PROLOGUE.
PROLOGUE.
MARQ. Manuel.—Manuel.
MAN. You called?
MARQ. Of what were you thinking so intently?
MAN. A little plan that I imagine will surprise Napoleon somewhat.
MARQ. He will at least reciprocate. He has prepared a surprise for us.
MAN. How so?
MARQ. I have just heard that we are to be sent to-morrow to the castle of Valencay.
MAN. The devil!
MARQ. As “guests of France,” our host feels that he must provide better lodgings for us.
MAN. Safer ones, you mean.
MARQ. I warned you that your zeal for Ferdinand would lead us to prison.
MAN. Long live his Majesty, Ferdinand the VII!
MARQ. And Mariana must share our prison.
MAN. Better that than freedom with others.
MARQ. You talk like a youth. Mariana has French blood in her veins.
MAN. She has Spanish blood in her veins too. She is your niece and my cousin.
MARQ. She has no sympathy for Ferdinand.
MAN. Because she has been taught to distrust him. Will Captain Durand’s company remain here or escort us to Valencay.
MARQ. I do not know.
MAN. It is incredible that you let her speak to that man.
MARQ. He is not a lunatic.
MAN. He is worse: he is aposeur. You know very well that a girl’s admiration is always captured by such a tale of heroism as he has been at pains to have circulated.
MARQ. What heroism?
MAN. An absurd story that Napoleon sent him with a message to the Empress; that five or six rowdy Spaniards, thinking to make a grandcoup, and under the impression that they were military instructions, waylaid him and demanded the papers upon him.
MARQ. And then?
MAN. Oh, then my gallant proved himself. He switched out his sword and bade them advance. And the men, not recognizing him as a hero, advanced and were slain.
MARQ. It was a brave act.
MAN. If one accredit it, as you so generously do.
MARQ. Manuel, I have used, and will use my influence in your favor. Beyond that I can do nothing.
MAN. Say will do nothing. (exit.)
MARQ. Poor boy! Poor hot-head! (enter Mariana.)
MAR. What a beautiful day, uncle!
MARQ. Hedged in as we are, I cannot see it.
MAR. But overhead the way is all ours.
MARQ. You are very light-hearted these days.
MAR. There are so many beauties on beauties, and still out of sight and hearing, an infinite comfort, as if God had centered the Universe into a nesting hollow for us.
MARQ. You know, Mariana, that I wish you to marry Manuel.
MAR. Uncle—
MARQ. You know that your father wished it; left you his fortune only upon that condition.
MAR. Yes, I know.
MARQ. Think of these things. Do not let the caprice of a moment weigh against the wishes of your dead. (exit; Mariana sits absorbed in thought; enter Jean Durand; he has his left arm lightly bandaged; he comes up behind her, puts his right arm around her.)
MAR. (starting) Oh! It is you.
JEAN. I am jealous of those long thoughts of yours.
MAR. Are you?
JEAN. Jealous of all things that claim you; the winds that whisper to you all day long, the dreams that make you smile or sigh, the moon-beams that enfold you at night, the thoughts that bid you pay attention.
MAR. I know a magician who converts all those things to his use.
JEAN. I know an enchantress who makes him believe he does.
MAR. He praises my eyes, my lips, my hair, and I lie awake at night thinking about the happiness and the wonder of their being beautiful to him.
JEAN. The wonder would be in their being anything else.
MAR. Even for my chance words, he creates meanings of wisdom and wit.
JEAN. Because, like the sun’s rays, they beautify even the smallest things.
MAR. I am afraid he does not hear me; that he does not see me.
JEAN. He loves you, sweetheart. God has put no appraiser in the world half so infallible as Love. Do you know why I was jealous of that long thought of yours?
MAR. No. (she bends her head and lightly touches with her lips his wounded arm.)
JEAN. Because it seemed a sad thought.
MAR. It was. I was thinking of Pedro.
JEAN. Your brother?
MAR. Yes. Do you know, Jean, I am glad I cannot have the fortune my father left.
JEAN. I am glad that I shall be forever in your debt for the privilege of making you another.
MAR. Even if I had not met you, I could never have married Manuel, and, in that case, the fortune would have reverted to the Church.
JEAN. In that case it would have been your brother’s happiness and privilege to have shared his with you.
MAR. My brother was not even mentioned in the will. That is why I am glad I cannot have the money.
JEAN. What was his offense?
MAR. Nothing, that we know of. He is not really my brother, you know; only an adopted brother.
