashamed of thee; No, if I yet endure, yet live, yet hope,--
+it is only because I would not die till I have redeemed the noble
+heritage I have lost--the heritage I took unstained from thee
+and my dead father--a proud conscience and an honest name.
+I shall win them back yet--heaven bless you!  [Exit.
+
+Widow.  My dear Claude!  How my heart bleeds for him.
+
+[PAULINE looks down from above, and after a pause descends
+
+Pauline.  Not here!--he spares me that pain at least:
+so far he is considerate--yet the place seems still more desolate
+without him.  Oh, that I could hate him--the gardener's son!--
+and yet how nobly he--no--no--no I will not be so mean a thing
+as to forgive him!
+
+Widow.  Good morning, madam; I would have waited on you if I had known
+you were stirring.
+
+Pauline.  It is no matter, ma'am--your son's wife ought to
+wait on herself.
+
+Widow.  My son's wife--let not that thought vex you, madam--he tells
+me that you will have your divorce.  And I hope I shall live
+to see him smile again.  There are maidens in this village,
+young and fair, madam, who may yet console him.
+
+Pauline.  I dare say--they are very welcome--and when the divorce is got--
+he will marry again.  I am sure I hope so.  [Weeps.
+
+Widow.  He could have married the richest girl in the province,
+if he had pleased it; but his head was turned, poor child! he could
+think of nothing but you.  [Weeps.
+
+Pauline.  Don't weep, mother.
+
+Widow.  Ah, he has behaved very ill, I know, but love is so headstrong
+in the young.  Don't weep, madam.
+
+Pauline.  So, as you were saying--go on.
+
+Widow.  Oh, I cannot excuse him, ma'am--he was not in his right senses.
+
+Pauline.  But he always--always [sobbing] loved--loved me then?
+
+Widow.  He thought of nothing else.  See here--he learnt to paint
+that he might take your likeness [uncovers the picture]. But that's
+all over now--I trust you have cured him of his folly;--but, dear heart,
+you have had no breakfast!
+
+Pauline.  I can't take anything--don't trouble yourself.
+
+Widow.  Nay, madam, be persuaded; a little coffee will refresh you.
+Our milk and eggs are excellent.  I will get out Claude's coffee-cup--
+It is of real Sevres; he saved up all his money to buy it three
+years ago, because the name of Pauline was inscribed on it.
+
+Pauline.  Three years ago!  Poor Claude!--Thank you; I think I will have
+some coffee.  Oh! if he were but a poor gentleman, even a merchant:
+but a gardener's son--and what a home!--Oh no,--it is too dreadful!
+
+They seat themselves at the table, BEAUSEANT opens the lattice
+and looks in.
+
+Beau.  So--so--the coast is clear!  I saw Claude in the lane--
+I shall have an excellent opportunity.Shuts the lattice and knocks
+at the door.
+
+Pauline.  [starting]. Can it be my father?--he has not sent for--
+him yet?  No, he cannot be in such a hurry to get rid of me.
+
+Widow.  It is not time for your father to arrive yet; it must
+be some neighbor.
+
+Pauline.  Don't admit any one.
+
+[Widow opens the door, BEAUSEANT pushes her aside and enters.
+Ha!  Heavens! that hateful Beauseant!  This is indeed bitter!
+
+Beau.  Good morning, madam!  O widow, your son begs you will have
+the goodness to go to him in the village he wants to speak to you on
+particular business; you'll find him at the inn, or the grocer's shop,
+or the baker's, or at some other friend's of your family--make haste.
+
+Pauline.  Don't leave me, mother!--don't leave me.
+
+Beau.  [with great respect]. Be not alarmed, madam.  Believe me
+your friend--your servant.
+
+Pauline.  Sir, I have no fear of you, even in this house!  Go, madam,
+if your son wishes it; I will not contradict his commands whilst,
+at least he has still the right to be obeyed.
+
+Widow.  I don't understand this; however, I sha'n't be long gone.
+[Exit.
+
+Pauline.  Sir, I divine the object of your visit--you wish
+to exult in the humiliation of one who humbled you.  Be it so;
+I am prepared to endure all--even your presence!
+
+Beau.  You mistake me, madam--Pauline, you mistake me!  I come to lay
+my fortune at your feet.  You must already be disenchanted with
+this impostor; these walls are not worthy to be hallowed by your beauty!
+Shall that form be clasped in the arms of a base-born peasant?
+Beloved, beautiful Pauline! fly with me--my carriage waits without--
+I will bear you to a home more meet for your reception.
+Wealth, luxury, station--all shall yet be yours.  I forget your
+past disdain--I remember only your beauty and my unconquerable love!
