October 4, 2023 • 36 mins
Act II: Masks and Manipulations – Disguised as a man, Victoria enters Don Carlos’ household. She begins sowing confusion and gathering secrets, playing each character like a game of chess. Summary by Dream AudioBooks
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
At two of a bold Stroke for a Husband by
Hanna Kuli. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Seen one an apartment at
Donaalora's and her Laura, followed by Carlos left.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nay, madam, you may as well stop here, for I'll
follow you through every apartment, but I will be heard
seizing her hand.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
This insolence is not to be endured within my own walls.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
To be thus the time has been when within your
walls I might be master.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yes, you were then master of my heart that gave
you a right which.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You have now transferred to another.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Flinging away her hand, well, sir.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, sir, unbleushing acknowledgement, false, fickle.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Woman, because I have luckily got the start of you
in a few weeks. I should have been the accuser
and you the false and fickle.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And to secure yourself from that disgrace, you prudently looked
out in time for another lover.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I can pardon your sneer, because you are mortified. Mortified, yes,
mortified to the soul.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Carlos Carlos, stumping Madam, Madam.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
This rage would have been all cool insolence had I
waited for your change. Scarcely would you have deigned to
form a phrase of pity for me, perhaps have bid
me forget a man no longer worthy my attachment and
recommend me to heartshorn and my women.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Has any hour since I have first known you given
you calls for such unjust.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yes, every hour now, Carlos, I bring THEE to the test.
You saw, you liked, you loved me. Was there no fond,
trusting woman whom you deserted to indulge the transient passion? Yes,
one blessed with beauty, gentleness, and youth, one who more
(02:35):
than her own being loved THEE who made THEE rich,
And whom thou madest thy wife.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
My wife, He is a turn so to revenge the
quarrels of my wife.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
No, do not mistake me. What I have done was
merely to indulge myself, without more regard to your feelings
than you had to hers.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And you dare avow to my face that you have
a passion for another.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I do, And for I am above disguise, I confess,
so tender is my love for Florio. It has scarcely
left a trace of that I once avowed for Carlos.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, Madam, if I hear this without some sudden vengeance
on your tongue which speaks it, thankly, annihilation of that
passion whose remembrance is as dead in my bosom as
in yours. Let us, however, part friends, and with a
(03:44):
mutual acquittal of every obligation, so give up the settlement
of that estate which left me almost a beggar.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Give it up, no, Carlos, you can signed me that
a state as a proof of love. Do not imagine?
Then I'll give up the only part of our connection
of which I am not ashamed.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Base woman, You know it was not a voluntary gift.
After having in vain practiced on my fondness, whilst in
a state of intoxication, you prevailed on me to sign
the deed which you had artfully prepared for the purpose.
(04:30):
Therefore you must restore it. Never never, ruin is in
the word. Call it back, Madam, or I'll be revenged
on thee in thy heart's dearest object, thy minion Florio.
(04:50):
He shall not riot on my fortune.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Florio is safe, Your lands are sold, and in another
country we shall enjoy the blessings of thy fond passion,
whilst that passion is indulging itself in hatred and execrations.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Except right, my vengeance shall first fall on her. Following no,
he shall be the first victim, or twill be incomplete
reduced to poverty. I cannot live, Oh folly, where are
(05:32):
now all the guilded prospects of my youth had I?
But tis too late to look back. Remorse attends the past,
and ruin, ruin waits me in the future.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Except left. Scene two, Don Caesar's Victoria enters left, perusing
a letter Ander Olivia. Right, Olivia speaks as enter.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
If my father should inquire for me, tell him I'm
in donna victorious apartment, smiling. I protest, my dear gloomy cousin,
where have you purchased that sunshiny? Look?
Speaker 5 (06:14):
It is but April sunshine? I fear, But who could
resist such a temptation to smile? A letter from Dona Laura,
my husband's mistress, styling me her dearest Florio, her life,
her soul, and complaining of a twelve hours absence as
the bitterest misfortune.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Most dowdy dawn pray. Let us see you in your
feather and doublet as a cavallero. It seems you are formidable.
So suddenly to rob your husband of his charmer's heart,
you must have used some witchery.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
Yes, powerful witchy, the knowledge of my sex. Oh did
the men but know us as well as we do ourselves.
But thank fate, they do not twould be dangerous.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
What I suppose you praised her understanding, was captivated by
her wit, and absolutely struck dumb by the amazing beauties
of her mind.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
Oh no, that's the mode prescribed by the essayists on
the female heart. Not a woman breathing from fifteen to
fifty but would rather have a compliment to the tip
of her ear or the turn of her ankle than
a volume in praise of her intellects.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
So flattery, then, is your boasted pill.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
No, that's only the occasional gilding. But this is in
vain to attempt the description of what changed its nature
with every moment. I was now attentive, now gay, then
tender than careless. I strove rather to convince her that
I was charming than that I myself was charmed. And
(07:55):
when I saw love's arrow quivering in her heart, instead
of falling her feet, sung a triumphant air and remembered
a sudden engagement.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Olivia, artly, would.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
You have done so had you been a.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Man, assuredly knowing what I now do as a woman?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But can all this be worth while? Merely to rival
a fickle husband with one woman while he is sitting
his feather, perhaps, and half a score others to rival.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Him was not my first motive. The Portuguese robbed me
of his heart. I concluded she had fascinations which nature
had denied to me. It was impossible to visit her
as a woman. I therefore assumed the cavalier to study her,
that I might, if possible, be to my Carlos.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
All he found in her pretty, humble creature.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
In this adventure I learned more than I expected. My
how cruel my husband has given this woman an estate,
almost all that his dissipations had left us, indeed, to
make him more culpable. It was my estate. It was
that fortune which my lovish love had made his without
(09:09):
securing it to my children.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
How could you be so improvident?
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Alas I trusted him with my heart, with my happiness,
without restriction. Should I have shown a greater solicitude for
anything than for these?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
The event proves that you should. But how can you
be thus passive in your sorrow? Since I had assumed
the man, I'd make him feel a man's resentment for
such injuries?
