The Project Gutenberg EBook of Read-Aloud Plays, by Horace Holley
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Title: Read-Aloud Plays
Author: Horace Holley
Release Date: June 4, 2005 [EBook #15983]
Language: English
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READ-ALOUD PLAYS
_BY HORACE HOLLEY_
_DIVINATIONS AND CREATIONS_
_READ-ALOUD PLAYS_
_THE DYNAMICS OF ART_
_BAHAISM_
_THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE_
_THE INNER GARDEN_
_THE STRICKEN KING_
READ-ALOUD PLAYS
BY
HORACE HOLLEY
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
1916
COPYRIGHT 1916 BY
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
DRAMATIC AND LECTURE
RIGHTS RESERVED BY
HORACE HOLLEY
PRINTED IN AMERICA
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION V
HER HAPPINESS 1
A MODERN PRODIGAL 7
THE INCOMPATIBLES 29
THE GENIUS 39
SURVIVAL 55
THE TELEGRAM 71
RAIN 79
PICTURES 103
HIS LUCK 121
INTRODUCTION
The first two or three of these "plays" (I retain the word for lack of a
better one) began themselves as short stories, but in each case I found
that the dramatic element, speech, tended to absorb the impersonal element
of comment and description, so that it proved easier to go on by allowing
the characters to establish the situation themselves. As I grew conscious
of this tendency, I realized that even for the purpose of reading it might
be advantageous to render the short story subject dramatically, since this
method is, after all, one of extreme realism, which should also result in
an increase of interest. As the series developed, however, I perceived
that something more than a new short story form was involved; I perceived
that the "read-aloud" play has a distinct character and function of its
own. In the long run, everything human rises or falls to the level of
speech. The culminating point, even of action the most poignant or emotion
the most intimate, is where it finds the right word or phrase by which it
is translated into the lives of others. Every literary form has always
paid, even though usually unconscious, homage to the drama. But the drama
as achieved on the stage includes, for various reasons, only a small
portion of its own inherent possibility. Exigencies of time and machinery,
as well as the strong influence of custom, deny to the stage the value of
themes such as the Divine Comedy, on the one hand, and of situations
which might be rendered by five or ten minutes' dialogue on the other,
each of which extremes may be quite as "dramatic" as the piece ordinarily
exploited on the stage. By trying these "read-aloud" plays on different
groups, of from two to six persons, I have proved that the homage all
literature pays the drama is misplaced if we identify the drama with the
stage. A sympathetic voice is all that is required to "get over" any
effect possible to speech; and what effect is not? Moreover, by
deliberately setting out for a drama independent of the stage, a drama
involving only the intimate circle of studio or library, I feel that an
entire new range of experiences is opened up to literature itself. Nothing
is more thrilling than direct, self-revealing speech; and, once the proper
tone has been set, even abstract subjects, as we all know, have the power
to absorb. Thus I entertain the hope that others will take up the method
of this book, the method of natural, intimate, heart-to-heart dialogue
carried on in a suitable setting, and with attendant action as briefly
indicated; for the discovery awaits each one that speech, independent of
the tradition of the stage, has the power of rendering old themes new and
vital, as well as suggesting new themes and situations. Indeed, it is in
the confidence that others will follow with "read-aloud" plays far more
interesting and valuable than the few offered here that I am writing this
introduction, and not merely to call attention to a novelty in my own
work.
HORACE HOLLEY.
New York City.
HER HAPPINESS
_Darkness. A door opens swiftly. Light from outside shows a woman
entering. She is covered by a large cape, but the gleam of hair and brow
indicates beauty. She closes the door behind her. Darkness._
THE WOMAN
Paul! Paul! Are you here, Paul?
A VOICE
Yes, Elizabeth, I am here.
THE WOMAN
Oh thank God! You are here! I felt so strange--I thought ... Oh, I cannot
tell you what I have been thinking! Turn on the light, Paul.
THE VOICE
You are troubled, dear. Let the darkness stay a moment. It will calm you.
Sit down, Elizabeth.
THE WOMAN
Yes.... I am so faint! I _had_ to come, Paul! I had to _see_ you, to know
that you were.... I know I promised not to, but I was going mad! Just to
touch you, to hold you ... but it's all right _now_.
THE VOICE
It is all right now, Elizabeth.
THE WOMAN
I thought I could stand it, dear, I thought I could stand it. It wasn't
myself--I swear to you it wasn't--nor _him_. I, I can stand all _that_,
now. It was something else, something that came over me all at once. I
saw--Oh Paul! the thing I saw! But it's all right _now_....
THE VOICE
It is all right, Elizabeth, because ours is love, love that is made of
light, and not merely blind desire.
THE WOMAN
Ours is love. We _are_ love!
THE VOICE
So that even if we are separated--even if you cannot come to me yet, we
shall not lose conviction nor joy.
THE WOMAN
Yes, Paul. I will not make it harder for you. I know it is hard, and that
it was for my sake you could bring yourself to bind me not to see you
again.
THE VOICE
Love _is_, world without end. That is all we need to know.
THE WOMAN
World without end, amen.
THE VOICE
And because I knew the power and truth of love in you I put this
separation upon us.
THE WOMAN
For my sake. I know it now, Paul! And trust me! You _can_ trust me, Paul!
Not time, nor distance, nor trouble nor change shall move me from the
heights of love where I dwell.
THE VOICE
And because I knew the happiness of love could not endure in deceit, nor
the wine give life if we drank it in a cup that was stained, I put you
from me--in the world's sight we meet no more.
THE WOMAN
In the world's sight ... and in the sight of God and man shall I be
faithful to him from now on, in thought and deed and word, as a heart may
be. Yes, Paul ... even that can I endure for your sake. For I know that
hereafter--
THE VOICE
For love there is neither here nor hereafter, but the realization of love
is ever according to his triumph. This has come to me suddenly, a light in
the darkness, and I have won the truth by supreme pain.
THE WOMAN
That, too, Paul. _Pain_.... I have been weak. I gave way to my nerves, but
now in your presence I am strong again, and I shall not fail you.
THE VOICE
My presence is where your love is, and as your love so my nearness. Love
me as I love you now, and I shall be more real to you than your hands and
your eyes.
THE WOMAN
_Bone of one bone, and flesh of one flesh_....
THE VOICE
Spirit of one spirit! The flesh we have put away.
THE WOMAN
That, too, Paul. Oh the glory of it! So be my happiness that I shall not
wish it changed, even before the Throne!
THE VOICE
I have given you happiness?
THE WOMAN
Perfect happiness, Paul. I am happy, happier than I ever was before. But
before I go home from here for the last time, turn on the light, Paul,
that we may be to each other always as the wonder of this moment. For the
last time, Paul. Paul?... Paul? Where are you? Why don't you answer?...
_Paul!_ (_She turns on the light. It is a studio. At the piano, fallen
forward upon the keys, sits the body of a man. There is a revolver on the
floor beside him._) Paul!... _As I saw him!_ Is _this_ my happiness. Oh
God, _must_ I?
A MODERN PRODIGAL
_The scene shows Uncle Richard's library, a massive and expensive interior
suggesting prosperity rather than meditation. It is obviously new, and in
the whole room there is only one intimate and human note, a quaint little
oil painting of a boy with bright eyes--Uncle Richard at the age of
eleven._
_Richard walks about, waiting for his uncle, and examines the appointments
with more curiosity than reverence. Stopping by the mantle for a moment he
notices, with a start of surprise, his own photograph. He turns away with
a shrug just as his uncle hurriedly enters._
UNCLE RICHARD
Dick! Richard! At last! How are you? You received my letter?
RICHARD
I am very well, uncle. Yes, I received your letter. It was forwarded from
Florence.
UNCLE RICHARD
Good! Sit down, Richard, sit down.
RICHARD
I did not receive it until a few days ago, in New York. I came on as soon
as possible. But I had engagements--business engagements--that delayed me.
UNCLE RICHARD
Business? I am very glad, Richard, that you have given up your art. Not
that art isn't entirely commendable, but in times like these, you know....
RICHARD
Don't misunderstand me, uncle. My business was connected with art. I
haven't given up painting. I never shall.
UNCLE RICHARD
In my letter--
RICHARD
Yes. Cousin Anne wrote me about Aunt Ethel's death, but I did not realize
how changed everything here was until I read that letter from you. And now
(_glancing about_) it is even clearer. It must have been a bitter shock to
you, Uncle Richard. You had both come to the point where you could have
done so much with life. But you are quite well, Uncle Richard?
UNCLE RICHARD
I am never unwell. I don't believe in it. Yes, everything was ready here.
In its larger issue, my life has not been unsuccessful.... But your
business, Richard, it came out well, I hope?
RICHARD
Quite. You see after graduating I borrowed a certain sum to go abroad with
a classmate. We had a plan for doing a book on modern Italy, he writing
the text and I making illustrations. We had quite a new idea about it all.
It was good fun besides. Well, the work has been placed, and now after
repaying the loan I have enough to take a studio and begin painting in
earnest.
UNCLE RICHARD
Hum.
RICHARD
I believe I have a copy of one of the sketches with me. (_He tears a sheet
from a note book and hands it to Uncle Richard._)
UNCLE RICHARD (_looking at it wrong side up_)
A sketch. I see. Of course it is unfinished?
RICHARD
Yes. But then, no painting should be what you call "finished." A work of
art can only be finished by the mental effort of appreciation on the part
of the spectator. Photographs and chromos are _finished_--that's why they
are dead.
UNCLE RICHARD
I was not aware of the fact. But ... you will remember, Richard, that in
my letter I asked you to visit me?
RICHARD
Of course. And I shall be very pleased to stay for a few days. Very kind
of you to ask me.
UNCLE RICHARD
Not at all, Richard, not at all! I--
RICHARD
On Monday I must return to New York and look for a studio. With the book
coming out I feel I shall have no trouble selling my work.
UNCLE RICHARD
Studio? Isn't that--hem! rather _Bohemian_, Richard?
RICHARD
Good gracious, uncle, you haven't been reading George Moore, have you?
UNCLE RICHARD
But Richard, did you not understand that I wanted you to stay here longer
than that?
RICHARD
Why no. How long did you mean?
UNCLE RICHARD
Er--I hadn't thought, exactly. I mean that I wanted you to bring your
things here--bring your things here and just live on with me.
RICHARD
I had no idea you meant _that_. Anyhow, as I couldn't paint here, it's
impossible. But, of course, if you care to have me stay a few days
longer--
UNCLE RICHARD
But I have everything arranged for you here. Your room--everything.
RICHARD
But you see, uncle, my work--
UNCLE RICHARD
I hope you will give up your art, but if you must paint I will provide you
a room for it. Do you know how many rooms there are in this house,
Richard?
RICHARD
Really, Uncle Richard, I thank you, but--
UNCLE RICHARD
Don't mention it. And of course you can see to its proper arrangement
yourself.
RICHARD
I had no idea of this when I came and--but you see, it's not only the
studio an artist requires, it's atmosphere, the atmosphere of enthusiasm
and feeling. You might as well give a business man a brand new office
equipment and turn him loose on the Sahara desert as to shut a painter up
in a town like this and expect him to create. Artists need atmosphere just
as business men need banks. It's the meeting of like forces that makes
anything really go.
UNCLE RICHARD
But we are not wholly barbarous here, Richard. _This_, for example, and no
first-class New England city lacks culture.
RICHARD
I suppose there's no use explaining, but what first-class New England
cities regard as _culture_ your real artist avoids as he would avoid
poison.
UNCLE RICHARD
Well, well. But circumstances--really, Richard, don't you think it your
_duty_ to stay?
RICHARD
Why?
UNCLE RICHARD
Must I explain? We are met, after a long separation, in circumstances
personally sorrowful to me, and I trust, to some extent, to you as well.
We....
RICHARD
Yes, a _long_ separation.
UNCLE RICHARD
I admit, Richard, that from your point of view my attitude has not always
been as--as considerate, perhaps, as you might have expected. But I have
been a very busy man, and--
RICHARD
As far as I am concerned, uncle, I have nothing to blame you for; but my
mother....
UNCLE RICHARD
Your mother? Surely, Richard, your mother never criticised me to you? She
was much too fine a woman. Besides, I helped her in many ways you may know
nothing about.
RICHARD
No, mother said nothing. She wouldn't have, anyhow--and as far as your
helping her is concerned, I can only judge of that by results.
UNCLE RICHARD
Results? What do you mean? I have no desire to catalogue the things I have
done for one who was near to me, but--
RICHARD
That's all very well, uncle, and I have no criticism to make. What's over
is over. But when you speak of my duty to you, I think of how mother died
so young, and how I found out afterward her affairs were so difficult. I
had no idea--she sacrificed herself for me so long that I took it for
granted. But I think that you, as a business man, must have known.
UNCLE RICHARD
You found that everything was mortgaged? Well, Richard, it pains me to
recall these things. Your father, unfortunately, was a poor business man.
As for the mortgage, Richard, I held that myself.
RICHARD
You did!
UNCLE RICHARD
Yes. Even your mother did not know. I acted through an agent, and the
interest was two per cent.
RICHARD
But--
UNCLE RICHARD
A nominal rate. Your mother was so proud--
RICHARD
Well, but there were other matters, long ago, that I have only lately
heard about. You and father once started in business together....
UNCLE RICHARD
We did. And I advised him to sell out when I did, but he thought better to
hold on.
