orld!_ 220

[PIPPA _passes_.

_Sebald._ God's in his heaven! Do you hear that?
Who spoke?
You, you spoke!

_Ottima._ Oh--that little ragged girl!
She must have rested on the step: we give them
But this one holiday the whole year round.
Did you ever see our silk-mills--their inside? 225
There are ten silk-mills now belong to you.
She stoops to pick my double heartsease--Sh!
She does not hear: call you out louder!

_Sebald._ Leave me!
Go, get your clothes on--dress, those shoulders!

_Ottima._ Sebald?

_Sebald._ Wipe off that paint! I hate you. 230

_Ottima._ Miserable!

_Sebald._ My God, and she is emptied of it now!
Outright now!--how miraculously gone
All of the grace--had she not strange grace once?
Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes,
No purpose holds the features up together, 235
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin
Stay in their places; and the very hair,
That seemed to have a sort of life in it,
Drops, a dead web!

_Ottima._ Speak to me--not of me.

_Sebald._ That round great full-orbed face, where not an 240
angle
Broke the delicious indolence--all broken!

_Ottima._ To me--not of me! Ungrateful, perjured cheat!
A coward, too: but ingrate's worse than all!
Beggar--my slave--a fawning, cringing lie!
Leave me! Betray me! I can see your drift! 245
A lie that walks and eats and drinks!

_Sebald._ My God!
Those morbid, olive, faultless shoulder-blades--
I should have known there was no blood beneath!

_Ottima._ You hate me then? You hate me then?

_Sebald._ To think
She would succeed in her absurd attempt, 250
And fascinate by sinning, show herself
Superior--guilt from its excess superior
To innocence! That little peasant's voice
Has righted all again. Though I be lost,
I know which is the better, never fear, 255
Of vice or virtue, purity or lust,
Nature or trick! I see what I have done,
Entirely now! Oh, I am proud to feel
Such torments--l