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I.d -~ \) i *C F"-; I 'r:g4187t59s'"""""~L- - i5-fEki'T B;:.7"J;ie%ioBTui~, IF s B`r'a lir, 'J:I 3- cta r -t dlXSI. — r, J' $ n-~ isJ p-su-r~j~:g: X_ip,~ Y1 C1 E- itd.dir ~pi iYiS *%i i iry i:~X~-L s U rLj~ LP) -~ * ff: ~';i,L. j, - ait:r ~~z J -I ~;ti~ ~- lijr4 t~ i CLL g TYPES OF DOMESTIC TRAGEDY OTHER TITLES IN THE WORLD DRAMA SERIES BY THE SAME EDITOR TYPES OF PHILOSOPHIC DRAMA TYPES OF WORLD TRAGEDY TYPES OF SOCIAL COMEDY TYPES OF FARCE-COMEDY TYPES OF HISTORICAL DRAMA TYPES OF ROMANTIC DRAMA Ilorlb 3Brama ertietS TYPES OF DOMESTIC TRAGEDY EDITED BY ROBERT METCALF SMITH, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, LEHIGH UNIVERSITY K. I B Of ALL NEW YORi: PRENTICE-HALL, INC. I928 COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY PRENTICE-HALL, INC. All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 21 a-a3r-/.^ r i FOREWORD FOREWORD Domestic tragedy as a type of drama is readily defined, and its origin and growth are unquestionably clear. From Thomas Heywood through Lillo, Hebbel, Ibsen, and Strindberg, the traditions of domestic tragedy have descended to contemporary writers like Pinero, Galsworthy, Barrie, Shaw, St. John Ervine, and Eugene O'Neill. The plays reprinted in this volume may serve to illustrate the growth of this type of drama, which has won the devotion of nearly every modern playwright and claimed the attention of an evergrowing theater public. Until harmony in domestic relations has been more generally achieved than in this present age of transition and turmoil, the public is likely to seek in domestic tragedy that enlightenment which many believe to be the only road to concord between men and women. How else shall we explain the incessant discussions of marriage, old style, new style, companionate, or compassionate, that fill our thoughtful books and magazines, and crowd our theaters to the very doors? It may be questioned whether it was merely fashion or morbid interest that drew packed houses to Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude-an astonishing play which is but Strindberg brought down to 1928. For domestic tragedy to-day is, no doubt, as pedagogical in its purpose as when Heywood first produced A Woman Killed With Kindness. Though its codes of conduct and its emphasis may change with the ages, it is still striving "to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." To the J. B. Lyon Company I am indebted for permission to reprint P. B. Thomas's translation of Hebbel's Maria Magdalena; to Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, and his American repreV vi FOREWORD sentative, the W. H. Baker Company, for Mid-Channel; to The Dramatic Publishing Company, Chicago, for N. Erichsen's translation of Strindberg's The Father; and to William Heinemann, Ltd., of London, for Arthur Symons translation of Gioconda. As in preceding volumes of this series, my colleague, Mr. Howard G. Rhoads, has given generous assistance in preparing the manuscript for the press. ROBERT METCALF SMITH. CONTENTS PAGE FOREWORD......................................... v i. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS (1603) Thomas Heywood 7 2. GEORGE BARNWELL OR THE LONDON MERCHANT (1731)............................George Lillo 79 3. MARIA MAGDALENA (1844).........Friedrich Hebbel 149 4. THE FATHER (1887).............August Strindberg 211 5. HEDDA GABLER (1890)................Henrik Ibsen 271 6. GIOCONDA (1898)............. Gabriele D'Annunzio 37i 7. MID-CHANNEL (1909).........Arthur Wing Pinero 447 APPENDIX, AUTHORS AND PLAYS...................... 571 THE NATURE-OF DOMESTIC TRAGEDY Domestic tragedy is a conventional term used to denote a particular kind of realistic play that first appeared in England in the very heyday of the Elizabethan romantic drama. Instead of portraying tragic stories of kings, warriors, or heroes, c'ntendiig for kingdoms, themes of blood vengeance induced yT ghosts, or other "old,; unhappy, far-off things and battles longago," Adom esti tragedy deals with the difficulties and problems of contemporary family life. The personages belong toQnojLQyal lineage or noble rank; they are plan, everyday folk, such as are held to be unfit subjects for tragedy according to thee-classical` rufles. The themes circumscribed by the concerns of a single family center around the primary causes of domestic dissension: infidelity, jealousy, revenge, selfishness, ltiomm, poverty, parental tyranny, sex antagonism, and so forth. Broadly speaking, the (Edipus of Sophocles and the Othello of Shakespeare might be considered domestic tragedies, since in both plays we observe dissensions and disruptions of family life, but this is not what is meant by the term "domestic tragedy" as used in dramatic criticism. If we compare the (Edipus or Othello with any one of the tragedies in this book -for example, George Barnwell-we shall readily perceive why the term "domestic tragedy" has been invented for the realistic, unheroic, bourgeois tragedy of family life. (Edipus and Othello are idealized personages whose careers involve responsibilities of state as well as the concerns of family life; their passions and sufferings are of colossal magnitude; and they have the universality that distinguishes them as heroes of world tragedy.' In opposition to the classical or the romantic idealization of character there surely comes in every age the realistic demand for "truth," for the actual rather than for the possible. Accordingly, in the earliest extant English domestic tragedy, Arden of Feversham, 1592, which appeared in the very midst of Marlowe chronicle plays and Kydian revenge1 Types of World Tragedy. 1 2 THE NATURE OF DOMESTIC TRAGEDY ghost tragedies, we find set forth a protest against the prevailing romantic bombast, and a "naked tragedy," based upon "simple truth": "Gentlemen, we hope youle pardon this naked tragedy Wherein no filed points are foisted in To make it gratious to the eare or eye; For simple truth is gratious enough, And needs no other points of glosing stuffe." Similarly, a few years later, when domestic tragedy was at its height, from 1597-1605, we find in the introduction to A Warning for Fair Women (1599) a definite protest against the improbabilities of the revenge-ghost drama then reaching its artistic culmination in Hamlet: "Perhaps it may seem strange unto you all, That one hath not avenged another's death After the observation of such course: The reason is that now of truth I sing." A similar passion inspired Thomas Heywood in writing at this time A Woman Killed with Kindness (1607, acted 1603). According to the Elizabethan moral code, revenge for adultery was a duty, and the punishment, death. Once Othello is persuaded of Desdemona's guilt, no other course is conceivable to him than to be "most bloody" in his vengeance. Heywood gives the theme of adultery and revenge an entirely novel treatment by portraying a husband refusing the "heroics" of revenge and allowing his guilty wife to die repentant and forgiven. These early Elizabethan domestic tragedies, Arden of Feversham, A Yorkshire Tragedy, and Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness, became the models for succeeding examples of the type; in the Restoration period, Otway's The Orphan and Southerne's The Fatal Marriage approach this genre like Rowe's The Fair Penitent and Jane Shore before Lillo in the 18th century. The domestic tragedy differs also from other types of tragedy in its tendency, open or tacit, "to moralize the age," to hold up for indictment and warning the sins of the erring par THE NATURE OF DOMESTIC TRAGEDY 3 ent, wife, husband, or lover. The moral emphasis in the early realism of Heywood and the Elizabethans becomes, in the hands of Lillo and Cumberland in the 18th century, a heavy didacticism. The characters, good or bad, repeatedly drop their roles and deliver in turn the lesson the audience is to draw from every situation, for according to the 18th century the purpose of tragedy was to establish poetic justice and inculcate morality. Dr. Johnson, a staunch exponent of this non-Aristotelian view, censured Shakespeare's plays because he could not find a scheme of poetic justice in them, and it may be said in passing that other critics who have attempted to systematize Shakespeare's moral universe have as signally failed. Not until we come to the 19th century with Hebbel and Ibsen do we find dramatists content to write domestic tragedies without moral tags, and to let the horrifying spectacle produce what edification it may. D'Annunzio's Gioconda is a rare example of the art for art's sake method in domestic tragedy with no thought of moral purpose. In style, the domestic tragedy shuns all literary pretense; it eschews poetry, and boldly substitutes prose for blank verse; its naked disclosures call for terse statement and everyday conversation, though the style of the early exemplars is often heightened by the dramatist's moral fervor or his sentimental passion. Gioconda is again an exception; its style is poetic. In spite of the protests of realists and moralizers, English tragedy until recent times has shown a decided partiality for romantic rather than for bourgeois tragedy. The comparatively few domestic tragedies surviving in the great dramatic era from 1589 to the closing of the theaters in 1642 show that even though the English dramatists invented the genre, the audience preferred the types of tragedy, comedy, and tragicomedy written by Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and their followers. When the theater was opened again in Restoration times (1660-1700), the stage was given over, as we have seen,2 to heroic plays, and social comedies.3 In the early 18th century the moral reaction against the Restoration comedies brought 'See Introduction to Dryden's All for Love, Types of Romantic Drama. 'See Introduction to Congreve's The Way of the World, Types of Social Comedy. 4 THE NATURE OF DOMESTIC TRAGEDY forth the sentimental comedies of Cibber, Steele, Colman, and Cumberland. This perverted taste for sententious moralities, and high-flown sentimentalities, for tearful and penitent heroines in distress, rescued from catastrophe by a happy ending, robbed domestic tragedy of its opportunity upon the stage. Only Lillo's George Barnwell or The London Merchant (1731) and The Fatal Curiosity (1737), Moore's Gamester (1753), and Cumberland's Mysterious Husband (1783) remain as examples of what the 18th century domestic tragedy might have become had it not been overwhelmed by the tradition of sentimental comedy. Although Goldsmith and Sheridan partially checked this vogue by reviving the comedy of manners,4 the tragedies of the last thirty years of the century from the pens of such playwrights as Cumberland, Holcroft, and Mrs. Inchbald continued the weepings and moralizings over ruined fortune or lost virtue. The 19th century followed with Gothic plays of terror and wonder, romantic melodramas, and historical plays in imitation of Shakespeare, many of them closet plays written for reading rather than for the stage. It was not until the later years of the 19th century that domestic tragedy as conceived by Heywood and carried on by Lillo came to its own in England. From the time of Pinero's The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893), the English drama has not lacked scores of examples of domestic tragedy. It has been, in fact, one of the outstanding types of modern drama. Under the leadership of Ibsen, numerous English dramatists, like Pinero, Jones, Galsworthy, St. John Ervine, have scored notable successes, as have Becque and Brieux in France, Hauptmann and Sudermann in Germany, and Eugene O'Neill in America in such an outstanding play, for example, as Beyond the Horizon. In the hands of these men the type has lost its earlier strict limitations. Modern domestic tragedy deals not only with the misadventures of the lower middle class, but its characters are drawn from all classes from peasant and villager to the leaders of professional and social circles in the great cities. The social backgrounds of Gioconda and Maria Magdalena differ almost as strikingly from those of Hedda Gabler and Mid-Channel as do those of Othello and George Barnwell. If Lillo's influence was little felt in England he became in 4See Introduction to Goldsmith and Sheridan, Types of Social Comedy. THE NATURE OF DOMESTIC TRAGEDY 5 France and Germany the father of domestic tragedy. Diderot drew from Lillo for his Le Fils Naturel (1757), and Le Pere de Famille (1758); and Lessing in 1755 modeled his Miss Sara Sampson directly upon The London Merchant. Following upon translations of Lillo's plays came the growth of domestic tragedy in Germany, of which Hebbel's Maria Magdalena is the pioneer example of the type in its modern naturalistic form before the advent of Ibsen. The stream of influence is clearly evident. Lillo studied and adopted the Elizabethan domestic tragedy, attempted an adaptation of Arden of Feversham for the stage, and voiced the same realistic creed. Lillo's play, in turn, became the model of German domestic tragedy out of which rose the work of Hebbel. We know that Hebbel's dramas, especially Maria Magdalena, became, in turn, models for Ibsen's naturalistic domestic tragedy, which, in Hedda Gablerfrea:c/ie a periection of dramatic intensity, psychological realism, and artistic detachment. From Ibsen, the father of modern drama, we derive~Ei6e 'domestic tragedies, which have come from the pen of nearly every modern playwright to meet success in every theater-going country. Pinero propounds in Mid-Channel an interesting thesis concerning domestic difficulties; Strindberg exhibits in The Father a whole philosophy of antagonism between male and female that renders domesticity impossible; and D'Annunzio in Gioconda exhibits a struggle between domestic obligation and artistic temperament. If domestic tragedy since its beginnings has kept generally true to type in theme and in form, it has responded in spirit to the changes in moral outlook and emphasis. In the Elizabethans and Lillo, domestic tragedy results from conduct contrary to the dictates of established English morality. The principals are sinners painfully aware of their faults, and repentant for them. The vices are the typical ones of gambling, infidelity, lost virtue, stealing, and murder; and the victims, though repentant and forgiven, pay for their sins with punishment or death. Witl Hebbel and Ibsen comes the modern shift of emphasis, which we have already studied in Types of World Tragedy. As in Ghosts, so in Maria Magdalena, and Hedda Gabler; people are what they are because of the oppressive-codbesof society sfabisedA belief, i rli ddspnhii sltions. 'A tfrans 6 THE NATURE OF DOMESTIC TRAGEDY valuation of values has taken place. One cannot imagine /edda Gabler as a tearful and repentant 'siniieF'like "Mrs. FraniiTord in Heywood's play, or-like Millw0dod'ifiLillo's play, "loathing life and yet afraid to die." She is, on the contrary, so dominated by conventional fears that she cannot bear to live; but her petulant, destructive spirit never shows any repentance or consciousness of sin. Laura in The Father is similarly driven by the deep-seated antagonisms of physical organism, and, like Hedda Gabler, is quite oblivious to willful fault in spite of the havoc she wreaks. Doubtless domestic tragedy in its future development will continue to reflect as readily as it has in the past the moral ideas and emphases of an ever changing society. Finally, we may venture the opinion that domestic tragedy is a type of drama which rarely succeeds in awakening the sense of majesty, the awe, and the terror produced by world tragedies. It lacks the spaciousness and dignity of the greatest tragic art because it insists upon special problems of domestic life that elicit chiefly the emotion of pity. Professor Allardyce Nicoll, in order to emphasize this distinction, has adopted the term drame to distinguish the type of play under which most domestic tragedies fall. "The drame is simply a serious problem play where the emotions never rise to tragic height and where the denouement is in harmony with the general atmosphere of the plot. The emotions of tragedy are those primarily of terror and awe, allied to a feeling of preeminent majesty. It cannot be too often insisted that pity and pathos are not genuinely tragic emotions. Both may appear in great tragedies, but then only as a relief to larger and more soulconsuming emotions." Now and then a modern tragedy may be found that strikes terror and has universality in the form of a fateful hereditary law, or of society as an invisible yet omnipresent force in civilization. Ibsen's Ghosts may be cited as an example of the former, Galsworthy's Justice as an example of the latter; but most of the domestic tragedies of modern times range within the narrower spheres of petty temper and fault, of provincial manners and false codes of conduct in families composed of commonplace people, whose problems are of special rather than universal interest. To witness these is often a merely distressing and pitiful experience, though the pain may be offset by a widening of the horizons of enlightenment. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS BY THOMAS HEYWOOD (1603) INTRODUCTION Among the Elizabethan dramatists of second rank, Thomas Heywood is noted for his remarkable versatility. In the long course of his career (1596-1640) he participated, he says, in 220 plays,-an output which exemplifies almost every type of drama then in vogue, whether comedies of humor, mythological plays, chronicle histories, or romances. His outstanding contribution, however, was in the field of domestic tragedy, and it is for A Woman Killed with Kindness that he is chiefly remembered. Like the unknown author of Arden of Feversham, Heywood, in his prologue, boldly states that he is choosing "a barren subject, a bare scene," a sad experience of everyday life; but the melancholy of the exhibition is relieved by the pity aroused for the erring and penitent wife, and by admiration for the husband in his woeful sense of loss and his efforts to be magnanimous and forgiving. Many times has been marked out for excellence the scene in which Frankford, returning at midnight, hesitates upon the threshold of his wife's chamber and gives vent to his despair in a style almost Shakespearean. "Oh, God, Oh, God! That it were possible To undo things done; to call back yesterday; That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, To untell the days, and to redeem these hours! Or that the sun Could, rising from the west, draw his coach backward; Take from th' account of time so many minutes, Till he had all these seasons call'd again, Those minutes, and those actions done in them, Even from her first offense;..." Less successful is Heywood's characterization of Mrs. Frankford. The relative ease with which she exchanges the old love 9 10 THOMAS HEYWOOD for the new, and then succumbs to sentimental remorse, lacks the psychological motivation and consistency which we find in modern domestic tragedy, but she became, nevertheless, the prototype in drama of numerous fair penitents, for example, Rowe's plays, The Fair Penitent, Jane Shore, and numerous others from Kotzebue's The Stranger, down to East Lynne. The struggle in Wendoll, the lover, between his passion and his loyalty to Frankford, is drawn more powerfully. To a hardened modern realist Frankford's solution of killing his wife with kindness, by banishing her and leaving her to die of the tortures of conscience, might seem a refinement of psychological cruelty less commendable than her forthright dispatch at the point of his rapier, but such an interpretation of his hero doubtless never occurred to Heywood in his revolt against the conventional revenge tragedy in his times. Frankford is intended to be the soul of gentleness and magnanimity. The drama is complicated and confused by an unnecessary underplot, which presents another problem of ethics: Should chastity be sacrificed to save a brother's honor?-and which ends after the fashion of sentimental comedy. The fidelity with which Heywood reproduces the atmosphere of the everyday English life he knew so well, the depth of emotion conveyed by his simple, unaffected dialogue, come as a relief from the romantic fustian and historical bombast of prevailing Elizabethan taste. A Woman Killed with Kindness embodies those qualities for which Charles Lamb admired Heywood: "generosity, courtesy, temperance in the depths of passion; sweetness, in a word, and gentleness." References. A. H. Thorndike, Tragedy (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1908); Allardyce Nicoll, British Drama (Crowell, New York, 1923); A. W. Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature (Macmillan, New York, 1899); F. E. Schelling, The Elizabethan Drama (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1908); A. W. Verity, Thomas Heywood (Mermaid Series, Vizetelly, London, 1888); C. L. Powell, English Domestic Relations 1487-1653 (Columbia University Press, New York, n.d.). TEXT OF THE PLAY DRAMATIS PERSONAE SIR FRANCIS ACTON, Brother to Mistress Frankford. SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD. MASTER JOHN FRANKFORD. MASTER MALBY, friend to SIR FRANCIS. MASTER WENDOLL, friend to FRANKFORD. MASTER CRANWELL. MASTER SHAFTON, false friend to SIR CHARLES. OLD MOUNTFORD, Uncle to SIR CHARLES. MASTER SANDY. MASTER RODER. MASTER TIDY, Cousin to SIR CHARLES. NICHOLAS, ROGER BRICK-BAT, Household Servants JENKIN, JACK SLIME, SPIGOT, BUTLERJ to FRANKFORD. Sheriff. Keeper of Prison. Sheriff's Officers, Serjeant, Huntsmen, Falconers, Coachmen, Carters, Servants, Musicians. MISTRESS ANNE FRANKFORD. SUSAN, Sister to SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD. CICELY, Maid to MISTRESS FRANKFORD. Women Servants in MASTER FRANKFORD'S household. PROLOGUE I COME but like a harbinger, being sent To tell you what these preparations mean. Look for no glorious state; our Muse is bent Upon a barren subject, a bare scene. We could afford this twig a timber-tree, Whose strength might boldly on your favours build; Our russet, tissue; drone, a honey-bee; Our barren plot, a large and spacious field; Our coarse fare, banquets; our thin water, wine; Our brook, a sea; our bat's eyes, eagle's sight; Our poet's dull and earthy Muse, divine; Our ravens, doves; our crow's black feathers, white. But gentle thoughts, when they may give the foil, Save thenm that yield, and spare where they'may spoil. 13 A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS ACT I SCENE I.-Enter MASTER JOHN FRANKFORD, MISTRESS FRANKFORD, SIR FRANCIS ACTON, SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD, MASTER MALBY, MASTER WENDOLL, and MASTER CRANWELL. SIR FRANCIS. Some music, there! None lead the bride a dance? SIR CHARLES. Yes, would she dance The Shaking of the Sheets; But that's the dance her husband means to lead her. WENDOLL. That's not the dance that every man must dance, According to the ballad. SIR FRANCIS. Music, ho! By your leave, sister,-by your husband's leave, I should have said, the hand that but this day Was given you in the church I'll borrow.-Sound! This marriage music hoists me from the ground. FRANKFORD. Ay, you may caper; you are light and free! Marriage hath yok'd my heels; pray, then, pardon me. SIR FRANCIS. I'll have you dance too, brother! SIR CHARLES. Master Frankford, You are a happy man, sir, and much joy Succeed your marriage mirth: you have a wife So qualified, and with such ornaments Both of the mind and body. First, her birth Is noble, and her education such As might become the daughter of a prince; Her own tongue speaks all tongues, and her own hand Can teach all strings to speak in their best grace, From the shrill'st treble to the hoarsest base. 15 16 THOMAS HEYWOOD To end her many praises in one word, She's Beauty and Perfection's eldest daughter, Only found by yours, though many a heart hath sought her. FRANKFORD. But that I know your virtues and chaste thoughts, I should be jealous of your praise, Sir Charles. CRANWELL. He speaks no more than you approve. MALBY. Nor flatters he that gives to her her due. MRS. FRANKFORD. I would your praise could find a fitter theme Than my imperfect beauties to speak on! Such as they be, if they my husband please, They suffice me now I am married. His sweet content is like a flattering glass, To make my face seem fairer to mine eye; But the least wrinkle from his stormy brow Will blast the roses in my cheeks that grow. SIR FRANCIS. A perfect wife already, meek and patientl How strangely the word husband fits your mouth, Not married three hours since! Sister, 'tis good; You that begin betimes thus must needs prove Pliant and duteous in your husband's love.Gramercies, brother! Wrought her to't already,'Sweet husband,' and a curtsey, the first day? Mark this, mark this, you that are bachelors, And never took the grace of honest man; Mark this, against you marry, this one phrase: In a good time that man both wins and woos That takes his wife down in her wedding shoes. FRANKFORD. Your sister takes not after you, Sir Francis, All his wild blood your father spent on you; He got her in his age, when he grew civil. All his mad tricks were to his land entail'd, And you are heir to all; your sister, she Hath to her dower her mother's modesty. SIR CHARLES. Lord, sir, in what a happy state live you! This morning, which to many seems a burden, A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 17 Too heavy to bear, is unto you a pleasure. This lady is no clog, as many are; She doth become you like a well-made suit, In which the tailor hath us'd all his art; Not like a thick coat of unseason'd frieze, Forc'd on your back in summer. She's no chain To tie your neck, and curb you to the yoke; But she's a chain of gold to adorn your neck. You both adorn each other, and your hands, Methinks, are matches. There's equality In this fair combination; you are both Scholars, both young, both being descended nobly. There's music in this sympathy; it carries Consort and expectation of much joy, Which God bestow on you from this first day Until your dissolution,-that's for aye! SIR FRANCIS. We keep you here too long, good brother Frankford. Into the hall; away! Go cheer your guests. What! Bride and bridegroom both withdrawn at once? If you be mist, the guests will doubt their welcome, And charge you with unkindness. FRANKFORD. To prevent it, I'll leave you here, to see the dance within. MRs. FRANKFORD. And so will I. [Exeunt MASTER and MISTRES FRANKFORD.] SIR FRANCIS. To part you it were sin.Now, gallants, while the town musicians Finger their frets within, and the mad lads And country lasses, every mother's child, With nosegays and bride-laces in their hats, Dance all their country measures, rounds, and jigs, What shall we do? Hark! They're all on the hoigh; They toil like mill-horses, and turn as round, Marry, not on the toe! Ay, and they caper, [Not] without cutting; you shall see, to-morrow, The hall-floor peckt and dinted like a mill-stone, 18 THOMAS HEYWOOD Made with their high shoes. Though their skill be small, Yet they tread heavy where their hobnails fall. SIR CHARLES. Well, leave them to their sports!-Sir Francis Acton, I'll make a match with you! Meet me to-morrow At Chevy Chase; I'll fly my hawk with yours. SIR FRANCIS. For what? For what? SIR CHARLES. Why, for a hundred pound. SIR FRANCIS. Pawn me some gold of that! SIR CHARLES. Here are ten angels; I'll make them good a hundred pound to-morrow Upon my hawk's wing. SIR FRANCIS. 'Tis a match; 'tis done. Another hundred pound upon your dogs;Dare ye, Sir Charles? SIR CHARLES. I dare; were I sure to lose, I durst do more than that; here is my hand, The first course for a hundred pound! SIR FRANCIS. A match. WENDOLL. Ten angels on Sir Francis Acton's hawk; As much upon his dogs! CRANWELL. I'm for Sir Charles Mountford: I have seen His hawk and dog both tried. What! Clap ye hands, Or is't no bargain? WENDOLL. Yes, and stake them down. Were they five hundred, they were all my own. SIR FRANCIS. Be stirring early with the lark to-morrow; I'll rise into my saddle ere the sun Rise from his bed. SIR CHARLES. If there you miss me, say I am no gentleman! I'll hold my day. SIR FRANCIS. It holds on all sides.-Come, to-night let's dance; Early to-morrow let's prepare to ride: We'd need be three hours up before the bride. [Exeunt.] A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 19 SCENE II.-Enter NICHOLAS and JENKIN, JACK SLIME, ROGER BRICKBAT, with Country Wenches, and two or three Musicians. JENKIN. Come, Nick, take you Joan Miniver, to trace withal; Jack Slime, traverse you with Cicely Milkpail; I will take Jane Trubkin, and Roger Brickbat shall have Isabel Motley. And now that they are busy in the parlour, come, strike up; we'll have a crash here in the yard. NICHOLAS. My humour is not compendious: dancing I possess not, though I can foot it; yet, since I -am fallen into the hands of Cicely Milkpail, I consent. SLIME. Truly, Nick, though we were never brought up like serving courtiers, yet we have been brought up with serving creatures,-ay, and God's creatures, too; for we have been brought up to serve sheep, oxen, horses, hogs, and such like; and, though we be but country fellows, it may be in the way of dancing we can do the horse-trick as well as the servingmen. BRICKBAT. Ay, and the cross-point too. JENKIN. 0 Slime! 0 Brickbat! Do not you know that comparisons are odious? Now we are odious ourselves, too; therefore there are no comparisons to be made betwixt us. NICHOLAS. I am sudden, and not superfluous; I am quarrelsome, and not seditious; I am peaceable, and not contentious; I am brief, and not compendious. SLIME. Foot it quickly! If the music overcome not my melancholy, I shall quarrel; and if they suddenly do not strike up, I shall presently strike thee down. JENKIN. NO quarrelling, for God's sake! Truly, if you do, I shall set a knave between ye. SLIME. I come to dance, not to quarrel. Come, what shall it be? Rogero? JENKIN. Rogero? No; we will dance The Beginning of the World. CICELY. I love no dance so well as John come kiss me now. 20 THOMAS HEYWOOD NICHOLAS. I that have ere now deserv'd a cushion, call for the Cushion-dance. BRICKBAT. For my part, I like nothing so well as Tom Tyler. JENKIN. No; we'll have The Hunting of the Fox. SLIME. The Hay, The Hay! There's nothing like The Hay. NICHOLAS. I have said, I do say, and I will say againJENKIN. Every man agree to have it as Nick says! ALL. Content. NICHOLAS. It hath been, it now is, and it shall be — CICELY. What, Master Nicholas? What? NICHOLAS. Put on your Smock a' Monday. JENKIN. So the dance will come cleanly off! Come, for God's sake, agree of something: if you like not that, put it to the musicians; or let me speak for all, and we'll have Sellenger's Round. ALL. That, that, that! NICHOLAS. NO, I am resolv'd thus it shall be; First take hands, then take ye to your heels. JENKIN. Why, would you have us run away? NICHOLAS. No; but I would have you shake your heels.Music, strike up! [They dance; NICK dancing, speaks stately and scurvily, the rest after the country fashion.] JENKIN. Hey! Lively, my lasses! Here's a turn for thee! [Exeunt.] SCENE III.-Wind horns. Enter SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD, SIR FRANCIS ACTON, MALBY, CRANWELL, WENDOLL, Falconer, and Huntsmen. SIR CHARLES. So; well cast off! Aloft, aloft! Well flown! Oh, now she takes her at the souse, and strikes her Down to the earth, like a swift thunderclap. WENDOLL. She hath struck ten angels out of my way. SIR FRANCIS. A hundred pound from me. SIR CHARLES. What, falconer A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 21 FALCONERS At hand, sir! SIR CHARLES. Now she hath seiz'd the fowl and 'gins to plume her, Rebeck her not; rather stand still and check her! So, seize her gets, her jesses, and her bells! Away! SIR FRANCIS. My hawk kill'd, too. SIR CHARLES. Ay, but 'twas at the querre, Not at the mount like mine. SIR FRANCIS. Judgment, my masters! CRANWELL. Yours mist her at the ferre. WENDOLL. Ay, but our merlin first had plum'd the fowl, And twice renew'd her from the river too. Her bells, Sir Francis, had not both one weight, Nor was one semi-tune above the other. Methinks, these Milan bells do sound too full, And spoil the mounting of your hawk, SIR CHARLES. 'Tis lost. SIR FRANCIS. I grant it not. Mine likewise seiz'd a fowl Within her talons, and you saw her paws Full of the feathers; both her petty singles And her long singles grip'd her more than other; The terrials of her legs were stain'd with blood, Not of the fowl only; she did discomfit Some of her feathers; but she brake away. Come, come; your hawk is but a rifler. SIR CHARLES. How! SIR FRANCIS. Ay, and your dogs are trindle-tails and curs. SIR CHARLES. You stir my blood. You keep not one good hound in all your kennel, Nor one good hawk upon your perch. SIR FRANCIS. How, knight! SIR CHARLES. So, knight. You will not swagger, sir? SIR FRANCIS. Why, say I did? SIR CHARLES. Why, sir, I say you would gain as much by swagg'ring As you have got by wagers on your dogs. You will come short in all things. 22 THOMAS HEYWOOD SIR FRANCIS. Not in this! Now I'll strike home. [Strikes SIR CHARLES.] SIR CHARLES. Thou shalt to thy long home, Or I will want my will. SIR FRANCIS. All they that love Sir Francis, follow me! SIR CHARLES. All that affect Sir Charles, draw on my part! CRANWELL. On this side heaves my hand. WENDOLL. Here goes my heart. [They divide themselves. SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD, CRANWELL, Falconer, and Huntsman, fight against SIR FRANCIS ACTON, WENDOLL, his Falconer, and Huntsman; and SIR CHARLES hath the better, and beats them away, killing both of SIR FRANCIS'S men. Exeunt all but SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD.] SIR CHARLES. My God, what have I done! What have I done! My rage hath plung'd into a sea of blood, In which my soul lies drown'd. Poor innocents, For whom we are to answer! Well, 'tis done, And I remain the victor. A great conquest, When I would give this right hand, nay, this head, To breathe in them new life whom I have slain!Forgive me, God! 'Twas in the heat of blood, And anger quite removes me from myself. It was not I, but rage, did this vile murder; Yet I, and not my rage, must answer it. Sir Francis Acton, he is fled the field; With him all those that did partake his quarrel; And I am left alone with sorrow dumb, And in my height of conquest overcome. [Enter SUSAN.] SUSAN. 0 God! My brother wounded 'mong the deadl Unhappy jest, that in such earnest ends! The rumour of this fear stretcht to my ears, And I am come to know if you be wounded. SIR CHARLES. Oh, sister, sister! Wounded at the heart. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 23 SUSAN. My God forbid SIR CHARLES. In doing that thing which he forbad, I am wounded, sister. SUSAN. I hope, not at the heart. SIR CHARLES. Yes, at the heart. SUSAN. 0 God! A surgeon, there. SIR CHARLES. Call me a surgeon, sister, for my soul! The sin of murder, it hath pierc'd my heart And made a wide wound there; but for these scratches, They are nothing, nothing. SUSAN. Charles, what have you done? Sir Francis hath great friends, and will pursue you Unto the utmost danger of the law. SIR CHARLES. My conscience is become mine enemy, And will pursue me more than Acton can. SUSAN. Oh! Fly, sweet brother! SIR CHARLES. Shall I fly from thee? Why, Sue, art weary of my company? SUSAN. Fly from your foe! SIR CHARLES. You, sister, are my friend, And flying you, I shall pursue my end. SUSAN. Your company is as my eyeball dear; Being far from you, no comfort can be near. Yet fly to save your life! What would I care To spend my future age in black despair, So you were safe? And yet to live one week Without my brother Charles, through every cheek My streaming tears would downwards run so rank, Till they could set on either side a bank, And in the midst a channel; so my face For two salt-water brooks shall still find place. SIR CHARLES. Thou shalt not weep so much; for I will stay, In spite of danger's teeth. I'll live with thee, Or I'll not live at all. I will not sell My country and my father's patrimony, Nor thy sweet sight, for a vain hope of life. [Enter Sheriff, with Officers.] 24 THOMAS HEYWOOD SHERIFF. Sir Charles, I am made the unwilling instrument Of your attach and apprehension. I'm sorry that the blood of innocent men Should be of you exacted. It was told me That you were guarded with a troop of friends, And therefore I come thus arm'd. SIR CHARLES. Oh, Master Sheriff I came into the field with many friends, But see, they all have left me; only one Clings to my sad misfortune, my dear sister. I know you for an honest gentleman; I yield my weapons, and submit to you. Convey me where you please! SHERIFF. To prison, then, To answer for the lives of these dead men. SUSAN. 0 God! 0 God! SIR CHARLES. Sweet sister, every strain Of sorrow from your heart augments my pain; Your grief abounds, and hits against my breast. SHERIFF. Sir, will you go? SIR CHARLES. Even where it likes you best. [Exeunt.] ACT II SCENE I.-Enter MASTER FRANKFORD in a study. FRANKFORD. How happy am I amongst other men, That in my mean estate embrace content! I am a gentleman, and by my birth Companion with a king; a king's no more. I am possess'd of many fair revenues, Sufficient to maintain a gentleman; Touching my mind, I am studied in all arts; The riches of my thoughts and of my time Have been a good proficient; but, the chief Of all the sweet felicities on earth, I have a fair, a chaste, and loving wife,*l^^S/SA/-^^ A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 25 Perfection all, all truth, all ornament. [f man on earth may truly happy be, 3f these at once possest, sure, I am he. [Enter NICHOLAS.] NICHOLAS. Sir, there's a gentleman attends without ro speak with you. FRANKFORD. On horseback? NICHOLAS. Yes, on horseback. FRANKFORD. Entreat him to alight, I will attend him. Know'st thou him, Nick? NICHOLAS. Know him? Yes; his name's Wendoll. [t seems, he comes in haste: his horse is booted Up to the flank in mire, himself all spotted _nd stain'd with plashing. Sure, he rid in fear, Dr for a wager. Horse and man both sweat; [ ne'er saw two in such a smoking heat. FRANKFORD. Entreat him in: about it instantly! [Exit NICHOLAS.] rhis Wendoll I have noted, and his carriage [ath pleas'd me much; by observation [ have noted many good deserts in him. He's affable, and seen in many things; Discourses well; a good companion; _nd though of small means, yet a gentleman )f a good house, though somewhat prest by want. [ have preferr'd him to a second place En my opinion and my best regard. [Enter WENDOLL, MISTRESS FRANKFORD, and NICHOLAS.] MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh, Master Frankford! Master Wendoll here Brings you the strangest news that e'er you heard. FRANKFORD. What news, sweet wife? What news, good Master Wendoll? WENDOLL. You knew the match made 'twixt Sir Francis Acton,nd Sir Charles Mountford? 26 THOMAS HEYWOOD FRANKFORD. True; with their hounds and hawks. WENDOLL. The matches were both play'd. FRANKFORD. Ha? And which won? WENDOLL. Sir Francis, your wife's brother, had the worst, And lost the wager. FRANKFORD. Why, the worse his chance; Perhaps the fortune of some other day Will change his luck. MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh, but you hear not all. Sir Francis lost, and yet was loth to yield. At length the two knights grew to difference, From words to blows, and so to banding sides; Where valorous Sir Charles slew, in his spleen, Two of your brother's men,-his falconer, And his good huntsman, whom he lov'd so well. More men were wounded, no more slain outright. FRANKFORD. Now, trust me, I am sorry for the knight. But is my brother safe? WENDOLL. All whole and sound, His body not being blemish'd with one wound. But poor Sir Charles is to the prison led, To answer at th' assize for them that's dead. FRANKFORD. I thank your pains, sir. Had the news been better, Your will was to have brought it, Master Wendoll. Sir Charles will find hard friends; his case is heinous And will be most severely censur'd on. I'm sorry for him. Sir, a word with you! I know you, sir, to be a gentleman In all things; your possibilities but mean: Please you to use my table and my purse; They're yours. WENDOLL. 0 Lord, sir! I shall ne'er deserve it. FRANKFORD. 0 sir, disparage not your worth too much: You are full of quality and fair desert. Choose of my men which shall attend on you, And he is yours. I will allow you, sir, A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 27 Your man, your gelding, and your table, all At my own charge; be my companion! WENDOLL. Master Frankford, I have oft been bound to you By many favours; this exceeds them all, That I shall never merit your least favour; But when your last remembrance I forget, Heaven at my soul exact that weighty debt! FRANKFORD. There needs no protestation; for I know you Virtuous, and therefore grateful.-Prithee, Nan, Use him with all thy loving'st courtesy! MRS. FRANKFORD. As far as modesty may well extend, It is my duty to receive your friend. FRANKFORD. To dinner! Come, sir, from this present day, Welcome to me for ever! Come, away! [Exeunt FRANKFORD, MISTRESS FRANKFORD, and WENDOLL.] NICHOLAS. I do not like this fellow by no means: I never see him but my heart still yearns. Zounds! I could fight with him, yet know not why; The devil and he are all one in mine eye. [Enter JENKIN.] JENKIN. 0 Nick! What gentleman is that comes to lie at our house? My master allows him one to wait on him, and I believe it will fall to thy lot. NICHOLAS. I love my master; by these hilts, I do; But rather than I'll ever come to serve him I'll turn away my master. [Enter CICELY.] CICELY. Nich'las! where are you, Nich'las! You must come in, Nich'las, and help the young gentleman off with his boots. NICHOLAS. If I pluck off his boots, I'll eat the spurs, And they shall stick fast in my throat like burrs. CICELY. Then, Jenkin, come you! 28 THOMAS HEYWOOD JENKIN. Nay, 'tis no boot for me to deny it. My mastei hath given me a coat here, but he takes pains himself to brust it once or twice a day with a holly wand. CICELY. Come, come, make haste, that you may wash youi hands again, and help to serve in dinner! JENKIN. You may see, my masters, though it be afternoon with you, 'tis yet but early days with us, for we have not din'd yet. Stay but a little; I'll but go in and help to bear up the first course, and come to you again presently. [Exeunt.] SCENE II.-Enter MALBY and CRANWELL. MALBY. This is the sessions-day; pray can you tell me How young Sir Charles hath sped? Is he acquit, Or must he try the laws' strict penalty? CRANWELL. He's clear'd of all, spite of his enemies, Whose earnest labour was to take his life. But in this suit of pardon he hath spent All the revenues that his father left him; And he is now turn'd a plain countryman, Reform'd in all things. See, sir, here he comes. [Enter SIR CHARLES and his KEEPER.] KEEPER. Discharge your fees, and you are then at freedom. SIR CHARLES. Here, Master Keeper, take the poor remainder Of all the wealth I have! My heavy foes Have made my purse light; but, alas! to me 'Tis wealth enough that you have set me free. MALBY. God give you joy of your delivery! I am glad to see you abroad, Sir Charles. SIR CHARLES. The poorest knight in England, Master Malby. My life has cost me all my patrimony My father left his son. Well, God forgive them That are the authors of my penury! [Enter SHAFTON.] A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 29 SHAFTON. Sir, Charles! A hand, a hand! At liberty? Now, by the faith I owe, I am glad to see it. What want you? Wherein may I pleasure you? SIR CHARLES. Oh me! Oh, most unhappy gentleman! I am not worthy to have friends stirr'd up, Whose hands may help me in this plunge of want. I would I were in Heaven, to inherit there Th' immortal birthright which my Saviour keeps, And by no unthrift can be bought and sold; For here on earth what pleasures should we trust! SHAFTON. To rid you from these contemplations, Three hundred pounds you shall receive of me; Nay, five for fail. Come, sir, the sight of gold Is the most sweet receipt for melancholy, And will revive your spirits. You shall hold law With your proud adversaries. Tush! let Frank Acton Wage, with his knighthood, like expense with me, And he will sink, he will.-Nay, good Sir Charles, Applaud your fortune and your fair escape From all these perils. SIR CHARLES. Oh, sir! they have undone me. Two thousand and five hundred pound a year My father at his death possest me of; All which the envious Acton made me spend; And, notwithstanding all this large expense, I had much ado to gain my liberty; And I have only now a house of pleasure, With some five hundred pounds reserv'd, Both to maintain me and my loving sister. SHAFTON [aside]. That must I have, it lies convenient for me. If I can fasten but one finger on him, With my full hand I'll gripe him to the heart. 'Tis not for love, I proffer'd him this coin, But for my gain and pleasure.-Come, Sir Charles, I know you have need of money; take my offer. 30 THOMAS HEYWOOD SIR CHARLES. Sir, I accept it, and remain indebted Even to the best of my unable power. Come, gentlemen, and see it tend'red down. [Exeunt.] SCENE III.-Enter WENDOLL, melancholy. WENDOLL. I am a villain, if I apprehend But such a thought! Then, to attempt the deed, Slave, thou art damn'd without redemption.I'll drive away this passion with a song. A song! Ha ha! A song! As if, fond man, Thy eyes could swim in laughter, when thy soul Lies drench'd and drowned in red tears of blood! I'll pray, and see if God within my heart Plant better thoughts. Why, prayers are meditations, And when I meditate (oh, God forgive me!) It is on her divine perfections. I will forget her; I will arm myself Not t' entertain a thought of love to her; And, when I come by chance into her presence, I'll hale these balls until my eye-strings crack From being pull'd and drawn to look that way. [Enter, over the Stage, FRANKFORD, his wife, and NICHOLAS and exit.] O God, 0 God! With what a violence I'm hurried to mine own destruction! There goest thou, the most perfectest man That ever England bred a gentleman, And shall I wrong his bed?-Thou God of thunder! Stay, in Thy thoughts of vengeance and of wrath, Thy great, almighty, and all-judging hand From speedy execution on a villain,A villain and a traitor to his friend. [Enter JENKIN.] JENKIN. Did your worship call? A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 31 WENDOLL. He doth maintain me; he allows me largely Money to spend. JENKIN. By my faith, so do not you me: I cannot get a cross of you. WENDOLL. My gelding, and my man. JENKIN. That's Sorrel and I. WENDOLL. This kindness grows of no alliance 'twixt us. JENKIN. Nor is my service of any great acquaintance. WENDOLL. I never bound him to me by desert. Of a mere stranger, a poor gentleman, A man by whom in no kind he could gain, He hath plac'd me in the height of all his thoughts, Made me companion with the best and chiefest In Yorkshire. He cannot eat without me, Nor laugh without me; I am to his body As necessary as his digestion, And equally do make him whole or sick. And shall I wrong this man? Base man! Ingrate! Hast thou the power, straight with thy gory hands, To rip thy image from his bleeding heart, To scratch thy name from out the holy book Of his remembrance, and to wound his name That holds thy name so dear? Or rend his heart To whom thy heart was knit and join'd together?And yet I must. Then Wendoll, be content! Thus villains, when they would, cannot repent. JENKIN. What a strange humour is my new master in! Pray God he be not mad; if he should be so, I should never have any mind to serve him in Bedlam. It may be he's mad for missing of me. WENDOLL. What, Jenkin! Where's your mistress? JENKIN. IS your worship married? WENDOLL. Why dost thou ask? JENKIN. Because you are my master; and if I have a mistress, I would be glad, like a good servant, to do my duty to her. WENDOLL. I mean Mistress Frankford. 32 THOMAS HEYWOOD JENKIN. Marry, sir, her husband is riding out of town, and she went very lovingly to bring him on his way to horse. Do you see, sir? Here she comes, and here I go. WENDOLL. Vanish! [Exit JENKIN.] [Enter MISTRESS FRANKFORD.] MRS. FRANKFORD. You are well met, sir; now, in troth, my husband Before he took horse, had a great desire To speak with you; we sought about the house, Halloo'd into the fields, sent every way, But could not meet you. Therefore, he enjoin'd me To do unto you his most kind commends,Nay, more: he wills you, as you prize his love, Or hold in estimation his kind friendship, To make bold in his absence, and command Even as himself were present in the house; For you must keep his table, use his servants, And be a present Frankford in his absence. WENDOLL. I thank him for his love.[Aside.] Give me a name, you, whose infectious tongues Are tipt with gall and poison: as you would Think on a man that had your father slain, Murd'red your children, made your wives base strumpets, So call me, call me so; print in my face The most stigmatic title of a villain, For hatching treason to so true a friend! MRS. FRANKFORD. Sir, you are much beholding to my husband; You are a man most dear in his regard. WENDOLL. I am bound unto your husband, and you too. [Aside.] I will not speak to wrong a gentleman Of that good estimation, my kind friend. I will not; zounds! I will not. I may choose, And I will choose. Shall I be so misled, Or shall I purchase to my father's crest The motto of a villain? If I say A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 33 I will not do it, what thing can enforce me? What can compel me? What sad destiny Hath such command upon my yielding thoughts! I will not;-ha! Some fury pricks me on; The swift fates drag me at their chariot wheel, And hurry me to mischief. Speak I must: Injure myself, wrong her, deceive his trust! MRS. FRANKFORD. Are you not well, sir, that you seem thus troubled? There is sedition in your countenance. WENDOLL. And in my heart, fair angel, chaste and wise. I love you! Start not, speak not, answer not; I love you,-nay, let me speak the rest; Bid me to swear, and I will call to record The host of Heaven. MRS. FRANKFORD. The host of Heaven forbid Wendoll should hatch such a disloyal thought? WENDOLL. Such is my fate; to this suit was I born, To wear rich pleasure's crown, or fortune's scorn. MRS. FRANKFORD. My husband loves you. WENDOLL. I know it. MRS. FRANKFORD. He esteems you, Even as his brain, his eye-ball, or his heart. WENDOLL. I have tried it. MRS. FRANKFORD. His purse is your exchequer, and his table Doth freely serve you. WENDOLL. So I have found it. MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh! With what face of brass, what brow of steel, Can you, unblushing, speak this to the face Of the espous'd wife of so dear a friend? It is my husband that maintains your state.Will you dishonour him that in your power Hath left his whole affairs? I am his wife, It is to me you speak. 34 THOMAS HEYWOOD WENDOLL. 0 speak no more; For more than this I know, and have recorded Within the red-leav'd table of my heart. Fair, and of all belov'd, I was not fearful Bluntly to give my life into your hand, And at one hazard all my earthly means. Go, tell your husband; he will turn me off, And I am then undone. I care not, I; 'Twas for your sake. Perchance, in rage he'll kill me; I care not, 'twas for you, Say I incur The general name of villain through the world, Of traitor to my friend; I care not, I. Beggary, shame, death, scandal, and reproach,For you I'll hazzard all. Why, what care I? For you I'll live, and in your love I'll die. MRS. FRANKFORD. You move me, sir, to passion and to pity. The love I bear my husband is as precious As my soul's health. WENDOLL. I love your husband too, And for his love I will engage my life. Mistake me not; the augmentation Of my sincere affection borne to you Doth no whit lessen my regard to him. I will be secret, lady, close as night; And not the light of one small glorious star Shall shine here in my forehead, to bewray That act of night. MRS. FRANKFORD. What shall I say? My soul is wandering, hath lost her way. Oh, Master Wendoll! Oh! WENDOLL. Sigh not, sweet saint; For every sigh you breathe draws from my heart A drop of blood. MRS. FRANKFORD. I ne'er offended yet: My fault, I fear, will in my brow be writ. Women that fall, not quite bereft of grace, Have their offences noted in their face. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 35 I blush, and am asham'd. Oh, Master Wendoll, Pray God I be not born to curse your tongue, That hath enchanted me! This maze I am in I fear will prove the labyrinth of sin. [Enter NICHOLAS behind.] WENDOLL. The path of pleasure and the gate to bliss, Which on your lips I knock at with a kiss! NICHOLAS. I'll kill the rogue. WENDOLL. Your husband is from home, your bed's no blab. Nay, look not down and blush! [Exeunt WENDOLL and MISTRESS FRANKFORD.] NICHOLAS. Zounds! I'll stab. Ay, Nick, was it thy chance to come just in the nick? I love my master, and I hate that slave; I love my mistress, but these tricks I like not. My master shall not pocket up this wrong; I'll eat my fingers first. What say'st thou, metal? Does not that rascal Wendoll go on legs That thou must cut off? Hath he not hamstrings That thou must hough? Nay, metal, thou shalt stand To all I say. I'll henceforth turn a spy, And watch them in their close conveyances. I never look'd for better of that rascal, Since he came miching first into our house. It is that Satan hath corrupted her; For she was fair and chaste. I'll have an eye In all their gestures. Thus I think of them: If they proceed as they have done before, Wendoll's a knave, my mistress is a- [Exit.] ACT III SCENE I.-Enter SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD and SUSAN. SIR CHARLES. Sister, you see we are driven to hard shift, To keep this poor house we have left unsold. 36 THOMAS HEYWOOD I'm now enforc'd to follow husbandry, And you to milk; and do we not live well? Well, I thank God. SUSAN. Oh, brother! here's a change, Since old Sir Charles died in our father's house. SIR CHARLES. All things on earth thus change, some up, some down; Content's a kingdom, and I wear that crown. [Enter SHAFTON, with a Sergeant.] SHAFTON. Good morrow, morrow, Sir Charles! What! With your sister, Plying your husbandry?-Sergeant, stand off!You have a pretty house here, and a garden, And goodly ground about it. Since it lies So near a lordship that I lately bought, I would fain buy it of you. I will give youSIR CHARLES. Oh, pardon me; this house successively Hath long'd to me and my progenitors Three hundred years. My great-great-grandfather, He in whom first our gentle style began, Dwelt here, and in this ground increast this mole-hill Unto that mountain which my father left me. Where he the first of all our house began, I now the last will end, and keep this house,This virgin title, never yet deflower'd By any unthrift of the Mountfords' line. In brief, I will not sell it for more gold Than you could hide or pave the ground withal. SHAFTON. Ha, ha! a proud mind and a beggar's purse! Where's my three hundred pounds, besides the use? I have brought it to an execution By course of law. What! Is my money ready? SIR CHARLES. An execution, sir, and never tell me You put my bond in suit? You deal extremely. SHAFTON. Sell me the land, and I'll acquit you straight. SIR CHARLES. Alas, alas! 'Tis all trouble hath left me A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 37 To cherish me and my poor sister's life. If this were sold, our names should then be quite Raz'd from the bead-roll of gentility. You see what hard shift we have made to keep it Allied still to our name. This palm you see, Labour hath glow'd within; her silver brow, That never tasted a rough winter's blast Without a mask or fan, doth with a grace Defy cold winter, and his storms outface. SUSAN. Sir, we feed sparing, and we labour hard, We lie uneasy, to reserve to us And our succession this small spot of ground. SIR CHARLES. I have so bent my thoughts to husbandry, That I protest I scarcely can remember What a new fashion is; how silk or satin Feels in my hand. Why, pride is grown to us A mere, mere stranger. I have quite forgot The names of all that ever waited on me. I cannot name ye any of my hounds, Once from whose echoing mouths I heard all music That e'er my heart desir'd. What should I say? To keep this place, I have chang'd myself away. SHAFTON. Arrest him at my suit!-Actions and actions Shall keep thee in perpetual bondage fast; Nay, more, I'll sue thee by a late appeal, And call thy former life in question. The keeper is my friend; thou shalt have irons, And usage such as I'll deny to dogs.Away with him! SIR CHARLES. YOU are too timorous. But trouble is my master, And I will serve him truly.-My kind sister, Thy tears are of no use to mollify The flinty man. Go to my father's brother, My kinsmen, and allies; entreat them for me, To ransom me from this injurious man That seeks my ruin. 38 THOMAS HEYWOOD SHAFTON. Come, irons! Come away; I'll see thee lodg'd far from the sight of day. [Exeunt except SUSAN.] SUSAN. My heart's so hard'ned with the frost of grief, Death cannot pierce it through.-Tyrant too fell! So lead the fiends condemned souls to hell. [Enter SIR FRANCIS ACTON and MALBY.] SIR FRANCIS. Again to prison! Malby, hast thou seen A poor slave better tortur'd? Shall we hear The music of his voice cry from the grate, Meat, for the Lord's sake? No, no; yet I am not Throughly reveng'd. They say, he hath a pretty wench Unto his sister; shall I, in mercy-sake To him and to his kindred, bribe the fool To shame herself by lewd, dishonest lust? I'll proffer largely; but, the deed being done I'll smile to see her base confusion. MALBY. Methinks, Sir Francis, you are full reveng'd For greater wrongs than he can proffer you. See where the poor sad gentlewoman stands! SIR FRANCIS. Ha, ha! Now will I flout her poverty, Deride her fortunes, scoff her base estate; My very soul the name of Mountford hates. But stay my heart! Oh, what a look did fly To strike my soul through with thy piercing eye! I am enchanted; all my spirits are fled. And with one glance my envious spleen struck dead. SUSAN. Acton! That seeks our blood! [Runs away.] SIR FRANCIS. 0 chaste and fair! MALBY. Sir Francis! Why, Sir Francis! Zounds, in a trance? Sir Francis! What cheer, man? Come, come, how is't? SIR FRANCIS. Was she not fair? Or else this judging eye Cannot distinguish beauty. MALBY. She was fair. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 39 SIR FRANCIS. She was an angel in a mortal's shape, And ne'er descended from old Mountford's line. But soft, soft, let me call my wits together! A poor, poor wench, to my great adversary Sister, whose very souls denounce stern war One against other.! How now, Frank, turn'd fool Or madman, whether? But no! Master of My perfect senses and directest wits. Then why should I be in this violent humour Of passion and of love? And with a person So different every way, and so oppos'd In all contractions and still-warring actions? Fie, fie! How I dispute against my soul! Come, come; I'll gain her, or in her fair quest Purchase my soul free and immortal rest. [Exeunt.] SCENE II.-Enter three or four Serving-men, one with a voider and a wooden knife, to take away all; another the salt and bread; another with the table-cloth and napkins; another the carpet; JENKIN with two lights after them. JENKIN. SO; march in order, and retire in battle array! My master and the guests have supp'd already; all's taken away. Here, now spread for the serving-men in the hall!Butler, it belongs to your office. BUTLER. I know it, Jenkin. What d'ye call the gentleman that supp'd there to-night? JENKIN. Who? My master? BUTLER. No, no; Master Wendoll, he's a daily guest. I mean the gentleman that came but this afternoon. JENKIN. His name's Master Cranwell. God's light! Hark, within there; my master calls to lay more billets upon the fire. Come, come! Lord, how we that are in office here in the house are troubled! One spread the carpet in the parlour, and stand ready to snuff the lights; the rest be ready to prepare their stomachs! 'More lights in the hall, there! Come, Nicholas. [Exeunt all but NICHOLAS.] 40 THOMAS HEYWOOD NICHOLAS. I cannot eat; but had I Wendoll's heart, I would eat that. The rogue grows impudent, Oh! I have seen such vile, notorious tricks, Ready to make my eyes dart from my head. I'll tell my master; by this air, I will; Fall what may fall, I'll tell him. Here he comes. [Enter MASTER FRANKFORD, as it were brushing the crumbs from his clothes with a napkin, as newly risen from supper.] FRANKFORD. Nicholas, what make you here? Why are not you At supper in the hall, among your fellows? NICHOLAS. Master, I stay'd your rising from the board, To speak with you. FRANKFORD. Be brief then, gentle Nicholas; My wife and guests attend me in the parlour. Why dost thou pause? Now, Nicholas, you want money, And, unthrift-like, would eat into your wages Ere you had earn'd it. Here, sir, 's half-a-crown; Play the good husband,-and away to supper! NICHOLAS. By this hand, an honourable gentleman! I will not see him wrong'd. Sir, I have serv'd you long; you entertain'd me Seven years before your board; you knew me, sir, Before you knew my mistress. FRANKFORD. What of this, good Nicholas? NICHOLAS. I never was a make-bate or a knave; I have no fault but one-I'm given to quarrel, But not with women. I will tell you, master, That which will make your heart leap from your breast, Your hair to startle from your head, your ears to tingle. FRANKFORD. What preparation's this to dismal news? NICHOLAS. 'Sblood! sir, I love you better than your wife. I'll make it good. FRANKFORD. You are a knave, and I have much ado With wonted patience to contain my rage, A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 41 And not to break thy pate. Thou art a knave. I'll turn you, with your base comparisons, Out of my doors. NICHOLAS. Do, do. There is not room for Wendoll and me too, Both in one house. 0 master, master, That Wendoll is a villain! FRANKFORD. Ay, saucy? NICHOLAS. Strike, strike, do strike; yet hear me! I am no fool; I know a villain, when I see him act Deeds of a villain. Master, master, the base slave Enjoys my mistress, and dishonours you. FRANKFORD. Thou hast kill'd me with a weapon, whose sharp point Hath prick'd quite through and through my shiv'ring heart; Drops of cold sweat sit dangling on my hairs, Like morning's dew upon the golden flowers, And I am plung'd into strange agonies. What did'st thou say? If any word that toucht His credit, or her reputation, It is as hard to enter my belief, As Dives into heaven. NICHOLAS. I can gain nothing: They are two that never wrong'd me. I knew before 'Twas but a thankless office, and perhaps As much as is my service, or my life Is worth. All this I know; but this, and more, More by a thousand dangers, could not hire me To smother such a heinous wrong from you. I saw, and I have said. FRANKFORD. 'Tis probable. Though blunt, yet he is honest. Though I durst pawn my life, and on their faith Hazard the dear salvation of my soul, Yet in my trust I may be too secure. May this be true? Oh, may it? Can it be? Is it by any wonder possible? 42 THOMAS HEYWOOD Man, woman, what thing mortal can we trust, When friends and bosom wives prove so unjust?What instance hast thou of this strange report? NICHOLAS. Eyes, [master], eyes. FRANKFORD. Thy eyes may be deceiv'd, I tell thee; For should an angel from the heavens drop down, And preach this to me that thyself hast told, He should have much ado to win belief; In both their loves I am so confident. NICHOLAS. Shall I discourse the same by circumstance? FRANKFORD. No more! To supper, and command your fellows To attend us and the strangers! Not a word, I charge thee, on thy life! Be secret then; For I know nothing. NICHOLAS. I am dumb; and, now that I have eas'd my stomach, I will go fill my stomach. [Exit.] FRANKFORD. Away! Begone!She is well born, descended nobly; Virtuous her education; her repute Is in the general voice of all the country Honest and fair; her carriage, her demeanour, In all her actions that concern the love To me her husband, modest, chaste, and godly. Is all this seeming gold plain copper? But he, that Judas that hath borne my purse, Hath sold me for a sin. O God! 0 God! Shall I put up these wrongs? No! Shall I trust The bare report of this suspicious groom, Before the double-gilt, the well-hatch'd ore Of their two hearts? No, I will lose these thoughts; Distraction I will banish from my brow, And from my looks exile sad discontent. Their wonted favours in my tongue shall flow; Till I know all, I'll nothing seem to know. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 43 Lights and a table there! Wife, Master Wendoll, And gentle Master Cranwell! [Enter MISTRESS FRANKFORD, MASTER WENDOLL, MASTER CRANWELL, NICHOLAS, and JENKIN with cards, carpets, stools, and other necessaries.] FRANKFORD. O! Master Cranwell, you are a stranger here, And often balk my house; faith, y'are a churl!Now we have supp'd, a table, and to cards! JENKIN. A pair of cards, Nicholas, and a carpet to cover the table! Where's Cicely, with her counters and her box? Candles and candlesticks, there! Fie! We have such a household of serving-creatures! Unless it be Nick and I, there's not one amongst them all that can say bo to a goose.-Well said, Nick! [They spread a carpet; set down lights and cards.] MRS. FRANKFORD. Come, Mr. Frankford, who shall take my part? FRANKFORD. Marry, that will I, sweet wife. WENDOLL. No, by my faith, when you are together, I sit out. It must be Mistress Frankford and I, or else it is no match. FRANKFORD. I do not like that match. NICHOLAS [aside]. You have no reason, marry, knowing all. FRANKFORD. 'Tis no great matter, neither.-Come, Master Cranwell, shall you and I take them up? CRANWELL. At your pleasure, sir. FRANKFORD. I must look to you, Master Wendoll, for you'll be playing false. Nay, so will my wife, too. NICHOLAS [aside]. Ah, I will be sworn she will. MRS. FRANKFORD. Let them that are playing false, forfeit the set! FRANKFORD. Content; it shall go hard but I'll take you. CRANWELL. Gentlemen, what shall our game be? WENDOLL. Master Frankford, you play best at noddy? FRANKFORD. You shall not find it so; indeed, you shall not. MRS. FRANKFORD. I can play at nothing so well as doubleruff. 44 THOMAS HEYWOOD FRANKFORD. If Master Wendoll and my wife be together, there's no playing against them at double-hand. NICHOLAS. I can tell you, sir, the game that Master Wendoll is best at. WENDOLL. What game is that, Nick? NICHOLAS. Marry, sir, knave out of doors. WENDOLL. She and I will take you at lodam. MRS. FRANKFORD. Husband, shall we play at saint? FRANKFORD [aside]. My saint's turn'd devil.-No, we'll none of saint: You are best at new-cut, wife, you'll play at that. WENDOLL. If you play at new-cut, I'm soonest hitter of any here, for a wager. FRANKFORD [aside]. 'Tis me they play on.-Well, you may draw out; For all your cunning, 'twill be to your shame; I'll teach you, at your new-cut, a new game. Come, come! CRANWELL. If you cannot agree upon the game, To post and pair! WENDOLL. We shall be soonest pairs; and my good host, When he comes late home, he must kiss the post. FRANKFORD. Whoever wins, it shall be to thy cost. CRANWELL. Faith, let it be vide-ruff, and let's make honours! FRANKFORD. If you make honours, one thing let me crave: Honour the king and queen, except the knave. WENDOLL Well, as you please for that.-Lift, who shall deal? MRS. FRANKFORD. The least in sight. What are you, Master Wendoll? WENDOLL. I am a knave. NICHOLAS [aside]. I'll swear it. MRS. FRANKFORD. I a queen. FRANKFORD [aside]. A quean, thou should'st say.-Well, the cards are mine: They are the grossest pair that e'er I felt. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 45 MRS. FRANKFORD. Shuffle, I'll cut: would I had never dealt! FRANKFORD. I have lost my dealing. WENDOLL. Sir, the fault's in me; This queen I have more than mine own, you see. Give me the stock! FRANKFORD. My mind's not on my game. Many a deal I've lost; the more's your shame. You have serv'd me a bad trick, Master Wendoll. WENDOLL. Sir, you must take your lot. To end this strife, I know I have dealt better with your wife. FRANKFORD. Thou hast dealt falsely, then. MRS. FRANKFORD. What's trumps? WENDOLL. Hearts. Partner, I rub. FRANKFORD [aside]. Thou robb'st me of my soul, of her chaste love; In thy false dealing thou hast robb'd my heart.Booty you play; I like a loser stand, Having no heart, or here or in my hand. I will give o'er the set, I am not well. Come, who will hold my cards? MRS. FRANKFORD. Not well, sweet Master Frankford? Alas, what ails you? 'Tis some sudden qualm. WENDOLL. How long have you been so, Master Frankford? FRANKFORD. Sir, I was lusty, and I had my health, But I grew ill when you began to deal.Take hence this table!-Gentle Master Cranwell, Y'are welcome; see your chamber at your pleasure! I am sorry that this megrim takes me so, I cannot sit and bear you company.Jenkin, some lights, and show him to his chamber! MRS. FRANKFORD. A nightgown for my husband; quickly, there! It is some rheum or cold. WENDOLL. Now, in good faith, This illness you have got by sitting late Without your gown. 46 THOMAS HEYWOOD FRANKFORD. I know it, Master Wendoll. Go, go to bed, lest you complain like me!Wife, prithee, wife, into my bed-chamber! The night is raw and cold, and rheumatic. Leave me my gown and light; I'll walk away my fit. WENDOLL. Sweet sir, good night! FRANKFORD. Myself, good night! [Exit WENDOLL.] MRS. FRANKFORD. Shall I attend you, husband? FRANKFORD. No, gentle wife, thou'lt catch cold in thy head. Prithee, begone, sweet; I'll make haste to bed. MRS. FRANKFORD. No sleep will fasten on mine eyes, you know, Until you come. [Exit.] FRANKFORD. Sweet Nan, I prithee, go!I have bethought me; get me by degrees The keys of all my doors, which I will mould In wax, and take their fair impression, To have by them new keys. This being compast, At a set hour a letter shall be brought me, And when they think they may securely play, They nearest are to danger.-Nick, I must rely Upon thy trust and faithful secrecy. NICHOLAS. Build on my faith! FRANKFORD. To bed, then, not to rest! Care lodges in my brain, grief in my breast. [Exeunt.] SCENE III.-Enter SIR CHARLES'S Sister, OLD MOUNTFORD, SANDY, RODER, and TIDY. OLD MOUNTFORD. You say my nephew is in great distress; Who brought it to him but his own lewd life? I cannot spare a cross. I must confess, He was my brother's son; why, niece, what then? This is no world in which to pity men. SUSAN. I was not born a beggar, though his extremes Enforce this language from me. I protest A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 47 No fortune of mine own could lead my tongue To this base key. I do beseech you, uncle, For the name's sake, for Christianity,Nay, for God's sake, to pity his distress. He is deni'd the freedom of the prison, And in the hole is laid with men condemn'd; Plenty he hath of nothing but of irons, And it remains in you to free him thence. OLD MOUNTFORD. Money I cannot spare; men should take heed. He lost my kindred when he fell to need. [Exit.] SUSAN. Gold is but earth; thou earth enough shalt have, When thou hast once took measure of thy grave. You know me, Master Sandy, and my suit. SANDY. I knew you, lady, when the old man liv'd; I knew you ere your brother sold his land. Then you were Mistress Sue, trick'd up in jewels; Then you sung well, play'd sweetly on the lute; But now I neither know you nor your suit. [Exit.] SUSAN. You, Master Roder, was my brother's tenant; Rent-free he plac'd you in that wealthy farm, Of which you are possest. RODER. True, he did; And have I not there dwelt still for his sake? I have some business now; but, without doubt, They that have hurl'd him in, will help him out. [Exit.] SUSAN. Cold comfort still. What say you, cousin Tidy? TIDY. I say this comes of roysting, swagg'ring. Call me not cousin; each man for himself! Some men are born to mirth, and some to sorrow: I am no cousin unto them that borrow. [Exit.] SUSAN. 0 Charity, why art thou fled to heaven, And left all things [up]on this earth uneven? Their scoffing answers I will ne'er return, But to myself this grief in silence mourn. [Enter SIR FRANCIS and MALBY.] 48 THOMAS HEYWOOD SIR FRANCIS. She is poor, I'll therefore tempt her with this gold. Go, Malby, in my name deliver it, And I will stay thy answer. MALBY. Fair mistress, as I understand your grief Doth grow from want, so I have here in store A means to furnish you, a bag of gold, Which to your hands I freely tender you. SUSAN. I thank you, Heavens! I thank you, gentle sir: God make me able to requite this favour! MALBY. This gold Sir Francis Acton sends by me, And prays you SUSAN. Acton? 0 God! That name I'm born to curse. Hence, bawd, hence, broker! See, I spurn his gold. My honour never shall for gain be sold. SIR FRANCIS. Stay, lady, stay! SUSAN. From you I'll posting hie, Even as the doves from feather'd eagles fly. [Exit.] SIR FRANCIS. She hates my name, my face; how should I woo? I am disgrac'd in every thing I do. The more she hates me, and disdains my love, The more I am rapt in admiration Of her divine and chaste perfections. Woo her with gifts I cannot, for all gifts Sent in my name she spurns; with looks I cannot, For she abhors my sight; nor yet with letters, For none she will receive. How then? how then? Well, I will fasten such a kindness on her, As shall o'ercome her hate and conquer it. Sir Charles, her brother, lies in execution For a great sum of money; and, besides, The appeal is sued still for my huntsmen's death, Which only I have power to reverse. In her I'll bury all my hate of him.Go seek the Keeper, Malby, bring him to me To save his body, I his debts will pay; To save his life, I his appeal will stay. [Exeunt.] A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 49 ACT IV SCENE I.-Enter SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD, in prison, with irons, his feet bare, his garments all ragged and torn. SIR CHARLES. Of all on the earth's face most miserable, Breathe in this hellish dungeon thy laments! Thus like a slave ragg'd, like a felon gyv'd,That hurls thee headlong to this base estate. Oh, unkind uncle! Oh, my friends ingrate! Unthankful kinsmen! Mountford's all too base, To let thy name be fetter'd in disgrace. A thousand deaths here in this grave I die; Fear, hunger, sorrow, cold, all threat my death, And join together to deprive my breath. But that which most torments me, my dear sister Hath left to visit me, and from my friends Hath brought no hopeful answer; therefore, I Divine they will not help my misery. If it be so, shame, scandal, and contempt Attend their covetous thoughts; need make their graves! Usurers they live, and may they die like slaves! [Enter KEEPER.] KEEPER. Knight, be of comfort, for I bring thee freedom From all thy troubles. SIR CHARLES. Then, I am doom'd to die: Death is the end of all calamity. KEEPER. Live! Your appeal is stay'd; the execution Of all your debts discharg'd; your creditors Even to the utmost penny satisfied. In sign whereof your shackles I knock off. You are not left so much indebted to us As for your fees; all is discharg'd; all paid. Go freely to your house, or where you please; After long miseries, embrace your ease. 50 THOMAS HEYWOOD SIR CHARLES. Thou grumblest out the sweetest music to me That ever organ play'd.-Is this a dream? Or do my waking senses apprehend The pleasing taste of these applausive news? Slave that I was, to wrong such honest friends, My loving kinsman, and my near allies! Tongue, I will bite thee for the scandal breath'd Against such faithful kinsmen; they are all Compos'd of pity and compassion, Of melting charity and of moving ruth. That which I spoke before was in my rage; They are my friends, the mirrors of this age; Bounteous and free. The noble Mountford's race Ne'er bred a covetous thought, or humour base. [Enter SUSAN.] SUSAN. I cannot longer stay from visiting My woful brother. While I could, I kept My hapless tidings from his hopeful ear. SIR CHARLES. Sister, how much am I indebted to thee Apd to thy travail! SUSAN. What, at liberty? SIR CHARLES. Thou seest I am, thanks to thy industry. Oh! Unto which of all my courteous friends Am I thus bound? My uncle Mountford, he Even of an infant lov'd me; was it he? So did my cousin Tidy; was it he? So Master Roder, Master Sandy, too. Which of all these did this high kindness do? SUSAN. Charles, can you mock me in your poverty, Knowing your friends deride your misery? Now, I protest I stand so much amaz'd, To see your bonds free, and your irons knock'd off, That I am rapt into a maze of wonder; The rather for I know not by what means This happiness hath chanc'd. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 51 SIR CHARLES. Why, by my uncle, My cousins, and my friends; who else, I pray, Would take upon them all my debts to pay? SUSAN. Oh, brother! they are men [made] all of flint, Pictures of marble, and as void of pity As chased bears. I begg'd, I sued, I kneel'd, Laid open all your griefs and miseries, Which they derided; more than that, deni'd us A part in their alliance; but, in pride, Said that our kindred with our plenty died. SIR CHARLES. Drudges too much,-what did they? Oh, known evil! Rich fly the poor, as good men shun the devil. Whence should my freedom come? Of whom alive, Saving of those, have I deserv'd so well? Guess, sister, call to mind, remember me! These have I rais'd, they follow the world's guise, Whom rich [they] honour, they in woe despise. SUSAN. My wits have lost themselves; let's ask the keeper! SIR CHARLES. Gaoler! KEEPER. At hand, sir. SIR CHARLES. Of courtesy resolve me one demand! What was he took the burden of my debts From off my back, staid my appeal to death, Discharg'd my fees, and brought me liberty? KEEPER. A courteous knight, one call'd Sir Francis Acton. SIR CHARLES. Ha! Acton! Oh me! More distress'd in this Than all my troubles! Hale me back, Double my irons, and my sparing meals Put into halves, and lodge me in a dungeon More deep, more dark, more cold, more comfortless! By Acton freed! Not all thy manacles Could fetter so my heels, as this one word Hath thrall'd my heart; and it must now lie bound In more strict prison than thy stony gaol. I am not free, I go but under bail. 52 THOMAS HEYWOOD KEEPER. My charge is done, sir, now I have my fees. As we get little, we will nothing leese. SIR CHARLES. By Acton freed, my dangerous opposite! Why, to what end? On what occasion? Ha! Let me forget the name of enemy, And with indifference balance this high favour! Ha! SUSAN [aside]. His love to me, upon my soul, 'tis so! That is the root from whence these strange things grow. SIR CHARLES. Had this proceeded from my father, he That by the law of Nature is most bound In offices of love, it had deserv'd My best employment to requite that grace. Had it proceeded from my friends, or him, From them this action had deserv'd my life,And from a stranger more, because from such There is less execution of good deeds. But he, nor father, nor ally, nor friend, More than a stranger, both remote in blood, And in his heart oppos'd my enemy, That this high bounty should proceed from him,Oh! there I lose myself. What should I say, What think, what do, his bounty to repay? SUSAN. You wonder, I am sure, whence this strange kindness Proceeds in Acton; I will tell you, brother. He dotes on me, and oft hath sent me gifts, Letters, and tokens; I refus'd them all. SIR CHARLES. I have enough, though poor: my heart is set, In one rich gift to pay back all my debt. [Exeunt.] SCENE II.-Enter FRANKFORD and NICHOLAS, with keys and a letter in his hand. FRANKFORD. This is the night that I must play my part, To try two seeming angels.-Where's my keys? NICHOLAS. They are made according to your mould in wax. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 53 I bade the smith be secret, gave him money, And here they are. The letter, sir! FRANKFORD. True, take it, there it is; And when thou seest me in my pleasant'st vein, Ready to sit to supper, bring it me! NICHOLAS. I'll do't; make no more question, but I'll do it. [Exit.] [Enter MISTRESS FRANKFORD, CRANWELL, WENDOLL, and JENKIN.] MRS. FRANKFORD. Sirrah, 'tis six o'clock already struck; Go bid them spread the cloth, and serve in supper! JENKIN. It shall be done, forsooth, mistress. Where's Spigot, the butler, to give us our salt and trenchers? WENDOLL. We that have been a hunting all the day, Come with prepared stomachs.-Master Frankford, We wish'd you at our sport. FRANKFORD. My heart was with you, and my mind was on you.Fie, Master Cranwell! You are still thus sad.A stool, a stool! Where's Jenkin, and where's Nick? 'Tis supper time at least an hour ago. What's the best news abroad? WENDOLL. I know none good. FRANKFORD [aside]. But I know too much bad. [Enter BUTLER and JENKIN, with a table-cloth, bread, trenchers, and salt; then exeunt.] CRANWELL. Methinks, sir, you might have that interest In your wife's brother, to be more remiss In his hard dealing against poor Sir Charles, Who, as I hear, lies in York Castle, needy And in great want. FRANKFORD. Did not more weighty business of mine own Hold me away, I would have labour'd peace Betwixt them with all care; indeed I would, sir. 54 THOMAS HEYWOOD MRS. FRANKFORD. I'll write unto my brother earnestly In that behalf. WENDOLL. A charitable deed, And will beget the good opinion Of all your friends that love you, Mistress Frankford. FRANKFORD. That's you, for one; I know you love Sir Charles, [Aside.] And my wife too, well. WENDOLL. He deserves the love Of all true gentlemen; be yourselves judge! FRANKFORD. But supper, ho!-Now, as thou lov'st me, Wendoll, Which I am sure thou dost, be merry, pleasant, And frolic it to-night!-Sweet Mr. Cranwell, Do you the like!-Wife, I protest, my heart Was ne'er more bent on sweet alacrity. Where be those lazy knaves to serve in supper? [Enter NICHOLAS.] NICHOLAS. Here's a letter, sir. FRANKFORD. Whence comes it, and who brought it? NICHOLAS. A stripling that below attends your answer, And, as he tells me, it is sent from York. FRANKFORD. Have him into the cellar, let him taste A cup of our March beer; go, make him drink! NICHOLAS. I'll make him drunk, if he be a Trojan. FRANKFORD [after reading the letter]. My boots and spurs! Where's Jenkin? God forgive me, How I neglect my business!-Wife, look here! I have a matter to be tri'd to-morrow By eight o'clock; and my attorney writes me, I must be there betimes with evidence, Or it will go against me. Where's my boots? [Enter JENKIN, with boots and spurs.] MRS. FRANKFORD. I hope your business craves no such despatch, That you must ride to-night? A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 55 WENDOLL [aside]. I hope it doth. FRANKFORD. God's me! No such despatch? Jenkin, my boots! Where's Nick? Saddle my roan, And the gray dapple for himself!-Content ye, It much concerns me.-Gentle Master Cranwell, And Master Wendoll, in my absence use The very ripest pleasure of my house! WENDOLL. Lord! Master Frankford, you will ride tonight? The ways are dangerous. FRANKFORD. Therefore will I ride Appointed well; and so shall Nick, my man. MRS. FRANKFORD. I'll call you up by five o'clock tomorrow. FRANKFORD. No, by my faith, wife, I'll not trust to that: 'Tis not such easy rising in a morning From one I love so dearly. No, by my faith, I shall not leave so sweet a bedfellow, But with much pain. You have made me a sluggard Since I first knew you. MRS. FRANKFORD. Then, if you needs will go This dangerous evening, Master Wendoll, Let me entreat you bear him company. WENDOLL. With all my heart, sweet mistress.-My boots, there! FRANKFORD. Fie, fie, that for my private business I should disease a friend, and be a trouble To the whole house -Nickl NICHOLAS. Anon, sir! FRANKFORD. Bring forth my gelding!-As you love me, sir, Use no more words: a hand, good Master Cranwell! CRANWELL. Sir, God be your good speed! FRANKFORD. Good night, sweet Nan; nay, nay, a kiss, and part! [Aside.] Dissembling lips, you suit not with my heart. [Exeunt FRANKFORD and NICHOLAS.] 56 THOMAS HEYWOOD WENDOLL [aside]. How business, time, and hours, all gracious prove, And are the furtherers to my new-born love! I am husband now in Master Frankford's place, And must command the house.-My pleasure is We will not sup abroad so publicly, But in your private chamber, Mistress Frankford. MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh, sir! you are too public in your love. And Master Frankford's wifeCRANWELL. Might I crave favour, I would entreat you I might see my chamber. I am on the sudden grown exceedingly ill, And would be spar'd from supper. WENDOLL. Light there, ho!See you want nothing, sir, for if you do, You injure that good man, and wrong me too. CRANWELL. I will make bold; good night! [Exit.] WENDOLL. How all conspire To make our bosom sweet, and full entire! Come, Nan, I pr'ythee, let us sup within! MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh! what a clog unto the soul is sin! We pale offenders are still full of fear! Every suspicious eye brings danger near; When they, whose clear hearts from offence are free, Despise report, base scandals do outface, And stand at mere defiance with disgrace. WENDOLL. Fie, fie! You talk too like a puritan. MRS. FRANKFORD. You have tempted me to mischief, Master Wendoll! I have done I know not what. Well, you plead custom; That which for want of wit I granted erst, I now must yield through fear. Come, come, let's in; Once over shoes, we are straight o'er head in sin. WENDOLL. My jocund soul is joyful beyond measure; I'll be profuse in Frankford's richest treasure. [Exeunt.] A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 57 SCENE III.-Enter CICELY, JENKIN, BUTLER, and other SERVING-MEN. JENKIN. My mistress and Master Wendoil, my master, sup in her chamber to-night. Cicely, you are preferr'd, from being the cook, to be chambermaid. Of all the loves betwixt thee and me, tell me what thou think'st of this? CICELY. Mum; there's an old proverb,-when the cat's away, the mouse may play. JENKIN. NOW yOU talk of a cat, Cicely, I smell a rat. CICELY. Good words, Jenkin, lest you be call'd to answer them! JENKIN. Why, God make my mistress an honest woman! Are not these good words? Pray God my new master play not the knave with my old master! Is there any hurt in this? God send no villainy intended; and if they do sup together, pray God they do not lie together! God make my mistress chaste, and make us all His servants! What harm is there in all this? Nay, more; here in my hand, thou shalt never have my heart, unless thou say, Amen. CICELY. Amen; I pray God, I say. [Enter SERVING-MAN.] SERVING-MAN. My mistress sends that you should make less noise. So, lock up the doors, and see the household all got to bed! You, Jenkin, for this night are made the porter, to see the gates shut in. JENKIN. Thus by little and little I creep into office. Come, to kennel, my masters, to kennel; 'tis eleven o'clock already. SERVING-MAN. When you have locked the gates in, you must send up the keys to my mistress. CICELY. Quickly, for God's sake, Jenkin; for I must carry them. I am neither pillow nor bolster, but I know more than both. JENKIN. To bed, good Spigot; to bed, good honest servingcreatures; and let us sleep as snug as pigs in pease-straw! [Exeunt.] 58 THOMAS HEYWOOD SCENE IV.-Enter FRANKFORD and NICHOLAS. FRANKFORD. Soft, soft! We've tied our geldings to a tree Two flight-shot off, lest by their thundering hoofs They blab our coming back. Hear'st thou no noise? NICHOLAS. Hear? I hear nothing but the owl and you FRANKFORD. So; now my watch's hand points upon twelve And it is dead midnight. Where are my keys? NICHOLAS. Here, sir. FRANKFORD. This is the key that opes my outward gate; This, the hall-door; this, the withdrawing-chamber; But this, that door that's bawd unto my shame, Fountain and spring of all my bleeding thoughts, Where the most hallowed order and true knot Of nuptial sanctity hath been profan'd. It leads to my polluted bed-chamber, Once my terrestrial heaven, now my earth's hell, The place where sins in all their ripeness dwell.But I forget myself; now to my gate! NICHOLAS. It must ope with far less noise than Cripplegate or your plot's dash'd. FRANKFORD. So; reach me my dark lantern to the rest Tread softly, softly! NICHOLAS. I will walk on eggs this pace. FRANKFORD. A general silence hath surpris'd the house, And this is the last door. Astonishment, Fear, and amazement, beat upon my heart, Even as a madman beats upon a drum. Oh, keep my eyes, you Heavens, before I enter, From any sight that may transfix my soul; Or, if there be so black a spectacle, Oh, strike mine eyes stark blind; or if not so, Lend me such patience to digest my grief, That I may keep this white and virgin hand From any violent outrage, or red murder!And with that prayer I enter. [Exeunt into the house.2 A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 59 SCENE V.-Enter NICHOLAS. NICHOLAS. Here's a circumstance! A man may be made cuckold in the time That he's about it. An the case were mine, As 'tis my master's, 'sblood! (that he makes me swear!), I would have plac'd his action, enter'd there; I would, I would! [Enter FRANKFORD.] FRANKFORD. Oh! Oh! NICHOLAS. Master! 'Sblood! Master, master! FRANKFORD. Oh me unhappy! I have found them lying Close in each other's arms, and fast asleep. But that I would not damn two precious souls, Bought with my Saviour's blood, and send them, laden With all their scarlet sins upon their backs, Unto a fearful judgment, their two lives Had met upon my rapier. NICHOLAS. Master, what, have you left them sleeping still? Let me go wake 'em! FRANKFORD. Stay, let me pause awhile!Oh, God, Oh, God! That it were possible To undo things done; to call back yesterday; That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, To untell the days, and to redeem these hours! Or that the sun Could, rising from the west, draw his coach backward; Take from th' account of time so many minutes, Till he had all these seasons call'd again, Those minutes, and those actions done in them, Even from her first offence; that I might take her As spotless as an angel in my arms! But, oh! I falk of things impossible, And cast beyond the moon. God give me patience; For I will in, and wake them. [Exit.] 60 THOMAS HEYWOOD NICHOLAS. Here's patience perforce! He needs must trot afoot that tires his horse. [Exit.] [Enter WENDOLL, running over the stage in a nightgown, FRANKFORD after him with his sword drawn; a maid in her smock stays his hand, and clasps hold on him. He pauses for a while.] FRANKFORD. I thank thee, maid; thou, like the angel's hand, Hast stay'd me from a bloody sacrifice.Go, villain; an my wrongs sit on thy soul As heavy as this' grief doth upon mine! When thou record'st my many courtesies, And shalt compare them with thy treacherous heart, Lay them together, weigh them equally,'Twill be revenge enough, Go, to thy friend A Judas; pray, pray, lest I live to see Thee, Judas-like, hang'd on an elder-tree! [Enter MISTRESS FRANKFORD in her smock, night-gown, and night-attire.] MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh, by what word, what title, or what name, Shall I entreat your pardon? 'Pardon! Oh! I am as far from hoping such sweet grace, As Lucifer from Heaven. To call you husband,(Oh me, most wretched!) I have lost that name; I am no more your wife. NICHOLAS. 'Sblood, sir, she swoons. FRANKFORD. Spare thou thy tears, for I will weep for thee; And keep thy count'nance, for I'll blush for thee. Now, I protest, I think 'tis I am tainted, For I am most asham'd; and 'tis more hard For me to look upon thy guilty face Than on the sun's clear brow. What! Would'st thou speak? A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 61 MRS. FRANKFORD. I would I had no tongue, no ears, no eyes, No apprehension, no capacity. When do you spurn me like a dog? When tread me Under feet? When drag me by the hair? Though I deserve a thousand, thousand fold, More than you can inflict-yet, once my husband, For womanhood, to which I am a shame, Though once an ornament-even for His sake, That hath redeem'd our souls, mark not my face, Nor hack me with your sword; but let me go Perfect and undeformed to my tomb! I am not worthy that I should prevail In the least suit; no, not to speak to you, Nor look on you, nor to be in your presence; Yet, as an abject, this one suit I crave;This granted, I am ready for my grave. FRANKFORD. My God, with patience arm me!-Rise, nay, rise, And I'll debate with thee. Was it for want Thou play'dst the strumpet? Wast thou not suppli'd With every pleasure, fashion, and new toy,Nay, even beyond my calling? MRS. FRANKFORD. I was. FRANKFORD. Was it, then, disability in me; Or in thine eye seem'd he a properer man? MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh, no! FRANKFORD. Did I not lodge thee in my bosom? Wear thee here in my heart? MRS. FRANKFORD. You did. FRANKFORD. I did, indeed; witness my tears, I didGo, bring my infants hither![Two Children are brought in.] Oh, Nan! Oh, Nan! If neither fear of shame, regard of honour, The blemish of my house, nor my dear love, Could have withheld thee from so lewd a fact; 62 THOMAS HEYWOOD Yet for these infants, these young, harmless souls, On whose white brows thy shame is character'd, And grows in greatness as they wax in years,Look but on them, and melt away in tears!Away with them; lest, as her spotted body Hath stain'd their names with stripe of bastardy, So her adulterous breath may blast their spirits With her infectious thoughts! Away with them! [Exeunt Children.] MRS. FRANKFORD. In this one life, I die ten thousand deaths. FRANKFORD. Stand up, stand up! I will do nothing rashly. I will retire awhile into my study, And thou shalt hear thy sentence presently. [Exit.] MRS. FRANKFORD. 'Tis welcome, be it death. Oh me, base strumpet, That, having such a husband, such sweet children, Must enjoy neither! Oh, to redeem mine honour, I'd have this hand cut off, these my breasts sear'd; Be rack'd, strappado'd, put to any torment: Nay, to whip but this scandal out, I'd hazard The rich and dear redemption of my soul! He cannot be so base as to forgive me, Nor I so shameless to accept his pardon. Oh, women, women, you that yet have kept Your holy matrimonial vow unstain'd, Make me your instance; when you tread awry, Your sins, like mine, will on your conscience lie. [Enter CICELY, SPIGOT, all the SERVING-MEN, and JENKIN, as newly come out of bed.] ALL. Oh, mistress, mistress! What have you done, mistress? NICHOLAS. 'Sblood, what a caterwauling keep you here! JENKIN. O Lord, mistress, how comes this to pass? My master is run away in his shirt, and never so much as call'd me to bring his clothes after him. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 63 MRS. FRANKFORD. See what guilt is! Here stand I in this place, Asham'd to look my servants in the face. [Enter FRANKFORD and CRANWELL; whom seeing, she falls on her knees.] FRANKFORD. My words are regist'red in Heaven already. With patience hear me! I'll not martyr thee, Nor mark thee for a strumpet; but with usage Of more humility torment thy soul, And kill thee even with kindness. CRANWELL. Master FrankfordFRANKFORD. Good Master Cranwell!-Woman, hear thy judgment! Go make thee ready in thy best attire; Take with thee all thy gowns, all thy apparel; Leave nothing that did ever call thee mistress, Or by whose sight, being left here in the house, I may remember such a woman by. Choose thee a bed and hangings for thy chamber; Take with thee every thing which hath thy mark, And get thee to my manor seven mile off, Where live;-'tis thine; I freely give it thee. My tenants by shall furnish thee with wains To carry all thy stuff within two hours; No longer will I limit thee my sight. Choose which of all my servants thou lik'st best, And they are thine to attend thee. MRS. FRANKFORD. A mild sentence. FRANKFORD. But, as thou hop'st for Heaven, as thou believ'st Thy name's recorded in the book of life, I charge thee never after this sad day To see me, or to meet me; or to send, By word or writing, gift or otherwise, To move me, by thyself, or by thy friends; Nor challenge any part in my two children. 64 THOIMAS HEYWOOD0 So farewell, Nan; for we will henceforth be As we had never seen, ne'er more shall see. MRS. FRANKFORD. How full my heart is, in mine eyes appears; What wants in words, I will supply in tears. FRANKFORD. Come, take your coach, your stuff; all must along. Servants and all make ready; all begone! It was thy hand cut two hearts out of one. [Exeunt.] ACT V SCENE I.-Enter SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD, gentlemanlike, and his Sister, gentlewoman-like. SUSAN. Brother, why have you trick'd me like a bride, Bought me this gay attire, these ornaments? Forget you our estate, our poverty? SIR CHARLES. Call me not brother, but imagine me Some barbarous outlaw, or uncivil kern; For if thou shutt'st thine eye, and only hear'st The words that I shall utter, thou shalt judge me Some staring ruffian, not thy brother Charles. Oh, sister!SUSAN. Oh, brother! what doth this strange language mean? SIR CHARLES. Dost love me, sister? Wouldst thou see me live A bankrupt beggar in the world's disgrace, And die indebted to mine enemies? Wouldst thou behold me stand like a huge beam In the world's eye, a bye-word and a scorn? It lies in thee of these to acquit me free, And all my debt I may outstrip by thee. SUSAN. By me? Why, I have nothing left; I owe even for the clothes upon my back; I am not worth A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 65 SIR CHARLES. 0 sister, say not so! It lies in you my downcast state to raise; To make me stand on even points with the world. Come, sister, you are rich; indeed you are, And in your power you have, without delay Acton's five hundred pounds back to repay. SUSAN. Till now I had thought you lov'd me. By my honour (Which I have kept as spotless as the moon), I ne'er was mistress of that single doit Which I reserv'd not to supply your wants; And do you think that I would hoard from you? Now, by my hopes in Heaven, knew I the means To buy you from the slavery of your debts (Especially from Acton, whom I hate), I would redeem it with my life or blood! SIR CHARLES. I challenge it, and, kindred set apart, Thus ruffian-like, I lay siege to thy heart. What do I owe to Acton? SUSAN. Why, some five hundred pounds; towards which, I swear, In all the world I have not one denier. SIR CHARLES. It will not prove so. Sister, now resolve me: What do you think (and speak your conscience) Would Acton give, might he enjoy your bed? SUSAN. He would not shrink to spend a thousand pound To give the Mountfords' name so deep a wound. SIR CHARLES. A thousand pound! I but five hundred owe: Grant him your bed; he's paid with interest so. SUSAN. Oh, brother! SIR CHARLES. Oh, sister! only this one way, With that rich jewel you my debts may pay. In speaking this my cold heart shakes with shame; Nor do I woo you in a brother's name, But in a stranger's. Shall I die in debt To Acton, my grand foe, and you still wear The precious jewel that he holds so dear? 66 THOMAS HEYWOOD SUSAN. My honour I esteem as dear and precious As my redemption. SIR CHARLES. I esteem you, sister, As dear, for so dear prizing it. SUSAN. Will Charles Have me cut off my hands, and send them Acton? Rip up my breast, and with my bleeding heart Present him as a token? SIR CHARLES. Neither, sister; But hear me in my strange assertion! Thy honour and my soul are equal in my regard; Nor will thy brother Charles survive thy shame. His kindness, like a burden, hath surcharg'd me, And under his good deeds I stooping go, Not with an upright soul. Had I remain'd In prison still, there doubtless I had died. Then, unto him that freed me from that prison, Still do I owe this life. What mov'd my foe To enfranchise me? 'Twas, sister, for your love; With full five hundred pounds he bought your love;And shall he not enjoy it? Shall the weight Of all this heavy burden lean on me, And will not you bear part? You did partake The joy of my release; will you not stand In joint-bond bound to satisfy the debt? Shall I be only charg'd? SUSAN. But that I know These arguments come from an honour'd mind, As in your most extremity of need Scorning to stand in debt to one you hate,Nay, rather would engage your unstain'd honour, Than to be held ingrate,-I should condemn you. I see your resolution, and assent; So Charles will have me, and I am content. SIR CHARLES. For this I trick'd you up. SUSAN. But here's a knife To save mine honour, shall slice out my life. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 67 SIR CHARLES. I know thou pleasest me a thousand times More in that resolution than thy grant.Observe her love; to soothe it to my suit, Her honour she will hazard, though not lose; To bring me out of debt, her rigorous hand Will pierce her heart,-O wonder!-that will choose, Rather than stain her blood, her life to lose. Come, you sad sister to a woful brother, This is the gate. I'll bear him such a present, Such an acquittance for the knight to seal, As will amaze his senses, and surprise With admiration all his fantasies. [Enter SIR FRANCIS ACTON and MALBY.] SUSAN. Before his unchaste thoughts shall seize on me, 'Tis here shall my imprison'd soul set free. SIR FRANCIS. How! Mountford with his sister, hand in hand! What miracle's afoot? MALBY. It is a sight Begets in me much admiration. SIR CHARLES. Stand not amaz'd to see me thus attended! Acton, I owe thee money, and, being unable To bring thee the full sum in ready coin, Lo! for thy more assurance, here's a pawn,My sister, my dear sister, whose chaste honour I prize above a million. Here! Nay, take her; She's worth your money, man; do not forsake her. SIR FRANCIS. I would he were in earnest! SUSAN. Impute it not to my immodesty. My brother, being rich in nothing else But in his interest that he hath in me, According to his poverty hath brought you Me, all his store; whom, howsoe'er you prize, As forfeit to your hand, he values highly, And would not sell, but to acquit your debt, For any emperor's ransom. 68 THOMAS HEYWOOD SIR FRANCIS. Stern heart, relent, Thy former cruelty at length repent! Was ever known, in any former age, Such honourable, wrested courtesy? Lands, honours, life, and all the world forego, Rather than stand engag'd to such a foe! SIR CHARLES. Acton, she is too poor to be thy bride, And I too much oppos'd to be thy brother. There, take her to thee; if thou hast the heart To seize her as a rape, or lustful prey; To blur our house, that never yet was stain'd; To murder her that never meant thee harm; To kill me now, whom once thou sav'dst from death:Do them at once; on her all these rely, And perish with her spotless chastity. SIR FRANCIS. You overcome me in your love, Sir Charles. I cannot be so cruel to a lady I love so dearly. Since you have not spar'd To engage your reputation to the world, Your sister's honour, which you prize so dear, Nay, all the comforts which you hold on earth, To grow out of my debt, being your foe,Your honour'd thoughts, lo! thus I recompense. Your metamorphos'd foe receives your gift In satisfaction of all former wrongs. This jewel I will wear here in my heart; And where before I thought her, for her wants, Too base to be my bride, to end all strife, I seal you my dear brother, her my wife. SUSAN. You still exceed us. I will yield to fate, And learn to love, where I till now did hate. SIR CHARLES. With that enchantment you have charm'd my soul And made me rich even in those very words! I pay no debt, but am indebted more; Rich in your love, I never can be poor. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 69 SIR FRANCIS. All's mine is yours; we are alike in state; Let's knit in love what was oppos'd in hate! Come, for our nuptials we will straight provide, Blest only in our brother and fair bride. [Exeunt.] SCENE II.-Enter CRANWELL, FRANKFORD, and NICHOLAS. CRANWELL. Why do you search each room about your house, Now that you have despatch'd your wife away? FRANKFORD. Oh, sir! To see that nothing may be left That ever was my wife's. I lov'd her dearly; And when I do but think of her unkindness, My thoughts are all in hell; to avoid which tornent, I would not have a bodkin or a cuff, A bracelet, necklace, or rabato wire, Nor anything that ever was call'd hers, Left me, by which I might remember her.Seek round about. NICHOLAS. 'Sblood! master, here's her lute flung in a corner. FRANKFORD. Her lute! Oh, God! Upon this instrument Her fingers have rung quick division, Sweeter than that which now divides our hearts.,These frets have made me pleasant, that have now Frets of my heart-strings made. Oh, Master Cranwell, Oft hath she made this melancholy wood (Now mute and dumb for her disastrous chance) Speak sweetly many a note, sound many a strain To her own ravishing voice; which being well strung, What pleasant strange airs have they jointly sung!Post with it after her!-Now nothing's left; Of her and hers I am at once bereft. NICHOLAS. I'll ride and overtake her; do my message, And come back again. [Exit.] CRANWELL. Meantime, sir, if you please, I'll to Sir Francis Acton, and inform him Of what hath past betwixt you and his sister. 70 THOMAS HEYWOOD FRANKFORD. Do as you please.-How ill am I bested, To be a widower ere my wife be dead! [Exeunt.] SCENE III.-Enter MISTRESS FRANKFORD; with JENKIN, her maid CICELY, her Coachmen, and three Carters. MRS. FRANKFORD. Bid my coach stay! Why should I ride in state, Being hurl'd so low down by the hand of fate? A seat like to my fortunes let me have,Earth for my chair, and for my bed a grave! JENKIN. Comfort, good mistress; you have watered your coach with tears already. You have but two miles now to go to your manor. A man cannot say by my old master Frankford as he may say by me, that he wants manors; for he hath three or four, of which this is one that we are going to now. CICELY. Good mistress, be of good cheer! Sorrow, you see, hurts you, but helps you not; we all mourn to see you so sad. CARTER. Mistress, I spy one of my landlord's men Come riding post: 'tis like he brings some news. MRS. FRANKFORD. Comes he from Master Frankford, he is welcome; So is his news, because they come from him. [Enter NICHOLAS.] NICHOLAS. There! MRS. FRANKFORD. I know the lute. Oft have I sung to thee; We both are out of tune, both out of time. NICHOLAS. Would that had been the worst instrument that e'er you played on! My master commends him to ye; there's all he can find was ever yours; he hath nothing left that ever you could lay claim to but his own heart,-and he could afford you that! All that I have to deliver you is this: he prays you to forget him; and so he bids you farewell. MRS. FRANKFORD. I thank him; he is kind, and ever was. All you that have true feeling of my grief, A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 71 That know my loss, and have relenting hearts, Gird me about, and help me with your tears To wash my spotted sins! My lute shall groan; It cannot weep, but shall lament my moan. [She plays.] [Enter WENDOLL behind.] WENDOLL. Pursu'd with horror of a guilty soul, And with the sharp scourge of repentance lash'd, I fly from mine own shadow. O my stars! What have my parents in their lives deserv'd, That you should lay this penance on their son? When I but think of Master Frankford's love, And lay it to my treason, or compare My murdering him for his relieving me, It strikes a terror like a lightning's flash, To scorch my blood up. Thus I, like the owl, Asham'd of day, live in these shadowy woods, Afraid of every leaf or murmuring blast, Yet longing to receive some perfect knowledge How he hath dealt with her. [Seeing MISTRESS FRANKFORD.] 0 my sad fate! Here, and so far from home, and thus attended! Oh, God! I have divorc'd the truest turtles That ever liv'd together, and, being divided, In several places make their several moan; She in the fields laments, and he at home; So poets write that Orpheus made the trees And stones to dance to his melodious harp, Meaning the rustic and the barbarous hinds, That had no understanding part in them: So she from these rude carters tears extracts, Making their flinty hearts with grief to rise, And draw down rivers from their rocky eyes. MRS. FRANKFORD [to NICHOLAS]. If you return unto my master, say (Though not from me, for I am all unworthy To blast his name so with a strumpet's tongue) 72 THOMAS HEYWOOD That you have seen me weep, wish myself dead! Nay, you may say, too (for my vow is past), Last night you saw me eat and drink my last. This to your master you may say and swear; For it is writ in heaven, and decreed here. NICHOLAS. I'll say you wept; I'll swear you made me sad. Why, how now, eyes? What now? What's here to do? I'm gone, or I shall straight turn baby too. WENDOLL [aside]. I cannot weep, my heart is all on fire. Curs'd be the fruits of my unchaste desire! MRS. FRANKFORD. Go, break this lute upon my coach's wheel, As the last music that I e'er shall make,Not as my husband's gift, but my farewell To all earth's joy; and so your master tell! NICHOLAS. If I can for crying. WENDOLL [aside]. Grief, have done, Or, like a madman, I shall frantic run. MRS. FRANKFORD. You have beheld the wofull'st wretch on earth,A woman made of tears; would you had words To express but what you see! My inward grief No tongue can utter; yet unto your power You may describe my sorrow, and disclose To thy sad master my abundant woes. NICHOLAS. I'll do your commendations. MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh, no I I dare not so presume; nor to my children! I am disclaim'd in both; alas! I am. Oh, never teach them, when they come to speak, To name the name of mother: chide their tongue, If they by chance light on that hated word; Tell them 'tis naught; for when that word they name, Poor, pretty souls! they harp on their own shame. WENDOLL [aside]. To recompense their wrongs, what canst thou do? Thou hast made her husbandless, and childless too. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 73 MRS. FRANKFORD. I have no more to say.-Speak not for me; Yet you may tell your master what you see. NICHOLAS. I'll do't. [Exit.] WENDOLL [aside]. I'll speak to her, and comfort her in grief. Oh, but her wound cannot be cur'd with words! No matter, though; I'll do my best good will To work a cure on her whom I did kill. MRS. FRANKFORD. So, now unto my coach, then to my home, So to my death-bed; for from this sad hour, I never will nor eat, nor drink, nor taste Of any cates that may preserve my life. I never will nor smile, nor sleep, nor rest; But when my tears have wash'd my black soul white, Sweet Saviour, to thy hands I yield my sprite. WENDOLL [coming forward]. Oh, Mistress Frankford! MRS. FRANKFORD. Oh, for God's sake, fly! The devil doth come to tempt me, ere I die. My coach!-This sin, that with an angel's face Conjur'd mine honour, till he sought my wrack, In my repentant eye seems ugly, black. [Exeunt all except WENDOLL and JENKIN; the Carters whistling.] JENKIN. What, my young master, that fled in his shirt! How come you by your clothes again? You have made our house in a sweet pickle, ha' ye not, think you? What, shall I serve you still, or cleave to the old house? WENDOLL. Hence, slave! Away, with thy unseason'd mirth! Unless thou canst shed tears, and sigh, and howl, Curse thy sad fortunes, and exclaim on fate, Thou art not for my turn. JENKIN. Marry, an you will not, another will; farewell, and be hangd! Would you had never come to have kept this coil within our doors! We shall ha' you run away like a sprite again. [Exit.] 74 THOMAS HEYWOOD WENDOLL. She's gone to death; I live to want and woe, Her life, her sins, and all upon my head. And I must now go wander, like a Cain, In foreign countries and remoted climes, Where the report of my ingratitude Cannot be heard. I'll over first to France, And so to Germany and Italy; Where, when I have recovered, and by travel Gotten those perfect tongues, and that these rumours May in their height abate, I will return: And I divine (however now dejected), My worth and parts being by some great man prais'd, At my return I may in court be rais'd. [Exit.] SCENE IV.-Enter SIR FRANCIS ACTON, SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD, CRANWELL, MALBY, and SUSAN. SIR FRANCIS. Brother, and now my wife, I think these troubles, Fall on my head by justice of the heavens, For being so strict to you in your extremities; But we are now aton'd. I would my sister Could with like happiness o'ercome her griefs As we have ours. SUSAN. You tell us, Master Cranwell, wondrous things Touching the patience of that gentleman, With what strange virtue he demeans his grief. CRANWELL. I told you what I was a witness of; It was my fortune to lodge there that night. SIR FRANCIS. Oh, that same villain, Wendoll! 