AUTHOR OF
“THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY,”
“THE CABALA,”
ETC.
PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK
BY COWARD-McCANN, INC.
IN THE YEAR MCMXXVIII
Copyright, 1928
By Coward-McCann, Inc.
Second Printing
TYPOGRAPHY BY S. A. JACOBS
PRINTED AT THE VAN REES PRESS
NEW YORK, N. Y., U. S. A.
¶ All rights in these plays are reserved by
the Publishers and no production of any
sort is allowed without authorization from
the Publishers
FOREWORD
FOREWORD
It is a discouraging business to be an author at
sixteen years of age. Such an author is all aspiration
and no fulfillment. He is drunk on an imaginary
kinship with the writers he most admires, and yet his
poor overblotted notebooks show nothing to prove
to others, or to himself, that the claim is justified.
The shortest walk in the country is sufficient to start
in his mind the theme, the plan and the title, especially
the title, of a long book; and the shortest hour
when he has returned to his desk is sufficient to deflate
his ambition. Such fragments as he is finally able
to commit to paper are a mass of echoes, awkward
relative clauses and conflicting styles. In life and
in literature mere sincerity is not sufficient, and in
both realms the greater the capacity the longer the
awkward age. Yet strange lights cross that confusion,
authoritative moments that all the practice of
later maturity cannot explain and cannot recapture.
He is visited by great depressions and wild exhilarations,
but whether his depressions proceed from his
limitations in the art of living or his limitations in
the art of writing he cannot tell. An artist is one
who knows how life should be lived at its best and
is always aware of how badly he is doing it. An
artist is one who knows he is failing in living and
feeds his remorse by making something fair, and a
layman is one who suspects he is failing in living
but is consoled by his successes in golf, or in love, or
in business.
Authors of fifteen and sixteen years of age spend
their time drawing up title-pages and adjusting the
tables of contents of works they have neither the
perseverance nor the ability to execute. They compass
easily all the parts of a book that are inessential.
They compose dignified prefaces, discover happy
quotations from the Latin and the French, and turn
graceful dedications. This book is what is left of
one of these projects.
The title was to have been Three-Minute Plays
for Three Persons. I have lately found one of my
early tables of contents for it, written in the fly-leaves
of a First Year Algebra. Quadratics in those
days could be supported only with the help of a
rich marginal commentary. Usually these aids to
education took the shape of a carefully planned repertory
for two theaters, a large and a small. Here
my longer plays were to alternate with The Wild
Duck and Measure for Measure and were cast with
such a roll of great names as neither money nor
loyalty could assemble. The chapter on Combinations
and Permutations ended short by several inches,
and left me sufficient space to draw up a catalogue
of all the compositions I had heard of that were the
work of Charles Martin Loeffler. This list of Three-Minute
Plays was drawn up in Berkeley, California,
in the spring of 1915. It contains several that have
since been rejected, two that are in the present volume,
“Brother Fire” and “Proserpina and the
Devil”, and the names of many that were unwritten
then and that still, through the charm of their titles,
ask to be written.
Since then I have composed some forty of these
plays, for I had discovered a literary form that satisfied
my passion for compression. Since the time
when I began to read I had become aware of the
needless repetition, the complacency in most writing.
Who does not know the empty opening paragraphs,
the deft but uninstructive transitions, and the closing
paragraphs that summarize a work and which are
unnecessary to an alert reader? Moreover, their
brevity flatters my inability to sustain a long flight,
and the inertia that barely permits me to write at all.
And finally, when I became a teacher, here was the
length that could be compassed after the lights of
the House were out and the sheaf of absurd French
exercises corrected and indignantly marked with red
crayon. In time the three minutes and the three persons
became a habit, and no idea was too grandiose—as
the reader will see—for me to try and invest
it in this strange discipline.
There were other plans for this book. There
was to have been a series of Footnotes to Biographies,
suggested by Herbert Eulenberg’s Schattenbilder,
represented here by the Mozart, the Ibsen,
and the St. Francis plays. There were hopes of a
still more difficult series. Dürer’s two sets of woodcuts
illustrating the Passion were to serve as model
for a series of plays that would be meditations on
the last days of Our Lord. Two of them are in
this book. There was to have been a series illustrating
the history of the stage, and again, two of them
are in this book. How different the practice of
writing would be if one did not permit oneself to
be pretentious. Some hands have no choice: they
would rather fail with an oratorio than succeed with
a ballad.
During the years that these plays were being written
I was reading widely, and these pages are full of
allusions to it. The art of literature springs from
two curiosities, a curiosity about human beings pushed
to such an extreme that it resembles love, and a love
of a few masterpieces of literature so absorbing that
it has all the richest elements of curiosity. I use the
word curiosity in the French sense of a tireless awareness
of things. (It is too late to arrest the deterioration
of our greatest English words. We live in
an age where pity and charity have taken on the
color of condescensions; where humility seems to
mean an acknowledgment of failure; where simplicity
is foolishness and curiosity is interference.
To-day hope, and faith itself, imply a deliberate
self-deception.) The training for literature must
be acquired by the artist alone, through the passionate
assimilation of a few masterpieces written from a
spirit somewhat like his own, and of a few masterpieces
written from a spirit not at all like his own.
I read all Newman, and then I read all Swift. The
technical processes of literature should be acquired
almost unconsciously on the tide of a great enthusiasm,
even syntax, even sentence-struction; I should
like to hope, even spelling. I am thinking of some
words of Renan commenting in the Souvenirs d’Enfance
et de Jeunesse upon his education: “Pour
moi, (je) crois que la meilleure manière de former
des jeunes gens de talent est de ne jamais leur parler
de talent ni de style, mais de les instruire et d’exciter
fortement leur esprit sur les questions philosophiques,
religieuses, politiques, sociales, scientifiques, historiques;
en un mot, de procéder par l’enseignement du
fond des choses, et non par l’enseignement d’une
creuse rhétorique.”
The last four plays here have been written within
a year and a half. Almost all the plays in this book
are religious, but religious in that dilute fashion that
is a believer’s concession to a contemporary standard
of good manners. But these four plant their flag as
boldly as they may. It is the kind of work that I
would most like to do well, in spite of the fact that
there has seldom been an age in literature when such
a vein was less welcome and less understood. I hope,
through many mistakes, to discover the spirit that
is not unequal to the elevation of the great religious
themes, yet which does not fall into a repellent didacticism.
Didacticism is an attempt at the coercion of
another’s free mind, even though one knows that in
these matters beyond logic, beauty is the only persuasion.
Here the schoolmaster enters again. He
sees all that is fairest in the Christian tradition made
repugnant to the new generations by reason of the
diction in which it is expressed. The intermittent
sincerity of generations of clergymen and teachers
have rendered embarrassing and even ridiculous all
the terms of the spiritual life. Nothing succeeds in
dampening the aspirations of the young to-day—who
dares use the word “aspiration” without enclosing it,
knowingly, in quotation-marks?—like the names
they hear given to them. The revival of religion is
almost a matter of rhetoric. The work is difficult,
perhaps impossible (perhaps all religions die out
with the exhaustion of the language), but it at least
reminds us that Our Lord asked us in His work to
be not only as gentle as doves, but as wise as serpents.
The Davis House Lawrenceville, N. J. June, 1928.
NASCUNTUR POETÆ
NASCUNTUR POETÆ ...
We are gazing into some strange incomprehensible painting
of Piero di Cosimo; a world of pale blues and greens;
of abrupt peaks in agate and of walled cities; of flying
red stags with hounds at their throats; and of lions in
tears beside their crowns. On the roads are seen
traveling companies, in no haste and often lost in
contemplation of the sky. A boy sits on a rock in the
foreground. He is listening to the words of a woman
dressed in a chlamys that takes on the color of the objects
about her.
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
In a far valley, boy, sit those who in their lifetime
have possessed some special gift of eye or ear or
finger. There they sit apart, choosing their successors.
And when on the winds toward birth the souls
of those about to live are borne past them, they
choose the brighter spirits that cry along that wind.
And you were chosen.
THE BOY
For what gift, lady, did the choice fall? Am I to
mould in clay, or paint? Shall I sing or mime, lady?
What choice fell on me and from what master?
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
It is enough to know that you were chosen.
THE BOY
What further remains to be done? You have poured
on my eyes and ears and mouth the divine ointment;
you have laid on my tongue the burning
ember. Why do we delay?
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
Be not so eager for life. Too soon you will be
shaken by breath; too soon and too long you will
be tossed in the tumult of the senses.
THE BOY
I am not afraid of life. I will astonish it. Why
are we delaying?
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
My sister is coming now. Listen to her.
[The woman in the chlamys withdraws and gives place
to her sister whose feet stir not the shells upon the
path. She wears a robe of deep and noble red and
bears in her hands a long golden chain hung about
with pendants. Her face is fixed in concentration
and compassion, like the face of one taking part
in a sacrifice of great moment.]
THE BOY
All is ready. What do you come to do?
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
My sister has given you the gifts of pride and of
joy. But those are not all.
THE BOY
What gifts remain? I have been chosen. I am
ready.
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
Those gifts are vain without these. He who carries
much gold stumbles. I bring the dark and necessary
gifts. This golden chain....
THE BOY
[With mounting fear.]
Your face is shadowed. Draw back, take back all
the gifts, if I must accept these also.
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
Too late. Too late. You had no choice in this.
You must bow your head.
THE BOY
I am trembling. My knees are hot with my tears.
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
Since only tears can give sight to the eyes.
[She drops the chain about his neck.]
THE BOY
Then am I permitted to know the meaning of these
pendants?
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
This is a tongue of fire. It feeds upon the brain.
It is a madness that in a better country has a better
name.
THE BOY
These are mysteries. Give them no names.
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
This is a leaf of laurel from a tree not often plucked.
You shall know pride and the shining of the eyes—of
that I do not speak now.
THE BOY
And this, lady?
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
That is a staff and signifies the journey that awaits
you your life long; for you are homeless.
THE BOY
And this ... this is of crystal....
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
That is yours alone, and you shall smart for it. It
is wonderful and terrible. Others shall know a certain
peace and shall live well enough in the limits
of the life they know; but you shall be forever
hindered. For you there shall be ever beyond the
present a lost meaning and a more meaningful love.
THE BOY
Take back the chain. Take back your gifts. Take
back life. For at its end what can there be that is
worth such pain?
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
[Slowly drawing back into the shadow of the wood.]
Farewell, child of the muses, playfellow in the bird-haunted
groves. The life of man awaits you, the
light laughter and the misery in the same day, in
the selfsame hour the trivial and the divine. You
are to give it a voice. Among the bewildered and
the stammering thousands you are to give it a voice
and to mark its meaning. Farewell, child of the
muses, playfellow in the bird-haunted....
