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Murderer! Murderer!
He's lurking! Where? In thin air?
He wears a cloak of magic, flies through the air!
Creeps under the earth?
Monster who strikes by night!
And all of us are suspect, slinking and hiding,
hugging the walls, skulking in holes.
Like specks of dust, on our own. Together we are strong:
one head, one eye, united, one strong arm!
Here we stand:
no less than Paris herself!
And when a body lay cold and lifeless in the street...
Our anger struck at ourselves.
And when we whine over the murderers creeping among us
we pity only ourselves.
Murderer!
Someone here, one of us! Seize him
and let him be hurled aloft like a ball!
We've caught you, you lone wolf.
You're sorry now! Too late!
How many have fallen as victims? Ten, thirty, hundreds?
He's just a baby, weaned on milk, not blood.
Kneel down here! You're guilty,
so confess.
He doesn't speak,
not a word?
He's deaf and dumb.
That laugh betrays you!
We'll hand you over
to the judges,
to the hangman!
He's mad!
Everywhere we see them!
You! Yes, you there!
No, you, it's you, you others!
Our knives are out to slash you!
We've stones to crush you!
Roll on the day when that lot are ten feet under!
We'll be laughing when the sun shows us that lot are buried.
High up above you,
his mind bent on order,
decreeing, enforcing,
remember, sits the king.
Go tell the king to...
The king is not told:
he does the telling.
Promulgation of a new court of justice:
ordeal by slow burning.
When fathers are poisoned by their own children
then we investigate with ordeal by slow burning.
When a jealous lover goes to a sorceress
and she presses an image in wax of his lady
and then pierces the image
so that his lady, although far away, will writhe in agony
they're put to ordeal by slow burning.
When robbers attack men bearing gems and run them through in dark alleyways
the new decree allots to them the torments of ordeal by slow burning.
Now all is normal.
Back to our work.
Be still!
The goldsmith, mighty man,
whom our disgrace has tainted!
Bow down! Clear the way, let him pass!
Cardillac!
Who was that man they honour like a god?
It wasn't Vulcan, quite,
but still a master of metal:
Cardillac.
His work surpasses anything in all the world,
yes, even in Florence.
At court I have heard him mentioned.
But still, one likes to see such splendid things with one's own two eyes.
Such splendid things as you cannot be seen too often.
Your lips, a graceful curve like Cupid's bow, taut and aimed at the target
and yet it is the eye that fires the arrow.
I felt the honour the people paid him had pity in it, too?
The brooches, the finely chased cluster earrings
that he's beaten in gold
or moulded in silver:
all of that is stained with blood.
With blood?
A customer comes to Cardillac,
leaves with a jewel, carries it proudly.
Suddenly his blood runs cold, there's thunder in the air,
an evil presence rises at his back.
The jewel still holds him by its beauty. He's slow and feeble,
reacting far too late.
Hardly two paces, a knife
is plunged into his neck.
The killer takes the jewel
and like a vulture that soars into the air
he's simply gone.
The town's ridden with crime of every kind.
But nothing else is quite as strange and eerie.
It seems that all our thieves have put their heads together
and are watching over Monsieur Cardillac.
A client! Up goes the cry like an alarm call.
They're all alerted in a moment:
“Someone's bought a jewel. Now *** him!”
But who still dares to buy?
Cardillac's work has such a fascination. There's always someone new
to be the victim.
You love me?
More than my life.
What scares you most?
Nothing, no, not even death!
Then bring me what's finest in Cardillac's workshop!
Bring it to me tonight. You'll find my door is open
and the bow of my lips, the arrow from my eye are aimed straight at you alone.
O scales finely poised!
In the one scale, the night of love
and in the other scale, the night of death.
Nights of love are made of fleeting minutes
whereas the night of death hangs with the weight of dark eternity.
Are the murderers already alerted?
Are their ears pressed hard to the pavement?
Even now they're here as I run to my goal!
My heart is pointer, holding the balance.
Away then!
Get the gem and rush towards her bed
and the scale sinks, love has won the day and night has only joy in store.
Times soon goes by,
this rose is dead.
The cool night air comes sighing round my bed.
If he were here!
We'd know the way to leave this hollow world of day.
Pressed down by him, my limbs are free
to fall through darkness to eternity.
Dew on my brow! Flame in my blood!
In all my veins I feel a burning flood.
I faint with fire, yet feel each limb
ache for hotter fire that comes with him.
