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diff --git a/15983.txt b/15983.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d345e0e --- /dev/null +++ b/15983.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4891 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Read-Aloud Plays, by Horace Holley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. 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: ASCII + +*** 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. + + + + + +READ-ALOUD PLAYS + + + + +_BY HORACE HOLLEY_ + +_DIVINATIONS AND CREATIONS_ +_READ-ALOUD PLAYS_ +_THE DYNAMICS OF ART_ +_BAHAISM_ +_THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE_ +_THE INNER GARDEN_ +_THE STRICKEN KING_ + + + + +READ-ALOUD PLAYS + +BY +HORACE HOLLEY + +NEW YORK +MITCHELL KENNERLEY +1916 + + + + +COPYRIGHT 1916 BY +MITCHELL KENNERLEY + +DRAMATIC AND LECTURE +RIGHTS RESERVED BY +HORACE HOLLEY + +PRINTED IN AMERICA + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE +INTRODUCTION V +HER HAPPINESS 1 +A MODERN PRODIGAL 7 +THE INCOMPATIBLES 29 +THE GENIUS 39 +SURVIVAL 55 +THE TELEGRAM 71 +RAIN 79 +PICTURES 103 +HIS LUCK 121 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The first two or three of these "plays" (I retain the word for lack of a +better one) began themselves as short stories, but in each case I found +that the dramatic element, speech, tended to absorb the impersonal element +of comment and description, so that it proved easier to go on by allowing +the characters to establish the situation themselves. As I grew conscious +of this tendency, I realized that even for the purpose of reading it might +be advantageous to render the short story subject dramatically, since this +method is, after all, one of extreme realism, which should also result in +an increase of interest. As the series developed, however, I perceived +that something more than a new short story form was involved; I perceived +that the "read-aloud" play has a distinct character and function of its +own. In the long run, everything human rises or falls to the level of +speech. The culminating point, even of action the most poignant or emotion +the most intimate, is where it finds the right word or phrase by which it +is translated into the lives of others. Every literary form has always +paid, even though usually unconscious, homage to the drama. But the drama +as achieved on the stage includes, for various reasons, only a small +portion of its own inherent possibility. Exigencies of time and machinery, +as well as the strong influence of custom, deny to the stage the value of +themes such as the Divine Comedy, on the one hand, and of situations +which might be rendered by five or ten minutes' dialogue on the other, +each of which extremes may be quite as "dramatic" as the piece ordinarily +exploited on the stage. By trying these "read-aloud" plays on different +groups, of from two to six persons, I have proved that the homage all +literature pays the drama is misplaced if we identify the drama with the +stage. A sympathetic voice is all that is required to "get over" any +effect possible to speech; and what effect is not? Moreover, by +deliberately setting out for a drama independent of the stage, a drama +involving only the intimate circle of studio or library, I feel that an +entire new range of experiences is opened up to literature itself. Nothing +is more thrilling than direct, self-revealing speech; and, once the proper +tone has been set, even abstract subjects, as we all know, have the power +to absorb. Thus I entertain the hope that others will take up the method +of this book, the method of natural, intimate, heart-to-heart dialogue +carried on in a suitable setting, and with attendant action as briefly +indicated; for the discovery awaits each one that speech, independent of +the tradition of the stage, has the power of rendering old themes new and +vital, as well as suggesting new themes and situations. Indeed, it is in +the confidence that others will follow with "read-aloud" plays far more +interesting and valuable than the few offered here that I am writing this +introduction, and not merely to call attention to a novelty in my own +work. + +HORACE HOLLEY. +New York City. + + + + +HER HAPPINESS + + +_Darkness. A door opens swiftly. Light from outside shows a woman +entering. She is covered by a large cape, but the gleam of hair and brow +indicates beauty. She closes the door behind her. Darkness._ + + +THE WOMAN + +Paul! Paul! Are you here, Paul? + +A VOICE + +Yes, Elizabeth, I am here. + +THE WOMAN + +Oh thank God! You are here! I felt so strange--I thought ... Oh, I cannot +tell you what I have been thinking! Turn on the light, Paul. + +THE VOICE + +You are troubled, dear. Let the darkness stay a moment. It will calm you. +Sit down, Elizabeth. + +THE WOMAN + +Yes.... I am so faint! I _had_ to come, Paul! I had to _see_ you, to know +that you were.... I know I promised not to, but I was going mad! Just to +touch you, to hold you ... but it's all right _now_. + +THE VOICE + +It is all right now, Elizabeth. + +THE WOMAN + +I thought I could stand it, dear, I thought I could stand it. It wasn't +myself--I swear to you it wasn't--nor _him_. I, I can stand all _that_, +now. It was something else, something that came over me all at once. I +saw--Oh Paul! the thing I saw! But it's all right _now_.... + +THE VOICE + +It is all right, Elizabeth, because ours is love, love that is made of +light, and not merely blind desire. + +THE WOMAN + +Ours is love. We _are_ love! + +THE VOICE + +So that even if we are separated--even if you cannot come to me yet, we +shall not lose conviction nor joy. + +THE WOMAN + +Yes, Paul. I will not make it harder for you. I know it is hard, and that +it was for my sake you could bring yourself to bind me not to see you +again. + +THE VOICE + +Love _is_, world without end. That is all we need to know. + +THE WOMAN + +World without end, amen. + +THE VOICE + +And because I knew the power and truth of love in you I put this +separation upon us. + +THE WOMAN + +For my sake. I know it now, Paul! And trust me! You _can_ trust me, Paul! +Not time, nor distance, nor trouble nor change shall move me from the +heights of love where I dwell. + +THE VOICE + +And because I knew the happiness of love could not endure in deceit, nor +the wine give life if we drank it in a cup that was stained, I put you +from me--in the world's sight we meet no more. + +THE WOMAN + +In the world's sight ... and in the sight of God and man shall I be +faithful to him from now on, in thought and deed and word, as a heart may +be. Yes, Paul ... even that can I endure for your sake. For I know that +hereafter-- + +THE VOICE + +For love there is neither here nor hereafter, but the realization of love +is ever according to his triumph. This has come to me suddenly, a light in +the darkness, and I have won the truth by supreme pain. + +THE WOMAN + +That, too, Paul. _Pain_.... I have been weak. I gave way to my nerves, but +now in your presence I am strong again, and I shall not fail you. + +THE VOICE + +My presence is where your love is, and as your love so my nearness. Love +me as I love you now, and I shall be more real to you than your hands and +your eyes. + +THE WOMAN + +_Bone of one bone, and flesh of one flesh_.... + +THE VOICE + +Spirit of one spirit! The flesh we have put away. + +THE WOMAN + +That, too, Paul. Oh the glory of it! So be my happiness that I shall not +wish it changed, even before the Throne! + +THE VOICE + +I have given you happiness? + +THE WOMAN + +Perfect happiness, Paul. I am happy, happier than I ever was before. But +before I go home from here for the last time, turn on the light, Paul, +that we may be to each other always as the wonder of this moment. For the +last time, Paul. Paul?... Paul? Where are you? Why don't you answer?... +_Paul!_ (_She turns on the light. It is a studio. At the piano, fallen +forward upon the keys, sits the body of a man. There is a revolver on the +floor beside him._) Paul!... _As I saw him!_ Is _this_ my happiness. Oh +God, _must_ I? + + + + +A MODERN PRODIGAL + + +_The scene shows Uncle Richard's library, a massive and expensive interior +suggesting prosperity rather than meditation. It is obviously new, and in +the whole room there is only one intimate and human note, a quaint little +oil painting of a boy with bright eyes--Uncle Richard at the age of +eleven._ + +_Richard walks about, waiting for his uncle, and examines the appointments +with more curiosity than reverence. Stopping by the mantle for a moment he +notices, with a start of surprise, his own photograph. He turns away with +a shrug just as his uncle hurriedly enters._ + + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Dick! Richard! At last! How are you? You received my letter? + +RICHARD + +I am very well, uncle. Yes, I received your letter. It was forwarded from +Florence. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Good! Sit down, Richard, sit down. + +RICHARD + +I did not receive it until a few days ago, in New York. I came on as soon +as possible. But I had engagements--business engagements--that delayed me. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Business? I am very glad, Richard, that you have given up your art. Not +that art isn't entirely commendable, but in times like these, you know.... + +RICHARD + +Don't misunderstand me, uncle. My business was connected with art. I +haven't given up painting. I never shall. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +In my letter-- + +RICHARD + +Yes. Cousin Anne wrote me about Aunt Ethel's death, but I did not realize +how changed everything here was until I read that letter from you. And now +(_glancing about_) it is even clearer. It must have been a bitter shock to +you, Uncle Richard. You had both come to the point where you could have +done so much with life. But you are quite well, Uncle Richard? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +I am never unwell. I don't believe in it. Yes, everything was ready here. +In its larger issue, my life has not been unsuccessful.... But your +business, Richard, it came out well, I hope? + +RICHARD + +Quite. You see after graduating I borrowed a certain sum to go abroad with +a classmate. We had a plan for doing a book on modern Italy, he writing +the text and I making illustrations. We had quite a new idea about it all. +It was good fun besides. Well, the work has been placed, and now after +repaying the loan I have enough to take a studio and begin painting in +earnest. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Hum. + +RICHARD + +I believe I have a copy of one of the sketches with me. (_He tears a sheet +from a note book and hands it to Uncle Richard._) + +UNCLE RICHARD (_looking at it wrong side up_) + +A sketch. I see. Of course it is unfinished? + +RICHARD + +Yes. But then, no painting should be what you call "finished." A work of +art can only be finished by the mental effort of appreciation on the part +of the spectator. Photographs and chromos are _finished_--that's why they +are dead. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +I was not aware of the fact. But ... you will remember, Richard, that in +my letter I asked you to visit me? + +RICHARD + +Of course. And I shall be very pleased to stay for a few days. Very kind +of you to ask me. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Not at all, Richard, not at all! I-- + +RICHARD + +On Monday I must return to New York and look for a studio. With the book +coming out I feel I shall have no trouble selling my work. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Studio? Isn't that--hem! rather _Bohemian_, Richard? + +RICHARD + +Good gracious, uncle, you haven't been reading George Moore, have you? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +But Richard, did you not understand that I wanted you to stay here longer +than that? + +RICHARD + +Why no. How long did you mean? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Er--I hadn't thought, exactly. I mean that I wanted you to bring your +things here--bring your things here and just live on with me. + +RICHARD + +I had no idea you meant _that_. Anyhow, as I couldn't paint here, it's +impossible. But, of course, if you care to have me stay a few days +longer-- + +UNCLE RICHARD + +But I have everything arranged for you here. Your room--everything. + +RICHARD + +But you see, uncle, my work-- + +UNCLE RICHARD + +I hope you will give up your art, but if you must paint I will provide you +a room for it. Do you know how many rooms there are in this house, +Richard? + +RICHARD + +Really, Uncle Richard, I thank you, but-- + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Don't mention it. And of course you can see to its proper arrangement +yourself. + +RICHARD + +I had no idea of this when I came and--but you see, it's not only the +studio an artist requires, it's atmosphere, the atmosphere of enthusiasm +and feeling. You might as well give a business man a brand new office +equipment and turn him loose on the Sahara desert as to shut a painter up +in a town like this and expect him to create. Artists need atmosphere just +as business men need banks. It's the meeting of like forces that makes +anything really go. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +But we are not wholly barbarous here, Richard. _This_, for example, and no +first-class New England city lacks culture. + +RICHARD + +I suppose there's no use explaining, but what first-class New England +cities regard as _culture_ your real artist avoids as he would avoid +poison. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Well, well. But circumstances--really, Richard, don't you think it your +_duty_ to stay? + +RICHARD + +Why? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Must I explain? We are met, after a long separation, in circumstances +personally sorrowful to me, and I trust, to some extent, to you as well. +We.... + +RICHARD + +Yes, a _long_ separation. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +I admit, Richard, that from your point of view my attitude has not always +been as--as considerate, perhaps, as you might have expected. But I have +been a very busy man, and-- + +RICHARD + +As far as I am concerned, uncle, I have nothing to blame you for; but my +mother.... + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Your mother? Surely, Richard, your mother never criticised me to you? She +was much too fine a woman. Besides, I helped her in many ways you may know +nothing about. + +RICHARD + +No, mother said nothing. She wouldn't have, anyhow--and as far as your +helping her is concerned, I can only judge of that by results. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Results? What do you mean? I have no desire to catalogue the things I have +done for one who was near to me, but-- + +RICHARD + +That's all very well, uncle, and I have no criticism to make. What's over +is over. But when you speak of my duty to you, I think of how mother died +so young, and how I found out afterward her affairs were so difficult. I +had no idea--she sacrificed herself for me so long that I took it for +granted. But I think that you, as a business man, must have known. