LUCRETIA: 
Look not so dreadfully!  By my salvation
I knew not aught that Beatrice designed;
Nor do I think she designed any thing 160
Until she heard you talk of her dead brothers.

CENCI: 
Blaspheming liar!  You are damned for this! 
But I will take you where you may persuade
The stones you tread on to deliver you: 
For men shall there be none but those who dare 165
All things—­not question that which I command. 
On Wednesday next I shall set out:  you know
That savage rock, the Castle of Petrella: 
’Tis safely walled, and moated round about: 
Its dungeons underground, and its thick towers 170
Never told tales; though they have heard and seen
What might make dumb things speak.—­Why do you linger? 
Make speediest preparation for the journey!
[EXIT LUCRETIA.]
The all-beholding sun yet shines; I hear
A busy stir of men about the streets; 175
I see the bright sky through the window panes: 
It is a garish, broad, and peering day;
Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears,
And every little corner, nook, and hole
Is penetrated with the insolent light. 180
Come darkness!  Yet, what is the day to me? 
And wherefore should I wish for night, who do
A deed which shall confound both night and day? 
’Tis she shall grope through a bewildering mist
Of horror:  if there be a sun in heaven 185
She shall not dare to look upon its beams;
Nor feel its warmth.  Let her then wish for night;
The act I think shall soon extinguish all
For me:  I bear a darker deadlier gloom
Than the earth’s shade, or interlunar air, 190
Or constellations quenched in murkiest cloud,
In which I walk secure and unbeheld
Towards my purpose.—­Would that it were done!

[EXIT.]

SCENE 2.2: 
A CHAMBER IN THE VATICAN. 
ENTER CAMILLO AND GIACOMO, IN CONVERSATION.

CAMILLO: 
There is an obsolete and doubtful law
By which you might obtain a bare provision
Of food and clothing—­

GIACOMO: 
Nothing more?  Alas! 
Bare must be the provision which strict law
Awards, and aged, sullen avarice pays. 5
Why did my father not apprentice me
To some mechanic trade?  I should have then
Been trained in no highborn necessities
Which I could meet not by my daily toil. 
The eldest son of a rich nobleman 10
Is heir to all his incapacities;
He has wide wants, and narrow powers.  If you,
Cardinal Camillo, were reduced at once
From thrice-driven beds of down, and delicate food,
An hundred servants, and six palaces, 15
To that which nature doth indeed require?—­