ACT II

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Scene I: A prison chamber, dim, built of stone

On the right stands a high, framed tapestry, the design partly worked; beside it, on a table, several harps and instruments of music. On the left, extending centre, the half-completed model of a structure resembling the temple in Act I, Scene I; beside it, wooden blocks and miniature beams; in front of it a stone tablet, upon which Egilstooped, with an instrument in his hand—is laboriously carving runes. Behind him stands Arfi, at times guiding the hand of his brother, who is evidently being overcome by weariness, against which he struggles for concentration. Finally Egil’s head droops, his hand falls, and his body sinks prone. At the door, Thordis enters.
THORDIS Asleep?
ARFI Quite, quite outworn.
THORDIS The task is done? The runes?
ARFI He has mastered them.
THORDIS [Sighs unconsciously.] How swift he learns!
ARFI Yes, hourly he hath grown through the strange months Since Ingimund entrusted him to us To dispossess the beast that plagues him.
THORDIS Look Now where he lies and dreams.
ARFI There lies a block Of chaos, for our wills to fuse and kindle Into a world, glowing with vital forms Of law and loveliness. Yea, Thordis, we— We are his being’s seasons, you and I; The sun and moon, the starshine and the dew, Of this stark heath and breeding moor of passion, And the large jurisdiction of our love Must ripen there the temperate growths of reason, And stablish the mind’s palaces.
THORDIS You speak In sadness.
ARFI Nay, in awe. The thought grows vast And awful.
THORDIS So? I do not feel it, I! I feel as elemental as the air, That holds secure within its crystal veins As many thousand summers and their blooms As the earth may yearn for.
ARFI ’Tis because you are Bounteous as the air, that from your presence all Take breath and power. Since you elected me Beside the altar stone, even I, that was A warped and ailing mannikin of woe, Prickling with sensibilities and pangs, Have felt myself exalted and at peace With this poor twisted mask of torse and limb, So simple it seems, so sane, so actual, That what I am was your immortal friend Elsewhere.
THORDIS And have you felt the same? We two Have walked eternal mountains hand in hand, And watched the morning of our little lives Break over our birth-hour, and we shall stand Together at the sundown, and behold The passion clouds of death grow pale.
ARFI And then We shall pass on together.
[In his sleep, Egil moans.]
THORDIS We forget; We must not leave him as we found him, love.
ARFI The wolf torments him still in sleep.
THORDIS Poor dreamer! And have you told him yet we are to wed To-morrow?
ARFI No; I dreaded to rouse up The old, jealous hate; for since my wound has healed, He seems to have forgotten that old feud, And looks on you and me no more, methinks, As keepers of his prison-house, but rather As his accomplices, that smuggle in Subtle devices for his liberation, To comprehend the use of which he expends All of his time and powers.
THORDIS Accomplices: It may be so; for he, that used to hang With looks of fire upon my merest motion, Will gaze beyond me now with eyes that gloat Blank as a miser’s on some buried hoard.
ARFI The gold he hoards is knowledge, and ’tis well, For that preoccupation may assuage The pain he else might feel, when he shall learn Our joy to-morrow.
[Egil cries out again.]
THORDIS Yearning heart! how deep It labours still in pain! Let us take care To acquaint him gently with our happiness. We must divert him.—Why, what’s here?
ARFI [Smiling.] A temple; We’re architects.
THORDIS He helped you build it?
ARFI I Am helping him.
THORDIS But how shall this avail To tame the wolf?
ARFI His genius is destruction; His breath and bondage—to annihilate; And therefore Egil must be shown to build And not destroy; of mean, chaotic things— These blocks—to make admired harmony, And shape, however rude, some tangible Earnest of his constructive will.
THORDIS I see; Who would have thought of it but you? Not I! [Egil moans.] Hark!
EGIL [Low, in his sleep.] Freyja!
THORDIS Did he call?
EGIL To let my woe condone my treachery And prove it justified, as if my heart Were not itself thy vassal, and its pangs Feudal to thy desires. And so I sinned Until to-day.
EGIL These are enigmas. Speak! How have the gods made answer to my prayer?
YORUL To-day I met with peasants in the wood Who drove their herds of swine all garlanded With green arbutus. Hailing me, they cried, “Why come ye not with us to Odin’s stone Against to-morrow’s wedding-day?” “Who weds?” Quoth I. “Our priestess Thordis weds the dwarf; Come with us!” Then I bit my arm and vowed That I would come to thee and speak my shame, And say, “Destroy me, lord, or let me serve thee.”
EGIL Peasants they were; they said—what was’t they said?
YORUL “To-morrow our priestess Thordis”—
EGIL Weds the dwarf! Those were thy words; thou shalt not change them now.
YORUL I would not change them.
EGIL Wouldst thou not? Well said! “To-morrow the maiden Thordis”—nay, not so; “To-morrow our priestess Thordis—weds the dwarf.” And all their swine were garlanded.—Was it so?
YORUL Even so, and I—
EGIL Even so!
YORUL I vowed to come—
EGIL [Laughing.] Knowledge—knowledge—that was my heart’s desire!
YORUL And make confession—
EGIL Why, here have I sat And licked the crumbs of knowledge from his hand As I had been his beagle; and for what? To grow! to be transmuted from a wolf Into my brother’s ape! To evolve a mind That knows at last the rapture it must lose. Oh, noble!
YORUL And make confession of my crime As of my love.
EGIL [Beginning to pace back and forth.] Ha!
YORUL For I loved her well, More than I dreamed. Love leads us from the truth And blinds us to ourselves.
EGIL Ah!
YORUL So when I Beheld that deed—forgive me!
EGIL Ah!
YORUL I spake Those traitor’s words that damned thee to this cell; For I was mad. O God! the memory Maddens me now.
EGIL Ha!
YORUL Look not on me so, For I am weak and passionate. Take care! The truth deserts me!—Nay, forgive me, master, ’Tis love is falsehood.
EGIL Ah!
YORUL I am thy liegeman, And what was mine was thine to take, unquestioned.
EGIL Ah!
YORUL Yet my soul would question, and I claimed her In spite of thee, for that same night— [Draws nearer and whispers.] I killed her. Mine! She is mine! Thou canst not touch her now. She lies out yonder with the virgin stars White and inviolable. Dead, she is mine Whom, living, ’twas thy title not to spare. Master, pity my triumph! Leave me yet This foible of my arrogance, for which Henceforth I am thy loyal slave, to do Or die for thee.
EGIL Wouldst serve me—ah?
YORUL Say how!
EGIL Seems thou canst kill.
YORUL Speak but that word.
[They look long at each other.]
EGIL ’Tis spoken. Go!—Stay!
YORUL What more?
EGIL Thine oath!—for sometimes, Yorul, The resolute grow sick with afterthought, And hot will cool—thine oath, to shun my sight, To speak not nor be spoken with, until ’Tis done.
YORUL [Raising his right arm.] By Frida’s cold and virgin hand, To shun my master’s sight, to speak not, nor Be spoken with, until ’tis done.
EGIL ’Tis sworn; Go now. [Yorul covers his face, and exit.] To-morrow she shall wed—not him. O dupe of lovers! Bond-slave to a dwarf! O gods, your fool! your fool!
[Throwing himself down beside the temple of blocks, he destroys it, insensate, and crouches, laughing, amid the ruins.]

Scene II

[The curtain rises presently upon the same: a taper burns low. Thordis, seated with a harp, is playing; near her Egil stands amid the block ruins. Ceasing to play, Thordis rises, looks at Egil (who stands oblivious), passes silently to the window and looks out.]


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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