No More Learning

_20
Henceforth no witness--not the lamp--shall see
That which the vassal threatened to divulge
Whose throat is choked with dust for his reward.
The deed he saw could not have rated higher
Than his most worthless life:--it angers me! _25
Respited me from Hell! So may the Devil
Respite their souls from Heaven! No doubt Pope Clement,
And his most charitable nephews, pray
That the Apostle Peter and the Saints
Will grant for their sake that I long enjoy _30
Strength, wealth, and pride, and lust, and length of days
Wherein to act the deeds which are the stewards
Of their revenue. --But much yet remains
To which they show no title.

CAMILLO:
Oh, Count Cenci!
So much that thou mightst honourably live _35
And reconcile thyself with thine own heart
And with thy God, and with the offended world.
How hideously look deeds of lust and blood
Through those snow white and venerable hairs! --
Your children should be sitting round you now, _40
But that you fear to read upon their looks
The shame and misery you have written there.
Where is your wife? Where is your gentle daughter?
Methinks her sweet looks, which make all things else
Beauteous and glad, might kill the fiend within you. _45
Why is she barred from all society
But her own strange and uncomplaining wrongs?
Talk with me, Count,--you know I mean you well.
I stood beside your dark and fiery youth
Watching its bold and bad career, as men _50
Watch meteors, but it vanished not--I marked
Your desperate and remorseless manhood; now
Do I behold you in dishonoured age
Charged with a thousand unrepented crimes.
Yet I have ever hoped you would amend, _55
And in that hope have saved your life three times.

CENCI:
For which Aldobrandino owes you now
My fief beyond the Pincian. --Cardinal,
One thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth,
And so we shall converse with less restraint. _60
A man you knew spoke of my wife and daughter--
He was accustomed to frequent my house;
So the next day HIS wife and daughter came
And asked if I had seen him; and I smiled:
I think they never saw him any more. _65

CAMILLO:
Thou execrable man, beware! --

CENCI:
Of thee?
Nay, this is idle: --We should know each other.
As to my character for what men call crime
Seeing I please my senses as I list,
And vindicate that right with force or guile, _70
It is a public matter, and I care not
If I discuss it with you. I may speak
Alike to you and my own conscious heart--
For you give out that you have half reformed me,
Therefore strong vanity will keep you silent _75
If fear should not; both will, I do not doubt.
All men delight in sensual luxury,
All men enjoy revenge; and most exult
Over the tortures they can never feel--
Flattering their secret peace with others' pain. _80
But I delight in nothing else. I love
The sight of agony, and the sense of joy,
When this shall be another's, and that mine.
And I have no remorse and little fear,
Which are, I think, the checks of other men. _85
This mood has grown upon me, until now
Any design my captious fancy makes
The picture of its wish, and it forms none
But such as men like you would start to know,
Is as my natural food and rest debarred _90
Until it be accomplished.

CAMILLO:
Art thou not
Most miserable?