Have given you that cold melancholy look,
Succeeding to your unaccustomed fear?

Beatr. What is it that you say? I was just thinking 'Twere better not to struggle any more.

Men, like my father, have been dark and bloody,
Yet never-Oh! before worse comes of it,

'T were wise to die: it ends in that at last.

Lucr. Oh, talk not so, dear child! Tell me at once What did your father do or say to you?

He stayed not after that accursed feast

One moment in your chamber.-Speak to me.
Ber. O, sister, sister, prithee speak to us!

Beatr. (Speaking very slowly, with a forced calmness.)
It was one word, mother, one little word;

One look, one smile.

(wildly.)

Oh! he has trampled me

Under his feet, and made the blood stream down
My pallid cheeks. And he has given us all
Ditch-water, and the fever-stricken flesh
Of buffaloes, and bade'us eat or starve,
And we have eaten. He has made me look
On my beloved Bernardo, when the rust
Of heavy chains has gangrened his sweet limbs,
And I have never yet despaired--but now!
What would I say?

(Recovering herself.)

Ah! no, 'tis nothing new.
The sufferings we all share have made me wild:
He only struck and cursed me as he passed;
He said, he looked, he did,-nothing at all
Beyond his wont, yet it disordered me.
Alas! I am forgetful of my duty,

I should preserve my senses for your sake.

Lucr. Nay, Beatrice; have courage, my sweet girl.

If any one despairs it should be I,

Who loved him once, and now must live with him

Till God in pity call for him or me.

For you may, like your sister, find some husband,

And smile, years hence, with children round your knees
Whilst I, then dead, and all this hideous coil,
Shall be remembered only as a dream.

Beatr. Talk not to me, dear lady, of a husband.

Did you not nurse me when my mother died?
Did you not shield me and that dearest boy?
And had we any other friend but you
In infancy, with gentle words and looks,
To win our father not murder us?
And shall I now desert you? May the ghost
Of my dead mother plead against my soul,
If I abandon her who filled the place
She left, with more even than a mother's love!

Ber. And I am of my sister's mind. Indeed
I would not leave you in this wretchedness,
Even though the Pope should make me free to live
In some blithe place, like others of my age,
With sports, and delicate food, and the fresh air.
Oh, never think that I will leave you, mother!
Lucr. My dear, dear children!

Cen.

Come hither!

Enter CENCI, suddenly.

What, Beatrice here!

(She shrinks back, and covers her face.) Nay, hide not your face, 't is fair:

Look up! Why, yesternight you dared to look
With disobedient insolence upon me,
Bending a stern and an inquiring brow
On what I meant; whilst I then sought to hide
That which I came to tell you-but in vain.

Beatr. (Wildly staggering towards the door.)
Oh, that the earth would gape! Hide me, O God!
Cen. Then it was I whose inarticulate words
Fell from my lips, and who with tottering steps
Fled from your presence, as you now from mine.
Stay, I command you; from this day and hour
Never again, I think, with fearless eye,
And brow superior, and unaltered cheek,
And that lip made for tenderness or scorn,
Shalt thou strike dumb the meanest of mankind;
Me least of all. Now get thee to thy chamber!
Thou, too, loathed image of thy cursed mother,
Thy milky, meek face makes me sick with hate!

(To Ber.)

(Exeunt Beatr. and Ber.)

(Aside.) So much has pass'd between us as must make Me bold, her fearful. "Tis an awful thing

To touch such mischief as I now conceive:

So men sit shivering on the dewy bank,

And try the chill stream with their feet; once in—
How the delighted spirit pants for joy!
Lucr. (Advancing timidly towards him.)
O husband, pray forgive poor Beatrice;
She meant not any ill.

Cen.

Nor you perhaps?

Nor that young imp, whom you have taught by rote
Parricide with his alphabet? Nor Giacomo?

Nor those two most unnatural sons, who stirred
Enmity up against me with the Pope?
Whom in one night merciful God cut off:
Innocent lambs! they thought not any ill.

