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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Read-Aloud Plays + +Author: Horace Holley + +Release Date: June 4, 2005 [EBook #15983] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK READ-ALOUD PLAYS *** + + + + +Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia, +Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>READ-ALOUD PLAYS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>HORACE HOLLEY</h2> + + + + +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="By Horace Holley"> +<tr><td align='center'><i><big><b>BY HORACE HOLLEY</b></big></i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><i> </i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><i>DIVINATIONS AND CREATIONS</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><i>READ-ALOUD PLAYS</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><i>THE DYNAMICS OF ART</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><i>BAHAISM</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><i>THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><i>THE INNER GARDEN</i></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><i>THE STRICKEN KING</i></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<h1>READ-ALOUD PLAYS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>HORACE HOLLEY</h2> + +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> + +<h4>NEW YORK<br /> +MITCHELL KENNERLEY<br /> +1916</h4> + + +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<div><br /></div> +<p class="center"> +COPYRIGHT 1916 BY<br /> +MITCHELL KENNERLEY<br /> +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +DRAMATIC AND LECTURE<br /> +RIGHTS RESERVED BY<br /> +HORACE HOLLEY<br /> +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +PRINTED IN AMERICA<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'><span class="smcap"><small>Page</small></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></span></td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">v</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#HER_HAPPINESS">Her Happiness</a></span></td><td align='right'>1</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#A_MODERN_PRODIGAL">A Modern Prodigal</a></span></td><td align='right'> 7</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_INCOMPATIBLES">The Incompatibles</a></span></td><td align='right'>29</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_GENIUS">The Genius</a></span></td><td align='right'>39</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#SURVIVAL">Survival</a></span></td><td align='right'>55</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_TELEGRAM">The Telegram</a></span></td><td align='right'>71</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#RAIN">Rain</a></span></td><td align='right'>79</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#PICTURES">Pictures</a></span></td><td align='right'>103</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap"><a href="#HIS_LUCK">His Luck</a></span></td><td align='right'>121</td></tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div style="margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%;"> +<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Horace Holley.</span></p> +<p>New York City.</p> +</div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HER_HAPPINESS" id="HER_HAPPINESS"></a>HER HAPPINESS</h2> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>Paul! Paul! Are you here, Paul?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">A Voice</span></p> + +<p>Yes, Elizabeth, I am here.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>You are troubled, dear. Let the darkness stay a +moment. It will calm you. Sit down, Elizabeth.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>Yes.... I am so faint! I <i>had</i> to come, Paul! I +had to <i>see</i> 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 <i>now</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>It is all right now, Elizabeth.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>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 +<i>him</i>. I, I can stand all <i>that</i>, 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 <i>now</i>....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>It is all right, Elizabeth, because ours is love, love +that is made of light, and not merely blind desire.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>Ours is love. We <i>are</i> love!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>So that even if we are separated—even if you cannot +come to me yet, we shall not lose conviction nor +joy.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>Love <i>is</i>, world without end. That is all we need to +know.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>World without end, amen.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>And because I knew the power and truth of love in +you I put this separation upon us.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>For my sake. I know it now, Paul! And trust me! +You <i>can</i> trust me, Paul! Not time, nor distance, +nor trouble nor change shall move me from the +heights of love where I dwell.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>That, too, Paul. <i>Pain</i>.... 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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p><i>Bone of one bone, and flesh of one flesh</i>....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>Spirit of one spirit! The flesh we have put away.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>That, too, Paul. Oh the glory of it! So be my +happiness that I shall not wish it changed, even before +the Throne!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Voice</span></p> + +<p>I have given you happiness?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Woman</span></p> + +<p>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?... +<i>Paul!</i> (<i>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.</i>) Paul!... <i>As I saw him!</i> Is <i>this</i> my +happiness. Oh God, <i>must</i> I?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_MODERN_PRODIGAL" id="A_MODERN_PRODIGAL"></a>A MODERN PRODIGAL</h2> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Dick! Richard! At last! How are you? You received +my letter?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>I am very well, uncle. Yes, I received your letter. +It was forwarded from Florence.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Good! Sit down, Richard, sit down.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Don't misunderstand me, uncle. My business was +connected with art. I haven't given up painting. I +never shall.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>In my letter—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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 +(<i>glancing about</i>) 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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Hum.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>I believe I have a copy of one of the sketches with +me. (<i>He tears a sheet from a note book and hands +it to Uncle Richard.</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span> (<i>looking at it wrong side up</i>)</p> + +<p>A sketch. I see. Of course it is unfinished?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>finished</i>—that's +why they are dead.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>I was not aware of the fact. But ... you will remember, +Richard, that in my letter I asked you to +visit me?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Of course. And I shall be very pleased to stay for +a few days. Very kind of you to ask me.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Not at all, Richard, not at all! I—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Studio? Isn't that—hem! rather <i>Bohemian</i>, Richard?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Good gracious, uncle, you haven't been reading +George Moore, have you?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>But Richard, did you not understand that I wanted +you to stay here longer than that?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Why no. How long did you mean?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>I had no idea you meant <i>that</i>. Anyhow, as I couldn't +paint here, it's impossible. But, of course, if you +care to have me stay a few days longer—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>But I have everything arranged for you here. Your +room—everything.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>But you see, uncle, my work—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Really, Uncle Richard, I thank you, but—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Don't mention it. And of course you can see to its +proper arrangement yourself.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>But we are not wholly barbarous here, Richard. <i>This</i>, +for example, and no first-class New England city +lacks culture.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>I suppose there's no use explaining, but what first-class +New England cities regard as <i>culture</i> your real +artist avoids as he would avoid poison.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well, well. But circumstances—really, Richard, +don't you think it your <i>duty</i> to stay?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Why?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Yes, a <i>long</i> separation.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>As far as I am concerned, uncle, I have nothing to +blame you for; but my mother....