"DOG IN THE MANGER" "Sir, wait!" "Remain!" "Hear what I say!" "This is an outrage." "Come back, look, listen!" "Hello!" "Where are those servants?" "Hello?" "Is there no one here?" "It was no ghost, I know." "I wasn't dreaming." "Hello!" "Are you all asleep?" "Your ladyship?" "I like your coolness when I am blazing." "Hurry, you idiot, what else can I call you?" "Find out who it was who just left this room." "This room?" "Move, and answer with your feet." "I'll go." "See who it was." "What villainy!" "What wickedness!" "You should have killed him!" "But think of your honor if he had been a gentleman." "A gentleman here?" "Why?" "Don't any number in Naples court you and try to see you any way they may?" "Aren't there a thousand nobles mad to marry you?" "You say he was well dressed and Fabio saw the hat he threw at the lamp." "No doubt it was a noble suitor who'd bribed some of my servants." "They're so loyal, Otavio." "But I'll know who it was." "The hat had plumes, and must be on the staircase." "Fetch it." "Will I find it?" "Of course, fool." "He can't have picked it up if he was running." "I'll take a light." "If a servant is to blame for this, I'll send him packing." "Quite right, it's wrong to cause you such concern." "But though it may be foolish, when you're angry to mention it your ill-advised persistence in spurning all your suitors makes them bold to think out ways of forcing you to marry." "Do you know something?" "Nothing, except that, as all say you're beautiful but refuse to marry." "Count of Belflor is a title many covet and for that reason much is risked by many." "Quick, Tristán, this way!" " What a disaster!" " She recognized us?" "I don't know." "Probably." "Is not that what happened?" "In that case it would seem that I am not the cause of all this uproar and it was to see a servant he came." "Your ladyship, your righteous indignation persuades me to tell you the truth despite my friendship for Marcela." "She loves a man, I know, and he loves her though who it is..." "Anarda, why concede a major point, and then conceal a minor?" "Need you put me to such torture for other people's secrets?" "Isn't it enough to know he came for her, not you?" "Rest easy, for it's only talk only started lately." "What shamelessness!" "What of my reputation as an unmarried woman?" "By the life of my late lord the count, I swear..." "My lady!" "Let me explain." "It isn't some outsider, this man she talks to." "And to see her he needn't come here." "You mean a servant?" "Yes, my lady." "Who?" "Teodoro." "My secretary?" "Yes, that's all I know." "I know they have spoken." "Stand back, Anarda." "Please be prudent." "I'm calm now, since it wasn't me he came for." "Marcela!" "Madam?" "Listen." "Yes, madam?" " Now I'm for it!" "" "Is this how you betray my trust, my honour?" "What have they said?" "You know what store I set by the loyalty I owe you." "Loyalty, you?" "Have I offended?" "Is it not to offend me to admit a man's advances, in my chamber?" "Teodoro's such a silly he'll say two dozen saucy phrases anywhere." "Two dozen?" "A bumper crop indeed, thank Heaven if they are sold in dozens!" "Indoors or out, I mean to say his thoughts translate as pretty words." "Translate?" "How curious!" "What does he say?" "I don't recall." "You do." "One day he'll say "Your eyes have snared my soul"." "The next, "I live for them."" ""My tender longings keep me awake at night."" "The next, he'll beg from me a single hair to bind them in his thoughts." "But why ask such frivolities?" "They please you well enough." "They're not unpleasing because I know that Teodoro's intentions are virtuous." "He means to marry me." "True, marriage is love's proper aim." "You wish me to arrange it?" "Nothing could make me happier!" "Oh, my lady, your anger proves so mild your heart so noble I confess that I adore him because he's quite the cleverest, wisest and tenderest youth in all this city." "As my secretary, I already know he's clever." "Oh, that's another matter." "I know the way he whispers fond endearments, rather closer." "Marcela, though I promise you shall marry when the time is ripe I must be seen to act with prudence and cannot countenance your courting here." "I must sustain my anger for it's known to all and you must pursue your love with more discretion." "When opportunity affords, I'll help you both." "Teodoro's sensible, and has been raised here in my house and you, Marcela kinship apart, have merited my favour." "I kneel and kiss your feet." " Go." " A thousand times I kiss them." "Leave me alone." " Well?" " Angry, but to my advantage." " She knows your secrets?" " Yes, but knows they're harmless." "I've oft remarked on Teodoro's wit and manly beauty and might admire it were that consistent with my sense of duty." "Love is the common lot of all but I more highly prize my honoured name." "I worship my nobility and the very thought brings shame." "Envy, I know too well, must be my fate engendered by a joy I cannot share." "With reason I resent my rank and state and can but vainly wish that he were more and I not far above him or I were less and so could freely love him." "I couldn't rest." "I'm not surprised." "If she finds out, that's the end of you." "I said to wait, but would you?" "No." " Love brooks no resistance." " You're all thrust." "Like a good swordsman." "You'd see the danger is you were one." " She recognized me?" " No and yes." "She didn't know, but she suspected." "When Fabio chased me down the stairs I marvel I didn't kill him." "How I threw my hat, putting out the light!" "It dazzled him and stopped him." "Else, I'd have gone for him." "As I ran down, I told the lamp, "You say we're strangers" but it said, "You lie!"" "I threw my hat." "Am I dishonoured?" "I cannot live." "You lovers always say such things before you're hurt at all." "Tristán, what can I do in so much danger?" "Forget Marcela." "If the countess finds out, you'll have no choice you'll have to go." "I just forget her?" "I'll give you lessons on Cures for Love." "First, you must determine to forget and not suppose you'll ever love again." "How?" "Recall her vices, not her virtues." "Wise men forget, remembering women's defects." "Don't picture her in elegant attire, trim-waisted raised aloft on high-heeled slippers." "That's all just architecture." "Some wit once said that half a woman's beauty came from her dressmakers." "It's as a penitent dragged off for treatment that you must see her and not prettified by expensive petticoats." "In short, think of her faults as love's true medicine." "What clumsy cures unlettered quacks come up with!" "What rough-and-ready remedies you offer." "Marcela has no defects I can think of." "I won't forget her." "Well, forge ahead then, do not falter!" "She has no faults, just graces." "Then think of them until you lose the good graces of the countess." "Teodoro." "It's her!" "Attend." "Your servant, madam." "If she's found out, all three of us are done for." "A friend of mine uncertain of her skill, has asked me to compose this note." "For friendship's sake, I felt I should although I know so little of love." "I want you, Teodoro, to improve it." "Here, read it." "How could I compete with what you have written?" "That would be presumptuous." "Pray send it to your friend, I need not read it." "Read it." "Your doubts astonish me." "And I have never used lovers' language." "What?" "Never, ever?" "I've so many faults, I'm far too diffident to love." "Your diffidence explains, then, your disguising." "Me?" "Where, or when?" "They tell me that the steward saw you disguised last night." "Some prank, perhaps." "Fabio and I I fear, are always fooling." "Read." "Read." "I think some enemy is envious of me." "Jealous, maybe." "Read it." "Read it." "I know I'll only wonder at your wit." ""To love because we see another love is but envy." "If we say we're jealous but not in love Iove's theorists disprove." "Such love's impossible, they say." "My love, though, springs from jealousy." "Distressed, although I know I'm handsomer I see another seems more blessed in having won a love." "I let "I dare not" wait upon "I would" don't love, but feel a jealousy intense know, since I would be loved, that love I should." "Yet neither yield, nor offer a defence." "Thus what I mean I show, but do not show." "Let he who can, say what I mean." "I know."" "What do you think?" "That if it fits the case, I've not seen better." "Yet I can't imagine how jealousy could ever engender love." "Love always was its father." "I suspect the lady found the man in question pleasing but not desirable." "But when she saw him court another she was roused by jealousy to love him." "Could that be?" "It could, my lady." "Yet such jealousy must still have had a source and that was love." "Causes produce effects, and not vice versa." "I couldn't say, Teodoro." "I think that's how it was with her." "She told me she'd merely been attracted by that man but when she saw him loved a horde of hot desires beset the road to honour and stripped her soul of virtuous intentions." "Your note is finely phrased." "I dare not match it." "Go in and try." "I dare not." "Do, I beg you." "Your ladyship means to prove me wanting." "Write, and come to me later." "I shall." " Tristán, attend." " I reappear to serve you though shamed by my appearance." "The secretary, my master, is bankrupt lately yet a gentleman is ill-advised his servant being his harbinger, his mirror to let him look too shabby." "I fear he can't help it." "Does he gamble?" "I wish to God he did for those who do are never short of cash." "He's not a gambler, then?" "He's too cautious." "Then he is in love, no doubt." "In love?" "You must be joking!" "He's an iceberg." "What, a man so handsome so elegant, so clever and so young must surely seek some harmless entertainment?" "I deal in straw and barley not billets-doux nor bill-and-cooing." "He serves you here all day." "I expect he's busy." "He's never out at night?" "I don't go with him." "I've got this broken hip." "How did you get it?" "I might reply, as faithless wives reply when they've been battered by their jealous husbands." ""I tumbled down the stairs."" "You fell?" "And very far." "My ribs could count the steps." "That was to be expected if you threw your hat and put the light out, Tristán." "Geroff!" "God help us now, she knows it all!" "No comment?" "I was trying to remember but now I do." "Last night, some bats were flying around the house." "I threw my hat at them, one flew towards the light and trying to hit it I hit the lamp." "My feet both went from under me, and I went flying." "Good God, she's in a blazing temper!" "She'll have me battered for bat-burglary." "Keep them." "Keep your secrets." "The marquis Ricardo." "My mind's a whirl!" "With that solicitude which Love instils in every breast whose yearning for requital makes light of any obstacle I come to see you and to urge my suit although my fond ambition may seem misplaced to some more hopeful rival whose arrogance is greater than his ardour." "Your ladyship appears today so handsome that seeing you assures me you are well for woman's surest health is in her beauty." "For when she's gracious, elegant and gay 'tis foolish purest ignorance, to ask if she be well and all it so condemns." "Aware, then, that you are for so your beauty, Diana, and brio must attest I venture rather, strange though it may seem to ask you, how am I?" "Your lordship, to equate what we call brio with beauty is a notion eloquent of your wise judgement and perceptive mind." "As for your state of health, I daren't imagine." "Yet one who knows my honourable intentions should condescend so far." "Since your kinsfolk approve my purpose, madam only your approval is needful in order to sustain my hope." "Marquis, your love is utterly persuasive and, flattered by your nobly phrased professions I'll consider them, but Federico may interpose." "I know the count is devious though my superior in nothing else." "But I have no doubt the justice of my claim will blind his sight." "I've done your bidding." "If you're busy, madam it would be wrong to trespass on your time." "I do confess I have to write to Rome." "Nothing is worse than tedious visits when one's corresonding." "You're very shrewd." "In my desire to serve you." "Well, Celio what d'you think?" "I'd like to see your noble suit rewarded." "You've written it?" "I've written it not confidently, but as you commanded." "Show me." "Read it." "It says..." ""To adore one whom we see another adore is envy if we would not otherwise for if we had no mind to adore before we could not after, through another's eyes." "But when love sees what it admires among another's trophies, it's provoked to speak for what offfends the heart leaps to the tongue." "I say no more, for fear, as an inferior to offend one far superior, though it may well seem remiss." "All I know and seek to show is this." "If I acknowledged what I hope is true I'd seem to claim much more than is my due."" "How properly you put it." "You jest?" "Would I didn't!" "What's that?" "That yours is the better version." "I'm sorry." "If a servant's known to know more than his master he'll surely fall from favour." "Not so, Teodoro for though I say yours is the cleverer the point is that it follows my intention not that you need presume, when your pen pleases that I cease to trust the sharpness of my own." "Though as a woman I am prone to error and not too wise, as may appear." "You fear, as an inferior, to offend one far superior in loving." "You are mistaken." "In love that cannot be." "Inferiors can't offend by loving." "I think that only hating gives offence." "That's Nature's logic." "The painter shows Phaeton and Icarus hurtling down one drawn by golden horses, then struck down the other, with wings of wax, melted by the crucible of the sun." "The sun wouldn't have done that, if the sun had been a woman." "If you serve a lady serve on, be bold for love is perseverance." "Women aren't made of stone." "I'll take this paper." "I'd be wise to study it more closely." "It's full of errors." "None that I can see." "You honour my desire to serve." "Here's yours." "You keep it." "No, destroy it." "Destroy it?" "Yes." "What matters that it's lost, if much more may be?" "She's gone." "Whoever supposed a woman so noble and shrewd would own to loving so suddenly?" "But it may also be that I'm mistaken." "Dare we talk?" "Such a meeting makes light of any obstacle." "Death would be welcome on your account." "I'd die two thousand deaths to be with you." "I waited, like the lonely nightingale, for day." "When I saw, where in the East Apollo first appears Aurora wake him I said, "I'll see my Apollo"." "Such news!" "The countess wouldn't go to bed until she'd set her mind at rest." "Friends, envious of my happiness told her the truth." "If you see friendship among servants, don't believe it for it's sham." "I praised your virtues, talents, style and grace and then she showed such kindly condescension that she rejoiced at my regard for you and promised that we would soon be married when she learned how pure were your intentions." "I thought she'd rage dismiss us both and punish all the rest." "But her high nobility of blood her prudence and perfection of discernment acknowledged your true worth." "How wondrous!" "How fortunate those who serve so wise a lord!" "She promised we should marry?" "You question she'd show her noble birth?" "I was mistaken!" "How stupid to suppose the countess spoke of me." "To think perhaps she loved me." "A soaring hawk could never stoop to such a prey." "What are you muttering?" "Marcela, she spoke to me, but didn't say she knew that it was I who left her rooms