“I see the clouds, when night is falling,
Float above the boundless sea;
But still I feel thou art beside me,
However distant thou mayst be!”
Luiza now found herself in Bazilio’s arms, which enfolded her, setting her blood on fire by their contact. She felt herself sinking languidly in an element warm as sunshine and sweet as honey. She felt her being thrill with happiness; but, while she sighed with pleasure, she felt herself covered with shame, for Bazilio repeated before the audience the kisses and caresses of their secret meetings. How could she ever have allowed them?
And the audience with one voice shouted, “Brava!” “Encore!”
A thousand handkerchiefs were waved; the women threw bunches of violets at her feet; the king rose from his seat like a spectre and cast the armillary sphere on the stage before her; and the counsellor, in order to follow the example of his Majesty, tore off his bald cranium and threw it to her also, with a cry of mingled pain and triumph. The director shouted,—
“Hail, hail!”
She bowed profoundly; her hair, falling loose around her like that of a Magdalen, swept the stage; at her side Bazilio followed with gleaming eyes the cigars that were thrown to him, catching them with the grace of a torero and the dexterity of a clown. Suddenly the audience gave a cry of terror. There was a moment of tragic and anxious silence. Thousands of eyes were fixed in amazement on the background of the stage, where was seen a garden full of white roses. She, too, followed with her eyes, as if under magnetic influence, the eyes of the others, and saw Jorge,—Jorge, who came forward dressed in black, with black kid gloves on his hands, holding in his grasp a dagger the blade of which glittered less brightly than his eyes. He approached the footlights, and said, bowing gracefully to the audience,—
“Your Majesty, Senhor Infante, Senhor Governor, gentlemen and ladies, it is my turn now. Observe how I shall acquit myself.”