It is you, however, who have awakened my spirit, who have aroused it from its deadly torpor; it is you who have inspired me with will and strength. Have you not approved of my project? Have you not found noble, and worthy of a sage, the dream which carried me away.
FOUNT [kneeling before the EMPEROR]
I cried aloud with enthusiasm, I wept with emotion when I grasped your sublime thought——But it is an impossible dream, and the wish to realise it is a madness as generous as it is vain. I fear for you, Sire, my well beloved Master, I fear!
EMPEROR
You fear what? Up to to-day has not my plan worked out as if by magic.
FOUNT
Up to to-day, yes, I cannot deny it.
EMPEROR
My departure from the Palace, which seemed so perilous—not an obstacle! You, my dear minister, enter your official palanquin, I was at your side in the costume of your Secretary! I smiled, you remember, like a schoolboy playing truant. My manner was so gay as to frighten you.——And your poor little secretary, your pupil, as dear to you as a son, consented to take my place in my bed with its funereal silk draperies, in that sepulchral chamber, railed and walled in again and again, where one stifles with the perfumes which are too sweet. If I come through safe, what can I do in recognition of this boy's tremendous devotion, who acted as substitute for the martyr which I was, who entered into the mummied body of an Emperor of China?
FOUNT