JEAN. French?
MAR. No, Spanish; adopted by my parents before my birth, when they had despaired of having a child of their own.
JEAN. Then he is older than you?
MAR. Ten years.
JEAN. Where is he now?
MAR. We do not know. Five years ago, (when we left France to go to Spain, after my father’s death) he ceased answering my letters. I begged him to write to me—to love me, but—
JEAN. He is an ingrate.
MAR. Oh, he is not. He is hurt and humiliated by father’s will. He had been treated as a son during his life-time; he must have supposed he would still be treated as a son when father died. My heart aches for poor Pedro.
JEAN. He ought to be a happy man.
MAR. Happy?
JEAN. You pray for him—long for him—love him.
MAR. I pray for others.
JEAN. For me?
MAR. My best prayers.
JEAN. And long for me sometimes?
MAR. Always—when you give me a chance.
JEAN. If I were forced to give you a long chance?
MAR. Jean—
JEAN. Let me speak to your uncle, sweetheart.
MAR. It would be useless.
JEAN. He is kind to you; he loves you.
MAR. He loves Manuel better. He is determined on the marriage.
JEAN. But if he saw your happiness is at stake?
MAR. He would call it caprice. You see my father’s will makes it easy for him to think desire, duty.
JEAN. Then marry me, sweetheart. Give me the right to make your peace secure. All that you have dreamed of me I will try to be; all that you have hoped for me I will work to achieve; all that you believe of me I will die to prove. Marry me, sweetheart. Say the yes that is in your eyes.
MAR. (closing them) My eyes are tell-tales which should be punished.
JEAN. (kissing them) Your eyes are altar lamps to Truth. Say the yes that is in your heart. (Mariana throws her arms around him) My sweetheart! To-night?
MAR. Oh, Jean—
JEAN. This is our last day here.
MAR. Last!
JEAN. To-morrow Ferdinand and his Court will be removed to the castle of Valencay.
MAR. And you? Do you accompany us?
JEAN. I do not know. I have not yet received my orders.
MAR. You will not leave me, Jean?
JEAN. Does one leave the light, air, warmth, life? I shall come to you this afternoon.
MAR. My uncle is calling—
JEAN.Au revoir, sweetheart. (kisses her; exit Mariana; Beluche enters R. U.)
BEL. (to sentry at back) Is Captain Durand here?
JEAN. (overhearing him, and turning up stage from L. I. E.) Ah, Beluche!
BEL. You seem very happy. Are you not yet tired of your Spanish watch?
JEAN. Tired? I wish it might last forever.
BEL. We shall have you Spanishized next; praising the senors; adoring the senoritas.
JEAN. The senoritas—
BEL. Thank heaven, I can hear your rhapsodies seldom.
JEAN. You’ll force me to think soon, Beluche, that some fair senorita has jilted you heartlessly.
BEL. Would the thought suggest any caution?
JEAN. You admit?
BEL. I admit that to deserve is better than to possess.
JEAN. Well parried!
BEL. And, as against polite Spaniards, I admit to a preference for honest cannibals.
JEAN. (laughing) And the New World?
BEL. And the New World. I have heard tales of it to make the heart beat and the eye lighten.
JEAN. Fairy tales.
BEL. Matters of fact; of wonderful fortune-making, of breathless daring.
JEAN. Accomplished by whom?
BEL. The Carthagenians (fiercely) against the Spanish.
JEAN. Oh—the Caribbean sea exploits? Pirates.
BEL. I beg your pardon. Privateers.
JEAN. I believe youarein earnest.
BEL. I am going there.
JEAN. To the New World?
BEL. To the New World. Will you go with me?
JEAN. My dear Beluche, impossible.
BEL. Then good-by. I must hurry back. (exit)
JEAN. Wait a moment. Beluche—What an eccentric! (looking towards Mariana’s window) But he does not know that I have found a new world already. (exit; enter Pedro R, U. E.; he sees Jean exiting; looks after him gloomily)
PED. Captain Durand! More officious than ever I presume, since the Emperor has been pleased to praise him. Confound the luck! To have to break off in the midst of my furlough for cursed gambling debts and threatened disgrace. However, my young Captain, you’ve been a sufficient thorn in my side; you won’t have a chance to step in my shoes yet awhile.—I must see Manuel. Re-enforced as he will be by Mariana’s fortune, his friendship appeals to me. (enter Manuel) How goes the world with my brother-in-law elect?
