Summary
In the countess's bedroom, there are three doors: one the entrance, another leading to Susan's room, and one into the dressing room. Susan tells the countess about what happened with Hannibal, how he begged her to get the countess to ask for him to stay. In the process, she reveals that Hannibal has a crush on the countess.
Susan then reveals that the count plans to end her engagement to Figaro by plotting with Marcelina. The countess tells Susan that she will help her devise a plan to prevent this, before bemoaning her unfaithful husband. "He thinks his own Infidelities must all be overlook’d, yet my Conduct must be irreproachable," she says, mournfully. Susan notes that the count is going out hunting, when Figaro enters.
Figaro tells the countess that he has a scheme to thwart the count's plans. He tells Susan to agree to meet Almaviva in the garden that evening, near the pavilion. He clarifies that he does not want Susan to do anything sexual she does not want to do, saying, "Nay, my Charmer, do not imagine I would wish thee to grant him any thing thou wishest to refuse—But first we must dress up the Page in your cloaths, my dear Susan; he is to be your Representative." He tells the countess that he will manage the count himself, suggesting that he will endeavor to make the count jealous of an imagined affair that the countess is having.
"But as you know him to be so jealous, how will you dare?" the countess asks, but Figaro assures her that it is this jealousy that he wishes to exploit. The countess then reveals that she has been planning to unleash a similar plan, writing an anonymous letter suggesting an affair between herself and "a Gallant." Figaro assures her that he has sent such a letter already. He tells them that the rumor in the letter suggests that the countess' lover will appear at the wedding, which will motivate the count to let Figaro's wedding to Susan take place.
Susan worries that Marcelina will prevent the wedding, but Figaro is certain that the count is their final judge and will let it go on. When Figaro goes off to fetch the page, Susan shows the countess the song Hannibal has written for her. When Hannibal enters, he imagines that the countess is angry at him, but she calls him forward, and asks him why he is so sad.
As Susan puts her clothes onto Hannibal, she and the countess beg him to sing the song he has written. He does. The song is about his desire for a "Goddess." The countess is moved by his passion, as Susan puts the finishing touches on his costume. "I declare I am jealous: see if he is not handsomer than I am!" Susan says.
Suddenly, they are interrupted by the count, and the countess worries that if he finds the page after receiving Figaro's anonymous letter, the plan will be ruined. She instructs Hannibal to run into the dressing room and lock the door, just as the count enters.
Almaviva immediately comments on the fact that the countess seems agitated, and she tells him that she was just talking about his "indifference" and his "jealousy." He refers suggestively to her affair and she insists that she has received no one. All of a sudden, Hannibal overturns a table in the dressing room, but when Almaviva refers to it, the countess pretends to have heard nothing. She suggests that it might be Susan, and Almaviva wants to see for himself.
During this conflict, Susan slips into the room unnoticed, and quickly hides herself behind the bed-curtains. After locking Susan's chamber door, the count goes with the countess to get an instrument to force open the dressing room door. When he is gone, Susan lets the page out and he jumps out a window onto a bed of flowers, after kissing Susan. She then goes into the dressing room and locks herself in.
When the count and countess come in, the countess begs him for mercy, telling him that the page is in the dressing room, but that it is not an affair. She tells him that she was in the middle of dressing the page up in women's clothes, as the Count rails against Hannibal, threatening to stab him. In the middle of this, Susan opens the door and steps out. The count and countess are completely shocked, and the Count marvels at what a good actress his wife is.
The count goes to the countess, who reveals that Figaro sent the anonymous letter. They discuss the fact that the countess was so good at pretending to be worried about the dressing room, when Figaro enters. They tell him that the count knows all about the letter and the joke. Figaro tries to keep up the facade, but they insist that the count knows everything.
Antonio the gardener walks in, half-drunk, with a broken flower pot under his arm. He complains that a man in white stockings just jumped out of the countess's window and ruined his plants. Seeing an opportunity, Figaro confesses that it was he who jumped out the window into the garden. Antonio suggests that the man actually looked like the page, but Figaro insists that it was him.
Believing that it was Figaro, Antonio hands him a piece of paper, Hannibal's commission, which the count snatches up. With some help from Susan and the countess, Figaro correctly identifies it as the page's commission, which he says Hannibal gave to him so that he could procure the count's seal.
Marcelina, Basil, and Bounce enter. Marcelina asks the count to consider the fact that Figaro owes her money and has promised to marry her if he cannot repay the sum. The count says, "Let the Advocates and Officers of Justice be assembled in the great Hall; we will there determine on the justice of your claim." A trial begins to determine Figaro's guilt. Bounce offers to go on an errand for the count, and introduces himself as "Fire-work maker to your Lordship."
When everyone exits, only the countess and Susan remain. The countess wishes she had a way to expose the count's affairs. She decides to meet with the count herself to expose his infidelity and takes the riband, putting it in her pocket and swearing Susan to secrecy, forbidding her from even telling Figaro of her plans.
Analysis
Everyone in the play is involved in some kind of conspiracy with another character, in a dizzying array of combinations. The second act opens with a private conversation between Susan and the countess, servant and master. They devise how they might help one another in their respective problems, which seem to overlap in key ways. Susan does not want the count to break up her engagement to Figaro, her true love, and the countess wants the count's romantic attention back. Thus we see that their romantic foibles are connected, in that they both concern the greed and entitlement of the count.
In her lament about her husband's unfaithfulness, the countess also addresses the double standard placed upon her as a woman. She says, "He thinks his own Infidelities must all be overlook’d, yet my Conduct must be irreproachable." In this line, we see that the countess' dismay about her husband's infidelity has to do not only with the fact that he is unfaithful, but also with the way he expects her to be faithless regardless of his own behavior. This double standard is perhaps the most disturbing element of the arrangement, and what makes the countess feel so trapped within her own marriage.
Luckily for the countess and Susan, Figaro loves nothing more than to come up with schemes to turn matters in his own favor. He tells Susan to agree to meet the count in the garden that evening, with the intention of sending the page, Hannibal, dressed as Susan in her stead. "I was born to thrive in Courts," Figaro says after detailing his plan, suggesting that his ability to scheme serves him well in the court of his superiors. Mobility and autonomy within the court has all to do with schemes and contrivances.
The second act follows many of the same comic and narrative patterns as the first. A great deal of the tension and humor of this act have to do with characters hiding, with disguises and dramatic irony, in which the audience knows that someone is inappropriately hiding in a characters' bed chambers, while a character onstage has no idea. The audience is aligned with the characters, brought in on their plots and games.
The play is fast and light, with a number of narrative balls being kept in the air at once, but the struggles that the characters face are quite definitive and dramatic. The characters are constantly duping one another, arranging private meetings, assuming disguises, and plotting one another's downfall. The central conflict remains that the count is never held accountable for his actions, while the other characters, due to either their class positions or gender, are held to a nearly impossible standard of conduct, one which undoes their own sense of dignity. Thus, we see the deceptions that the characters carry out are not mere follies, but machinations designed to help them exercise some power within a system that has rendered them powerless.
