The Dramatic Works of G. E. Lessing Part 62

CLAUDIA.

True. Hear, then, Marquis Marinelli. Your name, accompanied with a curse----but no--I will not wrong the n.o.ble man--the curse was inferred by myself--your name was the last word uttered by the dying Count.

MARINELLI.

The dying Count? Count Appiani?----You hear, Madam, what most surprises me in this your strange address--the dying Count?--What else you mean to imply, I know not.

CLAUDIA (_with asperity, and in a deliberate tone_).

Marinelli was the last word uttered by the dying Count.--Do you understand me now? I myself did not at first understand it, though it was spoken in a tone--a tone which I still hear. Where were my senses that I could not understand it instantly?

MARINELLI.

Well, Madam, I was always the Count's friend--his intimate friend. If, therefore, he p.r.o.nounced my name at the hour of death----

CLAUDIA.

In that tone!--I cannot imitate--I cannot describe it--but it signified----everything. What! Were we attacked by robbers? No--by a.s.sa.s.sins--by hired a.s.sa.s.sins: and Marinelli was the last word uttered by the dying Count, in such a tone----

MARINELLI.

In such a tone? Did any one ever hear that a tone of voice used in a moment of terror could be a ground of accusation against an honest man?

CLAUDIA.

Oh that I could appear before a tribunal of justice, and imitate that tone? Yet, wretch that I am! I forget my daughter. Where is she--dead too? Was it my daughter's fault that Appiani was thy enemy?

MARINELLI.

I revere the mother's fears, and therefore pardon you.--Come, Madam.

Your daughter is in an adjoining room, and I hope her alarms are by this time at an end. With the tenderest solicitude is the Prince himself employed in comforting her.

CLAUDIA.

Who?

MARINELLI.

The Prince.

CLAUDIA.

The Prince! Do you really say the Prince--our Prince?

MARINELLI.

Who else should it be?

CLAUDIA.

Wretched mother that I am!--And her father, her father! He will curse the day of her birth. He will curse me.

MARINELLI.

For Heaven's sake, Madam, what possesses you?

CLAUDIA.

It is clear. To-day--at church--before the eyes of the All-pure--in the presence of the Eternal, this scheme of villainy began. (_To_ Marinelli.) Murderer! Mean, cowardly murderer! Thou wast not bold enough to meet him face to face, but base enough to bribe a.s.sa.s.sins that another might be gratified. Thou sc.u.m of murderers! honourable murderers would not endure thee in their company. Why may I not spit all my gall, all my rancour into thy face, thou panderer?

MARINELLI.

You rave, good woman. Moderate your voice, at any rate, and remember where you are.

CLAUDIA.

Where I am! Remember where I am! What cares the lioness, when robbed of her young, in whose forest she roars?

EMILIA (_within_).

Ha! My mother! I hear my mother's voice.

CLAUDIA.

Her voice? 'Tis she! She has heard me. Where are you, my child?--I come, I come (_rushes into the room, followed by_ Marinelli).

ACT IV.

Scene I.--_The same_.

The Prince _and_ Marinelli.

PRINCE.

Come, Marinelli, I must collect myself--I look to you for explanation.

MARINELLI.

Oh! maternal anger! Ha! ha! ha!

PRINCE.

You laugh?

MARINELLI.