BELCREDI (_to Donna Matilda_). And why? (_To the doctor_). Evidently, because that immediate lucidity that comes from acting, assuming a part, at once put him out of key with his own feelings, which seemed to him not exactly false, but like something he was obliged to valorize there and then as--what shall I say--as an act of intelligence, to make, up for that sincere cordial warmth he felt lacking. So he improvised, exaggerated, let himself go, so as to distract and forget himself. He appeared inconstant, fatuous, and--yes--even ridiculous, sometimes. DOCTOR. And may we say unsociable? BELCREDI. No, not at all. He was famous for getting up things: _tableaux vivants_, dances, theatrical performances for charity: all for the fun of the thing, of course. He was a jolly good actor, you know! DI NOLLI. Madness has made a superb actor of him. BELCREDI.--Why, so he was even in the old days. When the accident happened, after the horse fell.... DOCTOR. Hit the back of his head, didn't he? DONNA MATILDA. Oh, it was horrible! He was beside me! I saw him between the horse's hoofs! It was rearing! BELCREDI. None of us thought it was anything serious at first. There was a stop in the pageant, a bit of disorder. People wanted to know what had happened. But they'd already taken him off to the villa. DONNA MATILDA. There wasn't the least sign of a wound, not a drop of blood. BELCREDI. We thought he had merely fainted. DONNA MATILDA. But two hours afterwards.... BELCREDI. He reappeared in the drawing-room of the villa ... that is what I wanted to say.... DONNA MATILDA. My God! What a face he had. I saw the whole thing at once! BELCREDI. No, no! that isn't true. Nobody saw it, doctor, believe me! DONNA MATILDA. Doubtless, because you were all like mad folk. BELCREDI. Everybody was pretending to act his part for a joke. It was a regular Babel. DONNA MATILDA. And you can imagine, doctor, what terror struck into us when we understood that he, on the contrary, was playing his part in deadly earnest.... DOCTOR. Oh, he was there too, was he? BELCREDI. Of course! He came straight into the midst of us. We thought he'd quite recovered, and was pretending, fooling, like all the rest of us ... only doing it rather better; because, as I say, he knew how to act. DONNA MATILDA. Some of them began to hit him with their whips and fans and sticks. BELCREDI. And then--as a king, he was armed, of course--he drew out his sword and menaced two or three of us.... It was a terrible moment, I can assure you!