Yvette
Poor Séraphine! Dear Séraphine!
Séraphine
Alack!
They’re watching there!
Yvette
Oh, then away!
‘Tis death to weep for one who dies! Away!
Séraphine (weeping)
Oh, oh! When thou wast but a little thing
Thou hadst the coaxing ways! Alack! Alack!
Yvette
Poor Séraphine!
Séraphine
Dost mind the sunny path
Up the steep cliff to chapel in the woods?
Yvette
I mind—I mind—To thy warm hand I clung,
A little child. Now I must walk alone!
Séraphine
Oh, oh! And thou wast Goddess yesterday,
The fairest Goddess ever seen, they say!
Yvette
Speak not of that!
A Voice (calling)
Séraphine! Séraphine!
Yvette
It warns, that voice! Adieu, adieu, adieu!
Thou must begone!
Séraphine
If I do look at thee
I’ll stay forever here! Adieu! Adieu!—
Oh well-a-day! Oh well, oh well-a-day!
[Exit Séraphine.
Yvette
So late it grows, so long I’ve waited here!
I feel the morning air!—Will he not come?
O God! what if they’ve slain him otherwhere?
Ha! Death is busy far and near to-night!
They may have shot him yonder by the sea!
He may have sunk above, below this place!
Though Grégoire swore to me it would be here,
Here where they brought me would they bring him too,
And ere the set of moon we would be gone!—
O God! The cries of drowning men I’ve heard,
But not his voice among them! No, no, no!
He’ll make no moan, he will die loftily!—
Ah, God! only to see him ere I drown!
The Voices
Miséricorde!
Soldiers
Prenez garde! Halte là!
A Man’s Voice
I die who fought for France in bloody fields;
At Lille I fought, at Bordeaux, Avignon!
Yvette
A soldier!
[Another voice sings hoarsely.
The Voice
Tremblez, tyrans! et vous perfides,
L’opprobre de tous les partis!
Tremblez, vos projets parricides
Viennent enfin recevoir leur prix!
Tout est soldat pour vous combattre—
[The voice dies.
Yvette
A soldier!
Another Voice
Diantre! A whiff of grapeshot now,
A sabre-cut, or e’en a trampling charge!
But this cold death—
[The voice dies.
Yvette
A soldier!
Another Voice
Baste! I’ll tell
The Duc de Biron—
Yvette
All soldiers!
Enter De Vardes and Grégoire.
Grégoire
I tell you truth, monsieur—
De Vardes
So dense the throng
I have looked up and down for this long hour,—
This hour so long, this hour so fatal short,
Seeing it is my latest hour of life,
And that I cannot find her whom I seek!
Grégoire
She is not dead, monsieur!
De Vardes
So many are!
Grégoire
I would have known.
De Vardes
Some æons past thou wast
A serviceable fellow! Get thee gone!
And if thou findest her, I’ll give thee thanks,
I have no gold—
Grégoire
Monsieur le Baron—
De Vardes
Go!
[Exit Grégoire.
And if I find her not, if time shall fail,
Then through thy labyrinth, Eternity,
Love’s silken clue shall lead me safe at last—
Yvette
Monseigneur!
[De Vardes turns.
De Vardes
Yvette!
[Two soldiers of the Company of Marat pass beneath
the trees.
The First Soldier
‘Tis near the cockcrow!
What devil’s work we’ve had, and have!
The Second Soldier
Courage!
There are not so many now! Then home and sleep!
[They pass.
De Vardes
Oh, rest thee on thy lover’s breast, my heart!
My life, my love, my dear, my Duchess Jeanne!
Oh, ‘neath the moon thou’rt like a lily flower!
Yvette
René, René!
De Vardes
Thy lips!
[They kiss.
No, no, thou’rt not
That Vivien whom I did call thee once.
She was an evil fay; thou’rt pure and good!
Nor art thou that fair piteous Duchess Jeanne
Who died for love, whose look thou wearest now!
Thou never wast that woman star-begirt,
Whom they did hail as Goddess here in Nantes.
No Goddess thou, thou wan and broken flower!—
This is green Morbec, thou’rt the herd girl there
And I thy fisher, home from out the west.
My heart, my love, my silver rose, my douce!
Yvette
The flowers drifting from the fragrant trees!
Unearthly light—
[They kiss.
De Vardes
Now come, Eternity!
Voices from the River
It is so sad to die!—No, no, ‘tis sweet!
Adieu, adieu!