But nobody comes. The world is dead.
The cool night air is all that sighs round my bed.
Let sunlight enter!
The deepest darkness would be lighter than the mines
where gold lies sleeping.
But fire transforms you, you're melting!
And as you melt, so do I
and press my fingers in the golden lava,
force it to flow in channels.
You're ductile now, obedient.
You've still a way to go:
stay in my hands, close, for it is you I love
and I must hear you whisper your bidding in my ear.
Now for the acid test.
This is an alloy with ordinary metal.
You're the master. I'd never dare to argue.
Sir, I've brought a lot of samples for you to test and choose.
And why make the sign of the cross on entering?
Respect, sir.
You're a tower of strength, looming high over all other goldsmiths.
A lie! Your hands were trembling.
There is some evil spell at work.
Did you know it happened again last night? A man who bought a jewel from you...
- Was murdered? - Was murdered.
But may I say I know why your clients die off as if they'd caught the plague
and had only hours left them?
Now I'm curious, so have your say.
Your creations are no mortal works,
too splendid for the eyes of men.
A single glance and no more, then we die.
Anybody trying to keep them
soon finds he's holding fire and brimstone.
I'm certain he's working with Satan.
What I create is mine.
If I keep a watch on him in the night
I'll soon have proof that devils are serving him.
Daughter!
Watch over my treasures!
Soon my lover is coming here,
urging me to run away with him.
He's had his will
but now that won't suffice him.
He wants me roots and all: he longs to own the very air I breathe.
Ah, but my roots go deep into this house
and old times sing out and woo me from tables and chairs and walls.
I feel them round me like a gentle veil.
And how am I to tear the veil?
Can I bring myself to break away?
The coach is waiting.
When you kissed me last night you promised me you'd let me take you.
If I kiss you yet again
release me from my word.
How could anything come between us now?
Don't think you own me yet, all of me.
Another man, then? Who?
I'll go and kill him!
My father rules my life here.
When I told you last night I'd come
this house was empty.
Now you must decide
between me
and him.
Love in my heart sends me reeling on and you're my man.
And yet if I look back, he's the one.
Why talk about father or mother?
Love in my heart sends me reeling;
no looking back, then; only the voice I hear
that sets me free from all that's past.
Ah, you know how to love.
Don't be so cross with me. I'm a prisoner here.
You've no idea of him at all.
I often see him, bent over something he's making,
like God when he created the world.
But I'm the world to you.
When he has to part with a jewel how it hurts him!
I hear him sighing,
hurry to comfort him, to be near his chair. He's far away
and I must weep, knowing how little I can do.
I am a breath of wind. He is great.
However great, I'll beard him. I'll find a way to fight,
to wrest you from his arms and make him say you're mine now!
This I find worthy!
Oh, why *** your gold, not me?
Father,
I want to wed a man who is a stranger to you.
Many weeks now you've seemed to glow with love.
Father! Father!
How can I desert you?
Desert me? Am I so helpless and old?
My youth returns with every jewel I make. It wanes as they fade from view,
waxes as I work on a new one.
I'll bring him to you for you too will adore him.
We don't have to meet. He's yours and I bless you.
My father is so near and I am drawn to him.
My lover calls afar and I am riven...
Ah! Do not break, undecided, divided heart!
Here each of my gems has been made.
Here, too, shall the last one be born...
Bright as the day my lover appears to me,
shining in the blinding sunlight.
- ...links in a lifelong chain, - Velvet darkness shades my father's brow
- a chain I can hold and master, - and lures me with riddles
- and none of its links may be missing. - that no one can solve.
- Harsh joy - The springs of harsh joy
- of creative power - in my riven heart
- is all that drives my heart - are born of life
- and gives it fullness. - in all its fullness.
What I create is worthy of royalty.
Goblets of gold from distant seas,
rings, all shining, eager to blend with some gem,
bowls with a curved sensuous outline, fit to show the noblest fruit in.
Sire, would you come between us?
Already you command our land with woods and streams and cities
and all these jewels you see assembled here.
How I struggled
at this chain here.
To single it out would not be good.
My works all go together,
just like a sheaf of corn that's stacked within my soul.
Return it, I command you!
Sire, I spoke with presumption and humbly crave forgiveness...
You'd know!
Your Majesty knows all our problems!
That's not my best! I'll make a gem far finer,
bid it adieu,
present it in loyal homage to your throne!
