ODOARDO (_who has been standing in deep meditation_).
--How! May I not even see my daughter, then? May I not even see her here? I submit to everything--I approve of everything. A chancellor's house is, of course, a sanctuary of virtue. Take my daughter thither, I beseech your Highness--nowhere but thither. Yet I would willingly have some previous conversation with her. She is still ignorant of the Count's death, and will be unable to understand why she is separated from her parents. That I may apprise her gently of the one, and console her for this parting----I must see her, Prince, I must see her.
Surely the daughter can come to her father. Let us have a short conversation here, without witnesses. Send her hither, I beg your Highness.
That, too, shall be done. Oh, Galotti, if you would be my friend, my guide, my father!
ODOARDO (_after a pause, during which his eyes follow the_ Prince).
Why not? Most willingly. Ha! ha! ha! (_Looks wildly around_.) Who laughed? By Heaven I believe it was myself. 'Tis well. I will be merry. The game is near an end. Thus must it be, or thus. But--(_pauses_)--how if she were in league with him? How if this were the usual deception? How if she were not worthy of what I am about to do for her? (_Pauses again_.) And what am I about to do for her? Have I a heart to name it even to myself? A thought comes to me--a thought which can be but a thought. Horrible!--I will go. I will not wait until she comes. (_Raises his eyes towards Heaven_.) If she be innocent, let Him who plunged her into this abyss, extricate her from it. He needs not my hand. I will away. (_As he is going he espies_ Emilia.) Ha! 'Tis too late. My hand is required--He requires it.
How! Ton here, my father? And you alone--without the Count--without my mother? So uneasy, too, my father?
Why should I not be so, my father? Either all is lost, or nothing. To be able to be at ease, and to be obliged to be at ease, do they not come to the same thing!
That all is lost--therefore that we must be at ease, my father.
And you are at ease, because necessity requires it? Who are you? A girl; my daughter? Then should the man and the father be ashamed of you. But let me hear. What mean you when you say that all is lost?--that Count Appiani is dead?