+
+Pauline.  Sir! leave this house--it is humble:  but a husband's roof,
+however lowly, is, in the eyes of God and man, the temple of a
+wife's honor!  Know that I would rather starve--yes--with him
+who has betrayed me, than accept your lawful hand, even were you
+the prince whose name he bore.--Go.
+
+Beau.  What! is not your pride humbled yet?
+
+Pauline.  Sir, what was pride in prosperity in affliction becomes virtue.
+
+Beau.  Look round:  these rugged floors--these homely walls--
+this wretched struggle of poverty for comfort--think of this! and
+contrast with such a picture the refinement, the luxury, the pomp,
+that the wealthiest gentleman of Lyons offers to the loveliest lady.
+Ah, hear me!
+
+Pauline.  Oh! my father!--why did I leave you?--why am I thus friendless?
+Sir, you see before you a betrayed, injured, miserable woman!--
+respect her anguish
+
+[MELNOTTE opens the door silently, and pauses at the threshold.
+
+Beau.  No! let me rather thus console it; let me snatch from those lips
+one breath of that fragrance which never should be wasted on the low
+churl thy husband.
+
+Pauline.  Help!  Claude!--Claude!--Have I no protector?'
+
+Beau.  Be silent! [showing a pistol.] See, I do not come unprepared even
+for violence.  I will brave all things--thy husband and all his race--
+for thy sake.  Thus, then, I clasp thee!
+
+Mel.  [dashing him to the other end of the stage]. Pauline--look up,
+Pauline! thou art safe.
+
+Beau.  [levelling his pistol]. Dare you thus insult a man of
+my birth, ruffian?
+
+Pauline.  Oh, spare him--spare my husband!--Beauseant--Claude--no--
+no [faints].
+
+Mel.  Miserable trickster! shame upon you! brave devices to terrify
+a woman!  Coward!--you tremble--you have outraged the laws--you know
+that your weapon is harmless--you have the courage of the mountebank,
+not the bravo!--Pauline, there is no danger.
+
+Beau.  I wish thou wert a gentleman--as it is, thou art beneath me.--
+Good day, and a happy honeymoon.--[Aside.] I will not die till I
+am avenged.  [Exit.
+
+Mel. I hold her in these arms--the last embrace
+Never, ah never more, shall this dear head
+Be pillow'd on the heart that should have shelter'd
+And has betray'd!--Soft--soft! one kiss--poor wretch!
+No scorn on that pale lip forbids me now!
+One kiss--so ends all record of my crime!
+It is the seal upon the tomb of hope,
+By which, like some lost, sorrowing angel, sits
+Sad memory evermore; she breathes--she moves
+She wakes to scorn, to hate, but not to shudder
+Beneath the touch of my abhorred love.
+Places her on a seat. There--we are strangers now!
+
+Pauline. All gone--all calm
+Is every thing a dream? thou art safe, unhurt
+I do not love thee;--but--but I am woman,
+And--and--no blood is spilt?
+
+Mel.  No, lady, no; My guilt hath not deserved so rich a blessing
+As even danger in thy cause.
+
+Enter WIDOW.
+
+Widow.  My son, I have been everywhere in search of you; why did
+you send for me?
+
+Mel.  I did not send for you.
+
+Widow.  No! but I must tell you your express has returned.
+
+Mel.  So soon! impossible!
+
+Widow.  Yes, he met the lady's father and mother on the road;
+they were going into the country on a visit.  Your messenger
+says that Monsieur Deschappelles turned almost white with anger
+when he read your letter.  They will be here almost immediately.
+Oh, Claude, Claude! what will they do to you?  How I tremble!
+Ah, madam! do not let them injure him--if you knew how he doated on you.
+
+Pauline.  Injure him! no, ma'am, be not afraid;--my father! how shall
+I meet him? how go back to Lyons? the scoff of the whole city!
+Cruel, cruel, Claude [in great agitation]. Sir, you have
+acted most treacherously.
+
+Mel.  I know it, madam.
+
+Pauline [aside.] If he would but ask me to forgive him!--
+I never can forgive you, sir.
+
+Mel.  I never dared to hope it.
+
+Pauline.  But you are my husband now, and I have sworn to--
+to love you, sir.
+
+Mel.  That was under a false belief, madam; Heaven and the laws
+will release you from your vow.
+
+Pauline.  He will drive me mad! if he were but less proud--
+if he would but ask me to remain--hark, hark--I hear the wheels
+of the carriage--Sir--Claude, they are coming; have you no word
+to say ere it is loo late?  Quick speak.
+
+Mel.  I can only congratulate you on your release.  Behold your parents
+
+Enter MONSIEUR and MADAME DESCHAPPELLES and COLONEL DAMAS.
+
+M. Deschap.  My child! my child!
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Oh, my poor Pauline!--what a villanous hovel this is!
+Old woman, get me a chair--I shall faint I certainly shall.
+What will the world say?  Child, you have been a fool.
