"Well, yes, and that word is no, no, no! So go away and let me alone," she answered petulantly.

Now Fidelio was certainly a most beautiful youth, but quite different from any Marcelline had ever seen. Fidelio observed, with a good deal of anxiety, that the jailer's daughter was much in love with him, and there were reasons why that should be inconvenient.

Fidelio, instead of being a fine youth, was a most adoring wife, and her husband, Florestan, was shut up in that prison for an offence against its wicked governor, Pizarro. He had been placed there to starve; and indeed his wife Leonora (Fidelio) had been told that he was already dead. She had applied, as a youth, for work in the prison, in order to spy out the truth; to learn if her dear husband were dead or alive.

There was both good and bad luck in the devotion of the jailer's daughter. The favourable part of the affair was that Leonora was able, because of her favouritism, to find out much about the prisoners; but on the other hand, she was in danger of discovery. Although the situation was tragic, there was considerable of a joke in Marcelline's devotion to the youth Fidelio, and in the consequent jealousy of Jaquino.

Love of money was Rocco's (the jailer) besetting sin. He sang of his love with great feeling:

Life is nothing without money,
Anxious cares beset it round;
Sad, when all around is sunny,
Feels the man whom none hath found.
But when to thy keeping the treasure hath rolled,
Blind fortune thou mayest defy, then;
Both love and power their secrets unfold,
And will to thy wishes comply, then.

Rocco was also a man of heart; and since hiring Fidelio (Leonora) he had really become very fond of the young man. When he observed the attachment between Fidelio and Marcelline, he was inclined to favour it.

Don Pizarro had long been the bitterest enemy of Don Florestan, Leonora's husband, because that noble had learned of his atrocities and had determined to depose him as governor of the fortress prison.

Hence, when Pizarro got Florestan in his clutches, he treated him with unimaginable cruelties, and falsely reported that he was dead.

Now in the prison there had lately been much hope and rejoicing because it was rumoured that Fernando, the great Minister of State, was about to pay a visit of investigation. This promised a change for the better in the condition of the prisoners. But no one knew better than Don Pizarro that it would mean ruin to himself if Fernando found Don Florestan in a dungeon. The two men were dear friends, and so cruelly treated had Florestan been that Pizarro could never hope for clemency. Hence, he called Rocco, and told him that Florestan must be killed at once, before the arrival of Fernando.