SALOME: I demand the head of Iokanaan.

  HEROD: Thou art not listening. Thou art not listening. Suffer me to speak, Salome.

  SALOME: The head of Iokanaan!

  HEROD: No, no, thou wouldst not have that. Thou sayest that but to trouble me, because that I have looked at thee and ceased not this night. It is true, I have looked at thee and ceased not this night. Thy beauty has troubled me. Thy beauty has grievously troubled me, and I have looked at thee overmuch. Nay, but I will look at thee no more. One should not look at anything. Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors is it well to look, for mirrors do but show us masks. Oh! oh! bring wine! I thirst... Salome, Salome, let us be as friends. Bethink thee... Ah! what would I say? What was’t? Ah! I remember it!... Salome — nay, but come nearer to me; I fear thou wilt not hear my words — Salome, thou knowest my white peacocks, my beautiful white peacocks, that walk in the garden between the myrtles and the tall cypress-trees? Their beaks are gilded with gold and the grains that they eat are smeared with gold, and their feet are stained with purple. When they cry out the rain comes, and the moon shows herself in the heavens when they spread their tails. Two by two they walk between the cypress-trees and the black myrtles, and each has a slave to tend it. Sometimes they fly across the trees, and anon they couch in the grass, and round the pools of the water. There are not in all the world birds so wonderful. I know that Cæsar himself has no birds so fair as my birds. I will give thee fifty of my peacocks. They will follow thee whithersoever thou goest, and in the midst of them thou wilt be like unto the moon in the midst of a great white cloud... I will give them to thee, all. I have but a hundred, and in the whole world there is no king who has peacocks like unto my peacocks. But I will give them all to thee. Only thou must loose me from my oath, and must not ask of me that which thy lips have asked of me. [He empties the cup of wine]

  SALOME: Give me the head of Iokanaan!

  HERODIAS: Well said, my daughter! As for you, you are ridiculous with your peacocks.

  HEROD: Peace! you are always crying out. You cry out like a beast of prey. You must not cry in such fashion. Your voice wearies me. Peace, I tell you!... Salome, think on what thou art doing. It may be that this man comes from God. He is a holy man. The finger of God has touched him. God has put terrible words into his mouth. In the palace, as in the desert, God is ever with him... It may be that He is, at least. One cannot tell, but it is possible that God is with him and for him. If he die also, peradventure some evil may befall me. Verily, he has said that evil will befall some one on the day whereon he dies. On whom should it fall if it fall not on me? Remember, I slipped in blood when I came hither. Also did I not hear a beating of wings in the air, a beating of vast wings? These are ill omens. And there were other things. I am sure that there were other things, though I saw them not. Thou wouldst not that some evil should befall me, Salome? Listen to me again.

  SALOME: Give me the head of Iokanaan!

  HEROD: Ah! thou art not listening to me. Be calm. As for me, am I not calm? I am altogether calm. Listen. I have jewels hidden in this place — jewels that thy mother even has never seen; jewels that are marvellous to look at. I have a collar of pearls, set in four rows. They are like unto moons chained with rays of silver. They are even as half a hundred moons caught in a golden net. On the ivory breast of a queen they have rested. Thou shalt be as fair as a queen when thou wearest them. I have amethysts of two kinds; one that is black like wine, and one that is red like wine that one has coloured with water. I have topazes yellow as are the eyes of tigers, and topazes that are pink as the eyes of a wood-pigeon, and green topazes that are as the eyes of cats. I have opals that burn always, with a flame that is cold as ice, opals that make sad men’s minds, and are afraid of the shadows. I have onyxes like the eyeballs of a dead woman. I have moonstones that change when the moon changes, and are wan when they see the sun. I have sapphires big like eggs, and as blue as blue flowers. The sea wanders within them, and the moon comes never to trouble the blue of their waves. I have chrysolites and beryls, and chrysoprases and rubies; I have sardonyx and hyacinth stones, and stones of chalcedony, and I will give them all unto thee, all, and other things will I add to them. The King of the Indies has but even now sent me four fans fashioned from the feathers of parrots, and the King of Numidia a garment of ostrich feathers. I have a crystal, into which it is not lawful for a woman to look, nor may young men behold it until they have been beaten with rods. In a coffer of nacre I have three wondrous turquoises. He who wears them on his forehead can imagine things which are not, and he who carries them in his hand can turn the fruitful woman into a woman that is barren. These are great treasures. They are treasures above all price. But this is not all. In an ebony coffer I have two cups of amber that are like apples of pure gold. If an enemy pour poison into these cups they become like apples of silver. In a coffer incrusted with amber I have sandals incrusted with glass. I have mantles that have been brought from the land of the Seres, and bracelets decked about with carbuncles and with jade that come from the city of Euphrates... What desirest thou more than this, Salome? Tell me the thing that thou desirest, and I will give it thee. All that thou askest I will give thee, save one thing only. I will give thee all that is mine, save only the life of one man. I will give thee the mantle of the high priest. I will give thee the veil of the sanctuary.