+A mother's heart is easily broken.
+
+Damas.  Ha, ha! most noble Prince--I am sorry to see a man of your
+quality in such a condition; I am afraid your highness will go
+to the House of Correction.
+
+Mel.  Taunt on, sir; I spared you when you were unarmed--I am unarmed now.
+A man who has no excuse for crime is indeed defenceless!
+
+Damas.  There's something fine in the rascal, after all!
+
+M. Deschap.  Where is the impostor?--Are you thus shameless, traitor?
+Can you brave the presence of that girl's father?
+
+Mel.  Strike me, if it please you--you are her father.
+
+Pauline.  Sir--sir, for my sake; whatever his guilt, he has acted
+nobly in atonement.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Nobly!  Are you mad, girl?  I have no patience with you--
+to disgrace all your family thus!  Nobly!  Oh you abominable,
+hardened, pitiful, mean, ugly villain!
+
+Damas.  Ugly!  Why he was beautiful yesterday!
+
+Pauline.  Madame, this is his roof, and he is my husband.
+Respect your daughter, or let blame fall alone on her.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  You--you--Oh, I'm choking.
+
+M. Deschap.  Sir, it were idle to waste reproach upon a conscience
+like yours--you renounce all pretensions to the person of this lady?
+
+Mel.  I do.  [Gives a paper.] Here is my consent to a divorce--
+my full confession of the fraud which annuls the marriage.
+Your daughter has been foully wronged--I grant it, sir; but her
+own lips will tell you that, from the hour in which she crossed
+this threshold, I returned to my own station, and respected hers.
+Pure and inviolate, as when yestermorn you laid your hand upon
+her head, and blessed her, I yield her back to you.  For myself--
+I deliver you for ever from my presence.  An outcast and a criminal,
+I seek some distant land, where I may mourn my sin, and pray for
+your daughter's peace.  Farewell--farewell to you all, for ever!
+
+Willow.  Claude, Claude, you will not leave your poor old mother?
+She does not disown you in your sorrow no, not even in your guilt.
+No divorce can separate a mother from her son.
+
+Pauline.  This poor widow teaches me my duty.  No, mother,--no, for you
+are now my mother also!--nor should any law, human or divine,
+separate the wife from her husband's sorrows.  Claude--Claude--all is
+forgotten forgiven--I am.  thine for ever!
+
+Mme. Deschap.  What do I hear?--Come away, or never see my face again.
+
+M. Deschap.  Pauline, we never betrayed you!--do you forsake
+us for him?
+
+Pauline.  [going back to her father]. Oh no--but you will forgive him too;
+we will live together--he shall be your son.
+
+M. Deschap.  Never!  Cling to him and forsake your parents!
+His home shall be yours--his fortune yours--his fate yours:
+the wealth I have acquired by honest industry shall never enrich
+the dishonest man.
+
+Pauline.  And you would have a wife enjoy luxury while a husband toils!
+Claude, take me; thou canst not give me wealth, titles, station--
+but thou canst give me a true heart I will work for thee, tend thee,
+bear with thee, and never, never shall these lips reproach thee
+for the past.
+
+Damas.  I'll be hanged if I am not going to blubber!
+
+Mel.  This is the heaviest blow of all!--What a heart I have wronged!--
+Do not fear me, sir; I am not all hardened--I will not rob her
+of a holier love than mine.  Pauline!--angel of love and mercy!--
+your memory shall lead me back to virtue!--The husband of a being
+so beautiful in her noble and sublime tenderness may be poor--
+may be low born;--(there is no guilt in the decrees of providence!)--
+but he should be one who can look thee in the face without
+a blush,--to whom thy love does not bring remorse,--who can
+fold thee to his heart, and say,--"Here there is no deceit!"
+I am not that man!
+
+Damas.  [aside to MELNOTTE]. Thou art a noble fellow, notwithstanding;
+and wouldst make an excellent soldier.  Serve in my regiment.
+I have had a letter from the Directory--our young general takes
+the command of the army in Italy,--I am to join him at Marseilles,I
+will depart this day, if thou wilt go with me.
+
+Mel.  It is the favor I would have asked thee, if I dared.
+Place me wherever a foe is most dreaded,--wherever France most
+needs a life!
+
+Damas.  There shall not be a forlorn hope without thee!
+
+Mel.  There is my hand!--mother, your blessing.  I shall see
+you again,--a better man than a prince,--a man who has bought
+the right to high thoughts by brave deeds.  And thou!--thou! so
+wildly worshipped, so guiltily betrayed, all is not yet lost!--
+for thy memory, at least, must be mine till death!  If I live,
+the name of him thou hast once loved shall not rest dishonored;--
+if I fall, amidst the carnage and the roar of battle, my soul
+will fly back to thee, and love shall share with death my
+last sigh!--More--more would I speak to thee!--to pray!--to bless!