'Twas his tongue That did corrupt her; she was of herself Chaste and devoted well. Is this the house? CRANWELL. Yes, sir; I take it, here your sister lies. SIR FRANCIS. My brother Frankford show'd too mild a spirit In the revenge of such a loathed crime. A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 75 Less than he did, no man of spirit could do. I am so far from blaming his revenge, That I commend it. Had it been my case, Their souls at once had from their breasts been freed; Death to such deeds of shame is the due meed. [Enter JENKIN and CICELY.] JENKIN. Oh, my mistress, mistress! my poor mistress! CICELY. Alas! that ever I was born; what shall I do for my poor mistress? SIR CHARLES. Why, what of her? JENKIN. Oh, Lord, sir! she no sooner heard that her brother and her friends had come to see how she did, but she, for very shame of her guilty conscience, fell into such a swoon, that we had much ado to get life in her. SUSAN. Alas, that she should bear so hard a fate! Pity it is repentance comes too late. SIR FRANCIS. Is she so weak in body? JENKIN. Oh, sir! I can assure you there's no hope of life in her; for she will take no sust'nance: she hath plainly starv'd herself, and how she's as lean as a lath. She ever looks for the good hour. Many gentlemen and gentlewomen of the country are come to comfort her. SCENE V.-SIR CHARLES MOUNTFORD, SIR FRANCIS ACTON, MALBY, CRANWELL, and SUSAN. [Enter MISTRESS FRANKFORD in her bed.] MALBY. How fare you, Mistress Frankford? MRS. FRANKFORD. Sick, sick, oh, sick! Give me some air, I pray you! Tell me, oh, tell me, where is Master Frankford? Will not he deign to see me ere I die? MALBY. Yes, Mistress Frankford; divers gentlemen, Your loving neighbours, with that just request Have mov'd, and told him of your weak estate: Who, though with much ado to get belief, 76 THOMAS HEYWOOD Examining of the general circumstance, Seeing your sorrow and your penitence, And hearing therewithal the great desire You have to see him, ere you left the world, He gave to us his faith to follow us, And sure he will be here immediately. MRS. FRANKFORD. You have half reviv'd me with the pleasing news, Raise me a little higher in my bed.Blush I not, brother Acton? Blush I not, Sir Charles? Can you not read my fault writ in my cheek? Is not my crime there? Tell me, gentlemen. SIR CHARLES. Alas, good mistress, sickness hath not left you Blood in your face enough to make you blush. MRS. FRANKFORD. Then, sickness, like a friend, my fault would hide.Is my husband come? My soul but tarries His arrive; then I am fit for heaven. SIR FRANCIS. I came to chide you, but my words of hate Are turn'd to pity and compassionate grief. I came to rate you, but my brawls, you see, Melt into tears, and I must weep by thee.Here's Master Frankford now. [Enter FRANKFORD.] FRANKFORD. Good morrow, brother; morrow, gentlemen! God, that hath laid this cross upon our heads, Might (had He pleas'd) have made our cause of meeting On a more fair and more contented ground; But He that made us made us to this woe. MRS. FRANKFORD. And is he come? Methinks, that voice I know. FRANKFORD. How do you, woman? MRS. FRANKFORD. Well, Master Frankford, well; but shall be better, I hope within this hour. Will you vouchsafe, A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS 77 Out of your grace and your humanity, To take a spotted strumpet by the hand? FRANKFORD. This hand once held my heart in faster bonds, Than now 'tis gripp'd by me. God pardon them That made us first break hold! MRS. FRANKFORD. Amen, amen! Out of my zeal to Heaven, whither I'm now bound, I was so impudent to wish you here; And once more beg your pardon. 0, good man, And father to my children, pardon me. Pardon, oh, pardon me: my fault so heinous is, That if you in this world forgive it not, Heaven will not clear it in the world to come. Faintness hath so usurp'd upon my knees, That kneel I cannot; but on my heart's knees My prostrate soul lies thrown down at your feet, To beg your gracious pardon. Pardon, oh, pardon me! FRANKFORD. As freely, from the low depth of my soul, As my Redeemer hath forgiven His death, I pardon thee. I will shed tears for thee; pray with thee; And, in mere pity of thy weak estate, I'll wish to die with thee. ALL. So do we all. NICHOLAS. So will not I; I'll sigh and sob, but, by my faith, not die. SIR FRANCIS. Oh, Master Frankford, all the near alliance I lose by her, shall be suppli'd in thee. You are my brother by the nearest way; Her kindred hath fall'n off, but yours doth stay. FRANKFORD. Even as I hope for pardon, at that day When the Great Judge of heaven in scarlet sits, So be thou pardon'd! Though thy rash offence Divorc'd our bodies, thy repentant tears Unite our souls. SIR CHARLES. Then comfort, Mistress Frankford! You see your husband hath forgiven your fall; Then rouse your spirits, and cheer your fainting soull 78 THOMAS HEYWOOD SUSAN. How is it with you? SIR FRANCIS. How d'ye feel yourself? MRS. FRANKFORD. Not of this world. FRANKFORD. I see you are not, and I weep to see it. My wife, the mother to my pretty babes! Both those lost names I do restore thee back, And with this kiss I wed thee once again. Though thou art wounded in thy honour'd name, And with that grief upon thy death-bed liest, Honest in heart, upon my soul, thou diest. MRS. FRANKFORD. Pardon'd on earth, soul, thou in heaven art free; Once more thy wife, dies thus embracing thee. [Dies.] FRANKFORD. New-married, and new-widow'd.-Oh' she's dead, And a cold grave must be her nuptial bed. SIR CHARLES. Sir, be of good comfort, and your heavy sorrow Part equally amongst us; storms divided Abate their force, and with less rage are guided. CRANWELL. Do, Master Frankford; he that hath least part, Will find enough to drown one troubled heart. SIR FRANCIS. Peace with thee, Nan!-Brothers and gentlemen, All we that can plead interest in her grief, Bestow upon her body funeral tears! Brother, had you with threats and usage bad Punish'd her sin, the grief of her offence Had not with such true sorrow touch'd her heart. FRANKFORD. I see it had not; therefore, on her grave Will I bestow this funeral epitaph, Which on her marble tomb shall be engrav'd. In golden letters shall these words be fill'd: Here lies she whom her husband's kindness kill'd. THE LONDON MERCHANT OR THE HISTORY OF GEORGE BARNWELL BY GEORGE LILLO (1731) Learn to be wise from others' harm, And you shall do full well. Old Ballad of The Lady's Fall INTRODUCTION Lillo's George Barnwell is sufficient proof, if proof were needed, that by 1731 the merchant class had won a powerful and respected place for itself in the English social system. The appearance of domestic tragedy in the 16th and 17th centuries was, as we have seen, a protest against a drama given over to the historic pretensions of kings, nobles, and prelates, and a call for the depiction of the humbler but no less real struggles of middle class humanity. Rowe, in the early 18th century, carried on the attack on high tragedy when he complained of its remoteness from the feelings of the day, and asserted that in tragedy we cannot pity what we cannot share. Lillo repeats essentially the same thesis in his dedication, namely, that princes are not the only ones who suffer misfortunes. In making a member of the merchant class a tragic figure, Lillo was intentionally enlarging the province of tragedy, even though he restricted its purpose to the correction of criminal passions. The moral standards he extols are those of the commercial classes. Thorowgood and Trueman, as their names signify, are models of business virtue; they pause in the third act to proclaim how trade has "promoted humanity by mutual benefits diffusing mutual love from pole to pole." In contrast to Trueman, the honest apprentice, is George Barnwell, the'guileless youth led to his ruin by the adventuress, Millwood. His bourgeois piety yields to Millwood's enticements with little resistance. He is fully aware, however, at every step, of the fatal results of evil courses and serves to illustrate Thorowgood's maxim, "When vice becomes habitual, the very power of leaving it is lost." Like Hogarth's pictures of The Rake's Progress, George Barnwell illustrates sin plucking on greater sin, lust leading to theft, and theft to murder. As much ado is made over Barnwell's repentance as over that of Mrs. Frankford in Heywood's play, but both die because of their sins. Millwood, the unrepentant, however, dies in indescribable but hopeless horror, in contrast to Barnwell who, 81 82 GEORGE LILLO as more sinned against than sinning, dies repentant in the hope of Heaven's favor. Though Lillo has boldly attempted to substitute prose for poetry as the vehicle of his tragedy, he has not freed himself from the affectations of the tragic and sentimental style; his emotional passages are cast in a sententious rhetoric that nobody ever used in real life, a style that may be found surviving as late as Pinero's The Profligate. Nevertheless, Lillo has on record the credit of having saved one soul from perdition. In the memoirs of Charles Lewes is an account of a man who annually presented to the actor ten guineas as "a tribute of gratitude from one who was highly obliged and saved from ruin by seeing Mr. Ross's performance of Barnwell." The play was revived in 1927 by Sir Nigel Playfair at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, in combination with the theatrical episode in "Nicholas Nickleby" under the title, When Crummles Played. Acted in the traditional costumes of the 18th century, and in the romantic affected style whicll to-day survives only in burlesques of the stage tragedian, the play produced upon the audience that flocked to see it night after night, an effect which is best described in the lines from Midsummer Night's Dream: "And tragical, my noble lord, it is; For Pyramus therein doth kill himself. Which when I saw rehearsed, I must confess, Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears The passion of loud laughter never shed." New York is to enjoy this treat during the coming months. References. Introduction by A. W. Ward to Lillo's London Merchant and Fatal Curiosity (Belles-Lettres Series, D. C. Heath, New York, 1906); H. W. Singer, Das biirgerliche Trauerspiel in England (1891); A. Nicoll, Eighteenth Century Drama, 1700 -1750 (Cambridge, 1925); E. Bernbaum, The Drama of Sensibility (Ginn, New York, 1915); G. H. Nettleton, English Drama of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Macmillan, 1914). DEDICATION To SIR JOHN EYLES, BARONET, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOr, AND ALDERMAN OF, THE CITY OF LONDON, AND SUB-GOVERNOR OF THE SOUTH SEA COMPANY Sir, If Tragic Poetry be, as Mr. Dryden has somewhere said, the most excellent and most useful kind of writing, the more extensively useful the moral of any tragedy is, the more excellent that piece must be of its kind. I hope I shall not be thought to insinuate that this, to which I have presumed to prefix your name, is such; that depends on its fitness to answer the end of tragedy, the exciting of the passions in order to the correcting such of them as are criminal, either in their nature, or through their excess. Whether the following scenes do this in any tolerable degree, is, with the deference that becomes one who would not be thought vain, submitted to your candid and impartial judgment. What I would infer is this, I think, evident truth; that tragedy is so far from losing its dignity by being accommodated to the circumstances of the generality of mankind that it is more truly august in proportion to the extent of its influence and the numbers that are properly affected by it-as it is more truly great to be the instrument of good to many who stand in need of our assistance, than to a very small part of that number. If princes, etc., were alone liable to misfortunes arising from vice or weakness in themselves or others, there would be good reason for confining the characters in tragedy to those of superior rank; but, since the contrary is evident, nothing can be more reasonable than to proportion the remedy to the disease. I am far from denying that tragedies, founded on any instructive and extraordinary events in history, or a well-invented fable, where the persons introduced are of the highest rank, are without their use, even to the bulk of the audience. The strong contrast between a Tamerlane and a Bajazet,1 may have its weight with an unsteady people, and contribute to the fixing of them in the interest of a prince of the character of the former, when, thro' their own levity or the arts of designing men, they are rendered factious and uneasy, tho' they have the highest reason to be satisfied. The sentiments and example of a Cato may inspire his spectators with a just sense of the value of liberty, when they see that honest patriot prefer death to an obligation from a tyrant who would sacrifice the constitution of his country and the liberties of mankind, to In Marlowe's play. 83 84 GEORGE LILLO his ambition or revenge. I have attempted, indeed, to enlarge the province of the graver kind of poetry, and should be glad to see it carried on by some abler hand. Plays founded on moral tales in private life may be of admirable use, by carrying conviction to the mind with such irresistible force as to engage all the faculties and powers of the soul in the cause of virtue, by stifling vice in its first principles. They who imagine this to be too much to be attributed to tragedy, must be strangers to the energy of that noble species of poetry. Shakespeare, who has given such amazing proofs of his genius, in that as well as in comedy, in his Hamlet has the following lines: Had he the motive and the cause for passion That I have, he would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; Make mad the guilty, and appall the free; Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculty of eyes and ears. And farther, in the same speech: I've heard that guilty creatures at a play Have, by the very cunning of the scene, Been so struck to the soul, that presently They have proclaimed their malefactions. Prodigious! yet strictly just. But I shan't take up your valuable time with my remarks; only give me leave just to observe, that he seems so firmly persuaded of the power of a well-wrote piece to produce the effect here ascribed to it, as to make Hamlet venture his soul on the event, and rather trust that than a messenger from the other world, tho' it assumed, as he expresses it, his noble father's form, and assured him that it was his spirit. "I'll have," said Hamlet, "grounds more relative";... The Play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. Such plays are the best answers to them who deny the lawfulness of the stage. Considering the novelty of this attempt, I thought it would be expected from me to say something in its excuse; and I was unwilling to lose the opportunity of saying something of the usefulness of tragedy in general, and what may be reasonably expected from the farther improvement of this excellent kind of poetry. Sir, I hope you will not think I have said too much of an art, a mean specimen of which I am ambitious enough to recommend to your favor and protection. A mind conscious of superior worth, as much despises flattery as it is above it. Had I found in myself an inclination to so contemptible a vice, I should not have chose Sir John Eyles for my patron. And indeed the best-writ panegyric, tho' strictly true, must place you in a light much inferior to that in which you have long been fixed by the love and esteem of your fellow citizens, whose choice of you THE LONDON MERCHANT 85 for one of their representatives in Parliament has sufficiently declared their sense of your merit. Nor hath the knowledge of your worth been confined to the City. The proprietors in the South Sea Company, in which are included numbers of persons as considerable for their rank, fortune, and understanding as any in the kingdom, gave the greatest proof of their confidence in your capacity and probity when they chose you Sub-Governor of their Company at a time when their affairs were in the utmost confusion and their properties in the greatest danger. Nor is the Court insensible of your importance. I shall not therefore attempt your character, nor pretend to add anything to a reputation so well established. Whatever others may think of a dedication wherein there is so much said of other things, and so little of the person to whom it is addressed, I have reason to believe that you will the more easily pardon it on that ~very account. I am, sir, Your most obedient Humble servant, George Lillo. TEXT OF THE PLAY DRAMATIS PERSONS MEN THOROWGOOD BARNWELL, uncle to GEORGE GEORGE BARNWELL TRUEMAN BLUNT JAILER JOHN WOMEN MARIA MILLWOOD Lucy Officers with their Attendants, Keeper, and Footmen SCENE: London and an adjacent village. TIME: about 1585. PROLOGUE Spoke by MR. CIBBER, JUN. The Tragic Muse, sublime, delights to show Princes distressed and scenes of royal woe; In awful pomp, majestic, to relate The fall of nations or some hero's fate: That sceptered chiefs may by example know The strange vicissitude of things below; What dangers on security attend; How pride and cruelty in ruin end; Hence Providence supreme to know, and own Humanity adds glory to a throne. In ev'ry former age and foreign tongue With native grandeur thus the Goddess sung. Upon our stage, indeed, with wished success, You've sometimes seen her in a humbler dressGreat only in distress. When she complains In Southern's, Rowe's, or Otway's moving strains, The brilliant drops that fall from each bright eye The absent pomp with brighter gems supply. Forgive us then, if we attempt to show, In artless strains, a tale of private woe. A London 'prentice ruined, is our theme, Drawn from the famed old song that bears his name. We hope your taste is not so high to scorn A moral tale, esteemed ere you were born; Which, for a century of rolling years, Has filled a thousand-thousand eyes with tears. If thoughtless youth to warn, and shame the age From vice destructive, well becomes the stage; 89 90 GEORGE LILLO If this example innocence secure, Prevent our guilt, or by reflection cure; If Millwood's dreadful guilt and sad despair Commend the virtue of the good and fair: Tho' art be wanting, and our numbers fail, Indulge th'attempt, in justice to the tale! THE LONDON MERCHANT OR THE HISTORY OF GEORGE BARNWELL ACT I SCENE I.-A room in THOROWGOOD'S house. [Enter THOROWGOOD and TRUEMAN.] TRUEMAN. Sir, the packet from Genoa is arrived. [Gives letters.] THOROWGOOD. Heav'n be praised! The storm that threatened our royal mistress, pure religion, liberty and laws, is for a time diverted. The haughty and revengeful Spaniard, disappointed of the loan on which he depended from Genoa, must now attend the slow return of wealth from his new world, to supply his empty coffers ere he can execute his purposed invasion of our happy island; by which means time is gained to make such preparations on our part as may, Heav'n concurring, prevent his malice, or turn the meditated mischief on himself. TRUEMAN. He must be insensible, indeed, who is not affected when the safety of his country is concerned.-Sir, may I know by what means-if I am too boldTHOROWGOOD. Your curiosity is laudable. And I gratify it with the greater pleasure, because from thence you may learn how honest merchants, as such, may sometimes contribute to the safety of their country, as they do at all times to its happiness; that if hereafter you should be tempted to any action that has the appearance of vice or meanness in it, 91 92 GEORGE LILLO upon reflecting on the dignity of our profession you may with honest scorn reject whatever is unworthy of it. TRUEMAN. Should Barnwell, or I, who have the benefit of your example, by our ill conduct bring any imputation on that honorable name, we must be left without excuse. THOROWGOOD. You compliment, young man. [TRUEMAN bows respectfully.] Nay, I'm not offended. As the name of merchant never degrades the gentleman, so by no means does it exclude him; only take heed not to purchase the character of complaisant at the expense of your sincerity.-But to answer your question. The bank of Genoa had agreed, at excessive interest and on good security, to advance the King of Spain a sum of money sufficient to equip his vast Armada; of which our peerless Elizabeth (more than in name the Mother of her People) being well informed, sent Walsingham, her wise and faithful secretary, to consult the merchants of this loyal city, who all agreed to direct their several agents to influence, if possible, the Genoese to break their contract with the Spanish court. 'Tis done; the state and bank of Genoa, having maturely weighed and rightly judged of their true interest, prefer the friendship of the merchants of London to that of a monarch who proudly styles himself King of both Indies. TRUEMAN. Happy success of prudent councils! What an expense of blood and treasure is here saved! Excellent Queen! Oh, how unlike to former princes, who made the danger of foreign enemies a pretence to oppress their subjects by taxes great and grievous to be borne. THOROWGOOD. Not so our gracious Queen, whose richest exchequer is her people's love, as their happiness her greatest glory. TRUEMAN. On these terms to defend us, is to make our protection a benefit worthy her who confers it, and well worth our acceptance.-Sir, have you any commands for me at this time? THOROWGOOD. Only to look carefully over the files to see whether there are any tradesmen's bills unpaid; and if there are, to send and discharge 'em. We must not let artificers THE LONDON MERCHANT 93 lose their time, so useful to the public and their families, in unnecessary attendance. [Exit TRUEMAN.] SCENE II.-THOROWGOOD and MARIA. THOROWGOOD. Well, Maria, have you given orders for-the entertainment? I would have it in some measure worthy the guests. Let there be plenty, and of the best; that the courtiers, tho' they should deny us citizens politeness, may at least commend our hospitality. MARIA. Sir, I have endeavored not to wrong your wellknown generosity by an ill-timed parsimony. THOROWGOOD. Nay, 'twas a needless caution; I have no cause to doubt your prudence. MARIA. Sir, I find myself unfit for conversation at present. I should but increase the number of the company without adding to their satisfaction. THOROWGOOD. Nay, my child, this melancholy must not be indulged. MARIA. Company will but increase it. I wish you would dispense with my absence; solitude best suits my present temper. THOROWGOOD. You are not insensible that it is chiefly on your account these noble lords do me honor so frequently to grace my board; should you be absent, the disappointment may make them repent their condescension and think their labor lost. MARIA. IHe that shall think his time or honor lost in visiting you can set no real value on your daughter's company, whose only merit is that she is yours. The man of quality who chooses to converse with a gentleman and merchant of your worth and character, may confer honor by so doing, but he loses none. THOROWGOOD. Come, come, Maria; I need not tell you that a young gentleman may prefer your conversation to mine, yet intend me no disrespect at all; for, tho' he may lose no honor 94 GEORGE LILLO in my company, 'tis very natural for him to expect more pleasure in yours. I remember the time when the company of the greatest and wisest man in the kingdom would have been insipid and tiresome to me if it had deprived me of an opportunity of enjoying your mother's. MARIA. Yours no doubt was as agreeable to her, for generous minds know no pleasure in society but where 'tis mutual. THOROWGOOD. Thou know'st I have no heir, no child but thee; the fruits of many years' successful industry must all be thine. Now, it would give me pleasure great as my love, to see on whom you would bestow it. I am daily solicited by men of the greatest rank and merit for leave to address you, but I have hitherto declined it, in hopes that by observation I should learn which way your inclination tends; for, as I know love to be essential to happiness in the marriage state, I had rather my approbation should confirm your choice than direct it. MARIA. What can I say? How shall I answer, as I ought, this tenderness, so uncommon even in the best of parents? But you are without example; yet had you been less indulgent, I had been most wretched. That I look on the crowd of courtiers that visit here with equal esteem but equal indifference, you have observed, and I must needs confess; yet had you asserted your authority, and insisted on a parent's right to be obeyed, I had submitted and to my duty sacrificed my peace. THOROWGOOD. From your perfect obedience in every other instance I feared as much, and therefore would leave you without a bias in an affair wherein your happiness is so immediately concerned. MARIA. Whether from a want of that just ambition that would become your daughter, or from some other cause, I know not, but I find high birth and titles don't recommend the man who owns them to my affections. THOROWGOOD. I would not that they should, unless his merit recommends him more. A noble birth and fortune, tho' they make not a bad man good, yet they are a real advantage to a worthy one, and place his virtues in the fairest light. THE LONDON MERCHANT 95 MARIA. I cannot answer for my inclinations, but they shall ever be submitted to your wisdom and authority; and, as you will not compel me to marry where I cannot love, so love shall never make me act contrary to my duty. Sir, have I your permission to retire? THOROWGOOD. I'll see you to your chamber. [Exeunt.] SCENE III.-A room in MILLWOOD'S house. [MILLWOOD at her toilet. LUCY, waiting.] MILLWOOD. HOW do I look to-day, Lucy? LUCY. Oh, killingly, madam! A little more red, and you'll be irresistible! But why this more than ordinary care of your dress and complexion? What new conquest are you aiming at? MILLWOOD. A conquest would be new indeed! LUCY. Not to you, who make 'em every day, but to me.Well! 'tis what I'm never to expect, unfortunate as I am. But your wit and beautyMILLWOOD. First made me a wretch, and still continue me so. Men, however generous or sincere to one another, are all selfish hypocrites in their affairs with us. We are no otherwise esteemed or regarded by them but as we contribute to their satisfaction. LUCY. You are certainly, madam on the wrong side in this argument. Is not the expense all theirs? And I am sure it is our own fault it we haven't our share of the pleasure. MILLWOOD. We are but slaves to men. LUCY. Nay, 'tis they that are slaves most certainly; for we lay them under contribution. MILLWOOD. Slaves have no property-no, not even in themselves. All is the victor's. LUCY. You are strangely arbitrary in your principles, madam. MILLWOOD. I would have my conquests complete, like those of the Spaniards in the New World; who first plundered the 96 GEORGE LILLO natives of all the wealth they had, and then condemned the wretches to the mines for life to work for more. LUCY. Well, I shall never approve of your scheme of government; I should think it much more politic, as well as just, to find my subjects an easier employment. MILLWOOD. It's a general maxim among the knowing part of mankind, that a woman without virtue, like a man without honor or honesty, is capable of any action, tho' never so vile; and yet, what pains will they not take, what arts not use to seduce us from our innocence, and make us contemptible and wicked, even in their own opinions! Then is it not just, the villains, to their cost, should find us so?-But guilt makes them suspicious, and keeps them on their guard; therefore we can take advantage only of the young and innocent part of the sex, who, having never injured women, apprehend no injury from them. LUCY. Aye, they must be young indeed. MILLWOOD. Such a one, I think, I have found.-As I've passed thro' the City, I have often observed him receiving and paying considerable sums of money; from thence I conclude he is employed in affairs of consequence. LUCY. Is he handsome? MILLWOOD. Aye, aye, the stripling is well made. LUCY. AboutMILLWOOD. Eighteen. LUCY. Innocent, handsome, and about eighteen.-You'll be vastly happy.-Why, if you manage well, you may keep him to yourself these two or three years. MILLWOOD. If I manage well, I shall have done with him much sooner. Having long had a design on him and meeting him yesterday, I made a full stop, and, gazing wishfully on his face, asked him his name. He blushed, and bowing very low, answered: "George Barnwell." I begged his pardon for the freedom I had taken, and told him that he was the person I had long wished to see, and to whom I had an affair of importance to communicate at a proper time and place. He named a tavern; I talked of honor and reputation, and invited THE LONDON MERCHANT 97 him to my house. He swallowed the bait, promised to come, and this is the time I expect him. [Knocking at the door.] Somebody knocks.-D'ye hear; I am at home to nobody today but him. [Exit LUCY.] SCENE IV.-MILLWOOD. MILLWOOD. -Less affairs must give way to those of more consequence, and I am strangely mistaken if this does not prove of great importance to me and him too, before I have done with himn.-Now, after what manner shall I receive him? Let me consider-what manner of person am I to receive? He is young, innocent, and bashful; therefore I must take care not to shock him at first.-But then, if I have any skill in physiognomy, he is amorous, and, with a little assistance, will soon get the better of his modesty.-I'll trust to Nature, who does wonders in these matters.-If to seem what one is not, in order to be the better liked for what one really is; if to speak one thing, and mean the direct contrary, be art in a woman-I know nothing of nature. SCENE V.-Enter to her BARNWELL, bowing very low, followed by Lucy at a distance. MILLWOOD. Sir! the surprise and joyBARNWELL. MadamMILLWOOD [advancing]. This is such a favorBARNWELL. Pardon me, madamMILLWOOD [still advances]. So unhoped for-[BARNWELL salutes her, and retires in confusion]-to see you here.-Excuse the confusionBARNWELL. I fear I am too bold. MILLWOOD. Alas, sir! All my apprehensions proceed frcm my fears of your thinking me so.-Please, sir, to sit.-I am as much at a loss how to receive this honor as I ought, as I am surprised at your goodness in conferring it. 98 GEORGE LILLO BARNWELL. I thought you had expected me-I promised to come. MILLWOOD. That is the more surprising; few men are such religious observers of their word. BARNWELL. All who are honest are. MILLWOOD. To one another.-But we silly women are seldom thought of consequence enough to gain a place in your remembrance. [Laying her hand on his, as by accident.] BARNWELL [aside]. Her disorder is so great, she don't perceive she has laid her hand on mine.-Heaven! hbw she trembles!-What can this mean? MILLWOOD. The interest I have in all that relates to you (the reason of which you shall know hereafter), excites my curiosity; and, were I sure you would pardon my presumption, I should desire to know your real sentiments on a very particular affair. BARNWELL. Madam, you may command my poor thoughts on any subject; I have none that I would conceal. MILLWOOD. You'll think me bold. BARNWELL. NO indeed. MILLWOOD. What then are your thoughts of love? BARNWELL. If you mean the love of women, I have not thought of it at all.-My youth and circumstances make such thoughts improper in me yet. But if you mean the general love we owe to mankind, I think no one has more of it in his temper than myself.-I don't know that person in the world whose happiness I don't wish and wouldn't promote, were it in my power.-In an especial manner I love my uncle and my master, but, above all, my friend. MILLWOOD. You have a friend then whom you love? BARNWELL. As he does me, sincerely. MILLWOOD. He is, no doubt, often blessed with your company and conversation. BARNWELL. We live in one house together, and both serve the same worthy merchant. MILLWOOD. Happy, happy youth! Whoe'er thou art, I envy THE LONDON MERCHANT 99 thee, and so must all who see and know this youth.-What have I lost, by being formed a woman! I hate my sex-myself. Had I been a man, I might, perhaps, have been as happy in your friendship, as he who now enjoys it; but, as it is-oh! BARNWELL [aside]. I never observed women before, or this is sure the most beautiful of her sex!-You seem disordered, madam! May I know the cause? MILLWOOD. Do not ask me. —I can never speak it, whatever is the cause.-I wish for things impossible.-I would be a servant, bound to the same master as you are, to live in one house with you. BARNWELL [aside]. How strange, and yet how kind, her words and actions are! And the effect they have on me is as strange. I feel desires I never knew before. I must be gone, while I have power to go.-Madam, I humbly take my leave. MILLWOOD. You will not sure leave me so soon! BARNWELL. Indeed, I must. MILLWOOD. You cannot be so cruel!-I have prepared a poor supper, at which I promised myself your company. BARNWELL. I am sorry I must refuse the honor that you designed me, but my duty to my master calls me hence. If never yet neglected his service; he is so gentle, and so good a master, that, should I wrong him, tho' he might forgive me, I never should forgive myself. MILLWOOD. Am I refused, by the first man, the second favor I ever stooped to ask?-Go then, thou proud, hardhearted youth! But know, you are the only man that could be found who would let me sue twice for greater favors. BARNWELL [aside]. What shall I do!-How shall I go or stay! MILLWOOD. Yet do not, do not, leave me! I wish my sex's pride would meet your scorn, but when I look upon you-when I behold those eyes-oh! spare my tongue, and let my blushes speak. This flood of tears to that will force their way, and declare-what woman's modesty should hide. BARNWELL [aside]. Oh, heavens! she loves me, worthless as I am; her looks, her words, her flowing tears confess it. 100 GEORGE LILLO And can I leave her, then? Oh, never, never!-Madam, dry up those tears! You shall command me always; I will stay here forever, if you'd have me. LUCY [aside]. So! she has wheedled him out of his virtue of obedience already, and will strip him of all the rest, one after another, till she has left him as few as her ladyship or myself. MILLWOOD. NOW yOU are kind, indeed; but I mean not to detain you always. I would have you shake off all slavish obedience to your master, but you may serve him still. LUCY [aside]. Serve him still!-Aye, or he'll have no opportunity of fingering his cash, and then he'll not serve your end, I'll be sworn. SCENE VI.-To them BLUNT. BLUNT. Madam, supper's on the table. MILLWOOD. Come, sir, you'll excuse all defects.-My thoughts were too much employed on my guest to observe the entertainment. [Exeunt MILLWOOD and BARNWELL.] SCENE VII.-LUCY and BLUNT. BLUNT. What! is all this preparation, this elegant supper, variety of wines, and music, for the entertainment of that young fellow? LUCY. So it seems. BLUNT. What! is our mistress turned fool at last? She's in love with him, I suppose. LUCY. I suppose not; but she designs to make him in love with her if she can. BLUNT. What will she get by that? He seems under age, and can't be supposed to have much money. THE LONDON MERCHANT 101 LUCY. But his master has, and that's the same thing, as she'll manage it. BLUNT. I don't like this fooling with a handsome young fellow; while she's endeavoring to ensnare him, she may be caught herself. LUCY. Nay, were she like me, that would certainly be the consequence, for I confess, there is something in youth and innocence that moves me mightily. BLUNT. Yes, so does the smoothness and plumpness of a partridge move a mighty desire in the hawk to be the destruction of it. LUCY. Why, birds are their prey, as men are ours-though, as you observed, we are sometimes caught ourselves; but that, I dare say, will never be the case with our mistress. BLUNT. I wish it may prove so, for you know we all depend upon her. Should she trifle away her time with a young fellow that there's nothing to be got by, we must all starve. LUCY. There's no danger of that, for I am sure she has no view in this affair but interest. BLUNT. Well, and what hopes are there of success in that? LUCY. The most promising that can be. 'Tis true, the youth has his scruples; but she'll soon teach him to answer them by stifling his conscience. Oh, the lad is in a hopeful way, depend upon't. [Exeunt.] SCENE VIII.-BARNWELL and MILLWOOD at an entertainment. BARNWELL. What can I answer? All that I know is, that you are fair and I am miserable. MILLWOOD. We are both so, and yet the fault is in ourselves. BARNWELL. To ease our present anguish by plunging into guilt, is to buy a moment's pleasure with an age of pain. MILLWOOD. I should have thought the joys of love as lasting as they are great. If ours prove otherwise, 'tis your inconstancy must make them so. 102 GEORGE LILLO BARNWELL. The law of Heaven will not be reversed, and that requires us to govern our passions. MILLWOOD. TO give us sense of beauty and desires, and yet forbid us to taste and be happy, is cruelty to nature. Have we passions only to torment us? BARNWELL. To hear you talk, tho' in the cause of viceto gaze upon your beauty-press your hand-and see your snow-white bosom heave and fall-inflames my wishes. My pulse beats high-my senses all are in a hurry, and I am on the rack of wild desire. Yet, for a moment's guilty pleasure, shall I lose my innocence, my peace of mind, and hopes of solid happiness? MILLWOOD. Chimeras all!-Come on with me and prove No joys like woman kind, nor heav'n like love. BARNWELL [aside]. I would not, yet must on.Reluctant thus, the merchant quits his ease, And trusts to rocks, and sands, and stormy seas; In hopes some unknown golden coast to find, Commits himself, tho' doubtful, to the wind; Longs much for joys to come, yet mourns those left behind. [Exeunt.] ACT II SCENE I.-A room in THOROWGOOD'S house. BARNWELL. BARNWELL. How strange are all things round me! Like some thief, who treads forbidden ground, fearful I enter each apartment of this well-known house. To guilty love, as if that was too little, already have I added breach of trust.-A thief! -Can I know myself that wretched thing, and look my honest friend and injured master in the face? Tho' hypocrisy may a while conceal my guilt, at length it will be known, and public shame and ruin must ensue. In the meantime, what must be my life? Ever to speak a language foreign to my heart; hourly to add to the number of my crimes in order to conceal 'em! THE LONDON MERCHANT 103 Sure, such was the condition of the grand apostate, when first he lost his purity; like me, disconsolate he wandered, and, while yet in heaven, bore all his future hell about him. [Enter TRUEMAN.] SCENE II.-BARNWELL and TRUEMAN. TRUEMAN. Barnwell! Oh, how I rejoice to see you safe! So will our master and his gentle daughter, who during your absence often inquired after you. BARNWELL [aside]. Would he were gone! His officious love will pry into the secrets of my soul. TRUEMAN. Unless you knew the pain the whole family has felt on your account, you can't 2 conceive how much you are beloved. But why thus cold and silent? When my heart is full of joy for your return, why do you turn away? why thus avoid me? What have I done? how am I altered since you saw me last? Or rather, what have you done? and why are you thus changed, for I am still the same. BARNWELL [aside]. What have I done, indeed! TRUEMAN. Not speak nor look upon me! BARNWELL [aside]. By my face he will discover all I would conceal; methinks, already I begin to hate him. TRUEMAN. I cannot bear this usage from a friend-one whom till now I ever found so loving-whom yet I love, tho' this unkindness strikes at the root of friendship, and might destroy it in any breast but mine. BARNWELL [turning to him]. I am not well. Sleep has been a stranger to these eyes since you beheld them last. TRUEMAN. Heavy they look indeed, and swol'n with tears; now they o'erflow. Rightly did my sympathizing heart forbode last night, when thou wast absent, something fatal to our peace. BARNWELL. Your friendship engages you too far. My troubles, whate'er they are, are mine alone; you have no interest 'So given. 104 GEORGE LILLO in them, nor ought your concern for me give you a moment's pain. TRUEMAN. You speak as if you knew of friendship nothing but the name. Before I saw your grief I felt it. Since we parted last I have slept no more than you, but pensive in my chamber sat alone and spent the tedious night in wishes for your safety and return; e'en now, tho' ignorant of the cause, your sorrow wounds me to the heart. BARNWELL. 'Twill not be always thus. Friendship and all engagements cease, as circumstances and occasions vary; and, since you once may hate me, perhaps it might be better for us both that now you loved me less. TRUEMAN [aside].-Sure, I but dream! Without a cause would Barnwell use me thus?-Ungenerous and ungrateful youth, farewell! I shall endeavor to follow your advice. [Going.] [Aside.] Yet stay; perhaps I am too rash, and angry when the cause demands compassion. Some unforeseen calamity may have befal'n him, too great to bear. BARNWELL [aside]. What part am I reduced to act! 'Tis vile and base to move his temper thus-the best of friends and men! TRUEMAN. I am to blame; prithee, forgive me, Barnwell! Try to compose your ruffled mind, and let me know the cause that thus transports you from yourself. My friendly counsel may restore your peace. BARNWELL. All that is possible for man to do for man, your generous friendship may effect; but here even that's in vain. TRUEMAN. Something dreadful is laboring in your breast. Oh, give it vent, and let me share your grief; 'twill ease your pain, should it admit no cure, and make it lighter by the part I bear. BARNWELL [aside]. Vain supposition! My woes increase by being observed; should the cause be known, they would exceed all bounds. TRUEMAN. So well I know thy honest heart, guilt cannot harbor there. BARNWELL. Oh, torture insupportable! THE LONDON MERCHANT 105 TRUEMAN. Then why am I excluded? Have I a thought I would conceal from you? BARNWELL. If still you urge me on this hated subject, I'll never enter more beneath this roof nor see your face again. TRUEMAN. 'Tis strange.-But I have done. Say but you hate me not! BARNWELL. Hate you! I am not that monster yet. TRUEMAN.. Shall our friendship still continue? BARNWELL. It's a blessing I never was worthy of, yet now must stand on terms, and but upon conditions can confirm it. TRUEMAN. What are they? BARNWELL. Never hereafter, tho' you should wonder at my conduct, desire to know more than I am willing to reveal. TRUEMAN. 'Tis hard; but upon any conditions, I must be your friend. BARNWELL. Then, as much as one lost to himself can be another's, I am yours. [Embracing.] TRUEMAN. Be ever so, and may Heav'n restore your peace'! BARNWELL. Will yesterday return? We have heard the glorious sun, that till then incessant rolled, once stopped his rapid course, and once went back. The dead have risen, and parched rocks poured forth a liquid stream to quench a people's thirst. The sea divided and formed walls of water, while a whole nation passed in safety thro' its sandy bosom. Hungry lions have refused their prey, and men unhurt have walked amidst consuming flames. But never yet did time, once past, return. TRUEMAN. Tho' the continued chain of time has never once been broke, nor ever will, but uninterrupted must keep on its course, till lost in eternity it ends there where it first begun; yet, as Heav'n can repair whatever evils time can bring upon us, he who trusts Heav'n ought never to despair. But business requires our attendance-business, the youth's best preservative from ill, as idleness his worst of snares. Will you go with me? BARNWELL. I'll take a little time to reflect on what has passed, and follow you. [Exit TRUEMAN.] 106 GEORGE LILLO SCENE III.-BARNWELL. BARNWELL. -I might have trusted Trueman to have applied to my uncle to have repaired the wrong I have done my master-but what of Millwood? Must I expose her too? Ungenerous and base! Then Heav'n requires it not.-But Heaven requires that I forsake her. What! never see her more! Does Heaven require that?-I hope I may see her, and Heav'n not be offended. Presumptuous hope-dearly already have I proved my frailty; should I once more tempt Heav'n, I may be left to fall never to rise again. Yet shall I leave her, forever leave her, and not let her know the cause?-she who loves me with such a boundless passion.-Can cruelty be duty? I judge of what she then must feel by what I now endure. The love of life and fear of shame, opposed by inclination strong as death or shame, like wind and tide in raging conflict met, when neither can prevail, keep me in doubt. How then can I determine? [Enter THOROWGOOD.] SCENE IV.-THOROWGOOD and BARNWELL. THOROWGOOD. Without a cause assigned or notice given, to absent yourself last night was a fault, young man, and I came to chide you for it, but hope I am prevented. That modest blush, the confusion so visible in your face, speak grief and shame. When we have offended Heaven, it requires no more; and shall man, who needs himself to be forgiven, be harder to appease? If my pardon or love be of moment to your peace, look up, secure of both. BARNWELL [aside]. This goodness has o'ercome me.-O sirI you know not the nature and extent of my offence, and I should abuse your mistaken bounty to receive 'em. Tho' I had rather die than speak my shame; tho' racks could not have forced the guilty secret from my breast, your kindness has. THOROWGOOD. Enough, enough; whate'er it be, this concern shows you're convinced, and I am satisfied. [Aside.] How THE LONDON MERCHANT 107 painful is the sense of guilt to an ingenuous mind-some youthful folly which it were prudent not to enquire into.When we consider the frail condition of humanity, it may raise our pity, not our wonder, that youth should go astray when Reason, weak at the best when opposed to Inclination, scarce formed and wholly unassisted by Experience, faintly contends, or willingly becomes the slave of Sense. The state of youth is much to be deplored, and the more so because they see it not, they being then to danger most exposed when they are least prepared for their defence. BARNWELL. It will be known, and you recall your pardon and abhor me. THOROWGOOD. I never will, so Heav'n confirm to me the pardon of my offences Yet be upon your guard in this gay, thoughtless season of your life. Now, when the sense of pleasure's quick and passion high, the voluptuous appetites raging and fierce demand the strongest curb, take heed of a relapse. When vice becomes habitual, the very power of leaving it is lost. BARNWELL. Hear me, then, on my knees confessTHOROWGOOD. I will not hear a syllable more upon this subject; it were not mercy, but cruelty, to hear what must give you such torment to reveal. BARNWELL. This generosity amazes and distracts me. THOROWGOOD. This remorse makes thee dearer to me than if thou hadst never offended. Whatever is your fault, of this I'm certain; 'twas harder for you to offend than me to pardon. [Exit.] SCENE V.-BARNWELL. BARNWELL. Villain, villain, villain! basely to wrong so excellent a man! Should I again return to folly-detested thought!-But what of Millwood then?-Why, I renounce her -I give her up.-The struggle's over and Virtue has prevailed. Reason may convince, but Gratitude compels. This unlookedfor generosity has saved me from destruction. [Going.] 108 GEORGE LILLO SCENE VI.-Enter to him a FOOTMAN. FOOTMAN. Sir, two ladies from your uncle in the country desire to see you. BARNWELL [aside]. Who should they be?-Tell them I'll wait upon 'em. [Exit FOOTMAN.] SCENE VII.-BARNWELL. BARNWELL. -Methinks I dread to see 'em. Guilt, what a coward hast thou made me! Now everything alarms me. SCENE VIII.-Another room in THOROWGOOD'S house. [MILLWOOD and LUCY; enter to them a FOOTMAN.] FOOTMAN. Ladies, he'll wait upon you immediately. MILLWOOD. 'Tis very well.-I thank you. [Exit FOOTMAN.] SCENE IX.-MILLWOOD and LucY. [Enter BARNWELL.] BARNWELL [aside]. -Confusion!-Millwood! MILLWOOD. That angry look tells me that here I'm an unwelcome guest. I feared as much-the unhappy are so everywhere. BARNWELL. Will nothing but my utter ruin content you? MILLWOOD. Unkind and cruel! Lost myself, your happiness is now my only care. BARNWELL. HOW did you gain admission? MILLWOOD. Saying we were desired by your uncle to visit and deliver a message to you, we were received by the family without suspicion, and with much respect directed here. THE LONDON MERCHANT 109 BARNWELL. Why did you come at all? MILLWOOD. I never shall trouble you more; I'm come to take my leave forever. Such is the malice of my fate. I go hopeless, despairing ever to return. This hour is all I have left me. One short hour is all I have to bestow on love and you-for whom I thought the longest life too short. BARNWELL. Then we are met to part forever? MILLWOO). It must be so; yet think not that time or absence ever shall put a period to my grief or make me love you less: tho' I must leave you, yet condemn me not! BARNWELL. Condemn you? No, I approve your resolution and rejoice to hear it. 'Tis just; 'tis necessary. I have well weighed, and found it so. LUCY [aside]. I'm afraid the young man has more sense than she thought he had. BARNWELL. Before you came, I had determined never to see you more. MILLWOOD [aside]. Confusion! LUCY [aside]. Aye! we are all out! This is a turn so unexpected, that I shall make nothing of my part; they must e'en play the scene betwixt themselves. MILLWOOD. 'Twas some relief to think, tho' absent, you would love me still. But to find, tho' Fortune had been kind, that you, more cruel and inconstant, had'resolved to cast me off-this, as I never could expect, I have not learned to bear. BARNWELL. I am sorry to hear you blame in me a resolution that so well becomes us both. MILLWOOD. I have reason for what I do, but you have none. BARNWELL. Can we want a reason for parting, who have so many to wish we never had met? MILLWOOD. Look on me, Barnwell! Am I deformed or old, that satiety so soon succeeds enjoyment? Nay, look again; am I not she whom yesterday you thought the fairest and the kindest of her sex? whose hand, trembled with ecstasy, you pressed and moulded thus, while on my eyes you gazed with such delight, as if desire increased by being fed? 110 GEORGE LILLO BARNWELL. NO more! Let me repent my former follies, if possible, without rememb'ring what they were. MILLWOOD. Why? BARNWELL. Such is my frailty that 'tis dangerous. MILLWOOD. Where is the danger, since we are to part? BARNWELL. The thought of that already is too painful. MILLWOOD. If it be painful to part, then I may hope at least you do not hate me? BARNWELL. No-no-I never said I did.-O my heart!MILLWOOD. Perhaps you pity me? BARNWELL. I do-I do-indeed, I do. MILLWOOD. You'll think upon me? BARNWELL. Doubt it not, while I can think at all! MILLWOOD. You may judge an embrace at parting too great a favor, though it would be the last? [He draws back.] A look shall then suffice-farewell forever. [Exit with LUCY.] SCENE X.-BARNWELL. BARNWELL. If to resolve to suffer be to conquer, I have conquered. Painful victory! SCENE XI.'-Reenter MILLWOOD and LUCY. [BARNWELL, MILLWOOD, and LUCY.] MILLWOOD. One thing I had forgot; I never must return to my own house again. This I thought proper to let you know, lest your mind should change and you should seek in vain to find me there. Forgive me this second intrusion; I only came to give you this caution-and that perhaps was needless. BARNWELL. I hope it was; yet it is kind, and I must thank you for it. MILLWOOD [to LUCY]. My friend, your arm.-Now I am gone forever. [Going.] BARNWELL. One thing more: sure, there's no danger in my knowing where you go? If you think otherwise THE LONDON MERCHANT 111 MILLWOOD [weeping]. Alas! LUCY [aside]. We are right, I find; that's my cue.-Ah, dear sir, she's going she knows not whither; but go she must. BARNWELL. Humanity obliges me to wish you well. Why will you thus expose yourself to needless troubles? LUCY. Nay, there's no help for it. She must quit the town immediately, and the kingdom as soon as possible; it was no small matter, you may be sure, that could make her resolve to leave you. MILLWOOD. No more, my friend, since he for whose dear sake alone I suffer, and am content to suffer, is kind and pities me. Where'er I wander through wilds and deserts, benighted and forlorn, that thought shall give me comfort. BARNWELL. For my sake? Oh, tell me how! which way am I so cursed as to bring such ruin on thee? MILLWOOD. No matter; I am contented with my lot. BARNWELL. Leave me not in this uncertainty. MILLWOOD. I have said too much. BARNWELL. How, how am I the cause of your undoing? MILLWOOD. 'Twill but increase your troubles. BARNWELL. My troubles can't be greater than they are. LUCY. Well, well, sir, if she won't satisfy you, I will. BARNWELL. I am bound to you beyond expression. MILLWOOD. Remember, sir, that I desired you not to hear it. BARNWELL. Begin, and ease my racking expectation! LUCY. Why, you must know, my lady here was an only child; but her parents, dying while she was young, left her and her fortune (no inconsiderable one, I assure you) to the care of a gentleman who has a good estate of his own. MILLWOOD. Aye, aye, the barbarous man is rich enoughbut what are riches when compared to love? Lucy. For a while he performed the office of a faithful guardian, settled her in a house, hired her servants.-But you have seen in what manner she lived; so I need say no more of that. MILLWOOD. How I shall live hereafter, Heaven knows! LUCY. All things went on as one could wish till, some time 112 GEORGE LILLO ago, his wife dying, he fell violently in love with his charge, and would fain have married her. Now, the man is neither old nor ugly, but a good, personable sort of a man; but I don't know how it was, she could never endure him. In short, her ill usage so provoked him, that he brought in an account of his executorship, wherein he makes her debtor to himMILLWOOD. A trifle in itself, but more than enough to ruin me, whom, by this unjust account, he had stripped of all before. LUCY. Now, she, having neither money nor friend, except me, who am as unfortunate as herself, he compelled her to pass his account, and give bond for the sum he demanded, but still provided handsomely for her and continued his courtship till, being informed by his spies (truly I suspect some in her own family) that you were entertained at her house and stayed with her all night, he came this morning raving and storming like a madman; talks no more of marriage-so there's no hopes of making up matters that way-but vows her ruin unless she'll allow him the same favor that he supposes she granted you. BARNWELL. Must she be ruined or find her refuge in another's arms? MILLWOOD. He gave me but an hour to resolve in. That's happily spent with you-and now I go. BARNWELL. To be exposed to all the rigors of the various seasons, the summer's parching heat, and winter's cold; unhoused to wander friendless thro' the unhospitable world, in misery and want, attended with fear and danger, and pursued by malice and revenge-wouldst thou endure all this for me, and can I do nothing, nothing to prevent it? LUCY. 'Tis really a pity there can be no way found out! BARNWELL [aside]. Oh, where are all my resolutions now? Like early vapors, or the morning dew, chased by the sun's warm beams, they're vanished and lost, as tho' they had never been. LUCY. Now, I advised her, sir, to comply with the gentleman; that would not only put an end to her troubles, but make her fortune at once. THE LONDON MERCHANT 113 BARNWELL. Tormenting fiend, away!-I had rather perish, nay, see her perish, than have her saved by him; I will myself prevent her ruin, tho' with my own. A moment's patience; I'll return immediately. [Exit.] SCENE XII.-MILLWOOD and LUCY. LUCY. 'Twas well you came, or by what I can perceive you had lost him. MILLWOOD. That, I must confess, was a danger I did not foresee. I was only afraid he should have come without money. You know a house of entertainment like mine is not kept with nothing. LUCY. That's very true. But then, you should be reasonable in your demands; 'tis pity to discourage a young man. SCENE XIII.-Enter BARNWELL with a bag of money. [MILLWOOD and LUCY.] BARNWELL [aside]. What am I about to do! Now you, who boast your reason all-sufficient, suppose yourselves in my condition, and determine for me whether it's right to let her suffer for my faults, or, by this small addition to my guilt, prevent the ill effects of what is past. LUCY [aside]. These young sinners think everything in the ways of wickedness so strange. But I could tell him that this is nothing but what's very common; for one vice as naturally begets another, as a father a son. But he'll find out that himself if he lives long enough. BARNWELL. Here, take this, and with it purchase your deliverance; return to your house, and live in peace and safety. MILLWOOD. So I may hope to see you there again. BARNWELL. Answer me not, but fly-lest, in the agonies of my remorse,, I take again what is not mine to give, and abandon thee to want and misery! MILLWOOD. Say but you'll come! 114 GEORGE LILLO BARNWELL. You are my fate, my heaven, or my hell. Only leave me now; dispose me hereafter as you please. [Exeunt MILLWOOD and LUCY.] SCENE XIV.-BARNWELL. BARNWELL. -What have I done! Were my resolutions founded on reason and sincerely made, why then has Heaven suffered me to fall? I sought not the occasion; and if my heart deceives me not, compassion and generosity were my motives. -Is virtue inconsistent with itself, or are vice and virtue only empty names? Or do they depend on accidents, beyond our power to produce or to prevent-wherein we have no part, and yet must be determined by the event? But why should I attempt to reason? All is confusion, horror, and remorse. I find I am lost, cast down from all my late erected hopes, and plunged again in guilt, yet scarce know how or whySuch undistinguished horrors make my brain, Like hell, the seat of darkness and of pain. [Exit.] ACT III SCENE I.-A room in THOROWGOOD'S house. [THOROWGOOD and TRUEMAN sitting at a table with account books.] THOROWGOOD. Methinks, I would not have you only learn the method of merchandise, and practise it hereafter merely as a means of getting wealth; 'twill be well worth your pains to study it as a science. See how it is founded in reason and the nature of things; how it has promoted humanity, as it has opened and yet keeps up an intercourse between nations, far remote from one another in situation, customs and religion; promoting arts, industry, peace and plenty; by mutual benefits diffusing mutual love from pole to pole. ---- --- THE LONDON MERCHANT 115 TRUEMAN. Something of this I have considered, and hope, by your assistance, to extend my thoughts much farther. I have observed those countries where trade is promoted and encouraged, do not make discoveries to destroy, but to improve, mankind by love and friendship; to tame the fierce and polish the most savage; to teach them the advantages of honest traffic by taking from them, with their own consent, their useless superfluities, and giving them in return what, from their ignorance in manual arts, their situation, or some other accident, they stand in need of. THOROWGOOD. 'Tis justly observed. The populous East, luxuriant, abounds with glittering gems, bright pearls, aromatic spices, and health-restoring drugs. The late found Western World glows with unnumbered veins of gold and silver ore. On every climate and on every country, Heaven has bestowed some good peculiar to itself. It is the industrious merchant's business to collect the various blessings of each soil and climate, and, with the product of the whole, to enrich his native country.-Well! I have examined your accounts. They are not only just, as I have always found them, but regularly kept and fairly entered. I commend your diligence. Method in business is the surest guide. He who neglects it frequently stumbles, and always wanders perplexed, uncertain, and in danger. -Are Barnwell's accounts ready for my inspection? He does not use to ]be the last on these occasions. TRUEMAN. Upon receiving your orders he retired, I thought, in some confusion. If you please, I'll go and hasten him. I hope he hasn't been guilty of any neglect. THOROWGOOD. I'm now going to the Exchange; let him know, at my return I expect to find him ready. [Exeunt.] SCENE II.-Enter MARIA with a book; sits and reads. MARIA. How forcible is truth! The weakest mind, inspired with love of that, fixed and collected in itself, with indifference beholds the united force of earth and hell opposing. Such souls 116 GEORGE LILLO are raised above the sense of pain, or so supported that they regard it not. The martyr cheaply purchases his heaven. Small are his sufferings, great is his reward; not so the wretch who combats love with duty, when the mind, weakened and dissolved by the soft passion, feeble and hopeless opposes its own desires.-What is an hour, a day, a year of pain, to a whole life of tortures such as these? SCENE III.-TRUEMAN and MARIA. [Enter TRUEMAN.] TRUEMAN. 0 Barnwell! 0 my friend, how art thou fallen! MARIA. Ha! Barnwell! What of him? Speak!-say, what of Barnwell! TRUEMAN. 'Tis not to be concealed. I've news to tell of him that will afflict your generous father, yourself, and all who knew him. MARIA. Defend us Heaven! TRUEMAN. I cannot speak it.-See there. [Gives a letter. MARIA reads.] Trueman, I know my absence will surprise my honored master and yourself, and the more when you shall understand that the reason of my withdrawing, is my having embezzled part of the cash with which I was entrusted. After this, 'tis needless to inform you that I intend never to return again. Though this might have been known by examining my accounts, yet, to prevent that unnecessary trouble, and to cut off all fruitless expectations of my return, I have left this from the lost George Barnwell TRUEMAN. Lost indeed! Yet how he should be guilty of what he there charges himself withal, raises my wonder equal to my grief. Never had youth a higher sense of virtue: justly he thought, and as he thought he practised. Never was life more regular than his-an understanding uncommon at his years-an open, generous manliness of temper-his manners easy, unaffected, and engaging. MARIA. This and much more you might have said with truth. He was the delight of every eye and joy of every heart that knew him. THE LONDON MERCHANT 117 TRUEMAN. Since such he was, and was my friend, can I support his loss?-See! the fairest and happiest maid this wealthy city boasts, kindly condescends to weep for thy unhappy fate, poor ruined Barnwell! MARIA. Trueman, do you think a soul so delicate as his, so sensible of shame, can e'er submit to live a slave to vice? TRUEMAN. Never, never! So well I know him, I'm sure this act of his, so contrary to his nature, must have been caused by some unavoidable necessity. MARIA. Is there no means yet to preserve him?. TRUEMAN. Oh, that there were! But few men recover reputation lost-a merchant, never. Nor would he, I fear, though I should find him, ever be brought to look his injured master in the face. MARIA. I fear as much-and therefore would never have my father know it. TRUEMAN. That's impossible. MARIA. What's the sum? TRUEMAN. 'Tis considerable. I've marked it here, to show it, with the letter, to your father, at his return. MARIA. If I should supply the money, could you so dispose of that, and the account, as to conceal this unhappy mismanagement from my father? TRUEMAN. Nothing more easy. But can you intend it? Will you save a helpless wretch from ruin? Oh! 'twere an act worthy such exalted virtue as Maria's. Sure, Heaven in mercy to my friend inspired the generous thought! MARIA. Doubt not but I would purchase so great a happiness at a much dearer price.-But how shall he be found? TRUEMAN. Trust to my diligence for that. In the meantime, I'll conceal his absence from your father, or find such excuses for it that the real cause shall never be suspected. MARIA. In attempting to save from shame one whom we hope may yet return to virtue, to Heaven and you, the judges of this action, I appeal, whether I have done anything misbecoming my sex and character. 118 GEORGE LILLO TRUEMAN. Earth must approve the deed, and Heaven, I doubt not, will reward it. MARIA. If Heaven succeed it, I am well rewarded. A virgin's fame is sullied by suspicion's slightest breath; and therefore as this must be a secret from my father and the world, for Barnwell's sake, for mine, let it be so to him! [Exeunt.] SCENE IV.-MILLWOOD'S house. [LUCY and BLUNT.] LUCY. Well! what do you think of Millwood's conduct now? BLUNT. I own it is surprising; I don't know which to admire most, her feigned or his real passion-tho' I have sometimes been afraid that her avarice would discover her. But his youth and want of experience make it the easier to impose on him. LUCY. No, it is his love. To do him justice, notwithstanding his youth, he don't want understanding; but you men are much easier imposed on in these affairs than your vanity will allow you to believe. Let me see the wisest of you all as much in love with me as Barnwell is with Millwood, and I'll engage to make as great a fool of him. BLUNT. And all circumstances considered, to make as much money of him too? LUCY. I can't answer for that. Her artifice in making him rob his master at first, and the various stratagems by which she has obliged him to continue in that course, astonish even me, who know her so well. BLUNT. But then, you are to consider that the money was his master's. LUCY. There was the difficulty of it. Had it been his own, it had been nothing. Were the world his, she might have it for a smile.-But those golden days are done; he's ruined, and Millwood's hopes of farther profits there are at an end. BLUNT. That's no more than we all expected. LUCY. Being called by his master to make up his accounts, THE LONDON MERCHANT 119 he was forced to quit his house and service, and wisely flies to Millwood for relief and entertainment. BLUNT. I have not heard of this before! How did she receive him? LUCY. As you would expect. She wondered what he meant; was astonished at his impudence; and, with an air of modesty peculiar to herself, swore so heartily that she never saw him before, that she put me out of countenance. BLUNT. That's much, indeed! But how did Barnwell behave? LUCY. He grieved, and, at length, enraged at this barbarous treatment, was preparing to be gone; and, making toward the door, showed a bag of money which he had stol'n from his master-the last he's ever like to have from thence. BLUNT. But then Millwood? LUCY. Aye, she, with her usual address, returned to her old arts of lying, swearing, and dissembling. Hung on his neck, and wept, and swore 'twas meant in jest, till the easy fool, melted into tears, threw the money into her lap, and swore he had rather die than think her false. BLUNT. Strange infatuation! LUCY. But what followed was stranger still. As doubts and fears, followed by reconcilement, ever increase love where the passion is sincere, so in him it caused so wild a transport of excessive fondness, such joy, such grief, such pleasure, and such anguish, that nature in him seemed sinking with the weight, and the charmed soul disposed to quit his breast for hers. Just then, when every passion with lawless anarchy prevailed, and reason was in the raging tempest lost, the cruel, artful Millwood prevailed upon the wretched youth to promise what I tremble to think on. BLUNT. I am amazed! What can it be? LUCY. You will be more so, to hear it is to attempt the life of his nearest relation and best benefactor. BLUNT. His uncle, whom we have often heard him speak of as a gentleman of a large estate and fair character in the country where he lives? 120 GEORGE LILLO LUCY. The same. She was no sooner possessed of the last dear purchase of his ruin, but her avarice, insatiate as the grave, demands this horrid sacrifice-Barnwell's near relation; and unsuspected virtue must give too easy means to seize the good man's treasure, whose blood must seal the dreadful secret, and prevent the terrors of her guilty fears. BLUNT. IS it possible she could persuade him to do an act like that? He is, by nature, honest, grateful, compassionate, and generous; and though his love and her artful persuasions have wrought him to practise what he most abhors, yet we all can witness for him with what reluctance he has still complied! So many tears he shed o'er each offence, as might, if possible, sanctify theft, and make a merit of a crime. LUCY. 'Tis true; at the naming the murder of his uncle he started into rage, and, breaking from her arms, where she till then had held him with well-dissembled love and false endearments, called her "cruel monster, devil," and told her she was born for his destruction. She thought it not for her purpose to meet his rage with rage, but affected a most passionate fit of grief-railed at her fate and cursed her wayward stars, that still her wants should force her to press him to act such deeds as she must needs abhor as well as he: but told him, necessity had no law, and love no bounds; that therefore he never truly loved, but meant, in her necessity, to forsake her; then kneeled, and swore that since, by his refusal, he had given her cause to doubt his love, she never would see him more-unless, to prove it true, he robbed his uncle to supply her wants, and murdered him to keep it from discovery. BLUNT. I am astonished! What said he? LUCY. Speechless he stood; but in his face you might have read that various passions tore his very soul. Oft he, in anguish, threw his eyes towards heaven, and then as often bent their beams on her; then wept and groaned, and beat his breast. At length, with horror, not to be expressed, he cried: "Thou cursed fair! have I not given dreadful proofs of love? What drew me from my youthful innocence, to stain my then THE LONDON MERCHANT 121 unspotted soul, but love? What caused me to rob my gentle master, but cursed love? What makes me now a fugitive from his service, loathed by myself, and scorned by all the world, but love? What fills my eyes with tears, my soul with torture never felt on this side death before? Why, love, love, love! And why, above all, do I resolve" (for, tearing his hair, he cried "I do resolve") "to kill my uncle?" BLUNT. Was she not moved? It makes me weep to hear the sad relation. LUCY. Yes, with joy, that she had gained her point. She gave him no time to cool, but urged him to attempt it instantly. He's now gone; if he performs it and escapes, there's more money for her; if not, he'll ne'er return, and then she's fairly rid of him. BLUNT. 'Tis time the world was rid of such a monster. LUCY. If we don't do our endeavors to prevent this murder, we are as bad as she. BLUNT. I'm afraid it is too late. LUCY. Perhaps not.-Her barbarity to Barnwell makes me hate her. We've run too great length with her already. I did not think her or myself so wicked as I find, upon reflection, we are. BLUNT. 'Tis true, we have all been too much so. But there is something so horrid in murder, that all other crimes seem nothing when compared to that. I would not be involved in the guilt of that for all the world. LUCY. Nor I, Heaven knows; therefore, let us clear ourselves by doing all that is in our power to prevent it. I have just thought of a way that, to me, seems probable. Will you join with me to detect this curs'd design? BLUNT. With all my heart. How else shall I clear myself? He who knows of a murder intended to be committed and does not discover it, in the eye of the law and reason is a murderer. LUCY. Let us lose no time; I'll acquaint you with the particulars as we go. [Exeunt.] 122 GEORGE LILLO SCENE V.-A walk at some distance from a country seat. [BARNWELL.] BARNWELL. A dismal gloom obscures the face of day; either the sun has slipped behind a cloud, or journeys down the west of heaven with more than common speed to avoid the sight of what I'm doomed to act. Since I set forth on this accursed design, where'er I tread, methinks, the solid earth trembles beneath my feet. Yonder limpid stream, whose hoary fall has made a natural cascade, as I passed by, in doleful accents seemed to murmur "Murder." The earth, the air, and water, seem concerned-but that's not strange; the world is punished, and nature feels the shock when Providence permits a good man's fall!-Just Heaven! Then what should I be?-for him that was my father's only brother, and since his death has been to me a father, who took me up an infant, and an orphan; reared me with tenderest care, and still indulged me with most paternal fondness. Yet here I stand avowed his destined murderer.-I stiffen with horror at my own impiety.-'Tis yet unperformed. What if I quit my bloody purpose, and fly the place! [Going, then stops.]-But whither, 0 whither, shall I fly? My master's once-friendly doors are ever shut against me; and without money Millwood will never see me more, and life is not to be endured without her. She's got such firm possession of my heart, and governs there with such despotic sway -aye, there's the cause of all my sin and sorrow! 'Tis more than love; 'tis the fever of the soul and madness of desire. In vain does nature, reason, conscience, all oppose it; the impetuous passion bears down all before it, and drives me on to lust. to theft, and murder. 0 Conscience! feeble guide to Virtue who only shows us when we go astray, but wants the power tc stop us in our course!-Ha, in yonder shady walk I see my uncle. He's alone. Now for my disguise! [Plucks out a vizor.] This is his hour of private meditation. Thus daily he prepares his soul for heaven, whilst I-but what have I to do with heaven? Ha! No struggles, Conscience! THE LONDON MERCHANT 123 Hence, hence, Remorse, and ev'ry thought that good: The storms that lust began must end in blood. [Puts on the vizor, draws a pistol and exit.] SCENE VI.-A close walk in a wood. [UNCLE.] UNCLE. If I were superstitious, I should fear some danger lurked unseen, or death were nigh. A heavy melancholy clouds my spirits; my imagination is filled with gashly forms of dreary graves and bodies changed by death, when the pale, lengthened visage attracts each weeping eye, and fills the musing soul, at once, with grief and horror, pity and aversion.-I will indulge the thought. The wise man prepares himself for death, by making it familiar to his mind. When strong reflections hold the mirror near, and the living in the dead behold their future selves, how does each inordinate passion and desire cease, or sicken at the view? The mind scarce moves; the blood, curdling and chilled, creeps slowly thro' the veins-fixed, still, and motionless, like the solemn object of our thoughts. We are almost at present what we must be hereafter, till curiosity awakes the soul and sets it on inquiry. SCENE VII.-UNCLE. GEORGE BARNWELL at a distance. UNCLE. 0 Death, thou strange mysterious power-seen every day, yet never understood but by the incommunicative dead-what art thou? The extensive mind of man, that with a thought circles the earth's vast globe, sinks to the centre, or ascends above the stars; that world's exotic finds, or thinks it finds-thy thick clouds attempts to pass in vain, lost and bewildered in the horrid gloom; defeated, she returns more doubtful than before, of nothing certain but of labor lost. [During this speech, BARNWELL sometimes presents the pistol and draws it back again; at last he drops it, at which his uncle starts and draws his sword.] 124 GEORGE LILLO BARNWELL. Oh, 'tis impossible! UNCLE. A man so near me, armed and masked! BARNWELL. Nay, then there's no retreat. [Plucks a poniard from his bosom, and stabs him.] UNCLE. Oh! I am slain! All-gracious Heaven, regard the prayer of thy dying servant! Bless, with thy choicest blessings, my dearest nephew; forgive my murderer, and take my fleeting soul to endless mercy! [BARNWELL throws off his mask, runs to him, and, kneeling by him, raises and chafes him.] BARNWELL. Expiring saint! Oh, murdered, martyred uncle! Lift up your dying eyes, and view your nephew in your murderer! Oh, do not look so tenderly upon me! Let indignation lighten from your eyes, and blast me ere you die!-By heaven, he weeps in pity of my woes. Tears,-tears, for blood! The murdered, in the agonies of death, weeps for his murderer.Oh, speak your pious purpose-pronounce my pardon thenand take me with you!-He would, but cannot. Oh, why, with such fond affection, do you press my murdering hand?-What! will you kiss me? [Kisses him. UNCLE groans and dies.] He's gone forever-and oh! I follow. [Swoons away upon his uncle's dead body.]-Do I still live to press the suffering bosom of the earth? Do I still breathe, and taint with my infectious breath the wholesome air? Let Heaven from its high throne, in justice or in mercy, now look down on that dear murdered saint and me the murderer. And, if his vengeance spares, let pity strike and end my wretched being!-Murder the worst of crimes, and parricide the worst of murders, and this the worst of parricides! Cain, who stands on record from the birth of time, and must to its last final period, as accursed, slew a brother favored above him. Detested Nero by another's hand dispatched a mother that he feared and hated. But I, with my own hand, have murdered a brother, mother, father, and a friend most loving and beloved. This execrable act of mine's without a parallel. Oh, may it ever stand alone-the last of murders, as it is the worst! THE LONDON MERCHANT 125 The rich man thus, in torment and despair, Preferred his vain but charitable prayer. The fool, his own soul lost, would fain be wise For others' good; but Heaven his suit denies. By laws and means well known we stand or fall, And one eternal rule remains for all. [Exit.] ACT IV SCENE I.-A room in THOROWGOOD's house. MARIA. How falsely do they judge who censure or applaud, as we're afflicted or rewarded here! I know I am unhappy, yet cannot charge myself with any crime more than the common frailties of our kind, that should provoke just Heaven to mark me out for sufferings so uncommon and severe. Falsely to accuse ourselves, Heaven must abhor; then it is just and right that innocence should suffer, for Heaven must be just in all its ways. Perhaps by that they are kept from moral evils much worse than penal, or more improved in virtue; or may not the lesser ills that they sustain be the means of greater good to others? Might all the joyless days and sleepless nights that I have passed but purchase peace for theeThou dear, dear cause of all my grief and pain, Small were the loss, and infinite the gain; Tho' to the grave in secret love I pine, So life and fame and happiness were thine. SCENE II.-TRUEMAN and MARIA. [Enter TRUEMAN.] MARIA. What news of Barnwell? TRUEMAN. None. I have sought him with the greatest diligence, but all in vain. MARIA. Doth my father yet suspect the cause of his absenting himself? 126 GEORGE LILLO TRUEMAN. All appeared so just and fair to him, it is not possible he ever should; but his absence will no longer be concealed. Your father's wise; and, though he seems to hearken to the friendly excuses I would make for Barnwell, yet I am afraid he regards 'em only as such, without suffering them to influence his judgment. MARIA. How does the unhappy youth defeat all our designs to serve him! Yet I can never repent what we have done. Should he return, 'twill make his reconciliation with my father easier, and preserve him from future reproach from a malicious, unforgiving world. SCENE III.-Enter to them THOROWGOOD and LUCY. THOROWGOOD. This woman here has given me a sad, and (bating some circumstances) too probable account of Barnwell's defection. LUCY. I am sorry, sir, that my frank confession of my former unhappy course of life should cause you to suspect my truth on this occasion. THOROWGOOD. It is not that; your confession has in it all the appearance of truth. [To them] Among many other particulars, she informs me that Barnwell has been influenced to break his trust, and wrong me at several times of considerable sums of money; now, as I know this to be false, I would fain doubt the whole of her relation, too dreadful to be willingly believed. MARIA. Sir, your pardon; I find myself on a sudden so indisposed, that I must retire.-[Aside.] Providence opposes all attempts to save him. Poor ruined Barnwell! Wretched, lost Maria! [Exit.] SCENE IV.-THOROWGOOD, TRUEMAN and LUCY. THOROWGOOD. HOW am I distressed on every side! Pity for that unhappy youth, fear for the life of a much valued friend -and then my child, the only joy and hope of my declining THE LONDON MERCHANT 127 life! Her melancholy increases hourly, and gives me painful. apprehensions of her loss.-O Trueman! this person informs me that your friend, at the instigation of an impious woman, is gone to rob and murder his venerable uncle. TRUEMAN. Oh, execrable deed! I am blasted with the horror of the thought. LUCY. This delay may ruin all. THOROWGOOD. What to do or think I know not. That he ever wronged me, I know is false; the rest may be so toothere's all my hope. TRUEMAN. Trust not to that; rather suppose all true than lose a moment's time. Even now the horrid deed may be a doing-dreadful imagination! Or it may be done, and we are vainly debating on the means to prevent what is already past. THOROWGOOD [aside]. This earnestness convinces me that he knows more than he has yet discovered.-What ho! without there! who waits? SCENE V.-Enter to them a Servant. THOROWGOOD. Order the groom to saddle the swiftest horse and prepare himself to set out with speed! An affair of life and death demands his diligence. [Exit Servant.] SCENE VI.-THOROWGOOD, TRUEMAN and LUCY. THOROWGOOD [to LUCY]. For you, whose behavior on this occasion I have no time to commend as it deserves, I must engage your farther assistance. Return and observe this Millwood till I come. I have your directions, and will follow you as soon as possible., [Exit LUCY.] SCENE VII.-THOROWGOOD and TRUEMAN. THOROWGOOD. Trueman, you, I am sure, would not be idle on this occasion. [Exit.] 128 GEORGE LILLO SCENE VIII.-TRUEMAN. TRUEMAN. He only who is a friend can judge of my distress. [Exit.] SCENE IX.-A room in MILLWOOD's house. [MILLWOOD.] MILLWOOD. I wish I knew the event of his design; the attempt without success would ruin him.-Well! what have I to apprehend from that? I fear too much. The mischief being only intended, his friends, in pity of his youth, turn all their rage on me. I should have thought of that before.-Suppose the deed done: then, and then only, I shall be secure. Or what if he returns without attempting it at all? SCENE X.-MILLWOOD, and BARNWELL, bloody. MILLWOOD. But he is here, and I have done him wrong; his bloody hands show he has done the deed, but show he wants the prudence to conceal it. BARNWELL. Where shall I hide me? whither shall I fly to avoid the swift, unerring hand of Justice? MILLWOOD. Dismiss those fears. Tho' thousands had pursued you to the door, yet being entered here, you are safe as innocence. I have such a cavern, by art so cunningly contrived, that the piercing eyes of Jealousy and Revenge may search in vain, nor find the entrance to the safe retreat. There will I hide you if any danger's near. BARNWELL. Oh, hide me from myself,if it be possible; for while I bear my conscience in my bosom, tho' I were hid where man's eye never saw nor light e'er dawned, 'twere all in vain. For that inmate-that impartial judge, will try, convict, and sentence me for murder, and execute me with never-ending torments. Behold these hands all crimsoned o'er with my dear THE LONDON MERCHANT 129 uncle's blood! Here's a sight to make a statue start with horror, or turn a living man into a statue. MILLWOOD. Ridiculous! Then it seems you are afraid of your own shadow, or, what's less than a shadow, your conscience. BARNWELL. Though to man unknown I did the accursed act, what can we hide from Heav'n's omniscient eye? MILLWOOD. NO more of this stuff! What advantage have you made of his death? or what advantage may yet be made of it? Did you secure the keys of his treasure-those no doubt were about him. What gold, what jewels, or what else of value have you brought me? BARNWELL. Think you I added sacrilege to murder? Oh! had you seen him as his life flowed from him in a crimson flood, and heard him praying for me by the double name of nephew and of murderer! Alas, alas! he knew not then that his nephew was his murderer. How would you have wished, as I did, tho' you had a thousand years of life to come, to have given them all to have lengthened his one hour! But, being dead, I fled the sight of what my hands had done, nor could I, to have gained the empire of the world, have violated by theft his sacred corpse. MILLWOOD. Whining, preposterous, canting villain, to murder your uncle, rob him of life, nature's first, last, dear prerogative, after which there's no injury-then fear to take what he no longer wanted, and bring to me your penury and guilt! Do you think I'll hazard my reputation-nay, my life, to entertain you? BARNWELL. Oh! Millwood! this from thee!-But I have done; if you hate me, if you wish me dead, then are you happy -for oh! 'tis sure my grief will quickly end me. MILLWOOD [aside]. In his madness he will discover all and involve me in his ruin. We are on a precipice from whence there's no retreat for both-then to preserve myself. [Pauses.] There is no other way,-'tis dreadful; but reflection comes too late when danger's pressing, and there's no room for choice. It must be done. [Stamps.] 130 GEORGE LILLO SCENE XI.-Enter to them a Servant. MILLWOOD. Fetch me an officer, and seize this villain: he has confessed himself a murderer. Should I let him escape, I justly might be thought as bad as he. [Exit Servant.] SCENE XII.-MILLWOOD and BARNWELL. BARNWELL. 0 Millwood! sure thou dost not, cannot mean it. Stop the messenger! Upon my knees I beg you, call him back! 'Tis fit I die indeed, but not by you. I will this instant deliver myself into the hands of justice; indeed I will, for death is all I wish. But thy ingratitude so tears my wounded soul, 'tis worse ten thousand times than death with torture. MILLWOOD. Call it what you will, I am willing to live, and live secure-which nothing but your death can warrant. BARNWELL. If there be a pitch of wickedness that seats the author beyond the reach of vengeance, you must be secure. But what remains for me but a dismal dungeon, hardgalling fetters, an awful trial, and ignominious death-justly to fall unpitied and abhorred? after death to be suspended between heaven and earth, a dreadful spectacle, the warning and horror of a gaping crowd! This I could bear-nay, wish not to avoid, had it come from any hand but thine. SCENE XIII.-MILLWOOD and BARNWELL. Enter BLUNT, Officer and Attendants. MILLWOOD. Heaven defend me! Conceal a murderer? Here, sir; take this youth into your custody. I accuse him of murder, and will appear to make good my charge. [They seize him.] BARNWELL. To whom, of what, or how shall I complain? I'll not accuse her: the hand of Heav'n is in it, and this the THE LONDON MERCHANT 131 punishment of lust and parricide. Yet Heav'n, that justly cuts me off, still suffers her to live, perhaps to punish others. Tremendous mercy! so fiends are cursed with immortality, to be the executioners of Heaven.Be warned, ye youths, who see my sad despair, Avoid lewd women, false as they are fair; By reason guided, honest joys pursue; The fair, to honor and to virtue true, Just to herself, will ne'er be false to you. By my example learn to shun my fate; (How wretched is the man who's wise too late!) Ere innocence, and fame, and life, be lost, Here purchase wisdom, cheaply, at my cost! [Exit with Officers.] SCENE XIV.-MILLWOOD and BLUNT. MILLWOOD. Where's Lucy? Why is she absent at such a time? BLUNT. Would I had been so too, thou devil! MILLWOOD. Insolent! This to me! BLUNT. The worst that we know of the devil is, that he first seduces to sin and then betrays to punishment. [Exit.] SCENE XV.-MILLWOOD. MILLWOOD. They disapprove of my conduct, and mean to take this opportunity to set up for themselves. My ruin is resolved. I see my danger, but scorn both it and them. I was not born to fall by such weak instruments. [Going.] SCENE XVI.-THOROWGOOD and MILLWOOD. [Enter THOROWGOOD.] THOROWGOOD. Where is this scandal of her own sex and curse of ours? 132 GEORGE LILLO MILLWOOD. What means this insolence? Who do you seek? THOROWGOOD. Millwood. MILLWOOD. Well, you have found her then. I am Millwood. THOROWGOOD. Then you are the most impious wretch that e'er the sun beheld. MILLWOOD. From your appearance I should have expected wisdom and moderation, but your manners belie your aspect. -What is your business here? I know you not. THOROWGOOD. Hereafter you may know me better; I am Barnwell's master. MILLWOOD. Then you are master to a villain-which, I think, is not much to your credit. THOROWGOOD. Had he been as much above thy arts as my credit is superior to thy malice, I need not blush to own him. MILLWOOD. My arts? I don't understand you, sir. If he has done amiss, what's that to me? Was he my servant, or yours? You should have taught him better. THOROWGOOD. Why should I wonder to find such uncommon impudence in one arrived to such a height of wickedness? When innocence is banished, modesty soon follows.-Know, sorceress, I'm not ignorant of any of your arts, by which you first deceived the unwary youth. I know how, step by step, you've led him on, reluctant and unwilling from crime to crime, to this last horrid act, which you contrived and, by your curs'd wiles, even forced him to commit-and then betrayed him. MILLWOOD [aside]. Ha! Lucy has got the advantage of me, and accused me first. Unless I can turn the accusation and fix it upon her and Blunt, I am lost. THOROWGOOD. Had I known your cruel design sooner, it had been prevented. To see you punished as the law directs, is all that now remains.-Poor satisfaction! for he, innocent as he is, compared to you, must suffer too. But Heaven, who knows our frame and graciously distinguishes between frailty and presumption, will make a difference, tho' man can THE LONDON MERCHANT 133 not, who sees not the heart, but only judges by the outward action. MILLWOOD. I find, sir, we are both unhappy in our servants. I was surprised at such ill treatment from a gentleman of your appearance, without cause, and therefore too hastily returned it; for which I ask your pardon. I now perceive you have been so far imposed on as to think me engaged in a former correspondence with your servant, and, some way or other, accessory to his undoing. THOROWGOOD. I charge you as the cause, the sole cause, of all his guilt and all his suffering-of all he now endures, and must endure, till a violent and shameful death shall put a dreadful period to his life and miseries together. MILLWOOD. 'Tis very strange! But who's secure from scandal and detraction?-So far from contributing to his ruin, I never spoke to him till since that fatal accident, which I lament as much as you. 'Tis true, I have a servant, on whose account he has of late frequented my house; if she has abused my good opinion of her, am I to blame? Hasn't Barnwell done the same by you? THOROWGOOD. I hear you; pray, go on! MILLWOOD. I have been informed he had a violent passion for her, and she for him; but I always thought it innocent. I know her poor, and given to expensive pleasures. Now who can tell but she may have influenced the amorous youth to commit this murder, to supply her extravagances? It must be so; I now recollect a thousand circumstances that confirm it. I'll have her and a man-servant that I suspect as an accomplice, secured immediately. I hope, sir, you will lay aside your ill-grounded suspicions of me, and join to punish the real contrivers of this bloody deed. [Offers to go.? THOROWGOOD. Madam, you pass not this way! I see your design, but shall protect them from your malice. MILLWOOD. I hope you will not use your influence, and the credit of your name, to screen such guilty wretches. Consider, sir, the wickedness of persuading a thoughtless youth to such a crime! 134 GEORGE LILLO THOROWGOOD. I do-and of betraying him when it was done. MILLWOOD. That which you call betraying him, may convince you of my innocence. She who loves him, tho' she contrived the murder, would never have delivered him into the hands of justice, as I, struck with the horror of his crimes, have done. THOROWGOOD [aside]. How should an unexperienced youth escape her snares? The powerful magic of her wit and form might betray the wisest to simple dotage, and fire the blood that age had froze long since. Even I, that with just prejudice came prepared, had, by her artful story, been deceived, but that my strong conviction of her guilt makes even a doubt impossible. [To MILLWOOD.] Those whom subtilely you would accuse, you know are your accusers; and, what proves unanswerably their innocence and your guilt, they accused you before the deed was done, and did all that was in their power to have prevented it. MILLWOOD. Sir, you are very hard to be convinced; but I have such a proof, which, when produced, will silence all objections. [Exit.] SCENE XVII.-THOROWGOOD. Enter LUCY, TRUEMAN, BLUNT, Officers, etc. LUCY. Gentlemen, pray, place yourselves, some on one side of that door, and some on the other; watch her entrance, and act as your prudence shall direct you.-This way! [To THOROWGOOD] and note her behavior. I have observed her; she's driven to the last extremity, and is forming some desperate resolution. I guess at her design. SCENE XVIII.-Enter to them MILLWOOD with a pistol. TRUEMAN secures her. TRUEMAN. Here thy power of doing mischief ends, deceitful, cruel, bloody woman! THE LONDON MERCHANT 135 MILLWOOD. Fool, hypocrite, villain-man! Thou canst not call me that. TRUEMAN. To call thee woman were to wrong the sex, thou devil! MILLWOOD. That imaginary being is an emblem of thy cursed sex collected-a mirror, wherein each particular man may see his own likeness and that of all mankind. TRUEMAN. Think not by aggravating the fault of others to extenuate thy own, of which the abuse of such uncommon perfections of mind and body is not the least! MILLWOOD. If such I had, well may I curse your barbarous sex, who robbed me of 'em ere I knew their worth, then left me, too late, to count their value by their loss. Another and another spoiler came, and all my gain was poverty and reproach. My soul disdained, and yet disdains, dependence and contempt. Riches, no matter by what means obtained, I saw, secured the worst of men from both. I found it therefore necessary to be rich, and to that end I summoned all my arts. You call 'era wicked; be it so! They were such as my conversation with your sex had furnished me withal. THOROWGOOD. Sure, none but the worst of men conversed with thee. MILLWOOD. Men of all degrees and all professions I have known, yet found no difference but in their several capacities; all were alike wicked to the utmost of their power. In pride, contention, avarice, cruelty and revenge, the reverend priesthood were my unerring guides. From suburb-magistrates, who live by ruined reputations, as the unhospitable natives of Cornwall do by shipwrecks, I learned that to charge my innocent neighbors with my crimes, was to merit their protection; for to screen the guilty, is the less scandalous when many are suspected, and detraction, like darkness and death, blackens all objects and levels all distinction. Such are your venal magistrates, who favor none but such as, by their office, they are sworn to punish. With them, not to be guilty is the worst of crimes, and large fees privately paid is every needful virtue. THOROWGOOD. Your practice has sufficiently discovered 136 GEORGE LILLO your contempt of laws, both human and divine; no wonder then that you should hate the officers of both. MILLWOOD. I hate you all! I know you, and expect no mercy. Nay, I ask for none; I have done nothing that I am sorry for. I followed my inclinations, and that the best of you does every day. All actions are alike natural and indifferent to man and beast, who devour, or are devoured, as they meet with others weaker or stronger than themselves. THOROWGOOD. What pity it is, a mind so comprehensive, daring, and inquisitive, should be a stranger to religion's sweet, but powerful charms! MILLWOOD. I am not fool enough to be an atheist, tho' I have known enough of men's hypocrisy to make a thousand simple women so. Whatever religion is in itself-as practised by mankind, it has caused the evils you say it was designed to cure. War, plague, and famine, has not destroyed so many of the human race as this pretended piety has done, and with such barbarous cruelty-as if the only way to honor Heaven, were to turn the present world into hell. THOROWGOOD. Truth is truth, tho' from an enemy and spoke in malice. You bloody, blind, and superstitious bigots, how will you answer this? MILLwOOD. What are your laws, of which you make your boast, but the fool's wisdom and the coward's valor-the instrument and screen of all your villainies, by which you punish in others what you act yourselves, or would have acted had you been in their circumstances? The judge who condemns the poor man for being a thief, had been a thief himself had he been poor. Thus you go on deceiving and being deceived, harassing, and plaguing, and destroying one another: but women are your universal prey. Women, by whom you are, the source of joy, With cruel arts you labor to destroy; A thousand ways our ruin you pursue, Yet blame in us those arts first taught by you. 0 may, from hence, each violated maid, THE LONDON MERCHANT 137 By flatt'ring, faithless, barb'rous man betrayed, When robbed of innocence, and virgin fame, From your destruction raise a nobler name; To right their sex's wrongs devote their mind, And future ]Millwood's prove, to plague mankind! [Exeunt.] ACT V SCENE I.-A room in a prison. THOROWGOOD, BLUNT and LUCY. THOROWGOOD. I have recommended to Barnwell a reverend divine, whose judgment and integrity I am well acquainted with. Nor has Millwood been neglected; but she, unhappy woman, still obstinate, refuses his assistance. LUCY. This pious charity to the afflicted well becomes your character; yet pardon me, sir, if I wonder you were not at their trial. THOROWGOOD. I knew it was impossible to save him, and I and my family bear so great a part in his distress, that to have been present would have aggravated our sorrows without relieving his. BLUNT. It was mournful, indeed. Barnwell's youth and modest deportment, as he passed, drew tears from every eye. When placed at the bar and arraigned before the reverend judges, with many tears and interrupting sobs he confessed and aggravated his offences, without accusing or once reflecting on Millwood, the shameless author of his ruin-who, dauntless and unconcerned, stood by his side, viewing with visible pride and contempt the vast assembly, who all with sympathizing sorrow wept for the wretched youth. Millwood, when called upon to answer, loudly insisted upon her innocence, and made an artful and a bold defence; but, finding all in vain, the impartial jury and the learned bench concurring to find her guilty, how did she curse herself, poor Barnwell, us, her judges, all mankind! But what could that avail? She was condemned, and is this day to suffer with him. 138 GEORGE LILLO THOROWGOOD. The time draws on. I am going to visit Barnwell, as you are Millwood. LUCY. We have not wronged her; yet I dread this interview. She's proud, impatient, wrathful, and unforgiving. To be the branded instruments of vengeance, to suffer in her shame and sympathise with her in all she suffers, is the tribute we must pay for our former ill-spent lives and long confederacy with her in wickedness. THOROWGOOD. Happy for you it ended when it did! What you have done against Millwood, I know proceeded from a just abhorrence of her crimes, free from interest, malice, or revenge. Proselytes to virtue should be encouraged. Pursue your proposed reformation, and know me hereafter for your friend. LUCY. This is a blessing as unhoped for as unmerited; but Heaven, that snatched us from impending ruin, sure intends you as its instrument to secure us from apostasy. THOROWGOOD. With gratitude to impute your deliverance to Heaven, is just. Many, less virtuously disposed than Barnwell was, have never fallen in the manner he has done; may not such owe their safety rather to Providence than to themselves? With pity and compassion let us judge him! Great were his faults, but strong was the temptation. Let his ruin learn 3 us diffidence, humanity, and circumspection; for we, who wonder at his fate-perhaps, had we like him been tried, like him we had fallen too. [Exeunt.] SCENE II. —A dungeon. A table and lamp. BARNWELL, reading. Enter THOROWGOOD. THOROWGOOD. See there the bitter fruits of passion's detested reign and sensual appetite indulged-severe reflections, penitence, and tears. BARNWELL. My honored, injured master, whose goodness has covered me a thousand times with shame, forgive this last unwilling disrespectl Indeed, I saw you not. 3 teach. THE LONDON MERCHANT 139 THOROWGOOD. 'Tis well; I hope you were better employed in viewing of yourself. Your journey's long, your time for preparation almost spent. I sent a reverend divine to teach you to improve it, and should be glad to hear of his success. BARNWELL. The word of truth, which he recommended for my constant companion in this my sad retirement, has at length removed the doubts I labored under. From thence I've learned the infinite extent of heavenly mercy; that my offences, tho' great, are not unpardonable; and that 'tis not my interest only, but my duty, to believe and to rejoice in that hope: so shall Heaven receive the glory, and future penitents the profit of my example. THOROWGOOD. Go on! How happy am I who live to see this! BARNWELL. 'Tis wonderful that words should charm despair, speak peace and pardon to a murderer's conscience! But truth and mercy flow in every sentence, attended with force and energy divine. How shall I describe my present state of mind? I hope in doubt, and trembling I rejoice. I feel my grief increase, even as my fears give way. Joy and gratitude now supply more tears than the horror and anguish of despair before. THOROWGOOD. These are the genuine signs of true repentance, the only preparatory certain way to everlasting peace.-Oh, the joy it gives to see a soul formed and prepared for Heaven! For this the faithful minister devotes himself to meditation, abstinence, and prayer, shunning the vain delights of sensual joys, and daily dies that others may live forever. For this he turns the sacred volumes o'er, and spends his life in painful search of truth. The love of riches and the lust of power, he looks on with just contempt and detestation, who only counts for wealth the souls he wins, and whose highest ambition is to serve mankind. If the reward of all his pains be to preserve one soul from wandering, or turn one from the error of his ways, how does he then rejoice, and own his little labors overpaid! 140 GEORGE LILLO BARNWELL. What do I owe for all your generous kindness? But tho' I cannot, Heaven can and will reward you. THOROWGOOD. To see thee thus is joy too great for words. Farewell! Heaven strengthen thee! Farewell. BARNWELL. 0 sir, there's something I could say if my sad, swelling heart would give me leave. THOROWGOOD. Give it vent a while and try. BARNWELL. I had a friend-'tis true I am unworthy, yet methinks your generous example might persuade-could I not see him once before I go from whence there's no return? THOROWGOOD. He's coming, and as much thy friend as ever. [Aside.] But I'll not anticipate his sorrow; too soon he'll see the sad effect of this contagious ruin.-This torrent of domestic misery bears too hard upon me; I must retire to indulge a weakness I find impossible to overcome.-Much loved and much lamented youth, farewell! Heaven strengthen thee! Eternally farewell! BARNWELL. The best of masters and of men, farewell! While I live, let me not want your prayers! THOROWGOOD. Thou shalt not. Thy peace being made with Heaven, Death's already vanquished; bear a little longer the pains that attend this transitory life, and cease from pain forever. [Exit.] SCENE III.-BARNWELL. BARNWELL. I find a power within that bears my soul above the fears of death, and, spite of conscious shame and guilt, gives me a taste of pleasure more than mortal. SCENE IV.-Enter to him TRUEMAN and the KEEPER. KEEPER. Sir, there's the prisoner. [Exit.] SCENE V.-BARNWELL and TRUEMAN. BARNWELL. Trueman-my friend, whom I so wished to see! Yet now he's here I dare not look upon him. [Weeps.] THE LONDON MERCHANT 141 TRUEMAN., 0Barnwell! Barnwell! BARNWELL. Mercy, mercy, gracious Heaven! For death, but not for this, was I prepared. TRUEMAN. What have I suffered since I saw you last! What pain has absence given me!-But oh! to see thee thusl BARNWELL. I know it is dreadful! I feel the anguish of thy generous soul!-but I was born to murder all who love me. [Both weep.] TRUEMAN. I came not to reproach you; I thought to bring you comfort. But I'm deceived, for I have none to give. I came to share thy sorrow, but cannot bear my own. BARNWELL. My sense of guilt, indeed, you cannot know'tis what the good and innocent, like you, can ne'er conceive. But other griefs at present I have none but what I feel for you. In your sorrow I read you love me still. But yet methinks 'tis strange, when I consider what I am. TRUEMAN. No more of that! I can remember nothing but thy virtues, thy honest, tender friendship, our former happy state, and present misery.-Oh, had you trusted me when first the fair seducer tempted you, all might have been prevented. BARNWELL[. Alas, thou know'st not what a wretch I've been! Breach of friendship was my first and least offence. So far was I lost to goodness, so devoted to the author of my ruin, that, had she insisted on my murdering thee, I think I should have done it. TRUEMAN., Prithee, aggravate thy faults no more! BARNWELL. I think I should! Thus, good and generous as you are, I should have murdered you! TRUEMAN. We have not yet embraced, and may be interrupted. Come to my arms! BARNWELL. Never! never will I taste such joys on earth; never will I so soothe my just remorse! Are those honest arms and faithful bosom fit to embrace and to support a murderer? 'These iron fetters only shall clasp, and flinty pavement bear me [throwing himself on the ground] —even these too good for such a bloody monster. 142 GEORGE LILLO TRUEMAN. Shall fortune sever those whom friendship joined? Thy miseries cannot lay thee so low but love will find thee. [Lies down by him.] Upon this rugged couch then let us lie; for well it suits our most deplorable condition. Here will we offer to stern calamity, this earth the altar, and ourselves the sacrifice! Our mutual groans shall echo to each other thro' the dreary vault. Our sighs shall number the moments as they pass, and mingling tears communicate such anguish as words were never made to express. BARNWELL. Then be it so! Since you propose an intercourse of woe, pour all your griefs into my breast, and in exchange take mine! [Embracing.] Where's now the anguish that you promised? You've taken mine and make me no return. Sure, peace and comfort dwell within these arms, and sorrow can't approach me while I'm here! This too is the work of Heaven, who, having before spoke peace and pardon to me, now sends thee to confirm it. Oh, take, take some of the joy that overflows my breast! TRUEMAN. I do, I do. Almighty Power, how have you made us capable to bear, at once, the extremes of pleasure and of pain! SCENE VI.-Enter to them the KEEPER. KEEPER. Sir! TRUEMAN. I come. [Exit KEEPER.] SCENE VII.-BARNWELL and TRUEMAN. BARNWELL. Must you leave me? Death would soon have parted us forever. TRUEMAN. 0 my Barnwell, there's yet another task behind; again your heart must bleed for others' woes. BARNWELL. To meet and part with you, I thought was all I had to do on earth! What is there more for me to do or suffer? THE LONDON MERCHANT 143 TRUEMAN. I dread to tell thee; yet it must be known!MariaBARNWELL. Our master's fair and virtuous daughter? TRUEMAN. The same. BARNWELL. NO misfortune, I hope, has reached that lovely maid! Preserve her, Heaven, from every ill, to show mankind that goodness is your care! TRUEMAN. Thy, thy misfortunes, my unhappy friend, have reached her. Whatever you and I have felt, and more, if more be possible, she feels for you. BARNWELL [aside]. I know he doth abhor a lie and would not trifle with his dying friend. This is, indeed, the bitterness of death! TRUEMAN. You must remember, for we all observed it, for some time past a heavy melancholy weighed her down. Disconsolate she seemed, and pined and languished from a cause unknown till, hearing of your dreadful fate, the long stifled flame blazed out. She wept, she wrung her hands, and tore her hair, and in the transport of her grief discovered her own lost state whilst she lamented yours. BARNWELL. Will all the pain I feel restore thy ease, lovely, unhappy maid? [Weeping.] Why didn't you let me die and never know it? TRUEMAN. It was impossible; she makes no secret of her passion for you, and is determined to see you ere you die. She waits for me to introduce her. [Exit.] SCENE VIII.-BARNWELL. BARNWELL. Vain, busy thoughts, be still. What avails it to think on what I might have been? I now am-what I've made myself. SCENE IX.-Enter to him TRUEMAN and MARIA. TRUEMAN. Madam, reluctant I lead you to this dismal scene. This is the seat of misery and guilt. Here awful jus 144 GEORGE LILLO tice reserves her public victims. This is the entrance to shameful death. MARIA. To this sad place, then, no improper guest, the abandoned, lost Maria brings despair-and see the subject, and the cause of all this world of woe! Silent and motionless he stands, as if his soul had quitted her abode and the lifeless form alone was left behind-yet that so perfect that beauty and death, ever at enmity, now seem united there. BARNWELL. I groan but murmur not. Just Heaven, I am your own; do with me what you please. MARIA. Why are your streaming eyes still fixed below, as tho' thou'dst give the greedy earth thy sorrows and rob me of my due? Were happiness within your power, you should bestow it where you pleased; but in your misery I must and will partake! BARNWELL. Oh! say not so, but fly, abhor, and leave me to my fate! Consider what you are-how vast your fortune, and how bright your frame; have pity on your youth, your beauty, and unequalled virtue, for which so many noble peers have sighed in vain! Bless with your charms some honorable lord! Adorn with your beauty and by your example improve the English court, that justly claims such merit; so shall I quickly be to you as though I had never been. MARIA. When I forget you, I must be so, indeed. Reason, choice, virtue, all forbid it. Let women like Millwood, if there be more such women, smile in prosperity and in adversity forsake! Be it the pride of virtue to repair, or to partake, the ruin such have made. TRUEMAN. Lovely, ill-fated maid! Was there ever such generous distress before? How must this pierce his grateful heart, and aggravate his woes! BARNWELL. Ere I knew guilt or shame-when Fortune smiled, and when my youthful hopes were at the highest-if then to have raised my thoughts to you had been presumption in me, never to have been pardoned, think how much beneath yourself you condescend, to regard me now! THE LONDON MERCHANT 145 MARIA. Let her blush who, professing love, invades the freedom of your sex's choice, and meanly sues in hopes of a return! Your inevitable fate hath rendered hope impossible as vain. Then why should I fear to avow a passion so just and so disinterested? TRUEMAN. If any should take occasion from Millwood's crimes to libel the best and fairest part of the creation, here let them see their error! The most distant hopes of such a tender passion from so bright a maid might add to the happiness of the most happy, and make the greatest proud. Yet here 'tis lavished in vain: tho' by the rich present, the generous donor is undone, he on whom it is bestowed receives no benefit. BARNWELL. So the aromatic spices of the East, which all the living covet and esteem, are, with unavailing kindness, wasted on the dead. MARIA. Yes, fruitless is my love, and unavailing all my sighs and tears. Can they save thee from approaching death -from such a death? Oh, terrible idea! What is her misery and distress, who sees the first, last object of her love, for whom alone she'd live-for whom she'd die a thousand, thousand deaths, if it were possible-expiring in her arms? Yet.she is happy when compared to me. Were millions of worlds.mine, I'd gladly give them in exchange for her condition. 'the most consummate woe is light to mine. The last of curses to other miserable maids is all I ask, and that's denied \,ne. TRUEMAN. Time and reflection cure all ills. MARIA. All but this; his dreadful catastrophe, Virtue herself abhors. To give a holiday to suburb slaves, and passing entertain the savage herd who, elbowing each other for a sight, pursue and press upon him like his fate! A mind with piety and resolution armed, may smile on earth. But public ignominy, everlasting shame,-shame, the death of souls-to die a thousand times, and yet survive even death itself, in never-dying infamy-is this to be endured? Can I, who live in him, and must, each hour of my devoted life, feel all these woes renewed —can I endure this? 146 GEORGE LILLO TRUEMAN. Grief has impaired her spirits; she pants as in the agonies of death. BARNWELL. Preserve her, Heaven, and restore her peace; nor let her death be added to my crime. [Bell tolls.] I am summoned to my fate. SCENE X.