Lucrezia Borgia by Victor Hugo

Author:Victor Hugo [Hugo, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Drama
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2018-01-24T23:00:00+00:00

ANOTHER VARIANT OF THE FINAL SCENE

GENNARO.

I'll listen to no more. Enough of this.

(He seizes her by the hair and strikes her.)

DONNA LUCREZIA.

Gennaro! I am thy mother!

GENNARO.

(Trembling and letting the knife fall.)

My mother! Ah! you mock me!

DONNA LUCREZIA.

Thy mother! and thou hast slain me!

GENNARO.

Oh, no l it is not so! it cannot be! You my mother! In pity’s name, tell me that you are not my mother!

DONNA LUCREZIA.

(Taking from her breast a bundle of letters, soaked with blood.)

There were letters upon my heart. These are they. Take them, Gennaro. Perchance my blood has not made them illegible. Dost recognize the writing?

GENNARO.

(Glancing at the letters.)

My letters!

DONNA LUCREZIA.

The dagger pierced them. They made a more penetrable cuir-ass than thou didst think, Gennaro.

GENNARO.

Ah yes! O Heaven! you are indeed my mother! I did not call to mind the incest. God in heaven! Why did you not tell me long ago?

DONNA LUCREZIA.

I was ashamed. Thy dagger’s point alone, my child, could make me tell thee all. My secret gushed out from my heart with my blood. Shall I confess it? it was sweet to me to be beloved by thee in one aspect, while thou didst loathe me in another. Thy mother thou didst love, Gennaro; wouldst thou have loved Lucrezia Borgia!

GENNARO.

You, my mother!

DONNA LUCREZIA.

And then there was Valentinois—Valentinois, who slew thy father! My secret once divulged, even to thine ear alone, thou wouldst not have lived a day. Alas! even in the obscure station where I placed thee, at times I fancied that the tiger was prowling round thee, and I trembled, unhappy mother that I am, lest he should get scent of thee.

GENNARO.

I have killed my mother! You are my mother! What fearful crimes lay hidden in that word!

DONNA LUCREZIA.

An incestuous mother.

GENNARO.

Thy son a parricide!

DONNA LUCREZIA.

Gennaro!

GENNARO.

Yes, I am a parricide! 'T was I who did it, I who stand here and speak to thee! My God! how strange it seems to be a parricide!

DONNA LUCREZIA.

My son, come to thy senses!

GENNARO.

A parricide! Oh! can these walls permit me to stand here and fall not in upon me? I have been taught that parricides were beings so monstrous that marble ceilings fell upon their heath of their own motion. But I do walk and breathe and live! Curse me, my mother; stretch out your arm above my head! a mother’s arm raised to call down curses on her son ought surely to make the heavens fall.

DONNA LUCREZIA.

My son, this murder is no crime of thine; 't is the sad consequence of my own sin.

GENNARO.

Has not a change come over my features? Tell me, is it not always so, when one's a parricide? Look closely at me, mother! do I still resemble other men? It must be that I have a brand upon my brow! what is it like? Henceforth, people will draw aside to let me pass, will turn away their eyes, will lay no hand upon me, but let me pass like any cursed thing, the living prey of fate; the roofs where I

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