PAUL.
Wife gone!—Home desolated!—Naught left but the haunting memory of joy forever lost!—Ah, I am weary, heart-broken—helpless!
[He sinks into the chair at desk, and buries his face in his arms. Slowly the light dims to darkness. At back, the stage is transformed into a TABLEAU OF KAUVAR'S DREAM OF ANARCHY.
_Mysterious music accompanies the Dream, which consists of a tableau of the guillotine in the Place de la Revolution, in Paris, by moonlight.
Here is seen the scaffold, with its ghastly paraphernalia, surrounded by ferocious_ SANS CULOTTES, and GENS D'ARMES. _Amidst them is an old hag.
The death-cart, with its load of victims, is seen in the foreground—the entrance to the garden with the palace of the Tuilleries in the background.
The_ HEADSMAN _stands ready, near the knife of the guillotine.
From the death-cart_ DIANE _glides on and slowly goes up the scaffold steps.
As she reaches the top, she is seized roughly by the_ HEADSMAN.
At this moment PAUL starts with a cry of agony from his chair—and at his shriek, the whole Tableau of the Dream instantly disappears.