RICHARD
Poor father. You made--he lost....
UNCLE RICHARD
But if he had followed my advice--. All this is painful to me, Richard,
and leads nowhere. As for yourself, I have always been interested in you,
more so than you realize, and now--
RICHARD
Now?
UNCLE RICHARD
I cannot feel at fault for anything that has happened. Your father was
unsuited for modern life. By the ordinary standards he was bound to fail.
Still, it gives me great satisfaction that at the present time, Richard, I
can offer you a home. Yes, Richard, a _home_.
RICHARD
It's difficult to decide.... You see, my studio--
UNCLE RICHARD
Well! I confess I can't understand all this uncertainty!
RICHARD
For three years I have worked as hard as anybody could to make a position
allowing me to paint. I have succeeded. I no longer need help!
UNCLE RICHARD
Of course not! I don't question your ability to get along. At the same
time, your attitude now is rather quixotic. Besides, as far as your
painting is concerned, you can always go about where you require. It isn't
slavery I am planning for you here, Richard!
RICHARD
Well ... but then, as I must live by my sales and commissions, I'd cut a
poor figure in surroundings like these.
UNCLE RICHARD
Ha! Very quaint that, Richard, very quaint! I suppose artists _are_ like
that.... Richard, I see you do not yet understand. I shall be most happy
to provide for you in every way. Yes. I have considered the whole matter
carefully, and for some time have only waited an opportunity to explain to
you in person. Consider, then, that you shall have an income of your own.
You see, Richard?
RICHARD
No, I don't.
UNCLE RICHARD
Why, it's simple enough!
RICHARD
Yes, the facts are, but I don't understand--an income, a home. Why, I
never dreamed of such a thing!
UNCLE RICHARD
And why not, my boy, why not? We haven't seen enough of each other,
Richard. Perhaps I have been at fault there, not to show more clearly the
interest I have always taken in you. Yes, indeed, a warm interest,
Richard!
RICHARD
Why not, Uncle Richard? Three years ago you might have asked me that
question. Now I ask you _why_?
UNCLE RICHARD
Why? How strange! How could that question arise between a man and his own
nephew?
RICHARD
Three years ago, before Aunt Ethel died, I spent Thanksgiving with you. It
was during the recess, my second year at Harvard. I came here practically
from my mother's funeral. I had just learned the truth about our
affairs--not a thing of ours really ours, not a penny left. How mother had
kept the truth from me, I don't know. But suddenly everything changed. The
ground I had been standing on gave way--my hands grasped everywhere for
support. I had never lacked, never thought about money either way. I took
it for granted that families like ours were provided with a decent living
by some law of Providence.... I came here. I thought of course you would
help me. I didn't think so consciously--I turned to you and Aunt Ethel
from blind instinct.
We spent Thanksgiving together. It was very quiet, very sad. You both
talked about mother and the old days. At breakfast the next morning you
wished me good luck and went off to your office. Afterward Aunt Ethel and
I talked in the living room while I waited for the train. She seemed ill
at ease. She alluded to your affairs once or twice, saying that you were
quite embarrassed by the state of politics, and how sad it was that people
couldn't do all they wanted to in this world for others.
Uncle Richard, when Joseph came with the carriage, Aunt Ethel kissed me,
cried, and gave me--a twenty dollar bill. Good God! and I thanked her for
it. Twenty dollars--carfare and a week's board! I left the house
completely dazed: it seemed like a bad dream....
UNCLE RICHARD
There, there, Richard! We never imagined for a moment. I thought your
college course all provided for--and your Aunt Ethel never understood
business. She doubtless exaggerated my difficulty. If either of us had
dreamed you were so worried! As if I should have grudged you money!
RICHARD
That's what I thought at first, and I hated you for it, but afterward I
realized it was not that--it was worse.
UNCLE RICHARD
_Worse!_
RICHARD
Yes. It wasn't that you grudged the money, it was that you simply didn't
_think_ of it. You felt that something had to be done, because I made you
feel uncomfortable, but you didn't know exactly what, and you were both
relieved to see me go. I had spoiled your Thanksgiving dinner--that was
the depth of your realization.
UNCLE RICHARD
No, no, Richard! You were so cold, so silent. You made it impossible for
us to help you.
RICHARD
I suppose I did seem cold. That's the instinct of inexperienced natures
when they are desperate. But it would have been so easy to break through
with one kind word or act.
UNCLE RICHARD
There, there! How glad I am that conditions are changed!
RICHARD
Changed, yes, but it was I who changed them! The shock of poverty was
terrible at first, not because I set too much value on money, nor because
I was unwilling to work, but because I felt I had no power of attack. My
nature was introspective, I lived in an epic of my own creation. My
strength and my courage were wrapped up in dreams, and seemed to have no
relation to the practical world. I could have faced the devil himself for
an ideal, but to make my own living--that was the nightmare!...
That was why I was so cold, so silent. If you had said one human thing,
straight from your heart to mine, I should have been comforted. In a case
like that, as I now know, it is not money a man wants, even if he himself
thinks it is. No. It is just sympathy, the right word that renews his
courage and arms him against the new circumstances by making him feel he
doesn't stand alone. If you had found that word, or even tried to find it,
I should have loved you like a son. My heart was ready--you did not want
it!
UNCLE RICHARD
But you finished at college, Richard....
RICHARD
Yes, I finished. And do you know how? I spent that first night all alone
in my room, thinking. In the morning I called on a classmate, a poor man
who was working his way. I said: "Here, I haven't a cent. Advise me."
We talked it all over. He helped me sell my furniture, he sublet my room.
And he gave me a job.
UNCLE RICHARD
A--
RICHARD
A job. Collecting and delivering laundry. That's how I finished at
college. I'm ashamed to admit it now, but at first that work hurt me like
a knife. I couldn't see any relation between that and my ambition for art.
But it wore off. I grew tougher, I learned the real meaning of things. And
now I am glad it happened.
UNCLE RICHARD
Admirable, admirable! Really, Richard, I am more than ever convinced that
I have decided rightly. Richard, you _must_ make this your home!
RICHARD
Are you still talking about my _duty_?
UNCLE RICHARD
Richard, a man begins by working for himself alone, then he works for the
woman he marries, but even that is not enough. One by one I have seen
every motive that ever impelled or guided me grow insufficient and have to
be replaced. Ambition and love, once satisfied, point forward. We must
always have a future before us, Richard, unless we are willing to become
machines of habit. At one point or another most men do become machines.
Thank heaven, I never could. In these last few months I have begun to
realize.... It was your Aunt Ethel's tragedy that she had no children. I
wonder now whether it is not even more my own.
_Richard, I have made you my heir._
RICHARD
Your heir!
UNCLE RICHARD
My heir. And that is why, Richard--of course you could not realize it at
the time--that is why I allowed myself to use the word "duty" as having
reference to the future if not to the past.
For the future, Richard, is ours to enjoy, without misunderstanding,
without disharmony, I at the end of my labours, you at the beginning of
yours. You have revealed qualities I confess I had not suspected,
qualities fitting you for responsibility and administration. With the
position you will henceforth occupy, Richard, you should enter public
life. Nothing more honorable for a responsible citizen.... Nothing more
essential to the welfare of our beloved republic at its present critical
state. We need the English tradition over here, Richard--solid,
responsible men to administer public affairs. I have often felt the need
of an efficient aristocracy in our social and industrial life. And nothing
would please me more than to see you rise to authority by the leverage of
my wealth. Nothing would please me more--why, Richard, I should consider
it the prolongation of my own life!
RICHARD
No. No you don't, Uncle Richard. Never!
UNCLE RICHARD
What on earth do you mean?
RICHARD
I won't be your heir!
UNCLE RICHARD
Wh--what? Good heavens! Are you _mad_?
RICHARD
I hope so. Yes, I hope that from your point of view I am quite mad. You
won't understand me, because you don't understand what I most love and
what I most hate. Oh you self-made Americans! When I really needed your
helping hand you didn't think of me. You had the American idea that every
tub must stand on its own bottom, that every young fellow must make
_good_--that is, make money. You buy "art" at a certain stage in your
development just as you buy motor cars, and you think you can buy artists
the same way. You don't know that to buy dead art is to starve live
artists.
Well, I made good. I can stand alone. Are you offering me money now to
help me in my work? Not a bit! Rich men haven't changed since the first
tribal chief ordered his bow and arrows, his wives and servants, to be
buried with him.
UNCLE RICHARD
You conceited young rascal! I needn't leave you a cent!
RICHARD
I haven't asked you to. I never thought about your money. I can get along
very well without it. But can you take it with you?
UNCLE RICHARD
Of course not! But I can leave it to whom I please.
RICHARD
Why don't you leave it to Joseph?
UNCLE RICHARD
To Joseph--my coachman? Are you joking?
RICHARD
Not at all. Didn't he save your life in the Civil War? And what have I
ever done for you?
UNCLE RICHARD
I have remembered Joseph very handsomely, but to make him my _heir_--why,
that isn't the same thing at all!
RICHARD
Well, to a university then?
UNCLE RICHARD
No.
RICHARD
A church?
UNCLE RICHARD
No!
RICHARD
A cat hospital?
UNCLE RICHARD
Damn cats! There's been enough of them sick in my own house!
RICHARD
Well, I give it up.
UNCLE RICHARD
You young fool! You don't know what you are saying! _Joseph! Church! Cat
Hospital!_ What good would I get out of that? Is that what I have been
working for all my life? No indeed!
_Richard, you shall be my heir!_
RICHARD
I won't! You are only interested in me because I bear your name. If I were
John Smith, though ten times the better man, you would never waste a
thought upon me. My name is an accident--I care nothing for that. My real
self is my art, for which you care even less. All you want is to establish
a dynasty--the last infirmity of successful men.
No, I won't be your heir!
UNCLE RICHARD
Madness, madness! What kind of a world are we coming to?
RICHARD
Listen. One day when I was walking outside Siena I came to a fine old
villa with a wonderful garden. A row of cypresses ran along the wall
inside, and I wanted to paint it. The gardener let me in for a tip. While
I sat there working, he watching me--even the peasants have a feeling for
paint over there--we heard a tap on the window. It was the padrona. I saw
that she wanted to speak to me, and I went in. She was an old, crippled
woman, holding to life by sheer will, sitting all day by the fire in one
room. She spoke French, so we could talk. To my surprise she was very much
interested in me--asked questions about my work, my family, and so on. I
couldn't understand why. But when I left she began crying and told me that
I reminded her of her grandson who had been killed in Tripoli, and that
there was no one of the family name left, but that she had to leave the
property either to a cousin whom she detested, or to the Church. And she
said just what you have: that this wasn't the _same thing_. She had
nothing to live for, she said, now the heir was dead, except keep the
place out of others' hands. There she was, a prisoner in that beautiful
villa, enjoying nothing, where an artist would have been in paradise. I
see her yet, bent over the fire in a black lace shawl, crying.
On my way back to town I happened to think of my last visit with you, and
my state of mind returned, my feeling of dependence and the gloomy
Thanksgiving dinner. The shock of contrast between my old and my new self
stopped me short in the road. In a flash I saw the lying materialism on
which the world is based, the curse of dollar worship that keeps
opportunity away from the young, at the same time it keeps the old in a
prison of loneliness and suspicion. If we worshipped life instead of metal
disks, we would see that the young are not really the heirs of the old,
but the old are heirs of the young. Then and there I vowed to keep myself
clear of the whole wretched tangle, even if I had to carry laundry all my
life, so that if any one ever tried to fetter me I could fling his words
back in his face! (_Uncle Richard's nerves are all on edge. A terrific
storm of overbearing temper visibly gathers during this speech, and the
Colonel's long habit of successful domination seems about to assert itself
in an explosion. But at the last moment another power, deeper than habit,
older than character, represses his wrath, and when Uncle Richard speaks
again it is with an earnest gentleness almost plaintive._)
UNCLE RICHARD
Richard, for heaven's sake let us stop this quarreling! Let us forget what
has been said and done on both sides and begin anew. I offer you a home
here during my life time, and all that I own after I am dead. I _do_ care
for you, my boy, I know it now as I know my own name. Surely, Richard, you
need not take this offer amiss?
RICHARD
Well, but you see, Uncle Richard....
UNCLE RICHARD
Do you prefer poverty for its own sake?
RICHARD
Of course not. But I prefer it to hypocrisy and compromise.
UNCLE RICHARD
Well then. You will accept, Richard? For my sake, Richard?
RICHARD
Well....
UNCLE RICHARD
It is the only pleasure left to me, Richard, thinking of the old name
going down honourably in you. And as for the past, my mistakes were due to
not having a son of my own. You have no idea what a difference it makes.
It's my dream, Richard, don't destroy it!
RICHARD
If you really mean it that way--
UNCLE RICHARD
My dear Richard! My dear boy! Why--now I know why we have been quarreling,
Richard!
RICHARD
Why?
UNCLE RICHARD
Because we are so much alike. At your age I was the same self-willed
beggar you are. Richard, you are more like me than you are like your own
father!
RICHARD
Le roi est morte, vive le roi. _But_ (_and he thumps the table with great
emphasis_) but there's one thing understood--I'm going to paint
_masterpieces_!
UNCLE RICHARD
Of course you are, my boy, of course you are! In fact, I always _knew_ you
would, Richard!
