Fortunately, again, it happens that the Tisbe has communicated to her lover the Tyrant, in a former conversation, the remarkable fact that another lover still had once upon a time made her a present of two phials--one black, the other white--one containing poison, the other a narcotic. After he has discovered Catarina's innocent weakness for Rodolpho, he informs the Tisbe that the time is come for him to kill his lady, and that he intends to do it by cutting her head off privately. The Tisbe tells him that this is a bad plan, and that poison would do much better.
"Oui! Le poison vaudrait mieux. Mais il faudrait un poison rapide, et, _vous ne me croirez pas_, je n'en ai pas ici.
"Le poison Malispine, _vous savez_: cette boîte que m'a envoyée le primicier de Saint Marc."
After this satisfactory explanation, Angelo accepts her offer, and she trots away home and brings him the phial containing the narcotic.
The absurdity of the scene that takes place when Angelo and the Tisbe are endeavouring to persuade Catarina to consent to be killed is such, that nothing but transcribing the whole can give you an idea of it: but it is too long for this. Believe me, we were not the only part of the audience that laughed at this scene _à gorge déployée_.
"... Mourir! Non, je ne suis pas prête. Je ne suis pas prête. Je ne suis pas prête _du tout_, monsieur!
"Combien de temps vous faut-il pour vous préparer?
Angelo tells her she shall have an hour, and then leaves her alone: upon which she draws aside a curtain and discovers a block and an axe. She is naturally exceedingly shocked at this spectacle; her soliloquy is sublime!
"Derrière moi! c'est derrière moi. Ah! vous voyez bien que ce n'est pas un rêve, et que c'est bien réel ce qui passe ici, puisque _voilà des choses là derrière le rideau_!"
Corneille! Racine! Voltaire!--This is tragedy,--tragedy played on the stage of the Théâtre Français--tragedy which it has been declared in the face of day shall "lift the ground from under you!" Such is the march of mind!
After this glorious soliloquy, her lover Rodolpho pays Catarina a visit--again in her bed-room, in her guarded palace, surrounded by spies and sentinels. How he gets there, it is impossible to guess: but in the burlesque at the Vaudeville they make this matter much clearer;--for there these unaccountable entrées are managed at one time by the falling down of a wall; at another, by the lover's rising through the floor like a ghost; and at another, by his coming flying down on a wire from an opening in the ceiling like a Cupid.