BELCREDI (_since Henry IV. has his finger pointed at him_). No, no, it wasn't I.... HENRY IV. (_straightening up_). Not true, not true? Infamy! (_Looks at him and then adds_): I didn't think you capable of it! (_Goes to the doctor and plucks his sleeve, while winking at him knowingly_): Always the same, Monsignor, those bishops, always the same! HAROLD (_softly, whispering as if to help out the doctor_). Yes, yes, the rapacious bishops! THE DOCTOR (_to Harold, trying to keep it up_). Ah, yes, those fellows ... ah yes.... HENRY IV. Nothing satisfies them! I was a little boy, Monsignor.... One passes the time, playing even, when, without knowing it, one is a king.--I was six years old; and they tore me away from my mother, and made use of me against her without my knowing anything about it ... always profaning, always stealing, stealing!... One greedier than the other ... Hanno worse than Stephen! Stephen worse than Hanno! LANDOLPH (_sotto voce, persuasively, to call his attention_). Majesty! HENRY IV. (_turning round quickly_). Ah yes ... this isn't the moment to speak ill of the bishops. But this infamy against my mother, Monsignor, is too much. (_Looks at the Marchioness and grows tender_). And I can't even weep for her, Lady ... I appeal to you who have a mother's heart! She came here to see me from her convent a month ago.... They had told me she was dead! (_Sustained pause full of feeling. Then smiling sadly_): I can't weep for her; because if you are here now, and I am like this (_shows the sackcloth he is wearing_), it means I am twenty-six years old! HAROLD. And that she is therefore alive, Majesty!... ORDULPH. Still in her convent! HENRY IV. (_looking at them_). Ah yes! And I can postpone my grief to another time. (_Shows the Marchioness almost with coquetery the tint he has given to his hair_). Look! I am still fair.... (_Then slowly as if in confidence_). For you ... there's no need! But little exterior details do help! A matter of time, Monsignor, do you understand me? (_Turns to the Marchioness and notices her hair_). Ah, but I see that you too, Duchess ... Italian, eh (_as much as to say "false"; but without any indignation, indeed rather with malicious admiration_)? Heaven forbid that I should show disgust or surprise! Nobody cares to recognize that obscure and fatal power which sets limits to pure will. But I say, if one is born and one dies.... Did you want to be born, Monsignor? I didn't! And in both cases, independently of our wills, so many things happen we would wish didn't happen, and to which we resign ourselves as best we can!... DOCTOR (_merely to make a remark, while studying Henry IV. carefully_). Alas! Yes, alas!