LUC. How foolishly you talk; how ill you choose your time to joke! My heart is full of grief. If ever fate wills it that this false lover,--but I am in the wrong to conceive at present any such expectation; for Heaven has been too well pleased to afflict me to put it in my power to be revenged on him,--but if ever a propitious fate, I say, should cause Éraste to come back to me, and lay down his life as a sacrifice at my feet, as well as declare his sorrow for what he has done to-day, I forbid you, above all things, to speak to me in his favour. On the contrary, I would have you show your zeal by setting fully before me the greatness of his crime; if my heart should be tempted ever to degrade itself so far, let your affection then show itself; spare me not, but support my anger as is fit. MAR. Oh! do not fear! leave that to me; I am at least as angry as you; I would rather remain a maid all my life than that my fat rascal should give me any inclination for him again. If he comes... SCENE V.--MARINETTE, LUCILE, ALBERT. ALB. Go in, Lucile, and tell the tutor to come to me; I wish to have a little talk with him; and as he is the master of Ascanio, find out what is the cause that the latter has been of late so gloomy. SCENE VI.--ALBERT, _alone_. Into what an abyss of cares and perplexities does one unjust action precipitate us. For a long time I have suffered a great deal because I was too avaricious, and passed off a stranger for my dead son. When I consider the mischief which followed I sincerely wish I had never thought of it. Sometimes I dread to behold my family in poverty and covered with shame, when the deception will be found out; at other times I fear a hundred accidents that may happen to this son whom it concerns me so much to preserve. If any business calls me abroad, I am afraid of hearing, on my return, some such melancholy tidings as these: "You know, I suppose? Have they not told you? Your son has a fever; or he has broken his leg or his arm." In short, every moment, no matter what I do, all kinds of apprehensions are continually entering into my head. Ha! SCENE VII.--ALBERT, METAPHRASTUS. MET. _Mandatum tuum euro diligenter_. [Footnote: "I hasten to obey your order."] ALB. Master, I want to... MET. Master is derived from _magis ter_; it is as though you say "thrice greater." ALB. May I die if I knew that; but, never mind, be it so. Master, then... MET. Proceed. ALB. So I would, but do not proceed to interrupt me thus. Once more, then, master, for the third time, my son causes me some uneasiness. You know that I love him, and that I always brought him up carefully. MET. It is true: _filio non potest praeferri nisi filius_. [Footnote: "To a son one can only prefer a son." An allusion to an article of feudal law.]