Speaker 5 (09:35):
Oh, Olivia, what resentment can I show to him? I
have vow to honor and whom both my duty and
my heart compel me. Yet to love?
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Why? Really? Now? I think positively, there's no thinking about it.
Tis among the arcana of the married life.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I suppose you, who know me, can judge how I
suffered in prosecuting my plan. I have thrown after delicacy
of sex. I have worn the mask of love to
the destroyer of my peace. But the object is too
great to be abandoned, nothing less than to save my
husband from ruin, and to restore him again a lover
(10:13):
to my faithful bosom.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well, I confess, Victoria. I hardly know whether most to
blame or praise you. But with the rest of the world,
I suppose your success will determine.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Me and her Gasper left to Olivia.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
Pray, madam, are your wedding shoes ready?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Olivia? Apart to victoria insolence.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I can scarcely ever keep up the vixen to this fellow.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
You'll want them, ma'am, tomorrow morning, that's all. So I
came to prepare.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Ye, I want wedding shoes tomorrow. If you are kept
on water gruel till I marry, that plump face of
yours will be chapfallen.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
I believe, yes, truly, I believe so too. Lack a day,
did you suppose I came to bring you news of
your own wedding? No such glad tidings for you, lady,
believe me you married. I am sure the man who
ties himself to you ought to be half a salamander
(11:18):
and able to live in fire?
Speaker 4 (11:21):
What marriage? Then? Is it? You do me the honor
to inform me of why.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
Your father's marriage. You will have a mother in law
to morrow, and, having like a dutiful daughter, danced at
the wedding, be immured in a convent.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
For life, immured in a convent. Then I'll raise sedition
in the sisterhood, dispose the abbess and turned the confessor's
chair to a go cart.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
So the threat of the mother in law, which I
thought would be worse than that, of the abbess does
not frighten.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Ye, No, because my father dares not give me one
mary without my consent. No, No, he'll never think of it.
Depend upon it, however, lest the fit should grow strong
upon him, I'll go and administer my volatiles to keep
it under.
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Except left administer them cautiously, then too strong a dose
of your volatiles would make the fit stubborn. Who'd think
that pretty arch look belonged to it? Imagined what a
pity twould be worth a thousand ducats to cure her?
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Has inies told you I wanted to converse with you
in private? Gasper?
Speaker 6 (12:42):
Oh, yes, madam, I took particular notice that it was
to be in private, Sure, said I, missus Innes. Madame
Victoria has not taken a fancy to me. Anne is
going to break.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Her mind A whimsy girl. Suppose I should gasper?
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Why then, Madam, I should say fortune had used you
devilish scurvily to give you a gray beard in a livery.
I know well enough that some young ladies have given
themselves to graybeards in a gilded coach, and others have
run away with a handsome youth in worsted lace. They
(13:26):
each had their apology. But if you run away with me,
pardon me, madam. I could not stand the ridicule.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Oh very well. But if you refuse to run away
with me, will you do me another favor?
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Anything you'll order, madam, except dancing a fandango.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
You have seen my rich old uncle in the country.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
What Don Sancho, who with two thirds of a century
in his face, affects the misdemeanors of youth, hides his
boldness with amber locks and complains of the toothache to
make you believe that the two rows of ivory he
carries in his head grew there.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Oh, you know him, I find. Could you assume his
character for an hour and make love for him? You
know it must be in the style of King Rodrigo
the first hang it.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
I am rather too near his own age to appear
an old man with effect. One should not be above
twenty tis always so on the stage, so you.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Might pass for Juan's grandson.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
Nay, if your ladyship condescends to flatter me, you.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Have me, then follow me, for Don Caesar hear is
approaching in the garden. I'll make you acquainted with my
plan and impress on your mind every trait of my
uncle's character. If you can hit him off, the arts
of shall be foiled. In carlosby again victorious excillent.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Right, enter Don Caesar, followed by Olivia. Left.
Speaker 7 (15:11):
No, no, tis too late, no coaxings. I am resolved,
I say, but it is.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Not too late, and you shan't be resolved, I say, indeed,
now I'll be upon my guard with the next dawn.
What's his name? Not a trace of Zand to be left,
I'll study to be charming.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
Nay, you need not study it. You are always charming
enough if you would, but hold your tongue.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Do you think so? Then to the next lover, I
won't open my lips. I'll answer everything he says with
a smile. And if he asked me to have him
drop you a courtesy of thankfulness.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
P sure that's too much. T'ther way. You are always
either above the mark or below it. You must talk,
but talk with good humor. Can't you look gently and
prettily now as I do, and say yes, sir, and no, sir,
(16:26):
and tis very fine weather, sir, and pray sir. Were
you at the ball last night? And I caught a
sad cold the other evening, and bless me. I hear
(16:47):
Lucinda has run away with her footman, and Don Philip
has married his housemaid. That's the way he agreed. Agreeable
ladies talk. You'll never hear anything else.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Very true, and you shall see me as agreeable as
the best of them. If you won't give me a
mother in law to snub me and set me to tasks,
and to take up all the fine apartments, and send
a poor little Livvy to lodge next to the stars.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Ah if thou wert but always less soft and good humored.
No mother in law in Spain, though she brought the
castiles for her portion, should have power to snub thee
(17:44):
but Livvy the trials attend for At this moment do
I expect Don, Vinceandio to visit you. He is but
just returned for England, and probably has yet heard only
(18:05):
of your beauty and fortune. I hope it is not
from you. He will learn the other part of your
character this moment.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Expect him two new lovers in a.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
Day, beginning already as I hoped to live. Aye, I
see it tis in vain. I'll send him an excuse
and marry Marcella before night.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Oh no, upon my obedience, I promise to be just
the soft civil creature you have described.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And her a servant. Left.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Don Vincencio is below, sir.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
Exit left, I'll wait upon him. Well, go and collect
all your smiles and your in purse, and remember all
I have said to you. Be gentle and talk pretty
little small talk. Do you hear? And if you please him,
(19:13):
you shall have the portion of a Dutch burgomaster's daughter
and the pin money of a princess. You jade you,
I think at last I have done it. The fear
of this mother in law will keep down the fiend
in her if anything can exit left.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Ha, my poor father, your anxieties will never end till
you bring Don Julio. But what shall I do with
this Vincentio? I fear he is so perfectly harmonized that
to put him in an ill temper will be impractical.