  THE JEWS: Oh! oh!

  SALOME: Give me the head of Iokanaan!

  HEROD: [Sinking back in his seat] Let her be given what she asks! Of a truth she is her mother’s child! [The first Soldier approaches. Herodias draws from the hand of the Tetrarch the ring of death, and gives it to the Soldier, who straightway bears it to the Executioner. The Executioner looks scared] Who has taken my ring? There was a ring on my right hand. Who has drunk my wine? There was wine in my cup. It was full of wine. Some one has drunk it! Oh! surely some evil will befall some one. [The Executioner goes down into the cistern] Ah! wherefore did I give my oath? Hereafter let no king swear an oath. If he keep it not, it is terrible, and if he keep it, it is terrible also.

  HERODIAS: My daughter has done well.

  HEROD: I am sure that some misfortune will happen.

  SALOME: [She leans over the cistern and listens] There is no sound. I hear nothing. Why does he not cry out, this man? Ah! if any man sought to kill me, I would cry out, I would struggle, I would not suffer... Strike, strike, Naaman, strike, I tell you... No, I hear nothing. There is a silence, a terrible silence. Ah! something has fallen upon the ground. I heard something fall. It was the sword of the Executioner. He is afraid, this slave. He has dropped his sword. He dares not kill him. He is a coward, this slave! Let soldiers be sent. [She sees the Page of Herodias and addresses him] Come hither. Thou wert the friend of him who is dead, wert thou not? Well, I tell thee, there are not dead men enough. Go to the soldiers and bid them go down and bring me the thing I ask, the thing the Tetrarch has promised me, the thing that is mine. [The Page recoils. She turns to the soldiers] Hither, ye soldiers. Get ye down into this cistern and bring me the head of this man. Tetrarch, Tetrarch, command your soldiers that they bring me the head of Iokanaan. [A huge black arm, the arm of the Executioner, comes forth from the cistern, bearing on a silver shield the head of Iokanaan. Salome seizes it. Herod hides his face with his cloak. Herodias smiles and fans herself. The Nazarenes fall on their knees and begin to pray] Ah! thou wouldst not suffer me to kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. Well! I will kiss it now. I will bite it with my teeth as one bites a ripe fruit. Yes, I will kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. I said it; did I not say it? I said it. Ah! I will kiss it now... But wherefore dost thou not look at me, Iokanaan? Thine eyes that were so terrible, so full of rage and scorn, are shut now. Wherefore are they shut? Open thine eyes! Lift up thine eyelids, Iokanaan! Wherefore dost thou not look at me? Art thou afraid of me, Iokanaan, that thou wilt not look at me?... And thy tongue, that was like a red snake darting poison, it moves no more, it speaks no words, Iokanaan, that scarlet viper that spat its venom upon me. It is strange, is it not? How is it that the red viper stirs no longer?... Thou wouldst have none of me, Iokanaan. Thou rejectedst me. Thou didst speak evil words against me. Thy didst bear thyself toward me as to a harlot, as to a woman that is a wanton, to me, Salome, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judæa! Well, I still live, but thou art dead, and thy head belongs to me. I can do with it what I will. I can throw it to the dogs and to the birds of the air. That which the dogs leave, the birds of the air shall devour... Ah, Iokanaan, Iokanaan, thou wert the man that I loved alone among men! All other men were hateful to me. But thou wert beautiful! Thy body was a column of ivory set upon feet of silver. It was a garden full of doves and lilies of silver. It was a tower of silver decked with shields of ivory. There was nothing in the world so white as thy body. There was nothing in the world so black as thy hair. In the whole world there was nothing so red as thy mouth. Thy voice was a censer that scattered strange perfumes, and when I looked on thee I heard a strange music. Ah! wherefore didst thou not look at me, Iokanaan? With the cloak of thine hands, and with the cloak of thy blasphemies thou didst hide thy face. Thou didst put upon thine eyes the covering of him who would see his God. Well, thou hast seen thy God, Iokanaan, but me, me, thou didst never see. If thou hadst seen me thou hadst loved me. I saw thee, and I loved thee. Oh, how I loved thee! I love thee yet, Iokanaan. I love only thee... I am athirst for thy beauty; I am hungry for thy body; and neither wine nor apples can appease my desire. What shall I do now, Iokanaan? Neither the floods nor the great waters can quench my passion. I was a princess, and thou didst scorn me. I was a virgin, and thou didst take my virginity from me. I was chaste, and thou didst fill my veins with fire... Ah! ah! wherefore didst thou not look at me? If thou hadst looked at me thou hadst loved me. Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery of Love is greater than the mystery of Death.

