Chapter 7: The Lovers Part

Claudius was frustrated. "And could you get from him no reason why he puts on this confusion and disturbs his days of quiet with turbulent lunacy?" he demaned fiercely of Hamlet's friends.

"He does confess he feels himself distracted," said Rosencrantz lamely, shrinking beneath Claudius's flashing eyes. "But from what cause he will by no means speak."

"Nor do we find him willing to be questioned," added Guildenstern, shrugging. "With crafty madness does he keep aloof when we try to discover his true state."

The king growled impatiently and turned his back, thinking hard.

"And does he recieve you well?" asked Gertrude, worried.

"Most like a gentleman," replied Rosencrantz.

"But with much forcing," said Guildenstern, "as if it took an effort to be civil to us."

"Did you suggest any of his favorite pastimes? He used to love the library but will not venture there now," further ventured the queen by way of a suggestion.

"Madam," answered Rosencrantz, "we told him of the players that came to town. And, as I think, they already have order this night to play before him."

"Tis most true," added Polonius.

"With all my heart," said the king calmly and turned around again, "it does much content me to hear this. Good gentlemen, watch him with a keener eye and encourage him on these delights."

"We shall, my lord," answered Hamlet's friends and left at the king's word of dismissal.

"Sweet Gertrude, you must leave us too," said the king to Gertrude, squeezing her small hand, "that Hamlet, as though by accident, may meet with Ophelia. Her father and myself will listen, unseen, that we may frankly judge the boy's madness."

"I shall obey you," Gertrude said, pecking her husband on the cheek. "And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish that your good beauty be the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness, and so shall I hope that your good virtues shall bring him back to us again!" And she kissed Ophelia on both cheeks before she departed.

"Ophelia, walk you here," ordered Polonius, pointing. "Gracious, so please you, we shall hide ourselves -- Ophelia, feign to read this book -- I hear him coming! Let's withdraw, my lord -- "

Ophelia watched her father and the king hide themselves, then turned and began to pace the lobby, the small book open in her slender fingers. Her heart was beating furiously. She had not seen Hamlet since that frightful morning he had entered her chambers and terrorized her so. She worried that he would be even still as mad, and her heart thudded to think what horrifying antics her once-lover would perform in his lunacy.

O Hamlet! The very thought of him so wretched and unshaven on that fateful morning made a few tears brim her eyes, and she sighed sadly and went on pretending to read the little Psalm.

Ophelia froze as she heard Hamlet's familiar voice muttering feverishly:

"To be or not to be? That is the question. Whether tis nobler by far in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of cruel fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, thus, by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; no more; and, by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to . . ."

Ophelia gave a tiny sob to hear his words. He spoke of heart-ache and misfortune and life being pain -- and it was her fault! She should have defyed her father, informed Hamlet of Polonius's wishes, and run away with her true love! Oh, she was a coward -- a coward! -- for not standing up to Polonius!

Hamlet, hearing Ophelia's sob, said with genuine delight, "Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy prayers be all my sins remembered."

Ophelia, who stood frozen, her back to Hamlet, drew herself up and dried her tears. "Good my lord, how does your honour for this many a day?"

"I humbly thank you; well, well, well . . ." Hamlet answered, smiling, and approached.

His seeming sanity frankly shocked Ophelia, who had anticipated the wild and unshaven man of the morrow previous. But this Hamlet was glowing, smiling, happy, shaven and dressed as immaculately as ever -- this was her Hamlet. This was the man she loved, wanted to marry, longed to run away with. The clear green eyes were glowing at her, twinkling with their joy, and it pained her more than Hamlet would ever guess to do what her father had bid her do next.

"My lord, I have remembrances of yours," Ophelia said, unable to bear it as she drew from the folds of her apron several necklaces, scarves, and rosary beads: all tokens of Hamlet's affection. Averting her eyes as if it pained her to do it, she held the clinking objects at arm's length toward Hamlet, whose face hardened. "Pray you, recieve them now."

To this, Hamlet laughed sarcastically and turned away, "No, not I. I never gave you aught."

"My honored lord, you know right well you did!" flared Ophelia, her eyes widening at Hamlet's back.

How dare he imply that she had courted many men for those! But she remembered again that she was slighting him, and he did not know her father was the cause of it. She wanted desperately to tell Hamlet she still loved him, that she refused him now because she was being forced to, but Polonius and the king were in hiding, listening and watching all she said and did.

"And with them," choked Ophelia, realizing how betrayed Hamlet must be feeling, "words so sweet of breath composed as made the things more rich."

Hamlet turned to her, disbelieving, and frowned. Her passion and longing were obvious, but why then was she slighting him? Was it all a game? Was she toying with him?

"Their perfume being lost," continued Ophelia in a rush, her eyes averted, "take these again. There, my lord . . ." and she stepped forward and shakily pressed the many beads and bangles into Hamlet's limp hand.

