Belfry. A commodious hack I keep, transferred the scene, the folk, to Spain From England, changed the age, and vulgarized The whole. The trick was done; the money flows.
Sir T. You shameful Yankee salesman! Play Your tricks elsewhere.
Sir T. I've some here to attend to. Will you join The others on the stage? No? Well; good night.
Belfry. I'll have your theatre yet! [Goes out.]
Sir T. What did it? Is there anything to tell?
Boulder. Before The curtain fell I saw a woman's head, A lady's, on the stair.
Boulder. It seemed to rest upon the topmost step From where I stood and watched.
Abbot. The lady climbed No further than the middle of the stair-- That's what he means, I think. Her head Appeared just in the entrance.
Boulder. My meaning, sir. The palest face I ever saw: her eyeballs Turned about and showed the whites; she gasped For breath and drew a deep one. While I watched, Wondering what might be right, her eyes came down, Dull, dead, and horrible, and she hissed like hell. Then everybody hissed. I hissed myself. I beg your pardon: I could no more keep From hissing than I could from crying out When once a dervish stabbed me at Khartoum. The gallery felt the same; I asked those near What set them on it, and they said they heard A hideous hiss that made them hiss like hell.
Boulder. I couldn't help The hissing. Like something in a battle, hiss It went and everybody hissed.
Sir T. No need To trouble; I conceive the thing.
Boulder. We hissed Because we couldn't help it.
Sir T. Say the word Again, and I'll hiss too! Good night, my man.
Boulder. Good night, Sir Tristram. [Goes out.]
Sir T. Hildreth, Abbot; come.-- About this lady not a word remember.-- I'll ask you something; did you ever see A woman's soul?
Sir T. And never may you need to! Once on a time I saw a woman's soul. I looked and looked, expecting colours, flowers, A perfume and an opal. I found instead A sooty cobweb diapered with limbs And empty hulls of captives long undone. I shook it, but the spider made no sign: It, too, was dead. I brushed the film away, And where it hung a mortal crevice yawned, Obscene and dark and barren as the grave.-- How late it is! My guests will all be gone. Come, quickly.--Prophecies fulfil themselves.