Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays - LightNovelsOnl.com
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LIZZIA [_agonized_]
My little children, you must not do this thing!
Love is too high a gift to play with so.
G.o.d only has the right to put the heart Of man to trial!
VIOLANTE [_to Lizzia_]
Will you be quiet, old woman!
OLIVIA [_to Lizzia_]
I would not hold him if he only loved My beauty, and not me. The test is just....
VIOLANTE [_to Lizzia_]
Go you, inform him of her return....
But tell him that that flower which was her face Is shriveled up and lean as any hag's.
LIZZIA
Now G.o.d forbid I should deceive him so!
VIOLANTE
Not even for gold?
LIZZIA
Have you no fear of G.o.d?
[_A stir is heard within._]
VIOLANTE
Hus.h.!.+... I will do it, then.
[_Going up to small arras over study door, she calls._]
Florio!... Florio!...
FLORIO [_from within, after a brief s.p.a.ce_]
Who is it calls me?
VIOLANTE
It is I, Violante!
FLORIO
Why have you come again?
VIOLANTE
I have returned, Florio, In strange times, bearing strange news.
FLORIO
My soul is full of death--I pray you go!
VIOLANTE
It could not be--aye, it is pa.s.sing strange!-- She said her name was "Olivia."
FLORIO
Olivia, ah, she lives!
VIOLANTE
Then, it is true? You love this shriveled woman?
FLORIO
Shriveled woman?
VIOLANTE
Ugly and bent and gray--a woman Who says in as few words she is your mistress.
FLORIO
