Henry IV Read online

  DI NOLLI Please. Tito—stop fooling.

  BELCREDI Oh, you think I’m fooling?

  DI NOLLI Ever since you got here.

  BELCREDI Me? I even dressed up as a monk for you. I promise you, Doctor, I still don’t understand what you’re up to.

  DOCTOR You will. Mind you, not with the Countess still dressed like that . . .

  BELCREDI Ah—you mean, she, too . . . will have to . . .

  DOCTOR Of course! Wearing a similar dress, which we’ve got ready for her, so he thinks she’s the Countess Matilda of Canossa, too.

  FRIDA Tuscany, Tuscany!

  BELCREDI Oh . . . I see. He’ll be confronted by two . . .

  DOCTOR Exactly. Two of them. And then . . .

  FRIDA (with Di Nolli) Two of who?

  DI NOLLI I think he means . . .

  DOCTOR (joining them) It’s quite simple . . .

  The three of them confer silently.

  BELCREDI (to Matilda) My God . . . So then . . .

  MATILDA Then what?

  BELCREDI Does he mean so much to you? To lend yourself to this farrago? It’s quite something for a woman to . . .

  MATILDA For most women, perhaps.

  BELCREDI Oh no, my dear, for any woman! To demean herself. . .

  MATILDA I feel responsible.

  BELCREDI No you don’t. You know you’d never suffer the indignity.

  MATILDA So if I wouldn’t, what are you talking about? Where’s the indignity?

  BELCREDI Oh, not so as they’d ever notice, just enough to humiliate me.

  MATILDA As if anyone’s thinking of you at this moment!

  DI NOLLI Right—we’re all set . . . (to Bertold) You—get one of those three in here.

  BERTOLD (leaving) Right away.

  MATILDA But first we have to pretend our characters are leaving.

  DI NOLLI Quite so—that’s why I’ve called him to announce your departure. (to Belcredi) There’s no need for you to be there.

  BELCREDI Naturally . . . no need for me . . . no need at all . . .

  DI NOLLI And anyway you might arouse his suspicion again, you see?

  BELCREDI I do see. A bit part.

  Landolf, followed by Bertold, enters from the door on the right.

  LANDOLF Excuse me . . .

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

  LANDOLF Lolo or Landolpho, my lord, I answer to both.

  DI NOLLI Good. Now, the Doctor and the Countess will take their leave . . .

  LANDOLF No problem. We’ll tell him the Pope’s agreed to receive them. Himself’s in his quarters sorry for everything he said and worrying His Holiness won’t give him absolution. If you’d be so good, now put the costumes back on . . .

  DOCTOR Yes—right—let’s get on with it.

  LANDOLF One other thing, if I may suggest. Tell him the Countess Matilda of Tuscany is all for it, begging the Pope on Himself’s behalf.

  MATILDA You see? He did recognise me!

  LANDOLF No. Excuse me. It’s only that what with His Holiness being under the Countess’s roof, Himself is frightened it’ll wreck his chances. It’s a funny thing—you’ll know better than me—but so far as I can see there’s nothing in the history books about Henry IV being secretly in love with Matilda of Tuscany.

  MATILDA No, there isn’t. On the contrary.

  LANDOLF That’s what I thought. But he’s always saying how he loved her, and now he’s terrified her hating him might do for him with the Pope.

  BELCREDI Well, we must find a way to convince him that this aversion of hers is a thing of the past!

  LANDOLF Fine. I’ll tell him that.

  MATILDA Yes, why don’t you? (to Belcredi) Because, in case you didn’t know, my dear, history records precisely that—the Pope yielded to the entreaties of Matilda and the Abbot of Cluny . . . and if you want to know, at the time, during the pageant, my intention was to remind him . . . to show him my feelings were not as unfriendly as he imagined.

  BELCREDI Well, how wonderful . . . to have history on your side.

  LANDOLF Well, if that’s the case, why dress up twice over—? you could go in with the Monsignor dressed as the Countess of Tuscany.

