He fell into a little irresistible chuckle. Strange wafts of tears and laughter seemed to sing in the drowsy chambers of his brain.
'Thou a woman!' he giggled hysterically.
The Fool gave a sudden cry.
'Why not? Have I betrayed my child?'
He turned, as if sore stricken, and went up and down, up and down, wringing his hands and moaning.
Suddenly he came and threw himself on his knees before the boy, but away from him, and knelt there, rocking and protesting, his face in his hands.
'Ah! let me be myself at last. That disguise—thou mockest—'twas none. Worn like a fool—mayhap—unpractised—yet could I have kissed its skirted hem. I am a woman, though a Fool—what's odd in that?—a woman, dear, a woman, a woman!'
He bowed himself, lower, lower, as if his shame were crushing him. In the deep silence that followed, Bernardo, trembling all through, crept a foot nearer, and paused.
'Mother?' cried the Fool, still crouching, his head deeper abased; 'no name for me. Cry on—cry scorn, in thy hunger, on this lying dam! No drop to cool thy drought in all her withered pastures.'
He writhed, and struck his chest, in pain intolerable.