+But no; When I am less unworthy I will utter it to Heaven!--I cannot
+trust myself to [turning to DESCHAPPELLES] Your pardon, sir; they are
+my last words Farewell!  [Exit.
+
+Damas.  I will go after him.--France will thank me for this.
+
+Pauline [starting from her father's arms]. Claude!--Claude!--my husband!
+
+M. Deschap.  You have a father still!
+
+ACT V.
+
+Two years and a half from the date of Act IV.
+
+SCENE I.
+
+The Streets of Lyons.
+
+Enter First, Second, and Third Officers.
+
+First Officer.  Well, here we are at Lyons, with gallant old Damas:
+it is his native place.
+
+Second Officer.  Yes; he has gained a step in the army since he was
+here last.  The Lyonnese ought to be very proud of stout General Damas.
+
+Third Officer.  Promotion is quick in the French army.
+This mysterious Morier,--the hero of Lodi, and the favorite of
+the commander-in-chief,--has risen to a colonel's rank to two years
+and a half.  Enter DAMAS, as a General.
+
+Damas.  Good morrow, gentlemen; I hope you will amuse yourselves during
+our short stay at Lyons.  It is a fine city:  improved since I left it.
+Ah! it is a pleasure to grow old,when the years that bring
+decay to ourselves do but ripen the prosperity of our country.
+You have not met with Morier?
+
+First Officer.  No:  we were just speaking of him.
+
+Second Officer.  Pray, general, can you tell us who this
+Morier really is?
+
+Damas.  Is!--why a colonel in the French army.
+
+Third Officer.  True.  But what was he at first?
+
+Damas.  At first?  Why a baby in long clothes, I suppose.
+
+First Officer.  Ha, ha!  Ever facetious, general.
+
+Second Officer.  [to Third]. The general is sore upon this point;
+you will only chafe him.--Any commands, general?
+
+Damas.  None.  Good day to you.  [Exeunt Second and Third Officers.
+
+Damas.  Our comrades are very inquisitive.  Poor Morier is the subject
+of a vast deal of curiosity.
+
+First Officer.  Say interest, rather, general.  His constant melancholy,
+the loneliness of his habits,--his daring valor, his brilliant
+rise in the profession,--your friendship, and the favors of
+the commander-in-chief,--all tend to make him as much the matter
+of gossip as of admiration.  But where is he, general?  I have missed
+him all the morning.
+
+Damas.  Why, captain, I'll let you into a secret.  My young friend
+has come with me to Lyons in hopes of finding a miracle.
+
+First Officer.  A miracle!
+
+Damas.  Yes, a miracle! in other words,--a constant woman.
+
+First Officer.  Oh! an affair of love!
+
+Damas.  Exactly so.  No sooner did he enter Lyons than he waved
+his hand to me, threw himself from his horse, and is now,
+I warrant, asking every one who can know anything about the matter,
+whether a certain lady is still true to a certain gentleman!
+
+First Officer.  Success to him! and of that success there can
+be no doubt.  The gallant Colonel Morier, the hero of Lodi,
+might make his choice out of the proudest families in France.
+
+Damas.  Oh, if pride be a recommendation, the lady and her mother
+are most handsomely endowed.  By the way, captain, if you should
+chance to meet with Morier, tell him he will find me at the hotel.
+
+First Officer.  I will, general.  [Exit.
+
+Damas.  Now will I go to the Deschappelles, and make a report
+to my young Colonel.  Ha! by Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, Virorum,--
+here comes Monsieur Beauseant!
+
+Enter BEAUSEANT.
+
+Good morrow, Monsieur Beauseant!  How fares it with you?
+
+Beau.  [aside.] Damas! that is unfortunate;--if the Italian campaign
+should have filled his pockets, he may seek to baffle me in the moment
+of my victory.  [Aloud]. Your servant, general,--for such, I think,
+is your new distinction!  Just arrived in Lyons?
+
+Damas.  Not an hour ago.  Well, how go on the Deschappelles?  Have they
+forgiven you in that affair of young Melnotte?  You had some hand
+in that notable device,- -eh?
+
+Beau.  Why, less than you think for!  The fellow imposed upon me.
+I have set it all right now.  What has become of him?
+He could not have joined the army, after all.  There is no such name
+in the books.
+
+Damas.  I know nothing about Melnotte.  As you say, I never heard
+the name in the Grand Army.
+
+Beau.  Hem!--You are not married, general?
+
+Damas.  Do I look like a married man, sir?--No, thank Heaven!
+My profession is to make widows, not wives.
+
+Beau.  You must have gained much booty in Italy!  Pauline will be
+your heiress--eh?