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +You found that everything was mortgaged? Well, Richard, it pains me to +recall these things. Your father, unfortunately, was a poor business man. +As for the mortgage, Richard, I held that myself. + +RICHARD + +You did! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Yes. Even your mother did not know. I acted through an agent, and the +interest was two per cent. + +RICHARD + +But-- + +UNCLE RICHARD + +A nominal rate. Your mother was so proud-- + +RICHARD + +Well, but there were other matters, long ago, that I have only lately +heard about. You and father once started in business together.... + + +UNCLE RICHARD + +We did. And I advised him to sell out when I did, but he thought better to +hold on. + +RICHARD + +Poor father. You made--he lost.... + +UNCLE RICHARD + +But if he had followed my advice--. All this is painful to me, Richard, +and leads nowhere. As for yourself, I have always been interested in you, +more so than you realize, and now-- + +RICHARD + +Now? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +I cannot feel at fault for anything that has happened. Your father was +unsuited for modern life. By the ordinary standards he was bound to fail. +Still, it gives me great satisfaction that at the present time, Richard, I +can offer you a home. Yes, Richard, a _home_. + +RICHARD + +It's difficult to decide.... You see, my studio-- + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Well! I confess I can't understand all this uncertainty! + +RICHARD + +For three years I have worked as hard as anybody could to make a position +allowing me to paint. I have succeeded. I no longer need help! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Of course not! I don't question your ability to get along. At the same +time, your attitude now is rather quixotic. Besides, as far as your +painting is concerned, you can always go about where you require. It isn't +slavery I am planning for you here, Richard! + +RICHARD + +Well ... but then, as I must live by my sales and commissions, I'd cut a +poor figure in surroundings like these. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Ha! Very quaint that, Richard, very quaint! I suppose artists _are_ like +that.... Richard, I see you do not yet understand. I shall be most happy +to provide for you in every way. Yes. I have considered the whole matter +carefully, and for some time have only waited an opportunity to explain to +you in person. Consider, then, that you shall have an income of your own. +You see, Richard? + +RICHARD + +No, I don't. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Why, it's simple enough! + +RICHARD + +Yes, the facts are, but I don't understand--an income, a home. Why, I +never dreamed of such a thing! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +And why not, my boy, why not? We haven't seen enough of each other, +Richard. Perhaps I have been at fault there, not to show more clearly the +interest I have always taken in you. Yes, indeed, a warm interest, +Richard! + +RICHARD + +Why not, Uncle Richard? Three years ago you might have asked me that +question. Now I ask you _why_? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Why? How strange! How could that question arise between a man and his own +nephew? + +RICHARD + +Three years ago, before Aunt Ethel died, I spent Thanksgiving with you. It +was during the recess, my second year at Harvard. I came here practically +from my mother's funeral. I had just learned the truth about our +affairs--not a thing of ours really ours, not a penny left. How mother had +kept the truth from me, I don't know. But suddenly everything changed. The +ground I had been standing on gave way--my hands grasped everywhere for +support. I had never lacked, never thought about money either way. I took +it for granted that families like ours were provided with a decent living +by some law of Providence.... I came here. I thought of course you would +help me. I didn't think so consciously--I turned to you and Aunt Ethel +from blind instinct. + +We spent Thanksgiving together. It was very quiet, very sad. You both +talked about mother and the old days. At breakfast the next morning you +wished me good luck and went off to your office. Afterward Aunt Ethel and +I talked in the living room while I waited for the train. She seemed ill +at ease. She alluded to your affairs once or twice, saying that you were +quite embarrassed by the state of politics, and how sad it was that people +couldn't do all they wanted to in this world for others. + +Uncle Richard, when Joseph came with the carriage, Aunt Ethel kissed me, +cried, and gave me--a twenty dollar bill. Good God! and I thanked her for +it. Twenty dollars--carfare and a week's board! I left the house +completely dazed: it seemed like a bad dream.... + +UNCLE RICHARD + +There, there, Richard! We never imagined for a moment. I thought your +college course all provided for--and your Aunt Ethel never understood +business. She doubtless exaggerated my difficulty. If either of us had +dreamed you were so worried! As if I should have grudged you money! + +RICHARD + +That's what I thought at first, and I hated you for it, but afterward I +realized it was not that--it was worse. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +_Worse!_ + +RICHARD + +Yes. It wasn't that you grudged the money, it was that you simply didn't +_think_ of it. You felt that something had to be done, because I made you +feel uncomfortable, but you didn't know exactly what, and you were both +relieved to see me go. I had spoiled your Thanksgiving dinner--that was +the depth of your realization. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +No, no, Richard! You were so cold, so silent. You made it impossible for +us to help you. + +RICHARD + +I suppose I did seem cold. That's the instinct of inexperienced natures +when they are desperate. But it would have been so easy to break through +with one kind word or act. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +There, there! How glad I am that conditions are changed! + +RICHARD + +Changed, yes, but it was I who changed them! The shock of poverty was +terrible at first, not because I set too much value on money, nor because +I was unwilling to work, but because I felt I had no power of attack. My +nature was introspective, I lived in an epic of my own creation. My +strength and my courage were wrapped up in dreams, and seemed to have no +relation to the practical world. I could have faced the devil himself for +an ideal, but to make my own living--that was the nightmare!... + +That was why I was so cold, so silent. If you had said one human thing, +straight from your heart to mine, I should have been comforted. In a case +like that, as I now know, it is not money a man wants, even if he himself +thinks it is. No. It is just sympathy, the right word that renews his +courage and arms him against the new circumstances by making him feel he +doesn't stand alone. If you had found that word, or even tried to find it, +I should have loved you like a son. My heart was ready--you did not want +it! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +But you finished at college, Richard.... + +RICHARD + +Yes, I finished. And do you know how? I spent that first night all alone +in my room, thinking. In the morning I called on a classmate, a poor man +who was working his way. I said: "Here, I haven't a cent. Advise me." + +We talked it all over. He helped me sell my furniture, he sublet my room. +And he gave me a job. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +A-- + +RICHARD + +A job. Collecting and delivering laundry. That's how I finished at +college. I'm ashamed to admit it now, but at first that work hurt me like +a knife. I couldn't see any relation between that and my ambition for art. +But it wore off. I grew tougher, I learned the real meaning of things. And +now I am glad it happened. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Admirable, admirable! Really, Richard, I am more than ever convinced that +I have decided rightly. Richard, you _must_ make this your home! + +RICHARD + +Are you still talking about my _duty_? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Richard, a man begins by working for himself alone, then he works for the +woman he marries, but even that is not enough. One by one I have seen +every motive that ever impelled or guided me grow insufficient and have to +be replaced. Ambition and love, once satisfied, point forward. We must +always have a future before us, Richard, unless we are willing to become +machines of habit. At one point or another most men do become machines. +Thank heaven, I never could. In these last few months I have begun to +realize.... It was your Aunt Ethel's tragedy that she had no children. I +wonder now whether it is not even more my own. + +_Richard, I have made you my heir._ + +RICHARD + +Your heir! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +My heir. And that is why, Richard--of course you could not realize it at +the time--that is why I allowed myself to use the word "duty" as having +reference to the future if not to the past. + +For the future, Richard, is ours to enjoy, without misunderstanding, +without disharmony, I at the end of my labours, you at the beginning of +yours. You have revealed qualities I confess I had not suspected, +qualities fitting you for responsibility and administration. With the +position you will henceforth occupy, Richard, you should enter public +life. Nothing more honorable for a responsible citizen.... Nothing more +essential to the welfare of our beloved republic at its present critical +state. We need the English tradition over here, Richard--solid, +responsible men to administer public affairs. I have often felt the need +of an efficient aristocracy in our social and industrial life. And nothing +would please me more than to see you rise to authority by the leverage of +my wealth. Nothing would please me more--why, Richard, I should consider +it the prolongation of my own life! + +RICHARD + +No. No you don't, Uncle Richard. Never! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +What on earth do you mean? + +RICHARD + +I won't be your heir! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Wh--what? Good heavens! Are you _mad_? + +RICHARD + +I hope so. Yes, I hope that from your point of view I am quite mad. You +won't understand me, because you don't understand what I most love and +what I most hate. Oh you self-made Americans! When I really needed your +helping hand you didn't think of me. You had the American idea that every +tub must stand on its own bottom, that every young fellow must make +_good_--that is, make money. You buy "art" at a certain stage in your +development just as you buy motor cars, and you think you can buy artists +the same way. You don't know that to buy dead art is to starve live +artists. + +Well, I made good. I can stand alone. Are you offering me money now to +help me in my work? Not a bit! Rich men haven't changed since the first +tribal chief ordered his bow and arrows, his wives and servants, to be +buried with him. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +You conceited young rascal! I needn't leave you a cent! + +RICHARD + +I haven't asked you to. I never thought about your money. I can get along +very well without it. But can you take it with you? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Of course not! But I can leave it to whom I please. + +RICHARD + +Why don't you leave it to Joseph? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +To Joseph--my coachman? Are you joking? + +RICHARD + +Not at all. Didn't he save your life in the Civil War? And what have I +ever done for you? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +I have remembered Joseph very handsomely, but to make him my _heir_--why, +that isn't the same thing at all! + +RICHARD + +Well, to a university then? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +No. + +RICHARD + +A church? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +No! + +RICHARD + +A cat hospital? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Damn cats! There's been enough of them sick in my own house! + +RICHARD + +Well, I give it up. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +You young fool! You don't know what you are saying! _Joseph! Church! Cat +Hospital!_ What good would I get out of that? Is that what I have been +working for all my life? No indeed! + +_Richard, you shall be my heir!_ + +RICHARD + +I won't! You are only interested in me because I bear your name. If I were +John Smith, though ten times the better man, you would never waste a +thought upon me. My name is an accident--I care nothing for that. My real +self is my art, for which you care even less. All you want is to establish +a dynasty--the last infirmity of successful men. + +No, I won't be your heir! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Madness, madness! What kind of a world are we coming to? + +RICHARD + +Listen. One day when I was walking outside Siena I came to a fine old +villa with a wonderful garden. A row of cypresses ran along the wall +inside, and I wanted to paint it. The gardener let me in for a tip. While +I sat there working, he watching me--even the peasants have a feeling for +paint over there--we heard a tap on the window. It was the padrona. I saw +that she wanted to speak to me, and I went in. She was an old, crippled +woman, holding to life by sheer will, sitting all day by the fire in one +room. She spoke French, so we could talk. To my surprise she was very much +interested in me--asked questions about my work, my family, and so on. I +couldn't understand why. But when I left she began crying and told me that +I reminded her of her grandson who had been killed in Tripoli, and that +there was no one of the family name left, but that she had to leave the +property either to a cousin whom she detested, or to the Church. And she +said just what you have: that this wasn't the _same thing_. She had +nothing to live for, she said, now the heir was dead, except keep the +place out of others' hands. There she was, a prisoner in that beautiful +villa, enjoying nothing, where an artist would have been in paradise. I +see her yet, bent over the fire in a black lace shawl, crying. + +On my way back to town I happened to think of my last visit with you, and +my state of mind returned, my feeling of dependence and the gloomy +Thanksgiving dinner. The shock of contrast between my old and my new self +stopped me short in the road. In a flash I saw the lying materialism on +which the world is based, the curse of dollar worship that keeps +opportunity away from the young, at the same time it keeps the old in a +prison of loneliness and suspicion. If we worshipped life instead of metal +disks, we would see that the young are not really the heirs of the old, +but the old are heirs of the young. Then and there I vowed to keep myself +clear of the whole wretched tangle, even if I had to carry laundry all my +life, so that if any one ever tried to fetter me I could fling his words +back in his face! (_Uncle Richard's nerves are all on edge. A terrific +storm of overbearing temper visibly gathers during this speech, and the +Colonel's long habit of successful domination seems about to assert itself +in an explosion. But at the last moment another power, deeper than habit, +older than character, represses his wrath, and when Uncle Richard speaks +again it is with an earnest gentleness almost plaintive._) + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Richard, for heaven's sake let us stop this quarreling! Let us forget what +has been said and done on both sides and begin anew. I offer you a home +here during my life time, and all that I own after I am dead. I _do_ care +for you, my boy, I know it now as I know my own name. Surely, Richard, you +need not take this offer amiss? + +RICHARD + +Well, but you see, Uncle Richard.... + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Do you prefer poverty for its own sake? + +RICHARD + +Of course not. But I prefer it to hypocrisy and compromise. + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Well then. You will accept, Richard? For my sake, Richard? + +RICHARD + +Well.... + +UNCLE RICHARD + +It is the only pleasure left to me, Richard, thinking of the old name +going down honourably in you. And as for the past, my mistakes were due to +not having a son of my own. You have no idea what a difference it makes. +It's my dream, Richard, don't destroy it! + +RICHARD + +If you really mean it that way-- + +UNCLE RICHARD + +My dear Richard! My dear boy! Why--now I know why we have been quarreling, +Richard! + +RICHARD + +Why? + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Because we are so much alike. At your age I was the same self-willed +beggar you are. Richard, you are more like me than you are like your own +father! + +RICHARD + +Le roi est morte, vive le roi. _But_ (_and he thumps the table with great +emphasis_) but there's one thing understood--I'm going to paint +_masterpieces_! + +UNCLE RICHARD + +Of course you are, my boy, of course you are! In fact, I always _knew_ you +would, Richard! + + + + +THE INCOMPATIBLES + + +_A corner table in a Broadway restaurant, at evening. Between the man and +woman who have just taken seats is a bouquet of red roses._ + + +MARIAN + +No, I don't want any oysters or clams. I ate enough sea food in Atlantic +City to last a season. I want some--Oh, what gorgeous flowers! Umm! I love +the smell of roses! Especially out of season. Why, the other tables +haven't any! Fred, did you--? + +FRED + +Sure I did, Marian. I knew you'd like 'em. + +MARIAN + +I do. But you mustn't be a silly boy any longer, Fred! + +FRED + +I will, too. It isn't silly, to give _you_ flowers. + +MARIAN + +That's all right, Fred. Goodness knows I like the flowers. But I'm not a +young idiot who expects her honeymoon to last forever. I've had one +experience, you know. + +FRED + +Yes, but you mustn't judge all men by _him_. + +MARIAN + +I don't. I knew well enough you're different, or I'd never have married +you. But at the same time-- + +FRED + +Well, I'm going to show you that a _real_ man don't get over the fun of +being married to a peach like you in just two weeks. You don't want me to, +do you? + +MARIAN + +Course not, Fred! Didn't I say you were different? But I don't want you to +set a pace you can't keep up. You'd hate me in no time if I did. + +FRED + +I couldn't hate _you_, girlie! Besides, isn't this our first night back in +the old town? We shan't be having dinner out like this every day. + +MARIAN + +Well, only I don't want to have you flop all of a sudden, like _he_ did. +What'll you have, a cocktail? + +FRED + +Let's see.... What's the matter, Marian? + +MARIAN + +Sh! Don't turn round! + +FRED + +What's up? + +MARIAN + +_Him!_ + +FRED + +Him who? + +MARIAN + +_George!_ + +FRED + +Good Lord! Well, don't mind _him_. He hasn't got anything on you now. +You're _mine_. + +MARIAN + +Sure I am. He isn't looking. He's with a woman. By jingo! It's that +millinery kid! + +FRED + +What millinery kid? Besides, what difference does it make? Let him have a +hundred, if he wants 'em. _We're_ happy. + +MARIAN + +The nerve of him! I knew it was her right along. He tried to throw a bluff +it was some swell. I'll bet he paid good for those clothes! + +FRED + +Oh, come on! What'll you have? Besides, she might have made the clothes +herself. + +MARIAN + +Made 'em herself! Say, a fine lot you know about ladies' gowns! That came +from the Avenue, straight. + +FRED + +Well, what if it did? I'll get you a better one, you just wait. + +MARIAN + +Sh! He's looking over here! + +FRED + +Hm! Look at me and you won't see him. + +MARIAN + +The nerve! + +FRED + +What's he done? + +MARIAN + +He smiled right over like nothing had ever happened. I'll bet he's going +to say something mean about me. Oh! + +FRED + +Let's change our seats. I'm hungry! + +MARIAN + +Change nothing! Catch me giving him a laugh like that! I could tell her +things, the young--There, now _she's_ looking! + +FRED + +What if she is? Say, look here-- + +MARIAN + +He's getting up! Well, of all the brass! + +FRED + +What? + +MARIAN + +He's coming over here! + +FRED + +He is! Don't you say a word. I'll take _him_ on! + +MARIAN + +If he dares-- + +GEORGE + +Hello, Marian! + +MARIAN + +Hm! + +GEORGE + +What, got a grouch on your honeymoon? That's a bad sign, Marian! + +MARIAN + +No, I haven't got any grouch! Don't _you_ worry! You're the only grouch I +ever had, thank the Lord! + +GEORGE + +Well then. It isn't every woman gets rid of an incompatible husband and +gets hold of a compatible one, all in same season. + +FRED + +Look here! + +MARIAN + +That's just like him! Coming over here with a grin on like a kid with a +new toy. Well, we don't want anything to do with _you_. See? + +GEORGE + +Sure. Excuse me for butting in. I just wanted to make a little +announcement. + +MARIAN + +Oh, you did! Well, I'm surprised! I didn't think _she_ was the kind you +had to marry. + +GEORGE + +Huh! I knew you'd have your little knife out for her. But why you should +have to be jealous _now_ I can't see. + +MARIAN + +I'm not jealous! + +GEORGE + +What you worrying about, then? + +MARIAN + +I'm not worrying! I'm only sore because you butted in when we were so +happy together here without you. + +GEORGE + +Oh, _excuse_ me! As a matter of fact, I didn't come over to make any +announcement. It's too late for that. I-- + +MARIAN + +Married already! Anybody'd think you might wait a little while for common +decency! + +GEORGE + +I waited a day longer than you did, anyhow. + +MARIAN + +That's different. + +FRED + +I _beg_ your pardon! We were just ordering dinner. If you didn't come to +make any announcement, why-- + +MARIAN + +Yes, what did you butt in for? + +GEORGE + +Why, I got a letter from your friend Grace, and-- + +MARIAN + +Grace? What did she have to say to _you_? + +GEORGE + +She said she was sorry I had to get a divorce, but I told her-- + +MARIAN + +Sorry _you_ had to get a divorce! Well, if I don't fix _her_! + +GEORGE + +Oh, she's getting married, too. + +MARIAN + +Who to? + +GEORGE + +That fellow, what's his name, that's got the garage over on Seventh +Avenue. + +MARIAN + +Snider! So _he's_ the one! Well! And I suppose she'll be all over town in +a new car. + +GEORGE + +Sure. Saw him to-day. A big yellow one. I always told you she was out for +money. And you thought she was in love with Jackson! + +MARIAN + +Hypocrite! She was. Or she told me so. Cried all over me. Have you seen +Jackson? + +GEORGE + +Yes. He's as blue as your old kimono. He said-- + +FRED + +Look here, Marian! I'm not going to wait all night for my dinner! + +MARIAN + +Order your old dinner! What did Jackson say, George? + + + + +THE GENIUS + + +_The front porch of a small farmhouse in New England. Stone flags lead to +the road; the yard is a careless, comfortable lawn with two or three old +maples. It is autumn._ + +_A boy of sixteen or so, carrying a paper parcel, stops hesitatingly, +looks in a moment and then walks to the porch. As he stands there a man +comes out of the house. The man is in his early forties, he stoops a +little, but not from weakness; his expression is one of deep calm._ + + +THE MAN + +I wonder if you have seen my dog? I was going for a walk, but Rex seems to +have grown tired of waiting. + +THE BOY + +Your dog? No, sir, I haven't seen him. Shall I go look? + +THE MAN + +No, never mind. He'll come back. Rex and I understand each other. He has +his little moods, like me. + +THE BOY + +If you were going for a walk--? + +THE MAN + +It doesn't matter at all. I can go any time. You don't live in this +country? + +THE BOY + +No, sir. I live in New York. I wish I did. It's beautiful here, isn't it? + +THE MAN + +It's very beautiful to me. I love it. You may have come a long road this +morning, let's sit down. + +THE BOY + +Thank you. I'm not interfering with anything? + +THE MAN + +Bless your heart! No indeed. What is there to interfere with? All we have +is life, and this is part of it. + +THE BOY + +I like to sit under these trees. It makes me think of the Old Testament. + +THE MAN + +That's interesting. How? + +THE BOY + +Well, maybe I'm wrong, but whenever I think of the Old Testament I see an +old man under a tree-- + +THE MAN + +Yes? + +THE BOY + +A man who has lived it all through, you know, and found out something real +about it; and he sits there calm and strong, something like a tree +himself; and every once in a while somebody comes along--a boy, you +know,--and the boy talks to him all about himself, just as we imagine +we'd like to with our fathers, if they weren't so busy, or our teachers, +if they didn't depend so much upon books, or our ministers, if we thought +they would really understand,--and the old man doesn't say much maybe, but +the boy goes away much stronger and happier.... + +THE MAN + +Yes, yes, I understand. The Old Testament.... They _did_ get hold of +things, didn't they? + +THE BOY + +What I can't understand is how nowadays people seem more grown up and +competent than those men were, in a way, and we do such wonderful +things--skyscrapers and aeroplanes--and yet we aren't half so wonderful as +they were in the Old Testament with their jugs and their wooden plows. I +mean, we aren't near so big as the things we do, while those old fellows +were so much bigger. We smile at them, but if some day one of our machines +fell over on us what would we do about it? + +THE MAN + +I wonder. + +THE BOY + +I went through a big factory just last week. One of my friends' father is +the manager, and all I could think of was what could a fellow do who +didn't like it, who didn't fit in.... Nowadays most everybody seems +competent about factories or business or something like that--you +know--and they've got hold of everything, so a fellow's got to do the same +thing or where is he? + +THE MAN + +That's the first question, certainly: where is he? But where is he if he +does do the same thing? + +THE BOY + +Why, he's with the rest. And _they_ don't ask that question.... + +THE MAN + +I'm afraid they don't. It would be interesting to be there if they should +begin to ask it, wouldn't it? + +THE BOY + +Yes.... I'd like to be there when some _I_ know ask themselves! But they +never will. Why should they? + +THE MAN + +Don't you mean how _can_ they? + +THE BOY + +Yes, of course. They don't ask the question because the big thing they are +doing seems to be the answer beforehand. But it isn't! Not compared with +the Old Testament. So we have to ask it for ourselves. And that's why I +came here.... + +THE MAN + +Oh. You want to know where _they_ are, with their power, or where _you_ +will be without it? + +THE BOY + +Where I'll be. I hate it! But what else is there to-day? + +THE MAN + +Why, there's you. + +THE BOY + +But that's just it! What am I for if I can't join in? I came to you.... +You don't mind my talking, do you? + +THE MAN + +On the contrary. + +THE BOY + +Well, everybody I know is a part of it, so how could they tell me what to +do outside of it? I've been wondering about that for a year. Before then, +when I was just a boy, the world seemed full of everything, but now it +seems to have only one thing. That or nothing. Then one day I saw a +photograph somebody had cut out of a Sunday paper, and I thought to myself +there's a man who seems outside, entirely outside, and yet he has +something. It wasn't all or nothing for him ... and I wondered who it was. +Then I found your book, with the same picture in it. You bet I read it +right off! It was the first time in my life I had ever felt power as great +as skyscrapers and railroads and yet apart from them. Outside of all they +mean. Like the Old Testament. Those poems! + +THE MAN + +You liked them? + +THE BOY + +It was more than that. How can a fellow _like_ the ocean, or a snow storm? + +THE MAN + +Is that what you thought they were like? + +THE BOY + +Why, they went off like a fourteen inch gun! Not a whine about life in +them--not a single regret for anything. They were wonderful! They seemed +to pick up mountains and cities and toss them all about like toys. They +made me feel that what I was looking for was able to conquer what I +didn't like.... I said to myself I don't care if he does laugh at me, I'll +go and ask him where all that power is! And so I came.... + +THE MAN + +There's Rex now--over across the road. He's wondering who you are. He sees +we are friends, and he's pretending to be jealous. Dogs are funny, aren't +they? But you were speaking about my poems. It's odd that their first +criticism should come from you like this. You must be about the same age I +was when I began writing--when I wanted above anything to write a book +like that, and when such a book seemed the most impossible thing I could +do. Like trying to swim the Atlantic, or live forever. + +THE BOY + +It seemed impossible? I should think it would be the most natural thing in +the world, for _you_--like eating dinner. + +THE MAN + +That's the wonderful thing--not the book, but that _I_ should have come to +write it! + +THE BOY + +But who else could write it? + +THE MAN + +At your age I thought anybody could--anybody and everybody except myself. + +THE BOY + +Really? + +THE MAN + +Really and truly. You've no idea what a useless misfit I was. + +THE BOY + +But I read somewhere you had always been brilliant, even as a boy. + +THE MAN + +Unfortunately ... yes. That was what made it so hard for me. Shall I tell +you about it? + +THE BOY + +I wish you would! + +THE MAN + +Brilliance--I'll tell you what that was, at least for me. I wrote several +things that people called "brilliant." One in particular, a little play of +decadent epigram. It was acted by amateurs before an admiring "select" +audience. That was when I was twenty-one. From about sixteen on I had been +acutely miserable--physically miserable. I never knew when I wouldn't +actually cave in. I felt like a bankrupt living on borrowed money. Of +course, it's plain enough now--the revolt of starved nerves. I cared only +for my mind, grew only in that, and the rest of me withered up like a +stalk in dry soil. So the flower drooped too--in decadent epigram. But +nobody pointed out the truth of it all to me, and I scorned to give my +body a thought. People predicted a brilliant future--for me, crying +inside! Then I married. I married the girl who had taken the star part in +the play. According to the logic of the situation, it was inevitable. +Everybody remarked how inevitable it was. A decorative girl, you know. She +wanted to be the wife of a great man.... Well, we didn't get along. There +was an honest streak in me somewhere which hated deception. I couldn't +play the part of "brilliant" young poet with any success. She was at me +all the while to write more of the same thing. And I didn't want to. The +difference between the "great" man I was supposed to be and the sick child +I really was, began to torture. I knew I oughtn't to go on any further if +I wanted to do anything real. Then one night we had an "artistic" dinner. +My wife had gotten hold of a famous English poet, and through him a +publisher. The publisher was her real game. I drank champagne before +dinner so as to be "brilliant." I was. And before I realized it, Norah had +secured a promise from the publisher to bring out a book of plays. I +remember she said it was practically finished. But it wasn't, only the +one, and I hated that. But I sat down conscientiously to write the book +that she, and apparently all the world that counted, expected me to write. +Well, I couldn't write it. Not a blessed word! Something inside me refused +to work. And there I was. In a month or so she began to ask about it. +Norah thought I ought to turn them out while she waited. I walked up and +down the park one afternoon wondering what to tell her.... And when I +realized that either she would never understand or would despise me, I +grew desperate. I wrote her a note, full of fine phrases about +"incompatibility," her "unapproachable ideals," the "soul's need of +freedom"--things she _would_ understand and wear a heroic attitude +about--and fled. I came here.... + +THE BOY + +Of course. But didn't she follow you? Didn't they bother you? + +THE MAN + +Not a bit. Norah preferred her lonely heroism. In a few months I was quite +forgotten. That was one of the healthful things I learned. Well, I was a +wreck when I came here, I wanted only to lie down under a tree.... And +there it was, under that tree yonder, my salvation came. + +THE BOY + +Your salvation? + +THE MAN + +Hunger. That was my salvation. Simple, elemental, unescapable appetite. +You see I had no servant, no one at all. So I had to get up and work to +prepare my food.... It was very strange. Compared with this life, my life +before had been like living in a locked box. Some one to do everything for +me except think, and consequently I thought too much. But here the very +fact of life was brought home to me. I spent weeks working about the house +and grounds on the common necessities. By the time winter came on the +place was fit to live in--and I was enjoying life. All the "brilliance" +had faded away; I was as simple as a blade of grass. + +For a year I didn't write a word. I had the courage to wait for the real +thing, nobody pestering me to be a "genius"! Some day you may read that +first book. People said I had re-discovered the virtue of humility. I had. + +THE BOY + +I will read it! And how much more it will mean to me now! + +THE MAN + +I suppose you know the theory about vibrations--how if a little push is +given a bridge, and repeated often enough at the right intervals, the +bridge will fall? + +THE BOY + +Yes. + +THE MAN + +Well, that's the whole secret of what you have been looking for--what you +found in my poems. + +THE BOY + +I don't understand. + +THE MAN + +A man's life is a rhythm. Eating, sleeping, working, playing, loving, +thinking--everything. And when we live so that each activity comes at the +right interval, we gain power. When one interrupts another, we lose. +Weakness is merely the thrust of one impulse against another, instead of +their combined thrust against the world. When I came here, feeling like a +criminal, I was obeying the one right instinct in a welter of emotions. It +was like the faintest of heart beats in a sick body. I listened to that. +Then I learned physical hunger, then sleep, and so on. It's incredible how +stupid I was about the elemental art of living! I had to begin all over +from the beginning, as if no one had ever lived before. + +THE BOY + +That's what you meant in your poems about religion. + +THE MAN + +Exactly! I learned that "good" is the rhythm of the man's personal nature, +and that "evil" is merely the confusion of the same impulses. As time +went on it became instinctive to live for and by the rhythm. Everything +about my life here was caught up and used in the vision of power--drawing +water, cutting wood, digging in the garden, dawn. It was all marvelous--I +couldn't help writing those poems. They are the natural joys and sorrows +of ten years. As a matter of fact, though, I grew to care less and less +about writing, as living became fuller and richer. People write too much. +They would write less if they had to make the fire in the morning. + +THE BOY + +The first impulse ... I see. Oh, life might be so simple! + +THE MAN + +Why not? The animals have it. Men have it at times, but we make each other +forget. If we could only be each other's reminders instead of forgetters! + +THE BOY + +Yes! But I see the only thing to do is to go away, like you. + +THE MAN + +Not necessarily, I was merely a bad case, and required a desperate remedy, +earth and air and freedom from others' will. I need the country, but the +next man might require the city as passionately. Don't imagine that only +the hermits, like me, live instinctively. It can be done in New York, too, +only one mustn't be so sensitive to others.... After all, friend, we were +wrong in saying that this power lies outside the world of skyscrapers and +business. It doesn't lie outside nor inside. It cuts across everything. +Do you see? For it's all a matter of the man's own soul. + +THE BOY + +Then? + +THE MAN + +We can't live in a vacuum. The more you feel the force, the more you must +act. The more you can act. And in the long run it doesn't matter what you +do, if you do what your own instinct bids. + +THE BOY + +Then I _could_ stay right in the midst of it? + +THE MAN + +Yes. And if you were thinking of writing poetry, it might even be better +to stay in the midst of it. Drama, you know ... and it's time for a new +drama. + +THE BOY + +It isn't that, with me. I can't write.... I had one splendid teacher. He +used to talk about things right in class. He said that most educated +people think that intellect is a matter of making fine distinctions--of +seeing as two separate points what the unintelligent would believe was one +point; but that this idea was _finicky_. He wanted us to see that +intelligence might also be a matter of seeing the connection between two +things so far apart that most people would think they were always +separate. I like that. It made education _mean_ something, because it made +it depend on imagination instead of grubbing. And then he told us about +the history of our subject--grammar. How it began as poetry, when every +word was an original creation; and then became philosophy, as people had +to arrange speech with thought; and then science, with more or less exact, +laws. I could _see_ it--the thing became alive. And he said all knowledge +passed through the same stages, and there isn't anything that can't +eventually be made scientific. That made me think a good deal. I wondered +if somebody couldn't work out a way of preventing anybody from being poor. +It seems so unnecessary, with so much work being done. That's what I want +to do. Thanks to you, I-- + +THE MAN + +Here's Rex! Rex, know my good friend. I know you will like him. Rex always +cares for the people I do, don't you, Rex? + +THE BOY + +Of course, I see one thing: it's the people nearest one that make the most +difference. Mother, now, she will understand.... You don't believe in +marrying, though, do you? + +THE MAN + +I certainly do! + +THE BOY + +But I thought-- + +THE MAN + +You thought because I left one woman and hadn't found another that I +didn't care for women? Others believe that, too, but it isn't so. On the +contrary. You see, I didn't so much leave her as get away from my own +failure. Of course, there is such a thing as the wrong woman. She makes a +man a fraction. The better she is in herself, the less she leaves him to +live by. One twentieth is less than one half. But the right woman! She +multiplies a man.... + +THE BOY + +Oh! + +THE MAN + +Why, you might have told from my poems how I believe in love. + +THE BOY + +I don't remember any love poems. + +THE MAN + +Bless your heart! Every one of them was a love poem. Not the old-fashioned +kind, about fading roses and tender hearts.... I sent that book out as a +cry for the mate. It is charged with the fulness of love. That's why I +could write about trees and storms. + +THE BOY + +I suppose if I had been older.... + +THE MAN + +It isn't one's age but one's need. _She_ will understand. Look, the sun +has gone round the corner of the house. Is that lunch you have in the +parcel? + +THE BOY + +Yes. + +THE MAN + +Would you like to make it a picnic? I'll get something from the house, and +then we can walk to the woods. + +THE BOY + +I'd love to! + +THE MAN + +All right, I'll be ready in no time. Come, Rex! + + + + +SURVIVAL + + +_The garden of a home in the suburbs. A man is walking up and down alone +at dusk, occasionally stopping to water a plant, but more often falling +into deep thought, unconscious of his surroundings. About the place there +is an air of newness and prosperity._ + +_A young woman enters the garden from the lawn next door._ + + +MARGARET + +Look here, Roger, you can't keep this up! + +ROGER + +No, I can't keep this up. Besides, it's going to rain to-morrow. + +MARGARET + +What do you mean? + +ROGER + +Watering the plants. Isn't that what you meant? + +MARGARET + +You aren't watering the plants. I've been watching you for half an hour. +If you only would! But you keep forgetting what you are at. + +ROGER + +I wish it were only forgetting--it's remembering. + +MARGARET + +Oh Roger, don't I know? But you mustn't! + +ROGER + +I suppose not. I suppose not. + +MARGARET + +I knew all along, and I kept away. How you felt, I mean. I ought to have +come over a week ago. You haven't anybody to talk to--that's the trouble, +Roger, really. I know. Now let's have the whole thing out. Come. And don't +be afraid of me. Why, I could tie you all up in bandages if you needed it. +And not flinch. + +ROGER + +Yes, I guess you could.... It's, it's absurd how well I keep! + +MARGARET + +Hm. Isn't it? You ought to be wilting away like a rose. But no, you keep +your splendid strength and go on with two or three men's work! What would +your mother think if she heard you talking like that? Don't you know that +you couldn't please her better than by going on as you are? + +ROGER + +That's so. Of course. But that really isn't what I was thinking of. I was +thinking how queer this whole business is. Take our family. As far back as +I know we were always struggling along with many children and few means. I +am the first one who could really make money. And just when I could make +mother comfortable and easy ... besides, I'm all alone. + +MARGARET + +Ah, Roger, of course you feel that way! But you don't really appreciate +that wonderful mother of yours. Do you think her happiness depended on +having a new house, and a car? + +ROGER + +No.... + +MARGARET + +Didn't she round out her life beautifully? Wasn't she repaid for her +struggles by seeing you succeed? Didn't she pass away as quietly as going +to sleep? And wasn't her marriage happy? You don't know how much a woman +will meet with, if she's happy! + +ROGER + +That part of it I can face all right, though I suppose it's hard for the +ordinary selfish man to realize that love like mother's is its own reward. +But toward the end she suffered--she worried.... + +MARGARET + +I know she did. She told me. + +ROGER + +She told you? I didn't know that. + +MARGARET + +We were good friends, your mother and I--and women. That's why she told +me. And I think I reassured her. + +ROGER + +Oh! She did seem to get mightily comforted, just at the last. I never +understood why. + +MARGARET + +I thank heaven I really did that!--And when I looked out the window and +saw you standing here, I had to come over. I knew it wasn't your mother's +death that was hurting you, but--but your brother's. + +ROGER + +Arthur ... I'm glad the accident happened after _she_ died. + +MARGARET + +Yes. But there's something else. Something that hurts. You've got to tell +me. Everything. Don't be afraid. Face it. + +ROGER + +I have faced it. I--I've made up my mind. + +MARGARET + +There's still pain somewhere. Is it in the way you have made up your mind? + +ROGER + +How could that be? + +MARGARET + +It depends. But tell me what you thought--I mean during this last year or +so. It didn't come to you all at once. + +ROGER + +Well.... Of course, I always took it for granted about his music. He +seemed to be wonderful at that. And mother believed so in him. It really +began when he left college, I found he had debts. + +MARGARET + +Debts? + +ROGER + +Yes. Not just clothes and living--other things. I paid up, but I didn't +like it. I didn't like the things. But I thought it was just a boy's +foolishness. I thought he would be all right after that, but--he wasn't. + +MARGARET + +He wasn't.... + +ROGER + +No. After a couple of years I had to straighten it out again. I came down +on him flat. He promised to cut it. + +MARGARET + +But he was doing such wonderful work! + +ROGER + +Yes, everybody began to say so. If he had only been that alone, the +musician! But-- + +MARGARET + +But afterward? + +ROGER + +Well, a year ago I began to hear things said again. And then I found +letters and bills. It was the same thing all over. He hadn't kept his +word. + +MARGARET + +But what did _he_ say? + +ROGER + +I let it go for weeks, hoping he would say something. But never a word. + +MARGARET + +He loved you so. How he must have suffered! + +ROGER + +Yes, I suppose he did suffer. But if he cared so for me why did he try to +keep it hidden, the one thing I would hate most? + +MARGARET + +That was his way. It made him ashamed. + +ROGER + +Well, he couldn't keep it dark forever. Mother almost found out. + +MARGARET + +Almost found out? + +ROGER + +Yes. So of course I stepped in. We had a frightful row. + +MARGARET + +When was that? + +ROGER + +Six months ago. I got him clear. It was hard--this time the woman almost +got him. + +MARGARET + +Oh! + +ROGER + +I helped him. But I did it on one condition--that he go to work. + +MARGARET + +Work? What about his music? + +ROGER + +That's what he said. But I asked him if he had thought about his music +when he got into these scrapes. He couldn't say a word. So it was all +arranged for him to go into my office, right under my eye, when mother was +taken sick. Then she wanted him to stay near her, so.... And then she +died. And the accident. Well I don't see what more I could have done. + +MARGARET + +No.... Of course, it wasn't as if you turned against him. And the +office--he was to pay you back that way? + +ROGER + +Pay me back? Why, if he could, naturally; but that wasn't my idea, that +was only incidental. My idea was to get him into the habit of hard work. + +MARGARET + +But he always _did_ work! + +ROGER + +Oh, he worked hard enough. At least he turned out a good deal. But that +was spasmodic--night and day for weeks, and then loafing for weeks more. +That's how he always got into trouble: loafing in between. + +MARGARET + +Don't you remember how splendid he was the day he had just finished +something? He seemed to have passed out of himself into a shining +humility. It was said of Shelley: _"Sun-treader!"