"Any one who saw you now--truly a vestal, whose fire, alas, had often gone out. It looks like gold and is brass, it gleams like silver and is tin. And this, on the day on which a crime shall be consecrated. The cocks have already crowed, midnight is past, your second wedding day will soon dawn, do not forget your first myrtles; its stars still shine, the second can only consist of nightshade and fox-glove, it breathes the poison of a lie. Corpo di bacco--such a saint--it makes one laugh!"
"I know, I feel that I am committing an impious act, I am defying law, I am deceiving the best of men, but I only deceive him out of endless love, and so utterly unworthy is that which is protected by law, that I dare all because I believe in the pardon of Heaven."
"You need not have this sin pardoned, it will not be committed."
"Hear me Baluzzi!"
"Hear me first! I have not yet told you all. Since those days by the lake, love died in my heart, passion remained, but it was a wild passion that wavered between love and hatred; expiation I had hoped for from you, but you cast flaming anger into my heart. You shall be mine, your kisses shall give me rapture, my pulses shall throb louder, when I hold you in my arms, but only like the pirate's pulses, who rejoices over the captured beauty. Never shall I forget that you injured and betrayed me beyond expression, that you are my slave, over whom I exercise my proud right of master, whether I torture and chastise, or whether I love her. What are your laurel wreaths to me? Dried up straw which I burn, because no more gold glitters on its leaves, but as in mockery of your renown, the queen of the stage shall preside at my gaming-tables beside other painted harridans, and shall decoy victims into my net--the trade will flourish! The remains of a great name will suffice for it, that little candle end can still shed some light. You shall obey me, tremble before me! That is the expiation, the penance for an overbearing and faithless wife!"
"And to such degradation shall I follow you, give myself up to such disappointment? Death rather!"
"There is a still better means, Signora! Seize your dagger, kill me, let me be killed as a robber and housebreaker, then you will be free, and with a light heart can greet the first ray of the morning sun; but I am on my guard, my glances do not leave you, do not leave that door behind which Beate sleeps. I know that she has a pocket pistol under her pillow, and a crime more or less does not matter to her, but I am prepared to meet her also."
And Baluzzi pulled out a pistol.
"Beate sleeps in the second room," said Giulia, "she does not hear us! We will not excite ourselves--one calm word! An unhappy fate has brought us together, it should never have happened. Our paths led far asunder, but the indissoluble bond remains; it is cruel to tie up my soul with it, it is indissoluble there, indissoluble also for me here, because I dare not venture forth with this life-long lie, without forfeiting my future happiness. But you would not be separated, although to do so lay in your power. I beg, I implore you, do not let your old right interfere in my life. I was always your friend, I will remain so, but upon my knees I implore you, grant me the bliss of this true love. I ask nothing but silence, do not make him miserable who hazarded his life for me. Is it then so great a sacrifice not to utter words which would plunge two people into calamity? Is it impossible to resign a dreamed-of possession, a right that is dead?"
"A dreamed-of possession?" shouted the Italian, "the real right will still find its protection in the world, and when I see you thus before me, in all the magic of your charms, I long to press you to my heart and to rejoice in my beautiful possession; my blood surges up within me, like the fire-spring of Salfatora. I am no Don Juan who breaks at night into the sanctuary of the house, I am no adulterer, no seducer; I am the husband, and that word is like a king's crown and sceptre, before which all the nation bows. The law would drive you into my arms with rods, if you refuse, because to me is given power over you."