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Results? What do you mean? I have no desire to +catalogue the things I have done for one who was +near to me, but—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>You did!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Yes. Even your mother did not know. I acted +through an agent, and the interest was two per cent.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>But—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>A nominal rate. Your mother was so proud—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well, but there were other matters, long ago, that I +have only lately heard about. You and father once +started in business together....</p> + + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>We did. And I advised him to sell out when I did, +but he thought better to hold on.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Poor father. You made—he lost....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Now?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>home</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>It's difficult to decide.... You see, my studio—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well! I confess I can't understand all this uncertainty!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well ... but then, as I must live by my sales and +commissions, I'd cut a poor figure in surroundings +like these.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Ha! Very quaint that, Richard, very quaint! I +suppose artists <i>are</i> 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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>No, I don't.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Why, it's simple enough!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Yes, the facts are, but I don't understand—an income, +a home. Why, I never dreamed of such a +thing!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Why not, Uncle Richard? Three years ago you +might have asked me that question. Now I ask you +<i>why</i>?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Why? How strange! How could that question +arise between a man and his own nephew?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>That's what I thought at first, and I hated you for +it, but afterward I realized it was not that—it was +worse.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p><i>Worse!</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Yes. It wasn't that you grudged the money, it was +that you simply didn't <i>think</i> 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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>No, no, Richard! You were so cold, so silent. You +made it impossible for us to help you.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>There, there! How glad I am that conditions are +changed!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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!...</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>But you finished at college, Richard....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>We talked it all over. He helped me sell my furniture, +he sublet my room. And he gave me a job.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>A—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Admirable, admirable! Really, Richard, I am more +than ever convinced that I have decided rightly. +Richard, you <i>must</i> make this your home!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Are you still talking about my <i>duty</i>?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><i>Richard, I have made you my heir.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Your heir!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>No. No you don't, Uncle Richard. Never!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>What on earth do you mean?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>I won't be your heir!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Wh—what? Good heavens! Are you <i>mad</i>?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>good</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>You conceited young rascal! I needn't leave you a +cent!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Of course not! But I can leave it to whom I please.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Why don't you leave it to Joseph?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>To Joseph—my coachman? Are you joking?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Not at all. Didn't he save your life in the Civil War? +And what have I ever done for you?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>I have remembered Joseph very handsomely, but to +make him my <i>heir</i>—why, that isn't the same thing at +all!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well, to a university then?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>No.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>A church?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>No!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>A cat hospital?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Damn cats! There's been enough of them sick in my +own house!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well, I give it up.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>You young fool! You don't know what you are saying! +<i>Joseph! Church! Cat Hospital!</i> What good +would I get out of that? Is that what I have been +working for all my life? No indeed!</p> + +<p><i>Richard, you shall be my heir!</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>No, I won't be your heir!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Madness, madness! What kind of a world are we +coming to?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>same thing</i>. +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.</p> + +<p>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! (<i>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.</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>do</i> care for you, my boy, I know it now as +I know my own name. Surely, Richard, you need +not take this offer amiss?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well, but you see, Uncle Richard....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Do you prefer poverty for its own sake?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Of course not. But I prefer it to hypocrisy and +compromise.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well then. You will accept, Richard? For my sake, +Richard?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Well....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>If you really mean it that way—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>My dear Richard! My dear boy! Why—now I +know why we have been quarreling, Richard!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Why?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Richard</span></p> + +<p>Le roi est morte, vive le roi. <i>But</i> (<i>and he thumps +the table with great emphasis</i>) but there's one thing +understood—I'm going to paint <i>masterpieces</i>!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Uncle Richard</span></p> + +<p>Of course you are, my boy, of course you are! In +fact, I always <i>knew</i> you would, Richard!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_INCOMPATIBLES" id="THE_INCOMPATIBLES"></a>THE INCOMPATIBLES</h2> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>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—?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Sure I did, Marian. I knew you'd like 'em.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>I do. But you mustn't be a silly boy any longer, +Fred!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>I will, too. It isn't silly, to give <i>you</i> flowers.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Yes, but you mustn't judge all men by <i>him</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>I don't. I knew well enough you're different, or I'd +never have married you. But at the same time—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Well, I'm going to show you that a <i>real</i> 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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>I couldn't hate <i>you</i>, girlie! Besides, isn't this our +first night back in the old town? We shan't be having +dinner out like this every day.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Well, only I don't want to have you flop all of a sudden, +like <i>he</i> did. What'll you have, a cocktail?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Let's see.... What's the matter, Marian?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Sh! Don't turn round!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>What's up?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p><i>Him!</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Him who?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p><i>George!</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Good Lord! Well, don't mind <i>him</i>. He hasn't got +anything on you now. You're <i>mine</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Sure I am. He isn't looking. He's with a woman. +By jingo! It's that millinery kid!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>What millinery kid? Besides, what difference does +it make? Let him have a hundred, if he wants 'em. +<i>We're</i> happy.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Oh, come on! What'll you have? Besides, she might +have made the clothes herself.