Three Plays: Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV, The Mountain Giants (Oxford World's Classics) (21 page)

DOCTOR
. But we have to wait until tonight …

FRIDA
. Oh no, I can’t hold out that long, not until tonight.

LADY MATILDA
. So why did you have to put it on so early?

FRIDA
. As soon as I saw it. Sheer temptation. Irresistible.

LADY MATILDA
. You could at least have called me. Let me help you … Good Lord, it’s still all creased.

FRIDA
. So I’ve seen, Mother. But old creases … It won’t be easy to get them out.

DOCTOR
. It doesn’t matter, Marchesa. The illusion’s perfect. [
Then drawing closer to
LADY MATILDA
and motioning her to stand slightly in front of her daughter but without hiding her
] If you don’t mind. You stand like this—here—at a certain distance—a bit further forward …

BELCREDI
. To suggest the distance in time.

LADY MATILDA
[
hardly turning to him
]. Twenty years later! A disaster, don’t you think?

BELCREDI
. Let’s not exaggerate.

DOCTOR
[
embarrassed and trying to put things right
]. No, no! I was saying that … I meant for the gown … just to see …

BELCREDI
[
laughing
]. But for the gown, doctor, it’s not twenty years; it’s more like eight hundred. An abyss! Do you really want to shove him into jumping over it? [
Indicating first
FRIDA
and then the
MARCHESA
] From there to here? You’ll be collecting bits and pieces of him in a basket! Think about it, my friends; I really mean it: for us it’s a matter of twenty years, two costumes and a pageant. But for him, as you say, doctor, time has stopped; if he’s living back there with her [
indicating
FRIDA
] eight hundred years ago; then I say that the dizziness of that jump will be so great that when he falls into our midst … [
The
DOCTOR
wags his finger in disagreement
] You don’t think so?

DOCTOR
. No, because life, my dear baron, starts all over again. Our life, here, will immediately become real for him too; and it will take hold of him right away, wrenching him out of the illusion and showing him that those eight hundred years of yours are only twenty. Look, it will be like one of those old tricks; for example the leap into the void in the Masonic rites, where you think it’s heaven knows what and in the end you’ve only gone down one step.

BELCREDI
. Now there’s a discovery! But look at Frida and the Marchesa, doctor. Who is further ahead? We old folks, doctor. Yes, the young may think they’re ahead, but it’s not true: we’re further ahead insofar as time is more ours than theirs.

DOCTOR
. If only the past didn’t take us further away.

BELCREDI
. Not in the least! Further away from what? [
He gestures towards
FRIDA
and
DI NOLLI
] If they still have to do what we’ve already done, doctor: grow old, repeating more or less the same silly old antics … This is the illusion: that we leave this life by a door that lies ahead of us. It’s not true. If you start dying as soon as you’re born, the one who started first is the furthest ahead. And the youngest of all is Old Father Adam. Look there [
showing
FRIDA
], eight hundred years younger than the rest of us, Countess Matilda of Tuscany. [
He bows deeply to her
]

DI NOLLI
. Please, Tito, let’s not make a joke of it.

BELCREDI
. If you think I’m joking …

DI NOLLI
. Of course you are, God knows … ever since you came.

BELCREDI
. What! I even dressed up as a Benedictine.

DI NOLLI
. Exactly. To do something serious.

BELCREDI
. Well, what I say is, if it’s been serious for the others … for Frida now, for example … [
Then, turning to the
DOCTOR
] I swear to you, doctor, that I still don’t understand what you’re trying to do.

DOCTOR
[
annoyed
]. You’ll see. Leave it to me … Of course, when you see the Marchesa still dressed like this …

BELCREDI
. You mean that she too will have to …

DOCTOR
. Absolutely, with another gown from in there, for the times when he believes he’s with the Countess Matilda of Canossa.

FRIDA
[
who is talking quietly with
DI NOLLI
,
noticing the
DOCTOR
’
s mistake
]. Tuscany! Of Tuscany!

DOCTOR
[
as above
]. It’s all the same.

BELCREDI
. Ah, I understand. He’ll find himself in front of two …?

DOCTOR
. Two of them, precisely. And then …

FRIDA
[
calling him aside
]. Come here, doctor, listen!

DOCTOR
. Here I am. [
He goes up to the young couple and pretends to explain something
]

BELCREDI
[
quietly, to
LADY MATILDA
]. For God’s sake. So you are going to …

LADY MATILDA
[
turning to him with a firm look
]. What?

BELCREDI
. Does it really interest you so much? So much that you’ll lend yourself to this. It’s an extraordinary thing for a woman.

LADY MATILDA
. For an ordinary woman.

BELCREDI
. No, my dear, for any woman in this case. It’s an act of self-denial.

LADY MATILDA
. I owe it to him.

BELCREDI
. Don’t lie to me. You know it won’t harm your reputation.

LADY MATILDA
. So where does the self-denial come in?

BELCREDI
. There’s not quite enough in it to shame you in the eyes of others, but there’s enough to offend me.

LADY MATILDA
. Who cares about you at a time like this!

DI NOLLI
[
coming forward
]. Here. So then, yes, yes, we’ll do it that way … [
Turning to
BERTHOLD
] Oh, you, go and call one of those three in there.

BERTHOLD
. Right away. [
He leaves by the main door
]

LADY MATILDA
. But first we have to pretend to take our leave.

DI NOLLI
. Exactly. I’m calling him so that he can arrange for your leavetaking. [
To
BELCREDI
] You needn’t bother with it. Stay here.

BELCREDI
[
nodding his head ironically
]. Right. I won’t bother with it, I won’t bother.

DI NOLLI
. Partly so as not to make him suspicious again, you understand?