+
+Damas.  Booty!  Not I!  Heiress to what?  Two trunks and a portmanteau,--
+four horses,--three swords, two suits of regimentals, and six pair
+of white leather inexpressibles!  A pretty fortune for a young lady!
+
+Beau.  [aside.] Then all is safe!  [Aloud]. Ha! ha!  Is that really
+all your capital, General Damas?  Why, I thought Italy had been
+a second Mexico to you soldiers.
+
+Damas.  All a toss-up, sir.  I was not one of the lucky ones!
+My friend Morier, indeed, saved something handsome.
+But our commander-in-chief took care of him, and Morier is a thrifty,
+economical dog,--not like the rest of us soldiers, who spend our
+money as carelessly as if it were our blood.
+
+Beau.  Well, it is no matter!  I do not want fortune with Pauline.  And you
+must know, General Damas, that your fair cousin has at length
+consented to reward my long and ardent attachment.
+
+Damas.  You!--the devil!  Why, she is already married!
+There is no divorce!
+
+Beau.  True; but this very day she is formally to authorize
+the necessary proceedings, this very day she is to sign the contract
+that is to make her mine within one week from the day on which her
+present illegal marriage is annulled.
+
+Damas.  You tell me wonders!--Wonders!  No; I believe anything of women!
+
+Beau.  I must wish you good morning.  [As he is going, enter DESCHAPPELLES.
+
+M. Deschap.  Oh, Beauseant! well met.  Let us come to the notary at once.
+
+Damas [to Deschap.]. Why, cousin!
+
+M. Deschap.  Damas, welcome to Lyons.  Pray call on us; my wife
+will be delighted to see you.
+
+Damas.  Your wife be-blessed for her condescension!  But [taking
+him aside] what do I hear?  Is it possible that your daughter has
+consented to a divorce?--that she will marry Monsieur Beauseant?
+
+M. Deschap.  Certainly.  What have you to say against it?
+A gentleman of birth, fortune, character.  We are not so proud as we were;
+even my wife has had enough of nobility and princes!
+
+Damas.  But Pauline loved that young man so tenderly!
+
+M. Deschap.  [taking snuff]. That was two years and a half ago.
+
+Damas.  Very true.  Poor Melnotte!
+
+M. Deschap.  But do not talk of that impostor; I hope he is dead
+or has left the country.  Nay, even were he in Lyons at this moment,
+he ought to rejoice that, in an honorable and suitable alliance,
+my daughter may forget her sufferings and his crime.
+
+Damas.--Nay, if it be all settled, I have no more to say.
+Monsieur Beauseant informs me that the contract is to be signed
+this very day.
+
+M. Deschap, It is; at one o'clock precisely.  Will you be one
+of the witnesses?
+
+Damas.  I?--No; that is to say--yes, certainly!--at one o'clock I
+will wait on you.
+
+M. Deschap.  Till then, adieu--come Beauseant.
+
+[Exeunt BEAUSEANT and DESCHAPELLES
+
+Damas. The man who sets his heart upon a woman
+Is a chameleon, and doth feed on air;
+From air he takes his colors--holds his life,--
+Changes with every wind,--grows lean or fat,
+Rosy with hope, or green with jealousy,
+Or pallid with despair--just as the gale
+Varies from North to South--from heat to cold!
+Oh, woman! woman! thou shouldst have few sins
+Of thine own to answer for! Thou art the author
+Of such a book of follies in a man,
+That it would need the tears of all the angels
+To blot the record out!
+
+[Enter MELNOTTE, pale and agitated.
+
+I need not tell thee! Thou hast heard--
+
+Mel. The worst!
+I have!
+
+Damas. Be cheer'd; others are fair as she is!
+
+Mel. Others! The world is crumbled at my feet!
+She was my world; fill'd up the whole of being--
+Smiled in the sunshine--walk'd the glorious earth--
+Sate in my heart--was the sweet life of life.
+The Past was hers; I dreamt not of a Future
+That did not wear her shape! Mem'ry and Hope
+Alike are gone. Pauline is faithless! Henceforth
+The universal space is desolate!
+
+Damas. Hope yet.
+
+Mel. Hope, yes!--one hope is left me still--
+A soldier's grave! Glory has died with love.
+I look into my heart, and, where I saw
+Pauline, see Death!
+
+[After a pause].--But am I not deceived?
+I went but by the rumor of the town;
+Rumor is false,--I was too hasty! Damas,
+Whom hast thou seen?
+
+Damas. Thy rival and her father.
+Arm thyself for the truth.--He heeds not.
+
+Mel. She.
+
+Will never know how deeply she was loved!
+The charitable night, that wont to bring
+Comfort to-day, in bright and eloquent dreams,
+Is henceforth leagued with misery! Sleep, farewell,
+Or else become eternal! Oh, the waking
+From false oblivion, and to see the sun,
+And know she is another's!
+
+Damas. Be a man!
