You must try again! You give in too soon: that’s not the way to obtain what one wants! If you had let me go with you, as I implored you, he would have ended by yielding, I know he would! After all, he may be a German, but he’s a man, for all that! Come along. I want to go with you. If you won’t come, I’ll go alone! OTTO It’s no use, he won’t see us. ISABELLE Did you say all there was to say? You have influence in Germany; your family is rich and powerful; you’ve told me so again and again. You must frighten him, make him feel uneasy, threaten him, anything! OTTO Threaten him! You don’t realize; you don’t know what things are. I saw that his patience was exhausted.... But I haven’t told you everything. There’s something else, something worse. ISABELLE Something worse? Worse than what? What can be worse than death? OTTO Yes, he has discovered something worse; and perhaps it is not his fault. He is, as we all are, the slave of discipline and of the military regulations. He does not like me as much, perhaps, as he liked von Schaunberg, for I don’t belong to his class. But I do not believe that he wishes me any ill. He was always a little distant to me, perhaps, but on the whole, up to now, he has been very just. He is not a bad sort of man; he is one of our most humane officers; but what he wants to make me do is terrible. ISABELLE But what is it, what? There is nothing more for us to fear. Nothing worse can happen than what has happened already. He is not going to revive torture, I suppose? Does he want more victims? There are no lives more precious than our father’s. Does he want you and me? I would rather have that. We will all die together. Of what good will life be, after this? OTTO He does not ask for other victims, but his orders are.... No, I can’t say it, I daren’t say it, to you! ISABELLE But what is it that he wants? Do speak, speak, tell us! Why all this mystery? What can you say, worse than already is? If I lose my father, I shall have nothing left to lose. THE BURGOMASTER She is right; it is cruel of you to keep her on tenterhooks like this. You see how upset she is. Say what you have to say; tell us. You cannot add much to what we know already. OTTO You are right. Very well, he orders, he demands that I myself shall command the firing-party. ISABELLE The firing-party, the men who are to shoot my father? OTTO Yes. FLORIS The scoundrel, the villain! ISABELLE