'SAVONAROLA' BROWN
I like to remember that I was the first to call him so, for, though he
always deprecated the nickname, in his heart he was pleased by it, I
know, and encouraged to go on.
Quite apart from its significance, he had reason to welcome it. He had been unfortunate at the font. His parents, at the time of his birth, lived in Ladbroke Crescent, XV. They must have been an extraordinarily unimaginative couple, for they could think of no better name for their child than Ladbroke. This was all very well for him till he went to school. But you can fancy the indignation and delight of us boys at finding among us a newcomer who, on his own confession, had been named after a Crescent. I don’t know how it is nowadays, but thirty-five years ago, certainly, schoolboys regarded the possession of ANY Christian name as rather unmanly. As we all had these encumbrances, we had to wreak our scorn on any one who was cumbered in a queer fashion. I myself, bearer of a Christian name adjudged eccentric though brief, had had much to put up with in my first term. Brown’s arrival, therefore, at the beginning of my second term, was a good thing for me, and I am afraid I was very prominent among his persecutors. Trafalgar Brown, Tottenham Court Brown, Bond Brown--what names did we little brutes NOT cull for him from the London Directory? Except how miserable we made his life, I do not remember much about him as he was at that time, and the only important part of the little else that I do recall is that already he showed a strong sense for literature. For the majority of us Carthusians, literature was bounded on the north by Whyte Melville, on the south by Hawley Smart, on the east by the former, and on the west by the latter. Little Brown used to read Harrison Ainsworth, Wilkie Collins, and other writers whom we, had we assayed them, would have dismissed as ‘deep.’ It has been said by Mr. Arthur Symons that ‘all art is a mode of escape.’ The art of letters did not, however, enable Brown to escape so far from us as he would have wished. In my third term he did not reappear among us. His parents had in some sort atoned. Unimaginative though they were, it seems they could understand a tale of woe laid before them circumstantially, and had engaged a private tutor for their boy. Fifteen years elapsed before I saw him again.
This was at the second night of some play. I was dramatic critic for the Saturday Review, and, weary of meeting the same lot of people over and over again at first nights, had recently sent a circular to the managers asking that I might have seats for second nights instead. I found that there existed as distinct and invariable a lot of second-nighters as of first-nighters. The second-nighters were less ‘showy’; but then, they came rather to see than to be seen, and there was an air, that I liked, of earnestness and hopefulness about them. I used to write a great deal about the future of the British drama, and they, for their part, used to think and talk a great deal about it. People who care about books and pictures find much to interest and please them in the present. It is only the students of the theatre who always fall back, or rather forward, on the future. Though second-nighters do come to see, they remain rather to hope and pray. I should have known anywhere, by the visionary look in his eyes, that Brown was a confirmed second-nighter.
What surprises me is that I knew he was Brown. It is true that he had not grown much in those fifteen years: his brow was still disproportionate to his body, and he looked young to have become ‘confirmed’ in any habit. But it is also true that not once in the past ten years, at any rate, had he flitted through my mind and poised on my conscience.
I hope that I and those other boys had long ago ceased from recurring to him in nightmares. Cordial though the hand was that I offered him, and highly civilised my whole demeanour, he seemed afraid that at any moment I might begin to dance around him, shooting out my lips at him and calling him Seven-Sisters Brown or something of that kind. It was only after constant meetings at second nights, and innumerable entr’acte talks about the future of the drama, that he began to trust me. In course of time we formed the habit of walking home together as far as Cumberland Place, at which point our ways diverged. I gathered that he was still living with his parents, but he did not tell me where, for they had not, as I learned by reference to the Red Book, moved from Ladbroke Crescent.
I found his company restful rather than inspiring. His days were spent in clerkship at one of the smaller Government Offices, his evenings--except when there was a second night--in reading and writing. He did not seem to know much, or to wish to know more, about life. Books and plays, first editions and second nights, were what he cared for. On matters of religion and ethics he was as little keen as he seemed to be on human character in the raw; so that (though I had already suspected him of writing, or meaning to write, a play) my eyebrows did rise when he told me he meant to write a play about Savonarola.
He made me understand, however, that it was rather the name than the man that had first attracted him. He said that the name was in itself a great incentive to blank-verse. He uttered it to me slowly, in a voice so much deeper than his usual voice, that I nearly laughed. For the actual bearer of the name he had no hero-worship, and said it was by a mere accident that he had chosen him as central figure. He had thought of writing a tragedy about Sardanapalus; but the volume of the “Encyclopedia Britannica” in which he was going to look up the main facts about Sardanapalus happened to open at Savonarola. Hence a sudden and complete peripety in the student’s mind. He told me he had read the Encyclopedia’s article carefully, and had dipped into one or two of the books there mentioned as authorities. He seemed almost to wish he hadn’t. ‘Facts get in one’s way so,’ he complained. ‘History is one thing, drama is another. Aristotle said drama was more philosophic than history because it showed us what men WOULD do, not just what they DID. I think that’s so true, don’t you? I want to show what Savonarola WOULD have done if--’ He paused.
‘If what?’
‘Well, that’s just the point. I haven’t settled that yet. When I’ve thought of a plot, I shall go straight ahead.’
I said I supposed he intended his tragedy rather for the study than for the stage. This seemed to hurt him. I told him that what I meant was that managers always shied at anything without ‘a strong feminine interest.’ This seemed to worry him. I advised him not to think about managers. He promised that he would think only about Savonarola.