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Made 'em herself! Say, a fine lot you know about +ladies' gowns! That came from the Avenue, straight.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Well, what if it did? I'll get you a better one, you +just wait.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Sh! He's looking over here!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Hm! Look at me and you won't see him.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>The nerve!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>What's he done?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>He smiled right over like nothing had ever happened. +I'll bet he's going to say something mean about me. +Oh!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Let's change our seats. I'm hungry!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Change nothing! Catch me giving him a laugh like +that! I could tell her things, the young—There, +now <i>she's</i> looking!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>What if she is? Say, look here—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>He's getting up! Well, of all the brass!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>What?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>He's coming over here!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>He is! Don't you say a word. I'll take <i>him</i> on!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>If he dares—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>Hello, Marian!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Hm!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>What, got a grouch on your honeymoon? That's a +bad sign, Marian!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>No, I haven't got any grouch! Don't <i>you</i> worry! +You're the only grouch I ever had, thank the Lord!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>Well then. It isn't every woman gets rid of an incompatible +husband and gets hold of a compatible +one, all in same season.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Look here!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>you</i>. See?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>Sure. Excuse me for butting in. I just wanted to +make a little announcement.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Oh, you did! Well, I'm surprised! I didn't think +<i>she</i> was the kind you had to marry.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>Huh! I knew you'd have your little knife out for +her. But why you should have to be jealous <i>now</i> I +can't see.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>I'm not jealous!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>What you worrying about, then?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>I'm not worrying! I'm only sore because you butted +in when we were so happy together here without you.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>Oh, <i>excuse</i> me! As a matter of fact, I didn't come +over to make any announcement. It's too late for +that. I—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Married already! Anybody'd think you might wait +a little while for common decency!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>I waited a day longer than you did, anyhow.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>That's different.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>I <i>beg</i> your pardon! We were just ordering dinner. +If you didn't come to make any announcement, why—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Yes, what did you butt in for?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>Why, I got a letter from your friend Grace, and—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Grace? What did she have to say to <i>you</i>?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>She said she was sorry I had to get a divorce, but I +told her—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Sorry <i>you</i> had to get a divorce! Well, if I don't fix +<i>her</i>!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>Oh, she's getting married, too.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Who to?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>That fellow, what's his name, that's got the garage +over on Seventh Avenue.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Snider! So <i>he's</i> the one! Well! And I suppose +she'll be all over town in a new car.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Hypocrite! She was. Or she told me so. Cried all +over me. Have you seen Jackson?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">George</span></p> + +<p>Yes. He's as blue as your old kimono. He said—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Fred</span></p> + +<p>Look here, Marian! I'm not going to wait all night +for my dinner!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Marian</span></p> + +<p>Order your old dinner! What did Jackson say, +George?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_GENIUS" id="THE_GENIUS"></a>THE GENIUS</h2> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>I wonder if you have seen my dog? I was going for +a walk, but Rex seems to have grown tired of waiting.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Your dog? No, sir, I haven't seen him. Shall I +go look?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>No, never mind. He'll come back. Rex and I understand +each other. He has his little moods, like +me.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>If you were going for a walk—?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>It doesn't matter at all. I can go any time. You +don't live in this country?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>No, sir. I live in New York. I wish I did. It's +beautiful here, isn't it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>It's very beautiful to me. I love it. You may have +come a long road this morning, let's sit down.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Thank you. I'm not interfering with anything?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Bless your heart! No indeed. What is there to interfere +with? All we have is life, and this is part of +it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>I like to sit under these trees. It makes me think of +the Old Testament.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>That's interesting. How?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Well, maybe I'm wrong, but whenever I think of the +Old Testament I see an old man under a tree—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Yes?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Yes, yes, I understand. The Old Testament.... +They <i>did</i> get hold of things, didn't they?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>I wonder.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>That's the first question, certainly: where is he? But +where is he if he does do the same thing?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Why, he's with the rest. And <i>they</i> don't ask that +question....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>I'm afraid they don't. It would be interesting to be +there if they should begin to ask it, wouldn't it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Yes.... I'd like to be there when some <i>I</i> know ask +themselves! But they never will. Why should they?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Don't you mean how <i>can</i> they?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Oh. You want to know where <i>they</i> are, with their +power, or where <i>you</i> will be without it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Where I'll be. I hate it! But what else is there to-day?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Why, there's you.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>On the contrary.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>You liked them?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>It was more than that. How can a fellow <i>like</i> the +ocean, or a snow storm?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Is that what you thought they were like?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>It seemed impossible? I should think it would be the +most natural thing in the world, for <i>you</i>—like eating +dinner.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>That's the wonderful thing—not the book, but that +<i>I</i> should have come to write it!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>But who else could write it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>At your age I thought anybody could—anybody and +everybody except myself.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Really?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Really and truly. You've no idea what a useless +misfit I was.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>But I read somewhere you had always been brilliant, +even as a boy.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Unfortunately ... yes. That was what made it so +hard for me. Shall I tell you about it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>I wish you would!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>would</i> understand and wear a +heroic attitude about—and fled. I came here....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Of course. But didn't she follow you? Didn't they +bother you?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Your salvation?