last night." "How prudent, for otherwise, she'd have had to punish us unless that's what she's done for marriage is the kindest punishment for love." "And love's most honourable cure." " One you desire?" " Greatly." "Confirm it." "With open arms, which are the twirls of love's sharp quill." "What better flourish than an embrace?" "How well you make amends." "I'm pleased." "Those who reprove delight in seeing the proof of reformation." "Don't be disconcerted." "I told Marcela, madam, that last night I left here in such anguish that you might think our honourable intention to wed dishonourable to you I thought I'd die." "But when she told me you'd shown such grace as to bless our union, I took her in my arms." "I shan't deceive you, invent a foolish story for nothing's more disarming to the wise than truth." "Teodoro!" "Your disloyalty in failing to respect my house will be punished." "The kindness I showed last night can scarce excuse such licence." "When love descends to shamelessness it must be punished." "Marcela, till you marry, will be better kept under lock and key." "If the other maids should see you two together all will want to wed." "Dorotea!" "Dorotea!" "Madam?" "Take this key, and see you lock Marcela in my chamber." "A few days needlework will be no hardship." "Do not think I'm being petulant." "What's this, Marcela?" "Tyranny!" "A cruel mistress and a crueler fate!" "Locked away for him." "Don't worry, then." "When jealousy's the jailer, love has a master key." "So then, Teodoro, you've a mind to marry?" "No mind for anything unless you wish it." "My offence is not so gross as others say." "You know that envy has a scorpion's tongue, and had Ovid been a servant he wouldn't have described its dwelling in lonely vales, for it's here among us." "It isn't true, then, that you love Marcela?" "I could survive without her." "I hear you've lost your wits about her." "Wits like mine are no great loss." "But even though Marcela may well merit such devotion I've not shown it." "Nor murmured such endearments as would beguile a loftier lady?" "Words cost little." "Tell me what you told her." "How does a man, Teodoro, court a woman?" "As one who loves and pleads wrapping one half-truth in 1,000 lies." "Yes, but with what words?" "You press me strangely, madam." ""Those eyes of yours", I said "beam forth the light by which my eyes perceive."" ""The pearls and coral of that mouth divine..."" "Divine?" "Such language, your ladyship, is every ardent lover's ABC." "You've little taste." "I may lose confidence in your discernment." "I, who observe Marcela know that her defects exceed her graces." "And I often must reprove her because she's none too clean." "But I don't want to interfere although you'd be surprised the things..." "But that's enough of her virtues or her vices." "I'm sure I wish your marriage well." "Since you know so much of love advise me, Teodoro about that friend of mine." "For many days now she's known no rest for love of an inferior." "The very thought of love offends her honour but if she checks herself, is overwhelmed by jealousy." "And he, all unaware of so much passion though he's shrewd, is timid with her." "What do I know of love, madam?" "I swear I don't know how I could advise you." "Don't you love Marcela, as you say?" "What of those fond endearments?" "If the doors could only speak, they'd say..." "They could say nothing." "You're blushing." "What your tongue denies, your reddening cheeks confess." "If she told you that, she's stupid." "I took her hand, but gave it back." "Why's she complaining?" "Some hands, like the pax at Mass are kissed before being given back." "Marcela is a fool." "I own I ventured with seemly deference to cool my lips with snow and lilies." "With lilies and snow?" "Now I know that such a poultice cools the heart." "Well, now." "What do you advise?" "If that lady longs for one so far beneath her but fears that to indulge her passion would besmirch her honour she might by some trick lie with him unrecognized." "There is the danger he might guess." "Wouldn't it be best to kill him?" "They say that Marcus Aurelius when his wife desired to enjoy a gladiator gave her his blood." "But Roman remedies are not for us Christians, surely." "True, Teodoro." "Now there's no such thing as a Lucretia, a Torquatus or a Virginius." "In those days, Teodoro, they'd Faustinas Messalinas and Poppeas." "Write me a memorandum on the matter." "I'll leave you to it." "Oh, Heavens!" "I've fallen!" "Why are you staring?" "Give me your hand." "I feared to offer it, out of respect." "How gracious and how gauche to wrap it up." "As does Otavio, when you go to Mass." "His is a hand I don't desire." "An ancient hand a hand that should be shrouded like a corpse." "To make one wait while you wrap up in silk is to waste time dressing if a friend is attacked." "When you arrive he's dead." "In any case, how can it be proper whatever petty protocol prescribes for a hand if honourable to hide its face?" "I'm conscious of your condescension." "When you're an old retainer, wrap it in your cloak but now you are my secretary." "That's to say, you should keep my fall secret if you seek to rise." "Dare I believe this can be true?" "I dare." "Diana's fair, but she's a woman too." "She sought my hand and when she felt it there fear robbed her cheeks of all their rosy hue." "She trembled, I could tell." "Yet still I fear." "What shall I do?" "Seize this happy chance." "Although the outcome's so unclear my fears must yield before my hopes advance." "I'll wrong Marcela if I drop her." "Too often women find that men have played them false." "But they respond to fancies too in playing fast and loose." "Sauce for the gander, then, sauce for the goose." "You saw her here?" "She came in, as morning moves over the meadows spreading its light across their broidered counterpane." "But piety won't detain her long within." "I know the priest." "He's skimpier than he should be." "If I could speak to her!" "Your kinship must require her to admit your company." "My kinship's suspect now that I'm her suitor, Leonido." "I never felt so timid till I loved her." "A man will see a lady without compunction as friend or kinsman until he seeks her hand." "But when he loves her, although she's cool to all he'll see her less, and scarcely speak." "So it is for me with my fair cousin." "My passion brings me pain, denying me my joy for I was happier to see her freely, as I did before." "She came on foot, with several of her household." "The church was near, she proud of her appearance and so, no doubt, she deigned to grace the street." "Is that Ricardo?" "It is." "If he weren't here, it would be stranger." "He looks well, the marquis." "It almost seems that you are jealous." "Are you?" "Of course, especially if you praise him." "But why?" "Diana looks on none of you with favour." "She might, though." "She's a woman." "But a vain one, so proud and so disdainful you can all be reassured." "All handsome women are haughty." "Handsome is as handsome does." "Here she comes now." "My night will turn to day, then." " You'll speak to her?" " I will if my rival lets me." "I waited hoping to see you." "How very kind, my lord." "And I, my lady, was eager likewise to attend and serve you." "But marquis, how gallant of you how gracious!" "A paltry proof of my devotion, madam." "I fear I may be out of favour." "Don't be downcast, talk to her." "Why shouldn't a man fall silent, knowing none desire to listen?" "My strange new thoughts, I see you mount the air, and laugh to see you fly, although you're mine." "Stay!" "Restrain your ardour." "Thus I recall you, yet urge you on, for if your enterprise is mad, what else am I?" "But if a prize is great, ambition seems less reckless." "But if you claim, in your defence, the prize I seek is infinite, what basis, tell me first, has your ambition?" "You sigh for one you serve?" "You'll say you've reason, if you believe your eyes." "But you should tell them you're building towers of diamonds on straw." "I'll lay the blame on you if all goes ill." "Yet the guilt is shared, not yours alone." "You may claim, when I'm alarmed how high above my heart my passion's let you fly, that in my lowly state I make you ascend the sky." "If you've the time for this in which Marcela finds some consolation I shan't charge porterage for as at court, those they've no need of are never seen." "So, should we wash this note in vinegar?" "Let me see it, sourpuss." "As you've portered it I'd say it's had one soak already." ""Teodoro, my husband."" "Husband?" "Stupid!" "What stupid nonsense!" "She's stupid." "Now I've risen so high, you think I've time for butterflies?" "For God's sake read it." "Don't act so high and mighty!" "Wine is not ashamed of the flies it breeds." "I remember when your "butterfly" Marcela was a glorious eagle." "Soaring as now, to reach the very sun I'm quite astonished she can still be seen." "A very proper sentiment." "But what shall we do with that?" "This." "You've torn it?" "Yes." "Why?" "It's a speedy way to answer." "But that's unjust." "I'm not as I was." "You lovers are like love's apothecaries." "They keep prescriptions, you, billy-does." "Blue violet oil to cure a lover's blues." "For those proposing marriage, cure the urge or after ten days' bliss, procure a purge." "In short, all year they pile up their prescriptions." "Then, when it's time to pay, they tear up all the papers." "You've closed your accounts and torn Marcela's not knowing what's in it." "I think you've drunk too much." "And I think your ambition's turned your head." "Each man, Tristán, has his own chance of greatness." "Not having it, is not knowing how to seize it." "To be count is my venture." "And let fortune do its worst." "I'm sure if any one who serves the countess pities your distress, it's me." "We've been so close since she imprisoned me and I've such cause to thank you, Dorotea that no one's friendship matters more to me." "Anarda thinks I don't know that she loves Fabio." "She caused all my troubles." "She told the countess of Teodoro." "Teodoro's here." "Darling!" "Wait, Marcela." "But I adore you, darling, and I've found you!" "Mind what you say and do." "Here, the very tapestries tell tales." "Why do you think they've human figures on them?" "To warn us, living spies may lurk behind them." "You read my note?" "I tore it up unread." "I tore my love up too." "I've learned my lesson." "What do you mean?" "That I won't upset the countess any more." "My eyes have often shown how much they feared this truth." "Marcela..." "I must go." "If we can't be lovers, let's be friends." "Teodoro can you say that to Marcela?" "I can." "I respect the honour of the house that's made me what I am." " But listen!" "Wait!" " Leave me." "Would you treat me like this?" "It's over." "What d'you make of that?" "How can I tell?" "I dare not speak." "No?" "I dare." " I can't." " I will." "I would say, Marcela, you would do best in being prudent." "Love fears no danger when aroused by jealousy or anger." "If my lady weren't so proud, I'd say he had some expectation." "He's very much in favour these days." "Hush, you're annoyed." "But I'll be avenged." "I'm not so stupid that I can't make trouble." "Is the secretary here?" "Why make fun of me?" "For goodness' sake, my lady wants him." "Fabio!" "Whatever, ask Dorotea what I've been saying about Teodoro now." "Isn't he a tedious fool, this secretary of ours?" "What silly game is this?" "Do you think I'm fooled?" "Is this a plot you've hatched between you?" " A plot?" "Oh, yes!" " I swear you're up to something." "I admit I've listened to Teodoro's nonsense." "And yet I know I love a man much more like you." "Like me?" "Aren't you like you?" "Like me, Marcela?" "If I'm pretending Fabio and not wild about you if I don't find you handsome if I'm not yours, dearest Fabio may I know the torture of unrequited love." "If you are fooling, what are you after?" "May I speak?" "You may." "Those two you sent away adore you blindly." "You, in spurning them, exceed yourself." "Who do you mean to marry?" "Couldn't the marquis in splendour and nobility equal or surpass the richest and most powerful suitor?" "Might not a lady of the highest rank wed your cousin Federico?" "Why then dismiss them with such disrespect?" "One's insane, the other stupid and you are worse in not seeing." "I love another, and love without a hope of remedy." "Lord save us!" "You in love?" "Aren't I a woman?" "Yes." "More like a woman's statue carved in ice on which the sun in heaven may shine in vain." "Now that ice lies melted at the feet of one who's not my equal." "Who is it?" "I'm shamed to think how I belie my rank in loving him." "I'll not say his name." "Suffice to know that he would harm my honour." "Pasiphae loved a bull Semiramis a horse and other women other monsters I'd best not mention." "Can it harm your honour to love a man whoever he may be?" "All those who fall in love, can, if they will, as easily fall out." "That is the best." "I want not to love." "Can you?" "I can, since when I wished to love, I loved now I wish not to, I shall cease." "I hear from Fabio that you want to see me." "I've wanted for a long time." "You must have seen those two lovers my pair of noble suitors." "Yes, madam." "Handsome, both of them." "Yes, very." "I shall not choose without consulting you." "Which should I marry?" "Aren't there other men about who understand such things?" "Your steward, Otavio, is so much older and has more experience." "But I'd like you to like your future master." "Is the marquis handsomer than my cousin?" "Yes, madam." "Then I choose the marquis." "Take him the news and get your reward." "Whoever saw such a catastrophe?" "So sudden a decision, such a change?" "Diana's tumbled to her foolishness." "How stupidly I trusted tender words!" "How hard it is for different ranks to join their hearts." "I've no one else to blame." "I'll love Marcela." "She's the one for me." "Let lords love ladies, love needs parity." "The unworthy rise, but fall." "They soar, but burn." "You've spoken to her ladyship?" "This moment, and I'm delighted, Fabio for the countess has finally consented to be married." "The suitors you just saw both worship her but she has picked the marquis." "That was wise." "She asked me to inform him but I will yield you that advantage and you can go and be rewarded." "Such kindness shows me how much I love you." "I'll go like lightning, and be back directly, grateful to you." "The marquis should be proud." "To have tamed the countess is a conquest." "Marcela!" "Who's that?" "It's me." "You've forgotten me?" "So well, that I've become a different woman not to think of you." "Were I myself, I'd think of you and see you but now I couldn't think of you even should I want to." "How can you have the gall to talk to me?" "To even speak my name?" "I meant to test your constancy but didn't have the chance." "I hear you've turned your eyes elsewhere, and I'm replaced." "A wise man, Teodoro, never tests glass or a woman's love." "But don't pretend you meant to test me." "I know you, Teodoro." "A little glimpse of gold bemused your mind!" "How's it going?" "Hasn't it turned out the way you thought?" "The game's not worth the candle?" "Your new beloved's qualities bliss have not bestowed?" "What's happened?" "What's the matter?" "You're upset." "Has the whirlwind veered around?" "Are you returning to a lowlier game, or only having fun?" "You've won." "I'm yours again, Marcela." "My fancy came to nothing." "Forgive my folly if you love me still." "It isn't that I could not still pursue those hopes but memories of you make me return." "Let these memories prevail on you and