The EMPRESS, the FAITHFUL PRINCE, and several LADIES-IN-WAITING.
[The EMPRESS watches him disappear, and thenmounts the steps of the terrace to get a last glimpse of him, and when he is out of sight she cries aloud in her anguish, wringing her hands.]
FAITHFUL PRINCE
Noble Sovereign, have courage.
EMPRESS
Ah, no, leave me. I am at the end of my strength!——I played the Empress, did I not, as long as my child was here?——Now that he is gone, let me be a woman, let me be his mother!——I shall never again see him whom you have just taken away from me. Never, do you hear? I feel it, I know it! Since we are above ordinary beings, may Heaven be just to us and give us superhuman strength! Why have we hearts like other people, and anguish which breaks them?——Ah, the very beggar-women in rags in the street are less miserable! No handsome spy comes to them, to make their souls falter, and then flees-and after that their children are not taken away from them!——Your Empress would rather be a beggar, hungry and cold, but clasping her little one to her breast——Yes, a beggar I tell you, who holds out her hand to passers-by as she sits on the steps of a temple!——[Sobbing, she throws herself on the terrace steps.]
CURTAIN
[ACT THREE.]
[Before the curtain rises, shots are heard. It is nightfall in the Imperial Citadel at Nanking, half battered-down by the TARTARS. Behind a huge wall with battlements are heard the sound of trumpets and the shouts of soldiers in the distance. At the back, to the left is a bronze gate, heavily boarded and surmounted by a black turret with a three-tiered angular roof. In the middle of the stage is a funeral pile of scaffolding and fagots. At the back, to the right, the crenellated wall continues; terraces are visible and in the far distance the outline of the palace stands out in relief against the sky, yellow in the setting sun. On the top of the wall, and over the gateway are Chinese soldiers, who are firing their last shots at the invisible besiegers.]