Flashback

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
Captain, I cannot thank you enough. Your kindness to my cousin has meant a great deal

[GIORGIO, spoken]
You have no reason to thank me

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
Any attention that is paid to her means so much. Signora Fosca has always had a shortage of friends

[FOSCA is revealed at her writing table.]

[FOSCA, spoken]
My dearest Giorgio. I am writing you even though the Doctor has forbidden it. What a joy to have someone to whom I can tell my feelings. To share my past

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
I was a young man when my parents died, and Fosca's mother and father welcomed me into their house whenever I was on leave

[Music underneath as we go back in time.]

(sung)
As a child

[FOSCA]
As a child

[COLONEL RICCI]
She was lonely

[FOSCA]
I was happy

[COLONEL RICCI]
Her parеnts doted on her

[FOSCA]
My parents dotеd on me

[FOSCA's mother and father enter.]

[RICCI & FOSCA]
They said:

[FOSCA'S PARENTS]
Beautiful

[MOTHER]
So sensitive

[FOSCA'S PARENTS]
So beautiful

[FOSCA]
They told me to be:

[MOTHER]
Careful

[COLONEL RICCI]
Of course

[MOTHER]
Fosca

[COLONEL RICCI]
To them, she was

[FATHER]
A girl as beautiful as you are has to

[FOSCA]
And so

[FATHER]
Be careful

[FOSCA]
I thought
That I was beautiful

[RICCI & (FOSCA)]
And then she (I) reached the age
Where being beautiful
Becomes the most important thing
A woman can be

[COLONEL RICCI]
An unattractive man

[FOSCA]
As long as you're a man
You still have opportunities

[COLONEL RICCI]
Can still have opportunities

[FOSCA'S PARENTS]
Beautiful...

[RICCI & FOSCA]
Whereas, if you're a woman
You either are a daughter or a wife

[FOSCA'S PARENTS]
A woman is a flower

[RICCI & FOSCA]
You marry

[FATHER]
You're seventeen

[COLONEL RICCI]
Or you're a daughter all your life

[FOSCA'S PARENTS]
Now is the hour...

[COLONEL RICCI]
I'd met this nice young man

[FOSCA]
I'd seen this nice young man

[COLONEL RICCI]
He'd introduced himself

[FOSCA]
Passing by

[COLONEL RICCI]
At my club

[FOSCA]
Just below my window

[COLONEL RICCI]
So

[FOSCA]
One day

[COLONEL RICCI]
One evening I invited him

[FOSCA]
He tipped his hat to me

[COLONEL RICCI]
Home

(spoken)
Count Ludovic!

[FOSCA]
I must admit that I was flattered

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
This is my Aunt Teresa and my Uncle Bruno

[FOSCA'S PARENTS, spoken]
A count?

[FATHER, spoken]
From where, if I may ask?

[LUDOVIC, spoken]
Austria

[PARENTS]
Austria...

[MOTHER, spoken]
What a beautiful place

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
Fosca, we have a visitor!

[FOSCA]
Imagine my surprise

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
I'd like you to meet a new friend, Count Ludovic!

[FOSCA, spoken]
He was even more handsome up close

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
I was amazed to see the count take such an interest in my cousin

[LUDOVIC]
If I had known you were here, Signorina-

[FOSCA, spoken]
"If he had known," of course he knew

[LUDOVIC]
I would have brought you many flowers

[COLONEL RICCI]
If I had known...

[LUDOVIC, spoken]
You do like flowers?

[FOSCA, spoken]
Yes

[COLONEL RICCI]
I should have known

[LUDOVIC]
I've seen you at your window

[MOTHER, spoken]
Won't you stay for dinner?

[FATHER, spoken]
Do, yes

[LUDOVIC]
I've watched you every day since I arrived

[FOSCA]
I had my suspicions

[COLONEL RICCI]
I had no suspicion

[RICCI & FOSCA]
I chose not to see

[LUDOVIC]
The way you move
The way you gaze at the sky

[FOSCA]
For love had made me blind

[COLONEL RICCI]
How could I be so blind?

