FullReads

He goes out. . . . She looks after him, and when he is gone holds out her arms towards the door. She makes a step towards it, and then stops, her hands falling to her sides. Her head droops for a moment or two, and then is slowly lifted. Her eyes sweep the room imploringly, and rest on the image of the Virgin. She goes over to it and kneels.

SHE
. Mary, Mother of God, give me a sign. I do not know what to do. Help me. I must decide. Love has entered my heart, and it may be that I cannot be a good woman any longer. You will be kind to me, and pity me, and send me a sign. Perhaps you will let me have my lover, for you are kind.

She crosses herself, rises, and looks around. She sees the box on the table, and puts her hand to her face with a gesture of sudden thought. She smiles.

Perhaps that is the sign!

She goes to the box and touches it.

He said it would plead for him. . . .

She opens it–and starts back with a gesture and a cry.

It is the sign!

With one hand over her heart she approaches it again. She takes out of the box and puts on the table a skull. . . . She stares at it a long while, and then turns with a shiver.

How cold it is here! Where are the lights?

She is compelled to look again.

I had never thought of death. My heart is cold, too. The chill of the grave is on me. Was I ever in love? It seems strange to remember. What is his name? I almost have forgotten. And he is waiting for me. I will show him this. We should have looked at it together. . . .

A silence, as her mood changes.

So he had planned it! He wanted to cast the chill of the grave upon our love. He saw it all as though he had been here. He sent us– this! How well he knew me–better than I knew myself. An old man’s cunning! To stop my pulses throbbing with love, and put out the fever in my eyes. A trick! Yes, but it suffices. One look into the eyeless face of Death turns me to ashes. I am no longer fit for love. . . .

She turns to the door.

Why does he not come for his answer?

She looks for a lingering moment toward the door, and then turns back again to the table. Her mood changes again.

A present from a husband to a wife!

She takes it up in her hands.

A lady’s mirror! What was it that he said? “Look long and well into this mirror, and profit by what you see,” My mirror from the Catacombs!

She sinks into a chair, holding it between her hands as it rests on the table. Her tone is trance-like.

I look. I see the end of all things. I see that nothing matters. Is that your message? Why do you grin at me? You laugh to think that my face is like your face–or will be soon–in a few years-tomorrow. You mock at me for thinking I am alive. I am dead, you say. Dead, like you. Am I?

She rises.

No. Not yet. For a moment–a little lifetime–I have life, I Have lips and eyelids made for kisses. I have hands that burn to give caresses, and breasts that ache to take them. I have a body made to suffer the deep stings of love. This flesh of mine shall be a golden web woven of pain and joy.

She takes up the skull again.

You were alive once, and a virgin-martyr? You denied yourself love? You sent away your lover? No wonder you speak so plainly to me now. Back, girl, to your coffin!

She puts the skull in the box, and closes the lid softly.

She turns to the door and waits. At last he enters.

HE.
( dejected )

You have–decided?

SHE.
Yes. I have decided.

HE.
I knew. It is no use. I will go.

He turns to the door.

SHE.
Wait!

( He turns back incredulously.)
I have decided to go with you.

( He stands stock-still.)
Don’t you understand? Take me. I am yours. Don’t you believe it?

HE.
Violante!

SHE.
It is hard to believe, isn’t it. I have been a child. Now I am a woman. And shall I tell you how I became a woman? ( She points to the box on the table.) I looked in my mirror there. I saw that I was beautiful–and alive. Tell me, am I not beautiful–and alive?

HE.
There is something terrible about you at this moment.
I am almost afraid of you.

SHE.
Kiss me, Luciano!