THE INCOMPATIBLES
_A corner table in a Broadway restaurant, at evening. Between the man and
woman who have just taken seats is a bouquet of red roses._
MARIAN
No, I don't want any oysters or clams. I ate enough sea food in Atlantic
City to last a season. I want some--Oh, what gorgeous flowers! Umm! I love
the smell of roses! Especially out of season. Why, the other tables
haven't any! Fred, did you--?
FRED
Sure I did, Marian. I knew you'd like 'em.
MARIAN
I do. But you mustn't be a silly boy any longer, Fred!
FRED
I will, too. It isn't silly, to give _you_ flowers.
MARIAN
That's all right, Fred. Goodness knows I like the flowers. But I'm not a
young idiot who expects her honeymoon to last forever. I've had one
experience, you know.
FRED
Yes, but you mustn't judge all men by _him_.
MARIAN
I don't. I knew well enough you're different, or I'd never have married
you. But at the same time--
FRED
Well, I'm going to show you that a _real_ man don't get over the fun of
being married to a peach like you in just two weeks. You don't want me to,
do you?
MARIAN
Course not, Fred! Didn't I say you were different? But I don't want you to
set a pace you can't keep up. You'd hate me in no time if I did.
FRED
I couldn't hate _you_, girlie! Besides, isn't this our first night back in
the old town? We shan't be having dinner out like this every day.
MARIAN
Well, only I don't want to have you flop all of a sudden, like _he_ did.
What'll you have, a cocktail?
FRED
Let's see.... What's the matter, Marian?
MARIAN
Sh! Don't turn round!
FRED
What's up?
MARIAN
_Him!_
FRED
Him who?
MARIAN
_George!_
FRED
Good Lord! Well, don't mind _him_. He hasn't got anything on you now.
You're _mine_.
MARIAN
Sure I am. He isn't looking. He's with a woman. By jingo! It's that
millinery kid!
FRED
What millinery kid? Besides, what difference does it make? Let him have a
hundred, if he wants 'em. _We're_ happy.
MARIAN
The nerve of him! I knew it was her right along. He tried to throw a bluff
it was some swell. I'll bet he paid good for those clothes!
FRED
Oh, come on! What'll you have? Besides, she might have made the clothes
herself.
MARIAN
Made 'em herself! Say, a fine lot you know about ladies' gowns! That came
from the Avenue, straight.
FRED
Well, what if it did? I'll get you a better one, you just wait.
MARIAN
Sh! He's looking over here!
FRED
Hm! Look at me and you won't see him.
MARIAN
The nerve!
FRED
What's he done?
MARIAN
He smiled right over like nothing had ever happened. I'll bet he's going
to say something mean about me. Oh!
FRED
Let's change our seats. I'm hungry!
MARIAN
Change nothing! Catch me giving him a laugh like that! I could tell her
things, the young--There, now _she's_ looking!
FRED
What if she is? Say, look here--
MARIAN
He's getting up! Well, of all the brass!
FRED
What?
MARIAN
He's coming over here!
FRED
He is! Don't you say a word. I'll take _him_ on!
MARIAN
If he dares--
GEORGE
Hello, Marian!
MARIAN
Hm!
GEORGE
What, got a grouch on your honeymoon? That's a bad sign, Marian!
MARIAN
No, I haven't got any grouch! Don't _you_ worry! You're the only grouch I
ever had, thank the Lord!
GEORGE
Well then. It isn't every woman gets rid of an incompatible husband and
gets hold of a compatible one, all in same season.
FRED
Look here!
MARIAN
That's just like him! Coming over here with a grin on like a kid with a
new toy. Well, we don't want anything to do with _you_. See?
GEORGE
Sure. Excuse me for butting in. I just wanted to make a little
announcement.
MARIAN
Oh, you did! Well, I'm surprised! I didn't think _she_ was the kind you
had to marry.
GEORGE
Huh! I knew you'd have your little knife out for her. But why you should
have to be jealous _now_ I can't see.
MARIAN
I'm not jealous!
GEORGE
What you worrying about, then?
MARIAN
I'm not worrying! I'm only sore because you butted in when we were so
happy together here without you.
GEORGE
Oh, _excuse_ me! As a matter of fact, I didn't come over to make any
announcement. It's too late for that. I--
MARIAN
Married already! Anybody'd think you might wait a little while for common
decency!
GEORGE
I waited a day longer than you did, anyhow.
MARIAN
That's different.
FRED
I _beg_ your pardon! We were just ordering dinner. If you didn't come to
make any announcement, why--
MARIAN
Yes, what did you butt in for?
GEORGE
Why, I got a letter from your friend Grace, and--
MARIAN
Grace? What did she have to say to _you_?
GEORGE
She said she was sorry I had to get a divorce, but I told her--
MARIAN
Sorry _you_ had to get a divorce! Well, if I don't fix _her_!
GEORGE
Oh, she's getting married, too.
MARIAN
Who to?
GEORGE
That fellow, what's his name, that's got the garage over on Seventh
Avenue.
MARIAN
Snider! So _he's_ the one! Well! And I suppose she'll be all over town in
a new car.
GEORGE
Sure. Saw him to-day. A big yellow one. I always told you she was out for
money. And you thought she was in love with Jackson!
MARIAN
Hypocrite! She was. Or she told me so. Cried all over me. Have you seen
Jackson?
GEORGE
Yes. He's as blue as your old kimono. He said--
FRED
Look here, Marian! I'm not going to wait all night for my dinner!
MARIAN
Order your old dinner! What did Jackson say, George?
THE GENIUS
_The front porch of a small farmhouse in New England. Stone flags lead to
the road; the yard is a careless, comfortable lawn with two or three old
maples. It is autumn._
_A boy of sixteen or so, carrying a paper parcel, stops hesitatingly,
looks in a moment and then walks to the porch. As he stands there a man
comes out of the house. The man is in his early forties, he stoops a
little, but not from weakness; his expression is one of deep calm._
THE MAN
I wonder if you have seen my dog? I was going for a walk, but Rex seems to
have grown tired of waiting.
THE BOY
Your dog? No, sir, I haven't seen him. Shall I go look?
THE MAN
No, never mind. He'll come back. Rex and I understand each other. He has
his little moods, like me.
THE BOY
If you were going for a walk--?
THE MAN
It doesn't matter at all. I can go any time. You don't live in this
country?
THE BOY
No, sir. I live in New York. I wish I did. It's beautiful here, isn't it?
THE MAN
It's very beautiful to me. I love it. You may have come a long road this
morning, let's sit down.
THE BOY
Thank you. I'm not interfering with anything?
THE MAN
Bless your heart! No indeed. What is there to interfere with? All we have
is life, and this is part of it.
THE BOY
I like to sit under these trees. It makes me think of the Old Testament.
THE MAN
That's interesting. How?
THE BOY
Well, maybe I'm wrong, but whenever I think of the Old Testament I see an
old man under a tree--
THE MAN
Yes?
THE BOY
A man who has lived it all through, you know, and found out something real
about it; and he sits there calm and strong, something like a tree
himself; and every once in a while somebody comes along--a boy, you
know,--and the boy talks to him all about himself, just as we imagine
we'd like to with our fathers, if they weren't so busy, or our teachers,
if they didn't depend so much upon books, or our ministers, if we thought
they would really understand,--and the old man doesn't say much maybe, but
the boy goes away much stronger and happier....
THE MAN
Yes, yes, I understand. The Old Testament.... They _did_ get hold of
things, didn't they?
THE BOY
What I can't understand is how nowadays people seem more grown up and
competent than those men were, in a way, and we do such wonderful
things--skyscrapers and aeroplanes--and yet we aren't half so wonderful as
they were in the Old Testament with their jugs and their wooden plows. I
mean, we aren't near so big as the things we do, while those old fellows
were so much bigger. We smile at them, but if some day one of our machines
fell over on us what would we do about it?
THE MAN
I wonder.
THE BOY
I went through a big factory just last week. One of my friends' father is
the manager, and all I could think of was what could a fellow do who
didn't like it, who didn't fit in.... Nowadays most everybody seems
competent about factories or business or something like that--you
know--and they've got hold of everything, so a fellow's got to do the same
thing or where is he?
THE MAN
That's the first question, certainly: where is he? But where is he if he
does do the same thing?
THE BOY
Why, he's with the rest. And _they_ don't ask that question....
THE MAN
I'm afraid they don't. It would be interesting to be there if they should
begin to ask it, wouldn't it?
THE BOY
Yes.... I'd like to be there when some _I_ know ask themselves! But they
never will. Why should they?
THE MAN
Don't you mean how _can_ they?
THE BOY
Yes, of course. They don't ask the question because the big thing they are
doing seems to be the answer beforehand. But it isn't! Not compared with
the Old Testament. So we have to ask it for ourselves. And that's why I
came here....
THE MAN
Oh. You want to know where _they_ are, with their power, or where _you_
will be without it?
THE BOY
Where I'll be. I hate it! But what else is there to-day?
THE MAN
Why, there's you.
THE BOY
But that's just it! What am I for if I can't join in? I came to you....
You don't mind my talking, do you?
THE MAN
On the contrary.
THE BOY
Well, everybody I know is a part of it, so how could they tell me what to
do outside of it? I've been wondering about that for a year. Before then,
when I was just a boy, the world seemed full of everything, but now it
seems to have only one thing. That or nothing. Then one day I saw a
photograph somebody had cut out of a Sunday paper, and I thought to myself
there's a man who seems outside, entirely outside, and yet he has
something. It wasn't all or nothing for him ... and I wondered who it was.
Then I found your book, with the same picture in it. You bet I read it
right off! It was the first time in my life I had ever felt power as great
as skyscrapers and railroads and yet apart from them. Outside of all they
mean. Like the Old Testament. Those poems!
THE MAN
You liked them?
THE BOY
It was more than that. How can a fellow _like_ the ocean, or a snow storm?
THE MAN
Is that what you thought they were like?
THE BOY
Why, they went off like a fourteen inch gun! Not a whine about life in
them--not a single regret for anything. They were wonderful! They seemed
to pick up mountains and cities and toss them all about like toys. They
made me feel that what I was looking for was able to conquer what I
didn't like.... I said to myself I don't care if he does laugh at me, I'll
go and ask him where all that power is! And so I came....
THE MAN
There's Rex now--over across the road. He's wondering who you are. He sees
we are friends, and he's pretending to be jealous. Dogs are funny, aren't
they? But you were speaking about my poems. It's odd that their first
criticism should come from you like this. You must be about the same age I
was when I began writing--when I wanted above anything to write a book
like that, and when such a book seemed the most impossible thing I could
do. Like trying to swim the Atlantic, or live forever.
THE BOY
It seemed impossible? I should think it would be the most natural thing in
the world, for _you_--like eating dinner.
THE MAN
That's the wonderful thing--not the book, but that _I_ should have come to
write it!
THE BOY
But who else could write it?
THE MAN
At your age I thought anybody could--anybody and everybody except myself.
THE BOY
Really?
THE MAN
Really and truly. You've no idea what a useless misfit I was.
THE BOY
But I read somewhere you had always been brilliant, even as a boy.
THE MAN
Unfortunately ... yes. That was what made it so hard for me. Shall I tell
you about it?
THE BOY
I wish you would!
THE MAN
Brilliance--I'll tell you what that was, at least for me. I wrote several
things that people called "brilliant." One in particular, a little play of
decadent epigram. It was acted by amateurs before an admiring "select"
audience. That was when I was twenty-one. From about sixteen on I had been
acutely miserable--physically miserable. I never knew when I wouldn't
actually cave in. I felt like a bankrupt living on borrowed money. Of
course, it's plain enough now--the revolt of starved nerves. I cared only
for my mind, grew only in that, and the rest of me withered up like a
stalk in dry soil. So the flower drooped too--in decadent epigram. But
nobody pointed out the truth of it all to me, and I scorned to give my
body a thought. People predicted a brilliant future--for me, crying
inside! Then I married. I married the girl who had taken the star part in
the play. According to the logic of the situation, it was inevitable.
Everybody remarked how inevitable it was. A decorative girl, you know. She
wanted to be the wife of a great man.... Well, we didn't get along. There
was an honest streak in me somewhere which hated deception. I couldn't
play the part of "brilliant" young poet with any success. She was at me
all the while to write more of the same thing. And I didn't want to. The
difference between the "great" man I was supposed to be and the sick child
I really was, began to torture. I knew I oughtn't to go on any further if
I wanted to do anything real. Then one night we had an "artistic" dinner.
My wife had gotten hold of a famous English poet, and through him a
publisher. The publisher was her real game. I drank champagne before
dinner so as to be "brilliant." I was. And before I realized it, Norah had
secured a promise from the publisher to bring out a book of plays. I
remember she said it was practically finished. But it wasn't, only the
one, and I hated that. But I sat down conscientiously to write the book
that she, and apparently all the world that counted, expected me to write.
Well, I couldn't write it. Not a blessed word! Something inside me refused
to work. And there I was. In a month or so she began to ask about it.
Norah thought I ought to turn them out while she waited. I walked up and
down the park one afternoon wondering what to tell her.... And when I
realized that either she would never understand or would despise me, I
grew desperate. I wrote her a note, full of fine phrases about
"incompatibility," her "unapproachable ideals," the "soul's need of
freedom"--things she _would_ understand and wear a heroic attitude
about--and fled. I came here....
