“Of course not; I was forgetting. I should say that the good young man will be acquitted because it was justifiable homicide or that he will return after a short term of imprisonment; in any case I think he will marry Rosina and live happily ever after.”
“I see,” he replied. “You think it will be a comedy. People who take a gloomy view of life naturally expect something cheerful in the theatre. But what if it is a tragedy? And how are you going to dispose of the cavaliere? Is he to carry his wickedness through your comedy?”
“You want it to be a tragedy because you are a buffo, I suppose. Now let me think. If you are right—”
Before I could see my way to a tragic plot, the curtain rose on Act II. The women of the village were going to Mass, but Rosina, reduced to ragged misery, fell on the steps, not worthy to enter. The cavaliere came by and offered her money, which she indignantly spurned. A good old woman, who happened to be passing, scowled at the cavaliere and kindly led Rosina away. An old man returned from America, where he had been for twenty years to escape the consequences of a crime the details of which he ostentatiously suppressed. This was his native village; he began recognising things and commenting on the changes. Rosina came to him begging. He looked at her and passed his hand over his eyes as he said:
“My girl, why are you begging at your age—so young, so fair?”
“Ah! Old man, I am in ragged misery because my father committed a crime.”
“A crime! What crime?”
So Rosina told him about it and the escape of the criminal to America. The tears in her voice were so copious that her words were nearly drowned, but that did not signify; we were intelligent enough to have already guessed the relationship between them and we knew that she must be supplying the details which he had suppressed.
He struggled with his surging emotions as he watched her delivering her sad tale and we felt more and more certain that we must be right. There came a pause. She buried her face in her hands. The old man spoke:
“Twenty years, did you say?”