Countess has brought it to her lips, she regains her selfpossession, her calm, her peace of mind. She admits her love without subtleties of expression, without vain pretension, with a simple but earnest passion, which, having broken for the first time from her closed heart, finds vent in words full of cloquence. The Countess Roussillon is one of those old women who, under wrinkles and white hair, remember the brightness and beauty of their youth. How infinitely more worthy of affection she appears than the old Lady Capulet, Juliet's mother, who for the lovely being who is her own child has never one of the tender expressions by which Countess Roussillon shows that she bears her adopted daughter a true and warm mother's love. And what is the conduct of this worthy lady after Helena has confessed her passion for the young Count, and begs forgiveness of his mother for presuming to love him? Her demeanour is original and peculiar, but quite comprehensible, if we consider her character and her sentiments towards Helena. She answers not a word to the confession she has forced, in so energetic a manner, and for which she has now not a word either of reproof or encouragement. But what she says, the questions she puts to Helena, although they seem to have no connection either with her love or with her fate, are more than an encouragement to the young girl, are almost a complete assurance that she, the mother, has no objection to her love, or even to her marriage with Bertram. Without replying to Helena's ardent words and prayers, she asks the maiden, in quiet tones, if she had not lately an intention of visiting Paris, and with what purpose she was going there? Helena answers that she had the idea of going thither because she had heard that the King of France had fallen into a malignant illness, against which all advice and all remedies proved useless, though the best and most celebrated physicians had been called in. As she has inherited from her father a prescription to cure this very disease, she deems it may prove effectual against the king's sickness. When the Countess, as sole reply to the girl's confession of love, has put this question, when she has rejoined to Helena's answer another question, does Helena think that the king, whose own best physicians cannot help him, will "credit a poor unlearned virgin, when the schools have left the danger to itself," and as Helena reiterates her intention to proceed to Paris (whither Bertram has already gone), she gives her leave to go in these words: Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love, All's Well that Ends Well, act i. scene 3. Hence it is clear that Helena's love has nothing to fear from the pride of the old Countess. Helena's soliloquy, before her confession, shows that she regards her journey to Paris and attempt to cure the king only as a means to an end, the only way of reaching her earthly bliss, the possession of Bertram and his love. She cherishes, on the other hand, an unshaken faith in the mighty and magical power of a love so warm and deep as hers. She trusts that this love will at last prove victorious, and obtain the answering passion of the man she adores. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky The king's disease-my project may deceive me, Helena carries out her resolution, and goes to the king's court at Paris. At first the king will not confide himself to her treatment, because he considers his illness incurable, but the unshaken faith with which she offers her own life as a pledge for its success moves him to make a trial: King. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak That ministers thine own death if I die. Helena answers: All's Well that Ends Well, act ii. scene 1. Not helping, death's my fee ; But, if I help, what do you promise me? "Make thy demand," the king answers, and swears to fulfil it. She rejoins: Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand What husband in thy power I will command. . . . . Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow. The king promises to fulfil her desire. The cure is miraculously effected. Helena asks for Count Bertram of Roussillon as a husband. True to his word, the king says, "Why then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife." Bertram with angry and contemptuous expressions refuses: Ber. My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your highness, But never hope to know why I should marry her. King. Thou know'st she has raised me from my sickly bed. All's Well that Ends Well, act ii. scene 3. This openly expressed contempt, this angry refusal, in spite of the monarch's fluent oration in her favour, wounds Helena so deeply that she seems inclined to forego her wish. She says to the king, "That you are well restored, my lord, I am glad. Let the rest go!" But Bertram, threatened by the angry king with banishment and loss of favour, declares himself ready, in spite of his unwillingness, which he takes no pains to conceal, to marry her, and offers her his hand, which she accepts. This incident requires a separate examination. We feel tempted to call it ignoble, incompatible with the pride and self-respect of a virtuous maiden, who stands upon her dignity, to insist on taking for a husband a man who repulses her, and repeatedly announces his objection to this union. But this is excused by Helena's character, and especially by a certain trait we have already mentioned. Helena, namely, as we have already seen, is devoutly possessed with the conviction that a love so sincere and warm as hers cannot for ever remain unreturned. She holds it to be impossible that the man to whom her faithful heart, her glowing soul, the last breath of her life, is consecrated, can remain untouched by so much devotion. When once she calls him her own, she hopes, through her perpetual care, her humble tireless tenderness, always ready and waiting its opportunity, in the end to touch and win his heart. She has never contemplated the possibility that Bertram will carry his objection to the marriage so far as to refuse her a wedded life on which she had counted as a means of conquest, through the magic of her tenderness. Little does she dream that he will send her away. From this romantic conviction, which gives her strength to hope for the best, she also draws the power to bear all indignities, and to tread her maiden pride under foot, in order to reach a distant difficult goal, in which she has placed all hopes of happiness, and which she firmly believes she can attain. She has already laid aside her womanly timidity, since she has chosen Bertram for her husband before the whole court. It would be contrary to Helena's steadfast resolute determination, now that things have gone so far, to lose, through exaggerated timidity, the hand of her beloved, and to become a lost and despised creature, the object of continual ridicule. Pride only bars the way to her felicity. It is not she herself whom Bertram dismisses; it is the "poor physician's daughter." Her understanding is too clear and sharp not to see that this is no fatal insult. She is intimately convinced that her softening and taming affection will overcome this strong pride of ancestry, that it will in time give way to the influence of her victorious devotion. So she sacrifices momentarily her womanly pride for the sake of her high and precious aim, and accepts the hand that is given only on compulsion, and through fear of the king's anger. But for the moment the outraged Bertram allows no time or opportunity for her love and gentleness to work on him. He parts from her on the spot. She obeys the order he gives. her to proceed immediately to his mother at the Castle of Roussillon, while he goes off to the wars in Tuscany. Cruel is the letter he sends her, which we have already given; difficult, almost impossible the conditions under which he will return to her. "Until I have no wife," he says, "I have nothing in France." The old Countess espouses Helena's side, and is angry with her son. But Helena is too noble |
