Three Plays: Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV, The Mountain Giants (Oxford World's Classics) (17 page)

FRIDA
. Not surprising. When he’s around. [
Indicating
BELCREDI
]

LADY MATILDA
[
quickly
]. Which is just why I didn’t want him to come.

BELCREDI
. But you made everyone laugh so much at my expense. Now there’s ingratitude!

DI NOLLI
. That’s enough, Tito, please. We have the doctor with us, and we’ve come for a very serious purpose; you know how much it matters to me.

DOCTOR
. That’s it, yes. First of all, let’s see if we can clarify a few points. This portrait of you, Marchesa, if you don’t mind; how did it get here? Did you give it to him as a present, back then?

LADY MATILDA
. No, no. What possible reason could I have had to do that? Back then I was like Frida is now, and not even engaged. I let him have it three or four years after the accident on the insistence of
his
mother. [
Indicating
DI NOLLI
]

DOCTOR
. Who was
his
sister. [
Pointing to the right exits and referring to
HENRY IV
]

DI NOLLI
. Yes, doctor: we’re paying a debt—coming here—a debt owed to my mother who passed away a month ago. Instead of being here, she [
indicating
FRIDA
] and I should be off travelling …

DOCTOR
. With your minds on very different matters. I understand.

DI NOLLI
. Anyway, she died with the firm conviction that her beloved brother was about to recover.

DOCTOR
. And could you tell me what signs induced her to think so?

DI NOLLI
. Obviously some strange things that he said to her, shortly before she died.

DOCTOR
. Something he said? Well, well … By Jove, it would be very useful, so useful if we could know what it was!

DI NOLLI
. Ah, that I don’t know. I know that Mother came back from that last visit very upset; Because it seems that he was unusually tender with her, as if he foresaw that she was about to die. On her deathbed she made me promise that I would never neglect him, that I would have him seen and examined.

DOCTOR
. Very well. Let’s see, first of all let’s see … So often the slightest causes … So that portrait …

LADY MATILDA
. For heaven’s sake, doctor, I don’t think we should give it such huge importance. It struck me like that because I hadn’t seen it for so many years.

DOCTOR
. Please, please, give me a minute …

DI NOLLI
. Of course. It’s been there about fifteen years …

LADY MATILDA
. More. More than eighteen, by now.

DOCTOR
. Please, if you don’t mind! You still don’t know what I want to ask. I attach considerable significance to these two portraits—both painted, I imagine, before that famous and catastrophic cavalcade; am I right?

LADY MATILDA
. Of course.

DOCTOR
. Therefore, when he was perfectly in his right mind—this is what I meant to say—Did he give you the idea of having it done?

LADY MATILDA
. No, doctor. Many of us who took part in the pageant had them done. As a memento.

BELCREDI
. I had mine done too, I was Charles of Anjou.
^*

LADY MATILDA
. As soon as the costumes were ready.

BELCREDI
. Because, you see, the original idea was to hang them all together, as a record of the occasion, in the drawing room of the villa where we had the pageant—like an art gallery. But then everyone wanted to keep his own.

LADY MATILDA
. And I gave up mine, as I said just now—without much regret—because his mother … [
Again indicating
DI NOLLI
]

DOCTOR
. You don’t know whether he asked for it himself?

LADY MATILDA
. Ah, that I don’t know. Maybe. Or else his loving sister thought it might help.

DOCTOR
. Another thing, another thing. Was the cavalcade his idea?

BELCREDI
[
quickly
]. No, no. It was mine, mine.

DOCTOR
. Go on …

LADY MATILDA
. Don’t listen to him. It was poor Belassi’s.

BELCREDI
. Belassi, my foot!

LADY MATILDA
[
to the
DOCTOR
]. Count Belassi who died two or three months after, poor fellow.

BELCREDI
. But if Belassi wasn’t even there when …

DI NOLLI
[
annoyed at the threat of another argument
]. Forgive me, doctor, but do we really need to establish whose idea it was?

DOCTOR
. Well, yes, it would help me.

BELCREDI
. But it was my idea! Oh, this is a good one! It’s not as if I’d be proud of it, considering the result. Look, doctor—I remember it very well—it was one evening early in November at the Club. I was looking through an illustrated magazine, a German one—just looking at the pictures, of course, because I don’t know any German. And in one picture there was the Emperor, visiting some university town where he’d been a student.

DOCTOR
. Bonn, Bonn.
^*

BELCREDI
. Bonn, that’s it. On horseback, dressed up in one of those strange traditional costumes of the ancient German student guilds; followed by a procession of other noble students, also mounted and in costume. I got the idea from that picture. Because you need to know that at the Club we were thinking of putting on some big pageant for the next Carnival. I proposed this historical cavalcade: historical in a manner of speaking; more like the Tower of Babel. Each of us was to choose a character from this or that century: king or emperor or prince, with his lady beside him, queen or empress, on horseback. The horses caparisoned, of course, according to the fashion of the period. And my proposal was accepted.

LADY MATILDA
. My invitation came from Belassi.

BELCREDI
. Breach of copyright, that’s what it was, if he told you it was his idea. I tell you he wasn’t even there that evening at the Club when I made the proposal. And come to that, neither was
he
! [
Referring to
HENRY IV
]

DOCTOR
. And so he chose the character of Henry IV?

LADY MATILDA
. Because of my choice. Given my name, and not thinking all that much about it, I said I wanted to be the Countess Matilda of Tuscany.

DOCTOR
. Sorry … I don’t quite see the connection.