MAN. Pedro! It is ages since we have heard from you. Mariana has been in much sorrow about it.
PED. I hope then to give her added joy on her wedding day.
MAN. Her wedding day?
PED. The earliest time fixed by her father for her marriage is at hand. I assume your eagerness to profit by it.
MAN. You assume hers too?
PED. Why not?
MAN. For the most potent of all reasons. She does not love me.
PED. She says so. Women are fond of entreaty.
MAN. I have entreated.
PED. They are fond of mastery. You are faint-hearted, despondent.
MAN. I am reasonable.
PED. You speak your defeat. There is no other man, is there?
MAN. Curse him!
PED. What sort of man?
MAN. Oh, a young swashbuckler, lately promoted to a Captaincy by Napoleon,—Jean Durand, by name.
PED. That man!
MAN. What of him?
PED. She must not marry him. One thing more: do you love her?
MAN. Pedro d’Acosta!
PED. Your pardon. I had not thought of the fortune. Your own is sufficient guarantee against financial motives.
MAN. I love her, certainly.
PED. Then—I shall be able to help you.
MAN. She will not listen to you.
PED. I shall not ask her to do so. Do not let her know that I am in Bayonne.
MAN. You wear a French Colonel’s uniform. She will hear of you through Captain Durand.
PED. She will hear only of his Colonel, whose name is Tolosa.
MAN. But you?
PED. I am Colonel Tolosa. Five years ago I dropped the name of my adopted parents, and assumed that of the little Spanish town in which I was born.
MAN. You joined the French army!
PED. For which you shall be thankful. To return to Mariana: there is no use arguing with a woman in love. We must pit our wits against Durand’s, letting her know nothing of our interference. Go to her. Press your suit, besiege her with entreaty. Determine to win and you shall.
MAN. If you speak truth—
PED. There is no if but in yourself. Sweep aside all denial, rush her along the current of your will; make her breathless, powerless. When she recovers, she will admire, love you.
MAN. Pedro—
PED. No thanks, I’ll help you, if you will help yourself.
MAN. When shall I see you again?
PED. Leave that to me.Au revoir.(exit)
MAN. (enthusiastically) If Pedro be right!—(enter Mariana with a basket for gathering flowers)
MAR. Uncle has been seeking you, Manuel.
MAN. (advancing towards her) And you?
MAR. (purposely misunderstanding) He did not need me.
MAN. Haveyoubeen seeking me?
MAR. Why should I?
MAN. Why, indeed! You know that my love needs no bidding; that it is—
MAR. That it is very unbidden.
MAN. That it is the sum of my existence; that it has ruined my life for all things save worship of one idea—you; longing for one good—you; hatred for one opposition—yours.
MAR. I must gather my flowers.
MAN. (savagely) You are in a cutting mood. Allow me to hold your basket for you.
MAR. It will do as well on the ground, (she lets it fall to the ground; Manuel picks it up.) I prefer it on the ground.
MAN. I prefer to hold it.
MAR. But as the basket is mine—(goes to take it.)
MAN. (retaining it) And you are mine—
MAR. You know my answer to that.
MAN. My dearest, in the days when our great, great uncle was a corsair—
MAR. Spare me the recital of his feats.
MAN. He would have made short shrift of your little sins of hesitancy and doubt.
MAR. Hesitancy!
MAN. He would have seized you, body and soul. He would have understood no denial. He would have seen no sense in it.
MAR. A corsair you called him. Another name for thief.
MAN. For poetry, freedom, reckless bravery!
MAR. For underhandedness and skulking cowardice. I abhor his very name.
MAN. That is impossible. It is also mine.
MAR. Your boast of it does you no credit.
MAN. Mariana, my best beloved, do not drive me to desperation. I am patient.
MAR. I am not, especially when you seek to overawe me by telling me what a notorious pirate would do in your place.
MAN. But I—
MAR. Please give me my basket.
MAN. You are not so severe on all adventurers; Captain Durand, for instance.
MAR. Captain Durand!
MAN. Yes. Do you suppose I do not see how he has hoodwinked you into admiration, love perhaps, by his tales of valor and gallantry.
MAR. Please give me my basket.
MAN. You shall not put me aside in this manner. You shall realize that I love you and that you shall love me.
MAR. Why such vehemence since you are confident?
MAN. Because you are cruel; because day by day you torture me.
MAR. I have never given you any hope.
MAN. You give me none now?
