No, Geneviva. I have little speech;
 But when the secret crept into my soul
 I loved you, it was not to Marcomir
 I spoke: and if another secret now
 Is breaking through my nature, do not think
 That he will be the spokesman.
 [noticing her agitation] Hermann died
 I think by his own hand; he courted death.
 What can a man prize in captivity?
 [as Geneviva grows more agitated]
 There! I will speak no more of him. Your maids—
 [turning to summon her attendants].

GENEVIVA.

Weave the great arras. They have no concern
 With me, except in silence to array.
 You thought I cared to gossip with my maids!
 But summon Marcomir.

[She looks after Carloman, who walks out, stroking his chin].

To think he dared
 To lean above me with those burning eyes
 Unconscious what they glassed. I did not learn
 From him the magic that was born in me,
 I learnt it when great Hermann passed in chains,
 And he is dead. I promised I would go
 To-day and visit him. How could he die?
 [Marcomir enters.]
 Why, you are deadly pale!
 [She recoils, and says in a faint voice]
 It is the hour
 Fixed for our visit.

MARCOMIR.

But the man is dead.

GENEVIVA.

What does he look like now? Is he so changed
 I must not see him?

MARCOMIR.

Death is not a fact
 To touch with simile. What looks he like?
 All men in moonlight mind one of the moon,
 All dead men look like death.

GENEVIVA.

He lies in chains?
 Are the brows restful?

MARCOMIR.

Had you been a man
 You would have asked me how he came to die,
 No more!

GENEVIVA.

I had forgotten ... then he perished
 As Carloman reports?
 [Marcomir turns away.] You cannot bear
 That I should mourn him?

MARCOMIR.

[facing her again] Oh, a lifetime, if
 It please you! I am going to a place
 Where love is held of little consequence.

GENEVIVA.

Then you are bound for hell.

MARCOMIR.

[between his teeth] But you are safe!

GENEVIVA.

Keep me recluse from love, as men from war,
 You spoil my faculties. Where will you go?

MARCOMIR.

To any coast you have not trod, wherever
 The flowers are different from the flowers you wear,
 To some Italian convent. Geneviva,
 I am not framed to see you minister
 To other men; but when long years are passed,
 It may be in a fresco, I shall find
 Some figure of a lady breaking bread
 To mendicants, and kneel and pray to her
 That she may bless me also: but till then ...
 [covering his eyes]
 O God, you shall not tempt me, though I feel
 Just how your hair burns in a fiery wreath
 Above your brow, and how your eyes are soft
 With blue, and deeper blue, as through the hills
 The valley stretches azure to the close.
 You shall not tempt me, though I almost hear
 Your bosom taking record of your breath,
 And I could sit and watch that tide of life
 Rising and falling through the lovely curves,
 Till I was lost in ecstasy.

GENEVIVA.

Oh, hush!
 But then you love me. It was in a fit ...?

MARCOMIR.

Of devilish malice.

GENEVIVA.

In a jealous fit?
 You shall remain.

[She goes up to him: he takes her hands in his, kisses them coldly, and puts them away.]

MARCOMIR.

I did not answer you—
 His face was drawn.

GENEVIVA.

And I had given you charge
 Of the great restive soldier.

MARCOMIR.

True, I swerved;
 I have confessed my sin, and now must bear
 The settling of my spirit on the Cross.

GENEVIVA.

So many favours!

MARCOMIR.

But you kissed his brows—
 What need was there of that?

GENEVIVA.

You love me then,
 You love me! Would you murder him again
 If I again should touch him with my breath?

MARCOMIR.

Again, again.

GENEVIVA.

And Carloman complains
 I am indifferent to him!

MARCOMIR.

He forgets;
 But, Geneviva, if a thousand years
 Broke over me, when Time had cleared his storms
 I should look up and know your face by heart.

GENEVIVA.

Then stay, stay, stay with me!
 Have you once thought
 Through the long years how it will fare with me—
 Nothing to watch except the sullen waste
 Of my own beauty? Marcomir, I hold
 If there be judgment it shall be required
 Of women what delight their golden hair
 Has yielded—have they put its wealth to use,
 Or suffered it to lie by unenjoyed?
 I rather would die spendthrift, nothing left
 Of my rich heritage, save memory
 Of the wild, passing pleasure it conferred
 Than keep it untransmuted. And you choose
 To take from me the only eyes that care
 To mirror mine! I have so often thought
 That some day I shall drown myself: the water
 Reflects me with desire.

MARCOMIR.