waken yours since I confess your victory." "No, God forbid I spoil your chance of bliss!" "You're doing well, keep at it!" "Don't weaken, or your love will think you're timid!" "You find your happiness, as I've found mine." "For now, it can't be wrong that I love Fabio." "He's not a better prospect but he's my wisest remedy and revenge." "And so, goodbye." "I'm getting rather tired of talking to you." "Fabio shouldn't see us, now we're almost married." "Stop her, Tristán!" "Madam." "Because he's started loving you again you mustn't think he stopped." "And if he wronged you, he's trying to put it right." " Marcela, hear me." " What is it Tristán?" " Wait." "Teodoro and Marcela?" "You seem put out to find those two together." "I must be on my guard." "Let's both wait here." " How love's aroused by jealousy." " Leave me, Tristán!" "Tristán is talking them round from a quarrel." "He drives me mad, that pimping little lackey." "He was dazzled by the empty beauty of that woman who dotes on him." "He scorns her riches now and finds in you far richer treasures." "That love flew off like a comet." "Come here Teodoro." " He's more like a courier!" "If Marcela says it's Fabio she loves now why bother me?" "Now he's annoyed!" "They'll be better suited." "You too?" "You're acting up!" "Stop it, give me this hand and then you both can make it up." "Why try to talk me round?" "Glve me your hand this once." "Have I ever told her I loved somebody else?" "She says..." " That's just a trick of hers." " It's not at trick, it's true!" "Shut up, silly." "Come on, now." "You're both being silly!" "I tried but, by God, I won't be friendly now!" "Damned if I will!" "Don't swear." "My anger's nearly wilting." "Keep it up!" "What a rogue, that lackey!" "I've things to do, Tristán." "Let me go." "Let her go." "All right by me." "No!" "I'm coming, darling." " Go, I'm not stopping either one." " Alas, my love, I can't." "Nor can I. I'm rooted like a rock." "Come to my arms." "And you come to mine." "If you don't need me why let me labour?" "You hoped for this?" "I see now how little you can trust a man or woman." "You said such cruel things." "Now you're happily united I reckon it's a bad lookout for brokers when both parties come to terms without them." "If I ever leave you, for Fabio or the world may you slay me!" "And if my love should ever prove untrue may I be punished, sweet, by seeing you in Fabio's arms," "Will you undo the harm?" "What would I not do for you?" "Say all women are ugly." "Compared to you, of course." "What else?" "One little jealousy, now you're so loving even with Tristán here." "Don't mind me, say what you want to." "Tell me Diana's ugly." "Ugly as the devil." " Stupid?" " Utterly." "And vain?" "Insipid." "I must stop them, for now I'm cold as ice but blazing." "Don't, my lady!" "If you want to castigate the countess, just you listen." "The first thing..." "I'm not waiting to hear the second!" "I must be going." " The countess!" " The countess?" " Teodoro!" " Madam?" "I think I hear thunder." "I'm not waiting for the lightning." "Anarda, bring a writing-desk." "Teodoro is going to write a note, at my dictation." "To think he loves Marcela and that I attract him less." "They made fun of me!" "It's as I say, you'd better watch your p's and q's at court for walls have ears, and tapestries have tongues." "Teodoro, take the pen." "It's death or banishment." " Write." " I'm ready." "You can't kneel on the floor." "Anarda, a cushion for him." "I'm all right." "Do as I say, you fool." "Favours don't mix with anger and suspicion." "When knees are honoured, heads may roll!" "I'm ready." "Take this down." "If I could cross myself 1,000 times." ""When a lady of quality has declared herself to a man of the common sort it is base in him to talk again with another." "But he who disregards his fortune may remain a fool."" "Is that all?" "Is it not enough?" "Now fold it, Teodoro." "What are you doing?" "Being foolish, and in love." "In love with whom?" "You still can't say, you ninny?" "I know the very stones here speak his name." "I've folded it." "To whom should I address it?" "Address it to yourself." "Don't tell Marcela." "Ponder it in private, at your leisure." "I'm completely at a loss." "That woman's heart must bleed for me by fits and starts." "And that pulse of love has such great palpitations." "What happened?" "I've been waiting anxiously behind that screen." "She said she meant to marry you to Fabio." "This note to her estate is to request your dowry." " What are you saying?" " That I wish you well." "And since you're getting married you'd best not speak my name." " Listen..." " No use complaining." "No, I can't believe it." "That's not the reason." "That giddy woman's made him change his mind." "Her ladyship no sooner calls to arms than you abandon me, you wretch." "She wants you, you leave me." "She drops you, back you come." "Can I bear it?" "Fabio, I couldn't wait a single hour to kiss her hand in gratitude." "Anarda, the marquis has arrived." "Go tell my lady." "How proudly they present themselves whose hopes are all in vain." " Why don't you go?" " I'm going." "Say her husband and my new master is here." "Go to my lodgings, Fabio." "I shall give you 1,000 ducats and one of Naples' finest horses." "A gesture I can but praise, not merit." "This is only a beginning." "Her ladyship may treat you as a servant." "I count you as a friend." "I kiss your feet." "This is not payment, merely gratitude." "Your lordship here?" "That's surely not surprising when having just been sorely disappointed you sent Fabio to inform me you'd chosen me as your husband." "I kneel to kiss your feet." "And my delight drives me so mad with joy that simple madness seems insufficient token of my gladness." "Did I ever think to win you or hope for more than yearning from afar?" "I seek, but seek in vain, to give you an answer." "Did I then send for you?" "Or do you jest?" "Fabio, what's this?" "Could I have brought you here unless instructed by Teodoro?" "Marquis, Teodoro must have been to blame." "He heard me praise you more than Federico although he is a man of rank and riches and so presumed I'd given you my hand." "I beg your lordship to forgive these fools." "For Fabio there could be no pardon did not your presence offer sanctuary." "I kiss your feet in gratitude and trust my constant love may triumph yet." "Pleased with yourself, dolt?" "Why blame me, madam?" "Just fetch Teodoro." "How quickly that Ricardo comes when I can only think of Teodoro." "Love, what do you want of me?" "Had I not forgotten Teodoro?" "What do you want of me?" "But you'll reply, "Not I, my shadow, following behind"." "Oh, jealousy!" "You will not be denied." "Were she to heed the counsels you provide a woman's honour would not last a day." "I love a man." "But how can I forget that I'm an ocean, he a humble boat?" "How can it be the sea that's overset?" "My heart's afloat in dangerous seas." "Yet now Love's bow's so stretched I fear it might be split apart if honour pulls too tight." "The marquis nearly killed me." "But the worst was losing all the ducats." "Want some advice?" "What's that?" "Count Federico was frantic at the news about the marquis." "Tell him that the wedding's off, you'll get your 1,000 ducats." "I'll go like lightning." "Do." "You wanted me?" "At least that idiot had the wit to go." "An hour I spent upon your note and, on consideration, I see my diffidence was deference." "But to remain thus in the face of such encouragement was wrong." "And so I've decided to declare I love you." "But it is with great respect I love you." "Forgive me, I am nervous." "Teodoro, I believe you." "Why should you not love me since I'm your employer and I favour you above my other servants?" "I do not understand." "There's no more to understand." "Your thoughts should never pass that line." "Curb any rash ambition, for from a woman of such rank especially since your merits are so meagre the slightest favour should suffice to keep you happy." "Your ladyship, forgive my boldness suffers from not infrequent fits of giddiness not mental, temperamental." "What was the use of holding out such hopes that, as you know the strain of my excitement when first we spoke had me ill in bed for near a month if when you find I'm cool you turn to fire but when I burn you freeze to solid ice?" "Leave me with Marcela." "You're like the dog in Aesop's tale." "Too consumed with jealousy to let me marry her but if you see me turn from her, you drive me mad and shatter my illusions." "Eat or let others eat, then." "I can't live on empty hopes." "And there is one I know loves me." "Not that, Teodoro." "I warn you, not Marcela!" "Turn to any other woman but Marcela." "She's no remedy." "Oh, isn't she?" "So, despite our love, you would insist I try my luck elsewhere?" "In matters of the heart, I'm to follow another's inclinations?" "I worship her, she worships me, our love is pure and true." "Shameless wretch!" "I'll have you murdered on the spot." "What's this, my lady?" "The beating you deserve for such indecency." "Hold on." "You're right, we'd better not go in." "Better still, we will." "What's this, my lady?" "Nothing." "Just the sort of mild annoyance servants often cause." "My lady, what do you want of me?" "Only to speak of private matters." "Would that I had found you more at ease." "I am at ease, Federico." "Such things are only trifles." "Come along." "We'll talk about the marquis." " Fabio." " My lord?" "Her displeasure may conceal some fancy less displeasing." "I couldn't say." "But I'm astonished to see her ladyship treat him so badly." "She's never done that before." "His handkerchief soaked in blood!" "If a man with two loves can always be content his servant likewise is." "Oh, Tristán!" "What's this then, sir?" "Blood on your handkerchief!" "That is how love teaches lovers jealousy." "Such stupid jealousy on her part." "If Juana or Lucia attack me tear the collar they made me pull my hair and scrape me because they find me playing fast and loose that's fair enough." "They're clodhopping peasants in great clumsy shoes but when a lady seems to lose all sense of self respect..." "She won't let me be hers or Marcela's." "And if I keep away, she finds a reason for to see me." ""Dog in the manger" sums her up exactly." "Neither in nor out, won't eat or let eat." "A learned doctor once had a housekeeper and a valet who never left off wrangling." "They fought at lunch, at dinner, even kept him from sleeping with their shouting." "One day, when he'd been teaching, he had to hurry home." "Bursting into his bedroom unexpected he found them lying there, all lovey-dovey." "And he said..." ""Thank God you two have made it up for once!"" "Teodoro." " Madam?" " Is she some sort of spook?" "I only came to know if you were well." "Can you not see?" " Are you all right?" " I am." "You don't add "At your service"?" "I can't be in your service long, at this rate." "You know so little!" "So little that I feel your blows can't comprehend your words." "You're angry if I love you, or I don't." "If I forget or not, you say I'm wrong." "You'd have me understand, but I'm a fool if I do." "Give me life or death, a mean between extremes." "Did I draw blood?" "Well..." "No." "Where's your handkerchief?" "Here." " Show me." " Why?" "I want this blood." "See Otavio, I told him you're to have 2,000 ducats." "Why?" "For handkerchiefs." "Whoever saw the like?" "What witchery is this?" "She's given me 2,000 ducats." "You wouldn't mind a dozen blows at that price." "For handkerchiefs, she said, and took the bloody one." "Because she made you bleed she's paid you through the nose." "She's not too bad a dog." "She bites, then she's all over you." "These wild extremes will end up like the doctor's housekeeper." "Hope you're right!" "You saw her?" "Yes, I saw her." "Saw her strike him?" "We all have servant problems, but it wasn't that." "When a woman in her position, strikes a man full in the face it's obvious there may be other reasons." "And he's looking very prosperous lately." "She's a woman, he her servant." "Asking for trouble." "Can it be done?" "It can." "There's plenty men in Naples make their living trading blood for gold." "We can find some desperado who'll dispatch him." "And do so with dispatch." "He'll get his just reward." "You ought to stand a round of wine to christen that suit you've been given." "Good old Tristán!" "It's only right!" "I am, gentlemen only too delighted." "It's really rather fine." "It's only frills and fripperies by contrast with what I soon will get." "She's doing your master very proud, the countess." "He's like her right-hand man the gateway to her favour." "Let's forget that, and drink." "This "tavernacle", I suspect, has good Lachryma Christi and malmsey." "Let's try some Greek wine." "I want to speak in Greek and a drop is all I need." "That dark-haried fellow appears the fiercest." "The rest, it seems, defer to him." "Celio." "My lord?" "You see those gentlemen?" "Call the pale one over." "If you please." "Before you enter, my lord the marquis there would like a word." "Comrades, that princeling yonder seeks a parley." "I can't decline to hear what he desires." "Go in, and sample half a dozen casks." " Get it over quickly." " I shall fly!" "What would your lordship have of me?" "Count Federico here and I on seeing you with such a valiant crew wonder if you're man enough to kill a man." "These are milady's suitors, for goodness' sake." "Have you no answer?" "I was just wondering if your lordship meant to mock the way we live." "For there's not a swordsman in all of Naples who doesn't tremble at my name." "Marquis, this is our man." "I swear we do not mock." "If you're as bold as such a name betokens and want to kill a man just name your price." "Two hundred ducats then, for the devil himself." "Then make it three, and do the deed tonight." "I only need his name, and an advance." "D'you know Diana, Countess of Belflor?" "I've friends inside her house." "Will you kill one of her servants?" "AII, both male and female, and even her coach's nags." "The one you are to kill is Teodoro." "Now that, my lords, is a rather different matter." "Teodoro, I know, won't venture out at night aware perhaps, that he's offended you." "I've been asked to be his servant." "Let me agree, and very soon I'll slip him a pair of thrusts with which the wretch "in pace requiescat"." "Well, what d'you think?" "We'd never find in Naples another so certain to destroy him." "I need a hundred ducats right away." "There's fifty in this purse." "When I see you in Diana's house you'll have the hundred, and lashings more." "I'd really rather do without the lashings!" "I'll take my leave." "My comrades, Breachwall, Horsemint and Pitcher, await." "I'd prefer them not to be suspicious." "Where are you going, sir?" "I wish I knew, Tristán, what it is bears me on or where it is I'm bound." "Come inside, it's vital we're not seen together." "How d'you mean?" "I'll tell you how I'll circumvent the plots against your life." "My life?" "Why?" "Just lower your voice and hear what hopes of remedy you have." "Ricardo and Federico just signed me up to settle you for good." "To kill me?" "For certain blows, they guess milady loves you." "But I have the remedy." "If I'd the wit to bring to you a noble father so you'd be equal to the countess wouldn't that resolve it?" "No doubt." "Count Ludovico's an old man now but 20 years ago he sent a son same name as yours, to Malta." "This son was captured, though, by Moorish pirates and never heard of since." "So he must be your father, you his son and I'll arrange it all." "Tristán, your ingenuity may cost up both our honour