Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/39



. However, every day could not be glorious in the history of the Kingdom of Suavia. Michael VIII was a prudent king, a model of public and private virtues. His wife, Edvigia, was a model queen, as all the queens of Suavia have been since the beginning of the seventeenth century, although, as we have already seen, previous to the seventeenth, particularly during the fourteenth and fifteenth, there may have been an occasional one of unhappy memory.

. Pardon, Herr Stirger, but Queen Theodolinda, to whom you refer, has been gravely disparaged in my opinion through being called the Messalina of Suavia. Have you read the recent monograph of Herr Tomberg, published in the Journal of Historical Sciences? It would appear that the name of Theodolinda had been completely vindicated. Herr Tomberg proves that the unfortunate eccentricities of the queen did not reflect so much upon herself as upon her husband, who, it seems, condoned them.

. Very possibly. May we proceed. Countess?

. Do so, and pardon again. Queen Theodolinda has always been such a sympathetic figure to me!

. We now arrive at a dark page in the reign of Michael VIII, unjustly called the Simple by his detractors, who were many. But for them his reign was glorious. The battle of Kuntz was not lost through the cowardice of our 15