(Loud murmurs of Conspirators in the street.) Vera (breaks from him and rushes across the stage). The wedding guests are here already! Ay, you shall have your sign! (Stabs herself.) You shall have your sign! (Rushes to the window.)
Czar (intercepts her by rushing between her and window, and snatches dagger out of her hand). Vera!
Vera (clinging to him). Give me back the dagger! Give me back the dagger! There are men in the street who seek your life! Your guards have betrayed you! This bloody dagger is the signal that you are dead. (Conspirators begin to shout below in the street.) Oh, there is not a moment to be lost! Throw it out! Throw it out! Nothing can save me now; this dagger is poisoned! I feel death already in my heart.
Czar (holding dagger out of her reach). Death is in my heart too; we shall die together.
Vera. Oh, love! love! love! be merciful to me! The wolves are hot upon you! you must live for liberty, for Russia, for me! Oh, you do not love me! You offered me an empire once! Give me this dagger now! Oh, you are cruel! My life for yours! What does it matter? (Loud shouts in the street, “Vera! Vera! To the rescue! To the rescue!”)
Czar. The bitterness of death is past for me.
Vera. Oh, they are breaking in below! See! The bloody man behind you! (Czarevitch turns round for an instant.) Ah! (Vera snatches dagger and flings it out of window.)
Consps. (below). Long live the people!
Czar. What have you done?
Vera. I have saved Russia (Dies.)
TABLEAU.
The Duchess of Padua
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
SIMONE GESSO, Duke of Padua Beatrice, his Wife
ANDREAS POLLAJUOLO, Cardinal of Padua Maffio Petrucci, Jeppo Vitellozzo,
GENTLEMEN OF THE DUKE’S HOUSEHOLD TADDEO BARDI,
GUIDO FERRANTI, a Young Man Ascanio Cristofano, his Friend Count Moranzone, an Old Man Bernardo CAVALCANTI, Lord Justice of Padua Hugo, the Headsman Lucy, a Tire woman
SERVANTS, Citizens, Soldiers, Monks, Falconers with their hawks and dogs, etc.
Place: Padua
Time: The latter half of the Sixteenth Century
Style of Architecture: Italian, Gothic and Romanesque.
ACT I
SCENE
The Market Place of Padua at noon; in the background is the great Cathedral of Padua; the architecture is Romanesque, and wrought in black and white marbles; a flight of marble steps leads up to the Cathedral door; at the foot of the steps are two large stone lions; the houses on each aide of the stage have coloured awnings from their windows, and are flanked by stone arcades; on the right of the stage is the public fountain, with a triton in green bronze blowing from a conch; around the fountain is a stone seat; the bell of the Cathedral is ringing, and the citizens, men, women and children, are passing into the Cathedral.
[Enter GUIDO FERRANTI and ASCANIO CRISTOFANO.]
ASCANIO Now by my life, Guido, I will go no farther; for if I walk another step I will have no life left to swear by; this wild-goose errand of yours!
[Sits down on the step of the fountain.] GUIDO I think it must be here. [Goes up to passer-by and doffs his cap.] Pray, sir, is this the market place, and that the church of Santa Croce? [Citizen bows.] I thank you, sir. ASCANIO Well?
GUIDO Ay! it is here.
ASCANIO I would it were somewhere else, for I see no wine-shop.
GUIDO [Taking a letter from his pocket and reading it.] ‘The hour noon; the city, Padua; the place, the market; and the day, Saint Philip’s Day.’
ASCANIO And what of the man, how shall we know him?
GUIDO [reading still] ‘I will wear a violet cloak with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder.’ A brave attire, Ascanio.
ASCANIO I’d sooner have my leathern jerkin. And you think he will tell you of your father?
GUIDO Why, yes! It is a month ago now, you remember; I was in the vineyard, just at the corner nearest the road, where the goats used to get in, a man rode up and asked me was my name Guido, and gave me this letter, signed ‘Your Father’s Friend,’ bidding me be here to-day if I would know the secret of my birth, and telling me how to recognise the writer! I had always thought old Pedro was my uncle, but he told me that he was not, but that I had been left a child in his charge by some one he had never since seen.
ASCANIO And you don’t know who your father is?
GUIDO No.
ASCANIO No recollection of him even?
GUIDO None, Ascanio, none.
ASCANIO [laughing] Then he could never have boxed your ears so often as my father did mine.
GUIDO [smiling] I am sure you never deserved it.
ASCANIO Never; and that made it worse. I hadn’t the consciousness of guilt to buoy me up. What hour did you say he fixed?
GUIDO Noon. [Clock in the Cathedral strikes.]
ASCANIO It is that now, and your man has not come. I don’t believe in him, Guido. I think it is some wench who has set her eye at you; and, as I have followed you from Perugia to Padua, I swear you shall follow me to the nearest tavern. [Rises.] By the great gods of eating, Guido, I am as hungry as a widow is for a husband, as tired as a young maid is of good advice, and as dry as a monk’s sermon. Come, Guido, you stand there looking at nothing, like the fool who tried to look into his own mind; your man will not come.
GUIDO Well, I suppose you are right. Ah! [Just as he is leaving the stage with ASCANIO, enter LORD MORANZONE in a violet cloak, with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder; he passes across to the Cathedral, and just as he is going in GUIDO runs up and touches him.]
MORANZONE Guido Ferranti, thou hast come in time.
GUIDO What! Does my father live?
MORANZONE
Ay! lives in thee.
Thou art the same in mould and lineament,