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Dialogue Following Song No. 25
Exeunt all except PIETRO, BARTOLO, and NITA.
PIETRO sits in great pain and distress. BARTOLO
and NITA make ineffective attempts to move and speak, but they have "run down."
- PIETRO (observing their efforts).
- Now, then, what's wrong with you? Oh, I see. (Winds them up.)
Spoken together very rapidly:
- BARTOLO.
- Upon my honour, this is a pretty state of things. Clockwork for life, I
suppose! It's monstrous - outrageous! What's to become of Nita, and,
above all, what's to become of me?
- NITA.
- Well, a nice mess you've made of this; to go and lose the only thing that
could bring us back to life again. What do you mean by it, you ridiculous
old donkey?
- PIETRO.
- What do you want?
- NITA.
- Well, if I'm to be Ophelia for the rest of my life, it would be convenient to know
what Ophelia did.
- BARTOLO.
- She coaxed Hamlet, a good deal.
- PIETRO.
- Nothing of the kind; she committed suicide because Hamlet wouldn't marry her.
- NITA.
- What - lately?
- PIETRO.
- Lately! Several hundred years ago. (NITA and BARTOLO turn and walk rapidly up
stage.) Where are you going?
- NITA.
- We're going back several hundred years.
- PIETRO.
- It's not necessary. You can do it here. (NITA begins to cry.)
- BARTOLO.
- I have it. If Hamlet had married Ophelia she wouldn't have committed suicide.
- PIETRO.
- Well? What then?
- BARTOLO.
- What then? Why, if I marry her at once the motive for the act will be removed!
- PIETRO.
- Nonsense! Hamlet and Ophelia never married. It would be trifling with the text.
- BARTOLO.
- Anyhow, it's a new reading. What! am I to be the only Hamlet who is not
permitted to discover new readings? Bah!
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