Part 10
HENRY IV. I understand. That is to say, you don't believe I love her. I see! I see! Nobody's ever believed it, nobody's ever thought it. Better so, then! But enough, enough! (_Turns to the doctor with changed expression_): Monsignor, you see? The reasons the Pope has had for revoking the excommunication have got nothing at all to do with the reasons for which he excommunicated me originally. Tell Pope Gregory we shall meet again at Brixen. And you, Madame, should you chance to meet your daughter in the courtyard of the castle of your friend the Marchioness, ask her to visit me. We shall see if I succeed in keeping her close beside me as wife and Empress. Many women have presented themselves here already assuring me that they were she. But they all, even while they told me they came from Susa--I don't know why--began to laugh! And then in the bedroom.... Well a man is a man, and a woman is a woman. Undressed, we don't bother much about who we are. And one's dress is like a phantom that hovers, always near one. Oh, Monsignor, phantoms in general are nothing more than trifling disorders of the spirit: images we cannot contain within the bounds of sleep. They reveal themselves even when we are awake, and they frighten us. I ... ah ... I am always afraid when, at night time, I see disordered images before me. Sometimes I am even afraid of my own blood pulsing loudly in my arteries in the silence of night, like the sound of a distant step in a lonely corridor!... But, forgive me! I have kept you standing too long already. I thank you, my Lady, I thank you, Monsignor. (_Donna Matilda and the Doctor go off bowing. As soon as they have gone, Henry IV. suddenly changes his tone_). Buffoons, buffoons! One can play any tune on them! And that other fellow ... Pietro Damiani!... Caught him out perfectly! He's afraid to appear before me again. (_Moves up and down excitedly while saying this; then sees Berthold, and points him out to the other three valets_). Oh, look at this imbecile watching me with his mouth wide open! (_Shakes him_). Don't you understand? Don't you see, idiot, how I treat them, how I play the fool with them, make them appear before me just as I wish? Miserable, frightened clowns that they are! And you (_addressing the valets_) are amazed that I tear off their ridiculous masks now, just as if it wasn't I who had made them mask themselves to satisfy this taste of mine for playing the madman!
LANDOLPH--HAROLD--ORDULPH (_bewildered, looking at one another_). What? What does he say? What?
HENRY IV. (_answers them imperiously_). Enough! enough! Let's stop it. I'm tired of it. (_Then as if the thought left him no peace_): By God! The impudence! To come here along with her lover!... And pretending to do it out of pity! So as not to infuriate a poor devil already out of the world, out of time, out of life! If it hadn't been supposed to be done out of pity, one can well imagine that fellow wouldn't have allowed it. Those people expect others to behave as they wish all the time. And of course, there's nothing arrogant in that! Oh, no! Oh, no! It's merely their way of thinking, of feeling, of seeing. Everybody has his own way of thinking; you fellows, too. Yours is that of a flock of sheep--miserable, feeble, uncertain.... But those others take advantage of this and make you accept their way of thinking; or, at least, they suppose they do; Because, after all, what do they succeed in imposing on you? Words, words which anyone can interpret in his own manner! That's the way public opinion is formed! And it's a bad look out for a man who finds himself labelled one day with one of these words which everyone repeats; for example "madman," or "imbecile." Don't you think is rather hard for a man to keep quiet, when he knows that there is a fellow going about trying to persuade everybody that he is as he sees him, than to fix him in other people's opinion as a "madman"--according to him? Now I am talking seriously! Before I hurt my head, falling from my horse.... (_stops suddenly, noticing the dismay of the four young men_). What's the matter with you? (_Imitates their amazed looks_). What? Am I, or am I not, mad? Oh, yes! I'm mad all right! (_He becomes terrible_). Well, then, by God, down on your knees, down on your knees! (_Makes them go down on their knees one by one_). I order you to go down on your knees before me! And touch the ground three times with your foreheads! Down, down! That's the way you've got to be before madmen! (_Then annoyed with their facile humiliation_): Get up, sheep! You obeyed me, didn't you? You might have put the straight jacket on me!... Crush a man with the weight of a word--it's nothing--a fly! all our life is crushed by the weigh of words: the weight of the dead. Look at me here: can you really suppose that Henry IV. is still alive? All the same, I speak, and order you live men about! Do you think it's a joke that the dead continue to live?--Yes, _here_ it's a joke! But get out into the live world!--Ah, you say: what a beautiful sunrise--for us! All time is before us!--Dawn! We will do what we like with this day--. Ah, yes! To tell with tradition, the old conventions! Well, go on! You will do nothing but repeat the old, old words, while you imagine you are living! (_Goes up to Berthold who has now become quite stupid_.) You don't understand a word of this, do you? What's your name?