I must try, however, if tis possible to find a
discord in him, I'll touch the string.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Exit right. Scene three, another apartment and her, Caesar and
Vincentio left.
Speaker 8 (20:11):
Presto presto signor where is the Olivia? Not a moment
to spare? I left off in all the fury of composition,
minims and crotchets have been battling it through my head
the whole day, and trying a semibreve in Geese sharp
has made me as flat as double f.
Speaker 7 (20:30):
Sharp and flat trying a semibrieve. Oh, gad, sir, I
had like not to have understood you. But a semibrieve
is something of a doomy culverin, I take it. And
you have been practicing the art military.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
Art military, What, sir, are you unacquainted with music?
Speaker 7 (20:58):
Music? Oh? I ask pardon than you are fond of
music aside well of discords, fond of it, devoted to it.
Speaker 8 (21:12):
I composed a thing to day in all the gusto
of sacchini and the sweetness of glook. But this recreant
finger fails me in composing a passage an e octave.
If it does not gain more elastic vigor in a week,
I shall be tempted to have it amputated and supply
the shake with a spring messy amputite.
Speaker 7 (21:33):
A finger to supply a shake.
Speaker 8 (21:37):
Oh that's a trifle in the road. Reputation to be
talked of is a suminbona of this life, a young
man of rank should not glide through the world without
a distinguished rage, or, as they call it in England,
a hobby horse.
Speaker 7 (21:54):
A hobby horse, yes, that is.
Speaker 8 (21:59):
Every man of figure determines on setting out in life
in that land of liberty, in what line to ruin himself,
and that choice is called his hobby horse. One makes
the turf his scene of action. Another drives about tall
phantons to peep into their neighbor's garret windows. And a
third rides his hobby horse in parliament, where it jerks him,
(22:22):
sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, sometimes
in and sometimes out, till at length he is jerked
out of his honesty and his constituents out of their freedom.
Speaker 7 (22:34):
Ah well, tis a wonder that with such sort of
hobby horses as these, they should still outride all the
world to the goal of glory.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
This is all cantabile, nothing to do with the subject
of the peace, which is Donna Olivia. Pray give me
the keynote to her heart.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
Upon my word signor to speak in your own phrase.
I believe that note has never yet been sounded. Ah
here she comes, Look at her, isn't she a fine girl?
Speaker 8 (23:23):
Dodge musical hobby sworn her very air is harmonious Caesar.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Aside, I wish.
Speaker 7 (23:33):
Thou mayst find her tongue, so and her.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Olivia curtsies profoundly to each daughter received.
Speaker 7 (23:43):
Don Vincentio is rank, fortune and merit entitle him to
the heiress of a grandee. But he is contented to
become my son in law if you can please him crosses.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Olivia curtsies again, please me.
Speaker 8 (24:04):
She entrances me. Her presence thrills me like a cadenza
of Pacarati's, and every nerve vibrates to the music of
her looks Ah her step on. Dante gently moves piano's
glance from either eye. Oh, j Lagatto is the heart
(24:27):
that charms or forte can defy Ah Dona Olivia, Will
you be contented to receive me as a lover?
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Yes, sir, No, sir, Yes.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
Sir no, sir. Bewitching timidity, Yes, sir.
Speaker 7 (24:48):
She's remarkably timid. Aside, she's in the right cue.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
I see tis clear you have never traveled. I shall
be delighted to show you England. You will there see
how entirely timidity has banished the sex. You must effect
a marked character and maintain it at all hazards.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Tis a very fine day, sir Madam. I caught a
sad cold the other evening, pray, was you at the
ball last night?
Speaker 8 (25:23):
What a ball? Fair lady?
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Bless me? They say, Lucinda has run away with her footmen,
and Don Philip has married his.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Housemaid apart to Don Caesar.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Now, am I not very agreeable?
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Oh? Such perverse obedience?
Speaker 8 (25:43):
Really, madam, I have not the honor to know Don
Philip and Lucinda. Nor am I happy enough entirely to
comprehend you.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
No, I only meant to be agreeable. But perhaps you
have no taste for pretty little small talk.
Speaker 8 (25:59):
Pretty little small talk.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
A marked character you admire, so do I I dote
on it. I would not resemble the rest of the
world in anything.
Speaker 8 (26:11):
My taste to the fiftieth part of a crotchet. We
shall agree admirably when we are married.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
And that will be unlike the rest of the world,
and therefore charming.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Caesar aside it will do.
Speaker 7 (26:27):
I have hit her humor at last? Why didn't this
young dog offer himself before?
Speaker 4 (26:35):
I believe I have the honor to carry my taste
that way farther than you. Don Vincentio, pray, now, what
is your usual style and living?
Speaker 8 (26:45):
My winters I spend in Madrid as other people do.
My summers I draw through at my castle.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
As other people do. And yet you pretend to taste
and singularity. Good, don Vicentio, never talk of a marked
character again. Go into the country in July to smell
roses and woodbines when everybody regales on their fragrance. Now
I would rusticate only in winter, and my bleak castle
(27:16):
should be decorated with verder and flowers amidst the soft
sephers of December.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Caesar aside, Oh, she'll go too far.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
On the leafless trees. I would hang green branches the
labor of silkworms, and therefore natural, whilst my rose shrumps
and myrtles should be scented by the first perfumers in Italy.
Unnatural indeed, but therefore singular and striking.
Speaker 8 (27:47):
Oh charming. You beat me where I thought myself the strongest.
Would they but establish newspapers here to paragraph our singularities.
