Part 8 (1/2)

_Porzia._ Love ... whom?

_Bianca._ Osio!

Yet dare not so you draw him with denials, Knowing that to repel is to entrain him.

[_As Porzia stares, stupefied._

O mockery of it! fools my eyes were, fools, That stood within my head and did not see!

To me he spoke of love--yearning for you, And in me heard but echoes of you ... ever!

Yet, since you loved him, Why unto his brother, A heretic o'erturning G.o.d with stars, Did you--

_Porzia_ (_sinking to a divan_). I pray you speak things possible, Tho to your sight I seem and to my own Like one unnatural beyond belief!

A child I have whom fever now is burning, A husband all unhallowed in a prison ...

Tho to my dreams last night he seemed to come.

[_Bianca starts._

And so you must forgive me if blind shrinkings, That to your sight seem semblances of love, Unhelpably o'ertake me.

_Bianca._ Then--confess Why Osio seeks you and why so you shun him?

And with the child why are your ways so wild?

You fear sometimes to touch it, As if it were another's, or at your breast Could only drink of horror.

_Porzia_ (_rising_). Ah!... ah, ah!

_Bianca:_ Love is it, love, I say, of Osio, That motherhood itself cannot amend, And Rizzio shall hear of it--this day.

_Porzia._ He ... there in the darkness ... can hear naught!

Leave me, I pray, to wait Aloysius.

Why comes he not?... Ah, and why do you rend me?

For you would not indeed to Rizzio Add demon doubts ...

Of me who am to him there in the night Sun, moon and the white galaxy of stars Such as not even Messer Bruno dreams....

For, if you would, are you indeed Bianca Who, as a child, sang with me under the olives And cypresses; or watched with wonder eyes The fisherman draw marvels from the deep, Then homeward wing at eve to Ischia?

I cannot think it!... yet...!

[_Again distraught._

O what is it I dread! what thing has changed All natural thoughts within me to repugnance, All instincts and desires into terror?

I cannot touch my flesh, but I turn cold As if I had touched pollution, cannot press My child unto my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but ... true, Oh, true!...

A madness whispers in me, ”Take it away!”

[_Staring, hauntedly._

And too, and too ... in solitude the want Of Rizzio imprisoned comes to me; Yet when I reach for him I seem enclasped By unknown arms ... in the sere dark, that ... Oh!

Now, now I feel them! off!

[_A knock at the gate._