BELCREDI
. Of course!
Quantité négligeable!
^*

DOCTOR
. We must make him certain, absolutely certain that we’ve left.

LANDOLPH
enters through the right door, followed by
BERTHOLD
.

LANDOLPH
. May I?

DI NOLLI
. Come in, come in. Right now … You’re Lolo, aren’t you?

LANDOLPH
. Lolo or Landolph, as you wish.

DI NOLLI
. Good. Look. The doctor and the Marchesa will now take their leave.

LANDOLPH
. Very good. It should suffice to say that they have persuaded the Pope to grant him an audience. He’s there in his rooms, groaning with repentance for everything he said and losing all hope of being pardoned. If you would come this way … and if you don’t mind putting the costumes back on.

DOCTOR
. Yes, yes, let’s go.

LANDOLPH
. Just a moment. May I suggest something? You should add that the Countess Matilda of Tuscany joined you in imploring the Pope to grant him an audience.

LADY MATILDA
. There! You see that he recognized me.

LANDOLPH
. No. Forgive me. It’s that he’s so afraid of the hostility of this Countess who received the Pope in her castle. It’s strange. In history, as far as I know—but you ladies and gentlemen must know better than I—it’s not said, is it, that Henry IV was secretly in love with the Countess of Tuscany?

LADY MATILDA
[
hastily
]. No, not in the least. Quite the contrary.

LANDOLPH
. That’s what I thought. But he says he loved her—he keeps saying so. And now he’s afraid that her scorn for this secret love will work against him with the Pope.

BELCREDI
. You must convince him that this hostility no longer exists.

LANDOLPH
. Right. Excellent!

LADY MATILDA
[
to
LANDOLPH
]. Excellent, indeed! [
Then, to
BELCREDI
] Because in fact, in case you don’t know, history says precisely that the Pope gave in to the pleading of the Countess Matilda and the Abbot of Cluny. And I can tell you, my dear Belcredi, that back then, when we had the cavalcade, I intended to use the occasion to show that my mind was no longer so firmly set against him, as he imagined.

BELCREDI
. Well, that’s wonderful, dear Marchesa. Just keep on following history.

LANDOLPH
. Well, in that case, obviously, the Marchesa could save herself the bother of a double disguise and present herself with Monsignor [
indicating the
DOCTOR
] as the Countess of Tuscany.

DOCTOR
[
at once, with force
]. Oh no. Not that, for heaven’s sake! It would ruin everything. The effect of the confrontation must be immediate, sudden. No, no. Let’s go, Marchesa, let’s go. You will appear once again as the Duchess Adelaide, mother of the Empress. And we shall take our leave. And one thing is absolutely necessary: that he should know we have left. Come on, let’s not waste any more time, we still have so much to get ready.

The
DOCTOR, LADY MATILDA
,
and
LANDOLPH
go out by the right door
.

FRIDA
. I’m beginning to get scared again.

DI NOLLI
. All over again, Frida?

FRIDA
. It would be better if I’d seen him first.

DI NOLLI
. Believe me, there’s nothing to worry about.

FRIDA
. But isn’t he raving mad?

DI NOLLI
. Not at all. He’s perfectly calm.

BELCREDI
[
with ironic sentimental affectation
]. Melancholic. Didn’t you hear that he loves you?

FRIDA
. Thanks a lot. That’s the problem!

BELCREDI
. He won’t want to harm you.

DI NOLLI
. It will all be over in a moment.

FRIDA
. All right. But there in the dark, with him …

DI NOLLI
. Only for a moment, and I’ll be next to you, and the others will be waiting behind those doors, ready to rush in. As soon as he sees your mother before him, your part will be over.

BELCREDI
. What I’m afraid of is something else: that the whole thing will be a flop.

DI NOLLI
. Don’t start. I think it could be a very effective cure.

FRIDA
. So do I, so do I … I can already feel it … I’m trembling all over.

BELCREDI
. But madmen, my dear friends—though unfortunately they don’t know it—madmen have a kind of happiness that we don’t realize.

DI NOLLI
[
interrupting him, annoyed
]. So now it’s happiness! Do me a favour!

BELCREDI
[
vehemently
]. They don’t reason.

DI NOLLI
. Sorry, but what’s reasoning got to do with it?

BELCREDI
. What! Don’t you think that, if we’re right, there’s a lot of reasoning he’ll have to do when he sees her [
indicating
FRIDA
] and her mother? But we’re the ones who’ve set this whole thing up!

DI NOLLI
. No, not in the least. There’s no reasoning involved.
We present him with a double image of his own fiction, as the doctor said.

BELCREDI
[
with a sudden reaction
]. Listen: I’ve never understood why they take degrees in medicine.

DI NOLLI
[
puzzled
]. Who?

BELCREDI
. Psychiatrists.

DI NOLLI
. So what on earth do you want them to take degrees in?

FRIDA
. If they’re going to be psychiatrists.

BELCREDI
. In law, of course, my dear. Because it’s all talk! And the best talker is the best psychiatrist. ‘Analogical elasticity’, ‘a sense of the distance in time’! And then the first thing they say is that they don’t work miracles—just when a miracle is what’s needed. But they know that the more they say they’re not miracle-workers the more people take them seriously. They don’t work miracles, and yet by some miracle they always fall on their feet.

BERTHOLD
[
who has gone to peep through the keyhole of the door to the right
]. Here they are! Here they are! They’re coming this way.

DI NOLLI
. Are they?

BERTHOLD
. It looks as if he’s going to come with them … Yes, yes, here he is!

DI NOLLI
. Then we should get out of the way. Right now. [
Turning to
BERTHOLD
] You stay here.