We should be the most envied couple in Spain.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Caesar aside by Saint Antony.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
He is as mad as she is.
Speaker 8 (28:11):
What say you done? Caesar, Olivia and her winter garden,
and I and my music.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Music. Did you say music? I am passionately fond of
that Caesar.
Speaker 7 (28:26):
Aside, she has saved my life. I thought she was
going to knock down his hobby horse.
Speaker 8 (28:36):
You enchant me. I have the finest band in Madrid.
My first violin draws a longer bow than Gardini, my
claronets my viola de gamba. Oh, you shall have such concerts, concerts.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Pardon me there. My passion is a single.
Speaker 8 (28:57):
Instrument that's marrying singularity very far. Indeed, I love a crash,
so does everybody of taste.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
But my taste isn't like everybody's. My nerves are so
particularly fine that more than one instrument overpowers them.
Speaker 8 (29:17):
Pray tell me the name of that one. I am
sure it must be the most elegant and captivating in
the world. I am impatient to know it. We'll have
no other instrument in Spain, and I will study to
become its master, that I may woo you with its
music charming. Olivia, tell me, is it a harpsichord, a pianoforte,
(29:40):
a pentochord, a harp?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
You have it? You have it a harp? Yes? A
jeuice harp is to me the only instrument. Are you
not charmed? With the delightful hum of its base running
on the ear like the distant rumble of a state coach.
It presents the idea of vastness and importance to the
mind the moment you are its master. I'll give you
(30:07):
my hand.
Speaker 8 (30:09):
Dear cappal, madam de cappel, A Jew's hop.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Bless me, sir, don't I tell you so? Violin's chilly
clarinets by sympathy hurt my lungs, And instead of maintaining
a band under my roof, I would not keep a
servant who knew a bassoon from a flute, or could
tell whether he heard a jig or a consonetta.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
Oh thou great perverse one. You know you love concerts,
You know you do.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
I detest them. It's vulgar custom that attaches people to
the sound of fifty different instruments at once. Twould be
as well to talk on the same subject in fifty
different tongues. A band 'tis a mere olio of sound.
I'd rather listen to a three stringed guitar serenading a sempstress.
(31:04):
In some neighboring garret.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
Oh you don Vincent, you crosses center. This is nothing
but perfessness, wicked pefessness. Hussy. Didn't you shake when you
mentioned a garret? Didn't bread and water and a stepmother
(31:27):
come into your head at the same time.
Speaker 8 (31:31):
Piano, piano, good, sir, spare yourself all farther trouble. Should
the Princess of Gazarat and all her diamond mines offer themselves,
I would not accept them in lieu of my band,
a band that has half ruined me to collect. I
would have allowed Donna Olivia a blooming garden in winter.
(31:52):
I would even have procured barrenness and snow for her
in the dog days. But to have my band insalted,
to have my knowledge and music slided, to be roused
from all the energies of composition by the drone of
a Jew's harp. I cannot breathe under the idea.
Speaker 7 (32:12):
Then you refuse her, sir.
Speaker 8 (32:15):
I cannot use so harsh a word. I take my
leave of the lady. Adieu, madam. I leave you to
enjoy your solos while I fly to the raptures of
a crash.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Exit left. Caesar goes up to her and looks her
in the face, then goes off without speaking.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Left mercy. That silent anger is terrifying. I read a
young mother in law and an old lady abys in
every line of his face.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
And her victoria.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Right, Well, you heard the whole I suppose heard, poor
unhappy me, scorned and rejected.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
I hurt you in imminent danger and expected signor da
capo would have snapped you up in spite of caprice
and extravagance.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Oh, they charmed instead of scaring him. I soon found
that my only chance was to fall across his caprice.
Where is the philosopher who could withstand that?
Speaker 5 (33:17):
But what my good cousin does all this tend to?
Speaker 4 (33:21):
I dare say you can guess Penelope had never cheated
her lovers with the never ending web, had she not
had a ulysses ulysses.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
What are you then married?
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Oh? No, not yet. But believe me, my design is
not to lead apes, nor is my heart an icicle.
If you choose to no more, put on your veil
and slip with me through the garden to the Prado.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
I can't, indeed, I am this moment going to dress
on on to visit the impatient Portuguese.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Send an excuse for positively, you go with me heaven
and Earth. I am going to meet a man whom
I have been fool enough to dream and think of
these two years. And I don't know that he ever
thought of me in his life.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Two years discovering that he.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Has been abroad. The only time I ever saw him
was in the Duchess of Medina's. There were a thousand people,
and he was so elegant, so careless, so handsome in
a word. Though he set off for France the next
morning by some witchcraft or other, he has been before
(34:34):
my eyes ever since.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
Was the impression mutual?
Speaker 4 (34:39):
He hardly noticed me. I was then a bashful thing,
just out of a convent and shrunk from observation.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Why I thought you were going to meet him?
Speaker 4 (34:51):
To be sure, I sent him a command this morning
to be at the Prado. I am determined to find
out if his heart is engaged, and if it.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Is, you'll cross your arms and crown your brow with willows.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
No, positively, not, whilst we have myrtles. I would prefer
Julio tis true to all his sex. But if he
is stupid enough to be insensible to me, I shan't
for that reason pine like a girl on chalk and oatmeal. No. No,
in that case, I shall form a new plan and
(35:27):
treat my future lovers with more civility.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
You are the only woman in love I ever heard
talk reasonably well.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Prepare for the Prado, and I'll give you a lesson
against your days of widowhood. Don't you wish this moment? Victoria,
a pretty widow at four and twenty, has more subjects
and a wider empire than the first monarch upon the earth.