THE BOY
Of course. But didn't she follow you? Didn't they bother you?
THE MAN
Not a bit. Norah preferred her lonely heroism. In a few months I was quite
forgotten. That was one of the healthful things I learned. Well, I was a
wreck when I came here, I wanted only to lie down under a tree.... And
there it was, under that tree yonder, my salvation came.
THE BOY
Your salvation?
THE MAN
Hunger. That was my salvation. Simple, elemental, unescapable appetite.
You see I had no servant, no one at all. So I had to get up and work to
prepare my food.... It was very strange. Compared with this life, my life
before had been like living in a locked box. Some one to do everything for
me except think, and consequently I thought too much. But here the very
fact of life was brought home to me. I spent weeks working about the house
and grounds on the common necessities. By the time winter came on the
place was fit to live in--and I was enjoying life. All the "brilliance"
had faded away; I was as simple as a blade of grass.
For a year I didn't write a word. I had the courage to wait for the real
thing, nobody pestering me to be a "genius"! Some day you may read that
first book. People said I had re-discovered the virtue of humility. I had.
THE BOY
I will read it! And how much more it will mean to me now!
THE MAN
I suppose you know the theory about vibrations--how if a little push is
given a bridge, and repeated often enough at the right intervals, the
bridge will fall?
THE BOY
Yes.
THE MAN
Well, that's the whole secret of what you have been looking for--what you
found in my poems.
THE BOY
I don't understand.
THE MAN
A man's life is a rhythm. Eating, sleeping, working, playing, loving,
thinking--everything. And when we live so that each activity comes at the
right interval, we gain power. When one interrupts another, we lose.
Weakness is merely the thrust of one impulse against another, instead of
their combined thrust against the world. When I came here, feeling like a
criminal, I was obeying the one right instinct in a welter of emotions. It
was like the faintest of heart beats in a sick body. I listened to that.
Then I learned physical hunger, then sleep, and so on. It's incredible how
stupid I was about the elemental art of living! I had to begin all over
from the beginning, as if no one had ever lived before.
THE BOY
That's what you meant in your poems about religion.
THE MAN
Exactly! I learned that "good" is the rhythm of the man's personal nature,
and that "evil" is merely the confusion of the same impulses. As time
went on it became instinctive to live for and by the rhythm. Everything
about my life here was caught up and used in the vision of power--drawing
water, cutting wood, digging in the garden, dawn. It was all marvelous--I
couldn't help writing those poems. They are the natural joys and sorrows
of ten years. As a matter of fact, though, I grew to care less and less
about writing, as living became fuller and richer. People write too much.
They would write less if they had to make the fire in the morning.
THE BOY
The first impulse ... I see. Oh, life might be so simple!
THE MAN
Why not? The animals have it. Men have it at times, but we make each other
forget. If we could only be each other's reminders instead of forgetters!
THE BOY
Yes! But I see the only thing to do is to go away, like you.
THE MAN
Not necessarily, I was merely a bad case, and required a desperate remedy,
earth and air and freedom from others' will. I need the country, but the
next man might require the city as passionately. Don't imagine that only
the hermits, like me, live instinctively. It can be done in New York, too,
only one mustn't be so sensitive to others.... After all, friend, we were
wrong in saying that this power lies outside the world of skyscrapers and
business. It doesn't lie outside nor inside. It cuts across everything.
Do you see? For it's all a matter of the man's own soul.
THE BOY
Then?
THE MAN
We can't live in a vacuum. The more you feel the force, the more you must
act. The more you can act. And in the long run it doesn't matter what you
do, if you do what your own instinct bids.
THE BOY
Then I _could_ stay right in the midst of it?
THE MAN
Yes. And if you were thinking of writing poetry, it might even be better
to stay in the midst of it. Drama, you know ... and it's time for a new
drama.
THE BOY
It isn't that, with me. I can't write.... I had one splendid teacher. He
used to talk about things right in class. He said that most educated
people think that intellect is a matter of making fine distinctions--of
seeing as two separate points what the unintelligent would believe was one
point; but that this idea was _finicky_. He wanted us to see that
intelligence might also be a matter of seeing the connection between two
things so far apart that most people would think they were always
separate. I like that. It made education _mean_ something, because it made
it depend on imagination instead of grubbing. And then he told us about
the history of our subject--grammar. How it began as poetry, when every
word was an original creation; and then became philosophy, as people had
to arrange speech with thought; and then science, with more or less exact,
laws. I could _see_ it--the thing became alive. And he said all knowledge
passed through the same stages, and there isn't anything that can't
eventually be made scientific. That made me think a good deal. I wondered
if somebody couldn't work out a way of preventing anybody from being poor.
It seems so unnecessary, with so much work being done. That's what I want
to do. Thanks to you, I--
THE MAN
Here's Rex! Rex, know my good friend. I know you will like him. Rex always
cares for the people I do, don't you, Rex?
THE BOY
Of course, I see one thing: it's the people nearest one that make the most
difference. Mother, now, she will understand.... You don't believe in
marrying, though, do you?
THE MAN
I certainly do!
THE BOY
But I thought--
THE MAN
You thought because I left one woman and hadn't found another that I
didn't care for women? Others believe that, too, but it isn't so. On the
contrary. You see, I didn't so much leave her as get away from my own
failure. Of course, there is such a thing as the wrong woman. She makes a
man a fraction. The better she is in herself, the less she leaves him to
live by. One twentieth is less than one half. But the right woman! She
multiplies a man....
THE BOY
Oh!
THE MAN
Why, you might have told from my poems how I believe in love.
THE BOY
I don't remember any love poems.
THE MAN
Bless your heart! Every one of them was a love poem. Not the old-fashioned
kind, about fading roses and tender hearts.... I sent that book out as a
cry for the mate. It is charged with the fulness of love. That's why I
could write about trees and storms.
THE BOY
I suppose if I had been older....
THE MAN
It isn't one's age but one's need. _She_ will understand. Look, the sun
has gone round the corner of the house. Is that lunch you have in the
parcel?
THE BOY
Yes.
THE MAN
Would you like to make it a picnic? I'll get something from the house, and
then we can walk to the woods.
THE BOY
I'd love to!
THE MAN
All right, I'll be ready in no time. Come, Rex!
SURVIVAL
_The garden of a home in the suburbs. A man is walking up and down alone
at dusk, occasionally stopping to water a plant, but more often falling
into deep thought, unconscious of his surroundings. About the place there
is an air of newness and prosperity._
_A young woman enters the garden from the lawn next door._
MARGARET
Look here, Roger, you can't keep this up!
ROGER
No, I can't keep this up. Besides, it's going to rain to-morrow.
MARGARET
What do you mean?
ROGER
Watering the plants. Isn't that what you meant?
MARGARET
You aren't watering the plants. I've been watching you for half an hour.
If you only would! But you keep forgetting what you are at.
ROGER
I wish it were only forgetting--it's remembering.
MARGARET
Oh Roger, don't I know? But you mustn't!
ROGER
I suppose not. I suppose not.
MARGARET
I knew all along, and I kept away. How you felt, I mean. I ought to have
come over a week ago. You haven't anybody to talk to--that's the trouble,
Roger, really. I know. Now let's have the whole thing out. Come. And don't
be afraid of me. Why, I could tie you all up in bandages if you needed it.
And not flinch.
ROGER
Yes, I guess you could.... It's, it's absurd how well I keep!
MARGARET
Hm. Isn't it? You ought to be wilting away like a rose. But no, you keep
your splendid strength and go on with two or three men's work! What would
your mother think if she heard you talking like that? Don't you know that
you couldn't please her better than by going on as you are?
ROGER
That's so. Of course. But that really isn't what I was thinking of. I was
thinking how queer this whole business is. Take our family. As far back as
I know we were always struggling along with many children and few means. I
am the first one who could really make money. And just when I could make
mother comfortable and easy ... besides, I'm all alone.
MARGARET
Ah, Roger, of course you feel that way! But you don't really appreciate
that wonderful mother of yours. Do you think her happiness depended on
having a new house, and a car?
ROGER
No....
MARGARET
Didn't she round out her life beautifully? Wasn't she repaid for her
struggles by seeing you succeed? Didn't she pass away as quietly as going
to sleep? And wasn't her marriage happy? You don't know how much a woman
will meet with, if she's happy!
ROGER
That part of it I can face all right, though I suppose it's hard for the
ordinary selfish man to realize that love like mother's is its own reward.
But toward the end she suffered--she worried....
MARGARET
I know she did. She told me.
ROGER
She told you? I didn't know that.
MARGARET
We were good friends, your mother and I--and women. That's why she told
me. And I think I reassured her.
ROGER
Oh! She did seem to get mightily comforted, just at the last. I never
understood why.
MARGARET
I thank heaven I really did that!--And when I looked out the window and
saw you standing here, I had to come over. I knew it wasn't your mother's
death that was hurting you, but--but your brother's.
ROGER
Arthur ... I'm glad the accident happened after _she_ died.
MARGARET
Yes. But there's something else. Something that hurts. You've got to tell
me. Everything. Don't be afraid. Face it.
ROGER
I have faced it. I--I've made up my mind.
MARGARET
There's still pain somewhere. Is it in the way you have made up your mind?
ROGER
How could that be?
MARGARET
It depends. But tell me what you thought--I mean during this last year or
so. It didn't come to you all at once.
ROGER
Well.... Of course, I always took it for granted about his music. He
seemed to be wonderful at that. And mother believed so in him. It really
began when he left college, I found he had debts.
MARGARET
Debts?
ROGER
Yes. Not just clothes and living--other things. I paid up, but I didn't
like it. I didn't like the things. But I thought it was just a boy's
foolishness. I thought he would be all right after that, but--he wasn't.
MARGARET
He wasn't....
ROGER
No. After a couple of years I had to straighten it out again. I came down
on him flat. He promised to cut it.
MARGARET
But he was doing such wonderful work!
ROGER
Yes, everybody began to say so. If he had only been that alone, the
musician! But--
MARGARET
But afterward?
ROGER
Well, a year ago I began to hear things said again. And then I found
letters and bills. It was the same thing all over. He hadn't kept his
word.
MARGARET
But what did _he_ say?
ROGER
I let it go for weeks, hoping he would say something. But never a word.
MARGARET
He loved you so. How he must have suffered!
ROGER
Yes, I suppose he did suffer. But if he cared so for me why did he try to
keep it hidden, the one thing I would hate most?
MARGARET
That was his way. It made him ashamed.
ROGER
Well, he couldn't keep it dark forever. Mother almost found out.
MARGARET
Almost found out?
ROGER
Yes. So of course I stepped in. We had a frightful row.
MARGARET
When was that?
ROGER
Six months ago. I got him clear. It was hard--this time the woman almost
got him.
MARGARET
Oh!
ROGER
I helped him. But I did it on one condition--that he go to work.
MARGARET
Work? What about his music?
ROGER
That's what he said. But I asked him if he had thought about his music
when he got into these scrapes. He couldn't say a word. So it was all
arranged for him to go into my office, right under my eye, when mother was
taken sick. Then she wanted him to stay near her, so.... And then she
died. And the accident. Well I don't see what more I could have done.
MARGARET
No.... Of course, it wasn't as if you turned against him. And the
office--he was to pay you back that way?
ROGER
Pay me back? Why, if he could, naturally; but that wasn't my idea, that
was only incidental. My idea was to get him into the habit of hard work.
MARGARET
But he always _did_ work!
ROGER
Oh, he worked hard enough. At least he turned out a good deal. But that
was spasmodic--night and day for weeks, and then loafing for weeks more.
That's how he always got into trouble: loafing in between.
MARGARET
Don't you remember how splendid he was the day he had just finished
something? He seemed to have passed out of himself into a shining
humility. It was said of Shelley: _"Sun-treader!"_... Don't you remember?
ROGER
Yes.... Oh hang it! Why couldn't he have been only that! Yes, I remember.
I hoped that six months or so at the office--but no. Anyhow, it's all over
now.
MARGARET
What were you going to say?
ROGER
I suppose I might as well say it: I don't believe the office would have
changed him, after all. That is, permanently. He'd have done his best for
a while, and then--. No, nothing could help him.
MARGARET
Is that what you have made up your mind about?
ROGER
Oh, that. Yes, that's what started me thinking. Everybody has
difficulties, troubles, and I believe in helping a fellow every time. Life
piles up too high against one sometimes, but a little shove from the other
side will move it away. I never believed in the devil take the hindmost,
at all. But this was different.
MARGARET
Different, how? What do you mean?
ROGER
I mean that as long as a fellow's difficulties are outside him you can
help him, because as soon as they are removed he's himself again; but when
they are inside, part of the man himself, there's nothing you can do.
Nothing. You can save a person from the world, but not from himself.
That's where the devil comes in. I see it now. I believe in the devil.
MARGARET
Oh! But _Arthur_....
ROGER
I know you think I'm a brute for speaking of Arthur in connection with the
devil, but it wasn't the old-fashioned devil I meant. I meant the devil of
unfitness. Arthur wasn't _fit_. He had every chance. We can't get away
from what life is. Life shoves people to the wall every day. I've had to
fight hard myself. I admit things aren't fair all round, but Arthur had
his chance, two or three chances, and he just--dropped out. He couldn't
_survive_. And it seems to me that for those who loved him it may be a
good thing after all that he didn't have to go on.
MARGARET
Roger! You shan't say that! You shan't!
