"You have killed your mother!" says his young wife, entering, pale with horror, and trembling like a leaf.
"Repent! repent while she expires!" she cries, in a monotonous chant. "This cruel murder, committed by your hand, is the vengeance of Heaven! Did I not bid you beware of betraying your master? You usurped the power. See to what ambition leads you; you have killed your mother! At least repent while she expires."
"Alas! alas!" howls the murderer; "let us leave this accursed spot, let us fly! Remorse rends my heart! For three days I possessed the power: my punishment is terrible. My mother slain by my own hand! I cannot believe it!"
He bursts into the bath-room; then comes out, with all the signs of despair bordering on madness.
The stage again revolves, and represents a field. Taiko in battle array, surrounded by soldiers, waits to intercept his enemy, who is about to escape. Mitsou-Fide crosses the stage with a scanty train of attendants; he is hemmed in by Taiko's men. The latter, after a long speech, in which he overwhelms his unworthy servant with reproaches, takes him prisoner and loads him with chains.
The curtain falls; the play is over.
It interested the audience deeply; in certain situations they discovered analogies to the events which had so recently troubled the country. Hieyas was often mentally substituted for Mitsou-Fide.
Everybody went home highly delighted.
Everybody? No. Fide-Yori had death in his soul. Omiti was not at the performance. Nagato tried in vain to comfort his friend.
"I shall never see her again!" he cried. "I hoped that I might yet be happy in this life; but misfortune clings to me persistently. Look you, friend," he continued, "I long to die; I am overwhelmed with sorrow. My mother's conduct, her mad and ruinous extravagance, displayed in public, fill my heart with bitterness. Several times, when I heard the rough voice of that soldier whom she is weak enough to love, I was on the point of leaping into their box, slapping him in the face, and driving her out, with the righteous wrath evoked by such a disregard of all propriety and decency. And then my anger died at a gentle thought which took possession of me. I hoped that she would come,—that maiden in whom my every hope is centred; I searched the hall with an eager glance. She did not come! All is ended; all is desolate within me; and the life which she preserved I would fain lay down forever!"