[The Woman in the Chlamysreturns.]
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
You must go now. Listen to that wind. It is the
great fan of time that whirls on the soul for a season.
THE BOY
Stay a moment. I am not yet brave.
[She leads him into a grotto and the young soul and
his chain are lost in the profound shade.]
PROSERPINA AND THE DEVIL
A PLAY FOR MARIONETTES
PROSERPINA AND THE
DEVIL
A PLAY FOR MARIONETTES
A puppet-show has been set up in Venice, 1640 A.D.The
characters of this play are its manager and two manipulators;
the puppets areDemeter, Proserpina,
Hermes and Dîs.
THE MANAGER
[Winningly.]
Citizens and little citizens! We are going to give you
a delicious foretaste of our great performance this
afternoon, to which the whole world is coming. This
is a pantomime about how a beautiful girl named
Proserpina was snatched away by the Devil; and how
her mother searched for her over all the hills of the
world; and how at last she was able to bring her
back to the earth for six months out of every year.
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
[Behind the scenes.]
Let go them strings.
THE MANAGER
At our great performance this afternoon this same
play will be given with words; and besides it the
story of the brave Melusina and her wanderings
when she was driven out of Parma.
THE SECOND MANIPULATOR
[His voice rising in anger.]
You don’t have to show me!
THE MANAGER
On with the play!—but don’t forget to bring your
rich aunts this afternoon.
[To the Manipulators.]
Hurry through with it. I’m off for a cup of wine.
[The curtain rises with indecent haste and shows the
underworld. The rivers Styx and Acheron have
been replaced by a circular piece of cloth, sulphur-colored,
with waves delicately embroidered about
the margin. This is the Lake of Wrath and in it
are seen floating arms and legs—all that are left,
alas, of great puppets, Abraham, PenelopeandJephtha’sdaughter, MidasandHarlequin. Beside
the lakeProserpinais straying, robed in bluish
black as one anticipating grief. Pluto—now a
medieval Satan—is stealthily approaching her.
SuddenlyProserpinathrows up her arms, runs to
him and buries her face in his scarlet bosom.
Noah’s Ark—mutely protesting against the part
it must play, with all its Christianized animals
within it, ofCharon’sbarge—is lowered from the
proscenium and the curtain falls.]
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
[Sotto voce.]
Beard of Medusa! You made her run in the wrong
direction: the hussy courted death. Didn’t I tell you
he was to chase her three times around the lake?
THE SECOND MANIPULATOR
[Sulkily.]
I don’t care. A person can’t tell which is his right
hand and which is his left in this place.
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
Here, you let me take her; you take the Devil.—Got
the orange?
[When the puppets are next seenProserpinais exhibiting
grief in pantomime. Her lord with affectionate
gestures urges her to eat of a yellow pomegranate.
Sadly she puts it to her mouth. With an
odd recollection of the Garden of Eden, she tempts
him into eating the remaining half. They go out
cheerlessly.]
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
All right for that. Now I’ll take the mother and
the Devil. You take the other fellow and the daughter.
[Demeter, a handsome Italian matron in a wide
gown of brocade, enters with her arms outstretched.
At her elbowHermes, the Archangel Gabriel,
guides her through the Lake of Perdition. Proserpinaand her husband return and throw up their
hands in amazement. Again the frantic girl runs
in the wrong direction and casts herself into the
arms of Satan.Demetertries to draw her away,
but a matter of pins and hooks-and-eyes prevents
her rescue.]
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
Oh, you Gazoon! You lack-eyed Silenus! Your
hands are nothing but feet.
THE SECOND MANIPULATOR
The Devil take your show and you with it.
[The altercation behind the scenes grows out of
bounds and one blow knocks down the stage. The
Archangel falls upon the pavement and is cherished
by gamins unto the third generation; the Devil rolls
into the Lake; Proserpinais struck by a falling
cloud, and lies motionless on her face; Demeterby reason of the stiffness of her brocade stands upright,
viewing with staring eyes the ills of her
daughter.]
FANNY OTCOTT
FANNY OTCOTT
That great actress, Mrs. Otcott, an actress in the tradition
of the Siddons, the Oldfield, Bracegirdle,
O’Neill, is spending a quiet month in Wales. We do
not see the cottage; we do not even see the mountains,
but there is a stretch of lawn on whose gentle slope
there stands an ancient round tower overgrown with
ivy. In the shadow of this Arthurian monumentMrs. Otcotthas placed a table whereon she is sorting
old engravings, playbills, letters, contracts, ribbons—in
short, her past. She is still the handsome,
humorous, Irish soul from whom every item out of the
old trunks exacts its exclamation, its gesture, its renewed
indignation or pleasure. She is attended by a
blackamoor boy in livery, half asleep against a flower-pot.
MRS. OTCOTT
Sampson! Tay!
SAMPSON
[Springing up.]
Yes, mam. Wid or widout a streak o’ cream?
MRS. OTCOTT
Widout. And Sampson, tell Pence I am not at
home. Not even to the one in the yellow curls, or
to the good black beard. And if they seem to know
that I am at home, tell them ... that I have gone
up the tower, or that I have the vapors.
SAMPSON
You wants tea widout, and tell Mrs. Pence you don’t
want to see none of de gentlemen from de Village
Inn,—dat you has de vapors.
MRS. OTCOTT
There! Do you see that, Sampson? I wore that the
night the King dined with me on the stage.
SAMPSON
[His eyes as big as soup-plates.]
King ... James!
MRS. OTCOTT
[Shuddering.]
No, stupid—Charles.—Go away!—This afternoon I
shall devote to another woman, to another and a
different woman and yet to myself, to myself, to
myself.
SAMPSON
I’ll tell Mrs. Pence.
[He goes out.Mrs. Otcottpicks up a packet of
letters. One look, tosses them away, then rises muttering,
goes and stamps on them and laughs. She returns
to pick up a playbill and reads the heading
with glistening eyes: “Fanny Otcottas Faizella
in the ‘Princess of Cathay.’ First time.” She
strides about lost in thought. She almost walks into
a gentleman who has entered through the hedge.
He is wearing a black hat and cape, and has a serious
worn face.]
ATCHESON
Your servant, Mrs. Otcott.
MRS. OTCOTT
[Thunderstruck.]
Why, no! Yes! By the garter, it is George Atcheson.
Oh! Oh! Oh!
ATCHESON
I do not disturb you, Mrs. Otcott? I ... I came
to discuss a thing that is very serious to me.
MRS. OTCOTT
[Suddenly very pleased.]
Everything is—sit down, my friend. You always
were very serious. That’s why you made such a bad
Hamlet. Delay your serious talk, George, and tell
me about the women you have loved since you loved
me, and confess that I finally made them all unendurable
to you.
ATCHESON
You misunderstand me, Mrs. Otcott....
MRS. OTCOTT
[Loudly.]
Fanny.
ATCHESON
Ah ... Fanny?
MRS. OTCOTT
All you need is a little coaxing. Well, George, a
woman drove you on to the stage when you were preparing
for the Church, and a woman drove you off,
and it was my greatest service to the stage. Look,
George, you remember me as Faizella in the Princess
of Cathay. I never did better than that. Great
Rufus, you played opposite me in it. Look!
ATCHESON
Perhaps you remember.... I lost consciousness....
MRS. OTCOTT
Ah yes! The pale divinity student fainted. Oh!
George, you were the first of my lovers. No, it
wasn’t love, perhaps, but it was beautiful. It was
like hawthorn-buds and meadow-larks and Mr.
Handel’s Water-music. And since, I have never
ceased searching for love. Perhaps love strikes the
first time or never at all. Then I was too much in
love with my work. And oh, George, how young we
were! But you were very dear to me in the old garret,
and I’m sorry to see you’re growing stout, for it’s
one more reminder that I shall probably live and die
without having known the lightning of love.
[She sits down with a great flow of silken draperies
and shakes her head at him ruefully.]
ATCHESON
I have come to discuss our ... our association....
MRS. OTCOTT
Thunder and Hell! don’t you call that an association!
ATCHESON
... but my view of it is very different.
[Her shoe commences to mark time nervously on the
turf.]
After my retirement from the Stage I resumed my
theological studies, and I am now Bishop of Westholmstead.
[The shoe is now motionless.]
None of my friends know of that ... that experience
in my life, but it has always remained as a
bitter ... as a distressing spot in my conscience.
MRS. OTCOTT
[After a pause, very rapidly.]
I see, you want to make a clean breast of the perilous
stuff. You want to make a public confession, probably.
You are married?
ATCHESON
Yes.
MRS. OTCOTT
You have several sons probably?
ATCHESON
Yes.
MRS. OTCOTT
And you lie awake nights, saying: Hypocrisy, hypocrisy.
[Pause.]
Well, make your confession. But why consult me?
ATCHESON
I have followed your course, madam, and seen the
growing admiration your art commands in Court,—I
might almost say in the Church.
MRS. OTCOTT
You do not suppose that that revelation would cast
any deeper shadow on the good name of Fanny Otcott,
such as it is. Remember, George, the months
you call sinful. It wasn’t love, perhaps, but it was
grace and poetry. The heavens rained odors on us.
It was as childlike and harmless as paintings on fans.
I was a girl tragedienne reciting verses endlessly before
a mirror and you were a young student who for
the first time had seen a young girl braid her hair and
sing at her work. Since then you have learned long
names from books and heard a great many sneers
from women as old as myself. You have borrowed
your ideas from those who have never begun to live
and who dare not.
ATCHESON
[His head in his hands and his elbows on his knees.]
I do not know what to think. Your reasoning is full
of perils.
MRS. OTCOTT
Go away and tell your congregations what you please.
I feel as though you were communicating to my mind
some of those pitiable remorses that have weakened
you. I have sinned, but I have not that year on my
conscience. It is that year and my playing of Faizella
that will bring troops of angels to welcome me
to Paradise. Go away and tell your congregations
what you please.
ATCHESON
You give me no help in the matter, Mrs. Otcott.
MRS. OTCOTT
Go away. In the name of Heaven, go!
[Crooked with doubt and hesitation, the Bishop of
Westholmstead goes out through the hedge. For
a few momentsMrs. Otcottsits on the table,
swinging one foot and muttering savagely in an
imaginary conversation.]
[ReënterSampsonwith a tray.]
SAMPSON
Three gentlemen waited on you from de Village Inn,
but Mrs. Pence sent dem away. She said you was
up de tower, mam.
MRS. OTCOTT
[Showily.]
Go call them back, Sampson. Tell them I have
come down from de tower. Bring up the best box
of wine, the one with my picture painted on it. I
shall be young again.
