Saving the Queen
Théophile Gautier
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2006, 2013 by Frank J. Morlock
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
To My Dear Friend, Tony Smith
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Don Melchior de Bovadilla, a ruined young gentleman
Don Gaspar, soldier of fortune
Count de San Lucas, Grand Master of Ceremony and uncle of Don Melchior and Doña Beatrix
Hilario, page
Rafael, page
A Head of the Alguazils (the Bailiffs)
Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain
Doña Beatrix d’Astorga, Lady of Honor
Griselda, The Queen’s Lady of Chamber
ACT I
THE FIRST DAY
A place in the park of Aranjuez; a pavilion on each side.
At the back a raised terrain that is usable.
Count de San Lucas
What’s that uproar, what’s going on—is that my niece’s voice?
Doña Beatrix (running)
Help! Help!
Count de San Lucas
What is it?
Doña Beatrix
The Queen—
Count de San Lucas
Well—?
Doña Beatrix
Her horse is running away.
Count de San Lucas
Great God!
Doña Beatrix
It’s dragging her through the fields in the direction of the Tagus River.
Count de San Lucas
May our Lady be in aid of Her Gracious Majesty; I make verses for her salvation as is the duty of all faithful subjects.
Doña Beatrix
It’s not a question of that! Run! Fly! Perhaps there’s no more time. Each second that is wasted shortens the life of Her Majesty by a year!
Count de San Lucas
I actually told our charming sovereign to beware of this black horse that she always insists on mounting—instead of the traditional hackney—but now they treat me as an old fool, as a gothic dotard.
Doña Beatrix
You are making me die with impatience, with your measured phrases! What, gentlemen, and you are a bunch of gentlemen, young, strong, and bold—your Queen, a woman—is in peril and you don’t budge.
Count de San Lucas
If she was only a woman, ten of us would already have rushed—but the Queen, that’s altogether different.
Doña Beatrix
What do you mean?
Count de San Lucas
All men who touch the Queen, even to save her—are punished by death. That’s a well-known law of Spain.
Doña Beatrix
Save the Queen and die!
Count de San Lucas
I have too great a respect for etiquette, and too much love for life! Besides, as grand-master of ceremonies I must avoid doing anything against the rules. That would be an irritating precedent—a veritable scandal!
Doña Beatrix
My God! My God!— What to do? Eh, what—no one can decide? O chevaliers of Spain, land of courage and gallantry—so this is what you’ve come to: there’s not one heart under these doublets? What must I say to persuade you?— My voice is breaking, my mind is wandering—ah, the one who will save my mistress—I shall love him like a brother, like a spouse.
Count de San Lucas
My niece—calm this irregular...exaltation.
Doña Beatrix
I will give him my heart.
Count de San Lucas
Niece!
Doña Beatrix
My hand!
Count de San Lucas
Niece! Recollect that you are my ward, and that I have kept your hand—for my nephew Don Melchior, that I am bringing expressly from Granada to marry you off, and he ought to arrive today— Gentlemen, don’t listen to her.
Doña Beatrix
Hear me, mercy—if you are Spaniards—if you are gentlemen—at this moment perhaps your Queen is dying.
Count de San Lucas
Ah, here’s Griselda, the chamber maid—perhaps we shall learn—
(Griselda enters.)
Griselda
Good news, gentlemen— The Queen isn’t dead!
Count de San Lucas
Long live the Queen!
Griselda
It’s a miracle—she doesn’t even have a scratch.
Doña Beatrix
Unhoped-for blessing!—I thank heaven for it!
Count de San Lucas
An explosion of joy would not be out of place at this moment, I laugh I jump—I toss my hat in the air!
(He remains motionless)
Doña Beatrix
O my dear Mistress— Speak, Griselda—how was she able to escape this danger?
Count de San Lucas
Despite the distance that separates us, I am myself interrogating a simple serving girl—Griselda— Tell us—
Griselda
Gladly—I begin—It’s a question of a young man—
Doña Beatrix
Ah!
Griselda
What am I saying?—better than that—
Count de San Lucas
Of a man of ripe age?
Griselda
No—of two young men—two valiants, two heroes who did not fear to expose their lives to save their Queen.
Doña Beatrix
Two?
Count de San Lucas
There you are, niece, in a fine fix—your imprudent promise forces you to be a perjurer or a bigamist.
Doña Beatrix
Eh! What?— Wasn’t one able to know which?
Griselda
You get lost in conjecture They were seen running, one after the other in the same direction and then the thickness of the woods concealed them from our view; shouts could be heard.
Don Diego de Escalona, the squire who was advanced further than the rest of the suite, stopped suddenly as if struck into a stupor.
Count de San Lucas
I hope that nothing contrary to etiquette took place in this terrible moment—for a queen, it’s better to die than to be drawn from peril in an inconvenient way—what happened?