Much more and I'd have killed him!
I should have had to kill him!
Numb! Worn to death!
Dank as clay when storms have soaked it!
My priceless one!
My darling!
Where have you been straying!
We searched and searched and we found each other.
You know me as I know you.
But you are tarnished, here's a spot: your soft angelic light is marred.
Who is this? What torture this time?
I demand the fairest jewel that you have.
Look, evening enfolds all my fair ones and lets them shine no more.
The twilight - welcome time of day! - is not the hour to choose one.
All the same, I have chosen
for I have seen your masterworks by day
and one has all my heart and I have hers.
Brighter than mountain lightning love flashed out between us.
You burst in here, a thief, wooing, wheedling.
What I adore is wholly mine already
and yet you are in our way.
Give me what I have won!
- Not I! - Your daughter!
My daughter? That child,
naive as the day and free as the air,
smiling, made for love alone?
My daughter, sir, she is yours.
To give like this is pretence.
Though they're invisible the leading strings are held by you.
Quick, this moment she's yours to take.
I'll call her.
You both are certain. Let your smouldering flame now blaze and make you one.
Are you not her father?
Do you not love her?
How could I love what is not entirely mine?
A woman veers, gives you her hand and heart,
yet her mind is somewhere else.
Each time she dreams at night she's far away.
These works I have created,
they are true.
All these, you love them, they are your family?
All my strength is drawn from them alone
and in return I give my strength to them.
And if perhaps you were to lose them?
That would be the end.
So the jewels give him all his power.
He trembles to think I could take them.
So his loss is my gain:
his daughter will soon be free, be mine alone.
This is my choice.
Sell me the chain here!
Ah, be kind, like a good son,
and let me keep the essence of my soul.
I know the way to disarm you.
When his weapon is gone I can deal with my enemy
for I will take your hand,
spare your life and make you my friend and equal then.
Rash and strange young man, lay down that chain while there's time.
The door stands open, go!
The chain will go with me!
- The battle is mine. - The battle often starts badly
- There's nothing in sight - but the first defeat
- that is worthy to stand in my way. - is what rouses my giant strength.
Should the world lay its foul hands on my work and me...
When the slaughter is over
- I ride silent in triumph, - ...I would easily quell it.
- the reins are loose in my hands, - We stand alone and defiant,
- for the victory's mine - myself
- and the night shines ahead! - and the works I have made.
I warn you once again
that fate threatens all those who purchase.
Death can come in many ways.
I'm still not afraid. I know about the murders
but I don't see any dreadful ghost chained to this jewellery.
Send a killer, a swarm of killers.
I'll fight my way through them.
You wait and see, sir!
You wait and see, sir!
Goodbye!
Let moonlight enter!
The deepest night would be lighter than the mines
where gold lies sleeping.
Yawning and empty,
see, part of my world made desert!
Be still, soul, be still!
Accept, try to forget
and keep your monstrous surging wings in check!
I'll form new blooms for the desert place,
lay hands on gold and shape it!
A new ring!
A new chain!
Where is the jewel they've stolen?
Mighty winds, carry me forth!
Storm! Storm!
I'll plunge into torrents of blood to win back what is mine!
Still I can hear that old eerie man.
Horror lurks about him and dreadful secrets.
All my life I never feared until today.
Can he, so helpless looking, have even so defeated me?
Away with all the horror
at jaundiced looks or threats of evil.
For one thing alone is real but one thing alone:
blazing fire lit by kisses,
body made over to the looter
and full capitulation.
The pit has opened! Let it swallow me up!
Fly, you white-haired madman! Your life is in mortal danger!
- I fear nothing. I remain here. - Only think of your daughter!
She is no part of my truest being.
- Think of your jewels! - They call me, I flee.
Drinkers, come to an *** of blood!
Sleepers, here you find your wildest dream!
Paris, you can breathe:
you're safe now, the terror's reached its end!
Cardillac was the murderer!
Find him! He's gone to earth in his workshop!
He drew a knife! Tore off his mask!
Showed his face, brazen and guilty,
just as I had thought.
I knew that such a lonely, hag-ridden man could not be trusted.
So now, tell your tale!
It was I who tore his mask off
and his face is engraved on my memory.
I know you are wrong!
That man there was posted in the darkness, helping him,
but when the *** failed set up a clamour.
Take him and charge him!
So Heaven wills that I shall go on working.
