EMPRESS [To her attendants]
For mercy's sake, for once in my life, leave me alone. I need no further attention. Go!
[The attendants leave and re-enter the Pavilion.]
SCENE III
THE EMPRESS [alone]
The EMPRESS [at the foot of the imperial stair, leaning on the marble banisters.] The storm, said the old man——The storm, it will come from the north as always!——Black clouds on the horizon, the armies which are marching against my phantom empire. Black clouds, the armies of the Tartar Emperor——But this torch which shall illumine the future, what it is? All! My son, it must be——Ah, yes, that it is; my son!——To shelter him, he said, to hide him, to send him far away, perhaps, from this palace that is threatened on all sides; to separate myself from him in this grave danger—that is what is now demanded of me?——Still more agony and sacrifice! And it is I who am expected to guide a whole people, when I lack the force to guide myself——Oh you women who can lean on a strong supporting arm, who can depend for help upon the advice of a manly and farseeing mind! Oh you wives who find in the heart of your husbands a refuge in your weakness! But I am the Empress, and the widowed Empress, all alone and so high that I have no equal to whom I may confide my anxieties and my weaknesses——[She advances to the middle of the flower-plot] Come, listen to the confession which is overpowering me, oh you flowers of early morning, moist with fresh dew! Oh airy spirits which hover over flower-beds at the dawn of springtime, hear me, since I must speak and someone must listen. That man you know, who came yesterday, whose gaze tyrannical and yet caressing is like none other's, he has troubled the sad Empress's heart, and now in the hour of great peril she is no longer mistress of herself——He is only one of her subjects, and yet she would love to obey him——
SCENE IV
The same, THE GRAND MISTRESS OF THE CEREMONIES, TWO ATTENDANTS.