It is her beauty he loved; not she
The thing he loved! A poet, he!...
[A pause.]
It were as well you tore these garlands down:
If, by a miracle, she should return,
The Plague will have marked her with such ugliness
That even you will shine like Helen of Troy beside her!
Much will he care, then, if she sing his songs!
Had she a voice like a garden of nightingales
He could not listen to her without loathing....
[Sounds of approach of another funeral procession.]
Violante [continuing]
Pray draw the arras, Lizzia, and close out
The things that they bring by.... They have begun
To move the night's innumerable Dead.
[Lizzia draws the large arras.... From now on, till the very last, just before climax, sound and murmur of processions are continually heard.]
Violante [persistently]
I think she will not come—
But, if she does, she should be spared the cruelty
Of his heart's change,
And he, her marred, plague-broken face!
Stand aside—let me pass....
Lizzia [barring way again]