I long to see you in your weeds.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Never may you see them, oh Olivia. My happiness, my
life depends on my husband. The fond hope of still
being united to him gives me spirits in my affliction
and enables me to support even the period of his
neglect with patience.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Axcillent right end of Act too
At two of a bold Stroke for a Husband by
Hanna Kuli. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Seen one an apartment at
Donaalora's and her Laura, followed by Carlos left.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nay, madam, you may as well stop here, for I'll
follow you through every apartment, but I will be heard
seizing her hand.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
This insolence is not to be endured within my own walls.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
To be thus the time has been when within your
walls I might be master.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yes, you were then master of my heart that gave
you a right which.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You have now transferred to another.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Flinging away her hand, well, sir.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, sir, unbleushing acknowledgement, false, fickle.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Woman, because I have luckily got the start of you
in a few weeks. I should have been the accuser
and you the false and fickle.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And to secure yourself from that disgrace, you prudently looked
out in time for another lover.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I can pardon your sneer, because you are mortified. Mortified, yes,
mortified to the soul.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Carlos Carlos, stumping Madam, Madam.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
This rage would have been all cool insolence had I
waited for your change. Scarcely would you have deigned to
form a phrase of pity for me, perhaps have bid
me forget a man no longer worthy my attachment and
recommend me to heartshorn and my women.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Has any hour since I have first known you given
you calls for such unjust.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yes, every hour now, Carlos, I bring THEE to the test.
You saw, you liked, you loved me. Was there no fond,
trusting woman whom you deserted to indulge the transient passion? Yes,
one blessed with beauty, gentleness, and youth, one who more
(02:35):
than her own being loved THEE who made THEE rich,
And whom thou madest thy wife.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
My wife, He is a turn so to revenge the
quarrels of my wife.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
No, do not mistake me. What I have done was
merely to indulge myself, without more regard to your feelings
than you had to hers.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
And you dare avow to my face that you have
a passion for another.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I do, And for I am above disguise, I confess,
so tender is my love for Florio. It has scarcely
left a trace of that I once avowed for Carlos.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, Madam, if I hear this without some sudden vengeance
on your tongue which speaks it, thankly, annihilation of that
passion whose remembrance is as dead in my bosom as
in yours. Let us, however, part friends, and with a
(03:44):
mutual acquittal of every obligation, so give up the settlement
of that estate which left me almost a beggar.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Give it up, no, Carlos, you can signed me that
a state as a proof of love. Do not imagine?
Then I'll give up the only part of our connection
of which I am not ashamed.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Base woman, You know it was not a voluntary gift.
After having in vain practiced on my fondness, whilst in
a state of intoxication, you prevailed on me to sign
the deed which you had artfully prepared for the purpose.
(04:30):
Therefore you must restore it. Never never, ruin is in
the word. Call it back, Madam, or I'll be revenged
on thee in thy heart's dearest object, thy minion Florio.
(04:50):
He shall not riot on my fortune.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Florio is safe, Your lands are sold, and in another
country we shall enjoy the blessings of thy fond passion,
whilst that passion is indulging itself in hatred and execrations.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Except right, my vengeance shall first fall on her. Following no,
he shall be the first victim, or twill be incomplete
reduced to poverty. I cannot live, Oh folly, where are
(05:32):
now all the guilded prospects of my youth had I?
But tis too late to look back. Remorse attends the past,
and ruin, ruin waits me in the future.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Except left. Scene two, Don Caesar's Victoria enters left, perusing
a letter Ander Olivia. Right, Olivia speaks as enter.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
If my father should inquire for me, tell him I'm
in donna victorious apartment, smiling. I protest, my dear gloomy cousin,
where have you purchased that sunshiny? Look?
Speaker 5 (06:14):
It is but April sunshine? I fear, But who could
resist such a temptation to smile? A letter from Dona Laura,
my husband's mistress, styling me her dearest Florio, her life,
her soul, and complaining of a twelve hours absence as
the bitterest misfortune.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Most dowdy dawn pray. Let us see you in your
feather and doublet as a cavallero. It seems you are formidable.
So suddenly to rob your husband of his charmer's heart,
you must have used some witchery.
Speaker 5 (06:50):
Yes, powerful witchy, the knowledge of my sex. Oh did
the men but know us as well as we do ourselves.
But thank fate, they do not twould be dangerous.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
What I suppose you praised her understanding, was captivated by
her wit, and absolutely struck dumb by the amazing beauties
of her mind.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
Oh no, that's the mode prescribed by the essayists on
the female heart. Not a woman breathing from fifteen to
fifty but would rather have a compliment to the tip
of her ear or the turn of her ankle than
a volume in praise of her intellects.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
So flattery, then, is your boasted pill.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
No, that's only the occasional gilding. But this is in
vain to attempt the description of what changed its nature
with every moment. I was now attentive, now gay, then
tender than careless. I strove rather to convince her that
I was charming than that I myself was charmed. And
(07:55):
when I saw love's arrow quivering in her heart, instead
of falling her feet, sung a triumphant air and remembered
a sudden engagement.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Olivia, artly, would.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
You have done so had you been a.
Speaker 5 (08:09):
Man, assuredly knowing what I now do as a woman?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But can all this be worth while? Merely to rival
a fickle husband with one woman while he is sitting
his feather, perhaps, and half a score others to rival.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Him was not my first motive. The Portuguese robbed me
of his heart. I concluded she had fascinations which nature
had denied to me. It was impossible to visit her
as a woman. I therefore assumed the cavalier to study her,
that I might, if possible, be to my Carlos.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
All he found in her pretty, humble creature.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
In this adventure I learned more than I expected. My
how cruel my husband has given this woman an estate,
almost all that his dissipations had left us, indeed, to
make him more culpable. It was my estate. It was
that fortune which my lovish love had made his without
(09:09):
securing it to my children.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
How could you be so improvident?
Speaker 5 (09:13):
Alas I trusted him with my heart, with my happiness,
without restriction. Should I have shown a greater solicitude for
anything than for these?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
The event proves that you should. But how can you
be thus passive in your sorrow? Since I had assumed
the man, I'd make him feel a man's resentment for
such injuries?
Speaker 5 (09:35):
Oh, Olivia, what resentment can I show to him? I
have vow to honor and whom both my duty and
my heart compel me. Yet to love?
