ALICE. Don't desert me now! Don't leave me, for he will beat me--he has been doing so all these twenty-five years--in the presence of the children--and he has pushed me into the water----
CURT. Having heard this, I place myself absolutely against him. I came here without an angry thought, without memory of his former slanders and attempts to humiliate me. I forgave him even when you told me that he was the man who had parted me from my children--for he was ill and dying--but now, when he wants to steal my son, he must die--he or I!
ALICE. Good! No surrender of the fortress! But blow it up instead, with him in it, even if we have to keep him company! I am in charge of the powder!
CURT. There was no malice in me when I came here, and I wanted to run away when I felt myself infected with your hatred, but now I am moved by an irresistible impulse to hate this man, as I hate everything that is evil. What can be done?
ALICE. I have learned the tactics from him. Drum up his enemies and seek allies.
CURT. Just think--that he should get hold of my wife! Why didn't those two meet a life-time ago? Then there would have been a battle-royal that had set the earth quaking.
ALICE. But now these souls have spied each other--and yet they must part. I guess what is his most vulnerable spot--I have long suspected it----
CURT. Who is his most faithful enemy on the island?
ALICE. He is. And he knows what I--I know too--he knows what the Sergeant-Major and the Captain have been up to.
CURT. What they have been up to? You don't mean----
CURT. This is terrible! No, I don't want to have any finger in that mess!
CURT. Formerly I could, but I can do so no longer.
CURT. Because I have discovered--that justice is done anyhow.
ALICE. And you could wait for that? Then your son would already have been taken away from you. Look at my gray hairs--just feel how thick it still is, for that matter--He intends to marry again, and then I shall be free--to do the same--I am free! And in ten minutes he will be under arrest down below, right under us--[_stamps her foot on the floor_] right under us--and I shall dance above his head--I shall dance "The Entry of the Boyars"--[_makes a few steps with her arms akimbo_] ha-ha-ha-ha! And I shall play on the piano so that he can hear it. [_Hammering on the piano_] Oh, the tower is opening its gates, and the sentry with the drawn sabre will no longer be guarding me, but him--_Malrough s'en va-t-en guerre_! Him, him, him, the sentry is going to guard!