The Dramas of Victor Hugo: Mary Tudor, Marion de Lorme, Esmeralda. Виктор Мари Гюго

all, into your room. Give me your hand.

      [He sits and takes her hands in his; she stands.

      Jane, do you love me?

      JANE.

      Oh, I owe you everything, Gilbert. I know it, although you have concealed it from me a long time! When I was little, almost in my cradle, my parents abandoned me, and you took me. For sixteen years your hand has worked for me as if you were a father; your eyes have watched over me like a mother. What would I be without you, just Heaven! All I have, you have given me; all I am, you have made me.

      GILBERT.

      Jane, do you love me?

      JANE.

      What devotion yours has been, Gilbert! You work for me, night and day; you wear your eyes out, you kill yourself for me. You are going to sit up all night again to-night. And never a reproach to me, never an unkindness, never an angry word! You are very poor, yet you remember all my small womanly vanities; you gratify them. Gilbert, whenever I think about you, my eyes fill with tears. You have often gone without bread; I have never gone without my ribbons.

      GILBERT.

      Jane, do you love me?

      JANE.

      Gilbert, I would like to kneel down and kiss your feet.

      GILBERT.

      Do you love me, do you love me? All that does not prove that you love me. I want that word, Jane! Gratitude, always gratitude! Oh, I stamp it underfoot, your gratitude. I want love or nothing! Die! Jane, you have been my daughter for sixteen years; now you are to be my wife. I adopted you; now I am to marry you—in one week. You know, you promised me; you have consented; you are my betrothed. You loved me when you promised that. Oh, Jane, there was a time—do you remember it?—when you told me, "I love you," and you lifted your sweet eyes to heaven. That is the way I want you to be. For some months now, you have seemed different, especially during these last three weeks that my work has kept me away from here nights. Jane, I must have you love me! I am used to it. You were always so light-hearted; now you are sad and absent-minded—not cold, my poor child (you try your best not to be), but I feel your loving words do not come as tenderly and as naturally as they used. What is the matter? Don't you love me any more? I know I am an honest man, I know I am a good workman; but I would rather be a robber and an assassin, and be loved by you. Jane, if you knew how much I love you!

      JANE.

      I know it, Gilbert, and it makes me weep.

      GILBERT.

      For joy, isn't it? Say it is for joy! Oh, I need to believe it. There is only that in the world—to be loved. I have only a poor workingman's heart, but my Jane must love me. Why do you always talk to me about what I have done for you? One single word of love from you puts all the gratitude on my side. I will damn myself and commit a crime, whenever you wish it. You will be my wife, won't you, and you love me? Oh, Jane, for one look of your eyes I would give my work and my labor; for one smile, my life; for one kiss, my soul.

      JANE.

      What a noble heart you have, Gilbert.

      GILBERT.

      Listen to me, Jane—laugh at me if you will; I am mad, I am jealous! I will tell you why. Do not get angry! It seems to me, for some time I have seen several young lords prowling around here. Do you know, Jane, I am thirty-two years old. For a poor, clumsy, badly-dressed workman like myself, who am no longer young, who am not handsome, what a misery it is to love a charming, beautiful girl of seventeen, who attracts all the handsome, gold-bedizened young nobles around her, as a light attracts the butterflies. Oh, I suffer; indeed, I do! But I never blame you, even in my thoughts! You, so honest, so pure; you, whose brow has never been touched, except by my lips. I only feel, sometimes, that you look on the Queen's cavalcades and retinues with too much pleasure, that you enjoy too much the fine suits of velvet and satin, under which there are no hearts, no souls. Forgive me. My God! why do so many young noblemen come around here? Why am I not handsome, young, noble, rich? Gilbert the engraver—that is all I am! They are Lord Chandos, Lord Gerard Fitz-Gerard, Earl of Arundel, the Duke of Norfolk! Oh, how I hate them! I spend my life engraving the handles of their swords, which I would like to plunge into their bowels.

      JANE.

      Gilbert!

      GILBERT.

      I beg your pardon, Jane! Love makes us very wicked, doesn't it?

      JANE.

      No, very good; for you are good, Gilbert.

      GILBERT.

      Oh, how much I love you! It increases every day. I would like to die for you! Love me or not, you can do as you please. I am mad. Forgive all that I have said. It is late: I must leave you! Good-by! Oh, how I hate to leave you! Go in! Haven't you your key?

      JANE.

      No; I haven't had it for several days.

      GILBERT.

      Take mine. Until to-morrow morning! Jane, don't forget this! To-day I am still your father: in one week I shall be your husband.

      [He kisses her on the forehead and exits.

      JANE (alone).

      My husband! Oh, no! I will never commit that crime. Poor Gilbert! he loves me truly; and the other—ah, provided I have not preferred vanity to love! Unhappy woman that I am, into whose power have I fallen! Oh, I am most thankless and most guilty! I hear footsteps! Let me get in quickly. [Goes into house.

      SCENE IV

      Gilbert, A Man enveloped in cloak and wearing a yellow cap. The Man holds Gilbert by the hand

      GILBERT.

      Yes, I recognize you; you are the Jewish beggar who has been prowling around this house for several days. What do you want with me? Why have you taken hold of my hand, and why have you brought me back here?

      THE MAN.

      Because what I have to say to you, I can only say here.

      GILBERT.

      Well, what is it? Speak! Hurry!

      THE MAN.

      Listen, young man. One night, sixteen years ago, Lord Talbot, Earl of Waterford, was beheaded by torchlight, for the crimes of popery and rebellion, while his followers were cut to pieces in the city of London by Henry VIII.'s soldiers. They shot in the streets all night. That night a very young workman, who was much more interested in his labor than in the battle, was working in his stall. It was the first stall from the entrance of London Bridge; a low door on the right, the remains of some old red paint on the wall. It might have been two o'clock in the morning. They were fighting all around there. The balls hissed across the Thames. Suddenly some one knocked at the door of the stall, through which the workman's lamp threw a glimmer. The workman opened it. A man he did not know, entered. This man carried in his arms a baby in long clothes, who was much frightened and was crying. The man put the child down on the table and said, "Here is a creature who has neither father nor mother." Then he went out slowly and closed the door after him. Gilbert, the workman, had neither father nor mother himself. The workman accepted the child: the orphan adopted the orphan. He took it, watched over it, clothed it, fed it, tended it, brought it up, loved it. He gave himself entirely to this poor little creature whom civil war had thrown into his stall. He forgot everything for her—his youth, his love-affairs, his pleasures; he made this child the sole object of his work, his affections, his life: and it has lasted sixteen years. Gilbert, the workman was you; the child—

      GILBERT.

      Was Jane. All that you say is true; but what are you driving at?

      THE MAN.

      I forgot to say that on the child's swaddling-clothes a paper was pinned, on which was written: "Have pity upon Jane."

      GILBERT.