Ophelia scurried back and watched him nervously, like a rat scurrying to the safety of its hole. Hamlet's head was lowered as he gazed darkly at the rejected gifts in his open hand, and she could not see his face. But a low moan rose slowly from his chest, growing louder and louder as his chest heaved, then his fist snapped down tight on the necklaces and hurled them suddenly at Ophelia, who screamed and covered her head.

Hamlet laughed at her viciously, "Are you honest? A virgin, I mean."

"My lord!" gasped Ophelia, stung.

"Are you fair!" demanded Hamlet, the green eyes flashing. "For fair and beautiful women are seldom chaste!" Had she met someone else, he wondered, and thus was throwing his love back in his face for her new lover?

Ophelia drew herself up again and lifted her chin, and she knew without having to look at him that Hamlet was smirking at her attempted dignity.

"Can my beauty have no better association than with my honesty, my lord?" she said with dignity, though she sounded as if she had a head cold.

Hamlet marked with a pang of regret her steadily rising tears but plunged on, his fists clenched as if he was straining against himself. "Ay, truly, for the power of beauty soon turns honesty to the form of a whore. I did love you once," he said miserably, turning and covering his eyes as if he'd spoken more to himself than to Ophelia.

"Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so."

Hamlet heard the miserable note in Ophelia's voice and knew she was trying very hard not to cry. He couldn't look at her, not if she was crying, he couldn't bear it. But the angry, aching, wounded part of him, the part of him that felt alone and betrayed, was crying out for vengenace and he wanted nothing more than to hurt the the woman who was so coldly turning him away.

"You should not have believed me," Hamlet snapped over his shoulder. "I loved you not!"

"I was the more decieved." Her voice was a sob.

Hamlet turned. Her back was to him and her face in her hands.

"Get thee to a nunnery!" Hamlet spat at her. "Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" he demanded in his utter hatredof people and the world in general. "I myself am generally virtuous, and yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had never born me! I am proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck and call than I have thoughts to put them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves all! Go thy ways to a nunnery!"

Hamlet paused, watching her back miserably, and asked with slight suspicion, "Where is your father?"

"At -- at home," Ophelia lied sullenly, her voice muffled through her hands and through her sobbing.

Hamlet's heart thrilled again with anger, for he knew without a doubt that the king and his wretched councillor were in hiding, listening and watching all that was said and done. He wanted to grab Ophelia, spin her around, and shake her for the lie. Would she abandon him? lie to him? when he had loved her so dearly?

"Then let the doors be shut upon him," Hamlet sneered at her back, unable to bear the sight of her shaking shoulders, "that he may play the fool in his own house! Farewell."

"O heavenly powers, restore him!" Ophelia prayed, crossing herself as she sobbed.

"I have heard of your paintings too, you women," Hamlet said darkly to her, having stopped in the middle of leaving her. "God hath given you one face and yet you make yourselves another. You dance and walk to intice lust and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go on, I'll no more it. It hath made me mad. I say we will have no more marriages. Those that are married already shall live, but the rest should keep as they are! To a nunnery go!"

Ophelia waited until she was certain Hamlet had stalked away before she turned again. Her pale face was streaked with tears in her misery. She hiccoughed with fierce sobs, her shoulders shaking, and heeded not the strands of black hair that clung to her damp cheeks. Instead, she stared wretchedly into the distance, unseeing, as she sobbed and gasped through her tears.

"O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!" she cried, clutching both hands to her breast. "And I of ladies most deject and wretched! That handsome, unmatchable form and feature of blown youth ruined by madness! O woe is me! To see what I have seen -- to see what I see!"

"Love!" gasped Claudius, emerging with Polonius. "His emotions do not that way bend. Nor what he spoke was not like madness. There is something in his soul that drives this meloncholy which will be the cause, I doubt it not, of some danger. With speed will I send him to England for the money owed Denmark. What think you, Polonius?"

"It would do him well," answered the old man, nodding. "But yet do I believe that his madness is sprung from neglected love. How now Ophelia! You need not tell us what was said. We heard all. My lord king, do as you please, but let his mother entreat him alone after the play, and I shall hide as here we did just now and listen to their conference. If she find not the cause, then to England send him or confine him where your wisdom best think."

"It shall be so," said Claudius. "Madness in great ones must not unwatched go."

And as the king and Polonius moved away, Ophelia knelt, sobbing, and quickly gathered the thrown gifts in her apron once more. Most of the rosary beads were cracked, the necklaces broken, and the rings lost under furniture, but Ophelia gathered what she could before her father noticed that she lingered and beckoned to her.

"I'm coming, my lord!" she called to Polonius, but knew, as she knelt crying silently over a scuffed ring Hamlet had only recently given her, that she would be many minutes alone until the tears stopped flowing.