+
+Mel. I am a man!--it is the sting of woe
+Like mine that tells us we are men!,
+
+Damas. The false one
+Did not deserve thee.
+
+Mel. Hush!--No word against her!
+Why should she keep, through years and silent absence,
+The holy tablets of her virgin faith
+True to a traitor's name! Oh, blame her not;
+It were a sharper grief to think her worthless
+Than to be what I am! To-day,--to-day!
+They, said "To-day!" This day, so wildly welcomed--
+This clay, my soul had singled out of time
+And mark'd for bliss! This day! oh, could I see her,
+See her once more unknown; but hear her voice.
+So that one echo of its music might
+Make ruin less appalling in its silence.
+
+Damas. Easily done! Come with me to her house;
+Your dress--your cloak--moustache--the bronzed hues
+Of time and toil--the name you bear--belief
+In your absence, all will ward away suspicion.
+Keep in the shade. Ay, I would have you come
+There may be hope? Pauline is yet so young,
+They may have forced her to these second bridals
+Out of mistaken love.
+
+Mel. No, bid me hope not!
+Bid me not hope! I could not bear again
+To fall from such a heaven! One gleam of sunshine,
+And the ice breaks and I am lost! Oh, Damas,
+There's no such thing as courage in a man;
+The veriest slave that ever crawl'd from danger
+Might spurn me now. When first I lost her, Damas,
+I bore it, did I not? I still had hope,
+And now I--I--(Bursts into an agony of grief.
+
+Damas. What, comrade! all the women
+That ever smiled destruction on brave hearts
+Were not worth tears like these!
+
+Mel. 'Tis past--forget it.
+I am prepared; life has no further ills!
+The cloud has broken in that stormy rain,
+And on the waste I stand, alone with Heaven.
+
+Damas. His very face is changed; a breaking heart
+Does its work soon!--Come, Melnotte, rouse thyself:
+One effort more. Again thou'lt see her.
+
+Mel. See her!
+There is a passion in that simple sentence
+That shivers all the pride and power of reason
+Into a chaos!
+
+Damas. Time wanes; come, ere yet It be too late.
+
+Mel. Terrible words--"Too late!" Lead on. One last look more, and then--
+
+Damas. Forget her!
+
+Mel. Forget her! yes--For death remembers not. [Exeunt.
+
+SCENE II.
+
+A room in the house of MONSIEUR DESCHAPPELLES; PAULINE seated in great
+dejection.
+
+Pauline. It is so, then. I must be false to Love,
+Or sacrifice a father! Oh, my Claude,
+My lover, and my husband! Have I lived
+To pray that thou mayest find some fairer boon
+Than the deep faith of this devoted heart--
+Nourish'd till now--now broken?
+
+Enter MONSIEUR DESCHAPPELLES.
+
+M. Deschap. My dear child,
+How shall I thank--how bless thee? Thou hast saved,
+I will not say my fortune--I could bear
+Reverse, and shrink not--but that prouder wealth
+Which merchants value most--my name, my credit--
+The hard--won honors of a toilsome life:--
+These thou hast saved, my child!
+
+Pauline. Is there no hope?
+No hope but this?
+
+M. Deschap. None. If, without the sum
+Which Beauseant offers for thy hand, this day
+Sinks to the west--to-morrow brings our ruin!
+And hundreds, mingled in that ruin, curse
+The bankrupt merchant! and the insolvent herd
+We feasted and made merry cry in scorn,
+"How pride has fallen!--Lo, the bankrupt merchant!"
+My daughter, thou hast saved us!
+
+Pauline. And am lost!
+
+M. Deschap. Come, let me hope that Beauseant's love--
+
+Pauline. His love!
+Talk not of love. Love has no thought of self!
+Love buys not with the ruthless usurer's gold
+The loathsome prostitution of a hand
+Without a heart? Love sacrifices all things
+To bless the thing it loves! He knows not love.
+Father, his love is hate--his hope revenge!
+My tears, my anguish, my remorse for falsehood--
+These are the joys that he wrings from our despair!
+
+M. Deschap. If thou deem'st thus, reject him! Shame and ruin
+Were better than thy misery;--think no more on't.
+My sand is wellnigh run--what boots it when
+The glass is broken? We'll annul the contract:
+And if to-morrow in the prisoner's cell
+These aged limbs are laid, why still, my child,
+I'll think thou art spared; and wait the Liberal Hour
+That lays the beggar by the side of kings!
+
+Pauline, No--no--forgive me! You, my honor'd father,--
+You, who so loved, so cherish'd me, whose lips
+Never knew one harsh word! I'm not ungrateful;
+I am but human!--hush! Now, call the bridegroom--
+You see I am prepared--no tears--all calm;
+But, father, talk no more of love
+
+M. Deschap. My child,
+Tis but one struggle; he is young, rich, noble;
+Thy state will rank first 'mid the dames of Lyons;
+And when this heart can shelter thee no more,
+Thy youth will not be guardianless.
