And seldom
Has France been so outwitted. Now you are laughing?
I curse them, to the very lees of laughter,
These dung-hill French, that I must fight beside.
—Ah, now your eye is caught by the escutcheon,
Our challenge!
ALEXANDER.
[Shaking his head.] Flagrant blazoning! Christ Jesus!
Yet if you are not Cesar—nihil, nihil!
Come with me to the treasury.
CESARE.
And silence,
Silence and secrecy about this death.
ALEXANDER.
[Making a step back, as if from a gulf.] Cesare, but you sway me like your mother,
When she inhabited my will. Ah, God!
My Captain and my Gonfalonier
Suppling my nature like a mistress, fah!
Come with me.... Take the gold!
SCENE V.
Suor Lucia in a cave beneath the heights of Nepi. She is dressed as a penitent: before her is a crucifix.