Cut scenes

One of my interesting but ultimately failed attempts to make Don Pizarro more evil. Also, an attempt to replace a fairly graphic torture scene with something more psychological. This doesn't work for a number of reasons. See if you can guess why.

Note: This scene picks up in Chapter Fourteen: Pizarro just smothered Florestan nearly to death because the latter tried to provoke him into speaking by insulting him. It’s been about a month since that event; Florestan is mainly healed, although Rocco is still worried about him and hopes that Pizarro will leave him alone for the foreseeable future. If you still have the document, it’s page 94. Remember that at this point, Leonora is already working at the prison.

*
Florestan lay on his straw bed, nursing his head. The pain had come back during the night, the familiar pins and needles pricking at his hands, then becoming a dull ache behind his left eye until the migraine spread with a pulsing pain through his entire head. He lay there for hours, wrapped in his blanket, until the pain finally receded. Sleep had come over him finally, always a relief after an attack. It was only when the jailer entered with his breakfast that Florestan opened his eyes, woken by the man’s noise.

“How are you this morning?” the jailer asked.

“Bad,” Florestan whispered, sitting up. The room tilted around him and he splayed his hands out until it righted itself. Turning his head caused his neck to crack and pop, releasing a wave of dizziness. He lay back down.

The jailer bent over him, frowning. “You have had one of your headaches?”

“Yes,” Florestan said. “May I have water?”

The jailer gave him the tin cup. Florestan drank, and when he was finished, the room did not spin about so. He ate his breakfast, looking forward to being left alone to sleep again. But the jailer was frowning, his face angry and sorrowful, and Florestan realized with a lurch of fear that that man would be coming again.

“Can you not tell him that I am ill?” he begged.

“You know it doesn’t matter to him. He doesn’t care about you, and there is nothing I can do to prevent him. It is not worth my family to try.”

Florestan sighed. If he were in the jailer’s position, would he help a man such as himself? He did not know now. His certainties were gone. He rolled onto his knees and let the jailer chain his hands and tie the blindfold.

“Do not ask him questions,” the man said. “Do not speak to him. Do nothing to provoke him, because I cannot intervene to save you again. Do you hear me? Bear this in silence. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Florestan whispered. “I won’t say anything.”

“Good,” the jailer replied. For a moment, Florestan felt the old man’s hand resting on his head in a silent blessing. And then he was gone, taking the remains of Florestan’s breakfast with him. Florestan listened to his footsteps retreating up the stairwell, biting his lip and rocking. The memory of being unable to breathe consumed him; he drew in great gulping breaths and whimpered in the darkness.

“Help me in my hour of need; I am so helpless and alone. Protect me from my enemy…”

The sound of footsteps filled the stairwell outside. Florestan gave a sob. He could not bear this. He could not bear to be hurt again, not now, not ever. There was more than one man coming to him-surely not the jailer? He was not so cruel as to join in Florestan’s punishment. Do not speak. Do not say a word.

They entered the dungeon, came to stand over Florestan. He could feel them standing there, watching him. Do not beg. Do not make a sound.

“Well now, señor, are you enjoying your stay with us?” Florestan started; he had not expected the man to speak. He did not recognize the voice.

“I am not your enemy,” the man continued. “I’m just an inquisitor here. I come bearing news from my master, though, news concerning your family. You see, my master has realized that there is only so much that he can do to you before you die. You have insulted him, señor, very foolishly, and you have not learned your lesson. Is that not right, my lord?”

There was a shifting sound, and Florestan realized that whoever his captor was, he was here now, watching this. He bit his lip, hard. They had news of his family? Oh no, oh please no…

“I have a letter for you, señor, from my master.” The rustling of paper. “My dear señor,

“When I brought you here, I thought that you would soon realize how powerless you are against me. Your actions last month have proven otherwise, and I realized that I must take steps to ensure that you realize the true level of your helplessness. Beating you senseless, I understood, would only go so far. What, I wondered, would be a fitting punishment for a man so arrogant as yourself?

The solution was in fact quite simple. You have a family, señor, three children and a pretty wife. They have been mourning you as dead this last year. I realized that they would want news of their father, and so I took myself to Seville last week. It was easy enough to pay one of your servants to drug his fellows, so that they all slept heavily that night. When they were asleep, I took myself into your home. I woke your wife and children, and I told them that you were alive. And then I killed them.”