ROGER
I don't want to, Margaret, but that's what life itself says. We can't get
behind life. We can't beat evolution and the law of survival.
MARGARET
But his talent, his fine talent--and his exquisite nature!
ROGER
I know. But there it is. It's kinder in the long run to be cruel, if the
truth is cruel. We've got to be true to things as they are.
MARGARET
But take things as they are! He wasn't vicious about--about women, he was
like a child. Of course they got his money, but even so, they weren't all
mere schemers. Some of them were very decent. Why, one of them--
ROGER
What the deuce do _you_ know about them? What about one of them?
MARGARET
She cried. She said she knew it wasn't right, that he couldn't marry her,
but she did like him, and she had children of her own.... I'm sure she was
very tender to him.
ROGER
Who told you? Where did you see her?
MARGARET
_There._
ROGER
There! In my own house?
MARGARET
Yes.
ROGER
How did _she_ get there?
MARGARET
Your mother sent for her.
ROGER
My mother sent for her? Then she knew?
MARGARET
Yes. She knew everything.
ROGER
How?
MARGARET
_He_ told her--Arthur did.
ROGER
Good Lord! I never heard a word of it.
MARGARET
No. They were afraid--afraid you wouldn't understand.
ROGER
Afraid _I_ wouldn't understand? Why, _I_ understood only too well. It was
mother that wouldn't have understood. I'd have cut my hand off rather than
tell her.
MARGARET
Well, she did understand. She understood better than you did. She
understood that part of him hadn't grown up. He was like a boy. He just
walked into things....
ROGER
How did he ever come to tell _her_?
MARGARET
Once when he was sick. Your mother was taking care of him. He blurted it
all out, like a homesick boy.
ROGER
And _she_ understood? Didn't break her heart, and all that?
MARGARET
Oh, it was a shock, naturally. But they talked it all over, and your
mother sent for this woman. I knew. Arthur knew I knew....
ROGER
And mother packed her away without telling me?
MARGARET
Oh, she didn't pack her away. That is, right off.
ROGER
He kept on seeing her? With mother's knowledge?
MARGARET
Yes. Your mother liked her.
ROGER
Well, if women aren't the strangest things!
MARGARET
Yes, they are. Some of them. Fortunately. But you see how wrong you were,
Roger?
ROGER
How was I wrong?
MARGARET
About this unfitness--this survival.
ROGER
On the contrary. It only proves it.
MARGARET
No, it doesn't. I've been thinking, too ... about saving people from
themselves, and all that. You say it's the law of life, and we can't go
beyond life.
ROGER
No, we can't. I still say it.
MARGARET
Then what about your mother? What about all women who--
ROGER
About mother?
MARGARET
Yes. Wasn't her love a part of life? And didn't she keep on loving him in
spite of everything? Is that love blind and foolish--something for your
old evolution to get rid of?
ROGER
I never thought of it. No, of course we don't want to get rid of
_that_--but even so, she didn't save him.
MARGARET
She didn't know about it until lately--thanks to you. If she had known
sooner--and anyhow, you don't know--Of course, she couldn't have saved him
directly. But indirectly ... through another woman--
ROGER
Through another woman?
MARGARET
I mean, supposing there was another woman who loved him--one who could be
to him all he needed, who would understand, and who was all right. One he
could marry.
ROGER
Yes, but--
MARGARET
And supposing this other woman had heard things about Arthur, and was
terribly hurt, and Arthur knew she was, and that's why he kept away; but
your mother talked with her for a long while, and made her understand.
Even sent for _that_ woman--you know. And then this woman, the right one,
did understand, and was ready to marry Arthur....
ROGER
Margaret, are you crying? Are you crying, Margaret? _Margaret, was it
you?_
THE TELEGRAM
_Perron, a stout, middle-aged figure, is seated in front of his
watchmaker's establishment near the Place St. Sulpice. The awning sags,
and the shop wears an air of sober discouragement. Whatever expression the
years have left Perron's round face capable of is concentrated upon the
changing scenes cinematographed to his mind's eye by some strong and
unusual emotion. Alexandre, a tall, stooped man, with a flowing black tie,
bows in passing with old-fashioned punctiliousness to Perron, who
apparently is unaware of his presence. Suddenly Perron starts, rubs his
eyes, and glares about._
PERRON
Alexandre! Alexandre!
ALEXANDRE
Good day, my friend. You seem distraught.
PERRON
Distraught! It was the strangest thing! But sit here with me. Do. I have
something to tell you.
ALEXANDRE
I regret exceedingly, but a stupid engagement.... Later, perhaps--
PERRON
No! No! I insist! Only a great mind like yours can explain the strange
thing which has happened.
ALEXANDRE
Ah, in that case--what is a mere business affair compared with divine
philosophy? Far from being pressé, friend Perron, I have an eternity at
your service.
PERRON
First of all, tell me the exact date!
ALEXANDRE
That I can do, and not on my own authority, which in such details is often
unreliable. This morning my concierge announced with great delicacy and
feeling that to-day is Friday, the fifteenth July, and my rent is once
more due. My rent, which--
PERRON
Friday the fifteenth! Impossible!
ALEXANDRE
Alas. My concierge is of a precision the most meticulous. For all legal,
financial and military affairs, throughout the French Republic at least,
to-day is Friday the fifteenth. But why should this seem impossible to
you, a scientist and a watchmaker?
PERRON
Only listen, and you will understand why I am tempted to doubt the
calendar of the Church itself. Two weeks ago my wife announced to me that
she had reason to expect the due arrival of a son. She said there could be
no question it will be a son because in her mother's family for three
generations it has been the same, three daughters followed by a son.
Eh bien, although I have always desired a son to follow me in this
honorable and scientific profession, nevertheless I received the news
with a certain consternation. In short, my affairs have not gone too well
of late, and without my wife's assistance by her needle....
That evening I thought much how I might increase my funds, and so for two
weeks--two weeks, mon ami--I have omitted my customary café after
dejeuner, which all these years I have not failed to take with a serious
group of friends at the Trois Arts, and even have I smoked no cigarettes.
True, this has not added much to our wealth, though it has been some
satisfaction to realize I have done my possible. My health has suffered
somewhat--I have grown absent-minded, and in the morning my head feels
strange. However, that may not be due entirely to my unnatural abstinence.
However, on Friday the fifteenth July, at three o'clock precisely, as I
sat here in meditation having finished a small work, I saw a telegraph boy
hurry toward me down the street. Then had I a premonition. My heart beat
as it has not these twenty years. In an instant I was reading the message:
my brother, who long ago ran away on adventure to Indo-China, had just
died and left me a fortune in tea.
That was on Friday the fifteenth. And do you know what has happened since?
I have lived two separate lives. Yes, two existences have unrolled before
me. In one I saw myself as I would have been without the telegram. My
business fell away; my son was born a daughter, to my wife's indignation
and my own dismay; and having sold my little shop I sought work in a
cursed factory. Ah me, it was terrible! But the other picture. With my
brother's fortune I made aggrandisements and eventually moved to the Rue
de la Paix. My scientific genius was at last appreciated, and my watches
and clocks became the pride of the haute monde. My son grew into a fine
man, much resembling myself, and after learning the profession opened a
branch office at Buenos Ayres. I won the ribbon. In short, nothing lacked
to make life agreeable and meritorious.
But then it was, just at that point, I came to myself and looking up
recognized my friend the philosopher. Years seemed to have passed--two
separate life times--and startled at finding myself seated in the same
chair and wearing the same clothes, I demanded of you what day it was. And
you answered Friday the fifteenth. How can such a thing be possible?
ALEXANDRE
To think that you, a watchmaker and a petit bourgeois, should experience
what many a saint has died without realizing! I salute you, mystic,
descendent of prophets and seers!
PERRON
But what was it then?
ALEXANDRE
What was it? A mystical experience, an experience of the highest order,
like unto Saint Therese, though in symbols of mundane things. But that is
the fault of the age more than yourself. With more practise your mind will
exhibit even greater power. You must continue in the path. Who knows what
you could do after years of self-denial, when a mere two weeks without
cigarettes have brought you this vision?
PERRON
And without coffee. Don't forget the café! And now that I am rich I shall
never go without it again. No, on the contrary, I shall have at least two,
and on a silver tray.
ALEXANDRE
Do you mean to say you really believe?--But it doesn't matter. Whether or
not the telegram came, the important fact is that you had the vision. It
is for this you must be grateful.
PERRON
Can a philosopher really be such a fool? Of course the telegram came! And
I am grateful!
ALEXANDRE
No. You are the most ungrateful of men. But why mention the telegram? What
matters is whether your vision arose from seeing the telegram or seeing
the telegraph boy? The philosophic truth is the same.
PERRON
Mon dieu! What difference does it make? But I swear I have the telegram,
and it reads just as I told you!
ALEXANDRE
But no! You are ungrateful, and for that I despise you!
PERRON
But yes! And after reading it four times I locked it in my safe. Do I not
_know_ I entered my shop and locked it up?
ALEXANDRE
Yes, and do you not know also that you moved to the Rue de la Paix?
PERRON
Oh! Could it have been--Then I am ruined, and my brother is the most
selfish of men!
ALEXANDRE
But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. In the path shall you grow
steadfast and contented.
PERRON
It doesn't matter!
ALEXANDRE
Not at all. And when you have become reasonable and grateful, I shall
return and speak further with you. I shall devise for you such sacrifice
as shall make the saints but as little children. Au revoir.
(_He turns away. The clock of St. Sulpice tones the half hour. The
watchmaker listens to it with open mouth, and trembling violently, darts
through the door of his shop._)
RAIN
PERSONS
CHARLES EVERITT
MARY, his wife
WALTER, seventeen
ALICE, fifteen
HAROLD, five
_The scene shows a hotel "parlor" in the White Mountains. Beneath the
flashy ugliness of its modern wall paper and upholstery, a certain
refinement persists from an older generation. The room itself is well
proportioned, with a very good hearth. The parlor might once have been the
ball room in a squire's mansion._
_It is about seven o'clock of an August evening, the room feebly lighted
by a flickering acetylene burner. One feels the commencement of rain. A
door to the rear opens and the Everitts enter, the younger children
first._
HAROLD
She didn't give me any toast. I want some toast!
WALTER
A rotten supper!
MRS. EVERITT
Never mind, Harold, you had two cups of that beautiful milk.
ALICE
Of course it was rotten. Everything's second rate here. Ugh! what a musty
smell!
WALTER
I told father we ought to go ahead. The car could have done another six
miles easily. And we'd have reached the Mountain Inn.
ALICE
I'm sure there's a dance there to-night!
EVERITT
The car could _not_ have done the six miles. We were lucky to make that
last hill. You might have had to walk the whole way.
ALICE
Well, we always start too soon or too late. For goodness sake let's at
_least_ have some light. There's no use having it as dark inside as out.
(_Everitt goes about lighting all the burners_)
HAROLD
Hear the rain, rain, rain!
WALTER
It _is_ coming down. I never heard it make so much noise.
MRS. EVERITT
That's because city people never have a roof over their heads!
ALICE
Why, mother, the rain makes your voice vibrate like--
WALTER
Like a fire engine. I stood right by one, once.
MRS. EVERITT
Come, Harold, sit on my lap.
EVERITT
Shall I close the blinds?
ALICE
Yes.
MRS. EVERITT
No, don't. Nobody's about on a night like this.
HAROLD
Wish I could see rain. What it like?
EVERITT
What's what like?
HAROLD
Rain--rain.
ALICE
Like shower baths.
HAROLD
Oh. Mother, tell me story about rain. I _like_ rain! (_Everitt feels about
for his cigar case. A letter falls from his pocket which he picks up
hurriedly_)
EVERITT
I'm going for a cigar.
WALTER
It's like being in a submarine!
HAROLD
Mother, tell me story!
MRS. EVERITT
Once upon a time--
WALTER
I'm going out for a minute.
ALICE
I wish....
HAROLD
Once on a time!
MRS. EVERITT
Oh, yes. Once there was a little girl who lived in the country.
HAROLD
What country?
MRS. EVERITT
A country something like this. She and her mother lived in a little house
beside a brook. The little girl loved to listen to the brook outside her
window at night. One day she asked her mother where the brook went to. She
didn't want _her_ brook to run away. And what do you suppose her mother
said?
HAROLD
What her mother say?
MRS. EVERITT
She said the brook didn't really run away, when it got out of sight across
the fields it turned into rain. So then the little girl was glad whenever
it rained, because she knew it was the little brook coming back to her.
HAROLD
Oh. And is _this_ rain the brook coming back? The little girl's brook?
MRS. EVERITT
The little girl grew up and went away. But it's _some_ little girl's
brook. (_Walter comes in with sticks_)
WALTER
I thought we'd have a fire.
ALICE
Good! Make a big one.
MRS. EVERITT
Now, Harold, mother is going to put you in a nice bed, right under the
roof where the rain-drops whisper and sing. (_She takes Harold out_)
ALICE
Where'd father go?
WALTER
He said he wanted a cigar.
ALICE
He's been a long time.
WALTER
Perhaps he's gone to look at the engine.
ALICE
Walter, what's the matter with them? Last night....
WALTER
I don't know. I heard them, too. It isn't the first time they have
quarreled.
ALICE
It's terrible!
WALTER
Father's got a rotten temper, lately.
