ck my widowed love?
I was a wife--'tis true: I was not worthy--
But there was meaning in that first wild fancy;
'Twas but the innocent springing of the sap--
The witless yearning of an homeless heart--
Do I not know that God has pardoned me?
But now--to rouse and turn of mine own will,
In cool and full foreknowledge, this worn soul
Again to that, which, when God thrust it on me,
Bred but one shame of ever-gnawing doubt,
Were--No, my burning cheeks! We'll say no more.
Ah! loved and lost! Though God's chaste grace should fail me,
My weak idolatry of thee would give
Strength that should keep me true: with mine own hands
I'd mar this tear-worn face, till petulant man
Should loathe its scarred and shapeless ugliness.

Guta. But your poor children? What becomes of them?

Eliz. Oh! she who was not worthy of a husband
Does not deserve his children. What are they, darlings,
But snares to keep me from my heavenly spouse
By picturing the spouse I must forget?
Well--'tis blank horror. Yet if grief's good for me,
Let me down into grief's blackest pit,
And follow out God's cure by mine own deed.

Guta. What will your kinsfolk think?

Eliz. What will they think!
What pleases them. That argument's a staff
Which breaks whene'er you lean on't. Trust me, girl,
That fear of man sucks out love's soaring ether,
Baffles faith's heavenward eyes, and drops us down,
To float, like plumeless birds, on any stream.
Have I not proved it?
There was a time with me, when every eye
Did scorch like flame: if one looked cold on me,
I straight accused myself of mortal sins:
Each fopling was my master: I have lied
From very fear of mine own serving-maids.--
That's past, thank God's good grace!

Guta. And now you leap
To the other end of the line.

Eliz. In self-defence.
I am too weak to live by half my conscience;
I have no wit to weigh and choose the mean;
Life is too short for logic; what I do
I must do simply; God alone must judge--
For God alone shall guide, and God's elect--
I shrink from earth's chill frosts too much to crawl--
I have snapped opinion's chains, and now I'll soar
Up to the blazing sunlight, and be free.

[The bishop of Bamberg enters. Conrad following.]

Bishop. The Devil plagued St. Antony in the likeness of a lean
friar! Between mad monks and mad women, bedlam's broke loose, I
think.

Con. When the Spirit first descended on the elect, seculars then,
too, said mocking, 'These men are full