BROTHER FIRE
BROTHER FIRE
A hut in the mountains of Northern Italy.Annunziata,
a peasant woman, is preparing the evening meal over
the fire. Her daughter, Isola, about eight years of
age, is playing beside her.
ANNUNZIATA
Now, now! Not so near. One of these days you’ll
be falling into the fire and there’ll be nothing left
to tell us about you but your shoes. Put them on
and get out the bowls for supper.
ISOLA
I like to play with the fire.
ANNUNZIATA
What a thing to say!
ISOLA
I’d like to let my hair into it, gently, gently, gently,
gently.
ANNUNZIATA
Don’t you hear me tell you it’s a wicked thing?
ISOLA
Brother Francis says it’s our brother, and one of the
best things in the world.
ANNUNZIATA
Tchk, Tchk! What makes the starling sing in his
cage all of a sudden?
ISOLA
It’s Brother Francis himself looking at us.
ANNUNZIATA
Tell him to come in and have some supper.
ISOLA
Come in, my mother says, and have some supper.
[Francisappears at the door. He blesses the house.]
BROTHER FRANCIS
I can very well go on to my own supper and need not
lighten your kettle.
ANNUNZIATA
Come in, Brother Francis. What you take will not
even make a new ring around the kettle. Besides,
I see you have been up to the top of the mountain
again. You are cold and wet. Come and sit by the
fire.
BROTHER FRANCIS
Yes, I have been up to the very top since yesterday,
among the rocks and the birds in the rocks. Brother
Wind was there and Sister Rain was there, but
Brother Fire was not.
ANNUNZIATA
Now you sit by him, Isola, while I get some more
wood; but don’t ask him any questions. Now,
Brother, put this fur skin across your knees.
[She goes out.]
ISOLA
What did you do, Brother Francis?
BROTHER FRANCIS
I watched and waited to see what they would let me
see. For a long while there was nothing; then they
nodded to one another, meaning that it was permitted
to me. I watched seven stars closely. Suddenly
they turned and fled inwards, and I saw the Queen
of Heaven leading forth her company before all the
shipwrecked seamen of this world.—However, do
not tell thy mother, for she believes in no one’s
miracles but her own.
ISOLA
My mother says the fire is a wicked thing.
BROTHER FRANCIS
[Turning.]
What, Sister Annunziata, how can you say that?—Why,
what would cook your broth, what would keep
you warm? And when you return from the mountain-tops,
what else shines out from all the friendly
windows of the world? Look at its flames, how they
lean towards us!
ISOLA
It says: Give me something to eat. Give me something
to eat.
BROTHER FRANCIS
[Excitedly.]
Yes, yes. Its warmth is a kind of hunger. I have
a love for all things in fur, feathers and scales, but
I have not less a love for the fire that warms us.
[He edges the cloak into the fire.]
Look how it reaches for it. Wicked? Wicked?
Never.
ISOLA
But, Brother Francis, it will ... it will....
[The flames suddenly seize the cloak.Francisrises,
wrapped in fire.]
Brother Francis, you are on fire! Mother, mother!
[She rushes from the hut and returns with her mother.Annunziatasnatches the fur fromBrother
Francisand throws it into the hearth.]
BROTHER FRANCIS
[Still standing ecstatically with lifted hands.]
Eat, Brother Fire. I knew you wanted this. I knew
that you loved me too.
[He looks about him; then ruefully toAnnunziata.]
Sister, you have spoiled his supper.
ANNUNZIATA
[With somber and averted face.]
I do not know what you mean. Here is your bowl
of broth. Sit down and eat it.
BROTHER FRANCIS
Sister, do not be angry with me.
ANNUNZIATA
[Breaking out.]
Come now, should we kill everything, the animals
for their furs, yes, and one another, to feed them to
the fire? Is it not enough that it takes our good pine
tree by our road? There, that is logic, Brother
Francis.
BROTHER FRANCIS
Bring me not logic, sister. She is the least of the
handmaids of Love. I am often troubled when she
speaks.
ANNUNZIATA
Must we give what makes us often warm, for that
which makes us warm only for a moment?
BROTHER FRANCIS
[Waving his wooden spoon about humorously.]
My mind is strangely light to-night, like the flames
that play about the relics of Saint James. I could
wander again through the whole night.
ANNUNZIATA
Where is your mother that she should watch over
you? Had I not these other duties I should leave
everything and watch over you myself.
BROTHER FRANCIS
She is in Paradise with a golden crook, leading the
flames that died of hunger in this wicked world. She
leads them to pasture on drifts of dried leaves.
Look, Isola, I know that there is flame to burn all evil
in the Lake of the Damned. I do not speak of that
now,—but I know also that fire is at all times useful
to the great Blessed. It surrounds them and they
dwell in it. And even now....
[And so on.]
THE PENNY THAT BEAUTY SPENT
THE PENNY
THAT BEAUTY SPENT
The little heartbreak takes place in a rococo jeweler’s
shop in Paris. The shop is elegantly small and elegantly
polished. The few jewels and the few pieces
of brocade are tossed from surface to surface in a
world of glass, from the chandelier to the mirrors
and from the mirrors to the cases. It is Royalty’s
own place of purchase and the great egotistical head
is present in bust and in miniature and on the backs
of spoons. The old jeweler, enigmatic and smiling,
is suddenly called to the door by a great clatter. A
girl enters borne on the shoulders of a boy little older
than herself.La Gracileis thin and pinch-faced,
but long penury has only made her the more elfin.
Illness is already writing its progress in the eyes and
on the brow ofQuinte, her husband. But they are
deliciously happy and full of their secrets.Quintelifts her onto the counter and draws back.
LA GRACILE
While you are with me I need never touch the
ground. You can carry me from cushion to cushion.
QUINTE
And on your gravestone will be inscribed: Here lies
an exquisite dancer, she who never touched the
ground.
LA GRACILE
And beside mine yours will read: Here lies her husband,
the soul of her life, the sole of her shoes.
THE JEWELER
Mademoiselle is in pain? The feet of Mademoiselle
are in pain?
LA GRACILE
[After she has recovered, withQuinte, from the
whirlwind of intimate amusement that this preposterous
idea has caused them.]
No. I am the new dancer. I am La Gracile. Except
when I dance I wear nothing on my feet but little
velvet pockets. So when I am not wearing my practice
slippers, my husband carries me about.
THE JEWELER
Oh, you are La Gracile. We have already heard of
your great success last night. The King is delighted
with you.
LA GRACILE
[Shrilly, clapping her hands.]
Yes, yes, yes. I was a great success. Even the
King’s favorite, Madame d’Hautillon, was jealous.
She tried to stand on my foot. They call me the
moth of Versailles.
THE JEWELER
And now the King has sent you here to choose a
present for yourself.
LA GRACILE
How did you know?
THE JEWELER
The King sends to me for a gift every young lady
who pleases him. Madame d’Hautillon was here
last.
LA GRACILE
[Chattering on.]
I want nothing myself. It is to be for Quinte. A
chronometer, please, that strikes every hour with a
gavotte and midnight with a sarabande.
QUINTE
Nothing for me, Claire-Louise. When my cough
returns it will shake every ornament off me, the buttons
from my coat, the rings from my thin fingers.
You must have something in pearls.
LA GRACILE
Silly Quinte, I want nothing.
QUINTE
But I suppose.... You must wear something for
the King.
LA GRACILE
[Suddenly under a passing cloud of melancholy, resting
her cheek on his hair, plaintively.]
I do not want a great showy pin on my breast. I
want only a little white daisy from our beloved Brittany,
from Grandmother’s field that had too many
stones.
QUINTE
Tell her what you have, Monsieur Jeweler.
THE JEWELER
Mademoiselle will look at this chain? Its art is
secret. It is painted gold, the work of aged nuns
in Hamburg.
QUINTE
Oh look, Claire-Louise, this flower for your hair.
Many topazes were splintered to powder on the
wheel before this perfect one.
THE JEWELER
Etiquette forbids, Mademoiselle, your buying that;
it happens to be the very thing that Madame
d’Hautillon bought for herself.
LA GRACILE
[Arousing herself, imperiously.]
Have you a little fat chronometer with many jewels
in it?
THE JEWELER
[Proffering a tray.]
The best in Paris.
LA GRACILE
[Giving one toQuinte.]
That is for you, Quinte, from myself and from the
dull King. Like my thoughts, it will rest on your
heart, but long after it is sold as wire and rust my
love will go on in the land where clocks do not
mark off one sad moment from another.
QUINTE
[With tears.]
Claire-Louise, it can be of no pleasure to me. In a
while it will only please me because it is a little cool
in my hot hand.
LA GRACILE
[Softly, in pain.]
Courage, dearest Quinte, courage.
THE JEWELER
[Interrupting formally.]
Remember, Mademoiselle, that etiquette demands
that you will choose a present that His Majesty will
admire on you.
LA GRACILE
[Stormily.]
I shall choose what I please.
THE JEWELER
[Insinuatingly.]
Your life is only to please the King. He has chosen
you. By sending you here he is telling you that.
LA GRACILE
You are mistaken.... But I am only a poor thin
dancer that ... that has worked too hard. Besides,
this is my husband.
THE JEWELER
[Smiling.]
No, Mademoiselle, he is not your husband.
LA GRACILE
[Jumps down and walks away, weeping bitterly, her
little feet-sacks flopping against the polished floor.
She suddenly turns with blazing eyes.]
I shall run away to Brittany.... I shall scratch his
eyes out.
THE JEWELER
[Smiles at this foolish notion and leans across the
counter, holding towards her a great jewel-encrusted
buckle.]
LA GRACILE
[Wildly.]
Even though all Versailles kill me with steel pins,
Quinte shall have the watch.
[But he has fallen among the gilt chairs.]
THE ANGEL ON THE SHIP
THE ANGEL ON THE SHIP
The fore-deck of theNancy Braylying disabled in mid-ocean.
The figurehead of the ship has been torn from
its place and nailed to the forepost, facing the stern,—back
to back, as it were, with its former position. It
is the half-length of an angel bearing wreaths; she
is highly colored and buxom and has flowing yellow
hair. On the deck lie three persons in the last stages
of rags and exhaustion: Minna, the captain’s wife, the
remnant of a stout, coarse woman; Van, the under-cook,
a little, sharp youth; and a fat, old, sleepy
member of the crew, Jamaica Sam.
VAN
[Driving the last nail into the figurehead.]
There she is. She’s the new gawd of the Atlantic.
It’s only a she-gawd, but that’s a good enough gawd
for a sailor.
MINNA
[Seated on the deck.]
Us’ll call her Lily. That’s a name like a god’s.
