Haydée Arrives as Surprise Witness
Just as the committee appears ready to vote in Morcerf’s favor, the president announces a letter from someone claiming to be an important witness to events in Yanina. The committee agrees to hear the testimony. A woman enveloped in a large veil enters, accompanied by a servant. When the president asks her to unveil, she is revealed to be dressed in the Grecian costume and remarkably beautiful. Morcerf stares in terror, recognizing the fate about to befall him.
Haydée Reveals Her Identity as Ali Pasha’s Daughter
The young woman speaks with sweet melancholy and the sonorous voice peculiar to the East. Although only four years old at the time, she asserts that every detail remains vivid in her memory because her father’s life had depended on those events. Asked who she is, she replies that her father was Ali Tepelini, Pasha of Yanina, and her mother Vasiliki, his beloved wife. She declares: “I am Haydée, the daughter of Ali Tepelini, pasha of Yanina, and of Vasiliki, his beloved wife.”
Haydée Presents Evidence of Morcerf’s Betrayal
Asked to substantiate her claims, Haydée produces a perfumed satin satchel containing her birth register signed by her father and his principal officers, her baptismal record sealed by the grand primate of Macedonia and Epirus, and—most damning—the record of the sale of herself and her mother to the Armenian merchant El-Kobbir. She accuses the French officer, in an infamous bargain with the Porte, of reserving the wife and daughter of his benefactor as his share of the booty, selling them for four hundred thousand francs. A greenish pallor spreads over Morcerf’s cheeks, his eyes become bloodshot, and the assembly listens to these terrible imputations in ominous silence.
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