  DOCTOR No!—for God’s sake! That would ruin everything! He’s got to see the two of them together. Come along, there’s no time to lose. Listen, my lady, you’re still the mother-in-law, Adelaide. We leave. He sees us go. That’s vital.

  Landolf, Matilda, and the Doctor leave.

  FRIDA I’m starting to feel nervous.

  DI NOLLI Not again?

  FRIDA It wouldn’t be so bad if I’d seen him earlier.

  DI NOLLI There’s nothing to be afraid of.

  FRIDA He’s not going to be violent?

  DI NOLLI No—he’s perfectly calm.

  BELCREDI Melancholic. Haven’t you heard he’s secretly in love with you?

  FRIDA That’s what worries me.

  BELCREDI He won’t hurt you.

  DI NOLLI It’ll be over before you know it.

  FRIDA Yes, but alone with him, and it’ll be dark . . .

  DI NOLLI I’ll be close by—and the others will be behind the door waiting, ready to rush in. As soon as he sees your mother, your part’s over.

  BELCREDI What I’m afraid of, on the other hand, is that it’ll all be for nothing.

  DI NOLLI Oh, don’t you start! I have every faith in this cure.

  FRIDA So have I. I’m getting quite excited.

  BELCREDI But, you see, darlings, what we’re forgetting is that madmen, though sadly they don’t know it, bless them . . . don’t think rationally!

  DI NOLLI What’s that got to do with anything?

  BELCREDI What!—when he sees her (pointing at Frida) and then her mother, aren’t we counting on him to apply his reason?—we’ve orchestrated the whole thing just for that.

  DI NOLLI What do you mean, reason? The Doctor’s just confronting him with his own make-believe doubled up, that’s all.

  BELCREDI For the life of me I can never understand why these people are allowed to call themselves doctors.

  DI NOLLI What people?

  BELCREDI Psychiatrists. Why do they graduate in medicine?

  DI NOLLI What else should they graduate in?

  BELCREDI Linguistics . . . It’s only about who has the best lines . . . “coherence typical of systematised delusion” . . . “melancholic reflex” . . . The first thing they tell you is they don’t perform miracles when a miracle is exactly what’s needed—they know that’s how to be taken seriously . . . and the miracle is they get away with it.

  BERTOLD (peeping) They’re coming! Coming this way!

  DI NOLLI Are you sure?

  BERTOLD It looks like he’s seeing them out! Yes . . . here he comes!

  DI NOLLI Let’s get out of here. You stay.

  BERTOLD Me?

  Di Nolli, Frida, and Belcredi hurry out, leaving Bertold behind, confused and lost. Landolf enters bowing, followed by Matilda, with cloak and coronet, as in Act One, and the Doctor, in the robes of the Abbot of Cluny. Henry IV is between them, in regal attire, followed by Ordulf and Harold.

  HENRY I’m asking you: do you think I’m mulish or foxy? (pause) A mule, then.

  DOCTOR A mule? Heaven forbid that I . . .

  HENRY So you think I’m really a fox?

  DOCTOR No, not a mule and not a fox either.

  HENRY Come, Abbot, since one can’t be both I was hoping that in denying me the obstinacy of the one you’d grant me the cleverness of the other. I assure you I could do with a little of it. But I suppose you reserve it all for yourself.

  DOCTOR Who, me? Do I seem clever to you?

  HENRY No, Monsignor! What an idea! (addressing Matilda) Could you spare me a moment before you go? (anxiously, in private) Do you truly love your daughter?

  MATILDA Yes, of course I do . . .

  HENRY So, do you wish me to love and cherish her to make up for all the wrongs I’ve done her? . . . not that you should credit th
e debauchery my enemies accuse me of.

  MATILDA I don’t. I never did.

  HENRY Well, then, what would you have me do?

  MATILDA What?