[bitterly, as he turns away] A soul so wide
 In innocence, so regal, on the day
 He wedded, he appointed me your squire!

GENEVIVA.

[following him]
 He keeps you with him, you can read his heart,
 You know what way he travels, when his soul
 Flies homeward. Tell me—’tis the only knowledge
 I crave for in the world—does Carloman
 Still hold me in affection? I beseech,
 Tell me the truth. He loves you——

MARCOMIR.

Yes, he loves,
 He does not use me for his purposes.
 [perceiving PEPIN]
 Not Carloman—his brother on the stair
 Laughs at your light behaviour. So you lose
 One last poor opportunity.

[Re-enter Pepin.]

PEPIN.

Good even.
 Well, my fair sister, you have heard the news,
 Wept [glancing at Marcomir]
 and found consolation.
 But to think
 The son of Charles Martel should be a monk!

GENEVIVA.

A monk!—a pilgrim?

PEPIN.

No, a cloistered monk.

MARCOMIR.

What is his crime?

PEPIN.

Oh, no impiety;
 A crazy fit: he must get near to God,
 So puts away all intercourse with man:
 And while I rule he thinks to thrill the world
 With some convulsive movement from his prayers.
 Ha, ha! But you shall queen it as before.

GENEVIVA.

Go fetch my husband and remain without,
 For he alone can speak to me of this.
[Exit Pepin.]
[turning to Marcomir]
 You are a murderer: this act of yours
 Will leave me very lonely.

MARCOMIR.

I repent.

GENEVIVA.

There is no sin like that of looking back
 When one has sinned. Whatever one attempts
 It perfected in patience brings reward.
 My Carloman will prosper: his whole heart
 Is gone away from me.
 Why there he is,
 Passing in zealous talk with Boniface.

[Carloman and Boniface cross from right to left at the back of the hall. Geneviva intercepts them.]

Farewell!

CARLOMAN.

[arrested] O Geneviva!

GENEVIVA.

Not my name,
 Never my name again. Say, holy father—
 They take new titles who renounce the world?

CARLOMAN.

[with flushing eagerness]
 Then you too will renounce it? oh, the joy!
 There is a strange new passion in your eyes.
 Speak to me ... but you cannot! I could take
 No leave of you in your fierce, worldly mood;
 Now all is changed.

GENEVIVA.

Yes, all. How long ago
 It seems since we were married!

CARLOMAN.

Think the day
 Is yet to come, the joy is all before.
 [taking her face between his hands]
 O Boniface, this is no temptress’ face!
 God has been with her, and she starts as I
 Free in the great endeavour.

BONIFACE.

Do you choose,
 Lady, a mere retreat among the nuns,
 Or, like your husband, do you break all ties
 That bind you to the earth?

GENEVIVA.

They all are broken:
 Except ... oh, I forgot! I have a son.

CARLOMAN.

[nervously]
 Pepin will guard him.

GENEVIVA.

Are you dreaming still?
 Fool, fool! I tell you Pepin shall decide
 What robes I wear, and haply suffer me
 Sometimes at entertainments to look on,
 And see young Charlemagne praised. But for my child
 He shall remain with me.
 [Re-enter Pepin] All is confirmed.
 I shall not quit the world. How easily
 A man is duped with God upon the brain!
 I shall continue in my womanhood,
 Giving, receiving pleasure.
 I have heard
 So much and suddenly; for Marcomir
 Is to become a monk.
 [to Carloman] Give him no welcome.
 He takes the cowl a penitent; he is not,
 Like you, a white-souled wayfarer.
 [to Pepin] How strange
 That we must pair together, you and I;
 I know so little of your tastes and now
 I must be often in your company.

MARCOMIR.

My lord, speak to her.

PEPIN.

Come, an end to this!
 Brother, if you are wise you will not leave
 This woman in the world. Convents are made
 To tame the pride of such and keep them cool.

CARLOMAN.

O Geneviva, for my sake, and yet....
 Not so, beloved.

[He turns away and covers his face.]

GENEVIVA.

Marcomir, farewell!
 You will be monks together. When my husband
 Forgets me, you must bring me to his thoughts
 Recall that day we hunted and you fell;
 I stayed to tend you; but the whole live day
 My voice rang through the woods for Carloman
 Until I wearied you; he was not found;
 But you remember how I cried for him.

MARCOMIR.

Consul, have pity on her. I am free,
 But she has need of love.

GENEVIVA.