BERTHOLD. I?... What?... Berthold....
HENRY IV. Poor Berthold! What's your name here?
BERTHOLD. I ... I ... my name in Fino.
HENRY IV. (_feeling the warning and critical glances of the others, turns to them to reduce them to silence_). Fino?
BERTHOLD. Fino Pagliuca, sire.
HENRY IV. (_turning to Landolph_). I've heard you call each other by your nick-names often enough! Your name is Lolo, isn't it?
LANDOLPH. Yes, sire.... (_then with a sense of immense joy_). Oh, Lord! Oh Lord! Then he is not mad....
HENRY IV. (_brusquely_). What?
LANDOLPH (_hesitating_). No ... I said....
HENRY IV. Not mad, eh? We're having a joke on those that think I am mad! (_To Harold_)--I say, boy, your name's Franco.... (_to Ordulph_) And yours....
ORDULPH. Momo.
HENRY IV. Momo, Momo.... A nice name that!
LANDOLPH. So he isn't....
HENRY IV. What are you talking about? Of course not! Let's have a jolly, good laugh!... (_Laughs_): Ah!... Ah!... Ah!...
LANDOLPH--HAROLD--ORDULPH (_looking at each other half happy and half dismayed_). Then he's cured!... he's all right!...
HENRY IV. Silence! Silence!... (_To Berthold_): Why don't you laugh? Are you offended? I didn't mean it especially for you. It's convenient for everybody to insist that certain people are mad, so they can be shut up. Do you know why? Because it's impossible to hear them speak! What shall I say of these people who've just gone away? That one is a whore, another a libertine, another a swindler ... don't you think so? You can't believe a word he says ... don't you think so?--By the way, they all listen to me terrified. And why are they terrified, if what I say isn't true? Of course, you can't believe what madmen say--yet, at the same time, they stand there with their eyes wide open with terror!--Why? Tell me, tell me, why?--You see I'm quite calm now!
BERTHOLD. But, perhaps, they think that....
HENRY IV. No, no, my dear fellow! Look me well in the eyes!... I don't say that it's true--nothing is true, Berthold! But ... look me in the eyes!
BERTHOLD. Well....
HENRY IV. You see? You see?... You have terror in your own eyes now because I seem mad to you! There's the proof of it (_laughs_)!
LANDOLPH (_coming forward in the name of the others, exasperated_). What proof?
HENRY IV. Your being so dismayed because now I seem again mad to you. You have thought me mad up to now, haven't you? You feel that this dismay of yours can become terror too--something to dash away the ground from under your feet and deprive you of the air you breathe! Do you know what it means to find yourselves face to face with a madman--with one who shakes the foundations of all you have built up in yourselves, your logic, the logic of all your constructions? Madmen, lucky folk! construct without logic, or rather with a logic that flies like a feather. Voluble! Voluble! Today like this and tomorrow--who knows? You say: "This cannot be"; but for them everything can be. You say: "This isn't true!" And why? Because it doesn't seem true to you, or you, or you ... (_indicates the three of them in succession_) ... and to a hundred thousand others! One must see what seems true to these hundred thousand others who are not supposed to be mad! What a magnificent spectacle they afford, when they reason! What flowers of logic they scatter! I know that when I was a child, I thought the moon in the pond was real. How many things I thought real! I believed everything I was told--and I was happy! Because it's a terrible thing if you don't hold on to that which seems true to you today--to that which will seem true to you tomorrow, even if it is the opposite of that which seemed true to you yesterday. I would never wish you to think, as I have done, on this horrible thing which really drives one mad: that if you were beside another and looking into his eyes--as I one day looked into somebody's eyes--you might as well be a beggar before a door never to be opened to you; for he who does enter there will never be you, but someone unknown to you with his own indifferent and impenetrable world.... (_Long pause. Darkness gathers in the room, increasing the sense of strangeness and consternation in which the four young men are involved. Henry IV. remains aloof, pondering on the misery which is not only his, but everybody's. Then he pulls himself up, and says in an ordinary tone_): It's getting dark here....