I know now that this promise was not exactly kept by him; and he may have felt slightly awkward when, some weeks later, he told me he had begun the play. ‘I’ve hit on an initial idea,’ he said, ‘and that’s enough to start with. I gave up my notion of inventing a plot in advance. I thought it would be a mistake. I don’t want puppets on wires. I want Savonarola to work out his destiny in his own way. Now that I have the initial idea, what I’ve got to do is to make Savonarola LIVE. I hope I shall be able to do this. Once he’s alive, I shan’t interfere with him. I shall just watch him. Won’t it be interesting? He isn’t alive yet. But there’s plenty of time. You see, he doesn’t come on at the rise of the curtain. A Friar and a Sacristan come on and talk about him. By the time they’ve finished, perhaps he’ll be alive. But they won’t have finished yet. Not that they’re going to say very much. But I write slowly.’
I remember the mild thrill I had when, one evening, he took me aside and said in an undertone, ‘Savonarola has come on. Alive!’ For me the MS. hereinafter printed has an interest that for you it cannot have, so a-bristle am I with memories of the meetings I had with its author throughout the nine years he took over it. He never saw me without reporting progress, or lack of progress. Just what was going on, or standing still, he did not divulge. After the entry of Savonarola, he never told me what characters were appearing. ‘All sorts of people appear,’ he would say rather helplessly. ‘They insist. I can’t prevent them.’ I used to say it must be great fun to be a creative artist; but at this he always shook his head: ‘I don’t create. THEY do. Savonarola especially, of course. I just look on and record. I never know what’s going to happen next.’ He had the advantage of me in knowing at any rate what had happened last. But whenever I pled for a glimpse he would again shake his head:
‘The thing MUST be judged as a whole. Wait till I’ve come to the end of the Fifth Act.’
So impatient did I become that, as the years went by, I used rather to resent his presence at second nights. I felt he ought to be at his desk. His, I used to tell him, was the only drama whose future ought to concern him now. And in point of fact he had, I think, lost the true spirit of the second-nighter, and came rather to be seen than to see. He liked the knowledge that here and there in the auditorium, when he entered it, some one would be saying ‘Who is that?’ and receiving the answer ‘Oh, don’t you know? That’s "Savonarola" Brown.’ This sort of thing, however, did not make him cease to be the modest, unaffected fellow I had known. He always listened to the advice I used to offer him, though inwardly he must have chafed at it. Myself a fidgety and uninspired person, unable to begin a piece of writing before I know just how it shall end, I had always been afraid that sooner or later Brown would take some turning that led nowhither--would lose himself and come to grief. This fear crept into my gladness when, one evening in the spring of 1909, he told me he had finished the Fourth Act. Would he win out safely through the Fifth?
He himself was looking rather glum; and, as we walked away from the theatre, I said to him, ‘I suppose you feel rather like Thackeray when he’d “killed the Colonel”: you’ve got to kill the Monk.’
‘Not quite that,’ he answered. ‘But of course he’ll die very soon now. A couple of years or so. And it does seem rather sad. It’s not merely that he’s so full of life. He has been becoming much more HUMAN lately. At first I only respected him. Now I have a real affection for him.’
This was an interesting glimpse at last, but I turned from it to my besetting fear.
‘Haven’t you,’ I asked, ‘any notion of HOW he is to die?’
Brown shook his head.
‘But in a tragedy,’ I insisted, ‘the catastrophe MUST be led up to, step by step. My dear Brown, the end of the hero MUST be logical and rational.’
‘I don’t see that,’ he said, as we crossed Piccadilly Circus. ‘In actual life it isn’t so. What is there to prevent a motor-omnibus from knocking me over and killing me at this moment?’
At that moment, by what has always seemed to me the strangest of coincidences, and just the sort of thing that playwrights ought to avoid, a motor-omnibus knocked Brown over and killed him.
He had, as I afterwards learned, made a will in which he appointed me his literary executor. Thus passed into my hands the unfinished play by whose name he had become known to so many people.
I hate to say that I was disappointed in it, but I had better confess
quite frankly that, on the whole, I was. Had Brown written it quickly
and read it to me soon after our first talk about it, it might in some
ways have exceeded my hopes. But he had become for me, by reason of that
quiet and unhasting devotion to his work while the years came and went,
a sort of hero; and the very mystery involving just what he was about
had addicted me to those ideas of magnificence which the unknown is said
always to foster.
Even so, however, I am not blind to the great merits of the play as it stands. It is well that the writer of poetic drama should be a dramatist and a poet. Here is a play that abounds in striking situations, and I have searched it vainly for one line that does not scan. What I nowhere feel is that I have not elsewhere been thrilled or lulled by the same kind of thing. I do not go so far as to say that Brown inherited his parents’ deplorable lack of imagination. But I do wish he had been less sensitive than he was to impressions, or else had seen and read fewer poetic dramas ancient and modern. Remembering that visionary look in his eyes, remembering that he was as displeased as I by the work of all living playwrights, and as dissatisfied with the great efforts of the Elizabethans, I wonder that he was not more immune from influences.
Also, I cannot but wish still that he had faltered in his decision to make no scenario. There is much to be said for the theory that a dramatist should first vitalise his characters and then leave them unfettered; but I do feel that Brown’s misused the confidence he reposed in them. The labour of so many years has somewhat the air of being a mere improvisation. Savonarola himself, after the First Act or so, strikes me as utterly inconsistent. It may be that he is just complex, like Hamlet. He does in the Fourth Act show traces of that Prince. I suppose this is why he struck Brown as having become ‘more human.’ To me he seems merely a poorer creature.
But enough of these reservations. In my anxiety for poor Brown’s sake that you should not be disappointed, perhaps I have been carrying tactfulness too far and prejudicing you against that for which I specially want your favour. Here, without more ado, is
SAVONAROLA
A TRAGEDY
By L. Brown
ACT I
SCENE: A Room in the Monastery of San Marco, Florence.