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>I will read it! And how much more it will mean to +me now!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Well, that's the whole secret of what you have been +looking for—what you found in my poems.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>I don't understand.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>That's what you meant in your poems about religion.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>The first impulse ... I see. Oh, life might be so +simple!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Yes! But I see the only thing to do is to go away, +like you.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Then?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Then I <i>could</i> stay right in the midst of it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>finicky</i>. 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 <i>mean</i> 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 <i>see</i> 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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>I certainly do!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>But I thought—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Oh!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Why, you might have told from my poems how I +believe in love.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>I don't remember any love poems.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>I suppose if I had been older....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>It isn't one's age but one's need. <i>She</i> will understand. +Look, the sun has gone round the corner of +the house. Is that lunch you have in the parcel?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>Would you like to make it a picnic? I'll get something +from the house, and then we can walk to the +woods.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Boy</span></p> + +<p>I'd love to!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">The Man</span></p> + +<p>All right, I'll be ready in no time. Come, Rex!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SURVIVAL" id="SURVIVAL"></a>SURVIVAL</h2> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p><i>A young woman enters the garden from the lawn +next door.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Look here, Roger, you can't keep this up!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>No, I can't keep this up. Besides, it's going to rain +to-morrow.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>What do you mean?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Watering the plants. Isn't that what you meant?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>I wish it were only forgetting—it's remembering.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Oh Roger, don't I know? But you mustn't!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>I suppose not. I suppose not.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Yes, I guess you could.... It's, it's absurd how +well I keep!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>No....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>I know she did. She told me.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>She told you? I didn't know that.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>We were good friends, your mother and I—and +women. That's why she told me. And I think I +reassured her.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Oh! She did seem to get mightily comforted, just at +the last. I never understood why.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Arthur ... I'm glad the accident happened after +<i>she</i> died.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Yes. But there's something else. Something that +hurts. You've got to tell me. Everything. Don't +be afraid. Face it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>I have faced it. I—I've made up my mind.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>There's still pain somewhere. Is it in the way you +have made up your mind?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>How could that be?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Debts?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>He wasn't....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>No. After a couple of years I had to straighten it +out again. I came down on him flat. He promised +to cut it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>But he was doing such wonderful work!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Yes, everybody began to say so. If he had only been +that alone, the musician! But—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>But afterward?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>But what did <i>he</i> say?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>I let it go for weeks, hoping he would say something. +But never a word.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>He loved you so. How he must have suffered!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>That was his way. It made him ashamed.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Well, he couldn't keep it dark forever. Mother almost +found out.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Almost found out?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Yes. So of course I stepped in. We had a frightful +row.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>When was that?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Six months ago. I got him clear. It was hard—this +time the woman almost got him.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Oh!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>I helped him. But I did it on one condition—that +he go to work.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Work? What about his music?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>No.... Of course, it wasn't as if you turned +against him. And the office—he was to pay you +back that way?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>But he always <i>did</i> work!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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: <i>"Sun-treader!"</i>... Don't you +remember?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>What were you going to say?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Is that what you have made up your mind about?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Different, how? What do you mean?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Oh! But <i>Arthur</i>....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>fit</i>. 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 <i>survive</i>. 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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Roger! You shan't say that! You shan't!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>But his talent, his fine talent—and his exquisite +nature!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>What the deuce do <i>you</i> know about them? What +about one of them?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Who told you? Where did you see her?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p><i>There.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>There! In my own house?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>How did <i>she</i> get there?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Your mother sent for her.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>My mother sent for her? Then she knew?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Yes. She knew everything.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>How?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p><i>He</i> told her—Arthur did.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Good Lord! I never heard a word of it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>No. They were afraid—afraid you wouldn't understand.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Afraid <i>I</i> wouldn't understand? Why, <i>I</i> understood +only too well. It was mother that wouldn't have understood. +I'd have cut my hand off rather than tell +her.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>How did he ever come to tell <i>her</i>?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Once when he was sick. Your mother was taking +care of him. He blurted it all out, like a homesick +boy.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>And <i>she</i> understood? Didn't break her heart, and all +that?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>And mother packed her away without telling me?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Oh, she didn't pack her away. That is, right off.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>He kept on seeing her? With mother's knowledge?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Yes. Your mother liked her.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Well, if women aren't the strangest things!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Yes, they are. Some of them. Fortunately. But +you see how wrong you were, Roger?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>How was I wrong?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>About this unfitness—this survival.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>On the contrary. It only proves it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>No, we can't. I still say it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>Then what about your mother? What about all +women who—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>About mother?