Catarina drinks the potion, falls into a trance, and is buried. (Victor Hugo is always original, they say.) The Tisbe digs her up again, and lays her upon a bed in her own house, carefully drawing the curtains round her. Then comes the great catastrophe. The lover of the two ladies uses his privilege, and enters the Tisbe's apartment, determined to fulfil his destiny and murder her, because she loves him--as written in the book of fate--and also because she has poisoned his other and his favourite love Catarina. The Signor Rodolpho knows that she brought the phial, because one of the maids told him so: this is another instance of the ingenious and skilful machinery of the fable. Rodolpho tells the poor woman what he is come for; adding, "Vous avez un quart d'heure pour vous préparer à la mort, madame!" There is something in this which shows that M. Hugo, notwithstanding he has some odd décousu notions, is aware of the respect which ought to be paid to married ladies, beyond what is due to those who are not so. When the Podesta announced the same intention to his wife, he says--"Vous avez devant vous une heure, madame." At the Vaudeville, however, they give another turn to this variation in the time allowed under circumstances so similar: they say-- "Catarina eut une heure au moins de son mari: Le tems depuis tantôt est donc bien renchéri." The unfortunate Tisbe, on receiving this communication from her dear Rodolpho, exclaims--"Ah! vous me tuez! Ah! c'est la première idée qui vous vient?" Some farther conversation takes place between them. On one occasion he says--like a prince as he is--"Mentez un peu, voyons!"--and then he assures her that he never cared a farthing for her, repeating very often, because, as he says, it is her _supplice_ to hear it, that he never loved anybody but Catarina. During the whole scene she ceases not, however, to reiterate her passionate protestations of love to him, and at last the dialogue ends by Rodolpho's stabbing her to the heart. I never beheld anything on the stage so utterly disgusting as this scene. That Mademoiselle Mars felt weighed down by the part, I am quite certain;--it was like watching the painful efforts of a beautiful racer pushed beyond its power--distressed, yet showing its noble nature to the last. But even her exquisite acting made the matter worse: to hear the voice of Mars uttering expressions of love, while the ruffian she addresses grows more murderous as she grows more tender, produced an effect at once so hateful and so absurd, that one knows not whether to laugh or storm at it. But, what was the most terrible of all, was to see Mars exerting her matchless powers to draw forth tears, and then to look round the house and see that she was rewarded by--a smile!