CATILINE. Yes; but be quick, old man; go free your son.
[The SOLDIER goes hurriedly out.]
CATILINE. A better use,—not so, Aurelia dear?— Than bribery and purchasing of votes? Noble it is to crush the tyrant's might; Yet quiet solace too has its reward.
AURELIA. [Throws herself in his arms.] Oh, rich and noble is your spirit still. Yes,—now I know my Catiline again.
[An underground tomb with a freshly walled-in passage high on the rear wall. A lamp burns faintly.]
[FURIA, in long black robes, is standing in the tomb as if listening.]
FURIA. A hollow sound. 'Tis thunder rolls above. I hear its rumble even in the tomb. Yet is the tomb itself so still—so still! Am I forever damned to drowsy rest? Never again am I to wander forth By winding paths, as ever was my wish?
FURIA. [After a pause.] A strange, strange life it was;—as strange a fate. Meteor-like all came—and disappeared. He met me. A mysterious magic force, An inner harmony, together drew us. I was his Nemesis;—and he my victim;— Yet punishment soon followed the avenger.
FURIA. [Another pause.] Now daylight rules the earth.—Am I perchance To slip—unknowing—from the realm of light? 'Tis well, if so it be,—if this delay Within the tomb be nothing but a flight Upon the wings of lightning into Hades,— If I be nearing even now the Styx! There roll the leaden billows on the shore; There silently old Charon plies his boat. Soon am I there! Then shall I seat myself Beside the ferry,—question every spirit, Each fleeting shadow from the land of life, As light of foot he nears the river of death,— Shall ask each one in turn how Catiline Fares now among the mortals of the earth,— Shall ask each one how he has kept his oath. I shall illumine with blue sulphur light Each spectral countenance and hollow eye,— To ascertain if it be Catiline. And when he comes, then shall I follow him;— Together we shall make the journey hence, Together enter Pluto's silent hall. I too a shadow shall his shade pursue;— Where Catiline is, must Furia also be!