Private dining room in the hotel. THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS and THE YOUNG BRIDE sit at an elaborate table. PLURABELLE stands back, beaming, while LIVINIA serves. MS. ODDI stands off a bit, playing her flute rather badly. She is near tears. She continues to play throughout the scene, and is completely ignored. DAN continues to sing.
“What Road” (cont’d)
I’s been, working on some open-ended shit
I was looking for an in and that was it
Back at the recital
Signs remain vital
A statue of stone which rejects its own pulse
Your heart’s square, your heart’s fair, your heart’s not even there
Wasting surely on the girls from Point Saint Clair
There is a light and it goes out, a…
Touch of classicism in the night
Your backlash was right where I wanted you
Yes, that’s right, I wanted you
Yes, that’s right, I wanted you
THE YOUNG BRIDE: I tried my best. Now I am recovered. I lay in my bed all day and Livinia attended to me.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: Who is Livinia?
THE YOUNG BRIDE: She is!
(LIVINIA passes by to serve them another dish.)
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: You helped my young bride—now she is well! Before she was dying. She had fallen from her horse.
LIVINIA: I saw the spot on her head, Prince.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: She tells me it was you who made her better. That without you she might not have been made better at all.
LIVINIA: I don’t know.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: Has no one taught you to be proud?
LIVINIA: Never.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: Then how can you possibly be happy?
LIVINIA: I am not.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: Then what good is your life! What good is your life if you are not proud, and therefore not happy? Is there not only one Livinia in this hotel?
LIVINIA: I am the only one.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: Then you must hold your head up high!
LIVINIA: I suppose.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: I will see to it that you do! You have nursed my beautiful young bride back to health… so I will not have you walking around this hotel alone, staring gloomily at the world, serving and cleaning up without any dignity of your own, when you are obviously remarkable!
LIVINIA: Thank you, Prince. It is too much what you say.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: But not at all. Do you have an education?
LIVINIA: Yes.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: What grade?
LIVINIA: Seventh grade, Prince. After that I was put to work and I have worked ever since.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: It is atrocious!
LIVINIA: Thank you. I was very good at school. I excelled.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: I am sure you did. You must become a tutor. The tutor of my young bride. I have been thinking of acquiring for her an education. She likes you.
THE YOUNG BRIDE: I was nearly dead. You saved me.
LIVINIA: (curtseys) Thank you, Princess.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: Call for me the woman who employs you.
LIVINIA: (turning) Plurabelle!
PLURABELLE: (rushing over) Is everything to your liking?
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: I have been in conversation with your maid. She took care of my bride. When we arrived she was half-dead, having fallen from a horse onto the ground and having hit her head. We thought she would die. It was the worst seven hours of my life. Do you understand what that means, to be freshly married and to think your young bride is losing her life? It is a dark injustice. I have never felt anything like it.
PLURABELLE: We are so happy to see her well, eating dinner, radiant.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: It was your maid who nursed her back to health, and with such a sensitivity. My young bride took to her like a leaf to the sun. Isn’t that right, darling?
THE YOUNG BRIDE: Yes.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: So you understand what I mean.
PLURABELLE: I do. It can only mean one thing: you want to take her from me.
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: Yes, it is indeed that one thing. Exactly.
PLURABELLE: But she is almost my own daughter!
THE YOUNG BRIDE: Even my mother had to let me go, when I married the prince. Do you think she complains as you do now?
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: She is very wise! Do you value your hotel?
PLURABELLE: I do!
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: Then you shall keep it. And now you see the way the world goes. What one man wants, another must give up. Now we will all eat together. The magical Livinia is ours!
(He holds up a platter. THE YOUNG BRIDE takes a drumstick, as does LIVINIA.)
THE PRINCE FOR ALL SEASONS: (smiling, to THE YOUNG BRIDE) What was once impossible is now truly beautiful. I have you by my side, my dear, and there is not a star in the sky that does not weep from happiness.
(He pulls his bride up and begins dancing with her, and forces the others to dance, too. The music slowly starts up as the lights begin to dim on the dancers. MS. ODDI has been playing ever more quietly, and no one has been paying attention. She is mortified.)