and our lives." "They will be your prize." "Goodbye." "I guarantee by noon tomorrow Diana will be yours." "Have you recovered from your melancholia?" "I take delight in it, savour my sorrow." "I seek no recovery from this sadness pine only at the prospect of a cure." "Happy is he whose suffferings are so sweet." "He sees death near and welcomes his destruction." "I have only one regret." "I find I must remove my sorrow from its source." "Remove?" "But why?" "They mean to kill me." "No doubt they do." "They're envious of that joy which now is anguish." "And so I ask your leave to leave for Spain." "This is a noble act, a wise decision which will remove the risk to both and bring tears to my eyes but honour to my house." "Since I struck you, Federico has been jealous and sought to have me turn you out." "Go to Spain." "I'll see you have 6,000 ducats." "Your enemies will be silenced if I go." "I kiss your feet." "Teodoro, stop, no more!" "Leave me, I'm a woman, after all." "She's crying, but what can I do?" "You're leaving then, Teodoro?" "Yes, milady." "Wait!" "Go!" "Listen!" "Yes?" "No, go." "I will." "I'm so confused." "Can any torture tear the soul like love?" "Have you not gone?" "I'm leaving now." "I am left, bereft." "God curse you, Honour!" "So alien to our innermost desires!" "Who invented you?" "But you're not foolish." "You save us from so many acts of folly." "I ask again if I have leave to go." "I cannot say, and you seem not to know I grieve to see you." "I'm here to seek myself since I am nowhere else and need you to release me to myself." "Don't ask me to release you, if you mean to come again." "Go." "My love is locked in combat with my honour." "You may make me stumble." "Go, don't seek yourself though well you may." "I know that though you stay, you take me with you too." "God bless your ladyship." "Damn my ladyship." "That is what prevents me being his whom I desire." "Emboldened by my years of faithful service I humbly beg you to reward them, madam." "You have an opportunity to ease my situation and have me quit your sight." "Ease your situation?" "What opportunity?" "They say Teodoro, fearing he's in danger leaves today for Spain." "If we were married, and I went with him, you'd need not see me." "Would he be willing?" "How could I put forward such a request if I weren't sure he would?" "You've talked to him?" "He's talked to me, and asked me." "Have I deserved all this?" "He and I have worked out which would be the easiest way to go." "Now, foolish Honour, forgive me." "Love must lose all control." "And yet it need not." "This disease is easily cured." "Can't you decide?" "I couldn't do without you." "What you suggest would offend my love for you, and Fabio's who adores you." "You're marrying him." "So let Teodoro go." "But I hate Fabio, and adore Teodoro." "What a temptation to betray my feelings." "Be still, foolish heart." "Fabio will suit you better." "Milady..." "Don't answer back." "You need an heir, there's no other answer." "Every year I've lived is like an enemy." "That may be an excuse for marrying late but caution sits in judgement and finds it folly." "After all, I might not get an heir and still be married." "An old man and a woman are like an elm encircled by ivy." "Each may enfold the other in its embraces but while she thrives, he shrivels." "And even to talk of marriage, Camilo brings to mind my tragedy and renews my torment." "It's twenty years now since I lost Teodoro and still I wait for his return and weep." "A merchant here from Greece would see you." "He may enter." "I kiss your hands and pray the heavens above be pleased to grant you the boon you most desire." "You're very welcome." "But what has brought you to this distant land?" "I sailed to Cyprus from Constantinople and on to Venice with a full laden ship." "Recalling though, a story which has caused me some concern and keen to see Naples I left my minions there, unloading fabrics and as you see have journeyed here to gaze upon this fair and mighty city." "It is a mighty city, and a fair one." "It is indeed." "My father, sir, like me was once a Grecian merchant." "The trade he found paid best was buying and selling slaves." "And so it chanced that in Azteclias market he bought a boy, the fairest Nature ever had created." "Camilo, how my heart misgives me!" "My father bought the youngster and took him home to rear him with my sister and myself." "Forbear, friend!" "Forbear, you tear my very soul!" "Hook, line and sinker!" "Did the young lad say what was his name?" "Teodoro." "Heavens!" "Truth rings so true!" "I only need hear you, and tears water these grey hairs." "So this all too handsome youth and my sister Serpalitonia being brought up together were bound by bonds of love from infancy." "And when they were sixteen, and father absent their passion took its course with the result that the result for her was growing obvious." "Alarmed, Teodoro disappeared leaving Serpalitonia near her time." "Catiborratos, my father, died of grief no less." "We called the pretty child Terimaconio and reared him in the city of Tepecas." "So, when I came to see the sights of Naples consulting notes I'd brought along concerning Teodoro, I made a few enquiries." "A Grecian slave-girl at my lodging said "Maybe that's Count Ludovico's son"." "That was my inspiration." "I decided I would see you." "But by mistake I went into the house of the Countess of Belflor, and the first man I spoke to..." "My heart's stopped beating." "...proved to be Teodoro." "Teodoro!" "He'd have run away, but couldn't." "I wasn't sure." "He has a beard which makes a difference." "I followed him and then, ashamed, he spoke saying I mustn't tell anyone who he was." "I said, "If you're the son of someone noble here in Naples why are you ashamed of having been a slave?"" "He said that was ridiculous." "But I came here to you, to see if your tale tallied with mine and to beseech you, if my Teodoro is your son to have consideration for your grandson or let my sister bring him here to Naples not seeking marriage though she's more than worthy but so that Terimaconio may know so venerable a grandfather." "Come!" "Come to my arms a thousandfold!" "My soul and all its powers divine by their delight your story's true." "My long lost son returned to bring such bliss after such years of yearning." "Camilo!" "Tell me, should I go and greet him?" "Why hesitate?" "Fly to his arms." "Friend, if you desire to go with me, my happiness will be more assured." "If you prefer to rest, await me here." "My house and goods are all at your disposal." "Let us take our leave, Mercaponios." "Let's go, sir." "An ideal diddle." " A doddle." " Skedaddle!" " What a strange language." " Come with me, Camilo." " Are they gone?" " The old man's flying." " You're leaving, Teodoro?" " Yes, and you're the reason." "I can't fight such unequal competition." "You're as false as ever!" "You dropped me when you thought to love Diana." "And now your foolish hopes have come to nothing." "Such nonsense, when you're marrying Fabio." "You're forcing me to marry him to spite you." "You're wise, Marcela, since Teodoro's leaving so soon to feast your eyes on him." "Your jealousy's misplaced, when I'm displacing." "You're going?" "Can't you see?" "My lady wants to see you." "You're off already?" "I only wish my feet had wings, milady, not merely spurs." "Hello there!" "How's that clothing?" "It's all prepared, madam." "He's really going?" "You're still jealous?" " A word aside here." " Madam, at your service." "Teodoro you're leaving and I love you." "You're cruel." "I'm what I am." "What can I do?" "You're crying?" "No, there's something in my eye." "Love, could it be?" "It must be, but it's been there a while and now it must come out." "I leave, my lady, but I leave my heart." "Yet if I leave it at your feet I merely do proper reverence to your beauty." "I'm yours, command me." "Oh, what misery!" "I leave, my lady, but I leave my heart." "You're crying?" "No, there's something in my eye." " My cruelty, maybe?" " Yes, it must be that." "One of your trunks contains a host of fripperies." "Forigve me, I couldn't help myself." "And don't forget, if you should open it to tell yourself "These were Diana's and the tears were too."" "My dear Diana, such delightful tidings surely permit a man as old as I to visit you quite unannounced." "Why, Count, what is this?" "You mean you haven't heard what everyone in Naples knows?" "Your ladyship has never heard my story?" "How twenty years ago I sent my son to Malta with his uncle but Ali Pasha's galleys captured him?" "I think I may have heard of it." "Well now, despite a thousand shifts of fortune the heavens at last have brought him back to me." "You're very right to bring me such good tidings." "I am?" "Then you must give me in exchange my son, milady since he's in your service, ignorant that I'm his father." "Ah, if only his dear mother were alive!" "He's in my service?" " Is it Fabio, maybe?" " No." "Madam, no, not Fabio, but Teodoro." "Teodoro!" " Indeed." " How's this?" "Teodoro, is the count your father?" "It's this man?" " Have a care, your lordship..." " What should I care, my son my heart's delight?" "I only want to die in your embrace!" " How very strange!" " Oh, milady." "Is Teodoro a gentleman of noble rank and station?" "My lord, I'm so confused." "I'm truly, then, your son?" "Were I less certain seeing you would be the surest proof." "You're so much like the lad I used to be!" "I kiss your feet and beg you..." "Say no more, I'm too excited." "What a handsome fellow!" "God's blessing on you!" "What a regal presence!" "How clearly Nature's written in your face your true nobility!" "Let's go, come straight away and take possession of my house and fortune." "Come and see those gates which proudly bear the noblest scutcheons of this noble kingdom." "My lord, I was about to leave for Spain this very day." "What?" "For Spain?" "Spain's here, in this embrace." "I beg your lordship, leave Teodoro here." "Let him be more composed to go to be acknowledged as your son." "I wouldn't have him leave with all the hubbub." "You speak as wisely as befits your person." "I'm sad to leave him for a single moment, but lest there be more outcry I shall go." "I only ask your ladyship to promise night shall not fall before I see my treasure." "I give my word." " Farewell, my dear Teodoro." " I kiss your feet in reverence." "Camilo, death would be welcome now!" "And he's so handsome!" "I dare not ponder too much on so much joy, or I'll go mad." " Give us your hands to kiss." " Show that noble condescension." "Lords who're easy-going win everybody's hearts." "Come, embrace us." "Stand back, give way to me, don't talk such nonsense." "May it please you, now give me your hands." "I should kiss your feet, for now you're all the more my lady." "Clear the room." "Leave us a little while alone together." " What d'you say, Fabio?" " I'm reeling." " What do you think?" " No more dog in the manger." " She'll eat?" " Of course." "Until she bursts!" "Not going to Spain then?" "I?" "No longer saying "I leave, my lady, but I leave my heart"?" "When Fortune favours me, you mock me." "Be more excited." "Let's treat each other now on equal terms, for both are noble." "You've changed." "It seems you love me less." "You're sorry I'm your equal." "It's very usual for Love to like the loved one to be lowlier." "You're wrong, you'll find, for now I'll make you mine." "I'll marry you tonight." "Fortune, stay your wheel." "You have no more to give." "No woman in the world could be more fortunate." "So go and dress." "I'll visit the estate, and the father I've acquired God knows how." "Farewell, my lord the count." "Countess..." " Listen." " What?" ""What?" Is that how a servant should address his mistress?" "The rules are different now, and I'm the master." "You're not to make me jealous of Marcela any more." "Masters shouldn't love their servants." "Be sure you mean that." "That's insulting." "Who am I?" "My wife." "I ask no more!" "Fortune, stay your wheel." "I, too, say you have no more to give." "Stop, Tristán, if that in truth's your name." "The one I'm mostly known by is The Killer." "You've lived up to it!" "I should have done so but then today our corpse became a count." "What does it matter?" "When we struck our bargain at just three hundred ducats it was only to kill a certain servant, called Teodoro." "A count is different altogether, as should be the reward." "It comes much dearer to dispatch a count than half a dozen servants as good as dead already from hunger, hope and envy." "How much?" "And kill him tonight!" "1,000 ducats." "I give my word." "I'll need some guarantee." "This chain." " Count the money." " I'll go and fetch it here." "I'll go and kill him." "Listen!" "What?" "Do you want more?" "Be silent." "You were with that murderous pair." "Quite the biggest fools in all the city." "This chain, and 1,000 ducats promised, if I kill you now." "You're mad!" "The more I think of it, the worse I worry." "If this comes out the least they'll do is have our heads." " Don't start." " You're such a demon!" "Let things run, and see how they turn out." "It's the countess." "I'll hide, lest I be seen." "Not gone to see your father, Teodoro?" "A heavy sadness stops me." "I must desire your leave again to go to Spain as I desired." "So Marcela is calling you to arms." "How very proper!" "Marcela?" "Then what?" "Nothing that I should say or you should hear." "Tell me, however much it may offend me." "Tristán, knowing of Ludovico's long-Iost son invented all this fabrication." "I am nobody." "I know no father beyond my wits my schooling and my pen." "The count thinks I'm his son, and if we married I could have happiness and fame." "But I cannot let myself abuse your trust." "You've been both shrewd and stupid." "Shrewd to have made so candid a confession stupid to suppose I'd be so stupid not to marry you." "For happiness lies in the harmony of heart with heart." "I mean to marry you." "So Tristán may not betray our secret I'll have him tipped down that well." "Oh, no, you don't!" "Who's that?" "Who's that?" "Tristán protesting at the worst ingratitude of your fickle sex." "I've been your cat's-paw, though I wish I hadn't." "Now you put poor pussy down the well?" "So you heard?" "You won't catch me." " Come back." " Come back?" "Come back." "I give you now my word you'll find no firmer friend." "But mind you keep this scheme of yours a secret." "Why shouldn't I, when I've as much to lose?" "Listen." "What's that crowd and shouting?" "If Diana will release you, a carriage waits for you without." "After so many years so far from home..." "But first I'll have you know, my lord, that I'm his wife." "If Fortune's wayward wheel was ever fixed by a golden nail let it be now!" "I sought a son, find a son and daughter." "Congratulate my cousin." "I congratulate Teodoro that he still lives for jealousy provoked me to give this rogue not just this chain to kill him, but 1,000 ducats." "Arrest him as a trickster and a thief!" "Not so." "No man is a thief who defends his master." "No?" "Who was this devious desperado?" "My lackey." "To give him a reward for this and other secret favours if Diana agrees, I mean to marry him to Dorotea as she has wed Marcela and Fabio." "I'll pay Marcela's dowry." "And I shall pay Dorotea's." "I shall endow the countess with both my boy and all my worldly goods." "A fine reward you give me, sir, for going to your defense." "Weren't two weddings enough for a single day?" "You're grumbling?" "How soon your son is lost again." "But this time, there's no grief." "I'll watch over him." "It would be careless of me if I lost