Classic Poem

SCENE VI. RIBERA'S Room. RIBERA discovered sitting on the couch. He looks old and haggard, but has regained his natural bearing and expression. Enter ANNICCA. She hastens towards him, and kneels beside the couch, kissing him affectionately.

ANNICCA.
Father, you called me?

RIBERA.
Aye, to bid good-night.
Why do you kiss me? To betray to-morrow?

ANNICCA.
Dear father, you are better; you have slept
Are you not rested?

RIBERA.
Child, I was not weary.
There was some cloud pressed here (pointing to his forehead) but that is past,
I have no pain nor any sense of ill.
Now, while my brain is clear, I have a word
To speak. I think not I have been to thee,
Nor to that other one, an unkind father.
I do not now remember any act,
Or any word of mine, could cause thee grief.
But I am old — perchance my memory
Deceives in this? Speak! Am I right, Annicca?

ANNICCA (weeping).
Oh, father, father, why will you torture me?
You were too good, too good.

RIBERA.
Why, so I thought.
Since it appears the guerdon of such goodness
Is treachery, abandonment, disgrace,
I here renounce my fatherhood. No child
Will I acknowledge mine. Thou art a wife;
Thy duty is thy husband's. When Antonio
Returns from Seville, tell him that his father
Is long since dead. Henceforward I will own
No kin, no home, no tie. I will away,
To-morrow morn, and live an anchorite.
One thing ye cannot rob me of — my work.
My name shall still outsoar these low, mirk vapors —
Not the Ribera, stained with sin and shame,
As she hath left it, but the Spagnoletto.
My glory is mine own. I have done with it,
But I bequeath it to my country. Now
I will make friends with beasts — they'll prove less savage
Than she that was my daughter. I have spoken
For the last time that word. Thee I curse not;
Thou hast not set thy heel upon my heart;
But yet I will not bless thee. Go. Good-night.

ANNICCA (embracing him).
What! will you spurn me thus? Nay, I will bide,
And be to thee all that she should have been,
Soothe thy declining years, and heal the wound
Of this sharp sorrow. Thou shalt bless me still,
Father —
[RIBERA has yielded for a moment to her embrace; but, suddenly rising, he pushes her roughly from him.]

RIBERA.
Away! I know thee. Thou art one
With her who duped me with like words last night.
Then I believed; but now my sense is closed,
My heart is dead as stone. I cast thee forth.
By heaven, I own thee not! Thou dost forget
I am the Spagnoletto. Away, I say,
Or ere I strike thee.
[He threatens her.]

ANNICCA.

Woe is me! Help, help!
[Exit.]

RIBERA.
So, the last link is snapt. Had I not steeled
My heart, I fain had kissed her farewell.
'T is better so. I leave my work unfinished.
Could I arise each day to face this spectre,
Or sleep with it at night? — to yearn for her
Even while I curse her? No! The dead remain
Sacred and sweet in our remembrance still;
They seem not to have left us; they abide
And linger nigh us in the viewless air.
The fallen, the guilty, must be rooted out
From heart and thought and memory. With them
No hope of blest reunion; they must be
As though they had not been; their spoken name
Cuts like a knife. When I essay to think
Of what hath passed to-day, my sick brain reels
The letter I remember, but all since
Floats in a mist of horror, and I grasp
No actual form. Did I not wander forth?
A mob surrounded me. All Naples knew
My downfall, and the street was paved with eyes
That stared into my soul. Then friendly hands
Guided me hither. When I woke, I felt
As though a stone had rolled from off my brain.
But still this nightmare bides the truth. I know
They watch me, they suspect me. I will wait
Till the whole household sleep, and then steal forth,
Nor unavenged return.