ALBERTO. Courage to live, to conquer. (_He beats his breast_.) I am a man again, thanks to you, Lucrezia, my inspirer, my Muse, my Egeria. How can I be sufficiently grateful. (_He kisses her_.) I am the child of your spirit. (_He kisses her again_.) LUCREZIA. Enough, enough. I am not ambitious to be a mother, yet awhile. Quickly now, Bertino, I know you will succeed. ALBERTO (_cramming his hat down on his head and knocking with his walking-stick on the ground_). Succeed or die, Lucrezia. (_He goes out with a loud martial stamp_.) LUCREZIA (_to the waiter who is passing across the stage with a coffee-pot and cups on a tray_). Have you seen the Signorina Toomis, Giuseppe? WAITER. The Signorina is down in the garden. So is the Signore Dolphin. By the fountain, Signorina. This is the Signore's coffee. LUCREZIA. Have you a mother, Giuseppe? WAITER. Unfortunately, Signorina. LUCREZIA. Unfortunately? Does she treat you badly, then? WAITER. Like a dog, Signorina. LUCREZIA. Ah, I should like to see your mother. I should like to ask her to give me some hints on how to bring up children. WAITER. But surely, Signorina, you are not expecting, you--ah.... LUCREZIA. Only figuratively, Giuseppe. My children are spiritual children. WAITER. Precisely, precisely. My mother, alas! is not a spiritual relation. Nor is my fiançée. LUCREZIA. I didn't know you were engaged. WAITER. To an angel of perdition. Believe me, Signorina, I go to my destruction in that woman--go with open eyes. There is no escape. She is what is called in the Holy Bible (_crosses himself_) a Fisher of Men. LUCREZIA. You have remarkable connections, Giuseppe. WAITER. I am honoured by your words, Signorina. But the coffee becomes cold. (_He hurries out to the left_.) LUCREZIA. In the garden! By the fountain! And there's the nightingale beginning to sing in earnest! Good heavens! what may not already have happened? (_She runs out after the waiter_.) (_Two persons emerge from the hotel_, the VICOMTE DE BARBAZANGE _and the_ BARONESS KOCH DE WORMS. PAUL DE BARBAZANGE _is a young man--twenty-six perhaps of exquisite grace. Five foot ten, well built, dark hair, sleek as marble, the most refined aristocratic features, and a monocle_, SIMONE DE WORMS _is forty, a ripe Semitic beauty. Five years more and the bursting point of overripeness will have been reached. But now, thanks to massage, powerful corsets, skin foods, and powder, she is still a beauty--a beauty of the type Italians admire, cushioned, steatopygous._ PAUL, _who has a faultless taste in bric-à-brac and women, and is by instinct and upbringing an ardent anti-Semite, finds her infinitely repulsive. The Baronne enters with a loud shrill giggle. She gives_ PAUL _a slap with her green feather fan_.) SIMONE. Oh, you naughty boy! Quelle histoire. Mon Dieu! How dare you tell me such a story! PAUL. For you, Baronne, I would risk anything even your displeasure.