him." "DOG IN THE MANGER" "Sir, wait!" "Remain!" "Hear what I say!" "This is an outrage." "Come back, look, listen!" "Hello!" "Where are those servants?" "Hello?" "Is there no one here?" "It was no ghost, I know." "I wasn't dreaming." "Hello!" "Are you all asleep?" "Your ladyship?" "I like your coolness when I am blazing." "Hurry, you idiot, what else can I call you?" "Find out who it was who just left this room." "This room?" "Move, and answer with your feet." "I'll go." "See who it was." "What villainy!" "What wickedness!" "You should have killed him!" "But think of your honor if he had been a gentleman." "A gentleman here?" "Why?" "Don't any number in Naples court you and try to see you any way they may?" "Aren't there a thousand nobles mad to marry you?" "You say he was well dressed and Fabio saw the hat he threw at the lamp." "No doubt it was a noble suitor who'd bribed some of my servants." "They're so loyal, Otavio." "But I'll know who it was." "The hat had plumes, and must be on the staircase." "Fetch it." "Will I find it?" "Of course, fool." "He can't have picked it up if he was running." "I'll take a light." "If a servant is to blame for this, I'll send him packing." "Quite right, it's wrong to cause you such concern." "But though it may be foolish, when you're angry to mention it your ill-advised persistence in spurning all your suitors makes them bold to think out ways of forcing you to marry." "Do you know something?" "Nothing, except that, as all say you're beautiful but refuse to marry." "Count of Belflor is a title many covet and for that reason much is risked by many." "Quick, Tristán, this way!" " What a disaster!" " She recognized us?" "I don't know." "Probably." "Is not that what happened?" "In that case it would seem that I am not the cause of all this uproar and it was to see a servant he came." "Your ladyship, your righteous indignation persuades me to tell you the truth despite my friendship for Marcela." "She loves a man, I know, and he loves her though who it is..." "Anarda, why concede a major point, and then conceal a minor?" "Need you put me to such torture for other people's secrets?" "Isn't it enough to know he came for her, not you?" "Rest easy, for it's only talk only started lately." "What shamelessness!" "What of my reputation as an unmarried woman?" "By the life of my late lord the count, I swear..." "My lady!" "Let me explain." "It isn't some outsider, this man she talks to." "And to see her he needn't come here." "You mean a servant?" "Yes, my lady." "Who?" "Teodoro." "My secretary?" "Yes, that's all I know." "I know they have spoken." "Stand back, Anarda." "Please be prudent." "I'm calm now, since it wasn't me he came for." "Marcela!" "Madam?" "Listen." "Yes, madam?" " Now I'm for it!" "" "Is this how you betray my trust, my honour?" "What have they said?" "You know what store I set by the loyalty I owe you." "Loyalty, you?" "Have I offended?" "Is it not to offend me to admit a man's advances, in my chamber?" "Teodoro's such a silly he'll say two dozen saucy phrases anywhere." "Two dozen?" "A bumper crop indeed, thank Heaven if they are sold in dozens!" "Indoors or out, I mean to say his thoughts translate as pretty words." "Translate?" "How curious!" "What does he say?" "I don't recall." "You do." "One day he'll say "Your eyes have snared my soul"." "The next, "I live for them."" ""My tender longings keep me awake at night."" "The next, he'll beg from me a single hair to bind them in his thoughts." "But why ask such frivolities?" "They please you well enough." "They're not unpleasing because I know that Teodoro's intentions are virtuous." "He means to marry me." "True, marriage is love's proper aim." "You wish me to arrange it?" "Nothing could make me happier!" "Oh, my lady, your anger proves so mild your heart so noble I confess that I adore him because he's quite the cleverest, wisest and tenderest youth in all this city." "As my secretary, I already know he's clever." "Oh, that's another matter." "I know the way he whispers fond endearments, rather closer." "Marcela, though I promise you shall marry when the time is ripe I must be seen to act with prudence and cannot countenance your courting here." "I must sustain my anger for it's known to all and you must pursue your love with more discretion." "When opportunity affords, I'll help you both." "Teodoro's sensible, and has been raised here in my house and you, Marcela kinship apart, have merited my favour." "I kneel and kiss your feet." " Go." " A thousand times I kiss them." "Leave me alone." " Well?" " Angry, but to my advantage." " She knows your secrets?" " Yes, but knows they're harmless." "I've oft remarked on Teodoro's wit and manly beauty and might admire it were that consistent with my sense of duty." "Love is the common lot of all but I more highly prize my honoured name." "I worship my nobility and the very thought brings shame." "Envy, I know too well, must be my fate engendered by a joy I cannot share." "With reason I resent my rank and state and can but vainly wish that he were more and I not far above him or I were less and so could freely love him." "I couldn't rest." "I'm not surprised." "If she finds out, that's the end of you." "I said to wait, but would you?" "No." " Love brooks no resistance." " You're all thrust." "Like a good swordsman." "You'd see the danger is you were one." " She recognized me?" " No and yes." "She didn't know, but she suspected." "When Fabio chased me down the stairs I marvel I didn't kill him." "How I threw my hat, putting out the light!" "It dazzled him and stopped him." "Else, I'd have gone for him." "As I ran down, I told the lamp, "You say we're strangers" but it said, "You lie!"" "I threw my hat." "Am I dishonoured?" "I cannot live." "You lovers always say such things before you're hurt at all." "Tristán, what can I do in so much danger?" "Forget Marcela." "If the countess finds out, you'll have no choice you'll have to go." "I just forget her?" "I'll give you lessons on Cures for Love." "First, you must determine to forget and not suppose you'll ever love again." "How?" "Recall her vices, not her virtues." "Wise men forget, remembering women's defects." "Don't picture her in elegant attire, trim-waisted raised aloft on high-heeled slippers." "That's all just architecture." "Some wit once said that half a woman's beauty came from her dressmakers." "It's as a penitent dragged off for treatment that you must see her and not prettified by expensive petticoats." "In short, think of her faults as love's true medicine." "What clumsy cures unlettered quacks come up with!" "What rough-and-ready remedies you offer." "Marcela has no defects I can think of." "I won't forget her." "Well, forge ahead then, do not falter!" "She has no faults, just graces." "Then think of them until you lose the good graces of the countess." "Teodoro." "It's her!" "Attend." "Your servant, madam." "If she's found out, all three of us are done for." "A friend of mine uncertain of her skill, has asked me to compose this note." "For friendship's sake, I felt I should although I know so little of love." "I want you, Teodoro, to improve it." "Here, read it." "How could I compete with what you have written?" "That would be presumptuous." "Pray send it to your friend, I need not read it." "Read it." "Your doubts astonish me." "And I have never used lovers' language." "What?" "Never, ever?" "I've so many faults, I'm far too diffident to love." "Your diffidence explains, then, your disguising." "Me?" "Where, or when?" "They tell me that the steward saw you disguised last night." "Some prank, perhaps." "Fabio and I I fear, are always fooling." "Read." "Read." "I think some enemy is envious of me." "Jealous, maybe." "Read it." "Read it." "I know I'll only wonder at your wit." ""To love because we see another love is but envy." "If we say we're jealous but not in love Iove's theorists disprove." "Such love's impossible, they say." "My love, though, springs from jealousy." "Distressed, although I know I'm handsomer I see another seems more blessed in having won a love." "I let "I dare not" wait upon "I would" don't love, but feel a jealousy intense know, since I would be loved, that love I should." "Yet neither yield, nor offer a defence." "Thus what I mean I show, but do not show." "Let he who can, say what I mean." "I know."" "What do you think?" "That if it fits the case, I've not seen better." "Yet I can't imagine how jealousy could ever engender love." "Love always was its father." "I suspect the lady found the man in question pleasing but not desirable." "But when she saw him court another she was roused by jealousy to love him." "Could that be?" "It could, my lady." "Yet such jealousy must still have had a source and that was love." "Causes produce effects, and not vice versa." "I couldn't say, Teodoro." "I think that's how it was with her." "She told me she'd merely been attracted by that man but when she saw him loved a horde of hot desires beset the road to honour and stripped her soul of virtuous intentions." "Your note is finely phrased." "I dare not match it." "Go in and try." "I dare not." "Do, I beg you." "Your ladyship means to prove me wanting." "Write, and come to me later." "I shall." " Tristán, attend." " I reappear to serve you though shamed by my appearance." "The secretary, my master, is bankrupt lately yet a gentleman is ill-advised his servant being his harbinger, his mirror to let him look too shabby." "I fear he can't help it." "Does he gamble?" "I wish to God he did for those who do are never short of cash." "He's not a gambler, then?" "He's too cautious." "Then he is in love, no doubt." "In love?" "You must be joking!" "He's an iceberg." "What, a man so handsome so elegant, so clever and so young must surely seek some harmless entertainment?" "I deal in straw and barley not billets-doux nor bill-and-cooing." "He serves you here all day." "I expect he's busy." "He's never out at night?" "I don't go with him." "I've got this broken hip." "How did you get it?" "I might reply, as faithless wives reply when they've been battered by their jealous husbands." ""I tumbled down the stairs."" "You fell?" "And very far." "My ribs could count the steps." "That was to be expected if you threw your hat and put the light out, Tristán." "Geroff!" "God help us now, she knows it all!" "No comment?" "I was trying to remember but now I do." "Last night, some bats were flying around the house." "I threw my hat at them, one flew towards the light and trying to hit it I hit the lamp." "My feet both went from under me, and I went flying." "Good God, she's in a blazing temper!" "She'll have me battered for bat-burglary." "Keep them." "Keep your secrets." "The marquis Ricardo." "My mind's a whirl!" "With that solicitude which Love instils in every breast whose yearning for requital makes light of any obstacle I come to see you and to urge my suit although my fond ambition may seem misplaced to some more hopeful rival whose arrogance is greater than his ardour." "Your ladyship appears today so handsome that seeing you assures me you are well for woman's surest health is in her beauty." "For when she's gracious, elegant and gay 'tis foolish purest ignorance, to ask if she be well and all it so condemns." "Aware, then, that you are for so your beauty, Diana, and brio must attest I venture rather, strange though it may seem to ask you, how am I?" "Your lordship, to equate what we call brio with beauty is a notion eloquent of your wise judgement and perceptive mind." "As for your state of health, I daren't imagine." "Yet one who knows my honourable intentions should condescend so far." "Since your kinsfolk approve my purpose, madam only your approval is needful in order to sustain my hope." "Marquis, your love is utterly persuasive and, flattered by your nobly phrased professions I'll consider them, but Federico may interpose." "I know the count is devious though my superior in nothing else." "But I have no doubt the justice of my claim will blind his sight." "I've done your bidding." "If you're busy, madam it would be wrong to trespass on your time." "I do confess I have to write to Rome." "Nothing is worse than tedious visits when one's corresonding." "You're very shrewd." "In my desire to serve you." "Well, Celio what d'you think?" "I'd like to see your noble suit rewarded." "You've written it?" "I've written it not confidently, but as you commanded." "Show me." "Read it." "It says..." ""To adore one whom we see another adore is envy if we would not otherwise for if we had no mind to adore before we could not after, through another's eyes." "But when love sees what it admires among another's trophies, it's provoked to speak for what offfends the heart leaps to the tongue." "I say no more, for fear, as an inferior to offend one far superior, though it may well seem remiss." "All I know and seek to show is this." "If I acknowledged what I hope is true I'd seem to claim much more than is my due."" "How properly you put it." "You jest?" "Would I didn't!" "What's that?" "That yours is the better version." "I'm sorry." "If a servant's known to know more than his master he'll surely fall from favour." "Not so, Teodoro for though I say yours is the cleverer the point is that it follows my intention not that you need presume, when your pen pleases that I cease to trust the sharpness of my own." "Though as a woman I am prone to error and not too wise, as may appear." "You fear, as an inferior, to offend one far superior in loving." "You are mistaken." "In love that cannot be." "Inferiors can't offend by loving." "I think that only hating gives offence." "That's Nature's logic." "The painter shows Phaeton and Icarus hurtling down one drawn by golden horses, then struck down the other, with wings of wax, melted by the crucible of the sun." "The sun wouldn't have done that, if the sun had been a woman." "If you serve a lady serve on, be bold for love is perseverance." "Women aren't made of stone." "I'll take this paper." "I'd be wise to study it more closely." "It's full of errors." "None that I can see." "You honour my desire to serve." "Here's yours." "You keep it." "No, destroy it." "Destroy it?" "Yes." "What matters that it's lost, if much more may be?" "She's gone." "Whoever supposed a woman so noble and shrewd would own to loving so suddenly?" "But it may also be that I'm mistaken." "Dare we talk?" "Such a meeting makes light of any obstacle." "Death would be welcome on your account." "I'd die two thousand deaths to be with you." "I waited, like the lonely nightingale, for day." "When I saw, where in the East Apollo first appears Aurora wake him I said, "I'll see my Apollo"." "Such news!" "The countess wouldn't go to bed until she'd set her mind at rest." "Friends, envious of my happiness told her the truth." "If you see friendship among servants, don't believe it for it's sham." "I praised your virtues, talents, style and grace and then she showed such kindly condescension that she rejoiced at my regard for you and promised that we would soon be married when she learned how pure were your intentions." "I thought she'd rage dismiss us both and punish all the rest." "But her high nobility of blood her prudence and perfection of discernment acknowledged your true worth." "How wondrous!" "How fortunate those who serve so wise a lord!" "She promised we should marry?" "You question she'd show her noble birth?" "I was mistaken!" "How stupid to suppose the countess spoke of me." "To think perhaps she loved me." "A soaring hawk could never stoop to such a prey." "What are you muttering?" "Marcela, she spoke to me, but didn't say she knew that it was I who left her rooms