THE MOTHER'S TRAGEDY 21
ULRIC.
Stop! stop! I did not hear you. O my God!
What agony is this? What have I done
To earn this infamy? Or rather, Thou,
What have I not done? Have Thou pity yet;
Sustain me in this vile extremity!
[He prays silently.
CORA, watching him.
How wonderful! He will abide the shock.
Death and mute horror fight within his face
Against a will made masterful to Fate.
ULRIC razses his eyes and lifts hts arm in act
to strike.
Then I detest you! Mother! Treacherous!
Vile as the worm that battens on the dead!
CORA.
Ulric! He’s mad! Sweet heaven! what is this ?
[CORA zs now hysterical, ULRIC does not notice.
She shrieks at each new insult.
ULRIC.
Say rather, what are you? I loved you once
Childlike; then came the power of reasoning,
And | beheld you, the unselfish one,
Befriending me, the angel of of my life.
See what it rested on, my happiness !
Your sacrifice is utter selfishness ;