While the two are talking they hear the Count approaching, and
Susanna hastily hides Cherubino behind a large arm-chair. The Count
comes to offer Susanna a dowry if she will consent to meet him that
evening, but she will have nothing to say to him. Basilio, the
music-master, now enters, and the Count has only just time to slip
behind Cherubino's arm-chair, while the page creeps round to the front
of it, and is covered by Susanna with a cloak. Basilio, while repeating
the Count's proposals, refers to Cherubino's passion for the Countess.
This arouses the Count, who comes forward in a fury, orders the
immediate dismissal of the page, and by the merest accident discovers
the unlucky youth ensconced in the arm-chair. As Cherubino has heard
every word of the interview, the first thing to do is to get him out of
the way. The Count therefore presents him with a commission in his own
regiment, and bids him pack off to Seville post-haste. Figaro now
appears with all the villagers in holiday attire to ask the Count to
honour his marriage by giving the bride away. The Count cannot refuse,
but postpones the ceremony for a few hours in the hope of gaining time
to prosecute his suit. Meanwhile the Countess, Susanna, and Figaro are
maturing a plot of their own to discomfit the Count and bring him back
to the feet of his wife. Figaro writes an anonymous letter to the Count,
telling him that the Countess has made an assignation with a stranger
for that evening in the garden, hoping by this means to arouse his
jealousy and divert his mind from the wedding.
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