Three Plays Part 24

LANDOLPH. Oh, yes; many at first.

BELCREDI (_laughing_). Oh, that's great! In costume, like the Marchioness?

LANDOLPH. Oh well, you know, women of the kind that lend themselves to....

BELCREDI. Ah, I see! (_Perfidiously to the Marchioness_) Look out, you know he's becoming dangerous for you.

(_The second door on the right opens, and Harold appears, making first of all a discreet sign that all conversation should cease_).

HAROLD. His Majesty, the Emperor!

(_The two valets enter first, and go and stand on either side of the throne. Then Henry IV. comes in between Ordulph and Harold, who keep a little in the rear respectfully._

HENRY IV. _is about_ 50 _and very pale. The hair on the back of his head is already grey; over the temples and forehead it appears blond, owing to its having been tinted in an evident and puerile fashion. On his cheek bones he has two small, doll-like dabs of colour, that stand out prominently against the rest of his tragic pallor. He is wearing a penitent's sack over his regal habit, as at Canossa. His eyes have a fixed look which is dreadful to see, and this expression is in strained contrast with the sackcloth.

Ordulph carries the Imperial crown; Harold, the sceptre with the eagle, and the globe with the cross_).

HENRY IV. (_bowing first to Donna Matilda and afterwards to the doctor_). My lady ... Monsignor....

(_Then he looks at Belcredi and seems about to greet him too; when, suddenly, he turns to Landolph, who has approached him, and asks him sotto voce and with diffidence_): Is that Peter Damiani?

LANDOLPH. No, Sire. He is a monk from Cluny who is accompanying the Abbot.

HENRY IV. (_looks again at Belcredi with increasing mistrust, and then noticing that he appears embarra.s.sed and keeps glancing at Donna Matilda and the doctor, stands upright and cries out_). No, it's Peter Damiani! It's no use, father, your looking at the d.u.c.h.ess. (_Then turning quickly to Donna Matilda and the doctor as though to ward off a danger_): I swear it! I swear that my heart is changed towards your daughter. I confess that if he (_indicates Belcredi_) hadn't come to forbid it in the name of Pope Alexander, I'd have repudiated her. Yes, yes, there were people ready to favour the repudiation: the Bishop of Mayence would have done it for a matter of one hundred and twenty farms. (_Looks at Landolph a little perplexed and adds_): But I mustn't speak ill of the bishops at this moment! (_More humbly to Belcredi_): I am grateful to you, believe me, I am grateful to you for the hindrance you put in my way!--G.o.d knows, my life's been all made of humiliations: my mother, Adalbert, Tribur, Goslar! And now this sackcloth you see me wearing! (_Changes tone suddenly and speaks like one who goes over his part in a parenthesis of astuteness_). It doesn't matter: clarity of ideas, perspicacity, firmness and patience under adversity that's the thing. (_Then turning to all and speaking solemnly_). I know how to make amend for the mistakes I have made; and I can humiliate myself even before you, Peter Damiani. (_Bows profoundly to him and remains curved. Then a suspicion is born in him which he is obliged to utter in menacing tones, almost against his will_). Was it not perhaps you who started that obscene rumour that my holy mother had illicit relations with the Bishop of Augusta?

BELCREDI (_since Henry IV. has his finger pointed at him_).

No, no, it wasn't I....

HENRY IV. (_straightening up_). Not true, not true? Infamy!

(_Looks at him and then adds_): I didn't think you capable of it! (_Goes to the doctor and plucks his sleeve, while winking at him knowingly_): Always the same, Monsignor, those bishops, always the same!

HAROLD (_softly, whispering as if to help out the doctor_).

Yes, yes, the rapacious bishops!

THE DOCTOR (_to Harold, trying to keep it up_). Ah, yes, those fellows ... ah yes....

HENRY IV. Nothing satisfies them! I was a little boy, Monsignor.... One pa.s.ses the time, playing even, when, without knowing it, one is a king.--I was six years old; and they tore me away from my mother, and made use of me against her without my knowing anything about it ... always profaning, always stealing, stealing!... One greedier than the other ... Hanno worse than Stephen! Stephen worse than Hanno!