  HENRY Fall in love with your daughter again? (pauses, looks at her intently) Watch out for the Countess of Tuscany—she’s not to be trusted.

  MATILDA But—as I told you—she’s begged and beseeched His Holiness no less than we have . . .

  HENRY Don’t say that! Don’t! Can’t you see what it does to me?

  Matilda looks at him and speaks to him quietly, sharing a confidence.

  MATILDA Do you still love her?

  HENRY Still? What do you mean, still? Nobody knows about that—nobody must know it.

  MATILDA But perhaps she knows . . . and that’s why she went on her knees to the Pope for you . . .

  HENRY And you say you love your daughter! (pause; lightly) Well, Monsignor! It’s all too true, about me finding out too late—far too late . . . that I had a wife . . . and still have her, there’s no doubt about that . . . and I swear I never give her a thought. It may be a sin but I feel nothing for her. What’s astonishing, though, is neither does her mother! Admit it, Duchess, you don’t give a damn about her. (agitated) She keeps on about that other woman! She goes on and on about her—I can’t think why.

  LANDOLF Perhaps, Your Majesty, it’s because she thinks you’ve got the wrong idea about the Countess of Tuscany. (embarrassed) I mean the wrong idea just at the present time.

  HENRY Why, do you think I can trust her, too?

  LANDOLF At the present time I do, Your Majesty.

  MATILDA You see? And that’s why . . .

  HENRY Yes, I see. So, it’s not that you think I love her. I see. I see. Nobody has ever thought so. So much the better. So that’s enough about that.

  Henry stops. He turns to the Doctor with a completely different mood and expression.

  HENRY (cont.) Monsignor, did you notice this?—the conditions the Pope has made for the revoking of my excommunication have absolutely nothing to do with the reason he excommunicated me in the first place. Tell Pope Gregory we’ll meet in Brixen. And you, my lady, if you happen to see your daughter in the castle courtyard of your friend the Countess . . . what can I say? Tell her she can come up here. We’ll see whether she’s the one who’ll stay by me as wife and Empress. I’ve had lots of them coming here assuring me that they were her . . . though they knew I’d already . . . and sometimes I’d . . . well, why not?—it’s my wife! But they all . . . when they’d tell me they were Bertha, and from Susa . . . I don’t know why, they’d all start giggling, (confidentially) You know what I mean—in bed—not dressed up like this—the woman, too, naked . . . stripped down to male and female as nature made us, we forget who we are. Our clothes hanging up, watching over us like ghosts . . . (to the Doctor) What I think, Monsignor, is that ghosts for the most part are fragments of the unconscious escaping from our dreams. When we sometimes see them wide-awake, in broad daylight, they startle us. I’m always frightened in the night when they appear—all those disjointed images, people laughing, riders got down from their horses . . . I’m frightened sometimes by the blood pounding through my veins in the stillness of the night, like the heavy thud of footsteps in distant rooms . . . But I’ve kept you in attendance long enough. My respects, Duchess, and Monsignor, your obedient servant.

  Matilda and the Doctor bow in return, and leave. Henry closes the door and turns around, changed.

  HENRY (cont.) What a bunch of wankers! I played them like a kiddy piano with a different colour for every key—it only needed the lightest touch . . . white, red, yellow, green . . . and that other one, Peter Damian!—Ha! I saw through him all right! He didn’t dare show his face again!

  Henry, in an exuberant frenzy, suddenly sees Bertold, who is both stunned and frightened. Henry stops in front of him, pointing out Bertold to his three companions, and shakes him by the shoulders.

  HENRY (cont.) Look at this idiot here, with his mouth open! Do you understand now?—how I got them dressed up to perform for me?—those clowns wetting their pants in terror . . . in case I whip off their masks!—as if it wasn’t me who made them dress up for my own entertainment while I play the madman!

  LANDOLF, HAROLD, & ORDULF Eh?—What?—What’s he—?

