"Elisabeth."
"Enough!" she screams, a piercing scream. Her face, once so very beautiful, pale and twisted now, her body weak and skin and bones.
"Enough! Leave me alone! Haven't you tormented me enough? You take everything away from me! My sister, my daughter, my son. Am I not enough for you? Well look, you can get me! Take pity on me, and take me. Free me. I beg you."
After all these years, after all this suffering, this is the last straw for her. Her son, her Rudolf and he, always he, with his eternal presence, his sharp gaze, his taunting smile.
They have had everything, everything but this: the fairytale meeting, the bridal dance, shared for better and for worse. Only the kiss rests them, de fist and the last one, the liberation.
And he denies her this. After everything, everything he has done to her, everything he has taken away from her, how many times he has made this proposal, has pestered her with nightmarish visions, lust, his company, and now he rejects her.
"No. Not like this, not now. I don't want you, I don't need you." He throws her words back at her face, as a smack in the face, and she falls, she collapses, spent, without any courage left.
And for the first time, for the very first time, the only time that she longs for him so deeply and begs and calls him—
He leaves her alone.