_... Don't you remember? + +ROGER + +Yes.... Oh hang it! Why couldn't he have been only that! Yes, I remember. +I hoped that six months or so at the office--but no. Anyhow, it's all over +now. + +MARGARET + +What were you going to say? + +ROGER + +I suppose I might as well say it: I don't believe the office would have +changed him, after all. That is, permanently. He'd have done his best for +a while, and then--. No, nothing could help him. + +MARGARET + +Is that what you have made up your mind about? + +ROGER + +Oh, that. Yes, that's what started me thinking. Everybody has +difficulties, troubles, and I believe in helping a fellow every time. Life +piles up too high against one sometimes, but a little shove from the other +side will move it away. I never believed in the devil take the hindmost, +at all. But this was different. + +MARGARET + +Different, how? What do you mean? + +ROGER + +I mean that as long as a fellow's difficulties are outside him you can +help him, because as soon as they are removed he's himself again; but when +they are inside, part of the man himself, there's nothing you can do. +Nothing. You can save a person from the world, but not from himself. +That's where the devil comes in. I see it now. I believe in the devil. + +MARGARET + +Oh! But _Arthur_.... + +ROGER + +I know you think I'm a brute for speaking of Arthur in connection with the +devil, but it wasn't the old-fashioned devil I meant. I meant the devil of +unfitness. Arthur wasn't _fit_. He had every chance. We can't get away +from what life is. Life shoves people to the wall every day. I've had to +fight hard myself. I admit things aren't fair all round, but Arthur had +his chance, two or three chances, and he just--dropped out. He couldn't +_survive_. And it seems to me that for those who loved him it may be a +good thing after all that he didn't have to go on. + +MARGARET + +Roger! You shan't say that! You shan't! + +ROGER + +I don't want to, Margaret, but that's what life itself says. We can't get +behind life. We can't beat evolution and the law of survival. + +MARGARET + +But his talent, his fine talent--and his exquisite nature! + +ROGER + +I know. But there it is. It's kinder in the long run to be cruel, if the +truth is cruel. We've got to be true to things as they are. + +MARGARET + +But take things as they are! He wasn't vicious about--about women, he was +like a child. Of course they got his money, but even so, they weren't all +mere schemers. Some of them were very decent. Why, one of them-- + +ROGER + +What the deuce do _you_ know about them? What about one of them? + +MARGARET + +She cried. She said she knew it wasn't right, that he couldn't marry her, +but she did like him, and she had children of her own.... I'm sure she was +very tender to him. + +ROGER + +Who told you? Where did you see her? + +MARGARET + +_There._ + +ROGER + +There! In my own house? + +MARGARET + +Yes. + +ROGER + +How did _she_ get there? + +MARGARET + +Your mother sent for her. + +ROGER + +My mother sent for her? Then she knew? + +MARGARET + +Yes. She knew everything. + +ROGER + +How? + +MARGARET + +_He_ told her--Arthur did. + +ROGER + +Good Lord! I never heard a word of it. + +MARGARET + +No. They were afraid--afraid you wouldn't understand. + +ROGER + +Afraid _I_ wouldn't understand? Why, _I_ understood only too well. It was +mother that wouldn't have understood. I'd have cut my hand off rather than +tell her. + +MARGARET + +Well, she did understand. She understood better than you did. She +understood that part of him hadn't grown up. He was like a boy. He just +walked into things.... + +ROGER + +How did he ever come to tell _her_? + +MARGARET + +Once when he was sick. Your mother was taking care of him. He blurted it +all out, like a homesick boy. + +ROGER + +And _she_ understood? Didn't break her heart, and all that? + +MARGARET + +Oh, it was a shock, naturally. But they talked it all over, and your +mother sent for this woman. I knew. Arthur knew I knew.... + +ROGER + +And mother packed her away without telling me? + +MARGARET + +Oh, she didn't pack her away. That is, right off. + +ROGER + +He kept on seeing her? With mother's knowledge? + +MARGARET + +Yes. Your mother liked her. + +ROGER + +Well, if women aren't the strangest things! + +MARGARET + +Yes, they are. Some of them. Fortunately. But you see how wrong you were, +Roger? + +ROGER + +How was I wrong? + +MARGARET + +About this unfitness--this survival. + +ROGER + +On the contrary. It only proves it. + +MARGARET + +No, it doesn't. I've been thinking, too ... about saving people from +themselves, and all that. You say it's the law of life, and we can't go +beyond life. + +ROGER + +No, we can't. I still say it. + +MARGARET + +Then what about your mother? What about all women who-- + +ROGER + +About mother? + +MARGARET + +Yes. Wasn't her love a part of life? And didn't she keep on loving him in +spite of everything? Is that love blind and foolish--something for your +old evolution to get rid of? + +ROGER + +I never thought of it. No, of course we don't want to get rid of +_that_--but even so, she didn't save him. + +MARGARET + +She didn't know about it until lately--thanks to you. If she had known +sooner--and anyhow, you don't know--Of course, she couldn't have saved him +directly. But indirectly ... through another woman-- + +ROGER + +Through another woman? + +MARGARET + +I mean, supposing there was another woman who loved him--one who could be +to him all he needed, who would understand, and who was all right. One he +could marry. + +ROGER + +Yes, but-- + +MARGARET + +And supposing this other woman had heard things about Arthur, and was +terribly hurt, and Arthur knew she was, and that's why he kept away; but +your mother talked with her for a long while, and made her understand. +Even sent for _that_ woman--you know. And then this woman, the right one, +did understand, and was ready to marry Arthur.... + +ROGER + +Margaret, are you crying? Are you crying, Margaret? _Margaret, was it +you?_ + + + + +THE TELEGRAM + + +_Perron, a stout, middle-aged figure, is seated in front of his +watchmaker's establishment near the Place St. Sulpice. The awning sags, +and the shop wears an air of sober discouragement. Whatever expression the +years have left Perron's round face capable of is concentrated upon the +changing scenes cinematographed to his mind's eye by some strong and +unusual emotion. Alexandre, a tall, stooped man, with a flowing black tie, +bows in passing with old-fashioned punctiliousness to Perron, who +apparently is unaware of his presence. Suddenly Perron starts, rubs his +eyes, and glares about._ + + +PERRON + +Alexandre! Alexandre! + +ALEXANDRE + +Good day, my friend. You seem distraught. + +PERRON + +Distraught! It was the strangest thing! But sit here with me. Do. I have +something to tell you. + +ALEXANDRE + +I regret exceedingly, but a stupid engagement.... Later, perhaps-- + +PERRON + +No! No! I insist! Only a great mind like yours can explain the strange +thing which has happened. + +ALEXANDRE + +Ah, in that case--what is a mere business affair compared with divine +philosophy? Far from being presse, friend Perron, I have an eternity at +your service. + +PERRON + +First of all, tell me the exact date! + +ALEXANDRE + +That I can do, and not on my own authority, which in such details is often +unreliable. This morning my concierge announced with great delicacy and +feeling that to-day is Friday, the fifteenth July, and my rent is once +more due. My rent, which-- + +PERRON + +Friday the fifteenth! Impossible! + +ALEXANDRE + +Alas. My concierge is of a precision the most meticulous. For all legal, +financial and military affairs, throughout the French Republic at least, +to-day is Friday the fifteenth. But why should this seem impossible to +you, a scientist and a watchmaker? + +PERRON + +Only listen, and you will understand why I am tempted to doubt the +calendar of the Church itself. Two weeks ago my wife announced to me that +she had reason to expect the due arrival of a son. She said there could be +no question it will be a son because in her mother's family for three +generations it has been the same, three daughters followed by a son. + +Eh bien, although I have always desired a son to follow me in this +honorable and scientific profession, nevertheless I received the news +with a certain consternation. In short, my affairs have not gone too well +of late, and without my wife's assistance by her needle.... + +That evening I thought much how I might increase my funds, and so for two +weeks--two weeks, mon ami--I have omitted my customary cafe after +dejeuner, which all these years I have not failed to take with a serious +group of friends at the Trois Arts, and even have I smoked no cigarettes. +True, this has not added much to our wealth, though it has been some +satisfaction to realize I have done my possible. My health has suffered +somewhat--I have grown absent-minded, and in the morning my head feels +strange. However, that may not be due entirely to my unnatural abstinence. + +However, on Friday the fifteenth July, at three o'clock precisely, as I +sat here in meditation having finished a small work, I saw a telegraph boy +hurry toward me down the street. Then had I a premonition. My heart beat +as it has not these twenty years. In an instant I was reading the message: +my brother, who long ago ran away on adventure to Indo-China, had just +died and left me a fortune in tea. + +That was on Friday the fifteenth. And do you know what has happened since? +I have lived two separate lives. Yes, two existences have unrolled before +me. In one I saw myself as I would have been without the telegram. My +business fell away; my son was born a daughter, to my wife's indignation +and my own dismay; and having sold my little shop I sought work in a +cursed factory. Ah me, it was terrible! But the other picture. With my +brother's fortune I made aggrandisements and eventually moved to the Rue +de la Paix. My scientific genius was at last appreciated, and my watches +and clocks became the pride of the haute monde. My son grew into a fine +man, much resembling myself, and after learning the profession opened a +branch office at Buenos Ayres. I won the ribbon. In short, nothing lacked +to make life agreeable and meritorious. + +But then it was, just at that point, I came to myself and looking up +recognized my friend the philosopher. Years seemed to have passed--two +separate life times--and startled at finding myself seated in the same +chair and wearing the same clothes, I demanded of you what day it was. And +you answered Friday the fifteenth. How can such a thing be possible? + +ALEXANDRE + +To think that you, a watchmaker and a petit bourgeois, should experience +what many a saint has died without realizing! I salute you, mystic, +descendent of prophets and seers! + +PERRON + +But what was it then? + +ALEXANDRE + +What was it? A mystical experience, an experience of the highest order, +like unto Saint Therese, though in symbols of mundane things. But that is +the fault of the age more than yourself. With more practise your mind will +exhibit even greater power. You must continue in the path. Who knows what +you could do after years of self-denial, when a mere two weeks without +cigarettes have brought you this vision? + +PERRON + +And without coffee. Don't forget the cafe! And now that I am rich I shall +never go without it again. No, on the contrary, I shall have at least two, +and on a silver tray. + +ALEXANDRE + +Do you mean to say you really believe?--But it doesn't matter. Whether or +not the telegram came, the important fact is that you had the vision. It +is for this you must be grateful. + +PERRON + +Can a philosopher really be such a fool? Of course the telegram came! And +I am grateful! + +ALEXANDRE + +No. You are the most ungrateful of men. But why mention the telegram? What +matters is whether your vision arose from seeing the telegram or seeing +the telegraph boy? The philosophic truth is the same. + +PERRON + +Mon dieu! What difference does it make? But I swear I have the telegram, +and it reads just as I told you! + +ALEXANDRE + +But no! You are ungrateful, and for that I despise you! + +PERRON + +But yes! And after reading it four times I locked it in my safe. Do I not +_know_ I entered my shop and locked it up? + +ALEXANDRE + +Yes, and do you not know also that you moved to the Rue de la Paix? + +PERRON + +Oh! Could it have been--Then I am ruined, and my brother is the most +selfish of men! + +ALEXANDRE + +But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. In the path shall you grow +steadfast and contented. + +PERRON + +It doesn't matter! + +ALEXANDRE + +Not at all. And when you have become reasonable and grateful, I shall +return and speak further with you. I shall devise for you such sacrifice +as shall make the saints but as little children. Au revoir. + +(_He turns away. The clock of St. Sulpice tones the half hour. The +watchmaker listens to it with open mouth, and trembling violently, darts +through the door of his shop._) + + + + +RAIN + + +PERSONS + +CHARLES EVERITT +MARY, his wife +WALTER, seventeen +ALICE, fifteen +HAROLD, five + + +_The scene shows a hotel "parlor" in the White Mountains. Beneath the +flashy ugliness of its modern wall paper and upholstery, a certain +refinement persists from an older generation. The room itself is well +proportioned, with a very good hearth. The parlor might once have been the +ball room in a squire's mansion._ + +_It is about seven o'clock of an August evening, the room feebly lighted +by a flickering acetylene burner. One feels the commencement of rain. A +door to the rear opens and the Everitts enter, the younger children +first._ + + +HAROLD + +She didn't give me any toast. I want some toast! + +WALTER + +A rotten supper! + +MRS. EVERITT + +Never mind, Harold, you had two cups of that beautiful milk. + +ALICE + +Of course it was rotten. Everything's second rate here. Ugh! what a musty +smell! + +WALTER + +I told father we ought to go ahead. The car could have done another six +miles easily. And we'd have reached the Mountain Inn. + +ALICE + +I'm sure there's a dance there to-night! + +EVERITT + +The car could _not_ have done the six miles. We were lucky to make that +last hill. You might have had to walk the whole way. + +ALICE + +Well, we always start too soon or too late. For goodness sake let's at +_least_ have some light. There's no use having it as dark inside as out. +(_Everitt goes about lighting all the burners_) + +HAROLD + +Hear the rain, rain, rain! + +WALTER + +It _is_ coming down. I never heard it make so much noise. + +MRS. EVERITT + +That's because city people never have a roof over their heads! + +ALICE + +Why, mother, the rain makes your voice vibrate like-- + +WALTER + +Like a fire engine. I stood right by one, once. