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and walks slowly into the hotel. On the threshold she encounters the VICOMTE coming out.)
PAUL. You, Signorina Lucrezia? I've escaped for a breath of fresh, cool air. Mightn't we take a turn together?
(LUCREZIA shakes her head.} Ah, well, then, good-night. You'll be glad to hear that Miss Toomis knows all
about Correggio now. (He inhales a deep breath of air. Then looking at his dinner-jacket he begins brushing at
it with his hand. A lamentable figure creeps in from the left. It is ALBERTO. If he had a tail it would be
trailing on the ground between his legs.}
PAUL. Hullo, Alberto. What is it? Been losing at cards?
ALBERTO. Worse than that.
PAUL. Creditors foreclosing?
ALBERTO. Much worse.
PAUL. Father ruined by imprudent speculations?
ALBERTO. No, no, no. It's nothing to do with money.
PAUL. Oh, well, then. It can't be anything very serious. It's women, I suppose.
ALBERTO. My mistress refuses to see me. I have been beating on her door for hours in vain.
PAUL. I wish we all had your luck, Bertino. Mine opens her door only too promptly. The difficulty is to get
out again. Does yours use such an awful lot of this evil-smelling powder? I'm simply covered with it. Ugh!
(He brushes his coat again.)
ALBERTO. Can't you be serious, Paul?
PAUL. Of course I can.... about a serious matter. But you can't expect me to pull a long face about your
mistress, can you, now? Do look at things in their right proportions.
36
ALBERTO. It's no use talking to you. You're heartless, soulless.
PAUL. What you mean, my dear Alberto, is that I'm relatively speaking bodiless. Physical passion never goes
to my head. I'm always compos mentis. You aren't, that's all.
ALBERTO. Oh, you disgust me.. I think I shall hang myself to-night.
PAUL. Do. It will give us something to talk about at lunch to-morrow.
ALBERTO. Monster! (He goes into the hotel. PAUL strolls out towards the garden, whistling an air from
Mozart as he goes. The window on the left opens and LUCREZIA steps on to her balcony. Uncoiled, her red
hair falls almost to her waist. Her nightdress is always half slipping off one shoulder or the other, like those
loose-bodied Restoration gowns that reveal the tight-blown charms of Kneller's Beauties. Her feet are bare.
She is a marvellously romantic figure, as she stands there, leaning on the balustrade, and with eyes more
sombre than night, gazing into the darkness. The nightingales, the bells, the guitar, and passionate voice strike
up. Great
below flowers are yielding their souls into the air, censers invisible. It is too much, too much
Large tears roll down LUCREZIA'S cheeks and fall with a splash to the ground. Suddenly, but with the
noiselessness of a cat, ALBERTO appears, childish-looking in pink pajamas, on the middle of the three
balconies. He sees LUCREZIA, but she is much too deeply absorbed in thought to have noticed his coming.
ALBERTO plants his elbows on the rail of the balcony, covers his face, and begins to sob, at first inaudibly,
then in a gradual quickening crescendo. At the seventh sob LUCREZIA starts and becomes aware of his
presence.)
LUCREZIA. Alberto! I didn't know.... Have you been there long? (ALBERTO makes no articulate reply, but
his sobs keep on growing louder.) Alberto, are you unhappy? Answer me.
ALBERTO (with difficulty, after a pause). Yes.
LUCREZIA. Didn't she let you in?
ALBERTO. No. (His sobs become convulsive.)
LUCREZIA. Poor boy.
ALBERTO (lifting up a blubbered face to the moonlight). I am so unhappy.
LUCREZIA. You can't be more unhappy than I am.
ALBERTO. Oh yes, I am. It's impossible to be unhappier than me.
LUCREZIA. But I am more unhappy.
ALBERTO. You're not. Oh, how can you be so cruel Lucrezia? (He covers his face once more.)
LUCREZIA. But I only said I was unhappy Alberto.
ALBERTO. Yes, I know. That showed you weren't thinking of me. Nobody loves me. I shall hang myself
to-night with the cord of my dressing-gown.
LUCREZIA. No, no, Alberto. You mustn't do anything rash.
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ALBERTO. I shall. Your cruelty has been the last straw.
LUCREZIA. I'm sorry, Bertino mio. But if you only knew how miserable I was feeling. I didn't mean to be
unsympathetic. Poor boy. I'm so sorry. There, don't cry, poor darling.
ALBERTO. Oh, I knew you wouldn't desert me, Lucrezia. You've always been a mother to me. (He stretches
out his hand and seizes hers, which has gone half-way to meet him; but the balconies are too far apart to allow
him to kiss it. He makes an effort and fails. He is too short in the body.) Will you let me come onto your
balcony, Lucrezia? I want to tell you how grateful I am.
LUCREZIA. But you can do that from your own balcony.
ALBERTO. Please, please, Lucrezia. You mustn't be cruel to me again. I can't bear it.
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