Soldiers
So, down! Ha, ha! Les Noces
Républicaines!
De Vardes
Les Noces Républicaines!
Yvette
‘Tis what they call this death—
Soldiers
So near the dawn!
Here are the tricoteuses.
Voices of Women
Not yet they’ve done!
Diantre! So many weddings in one night!
Here are the girls from Carrier’s barge at last!
Other Voices
Petit-Pierre! André!
Soldiers
Céleste—Nanon!
Zephine, ‘Toinette!
The Women
Vive le son! vive le son!
Dansons la Carmagnole!
A Tricoteuse
‘Tis light enough to knit! I’ll sit me down.
Fi! how the grass is trampled here!
A Soldier
Lalain and Lambertye—
A Woman
We left them there
Upon the barge, Lalain and Lambertye;
And they were drinking deep, and dicing too,
And Lalain had his arm round Angélique!
[They laugh.
De Vardes
Seest thou not through yonder trees the stone,
The Druid Stone where I did see thee first
When thou didst lie asleep upon the grass?
How long I stood and looked, thou dost not know!
Yvette
Beside the stream I slept and dreamed of thee!
I knew it not, but sure I dreamed of thee,
For in my sleep I thought I saw a king!
De Vardes
O love!—
Yvette
It is Morbec arises there!
The sands that stretch above the idle waves,
And all the little shells upon the shore!
De Vardes
The convent bell is ringing! Seest thou not
The fountain old, the fruit trees in the sun?
Yvette
Oh, life was never made for happiness!
The hour’s too short, the wine spills from the cup,
The blossom’s shaken ere we know ‘tis sweet!
Voices from the River
Miséricorde!
A Soldier
Those two have waited long!
Hi! Petit-Pierre, ‘tis time to marry them—
De Vardes
This Saint John’s Eve we’ll walk in other woods!
And we will find and name a castle fair,
And rose and heartsease we will plant thereby!
Here ends this road, but we must onward go.
There is a longer hour, a deeper cup!
The blossom’s gone, but we shall see the fruit.
And life was made for happiness, my douce!
A Voice from the River
Mourir pour la patrie,
Mourir pour la France.
De Vardes
It is a hymn of Chénier’s.—France! France!
Not since the days of Clovis hast thou lacked
Strong sons to die for thee, thou Lioness!
But now thy own brood hast thou eaten up,
And in the desert shalt thou roar alone,
Seeing the hunters nearer, nearer creep!
They’ll snare thee fast, they’ll make of thee a show!
France, France!—and yet thy sons shall ransom thee!
A Soldier
A length of rope, André!
Another
Petit-Pierre—
Yvette
They come!
De Vardes
I will go first.
Yvette
‘Tis not their way!
They’ll bind us fast together, throw us in
Bound fast together—
De Vardes
Is it so? Why, then
We are together still, my heart, my life!
We will not struggle as we sink to rest.
A Soldier
Man and woman, come your ways!
Second Soldier
The river
Waits, your marriage bed is spread!
[The knitting women sing from the river bank.
The Women
We are the tricoteuses!
Our wool we knit beneath the sun and moon!
Knit! knit! knitting every one!
We are the tricoteuses!
The skein we knit is ravelled out full soon!
Knit! knit! the knitting now is done!
Yvette
The light is growing in the east! My heart
It is so full I cannot speak to thee!
De Vardes
Put thou thine arms about my neck, Yvette,
And lay thy head upon thy lover’s heart,
And veil thine eyes with all thy shadowy hair.
Now let them bind us with what cords they will,
The spirit moves unbound, triumphant, free,
Not through the Loire, but through a vaster stream!
Oh, it is something dimly great to die!
And then to die together, is’t not sweet?
And not through illness, age, decrepitude,
But the armed man is ready for new wars.
And thou—
Yvette
I hear the lark!
A Soldier
Come, come away!
[Yvette and De Vardes move together towards
the river, into the mist and the shadow of the trees.
A Voice from the River
Vive la République!
CURTAIN
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
U · S · A
By Mary Johnston
- THE GODDESS OF REASON. A Drama. Tall 12mo, $2.00, net. Postage extra.
- AUDREY. With Illustrations in color. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
- PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
- TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations by Howard Pyle, E. B. Thompson, A. W. Betts, and Emlen McConnell. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston and New York.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
- Moved advertisement from first page to the last page.
- Silently corrected typographical errors.
- Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
- Drop caps were changed to large characters.