No More Learning

_60

[EXEUNT OLIMPIO AND MARZIO. ]

BEATRICE:
Let us retire to counterfeit deep rest;
I scarcely need to counterfeit it now:
The spirit which doth reign within these limbs
Seems strangely undisturbed. I could even sleep
Fearless and calm: all ill is surely past. _65

[EXEUNT. ]

SCENE 4. 4:
ANOTHER APARTMENT IN THE CASTLE.
ENTER ON ONE SIDE THE LEGATE SAVELLA,
INTRODUCED BY A SERVANT,
AND ON THE OTHER LUCRETIA AND BERNARDO.

SAVELLA:
Lady, my duty to his Holiness
Be my excuse that thus unseasonably
I break upon your rest. I must speak with
Count Cenci; doth he sleep?

LUCRETIA [IN A HURRIED AND CONFUSED MANNER]:
I think he sleeps;
Yet, wake him not, I pray, spare me awhile, _5
He is a wicked and a wrathful man;
Should he be roused out of his sleep to-night,
Which is, I know, a hell of angry dreams,
It were not well; indeed it were not well.
Wait till day break. . .
[ASIDE. ]
Oh, I am deadly sick!
_10

NOTE:
_6 a wrathful edition 1821; wrathful editions 1819, 1839.

SAVELLA:
I grieve thus to distress you, but the Count
Must answer charges of the gravest import,
And suddenly; such my commission is.

LUCRETIA [WITH INCREASED AGITATION]:
I dare not rouse him: I know none who dare. . .
'Twere perilous;. . . you might as safely waken _15
A serpent; or a corpse in which some fiend
Were laid to sleep.

SAVELLA:
Lady, my moments here
Are counted. I must rouse him from his sleep,
Since none else dare.

LUCRETIA [ASIDE]:
O, terror! O, despair!
[TO BERNARDO. ]
Bernardo, conduct you the Lord Legate to _20
Your father's chamber.

[EXEUNT SAVELLA AND BERNARDO.