The madman speaks.

The night is my sister. Do you know it? Hush.
The night is my sister.
Always she comes to seek and visit me
And to make sweet my sadness.
If you deny it, I’ll kill you. I have no longer
Any family save her…
My promised bride> She has left me and has gone
To live in another planet,
Far, very far. What do you wish? Poor child!
They carried her away by violence.
She had black eyes
Surrounded by dark violet circles
That were the twin of two abysses
Crowned with ivies:
Abysses deep, unfathomably deep,
From which the stars peered forth.
The night…I have already told you? Doubt it not,
The night is my sister.
See you not that she, like me, is clad in mourning?
When the night knew my bride
Had gone for ever, when she knew that I
Was perishing of grief,
She came and found my dwelling-place. “Come, friend,”
She said to me, “come, poet.”
Because I am a poet…What! You do not know?
You do not know, perhaps, my poem
Made up of laughters and of tears? a song
That bears her name?
No? It is best, is best! Ah! I have told you -
What have I told you? Yes, yes, that the night,
So sad and pale,
The n night so sad and so benign,
Is my sister.
See you not that she, like me is clad in mourning?
And see you not the stars that she possesses
Like me? If you should look into my soul
You will behold in the thick shadow
A swarm of luminous bees,
A splendor for the blaze of some bright fire.
Our origin is taken from the night
Whence I draw light and darkness.
Blackness of mourning and the dayspring’s gold,
Witness of Annunciation and Chimera.
Today I am happy. If you will not repeat it
To anyone, I’ll tell you why my sorrow
Is changed into this shining jubilation.
You will not tell? Then listen, then so be in:
Because the night will come in the end to bear me
To the far planet
Where my bride lives; because at last
I shall see in her eyes, in her serene
Eyes, oh! the sad
Eyes, oh! the sweet and tranquil
Eyes encircled
By violet -

(And the madman laughs and weeps, while a nun prays, running a rosary between her fingers.)

Twelve slow tolling of a bell are given.