SAM
Youm be quick. Youm say your prayers quick.
MINNA
[Blubbering.]
Her can’t hear us. Her’s just the old figgerhead we
had thirty years.
VAN
Her’s an angel. Her knows everything.
[He throws himself on his knees and lays his forehead
on the boards. In a hoarse whisper.]
That’s the joss way. We all got t’do it.
[The others do likewise.]
SAM
Us’ll pray in turns. Us must be quick. There ain’t
no more water to drink, and there ain’t no more sails
left to carry us on. Us’ll have to be quick. Youm
begin, Van. Youms a great lad with the words.
VAN
[With real fanaticism.]
Great Gawd Lily, on the ship “Nancy Bray,” all’s
lost with us if you don’t bring us rain to drink. All
the secret water I saved aside is drunk up, and we got
to go over the side with the rest, if you don’t bring
us rain to-day,—or to-morrow. Youm allus been the
angel on the front of this yere ship “Nancy Bray”
and you ain’t goin’ to leave us rot now. I finished
my prayer, great gawd Lily. Amen.
MINNA
Great God Lily, I’m the captain’s wife that’s sailed
behind you for twenty years. Many’s the time, great
God Lily, that I shined your face so you’d look spick
and span and we sailing into London in the morning,
or into heathen lands. You knows everything, and
you knows what I did to my husband and that I
didn’t let him have none of the secret water that me
and Van saved up, and that when he died he knew it
and cursed me and Van to hell. But youms forgiven
everything and send us some rain or bye-and-bye
we’ll die and there’ll be no one here prayin’ to
you. This is the end of my prayin’, great God Lily.
VAN
[Whispers.]
Say Amen.
MINNA
Amen, great God Lily.
SAM
I ain’t goin’ to pray. I’m just a dog that’s been on
the sea since I was born. I don’ know no land eddication.
MINNA
We all got to pray for some rain.
VAN
You got t’say your word, too.
SAM
God forgive me, great God Lily, I’m old Jamaica
Sam that don’t never go ashore. Amen. I’d be
drowned, too, only for Van and the captain’s wife
who gave me some of the secret water, so that if they
died I could roll ’em over the side and not leave ’em
on the clean deck. Amen. Youms known my whole
life, great God Lily, and how I stole the Portagee’s
red bag, only it was almost empty, and ... and
that other thing. Send a lot of rain and a ship to
save us. Amen.
VAN
[Crawling up beneath the figure and throwing himself
full-length, hysterically.]
You’ve gone and forgiven me everything. Sure you
have. I didn’t kill the captain. The secret water
was mine. Save us now, great gawd Lily, and bring
me back to my uncle in Amsterdam and make him
leave me his three coal barges.
MINNA
[Rocking herself.]
We’m lost. She’ll save Sam, but I’ve done what the
gods don’t like. They’m after me. They’ve got me
now.
[Suddenly staring off the deck.]
Van! Van! Them’s a ship coming to us. Van, look!
[She falls back crying.]
VAN
Them’s comin’!
SAM
[Trying to jump up and down.]
It’s the “Maria Theresa Third,” comin’ right at us.
VAN
[His eye falls on the angel.]
What’ll they say to the figgerhead here?
SAM
[Sententiously.]
But that’s the great God Lily. Her’s saved us. You
ain’t goin’ to do anything to her?
VAN
[Starting to beat the angel forward with his hammer.]
They’ll call us heathen, bowin’ down to wood and
stone. Get the rope, Sam. We’ll put her back.
MINNA
[Frightened.]
But I can’t never forget her and her great starey
eyes. Her I’ve prayed to.
THE MESSAGE AND JEHANNE
THE MESSAGE AND JEHANNE
The interior of a goldsmith’s shop in the Paris of the
Renaissance. The tops of the windows are just above
the level of the street, and through them we see the procession
of shoes, any one of them a novel or a play
or a poem. In the workshop one finds not only medals
and salad forks for prelates, but unexpected things,
a viola d’amore and folios ruled for music.
[Tullio, the apprentice, enters from the street and
confronts his master, Charles of Benicet. Tulliostands with his back to the door and lets his
breath out slowly, as one who has just accomplished
a great work.]
CHARLES
[Rubbing his hands.]
So you delivered the rings?
TULLIO
Yes, master.
CHARLES
And what did my little brown Jacquenetta say?
TULLIO
She twice read the verse you had written in the ring.
Then she looked at me. Then she looked at the
ring. “It is too cold,” she said.
CHARLES
Too cold?
TULLIO
She said: “But ... but I suppose it’s what must go
inside a ring!” Then she kissed the ring and bade
me tell you she loved it.
CHARLES
[Arrested and puzzled.]
Too cold, the verse!—But I’ll make her another.
We forget how they love us. And the other ring?
Did you deliver the Graf’s ring to the Lady Jehanne
herself?
TULLIO
Yes, master. Into her very own hand. Her house
is very old and in a bad part of the city. As I
crossed the court and stood in the hall a great German,
with fierce eyebrows, came in from the street
with me.
CHARLES
Yes, that’s the one she’s to marry.
TULLIO
He asked me loudly what I had there. And I said,
a box for the Lady Jehanne, and that it was for her
hand alone, and I ran to the landing on the stairs.
Then she came out herself. He cried out upon her:
What gift was she receiving? And was it from a
certain English student at Padua? And she said:
“No, Baron, it is the wedding ring you have sent
me.” And when I gave it to her she went in, very
white, and without speaking to him. Then I went
to Jacquenetta’s with the other ring, and she gave
me some supper.
CHARLES
Too cold, the verse! Start putting up the shutters;
I must go and see her.
[It has been growing darker. Suddenly a pair of
shoes, a poem these, descends from the crowd, andTullioopens the door to a knock. A beautiful
lady gives Christian greeting, and a seat is made for
her among the littered chairs. She sits in silence
untilTulliohas lighted the candles and retired.]
JEHANNE
You are Charles of Benicet, master in precious
metals?
CHARLES
Carolus Benizentius auro argentoque magister, and
composer of music to God and to such men whose
ears He chooses to open.
JEHANNE
You are a composer too?
CHARLES
They are callings like two sisters who have ever their
arms about the other’s neck. When I have made a
wedding ring I compose a motet thereto. The boy
who calls to see if the candlesticks are done takes
back with him a Mass.
JEHANNE
[Without a breath.]
Oh!
CHARLES
Can I serve you with music or with metals?
JEHANNE
You have served me to-day. I am the Lady Jehanne.
CHARLES
Ah, yes! The ring was unsatisfactory? I can make
another to-night. I shall set about it at once.
JEHANNE
No, master. The ring is very beautiful.
CHARLES
[After a pause, pretending to be embarrassed.]
I am overjoyed that it pleases you.
JEHANNE
[Suddenly.]
The verses that you put in the rings—where do you
find them?
CHARLES
Unless there is a special request, my lady, I put in
nothing but the traditional legend: fidelitas carior
vita.
JEHANNE
[Without reproach.]
But there are liberties you allow yourself? Master,
what meant you when you wrote within my ring?
CHARLES
My lady!
JEHANNE
[Giving him the ring.]
Graf Klaus addresses me thus.
CHARLES
[Reading around the inside of the ring.]
“As the hermit his twilight, the countryman his holiday,
the worshiper his peace, so do I love thee.” It
was the wrong ring that was delivered to you, my
lady.
JEHANNE
It has broken my will. I am in flight for Padua. My
family are truly become nothing but sparrows and
God will feed them.
CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME
CHILDE ROLAND TO THE
DARK TOWER CAME
The sun has set over the great marsh, leaving a yellow-brown
Flemish light upon the scene. In the midst
of the mire and among the tufts of iron-grass stands
an old round-tower. Its lower narrow door is of
green bronze, scarred with many assaults. Above the
door are two small windows, behind which a gleam
seems to come and go.
In the half-light that hangs over the plain a man in armor
stumbles through the bog to the single step before the
door. He is many times wounded; his blood flows
freely to the ground. The knight blows his horn;
the landscape collects itself to listen.
CHILDE ROLAND
I die.... Open the door to me.
[The landscape laughs, then falls suddenly silent.
Presently its subterranean waters are again heard
sucking at buried tree-trunks.]
I have seen your lights here from a long way off....
You cannot hide from me now.
[The marsh becomes animated and fully interested in
the stranger. One of the windows brightens
slightly and a girl looks out. Her voice and manner
are strangely detached and impersonal, as
though she had been called away from some absorbing
interest, and were eager to return to it.]
Oh, you are here! Quick, descend to me. All my
wounds are flowing. I am dying of thirst.
THE GIRL
Who are you to issue commands against this tower?
Some emperor, surely.
CHILDE ROLAND
My name is written with many another upon the
sword of Charlemagne: that is enough.
THE GIRL
You are some king, perhaps,—driven into the wilderness
by your not too loving subjects?
CHILDE ROLAND
No king, but a friend and soldier of kings.
THE GIRL
Oh! This is some wise counselor. If you are so wise
we will quickly open the door to you.
CHILDE ROLAND
Not wise, but often listened to in grave matters, having
a voice equal with many others.
THE GIRL
[Utterly untouched, lightly to someone within.]
I do believe this is some sweet singer. Let us bind
on our slippers right quickly and put red wine to his
lips, for poets are ever our delight.
CHILDE ROLAND
I am no singer, but one loving the string and the
voice at all times. Open the door! For the wind is
cold on the marsh, and the first terrible stars are stepping
into their chains. Open the door, for my veins
are emptied on your sill.
THE GIRL
[Leaning far out, while her red hair falls almost to
his shoulders.]
Beat upon the door, Sir Knight. Many things are
gained by force.
CHILDE ROLAND
My hands are strengthless.... I am fallen on my
knees.... Pity me!
[The Girllaughs pleasantly to her companion
within.]
Reach over the stars to me, Mary, Mother of God.
To you I was committed in my first year, and have
renewed yearly my promises. Send from thy golden
mind and thy noiseless might the issue out of this
difficulty.
[A second girl, dark and thoughtful, appears at the
other window.]
THE FIRST GIRL
[Intimately.]
He is praying now.
THE DARK GIRL
He is a little boy. His thoughts this last hour are
returning to his earliest year.
THE FIRST GIRL
Is it not beautiful that a Knight should think of a
little child?
THE DARK GIRL
What brought you here, Knight-at-arms?
CHILDE ROLAND
The battle passed suddenly into the west. This tower
was all I could see. And here I brought my wounds.
THE FIRST GIRL
[Softly.]
You see he is still able to reason; he reasons very
well.
THE DARK GIRL
What led you to think that we could help you?