MAR. I give you none now.
MAN. Ha! ha! “Sweep aside all denial; rush her along the current of your will. When she recovers, she will admire, love you.”
MAR. What?
MAN. There is your basket. (exit)
MAR. What did he mean? I wonder—Oh, I wish Jean would come. (enter Jean) Well?
JEAN. Bad news. Col. Tolosa has returned.
MAR. He orders you—?
JEAN. To remain here.
MAR. Oh!
JEAN. He must have divined, you see, that I wanted to go.
MAR. Despicable!
JEAN. But he cannot divine the glory and happiness that will be mine in remaining, since you will remain with me.
MAR. You don’t think, Jean, that there would be any hope of gaining uncle’s consent?
JEAN. There would be scant time in which to gain it. (enter Pedro and Manuel at back)
MAN. Manuel, too—You have no idea how insistent Manuel has become, almost to the point of threats.
JEAN. Ah, put an end to such unpleasant possibilities, sweetheart. Let us be married to-night. Father Cuthbert is here—has just arrived.
MAR. Father John Cuthbert?
JEAN. The same. Do you know him?
MAR. He was our parish priest in the old days in France. Pedro and I used to walk with him often.
JEAN. He is one of my best friends.
MAR. Will he be here long?
JEAN. Unfortunately, no. He is only going through—will be leaving in the early morning for America. But are you not glad, sweetheart, that he is here to marry us?
MAR. Yes.
JEAN. I had almost forgotten. I must get a ring.
MAR. (touching the ring on his left hand) This will do.
JEAN. (taking it off) What! This little silver thing? It is all battered.
MAR. (taking it from him) But more precious so than if chased by the finest workers of France; bent, and nearly broken, and stained with blood, it is an earnest of my lover’s valor; of the fearless worth that won him his Emperor’s commendation. (she kisses the ring, and slips it on her finger)
JEAN. Did I not tell you, sweetheart, that your thoughts, like the sun’s rays, beautify even the smallest things? Now listen. To-night, whenever my best opportunity offers, I shall come to you. I shall make my presence known by softly singing the refrain of “Mon Coeur a Toi.” If all be well, come down to me in the garden.
MAR. Oh, Jean, there is a great white tempest in my soul! It awes me.
JEAN. There is a greater one it seems to me in mine, but it does not awe me. It builds me—up to heaven. For the last time, my precious one, good-by.
MAR. Good-by.
JEAN. To-night. (he kisses her; exeunt Jean and Mariana)
MAN. (advancing) You see the result of “sweeping aside all denial.” It has hurried her into marriage.
PED. It has done nothing of the sort. They were bound to find some excuses for marrying.
MAN. They shall not marry. I’ll warn my father—lock her in—
PED. And ruin your chances forever.
MAN. I have no chances.
PED. If you will give me Mariana’s fortune for my good offices, I’ll ensure you the defeat of your rival.
MAN. Mariana’s fortune!
PED. What I shall do requires care and planning, and is not unaccompanied by risk. You have an ample fortune of your own. I have, thanks to my father’s kindness, nothing—less than nothing, since I am deeply in debt and in danger of disgrace, even dismissal from the army.
MAN. But Mariana’s fortune—
PED. Will be yours.
MAN. I cannot promise that.
PED. Then I cannot risk what I had thought of.
MAN. It would be useless. I have no chance.
PED. Certainly Durand seems to have left you none.
MAN. Damn him!
PED. He was not even ruffled by Mariana’s confession of your desperate wooing.
MAN. I’ll kill him!
PED. (amused) As for your threats, he did not consider them.
MAN. (turning fiercely upon him) Stop that!
PED. (coolly and indifferently) Good-by. (going)
MAN. Pedro! Will you not see the folks and use your influence with Mariana? She might listen to you.
PED. I think it very unlikely.
MAN. Wait a moment. What if your plan should fail?
PED. What plan?
MAN. About Durand.
PED. It would not fail.
MAN. Mariana, of course, would know nothing of our agreement?
PED. Certainly nothing.
MAN. Very well then. I do not believe it possible for me to win her, but it will be a satisfaction to have outwitted Durand.
PED. (handing him a pencil and paper upon which he has been writing.) Will you sign this?
MAN. My word is sufficient.
PED. Certainly. Yet as a matter of business, I prefer to have your signature.