LANDOLPH (_sotto voce, persuasively, to call his attention_). Majesty!

HENRY IV. (_turning round quickly_). Ah yes ... this isn't the moment to speak ill of the bishops. But this infamy against my mother, Monsignor, is too much. (_Looks at the Marchioness and grows tender_). And I can't even weep for her, Lady ... I appeal to you who have a mother's heart! She came here to see me from her convent a month ago.... They had told me she was dead! (_Sustained pause full of feeling.

Then smiling sadly_): I can't weep for her; because if you are here now, and I am like this (_shows the sackcloth he is wearing_), it means I am twenty-six years old!

HAROLD. And that she is therefore alive, Majesty!...

ORDULPH. Still in her convent!

HENRY IV. (_looking at them_). Ah yes! And I can postpone my grief to another time. (_Shows the Marchioness almost with coquetery the tint he has given to his hair_). Look! I am still fair.... (_Then slowly as if in confidence_). For you ... there's no need! But little exterior details do help! A matter of time, Monsignor, do you understand me? (_Turns to the Marchioness and notices her hair_). Ah, but I see that you too, d.u.c.h.ess ... Italian, eh (_as much as to say "false"; but without any indignation, indeed rather with malicious admiration_)? Heaven forbid that I should show disgust or surprise! n.o.body cares to recognize that obscure and fatal power which sets limits to pure will. But I say, if one is born and one dies.... Did you want to be born, Monsignor? I didn't! And in both cases, independently of our wills, so many things happen we would wish didn't happen, and to which we resign ourselves as best we can!...

DOCTOR (_merely to make a remark, while studying Henry IV.

carefully_). Alas! Yes, alas!

HENRY IV. It's like this: When we are not resigned, out come our desires. A woman wants to be a man ... an old man would be young again. Desires, ridiculous fixed ideas of course--But reflect! Monsignor, those other desires are not less ridiculous: I mean, those desires where the will is kept within the limits of the possible. Not one of us can lie or pretend. We're all fixed in good faith in a certain concept of ourselves. However, Monsignor, while you keep yourself in order, holding on with both your hands to your holy habit, there slips down from your sleeves, there peels off from you like ... like a serpent ... something you don't notice: life, Monsignor! (_Turns to the Marchioness_): Has it never happened to you, my Lady, to find a different self in yourself? Have you always been the same? My G.o.d! One day ... how was it, how was it you were able to commit this or that action? (_Fixes her so intently in the eyes as almost to make her blanch_): Yes, that particular action, that very one: we understand each other! But don't be afraid: I shall reveal it to none. And you, Peter Damiani, how could you be a friend of that man?...

LANDOLPH. Majesty!

HENRY IV. (_at once_). No, I won't name him! (_Turning to Belcredi_): What did you think of him? But we all of us cling tight to our conceptions of ourselves, just as he who is growing old dyes his hair. What does it matter that this dyed hair of mine isn't a reality for you, if it _is_, to some extent, for me?--you, you, my Lady, certainly don't dye your hair to deceive the others, nor even yourself; but only to cheat your own image a little before the looking-gla.s.s. I do it for a joke! You do it seriously! But I a.s.sure you that you too, Madam, are in masquerade, though it be in all seriousness; and I am not speaking of the venerable crown on your brows or the ducal mantle. I am speaking only of the memory you wish to fix in yourself of your fair complexion one day when it pleased you--or of your dark complexion, if you were dark: the fading image of your youth! For you, Peter Damiani, on the contrary, the memory of what you have been, of what you have done, seems to you a recognition of past realities that remain within you like a dream. I'm in the same case too: with so many inexplicable memories--like dreams! Ah!... There's nothing to marvel at in it, Peter Damiani! Tomorrow it will be the same thing with our life of today! (_Suddenly getting excited and taking hold of his sackcloth_). This sackcloth here.... (_Beginning to take it off with a gesture of almost ferocious joy while the three valets run over to him, frightened, as if to prevent his doing so_)! Ah, my G.o.d! (_Draws back and throws off sackcloth_). Tomorrow, at Bressanone, twenty-seven German and Lombard bishops will sign with me the act of deposition of Gregory VII.! No Pope at all! Just a false monk!