  HEROD: She is monstrous, thy daughter; I tell thee she is monstrous. In truth, what she has done is a great crime. I am sure that it is a crime against some unknown God.

  HERODIAS: I am well pleased with my daughter. She has done well. And I would stay here now.

  HEROD: [Rising] Ah! There speaks my brother’s wife! Come! I will not stay in this place. Come, I tell thee. Surely some terrible thing will befall. Manasseh, Issachar, Ozias, put out the torches. I will not look at things, I will not suffer things to look at me. Put out the torches! Hide the moon! Hide the stars! Let us hide ourselves in our palace, Herodias. I begin to be afraid. [The slaves put out the torches. The stars disappear. A great cloud crosses the moon and conceals it completely. The Tetrarch begins to climb the staircase]

  THE VOICE OF SALOME: Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood?... Nay; but perchance it was the taste of love... They say that love hath a bitter taste... But what matter? what matter? I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. [A ray of moonlight falls on Salome and illumines her]

  HEROD: [Turning round and seeing Salome] Kill that woman! [The soldiers rush forward and crush beneath their shields Salome, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judæa]

  CURTAIN

  THE HOLOCAUST

  R. Murray Gilchrist (1894)

  My husband and master the bishop being called to Court, I journeyed yesterday to Broadlow. This morning my cousin’s second lady vehemently desired me to tell all I know of her who once held the place she adorns so brightly. We were in the still room, and the bantlings played on the floor, pulling the buckles of their mother’s shoes and croodling like culvers. The request was over-sudden; to gain time, I opened the green lattice, and looking out to the herb garden, said that little Bab herself had mounted by Neptune in the empty tank, and that in the sun-haze her countenance bore a plain likeness to one dead. And the row of clarifying waters in the window span round and round, and I swooned in madam’s arms. But she consoled me, and now to her will, I write the following history, in trust that my lord may never be permitted to read. The fustian preface I will omit; ‘tis but a record, unprofitable to the would-be adventurer, of life among the Barbary Rovers, of voyagers to Feginny, of the saving of a ship’s crew. Its six volumes are in the library, bound in pigskin, and revered by all. Of my cousin’s three years in Bologna – years devoted to the joys of Italian gallantry – little is known, for on that score he hath ever been silent.

  Thirteen years ago he returned for good – even then scarce more than a youth – with the Princess Bice. As you know report tells that ere he travelled to Italy he and I had had love passages. The grandams teased me, and (for I am assured, madam, that you have heard) once I stole away from Broadlow for a month, and came back lightened. We were close akin, and Bible patriarchs enjoyed their handmaids…

  When news came of his marriage I prayed for a renewal of his ardour; but at the first sight of the Princes Bice, as she sat at his side in the big chariot, I knew that all hope was unavailing. Yet she was not more beautiful than you, dear lady; indeed her face lacked the mysterious and tender charm that shines from a woman whom nature has intended for motherhood. Where you are snowy, she was olive, her black her was dull and lifeless, not all quick and gold. If at any time Bab be taken into a darkened room, and the curtain lifted aback of her head some faint resemblance may be seen. Once, peeping unawares to the princess Bice’s dressing-closet, I saw her naked afront of the mirror – her wondrous hair unbound and tumbling to the floor. At my appearance her body flushed and methought I watched a rashlight burning in a grove of firs.