TIME: 1490, A.D. A summer morning.
Enter the Sacristan and a Friar.
Sacr.
Savonarola looks more grim to-day
Than ever. Should I speak my mind, I’d say
That he was fashioning some new great scourge
To flay the backs of men.
Fri.
‘Tis even so.
Brother Filippo saw him stand last night
In solitary vigil till the dawn
Lept o’er the Arno, and his face was such
As men may wear in Purgatory--nay,
E’en in the inmost core of Hell’s own fires.
Sacr.
I often wonder if some woman’s face,
Seen at some rout in his old worldling days,
Haunts him e’en now, e’en here, and urges him
To fierier fury ‘gainst the Florentines.
Fri.
Savonarola love-sick! Ha, ha, ha!
Love-sick? He, love-sick? ‘Tis a goodly jest!
The CONfirm’d misogyn a ladies’ man!
Thou must have eaten of some strange red herb
That takes the reason captive. I will swear
Savonarola never yet hath seen
A woman but he spurn’d her. Hist! He comes.
[Enter Savonarola, rapt in thought.]
Give thee good morrow, Brother.
Sacr.
And therewith
A multitude of morrows equal-good
Till thou, by Heaven’s grace, hast wrought the work
Nearest thine heart.
Sav.
I thank thee, Brother, yet
I thank thee not, for that my thankfulness
(An such there be) gives thanks to Heaven alone.
Fri. [To Sacr.]
‘Tis a right answer he hath given thee.
Had Sav’narola spoken less than thus,
Methinks me, the less Sav’narola he.
As when the snow lies on yon Apennines,
White as the hem of Mary Mother’s robe,
And insusceptible to the sun’s rays,
Being harder to the touch than temper’d steel,
E’en so this great gaunt monk white-visaged
Upstands to Heaven and to Heav’n devotes
The scarped thoughts that crown the upper slopes
Of his abrupt and austere nature.
Sacr.
Aye.
[Enter Lucrezia Borgia, St. Francis of Assisi, and Leonardo da Vinci. Luc. is thickly veiled.]
St. Fran.
This is the place.
Luc. [Pointing at Sav.]
And this the man! [Aside.] And I--
By the hot blood that courses i’ my veins
I swear it ineluctably--the woman!
Sav.
Who is this wanton?
[Luc. throws back her hood, revealing her face. Sav. starts back, gazing at her.]
St. Fran.
Hush, Sir! ‘Tis my little sister
The poisoner, right well-belov’d by all
Whom she as yet hath spared. Hither she came
Mounted upon another little sister of mine--
A mare, caparison’d in goodly wise.
She--I refer now to Lucrezia--
Desireth to have word of thee anent
Some matter that befrets her.
Sav. [To Luc.]
Hence! Begone!
Savonarola will not tempted be
By face of woman e’en tho’ ‘t be, tho’ ‘tis,
Surpassing fair. All hope abandon therefore.
I charge thee: Vade retro, Satanas.
Leonardo
Sirrah, thou speakst in haste, as is the way
Of monkish men. The beauty of Lucrezia
Commends, not discommends, her to the eyes
Of keener thinkers than I take thee for.
I am an artist and an engineer,
Giv’n o’er to subtile dreams of what shall be
On this our planet. I foresee a day
When men shall skim the earth i’ certain chairs
Not drawn by horses but sped on by oil
Or other matter, and shall thread the sky
Birdlike.
Luc.
It may be as thou sayest, friend,
Or may be not. [To Sav.] As touching this our errand,
I crave of thee, Sir Monk, an audience
Instanter.
Fri.
Lo! Here Alighieri comes.
I had methought me he was still at Parma.
[Enter Dante.]
St. Fran. [To Dan.]
How fares my little sister Beatrice?
Dan.
She died, alack, last sennight.
St. Fran.
Did she so?
If the condolences of men avail
Thee aught, take mine.
Dan.
They are of no avail.
Sav. [To Luc.]
I do refuse thee audience.
Luc.
Then why
Didst thou not say so promptly when I ask’d it?
Sav.
Full well thou knowst that I was interrupted
By Alighieri’s entry.
[Noise without. Enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting.]
What is this?
Luc.
I did not think that in this cloister’d spot
There would be so much doing. I had look’d
To find Savonarola all alone
And tempt him in his uneventful cell.
Instead o’ which--Spurn’d am I? I am I.
There was a time, Sir, look to ‘t! O damnation!
What is ‘t? Anon then! These my toys, my gauds,
That in the cradle--aye, ‘t my mother’s breast--
I puled and lisped at,--‘Tis impossible,
Tho’, faith, ‘tis not so, forasmuch as ‘tis.
And I a daughter of the Borgias!--
Or so they told me. Liars! Flatterers!
Currying lick-spoons! Where’s the Hell of ‘t then?
‘Tis time that I were going. Farewell, Monk,
But I’ll avenge me ere the sun has sunk.
[Exeunt Luc., St. Fran., and Leonardo, followed by Dan. Sav., having watched Luc. out of sight, sinks to his knees, sobbing. Fri. and Sac. watch him in amazement. Guelfs and Ghibellines continue fighting as the Curtain falls.]
ACT II
TIME: Afternoon of same day.
SCENE: Lucrezia’s Laboratory. Retorts, test-tubes, etc. On small Renaissance table, up c., is a great poison-bowl, the contents of which are being stirred by the First Apprentice. The Second Apprentice stands by, watching him.
Second App.
For whom is the brew destin’d?
First App.