-Enter to them the KEEPER. KEEPER. The officers attend you, sir. Mrs. Millwood is already summoned. BARNWELL. Tell 'em, I'm ready.-And now, my friend, farewell! [Embracing.] Support and comfort the best you can this mourning fair.-No more! Forget not to pray for me!-[turning to MARIA]. Would you, bright excellence, permit me the honor of a chaste embrace, the last happiness this world could give were mine. [She inclines toward him; they embrace.] Exalted goodness! Oh, turn your eyes from earth, and me, to heaven, where virtue like yours is ever heard. Pray for the peace of my departing soul! Early my race of wickedness began, and soon has reached the summit. Ere nature has finished her work and stamped me man-just at the time that others begin to stray-my course is finished. Tho' short my span of life, and few my days, yet count my crimes for years, and I have lived whole ages. Justice and mercy are in heaven the same: its utmost severity is mercy to the whole, thereby to cure man's folly and presumption, which else would render even infinite mercy vain and ineffectual. Thus Justice, in compassion to mankind, cuts off a wretch like me, by one such example to secure thousands from future ruin. If any youth, like you, in future times, Shall mourn my fate, tho' he abhor my crimes; Or tender maid, like you, my tale shall hear, And to my sorrows give a pitying tear; To each such melting eye and throbbing heart Would gracious Heaven this benefit impart THE LONDON MERCHANT 147 Never to know my guilt nor feel my pain. Then must you own, you ought not to complain; Since you nor weep, nor shall I die in vain. [Exeunt.] [CURTAIN.] SCENE XI.-The prison yard. [Enter TRUEMAN to BLUNT and LUCY.]' LUCY. Heart-breaking sight! 0 wretched, wretched Millwood! TRUEMAN. You came from her, then; how is she disposed to meet her fate? BLUNT. Who can describe unalterable woe? LUCY. She goes to death encompassed with horror-loathing life, and yet afraid to die. No tongue can tell her anguish and despair. TRUEMAN. Heaven be better to her than her fears! May she prove a warning to others, a monument of mercy in herself! LUCY. Oh, sorrow insupportable! Break, break, my heartl' TRUEMAN. In vain With bleeding hearts and weeping eyes we show A human, gen'rous sense of others' woe, Unless we mark what drew their ruin on, And, by avoiding that, prevent our own. FINIS. EPILOGUE WRITTEN BY COLLEY CIBBER, ESQ., AND SPOKE BY MRS. CIBBEiSince Fate has robbed me of the hopeless youth For whom my heart had hoarded up its truth, By all the laws of love and honor, now I'm free again to choose-and one of you. But soft-with caution first I'll round me peep; Maids, in my case, should look before they leap. Here's choice enough, of various sorts and hue, The cit, the wit, the rake cocked up in cue, The fair, spruce, mercer, and the tawny Jew. Suppose I search the sober gallery-no, There's none but prentices, and cuckolds all a row; And these, I doubt, are those that make 'em so. [Pointing to the boxes.] 'Tis very well, enjoy the jest! But you, Fine, powdered sparks-nay, I'm told 'tis trueYour happy spouses can make cuckolds too. 'Twixt you and them, the diff'rence this perhaps: The cit's ashamed whene'er his duck he traps; But you, when Madam's tripping, let her fall, Cock up your hats, and take no shame at all. What if some favored poet I could meet, Whose love would lay his laurels at my feet? No; painted passion real love abhors: His flame would prove the suit of creditors. Not to detain you, then, with longer pause, In short, my heart to this conclusion draws: I yield it to the hand that's loudest in applause. 148 MARIA MAGDALENA BY FRIEDRICH HEBBEL (1844) Translated by P. B. THOMAS Reprinted from The German Classics with the permission of the J. B. Lyon Company, Albany, New York. INTRODUCTION Outside of Germany the dramas of Hebbel have not received the recognition they deserve either for their intrinsic merits, or for their historical importance. Though at least six of them have been translated into English, they have not been included in widely used anthologies of representative drama, and are little known to students in America. Yet for domestic tragedy Hebbel is of value as a forerunner of naturalism. In Maria Magdalena, which Ibsen witnessed in Dresden, we find in the bud what became with Ibsen the full-blown flower. Before Hebbel the German imitators of Lillo had presented domestic tragedies arising from conflicts between the standards of the aristocracy and those of the bourgeoisie. Hebbel proclaimed, somewhat overemphatically, that in Maria Magdalena he had produced a new type of tragedy, a thoroughgoing bourgeois tragedy. The middle classes alone, he contended, contained within themselves the complete elements of tragic drama. At any rate, Maria Magdalena is apparently the first German drama wholly confined to the lower middle class. Lillo, as we have observed, was a pioneer in writing a domestic tragedy about the upper middle or merchant class, which labored to extol the virtues and codes of trade. Hebbel, on the contrary, depicts the hidebound conventions of the lower middle class, not to champion them,-but to indict them as the cause of needless suffering and tragic misery. Moreover, his play is written in an extremely naturalistic style; the prose dialogue is blunt, cruel, and harsh; the life and the atmosphere are of unrelieved sordidness and pessimism such as Hebbel knew only too vividly from many years of actual experience. Maria Magdalena is, then, a pioneer drama in portraying tragic conflict in the lower middle class, in its indictment of the provincialisms and false codes of that class, and in its thoroughgoing naturalism. In three short incisive acts is presented the tragedy of Antony the cabinet maker, his wife, his daughter Clara, and 151 152 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL his son Carl. The situation is unfolded in the first act by thi use of analytic exposition, which Ibsen employs so effectively in Hedda Gabler and other plays. The father's despotic regime, based upon the codes of his class, is principally re sponsible, directly and indirectly, for the alienation of his son, who runs away to sea, for the death of his wife, and for the suicide of his daughter. But all of the characters con. tribute to the tragedy because they are dominated by th( outlook of their class which cannot distinguish between th( essential and the non-essential, between what is right anc: what is conventional. The frivolity of Carl is the natura reaction against Antony's parental tyranny; Clara, under the pressure of social opinion, makes her fatal mistake in ordei to spare the feelings of her father. The Secretary, in spite of his generous nature, cannot surmount the social prejudice hei confession arouses. Even Leonard, the villain of the play. in Hebbel's eyes, is also quite human. Of him Hebbel remarked, "This rogue acts not on principle, but according to his innermost nature. One is not vexed with him, but with God for making him." As Dr. T. M. Campbell puts it: "So — ciety is responsible for him and his way of thinking, foi Society not only tolerates him, but stamps him with official approval. It is a stifling moral atmosphere where Leonards can thrive." As the curtain falls upon the father's exclamation "I no longer understand the world," we foresee the inevitable passing of an order founded upon such codes ol prejudice and bigotry. References. Maria Magdalena is also translated in Three Plays by Friedrich Hebbel, Introduction by L. H. Allen, Everyman'Library (E. P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1914). T. M Campbell, The Life and Works of Friedrich Hebbel (Badger, Boston, 1919), contains bibliographical references to German works on Hebbel. W. G. Howard's account of Hebbel's life, Hebbel's Recollections of My Childhood (1846-1854), the translation of Maria Magdalena reprinted here, and Siegfried', Death are in The German Classics, vol. IX (J. B. Lyon Com — pany, Albany, New York). Clara Newport, Women in the Thought and Work of Friedrich Hebbel (Madison, Wisconsin, 1912). TEXT OF THE PLAY DRAMATIS PERSONSE MASTER ANTONY, a joiner. His WIFE. CLARA, his daughter. CARL, his son. LEONARD. A SECRETARY. WOLFRAM, a merchant. ADAM, a bailiff. Another bailiff. A Boy. A Maid. PLACE.-A fair-sized town. MARIA MAGDALENA ACT I SCENE I.-A Room in the Joiner's House. [Enter CLARA; the MOTHER.] CLARA. Your wedding dress? Oh, how well it becomes you! It looks as if it had been made to-day! MOTHER. Yes, child, fashion keeps on going forward until it can go no farther and has to turn around and go back. This dress has already been out of style and in again ten times. CLARA. But this time it is not exactly in style, dear mother! The sleeves are too wide! It must not annoy you! MOTHER [smiling]. I should have to be you for that! CLARA. And so this is the way you looked. But surely you carried a bunch of flowers too, didn't you? MOTHER. I should hope so! Else why do you think I nursed that sprig of myrtle in the pot for so many years? CLARA. I have often asked you to, but you have never before put it, on. You have always said: It is no longer my wedding dress; it is my shroud now, and that is something one should not play with. I got so that I couldn't even look at it any more, because, hanging there so white, it always made me think of your death, and of the day when the old women would try to pull it on over your head. Why then to-day? MOTHER. When one is' very sick, as I was, and does not know whether one is going to get well again or not, a great many things revolve in one's head. Death is more terrible than you think-oh, it is awful! It casts a shadow over the world; one after the other it blows out all the lights that shine with such cheerful brightness all around us, the kindly eyes of husband and children cease to sparkle, and it grows dark 155 156 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL everywhere. But deep in the heart it strikes a light, which burns brightly and reveals a great deal one does not care to see. I am not conscious of ever having done a wrong; I have walked in God's ways, I have done my best about the home, I have brought you and your brother up to fear God, and I have kept together the fruits of your father's hard work. I have always managed to lay aside an extra penny for the poor. If I turned one away at times because I felt out of sorts or because too many came, it wasn't a very great misfortune for him, because I was sure to call him back and give him twice as much. Oh, what does it all amount to? People dread the last hour when it threatens to come, writhe like a worm over it, and implore God to let them live, just as a servant implores his master to let him do something over again that he has done poorly, so that he may not come short in his wages on pay-day. CLARA. Don't talk in that way, dear mother! It weakens you. MOTHER. No, child, it does me good! Am I not well and strong again now? Did not the Lord call me merely to let me know that my festal robe was not yet pure and spotless? And did he not permit me to come back from the very edge of the grave, and grant me time to prepare myself for the heavenly wedding? He was not as kind as that to those five Virgins in the Gospel, about whom I had you read to me last night. And that is the reason why to-day, when I am going to the Holy Communion, I put this dress on. I wore it the day I made the best and most pious resolutions of my life; I want it to remind me of those which I have not yet carried out. CLARA. YOU still talk as you did'in your illness! SCENE II CARL [enters]. Good morning, mother! Well, Clara, I suppose you might put up with me, if I were not your brother? CLARA. A gold chain? Where did you get that? MARIA MAGDALENA 157 CARL. Why do I sweat so? Why do I work two hours longer than the others every evening? You are impertinent! MOTHER. A quarrel on Sunday morning? Shame on you, Carl! CARL. Mother, haven't you got a gulden for me? MOTHER. I haven't any money except for the housekeeping!. CARL. Well, give me some of that then! I won't grumble if you make the pancakes thinner for the next two weeks. You have often done so before! I know that all right! When you were saving up for Clara's white dress, we didn't have anything decent to eat for a month. I shut my eyes, but I knew right well that a new hair ribbon or some other bit of finery was on the way. So let me get something out of it too, for once! MOTHER. You are absolutely shameless! CARL. I haven't much time, else- [He starts to go.] MOTHER. Where are you going? CARL. I won't tell you, and then, when the old growler asks you where I am, you can answer without blushing that you don't know. Anyway I don't need your gulden-it is best not to draw all your water from one well. [To himself.] Here at home they always think the worse things they can about me; why shouldn't I take pleasure in keeping them worried? Why should I say that, since I don't get my gulden, I shall have to go to church, unless a friend helps me out of my predicament? SCENE III CLARA.' What does he mean by that? MOTHER. Oh, he grieves me terribly! Yes, yes, your father is right! Those are the consequences! He is just as insolent now in demanding a gulden as he was cunning in pleading for a piece of sugar when he was a little curly-headed baby. I wonder if he would not demand the gulden now, if I had refused him the sugar then? That often hurts me And I 158 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL think he doesn't even love me! Did you ever once see him cry during my illness? CLARA. I didn't see him very often at best-almost never except at the table. He had more appetite than I! MOTHER [quickly]. That was natural! He had to work so hard! CLARA. To be sure! And how strange men are! They are more ashamed of their tears than they are of their sins! A clenched fist-why not exhibit that? But red eyes!- And father too! The afternoon they opened your vein and no blood came, he sobbed at his work-bench until it moved my very soul! But when I went up to him and stroked his cheeks, what did he say? "See if you can't get this accursed splinter out of my eyel I have so much to do and can't accomplish anything!" MOTHER [smiling]. Yes! yes!- I never see Leonard any more, by the way. How does that happen? CLARA. Let him stay away! MOTHER. I hope you are not seeing him anywhere else, except here at the house! CLARA. IS it because I stay out too long when I go to the well in the evening that you have reason to suspect that? MOTHER. NO, not that. But it was just for that reason that I gave him permission to come here to the house, so that he wouldn't lie in wait for you out there in the dark. My mother would never allow that, either! CLARA. I don't see him at all! MOTHER. Have you had a quarrel? Otherwise I think I might like him-he is so steady! If he only amounted to something! In my time he would not have had to wait long. Then gentlemen were eager for a good penman, as lame people are for their crutch, for they were rare. Even we humble people could use one. To-day he would compose for a son a New Year's greeting to his father and receive for the gilded initials alone enough to buy a child's doll with. To-morrow the father would give him a sly wink and have him read the greeting aloud, secretly and behind closed doors, so as not to MARIA MAGDALENA 159 be surprised and have his ignorance discovered. That meant double pay. Then penmen were jolly people and made the price of beer high. It is different now. Now we old folks, not knowing anything about reading and writing, must allow ourselves to be made fun of by nine-year-old children. The world is steadily growing wiser; perhaps the time is yet to come when people who can't walk a tight-rope will have to feel ashamed of it! CLARA. The bell is ringing! MOTHER. Well, child, I will pray for you. And as far as Leonard is concerned, love him as he loves God-no more and no less. That is what my old mother said to me when she died and gave me her blessing. I have kept it long enough; now you have it! CLARA [hands her nosegay]. There! MOTHER. That certainly comes from Carl. CLARA [nods; then aside]. Would it were so! Anything that is to give her real pleasure has to come from him! MOTHER. Oh, he is so good-and he likes me! [Exit.] CLARA [looks after her through the window]. There she goes! Three times I have dreamt that she was lying in her coffin, and now-oh, these awful dreams! I am not going to care about dreams any more; I will take no pleasure in a good dream, and then I shall not have to worry about the bad one that follows it. How firmly and confidently she steps out! She is already close to the church-yard. I wonder who will be the first person she meets? It would signify nothing-no, I mean only [she shudders]-the gravedigger! He has just finished digging a grave and is climbing out of it! She greets him and glances smilingly down into the dismal hole! She throws the nosegay into it and enters the church! [A choir is heard.] They are singing: Praise ye the Lord. [She folds her hands.] Yes! yes! If my mother had died, I should never have recovered from it, for- [Glances toward Heaven.] But Thou art kind, Thou art merciful! I would that I believed with the Catholics, so that I might offer Thee something! I would empty the whole of my little box of 160 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL savings and buy Thee a beautiful gilded heart, and twine it with roses. Our pastor says that sacrifices mean nothing to Thee, because everything is Thine, and one should not offer Thee something Thou already hast. And yet everything in the house belongs to my father too; and still he likes it when I buy a piece of cloth with his money and embroider it and put it on his plate for his birthday. Yes, and he honors me by wearing it only on great holidays, at Christmas or Whitsuntide. Once I saw a little mite of a Catholic girl carrying some cherries up to the altar. They were the first the child had had that year, and I could see how she longed to eat them. Still she resisted the innocent desire, and, in order to put an end to the temptation, hurriedly threw them down. The priest, who was just about to pick up the chalice, looked on with a scowl, and the child hastened timidly away. But the Mary above the altar smiled gently, as if she would have liked to step out of her frame and overtake the child and kiss her.-I did it for herl Here comes Leonard. Oh, dearl SCENE IV LEONARD [outside the door]. Are you dressed? CLARA. Why so polite, so considerate? I am no princess, you know. LEONARD [enters]. I thought you were not alone! In passing by I thought I saw your neighbor Babbie standing by the window. CLARA. And so that is whyLEONARD. You are forever so irritable. One can stay away from here for two weeks, rain and sunshine can have alternated ten times, and, when one does finally come again, he finds the same old cloud darkening your facel CLARA. Things used to be different! LEONARD. Correct! If you had always looked as you do now, we should never have become good friends! CLARA. What of it? MARIA MAGDALENA 161 LEONARD. SO you feel yourself as free of me as that, do you? Perhaps it serves me right! Then [significantly] your recent toothache was a mere pretext! CLARA. Oh, Leonard, it was not right of you! LEONARD. Not right for me to seek to bind to me the greatest treasure that I have-for that is what you are to mewith the firmest of all bonds? And especially at a time when I stood in danger of losing it? Do you think I did not see the furtive glances you exchanged with the Secretary? That was a triumphant day of joy for me! I take you to the dance andCLARA. You never stop saying things that hurt me! I looked at the Secretary, why should I deny it? But only on account of the moustache he had grown at the University, and which- [She checks herself.] LEONARD. Becomes him so well-isn't that it? Isn't that W.hat you started to say? Oh, you women! Anything that looks like a soldier, even a caricature of one, you like. To me the fop's ridiculous little oval face, with that tuft of hair in the middle of it, looked like a little white rabbit hiding behind a bush. I am bitter toward him-I won't try to conceal it. He held me back from you long enough! CLARA. I didn't praise him, did I? You don't need to run him down! LEONARD. You still seem to take a lot of interest in him. CLARA. We used to play together as children, and afterward —you know very well! LEONARD. Oh yes, I know! And that's just why! CLARA. Then I think it was only natural, seeing him again for the first time in a long while that way, for me to look at him and be astonished to see how big and- [She checks herself.] LEONARD. Why did you blush then, when he looked back at you? CLARA. I thought he was looking at the little mole on my left cheek to see if it, too, had grown bigger! You know I always imagine people are looking at that when they stare 162 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL at me so, and it always makes me blush. I have a feeling as if it were growing larger, as long as they look at it! LEONARD. However that may be, it got on my nerves, and I thought to myself: This very evening I will put her to the test! If she wants to become my wife, she knows that she risks nothing. If she says no, thenCLARA. Oh, you said a bad, bad word, when I pushed you back and jumped up from the bench. The moon, which up to that time had shone in through the foliage with such kindly consideration for me, at that moment sank shrewdly behind the wet clouds. I wanted to hurry away, but felt something holding me. At first I thought it was you, but it was the rosebush, whose thorns held my dress like teeth. You outraged my heart, so that I no longer trusted it myself. You stood before me like one demanding the payment of a debt! I-Oh, God! LEONARD. I cannot yet regret it. I knew it was the only way I could have kept you to myself. The old girlhood love was opening its eyes again, and I could not close them quickly enough! CLARA. When I got home, I found my mother ill, mortally ill. She had been stricken suddenly, as if by an invisible hand. My father had wanted to send for me, but she would not consent to his doing so, not wishing to interrupt my happiness. And how I felt when I heard that! I held myself aloof, I did not dare to touch her, I trembled! She took it for childish anxiety and motioned me over to her; when I slowly drew near her, she held me down and kissed my desecrated mouth. I lost control of myself; I wanted to confess to her, to cry out what I thought and felt: It is my fault that you are lying there! I tried to do so, but tears and sobs choked my voice. She reached for my father's hand, and said with a blissful glance at me: What a heart! LEONARD. She is well again. I have come to congratulate her, and-what do you think? CLARA. What? LEONARD. To ask your father for your hand. CLARA. Oh! MARIA MAGDALENA 163 LEONARD. Don't you want me to? CLARA. Want you to? It will mean my death, if I do not become your wife pretty soon! But you do not know my father! He does not understand why we are in such a hurry -he cannot understand why, and we cannot tell him whyt And he has declared a hundred times that he will never give his daughter to any man unless he has not only, as he says, love in his heart for her, but also bread in his cupboard for her. He will say: Wait another year or two, my son.-And what will be your answer? LEONARD. You foolish girl, that difficulty is disposed of! I have the position now-I am cashier! CLARA. You cashier? And the other applicant, the pastor's nephew? LEONARD. Was drunk when he came to the examination, bowed to the stove instead of to the burgomaster, and when he sat down knocked three cups off the table. You know how hot-headed the old fellow is. "Sir!" he exclaimed angrily, but he restrained himself and bit his lip. Nevertheless his eyes glared through his spectacles like the eyes of a serpent about to spring, and his whole body became rigid. Then we started computing and, ha! ha!-my rival computed with a multiplication table of his own invention that gave entirely new results. "He's way off in his reckoning!" said the burgomaster, and, glancing in my direction, held out his hand to me with the appointment. It smelled terribly of tobacco, but I took it and raised it humbly to my lips.-Here it is now, signed and sealed! CLARA. That comesLEONARD. Unexpectedly, doesn't it? Well, it was not altogether an accident either. Why didn't I come to see you for two weeks? CLARA. How do I know? I think it was because we got angry at each other the Sunday before! LEONARD. Oh, I was cunning enough to bring about that little disagreement on purpose-so that I could stay away without its astonishing you too much! 164 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL CLARA. I don't understand you! LEONARD. I suppose not. I took advantage of the time to pay court to the burgomaster's little hump-backed niece, whom the old fellow thinks so much of, and who is his right hand, just as the bailiff is his left. Understand me correctlyl I didn't say anything nice to her about herself, except perhaps a compliment regarding her hair, which everybody knows is red-so I just told her some nice things she liked to hear about you. CLARA. About me? LEONARD. Why should I keep still about it? I did it with the best of intentions-as if I had never intended to deal seriously with you, as if-enough! That lasted until I got this in my hands, and the credulous little man-crazy fool will find out what I meant when she hears the banns of our marriage published in the church. CLARA. Leonard! LEONARD. Child! child! You be as innocent as a dove, and I will be as wise as a serpent. Then, since a man and his wife are one, we shall entirely satisfy the demand of the Gospel. [Laughs.] Neither was it altogether an accident that young Hermann was drunk at the most important moment of his life. You have surely never heard that the fellow is given to drinking? CLARA. Not a word. LEONARD. The fact made the execution of my scheme all the easier. It was done with three glasses. I had a couple of friends of mine waylay him. "May one drink to your health?" -"Not now!"-"Oh, that is all arranged you know. Your uncle"-"And now, drink, my brother, drink!"-This morning when I was on my way to you, he stood leaning on the bridge and gazing dejectedly down at the river. I greeted him sarcastically, and asked him if he had dropped anything into the water. "Yes," he answered, without looking up, "and perhaps it would be well for me to jump in after it." CLARA. You bad man! Get out of my sightl LEONARD. You mean it? [Moves, as if to go.] MARIA MAGDALENA 165 CLARA. Oh, my God, I am chained to this man! LEONARD. Don't be a baby! And now one more word in confidence: Does your father still keep the thousand thalers in the apothecary shop? CLARA. I know nothing about it. LEONARD. Nothing about so important a matter? CLARA. Here comes my father. LEONARD. Understand me! The apothecary is said to be on the verge of bankruptcy-that's why I asked! CLARA. I must go into the kitchen! [Exit.] LEONARD [alone]. Well, I guess there is nothing to be got here! I can't understand it at all; for Master Antony is one of those fellows whose ghost, if you should accidentally put one too many letters on his gravestone, would haunt you until you took it off. For he would regard it as dishonest to appropriate more of the alphabet than he was properly entitled to. SCENE V [Enter LEONARD; Master ANTONY.] ANTONY. Good morning, Mr. Cashier! [He takes off his cap and puts on a woolen cap.] Is it permissible for an old man to keep his head covered? LEONARD. You know thenANTONY. Since yesterday evening. When I was going over in the dusk to take the deceased miller's measure for his final sleeping room, I heard a couple of your good friends slandering you. I thought right away: I guess Leonard has not broken his neck.-At the house I heard more about it from the sexton, who had come to console the widow, and, incidentally, to get drunk. LEONARD. And you had to let Clara find out about it from me? ANTONY. If you didn't care enough about it to give the girl that pleasure yourself, why should I do it? I don't light any candles in my house except those that belong to me. Then I 166 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL know that nobody is going to come and blow them out, just as we are beginning to enjoy them. LEONARD. Surely you don't think that IANTONY. Think? About you? About anybody? I smooth over boards with my plane, but I never smooth over men with my thoughts. I stopped that sort of foolishness long ago. When I see a tree growing, I think to myself: It will soon be blossoming; and when it sprouts: It will soon bear fruit. In that I never see myself disappointed, and for that reason I don't give up the old habit. But about men I never think anything, good or bad, and then I don't have to turn alternately red and white when they disappoint my fears one minute and my hopes the next. I merely observe them and use the evidence of my eyes, which likewise do not think, but only see. I thought I had made a complete observation of you, but now that I find you here I must confess that it was only half an observation. LEONARD. Master Antony, you have it all upside down. Trees are dependent upon wind and weather, whereas men have laws and rules in themselves to govern them. ANTONY. Do you think so? Yes, we old people owe hearty thanks to death for allowing us to run around so long among you young folks, thereby giving us an opportunity to educate ourselves. Formerly the stupid world used to think that the father was there to educate his son. But now the son is supposed to give his father the final touch of perfection, so that the poor, simple man will not need to feel ashamed of himself before the worms in his grave. God be praised! I have a fine teacher in my son Carl who, without opening his mouth and without even letting me see him-yes, by that very means. In the first place, he showed me that it is not necessary for a man to keep his word; in the second, that it is superfluous to go to church and freshen up one's memory of God's laws. Yesterday evening he promised me that he would go, and I counted on his doing it, for I thought to myself: He will want to thank the gracious Creator for the recovery of his mother. But he wasn't there, and I was very comfortable all alone in MARIA MAGDALENA 167 my pew, which, to be sure, is a little too short for two persons anyway. I wonder if he would like it if I myself were to act in accordance with the new doctrine, by not keeping my word with him? I have promised him a new suit for his birthday, and I might take the opportunity to test his joy over my docility. But prejudice! Prejudice! I shall not do it! LEONARD. Perhaps he was not wellANTONY. Possibly! I need only to ask my wife, then I am sure to hear that he is sick. For she tells me the truth about everything else in the world, but never about the boy. And even if he was not sick!-There too the younger generation has the advantage over us old folks, in that they can find their spiritual edification anywhere, and can do their worshipping when they are out trapping birds, or taking a walk, or sitting in the ale-house. "Our Father who art in Heaven" -"Good day, Peter, shall I see you at the dance this evening?" -"Hallowed be Thy name"-"Yes, laugh if you will, Catherine, but it is true"-"Thy will be done"-"The devil take me, I am not shaved yet!"-and so forth. And each one pronounces the blessing on himself, for he is a man just as much as the preacher, and the power that emanates from a black garb certainly exists in a blue one as well. Nor have I anything to say against it; even if you want to intersperse the seven petitions with seven glasses, what of it? I can't prove to anybody that beer and religion don't mix well, and perhaps it will some day get into the liturgy as a new way of taking the Eucharist. Frankly, I myself, old sinner that I am, am not strong enough to keep pace with fashion; I cannot catch up worship.in the street, as if it were a cockchafer; for me the chirping of swallows and sparrows cannot take the place of the organ. If I want to feel my heart exalted, I must hear the heavy, iron doors of the church close behind me and think to myself that they are the doors of the world. The dismal high walls with their narrow windows, that admit but a dim remnant of the bold garish daylight as if they were sifting it, must surround me on all sides. And in the distance I must be 168 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL able to see the charnel-house, with its death-head cut in the wall. Oh, well, better is better. LEONARD. You are too particular about it! ANTONY. Of course! Of course! And to-day, as an honest man, I must confess that what I have been saying did not hold good; for I lost my reverent mood in church, being annoyed by the vacant seat beside me, and found it again under the pear-tree in my garden. You are astonished? But look! I went sadly and dejectedly home, like one whose harvest has been ruined by hail; for children are like fieldswe sow good corn in them and weeds sprout up. Under the pear-tree, which the caterpillars have half eaten up, I stood still. "Yes," I thought, "the boy is like this tree, empty and barren." Then I suddenly imagined that I was very thirsty, and absolutely had to go over to the tavern. I deceived myself -it wasn't to get a glass of beer that I wanted to go; it was to seek out the young man and take him to task in the tavern, where I knew he was sure to be. I was just about to start, when the sensible old tree let fall a juicy pear right at my feet, as if to say: Take that for your thirst, and for slandering me by comparing me with that good-for-nothing son of yours. I deliberated a moment, took a bite of it, and went into the house. LEONARD. Do you know that the apothecary is on the verge of bankruptcy? ANTONY. What do I care? LEONARD. Don't you care at all? ANTONY. Surely! I am a Christian-the man has several children! LEONARD. And still more creditors. The children, too, are creditors in a way. ANTONY. Happy is he who is neither the one nor the other! LEONARD. I thought you yourselfANTONY. That was settled up long ago. LEONARD. You are a prudent man; of course you immediately demanded your money when you saw that the greengrocer was about to fail. MARIA MAGDALENA 169 ANTONY. Yes, I need not tremble any more with the fear of losing it-it was lost long ago! LEONARD. You are joking! ANTONY. In all seriousness! CLARA [looks in at the door]. Did you call, father? ANTONY. Are your ears beginning to ring already? We had not talked about you yet! CLARA. The weekly paper! LEONARD. You are a philosopher! ANTONY. What do you mean by that? LEONARD. YOU know how to compose yourself. ANTONY. I wear a mill-stone as a cravat sometimes, instead of going to the river with it. That gives one a strong back. LEONARD. Let him who can imitate you. ANTONY. He who has such a gallant fellow to help him bear it, as I seem to have found in you, ought to be able to dance under the burden. You have grown quite pale. I call that sympathy! LEONARD. I hope you don't misunderstand me ANTONY.. Certainly not! [He drums on a dresser.] That wood is not transparent, is it? LEONARD. I do not understand you! ANTONY. How foolish it was of our grandfather Adam to take Eve, when she was naked and destitute, and did not even bring a fig-leaf with her. We two, you and I, would have scourged her out of Paradise as a tramp! What do you think? LEONARD. You are exasperated with your son.-I have come to you regarding your daughterANTONY. You had better be careful!-Perhaps I'll not say no! LEONARD. I hope you will not. And I will tell you what I think: The patriarchs themselves never used to scorn the dowries of their women. Jacob loved Rachel and courted her seven years, but he also liked the fat rams and sheep that he earned in her father's service. That, I think, was not to his discredit, and to outdo him in anything would be to put him 170 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL to the blush. I should have liked very much to see your daughter bring a couple of hundred thalers with her; and that was quite natural, because she herself would thereby be so much the better off with me. If a, girl brings her bed in her trunk, then she will not have to card wool and spin yarn. In this case it will not be so, but what of it? We'll make a Sunday dinner out of Lenten fare, and a Christmas feast out of Sunday's roast. In that way we'll make out all right! ANTONY [offers him his hand]. You talk well, and God smiles on your words. Well, I will forget that for fourteen days at tea-time my daughter put a cup on the table for you in vain. And now that you are to be my son-in-law, I will tell you where the thousand thalers are! LEONARD [aside]. So they are gone then! Well, I shall not have to go out of my way to please the old were-wolf, even if he is my father-in-law! ANTONY. Things went hard with me in my early years. I was no more of a bristly hedgehog than you when I came into the world, but I have gradually grown to be one. At first all the quills in my case pointed inward, and people found pleasure in pricking and pinching my soft smooth skin, and were amused to see me flinch when the points penetrated into my very heart and bowels. But the thing did not appeal to me; I turned my skin inside out and then the quills pricked their fingers and I had peace. LEONARD [to himself]. Safe from the very devil, methinks! ANTONY. My father, by not allowing himself any rest day or night, worked himself to death in his thirtieth year, and my mother nourished me as well as she could with her spinning. I grew up without learning anything. When I became larger and was still unable to earn any money, I would have disaccustomed myself to eating; but when now and then at noon I would pretend to be sick and push back my plate, what did it mean? It meant that in the evening my stomach would compel me to announce myself well again! My greatest grief was that I was so unskilled. I used to blame myself for it, as if it were my own fault, as if in my mother's womb I had MARIA MAGDALENA 171 been supplied with nothing but teeth to eat with, as if I had purposely left behind me there all the useful capabilities and assets. I used to blush with shame when the sun shone on me. Just after my confirmation the man whom they buried yesterday, Master Gebhard, came into our house. He scowled and made a wry face, as he always used to frown when he had anything good in mind to do. Then he said to my mother: "Did you bring your youngster into the world in order to let him eat the very nose and ears off your head?" I felt ashamed and put the loaf of bread, from which I was just on the point of cutting off a piece, back into the cupboard again. My mother took offense at his well-meant words; she stopped her wheel and replied vehemently that her son was a fine good fellow. "Well, we will see about that," said the Master: "If he wants to, he can come right now, just as he stands there, into my workshop with me. I do not ask any money for teaching him; he will get his board, and his clothes I will also supply; and if he wants to get up early and go to bed late, opportunities will not be wanting for him to earn a little money on the side for his old mother." My mother began to cry and I to dance. When we finally came to an agreement, the Master closed up his ears, walked out, and motioned me to follow. I did not need to put a hat on, for I had none. Without saying good-by to my mother, I went after him. And on the following Sunday, when I was allowed to go back to her little room for the first time, he gave me half a ham to take with me. God's blessing on the good man's grave! I still hear his half-angry: "Tony, under your coat with it, so my wife won't see it!" LEONARD. You are not crying? ANTONY [drying his eyes]. Yes, I can never think of that without its starting the tears, no matter how well the source of them may have been stopped up. Oh well, that's all right! If I should ever get the dropsy, I shall at any rate not have to draw off these drops too. [With a sudden turn.] What do you think about it?-Supposing on a Sunday afternoon you went over to smoke a pipe of tobacco with a friend, a friend 172 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL to whom you owed everything in the world; and supposing you found him greatly confused and perturbed, a knife in his hand-the same knife you had used a thousand times to cut his evening bread-and holding it, covered with blood, at his neck, and nervously drawing his handkerchief up to his chinLEONARD. And that is the way old Gebhard went about to the end of his days. ANTONY. On account of the scar. And supposing you arrived in time to help save him, but to do it you had not only to wrench the knife out of his hand and bandage the wound, but you had also to give over a paltry thousand thalers that you had saved up; and, furthermore, you had to do it all absolutely on the sly, so as to induce the sick man to accept it, what would you do? LEONARD. Being a free and single man, without wife and child, I would sacrifice the money. ANTONY. And if you had ten wives, like the Turks, and as many children as were promised to Father Abraham, and if you took only one second to think about it, you would be — Well, you are to be my son-in-law! Now you know where the money is. To-day I could tell you, for my old Master is buried; a month ago I would have kept the secret even on my death-bed. I slipped the note under the dead man's head before they nailed up the coffin. If I had known how to write, I would have written underneath: "Honestly paid!" But, ignorant as I am, there was nothing for me to do but tear the paper in two. Now he will sleep in peace-and I hope that I shall too, when they stretch me out beside him. SCENE VI MOTHER [enters hurriedly]. Do you still know me? ANTONY [pointing to the wedding dress]. The frame, yes -that is perfectly preserved; but the picture-not so well. It seems to be covered with cobwebs. Oh, well! there has been time enough for it. MARIA MAGDALENA 173 MOTHER. Have I not a frank husband? Still, I do not need to praise him specially-frankness is a virtue of married menI ANTONY. Are you sorry that you were better gilded at twenty than you are at fifty? MOTHER. Certainly not! If I were, I ought to be ashamed both for myself and for you! ANTONY. Give me a kiss then! I am shaved and look better than usual. MOTHER. I say yes, merely to test you, to see if you still understand the art. It is a long time since such a thing has occurred to you! ANTONY. Good mother, I will not ask you to close my eyes; that is a hard thing to do, and I will take it off your hands. I will do that final service of love for you. But you must grant me time, understand, to harden and prepare myself for it, so that I won't make a botch of it. It would have been much too soon! MOTHER. Thank God that we are still going to have a little time together! ANTONY. I hope so too! You have your old red cheeks again! MOTHER. A comical fellow, our new grave-digger! He was digging a grave this morning when I passed through the church-yard. I asked him whom it was for. "For whomsoever God wills," he said. "Perhaps for myself. The same thing may happen to me that happened to my grandfather; he too had dug one on chance once, and at night when he came home from the Inn he fell into it and broke his neck." LEONARD [who, up to this time, has been reading the weekly paper]. The fellow doesn't come from here-he can tell all the lies he likes. MOTHER. I asked him: "Why don't you wait until somebody orders a grave dug?" "I was invited to a wedding today," he said, "and I am enough of a prophet to know that I would still feel the effects of it in my head to-morrow if I went. Now of course somebody has been inconsiderate enough 174 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL to go and die, so that in the morning I would have to get up early and would not be able to sleep it off." ANTONY. "You clown!" I would have said, "supposing now the grave doesn't fit." MOTHER. I said that too, but he shook sharp answers out of his sleeve, as the devil does fleas. "I took the measurement for Veit, the weaver," he said, "who, like King Saul, towers a head above everybody else. Now, come who may, he will not find his house too small; and if it is too large, that doesn't hurt anybody but me, for, as an honest man, I never charge for a single foot more than the length of the coffin." I threw my flowers into the grave and said: "Now it is occupied!" ANTONY. I think the fellow was only joking, and even that is sinful enough. To dig graves in advance is to set the trap of death too soon; the scoundrel who does it ought to be driven out of the business. [To LEONARD, who is still reading.] What's the news? Is there any philanthropist looking for a poor widow, who can use a few hundred thalers, or, vice versa, a poor widow looking for a philanthropist who can supply them? LEONARD. The police announce the theft of some jewelry. Strange enough! It seems that, in spite of the hard times, there are still people among us who can own jewels! ANTONY. The theft of some jewelry? Where? LEONARD. Over at Wolfram's. ANTONY. At-impossible! Carl polished a desk there a few days ago! LEONARD. They were taken from a desk. Right! MOTHER [to Master ANTONY]. May God forgive you for saying that! ANTONY. You are right-it was a vile thought! MOTHER. To your son you are only half a father! I must tell you that! ANTONY. Wife! We'll not discuss that to-day! MOTHER. He is not like you-but is that any reason why he must be bad? MARIA MAGDALENA 175 ANTONY. Then where is he now? The noon hour struck long ago! I'll wager the dinner is burning and spoiling, because Clara has secret orders not to set the table until he is here! MOTHER. Where do you think he is? At the worst he is only bowling, and he has to go the longest way about so that you won't see him. Naturally it takes him a long time to get back!-I cannot see what you have against the innocent game. ANTONY. Against the game? Nothing whatever! Noblemen must have some way to pass the time. Without the king of hearts, the real kings would often find life tedious; and if bowling balls had not been invented, who knows whether princes and barons would not be using our heads for the purpose? But an ordinary workingman cannot do anything worse than spend his heard-earned money on games. We must respect that which we have laboriously earned in the sweat of our brows; we must hold it high and precious, unless we are to lose our bearings and regard all our works and doings with contempt. How can I strain all my nerves to earn a thaler which I intend to throw away? [The door-bell is heard outside.] SCENE VII [Enter ADAM, a Bailiff; another Bailiff.] ADAM [to Master ANTONY]. Now, you just go ahead and pay your wager! No people in red coats with blue trimmings [with emphasis] shall ever enter your house, eh?-Well, here are two of us! [To the other bailiff.] Why don't you keep your hat on, as I do? Who is going to observe formalities among people of his own class? ANTONY. Your own class? You blackguard! ADAM. You are right-we are not among our own class! Scoundrels and thieves are not of our class! [Points to the dresser.] Open that up! And then three steps away-so that you can't sneak anything out of it! 176 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL ANTONY. What? What? CLARA [enters with things to set the table]. Shall I[She stops, speechless.] ADAM [exhibits a paper]. Can you read writing? ANTONY. Should I be able to do what even my schoolmaster could not do? ADAM. Then listen! Your son has stolen some jewelry! We have the thief already! Now we are here to search the house! MOTHER [falls down and dies]. Oh, God! CLARA. Mother! Mother! How her eyes roll! LEONARD. I will fetch a doctor! ANTONY. Not necessary! That is the last look! I have seen it a hundred times! Good night, Theresa! You died when you heard it! Let them write that on your gravestone! LEONARD. But perhaps it is [starts to go]-awful! But lucky for me! [Exit.] ANTONY [pulls a bunch of keys from his pocket and throws them down]. There! Unlock everything! Drawer after drawer! Bring the ax! The key to the trunk is lost! Ha! Scoundrels and thieves! [He turns his pockets inside out.] I find nothing here! SECOND BAILIFF. Master Antony, calm yourself! Everybody knows that you are the most honest man in town! ANTONY. So? So? [Laughs.] Yes, I have used up all the honesty in the family! There, poor boy! There was none left for him! She too [points to the dead body] was much too virtuous!-Who knows whether or nor the daughter -[Suddenly to CLARA.] What do you think, my innocent child? CLARA. Father! SECOND BAILIFF [to ADAM]. Have you no pity? ADAM. Pity? Am I prying into the old fellow's pockets? Am I forcing him to take off his stockings and turn his shoes inside out? I meant to start out with doing that-for I hate him like poison, ever since that time in the tavern when heyou know what I refer to, and you would feel insulted too, if MARIA MAGDALENA 177 you had any self respect about youl [To CLARA.] Where is your brother's room? CLARA [points]. Back there! [Both Bailiffs, exeunt.] CLARA. Father, he is innocent! He must be innocent! He is your son, my brother! ANTONY. Innocent, and a matricide? [Laughs.] A MAID [enters with a letter to CLARA]. From the cashier, Mr. Leonard. ANTONY. You need not read it! He declares himself free of you! [Claps his hands.] Bravo, scoundrel! CLARA [reads it]. Yes! Yes! Oh, my God! ANTONY. Let him go! CLARA. Father, father, I cannotANTONY. You cannot? Cannot? What do you mean? Are you? — [Both Bailiffs reenter.] ADAM [spitefully]. Seek and ye shall find! SECOND BAILIFF [to ADAM]. What do you mean by that? Did it turn out so to-day? ADAM. Hold your tongue! [Exeunt both.] ANTONY. He is innocent-and you-youCLARA. Father, you are terrible! ANTONY [grasps her hand very gently]. Dear daughter, Carl is only a bungler. He has killed his mother, and what does it mean? His father remains alive! So come to his aidyou cannot ask him to do everything alone. You must make an end of me! The old trunk still looks rugged, doesn't it? But it has begun to totter already-it will not cost you much trouble to fell it! You need not reach for the ax. You have a pretty face-I have never praised you, but to-day I will tell you, so that you may acquire courage and confidence. Your eyes, nose, mouth are surely admired! Become-You understand me? —Or tell me, I have an idea that you are alreadyCLARA [almost crazy, throws herself with uplifted arms at the feet of her mother, and cries out like a child]. Mother! Mother 178 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL ANTONY. Take your mother's hand and swear to me that you are what you should be! CLARA. I-swear-that-I-will-never-bring-disgrace -on-you! ANTONY. Good! [He puts on his hat.] It is beautiful weather! We will go out and run the gauntlet! Up the street! Down the street! [Exeunt.] ACT II A Room in the Master Joiner's House. SCENE I ANTONY [rises from the table]. CLARA [starts to clear off the dishes]. ANTONY. Have you lost your appetite again? CLARA. Father, I have had enough. ANTONY. But you have taken nothing! CLARA. I ate out in the kitchen. ANTONY. A bad appetite means a guilty conscience. Oh, well, we shall see-or was there poison in the soup, as I dreamt yesterday? Perhaps some wild hemlock got in with the other vegetables by mistake, when they were gathered-In that case you did well! CLARA. Great Heavens! ANTONY. Forgive me! I-Away with your pale sad look, which you stole from our Savior's Mother! One should look ruddy when one is young! There is but one who might show such a face, and he does not do it! Hey! A box on the ear for every man who says "ouch!" when he cuts his finger! No man has any right to do that now, for here stands a man who -ugh!-self-praise stinks!-But what did I do when our neighbor started to nail down the cover of your mother's coffin? CLARA. You wrenched the hammer away from him and did it yourself, and said: "This is my masterpiece!" The pre MARIA MAGDALENA 179 centor, who was just then leading the choir boys in the dirge over by the door, thought you had gone crazy. ANTONY. Crazy? [Laughs.] Crazy. Yes, yes, it is a wise head that cuts itself off at the right time. Mine must be too firmly fastened on, or else-We squat down in the world and imagine ourselves sitting behind the stove in a good inn. Suddenly a light is placed on the table and, behold! we find ourselves sitting in a den of thieves! There is a bing! bang! on all sides, but no harm is done-fortunately we have hearts of stone! CLARA. Yes, father, so it is. ANTONY. What do you know about it? Do you think you have a right to curse with me because your clerk has deserted you? There will be another to take you walking Sunday afternoons, another to tell you that your cheeks are rosy and your eyes blue, and still another to take you as his wife, if you deserve it! Wait until you have borne the burdens of life in chastity and honor for thirty years, and have endured sorrow and death and every human adversity with uncomplaining patience; then let your son, who ought to stuff a soft pillow for your old head, come and so overwhelm you with disgrace that you would like to cry out to the earth: Swallow me, if it does not sicken thee, for I am muddier than thou! Then you may utter all the curses that I suppress in my bosom, then you may tear your hair and beat your breasts!-You have that advantage over me, for you are not a man! CLARA. Oh, Carl! ANTONY. I wonder what I shall do when I see him again before me, when he comes home some evening before candlelight with his hair shaved off-for hair-dressing is not allowed in the penitentiary-and stammers out a good evening, keeping his hand on the door-knob? I shall do something, that is certain-but what? [Gnashes his teeth.] And if they keep him locked up for ten years, he shall find me, for I shall live until then —that much I know! Mark you, Death, what I say: From now on I am a stone in front of your scythe! It shall fly to pieces before it shall budge me! 180 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL CLARA [grasps his hand]. Father, you ought to lie down and rest for half an hour! ANTONY. To dream that you are about to be confined? And then to fly into a passion and seize you, and afterward bethink myself too late and say: "Dear daughter, I did not know what I was doing!" Thank you! My sleep has dismissed the magician and employed a prophet, who points out loathsome things to me with his bloody finger! I don't know how it is-everything seems possible to me now. Ugh! I shudder at the future as at a glass of water seen under the microscope-is that the right word, Mr. Precentor? You have spelled it out for me often enough! I looked through one once in Nuremburg at the fair,.and couldn't drink any more water all day long. Last night I saw my dear Carl with a pistol in his hand; when I looked closer into his eyes he pulled the trigger. I heard a cry, but could see nothing on account of the smoke. When it cleared away, I saw no shattered skull -but my fine son had in the mean time come to be a rich man; he was standing and counting gold pieces from one hand into the other. His face-the Devil take me!-a man could have no calmer one after working all day and closing the door of his workshop behind him at night! Well, that's a thing one might prevent! One might take the law into one's own hands, and afterward present one's self before the supreme Judge! CLARA. Calm yourself! ANTONY. Get well again you mean to say! Why am I sick? Yes, doctor, hand me the drink that shall make me well! Your brother is the worst of sons; be you the best of daughters! Like a worthless bankrupt I stand before the eyes of the world! I owed it a fine man to take the place of this weak invalid, and I cheated it with a scoundrel! Be you such a woman as your mother was, and then people will say: It does not come from his parents that the boy went wrong, for the daughter treads the path of righteousness and excels all others. [With terrible coldness.] And I will do my part in the matter; I will make it easier for you than it is for others. The moment I see anybody point his fingers at you, I shall MARIA MAGDALENA 181 [with a motion toward his neck] shave myself, and then, I swear to you, I shall shave off head and all. Then you may say I did it from fright, because a horse ran away in the street, or because the cat overturned a chair on the floor, or because a mouse ran up my legs. Anybody that knows me, to be sure, will shake his head at that, for I am not easily frightened —but what difference does that make? I could not endure to live in a world where the people would refrain from spitting at me simply out of pity. CLARA. Merciful God! What shall I do? ANTONY. Nothing, nothing, dear child! I am too severe with you-I realize it. Do nothing-be just as you are, and it is all right. Oh, I have suffered such rank injustice that I myself must do injustice in order not to succumb to it when it grips me so hard! Listen! Not long ago I was going across the street when I met that pock-marked thief, Fritz, whom I had thrown into jail a few years ago because for the third time he had shown himself light-fingered in my house. Formerly the scoundrel never even dared to look at me; now he walked boldly up and offered me his hand. I felt like boxing his ears, but I bethought myself and did not even spit. We have been cousins for a week now, and it is proper for relatives to greet each otherl The minister, the sympathetic man who visited me yesterday, said that no man had anybody to look out for but himself, and that it was un-Christian pride for me to hold myself responsible for the sins of my son; otherwise Adam would have to take it just as much to heart as I. Sir, I verily believe that it no longer troubles our first ancestor in Paradise when one of his descendants begins to rob and murder.-But did not he himself tear his hair over Cain? No, no, it is too much! Sometimes I find myself looking around at my shadow to see if it too has not grown blacker. For I can endure anything and everything, and have given proof of it, but not disgrace! Put on my back what burdens you choose, but do not sever the nerve that holds me together! CLARA. Father, Carl has not yet confessed anything, and they have found nothing on him. 182 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL ANTONY. What difference does that make to me? I have gone around the town and inquired at the different drinkingplaces about his debts. They amount to more than he could have earned under me a quarter of a year even were he three times as industrious as he is! Now I know why he always left off work two hours later than I every evening, and why, in spite of that, he got up before me in the morning. But he soon saw that it all did no good, or else that it was too much trouble for him and took too long; so he embraced the opportunity when it presented itself! CLARA. You always believe the worst things you can of Carl! You have always done so! I wonder if you still remember howANTONY. You talk as your mother would, and I will answer you as I used to answer her-I will keep quiet! CLARA. And supposing Carl is acquitted? Supposing the jewels are found again? ANTONY. Then I would employ a lawyer and stake my last shirt to find out whether or not the burgomaster was justified in throwing the son of an honest citizen into prison. If he was, then I would submit; for a thing that can befall anybody I also must accept with resignation. And if to my misfortune it cost me a thousand times as much as it does others, I would attribute it to fate. And if God struck me down for it, I would fold my hands and say: "Lord, Thou knowest why!" If he was not justified, if it should appear that the man with the gold chain around his neck acted too hastily, because he thought of nothing except the fact that the merchant who missed his jewels was his brother-in-law, then people would find out whether the law has anywhere a gap in it, whether the king, who doubtless knows that justice is the one demand his subjects make in return for loyalty and obedience, and who least of all would wish to remain under obligation to one of the humblest of them, would allow that gap to remain unfilled. But all this is useless talk! The boy has no more chance of coming through this trial unscathed, than your mother has of rising from her grave alive! From him, neither now nor ever MARIA MAGDALENA 183 shall I have any consolation! And for that reason do you not forget what you owe me-keep your oath to me so that I shall not have to keep mine to you! [He goes out, but returns again.] I shall come home late to-night, for I am going out in the mountains to the old lumber-dealer's. He is the only man who still looks me in the eye as he used to, because he knows nothing of my disgrace. He is deaf; nobody can tell him anything without yelling himself hoarse, and even then he hears it all wrong.-So he finds out nothing! [Exit.] SCENE II CLARA [alone]. Oh, God! God! Have pity on me! Have pity on the old man! Take me to Thee! There is no other way to help him! The sunlight lies like a golden blanket on the street, and the children try to seize it with their hands. The birds fly hither and thither, and the flowers and weeds do not tire of growing higher. Everything is alive, everything wishes to be alive! Oh, Death! Thousands of sick people are at this moment shuddering with fear of thee! He who called for thee in the restless night, because he could no longer endure his sufferings, now finds his bed soft and downy again. I call upon thee! Spare him whose soul shrinks most fearsomely from thee, and let him live until the beautiful world becomes again gray and desolate! Take me in his stead! I shall not shudder when thou givest me thy cold hand; I shall grasp it and follow thee more bravely than ever yet a child of God has followed thee! SCENE III [Enter the Merchant, WOLFRAM.] WOLFRAM. Good day, Miss Clara! Is your father at home? CLARA. He has just gone out. WOLFRAM. I have come-my jewels have been found! 184 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL CLARA. Oh, father! Why are you not here?-He has forgotten his spectacles-there they lie! Oh, if he only notices it and returns for them-How then? Where? Who had them? WOLFRAM. My wife-tell me frankly, Miss: Have you ever heard anything strange about my wife? CLARA. Yes! WOLFRAM. That she-[Points to his brow.] Is that it? CLARA. That she is not altogether in her right mind, to be sure! WOLFRAM [bursting out]. My God! My God! All in vain! Not a single servant that I have ever taken into my house have I allowed to leave me; to each one I have paid double wages and closed my eyes to all remissness, in order to buy their silence! And yet-the false, ungrateful creatures! Oh, my poor children! Only for your sake did I seek to conceal it! CLARA. Do not blame your servants! Surely it is not their fault! Ever since your neighbor's house burned down, and your wife stood at the open window laughing and clapping her hands at the fire, yes, and even puffing out her cheeks and blowing at it, as if she wanted to make it burn more furiously, people have had to choose between taking her for the devil himself or for a lunatic. And there were hundreds who saw that! WOLFRAM. That is true. And now, since the whole town knows about my misfortune, it would be foolish for me to exact a promise of you to keep still about it! So listen! The theft for which your brother is in prison was committed by a lunatic! CLARA. Your own wife! WOLFRAM. That she, who was once the noblest and most sympathetic soul in the world, has become malicious and mischievous; that she shouts and screams with joy when an accident happens before her eyes, when a maid breaks a glass or cuts her finger-I knew that long ago; but that she also takes things in the house and puts them out of sight, hides money MARIA MAGDALENA 185 and tears up papers-that, alas! I found out too late-only this noon! I had laid myself down on the bed and was just about to fall asleep, when I became conscious that she had tiptoed noiselessly up beside me, and was watching me intently to see if I were yet asleep. I closed my eyes tighter. Then she took the key from the pocket of my vest, which was hanging over a chair, unlocked my desk, took out a roll of gold pieces, locked the desk again and put back the key. I was horrified! But I restrained myself, so as not to disturb her. She went out of the room and I crept after her on tiptoe. She climbed up to the attic and threw the gold into an old chest, which has been standing there empty since the days of my grandfather. Then she glanced timidly around the room, and without seeing me, hurried out again. I lighted a taper and searched the chest; in it I found my youngest daughter's doll, a pair of the maid's slippers, a ledger, several letters, and, alas! or, God be praised! —which shall I say?-away down underneath, the jewels! CLARA. Oh, my poor mother! It is too terrible! WOLFRAM. God knows I would gladly sacrifice the jewelry if, by so doing, I could undo what has already been done! But the fault is not mine! That my suspicions, in spite of my profound respect for your father, fell on your brother, was natural; he had polished the desk, and with him the jewels had disappeared. I noticed it almost immediately, for I had occasion to take some papers out of the drawer in which they lay. Still it did not occur to me to take stringent measures to arrest him immediately. Merely as a preliminary, I told Adam, the bailiff, about the matter, and besought him to keep his investigations absolutely secret. But he would not listen to the idea of sparing anybody; he declared he must and would bring the case to court at once, for, he said, your brother was a drunkard and a debt-contractor. And he has, alas, so much influence with the burgomaster that he can put through anything he wants to. The man seems to bear a bitter grudge against your father-I do not know why, but it was impossible to soothe him; he held his hands over his ears and called out, 186 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL as he was hurrying away: "If you had given me the jewelry, it would not have made me as happy as this!" CLARA. Once in the tavern the bailiff put his glass down on the table by my father's and nodded to him as if he wanted to touch glasses with him. My father then took his away, and said: "People in red coats and blue trimmings used to have to drink out of glasses with wooden feet. Also they used to have to wait out in front of the window, or, if it was raining, by the door, and respectfully remove their hats when the landlord handed them the drink. Moreover, if they felt a desire to touch glasses with anybody, they waited until neighbor Hangman happened in." Oh, God! What is not possible in this world! My mother had to pay for that with an untimely death! WOLFRAM. One should never anger anybody, and least of all bad people. Where is your father? CLARA. In the mountains at the lumber-dealer's. WOLFRAM. I'll ride out and hunt him up. I have already been at the burgomaster's, but unfortunately found him out, otherwise your brother would be here now. But the Secretary has already dispatched a messenger! You will see him before evening! [Exit.] SCENE IV CLARA [alone]. Now I should rejoice! Oh, God! And I can think of nothing except: Now it is you alone! And yet I have a feeling as though something must occur to me at once that would set everything right again! SCENE V [Enter the SECRETARY.] SECRETARY. Good day! CLARA [seizes a chair to keep from falling]. He! Oh, if only he had not come back! SECRETARY. Your father is not at home? MARIA MAGDALENA 187 CLARA. No! SECRETARY. I bring you good news. Your brother-No, Clara, I cannot talk to you in this formal way. All these tables, chairs, and cupboards that I know so well-Good day, old friend! [He nods to a cupboard.] How are you? You have not changed a bit!-around which we used to romp as children-it seems to me they will put their heads together and deride me as a fool, unles I quickly assume another tone. I must "thou" you, as I used to do! If you do not like it, just say to yourself: The big boy is dreaming, I will awaken him, I will step in front of him and draw myself up to my full height [With gestures], and let him see that it is no longer a little child that stands before him-[He points to a scratch on the door] —that shows how big you were at eleven!-but a very proper, grown-up girl, who could reach the sugar when it is up on the sideboard! Surely you remember! That was the place, the firm fortress, where it was safe from us even without being locked up. We used to amuse ourselves by slapping flies, when it stood there, because we could not endure to see them flying around happily and enjoying what we ourselves were unable to reach. CLARA. I should think people would forget about such things when they had hundreds and thousands of books to study. SECRETARY. Indeed they do forget it! To be sure, what does one not forget over Justinian and Gaius? Small boys who persistently resist their A B C's know very well why they do it; they have a presentiment that if they do not apply themselves too hard to the primer they will never have to struggle with the Bible. But it is a downright shame! People deceive the innocent souls! They are shown the red rooster with a basket full of eggs on the last page, so that of their own accord they say: 'Ah!" Ahd then there is no more holding back; they go tearing down the hill to Z, and so forth and so forth; until all of a sudden they find themselves in the midst of the Corpus Juris, and are horrified when they realize what a wilderness the accursed twenty-four letters have enticed them 188 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL into-the letters, which, in the beginning, formed themselves, in a Irerry dance, only into nice-tasting and nice-smelling words such as "cherry" and "rose." CLARA. And [absent-mindedly, and without interest]what happens then? SECRETARY. That depends upon the difference of temperament. Some work themselves through. Those usually come forth into daylight again after three or four years, but looking somewhat thin and pale; however, one must not blame them for that; I myself am one of that kind. Others lie down in the middle of the forest; they intend merely to rest themselves, but they seldom get up again. I myself have a friend who has been drinking his beer for three years already in the shade of the Lex Julia; he selected the place on account of its nameit recalls pleasant memories. Still others give up in despair and turn back; those are the stupid ones; people let them out of one thicket only on condition that they will run at full speed into another. And then there are some who are still worse, and who don't get anywhere! [To himself.] How one chatters when one has something in his mind and does not know how to bring it out! CLARA. Everything is bright and cheerful to-day; that's because it is such beautiful weather. SECRETARY. Yes, in weather like this the owls fall out of their nests, the bats kill themselves because they feel the devil has created them, the mole burrows so deep into the earth that he cannot find his way out again and must pitifully suffocate unless he bores through to the other side and emerges again in America. To-day every ear of corn shoots up twice as high, and every poppy grows twice as red as usual, even if only out of shame at not having been so at first. Shall man remain behind? Shall he defraud the dear Lord of the only reward which His world offers Him-a happy face and a bright eye, which mirrors and at the same time transfigures all this gloriousness? Truly, when I see one of these recluses sneaking out of his door in the morning, his brow furrowed with wrinkles, and staring at the sky as if it were a vault of blotting-paper, MARIA MAGDALENA 189 I often think to myself: It is going to rain soon; God will have to let down the curtain of clouds, so that that sour face will not irritate Him. They ought to take legal action against fellows like that on the ground that they are thwarters of merry parties and destroyers of harvest weather. How are you going to render thanks for your life if not by living? Sing joyously, bird, or else you will not deserve your voice! CLARA. Oh, that is true, so true! It almost makes me cry! SECRETARY. It was Iot meant for you. That for eight days you have been breathing more heavily than you used to, I well understand —I know your father. But, God be praised! I can make your heart free again, and for that very purpose I am here. You shall see your brother again this very evening, and people shall point their fingers, not at him, but at those who cast him into prison. Does that deserve a kiss, a sisterly kiss, if it cannot be any other kind? Or shall we play blindman's bluff for it?-If I do not catch you in ten minutes, I am to go away without the kiss and take a box on the ear into the bargain. CLARA [to herself]. I feel as if I had suddenly grown to be a thousand years old, and time were standing still with me. I can go neither backwards nor forwards! Oh, all this brazen sunshine and cheerfulness round about me! SECRETARY. YOU do not answer me. To be sure, I forgotyou are engaged. Oh, girl! Why did you do that to me? And yet have I any right to complain? She is like all that is dear and good, and all that is dear and good should have made me think of her. And yet to me she was for years as if she no longer existed in the world! For that reason she-If it only were a fellow before whom one had to cast down one's eyes But this LeonardCLARA [suddenly, when she hears the name]. I must go to him. That is just it-I am no longer the sister of a thief!Oh, God! what shall I do? Leonard will, he must! He needs only not to be a fiend! Everything will be as it used to be [shudders] —as it used to be! [To the SECRETARY.] Do not 190 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL be offended, Frederick!-Why are my legs so heavy all of a sudden? SECRETARY. You willCLARA. To Leonard! Where else should I go? Only that one road lies before me in this world! SECRETARY. You love him, then! WellCLARA [wildly]. Love him? It is either he or death! Does anybody wonder that I choose him? I could not do it had I only myself to consider! SECRETARY. He or death? Girl, thifs speaks Despair, orCLARA. Do not make me frantic! Do not mention that word again! You! It is you I love! There! I cry it out to you as if I were already wandering on the other side of the grave, where no one blushes any more, where cold and naked forms glide past one another, because the fearfully, holy presence of God has entirely consumed in every one all thought of others. SECRETARY. Me? Still me? Clara, I divined it when I saw you out in the garden. CLARA. Did you? Oh, the other too! [Gloomily, as if she were alone.] He stepped up in front of me-he or I!-Oh, my heart, my accursed heart! In order to prove him, prove to myself, that it was not so, or to stifle it if it were so, I did what now [breaks out into tears]-God in Heaven! I would have pity on myself, were I Thou, and Thou I! SECRETARY. Clara, be my wife! I came to look once more into your eyes in the old way. Had you not understood the look I should have gone away again without speaking. Everything that I am and have I now offer to you. It is little, but it may grow to be more. I should have been here long ago, but your mother was sick, and then she died. CLARA [laughs crazily]. SECRETARY. Take courage, girl! The fellow has your word -that worries you. And, to be sure, it is a damnable thing! How could youCLARA. Oh, ask me everything that conspires to drive a poor girl crazy! Scorn and derision from all sides when you MARIA MAGDALENA 191 went to the University, and did not let me hear from you."She still thinks of him!" "She thinks that child's play was meant seriously!" "Does she receive any letters from him?" -And then, too, my mother: "Stay with people of your class!" "Pride never succeeds!" "Leonard is a very nice fellow; everybody is surprised that you look at him over your shoulder so!" And added to all the rest, my own heart: "If he has forgotten you, show him that you too-" Oh, God! SECRETARY. I am to blame. I realize it. Well, what is difficult is not necessarily impossible. I will get him to release you. PerhapsCLARA. Release me? There! [Throws LEONARD'S letter tj him.] SECRETARY [reads]. As cashier, I-your brother-thiefvery sorry —but out of consideration for my office, I cannot help it- [To Clara.] He wrote you that on the very day your mother died? For he adds his condolence on her sudden death! CLARA. I suppose so! SECRETARY. The Devil take him! Great God, the cats, snakes and other monsters which, so to speak, slipped through Thy fingers at Creation, so delighted Beelzebub that he imitated Thy patterns-but he finished them off better than Thou didst; he put them in a human skin, and now they stand in rank and file with the rest of Thy humanity, and one does not recognize them until they begin to scratch and sting! [To CLARA.] But it is well, indeed it is fine! [He tries to embrace her.] Come! Forever! With this kissCLARA [sinks into his arms]. No, not forever! Only to keep me from falling-but no kiss! SECRETARY. Girl, you do not love, you have your releaseCLARA [gloomily, straightening' herself up again]. And yet I must go to him, I must throw myself on my knees before him and cry out: "Behold my father's white hairs! Take me!" SECRETARY. Unhappy girl! Do I understand you? CLARA. Yes! SECRETARY. No man can overlook that! Think of having to cast down one's eyes before a man into whose face one 192 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL would like to spit! [He presses CLARA wildly to him.] Poor, poor girl! CLARA. GO now, go! SECRETARY [to himself, brooding]. Or else one would have to shoot the dog who knows of it. Oh, that he had some courage about him! That he would stand up and fight! That one could force him to it! I should not be afraid of missing him! CLARA. I beg of you! SECRETARY [going]. As soon as it grows dark! [He returns and grasps CLARA'S hand.] Girl, you stand before me-[He turns away.] Thousands of your sex would have kept it a secret with shrewd cunning, and only in an hour of sweet forgetfulness would have confided it coaxingly to the ear and soul of their husbands. I feel what I owe you! CLARA [alone]. Oh, my heart, lock yourself up! Crush yourself together so that not another drop of that blood may escape which would kindle again the congealing life in my veins! For a moment a feeling akin to hope arose in you again! Now for the first time I am conscious of it! [Laughs.] No! No man can overlook that! And if-could you yourself overlook it? Would you have had the courage to grasp a hand that-No! no! Such evil courage you would not have! You would with your own hands have to lock yourself into your hell, if any one tried to open the door from the outside. You are forever-Oh, alas, that the pain is intermittent, that the piercing agony sometimes ceases! That is the reason why it lasts so long! The tortured man imagines he is resting when the torturer merely pauses to get his breath. It is like a drowning man's catching his breath on the waves, when the current that has drawn him under spews him forth again only to seize him once more and draw him down. He has nothing but a double, futile fight for life!Well, Clara?-Yes, father, I am going! Your daughter will not drive you to self-destruction! Soon I shall be the wife of that man, or- God! No! I do not go begging for happiness -it is misery, the deepest misery that I beg for! You will MARIA MAGDALENA 193 give me my misery!-Away! Where is the letter? [She takes it.] Three wells you pass on your way to him! You must not halt at any of them, Clara-you have not yet the right to do thati [Exit.] ACT III SCENE I [LEONARD'S Room.] LEONARD [at a table covered with documents, writing]. That makes the sixth sheet since dinner! How good a man feels when he is doing his duty! Now anybody that wanted to could come through the door, even the king himself! I should rise, but I should not feel embarrassed! I make just one exception-that is the old joiner! But, after all, he cannot do much to me! Poor Clara! I am sorry for her. I cannot think of her without uneasiness! If only it were not for that one cursed evening! It was really more jealousy than love that made me so frantic, and she must have yielded to me only to silence my reproaches-for she was as cold as death toward me! She has some bad days ahead of her! Oh, well, I too shall suffer considerable annoyance! Let everybody bear his own burden! Above all things I must make the affair with the little humpback secure, so that she cannot escape me when the storm breaks out! Then I shall have the burgomaster on my side, and shall have nothing to fear! SCENE II [Enter CLARA.] CLARA. Good evening, Leonard! LEONARD. Clara! [To himself.] This is something I did not expect! [Aloud.] Did you not receive my letter? SurelyPerhaps you are coming for your father to pay the taxesl 194 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL How much is it? [He fumbles in a ledger.] I really ought to have it in my head! CLARA. I have come to give back your letter! Read it again! LEONARD [reads it with great seriousness]. It is a perfectly sensible letter! How can a man who has public money in trust marry into a family to which [he swallows a word]-to which your brother belongs? CLARA. Leonard! LEONARD. But perhaps the whole town is mistaken! Your brother is not in prison? He never was in prison? You are not the sister of a-of your brother? CLARA. Leonard, I am my father's daughter! Not as the sister of an accused, innocent man, who has been set free-for my brother is at liberty-not as a girl who trembles before undeserved disgrace, for [in a low voice] I tremble still more before you, only as the daughter of the old man who gave me life, do I stand here! LEONARD. And you wish?CLARA. Can you ask? Oh, that I might go away! My father will cut his throat, unless- Marry me! LEONARD. Your fatherCLARA. He has sworn it! Marry me! LEONARD. Hand and neck are near cousins-they never do harm to each other! Don't be anxious! CLARA. He has sworn it! Marry me! And, afterward, kill me! I will thank you even more for the latter than for the former! LEONARD. Do you love me? Did your heart prompt you to come here? Am I the man without whom you cannot live and die? CLARA. Answer that yourself! LEONARD. Can you swear that you love me? That you love me as a girl loves a man to whom she is to bind herself forever? CLARA. No, that I cannot swear! But this I can swear: Whether I love you or do not love you, that you shall never MARIA MAGDALENA 195 know! I will wait on you, I will work for you, you need give me nothing to eat, I will support myself, I will do sewing and spinning for other people at night, I will go hungry when I have nothing to do, I will rather bite a piece out of my own arm than go to my father and let him suspect anything! When you beat me, because your dog is not at hand, or because you have kicked him out, I will rather swallow my own tongue than emit a cry which will betray to the neighbors what is going on. I cannot promise that my skin will not show the welts caused by your whip, for that is not in my power. But I will lie about it, I will say that I fell head foremost against the cupboard, or that I slipped on the floor because it was too smooth-that I will do before anybody has time to ask me where the black and blue marks came from!-Marry me! I shall not live long! And if it lasts too long for you, if you do not care to meet the expenses of the divorce proceedings necessary to get rid of me, then buy some poison of the apothecary and put it somewhere as if it were for your rats. I will take it without your even nodding to me, and tell the neighbors with my dying breath that I took it for pulverized sugar! LEONARD. A man of whom you expect all this will certainly not surprise you if he says no! CLARA. Then may God not frown too severely on me if I come before He calls me! If I had myself alone to consider I would endure it patiently. If the world kicked me in my misery, instead of standing by me, I would bear it submissively and regard it as just punishment for I know not whatl I would love my child, even if it had your features, and I would cry so much before the poor innocent thing that, when it grew older and wiser, it would certainly not despise and curse its mother. But it is not myself alone; and on Judgment Day I shall much more easily find an answer to the Judge's question: Why did you destroy yourself? than to the question: Why did you drive your father to it? LEONARD. You talk as if you were the first woman and the last to find herself in your predicament! Thousands have gone through it before you and submitted to their fate. Thousands 196 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL after you will be confronted with the same situation and accept their fate. Are all these others strumpets, that you are so anxious to stand in the corner by yourself? They also had fathers who invented a score of new oaths when they first heard of it, and talked about murder and homicide! Afterward they were ashamed of themselves and repented their oaths and blasphemies; they sat down and rocked the child, or fanned the flies away! CLARA. I readily believe that you fail to understand why anybody in the world should keep an oath. SCENE III [Enter a BOY.] BoY. Here are some flowers! I am not to say from whom they come! LEONARD. Oh, what pretty flowers! [He beats his brow.] The devil! How stupid of me! I should have sent some! How can I get out of it? I do not understand such things, and the little girl will take it to heart! She has nothing else to think about! [He takes the flowers.] But I shall not keep all of them. [To CLARA.] How about it? These here signify repentance and shame, don't they? Did you not say that to me once? CLARA [nods]. LEONARD [to the BOY]. See here, boy, these are for me. I fasten them on me here, you see-where my heart is. These, these dark red ones, which burn like a dismal fire, you may take back. Do you understand? As soon as my apples are ripe, you may come for some! BoY. That is a long time off! [Exit.] SCENE IV LEONARD. Yes, you see, Clara; you spoke about keeping one's word. Just because I am a man of my word I must MARIA MAGDALENA 197 answer you again as I have already answered once before. A week ago I wrote you a letter-you cannot deny it-there it lies! [He hands her the letter, which she takes mechanically.] I had reason-your brother-you say he is acquitted-I am glad of that! But during these eight days I have entered into a new relation. I had a right to do it, for you did not protest against my letter at the right time! I was free in my own conscience, as well as before the law. Now you come to mebut I have already given my promise and received another's! [To himself.] I would it were so!-The other girl is already in the same predicament as you are! I am sorry for you, but [he strokes her hair, and she permits it, as if she were absolutely unconscious of it]-you understand?-One cannot trifle with the burgomaster! CLARA [absent-mindedly]. Trifle with him LEONARD. See! You are getting sensible! And as far as your father is concerned, you can say it boldly to his face that he alone is to blame. Do not stare at me so; do not shake your head! It is so, girl, it is so! Just tell him that! He'll understand it all right, and repent! I'll vouch for thatl [To himself.] Any man who gives away his daughter's dowry must not be surprised if she remains an old maid. When I think of that my back gets stiff, and I could wish that the old fellow were here to receive a lecture. Why must I be such a monster?-Only because he was a fool! Whatever happens as a result of that, he is to blame for it! That is obvious! [To CLARA.] Or would you prefer to have me talk with him myself? For your sake I will risk a black eye and go to him. He may be rough with me, he may throw the boot-jack at my head, but he will have to swallow the truth in spite of the stomach-ache it gives him, and let you rest in peace!-Is he at home? CLARA [stands up straight]. I thank you! [Starts to go.] LEONARD. Shall I go over with you? I have the courage! CLARA. I thank you as I would thank a serpent which had wound itself around me and unwound itself.and sprung away 198 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL again, because another prey enticed it. I know that I have been bitten, I know that it deserts me only because it does not seem worth the trouble to suck out what little marrow there is left in my bones. But still I thank the snake, for now I shall have a quiet death. Yes, man, I am not mocking; to me it is as if I had seen through your breast down into the abyss of hell, and whatever may be my lot in the awful eternity to come, I shall never have anything more to do with you, and this is a consolation! And just as the unfortunate person whom a viper has stung cannot be blamed for opening his veins in terror and disgust, in order that his poisoned blood may stream swiftly forth, so perhaps God in His everlasting mercy will take pity on me when He looks down upon you and me and sees what you have made of me! For how could I do it, when I never, never should have done it?-One thing more: My father knows nothing, he does not even suspect anything! And that he may never find out I shall quit the world this very day! If I thought for one moment that you [she takes a step, wildly, toward him]-oh, but that is foolishness! You would be only all the better pleased to see them all stand and shake their heads and inquire in vain of one another why it happened! LEONARD. Things will happen-what is one to do, Clara? CLARA. Away from here! The man can talk! [She starts to go.] LEONARD. Do you think that I believe you? CLARA. No! LEONARD. Thank God, you cannot be a suicide without being an infanticide as well! CLARA. Better both than a parricide! Oh, I know that one cannot atone for one sin with another! But what I now do affects me alone! If I hand the knife to my father the blow strikes him as well as me! It strikes me in any case! That gives me courage and strength in all my distress! Things will go well with you on earth! [Exit.] MARIA MAGDALENA 190 SCENE V LEONARD [alone]. "I must, I must marry her!" And why must I? She is going to do a crazy thing in order to keep her father from doing one. Where lies the necessity of my doing a still crazier thing in order to ward off hers? I cannot admit the necessity-at least not until I see before me the man who wants to get ahead of me with the most insane act of all! And if he thinks as I do about it there will be no end! That sounds quite sensible, and yet-I must follow her! Here comes somebody! Thank God!-Nothing is more ignominious than to have to be at variance with one's own thoughts! A. rebellion in the head, in which one brings forth viper after viper and each one tries to eat the other or bite his tail, is the worst of all! SCENE VI [Enter the SECRETARY.] SECRETARY. Good evening! LEONARD. Mr. Secretary? To what do I owe the honorSECRETARY. Leonard, you will see at once! LEONARD. You say Leonard to me?-To be sure, we used to be schoolmates! SECRETARY. And we may perhaps be death-mates too! [He dravws forth two pistols.] Do you know how to handle these? LEONARD. I do not understand you! SECRETARY [cocks one of them]. Do you see?-This is how it is done! Then you aim at me, as I am now doing at you, and pull the trigger! So! LEONARD. What are you talking about? SECRETARY. One of us two must die! Die! And immediately! 200 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL LEONARD. Die? SECRETARY. You know why I LEONARD. By God, no! SECRETARY. No matter-it will occur to you all right when you are dying! LEONARD. I have no ideaSECRETARY. Bethink yourself! Otherwise I might take you for a mad dog that has unwittingly bitten the one I love most on earth, and shoot you down as such! But for half an hour more I must let you pass as my equali LEONARD. But don't talk so loud! If anybody should hear youSECRETARY. If anybody could hear me you would have called him long ago! Well? LEONARD. If it is about the girl-I can marry her, you know! I had, in fact, half made up my mind to do it, when she herself was here! SECRETARY. She was here! And has gone away again without having seen you contrite and repentant at her feet? Come! Come! LEONARD. I beg of you! You see before you a man who is ready to do anything that you dictate. This very evening I will betroth myself to her. SECRETARY. That I shall do, no one else. If the world itself hung on it you should not even touch the hem of her dress again! Come! Into the woods with me! But mark this! I shall take you by the arm, and if on the way you emit a single cry-[He holds up a pistol.] I trust you believe me! Nevertheless, that you may not feel tempted, we will take the road through the garden behind the house! LEONARD. One of them is for me-give it to me! SECRETARY. So that you can throw it away and compel me to murder you or let you escape! Is that why you want it? Be patient, until we are on the spot! Then I shall divide with you honestly! LEONARD [goes, and accidentally knocks his drinking-glass from the table]. Shall I never take another drink? MARIA MAGDALENA 201 SECRETARY. Courage, my lad! Perhaps it will go well with you! God and the devil seem to be forever fighting for the world! Who knows which is master just now? [Seizes him by the arm; exeunt both.] SCENE VII [A Room in the Joiner's house; enter CARL.] CARL. Nobody at home! Had I not known about the rathole under the threshold where they always hide the key when they all go out, I could not have got in! Well, that would not have made any difference! I could run around the city twenty times now and imagine to myself that there was no greater pleasure in the world than that of using one's legs! Let's have a light! [He strikes a light.] I'll bet the tinder-box is in the same old place, for we have twice ten commandments in this house! The hat belongs on the third nail, not on the fourth! At half-past nine one has to be tired! Before Martinmas one must not shiver; after Martinmas one must not sweat! That stands on a line with: Thou shalt love and fear God! I am thirsty! [Calls.] Mother! Fie! As if I had forgotten that she lies where even the innkeeper's boots no longer has to open his nut-cracker mouth with a "Yes, sir!" when he is called! I did not weep when I heard the funeral bell in my dark cell, butRedcoat, you would not even let me roll the last ball at the bowling alley, although I already had it in my hand. Well, I shall not leave you time for a last breath when I meet you alone, and that may happen this very evening! I know where you are to be found about ten o'clock! Afterward, aboard ship!-I wonder where Clara is? I am as hungry as I am thirsty! To-day is Thursday-they have veal broth for dinner. If it were winter, they would have had cabbage-before Shrove-Tuesday white cabbage-after Shrove-Tuesday, green cabbage! That is as fixed as Thursday's having to come when Wednesday has passed, so that it cannot say to Friday: You go in my place-my feet are sore! 202 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL SCENE VIII [Enter CLARA.] CARL. At last!-You should not kiss so much! Whenever four red lips meet a bridge for the devil is built!-What have you there? CLARA. Where? What? CARL. Where? What?-In your hand! CLARA. Nothing! CARL. Nothing? Is it a secret? [He snatches LEONARD'S letter.] Give me that! When the father is not here the brother is guardian! CLARA. I held fast to the scrap of paper, and yet the evening wind is so strong that it blows the tiles off the roofs. As I was passing the church one fell right in front of me, so that my foot struck against it. Oh, God! I thought-one more! And I stood still. That would have been fine; they would have buried me and said: "She met with an accident!"-But I waited in vain for the second. CARL [has read the letter]. Thunder and- I'll lame the hand that wrote that!-Bring me a bottle of wine! Or is your savings box empty? CLARA. There is one more in the house. I had bought it secretly for mother's birthday and put it aside. To-morrow would have been the day- [She turns away.] CARL. Give it to me! CLARA [brings the wine]. CARL [drinks quickly]. Now we can start in again-planing, sawing, hammering, and, in between, eating, drinking, and sleeping, so that we can go on planing, sawing, and hammering, and on Sundays do a bit of praying into the bargain! I thank Thee, 0 Lord, that I may plane, saw, and hammer! [Drinks.] Long live every good dog that is tied to a chain, and yet does not snap at everything around him! [He drinks again.] And once more: Here's to his health. MARIA MAGDALENA 203 CLARA. Carl, do not drink so much! Father says the devil lurks in wine! CARL. And the priest says God lurks in wine! [He drinks.] Let us see who is right! The bailiff was here at the househow did he behave himself? CLARA. As if he had been in a den of thieves! No sooner had he opened his mouth than mother fell over and was dead CARL. Good! If you hear to-morrow that the fellow has been found dead, then do not curse the murderer! CLARA. Surely you are not going toCARL. Am I his only enemy? Has he not been often attacked already? Among so many it might be difficult to find the right man to attribute the deed to, unless he left his cane or hat on the spot! [He drinks.] Whoever it is: Good success to him! CLARA. Brother, you talkCARL. Don't you like it? Never mind! You will not see me very much longer! CLARA [shudders with terror]. No! CARL. No? So you know already that I am going to sea? Do my thoughts crawl around on my forehead, that you can read them so easily? Or did the old man fly into a passion in his old way and threaten to shut me out of the house? Bah! That would be very much the same thing as if the jailer had sworn to me: You shall not stay in prison any longer-I am going to shove you out into the open againl CLARA. You do not understand me! CARL [sings]. A ship lies in the offing, A-sporting with the winds. Yes, indeed, there is nothing to bind me to the bench here any longer! Mother is dead, there is no longer any one to stop eating fish after every storm, and that has been my wish from boyhood. Away! I shall not prosper here-at least not until I know for sure that luck no longer favors the brave fellow who stakes his life on the game, who throws back onto the table the copper coin that he has received from the great 204 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL treasure, in order to see whether luck will pocket it or return it to him gilded! CLARA. And you are going away to leave your father all alone? He is sixty years old! CARL. Alone? Aren't you going to be left? CLARA. I? CARL. You! His pet child! What sort of weeds are growing in your head that you ask me that? By going, I leave his joy with him and free him of his everlasting annoyance! Why shouldn't I do it? Once and for all we cannot get along together. He can't get things contracted enough to suit him. He would like to close his fist and creep inside it. I would like to strip off my skin like a baby's coat-if it were only practicable! [Sings]: The anchor they are heaving, I trow they'll soon be leaving, Now look! Away she spins. Tell me yourself: Did he doubt my guilt for a single instant? And did he not find the usual consolation in his over-wise: "Just as I expected!" "I have always thought so!" "It could not end in any other way!" If it had been you, he would have killed himself! I should like to see him if you were to suffer a woman's fate! It would be to him as if he himself had become pregnant-and by the devil besides! CLARA. Oh, what anguish! Yes, I must go! Away! CARL. What do you mean by that? CLARA. I must go into the kitchen! What else should I mean? [Clasping her forehead.] Yes! That too! Just to hear that I came home again! [Exit.] CARL. She acts very strangely! [Sings]: A bold and saucy sea-gull Sweeps round, as if possessedCLARA [reenters]. The last thing is done! Father's supper is on the fire! As I closed the kitchen -door behind me, I thought to myself: You are never to enter there again! I shuddered in my very soul! Thus I shall go out of the room too, thus out of the house, thus out of the world! MARIA MAGDALENA 205 CARL [Sings; he continues to walk back and forth; CLARA remains in the background]. Aloft the sun is burning, The fishes, glancing, turning, Circle about their guest. CLARA. Why do I not do it then? Shall I never do it? Am I going to continue putting it off from day to day, as I am now doing from one minute to the next, until-certainly! Then, away! Away! And yet I stand still! I have a feeling as if imploring hands were raised in my womb, as if eyes[She sits down on a chair.] What does it mean? Am I too weak to do it? Then ask yourself if you are strong enough to see your father with his throat cut!-[She rises.] No! No!Our Father,, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name-God! God! My poor head! I cannot even pray! Brother! Brother! Help me! CARL. What's the matter with you? CLARA. The Lord's Prayer! [She bethinks herself.] It seemed to me as if I were already lying in the water and sinking, and had not yet prayed! I [suddenly]-Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us! That is it! Yes! Yes! Certainly I forgive him! I shall think no more of him!-Good-night, Carl! CARL. Are you going to bed so soon? Good-night! CLARA [Like a child, repeating the Lord's Prayer]. Forgive usCARL. You might bring me a glass of water first-but it must be absolutely fresh! CLARA [quickly]. I will bring it to you from the well! CARL. All right! If you want to. It is not far, you know. CLARA. Thank you! Thank you! That was the last thing that still troubled me! The deed itself would have betrayed me! Now people will say: She had an accident! She fell in! CARL. Be careful of yourself! The board has probably not been nailed down yet! 206 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL CLARA. It is bright moonlight!-Oh, God, I am coming only because otherwise my father would come! Forgive me, as I -have mercy on me-mercy- [Exit.] SCENE IX CARL [sings]. I fain would be aboard her, My kingdom's on the sea. Yes, but first [he looks at the clock]-What time is it?Nine o'clock. A lad that's young and growing Must e'en be up and going, No matter where, says he. SCENE X [Enter Master ANTONY.] ANTONY. I should have an apology to make to you, but if I forgive you for contracting secret debts and pay them off for you into the bargain, you will probably allow me to omit the apology? CARL. The one is good, and the other is not necessary. As soon as I sell my Sunday clothes I shall myself be able to satisfy the people who have a claim of a few thalers against me. And that I shall do to-morrow, for as a sailor [to himself]There, it is out! [Aloud]-I shall no longer need them! ANTONY. What kind of talk is that again? CARL. This is not the first time you have heard it, but to-day you may answer me as you will! My mind is made up! ANTONY. You are of age, that is true! CARL. And just because I am of age I am not defiant about it! For in my opinion birds and fishes should not quarrel over the question whether it is better in the water or in the air. Just one thing-either you will never see me again, or else you will clap me on the shoulder and say: Well done! MARIA MAGDALENA 207 ANTONY.. We'll wait and see! I shall not have to pay off the fellow that I have taken on in your place. That's all. CARL. I thank you. ANTONY., Tell me: Did the bailiff, instead of taking you by the shortest way to the burgomaster, really lead you around through the whole town andCARL. Up the street, down the street, across the marketplace like a carnival ox! But do not doubt it-I shall settle up with him too before I go! ANTONY. I do not blame you for that, but I forbid you to do it! CARL. Ho! ANTONY. I'll not let you out of my sight! I myself would run to the man's aid, if you tried to attack him! CARL. I thought that you loved my mother too! ANTONY.. I shall prove it! SCENE XI SECRETARY [staggers in; he is pale, and is holding a handkerchief against his breast]. Where is Clara? [He falls into a chair.] God!-Good-evening! Thank Heaven that I had time to get here!-Where is she? CARL. She went to-Where is she? Her talk-I am afraid[Exit.] SECRETARY. She is avenged! The scoundrel is done for! But I too am- Oh, why did it have to be?- God! Now I cannotANTONY. What's the matter with you? What ails you? SECRETARY. It is nearly up with me! Give me your hand on it, that you will not cast off your daughter-do you hear? -will not cast her off, if sheANTONY. That is strange talk! Why should I, pray-Hal My eyes are opening!-Was I right after all in suspecting?SECRETARY. Give me your hand! ANTONY. NO! [He puts both hands into his pockets.] But I will clear the way for her-she knows that! I have told her so. 208 FRIEDRICH HEBBEL SECRETARY [horrified]. You told her!-unhappy girl! Now for the first time I quite understandCARL [rushes in]. Father! Father! There is somebody lying in the well! If only it is notANTONY. The long ladder! Hooks! Ropes! Why do you delay? Quick! Even were it the bailiff! CARL. Everything is already there! The neighbors arrived before me! If only it is not Clara!ANTONY. Clara? [He grasps the table.] CARL. She went to draw water, and they found her handkerchief! SECRETARY. Scoundrel, I know now why your bullet hit the mark! It is she! ANTONY. Go and find out! [He sits down.] I cannot! [Exit CARL.] And yet-[Rises again.] If [to the SECRETARY] I understood you correctly, everything is all right! CARL [reenters]. Clara! Dead! Her head terribly crushed on the edge of the well, as she-Father, she did not fall in, she jumped in! A maid saw her! ANTONY. Let her think before she speaks! It is not light enough for her to have distinguished things with certainty! SECRETARY. Do you doubt it? You would like to, but you cannot! Think only of what you said to her! You pointed out to her the road to death! I, I alone am to blame that she did not turn back! When you suspected her misery, you thought only of the tongues that would hiss at you, but not of the worthlessness of the snakes to which they belonged! Then you uttered a word that drove her to despair! And I, instead of catching her in my arms when her heart was bursting with nameless anguish before me, thought only of the scoundrel who could make light of it. And now I pay with my life for having made myself so dependent upon a man who was worse. than I! And you too, who stand there so stolidly, you too will say one day: Daughter, I would to God you had not spared! me the head-shaking and shoulder-shrugging of the Pharisees; about me! It crushes me more deeply that you cannot sit bymy death-bed and wipe the sweat of anguish from my braw!! MARIA MAGDALENA 209 ANTONY. She spared me nothing! People have seen it! SECRETARY. She did the best she could! You did not deserve to have her act succeed! ANTONY. Or she did not! [Tumult outside.] CARL. They are coming with her! [Starts to go.] ANTONY [immovable, as to the end; calls after him]. Into the back room, where your mother stood! SECRETARY. Away to meet her! [He attempts to rise, but falls back.] Oh, Carl! CARL [helps him up and leads him away]. ANTONY. I no longer understand the world! [Stands brooding.] THE FATHER BY AUGUST STRINDBERG (1887) Translated by N. ERICHSEN Reprinted with permission of The Dramatic Publishing Company, Chicago. INTRODUCTION The plays of the fascinating and terrifying genius, August Strindberg, are rejected by some critics as the ravings of a morbid imagination; by others they are considered the keenest analyses in drama of the blind impulses and vagaries of human nature. They are, at least, the first dramas to present unflinchingly the psycho-physical intricacies and struggles of sex antagonism which, in Strindberg's view, predetermine domestic tragedy. While Ibsen was analyzing other people from his vantage point in the apothecary shop, or hotel window, Strindberg, his Swedish contemporary, was analyzing himself. Nearly all of Strindberg's work is autobiographical, and reveals his temperamental, cultural, and philosophic evolution. The tortured characters in The Father and other plays are drawn unsparingly from experiences in his own life. His three attempts to find domestic happiness were thwarted, partly, perhaps, by his painful search for certainties where there are no certainties. "To search for God and to find the Devil-that is what happened to me"-he once remarked; and his life, revealed in a succession of appalling autobiographies, may be said to answer affirmatively Nietzsche's sinister query: "Why should not life be intolerable?" The Father affords us one of Strindberg's pictures of relations between a husband and wife at their imaginable worst. Neither Laura, nor the Captain, however, is to be considered responsible for the struggle for power that ensues over the child. Both are driven by their instincts for power and for self-perpetuation. Their relations had not been without affection; but the child becomes the object of a relentless antagonism. In the struggle, the Captain unwittingly brings on his disaster. Laura is not, like Iago, a purposeful villain with superior intellectual powers. She is so unintelligent that she cannot comprehend the value of her husband's scientific re213 214 AUGUST STRINDBERG searches; the means for his destruction-the question of paternity, the fixed idea, and the insurance-she picks up from conversation with the Captain and the Doctor-and employs them with instinctive female craft until her victim is caught in the toils of a living death. Then, but only then, does she display a touch of the old affection and wonders why she was driven to act as she did, and disclaims any deliberate evil intent. The forces at war in the Captain and Laura are elucidated in Clayton Hamilton's admirable summary of Strindberg's general philosophy: "Life is war-in which the individual, who is usually right, is at the mercy of his embattled environment which is usually preponderously powerful. The laws of human life are regulated by a stark injustice which has been endowed artificially with the power to regulate and command. Life is appallingly monotonous, condemning us to repeat over and over again an experience from which we have already derived and digested the ultimate significance-Love, which is the origin and essence. of life, is an embattled opposition of two spirits destined to destroy each other in the ineffectual endeavor to be one. The phenomenon of love is necessarily accompanied by the phenomenon of hatred; and, among strong spirits, domesticity is impossible, because it implies a sacrilegious violation of the integrity of the individual. Sex is a curse, because it provokes passions inevitably destructive of the honesty and amiability of the individual human soul. There is an eternal duel between the sexes in which the male (because he is more.conscientious) is usually in the right and the female (because she has no conscience) has usually the preponderance of might. In the warfare of life, the wrong (because it is more mighty) usually triumphs over the right, and the female (because she is more deadly) most frequently destroys the male. Life is bitter; but there is ultimate release in death." We need not ask whether Strindberg's philosophy of domestic tragedy contains the whole truth, but whether it contains a truth. To those who answer this question in the affirmative THE FATHER 215 Strindbcrg's work will be valued for the light it throws into the dark recesses of human life. References. Archibald Henderson, European Dramatists (Appleton, New York, 19251); F. W. Chandler, Aspects of Modern Drama (Macmillan, New York, 1914); Ludwig Lewisohn, The Modern Drama (Huebsch, New York, 1915); James Huneker, Iconoclasts (Scribners, New York, 1905); B. H. Clark, A Study of the Modern Drama (Appleton, New York, 1925); Ashley Dukes, Modern Dramatists (Sergel, Chicago, 1912). TEXT OF THE PLAY DRAMATIS PERSON.E A Cavalry CAPTAIN LAURA, his wife BERTHA, their daughter DR. OSTERMARK THE PASTOR THE NURSE NOJD THE ORDERLY THE FATHER ACT I A sitting-room at the CAPTAIN'S. A door in the background to the right. In the middle of the room a large round table strewn with newspapers and magazines. To the right a leather-covered sofa and table. In the right-hand corner a private door. To the left a bureau with a clock on it, and a door to the inner rooms. Arms on the wall, also guns and gamebags. Clothes-pegs by the door on which hang uniform coats. A lighted lamp on the large table. The CAPTAIN and the PASTOR on the sofa. The CAPTAIN in undress uniform and riding-boots with spurs. The PASTOR in black with a white neckcloth, but without his clerical ruff; he is smoking a pipe. The CAPTAIN rings. [Enter ORDERLY.] ORDERLY. Yes, sir. CAPTAIN. Is Nojd out there? ORDERLY. Nojd is waiting for orders in the kitchen. CAPTAIN. Is he in the kitchen again! Fetch him in at once. ORDERLY. Yes, sir. [Goes.] THE PASTOR. What is wrong now? CAPTAIN. Oh, the rascal has got the girl into trouble again; he is a thoroughly bad lot. PASTOR. Nojd, do you say? Why, he was to the fore in the spring, wasn't he? CAPTAIN. Yes, don't you remember? But won't you be kind enough to say a few friendly words to him, and perhaps you may make some impression on him. I've sworn at him, and I've flogged him too, but it hasn't the least effect. 