Chapter IV: Act IV: Scene I

In the vaults of the palace, outside the cell of the KING OF THE BEGGARS. Drop Scene.

(Enter HASSAN)

HASSAN Which way? Which way? I am lost in this dark passage. My voice rings around the arches. What's that noise? Is there an army coming? Or are all the prisoners stamping with wrath?...No....It is only someone walking....I wonder who! And if this stranger asks me my business what shall I say to him? Do I know what brought me to this dismal region?

ISHAK (From the darkness) Who goes there? Who goes there? What dost thou here? What is thy business?

HASSAN Who calls? I am Hassan, inspecting the security of the imperial prisons. Who art thou?

ISHAK Who am I? Ten books were written by Aflatun and twenty by Aristu to answer that mighty question, O Hassan of my heart.

HASSAN
Ishak! Come out of hiding, Ishak. What are you doing here?

ISHAK
I gather mushrooms, O inspector of the vaults of vice!

HASSAN Have you come too? I do not know why I came. I hoped...I do not know why I came, but I think our hearts do beat together like the hearts of friends. Did you come here because of _them_?

ISHAK I came here to hear a play more tragic than the mysteries of Hossein, to listen to a debate more weighty than the council talk of kings....

HASSAN
You do not mean?...

ISHAK
I mean the debate of love and life.

HASSAN
Could you spy on that? How cruel!

ISHAK
The poet must learn what man's agony can teach him.

HASSAN
Is it then not better not to be a poet?

ISHAK (Bitterly) Allah did not ask me that question when he made me a poet and a dissector of souls. It is my trade: I do but follow my master, the exalted Designer of human carpets, the Ruler of the world. If he prepared the situation, shall I not observe the characters? Thus I corrupt my soul to create--Allah knoweth what--ten little words like rubies in a row. As for you, I think you begin to understand the Caliph of the Faithful.

HASSAN Why speak of him? All men are brutes, you and he and I. I thought that I was kinder than other men--but I was only more afraid. This day is the first day of my exaltation, I have begun it the all but murderer of a woman, and I end it a spy on souls in trouble.

ISHAK Do not worry any longer, dear Hassan, on the moral problem. The moths of curiosity will always flutter round the lamp of circumstances. Here comes the Guard, they shall direct us.

(Enter 2 GUARDS)

ISHAK
(To the GUARD) Ho, soldier, whither?

Ist GUARD (Saluting) To the cell of the King of the Beggars, my masters, to relieve the Guard.

ISHAK
What, will you stand inside the cell?

Ist GUARD
Inside, O my masters.

ISHAK A shame, I say, a shame to spy on a pair of lovers. Will they fly off through the keyhole?

Ist GUARD We know the ways of prisoners, O my masters. Masrur is disappointed when we bring him corpses to be whipped. (To 2nd GUARD) Is he not disappointed, Mohamed?

2nd GUARD (In deep, lugubrious and respectful tones) Oh, sir, he is bitterly disappointed.

ISHAK Well, it is your fault, my fine fellows, if you leave daggers and ropes lying about in your prisoners' cells.

Ist GUARD Ah, you do not know the artfulness of prisoners, my masters. They will bang their heads against the wall, or they will eat their straw. (To 2nd GUARD) Do they not eat their straw, Mohamed?

2nd GUARD
(To ISHAK) Oh sir, they frequently eat their straw.

ISHAK
Chain them, chain them.

Ist GUARD
We do, my masters, but even then they strangle themselves in their fetters.

ISHAK
Strangle themselves in their fetters?

Ist GUARD
Do they not strangle themselves in their fetters, Mohamed.

2nd GUARD
(To ISHAK) I have known them, sir, to strangle themselves in their fetters.

ISHAK But, as you know, these two have a choice between a life with separation and a death with torment. Now surely they will choose life, and will hardly need a sentry to spear them away from the doorstep of eternity.

Ist GUARD I should think so indeed, sir. But you never can tell with prisoners. Prisoners are very obstinate, especially women, are they not Mohamed?

2nd GUARD
(To ISHAK) Female prisoners are very obstinate, sir.

ISHAK (With assumed heartiness) Well, none of us would require till sunset to make our choice, would we?

Ist GUARD
No, sir, not those of us who have ever seen Masrur at work.

ISHAK But if they do choose their day of love, will they still not be free according to the Caliph's promise? Will you still guard them in their cell, O sons of impropriety, lest they eat their straw?

Ist GUARD
(With a leer) Nay, we shall stand outside the door and listen at the grill.

ISHAK
And that is precisely what we intend to do now if you will show us the door.

Ist GUARD
I don't know whether I could quite do that, sir.

ISHAK (Giving him money) You are valiant fellows and, I am convinced, considerably underpaid.

Ist GUARD
Ours is a most disagreeable profession. your Excellency.

