Print
Word
PDFALLADINE.
Oh!... I heard!...
PALOMIDES.
What?
ALLADINE.
Some one striking the rocks....
PALOMIDES.
No, no; it is the golden gates of a new Paradise, that open in our souls and sing upon their hinges!...
ALLADINE.
Listen.... again, again!...
PALOMIDES (with voice suddenly changed).
Yes; it is there.... It is at the bottom of the bluest vaults....
ALLADINE.
They are coming to....
PALOMIDES.
I hear the sound of iron on the rock.... They have walled up the door or cannot open it.... It is the picks grating against the stone.... His soul has told him we were happy....
[A silence; then a stone is
detached at the very end of the vault,
and a ray of daylight breaks
into the cavern.]
ALLADINE.
Oh!...
PALOMIDES.
It is another light....
[Motionless and anxious, they watch other stones detach themselves slowly in an insufferable light, and fall one by one; while the light, entering in more and more resistless floods, reveals to them little by little the gloom of the cavern they had thought marvellous. The miraculous lake becomes wan and sinister; the precious stones about them are extinguished, and the glowing roses appear as the stains and rotten rubbish that they are. At last, the whole side of rock falls abruptly into the crypt. The sunlight enters, dazzling. Calls and songs are heard without. Alladine and Palomides recoil.]
PALOMIDES.
Where are we?
ALLADINE (embracing him).
I love thee still, Palomides....
PALOMIDES.
I love thee too, my Alladine....
ALLADINE.
They come....
PALOMIDES.
[Looking behind him as they still recoil.] Have a care....
ALLADINE.
No, no; have no more care....
PALOMIDES (looking at her).
Alladine?
ALLADINE.
Yes ...
[They still recoil before the invasion of light or peril, until they lose their footing; and they fall and disappear behind the rock that overhangs the underground and now gloomy water.—A silence. Astolaine and the sisters of Palomides enter the crypt.]
ASTOLAINE.
Where are they?
ONE OF THE SISTERS OF PALOMIDES.
Palomides!...
ASTOLAINE.
Alladine! Alladine!...
ANOTHER SISTER.
Palomides!... It is we!...
THIRD SISTER.
Fear nothing; we are alone!...
ASTOLAINE.
Come! come! we have come to rescue you!...
FOURTH SISTER.
Ablamore has fled....
FIFTH SISTER.
He is no longer in the palace....
SIXTH SISTER.
