ACT II

(Another room of the villa, adjoining the throne room. Its furniture is antique and severe. Principal exit at rear in the background. To the left, two windows looking on the garden. To the right, a door opening into the throne room.)
Late afternoon of the same day.
Donna Matilda, the doctor and Belcredi are on the stage engaged in conversation; but Donna Matilda stands to one side, evidently annoyed at what the other two are saying; although she cannot help listening, because, in her agitated state, everything interests her in spite of herself. The talk of the other two attracts her attention, because she instinctively feels the need for calm at the moment).

BELCREDI. It may be as you say, doctor, but that was my impression.
DOCTOR. I won't contradict you; but, believe me, it is only . . . an impression.
BELCREDI. Pardon me, but he even said so, and quite clearly (turning to the Marchioness). Didn't he, Marchioness?
DONNA MATILDA (turning round). What did he say? . . . (Then not agreeing). Oh yes . . . but not for the reason you think!
DOCTOR. He was alluding to the costumes we had slipped on . . . Your cloak (indicating the Marchioness), our Benedictine habits . . . But all this is childish!
DONNA MATILDA (turning quickly, indignant). Childish? What do you mean, doctor?
DOCTOR. From one point of view, it is -- I beg you to let me say so, Marchioness! Yet, on the other hand, it is much more complicated than you can imagine.
DONNA MATILDA. To me, on the contrary, it is perfectly clear!
DOCTOR (with a smile of pity of the competent person towards those who do not understand). We must take into account the peculiar psychology of madmen; which, you must know, enables us to be certain that they observe things and can, for instance, easily detect people who are disguised; can in fact recognize the disguise and yet believe in it; just as children do, for whom disguise is both play and reality. That is why I used the word childish. But the thing is extremely complicated, inasmuch as he must be perfectly aware of being an image to himself and for himself -- that image there, in fact (alluding to the portrait in the throne room, and pointing to the left)!
BELCREDI. That's what he said!
DOCTOR. Very well then -- An image before which other images, ours, have appeared: understand? Now he, in his acute and perfectly lucid delirium, was able to detect at once a difference between his image and ours: that is, he saw that ours were make-believes. So he suspected us; because all madmen are armed with a special diffidence. But that's all there is to it! Our make-believe, built up all round his, did not seem pitiful to him. While his seemed all the more tragic to us, in that he, as if in defiance -- understand? -- and induced by his suspicion, wanted to show us up merely as a joke. That was also partly the case with him, in coming before us with painted cheeks and hair, and saying he had done it on purpose for a jest.
DONNA MATILDA (impatiently). No, it's not that, doctor. It's not like that! It's not like that!
DOCTOR. Why isn't it, may I ask?
DONNA MATILDA (with decision but trembling). I am perfectly certain he recognized me!
DOCTOR. It's not possible . . . it's not possible!
BELCREDI (at the same time). Of course not!
DONNA MATILDA (more than ever determined, almost convulsively). I tell you, he recognized me! When he came close up to speak to me -- looking in my eyes, right into my eyes -- he recognized me!
BELCREDI. But he was talking of your daughter!
DONNA MATILDA. That's not true! He was talking of me! Of me!
BELCREDI. Yes, perhaps, when he said . . .
DONNA MATILDA (letting herself go). About my dyed hair! But didn't you notice that he added at once: "or the memory of your dark hair, if you were dark"? He remembered perfectly well that I was dark -- then!
BELCREDI. Nonsense! nonsense!
DONNA MATILDA (not listening to him, turning to the doctor). My hair, doctor, is really dark -- like my daughter's! That's why he spoke of her.
BELCREDI. But he doesn't even know your daughter! He's never seen her!
DONNA MATILDA. Exactly! Oh, you never understand anything! By my daughter, stupid, he meant me -- as I was then!
BELCREDI. Oh, this is catching! This is catching, this madness!
DONNA MATILDA (softly, with contempt). Fool!
BELCREDI. Excuse me, were you ever his wife? Your daughter is his wife -- in his delirium: Bertha of Susa.