219 220 AUGUST STRINDBERG PASTOR. And now you want me to lecture him. What impression do you suppose the Word of God will make on a trooper? CAPTAIN. Well, it certainly has no effect on me, you know. PASTOR. I know that well enough. CAPTAIN. But on him! Try at all events. [Enter NOJD.] CAPTAIN. What have you been doing now, Nojd? NOJD. Begging your pardon, Captain, I can't possibly say while the Pastor is here. PASTOR. Don't be bashful, my lad. CAPTAIN. You had better confess, or you know how it will be. NOJD. Well, then, it was like this; we were at a dance at Gabriel's, and then-and then Ludwig said... CAPTAIN. What has Ludwig to do with the story? Stick to the truth. NOJD. Yes, and then Emma said that we should go into the barn. CAPTAIN. Ah, I suppose it was Emma who led you astray? NOJD. Well, that's about it. And I must say that unless the girl is willing nothing ever comes of it. CAPTAIN. Once for all: are you the child's father or not? NOJD. How should I know? CAPTAIN. What do you mean? Can't you tell that? NOJD. Why, no, one can never be quite sure. CAPTAIN. Were you not the only one, then? NOJD. Yes, that time, but I can't be sure that I was the only one for all that. CAPTAIN. DO you lay the blame on Ludwig, then? Is that what you mean? NOJD. It isn't easy to know who to lay the blame on. CAPTAIN. Yes, but you told Emma that you would marry her. NOJD. Oh, one always has to say that... CAPTAIN [to PASTOR]. This is really dreadful. THE FATHER 221 PASTOR. These are old stories! But listen, Nojd, you are surely man enough to know whether you are the father or not. NOJD. Well, certainly, I and the girl-but you know yourself, Pastor, that it needn't come to anything for all that. PASTOR. Look here, my lad, we are talking about you now. You will surely not leave the girl alone with the child. I suppose we can't compel you to marry her, but you shall provide for the child! that you shall do. NOJD. Well, then, Ludwig must, too. CAPTAIN. Then the case must go to the courts. I can't disentangle all this, and after all it doesn't concern me. So now, be off. PASTOR. Nojd, one word! Don't you think it is dishonorable to leave a girl like that in absolute destitution with her child? Don't you think so? Heigh? Don't you see that such a mode of action... h'm... h'm. NOJD. Yes, if only I knew for certain that I was father to the child, but one can never be sure of that, Pastor, and to slave all one's life for another man's child is not pleasant. Surely you, Pastor, and the Captain, can understand that for yourselves. CAPTAIN. Be off. NOJD. Cod keep you, Captain. CAPTAIN. But don't you go into the kitchen again, you rascal! [NOJD goes.] CAPTAIN. Now, why didn't you come down upon him? PASTOR. What do you mean? Didn't I give it him? CAPTAIN. Why, you only sat and muttered to yourself. PASTOR. To tell the truth, I really don't know what to say. It is a pity about the girl, certainly, but it is a pity about the lad, too. For just think if he were not the father. The girl can nurse the child for four months at the orphanage, and then it will be permanently provided for, but the lad can do no such thing. The girl will get a good place afterwards in some respectable house, but the lad's future may be ruined if he is dismissed from the regiment. 222 AUGUST STRINDBERG CAPTAIN. Upon my soul, I should like to be in the magistrate's shoes and judge this case. The lad is probably not quite innocent,-one can't be sure,-but the one thing one can be sure of is that the girl is guilty if there is any guilt in the matter. PASTOR. Well, well, I judge no man! But what were we talking about when this tiresome story interrupted us? It was about Bertha and the confirmation, wasn't it? CAPTAIN. Yes, but it was surely not about the, cQnfirmation particularly, but the whole of her education. This house is full of women who all want to educate my child. My mother-in-law wants to make a spiritualist of her; Laura insists on her being an artist; the governess wants to make her a Methodist; old Margret a Baptist; and the servant-girls a Salvationist. It won't do to try and make a soul in patches like that: especially when I, who have the chief right to form her character, have all myefforts opposed. I am determined to get her out of this house. PASTOR. There are too many women here governing the house. CAPTAIN. Yes, aren't there? It is like going into a cage full of tigers, and if I did not hold red-hot irons under their noses they might tear me to pieces at any moment! And you, you laugh, you villain. Was it not enough that I took your sister for my wife, without your palming off your old stepmother on me? PASTOR. Well, but, good Heavens, one cannot have stepmothers in one's house. CAPTAIN. No, you think it better to have mothers-in'law instead-in other people's houses, that is to say. PASTOR. Ah, well, every one of us has his burden in this life. CAPTAIN. Yes, but I have certainly too heavy a one. I have even my old nurse in addition, who treats me as if I ought to wear bibs still. She is a good old soul, Heaven knows, but she is not in the right place here. THE FATHER 223 PASTOR. You must keep order among the women folk, Adolf. You let them dictate to you far too much. CAPTAIN. Now, look here, will you enlighten me as to how to keep order among the women folk? PASTOR. Laura was treated with a firm hand, but, then, although she is my own sister, I must admit she really was a little troublesome. CAPTAIN. Laura has certainly her weak points, but with her they don't amount to much. PASTOR. Pray speak quite plainly, I know her. CAPTAIN. She has been brought up with romantic ideas and finds it a little difficult to accommodate herself to circumstances, but in any case she is my wife... PASTOR. And because she is your wife she is the best of them. No, my dear fellow, it is really she who oppresses you most. CAPTAIN. In the mean time the whole house is turned upside down. Laura won't let Bertha leave her, and I can't let her remain in this bedlam. PASTOR. Oh, Laura won't. Well, then, do you know, I'm afraid there will be difficulties. If she set her mind on anything when she was a child, she used to lie like a corpse till she got it, and then as likely as not she would give it back, explaining that she didn't care about the thing, whatever it was, but about getting her own way. CAPTAIN. So she was like that even then? H'm- She really sometimes gets into such passions that I am quite anxious about her and fear that she is ill. PASTOR. But what do you wish to do with Bertha that is so unpardonable? Is no compromise possible? CAPTAIN. You mustn't thinl.that I wish to make a prodigy of her, or a copy of myself/I will not play the pander to my daughter and educate her exclusively for matrimony, for in that case she would have bitter days if she remained unmarried. But I will not, on the other hand, persuade her into a masculine career that requires a long course of training, which 224 AUGUST STRINDBERG would be entirely thrown away in case she should wish to marry. PASTOR. What do you intend, then? CAPTAIN. I intend her to be a teacher. If she remains unmarried, she will be able to support herself, and at any rate be in no worse position than the poor schoolmasters who have to share their salaries with a family. If she marries, she can apply her knowledge to the education of her children. Don't you think I'm right? PASTOR. Perfectly right. But hasn't she, on the other hand, shown such talents for painting that it would outrage nature to suppress them? CAPTAIN. NO! I have shown her performances to an eminent painter, and he says that they are only the kind of thing that can be learned in schools. But then a young fellow came here in the summer who, of course, understood the matter much better, and declared that she had a remarkable talent, and so it was settled to Laura's satisfaction. PASTOR. Was he in love with the girl? CAPTAIN. I take that entirely for granted. PASTOR. Then, God be with you, old fellow, for in that case I see no help. But all this is very tiresome, and, of course, Laura has her supporters... in there. CAPTAIN. Yes, that you may depend on! The whole house is already up in arms, and, between ourselves, it is not exactly a noble conflict which is waged from that quarter. PASTOR [gets up]. Do you think I don't know that? CAPTAIN. YOU also? PASTOR. Also? CAPTAIN. But the worst of it is that it seems to me as if Bertha's career was being determined by most objectionable motives, in there. They drop hints about man having to see that woman can do this and can do that. It is Man and Woman against one another, incessantly, all day long. Must you go now? Do stay for supper. I have certainly nothing to offer you, but, still.... You know that I am expecting the new doctor. Have you seen him? THE FATHER 225 PASTOR. I caught a glimpse of him as I passed by. He looked pleasant and trustworthy. CAPTAIN. I'm glad of that. Do you think it possible he may side with me? PASTOR. Who knows? It depends on how much he has been accustomed to women. CAPTAIN. Oh! but won't you stay? PASTOR. No, thanks, my dear fellow; I promised to come home to supper, and the old lady gets so uneasy if I am late. CAPTAIN. Uneasy? Angry, you should say. Well, as you will. Let me help you with your overcoat. PASTOR. It seems to be very cold this evening. Thanks. You must take care of your health, Adolf, you look so nervous. CAPTAIN. Do I look nervous? PASTOR. Yes, you are not really well. CAPTAIN. Has Laura put that into your head? She has treated me these twenty years as if I were at the point of death. PASTOR. Laura? No; but-but I'm really uneasy about you. Take care of yourself. That's my advice! Good-bye, dear old man; but didn't you want to talk about the confirmation? CAPTAIN. Not at all! I assure you that matter will proceed in the ordinary course at the expense of the official conscience, for I have no intention of being either a confessor or a martyr. We have put all that behind us. Good-bye. Remember me at home. PASTOR. Good-bye, Adolf. Love to Laura. [Goes.] [The CAPTAIN opens his desk, and seats himself at it with his accounts.] CAPTAIN. Thirty-four... nine, forty-three... seven, eight, fifty-six. [LAURA enters from the inner rooms.] LAURA. Will you be so kind as to... CAPTAIN. In a moment! Fifty-six...seventy-one, eightyfour, eighty-nine, ninety-two, a hundred. What is it? LAURA. Am I disturbing you? 226 AUGUST STRINDBERG CAPTAIN. Not at all. Housekeeping money, I suppose? LAURA. Yes, housekeeping money. CAPTAIN. Put the accounts down there and I will go through them. LAURA. The accounts? CAPTAIN. Yes. LAURA. Am I to keep accounts now? CAPTAIN. Of course you are to keep accounts now. Our affairs are in a precarious condition, and in case of a liquidation there must be accounts or one may be punished as a fraudulent debtor. LAURA. It is not my fault that our affairs are in a precarious condition. CAPTAIN. That is exactly what will be shown by the accounts. LAURA. It is not my fault that the bailiff doesn't pay. CAPTAIN. Who recommended the bailiff so warmly? You! Why did you recommend a-shall we say-a fool? LAURA. And why did you take the fool, then? CAPTAIN. Because I was not allowed to eat in peace, nor to sleep in peace, nor to work in peace, till you got the man here. You wanted him so that your brother'might be rid of him; your mother wanted him because I didn't want him; the governess wanted him because he was a Scripture-reader; and old Margret because she had known his mother from her childhood. That's why I took him, and if I hadn't taken him I should be shut up in a madhouse now, or lying in the family grave. Meantime, here is the housekeeping money and your allowance. You can give me the accounts presently. LAURA [curtesies]. Thanks so much. Do you also keep accounts of what you spend besides the housekeeping money? CAPTAIN. That does not concern you. LAURA. No, that is true, just as little as my child's education concerns me. Have my lords made up their minds after the conference of this evening? CAPTAIN. I had made up my mind beforehand, and it therefore only remained for me to announce my intention to the one THE FATHER 227 friend I and the family have in common. Bertha is to board in town and starts in a fortnight. LAURA. Where is she to board, if I may venture to ask? CAPTAIN. At Auditor Safberg's. LAURA. That free-thinker! CAPTAIN. The law declares that children are to be brought up in their father's faith. LAURA. And the mother is to have no voice in the matter? CAPTAIN. None whatever. She has sold her birthright by a legal transaction, and surrendered her rights in return for the man's undertaking to care for her and her children. LAURA. Therefore she has no power over her child. CAPTAIN. NO, none whatever. When one has once sold one's goods, one cannot have them back and yet keep the money. LAURA. But if both father and mother agree... CAPTAIN. How could that happen? I wish her to live in town, you wish her to live at home. The arithmetical result would be that she remained at the railway station, midway be-. tween town and home. This is a knot that cannot be untied. Do you see? LAURA. Then it must be broken! What was N6jd doing here? CAPTAIN. That is a professional secret. LAURA. Which the whole kitchen knows. CAPTAIN., Good; then you must know it. LAURA. I do know it! CAPTAIN. And have your judgment ready beforehand. LAURA. My judgment is the law's judgment. CAPTAIN, It is not written in "the judgment of the law'" who the child's father is. LAURA. No, but one can usually find that out. CAPTAIN. Wise people say that one never can tell those things. LAURA. That is remarkable. Can one never tell who is the father of a child? CAPTAIN., NO; SO it is maintained. 228 AUGUST STRINDBERG LAURA. That is remarkable. How, then, can the father have such rights over the child? CAPTAIN. He only has them when he has assumed the responsibility, or has had the responsibility thrust on him. And in marriage there is, of course, no doubt about paternity. LAURA. NO doubt? CAPTAIN. NO, I should hope not. LAURA. And in case the wife has been unfaithful? CAPTAIN. This is no such case! Have you anything further to ask about? LAURA. Nothing whatever. CAPTAIN. Then I shall go up to my room, and perhaps you will be good enough to inform me when the Doctor comes. [Shuts the bureau and gets up.] LAURA. Certainly. CAPTAIN. And as soon as he comes. For I don't wish to be rude to him. You understand. [CAPTAIN goes through the private door to right.] LAURA. I understand. [LAURA gazes at the bank notes she holds in her hand.] MOTHER-IN-LAW'S VOICE [within]. Laura! LAURA. Yes. MOTHER-IN-LAW'S VOICE. Is my tea ready? LAURA [in the doorway to the inner rooms]. You shall have it directly. [LAURA goes toward the hall door in the background, as the ORDERLY opens it and announces-DOCTOR OSTERMARK.] DOCTOR [enters]. Madam! LAURA [goes toward him and gives him her hand]. Goodevening, Doctor? We are all very glad to see you here. The Captain is out, but he will be back directly. DOCTOR. I beg your pardon for coming so late, but I have had to pay some professional visits already. LAURA. Won't you sit down? Do! DOCTOR. Thank you. THE FATHER 229 LAURA. Yes, there is a great deal of illness in the neighborhood just now, but I hope that you will settle down comfortably all the same. It is so very important for lonely country people like us to find a doctor who is interested in his patients. And I hear so much good of you, Doctor, that I hope the happiest relations will prevail between us. DOCTOR. You are much too kind, but I hope, on the other hand, that my visits to you may not too frequently be caused by necessity. Your family, I believe, is usually in good health... LAURA. We have fortunately not had any acute illness, but still things are not entirely as they ought to be. DOCTOR. Indeed? LAURA. They are, Heaven knows, not so satisfactory as we might wish. DOCTOR. YOU really alarm me. LAURA. There are circumstances in a family, which one is bound in honor and conscience to conceal from the whole world... DOCTOR. Excepting from the doctor. LAURA. Exactly. It is, therefore, my painful duty to tell you the whole truth immediately. DOCTOR. Can we not postpone this conference until I have had the honor of being introduced to the Captain? LAURA. No! You must hear me before seeing him. DOCTOR. It relates to him, then? LAURA. Yes-to him, my poor, dear husband. DOCTOR. You make me uneasy, madam, and believe me, I sympathize with your misfortune. LAURA [taking out her handkerchief]. My husband's mind is affected. Now you know all, and must judge for yourself when you see him. DOCTOR. IS it possible! I have read the Captain's excellent treatises on mineralogy with great admiration, and have always found them display a clear and powerful intellect. LAURA. Really? I should be delighted if his whole family should prove to be mistaken. 230 AUGUST STRINDBERG DOCTOR. But of course it is possible that his mind is disturbed in other directions. Let me hear. LAURA. That is what we also fear. You see, he has sometimes the most extraordinary ideas, which of course one would expect in a learned man if they did not exercise a disastrous influence on the welfare of his whole family. For instance, he has a fancy for buying all manner of things. DOCTOR. That is serious; but what does he buy? LAURA. Whole boxes of books that he never reads. DOCTOR. Oh, it is nothing out of the way for a scholar to buy books. LAURA. You don't believe what I say? DOCTOR. Yes, madam, I am convinced that you believe what you say. LAURA. Then, is it reasonable to think that one can see, by looking in a microscope, what is going on in another planet? DOCTOR. Does he say he can do that? LAURA. Yes, he says so. DOCTOR. In a microscope? LAURA. In a microscope, yes. DOCTOR. This is serious, if it is so. LAURA. If it is so. Then you have no belief in me, Doctor, and I am sitting here and confiding the family secret in you... DOCTOR. Indeed, madam, your confidence honors me, but as a physician I must investigate and observe before I can judge. Has the Captain ever shown any symptoms of uncertainty of temper, or instability of will? LAURA. Has he ever? We have been married for twenty years and he has never yet made a decision without abandoning it afterwards. DOCTOR. Is he obstinate? LAURA. He always insists on having his own way, but when he has got it, he drops the whole thing and asks me to decide. DOCTOR. This is serious and requires close observation. The will, you see, is the mainspring of the mind, and if it is injured the whole mind collapses. THE FATHER 231 LAURA. And God knows that I have had to teach myself to meet his wishes halfway all through these long years of trial. Ah, if you only knew what a life I have endured with him-if you only knew? DOCTOR. Your misfortune touches me deeply, and I promise you to see what can be done. I pity you with my whole heart, and I beg you to trust. me absolutely. But after what I have heard I must impress one thing on you. Avoid suggesting any ideas that make a strong impression on the sufferer, for in a weak brain they are rapidly developed and readily turn to monomania or "idees fixes." Do you understand? LAURA. You mean, avoid rousing his suspicions? DOCTOR. Exactly so. One can make the insane believe anything just because they are receptive to everything. LAURA. Indeed. Then I understand. Yes-yes. [Ringing heard within.] Excuse me, my mother has something to say to me. One moment.... Ah, there is Adolf. [Goes.] [CAPTAIN enters the private door.] CAPTAIN. Ah, you are here already, Doctor. You are very welcome. DOCTOR. Captain! It is a very great pleasure to me to make the acquaintance of so celebrated a man of science. CAPTAIN. You are very good. My professional duties don't allow me to make any profound investigations, but I believe myself to be really on the track of a discovery. DOCTOR. Really. CAPTAIN. You see, I have submitted meteoric stones to spectrum analysis, with the result that I have found coal, that is to say, a clear trace of organic life. What do you think of that? DOCTOR. Can you see that in the microscope? CAPTAIN. No, deuce take it, in the spectroscope. DOCTOR. The spectroscope! Pardon: Well, then, you will soon be able to tell us what is happening in Jupiter. CAPTAIN. Not what is happening, but what has happened. If only the confounded booksellers in Paris would send me the 232 AUGUST STRINDBERG books; but I believe that all the booksellers in the universe have conspired against me. Just imagine that for the last two months not a single one has even answered my communications, either letters or abusive telegrams. I shall go frantic over it, and I can't imagine what it all means. DOCTOR. Oh, they are generally unbusinesslike fellows: you mustn't take it so much to heart. CAPTAIN. No, but the deuce is that I shall not get my treatise done in time, and I know that they are working on tie same lines in Berlin. But that's not what we ought to be talking about.... What about you? If you care to live here we have a small apartment at your disposal in the wing, or perhaps you would rather live in the old doctor's quarters. DOCTOR. Just as you like. CAPTAIN. No, as you like. Which is it to be? DOCTOR. You must decide that, Captain. CAPTAIN. NO, I shall decide nothing. You must say what you wish. I wish nothing, nothing whatever. DOCTOR. Oh, but I really cannot decide.... CAPTAIN. For God's sake, do say, Doctor, what you would like. I have no will in this matter, no opinion, no wishes. Are you so utterly feeble that you don't know what you wish? Answer me or I shall get angry. DOCTOR. As it rests with me, I choose to live here. CAPTAIN. Good! Thank you.... Ah, forgive me, Doctor, but nothing annoys me so much as to hear people profess indifference about anything. [Rings.] [Enter NURSE.] CAPTAIN. Oh, there you are, Margret. Do you happen to know if the wing is in order for the Doctor? NURSE. Yes, sir, it is. CAPTAIN. All right. Then I won't detain you, Doctor; you must be tired. Good-bye and welcome again; we shall meet to-morrow, I hope. DOCTOR. Good-evening, Captain. THE FATHER 233 CAPTAIN. I presume that my wife explained our circumstances to you a little, so that you have some idea how the land lies. DOCTOR. Your excellent wife has given me a few hints about one thing and another such as were necessary to a stranger. Good-evening, Captain. [Goes.] CAPTAIN. What do you want, you old dear! Is anything the matter? NURSE. NOW, my dear Mr. Adolf, you must just listen. CAPTAIN. Yes, old Margret. Talk away, you are the only one I can listen to without getting into a rage. NURSE. NOW, just listen, Mr. Adolf. Don't you think you should go halfway and come to an agreement with mistress about this fuss over the child. Just think of a mother... CAPTAIN. Think of a father, Margret. NURSE. There, there, there! A father has something besides his child, but a mother has nothing but her child. CAPTAIN. Just so, old lady. She has only one burden, but I have three, and I bear her burden, too. Don't you think that I should have had a better position in the world than a poor soldier's if I had not had her and her child? NURSE. Yes, but it wasn't that I wanted to say. CAPTAIN.. NO, I believe that, for you wanted to make me confess I was in the wrong. NURSE. Don't you believe, Mr. Adolf, that I wish you well? CAPTAIN. Yes, dear friend, I do believe it, but you don't know what is for my good. You see, it isn't enough for me to have given the child life, I want to give her my soul too. NURSE. I don't understand anything about that. But I do think that you ought to be able to agree. CAPTAIN. You are not my friend, Margret! NURSE. I? Ah, God! How can you say that, Mr. Adolf. Do you think I can forget that you were my child when you were little. CAPTAIN. NO, yOU dear; have I forgotten it? You have been like a mother to me, and have supported me hitherto 234 AUGUST STRINDBERG when I had everybody against me, but now, when I really need you, you desert me and go over to the enemy. NURSE. The enemy! CAPTAIN. Yes, the enemy! You know well enough how things are in this house; you have seen everything from beginning to end. NURSE. I have seen well enough! but, my God, why should two people torment the life out of one another; two people who are otherwise so good and wish all others well. Mistress is never like that to me or to any one else... CAPTAIN. Only to me; I know it. But let me tell you, Margret, that if you desert me now, you will do wrong. For they have begun to plot against me, and that doctor is not my friend. NURSE. Ah, Mr. Adolf, you believe evil about everybody; but, you see, it's because you haven't the true faith, that's just what it is. CAPTAIN. But you and the Baptists have found the only true faith. You are, indeed, happy! NURSE. At any rate, I am not so unhappy as you, Mr. Adolf. Humble your proud heart and you will see that God will make you happy in love to your neighbor. CAPTAIN. It is a strange thing that you no sooner speak of God and love than your voice becomes hard and your eyes evil. No, Margret, you have certainly not the true faith. NURSE. Yes, you're proud and hard enough in your learning, but it doesn't amount to much when it comes to the pinch. CAPTAIN. How arrogantly you talk, humble heart. I know well enough learning is of no use with such creatures as you. NURSE. You should be ashamed of yourself! But in spite of everything, old Margret loves her great big boy best, and he will come back again, you'll see, like a good child, in the day of trouble. CAPTAIN. Margret! Forgive me, but believe me there is no one here who wishes me well but you. Help me, for I am sure that something is going to happen. What it is I don't THE FATHER 235 know, but some evil thing is on its way. [Scream from within.] What is it? Who is screaming? [BERTHA enters from inner rooms.] BERTHA. Father! Father! help me, save me! CAPTAIN. What is it, my darling child? Speak! BERTHA. Help me. She is going to hurt me! CAPTAIN. Who is going to hurt you? Speak! Speak! BERTHA. Grandmother! But it's my fault, for I deceived her! CAPTAIN. Go on. BERTHA. Yes, but you mustn't say anything about it! Do you hear? Promise? CAPTAIN. Well, but tell me what it is. [NuRSE goes.] BERTHA. In the evening she generally turns down the lamp, and then she makes me sit at a table holding a pen over a piece of paper. And then she says that the spirits are to write. CAPTAIN. What do you say? And you have never told me this? BERTHA. Forgive me, but I dared not. For grandmother says that the spirits take revenge if one speaks about them. And then the pen writes, but I don't know if it is I. And sometimes it goes beautifully, but sometimes it can't do anything at all. And when I am tired nothing comes, but she wants it to come all the same. And this evening I thought I was writing beautifully, but then grandmother said it was all out of Stagnelius,l and that I was deceiving her, and then she got so fearfully angry. CAPTAIN. Do you believe that there are spirits? BERTHA. I don't know. CAPTAIN. But I know that there are none. BERTHA. But grandmother says that you don't understand, papa, and that you have much worse things that can see to other planets. 1Erik Johan Stagnelius, poet and dramatist, 1793-1823. 236 AUGUST STRINDBERG CAPTAIN. Does she say that? Does she say that? What else does she say? BERTHA. She says that you can't work wonders. CAPTAIN. I never said I could. You know what meteoric stones are,-stones that fall down from other heavenly bodies. I can examine them and say whether they contain the same elements as our world. That is all that I can see. BERTHA. But grandmother says there are things that she can see, but that you cannot see. CAPTAIN. Then she lies! BERTHA. Grandmother doesn't tell lies. CAPTAIN. Why not? BERTHA. Then mother tells lies, too. CAPTAIN. H'm. BERTHA. If you say that mother tells lies, I will never believe you again. CAPTAIN. I have not said so, and therefore you must believe me when I tell you that your future welfare requires that you should leave your home. Will you? Will you go to town and learn something useful? BERTHA. Ah, yes, I should love to go to town, away from here, anywhere! Only let me see you sometimes, often. Oh, it is always so gloomy and sad in-there, as if it were a winter's night, but when you come, father, it is like some spring morning when they take out the inner windows. CAPTAIN. My beloved child. My dear child. BERTHA. But, father, you must be good to mother, do you hear? She cries so often. CAPTAIN. H'm. Then you will go to town? BERTHA. Yes, yes. CAPTAIN. But suppose mother will not let you go? BERTHA. But she must let me. CAPTAIN. But what if she won't? BERTHA. Well, then, I don't know what will happen. But she must! She must! CAPTAIN. Will you ask her? THE FATHER 237 BERTHA. You must ask her very nicely, for she doesn't care about me. CAPTAIN.. H'm! Now if you wish it, and I wish it, and she doesn't wish it, what shall we do then? BERTHA. Ah, then it will be all in a muddle again! Why can't you ask.... [Enter LAURA.] LAURA. Ah, so Bertha is here! Then perhaps we may hear her own opinion, as the question of her future has to be decided. CAPTAIN. The child can hardly have any well-founded opinion as to how a young girl's life is likely to shape itself, while we, on the contrary, can easily make an approximate calculation, for we have seen a great number of young girls' lives unfold themselves. LAURA. But as we are of different opinions, Bertha's must be the determining one. CAPTAIN. No, I let no one usurp my rights, neither women nor children. Bertha, leave us. [BERTHA goes out.] LAURA. You were afraid of hearing her opinion, because you thought it would be to my advantage. CAPTAIN. I know that she wishes to go away from home, but I know also that you possess the power of changing her mind according to your pleasure. LAURA. Am I really so powerful? CAPTAIN. Yes, you have a fiendish power of getting your own way, but people who are not ashamed of interfering always have. How did you get Dr. Nordling away, for instance, and how did you get the new man here? LAURA. Yes, how did I manage that? CAPTAIN. You insulted the first, until he went, and made your brother scrape votes together for the other. LAURA. Well, that was quite simple and perfectly legitimate. Is Bertha to leave home? CAPTAIN. Yes, she is to start in a fortnight. LAURA. Is that your determination? 238 AUGUST STRINDBERG CAPTAIN. Yes. LAURA. Have you spoken to Bertha about it? CAPTAIN. Yes. LAURA. Then I must try to prevent it. CAPTAIN. You cannot. LAURA. Can't I? Do you really think I would trust my daughter to these wicked people to be told that everything her mother has taught her is mere foolishness? Why, she would despise me for the rest of her life! CAPTAIN. Do you think that a father will allow ignorant and conceited women to teach his daughter that her father is a charlatan? LAURA. It ought to mean less to the father. CAPTAIN. Why so? LAURA. Because the mother is nearer to the child, since it has been discovered that no one can tell for certain who is the father of a child. CAPTAIN. What is the application in this case? LAURA. That you do not know whether you are Bertha's father. CAPTAIN. Do I not know? LAURA. No; what no one can know, you surely cannot know. CAPTAIN. Are you joking? LAURA. No; I am only making use of your own teaching. Besides, how can you tell that I have not been unfaithful to you? CAPTAIN. I believe a great deal of you, but not that, nor that you would talk about it if it were true. LAURA. Assume that I was prepared to bear anything, even scorn and rejection, for the sake of- being allowed to keep and dispose of my child, and that I was truthful just now when I declared that Bertha is my child, but not yours. Assume.. CAPTAIN. Stop! LAURA. Only assume this: In that case your power would be at an end. THE FATHER 239 CAPTAIN. Yes, when you had proved that I was not the father. LAURA. That would not be so difficult! Should you like me to do that? CAPTAIN. Stop! LAURA. I should, of course, only need to declare the name of the real father, give all details of place and time; for instance-when was Bertha born? In the third year of our marriage. CAPTAIN. Stop or... LAURA. Or what? I am to stop now. Just think for a moment of all you do and decide, and whatever you do, don't make yourself ridiculous. CAPTAIN. I consider all this most lamentable. LAURA. Which is more ridiculous than ever. CAPTAIN. And what of you? LAURA. Oh, I have managed too cleverly. CAPTAIN. That is why one cannot contend with you. LAURA. Then, why do you provoke contests with a superior enemy? CAPTAIN. Superior? LAURA. Yes, it is singular, but I have never looked at a man without knowing myself his superior. CAPTAIN. Well, you shall be made to see your superior for once, so that you never shall forget it. LAURA. That will be interesting. [Enter NURSE.] NURSE. Supper is ready. Will you come in, ma'am? LAURA. Yes, directly. [CAPTAIN lingers; sits down in an arm-chair by the table.] LAURA. Won't you come in to supper? CAPTAIN. No, thanks, I don't want anything. LAURA. What! Are you annoyed? CAPTAIN. No, but I am not hungry. 240 AUGUST STRINDBERG LAURA. Come, or they will question me in a way that isunnecessary.... Be good now.... You won't; then stay there. [Goes.] NURSE. Mr. Adolf! What is all this about? CAPTAIN. I don't know what it is. Can you explain to me how it is that a grown man can be treated as if he were a child? NURSE. I don't understand it, but it must be because you are all women's children, every man of you, great and small... CAPTAIN. But no women are born of men. Yes, but I am Bertha's father. Tell me, Margret, don't you believe it? Don't you? NURSE. Lord, how childish you are. Of course you are your own child's father. Come and eat now, and don't sit there and brood. There, there, come now. CAPTAIN. Get out, woman. To hell with the witches. [Goes to the private door.] Svard, Svard! [Enter ORDERLY.] ORDERLY. Yes, Captain. CAPTAIN. Let them put the horses in the covered sleigh at once. NURSE. Captain, just listen! CAPTAIN. Out, woman! At once! NURSE. Lord preserve us, what will come of all this! [CAPTAIN puts on his cap and prepares to go out.] CAPTAIN. Don't expect me home before midnight. NURSE. Jesus help us, what will be the end of this! ACT II The same scene as in the previous Act. A lighted lamp on the table; it is night. The DOCTOR. LAURA. DOCTOR. From what I could find in the course of our conversation, the case is not yet clearly proved to me. To begin THE FATHER 241 with, you had made one mistake in saying that he had arrived at these astonishing results about other celestial bodies by means of a microscope. Now that I hear it was a spectroscope, he is not only entirely cleared of any suspicion of insanity, but is shown to have done a great service to science. LAURA. Yes, but I never said that. DOCTOR. Madam, I made careful notes of our conversation, and I remember that I asked about this very point because I thought that I could not have heard aright. One must be scrupulous in making such assertions when a certificate of insanity is in question. LAURA. A certificate of insanity? DOCTOR. Yes; you must surely know that an insane person loses his civil and family rights. LAURA. NO, I did not know that. DOCTOR. There was a further point that seems to me suspicious. He spoke of his communications to his booksellers having remained unanswered. Permit me to ask if you intercepted them from motives of mistaken kindness. LAURA. Yes, I did. It was my duty to watch over the interests of the household and I could not let him ruin us all without intervention. DOCTOR. Pardon me, but I think that you cannot have considered the consequences of such an act. If he discovers your secret interference with his affairs, his suspicions will be aroused and will grow with the rapidity of an avalanche. But, besides this, you have raised obstacles to his will and consequently still further provoked irritability. You must know how maddening it is to have your most ardent desires thwarted and your will restrained. LAURA. As if I didn't know that! DOCTOR. Then consider what he must have gone through. LAURA [getting up]. It is midnight and he hasn't come home. We may fear the worst now. DOCTOR. But tell me what actually happened this evening after I left. I must know everything. 242 AUGUST STRINDBERG LAURA.. He talked in the wildest way about the most extraordinary things. Such fancies, for instance, as that he is not the father of his child. DOCTOR. That is strange. How did such an idea come into his head. LAURA. I really can't imagine, unless it was that he had to examine one of the men in a child maintenance case, and when I took the girl's part, he got excited and said that no one could tell who was father to a child. God knows that I did everything to calm him, but I fear that nothing can help him now. [Cries.] DOCTOR. This really cannot be allowed to go on. Something must be done, without, of course, rousing his suspicions. Tell me, has the Captain ever had such delusions before? LAURA. Six years ago we had the same state of things and then he actually confessed, in his own letter to the doctor, that he feared for his reason. DOCTOR. Ah, yes, this is of course a story that has deep roots, and the sanctity of family life-and so on-prevents... I cannot ask about everything, but must keep to the surface. What is done can't be undone, alas, and yet the remedy should have some application to the past.-Where do you think he is now? LAURA. I have no idea. He has such wild fancies now. DOCTOR. Should you like me to stay till he returns? I could say, to avoid suspicion, that I had come to see your mother, who is unwell. LAURA. Yes, that will do admirably. And do not leave us, Doctor; I can't tell you how anxious I am! But wouldn't it be better to tell him right out what you think of his condition? DOCTOR. We never do that unless the patient speaks of the subject himself, and very rarely even then. It depends entirely on the direction the case takes. But we mustn't stay here; perhaps I had better go into the next room, it will look more natural. LAURA. Yes, it will be better, and then Margret can sit here. She is accustomed to sit up when he is out, and she is THE FATHER 243 the only one, too, who has any power over him. [Goes to the door on left.] Margret, Margret! [Enter the NURSE.] NURSE. Yes, ma'am. Is the master home? LAURA. No, but you are to sit here and wait for him, and when he comes you are to say that my mother is ill and that the Doctor is here because of that. NURSE. Yes, ma'am. I'll see that it is all right. LAURA [opens door to inner rooms]. Will you come in here, Doctor? DOCTOR. Thanks. [The NURSE sits at the table and takes up a hymnbook and spectacles.] NURSE. Ah, yes, ah, yes! [Reads half aloud.] Ah, woe is me, how sad a thing Is life within this vale of tears, Death's angel triumphs like a king And calls aloud to all the spheres'Tis vanity, all vanity. Yes, yes! yes, yes! All that on earth hath life and breath Falls stricken down before his spear,. And sorrow, saved alone from death, Inscribes above the mighty bier'Tis vanity, all vanity. Yes, yes. [BERTHA enters with a coffee-pot and some needlework; she speaks low.] BERTHA. Margret, may I sit with you? it is so lonely up there. NURSE. Oh! Good gracious, are you still up, Bertha? BERTHA. I must work at papa's Christmas present, you see. And I've got something good for you here. NURSE. Yes, but dear heart, it won't do. You have to get up in the morning and it is past twelve o'clock. 244 AUGUST STRINDBERG BERTHA. Well, what does that matter? I dare not sit up there alone; I believe it's haunted. NURSE. There, now, didn't I say so! Yes, mark my words, this house is no good place. What did you hear? BERTHA. Oh, just fancy, I heard some one singing up in the garret. NURSE. In the garret? At this time of night! BERTHA. And it was a very, very sad song, such as I never heard. And it seemed as if it came from the lumber-room, where the cradle stands, you know, on the left.... NURSE. Oh, dear, oh, dear; and it's such fearful weather to-night! I believe the chimneys will blow down. Ah, what is then this earthly life But grief, affliction, trouble, strife? E'en when fairest it has seemed Vanity it must be deemed. Yes, dear child, God send us a happy Christmas! BERTHA. Margaret, is it true that papa is ill? NURSE. Yes; he is, indeed. BERTHA. Then we shan't be able to keep Christmas Eve. But how can he be up if he is ill? NURSE. You see, my child, the kind of illness that he has doesn't prevent him from being up. Hush, there's some one out in the hall. Go to bed now and take the coffee-pot away, or the master will be angry. BERTHA [going out with the tray]. Good-night, Margret! NURSE. Good-night, my child. God bless you! [BERTHA goes.] [Enter CAPTAIN. He takes off his overcoat.] CAPTAIN. Are you still up? Go to bed. NURSE. I was only waiting till... [CAPTAIN lights a candle, opens his desk, sits down at it, and takes letters and newspapers out of his pocket.] NURSE. Mr. Adolf. CAPTAIN. What do you want? THE FATHER 245 NURSE. Old mistress is ill, and the Doctor is here. CAPTAIN. IS it anything dangerous? NURSE. NO, I don't think so. It is only a cold. CAPTAIN [gets up]. Who was the father of your child, Margret? NURSE. Oh, I have told you that many and many a time; it was that scamp Johansson. CAPTAIN. Are you sure that it was he? NURSE. How childish you are; of course I am sure of it, since he was the only one. CAPTAIN. Yes; but was he sure that he was the only one? No; he could not be, but you could be sure of it. You see that's the difference. NURSE. I can't see any difference. CAPTAIN. NO; yOU cannot see it, but the-difference is there all the same. [Turns over the pages of a photograph album that is on the table.] Do you think Bertha is like me? [Looks at a portrait in the album.] NURSE. Why, yes; you are as like as two peas. CAPTAIN. Did Johansson confess that he was the father? NURSE. He had no choice. CAPTAIN. How dreadful! There is the Doctor. [Enter DOCTOR.] CAPTAIN. Good-evening, Doctor. How is my mother-inlaw? DOCTOR. Oh, it is not at all serious; it is merely a slight sprain of the left foot. CAPTAIN. I thought Margret said that it was a cold. There seem to be different interpretations of the same case. Go to bed, Margret. [NURSE goes.] [A pause.] CAPTAIN. Do sit down, Doctor Ostermark. DOCTOR [sits down]. Thanks. CAPTAIN. Is it true that you obtain striped foals if you cross a zebra and a mare? DOCTOR [astonished]. Perfectly true. 246 AUGUST STRINDBERG CAPTAIN. Is it true that the foals continue to be striped if the breed is carried on with a stallion? DOCTOR. Yes, that is also true. CAPTAIN. Therefore, under certain conditions, a stallion can be sire to striped foals? DOCTOR. Yes, so it appears. CAPTAIN. That is to say: the offspring's likeness to the father proves nothing. DOCTOR. Well... CAPTAIN. That is to say, paternity cannot be proved. DOCTOR. H'm... Well! CAPTAIN. You are a widower and have had children? DOCTOR. Ye-es. CAPTAIN. Did you never see how ridiculous you were as a father? I know nothing so comical as to see a father leading his child about the streets, or to hear a father talk of his children. "My wife's children," he ought to say. Did you never realize how false your position was? Were you never troubled by doubts, I won't say suspicions, for I assume, as a gentleman, that your wife was above suspicion? DOCTOR. No, really, I never was, and, indeed, Captain, a man must take his children on trust as Goethe, I think, says. CAPTAIN. On trust when there is a woman in the case? That is risky. DOCTOR. Oh! there are so many kinds of women. CAPTAIN. Modern investigation has pronounced that there is only one kind!... When I was young I was strong andif I may boast-handsome. I can only remember two momentary impressions that in recalling them have caused me to doubt this. I was once on board a steamer sitting with a few friends in the fore-saloon. The young stewardess came and flung herself down by me, burst into tears, and told us that her sweetheart was drowned. We pitied her, and I ordered some champagne. After the second glass, I touched her foot, after the fourth her knee, and before morning I had consoled her. DOCTOR. One swallow does not make a summer. THE FATHER 247 CAPTAIN. NOW comes the second, and that was really a summer swallow. I was at Lysekil. A young woman was staying there. She had her children with her, but her husband was in town. She was religious, had extremely severe principles, preached morality to me, and was, I believe, entirely virtuous. I lent her some books, and when she was leaving she unexpectedly enough returned them. Three months later I found a visiting card in those very books with a fairly plain declaration. It was innocent, as innocent, that is to say, as a declaration of love from a married woman to a strange man who never made any advances can be. Now comes the moral. Whatever you do, don't believe too much. DOCTOR. But don't believe too little either. CAPTAIN. NO. Not that either. But don't you see, Doctor Ostermark, the woman was so unconsciously dishonest that she spoke of her infatuation for me to her husband. This very unconsciousness of their instinctive duplicity is what is so dangerous. It is, I grant you, an extenuating circumstance, but it cannot make me reverse my judgment; only soften it. DOCTOR. Captain, your thoughts are taking a morbid direction, and you ought to control them. CAPTAIN. You must not use the word morbid. All steam boilers, as you know, explode when the pressure gauge registers 100, but the scale is not the same for all boilers; do you understand? In the meantime you are here to watch me. If I only were not a man I should have the right of making accusations, or complaints as they are so cleverly called, and, perhaps, I should be able to give you the whole diagnosis, and what is more, the history of my disease; but I am unfortunately a man, and there is nothing for me but to fold my arms across my breast like the Roman, and hold my breath till I die. Good-night. DOCTOR. Captain, if you are ill, it will not offend your dignity as a man to tell me all. Indeed, I am bound to hear the other side. CAPTAIN. It is enough that you have heard the one, I imagine. 248 AUGUST STRINDBERG DOCTOR. NO, Captain. And do you know when I heard Mrs. Alving eulogize her dead husband, I thought to myself it was a confounded pity the fellow was dead. CAPTAIN. DO yOU suppose that he would have spoken if he had been alive? And do you suppose that any dead husbands would be believed if they were to come to life? Goodnight, Doctor. You hear that I am calm, and you can safely go to bed. DOCTOR. Good-night, then, Captain. I can take no further part in this affair. CAPTAIN. Are we enemies? DOCTOR. Far from it! Only it is a pity that we cannot be friends. Good-night. [Goes.] [The CAPTAIN follows the DOCTOR to the door in the background, and then goes to the door at the left and opens it slightly.] CAPTAIN. Come in, I want to talk to you! I heard you standing out there listening. [Enter LAURA embarrassed. CAPTAIN sits down at the bureau.] CAPTAIN. It is late, but we must talk things out. Sit down. [A pause.] I have been at the post-office this evening to fetch the letters. From these it appears that you have kept back my letters, both on their departure and arrival. The direct consequence of this is that the delay has entirely frustrated the results I hoped for my work. LAURA. It was an act of kindness on my part, since you neglected your professional duties for this other work. CAPTAIN. It surely cannot have been kindness, for you knew quite well that I should one day win more renown from that than from the service; but you were particularly anxious that I should not distinguish myself, lest your own insignificance should be eclipsed. In consequence of this I have intercepted letters addressed to you. LAURA. That is very noble of you. THE FATHER 249 CAPTAIN. I see you have a high opinion of me.-It appears from these letters that for some time past you have been arraying my former friends against me by spreading reports about my mental condition. And you have succeeded in your efforts, for now there is not more than one person from the Colonel down to the cook who believes me to be sane. Now the facts about my illness are these: my reason is unaffected, as you know, so that I can discharge both my duties to the service and my duties as a father; my nerves are still more or less under my control, and will continue so as long as my will remains fairly intact. You have, however, so thoroughly undermined it that it will soon be ready to fly off the cogwheel, and then the whole mechanism will go to smash. I will not appeal to your feelings, for you have none, that is your strength; but I will appeal to your interests. LAURA. Let me hear. CAPTAIN. You have succeeded by this conduct in arousing my suspicions to such an extent that my judgment is nearly destroyed, and my thoughts begin to wander. This is that approaching insanity you are waiting for, and that may come now at any time. The question then arises for you: Is it more to your interest that I should be sane or insane? Consider! If I succumb I shall have to leave the service, and you will be in a very awkward position. If I die, my life insurance will fall to you. But if I take my own life, you will get nothing. It is therefore to your interest that I should live out my life. LAURA. IS this a trap? CAPTAIN. Of course! But it rests with you to avoid it or to run your head into it. LAURA. YOU say that you will kill yourself? You shall not do it! CAPTAIN. Don't be sure. Do you think a man can live when he has nothing and nobody to live for? LAURA. You surrender, then? CAPTAIN. NO, I offer you peace. LAURA. The conditions? 250 AUGUST STRINDBERG CAPTAIN. That I may keep my reason. Deliver me from my suspicions and I throw up the struggle. LAURA. What suspicions? CAPTAIN. About Bertha's origin. LAURA. Is there any doubt about that? CAPTAIN. Yes, I have doubts, and you have awakened them. LAURA. I? CAPTAIN. Yes, you have dropped them like henbane in my ears, and circumstances have given them growth. Deliver me from uncertainty, tell me outright that my suspicions are justified, and I will forgive you in advance. LAURA. You really can't expect me to take upon myself a sin that I have not committed. CAPTAIN. What can it matter when you are certain that I shall not betray you? Do you think that a man would be likely to blazon his own shame abroad. LAURA. If I say it is not true, you won't be convinced; but if I say it is true, you will be convinced. You seem to hope it is true? CAPTAIN. Yes, strangely enough; no doubt because the first supposition can't be proved; only the last. LAURA. Have you any reasons for your suspicions? CAPTAIN. Yes, and no. LAURA. I believe that you want to prove me guilty, so that you can get rid of me and have absolute control over the child. But you won't lure me into any such snare. CAPTAIN. You surely don't think that I would adopt another man's child, if I were convinced of your guilt? LAURA. No, I'm sure you wouldn't, and that convinces me that you lied just now when you said that you forgave me in advance. CAPTAIN [gets up]. Laura, save me and my reason. You don't seem to understand what I say. If the child is not mine, I have no control over it, and don't want to have any; and that is precisely what you want, isn't it? You will have the power over the child, and I shall be left to maintain you both. THE FATHER 251 LAURA. The power, yes. Has this whole life-and-death struggle been fought for anything but the power? CAPTAIN. You know I do not believe in a future life. The child was ray future life. She was my conception of immortality, and perhaps the only one that has any analogy in reality. If you deprive me of that, you cut short my existence. LAURA. Why did we not separate in time? CAPTAIN. Because the child bound us together; but the bond became a chain. And how did it happen-how? I have never thought of this, but now the memory of it rises up in accusation, perhaps in condemnation. We had been married two years, and had no child, you best know why. I fell ill and lay at the point of death. In an interval of the fever I heard voices outside in the drawing-room. You and the solicitor were talking about the fortune that I then still possessed. He explained that you could not inherit anything, because we had no children, and asked you if you were enceinte. What you answered I did not hear. I recovered, and we had a child. Who is its father? LAURA. You. CAPTAIN. No, it is not I. There is a buried crime here which begins to give off poisonous exhalations; and what a hellish crime. You have been tender enough about freeing black slaves, but you have kept white ones yourself. I have worked and slaved for you, your child, your mother, your servants; I have sacrificed career and promotion, I have endured torture, flagellation, sleeplessness, unrest for your sake, until my hair has grown gray; and all in order that you might enjoy a life without care, and when you grew old, enjoy it over again in your child. I have borne it all without complaint, because I thought myself the father of the child. This is the crudest form of theft, the most brutal slavery. I have had seventeen years of penal servitude and have been innocent. What can you give me in return for this? LAURA. Now you are quite mad! CAPTAIN [sits]. That is your hope!... And I have seen how you have labored to conceal your sin. I have had sym 252 AUGUST STRINDBERG pathy with you because I did not understand your grief; I have often lulled your evil conscience to rest, because I thought I was chasing away a morbid thought; I have heard you cry out in your sleep without allowing myself to listen. Now I remember the night before last,-Bertha's birthday,-I was sitting up reading between two and three in the morning. You screamed as if some one were strangling you, "Don't, don't!" I knocked on the wall because I wished to hear no more. I have long had my suspicions, but I did not dare to hear them confirmed. I have suffered this for you; what will you do for me? LAURA. What can I do? I can swear by God and all that I hold sacred that you are Bertha's father. CAPTAIN. Of what use is that, as you have said before that a mother can and ought to commit any crime for her child? I implore you by the memory of the past, I implore you as a wounded man begs for a death-blow, to tell me all. Don't you see that I am as helpless as a child; don't you hear that I am complaining as to a mother; won't you forget that I am a man, that I am a soldier who with a word can tame men and beasts? I simply implore pity like a sick man; I lay down the tokens of my power and pray for mercy on my life. LAURA [approaches him and lays her hand on his brow]. What! You are crying, man! CAPTAIN. Yes, I am crying, although I am a man. But has not a man eyes? Has not a man hands, limbs, senses, opinions, passions? Is he not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a woman is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? Why should not a man complain, a soldier cry? Because it is unmanly? Why is it unmanly? LAURA. Cry, then, my child, and you will have your mother with you again. Do you remember that it was as your second mother I first entered your life? Your great strong body was without nerve. You were a giant child that had either come too early into the world, or perhaps was not wanted. THE FATHER 253& CAPTAIN. Yes, that's just how it was. My father and mother did not want me, and consequently I was born without a will. I naturally enough thought that I was completing myself when you and I became one, and therefore you got the upper hand; and I, the commander in barracks and before the troops, became obedient to you, grew by you, looked up to you as a highly gifted being, listened to you as if I had been your ignorant child. LAURA. Yes, so it was, and therefore I loved you as my child. But you know, you must have seen, when the nature of your feelings changed and you appeared as my lover, I blushed and the joy of your embraces turned to remorse as if my blood were ashamed. The mother became the mistress. Ugh! CAPTAIN. I saw, but did not understand it. And when I imagined that you despised me for my unmanliness, I wanted to win you as a woman by being a man. LAURA. Yes, but there was your mistake. The mother was your friend, you see, but the woman was your enemy, and love between the sexes is strife. Do not believe either that I gave myself; I did not give, but I took-what I wanted. You had one advantage, however; that I realized and wanted you to realize. CAPTAIN. You always had the advantage. You could hypnotize me when I was wide awake, so that I neither saw nor heard, but merely obeyed; you could give me a raw potato and make me imagine it was a peach; you could force me to admire your foolish ideas as if they were strokes of genius; you could lead me into crimes, yes, even into dishonorable actions. For you were without understanding, and instead of carrying out my ideas, you acted on your own initiative. But when at last I awoke to reflection and realized that my honor was outraged, I wanted to blot out the memory by a great deed, an achievement, a discovery, or an honorable suicide. I wanted to go to the wars, but was not permitted. It was then that I threw myself into science. And now, when I was about to stretch out my hand and gather in its fruits, you suddenly 254 AUGUST STRINDBERG cut off my arm. Now I am dishonored and can live no longer, for a man cannot live without honor. LAURA. But a woman? CAPTAIN. Yes, for she has her children, which he has not. But we and the rest of mankind lived our lives, unconscious as children, full of imaginations, ideals, and illusions, and then we awoke; it was all over. But we awoke with our feet on the pillow, and he who waked us was himself a sleep-walker. When women grow old and cease to be women, they get beards on their chin; I wonder what men get who grow old and cease to be men. Those who crowed were no longer cocks but capons, and the pullets answered the call, so that when we thought the sun was about to rise, we found ourselves in the bright moonlight amidst ruins, just as in the good old times. It had only been a little morning slumber with wild dreams, and there was no awakening. LAURA. Do you know, you should have been a poet! CAPTAIN. Very possibly. LAURA. Now I am sleepy, so if you have any more fancies, keep them till to-morrow. CAPTAIN. A word more first about realities. Do you hate me? LAURA. Yes, sometimes, when you are a man. CAPTAIN. This is race-hatred. If it is true that we are descended from monkeys, it must at least be from two separate species. We are not like one another, are we? LAURA. What do you mean by all this? CAPTAIN. I realize that one of us must go under in this struggle. LAURA. Which? CAPTAIN. The weaker, of course. LAURA. And the stronger will be in the right. CAPTAIN. Certainly, since he has the power. LAURA. Then I am right. CAPTAIN. Have you the power already, then? LAURA. Yes; the power of the law, by means of which I shall put you under control to-morrow. THE FATHEER 255 CAPTAIN. Under control! LAURA. And then I shall educate my child myself without listening to your visions. CAPTAIN. And who will pay for the education when I am not there? LAURA. Your pension. CAPTAIN [goes menacingly towards her]. How can you have me pul under control? LAURA [takes out a letter]. By means of this letter of which an attested copy is lying before the Commissioners in Lunacy. CAPTAIN. What letter? LAURA [moves backwards toward the door on the left]. Yours! Your declaration to the doctor that you are insane. [CAPTAIN looks at her in silence.] Now you have fulfilled your function as an unfortunately necessary father and breadwinner. You are not needed any longer and you must go. You must go since you have realized that my intellect is as strong as my will, and since you will not stay and acknowledge it. [The CAPTAIN goes to the table, takes the lighted lamp and throws it at LAURA, who escapes backwards through the door.] ACT III Same scene as in former acts. Another lamp-the private door is barricaded with a chair. LAURA. NURSE. LAURA. Did he give you the keys? NURSE. Give them to me, no, Heaven help us, but I took them from the things that Nojd had out to brush. LAURA. Then it is Nojd who is on duty to-day. NURSE. Yes, it is Nojd. LAURA. Give me the keys. NURSE. Yes, but it seems like downright stealing. Do 256 AUGUST STRINDBERG you hear his footsteps up there, ma'am? Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. LAURA. Is the door safely fastened? NURSE. Oh, yes, it's fastened safely enough. LAURA [opens the desk and sits down at it]. Control your feelings, Margret. Nothing but calm can save us all. [Knock.] Who is it? NURSE [opens passage door]. It is Nojd. LAURA. Let him come in. NOJD [comes in]. A note from the Colonel. LAURA. Bring it here. [Reads.] Ah! —Nojd, have you taken all the cartridges out of the guns and pouches? NOJD. I have done what you ordered, ma'am. LAURA. Then wait outside while I answer the Colonel's letter. [N6JD goes. LAURA writes.] NURSE. Listen, ma'am. Whatever is he doing up there now? LAURA. Be silent while I write. [The sound of sawing is heard.] NURSE [half aloud to herself]. Oh, may God in His mercy help us all! Where will this end! LAURA. There; give this to Nojd. And my mother is to know nothing of all this. Do you hear? [NURSE goes to door. LAURA opens drawers in top of bureau and takes out papers.] [Enter PASTOR. He takes a chair and sits by LAURA at the bureau.] PASTOR. Good-evening, sister. I have been away all day as you heard, and have only just got back. Distressing things have happened here. LAURA. Yes, brother, never before have I gone through such a night and such a day. PASTOR. Ah; but at all events I see that you are none the worse. LAURA. No God be thanked, but think what might have happened! THE FATHER 257 PASTOR. Do tell me how it all began. I have heard so many different accounts. LAURA. It began with his wild fancy that he was not Bertha's father, and ended with his throwing the lighted lamp in my face. PASTOR. But that is dreadful! It is fully developed insanity. And what is to be done now? LAURA. We must try to prevent further violence, and the Doctor has sent to the hospital for a strait-waistcoat. In the meantime I have written to the Colonel, and am now trying to acquaint myself with the affairs of the household, which he has conducted in a most reprehensible manner. PASTOR. It is a sad story, but I have always expected something of the sort. Fire and water must end in exploding! What have you got there in the drawers. LAURA [opens a drawer in the bureau]. Look, he seems to have kept everything here. PASTOR [looking through the drawer]. Good Heavens, he has your doll here, and there is your christening-cap and Bertha's rattle; and your letters; and the locket. [Dries his eyes.] He must, after all, have loved you very dearly, Laura. I never kept such things as these! LAURA. I believe that he used to love me, but time-time changes so many things. PASTOR. What is this great paper? The receipt for a grave! Yes, better the grave than the lunatic asylum! Laura, tell me, are you blameless in all this? LAURA. I? Why should I be to blame because a man goes out of his mind? PASTOR. Ah, well! I shall say nothing! Blood is thicker than water, after all! LAURA. What do you dare to mean? PASTOR [gazing at her]. Listen! LAURA. What? PASTOR. Listen. You surely cannot deny that it is in conformity with your wishes that you will be able to educate your child yourself? 258 AUGUST STRINDBERG LAURA. I don't understand. PASTOR. How I admire you! LAURA. Me? H'm! PASTOR. And I shall become the guardian of that freethinker up there. Do you know I have always considered him as a weed in our garden. LAURA [gives a short suppressed laugh, and then becomes suddenly grave]. And you dare to say that to me-his wife? PASTOR. You are strong, Laura, incredibly strong! Like a trapped fox, you would rather bite off your own leg than let yourself be caught! Like a master thief-no accomplice, not even your own conscience! Look at yourself in the glass! You dare not! LAURA. I never use a looking-glass! PASTOR. No, you dare not! Let me look at your hand. Not a treacherous bloodstain, not a trace of cunning poison! A little innocent murder that cannot be reached by the law; an unconscious sin; unconscious! That is a splendid invention! Do you hear how he is working up there? Beware! if the man gets out he will make short work of you. LAURA. You talk as if you had a bad conscience. Accuse me if you can! PASTOR. I cannot. LAURA. You see! You cannot, and therefore I am innocent. You take care of your ward, and I will look after mine! There's the Doctor. [Enter DOCTOR.] LAURA [getting up]. Good-evening, Doctor. You at least will help'me, will you not? But unfortunately there is not much to be done. Do you hear how he is going on up there? Are you convinced now? DOCTOR. I am convinced that an act of violence has been committed, but the question is whether that act of violence is to be considered as an outbreak of anger or of madness. PASTOR. But apart from the actual outbreak you must acknowledge that his ideas are those of a monomaniac. THE FATHER 259 DOCTOR. I think that your ideas, Pastor, are much more those of a monomaniac. PASTOR. My firmly rooted convictions about the highest thingsDOCTOR. We will put convictions on one side. Madam, it rests with you to decide whether your husband has made himself liable to imprisonment and fine or to detention in an asylum! What do you think of the behavior? LAURA. I will not answer for it now. DOCTOR. Then you have no firmly rooted convictions as to what is most advantageous in the interests of the family? What do you say, Pastor? PASTOR. Well, there will be a scandal in either case. It is not easy to say. LAURA. But if he is only sentenced to a fine for violence, he will be able to repeat the violence. DOCTOR. And if he is sent to prison, he will soon be out again. Therefore, we consider it most advantageous for all parties that he should immediately be treated as insane. Where is the Nurse? LAURA. Why? DOCTOR. She must put the strait-waistcoat on the patient when I have talked to him and given the order! But not before. I have-the-the garment out here. [Goes out into the hall and comes in with a large parcel.] Please ask the Nurse to come in. [LAURA rings.] PASTOR. Shocking! Shocking! [Enter NURSE.] DOCTOR [takes out the strait-waistcoat]. Please pay attention! I wish you to slip this strait-waistcoat on to the Captain from behind when I consider that circumstances require it to prevent outbreaks of violence. As you see, it has excessively long sleeves with the object of hindering his movements. They are to be tied at the back. There are two straps here that go through buckles, which are afterwards made fast to 260 AUGUST STRINDBERG the arm of the chair or the sofa or whatever is convenient. Will you do this? NURSE. NO, sir, I can't do that; I can't, indeed! LAURA. Why don't you do it yourself Doctor? DOCTOR. Because the patient distrusts me. You, madam, would appear the most obvious person, but I fear that he distrusts even you. [LAURA makes an involuntary movement.] DOCTOR. Perhaps you, Pastor. PASTOR. No, I must decline. [Enter N6JD.] LAURA. Have you delivered the note already? NOJD. Yes, ma'am. DOCTOR. IS that you, Nojd? You know the circumstances here; you know that the Captain is out of his mind, and you must help us to look after him. NOJD. If there is anything I can do for the Captain, you may be sure I will do it. DOCTOR. You are to put this jacket on him... NURSE. No, he shan't touch him. Nojd shall not hurt hinr I would rather do it myself, very, very gently. But Nojd can stand outside and help me if necessary. He may do that. [Loud knocking at the private door.] DOCTOR. Here he is! Put the jacket under your shawl on that chair, and if you will all go out for the present, the Pastor and I will receive him, for that door will not hold out many minutes. Now, go. NURSE [goes out to left]. Lord Jesus help us! [LAURA locks bureau, and goes out to left. NOJD goes out at back.] [The private door is forced open, so that the chair is thrown forward on the floor and the lock is broken.] [The CAPTAIN comes in with a pile of books under his arm. Puts them on the table.] CAPTAIN. The whole thing is to be read here, and in every book. So I was not out of my mind! Here it is in the Odyssey, THE FATHER 261 canto one, verse 215, page 6 of the Upsala translation. It is Telemakos who speaks to Athene. "My mother indeed maintains that he, Odysseus, is my father, but I myself know it not, for no man yet hath known his own origin." And this suspicion is harbored by Telemakos of Penelope, the most virtuous of women! It is beautiful! Is it not? And here we have the prophet Ezekiel: "The fool saith; see here is my father, but who can tell whose loins have engendered him." It is quite clear. What have I got here? Merslakow's History of Russian Literature. "Alexander Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet, was tortured to death by the reports that were circulated about his wife's unfaithfulness rather than by the ball he received in his breast in a duel. On his deathbed he swore that she was innocent." Ass, ass! How could he answer for it? In the mean time you hear that I read my books-Ah, Jonas, are you there? And the Doctor, of course? Have you heard how ][ answered an English lady, when she complained of an Irishman who used to throw lighted lamps in his wife's face? "God, what women," I cried.-"Women," she lisped."Yes, of course," I answered. "When things go to such a length that a man, a man who loved and worshiped a woman, takes a lighted lamp and throws it in her face, then one can tell." PASTOR. What can one tell? CAPTAIN. Nothing. One never knows anything. One only believes. Is not that true, Jonas? One believes, and then one is saved! Yes; so one would be. No, I know that one may be lost by one's faith. I know that. DOCTOR. Captain! CAPTAIN. Hush! I will not speak to you; I will not hear you repeating the chatter in there like a telephone! In there! You know! —Listen, Jonas; do you believe that you are the father of your children? I remember that you had a tutor in the house who was good-looking, and who was a great deal gossiped about. PASTOR. Adolf, beware! CAPTAIN. Grope about under your wig, and feel if there are not two knobs there. By my soul, I believe he turns pale! 262 AUGUST STRINDBERG Yes, yes; they only talk; but, good Lord, there is so much talk. Still, we are nothing but ridiculous dupes for all that, we married men. Don't you think so, Doctor? How was it with your marriage bed? Had you not a lieutenant in the house, too? Wait, and I will guess? His name is. [Whispers in DOCTOR'S ear.] You see he turns pale, too! Don't be unhappy now. She is dead and buried, and what is done can't be undone! I knew him well, by the by, and he is now... look at me, Doctor... no, right into my eyes... a major of dragoons! By God, if I don't believe he has horns, too. DOCTOR [annoyed]. Captain, won't you talk of something else? CAPTAIN. Do you see? He immediately wants to talk of something else when I mention horns. PASTOR. Do you know, Adolf, that you are insane? CAPTAIN. Yes; I know that well enough. But if I only had the management of your crowned brains awhile, I should soon have you shut up, too! I am mad, but how did I become so? That does not matter to you, and it does not matter to any one! Will you talk of something else now? [Takes photograph album from the table.] Lord Jesus, is that my child! Mine! We cannot tell that. Do you know what would have to be done to make sure? First, one would have to marry to get a position in society, then immediately be divorced and become lovers, and finally adopt the children. Then one would at least be sure that they were one's adopted children. That is right enough. But how does all this help me now? What can help me now that you have taken my conception of immortality from me; what do science and philosophy avail me when I have nothing to live for; what can I do with life when I have no honor? I grafted my right arm, half my brain, half my marrow on to another stem, for I thought they would grow up together and knit themselves into a more perfect tree, and then some one came with a knife and cut them asunder below the graft, and now I am only half a tree. As for the other half, it goes on growing with my arm and half my brain, while I pine and die, for they were the best parts I gave away. Now THE FATHER 263 I will die. Do what. you like with me. I shall not be found any more. [The DOCTOR whispers to the PASTOR, and they go into the inner rooms on the left. Immediately afterwards BERTHA comes out.] [The CAPTAIN sinks into a chair by the table.] BERTHA [goes up to him]. Are you ill, father? CAPTAIN [looks up offended]. I? BERTHA. Do you know what you have done? Do you know that you threw the lamp at mother? CAPTAIN. Did I? BERTHA. Yes, you did. Just think if she had been hurt. CAPTAIN. What would that have mattered? BERTHA. You are not my father if you can talk like that. CAPTAIN. What do you say? Am I not your father? How do you know that? Who told you that? And who is your father, then? Who? BERTHA. Not you, at any rate. CAPTAIN. Still not I? Who, then? Who? You seem to be well informed! Who told you? That I should live to see my child come and tell me straight in the face that I am not her father! But do you not know that you disgrace your mother when you say that? Do you not know that it is her shame if it is so? BERTHA. Say nothing bad about mother; do you hear? CAPTAIN. NO; you all hold together against me! And so you have done all the time. BERTHA. Father! CAPTAIN. Do not say that word again! BERTHA. Father, father! CAPTAIN [drawing her to him]. Bertha, dearly beloved child, you are my child, are you not? Yes, yes; it cannot be otherwise. It is so. The rest was only morbid thoughts which come on the wind like pestilence and fevers. Look at me, and then I shall see my soul in your eyes!-But I see her soul, too! You have two souls, and you love me with one of them and hate me with the other. But you must only love me! You 264 AUGUST STRINDBERG must only have one soul, or you will never have peace, nor I either. You must only have one thought, which is the child of my thought; you must only have one will, which is mine. BERTHA. But I will not. I want to be myself. CAPTAIN. You must not. You see, I am a cannibal, and I will eat you. Your mother wanted to eat me, but she could not. I am Saturn who ate his children because it had been prophesied that they would eat him. To eat or be eaten! That is the question. If I do not eat you, you will eat me, and you have already showed me your teeth! But don't be frightened, my darling child; I won't do you any harm. [Goes to the trophy of weapons and takes down a revolver.] BERTHA [trying to escape]. Help, mother, help, he's going to murder me! NURSE [coming in]. Mr. Adolf, what is it? CAPTAIN [examines revolver]. Have you taken the cartridges out? NURSE. Yes, I just tidied them away, but sit down and be quiet, and I'll get them out again! [She takes the CAPTAIN by the arm and puts him in a chair, into which he sinks feebly. Then she takes out the strait-waistcoat and places herself behind the chair. BERTHA slips out on the left.] NURSE. Mr. Adolf, do you remember when you were my darling little child and I tucked you in of nights, and said "Gentle Jesus" to you, and do you remember how I got up in the night and gave you a drink; do you remember how I lighted the candle and talked about pretty things when you had bad dreams and couldn't sleep? Do you remember? CAPTAIN. Go on talking, Margret, it soothes my head so: go on talking again. NURSE. Oh, yes, but you must listen to me! Do you remember when you once took the great kitchen knife and wanted to cut out boats with it, and how I came in and had to get the knife away by tricking you? You were a little foolish child so I had to trick you, for you didn't believe that THE FATHER 265 we meant well by you. "Give me that ugly snake," I said, "or it will bite you!" and then you gave up the knife. [Takes the revolver out of the CAPTAIN'S hand.] And then when you had to dress yourself and didn't want to. Then I had to coax you and say that you should have a golden coat and be dressed like a prince. And then I took your little vest that was only made of green worsted, and held it up in front of you, and said, "In with both arms," and then I said, "Sit nice and still while I button it down the back." [She gets the jacket on.] And then I said, "Get up now, and walk across the floor like a good boy so that I can see whether it's straight. [She leads him to the sofa.] And then I said, "Now you must go to bed." CAPTAIN. What did you say? Was I to go to bed when I was dressed?... Damnation! What have you done with me? [Tries to free himself.] Ah! You infernally cunning woman! Who would have thought that you had so much wit. [Lies down on the sofa.] Trapped, shorn, outwitted, forbidden to die. NURSE. Forgive me, Mr. Adolf, forgive me, but I wanted to hinder you from killing your child. CAPTAIN. Why didn't you let me kill the child? For life is a hell and death a heaven, and children belong to heaven. NURSE. How do you know what comes after death? CAPTAIN. That is the only thing we do know, but of life we know nothing! Oh, if one had only known from the beginning. NURSE. Mr. Adolf, humble your hard heart and cry to God for mercy; it is not yet too late. It was not too late for the thief on the cross when the Saviour said, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise." CAPTAIN. Are you croaking for a corpse already, old crow? [NURSE takes a hymn book out of her pocket.] CAPTAIN [calls]. Nojd, is N6jd there? [Enter N6JD.] CAPTAIN. Fling that woman out! She is trying to strangle me with her hymn book. Throw her out of the window, or up the chimney or anywhere. 266 AUGUST STRINDBERG NOJD [looks at NURSE]. Heaven help you, Captain, but I can't do that, I simply can't. If only it were six men; but a woman! CAPTAIN. Have you never got the better of a woman, heigh? NOJD. Of course I have, but it is a very different thing to lay hands on a woman. CAPTAIN. Why is it so different? Have they not laid hands on me? NOJD. Yes, but I can't, Captain. It is downright as if you were to ask me to strike the Pastor. It's against nature! I can't! [Enter LAURA. She signs to N6JD to go.] CAPTAIN. Omphale, Omphale! Now you play with the club while Hercules spins the wool. [LAURA comes forward to the sofa.] LAURA. Adolf. Look at me. Do you think that I am your enemy? CAPTAIN. Yes, I do think so. I believe that you are all my enemies! My mother, who did not want to bring me into the world because I was to be born with pain, was my enemy when she deprived my embryonic life of its nourishment and made a weakling of me. My sister was my enemy when she taught me that I was to be obedient to her. The first woman I embraced was my enemy, for she gave me ten years of illness in payment for the love I gave her. My daughter became my enemy when she had to choose between me and you. And you, my wife, you have been my arch-enemy, because you have never left me till I lay here lifeless. LAURA. I don't know that I ever thought or intended what you think I did. It may be that an obscure desire to get rid of you as something troublesome may have existed within me, and if you see any plan in my conduct, it is possible that it was to be found there, although I was unconscious of it. I have never reflected about my actions, but they have proceeded on the lines that you yourself laid down, and before THE FATHER 267 God and my conscience I consider myself innocent, even if I am not. Your existence has lain like a stone on my heart, which weighed so heavily that the heart sought to shake off the oppressive burden. These are the facts, and if I have wounded you to the death, I ask your forgiveness. CAPTAIN. All that sounds plausible. But of what help is it to me? And whose is the fault? Perhaps that of a spiritual marriage! Formerly one married a wife, now one enters into partnership with a business woman, or goes to live with a friend.... And then one cheats the partner, and outrages the friend! What becomes of love, healthy physical love? It dies in the mean time. And what is the result of this love in shares, payable to the bearer without joint liability? Who is the bearer when the crash comes? Who is the fleshly father to the spiritual child? LAURA. And with regard to your suspicions about the child, they are quite without foundation. CAPTAIN. That is just what is so appalling! If at least there was any foundation for them, it would be something to take hold of, to cling to. Now there are only shadows that hide themselves in the bushes, and stick out their heads to grin; it is like fighting with the air, or firing blank cartridges at a sham-fight. A fatal reality would have called forth resistance, nerved life and soul to action; but now my thoughts dissolve into thin air, and my brain grinds a void until it is on fire. Put a pillow under my head, and throw something over me, I am cold. I am so terribly cold! [LAURA takes her shawl and spreads it over him. NURSE goes to fetch a pillow.] LAURA. Give me your hand, friend. CAPTAIN. My hand! The hand that you have bound! Omphale! Omphale!... But I can feel your shawl against my mouth; it is as warm and soft as your arm, and it smells of vanilla, like your hair when you were young! Laura, when you were young, and we walked in the birchwoods, with the oxlips and the thrushes... glorious, glorious! Think how beautiful life was, and what it is now. You did not wish to 268 AUGUST STRINDBERG have it so, and neither did I, and yet it happened. Who, then, rules over life? LAURA. God alone rules... CAPTAIN. The God of strife, then! Or perhaps the goddess nowadays. Take away the cat that is lying on me! Take it away! [NURSE brings in a pillow and takes away the shawl.] CAPTAIN. Give me my uniform coat! Throw it over me! [NURSE takes the coat from the clothes-pegs and lays it over him.] Ah, my rough lion-skin that you wanted to take away from me! Omphale! Omphale! Thou cunning woman who wast the lover of peace and the deviser of disarmaments! Wake, Hercules, before they take thy club from thee! You will wile our armor off us, too, and make believe that it is tinsel. No, it was iron, do you hear, before it became tinsel. In olden days the smith made the cuirass; now it is the needlewoman. Omphale! Omphale! Rude strength has fallen before treacherous weakness.-Out on you, infernal woman, and damnation on your sex! [He raises himself to spit at her, but falls back onto the sofa.] What sort of a pillow have you given me, Margret? It is so hard, and so cold, so cold! Come and sit here by me on the chair. There now! May I lay my head on your lap? Ah, that is warm! Bend over me so that I can feel your breast! Oh, it is sweet to sleep on a woman's breast, a mother's or a mistress's, but the mother's is best. LAURA. Would you like to see your child, Adolf? CAPTAIN. My child? A man has no children; it is only women who have children; and therefore the future is theirs, when we die childless. Oh, God! who lovest children! NURSE. Listen, he is praying to God. CAPTAIN. NO, to you to put me to sleep, for I am tired, so tired. Good-night, Margret, and blessed be you among women. [He raises himself but falls back on the NURSE'S lap with a cry.] [LAURA goes to the left and calls in the DOCTOR who enters with the PASTOR.] THE FATHER 269 LAURA. Help, Doctor! if it is not too late. Look, he has ceased to breathe! DOCTOR [feels the patient's pulse]. It is a fit. PASTOR. IS he dead? DOCTOR. No; he may still come back to life, but to what an awakening we do not know. PASTOR. "First death, and then the judgment." DOCTOR. No judgment, and no accusations. You who believe that a God over-rules the fortunes of men must ask of Him concerning this matter. NURSE. Ah, Pastor, he prayed to God in his last moments. PASTOR [to LAURA]. IS that true? LAURA. It is true. DOCTOR. In that case, of which I can judge just as little as of the origin of the illness, my science is at an end. You try now, Pastor. LAURA. Is this all that you have to say by this deathbed, Doctor? DOCTOR. This is all! I know no more. Let him speak that knows more! [BERTHA enters on the left and runs forward to her mother.] BERTHA. Mother Mother! LAURA. My child, my own child! PASTOR. Amen. HEDDA GABLEIR BY HENRIK IBSEN (1890) INTRODUCTION It is hard for the reader of to-day to realize that when Ibsen's masterpieces, Ghosts, A Doll's House, and Hedda Gabler entered the English theater they were inexpressibly shocking not only because they treated tabooed subjects like hereditary disease, but because they depicted the provincialism of bourgeois manners utterly foreign to the atmosphere of the London drawing-room and the country manor houses, which up to that time had become the accepted setting for modern drama. William Archer records that Ibsen was called "a suburban egotist and bungler." The middle class life, and the strenuous individualism preached in the plays may account for the terms "suburban" and "egotist," but how any critic could call Ibsen's extraordinary mastery of dramatic technique bungling passes comprehension. Hedda Gabler is a masterpiece of dramatic management. Ibsen's use of the analytic, or retrospective, method of exposition keeps the audience in intense anticipation. Bit by bit, as the play proceeds, the important facts in the past lives of Hedda (abler, Lovborg, and Thea Elvsted come to light, and are woven with consummate dexterity into the fortunes of Tesman and Judge Brack. Similarly skillful is the management of the pistols, L6vborg's manuscript, and the conflicting rivalries: the struggle for power between Hedda and Mrs. Elvsted, bew-eenHeda and Judge 'Back, between IHedda and Lovborg between TesmLaan dL/yhoQrg. The actions and reactions of these characters to one another are delineated with such psychological fidelity that when the play is over we rise in wonder at the reality of drama become life. Domestic tragedy can offer no example superior in these respects to Hedda Gabler. The play abounds in interesting character contrasts. Tesman, the prim pedant; Lovborg, the dissolute genius; Brack, the cool, calculating judge; the self-sacrificing Aunt Julia; 273 274 HENRIK IBSEN Thea Elvsted, all heart and no head; Hedda Gabler, all head and no heart. According to the codes of society Hedda is a model of virtue; Thea Elvsted a reprobate for leaving husband and children and pursuing Lovborg to town. In reality, Hedda is a moral leper with only one inhibition, the fear of "what people will say." Thea Elvsted, in contrast, is a courageous soul with every impulse to create something out of life, as Hedda's is to destroy. Particular analysis should be made of the many motives leading to Hedda's suicide, which is not, like Othello's, a triumph, but the last refuge of one who prefers death to submission, maternity, ugliness, scandal, and defeat. Her essential meanness of soul has led one critic to remark: "I shall always believe that she was a lineal descendant of Iago." References. Archibald Henderson, European Dramatists (Appleton, New York, 1925); Ludwig Lewisohn, The Modern Drama (Huebsch, New York, 1915); James Huneker, Iconoclasts (Scribners, New York, 1905); Ashley Dukes, Modern Dramatists (Sergel, Chicago, 1912); Haldane Macfall, Henrik Ibsen (Morgan Shepard, New York, 1907); H. J. Weigand, The Modern Ibsen (Holt, New York, 1925); M. J. Moses, Henrik Ibsen, The Man and His Plays (Mitchell Kennerley, New York, 1908). TEXT OF THE PLAY DRAMATIS PERSONzE GEORGE TESMAN l HEDDA TESMAN, his wife Miss JULIANA TESMAN, his aunt MRS. ELVSTED JUDGE 2 BRACK EILERT LOVBORG BERTA, servant at the Tesmans The scene of the action is Tesman's villa, in the west end of Christiania Tesman, whose Christian name in the original is "Jorgen," is described as "stipendiat i kulturhistorie"-that is to say, the holder of a scholarship for purposes of research into the History of Civilization. In the original "Assessor." HEDDA GABLER ACT I A spacious, handsome, and tastefully furnished drawingroom, decorated in dark colours. In the back, a wide doorway with curtains drawn back, leading into a smaller room decorated in the same style as the drawing-room. In the right-hand wall of the front room, a folding door leading out to the hall. In the opposite wall, on the left, a glass door, also with curtains drawn back. Through the panes can be seen part of a verandah outside, and trees covered with autumn foliage. An oval table, with a cover on it, and surrounded by chairs, stands well forward. In front, by the wall on the right, a wide stove of dark porcelain, a high-backed arm-chair, a cushioned footrest, and two foot-stools. A settee, with a small round table in front of it, fills the upper right-hand corner. In front, on the left, a little way from the wall, a sofa. Further back than the glass door, a piano. On either side of the doorway at the back a whatnot with terra-cotta and majolica ornaments.-Against the back wall of the inner room a sofa, with a table, and one or two chairs. Over the sofa hangs the portrait of a handsome elderly man in a General's uniform. Over the table a hanging lamp, with an opal glass shade.-A number of bouquets are arranged about the drawing-room, in vases and glasses. Others lie upon the tables. The floors in both rooms are covered with thick carpets.-Morning light. The sun shines in through the glass door. MIss JULIANA TESMAN, with her bonnet on and carrying a parasol, comes in from the hall, followed by BERTA, who 277 278 HENRIK IBSEN carries a bouquet wrapped in paper. Miss TESMAN is a comely and pleasant-looking lady of about sixty-five. She is nicely but simply dressed in a grey walking-costume. BERTA is a middle-aged woman of plain and rather countrified appearance. Miss TESMAN [stops close to the door, listens and says softly]. Upon my word, I don't believe they are stirring yet! BERTA [also softly]. I told you so, Miss. Remember how late the steamboat got in last night. And then, when they got home!-good Lord, what a lot the young mistress had to unpack before she could get to bed. Miss TESMAN. Well, well-let them have their sleep out. But let us see that they get a good breath of the fresh morning air when they do appear. [She goes to the glass door and throws it open.] BERTA [beside the table, at a loss what to do with the bouquet in her hand]. I declare there isn't a bit of room left. I thihk I'll put it down here, Miss. [She places it on the piano.] Miss TESMAN. So you've got a new mistress now, my dear Berta. Heaven knows it was a wrench to me to part with you. BERTA [on the point of weeping]. And do you think it wasn't hard for me too, Miss? After all the blessed years I've been with you and Miss Rina.1 Miss TESMAN. We must make the best of it, Berta. There was nothing else to be done. George can't do without you, you see-he absolutely can't. He has had you to look after him ever since he was a little boy. BERTA. Ah, but, Miss Julia. I can't help thinking of Miss Rina lying helpless at home there, poor thing. And with only that new girl, too! She'll never learn to take proper care of an invalid. Miss TESMAN. Oh, I shall manage to train her. And of course, you know, I shall take most of it upon myself. You needn't be uneasy about my poor sister, my dear Berta. 1Pronolnece PraPnn. HEDDA GABLER 279 BERTA. Well, but there's another thing, Miss. I'm so mortally afraid I shan't be able to suit the young mistress. Miss TESMAN. Oh, well-just at first there may be one or two things — BERTA. Most like she'll be terrible grand in her ways. Miss TESMAN. Well you can't wonder at that-General Gabler's daughter! Think of the sort of life she was accustomed to in her father's time. Don't you remember how we used to see her riding down the road along with the General? In that long black habit-and with feathers in her hat? BERTA. Yes, indeed-I remember well enough-! But good Lord, I should never have dreamt in those days that she and Master George would make a match of it. Miss TESMAN. Nor I.-But, by-the-bye, Berta-while I think of it: in future you mustn't say Master George. You must say Dr. Tesman. BERTA. Yes, the young mistress spoke of that too-last night-the moment they set foot in the house. Is it true then, Miss? Miss TESMAN. Yes, indeed it is. Only think, Berta-some foreign university has made him a doctor-while he has been abroad, you understand. I hadn't heard a word about it, until he told me himself upon the pier. BERTA. Well, well, he's clever enough for anything, he is. But I didn't think he'd have gone in for doctoring people too. Miss TESMAN. NO, no, it's not that sort of doctor he is. [Nods significantly.] But let me tell you, we may have to call him something still grander before long. BERTA. You don't say so! What can that be, Miss? Miss TESMAN [smilinpl. H'm-wouldn't you like to know! [With emotion.] Ah, dear, dear-if my poor brother could only look up from his grave now, and see what his little boy has grown into! [Looks around.] But bless me, Berta-why have you done this? Taken the chintz cover off all the furniture? BERTA. The mistress told me to. She can't abide covers on the chairs, she says. 280 HENRIK IBSEN Miss TESMAN. Are they going to make this their everyday sitting-room then? BERTA. Yes, that's what I understood-from the mistress. Master George-the doctor-he said nothing. [GEORGE TESMAN comes from the right into the inner room, humming to himself, and carrying an unstrapped empty portmanteau. He is a middle-sized, young-looking man of thirty-three, rather stout, with a round, open cheerful face, fair hair and beard. He wears spectacles, and is somewhat carelessly dressed in comfortable indoor clothes.] Miss TESMAN. Good morning, good morning, George. TESMAN [in the doorway between the rooms]. Aunt Julia? Dear Aunt Julia! [Goes up to her and shakes hands warmly.] Come all this way-so early? Eh? Miss TESMAN. Why, of course I had to come and see how you were getting on. TESMAN. In spite of your having had no proper night's rest? Miss TESMAN. Oh, that makes no difference to me. TESMAN. Well, I suppose you got home all right from the pier? Eh? Miss TESMAN. Yes, quite safely, thank goodness. Judge Brack was good enough to see me right to my door. TESMAN. We were so sorry we couldn't give you a seat in the carriage. But you saw what a pile of boxes Hedda had to bring with her. Miss TESMAN. Yes, she had certainly plenty of boxes. BERTA [to TESMANI. Shall I go in and see if there's anything I can do for the mistress? TESMAN. No, thank vou. Berta-you needn't. She said she would ring if she wanted anything. BERTA [going towards the right]. Very well. TESMAN. But look here-take this portmanteau with you. BERTA [taking it]. I'll put it in the attic. [She goes out by the hall door.] HEDDA GABLER 281 TESMAN. Fancy, Auntie-I had the whole of that portmanteau chock full of copies of documents. You wouldn't believe how much I have picked up from all the archives I have been examining-curious old details that no one has had any idea of --- MIss TESMAN. Yes, you don't seem to have wasted your time on your wedding trip, George. TESMAN. No, that I haven't. But do take off your bonnet, Auntie. Look here! Let me untie the strings-eh? Miss TESMAN [while he does so]. Well, well-this is just as if you were still at home with us. TESMAN [with the bonnet in his hand, looks at it from all sides]. Why, what a gorgeous bonnet you've been investing in! Miss TESMAN. I bought it on Hedda's account. TESMAN. On Hedda's account? Eh? Miss TESMAN. Yes, so that Hedda needn't be ashamed of me if we happened to go out together. TESMAN [patting her cheek]. You always think of everything, Aunt Julia. [Lays the bonnet on a chair beside the table.] And now, look here-suppose we sit comfortably on the sofa and have a little chat, till Hedda comes. [They seat themselves. She places her parasol in the corner of the sofa.] Miss TESMAN [takes both his hands and looks at him]. What a delight it is to have you again, as large as life, before my very eyes, George! My George-my poor brother's own boy! TESMAN. And it's a delight for me, too, to see you again, Aunt Julial You, who have been father and mother in one to me. Miss TESMAN. Oh, yes, I know you will always keep a place in your heart for your old aunts. TESMAN. And what about Aunt Rina? No improvement -eh? Miss TESMAN. Oh, no-we can scarcely look for any improvement in her case, poor thing. There she lies, helpless, 282 HENRIK IBSEN as she has lain for all these years. But heaven grant I may not lose her yet awhile! For if I did, I don't know what I should make of my life, George-especially now that I haven't you to look after any more. TESMAN [patting her back]. There, there, there —! Miss TESMAN [suddenly changing her tone]. And to think that here you are a married man, George!-And that you should be the one to carry off Hedda Gabler-the beautiful Hedda Gabler! Only think of it-she, that was so beset with admirers! TESMAN [hums a little and smiles complacently]. Yes, I fancy I have several good friends about town who would like to stand in my shoes-eh? Miss TESMAN. And then this fine long wedding-tour you have had! More than five-nearly six monthsTESMAN. Well, for me it has been a sort of tour of research as well. I have had to do so much grubbing among old records -and to read no end of books too, Auntie. Miss TESMAN. Oh, yes, I suppose so. [More confidentially, and lowering her voice a little.] But listen now, George-have you nothing-nothing special to tell me? TESMAN. As to our journey? Miss TESMAN. Yes. TESMAN. No, I don't know of anything except what I have told you in my letters. I had a doctor's degree conferred on me-but that I told you yesterday. Miss TESMAN. Yes, yes, you did. But what I mean ishaven't you any-any-expectations? TESMAN. Expectations? Miss TESMAN. Why, you know, George-I'm your old auntie! TESMAN. Why, of course I have expectations. Miss TESMAN. Ah! TESMAN. I have every expectation of being a professor one of these days. Miss TESMAN. Oh, yes, a professor — HEDDA GABLER 283 TESMAN. Indeed, I may say I am certain of it. But my dear Auntie —you know all about that already? Miss TESMAN [laughing to herself]. Yes, of course I do. You are quite right there. [Changing the subject.] But we were talking about your journey. It must have cost a great deal of money, George? TESMAN. Well, you see-my handsome travelling-scholarship went a good way. Miss TESMAN. But I can't understand how you can have made it go far enough for two. TESMAN. No, that's not so easy to understand-eh? Miss TESMAN. And especially travelling with a lady-they tell me that makes it ever so much more expensive. TESMAN. Yes, of course-it makes it a little more expensive. But Hedda had to have this trip, Auntie! She really had to. Nothing else would have done. Miss TESMAN. No, no I suppose not. A wedding-tour seems to be quite indispensable nowadays.-But tell me now -have you gone thoroughly over the house yet? TESMAN. Yes, you may be sure I have. I have been afoot ever since daylight. MIss TESMAN. And what do you think of it all? TESMAN. I'm delighted! Quite delighted! Only I can't think what we are to do with the two empty rooms between this inner parlour and Hedda's bedroom. Miss TESMAN [laughing]. Oh, my dear George, I dare say you may find some use for them-in the course of time. TESMAN. Why of course you are quite right, Aunt Julia! You mean as my library increases-eh? Miss TESIM[AN. Yes, quite so, my dear boy. It was your library I was thinking of. TESMAN. I am specially pleased on Hedda's account. Often and often, before we were engaged, she said that she would never care to live anywhere but in Secretary Falk's villa.2 'In the original, "Statsradinde Falks villa"-showing that it had belonged to the widow of a cabinet minister. 284 HENRIK IBSEN Miss TESMAN. Yes, it was lucky that this very house should come into the market, just after you had started. TESMAN. Yes, Aunt Julia, the luck was on our side, wasn't it-eh? Miss TESMAN. But the expense, my dear George! You will find it very expensive, all this. TESMAN [looks at her, a little cast down]. Yes, I suppose I shall, Aunt! Miss TESMAN. Oh, frightfully! TESMAN. How much do you think? In round numbers?Eh? Miss TESMAN. Oh, I can't even guess until all the accounts come in. TESMAN. Well, fortunately, Judge Brack has secured the most favourable terms for me,-so he said in a letter to Hedda. Miss TESMAN. Yes, don't be uneasy, my dear boy.-Besides, I have given security for the furniture and all the carpets. TESMAN. Security? You? My dear Aunt Julia-what sort of security could you give? Miss TESMAN. I have given a mortgage on our annuity. TESMAN [jumps up]. What! On your-and Aunt Rina's annuity! Miss TESMAN. Yes, I knew of no other plan, you see. TESMAN [placing himself before her]. Have you gone out of your senses, Auntie! Your annuity-it's all that you and Aunt Rina have to live upon. Miss TESMAN. Well, well, don't get so excited about it. It's only a matter of form you know-Judge Brack assured me of that. It was he that was kind enough to arrange the whole affair for me. A mere matter of form, he said. TESMAN. Yes, that may be all very well. But nevertheless Miss TESMAN. You will have your own salary to depend upon now. And, good heavens, even if we did have to pay up a little! To eke things out a bit at the start —! Why, it would be nothing but a pleasure to us. HEDDA GABLER 285 TESMAN. Oh, Auntie-will you never be tired of making sacrifices for me! Miss TESMAN [rises and lays her hands on his shoulders]. Have I had any other happiness in this world except to smooth your way for you, my dear boy? You, who have had neither father nor mother to depend on. And now we have reached the goal, George! Things have looked black enough for us, sometimes; but, thank heaven, now you have nothing to fear. TESMAN. Yes, it is really marvelous how everything has turned out for the best. Miss TESMAN. And the people who opposed you-who wanted to bar the way for you-now you have them at your feet. They have fallen, George. Your most dangerous rivalhis fall was the worst.-And now he has to lie on the bed he has made for himself-poor misguided creature. TESMAN. Have you heard anything of Eilert? Since I went away, I mean. Miss TESMAN. Only that he is said to have published a new book. TESMAN. What! Eilert L6vborg! Recently-eh? Miss TESMAN. Yes, so they say. Heaven knows whether it can be worth anything! Ah, when your new, book appearsthat will be another story, George! What is it to be about? TESMAN. It will deal with the domestic industries of Brabant during the Middle Ages. Miss TESMAN. Fancy-to be able to write on such a subject as that! TESMAN. However, it may be some time before the book is ready. I have all these collections to arrange first, you see. Miss TESMAN. Yes, collecting and arranging-no one can beat you at that. There you are my poor brother's own son. TESMAN. I am looking forward eagerly to setting to work at it; especially now that I have my own delightful home to work in. Miss TESMAN. And, most of all, now that you have got the wife of your heart, my dear George. 286 HENRIK IBSEN TESMAN [embracing her]. Oh, yes, yes, Aunt Julia. Hedda-she is the best part of all! [Looks towards the doorway.] I believe I hear her coming-eh? [HEDDA enters from the left through the inner room. She is a woman of nine-and-twenty. Her face and figure show refinement and distinction. Her complexion is pale and opaque. Her steel-grey eyes express a cold, unruffled repose. Her hair is of an agreeable medium brown, but not particularly abundant. She is dressed in a tasteful, somewhat loose-fitting morning-gown.] Miss TESMAN [going to meet HEDDA]. Good morning, my dear Hedda! Good morning, and a hearty welcome. HEDDA [holds out her hand]. Good morning, dear Miss Tesman! So early a call! That is kind of you. Miss TESMAN [with some embarrassment]. Well-has the bride slept well in her new home? HEDDA. Oh yes, thanks. Passably. TESMAN [laughing]. Passably! Come, that's good, Hedda! You were sleeping like a stone when I got up. HEDDA. Fortunately. Of course one has always to accustom one's self to new surroundings, Miss Tesman-little by little. [Looking towards the left.] Oh-there the servant has gone and opened the verandah door, and let in a whole flood of sunshine. MIss TESMAN [going towards the door]. Well, then, we will shut it. HEDDA. NO, no, not that! Tesman, please draw the curtains. That will give a softer light. TESMAN [at the door]. All right- all right. There now, Hedda, now you have both shade and fresh air. HEDDA. Yes, fresh air we certainly must have, with all these stacks of flowers But-won't you sit down, Miss Tesman? Miss TESMAN. No, thank you. Now that I have seen that everything is all right here-thank heaven!-I must be getting home again. My sister is lying longing for me, poor thing. HEDDA GABLER 287 TESMAN. Give her my very best love, Auntie; and say I shall look in and see her later in the day. Miss TES:MAN. Yes, yes, I'll be sure to tell her. But bythe-bye, George-[feeling in her dress pocket]-I have almost forgotten-I have something for you here. TESMAN. What is it, Auntie? Eh? Miss TESMAN [produces a flat parcel wrapped in newspaper and hands it to him]. Look here, my dear boy. TESMAN [opening the parcel]. Well, I declare!-Have you really saved them for me, Aunt Julia! Hedda! isn't this touching-eh? HEDDA [beside the whatnot on the right]. Well, what is it? TESMAN. My old morning-shoes! My slippers. HEDDA. Indeed. I remember you often spoke of them while we were abroad. TESMAN. Yes, I missed them terribly. [Goes up to her.] Now you shall see them, Hedda! HEDDA [going towards the stove]. Thanks, I really don't care about it. TESMAN [following her]. Only think-ill as she was, Aunt Rina embroidered these for me. Oh you can't think how many associations cling to them. HEDDA [at the table]. Scarcely for me. Miss TESMAN. Of course not for Hedda, George. TESMAN. Well, but now that she belongs to the family, I thought — HEDDA [interrupting]. We shall never get on with this servant, Tesman. Miss TESMAN. Not get on with Berta? TESMAN. Why, dear, what puts that in your head? Eh? HEDDA [pointing]. Look there! She has left her old bonnet lying about on a chair. TESMAN [in consternation, drops the slippers on the floor]. Why, HeddaHEDDA. Just fancy, if any one should come in and see itl TESMAN. But Hedda-that's Aunt Julia's bonnet. HEDDA. Is it! 288 HENRIK IBSEN MIss TESMAN [taking up the bonnet]. Yes, indeed it's mine. And, what's more, it's not old, Madame Hedda. HEDDA. I really did not look closely at it, Miss Tesman. Miss TESMAN [trying on the bonnet]. Let me tell you it's the first time I have worn it-the very first time. TESMAN. And a very nice bonnet it is too-quite a beauty! Miss TESMAN. Oh, it's no such great things, George. [Looks around her.] My parasol? Ah, here. [Takes it.] For this is mine too-[mutters]-not Berta's. TESMAN. A new bonnet and a new parasol! Only think, Hedda! HEDDA. Very handsome indeed. TESMAN. Yes, isn't it? Eh? But Auntie, take a good look at Hedda before you go! See how handsome she is! Miss TESMAN. Oh, my dear boy, there's nothing new in that. Hedda was always lovely. [She nods and goes towards the right.] TESMAN [following]. Yes, but have you noticed what splendid condition she is in? How she has filled out on the journey? HEDDA [crossing the room]. Oh, do be quiet-! Miss TESMAN [who has stopped and turned]. Filled out? TESMAN. Of course you don't notice it so much now that she has that dress on. But I, who can seeHEDDA [at the glass door, impatiently]. Oh, you can't see anything. TESMAN. It must be the mountain air in the TyrolHEDDA [curtly, interrupting]. I am exactly as I was when I started. TESMAN. So you insist; but I'm quite certain you are not. Don't you agree with me, Auntie? Miss TESMAN [who has been gazing at her with folded hands]. Hedda is lovely-lovely-lovely. [Goes up to her, takes her head between both hands, draws it downwards, and kisses her hair.] God bless and preserve Hedda Tesman-for George's sake. HEDDA [gently freeing herself]. Oh!- Let me go. HEDDA GABLER 289 Miss TESMAN [in quiet emotion]. I shall not let a day pass without coming to see you. TESMAN. NO, you won't, will you, Auntie? Eh? Miss TESMAN. Good-bye-good-bye! [She goes out by the hall door. TESMAN accompanies her. The door remains half open. TESMAN can be heard repeating his message to Aunt Rina and his thanks for the slippers.] [In the meantime, HEDDA walks about the room raising her arms and clenching her hands as if in desperation. Then she flings back the curtains from the glass door, and stands there looking out.] [Presently TESMAN returns and closes the door behind him.] TESMAN [picks up the slippers from the floor]. What are you looking at, Hedda? HEDDA [once more calm and mistress of herself]. I am only looking at the leaves. They are so yellow-so withered. TESMAN [wraps up the slippers and lays them on the table]. Well you see, we are well into-September now. HEDDA [again restless]. Yes, to think of it!-Already inin September. TESMAN. Don't you think Aunt Julia's manner was strange, dear? Almost solemn? Can you imagine what was the matter with her? Eh? HEDDA. I scarcely know her, you see. Is she often like that? TESMAN. No, not as she was to-day. HEDDA [leaving the glass door]. Do you think she was annoyed about the bonnet? TESMAN. Oh, scarcely at all. Perhaps a little, just at the momentHEDDA. But what an idea, to pitch her bonnet about in the drawing-room! No one does that sort of thing. TESMAN. Well, you may be sure Aunt Julia won't do it again. 290 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. In any case, I shall manage to make my peace with her. TESMMAN. Yes, my dear, good Hedda, if you only would. HEDDA. When you call this afternoon, you might invite her to spend the evening here. TESMAN. Yes, that I will. And there's one thing more you could do that would delight her heart. HEDDA. What is it? TESMAN. If you could only prevail on yourself to say du 3 to her. For my sake, Hedda? Eh? HEDDA. NO, no, Tesman-you really mustn't ask that of me. I have told you so already. I shall try to call her "Aunt"; and you must be satisfied with that. TESMAN. Well, well. Only I think now that you belong to the family, youHEDDA. H'm-I can't in the least see why[She goes up towards the middle doorway.] TESMAN [after a pause]. Is there anything the matter with you, Hedda? Eh? HEDDA. I'm only looking at my old piano. It doesn't go at all well with all the other things. TESMAN. The first time I draw my salary, we'll see about exchanging it. HEDDA. No, no-no exchanging. I don't want to part with it. Suppose we put it there in the inner room, and then get another here in its place. When it's convenient, I mean. TESMAN [a little taken aback]. Yes-of course we could do that. HEDDA [takes up the bouquet from the piano]. These flowers were not here last night when we arrived. TESMAN. Aunt Julia must have brought them for you. HEDDA [examining the bouquet]. A visiting card. [Takes it out and reads:] "Shall return later in the day." Can you guess whose card it is? TESMAN. No. Whose? Eh? HEDDA. The name is "Mrs. Elvsted." 3Du - thou. HEDDA GABLER 291 TESMAN. Is it really? Sheriff Elvsted's wife? Miss Rysing that was. HEDDA. Exactly. The girl with the irritating hair, that she was always showing off. An old flame of yours, I've been told. TESMAN [laughing]. Oh, that didn't last long; and it was before I knew you, Hedda. But fancy her being in town! HEDDA. It's odd that she should call upon us. I have scarcely seen her since we left school. TESMAN. I haven't seen her either for-heaven knows how long. I wonder how she can endure to live in such an out-ofthe-way hole-eh? HEDDA [after a moment's thought says suddenly]. Tell me, Tesman-isn't it somewhere near there that he-that-Eilert L6vborg is living? TESMAN. Yes, he is somewhere in that part of the country. [BERTA enters by the hall door.] BERTA. That lady, ma'am, that brought some flowers a little while ago, is here again. [Pointing.] The flowers you have in your hand, ma'am. HEDDA. Ah, is she? Well, please show her in. [BERTA opens the door for MRS. ELVSTED, and goes out herself.