ORDULPH. Shall I go for a lamp?
HENRY IV. (_Ironically_). The lamp, yes the lamp!... Do you suppose I don't know that as soon as I turn my back with my oil lamp to go to bed, you turn on the electric light for yourselves, here, and even there, in the throne room? I pretend not to see it!
ORDULPH. Well, then, shall I turn it on now?
HENRY IV. No, it would blind me! I want my lamp!
ORDULPH. It's ready here behind the door. (_Goes to the main exit, opens the door, goes out for a moment, and returns with an ancient lamp which is held by a ring at the top_).
HENRY IV. Ah, a little light! Sit there around the table, no, not like that; in an elegant, easy, manner!... (_To Harold_): Yes, you, like that (poses him)! (_Then to Berthold_): You, so!... and I, here (_sits opposite them_)! We could do with a little decorative moonlight. It's very useful for us, the moonlight. I feel a real necessity for it, and pass a lot of time looking up at the moon from my window. Who would think, to look at her that she knows that eight hundred years have passed, and that I, seated at the window, cannot really be Henry IV. gazing at the moon like any poor devil? But, look, look! See what a magnificent night scene we have here: the emperor surrounded by his faithful counsellors!... How do you like it?
LANDOLPH (_softly to Harold, so as not to break the enchantment_). And to think it wasn't true!...
HENRY IV. True? What wasn't true?
LANDOLPH (_timidly as if to excuse himself_). No ... I mean ... I was saying this morning to him (_indicates Berthold_)--he has just entered on service here--I was saying: what a pity that dressed like this and with so many beautiful costumes in the wardrobe ... and with a room like that (_indicates the throne room_)....
HENRY IV. Well? what's the pity?
LANDOLPH. Well ... that we didn't know....
HENRY IV. That it was all done in jest, this comedy?
LANDOLPH. Because we thought that....
HAROLD (_coming to his assistance_). Yes ... that it was done seriously!
HENRY IV. What do you say? Doesn't it seem serious to you?
LANDOLPH. But if you say that....
HENRY IV. I say that--you are fools! You ought to have known how to create a fantasy for yourselves, not to act it for me, or anyone coming to see me; but naturally, simply, day by day, before nobody, feeling yourselves alive in the history of the eleventh century, here at the court of your emperor, Henry IV.! You Ordulph (_taking him by the arm_), alive in the castle of Goslar, waking up in the morning, getting out of bed, and entering straightway into the dream, clothing yourself in the dream that would be no more a dream, because you would have lived it, felt it all alive in you. You would have drunk it in with the air you breathed; yet knowing all the time that it was a dream, so you could better enjoy the privilege afforded you of having to do nothing else but live this dream, this far off and yet actual dream! And to think that at a distance of eight centuries from this remote age of ours, so coloured and so sepulchral, the men of the twentieth century are torturing themselves in ceaseless anxiety to know how their fates and fortunes will work out! Whereas you are already in history with me....
LANDOLPH. Yes, yes, very good!
HENRY IV. ... Everything determined, everything settled!
ORDULPH. Yes, yes!
HENRY IV. And sad as is my lot, hideous as some of the events are, bitter the struggles and troublous the time--still all history! All history that cannot change, understand? All fixed forever! And you could have admired at your ease how every effect followed obediently its cause with perfect logic, how every event took place precisely and coherently in each minute particular! The pleasure, the pleasure of history, in fact, which is so great, was yours.
