DUCHESS: Death,
Why do you tarry, get to the upper chamber;
The cold meats of my husband’s funeral feast
Are set for you; this is a wedding feast.
You are out of place, sir; and, besides, ‘tis summer.
We do not need these heavy fires now,
You scorch us. Guido, bid that grave-digger
Stop digging in the earth that empty grave.
I will not lie there. Oh, I am burned up,
Burned up and blasted by these fires within me.
Can you do nothing? Water, give me water,
Or else more poison. No: I feel no pain –
Is it not curious I should feel no pain? –
And Death has gone away, I am glad of that.
I thought he meant to part us. Tell me, Guido,
Are you not sorry that you ever saw me?

GUIDO: I swear I would not have lived otherwise.
Why, in this dull and common world of ours
Men have died looking for such moments as this
And have not found them.

DUCHESS: Then you are not sorry?
How strange that seems.

GUIDO: What, Beatrice, have I not
Stood face to face with beauty; that is enough
For one man’s life. Why, love, I could be merry;
I have been often sadder at a feast,
But who were sad at such a feast as this
When Love and Death are both our cup-bearers;
We love and die together.

DUCHESS: Oh, I have been
Guilty beyond all women, and indeed
Beyond all women punished. Do you think –
No, that could not be – oh, do you think that love
Can wipe the bloody stain from off my hands,
Pour balm into my wounds, heal up my hurts,
And wash my scarlet sins as white as snow? –
For I have sinned.

GUIDO: They do not sin at all
Who sin for love.

DUCHESS: No, I have sinned, and yet
Percnance my sin will be forgiven me.
I have loved much.

They kiss each other now for the first time in this Act, when suddenly the DUCHESS leaps up in the dreadful spasm of death, tears in agony at her dress, and finally, with face twisted and distorted with pain, falls back dead in a chair. GUIDO seizing her dagger from her belt, kills himself; and, as he falls across her knees, clutches at the cloak which is on the back of the chair. There is a little pause. Then down the passage comes the tramp of Soldiers; the door is opened, and the LORD JUSTICE, the Headsman, and the Guard enter and see this figure shrouded in black, and GUIDO lying dead across her. The LORD JUSTICE rushes forward and drags the cloak off the DUCHESS, whose face is now the marble image of peace, the sign of God’s forgiveness.

TABLEAU

CURTAIN

Vera, or The Nihilists

A Drama in a Prologue, and Four Acts

Persons in the Prologue

PETER SABOUROFF (an Innkeeper)

NICOLAS

COLONEL KOTEMKIN

DMITRI SABOUROFF

VERA SABOUROFF (his Daughter)

MICHAEL (a Peasant)

Persons in the Play

IVAN THE CZAR