ALICE
I thought she wanted him--
WALTER
She did, but he had no business to get so angry about it.
ALICE
But why did she want to change our plans at the last minute and go into
Connecticut? Everything was arranged to come here.
WALTER.
She said he had arranged it without speaking to her. She said--there's
something about it I don't understand.
ALICE
I don't either. I--(_Mrs. Everitt enters_)
WALTER
Did he go to sleep?
MRS. EVERITT
No. He is talking to the rain. I never heard him say such odd things. I
hated to leave him. It seemed as if he heard voices....
WALTER
Sit down, mother. It's very jolly here.
MRS. EVERITT
Thank you, Walter. How many years since I've enjoyed a real fire, like
this!
WALTER
Oh, there isn't enough wood. Just a minute--(_He goes out_)
ALICE
You look tired.
MRS. EVERITT
I'm all right, dear.
ALICE
No you're not. Why won't you tell me?
MRS. EVERITT
But Alice, there's nothing to tell. I do feel a little tired, but then, I
shall be all right in the morning.
ALICE
I wish--(_Walter enters with more wood_)
WALTER
Well, Alice, are you still thinking about that dance?
ALICE
Why no, I'd forgotten all about it. Who could dance in such a rain? It
would make the music seem artificial. I'm getting tired of boys, too. They
don't really _feel_ things--like rain, and fire.
MRS. EVERITT
What's that noise,--Harold?
WALTER
No. It's the men in the bar room.
MRS. EVERITT
I'm sure it's Harold.
ALICE
I'll go see. (_She goes out_)
WALTER
Mother.
MRS. EVERITT
What, Walter?
WALTER
I must be an awful coward--
MRS. EVERITT
Why, what do you mean?
WALTER
I mean that when I really want something, and ought to say so, I go along
without saying it. I don't mean that I'm _really_ afraid to say it, but I
always feel somehow that other people ought to know what I want, and save
me the trouble of asking it. No, not _trouble_ exactly--but you know what
I mean.
MRS. EVERITT
Yes, Walter, I'm afraid I know exactly what you mean. Lots of us are
cursed with the same instinct. I am, and sometimes I believe your father
is, too. It ought to be that when one sees a thing clearly in his own
mind, and knows it is best, others--at least those near to him--should
somehow be aware of it. But they usually are not.
WALTER
No. And it's those nearest one that it's hardest to say things to. But
to-night, somehow, I don't feel that way.
MRS. EVERITT
Tell me.
WALTER
It's this architecture. You remember when I used to play with water colors
all the while, and say I was going to be an artist?
MRS. EVERITT
Yes, but--
WALTER
Father always said I would get over it. But when I didn't, then it
occurred to him that if I learned architecture I could help him in his
building.... I thought architecture would be the same. But it isn't. I
can't see any art in it at all--it's nothing but engineering.
MRS. EVERITT
But Walter, you haven't gone far enough in it. The art will come later.
WALTER
No it won't! At least not with father. He never builds anything that lets
me _imagine_. You don't know how I hate those blue prints. I've been
worrying along so far because I didn't want to disappoint father, though
every day I hoped he would see what I really felt. But to-night I know I
can't go on any longer without having it out. If he will let me follow my
own idea he will be better pleased in the end than if I stick at this
business of his. It will require one good fight, and then I shall be free
to show what I can do.
MRS. EVERITT
But Walter, what is it exactly you want to do?
WALTER.
I suppose I ought to say that I want to be an artist rather than a
builder's draughtsman, but that isn't really it. I mean that behind the
brain I think with every day there is another brain, bigger and wiser,
that keeps asking the chance to show the rest of me what and how to act.
In ordinary things the everyday mind gets along by itself all right, but I
feel the other self there all the while, wanting me to begin something
different, something to let it escape from dreaming to doing. And it keeps
threatening that some day it will he too late. Only begin, begin!... Yes,
I have worried along so far, but just to-night, for some reason or other,
I seem to be standing on the brink. I won't go another step. It's in the
rain now--I hear it. Oh, the pictures I could paint if we lived in the
country!
MRS. EVERITT
In the country!
WALTER
Yes. It comes over me here how much these hills mean. Oh! and there's
another thing, mother.... I thought I was born in New York, I thought we
always lived there, but just a while ago I ran onto your old family Bible,
and it had the records in it. I--
MRS. EVERITT
Oh, Walter!
WALTER
It seems queer that neither of you said anything about it, if I was really
born in this very town.... I might never have thought much about it, but
to-night everything seems to be stirred up. Tell me, mother--
MRS. EVERITT
We lived here only a little while. We didn't like it, so your father sold
his farm and we went away to New York.
WALTER
Yes, but why wasn't something said about it when we came here this
afternoon? It seems funny, not to.
MRS. EVERITT
Dear, there was a little family trouble, long ago, which is best
forgotten.
WALTER
Oh.
ALICE (_entering_)
It wasn't Harold, after all, but I just had to stay and listen to him. He
tried over and over to tell me something. I couldn't make out what it was
until he showed me with his hands--you know that funny little way he
has--and what do you suppose it was?
MRS. EVERITT
The dear child. What was it?
ALICE
Why, he remembered the big drum he saw once in a parade, and he was trying
to explain that he was _inside_ a drum. The rain, you know.
EVERITT (_entering_)
We had to jack up the car. The barn is flooding with water.
MRS. EVERITT
Is that where you were?
EVERITT
Yes.... How strange you look in that light, Alice! I never saw you look
like that before. (_He kisses her_)
ALICE
Oh!
MRS. EVERITT
What is it, Alice?
ALICE
Why ... I thought his cigar was going to burn me.
MRS. EVERITT
Oh.
EVERITT
Alice, you jumped because you didn't like my breath. I'm sorry, I did take
a drink, and I shouldn't have kissed you, only....
WALTER
Only what?
EVERITT
She looked just as Mary did when I first knew her. It startled me.
ALICE
Do I?
MRS. EVERITT
Was I like that?
EVERITT
Of course you were.
ALICE
Oh, I'm glad!
MRS. EVERITT
Thank you, dear, but you're not half so glad as I am.
EVERITT
It's queer, there used to be a fine old stock up in this country. It seems
to have died out. The people here don't half appreciate the place.
MRS. EVERITT
But you haven't seen many of them, have you?
EVERITT
No, I talked with some in the bar room.
ALICE
Oh, the bar room?
EVERITT
Yes, I know. One can't judge from that. A filthy place--it made me ashamed
of drinking. I only went in hoping to see some of the people I used to
know.
MRS. EVERITT
Oh!
WALTER
Where's my portfolio?
MRS. EVERITT
In the office, with those hand bags we decided not to open.
WALTER
I'm going to get it. I just had an idea.... (_He goes out_)
EVERITT
It's only ten o'clock, but it seems like midnight.
ALICE
So it does. Are we going on to-morrow? Will the car be all right?
EVERITT
George says so. To-morrow? I suppose so.
ALICE
Well, I'm going to bed.
MRS. EVERITT
I hope Harold is asleep. Good night, dear.
EVERITT
Good night, Mary.
ALICE
You said "Mary."
EVERITT
Did I? Well, you might be, for all that.
ALICE (_leaving_)
Good night.
EVERITT
If she had on that blue dress you used to wear, your own mother couldn't
tell you apart.
MRS. EVERITT
Charles.
EVERITT
What?
MRS. EVERITT
Walter knows he was born here. He wants to know why we didn't mention it
to-day.
EVERITT
So do I! So do I want to know why we didn't mention it! It's been between
us all these years! (_Walter enters with his portfolio. He stands
unnoticed at the door_)
MRS. EVERITT
You want to know? You know very well yourself! It's I who ought to ask
what the matter is!
EVERITT
You? Good heavens! Wasn't it you who suddenly made up your mind we had to
leave this town, and insisted and insisted until I sold the house? Didn't
I do that to please you, because you went into hysterics about it, and I
had to think of Walter? I didn't want to go. It isn't every man who would
change his whole life for a woman's unreasonable whim!
MRS. EVERITT
Whim! It isn't every wife who--Oh! Oh!
EVERITT
Yes whim! And haven't I stayed away all these years from my people because
you wouldn't hear to our coming back even for a visit?
MRS. EVERITT
No you didn't stay away! You sneaked up here the very next year when you
made that trip to Boston. And you can't deny it, because Janet Richardson
wrote me.
EVERITT
Sneaked up here! Deny it! Are you mad? The only reason I didn't mention it
was because I never understood your positive hatred for the place. What
harm was there in coming back for a day or two? On every other subject you
are all right, but whenever we get within a mile of mentioning this town I
feel your hysteria, so I have kept still. But if there's anything you can
say to explain yourself, for goodness sake say it! This nightmare has
been between us long enough.
MRS. EVERITT
Yes, it has! Too long! And I like your way of saying you had to think of
Walter! It was I had to think of my baby! If it hadn't been for Walter, I
wouldn't have lived with you another day! I kept on at first so that he
might be born with a father to look out for him, and then I kept on so
that he needn't grow up in the shame of a divorce. But oh, the pain of it!
To keep silent, year after year!
EVERITT
Look here, are we both crazy? Out with it!
MRS. EVERITT
_Annie Pratt!_
EVERITT
What? Who?
MRS. EVERITT
Annie Pratt!
EVERITT
Who the devil's Annie Pratt? What's she got to do with it?
MRS. EVERITT
Ha! Not faithful even to her! Or are you trying to lie out of it? You
can't, _because I've still got the letter_.
EVERITT
What letter? I'm not going to stand these hysterics any longer!
MRS. EVERITT
You needn't. But you've got to stand the truth, do you hear me? I found
the letter in your pocket. We hadn't been married a year. I was so happy!
Oh! Oh!
EVERITT
So was I happy, Oh! Oh!
MRS. EVERITT
Hypocrite! "Dearest Charlie: You said it is I who am your wife really,
because it's I who make you happy." Vile cat!
EVERITT
Annie Pratt, Annie Pratt. I remember her....
MRS. EVERITT
I should think you would! But any man who will--
EVERITT
Look here! I've got the whole thing! You found that letter in my pocket?
MRS. EVERITT
Yes I did.
EVERITT
Well, do you remember my quarrel with Charlie Fisher?
MRS. EVERITT
Yes. Why?
EVERITT
Because, you poor child, that letter was written to him.
MRS. EVERITT
To him!
EVERITT
Yes, Charlie Fisher. I found that he was going with Annie Pratt and I had
it out with him one day in the barn. I told him if he didn't quit his
foolishness I'd tell his people. We nearly came to blows--he was drinking
too much, too--and I found that letter on the floor afterwards. I meant to
burn it up, but I forgot it. And you thought I was the Charlie!
MRS. EVERITT
God forgive me!
EVERITT
But why on earth didn't you come right out with it?
MRS. EVERITT
Oh! You can't realize how crushed I felt. I wanted only to run away, like
a wounded animal.... And then I couldn't bear to quarrel, for the sake of
Walter. So it's been festering in me all this time.
EVERITT
So that's it. Well, thank heaven! (_He starts to embrace her_)
MRS. EVERITT
But that letter you picked up so quickly to-night--was that from somebody
else?
EVERITT
Lord, I'd almost forgotten it.
MRS. EVERITT
There! And I was almost happy!
EVERITT
For goodness sake, read it!
MRS. EVERITT
From your bank.... I don't understand it.
EVERITT
It's simple enough. They won't make me another loan.
MRS. EVERITT
Well?
EVERITT
Between the unions and the new inspection--well, I can't finish the
Broadway contract on time, and I'm done.
MRS. EVERITT
Done?
EVERITT
Done. Smashed. I might save ten thousand dollars, that's all. My life's
work....
MRS. EVERITT
You mean money?
EVERITT
I mean the lack of it.
MRS. EVERITT
Is that all? Thank heaven!
EVERITT
All! But do you realize it means giving up the house, and beginning all
over again on ten thousand dollars?
MRS. EVERITT
I don't care. I was never happy there anyhow. And now I could be happy
doing my own work in a tenement.
EVERITT
I think I could be happy as a carpenter again by the day. But the
children. It's going to be hard for them. Walter's architecture.
WALTER
Father!
EVERITT
Good gracious! Where did you come from?
WALTER
I came back from the office.... I heard what you were saying. So that's
all right. But you needn't worry about my architecture. I was telling
mother to-night. I don't like it--it isn't my work. I only wanted you to
feel as I do about it. Just feel that I really want to paint--to be an
artist. Even if I have to work at something else for a long time, I'll
feel easier, knowing you realize what I want. I love color so. And I want
to let my imagination _go_. I'll help in any way I can, naturally. I'm
glad too. I mean, I had rather live in the country like this than in New
York.
EVERITT
Good Lord! (_Alice appears in the doorway holding Harold_)
WALTER
It seems to me that none of us has been really satisfied, so it isn't so
bad after all. We can begin on something real to us all. Mother said she
would be happy in a tenement. Well, maybe she would, but why not come up
here?
MRS. EVERITT
Oh, _Charles_!
EVERITT
Well ... but Alice.
ALICE
Mother.
MRS. EVERITT
You, too! What is it? What's the matter with Harold?
ALICE
Nothing. He wouldn't go to sleep, and wouldn't. He said he wanted to sit
in your lap. I never saw him so. I had to bring him.
MRS. EVERITT
Give him to me, dear.
ALICE
And I knew something was going on down here... I could _feel_ it. I don't
know what it was, but there's one thing I do know.