LANDOLPH. Beautiful, beautiful!
HENRY IV. Beautiful, but it's finished! Now that you know, I could not do it any more! (_Takes his lamp to go to bed_). Neither could you, if up to now you haven't understood the reason of it! I am sick of it now. (_Almost to himself with violent contained rage_): By God, I'll make her sorry she came here! Dressed herself up as a mother-in-law for me...! And he as an abbot...! And they bring a doctor with them to study me...! Who knows if they don't hope to cure me?... Clowns...! I'd like to smack one of them at least in the face: yes, that one--a famous swordsman, they say!... He'll kill me.... Well, we'll see, we'll see!... (_A knock at the door_). Who is it?
THE VOICE OF JOHN. Deo Gratias!
HAROLD (_very pleased at the chance for another joke_). Oh, it's John, it's old John, who comes every night to play the monk.
ORDULPH (_rubbing his hands_). Yes, yes! Let's make him do it!
HENRY IV. (_at once, severely_). Fool, why? Just to play a joke on a poor old man who does it for love of me?
LANDOLPH (_to Ordulph_). It has to be as if it were true.
HENRY IV. Exactly, as if true! Because, only so, truth is not a jest (_opens the door and admits John dressed as a humble friar with a roll of parchment under his arm_). Come in, come in, father! (_Then assuming a tone of tragic gravity and deep resentment_): All the documents of my life and reign favorable to me were destroyed deliberately by my enemies. One only has escaped destruction, this, my life, written by a humble monk who is devoted to me. And you would laugh at him! (_Turns affectionately to John, and invites him to sit down at the table_). Sit down, father, sit down! Have the lamp near you (_puts the lamp near him_)! Write! Write!
JOHN (_opens the parchment and prepares to write from dictation_). I am ready, your Majesty!
HENRY IV. (_dictating_). "The decree of peace proclaimed at Mayence helped the poor and humble, while it damaged the weak and the powerful (_curtain begins to fall_): It brought wealth to the former, hunger and misery to the latter...."
_Curtain._
## ACT III
_The throne room so dark that the wall at the bottom is hardly seen. The canvasses of the two portraits have been taken away; and, within their frames, Frida, dressed as the "Marchioness of Tuscany" and Charles Di Nolli, as "Henry IV." have taken the exact positions of the portraits._
_For a moment, after the raising of curtain, the stage is empty. Then the door on the left opens; and Henry IV., holding the lamp by the ring on top of it, enters. He looks back to speak to the four young men who, with John, are presumedly in the adjoining hall, as at the end of the second act._
HENRY IV. No: stay where you are, stay where you are. I shall manage all right by myself. Good night! (_Closes the door and walks, very sad and tired, across the hall towards the second door on the right, which leads into his apartments_).
FRIDA (_as soon as she sees that he has just passed the throne, whispers from the niche like one who is on the point of fainting away with fright_). Henry....
HENRY IV. (_stopping at the voice, as if someone had stabbed him traitorously in the back, turns a terror-stricken face towards the wall at the bottom of the room; raising an arm instinctively, as if to defend himself and ward off a blow_). Who is calling me? (_It is not a question, but an exclamation vibrating with terror, which does not expect a reply from the darkness and the terrible silence of the hall, which suddenly fills him with the suspicion that he is really mad_).
FRIDA (_at his shudder of terror, is herself not less frightened at the part she is playing, and repeats a little more loudly_). Henry!... (_But, although she wishes to act the part as they have given it to her, she stretches her head a little out of the frame towards the other frame_).
HENRY IV. (_Gives a dreadful cry; lets the lamp fall from his hands to cover his head with his arms, and makes a movement as if to run away_).
FRIDA (_jumping from the frame on to the stand and shouting like a mad woman_). Henry!... Henry!... I'm afraid!... I'm terrified!...