-MRS. ELVSTED is a woman of fragile figure, with pretty, soft features. Her eyes are light blue, large, round, and somewhat prominent, with a startled, inquiring expression. Her hair is remarkably light, almost flaxen, and unusually abundant and wavy. She is a couple of years younger than HEDDA. She wears a dark visiting dress, tasteful, but not quite in the latest fashion.] HEDDA [receives her warmly]. How do you do, my dear Mrs. Elvsted? It's delightful to see you again. MRS. ELVSTED [nervously, struggling for self-control]. Yes, it's a very long time since we met. TESMAN [gives her his hand]. And we too-eh? HEDDA. Thanks for your lovely flowers 292 HENRIK IBSEN MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, not at all- I would have come straight here yesterday afternoon; but I heard that you were awayTESMAN. Have you just come to town? Eh? MRS. ELVSTED. I arrived yesterday, about midday. Oh, I was quite in despair when I heard that you were not at home. HEDDA. In despair! How so? TESMAN. Why, my dear Mrs. Rysing-I mean Mrs. ElvstedHEDDA. I hope that you are not in any trouble? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, I am. And I don't know another living creature here that I can turn to. HEDDA [laying the bouquet on the table]. Come-let us sit here on the sofaMRS. ELVSTED. Oh, I am too restless to sit down. HEDDA. Oh no, you're not. Come here. [She draws MRS. ELVSTED down upon the sofa and sits at her side.] TESMAN. Well? What is it, Mrs. Elvsted? HEDDA. Has anything particular happened to you at home? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes-and no. Oh-I am so anxious you should not misunderstand meHEDDA. Then your best plan is to tell us the whole story, Mrs. Elvsted. TESMAN. I suppose that's what you have come for-eh? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, yes-of course it is. Well then, I must tell you-if you don't already know-that Eilert LSvborg is in town, too. HEDDA. Lovborg-! TESMAN. What! Has Eilert Lovborg come back? Fancy that, Hedda! HEDDA. Well, well-I hear it. MRS. ELVSTED. He has been here a week already. Just fancy-a whole week! In this terrible town, alone! With so many temptations on all sides. HEDDA. But my dear Mrs. Elvsted-how does he concern you so much? MRS. ELVSTED [looks at her with a startled air, and says rapidly]. He was the children's tutor. HEDDA GABLER 293 HEDDA. Your children's? MRS. ELVSTED. My husband's. I have none. HEDDA. Your step-children's, then? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes. TESMAN [somewhat hesitatingly]. Then was he-I don't know how to express it-was he-regular enough in his habits to be fit for the post? Eh? MRS. ELVSTED. For the last two years his conduct has been irreproachable. TESMAN. Has it indeed? Fancy that, Hedda! HEDDA. I hear it. MRS. ELVSTED. Perfectly irreproachable, I assure you! In every respect. But all the same-now that I know he is here -in this great town-and with a large sum of money in his hands-I can't help being in mortal fear for him. TESMAN. Why did he not remain where he was? With you and your husband? Eh? MRS. ELVSTED. After his book was published he was too restless and unsettled to remain with us. TESMAN. Yes, by-the-bye, Aunt Julia told me he had published a new book. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, a big book, dealing with the march of civilisation —in broad outline, as it were. It came out about a fortnight ago. And since it has sold so well, and been so much read-and made such a sensationTESMAN. Has it indeed? It must be something he has had lying by since his better days. MRS. ELVSTED. Long ago, you mean? TESMAN. Yes. MRS. ELVSTED. No, he has written it all since he has been with us-within the last year. TESMAN. Isn't that good news, Hedda? Think of that. MRS. ELVSTED. Ah, yes, if only it would last! HEDDA. Have you seen him here in town? MRS. ELVSTED. NO, not yet. I have had the greatest difficulty in finding out his address. But this morning I discovered it at last. 294 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA [looks searchingly at her]. Do you know, it seems to me a little odd of your husband-h'm MRS. ELVSTED [starting nervously]. Of my husband! What? HEDDA. That he should send you to town on such an errand-that he does not come himself and look after his friend. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh no, no-my husband has no time. And besides, I-I had some shopping to do. HEDDA [with a slight smile]. Ah, that is a different matter. MRS. ELVSTED [rising quickly and uneasily]. And now I beg and implore you, Mr. Tesman-receive Eilert Lovborg kindly if he comes to you! And that he is sure to do. You see you were such great friends in the old days. And then you are interested in the same studies-the same branch of science-so far as I can understand. TESMAN. We used to be, at any rate. MRS. ELVSTED. That is why I beg so earnestly that youyou too-will keep a sharp eye upon him. Oh, you will promise me that, Mr. Tesman-won't you? TESMAN. With the greatest of pleasure, Mrs. RysingHEDDA. Elvsted. TES:MAN. I assure you I shall do all I possibly can for Eilert. You may rely upon me. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, how very, very kind of you! [Presses his hands.] Thanks, thanks, thanks! [Frightened.] You see, my husband is very fond of him! HEDDA [rising]. You ought to write to him, Tesman. Perhaps he may not care to come to you of his own accord. TESMAN. Well, perhaps it would be the right thing to do, Hedda? Eh? HEDDA. And the sooner the better. Why not at once? MRS. ELVSTED [imploringly]. Oh, if you only would! TESMAN. I'll write this moment. Have you his address, Mrs.-Mrs. Elvsted. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes. [Takes a slip of paper from her pocket, and hands it to him.] Here it is. HYEDDA GABLER 295 TESMAN. Good, good. Then I'll go in — [Looks about him.] By-the-bye,-my slippers? Oh, here. [Takes the packet, and is about to go.] HEDDA. Be sure you write him a cordial, friendly letter. And a good long one too. TESMAN. Yes, I will. MRS. ELVSTED. But please, please don't say a word to show that I have suggested it. TESMAN. No, how could you think I would? Eh? [He goes out to the right, through the inner room.] HEDDA [goes up to MRS. ELVSTED, smiles, and says in a lowJ voice]. There. We have killed two birds with one stone. MRS. ELVSTED. What do you mean? HEDDA. Could you not see that I wanted him to go? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, to write the letterHEDDA. And that I might speak to you alone. MRS. ELVSTED [confused]. About the same thing? HEDDA. Precisely. MRS. ELVSTED [apprehensively]. But there is nothing more, Mrs. Tesman! Absolutely nothing! HEDDA. Oh, yes, but there is. There is a great deal moreI can see that. Sit here-and we'll have a cosy, confidential chat. [She forces MRS. ELVSTED to sit in the easy-chair beside the stove, and seats herself on one of the footstools.] MRS. ELVSTED [anxiously, looking at her watch]. But, my dear Mrs. Tesman-I was really on the point of going. HEDDA. Oh, you can't be in such a hurry.-Well? Now tell me something about your life at home. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, that is just what I care least to speak about. HEDDA. But to me, dear —? Why, weren't we schoolfellows? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, but you were in the class above me. Oh, how dreadfully afraid of you I was then! HEDDA. Afraid of me? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, dreadfully. For when we met on the stairs you used always to pull my hair. 296 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. Did I, really? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, and once you said you would burn it off my head. HEDDA. Oh, that was all nonsense, of course. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, but I was so silly in those days.-And since then, too-we have drifted so far-far apart from each other. Our circles have been so entirely different. HEDDA. Well then, we must try to drift together again. Now listen! At school we said du to each other; and we called each other by our Christian namesMRS. ELVSTED. No, I am sure you must be mistaken. HEDDA. NO, not at all! I can remember quite distinctly. So now we are going to renew our old friendship. [Draws the footstool closer to MRS. ELVSTED.] There now! [Kisses her cheek.] You must say du to me and call me Hedda. MRS. ELVSTED [presses and pats her hands]. Oh, how good and kind you are! I am not used to such kindness. HEDDA. There, there, there! And I shall say du to you, as in the old days, and call you my dear Thora. MRS. ELVSTED. My name is Thea.4 HEDDA. Why, of course! I meant Thea. [Looks at her compassionately.] So you are not accustomed to goodness and kindness, Thea? Not in your own home? MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, if I only had a home? But I haven't any; I have never had a home. HEDDA [looks at her for a moment]. I almost suspected as much. MRS. ELVSTED [gazing helplessly before her]. Yes-yesyes. HEDDA. I don't quite remember-was it not as housekeeper that you first went to Mr. Elvsted's? MRS. ELVSTED. I really went as governess. But his wifehis late wife-was an invalid,-and rarely left her rooms. So I had to look after the housekeeping as well. HEDDA. And then-at last-you became mistress of the house. 4Pronounce Tora and Taya. HEDDA GABLER 297 MRs. ELVSTED [sadly]. Yes, I did. HEDDA. Let me see-about how long ago was that? MRS. ELVSTED. My marriage? HEDDA. Yes. MRS. ELVSTED. Five years ago. HEDDA. To be sure; it must be that. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, those five years! Or at all events the last two or three years of them! Oh, if you 5 could only imagine — HEDDA [giving her a little slap on the hand]. De? Fie, Thea! MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, yes, I will try- Well if-you could only imagine and understandHEDDA [lightly]. Eilert Lovborg has been in your neighbourhood about three years, hasn't he? MRS. ELVSTED [looks at her doubtfully]. Eilert Lovborg? Yes-he has. HEDDA. Had you known him before, in town here? MRS. ELVSTED. Scarcely at all. I mean-I knew him by name of course. HEDDA. But you saw a good deal of him in the country? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, he came to us every day. You see, he gave the children lessons; for in the long run I couldn't manage it all myself. HEDDA. NO, that's clear.-And your husband? I suppose he is often away from home? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes. Being sheriff, you know, he has to travel about a good deal in his district. HEDDA [leaning against the arm of the chair]. Thea-my poor, sweet Thea-now you must tell me everything-exactly as it stands. MRS. ELVSTED. Well then, you must question me. HEDDA. What sort of a man is your husband, Thea? I mean-you know-in everyday life. Is he kind to you? 6Mrs. Elvsted here uses the formal pronoun De, whereupon Hedda rebukes her. In her next speech Mrs. Elvsted says du. 298 HENRIK IBSEN MRS. ELVSTED [evasively]. I am sure he means well in everything. HEDDA. I should think he must be altogether too old for you. There is at least twenty years' difference between you, is there not? MRS. ELVSTED [irritably]. Yes, that is true, too. Everything about him is repellent to me! We have not a thought in common. We have no single point of sympathy-he and I. HEDDA. But is he not fond of you all the same? In his own way? MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, I really don't know. I think he regards me simply as a useful property. And then it doesn't cost much to keep me. I am not expensive. HEDDA. That is stupid of you. MRS. ELVSTED [shakes her head]. It cannot be otherwisenot with him. I don't think he really cares for any one but himself-and perhaps a little for the children. HEDDA. And for Eilert L6vborg, Thea. MRS. ELVSTED [looking at her]. For Eilert Lovborg? What puts that into your head? HEDDA. Well, my dear-I should say, when he sends you after him all the way to town [Smiling almost imperceptibly.] And besides, you said so yourself, to Tesman. MRS. ELVSTED [with a little nervous twitch]. Did I? Yes, I suppose I did. [Vehemently, but not loudly.] No-I may just as well make a clean breast of it at once! For it must all come out in any case. HEDDA. Why, my dear Thea? MRS. ELVSTED. Well, to make a long story short: My husband did not know that I was coming. HEDDA. What! Your husband didn't know it! MRS. ELVSTED. No, of course not. For that matter, he was away from home himself-he was travelling. Oh, I could bear it no longer, Hedda! I couldn't indeed-so utterly alone as I should have been in future. HEDDA. Well? And then? HEDDA GABLER 299 MRS. ELVSTED. So I put together some of my things-what I needed most-as quietly as possible. And then I left the house. HEDDA. Without a word? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes-and took the train straight to town. HEDDA. Why, my dear, good Thea-to think of you daring to do it! MRS. ELVSTED [rises and moves about the room]. What else could I possibly do? HEDDA. But what do you think your husband will say when you go home again? MRS. ELVSTED [at the table, looks at her]. Back to him? HEDDA. Of course. MRS. ELVSTED. I shall never go back to him again. HEDDA [rising and going towards her]. Then you have left your home-for good and all? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes. There was nothing else to be done. HEDDA. But then-to take flight so openly. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, it's impossible to keep things of that sort secret. HEDDA. But what do you think people will say of you, Thea? MRS. ELVSTED. They may say what they like, for aught I care. [Seats herself wearily and sadly on the sofa.] I have done nothing but what I had to do. HEDDA [after a short silence]. And what are your plans now? What do you think of doing? MRS. ELVSTED. I don't know yet. I only know this, that I must live here, where Eilert L6vborg is-if I am to live at all. HEDDA [takes a chair from the table, seats herself beside her, and strokes her hands]. My dear Thea-how did this-this friendship-between you and Eilert Lovborg come about? MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, it grew up gradually. I gained a sort of influence over him. HEDDA. Indeed? MRS. ELVSTED. He gave up his old habits. Not because I asked him to, for I never dared do that. But of course he 300 HENRIK IBSEN saw how repulsive they were to me; and so he dropped them. HEDDA [concealing an involuntary smile of scorn]. Then you have reclaimed him-as the saying goes-my little Thea. MRS. ELVSTED. So he says himself, at any rate. And he, on his side, has made a real human being of me-taught me to think, and to understand so many things. HEDDA. Did he give you lessons too, then? MRS. ELVSTED. No, not exactly lessons. But he talked to me-talked about such an infinity of things. And then came the lovely, happy time when I began to share in his workwhen he allowed me to help him! HEDDA. Oh, he did, did he? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes! He never wrote anything without my assistance. HEDDA. You were two good comrades, in fact? MRS. ELVSTED [eagerly]. Comrades! Yes, fancy, Heddathat is the very word he used!-Oh, I ought to feel perfectly happy; and yet I cannot; for I don't know how long it will last. HEDDA. Are you no surer of him than that? MRS. ELVSTED [gloomily]. A woman's shadow stands between Eilert Lovborg and me. HEDDA [looks at her anxiously]. Who can that be? MRS. ELVSTED. I don't know. Some one he knew in hisin his past. Some one he has never been able wholly to forget. HEDDA. What has he told you-about this? MRS. ELVSTED. He has only once-quite vaguely-alluded to it. HEDDA. Well! And what did he say? MRS. ELVSTED. He said that when they parted, she threatened to shoot him with a pistol. HEDDA [with cold composure]. Oh, nonsense! No one does that sort of thing here. MRS. ELVSTED. No. And that is why I think it must have been that red-haired singing woman whom he once HEDDA. Yes, very likely. HEDDA GABLER 301 MRS. ELVSTED. For I remember they used to say of her that she carried loaded firearms. HEDDA. Oh-then of course it must have been she. MRS. ELVSTED [wringing her hands]. And now just fancy, Hedda-I hear that this singing-woman-that she is in town again! Oh, I don't know what to do HEDDA [glancing towards the inner room]. Hush! Here comes Tesman. [Rises and whispers.] Thea-all this must remain between you and me. MRS. ELVSTED [springing up]. Oh, yes, yes! for heaven's sake-! [GEORGE TESMAN, with a letter in his hand, comes from the right through the inner room.] TESMAN. There now-the epistle is finished. HEDDA. That's right. And now Mrs. Elvsted is just going. Wait a minute-I'll go with you to the garden gate. TESMAN. Do you think Berta could post the letter, Hedda dear? HEDDA [takes it]. I will tell her to. [BERTA enters from the hall.] BERTA. Judge Brack wishes to know if Mrs. Tesman will receive him. HEDDA. Yes, ask Judge Brack to come in. And look here -put this letter in the post. BERTA [taking the letter]. Yes, ma'am. [She opens the door for JUDGE BRACK and goes out herself. BRACK is a man of forty-five; thick-set, but well-built and elastic in his movements. His face is roundish with an aristocratic profile. His hair is short, still almost black, and carefully dressed. His eyes are lively and sparkling. His eyebrows thick. His moustaches are also thick, with short-cut ends. He wears a well-cut walking-suit, a little too youthful for his age. He uses an eye-glass, which he now and then lets drop.] 302 HENRIK IBSEN JUDGE BRACK [with his hat in his hand, bowing]. May one venture to call so early in the day? HEDDA. Of course one may. TESMAN [presses his hand]. You are welcome at any time. [Introducing him.] Judge Brack-Miss RysingHEDDA. Oh! BRACK [bowing]. Ah-delighted HEDDA [looks at him and laughs]. It's nice to have a look at you by daylight, Judge! BRACK. Do you find me-altered? HEDDA. A little younger, I think. BRACK. Thank you so much. TESMAN. But what do you think of Hedda-eh? Doesn't she look flourishing? She has actuallyHEDDA. Oh, do leave me alone. You haven't thanked Judge Brack for all the trouble he has taken BRACK. Oh, nonsense-it was a pleasure to me HEDDA. Yes, you are a friend indeed. But here stands Thea all impatience to be off-so au revoir, Judge. I shall be back again presently. [Mutual salutations. MRS. ELVSTED and HEDDA go out by the hall door.] BRACK. Well,-is your wife tolerably satisfiedTESMAN. Yes, we can't thank you sufficiently. Of course she talks of a little re-arrangement here and there; and one or two things are still wanting. We shall have to buy some additional trifles. BRACK. Indeed! TESMAN. But we won't trouble you about these things. Hedda says she herself will look after what is wanting.Shan't we sit down? Eh? BRACK. Thanks, for a moment. [Seats himself beside the table.] There is something I wanted to speak to you about, my dear Tesman. TESMAN. Indeed? Ah, I understand! [Seating himself.] I suppose it's the serious part of the frolic that is coming now. Eh? HEDDA GABLER 363 BRACK. Oh, the money question is not so very pressing; though, for that matter, I wish we had gone a little more economically to work. TESMAN. But that would never have done, you knowl Think of Hedda, my dear fellow! You, who know her so well. I couldn't possibly ask her to put up with a shabby style of living! BRACK. No, no-that is just the difficulty. TESMAN. And then-fortunately-it can't be long before I receive my appointment. BRACK. Well, you see-such things are often apt to hang fire for a time. TESMAN. Have you heard anything definite? Eh? BRACK. Nothing exactly definite - [Interrupting himself.] But, by-the-bye-I have one piece of news for you. TESMAN. Well? BRACK. Your old friend Eilert Lovborg, has returned to town. TESMAN. I know that already. BRACK. Indeed! How did you learn it? TESMAN. From the lady who went out with Hedda. BRACK. Really? What was her name? I didn't quite catch it. TESMAN. Mrs. Elvsted. BRACK. Aha-Sheriff Elvsted's wife? Of course-he has been living up in their regions. TESMAN. And fancy-I'm delighted to hear that he is quite a reformed character! BRACK. So they say. TESMAN. And then he has published a new book-eh? BRACK. Yes, indeed he has. TESMAN. And I hear it has made some sensation! BRACK. Quite an unusual sensation. TESMAN. Fancy-isn't that good news! A man of such extraordinary talents- I felt so grieved to think that he had gone irretrievably to ruin. BRACK. That was what everybody thought. 304 HENRIK IBSEN TESMAN. But I cannot imagine what he will take to nowl How in the world will he be able to make his living? Eh? [During the last words, HEDDA has entered by the hall door.] HEDDA [to BRACK, laughing with a touch of scorn]. Tesman is forever worrying about how people are to make their living. TESMAN. Well, you see, dear-we were talking about poor Eilert L6vborg. HEDDA [glancing at him rapidly]. Oh, indeed? [Seats herself in the arm-chair beside the stove and asks indifferently:] What is the matter with him? TESMAN. Well-no doubt he has run through all his property long ago; and he can scarcely write a new book every year-eh? So I really can't see what is to become of him. BRACK. Perhaps I can give you some information on that point. TESMAN. Indeed! BRACK. You must remember that his relations have a good deal of influence. TESMAN. Oh, his relations, unfortunately, have entirely washed their hands of him. BRACK. At one time they called him the hope of the family. TESMAN. At one time, yes! But he has put an end to all that. HEDDA. Who knows? [With a slight smile.] I hear they have reclaimed him up at Sheriff Elvsted'sBRACK. And then this book that he has publishedTESMAN. Well, well, I hope to goodness they may find something for him to do. I have just written to him. I asked him to come and see us this evening, Hedda dear. BRACK. But, my dear fellow, you are booked for my bachelors' party this evening. You promised on the pier last night. HEDDA. Had you forgotten, Tesman? TESMAN. Yes, I had utterly forgotten. BRACK. But it doesn't matter, for you may be sure he won't come. HEDDA GABLER 305 TESMAN. What makes you think that? Eh? BRACK [with a little hesitation, rising and resting his hands on the back of his chair]. My dear Tesman-and you too, Mrs. Tesman-I think I ought not to keep you in the dark about something that-that — TESMAN. That concerns Eilert-? BRACK. Both you and him. TESMAN. Well, my dear Judge, out with it. BRACK. You must be prepared to find your appointment deferred longer than you desired or expected. TESMAN [jumping up uneasily]. Is there some hitch about it? Eh? BRACK. The nomination may perhaps be made conditional on the result of a competitionTESMAN. Competition! Think of that, Hedda! HEDDA [leans farther back in the chair]. Aha-aha! TESMAN. But who can my competitor be? Surely not —? BRACK. Yes, precisely-Eilert Lovborg. TESMAN [clasping his hands]. No, no-it's quite inconceivable! Quite impossible! Eh? BRACK. H'm-that is what it may come to, all the same. TESMAN. Well but, Judge Brack-it would show the most incredible lack of consideration for me. [Gesticulates with his arms.] For-just think-I'm a married man. We have been married on the strength of these prospects, Hedda and I; and run deep into debt; and borrowed money from Aunt Julia too. Good heavens, they had as good as promised me the appointment. Eh? BRACK. Well, well, well-no doubt you will get it in the end; only after a contest. HEDDA [immovable in her arm-chair]. Fancy, Tesman, there will be a sort of sporting interest in that. TESMAN. Why, my dearest Hedda, how can you be so indifferent about it. HEDDA [as before]. I am not at all indifferent. I am most eager to see who wins. BRACK. In any case, Mrs. Tesman, it is best that you 306 HENRIK IBSEN should know how matters stand. I mean-before you set about the little purchases I hear you are threatening. HEDDA. This can make no difference. BRACK. Indeed! Then I have no more to say. Good-byel [To TESMAN.] I shall look in on my way back from my afternoon walk, and take you home with me. TESMAN. Oh yes, yes-your news has quite upset me. HEDDA [reclining, holds out her hand]. Good-bye, Judge; and be sure you call in the afternoon. BRACK. Many thanks. Good-bye, good-bye! TESMAN [accompanying him to the door]. Good-bye, my dear Judge! You must really excuse me [JUDGE BRACK goes out by the hall door.] TESMAN [crosses the room]. Oh, Hedda-one should never rush into adventures. Eh? HEDDA [looks at him, smilingly]. Do you do that? TESMAN. Yes, dear-there is no denying-it was adventurous to go and marry and set up house upon mere expectations. HEDDA. Perhaps you are right there. TESMAN. Well-at all events, we have our delightful home, Hedda! Fancy, the home we both dreamed of-the home we were in love with, I may almost say. Eh? HEDDA [rising slowly and wearily]. It was part of our compact that we were to go into society-to keep open house. TESMAN. Yes, if you only knew how I had been looking forward to it! Fancy-to see you as hostess-in a select circle? Eh? Well, well, well-for the present we shall have to get on without society, Hedda-only to invite Aunt Julia now and then.-Oh, I intended you to lead such an utterly different life, dear-! HEDDA. Of course I cannot have my man in livery just yet. TESMAN. Oh no, unfortunately. It would be out of the question for us to keep a footman, you know. HEDDA. And the saddle-horse I was to have hadTESMAN [aghast], The saddle-horse! HEDDA GABLER 307 HEDDA. — I suppose I must not think of that now. TESMAN. Good heavens, no!-that's as clear as daylight. HEDDA [goes up to the room]. Well, I shall have one thing at least to kill time with in the meanwhile. TESMAN [beaming]. Oh, thank heaven for that! What is it, Hedda? Eh? HEDDA [in the middle doorway, looks at him with covert scorn]. My pistols, George. TESMAN [in alarm]. Your pistols! HEDDA [with cold eyes]. General Gabler's pistols. [She goes out through the inner room, to the left.] TESMAN [rushes up to the middle doorway and calls after her:] No, for heaven's sake, Hedda darling-don't touch those dangerous things For my sake, Hedda! Eh? ACT II The room at the TESMANS' as in the first Act, except that the piano has been removed, and an elegant little writingtable with book-shelves put in its place. A smaller table stands near the sofa on the left. Most of the bouquets have been taken away. MRS. ELVSTED'S bouquet is upon the large table in front.-It is afternoon. [HEDDA, dressed to receive callers, is alone in the room. She stands by the open glass door, loading a revolver. The fellow to it lies in an open pistol-case on the writingtable.] HEDDA [looks down the garden, and calls]: So you are here again, Judge! BRACK [is heard calling from a distance]. As you see, Mrs. Tesman! HEDDA [raises the pistol and points]. Now I'll shoot you, Judge Brack! 308 HENRIK IBSEN BRACK [calling unseen]. No, no, no! Don't stand aiming at me! HEDDA. This is what comes of sneaking in by the back way.6 [She fires.] BRACK [nearer]. Are you out of your senses!HEDDA. Dear me-did I happen to hit you? BRACK [still outside]. I wish you would let these pranks alone! HEDDA. Come in then, Judge. [JUDGE BRACK, dressed as though for a men's party, enters by the glass door. He carries a light overcoat over his arm.] BRACK. What the deuce-haven't you tired of that sport, yet? What are you shooting at? HEDDA. Oh, I am only firing in the air. BRACK [gently takes the pistol out of her hand]. Allow me, madam! [Looks at it.] Ah-I know this pistol well! [Looks around.] Where is the case? Ah, here it is. [Lays the pistol in it, and shuts it.] Now we won't play at that game any more to-day. HEDDA. Then what in heaven's name would you have me do with myself? BRACK. Have you had no visitors? HEDDA [closing the glass door]. Not one. I suppose all our set are still out of town. BRACK. And is Tesman not at home either? HEDDA [at the writing-table, putting the pistol-case in a drawer which she shuts]. No. He rushed off to his aunt's directly after lunch; he didn't expect you so early. BRACK. H'm-how stupid of me not to have thought of that! HEDDA [turning her head to look at him]. Why stupid? BRACK. Because if I had thought of it I should have come a little-earlier. HEDDA [crossing the room]. Then you would have found no one to receive you; for I have been in my room changing my dress ever since lunch. 6"Bagveje" means both "back ways" and "underhand courses." H3EDD>A GABLER 309 BRACK. And is there no sort of little chink that we could hold a parley through? HEDDA. You have forgotten to arrange one. BRACK. That was another piece of stupidity. HEDDA. Well, we must just settle down here —and wait. Tesman is not likely to be back for some time yet. BRACK. Never mind; I shall not be impatient. [HEDDA seats herself in the corner of the sofa. BRACK lays his overcoat over the back of the nearest chair, and sits down, but keeps his hat in his hand. A short silence. They look at each other.] HEDDA. Well? BRACK [in the same tone]. Well? HEDDA. I spoke first. BRACK [bending a little forward]. Come, let us have a cosy little chat, Mrs. Hedda.7 HEDDA [leaning further back in the sofa]. Does it not seem like a whole eternity since our last talk? Of course I don't count those few words yesterday evening and this morning. BRACK. You mean since our last confidential talk? Our last tete-a-tetee? HEDDA. Well, yes-since you put it so. BRACK. Not a day has passed but I have wished that you were home again. HEDDA. And I have done nothing but wish the same thing. BRACK. You? Really, Mrs. Hedda? And I thought you had been enjoying your tour so much! HEDDA. Oh, yes, you may be sure of that! BRACK. But Tesman's letters spoke of nothing but happiness. HEDDA. Oh, Tesman! You see, he thinks nothing so delightful as grubbing in libraries and making copies of old parchments, or whatever you call them. 'As this form of address is contrary to English usage, and as the note of familiarity would be lacking in "Mrs. Tesman," Brack may, in stage representation, say "Miss Hedda," thus ignoring her marriage and reverting to the form of address no doubt customary between them of old. 310 HENRIKI IBSEN BRACK [with a spice of malice]. Well, that is his vocation in life-or part of it at any rate. HEDDA. Yes, of course; and no doubt when it's your vocation — But I! Oh, my dear Mr. Brack, how mortally bored I have been. BRACK [sympathetically]. Do you really say so? In downright earnest? HEDDA. Yes, you can surely understand it —! To go for six whole months without meeting a soul that knew anything of our circle, or could talk about the things we are interested in. BRACK. Yes, yes-I too should feel that a deprivation. HEDDA. And then, what I found most intolerable of all BRACK. Well? HEDDA. -- was being everlastingly in the company ofone and the same person — BRACK [with a nod of assent]. Morning, noon, and night, yes-at all possible times and seasons. HEDDA. I said "everlastingly." BRACK. Just so. But I should have thought, with our excellent Tesman, one could — HEDDA. Tesman is-a specialist, my dear Judge. BRACK. Undeniably. HEDDA. And specialists are not at all amusing to travel with. Not in the long run at any rate. BRACK. Not even-the specialist one happens to love? HEDDA. Faugh-don't use that sickening word! BRACK [taken aback]. What do you say, Mrs. Hedda? HEDDA [half laughing, half irritated]. You should just try it! To hear of nothing but the history of civilisation, morning, noon, and nightBRACK. Everlastingly. HEDDA. Yes, yes, yes! And then all this about the domestic industry of the middle ages! That's the most disgusting part of it! BRACK [looks searchingly at her]. But tell me-in that case, how am I to understand your-? H'm HEDDA GABLER 311 HEDDA. My accepting George Tesman, you mean? BRACK. Well, let us put it so. HEDDA. Good heavens, do you see anything so wonderful in that? BRACK. Yes and no-Mrs. Hedda. HEDDA. I had positively danced myself tired, my dear Judge. My day was done- [With a slight shudder.] Oh no-I won't say that; nor think it either! BRACK. You have assuredly no reason to. HEDDA. Oh, reasons- [Watching him closely.] And George Tesman-after all, you must admit that he is correctness itself. BRACK. His correctness and respectability are beyond all question. HEDDA. And I don't see anything absolutely ridiculous about him.-Do you? BRACK. Ridiculous? N-no-I shouldn't exactly say so HEDDA. Well-and his powers of research, at all events, are untiring.-I see no reason why he should not one day come to the front, after all. BRACK [looks at her hesitatingly]. I thought that you, like every one else, expected him to attain the highest distinction. HEDDA [with an expression of fatigue]. Yes, so I did.And then, since he was bent, at all hazards, on being allowed to provide for me-I really don't know why I should not have accepted his offer? BRACK. No-if you look at it in that lightHEDDA. It was more than my other adorers were prepared to do for me, my dear Judge. BRACK [laughing]. Well, I can't answer for all the rest; but as for myself, you know quite well that I have always entertained a-a certain respect for the marriage tie-for marriage as an institution, Mrs. Hedda. HEDDA [jestingly]. Oh, I assure you I have never cherished any hopes with respect to you. BRACK. All I require is a pleasant and intimate interior, 312 HENRIK IBSEN where I can make myself useful in every way, and am free to come and go as-as a trusted friend HEDDA. Of the master of the house, do you mean? BRACK [bowing]. Frankly-of the mistress first of all; but of course of the master, too, in the second place. Such a triangular friendship-if I may call it so-is really a great convenience for all parties, let me tell you. HEDDA. Yes, I have many a time longed for some one to make a third on our travels. Oh-those railway-carriage tete-a-tetes-! BRACK. Fortunately your wedding journey is over now. HEDDA [shaking her head]. Not by a long-long way. I have only arrived at a station on the line. BRACK. Well, then the passengers jump out and move about a little, Mrs. Hedda. HEDDA. I never jump out. BRACK. Really? HEDDA. No-because there is always some one standing by to BRACK [laughing]. To look at your ankles, do you mean? HEDDA. Precisely. BRACK. Well but, dear meHEDDA [with a gesture of repulsion]. I won't have it. I would rather keep my seat where I happen to be-and continue the tete-a-tete. BRACK. But suppose a third person were to jump in and join the couple. HEDDA. Ah-that is quite another matter! BRACK. A trusted, sympathetic friendHEDDA. -with a fund of conversation on all sorts of lively topicsBRACK. — and not the least bit of a specialist! HEDDA [with an audible sigh]. Yes, that would be a relief indeed. BRACK [hears the front door open, and glances in that direction]. The triangle is completed. HEDDA [half aloud]. And on goes the train. HEDDA GABLER 313 [GEORGE TESMAN, in a grey walking suit, with a soft felt hat, enters from the hall. He has a number of unbound books under his arm and in his pockets.] TESMAN [goes up to the table beside the corner settee]. Ouf -what a load for a warm day-all these books. [Lays them on the table.] I'm positively perspiring, Hedda. Hallo-are you there already, my dear Judge? Eh? Berta didn't tell me. BRACK [rising]. I came in through the garden. HEDDA. What books have you got there? TESMAN [stands looking them through]. Some new books on my special subjects-quite indispensable to me. HEDDA. Your special subjects? BRACK. Yes, books on his special subjects, Mrs. Tesman. [BRACK and HEDDA exchange a confidential smile.] HEDDA. Do you need still more books on your special subjects? TESMAN. Yes, my dear Hedda, one can never have too many of them. Of course one must keep up with all that is written and published. HEDDA. Yes, I suppose one must. TESMAN [searching among his books]. And look here-I have got hold of Eilert L6vborg's new book too. [Offering it to her.] Perhaps you would like to glance through it, Hedda? Eh? HEDDA. No, thank you. Or rather-afterwards perhaps. TESMAN. I looked into it a little on the way home. BRACK. Well, what do you think of it-as a specialist? TESMAN. I think it shows quite remarkable soundness of judgment. He never wrote like that before. [Putting the books together.] Now I shall take all these into my study. I'm longing to cut the leaves! And then I must change my clothes. [To BRACK.] I suppose we needn't start just yet? Eh? BRACK. Oh, dear no-there is not the slightest hurry. TESMAN. Well then, I will take my time. [Is going with 314 HENRIK IBSEN his books, but stops in the doorway and turns.] By-the-bye, Hedda-Aunt Julia is not coming this evening. HEDDA. Not coming? Is it that affair of the bonnet that keeps her away? TESMAN. Oh, not at all. How could you think such a thing of Aunt Julia? Just fancy! The fact is, Aunt Rina is very ill. HEDDA. She always is. TESMAN. Yes, but to-day she is much worse than usual, poor dear. HEDDA. Oh, then it's only natural that her sister should remain with her. I must bear my disappointment. TESMAN. And you can't imagine, dear, how delighted Aunt Julia seemed to be-because you had come home looking so flourishing! HEDDA [half aloud, rising]. Oh, those everlasting auntsl TESMAN. What? HEDDA [going to the glass door]. Nothing. TESMAN. Oh, all right. [He goes through the inner room, out to the right.] BRACK. What bonnet were you talking about? HEDDA. Oh, it was a little episode with Miss Tesman this morning. She had laid down her bonnet on the chair there[looks at him and smiles.] -And I pretended to think it was the servant's. BRACK [shaking his head]. Now my dear Mrs. Hedda, how could you do such a thing? To that excellent old lady, too! HEDDA [nervously crossing the room]. Well, you seethese impulses come over me all of a sudden; and I cannot resist them. [Throws herself down in the easy-chair by the stove.] Oh, I don't know how to explain it. BRACK [behind the easy-chair]. You are not really happy -that is at the bottom of it. HEDDA [looking straight before her]. I know of no reason why I should be-happy. Perhaps you can give me one? BRACK. Well-amongst other things, because you have got exactly the home you had set your heart on. HEDDA GABLER 315 HEDDA [looks up at him and laughs]. Do you too believe in that legend? BRACK. Is there nothing in it, then? HEDDA. Oh, yes, there is something in it. BRACK. Well? HEDDA. There is this in it, that I made use of Tesman to see me home from evening parties last summerBRACK. I, unfortunately, had to go quite a different way. HEDDA. That's true. I know you were going a different way last summer. BRACK [laughing]. Oh fie, Mrs. Hedda! Well, then-you and Tesman? HEDDA. Well, we happened to pass here one evening; Tesman, poor fellow, was writhing in the agony of having to find conversation; so I took pity on the learned manBRACK [smiles doubtfully]. You took pity? H'm — HEDDA. Yes, I really did. And so-to help him out of his torment-I happened to say, in pure thoughtlessness, that I should like to live in this villa. BRACK. No more than that? HEDDA. Not that evening. BRACK. But afterwards? HEDDA. Yes, my thoughtlessness had consequences, my dear Judge. BRACK. Unfortunately that too often happens, Mrs. Hedda. HEDDA. Thanks! So you see itr was this enthusiasm for Secretary Falk's villa that first constituted a bond of sympathy between George Tesman and me. From that came our engagement and our marriage, and our wedding journey, and all the rest of it. Well, well, my dear Judge-as you make your bed so you must lie, I could almost say. BRACK. This is exquisite! And you really cared not a rap about it all the time. HEDDA. No, heaven knows I didn't. BRACK. But now? Now that we have made it so homelike for you? 316 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. Uh-the rooms all seem to smell of lavender and dried love-leaves.-But perhaps it's Aunt Julia that has brought that scent with her. BRACK [laughing]. No, I think it must be a legacy from the late Mrs. Secretary Falk. HEDDA. Yes, there is an odour of mortality about it. It reminds me of a bouquet-the day after the ball. [Clasps her hands behind her head, leans back in her chair and looks at him.] Oh, my dear Judge-you cannot imagine how horribly I shall bore myself here. BRACK. Why should not you, too, find some sort of vocation in life, Mrs. Hedda? HEDDA. A vocation-that should attract me? BRACK. If possible, of course. HEDDA. Heaven knows what sort of a vocation that could be. I often wonder whether [Breaking off.] But that would never do either. BRACK. Who can tell? Let me hear what it is. HEDDA. Whether I might not get Tesman to go into politics, I mean. BRACK [laughing]. Tesman? No, really now, political life is not the thing for him-not at all in his line. HEDDA. No, I' daresay not.-But if I could get him into it all the same? BRACK. Why-what satisfaction could you find in that? If he is not fitted for that sort of thing, why should you want to drive him into it? HEDDA. Because I am bored, I tell you! [After a pause.] So you think it quite out of the question that Tesman should ever get into the ministry? BRACK. H'm-you see, my dear Mrs. Hedda-to get into the ministry, he would have to be a tolerably rich man. HEDDA [rising impatiently]. Yes, there we have it! It is this genteel poverty I have managed to drop into! [Crosses the room.] That is what makes life so pitiable! So utterly ludicrous!-For that's what it is. BRACK. Now I should say the fault lay elsewhere. HEDDA GABLER 317 HEDDA. Where, then? BRACK. You have never gone through any really stimulating experience. HEDDA. Anything serious, you mean? BRACK. Yes, you may call it so. But now you may perhaps have one in store. HEDDA [tossing her head]. Oh, you're thinking of the annoyances about this wretched professorship! But that must be Tesman's own affair. I assure you I shall not waste a thought upon it. BRACK. No, no, I daresay not. But suppose now that what people call-in elegant language-a solemn responsibility were to come upon you? [Smiling.] A new responsibility, Mrs. Hedda? HEDDA [angrily]. Be quiet! Nothing of that sort will ever happen! BRACK [warily]. We will speak of this again a year hence -at the very outside. HEDDA [curtly]. I have no turn for anything of the sort, Judge Brack. No responsibilities for me! BRACK. Are you so unlike the generality of women as to have no turn for duties which? HEDDA [beside the glass door]. Oh, be quiet, I tell you!-I often think there is only one thing in the world I have any turn for. BRACK [drawing near to her]. And what is that, if I may ask? HEDDA [stands looking out]. Boring myself to death. Now you know it. [Turns, looks towards the inner room, and laughs.] Yes, as I thought! Here comes the Professor. BRACK [softly, in a tone of warning]. Come, come, come, Mrs. Hedda! [GEORGE TESMAN, dressed for the party, with his gloves and hat in his hand, enters from the right through the inner room.] 318 HENRIK IBSEN TESMAN. Hedda, has no message come from Eilert Lbvborg? Eh? HEDDA. NO. TESMAN. Then, you'll see, he'll be here presently. BRACK. Do you really think he will come? TESMAN. Yes, I am almost sure of it. For what you were telling us this morning must have been a mere floating rumour. BRACK. You think so? TESMAN. At any rate, Aunt Julia said she did not believe for a moment that he would ever stand in my way again. Fancy that! BRACK. Well, then, that's all right. TESMAN [placing his hat and gloves on a chair on the right]. Yes, but you must really let me wait for him as long as possible. BRACK. We have plenty of time yet. None of my guests will arrive before seven or half-past. TESMAN. Then meanwhile we can keep Hedda company, and see what happens. Eh? HEDDA [placing BRACK'S hat and overcoat upon the corner settee]. And at the worst Mr. Lovborg can remain here with me. BRACK [offering to take his things]. Oh, allow me, Mrs. Tesman!-What do you mean by "At the worst"? HEDDA. If he won't go with you and Tesman. TESMAN [looks dubiously at her]. But, Hedda dear-do you think it would quite do for him to remain with you? Eh? Remember, Aunt Julia can't come. HEDDA. No, but Mrs. Elvsted is coming. We three can have a cup of tea together. TESMAN. Oh, yes, that will be all right. BRACK [smiling]. And that would perhaps be the safest plan for him. HEDDA. Why so? BRACK. Well, you know, Mrs. Tesman, how you used to gird at my little bachelor parties. You declared they were adapted only for men of the strictest principles. HEDDA GABLER 319 HEDDA. But no doubt Mr. Lovborg's principles are strict enough now. A converted sinner[BERTA appears at the hall door.] BERTA. There's a gentleman asking if you are at home, ma'amHEDDA. Well, show him in. TESMAN [softly]. I'm sure it is he! Fancy that! [EILERT LOVBORG enters from the hall. He is slim and lean; of the same age as TESMAN, but looks older and somewhat worn-out. His hair and beard are of a blackish brown, his face long and pale, but with patches of colour on the cheek-bones. He is dressed in a well-cut black visiting suit, quite new. He has dark gloves and a silk hat. He stops near the door, and makes a rapid bow, seeming somewhat embarrassed.] TESMAN [goes up to him and shakes him warmly by the hand]. Well, my dear Eilert-so at last we meet again! EILERT LOVBORG [speaks in a subdued voice]. Thanks for your letter, Tesman. [Approaching HEDDA.] Will you too shake hands with me, Mrs. Tesman? HEDDA [taking his hand]. I am glad to see you, Mr. L6vborg. [With a motion of her hand.] I don't know whether you two gentlemen-? LOVBORG [bowing slightly]. Judge Brack, I think. BRACK [doing likewise]. Oh, yes,-in the old daysTESMAN [to LOVBORG, with his hands on his shoulders]. And now you must make yourself entirely at home, Eilert! Mustn't he, Hedda?-For I hear you are going to settle in town again? Eh? LOVBORG. Yes, I am. TESMAN. Quite right, quite right. Let me tell you, I have got hold of your new book; but I haven't had time to read it yet. LOVBORG. You may spare yourself the trouble. TESMAN. Why so? LOVBORG. Because there is very little in it. 320 HENRIK IBSEN TESMAN. Just fancy-how can you say so? BRACK. But it has been very much praised, I hear. LOVBORG. That was what I wanted; so I put nothing into the book but what every one would agree with. BRACK. Very wise of you. TESMAN. Well but, my dear Eilert —! LOVBORG. For now I mean to win myself a position again — to make a fresh start. TESMAN [a little embarrassed]. Ah, that is what you wish to do? Eh? LOVBORG [smiling, lays down his hat, and draws a packet, wrapped in paper, from his coat pocket]. But when this one appears, George Tesman, you will have to read it. For this is the real book-the book I have put my true self into. TESMAN. Indeed? And what is it? LOVBORG. It is the continuation. TESMAN. The continuation? Of what? LOVBORG. Of the book. TESMAN. Of the new book? LOVBORG. Of course. TESMAN. Why, my dear Eilert-does it not come down to our own days? LOVBORG. Yes, it does; and this one deals with the future. TESMAN. With the future! But, good heavens, we know nothing of the future! LOVBORG. No; but there is a thing or two to be said about it all the same. [Opens the packet.] Look here TESMAN. Why, that's not your handwriting. LOVBORG. I dictated it. [Turning over the pages.] It falls into two sections. The first deals with the civilising forces of the future. And here is the second-[running through the pages towards the end]-forecasting the probable line of development. TESMAN. How odd now! I should never have thought of writing anything of that sort. HEDDA [at the glass door, drumming on the pane]. H'mI daresay not. HEDDA GABLER 321 LOVBORG [replacing the manuscript in its paper and laying the packet on the table]. I brought it,. thinking I might read you a little of it this evening. TESMAN. That was very good of you, Eilert. But this evening? [Looking at BRACK.] I don't quite see how we can manage itLOVBORG. Well then, some other time. There is no hurry, BRACK. I must tell you, Mr. Lovborg-there is a little gathering at my house this evening-mainly in honour of Tesman, you know - LOVBORG [looking for his hat]. Oh-then I won't detain you BRACK. No, but listen-will you not do me the favour of joining us? LOVBORG [curtly and decidedly]. No, I can't-thank you very much. BRACK. Oh, nonsense-do! We shall be quite a select little circle. And I assure you we will have a "lively time," as Mrs. Hed-as Mrs. Tesman says. LOVBORG. I have no doubt of it. But peverthelessBRACK. And then you might bring your manuscript with you, and read it to Tesman at my house. I could give you a room to yourselves. TESMAN. Yes, think of that, Eilert,-why shouldn't you? Eh? HEDDA [interposing]. But Tesman, if Mr. Lovborg would really rather not! I am sure Mr. Lovborg is much more inclined to remain here and have supper with me. LOVBORG [looking at her]. With you, Mrs. Tesman? HEDDA. And with Mrs. Elvsted. LOVBORG. Ah — [Lightly.] I saw her for a moment this morning. HEDDA. Did you? Well, she is coming this evening. So you see you are almost bound to remain, Mr. Lovborg, or she will have no one to see her home. LOVBORG. That's true. Many thanks, Mrs. Tesman-in that case I will remain. 322 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. Then I have one or two orders to give the servant[She goes to the hall door and rings. BERTA enters. HEDDA talks to her in a whisper, and points toward the inner room. BERTA nods and goes out again.] TESMAN [at the same time, to LOVBORG]. Tell me, Eilertis it this new subject-the future-that you are going to lecture about? LOVBORG. Yes. TESMAN. They told me at the bookseller's, that you are going to deliver a course of lectures this autumn. LOVBORG. That is my intention. I hope you won't take it ill, Tesman. TESMAN. Oh no, not in the least! But? LOVBORG. I can quite understand that it must be disagreeable to you. TESMAN [cast down]. Oh, I can't expect you, out of consideration for me, toLOVBORG. But I shall wait till you have received your appointment. TESMAN. Will you wait? Yes, but-yes, but-are you not going to compete with me? Eh? L6VBORG. No; it is only the moral victory I care for. TESMAN. Why, bless me-then Aunt Julia was right after all! Oh yes-I knew it! Hedda! Just fancy-Eilert Lovborg is not going to stand in our way! HEDDA [curtly]. Our way? Pray leave me out of the question. [She goes up towards the inner room, where BERTA is placing a tray with decanters and glasses on the table. HEDDA nods approval, and comes forward again. BERTA goes out.] TESMAN [at the same time]. And you, Judge Brackwhat do you say to this? Eh? BRACK. Well, I say that a moral victory-h'm-may be all very fine TESMAN. Yes, certainly. But all the same HEDDA GABLER 323 HEDDA [looking at TESMAN with a cold smile]. You stand there looking as if you were thunderstruck TESMAN. Yes-so I am-I almost think BRACK. Don't you see, Mrs. Tesman, a thunderstorm has just passed over? HEDDA [pointing towards the inner room]. Will you not take a glass of cold punch, gentlemen? BRACK [looking at his watch]. A stirrup-cup? Yes, it wouldn't come amiss. TESMAN. A capital idea, Hedda! Just the thing! Now that the weight has been taken off my mindHEDDA. Will you not join them, Mr. Lovborg? LOVBORG [with a gesture of refusal]. No, thank you. Nothing for me. BRACK. Why, bless me-cold punch is surely not poison. LOVBORG. Perhaps not for every one. HEDDA. I will keep Mr. Lovborg company in the meantime. TESMAN. Yes, yes, Hedda, dear, do. [He and BRACK go into the inner room, seat themselves, drink punch, smoke cigarettes, and carry on a lively conversation during what follows. EILERT LOVBORG remains beside the stove. HEDDA goes to the writingtable.] HEDDA [raising her voice a little]. Do you care to look at some photographs, Mr. L6vborg? You know Tesman and I made a tour in the Tyrol on our way home? [She takes up an album, and places it on the table beside the sofa, in the further corner of which she seats herself. EILERT LOVBORG approaches, stops, and looks at her. Then he takes a chair and seats himself at her left, with his back towards the inner room.] HEDDA [opening the album]. Do you see this range of mountains, Mr. Lovborg? It's the Ortler group. Tesman has written the name underneath. Here it is: "The Ortler group near Meran." 324 HENRIK IBSEN LOVBORG [who has never taken his eyes off her, says softly and slowly]. Hedda-Gabler! HEDDA [glancing hastily at him]. Ah! Hush! LOVBORG [repeats softly]. Hedda Gabler! HEDDA [looking at the album]. That was my name in the old days-when we two knew each other. LOVBORG. And I must teach myself never to say Hedda Gabler again-never, as long as I live. HEDDA [still turning over the pages]. Yes, you must. And I think you ought to practice in time. The sooner the better, I should say. LOVBORG [in a tone of indignation]. Hedda Gabler married? And married to-George Tesman! HEDDA. Yes-so the world goes. LOVBORG. Oh, Hedda, Hedda-how could you 8 throw yourself away! HEDDA [looks sharply at him]. What? I can't allow this! LOVBORG. What do you mean? [TESMAN comes into the room and goes toward the sofa.] HEDDA [hears him coming and says in an indifferent tone]. And this is a view from the Val d'Ampezzo, Mr. L6vborg. Just look at these peaks! [Looks affectionately up at TESMAN.] What's the name of these curious peaks, dear? TESMAN. Let me see. Oh, those are the Dolomites. HEDDA. Yes, that's it!-Those are the Dolomites, Mr. Lovborg. TESMAN. Hedda, dear,-I only wanted to ask whether I shouldn't bring you a little punch after all? For yourself at any rate-eh? HEDDA. Yes, do, please; and perhaps a few biscuits. TESMAN. No cigarettes? HEDDA. No. TESMAN. Very well. [He goes into the inner room and out to the right.. BRACK sits in the inner room, and keeps an eye from time to time on HEDDA and LOVBORG.] 8 He uses the familiar du. HEDDA GABLER 325 LOVBORG [softly, as before]. Answer me, Hedda-how could you go and do this? HEDDA [apparently absorbed in the album].. If you continue to say du to me I won't talk to you. LOVBORG. May I not say du when we are alone? HEDDA. No. You may think it; but you mustn't say it. LOVBORG. Ah, I understand. It is an offence against George Tesman, whom you 9-love. HEDDA [glances at him and smiles]. Love? What an idea? LOVBORG. You don't love him, then! HEDDA. But I won't hear of any sort of unfaithfulness! Remember that. LOVBORG. Hedda-answer me one thingHEDDA. Hush! [TESMAN enters with a small tray from the inner room.] TESMAN. Here you are! Isn't this tempting? [He puts the tray on the table.] HEDDA. Why do you bring it yourself? TESMAN [filling the glasses]. Because I think it's such fun to wait upon you, Hedda. HEDDA. But you have poured out two glasses. Mr. Lovborg said he wouldn't have anyTESMAN. No, but Mrs. Elvsted will soon be here, won't she? HEDDA. Yes, by-the-by-Mrs. ElvstedTESMAN. Had you forgotten her? Eh? HEDDA. We were so absorbed in these photographs. [Shows him a picture.] Do you remember this little village? TESMAN. Oh, it's that one just below the Brenner Pass. It was there we passed the nightHEDDA. -and met that lively party of tourists. TESMAN. Yes, that was the place. Fancy-if we could only have had you with us, Eilert! Eh? [He returns to the inner room and sits beside BRACK.] LOVBORG. Answer me this one thing, HeddaFrom this point onward Luvborg uses the formal de. 326 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. Well? LOVBORG. Was there no love in your friendship for me either? Not a spark-not a tinge of love in it? HEDDA. I wonder if there was? To me it seems as though we were two good comrades-two thoroughly intimate friends. [Smilingly.] You especially were frankness itself. LOVBORG. It was you that made me so. HEDDA. As I look back upon it all, I think there was really something beautiful, something fascinating-something daring-in-in that secret intimacy-that comradeship which no living creature so much as dreamed of. LOVBORG. Yes, yes, Hedda! Was there not?-When I used to come to your father's in the afternoon-and the General sat over at the window reading his papers-with his back towards usHEDDA. And we two on the corner sofaLOVBORG. Always with the same illustrated paper before usHEDDA. For want of an album, yes. LOVBORG. Yes, Hedda, and when I made my confessions to you-told you about myself, things that at that time no one else knew! There I would sit and tell you of my escapadesmy days and nights of devilment. Oh, Hedda-what was the power in you that forced me to confess these things? HEDDA. Do you think it was any power in me? LOVBORG. How else can I explain it? And all those-those roundabout questions you used to put to meHEDDA. Which you understood so particularly wellLOVBORG. How could you sit and question me like that? Question me quite franklyHEDDA. In roundabout terms, please observe. LOVBORG. Yes, but frankly, nevertheless. Cross-question me about-all that sort of thing? HEDDA. And how could you answer, Mr. LSvborg? LOVBORG. Yes, that is just what I can't understand-in looking back upon it. But tell me now, Hedda-was there not love at the bottom of our friendship? On your side, did you HEDDA GABLZER 327 not feel as though you might purge my stains away if I made you my confessor? Was it not so? HEDDA. NO, not quite. LOVBORG. What was your motive, then? HEDDA. Do you think it quite incomprehensible that a young girl-when it can be done-without any one knowingLOVBORG. Well? HEDDA. -should be glad to have a peep, now and then, into a world whichLOVBORG. Which-? HEDDA. -which she is forbidden to know anything about? LOVBORG. So that was it? HEDDA. Partly. Partly-I almost think. LOVBORG. Comradeship in the thirst for life. But why should not that, at any rate, have continued? HEDDA. The fault was yours. LOVBORG. It was you that broke with me. HEDDA. Yes, when our friendship threatened to develop into something more serious. Shame upon you, Eilert Lovborg! How could you think of wronging your-your frank comrade? LOVBORG [clenching his hands]. Oh, why did you not carry out your threat? Why did you not shoot me down? HEDDA. Because I have such a dread of scandal. LOVBORG. Yes, Hedda, you are a coward at heart. HEDDA. A terrible coward. [Changing'her tone.] But it was a lucky thing for you. And now you have found ample consolation at the Elvsteds'. LOVBORG. I know what Thea has confided to you. HEDDA. And perhaps you have confided to her something about us? LOVBORG. Not a word. She is too stupid to understand anything of that sort. HEDDA. Stupid? LOVBORG. She is stupid about matters of that sort. HEDDA. And I am cowardly. [Bends over towards him, 328 HENRIK IBSEN without looking him in the face, and says more softly:] But now I will confide something to you. LOVBORG [eagerly]. Well? HEDDA. The fact that I dared not shoot you downLOVBORG. Yes! HEDDA. -that was not my most arrant cowardice-that evening. LOVBORG [looks at her a moment, understands, and whispers passionately]. Oh, Hedda! Hedda Gabler! Now I begin to see a hidden reason beneath our comradeship! You10 and. I -! After all, then, it was your craving for lifeHEDDA [softly, with a sharp glance]. Take care! Believe nothing of the sort! [Twilight has begun to fall. The hall door is opened from without by BERTA.] HEDDA [closes the album with a bang and calls smilingly]: Ah, at last! My darling Thea,-come along! [MRS. ELVSTED enters from the hall She is in evening dress. The door is closed behind her.] HEDDA [on the sofa, stretches out her arms towards her]. My sweet Thea-you can't think how I have been longing for you! [MRS. ELVSTED, in passing, exchanges slight salutations with the gentlemen in the inner room, then goes up to the table and gives HEDDA her hands. EILERT LOVBORG has risen. He and MRS. ELVSTED greet each other with a silent nod.] MRS. ELVSTED. Ought I to go in and talk to your husband for a moment? HEDDA. Oh, not at all. Leave those two alone. They will soon be going. MRS. ELVSTED. Are they going out? HEDDA. Yes, to a supper-party. 10 In his speech he once more says du. Hedda addresses him throughout as de. HEDDA GABLER 329 MRS. ELVSTED [quickly to LOVBORG]. Not you? LOVBORG. No. HEDDA. Mr. LSvborg remains with us. MRS. ELVSTED [takes a chair and is about to seat herself at his side]. Oh, how nice it is here! HEDDA. No, thank you, my little Thea! Not there! You'll be good enough to come over here to me. I will sit between you. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, just as you please. [She goes round the table and seats herself on the sofa on HEDDA'S right. LOVBORG reseats himself on his chair.] LOVBORG [after a short pause, to HEDDA]. IS not she lovely to look at? HEDDA [lightly stroking her hair]. Only to look at? LOVBORG. Yes. For we two-she and I-we are two real comrades. We have absolute faith in each other; so we can sit and talk with perfect franknessHEDDA. Not round about, Mr. Lbvborg? LOVBORG. Well MRS. ELVSTED [softly clinging close to HEDDA]. Oh, how happy I am, Hedda; for, only think, he says I have inspired him too. HEDDA [looks at her with a smile]. Ah! Does he say that, dear? LOVBORG. And then she is so brave, Mrs. Tesman! MRS. ELVSTED. Good heavens-am I brave? LOVBORG. Exceedingly-where your comrade is concerned. HEDDA. Ah yes-courage! If one only had that! LOVBORG. What then? What do you mean? HEDDA. Then life would perhaps be liveable, after all. [With a sudden change of tone.] But now, my dearest Thea, you really must have a glass of cold punch. MRS. ELVSTED. No, thanks-I never take anything of that kind. HEDDA. Well, then, you, Mr. Lovborg. LOVBORG. Nor I, thank you. 330 HENRIK IBSEN MRS. ELVSTED. No, he doesn't either. HEDDA [looks fixedly at him]. But if I say you shall? LOVBORG. It would be no use. HEDDA [laughing] Then I, poor creature, have no sort of power over you? LOVBORG. Not in that respect. HEDDA. But seriously, I think you ought to-for your own sake. MRS. ELVSTED. Why, Hedda-! LOVBORG. How so? HEDDA. Or rather on account of other people. LOVBORG. Indeed? HEDDA. Otherwise people might be apt to suspect thatin your heart of hearts-you did not feel quite secure-quite confident of yourself. MRS. ELVSTED [softly]. Oh please, Hedda-. LOVBORG, People may suspect what they like-for the present. MRS. ELVSTED [joyfully]. Yes, let them! HEDDA. I saw it plainly in Judge Brack's face a moment ago. LOVBORG. What did you see? HEDDA. His contemptuous smile, when you dared not go with them into the inner room. LOVBORG. Dared not? Of course I preferred to stop here and talk to you. MIRS. ELVSTED. What could be more natural, Hedda? HEDDA. But the Judge could not guess that. And I saw, too, the way he smiled and glanced at Tesman when you dared not accept his invitation to this wretched little supper-party of his. LOVBORG. Dared not! Do you say I dared not? HEDDA. I don't say so. But that was how Judge Brack understood it. LOVBORG. Well, let him. HEDDA. Then you are not going with them? LOVBORG. I will stay here with you and Thea. HEDDA GABLER 331 MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, Hedda-how can you doubt that? HEDDA [smiles and nods approvingly to LOVBORG]. Firm as a rock! Faithful to your principles, now and forever! Ah, that is how a man should be! [Turns to MRS. ELVSTED and caresses her.] Well now, what did I tell you, when you came to us this morning in such a state of distractionLOVBORG [surprised]. Distraction! MRS. ELVSTED [terrified]. Hedda-oh Hedda-! HEDDA. You can see for yourself; you haven't the slightest reason to be in such mortal terror [Interrupting herself.] There! Now we can all three enjoy ourselves! LOVBORG [who has given a start]. Ah-what is all this, Mrs. Tesman? MRS. ELVSTED. Oh my God, Hedda! What are you saying? What are you doing? HEDDA. Don't get excited! That horrid Judge Brack is sitting watching you. LOVBORG. So she was in mortal terror! On my account! MRS. ELVSTED [softly and piteously]. Oh, Hedda-now you have ruined everything! LOVBORG [looks fixedly at her for a moment. His face is distorted]. So that was my comrade's frank confidence in me? MRS. ELVSTED [imploringly]. Oh, my dearest friend-only let me tell youLOVBORG [takes one of the glasses of punch, raises it to his lips, and says in a low, husky voice]. Your health, Thea! [He empties the glass, puts it down, and takes the second.] MRS. ELVSTED [softly]. Oh, Hedda, Hedda-how could you do this? HEDDA. I do it? I? Are you crazy? LOVBORG. Here's to your health too, Mrs. Tesman. Thanks for the truth. Hurrah for the truth! [He empties the glass and is about to re-fill it.] HEDDA [lays her hand on his arm]. Come, come-no more for the present. Remember you are going out to supper. MRS. ELVSTED. NO, no, no! 332 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. Hush! They are sitting watching you. LOVBORG [putting down the glass]. Now, Thea-tell me the truthMRS. ELVSTED. Yes. LOVBORG. Did your husband know that you had come after me? MRS. ELVSTED [wringing her hands]. Oh, Hedda-do you hear what he is asking? LOVBORG. Was it arranged between you and him that you were to come to town and look after me? Perhaps it was the Sheriff himself that urged you to come? Aha, my dear-no doubt he wanted my help in his office! Or was it at the cardtable that he missed me? MRS. ELVSTED [softly, in agony]. Oh, L6vborg, Lovborg-I LOVBORG [seizes a glass and is on the point of filling it]. Here's a glass for the old Sheriff too! HEDDA [preventing him]. No more just now. Remember you have to read your manuscript to Tesman. LOVBORG [calmly, putting down the glass]. It was stupid of me all this, Thea-to take it in this way, I mean. Don't be angry with me, my dear, dear comrade. You shall see-both you and the others-that if I was fallen once-now I have risen again! Thanks to you, Thea. MRS. ELVSTED [radiant with joy]. Oh, heaven be praised-! [BRACK has in the meantime looked at his watch. He and TESMAN rise and come into the drawing-room.] BRACK [takes his hat and overcoat]. Well, Mrs. Tesman, our time has come. HEDDA. I suppose it has. LOVBORG [rising]. Mine too, Judge Brack. MRS. ELVSTED [softly and imploringly]. Oh, Lovborg, don't do it! HEDDA [pinching her arm]. They can hear you! MRS. ELVSTED [with a suppressed shriek]. Ow! LOVBORG [to BRACK]. You were good enough to invite me. BRACK. Well, are you coming after all? LOVBORG. Yes, many thanks. HEDDA GABLER 333 BRACK. I'm delightedLOVBORG [to TESMAN, putting the parcel of MS. in his pocket]. I should like to show you one or two things before I send it to the printers. TESMAN. Fancy-that will be delightful. But, Hedda dear, how is Mrs. Elvsted to get home? Eh? HEDDA. Oh, that can be managed somehow. LOVBORG [looking towards the ladies]. Mrs. Elvsted? Of course, I'll come again and fetch her. [Approaching.] At ten or thereabouts, Mrs. Tesman? Will that do? HEDDA. Certainly. That will do capitally. TESMAN. Well, then, that's all right. But you must not expect me so early, Hedda. HEDDA. Oh, you may stop as long-as long as ever you please. MRS. ELVSTED [trying to conceal her anxiety]. Well then, Mr. Lovborg-I shall remain here until you come. LOVBORG [with his hat in his hand]. Pray do, Mrs. Elvsted. BRACE. And now off goes the excursion train, gentlemen! I hope we shall have a lively time, as a certain fair lady puts it. HEDDA. Ah, if only the fair lady could be present unseen-! BRACK. Why unseen? HEDDA. In order to hear a little of your liveliness at first hand, Judge Brack. BRACK [laughing]. I should not advise the fair lady to try it. TESMAN [also laughing]. Come, you're a nice one Hedda! Fancy that! BRACK. Well, good-bye, good-bye, ladies. LOVBORG [bowing]. About ten o'clock, then. [BRACK, LOVBORG, and TESMAN go out by the hall door. At the same time BERTA enters from the inner room with a lighted lamp, which she places on the diningroom table; she goes out by the way she came.] MRS. ELVSTED [who has risen and is wandering restlessly about the room]. Hedda-Hedda-what will come of all this? 334 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. At ten o'clock-he will be here. I can see him already-with vine-leaves in his hair-flushed and fearlessMRS. ELVSTED. Oh, I hope he may. HEDDA. And then, you see-then he will have regained control over himself. Then he will be a free man for all his days. MRs. ELVSTED. Oh God!-if he would only come as you see him now! HEDDA. He will come as I see him-so, and not otherwise! [Rises and approaches THEA.] You may doubt him as long as you please; I believe in him. And now we will tryMRS. ELVSTED. You have some hidden motive in this, Hedda! HEDDA. Yes, I have. I want for once in my life to have power to mould a human destiny. MRS. ELVSTED. Have you not the power? HEDDA. I have not-and have never had it. MRS. ELVSTED. Not your husband's? HEDDA. Do you think that is worth the trouble? Oh, if you could only understand how poor I am. And fate has made you so rich! [Clasps her passionately in her arms.] I think I must burn your hair off, after all. MRS. ELVSTED. Let me go! Let me go! I am afraid of you, Hedda! BERTA [in the middle doorway]. Tea is laid in the dining room, ma'am. HEDDA. Very well. We are coming. MRs. ELVSTED. No, no, no! I would rather go home alone! At once! HEDDA. Nonsense? First you shall have a cup of tea, you little stupid. And then-at ten o'clock-Eilert Lovborg will be here-with vine-leaves in his hair. [She drags MRS. ELVSTED almost by force towards the middle doorway.] HEDDA GABLER 335 ACT III The room at the TESMANS'. The curtains are drawn over the middle doorway, and also over the glass door. The lamp, half turned down, and with a shade over it, is burning on the table. In the stove, the door of which stands open, there has been a fire, which is now nearly burnt out.] [MRS. ELVSTED, wrapped in a large shawl, and with her feet upon a foot-rest, sits close to the stove, sunk back in the arm-chair. HEDDA, fully dressed, lies sleeping upon the sofa, with a sofa-blanket over her.] MRS. ELVSTED [after a pause, suddenly sits up in her chair, and listens eagerly. Then she sinks back again wearily, moaning to herself]. Not yet!-Oh God-oh God-not yet! [BERTA slips in by the hall door. She has a letter in her hand.] MRS. ELVSTED [turns and whispers eagerly]. Well-has any one come? BERTA [softly]. Yes, a girl has brought this letter. MRS. ELVSTED [quickly, holding out her hand]. A letter! Give it to me! BERTA. No, it's for Dr. Tesman, ma'am. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, indeed. BERTA. It was Miss Tesman's servant that brought it. I'll lay it here on the table. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, do. BERTA [laying down the letter]. I think I had better put out the lamp. It's smoking. MRs. ELVSTED. Yes, put it out. It must soon be daylight now. BERTA [putting out the lamp]. It is daylight already, ma'am. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, broad day! And no one come back yet-! 336 HENRIK IBSEN BERTA. Lord bless you, ma'am-I guessed how it would be. MRS. ELVSTED. You guessed. BERTA. Yes, when I saw that a certain person had come back to town-and that he went off with them. For we've heard enough about that gentleman before now. MRS. ELVSTED. Don't speak so loud. You will waken Mrs. Tesman. BERTA [looks towards the sofa and sighs]. No, no-let her sleep, poor thing. Shan't I put some wood on the fire? MRS. ELVSTED. Thanks, not for me. BERTA. Oh, very well. [She goes softly out by the hall door.] HEDDA [is awakened by the shutting of the door, and looks up]. What's that-? MRS. ELVSTED. It was only the servantHEDDA [looking about her]. Oh, we're here-! Yes, now I remember. [Sits erect upon the sofa, stretches herself, and rubs her eyes.] What o'clock is it, Thea? MRS. ELVSTED [looks at her watch]. It's past seven. HEDDA. When did Tesman come home? MRS. ELVSTED. He has not come. HEDDA. Not come home yet? MRS. ELVSTED [rising]. No one has come. HEDDA. Think of our watching and waiting here till four in the morningMRS. ELVSTED [wringing her hands]. And how I watched and waited for him! HEDDA [yawns, and says with her hand before her mouth]: Well, well-we might have spared ourselves the trouble. MRS. ELVSTED. Did you get a little sleep? HEDDA. Oh yes; I believe I have slept pretty well. Have you not? MRS. ELVSTED. Not for a moment. I couldn't, Hedda!not to save my life. HEDDA [rises and goes towards her]. There, there, there! There's nothing to be so alarmed about. I understand quite well what has happened. HEDDA GABLER 337 MRS. ELVSTED. Well, what do you think? Won't you tell me? HEDDA. Why, of course it has been a very late affair at Judge Brack'sMRS. ELVSTED. Yes, yes, that is clear enough. But all the sameHEDDA. And then, you see, Tesman hasn't cared to come home and ring us up in the middle of the night. [Laughing.] Perhaps he wasn't inclined to show himself either-immediately after a jollification. MRS. ELVSTED. But in that case-where can he have gone? HEDDA. Of course he has gone to his aunts' and slept there. They have his old room ready for him. MRS. ELVSTED. No, he can't be with them; for a letter has just come for him from Miss Tesman. There it lies. HEDDA. Indeed? [Looks at the address.] Why yes, it's addressed in Aunt Julia's own hand. Well then, he has remained at Judge Brack's. And as for Eilert Lovborg-he is sitting, with vine-leaves in his hair, reading his mnanuscript. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh Hedda, you are just saying things you don't believe a bit. HEDDA. You really are a little blockhead, Thea. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh yes, I suppose I am. HEDDA. And how mortally tired you look. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, I am mortally tired. HEDDA. Well then, you must do as I tell you. You must go into my room and lie down for a little while. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh no, no-I shouldn't be able to sleep. HEDDA. I am sure you would. MRS. ELVSTED. Well, but your husband is certain to come soon now; and then I want to know at onceHEDDA. I shall take care to let you know when he comes. MRS. ELVSTED. Do you promise me, Hedda? HEDDA. Yes, rely upon me. Just you go in and have a sleep in the meantime. MRS. ELVSTED. Thanks; then I'll try to. [She goes off through the inner room.] 338 HENRIK IBSEN [HEDDA goes up to the glass door and draws back the curtains. The broad daylight streams into the room. Then she takes a little hand-glass from the writingtable, looks at herself in it, and arranges her hair. Next she goes to the hall door and presses the bellbutton.] [BERTA presently appears at the hall door.] BERTA. Did you want anything, ma'am? HEDDA. Yes; you must put some more wood in the stove. I am shivering. BERTA. Bless me-I'll make up the fire at once. [She rakes the embers together and lays a piece of wood upon them; then stops and listens.] That was a ring at the front door, ma'am. HEDDA. Then go to the door. I will look after the fire. BERTA. It'll soon burn up. [She goes out by the hall door.] [HEDDA kneels on the foot-rest and lays some more pieces of wood in the stove.] [After a short pause, GEORGE TESMAN enters from the hall. He looks tired and rather serious. He steals on tiptoe towards the middle doorway and is about to slip through the curtains.] HEDDA [at the stove, without looking up]. Good morning. TESMAN [turns]. Hedda! [Approaching her.] Good heavens-are you up so early? Eh? HEDDA. Yes, I am up very early this morning. TESMAN. And I never doubted you were still sound asleep! Fancy that, Hedda! HEDDA. Don't speak so loud. Mrs. Elvsted is resting in my room. TESMAN. Has Mrs. Elvsted been here all night? HEDDA. Yes, since no one came to fetch her. TESMAN. Ah, to be sure. HEDDA [closes the door of the stove and rises]. Well, did you enjoy yourself at Judge Brack's? TESMAN. Have you been anxious about me? Eh? HEDDA. No, I should never think of being anxious. But I asked if you had enjoyed yourself. HEDDA GABLER 339 TESMAN. Oh yes,-for once in a way. Especially the beginning of the evening; for then Eilert read me part of his book. We arrived more than an hour too early-fancy that! And Brack had all sorts of arrangements to make-so Eilert read to me. HEDDA [seating herself by the table on the right]. Well? Tell me, thenTESMAN [sitting on a footstool near the stove]. Oh Hedda, you can't conceive what a book that is going to be! I believe it is one of the most remarkable things that have ever been written. Fancy that! HEDDA. Yes, yes; I don't care about that — TESMAN. I must make a confession to you, Hedda. When he had finished reading-a horrid feeling came over me. HEDDA. A horrid feeling? TESMAN. I felt jealous of Eilert for having had it in him to write such a book. Only think, Hedda! HEDDA. Yes, yes, I am thinking! TESMAN. And then how pitiful to think that he-with all his gifts-should be irreclaimable after all. HEDDA. I suppose you mean that he has more courage than the rest? TESMAN. NO, not at all-I mean that he is incapable of taking his pleasures in moderation. HEDDA. And what came of it all-in the end? TESMAN. Well, to tell the truth, I think it might best be described as an orgy, Hedda. HEDDA.. Had he vine-leaves in his hair? TESMAN. Vine-leaves? No, I saw nothing of the sort. But he made a long, rambling speech in honour of the woman who had inspired him in his work-that was the phrase he used. HEDDA. Did he name her? TESMAN. NO, he didn't; but I can't help thinking he meant Mrs. Elvsted. You may be sure he did. HEDDA. Well-where did you part from him? TESMAN. On the way to town. We broke up-the last of us at any rate-all together; and Brack came with us to get 340 HENRIK IBSEN a breath of fresh air. And then, you see, we agreed to take Eilert home; for he had had far more than was good for him. HEDDA. I daresay. TESMAN. But now comes the strange part of it, Hedda; or, I should rather say, the melancholy part of it. I declare I am almost ashamed-on Eilert's account-to tell youHEDDA. Oh, go onTESMAN. Well, as we were getting near town, you see, I happened to drop a little behind the others. Only for a minute or two-fancy that! HEDDA. Yes, yes, yes, but-? TESMAN. And then, as I hurried after them-what do you think I found by the wayside? Eh? HEDDA. Oh, how should I know! TESMAN. You mustn't speak of it to a soul, Hedda! Do you hear! Promise me, for Eilert's sake. [Draws a parcel, wrapped in paper, from his coat pocket.] Fancy, dear-I found this. HEDDA. Is not that the parcel he had with him yesterday? TESMAN. Yes, it is the whole of his precious, irreplaceable manuscript! And he had gone and lost it, and knew nothing about it. Only fancy, Hedda! So deplorablyHEDDA. But why did you not give him back the parcel at once? TESMAN. I didn't dare to-in the state he was then inHEDDA. Did you not tell any of the others that you had found it? TESMAN. Oh, far from it! You can surely understand that, for Eilert's sake, I wouldn't do that. HEDDA. So no one knows that Eilert Lovborg's manuscript is in your possession? TESMAN. NO. And no one must know it. HEDDA. Then what did you say to him afterwards? TESMAN. I didn't talk to him again at all; for when we got in among the streets, he and two or three of the others gave us the slip and disappeared. Fancy that! HEDDA. Indeed! They must have taken him home then. IIEDDA GABLER 341 TESMAN. Yes, so it would appear. And Brack, too, left us. HEDDA. And what have you been doing with yourself since? TESMAN. Well, I and some of the others. went home with one of the party, a jolly fellow, and took our morning coffee with him; or perhaps I should rather call it our night coffeeeh? But now, when I have rested a little, and given Eilert, poor fellow, time to have his sleep out, I must take this back to him. HEDDA' [holds out her hand for the packet]. No-don't give it to him! Not in such a hurry, I mean. Let me read it first. TESMAN. NO, my dearest Hedda, I mustn't, I really mustn't. HEDDA. You must not? TESMAN. No-for you can imagine what a state of despair he will be in when he awakens and misses the manuscript. He has no copy of it, you must know! He told me so. HEDDA [looking searchingly at him]. Can such a thing not be reproduced? Written over again?. TESMAN. No, I don't think that would be possible. For the inspiration, you seeHEDDA. Yes, yes-I suppose it depends on that. [Lightly.] But, by-the-bye-here is a letter for you. TESMAN. Fancy — HEDDA [handing it to him]. It came early this morning. TESMAN. It's from Aunt Julia! What can it be? [He lays the packet on the other footstool, opens the letter, runs his eye through it, and jumps up.] Oh, Hedda-she says that poor Aunt Rina is dying! HEDDA. Well, we were prepared for that. TESMAN. And that if I want to see her again, I must make haste. I'll run in to them at once. HEDDA [suppressing a smile]. Will you run? TESMAN. Oh, dearest Hedda-if you could only make up your mind to come with me! Just think! HEDDA [rises and says wearily, repelling the idea]. No, no, don't ask me. I will not look upon sickness and death. I loathe all sorts of ugliness. 342 HENRIK IBSEN TESMAN. Well, well, then-! [Bustling around.] My hatMy overcoat-? Oh, in the hall- I do hope I mayn t come too late, Hedda! Eh? HEDDA. Oh, if you runBERTA. Judge Brack is at the door, and wishes to know if he may come in. TESMAN. At this time! No, I can't possibly see him. HEDDA. But I can. [To BERTA.] Ask Judge Brack to come in. [BERTA goes out.] HEDDA [quickly whispering]. The parcel, Tesman! [She snatches it up from the stool.] TESMAN. Yes, give it to me! HEDDA. No, no, I will keep it till you come back. [She goes to the writing-table and places it in the bookcase. TESMAN stands in a flurry of haste, and cannot get his gloves on.] [JUDGE BRACK enters from the hall.] HEDDA [nodding to him]. You are an early bird, I must say. BRACK. Yes, don't you think so? [To TESMAN.] Are you on the move, too? TESMAN. Yes, I must rush off to my aunt's. Fancy-the invalid one is lying at death's door, poor creature. BRACK. Dear me, is she indeed? Then on no account let me detain you. At such a critical momentTESMAN. Yes, I must really rush- Good-bye! Good-bye! [He hastens out by the hall door.] HEDDA [approaching]. You seem to have made a particularly lively night of it at your rooms, Judge Brack. BRACK. I assure you I have not had my clothes off, Mrs. Hedda. HEDDA. Not you, either? BRACK. No, as you may see. But what has Tesman been telling you of the night's adventures? HEDDA. Oh, some tiresome story. Only that they went and had coffee somewhere or other. BRACK. I have heard about that coffee-party already. Eilert L6vborg was not with them, I fancy? HEDDA GABLER 343 HEDDA. No, they had taken him home before that. BRACK. Tesman, too? HEDDA. No, but some of the others, he said. BRACK [smiling]. George Tesman is really an ingenuous creature, Mrs. Hedda. HEDDA. Yes, heaven knows he is. Then is there something behind all this? BRACK. Yes, perhaps there may be. HEDDA. Well then, sit down, my dear Judge, and tell your story in comfort. [She seats herself to the left of the table. BRACK sits near her, at the long side of the table.] HEDDA. Now then? BRACK. I had special reasons for keeping track of my guests-or rather of some of my guests-last night. HEDDA. Of Eilert Lovborg among the rest, perhaps? BRACK. Frankly, yes. HEDDA. Now you make me really curiousBRACK. Do you know where he and one or two of the others finished the night, Mrs. Hedda? HEDDA. If it is not quite unmentionable, tell me. BRACK. Oh no, it's not at all unmentionable. Well, they put in an appearance at a particularly animated soiree. HEDDA. Of the lively kind? BRACK. Of the very liveliestHEDDA. Tell me more of this, Judge BrackBRACK. L6vborg, as well as the others, had been invited in advance. I knew all about it. But he had declined the invitation; for now, as you know, he has become a new man. HEDDA. Up at the Elvsteds', yes. But he went after all, then? BRAcK. Well, you see, Mrs. Hedda-unhappily the spirit moved him at my rooms last eveningHEDDA. Yes, I hear he found inspiration. BRACK. Pretty violent inspiration. Well, I fancy that altered his purpose; for we men folk are unfortunately not always so firm in our principles as we ought to be. 344 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. Oh, I am sure you are an exception, Judge Brack. But as to Lovborg-? BRACK. To make a long story short-he landed at last in Mademoiselle Diana's rooms. HEDDA. Mademoiselle Diana's? BRACK. It was Mademoiselle Diana that was giving the soiree, to a select circle of her admirers and her lady friends. HEDDA. Is she a red-haired woman? BRACK. Precisely. HEDDA. A sort of a-singer? BRACK. Oh yes-in her leisure moments. And moreover a mighty huntress-of men-Mrs. Hedda. You have no doubt heard of her. Eilert Lovborg was one of her most enthusiastic protectors-in the days of his glory. HEDDA. And how did all this end? BRACE. Far from amicably, it appears. After a most tender meeting, they seem to have come to blowsHEDDA. L6vborg and she? BRACK. Yes. He accused her or her friends of having robbed him. He declared that his pocket-book had disappeared-and other things as well. In short, he seems to have made a furious disturbance. HEDDA. And what came of it all? BRACE. It came to a general scrimmage, in which the ladies as well as the gentlemen took part. Fortunately the police at last appeared on the scene. HEDDA. The police too? BRACK. Yes. I fancy it will prove a costly frolic for Eilert Lovborg, crazy being that he is. HEDDA. How so? BRACK. He seems to have made a violent resistance-to have hit one of the constables on the head and torn the coat off his back. So they had to march him off to the policestation with the rest. HEDDA. How have you learnt all this? BRACK. From the police themselves. HEDDA GABLER 345 HEDDA [gazing straight before her], So that is what happened. Then he had no vine-leaves in his hair. BRACK. Vine-leaves, Mrs. Hedda? HEDDA [changing her tone]. But tell me now, Judge-what is your real reason for tracking out Eilert Lovborg's movements so carefully? BRACK. In the first place, it could not be entirely indifferent to me if it should appear in the police-court that he came straight from my house. HEDDA. Will the matter come into court then? BRACK. Of course. However, I should scarcely have troubled so much about that. But I thought that, as a friend of the family, it was my duty to supply you and Tesman with a full account of his nocturnal exploits. HEDDA. Why so, Judge Brack? BRACK. Why, because I have a shrewd suspicion that he intends to use you as a sort of blind. HEDDA. Oh, how can you think such a thing! BRACK. Good heavens, Mrs. Hedda-we have eyes in our head. Mark my words! This Mrs. Elvsted will be in no hurry to leave town again. HEDDA. Well, even if there should be anything between them, I suppose there are plenty of other places where they could meet. BRACK. Not a single home. Henceforth, as before, every respectable house will be closed against Eilert Lovborg. HEDDA. And so ought mine to be, you mean? BRACK. Yes. I confess it would be more than painful to me if this personage were to be made free of your house. How superfluous, how intrusive, he would be, if he were to force his way intoHEDDA. -into the triangle? BRACK. Precisely. It would simply mean that I should find myself homeless. HEDDA [Looks at him with a smile.] So, you want to be 'he one cock in the basket — that is your aim. "Eneste hane i kurven" —a proverbial saying. 346 HENRIK IBSEN BRACK [nods slowly and lowers his voice]. Yes, that is my aim. And for that I will fight-with every weapon I can command. HEDDA [her smile vanishing]. I see you are a dangerous person-when it comes to the point. BRACK. Do you think so? HEDDA. I am beginning to think so. And I am exceedingly glad to think-that you have no sort of hold over me. BRACK [laughing equivocally]. Well, well, Mrs. Heddaperhaps you are right there. If I had, who knows what I might be capable of? HEDDA. Come, come now, Judge Brack. That sounds almost like a threat. BRACK [rising]. Oh, not at all! The triangle, you know, ought, if possible, to be spontaneously constructed. HEDDA. There I agree with you. BRACK. Well, now I have said all I had to say; and I had better be getting back to town. Good-bye, Mrs. Hedda. [He goes towards the glass door.] HEDDA [rising]. Are you going through the garden? BRACK. Yes, it's a short cut for me. HEDDA. And then it is a back way, too. BRACK. Quite so. I have no objection to back ways. They may be piquant enough at times. HEDDA. When there is ball practice going on, you mean? BRACK [in the doorway, laughing to her]. Oh, people don't shoot their tame poultry, I fancy. HEDDA [also laughing]. Oh, no, when there is only one cock in the basket[They exchange laughing nods of farewell.] [He goes. She closes the door behind him.] [HEDDA, who has become quite serious, stands for a moment looking out. Presently she goes and peeps through the curtain over the middle doorway. Then she goes to the writing-table, takes LOVBORG'S packet out of the bookcase, and is on the point of looking HEDDA GABLER 347 through its contents. BERTA is heard speaking loudly in the hall. HEDDA turns and listens. Then she hastily locks up the packet in the drawer, and lays the key on the inkstand.] [EILERT LjVBORG, with his great coat on and his hat in his hand, tears open the hall door. He looks somewhat confused and irritated.] LOVBORG [looking towards the hall]. And I tell you I must and will come in! There! [He closes the door, turns and sees HEDDA, at once regains his self-control, and bows.] HEDDA [at the writing-table]. Well, Mr. L6vborg, this is rather a late hour to call for Thea. LOVBORG. You mean rather an early hour to call on you. Pray pardon me. HEDDA. How do you know that she is still here? LOVBORG. They told me at her lodgings that she had been out all night. HEDDA [going to the oval table]. Did you notice anything about the people of the house when they said that? LOVBORG [looks inquiringly at her]. Notice anything about them? HEDDA. I mean, did they seem to think it odd? LOVBORG [suddenly understanding]. Oh yes, of course! I am dragging her down with me! However, I didn't notice anything.-I suppose Tesman is'not up yet? HEDDA. No-I think notLOVBORG. When did he come home? HEDDA. Very late. LOVBORG. Did he tell you anything? HEDDA. Yes, I gathered that you had had an exceedingly jolly evening at Judge Brack's. LOVBORG. Nothing more? HEDDA. I don't think so. However, I was so dreadfully sleepy[MRS. ELVSTED enters through the curtains of the middle doorway.] 348 HENRIK IBSEN MRS. ELVSTED [going towards him]. Ah, L6vborg! At last —! LOVBORG. Yes, at last. And too late! MRS. ELVSTED [looks anxiously at him]. What is too late? LOVBORG. Everything is too late now. It is all over with me. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh no, no-don't say that? LOVBORG. You will say the same when you hearMRS. ELVSTED. I won't hear anything! HEDDA. Perhaps you would prefer to talk to her alone! If so, I will leave you. LOVBORG. No, stay- you too. I beg you to stay. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, but I won't hear anything, I tell you. LOVBORG. It is not last night's adventures that I want to talk about. MRS. ELVSTED. What is it then-? LOVBORG. I want to say that now our ways must part. MRS. ELVSTED. Part! HEDDA [involuntarily]. I knew it! LOVBORG. You can be of no more service to me, Thea. MRS. ELVSTED. How can you stand there and say that! No more service to you! Am I not to help you now, as before? Are we not to go on working together? LOVBORG. Henceforward I shall do no work. MRS. ELVSTED [despairingly]. Then what am I to do with my life? LOVBORG. You must try to live your life as if you had never known me. MRS. ELVSTED. But you know I cannot do that! LOVBORG. Try if you cannot, Thea. You must go home againMRS. ELVSTED [in vehement protest]. Never in this world! Where you are, there will I be also! I will not let myself be driven away like this! I will remain here! I will be with you when the book appears. HEDDA [half aloud, in suspense]. Ah yes-the book! HEDDA GABLER 349 LOVBORG [looks at her]. My book and Thea's; for that is what it is. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, I feel that it is. And that is why I have a right to be with you when it appears! I will see with my own eyes how respect and honour pour in upon you afresh. And the happiness-the happiness-oh, I must share it with you! LOVBORG. Thea —ur book will never appear. HEDDA. Ah! MRS. ELVSTED. Never appear! LOVBERG. Can never appear. MRS. ELVSTED [in agonised foreboding]. L6vborg-what have you done with the manuscript? HEDDA [looks anxiously at him]. Yes, the manuscript-? MRS. ELVSTED. Where is it? LOVBORG. Oh Thea-don't ask me about it! MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, yes, I will know. I demand to be told at once. LOVBORG. The manuscript- Well then-I have torn the manuscript into a thousand pieces. MRS. ELVSTED [shrieks]. Oh no, no-! HEDDA [involuntarily]. But that's notLOVBORG [looks at her]. Not true, you think? HEDDA [collecting herself]. Oh well, of course-since you say so. But it sounded so improbableLOVBORG. It is true, all the same. MRS. ELVSTED [wringing her hands]. Oh God-oh God, Hedda-torn his own work to pieces! LOVBORG. I have torn my own life to pieces. So why should I not tear my life-work too-? MRS. ELVSTED. And you did this last night? LOVBORG. Yes, I tell you! Tore it into a thousand pieces and scattered them on the fiord-far out. There there is cool sea-water at any rate-let them drift upon it-drift with the current and the wind. And then presently they will sinkdeeper and deeper-as I shall, Thea. 350 HENRIK IBSEN MRS. ELVSTED. DO yOU know, Lovborg, that what you have done with the book-I shall think of it to my dying day as though you had killed a little child. LOVBORG. Yes, you are right. It is a sort of child-murder. MRS. ELVSTED. How could you, then-! Did not the child belong to me too? HEDDA [almost inaudibly]. Ah, the childMRS. ELVSTED [breathing heavily]. It is all over then. Well, well, now I will go, Hedda. HEDDA. But you are not going away from town? MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, I don't know what I shall do. I see nothing but darkness before me. [She goes out by the hall door.] HEDDA [stands waiting for a moment]. So you are not going to see her home, Mr. Lovborg? LOVBORG. I? Through the streets? Would you have people see her walking with me? HEDDA. Of course I don't know what else may have happened last night. But is it so utterly irretrievable? LOVBORG. It will not end with last night-I know that perfectly well. And the thing is that now I have no taste for that sort of life either. I won't begin it anew. She has broken my courage and my power of braving life out. HEDDA [looking straight before her]. So that pretty little fool has had her fingers in a man's destiny. [Looks at him.] But all the same, how could you treat her so heartlessly? LOVBORG. Oh, don't say that it was heartless! HEDDA. To go and destroy what has filled her whole soul for months and years! You do not call that heartless! LOVBORG. To you I can tell the truth, Hedda. HEDDA. The truth? LOVBORG. First promise me-give me your word-that what I now confide to you Thea shall never know. HEDDA. I give you my word. LOVBORG. Good. Then let me tell you that what I said just now was untrue. HEDDA. About the manuscript? HEDDA GABLER 351 LOVBORG. Yes. I have not torn it to pieces-nor thrown it into the fiord. HEDDA. No, n- But-where is it then? LOVBORG. I have destroyed it none the less-utterly destroyed it, Hedda! HEDDA. I don't understand. LOVBORG. Thea said that what I had done seemed to her like a child-murder. HEDDA. Yes, so she said. LOVBORG. But to kill his child-that is not the worst thing a father can do to it. HEDDA. Not the worst? LOVBORG. No. I wanted to spare Thea from hearing the worst. HEDDA. Then what is the worst? LOVBORG. Suppose now, Hedda, that a man-in the small hours of the morning-came home to his child's mother after a night of riot and debauchery, and said: "Listen-I have been here and there-in this place and in that. And I have taken our child with me-to this place and to that. And I have lost the child-utterly lost it. The devil knows into what hands it may have fallen-who may have had their clutches on it." HEDDA. Well-but when all is said and done, you knowthat was only a bookLOVBORG. Thea's pure soul was in that book. HEDDA. Yes, so I understand. LOVBORG. And you can understand, too, that for her and me together no future is possible. HEDDA. What path do you mean to take then? LOVBORG. None. I will only try to make an end of it allthe sooner the better. HEDDA [a step nearer to him]. Eilert Livborg-listen to me. Will you not try to-to do it beautifully? LOVBORG. Beautifully? [Smiling.] With vine-leaves in my hair, as you used to dream in the old days-? HEDDA. No, no. I have lost my faith in the vine-leaves. But beautifully, nevertheless! For once in a way!-Goodbye! You must go now-and do not come here any more. 352 HENRIK IBSEN LOVBORG. Good-bye, Mrs. Tesman. And give George Tes. man my love. [He is on the point of going.] HEDDA. No, wait! I must give you a memento to tak( with you. [She goes to the writing-table and opens the drawer ane the pistol-case; then returns to LOVBORG with one o; the pistols.] LOVBORG [looks at her]. This? Is this the memento? HEDDA [nodding slowly]. Do you recognise it? It was aimed at you once. LOVBORG. You should have used it then. HEDDA. Take it-and do you use it now. LOVBORG [puts the pistol in his breast pocket]. Thanksl HEDDA. And beautifully, Eilert Lovborg. Promise me that! LOVBORG. Good-bye, Hedda Gabler. [He goes out by the hall door.] [HEDDA listens for a moment at the door. Then she goes up to the writing-table, takes out the packet of manuscript, peeps under the cover, draws a few of the sheets half out, and looks at them. Next she goes over and seats herself in the arm-chair beside the stove, with the packet in her lap. Presently she opens the stove door, and then the packet.] HEDDA [throws one of the quires into the fire and whispers to herself]. Now I am burning your child, Thea!-Burning it, curly-locks! [Throwing one or two more quires into the stove.] Your child and Eilert Lovborg's. [Throws the rest in.] I am burning-I am burning your child. ACT IV The same rooms at the TESMANS'. It is evening. The drawingroom is in darkness. The back room is lighted by the hanging lamp over the table. The curtains over the glass door are drawn close. HEDDA GABLER 353 HEDDA, dressed in black, walks to and fro in the dark room. Then she goes into the back room and disappears for a moment to the left. She is heard to strike a few chords on the piano. Presently she comes in sight again, and returns to the drawing-room. BERTA enters from the right, through the inner room, with a lighted lamp, which she places on the table in front of the corner settee in the drawing-room. Her eyes are red with weeping, and she has black ribbons in her cap. She goes quietly and circumspectly out to the right. HEDDA goes up to the glass door, lifts the curtain a little aside, and looks out into the darkness. Shortly afterwards, Miss TESMAN, in mourning, with a bonnet and veil on, comes in from the hall. HEDDA goes towards her and holds out her hand. Miss TESMAN. Yes, Hedda, here I am, in mourning and forlorn; for now my poor sister has at last found peace. HEDDA. I have heard the news already, as you see. Tesman sent me a card. Miss TESMAN. Yes, he promised me he would. But nevertheless I thought that to Hedda-here in the house of life-I ought myself to bring the tidings of death. HEDDA. That was very kind of you. Miss TESMAN. Ah, Rina ought not to have left us just now. This is not the time for Hedda's house to be a house of mourning. HEDDA [changing the subject]. She died quite peacefully, did she not, Miss Tesman? Miss TESMAN. Oh, her end was so calm, so beautiful. And then she had the unspeakable happiness of seeing George once more-and bidding him good-bye.-Has he come home yet? HEDDA. No. He wrote that he might be detained. But won't you sit down? Miss TESMAN. NO thank you, my dear, dear Hedda. I should like to, but I have so much to do. I must prepare my 354 HENRIK IBSEN dear one for her rest as well as I can. She shall go to her grave looking her best. HEDDA. Can I not help you in any way? Miss TESMAN. Oh, you must not think of it! Hedda Tesman must have no hand in such mournful work. Nor let her thoughts dwell on it either-not at this time. HEDDA. One is not always mistress of one's thoughtsMiss TESMAN [continuing]. Ah yes, it is the way of the world. At home we shall be sewing a shroud; and here there will soon be sewing too, I suppose-but of another sort, thank God! [GEORGE TESMAN enters by the hall door.] HEDDA. Ah, you have come at last! TESMAN. YOU here, Aunt Julia? With Hedda? Fancy that! MIss TESMAN. I was just going, my dear boy. Well, have you done all you promised? TESMAN. No; I'm really afraid I have forgotten half of it. I must come to you again to-morrow. To-day my brain is all in a whirl. I can't keep my thoughts together. Miss TESMAN. Why, my dear George, you mustn't take it in this way. TESMAN. Mustn't? How do you mean? MIss TESMAN. Even in your sorrow you must rejoice, as I do-rejoice that she is at rest. TESMAN. Oh yes, yes-you are thinking of Aunt Rina. HEDDA. You will feel lonely now, Miss Tesman. Miss TESMAN. Just at first, yes. But that will not last very long, I hope. I daresay I shall soon find an occupant for poor Rina's little room. TESMAN. Indeed? Who do you think will take it? Eh? Miss TESMAN. Oh, there's always some poor invalid or other in want of nursing, unfortunately. HEDDA. Would you-really take such a burden upon you again? HEDDA GABLER 355 MIss TESMAN. A burden! Heaven forgive you, child-it has been no burden to me. HEDDA. But suppose you had a total stranger on your hands Miss TESMAN. Oh, one soon makes friends with sick folk; and it's such an absolute necessity for me to have some one to live for. Well, heaven be praised, there may soon be something in this house, too, to keep an old aunt busy. HEDDA. Oh, don't trouble about anything here. TESMAN. Yes, just fancy what a nice time we three might have together, if? HEDDA. If? TESMAN [uneasily]. Oh, nothing. It will all come right. Let us hope so-eh? Miss TESMAN. Well, well, I daresay you two want to talk to each other. [Smiling.] And perhaps Hedda may have something to tell you too, George. Good-bye! I must go home to Rina. [Turning at the door.] How strange it is to think that now Rina is with me and with my poor brother as well! TESMAN. Yes, fancy that, Aunt Julia! Eh? [Miss TESMAN goes out by the hall door.] HEDDA [follows TESMAN coldly and searchingly with her eyes]. I almost believe your Aunt Rina's death affects you more than it does your Aunt Julia. TESMAN. Oh, it's not that alone. It's Eilert I am so terribly uneasy about. HEDDA [quickly]. Is there anything new about him? TESMAN. I looked jn at his rooms this afternoon, intending to tell him the manuscript was in safe keeping. HEDDA. Well, did you not find him? TESMAN. NO. He wasn't at home. But afterwards I met Mrs. Elvsted, and she told me that he had been here early this morning. HEDDA. Yes, directly after you had gone. TESMAN. And he said that he had torn his manuscript to pieces-eh? 356 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. Yes, so he declared. TESMAN. Why, good heavens, he must have been completely out of his mind! And I suppose you thought it best not to give it back to him, Hedda? HEDDA. No, he did not get it. TESMAN. But of course you told him that we had it? HEDDA. NO. [Quickly.] Did you tell Mrs. Elvsted? TESMAN. No; I thought I had better not. But you ought to have told him. Fancy, if, in desperation, he should go and do himself some injury! Let me have the manuscript, Hedda! I will take it to him at once. Where is it? HEDDA [cold and immovable, leaning on the arm-chair]. I have not got it. TESMAN. Have not got it? What in the world do you mean? HEDDA. I have burnt it-every line of it. TESMAN [with a violent movement of terror]. Burnt! Burnt Eilert's manuscript! HEDDA. Don't scream so. The servant might hear you. TESMAN. Burnt! Why, good God —! No, no, no! It's impossible! HEDDA. It is so, nevertheless. TESMAN. Do you know what you have done, Hedda? It's unlawful appropriation of lost property. Fancy that! Just ask Judge Brack, and he'll tell you what it is. HEDDA. I advise you not to speak of it-either to Judge Brack, or to any one else. TESMAN. But how could you do anything so unheard-of? What put it into your head? What possessed you? Answer me that-eh? HEDDA [suppressing an almost imperceptible smile]. I did it for your sake, George. TESMAN. For my sake! HEDDA. This morning, when you told me about what he had read to you TESMAN. Yes, yes-what then? HEDDA. You acknowledged that you envied him his work. HEDDA GABLER 357 TESMAN. Oh, of course I didn't mean that literally. HEDDA. No matter-I could not bear the idea that anyone should throw you into the shade. TESMAN [in an outburst of mingled doubt and joy]. Heddal Oh, is this true? But-but-I never knew you to show your love like that before. Fancy that! HEDDA. Well, I may as well tell you that-just at this time — [Impatiently, breaking off.] No, no; you can ask Aunt Julia. She will tell you, fast enough. TESMAN. Oh, I almost think I understand you, Hedda! [Clasps his hands together.] Great heavens! do you really mean it! Eh? HEDDA. Don't shout so. The servant might hear. TESMAN [laughing in irrepressible glee]. The servant! Why, how absurd you are, Hedda. It's only my old Berta! Why, I'll tell Berta myself. HEDDA [clenching her hands together in desperation]. Oh, it is killing me,-it is killing me, all this! TESMAN. What is, Hedda? Eh? HEDDA [coldly, controlling herself]. All this-absurdityGeorge. TESMAN. Absurdity! Do you see anything absurd in my being overjoyed at the news! But after all-perhaps I had better not say anything to Berta. HEDDA. Oh-why not that too? TESMAN. No, no, not yet! But I must certainly tell Aunt Julia. And then that you have begun to call me George too! Fancy that! Oh, Aunt Julia will be so happy-so happy! HEDDA. When she hears that I have burnt Eilert Lovborg's manuscript-for your sake? TESMAN. No, by-the-bye-that affair of the manuscriptof course nobody must know about that. But that you love me so much,12 Hedda-Aunt Julia must really share my joy in that! I wonder, now, whether this sort of thing is usual in young wives? Eh? Literally, "That you burn for me." 358 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. I think you had better ask Aunt Julia that question too. TESMAN. I will indeed, some time or other. [Looks uneasy and downcast again.] And yet the manuscript-the manuscript! Good God! it is terrible to think what will become of poor Eilert now. [MRS. ELVSTED, dressed as in the first Act, with hat and cloak, enters by the hall door.] MRS. ELVSTED [greets them hurriedly, and says in evident agitation]. Oh, dear Hedda, forgive my coming again. HEDDA. What is the matter with you, Thea? TESMAN. Something about Eilert Lovborg again-eh? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes! I am dreadfully afraid some misfortune has happened to him. HEDDA [seizes her arm]. Ah,-do you think so? TESMAN. Why, good Lord-what makes you think that, Mrs. Elvsted? MRS. ELVSTED. I heard them talking of him at my boarding-house-just as I came in. Oh, the most incredible rumours are afloat about him to-day. TESMAN. Yes, fancy, so I heard too! And I can bear witness that he went straight home to bed last night. Fancy that! HEDDA. Well, what did they say at the boarding-house? MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, I couldn't make out anything clearly. Either they knew nothing definite, or else- They stopped talking when they saw me; and I did not dare to ask. TESMAN [moving about uneasily]. We must hope-we must hope that you misunderstood them, Mrs. Elvsted. MRS. ELVSTED. NO, no; I am sure it was of him they were talking. And I heard something about the hospital orTESMAN. The hospital? HEDDA. No-surely that cannot be! MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, I was in such mortal terror! I went to his lodgings and asked for him there. HEDDA. You could make up your mind to that, Thea! HEDDA GABLER 359 MRS. ELVSTED. What else could I do? I really could bear the suspense no longer. TESMAN. But you didn't find him either-eh? MRS. ELVSTED. No. And the people knew nothing about him. He hadn't been home since yesterday afternoon, they said. TESMAN. Yesterday! Fancy, how could they say that? MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, I am sure something terrible must have happened to him. TESMAN. Hedda dear-how would it be if I were to go and make inquiries —? HEDDA. No, no-don't you mix yourself up in this affair. [JUDGE BRACK, with his hat in his hand, enters by the hall door, which BERTA opens, and closes behind him. He looks grave and bows in silence.] TESMAN. Oh, is that you, my dear Judge? Eh? BRACK. Yes. It was imperative I should see you this evening. TESMAN. I can see you have heard the news about Aunt Rina. BRACK. Yes, that among other things. TESMAN. Isn't it sad-eh? BRACK. Well, my dear Tesman, that depends on how you look at it. TESMAN [looks doubtfully at him]. Has anything else happened? BRACK. Yes. HEDDA [in suspense]. Anything sad, Judge Brack? BRACK. That, too, depends on how you look at it, Mrs. Tesman. MRS. ELVSTED [unable to restrain her anxiety]. Oh! it is something about Eilert Lovborg! BRACK [with a glance at her]. What makes you think that, Madam? Perhaps you have already heard something? MRS. ELVSTED [in confusion]. No, nothing at all, but — 360 HENRIK IBSEN TESMAN. Oh, for heaven's sake, tell us! BRACK [shrugging his shoulders]. Well, I regret to say Eilert Lovborg has been taken to the hospital. He is living at the point of death. MRS. ELVSTED [shrieks]. Oh God! Oh God! TESMAN. To the hospital! And at the point of death. HEDDA [involuntarily]. So soon then MRS. ELVSTED [wailing]. And we parted in anger, Hedda! HEDDA [whispers]. Thea-Thea-be careful! MRS. ELVSTED [not heeding her]. I must go to him! I must see him alive! BRACK. It is useless, Madam. No one will be admitted. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, at least tell me what has happened to him? What is it? TESMAN. You don't mean to say that he has himself — Eh? HEDDA. Yes, I am sure he has. TESMAN. Hedda, how can you-? BRACK [keeping his eyes fixed upon her]. Unfortunately you have guessed quite correctly, Mrs. Tesman. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, how horrible! TESMAN. Himself, then! Fancy that! HEDDA. Shot himself! BRACK. Rightly guessed again, Mrs. Tesman. MRS. ELVSTED [with an effort at self-control]. When did it happen, Mr. Brack? BRACK. This afternoon-between three and four. TESMAN. But, good Lord, where did he do it? Eh? BRACK [with some hesitation]. Where? Well-I suppose at his lodgings. MRS. ELVSTED. No, that cannot be; for I was there between six and seven. BRACK. Well, then, somewhere else. I don't know exactly. I only know that he was found. He had shot himselfin the breast. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, how terrible! That he should die like that! HEDDA GABLER 361 HEDDA [to BRACK]. Was it in the breast? BRACK. Yes-as I told you. HEDDA. Not in the temple? BRACK. In the breast, Mrs. Tesman. HEDDA. Well, well-the breast is a good place, too. BRACK. How do you mean, Mrs. Tesman? HEDDA [evasively]. Oh, nothing-nothing. TESMAN. And the wound is dangerous, you say-eh? BRACK. Absolutely mortal. The end has probably come by this time. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, yes, I feel it. The end! The end! Oh, Hedda-! TESMAN. But tell me, how have you learnt all this? BRACK [curtly]. Through one of the police. A man I had some business with. HEDDA [in a clear voice]. At last a deed worth doing! TESMAN [terrified]. Good heavens, Hedda! what are you saying? HEDDA. I say there is beauty in this. BRACK. H'm, Mrs. TesmanTESMAN. Beauty! Fancy that! MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, Hedda, how can you talk of beauty in such an act! HEDDA. Eilert Lovborg has himself made up his account with life. He has had the courage to do-the one right thing. MRS. ELVSTED. No, you must never think that was how it happened! It must have been in delirium that he did it. TESMAN. In despair! HEDDA. That he did not. I am certain of that. MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, yes! In delirium! Just as when he tore up our manuscript. BRACK [starting]. The manuscript? Has he torn that up? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, last night. TESMAN [whispers softly]. Oh, Hedda, we shall never get over this. BRACK. H'm, very extraordinary. 