Demetrius | Page 9

hear strange marvels nowadays:?The dead rise up, and come to life again.
OLGA.?Explain yourself.
FISHER BOY.
Prince Dmitri, Ivan's son,?Whom we have mourned for dead these sixteen years,?Is now alive, and has appeared in Poland.
OLGA.?The prince alive?
MARFA (starting).
My son!
OLGA.
Compose thyself!?Calm down thy heart till we have learned the whole.
ALEXIA.?How can this possibly be so, when he?Was killed, and perished in the flames at Uglitsch?
FISHER BOY.?He managed somehow to escape the fire,?And found protection in a monastery.?There he grew up in secrecy, until?His time was come to publish who he was.
OLGA (to MARFA).?You tremble, princess! You grow pale!
MARFA.
I know?That it must be delusion, yet so little?Is my heart steeled 'gainst fear and hope e'en now,?That in my breast it flutters like a bird.
OLGA.?Why should it be delusion? Mark his words!?How could this rumor spread without good cause?
FISHER BOY.?Without good cause? The Lithuanians?And Poles are all in arms upon his side.?The Czar himself quakes in his capital.
[MARFA is compelled by her emotion to lean upon OLGA and ALEXIA.
XENIA.?Speak on, speak, tell us everything you know.
ALEXIA.?And tell us, too, of whom you stole the news.
FISHER BOY.?I stole the news? A letter has gone forth?To every town and province from the Czar.?This letter the Posadmik of our town?Read to us all, in open market-place.?It bore, that busy schemers were abroad,?And that we should not lend their tales belief.?But this made us believe them; for, had they?Been false, the Czar would have despised the lie.
MARFA.?Is this the calm I thought I had achieved??And clings my heart so close to temporal things,?That a mere word can shake my inward soul??For sixteen years have I bewailed my son,?And yet at once believe that still he lives.
OLGA.?Sixteen long years thou'st mourned for him as dead,?And yet his ashes thou hast never seen!?Naught countervails the truth of the report.?Nay, does not Providence watch o'er the fate?Of kings and monarchies? Then welcome hope!?More things befall than thou canst comprehend.?Who can set limits to the Almighty's power?
MARFA.?Shall I turn back to look again on life,?To which long since I spoke a sad farewell??It was not with the dead my hopes abode.?Oh, say no more of this. Let not my heart?Hang on this phantom hope! Let me not lose?My darling son a second time. Alas!?My peace of mind is gone,--my dream of peace?I cannot trust these tidings,--yet, alas,?I can no longer dash them from my soul!?Woe's me, I never lost my son till now.?Oh, now I can no longer tell if I?Shall seek him 'mongst the living or the dead,?Tossed on the rock of never-ending doubt.
OLGA [A bell sounds,--the sister PORTERESS enters.?Why has the bell been sounded, sister, say?
PORTERESS.?The lord archbishop waits without; he brings?A message from the Czar, and craves an audience.
OLGA.?Does the archbishop stand within our gates??What strange occurrence can have brought him here?
XENIA.?Come all, and give him greeting as befits.
[They advance towards the gate as the ARCHBISHOP enters; they all kneel before him, and he makes the sign of the Greek cross over them.
ARCHBISHOP.?The kiss of peace I bring you in the name?Of Father, Son, and of the Holy Ghost,?Proceeding from the Father!
OLGA.
Sir, we kiss?In humblest reverence thy paternal hand!
Command thy daughters!
ARCHBISHOP.?My mission is addressed to Sister Marfa.
OLGA.?See, here she stands, and waits to know thy will.
[All the NUNS withdraw.
ARCHBISHOP.?It is the mighty prince who sends me here;?Upon his distant throne he thinks of thee;?For as the sun, with his great eye of flame,?Sheds light and plenty all abroad the world,?So sweeps the sovereign's eye on every side;?Even to the farthest limits of his realm?His care is wakeful and his glance is keen.
MARFA.?How far his arm can strike I know too well.
ARCHBISHOP.?He knows the lofty spirit fills thy soul,?And therefore feels indignantly the wrong?A bold-faced villain dares to offer thee.?Learn, then, in Poland, an audacious churl,?A renegade, who broke his monkish vows,?Laid down his habit, and renounced his God,?Doth use the name and title of thy son,?Whom death snatched from thee in his infancy.?The shameless varlet boasts him of thy blood,?And doth affect to be Czar Ivan's son;?A Waywode breaks the peace; from Poland leads?This spurious monarch, whom himself created,?Across our frontiers, with an armed power:?So he beguiles the Russians' faithful hearts,?And lures them on to treason and revolt.
The Czar,?With pure, paternal feeling, sends me to thee.?Thou hold'st the manes of thy son in honor;?Nor wilt permit a bold adventurer?To steal his name and title from the tomb,?And with audacious hand usurp his rights.?Thou wilt proclaim aloud to all the world?That thou dost own him for no son of thine.?Thou wilt not nurse a bastard's alien blood?Upon thy heart, that beats so nobly; never!?Thou wilt--and this the Czar expects from thee--?Give the vile counterfeit the lie, with all?The righteous indignation it deserves.
MARFA (who has during the last speech subdued the most violent emotion). What do I hear, archbishop? Can it be??Oh, tell