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>I never thought of it. No, of course we don't want +to get rid of <i>that</i>—but even so, she didn't save him.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Through another woman?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Yes, but—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Margaret</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>that</i> woman—you know. +And then this woman, the right one, did understand, +and was ready to marry Arthur....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Roger</span></p> + +<p>Margaret, are you crying? Are you crying, Margaret? +<i>Margaret, was it you?</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_TELEGRAM" id="THE_TELEGRAM"></a>THE TELEGRAM</h2> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>Alexandre! Alexandre!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>Good day, my friend. You seem distraught.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>Distraught! It was the strangest thing! But sit +here with me. Do. I have something to tell you.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>I regret exceedingly, but a stupid engagement.... +Later, perhaps—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>No! No! I insist! Only a great mind like yours +can explain the strange thing which has happened.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>First of all, tell me the exact date!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>Friday the fifteenth! Impossible!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>But what was it then?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>Can a philosopher really be such a fool? Of course +the telegram came! And I am grateful!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>Mon dieu! What difference does it make? But I +swear I have the telegram, and it reads just as I +told you!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>But no! You are ungrateful, and for that I despise +you!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>But yes! And after reading it four times I locked +it in my safe. Do I not <i>know</i> I entered my shop and +locked it up?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>Yes, and do you not know also that you moved to +the Rue de la Paix?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>Oh! Could it have been—Then I am ruined, and my +brother is the most selfish of men!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. In the path +shall you grow steadfast and contented.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Perron</span></p> + +<p>It doesn't matter!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alexandre</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>(<i>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.</i>)</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="RAIN" id="RAIN"></a>RAIN</h2> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> +<h3>PERSONS</h3> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="Persons"> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Charles Everitt</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Mary</span>, his wife</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Walter</span>, seventeen</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Alice</span>, fifteen</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Harold</span>, five</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>She didn't give me any toast. I want some toast!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>A rotten supper!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Never mind, Harold, you had two cups of that beautiful +milk.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Of course it was rotten. Everything's second rate +here. Ugh! what a musty smell!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>I'm sure there's a dance there to-night!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>The car could <i>not</i> have done the six miles. We were +lucky to make that last hill. You might have had to +walk the whole way.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Well, we always start too soon or too late. For +goodness sake let's at <i>least</i> have some light. There's +no use having it as dark inside as out. (<i>Everitt goes +about lighting all the burners</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>Hear the rain, rain, rain!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>It <i>is</i> coming down. I never heard it make so much +noise.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>That's because city people never have a roof over +their heads!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Why, mother, the rain makes your voice vibrate +like—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Like a fire engine. I stood right by one, once.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Come, Harold, sit on my lap.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Shall I close the blinds?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>No, don't. Nobody's about on a night like this.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>Wish I could see rain. What it like?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>What's what like?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>Rain—rain.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Like shower baths.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>Oh. Mother, tell me story about rain. I <i>like</i> rain! +(<i>Everitt feels about for his cigar case. A letter falls +from his pocket which he picks up hurriedly</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>I'm going for a cigar.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>It's like being in a submarine!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>Mother, tell me story!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Once upon a time—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>I'm going out for a minute.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>I wish....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>Once on a time!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Oh, yes. Once there was a little girl who lived in the +country.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>What country?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i> brook to run +away. And what do you suppose her mother said?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>What her mother say?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>Oh. And is <i>this</i> rain the brook coming back? The +little girl's brook?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>The little girl grew up and went away. But it's <i>some</i> +little girl's brook. (<i>Walter comes in with sticks</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>I thought we'd have a fire.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Good! Make a big one.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Now, Harold, mother is going to put you in a nice +bed, right under the roof where the rain-drops whisper +and sing. (<i>She takes Harold out</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Where'd father go?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>He said he wanted a cigar.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>He's been a long time.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Perhaps he's gone to look at the engine.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Walter, what's the matter with them? Last +night....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>I don't know. I heard them, too. It isn't the first +time they have quarreled.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>It's terrible!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Father's got a rotten temper, lately.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>I thought she wanted him—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>She did, but he had no business to get so angry about +it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>But why did she want to change our plans at the +last minute and go into Connecticut? Everything +was arranged to come here.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span>.</p> + +<p>She said he had arranged it without speaking to her. +She said—there's something about it I don't understand.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>I don't either. I—(<i>Mrs. Everitt enters</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Did he go to sleep?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Sit down, mother. It's very jolly here.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Thank you, Walter. How many years since I've enjoyed +a real fire, like this!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Oh, there isn't enough wood. Just a minute—(<i>He +goes out</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>You look tired.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>I'm all right, dear.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>No you're not. Why won't you tell me?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>But Alice, there's nothing to tell. I do feel a little +tired, but then, I shall be all right in the morning.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>I wish—(<i>Walter enters with more wood</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Well, Alice, are you still thinking about that dance?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>feel</i> things—like rain, and fire.