CHILDE ROLAND
I know your name! All my life I have heard of
this tower. They say that on the outside you are
dark and unlovely, but that within every hero stands
with his fellows and the great queens step proudly
on the stair.
THE DARK GIRL
And do you believe this?
CHILDE ROLAND
[After a pause.]
Yes.
[With sudden fury.]
Open the door! There is a place for me within.
Open the door, Death!
THE FIRST GIRL
[Drawing up her hair languidly.]
He is irresistible, this great man.
CHILDE ROLAND
Oliver! Oliver! Charlemagne! I hear your voices.
It is I, Roland, without, in the dark marsh. My body
I cast away for you. My breath I returned to the
sky in your defense. Open the door!...
[The marsh is a little put out by all this strong feeling.
It lies quiet. The door slowly opens upon
a hall full of drifting violet mists, some of which
escape and fade over the marsh. The girl with the
red hair is seen walking away in the hall, her mocking
face looking back over her shoulder. The dark
girl, robed in gray, leans across the threshold extending
a chalice to the Knight’s lips.]
THE DARK GIRL
Take courage, high heart. How slow you have been
to believe well of us. You gave us such little thought
while living that we have made this little delay at
your death.
CENTAURS
CENTAURS
The usual chattering audience of our theaters is waiting
for the curtains to part on a performance of Ibsen’sThe Master Builder. Presently the lights are
lowered to a colored darkness, and the warm glow of
the footlights begins again the ancient magic. The
orchestra draws its bows soothingly to a gradual close
and files out gropingly into the rabbit-hutch prepared
for it, leaving perhaps a sentimental viola-player
staring upward into the darkness. Suddenly the curtains
are parted by an earnest young man, who stares
into the shadowy audience and starts, with some difficulty,
to address it.
SHELLEY
My name is Shelley. I ... I am told that some
of you may have heard of me, may even know my
poems,—or some of my poems. I cannot imagine
what they may seem like to you who live in this
world that ... that is, I have just seen your streets
for the first time,—your machines, your buildings,
and especially the machines with which you talk
to one another. My poems must seem very strange
in a world of such things.
[Awkward pause.]
Well, I wanted to say something about this play,
but I don’t know how to put it into words for you.
You see, I feel that, in part, I wrote this play.
[With sudden relief calling back through the curtains.]
Hilda! Will you help me a moment?
HILDA WANGEL’S VOICE
Yes, I’m coming.
SHELLEY
[Constrainedly, to the audience.]
A friend of mine.
HILDA
[Appears in her mountaineering costume of the First
Act, carrying an alpenstock. Vigorously, to the
audience.]
He promised to do this by himself, but he has gotten
into difficulties. Have you told them that you wrote
it?
SHELLEY
I tried to. It didn’t sound reasonable.
HILDA
Well, you were able to explain it to me. Help me
to persuade Papa to come out here.
[She disappears.]
SHELLEY
Hendrick, for my sake.
HILDA’S VOICE
There, did you hear that? For his sake, he said.
Miss Fosli, will you kindly push forward the wicker
settee from the last act? Thank you.
[A wicker settee suddenly appears.]
Now, Papa.
[Hilda reappears leading the dramatist. Ibsen is
smiling sternly through his spectacles and through
his fringe of up-curling white whiskers.]
Now sit down and Shelley will begin again.
IBSEN
Hurry, young man. My beautiful play is ready to
begin. The kingdom is on the table, the nurseries
are empty, and this house is full of unconverted
people.
HILDA
[Touching his shoe with the tip of her alpenstock.]
Hush, Papa. Let him go about it in his own way.
Have you told them about the poem you were about
to write when you died?
SHELLEY
No.
[To the audience.]
Ladies and Gentlemen, on the day I died,—drowned
in the Mediterranean,—I was full of a poem to be
called The Death of a Centaur, that I did not
have time to put on paper.
HILDA
You forgot to say that it was a very good poem.
SHELLEY
I couldn’t say that.
HILDA
You said it to me.
[Turning to the audience.]
You should know that this young man had come to
a time when everything he wrote was valuable. He
was as sure to write great poems as a good apple tree
is to give good apples.
SHELLEY
Perhaps it would have been one of the better ones.
At all events, it was never written....
IBSEN
[Rising excitedly and stamping his feet as though
they had snow on them.]
And I claim that I wrote it. The poem hung for a
while above the Mediterranean, and then drifted up
toward the Tyrol and I caught it and wrote it down.
And it is The Master Builder.
HILDA
Now you must sit down, Papa, and keep calm. We
must reason this out calmly. In the first place, both
are certainly about centaurs. What do you say,
Shelley?
SHELLEY
Well, it is not a strange idea, or a new one, that the
stuff of which masterpieces are made drifts about the
world waiting to be clothed with words. It is a truth
that Plato would have understood that the mere
language, the words of a masterpiece are the least
of its offerings. Nay, in the world we have come
into now, the languages of the planet have no value;
but the impulse, the idea of “Comus” is a miracle,
even in heaven. Let you remember this when you
regret the work that has been lost through this war
that has been laid upon your treasurable young men.
The work they might have done is still with you,
and will yet find its way into your lives and into your
children’s lives.
IBSEN
Enough, enough! You will be revealing all the mysteries
soon. Enough has been said to prove that
The Death of a Centaur and The Master
Builder are the same poem. Get in with you, children.
The play is ready to start. Solness sits with
his head in his hands and the harps are in the air.
[He goes behind the curtains. Shelley lingers a moment;
a shadow has fallen across his face.]
HILDA
[Laying her hand on his arm.]
What is the matter?
SHELLEY
That reminded me ... of another poem ... I
did not write down.
LEVIATHAN
LEVIATHAN
Mid-Mediterranean.Sunrise after a night of storm with
the sea swaying prodigiously. A great Venetian argosy
has been wrecked overnight; ships and men have disappeared,
leaving only the cargo spread out upon the
waters. Momently new treasures from the ship’s holds
float upward and, reaching the surface, are swept hither
and thither for miles: Persian rugs, great lengths of
brocade, boxes of spice, made from tropical leaves and
bound with dried vine; and an apparently interminable
swathe of gray silk unwinding from its ivory standard.
In the foreground a mermaid is feeling her way
among the stuffs with considerable distaste. To one
used to the shadowed harmonies of deep-sea color these
crimsons and oranges have no attraction.Brigomeïdéhas the green wiry hair of her kind, entangled with the
friendly snail; the iridescent shoulders of all sea-women,
and the gray thin mouth.
Suddenly she comes uponThe Prince. The
royal divan has been swept from the decks, and while
the huge pillows are gradually soaking up the water
and floating away, their Prince lies on them unconscious.
For a moment the mermaid watches him open-mouthed.
She steals nearer and holding on to the tassels
of seed-pearls, leans cautiously over and scans his
face long and wonderingly. She sighs faintly, splashes
a little in discontent, and then gazes upon him again
with a frown of concentration.
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
It’s breathing. He has not lost—what they call—the
soul. I wonder where he keeps it. It is the
great difference between us; we sea-people have no
soul. I wonder where he keeps it! I have heard
that it can be seen at times, in the eyes. Perhaps if I
borrowed it from him while he slept he would never
miss it. No,—I will ask him for it.
[She claps her hands suddenly to awake him, falling
back, at the same time, into the water. The young
man does not stir. She grows angry. She strikes
the water sharply with the palms of her hands. By
quick degrees a circling wind rises; great fantastic
waves rear themselves, robed in silk; they break
over the divan and the Prince stirs. ImmediatelyBrigomeïdéstrokes the water to a stillness, and
fixes her attention on the young man.]
THE PRINCE
My father, take not your hand away. My brothers,
why have you ceased talking? Where am I?—All is
lost! Ave Maris Stella!
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
[Watching him intently.]
How could you sleep so—during the storm?
THE PRINCE
You—you are out of a dream. You are out of my
fever. Yes, yes—the storm—you—all this is but
the painting of my fever. I shall awake in Venice
with the lute-player fallen asleep by the window. I
will call to him now and he will wake me up:
Amedeo!—Lute-player! Shake me out of this
dream!
[The silence that follows is filled with the crackling
noise as the pith fillings of the heavier cushions become
saturated.]
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
[Harshly.]
Who is it you are calling to? There is no one here,
but you and me only.
THE PRINCE
Amedeo!—he does not answer: this is real. But
you, you are dream; you are illusion. Ave Maris
Stella!
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
[Indignantly.]
I am not dream. I am not illusion. I am royal
among all sea-women—I am of the Third Order; on
the three great tide days I am permitted to bind my
hair with Thetis-Agrandis and wear in my ears the
higher Muria.
THE PRINCE
You are out of an old ballad, taught me as a boy,
and you have come back to me in the last hour on the
tide of fever. In a moment my dream will have
passed on from you.
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
[Vehemently.]
You think I am only dream because ... you have
heard it said ... we sea-folk have no souls.
THE PRINCE
Soul nor body.
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
[More softly.]
Tell me where it is you keep your soul. Have you
it always with you?
THE PRINCE
[As a great pillow floats away from under his hand.]
Flos undarum! Save me! Deliver me! Hear my
prayer!
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
Who are you speaking to? Did I not tell you there
was no one here but you and me only?
THE PRINCE
You! Tell me we where is shore. You can swim for
days. Draw me to some island. I will give you
great riches ... all you desire.
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
Give me your soul. All my days I have longed for
two things, black hair and a soul. I have not lacked
anything else. I will draw you to your home, if you
will give me your soul.
THE PRINCE
[Violently.]
It cannot be given away. No one has seen it; it cannot
be felt with hands; seen or tasted.
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
And yet they say it is the greatest thing in the world;
that without it life is a cold procession of hours; that
it gives all sight to the eyes, and all hearing to the
ears ... you are mocking me! I see in your face
that you have it now!
THE PRINCE
Yes, and am about to lose it.
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
Give it to me, and I will bring up from the bottom
of the sea your father and your brothers. I will return
to you all the pearls that have fallen here, and
draw you softly into the narrows of Venice.
THE PRINCE
[As the water closes over him.]
Amedeo!... Lute-player!
[Brigomeïdéturns away contemptuously.]
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
It is something you cannot touch or see. What could
I do with it so?
[The Princerises, dead, entangled in scarves.
Brigomeïdéstares into his face long and earnestly.]
It is true! There is something gone ... that lay
about his eyes, that troubled his mouth. The soul,
perhaps.
[She claps her hands. From a great distance a sea-serpent
swims hugely towards her. He is caught in
the trailing lengths of gray brocade.]
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
Gog-etar! There is no longer anything precious in
this man. You may divide him among your young.