  HENRY Well, I’m sick of this! Enough! You’re all getting on my tits! My God, the nerve of that woman!—showing up here with her lover! With that air of stooping to this charade out of the goodness of their hearts!—so as not to make even madder a poor wretch already shut off from the world, from life! Well, who else would put up with that kind of persecution? These are people who every living moment expect everyone else to be how they see them!—oh, but this can’t be persecution!—not at all!—it’s only their mode of thinking, living, feeling—each to his own! And you to yours, right? Of course! But what is yours? To be sheep!—feeble, flock-driven . . . and they make the most of that, they have you seeing and thinking and feeling the same as them. Or so they like to think. Because, when all’s said and done, what do they do it with? Words, words, words. Simple words which anyone can make mean whatever they like. That’s what’s called public opinion! God help anyone who finds the public’s got a word for him . . . “crazy,” or, I don’t know, “imbecile”? Tell me something. Would you be so calm if you knew that there are people out there determined to make the world see you the way they want you to be seen?—to force their view of you and their valuation of you on everyone else? “Loony!” “Crackpot!” Don’t imagine I’m doing all this as a madman now. Before I hit my head falling off a horse . . .

  Henry suddenly stops, noticing the four young men are agitated, dismayed, and confused.

  HENRY (cont.) Why are you staring at each other? Trying to decide? Is he or isn’t he? All right, then, I’m a loony! Well, by God, on your knees, then! Kneel! I command you to get on your knees and touch the ground with your foreheads, three times. Get down! That’s what you do when you’re confronted by a maniac! (jeers) Oh, get up for God’s sake! Sheep! Why didn’t you put me in a straitjacket? You’re crushed by the weight of a word that weighs less than a fly. Our whole lives, crushed by the weight of words, empty words. Here I am. Hello. Do you really think Henry IV is alive? Yet, you’re alive—and you let me order you about. Do you think it’s funny, a dead man running your lives? Well, maybe it’s funny in here. Go outside in the real world, and the joke wears a little thin. The day breaks—it’s dawn, the day’s ahead of us, you say, it’s ours to make. Really? You really think so? Start talking. Repeat all the words that have ever been said. Do you think you’re living now? Well, you’re not. You’re chewing on dead men’s cud. (stopping in front of Bertold, who is now completely dazed) You haven’t understood a thing, have you? What’s your name?

  BERTOLD My name . . . er, Bertold.

  HENRY Bertold, my arse. Just between you and me, what’s your name?

  BERTOLD Well, actually, it’s Fino.

  HENRY Fino what?

  BERTOLD Fino Pagliuca, sir.

  HENRY I’ve often heard you using your names. You’re Lolo?

  LANDOLF Yes, sir. (joyfully) Oh, my God, you mean . . . ?

  HENRY (sharply) I mean what?

  LANDOLF No . . . I only . . .

  HENRY Aren’t I crazy anymore? No, of course not, let’s have a really good laugh at those who think I am. (to Harold) You’re Franco . . . (to Ordulf) And you, let me think . . .

  ORDULF Momo!

  HENRY That’s it! Momo! Nice name.

  LANDOLF But then . . . Oh, God . . .

  HENRY What? Nothing, let’s have a good laugh about it, just the five of us. After three. Three. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

  Landolf, Harold, and Ordulf are unsure, confused, glad, and bewildered at the same time. They are whispering together.

  HENRY (cont.) Stop that whispering! (to Bertold) You’re not laughing? Did I offend you? I wasn’t talking about you, you know. It’s everyone. It suits them to make out that someone is crazy so they c
an shut him away. Do you know why? Because they can’t bear to hear what he might say . . . what I might say about those three who just left. I might say one’s a slut, one’s a dirty lecher, and the third’s a quack. Surely not!—who’d believe such a thing! Yet they’d all be listening, horrified. But why? If it’s not true? That’s what I’d like to know. You shouldn’t believe a madman. But they listen, wide-eyed with horror. Explain that to me. Go on—I’m quite calm as you see.

  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.