Griselda
Don Diego d’Escalona just saw a young man stopping the horse of Her Majesty.
Count de San Lucas
Shocking situation and outside all established rules.
Doña Beatrix
Noble heart.
Griselda
Alas, that’s not all—Don Diego also saw the Queen slip from her saddle, her foot caught in the stirrup.
Doña Beatrix
Great God!
Griselda
And the wretched young man seized her in his arms.
Count de San Lucas
I grow pale and blush alternatively— to take the Queen in his arms.
Only the King of Spain can do things like that unpunished—it’s an atrocious crime—a failure to know how to live that’s worthy of death.
Griselda
It was two steps from a quagmire—
Doña Beatrix
The Queen had to be saved.
Count de San Lucas
Saved yes—but touched, no.
Griselda
Luckily, Milord Count, everyone is not as ceremonious as you. But for this generous inconvenience, what would have become of the Queen?
When we reached the scene of the accident, we found her fainted at the foot of a tree!
Count de San Lucas
My sovereign at the foot of a tree—without velour cushions, without a canopy with a coat of arms? Sun—you didn’t veil yourself from such a sight? And how did Her Majesty endure thi
s unexampled calamity?
Griselda
We got her to come to with water of the Queen of Hungary—Her Majesty told us then she had seen only one man—and that in the trouble, the weakness in which she found herself—she was unable to distinguish his appearance—terror causing a syncope—he resembled vaguely some unknown who had carried her from her saddle—and bore her to a mound of lawn—after that she didn’t remember a thing. I was one who informed her of the two young cavaliers who had been carried away by heroism and speed.
Doña Beatrix
What a mystery!—is one unaware what’s become of them?
Count de San Lucas
Did they succeed in arresting them?
Griselda
I opine, indeed, no, Lord Count. It was the head of the Alguazils, Martínez, who is in charge of pursuing them—and everyone knows his clumsiness that is equaled only by boorishness. Still—alas— They say—
Doña Beatrix
What?
Griselda
That one of them, trying to flee, drowned in The Tagus.
Count de San Lucas
Drowned.
Doña Beatrix
May God will that not to be!
But I’m delaying to see Her Majesty—you who know where she is, Griselda—lead us!
Count de San Lucas
Yes, etiquette does not forbid us from manifesting a respectful emotion—and I follow you.
(The others leave. The Count starts to follow them but Don Melchior enters and holds him back)
Don Melchior
One moment! Allow the worst of nephews to give an embrace to the best of uncles.
Count de San Lucas
Easy! Don Melchior de Bovadilla!—you are going to rumple my ruff—
Don Melchior
Allow me, quite unworthy though I be, to rush into your arms! It’s the voice of blood that speaks—listen to it!
Count de San Lucas
That’s fine! That’s fine!
Don Melchior
It tells one to embrace you yet once more.
Count de San Lucas
Don Melchior, you love me too much!
Don Melchior
Oh! I feel it! I was born for the joys of the family. For the peaceable happiness of the hearth.
Count de San Lucas
So it’s for that you have filled Granada with scandals—that there are rumors of your misconduct with the gypsies of Albayasin, and of your braves with Toreros in the cabarets—a singular manner of proving your taste for tranquil pleasures.
Don Melchior
Alas!—men are so nasty that they find ways of slandering even the devil! There must be a great deal of invention in the legends they’ve rehearsed to you of my adolescence.
Count de San Lucas
And these memorials of tradesmen, as long as you sword that and paid with my poor money—were they also inventions?
Don Melchior
Would I have paid my uncle the insult of addressing myself to others for these bagatelles? Besides, if I have debts, they were to sustain the honor of our name.
Count de San Lucas
You sustain it too well. I have settled your accounts three times.
Don Melchior
Sublime uncle!
Count de San Lucas
I am not in funds—I warn you of that—are you going to ask money of me again?
Don Melchior
Despite my youth, I no longer have illusions in that regard—the uncles of these days are such rascals they deserve to be their own nephews! Reassure yourself—I will abuse my nepotism only to request a Homeric feast.
Count de San Lucas
You are then still hungry—?
Don Melchior
I’m starving! Since leaving Granada I’ve only eaten in inns—and just now, I ran so hard.
Count de San Lucas
What are you saying? What suspicion? Is it you, by chance—could you have compromised yourself in this fatal adventure—?
Don Melchior
What do you mean? I would really like to be dining.
Count de San Lucas
Are you unaware that an audacious person, under the pretext of saving her, has just touched the Queen—and that’s a crime punishable by death.
Don Melchior (aside)
Ah! The devil!
Count de San Lucas
Answer! Would you by chance be one of those bold cavaliers that are being accused of this sacrilegious devotion?