LADY MATILDA
. Well, you know, neither did I at the beginning, when I heard him answer that in that case he’d be at my feet like Henry IV at Canossa. Yes, I knew something about Canossa, but, to be quite frank, I couldn’t remember the whole story. And when I brushed it up in preparation for my role, it felt strange to be cast as a faithful and zealous friend of Pope Gregory VII in his bitter struggle against the German empire. Then I understood why, since I had chosen to impersonate his most implacable enemy, he wanted to be by my side in the cavalcade as Henry IV.

DOCTOR
. Ah, because perhaps …

BELCREDI
. For heaven’s sake, doctor! Because he was courting her relentlessly, and she [
indicating the
MARCHESA
] naturally …

LADY MATILDA
[
stung, fiery
]. Naturally, exactly! Naturally! And more ‘naturally’ than ever in those days!

BELCREDI
[
with a demonstrative gesture
]. There you are: she couldn’t stand him.

LADY MATILDA
. It’s not true. I didn’t dislike him. Quite the contrary. But with me, as soon as someone wants to be taken seriously …

BELCREDI
[
completing the sentence
]. She takes it as the clearest proof of his stupidity.

LADY MATILDA
. No, dear, not in this case. He was nowhere near as stupid as you.

BELCREDI
. I’ve never tried to be taken seriously.

LADY MATILDA
. And don’t I know it! But with him it was no laughing matter. [
Changing tone and turning to the
DOCTOR
] One of the many misfortunes of us women, dear doctor, is to find ourselves every now and then looking into two eyes that hold an intense unspoken promise of everlasting love. [
She breaks into shrill laughter
] There’s nothing funnier! If only men could see themselves with that ‘everlasting’ in their eyes … It has always made me laugh like this! And especially then. But I must make a confession: I can make it now after twenty years and more.—When I laughed at him like that, it was also out of fear. Because perhaps a promise in those eyes could be believed. But it would have been very dangerous.

DOCTOR
[
with intense interest, concentrating
]. Yes, yes, I see—that’s what I would really like to know about. Very dangerous?

LADY MATILDA
[
lightly
]. Simply because he wasn’t like the others. And since I’m also … well, yes, after all … a bit like that … to be quite frank, more than a bit … [
looking for an understatement
] impatient, yes, impatient of everything that’s formal and stuffy! But then I was too young, you understand? And a woman. I had to rein myself in. It would have taken the kind of courage that I felt I didn’t have. So I laughed at him as well. With remorse. In fact, I was disgusted with myself when I saw that my laughter was no different from that of all the other fools who made fun of him.

BELCREDI
. More or less as they make fun of me.

LADY MATILDA
. You make people laugh with that humble look you always put on, my dear, while he was quite the opposite. There’s a big difference! And then with you, people laugh in your face.

BELCREDI
. Better than behind my back, I say.

DOCTOR
. Let’s get back to the subject, can we! So he already showed a bit of nervous excitement, if I’ve understood it right?

BELCREDI
. Yes, doctor, but in such a strange way!

DOCTOR
. How do you mean?

BELCREDI
. Well, I’d say … deliberately …

LADY MATILDA
. Deliberately—that’s nonsense! That’s the way he was, doctor: a bit strange, certainly, but only because he was full of life, so original.

BELCREDI
. I’m not saying he faked his excitement. In fact, quite the contrary, he often really did get excited. But I could swear, doctor, that he was watching himself getting excited. And I think this must have been the case even in his most spontaneous actions. I’d go further: I’m sure he suffered from it. Sometimes he had really comic fits of anger against himself.

LADY MATILDA
. That’s true.

BELCREDI
[
to
LADY MATILDA
]. And why? [
To the
DOCTOR
] I reckon it was because that sudden clarity of vision excluded him, all at once, from every intimacy with his own feelings. To him those feelings then seemed—not fake because they were real enough—but like something which, right there, he had to assess as … how can I put it? … as an act of intelligence, to make up for that warmth of heartfelt sincerity that he felt was lacking. And so he’d talk away, exaggerate, let himself go—anything that would make him too dazed to see himself any longer. He seemed erratic, fatuous, and … let’s be honest … sometimes downright ridiculous.

DOCTOR
. And … would you say unsociable?

BELCREDI
. Anything but! He was into everything. Famous for organizing pageants, balls, shows for charity; just for fun, of course. But he was very good at acting, you know.

DI NOLLI
. And in his madness he has become a magnificent and terrifying actor.

BELCREDI
. Right from the start. Just imagine, when the accident happened, after he fell off his horse …

DOCTOR
. Striking the back of his head, right?

LADY MATILDA
. Oh, it was horrible! He was next to me. I saw him under the hoofs of his horse as it reared up.

BELCREDI
. But at first we didn’t think he’d done himself much harm. Yes, the cavalcade came to a stop and there was a spot of
confusion: people wanted to see what had happened. But he had already been picked up and carried to the villa.

LADY MATILDA
. There was nothing, you know. Not a scratch. Not a drop of blood.

BELCREDI
. We thought he’d just fainted …

LADY MATILDA
. And when, about two hours later …

BELCREDI
. Exactly, when he reappeared in the room—what I mean to say is …

LADY MATILDA
. Oh, the look on his face! I realized immediately.

BELCREDI
. No, you can’t say that. None of us realized, doctor, believe me.

LADY MATILDA
. Of course you didn’t. Because you were all behaving like madmen.

BELCREDI
. Everyone was having fun acting his own part. It was a real Babel.

LADY MATILDA
. You can imagine how alarmed we were when we realized that, unlike us, he had taken on his role in deadly earnest.

DOCTOR
. Ah, because he too then …

BELCREDI
. Yes. He came and joined in. We thought he’d recovered and that he’d started acting again, like the rest of us … better than the rest of us, because, as I told you, he was a splendid actor. In short, we thought he was joking.