2nd GUARD
(Accepting money) And the emoluments are infinitesimal.

Ist GUARD
This way, gentlemen.

(Shews them to the door.)

SCENE II

A cell. A grating through which streams the sunlight. A heavy door with a narrow spyhole. RAFI is fettered to the wall, but PERVANEH has not been bound. TWO GUARDS stand immobile on either side of the door,

RAFI They have changed our guard for the last time, it will be sunset in an hour.

PERVANEH Still a long hour before your hands are freed to make me a belt of love. O idle sun, I am weary of thy pattern on the wall. Still a long hour!

RAFI
And still a night and a day before our doom.

PERVANEH Why is your voice so sorrowful? Your words do not keep step with your decision nor march like standard-bearers of your great resolve.

PERVANEH What have I decided? What have I resolved? You came near. I saw the wings of your spirit beating the air around you. You locked the silver fetters around my neck and I forgot these manacles of iron: you perfumed me with your hair till this cell became a meadow: you turned toward me eyes in whose night the seven deep oceans flashed their drowned stars, and all your body asked without speech, "Wilt thou die for love?"

PERVANEH
Do you repent? Do you unsay the golden words?

RAFI
Put but your lips on mine and seal my words against unsaying.

PERVANEH I did wrong to make you passionate. I see that in your heart you do repent. I would not have you bound by a moment's madness but wish with all your reason and with all your soul.

RAFI Ah, stand apart and veil your face, you who call in the name of reason! You are all afire for martyrdom: can you hear reason calling from her snows? Oh, you woman, Allah curse you for blinding my eyes with love!

PERVANEH
Ah, Rafi!

RAFI Be silent--be silent! Your voice is the voice of a garden at daybreak, when all the birds are singing at the sun. Forget your whirling dreams, your fires, your lightnings, your splendours of the soul, and answer the passionless voice that asks you--why should your lover die, and such a death?

PERVANEH
I am listening.

RAFI I am very young. Shall I forget to laugh if I continue to live? Shall I spend all my hours regretting you? Shall I not return to my country and comfort the hearts of those that gave me birth? Have I not my white-walled house, my books, my old friends, my garden of flowers and trees? Has the stream forgotten to sing at the end of my garden because Pervaneh comes no more?

"Love fades," saith Reason, with a gentler voice. "Love fades but doth not fall. Love fadeth not to yellow like the rose but to gold like the leaves upon the poplar by the stream." And when my poplars are all gold, I shall sit beneath their shade beside the stream to read my book. When I am tired of my book I will lie on my back and watch the clouds. There in the clouds I shall see your face, and remember you with a wistful remembrance as if you had always been a dream and the silver torment of your arms had never been more than the white mists circling the round mountain snows.

PERVANEH (With growing anger) And so, wrapped in pleasant fancies, you will forget the woman you have sold to a tyrant. And so, while I, far from my country and my home, am dying of shame and confinement, you will dream and you will dream!

RAFI The plague on your dishonour! You are to be the Caliph's wife. Is that not held for the highest honour to which a woman can attain? Is that worse shame than being flayed by a foul negro? The shame! the selling! the dishonour! A woman's vanity: am I to be tortured to death to gratify your pride? If I must not have you, do I care whose wife you are? I shall remember you as you are now-- rock water undefiled.

PERVANEH
Cold and heartless coward; you are afraid of death!

RAFI By Allah, I am afraid of death, and the man who fears not death is a dullard and a fool! Are we still making speeches in full Divan to the admiration of the by-standers? Must we pose even now! If you hate me for fearing death, go your way and leave this coward. Ah, no, no, do not leave me, O Pervaneh! Forgive me that I am what I am. I have not unsaid my promise. I will die with you. I will die! I will endure the tortures that are thrice as terrible as death, the tortures that parch my mouth with fear.

PERVANEH
Shame on you, weak and shivering lover! What is pain for us?

RAFI You do not see--you do not see! Look at your hands, they shall be torn-- ah, I cannot speak of it. I shall see your blood flow like wine from a white fountain drop by drop till you have painted the carpet of execution all red lilies.

PERVANEH Ah--but will not even your poor love flow deep when I set that crimson seal upon the story of our lives!

RAFI Alas, you are still dreaming: you are still blind with exaltation: your speech is a metaphor. You do not see, you have never heard the high, thin shriek of the tortured, you have not seen the shape of their bodies when they are cast into the ditch. Come near, Pervaneh. Do you know what they will do to you? Come near: I cannot say it aloud. (PERVANEH approaches.) Ah, I dare not tell you...I dare not tell you!

PERVANEH
Tell me, plain and clear.

RAFI
(Whispers in PERVANEH's ear)...

PERVANEH (Covering her face with her hands) Ah, God--they will not do that! No, no; they will not do that to me.