MAN. I do not believe anything will come of it. (signs)
PED. Your marriage will come of it. But there is no time to lose. Come with me. (exeunt; night has come on, the moon is rising; enter Jean)
JEAN. Dellonne is on watch. I’ll—Why, Beluche! (enter Beluche)
BEL. I could not leave without asking you once more to come with me.
JEAN. How leave? Have you resigned from the army?
BEL. I have. I am disgusted with Napoleon’s manner of treating the Spaniards; sick of inaction. Come with me.
JEAN. (laughs) My dear Beluche, will the fair senorita allow your departure?
BEL. What senorita?
JEAN. The creator of this restlessness, this love-hate.
BEL. Do I look like a fool?
JEAN. Heaven forbid!
BEL. Heaven has nothing to do with it. I am a fool.
JEAN. My dear Beluche—
BEL. I bear on my shoulders a convict’s brand—not a regular mark, but the scars of lashings. I am a young man no longer because seven of my years have been spent in prison—a prison to which my fair senorita and her Spanish hypocrites sent me. And it is still a daily humiliation to me that she has a miniature of me to show her friends; the fool whose face she placed upon a serpent’s head—a fitting locket truly. Probably Antonio Cardez dangles it at his watch chain now—the fat, insentient beast!—the very kind of man sure to exhibit jewelry on his expansive front.
JEAN. My dear Beluche, I had no idea—
BEL. You have none now—about Spaniards. Are you not under command of a Spanish colonel?
JEAN. He must be French at heart since he is a commanding officer in Napoleon’s army. Do you know him?
BEL. No, I have never seen him.
JEAN. I will confess to you that without reason—simply on instinct—the best support for your plea lies in my intuition about that one Spaniard.
BEL. Ah!
JEAN. But the fact remains. I have no cause to hate the Spanish. If I should ever have, and if my chances of avenging myself should be forever lost to me in the Old World, then I will go with you to the New.
BEL. Then! To-morrow and her dupes! Good by. Remember that I liked you. (exit)
JEAN. Poor Beluche! (sentry passes at back). Dellonne—(sentry salutes). I’ll relieve you of duty for awhile. Hold yourself in readiness to return at a signal from me. (Sentry salutes and exit; Jean looks after him, turns to Mariana’s window and is advancing towards it, when Manuel appears.)
MAN. Good evening, Captain.
JEAN. Good evening.
MAN. (descending into the garden) Do you go with us to-morrow?
JEAN. I do not.
MAN. Have a cigar? (offering him a cigar)
JEAN. Thanks. I have just had one.
MAN. Not with me. Try one. (Jean takes a cigar)
JEAN. Thanks. (Manuel offers him a light, then lights his own cigar)
MAN. I suppose there is no telling when we shall see you again?
JEAN. We may meet.
MAN. In case we don’t, will you remember that I am much indebted to you?
JEAN. For what?
MAN. Oh, a thousand things. You do not, I see, estimate rightly the appreciation you provoke.
JEAN. I—
MAN. Shall we walk? (Jean stands dazed) Are you ill?
JEAN. Nothing.... A little dizziness.... (staggers to bench near table, sits and sinks face downward upon the table; Manuel watches him, then beckons to a servant who enters, bearing a bottle of liquor; exit servant; Manuel drinks from the bottle, then empties the remainder of the contents upon the ground and places the bottle on the table by Jean. He then exchanges his hat and cloak for those of Jean, goes to Mariana’s window and softly sings Mon Coeur a Toi. After a moment, her door opens and Mariana comes down to him with extended hands. Manuel hastily wraps her cloak around her and leads her down the garden path. Exeunt Manuel and Mariana. Then from the distance, comes a cry of fear and horror.)
MAR. (without) Jean! Jean! (Jean starts up at the cry, but falls dazed and helpless, back into a troubled sleep. A short silence; then a sudden alarm sounds. Lights flash. A cry behind the scenes: “The prisoners have escaped!” and a group of soldiers, led by Colonel Tolosa, rushes on the scene.)
PED. Who is on watch?
DELL. Captain Durand. He relieved me half an hour ago. (they see Jean asleep; Pedro goes up to him; picks up the bottle at his side and lets it fall to the ground. Jean raises his head; struggles to his feet.)
PED. Captain Durand, you are drunk. You were sleeping at your post; you have allowed your prisoners to escape. What have you to say in your own defense?
JEAN. (staggering semi-conscious to centre.) Mariana.... (falls.)
PED. (looking him over coldly.) Remove his sword and order a summons prepared for a court-martial.
CURTAIN.