How can I believe my ears?
His power was superhuman when he attacked and fought me.
The eventide is yet to come...
- He truly seems possessed. - How can I believe my eyes?
- My heart was faint with dread. - The world is drunk
- and is making me its fool. - But how? And why?
I know the force of love and I am as possessed as he is.
But see, my lover,
the sudden ally of my father springs up like magic and all is well.
The eventide is yet to come...
...when I may fold my hands in sweet repose.
Let me kiss you where you're wounded.
Let your flowing blood run down into my heart.
Murderer, how I curse him!
Call back your curse!
I see it all in a flash!
Father leaning, with dagger drawn, over his helpless victim.
Now your world is in pieces, you are helpless, too.
We two must unite and find what all the horror means.
Was it mere *** for gems that he'd been loath to sell?
Or is it madness?
Rejoice that Cardillac honours us here.
Wine grows like gold from the depths of the earth.
Ignorant laughter. We know and tremble.
Yet all the horror gives me new hope.
I'm free at last from the rule of my father over my heart.
- Now you're wholly mine, - Now I see sun. My path is brighter.
wholly mine, undivided.
I'll kneel before you and let you guide me.
Your parents never ruled your heart so completely
and even death can have no greater hold on you.
The past is now a vanished world: gone are all my childish memories.
We chase the night away with drinking and singing!
We cast a spell to make the sun rise.
The world is darkling. Your joy is out of place.
Keep him among us, bear him aloft
and meanwhile torture will force the truth from that accomplice.
How could a man so slight become so strong and be so ruthless?
Don't say that he's strong.
He'd only kill when sheltered by darkness.
I must defend him since no one else can understand him.
Perhaps he is standing guard
over Cardillac's jewel as over the sacrament.
Why should you speak for such a man
who robs and kills his victims?
I myself have known
the urgent, overriding force I felt in him.
You mean you followed him, watched him and waited for your revenge?
Every day, every night!
You mean you knew him all along, the murderer?
I know him as well as myself.
Then throw him to the flames of ordeal by slow burning!
The secret dies with me.
What's in a name?
His deeds matter far more than he does.
The wheels are turning. Too late to stop them!
We want the truth. Paris is thirsting to know.
- Not I! - Is he perhaps a friend of yours?
It makes no odds for justice must be done.
Not I!
Until you've told all we'll hold you in our power!
You're speaking to Cardillac! Let me pass, to my workshop!
Wonderful golden visions burn to come true there.
- Gold and precious stones. - Gold and precious stones.
- Bringing ***. - Seeking succour.
- The fiend invented them! - The Lord is praised in them!
We'll go on ahead, we'll follow behind, we'll break in your doors.
Those goblets, earrings, dishes we'll hurl into the gutter
- Not there! Not there! - and stamp them to dust!
Must I see death lay hands on all my work while I have life left?
Say what you want, then!
Tell us: who is he?
The pit has opened, every fibre of my soul is trembling,
shrieks of the men I murdered!
Deadly pain! How to save...
Wait! Don't go!
Who was it hunted under cover of night,
wielding a dagger?
I did, I did!
I myself!
Don't you go near him!
Keep away! He is a monster!
- Stay! Stay! - Fly! Fly!
Joy of repossessing what is mine!
What made you stain your hands with blood?
All things created must rejoin the one who gave them life.
Did no one share your load of guilt?
Where should I find one worthy of a share?
Had you some secret making you strong?
My strength grew hundredfold when need arose.
So you confess that both young and old have been your victims?
Mere life means nothing. Soon it's over.
And would you have still gone on killing in nights to come?
Whoever braved me!
You're even boasting of evil done?
I'd boast of all my works before God's throne.
Kneel down repenting!
I stay as I am made!
Earth,
swallow what you spewed forth!
Stay your hands!
It was I whom he attacked and so nearly murdered.
Why, then, people, take it upon yourselves to be his judge?
How blind you are!
A sacred madness claimed him for its own.
Awake! Awake!
For we know everything and love you all the more.
Deathly darkness, deepest night...
- A hero died. - Give me your hand.
...spreads out her mantle and all is nothing.
- Hold me here on earth, to go on living, - Fear of men
- born again through your love. - he never knew.
With surging wings he flew through the fire...
And though he lies here yet he's the victor.
I truly envy him.
...and sinks once more to rest...
...in the silent, timeless cool of mother earth.
Deathly darkness.