+
+Pauline. I have set
+My foot upon the ploughshare--I will pass
+The fiery ordeal. [Aside.] Merciful Heaven, support me;
+And on the absent wanderer shed the light
+Of happier stars--lost evermore to me!
+
+Enter MADAME DESCHAPPELLES, BEAUSEANT, GLAVIS, and Notary.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  Why, Pauline, you are quite in deshabille--
+you ought to be more alive to the importance of this joyful occasion.
+We had once looked higher, it is true; but you see, after all,
+Monsieur Beauseant's father was a Marquis, and that's a great comfort.
+Pedigree and jointure!--you have them both in Monsieur Beauseant.  A young
+lady decorously brought up should only have two considerations
+in her choice of a husband; first, is his birth honorable? secondly,
+will his death be advantageous?  All other trifling details should
+be left to parental anxiety.
+
+Beau.  [approaching and waving aside Madame]. Ah, Pauline! let
+me hope that you are reconciled to an event which confers such
+rapture upon me.
+
+Pauline.  I am reconciled to my doom.
+
+Beau.  Doom is a harsh word, sweet lady.
+
+Pauline [aside.] This man must have some mercy--his heart
+cannot be marble.  [Aloud.] Oh, sir, be just--be generous!
+Seize a noble triumph--a great revenge!  Save the father,
+and spare the child.
+
+Beau.  [aside.] joy--joy alike to my hatred and my passion!
+The haughty Pauline is at last my suppliant.  [Aloud.] You ask
+from me what I have not the sublime virtue to grant--a virtue
+reserved only for the gardener's son!  I cannot forego my hopes
+in the moment of their fulfilment!  I adhere to the contract--
+your father's ruin or your hand.
+
+Pauline.  Then all is over.  Sir, I have decided.
+
+[The clock strikes one.
+
+Enter DAMAS and MELNOTTE.
+
+Damas.  Your servant, cousin Deschappelles.  Let me introduce
+Colonel Morier.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  [curtsying very low]. What, the celebrated hero?
+This is, indeed, an honor!  [MELNOTTE bows, and remains in the background.
+
+Damas [to Pauline]. My little cousin, I congratulate you.  What, no smile--
+no blush?  You are going to be divorced from poor Melnotte,
+and marry this rich gentleman.  You ought to be excessively happy!
+
+Pauline.  Happy!
+
+Damas.  Why, how pale you are, child!--Poor Pauline!  Hist--confide in me!
+Do they force you to this?
+
+Pauline.  No!
+
+Damas.  You act with your own free consent?
+
+Pauline.  My own consent--yes.
+
+Damas.  Then you are the most--I will not say what you are.
+
+Pauline.  You think ill of me--be it so--yet if you knew all--
+
+Damas.  There is some mystery--speak out, Pauline.
+
+Pauline [suddenly]. Oh, perhaps you.can save me! you are our relation--
+our friend.  My father is on the verge of bankruptcy--this day
+he requires a large sum to meet demands that cannot be denied;
+that sum Beauseant will advance--this hand the condition of the barter.
+Save me if you have the means--save me!  You will be repaid above!
+
+Damas.  aside.  I recant--Women are not so bad after all!
+[Aloud.] Humph, child!  I cannot help you--I am too poor.
+
+Pauline.  The last plank to which I clung is shivered.
+
+Damas.  Hold--you see my friend Morier:  Melnotte is his most
+intimate friend--fought in the same fields--slept in the same tent.
+Have you any message to send to Melnotte? any word to soften this blow?
+
+Pauline.  He knows Melnotte--he will see him--he will bear to him
+my last farewell--[approaches MELNOTTE] He has a stern air--
+he turns away from me--he despises me!--Sir one word I beseech you.
+
+Mel.  Her voice again!  How the old time comes o'er me!
+
+Damas [to Madame.] Don't interrupt them.--He is going to tell her
+what a rascal young Melnotte is; he knows him well, I promise you.
+
+Mme. Deschap.  So considerate in you, cousin Damas!
+
+[DAMAS approaches DESCHAPPELLES; converses apart with hint in dumb show--
+DESCHAPPELLES shows him a paper, which he inspects and takes.
+
+Pauline. Thrice have I sought to speak; my courage fails me.--
+Sir, is it true that you have known--nay, are
+The friend of--Melnotte.
+
+Mel. Lady, yes!--
+Myself And misery know the man!
+
+Pauline. And you will see him,
+And you will bear to him--ay--word for word,
+All that this heart, which breaks in parting from him,
+Would send, ere still for ever?
+
+Mel. He hath told me
+You have the right to choose from out the world
+A worthier bridegroom;--he forgoes all claim,
+Even to murmur at his doom. Speak on!