LEVIATHAN
It is terrible here, lady. These spices have made the
streams unendurable. By to-morrow morning the
waters will be tainted as far as Africa. Already my
young are ill, lady. They lie motionless in the mud,
dear lady. It is terrible to see them so....
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
I do not want to hear your troubles. Take this man
away.
LEVIATHAN
Thanks, gracious lady. Perhaps these hateful essences
will have made him endurable....
BRIGOMEÏDÉ
Cease!
[He dragsThe Princeaway. The frustratedBrigomeïdéstarts to comb the shell out of her
hair, singing. Suddenly she breaks her song and
adds musingly.]
Perhaps it is better, although your body has passed to
Leviathan, still to have another part of you somewhere
about the world.
AND THE SEA SHALL GIVE UP ITS DEAD
AND THE SEA SHALL GIVE
UP ITS DEAD
The clangor of Judgment Day’s last trumpet dies away in
the remotest pockets of space, and time comes to an
end like a frayed ribbon. In the nave of creation the
diaphanous amphitheater is already building for the
trial of all flesh. Several miles below the surface of
the North Atlantic, the spirits of the drowned rise
through the water like bubbles in a neglected wineglass.
A WOMAN
[To the gray weeds of whose soul still cling the vestiges
of color, some stained purples and some wasted
reds.]
At last I could struggle no longer. My head and
lungs were under intense discomfort by reason of the
water with which they were filled. I said to myself:
“Only think, Gertruda, you have actually arrived at
the moment of death!” Even then I was unwilling
to believe it, though my lungs were on the point of
bursting. One is never really able to believe that
one will die. It is especially difficult for sovereigns
who seldom, if ever, confront inevitable situations.
Perhaps you know that I am Gertruda XXII, Empress
of Newfoundland from 2638 to 2698?
A STOUT LITTLE MAN
Your Imperial Highness’s experience is much like
mine. I lived about five hundred years before Your
Imperial Highness. I had always dreaded the moment
of extinction, yet mine was less painful than a
headache.
THE EMPRESS
We know now that the real pain comes to us in the
ages that have passed since then. Have you too been
swinging in mid-ocean, tangled in a cocoon of seaweed,
slowly liberating your mind from the prides
and prejudices and trivialities of a life-time? That
is what is painful.
THE LITTLE MAN
I was a Jew and very proud of my race. Living
under what I took to be the aspersions of my neighbors
I had nourished the arrogant delusion that I
was notable. It has taken me five hundred years of
painful reflection to disembarrass myself of this notion.
I was a theatrical producer and thought myself
important to my time, wise, witty, and kindly. Each
of these ideas I have shed with a hundred times the
pain of losing a limb. Now I am reconciled to the
fact that I am naked, a fool, a child.
THE EMPRESS
In my life I believed fiercely that everything of
which I said MY had some peculiar excellence. It
was impossible to imagine a citizen proud of any
country save Newfoundland, or a woman vain of any
hair save the golden. I had a passion for genealogies
and antiquities and felt that such things merely
looked forward to myself. Now these many years
I have been wrapped in barnacles, divorcing my soul
from all that it once loved. Even my love for my
son and my son’s love for me have vanished through
sheer inconsequence. All this is the second death,
and the one to be dreaded. I was afraid that when
I had shed away my royalty and my beauty and my
administrative talent and my pure descent and my
astonishing memory for names, I was afraid that
there would be nothing left. But fortunately, underneath
all this litter I have found a tiny morsel of
... but dare we say the Name?—But what was
yours?
THE LITTLE MAN
Horatio Nissem.
THE EMPRESS
Speak to that man who is rising through the water
beside you.
HORATIO NISSEM
Who are you, and what particular follies have you
laid aside?
A TALL THIN DREAMY MAN
I was a priest of the gospel and a terrible time I have
had taking leave of my sins. I tremble to think how
but a few moments ago I still retained a longing for
stupidities. Yes, sir, for the planets. I felt sure
that they had personalities and I looked forward
after my death to hearing their songs. Now I know
that sun and moon and stars have fallen like dust
into the lap of their maker. I told myself, also, that
after death I should sit through eternity overhearing
the conversation of Coleridge and Augustine and
Our Lord; there I should embrace my loved ones
and my enemies; there I should hear vindicated before
the devils the great doctrines of Infant Baptism
and Sacramental Confession. Only now have I been
delivered from these follies. As I swayed in the
meteoric slime I begged God to punish me for certain
sins of my youth, moments I well remembered
of rage and pride and shame. But these seemed of
no importance to him: he seemed rather to be erasing
from my mind the notion that my sins were of
any consequence. I see now that even the idea that
I was capable of sinning was a self-flattery and an
impertinence. My name was Father Cosroe: now my
name is Worm.
THE EMPRESS
We still cling obstinately to our identity, as though
there were something valuable in it. This very moment
I feel relics of pleasure in the fact that I am
myself and no one else. Yet in a moment, if there
is a moment, we shall all be reduced to our quintessential
matter, and you, Mr. Nissem, will be exactly
indistinguishable from me. God Himself will not
be able to tell the Empress of Newfoundland from
the Reverend Doctor Cosroe.
HORATIO NISSEM
[In mounting terror.]
I am afraid. I refuse to give myself up.
THE EMPRESS
Do not cry out, fool. You have awakened all my
rebellious nature. O God, do not take away my
identity! I do not ask for my title or my features;
do not take away my myself!
HORATIO NISSEM
Do you hear? I refuse to give myself up. O God,
let me not be mistaken for a Gentile.
FATHER COSROE
Your screaming has aroused my madness. Let me
keep my particular mind, O God, my own curious
mind with all I have put into it!
[The three panic-stricken souls reach the surface of
the sea. The extensive business of Domesday is
over in a twinkling and the souls divested of all
identification have tumbled, like falling stars, into
the blaze of unicity. Soon nothing exists in space
but the great unwinking eye, meditating a new creation.]
NOW THE SERVANT’S NAME WAS MALCHUS
NOW THE SERVANT’S NAME
WAS MALCHUS
In his father’s house are many mansions, and it is from the
windows of one of them that he stands looking out
upon the clockwork of the skies. With the precision
that is possible only to things dead in themselves, the
stars weave incessantly their interlocking measures. At
intervals the blackest pockets of space give birth to a
nebula, whirling in new anguish, but for the most part
the sky offers only its vast stars, eased in the first gradations
of their cooling, and fulfilling happily and with
a faint humming sound the long loops of their appointment.
[To him comesGabriel, secretary and soldier.]
GABRIEL
There are some unusually urgent petitions here....
There’s this Colonel on a raft in the Bengal Sea—Here
again is the widow and her two daughters in
Moscow. A lady in Rome.
[He lays some papers on the table.]
Besides, there is someone outside who wishes to
speak to you. He says he knew you on earth. I
think he has something to complain of, even here.
OUR LORD
Let him wait a moment.
[There is loud rapping at the door.]
GABRIEL
There he is again.
OUR LORD
Then let him in.
[GabrieladmitsMalchusand goes out.]
MALCHUS
Please, sir, excuse me being so hasty, but I had to
speak to you about something.
OUR LORD
You are displeased with Heaven?
MALCHUS
Oh no, sir—except for one thing.
OUR LORD
We will talk about it in a minute. Come by the window
and look. Can you tell me which of those stars
is mine?
MALCHUS
Lord, all are yours, surely.
OUR LORD
No, only one is mine, for only one bears living things
upon it. And where there is no life I have no power.
All the stars save one are lifeless; not even a blade of
grass pushes through their powder or their flame.
But one of them is so crowded with event that
Heaven itself is scarcely able to attend to its needs.—But
you are not interested?
MALCHUS
Oh, sir, it was so long ago that I was there that I
cannot be expected to.... Even my children’s
children have long since left it. I cannot be very
interested. Since I am so happy here,—except for
one thing. But I should like to see it again. Which
is it, sir?
OUR LORD
There, see! See where it floats for a moment out of
a green mist. If your ears were accustomed to it
as mine are, you would hear what I hear: the sigh
as it turns. Now what is it you want of me?
MALCHUS
Well, as you know I was the High Priest’s servant
in the garden when you were taken. Sir, it’s hardly
worth mentioning.
OUR LORD
No, no. Speak out.
MALCHUS
And one of your fellows took out his sword and cut
off my ear.
OUR LORD
Yes.
MALCHUS
It’s ... it’s hardly worth mentioning. Most of the
time, Lord, we’re very happy up here and nothing
disturbs us at our games. But whenever someone
on earth thinks about us we are aware of it, pleasantly
or unpleasantly. A sort of something crosses our
mind. And because I’m in your book someone is
always reading about me and thinking about me for
a moment, and in the middle of my games I feel it.
Especially at this season when your death is celebrated,
no moment goes by without this happening.
And what they think is, that I’m ridiculous.
OUR LORD
I see. And you want your name to be erased from
the book?
MALCHUS
[Eagerly.]
Yes, sir. I thought you could just make the pages
become blank at that place.
OUR LORD
Now that you have come here everything that you
wish is granted to you. You know that.
MALCHUS
Yes, sir; thank you, sir.
OUR LORD
But stay a minute. At this season, Malchus, a number
of people are thinking of me, too.
MALCHUS
Yes, Lord, but as good, as great....
OUR LORD
But, Malchus, I am ridiculous too.
MALCHUS
Oh, no, no!
OUR LORD
Ridiculous because I suffered from the delusion that
after my death I could be useful to men.
MALCHUS
They don’t say that!
OUR LORD
And that my mind lay under a malady that many a
doctor could cure. And that I have deceived and
cheated millions and millions of souls who in their
extremity called on me for the aid I had promised.
They did not know that I died like any other man
and their prayers mounted into vain air, for I no
longer exist. My promises were so vast that I am
either divine or ridiculous.
[Pause.]
Malchus, will you stay and be ridiculous with me?
MALCHUS
Yes, sir, I’ll stay. I’m glad to stay. Though in a
way I haven’t any right to be there. I wasn’t even
the High Priest’s servant; I only held his horse every
now and then. And ... and I used to steal a little,—only
you’ve forgiven me that. Sure, I’m glad to
stay.
OUR LORD
Thank you, Malchus.
MALCHUS
[Smiling.]
It isn’t even true in the book. It was my left ear
and not my right.
OUR LORD
Yes, the book isn’t always true about me, either.
MALCHUS
Excuse my troubling you, sir. Good day.
OUR LORD
Good day, Malchus.
[Malchusgoes out. Gabrielenters discreetly and
lays down some more papers.]
GABRIEL
[In a low voice.]
The raft has capsized, sir, on the Bengal Sea, and
the Colonel will be here at once. The woman in
Moscow....
