Short Plays

stick a pig. Sandro Unless he be a nobleman, of course⁠— Squarcio In which case the price is fifty crowns. Ferruccio Soul or no soul? Squarcio When it comes to a matter of fifty crowns, Excellency, business is business. The man who pays me must square the account with the devil. It is for my employer to consider whether the action be a good one or no: it is for me to earn his money honestly. When I said I should not like to kill a man with a good soul, I meant killing on my own account: not professionally. Ferruccio Are you such a fool then as to spoil your own trade by sometimes killing people for nothing? Squarcio One kills a snake for nothing, Excellency. One kills a dog for nothing sometimes. Sandro Apologetically. Only a mad dog, Excellency, of course. Squarcio A pet dog, too. One that eats and eats and is useless, and makes an honest man’s house dirty. He rises. Come Sandro, and help me to clean up. You, Giulia, stay and entertain his Excellency. He and Sandro make a hammock of the cloth, in which they carry the wooden platters and fragments of the meal indoors. Ferruccio is left alone with Giulia. The gloaming deepens. Ferruccio Does your father do the house work with a great girl like you idling about? Squarcio is a fool, after all. Giulia No, Signor: he has left me here to prevent you from escaping. Ferruccio There is nothing to be gained by killing me, Giuliaccia. Giulia Perhaps; but I do not know. I saw Sandro make a sign to my father: that is why they went in. Sandro has something in his head. Ferruccio Brutally. Lice, no doubt. Giulia Unmoved. That would only make him scratch his head, Signor, not make signs with it to my father. You did wrong to throw the Cardinal out of the window. Ferruccio Indeed: and pray why? Giulia He will pay thirty crowns for your dead body. Then Sandro could marry me. Ferruccio And be broken on the wheel for it. Giulia It would look like an accident, Signor. Sandro is very clever; and he is so humble and cheerful and good-tempered that people do not suspect him as they suspect my father. Ferruccio Giulietta: if I reach Sacromonte in safety, I swear to send you thirty crowns by a sure messenger within ten days. Then you can marry your Sandro. How does that appeal to you? Giulia Your oath is not worth twenty pence, Signor. Ferruccio Do you think I will die here like a rat in a trap⁠—His breath fails him. Giulia Rats have to wait in their traps for death, Signor. Why not you? Ferruccio I’ll fight. Giulia You are welcome, Signor. The blood flows freeest when it is hot. Ferruccio She devil! Listen to me, Giulietta⁠— Giulia It is useless, Signor. Giulietta or Giuliaccia: it makes no difference. If they two in there kill you it will be no more to me⁠—except for the money⁠—than if my father trod on a snail. Ferruccio Oh, it is not possible that I, a nobleman, should die by such filthy hands. Giulia You have lived by them, Signor. I see no sign of any work on your own hands. We can bring death as well as life, we poor people, Signor. Ferruccio Mother of God, what shall I do? Giulia Pray, Signor. Ferruccio Pray! With the taste of death in my mouth? I can think of nothing. Giulia It is only that you have forgotten your beads, Signor. She picks up the Friar’s rosary. You remember the old man’s bones rattling. Here they are. She rattles them before him. Ferruccio That reminds me. I know of a painter in the north that can paint such beautiful saints that the heart goes out of one’s body to look at them. If I get out of this alive I’ll make him paint St. Barbara so that everyone can see that she is lovelier than St. Cecilia, who looks like my washerwoman’s mother in her Chapel in our cathedral. Can you give St. Cecilia a picture if she lets me be killed? Giulia No; but I can give her many prayers. Ferruccio Prayers cost nothing. She will prefer the picture unless she is a greater fool than I take her to be. Giulia She will thank the painter for it, not you, Signor. And I’ll tell her in my prayers to appear to the painter in a vision, and order him to paint her just as he sees her if she really wishes to be painted. Ferruccio You are devilishly ready with your answers. Tell me, Giulietta: is what your father told me true? Is your blood really noble? Giulia It is red, Signor, like the blood of the Christ in the picture in Church. I do not know if yours is different. I shall see when my father kills you. Ferruccio Do you know what I am thinking, Giulietta? Giulia No, Signor. Ferruccio I am thinking that if the good God would oblige me by taking my fool of an elder brother up to heaven, and his silly doll of a wife with him before she has time to give him a son, you would make a rare duchess for me. Come! Will you help me to outwit your father and Sandro if I marry you afterwards? Giulia No, Signor: I’ll help them to kill you. Ferruccio My back is to the wall, then? Giulia To the precipice, I think, Signor. Ferruccio No matter, so my face is to the danger. Did you notice, Giulia, a minute ago? I was frightened. Giulia Yes, Signor. I saw it in your face. Ferruccio The terror of terrors. Giulia The terror of death. Ferruccio No: death is nothing. I can face a stab just as I faced having my tooth pulled out at Faenza. Giulia Shuddering with sincere sympathy. Poor Signorino! That must have hurt horribly. Ferruccio What! You pity me for the tooth affair, and you did not pity me in that hideous agony of terror that is not the terror of death nor of anything else, but pure grim terror in itself. Giulia It was the terror