(_And while Di Nolli jumps in turn on to the stand and thence to the floor and runs to Frida who, on the verge of fainting, continues to cry out, the Doctor, Donna Matilda, also dressed as "Matilda of Tuscany," Tito Belcredi, Landolph, Berthold and John enter the hall from the doors on the right and on the left. One of them turns on the light: a strange light coming from lamps hidden in the ceiling so that only the upper part of the stage is well lighted. The others without taking notice of Henry IV., who looks on astonished by the unexpected inrush, after the moment of terror which still causes him to tremble, run anxiously to support and comfort the still shaking Frida, who is moaning in the arms of her fiance. All are speaking at the same time._)
DI NOLLI. No, no, Frida.... Here I am.... I am beside you!
DOCTOR (_coming with the others_). Enough! Enough! There's nothing more to be done!...
DONNA MATILDA. He is cured, Frida. Look! He is cured! Don't you see?
DI NOLLI (_astonished_). Cured?
BELCREDI. It was only for fun! Be calm!
FRIDA. No! I am afraid! I am afraid!
DONNA MATILDA. Afraid of what? Look at him! He was never mad at all!...
DI NOLLI. That isn't true! What are you saying? Cured?
DOCTOR. It appears so. I should say so....
BELCREDI. Yes, yes! They have told us so (_pointing to the four young men_).
DONNA MATILDA. Yes, for a long time! He has confided in them, told them the truth!
DI NOLLI (_now more indignant than astonished_). But what does it mean? If, up to a short time ago...?
BELCREDI. Hum! He was acting, to take you in and also us, who in good faith....
DI NOLLI. Is it possible? To deceive his sister, also, right up to the time of her death?
HENRY IV. (_Remains apart, peering at one and now at the other under the accusation and the mockery of what all believe to be a cruel joke of his, which is now revealed. He has shown by the flashing of his eyes that he is meditating a revenge, which his violent contempt prevents him from defining clearly, as yet. Stung to the quick and with a clear idea of accepting the fiction they have insidiously worked up as true, he bursts forth at this point_): Go on, I say! Go on!
DI NOLLI (_astonished at the cry_). Go on! What do you mean?
HENRY IV. It isn't _your_ sister only that is dead!
DI NOLLI. My sister? Yours, I say, whom you compelled up to the last moment, to present herself here as your mother Agnes!
HENRY IV. And was she not _your_ mother?
DI NOLLI. My mother? Certainly my mother!
HENRY IV. But your mother is dead for me, _old and far away_! You have just got down now from there (_pointing to the frame from which he jumped down_). And how do you know whether I have not wept her long in secret, dressed even as I am?
DONNA MATILDA (_dismayed, looking at the others_). What does he say? (_Much impressed, observing him_). Quietly! quietly, for Heaven's sake!
HENRY IV. What do I say? I ask all of you if Agnes was not the mother of Henry IV.? (_Turns to Frida as if she were really the Marchioness of Tuscany_): You, Marchioness, it seems to me, ought to know.
FRIDA (_still frightened, draws closer to Di Nolli_). No, no, I don't know. Not I!
DOCTOR. It's the madness returning.... Quiet now, everybody!
BELCREDI (_indignant_). Madness indeed, doctor! He's acting again!...
HENRY IV. (_suddenly_). I? You have emptied those two frames over there, and he stands before my eyes as Henry IV....
BELCREDI. We've had enough of this joke now.
HENRY IV. Who said joke?
DOCTOR (_loudly to Belcredi_). Don't excite him, for the love of God!
BELCREDI (_without lending an ear to him, but speaking louder_). But they have said so (_pointing again to the four young men_), they, they!
HENRY IV. (_turning round and looking at them_). You? Did you say it was all a joke?
LANDOLPH (_timid and embarrassed_). No ... really we said that you were cured.
BELCREDI. Look here! Enough of this! (_To Donna Matilda_): Doesn't it seem to you that the sight of him (_pointing to Di Nolli_), Marchioness and that of your daughter dressed so, is becoming an intolerable puerility?
DONNA MATILDA. Oh, be quiet! What does the dress matter, if he is cured?