DONNA MATILDA. Exactly! Because I, no longer dark -- as he remembered me -- but fair, introduced myself as "Adelaide," the mother. My daughter doesn't exist for him: be's never seen her -- you said so yourself! So how can he know whether she's fair or dark?
BELCREDI. But he said dark, speaking generally, just as anyone who wants to recall, whether fair or dark, a memory of youth in the color of the hair! And you, as usual, begin to imagine things! Doctor, you said I ought not to have come! It's she who ought not to have come!
DONNA MATILDA (upset for a moment by Belcredi's remark, recovers herself. Then with a touch of anger, because doubtful). No, no . . . he spoke of me . . . He spoke all the time to me, with me, of me . . .
BELCREDI. That's not bad! He didn't leave me a moment's breathing space; and you say he was talking all the time to you? Unless you think he was alluding to you too, when he was talking to Peter Damiani!
DONNA MATILDA (defiantly, almost exceeding the limits of courteous discussion). Who knows? Can you tell me why, from the outset, he showed a strong dislike for you, for you alone? (From the tone of the question, the expected answer must almost explicitly be: "because he understands you are my lover." Belcredi feels this so well that he remains silent and can say nothing).
DOCTOR. The reason may also be found in the fact that only the visit of the Duchess Adelaide and the abbot of Cluny was announced to him. Finding a third person present, who had not been announced, at once his suspicions . . .
BELCREDI. Yes, exactly! His suspicion made him see an enemy in me: Peter Damiani! But she's got it into her head, that he recognized her . . .
DONNA MATILDA. There's no doubt about it! I could see it from his eyes, doctor. You know, there's a way of looking that leaves no doubt whatever . . . Perhaps it was only for an instant, but I am sure!
DOCTOR. It is not impossible: a lucid moment . . .
DONNA MATILDA. Yes, perhaps . . . And then his speech seemed to me full of regret for his and my youth -- for the horrible thing that happened to him, that has held him in that disguise from which he has never been able to free himself, and from which he longs to be free -- he said so himself!
BELCREDI. Yes, so as to be able to make love to your daughter, or you, as you believe -- having been touched by your pity.
DONNA MATILDA. Which is very great, I would ask you to believe.
BELCREDI. As one can see, Marchioness; so much so that a miracle-worker might expect a miracle from it!
DOCTOR. Will you let me speak? I don't work miracles, because I am a doctor and not a miracle-worker. I listened very intently to all he said; and I repeat that that certain analogical elasticity, common to all symptomatised delirium, is evidently with him much . . . what shall I say? -- much relaxed! The elements, that is, of his delirium no longer hold together. It seems to me he has lost the equilibrium of his second personality and sudden recollections drag him -- and this is very comforting -- not from a state of incipient apathy, but rather from a morbid inclination to reflective melancholy, which shows a . . . a very considerable cerebral activity. Very comforting, I repeat! Now if, by this violent trick we've planned . . .
DONNA MATILDA (turning to the window, in the tone of a sick person complaining). But how is it that the motor has not returned? It's three hours and a half since . . .
DOCTOR. What do you say?
DONNA MATILDA. The motor, doctor! It's more than three hours and a half . . .
DOCTOR (taking out his watch and looking at it). Yes, more than four hours, by this!
DONNA MATILDA. It could have reached here an hour ago at least! But, as usual . . .
BELCREDI. Perhaps they can't find the dress . . .
DONNA MATILDA. But I explained exactly where it was! (impatiently). And Frida . . . where is Frida?
BELCREDI (looking out of the window). Perhaps she is in the garden with Charles . . .
DOCTOR. He'll talk her out of her fright.
BELCREDI. She's not afraid, doctor; don't you believe it: the thing bores her rather . . .
DONNA MATILDA. Just don't ask anything of her! I know what she's like.
DOCTOR. Let's wait patiently. Anyhow, it will soon be over, and it has to be in the evening . . . It will only be the matter of a moment! If we can succeed in rousing him, as I was saying, and in breaking at one go the threads -- already slack -- which still bind him to this fiction of his, giving him back what he himself asks for -- you remember, he said: "one cannot always be twenty-six years old, madam!" if we can give him freedom from this torment, which even he feels is a torment, then if he is able to recover at one bound the sensation of the distance of time . . .
