Like a wise and modest man who stands erect amidst drunkards? Ah! Ah! I see and I know! Alas! I see! I see and I understand! THE FOURTH WATCHER: We salute you, O beauty! We salute you, reproach! O Notary of the dying, now you are drawing near us bearing your book and scroll. THE PRINCESS: Truly, I pity you! THE FOURTH WATCHER: Be sad, for we are sad. _(The nightingale sings again._ THE PRINCESS: I am not sad! The nightingale sings and I will also sing! Let him sing and I will sing also! And my voice shall be uplifted like the piping of a flute, Higher, louder, enfolding the city and the night. I will sing and cast away all bounds and all restraint! The bird sings in the summer and is silent in the winter, but I will sing in the chill and bitter air, and when all is frozen I will rise, drunk with ecstasy, towards the naked heavens! For my voice is that of love and in my heart is the fire of youth. _(She opens her mouth as if about to sing._ THE FOURTH WATCHER: Be silent! THE PRINCESS: You do not wish me to sing? THE FOURTH WATCHER: Be silent! THE PRINCESS: Then I will talk to you and will not sing.... Did you think I had gone away? In truth I was always with you. And I will not tell you who I am, for you know it and do not forget. Every woman is only a mother. I am she who rears and nourishes, And entreating you for yourselves in the sacred name of pity, Receive from you for her portion A boundless labor hard to undertake! But because I do not speak with your speech you despise me. And you did not think to see me; but at last I have shown myself! THE THIRD WATCHER: Is it you? THE PRINCESS (_after silently contemplating them_): O fools! Fools! What shall I say? What shall I leave unsaid? Did you believe that you could hide from me? I penetrate to the bottom of your souls. Nothing is hidden in obscuring shadow. And you will not always be able To steal away from me like a thief of the night. What have you done? How have you fled from me? I could call to each of you By his name and summon him to stand and face me, And one by one I could recount his acts, Showing his deeds of folly and how he had sinned Through his own fault and not the fault of another, So that before me he would be like a man who gives himself up for lost. O presumptuous fool! O vile and brazen companion! O horrible and ridiculous violence! You have rebuffed me and have thrust me forth, but to-day I shall call you to account and you shall answer me! I shall call you to account with a sharp and piercing voice, and it shall pass through your heart like a sword! And I shall be harder and more bitter to you than a shrew to her husband! THE FOURTH WATCHER: What could we do? THE THIRD WATCHER: Shall we shriek before you like mandrakes? Shall we cause the moon to tremble with our cries, more dreadful than the shrieks of the murderer caught in the clutches of the law? THE FIRST WATCHER: With what does she reproach us?