MRS. EVERITT
What?
ALICE
Why, ever since father said I looked as you used to I've been thinking
about what you must have been like as a girl, and it came over me how
_useless_ I am. I've never done anything. And you must have done a lot.
EVERITT
I should say she did!
WALTER
There! Say, Alice, how'd you like to live in that white house we passed,
the one with the orchard?
ALICE
Really? And _do_ things?
MRS. EVERITT
Charles!
EVERITT
This is the most extraordinary night I ever heard of. Here I was, feeling
like a condemned criminal because I'd lost my business, afraid to tell
Mary and you children, and now you all seem positively glad of it. I
expected all kinds of trouble, and all at once.... _What the deuce is it?_
HAROLD
Rain--rain.... Mother, why can't the brook come back to the _same_ little
girl?
PICTURES
_A studio on the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. There is a small entrance
hall, kitchenette, and a balcony before which curtains are drawn. It is a
winter afternoon, and a young man is busy at an easel placed close beside
the north light. A young woman arranges tea things on the table._
SILVIA
Joe.
JOE
Um.
SILVIA
Joe!
JOE
Um--um! _(She walks over, draws his watch from his pocket and shows him
the time)_
SILVIA
It's nearly four o'clock.
JOE
Just a minute--the light's fine, and I want to finish.
SILVIA
Yes, I know, but he may be here any minute.
JOE
Tea on?
SILVIA
Yes.
JOE
Well, that'll keep him while I get ready. That's mostly what they came
for, anyhow.
SILVIA
But he's different. He isn't a Cook's tourist--
JOE
No, he's a relative!
SILVIA
You wouldn't say that if one of _your_ family dropped in. Besides, I've
never even seen him. And he's something of a collector, Joe. He _buys_
pictures.
JOE
So I hear. The last thing he bought was a Bougereau!
SILVIA
Well, he's a _relative_ ... and when he sees your last things!
JOE
Um.... There, it's all done.
SILVIA
I'm crazy to see it, Joe, but run up and get ready. _Sh!_ (_A knock at the
door. Joe runs upstairs to the balcony. Silvia opens the door and admits
Mr. Wentworth, rather stout and with gold spectacles_)
MR. WENTWORTH
Mrs. Carson?
SILVIA
Yes. This is Mr. Wentworth? Joe and I have been expecting you. Let me take
your coat. The studio's rather upset just now--
MR. WENTWORTH
Delightful! How I love the atmosphere of work in a studio! I used to paint
a bit myself, you know.
SILVIA
Did you? Father never mentioned that.
MR. WENTWORTH
Oh, I guess everybody has forgotten it by now. An early adventure with
life! Goodness only knows what might have happened, though, if the
business hadn't fallen on me to look out for. I might have been a great
artist. Ha!
SILVIA
I'm sure you would, Mr. Wentworth. You've always been interested in art,
haven't you?
MR. WENTWORTH
Yes indeed. Of course I have been very busy, until lately. But I always
followed the best English magazines.
SILVIA
My husband's upstairs getting the paint off his hands. He will be down in
a minute. Then we'll have some tea.
MR. WENTWORTH
You don't paint, do you, Silvia? I may call you Silvia, may I not?
SILVIA
Of course. No, I don't paint. I just fly around amongst the artists and
see what's going on. Are you staying in Paris very long?
MR. WENTWORTH
A couple of weeks more, at least. I am revelling in the galleries and
museums here.
SILVIA
Here comes Joe. Joe, I want you to meet my cousin, Mr. Wentworth. Mr.
Wentworth--Mr. Carson.
JOE
Very glad to meet you, Mr. Wentworth.
MR. WENTWORTH
It's a great pleasure for me to meet a real artist, Mr. Carson.
SILVIA
Excuse me a moment. I'll bring on the tea.
JOE
Oh, as for that--I'm working along. Sometimes I hit it--
MR. WENTWORTH
_Ars longa, vita brevis_ you know! I want to see your pictures very much.
I was just telling Silvia how I delight in the Louvre. I go there with a
class for lectures every morning. I suppose you often copy the old
masters?
JOE
Copy the old masters? I should say not. I'm not out to be a camera. It's
all I can do to work out my own impressions.
MR. WENTWORTH
Oh, I see. But--
SILVIA
The tea's ready. Joe, bring up that chair for Mr. Wentworth. Mr.
Wentworth, do you take cream and sugar?
MR. WENTWORTH If you please. Yes, two lumps. There's nothing like the
atmosphere of a studio, is there? I love it. I feel I have missed so
much. Still, the instinct for beauty, fragile as it is, does persist.... I
was surprised to feel so many of my old emotions awake on coming to Paris.
So much that hasn't been real to me for years! I have gained much
inspiration for planning my new house.
SILVIA
You are building a new house? I have heard father talk about your
collection of Japanese prints.
MR. WENTWORTH
A really delightful thing, Japanese prints. Yes, I intend building on Long
Island. And my new interest in pictures ... I shall have a gallery
especially for them.
JOE
Americans haven't done any too much for art so far.
MR. WENTWORTH
Oh, I assure you! I know many men who are continually buying the best on
the market.
JOE
Oh, _that_....
SILVIA
Another cup, Mr. Wentworth? Joe, pass the cake.
MR. WENTWORTH
No, thank you, Silvia. Yes, the cake if you please. Why, it's real English
plumcake!
SILVIA
English things are getting very popular over here. Joe, won't you show us
the new picture? He finished it just before you came, Mr. Wentworth.
MR. WENTWORTH
Indeed! I should like to see it very much.
JOE
There isn't very much light.
SILVIA
No, the light is poor. But even so--and your colors will stand out, Joe.
MR. WENTWORTH
Really, Mr. Carson, I counted on seeing some of your work. I have heard,
nice things about you.
JOE
There. If you stand just here....
SILVIA
Oh, _Joe_!
JOE
What?
SILVIA
It's our little cottage! I'm so glad! That's where we lived last summer,
Mr. Wentworth. I always wanted Joe to paint it. Joe, it's splendid! Don't
you think so, Mr. Wentworth?
MR. WENTWORTH
Yes.... Yes. _Very_ interesting....
SILVIA
Don't you love the bright colors and the firm, flowing lines?
MR. WENTWORTH
Of course, it isn't exactly what I have been accustomed to.... I have
heard that some of the younger Frenchmen and Russians are painting in a
new way, but--
SILVIA
Joe, it's so _alive_! I _feel_ it, every inch of it! You've no idea, Mr.
Wentworth, how Joe's painting has changed me. I used to be such a little
New Englander, _afraid_ of life, but now--
JOE
It isn't only what you call the "younger Frenchmen and Russians" who are
learning how to paint--the modern movement has spread all over.
MR. WENTWORTH
Of course, I don't pretend to be an artist myself, but I have always
studied and loved pictures, and when you say "learning _how_ to paint"--
JOE
That's exactly what it is. Learning _how_ to paint. Learning what art is.
Getting _life_ into it instead of abstract ideas.
MR. WENTWORTH
Art? But art is beauty! Eternal beauty. You can't change art over night,
like a fashion!
SILVIA
But that picture's beautiful!
JOE
Art changes as life changes. Art has always changed. If it didn't, why
isn't your Japanese art just like Greek art? And Greek art like the
Italian?
MR. WENTWORTH
Oh, in that way, of course. But all the great masters obey the eternal
laws of beauty!
JOE
There aren't any eternal _laws_ of beauty! There's only the eternal
impulse to create. Every artist has to express himself in his own way.
What you call the "eternal laws" are merely the particular expressions
your own favorite painters happened to work out in their time. If they had
lived in another time--
MR. WENTWORTH
A master would always be a master. There's no change possible in the
vision of the soul.
SILVIA
You see, Mr. Wentworth, what I have learned these last two years from
living among artists is that the painter with an original vision is always
opposed by the schools. That is, at first. But when he wins out, then the
schools merely take over his technic and use it as a club to put down the
next creator. And so it goes.
MR. WENTWORTH
Naturally, the great artist suffers hardship. But if we once admit there
are no _laws_, where are we? Anarchy!
JOE
The laws are contained in the impulses themselves. They come _with_ the
vision, not before it! If any one thinks this modern art is just an easy
way of painting--
SILVIA
Indeed it isn't! Joe works much harder than the students who go to the
schools. Of course, he doesn't paint by the clock.
MR. WENTWORTH
But the Louvre! All those beautiful pictures, those priceless treasures!
What about the Louvre?
JOE
The Louvre? It's a _museum_.
MR. WENTWORTH
What do you mean by "it's a _museum_"?
JOE
I mean that it's the place to put pictures in when they are dead.
MR. WENTWORTH
_Dead?_ A great masterpiece _dead_?
JOE
Of course. No man lives forever. Nobody that was ever born was useful
enough to live forever. The bigger a man is the longer his influence is
creative, in art and everything else, but the time always comes when his
value is spent. When the world needs a new influence.
SILVIA
It's really wonderful, Mr. Wentworth, how knowing the truth about art
shows one the truth about other things. When I remember what I used to
believe!
MR. WENTWORTH
But see here, young man, you wouldn't do away with the _Louvre_, would
you? Why, what would happen if these ideas were carried out....
JOE
No, I wouldn't do away with it. Why should I? If to burn it down would
wake people up to _life_, I'd do it in a minute. But it wouldn't. They
would only sanctify the superstition and make it immortal. No, leave the
Louvre as it is. It's really quite useful.
MR. WENTWORTH
But good gracious! _Useful?_
JOE
Yes. Like history. To do away with the Louvre would be to destroy a part
of history. There's no good doing that. We need history--it cranks up
life--but we've got to recognize that after all it is only history, not
life itself--not art.
MR. WENTWORTH
But what _is_ art, if the Louvre _isn't_?
SILVIA
Don't you see, Mr. Wentworth? If you could only get for a moment into the
stream of experience where Joe and the others brought me! A picture is art
as long as it's alive--as long as it can give back the fresh, first-hand
impulses that were put into it. After that--when life has flowed on and
set up new impulses requiring a different expression--then a picture drops
back upon a lower level. What Joe calls _history_.
JOE
Like everything else.
MR. WENTWORTH
But you put art on the same plane as invention. An improved motor car
scraps the old model. But you can't _improve_ art!
JOE
No, certainly not. We don't try to. We just do our best. We _recover_ art.
MR. WENTWORTH
_Recover_ it?
SILVIA
Yes--discover it all over again. It gets lost, lost in hard and fast rules
or sentimentality, then a genius comes along and digs down to the buried
city--creation. Art isn't like invention. It's more like religion.
MR. WENTWORTH
There you are!
JOE
There we are! Isn't there a struggle going on all the time to free
religion, the _spirit_ of religion, from hard and fast rules and from
false emotions? It's exactly the same thing.
MR. WENTWORTH
Ah, but rules are necessary to maintain order. That's what I insist about
art. We _must_ have rules!
SILVIA
I know exactly what you mean, Mr. Wentworth. You mean that if fanatics
tore down all the churches on the street corners, and there weren't any
more Sunday morning sermons, everybody would run wild. But there again
it's the same thing as with art: the man who has the spirit of the thing
in him feels that the spirit itself is a far better control than heaps of
stones and sermons. It's all a matter of _living_. Imagine asking one of
the Apostles which church he went to!
MR. WENTWORTH
Wait! We are getting art mixed up with too much else. Didn't you say, Mr.
Carson, that pictures died when they no longer gave out impulses of
beauty?
JOE
Yes.
MR. WENTWORTH
Well! I admit there are dead pictures, too many of them, but they are the
canvasses that were still-born. The masterpieces in the Louvre _still_
give out impulses--beautiful impulses--to many of us, thank heaven!
SILVIA
But that's just it! The impulses you mean aren't those of art at all.
They--
JOE
Those pictures don't give out impulses to the _artist_. The impulses they
do give out are only the emotions that satisfy the student who has learned
some rules and then sees the rules worked out. The artist produced the
rules as a side issue, but you are trying to make the rules produce the
artist. That's the difficulty when people as a whole lose the creative
sense. They are satisfied with things at second-hand. Second-hand
expressions of life, and second-hand philosophies to justify the
expressions. It's a kind of conspiracy in which everybody works against
everybody else. Only the few real artists in any generation break through
it into the light.
SILVIA
The light of the sun!
MR. WENTWORTH
I fear we are hopelessly at odds in this question. Well, as the Romans
said, there's no disputing about tastes. Every one to his own taste.
JOE
No!
MR. WENTWORTH
What do you mean?
JOE
I mean that it's a disgrace that Americans only study and only buy old
masters. It's a burning shame that all they know about art is what they
have been taught in books. They let their own artists starve--they make
them come over here--while they bid up a Raphael like a block of shares.
What good does it do Raphael? He had his day. And look how it holds back
our own possible Raphaels!
MR. WENTWORTH
Raphael? Ah, you are still very young. You don't understand the attitude
of the majority, Mr. Carson. Raphael is one of our great inspirers of
beauty.
JOE
You mean culture!
SILVIA
Oh, it's getting quite dark. Joe, light the light.
MR. WENTWORTH
Dear me, so it is! What time is it? It must be getting late--Good
gracious! I have an engagement.
SILVIA
You can't stay for a little dinner with us in the Quarter, Mr. Wentworth?
Afterward we could go to one of the cafés.