BELCREDI (quickly). He'll be cured! (then emphatically with irony). We'll pull him out of it all!
DOCTOR. Yes, we may hope to set him going again, like a watch which has stopped at a certain hour . . . just as if we had our watches in our hands and were waiting for that other watch to go again. -- A shake -- so -- -- and let's hope it'll tell the time again after its long stop. (At this point the Marquis Charles Di Nolli enters from the principal entrance). DONNA MATILDA. Oh, Charles! . . . And Frida? Where is she?
DI NOLLI. She'll be here in a moment.
DOCTOR. Has the motor arrived?
DI NOLLI. Yes.
DONNA MATILDA. Yes? Has the dress come?
DI NOLLI. It's been here some time.
DOCTOR. Good! Good!
DONNA MATILDA (trembling). Where is she? Where's Frida?
DI NOLLI (shrugging his shoulders and smiling sadly, like one lending himself unwillingly to an untimely joke). You'll see, you'll see! . . . (pointing towards the hall). Here she is! . . . (Berthold appears at the threshold of the hall, and announces with solemnity).
BERTHOLD. Her Highness the Countess Matilda of Canossa! (Frida enters, magnificent and beautiful, arrayed in the robes of her mother as "Countess Matilda of Tuscany," so that she is a living copy of the portrait in the throne room).
FRIDA (passing Berthold, who is bowing, says to him with disdain). Of Tuscany, of Tuscany! Canossa is just one of my castles!
BELCREDI (in admiration). Look! Look! She seems another person . . .
DONNA MATILDA. One would say it were I! Look! -- Why, Frida, look! She's exactly my portrait, alive!
DOCTOR. Yes, yes . . . Perfect! Perfect! The portrait, to the life.
BELCREDI. Yes, there's no question about it. She is the portrait! Magnificent!
FRIDA. Don't make me laugh, or I shall burst! I say, mother, what a tiny waist you had? I had to squeeze so to get into this!
DONNA MATILDA (arranging her dress a little). Wait! . . . Keep still! . . . These pleats . . . is it really so tight?
FRIDA. I'm suffocating! I implore you, to be quick! . . .
DOCTOR. But we must wait till it's evening!
FRIDA. No, no, I can't hold out till evening! DONNA MATILDA. Why did you put it on so soon?
FRIDA. The moment I saw it, the temptation was irresistible . . .
DONNA MATILDA. At least you could have called me, or have had someone help you! It's still all crumpled.
FRIDA. So I saw, mother; but they are old creases; they won't come out.
DOCTOR. It doesn't matter, Marchioness! The illusion is perfect. (Then coming nearer and asking her to come in front of her daughter, without hiding her). If you please, stay there, there . . . at a certain distance . . . now a little more forward . . .
BELCREDI. For the feeling of the distance of time . . .
DONNA MATILDA (slightly turning to him). Twenty years after! A disaster! A tragedy!
BELCREDI. Now don't let's exaggerate!
DOCTOR (embarrassed, trying to save the situation). No, no! I meant the dress . . . so as to see . . . You know . . .
BELCREDI (laughing). Oh, as for the dress, doctor, it isn't a matter of twenty years! It's eight hundred! An abyss! Do you really want to shove him across it (pointing first to Frida and then to Marchioness) from there to here? But you'll have to pick him up in pieces with a basket! Just think now: for us it is a matter of twenty years, a couple of dresses, and a masquerade. But, if, as you say, doctor, time has stopped for and around him: if he lives there (pointing to Frida) with her, eight hundred years ago . . . I repeat: the giddiness of the jump will be such, that finding himself suddenly among us . . . (The doctor shakes his head in dissent). You don't think so?
DOCTOR. No, because life, my dear baron, can take up its rhythms. This -- our life -- will at once become real also to him; and will pull him up directly, wresting from him suddenly the illusion, and showing him that the eight hundred years, as you say, are only twenty! It will be like one of those tricks, such as the leap into space, for instance, of the Masonic rite, which appears to be heaven knows how far, and is only a step down the stairs.