last night." "How prudent, for otherwise, she'd have had to punish us unless that's what she's done for marriage is the kindest punishment for love." "And love's most honourable cure." " One you desire?" " Greatly." "Confirm it." "With open arms, which are the twirls of love's sharp quill." "What better flourish than an embrace?" "How well you make amends." "I'm pleased." "Those who reprove delight in seeing the proof of reformation." "Don't be disconcerted." "I told Marcela, madam, that last night I left here in such anguish that you might think our honourable intention to wed dishonourable to you I thought I'd die." "But when she told me you'd shown such grace as to bless our union, I took her in my arms." "I shan't deceive you, invent a foolish story for nothing's more disarming to the wise than truth." "Teodoro!" "Your disloyalty in failing to respect my house will be punished." "The kindness I showed last night can scarce excuse such licence." "When love descends to shamelessness it must be punished." "Marcela, till you marry, will be better kept under lock and key." "If the other maids should see you two together all will want to wed." "Dorotea!" "Dorotea!" "Madam?" "Take this key, and see you lock Marcela in my chamber." "A few days needlework will be no hardship." "Do not think I'm being petulant." "What's this, Marcela?" "Tyranny!" "A cruel mistress and a crueler fate!" "Locked away for him." "Don't worry, then." "When jealousy's the jailer, love has a master key." "So then, Teodoro, you've a mind to marry?" "No mind for anything unless you wish it." "My offence is not so gross as others say." "You know that envy has a scorpion's tongue, and had Ovid been a servant he wouldn't have described its dwelling in lonely vales, for it's here among us." "It isn't true, then, that you love Marcela?" "I could survive without her." "I hear you've lost your wits about her." "Wits like mine are no great loss." "But even though Marcela may well merit such devotion I've not shown it." "Nor murmured such endearments as would beguile a loftier lady?" "Words cost little." "Tell me what you told her." "How does a man, Teodoro, court a woman?" "As one who loves and pleads wrapping one half-truth in 1,000 lies." "Yes, but with what words?" "You press me strangely, madam." ""Those eyes of yours", I said "beam forth the light by which my eyes perceive."" ""The pearls and coral of that mouth divine..."" "Divine?" "Such language, your ladyship, is every ardent lover's ABC." "You've little taste." "I may lose confidence in your discernment." "I, who observe Marcela know that her defects exceed her graces." "And I often must reprove her because she's none too clean." "But I don't want to interfere although you'd be surprised the things..." "But that's enough of her virtues or her vices." "I'm sure I wish your marriage well." "Since you know so much of love advise me, Teodoro about that friend of mine." "For many days now she's known no rest for love of an inferior." "The very thought of love offends her honour but if she checks herself, is overwhelmed by jealousy." "And he, all unaware of so much passion though he's shrewd, is timid with her." "What do I know of love, madam?" "I swear I don't know how I could advise you." "Don't you love Marcela, as you say?" "What of those fond endearments?" "If the doors could only speak, they'd say..." "They could say nothing." "You're blushing." "What your tongue denies, your reddening cheeks confess." "If she told you that, she's stupid." "I took her hand, but gave it back." "Why's she complaining?" "Some hands, like the pax at Mass are kissed before being given back." "Marcela is a fool." "I own I ventured with seemly deference to cool my lips with snow and lilies." "With lilies and snow?" "Now I know that such a poultice cools the heart." "Well, now." "What do you advise?" "If that lady longs for one so far beneath her but fears that to indulge her passion would besmirch her honour she might by some trick lie with him unrecognized." "There is the danger he might guess." "Wouldn't it be best to kill him?" "They say that Marcus Aurelius when his wife desired to enjoy a gladiator gave her his blood." "But Roman remedies are not for us Christians, surely." "True, Teodoro." "Now there's no such thing as a Lucretia, a Torquatus or a Virginius." "In those days, Teodoro, they'd Faustinas Messalinas and Poppeas." "Write me a memorandum on the matter." "I'll leave you to it." "Oh, Heavens!" "I've fallen!" "Why are you staring?" "Give me your hand." "I feared to offer it, out of respect." "How gracious and how gauche to wrap it up." "As does Otavio, when you go to Mass." "His is a hand I don't desire." "An ancient hand a hand that should be shrouded like a corpse." "To make one wait while you wrap up in silk is to waste time dressing if a friend is attacked." "When you arrive he's dead." "In any case, how can it be proper whatever petty protocol prescribes for a hand if honourable to hide its face?" "I'm conscious of your condescension." "When you're an old retainer, wrap it in your cloak but now you are my secretary." "That's to say, you should keep my fall secret if you seek to rise." "Dare I believe this can be true?" "I dare." "Diana's fair, but she's a woman too." "She sought my hand and when she felt it there fear robbed her cheeks of all their rosy hue." "She trembled, I could tell." "Yet still I fear." "What shall I do?" "Seize this happy chance." "Although the outcome's so unclear my fears must yield before my hopes advance." "I'll wrong Marcela if I drop her." "Too often women find that men have played them false." "But they respond to fancies too in playing fast and loose." "Sauce for the gander, then, sauce for the goose." "You saw her here?" "She came in, as morning moves over the meadows spreading its light across their broidered counterpane." "But piety won't detain her long within." "I know the priest." "He's skimpier than he should be." "If I could speak to her!" "Your kinship must require her to admit your company." "My kinship's suspect now that I'm her suitor, Leonido." "I never felt so timid till I loved her." "A man will see a lady without compunction as friend or kinsman until he seeks her hand." "But when he loves her, although she's cool to all he'll see her less, and scarcely speak." "So it is for me with my fair cousin." "My passion brings me pain, denying me my joy for I was happier to see her freely, as I did before." "She came on foot, with several of her household." "The church was near, she proud of her appearance and so, no doubt, she deigned to grace the street." "Is that Ricardo?" "It is." "If he weren't here, it would be stranger." "He looks well, the marquis." "It almost seems that you are jealous." "Are you?" "Of course, especially if you praise him." "But why?" "Diana looks on none of you with favour." "She might, though." "She's a woman." "But a vain one, so proud and so disdainful you can all be reassured." "All handsome women are haughty." "Handsome is as handsome does." "Here she comes now." "My night will turn to day, then." " You'll speak to her?" " I will if my rival lets me." "I waited hoping to see you." "How very kind, my lord." "And I, my lady, was eager likewise to attend and serve you." "But marquis, how gallant of you how gracious!" "A paltry proof of my devotion, madam." "I fear I may be out of favour." "Don't be downcast, talk to her." "Why shouldn't a man fall silent, knowing none desire to listen?" "My strange new thoughts, I see you mount the air, and laugh to see you fly, although you're mine." "Stay!" "Restrain your ardour." "Thus I recall you, yet urge you on, for if your enterprise is mad, what else am I?" "But if a prize is great, ambition seems less reckless." "But if you claim, in your defence, the prize I seek is infinite, what basis, tell me first, has your ambition?" "You sigh for one you serve?" "You'll say you've reason, if you believe your eyes." "But you should tell them you're building towers of diamonds on straw." "I'll lay the blame on you if all goes ill." "Yet the guilt is shared, not yours alone." "You may claim, when I'm alarmed how high above my heart my passion's let you fly, that in my lowly state I make you ascend the sky." "If you've the time for this in which Marcela finds some consolation I shan't charge porterage for as at court, those they've no need of are never seen." "So, should we wash this note in vinegar?" "Let me see it, sourpuss." "As you've portered it I'd say it's had one soak already." ""Teodoro, my husband."" "Husband?" "Stupid!" "What stupid nonsense!" "She's stupid." "Now I've risen so high, you think I've time for butterflies?" "For God's sake read it." "Don't act so high and mighty!" "Wine is not ashamed of the flies it breeds." "I remember when your "butterfly" Marcela was a glorious eagle." "Soaring as now, to reach the very sun I'm quite astonished she can still be seen." "A very proper sentiment." "But what shall we do with that?" "This." "You've torn it?" "Yes." "Why?" "It's a speedy way to answer." "But that's unjust." "I'm not as I was." "You lovers are like love's apothecaries." "They keep prescriptions, you, billy-does." "Blue violet oil to cure a lover's blues." "For those proposing marriage, cure the urge or after ten days' bliss, procure a purge." "In short, all year they pile up their prescriptions." "Then, when it's time to pay, they tear up all the papers." "You've closed your accounts and torn Marcela's not knowing what's in it." "I think you've drunk too much." "And I think your ambition's turned your head." "Each man, Tristán, has his own chance of greatness." "Not having it, is not knowing how to seize it." "To be count is my venture." "And let fortune do its worst." "I'm sure if any one who serves the countess pities your distress, it's me." "We've been so close since she imprisoned me and I've such cause to thank you, Dorotea that no one's friendship matters more to me." "Anarda thinks I don't know that she loves Fabio." "She caused all my troubles." "She told the countess of Teodoro." "Teodoro's here." "Darling!" "Wait, Marcela." "But I adore you, darling, and I've found you!" "Mind what you say and do." "Here, the very tapestries tell tales." "Why do you think they've human figures on them?" "To warn us, living spies may lurk behind them." "You read my note?" "I tore it up unread." "I tore my love up too." "I've learned my lesson." "What do you mean?" "That I won't upset the countess any more." "My eyes have often shown how much they feared this truth." "Marcela..." "I must go." "If we can't be lovers, let's be friends." "Teodoro can you say that to Marcela?" "I can." "I respect the honour of the house that's made me what I am." " But listen!" "Wait!" " Leave me." "Would you treat me like this?" "It's over." "What d'you make of that?" "How can I tell?" "I dare not speak." "No?" "I dare." " I can't." " I will." "I would say, Marcela, you would do best in being prudent." "Love fears no danger when aroused by jealousy or anger." "If my lady weren't so proud, I'd say he had some expectation." "He's very much in favour these days." "Hush, you're annoyed." "But I'll be avenged." "I'm not so stupid that I can't make trouble." "Is the secretary here?" "Why make fun of me?" "For goodness' sake, my lady wants him." "Fabio!" "Whatever, ask Dorotea what I've been saying about Teodoro now." "Isn't he a tedious fool, this secretary of ours?" "What silly game is this?" "Do you think I'm fooled?" "Is this a plot you've hatched between you?" " A plot?" "Oh, yes!" " I swear you're up to something." "I admit I've listened to Teodoro's nonsense." "And yet I know I love a man much more like you." "Like me?" "Aren't you like you?" "Like me, Marcela?" "If I'm pretending Fabio and not wild about you if I don't find you handsome if I'm not yours, dearest Fabio may I know the torture of unrequited love." "If you are fooling, what are you after?" "May I speak?" "You may." "Those two you sent away adore you blindly." "You, in spurning them, exceed yourself." "Who do you mean to marry?" "Couldn't the marquis in splendour and nobility equal or surpass the richest and most powerful suitor?" "Might not a lady of the highest rank wed your cousin Federico?" "Why then dismiss them with such disrespect?" "One's insane, the other stupid and you are worse in not seeing." "I love another, and love without a hope of remedy." "Lord save us!" "You in love?" "Aren't I a woman?" "Yes." "More like a woman's statue carved in ice on which the sun in heaven may shine in vain." "Now that ice lies melted at the feet of one who's not my equal." "Who is it?" "I'm shamed to think how I belie my rank in loving him." "I'll not say his name." "Suffice to know that he would harm my honour." "Pasiphae loved a bull Semiramis a horse and other women other monsters I'd best not mention." "Can it harm your honour to love a man whoever he may be?" "All those who fall in love, can, if they will, as easily fall out." "That is the best." "I want not to love." "Can you?" "I can, since when I wished to love, I loved now I wish not to, I shall cease." "I hear from Fabio that you want to see me." "I've wanted for a long time." "You must have seen those two lovers my pair of noble suitors." "Yes, madam." "Handsome, both of them." "Yes, very." "I shall not choose without consulting you." "Which should I marry?" "Aren't there other men about who understand such things?" "Your steward, Otavio, is so much older and has more experience." "But I'd like you to like your future master." "Is the marquis handsomer than my cousin?" "Yes, madam." "Then I choose the marquis." "Take him the news and get your reward." "Whoever saw such a catastrophe?" "So sudden a decision, such a change?" "Diana's tumbled to her foolishness." "How stupidly I trusted tender words!" "How hard it is for different ranks to join their hearts." "I've no one else to blame." "I'll love Marcela." "She's the one for me." "Let lords love ladies, love needs parity." "The unworthy rise, but fall." "They soar, but burn." "You've spoken to her ladyship?" "This moment, and I'm delighted, Fabio for the countess has finally consented to be married." "The suitors you just saw both worship her but she has picked the marquis." "That was wise." "She asked me to inform him but I will yield you that advantage and you can go and be rewarded." "Such kindness shows me how much I love you." "I'll go like lightning, and be back directly, grateful to you." "The marquis should be proud." "To have tamed the countess is a conquest." "Marcela!" "Who's that?" "It's me." "You've forgotten me?" "So well, that I've become a different woman not to think of you." "Were I myself, I'd think of you and see you but now I couldn't think of you even should I want to." "How can you have the gall to talk to me?" "To even speak my name?" "I meant to test your constancy but didn't have the chance." "I hear you've turned your eyes elsewhere, and I'm replaced." "A wise man, Teodoro, never tests glass or a woman's love." "But don't pretend you meant to test me." "I know you, Teodoro." "A little glimpse of gold bemused your mind!" "How's it going?" "Hasn't it turned out the way you thought?" "The game's not worth the candle?" "Your new beloved's qualities bliss have not bestowed?" "What's happened?" "What's the matter?" "You're upset." "Has the whirlwind veered around?" "Are you returning to a lowlier game, or only having fun?" "You've won." "I'm yours again, Marcela." "My fancy came to nothing." "Forgive my folly if you love me still." "It isn't that I could not still pursue those hopes but memories of you make me return." "Let these memories prevail on you and