MOZART AND THE GRAY STEWARD
MOZART AND THE GRAY
STEWARD
Mozartis seated at a table in a mean room in Vienna orchestrating
the “Magic Flute.” Leaves of ruled paper
are strewn about the floor. His wife enters in great
excitement.
CONSTANZE
There’s someone come to see you, someone important.
Pray God, it’s a commission from Court.
MOZART
[Unmoved.]
Not while Salieri’s alive.
CONSTANZE
Put on your slippers, dear. It’s some one dressed
all in gray, with a gray mask over his eyes, and he’s
come in a great coach with its coat of arms all covered
up with gray cloth. Pray God, it’s a commission
from Court for a Te Deum or something.
[She tidies up the room in six gestures.]
MOZART
Not while Salieri’s alive.
CONSTANZE
But, now, do be nice, ’Gangl, please. We must
have some money, my treasure. Just listen to him
and say “yes” and “thank you” and then you and
I’ll talk it over after he’s gone.
[She holds his coat.]
Come, put this on. Step into your slippers.
MOZART
[Sighing.]
I’m not well. I’m at home. I’m at work. There’s
not a single visitor in the whole world that could
interest me. Bring him in.
CONSTANZE
[Adjusting his stock.]
Now don’t be proud. Just accept.
[She hurries out and presently reënters preceding the
visitor. The visitor is dressed from head to foot in
gray silk. His bright eyes look out through the
holes in a narrow gray silk mask. He holds to his
nose a gray perfumed handkerchief. One would
say: an elegant undertaker.]
Revered and noble master, wherever music reigns,
wherever genius is valued, the name of Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart is....
MOZART
Sir, I have always been confused by compliments and
beg you to spare me that mortification by proceeding
at once to the cause of your visit ... the ... the
honor of your visit.
THE GRAY STEWARD
Revered master, before I lay my business before
you, may I receive your promise that—whether you
accept my commission or not—you both will....
MOZART
I promise you our secrecy, unless our silence would
prove dishonorable to me or injurious to some one
else. Pray continue.
THE GRAY STEWARD
Know then, gracious and revered genius, that I come
from a prince who combines all the qualities of birth,
station, generosity and wisdom.
MOZART
Ha! a European secret.
THE GRAY STEWARD
His Excellency moreover has just sustained a bitter
misfortune. He has lately lost his wife and consort,
a lady who was the admiration of her court and the
sole light of her bereaved husband’s life. Therefore,
his Excellency, my master, commissions you
to compose a Requiem Mass in honor of this lady.
He asks you to pour into it the height of your invention
and that wealth of melody and harmony
that have made you the glory of our era. And for
this music he asks leave to pay you the sum of four
hundred crowns,—two hundred now, and the second
two hundred crowns when you deliver the first four
numbers.
MOZART
Well, Constanze, I must not be proud.
THE GRAY STEWARD
There is but one proviso.
MOZART
Yes, I heard it. The work must represent the height
of my invention.
THE GRAY STEWARD
That was an easy assumption, master. The proviso
is this: You shall let his Excellency have this music
as an anonymous work, and you shall never by any
sign, by so much as the nod of your head, acknowledge
that the work is yours.
MOZART
And his Excellency is not aware that the pages I
may compose at the height of my invention may be
their own sufficient signature?
THE GRAY STEWARD
That may be. Naturally my master will see to it
that no other composer will ever be able to claim
the work as his.
MOZART
Quick, give me your paper and I will sign it. Leave
your two hundred crowns with my wife at the foot
of the stairs. Come back in August and you will
have the first four numbers. Servus. Servus.
THE GRAY STEWARD
[Backing out.]
Servus, master. Servus, madame.
[Constanzereturns in a moment and looks anxiously
towards her husband.]
CONSTANZE
A visit from Heaven, ’Gangl. Now you can go into
the country. Now you can drink all the Bohemian
water in the world.
MOZART
[Bitterly.]
Good. And just at a time when I was contemplating
a Requiem Mass. But for myself. However, I
must not be proud.
CONSTANZE
[Trying to divert him.]
Who can these people be? Try and think.
MOZART
Oh, there’s no mystery about that. It’s the Count
von Walsegg. He composes himself. But for the
most part he buys string quartets from us; he erases
the signatures and has them played in his castle. The
courtiers flatter him and pretend that they have
guessed him to be the composer. He does not deny
it. He tries to appear confused. And now he has
succeeded in composing a Requiem. But that will
reduce my pride.
CONSTANZE
You know he will only be laughed at. The music
will speak for itself. Heaven wanted to give us four
hundred crowns—
MOZART
And Heaven went about it humorously.
CONSTANZE
What was his wife like?
MOZART
Her impudences smelt to Heaven. She dressed like
a page and called herself Cherubin. Her red cheeks
and her black teeth and her sixty years are in my
mind now.
CONSTANZE
[After a pause.]
We’ll give back the money. You can write the music,
without writing it for them.
MOZART
No, I like this game. I like it for its very falseness.
What does it matter who signs such music or to
whom it is addressed?
[He flings himself upon the sofa and turns his face
to the wall.]
For whom do we write music?—for musicians?
Salieri!—for patrons? Von Walsegg!—for the
public? The Countess von Walsegg! I shall write
this Requiem, but it shall be for myself, since I am
dying.
CONSTANZE
My beloved, don’t talk so! Go to sleep.
[She spreads a shawl over his body.]
How can you say such things? Imagine even thinking
such a thing! You will live many years and
write countless beautiful pages. We will return the
money and refuse the commission. Then the matter
will be closed. Now go to sleep, my treasure.
[She goes out, quietly closing the door behind her.Mozart, at the mercy of his youth, his illness and
his genius, is shaken by a violent fit of weeping.
The sobs gradually subside and he falls asleep. In
his dreamThe Gray Stewardreturns.]
THE GRAY STEWARD
Mozart! Turn and look at me. You know who I
am.
MOZART
[Not turning.]
You are the steward of the Count von Walsegg. Go
tell him to write his own music. I will not stain my
pen to celebrate his lady, so let the foul bury the foul.
THE GRAY STEWARD
Lie then against the wall, and learn that it is Death
itself that commissions....
MOZART
Death is not so fastidious. Death carries no perfumed
handkerchief.
THE GRAY STEWARD
Lie then against the wall. Know first that all the
combinations of circumstance can suffer two interpretations,
the apparent and the real.
MOZART
Then speak, sycophant, I know the apparent one.
What other reading can this humiliation bear?
THE GRAY STEWARD
It is Death itself that commands you this Requiem.
You are to give a voice to all those millions sleeping,
who have no one but you to speak for them. There
lie the captains and the thieves, the queens and the
drudges, while the evening of their earthly remembrance
shuts in, and from that great field rises an
eternal miserere nobis. Only through the intercession
of great love, and of great art which is love, can
that despairing cry be eased. Was that not sufficient
cause for this commission to be anonymous?
MOZART
[Drops trembling on one knee beside the couch.]
Forgive me.
THE GRAY STEWARD
And it was for this that the pretext and mover was
chosen from among the weakest and vainest of
humans. Death has her now, and all her folly has
passed into the dignity and grandeur of her state.
Where is your pride now? Here are her slippers
and her trinkets. Press them against your lips.
Again! Again! Know henceforth that only he who
has kissed the leper can enter the kingdom of art.
MOZART
I have sinned, yet grant me one thing. Grant that
I may live to finish the Requiem.
THE GRAY STEWARD
No! No!
[And it remains unfinished.]
HAST THOU CONSIDERED MY SERVANT JOB?
HAST THOU CONSIDERED MY
SERVANT JOB?
Now it came to pass on the day when the sons of God came
to present themselves beforeSatanthatChristalso
came among them. And
SATAN
[Said untoCHRIST.]
Whence comest Thou?
CHRIST
[AnsweredSatanand said]
From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking
up and down in it.
[And]
SATAN
[Said untoChrist]
Hast Thou considered my servant Judas? For there
is none like him in the earth, an evil and a faithless
man, one that feareth me and turneth away from
God.
[Then]
CHRIST
[AnsweredSatanand said]
Doth Judas fear thee for naught? Hast thou not
made a hedge about him, and about his house, and
about all that he hath on every side? But draw back
thy hand now and he will renounce thee to thy face.
[And]
SATAN
[Said untoChrist]
Behold, all that he hath is in thy power.
[SoChristwent forth from the presence ofSatan.]
[He descended to the earth. Thirty-three years are
but a moment beforeSatanand beforeGod, and
at the end of this momentChristascends again to
His own place. He passes on this journey before
the presence of the adversary.]
SATAN
You are alone! Where is my son Judas whom I
gave into your hands?
CHRIST
He follows me.
SATAN
I know what you have done. And the earth rejected
you? The earth rejected you! All Hell murmurs
in astonishment. But where is Judas, my son and
my joy?
CHRIST
Even now he is coming.
SATAN
Even Heaven, when I reigned there, was not so
tedious as this waiting. Know, Prince, that I am
too proud to show all my astonishment at your defeat.
But now that you are swallowing your last
humiliation, now that your failure has shut the
mouths of the angels, I may confess that for a while
I feared you. There is a fretfulness in the hearts
of men. Many are inconstant, even to me. Alas,
every man is not a Judas. I knew even from the
beginning that you would be able, for a season, to
win their hearts with your mild eloquence. I feared
that you would turn to your own uses this fretfulness
that visits them. But my fears were useless. Even
Judas, even when my power was withdrawn from
him, even Judas betrayed you. Am I not right in
this?
CHRIST
You are.
SATAN
You admitted him into your chosen company. Is
it permitted to me to ask for how much he betrayed
you?
CHRIST
For thirty pieces of silver.
SATAN
[After a pause.]
Am I permitted to ask to what rôle he was assigned
in your company?
CHRIST
He held its money-bags.
SATAN
[Dazed.]
Does Heaven understand human nature as little
as that? Surely the greater part of your closest companions
stayed beside you to the end?
CHRIST
One stayed beside me.
SATAN
I have overestimated my enemy. Learn again,
Prince, that if I were permitted to return to the earth
in my own person, not for thirty years, but for thirty
hours, I would seal all men to me and all the temptations
in Heaven’s gift could not persuade one to betray
me. For I build not on intermittent dreams and
timid aspirations, but on the unshakable passions of
greed and lust and self-love. At last this is made
clear: Judas, Judas, all the triumphs of Hell await
you. Already above the eternal pavements of black
marble the banquet is laid. Listen, how my nations
are stirring in new hope and in new joy. Such music
has not been lifted above my lakes and my mountains
since the day I placed the apple of knowledge between
the teeth of Adam.
[Suddenly the thirty pieces of silver are cast upward
from the revolted hand ofJudas. They hurtle
through the skies, flinging their enormous shadows
across the stars and continue falling forever through
the vast funnel of space.