I know not.
Lady Lucrezia did but lay on me
Injunctions as regards the making of ‘t,
The which I have obey’d. It is compounded
Of a malignant and a deadly weed
Found not save in the Gulf of Spezia,
And one small phial of ‘t, I am advis’d,
Were more than ‘nough to slay a regiment
Of Messer Malatesta’s condottieri
In all their armour.
Second App.
I can well believe it.
Mark how the purple bubbles froth upon
The evil surface of its nether slime!
[Enter Luc.]
Luc. [To First App.]
Is ‘t done, Sir Sluggard?
First App.
Madam, to a turn.
Luc.
Had it not been so, I with mine own hand
Would have outpour’d it down thy gullet, knave.
See, here’s a ring of cunningly-wrought gold
That I, on a dark night, did purchase from
A goldsmith on the Ponte Vecchio.
Small was his shop, and hoar of visage he.
I did bemark that from the ceiling’s beams
Spiders had spun their webs for many a year,
The which hung erst like swathes of gossamer
Seen in the shadows of a fairy glade,
But now most woefully were weighted o’er
With gather’d dust. Look well now at the ring!
Touch’d here, behold, it opes a cavity
Capacious of three drops of yon fell stuff.
Dost heed? Whoso then puts it on his finger
Dies, and his soul is from his body rapt
To Hell or Heaven as the case may be.
Take thou this toy and pour the three drops in.
[Hands ring to First App. and comes down c.]
So, Sav’narola, thou shalt learn that I
Utter no threats but I do make them good.
Ere this day’s sun hath wester’d from the view
Thou art to preach from out the Loggia
Dei Lanzi to the cits in the Piazza.
I, thy Lucrezia, will be upon the steps
To offer thee with phrases seeming-fair
That which shall seal thine eloquence for ever.
O mighty lips that held the world in spell
But would not meet these little lips of mine
In the sweet way that lovers use--O thin,
Cold, tight-drawn, bloodless lips, which natheless I
Deem of all lips the most magnifical
In this our city--
[Enter the Borgias’ Fool.]
Well, Fool, what’s thy latest?
Fool
Aristotle’s or Zeno’s, Lady--‘tis neither latest nor last. For,
marry, if the cobbler stuck to his last, then were his latest his last
in rebus ambulantibus. Argal, I stick at nothing but cobble-stones,
which, by the same token, are stuck to the road by men’s fingers.
Luc.
How many crows may nest in a grocer’s jerkin?
Fool
A full dozen at cock-crow, and something less under the dog-star, by
reason of the dew, which lies heavy on men taken by the scurvy.
Luc. [To First App.]
Methinks the Fool is a fool.
Fool
And therefore, by auricular deduction, am I own twin to the Lady
Lucrezia!
[Sings.]
When pears hang green on the garden wall
With a nid, and a nod, and a niddy-niddy-o
Then prank you, lads and lasses all,
With a yea and a nay and a niddy-o.
But when the thrush flies out o’ the frost
With a nid, [etc.]
‘Tis time for loons to count the cost,
With a yea [etc.]
[Enter the Porter.]
Porter
O my dear Mistress, there is one below
Demanding to have instant word of thee.
I told him that your Ladyship was not
At home. Vain perjury! He would not take
Nay for an answer.
Luc.
Ah? What manner of man
Is he?
Porter
A personage the like of whom
Is wholly unfamiliar to my gaze.
Cowl’d is he, but I saw his great eyes glare
From their deep sockets in such wise as leopards
Glare from their caverns, crouching ere they spring
On their reluctant prey.
Luc.
And what name gave he?
Porter [After a pause.]
Something-arola.
Luc.
Savon-? [Porter nods.] Show him up. [Exit Porter.]
Fool
If he be right astronomically, Mistress, then is he the greater dunce
in respect of true learning, the which goes by the globe. Argal,
‘twere better he widened his wind-pipe.
[Sings.]
Fly home, sweet self,
Nothing’s for weeping,
Hemp was not made
For lovers’ keeping, Lovers’ keeping,
Cheerly, cheerly, fly away.
Hew no more wood
While ash is glowing,
The longest grass
Is lovers’ mowing,
Lovers’ mowing,
Cheerly, [etc.]
[Re-enter Porter, followed by Sav. Exeunt Porter, Fool, and First and Second Apps.]
Sav.
I am no more a monk, I am a man
O’ the world.
[Throws off cowl and frock, and stands forth in the costume of a Renaissance nobleman. Lucrezia looks him up and down.]
Luc.
Thou cutst a sorry figure.
Sav.
That
Is neither here nor there. I love you, Madam.
Luc.
And this, methinks, is neither there nor here,
For that my love of thee hath vanished,
Seeing thee thus beprankt. Go pad thy calves!
Thus mightst thou, just conceivably, with luck,
Capture the fancy of some serving-wench.
Sav.
And this is all thou hast to say to me?
Luc.
It is.
Sav.
I am dismiss’d?
Luc.
Thou art.
Sav.
‘Tis well.
[Resumes frock and cowl.]
Savonarola is himself once more.
Luc.
And all my love for him returns to me
A thousandfold!
Sav.
Too late! My pride of manhood
Is wounded irremediably. I’ll
To the Piazza, where my flock awaits me.
Thus do we see that men make great mistakes
But may amend them when the conscience wakes.
[Exit.]
Luc.
I’m half avenged now, but only half:
‘Tis with the ring I’ll have the final laugh!
Tho’ love be sweet, revenge is sweeter far.
To the Piazza! Ha, ha, ha, ha, har!
[Seizes ring, and exit. Through open door are heard, as the Curtain falls, sounds of a terrific hubbub in the Piazza.]