RAFI
Pitilessly.

PERVANEH (Wildly) They will do that!--Ah, the shame of it! They will do that-- Ah the pain of it! I see! I feel! I hear! O save me, Rafi!

RAFI
Alas! Why did I tell you this?

PERVANEH It is beyond endurance: it is foul: my veins will burst at the very thought. I am between a shame and a shame and there is no escape....But at least they shall not do this to you, Rafi. Hush...talk low: the soldiers must not hear. (Glancing at the GUARDs and whispering low) Will you die here between my hands, instantly, and with no pain?

RAFI (In a hushed voice) Quickly! How can you do it? We are guarded-- have you a knife?

PERVANEH My hands will be cunning round your neck, beloved. Did I not say you should die between my hands?

RAFI
Be quick: be quiet: I will cast back my head.

A GUARD (Thrusting PERVANEH back with his drawn sword as she lays her hands on her lover's neck) Back, in the Caliph's name!

RAFI
(To PERVANEH) Run in upon his sword....

PERVANEH
(Shrinking away from the GUARD's sword) I cannot!

RAFI
Quick--quick! Fall on the sword and save all shame.

PERVANEH My breast, my breast: I am afraid...(Prostrate on the ground) I am utterly shamed--I have missed your death and mine.

RAFI
You have flinched.

PERVANEH The point was on my breast, and it might have been all ended for you and me.

RAFI
You have been afraid.

PERVANEH
It would have driven to my heart. Ah, the woman that I am!

RAFI
It is so small a thing, a pricking of the steel.

PERVANEH Ah!--it is a little thing, you say? It is like ice, so sharp and cold. I am a vile coward.

RAFI We are both cowards, you and I. The sunlight changes on the wall from white to gold. It is evening. Our time has come. Shall we choose life? Shall we choose the sky and the sea, the mountains, the rivers and the plains? Shall we choose the flowers and the bees, and all the birds of heaven? Shall we choose laughter and tears, sorrow and desire, speech and silence, and the shout of the man behind the hill?

PERVANEH
Ah, empty, empty without your heart! (She weeps.)

RAFI
Empty as death, Pervaneh, empty as death?

PERVANEH
The wall reddens: the last minute has come: we must choose.

RAFI Choose for me: I follow. Did I talk of life? My heart is breaking for desire of you. If you bid me depart I will not live without you. Choose for me--and choose well. Phantoms of pain! Let me but have you in my arms, and one day of love shall widen into eternity. Who knows? The earth may crack to-night, or the sun stay down for ever in his grave. Who knows--tomorrow--God will begin and finish the judgment of the world--and when it is all over find you sleeping in my arms?

PERVANEH (Rising slowly to her feet and laying her hands on the shoulders of her lover): Oh, let us die! Not for my dishonour, Rafi. What is my dishonour to me or to you, beloved, or the shame of a girl's virginity to him who made the sea? This clay of mine is fair enough, I think, but God hath cast it in the common mould. O lover, lover, I would walk beneath the walls and sell my body to the gipsy and the Jew ere you should cry "I am hungry" or "I am cold."

RAFI
Die for love of me--for a day and a night of love!

PERVANEH I die for love of you, Rafi! Behold, the Spirit grows bright around you: you are one with the Eternal Lover, the Friend of the World. His spirit flashes in thine eyes and hovers round thy lips: thy body is all fire!

RAFI
Comfort me, comfort me! I do not understand thy dreams.

PERVANEH (Her arms stiffening in ecstasy) The splendour pours from the window-- the spirits in red and gold. Death with thee, O lover, death for thee, death to attain thee, O lover--and then the garden--then the fountain-- then the walking side by side.

RAFI
O my sweet life, O my sweet life--must this mad dreaming end thee?

PERVANEH Sweet life--we die for thy sweetness, O Lord of the Garden of Peace. Come, love, and die for the fire that beats within us, for the air that blows around us, for the mountains of our country and the wind among their pines you and I accept torture and confront our end. We are in the service of the World. The voice of the rolling deep is shouting: "Suffer that my waves may moan." The company of the stars sing out: "Be brave that we may shine." The spirits of children not yet born whisper as they crowd around us: "Endure that we may conquer."

RAFI
Pervaneh, Pervaneh!

PERVANEH Hark! Hark!--down through the spheres--the Trumpeter of Immortality! "Die, lest I be shamed, lovers. Die, lest I be shamed!"

RAFI Die then, Pervaneh, for thy great reasons. Me no ecstasy can help through the hours of pain. I die for love alone.

HERALD
(Entering) The Caliph demands your choice.

RAFI
Death!

HASSAN
(Bursting in) No, no. O God!

ISHAK
They have chosen too well.

(Exit HERALD. PERVANEH is still in ecstasy when the curtain falls.)

END OF ACT IV