  Her manner was haughty; at first it seemed as she mistrusted me, looking from her spouse to me and back again with some suspicion. He leaned on her shoulder, and it was as though I head, ‘This is she – was not I foolish? nay, sweetheart, trust me!’ The roses I had greeted her with were out carelessly aside.

  My lord took my hand with ancient friendliness, ‘Diana is your gentlewoman,’ he said. ‘She will conduct you to the chamber.’

  She smiled wryly, and laid her fingers on my palm, with a look bidding me kiss, so I raised their daintiness lothfully to my lips.

  Then I led her through the lines of servants, past stately old Mother Humble – God rest her – and along the upper gallery to the bed-chamber; and there, when the door was shut, she put her hands on my shoulders and drew me to the hearth.

  ‘You were…’ she said. ‘He hath told me all, and I forewarn you that if – again – I can be an enemy worse than Satan himself. Yet, since you are his kinswoman, I had liefer you were my friend.’

  At her girdle was a pouch made of silk, inwrought with a curious device of seed pearls; this she untied, and emptying to her table the comfits held therein, begged me to accept it as a token of her desire to act in all things well. From that even I became attached after a fashion; she held me as the flame holds the jenny-spinner. I strove to abhor her, yet was never happy save in her presence. ‘Tis to her I owe the accomplishments that commended me to the fancy of my husband the Bishop. True, in my girlhood I could strum on the harpsichord, but my music was never more than picking the tune with my forefinger and making base haphazard; and the Princess Bice taught me the rich fugues and solemn adagios of the Italian masters. The golden tissues that hang in the withdrawing-room we worked together on her toy-loom of ivory; and amongst my cousin’s books are many vellum scripts of our illumination.

  Months passed, and the gossips began to grow impatient, for the couple had already spent nigh upon a year in Paris, and yet there was no sign of my lord’s happiness being consummated by the birth of one to inherit. The land, as you know, madam, goes with the title, and Sir Cadwallader, our Welsh kinsman, vowed, if ‘twere ever his, to divide the park into farms and to chop down every tree. My lord did not hate him (Sir Cadwallader being a fool), but it tore his heart to think of such beauty being destroyed. Day by day – hour by hour – the desire for a lawful child grew upon him, and she herself became impatient beyond measure, questioning minutely all the matrons and perusing all that has been writ.

  Several false alarms were given, and these themselves depressed the husband, for the continual deferring of hope fretted his soul. The chaplain spent long afternoons in prayer; and she harped on the idol-creed in which she had been bred, and sent to foreign shrines offerings of jewels and gold.

  My lord’s demeanour changes, and, although he was never harsh, her caresses grew distasteful to him, and I have often seen him take away her hands from his brow, and crave leave to meditate. Then she would sigh like one demented, and for awhile in her voice as she sang I could find notes of anger and of braised tenderness, that wetted my eyes with tears, and made the fascination wherewith she held me deepen into love.

  Three years after the return, my cousin was despatched to the Hague with secret messages for the Princess Mary of Orange, now – Heaven be praised – our queen, and in his absence, I saw her linger fondly over all that brought him to mind. She would sit in his chair, study his favourite books, and even kiss the breast of his coats, as if, perchance, she might detect some lingering aroma.

  Once she strove with the women in the harvest field, hoping thus to cast away the curse of barrenness. At sunset – she had gleaned from noon – a wench passed by with her by blow, and she turned pale and sick, and came back to the house.

  ‘Diana,’ quoth she. ‘God’s mercy is unduly dispensed. Yon begger with her babe is starving. Go privately and bring the woman here, and feed her in my room!’

  So I went and filled the strumpet with good things. Whilst she ate the Princess Bice stole the babe away, and when the half bemused mother noted its disappearance and cried out, I ran to the cabinet, and found madam, with the child patting her naked breasts and chuckling most jocundly.