+
+Pauline. Tell him, for years I never nursed a thought
+That was not his;--that on his wandering way,
+Daily and nightly, pour'd a mourner's prayers.
+Tell him ev'n now that I would rather share
+His lowliest lot,--walk by his side, an outcast--
+Work for him, beg with him,--live upon the light
+Of one kind smile from him,--than wear the crown
+The Bourbon lost!
+
+Mel. [aside.] Am I already mad?
+And does delirium utter such sweet words
+Into a dreamer's ear? [Aloud]. You love him thus,
+And yet desert him?
+
+Pauline. Say, that, if his eye--
+Could read this heart,--its struggles, its temptations,--
+His love itself would pardon that desertion!
+Look on that poor old man,--he is my father;
+He stands upon the verge of an abyss!--
+He calls his child to save him! Shall I shrink
+From him who gave me birth?--withhold my hand,
+And see a parent perish? Tell him this,
+And say--that we shall meet again in Heaven!
+
+Mel. Lady--I--I--what is this riddle?--what
+The nature of this sacrifice?
+
+Pauline [pointing to DAMAS]. Go, ask him!
+
+Beau. [from the table]. The papers are prepared--we only need
+Your hand and seal.
+
+Mel. Stay, lady--one word more.
+Were but your duty with your faith united,
+Would you still share the low-born peasant's lot?
+
+Pauline. Would I? Ah, better death with him I love
+Than all the pomp--which is but as the flowers
+That crown the victim!--[Turning away.] I am ready.
+
+[MELNOTTE rushes to DAMAS.
+
+Damas. There--This is the schedule--this the total.
+
+Beau. [to DESCHAPPELLES, showing notes]. These
+Are yours the instant she has sign'd; you are
+Still the great House of Lyons!
+
+[The Notary is about to hand the contract to PAULINE, when MELNOTTE
+seizes it and tears it.
+
+Beau. Are you mad?
+
+M. Deschap. How, Sir! What means this insult?
+
+Mel. Peace, old man!
+I have a prior claim. Before the face
+Of man and Heaven I urge it; I outbid
+Yon sordid huckster for your priceless jewel. [Giving a pocket-book.
+There is the sum twice told! Blush not to take it:
+There's not a coin that is not bought and hallow'd
+In the cause of nations with a soldier's blood!
+
+Beau. Torments and death!
+
+Pauline. That voice! Thou art--
+
+Mel. Thy husband!
+
+[PAULINE rushes into his arms.
+
+Look up! Look up, Pauline!--for I can bear
+Thine eyes! The stain is blotted from my name.
+I have redeem'd mine honor. I can call
+On France to sanction thy divine forgiveness!
+Oh, joy!--Oh, rapture! By the midnight watchfires
+Thus have I seen thee! thus foretold this hour!
+And 'midst the roar of battle, thus have heard
+The beating of thy heart against my own!
+
+Beau. Fool'd, duped, and triumph'd over in the hour
+Of mine own victory! Curses on ye both!
+May thorns be planted in the marriage-bed!
+And love grow sour'd and blacken'd into hate
+Such as the hate that gnaws me!
+
+Damas. Curse away
+And let me tell thee, Beauseant, a wise proverb
+The Arabs have,--"Curses are like young chickens,
+[Solemnly.]  And still come home to roost!"
+
+Beau. Their happiness
+Maddens my soul! I am powerless and revengeless! [To MADAME.
+I wish you joy! Ha! ha! the gardener's son! [Exit.
+
+Damas [to GLAVIS]. Your friend intends to hang himself! Methinks
+You ought to be his travelling companion!
+
+Gla. Sir, you are exceedingly obliging! [Exit.
+
+Pauline. Oh
+My father, you are saved,--and by my husband!
+Ah, blessed hour!
+
+Mel. Yet you weep still, Pauline.
+
+Pauline. But on thy breast!--these tears are sweet and holy!
+
+M. Deschap. You have won love and honor nobly, sir!
+Take her;--be happy both!
+
+Mme. Deschap.I'm all astonish'd!
+Who, then, is Colonel Morier?
+
+Damas.You behold him!
+
+Mel. Morier no more after this happy day!
+I would not bear again my father's name
+Till I could deem it spotless! The hour's come!
+Heaven smiled on conscience! As the soldier rose
+From rank to rank, how sacred was the fame
+That cancell'd crime, and raised him nearer thee!
+
+Mme. Deschap. A Colonel and a hero! Well, that's something!
+He's wondrously improved! I wish you joy, sir!
+
+Mel. Ah! the same love that tempts us into sin,
+If it be true love, works out its redemption;
+And he who seeks repentance for the Past
+Should woo the Angel Virtue in the Future.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Lady of Lyons, Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+
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