Anything—except the truth.
EMPEROR
Yet if he should escape, would I not be lost indeed?
FOUNT
My heart feels as though in a vice. Are you not lost in any case?
EMPEROR
Silence! After all, what have I to risk? My life? Under the shadow of that throne from which they would banish me, is not life an unending agony? With what crushing weight do the slow hours fall upon me. Who can describe the horror of that indolent stagnation, of that idle solitude? Oh! the rage which consumes the soul, when one is the Master and yet has no power! If I find death here, I shall be a thousand times happier for having come. All my unhappy existence down to the present has not been worth as much to me as these last few days of flight and travel, this rapture of escape, for a time, from that grey, silky web wherein I am a prisoner. Oh! to work, to work in the sunshine, to work like a man, to attempt some daring act, which, if I die, will at least remain behind to honour my memory.
FOUNT
You are wonderful, you are noble, you are fearless. But I, who am as nothing, I have the right to tremble.
EMPEROR