BELCREDI. Ah! An idea! Yes! Look at Frida and the Marchioness, doctor! Which is more advanced in time? We old people, doctor! The young ones think they are more ahead; but it isn't true: we are more ahead, because time belongs to us more than to them.
DOCTOR. If the past didn't alienate us . . .
BELCREDI. It doesn't matter at all! How does it alienate us? They (pointing to Frida and Di Nolli) have still to do what we have accomplished, doctor: to grow old, doing the same foolish things, more or less, as we did . . . This is the illusion: that one comes forward through a door to life. It isn't so! As soon as one is born, one starts dying; therefore, he who started first is the most advanced of all. The youngest of us is father Adam! Look there: (pointing to Frida) eight hundred years younger than all of us -- the Countess Matilda of Tuscany. (He makes her a deep bow).
DI NOLLI. I say, Tito, don't start joking.
BELCREDI. Oh, you think I am joking? . . .
DI NOLLI. Of course, of course . . . all the time.
BELCREDI. Impossible! I've even dressed up as a Benedictine . . .
DI NOLLI. Yes, but for a serious purpose.
BELCREDI. Well, exactly. If it has been serious for the others . . . for Frida, now, for instance. (Then turning to the doctor) : I swear, doctor, I don't yet understand what you want to do.
DOCTOR (annoyed). You'll see! Let me do as I wish . . . At present you see the Marchioness still dressed as . . .
BELCREDI. Oh, she also . . . has to masquerade?
DOCTOR. Of course! of course! In another dress that's in there ready to be used when it comes into his head he sees the Countess Matilda of Canossa before him.
FRIDA (while talking quietly to Di Nolli notices the doctor's mistake). Of Tuscany, of Tuscany!
DOCTOR. It's all the same!
BELCREDI. Oh, I see! He'll be faced by two of them . . .
DOCTOR. Two, precisely! And then . . .
FRIDA (calling him aside). Come here, doctor! Listen!
DOCTOR. Here I am! (Goes near the two young people and pretends to give some explanations to them).
BELCREDI (softly to Donna Matilda). I say, this is getting rather strong, you know!
DONNA MATILDA (looking him firmly in the face). What?
BELCREDI. Does it really interest you as much as all that -- to make you willing to take part in . . . ? For a woman this is simply enormous! . . .
DONNA MATILDA. Yes, for an ordinary woman.
BELCREDI. Oh, no, my dear, for all women, -- in a question like this! It's an abnegation.
DONNA MATILDA. I owe it to him.
BELCREDI. Don't lie! You know well enough it's not hurting you!
DONNA MATILDA. Well then, where does the abnegation come in?
BELCREDI. Just enough to prevent you losing caste in other people's eyes -- and just enough to offend me! . . .
DONNA MATILDA. But who is worrying about you now?
DI NOLLI (coming forward). It's all right. It's all right. That's what we'll do! (Turning towards Berthold): Here you, go and call one of those fellows!
BERTHOLD. At once! (Exit).
DONNA MATILDA. But first of all we've got to pretend that we are going away.
DI NOLLI. Exactly! I'll see to that . . . (to Belcredi) you don't mind staying here?
BELCREDI (ironically). Oh, no, I don't mind, I don't mind! . . .
DI NOLLI. We must look out not to make him suspicious again, you know. BELCREDI. Oh, Lord! He doesn't amount to anything!
DOCTOR. He must believe absolutely that we've gone away. (Landolph followed by Berthold enters from the right).
LANDOLPH. May I come in?
DI NOLLI. Come in! Come in! I say -- your name's Lolo, isn't it?
LANDOLPH. Lolo, or Landolph, just as you like!
DI NOLLI. Well, look here: the doctor and the Marchioness are leaving, at once.
LANDOLPH. Very well. All we've got to say is that they have been able to obtain the permission for the reception from His Holiness. He's in there in his own apartments repenting of all he said -- and in an awful state to have the pardon! Would you mind coming a minute? . . . If you would, just for a minute . . . put on the dress again . . .
DOCTOR. Why, of course, with pleasure . . .
LANDOLPH. Might I be allowed to make a suggestion? Why not add that the Marchioness of Tuscany has interceded with the Pope that he should be received?
