Out-of-characterness warning!
Elisabeth:
I hope this is not going to be like the Takarazuka. I'm hardly myself in the Takarazuka.
Ficwriter:
You will hardly be yourself in this one as well. You're supposed to be Lady Anne.
Elisabeth:
But I don't want to be Lady Anne.
Ficwriter:
That's all right, Lady Anne is hardly herself in this fic, either...
ELISABETH (in grief):
Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
Oh, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous.
On the contrary, he was sullen, wild, and lecherous.
Foul devil, for God's sake hence, and trouble us not,
For thou hast made the happy Austro-Hungary thy hell,
Filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.
TOD (pleads innocently):
Lady, you know no rules of charity,
Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
Say that I slew him not.
ELISABETH:
Then say he was not slain.
But dead he is, and devilish slave, by thee.
TOD:
I did not kill your son.
ELISABETH:
Why, then he is alive.
Nay, he is dead, and slain by Marie's hands.
ELISABETH:
In thy foul throat thou liest. Marie Vetsera saw
Thy murdr'ous pistol smoking in his blood.
Did thou not kill this prince?
TOD:
I grant ye.
ELISABETH:
Dost grant me, h... Heinrich? Then God grant me too
Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed.
TOD:
Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
Of these Habsburgs, Sophie and Rudolf,
As blameful as the executioner?
ELISABETH:
Thou wast the cause and most accursed effect.
Your beauty was the cause of that effect:
Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep
To undertake the death of all the world,
So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
ELISABETH:
Out of my sight. Thou dost infect mine eyes.
TOD:
Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword,
Which if thou please to hide in this true breast
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke
And humbly beg death upon my knee.
TOD:
Nay, do not pause, for I did shoot Prince Rudolf,
But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.
Nay, now dispatch; 'twas I that killed young Sophie,
But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
ELISABETH (incredulously):
Is this a... my letter opener I see before me?
Now that you mention it... how it came to be in my possession, I do not know.
(He takes out a pistol from his pocket)
And I also have a pistol I picked up from the Ungarns for some reason...
Oh happy pistol!
(She snatches the pistol and starts shooting Death, who dodges)
This is thy target.
Take that, and that.
If all this will not do,
I' ll drown you in the malmsey butt within.
TOD (Climbs out from the Malmsey barrel and starts running away at a high speed, with Elisabeth following closely):
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!
Bear with me. I am hungry for revenge,
And now I cloy me with exacting it...
(Blackout while more screams and shots are heard...)