75
If fear should not; both will, I do not doubt. 
All men delight in sensual luxury,
All men enjoy revenge; and most exult
Over the tortures they can never feel—­
Flattering their secret peace with others’ pain. 80
But I delight in nothing else.  I love
The sight of agony, and the sense of joy,
When this shall be another’s, and that mine. 
And I have no remorse and little fear,
Which are, I think, the checks of other men. 85
This mood has grown upon me, until now
Any design my captious fancy makes
The picture of its wish, and it forms none
But such as men like you would start to know,
Is as my natural food and rest debarred 90
Until it be accomplished.

CAMILLO: 
Art thou not
Most miserable?

CENCI: 
Why miserable?—­
No.—­I am what your theologians call
Hardened;—­which they must be in impudence,
So to revile a man’s peculiar taste. 95
True, I was happier than I am, while yet
Manhood remained to act the thing I thought;
While lust was sweeter than revenge; and now
Invention palls:—­Ay, we must all grow old—­
And but that there remains a deed to act 100
Whose horror might make sharp an appetite
Duller than mine—­I’d do,—­I know not what. 
When I was young I thought of nothing else
But pleasure; and I fed on honey sweets: 
Men, by St. Thomas! cannot live like bees, 105
And I grew tired:—­yet, till I killed a foe,
And heard his groans, and heard his children’s groans,
Knew I not what delight was else on earth,
Which now delights me little.  I the rather
Look on such pangs as terror ill conceals, 110
The dry fixed eyeball; the pale, quivering lip,
Which tell me that the spirit weeps within
Tears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ. 
I rarely kill the body, which preserves,
Like a strong prison, the soul within my power, 115
Wherein I feed it with the breath of fear
For hourly pain.

NOTE: 
100 And but that edition 1821; But that editions 1819, 1839.

CAMILLO: 
Hell’s most abandoned fiend
Did never, in the drunkenness of guilt,
Speak to his heart as now you speak to me;
I thank my God that I believe you not. 120

[ENTER ANDREA.]

ANDREA: 
My Lord, a gentleman from Salamanca
Would speak with you.

CENCI: 
Bid him attend me
In the grand saloon.

[EXIT ANDREA.]

CAMILLO: 
Farewell; and I will pray
Almighty God that thy false, impious words
Tempt not his spirit to abandon thee. 125

[EXIT CAMILLO.]