DOCTOR. He was alluding to the costumes we had slipped on.... Your cloak (_indicating the Marchioness_), our Benedictine habits.... But all this is childish! DONNA MATILDA (_turning quickly, indignant_). Childish? What do you mean, doctor? DOCTOR. From one point of view, it is--I beg you to let me say so, Marchioness! Yet, on the other hand, it is much more complicated than you can imagine. DONNA MATILDA. To me, on the contrary, it is perfectly clear! DOCTOR (_with a smile of pity of the competent person towards those who do not understand_). We must take into account the peculiar psychology of madmen; which, you must know, enables us to be certain that they observe things and can, for instance, easily detect people who are disguised; can in fact recognize the disguise and yet believe in it; just as children do, for whom disguise is both play and reality. That is why I used the word childish. But the thing is extremely complicated, inasmuch as he must be perfectly aware of being an image to himself and for himself--that image there, in fact (_alluding to the portrait in the throne room, and pointing to the left_)! BELCREDI. That's what he said! DOCTOR. Very well then--An image before which other images, ours, have appeared: understand? Now he, in his acute and perfectly lucid delirium, was able to detect at once a difference between his image and ours: that is, he saw that ours were make-believes. So he suspected us; because all madmen are armed with a special diffidence. But that's all there is to it! Our make-believe, built up all round his, did not seem pitiful to him. While his seemed all the more tragic to us, in that he, as if in defiance--understand?--and induced by his suspicion, wanted to show us up merely as a joke. That was also partly the case with him, in coming before us with painted cheeks and hair, and saying he had done it on purpose for a jest. DONNA MATILDA (_impatiently_). No, it's not that, doctor. It's not like that! It's not like that! DOCTOR. Why isn't it, may I ask? DONNA MATILDA (_with decision but trembling_). I am perfectly certain he recognized me! DOCTOR. It's not possible ... it's not possible! BELCREDI (_at the same time_). Of course not! DONNA MATILDA (_more than ever determined, almost convulsively_). I tell you, he recognized me! When he came close up to speak to me--looking in my eyes, right into my eyes--he recognized me! BELCREDI. But he was talking of your daughter! DONNA MATILDA. That's not true! He was talking of me! Of me! BELCREDI. Yes, perhaps, when he said....