waken yours since I confess your victory." "No, God forbid I spoil your chance of bliss!" "You're doing well, keep at it!" "Don't weaken, or your love will think you're timid!" "You find your happiness, as I've found mine." "For now, it can't be wrong that I love Fabio." "He's not a better prospect but he's my wisest remedy and revenge." "And so, goodbye." "I'm getting rather tired of talking to you." "Fabio shouldn't see us, now we're almost married." "Stop her, Tristán!" "Madam." "Because he's started loving you again you mustn't think he stopped." "And if he wronged you, he's trying to put it right." " Marcela, hear me." " What is it Tristán?" " Wait." "Teodoro and Marcela?" "You seem put out to find those two together." "I must be on my guard." "Let's both wait here." " How love's aroused by jealousy." " Leave me, Tristán!" "Tristán is talking them round from a quarrel." "He drives me mad, that pimping little lackey." "He was dazzled by the empty beauty of that woman who dotes on him." "He scorns her riches now and finds in you far richer treasures." "That love flew off like a comet." "Come here Teodoro." " He's more like a courier!" "If Marcela says it's Fabio she loves now why bother me?" "Now he's annoyed!" "They'll be better suited." "You too?" "You're acting up!" "Stop it, give me this hand and then you both can make it up." "Why try to talk me round?" "Glve me your hand this once." "Have I ever told her I loved somebody else?" "She says..." " That's just a trick of hers." " It's not at trick, it's true!" "Shut up, silly." "Come on, now." "You're both being silly!" "I tried but, by God, I won't be friendly now!" "Damned if I will!" "Don't swear." "My anger's nearly wilting." "Keep it up!" "What a rogue, that lackey!" "I've things to do, Tristán." "Let me go." "Let her go." "All right by me." "No!" "I'm coming, darling." " Go, I'm not stopping either one." " Alas, my love, I can't." "Nor can I. I'm rooted like a rock." "Come to my arms." "And you come to mine." "If you don't need me why let me labour?" "You hoped for this?" "I see now how little you can trust a man or woman." "You said such cruel things." "Now you're happily united I reckon it's a bad lookout for brokers when both parties come to terms without them." "If I ever leave you, for Fabio or the world may you slay me!" "And if my love should ever prove untrue may I be punished, sweet, by seeing you in Fabio's arms," "Will you undo the harm?" "What would I not do for you?" "Say all women are ugly." "Compared to you, of course." "What else?" "One little jealousy, now you're so loving even with Tristán here." "Don't mind me, say what you want to." "Tell me Diana's ugly." "Ugly as the devil." " Stupid?" " Utterly." "And vain?" "Insipid." "I must stop them, for now I'm cold as ice but blazing." "Don't, my lady!" "If you want to castigate the countess, just you listen." "The first thing..." "I'm not waiting to hear the second!" "I must be going." " The countess!" " The countess?" " Teodoro!" " Madam?" "I think I hear thunder." "I'm not waiting for the lightning." "Anarda, bring a writing-desk." "Teodoro is going to write a note, at my dictation." "To think he loves Marcela and that I attract him less." "They made fun of me!" "It's as I say, you'd better watch your p's and q's at court for walls have ears, and tapestries have tongues." "Teodoro, take the pen." "It's death or banishment." " Write." " I'm ready." "You can't kneel on the floor." "Anarda, a cushion for him." "I'm all right." "Do as I say, you fool." "Favours don't mix with anger and suspicion." "When knees are honoured, heads may roll!" "I'm ready." "Take this down." "If I could cross myself 1,000 times." ""When a lady of quality has declared herself to a man of the common sort it is base in him to talk again with another." "But he who disregards his fortune may remain a fool."" "Is that all?" "Is it not enough?" "Now fold it, Teodoro." "What are you doing?" "Being foolish, and in love." "In love with whom?" "You still can't say, you ninny?" "I know the very stones here speak his name." "I've folded it." "To whom should I address it?" "Address it to yourself." "Don't tell Marcela." "Ponder it in private, at your leisure." "I'm completely at a loss." "That woman's heart must bleed for me by fits and starts." "And that pulse of love has such great palpitations." "What happened?" "I've been waiting anxiously behind that screen." "She said she meant to marry you to Fabio." "This note to her estate is to request your dowry." " What are you saying?" " That I wish you well." "And since you're getting married you'd best not speak my name." " Listen..." " No use complaining." "No, I can't believe it." "That's not the reason." "That giddy woman's made him change his mind." "Her ladyship no sooner calls to arms than you abandon me, you wretch." "She wants you, you leave me." "She drops you, back you come." "Can I bear it?" "Fabio, I couldn't wait a single hour to kiss her hand in gratitude." "Anarda, the marquis has arrived." "Go tell my lady." "How proudly they present themselves whose hopes are all in vain." " Why don't you go?" " I'm going." "Say her husband and my new master is here." "Go to my lodgings, Fabio." "I shall give you 1,000 ducats and one of Naples' finest horses." "A gesture I can but praise, not merit." "This is only a beginning." "Her ladyship may treat you as a servant." "I count you as a friend." "I kiss your feet." "This is not payment, merely gratitude." "Your lordship here?" "That's surely not surprising when having just been sorely disappointed you sent Fabio to inform me you'd chosen me as your husband." "I kneel to kiss your feet." "And my delight drives me so mad with joy that simple madness seems insufficient token of my gladness." "Did I ever think to win you or hope for more than yearning from afar?" "I seek, but seek in vain, to give you an answer." "Did I then send for you?" "Or do you jest?" "Fabio, what's this?" "Could I have brought you here unless instructed by Teodoro?" "Marquis, Teodoro must have been to blame." "He heard me praise you more than Federico although he is a man of rank and riches and so presumed I'd given you my hand." "I beg your lordship to forgive these fools." "For Fabio there could be no pardon did not your presence offer sanctuary." "I kiss your feet in gratitude and trust my constant love may triumph yet." "Pleased with yourself, dolt?" "Why blame me, madam?" "Just fetch Teodoro." "How quickly that Ricardo comes when I can only think of Teodoro." "Love, what do you want of me?" "Had I not forgotten Teodoro?" "What do you want of me?" "But you'll reply, "Not I, my shadow, following behind"." "Oh, jealousy!" "You will not be denied." "Were she to heed the counsels you provide a woman's honour would not last a day." "I love a man." "But how can I forget that I'm an ocean, he a humble boat?" "How can it be the sea that's overset?" "My heart's afloat in dangerous seas." "Yet now Love's bow's so stretched I fear it might be split apart if honour pulls too tight." "The marquis nearly killed me." "But the worst was losing all the ducats." "Want some advice?" "What's that?" "Count Federico was frantic at the news about the marquis." "Tell him that the wedding's off, you'll get your 1,000 ducats." "I'll go like lightning." "Do." "You wanted me?" "At least that idiot had the wit to go." "An hour I spent upon your note and, on consideration, I see my diffidence was deference." "But to remain thus in the face of such encouragement was wrong." "And so I've decided to declare I love you." "But it is with great respect I love you." "Forgive me, I am nervous." "Teodoro, I believe you." "Why should you not love me since I'm your employer and I favour you above my other servants?" "I do not understand." "There's no more to understand." "Your thoughts should never pass that line." "Curb any rash ambition, for from a woman of such rank especially since your merits are so meagre the slightest favour should suffice to keep you happy." "Your ladyship, forgive my boldness suffers from not infrequent fits of giddiness not mental, temperamental." "What was the use of holding out such hopes that, as you know the strain of my excitement when first we spoke had me ill in bed for near a month if when you find I'm cool you turn to fire but when I burn you freeze to solid ice?" "Leave me with Marcela." "You're like the dog in Aesop's tale." "Too consumed with jealousy to let me marry her but if you see me turn from her, you drive me mad and shatter my illusions." "Eat or let others eat, then." "I can't live on empty hopes." "And there is one I know loves me." "Not that, Teodoro." "I warn you, not Marcela!" "Turn to any other woman but Marcela." "She's no remedy." "Oh, isn't she?" "So, despite our love, you would insist I try my luck elsewhere?" "In matters of the heart, I'm to follow another's inclinations?" "I worship her, she worships me, our love is pure and true." "Shameless wretch!" "I'll have you murdered on the spot." "What's this, my lady?" "The beating you deserve for such indecency." "Hold on." "You're right, we'd better not go in." "Better still, we will." "What's this, my lady?" "Nothing." "Just the sort of mild annoyance servants often cause." "My lady, what do you want of me?" "Only to speak of private matters." "Would that I had found you more at ease." "I am at ease, Federico." "Such things are only trifles." "Come along." "We'll talk about the marquis." " Fabio." " My lord?" "Her displeasure may conceal some fancy less displeasing." "I couldn't say." "But I'm astonished to see her ladyship treat him so badly." "She's never done that before." "His handkerchief soaked in blood!" "If a man with two loves can always be content his servant likewise is." "Oh, Tristán!" "What's this then, sir?" "Blood on your handkerchief!" "That is how love teaches lovers jealousy." "Such stupid jealousy on her part." "If Juana or Lucia attack me tear the collar they made me pull my hair and scrape me because they find me playing fast and loose that's fair enough." "They're clodhopping peasants in great clumsy shoes but when a lady seems to lose all sense of self respect..." "She won't let me be hers or Marcela's." "And if I keep away, she finds a reason for to see me." ""Dog in the manger" sums her up exactly." "Neither in nor out, won't eat or let eat." "A learned doctor once had a housekeeper and a valet who never left off wrangling." "They fought at lunch, at dinner, even kept him from sleeping with their shouting." "One day, when he'd been teaching, he had to hurry home." "Bursting into his bedroom unexpected he found them lying there, all lovey-dovey." "And he said..." ""Thank God you two have made it up for once!"" "Teodoro." " Madam?" " Is she some sort of spook?" "I only came to know if you were well." "Can you not see?" " Are you all right?" " I am." "You don't add "At your service"?" "I can't be in your service long, at this rate." "You know so little!" "So little that I feel your blows can't comprehend your words." "You're angry if I love you, or I don't." "If I forget or not, you say I'm wrong." "You'd have me understand, but I'm a fool if I do." "Give me life or death, a mean between extremes." "Did I draw blood?" "Well..." "No." "Where's your handkerchief?" "Here." " Show me." " Why?" "I want this blood." "See Otavio, I told him you're to have 2,000 ducats." "Why?" "For handkerchiefs." "Whoever saw the like?" "What witchery is this?" "She's given me 2,000 ducats." "You wouldn't mind a dozen blows at that price." "For handkerchiefs, she said, and took the bloody one." "Because she made you bleed she's paid you through the nose." "She's not too bad a dog." "She bites, then she's all over you." "These wild extremes will end up like the doctor's housekeeper." "Hope you're right!" "You saw her?" "Yes, I saw her." "Saw her strike him?" "We all have servant problems, but it wasn't that." "When a woman in her position, strikes a man full in the face it's obvious there may be other reasons." "And he's looking very prosperous lately." "She's a woman, he her servant." "Asking for trouble." "Can it be done?" "It can." "There's plenty men in Naples make their living trading blood for gold." "We can find some desperado who'll dispatch him." "And do so with dispatch." "He'll get his just reward." "You ought to stand a round of wine to christen that suit you've been given." "Good old Tristán!" "It's only right!" "I am, gentlemen only too delighted." "It's really rather fine." "It's only frills and fripperies by contrast with what I soon will get." "She's doing your master very proud, the countess." "He's like her right-hand man the gateway to her favour." "Let's forget that, and drink." "This "tavernacle", I suspect, has good Lachryma Christi and malmsey." "Let's try some Greek wine." "I want to speak in Greek and a drop is all I need." "That dark-haried fellow appears the fiercest." "The rest, it seems, defer to him." "Celio." "My lord?" "You see those gentlemen?" "Call the pale one over." "If you please." "Before you enter, my lord the marquis there would like a word." "Comrades, that princeling yonder seeks a parley." "I can't decline to hear what he desires." "Go in, and sample half a dozen casks." " Get it over quickly." " I shall fly!" "What would your lordship have of me?" "Count Federico here and I on seeing you with such a valiant crew wonder if you're man enough to kill a man." "These are milady's suitors, for goodness' sake." "Have you no answer?" "I was just wondering if your lordship meant to mock the way we live." "For there's not a swordsman in all of Naples who doesn't tremble at my name." "Marquis, this is our man." "I swear we do not mock." "If you're as bold as such a name betokens and want to kill a man just name your price." "Two hundred ducats then, for the devil himself." "Then make it three, and do the deed tonight." "I only need his name, and an advance." "D'you know Diana, Countess of Belflor?" "I've friends inside her house." "Will you kill one of her servants?" "AII, both male and female, and even her coach's nags." "The one you are to kill is Teodoro." "Now that, my lords, is a rather different matter." "Teodoro, I know, won't venture out at night aware perhaps, that he's offended you." "I've been asked to be his servant." "Let me agree, and very soon I'll slip him a pair of thrusts with which the wretch "in pace requiescat"." "Well, what d'you think?" "We'd never find in Naples another so certain to destroy him." "I need a hundred ducats right away." "There's fifty in this purse." "When I see you in Diana's house you'll have the hundred, and lashings more." "I'd really rather do without the lashings!" "I'll take my leave." "My comrades, Breachwall, Horsemint and Pitcher, await." "I'd prefer them not to be suspicious." "Where are you going, sir?" "I wish I knew, Tristán, what it is bears me on or where it is I'm bound." "Come inside, it's vital we're not seen together." "How d'you mean?" "I'll tell you how I'll circumvent the plots against your life." "My life?" "Why?" "Just lower your voice and hear what hopes of remedy you have." "Ricardo and Federico just signed me up to settle you for good." "To kill me?" "For certain blows, they guess milady loves you." "But I have the remedy." "If I'd the wit to bring to you a noble father so you'd be equal to the countess wouldn't that resolve it?" "No doubt." "Count Ludovico's an old man now but 20 years ago he sent a son same name as yours, to Malta." "This son was captured, though, by Moorish pirates and never heard of since." "So he must be your father, you his son and I'll arrange it all." "Tristán, your ingenuity may cost up both our honour