362 HENRIK IBSEN TESMAN [moving about the room]. To think of Eilert going out of the world in this way! And not leaving behind him the book that would have immortalised his name MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, if only it could be put together again! TESMAN. Yes, if it only could! I don't know what I would not giveMRS. ELVSTED. Perhaps it can, Mr. Tesman. TESMAN. What do you mean? MRS. ELVSTED [searches in the pocket of her dress]. Look here. I have kept all the loose notes he used to dictate from. HEDDA [a step forward]. Ah-! TESMAN. You have kept them, Mrs. Elvsted! Eh? MRS. ELVSTED. Yes, I have them here. I put them in my pocket when I left home. Here they still areTESMAN. Oh, do let me see them! MRS. ELVSTED [hands him a bundle of papers]. But they are in such disorder-all mixed up. TESMAN. Fancy, if we could make something out of them, after all! Perhaps if we two put our heads togetherMRS. ELVSTED. Oh, yes, at least let us tryTESMAN. We will manage it! We must! I will dedicate my life to this task. HEDDA. You, George? Your life? TESMAN. Yes, or rather all the time I can spare. My own collections must wait in the meantime. Hedda-you understand, eh? I owe this to Eilert's memory. HEDDA. Perhaps. TESMAN. And so, my dear Mrs. Elvsted, we will give our whole minds to it. There is no use in brooding over what can't be undone-eh? We must try to control our grief as much as possible, andMRS. ELVSTED. Yes, yes, Mr. Tesman, I will do the best I can. TESMAN. Well then, come here. I can't rest until we have looked through the notes. Where shall we sit? Here? No, in there, in the back room. Excuse me, my dear Judge. Come with me, Mrs. Elvsted. HEDDA GABLER 363 MRS. ELVSTED. Oh, if only it were possible! [TESMAN and MRS. ELVSTED go into the back room. She takes off her hat and cloak. They both sit at the table under the hanging lamp, and are soon deep in an eager examination of the papers. HEDDA crosses to the stove and sits in the arm-chair. Presently BRACK goes up to her.] HEDDA [in a low voice]. Oh what sense of freedom it gives one, this act of Eilert Lovborg's. BRACK. Freedom, Mrs. Hedda? Well, of course, it is a release for him HEDDA. I mean for me. It gives me a sense of freedom to know that a deed of deliberate courage is still possible in this world,-a deed of spontaneous beauty. BRACK [smiling]. H'm-my dear Mrs. HeddaHEDDA. Oh, I know what you are going to say. For you are a kind of a specialist too, like-you know! BRACK [looking hard at her]. Eilert Lovborg was more to you than perhaps you are willing to admit to yourself. Am I wrong? HEDDA. I don't answer such questions. I only know Eilert Lovborg has had the courage to live his life after his own fashion. And then-the last great act, with its beauty! Ah! that he should have the will and the strength to turn away from the banquet of life-so early. BRACK. I am sorry, Mrs. Hedda-but I fear I must dispel an amiable illusion. HEDDA. Illusion. BRACK. Which could not have lasted long in any case. HEDDA. What do you mean? BRACK. Eilert L6vborg did not shoot himself voluntarily. HEDDA. Not voluntarily? BRACK. No. The thing did not happen exactly as I told it. HEDDA [in suspense]. Have you concealed something? What is it? BRACK. For poor Mrs. Elvsted's sake I idealized the facts a little. 364 HENRIK IBSEN HEDDA. What are the facts? BRACK. First, that he is already dead. HEDDA. At the hospital? BRACK. Yes-without regaining consciousness. HEDDA. What more have you concealed? BRACK. This-the event did not happen at his lodgings. HEDDA. Oh, that can make no difference. BRACK. Perhaps it may. For I must tell you-Eilert Lovborg was found shot in-in Mademoiselle Diana's boudoir. HEDDA [makes a motion as if to rise, but sinks back again]. That is impossible, Judge Brack! He cannot have been there again to-day. BRACK. He was there this afternoon. He went there, he said, to demand the return of something which they had taken from him. Talked wildly about a lost child — HEDDA. Ah-so that was whyBRACK. I thought probably he meant his manuscript; but now I hear he destroyed that himself. So I suppose it must have been his pocketbook. HEDDA. Yes, no doubt. And there-there he was found? BRACK. Yes, there. With a pistol in his breast-pocket, discharged. The ball had lodged in a vital part. HEDDA. In the breast-yes. BRACK. No-in the bowels. HEDDA [looks up at him with an expression of loathing]. That too! Oh, what curse is it that makes everything I touch turn ludicrous and mean? BRACK. There is one point more, Mrs. Hedda-another disagreeable feature in the affair. HEDDA. And what is that? BRACK. The pistol he carriedHEDDA [breathless]. Well? What of it? BRACK. He must have stolen it. HEDDA [leaps up]. Stolen it! That is not true! He did not steal it! BRACK. No other explanation is possible. He must have stolen it Hush! HEDDA GABLER 365 [TESMAN and MRS. ELVSTED have risen from the table in the back room, and come into the drawing room.] TESMAN [with the papers in both his hands]. Hedda dear, it is almost impossible to see under that lamp. Think of that! HEDDA. Yes, I am thinking. TESMAN. Would you mind our sitting at your writingtable-eh? HEDDA. If you like. [Quickly.] No, wait! Let me clear it first! TESMAN. Oh, you needn't trouble, Hedda. There is plenty of room. HEDDA. No, no; let me clear it, I say! I will take these things in and put them on the piano. There! [She has drawn out an object, covered with sheet music, from under the book-case, places several other pieces of music upon it, and carries the whole into the inner room, to the left. TESMAN lays the scraps of paper on the writing-table, and moves the lamp there from the corner table. HEDDA returns.] HEDDA [behind MRS. ELVSTED'S chair, gently ruffling her hair]. Well, my sweet Thea,-how goes it with Eilert Lovborg's monument? MRS. ELVSTED [looks dispiritedly up at her]. Oh, it will be terribly hard to put in order. TESMAN. We must manage it. I am determined. And arranging other people's papers is just the work for me. [HEDDA goes over to the stove, and seats herself on one of the footstools. BRACK stands over her, leaning on the armchair.] HEDDA [whispers]. What did you say about the pistol? BRACK [softly]. That he must have stolen it. HEDDA. Why stolen it? BRACK. Because every other explanation ought to be impossible, Mrs. Hedda. HEDDA. Indeed? 366 HENRIK IBSEN BRACK [glances at her]. Of course Eilert Lovborg was here this morning. Was he not? HEDDA. Yes. BRACK. Were you alone with him? HEDDA. Part of the time. BRACK. Did you not leave the room whilst he was here? HEDDA. No. BRACK. Try to recollect. Were you not out of the room a moment? HEDDA. Yes, perhaps just a moment-out in the hall. BRACK. And where was your pistol-case during that time? HEDDA. I had it locked up inBRACK. Well, Mrs. Hedda? HEDDA. The case stood there on the writing-table. BRACK. Have you looked since, to see whether both the pistols are there? HEDDA. No. BRACK. Well, you need not. I saw the pistol found in Lovborg's pocket, and I knew it at once as the one I had seen yesterday-rand before, too. HEDDA. Have you it with you? BRACK. NO; the police have it. HEDDA. What will the police do with it? BRACK. Search till they find the owner. HEDDA. Do you think they will succeed? BRACK [bends over her and whispers]. No, Hedda Gabler -not so long as I say nothing. HEDDA [looks frightened at him]. And if you do not say nothing,-what then? BRACK [shrugs his shoulders]. There is always the possibility that the pistol was stolen. HEDDA [firmly]. Death rather than that. BRACK [smiling]. People say such things-but they don't do them. HEDDA [without replying]. And supposing the pistol was stolen, and the owner is discovered? What then? BRACK. Well, Hedda-then comes the scandal. HEDDA GABLER 367 HEDDA. The scandal! BRACK. Yes, the scandal-of which you are mortally afraid. You will, of course, be brought before the court-both you and Mademoiselle Diana. She will have to explain how the thing happened-whether it was an accidental shot or murder. Did the pistol go off as he was trying to take it out of his pocket, to threaten her with? Or did she tear the pistol out of his hand, shoot him, and push it back into his pocket? That would be quite like her; for she is an able-bodied young person, this same Mademoiselle Diana. HEDDA. But I have nothing to do with all this. repulsive business. BRACK. NO. But you will have to answer the question: Why did you give Eilert Lovborg the pistol? And what conclusions will people draw from the fact that you did give it to him? HEDDA [lets her head sink]. That is true.. I did not think of that. BRACK. Well, fortunately, there is no danger, so long as I say nothing. HEDDA [looks up at him]. So I am in your power, Judge Brack. You have me at your beck and call, from this time forward. BRACK [whispers softly]. Dearest Hedda-believe me-I shall not abuse my advantage. HEDDA. I am in your power none the less. Subject to your will and your demands. A slave, a slave then! [Rises impetuously.] No, I cannot endure the thought of that! Never! BRACK [looks half-mockingly at her]. People generally get used to the inevitable. HEDDA [returns his look]. Yes, perhaps. [She crosses to the writing-table. Suppressing an involuntary smile, she imitates TESMAN'S intonations.] Well? Are you getting on, George? Eh? TESMAN. Heaven knows, dear. In any case it will be the work of months. HEDDA [as before]. Fancy that! [Passes her hands softly 368 HENRIK IBSEN through MRS. ELVSTED'S hair.] Doesn't it seem strange to you, Thea? Here are you sitting with Tesman-just as you used to sit with Eilert Lovborg? MRS. ELVSTED. Ah, if I could only inspire your husband in the same way. HEDDA. Oh, that will come too-in time. TESMAN. Yes, do you know, Hedda-I really think I begin to feel something of the sort. But won't you go and sit with Brack again? HEDDA. Is there nothing I can do to help you two? TESMAN. No, nothing in the world. [Turning his head.] I trust to you to keep Hedda company, my dear Brack. BRACK [with a glance at HEDDA]. With the very greatest of pleasure. HEDDA. Thanks. But I am tired this evening. I will go in and lie down a little on the sofa. TESMAN. Yes, do, dear-eh? [HEDDA goes into the back room and draws the curtains. A short pause. Suddenly she is heard playing a wild dance on the piano.] MRS. ELVSTED [starts from her chair]. Oh-what is that? TESMAN [runs to the doorway]. Why, my dearest Hedda don't play dance music to-nightI Just think of Aunt Rina! And of Eilert too! HEDDA [puts her head out between the curtains}. And of Aunt Julia. And of all the rest of them.-After this, I will be quiet. [Closes the curtains again.] TESMAN [at the writing-table]. It's not good for her to see us at this distressing work. I'll tell you what, Mrs. Elvsted,you shall talie the empty room at Aunt Julia's, and then I will come over in the evenings, and we can sit and work there -eh?. HEDDA [in the inner room]. I hear what you are saying, Tesman. But how am I to get through the evenings out here? TESMAN [turning over the papers]. Oh, I daresay Judge Brack will be so kind as to look in now and then, even though I am out. HEDDA GABLER 369 BRACK [in the arm-chair, calls out gaily]. Every blessed evening, with all the pleasure in life, Mrs. Tesman! We shall get on capitally together, we two! HEDDA [speaking loud and clear]. Yes, don't you flatter yourself we will, Judge Brack? Now that you are the one cock in the basket[A shot is heard within. TESMAN, MRS. ELVSTED, and BRACK leap to their feet.] TESMAN. Oh, now she is playing with those pistols again. [He throws back the curtains and runs in, followed by MRS. ELVSTED. HEDDA lies stretched on the sofa, lifeless. Confusion and cries. BERTA enters in alarm from the right.] TESMAN [shrieks to BRACK]. Shot herself! Shot herself in the temple! Fancy that! BRACK [half-fainting in the arm-chair]. Good God —people don't do such things. GIOCONDA BY GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO (1898) Translated by ARTHUR SYMONS Reprinted by special permission of William Heinemann, Ltd. INTRODUCTION GIOCONDA is an interesting variant of domestic tragedy, differing in three respects from the other plays printed in this volume. For the reportorial dialogue, characteristic of the type from Elizabethan times to the present, it substitutes the heightened style of romantic drama; similarly, the milieu of the play is refined, the characters belonging to the artist class rather than to the merchant and professional circles which form the background of the usual bourgeois tragedy. Most striking, perhaps, is the complete absence of the didactic elements zealously emphasized by Heywood and Lillo and more subtly but inescapably implied by Hebbel and Pinero. To the Italian devotee of art for art's sake, life has a significance very different from that understood by the Saxon and Teuton dramatists who have been the chief contributors to this type of play. Gabriele D'Annunzio, identifying body and spirit as one, finds the meaning of life in romantic pursuit of sensuous love and beauty. Since the only way to reach the heights of this ecstasy is through the physical, we should eagerly drink in whatever of love and beauty may be offered to us in the hurrying moments of remorseless Time; and when we have reached these heights where "we writhe in the agony of our very happiness," we may forget the physical means by which we reached the pinnacle of ecstasy, and revel in the memory of the love and beauty that have been. As Walter Pater, voicing a similar doctrine, phrased it, "To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life." The outcome of this philosophy of life in terms of art, love, and beauty is witnessed both in the career and in the works of the author. We know with what passion and ruthlessness, with what ecstasy of joy and pain he exploited the love of the greatest actress of her time, Eleonora Duse; and how the play 373 374 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO Gioconda, which is dedicated to her and in which she starred, expresses the turmoil of D'Annunzio's artistic temperament. To no little degree this drama is autobiographical since the emotions depicted are those drawn from his personal experience. These he expresses in a style "of marmorean dignity and purity and polish," in passages beautiful in themselves apart from their feeling and thought. Lucio, in Gioconda, is the artist soul whose creative wisdom is inflamed only by the beauty which is love, and the love which is beauty. It is Gioconda's gift to create the vision of both, which alone can carry him to the heights of his achievement in sculpture, while his devoted, self-sacrificing wife, Silvia, can give him only the physical and spiritual comforts and the healing ministrations of domestic tranquillity. Lucio's tempestuous soul needs, indeed, both Gioconda and Silvia, but such a consummation is incompatible with the possessive instincts of love. In the struggle between the women, Silvia, because her possessive passion leads her to invade the studio and intrude with deceit upon the artist's sanctuary of love and art, comes forth a mutilated martyr. Her beautiful hands, at once the symbol of beauty, love, and sacrifice, provide the symbolic motive unifying act and scene; for though the play is entitled Gioconda, the tragedy is Silvia's, the last act, which seems at first sight an afterthought, relentlessly thrusting home to our hearts the pitiless destruction love wreaks alike upon body and soul. Even though love is the great destroyer and beauty the means of disaster, D'Annunzio asks no other destiny than the triumph of death if the flame of life has burned gloriously. References. B. H. Clark, Continental Drama of Today (Holt, New York, 1914); W. L. Courtney, The Development of Maurice Maeterlinck (Grant Richards, London, 1904); A. Dukes, Modern Dramatists (Sergel, Chicago, 1912); I. Goldberg, The Drama of Transition (Stewart Kidd, Cincinnati, 1922); J. G. Huneker, Iconoclasts (Scribner, New York, 1905); Arthur Symons, Studies in Prose and Verse (Dutton, New York, 1904); A. B. Walkley, Drama and Life (Methuen, London, 1907). TEXT OF THE PLAY FOR ELEONORA DUSE of the beautiful hands DRAMATIS PERSON.LE Lucio SETTALA LORENzo GADDI Cosimo DALBO SILVIA SETTALA FRANCESCA DQNM GioCONDA DIANTI LITTLE BEATA LA SIRENETTA At Florence, and on the coast of Pisa, at the present time GIOCONDA THE FIRST ACT A quiet, foursquare room, in which the arrangement of everything indicates a search after a singular harmony, revealing the secret of a profound correspondence between the visible lines and the quality of the inhabiting mind that has chosen and loved them. All around seems to have been set in order by the hands of one of the thoughtful Graces. The aspect of the place evokes the image of a gentle and secluded life. Two large windows are open on the garden beneath; through ne of them can be seen, rising against the placid fields of the 3ky, the little hill of San Miniato, and its bright Basilica, and,he convent, and the church of the Cronaca, "la Bella Villazella," the purest vessel of Franciscan simplicity. There is a door opening into an inner room, another leading but. It is the afternoon. Through both windows enter the 'ight, breath, and melody of April. [SILVIA SETTALA and the old man LORENZO GADDI are seen on the threshold of the first door, side by side, as they both come into the fresh spring atmosphere.] SILVIA SETTALA. Ah, blessed be life! Because I have alvays kept one hope alight, to-day I can bless life. LORENZO GADDI. New life, dear Silvia, good brave soul,;o good and so strong! The storm is over. Lucio has come )ack to you, full of gratitude and of tenderness, after all the,vil. It is as if he were born again. Just now he had the 'yes of a child. SILVIA SETTALA. All his goodness comes back to him when Iou are with him. When he calls you Maestro his voice be379 380 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO comes so affectionate that it must make your heart beat, the father's heart that you have for him. LORENZO GADDI. Just now he had the same eyes that I saw in him when he came to me for the first time and I put the clay into his hands. His eyes were gentle and wondering: but from that moment his thumb was full of energy, a revealing thing. I have kept his first sketch. I thought of giving it to you on the day of your betrothal. I will give, it to you in token of your new happiness. SILVIA SETTALA. Thanks, Maestro. LORENZO GADDI. It is the head of a woman crowned witl laurels. I remember there was rather a bad model there. A. he worked, he hardly looked at her. Sometimes he seemec absorbed, sometimes anxious. There came out of his hands a sort of confused mask, through which one half saw I know not what heroic lineaments. For some moments he remainec perplexed and discouraged, almost ashamed, at the sight o. his work, not daring to turn to me. But suddenly, before let. ting it out of his hands, with a few touches he set a crowi of laurel about the head. How it delighted me! He wantec to crown in the clay his own unaccomplished dream. The enc of his day's work was an act of pride and of faith. I love, him from that instant, for that crown. I will give you tht sketch. Perhaps, if you look at it closely, you will discove: the ardent face of Sappho, that ideal figure which, only a few years later, he was able to bring to perfection, in a master piece. SILVIA SETTALA [listening eagerly]. Sit down, sit down Maestro; stay a little longer, I beg of you. Sit here, by the window. Stay a few minutes longer. I have a thousand thing to tell you, and I do not know how to tell you one of them If I could overcome this continual tremor! I want you t, understand.... LORENZO GADDI. Is it joy that makes you tremble? [He sits down near the window. SILVIA, leaning baci against the window-sill, remains with her face turner GIOCONDA 381 towards him; her face is seen against the blue air, the little hill standing out in the background.] SILVIA SETTALA. I do not know if it is joy. Sometimes everything that has been, all the evil, all the sorrow, and even She blood, and the wound, all melts away, vanishes, is wiped Jut into oblivion, is there no more. Sometimes everything that has been, all that horrible weight of memory, thickens and thickens, and grows compact and opaque and hard as a wall, lilke a rock that I shall never be able to surmount. Just now, vhen you spoke to me, when you offered me that unexpected;ift, I thought: "Ah, now I shall take that gift in my hands, that morsel of clay into which he cast the first seed of his dreams, as into a fruitful soil; I shall take it in my hands, I shall go to him smiling, bearing intact the better part of his soul and of his life; and I shall not speak, and he will see in me the guardian of all his goods, and he will never go away from me any more, and we shall be young again, we shall be young again!" I thought that, and the thought and the act were mingled in one, with an incredible ease. Your words transfigured the world. Then, do you know, a breath passed, a vapour, the merest breathing, a mere nothing, and cast down Everything, and destroyed everything, and the anxiety came back, and the dread, and the tremor. 0 April! [Suddenly she turns to the light, drawing a deep breath.] How this air troubles one, and yet how pure it is! All one's hope and despair pass in the wind with the dust of flowers. [She leans, out, calling.] Beata! Beata! LORENZO GADDI. Is the little one in the garden? SILVIA SETTALA. There she is, she is running about between the rose-bushes. She is wild with delight. Beata! She has hidden herself behind a hedge, the rogue. She is laughing. Do you hear her laughing? Ah, when she laughs, I know the joy of flowers when they are filled to the brim with dew. That is how her fresh laughter fills my heart to overflowing. LORENZO GADDI. Perhaps Lucio too hears her, and is consoled. 382 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO SILVIA SETTALA [grave and trembling, leaning towards the MAESTRO, and taking his hands]. You think then that he will really be healed of all his wounds? You think he will come back to me with all his soul? Did you feel that, when you saw him, when you talked with him? What did your heart say? LORENZO GADDI. It seemed to me, just now, that he had the look of a man who begins to live over again with a new sense of life. He who has seen the face of death cannot but have seen in that instant the face of truth also. The bandage is taken off his eyes. He knows you now wholly. SILVIA SETTALA. Maestro, Maestro, if you deceive yourself, if it is a vain hope, what will become of me? All my strength is worn out. LORENZO GADDI. But what is there now to fear? SILVIA SETTALA. He wanted to die; but the other, the other woman lives, and I know that she is implacable. LORENZO GADDI. And what could she do now? SILVIA SETTALA. She could do anything, if she were still loved. LORENZO GADDI. Still loved? Beyond death? SILVIA SETTALA. Beyond death. Ah, if you knew my anguish! It was for her that he wanted to die, in a moment of rage and of delirium. Think how he must have loved her, if the thought of me, if the thought of Beata, could not restrain him! Then, in that awful moment, he was her prey wholly;; he was at the height of his fever, of his agony, and all the rest. of the world was blotted out. Think how he must have loved her! [The woman's voice is subdued but lacerating. The old man bows his head.] Now, who can say what took place in him, after the blow, when the mist of death passed before his soul? Has he awakened without memory? Does he see an. abyss between his life as it renews itself and the part of himself that he left behind in that mist? Or else, or else the image has risen again out of the depths, and remains there, against the shadow, dominant, in indestructible relief? Tell me! LORENZO GADDI [perplexed]. Who can say? GIOCONDA 383 SILVIA SETTALA [in a sorrowful voice]. Ah, now you yourself dare not console me any longer. Then, it is so? There s no help? LORENZO GADDI [taking her hands]. No, no, Silvia. I neant: who can say what change is brought about in a nature ike his by so mysterious a force? Everything in him speaks >f some new good thing that has come to him. Look at him wvhen he smiles. Just now, yonder, before you left him to come 3ut with me, when he kissed those dear hands of yours, did you not feel that his whole heart melted into tenderness and humility? SILVIA SETTALA [her face slightly flushed]. Yes, it is true. LORENZO GADDI [looking at her hands]. Dear, dear hands, brave and beautiful, steadfast and beautiful! Your hands are extraordinarily beautiful, Silvia. If sorrow has too often set them together, it has sublimated them also, perfected them. They are perfect. Do you remember the woman of Verrocchio, the woman with the bunch of flowers, with the clustering hair? Ah, she is there! [He perceives, from the look and smile of SILVIA, that there is a copy of the bust on a little cupboard in a corner of the room.] So you have realised the relationship. Those two hands seem of the same blood as yours, they are of the same essence. They live-do they not?-with so luminous a life that the rest of the figure is darkened by them. SILVIA SETTALA [smiling]. Oh, young, always young in soul! LORENZO GADDI. When Lucio comes back to his work, he ought to model your hands the first day. I have a fragment of ancient marble, found in the Oricellari Gardens. I will give it to him, that he may chisel them in that, and lay them up like a votive offering. SILVIA SETTALA [a cloud passing across her forehead]. Do you think he will come back to his work soon? Will he wish to? Have you spoken of it with him? LORENZO GADDI. Yes, just now, when you were not there. SILVIA SETTALA. What did he say? LORENZO GADDI. Vague, delicious things, a convalescent's 384 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO dreams. I know them. I too was once ill. It seems to him now as if he has lost hold of his art, as if he had no longer any power over it, as if he had become a stranger to beauty. Then again it seems to him as if his thumbs had assumed a magic force, and that at a mere touch he can evoke forms out of the clay as easily as in dreams. He is somewhat uneasy about the disorder in which he fancies his studio was left, on the Mugnone yonder. He asked me to go and see. Have you the key? SILVIA SETTALA [anxiously]. There is the caretaker. LORENZO GADDI. How long is it since you were there? SILVIA SETTALA. Since this began. I never had the courage to go back again. I feel as if I should see the stains of blood, and find traces of her everywhere. She is still mistress there. That place is still her domain. LORENZO GADDI. The domain of a statue. SILVIA SETTALA. No, no. Do you not know that she had a key? She came and went there as if it belonged to her. Ah, I have told you, I have told you; she lives, and is implacable. LORENZO GADDI. Are you sure that she came back, after what happened? SILVIA SETTALA. Sure. Her insolence has no bounds. She is without pity and without shame. LORENZO GADDI. And he, Lucio, does he know? SILVIA SETTALA. He does not know. But he will surely know it sooner or later. She will find a way of letting him know. LORENZO GADDI. But why? SILVIA SETTALA. Because she is implacable, because she will not relinquish her prey. [A pause. The old man is silent. The woman's voice becomes harsh and tremulous.] And the statue, the Sphinx, have you seen it? LORENZO GADDI [after a moment's hesitation]. Yes. I have seen it. SILVIA SETTALA. Was it he who showed it to you? LORENZO GADDI. Yes, one day last October. He had just finished it. [A pause.] GIOCONDA 385 SILVIA SETTALA [in a trembling voice, which almost fails her]. It is wonderful, is it not? Tell me. LORENZO GADDI. Yes, it is exquisitely beautiful. SILVIA SETTALA. For eternity! [A pause, burdened with a thousand undefined and inevitable things.] THE VOICE OF BEATA [from the garden]. Mammal Mamma? LORENZO GADDI. The child is calling you. SILVIA SETTALA [starting up, and leaning out of the window]. Beata! Ah, there she is; my sister Francesca is coming across the garden; she is coming here with Cosimo Dalbo. Do you know? Cosimo has returned from Cairo; he arrived at Florence last night. Lucio will be delighted to see him. LORENZO GADDI [rising to go]. Good-bye, then, dear Silvia: I shall see you perhaps to-morrow. SILVIA SETTALA. Stay a little longer. My sister would like to see you. LORENZO GADDI. I must go. I am late now. SILVIA SETTALA. When shall I have the gift you promised me? LORENZO GADDI. Perhaps to-morrow. SILVIA SETTALA. No perhaps, no perhaps. I shall expect you. You must come here often, every day. Your presence does us good. Do not forsake me. I trust in you, Maestro. Remember that a menace is still hanging over my head. LORENZO GADDI. Do not fear. Keep up your courage! SILVIA SETTALA [moving towards the door]. Here is Francesca. [FRANCESCA DONI enters, goes up to her sister, and embraces her. COSIMO DALBO, who follows her, shakes hands with LORENZO GADDI, who is on the point of going out.] FRANCESCA DONI. Do you see whom I am bringing? We met outside the gate. How are you, Maestro? Are you going just as I come in? [She shakes hands with the old man.] SILVIA SETTALA [holding out her hand cordially]. Welcome 386 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO back, Dalbo. We were expecting you. Lucio is impatient to see you. COSIMO DALBO [with affectionate solicitude]. How is he now? Is he up? Is he quite well? SILVIA SETTALA. He is convalescent; still a little weak; but getting stronger every day. The wound is entirely closed. You will see him in a minute. The doctor is with him; I will go and tell him you are here. It will be a great delight foi him. He has asked after you several times to-day. He is impatient to see you. [She turns to LORENZO GADDI.] To-morrow, then. [She steps out with a light and rapid step. The sister the MAESTRO, and the friend follow her with their eyes.] FRANCESCA DONI [with a kindly smile]. Poor Silvia! Foi the last few days, she seems as if she had wings. When l look at her sometimes, it seems to me as if she is going to take flight towards happiness: And no one deserves happiness more; is it not true, Maestro? You know her. LORENZO GADDI. Yes, she is really as your sisterly eyes see her. She comes winged out of her martyrdom. There is I sort of incessant quiver in her. I felt it just now, when she stood near me. Truly she is in a state of grace. There is nc height to which she could not attain. Lucio has in his hands a life of flame, an infinite force. FRANCESCA DONI. You were with him some time to-day. LORENZO GADDI. Yes, hours. FRANCESCA DONI. How was he? LORENZO GADDI. Running over with sweetness, and a little bewildered. You will see him presently, Dalbo. His sensitiveness is a danger. Those who love him can do him muct good and much harm. A word agitates and convulses him Watch over all your words, you who love him. Good-bye. i' must go. [Takes leave of them both.] FRANCESCA DONI. Good-bye, Maestro. Perhaps we shal see you here again to-morrow. I hope so. You have a horroi of my stairs! [She accompanies the old man to the door; the? GIOCONDA 387 returns to the friend.] What a fire of intelligence and of goodness, in that old man! When he comes into a room he seems to bring comfort to all. The sad rejoice and the merry become fervent. COSIMO DALBO. He inspires the soul; he belongs to the noblest race of mankind. His work is a continual exaltation of life; it is the continual force of communicating a spark, whether to his statues or to the creatures whom he meets by the way. Lorenzo Gaddi seems to me to deserve a far higher fame than he receives from his contemporaries. FRANCESCA DONI. It is true, it is true. If you knew what energy and what delicacy he showed, in that horrible affair! When the thing happened, my sister was not there; she was with our mother, at Pisa, with Beata. The thing happened in the studio, there, on the Mugnone, in the evening. Only the caretaker heard the report. When he discovered the truth, he ran to tell Lorenzo Gaddi before any one else. In the anguish and horror of that winter evening, in the midst of all the confusion and uncertainty, he alone never lost his presence of *mind, nor had a single instant's hesitation. He preserved a strange lucidity, by which every one was dominated. He made every arrangement: all obeyed him. It was he who had poor Lucio brought to the house here, half dead. The doctor despaired of saving him. He alone declared, with an obstinate faith: "No, he will not die, he will not die, he cannot die." I believed him. Ah, what a heroic night, Dalbo. And then Lhe arrival of Silvia, his telling her himself, forbidding her to enter the room where a mere breath might have quenched that glimmer of life: and her strength, her incredible endurance under watching and waiting for whole weeks, the proud and silent vigilance with which she guarded the threshold as if to qinder the coming of death! CosIMO DALBO. And I was far away, unconscious of all, )lissfully idle in a boat on the Nile! Yet I had a kind of presentiment, before leaving. That was why I tried every means,o persuade Lucio to go with me, as we had often dreamed of loing together. He had then finished his statue; and I thought 388 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO that his liberty was in that wonderful marble. He said, "Not yet!" And a few months after he was seeking it in death. Ah, if I had not gone away, if I had stayed by him, if I had been more faithful, if I had known how to defend him against the enemy, nothing would have happened. FRANCESCA DONI. There is nothing to regret if so much good can come out of so much evil. Who knows in what sad — ness of despair my sister might have' perished, if the violence of that act had not suddenly reunited her to Lucio! But do not think that the enemy has laid down arms. She has not abandoned the field. COSIMO DALBO. Who? Gioconda Dianti? FRANCESCA DONI [motioning to him to be silent, and lowering her voice]. Do not say that name! [Lucio SETTALA appears on the threshold of the door, leaning on the arm of SILVIA; he is pale and thin, and his eyes look extraordinarily large with suffering; a faint, sweet smile gives refinement to a voluptuous mouth.] Lucio SETTALA. Cosimo! COSIMO DALBO [turning and running up to him]. Oh, Lucio, dear, dear friend! [He puts his arms about the convalescent, while SILVIA moves aside, nearer to her sister, and goes out with her, slowly, pausing for a moment to look at her husband before going.] You are well again, are you not? You are not suffering now? I find you a little pale, a little thin, but not so very much. You look as I have seen you sometimes after a period of feverish work, when you have been with your clay for twelve hours a day, consumed with that fire. Do you remember? Lucio SETTALA [looking confusedly about him, to see ij SILVIA is still in the room]. Yes, yes. COSIMO DALBO. Then too your eyes looked larger.... Lucio SETTALA [with an indefinable, almost childish restlessness]. And Silvia? Where is Silvia gone? Wasn't she here with Francesca? CosIMO DALBO. They have left us alone. GIOCONDA 389 Lucio SETTALA. Why? She thinks, perhaps.... No, I have nothing to tell you, I know nothing now any more. Perhaps you know. For me, no; I don't remember. I don't want to remember. Tell me about yourself! Tell me about yourself! Is the desert beautiful? [He speaks in a singular way, as if in a dream, with a mixture of agitation and stupor.] CosIMo DALBO. I will tell you. But you must not tire yourself. I will tell you all my pilgrimage; I will come here every day, if I may; I will stay with you as long as you like, only not long enough to tire you. Sit here. Lucio SETTALA [smiling]. Do you think I am so feeble? COSIMO DALBO. No, you are all right now, but it is better for you not to tire yourself. Sit here. [He makes him sit down near the window, and looks out at the hill clearly outlined against the April sky.] Ah, my dear friend, I have seen marvellous things with these eyes, and they have drunk light in comparison with which this seems ashen; but, when I see again a simple line like that (look at San Miniato!) I seem to find myself again, after an interval of wandering. Look at that dear hill! The pyramid of Cheops does not make one forget the Bella Villanella; and more than once, in the gardens of. Koubbeh and Gizeh, hives of honey, chewing a grain of resin, I thought of a slim Tuscan cypress on the edge of a narrow grove of olives. Lucio SETTALA [half closing his eyelids under the breath of Spring]. It is good to be here, is it not? There is an odour of violets. Perhaps there is a bunch of violets in the room. Silvia puts them everywhere, even under my pillow. COSIMO DALBO. Do you know, I have brought you the violets of the desert, between the pages of a Koran. I gathered them in the garden of a Persian monastery, near the Thebaid, on the side of the Mokattan, on ani eminence of sand. There, in a cavern dug out of the mountain, covered with carpets and cushions, the monks offer their visitors a tea with a special flavour, Arab tea, perfumed with violets. Lucio SETTALA. And you have brought them for me, buried 390 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO in a book! How happy you were to be able to gather them, so far away; and I might have been with you. COSIMO DALBO. There, all was oblivion. I went up by a long, straight stone staircase, that leads from the foot of the mountain to the gate of the Bectaschiti. The desert was all about; vast hallucinating dryness, in which there was no life but the stirring of wind and the quivering of heat. I could only distinguish here and there, between the sand-heaps, the white stones of Arab cemeteries. I heard the crying of hawks high up in the sky. I saw on the Nile multitudes of boats with great lateen sails, white, slow, going on, going on, like snow-flakes. And little by little I was caught up into an ecstasy that you can never have known, the ecstasy of light. Lucio SETTALA [in a far-off voice]. And I might have been with you, loitering, forgetting, dreaming, drunk with light. You went down the Nile, did you not? in an ancient boat loaded with wine-skins, sacks, and cages. You landed on an island towards evening; you were dressed in white serge; you were thirsty; you drank at a spring; you walked barefoot upon flowers; and the odour was so strong that you seemed to have forgotten hunger. Ah, I thought, I felt, these things from my pillow. And I followed you through the desert, when the fever was at its height; through a desert of red sand, sown with glittering stones that splintered crackling like twigs in the fire. [A pause. He leans forward a little, saying in a clear voice and with open eyes:] And the Sphinx? COSIMO DALBO. I saw it first at night, by the light of stars, sunken into the sand that still keeps the violent imprint of whirlwinds. The face and the croup rose out of that quieted storm, all that was human and all that was bestial in it. The face, whose mutilations were hidden by the shadow, seemed to me at that moment exquisitely beautiful: calm, august, cerulean as the night, almost meek. There is nothing in the world, Lucio, so much alone as that; but my mind was, as it were, before multitudes who had slept, and on whose eyelashes the dew had fallen. Then I saw it again by day. The face was bestial, like the croup; the nose and throat were eaten GIOCONDA 391 away; the droppings of birds fouled the fillets. It was the heavy wingless monster imagined by the excavators of tombs, by the embalmers of corpses. And I saw, in the sun before me, your Sphinx, pure and imperious, with wings imprisoned alive in the shoulders. Lucio SETTALA [with a sudden emotion]. My statue? You mean my statue? You saw it, ah, yes, before you went; and you found it beautiful. [He looks uneasily towards the door, fearing SILVIA might hear him, and lowers his voice.] You found it beautiful? COSIMO DALBO. Exquisitely beautiful. [Lucio covers his eyes with both hands and remains for some seconds as if trying to evoke a vision in the darkness.] Lucio SETTALA [uncovering his eyes]. I no longer see it. It escapes me. It comes and goes in a breath, confusedly. If I had it here before me now it would seem new to me: I should cry out. And yet I carved it, with these hands! [He looks at his thin, sensitive hands. His agitation increases.] I don't know. I don't know. In the beginning of my fever, when I still had the bullet in my flesh, and the continual murmuring of death in my lost soul, I saw it standing at the foot of the bed, lit like a torch, as if I myself had moulded it out of some incandescent material. So for many days and nights I saw it through my eyelids. It grew brighter as my fever increased. When my pulse burned it turned to flame. It was as if all the blood shed at its feet had gone up into it and boiled up in it... COSIMO DALBO [uneasily, looking towards the door, with the same fear]. Lucio, Lucio, you said just now that you knew nothing now, that you did not want to remember anything. Lucio! [He gently shakes his friend, who remains rigid.] LucIo SETTALA [recollecting himself]. Do not fear. I have left it all far, far behind me, at the bottom of the sea. The statue was drowned too, with all the rest, after the shipwreck. That is why I can no longer see it except confusedly, as if through deep water. 392 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO COSIMO DALBO. It alone shall be saved, to live for ever; and so much sorrow shall not have been suffered in vain, so much evil shall not have been useless, if one thing so beautiful remains over, to be added to the ornament of life. LucIo SETTALA [smiling again with his faint smile and speaking in his far-off voice]. It is true. I sometimes think of the fate of one whose ship and all that was in it went down in a storm. On a day as calm as this, he took a boat and a net, and he returned to the place of the shipwreck, hoping to draw something up out of the depths. And, after much labour, he drew on shore a statue. And the statue was so beautiful that he wept for joy to see it again; and he sat down on the seashore to gaze upon it, and was content with that gain, and would seek after nothing more: "well, I forget the rest!" [He rises hastily.] Why has not Silvia come back? [He listens.] Who is laughing? Ah, it is Beata in the garden. Look; San Miniato is all gold; it lightens. Is there a more glorious light at Thebes? COSIMO DALBO. The ecstasy of light! I told you: you can know it nowhere else. Circles, garlands, wheels, roses of splendour, innumerable sparkles.... The verses of the Paradiso recur to one's mind. Only Dante has found dazzling words. In certain hours the Nile becomes the flood of topazes, the "marvellous gulf." Like a stone in water, a gesture in the air arouses thousands and thousands of waves. All things swim in light; all the leaves drip with it. The women, who pass along the stream with full wine-skins, actually flame like the angelic host in the song, "distinct in light and form." [LucIo, catching sight of a bunch of violets on the table, takes them up and buries his face in them, to drink in their odour.] Lucio SETTALA [still holding the violets to his nostrils and half-closing his eyes with delight]. Are the women of the Nile beautiful?' COSIMO DALBO. Some, in youth, have bodies of marvellous purity and elegance. You, who like firm and active muscles, a certain acerbity in form, long, nervous legs, would find in GIOCONDA 393 comparable models there. How often have I thought of you! In the island of Elephantina I had a little friend of fourteen; a girl golden as a date, thin, lithe, firm, with strong, arched loins, straight, strong legs, perfect knees; a very rare thing, as you know. In all that hard slenderness, which gave one the impression of a javelin, sharp and precise, three things delighted me with their infinitely soft grace: the mouth, the shadow of the eyelashes, the tips of the fingers. She braided her hair with fingers rosy-tipped like petals dyed with purple: and to watch her in that act, on the threshold of her white house, was the delight of my mornings. I should like to have taken her away with the statuettes, the scarabsei, the cloths, the tobacco, the scents, the weapons. I have brought you a beautiful bow that I bought at Assouan, and that is a little like her. Lucio SETTALA [with a slight perturbation, throwing back his head]. She must have been a delicious creature! COSIMO DALBO. Delicious and harmless. She was like a beautiful bow, but her arrows were without venom. Lucio SETTALA. You loved her? CosIMo DALBO. As I love my horse and my dogs. Lucio SETTALA. Ah, you were happy there; your life was light and easy. It must have been the island of Elephantina where I saw you come on shore, in a dream. I might have been with you! But I will go, I will leave here. Do you not long to return? I will have a white house on the Nile; I will make my statues with the slime of the river, and set them up in that light of yours that will turn them to gold for me. Silvia! Silvia! [He calls towards the door as if seized by a sudden impatience, an anxious will to live.] Would it be too late? CosIMo DALBO. It is too late. The great heats are coming on. LUCIO SETTALA. What does it matter? I love summer heat, sultriness even. All the pomegranates will be in flower in the gardens, and when it rains they will see those large, warm drops that make the earth sigh for pleasure. 394 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO COSIMO DALBO. But the Khamsin? when all the desert rises up against the sun? [SILVIA appears on the threshold, smiling, her whole being visibly animated. She has changed her gown; she is dressed in a clearer, more spring-like colour; and she carries in her hands a bunch of fresh roses.] SILVIA SETTALA. What do you say, Dalbo, against the sun? Did you call, Lucio? LucIo SETTALA [re-taken by a kind of restless timidity, as of a man who feels the need of self-abandonment, to which he dares not give way]. Yes, I called you, because I thought you were never coming back. Cosimo was telling me of so many beautiful things. I wanted you to hear them too. [He looks at his wife with surprise in his eyes, as if he discovered a new charm in her.] Were you going out? SILVIA SETTALA [blushing slightly]. Ah, you are looking at my gown. I put it on to see how it looked, while Francesca was there. My sister sends her apologies to you both for having gone without coming to say good-bye. She was in a hurry: her children were waiting for her. She hopes, Dalbo, that you will come and see her soon. [She puts the roses on a table.] Will you dine with us to-night? COSIMO DALBO. Thanks. I cannot to-night. My mother expects me. SILVIA SETTALA. Naturally. To-morrow, then? COSIMO DALBO. To-morrow. I will bring my presents for you, Lucio. Lucio SETTALA [with childish curiosity]. Yes, yes, bring them, bring them. SILVIA SETTALA [smiling mysteriously]. I too am to have a present to-morrow. LucIo SETTALA. From whom? SILVIA SETTALA. From the Maestro. Lucio SETTALA. What? SILVIA SETTALA. You shall see. GIOCONDA 395 LucIO SETTALA [with a joyous movement]. You too shall see all the beautiful things that Cosimo has brought me: cloths, scents, weapons, scarabaei.... COSIMO DALBO. Amulets against every evil, talismans for happiness. On Bebel-el-Tair, in a Coptic convent, I found the most powerful of scarabsei. The monk told me a long story of a cenobite who, at the time of the first persecution, took refuge in a vault, and found a mummy there, and took it out of its swathings of balm, and restored it to life, and the resuscitated mummy, with its painted lips, told him the story of its old life, which had been one whole tissue of happiness. In the end, as the cenobite wished to convert it, it preferred to lie down again in its embalmings; but first it gave him the guardian scaraboeus. To tell you what use was made of it by the solitary, and through what vicissitudes it passed across the centuries into the hands of the good Copt, would take too long. Certainly, a more powerful one is not in all Egypt. Here it is: I offer it to you, I offer it to you both. [He hands the amulet to SILVIA, who examines it carefully and then passes it to LucIo, with a sudden light in her eyes.] SILVIA SETTALA. How blue it is. It is brighter than a turquoise. Look. COSIMO DALBO. The Copt said to me: "Small as a gem, great as a destiny!" [LucIO turns the mystic stone between his fingers, which tremble a little, fumblingly.] Good-bye then: to-morrow! Good night. SILVIA SETTALA [picking a rose out of the bunch and offering it to him]. Here is a fresh rose in exchange for the amulet. Take it to your mother. COSIMO DALBO. Thanks. To-morrow! [He salutes them again and goes out.] LuCIO SETTALA smiles timidly, turning the scarabceus between his fingers, while SILVIA puts the roses in a vase. Both, in the silence, hear the beating of their anxious hearts. The setting sun gilds the room. In the square of the window 396 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO is seen the pallid sky; San Miniato shines on the height; the air is soft, without a breath of wind. LucIO SETTALA [looking into the air, and listening anxiously]. There is a bee in the room. SILVIA SETTALA [raising her head]. A bee? Lucio SETTALA. Yes. Don't you hear it? [Both listen to the murmur.] SILVIA SETTALA. You are right. Lucio SETTALA. Perhaps you brought it in with the roses. SILVIA SETTALA. Beata picked these. Lucio SETTALA. I heard her laughing, just now, down in the garden. SILVIA SETTALA. How pleased she is to be home again! Lucio SETTALA. It was a good thing to send her away then. SILVIA SETTALA. She is stronger and lovelier for having breathed the odour of the pines. How good the spring must be at Bocca d'Arno! Would you not like to go there for a while? Lucio SETTALA. There, by the sea.... Would you like it? [Their voices are altered by a slight tremor.] SILVIA SETTALA. It has always been a dream of mine to pass one spring there. Lucio SETTALA [choked with emotion]. Your dream is mine, Silvia. [The amulet falls from his hands.] SILVIA SETTALA [stooping quickly to pick it up]. Ah, you have let it fall! They would say it is a bad omen. See. I put it on Beata's head. "Small as a gem, great as a destiny!" [She lays the amulet delicately upon the roses.] Lucio SETTALA [holding out his hands to her, as if imploring]. Silvia! Silvia! SILVIA SETTALA [running to him]. Do you feel ill? You look paler. Ah, you have tired yourself too much to-day, you are worn out. Sit here, come. Will you sip some of this cordial? Do you feel as if you are going to faint? Tell me! Lucio SETTALA [taking her hands with an outburst of love]. No, no, Silvia; I never felt so well. You, you sit down, sit GIOCONDA 397 here; and I at your feet, at last, with all my soul, to adore you, to adore you! [She sinks back on the divan and he falls on his knees before her. She is convulsed and trembling, and lays her hand on his lips, as if to keep him from speaking. Breath and words pass between her fingers.] At last! It was like a flood coming from far off, a flood of all the beautiful things and all the good things that you have poured out on my life since you began to love me; and my heart overflowed, ah, overflowed so that I staggered under the weight of it, and fainted and died of the pain and the sweetness of it, because I dared not say.... SILVIA SETTALA [her face white, her voice almost extinct]. No more, say no more! Lucio SETTALA. Hear me, hear me! All the sorrows that you have suffered, the wounds that you have received without a cry, the tears that you have hidden lest I should have shame and remorse, the smiles with which you have veiled your agonies, your infinite pity for my wanderings, your invincible courage in the face of death, your hard fight for my life, your hope always alight beside my bed, your watches, cares, continual tremors, expectation, silence, joy, all that is deep, all that is sweet and heroic in you, I know it all, I feel it all, dear soul; and, if violence is enough to break a yoke, if blood is enough for redemption (oh, let me speak!) I bless the evening and the hour that brought me dying into this house of your martyrdom and of your faith to receive once more at your hands, these divine hands that tremble, the gift of life. [He presses his convulsed mouth against the palms of her hands, and she gazes at him through the tears that moisten her eyelids, transfigured with unexpected happiness.] SILVIA SETTALA [in a faint and broken voice]. No more, say no more! My heart cannot bear it. You suffocate me with joy. I longed for one word from you, only one, no more; and all at once you flood me with love, you fill up every vein, you raise me to the other side of hope, you outpass my dreams, you give me happiness beyond all expectation. Ah, what did 398 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO you say of my sorrows? What is sorrow endured, what is silence constrained, what is a tear, what is a smile, now, in the face of this flood that bears me away? I feel as if by-and-by, for you, for you, I shall be sorry not to have suffered more. Perhaps I have not reached the depths of sorrow, but I know that I have reached the height of happiness. [She blindly caresses his head, as it lies on her knees.] Rise, rise! Come nearer to my heart, rest on me, give way to my tenderness, press my hands on your eyelids, be silent, dream, call back the deep forces of your life. Ah, it is not me alone that you must love, not me alone, but the love I have for you: love my love! I am not beautiful, I am not worthy of your eyes,I am a humble creature in the shadow; but my love is wonderful, it is on high, on high, it is alone, it is sure as the day, it is stronger than death, it can work miracles; it shall give you all that you ask. You can ask more than you have ever hoped. [She draws him to her heart, raising his head. His eyes are closed, his lips tight set, he is as pale as death, drunk and exhausted with emotion.] Rise, rise! Come nearer to my heart; rest on me. Do you not feel that you can give yourself up to me? that nothing in the world is surer than my breast? that you can find it always? Ah, I have sometimes thought that this certitude might intoxicate you like glory. [He kneels before her with uplifted face; she with both hands pushes back the hair to uncover his whole forehead.] Beautiful, strong forehead, sealed and blessed! May all the germs of spring awaken in your new thoughts! [Trembling she presses her lips to his forehead. Silently he stretches out his arms towards the suppliant. The sunset is like a dawn.] GIOCONDA 399 THE SECOND ACT The same room, the same hour of the day. A cloudy and changing sky is seen through the window. COSIMO DALBO is seated by a table, on which he rests his elbows, putting his hand to his forehead, grave and thoughtful. Lucio SETTALA is on foot, restless and agitated; he moves about the room uncertainly, giving way to the anguish that oppresses him. LucIo SETTALA. Yes, I am going to tell you. Why should I hide the truth? From you! I have had a letter, I have opened it, read it. COSIMO DALBO. From Gioconda? Lucio SETTALA. From her. COSIMO DALBO. A love letter? LucIo SETTALA. It burnt my fingers. COSIMO IALBO. Well? [He hesitates. In a voice changed by emotion.] You still love her? LucIo SETTALA [with a shudder of dread]. No, no, no. COSIMO DALBO [looking into the depths of his eyes]. You no longer love her? Lucio SETTALA [entreatingly]. Oh, do not torture me. I suffer. CosIMo IALBO. But what is it then that distresses you? [A pause.] Lucio SETTALA. Every day, at an hour that I know, she waits for me, there, at the foot of the statue, alone. [Another pause. The two men seem as if they saw before them something strong and living, a Will, evoked by those brief words.] COSIMO DALBO. She waits for you? Where? In your studio? How could she get in? Lucio SETTALA. She has a key: the key of that time. COSIMO DALBO. She waits for you! She thinks, she desires, then, that you should still belong to her? 400 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO Lucio SETTALA. You have said it. COSIMO DALBO. And what shall you do? Lucio SETTALA. What shall I do? [A pause.] COSIMO DALBO. You vibrate like a flame. Lucio SETTALA. I suffer. COSIMO DALBO. You are burning. Lucio SETTALA [vehemently]. No. COSIMO DALBO. Listen. She is terrible. One cannot fight against her save at a distance. That is why I wanted to take you with me, across the sea. You preferred death to the sea. Another (you know who, and your heart bleeds for her) has saved you from death. And now you can live only for her. Lucio SETTALA. It is true. COSIMO DALBO. You must go away, fly from her. Lucio SETTALA. For always? COSIMO DALBO. For some time. Lucio SETTALA. She will wait for me. COSIMO DALBO. You will be stronger. LucIo SETTALA. Her power will have increased. She will have more profoundly impregnated with herself the place that is dear to me for the work's sake that was achieved there. I shall see her from far off, like the guardian of a statue into which I put the most vivid breath of my soul. COSIMO DALBO. You love her. Lucio SETTALA [despairingly]. No. I do not love her. But think: she will always be the stronger: she knows what conquers and What binds me; she is armed with a fascination from which I cannot free my soul except by tearing her out of my heart. Must I try again? COSIMO DALBO. Ah, you are raving! Lucio SETTALA. The place where I have dreamed, where I have worked, where I have wept with joy, where I have cried on glory, where I have seen death, is her conquest. She knows that I cannot keep away from it or renounce it, that the most precious part of my substance is diffused there: and she waits for me, certain. GIOCONDA 401 COSIMO DALBO. Does she then exercise.an inviolable right there? Can no one forbid her entrance? Lucio SETTALA [with a profound emotion]. Turn her out? COSIMO DALBO. No: but there may be another way, less 'hard, the simplest way: ask her for the key which she has no right to retain. Lucio SETTALA. And who is to ask her for it? COSIMO DALBO. Any one of us, I myself, respectfully, in the name of necessity. Lucio SETTALA. She would refuse, she would look upon you As a stranger. COSIMO DALBO. You yourself then. Lucio SETTALA. I? I face her? COSIMO D)ALBO. NO, write to her. [A pause.] Lucio SETTALA [with the accent of absolute impossibility]. I cannot. And it would all be in vain. COSIMO DALBO. But there is another way: leave that house, clear out everything, take everything somewhere else. You will thus avoid the intolerable sadness of memory. How is it you do not realise that change is necessary, if your life is to renew itself, so that the companion you have found again may help you in your work? Would you have her sit where the other had been? Would you have her always see before her eyes the vision of that horrible evening? Lucio SETTALA [smiling, disheartened and bitter]. Well, yes, you are right: we will leave here, we will go somewhere else, we will choose a beautiful solitary place, we will shake off the dust from old things, open all the windows, let in the pure air, take a heap of clay, a block of marble, set up a monument to liberty. [He breaks off. His voice becomes singularly calm.] One morning, Gioconda will knock at the new door; I shall open to her: she will come in: without surprise I shall say to her, "Welcome." [Unable to restrain his bitterness.] Ah, but you are like a child! The whole thing seems to you no more than a key. Call in a locksmith, change the lock, and I am saved. 402 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO COSIMO DALBO [tenderly and sadly]. Do not be angry. At first I thought you had simply to rid yourself of an intruder. Now I see that my advice was childish. Lucio SETTALA [imploringly]. Cosimo, my friend, do under-, stand me! COSIMO DALBO. I understand, but you deny it. LucIo SETTALA [again carried away by excitement]. I deny nothing. I deny nothing. Would you have me cry to you that; I love her? [Looks about him in an aimless bewilderment. Passes his hand across his forehead with an air of suffering.. Lowers his voice.] You should have let me die. Think, if I who was intoxicated with life, if I who was frantic with strength and pride, if I wanted to die, be sure I knew there was an insuperable necessity for it. Not being able to live either with or without her, I resolved to quit the world. Think: I who looked on the world as my garden, and had every lust after every beauty! Be sure, then, I knew there was an insuperable necessity, an iron destiny. You should have let me die. COSIMO DALBO. You have forgotten the divine miracle, cruelly. Lucio SETTALA. I am not cruel. Because I was in horror of that cruelty towards which the violence of evil drew me, because I would not trample upon a more than human virtue, because I could not endure the sweetness of a little unconscious voice questioning me, because I wished to keep myself from the worst of all (do you understand?) I made my resolve. And because I am in horror of beginning over again, therefore I hate myself; because to-day I am like one who has taken a narcotic in despair, and who wakes up again, after a sound sleep, and finds the same old despair by his bedside. COSIMO DALBO. The same! And your first words are still in my ears: "I know nothing now, I don't remember, I don't want to remember any more." You seemed as if you had forgotten all, as if you reached out after some new good thing. The sound of your voice is still in my ears as you called to Beata's mother, getting up hurriedly, impatient, as if with an GIOCONDA 403 ardour that permits no delay. I still see the way you looked at her, when she entered, tremulous as hope. And, surely, that night you must needs have knelt to her, and she must Ihave wept over you, and both together must have felt the goodness of life. Lucio SETTALA. Yes, yes, it was indeed so: adoration! All cmy soul was prostrate at her feet, knowing all that is divine;n her, with an intoxication of humility, with a fervour of unspeakable gratitude. I was carried away. You spoke of the ecstasy of light: I experienced it in that moment. Every stain was wiped out, every shadow cleared away. Life had a new splendour. I thought I was saved for ever. [He breaks off.] COSIMO DALBO. But then? Lucio SETTALA. Then I knew that there was something else,hat must be abolished in me: the force that flows incessantly to my fingers, as if to reproduce. COSIMO DALBO. What do you mean? Lucio SETTALA. I mean that I should perhaps have been saved, if I had forgotten art also. Those days, there in my bed, as I looked at my feeble hands, it seemed to me incredble that I should ever create again; it seemed to me as if I nad lost all my power. I felt completely estranged from the world of form in which I had lived... before I died. I thought: "Lucio Settala, the sculptor, is dead." And I dreamt of becoming the gardener of a little garden. [He sits down, as if quieted, half closing his eyes, with a weary air, a scarcely visible smile of irony.] To prune roses, water them, pick the caterpillars off them, clip the box with shears, train the ivy up the walls, in a little garden sloping to the waters of oblivion; and not regret that one has left on the other shore a glorious park, populous with laurels, and cypresses, and myrtles, and marbles, and dreams. You see me there, happy, with shining shears, dressed in twill. COSIMO DALBO. I do not see you. Lucio SETTALA. It is a pity, my friend. 404 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO COSIMO DALBO. But who forbids your return to the great park? You can return to it by the alley of cypresses, and find your tutelar genius at the end of the way. LucIo SETTALA [leaping to his feet, like one who again loses self-control]. Tutelar! Ah, you seem to heap one word on another, like bandages on lint, for fear of feeling the pulsation of life. Have you ever put your finger on an open artery, a torn tendon? COSIMO DALBO. Lucio, your anger grows on you every minute. You have something wry and acrid, a kind of exasperation which hinders you from being just. You are not yet out of convalescence, you are not yet well. A sudden shock has come to disturb the placid work that nature was carrying out in you. Your new-born strength festers. If my advice were worth anything, I would bid you go at once to Bocca d' Arno, as you proposed. There, between the woods and the sea, you will find once more a little calm, and you will think over what your attitude must be; and you will find too the goodness that will give you light. Lucio SETTALA. Goodness! goodness! Do you think then that light must come from goodness and not from that profound instinct which turns and hurries my spirit towards the most glorious images of life? I was born to make statues. When a material form has gone out of my hands with the imprint of beauty, the office assigned to me by nature is fulfilled. I have not exceeded my own law, whether or not I have exceeded the laws of right. Is it not really true? Do you admit it? COSIMO DALBO. Proceed. Lucio SETTALA [lowering his voice]. The sport of illusion has mated me with a creature who was never meant for me. She is a soul of inestimable price, before whom I kneel and worship. But I am not a sculptor of souls. She was not meant for me. When the other appeared before me, I thought of all the blocks of marble hidden in the caves of far mountains, that I might arrest in each of them one of her motions. COSIMO DALBO. But now you have obeyed the command GIOCONDA 405 ment of Nature, in creating your masterpiece. When I saw your statue I thought that you were free from her. You have perpetuated a frail sample of the species in an ideal and indestructible type. Are you not therefore satisfied? Lucio SETTALA [more excitedly]. A thousand statues, not one! She is always diverse, like a cloud that from instant to instant seems changed without your seeing it change. Every motion of her body destroys one harmony and creates another yet more beautiful. You implore her to stay, to remain motionless; and across all her immobility there passes a torrent of obscure forces, as thoughts pass in the eyes. Do you understand? do you understand? The life of the eyes is the look, that indefinable thing, more expressive than any word, than any sound, infinitely deep and yet instantaneous as a breath, swifter than a flash, innumerable, omnipotent: in a word, the look. Now imagine the life of the look diffused over all her body. Do you understand? The quiver of an eyelid transfigures a human face and expresses an immensity of joy or sorrow. The eyelashes of the creature whom you love are lowered: the shadow encircles you as the waters encircle an island: they are raised: the flame of summer burns up the world. Another quiver: your soul dissolves like a drop of water; another: you are lord of the universe. Imagine that mystery over all her body! Imagine through all her limbs, from the forehead to the sole of the foot, that flash of lightning, like life! Can one chisel the look? The ancients made their statues blind. Now, imagine, her whole body is like the look. [A pause. He looks about him suspiciously, in fear of being heard. He comes nearer to his friend, who listens with increasing emotion.] I have told you: a thousand statues, not one. Her beauty lives in every block of marble. I felt this, with an anxiety made up of regret and fervour, one day at Carrara, when she was with me, and we saw, coming down the mountain-side, those great oxen with yokes, drawing the marble in waggons. An aspect of her perfection was enclosed for me in each of those formless masses. It seemed to me as if there went out from her towards the raw material a thousand 406 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO life-giving sparks, as from a shaken torch. We had to choose a block. I remember, it was a calm day. The marble shone in the sun like the eternal snows. We heard from time to time the rumbling of the mines that tore asunder the bowels of the silent mountain. I shall never forget that hour, though I were to die over again. She went into the midst of that concourse of white cubes, stopping before each. She leant over, observed the grain attentively, seemed to explore the inner veins, hesi — tated, smiled, passed on. To my eyes her garments were no) covering. There was a sort of divine affinity between her flesh and the marble that she leant over until her breath touched it. A confused aspiration seemed to rise to her from that inert whiteness. The wind, the sun, the grandeur of the mountains, the long lines of yoked oxen, and the ancient curve of the yokes, and the creaking of the waggons, and the cloud that rose from the Tirreno, and the lofty flight of an eagle, everything I saw exalted my spirit into a limitless poetry, intoxicated as with a dream that I had never equalled. Ah, Cosimo, Cosimo, I have dared to throw away a life on which there gleams the glory of such a memory. When she laid her hand on the marble that she had chosen, and turning to me said "This," all the mountains, from root to summit, breathed beauty. [An extraordinary fervour warms his voice and quickens his gestures. The listener is carried away by it, and makes no sign.] Ah, now you understand! You will never ask me again if I am satisfied. Now you know how furious must be my impatience when I think that she is there now, alone, at the foot of the Sphinx, awaiting me. Think, the statue rises above her, immobile, immutable, in its immunity from all sorrow; and she is there, grieving, and her life is ebbing away, and something of her perishes continually. Delay is death. But you do not know, you do not know... [He speaks as if about to confide a secret.] COSIMO DALBO. What? LucIo SETTALA. You do not know that I had begun another statue? COSIMO DALBO. Another? GIOCONDA 407 Lucio SETTALA. Yes, it was left unfinished, sketched out in the clay. If the clay dries, all is lost. COSIMO I)ALBO. Well? Lucio SETTALA. I thought it was lost. [An irresistible smile shines in his eyes. His voice trembles.] It is not lost; it still lives. The last touch of the thumb is there, still living. [He makes the gesture of moulding instinctively.] COSIMO DALBO. How? Lucio SETTALA. She knows the ways of the art, she knows how the clay is kept soft. Once she used to help me. She herself damped the cloths. COSIMO IALBO. So she thought of keeping the clay moist while you were dying! Lucio SETTALA. Was not that too a way of opposing death? Was not that too an act of faith, admirable? She preserved my work. COSIMO DALBO. While the other preserved your life. Lucio SETTALA [gloomily, lowering his forehead, without looking at his friend, in an almost hard voice]. Which of the two is worth more? Life is intolerable to me, if it was only given back with such a dragging weight on it. I have told you: you should have let me die. What greater renunciation can I make than that I have made? Only death could stay the rush of desire that drives my whole being, fatally, towards its own particular good. Now I live again: I recognise in myself the same man, the same force. Who shall judge me if I follow out my destiny? COSIMO DALBO [terrified, taking him by the arms as if to restrain him]. But what will you do? Have you made up your mind? [Struck by the sudden terror in the voice and gesture of his friend, Lucio hesitates.] Lucio SETTALA [putting his hands through his hair feverishly]. What shall I do? What shall I do? Do you know a more cruel torture? I am dizzy; do you understand? If I think that she is there, and waiting for me, and the hours are passing, and my strength being lost, and my ardour burning 408 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO itself away, dizziness clutches hold of my soul, and I am in fear that I shall be drawn there, perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow. Do you know what that dizziness is? Ah, if I could reopen the wound that they have closed for me! COSIMO DALBO [trying to lead him towards the window]. Be calm, be calm, Lucio. Hush! I think I hear the voice. Lucio SETTALA [starting]. Silvia's? [He turns deathly pale.] CosIMo DALBO. Yes. Be calm. You are in a fever. [He touches his forehead. Lucio leans on the windowsill, as if all his strength is leaving him.] [SILVIA SETTALA enters with FRANCESCA DONI. The latter has her arm round her sister's waist.] SILVIA SETTALA. Oh, Dalbo, are you still here? [She does not see Lucio's face, which he has turned to the open air.] COSIMO DALBO [composing his countenance, and greeting FRANCESCA]. Lucio kept me. SILVIA SETTALA. Had he a great deal to tell you? COSIMO. DALBO. He always has a great deal to tell me, sometimes too much. And he is tired. SILVIA SETTALA. Did he tell you that we are going to Bocca d'Arno on Saturday? COSIMO DALBO. Yes. I know. FRANCESCA DONI. Have you ever been to Bocca d' Arno? COSIMO DALBO. No, never. I know the country about Pisa: San Rossore, Gombo, San Pietro in Grado; but I never went as far as the mouth of the river. I know that the coast is most lovely. [SILVIA gazes fixedly at her husband, who remains leaning motionless against the window-sill.] FRANCESCA DONI. Delicious at this time of the year: a low, open coast, with fine sand: sea, river, and woods: the scent of resin and sea-grass: sea-gulls, nightingales. You ought to come often and see Lucio while he is there. COSIMO DALBO. With pleasure. GIOCONDA 409 SILVIA SETTALA. We can put you up. [She leaves her sister and goes towards her husband, with her light step.] FRANCESCA DONI. Our mother has a simple house there,:ut it is large, white inside and outside, in a thicket of oleanAlers and tamarinds, and there is an Empire spinet, which used (o belong-fancy to whom —to a sister of Napoleon, the Duchess of Lucca, the terrible, bony Elisa Baciocchi: a spinet,hat sometimes wakes and weeps under Silvia's fingers; and here is a boat, if the Napoleonic relic doesn't tempt you, a ovely boat, as white as the house. [SILVIA leans in silence against LucIo's shoulder, as if expectant. He remains absorbed.] COSIMO DALBO. To live in a boat, on the water, aimlessly, here is nothing so refreshing. I have lived like that for weeks nd weeks. FRANCESCA DONI. We ought to put our convalescent in a )oat, and confide him to the good sea. SILVIA SETTALA [touching her husband lightly on the shoul-!er]. Lucio! [He starts and turns.] What are you doing? Ve are here. Here is Francesca. [He looks his wife in the face, hesitatingly; then tries to smile.] Lucio SETTALA. There is a shower coming. I was looking or the first drops: the odour of the earth.... [He turns again towards the window, and holds out his open hands; they tremble visibly.] FRANCESCA DONI. April either weeps or laughs. Lucio SETTALA. Oh, Francesca, how are you? FRANCESCA DONI. Quite well. And you, Lucio? Lucio SETTALA. Quite well, quite well. FRANCESCA DONI. Are you going away on Saturday? Lucio SETTALA [looking at his wife, in a dreamy way]. Vhere? FRANCESCA DONI. Why, to Bocca d'Arno. Lucio SETTALA. Ah, yes, true. My memory is quite gone. SILVIA SETTALA. DO yOU not feel well to-day? 410 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO LvCIO SETTALA. Yes, yes, quite well. The weather upsets me a little; but I feel well, pretty well. [In the tone with which he pronounces these simple words there is an excess oj dissimulation, which gives him the strangeness of a madman It is evident that the attention of the three bystanders is intolerable to him.] Are you going, Cosimo? COSIMO DALBO. Yes, I am going. It is time. [He prepares to go.( LvCIO SETTALA. I will go with you as far as the garden' gate. [He leaves the window and goes towards the door anxiously.] SILVIA SETTALA. Are you going without your hat? LucIO SETTALA. Yes, I am hot. Don't you feel how heav] the air is? [He pauses on the threshold, waiting for his friend., sharp pain suddenly goes through all hearts, strikin! every one silent.] COSIMO DALBO. Au revoir. [He bows in a constrained way, and goes out wit, LvCIO. SILVIA bends her head, knitting her brows as if she is thinking out some resolution. Then seems as if she is lifted on a sudden wave of energy. FRANCESCA DONI. Have you seen Gaddi? SILVIA SETTALA. Not yet. He has not come to-day. FRANCESCA DONI. Then you don't know. SILVIA SETTALA. What? FRANCESCA DONI. What he has done? SILVIA SETTALA. No. FRANCESCA DONI. He went to see Dianti. SILVIA SETTALA [with restrained emotion]. To see he] When? FRANCESCA DONI. Yesterday. SILVIA SETTALA. And you have seen him? FRANCESCA DONI. Yes, I met him. He told me... SILVIA SETTALA. Speak, speak! GIOCONDA 411 FRANCESCA DONI. He went to see her yesterday, about;hree. He sent in his name. He was admitted at once. She -eceived him smilingly, bowed, never said a word, stood before lim, waiting for the old man to speak, listened to him quietly tnd respectfully. You can imagine what he might have said o persuade her to give back the key, to give up any further ttempts, and not trouble a peace brought back at the price of lood, and what sorrow! When he had finished she merely,sked: "Did Lucio Settala send you to me?" On his reply in he negative, she added very firmly: "Pardon one, but I caniot admit that any one but he has the right of asking what 'ou have asked." SILVIA SETTALA [turning pale and drawing herself up as if or a contest]. Ah, that is her last word. Well, there is some ne else who has an equal right and who will insist on her ight. We shall see. FRANCESCA DONI [startled]. What are you thinking of loing, Silvia? SILVIA SETTALA. What is necessary. FRANCESCA DONI. What then? SILVIA SETTALA. Seeing her, facing her, in the place where he is an intruder. Do you understand? FRANCESCA DONI. You would go there? SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, I am going there. I know her time. rou yourself know it. I will wait for her. She shall see. We hall meet face to face at last. FRANCESCA DONI. You will not do it. SILVIA SETTALA. Why not? Do you think I have not the ourage? FRANCESCA DONI. I entreat you, Silvia! SILVIA SETTALA. Do you think I tremble? FRANCESCA DONI. I entreat you! SILVIA SETTALA. Oh, be sure, I shall not lower my eyes, I hall not faint. You ought to know me by now; I have gone hrough more than one ordeal. FRANCESCA DONI. I know, I know. Nothing is too much 3r you. But think: to go there, after all that, in the very 412 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO place where the horrible thing happened, there, alone, face to face with that woman, who has done you so much injury. SILVIA SETTALA. Well? What of that? Have I once-once. Francesca!-failed to accomplish what seemed to me necessary? Tell me, have you ever known me refuse a burden l From what torture have I drawn back? I have faced many other sorrows, as you know. You are afraid that my hear will fail me if I set foot where he fell? But I had the courag. then to look at him through the crack of the door, when he la) on his bed of death, and there was no one by me to support me; and, before I was allowed to go to his bedside, the surgeon's steel and the blood-stained lint passed through m3 hands. FRANCESCA DONI. Yes, yes, true: your strength is great Nothing is too much for you. But think; this is not the sam'thing. It is not the same thing to go there, and to find your self face to face with a woman whom you do not know, capabl( of anything, obstinate, impudent. SILVIA SETTALA. I have no fear of her. What she does is base. Because she thinks me weak and submissive, therefore she is bold; because I have so long remained silent and alooi therefore she thinks she can once more get the better of me But she is wrong. Then all I cared for was lost, all resistane was useless. Now I have won it back, and I defend it. FRANCESCA DONI. My God! you are throwing yourself int, a hand to hand contest. And if she resists? SILVIA SETTALA. How resists? I have my right. I can tur: her out. FRANCESCA DONI. Silvia, Silvia, my sister, I entreat you wait a few days longer, think it over a little before you d this. Do not be rash. SILVIA SETTALA. Ah, you speak well, you who are happ3 you who are safe, you whose life is secure and with nothing t threaten your peace. Wait, think over! But do you know th crisis in which I find myself to-day? Do you know what I ar fighting for? For my own self and for Beata, for existence for the light of my eyes. Do you see? I cannot again g GIOCONDA 413 through a martyrdom in which all my nerves were torn to pieces; in which every torture was tried on me. I have given sorrow all I can give it; I have felt the hard iron on my neck and on my wrists; at the day's end my sleep was taken away "by the horror of the day to come, in which I should have to go,on living, and, in order to live, squeeze out my heart drop by drop when it seemed empty of everything. Ah, you speak well, you! When you smile in your home your smile returns to you in a hundred rays, as if you lived in a crystal. For me, smiling was one sorrow the more; under it, I clenched my teeth; but Beata never saw a tear in my eyes. That I might fulfil the promise of her name, when there was not a fibre in me that was not wrenched asunder, my hands were always held out to her with flowers. I could not begin over again. I would rather go away myself, and find a little quiet seashore somewhere, and lie down there with Beata and let the sea take us. FRANCESCA DONI [throwing her arms around her sister's neck, and kissing her]. What are you saying? what are you saying? You ought to be afraid of nothing any longer. Does he not love you? Have you not seen all his love come back? That is what matters; all the rest is nothing. [SILVIA closes her eyes for a few instants, and the illusion brightens her face.] SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, yes, I have seen his love come back. It seems... How could I doubt that voice? When I am not there, he calls me, he looks for me; he needs me; it seems as if I am to lead his steps. [She shakes herself, withdraws from her sister's arms, and becomes anxious again.] But to-day....Did you see him? Did you look at him? To-day he is not like he was yesterday. A sudden change.... Did you look at him. when he was at the window, leaning out? Did you hear the sound of his words? Did you see how his arm trembled when he stretched it out? Ah, tell me if you too felt that something had happened, that something had disturbed him. FRANCESCA DONI. He is still convalescent. Think; a mere nothing is enough to disturb him, the air, the weather... 414 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO SILVIA SETTALA. NO, no, it is not that. And did you nol see? Cosimo Dalbo too seemed to be making an effort to hid( some shadow. My eyes never deceive me. FRANCESCA DONI. No, it did not strike me. He was talking with me. SILVIA SETTALA [with increasing agitation]. But Lucio wen-l down to see him out, and he has not yet come back. Or perhaps he went across to the other side. [Goes to the window and looks through the curtains.] Ah, he is still there, at tht: gate, talking, talking. He seems beside himself. [Lifts het eyes to the clouds.] The thunder is coming. [Looks oul again, very intently.] FRANCESCA DONI. Call him! SILVIA SETTALA [turning, as if seized by a terrible thought]. I am sure of it, I am sure of it. FRANCESCA DONI. What are you thinking of now? SILVIA SETTALA [pausing, and pronouncing the words distinctly, pale but resolute]. Lucio knows that she is waiting for him. FRANCESCA DONI. He knows? How? SILVIA SETTALA. There is no doubt, there is no doubt. FRANCESCA DONI. You imagine it. SILVIA SETTALA. I feel it; I am sure of it. FRANCESCA DONI. But how? SILVIA SETTALA. It was bound to come; she was bound to find out the way one day or another. How? A letter, perhaps. He has received a letter. FRANCESCA DONI. And you were not on the watch? SILVIA SETTALA [disdainfully]. Even that? FRANCESCA DONI. But perhaps you are mistaken. SILVIA SETTALA. I am not mistaken. After the old man's visit, she wrote. Delay is no longer possible now, not a day, not an hour. You see the danger. Though he may have come back to me with all his soul, though he may have broken with her entirely, though he may have gone back to another life, another happiness, do you not feel what might still be the fascination for him of a woman who says, obstinate and cer GIOCONDA 415 tain: "I am here, I wait"? To know that she is there, that she is waiting there every day, that nothing can dishearten her. Do you see the danger? If Lucio knew this morning that she is waiting for him, he must know to-night, and from my lips, that she waits for him no longer. [An indomitable energy strengthens and lifts her whole being.] He shall know it to-.night; I promise him. [She stretches out her hand towards the 'window, with the gesture of one taking an oath.] Will you come with me? FRANCESCA DONI [anxious and entreating]. Silvia, Silvia, think for one moment! Think what you are doing! SILVIA SETTALA. I do not ask your aid. I only ask you to come with me as far as the door. For the rest, I alone suffice; it is necessary that I should be alone. Will you? What time is it? [Turns to look at the time; goes towards the table.] FRANCESCA DONI [stopping her]. I entreat of you! Listen to me, Silvia! My heart tells me that no good can come of what you are wanting to do. Listen to your sister! I entreat of you. SILVIA SETTALA [with a gesture of impatience]. Don't you know the game I am playing? Let me be. I am going alone. [Bends over the table, and looks at the time.] Four o'clock. I have not a moment to lose. Is your carriage there? [The rain falls suddenly on the trees in the garden.] FRANCESCA DONI. See how it is pouring! Don't go out! Put it off till to-morrow. Come, listen. [Tries to draw her towards her.] Wait at least till it stops raining. SILVIA SETTALA. I have not a minute to lose. I must be there before her; she must find me as if in my own house. Do you understand? Let me go. Quick, my hat, my cloak, my gloves. Giovanna! [She goes into the next room calling to her maid. FRA:NCESCA DONI, terrified, goes towards the window, on which the rain is beating.] FRANCESCA DONI. My God! my God! [Looks into the garden; calls]: Lucio! Lucio! 416 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO [Turns toward door through which her sister went out.] SILVIA SETTALA [coming back, out of breath]. I am ready. I left Beata there in tears. She wanted to go out with me. Stay, please; go and comfort her. I will go alone. I shall take your carriage. Au revoir. [Is about to kiss her sister.] FRANCESCA DONI. You are going, then? You have decided? SILVIA SETTALA. I am going. FRANCESCA DONI. I will go with you. SILVIA SETTALA. Let us go. [Involuntarily she turns and looks around the room, as if to embrace everything that is in it in one look. The curtains tremble, the rain increases. She breathes in the damp fragrance that enters at the window. For one instant the strung bow of her will slackens.] The odour of the earth... [She shivers, as she suddenly catches sight of LucIo, who appears on the threshold, feverishly, with bare head, his hair and his clothes wet with rain. They look at one another. An interval of weighty silence.] LucIo SETTALA [in a hoarse voice]. You are going out? SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, I am going out. Lucio SETTALA. How pale you are! [SILVIA puts her hand to her throat.] Where are you going? It is a deluge. [He touches his dripping hair.] SILVIA SETTALA. I have to go out. I shall not be long. Beata is in there, crying because she wants to come with me. Go and comfort her, tell her that perhaps I will bring her back something beautiful. [LucIO suddenly takes her hands and looks her fixedly in the eyes.] SILVIA SETTALA [mistress of herself, with a clear and firm accent]. What is it, Lucio? [He casts down his eyes. She withdraws her hands, shaking his as if in a farewell greeting. The temper of her will rings out in her vivid voice.] Au revoir! Come, Francesca. It is time. [She goes out rapidly, followed by her sister. LucIO SETTALA remains with bowed head, staggering under a thought that transfixes him.] GIOCONDA 417 THE THIRD ACT A high and spacious room, lighted by a glass roof, covered with dark awnings. In the wall at the back there is a rectangular opening, somewhat larger than a door, leading into the sculptor's studio. On the architrave are some fragments of the frieze of the Parthenon; against the two sides are two large winged figures, "clothed with the wind," the Nike of Samothrace and the other Nike sculptured by Poeonius for the Doric temple of Olympia consecrated to Zeus; the opening is covered by a red curtain. In the left wall there is a door, hidden by a rich and heavy portiere; in the left, a little door is hidden by curtains. Wide divans, covered with cloths and cushions, surround the room. The figures are arranged carefully, as if to induce meditation and reverie: a bunch of corn in a copper vase stands before the Eleusinian bas-relief of Demeter; a little bronze Pegasus on a pedestal of "verde antico" stands before the Ludovisi Medusa. The sentiment expressed by the aspect of the place is very different from that which softens the aspect of the room in the other house, over against the mystic hill. Here the choice and analogy of every form reveals an aspiration towards a carnal, victorious, and creative life. The two divine messengers seem to stir and widen the close atmosphere incessantly with the rush of their immense flight. [SILVIA SETTALA stands in the middle of the room, having laid down her hat, cloak, and gloves. She seems trying to remember the things about her, almost to renew her acquaintance with them, to re-establish a communion with them, not to feel estranged from them. She represses her anguish under her sister's eyes. FRANCESCA DONI is seated, because her knees tremble and her heart beats too loud.] 418 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO SILVIA SETTALA [looking about her]. It is strange; it seems larger. FRANCESCA DONI. What? SILVIA SETTALA. The room. It doesn't seem the same. [She looks about her, as if breathing an unfamiliar air. An interval of silence.] FRANCESCA DONI [listening]. Did you shut the door? SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, I shut it. FRANCESCA DONI. We shall hear her open it. SILVIA SETTALA. Are you afraid? It is not time yet. In a minute you must go. FRANCESCA DONI. Where? SILVIA SETTALA. Will you wait for me in the carriage, in the street? FRANCESCA DONI. No, it is impossible. I want to be here, to be near you. Could I not hide myself? SILVIA SETTALA. Hide yourself, here? No. I must be alone. FRANCESCA DONI. Have pity on me! I shall die of suspense. SILVIA SETTALA. Wait. There ought to be a secret door here. [Guided by memory, she goes towards the wall where there is the hidden door; looks, finds it, opens it. A wave of light falls,over her.] Do you see! It goes from here into the model's room, then into a corridor. At the end of the corridor there is a door, which leads to the Mugnone. Will you go out that way? FRANCESCA DONI. Yes, but let me stay in the room or the,corridor and wait. I will wait till you call. SILVIA SETTALA. You promise to wait till I call? FRANCESCA. Yes, I promise. SILVIA SETTALA. Do not fear. See, there is the sun on the window. [Both look out through the half open door. The inner light shines on their faces. A luminous streak extends over the floor.] FRANCESCA DONI. It is not raining now. Look at all the primroses on the roadside. GIOCONDA 419 SILVIA SETTALA. Go and wait on the roadside, in the open air. Go. FRANCESCA DONI. There is an old sick horse, with his legs in the water. Do you see? And the swallows skim across it. I think... [She starts and turns suddenly, gazing at the motionless folds of the portiere.] SILVIA SETTALA. What is it? FRANCESCA DONI. I thought I heard... [Both listen.] SILVIA SETTALA. NO, yOU are mistaken. It is still early. And then the door on the stairs makes a great noise when it closes. Did you not hear it when we came in? The walls tremble. FRANCESCA DONI [imploringly]. Silvia! SILVIA SETTALA. What is it now? FRANCESCA DONI. Listen. There is still time. Come away, come away at least for to-day! Try, at least. She will know you have been here. We will speak to the caretaker again. You ought to leave some sign here, forget a glove, for instance. She will understand, she will not return. SILVIA SETTALA. A glove enough? Ah, how easy everything is for your heart! [She looks round her again, with a secret despair.] There is nothing left of me, here. [The sister remains by the half-open door, her figure partially lit up by the vivid reflection. SILVIA moves some paces into the room. An interval of silence.] Everything seems larger, higher, darker. FRANCESCA DONI. It is the shadow that deceives you. There is not much light. Draw back the awning over the skylight. SILVIA SETTALA. NO, it is better like this. [She looks in every corner, as if seeking a trace.] Tell me... [Her voice chokes with emotion.] That night they came for you, and you hurried here. You were here at the very beginning.. [Hesitates.] Where was he? Do you remember exactly where? FRANCESCA DONI. There, in the studio, under the statue. No, do not go! 420 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO [SILVIA turns towards the red curtain that hangs between the two Victories. At her feet, like a dividing line, stretches the thin zone of the sun.] SILVIA SETTALA [in a low voice]. The statue is there. FRANCESCA DONI. Do not go! [SILVIA remains for some instants motionless and silent before the closed curtain, from which she is separated by the shining zone.] Do not go! [SILvIA steps across the sunlight, almost violently, as if to overcome an obstacle; with a rapid movement she raises the curtain, slips between the folds, and disappears. The curtain falls behind her, heavy and thick. There are a few instants of silence, in which nothing is heard but the rapid breathing of the sister. Suddenly, within the purple depths, appears the white face of Silvia, which seems irradiated with the light of the masterpiece. Her bare hands, as they put aside the curtains, seem to shine against the depths of colour. Her eyes are intent, widened by wonder, dazzled, not by a vision of death, but by an image of perfect life. The water gathers tremulously in her eyes. Two marvellous tears form little by little, shine, and slowly run down her cheeks. Before they reach her mouth she stops them with her fingers, diffuses them over her face, as if to bathe in lustral dew; for it is not by the remembrance or the trace of human bloodshed that she is moved, but by the sight of a thing of beauty, solitary and free. She has received the supreme gift of beauty: a truce to anguish, a pause to fear. The sublime lightning-flash of joy has shone through her wounded soul for an instant, rendering it crystalline as tears. These tears are but the soul's mute and ardent offering before a masterpiece.] Silvia, Silvia, you are weeping. SILVIA SETTALA [in a subdued voice, with a gesture of silence]. Hush! [She moves away from the curtain, asking in a subdued voice:] Have you seen? have you seen? FRANCESCA DONI [misunderstanding, with a start]. Who? Her? Is she there? SILVIA SETTALA. NO, the statue. [The sister nods her head, with a gesture expressing rapt admiration. The sound of a heavy door closing is heard. Both start.] She is here. Go, go. GIOCONDA 421 FRANCESCA DONI [holding out her arms towards her with a last agonised entreaty]. Oh, my sister! SILVIA SETTALA [recovering her former energy]. Go! Do not fear. [She pushes her sister out through the door, and closes it. The zone of sun disappears; the room returns to an even shadow.] [SILVIA SETTALA is standing with her face turned towards the door, her eyes fixed, almost rigid in expectation. Through the profound silence is heard distinctly the turning of the key in the lock. SILVIA'S attitude does not change. A hand lifts the portiere. GIOCONDA DIANTI enters, closing the door behind her. At first she does not perceive the adversary, since she comes from the light into the shadow and a thick veil covers her whole face. When she perceives her, she stops, with a choked cry. Both remain for some instants facing one another without speaking.] SILVIA SETTALA [with a firm and clear accent, but without resentment or menace]. I am Silvia Settala. [Her rival is silent, still veiled. A pause.] And you? GIOCONDA DIANTI [in a low voice]. Do you not know, Signora? SILVIA SETTALA [still restraining herself]. I know only that you have entered here, as into a place that belongs to you. You find me here, as in my own house. One of us two, therefore, usurps the right of the other; one of us two is the intruder. Which? [A pause.] I perhaps? GIOCONDA DIANTI [always hidden under the veil, and in a low voice, as if to lessen her audacity]. Perhaps. [SILVIA SETTALA turns paler and staggers a little, as if she had received a blow.] SILVIA SETTALA [resolutely, quivering with disdain]. Well, there is a woman who has drawn a man into her net with the worst allurements; who has torn him away from the peace of home, the nobility of art, the beauty of a dream which he had nourished for years with the flowers of his voice; who has 422 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO dragged him into a turbid and violent delirium, where he has lost all sense of goodness and justice; who has inflicted on him the sharpest torments that the cruelty of a torturer sick with ennui could desire; who has exhausted and withered him up, keeping a perverse fever continually alight in his veins; who has rendered life intolerable to him; who has armed his hand and turned it against his own life; who, in short, has known that he was lying wounded to death on a far-off bed, for days and days, while a ceaseless fight went on about him against death; and who has not had remorse, nor pity, nor shame, but has gone back to the sinister place before the blood was wiped off the floor, meditating another attack upon her prey, awaiting him again at the journey's end, calculating one by one the effects of her temerity and of her tenacity, promising herself the pleasure of another ruin. There is a woman who has done this, who has said: "A strong and noble life flourished freely in the world; I have seized it, bent it back, beaten it down, then shattered it at a blow. I thought I had destroyed it for ever. And lo! it flourishes again, is renewed, re-arises, can put forth fresh flowers! About it the wounds close, the pains are calmed, hope springs up again, joy can smile! Shall I endure this wrong? Shall I let myself be thus deluded? No, I will begin again, I will hold on, I will overcome all resistance, I will be implacable." There is a woman who has promised this to herself, who has gripped her will like an axe, who is prepared to deliver fresh blows smiling. Do you know her? She has entered here with her face covered, she has spoken in a dull voice, she has let fall a cold word, calculating always on her own audacity and on the other's submissiveness. Do you know her? GIOCONDA DIANTI [without changing her manner]. She whom I know is different. Only because she is sad in your presence, does she speak in a low voice. She respects the great and sorrowful love that has given you life; she admires the virtue that exalts you. While you were speaking, she understood that it was only in order to comfort an unutterable despair that your words had created a figure so different from GIOCONDA 423 the real person. There is nothing implacable in her; but she herself obeys a power that may be implacable. SILVIA SETTALA [bitter and haughty]. I know that you are practised in all tongues. GIOCONDA DIANTI. Of what avail is this harshness? Your first words had another sound; and it seemed, when you asked me a question, that you wanted simply to know the truth. SILVIA SETTALA. And what then is your truth? GIOCONDA DIANTI. The truth that matters, between us, is bne only: truth of love. You know it. But I fear to wound. SILVIA SETTALA. Do not fear to wound. GIOCONDA DIANTI. The woman against whom you made such accusations was ardently loved, and-suffer me to say it! -with a glorious love. She did not abase but exalt a strong life. And since the last voice that she heard, a few hours before the terrible deed was accomplished, the last was of love, she believes that she is still loved. And this is the truth that matters. SILvIA SETTALA [blindly]. She is wrong, she is wrong.. You are wrong! He loves you no longer, he loves you no longer; perhaps he has never loved you. His was not love but a poisoning, but sharp slavery, madness, and thirst. When he suffered on his pillow, remembrance passed through his eyes from time to time like a flash of terror. Weeping at my feet, he has blessed the blood that was poured out for his ransom. He does not love you, he does not love you! GIOCONDA DIANTI. Your love cries out like a drowning man. SILVIA SETTALA. He does not love you! You have been a gad-fly to him, you have made him frantic, you have driven him to his death. GIOCONDA DIANTI. Not I, not I, have driven him to his death, but you yourself. Yes, he wished to die, that he might cast off a fetter, but not that which bound him to me: another, yours, that which was set upon him by your virtue or your rule, and which made him suffer intolerably. 424 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO SILVIA SETTALA. Ah, there is nothing that you dare not travesty! From him, from his own mouth, in an hour when his whole soul had risen up into the light, from him I heard it: "If violence is enough to break a yoke, let it be blessed!" From him I heard it, when all his soul opened again to the truth. GIOCONDA DIANTI. But here, a few hours before he gave way to the horrible thought, here (all these things are witnesses to it) he said to me the most ardent and the sweetest words of all his love; here he once more called me life of his life, here he told me once more his dream of forgetfulness, of liberty, of art, of joy. And here he told me of the insupportableness of his yoke, the inevitable weight of goodness, more cruel than any other, and the horror of daily suffering, the repugnance at returning to the house of silence and tears, the repugnance at length become unconquerable. SILVIA SETTALA. NO, no. You lie. GIOCONDA DIANTI. To escape that anguish, one evening when all seemed to him sadder and more silent than ever, he sought death. SILVIA SETTALA. YOU lie, you lie! I was far away. GIOCONDA DIANTI. And you accuse me of having inflicted an infamous torment upon him, of having been his torturer! Ah, your hands, above all, your hands of goodness and pardon, prepared for him every night a bed of thorn, on which he could not lie down. But, when he entered here where I awaited him as one awaits the creating God, he was transformed. Before his work he recovered strength, joy, faith. Yes, a continual fever burned in his blood, kept alight by me (and this is all my pride); but the fire of that fever has fashioned a masterpiece. [Points towards her statue, hidden by the curtain.] SILVIA SETTALA. It is not the first; it will not be the last. GIOCONDA DIANTI. Truly, it will not be the last; because another is ready to leap forth from its covering of clay, another has palpitated already under the life-giving thumb, another is half-alive, and waits from moment to moment for the miracle of art to draw it wholly forth to the light. Ah, you cannot GIOCONDA 425 understand this impatience of matter to which the gift of perfect life has been promised! [SILVIA SETTALA turns towards the curtains, takes a few steps, slowly, as if involuntarily, as 'if in obedience to a mysterious attraction.] It is there; the clay is there. That first breath that he infused into it I have kept alive from day to day, as one waters the furrow where the seed lies deep. I have not let it perish. The impress is there, intact. The last touch, which his feverish hand set upon it at the last hour, is visible there, energetic and fresh as yesterday, so powerful that my hope in the midst of all the agony of sorrow is set there with a seal of life, and takes Atrength from it. [SILVIA SETTALA pauses in front of the curtain, as before, and remains motionless and silent.] Yes, it is true, you watched by the bedside of the dying man, intent upon a ceaseless strife to win him back from death; and for this be envied, and for this be praised to all eternity. You had strife, agitation, effort: you had to accomplish a thing which seemed superhuman, and which intoxicated you. I, shut out, far off, in solitude, could only gather and bind up, knitting my will together, my sorrow in a vow. My faith was equal to yours; truly, it was leagued with yours against death. The last creative spark of his genius, of the divine fire that is in him, I have not let it go out, I have kept it alive, with a religious and uninterrupted vigilance. Ah, who can say to what height the preserving force of such a vow may attain? [SILVIA SETTALA is about to turn violently, as if to reply, but restrains herself.] I know, I know: it is simple and easy enough, what I have done; I know: it is no heroic effort, it is the humble duty of a menial. But it is not the act that matters. What matters is the spirit in which the act is accomplished; the fervour of it is all that matters. Nothing is more sacred than the work that begins to live. If the spirit in which I have watched over it can reveal itself to your soul, go and see! That the work may go on living, my visible presence is needful. Realising this necessity, you will understand how in replying "Perhaps" to a question, I wished to respect a doubt which might be in you, but which was not in me, 426 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO which is not in me. You cannot feel at home here as in your own house. This is not a house. Household affections have no place here; domestic virtues have no sanctuary here. This is a place outside laws and beyond common rights. Here a. sculptor makes his statues. He is alone here with the instruments of his art. Now I am nothing but an instrument of his art. Nature has sent me to him to bring him a message, and to serve him. I obey; I await him to, serve him still. If he entered now, he could take up the interrupted work which had begun to live under his fingers. Go and see! [SILVIA SETTALA stands before the curtain, without advancing. An increasing shiver shakes her whole body, betraying her inner agitation; while the words of her rival become more and more sharp and stinging, definite, and at last hostile. Suddenly she turns, panting, impetuous, resolved upon the last defence.] SILVIA SETTALA. No. It is useless. Your words are too clever. You are practised in all tongues. You transform into an act of love and faith what is only an act of policy or of treachery. The work that was interrupted should have perished. With the same hand that had impressed the sign of life upon the clay, with the same hand he grasped the weapon and turned it against his heart. He did not doubt that he had set the deepest of gulfs between himself and his work. Death has passed there, and has severed every bond. What was interrupted should be lost. Now he is born again, he is a new man, he aspires towards other conquests. In his eyes there is a new light; his strength is impatient to create other forms. All that is behind him, all that is on the other side of the shadow, has no longer any power or value. What does it matter to him that an old piece of clay should fall into dust? -He has forgotten it. He will find fresher pieces, into which to infuse the breath of his new birth, and to model into the image of the idea that now inflames him. Away with the old clay! How could you profess to think that you were necessary to his art? Nothing is necessary to the man who creates. All converges in him. You say that Nature sent you to him to bear GIOCONDA 427 him a message. Well, he has received it, he has understood it, and he has responded to it with a sublime expression. What other could he derive from you? What other could you give him? It is not given to man to attain twice the same summit, to accomplish twice the same prodigy. You are left there, on the other side of the shadow, far off, alone, on the old earth. He goes towards the new earth now, where he shall receive other messages. His strength seems virgin, and the beauty of the world is infinite. 'GIOCONDA DIANTI [taken aback by the unexpected vigour which repels her, becoming more acrid, more haughty than ever, and with an air of defiance]. I am living and am here; and he has found in me more than one aspect, and the words still intoxicate me that he said when he spoke to me of his vision, different every morning when I come before him. Up to yesterday, certainly, he did not know that I was waiting for him; and his unconsciousness has deceived you. But today he knows. Do you understand? He knows that I am here, that I await him. This morning a letter told him, a letter which came into his hands, which he has read. And I am certain-do you understand?-I am certain that he will come. Perhaps he is on the way, perhaps he is near the door. Shall we wait for him? [An extraordinary change comes over the face of S:[LVIA. It seems as if something strange and horrible enters into her. She is like one suddenly caught in the coils, writhing in the fascination of the serpent, blindly. The ancient fatality of deceit suddenly assails the soul of the pure woman, conquers and contaminates it. At the last words of the enemy she breaks into an unexpected laugh, bitter, atrocious, provocative, that renders her unrecognizable. GIOCONDA DIANTI seems overcome by it.] SILVIA SETTALA. Enough, enough. Too many words. The game has lasted too long. Ah, your certainty, your pride! But how could you believe that I should have come here to contest the way with you, to forbid your entrance, to face 428 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO your audacity, if I had not had a certainty far more sound than yours to warrant me? I know your letter of yesterday, it was shown to me, I know not if with more astonishment or disgust. GIOCONDA DIANTI [overcome]. No, it is not possible! SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, it is so. As for the answer, I bring it. Lucio Settala has lost the memory of what has been, and asks to be left in peace. He hopes that your pride will prevent you from becoming importunate. GIOCONDA DIANTI [beside herself]. He sends you? he himself. It is his answer? his? SILVIA SETTALA. His, his. I would have spared you this harshness if you had not forced me. Will you go now? GIOCONDA DIANTI [her voice hoarse with rage and shame]. I am turned out? [Fury suffocates her, and gives her a frantic vigour. The vindicative and devastating wild beast seems to awaken in her. Through her flexible and powerful body passes the same force which contracts the homicidal muscles of feline animals in ambush. The veil, which she has kept on her face like a dark mask, renders more formidable the attitude of one ready to do injury in any way and with any weapon]. Turned out? [SILVIA SETTALA stands convulsed and livid before the furious woman, and it is not the spectacle of that fury which terrifies her, but something which she sees within herself, something horrible and irreparable: her lie.] Ah, you have brought him to this! How? how? Binding the soul like the wound with cotton-wool? doctoring him with your soft hands? He is unmade, finished, a useless rag. I understand; now I understand. Poor thing! poor thing! Ah, why is he not dead, rather than the survivor of his soul? He is finished, then, a poor beggar whom you lead by the hand in the empty streets. All is destroyed, all is lost. He will never lift his head again, his eye is darkened. SILVIA SETTALA [interrupting her]. Be silent, be silent! He is living and strong; never had he such light in himself. God be praised! GIOCONDA DIANTI [frantically]. It is not true. I, I was GIOCONDA 429 his strength, his youth, his light. Tell him 1 Tell him! He has become old,; from to-day he is limp and soulless. I carry away with me (tell him!) all that was most free, ardent, and proud in him. The blood that he poured out there, under my statue, was the last blood of his youth. What you have re-infused into his heart is without flame, is weak, is vile. Tell him! I carry away with me to-day all that was his power and his pride and his joy and his all. He is finished. Tell him! [Fury blinds and suffocates her. It is as if she is invaded by a turbid destructive will, as by a demon. All her being contracts in the necessity of accomplishing an immediate act of destruction. A sudden thought precipitates that instinct towards an aim.] And that statue which is mine, which belongs to me, which he has made out of the life that I have shed from me drop by drop, that statue which is mine... [She rushes like a wild beast towards the closed curtain, raises it and passes through]... well, I will shatter it, I will cast it down! [SILVIA SETTALA utters a cry, and rushes forward to prevent the crime. Both disappear behind the curtain. The rapid breathing of a brief struggle is heard.] SILVIA SETTALA [crying out]. No, no, it is not true, it is not true! I lied! [The despairing words are covered by the sound of a mass that inclines and falls, the fracture of the falling statue; then follows another lacerating cry from SILVIA, torn by agony from her very vitals.] [FRANCESCA DONI appears, mad with terror, running towards the cry, which she recognizes; while GIOCONDA DIANTI is seen between the curtains, still veiled, in the attitude of one who has committed a murder and seeks to escape.] FRANCESCA DONI. Assassin! Assassin! [She stoops to succour her sister, while the other rushes out.] Silvia, Silvia, my sister, my sister! What has she done to you, what has she done to you? Ah, the hands, the hands. 