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Why? Really? Now? I think positively, there's no thinking about it.
Tis among the arcana of the married life.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
I suppose you, who know me, can judge how I
suffered in prosecuting my plan. I have thrown after delicacy
of sex. I have worn the mask of love to
the destroyer of my peace. But the object is too
great to be abandoned, nothing less than to save my
husband from ruin, and to restore him again a lover
(10:13):
to my faithful bosom.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well, I confess, Victoria. I hardly know whether most to
blame or praise you. But with the rest of the world,
I suppose your success will determine.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Me and her Gasper left to Olivia.
Speaker 6 (10:30):
Pray, madam, are your wedding shoes ready?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Olivia? Apart to victoria insolence.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I can scarcely ever keep up the vixen to this fellow.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
You'll want them, ma'am, tomorrow morning, that's all. So I
came to prepare.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Ye, I want wedding shoes tomorrow. If you are kept
on water gruel till I marry, that plump face of
yours will be chapfallen.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
I believe, yes, truly, I believe so too. Lack a day,
did you suppose I came to bring you news of
your own wedding? No such glad tidings for you, lady,
believe me you married. I am sure the man who
ties himself to you ought to be half a salamander
(11:18):
and able to live in fire?
Speaker 4 (11:21):
What marriage? Then? Is it? You do me the honor
to inform me of why.
Speaker 6 (11:26):
Your father's marriage. You will have a mother in law
to morrow, and, having like a dutiful daughter, danced at
the wedding, be immured in a convent.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
For life, immured in a convent. Then I'll raise sedition
in the sisterhood, dispose the abbess and turned the confessor's
chair to a go cart.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
So the threat of the mother in law, which I
thought would be worse than that, of the abbess does
not frighten.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Ye, No, because my father dares not give me one
mary without my consent. No, No, he'll never think of it.
Depend upon it, however, lest the fit should grow strong
upon him, I'll go and administer my volatiles to keep
it under.
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Except left administer them cautiously, then too strong a dose
of your volatiles would make the fit stubborn. Who'd think
that pretty arch look belonged to it? Imagined what a
pity twould be worth a thousand ducats to cure her?
Speaker 5 (12:37):
Has inies told you I wanted to converse with you
in private? Gasper?
Speaker 6 (12:42):
Oh, yes, madam, I took particular notice that it was
to be in private, Sure, said I, missus Innes. Madame
Victoria has not taken a fancy to me. Anne is
going to break.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Her mind A whimsy girl. Suppose I should gasper?
Speaker 6 (13:03):
Why then, Madam, I should say fortune had used you
devilish scurvily to give you a gray beard in a livery.
I know well enough that some young ladies have given
themselves to graybeards in a gilded coach, and others have
run away with a handsome youth in worsted lace. They
(13:26):
each had their apology. But if you run away with me,
pardon me, madam. I could not stand the ridicule.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
Oh very well. But if you refuse to run away
with me, will you do me another favor?
Speaker 6 (13:41):
Anything you'll order, madam, except dancing a fandango.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
You have seen my rich old uncle in the country.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
What Don Sancho, who with two thirds of a century
in his face, affects the misdemeanors of youth, hides his
boldness with amber locks and complains of the toothache to
make you believe that the two rows of ivory he
carries in his head grew there.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Oh, you know him, I find. Could you assume his
character for an hour and make love for him? You
know it must be in the style of King Rodrigo
the first hang it.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
I am rather too near his own age to appear
an old man with effect. One should not be above
twenty tis always so on the stage, so you.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Might pass for Juan's grandson.
Speaker 6 (14:42):
Nay, if your ladyship condescends to flatter me, you.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Have me, then follow me, for Don Caesar hear is
approaching in the garden. I'll make you acquainted with my
plan and impress on your mind every trait of my
uncle's character. If you can hit him off, the arts
of shall be foiled. In carlosby again victorious excillent.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Right, enter Don Caesar, followed by Olivia. Left.
Speaker 7 (15:11):
No, no, tis too late, no coaxings. I am resolved,
I say, but it is.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Not too late, and you shan't be resolved, I say, indeed,
now I'll be upon my guard with the next dawn.
What's his name? Not a trace of Zand to be left,
I'll study to be charming.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
Nay, you need not study it. You are always charming
enough if you would, but hold your tongue.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Do you think so? Then to the next lover, I
won't open my lips. I'll answer everything he says with
a smile. And if he asked me to have him
drop you a courtesy of thankfulness.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
P sure that's too much. T'ther way. You are always
either above the mark or below it. You must talk,
but talk with good humor. Can't you look gently and
prettily now as I do, and say yes, sir, and no, sir,
(16:26):
and tis very fine weather, sir, and pray sir. Were
you at the ball last night? And I caught a
sad cold the other evening, and bless me. I hear
(16:47):
Lucinda has run away with her footman, and Don Philip
has married his housemaid. That's the way he agreed. Agreeable
ladies talk. You'll never hear anything else.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Very true, and you shall see me as agreeable as
the best of them. If you won't give me a
mother in law to snub me and set me to tasks,
and to take up all the fine apartments, and send
a poor little Livvy to lodge next to the stars.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
Ah if thou wert but always less soft and good humored.
No mother in law in Spain, though she brought the
castiles for her portion, should have power to snub thee
(17:44):
but Livvy the trials attend for At this moment do
I expect Don, Vinceandio to visit you. He is but
just returned for England, and probably has yet heard only
(18:05):
of your beauty and fortune. I hope it is not
from you. He will learn the other part of your
character this moment.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Expect him two new lovers in a.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
Day, beginning already as I hoped to live. Aye, I
see it tis in vain. I'll send him an excuse
and marry Marcella before night.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
Oh no, upon my obedience, I promise to be just
the soft civil creature you have described.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And her a servant. Left.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Don Vincencio is below, sir.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
Exit left, I'll wait upon him. Well, go and collect
all your smiles and your in purse, and remember all
I have said to you. Be gentle and talk pretty
little small talk. Do you hear? And if you please him,
(19:13):
you shall have the portion of a Dutch burgomaster's daughter
and the pin money of a princess. You jade you,
I think at last I have done it. The fear
of this mother in law will keep down the fiend
in her if anything can exit left.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Ha, my poor father, your anxieties will never end till
you bring Don Julio. But what shall I do with
this Vincentio? I fear he is so perfectly harmonized that
to put him in an ill temper will be impractical.
