Kophetua the Thirteenth - Julian Stafford Corbett

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If you have poisoned, it is you alone who can cure. See the pass we have come to. What will happen if he is not married this year? He will lose his kingdom; but that is a little thing to what I am losing. Cannot you understand what it is for me to see the ruin of my one son's life, to see his soul starving for want of a woman's love, to long unsatisfied to see his great nature ripened with a husband's and a father's joys, to hold his children on my knee, and know once more the holiest love a woman ever feels? Think, think what you do, and hold your hand before it is too late. You cannot be all stone. If you have one tender spot left give him back to me. Turbo, in the name of our old love, give him back to me!"

      She leaned forward towards him, her hands outstretched with a pleading gesture that was inexpressibly touching and tender. But Turbo remained immovable, save that his snarl grew more cruel. It was more than she could bear. She felt her eyes filling with tears, and she bowed her head in her hands. There was a silence between them for a minute, and then Turbo's cold voice spoke unchanged.

      "By what right," said he, "do you conjure me by our old love? You, who threw me away like a soiled glove."

      "I have no right," she murmured, without looking up. "It was a great sin, and none can know how I have suffered for it. But the crime was not his. At least you may have mercy on him."

      "And what right have you," he continued as coldly as ever, "to crave mercy for him? Did you show any to me? What is he to you that I was not a thousandfold? When did he ever love you more than his dogs? and I have burned for you like a fire! What devotion has he ever shown you? and I crawled to you like a slave! What has he ever sacrificed for you? and I gave more than my life for a little piece of your honour. How will you find reward for me, if to him you would give so much?"

      "You know not," she answered piteously, "you cannot know, what he is to me. All you say is true, yet God has made him more to me than all the world. Turbo, he is my son, my only child, and you will not understand."

      "Nor will you understand what I have felt," answered Turbo. "Yet I will tell you, Gretchen; try and conceive it. Think what I was when I crawled hither in your train to be a thing of loathing to every woman in the Court, and all because I had been too jealous of your honour. Think what a sweet reward of chivalry it was to lick up the crumbs you threw me to ease your tormenting conscience. I know what it cost you to invite me here. I know how you detested the sight of me. You did it as a penance, and I saw you saying, as you shuddered by me, 'God will forgive my sin, because I cast my broken meats to this Lazarus, and suffer my dogs to lick his sores.'"

      He paused a little, looking down on the crouching form without pity, while she shrank and sobbed with her hands before her face.

      "And whose silent voice was this?" he pursued. "It was my love that spoke. It was she who once had met me with a blush of mantling delight; it was she whose soft form I had clasped unresisting in my arms; it was her heart that had beaten warm and fast against mine; it was her lips that had drunk my kisses like sweet wine. You—you, who knew best how my heart could feel, what think you was in it then? But I bore it all uncomplaining, because I could not conceive of life away from you. I bore it and waited for some solace to come."

      "But why do you say all this?" the Queen broke in as he stopped again. "What good can it do to gall your wounds and mine like this?"

      "Listen, Gretchen. I will tell you all now you have driven me to begin. I say I waited for a solace to come. It was weary, hopeless work, but the solace came at last. I had won your husband's esteem. He believed the fine sentiments I always had ready for his ear. I believed them once myself. He did not see I was changed, and gave me his boy to make a man of. Then I saw in my grasp a thing to sweeten the bitterness of my life. I used to look at my charge, and see him beautiful as the daylight. I knew he would grow up a man that women would look on and love helplessly; and it was I—I, who was to make him worthy of their love! Can you not see what sweet solace there was for me there? 'They shall love him,' I said, 'they shall love him, but he shall never return their love. I will show him what they are. He shall know from his childhood what I learnt too late.' I swore they should never rejoice in the love of such a man as I would make him. I pictured them longing for him and eating their hearts. Was it not a gentle solace?"

      "It was revenge!" she cried bitterly; "it was unmanly revenge!"

      "Call it what you will," he continued; "perhaps you are right, I do not pretend to be anything but what I am. Yet I had another motive for what I did, and perhaps I am not wholly bad."

      "No, no, Turbo," she said eagerly, as though his words gave her a hope to clutch at. "God knows you are not that."

      "And yet," he went on, without interruption, "I think I am as bad as a man can be; perhaps a woman might be worse. You try to think as well of me as you can. It is only natural. I owe you no thanks for it; for it was you alone that made me what I am. It has been wisely said that no one can act from a wholly bad motive. That is all I mean. I loved the boy a little—as much indeed as I can love anything again—and perhaps I thought to save him from what I had suffered. To love a woman was my curse. Perhaps I strove a little to bless him with such a wisdom as would save him from that. That is what I have done for your son, Gretchen; and now, when I turn over the pages of my miserable life, there is at least one pleasant chapter where I may linger."

      She saw it was hopeless now, and rose to her feet. The one ray of light was gone again, but before she dismissed him she longed to know one thing. So she drew up her stately figure and faced him with the courage of a woman who felt she was being punished beyond her crime. He was a coward to her now.

      "Is that all you have to say to me, Chancellor?" she said, looking straight in his face.

      "It was your majesty who sought the interview," he replied. "It can end when you wish."

      "Is there nothing you have kept back? Have you not one blow in reserve?" He did not answer, so she went on, "I ask because you tell me that you have taught my son to look on women as the basest creatures of God. I, his mother, am the type in your eyes. Have you told him this too?"

      "Does your majesty insist on an answer?"

      "I insist on nothing. I am powerless to do so. I only thought you would not be coward enough to add this new torment to my punishment."

      "I am only what your majesty has made me."

      "Then God help us both," she said, checking an angry outburst that was on her lips. "You may retire."

      Her attempt had failed. It was her first thought when he was gone, as she sank into her chair again. She had failed, and only added to her load the terrible uncertainty whether her son had been told of her crime. Yet she knew she had gained something which she least expected to find. Till now she had pitied her old lover, and that had prevented her giving way to open hostility. She had stood in awe of him, too, but now it seemed different. He was a pitiless and craven bully. Why should she feel for him, who had no spark of sympathy for her? He was a thing to despise and not to fear. So when they entered to announce the supper-hour, she rose up calmly, knowing she had found a new courage for the struggle before her.

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