430 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO [Her voice expresses the horror of one who sees something frightful.] SILVIA SETTALA. Take me away! Take me away! FRANCESCA DONI. My God, my God! They were underneath! My God! They are crushed. Water! water! There is none here. Wait. SILVIA SETTALA. Ah, what agony! I cannot bear it: I am dying. Take me away! [She appears between the red curtains, her face inexpressibly contracted by agony, while her sister bends to support her two hands wrapped in a piece of wet cloth, taken from the clay, through which the blood oozes.] What agony! I cannot bear it any longer. [She is about to faint, when all at once Lucio SETTALA rushes into the room like a madman. She trembles, fixing on him her great eyes full of tears, in which her despairing soul dies.] You, you, you! FRANCESCA DONI. [Still supporting the two poor crushed hands that drench the cloth in which the incurable wreck is hidden.] Support her, support her! She is falling. [Lucio SETTALA supports the poor bleeding creature, almost fainting, in his arms. But, before losing consciousness, she turns her glazing eyes towards the curtains as if to indicate the statue.] SILVIA SETTALA [in a dying voice]. It... is safe. THE FOURTH ACT A ground floor room, white and simple, with two side walls making an angle, almost entirely open to the light, which comes through a sort of large window, after the manner of a tepidarium. The blinds are raised, and through the windowpanes can be seen oleanders, tamarinds, rushes, pines, golden sands dotted with dead seaweed, the sea calm and dotted with lateen sails, the peaceful mouth of the Arno, beyond the river the wild thickets of Gombo, the Cascine de San Rossore, the far-off marble mountain of Carrara. GIOCONDA 431 A door, leading to the interior, is on the third side. By the side of the door, on a bracket, is the Lady with the bunch of flowers, the famous figure of Andrea del Verrochio, a new guest, come from the other house, like a faithful companion, whose beautiful hands are always flawless, as they make a graceful gesture toward the heart. On the other side is an old spinet, of the time of Elisa Baciocchi, Duchess of Lucca, with its case of dull wood inlaid with bright wood, borne by little gilded Cariatides in the Empire style, with its four pedals united in the form of a small harp. It is an afternoon in September. The smile of vanishing summer seems to lay an enchantment over everything. In the deserted room the soul of music sleeping in the forgotten instrument makes itself felt, as if the hidden strings were touched by the calm rhythm of the neighbouring sea. [SILVIA SETTALA appears on the threshold, from the inner room; she pauses; takes several steps towards the window; looks into the distance, looks about her with infinitely sad eyes. In her way of moving there is a sense of something wanting, calling up a vague image of clipped wings, a vague sentiment of strength humbled and shorn, of nobility brought low, of broken harmony. She is dressed in an ash-coloured gown, with a hem of black, like a thread of mourning. Long sleeves hide her arms without hands, which she sometimes lets drop by her side, and sometimes sets together, drawn a little back, as if to hide them in the folds, with a movement of shame and sorrow.] [From outside, between the thick oleanders, appears a girlish figure, LA SIRENETTA, half fairy and half beggar girl, peering in. She glides towards the window with a furtive step, holding up in one hand a fold of her apron, filled with seaweed, shells, and star-fish.] SILVIA SETTALA [catching sight of her, and going towards her with a smile]. Oh, la Sirenetta! Come, come. LA SIRENETTA [coming forward to the window]. Do you remember me? [She remains outside so that her face is seen 432 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO through the shimmer of the glass, which seems to continue about her the incessant, tremulous radiance of the sea. She is young, slender, graceful; her yellow hair is in disorder, her face the colour of ruddy gold, her teeth white as the bones of the cuttle-fish, her eyes humid and sea-green, her neck long' and thin, with a necklace of shells about it; in her whole person something inexpressibly fresh and glancing, which makeF one think of a creature impregnated with sea-salt, dipped in the moving waters, coming out of the hiding-places of the rocks. Her petticoat of striped white and blue, torn and discoloured, falls only just below the knees, leaving her legs bare her bluish apron drips and smells of the brine like a filter; her bare feet, in contrast with the brown colour that the sun has given her flesh, are singularly pallid, like the roots of aquatic plants. And her voice is limpid and childish; and some of the words that she speaks seem to light up her ingenuous face with a mysterious happiness.] Do you remember me, pretty lady? SILVIA SETTALA. I remember you; I remember you. LA SIRENETTA. Do you remember me? Who am I? SILVIA SETTALA. Are you not la Sirenetta? LA SIRENETTA. Yes, you have remembered me. When didi you come back? SILVIA SETTALA. Not long ago. LA SIRENETTA. You will stay? SILVIA SETTALA. A long time longer. LA SIRENETTA. Till the winter, perhaps. SILVIA SETTALA. Perhaps. LA SIRENETTA. And your little girl? SILVIA SETTALA. I expect her to-day. She is coming. LA SIRENETTA. Beata! Isn't she called Beata? SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, Beata. LA SIRENETTA. You called her that, Beata, not Beatrice. When she was here, she asked me every day for star-fish, stars of the sea. Did she tell you? She made me sing. Did she tell you? GIOCONDA 433 SILVIA SErTALA. Yes, she told me. She remembers you. She likes you. LA SIRENETTA. She likes me! I know. She gave me some of her bread every day. SILVIA SETTALA. You shall have it every day, if you like. Bread and food, Sirenetta, morning and night, whenever you ike. Remember. LA SIRENETTA. Morning and night I will bring you a starish. Will you have one? A pretty one, larger than a hand? [SILVIA SETTALA, troubled, draws back her arms with an instinctive movement.] SILVIA SETTALA. NO, no, keep it for Beata. LA SIRENETTA [surprised]. Won't you have it? SILVIA SETTALA. Tell me instead what you do with your 'ife, tell me how you spend the clay. It is true that you talk vith the sirens of the sea? Tell me all about it, Sirenetta. LA SIRENETTA. Seven sisters were we, Our mirror the fountain-head, All of us fair to see. 'Flower of the bulrush makes no bread, Hedgerow mulberry makes no wine, Mlade of grass no linen fine," /'he mother to the sisters said; All of us fair to see, knd our mirror the fountain-head. The first was fain to spin, And wished for spindles of gold; The second to weave threads in, And wished for shuttles of gold; rhe third to sew at her leisure, knd wished for needles of gold; The fourth to cook for her pleasure, knd wished for platters of gold; rhe fifth to sleep beyond measure, _nd wished for dreams of gold; Fhe sixth to sleep night away, knd wished for coverings of gold; 434 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO The last to sing all day, To sing for evermore, And wished for nothing more. [She laughs with a quick glittering laugh that seems to tinkle against her shining teeth.] Do you like this story? SILVIA SETTALA [charmed by the grace of the simple creature]. Is that all? Why don't you go on? LA SIRENETTA. If you sit here, I will put you to sleep as I put your child to sleep on the sands. Are you not sleepy now? Sleep is good, in September. September bears to the plain The windy breath of the mountain rain, And puts the summer to sleep again. Amen. SILVIA SETTALA. NO. GO on with your story, Sirenetta. LA SIRENETTA. The olive darkens for shedding, Sorrow speeds the wedding, Oil and tears wait for the treading. SILVIA SETTALA. GO on with your story, Sirenetta. LA SIRENETTA. Where had we got? SILVIA SETTALA. "And wished for nothing more!" [A pause.] LA SIRENETTA. Ah, here it is: "Flower of the bulrush makes no bread, Hedgerow mulberry makes no wine, Blade of grass no linen fine," The mother to the sisters said; All of us fair to see, And our mirror the fountain-head. And so the first one spun Her own heart's woe for the morrow; And so the second wove, And wove the cloth of sorrow; And so the third one sewed A poisoned shirt to wear; And so the fourth one cooked A dish of heart's despair; GIOCONDA 435 And so the fifth one slept Under the coverings of death; And so the sixth one dreamt [n the arms of death. Phe mother wept full sore, A.nd sighed away her breath; 3ut the last., that only sang 'o sing, to sing all day, Lo sing for evermore, pound her a happy fate. [She lowers her voice and makes it secret and remote.] 'he sirens of the bay Jalled her to be their mate. [A pause.] SILVIA SE'rTALA. Then it is true that you talk with the irens? LA SIRENETTA [putting her forefinger to her lips]. Mustn't isk! SILVIA SETTALA. IS it true that no one knows where you leep at night? LA SIRENETTA [with the same gesture]. Mustn't ask! SILVIA SETTALA. Shall I give you shelter, here in the house? LA SIRENETTA [looking intently in her face, as if she had not card the question]. Your eyes are sad. I did not know vhat troubled me when I looked at them. Now I see: you ave a great sorrow in your eyes. Some one of yours is dead. SILVIA SETTALA. You alone can comfort me. LA SIRENETTA. Who of yours is dead? SILVIA SETTALA. Mustn't ask! LA SIRENETTA. Now I see you: you are not the same. I,as thinking of a swallow, last September, who had lost his )ngest feathers, and was nearly drowned in the sea. What ave they done to you? Something wicked has been done to ou. SILVIA SETTALA. Mustn't ask! [Instinctively she hides her arms without hands in the folds of her garment, with a sorrowful movement, which does not escape the notice of the bewitching 436 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO creature; who suddenly, as if intentionally, drops the end of her apron, so that her little sea treasure falle and is scattered over the ground.] LA SIRENETTA [stooping and choosing]. Will you have E star-fish, a pretty one, bigger than a hand? Look! [Sh. shows the mutilated woman a large sea-star with five rays.7 Take it! I give it to you. [The mutilated woman shakes he head in sign of refusal, pressing her lips together, as if to kee: down the knot that tightens in her throat.] Can't you? Ar. your hands sick, tied up? [The mutilated woman nods he head. LA SIRENETTA'S voice becomes tremulous with pity. Did you fall into the fire? Were you burnt? Do they stil hurt? Or are they getting better? SILVIA SETTALA [in a scarcely audible voice]. I haven' any hands. LA SIRENETTA [rising in affright]. You haven't any! Thehave cut them off? No hands? [The mutilated woman nod: her head, frightfully pale. The other shivers with horror. No, no, no! It isn't true. [She keeps her eyes fixed on th, folds of the garment in which the mutilated woman hides he arms.] Tell me it isn't true. SILVIA SETTALA. I haven't any hands. LA SIRENETTA. Why? why? SILVIA SETTALA. Mustn't ask! LA SIRENETTA. Ah, what a cruel thing! SILVIA SETTALA. I gave them away. LA SIRENETTA. You gave them away? To whom? SILVIA SETTALA. To my love. LA SIRENETTA. Ah, what a cruel love! How beautiful the: were, how beautiful! Do you think I don't remember? have kissed them; many, many times. I have kissed then with this mouth. They gave me bread, a pomegranate, a cu of milk. They were as beautiful as if the dawn had made thei with a breath, as white as the flower of the foam, more delicat than the embroidery that the wind makes on the sand; the moved like the sun in the water, they talked better than th tongue or the eyes, they said kind words, what they gav GIOCONDA 437 turned to gold. I remember them! I see them, I see them. One day they were playing with the warm sand: the sand ran between the fingers as through a sieve, and they were pleased at playing; and Beata looked at them and laughed; and I looked at them and had the same pleasure. One day (hey peeled an orange; and made it into many pieces, and 'ouched me with one of them, and it was as sweet as a honeyomb. One day they wrapped a handkerchief about the little Dne's foot, and she was crying because a crab had nipped her, nd the pain stopped all at once, and the little one began to ~un along the shore. One day they played with those lovely -urls, and of every curl they made a ring for every finger, and then began over again, and then began over again; and Beata fell asleep with the dew on her lips. SILVIA SETTALA [in a choking voice]. Don't say any more! lon't say any more! LA SIRENETTA. Ah, what a cruel love! [A pause. She remains pensive.] And where are they? Far away, all alone, in the earth, deep down. Did they bury them? Where? In a pretty garden? [A pause. The mutilated woman shuts her,yes and leans her head against the window, in which the Quiver of the sea is reflected.] Did you see them taken away? (How white they were! They have wrapped them up in strong ointment. And the rings? With all the rings? There was one with a green stone, and one with three pearls, and one of gold and iron twisted, and a smooth one, a shining hoop, and only that one was on the third finger. [A pause An indefinable expression appears on the face of the mutilated woman, as she lets her arms drop by her sides, while the rigidity of her whole body slackens.] What are you thinking about? Dreaming of them? If they should grow warm again.... [The mutilated woman opens her eyes and starts, as if suddenly awakened. Her arms quiver.] What is the matter? SILVIA SETTALA. It is strange. Sometimes it really seems to me as if I have them again, I seem to feel the blood rise to the tips of my fingers. When you spoke, I had them: they were more beautiful, Sirenetta! 438 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO LA SIRENETTA. More beautiful? SILVIA SETTALA. You will comfort me, Sirenetta. I cannot take your star-fish, but I can see your eyes and hear your voice. Keep near me, now I have found you again. I would like to have you for a sister. LA SIRENETTA. I would like you to have my hands, if they were not so rough and dark. SILVIA SETTALA. Your hands are happy hands: they touce the leaves, the flowers, the sand, the water, the stones, children, animals, all innocent things. You are happy, Sirenetta: your soul is born again every morning; now it is little as S pearl, and now it is large as the sea. You have nothing anc everything; you know nothing and everything. LA SIRENETTA [turning suddenly and interrupting her]. Did you feel the gust? Look, look how many swallows on the sea! There are more than a thousand: a living cloud. Look how they shine! Now they are off; they are going on a long journey, to a far away land; the shadow walks over the water with them; some feathers are falling; evening will come on; they will meet the ships on the high sea; they will see the fires, hear the songs of the sailors; the sailors will see them pass: they will pass close to the sails; one of them will strike against the sails, and fall on the deck, tired. One night, a cloud o.J tired swallows fell upon a ship like a flock of starlings on the deck and quite covered it. The sailors never touched them They never moved, for fear of frightening them; they nevel spoke, so that they might go to sleep. And as they were al over the stock of the anchor and the bar of the rudder, that night the ship went drifting under the moon. But at dawr... Ah, who is calling to you? [She interrupts her dream hearing a strange voice among the oleanders; and prepares tc fly.] Good-bye, good-bye. SILVIA SETTALA [anxiously]. It is my sister. Do not rur away, do not go, Sirenetta. Stay here near. Beata i, coming. LA SIRENETTA. Good-bye, good-bye. I will come back. [Runs towards the sea, vanishing into the sunlight. GIOCONDA 439 [FRANCESCA DONI appears between the oleanders, followed by the old man, LORENZO GADDI.] FRANCESCA DONI. Do you see whom I am bringing you? SILVIA SETTALA [anxiously]. And Beata? And Beata? FRANCESCA DONI. She is coming presently. I left her'with Faustina. I came beforehand, so that she should not come;o you unexpectedly. SILVIA SETTALA. Dear Maestro, how pleased I am to see you! [The old man instinctively stretches out his hands towards her. She bends slightly and offers him her forehead, which he touches with his lips.] LORENZO GADDI [concealing his emotion]. How happy I am to see you again, dear Silvia, and to see you up and well again! The sea helps you. The sea is always the great comforter. At Forte dei Marmi, yonder, I thought much of you. SILVIA SETTALA. Is Forte dei Marmi far from here? LORENZO GADDI [pointing to the distant shore]. Yonder, under Serravizza, on this side of Massa. [They look out of the window into the distance.] FRANCESCA DONI. HOW well one can see the mountains of Carrara to-day! You can count the peaks one by one. I never remember a clearer day than this. Who was with you, Silvia? La Sirenetta? I thought I saw her running towards the sea. And then here are her traces: sea-weed, shells, starfish. [She points to the childish treasures scattered over the ground.] SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, she was with me just now. LORENZO GADDI. Who is la Sirenetta? FRANCESCA DONI. A little wandering mad creature. SILVIA SETTALA. A seer, who has the gift of song; a creature of dream and truth, who seems a spirit of the sea. You should know her and love her as I do. When you know her and hear her speak, you find out many deep things. Truly she will seem to you perfect: she always gives and never asks. 440 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO LORENZO GADDI. She is like you in that. SILVIA SETTALA. Alas, no. I should like to have been like her in that; but the light died away before the deceit of life. What blindness! I asked so much, that to obtain it, I stooped to tell a lie: I came out mutilated, maimed, in punishment for my lie. I had stretched out my hands too violently towards ai good thing that fate denied me. I do not lament or weep Since I must live, I will live. Perhaps one day my soul wil be healed. I felt some hope arise in me, as I listened to the voice of that simple and guileless creature who can teach eternal things. She has promised to bring me a star-fish every morning. [She tries to smile. The sister stands near the window and seems to be looking intently at the distant mountains; but there is a shadow of sadness over her gentle face.] Look, Maestro, at the lady with the' bunch of flowers. She has come with me. Now, if I look at her, there is something mournfu: in her for me: all the same I could not separate myself from her. Do you remember, Maestro, that day in April, that garlanded head? LORENZO GADDI. I remember, I remember. SILVIA SETTALA. The new life! LORENZO GADDI. There was an omen in everything. SILVIA SETTALA. When I see the camels pass loaded with faggots, there, on the other side of the Arno, in the thickets of Gombo, I think of the arrival of Cosimo Dalbo, of the joy of that evening, of the scarabseus that I put in the midst of a bunch of roses that Beata had picked. [Turns towards he: sister.] O Francesca, I speak, and all the while my heart troubles me so that I can resist no longer. Where is Beata? FRANCESCA DONI [wrung with pain]. You want to see hei now? You are strong? SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, yes, I am strong, I am ready. Suspense is worse. FRANCESCA DONI. Then I will go and bring her to you. SILVIA SETTALA [unable to contain her anxiety]. Wait E minute. Will you not stay with us here to-night, Maestro? ] should be glad. GIOCONDA 441 LORENZO GADDI. Well, yes, I will stay. SILVIA SETTALA. We can put you up. I will have your room got ready. Wait, Francesca, a minute. [She is convulsed with emotion, which she can no longer restrain. She goes towards the door like one who runs away to hide the tears that are about to break forth.] FRANCESCA DONI. Shall I come, Silvia? [Goes out.] SILVIA SETTALA [with a choking voice]. No, no. FRANCESCA DONI. Ah, the curse, the curse! Do you see her? While she was in bed, under the bedclothes, bound up, bleeding, all the horror of the thing did not appear. But now that she is on her feet again, now that she moves,,walks, sees her friends, returns to her old ways, is about to use the gestures that she used to use! Think of it! LORENZO GADDI. Yes, it is too frightful a fate. I remember what you said to her so tenderly, as you looked at her, on that day in April: "You seem as if you had wings!" The beauty and lightness of her hands gave her the aspect of a winged thing. There was in her a kind of incessant quiver. Now it is as if she dragged herself along. FRANCESCA DONI. And it was a useless sacrifice, like all the others; it has done nothing, changed nothing: that is where it is so frightful a fate. If Lucio had stayed with her, I believe she would have been happy to have been able to give that last proof, to have been able to sacrifice for him her living hands. But she knows now all the truth, in all its nakedness. Ah, what an infamous thing! Would you have believed that Lucio was capable of it? Tell me. LORENZO GADDI. He too has his fate, and he obeys it. As he was not master of his death, so he is not master of his life. I saw him yesterday. He had written me at Forte dei Marmi to ask me to go to the quarry and send him a block. I saw him yesterday in his studio. His face is so thin that it seems burnt up in the fire of his eyes. When he speaks, he becomes strangely excited. It troubled me. He works, works, works, 442 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO with a terrible fury: perhaps he is seeking to rid himself of a thought that gnaws him. FRANCESCA DONI. The statue is still there? LORENZO GADDI. It is still there, without arms. He has left it so: he would not restore it. So, on the pedestal, it looks really like an ancient marble, dug up in one of the Cyclades. There is in it something sacred and tragic, after the divine immolation. FRANCESCA DONI [in a low voice]. And that woman, the Gioconda, was there? LORENZO GADDI. She was there, silent. When one looks at her, and thinks that she is the cause of so much evil, truly one cannot curse her in his heart; no, one cannot, when one looks at her. I have never seen so great a mystery in mortal flesh. [A pause. The old man and the sister remain in thought, for some instants, with bowed heads.] FRANCESCA DONI [sighing because of the anguish that oppresses her]. My God, my God! And now it is time to bring Beata to her mother, and they will see one another again, after all that has happened; and the little one will learn the truth, will know the horrible thing. How is one to hide it, from her, remembering all her caresses, and mad for them! You saw her, you heard her, of old.... [SILVIA SETTALA reappears on the threshold. Her eyes are burning and all her body is contracted by a spasmodic force.] SILVIA SETTALA. I am here, Francesca; I am ready. The room is ready, Maestro, if you would like to go to it. LORENZO GADDI [going towards her, and in a voice trembling with emotion]. Courage! It is the last ordeal. [He goes out by the door. The mutilated woman goes towards her sister, breathlessly.] SILVIA SETTALA. Now go, go! Bring her. I will wait here. [The sister puts her arms round her neck and kisses her in silence. Then she goes out towards the sea, and disappears rapidly among the oleanders.] GIOCONDA 443. [SILVIA SETTALA, breathlessly, looks through the midst of the boughs lighted by the oblique rays of the sun. The hour is exquisitely peaceful. The light is more limpid than the windows of the white room; the sea is tranquil as the flower of the flax, so motionless that the long reflections of the mirrored sails seem to touch the bottom; the stream seems to create that immense repose, pouring out the perennial wave of its peace; the health-giving woods, penetrated with fluid gold, rejoice marvellously, almost as if they lost their roots that they might swim in the delight of their odour; the marble Alps in the distance trace a line of beauty on the sky, in which they seem to reveal the dream arising out of their imprisoned populace of sleeping statues.] [LA SIRENETTA reappears in the silence, through which her pure voice is heard.] LA SIRENETTA. Are you alone? SILVIA SETTALA [agitated]. Yes. I am waiting. LA SIRENETTA [coming close to her]. Have you been crying? SILVIA SETTALA. Yes, a little. LA SIRENETTA [with infinite pity]. You seem as if you had been crying for a year. Your eyes are burning. Your heart hurts you too much. SILVIA SETTALA. Don't speak. I cannot crush my heart. [She presses herself against the trunk of the nearest oleander, convulsed, no longer able to endure the agony of waiting.] She is coming now, she is coming now. [She moves away from the tree and re-enters the room, as if seized with terror, like one seeking refuge.] THE VOICE OF BEATA [from among the oleanders]. Mamma! Mamma! [The mother starts, and turns, frightfully pallid.] Mamma! [The child rushes towards her mother with a cry of joy, her face lit up, heated, her hair in disorder, panting after a long run, carrying an untidy bunch of flowers. As she runs in, the bunch falls. The mutilated woman 444 GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO stoops towards the little arms that clasp her neck, and offers her death-like face to the furious kisses.] SILVIA SETTALA. Beata! Beata! BEATA [panting]. Ah, how I have run, how I have run! 1 ran away from them, all alone. I ran, I ran. They didn't want to let me come. Ah, but I ran away from them, with my bunch of flowers. [Covers her mother's face with fresh kisses.] SILVIA SETTALA. You are all damp with sweat, you are hot, burning... My God! [In her rush of tenderness she instinctively makes a movement as if to wipe the child's face; but stops and' hides her arms in the folds of her garments; and a shiver of visible horror runs through her.] BEATA. Why don't you take me up? Why don't you put your arms round me? Take me up, take me up, mamma! [She rises on tiptoe, to be caught into her mother's embrace. The mother takes a step backwards, blindly.] SILVIA SETTALA. Beata! BEATA [following her]. Don't you want me? don't you want me? SILVIA SETTALA. Beata! [She tries to feign a smile with her ashen lips, distorted by unspeakable sorrow.] BEATA. IS it for fun? What are you hiding? 0, give, give me what you are hiding! SILVIA SETTALA. Beata! Beata! BEATA. I have brought you flowers, such a lot of flowers. Do you see? do you see? [As she turns to pick up the fallen bunch, she perceives her little wild friend, and remembers her.] Oh, Sirenetta! Are you there? [LA SIRENETTA is there, before the window, standing, a silent witness, with her eyes fixed on the sorrowful mother. As the repeated breath of the wind passes between the fronds of an arbutus and makes it tremble, so the sorrow of the mother seems to invest and penetrate that slender body which the oblique rays of the sun ring with bands GIOCONDA 445 of gold.] Do you see what a lot? All for you! [The child picks up the bunch.] Take it! [She runs towards her mother again, who steps back.] SILVIA SETTALA. Beata! Beata! BEATA [astonished]. Don't you want them? Take them! Take then! SILVIA SETTALA. Beata! [She falls on her knees, overcome with sorrow, as if stricken by an unendurable blow, falls on her knees before her frightened child; and a flood of tears, that bursts from her eyes like blood from a wound, bathes her face.] BEATA. You are crying? You are crying? [Frightened she throws herself upon her mother's breast, with all her flowers. LA SIRENETTA, who has also fallen on her knees, lays her forehead and the palms of her hands upon the ground.] MID-CHANNEL BY SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO (1909) All rights reserved under the International Copyright Act. Performance, forbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for the right to produce this play may be made to Walter H. Baker Company, The Play Shop, Boston, Mass. Copyright, 1910, by Arthur Wing Pinero As Author and Proprietor Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England INTRODUCTION Mid-Channel, though not so successful on the stage as some of the other social tragedies of Pinero, has received high praise from two prominent critics. William Archer calls it a "remorseless masterpiece," and one of the most perfect examples of domestic tragedy. Clayton Hamilton ventures the opinion that it Is a greater play than Hedda Gabler, or A Doll's House. Against them stand-such critics as Lewisohn and Cunliffe, who join the current fashion of running down Pinero's work and repeating the dictum that he is little more than a skillful stage technician who will hold no permanent place in dramatic literature. The pitiless exposure of married life in Mid-Channel is the product otrPiinelr-rs maturity both. as a dramatic craftsman, and as a writer of realistic problem plays. If we compare the style with that of The Profligate (written in 1887), we will notice how the dramatist has worked himself free from the high-flown sentimentalities of the old tragic stage, and has mastered the art of realistic dialogue. Mid-Channel deals with a larger and more convincing theme than that of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray. In the latter play, Pinero labored to prove that the woman with a past cannot return to respectable society. Mid-Channel offers an explanation of why a large number of the divorces in modern times are sought after ten or fifteen years of married life."At this time in his career Pinero was especially interested in mature people whose lives had "somehow gone awry," and in studying out the causes for their bankruptcy. The th.is _Qf Mid-. Channel is disclosed by the words of Peter Mottram, the raisonneur of the play, who compares married life to the cross- K ing of the English channel. Rough sailing is encountered half: way over — "The happiest and luckiest married couples have got to crossthat wretched Ridge" (shoal); "a bad time it is and must be 449 450 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO -a time when travellin' companions see nothin' but the spots on each other's yellow faces, and when inoomerable kind words and inoomerable kind acts are clean forgotten. But, as I tell you, it's soon over-well over, if only Mr. Jack and Mrs. Jill will understand the situation," and do not rock the boat. Blundell and Zoe, however, in this play exemplify those who rock the boat and suffer shipwreck in mid-channel. With no resources in themselves, no mutual interests or aims, they seek other associates only to weary of them. Like Hedda Gabler, they become victims of boredom; and they progress through vulgarity, sordidness, and selfishness into infidelity, disgust, and disaster,. Unlike Strindberg, whose philosophy of married life makes domesticity impossible, Pinero does not regard man and woman as inevitably destined in the nature of things to boredom and strife. Though Zoe and Blundell fail, Pinero evidently believes with Peter Mottram that had they been willing to make concessions they might, like many couples, have crossed mid-channel safely. The part of Zoe Blundell was effectively acted by the accomplished Irene Vanbrugh both in the original London production in 1909 and the revival of 1922. In America the play ran for over a year with Ethel Barrymore in the leading role. References. William Archer, The Old Drama and the New (Small, Maynard, Boston, 1923); F. W. Chandler, Aspects of Modern Drama (Macmillan, New York, 1914); Clayton Hamilton, The Social Dramas of Arthur Wing Pinero, vol. 4 (E. P. Dutton, New York, 1922); John W. Cunliffe, Modern English Playwrights (Harpers, New York, 1927). TEXT OF THE PLAY DRAMATIS PERSONE THEODORE BLUNDELL. THE HONBLE. PETER MOTTRAM. LEONARD FERRIS. WARREN, servant at Lancaster Gate. COLE, servant at the flat in Cavendish Square. RIDEOUT, Mr. Ferris's servant. UPHOLSTERERS. ZOE BLUNDELL. MRS. PIERPOINT. ETHEL PIERPOINT. MRS. ANNERLY. LENA. The scene is laid in London. The events of the First Act take place on an afternoon in January. The rest of the action occurs on a day in the following June. MID-CHANNEL THE FIRST ACT The scene is a drawing-room, decorated and furnished in the French style. In the wall opposite the spectator there is a door, the upper part of which is glazed. A silk curtain hangs across the glazed panels, but above the curtain there is a view of the corridor beyond. The fireplace, where a bright fire is burning, is in the wall on the right. There is a door on the further side of the fireplace, another on the nearer side. Both these doors are supposed to lead to a second drawing-room. On either side of the fireplace there is an armchair, and on the further side, standing out in the room, is a settee. Some illustrated papers of the popular sort are lying upon the armchair next to the settee. Behind the settee are an oblong table and a chair. In the middle of the room, on the left of the settee and facing the fire, is another armchair; and on the left of the armchair on the nearer side of the fireplace there is a fauteuilstool. A writing-table, with a chair before it, stands on the left hand side of the room, and among the objects on the writingtable are a hand-mirror and some photographs in frames. Other pieces of furniture, of a more formal kind than those already specified, fill spaces against the walls. One of these, on the left of the glazed door, is a second settee. The room is lighted only by the blaze of the fire, and the corridor also is in semi-darkness. [Note: Throughout, "right" and "left" are the spectators' right and left, not the actor's.] [The corridor is suddenly lighted up. Then WARREN enters at the glazed door and switches on the light in 453 454 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO the room. He is followed by MRS. PIERPOINT, a pleasant-looking, middle-aged lady, and by ETHEL, a pretty girl of five-and-twenty.] MRS. PIERPOINT [to the servant]. You are sure Mrs. Blundell will be in soon? WARREN. She said half-past four, ma'am. MRS. PIERPOINT. It's that now, isn't it? WARREN. Just upon, ma'am. [WARREN withdraws, closing the door.] ETHEL. What beautiful rooms these are! MRS. PIERPOINT. Money! ETHEL. I always feel I'm in Paris when I'm here, in some smart house in the Champs-Elysees-not at Lancaster Gate. What is Mr. Blundell, mother? MRS. PIERPOINT. A stockbroker. ETHEL. Stockbroker? MRS. PIERPOINT. Blundell-something-or-other-and Mottram. He goes to the City every morning. ETHEL. I know that. But I've never heard him, or Zoe, mention the Stock Exchange. MRS. PIERPOINT [sitting on the settee by the fireplace]. Prosperous stockbrokers and their wives-those who move in a decent set-don't mention the Stock Exchange. ETHEL. Then that nice person, Mr. Mottram, is a stockbroker too? MRS. PIERPOINT. Of course, dear. He's the "Mottram" of the firm. ETHEL. And he's the son of a peer. MRS. PIERPOINT. Peers' sons are common enough in the City nowadays-and peers, for that matter. ETHEL [moving to the fireplace and warming her hands]. Zoe is a doctor's daughter. MRS. PIERPOINT. Has she given you leave to call her Zoe? ETHEL. Yes, last week-asked me to. I'm so glad; I've taken such a liking to her. MID-CHANNEL 455 MRS. PIERPOINT. She was a Miss Tucker. Her father practiced in New Cavendish Street. He was a great gout man. ETHEL. You are full of information, mother. MRS. PIERPOINT. Emma Lawton was giving me the whole history of the Blundells at lunch to-day. She has money, of her own. ETHEL. Zoe? MRS. PIERPOINT. Dr. Tucker left sixty or seventy thousand pounds, and she came in for it all. But they'd got on before then. ETHEL. H'm! There are stockbrokers and stockbrokers, I suppose. MRS. PIERPOINT. Straight and crooked, as in every other business or profession. ETHEL. I do think, though, that a girl in Zoe's position might have chosen somebody slightly more refined than Mr, Blundell. MRS. PIERPOINT. What's wrong with him? He's extremely amiable and inoffensive. ETHEL. Amiable! MRS. PIERPOINT. He strikes me as being so. ETHEL. I don't call it particularly amiable or inoffensive in a husband to be as snappy with his wife as he is with Zoe. MRS. PIERPOINT. Snappy? ETHEL. Irritable-impatient. MRS. PIERPOINT. Oh, I dare say there's an excellent understanding between them. They've been married a good many years. ETHEL. Thirteen, she's told me. MRS. PIERPOINT. Married people are allowed to be out of humor with each other occasionally. ETHEL. A considerable allowance must be made for Mr. Blundell, I'm afraid. MRS. PIERPOINT. You're prejudiced, Ethel. I've seen her just as snappy, as you term it, with him. ETHEL. You can't blame her, if she's provoked. 456 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO MRS. PIERPOINT. Nor him, if he's provoked. The argument cuts both ways — ETHEL [listening]. Sssh! [ZOE, a charming, animated, bright-eyed woman, wearing her hat and some costly furs, enters quickly at the glazed door.] ZOE. Delightful! MRS. PIERPOINT [rising]. Your servant insisted on our coming up. ZOE [shaking hands with MRS. PIERPOINT]. If he hadn't, I'd have wrung his neck. [Kissing ETHEL.] How are you, dear? [Stripping off her gloves.] The weather! Isn't it filthy! Do you remember what the sun's like? I had the blinds drawn all over the house at eleven o'clock this morning. What's the good of trying to make believe it's day? [Taking off her coat.] Do sit down. Ugh! Why is it that more people commit suicide in summer than in winter? MRS. PIERPOINT [resuming her seat on the settee by the fire]. Do they? ETHEL [sitting upon the fauteuil-stool]. Why, yes, mother; what-do-you-call-them?-statistics-prove it. ZOE [throwing her coat and gloves upon the settee at the back and unpinning her hat]. You'll see, when I put an end to myself, it will be in the winter time. MRS. PIERPOINT. My dear! ETHEL. Zoe! MRS. PIERPOINT. If you are in this frame of mind, why don't you pack your trunks and fly? ZOE. Fly? ETHEL. Mother means cut it. MRS. PIERPOINT. Ethel! ZOE [tossing her hat on to the settee and taking up the handmirror from the writing-table and adjusting her hair]. Don't scold her; she picks up her slang from me. ETHEL. Evil communications —! MID-CHANNEL 457 MRS. PIERPOINT. I mean, go abroad for a couple of months -Egypt — ETHEL. Mother, how horrid of you! I should miss her terribly. MRS. PIERPOINT. Cairo-Assouan — ZOE [looking into the hand-glass steadily]. That's funny. [ have been thinking lately of "cutting it." MRS. PIERPOINT. But I suppose it would have to be with-:)ut your busy husband. ZOE [replacing the mirror]. Yes, it would be without Theo. [Turning to MRS. PIERPOINT and ETHEL and rattling on:tgain.] Well! How have you been amusing yourselves? You wretches, you haven't been near me since Monday, either of rou. Done anything-seen anything? ETHEL. Nothing. MRS. PIERPOINT [to ZOE]. If you're under the weather, there's some excuse for me. ZOE [walking about restlessly]. Oh, but I will keep moving, though the heavens fall. I've been to the theatre every light this week, and supped out afterward. They've opened,uch a ripping restaurant in Jermyn Street. [Pausing.] You haven't seen the new play at the St. Martin's, then? MRS. PIERPOINT. No. ETHEL. I want to, badly. ZOE. I'll take you. We'll make up a party. [Scribbling a nemorandum at the writing-table.] I'll tell Lenny Ferris to yet seats. ETHEL. Good business! MRS. PIERPOINT. Ethel! ZOE. It's all about children-kiddies. There are the sweet-,st little tots in it. Two especially-a'tiny, round-eyed boy And a mite of a girl with straw-colored hair-you feel you must clamber on to the stage and hug them. You feel you nust! MRS. PIERPOINT. Aren't there any grown-ups? ZOE [dropping into the armchair facing the fire]. Oh, yes; 'hey bore me. 458 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ETHEL. I was reading the story to you, motherZOE. The story's no account-it's the kiddies. The man who wrote the thing must be awfully fond of children. I wonder whether he has any little 'uns. If he hasn't, it's of no consequence to him; he can imagine them. What a jolly gift! Fancy! To have the power of imagining children-bringing them to life! Just by shutting the door, and sitting down at your writing-table, and saying to your brain, "Now, then! I'm ready for them-!" [Breaking off.] Ring the bell. Ethel. [ETHEL rises, and, going to the fireplace, rings the bell.[ Let's have tea. MRS. PIERPOINT. I'm afraid we can't stay for tea. I've, promised to be at old Miss Fremantle's at five o'clock. Ethel ETHEL. Yes, mother? MRS. PIERPOINT. Go down-stairs for a few minutes. I want a little private conversation with Mrs. Blundell. ETHEL [surprised]. Private conversation! MRS. PIERPOINT. If she won't think me too troublesome. ZOE [rising and opening the nearer door on the right-to ETHEL]. Come in here. There's a lovely fire. [Disappearing.] I'll switch the light on. ETHEL [following ZoE-at the door]. What is it about, mother? MRS. PIERPOINT [rising]. Now, don't be inquisitive, Ethel. ZOE [from the adjoining room]. Come along! [ETHEL goes into the next room. WARREN enters at the glazed door.] MRS. PIERPOINT [to WARREN]. Mrs. Blundell rang for tea. WARREN. Very good, ma'am. [WARREN withdraws as ZOE returns.] MRS. PIERPOINT. We sha'n't be heard? ZOE [closing the door]. No. MRS. PIERPOINT. It's really most improper of me to bother you in this way. ZOE [advancing to MRS. PIERPOINT]. Can I be of any use to you? MID-CHANNEL 459 MRS. PIERPOINT. Well, yes, you can. You can give mewhat shall I call it?-a hint --- ZOE [sitting on the fauteuil-stool]. A hint? MRS. PIERPOINT. On a subject that concerns Ethel. [Sitting in the chair facing the fire.] We're quite new friends of yours, dear Mrs. Blundell-is it six weeks since we dined at the Darrells?ZOE. There or thereabouts. MRS. PIERPOINT. A fortnight or so before Christmas, wasn't At? But my girl has formed a great attachment to you, and I fancy you are inclined to be interested in her. ZOE. Rather! She and I are going to be tremendous pals. MRS. PIERPOINT. That's splendid. Now, don't laugh at me.or my extreme cautiousness, if you can help it. ZOE. Cautiousness? MRS. PIERPOINT. Tell me-as one woman to another-do you consider it advisable for Ethel to see much of Mr. Ferris? ZOE. Advisable? MRS. PIERPOINT. Oh, I've no doubt he's a highly respectable young man, as young men go-I'm not implying anything bo the contrary ZOE. Is she seeing much of Mr. Ferris? MRS. PIERPOINT. She meets him here. ZOE. Ah, yes. MRS. PIERPOINT. And he has suddenly taken to dropping Ln to tea with us pretty regularly; and twice this week-twice -he has sent her some magnificent flowers-magnificent. ZOE. Dear old Lenny! MRS. PIERPOINT. There's something in his manner, too)ne can't describe itZOE [a little ruefully]. Ha! Ha, ha, ha! MRS. PIERPOINT. I am amusing you. ZOE. No, no. I beg your pardon. [Rising and going to the ire.] Somehow I've never pictured Lenny with a wife. MRS. PIERPOINT. It may be only an excess of politeness on iis part; there mayn't be the least foundation for my suspi-,ions. 460 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. I suppose every married woman believes that her bachelor chums will remain bachelors. MRS. PIERPOINT. And pray, dear Mrs. Blundell, don't take me for a match-making mother. I've no desire to lose my girl yet awhile, I assure you. But I want to know, naturallyit's my duty to know-exactly who and what are the men who come into my drawing-room. ZOE. Why, naturally. MRS. PIERPOINT. And it occurred to me that, as we made Mr. Ferris's acquaintance in your house, you wouldn't object to giving me, as I put it, the merest hintZOE. Ethel-what about her? Does she like him? MRS. PIERPOINT. It's evident she doesn't dislike him. But she's not a girl who would be in a hurry to confide in anybody over a love affair, not even in her mother. True, there may be nothing to confide, in the present case. I repeat, I may be altogether mistaken. At the same timeZOE. You wish me to advise you as to whether Lenny Ferris should be encouraged. MRS. PIERPOINT. Whether he should be cold-shoulderedI prefer that expression. ZOE. Very well; I'll furnish you with his character, dear Mrs. Pierpoint, with pleasure. [LEONARD FERRIS, a fresh, boyish young man, enters at the glazed door, with the air of one who is at home.] LEONARD. Hallo! ZOE [just as carelessly]. Hallo, Len! LEONARD [shaking hands with MRS. PIERPOINT]. How d'ye do? How's Miss Ethel? MRS. PIERPOINT [inclining her head]. Thank you LEONARD [rubbing his hands together]. Here's a day! ZOE [taking his hand]. Your hands are frozen. LEONARD [going to the fire]. I drove my car up here. ZOE. You're crazy. [Sitting on the settee by the fire.] You never rang me up this morning, to ask if I was tired. LEONARD. Wire was engaged. First-rate night, last night. MID-CHANNEL 461 ZOE [languidly]. The summit. LennyLEONARD. Eh? ZOE. Mrs. Pierpoint and I are talking secrets. Go into the iext room for a second. LEONARD [genially]. Sha'n't, if there isn't a fire. ZOE. Of course there's a fire. Things ain't so bad in the ]ity as all that. LEONARD [at the nearer door on the right]. Any tea? ZOE. By and by. You'll find somebody in there you know. LEONARD [going into the room]. Who? ZOE [calling out]. Shut the door. [The door is closed.] Salk of the —! MRS. PIERPOINT. Bless me, I hope not! ZOE. NO, I shouldn't turn him in there at this moment if te wasn't what he is-the dearest boy in the world-should I? MRS. PIERPOINT. Boy? ZOE. He's thirty-two. A man of two-and-thirty is a boy o a woman of-to an old married woman. He's the simplest, vholesomest, best-natured fellow living. If you had him for a;on-in-law, you'd be lucky. MRS. PIERPOINT. It's a relief to me, at any rate ZOE. And I should lose one of my tame robins. MRS. PIERPOINT. Tame robins? ZOE [rising and going over to the writing-table and taking tp two of the photographs]. I always have his photo on my able-his and Peter Mottram's. Peter Mottram is my hus)and's partner-you've met him here. I call them my tame 'obins. They come and eat crumbs off my window-sill. I've lo end of tame robins-men chums-but these two are my specials. [Replacing the photographs.] Well! If Lenny ever;oes, I shall have to promote Harry Estfidge or Jim Mallanlain or Cossy Rawlings. MRS. PIERPOINT [who has risen and followed ZOE to the vriting-table]. But why should Mr. Ferris ever "go" com)letely? ZOE [smiling]. Oh, when a robin marries, Jenny doesn't share with him another wren. Not much! 462 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO [WARREN enters at the glazed door with a female ser. vant. They carry in the tea and lay it upon the tablU behind the settee by the fire.] ZOE [after glancing at the servants-dropping her voice] I'd better finish drawing up the prospectus, while I'm at it. MRS. PIERPOINT. Prospectus? ZOE. He's got two thousand a year. Both his people arn dead. There's an aunt in the country who may leave him bit extra; but she's a cantankerous old cat and, in my opinion charity'll have every sou. Still, two thousand a yearMRS. PIERPOINT. I oughtn't to hear any more. But yoi understand, don't you? ZOE. Perfectly. And he lives in a comfy little flat behin~ the Albert Hall and is mad on motor-cars. He's invented f wonderful wheel which is to give the knock to pneumatics If anything will bring him to ruin, that will. [Walking awa? toward the tea-table laughingly.] There! WARREN. Tea is served, ma'am. MRS. PIERPOINT [to ZOE, who returns to her]. I'm exceed ingly obliged to you. You won't breathe a word to Ethel? ZOE. Not a syllable. It would break my heart, but I hop( it'll come off, for her sake. MRS. PIERPOINT. She's a sweet, sensible child. ZOE. And as for him, I'll tell you this for your comfortI'm honestly certain that Lenny Ferris would be the sort o husband that lasts. MRS. PIERPOINT. That lasts? What do you mean? ZOE. Oh-never mind. [Gaily.] Tea! [The servants havm withdrawn. She runs across to the further door on the right opens it, and calls.] Tea! [Seating herself at the tea-table. Are you firm about going on? MRS. PIERPOINT. It's Lizzie Fremantle's birthday. She' Ethel's godmother. [To ETHEL, who enters with LEONARD. Are you ready, Ethel? ETHEL [to MRS. PIERPOINT]. Must we? MRS. PIERPOINT. Now, my dear —! MID-CHANNEL 463 ZOE [to LEONARD]. Lenny, you've got to get tickets for the St. Martin's and take the whole crowd of us. LEONARD [with a wry face]. That kid's play again! ZOE. Very well; Peter will do it. LEONARD. NO, no; right you are. ZOE. I stand. LEONARD. Rot! ZOE. Then Peter has the job. [To the ladies.] We'll ask.eter Mottram to be one of us anyhow. LEONARD. The supper's mine, then. ZOE. Anything for peace. [Shaking hands with MRS. PIER'OINT, who comes to her.] Monday night? MRS. PIERPOINT. You're a great deal too good. [LEONARD has opened the glazed door and is now in the corridor. MRS. PIERPOINT joins him.] LEONARD [to MRS. PIERPOINT, as they disappear]. Got a vehicle? MRS. PIERPOINT. My venerable four-wheeler-the oldest riend I have in LondonETHEL [to ZOE, who rises]. What did mother have to say o you so mysteriously? ZOE. Er —she wants me to consult Theo about something. ETHEL. Her railway shares? ZOE [nodding]. H'm. ETHEL [satisfied]. Oh? Good-bye. ZOE. When are we to have a nice long jaw together-just rou and I? ETHEL. Mother won't let me out alone in these fogs. ZOE. Fog or no fog, try and shunt her to-morrow. ETHEL. I'l do my best. ZOE. I'll be in all the morning. [They turn their heads oward the door, listening.] Lenny's whistling for you. ETHEL. Mother-! [They kiss affectionately and ETHEL hurries away. ZOE resumes her seat at the tea-table and pours out tea. Presently LEONARD returns and, after closing the door, comes to her.] 464 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO LEONARD [cheerfully]. It's beginning to sleet now. 'Pon rni soul! [She hands him a cup of tea in silence. He looks at her inquiringly.] Anything wrong, Zoe? ZOE [with an air of indifference]. No. LEONARD. Positive? ZOE [in the same tone, offering him a plate of bread ant butter]. Quite. LEONARD [taking a slice]. Thought there'd been anothe: row, perhaps. ZOE [putting the plate of bread and butter aside and takinr up her cup and saucer]. Hell of a row last night. LEONARD. Last night? ZOE. This morning, rather. LEONARD. When you came home? ZOE [sipping her tea]. After you and Peter brought me home. LEONARD. What over? ZOE. Nothing. LEONARD [drinking]. Must have been over something. ZOE. Oh, some trifle-as usual. LEONARD. Too bad of Theo-damned sight too bad. ZOE. I dare say it was as much my fault as his. LEONARD [hotly]. It's a cursed shame! ZOE. Drop it, Len. [Handing him a dish of cakes.] Cake LEONARD [putting his empty cup down before her and takin! a cake]. Tea. ZOE [pouring out another cup of tea for him]. First tim. you've drunk tea with me this week. Honored! LEONARD. Sorry. ZOE. M'yes-[giving him his tea] sorry that Mrs. Pier point and Ethel can't receive you this afternoon. LEONARD [after a pause, uncomfortably]. M/rs. Pierpoin been telling you anything about me? ZOE. Mentioned that you frequently turn up in Sloan Street at tea time. LEONARD. There's a man down that way who's frightfullgone on my wheel. MID-CHANNEL 465 ZOE [drinking]. Indeed? LEONARD. My great difficulty, you know, is to get it on to ie market. ZOE. India-rubber people opposing you, I expect. LEONARD. Tooth and nail. ZOE [nibbling a cake]. And the man who lives Sloane Street ay? LEONARD. Very influential chap. ZOE. Capitalist? LEONARD. Millionaire. ZOE. H'm! And when you're down Sloane Street way, do 3U take your flowers to Miss Pierpoint, or does your florist nd them? [Again there is silence. He lays his cup down, leaves her side, and produces his cigarette-case. Sticking a cigarette between his lips, he is about to close the case when she rises and takes a cigarette from it. She moves to the fireplace, lighting her cigarette with a match from a box attached to a gold chatelaine hanging from her waist. He seats himself in the chair facing the fire and lights his own cigarette.] LEONARD [moodily]. I don't want to marry, Zoe. ZOE. There's no reason why you shouldn't, if you feel dis)sed to; but you needn't be a sneak about it. LEONARD. The aunt's pitching into me again like billy-oh. igh time I settled down-high time I became a reputable ember of society! I ask you, what the deuce have I ever me that's particularly disreputable? Then come two verses Scripture — ZOE [advancing to him]. She hasn't ordered you to be iderhanded with your best friends, I assume? LEONARD. I'm not underhanded. ZOE. Why this concealment, then? LEONARD. There's no concealment; there's nothing to conal; I give you my word there isn't. I-I haven't made up r mind one way or the other. ZOE [witheringly]. You're weighing the question! 466 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO LEONARD. Very well; I'm weighing it, if you like. [Fling ing the end of his match into the fireplace and jumping up. Confound it all! Mayn't a man send a basket or two of rot ten flowers to a girl without having his special license bough for him by meddling people? ZOE. Thank you. LEONARD. I don't mean you, Zoe. You know I don't mea you. [Pacing the room.] Ethel-Miss Pierpoint-is a charm ing girl, but I'm no more in love with her than I am with m old hat. ZOE. Then you oughtn't to pay her marked attention. LEONARD. I'm not paying her marked attention. [Zc shrugs her shoulders.] If Mrs. Pierpoint says I've been mak ing love to her daughterZOE. She has said nothing of the kind. LEONARD [sitting in the chair before the writing-table, in huff]. That's all right. Pity she can't hold her tongue ove trifles. [There is another pause. Then, partly kneeling upo the chair in the middle of the room, and resting he elbow on the back of it, ZOE softens.] ZOE [making rings with her cigarette smoke]. Don't I wild, Len. I was only vexed with you for not consulting me It would hurt my feelings dreadfully if you got engaged t anybody on the sly. Len [He turns to her, but with h head down.] She is a charming girl. I'm not surprised E your being spoons on her. If I were a man, she's just the soi of girl I'd marry, if I were on the lookout for a wife. LEONARD [in a low voice]. Perhaps I have made myself bit of an ass over her, Zoe. [She laughs lightly. He raises h eyes.] Zoe ZOE. Well? LEONARD [gazing at ZOE]. Do you know that she remin( me very often of you? ZOE. She! I'm old enough to be her grandmother. LEONARD. Oh, hang that! She's got hold of a lot of yoi odd little tricks-a lot of 'em. MID-CHANNEL 467 ZOE. She's been with me a goodish deal lately. LEONARD. That's it; and she has the most enormous admiation for you-enormous. ZOE. She's a dear. LEONARD [gently hitting his knee with his fist]. I've thought,f all that when I've been worrying it out in my mind. ZOE. Thought of all what? LEONARD. That you'd always be pals, you two-close pals. ZOE. If she became Mrs. Lenny? LEONARD [nodding]. And so, if I did screw myself up to -to speaking to her, it wouldn't make the least difference to ur friendship-yours and mine. ZOE. No difference! LEONARD. I Should still be your tame robin. ZOE. Ah, no; don't make that mistake, Len. LEONARD. Mistake? ZOE [shaking her head]. It never works. I've seen similar ases over and over again. There's any amount of gush at the tart, between the young wife and the husband's women-pals; ut the end is always the same. LEONARD. The end? ZOE. Gradually the wife draws the husband away. She lanages it somehow. We have a gift for it. I did it myself then I married Theo. LEONARD [rising and walking about]. If I believed what ou say, Zoe, I'd never size up a girl with a view to marrying s long as I live. ZOE [teasingly]. You're a vain creature. I've plenty of ther boys, Len, to fill your place. LEONARD [not heeding her]. If things were smoother with ou and Theo, one mightn't hesitate half as much. ZOE. There's Peter Mottram, Gus Hedmont, Harry 'stridge, Claud LowensteinLEONARD. As it is-Great Scot!-I'm a brute even to think f taking the risk. ZOE. Cossy Rawlings, Jim Mallandain, Robby Relf — 468 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO LEONARD [stopping in his walk]. Yes, but my friendship' more to you than the friendship of most of those other fellows I should hope. ZOE [making a grimace at him]. Not a scrap. LEONARD [his brow darkening]. You told me once I wa your favorite. ZOE. My chaff; I've no favorite. LEONARD [laying the remains of his cigarette upon a littl bronze tray on the writing-table]. Peter's a trump, an, Harry Estridge and Rawlings are sound enough; but I oftei feel I'd like to knock young Lowenstein's teeth down his fa throat. ZOE [blowing her smoke in his direction as he comes to he and stands before her]. You get married and mind your ow: concerns. LEONARD. Zoe, I hate to see men of that class buzzing roun you. ZOE [mockingly]. Do you! LEONARD. Look here! Whatever happens between you an, Theo in the future, you'll never let anything or anybody driv you off the rails, will you? ZOE [frowning]. Len! LEONARD. I couldn't stand it; [putting his hands upon he shoulders] I tell you straight, it 'ud break me. [Passionateli his grip tightening.] Zoe-! [She shakes herself free and backs away from him, con fronting him with a flushed face.] ZOE [quietly]. Don't be silly. [Brushing her hair from he forehead.] If ever you do that again, Len, I'll box your ear: [The HONBLE. PETER MOTTRAM, a spruce, well-pro served man of fifty, enters at the glazed door.] PETER [cheerily]. Good-mornin'-or whatever it is. ZOE [dropping the end of her cigarette into the grate]. ThE you, Peter? LEONARD [surlily]. I'm just off. PETER. Don't apologize. MID-CHANNEL 469 LEONARD [at the glazed door, to PETER]. See you later. [He goes out.] PETER [to ZOE]. What's the matter with the youth? ZOE [with a shrug]. Got the hump over something. [Fac-.g him.] Tea? PETER. NO, thanks. [Sitting in the chair in the middle of ie room.] And how are you to-day, my dear lady? [She akes a wry mouth, sighs, and throws herself disconsolately oon the settee by the fire. He nods intelligently.] Yes, sorry i hear you and old Theo have had another bad fall-out. ZOE [arranging a pillow for her head]. I guessed he'd carry all to you. PETER. Shockin'ly grieved, I am. ZOE. He began this one. PETER. By blowin' you up for goin' on the frisk every ght. ZOE. And I answered him back. I was dogweary. It was marly one o'clock. He needn't have jumped upon me almost -fore I'd taken the key out of the lock. PETER [demurely]. I also have been reproved, for aidin' ad abettin'. ZOE. Serves you jolly well right. Why didn't you and enny come in with me, you cowards? That might have saved squabble. I begged you to have a whiskey. PETER [after a brief pause]. Zoe ZOE [in a muffled voice, her head in the pillow]. Oh, be ind to me, Peter. PETER. Why do you sally forth night after night? ZOE. Because I must. PETER. Must? ZOE. I've got the fidgets. PETER. I get the fidgets at times, in bed. D'ye know how cure 'em? ZOE. Of course I don't. PETER. I lie perfectly stiff and still; I make myself lie per-,ctly still. I won't stir. I say to myself, "Peter, you sha'n't vist or turn." And I win. 470 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. How easy it is to talk! I defy you to control your self if you're shut up with a person who goads you to des peration. PETER. Theo? ZOE [beating her pillow]. How can I stay at home and ef a long dinner, and spend an entire evening, alone with Thec We're not entertaining just now; he says he's fed up wit having people here. PETER. Take him out with you. ZOE. Then we quarrel before others. That's too degradin Oh, it's tiff, tiff, wrangle, jangle, outdoors and indoors with u: 'PETER. You say things to Theo when you're angry, Zo that wound him to the quick. ZOE [satirically]. Really! PETER. Really. You mayn't be aware of it; you scrat( the poor old chap till he bleeds. ZOE. Do you imagine he never says things to me th: wound me to the quick? PETER. He doesn't mean half of 'em. ZOE. Neither do I. PETER [rising and going to the fire]. No; there's the era foolishness of it all. [In a tone of expostulation.] My de: lady ZOE [suddenly sitting upright]. We're on each othei nerves, Peter. That's the plain truth, we're on each other nerves. PETER. Worryin' each other. ZOE. Sick to death of each other! We shall have been ma ried fourteen years on the thirtieth of next June. Isn't appalling! He's getting so stodgy and pompous and fla footed. He drives me mad with his elderly ways. PETER [soothingly]. Oh —! ZOE. He's sick and tired of me, at any rate. My liti jokes and pranks, that used to amuse him so-they annoy hi now, scandalize him. He's continually finding fault with r -bullying me. That's all the notice he takes of me. As f my gowns or my hats-anything I put on-I might dress MID-CHANNEL 471 ackcloth; he'd never observe it. [Tearfully.] Ah! [She earches for her handkerchief and fails to find it. PETER proruces a folded handkerchief from his breast-pocket, shakes it ut, and gives it to her. She wipes her eyes as she proceeds.] sometimes, I own, I'm aggravating; but he forgets how useful was to him in the old days, when we were climbing. Yes, hose were the days-the first six or seven years of our mariage, when we were up north, in Fitzjohn's Avenue! [Tossing 'ETER'S handkerchief to him and getting to her feet.] Oh! )h, we were happy then, Peter! You didn't know us then, rhen we were up north! PETER [wagging his head]. My dear lady, we were all hapier when we were up north. ZOE [giving him a look of' surprise as she paces the room on he left]. Youl PETER. I mean, in a previous stage of our careers. ZOE. Ah, yes, yes. PETER. That's the lesson of life, Mrs. Zoe. We've all had ur Fitzjohn's Avenue, in a sense. In other words, we've all een young and keen as mustard; with everythin' before us, istead of havin' most things behind us. ZOE [leaning on the back of the chair before the writingible]. Oh, don't! PETER [thoughtfully]. D'ye know, I often wonder whether lere's anythin' more depressin' than to see the row of trophies;andin' on the sideboard? ZOE [sitting at the writing-table and digging her fingers into er hair]. Be quiet, Peter! PETER. That silver-gift vase there! The old horse that ained it for you is lyin' in the paddock with a stone a'top of im, and you're usin' his hoof as an ink-pot. Those goblets ou won on the river, and the cup you helped yourself to on ie links at Biarritz or St. Moritz-there's a little pile of shes at the bottom of every one of 'em! So it is with life nerally. You scoop in the prizes-and there are the pots on ie sideboard to remind you that it ain't the prizes that count, at the pushin' and the strugglin' and the cheerin'. Ah, they 472 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO preach to us on Sundays about cherubim and seraphim! It my firm hope and conviction that when we die and go 1 heaven we shall all find ourselves up north again-in Fit: john's Avenue! [Coming to the chair in the middle of tl room.] Meanwhile, it's no good repinin'. [Turning the cha toward her and sitting.] The trophies are on the sideboar dear lady, and they've got to be kept clean and shin: [Gravely.] Now, Zoe [She whimpers.] Zoe, Zoe- [S) turns to him.] Zoe, one ugly word passed between you ar Theo last nightZOE. One -? PETER. One ugly word that must never be repeated. ZOE. What word? [The glazed door opens and WARREN appears carryii a teapot on a tray. He comes to the table and e changes the teapot he is carrying for the one that already there.] ZOE [to the man]. Mr. Mottram won't have any te Warren. WARREN [removing the cups and saucers which have be, used and putting them on to his tray]. No, ma'am; but 1 Blundell's just come in, ma'am. [WARREN withdraws, closing the door. ZOE rises stiffl and gathers up her hat, coat, and gloves. Then s returns to PETER, who remains seated.] ZOE.' What word was it? PETER. Separation. [THEODORE BLUNDELL, a big, burly, but good-looki man, enters at the glazed door. He halts on enteri and glances furtively at ZOE, as if expecting her speak; but, without meeting his eyes, she passes h and leaves the room.] THEODORE [with a shrug]. Ha! [PETER, looking over shoulder, sees that he and THEODORE are alone. THEODC seats himself at the tea-table and pours out his tea grimlb Lots o' good you seem to have done, Peter. MID-CHANNEL 473 PETER. Haven't done much, I admit. Pity you came home quite so soon. THEODORE. You left the office at half-past two. PETER. She wasn't in when I first got here. THEODORE [taking a slice of bread and butter]. Anyhow, kind of you to offer to have a talk to her. [Munching.] Plenty of abuse of me, h'm? PETER. She says you're on each other's nerves, Theo. THEODORE. I'm afraid there's something in that. PETER. And that you are growin' a bit heavy in hand, old man. THEODORE [drily]. Exceedingly sorry. PETER [after a pause]. TheoTHEODORE. Hallo? PETER. Shall I tell you what's at the bottom of it all? THEODORE. Well? PETER. She's got a feelin' that you're tired of her. THEODORE [gulping his tea]. 'If you knew how constantly I have that served up to me —! PETER. Will you allow me to speak out? THEODORE. Don't be so polite. PETER. My belief is that, if you could avoid conveyin' that mpression to Zoe, matters would improve considerably in this:stablishment. THEODORE. Oh? PETER. It's as easy as brushin' your hat. A little pettin'little sweetheartin'THEODORE. Yes? PETER [discouraged]. Well, those are my views, for what hey're worth. THEODORE [pouring out another cup of tea]. My dear fel-:w, if you'd get married, and have thirteen or fourteen years f it, as I've had, your views would be worth more than they re. PETER. Oh, that won't wash. [Rising.] When a man's ifferin' from gout in the toe, he doesn't stipulate that his 474 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO M.D. shall be writhin' from the same ailment. No, very frequently, the outsiderTHEODORE. Good gracious, you're not going to remark that lookers-on see most of the game! PETER. Words to that effect. THEODORE. Ho! Why is it that, the moment a man's matrimonial affairs are in a tangle, every platitude in the language is chewed-out at him? [Leaning his head on his hands.] If you've nothing fresher to say on the subject-! PETER [oracularly]. My dear chap, it's tryin' to say somethin' fresh on the subject of marriage that's responsible for a large share of the domestic unhappiness and discontent existin' at the present day. There's too much of this tryin' to say somethin' fresh on every subject, in my opinion. THEODORE. Nobody can accuse you, PeterPETER. You take it from me, there are two institootions in this world that are never goin' to alter-men and women and the shape of chickens' eggs. Chickens' eggs are never goin' to be laid square; and men and women will continue to be mere men and women till the last contango.1 [THEODORE finishes his tea, rises, and comes to the fire.] I'm referrin', of course, to real men and women. I don't inclood persons in petticoats with flat chests and no hips; nor individuals wearin' beards and trousers who dine on a basin of farinaceous food and a drink o' water out o' the filter. They belong to a distinct species. No; I mean the genuine article, like you and me and your missus-men and women with blood in their veins, and one-and-a-half per cent. of good, humanizin' alcohol in that. THEODORE [throwing a log on the fire]. What's the moral of. your eloquent, but rather vague, discourse? PETER [at the chair in the middle of the room]. The moral' Oh, the moral is that men and women of the ordinary, regulation pattern must put up with the defects of each other's qual. ities. [Turning the chair so that it faces THEODORE and agair 1"Contango-day"-a Stock Exchange expression: the day on which buyer or seller "carries over" to the next settling-day. MID-CHANNEL 475 sitting in it.] She complains that you don't admire her frocks and frills, Theo. THEODORE [groaning]. Oh! PETER. Now, come! Where's the trouble? There's my old mother-seventy-five in April! Whenever I'm at Stillwood, I make a reg'lar practice of complimentin' her on her rig-out. "By Jove, mater," I say, "you are a buck this mornin'!" Or evenin', as the case may be. I couldn't tell you what she's wearin', to save my life; but there's no harm done. THEODORE. Yes, you do it; but your father doesn't do it, I'll be bound. [PETER looks glum and is silent.] It's too trivial! [Producing his cigar case.] A husband can't be everlastingly praising his wife's clothes. [Offering a cigar to PETER which he declines.] The absence of comment on my part is a sign that I'm satisfied with Zoe's appearance, surely. PETER. She's one of the smartest women in London. THEODORE [irritably]. I know she is. I've told her so till I'm sick. [Cutting and lighting a cigar.] I've always been intensely proud of Zoe, as a matter of fact-intensely proud if her. PETER. NO more than her due. THEODORE [with increasing indignation]. Good God, how )ften, at a dinner-party, have I caught myself looking along the table and thinking she's the handsomest woman in the loom! Tsch! It's a ridiculous thing to sayPETER. What? THEODORE. I suppose no man has ever been "in love" with iis wife for longer than I've been with mine. PETER [significantly]. Been. THEODORE. And I have a very great affection for her still -or should have, if her behavior didn't check it. PETER. If you showed your affection more plainly, wouldn't;hat check her behavior? THEODORE [leaving the fireplace and moving about the loom]. Oh, my dear fellow, haven't you brains enough to see! We're middle-aged people, Zoe and I. I am middle-aged, and she's not far off it, poor girl. There must come a time on a 476 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO journey when your pair of horses stop prancing and settle down to a trot. PETER. How's that for a platitude! THEODORE. I thought that worm-eaten illustration might appeal to you. PETER. She keeps wonderfully young, Theo. THEODORE. Isn't that a little to my credit? But Zoe'E within three years of forty. You can't put the clock back. PETER. A woman's as old as she looksTHEODORE. And a man's as old as he feels! Another ancient wheeze! PETER. And a married woman's as old as her husbanc makes her feel. THEODORE. My dear Peter, I don't want Zoe to feel older than her years by a single hour. But I confess I do ask hei occasionally to feel as old as her years, and not to make herself damnably absurd. PETER. Absurd? THEODORE. This infernal fooling about with the boys, foi instance-the cause of last night's flare-up-her "tame robins' -you're one! [PETER rises hastily and goes to the fire.] Yes, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, for encouraging her PETER. Who's in fault? Because a man's wife has ceasec to be attractive to him, it doesn't follow that she ain't attractive to others. THEODORE [contemptuously]. Attractive? The vanity o "attracting" a parcel of empty-headed young men! You're thb patriarch of the group! [Throwing himself into the chair jus vacated by PETER.] The whole thing's undignified-raffish PETER [extending a forefinger]. You contrive to be a trifle more sprightly at home, TheoTHEODORE [moving his head from side to side]. Oh, yoi will hammer away at that! I'm forty-six. My sprightly day; are over. PETER [emphatically]. Humbug, old chap. THEODORE. What's humbug? MID-CHANNEL 477 PETER. Men are the biggest humbugs goin'-especially to themselves. And a man of your age or mine-and I'm four years your senior-is never a bigger humbug than when he's deloodin' himself with the notion that he's scrap-iron. THEODORE. You're a gay old sparkPETER. NO, it's when the sun's working round to the westit's when men are where we are now, that they're most liable to get into mischief. THEODORE. Mischief? What are you driving at? PETER. Nothin'. I'm simply layin' down a general principle. THEODORE [angrily]. Confound your general principles Don't be an ass. PETER [coming to THEODORE]. That stoopid nonsense talked last night-early this mornin'-about livin' apart-who started it? THEODORE. Zoe. I fancy it was Zoe-last night. PETER. Oh, it wasn't the first time? THEODORE [smoking with fierce puffs]. We had an awful scene-disgraceful. I felt inclined to rush out of the house then and there. PETER. Why didn't you? You could have let yourself in again when she'd gone to by-by. THEODORE [suddenly]. No, that's not my style. If ever I do bang the front door, it'll be once and for all, my friend. PETER [shaking him]. Oh! Oh! THEODORE. She's independent; she has her own incomeyou know-and I've told her I'd supplement it, if necessary. I've settled this house on her as it is; she'd be welcome to it, and every stick in it, worst come to the worst. PETER. Theo! THEODORE. And I'd go and live in the garret, in peace. PETER. You're not considerin' such a step seriously? THEODORE [turning upon him roughly]. No, I'm not-not when I'm sitting here chatting quietly with you. Nor when she's rational and-and-and amenable, as she can be when 478 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO she chooses. [Clenching his hands.] But when she's irritating me till I'm half beside myself, I-IPETER. You? THEODORE [looking up at PETER]. My God, Peter, you're a wise man, never to have taken it on! PETER. Marriage? THEODORE [throwing his head back]. Oh, my dear fellow! [The glazed door opens and ZOE enters meekly. Her eyes are red, and a handkerchief is crumpled up in her hand. She glances at the tea-table and comes to THEODORE. PETER retreats to the fireplace.] ZOE [to THEODORE, in a piteous voice]. Have you-had your tea? THEODORE [frigidly]. I poured it out myself. [After a moment's hesitation, she bends over him and gives him a kiss. Then she turns away and, seating herself at the writing-table, proceeds to write a note. There is an awkward silence.] THEODORE [breaking the silence, gruffly]. Er-ZoZOE [with a sniff, writing]. Yes? THEODORE. What are you doing to-night? ZOE. Jim Mallandain was going to take me to the Palace. I'm putting him off. THEODORE. I'll dine you out and take you somewhere. ZOE. No, I'd rather have a quiet evening at home, Theojust you and me. [Blowing her nose.] I've ordered Mrs. Killick to send up an extra-nice dinner. THEODORE. Perhaps PeterZOE [stamping her foot]. No, I won't have him. PETER. Besides, I'm booked. ZOE [petulantly]. I don't care whether you are or not. I want to dine alone with my husband. [There is another pause, during which ZOE scratches away with her pen.] PETER [clearing his throat]. Well, I'll be gettin' along. [THEODORE rises.] I say MID-CHANNEL 479 THEODORE. H'm? PETER. Why don't you and Zoe have a week or a fortnight in Paris? It 'ud do you both a heap of good. THEODORE. Impossible. How can I? PETER. Cert'nly you can. If anythin' important crops up, Tom Slade or I will run over to you; or you could come back. [Again there is a pause. ZOE stops writing.] Do, old chap. [Another pause.] Won't you? THEODORE [without enthusiasm]. All right. PETER. A fortnight? Nothin'll happen. THEODORE [nodding]. A fortnight. [Uttering a little chirp of delight, ZOE resumes writing. PETER goes to her as THEODORE moves away to the fireplace.] PETER [to ZOE]. Good-bye, ma'am. [She gives him her left hand over her shoulder. He squeezes it and makes for the glazed door. There he appears to be struck by an idea. After a silence, he turns slowly, contemplates the pair for a moment with a puckered brow, and advances a step or two.] TheoTHEODORE [who has picked up one of the illustrated papers and has seated himself upon the settee]. H'm? PETER [his hands in his pockets, rattling his keys]. About half-way between Dover and Calais-no, it's between Folkestone and Boulogne, ain't it?THEODORE [examining the pictures]. What? PETER. Of course! About half-way between Folkestone and Boulogne-mid-Channel-there's a shoal. THEODORE [turning a page of his paper]. What of it? PETER. Le Colbart, the French sailormen call it-Le Colbart. We call it the Ridge. [Coming forward.] If you go by Folkestone and Boulogne, you'll pass over it. THEODORE [glancing at him suspiciously]. Thanks for the valuable information. PETER. D'ye know,. I've never encountered that blessed shoal without experiencin' a most unpleasant time? ZOE [addressing an envelope]. Oh, my dear Peter! PETER. I've crossed on some of the finest days o' the year. 480 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO The sun's been shinin', and outside the harbor the water's been as smooth as it's been inside. Everythin's looked as enticin' as could be; but as we've neared the Ridge-mid-Channel -I've begun to feel fidgety, restless, out o' sorts-hatin' myself and hatin' the man who's been sharin' my cabin with me. But the sensation hasn't lasted long. ZOE [sealing her letter]. Glad to hear it. PETER. NO; gradually the beastly motion has died down, and in a quarter of an hour or so I've found myself pacin' the deck again, arm-in-arm with the travelin'-companion I've been positively loathin' a few minutes earlier. THEODORE [gaping demonstratively]. Very interesting. PETER. My dear pals, I remember the idea once occurrin' to me-I mentioned it to Charlie Westbrook at the timethere's a resemblance between that and marriage. THEODORE [shortly]. Ha! Thought that was coming. [ZOE turns in her chair, to listen to PETER.] PETER. Yes, and marriage, mark you, at its best and brightest. The happiest and luckiest of married couples have got to cross that wretched Ridge. However successful the first half of their journey may be, there's the rough-and-tumble of mid-Channel to negotiate. Some arrive there quicker than others, some later; it depends on wind and tide. But they get there; and a bad time it is, and must be-a time when travelin'companions see nothin' but the spots on each other's yellow faces, and when innoomerable kind words and innoomerable kind acts are clean forgotten. [ZOE, her letter in her hand, rises impulsively and comes to PETER.] But, as I tell you, it's soon over-well over, if only Mr. Jack and Mrs. Jill will understand the situation; if only they'll say to themselves, "We're on the Ridge; we're in mid-Channel; in another quarter of an hour the boat'll be steady again-as steady as when we stepped on to the gangway." [To THEODORE.] Not offended, old man? THEODORE [uncomfortably]. Ha, ha, ha! ZOE [gently, giving her letter to PETER]. Tell Warren to give that to a messenger boy. [To THEODORE.] Theo-! MID-CHANNEL 481 [She puts her hands upon PETER'S shoulders and kisses him.] PETER [chuckling]. Ha, ha! [To THEODORE.] Division of profits. [At the glazed door.] When'll you be off? THEODORE. Oh-one day next week. PETER [nodding]. To-morrow mornin', then. [He goes out, closing the door.] ZOE. Dear old Peter! THEODORE [deep in his paper]. Peter's getting a bit of a bore, though. ZOE [mimicking PETER, as she wipes her eyes]. He's amusin'. [Going to THEODORE and seating herself beside him.] TheoTHEODORE. H'm? ZOE [edging up to him]. Let's go by Folkestone and Boulogne-shall we? THEODORE. I don't mind. ZOE [wistfully]. Let's go by Folkestone and Boulogneand have done with it. [Slipping her arm through his.] Theo -last night —sorry. [He nods and looks at another picture.] I take it all back-the things I said. I didn't mean them. THEODORE. That's all right. ZOE. And you didn't mean? THEODORE [impatiently]. Of course I didn't. ZOE [giving herself a shake]. Ah! [After a brief pause.] TheoTHEODORE. H'm? ZOE [taking the paper from him playfully]. Don't look at those improper young ladies. [Coaxingly.] Couldn't you manage to get away on Sunday? THEODORE. Oh-I might. ZOE. It's your treat to me, isn't it-and the beginning of better times? The sooner we beginTHEODORE [nodding]. You shall have it all your own way. ZOE [gleefully]. Sunday! THEODORE. H'm. 482 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. I'm dreadfully shabby. I've no new clothes. You don't object? THEODORE [distinctly]. Now, my dear Zoe-my darlingunderstand this from me clearly. You are never shabby; you couldn't be shabby. As far as I am a judge, you are always dressed beautifully and-and-and in perfect taste. ZOE. Beautifully! THEODORE. If you were not well-dressed, I should venture to call your attention to it. ZOE. Silence is approval? THEODORE. Absolutely. So don't expect me-a busy man -to be eternally praising your gowns and what not; because I cannot and will not do. ZOE. I won't-I won't. I know I'm inconsiderate-[stamping her foot] beastly inconsiderate. [Excitedly.] Write out a telegram nowTHEODORE. Telegram? ZOE. To the hotel. THEODORE. Yes, that 'ud be wise. [He rises and goes over to the writing-table where, taking a sheet of ntte-paper, he sits and writes.] We couldn't get an answer to a letter. ZOE [jumping up and walking about]. Jolly nice rooms, Theo! THEODORE [assentingly]. H'm, h'm. ZOE [humming]. Tra, la, ra, la! la, ra, la-! THEODORE [in the throes of composition]. Sssh, sssh! ZOE [opening the illustrated paper]. Beg pardon. THEODORE [writing]. " deux bonnes chambres a coucher -salle de bain-et salon-" ZOE. There's Lena. Don't forget the maid. THEODORE. Oh, they shove her anywhere. ZOE [imperatively]. No, no; I must have her handy. [He writes.] What hotel are we going to, Theo? THEODORE [writing]. "- aussi chambre pour servante m mee etage " ZOE. The Ritz? THEODORE. Oh, blow the Ritz! MID-CHANNEL 483 ZOE. We've always been comfortable at the Ritz. THEODORE [putting the finishing touches to his telegram]. Twenty francs a minute. ZOE [disappointed]. Where then? The Elysee Palace is too far out this weather. The Regina? THEODORE [reading]. "Pouvez-vous reserver pour Monsieur et Madame Blundell pour dimanche et nuits suivantes apartement compose deux bonnes chambres a coucher, salle de bain, et salon, aussi chambre pour servante meme etage? Reponse telegraphique. Theodorus, London." ZOE [advancing]. Oh, Theo! Shall we try the new Meurice? The Langdales had a suite there that made them feel like Royalties. THEODORE [half-turning to her]. Gerald Duckfield was telling me of a capital little hotel where he and Bessie stayed -the Vendome ZOE. Where's that? THEODORE. In the Place Vend8me. ZOE. The Ritz-the Bristol-the Rhin-they're the only hotels in the Place. THEODORE. Oh, but this is in the part of the Place that runs down to the top of the Rue Castiglione. ZOE. The narrow part! THEODORE. Well, it isn't the broad part, certainly. ZOE. The traffic of the Rue St. Honore to help to send you to sleep! THEODORE. NO, no; there are double windows, Gerald says, to the best bedrooms. [Turning to the writing-table.] It 'ud be an experiment. ZOE [sitting in the chair in the middle of the room, with her back to him]. Yes, it would be an experiment. THEODORE. Shall we risk it? ZOE [coldly]. By all means. THEODORE [writing]. "Directeur-Hotel Vendome. ZOE [tapping her feet upon the floor]. Ha! THEODORE. H'm? " Place Vendome " ZOE [holding up the illustrated paper so that he may see, 484 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO over her head, a risque picture]. If you were taking this sort of woman with you, nothing 'ud be good enough for her. THEODORE [glancing at the picture, angrily]. Oh, don't be so coarse! [There is a pause. He leans back in his chair, biting his pen. Suddenly she flings the illustrated paper away from her into the air. Throwing down his pen, he rises and paces the room.] This promises well for an enjoyable fortnight in Paris! ZOE [rising and moving to the left]. Look here, old man! This trip was going to be your treat. Very well, that's off! I'll take you to Paris; I'll pay the expenses; and I won't stuff you up in a frowsy rabbit-hutch. THEODORE [coming forward on the right]. Don't insult me! ZOE [facing him]. Anyway, your treat or mine, I stay at no hotel in Paris that isn't top-hole. THEODORE [furiously]. Oh, stop your damned slang, for God's sake! ZOE [her eyes blazing]. What! THEODORE [sitting on the fauteuil-stool and rocking himself to and fro]. Oh! Oh! ZOE. Stop my damned slang! THEODORE [his head in his hands]. Hold your tongue! ZOE [coming to him]. And how did I learn my damned slang, pray? [He waves her from him.] I learnt it from the crew you surrounded me with when I condescended to marry you and went out of my world into yours. THEODORE [starting up]. Oh[He goes to the bell and rings it continuously.] ZOE [following him]. Yes, you were hugely tickled by it then! And so were they-the men you thought might be serviceable to you; and who were serviceable to you, often through me! THEODORE. Oh! ZOE. Ha! And now that my tongue's furred with it, and it isn't necessary to attract the vulgar brutes any more, you round on me and rag me! [Pacing the room on the left.] Oh! Oh! If only my dear old dad were alive! He'd fuss over me MID-CHANNEL 485 and protect me. My father was a gentleman. He warned me I was chucking myself away! THEODORE. Oh! ZOE [wildly]. Why do you keep on ringing that bell? THEODORE [in a loud voice]. I suppose I can ring the bell if I like! ZOE. You-you can go to the devil if you like! [She goes out at the glazed door. As she disappears, WARREN passes her and enters.] THEODORE [crossing to the writing-table]. Warren — WARREN. Yessir? THEODORE [picking up the sheet of paper on which he has written the message to the hotel]. Pack me a bag. WARREN. Bag, sir? THEODORE [tearing the paper into small pieces]. Yes; I'm not sleeping at home to-night. WARREN [coming to the table and preparing to remove the tea-things]. Very good, sir. END OF THE FIRST ACT THE SECOND ACT The scene is the same, but the disposition of some of the furniture is changed. The settee on the right is now placed with its back to the fireplace. At the further end of the settee are the oblong table and chair, and on the left of the table, facing the settee, is the chair which in the preceding act stood in the middle of the room. An armchair is at the nearer end of the settee; and another armchair and the fauteuil-stool stand together, not far from the glazed door. On the oblong table are a box of cigarettes, matches, and an ash-tray. The fireplace is banked with flowers, there are flowers in vases upon the tables, and the room is full of sunlight.] 486 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO Two men-an upholsterer and his assistant-are engaged in putting covers of gay chintz upon the chairs and settees. The upholsterer is on his knees at the settee on the right, the assistant is at the chair by the writing-table. LENA, ZOE'S maida bright, buxom woman-is arranging the furniture in the middle of the room. Presently the assistant proceeds to collect the brown paper and cord which litter the floor.] UPHOLSTERER [rising from his knees-to LENA]. That's all right. LENA [coming to him]. And when are we to have the pleasure of seeing you again? UPHOLSTERER. To-morrow. LENA. What about next year, or the year after! [Producing her purse and giving him a tip.] In case I shouldn't live so long. UPHOLSTERER. Thank you very much. [Moving awayquietly.] William[The assistant, laden with brown paper, advances, and LENA tips him.] ASSISTANT. Thank you, miss. Good-morning, miss. LENA. Good-mnorning. UPHOLSTERER [at the glazed door]. Good-morning. LENA [tidying up the furniture on the right]. Goodmorning. [The men depart. Almost immediately, the glazed door is reopened and WARREN appears, showing in LEONARD. LEONARD is gloved and is carrying a straw hat and a walking-cane. He has lost his fresh, boyish appearance and is sallow and lined.] LEONARD [to LENA]. Good-morning. LENA [familiarly]. Oh, good-morning. [To WARREN.] I'll let Mrs. Blundell know. [To LEONARD, as WARREN withdraws.] She'll be down soon. Will you have a. paper? LEONARD. Thanks; seen 'em. How is she, Lena? LENA. Middling. She's a little feverish, the doctor says. She must have caught a chill coming over. [LEONARD nods.] MID-CHANNEL 487 She would sit on deck, talking to Mr. Mallandain. We met him by accident on the platform as we were leaving Paris. LEONARD [nodding again]. She's told me. LENA. She's to remain indoors again to-day and keep out o' draughts. [Looking at a watch which she wears on her wrist and at the clock on the mantelpiece.] What do you say the right time is? LEONARD [looking at his watch]. Quarter to twelve. LENA [going to the mantelpiece]. I'm to give her her med'cine an hour before meals. [Moving the hands of the clock.] Ha! They've all been playing tricks here while we've been away, clock-winder included. LEONARD [absently]. Indeed? LENA. Servants, tradespeople, everybody! [Unbuckling her bracelet.] Because Mrs. Blundell is now on her own, I s'pose they fancy they can take advantage of her. [Returning to LEONARD.] I'll teach 'em! ["Timing" her watch.] Think we're getting fairly straight? LEONARD [glancing idly at the room as he sits in the armchair near the glazed door]. Wonderfully. LENA. Not bad, is it, considering we've been home only two days? LEONARD [placing his hat and cane upon the fauteuil-stool]. Capital. LENA [refastening her bracelet]. Ouf! The relief, after some of those foreign hotels! LEONARD [drawing off his gloves]. Tired of traveling, eh? LENA. Don't ask me! I was saying to Mrs. Killick at breakfast-I've had enough of Italy to last me my life. Over four months of it, and without a courier! [Going toward the glazed door.] That's a bit too stiff. LEONARD. It is rather. LENA [halting by him and dropping her voice slightly]. Not that we wanted a courier when you came out to us. A splendid courier you were; I couldn't wish for a better. LEONARD [uncomfortably]. Ha, ha! 488 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO LENA [laughing]. Do you remember our losing her hat-box at that wretched old Siena? LEONARD. Yes-yes. LENA. You woke 'em up there in grand style. Ha, ha! Your friend, the Italian policeman-the image in the feathers-! LEONARD. Ha, ha! LENA. You did give him a dressing! [Sobering herself.] Yes, those three or four weeks you were with us were the pleasantest o' the lot, to my idea. [Going.] Well, good-day. [Stopping again.] Oh, but I must show you this. [Taking a ring from her finger.] A present from her-last Saturdayone of the best shops in the Roo Royarl. [Handing it to him.] She went out and bought it herself. LEONARD. Turquoise LENA. And diamonds. LEONARD [returning the ring]. Beautiful. LENA. Wasn't it kind of her! I'm as vain as a peacock. [Replacing the ring on her finger.] But there, you've both been extremely good to me. LEONARD. Not at all. LENA. You have; you've spoilt me completely. [At the door, speaking louder.] Treacherous weather for June, isn't it? LEONARD. Very. LENA [in the corridor]. Oh, here you are! Here's Mr. Ferris-I was just coming up to tell you[LEONARD rises as ZOE appears in the corridor. She is dressed in an elegant robe of rich, soft material and carries a little bag in which are a few opened letters, her handkerchief, etc. She also is changed. Her face is wan and there are dark circles round her eyes.] ZOE. Ah? [To LEONARD, formally, as she enters the room.] Good-morning. LEONARD. Good-morning. ZOE. Lena, how charming the old chintz looks! LENA [who is lingering]. It's English! MID-CHANNEL 489 ZOE [laying her bag upon the oblong table]. If we could all be freshened up by the same process! LENA [her hand on the door-handle]. Don't forget you're to take your med'cine in three-quarters of an hour. ZOE. Oh, bring me the filthy stuff when you like. LENA [in the corridor, closing the door]. Now, don't be naughty. [As the woman disappears, LEONARD walks over to ZOE. She puts out her hand to check him, and they stand for a moment or two watching the door and listening. Then she drops her hand and turns her face to him perfunctorily, and he kisses her as a matter of course.] ZOE. Your motor isn't outside? LEONARD. No; I walked across the Park. ZOE. That yellow car of yours is so conspicuous. [Arranging a pillow on the settee.] Sorry I wasn't visible yesterday. LEONARD. You're better? ZOE [evasively]. Oh, more or less decrepit. [Sitting.] What have you been doing with yourself? LEONARD. Nothing much. [Sitting in the armchair opposite to her.] ExceptZOE [taking her bag from the table]. By-the-bye, I've had a note this morning from an old friend of yours. LEONARD. Who? ZOE [producing a letter from the bag]. Ethel Pierpoint. LEONARD [inexpressively]. Oh? [She extracts the letter from its envelope and tosses it across to him. He reads it silently, with a frown. She takes a cigarette from the box on the table.] I thought you'd dropped her. ZOE. I did, in a fashion. I stopped her letters by ceasing to answer them. [Striking a match.] I hated calling myself hers affectionately, knowing I'd been the cause of your slacking away from her. LEONARD [under his breath]. Pish! ZOE [lighting her cigarette]. What does she say? LEONARD [reading aloud]. "Dearest Zoe. Quite by chance I hear you are back at Lancaster Gate. Why do you still 490 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO make no sign? I never wanted your friendship more thar now-or the friendship of somebody who will give me good advice, or a sound shaking for being a fool. Please take pity on your troubled but ever devoted, Ethel Drayson Pierpoint.' [To ZOE.] What does she mean by never wanting your friendship more than now? [ZOE shakes her head. He continues to ponder over the letter.] "-or the friendship of somebody who will give me good advice, or a sound shaking for being a fool." ZOE [smoking, thoughtfully]. When did you see the Pierpoints last? LEONARD. About a month after you left London-just before I followed you. [Returning the letter to her.] I cooled off them gradually. ZOE [after a pause]. She's a nice girl-Ethel. LEONARD. Yc-es, she was nice enough. [There is a further pause. Then ZOE jumps up, as if to dismiss disagreeable reflections, and crosses to the writing-table. There she empties her bag of the letters it contains.] LEONARD [gloomily]. Am I in the way? ZOE [fretfully]. Of course not. [She sits at the writingtable and busies herself with rereading her letters and destroying some of them. LEONARD rises and takes a cigarette from the box.] Poor Robby Relf has got neuritis. LEONARD [lighting his cigarette]. ZoZOE. Eh? LEONARD. I was going to tell you-I dined at the Carlton last night. ZOE [indifferently]. Oh? LEONARD. With Cossy Rawlings. Guess who was there. ZOE [becoming attentive]. Dun' no. LEONARD. He didn't see me-he was at a table the other side of the room ZOE [holding her breath]. Theodore? LEONARD. Yes. [She throws the pieces of a letter into the wastepaper basket and leans back in her chair.] MID-CHANNEL 491 ZOE. How-how did he look? LEONARD [curling his lip]. I didn't study his appearance. ZOE. He-he wasn't-by himself? LEONARD. Hardly! ZOE. That-that woman? LEONARD [nodding]. Same lady. ZOE. Simply the two? LEONARD [sitting upon the settee on the right]. The two turtle doves. [After a brief silence, she pushes her letters from her, rises, and moves about the room quietly but agitatedly.] ZOE. Who is this creature? LEONARD [impatiently]. I've told'you-and Jim told you on Sunday. ZOE. Hatherly-Annerly? LEONARD. Her husband was a Major Annerly-Frank Annerly. He divorced her over a man of the name of Bettison. ZOE. Where's he? LEONARD. He's dead. She's been through a good many hands since. ZOE. Ho! LEONARD. Fred Wishart was one-and Tod ArnoldZOE. She's quite young, isn't she? LEONARD. Looks a baby. ZOE. Ha! LEONARD. I should put her at thirty. ZOE. Pretty? They all are! LEONARD. Passable. ZOE [behind the chair on the left of the oblong table]. Do you think she's-with him? LEONARD. Not regularly. She's still living in Egerton Crescent, according to Cossy. ZOE [gripping the back of the chair]. She'll ruin him; she'll ruin him, Len. LEONARD. Oh, I dare say there'll be a bit left, when she's done with him. 492 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. There are other ways of dragging a man down besides through his pocket. Jim Mallandain says she's a vampire. LEONARD. Why should you worry yourself-? ZOE. I don't want him to come to grief. Why should I? LEONARD. If he does, you've nothing to reproach yourself with. ZOE [giving him a swift look]. What! LEONARD [sullenly]. Oh, you know what I mean-nothing that occurred before he took himself off. ZOE [moving to the oblong table, with a long-drawn sigh]. Ah-h-h! [Sitting, her elbows on the table, leaning her head on her hand.] It will always be on my conscience that I drove him away. LEONARD. YOU didn't drive him away. ZOE. I did. LEONARD. You were quite justified in doing it, anyhow. He made your life a burden to you. ZOE. I might have been more patient with him; I might have waited. LEONARD. Waited? ZOE. Waited till we'd got through the middle period of our lives. [Raising her head]. Peter warned us, the very day we parted LEONARD [sneeringly]. Peter! ZOE. Mid-Channel! We should soon have reached the other side. LEONARD. There's a limit to human endurance; you'd passed it. ZOE [staring before her]. It seems to me now, there wasn't so very much for me to put up with-not so very much. [Rising and walking to the back of the settee on which LEONARD is sitting.] There was a lot of good in him, really. After all, he only needed managing, humoringLEONARD [starting up and turning to her]. Upon my soul, Zoe! Ha! You're discovering no end of fine qualities in him suddenly! MID-CHANNEL 493 ZOE [bitterly]. Am II LEONARD. You hadn't a decent word for him when we were in Italy! Now he's perfect! ZOE [facing him]. No, he's not. LEONARD [satirically]. Sounds like it. ZOE [flaring up]. Neither he nor you! You can be just as unkind to me as he ever was. LEONARD [angrily]. I! ZOE. Yes! And, with'all his faults, he did try to take care of me-to keep me from harm! [Her eyes ablaze.] My God, what have you done! [They remain confronting one another for a moment without speaking. Then he turns away abruptly and picks up his hat and cane. She runs after him and clings to him.] ZOE. No, no; don't be hasty. I didn't mean it-I didn't mean it — LEONARD [endeavoring to free himself]. Let me go ZOE. Ah, no! I'm not well to-day LEONARD. I'll come back when you're better tempered. ZOE. I am better tempered. Look! it's all over. [Coaxing him to give up his hat and cane.] Lenny-Lenny dearLenny — [Placing the hat and cane upon the writing table, she takes her handkerchief from her bag and dries her eyes. He sits in the armchair near the glazed door sulkily.] Ha, ha! Now you're beginning to see what sort of a time poor Theo had with me. LEONARD. Oh, can't you leave off talking about him for a single second! ZOE [coming to him meekly]. I beg your pardon, dear. LEONARD. You've got that fellow on the brain. ZOE [standing behind him]. You started it, by telling me of last night. LEONARD. Why the deuce shouldn't I tell you of last night! Do sit down. [She sits near him, upon the fauteuil-stool.] I can't make you out, Zoe. This woman's only what we've been 494 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO waiting for. I've said all along he'd soon give you an opportunity of divorcing him. She completes your case for you. ZOE [dully]. Yes. LEONARD [grumbling]. You ought to be tremendously obliged to Jim for being the first to open your eyes-my eyes too-to what's going on. Instead of which, you're upset by it. And now, because I've seen Blundell and the lady together, I'm favored by hearing Mr: B. described as a model husband ZOE [to silence him]. Ah! LEONARD [changing his tone]. When do you interview your lawyers? ZOE. I-I haven't written to them yet. LEONARD. You were to do it after I left you on' Monday. ZOE. I-I've been feeling so cheap, Len. LEONARD [with a short laugh]. We shall be gray-haired before we're married, at this rate. [She lays her hand on his appeasingly. He retains her hand.] I believe you'll have to go through the form of trying to compel Blundell to return to you. Of course, he'll refuse. Meanwhile we must have the lady's house watched-or Blundell's flat. I shouldn't be surprised if he'd arrange that part of the business with you, to save trouble and expense. Drop a line to Maxwells to-day, will you? ZOE [obediently]. Yes. LEONARD. Or ring them up. You'll be able to get out tomorrow-or one of them would wait on you. ZOE. Yes. LEONARD. That's right, old girlie. Kiss me. [They kiss, quickly and cautiously, without ardor.] Sorry. ZOE [turning to him and lowering her voice almost to a whisper]. Lenny — LEONARD. What? ZOE. Don't forget-Perugia. LEONARD [in an outburst]. Oh, yes-curse the place!-let's forget Perugia. I was off my head there. I behaved like a MID-CHANNEL 495 )lackguard. You needn't be continually throwing it in my,eeth. ZOE. No, no; I'm not scolding you again. [Gently.] What mean is-your breaking your word to me at Perugia-stayng in the same hotelLEONARD. Well? ZOE. If Theodore's solicitors got hold of that — LEONARD [rising and walking away]. Yes, but they won't;et hold of it. ZOE [twisting herself round toward him]. You remember ur meeting Claud Lowenstein at the railway station at krezzo? LEONARD. I explained to him that my being in the train vith you was pure chance. I made that square. ZOE. He was going on-to Perugia-to the Brufani. [RisrLg.] He may have been suspicious-he may have inluired LEONARD. Even that little swine wouldn't tell tales. ZOE [coming to him]. Then there's Lena-they might pump enaLEONARD. My dear girl, all this would be very terrible if Qlundell wasn't as anxious to get rid of you as we are to get id of him. No, you take my word for it —he won't defend. lis game is to be free at any price. ZOE. To marry again perhaps! LEONARD. Probably. ZOE [clenching her hands]. Ah, no! LEONARD [his brow darkening again]. Doesn't that please ou? There's no satisfying you, Zoe. [She leaves him and aces the room distractedly.] A minute ago you were frightned lest he should be ruined by Mrs. Annerly! ZOE [on the left]. I-I couldn't bear the idea of another roman being a better wife to him than I was! I couldn't ear it, Lenny! LEONARD. Why, what concern would it be of yours-! ZOE [with a gesture, as the glazed door opens]. Sssh! [WARREN appears. 496 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO WARREN [to ZOE]. I beg your pardon, ma'am-Mr. Mottram. ZOE [uttering a little, eager cry]. Ah! WARREN. He'll call again, ma'am, if you're engaged. ZOE. Did you say I-I'd anybody with me? WARREN. NO, ma'am. ZOE [after a slight pause-indicating the adjoining room]. Is that room still covered up? WARREN. Yes, ma'am. ZOE. Well-show him in there for the moment. WARREN. Yes, ma'am. [He withdraws, closing the door.] ZOE [to LEONARD, in a low voice]. He'd better not find you here so early. LEONARD [also dropping his voice, testily]. Why need you bother yourself with old Peter this morning? ZOE [bringing LEONARD his hat and cane]. I haven't seen him since January. Don't look so cross. [Caressing his cheek.] Are you engaged to lunch anywhere? LEONARD. No. ZOE. Will you eat your lunch with me? [He nods. She takes a powder-puff from her bag and, looking into the hand-mirror, hurriedly removes the traces of her tears. While she is thus occupied, LEONARD listens at the nearer door on the right.] LEONARD [leaving the door-in a whisper]. He's there. [WARREN reappears.] WARREN [to ZOE]. Mr. Mottram is in the next room, ma'am. ZOE. Thank you. [WARREN withdraws.] ZOE [to LEONARD, in a whisper, accompanying him to the glazed door]. Go into the Park and sit under the trees. Blow a kiss for me to all the kiddies. [She watches him disappear down the corridor. Then, having closed the glazed door, she opens the further door on the right.] Peter! PETER [out of sight]. My dear lady! ZOE [going into the next room]. Why on earth have they put you into this dismal room! Come into the light. [Re MID-CHANNEL 497 turning with him, her arm tucked through his.] Oh, my dear Peter-my dear Peter —! PETER. Ah, yes, yes, yes! A nice way to serve a pall ZOE [closing the door]. How did you? PETER. Jim Mallandain dropped in at the office this morn-.ng. [They leave the door.] He traveled with you from Paris )n Sunday. ZOE. I collided with him at the Gare du Nord. PETER. And this is Wednesday! ZOE [withdrawing her arm]. I funked sending for you;;hat's a fact. PETER. Funked it? ZOE [with the air of a child in disgrace]. Your letters to ne have been awfully sweet, but I know you despise me for naking a muck of things. PETER [protestingly]. Ah, Mrs. Zoe! ZOE. And I'm rather a sick rabbit, Peter. [Turning away.] k sick rabbit has only one desire-to hide in its burrow. [Facng him.] My heart bounded when you were announced, hough. PETER [following her]. You don't look very fit. Seen a loctor? ZOE. I've let Lena call in Rashleigh, to humor her, [sitting n the settee cn the right] and I've promised to swallow his )ig-wash. PETER. What's he say? ZOE. Chill; but-[raising her eyes to his] between ourelves? — PETER. Honor. ZOE [with quivering lips]. Life, dear old chum! PETER [tenderly]. Ain't much in it? ZOE. Damn little. [Putting her hair back from her brow.] 'hew! Can't sleep, Peter. PETER. Oh, lor'! ZOE. I tumble into bed at twelve-one-two. I get an iour's stupor, from sheer fatigue, and then I'm wide awake — hinking! Then, dressing-gown and slippers and the cigar 498 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ettes; and then it's to and fro, up and down-smoke-smokesmoke-often till the servants start brushing the stairs. Nc game, eh? PETER. How long has this —? ZOE. It began at-[checking herself] oh, a devil of a while [With a shiver.] But I'm worse now I've set foot again ir this house. PETER [eyeing her keenly]. Ghosts? [Avoiding his gaze she stretches out her hand toward the cigarette box. He pushes the box beyond her reach. She makes a grimace. There is c pause.] Zoe ZOE. Well? PETER [deliberately]. Why shouldn't you pick up th( pieces? ZOE. Pick up-the pieces? PETER. You and Theodore. ZOE. Oh-don't be-funny, Peter. PETER. I'm not funny; I'm as serious as the clown at the circus. [Another pause.] Write to him-or give me a messag, to take to him. See him. [She gets to her feet and attempts to pass PETER. H, detains her and she sinks back among her pillows. ZOE. Ha, ha! You ridiculous man. [Faintly.] Pick u] the pieces! As if that were possible! PETER. Oh, the valuable family china is in a good man: fragments, I admit. But there are the fragments, lyin' on th carpet. They can be collected, fitted together. ZOE [with a sudden gesture of entreaty]. Ah, for God' sake, Peter-! PETER. Why, I'm suggestin' nothin' unusual. ZOE [repeating her gesture]. Sssh! PETER. Go into the homes of three-fifths of the marrie people you know-I know-and you'll find some imposir specimens of porcelain that won't bear inspectin' very nai rowly. ZOE [waving the subject away]. Sssh, sssh! PETER. Only yesterday afternoon I was callin' at a hous MID-CHANNEL 499 in-never mind the district. I was wanderin' round the drawin'-room lookin' at the bric-&-brac, and there, on a Louis Quatorze console-table, were as handsome a pair of old Chinese jars-genuine Mings-as ever I've met with. Such a sooperb glaze they've got, such depth o' color! They appear to be priceless, perfect, till you examine 'em closely; and then — My dear Zoe, they're cracked; they've both had a nasty knock at some time or another; they're scarred shockin'ly with rivets and cement. And while I was sheddin' tears over 'em, in sailed madam, smilin' and holdin' out her hand to me-she'd been up-stairs, rubbin' carmine on her lips — ZOE [in a murmur]. You horror! PETER. How kind of me to call-and how wild Tom 'ud be at missin' me! To the casual observer, she's the happiest woman goin'; and Tom, who strolled in just as I was leavin', might be the most domesticated of husbands. You follow me? You grasp the poetic allegory? Those faulty old Mings are emblematic of the establishment they adorn. Mr. and Mrs. Tom fell out years ago; they turned against each other one fine day —in mid-Channel-and hadn't the sense to kiss and be friends on landin'; their lives are as damaged as those wounded crocks of theirs on the console-table. [Persuasively.] Well, but ain't it wiser to repair the broken china, rather:han chuck the bits into the dust-bin? It's still showy and effective at a distance; and there are cases-rare, but they.xist-where the mendin's been done so neatly that the flaws %re almost imperceptible. [Seating himself opposite ZOE.].oe ZOE [almost inaudibly]. Yes, Peter? PETER [leaning forward]. I believe yours is one of the cases -yours and Theodore's-where the mendin' would be excepionally successful. ZOE. What do you-what do you mean? PETER. My dear, old Theo is as miserable over this affair Ls you are. ZOE [attempting a disdainful smile]. N-nonsense! PETER. Oh, no, it ain't nonsense. 500 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. W-what makes you think that? PETER. Between ourselves? ZOE [a note of eagerness in her voice]. Honor. PETER. He shows it in all manner o' ways. Neglects his business-ain't much good at it when he doesn't-is losin' his grip-looks confoundedly ill-is ill. Altogether he's a different man from the man he was, even when matters were at boilin' point here. ZOE [locking and unlocking her fingers]. Does he everspeak of me? PETER. Oh, lor', yes. ZOE. N-not kindly? PETER. Very. Very kindly. ZOE [after a silence, as if in pain]. Oh -! [She rises, passes him, and goes to the other side of the room where she moves from one piece of furniture to another aimlessly.] W-what's he say about me? PETER [not turning]. Frets about you-wonders how you're gettin' along-wonders as to the state of your finances-can't bear the idea of your bein' in the least pinched-wants to help you. ZOE. He's extremely generous! PETER. Theo? Never was anythin' else. ZOE [her eyes flashing]. His own expenses must be pretty considerable just now, too! PETER [pricking up his ears]. Must they? [With great artlessness.] Why? ZOE. Oh, do you imagine I live with wool in my ears? PETER [over his shoulder]. Wool? ZOE. This woman he's continually with! [PETER'S face is still averted from ZOE. At this juncture his eyes open widely and his mouth shapes to a whistle.] This-Mrs.-Mrs. -what's her name-Annerly! [Pacing the room.] A notorious woman-a woman without a shred of character-an any-man's-woman! PETER [settling his features and turning his chair toward ZOE-in a tone of expostulation]. Oh! MID-CHANNEL 501 ZOE. A baby-faced thing-seven years younger than I am! Precisely the class of goods a man of Theo's age flies at! PETER. Oh-oh! ZOE. They're rather costly articles, aren't they? PETER. My dear Mrs. ZoeZOE. Oh, don't you pretend to be so innocent, Peter! You know jolly well he's all over the place with her. They were at Hurlingham together Saturday week. PETER [coolly]. I daresay. ZOE. And they dine tete-a-tete at the Savoy, Ritz's, the CarltonPETER. Who supplies the information? ZOE. They were at the Carlton last night. PETER. Who's told you that? ZOE. L — [She pulls herself up.] PETER [curiously]. Who? ZOE [moistening her lips]. Oh, I-I first heard of it all from Jim Mallandain. He was full of it on board the boat on Sunday. PETER. Was he? [Rising lazily.] A busy gentlemanJim. ZOE. It was Jim who met them at Hurlingham-had tea with 'em. PETER [curiously again]. But it can't be Jim who's blabbed about last night. ZOE. Why? PETER [shrugging his shoulders]. He happened to mention this mornin' that he was with a party at Jules'. ZOE [confused]. N-no, it isn't from Jim I've got that, I-[throwing herself into' the armchair near the glazed door] Oh, but really it's a matter of supreme indifference to me, Peter, my dear boy, whom Theodore entertains at the Carlton, or whom he entertains at his flat — PETER [coming to her]. My dear Zoe ZOE [laughing heartily]. Ha, ha, ha! His flat! I hear it's quite sumptuous. After his pathetic yearnings for peace and quiet in a garret, he sets up, within a month of our sep 502 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO arating, in an enormous flat in Cavendish Square! I received that bit of news when I was in Florence. I-I was intensely amused. Oh, let him wallow in his precious flat-! PETER [argumentatively]. My dear ladyZOE [her hand to her brow, exhausted]. Ah, drop it, Peter; drop it! PETER. I ask you-a liberal-minded person-what 'ud become of friendship as an institootion if men and women couldn't be pals without havin' the-the-what'd'ye-call-itthe tongue of scandal wagged at 'em? The world 'ud be intolerable. It ain't all marmalade as it is; but if a fellow can't take the fresh air in the company of a female at Hurlingham, or give her a bite o' food at a restaurantZOE [her head against the back of her chair, her eyes closed]. Ah,.la, la, la! PETER.. As for this-er-this Mrs. Annerly — [He again purses his mouth and is evidently in a difficulty.] ZOE [her eyes still shut]. Well? PETER. It's true she chucked Annerly for another chap. I don't condone an act of that description-except that I knew Annerly, and if ever there' was a dull dogZOE. Was he duller than Theo? PETER. Oh, go on with yer! And since then she's been a trifle-flighty-perhaps, now and again; [with a gulp] but to-day she might be your maiden aunt. ZOE [dreamily]. You humbug, Peter! PETER [sitting beside her, upon the fauteuil-stool]. Oh, I'm not maintainin' that we men always select our women pals from the right basket. I'm not sayin' that we don't make asses of ourselves occasionally, sometimes from sentiment, sometimes from vanity, sometimes from-various causes. But the same remark applies to you women over your men-pals. [Laying a hand on her arm.] For instance-[she opens her eyes] for instance, here you are, throwin' stones at old Thee with regard to Alice Annerly. [Significantly.] My dear MID-CHANNEL 503 here are a few panes o' glass in the house you live in, bear in aind. [She sits upright, looking at him.] ZOE. In the house —I? PETER [gravely]. Mrs. Zoe, what you did when you were nder your husband's protection is one thing; what you do now? another bag o' nuts entirely. And a woman situated as you re ought to be careful of retainin' a cub among her intimates. ZOE. A cub? PETER. Cub. ZOE [apprehensively]. To whom-are you alluding? PETER. Lenny Ferris. ZOE. L-enny? PETER. It ain't an agreeable job, pitchin' into a fellow ou've been on good terms with; but the fact remains-to ut it mildly —that Master Lenny's a stoopid, blunderin' ub. ZOE [haughtily but palpitatingly]. He's nothing of the kind. /hat has he done that you should abuse him? PETER. It's he who's told you that Theodore was at the arlton last night, ain't it? [She drops her eyes.] Been here ils mornin'? ZOE [raising her eyes, boldly]. Yes. PETER. H'm! The sick rabbit doesn't hide in her burrow om everybody. ZOE. H-how? PETER. I saw your lips make an L just now, before you )uld put the stopper on. ZOE. Ha, ha! You ought to have been a professional dective. PETER [scowling]. Ferris has kept out of my way lately,. I ZOE. If he has run in here for a moment-to ask whether.n back-is there anything particularly cubbish in that? PETER. It wasn't that I was referrin' to. ZOE. N-no? PETER. I was referrin' to his havin' the damned presumpn to dance attendance on you in Italy. 