I must try, however, if tis possible to find a
discord in him, I'll touch the string.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Exit right. Scene three, another apartment and her, Caesar and
Vincentio left.
Speaker 8 (20:11):
Presto presto signor where is the Olivia? Not a moment
to spare? I left off in all the fury of composition,
minims and crotchets have been battling it through my head
the whole day, and trying a semibreve in Geese sharp
has made me as flat as double f.
Speaker 7 (20:30):
Sharp and flat trying a semibrieve. Oh, gad, sir, I
had like not to have understood you. But a semibrieve
is something of a doomy culverin, I take it. And
you have been practicing the art military.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
Art military, What, sir, are you unacquainted with music?
Speaker 7 (20:58):
Music? Oh? I ask pardon than you are fond of
music aside well of discords, fond of it, devoted to it.
Speaker 8 (21:12):
I composed a thing to day in all the gusto
of sacchini and the sweetness of glook. But this recreant
finger fails me in composing a passage an e octave.
If it does not gain more elastic vigor in a week,
I shall be tempted to have it amputated and supply
the shake with a spring messy amputite.
Speaker 7 (21:33):
A finger to supply a shake.
Speaker 8 (21:37):
Oh that's a trifle in the road. Reputation to be
talked of is a suminbona of this life, a young
man of rank should not glide through the world without
a distinguished rage, or, as they call it in England,
a hobby horse.
Speaker 7 (21:54):
A hobby horse, yes, that is.
Speaker 8 (21:59):
Every man of figure determines on setting out in life
in that land of liberty, in what line to ruin himself,
and that choice is called his hobby horse. One makes
the turf his scene of action. Another drives about tall
phantons to peep into their neighbor's garret windows. And a
third rides his hobby horse in parliament, where it jerks him,
(22:22):
sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, sometimes
in and sometimes out, till at length he is jerked
out of his honesty and his constituents out of their freedom.
Speaker 7 (22:34):
Ah well, tis a wonder that with such sort of
hobby horses as these, they should still outride all the
world to the goal of glory.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
This is all cantabile, nothing to do with the subject
of the peace, which is Donna Olivia. Pray give me
the keynote to her heart.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
Upon my word signor to speak in your own phrase.
I believe that note has never yet been sounded. Ah
here she comes, Look at her, isn't she a fine girl?
Speaker 8 (23:23):
Dodge musical hobby sworn her very air is harmonious Caesar.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Aside, I wish.
Speaker 7 (23:33):
Thou mayst find her tongue, so and her.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Olivia curtsies profoundly to each daughter received.
Speaker 7 (23:43):
Don Vincentio is rank, fortune and merit entitle him to
the heiress of a grandee. But he is contented to
become my son in law if you can please him crosses.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Olivia curtsies again, please me.
Speaker 8 (24:04):
She entrances me. Her presence thrills me like a cadenza
of Pacarati's, and every nerve vibrates to the music of
her looks Ah her step on. Dante gently moves piano's
glance from either eye. Oh, j Lagatto is the heart
(24:27):
that charms or forte can defy Ah Dona Olivia, Will
you be contented to receive me as a lover?
Speaker 4 (24:38):
Yes, sir, No, sir, Yes.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
Sir no, sir. Bewitching timidity, Yes, sir.
Speaker 7 (24:48):
She's remarkably timid. Aside, she's in the right cue.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
I see tis clear you have never traveled. I shall
be delighted to show you England. You will there see
how entirely timidity has banished the sex. You must effect
a marked character and maintain it at all hazards.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Tis a very fine day, sir Madam. I caught a
sad cold the other evening, pray, was you at the
ball last night?
Speaker 8 (25:23):
What a ball? Fair lady?
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Bless me? They say, Lucinda has run away with her footmen,
and Don Philip has married his.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Housemaid apart to Don Caesar.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Now, am I not very agreeable?
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Oh? Such perverse obedience?
Speaker 8 (25:43):
Really, madam, I have not the honor to know Don
Philip and Lucinda. Nor am I happy enough entirely to
comprehend you.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
No, I only meant to be agreeable. But perhaps you
have no taste for pretty little small talk.
Speaker 8 (25:59):
Pretty little small talk.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
A marked character you admire, so do I I dote
on it. I would not resemble the rest of the
world in anything.
Speaker 8 (26:11):
My taste to the fiftieth part of a crotchet. We
shall agree admirably when we are married.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
And that will be unlike the rest of the world,
and therefore charming.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Caesar aside it will do.
Speaker 7 (26:27):
I have hit her humor at last? Why didn't this
young dog offer himself before?
Speaker 4 (26:35):
I believe I have the honor to carry my taste
that way farther than you. Don Vincentio, pray, now, what
is your usual style and living?
Speaker 8 (26:45):
My winters I spend in Madrid as other people do.
My summers I draw through at my castle.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
As other people do. And yet you pretend to taste
and singularity. Good, don Vicentio, never talk of a marked
character again. Go into the country in July to smell
roses and woodbines when everybody regales on their fragrance. Now
I would rusticate only in winter, and my bleak castle
(27:16):
should be decorated with verder and flowers amidst the soft
sephers of December.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Caesar aside, Oh, she'll go too far.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
On the leafless trees. I would hang green branches the
labor of silkworms, and therefore natural, whilst my rose shrumps
and myrtles should be scented by the first perfumers in Italy.
Unnatural indeed, but therefore singular and striking.
Speaker 8 (27:47):
Oh charming. You beat me where I thought myself the strongest.
Would they but establish newspapers here to paragraph our singularities.