[PresentlyJudasrises, the black stains about his throat
and the rope of suicide.]
SATAN
What have they done to you, my beloved son? What
last poor revenge have they attempted upon you?
Come to me. Here there is comfort. Here all this
violence can be repaired. The futile spite of Heaven
cannot reach you here. But why do you not speak to
me? My son, my treasure!
[Judasremains with lowered eyes.]
CHRIST
Speak to him then, my beloved son.
JUDAS
[Still with lowered eyes, softly, toSatan.]
Accursed be thou, from eternity to eternity.
[These two mount upward to their due place andSatanremains to this day, uncomprehending, upon
the pavement of Hell.]
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT
From time to time there are auctions of the fittings that
made up the old Dime Museums, and at such an auction
you should be able to pick up a revolving cyclorama
of the Holy Land and Egypt, which is the
scenery for this piece. Turn down the gas-lights, for
it is night in Palestine, and introduce a lady and a
child on a donkey. They are accompanied by an old
man on foot. The Donkey’s name isHepzibah.
HEPZIBAH
[For the tenth time.]
I’m tired.
OUR LADY
I know, I know.
HEPZIBAH
I’m willing to carry you as far and as fast as I can,
but within reason.
ST. JOSEPH
If you didn’t talk so much you’d have more strength
for the journey.
HEPZIBAH
It’s not my lungs that are tired, it’s my legs. When
I talk I don’t notice how tired I am.
OUR LADY
Do as you think best, Hepzibah, but do keep moving.
I can still hear Herod’s soldiers behind us.
[Noise of ironmongery in the wings, right.]
HEPZIBAH
Well, I’m doing my best.
[Silence. The Tigris passes on the cyclorama.]
We must talk or I’ll have to halt. We talked over
the Romans and the whole political situation, and I
must say again that I and every thinking person can
only view such a situation with alarm, with real
alarm. We talked over the village, and I don’t think
there’s anything more to say about that. Did I remember
to tell you that Issachar’s daughter’s engagement
had been broken?
OUR LADY
Yes.
HEPZIBAH
Well, there’s always ideas. I hope I can say honestly
that I am at home in ideas of all sorts. For
instance, back in the yard I’m the leader of a group.
Among the girls. Very interesting religious discussions,
I can tell you. Very helpful.
ST. JOSEPH
[As some more iron is heard falling in Judæa; the
Euphrates passes.]
Can’t you hurry a bit?
HEPZIBAH
I always say to the girls: Girls, even in faith we are
supposed to use our reason. No one is intended to
swallow hook, line and sinker, as the saying is. Now
take these children that Herod is killing. Why were
they born, since they must die so soon? Can any one
answer that? Or put it another way: Why is the
little boy in your arms being saved while the others
must perish?
ST. JOSEPH
Is it necessary to stop?
HEPZIBAH
I was stopping for emphasis.—Mind you, it’s not
that I doubt. Honest discussion does not imply
doubt necessarily.—What was that noise?
OUR LADY
I beg of you to make all the haste you can. The
noise you hear is that of Herod’s soldiers. My
child will be slain while you argue about Faith. I
beg of you, Hepzibah, to save him while you can.
HEPZIBAH
I assure you I’m doing the best I can, and I think
I’m moving along smartly. I didn’t mean that noise,
anyway; it was a noise ahead. Of course, your child
is dearer to you than others, but theologically speaking,
there’s no possible reason why you should escape
safely into Egypt while the others should be
put to the sword, as the Authorized Version has it.
When the Messiah comes these things will be made
clear, but until then I intend to exercise my reasoning
faculty. My theory is this....
OUR LADY
Hepzibah, we shall really have to beat you if you
stop so often. Hepzibah, don’t you remember me?
Don’t you remember how you fell on your knees in
the stable? Don’t you remember my child?
HEPZIBAH
What? What! Of course!
OUR LADY
Yes, Hepzibah.
HEPZIBAH
Let me stop just a moment and look around. No,
I don’t dare to stop. Why didn’t I recognize you
before! Really, my lady, you should have spoken
more sharply to me. I didn’t know I could run like
this; it’s a pleasure. Lord, what a donkey I was to
be arguing about reason while my Lord was in
danger.
[A pyramid flies by.]
Do you see the lights of the town yet? That’s the
Sphinx at the right, madam, yes, 3655 B.C. Well,
well, it’s a queer world where the survival of the
Lord is dependent on donkeys, but so it is. Why
didn’t you tell me before, my lady?
ST. JOSEPH
We thought you could carry us forward on your own
merit.
HEPZIBAH
Oh, forgive me, madam; forgive me, sir. You don’t
hear any more soldiers now, I warrant you. Please
don’t direct me so far—excuse me—to the right,
madam. That’s the Nile, and there are crocodiles.
My lady, may I ask one question now that we’re
safe?
OUR LADY
Yes, Hepzibah.
HEPZIBAH
It’s this matter of faith and reason, madam. I’d
love to carry back to our group of girls whatever you
might say about it....
OUR LADY
Dear Hepzibah, perhaps some day. For the present
just do as I do and bear your master on.
[More pyramids fly by; Memnon sings; the Nile
moves dreamily past, and the inn is reached.]
THE ANGEL THAT TROUBLED THE WATERS
Transcriber’s Notes
THE ANGEL
THAT TROUBLED
THE WATERS
The Pool.—A vast gray hall with a hole in the ceiling open
to the sky. Broad stone steps lead up from the water
on its four sides. The water is continuously restless
and throws blue reflections upon the walls. The sick,
the blind and the malformed are lying on the steps.
The long stretches of silence and despair are broken
from time to time when one or another groans and
turns in his rags, or raises a fretful wail or a sudden
cry of exasperation at long-continued pain. A door
leads out upon the porch where the attendants of the
sick are playing at dice, waiting for the call to fling
their masters into the water when the angel of healing
stirs the pool. Beyond the porch there is a glimpse
of the fierce sunlight and the empty streets of an
oriental noonday.
Suddenly theAngelappears upon the top step. His face
and robe shine with a color that is both silver and gold,
and the wings of blue and green, tipped with rose,
shimmer in the tremulous light. He walks slowly
down among the shapeless sleepers and stands gazing
into the water that already trembles in anticipation of
its virtue.
[A new invalid enters.]
THE NEWCOMER
Come, long-expected love. Come, long-expected
love. Let the sacred finger and the sacred breath
stir up the pool. Here on the lowest step I wait
with festering limbs, with my heart in pain. Free
me, long-expected love, from this old burden. Since
I cannot stay, since I must return into the city, come
now, renewal, come, release.
[Another invalid wakes suddenly out of a nightmare,
calling: “The Angel! The Angel has come. I
am cured.” He flings himself into the pool, splashing
his companions. They come to life and gaze
eagerly at the water. They hang over the brink and
several slide in. Then a great cry of derision rises:
“The Fool! Fool! His nightmare again. Beat
him! Drive him out into the Porch.” The mistaken
invalid and his dupes drag themselves out of
the water and lie dripping disconsolately upon the
steps.]
THE MISTAKEN INVALID
I dreamt that an angel stood by me and that at last
I should be free of this hateful place and its company.
Better a mistake and this jeering than an opportunity
lost.
[He sees the Newcomer beside him and turns on him
plaintively.]
Aïe! You have no right to be here, at all events.
You are able to walk about. You pass your days in
the city. You come here only at great intervals, and
it may be that by some unlucky chance you might be
the first one to see the sign. You would rush into
the water and a cure would be wasted. You are
yourself a physician. You have restored my own
children. Go back to your work and leave these
miracles to us who need them.
THE NEWCOMER
[Ignoring him; under his breath.]
My work grows faint. Heal me, long-expected
Love; heal me that I may continue. Renewal, release;
let me begin again without this fault that
bears me down.
THE MISTAKEN INVALID
I shall sit here without ever lifting my eyes from
the surface of the pool. I shall be the next. Many
times, even since I have been here, many times the
Angel has passed and has stirred the water, and hundreds
have left the hall leaping and crying out with
joy. I shall be the next.
THE ANGEL
[Kneels down on the lowest step and meditatively
holds his finger poised above the shuddering water.]
Joy and fulfilment, completion, content, rest and
release have been promised.
THE NEWCOMER
Come, long-expected Love.
THE ANGEL
[Without turning makes himself apparent to theNewcomerand addresses him.]
Draw back, physician, this moment is not for you.
THE NEWCOMER
Angelic visitor, I pray thee, listen to my prayer.
THE ANGEL
Healing is not for you.
THE NEWCOMER
Surely, surely, the angels are wise. Surely, O,
Prince, you are not deceived by my apparent wholeness.
Your eyes can see the nets in which my wings
are caught; the sin into which all my endeavors sink
half-performed cannot be concealed from you.
THE ANGEL
I know.
THE NEWCOMER
It is no shame to boast to an Angel of what I might
yet do in Love’s service were I but freed from this
bondage.
THE MISTAKEN INVALID
Surely the water is stirring strangely to-day! Surely
I shall be whole!
THE ANGEL
I must make haste. Already the sky is afire with
the gathering host, for it is the hour of the new song
among us. The earth itself feels the preparation in
the skies and attempts its hymn. Children born in
this hour spend all their lives in a sharper longing
for the perfection that awaits them.
THE NEWCOMER
Oh, in such an hour was I born, and doubly fearful
to me is the flaw in my heart. Must I drag my
shame, Prince and singer, all my days more bowed
than my neighbor?
THE ANGEL
[Stands a moment in silence.]
Without your wound where would your power be?
It is your very remorse that makes your low voice
tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels
themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering
children on earth as can one human being
broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service
only the wounded soldiers can serve. Draw back.
[He swiftly kneels and draws his finger through the
water. The pool is presently astir with running
ripples. They increase and a divine wind strikes
the gay surface. The waves are flung upon the
steps. TheMistaken Mancasts himself into the
Pool, and the whole company lurches, rolls, or hobbles
in. The servants rush in from the porch.
Turmoil. Finally the no longerMistaken Invalidemerges and leaps joyfully up the steps. The
rest, coughing and sighing, follow him. TheAngelsmiles for a moment and disappears.]
THE HEALED MAN
Look, my hand is new as a child’s. Glory be to
God! I have begun again.
[To theNewcomer.]
May you be the next, my brother. But come with
me first, an hour only, to my home. My son is
lost in dark thoughts. I—I do not understand him,
and only you have ever lifted his mood. Only an
hour ... my daughter since her child has died, sits
in the shadow. She will not listen to us....
Obvious typographic errors silently corrected.
Variations in hyphenation kept as in the original.
New original cover art is hereby granted to the public domain.
