Double Falsehood
Act II, Scene 2
An apartment.
Violante
1 - 8
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Whom shall I look upon without a blush?
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There’s not a maid, whose eye with virgin gaze
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Pierces not to my guilt. What will’t avail me,
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To say I was not willing;
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Nothing; but that I publish my dishonor,
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And wound my fame anew.—O misery,
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To seem to all one’s neighbors rich, yet know
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One’s self necessitous and wretched.
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Enter maid, and afterwards Gerald with a letter.
Maid
9 - 10
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Madam, here’s Gerald, Lord Henriquez’ servant;
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He brings a letter to you.
Violante
11 - 12
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A letter to me! How I tremble now!
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Your lord’s for court, good Gerald, is he not?
Violante
14
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O my presaging heart! When goes he then?
Gerald
15
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His business now steers him some other course.
Violante
16
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Whither, I pray you? How my fears torment me!
Gerald
17
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Some two months progress.
Violante
18 - 21
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Whither, whither, sir,
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I do beseech you? Good heav’ns, I lose all patience.
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Did he deliberate this? Or was the business
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But then conceiv’d, when it was born?
Gerald
22 - 24
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Lady, I know not that; nor is it in the command I have to
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wait your answer. For the perusing the letter I commend you
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to your leisure.
Violante
25 - 48
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To hearts like mine suspense is misery.
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Wax, render up thy trust: be the contents
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Prosp’rous, or fatal, they are all my due.
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Reads.
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Our prudence should now teach us to forget,
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What our indiscretion has committed. I
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Have already made one step towards this
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Wisdom, by prevailing on myself to bid you
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Farewell.
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O, wretched and betray’d! Lost Violante!
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Heart-wounded with a thousand perjur’d vows,
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Poison’d with studied language, and bequeath’d
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To desperation. I am now become
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The tomb of my own honor: a dark mansion,
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For death alone to dwell in. I invite thee,
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Consuming desolation, to this temple,
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Now fit to be thy spoil: the ruin’d fabric,
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Which cannot be repair’d, at once o’erthrow.
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What must I do? But that’s not worth my thought:
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I will commend to hazard all the time
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That I shall spend hereafter: farewell, my father,
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Whom I’ll no more offend: and men, adieu,
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Whom I’ll no more believe: and maids, adieu,
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Whom I’ll no longer shame. The way I go,
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As yet I know not. Sorrow be my guide.
