BELCREDI (_also slowly, looking dejected, in accents of apology_). I cast no doubt on anything! I noticed from the beginning that you haven't shared your mother's astonishment; or, if something did astonish you, it was because the likeness between you and the portrait seemed so strong. DONNA MATILDA. Naturally! She cannot recognize herself in me as I was at her age; while I, there, can very well recognize myself in her as she is now! DOCTOR. Quite right! Because a portrait is always there fixed in the twinkling of an eye: for the young lady something far away and without memories, while, for the Marchioness, it can bring back everything: movements, gestures, looks, smiles, a whole heap of things.... DONNA MATILDA. Exactly! DOCTOR (_continuing, turning towards her_). Naturally enough, you can live all these old sensations again in your daughter. DONNA MATILDA. He always spoils every innocent pleasure for me, every touch I have of spontaneous sentiment! He does it merely to annoy me. DOCTOR (_frightened at the disturbance he has caused, adopts a professorial tone_). Likeness, dear Baron, is often the result of imponderable things. So one explains that.... BELCREDI (_interrupting the discourse_). Somebody will soon be finding a likeness between you and me, my dear professor! DI NOLLI. Oh! let's finish with this, please! (_Points to the two doors on the Right, as a warning that there is someone there who may be listening_). We've wasted too much time as it is! FRIDA. As one might expect when _he's_ present (_alludes to Belcredi_). DI NOLLI. Enough! The doctor is here; and we have come for a very serious purpose which you all know is important for me. DOCTOR. Yes, that is so! But now, first of all, let's try to get some points down exactly. Excuse me, Marchioness, will you tell me why your portrait is here? Did you present it to him then? DONNA MATILDA. No, not at all. How could I have given it to him? I was just like Frida then--and not even engaged. I gave it to him three or four years after the accident. I gave it to him because his mother wished it so much (_points to Di Nolli_).... DOCTOR. She was his sister (_alludes to Henry IV._)? DI NOLLI. Yes, doctor; and our coming here is a debt we pay to my mother who has been dead for more than a month. Instead of being here, she and I (_indicating Frida_) ought to be traveling together.... DOCTOR. ... taking a cure of quite a different kind! DI NOLLI. --Hum! Mother died in the firm conviction that her adored brother was just about to be cured. DOCTOR. And can't you tell me, if you please, how she inferred this?