[FOSCA]
Or what I took for love

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
Within a month, he had asked for her hand

[GIORGIO, spoken]
Signora Fosca has been married?

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
Yes

[FOSCA'S PARENTS]
Austria, Count Ludovic of Austria

[FOSCA]
I sensed in him a danger
Deception, even violence
I must admit, to some degree
That it excited me

[FOSCA'S PARENTS]
Austria, Count Ludovic of Austria

[COLONEL RICCCI, spoken]
Once they were married, once he'd received my uncle's sizable dowry, he traveled a great deal, was unavailable to Fosca

[FOSCA, spoken]
He gambled away the dowry. I was forced to go to my parents to borrow from what little savings they had left

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
Then, one day, as she was coming from market...

[MISTRESS, spoken]
Excuse me. You're the wife of a Count Ludovic?

[FOSCA, spoken]
Yes

[MISTRESS]
You fool
The man's a fraud, a fake
The trips he said he had to take abroad
He took them so he could be with me
He calls himself a count, but he's not
He's never had a title in his life!
He doesn't have a title
But he does have a wife
And a child in Dalmatia

[FOSCA, spoken]
No, you must be mistaken

[MISTRESS]
Oh, yes
He only wants to bleed you
Until the day he doesn't need you
I warn you he'll abandon you
As he abandoned her and me
And countless others, I've no doubt
I'm telling you, the man was born without a heart
You fool...

[FOSCA, spoken]
I confronted him with this information, and he made no attempt to deny it

[LUDOVIC]
Ah well, at last you know the truth, Signorina
But you, as well, must face the truth
I've no desire to deceive you anymore
But do admit what you ignore:
We made a bargain, did we not?
And we got what we bargained for

You gave me your money, I gave you my looks
And my charm and my arm
I would say that more than balances the books
Where's the harm?
Now it's through

If women sell their looks
Why can't a man, if he can?
Besides, the money wasn't even yours
It belonged to those ridiculous old bores
Your parents
Forgive me, my dear, but though you are no cutie
I fear you are not quite the victim you appear

Well, let us part by mutual consent and be content
And so, good luck and goodbye
I must go
Oh, and yes, we haven't paid the rent
Since July
Just so you know...

[FOSCA, spoken]
I returned home to find my parents impoverished and in poor health

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
Fosca's health failed

[FOSCA]
A woman's like a flower

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
She began to suffer her first convulsions. My aunt and uncle nursed her as best they could

[FOSCA]
A flower's only purpose is to please

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
I spent months looking for the man

[FOSCA]
Beauty is power

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
By then, of course, he'd vanished

[FOSCA]
Longing, a disease

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
To this day, I dream of finding him and realizing my revenge

[FOSCA, spoken]
My father died not long thereafter

[COLONEL RICCI]
How could I be so blind?

[FOSCA]
I couldn't face the world

[COLONEL RICCI]
It took her many months to leave her bed

[FOSCA]
It took me months to leave my bed

[COLONEL RICCI, spoken]
When her mother died, she had nothing, really. No one

[FOSCA, spoken]
And so, I went to stay with my cousin, who in some way felt responsible for my circumstances

[COLONEL RICCI]
Why could I not admit the truth?
How could I not have seen through the veneer?
I told myself
"As long as she seems happy, why interfere?"
Or was I just relieved to know
That somebody would want her for a wife?
In war, you know the enemy
Not always so in life

The enemy was love
Selfishness, really, but love
All of us blinded by love
That makes everything seem possible

You have to pay a consequence
For things that you've denied
This is the thorn in my side

[MISTRESS]
As long as you're a man
You're what the world will make of you
Whereas, if you're a woman
You're only what it sees

[RICCI, FATHER, LUDOVIC]
A woman is a flower whose purpose is to please

[ALL]
Beauty is power, longing, a disease