DONNA MATILDA. You see, he has recognized me!
LANDOLPH. Forgive me . . . I don't know my history very well. I am sure you gentlemen know it much better! But I thought it was believed that Henry IV. had a secret passion for the Marchioness of Tuscany.
DONNA MATILDA (at once). Nothing of the kind! Nothing of the kind!
LANDOLPH. That's what I thought! But he says he's loved her . . . he's always saying it . . . And now he fears that her indignation for this secret love of his will work him harm with the Pope.
BELCREDI. We must let him understand that this aversion no longer exists. LANDOLPH. Exactly! Of course!
DONNA MATILDA (to Belcredi). History says -- I don't know whether you know it or not -- that the Pope gave way to the supplications of the Marchioness Matilda and the Abbot of Cluny. And I may say, my dear Belcredi, that I intended to take advantage of this fact -- at the time of the pageant -- to show him my feelings were not so hostile to him as he supposed.
BELCREDI. You are most faithful to history, Marchioness . . .
LANDOLPH. Well then, the Marchioness could spare herself a double disguise and present herself with Monsignor (indicating the doctor) as the Marchioness of Tuscany.
DOCTOR (quickly, energetically). No, no! That won't do at all. It would ruin everything. The impression from the confrontation must be a sudden one, give a shock! No, no, Marchioness, you will appear again as the Duchess Adelaide, the mother of the Empress. And then we'll go away. This is most necessary: that he should know we've gone away. Come on! Don't let's waste any more time! There's a lot to prepare.
(Exeunt the doctor, Donna Matilda, and Landolph, right).
FRIDA. I am beginning to feel afraid again.
DI NOLLI. Again, Frida?
FRIDA. It would have been better if I had seen him before.
DI NOLLI. There's nothing to be frightened of, really.
FRIDA. He isn't furious, is he?
DI NOLLI. Of course not! he's quite calm.
BELCREDI (with ironic sentimental affectation). Melancholy! Didn't you hear that he loves you?
FRIDA. Thanks! That's just why I am afraid.
BELCREDI. He won't do you any harm.
DI NOLLI. It'll only last a minute . . .
FRIDA. Yes, but there in the dark with him . . .
DI NOLLI. Only for a moment; and I will be near you, and all the others behind the door ready to run in. As soon as you see your mother, your part will be finished . . .
BELCREDI. I'm afraid of a different thing: that we're wasting our time . . .
DI NOLLI. Don't begin again! The remedy seems a sound one to me.
FRIDA. I think so too! I feel it! I'm all trembling!
BELCREDI. But, mad people, my dear friends -- though they don't know it, alas -- have this felicity which we don't take into account . . .
DI NOLLI (interrupting, annoyed). What felicity? Nonsense!
BELCREDI (forcefully). They don't reason!
DI NOLLI. What's reasoning got to do with it, anyway?
BELCREDI. Don't you call it reasoning that he will have to do -- according to us -- -when he sees her (indicates Frida) and her mother? We've reasoned it all out, surely!
DI NOLLI. Nothing of the kind: no reasoning at all We put before him a double image of his own fantasy, or fiction, as the doctor says.
BELCREDI (suddenly). I say, I've never understood why they take degrees in medicine.
DI NOLLI (amazed). Who?
BELCREDI. The alienists!
DI NOLLI. What ought they to take degrees in, then?
FRIDA. If they are alienists, in what else should they take degrees?
BELCREDI. In law, of course! All a matter of talk! The more they talk, the more highly they are considered. "Analogous elasticity," "the sensation of distance in time !" And the first thing they tell you is that they don't work miracles -- when a miracle's just what is wanted! But they know that the more they say they are not miracle-workers, the more folk believe in their seriousness!
BERTHOLD (who has been looking through the keyhole of the door on right). There they are! There they are! They're coming in here.
DI NOLLI. Are they?
BERTHOLD. He wants to come with them . . . Yes! . . . He's coming too!
DI NOLLI. Let's get away, then! Let's get away, at once! (To Berthold) : You stop here!
BERTHOLD. Must I?