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>What's that noise,—Harold?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>No. It's the men in the bar room.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>I'm sure it's Harold.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>I'll go see. (<i>She goes out</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Mother.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>What, Walter?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>I must be an awful coward—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Why, what do you mean?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>really</i> 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 +<i>trouble</i> exactly—but you know what I mean.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Tell me.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Yes, but—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>But Walter, you haven't gone far enough in it. The +art will come later.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>No it won't! At least not with father. He never +builds anything that lets me <i>imagine</i>. 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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>But Walter, what is it exactly you want to do?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span>.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>In the country!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Oh, Walter!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Yes, but why wasn't something said about it when +we came here this afternoon? It seems funny, not to.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Dear, there was a little family trouble, long ago, +which is best forgotten.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Oh.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span> (<i>entering</i>)</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>The dear child. What was it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Why, he remembered the big drum he saw once in a +parade, and he was trying to explain that he was +<i>inside</i> a drum. The rain, you know.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span> (<i>entering</i>)</p> + +<p>We had to jack up the car. The barn is flooding +with water.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Is that where you were?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Yes.... How strange you look in that light, Alice! +I never saw you look like that before. (<i>He kisses +her</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Oh!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>What is it, Alice?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Why ... I thought his cigar was going to burn me.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Oh.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Only what?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>She looked just as Mary did when I first knew her. +It startled me.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Do I?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Was I like that?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Of course you were.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Oh, I'm glad!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Thank you, dear, but you're not half so glad as I am.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>But you haven't seen many of them, have you?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>No, I talked with some in the bar room.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Oh, the bar room?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Oh!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Where's my portfolio?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>In the office, with those hand bags we decided not to +open.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>I'm going to get it. I just had an idea.... (<i>He +goes out</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>It's only ten o'clock, but it seems like midnight.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>So it does. Are we going on to-morrow? Will the +car be all right?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>George says so. To-morrow? I suppose so.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Well, I'm going to bed.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>I hope Harold is asleep. Good night, dear.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Good night, Mary.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>You said "Mary."</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Did I? Well, you might be, for all that.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span> (<i>leaving</i>)</p> + +<p>Good night.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>If she had on that blue dress you used to wear, your +own mother couldn't tell you apart.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Charles.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>What?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Walter knows he was born here. He wants to know +why we didn't mention it to-day.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>So do I! So do I want to know why we didn't mention +it! It's been between us all these years! +(<i>Walter enters with his portfolio. He stands unnoticed +at the door</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>You want to know? You know very well yourself! +It's I who ought to ask what the matter is!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Whim! It isn't every wife who—Oh! Oh!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Look here, are we both crazy? Out with it!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p><i>Annie Pratt!</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>What? Who?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Annie Pratt!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Who the devil's Annie Pratt? What's she got to do +with it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Ha! Not faithful even to her! Or are you trying +to lie out of it? You can't, <i>because I've still got the +letter</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>What letter? I'm not going to stand these hysterics +any longer!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>So was I happy, Oh! Oh!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Hypocrite! "Dearest Charlie: You said it is I who +am your wife really, because it's I who make you +happy." Vile cat!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Annie Pratt, Annie Pratt. I remember her....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>I should think you would! But any man who will—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Look here! I've got the whole thing! You found +that letter in my pocket?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Yes I did.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Well, do you remember my quarrel with Charlie +Fisher?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Yes. Why?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Because, you poor child, that letter was written to +him.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>To him!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>God forgive me!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>But why on earth didn't you come right out with it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>So that's it. Well, thank heaven! (<i>He starts to +embrace her</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>But that letter you picked up so quickly to-night—was +that from somebody else?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Lord, I'd almost forgotten it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>There! And I was almost happy!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>For goodness sake, read it!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>From your bank.... I don't understand it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>It's simple enough. They won't make me another +loan.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Well?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Between the unions and the new inspection—well, I +can't finish the Broadway contract on time, and I'm +done.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Done?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Done. Smashed. I might save ten thousand dollars, +that's all. My life's work....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>You mean money?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>I mean the lack of it.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Is that all? Thank heaven!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>All! But do you realize it means giving up the +house, and beginning all over again on ten thousand +dollars?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>I don't care. I was never happy there anyhow. And +now I could be happy doing my own work in a tenement.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>Father!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Good gracious! Where did you come from?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>go</i>. 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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Good Lord! (<i>Alice appears in the doorway holding +Harold</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Oh, <i>Charles</i>!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Well ... but Alice.