ACT III
SCENE: The Piazza.
TIME: A few minutes anterior to close of preceding Act.
The Piazza is filled from end to end with a vast seething crowd that is drawn entirely from the lower orders. There is a sprinkling of wild-eyed and dishevelled women in it. The men are lantern-jawed, with several days’ growth of beard. Most of them carry rude weapons--staves, bill-hooks, crow-bars, and the like--and are in as excited a condition as the women. Some of them are bare-headed, others affect a kind of Phrygian cap. Cobblers predominate.
Enter Lorenzo de Medici and Cosimo de Medici. They wear cloaks of scarlet brocade, and, to avoid notice, hold masks to their faces.
Cos.
What purpose doth the foul and greasy plebs
Ensue to-day here?
Lor.
I nor know nor care.
Cos.
How thrall’d thou art to the philosophy
Of Epicurus! Naught that’s human I
Deem alien from myself. [To a Cobbler.] Make answer, fellow!
What empty hope hath drawn thee by a thread
Forth from the obscene hovel where thou starvest?
Cob.
No empty hope, your Honour, but the full
Assurance that to-day, as yesterday,
Savonarola will let loose his thunder
Against the vices of the idle rich
And from the brimming cornucopia
Of his immense vocabulary pour
Scorn on the lamentable heresies
Of the New Learning and on all the art
Later than Giotto.
Cos.
Mark how absolute
The knave is!
Lor.
Then are parrots rational
When they regurgitate the thing they hear!
This fool is but an unit of the crowd,
And crowds are senseless as the vasty deep
That sinks or surges as the moon dictates.
I know these crowds, and know that any man
That hath a glib tongue and a rolling eye
Can as he willeth with them.
[Removes his mask and mounts steps of Loggia.]
Citizens!
[Prolonged yells and groans from the crowd.]
Yes, I am he, I am that same Lorenzo
Whom you have nicknamed the Magnificent.
[Further terrific yells, shakings of fists, brandishings of bill-hooks, insistent cries of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ ‘Down with the Magnificent!’ Cobblers on fringe of crowd, down c., exhibit especially all the symptoms of epilepsy, whooping-cough, and other ailments.]
You love not me.
[The crowd makes an ugly rush. Lor. appears likely to be dragged down and torn limb from limb, but raises one hand in nick of time, and continues:]
Yet I deserve your love.
[The yells are now variegated with dubious murmurs. A cobbler down c. thrusts his face feverishly in the face of another and repeats, in a hoarse interrogative whisper, ‘Deserves our love?’]
Not for the sundry boons I have bestow’d
And benefactions I have lavished
Upon Firenze, City of the Flowers,
But for the love that in this rugged breast
I bear you.
[The yells have now died away, and there is a sharp fall in dubious murmurs. The cobbler down c. says, in an ear-piercing whisper, ‘The love he bears us,’ drops his lower jaw, nods his head repeatedly, and awaits in an intolerable state of suspense the orator’s next words.]
I am not a blameless man,
[Some dubious murmurs.]
Yet for that I have lov’d you passing much,
Shall some things be forgiven me.
[Noises of cordial assent.]
There dwells
In this our city, known unto you all,
A man more virtuous than I am, and
A thousand times more intellectual;
Yet envy not I him, for--shall I name him?--
He loves not you. His name? I will not cut
Your hearts by speaking it. Here let it stay
On tip o’ tongue.
[Insistent clamour.]
Then steel you to the shock!--
Savonarola.
[For a moment or so the crowd reels silently under the shock. Cobbler down c. is the first to recover himself and cry ‘Death to Savonarola!’ The cry instantly becomes general. Lor. holds up his hand and gradually imposes silence.]
His twin bug-bears are
Yourselves and that New Learning which I hold
Less dear than only you.
[Profound sensation. Everybody whispers ‘Than only you’ to everybody else. A woman near steps of Loggia attempts to kiss hem of Lor.’s garment.]
Would you but con
With me the old philosophers of Hellas,
Her fervent bards and calm historians,
You would arise and say ‘We will not hear
Another word against them!’
[The crowd already says this, repeatedly, with great emphasis.]
Take the Dialogues
Of Plato, for example. You will find
A spirit far more truly Christian
In them than in the ravings of the sour-soul’d
Savonarola.
[Prolonged cries of ‘Death to the Sour-Souled Savonarola!’ Several cobblers detach themselves from the crowd and rush away to read the Platonic Dialogues. Enter Savonarola. The crowd, as he makes his way through it, gives up all further control of its feelings, and makes a noise for which even the best zoologists might not find a good comparison. The staves and bill-hooks wave like twigs in a storm. One would say that Sav. must have died a thousand deaths already. He is, however, unharmed and unruffled as he reaches the upper step of the Loggia. Lor. meanwhile has rejoined Cos. in the Piazza.]
Sav.
Pax vobiscum, brothers!
[This does but exacerbate the crowd’s frenzy.]
Voice of a Cobbler
Hear his false lips cry Peace when there is no
Peace!
Sav.
Are not you ashamed, O Florentines,
[Renewed yells, but also some symptoms of manly shame.]
That hearken’d to Lorenzo and now reel
Inebriate with the exuberance
Of his verbosity?
[The crowd makes an obvious effort to pull itself together.]
A man can fool
Some of the people all the time, and can
Fool all the people sometimes, but he cannot
Fool ALL the people ALL the time.
[Loud cheers. Several cobblers clap one another on the back. Cries of ‘Death to Lorenzo!’ The meeting is now well in hand.]
To-day
I must adopt a somewhat novel course
In dealing with the awful wickedness
At present noticeable in this city.