504 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE [aghast]. I-Italy? PETER. He was at Perugia while you were there. ZOE. Oh-PerugiaPETER [with a shrug]. And other places, I assoom. ZOE [after a pause, pulling herself together]. H-ho [Mimicking PETER.] And who supplies the information' [PETER waves the question from him.] Lowenstein, by an) chance-Claud Lowenstein? [PETER, looking down his nose is silent. She rises and walks away from him.] The houndthe little hound! PETER. Lowenstein came across you both at some railway station. He arrived at Perhigia the day you left. ZOE [pacing the room on the right]. The contemptible lit tie hound! PETER. He put up at the Brufani too. ZOE [stopping in her walk-under her breath]. Ah! PETER. Master Lenny might at least have had the corn mon decency to quarter himself at another hotel. ZOE. The-the Brufani is the most comfortable-the[A pause.] I-I suppose it was thoughtless of Lenny. PETER [quietly]. Cub! ZOE [approaching PETER]. Does-Theodore-know? PETER [nodding]. Lowenstein went to him with it. ZOE. Ha, ha! A busy gentleman-Claudy Lowenstein [Falteringly.] It-it was all my fault, Peter. If-if any body's to blame, I am. I-I wrote to the boy from Florenc -complaining of feeling lonelyPETER. That doesn't excuse him. ZOE [touching PETER'S shoulder with the tips of her fingers What-what does Theodore? PETER. He's savage. ZOE. Savage? PETER [rising]. He'd like to punch Ferris's head-as should. ZOE [in a low voice]. Savage! [Slowly.] He-he jealous, then? [A shrug from PETER. Her eyes light up Jealous! [A pause.] Peter-no man's jealous over a woma MID-CHANNEL 505 -unless he —unless he cares for her! [Plucking at his sleeve.] Peter PETER. You've heard me say old Theo's miserable-desperately wretched. ZOE. He —he's grown fond of me again-fond of me —! PETER. My dear, you and he have never left off bein' fond o' one another, actually. As I warned you, you've only been tossin' about, both of you, on a bit o' troubled water. [She stares at him for a moment with an expressionless face and then, as if stupefied, seats herself in the chair on te left of the oblong table.] PETER [standing before her]. Well, at any rate, you'll let this Italian business be a lesson to you not to rush at conclusions respectin' other people. So, come now; won't you try to patch it up? I'll bet my noo hat, Theodore'll meet you half-way. [Urgently.] Zoe! ZOE [locking and unlocking her fingers again]. Peter — PETER. Eh.? ZOE. Your Mr. and Mrs. Tom-the world perhaps never heard of their fall-out. PETER. What o' that? ZOE. Everybody is aware of the split between me and Theo. PETER. Everybody! A handful! Besides, nothin' is even a nine days' wonder in these times. [A pause.] Will you do it? ZOE [suddenly, starting up and walking away to the left]. Oh, no, no, no! I can't-I can't! PETER [following her]. Can't? ZOE [helplessly]. I can't, Peter! PETER [taking her by the arms]. Oh-! ZOE. I-I mean I,-I'm sure it wouldn't answer-I'm surePETER. My dear girl ZOE [piteously]. Ah, don't-don't! [Escaping from him 2nd crossing to the right.] Oh, leave me alone! [WARREN enters at the glazed door.] 506 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO WARREN [to ZOE]. Miss Pierpoint is down-stairs, ma'am ZOE [seizing upon the interruption]. Ah, yes! WARREN. I'm to give you her love, ma'am, and if it isn't convenient for you to see herZOE It is-it is-quite convenient-quite. [WARREN withdraws, closing the door.] I'm awfully sorry, my dear Peter but this child wants to consult me about something-some. thing important. [Giving him her hands.] I must kick yot out. You don't feel hurt, do you? PETER [ruefully]. Confound Miss Pierpoint! Zoe — ZOE. What? PETER. You'll think it over? ZOE [putting her hand to his lips]. Ah! PETER [holding her hand]. No, no. Think it over. Asl me to dine with you one night next week. ZOE. Monday-Tuesday? PETER. Monday. ZOE [artfully]. Ah, but I shall lay in a chaperon for th occasion. PETER. Rats! How can I talk to you before a chaperon? ZOE. Ha, ha, ha, ha! [She runs to the glazed door, open it, and, going into the corridor, calls loudly and excitedly. Ethel-Ethel-Ethel-! [ETHEL appears in the corrido and ZOE embraces her with an excess of warmth.] My dea Ethel! My dear child! [They kiss.] What ages since we'v seen each other! [Bringing ETHEL into the room.] Yo know Mr. Mottram? ETHEL [going to PETER]. Oh, yes. PETER [shaking hands with her]. How-d'ye-do, Miss Piei point-and au revoir. ETHEL [as he moves toward the glazed door]. I'm n( driving you away? PETER. I forgive you. [He rejoins ZOE, who is near the door. ETHEL lays he sunshade upon the writing-table.] ZOE [to PETER]. Monday night? PETER. Monday night. MID-CHANNEL 507 ZOE. Half-past eight. PETER [at the door, dropping his voice]. A chaperon? ZOE [mockingly]. The proprieties! PETER. You cat! [He goes.] ZOE [closing the door]. Ha, ha! [She leans wearily against he door for a moment and again puts back her hair from her,row. Her manner now becomes strained, artificial, distrait. she advances to ETHEL.] Now, then! [ETHEL turns to her.] Jet me have a good squint at you. How's your dear aother? ETHEL [who is pale and sad-looking]. Mother's flourishng. [Leaving the writing-table.] You're not angry with ie for rushingyou at this hour? ZOE. Isn't this our old hour for a chat? ETHEL. We were at Madame Levine's yesterday-mother nd I-ordering frocks, and Camille, the skirtmaker, told us ou were back.. Zoe, how unkind you've been! ZOE. Am I in your bad books? ETHEL. Why have you treated us so horridly? ZOE. Well, my dear child, the fact is-the fact is it sudinly dawned on me that perhaps your mother mightn't conder me any longer a suitable pal for her daughter. ETHEL [protestingly]. Oh! ZOE. Heaps of folks, you know, haven't much use for ngle married women. ETHEL. But we both showed you that our sympathies were i your side! ZOE. Yes, we often sympathize with people we wouldn't uch with the end of a wet umbrella. ETHEL [coming close to ZOE]. So that's the reason you ft off answering my letters! ZOE. C-certainly. ETHEL. And why we hear of your return through fat old unillel [Fingering a jewel at ZOE'S neck.] You've had a 3asant time abroad? ZOE [taking ETHEL'S face between her hands, abruptly]. )w thin your face is, Ethel! 508 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ETHEL [gazing at ZOE]. Your cheeks are not as round as they were. ZOE [leading ETHEL to the settee on the right]. I caught a rotten chill on board the boat and have been beastly seedy. [Putting ETHEL on the settee.] What's wrong with you? That's a dreary note I've had from you this morning. ETHEL [tracing a pattern on the floor with the point of her shoe]. Now I'm with you, I-I can'tZOE [looking down upon her]. You want advice, you say. ETHEL [tremulously]. Yes. ZOE. Or a good shaking. ETHEL. I-I suppose I ought to be ashamed of myself for being so, but I-I'm very unhappy, Zoe. ZOE. Unhappy? ETHEL. It's no use my attempting to talk to mother. Mother's a person who prides herself on her level-headedness Anybody with a fixed income and a poor circulation can be level-headed! It only means you're fish-like. But youyou're warm-blooded and humanZOE. Well? ETHEL. Z-Zoe ZOE. Yes? ETHEL [her eyes on the ground]. Did you ever suspec' that there was anything between Mr. Ferris and me? ZOE [calmly, steadying herself]. Mr. Ferris-and you? ETHEL. An attachment. ZOE [with affected astonishment]. My dear child! ETHEL [looking up]. Oh, don't keep on calling me "child" I'm nearly six-and-twenty. [Taking ZOE'S hands.] Didn' you ever guess? ZOE. He-he always seemed delighted to meet you here. ETHEL. He's one of your "boys"-hasn't he ever talked t you about me? ZOE. Of course, frequently. ETHEL. Never as if he were-in love with me? ZOE [withdrawing her hands]. I-I can't say that itstruck me MID-CHANNEL 509 ETHEL [dejectedly]. You didn't know, perhaps, that at the beginning of the year-before you went away-he was a great deal in Sloane Street? ZOE. Why, yes, he used to have tea with you and your mother sometimes, didn't he? [Turning from ETHEL.] How did I hear that? ETHEL [hanging her head]. Very often he came early in the afternoon-by arrangement with me-while mother was resting. ZOE [with a hard laugh]. Ha, ha! Ethel! ETHEL. Yes, worthy of a vulgar shop-girl, wasn't it? ZOE [sitting in the chair opposite ETHEL]. He-he came early in the afternoon? ETHEL. And we sat together, in the firelight. I'm sure he loved me, Zoe-then. ZOE [breathing heavily]. And-and you? ETHEL [her elbows on her knees, hiding her face in her hands]. Oh, I'm a fool-an awful fool! ZOE [after a silence]. Did he ever-hint-at marriage? [ETHEL nods, without uncovering her face.] He did! ETHEL [raising her head]. Well, we got as far as agreeing that a small house in the country, near his aunt, would be an ideal state of existence. [Mirthlessly.] Ha, ha, ha! knd there matters broke off. ZOE. What-what —? ETHEL. All' of a sudden there was a change-a change in iis manner toward me. He still called on us, but not so reguarly; and by degrees his visits-ceased altogether. [She passes her hand across her eyes angrily and, stamping her foot, rises nd moves to the other side of the room.] The last time I spoke to him was one morning in the Row. Mother and I,vere walking and we came face to face with him. That was it the end of February. He was out of sorts, he said, and vas going into Devonshire. I presume he went. [Turning to ~OE who, with parted lips, is staring guiltily at the carpet.] He's in London now, though. I saw him about a fortnight 510 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ago, at the Opera. I was with the Omerods, in their box; he was in the stalls. [Touching ZOE'S shoulder.] ZoeZOE. Yes? ETHEL. He's so altered. ZOE. Altered? ETHEL. In his appearance. You recollect how boyish and fresh-looking he was? ZOE. Y-yes. ETHEL. All that's gone. He's become-oh, but I dare say you've seen him since you've been home? ZOE. J-just for a minute or two. ETHEL. You must have noticed? ZOE. N-now you mention itETHEL. I watched him through the opera-glass several times during the evening. [Simply.] He looks like a lost soul. ZOE. I-I've never-ha, ha!-I've never made the acquaintance of a lost-ha, ha!ETHEL [after a pause]. Zoe, do you think anything has happened to Lenny Ferris? ZOE. H-happened? ETHEL. Anything bad. ZOE. Bad? ETHEL. Men's lives are constantly being wrecked by racing, or cards, or- [Half turning from ZoE.] Oh, I oughtn't to know about such things, but one doesn't live in the darkhe may have got mixed up with some woman of the wrong sort, mayn't he? ZOE [rising quickly and walking away to the left]. I-] really can't discuss topics of that kind with you, Ethel. ETHEL [wistfully]. No; but if he is in any scrape-any entanglement-and one could help himZOE [at the writing-table, taking up a bottle of saltsfaintly]. Help him? ETHEL. Save him! ZOE [sniffing the salts]. How-how romantic you are! MID-CHANNEL 511 ETHEL. Am I! [Her elbows on the back of the armchair by the oblong table, timidly.] Zoe, would it be possible-in your opinion-would it be possible for me to-to see him? ZOE [sitting in the chair at the writing-table]. See Mr. Ferris? ETHEL [plucking at the cover of the chair on which she is leaning]. Here-in your house-or elsewhere-see him and offer him my friendship-a sister's friendship? You could manage it. ZOE. My —my dear! ETHEL. Oh, yes, I'm lacking in dignity, aren't I-and selfrespect! [Coming forward.] I've told myself that a thousand times. [Warmly.] But there are quite enough dignified people in the world without me; and if I could influence Lenny, any one might, have my dignity for two-pence. ZOE. Influence him -? ETHEL. For his good. Oh, I don't want to boast, but I'm l straight, clean girl; and it may be that, at this particular noment of his life, the more he sees of women like you and ne the better. However, if you tell me the idea's improper, '11l accept it from you. [Approaching ZOE.] I'll take any-;hing from you. [Appealingly.] But don't tell me that, if rou can avoid it. Give me the opportunity, if you can, of showing him that I'm different from most girls-that I'm above )etty, resentful feelings. [Bending over ZOE.] Zoe [LENA enters at the further door on the right, carrying a silver salver on which are a dose of medicine in a medicine-glass and a dish of sweetmeats.] LENA. Your med'cine! [Closing the door.] Good-mornng, Miss Pierpoint. ETHEL. Ah, Lena! ZOE [to ETHEL, rising hastily]. Excuse me [LENA advances and ZOE goes to her and, with a shaking hand, drinks the medicine.] LENA [to ZOE:]. Good gracious, how queer you look! [To ]THEL.] She's doing too much to-day, Miss Pierpoint. [Go 512 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ing to ETHEL.] Dr. Rashleigh says she's frightfully below par. ETHEL [picking up her sunshade]. What a shame of mel [Running to ZOE.] I won't stay another minute. ZOE [sitting on the settee on the right]. I am a little fatigued. ETHEL. I ought to have seen it. ZOE. I-I'll write to you. [They kiss.] My love to your mother. ETHEL. And when you are well enough? ZOE. I'll call upon her. ETHEL [to LENA, who precedes her into the corridor]. No, no; stop with Mrs. Blundell. I'm so sorry, Lena [LENA and ETHEL talk together for a little while in undertones; then the girl disappears. LENA returns.] LENA [shutting the door]. Silly chatterbox! [Finding ZOE lying at full length upon the settee, her head buried in a pillow.] Why do you tire yourself like this? Shall I fetch you some brandy? ZOE. No. LENA [lowering her voice]. He's in the house again. ZOE. Who? LENA. Mr. Ferris. ZOE [raising herself]. Mr. Ferris! LENA [with a jerk of her head in the direction of the next room]. In there. [ZOE sits upright.] Warren's making himself beautiful and Clara answered the door. She thought you were by yourself and let him come up. [ZOE gets to her feet.] I was just bringing you your med'cine and met him. [ZOE goes to the writing-table, takes up the hand-mirror, and puts her hair in order.] Lucky I'd heard that Miss Pierpoint was here; he didn't want to see her! Another second-! ZOE. That'll do. [Calmly.] Take care I'm not interrupted again. LENA. Ah, now! Mayn't I get rid of him? ZOE. No. [Turning.] Run away, please. LENA. Oh, very good. [Picking up the salver which she MID-CHANNEL 513 has placed upon a piece of furniture near the glazed door.], You'll do exactly as you choose. [In the corridor.] I declare I'd rather look after, a pack of unruly children any day in the week[She closes the door. ZOE glances over her shoulder, to assure herself that the woman has left the room, and then, with a fierce light in her eyes, goes to the nearer door on the right and throws it open.] ZOE [in a hard voice, speaking into the adjoining room]. I'm alone. [She moves from the door as LEONARD, still carrying his hat and cane enters.] LEONARD. By George, that was a narrow squeak! [Closing the door.] Whatever possessed you to be at home to the Pierpoint girl this morning? ZOE [coldly]. I didn't expect you back before lunch. LEONARD [putting his hat and cane on the chair at the nearer end of the settee on the right]. I was talking to a man at Victoria Gate and I saw Peter driving away in a taxi. [Facing her.] I got sick of the Park. [Seeing that something is amiss.] Hallo! [A pause.] Any one been running me down? [She advances to him and, drawing herself to her full height, regards him scornfully.] ZOE [making a motion with her hands as if she would strike him]. You-you —! [Dropping her hands to her side.] Oh, cruel-cruel —[walking away from him] cruel! LEONARD. What's cruel? Who's cruel? ZOE [at the further end of the room, on the right]. Ahih! LEONARD [moving to the left]. Oh, come! Let's have it )ut; let's have it out. ZOE. Sssh! Don't raise your voice here. LEONARD. Somebody's been talking against me. Ethel Pier)oint? ZOE [coming to the oblong table]. You've behaved abomnably to this girl. LEONARD. Ho, it is Miss Pierpoint! 514 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. No, she hasn't spoken a word against you. But she's opened her heart to me. LEONARD [going to ZOE]. You've known all about me and Ethel. ZOE. It's a lie. How much have I known? I knew that you were sizing her up, as you expressed it; but I never surmised that you'd as good as proposed marriage to her. LEONARD. I told you months ago-admitted it-that I'd made myself a bit of an idiot over Ethel. I fancied you tumbled to the state o' things. ZOE. Did you! Why, do you think-maniac as I was when you came through to me to Florence!-do you think I'd have allowed you to remain near me for five minutes if I'd known as much as I do now LEONARD. Look here, Zoe — ZOE. Oh, you're a cruel fellow! You've been cruel to her and cruel to me. I believe you're capable of being cruel to any woman who comes your way. Still, she's the fortunate one. Her scratches'll heal; but-[sitting at the oblong table and hitting it with her fist] I loathe myself more than ever-more than ever! LEONARD [after a pause]. Zoe, I wish you'd try to be a little fair to me. ZOE [ironically]. Fair! LEONARD. Perhaps I did go rather further with Ethel Pierpoint than I led you to understand. ZOE. Oh-! LEONARD. I own up. Yes, but what prospect was there when I was thick with her, of your being free of Blundell' None. And what was I to you? Merely a pal of yours-one of your "tame robins"-one of a' dozen; and I'd come to: loose end in my life. It was simply the fact that there wa no prospect for me with you that drove me to consider whethe I hadn't better settle down to a humdrum with a decent gin of the Ethel breed. Otherwise, do you imagine I'd have crosse. the street to speak to another woman? [Leaving ZOE.] 01 you might do me common justice! [Hotly.] If circumstance MID-CHANNEL 515 have made a cad of me, am I all black? Can't you find any good in me? [Turning to her.] What did I tell you at Perugia? ZOE [rising]. Ah, don't-! LEONARD. That I'd been in love with you from the day I first met you-from the very moment Mrs. Hope-Cornish introduced me to you at Sandown! Well Isn't there anything to my credit on that score? Didn't I keep my secret? For four years I kept it; though, with matters as they often were between you and Blundell, many a man might have thought you ripe grapes. [Walking across to the right.] Only once I was off my guard when you-when I laid hold of you and begged you, whatever happened, never to-never toZOE [leaning against the table, her back to him]. Ha, ha, ha! LEONARD. Yes, and I meant it; as God hears me, I meant it. If anybody had told me that afternoon that it was I who -oh, hang! [Sitting upon the settee.] But what I want to impress upon you is that, if I were quite the low scoundrel you nake me out to be, I shouldn't have gone through what I have ]one through these past four years and more. Great Scot, it's ~een nothing but hell-hot hell-all the time! Four whole rears of pretending I was just an ordinary friend of yourslell! Four years of reasoning with myself-preaching to my-;elf-hell! T]hat awful month after Blundell left you-when 7ou'd gone to Italy and I was in London-worse than hell! VIy chase after you-our little tour together-my struggle even hen to play the correct game-and I did struggle-hell! And ince then-hell!' [His elbows on his knees, digging his;nuckles into his forehead.] Hell all the time! Hell all the ime! [There is a silence, and then, with a look of settled determination, she comes to him slowly and lays her hands upon his head.] ZOE. Poor boy! I'm sorry I blackguarded you. [Sitting ri the chair opposite to him and speaking in a steady, level oice.] Len — LEONARD. Eh? 516 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. Let's part. LEONARD [raising his head]. Part? ZOE. Say good-bye to each other. [Meeting his eyes.] Go back to that girl. LEONARD. To Ethell ZOE. Take up with her again. LEONARD. Oh, stop it, Zo. ZOE. She's devoted to you; and she's sound right through, if ever a girl was. She's one of the best, Len. LEONARD. Suppose she isZOE. Be careful that she doesn't guess I've given her away. [He rises impatiently. She rises with him and holds him by the lapels of his jacket.] Tell her-she's sure to ask youtell her that you haven't seen me since last Monday, nor had a line from me. Fake up some tale to account for your breaking off with me-you were in doubt whether you'd coin enough to marry on LEONARD [who has become thoughtful]. Zoe ZOE. Yes? LEONARD [looking her full in the face]. Are you giving me the boot? ZOE [releasing him and returning his gaze firmly]. Yes; I am. LEONARD [after a pause]. Oh? [Another pause.] What's your motive? ZOE. Motive? LEONARD. What's behind all this? ZOE [simply]. I want you to be happy, Len-really anc truly happy. I believe you'd stand a jolly good chance ol being so with Ethel Pierpoint; never with me. LEONARD. And you? ZOE. I? LEONARD. What's to become of you? What are your plan, for yourself? ZOE [avoiding his eyes]. Oh, don't you-don't you worr3 about me. LEONARD. Rot! MID-CHANNEL 517 ZOE [nervously]. Perhaps some day-when Theodore's tired of Mrs. Annerly-ha, ha!-stranger things have happenedLEONARD. Rot, I say. [She retreats a little.] Do you think you can drum me out like this! [Following her.] Have you got some other? [He checks himself.] ZOE [confronting him]. Some other? LEONARD. Oh, never mind. ZOE. Out with it! LEONARD. Some other fancy-man in tow? ZOE. Ah! You brute! [Hitting him in the chest.] You brute! [Throwing herself into the armchair near the glazed door.] You coward! You coward! [There is a pause and then he slouches up to her.] LEONARD. I-I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. [He sits beside her, upon the fauteuil-stool.] Knock my damned head'off. Go on. Knock my damned head off. ZOE [panting]. Well-we won't part-on top of a row. [Dashing a tear away.] After all, why should you think better of me than that? LEONARD [penitently]. Zoe ZOE. Sssh! Listen. Putting Ethel Pierpoint out of the question, do you ever picture to yourself what our married life would be? LEONARD. What it 'ud be? ZOE. The marriage of a woman of seven-nearly eightand-thirty to a man of thirty-two. I do. I walk my bedroom half the night and act it all over to myself. And you've had the best of me, too; I'm not even a novelty to you. Why, of course you've realized what you've let yourself in for. LEONARD. I take my oathZOE. Sssh! When you're in front of your glass in the morning, what do you see there? LEONARD. See? ZOE. This girl has noticed the alteration in your looks. She took stock of you at the opera the other night. LEONARD [passing his hands over his face consciously]. Men can't go to hell, Zo, without getting a bit scorched. 518 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE [imitating his action]. No, nor women either. [Turning to him.] But it's only quite lately that you've lost your bloom, Len. LEONARD. Oh, naturally I've been horribly bothered about you-about both of us-sinceZOE. Since your trip to Italy? [He nods.] Yes, and naturally you've told yourself, over and over again, the truthsince your trip to Italy. LEONARD. Truth? ZOE. The simple truth-that you've got into a mess with a married womanLEONARD. I-IZOE. And that you must go through with it, at all costs. LEONARD. I swear to you, Zoe — ZOE [touching his hand]. Oh, my dear boy, you haven't perhaps said these things to yourself, in so many words, but they're at the back of your brain just the same. [She rises and crosses to the fireplace and rings three times.] LEONARD [rising]. What-what are you doing? ZOE. Ringing for Lena, to tell her I'm not lunching downstairs. LEONARD. By God, Zoe-! ZOE [imperiously]. Be quiet! LEONARD [shaking his fist at her]. You dare treat me in this way! You dare! ZOE [advancing]. Ah, I'm only hurting your pride a little; I'm only mortifying your vanity. You'll get over that in twenty-four hours. LEONARD. Do you know what you are; do you know what you make yourself by this! ZOE. Yes, what you made of me at Perugia, and at Siena, and at-! [Suddenly, clinging to him.] Lenny-Lennykiss me-! LEONARD [pushing her from him]. Not I. ZOE. Ah, yes. Don't let's part enemies. It's good-bye. Lenny! MID-CHANNEL 519 LEONARD. NO. ZOE [struggling with him entreatingly]. Quick! It's for the last time. You'll never be alone with me again. [Her arms tightly round him.] It's for the last time. [Kissing him passionately.] Good luck to you! Good luck to you! Good luck to you! [She leaves him and sits at the writing-table where she makes a pretence of busying herself with her papers.] LEONARD [glancing expectantly at the glazed door-between his teeth]. You-you-! [Presently he goes to the chair on the right and snatches up his hat and cane. LENA enters at the glazed door.] LENA [to ZOE]. Is it me you've rung for? ZOE. Yes. [Sharply.] Wait. [There is a pause. Struck by ZOE'S tone, and the attitude of the pair, LENA looks inquisitively at LEONARD and ZOE out of the corners of her eyes, as if she guesses there has been a quarrel. LEONARD moves toward the door.] LEONARD [to ZOE]. Good-morning. ZOE. Good-morning. LEONARD [to LENA, as he passes her]. Good-morning. LENA. Good-morning. [He departs and LENA quietly closes the door.] ZOE [rising]. LenaLENA. Yes? ZOE [walking across to the settee on the right]. I'm not coming down to the dining-room. [Sitting, feebly.] Let me have a snack up-stairs. LENA. Very well. ZOE. That's all. [LENA withdraws, almost on tiptoe, and ZOE instantly produces her handkerchief and cries into it softly. Then she gets to her feet and searches for the cigarette box. Still shaken by little sobs, she puts a cigarette between her lips and, as she does so, the expression of her face changes and her body stiffens.] 520 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE [under her breath]. Oh -! [After a moment's irresolution, she hurriedly dries her eyes and, going to the glazed door, opens it, and calls.] Lena-Lena-! LENA [in the distance]. Yes? [ZOE returns to the oblong table and is lighting her cigarette when LENA reappears.] ZOE. LenaLENA. Well? ZOE. I'll dress directly after lunch. LENA [coming to her, surprised]. Dress? ZOE. Yes; I'm going out this afternoon. LENA. Going out! Why, you must be crazy -- END OF THE SECOND ACT THE THIRD ACT The scene is a fine, spacious room, richly furnished and decorated. In the centre of the wall at the back is the fireplace, and on the left of the fireplace is a door which when open reveals part of a dining-room. In the right-hand wall there is a bay-window hung with lace and other curtains. Facing the window, in the wall on the left, is a double-door opening into the room from a corridor. On either side of the fireplace there is an armchair, and between the fireplace and the dining-room door stands a small table on which are a decanter of whiskey, a syphon of sodawater, and two or three tumblers. A grand piano and a musicstool are in the right-hand corner of the room, and on the left of the piano is a settee. Some photographs are on the top of the piano. On the other side of the room there is a second settee with a table at the nearer end of it. An armchair stands by this table, another at the further end of the settee. In the bay-window there is a writing-table with a writing-chair before it, and on the writing-table is a telephone-instrument. MID-CHANNEL 521 Other articles of furniture, some pieces of sculpture, and some handsome lamps on pedestals, fill spaces not provided for in this description. A scarf of mousseline de soie and a pair of white gloves lie on the chair on the right of the fireplace. The fireless grate is hidden by a screen and, through the lace curtains, which are drawn over the window, a fierce sunlight is seen. The door at the back is slightly ajar. [The telephone bell rings and presently THEODORE BLUNDELL enters at the door at the back, and goes to the writing-table. His step has become heavier, his shoulders are somewhat bent, and he looks a "bad color."] THEODORE [at the telephone]. Halloo!... Yes?.. I am Mr. Blundell.... Oh, is that you, Peter?... What?..Want to see me?... Anything wrong?... Where are you?... Where?... Cafe Royal?... Come along to me now, then?... Oh, I say!... Are you'there?... [Dropping his voice.] I say! Mrs. A. is lunching with me.... Mrs. A.-Alice.... No, but I thought I'd tell you.... Good-bye. [He is about to return to the dining-room when MRS. ANNERLY appears in the doorway at the back. She is a pretty, charmingly-dressed creature with classical, immobile features and a simple, virginal air.] MRS. ANNERLY [advancing]. I've told Cole we'll have coffee in this room. [He nods and sits moodily upon the settee on the right. Resting her elbows on the back of the armchair at the further end of the settee on the left, she surveys her face in a tiny mirror which she carries, with some other trinkets, attached to a chain.] Who's that you were talking to on the 'phone, boy clear? THEODORE [who is smoking a big cigar]. Mottram. MRs. ANNERLY. What's he want? THEODORE. Wants to see me about something. 522 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO MRS. ANNERLY. Business? THEODORE. Dun'no. MRS. ANNERLY [sweetly]. He doesn't like poor little me. THEODORE [indifferently]. Doesn't he? MRS. ANNERLY. You know he doesn't. [Arranging a curl.] That's why you gave him the tip that I'm lunching here. THEODORE. Ho! Listeners-et cetera. MRS. ANNERLY. I couldn't help hearing you; positively I couldn't. [Examining her teeth in the mirror.] He's one of your wife's tame cats, isn't he? THEODORE. He's a friend of hers-yes. MRS. ANNERLY. Just a friend, and nothing else. THEODORE [angrily]. Now, look here, Alice —! [COLE, a man servant, enters from the dining-room with. the coffee and liqueurs. MRS. ANNERLY takes a cup. of coffee.] COLE [to MRS. ANNERLY]. Brandy-Kiimmel, ma'am? MRS. ANNERLY. No, thanks. THEODORE [to COLE, who comes to him with the tray-irritably]. Leave it. [COLE places the tray on the top of the piano and is returning to the dining-room.] Cole COLE. Yessir? THEODORE. I'm expecting Mr. Mottram. COLE. Very good, sir. [The man withdraws, closing the door. THEODORE rises and pours some brandy into a large liqueur-glass.] MRS. ANNERLY [who has seated herself upon the settee on the left]. What's the matter with you to-day, boy dear? You're as cross as two sticks. THEODORE. Liver. MRS. ANNERLY [sipping her coffee]. I don't wonder. THEODORE. Why? MRS. ANNERLY. You're getting rather too fond of[pointing to the brandy] h'm, h'm. THEODORE [bluntly]. It's false. MID-CHANNEL 523 MRS. ANNERLY [with undisturbed complacency]. I've seen so much of that sort o' thing in my time. [He makes a movement, as if to put down his glass without drinking.] Still, I must say you've every excuse. THEODORE. Alice MRs. ANNERLY. What? [He gulps his brandy, puts the empty glass on the tray, and comes to her.] THEODORE [standing before her]. Alice, will you oblige me by refraining from making any allusion to my wife, direct or indirect, in the future? It annoys me. MRS. ANNERLY. Everything annoys you this afternoon. THEODORE. You were at it last night, at the Carlton. And to-day, during lunchMRS. ANNERLY [in an injured tone]. It was you who told me that that little Jew chap had met her careering about Italy with young what's-his-name. [He sits in the armchair at the further end of the settee and leans his head on his hand.] Ah, but that was in your loving days-when you used to confide in me. THEODORE. I was in a rage and said a great deal more than I thought. MRS. AN.NERLY. If you did, you needn't jump on me for trying to feel interested in you and your affairs. THEODORE [facing her]. At any rate, understand me clearly, Alice-and then drop the subject. [Shortly.] Mrs. Blundell and I are separated; she's gone one way, I another. There were faults on both sides, as usual, but I was mainly to blame. There's the thing in a nutshell. MRS. ANNERLY. This isn't in the least your old story. THEODORE. Never mind my old story. [Extending a forefinger.] You forget the old story, my girl, if you wish our acquaintance to continue-d'ye hear? MRS. ANNERLY [shaking herself]. You're a nasty savage. THEODORE. As for that interfering cad Lowenstein, it unfortunately happens that one of Mrs. Blundell's characteristics is a habit of disregarding les convenances-a habit which I 524 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO didn't go the right way to check. It's probable that, before she's done, she won't leave herself with as much reputation as 'ud cover a sixpence. She's impulsive, reckless, a fool-but she's no worse.. [Eying the stump of his cigar fiercely.] My wife's no worse. So, hands off, if you please, in my presence. Whatever reports are circulated to her discredit, the man who speaks against her in my hearing is kicked for his pains; and the woman who does so, if she's under my roof, gets taken by the shoulders and shown the mat. [Looking at her.] Comprenez? MRS. ANNERLY [pouting]. I should be a juggins if I didn't. Parfaitement-in my very best French. THEODORE [rising and walking about]. That's settled, then. MRS. ANNERLY [after a pause, rising and depositing her cup upon the table on the left-thoughtfully]. Boy dear — THEODORE [at the back]. Hey? MRS. ANNERLY. It was regular cat-and-dog between you two at the end, wasn't it? THEODORE [breaking out again]. It's no concern of yours whether it was or was not. I've asked you MRS. ANNERLY [crossing to the right, with a shrug]. Oh-! THEODORE. Yes, it was. [Half-sitting upon the back of the settee on the left.] I-I tired of her. MRS. ANNERLY [philosophically]. Ah, men do tire. THEODORE. And she of me. We'd been married close upon fourteen years. MRS. ANNERLY. Oh, well, come; that's a long while. THEODORE [as much to himself as to her]. Our weddingday's on the thirtieth of this month. [Hitting the back of the settee softly with his fist.] We'd reached a time in our lives when-when we were in mid-ChannelMRS. ANNERLY. Mid-Channel? THEODORE [rising]. Oh, you don't know anything about that. [There is a further silence. She sits upon the settee on the right, watching him as he moves about the room again.] MID-CHANNEL 525 MRS. ANNERLY. Here! [Beckoning him with a motion of her head.] Here! [He goes to her. She looks up into his face.] Why don't you marry me, Theo? THEODORE [staring at her]. Marry-you? MRS. ANNERLY. You'd find me awfully easy to get on with. THEODORE [turning from her, quietly]. Oh-! MRS. ANNERLY. Wait; you might listen, anyhow. [He turns to her.] I am-awfully easy to get on with. And I'd be as strict as-as strict as a nun. Honest injun! I treated Annerly pretty badly, but that's ancient history. I was only seventeen when I married Frank-too inexperienced for words. I've learnt a lot.since. THEODORE [bitterly]. Ha! MRS. ANNERLY. Now, don't be satirical. [Inviting him to sit by her side.] Theo- [He sits beside her.] I say-bar chaff-I wish you would. THEODORE [absently]. What? MRS. ANNERLY. Marry me. Really I do. [A note of wistfulness in her voice.] I really do want to re-establish myself. My life, these past few years, has been frightfully unsatisfactory. THEODORE [touching her dress, sympathetically]. Ah! MRS. ANNERLY. And I'm a lady, remember-giddy as I may have been. Put me in any society and I'm presentable, as far as manners go. I'd soon right myself, with your assistance. [Slipping her arm through his.] I suppose, under the circumstances, you couldn't divorce her, could you? THEODORE. What d'ye mean? MRS. ANNE'RLY. Your wife-over that Italian business. THEODORE [jumping up]. Damn! MRS. ANNERLY. Oh, I beg your pardon; it slipped out. [He walks away to the table at the back and begins to mix himself a whiskey-and-soda.] I'm dreadfully grieved; gospel, I am. [Rising.] Don't-don't, boy dear. Do leave that stuff alone. [He puts down the decanter and comes to the settee on the left.] I can't do more than apologize. THEODORE [sitting]. Tsch! Hold your tongue. 526 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO MRS. ANNERLY [sitting beside him]. No, but you could let her go for you, though; that could be fixed up. I'd even consent to be dragged into the case myself, if it would help matters forward; and goodness knows I've no ambition to appear in the Divorce Court again-I hate the hole. [Coaxingly.] You will consider it, won't you? THEODORE. Consider what? MRS. ANNERLY. Marrying me. Just say you'll consider it and I won't tease you any more to-day. You do owe me something, you know. THEODORE. Owe you —? MRS. ANNERLY. Well, you have compromised me by being seen about with me at different places lately; now, haven't you? [THEODORE throws his head back and laughs boisterously.] There's nothing to laugh at. Perhaps I haven't a shred of character left, in your estimation! THEODORE. Ho, ho! MRS. ANNERLY [rising, piqued]. I presume you think I'm a person who'll accept a dinner at a restaurant from any man who holds up a finger to me! THEODORE. Why, my dear girl, you were always bothering me to take you to the cook-shops. MRS. ANNERLY. Bothering! [Going to the chair on the right of the fireplace and gathering up her scarf.] Oh, you're too rude! THEODORE. I was perfectly content with our quiet little meals here or in Egerton Crescent. MRS. ANNERLY. Yes, and to bore me to tears! THEODORE. Bore-? MRS. ANNERLY [winding her scarf round her shoulders]. Bore, bore, bore! THEODORE [scowling]. Oh, I-I bored you, did I? MRS. ANNERLY. Talking to me, as you used to, like a sentimental young fellow of five-and-twenty! Ridiculous! [Picking up her gloves.] I want a taxi-cab. THEODORE [rising]. Stop-stopMRS. ANNERLY. I've had quite sufficient of you for to-day. MID-CHANNEL 527 THEODORE [with d set jaw]. I'm glad you've brought matters to a head, Ally. I've something to propose to you. MRS. ANNERLY [pulling on a glove]. I've no desire to hear it. THEODORE. Something that's been on my mind for-oh, a month or more. MRS. ANNERLY. You can keep it to yourself. I'm not:accustomed to being jeered at. THEODORE [slowly walking over to the right]. I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings — MRS. ANNERLY. It's the first time I've ever made advances to a man, and I assure you it'll be the last. THEODORE. Ally — MRS. ANNERLY [moving toward the double-door]. Cole will get me a taxi. THEODORE [authoritatively]. Come here; come here; come here. MRS. ANNERLY [halting behind the settee on the left, with a twist of her body]. I shall not. THEODORE [snapping his finger and thumb]. Ally-[she approaches him with assumed reluctance] Ally-[deliberately] what'll you take? MRS. ANNERLY [elevating her brows]. Take? THEODORE. To put an end to this. MRS. ANNERLY. An end! THEODORE. To end your boredom-and mine; terminate our-friendship. MRS. ANNERLY [uncomfortably]. Oh, you-you needn't cut up as rough as all this. THEODORE. Ah, no, no, no; I'm not angry. I'm in earnest, though. Come! What'll satisfy you? [She curls her lip fretfully.] A man of my years deserves to pay heavily at this game. What'll make you easy and comfortable for a bit? I'll be liberal with you, my dear, and-[offering his hand] shake hands —[she turns her shoulder to him] shake hands[she gives him her hand sulkily] and I-I'll ask you to forgive me-I - 528 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO MRS. ANNERLY [withdrawing her hand]. Oh, for goodness' sake, don't let's have any more of that. [Contemptuously.] You elderlies always wind up in the same way. [He seats himself at the writing-table and, unlocking a drawer, produces his check-book.] THEODORE. Would a couple of thousand be of any service to you? MRS. ANNERLY [opening her eyes widely]. A couple of —! THEODORE [preparing to write]. I mean it. MRS. ANNERLY [breathlessly]. You don't! [He writes.] Why, of course it would. [Melting completely.] Oh, but it's too much; it is positively. I couldn't. And I've had such a lot out of you already. You are generous. [Behind his chair.] Fancy my being huffy with you just now! [Bending over him and arresting his pen.] Boy dearTHEODORE. Hey? MRS. ANNERLY [in a whisper]. Make it-three-will you? [He looks at her over his shoulder with a cynical smile. She retreats.] Oh, well! One isn't young and attractive forever, you know. [He finishes writing the check and, having locked up his check-book methodically, rises and comes to her.] THEODORE [giving her the check]. There you are. MRS. ANNERLY [examining it]. You-you've split the difference! You are kind. I didn't expect it in the least. [Folding the check neatly and finding a place for it in her bosom.] I am ashamed of myself for hinting so broadly. Thanks, a hundred times. [Blinking at him.] Sha'n't I miss you! [COLE enters at the double-door followed by PETER.] COLE. Mr. Mottram. THEODORE [greeting PETER at the fireplace as COLE retires]. Hallo I PETER. Hallo! [Bowing to MRS. ANNERLY.] How d'ye do? MRS. ANNERLY [who has moved over to the right-distantly]. How do you do? MID-CHANNEL 529 THEODORE [to MRS. ANNERLY]. By-the-bye, did you say you want a taxi-cab? MRS. ANNERLY. If I'm not troubling you. [THEODORE goes out at the double-door, closing it upon PETER and MRS. ANNERLY. There is a pause. MRS. ANNERLY, pulling on her second glove, looks out of the window; PETER whistles silently.] PETER [after a while]. Fine afternoon. MRS. ANNERLY. Delightful. [After another pause, turning to him.] Er —h'm-how do you think he's looking? PETER. Blundell? Seen him looking better. MRS. ANNERLY [with a sigh]. Ah! [In a mincing voice, approaching PETER.] Mr. Mottram, will you excuse me for offering a suggestion? PETER [politely]. Fire away. MRS. ANNERLY [sweetly]. Why don't you use your endeavors to bring Blundell and his wife together again? PETER [staring at her]. Eh? MRS. ANNERLY. It would be such a good thing, wouldn't it? PETER. I agree with you; it would indeed. MRS. ANNERLY. I've done all I can to persuade him. [PETER'S eyes open wider and wider. She busies herself daintily with her glove.] And now, as he and I are breaking off with one anotherPETER [quickly]. I beg pardon? MRS. ANNERLY. Perhaps you'll take on the job-see what you can do. PETER. Breaking off —? MRS. ANNERMLY [loftily]. Yes; I can't stand the annoyance any longer. PETER. Annoyance? MRS. ANNERLY. People are so spiteful. It's shocking-the ill-natured construction they put upon the most harmless little friendly acts! I admit I'm rather a careless woman-haven't I suffered from it! PETER [delicately]. Then, do I happen-may I ask-to be assistin' at the grand finale- -? 530 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO MRS. ANNERLY. Certainly-[With sudden mistrust.] Don't you try to pull my leg, Mr. Mottram, please. [She draws her skirt aside and passes him haughtily as THEODORE returns. Then she goes out, followed by THEODORE, who closes the door; whereupon PETER skips to the piano, seats himself at it, and strikes up a lively air. Presently THEODORE reappears, shuts the door again and resumes mixing his whiskey-andsoda.] THEODORE. Ouf! [PETER takes his hands from the keyboard.] That's over. PETER [innocently]. Over? THEODORE. You've seen the last of that lady, as far as I'm concerned. [He comes forward, carrying his tumbler, as PETER rises.] What d'ye think? [Grinning.] She's been at me to marry her. PETER [startled]. Not really! THEODORE. To get rid of-present ties, and marry her. PETER. When-when did she? THEODORE. Just now-five minutes ago. [Struck by an odd expression in PETER'S face.] Why, has she been saying anything? PETER [soberly]. No, no; not a word. THEODORE. Poor little devil! [He sits upon the settee on the left and drinks.] Poor-silly-little devil! PETER [coming to him]. And so you took the opportunity of-er? [THEODORE nods.] Just so. THEODORE. Ha! I expect I shall hear from her from time to time. PETER. Till the end o' your life. [Another nod from THEODORE.] Or hers. And the nearer the end the oftener you'll hear. THEODORE. Well, she shall have a trifle whenever she wants it. [Looking at PETER.] That's the least we can do, ol' man. PETER. Decidedly. That's the least we can do. MID-CHANNEL 531 THEODORE: [emptying his tumbler and jumping up]. Ughl [Placing the glass upon the table at the end of the settee.] I'll burn some pastilles here later on. [Confronting PETER.] Yes, you can have your crow; you're entitled to it. PETER. Crow? THEODORE. Your crow over me. Everything's turned out as you predicted. PETER [demurely]. Did I — THEODORE. You know you did. "It's when the sun's working round to the west"-I often recall your damned words — PETER. Ah, that dayTHEODORE. The day I left Lancaster Gate. "It's when men are where we are now"-you remember?-"it's when men are where we are now that they're most liable to fall into mischief." [Walking away.] God! the idiot I've made of myself [He goes to the fireplace and leans upon the mantelpiece.] PETER [quietly]. Theo THEODORE. H'm? PETER [moving to the settee on the left]. Talkin' of Lancaster Gate-I've got a bit o' noos for you. [Sitting upon the settee.] She's home. [There is no response from THEODORE.] Zoe I'm speakin' of. She's home. THEODORE [leaving the fireplace]. Thank'ee; I know. PETER. You know? THEODORE. I was there on Monday. PETER [surprised]. There? THEODORE. Passing the house. PETER. Signs o' life in the winders? THEODORE [nodding]. H'm. [Coming forward.] You've seen her? PETER. This mornin'. THEODORE [simply]. I was there again this morning. PETER. Passin' the house? THEODORE [nodding]. H'm. PETER. You seem to take a great deal of exercise in that locality. 532 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO THEODORE [forcing a laugh]. Ha, ha! [Drearily.] Well, one had good times there as well as bad; and when one views it all from a distancePETER. The good times stand out? [Without replying, THEODORE turns from PETER and sits upon the settee on the right.] THEODORE [after a pause]. How-how did you find her? PETER. She ain't up to much. THEODORE. What's —? PETER. Chill. THEODORE. Doctor? [PETER nods.] Rashleigh? PETER. That's the feller. Oh, it's nothin' serious. THEODORE. Chill? Ha! I'll be bound she caught it through doing something foolish. [Fidgeting with his hands.] She has nobody to look after her-nobody to look after her. PETER. Her maidTHEODORE. Lena? Is Lena still with her? [A nod from PETER.] I'm glad Lena's still with her. Lena's fond of her. [Starting up and pacing the room.] Not that Lena can control her; a maid hasn't any authority. [Stopping before PETER.] She isn't very poorly? PETER. NO, no. A little pulled down; that's all. And as charmin' as ever. [THEODORE walks away and, with his hands in his pockets, gazes out of the window.] She ain't sleepin'; that's the real bother. THEODORE. Not sleeping? PETER. Walks her room half the night and consooms toc many cigarettes. THEODORE. Why? PETER. I can only give you my impression --- THEODORE [impatiently]. Well? PETER. My dear chap, d'ye think that she don't recollect the happy times as well as the bad 'uns? Ain't she viewin' ii all from a distance, as you are; [rising] and don't the gooc times stand out in her mind as they do in yours? [Approachinc THEODORE.] TheoTHEODORE. H'm? MID-CHANNEL 533 PETER. I had a long confab with her this mornin'. THEODORE. What about? PETER. The possibility of a-a reconciliation. [There is a pause and then THEODORE turns to PETER.] THEODORE [in a husky voice]. Ho! So that's what you're after, is it? PETER. Yes; and I'm bent on carryin' it through. THEODORE. You-you meddlesome old buffer! PETER [chuckling]. Ha, ha! THEODORE. How-how did she take it? PETER. In a way that convinced me you've only to assure her that your old feelin's for her have returned, and in spite of everythin — THEODORE. Everything! Wait till she hears of sweet Alice. PETER. Wait! THEODORE [looking at PETER]. Why, d'ye mean? PETER. Oh, yes; it's got to her. THEODORE [dully]. Already? PETER. Jim Mallandain traveled with her from Paris on Sunday. THEODORE. Did he-? PETER. I suppose he thought it 'ud amuse her. THEODORE. The skunk! PETER. If it hadn't been Jim, it 'ud have been somebody else. THEODORE [thickly]. You're right; somebody had to be first. PETER. However, I did my best for yer. THEODORE. Denied it? PETER. Warmly. I defended you and the young lady with all the eloquence I could command. THEODORE. Zoe didn't believe you? [A pause.] She didn't believe you? [PETER shrugs his shoulders.] Of course she didn't. [Passing PETER and walking about the room.] What did she say? Hey? Oh, I can guess; you needn't tell me. What's everybody saying? Peter, I'd give half as much as 534 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO I'm worth to wipe the Annerly incident off my slate. I would, on the nail. Just fancy! To reach my age-and to be of decent repute-and then to have your name linked with a brainless, mercenary little trull like Alice Annerly! Ha, ha! Glorious fun for 'em in the city, and at the club! You hear it all. Confound you, can't you open your mouth! Ho! Of course Zoe sums it all up; she's cute enough when she chooses. [Sitting upon the settee on the left and mopping his face and throat with his hankerchief.] How did it end? PETER. End? THEODORE. Your chat with my missus. PETER. It ended in my urgin' her to consider the matterthink it over. [Coming to him.] I'm dinin' with her next week. [Sitting in the chair at the further end of the settee.] If you'll authorize me to open negotiations with her on your behalf — THEODORE. I-I approach her! PETER. Cert'nly. THEODORE [twisting his handkerchief into a rope]. NonoPETER. Why not? THEODORE. A couple o' months back I could have done it. Even as late as a fortnight ago-before I'd given myself away by showing myself in the public with Alice-it might have been feasible. [Between his teeth.] But now-when I-when I've lost any remnant of claim I may have had-on her respect-! PETER [in his judicial manner]. My dear chap, here is a case THEODORE. Hell with you and your case! [Jumping up and walking away to the right.] I couldn't screw myself up to it; I-I couldn't humble myself to that extent. [Moving about.] Ho! How she'd grin! She's got a cruel sense o' humor, Peter-or had once. You see, I always posed to her as being a strong, rather cold-blooded manPETER. A favorite pose, that, of husbands. MID-CHANNEL 535 THEODORE. It was more than a pose-I thought I was a *strong man. And then-to crawl back to her-all over mud — I [He halts in the middle of the room and, with a shaky hand, produces his cigar case from his pocket and takes out a cigar.] PETER. I was about to remark, when you chipped in with your usual politeness-I was about to remark that this is a case where two persons have behaved more or less stoopidly. THEODORE. Two —? PETER. You more, she less. THEODORE [his brow darkening]. You-you're referring to —? PETER. Er-Mrs. Zoe THEODORE [cutting his cigar viciously]. With-Ferris. PETER. Yes; and I think that the friend of both partiesthe individual on whose shoulders the task of adjustin' matters would fall-[rising] I think that that friend might manage to impose a condition which 'ud be greatly to your advantage. THEODORE. Condition? PETER. No imputations to be made on either side. THEODORE [broodily]. No-imputations? PETER. Each party acceptin' the statement of the other party, and promisin' not to rake up anythin' that's occurred durin' the past four months. THEODORE. I-I understand. PETER. It 'ud help to save your face for the moment, and the healin' hand of time might be trusted to do the rest. THEODORE [quietly]. Peter ---PETER. Hallo! THEODORE. When I was at the house on Monday-my wife's house —half-past eleven in the morningPETER. Well? THEODORE. There was a yellow car at the door. PETER. Yaller car? THEODORE. I couldn't get near, but-that fellow has a yellow car. 536 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO PETER. Has he? THEODORE [grimly]. Why, he's driven you in it. PETER [carelessly]. I'd forgotten. THEODORE [looking at PETER]. He's still hanging on to her skirts, hey? PETER. He's an ill-bred, tactless cub. But he's got a nice 'ead of 'air and smells o' soap; and that's the sort women love to have danglin' about after 'em. THEODORE [with an effort]. There-there's nothing in it, Peter, beyond that? PETER [waving his hand disdainfully]. Good Godl THEODORE. Oh, I know there isn't; I know there isn't. WitlE all her faults, I know she's as straight as a die. [Looking ai PETER again.] Did you touch on the subject with her? PETER [nodding]. I rubbed it in. I told her her conduct had been indiscreet to a degree. I thought it policy to rub it in THEODORE. Did she-offer any explanation? PETER [nodding]. Pure thoughtlessness. THEODORE. And you felt that she was-speaking the truth' PETER [testily]. My dear Theodore — THEODORE. You swear that? [Suddenly, grasping the lape of PETER'S coat.] Damn it, man, you began talking abou the thing! [COLE enters at the double-door carrying a note in th, shape of a cocked-hat.] THEODORE [angrily]. What d'ye want? COLE. I beg your pardon, sir. THEODORE [going.to him]. Hey? [He snatches the note from the man and, as he glance at the writing on it, his jaw drops.] COLE [in a low voice]. An answer, sir? THEODORE [trying to unfold the note]. Messenger? COLE. The lady herself, I think, sir. [There is a pause, and then THEODORE slowly gets th note open and reads it.] THEODORE [to COLE]. Where? MID-CHANNEL 537 COLE. In the smoking-room, sir. THEODORE. Er-wait. COLE. Yessir. [COLE withdraws.] THEODORE [to PETER, who has wandered away]. Peter — [PETER comes to him and THEODORE hands him the note. PETER'S eyes bolt as he recognizes the handwriting.] PETER [reading the note]. "Will you see me?" Short[examining both sides of the paper and then returning the note to THEODORE] sweet. THEODORE [chewing his unlighted cigar]. This is your doing. PETER [beaming]. I flatter myself it must be. [Laying a hand on THEODORE's shoulder.] My dear Theo, this puts a noo aspect on the affair-clears the air. THEODORE. New aspect —? PETER. She makes the first advances, dear kind soul as she Us. [A pause.] Shall I-fetch her in? THEODORE. Hold hard, hold hard; don't be in such a devil )f a hurry. [He leaves PETER and seats himself in a heap in the chair on the right of the fireplace. PETER moves softly to the double-door.] PETER [his hand on the door-handle-to THEODORE]. May I? [THEODORE raises his head and nods. PETER goes out. As the door closes, THEODORE gets to his feet and flings his cigar into the grate. Then, hastily, he proceeds to put the room in order, closing the piano and beating out and rearranging the pillows on the settees. Finally, he comes upon MRS. ANNERLY'S empty coffeecup, picks it, up, and vanishes with it into the diningroom. After a little while, the double-door opens and PETER returns. He glances round the room, looks surprised at not finding THEODORE and, with a motion of the head, invites ZOE to enter. Presently she appears, beautifully dressed. She also looks round; and, passing PETER, she moves tremblingly to the fireplace. He closes the door and joins her.] 538 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO PETER [to ZOE]. You're a brick to do this. ZOE [almost inaudibly]. Am I? PETER. You'll never regret it. ZOE [clutching PETER'S arm]. He will be-kind to me? PETER. As kind as you are to him. ZOE [drawing a deep breath]. Ahl [She sits upon the settee on the right and her eyes roam about the room.] What a ripping flat! PETER [disparagingly]. Oh, I dun'no. ZOE [with a wry mouth, plaintively]. He has been doing himself jolly well, in all conscience. [The dining-room door opens and THEODORE appears. He shuts the door and edges toward PETER who leads him to ZOE.] PETER. My qlear old pals — [ZOE gets to her feet and THEODORE awkwardly holds out his hand to her.] THEODORE. HOW are you, Zoe? ZOE. Fairly-thanks[She hurriedly produces her handkerchief from a gold bag hanging from her wrist and moves away to the left. There she sits upon the settee, struggling to command herself. PETER gives THEODORE'S arm a friendly grip and makes for the double-door. As he passes behind the settee on which ZOE is seated, he stops to pat her shoulder.] ZOE [in a whisper, seizing his hand]. Don't go, Peter; don't go. [He releases his hand, gives hers a reassuring squeeze, and goes to the door.] PETER [at the door, to THEODORE]. I shall be in the City till six. [He departs. After a silence, THEODORE approaches ZOE. They carefully avoid meeting each other's eyes.] THEODORE. It-it's very good of you, Zo, to-to hunt me up. MID-CHANNEL 539 ZOE. I-I went first to Copthall Court. [Wiping a tear from her cheek.] I-I thought I should find you there. THEODORE. I-I haven't been at all regular at the office lately. [A pause. They look about the room in opposite directions.] Er —Peter tells me he had a little talk with you this morning. ZOE. Y-yes. THEODORE. About our-being reconciled. ZOE. Yes. THEODORE'. W-well? [She puts her handkerchief away and takes from her bag a torn envelope with some inclosures. She gives it to him timidly and he extracts from the envelope a letter and a key.] The-the damned cruel letter I left behind me-that evening-with my latch-key. [She inclines her head.] May I-destroy it? [She nods assent, and he tears up the envelope and letter and crams the pieces into his trouser-pocket.] THEODORE [looking at the key]. The-the key? ZOE. It-it's yours again-if you like. THEODORE. You-you're willing? [Again she inclines her head, and he puts the key into a pocket in his waistcoat and seats himself humbly in the chair at the further end of the settee.] Thank'ee. [After a pause.] Zo — ZOE. Yes? THEODORE [turning to her but not lifting his eyes]. Look here. I'm not going to-try to deceive you. I-I want you to understand exactly what you're offering to take back. ZOE. Exactly? THEODORE. I gather from Peter that you came over from Paris on Sunday in the company of Mr. Jim Mallandain. ZOE. I picked him up by chance at the Gare du Nord. THEODORE. And Mr. Jim whiled away the journey by-by gossiping to you about me and-a woman of the name of knnerly? ZOE. On the boat. THEODORE. Quite so. [A pause.] When you mentioned the natter to Peter, he produced the whitewash bucket, didn't he? 540 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. Slapped it on thick. THEODORE [looking at her from under his brows]. But you didn't —? [She shakes her head.] You're right; Peter's a liar. It's a true bill. I wish it wasn't; but it is. ZOE [after a pause, steadily]. Well? THEODORE [looking at her again]. Are you prepared to forgive me that too, then? [She nods, but with compressed lips. He bows his head.] Anyhow, I'm easier for making a clean breast of it. ZOE. How-how did you-come to? THEODORE. Lower myself with this hussy? [Looking up.] Isn't it all of a piece? Isn't it the natural finish of the mistakes of the last year or so-the errors we've committed since we began kicking each other's shins? [Quickly.] Oh, I'm not reproaching you now for your share o' the transaction. It was my job-the husband's job-to be patient with you; to smooth you down gently, and to wait. But instead of doing that, I let my mind dwell on my own grievances; with the result that latterly the one being in the world I envied was the fellow who'd kept his liberty, or who'd had the pluck to knock off the shackles. [Rising and walking about, gathering his thought' as he proceeds.] Well, I got my freedom at last, didn't I And a nice mess I made of it. I started by taking a furnishec lodging in St. James's Street-sky-high, quiet, peaceful! Ha Hardly a fortnight was out before I had blue-devils and was groaning to myself at the very state of things I'd been longing for. Why should I be condemned, I said to myself-whN should I be condemned to an infernal dull life while other round me were enjoying themselves like fighting-cocks! An( just then this flat was offered to me as it stands; and ii less than a month after I'd slammed the front door a Lancaster Gate I was giving a dinner-party here-a house warming-[halting at the window, his back to ZOE] dinner-party to four-and-twenty people, and not all of 'er men. Zou [in a low voice]. I heard of your setting up here whil I was —in Florence- [clenching her hands] in Florence. MID-CHANNEL 541 THEODORE [resuming his walk]. However, so far it was nothing but folly on my part-egregious folly. And so it continued till I-till I had the honor of being introduced to Mrs. Annerly at the supper at Jack Poncerot's. [Eying ZOE askance.] I won't give you the details of the pretty story; your imagination'll supply those-the heading o' the chapters, at any rate. Chapter One, Conceit-I had the besotted vanity to fancy she-she liked me and was genuinely sympathetic toward me [at the mantelpiece, looking down into the grate]; and so on to Chapter the Last-the chapter with the inevitable title-Disgust-Loathing-! ZOE [thoughtfully]. You-you're sure you've reached thethe final chapter? THEODORE [turning to her]. Heavens, yes! [Shaking himself.] It's all over. I've paid her off-to-day, as it happens. I've been itching to do it; and I've done it. [Sitting upon the settee on the right.] Another month of her society, and I believe I'd have gone to the dogs completely. [His elbows on his knees, holding his head.] ZoZOE. Eh? THEODORE. Peter says you're walking your room half the night and smoking your nerves raw. ZOE. Does he? He needn't have repeatedTHEODORE. Zo, I've been walking this horrible flat in the same way. I can't get to bed till I hear the rattle of the milkcarts. And I'm smoking too much-and-not only that ZoE [looking at him for the first time]. Not only what? THEODORE. Well, a man doesn't smoke till four or five o'clock in the morning on cocoa, does he? [There is a moment's silence, and then she rises and goes to him.] ZoE. Oh —Theo! — THEODORE [looking up at her]. So your liberty hasn't made you over happy, either, has it, old girl? Zor [faintly]. No. THEODORE. You've been thinking, too, of the good, times we've Jhad together, hey? 542 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. Y-yes. [He rises and places his hands upon her shoulders yearningly as if about to draw her to him. She shrinks from him with a startled look.] Theo THEODORE [dropping his hands]. What? ZOE [nervously]. There-there's one thing I-I want to say to you-before we-before we go furtherTHEOPORE [feeling the rebuff]. H'm? ZOE. As I've told you, I'm willing that you should return to Lancaster Gate. You may return as soon as you please; butTHEODORE. But? ZOE. It must be-simply as a companion, Theo; a friend. THEODORE [stiffly]. A friend? ZOE [with a slight shrug]. Not that we've been much else to each other these last few years-except enemies. StillTHEODORE [frowning]. You wish to make it perfectly clear. ZOE. Yes. THEODORE [after a pause, icily]. I beg your pardon. I was forgetting myself just now. Thanks for the reminder. [Walking away from her.] Oh, I know you can feel only the most utter contempt for me-wholesale contempt. ZOE [entreatingly]. Ah, no; don't take that tone. THEODORE. Stand the naughty boy in the corner; he's earned any amount of humiliation you choose to inflict. ZOE. You shall never be humiliated by me, Theo. THEODORE [throwing himself upon the settee on the left]. Evidently! ZOE [turning away]. Oh, for God's sake, don't let's begin fighting again [sitting on the settee on the right]; don't let's do that. THEODORE. Ha, ha! No, no; we won't squabble. Right you are; I accept the terms-any terms. [Lying at full length upon his back on the settee.] As you say, we've been little more than friends of late years-good friends or bad. [Throwing one leg over the other.] It's your laying down the law so emphatically that riled me. Sorry I growled. [There is MID-CHANNEL 543 silence between them. She watches him guiltily. Suddenly he changes the position of his legs.] Zo ZOE. Yes'? THEODORE [gazing at the ceiling]. At the same time, I'm blessed if I wouldn't rather you wanted to tear my eyes out than that you should treat me in this lofty, condescending style-scratch my face and tear my eyes out. ZOE. Well, I-I don't, you see. THEODORE [smiling unpleasantly]. Alice Annerly's an extremely handsome creature, my dear, whatever else she mav be. ZOE. I'm —I'm sure of it. THEODORE. Her photo's on the top of the piano. ZOE [restraining an impulse to glance over her shoulder]. I-I'm not curious. THEODORE. Ho! You mayn't be aware of the fact, but I've paid you the compliment of resenting the deep devotion your pet poodle-Master Lenny Ferris-has been paying you re-ently. You might do me a similar honor. [Meditatively.] Master-blooming-Lenny! [Again there is a pause; mnd then, slowly, he turns upon his side so that he may face mer.] I say, that was a pretty disgraceful business-your rapesing about Italy with that fellow. [Another pause.] Iey? ZOE [holding her breath]. It was-unwise of me, I own. THEODORE. Unwise! Peter and I were discussing it when Tour note was brought in. ZOE [moistening her lips]. Were you? THEODORE [harshly]. Yes, we were. [Another pause.] vly God, I think it's I who ought to dictate what our domestic Arrangements are to be in the future-not you! [A pause. Vith a motion of the head, he invites her to come to him.] ioe- [A pause.] Don't you hear me! [She hesitates; then she nerves herself and rises and, with a light step, crosses the room.] ZOE [resting her arms on the back of the chair at the further nd of the settee on which he is lying]. Still the same dear ld bully, I notice. 544 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO THEODORE. Sit down. ZOE. Your gentle voice is quite audible where I am. THEODORE [putting his feet to the ground]. You sit down a minute. ZOE. Puh! [She sits haughtily.] THEODORE. Now, you look here, my lady; I should like an account of that Italian affair from the word go. ZOE. I'm not in the mood to furnish it. THEODORE. Perhaps not; but I'm in the mood to receive it. [A pause.] When did he join you? ZOE. He-he didn't join me; that's not the way to put it. THEODORE. Put it any way you like. When was it? ZOE. At the-end of February, I think. THEODORE. You think! [A pause.] What made him go out to you? ZOE. He knew I was awfully in the dumpsTHEODORE. Did he? How did he know that? ZOE. He-guessed I must be. THEODORE. Guessed! ZoE. Well, I'd seen him before I went away. I was dreadfully depressed, Theo-dreadfully desolee. I never thought you'd bang out of the house as you did. I never meant, for a single moment — THEODORE. Where were you when he turned up? ZOB. I-I'd got to Florence. I'd been to Genoa and PisaI was drifting aboutTHEODORE. Did he dream you were in Florence? ZOE. Dream? THEODORE. He must have dreamt it. ZOE. Oh, I see what you're driving at. He-he'd had a post-card from meTHEODORE. A post-card! ZOE [feebly]. I-I don't mean one-you-you silly! I-I sent him a picture from each town-so I did to PeterTHEODORE. Why don't you admit that you and Ferris were corresponding? ZOE. I-I am admitting it. It's nothing to admit. MID-CHANNEL 545 THEODORE. Isn't it? [A pause.] Well, he arrives in Florence -? ZOE. Don't worry me this afternoon, TheoTHEODORE. How long was he with you in Florence? ZOE. I'm seedy; I had quite a temperature yesterday. Lena called in Rashleigh THEODORE. How long was he with you in Florence? ZOE. He wasn't "with" me. THEODORE. How long? ZOE. A week-eight daysTHEODORE. Same hotel? ZOE. No, no, no! THEODORE. And afterward —? ZOE. I wanted to do a little tour of the quiet old placesPerugia-SienaTHEODORE. So did he, hey? ZOE. He tacked on. I saw no harm in it at the time. THEODORE. At the time! ZOE. Nor do I now. THEODORE. It was coming from Perugia you fell up against Lowenstein. ZOE. If you were a man you'd thrash that beast. THEODORE. Lowenstein had the room at the hotel therehe Brufani —that Ferris had had. ZOE [protestingly]. Ah-! THEODORE. In the same corridor as yours was. ZOE. It was stupid-stupid-stupid of Lenny to let them arry his bag up to the Brufani. It was all done before-,efore it dawned on himTHEODORE. Where were you moving on to when Lowentein met you at Arezzo? [A pause.] Hey? ZOE [passing her hand across her brow, weakly]. Let me off o-day, Theo; my head's going like a clock. [Getting to her set.] Take it up again another time. [She goes to the settee n the right and picks up her bag which she has left there. He ises and follows her, so that when she turns they come face v face. She steadies herself.] Well, you turn it over in your 546 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO mind about coming back to me. I don't want to put pressure on you; only I-I understood from Peter you were feeling kindly toward me again. THEODORE [quietly]. When did you see Ferris last? ZOE. Oh, drop Ferris. THEODORE. When? ZOE. Oh-over two months ago-at the end of the little jaunt. THEODORE. Not since? [She looks at him vacantly and shakes her head.] That's a lie. He was with you on Monday morning at half-past eleven. D'ye deny it? ZOE. You-you're so jealous, one-one's afraidTHEODORE [with sudden, fierce earnestness]. ZoeZOE [helplessly]. I'm not going to remain here to be THEODORE. Give me your word nothing wrong's occurred between you and Ferris. [A pause.] I don't ask for your oath; I'll be satisfied with your word. [A pause.] Give me your word. [She sits upon the settee, her hands lying in her lap.] ZOE [staring at him]. Theo-I've forgiven you; forgive me. [There is a silence and then, dumbfounded, he moves to the chair at the further end of the settee on the left and sits there.] THEODORE [after a while]. Florence? ZOE. No. Perugia-Siena [Brokenly.] It was ir Florence I first lost my senses. I'd been pitying you, hating myself for the way I'd served you, and had been trying t( concoct a letter to you. And then one arrived from him, tell. ing me you'd taken this big flat and were having a splendic time. It made me furious; and when he came through to me I was half beside myself. And then he planned out the little tour, and I said Yes to it. [Wringing her hands.] Why! Whdid I fall in with it! I shall never know why-except that was mad-blind mad —! [Leaning back, her eyes closed. Get me a drop o' water. [He rouses himself and goes to the table on the left o the fireplace and half fills a tumbler with soda-wate? MID-CHANNEL 547 Then he brings her the tumbler and holds it out to her.] THEODORE. HereZOE [opening her eyes and looking up at him beseechingly]. Be-merciful to me. THEODORE [peremptorily]. Take it. ZOE [barely touching the glass]. Don't-don't be hard on me, old man. [He thrusts the tumbler into her hand and she drinks.] THEODORE [heavily]. I-I must have some advice about this-some advice. ZOE. Advice? [He goes to the writing-table, sits there, and places the telephone-receiver to his ear.] You-you won't do anything to disgrace me publicly, will you, Theo? [He taps the arm of the instrument impatiently.] You won't do anything spiteful? [He rings again.] You and I are both sinners, Theo; we've both gone a mucker. THEODORE [speaking into the telephone]. London Wall, one, three, double five, eight. ZOE. That's Peter. He won't advise you to do anything spiteful. [She rises painfully, puts the tumbler on the top of the piano, and walks about the room.] What can you do? You can do nothing to hurt me; nor I you. We're both sinners. THEODORE [into the telephone]. Hallo!.. Are you Blundell, Slade and Mottram?... Is that Mr. Ewart?...Mr. Blundell.... Mr. Mottram not back yet, I suppose?.. ZOE [in a murmur]. Both-both gone a mucker. THEODORE [into the telephone].... When he comes in, tell him I want to see him at once.... Cavendish Square... at once.... [Replacing the receiver.] Good-bye. ZOE [on the left]. Peter-Peter won't let you-be too rough on me. THEODORE [leaning his head on his hands]. Ho, ho! An,ye-opener for Peter! But he's been a first-rate prophet all;he same. [In a muffled voice.] Yes, Peter's been right all vlong the line, with his precious mid-Channel! 548 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE [looking at him and speaking in low, measured tones]. Theo [He makes no response.] Theo — [Coming to him slowly.] I-I was thinking it over-beating it all outdriving into the city and back again. Our marriage was doomed long, long before we reached mid-Channel. THEODORE [absently, not stirring]. Oh? ZOE. It was doomed nearly fourteen years ago. THEODORE [as before]. Oh? ZOE. From the very beginning. THEODORE [raising his head]. What d'ye — ZOE. It was doomed from the moment we agreed that we'd never be encumbered in our career with any-brats of children. [He partly turns in his chair, to listen to her.] I want you to remember that bargain, in judging me; and I want you to tell Peter of it. THEODORE. Yes, it suits you to rake that up nowZOE [pressing her fingers to her temples]. If there had been "brats of children" at home, it would have made a different woman of me Theo; such a different woman of me-and a different man of you. But, no; everything in the earlier years of our marriage was sacrificed to coining money-to shoving our way through the crowd-to "getting on"; everything was sacrificed to that. THEODORE [angrily]. Oh —! ZOE. And then, when we had succeeded-when we had got on-we had commenced to draw apart from each other; and there was the great, showy, empty house at Lancaster Gate for me to fret and pine in. [He waves his arm scornfully.] Oh, yes, we were happy in those climbing days-greedily, feverishly happy; but we didn't look to the time when we should need another interest in life to bind us together-the time when we'd got on in years as well as in position. [THEODORE starts up.] Ah, Theo, I believe we should have crossed thai Ridge safely enough [laying her hands upon his breast] but for our cursed, cursed selfishness-! THEODORE [shaking himself free]. Well, there's not the slightest use in talking about what might, or might not, have M~ID -CHANNEL NE 549 been. [Passing her and pacing the room.] One thing is absolutely certain-it's impossible for us ever to live under the same roof again under any conditions. That's out o' the question; I couldn't stoop to that. ZOE [leaning against the chair at the writing-table]. No, you draw the line at stooping to Mrs. Annerly. THEODORE:. Oh, don't keep on harping on that string. The cases are as far apart as the poles. ZOE [faintly]. Ha, hal THEODORE [halting in the middle of the room and drumming upon his brow with his fingers]. Of course, we can make our separation a legal one; but that wouldn't give us release. And as long as we're tied to one another-[abruptly, looking at her]. ZoeZOE [meekly]. Eh? THEODORE. If I allowed you to divorce me-made it easy for you-would Ferris-would that scoundrel marry you? ZOE [turning to him, blankly]. M-marry me? THEODORE. Because-if it 'ud save you from going utterly to the badZOE [advancing a step or two]. No, no; I wouldn't-I wouldn't marry Lenny. THEODORE [after a moment's pause, sharply]. You wouldn't? ZOE. Nc-no — THEODORE [coming close to her]. Why not? [She shrugs her shoulders confusedly.] Why not? [She wavers, then grasps his arm. Again he shakes her off.] ZOE [appealingly]. Oh, Theo, stick to me. Don't throw me over. Wait-wait for Peter. Theo, I've never ceased to be fond of you — THEODORE. Faugh! ZOE. Not at the bottom of my heart. No, nor you of me; there's the tragedy of it. Peter says the same. [Seizing his hand.] Take time; don't decide to-day 550 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO THEODORE [freeing his hand and looking at her piercingly]. When did you see him last? ZOE. H-him? THEODORE. Ferris. ZOE. This-this morning. THEODORE. This morning! ZOE. I-I confess-this morning. I-I sent him away. THEODORE. Sent him-away? ZOE [nodding]. Yes-yesTHEODORE [slowly]. And so you rush off to me-straight from the young gentlemanZOE. W-well? THEODORE [suddenly]. Why, damn you, you've quarreled! ZOE. NoTHEODORE. He's chucked you-! ZOE. NOTHEODORE. Had enough of you! ZOE [her eyes blazing]. That's not true! THEODORE. Ho, ho! You bring me his cast-off trash, do you-! ZOE. It's a lie! THEODORE. Mr. Lenny Ferris's leavings! ZOE. It's a lie! He'd give his soul to make me his wife. THEODORE. Will he tell me that? ZOE. Tell you! THEODORE [between his teeth]. If he doesn't, I'll break every bone in his carcase. ZOE [throwing her head up defiantly]. Of course he'd tell you. THEODORE [walking away to the fireplace]. He shall have a chance of doing it. ZOE [making for the door, wildly]. The sooner the better! THEODORE [looking at his watch]. If Peter were here ZOE [behind the settee on the left, turning to THEODORE]. Mind! I've your bond! If Lenny promises to marry me, you'll let me free myself from you? THEODORE. I've said so. MID-CHANNEL 551 ZOE [missing her bag, which is again lying upon the settee on the left, and pointing to it]. Please [He picks up the bag, and is about to take it to her, when he remembers that he has the latch-key in his pocket. He produces the key and drops it into the bag.] THEODORE [as he does so]. You'll want this for your new husband. ZOE. Thank God, I've done with the old one! [He tosses the bag to her in a fury and she catches it.] Ha, ha! [At the door.] Ta, ta! [She disappears.] THEODORE [flourishing his hands]. Oh! [Going to the piano, he takes the decanter of brandy and a glass from the tray and fills the glass to the brim.] END OF THE THIRD ACT THE FOURTH ACT The scene is a pretty, irregularly-shaped room, simply but tastefully furnished. At the back, facing the spectator, are twb double-windows opening to the floor. These windows give on to a balcony which appears to continue its course outside the adjoining rooms both on the right and left. Beyond the balcony there is an open space and, in the distance, a view of the upper part of the Albert Hall and of other lofty buildings. On the left is the fireplace-its grate empty, save for a few pots of flowers —and, nearer the spectator, there is a door opening from a corridor. Opposite this door is a door'of like dimensions, admitting to a bedroom. On either side of the fireplace and of the left-hand window there is an armchair; facing the fireplace there is a settee; and at the back.of the settee are a small writing-table and writing-chair. A leathern tub for waste-paper stands beside the writing-table. 552 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO On the right of the room is a round table upon which tea is laid for three persons. Two chairs-one on the left, another at the further side-and a settee on the right are drawn up close to this table. Elsewhere are a book-case, a smoking cabinet, and some odds and endq of furniture-the whole being characteristic of a room in a small flat occupied by a well-todo, but not wealthy, young man. Both the windows are open, and the glare of the afternoon sun is on the balcony and the opposite buildings. [MRS. PIERPOINT, ETHEL, and LEONARD-the ladies in their hats and gaily dressed-are seated at the round table.] LEONARD [in the chair on the left of the table-handing a dish of cakes to MRS. PIERPOINT]. Do try one of these little cakes. MRS. PIERPOINT [in the chair at the further side of the table]. I couldn't. LEONARD. I bought them and carried 'em home myself. MRS. PIERPOINT. You really must excuse me. LEONARD [pushing the dish toward ETHEL, who is on the settee facing him]. Buck up, Ethel. ETHEL. Good-bye to my dinner, then. [Taking a cake and biting it as she speaks.] May I, mother? MRS. PIERPOINT [cheerfully]. Now, isn't that the modern young lady exactly! May I, mother! And the cake is half eaten before the poor mother can even nod her head. ETHEL [laughing]. Ha, ha! MRS. PIERPOINT. May I go out for a walk, mother; and the front door bangs on the very words! May I do this; may I do that! And a nice life the mother leads if she dares to say No. ETHEL. This sounds suspiciously like a sermon. [To LEONARD.] Lenny, sit up straight and be preached to. [Pushing her cup to MRS. PIERPOINT who has the tea-tray before her.] Another cup of tea, your reverence. MRS. PIERPOINT. Ethel! How-how irreligious! [Pouring out tea.] Ah, but it's true, every syllable of it. And in nothing is this spirit of-what shall I describe it as? AMID-CHANNEL 553 ETHEL. Go-as-you-pleasedness. MRS. PIERPOINT [giving ETHEL her tea]. In nothing is this wilful, thoughtless spirit more plainly shown than in the way love-affairs are conducted at the present day. ETHEL [whistling slyly]. Phew! MRS. PIERPOINT [to LEONARD]. More tea, Leonard? LEONARD. No, thanks. MRS. PIERPOINT [resignedly]. I suppose I must call you Leonard now? ETHEL [into her teacup]. What's the matter with "Lenny"? MRS. PIERPOINT. I may be wrong, but I don't think that it was the fashion in my youth for a young lady suddenly to appear before her mother and to say, without a note of warning, "Mr. So-and-so is in the drawing-room and we wish to be engaged." Take the case of Ethel's papa-there's a case in pointLEONARD. I certainly intended to speak to you first, Mrs. Pierpoint. ETHEL [to LEONARD]. You fibber! MRS. PIERPOINT. Ethel! LEONARD. Well, I-what I mean isETHEL. If yOU had done so, I'd never have looked at you again. Surely, if there is one thing which is a girl's own particular business, it is settling preliminaries with her best young man. MRS. PIERPOINT. My dear! ETHEL [jumping up]. Anyhow, mother, if you wanted to play the dragon, you shouldn't have been up-stairs, sleeping off the effects of an exceedingly heavy lunch, when Lenny arrived this afternoon. MRS. PIERPOINT. Fiddle, heavy lunch! A morsel of minced chicken-! ETHEL. Ha, ha! [Bending over MRS. PIERPOINT.] And you don't mind, do you-not actually-[kissing MRS. PIERPOINT] as long as? MRS. PIERPOINT. As long as what? 554 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ETHEL. As long as-Lenny's contented? MRS. PIERPOINT [shaking herself]. Oh, go away. [Laughingly, ETHEL wanders about inspecting the various objects in the room.] LEONARD [to MRS. PIERPOINT, producing his cigarette-case]. Do you object? MRS. PIERPOINT. Not in the least. Ethel's papa used to indulge, in moderation. LEONARD [to ETHEL, over his shoulder]. Cigarette, Ethel? MRS. PIERPOINT. Ethel, I forbid it. ETHEL [putting on her gloves]. I would, but it makes me swimmy. MRS. PIERPOINT [to ETHEL]. How do you know? ETHEL. I've smoked with Zoe Blundell. MRS. PIERPOINT. This is news to me. ETHEL. Zoe smokes like a chimney. MRS. PIERPOINT [to LEONARD]. By-the-by, she's in London again. LEONARD [uncomfortably]. Yes-yes. MRS. PIERPOINT. Ethel called on her this morning at Lan-,caster Gate. LEONAiRD. Did she? ETHEL [to LEONARD]. I told you, Len. LEONARD. Ah, yes. MRS. PIERPOINT [to LEONARD]. Have you seen her? I pre-:sume not. LEONARD. Er-for a few minutes. I was in the neighborhood on-on Monday, and I noticed the blinds were up, and LI-I just rang the bell to-to inquire. MRS. PIERPOINT [elevating her eyebrows]. She received you? LEONARD. She-she happened to be in the hall. MRS. PIERPOINT. I was going to say-a woman in her peculiar position ought hardlyLEONARD. No, of course. MRS. PIERPOINT. Looks ill, I understand? ETHEL. Frightfully. MID-CHANNEL 555 LEONARD. Does she? MRS. PIERPOINT. I am afraid-I am very much afraidthat dear Mrs. Blundell was not entirely free from blame in her treatment of that big, rough husband of hers. ETHEL [at the left-hand window]. Rubbish, mother! MRS. PIERPOINT. Ethel, you are too disrespectful. ETHEL. Sorry. MRS. PIERPOINT. At the same time, she is an exceedingly attractive person-a trifle vulgar, poor soul, occasionallyETHEL [hotly]. Mother! MRS. PIERPOINT [to LEONARD]. But good-natured people frequently are vulgar, aren't they? ETHEL [going on to the balcony]. Oh! MRS. PIERPOINT [to LEONARD]. You were quite'a friend of hers before the sad split, weren't you-quite a friend? LEONARD. Yes, I-I always found her a very decent sort. ETHEL [her hands upon the rail of the balustrade, calling]. Mother, do come and look at the tiny men and women. MRS. PIERPOINT. Men and women? [MRS. PIERPOINT rises and goes to the window, whereupon LEONARD jumps up as if relieved by the interruption.] You're soiling your gloves, Ethel. ETHEL. Look down there. What tots! MRS. PIERPOINT [drawing back from the window]. Oh, my dear, I can'tETHEL. Do, mother. MRS. PIERPOINT. You know I don't care for heights. ETHEL. I'll steady you. [MRS. PIERPOINT timidly ventures on to the balcony. ETHEL takes her arm.] There's been a concert-or a meeting. [Calling.] Lenny[LEONARD has walked away to the writing-table gloomily. He is about to join the ladies on the balcony when the door on the left opens and RIDEOUT, his servant, appears.] LEONARD [to RIDEOUT]. Eh? [After glancing discreetly in the direction of the ladies on the balcony, RIDEOUT produces a visiting-card 556 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO from behind his back. LEONARD goes to him and takes the card, and looks at it in astonishment.] RIDEOUT [quietly]. There's some writing on it, sir. LEONARD. I see. [In a low voice.] Where is she? RIDEOUT. In my room, sir. I said you were engaged. LEONARD [uneasily]. You didn't tell her who's here. RIDEOUT. NO, sir; merely some friends to tea. LEONARD. All right. I sha'n't be very long. [RIDEOUT is going.] Tss-! RIDEOUT [stopping]. Yessir? LEONARD. Keep your door shut. RIDEOUT. Yessir [RIDEOUT withdraws. LEONARD crams the card into his waistcoat-pocket and is again about to join the ladies when MRS. PIERPOINT comes back into the room.] MRS. PIERPOINT [to LEONARD]. Thank you for showing us your charming little nest. Quite-quite delightful! LEONARD [standing by the round table]. Oh, for bachelor quartersMRS. PIERPOINT [in the middle of the room]. There! I declare I often wonder what there is to tempt a bachelor to marry in these days. LEONARD. You're not a bachelor, Mrs. Pierpoint. MRS. PIERPOINT. NO; that's true. That's perfectly true. But I've a distinct remembrance of the rooms Ethel's papa lived in when he was a bachelor. [ETHEL returns and goes to the fireplace.] They were in Keppel Street, and vastly different from these. [Turning to ETHEL.] Have I ever told you that poor papa lived in Keppel Street? ETHEL [demurely]. Yes, mother. MRS. PIERPOINT [to ETHEL]. And now, my dear, as we have to dine at half-past seven-[to LEONARD] what tine does Louise begin? — LEONARD. Oh, if we get there at nineMRS. PIERPOINT. So kind of you to take us-and as Ethel must lie down on her bed for an hour if we want her to look MID-CHANNEL 557 her best-[pointing to the tea-table] may I trouble you-my fan? — [LEONARD searches for MRS. PIERPOINT'S fan among the tea things.] ETHEL [kneeling upon the settee on the left, her elbows on the back of it, gazing into space]. MotherMRS. PIERPOINT. Eh? [Receiving her fan from LEONARD.] Thank you. ETHEL [slowly]. Mother-this is going to be an awfully happy night. MRS. PIERPOINT. I'm sure I hope so, my darling. It won't be my fault if it isn't-[tapping LEONARD'S shoulder with her fan] nor Leonard's. ETHEL. Ah, no; I mean the night of one's life perhaps. MRS. PIERPOINT. Oh, I trust we shall have many, manyLEONARD. Rather! ETHEL [raising herself and gripping the back of the settee]. No, no; you don't understand, you gabies. In everybody's life there's one especial momentMRS. PIERPOINT. Moment? ETHEL. Hour-day-night; when all the world seems yours-as if it had been made for you, and when you can't help pitying other people-they seem so ordinary and insignificant. Well, I believe this is to be my evening. MRS. PIERPOINT. One would imagine I had never given you any pleasure, to hear you talk. ETHEL [rising]. I say, mother, don't make me lie down, and lose consciousness, when I get home. [Going to MRS. PIERPOINT with extended arms.] Ah, ha! You duck —! [In advancing to MRS. PIERPOINT, ETHEL knocks over the waste-paper tub with her skirt and its contents are scattered on the floor.] ETHEL [going down on her knees and replacing the litter]. Sorry. MRS. PIERPOINT [to ETHEL]. You'll crease your skirt, Ethel. LEONARD [going to ETHEL]. Never mind that. 558 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ETHEL. Oh, but if I do anything clumsy at home- [Coming upon some fragments of a photograph.] Oh — [Trying to fit the pieces together.] Zoe! LEONARD. Yes, I-IMRS. PIERPOINT [who has moved to the fireplace]. Pray get off the floor, child. ETHEL [finding more pieces]. Why, you've been tearing up Zoe's photos. LEONARD. They're old things. ETHEL. That they're not. This one isn't, at all events. [Examining one of the scraps closely.] "-Firenze." MRS. PIERPOINT. Ethel, we must be going. LEONARD [almost roughly]. Leave them alone, Ethel. [A little startled by his tone, she drops the pieces into the basket and he assists her to rise.] MRS. PIERPOINT [opening the door on the left]. Come along at once, I insist. [MRS. PIERPOINT goes out. ETHEL is following her mother when she turns to LEONARD who is behind her.] ETHEL [to LEONARD, with a smile]. Sorry I contradicted you. [They kiss hurriedly and ETHEL runs after her mother. LEONARD follows and closes the door. After a little while, the door is reopened, and RIDEOUT enters with ZOE. ZOE is dressed as when last seen.] RIDEOUT [to ZOE, as she passes him]. Mr. Ferris has gone to the lift, ma'am. He won't be a minute. ZOE [going to the left-hand window, languidly]. All right. RIDEOUT [at the round table, putting the tea-things together upon the tray]. Shall I make you some tea, ma'am? ZOE [looking out of the window, speaking in a dull voice]. No; I've had tea, in a tea-shop. [Turning.] RideoutRIDEOUT. Yes, ma'am? ZOE. I should like to tidy myself, if I may; I've been walking about. MID-CHANNEL 559' RIDEOUT [going to the door on the right and opening it]. Cert'nly, ma'am. [As ZOE approaches.] The hot water flows cold for a few seconds, ma'am. ZOE. Is there any scent? RIDEOUT. There's some eau-de-cologne on the dressingtable, ma'am. [She disappears and RIDEOUT closes the door and continues his preparations for removing the tea-things. LEONARD returns.] RIDEOUT [answering a look of inquiry from LEONARD]. Mrs. Blundell's tidying herself, sir. LEONARD. Oh, yes. [Moving about the room, irritably.] Won't she have some tea? RIDEOUT. I did ask her, sir. She's had it. LEONARD [halting]. Did Mrs. Blundell-say anything, Rideout? RIDEOUT [folding the table-cloth]. Only that she wanted to see you just for ten minutes, sir, and that she thought she'd wait. And then she wrote on her card and told me to slip it into your hand if I got the opportunity. LEONARD [resuming his walk]. Yes, yes. RIDEOUT [after a pause]. What time'll you dress, sir? LEONARD. Quarter to seven. I have to dine at half-past. RIDEOUT. Which suit'll you wear, sir? LEONARD [considering]. Er-pink lining. RIDEOUT. Theatre, sir? LEONARD. Opera. Two pairs o' gloves. [RIDEOUT goes toward the door on the left, carrying the tea-tray.] Tss-! RIDEOUT. Yessir? LEONARD. There's no necessity to put out my clothes yet a while. RIDEOUT [placing the tray upon a piece of furniture so that he can open the door]. No, sir. LEONARD. I'll ring when you can come through. RIDEOUT [opening the door]. Yessir. LEONARD. And I'm not at home to anybody else. 560 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO RIDEOUT [taking up the tray]. No, sir. [As the man is leaving the room, LEONARD comes to the door to close it.] Thank you very much, sir. [RIDEOUT goes out and LEONARD shuts the door. As he turns from the door, his eyes fall upon the wastepaper tub. He snatches it up angrily.] LEONARD [reopening the door and calling]. RideoutRIDEOUT [out of sight]. Yessir? [RIDEOUT presents himself at the door without the tray.] LEONARD [shaking up the contents of the tub and then giving it to RIDEOUT]. Burn this waste-paper. RIDEOUT. Yessir. [RIDEOUT closes the door and LEONARD is again walking about the room when ZOE, carrying her hat, gloves, and bag, appears on the balcony outside the right-hand window. She enters and they look at one another for a moment without speaking.] LEONARD. Hallo, Zo! ZOE. Hallo, Len! LEONARD. This is a surprise. ZOE [putting her hat, gloves, and bag upon the round table -nervously]. Is it? LEONARD. I thought you'd dropped my acquaintance for good and all. ZOE. N-no, Len. Why should you think that? LEONARD. Ha! Well, I bear the marks of the point of your shoe somewhere about me. ZOE. Oh, you-you mustn't take me too seriously when I'm in one of my vile tempers. [A pause.] I-I'm notkeeping you —? LEONARD. No, no. ZOE [turning the chair on the left of the round table so that it faces the writing-table]. May I sit down? LEONARD. Do. ZOE. I was here three-quarters of an hour ago, but the porter said you were out; so I went and got some tea. [Sitting.] You've been entertaining, according to Rideout. MID-CHANNEL 561 LEONARD [turning the chair at the writing-table and sitting facing her]. A couple o' people turned up-old friends - ZOE. You are a gay dog. [Suddenly, staring at the writing-table.] Why-where-where am I? LEONARD. You? ZOE. You always have a photograph of me, standing on your writing-table. LEONARD. 0-oh, it'sZOE [remembering]. And there isn't one now-[glancing at the door on the right] in your-! LEONARD. The frames had got beastly shabby. Rideout's taken 'em to be done up. ZOE [flutteringly]. Honor? [A pause.] Honor? LEONARD. If-if I say so — ZOE. I beg your pardon. No, you wouldn't out my photos because of a-because of a little tiff, would you? LEONARD. L-likely! ZOE [rising and going to him]. I'm sure you wouldn't, dear boy; I'm sure you wouldn't. [Again there is a pause, during which she passes her hand.over his shoulder caressingly.] LenLEONARD. Eh? ZOE [standing behind him]. After that-stupid fall-out of ours this morning-what d'ye think I did? LEONARD. Did? ZOE. Ha, ha! I-I took it into my head'to pay Theodore a visit. LEONARD. Pay him a visit! ZOE. It-it was one of my silly impulses-I was so upset at having offended you LEONARD. Did you see him? ZOE. Y-yes. LEONARD. And what had he to say for himself? ZOE. Oh, I-I made such a mash of it, Len. LEONARD. Mash? ZOE. Yes, I-I let him worm it out of me. LEONARD. Worm it out of you? 562 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO ZOE. Worm it-all out — LEONARD. Worm what out of you? ZOE [faintly]. P-Perugia [There is a silence, and then LEONARD rises with an angry look.] ZOE [holding the lapels of his coat]. Don't be savage with me, Len. It wasn't altogether my fault. He had heard of it from Claud Lowenstein. And it's of no consequence; none whatever. It's just as you said this morning-he is ready to make matters smooth for us. LEONARD [blankly]. Smooth-for us! ZOE. Yes, to let me divorce him. He's promised-he's promised to do so, if you'll-onlyLEONARD [his jaw dropping]. If I-? ZOE. If you'll give him your word that you'll do the right thing by me. LEONARD. The right thing-! ZOE. Marry me. [A pause.] I-I suppose he-I suppose he'll demand to see you. Or perhaps he'll make Peter Mottram a go-between. [Again there is a silence, and then he walks away from her. She follows him with her eyes.] LEONARD [thickly]. But you-you wished me good-bye this morning-finished with me. ZOE [clenching her hands]. I know-I know! [Coming to him.] But he-he insulted me, Len-stung me. He flung it in my face that you-that you'd chucked me; that I was your cast-off, your leavings. I couldn't bear it from him; and I-I told him that you were all eagerness to make me your wife. [A pause.] Well! And so you were-this morning! [He sits in the chair on the left of the round table, his elbows on his knees, holding his head.] LEONARD. Zoe ZOE. W-what? LEONARD. These people I've had to tea this afternoonladies-two ladies ZOE. Yes? MID-CHANNEL 563 LEONARD. Mrs. Pierpoint was one of thetn-and-andZOE. Mrs. Pierpoint-? LEONARD [raising his head and looking at her]. The other was-Ethel. ZOE. Eth-el! LEONARD [in a low voice]. You-you made me do it. ZOE [dazed]. I-I made you! [Drawing a deep breath.] Oh-h-h! [She turns from him slowly, and seats herself in the chair at the writing-table.] I-I'd forgotten Ethel. LEONARD. Yes, you persuaded me to do it. [A pause.] Zo, you egged me on to do it. ZOE [quietly]. You-you didn't lose much time, did you? LEONARD. I-I was furious when I left you-furious. ZOE [with an attempt at a smile]. Why, you-you must have bolted straight off to her. LEONARD. I-I went to the club and had some food; and then I came back here and changed-andZOE. Got rid of those photos! LEONARD. I was furious-furious. ZOE. And then you-you bustled off to Sloane Street! [He rises and paces the room. After a while she pulls herself together.] Oh, well, it-it can't be helped, old boy. LEONARD [agitatedly]. It must be helped; it must be helped. ] must get out of it; I must get out of it. Somehow or other, I must get out of it. ZOE. Get out of it? LEONARD. The-the Pierpoints-! ZOE. Oh, don't talk such utter rubbish; I'd kill myself sooner. [He throws himself into the chair on the right of the left-hand window.] No, I'm a rotter, Len, but I'm not as low as that. Oh, no, I'm not as low as all that. [She rises and goes slowly to the round table and, in a listless way, pulls the pins out of her hat.] I-I'll be toddling home now. [Tracing a pattern on the crown of her hat with the hat-pins.] Home —! [Knitting her brows.] I shall clear out of that-big-flashy -empty ---! [Putting on her hat.] Ha, ha! I have made a mash of it, haven't I? My father always said I was a heed 564 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO less, irresponsible little puss. [With a puzzled look, her arms hanging at her side.] There was a lot o' good in me, too-any amount o' good[She is drawing on a glove when she turns her head in the direction of the door on the left. At the same moment, LEONARD, also looking at the door, gets to his feet.] ZOE [listening]. What's that, dear? [He tiptoes to the door, opens it an inch or two, and puts his ear to the opening.] LEONARD [carefully closing the door and turning to her]. Blundell. ZOE [under her breath]. Oh I LEONARD [in a whisper]. Don't worry. I've told Rideout- [There is a pause. They stand looking at each other in silence, waiting. Suddenly LEONARD returns to the door, and without opening it, listens again.] Curse the brute, he won't gol [He faces her irresolutely and, in a panic, she picks up her bag and her other glove and runs out at the door on the right. LEONARD is in the middle of the room when the door on the left is thrown open and THEODORE and PETER enter followed by RIDEOUT. THEODORE and PETER have their hats on.] RIDEOUT [to LEONARD]. I-I beg your pardon, sir — LEONARD [to RIDEOUT]. All right. THEODORE [to PETER, with a hoarse laugh]. You give the man half a sovereign, Peter; that'll soothe his feelings. PETER [to THEODORE, sharply]. Sssh, sssh! Theo-! [RIDEOUT withdraws.] THEODORE [advancing to LEONARD]. Ho! Not at home, hey? LEONARD [facing him]. No, I'm not; not to you. PETER. You be quiet, Ferris. LEONARD [to THEODORE]. What the devil do you mean by forcing your way into my place? MID-CHANNEL 565 THEODORE [raising a walking-cane which he carries]. You —! [PETER quickly puts himself between the two men as LEONARD seizes the chair on the left of the round table.] PETER [to THEODORE, endeavoring to get the walking-cane from him]. Give me that. [To LEONARD.] You keep a civil tongue in your head. [To THEODORE.] Give it me. [Holding the cane.] You know what you promised. Give it up. [THEODORE resigns the cane to PETER and walks away to the fireplace where he stands with his back to the others. PETER lays the cane upon the writing-table and then turns to LEONARD.] You ought to be ashamed o' yourself. [Lowering his voice.] You see the man's laborin' under great excitement. LEONARD [sullenly]. I dare say a good many people in London are laboring under excitement. That's no reason why they should have the run of my flat. PETER [coolly]. Will you oblige me by sittin' down and listenin' to me for a moment? LEONARD. Any man who treats me courteously'll be treated courteously in return. [Sitting in the chair on the left of the round table.] I can do with you, Peter. PETER. Can you? Then you'll be so kind as to drop addressin' me by my Christian-name. [Sitting in the chair at the writing-table.] Ferris — LEONARDI [curling his lip]. Yes, Mister Mottram? PETER. Mrs. Blundell called upon her husband to-daythis afternoon, about three o'clockLEONARD [with an assumption of ease]. Oh! Did she? PETER. And made a communication to him-a communication of a very painful, very shockin' character. [A pause.] I presoom you don't require me-or Blundell-to enter into particklers? LEONARD [in a low voice]. Oh, for heaven's sake, no. PETER. We may take it, without goin' further, that what Mrs. Blundell has stated is absolutely the truth? 566 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO LEONARD. Absolutely. [A pause. THEODORE moves from the fireplace to the left-hand window and stands there staring at the prospect.] One thing, though, she mayn't have stated as clearly as she might — PETER. What's that? LEONARD. That she-that she's an injured woman-badly dealt with by her husband, and worse by your humble servant; andPETER. And? LEONARD. And that both Blundell and I damn well deserve to be hanged. [THEODORE turns to LEONARD fiercely.] PETER [to THEODORE]. Well! Have you any objection to that? [THEODORE draws himself up, as if to retort; then his body relaxes and he drops into the chair on the left of the window.] PETER [to LEONARD]. Now, then! Attend to me. LEONARD. Yes? PETER. Obviously it's impossible, after what's transpired, that Mr. and Mrs. Blundell should ever live together again. LEONARD [slightly surprised]. She didn't-? PETER. I believe there was an idea that her husband should go back to Lancaster Gate. [With a wave of the hand.] But we needn't discuss that. We'd better come at once to the object of this meetin'. LEONARD. Object-? PETER. The best method of providin' for the safety-and happiness, we hope-of the unfortunate lady who's gone and made a bit of a munge of her affairs. LEONARD [steadily]. Yes? PETER [deliberately]. Ferris, Mrs. Blundell has given her husband to understand that, if existin' obstacles were removed -if she were a free woman, in point o' fact-you'd be willin' to marry her. LEONARD. She's correct. PETER. That you're keen on it. LEONARD [with a nod]. Keen on it. MID-CHANNEL 567 PETER. Good. [Dropping his voice.] We're all tiled here. Are you prepared to give Blundell your word of-of? LEONARD. Honor? Can't you say it? [Hotly.] D'ye think that, because a fellow's done a scoundrelly act once in his life —! PETER. That'll do-your word of honor. That bein' so, Blundell undertakes, on his part, not to oppose Mrs. Blundell's action for divorce. On the contrary [Turning to THEODORE.] Theo? THEODORE. H'm? PETER. Your word of honor? THEODORE [in a muffled voice]. My-word of honor. PETER [to THEODORE and LEONARD, shortly]. Thank'ee. And both of you empower me to-to go to Mrs. Zoe-? [A pause. PETER turns to THEODORE.] Eh? THEODORE. Yes. PETER [to LEONARD]. And you? [LEONARD is silent.] What's the matter? LEONARD [after a further pause, slowly]. Look here. I don't want either of you two men to suspect me of-of playing double PETER. Playing double! LEONARD. I tell you honestly-Mrs. Blundell-Mrs. Blundell declines PETER. Declines? LEONARD. Yes; she-she refuses- [THEODORE rises.] PETER [also rising-to THEODORE]. Sssh! You keep out of it. [To LEONARD.] Ah, but you haven't seen Mrs. Blundell since -? THEODORE [to PETER, prompting him]. Since she left me to-day — PETER [to LEONARD]. Since she left her husband this afternoon-[a pause] have you? LEONARD. Y-yes; I have. THEODORE [to PETER]. Where? PETER [to LEONARD]. Where? [There is a further silence.] 568 SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO THEODORE [under his breath]. What's this game, Peter? [Loudly.] What's this game? PETER [restraining him]. Don't you interfere. [To LEONARD.] FerrisLEONARD [rising]. Mottram-Mrs. Blundell called on me -about a quarter of an hour ago. We-we were talking the matter over in this room when we heard Blundell kicking up a riot in the passage. [Glancing at the door on the right.] She-she's here. [There is a movement from THEODORE.] Mottram, I-I depend on you [PETER looks at THEODORE who, in obedience to the look, goes back to the fireplace. LEONARD moves to the door on the right and then turns.] LEONARD [speaking across the room to THEODORE]. Blundell, I-I've given you my word of honor-and-and I abide by Mrs. Blundell's decision. [To PETER, pointing to THEODORE.] Mottram, I-I depend on you- [He opens the door and calls softly.] Mrs. Blundell- [There is no response.] Mrs. BlundellTHEODORE [looking down into the grate]. Call her Zoe. [Laughing again hoarsely.] Why the devil don't you call her Zoe? LEONARD [calling]. Zoe — [Still obtaining no reply, he goes into the next room. THEODORE comes to PETER.] THEODORE [to PETER]. Some game up, hey? PETER. Sssh, sssh! THEODORE. What is it? What trick is she up to now, hey? [LEONARD reappears.] LEONARD [standing in the doorway, bewildered]. I-I can't make it out. PETER. What? LEONARD. She-she's not there. THEODORE. Ha! Hooked it? LEONARD [looking toward the balcony]. She must have gone, along the balcony without our noticing her, and through the kitchen. [Looking at PETER.] She must have done so. MID-CHANNEL 569 PETER. Why? LEONARD. You know there's no other door[He crosses to the door on the left. As he gets to it, it opens and RIDEOUT presents himself.] RIDEOUT [in an odd voice]. SirLEONARD [to RIDEOUT]. Has anybody passed through your kitchen? RIDEOUT. N-no, sir. LEONARD [after a pause, sharply]. What d'ye want? RIDEOUT. There-there's been an accident, sir. LEONARD. Accident —? [At this moment THEODORE and PETER turn their heads toward the balcony as if they are listening to some sounds reaching them from a distance. Giving LEONAR) a frightened look, RIDEOUT withdraws quickly. LEONARD turns to THEODORE and PETER in time to see them hurrying on to the balcony through the lefthand window. He follows them as far as the window and recoils before them as they come back into the room after looking over the balustrade.] THEODORE [staggering to the door on the left]. Oh, my God; oh, my God; oh, my God-! [He disappears.] LEONARD [to PETER, shaking a trembling hand at him]. An accident! It's an accident! [Coming to PETER, appealingly.] An accident,! PETER. Yes-an accident — [Gripping LEONARD'S arm.] She told me once it would be in the winter time-! [They go out together.] THE END APPENDIX NOTES ON AUTHORS THOMAS HEYWOOD. Few of the facts of Thomas Heywood's life are known with any certainty. He is believed to have been born in Lincolnshire about 1575 and by 1596 to have established himself in London as a playwright and actor. He may have been a student at Cambridge. The bulk of Heywood's work is greater than that of any other Elizabethan dramatist; by his own statement he had written or collaborated in writing more than two hundred plays, as well as a mass of other works. He died about 1650. Of Heywood's extant plays the best known are A Woman Killed with Kindness (1603), and The Fair Maid of the West (1617). The English Traveller (printed 1633) is another domestic tragedy. GEORGE LILLO was born in London in 1693. Not a great deal is known about his early life; he seems to have grown up in his father's trade, that of jeweler, and he achieved some prominence in the merchant class of the city. Lillo was the author of several plays of various types but only his domestic tragedies are of any importance historically. He died in 1739. In addition to The London Merchant, Lillo wrote Silvia, or the Country Burial (1730); The Christian Hero (1735); Fatal Curiosity (1736). He also adapted Shakespeare's Pericles under the title of Marina (1738), and began an adaptation of Arden of Feversham (1736). CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH HEBBEL was born in Holstein in 1813. His circumstances were poor, but an early talent for poetry gained him a benefactor who made it possible for him to study at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich, where he read philosophy, history, and literature. In 573 574 APPENDIX 1839 he went to Hamburg where he wrote Judith, his first tragedy, a successful performance of which in Berlin brought him early fame. He lived for a while in Paris and in Italy, but finally settled in Vienna where he remained until his death in 1863. Hebbel's principal plays are Judith (1839); Maria Magdalena (1844); Herod and Mariamne (1850); Julia (1851); Michael Angelo (1851); Agnes Bernauer (1855); and a trilogy, Die Nibelungen (1862). AUGUST STRINDBERG was born in 1849 at Stockholm, Sweden. Though confronted with serious financial difficulties, he studied for a while at the University of Upsala, writing his first drama at this time, though it was not until 1878 that he succeeded in having a play accepted for the theater. His creative energy was tremendous; between 1869 and 1912, when he died, he wrote fifty-two plays as well as stories and novels. Much of his work, particularly in the novel, is autobiographical, either openly so or very thinly veiled, and reflects the morbid state of mind into which his unhappy life and unfortunate marital experiences had led him. In the plays of his last years, however, he shows, like Ibsen, a tendency to return to the idealism of his early plays such as Lucky Pehr (1883), and to abandon the naturalistic drama for which he is best known. Below is printed a selected list of his plays: The Father (1887), Miss Julia (1888), Creditors (1890), Pariah (1890), The Stronger (1890), Motherlove (1893), Facing Death (1893), Playing with Fire (1897), There Are Crimes and Crimes (1899), Christmas (1899), The Dance of Death, I (1901), The Dance of Death, II (1901). HENRIK IBSEN was born in 1828 at Skien, Norway. He served an apprenticeship to an apothecary, and then studied at the University of Christiania, beginning his literary career about this time. For seven years he directed theaters there and in Bergen, but departed for Germany in 1864, where, except for a short period, he made his home until 1891. At this time he returned to Christiania, remaining there until his APPENDIX 575 death in 1906. His life was marked by trials and struggles, first with poverty and later with the social forces against which he had to contend to gain recognition. He succeeded, however, in time to enjoy many years of popularity, and his death was felt as a national calamity in Norway. Ibsen wrote twenty-four plays. The first six were poetic dramas dealing with legendary tales of Scandinavian history; two, Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867), are quasi-philosophical; the rest are comedies and tragedies of contemporary life, for the most part realistic but, towards the last, showing decided influences of symbolism. A selected list of his social dramas follows: The Pillars of Society (1877), A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1882), The Wild Duck (1884), Rosmersholm (1886), The Lady from the Sea (1888), Hedda Gabler (1890) and The Master Builder (1892). GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO was born in 1864 in the Abruzzi, Italy. He had a short period of formal schooling, published verses at sixteen, and then went to Rome where he soon became known as a poet, novelist, philosopher, and aesthete. His chief work in literature was done during the nineties and the first years of the twentieth century. More recently, especially during the Great War, he has been prominent as a soldier, aviator, and popular leader. D'Annunzio's novels The Flame of Life and The Triumph of Death are interesting autobiographical documents. Among his plays best known in England and America are A Dream of a Spring Morning (1898); A Dream of an Autumn Sunset (1898); The Dead City (1898); Gioconda (1898); Francesca da Rimini (1901); The Daughter of Jorio (1904); The Ship (1908); The Honeysuckle (1913). SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO was born in London in 1855. His father began to train him for the law, but at nineteen he gave up his reading and went on the stage, playing with Charles Wyndham and later with Sir Henry Irving. His 576 APPENDIX first play to be produced, ~200 a Year, was put on in 1877, and shortly afterwards Pinero left the stage to devote himself entirely to dramatic composition. Since that time he has written about fifty plays, farces, social comedies, and tragedies, exclusive of translations and librettos. Among the best known are The Magistrate (1885), Dandy Dick (1887), Sweet Lavender (1888), The Weaker Sex (1888), The Profligate (1889), The Amazons (1893), The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1893), The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith (1895), Trelawney of the Wells (1898), The Gay Lord Quex (1899), Iris (1901), Letty (1903), His House in Order (1906), The Thunderbolt (1908), Mid-Channel (1909), The 'Mind-the-Paint' Girl (1912). 'r~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I -- - - MWNS - - a- 1i-~" ~~~2f<;{~;~,3^^^<-~ THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN j-.i,. "" 9. 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