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Mother.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>You, too! What is it? What's the matter with +Harold?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Give him to me, dear.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>And I knew something was going on down here... +I could <i>feel</i> it. I don't know what it was, but there's +one thing I do know.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>What?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>useless</i> I am. +I've never done anything. And you must have done +a lot.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>I should say she did!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Walter</span></p> + +<p>There! Say, Alice, how'd you like to live in that +white house we passed, the one with the orchard?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Alice</span></p> + +<p>Really? And <i>do</i> things?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Everitt</span></p> + +<p>Charles!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Everitt</span></p> + +<p>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.... +<i>What the deuce is it?</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Harold</span></p> + +<p>Rain—rain.... Mother, why can't the brook come +back to the <i>same</i> little girl?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PICTURES" id="PICTURES"></a>PICTURES</h2> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Joe.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Um.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Joe!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Um—um! <i>(She walks over, draws his watch from +his pocket and shows him the time)</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>It's nearly four o'clock.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Just a minute—the light's fine, and I want to finish.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Yes, I know, but he may be here any minute.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Tea on?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Well, that'll keep him while I get ready. That's +mostly what they came for, anyhow.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>But he's different. He isn't a Cook's tourist—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>No, he's a relative!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>You wouldn't say that if one of <i>your</i> family dropped +in. Besides, I've never even seen him. And he's +something of a collector, Joe. He <i>buys</i> pictures.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>So I hear. The last thing he bought was a Bougereau!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Well, he's a <i>relative</i> ... and when he sees your last +things!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Um.... There, it's all done.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>I'm crazy to see it, Joe, but run up and get ready. +<i>Sh!</i> (<i>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</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Carson?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Yes. This is Mr. Wentworth? Joe and I have been +expecting you. Let me take your coat. The studio's +rather upset just now—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Delightful! How I love the atmosphere of work in a +studio! I used to paint a bit myself, you know.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Did you? Father never mentioned that.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>I'm sure you would, Mr. Wentworth. You've always +been interested in art, haven't you?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Yes indeed. Of course I have been very busy, until +lately. But I always followed the best English +magazines.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>My husband's upstairs getting the paint off his +hands. He will be down in a minute. Then we'll +have some tea.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>You don't paint, do you, Silvia? I may call you +Silvia, may I not?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>A couple of weeks more, at least. I am revelling in +the galleries and museums here.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Here comes Joe. Joe, I want you to meet my cousin, +Mr. Wentworth. Mr. Wentworth—Mr. Carson.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Very glad to meet you, Mr. Wentworth.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>It's a great pleasure for me to meet a real artist, +Mr. Carson.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Excuse me a moment. I'll bring on the tea.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Oh, as for that—I'm working along. Sometimes I +hit it—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p><i>Ars longa, vita brevis</i> 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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Oh, I see. But—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>The tea's ready. Joe, bring up that chair for Mr. +Wentworth. Mr. Wentworth, do you take cream +and sugar?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span> +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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>You are building a new house? I have heard father +talk about your collection of Japanese prints.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Americans haven't done any too much for art so far.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Oh, I assure you! I know many men who are continually +buying the best on the market.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Oh, <i>that</i>....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Another cup, Mr. Wentworth? Joe, pass the cake.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>No, thank you, Silvia. Yes, the cake if you please. +Why, it's real English plumcake!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Indeed! I should like to see it very much.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>There isn't very much light.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>No, the light is poor. But even so—and your colors +will stand out, Joe.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Really, Mr. Carson, I counted on seeing some of your +work. I have heard, nice things about you.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>There. If you stand just here....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Oh, <i>Joe</i>!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>What?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Yes.... Yes. <i>Very</i> interesting....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Don't you love the bright colors and the firm, flowing +lines?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Joe, it's so <i>alive</i>! I <i>feel</i> 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, +<i>afraid</i> of life, but now—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Of course, I don't pretend to be an artist myself, but +I have always studied and loved pictures, and when +you say "learning <i>how</i> to paint"—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>That's exactly what it is. Learning <i>how</i> to paint. +Learning what art is. Getting <i>life</i> into it instead of +abstract ideas.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Art? But art is beauty! Eternal beauty. You +can't change art over night, like a fashion!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>But that picture's beautiful!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Oh, in that way, of course. But all the great masters +obey the eternal laws of beauty!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>There aren't any eternal <i>laws</i> 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—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>A master would always be a master. There's no +change possible in the vision of the soul.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Naturally, the great artist suffers hardship. But if +we once admit there are no <i>laws</i>, where are we? +Anarchy!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>The laws are contained in the impulses themselves. +They come <i>with</i> the vision, not before it! If any +one thinks this modern art is just an easy way of +painting—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>But the Louvre! All those beautiful pictures, those +priceless treasures! What about the Louvre?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>The Louvre? It's a <i>museum</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>What do you mean by "it's a <i>museum</i>"?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>I mean that it's the place to put pictures in when +they are dead.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p><i>Dead?</i> A great masterpiece <i>dead</i>?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>But see here, young man, you wouldn't do away with +the <i>Louvre</i>, would you? Why, what would happen +if these ideas were carried out....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>No, I wouldn't do away with it. Why should I? If +to burn it down would wake people up to <i>life</i>, 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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>But good gracious! <i>Useful?</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>But what <i>is</i> art, if the Louvre <i>isn't</i>?