Pirandello's Henry IV (8 page)

BERTOLD
   Maybe . . . it's because they think . . .

HENRY
   No, no, look at me! I'm not saying it's true—nothing is true—but look into my eyes.

BERTOLD
   I am.

HENRY
   What do you see? Yourself. See? See the fear in your eyes? Because now you think I'm mad. I've proved my point.

LANDOLF
   What point?

HENRY
   You're staring because you think I'm crazy again. Well, why wouldn't you, for heaven's sake? You've believed it all this time, haven't you? Well, have you or haven't you? (
He sees they are terrified.
) Feel it now?—the ground disappearing under your feet, the air knocked out of your body? What do you expect?—faced with a madman?—with someone who shakes the foundations of everything you've shored up, inside and out?—your logic! Right? Of course! Madmen, lucky them, don't build logically. Or with the logic of a feather on the breeze, this way, that way, day to day. You hold everything tight; madmen let everything go. You say: this can't be; madmen say: anything is possible! But now you're thinking: not true. Because it's not true for you—and you—and you—and to a hundred thousand others. All right, take a look at what they think is the truth, the sane majority—what a show they make with their common ground, their wonderful logic. When I was a child, the moon in the bottom of a well was real to me. And many other things, too. I believed everything I was told and I was happy. Heaven help you if you don't cling to your own reality, even if yesterday's is contradicted by tomorrow's. Pray God you don't find out the thing that'll drive anyone crazy: that when you see yourself reflected in someone's eyes—as happened to me once—you see a beggar standing at a gate he can never enter. The one who goes in can never be you, in your closed-off, self-created world . . . It's someone you don't know, the one who is seen by the person who looks into
your
eyes, and
his
world is closed off from yours. (
pause
) It's got dark in here.

ORDULF
   (
eagerly
) Would you like me to fetch the lamp?

HENRY
   The lamp, yes . . . the lamp. Do you think I don't know that as soon as I turn my back, off to bed with my flickering lamp . . . you switch on the lights?—same thing in the throne room. I pretend not to notice.

ORDULF
   Ah, well, in that case, would you like . . .

HENRY
   No, it's blinding; I want my lamp.

ORDULF
   Fine—it's right outside.

Ordulf goes out, returning immediately with an antique lamp
—
one of those you hold by a ring on top.

HENRY
   Good. Shed a little light. Sit here. No, not bolt upright . . . make yourself comfortable . . . And I'll go here . . . Pity we can't order up a nice moonbeam. The moon is our friend. I often feel grateful to her . . . lost to myself, gazing up at her from my window . . . Who would believe that she knows nine hundred and twenty-seven years have gone by and I, sitting at my window like any poor fellow, can't really be Henry IV? I say, what a lovely picture we make: “The Emperor Among His Faithful Counsellors: Night.” Isn't this nice?

LANDOLF
   (
quietly to Bertold
) Do you realise? If we'd only known it was all pretend . . .

HENRY
   What was?

LANDOLF
   Er . . . what I mean is . . . this morning I was just saying to him . . . (
He points at Bertold.
) because he's just joined . . . I was saying, what a shame, what with our costumes, and lots more in wardrobe, and with that great throne room . . .

HENRY
   What about it? What's a shame?

LANDOLF
   Well . . . that we never knew . . .

HENRY
   That this comedy was a comedy?

LANDOLF
   Because we thought . . .

HAROLD
   Yes, that it was all real.

HENRY
   And it isn't? You don't think it's real?

LANDOLF
   Well, if you're saying . . .

HENRY
   What I'm saying is that you're all stupid. You should have acted it for yourselves, not for my sake or the occasional visitor, but just like this, behaving naturally, with no one to see . . . eating, sleeping, scratching your arse, living, alive in the remote, romantic, sepulchral past, here at the court of Henry IV! And reflecting that nine hundred years on, there are people scuffling about in a permanent state of torment desperate to know how things will turn out for them. While you, meanwhile, are already history! Whatever happens has happened, however painful the events and brutal the battles, they're history and nothing can change them, they're fixed, forever . . . so you can sit back and admire how every cause leads obediently to its effect, with perfect logic, how every event fits neatly with every other. That's the wonderful thing about history.

LANDOLF
   Beautiful . . . beautiful . . .

HENRY
   Yes—but now it's over. Now that you're in on it I can't do it anymore. I can't take my flickering lamp to bed. I'm bored with it all! (
almost to himself, violent with contained anger
) By God, I'll make her sorry she came! Dressed up as my mother-in-law! And that Abbot! Dragging along a doctor to study me. Thought they'd cure me, did they? Idiots! I'd love to give at least one of them a hard slap—yes,
that one, a famous swordsman, I believe. He'll run me through! Well, we'll see, won't we . . . ?

There is a knock at the door.

HENRY
   (
cont.
) Who is it?

GIOVANNI
   (
offstage
) Deo gratis.

HAROLD
   Oh, it's Giovanni come to do his evening performance as the little monk!

ORDULF
   Good, let's make him do the whole thing!

HENRY
   (
sternly
) You foolish boy—you don't understand . . . making fun of a poor old man who's only doing this out of love for me.