O insolence!—
 The virginal chill heart!—No intercession!
 [to Carloman]
 Our marriage is dissolved. How great a stranger
 You have become to me! I should grow mad
 To breathe by you another single hour.
 [to Boniface]
 And you, old man, who stand with such meek eyes,
 Though you have robbed me of my name of wife,
 And made my boy an orphan—go your way!
 I cannot curse you, but I prophesy:
 Dishonour motherhood, plant virgin homes,
 Give to religion the sole charge of love,
 And you will rear up lust of such an ice
 As Death himself will shiver at.
 [to Pepin] Lead on!
 Now there is hope you may become a King,
 There should be some high festival to keep
 To-night in everlasting memory.
 Lead me away.

PEPIN.

Brother, in all—good luck!
 And may the Convent’s fare be angels’ food.
 Your wife’s tears soon will dry.

[Exeunt Pepin and Geneviva.]

CARLOMAN.

The thing to do
 Is simply just the sole thing to be done.
 There should have been no tears, no taking leave;
 A freeman can do anything he will.

MARCOMIR.

Take me along with you.

CARLOMAN.

Ah where—to God?
 Why would you come with me?

MARCOMIR.

You must not ask.
 Some rival slain in haste—the ebbing back
 Of hatred that has left the face exposed
 Of a dead foe I spared not. I have struck
 On something in my nature that is foul,
 That goes on breeding in me, that will taint
 My fellows: I must purify my heart
 With lonely fasting and continual prayers.
 My hope is all in Time: though Time defaces
 So much of what is fair, it dims the spots:
 I who am just a murderer to myself,
 Who close my eyes upon a sleeping guilt
 And waking, answer to the bloody name,
 Have some faint courage that a transformation
 Will come ...

CARLOMAN.

Oh, do not put your trust in Time;
 Put on at once forever leap to God!
 Have done with age and death and faltering friends,
 Assailing circumstance, the change of front
 That one is always meeting in oneself,
 The plans, the vacillations—let them go!
 And you will put on immortality
 As simply as a vesture.

MARCOMIR.

And you think
 Of starting—when?

CARLOMAN.

Now: we are on the road.

ACT II

Scene: An audience-chamber in the old Lateran Palace, Rome.

[Enter Zacharias and Damiani.]

DAMIANI.

And so the Lombard yielded ...?

ZACHARIAS.

Not to me,
 But to my God. Each man of woman born
 Is fashioned in God’s outer image: few
 Are so compact of Him they feel His strength
 Within their body as a force that pushes
 Its way and dissipates the hollow crowd
 Of godless men; but from my youth I prayed
 I might be like Him in my inward parts
 As in my form of dust: and there was nothing
 That stood against me. It was simple joy
 To meet the opposition of my foes,
 To meet triumphant wickedness, to meet
 The deadliest torpor; for they had an end
 As night and mist are ended by the sun.

DAMIANI.

You act on a dread thought.

ZACHARIAS.

The thought conceived,
 Life has no terrors. It is emptiness
 Alone that makes us timid and inert:
 Fill up the void, we go from strength to strength
 In our possession. When I worship God,
 The pyx upon the altar where He dwells
 Has not a closer hold on Him than I.

DAMIANI.

No wonder that men fear you in their hearts,
 And yield when you approach them!

ZACHARIAS.

But you questioned
 About my recent journey to the hills,
 That I might save Perugia from the craft
 Of Rachis, the vile Lombard King. I went
 And faced him ... all his treachery gave way,
 The town was mine again; and more than this,
 All his ambition vanished—at my feet
 He promised to renounce the world itself,—
 Like Carloman, the Consul of the Franks,
 Who left his wife, his honours and his home
 To dwell on Mount Soracte.

DAMIANI.

Carloman—
 His fame spreads every day.

ZACHARIAS.

I felt a warmth
 Myself to see the man, and when he came
 A welcome rushed out from my soul, such life
 Tempered the resolution of his face.
 God dwelt in him—yet fitfully it seemed,
 A fever in his blood, not constant health,
 Unalterable habit, as with those
 To whom God is the same now, yesterday,
 And always. As I blessed him I became
 Disquieted—his long hands were never still.
 He needed discipline, such changeless hours
 As make the spirit stable. Now he seeks
 Another meeting, so this letter says,
 To ask me some petition for himself,
 And for his friend.

DAMIANI.

He leaves a noble brother,
 Religious and undaunted, in his place,
 Pepin the Mayor.

ZACHARIAS.

