Pirandello's Henry IV Read Free

the fool for his supper, didn’t you know?
    BELCREDI    Watch where you’re putting your feet!
    DOCTOR    Why?
    BELCREDI    Hobnailed boots.
    DOCTOR    Really?
    BELCREDI    And you’re about to step on somebody’s toes.
    DOCTOR    Oh . . . come on . . . what’s so strange about a daughter looking like her mother?
    BELCREDI    Crunch, too late!
    MATILDA    Why, what did he say?
    DOCTOR    Nothing special.
    BELCREDI    He said there was nothing strange about it. In which case, why did you act so stunned?
    MATILDA    (
enraged
) For the very reason that the resemblance is so natural—fool!—because that’s my portrait and to see my daughter looking back at me was an amazing thing, so I was amazed—all right?—and you can keep your insinuations to yourself.
    Embarrassed silence.
    FRIDA    Oh God, it always ends in a row.
    BELCREDI    (
apologetically
) I wasn’t insinuating anything. I just happened to notice you didn’t share your mother’s amazement. If you were surprised at anything, it was at your mother being amazed.
    MATILDA    Well, obviously! She didn’t know me when I was her age. But I caught sight of myself and I saw I was . . . just like she is now.
    DOCTOR    No more than one would expect. Because for the daughter it’s just a picture, a moment caught and complete in itself. . . while for the mother it comes with a whole string of associations—how she moved, gestured, smiled, spoke, everything which isn’t in the portrait . . .
    MATILDA    Exactly.
    DOCTOR    . . . all sprung to life in your daughter.
    MATILDA    Thank you! But when I speak as I feel, he has to go and spoil it to annoy me.
    DOCTOR    (
continues in his professional tone, turning to Belcredi
) Resemblance, you see, my dear Baron, often resides where you least expect it—which is how . . .
    BELCREDI    Which is how some people might even find a resemblance between you and me.
    DI NOLLI    Please, please, we’ve got off the point.
    FRIDA    That’s what happens when he’s around.
    MATILDA    Which is exactly why I didn’t want him to come.
    BELCREDI    How ungrateful, after all the fun you have at my expense.
    DI NOLLI    Tito, I beg you—enough. The Doctor is here, we have serious business, and you know how important this is to me.
    DOCTOR    Good. Let’s make a start by getting a few things clear. How did this portrait come to be here? Did you give it to him back at the beginning?
    MATILDA    No, how would I? I was just a girl—like Frida—not even engaged. I let him have the picture three or four years after the accident because Carlo’s mother wouldn’t leave me alone about it.
    DOCTOR    (
to Di Nolli
) Your mother being his sister?
    DI NOLLI    Yes. We’re here because we promised her. She died a month ago. But for that, Frida and I would be on our honeymoon.
    DOCTOR    With your mind on other things—I understand.
    DI NOLLI    Mother died convinced that her brother was about to get better.
    DOCTOR    And can you tell me why she thought so?
    DI NOLLI    It was a conversation they had not long before she died.
    DOCTOR    Did they now? It would be useful to know what he said.
    DI NOLLI    I wish I could help you. All I know is she came back obviously upset. I gathered he’d spoken to her with unusual tenderness, almost as if he knew it was the last time . . . and on her deathbed she made me promise not to abandon him, to have him seen . . .
    DOCTOR    And here we are. So first, let’s see . . . sometimes the tiniest event can . . . This portrait, then . . .
    MATILDA    Oh, heavens, we mustn’t