I do so with reluctance. Hitherto
I have avoided personalities.
But now my sense of duty forces me
To a departure from my custom of
Naming no names. One name I must and shall
Name.
[All eyes are turned on Lor., who smiles uncomfortably.]
No, I do not mean Lorenzo. He
Is ‘neath contempt.
[Loud and prolonged laughter, accompanied with hideous grimaces at Lor. Exeunt Lor. and Cos.]
I name a woman’s name,
[The women in the crowd eye one another suspiciously.]
A name known to you all--four-syllabled,
Beginning with an L.
[Pause. Enter hurriedly Luc., carrying the ring. She stands, unobserved by any one, on outskirt of crowd. Sav. utters the name:]
Lucrezia!
Luc. [With equal intensity.]
Savonarola!
[Sav. starts violently and stares in direction of her voice.]
Yes, I come, I come!
[Forces her way to steps of Loggia. The crowd is much bewildered, and the cries of ‘Death to Lucrezia Borgia!’ are few and sporadic.]
Why didst thou call me?
[SAV. looks somewhat embarrassed.]
What is thy distress?
I see it all! The sanguinary mob
Clusters to rend thee! As the antler’d stag,
With fine eyes glazed from the too-long chase,
Turns to defy the foam-fleck’d pack, and thinks,
In his last moment, of some graceful hind
Seen once afar upon a mountain-top,
E’en so, Savonarola, didst thou think,
In thy most dire extremity, of me.
And here I am! Courage! The horrid hounds
Droop tail at sight of me and fawn away
Innocuous.
[The crowd does indeed seem to have fallen completely under the sway of LUC.’s magnetism, and is evidently convinced that it had been about to make an end of the monk.]
Take thou, and wear henceforth,
As a sure talisman ‘gainst future perils,
This little, little ring.
[Sav. makes awkward gesture of refusal. Angry murmurs from the crowd. Cries of ‘Take thou the ring!’ ‘Churl!’ ‘Put it on!’ etc. Enter the Borgias’ Fool and stands unnoticed on fringe of crowd.]
I hoped you ‘ld like it--
Neat but not gaudy. Is my taste at fault?
I’d so look’d forward to--
[Sob.] No, I’m not crying,
But just a little hurt.
[Hardly a dry eye in the crowd. Also swayings and snarlings indicative that Sav.’s life is again not worth a moment’s purchase. Sav. makes awkward gesture of acceptance, but just as he is about to put ring on finger, the Fool touches his lute and sings:--]
Wear not the ring,
It hath an unkind sting,
Ding, dong, ding.
Bide a minute,
There’s poison in it,
Poison in it,
Ding-a-dong, dong, ding.
Luc.
The fellow lies.
[The crowd is torn with conflicting opinions. Mingled cries of ‘Wear not the ring!’ ‘The fellow lies!’ ‘Bide a minute!’ ‘Death to the Fool!’ ‘Silence for the Fool!’ ‘Ding-a-dong, dong, ding!’ etc.]
Fool [Sings.]
Wear not the ring,
For Death’s a robber-king,
Ding, [etc.]
There’s no trinket
Is what you think it,
What you think it,
Ding-a-dong, [etc.]
[Sav. throws ring in Luc.’s face. Enter Pope Julius II, with Papal army.]
Pope
Arrest that man and woman!
[Re-enter Guelfs and Ghibellines fighting. Sav. and Luc. are arrested by Papal officers. Enter Michael Angelo. Andrea el Sarto appears for a moment at a window. Pippa passes. Brothers of the Misericordia go by, singing a Requiem for Francesca da Rimini. Enter Boccaccio, Benvenuto Cellini, and many others, making remarks highly characteristic of themselves but scarcely audible through the terrific thunderstorm which now bursts over Florence and is at its loudest and darkest crisis as the Curtain falls.]
ACT IV
TIME: Three hours later.
SCENE: A Dungeon on the ground-floor of the Palazzo Civico.
The stage is bisected from top to bottom by a wall, on one side of which is seen the interior of Lucrezia’S cell, on the other that of Savonarola.
Neither he nor she knows that the other is in the next cell. The audience, however, knows this.
Each cell (because of the width and height of the proscenium) is of more than the average Florentine size, but is bare even to the point of severity, its sole amenities being some straw, a hunk of bread, and a stone pitcher. The door of each is facing the audience. Dimish light.
Lucrezia wears long and clanking chains on her wrists, as does also Savonarola. Imprisonment has left its mark on both of them. Savonarola hair has turned white. His whole aspect is that of a very old, old man. Lucrezia looks no older than before, but has gone mad.
Sav.
Alas, how long ago this morning seems
This evening! A thousand thousand eons
Are scarce the measure of the gulf betwixt
My then and now. Methinks I must have been
Here since the dim creation of the world
And never in that interval have seen
The tremulous hawthorn burgeon in the brake,
Nor heard the hum o’ bees, nor woven chains
Of buttercups on Mount Fiesole
What time the sap lept in the cypresses,
Imbuing with the friskfulness of Spring
Those melancholy trees. I do forget
The aspect of the sun. Yet I was born
A freeman, and the Saints of Heaven smiled
Down on my crib. What would my sire have said,
And what my dam, had anybody told them
The time would come when I should occupy
A felon’s cell? O the disgrace of it
The scandal, the incredible come-down!
It masters me. I see i’ my mind’s eye
The public prints--‘Sharp Sentence on a Monk.’
What then? I thought I was of sterner stuff
Than is affrighted by what people think.
Yet thought I so because ‘twas thought of me,
And so ‘twas thought of me because I had
A hawk-like profile and a baleful eye.