The air went out of Florestan as swiftly as though he had been kicked in the guts. He gasped at the men. The reader went on, inexorable.

“It was easy enough to do. What power did a woman and three children have against me? Nothing. They begged for mercy, of course, but they knew that you were alive, and they knew me, and so they could not live. I assure you, it was a fast death for each of them. A swift cut to the neck, and they were gone. They screamed and cried and begged for you, but they could not overpower me. I started with your oldest girl and ended with your wife. She did not protest when it came to her turn. Such a pretty woman. I have to admit that I enjoyed her as it was only your right to. She did not fight me. She was dead long before I cut her throat.

“I don’t think that you will fight me anymore. There is nothing left for you, my dear señor. Remember this lesson.”

Florestan fell forward onto his face. He couldn’t breathe. He could see them, his beautiful family, being murdered. Had they all been dragged into the bedroom? Had Leonora tried to shield them from the monster? Had she cursed him as each of their children had died, cursed him for being an arrogant fool? He cried out, horror coursing through him. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh why? Why?” They couldn’t be dead, not his darling family! He writhed on the floor, moaning. Not his Leonora. Not his children. Murdered. Dead. His wife and all his pretty ones. The reader shoved the letter into Florestan’s bound hands. The cell door opened and shut and locked. He was alone.

Oh, God, take me, too. I can’t-my family-take me. Take me, please. He killed them. He cut their throats. He raped my wife. Let me die. Let me join them. I should have been the one to die. They were innocent. Take me, take me…

Florestan sagged there, moaning, his face pressing against the stone floor. Dead. Dead. He could not breathe. Guilt such as he had never before felt welled up inside him. He had done this thing to them. He had as good as put the knife to their throats by pursuing his investigations. If he had not been such an idealist, if he had not been so foolish, they would not be dead now. His wife and all his little ones. He could see them; see the terror in their eyes. Had the children watched each other being killed? Had Leonora shielded their eyes? Florestan whimpered. Their final moments played before his eyes, made awful by the monster’s words. Leonora had wanted to die after the children were gone. She was gone. It was over.

“He did not hurt you!” the jailer exclaimed. Florestan had not heard him enter the cell, and did not acknowledge him now. He pounded his head against the floor, wanting to die. The jailer unlocked his arms, and pulled the blindfold away, and Florestan could not move. He put his hands over his face, bit his fingers, keened in misery and grief.
“What did they do to you?” the jailer asked. Florestan shook his head. The monster’s letter was in his hand-he had touched it, the man who had murdered his family! Florestan cast it away from himself, spat on his hands and scrubbed them against his jacket. He pulled his shirt over his face, trying to hide. Murdered. Murdered.

The jailer got up and took the letter up. He smoothed it out and read, frowning. Florestan heard him gasp, and wailed. “He killed-he killed-”

“Oh, my God,” the jailer breathed, horror in his voice.

Florestan couldn’t look at him. All he wanted was death. His family was dead. Gasping, he dragged himself across the floor to his blanket, and pulled it over his head. He had to hide. He could not bear this. Florestan wormed his way into the tightest corner, curling into himself, the blanket over his head. Die. Die.

The jailer came to him, and gently pulled the blanket away. “Look at me. Look at me. Did he speak to you?” Florestan shook his head. “Listen to me. This letter says that he went to Seville last week. But he has not left this prison in well over a month. It is impossible for him to leave without my knowing. Do you understand?”

But Florestan could not understand him. A haze of horror fell over him, muffling the jailer’s words. His family was dead. Florestan whimpered and rocked, trying to pull the blanket back over his head, but the jailer wouldn’t let him. He felt the jailer take his arm, felt the coarseness of a linen bandage winding itself around his hands. The jailer was speaking, but he could not understand. He could not move his hands; they were cocooned in a shroud of fabric. He could not hang himself without his hands. He was trapped here forever now.

“Listen to me. He did not leave the prison this month,” the jailer said again, and Florestan knew that he was lying. He cried out in grief and rage. The jailer took firm hold of his sabotaged hands. “Requiem æternam: Requiem æternam Doña ei Domine; et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen,” he murmured.

Florestan turned away and pulled his blanket over his head. There was nothing to live for anymore. Nothing. It was over. Surely it was over now.