SCENE 3.1: AN APARTMENT IN THE CENCI PALACE. LUCRETIA, TO HER ENTER BEATRICE. BEATRICE [SHE ENTERS STAGGERING AND SPEAKS WILDLY]: Reach me that handkerchief!--My brain is hurt; My eyes are full of blood; just wipe them for me... I see but indistinctly... LUCRETIA: My sweet child, You have no wound; 'tis only a cold dew That starts from your dear brow.--Alas! Alas! _5 What has befallen? BEATRICE: How comes this hair undone? Its wandering strings must be what blind me so, And yet I tied it fast.--Oh, horrible! The pavement sinks under my feet! The walls Spin round! I see a woman weeping there, _10 And standing calm and motionless, whilst I Slide giddily as the world reels...My God! The beautiful blue heaven is flecked with blood! The sunshine on the floor is black! The air Is changed to vapours such as the dead breathe _15 In charnel pits! Pah! I am choked! There creeps A clinging, black, contaminating mist About me...'tis substantial, heavy, thick, I cannot pluck it from me, for it glues My fingers and my limbs to one another, _20 And eats into my sinews, and dissolves My flesh to a pollution, poisoning The subtle, pure, and inmost spirit of life! My God! I never knew what the mad felt Before; for I am mad beyond all doubt! _25 [MORE WILDLY.] No, I am dead! These putrefying limbs Shut round and sepulchre the panting soul Which would burst forth into the wandering air! [A PAUSE.] What hideous thought was that I had even now? 'Tis gone; and yet its burthen remains here _30 O'er these dull eyes...upon this weary heart! O, world! O, life! O, day! O, misery! LUCRETIA: What ails thee, my poor child? She answers not: Her spirit apprehends the sense of pain, But not its cause; suffering has dried away _35 The source from which it sprung... BEATRICE [FRANTICLY]: Like Parricide... Misery has killed its father: yet its father Never like mine...O, God! What thing am I? LUCRETIA: My dearest child, what has your father done?