Free Three Plays: Six Characters in Search of an Author, Henry IV, The Mountain Giants (Oxford World's Classics) by Luigi Pirandello Page A

here: my pity, all my pity for this woman [
referring to the
MOTHER ] has been taken by her as the most ferocious cruelty.
    MOTHER . But if you drove me out?
    FATHER . There. Do you hear that? Drove her out. She thinks I drove her out.
    MOTHER . You know how to talk; I can’t … But, believe me, sir: after he married me … who knows why, a poor simple woman …
    FATHER . But that’s just it, I married you for your simplicity; it’s what I loved in you, I thought … [
He breaks off at her signs of protest. Seeing how impossible it is to make himself understood, he throws wide his arms in a gesture of despair and turns to the
DIRECTOR ] No, you see? She says no. It’s frightening, sir, frightening, [
striking his forehead
] her deafness, her mental deafness! A good heart, yes, for her children! But deaf, brain-deaf, desperately deaf!
    STEPDAUGHTER . Yes, but now get him to tell you how lucky we’ve been to profit from his intelligence.
    FATHER . If only we could foresee all the evil that can come from the good we think we’re doing.
    The
LEADING LADY
has had enough of seeing the
LEADING MAN
flirting with the
STEPDAUGHTER ;
she now comes forward to the
DIRECTOR .
    LEADING LADY . Excuse me. Are we going to carry on with the rehearsal?
    DIRECTOR . Of course, of course! Just let me hear this out!
    YOUNG ACTOR . It’s such an unusual case!
    YOUNG ACTRESS . And so interesting!
    LEADING LADY . For those who are interested! [
With a dark look at the
LEADING MAN ]
    DIRECTOR [
to the
FATHER ]. But you’ll need to explain things clearly. [
Sits down
]
    FATHER . Well now, you see, sir, there was a poor fellow who worked for me, my assistant, my secretary, loyal to the core. And he got along absolutely perfectly with her [
indicating the
MOTHER ]; without the faintest shadow of any wrongdoing, mind you! Good and simple, like her. Both of them incapable of any evil in deed or thought.
    STEPDAUGHTER . Instead, he thought it up for them—and did it!
    FATHER . Not true! What I did I meant for their good—and my own too, I admit. I had reached the point where I couldn’t say a word to one or the other without seeing them exchange a glance of mutual understanding, without seeing one looking straight in the other’s eyes for advice on how to take my words so as not to make me angry. This, of course, as you must understand, was enough to keep me in a state of permanent anger, unbearable exasperation.
    DIRECTOR . So why didn’t you sack him then, this secretary chap?
    FATHER . Good question. In fact, I did sack him, sir. But then I saw this poor woman mooning around the house like a lost soul, like some stray animal you’d take in out of pity.
    MOTHER . Well, no wonder.
    FATHER [
suddenly turning, as if to forestall her
]. It’s about our son, isn’t it?
    MOTHER . He’d torn my son from my breast!
    FATHER . But not out of cruelty. To make him grow up strong and healthy, in contact with the earth.
    STEPDAUGHTER [
pointing to the
SON ,
ironic
]. And how it shows!
    FATHER [
immediately
]. Am I to blame if he grew up like this? I gave him to a wet-nurse in the country, sir, a peasant girl, because his mother didn’t seem strong enough, for all her humble birth. It was the same impulse that had made me marry her. A silly prejudice, perhaps; but that’s the way it is. I’ve always had these damned yearnings towards a kind of solid moral health. [
Another loud burst of laughter from the
STEPDAUGHTER ] Make her stop that! It’s unbearable!
    DIRECTOR . Stop that! Let me hear him out, for God’s sake!
    Once again, she responds to the reproaches of the
DIRECTOR
by becoming withdrawn and distant, her laughter suddenly cut off. The
DIRECTOR
goes down from the stage again so that he can get an overall view of the scene
.
    FATHER . I couldn’t bear to see this woman next to me any longer. [
Pointing to the
MOTHER ] But not so much, believe me, because of what I went through—the suffocation, the real suffocation—as for the