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"Chi e?" said the porter. "Son io, Sansone." We heard a movement of consternation within the castle and then Samson called out "Aprite." There was more consternation and the voice of Pasquino or Onofrio was heard speaking in dialect which made the audience laugh. The castle sent a messenger who came on and asked what Samson wanted.
Samson came on alone with his jawbone, and stood silent, very terrible, and waiting for an opportunity to break out. The silence was prolonged. Nothing happened. It was a pause of expectation. Then we heard a voice, a solemn, cavernous voice with a vibrato like a cinematograph, calling loud and slow "Sansone, Sansone, Sansone!"
"Whose voice is that?" exclaimed Samson, looking round and seeing no one. The voice repeated its call two or three times and at last Samson recognized it. "E la voce del mio genitore." "Sansone, Sansone, Sansone! In questa torre sono incarcerato." Then Samson understood that Manoah had been arrested and imprisoned and must be delivered. He approached the castle and knocked.
"Andiamo, andiamo," said the soldiers, but the jubilant paladin could not resist the temptation to stop the soldiers and make a taunting speech which amounted to "Here is the end of all your rage, O Sansone!"
Then several messengers came, sometimes singly, sometimes two together, and once four soldiers came and said "Va via, Sansone," but they only got themselves into trouble, for he took them all up and threw them back into the castle and we heard each of them fall separately. "Aprite," said Samson, "datemi il mio genitore." Then there came a comic dwarf; Samson looked at him scornfully, and saying
Samson listened with great forbearance and, when it was his turn, replied in a speech full of dignity, containing a great deal about gloria and vendetta and the weight of his chains and il cuore di Sansone, and he threatened them over and over again, and struggled and shook himself and made great efforts to get free, so that the soldiers shrank back.
Trumpets sounded, the piano struck up, the operators stamped with their clogged feet, the audience applauded and there were calls for "Sansone," but it was not a moment for responding to calls. Soldiers came on one by one and Samson knocked them down; they came two by two and he knocked them down; they came three by three and he knocked them down.
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