and our lives." "They will be your prize." "Goodbye." "I guarantee by noon tomorrow Diana will be yours." "Have you recovered from your melancholia?" "I take delight in it, savour my sorrow." "I seek no recovery from this sadness pine only at the prospect of a cure." "Happy is he whose suffferings are so sweet." "He sees death near and welcomes his destruction." "I have only one regret." "I find I must remove my sorrow from its source." "Remove?" "But why?" "They mean to kill me." "No doubt they do." "They're envious of that joy which now is anguish." "And so I ask your leave to leave for Spain." "This is a noble act, a wise decision which will remove the risk to both and bring tears to my eyes but honour to my house." "Since I struck you, Federico has been jealous and sought to have me turn you out." "Go to Spain." "I'll see you have 6,000 ducats." "Your enemies will be silenced if I go." "I kiss your feet." "Teodoro, stop, no more!" "Leave me, I'm a woman, after all." "She's crying, but what can I do?" "You're leaving then, Teodoro?" "Yes, milady." "Wait!" "Go!" "Listen!" "Yes?" "No, go." "I will." "I'm so confused." "Can any torture tear the soul like love?" "Have you not gone?" "I'm leaving now." "I am left, bereft." "God curse you, Honour!" "So alien to our innermost desires!" "Who invented you?" "But you're not foolish." "You save us from so many acts of folly." "I ask again if I have leave to go." "I cannot say, and you seem not to know I grieve to see you." "I'm here to seek myself since I am nowhere else and need you to release me to myself." "Don't ask me to release you, if you mean to come again." "Go." "My love is locked in combat with my honour." "You may make me stumble." "Go, don't seek yourself though well you may." "I know that though you stay, you take me with you too." "God bless your ladyship." "Damn my ladyship." "That is what prevents me being his whom I desire." "Emboldened by my years of faithful service I humbly beg you to reward them, madam." "You have an opportunity to ease my situation and have me quit your sight." "Ease your situation?" "What opportunity?" "They say Teodoro, fearing he's in danger leaves today for Spain." "If we were married, and I went with him, you'd need not see me." "Would he be willing?" "How could I put forward such a request if I weren't sure he would?" "You've talked to him?" "He's talked to me, and asked me." "Have I deserved all this?" "He and I have worked out which would be the easiest way to go." "Now, foolish Honour, forgive me." "Love must lose all control." "And yet it need not." "This disease is easily cured." "Can't you decide?" "I couldn't do without you." "What you suggest would offend my love for you, and Fabio's who adores you." "You're marrying him." "So let Teodoro go." "But I hate Fabio, and adore Teodoro." "What a temptation to betray my feelings." "Be still, foolish heart." "Fabio will suit you better." "Milady..." "Don't answer back." "You need an heir, there's no other answer." "Every year I've lived is like an enemy." "That may be an excuse for marrying late but caution sits in judgement and finds it folly." "After all, I might not get an heir and still be married." "An old man and a woman are like an elm encircled by ivy." "Each may enfold the other in its embraces but while she thrives, he shrivels." "And even to talk of marriage, Camilo brings to mind my tragedy and renews my torment." "It's twenty years now since I lost Teodoro and still I wait for his return and weep." "A merchant here from Greece would see you." "He may enter." "I kiss your hands and pray the heavens above be pleased to grant you the boon you most desire." "You're very welcome." "But what has brought you to this distant land?" "I sailed to Cyprus from Constantinople and on to Venice with a full laden ship." "Recalling though, a story which has caused me some concern and keen to see Naples I left my minions there, unloading fabrics and as you see have journeyed here to gaze upon this fair and mighty city." "It is a mighty city, and a fair one." "It is indeed." "My father, sir, like me was once a Grecian merchant." "The trade he found paid best was buying and selling slaves." "And so it chanced that in Azteclias market he bought a boy, the fairest Nature ever had created." "Camilo, how my heart misgives me!" "My father bought the youngster and took him home to rear him with my sister and myself." "Forbear, friend!" "Forbear, you tear my very soul!" "Hook, line and sinker!" "Did the young lad say what was his name?" "Teodoro." "Heavens!" "Truth rings so true!" "I only need hear you, and tears water these grey hairs." "So this all too handsome youth and my sister Serpalitonia being brought up together were bound by bonds of love from infancy." "And when they were sixteen, and father absent their passion took its course with the result that the result for her was growing obvious." "Alarmed, Teodoro disappeared leaving Serpalitonia near her time." "Catiborratos, my father, died of grief no less." "We called the pretty child Terimaconio and reared him in the city of Tepecas." "So, when I came to see the sights of Naples consulting notes I'd brought along concerning Teodoro, I made a few enquiries." "A Grecian slave-girl at my lodging said "Maybe that's Count Ludovico's son"." "That was my inspiration." "I decided I would see you." "But by mistake I went into the house of the Countess of Belflor, and the first man I spoke to..." "My heart's stopped beating." "...proved to be Teodoro." "Teodoro!" "He'd have run away, but couldn't." "I wasn't sure." "He has a beard which makes a difference." "I followed him and then, ashamed, he spoke saying I mustn't tell anyone who he was." "I said, "If you're the son of someone noble here in Naples why are you ashamed of having been a slave?"" "He said that was ridiculous." "But I came here to you, to see if your tale tallied with mine and to beseech you, if my Teodoro is your son to have consideration for your grandson or let my sister bring him here to Naples not seeking marriage though she's more than worthy but so that Terimaconio may know so venerable a grandfather." "Come!" "Come to my arms a thousandfold!" "My soul and all its powers divine by their delight your story's true." "My long lost son returned to bring such bliss after such years of yearning." "Camilo!" "Tell me, should I go and greet him?" "Why hesitate?" "Fly to his arms." "Friend, if you desire to go with me, my happiness will be more assured." "If you prefer to rest, await me here." "My house and goods are all at your disposal." "Let us take our leave, Mercaponios." "Let's go, sir." "An ideal diddle." " A doddle." " Skedaddle!" " What a strange language." " Come with me, Camilo." " Are they gone?" " The old man's flying." " You're leaving, Teodoro?" " Yes, and you're the reason." "I can't fight such unequal competition." "You're as false as ever!" "You dropped me when you thought to love Diana." "And now your foolish hopes have come to nothing." "Such nonsense, when you're marrying Fabio." "You're forcing me to marry him to spite you." "You're wise, Marcela, since Teodoro's leaving so soon to feast your eyes on him." "Your jealousy's misplaced, when I'm displacing." "You're going?" "Can't you see?" "My lady wants to see you." "You're off already?" "I only wish my feet had wings, milady, not merely spurs." "Hello there!" "How's that clothing?" "It's all prepared, madam." "He's really going?" "You're still jealous?" " A word aside here." " Madam, at your service." "Teodoro you're leaving and I love you." "You're cruel." "I'm what I am." "What can I do?" "You're crying?" "No, there's something in my eye." "Love, could it be?" "It must be, but it's been there a while and now it must come out." "I leave, my lady, but I leave my heart." "Yet if I leave it at your feet I merely do proper reverence to your beauty." "I'm yours, command me." "Oh, what misery!" "I leave, my lady, but I leave my heart." "You're crying?" "No, there's something in my eye." " My cruelty, maybe?" " Yes, it must be that." "One of your trunks contains a host of fripperies." "Forigve me, I couldn't help myself." "And don't forget, if you should open it to tell yourself "These were Diana's and the tears were too."" "My dear Diana, such delightful tidings surely permit a man as old as I to visit you quite unannounced." "Why, Count, what is this?" "You mean you haven't heard what everyone in Naples knows?" "Your ladyship has never heard my story?" "How twenty years ago I sent my son to Malta with his uncle but Ali Pasha's galleys captured him?" "I think I may have heard of it." "Well now, despite a thousand shifts of fortune the heavens at last have brought him back to me." "You're very right to bring me such good tidings." "I am?" "Then you must give me in exchange my son, milady since he's in your service, ignorant that I'm his father." "Ah, if only his dear mother were alive!" "He's in my service?" " Is it Fabio, maybe?" " No." "Madam, no, not Fabio, but Teodoro." "Teodoro!" " Indeed." " How's this?" "Teodoro, is the count your father?" "It's this man?" " Have a care, your lordship..." " What should I care, my son my heart's delight?" "I only want to die in your embrace!" " How very strange!" " Oh, milady." "Is Teodoro a gentleman of noble rank and station?" "My lord, I'm so confused." "I'm truly, then, your son?" "Were I less certain seeing you would be the surest proof." "You're so much like the lad I used to be!" "I kiss your feet and beg you..." "Say no more, I'm too excited." "What a handsome fellow!" "God's blessing on you!" "What a regal presence!" "How clearly Nature's written in your face your true nobility!" "Let's go, come straight away and take possession of my house and fortune." "Come and see those gates which proudly bear the noblest scutcheons of this noble kingdom." "My lord, I was about to leave for Spain this very day." "What?" "For Spain?" "Spain's here, in this embrace." "I beg your lordship, leave Teodoro here." "Let him be more composed to go to be acknowledged as your son." "I wouldn't have him leave with all the hubbub." "You speak as wisely as befits your person." "I'm sad to leave him for a single moment, but lest there be more outcry I shall go." "I only ask your ladyship to promise night shall not fall before I see my treasure." "I give my word." " Farewell, my dear Teodoro." " I kiss your feet in reverence." "Camilo, death would be welcome now!" "And he's so handsome!" "I dare not ponder too much on so much joy, or I'll go mad." " Give us your hands to kiss." " Show that noble condescension." "Lords who're easy-going win everybody's hearts." "Come, embrace us." "Stand back, give way to me, don't talk such nonsense." "May it please you, now give me your hands." "I should kiss your feet, for now you're all the more my lady." "Clear the room." "Leave us a little while alone together." " What d'you say, Fabio?" " I'm reeling." " What do you think?" " No more dog in the manger." " She'll eat?" " Of course." "Until she bursts!" "Not going to Spain then?" "I?" "No longer saying "I leave, my lady, but I leave my heart"?" "When Fortune favours me, you mock me." "Be more excited." "Let's treat each other now on equal terms, for both are noble." "You've changed." "It seems you love me less." "You're sorry I'm your equal." "It's very usual for Love to like the loved one to be lowlier." "You're wrong, you'll find, for now I'll make you mine." "I'll marry you tonight." "Fortune, stay your wheel." "You have no more to give." "No woman in the world could be more fortunate." "So go and dress." "I'll visit the estate, and the father I've acquired God knows how." "Farewell, my lord the count." "Countess..." " Listen." " What?" ""What?" Is that how a servant should address his mistress?" "The rules are different now, and I'm the master." "You're not to make me jealous of Marcela any more." "Masters shouldn't love their servants." "Be sure you mean that." "That's insulting." "Who am I?" "My wife." "I ask no more!" "Fortune, stay your wheel." "I, too, say you have no more to give." "Stop, Tristán, if that in truth's your name." "The one I'm mostly known by is The Killer." "You've lived up to it!" "I should have done so but then today our corpse became a count." "What does it matter?" "When we struck our bargain at just three hundred ducats it was only to kill a certain servant, called Teodoro." "A count is different altogether, as should be the reward." "It comes much dearer to dispatch a count than half a dozen servants as good as dead already from hunger, hope and envy." "How much?" "And kill him tonight!" "1,000 ducats." "I give my word." "I'll need some guarantee." "This chain." " Count the money." " I'll go and fetch it here." "I'll go and kill him." "Listen!" "What?" "Do you want more?" "Be silent." "You were with that murderous pair." "Quite the biggest fools in all the city." "This chain, and 1,000 ducats promised, if I kill you now." "You're mad!" "The more I think of it, the worse I worry." "If this comes out the least they'll do is have our heads." " Don't start." " You're such a demon!" "Let things run, and see how they turn out." "It's the countess." "I'll hide, lest I be seen." "Not gone to see your father, Teodoro?" "A heavy sadness stops me." "I must desire your leave again to go to Spain as I desired." "So Marcela is calling you to arms." "How very proper!" "Marcela?" "Then what?" "Nothing that I should say or you should hear." "Tell me, however much it may offend me." "Tristán, knowing of Ludovico's long-Iost son invented all this fabrication." "I am nobody." "I know no father beyond my wits my schooling and my pen." "The count thinks I'm his son, and if we married I could have happiness and fame." "But I cannot let myself abuse your trust." "You've been both shrewd and stupid." "Shrewd to have made so candid a confession stupid to suppose I'd be so stupid not to marry you." "For happiness lies in the harmony of heart with heart." "I mean to marry you." "So Tristán may not betray our secret I'll have him tipped down that well." "Oh, no, you don't!" "Who's that?" "Who's that?" "Tristán protesting at the worst ingratitude of your fickle sex." "I've been your cat's-paw, though I wish I hadn't." "Now you put poor pussy down the well?" "So you heard?" "You won't catch me." " Come back." " Come back?" "Come back." "I give you now my word you'll find no firmer friend." "But mind you keep this scheme of yours a secret." "Why shouldn't I, when I've as much to lose?" "Listen." "What's that crowd and shouting?" "If Diana will release you, a carriage waits for you without." "After so many years so far from home..." "But first I'll have you know, my lord, that I'm his wife." "If Fortune's wayward wheel was ever fixed by a golden nail let it be now!" "I sought a son, find a son and daughter." "Congratulate my cousin." "I congratulate Teodoro that he still lives for jealousy provoked me to give this rogue not just this chain to kill him, but 1,000 ducats." "Arrest him as a trickster and a thief!" "Not so." "No man is a thief who defends his master." "No?" "Who was this devious desperado?" "My lackey." "To give him a reward for this and other secret favours if Diana agrees, I mean to marry him to Dorotea as she has wed Marcela and Fabio." "I'll pay Marcela's dowry." "And I shall pay Dorotea's." "I shall endow the countess with both my boy and all my worldly goods." "A fine reward you give me, sir, for going to your defense." "Weren't two weddings enough for a single day?" "You're grumbling?" "How soon your son is lost again." "But this time, there's no grief." "I'll watch over him." "It would be careless of me if I lost him."