Signore. What is that, Signora?
Prince Michael. Impossible!
Leonardo. What are you doing?
Imperia. [Firmly] He has committed suicide. In spite of everything you may know, in spite of everything you may discover, this is and will remain the truth.
Signore. But it is utterly out of the question. There is nothing whatever to indicate it.
Prince Michael. Come! We shall see…
Imperia. No! Hear me first. He was murdered; that is the truth—I was there; I saw it with my own eyes. But nobody can be held responsible for his death. If you attempt to investigate, to punish it, to lay bare the facts, the facts will become involved in falsehood, and calumny and infamy and lies will entangle us all in the crime, from those miscreants whose very faces betray the degeneracy of this contemptible Prince, to the Emperor of Suavia himself, who might very well have suborned an assassin to relieve himself of the incubus of such an heir to the crown,
Prince Michael. Infamous!
Signore. Signora!
Imperia. Yes, I was there—your mistress, the mistress of the heir to the throne! But nobody knows why I was there. I can accuse myself, I can accuse you. The Prince had his adherents in Suavia. The halo of martyrdom would set very well upon his brow. If you wish to undeceive the world, to proclaim the truth—very well. Proclaim it. And I will proclaim it, too. Let us tell the life that he led, expose his vices, his crimes, and fix a stain upon his memory, until the contempt and scorn of the world overwhelms you all, and the rest of his kind, partners in his infamies.
A Servant enters.
Servant. Your Highness…
