TRUFFALDINO: Are you expecting money?

FLORINDO: Err yes, from a local merchant. What did they say, the person who gave this to you?

TRUFFALDINO: They said, [imitating PANTALONA] ‘Here, give this to your master’.

FLORINDO: Am I not your master?

TRUFFALDINO: Of course. [Aside] Oh, cacca [shit], what if it’s for the other one?

FLORINDO: Oh, and don’t forget about Pasquale.

TRUFFALDINO: Who? Oh yes, I’ll look for him after lunch. Let’s go eat.

FLORINDO and TRUFFALDINO exit.

SCENE SIX

A room in Pantalona’s house.

PANTALONA and CLARICE enter.

PANTALONA: Signor Federigo will be your husband and that is that! I have given my word and I won’t be told what to do by you or anyone else.

CLARICE: You may be the boss of me, but you are not the boss of my heart!

PANTALONA: Amore, tesoro [Love, sweetheart], when Signor Federigo asked for your hand, you said nothing. You should have said something, but you didn’t, and now it is too late.

CLARICE: I was blindsided and dumbstruck.

PANTALONA: Good. So do the same now, keep your mouth shut. Okay, sweetie pie, darling?

CLARICE: But I cannot, cara Mamma [dear Mother].

PANTALONA: Why not?

CLARICE: Federigo, I certainly won’t marry.

PANTALONA: Is he that bad?

CLARICE: He is odious to my eyes.

PANTALONA: Even if I teach you how to like him?

CLARICE: How, Mamma?

PANTALONA: Now when a man loves a woman …

PANTALONA whispers to CLARICE.

CLARICE: Oh, Mamma, that’s grotesque …

PANTALONA continues to whisper.

What about me?

SMERALDINA enters.

SMERALDINA: Signora Pantalona, Signor Federigo is here. He wants to pay his respects.

PANTALONA: Well, let him in, mi casa es su casa [my home is your home (in Spanish)].

CLARICE: What torture it is to live in this oppressive fascist matriarchal house.

SMERALDINA: What’s wrong, Signora Clarice? Are you crying? What on earth for? Have you not seen what a spunk Signor Federigo is? If I were to come across such fortune, I would not be crying, oh no, I would be smiling from ear to ear!

PANTALONA: Clarice, don’t let him see you crying.

CLARICE: But my heart feels as though it has been torn out of my breast, thrown into the rubbish, ended up in landfill and eaten by sewer rats.

BEATRICE enters.

BEATRICE: Riverisco la Signora Pantalona. [I revere Madam Pantalona.]

PANTALONA: Riverita. [Revered.] Did you get the money?

BEATRICE: No.

PANTALONA: I gave it to your servant—you said he was trust—

BEATRICE: There is no need to worry—I haven’t seen him as yet and he will give it to me when I return home. Why is Signora Clarice crying?

PANTALONA: She’s got hay fever.

CLARICE: Actually, for your information, the love of my life, my soul, my everything has been torn away from me and I’m being forced to marry you—a capitalist banker leech who is probably responsible for the Global Financial Crisis. Because in this society women are a commodity and marriage is a financial transaction between business partners. That is why you see my eyes bleed, not because I have allergies.