The Inca of Perusalem Part 3

THE INCA. I beg you, madam, to be quite at your ease, and to speak to me without ceremony.

ERMYNTRUDE [moving haughtily and carelessly to the table]. I hadn't the slightest intention of treating you with ceremony. [She sits down: a liberty which gives him a perceptible shock.] I am quite at a loss to imagine why I should treat a perfect stranger named Duval: a captain!

almost a subaltern! with the smallest ceremony.

THE INCA. That is true. I had for the moment forgotten my position.

ERMYNTRUDE. It doesn't matter. You may sit down.

THE INCA [frowning.] What!

ERMYNTRUDE. I said, you...may...sit...down.

THE INCA. Oh. [His moustache droops. He sits down.]

ERMYNTRUDE. What is your business?

THE INCA. I come on behalf of the Inca of Perusalem.

ERMYNTRUDE. The Allerhochst?

THE INCA. Precisely.

ERMYNTRUDE. I wonder does he feel ridiculous when people call him the Allerhochst.

THE INCA [surprised]. Why should he? He IS the Allerhochst.

ERMYNTRUDE. Is he nice looking?

THE INCA. I--er. Er--I. I--er. I am not a good judge.

ERMYNTRUDE. They say he takes himself very seriously.

THE INCA. Why should he not, madam? Providence has entrusted to his family the care of a mighty empire. He is in a position of half divine, half paternal, responsibility towards sixty millions of people, whose duty it is to die for him at the word of command. To take himself otherwise than seriously would be blasphemous. It is a punishable offence--severely punishable--in Perusalem. It is called Incadisparagement.

ERMYNTRUDE. How cheerful! Can he laugh?

THE INCA. Certainly, madam. [He laughs, harshly and mirthlessly.] Ha ha!

Ha ha ha!

ERMYNTRUDE [frigidly]. I asked could the Inca laugh. I did not ask could you laugh.

THE INCA. That is true, madam. [Chuckling.] Devilish amusing, that!

[He laughs, genially and sincerely, and becomes a much more agreeable person.] Pardon me: I am now laughing because I cannot help it. I am amused. The other was merely an imitation: a failure, I admit.

ERMYNTRUDE. You intimated that you had some business?

THE INCA [producing a very large jewel case, and relapsing into solemnity.] I am instructed by the Allerhochst to take a careful note of your features and figure, and, if I consider them satisfactory, to present you with this trifling token of His Imperial Majesty's regard.

I do consider them satisfactory. Allow me [he opens the jewel case and presents it.]

ERMYNTRUDE [staring at the contents]. What awful taste he must have! I can't wear that.

THE INCA [reddening]. Take care, madam! This brooch was designed by the Inca himself. Allow me to explain the design. In the centre, the s.h.i.+eld of Arminius. The ten surrounding medallions represent the ten castles of His Majesty. The rim is a piece of the telephone cable laid by His Majesty across the s.h.i.+pskeel ca.n.a.l. The pin is a model in miniature of the sword of Henry the Birdcatcher.

ERMYNTRUDE. Miniature! It must be bigger than the original. My good man, you don't expect me to wear this round my neck: it's as big as a turtle.

[He shuts the case with an angry snap.] How much did it cost?

THE INCA. For materials and manufacture alone, half a million Perusalem dollars, madam. The Inca's design const.i.tutes it a work of art. As such, it is now worth probably ten million dollars.

ERMYNTRUDE. Give it to me [she s.n.a.t.c.hes it]. I'll p.a.w.n it and buy something nice with the money.

THE INCA. Impossible, madam. A design by the Inca must not be exhibited for sale in the shop window of a p.a.w.nbroker. [He flings himself into his chair, fuming.]

ERMYNTRUDE. So much the better. The Inca will have to redeem it to save himself from that disgrace; and the poor p.a.w.nbroker will get his money back. n.o.body would buy it, you know.

THE INCA. May I ask why?

ERMYNTRUDL. Well, look at it! Just look at it! I ask you!

THE INCA [his moustache drooping ominously]. I am sorry to have to report to the Inca that you have no soul for fine art. [He rises sulkily.] The position of daughter-in-law to the Inca is not compatible with the tastes of a pig. [He attempts to take back the brooch.]

ERMYNTRUDE [rising and retreating behind her chair with the brooch].

Here! you let that brooch alone. You presented it to me on behalf of the Inca. It is mine. You said my appearance was satisfactory.

THE INCA. Your appearance is not satisfactory. The Inca would not allow his son to marry you if the boy were on a desert island and you were the only other human being on it [he strides up the room.]

ERMYNTRUDE [calmly sitting down and replacing the case on the table].

How could he? There would be no clergyman to marry us. It would have to be quite morganatic.

THE INCA [returning]. Such an expression is out of place in the mouth of a princess aspiring to the highest destiny on earth. You have the morals of a dragoon. [She receives this with a shriek of laughter. He struggles with his sense of humor.] At the same time [he sits down] there is a certain coa.r.s.e fun in the idea which compels me to smile [he turns up his moustache and smiles.]

ERMYNTRUDE. When I marry the Inca's son, Captain, I shall make the Inca order you to cut off that moustache. It is too irresistible. Doesn't it fascinate everyone in Perusalem?

THE INCA [leaning forward to her energetically]. By all the thunders of Thor, madam, it fascinates the whole world.

ERMYNTRUDE. What I like about you, Captain Duval, is your modesty.

THE INCA [straightening up suddenly]. Woman, do not be a fool.

ERMYNTRUDE [indignant]. Well!

THE INCA. You must look facts in the face. This moustache is an exact copy of the Inca's moustache. Well, does the world occupy itself with the Inca's moustache or does it not? Does it ever occupy itself with anything else? If that is the truth, does its recognition const.i.tute the Inca a c.o.xcomb? Other potentates have moustaches: even beards and moustaches. Does the world occupy itself with those beards and moustaches? Do the hawkers in the streets of every capital on the civilized globe sell ingenious cardboard representations of their faces on which, at the pulling of a simple string, the moustaches turn up and down, so--[he makes his moustache turn, up and down several times]? No!

I say No. The Inca's moustache is so watched and studied that it has made his face the political barometer of the whole continent. When that moustache goes up, culture rises with it. Not what you call culture; but Kultur, a word so much more significant that I hardly understand it myself except when I am in specially good form. When it goes down, millions of men perish.

ERMYNTRUDE. You know, if I had a moustache like that, it would turn my head. I should go mad. Are you quite sure the Inca isn't mad?

THE INCA. How can he be mad, madam? What is sanity? The condition of the Inca's mind. What is madness? The condition of the people who disagree with the Inca.

ERMYNTRUDE. Then I am a lunatic because I don't like that ridiculous brooch.