Oscar Wilde: The Complete Works. Knowledge house
Oh, lost! lost! lost!
czar
Nay, you are safe here. It wants five hours still of dawn. To-morrow, I will lead you forth to the whole people——
vera
To-morrow——!
czar
Will crown you with my own hands as Empress in that great cathedral which my fathers built.
vera
[Loosens her hands violently from him, and ·130· starts up.] I am a Nihilist! I cannot wear a crown!
czar
[Falls at her feet.] I am no king now. I am only a boy who has loved you better than his honour, better than his oath. For love of the people I would have been a patriot. For love of you I have been a traitor. Let us go forth together, we will live amongst the common people. I am no king. I will toil for you like the peasant or the serf. Oh, love me a little too! [Conspirators murmur outside.]
vera
[Clutching dagger.] To strangle whatever nature is in me, neither to love nor to be loved, neither to pity nor—— Oh, I am a woman! God help me, I am a woman! O Alexis! I too have broken my oath; I am a traitor. I love. Oh, do not speak, do not speak—[kisses his lips]—the first, the last time. [He clasps her in his arms; they sit on the couch together.]
czar
I could die now.
vera
What does death do in thy lips? Thy life, thy love are enemies of death. Speak not of death [E: death.] Not yet, not yet.
·131· czar
I know not why death came into my heart. Perchance the cup of life is filled too full of pleasure to endure. This is our wedding night.
vera
Our wedding night!
czar
And if death came himself, methinks that I could kiss his pallid mouth, and suck sweet poison from it.
vera
Our wedding night! Nay, nay. Death should not sit at the feast. There is no such thing as death.
czar
There shall not be for us. [Conspirators murmur outside.]
vera
What is that? Did you not hear something?
czar
Only your voice, that fowler’s note which lures my heart away like a poor bird upon the limed twig.
·132· vera
Methought that someone laughed.
czar
It was but the wind and rain; the night is full of storm. [Conspirators murmur outside.]
vera
It should be so indeed. Oh, where are your guards? where are your guards?
czar
Where should they be but at home? I shall not live pent round by sword and steel. The love of a people is a king’s best body-guard.
vera
The love of a people!
czar
Sweet, you are safe here. Nothing can harm you here. O love, I knew you trusted me! You said you would have trust.
vera
I have had trust. O love, the past seems but some dull grey dream from which our souls have wakened. This is life at last.
·133· czar
Ay, life at last.
vera
Our wedding night! Oh, let me drink my fill of love to-night! Nay, sweet, not yet, not yet. How still it is, and yet methinks the air is full of music. It is some nightingale, who, wearying of the south, has come to sing in this bleak north to lovers such as we. It is the nightingale. Dost thou not hear it?
czar
Oh, sweet, mine ears are clogged to all sweet sounds save thine own voice, and mine eyes blinded to all sights but thee, else had I heard that nightingale, and seen the golden-vestured morning sun itself steal from its sombre east before its time for jealousy that thou art twice as fair.
vera
Yet would that thou hadst heard the nightingale. Methinks that bird will never sing again.
czar
It is no nightingale. ’Tis love himself singing for very ecstasy of joy that thou ·134· art changed into his votaress. [Clock begins striking twelve.] Oh, listen, sweet, it is the lover’s hour. Come, let us stand without, and hear the midnight answered from tower to tower over the wide white town. Our wedding night! What is that? What is that?
[Loud murmurs of Conspirators in the street.]
vera
[Breaks from him and rushes across the stage.] The wedding guests are here already! Ay, you shall have your sign! [Stabs herself.] You shall have your sign! [Rushes to the window.]
czar
[Intercepts her by rushing between her and window, and snatches dagger out of her hand.] Vera!
vera
[Clinging to him.] Give me back the dagger! Give me back the dagger! There are men in the street who seek your life! Your guards have betrayed you! This bloody dagger is the signal that you are dead. [Conspirators begin to shout below in the street.] Oh, there is not a moment to be lost! Throw it out! Throw it out! Nothing can save me now; ·135· this dagger is poisoned! I feel death already in my heart.
czar
[Holding dagger out of her reach.] Death is in my heart too; we shall die together.
vera
Oh, love! love! love! be merciful to me! The wolves are hot upon you! you must live for liberty, for Russia, for me! Oh, you do not love me! You offered me an empire once! Give me this dagger now! Oh, you are cruel! My life for yours! What does it matter! [Loud shouts in the street, “Vera! Vera! To the rescue! To the rescue!”]
czar
The bitterness of death is past for me.
vera
Oh, they are breaking in below! See! The bloody man behind you! [Czar turns round for an instant.] Ah! [Vera snatches dagger and flings it out of window.]
conspirators
[Below.] Long live the people!
·136· czar
What have you done!
vera
I have saved Russia. [Dies.]
Curtain.
The
Duchess of
Padua.
by
Oscar Wilde
Privately printed as manuscript, 1883;
premiered January 26th, 1891
at the Broadway Theatre, New York
[The text follows the
1909 Methuen & Co. edition.]
contents.