Don Melchior
Do you take me for the opening chapter in a novel?
A horse that bolts, a furious bull, a fainting heroine—and the inevitable young man who comes to the point of aiding her—that’s the bridge of donkeys—I don’t pass over that bridge. A self-respecting man leaves such exploits to students of theology—
Anyway, I don’t save women—on the contrary—
Count de San Lucas
Then it wasn’t you? I ought to inquire into it, my position obliges me to— And yet I also have some reasons to be afflicted by—in your interests, actually.
Don Melchior
What do you mean?
Count de San Lucas
You know how I made you come from Granada?
Don Melchior
On several very rough Mules in the midst of a cacophony of bells—but I would like to be dining—
Count de San Lucas
The question is not that—answer—
Don Melchior
Ah! Yes—you have sinister plans against me—you were pondering marrying me.
Count de San Lucas
And you are not thanking me for it?
Don Melchior
My word, no.
Count de San Lucas
You are a simple monster of ingratitude—I destine you for your cousin—Doña Beatrix d’Astorga.
Don Melchior
On the subject—is she pretty?
Count de San Lucas
She has charming escutcheons.
Don Melchior
Is she rich—?
Count de San Lucas
Enough to make you wait patiently for my inheritance.
Don Melchior
How much?
Count de San Lucas
Two million reals.
Don Melchior
Let the priest and the notaries be called.
Count de San Lucas
Don’t be in such a hurry—Doña Beatrix is lost for you.
Don Melchior
Ah! Heaven—and as for me, I have no more credit!
Count de San Lucas
That little idiot—didn’t she take it into her head to promise her hand to the one who would save the queen.
Don Melchior
What are you telling me?
Count de San Lucas
If you had been this savior—I would be able to forget that I am the representative of etiquette. Even though my duty as Grand Master of Ceremonies is opposed to it, I would have solicited, begged, used my credit to obtain your pardon— One can sometimes waive from strict principals in favor of a relative.
Don Melchior
Ruined.
Count de San Lucas
And ruinous! This marriage would have fulfilled my wishes—but it must no longer be thought of—you are no longer in the situation exacted by Doña Beatrix.
Don Melchior (aside)
Ah! The devil!
(aloud)
Is it known who is the one who has rights to my beautiful cousin?
Count de San Lucas
Speculation is born on two young men—both unknown.
Don Melchior (aside)
Unknown? Very fine!
(aloud)
I am one of them.
Count de San Lucas
And we were assured that one of these eternal heroes drowned in the Tagus.
Don Melchior (aside)
Drowned! Wonderful! Uncle?
Count de San Lucas
Nephew?
Don Me
lchior
Perhaps you don’t know to what degree I am modest?
Count de San Lucas
I hadn’t noticed it.
Don Melchior
Modesty is humble quality that one glories in having—
There are others that one prides oneself on; as for me, I hide ’em—I have whole warehouses of clandestine good deeds—I have monopolies of unpublished heroics—provisions for sacrifices that have never seen the light of day—I’ve acted in this way so as not to humiliate my contemporaries—
Count de San Lucas
In truth?
Don Melchior
Nothing is more unbearable to me than these boasters who only know how to speak of their exploits—like these swaggerers breaking into heaven by the hook of their mustaches and that faint with fear at a bird leaping from the hay— As for me, I let my actions be my panegyric—and I’m so afraid of passing for a braggart that I might be taken for a coward.
Count de San Lucas
I admire you!
Don Melchior
Just now, when you asked me if I was the savior of the Queen, I answered no— As a consequence of this system that urges me to deprecate myself. So as not to take up the bad habits of folks who boast about everything.
Count de San Lucas
Well.
Don Melchior
I was deceiving you— The savior of the Queen—
Count de San Lucas
What?— It was you?
Don Melchior
Myself!
Count de San Lucas
And you said nothing about it?
Don Melchior
It’s repugnant to proclaim myself a hero. I would leave this case to trumpets of renown.
Count de San Lucas
Simple and grand!
Don Melchior
But since you say that this act of courage puts its author in peril of death—I must name myself—my bravery exacts it—you are quite sure of getting me married, huh? Send me a verbal guarantee.
Count de San Lucas
Nephew, count on me—I will neglect nothing—I shall run to speak instantly to some influential members of the Council of Castile. While waiting, go into this pavilion.
(He opens the pavilion to the audience’s left)
No one will expect to find you there.
Don Melchior (in the doorway)
That’s all the same. I’d really like to dine—but to obey you—
(turning back)
One more word, uncle—is the King jealous?— Has he that inconvenient conjugal trait?
Count de San Lucas
Singular question! He’s jealous like a simple lover.
Don Melchior
Then I am lost!— He will never forgive me for having known a joy whose monopoly belongs to him.
