Does that bear reference to yourself in any way? STALINO Pshaw! PARDALISCA What business have you with her? STALINO I made a mistake; him, the bailiff, I meant to say. PARDALISCA It’s on purpose It’s on purpose : She hints by this that she well knows what his thoughts are, and that really it is no mistake on his part; but that he is designedly deviating from the open path of rectitude, and turning aside into the bye-paths of lust and duplicity. that you are turning aside from the high road into bye-paths. STALINO Does she threaten anything against myself? PARDALISCA She is hostile to you individually more than any person. STALINO For what reason? PARDALISCA Because you have given her as a wife to Olympio; she says that she’ll neither suffer your life, nor her own, nor that of her husband, to be prolonged until the morrow. I have been sent hither to tell you this, that you might beware of her. STALINO (aside.) By my troth, to my misery I’m quite undone! There neither is nor ever was any old man in love so wretched as I. PARDALISCA (aside, to the AUDIENCE.) Don’t I play him off cleverly? For everything that I’ve been telling him as taking place, I’ve been telling him falsely. My mistress and she who lives next door have concocted this scheme. I’ve been sent to fool him. STALINO Hark you, Pardalisca! PARDALISCA What is it? STALINO There is — PARDALISCA What? STALINO There is something that I want to enquire of you about. PARDALISCA You are causing me delay. STALINO Why, you are causing me sorrow. But has Casina got that sword even still? PARDALISCA She has; but two of them. STALINO Why two? PARDALISCA She says that this very day she’ll murder you with the one, the bailiff with the other. STALINO I am now the most utterly murdered of all people that do exist. I’ll put on me a coat of mail; I think that’s the best. What did my wife do? Didn’t she go and take them away from her? PARDALISCA No person dares go near her. STALINO She should have prevailed on her. PARDALISCA She is entreating her. She declares that assuredly she will lay them down on no other terms, unless she understands that she shall not be given to the bailiff. STALINO But whether she likes it or no, because she refuses, she shall marry him this day. For why shouldn’t I carry this out that I’ve begun, for her to marry me?—that, indeed, I didn’t intend to say—but, our bailiff? PARDALISCA You’re making your mistakes pretty often.