Not so; some accident might interpose

To rescue him from what is now most sure;

And you are unprovided where to fly,

How to excuse or to conceal. Nay, listen:

All is contrived; success is so assured

That …

[Enter BEATRICE.

380   Beatrice. ’Tis my brother’s voice! You know me not?

   Giacomo. My sister, my lost sister!

   Beatrice.     Lost indeed!

I see Orsino has talked with you, and

That you conjecture things too horrible

To speak, yet far less than the truth. Now, stay not,

385He might return: yet kiss me; I shall know

That then thou hast consented to his death.

Farewell, farewell! Let piety to God,

Brotherly love, justice and clemency,

And all things that make tender hardest hearts

390Make thine hard, brother. Answer not … farewell.

[Exeunt severally.

SCENE II.—A mean apartment in GIACOMO’s house. GIACOMO alone.

   Giacomo. ’Tis midnight, and Orsino comes not yet.

[Thunder, and the sound of a storm.

What! can the everlasting elements

Feel with a worm like man? If so the shaft

Of mercy-winged lightning would not fall

5On stones and trees. My wife and children sleep:

They are now living in unmeaning dreams:

But I must wake, still doubting if that deed

Be just which was most necessary. O,

Thou unreplenished lamp! whose narrow fire

10Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge

Devouring darkness hovers! Thou small flame,

Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls,

Still flickerest up and down, how very soon,

Did I not feed thee, wouldst thou fail and be

15As thou hadst never been! So wastes and sinks

Even now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine:

But that no power can fill with vital oil

That broken lamp of flesh. Ha! ’tis the blood

Which fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold:

20It is the form that moulded mine that sinks

Into the white and yellow spasms of death:

It is the soul by which mine was arrayed

In God’s immortal likeness which now stands

Naked before Heaven’s judgement seat!    [A bell strikes.

                                                   One! Two!

25The hours crawl on; and when my hairs are white,

My son will then perhaps be waiting thus,

Tortured between just hate and vain remorse;

Chiding the tardy messenger of news

Like those which I expect. I almost wish

30He be not dead, although my wrongs are great;

Yet … ’tis Orsino’s step …

[Enter ORSINO.

                                    Speak!

   Orsino.           I am come

To say he has escaped.

   Giacomo.  Escaped!

   Orsino.    And safe

Within Petrella. He past by the spot

Appointed for the deed an hour too soon.

35   Giacomo. Are we the fools of such contingencies?

And do we waste in blind misgivings thus

The hours when we should act? Then wind and thunder,

Which seemed to howl his knell, is the loud laughter

With which Heaven mocks our weakness! I henceforth

40Will ne’er repent of aught designed or done

But my repentance.

   Orsino.  See, the lamp is out.

   Giacomo. If no remorse is ours when the dim air

Has drank this innocent flame, why should we quail

When Cenci’s life, that light by which ill spirits

45See the worst deeds they prompt, shall sink for ever?

No, I am hardened.

   Orsino.  Why, what need of this?

Who feared the pale intrusion of remorse

In a just deed? Altho’ our first plan failed,

Doubt not but he will soon be laid to rest.

50But light the lamp; let us not talk i’ the dark.

   Giacomo (lighting the lamp).

And yet once quenched I cannot thus relume

My father’s life: do you not think his ghost

Might plead that argument with God?

   Orsino.      Once gone

You cannot now recall your sister’s peace;

55Your own extinguished years of youth and hope;

Nor your wife’s bitter words; nor all the taunts

Which, from the prosperous, weak misfortune takes;

Nor your dead mother; nor …

   Giacomo.    O, speak no more!

I am resolved, although this very hand

60Must quench the life that animated it.

   Orsino. There is no need of that. Listen: you know

Olimpio, the castellan of Petrella

In old Colonna’s time; him whom your father

Degraded from his post? And Marzio,

65That desperate wretch, whom he deprived last year

Of a reward of blood, well earned and due?

   Giacomo. I knew Olimpio; and they say he hated

Old Cenci so, that in his silent rage

His lips grew white only to see him pass.

70Of Marzio I know nothing.

   Orsino.    Marzio’s hate

Matches Olimpio’s. I have sent these men,

But in your name, and as at your request,

To talk with Beatrice and Lucretia.

   Giacomo. Only to talk?

   Orsino.   The moments which even now

75Pass onward to tomorrow’s midnight hour

May memorize their flight with death: ere then

They must have talked, and may perhaps have done,

And made an end …

   Giacomo.  Listen! What sound is that?

   Orsino. The housedog moans, and the beams crack: nought else.

80   Giacomo. It is my wife complaining in her sleep:

I doubt not she is saying bitter things

Of me; and all my children round her dreaming

That I deny them sustenance.

   Orsino.    Whilst he

Who truly took it from them, and who fills

85Their hungry rest with bitterness, now sleeps

Lapped in bad pleasures, and triumphantly

Mocks thee in visions of successful hate

Too like the truth of day.

   Giacomo.   If e’er he wakes

Again, I will not trust to hireling hands …

90   Orsino. Why, that were well. I must be gone; good night!

When next we meet may all be done—

   Giacomo.      And all

Forgotten—Oh, that I had never been!      [Exeunt.

END OF THE THIRD ACT.

ACT IV

SCENE I.—An apartment in the Castle of Petrella. Enter CENCI.

   Cenci. She comes not; yet I left her even now

Vanquished and faint. She knows the penalty

Of her delay: yet what if threats are vain?

Am I now not within Petrella’s moat?

5Or fear I still the eyes and ears of Rome?

Might I not drag her by the golden hair?

Stamp on her? Keep her sleepless till her brain

Be overworn? Tame her with chains and famine?

Less would suffice. Yet so to leave undone

10What I most seek! No, ’tis her stubborn will

Which by its own consent shall stoop as low

As that which drags it down.

[Enter LUCRETIA.

                                       Thou loathed wretch!

Hide thee from my abhorrence; Fly, begone!

Yet stay! Bid Beatrice come hither.

   Lucretia.     Oh,

15Husband! I pray for thine own wretched sake

Heed what thou dost. A man who walks like thee

Thro’ crimes, and thro’ the danger of his crimes,

Each hour may stumble o’er a sudden grave.

And thou art old; thy hairs are hoary gray;

20As thou wouldst save thyself from death and hell,

Pity thy daughter; give her to some friend

In marriage: so that she may tempt thee not

To hatred, or worse thoughts, if worse there be.

   Cenci. What! like her sister who has found a home

25To mock my hate from with prosperity?

Strange ruin shall destroy both her and thee

And all that yet remain.