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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 +<i>history</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Like everything else.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>But you put art on the same plane as invention. An +improved motor car scraps the old model. But you +can't <i>improve</i> art!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>No, certainly not. We don't try to. We just do +our best. We <i>recover</i> art.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p><i>Recover</i> it?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>There you are!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>There we are! Isn't there a struggle going on all the +time to free religion, the <i>spirit</i> of religion, from hard +and fast rules and from false emotions? It's exactly +the same thing.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Ah, but rules are necessary to maintain order. That's +what I insist about art. We <i>must</i> have rules!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>living</i>. +Imagine asking one of the Apostles which church he +went to!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Yes.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>still</i> give out +impulses—beautiful impulses—to many of us, thank +heaven!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>But that's just it! The impulses you mean aren't +those of art at all. They—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Those pictures don't give out impulses to the <i>artist</i>. +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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>The light of the sun!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>No!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>What do you mean?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>You mean culture!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Oh, it's getting quite dark. Joe, light the light.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Dear me, so it is! What time is it? It must be getting +late—Good gracious! I have an engagement.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>You can't stay for a little dinner with us in the Quarter, +Mr. Wentworth? Afterward we could go to one +of the cafés.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Oh, that's all right. We argue art and religion every +day, don't we, Joe? Of course, though, we <i>do</i> 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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Here's your coat, Mr. Wentworth.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Mr. Wentworth</span></p> + +<p>Thank you. Thank you for the delicious tea, Silvia. +If I weren't leaving town so soon.... Good night.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Sylvia</span></p> + +<p>Good night. The stairs are rather dark.... (<i>He +goes out</i>)</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Damn!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Sylvia</span></p> + +<p>Yes, I know, Joe. It's discouraging....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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? +<i>They</i> 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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Some day, Joe....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>Now, Joe!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>Long Island</i> Louvres!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Silvia</span></p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Joe</span></p> + +<p>Good girl. Ugh! Let's go to Boudet's and have +dinner. I want to get the bad taste out of my +mouth!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HIS_LUCK" id="HIS_LUCK"></a>HIS LUCK</h2> + + +<p><i>The living room in a small flat in Beekman Place. +Two women, one of them in mourning, sit beside the +remains of tea.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>But Jean, where are you going, when you pack up +here?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>I'm not leaving here. I'm staying on.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>Oh. But I thought that now ... you were talking +about being free for your own work at last....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>deraciné</i>—the thought of getting accustomed +to another place makes me shudder.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>furniture</i> 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?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>things</i> could be +<i>alive</i>—be personal—until I was left all alone in the +midst of these.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>There, don't you see? They're so <i>dominating</i>. I +knew you before all this.... I wish you would get +away—be <i>yourself</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>No. I shall stay here. As close as possible.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>have</i> been unhappy.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>Unhappy? Yes, I have been outrageously unhappy! +Years of it! Sharp arrows and poisoned wine. I +wanted to die....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p><i>Jean!</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>play</i>—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 <i>true</i>.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>I'll help you pack. Now. You <i>must</i>!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>People wondered. The first time I met Paul—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>What do you feel?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>I wondered, afterward, what it really was. He +seemed to impress me like a powerful motor car +stalled in a muddy road.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>Ah. I know!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>Poor child.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>No. You don't understand, I <i>was</i> 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 <i>he</i> +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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>You are a big woman, Jean.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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. <i>Paul.</i> 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, <i>flight</i>, 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 <i>his</i> atmosphere. All these things are <i>he</i>. +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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>But didn't he ever ... why didn't he...?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>You ask it, of course. You have the right. Sometimes +I ask it, too, why Paul never <i>succeeded</i>. While +we were struggling along, the things that held him +back seemed only details. Only now do I see them +as a whole.</p> + +<p>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 <i>f</i> but hunger for the flesh pots after the +performance. No, he was never <i>that</i>. And people +resented it. The very people who ought to have +understood.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>But he didn't neglect his music, that is...?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>Another time?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>Another time—it was in Warsaw—we had gone with +a letter of introduction to Sbarovitch—</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span> +<i>The</i> Sbarovitch?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>But what happened?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>that</i> dream ended!</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>But why? Was it Sbarovitch's wife?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>What, again?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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>I didn't want to go.</i></p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>You didn't want to go?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>not</i> 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 <i>want</i> 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. <i>My</i> opinion, +<i>my</i> feeling, was more important to Paul than the +rest of the world. So, after all, I <i>was</i> the instrument.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>But why didn't you just get up and go?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>Why?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>Ah, Jean, I begin to understand.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>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. <i>They</i> knew... but what is +that?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Vera</span></p> + +<p>Ah, Jean, with all his bad luck, he had you! Who +knows what might have happened if you had not been +there?</p> + +<p class="character"><span class="smcap">Jean</span></p> + +<p>He had <i>me</i>? No, he never had me—he <i>made</i> 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.</p> +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Read-Aloud Plays, by Horace Holley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK READ-ALOUD PLAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 15983-h.htm or 15983-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/8/15983/ + +Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia, +Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team at https://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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