ORDULPH (_with the other three_). Majesty! Majesty! In G.o.d's name!...

HAROLD (_inviting him to put on the sackcloth again_).

Listen to what he says, Majesty!

LANDOLPH. Monsignor is here with the d.u.c.h.ess to intercede in your favor. (_Makes secret signs to the Doctor to say something at once_).

DOCTOR (_foolishly_). Ah yes ... yes ... we are here to intercede....

HENRY IV. (_repeating at once, almost terrified, allowing the three to put on the sackcloth again, and pulling it down over him with his own hands_). Pardon ... yes ... yes ...

pardon, Monsignor: forgive me, my Lady ... I swear to you I feel the whole weight of the anathema. (_Bends himself, takes his face between his hands, as though waiting for something to crush him. Then changing tone, but without moving, says softly to Landolph, Harold and Ordulph_): But I don't know why I cannot be humble before that man there!

(_indicates Belcredi_).

LANDOLPH (_sottovoce_). But why, Majesty, do you insist on believing he is Peter Damiani, when he isn't, at all?

HENRY IV. (_looking at him timorously_). He isn't Peter Damiani?

HAROLD. No, no, he is a poor monk, Majesty.

HENRY IV. (_sadly with a touch of exasperation_). Ah! None of us can estimate what we do when we do it from instinct.... You perhaps, Madam, can understand me better than the others, since you are a woman and a d.u.c.h.ess. This is a solemn and decisive moment. I could, you know, accept the a.s.sistance of the Lombard bishops, arrest the Pope, lock him up here in the castle, run to Rome and elect an anti-Pope; offer alliance to Robert Guiscard--and Gregory VII. would be lost! I resist the temptation; and, believe me, I am wise in doing so. I feel the atmosphere of our times and the majesty of one who knows how to be what he ought to be! a Pope! Do you feel inclined to laugh at me, seeing me like this? You would be foolish to do so; for you don't understand the political wisdom which makes this penitent's sack advisable. The parts may be changed tomorrow. What would you do then? Would you laugh to see the Pope a prisoner? No! It would come to the same thing: I dressed as a penitent, today; he, as prisoner tomorrow! But woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or Pope!--Perhaps he is a bit too cruel! No! Yes, yes, maybe!--You remember, my Lady, how your daughter Bertha, for whom, I repeat, my feelings have changed (_turns to Belcredi and shouts to his face as if he were being contradicted by him_)--yes, changed on account of the affection and devotion she showed me in that terrible moment ... (_then once again to the Marchioness_) ... you remember how she came with me, my Lady, followed me like a beggar and pa.s.sed two nights out in the open, in the snow? You are her mother! Doesn't this touch your mother's heart? Doesn't this urge you to pity, so that you will beg His Holiness for pardon, beg him to receive us?

DONNA MATILDA (_trembling, with feeble voice_). Yes, yes, at once....

DOCTOR. It shall be done!

HENRY IV. And one thing more! (_Draws them in to listen to him_). It isn't enough that he should receive me! You know he can do _everything_--_everything_ I tell you! He can even call up the dead. (_Touches his chest_): Behold me! Do you see me? There is no magic art unknown to him. Well, Monsignor, my Lady, my torment is really this: that whether here or there (_pointing to his portrait almost in fear_) I can't free myself from this magic. I am a penitent now, you see; and I swear to you I shall remain so until he receives me. But you two, when the excommunication is taken off, must ask the Pope to do this thing he can so easily do: to take me away from that (_indicating the portrait again_); and let me live wholly and freely my miserable life. A man can't always be twenty-six, my Lady. I ask this of you for your daughter's sake too; that I may love her as she deserves to be loved, well disposed as I am now, all tender towards her for her pity. There: it's all there! I am in your hands!

(_Bows_). My Lady! Monsignor!

(_He goes off, bowing grandly, through the door by which he entered, leaving everyone stupefied, and the Marchioness so profoundly touched, that no sooner has he gone than she breaks out into sobs and sits down almost fainting_).

ACT II

(_Another room of the villa, adjoining the throne room. Its furniture is antique and severe. Princ.i.p.al 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_).