We should be the most envied couple in Spain.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Caesar aside by Saint Antony.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
He is as mad as she is.
Speaker 8 (28:11):
What say you done? Caesar, Olivia and her winter garden,
and I and my music.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Music. Did you say music? I am passionately fond of
that Caesar.
Speaker 7 (28:26):
Aside, she has saved my life. I thought she was
going to knock down his hobby horse.
Speaker 8 (28:36):
You enchant me. I have the finest band in Madrid.
My first violin draws a longer bow than Gardini, my
claronets my viola de gamba. Oh, you shall have such concerts, concerts.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
Pardon me there. My passion is a single.
Speaker 8 (28:57):
Instrument that's marrying singularity very far. Indeed, I love a crash,
so does everybody of taste.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
But my taste isn't like everybody's. My nerves are so
particularly fine that more than one instrument overpowers them.
Speaker 8 (29:17):
Pray tell me the name of that one. I am
sure it must be the most elegant and captivating in
the world. I am impatient to know it. We'll have
no other instrument in Spain, and I will study to
become its master, that I may woo you with its
music charming. Olivia, tell me, is it a harpsichord, a pianoforte,
(29:40):
a pentochord, a harp?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
You have it? You have it a harp? Yes? A
jeuice harp is to me the only instrument. Are you
not charmed? With the delightful hum of its base running
on the ear like the distant rumble of a state coach.
It presents the idea of vastness and importance to the
mind the moment you are its master. I'll give you
(30:07):
my hand.
Speaker 8 (30:09):
Dear cappal, madam de cappel, A Jew's hop.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Bless me, sir, don't I tell you so? Violin's chilly
clarinets by sympathy hurt my lungs, And instead of maintaining
a band under my roof, I would not keep a
servant who knew a bassoon from a flute, or could
tell whether he heard a jig or a consonetta.
Speaker 7 (30:34):
Oh thou great perverse one. You know you love concerts,
You know you do.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
I detest them. It's vulgar custom that attaches people to
the sound of fifty different instruments at once. Twould be
as well to talk on the same subject in fifty
different tongues. A band 'tis a mere olio of sound.
I'd rather listen to a three stringed guitar serenading a sempstress.
(31:04):
In some neighboring garret.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
Oh you don Vincent, you crosses center. This is nothing
but perfessness, wicked pefessness. Hussy. Didn't you shake when you
mentioned a garret? Didn't bread and water and a stepmother
(31:27):
come into your head at the same time.
Speaker 8 (31:31):
Piano, piano, good, sir, spare yourself all farther trouble. Should
the Princess of Gazarat and all her diamond mines offer themselves,
I would not accept them in lieu of my band,
a band that has half ruined me to collect. I
would have allowed Donna Olivia a blooming garden in winter.
(31:52):
I would even have procured barrenness and snow for her
in the dog days. But to have my band insalted,
to have my knowledge and music slided, to be roused
from all the energies of composition by the drone of
a Jew's harp. I cannot breathe under the idea.
Speaker 7 (32:12):
Then you refuse her, sir.
Speaker 8 (32:15):
I cannot use so harsh a word. I take my
leave of the lady. Adieu, madam. I leave you to
enjoy your solos while I fly to the raptures of
a crash.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Exit left. Caesar goes up to her and looks her
in the face, then goes off without speaking.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Left mercy. That silent anger is terrifying. I read a
young mother in law and an old lady abys in
every line of his face.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
And her victoria.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Right, Well, you heard the whole I suppose heard, poor
unhappy me, scorned and rejected.
Speaker 5 (32:56):
I hurt you in imminent danger and expected signor da
capo would have snapped you up in spite of caprice
and extravagance.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Oh, they charmed instead of scaring him. I soon found
that my only chance was to fall across his caprice.
Where is the philosopher who could withstand that?
Speaker 5 (33:17):
But what my good cousin does all this tend to?
Speaker 4 (33:21):
I dare say you can guess Penelope had never cheated
her lovers with the never ending web, had she not
had a ulysses ulysses.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
What are you then married?
Speaker 4 (33:35):
Oh? No, not yet. But believe me, my design is
not to lead apes, nor is my heart an icicle.
If you choose to no more, put on your veil
and slip with me through the garden to the Prado.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
I can't, indeed, I am this moment going to dress
on on to visit the impatient Portuguese.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
Send an excuse for positively, you go with me heaven
and Earth. I am going to meet a man whom
I have been fool enough to dream and think of
these two years. And I don't know that he ever
thought of me in his life.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Two years discovering that he.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
Has been abroad. The only time I ever saw him
was in the Duchess of Medina's. There were a thousand people,
and he was so elegant, so careless, so handsome in
a word. Though he set off for France the next
morning by some witchcraft or other, he has been before
(34:34):
my eyes ever since.
Speaker 5 (34:37):
Was the impression mutual?
Speaker 4 (34:39):
He hardly noticed me. I was then a bashful thing,
just out of a convent and shrunk from observation.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
Why I thought you were going to meet him?
Speaker 4 (34:51):
To be sure, I sent him a command this morning
to be at the Prado. I am determined to find
out if his heart is engaged, and if it.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Is, you'll cross your arms and crown your brow with willows.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
No, positively, not, whilst we have myrtles. I would prefer
Julio tis true to all his sex. But if he
is stupid enough to be insensible to me, I shan't
for that reason pine like a girl on chalk and oatmeal. No. No,
in that case, I shall form a new plan and
(35:27):
treat my future lovers with more civility.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
You are the only woman in love I ever heard
talk reasonably well.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Prepare for the Prado, and I'll give you a lesson
against your days of widowhood. Don't you wish this moment? Victoria,
a pretty widow at four and twenty, has more subjects
and a wider empire than the first monarch upon the earth.
I long to see you in your weeds.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Never may you see them, oh Olivia. My happiness, my
life depends on my husband. The fond hope of still
being united to him gives me spirits in my affliction
and enables me to support even the period of his
neglect with patience.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Axcillent right end of Act too
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