Lo! my soul’s chin recedes, soft to the touch
As half-churn’d butter. Seeming hawk is dove,
And dove’s a gaol-bird now. Fie out upon ‘t!
Luc.
How comes it? I am Empress Dowager
Of China--yet was never crown’d. This must
Be seen to.
[Quickly gathers some straw and weaves a crown, which she puts on.]
Sav.
O, what a degringolade!
The great career I had mapp’d out for me--
Nipp’d i’ the bud. What life, when I come out,
Awaits me? Why, the very Novices
And callow Postulants will draw aside
As I pass by, and say ‘That man hath done
Time!’ And yet shall I wince? The worst of Time
Is not in having done it, but in doing ‘t.
Luc.
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Eleven billion pig-tails
Do tremble at my nod imperial,--
The which is as it should be.
Sav.
I have heard
That gaolers oft are willing to carouse
With them they watch o’er, and do sink at last
Into a drunken sleep, and then’s the time
To snatch the keys and make a bid for freedom.
Gaoler! Ho, Gaoler!
[Sounds of lock being turned and bolts withdrawn. Enter the Borgias’ Fool, in plain clothes, carrying bunch of keys.]
I have seen thy face
Before.
Fool
I saved thy life this afternoon, Sir.
Sav.
Thou art the Borgias’ Fool?
Fool
Say rather, was.
Unfortunately I have been discharg’d
For my betrayal of Lucrezia,
So that I have to speak like other men--
Decasyllabically, and with sense.
An hour ago the gaoler of this dungeon
Died of an apoplexy. Hearing which,
I ask’d for and obtain’d his billet.
Fool.
Fetch
A stoup o’ liquor for thyself and me.
[Exit Gaoler.]
Freedom! there’s nothing that thy votaries
Grudge in the cause of thee. That decent man
Is doom’d by me to lose his place again
To-morrow morning when he wakes from out
His hoggish slumber. Yet I care not.
[Re-enter Gaoler with a leathern bottle and two glasses.]
Ho!
This is the stuff to warm our vitals, this
The panacea for all mortal ills
And sure elixir of eternal youth.
Drink, bonniman!
[Gaoler drains a glass and shows signs of instant intoxication. Sav. claps him on shoulder and replenishes glass. Gaoler drinks again, lies down on floor, and snores. Sav. snatches the bunch of keys, laughs long but silently, and creeps out on tip-toe, leaving door ajar. Luc. meanwhile has lain down on the straw in her cell, and fallen asleep.
Noise of bolts being shot back, jangling of keys, grating of lock, and the door of Luc.’s cell flies open. Sav. takes two steps across the threshold, his arms outstretched and his upturned face transfigured with a great joy.]
How sweet the open air
Leaps to my nostrils! O the good brown earth
That yields once more to my elastic tread
And laves these feet with its remember’d dew!
[Takes a few more steps, still looking upwards.]
Free!--I am free! O naked arc of heaven,
Enspangled with innumerable--no,
Stars are not there. Yet neither are there clouds!
The thing looks like a ceiling! [Gazes downward.] And this thing
Looks like a floor. [Gazes around.] And that white bundle yonder
Looks curiously like Lucrezia.
[Luc. awakes at sound of her name, and sits up sane.]
There must be some mistake.
Luc. [Rises to her feet.]
There is indeed!
A pretty sort of prison I have come to,
In which a self-respecting lady’s cell
Is treated as a lounge!
Sav.
I had no notion
You were in here. I thought I was out there.
I will explain--but first I’ll make amends.
Here are the keys by which your durance ends.
The gate is somewhere in this corridor,
And so good-bye to this interior!
[Exeunt Sav. and Luc. Noise, a moment later, of a key grating in a lock, then of gate creaking on its hinges; triumphant laughs of fugitives; loud slamming of gate behind them. In Sav.’s cell the Gaoler starts in his sleep, turns his face to the wall, and snores more than ever deeply. Through open door comes a cloaked figure.]
Cloaked Figure
Sleep on, Savonarola, and awake
Not in this dungeon but in ruby Hell!
[Stabs Gaoler, whose snores cease abruptly. Enter Pope Julius II, with Papal retinue carrying torches. Murderer steps quickly back into shadow.]
Pope [To body of Gaoler.]
Savonarola, I am come to taunt
Thee in thy misery and dire abjection.
Rise, Sir, and hear me out.
Murd. [Steps forward.]
Great Julius,
Waste not thy breath. Savonarola’s dead.
I murder’d him.
Pope
Thou hadst no right to do so.
Who art thou, pray?
Murd.
Cesare Borgia,
Lucrezia’s brother, and I claim a brother’s
Right to assassinate whatever man
Shall wantonly and in cold blood reject
Her timid offer of a poison’d ring.
Pope
Of this anon.
[Stands over body of Gaoler.]
Our present business
Is general woe. No nobler corse hath ever
Impress’d the ground. O let the trumpets speak it!
[Flourish of trumpets.]
This was the noblest of the Florentines.
His character was flawless, and the world
Held not his parallel. O bear him hence
With all such honours as our State can offer.
He shall interred be with noise of cannon,
As doth befit so militant a nature.
Prepare these obsequies.
[Papal officers lift body of Gaoler.]
A Papal Officer
But this is not
Savonarola. It is some one else.
Cesare
Lo! ‘tis none other than the Fool that I
Hoof’d from my household but two hours agone.
I deem’d him no good riddance, for he had
The knack of setting tables on a roar.
What shadows we pursue! Good night, sweet Fool,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Pope
Interred shall he be with signal pomp.