On whom I build my trust.
 I would that Rachis left upon his throne
 A brother who could stand by Carloman’s:
 But Astolph has a rebel’s countenance,
 The only eyes that never bent to mine.
 He looked upon me as a robber might
 Who saw in God’s own altar but a setting
 To jewels that he coveted. And when
 Rachis knelt down and vowed to leave the world,
 And there was silence in the Lombard host,
 I heard a ringing laugh, and Astolph shook
 His yellow hair with joy. I never saw
 So mad a gesture—God will strike him down!

[Enter a Cardinal.]

CARDINAL.

The Lombard King would see you.

ZACHARIAS.

Lead him in,
 We will receive our penitent. [Exit Cardinal.]
 This Rachis
 Shall make your Convent famous: Mount Casino
 Shall have its royal monk.

DAMIANI.

A gracious thought.

[Enter Rachis with two Cardinals.]

ZACHARIAS.

Welcome! You come to Rome to take your vow.

RACHIS.

I come to ask your counsel first. My father,
 I have no trust in Astolph, he is stubborn,
 Heretical, and will bewitch my people
 From all allegiance to your holy throne.
 I speak of certain danger.

ZACHARIAS.

Ah!

RACHIS.

I love you,
 I love the peaceful service of the cell,
 And each affection tears me bitterly:
 Yet for the sake of keeping my wild hordes
 Your servants, I am willing to renounce
 The pleasure of the cloister, if your wisdom
 Absolve me from my promise and restore me
 To Kingship over Astolph.

[He watches Zacharias with the utmost anxiety.]

ZACHARIAS.

What you plead
 Is politic ... but, stay, I rob the Church
 Of glory if I think of what is safe;
 God can protect His own—the fiercer battle,
 The heavenlier triumph. He received your oath,
 Not I.

RACHIS.

You are His Pope, you can remit ...
 And you would rule in peace.

ZACHARIAS.

How dare you tempt
 The Lord your God, upon whose earthly throne
 I sit? Get from me! One short month ago
 You were yourself blaspheming in the land,
 A heretic like Astolph and a slave
 To your own lust. Begone! The convent walls
 Alone can save you. If you drop away
 There is no limit to the punishment
 God deals to such backslider; you become
 Perjured for all eternity.

RACHIS.

Alas,
 Is there no service that will soften God,
 Except the cloister?

ZACHARIAS.

Fool and hypocrite,
 There is no way to Him except the path
 A man’s best moment finds, and you are lost
 If you regret your vow—to break from it
 Is utterly impossible: a star
 Can no more leave the music of its course
 Than any mortal break his word to God.
 Your soul is bound for ever.

[Enter Carloman and Marcomir with another Cardinal.]

Dearest son,
 I greet you with God’s blessing,
 [to Marcomir] And on you
 Confer the same. How prospers Carloman?

CARLOMAN.

Oh, well, dear father.

ZACHARIAS.

He who keeps his knees
 Is Rachis, King of Lombardy. He takes
 Like you the fearful vow to be a monk.

RACHIS.

[to Carloman] Protect me, help me, holy Carloman;
 Let me return with you. I am distracted ...
 A perjured man God will destroy in hate.

CARLOMAN.

Come with me, come ... but not to make confession,
 To tabulate your crimes; come to the cloister,
 To solitude, the simple light of God.
 You must not dream, because your wickedness
 Has waked you to disgust, that you are called.
 The trouble is not betwixt God and sin;
 Sin does not shut God out, it is the lantern
 Flashing across the dark void of the world—
 Most penetrative pulses; use the flare
 For such poor revelation as it yields.
 But this new life ... you must arise and go
 Toward it as disencumbered as of old
 Abraham went up to Ur, all his possessions
 Kept for him in a mystery out of sight.
 To dream of them is faith, and to forget
 All one has touched and handled, loved or wrought
 Of sin or righteousness, the perfect sign
 The new man is begotten.

RACHIS.

Pray for me,
 If you are in God’s favour. Teach me how
 To win a better throne than I have lost,
 Safe from my brother, a perpetual seat
 High in the heavens.

CARLOMAN.

[with a ringing laugh] If that is your ambition,
 Oh then, how clear it is that you are damned,
 Wherever you may lodge!

RACHIS.

Ha—terrible!
 You must not curse me; as the meanest slave
 I am content to cringe ...

CARLOMAN.

And heaven detests
 A beggar’s whining. God is made for Kings,
 Who need no favours, come to Him for nothing
 Except Himself.

RACHIS.

But does that satisfy?
 You who have borne the Convent many months—

ZACHARIAS.