MR. WENTWORTH
I'm afraid I can't, Silvia. It's been a great pleasure to meet you both, I
assure you. These little differences of opinion....
SILVIA
Oh, that's all right. We argue art and religion every day, don't we, Joe?
Of course, though, we _do_ feel strongly about the young artists--the
young American artists. They come over here, and then they have to burn
their bridges ... and we see how wonderful America could be if they were
given things to do instead of being neglected....
JOE
Here's your coat, Mr. Wentworth.
MR. WENTWORTH
Thank you. Thank you for the delicious tea, Silvia. If I weren't leaving
town so soon.... Good night.
SYLVIA
Good night. The stairs are rather dark.... (_He goes out_)
JOE
Damn!
SYLVIA
Yes, I know, Joe. It's discouraging....
JOE
Discouraging? It's immoral! Oh, these smug people who have been taught
what to admire! These unborn souls who want to shut us all up in the dark!
I suppose he went away thinking I put myself up higher than Raphael. Who
are we painting for? _They_ don't want it--wouldn't take it for a gift.
And here we are, a poor little group, standing amazed before the glory of
the sun, and painting it--for the blind!
SILVIA
Some day, Joe....
JOE
Some day--yes, when the life has oozed out of all our bright canvasses,
when only the "rules" are left. And we won't be able to rise from our
graves and curse them!
SILVIA
Now, Joe!
JOE
I guess I let you in for a hard time, Silvia. I wish sometimes I could
really paint the kind of thing that goes with stupid people's dining
rooms. They with their _Long Island_ Louvres!
SILVIA
If you did, Joe, I'd put it in the stove. Don't think you are having all
the fun of being a pioneer. It's exciting to be within a mile of it!
JOE
Good girl. Ugh! Let's go to Boudet's and have dinner. I want to get the
bad taste out of my mouth!
HIS LUCK
_The living room in a small flat in Beekman Place. Two women, one of them
in mourning, sit beside the remains of tea._
VERA
But Jean, where are you going, when you pack up here?
JEAN
I'm not leaving here. I'm staying on.
VERA
Oh. But I thought that now ... you were talking about being free for your
own work at last....
JEAN
If I have any work to do, I can do it here. You don't understand, quite.
All these years I have been living from whirlpool to whirlpool, never
settled, always _deraciné_--the thought of getting accustomed to another
place makes me shudder.
VERA
I can imagine, now, how it has been, Jean. But can you find any peace
here? With all these things about? You are so sensitive--lamps, and
pictures, and rugs--these aren't just _furniture_ to you, they are images
of the past. Won't they be, too--real? Too personal? Won't you feel more
at liberty with yourself if you create your own atmosphere?
JEAN
Ah, they are real enough! That table is a winter in Munich; the samovar is
Warsaw one night in May; the lucerna is Rome ... and all that those places
mean to me. I never realized how _things_ could be _alive_--be
personal--until I was left all alone in the midst of these.
VERA
There, don't you see? They're so _dominating_. I knew you before all
this.... I wish you would get away--be _yourself_.
JEAN
No. I shall stay here. As close as possible.
VERA
But really, Jean! I'm thinking of your work. Perhaps you don't appreciate
what an insidious drug memory can be. Especially the memory of
unhappiness. Let's be frank, Jean, for the sake of your future. You _have_
been unhappy.
JEAN
Unhappy? Yes, I have been outrageously unhappy! Years of it! Sharp arrows
and poisoned wine. I wanted to die....
VERA
_Jean!_
JEAN
You read a play by Strindberg, and you say it's very strong, very
artistic, but all the while you believe it is only the nightmare of a
diseased mind. It's just a _play_--you shut the book and return to "real"
life, thankfully. Well, the Strindberg play has been my real life, and
real life my play, my impossible dream. You can't imagine how terrifying
it is to feel the situation develop around you. Two bodies caught naked in
an endless wilderness of thorns. Every movement one makes to free the
other only wounds him the more. Two souls, each innocent and aspiring,
bound together by serpents, like the Laocoon.... It is one of those things
that are absolutely impossible ... and yet _true_.
VERA
I'll help you pack. Now. You _must_!
JEAN
We had the deepest respect and admiration for one another, but somehow we
never walked in step. His emotion repressed mine, my emotion repressed
his. Sometimes one was the slave, sometimes the other. We couldn't both be
free at the same time. There was always something to hide, to be afraid
of.... Not words nor acts, but moods. It passed over from one soul to the
other like invisible rays. And we couldn't separate. That was part of it.
We just went on and on....
VERA
People wondered. The first time I met Paul--
JEAN
What do you feel?
VERA
I wondered, afterward, what it really was. He seemed to impress me like a
powerful motor car stalled in a muddy road.
JEAN
Ah. I know!
VERA
Poor child.
JEAN
No. You don't understand, I _was_ unhappy, in the ordinary sense,
unbelievably so. But that wasn't all. I was alive! I lived as the man
lives who faints in the dark mine underground, and I lived as the aviator
lives, thrilling against the sun, and as the believer in a world of
infidels. That was what _he_ did for me. And slowly, as I learned how
deeply the very pain was making me live, I put my unhappiness by. It was
there, but it no longer seemed important. It was the lingering complaint
of my old commonplace soul standing fearfully on the brink of greater
things and hating the situation that led it there.
VERA
You are a big woman, Jean.
JEAN
No, I am a small woman in front of a big thing. One of the biggest,
genius. And the force of it, relentless as nature, made me what I am.
_Paul._ Oh, Vera, when I think of his music, tempestuous as the sea,
healing as spring.... And now where is it? He had what all the world wants
most, _flight_, and the world stalled him in its own mud. You saw it....
That's why I shall stay here. It's the only place with _his_ atmosphere.
All these things are _he_. I face them here in silence, and I bare my
breast to the arrow. Here I am, the only one who knows Paul's music in its
possibility. To the rest, it is a heap of stones by the roadside. The
architect is dead.
VERA
But didn't he ever ... why didn't he...?
JEAN
You ask it, of course. You have the right. Sometimes I ask it, too, why
Paul never _succeeded_. While we were struggling along, the things that
held him back seemed only details. Only now do I see them as a whole.
In the first place, Paul never aimed directly at success. He was
all-round. If it had been merely a question of exploiting his talent,
sticking to the one idea day in, day out, never letting an opportunity
slip by of meeting the right people and getting to the right places ...
that would have been easy. He had tremendous energy. I used to grudge his
interest in other things. I hated to see him lose the chances and let them
be snapped up by littler men. He seemed to waste himself, right and left,
prodigally. But it wasn't that, it wasn't waste. It was all as much a part
of him as his music. He detested the stupidity of wealth and poverty, he
rebelled against laws that aren't laws, but only interests enforced by
authority, he fought against the sheer deadness of prejudice. How he hated
all that! And why not? You see, Vera, he was sensitive to it not only as a
thinker, but as a musician, too. It was all a part of the discord, and
what I used to think his wasting himself was really an effort to create a
larger harmony. He used to say that the beauty of music is only the image
of beauty in life, and that life must come first. He couldn't endure
discords anywhere. Paul despised the musicians who scream at a flatted
_f_ but hunger for the flesh pots after the performance. No, he was never
_that_. And people resented it. The very people who ought to have
understood.
VERA
But he didn't neglect his music, that is...?
JEAN
No. He made enormous efforts to get his violin before the public. And
several times he was "discovered" by men who could have made him famous
overnight. We all believe that genius will out, despite anything, but it
doesn't always. Musicians respected him, but they were afraid of him, too.
He criticized them for their shortcomings in other things, just as he
criticized others for their shortcomings in art. He wouldn't accept any
talent, no matter how fine, if it went with anything small or destructive.
You can imagine the china shops he left in fragments! Just think! Once in
Berlin it was all arranged for him to have a recital--he was working
furiously on his program and I was dancing on air--when just at the last
moment he heard the director make some light remark or other about women.
Paul was raging! He threw the words back in the fellow's teeth, and made
him apologize, but there we were. They called off the recital, naturally.
And I couldn't blame Paul. I was just beginning to understand. Another
time ... no, he never had luck. Paul had bad luck. I often think of the
Greek tragedies.
VERA
Another time?
JEAN
Another time--it was in Warsaw--we had gone with a letter of introduction
to Sbarovitch--
VERA _The_ Sbarovitch?
JEAN
Yes. It was a chance in ten thousand. We pawned stuff to get there. Well,
Paul played like a god. Sbarovitch was quite overcome. He swore he would
compose something especially for Paul. We had visions of playing before
the Czar.
VERA
But what happened?
JEAN
What happened? One night a woman called on Paul at the hotel. He went
down, not knowing who it was or anything about her. He said afterward that
she started in flattering him and asking him to play for her some time....
Then Sbarovitch rushed in, seizing the woman and cursing Paul with
mouthfuls of Slavic hate. So _that_ dream ended!
VERA
But why? Was it Sbarovitch's wife?
JEAN
No, worse luck--it was his mistress. Ah, you can't imagine the re-action
from such disappointments! The long, slow warming to the full possibility
of the occasion, until the artist's mind and body become one leaping
flame--and then the sudden fall into icy water. It takes months to work up
to the same pitch again.... And then Rome.
VERA
What, again?
JEAN
Oh, yes. Again. This time--for a wonder everything went smoothly. I had
watched over him like a cat, to save him from others' stupidity and his
own impetuousness. It came the very moment when he had to go to the
theatre. He asked me if I were ready, I wasn't. _I didn't want to go._
VERA
You didn't want to go?
JEAN
No. It's difficult to explain, but somehow by then I had grown aware that
the long series of little obstacles, each one accidental and temporary,
seemed to express something unseen, something impersonal, a kind of fate
... as if the verdict had gone forth from the lords of things that Paul
was _not_ to succeed. And everything seemed to hang in the balance that
night. I thought that the fact I was aware of Paul's bad luck made me all
the likelier instrument for it to work through. So I told him I had a
headache.... He must have felt something in my voice. He dropped his
violin and demanded I tell him why I didn't _want_ to go. His intuition
told him it was a matter of will with me. I hadn't thought to have a story
ready. Besides, I was so worn out that I was on the verge of hysteria. He
stormed, and I sat staring at him without a word, wondering only why he
didn't forget poor insignificant me and go forth to his glory. I despised
him for considering me at such a moment. I didn't understand. _My_
opinion, _my_ feeling, was more important to Paul than the rest of the
world. So, after all, I _was_ the instrument.
VERA
But why didn't you just get up and go?
JEAN
As soon as I saw how much it meant to Paul, I tried to. But it was too
late.... We sat there arguing until three in the morning. An orgy of tears
and self-immolation for us both.... I suppose he might have explained to
the director afterward and arranged another concert, but those things are
never the same the second time. Well, I forced myself to get rid of that
feeling about his bad luck. How I ever succeeded I don't know, for Paul
caught my mood and began to believe it himself. But somehow I did. And
then I made him give up his violin and begin composing. Of course we had
to have money for that. I wrote a relative and demanded, point blank,
shamelessly, two thousand dollars. I felt it was my restitution to Paul. I
received the money. What the relative thought, I don't know. I suppose he
paid it to avoid getting another such letter from me. I don't blame him.
So we came over here and Paul started at work. I was fighting for him and
with him every moment. How he worked! Six months, like a coal heaver. Then
he finished and played it over. He tore it all up. Every note.
VERA
Why?
JEAN
He said it was written in an old-fashioned style. It was curious--in his
playing he appreciated the most advanced technic, but when be came to
compose he found himself imitating the things he had admired when he was
eighteen. It had to be worked out of his mind. Well, he did it all through
again. This time he said he was only about two years behind. Tore it up
again. But now he was convinced he could succeed. And he was magnificent!
I would have shared him with the world gladly, but I knew it was best for
him to do this work. The hours this room has seen! Well, he made a few
notes, stopped a few days to take breath, and then caught the cold that
wore him out. Over there, in that drawer, are the notes, a few scraps of
paper. The rest of it--the experience of a strong life, a visioning life,
are with the mind that is dumb. Sometimes when I sit here I hear it all
played, an orchestra ... new harmonies, pure emotion.... The wonder and
then the pain of it are almost unbearable.
VERA
Ah, Jean, I begin to understand.
JEAN
Over in London there are half a dozen men and women who caught a glimpse
of Paul as he really was. In Munich there are half a dozen more. He was at
his best in a studio among friends with a congenial atmosphere. _They_
knew... but what is that?
I tell you, Vera, the only way I can explain it all is by seeing two
forces, two moralities; the morality of God and the morality of nature.
Perhaps in some people they both work together for the same end, but they
don't always.... In the sight of heaven, Paul was an apostle of harmony.
In the sight of nature, he was the seed too many on the tree, the bird
wrongly colored in the forest. I sit among these things, the fast-ebbing
beats of his memory, thinking of what he might have been for others as he
was to me, and my heart breaks. Our unhappiness? A cloud passing before
the sun--nothing more. And during this past year I have come to love him
all over again, not as mate but as mother.
VERA
Ah, Jean, with all his bad luck, he had you! Who knows what might have
happened if you had not been there?
JEAN
He had _me_? No, he never had me--he _made_ me.... And that's why I sit
all alone with the things that are Paul,--Paul, the flame that was never
lit on the altar, the sword that was never drawn from the scabbard.... We
talk together, Vera. Paul and I. We talk together, and I wait for him to
tell me what to do.
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