You were not here conspiring? You said nothing
Of how I might be dungeoned as a madman;
Or be condemned to death for some offence,

And you would be the witness?-This failing,
How just it were to hire assassins, or
Put sudden poison in my evening drink?
Or smother me when overcome by wine ?
Seeing we had no other judge but God,

And he had sentenced me, and there were none
But you to be the executioners

Of his decree enregistered in heaven?

Oh, no! You said not this?

So help me God,

Lucr.
I never thought the things you charge me with!
Cen. If you dare speak that wicked lie again,
I'll kill you. What! it was not by your counsel
That Beatrice disturbed the feast last night?
You did not hope to stir some enemies
Against me, and escape, and laugh to scorn
What every nerve of you now trembles at ?
You judged that men were bolder than they are:
Few dare to stand between their grave and me.
Lucr. Look not so dreadfully! By my salvation,
I knew not aught that Beatrice designed;

Nor do I think she designed any thing,

Until she heard you talk of her dead brethers.

Cen. Blaspheming liar! You are damned for this!
But I will take you where you may persuade
The stones you tread on to deliver you:

For men shall there be none but those who dare
All things; not question that which I command.
On Wednesday next I shall set out; you know
That savage rock, the Castle of Petrella?
'Tis safely walled, and moated round about.

Its dungeons under ground, and its thick towers,

Never told tales; though they have heard and seen

What might make dumb things speak. Why do you linger? Make speediest preparation for the journey! (Exit Lucretia.) The all-beholding sun yet shines; I hear

A busy stir of men about the streets;

I see the bright sky through the window panes :

It is a garish, broad, and peering day;

Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears;
And every little corner, nook, and hole,

Is penetrated with the insolent light.

Come, darkness!-Yet, what is the day to me?
And wherefore should I wish for night, who do
A deed which shall confound both day and night?
"Tis she shall grope through a bewildering mist
Of horror: if there be a sun in heaven,

She shall not dare to look upon its beams,

Nor feel its warmth. Let her, then, wish for night;
The act I think shall soon extinguish all

For me: I bear a darker, deadlier gloom
Than the earth's shade, or interlunar air,
Or constellations quenched in murkiest cloud,
In which I walk secure and unbeheld

Towards my purpose.-Would that it were done!

SCENE II.

(Exit.)

4 Chamber in the Vatican. Enter CAMILLO and GIACOMO, in

conversation.

Cam. There is an obsolete and doubtful law,
By which you might obtain a bare provision
Of food and clothing-

Nothing more? Alas!
Bare must be the provision which strict law
Awards, and aged sullen avarice pays.
Why did my father not apprentice me

To some mechanic trade? I should have then
Been trained in no high-born necessities
Which I could meet not by my daily toil.
The eldest son of a rich nobleman

Is heir to all his incapacities;

He has wide wants and narrow powers. If you,
Cardinal Camillo, were reduced at once

From thrice-driven beds of down and delicate food,

A hundred servants and six palaces,

To that which nature doth indeed require

Cam. Nay, there is reason in your plea; 'twere hard.

Giac. "Tis hard for a firm man to bear: but I

Have a dear wife, a lady of high birth,

Whose dowry in ill hour I lent my father,
Without a bond or witness to the deed:
And children, who inherit her fine senses,
The fairest creatures in this breathing_world;
And she and they reproach me not. Cardinal,
Do you not think the Pope would interpose,
And stretch authority beyond the law?

Cam. Though your peculiar case is hard, I know
The Pope will not divert the course of law.
After that impious feast the other night,

I spoke with him, and urged him then to check
Your father's cruel hand; he frowned, and said
"Children are disobedient, and they sting
Their fathers' hearts to madness and despair,
Requiting years of care with contumely.
I pity the Count Cenci from my heart;
His outraged love perhaps awakened hate,
And thus he is exasperated to ill.

In the great war between the old and young,