No honour is too great that we can pay him.
He leaves the world a vacuum. Meanwhile,
Go we in chase of the accursed villain
That hath made escapado from this cell.
To horse! Away! We’ll scour the country round
For Sav’narola till we hold him bound.
Then shall you see a cinder, not a man,
Beneath the lightnings of the Vatican!
[Flourish, alarums and excursions, flashes of Vatican lightning, roll of drums, etc. Through open door of cell is led in a large milk-white horse, which the Pope mounts as the Curtain falls.]
Remember, please, before you formulate your impressions, that saying
of Brown’s: ‘The thing must be judged as a whole.’ I like to think that
whatever may seem amiss to us in these Four Acts of his would have been
righted by collation with that Fifth which he did not live to achieve.
I like, too, to measure with my eyes the yawning gulf between stage and study. Very different from the message of cold print to our imagination are the messages of flesh and blood across footlights to our eyes and ears. In the warmth and brightness of a crowded theatre ‘Savonarola’ might, for aught one knows, seem perfect. ‘Then why,’ I hear my gentle readers asking, ‘did you thrust the play on US, and not on a theatrical manager?’
That question has a false assumption in it. In the course of the past eight years I have thrust ‘Savonarola’ on any number of theatrical managers. They have all of them been (to use the technical phrase) ‘very kind.’ All have seen great merits in the work; and if I added together all the various merits thus seen I should have no doubt that ‘Savonarola’ was the best play never produced. The point on which all the managers are unanimous is that they have no use for a play without an ending. This is why I have fallen back, at last, on gentle readers, whom now I hear asking why I did not, as Brown’s literary executor, try to finish the play myself. Can they never ask a question without a false assumption in it? I did try, hard, to finish ‘Savonarola.’
Artistically, of course, the making of such an attempt was indefensible. Humanly, not so. It is clear throughout the play--especially perhaps in Acts III and IV--that if Brown had not steadfastly in his mind the hope of production on the stage, he had nothing in his mind at all. Horrified though he would have been by the idea of letting me kill his Monk, he would rather have done even this than doom his play to everlasting unactedness. I took, therefore, my courage in both hands, and made out a scenario....
Dawn on summit of Mount Fiesole. Outspread view of Florence (Duomo,
Giotto’s Tower, etc.) as seen from that eminence.--Niccolò Machiavelli,
asleep on grass, wakes as sun rises. Deplores his exile from Florence,
Lorenzo's unappeasable hostility, etc. Wonders if he could not somehow
secure the Pope's favour. Very cynical. Breaks off: But who are these
that scale the mountain-side? | Savonarola and Lucrezia | Borgia-Enter through a trap-door, back c. [trap-door veiled from audience by a grassy ridge], Sav. and Luc. Both gasping and footsore from their climb.
[Still, with chains on their wrists? or not?]--Mach. steps unobserved
behind a cypress and listens.--Sav. has a speech to the rising sun--Th’
effulgent hope that westers from the east | Daily. Says that his hope,
on the contrary, lies in escape To that which easters not from out
the west, | That fix’d abode of freedom which men call | America! Very
bitter against Pope.--Luc. says that she, for her part, means To start
afresh in that uncharted land | Which austers not from out the antipod,
| Australia!--Exit Mach., unobserved, down trap-door behind ridge, to
betray Luc. and Sav.--Several longish speeches by Sav. and Luc. Time is
thus given for Mach. to get into touch with Pope, and time for Pope and
retinue to reach the slope of Fiesole. Sav., glancing down across ridge,
sees these sleuth-hounds, points them out to Luc. and cries Betray’d!
Luc. By whom? Sav. I know not, but suspect | The hand of that sleek
serpent Niccolo | Machiavelli.--Sav. and Luc. rush down c., but find
their way barred by the footlights.--Luc. We will not be ta’en Alive.
And here availeth us my lore | In what pertains to poison. Yonder herb
| [points to a herb growing down r.] Is deadly nightshade. Quick,
Monk! Pluck we it!--Sav. and Luc. die just as Pope appears over ridge,
followed by retinue in full cry.--Pope's annoyance at being foiled
is quickly swept away on the great wave of Shakespearean chivalry and
charity that again rises in him. He gives Sav. a funeral oration similar
to the one meant for him in Act IV, but even more laudatory and more
stricken. Of Luc., too, he enumerates the virtues, and hints that the
whole terrestrial globe shall be hollowed to receive her bones. Ends
by saying: In deference to this our double sorrow | Sun shall not shine
to-day nor shine to-morrow.--Sun drops quickly back behind eastern
horizon, leaving a great darkness on which the Curtain slowly falls.
All this might be worse, yes. The skeleton passes muster. But in the
attempt to incarnate and ensanguine it I failed wretchedly. I saw that
Brown was, in comparison with me, a master. Thinking I might possibly
fare better in his method of work than in my own, I threw the skeleton
into a cupboard, sat down, and waited to see what Savonarola and those
others would do.
They did absolutely nothing. I sat watching them, pen in hand, ready to record their slightest movement. Not a little finger did they raise. Yet I knew they must be alive. Brown had always told me they were quite independent of him. Absurd to suppose that by the accident of his own death they had ceased to breathe.... Now and then, overcome with weariness, I dozed at my desk, and whenever I woke I felt that these rigid creatures had been doing all sorts of wonderful things while my eyes were shut. I felt that they disliked me. I came to dislike them in return, and forbade them my room.
Some of you, my readers, might have better luck with them than I. Invite them, propitiate them, watch them! The writer of the best Fifth Act sent to me shall have his work tacked on to Brown’s; and I suppose I could get him a free pass for the second night.