The Falcon

SCENE V.

CLITIE, ELEONORE fumbles everywhere, looks at a few prints, finally lifts a curtain above a small, well-polished wooden table with antique turned legs: on this table are four pots of flowers.

CLITIE, looks at the room.

After a vast fortune
He is reduced to this state!
This is his only reward,
This is the fruit of his love;

And would I still have the audacity,
I would ask him to his face,
For me, to deprive himself of a benefit,
Perhaps dear to one who has nothing left?

It seems that heaven attaches me
To his footsteps to torment him:
In this retreat he hides himself,
And I come here to persecute him.

After a fortune, etc.

ELEONORE lifts that curtain, behind which is the portrait of Clitie dressed in rose color.
Ah Madame! ah, Madame, there is your portrait.

My portrait?

Look, see for yourself.

CLITIE, looking at it.

Unhappy Frédéric!

How could he have obtained it?

I do not know; but it is not from me that he has it.