Scene I
Some Workmen. They are pulling down a corner of the back wall on the left. The demolition is almost completed
FIRST WORKMAN (working with his pickax).
It’s very hard!
SECOND WORKMAN (working).
Deuce take this heavy wall we’re pulling down!
THIRD WORKMAN (working).
Saw you the scaffold, Peter?
FIRST WORKMAN.
Yes, I did.
[He goes to the large door and measures it.
The door is narrow; never will the litter
Of the Lord Cardinal go through it.
THIRD WORKMAN.
Bah!
Is it a house?
FIRST WORKMAN (with affirmative gesture).
With great long curtains. Yes.
It takes some four and twenty men on foot
To carry it.
SECOND WORKMAN.
I saw the great machine,
One night when it was very dark. It looked
Just like Leviathan in shadow-land.
THIRD WORKMAN.
What does he come here with his sergeants for?
FIRST WORKMAN.
To see the execution of those two young men.
He’s sick. He needs to be amused.
SECOND WORKMAN.
To work!
[They resume work; the wall is about torn down.
Saw you the scaffold, all in black? That comes
Of being noble!
FIRST WORKMAN.
They have everything.
SECOND WORKMAN.
I wonder
If they would build a black scaffold for us.
FIRST WORKMAN.
What have those young men done that they should die?
Hein? Do you understand, Maurice?
THIRD WORKMAN.
I don’t.
It’s justice.
[They continue their work. Laffemas enters; The Workmen are silent. He comes from the back as though he were coming from an inside court of the prison; stops beside The Workmen, appears to examine the breach, and gives them some directions. When the space is opened, he orders them to hang black cloth across it, which covers it entirely; then he dismisses them. At almost the same moment Marion appears, dressed in white, and veiled; she enters through the great door, crosses the court rapidly, and runs to the grating of the small door, at which she knocks. Laffemas follows slowly in the same direction. The grating is opened; The Turnkey appears.