LANDOLF
   (
to Ordulf
) We have to take it seriously.

HENRY
   Exactly. Deadly serious. Otherwise you're making a cheap joke of truth.

Henry opens the door and lets Giovanni in, dressed as a humble monk, with a parchment scroll under his arm.

HENRY
   (
cont.
) Come in, Father, (
continuing to them
) All the documents concerning my life and reign that had anything good to say about me were destroyed by my enemies. Nothing survived except this, my biography, written down by a humble and devoted monk . . . and you'd make fun of him? (
to Giovanni, fondly
) Sit down, Father . . . sit there and . . . keep the lamp by you.

Henry sets the oil lamp next to Giovanni.

HENRY
   (
cont.
) Ready?

GIOVANNI
   (
unrolling the parchment
) Ready, Your Majesty.

HENRY
   So, write . . . (
dictating
) “Henry IV's excommunication gave the barons their opportunity. On October sixteenth, 1076, at the diet of Tribur, they decreed that Henry would lose his kingdom if he did not receive absolution within a year and a day. But he escaped to Italy, and at Canossa in January 1077, in the castle of his enemy Matilda of Tuscany, he threw himself on the mercy of the Pope.

The throne room is dark. The canvasses of the two paintings have been removed, and in their place, inside the frames, are Frida, dressed as “Countess of Tuscany,” as we've seen her in Act Two and Carlo Di Nolli, dressed as “Henry IV,” frozen in the same postures as the paintings. Henry IV enters, holding the lamp.

FRIDA
   Henry!

Henry stops at the sound of the voice and turns, frightened.

HENRY
   Who's that?

FRIDA
   (
slightly louder
) Henry!

Henry shrieks and drops the oil lamp, puts his arms around his head, and makes as if to run away. Frida jumps from the frame yelling like a madwoman.

FRIDA
   (
cont.
) Henry! Henry! I'm scared!

Di Nolli jumps down, rushing to Frida, who keeps on screaming, almost fainting.

DI NOLLI
   It's all right, Frida, it's me, I'm here . . .

From the door everybody rushes in: the Doctor, Matilda (dressed as “Countess of Tuscany”), Belcredi, Landolf, Harold, Ordulf, Bertold, and Giovanni. One of them switches on the lights in the room. Henry IV stands there watching, confused. The others, ignoring him, rush to help and comfort Frida, who is sobbing in the arms of her fiancé. They are all talking in great confusion.

BELCREDI
   
Finita la comedia!

DOCTOR
   All over!

MATILDA
   He's made fools of us, Frida! Do you see?—he was cured all along!

DI NOLLI
   Cured?

BELCREDI
   It was all an act. Everything's all right.

FRIDA
   I'm so scared!

MATILDA
   There's nothing to be scared of now—look at him!

DI NOLLI
   What do you mean, cured?

DOCTOR
   So it seems, the two-faced . . .

BELCREDI
   That's right—(
pointing to the four Counsellors
) they told us all about it.

MATILDA
   He's been cured for ages—he confessed.

DI NOLLI
   But he's only just—this moment—

BELCREDI
   It was all put-on, he was laughing at you up his sleeve—us, too, for all our pains.

DI NOLLI
   I can't believe it!—making a fool of his own sister right up to her death?

Henry has remained, all hunched up, peeping out at them. He stands up and shouts at Di Nolli.

HENRY
   Go on! Yes? Keep going! Tell me more! Go on!

DI NOLLI
   (
startled
) Go on what?

HENRY
   She wasn't just “your sister” was she?

DI NOLLI
   My sister? I said
your
sister—you made her come here to the bitter end dressed up as your mother, Agnes!

HENRY
   Don't you mean
your
mother?

DI NOLLI
   
Of course
I mean my mother!

HENRY
   But your mother's been dead for centuries—you've just arrived fresh from there . . . jumping out newborn from your frame . . . How do you know I haven't been mourning her for years, in my heart, even dressed as I am?

MATILDA
   What's he talking about?

DOCTOR
   Calm down, everyone, please . . .

HENRY
   What am I talking about? I'm asking you, wasn't Agnes the mother of Henry IV? (
turning to Frida
) You should know, Countess, if anyone does.

FRIDA
   Me? I don't know anything!

DOCTOR
   He's having a relapse—stand back everyone.

BELCREDI
   Relapse, my eye! He's playing games again.

HENRY
   Me? Who was in the picture frames? Himself? Look at him, standing there—Henry IV.

BELCREDI
   We've had enough of this joke.

HENRY
   Who said it was a joke?

DOCTOR
   Don't provoke him, for God's sake.

BELCREDI
   They did! (
pointing again at the four Counsellors
) Them!

HENRY
   You? Did you tell them it was a joke?

LANDOLF
   No . . . we just said you were cured.

BELCREDI
   There you are. (
to Matilda
) Aren't you embarrassed at yourself?—look at him (
indicating Di Nolli
)—look at yourself, Countess—playing at dressing up!

MATILDA
   Oh, shut up! What does it matter who's wearing what, if he's really cured?