"CATARINA (replacing the curtain).
"Derrière moi! c'est derrière moi. Ah! vous voyez bien que ce n'est pas un rêve, et que c'est bien réel ce qui passe ici, puisque voilà des choses là derrière le rideau!"
Corneille! Racine! Voltaire!—This is tragedy,—tragedy played on the stage of the Théâtre Français—tragedy which it has been declared in the face of day shall "lift the ground from under you!" Such is the march of mind!
After this glorious soliloquy, her lover Rodolpho pays Catarina a visit—again in her bed-room, in her guarded palace, surrounded by spies and sentinels. How he gets there, it is impossible to guess: but in the burlesque at the Vaudeville they make this matter much clearer;—for there these unaccountable entrées are managed at one time by the falling down of a wall; at another, by the lover's rising through the floor like a ghost; and at another, by his coming flying down on a wire from an opening in the ceiling like a Cupid.
The lovers have a long talk; but she does not tell him a word about the killing, for fear it should bring him into mischief,—though where he got in, it might be easy enough for her to get out. However, she says nothing about "les choses" behind the curtain, but gives him a kiss, and sends him away in high glee.
No sooner does he disappear, than Angelo and the Tisbe enter, and a conversation ensues between the three on the manner of the doomed lady's death that none but M. Victor Hugo could have written. He would represent nature, and he makes a high-born princess, pleading for her life to a sovereign who is her husband, speak thus: "Parlons simplement. Tenez ... vous êtes infâme ... et puis, comme vous mentez toujours, vous ne me croirez pas. Tenez, vraiment je vous méprise: vous m'avez épousée pour mon argent...."
Then she makes a speech to the Tisbe in the same exquisite tone of nature; with now and then a phrase or expression which is quite beyond even the fun of the Vaudeville to travestie; as for instance—"Je suis toujours restée honnête—vous me comprenez, vous—mais je ne puis dire cela à mon mari. Les hommes ne veulent jamais nous croire, vous savez; cependant nous leur disons quelquefois des choses bien vraies...."
At last the Tyrant gets out of patience.
"ANGELO.
"C'en est trop! Catarina Bragadina, le crime fait, veut un châtiment; la fosse ouverte, veut un cercueil; le mari outragé, veut une femme morte. Tu perds toutes les paroles qui sortent de ta bouche (montrant le poison).