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Come, Harold, sit on my lap. + +EVERITT + +Shall I close the blinds? + +ALICE + +Yes. + +MRS. EVERITT + +No, don't. Nobody's about on a night like this. + +HAROLD + +Wish I could see rain. What it like? + +EVERITT + +What's what like? + +HAROLD + +Rain--rain. + +ALICE + +Like shower baths. + +HAROLD + +Oh. Mother, tell me story about rain. I _like_ rain! (_Everitt feels about +for his cigar case. A letter falls from his pocket which he picks up +hurriedly_) + +EVERITT + +I'm going for a cigar. + +WALTER + +It's like being in a submarine! + +HAROLD + +Mother, tell me story! + +MRS. EVERITT + +Once upon a time-- + +WALTER + +I'm going out for a minute. + +ALICE + +I wish.... + +HAROLD + +Once on a time! + +MRS. EVERITT + +Oh, yes. Once there was a little girl who lived in the country. + +HAROLD + +What country? + +MRS. EVERITT + +A country something like this. She and her mother lived in a little house +beside a brook. The little girl loved to listen to the brook outside her +window at night. One day she asked her mother where the brook went to. She +didn't want _her_ brook to run away. And what do you suppose her mother +said? + +HAROLD + +What her mother say? + +MRS. EVERITT + +She said the brook didn't really run away, when it got out of sight across +the fields it turned into rain. So then the little girl was glad whenever +it rained, because she knew it was the little brook coming back to her. + +HAROLD + +Oh. And is _this_ rain the brook coming back? The little girl's brook? + +MRS. EVERITT + +The little girl grew up and went away. But it's _some_ little girl's +brook. (_Walter comes in with sticks_) + +WALTER + +I thought we'd have a fire. + +ALICE + +Good! Make a big one. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Now, Harold, mother is going to put you in a nice bed, right under the +roof where the rain-drops whisper and sing. (_She takes Harold out_) + +ALICE + +Where'd father go? + +WALTER + +He said he wanted a cigar. + +ALICE + +He's been a long time. + +WALTER + +Perhaps he's gone to look at the engine. + +ALICE + +Walter, what's the matter with them? Last night.... + +WALTER + +I don't know. I heard them, too. It isn't the first time they have +quarreled. + +ALICE + +It's terrible! + +WALTER + +Father's got a rotten temper, lately. + +ALICE + +I thought she wanted him-- + +WALTER + +She did, but he had no business to get so angry about it. + +ALICE + +But why did she want to change our plans at the last minute and go into +Connecticut? Everything was arranged to come here. + +WALTER. + +She said he had arranged it without speaking to her. She said--there's +something about it I don't understand. + +ALICE + +I don't either. I--(_Mrs. Everitt enters_) + +WALTER + +Did he go to sleep? + +MRS. EVERITT + +No. He is talking to the rain. I never heard him say such odd things. I +hated to leave him. It seemed as if he heard voices.... + +WALTER + +Sit down, mother. It's very jolly here. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Thank you, Walter. How many years since I've enjoyed a real fire, like +this! + +WALTER + +Oh, there isn't enough wood. Just a minute--(_He goes out_) + +ALICE + +You look tired. + +MRS. EVERITT + +I'm all right, dear. + +ALICE + +No you're not. Why won't you tell me? + +MRS. EVERITT + +But Alice, there's nothing to tell. I do feel a little tired, but then, I +shall be all right in the morning. + +ALICE + +I wish--(_Walter enters with more wood_) + +WALTER + +Well, Alice, are you still thinking about that dance? + +ALICE + +Why no, I'd forgotten all about it. Who could dance in such a rain? It +would make the music seem artificial. I'm getting tired of boys, too. They +don't really _feel_ things--like rain, and fire. + +MRS. EVERITT + +What's that noise,--Harold? + +WALTER + +No. It's the men in the bar room. + +MRS. EVERITT + +I'm sure it's Harold. + +ALICE + +I'll go see. (_She goes out_) + +WALTER + +Mother. + +MRS. EVERITT + +What, Walter? + +WALTER + +I must be an awful coward-- + +MRS. EVERITT + +Why, what do you mean? + +WALTER + +I mean that when I really want something, and ought to say so, I go along +without saying it. I don't mean that I'm _really_ afraid to say it, but I +always feel somehow that other people ought to know what I want, and save +me the trouble of asking it. No, not _trouble_ exactly--but you know what +I mean. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Yes, Walter, I'm afraid I know exactly what you mean. Lots of us are +cursed with the same instinct. I am, and sometimes I believe your father +is, too. It ought to be that when one sees a thing clearly in his own +mind, and knows it is best, others--at least those near to him--should +somehow be aware of it. But they usually are not. + +WALTER + +No. And it's those nearest one that it's hardest to say things to. But +to-night, somehow, I don't feel that way. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Tell me. + +WALTER + +It's this architecture. You remember when I used to play with water colors +all the while, and say I was going to be an artist? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Yes, but-- + +WALTER + +Father always said I would get over it. But when I didn't, then it +occurred to him that if I learned architecture I could help him in his +building.... I thought architecture would be the same. But it isn't. I +can't see any art in it at all--it's nothing but engineering. + +MRS. EVERITT + +But Walter, you haven't gone far enough in it. The art will come later. + +WALTER + +No it won't! At least not with father. He never builds anything that lets +me _imagine_. You don't know how I hate those blue prints. I've been +worrying along so far because I didn't want to disappoint father, though +every day I hoped he would see what I really felt. But to-night I know I +can't go on any longer without having it out. If he will let me follow my +own idea he will be better pleased in the end than if I stick at this +business of his. It will require one good fight, and then I shall be free +to show what I can do. + +MRS. EVERITT + +But Walter, what is it exactly you want to do? + +WALTER. + +I suppose I ought to say that I want to be an artist rather than a +builder's draughtsman, but that isn't really it. I mean that behind the +brain I think with every day there is another brain, bigger and wiser, +that keeps asking the chance to show the rest of me what and how to act. +In ordinary things the everyday mind gets along by itself all right, but I +feel the other self there all the while, wanting me to begin something +different, something to let it escape from dreaming to doing. And it keeps +threatening that some day it will he too late. Only begin, begin!... Yes, +I have worried along so far, but just to-night, for some reason or other, +I seem to be standing on the brink. I won't go another step. It's in the +rain now--I hear it. Oh, the pictures I could paint if we lived in the +country! + +MRS. EVERITT + +In the country! + +WALTER + +Yes. It comes over me here how much these hills mean. Oh! and there's +another thing, mother.... I thought I was born in New York, I thought we +always lived there, but just a while ago I ran onto your old family Bible, +and it had the records in it. I-- + +MRS. EVERITT + +Oh, Walter! + +WALTER + +It seems queer that neither of you said anything about it, if I was really +born in this very town.... I might never have thought much about it, but +to-night everything seems to be stirred up. Tell me, mother-- + +MRS. EVERITT + +We lived here only a little while. We didn't like it, so your father sold +his farm and we went away to New York. + +WALTER + +Yes, but why wasn't something said about it when we came here this +afternoon? It seems funny, not to. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Dear, there was a little family trouble, long ago, which is best +forgotten. + +WALTER + +Oh. + +ALICE (_entering_) + +It wasn't Harold, after all, but I just had to stay and listen to him. He +tried over and over to tell me something. I couldn't make out what it was +until he showed me with his hands--you know that funny little way he +has--and what do you suppose it was? + +MRS. EVERITT + +The dear child. What was it? + +ALICE + +Why, he remembered the big drum he saw once in a parade, and he was trying +to explain that he was _inside_ a drum. The rain, you know. + +EVERITT (_entering_) + +We had to jack up the car. The barn is flooding with water. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Is that where you were? + +EVERITT + +Yes.... How strange you look in that light, Alice! I never saw you look +like that before. (_He kisses her_) + +ALICE + +Oh! + +MRS. EVERITT + +What is it, Alice? + +ALICE + +Why ... I thought his cigar was going to burn me. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Oh. + +EVERITT + +Alice, you jumped because you didn't like my breath. I'm sorry, I did take +a drink, and I shouldn't have kissed you, only.... + +WALTER + +Only what? + +EVERITT + +She looked just as Mary did when I first knew her. It startled me. + +ALICE + +Do I? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Was I like that? + +EVERITT + +Of course you were. + +ALICE + +Oh, I'm glad! + +MRS. EVERITT + +Thank you, dear, but you're not half so glad as I am. + +EVERITT + +It's queer, there used to be a fine old stock up in this country. It seems +to have died out. The people here don't half appreciate the place. + +MRS. EVERITT + +But you haven't seen many of them, have you? + +EVERITT + +No, I talked with some in the bar room. + +ALICE + +Oh, the bar room? + +EVERITT + +Yes, I know. One can't judge from that. A filthy place--it made me ashamed +of drinking. I only went in hoping to see some of the people I used to +know. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Oh! + +WALTER + +Where's my portfolio? + +MRS. EVERITT + +In the office, with those hand bags we decided not to open. + +WALTER + +I'm going to get it. I just had an idea.... (_He goes out_) + +EVERITT + +It's only ten o'clock, but it seems like midnight. + +ALICE + +So it does. Are we going on to-morrow? Will the car be all right? + +EVERITT + +George says so. To-morrow? I suppose so. + +ALICE + +Well, I'm going to bed. + +MRS. EVERITT + +I hope Harold is asleep. Good night, dear. + +EVERITT + +Good night, Mary. + +ALICE + +You said "Mary." + +EVERITT + +Did I? Well, you might be, for all that. + +ALICE (_leaving_) + +Good night. + +EVERITT + +If she had on that blue dress you used to wear, your own mother couldn't +tell you apart. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Charles. + +EVERITT + +What? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Walter knows he was born here. He wants to know why we didn't mention it +to-day. + +EVERITT + +So do I! So do I want to know why we didn't mention it! It's been between +us all these years! (_Walter enters with his portfolio. He stands +unnoticed at the door_) + +MRS. EVERITT + +You want to know? You know very well yourself! It's I who ought to ask +what the matter is! + +EVERITT + +You? Good heavens! Wasn't it you who suddenly made up your mind we had to +leave this town, and insisted and insisted until I sold the house? Didn't +I do that to please you, because you went into hysterics about it, and I +had to think of Walter? I didn't want to go. It isn't every man who would +change his whole life for a woman's unreasonable whim! + +MRS. EVERITT + +Whim! It isn't every wife who--Oh! Oh! + +EVERITT + +Yes whim! And haven't I stayed away all these years from my people because +you wouldn't hear to our coming back even for a visit? + +MRS. EVERITT + +No you didn't stay away! You sneaked up here the very next year when you +made that trip to Boston. And you can't deny it, because Janet Richardson +wrote me. + +EVERITT + +Sneaked up here! Deny it! Are you mad? The only reason I didn't mention it +was because I never understood your positive hatred for the place. What +harm was there in coming back for a day or two? On every other subject you +are all right, but whenever we get within a mile of mentioning this town I +feel your hysteria, so I have kept still. But if there's anything you can +say to explain yourself, for goodness sake say it! This nightmare has +been between us long enough. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Yes, it has! Too long! And I like your way of saying you had to think of +Walter! It was I had to think of my baby! If it hadn't been for Walter, I +wouldn't have lived with you another day! I kept on at first so that he +might be born with a father to look out for him, and then I kept on so +that he needn't grow up in the shame of a divorce. But oh, the pain of it! +To keep silent, year after year! + +EVERITT + +Look here, are we both crazy? Out with it! + +MRS. EVERITT + +_Annie Pratt!_ + +EVERITT + +What? Who? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Annie Pratt! + +EVERITT + +Who the devil's Annie Pratt? What's she got to do with it? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Ha! Not faithful even to her! Or are you trying to lie out of it? You +can't, _because I've still got the letter_. + +EVERITT + +What letter? I'm not going to stand these hysterics any longer! + +MRS. EVERITT + +You needn't. But you've got to stand the truth, do you hear me? I found +the letter in your pocket. We hadn't been married a year. I was so happy! +Oh! Oh! + +EVERITT + +So was I happy, Oh! Oh! + +MRS. EVERITT + +Hypocrite! "Dearest Charlie: You said it is I who am your wife really, +because it's I who make you happy." Vile cat! + +EVERITT + +Annie Pratt, Annie Pratt. I remember her.... + +MRS. EVERITT + +I should think you would! But any man who will-- + +EVERITT + +Look here! I've got the whole thing! You found that letter in my pocket? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Yes I did. + +EVERITT + +Well, do you remember my quarrel with Charlie Fisher? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Yes. Why? + +EVERITT + +Because, you poor child, that letter was written to him. + +MRS. EVERITT + +To him! + +EVERITT + +Yes, Charlie Fisher. I found that he was going with Annie Pratt and I had +it out with him one day in the barn. I told him if he didn't quit his +foolishness I'd tell his people. We nearly came to blows--he was drinking +too much, too--and I found that letter on the floor afterwards. I meant to +burn it up, but I forgot it. And you thought I was the Charlie! + +MRS. EVERITT + +God forgive me! + +EVERITT + +But why on earth didn't you come right out with it? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Oh! You can't realize how crushed I felt. I wanted only to run away, like +a wounded animal.... And then I couldn't bear to quarrel, for the sake of +Walter. So it's been festering in me all this time. + +EVERITT + +So that's it. Well, thank heaven! (_He starts to embrace her_) + +MRS. EVERITT + +But that letter you picked up so quickly to-night--was that from somebody +else? + +EVERITT + +Lord, I'd almost forgotten it. + +MRS. EVERITT + +There! And I was almost happy! + +EVERITT + +For goodness sake, read it! + +MRS. EVERITT + +From your bank.... I don't understand it. + +EVERITT + +It's simple enough. They won't make me another loan. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Well? + +EVERITT + +Between the unions and the new inspection--well, I can't finish the +Broadway contract on time, and I'm done. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Done? + +EVERITT + +Done. Smashed. I might save ten thousand dollars, that's all. My life's +work.... + +MRS. EVERITT + +You mean money? + +EVERITT + +I mean the lack of it. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Is that all? Thank heaven! + +EVERITT + +All! But do you realize it means giving up the house, and beginning all +over again on ten thousand dollars? + +MRS. EVERITT + +I don't care. I was never happy there anyhow. And now I could be happy +doing my own work in a tenement. + +EVERITT + +I think I could be happy as a carpenter again by the day. But the +children. It's going to be hard for them. Walter's architecture. + +WALTER + +Father! + +EVERITT + +Good gracious! Where did you come from? + +WALTER + +I came back from the office.... I heard what you were saying. So that's +all right. But you needn't worry about my architecture. I was telling +mother to-night. I don't like it--it isn't my work. I only wanted you to +feel as I do about it. Just feel that I really want to paint--to be an +artist. Even if I have to work at something else for a long time, I'll +feel easier, knowing you realize what I want. I love color so. And I want +to let my imagination _go_. I'll help in any way I can, naturally. I'm +glad too. I mean, I had rather live in the country like this than in New +York. + +EVERITT + +Good Lord! (_Alice appears in the doorway holding Harold_) + +WALTER + +It seems to me that none of us has been really satisfied, so it isn't so +bad after all. We can begin on something real to us all. Mother said she +would be happy in a tenement. Well, maybe she would, but why not come up +here? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Oh, _Charles_! + +EVERITT + +Well ... but Alice. + +ALICE + +Mother. + +MRS. EVERITT + +You, too! What is it? What's the matter with Harold? + +ALICE + +Nothing. He wouldn't go to sleep, and wouldn't. He said he wanted to sit +in your lap. I never saw him so. I had to bring him. + +MRS. EVERITT + +Give him to me, dear. + +ALICE + +And I knew something was going on down here... I could _feel_ it. I don't +know what it was, but there's one thing I do know. + +MRS. EVERITT + +What? + +ALICE + +Why, ever since father said I looked as you used to I've been thinking +about what you must have been like as a girl, and it came over me how +_useless_ I am. I've never done anything. And you must have done a lot. + +EVERITT + +I should say she did! + +WALTER + +There! Say, Alice, how'd you like to live in that white house we passed, +the one with the orchard? + +ALICE + +Really? And _do_ things? + +MRS. EVERITT + +Charles! + +EVERITT + +This is the most extraordinary night I ever heard of. Here I was, feeling +like a condemned criminal because I'd lost my business, afraid to tell +Mary and you children, and now you all seem positively glad of it. I +expected all kinds of trouble, and all at once.... _What the deuce is it?_ + +HAROLD + +Rain--rain.... Mother, why can't the brook come back to the _same_ little +girl? + + + + +PICTURES + + +_A studio on the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. There is a small entrance +hall, kitchenette, and a balcony before which curtains are drawn. It is a +winter afternoon, and a young man is busy at an easel placed close beside +the north light. A young woman arranges tea things on the table._ + + +SILVIA + +Joe. + +JOE + +Um. + +SILVIA + +Joe! + +JOE + +Um--um! _(She walks over, draws his watch from his pocket and shows him +the time)_ + +SILVIA + +It's nearly four o'clock. + +JOE + +Just a minute--the light's fine, and I want to finish. + +SILVIA + +Yes, I know, but he may be here any minute. + +JOE + +Tea on? + +SILVIA + +Yes. + +JOE + +Well, that'll keep him while I get ready. That's mostly what they came +for, anyhow. + +SILVIA + +But he's different. He isn't a Cook's tourist-- + +JOE + +No, he's a relative! + +SILVIA + +You wouldn't say that if one of _your_ family dropped in. Besides, I've +never even seen him. And he's something of a collector, Joe. He _buys_ +pictures. + +JOE + +So I hear. The last thing he bought was a Bougereau! + +SILVIA + +Well, he's a _relative_ ... and when he sees your last things! + +JOE + +Um.... There, it's all done. + +SILVIA + +I'm crazy to see it, Joe, but run up and get ready. _Sh!_ (_A knock at the +door. Joe runs upstairs to the balcony. Silvia opens the door and admits +Mr. Wentworth, rather stout and with gold spectacles_) + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Mrs. Carson? + +SILVIA + +Yes. This is Mr. Wentworth? Joe and I have been expecting you. Let me take +your coat. The studio's rather upset just now-- + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Delightful! How I love the atmosphere of work in a studio! I used to paint +a bit myself, you know. + +SILVIA + +Did you? Father never mentioned that. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Oh, I guess everybody has forgotten it by now. An early adventure with +life! Goodness only knows what might have happened, though, if the +business hadn't fallen on me to look out for. I might have been a great +artist. Ha! + +SILVIA + +I'm sure you would, Mr. Wentworth. You've always been interested in art, +haven't you? + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Yes indeed. Of course I have been very busy, until lately. But I always +followed the best English magazines. + +SILVIA + +My husband's upstairs getting the paint off his hands. He will be down in +a minute. Then we'll have some tea. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +You don't paint, do you, Silvia? I may call you Silvia, may I not? + +SILVIA + +Of course. No, I don't paint. I just fly around amongst the artists and +see what's going on. Are you staying in Paris very long? + +MR. WENTWORTH + +A couple of weeks more, at least. I am revelling in the galleries and +museums here. + +SILVIA + +Here comes Joe. Joe, I want you to meet my cousin, Mr. Wentworth. Mr. +Wentworth--Mr. Carson. + +JOE + +Very glad to meet you, Mr. Wentworth. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +It's a great pleasure for me to meet a real artist, Mr. Carson. + +SILVIA + +Excuse me a moment. I'll bring on the tea. + +JOE + +Oh, as for that--I'm working along. Sometimes I hit it-- + +MR. WENTWORTH + +_Ars longa, vita brevis_ you know! I want to see your pictures very much. +I was just telling Silvia how I delight in the Louvre. I go there with a +class for lectures every morning. I suppose you often copy the old +masters? + +JOE + +Copy the old masters? I should say not. I'm not out to be a camera. It's +all I can do to work out my own impressions. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Oh, I see. But-- + +SILVIA + +The tea's ready. Joe, bring up that chair for Mr. Wentworth. Mr. +Wentworth, do you take cream and sugar? + +MR. WENTWORTH If you please. Yes, two lumps. There's nothing like the +atmosphere of a studio, is there? I love it. I feel I have missed so +much. Still, the instinct for beauty, fragile as it is, does persist.... I +was surprised to feel so many of my old emotions awake on coming to Paris. +So much that hasn't been real to me for years! I have gained much +inspiration for planning my new house. + +SILVIA + +You are building a new house? I have heard father talk about your +collection of Japanese prints. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +A really delightful thing, Japanese prints. Yes, I intend building on Long +Island. And my new interest in pictures ... I shall have a gallery +especially for them. + +JOE + +Americans haven't done any too much for art so far. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Oh, I assure you! I know many men who are continually buying the best on +the market. + +JOE + +Oh, _that_.... + +SILVIA + +Another cup, Mr. Wentworth? Joe, pass the cake. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +No, thank you, Silvia. Yes, the cake if you please. Why, it's real English +plumcake! + +SILVIA + +English things are getting very popular over here. Joe, won't you show us +the new picture? He finished it just before you came, Mr. Wentworth. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Indeed! I should like to see it very much. + +JOE + +There isn't very much light. + +SILVIA + +No, the light is poor. But even so--and your colors will stand out, Joe. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Really, Mr. Carson, I counted on seeing some of your work. I have heard, +nice things about you. + +JOE + +There. If you stand just here.... + +SILVIA + +Oh, _Joe_! + +JOE + +What? + +SILVIA + +It's our little cottage! I'm so glad! That's where we lived last summer, +Mr. Wentworth. I always wanted Joe to paint it. Joe, it's splendid! Don't +you think so, Mr. Wentworth? + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Yes.... Yes. _Very_ interesting.... + +SILVIA + +Don't you love the bright colors and the firm, flowing lines? + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Of course, it isn't exactly what I have been accustomed to.... I have +heard that some of the younger Frenchmen and Russians are painting in a +new way, but-- + +SILVIA + +Joe, it's so _alive_! I _feel_ it, every inch of it! You've no idea, Mr. +Wentworth, how Joe's painting has changed me. I used to be such a little +New Englander, _afraid_ of life, but now-- + +JOE + +It isn't only what you call the "younger Frenchmen and Russians" who are +learning how to paint--the modern movement has spread all over. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Of course, I don't pretend to be an artist myself, but I have always +studied and loved pictures, and when you say "learning _how_ to paint"-- + +JOE + +That's exactly what it is. Learning _how_ to paint. Learning what art is. +Getting _life_ into it instead of abstract ideas. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Art? But art is beauty! Eternal beauty. You can't change art over night, +like a fashion! + +SILVIA + +But that picture's beautiful! + +JOE + +Art changes as life changes. Art has always changed. If it didn't, why +isn't your Japanese art just like Greek art? And Greek art like the +Italian? + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Oh, in that way, of course. But all the great masters obey the eternal +laws of beauty! + +JOE + +There aren't any eternal _laws_ of beauty! There's only the eternal +impulse to create. Every artist has to express himself in his own way. +What you call the "eternal laws" are merely the particular expressions +your own favorite painters happened to work out in their time. If they had +lived in another time-- + +MR. WENTWORTH + +A master would always be a master. There's no change possible in the +vision of the soul. + +SILVIA + +You see, Mr. Wentworth, what I have learned these last two years from +living among artists is that the painter with an original vision is always +opposed by the schools. That is, at first. But when he wins out, then the +schools merely take over his technic and use it as a club to put down the +next creator. And so it goes. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Naturally, the great artist suffers hardship. But if we once admit there +are no _laws_, where are we? Anarchy! + +JOE + +The laws are contained in the impulses themselves. They come _with_ the +vision, not before it! If any one thinks this modern art is just an easy +way of painting-- + +SILVIA + +Indeed it isn't! Joe works much harder than the students who go to the +schools. Of course, he doesn't paint by the clock. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +But the Louvre! All those beautiful pictures, those priceless treasures! +What about the Louvre? + +JOE + +The Louvre? It's a _museum_. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +What do you mean by "it's a _museum_"? + +JOE + +I mean that it's the place to put pictures in when they are dead. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +_Dead?_ A great masterpiece _dead_? + +JOE + +Of course. No man lives forever. Nobody that was ever born was useful +enough to live forever. The bigger a man is the longer his influence is +creative, in art and everything else, but the time always comes when his +value is spent. When the world needs a new influence. + +SILVIA + +It's really wonderful, Mr. Wentworth, how knowing the truth about art +shows one the truth about other things. When I remember what I used to +believe! + +MR. WENTWORTH + +But see here, young man, you wouldn't do away with the _Louvre_, would +you? Why, what would happen if these ideas were carried out.... + +JOE + +No, I wouldn't do away with it. Why should I? If to burn it down would +wake people up to _life_, I'd do it in a minute. But it wouldn't. They +would only sanctify the superstition and make it immortal. No, leave the +Louvre as it is. It's really quite useful. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +But good gracious! _Useful?_ + +JOE + +Yes. Like history. To do away with the Louvre would be to destroy a part +of history. There's no good doing that. We need history--it cranks up +life--but we've got to recognize that after all it is only history, not +life itself--not art. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +But what _is_ art, if the Louvre _isn't_? + +SILVIA + +Don't you see, Mr. Wentworth? If you could only get for a moment into the +stream of experience where Joe and the others brought me! A picture is art +as long as it's alive--as long as it can give back the fresh, first-hand +impulses that were put into it. After that--when life has flowed on and +set up new impulses requiring a different expression--then a picture drops +back upon a lower level. What Joe calls _history_. + +JOE + +Like everything else. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +But you put art on the same plane as invention. An improved motor car +scraps the old model. But you can't _improve_ art! + +JOE + +No, certainly not. We don't try to. We just do our best. We _recover_ art. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +_Recover_ it? + +SILVIA + +Yes--discover it all over again. It gets lost, lost in hard and fast rules +or sentimentality, then a genius comes along and digs down to the buried +city--creation. Art isn't like invention. It's more like religion. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +There you are! + +JOE + +There we are! Isn't there a struggle going on all the time to free +religion, the _spirit_ of religion, from hard and fast rules and from +false emotions? It's exactly the same thing. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Ah, but rules are necessary to maintain order. That's what I insist about +art. We _must_ have rules! + +SILVIA + +I know exactly what you mean, Mr. Wentworth. You mean that if fanatics +tore down all the churches on the street corners, and there weren't any +more Sunday morning sermons, everybody would run wild. But there again +it's the same thing as with art: the man who has the spirit of the thing +in him feels that the spirit itself is a far better control than heaps of +stones and sermons. It's all a matter of _living_. Imagine asking one of +the Apostles which church he went to! + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Wait! We are getting art mixed up with too much else. Didn't you say, Mr. +Carson, that pictures died when they no longer gave out impulses of +beauty? + +JOE + +Yes. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Well! I admit there are dead pictures, too many of them, but they are the +canvasses that were still-born. The masterpieces in the Louvre _still_ +give out impulses--beautiful impulses--to many of us, thank heaven! + +SILVIA + +But that's just it! The impulses you mean aren't those of art at all. +They-- + +JOE + +Those pictures don't give out impulses to the _artist_. The impulses they +do give out are only the emotions that satisfy the student who has learned +some rules and then sees the rules worked out. The artist produced the +rules as a side issue, but you are trying to make the rules produce the +artist. That's the difficulty when people as a whole lose the creative +sense. They are satisfied with things at second-hand. Second-hand +expressions of life, and second-hand philosophies to justify the +expressions. It's a kind of conspiracy in which everybody works against +everybody else. Only the few real artists in any generation break through +it into the light. + +SILVIA + +The light of the sun! + +MR. WENTWORTH + +I fear we are hopelessly at odds in this question. Well, as the Romans +said, there's no disputing about tastes. Every one to his own taste. + +JOE + +No! + +MR. WENTWORTH + +What do you mean? + +JOE + +I mean that it's a disgrace that Americans only study and only buy old +masters. It's a burning shame that all they know about art is what they +have been taught in books. They let their own artists starve--they make +them come over here--while they bid up a Raphael like a block of shares. +What good does it do Raphael? He had his day. And look how it holds back +our own possible Raphaels! + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Raphael? Ah, you are still very young. You don't understand the attitude +of the majority, Mr. Carson. Raphael is one of our great inspirers of +beauty. + +JOE + +You mean culture! + +SILVIA + +Oh, it's getting quite dark. Joe, light the light. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Dear me, so it is! What time is it? It must be getting late--Good +gracious! I have an engagement. + +SILVIA + +You can't stay for a little dinner with us in the Quarter, Mr. Wentworth? +Afterward we could go to one of the cafes. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +I'm afraid I can't, Silvia. It's been a great pleasure to meet you both, I +assure you. These little differences of opinion.... + +SILVIA + +Oh, that's all right. We argue art and religion every day, don't we, Joe? +Of course, though, we _do_ feel strongly about the young artists--the +young American artists. They come over here, and then they have to burn +their bridges ... and we see how wonderful America could be if they were +given things to do instead of being neglected.... + +JOE + +Here's your coat, Mr. Wentworth. + +MR. WENTWORTH + +Thank you. Thank you for the delicious tea, Silvia. If I weren't leaving +town so soon.... Good night. + +SYLVIA + +Good night. The stairs are rather dark.... (_He goes out_) + +JOE + +Damn! + +SYLVIA + +Yes, I know, Joe. It's discouraging.... + +JOE + +Discouraging? It's immoral! Oh, these smug people who have been taught +what to admire! These unborn souls who want to shut us all up in the dark! +I suppose he went away thinking I put myself up higher than Raphael. Who +are we painting for? _They_ don't want it--wouldn't take it for a gift. +And here we are, a poor little group, standing amazed before the glory of +the sun, and painting it--for the blind! + +SILVIA + +Some day, Joe.... + +JOE + +Some day--yes, when the life has oozed out of all our bright canvasses, +when only the "rules" are left. And we won't be able to rise from our +graves and curse them! + +SILVIA + +Now, Joe! + +JOE + +I guess I let you in for a hard time, Silvia. I wish sometimes I could +really paint the kind of thing that goes with stupid people's dining +rooms. They with their _Long Island_ Louvres! + +SILVIA + +If you did, Joe, I'd put it in the stove. Don't think you are having all +the fun of being a pioneer. It's exciting to be within a mile of it! + +JOE + +Good girl. Ugh! Let's go to Boudet's and have dinner. I want to get the +bad taste out of my mouth! + + + + +HIS LUCK + + +_The living room in a small flat in Beekman Place. Two women, one of them +in mourning, sit beside the remains of tea._ + +VERA + +But Jean, where are you going, when you pack up here? + +JEAN + +I'm not leaving here. I'm staying on. + +VERA + +Oh. But I thought that now ... you were talking about being free for your +own work at last.... + +JEAN + +If I have any work to do, I can do it here. You don't understand, quite. +All these years I have been living from whirlpool to whirlpool, never +settled, always _deracine_--the thought of getting accustomed to another +place makes me shudder. + +VERA + +I can imagine, now, how it has been, Jean. But can you find any peace +here? With all these things about? You are so sensitive--lamps, and +pictures, and rugs--these aren't just _furniture_ to you, they are images +of the past. Won't they be, too--real? Too personal? Won't you feel more +at liberty with yourself if you create your own atmosphere? + +JEAN + +Ah, they are real enough! That table is a winter in Munich; the samovar is +Warsaw one night in May; the lucerna is Rome ... and all that those places +mean to me. I never realized how _things_ could be _alive_--be +personal--until I was left all alone in the midst of these. + +VERA + +There, don't you see? They're so _dominating_. I knew you before all +this.... I wish you would get away--be _yourself_. + +JEAN + +No. I shall stay here. As close as possible. + +VERA + +But really, Jean! I'm thinking of your work. Perhaps you don't appreciate +what an insidious drug memory can be. Especially the memory of +unhappiness. Let's be frank, Jean, for the sake of your future. You _have_ +been unhappy. + +JEAN + +Unhappy? Yes, I have been outrageously unhappy! Years of it! Sharp arrows +and poisoned wine. I wanted to die.... + +VERA + +_Jean!_ + +JEAN + +You read a play by Strindberg, and you say it's very strong, very +artistic, but all the while you believe it is only the nightmare of a +diseased mind. It's just a _play_--you shut the book and return to "real" +life, thankfully. Well, the Strindberg play has been my real life, and +real life my play, my impossible dream. You can't imagine how terrifying +it is to feel the situation develop around you. Two bodies caught naked in +an endless wilderness of thorns. Every movement one makes to free the +other only wounds him the more. Two souls, each innocent and aspiring, +bound together by serpents, like the Laocoon.... It is one of those things +that are absolutely impossible ... and yet _true_. + +VERA + +I'll help you pack. Now. You _must_! + +JEAN + +We had the deepest respect and admiration for one another, but somehow we +never walked in step. His emotion repressed mine, my emotion repressed +his. Sometimes one was the slave, sometimes the other. We couldn't both be +free at the same time. There was always something to hide, to be afraid +of.... Not words nor acts, but moods. It passed over from one soul to the +other like invisible rays. And we couldn't separate. That was part of it. +We just went on and on.... + +VERA + +People wondered. The first time I met Paul-- + +JEAN + +What do you feel? + +VERA + +I wondered, afterward, what it really was. He seemed to impress me like a +powerful motor car stalled in a muddy road. + +JEAN + +Ah. I know! + +VERA + +Poor child. + +JEAN + +No. You don't understand, I _was_ unhappy, in the ordinary sense, +unbelievably so. But that wasn't all. I was alive! I lived as the man +lives who faints in the dark mine underground, and I lived as the aviator +lives, thrilling against the sun, and as the believer in a world of +infidels. That was what _he_ did for me. And slowly, as I learned how +deeply the very pain was making me live, I put my unhappiness by. It was +there, but it no longer seemed important. It was the lingering complaint +of my old commonplace soul standing fearfully on the brink of greater +things and hating the situation that led it there. + +VERA + +You are a big woman, Jean. + +JEAN + +No, I am a small woman in front of a big thing. One of the biggest, +genius. And the force of it, relentless as nature, made me what I am. +_Paul._ Oh, Vera, when I think of his music, tempestuous as the sea, +healing as spring.... And now where is it? He had what all the world wants +most, _flight_, and the world stalled him in its own mud. You saw it.... +That's why I shall stay here. It's the only place with _his_ atmosphere. +All these things are _he_. I face them here in silence, and I bare my +breast to the arrow. Here I am, the only one who knows Paul's music in its +possibility. To the rest, it is a heap of stones by the roadside. The +architect is dead. + +VERA + +But didn't he ever ... why didn't he...? + +JEAN + +You ask it, of course. You have the right. Sometimes I ask it, too, why +Paul never _succeeded_. While we were struggling along, the things that +held him back seemed only details. Only now do I see them as a whole. + +In the first place, Paul never aimed directly at success. He was +all-round. If it had been merely a question of exploiting his talent, +sticking to the one idea day in, day out, never letting an opportunity +slip by of meeting the right people and getting to the right places ... +that would have been easy. He had tremendous energy. I used to grudge his +interest in other things. I hated to see him lose the chances and let them +be snapped up by littler men. He seemed to waste himself, right and left, +prodigally. But it wasn't that, it wasn't waste. It was all as much a part +of him as his music. He detested the stupidity of wealth and poverty, he +rebelled against laws that aren't laws, but only interests enforced by +authority, he fought against the sheer deadness of prejudice. How he hated +all that! And why not? You see, Vera, he was sensitive to it not only as a +thinker, but as a musician, too. It was all a part of the discord, and +what I used to think his wasting himself was really an effort to create a +larger harmony. He used to say that the beauty of music is only the image +of beauty in life, and that life must come first. He couldn't endure +discords anywhere. Paul despised the musicians who scream at a flatted +_f_ but hunger for the flesh pots after the performance. No, he was never +_that_. And people resented it. The very people who ought to have +understood. + +VERA + +But he didn't neglect his music, that is...? + +JEAN + +No. He made enormous efforts to get his violin before the public. And +several times he was "discovered" by men who could have made him famous +overnight. We all believe that genius will out, despite anything, but it +doesn't always. Musicians respected him, but they were afraid of him, too. +He criticized them for their shortcomings in other things, just as he +criticized others for their shortcomings in art. He wouldn't accept any +talent, no matter how fine, if it went with anything small or destructive. +You can imagine the china shops he left in fragments! Just think! Once in +Berlin it was all arranged for him to have a recital--he was working +furiously on his program and I was dancing on air--when just at the last +moment he heard the director make some light remark or other about women. +Paul was raging! He threw the words back in the fellow's teeth, and made +him apologize, but there we were. They called off the recital, naturally. +And I couldn't blame Paul. I was just beginning to understand. Another +time ... no, he never had luck. Paul had bad luck. I often think of the +Greek tragedies. + +VERA + +Another time? + +JEAN + +Another time--it was in Warsaw--we had gone with a letter of introduction +to Sbarovitch-- + +VERA _The_ Sbarovitch? + +JEAN + +Yes. It was a chance in ten thousand. We pawned stuff to get there. Well, +Paul played like a god. Sbarovitch was quite overcome. He swore he would +compose something especially for Paul. We had visions of playing before +the Czar. + +VERA + +But what happened? + +JEAN + +What happened? One night a woman called on Paul at the hotel. He went +down, not knowing who it was or anything about her. He said afterward that +she started in flattering him and asking him to play for her some time.... +Then Sbarovitch rushed in, seizing the woman and cursing Paul with +mouthfuls of Slavic hate. So _that_ dream ended! + +VERA + +But why? Was it Sbarovitch's wife? + +JEAN + +No, worse luck--it was his mistress. Ah, you can't imagine the re-action +from such disappointments! The long, slow warming to the full possibility +of the occasion, until the artist's mind and body become one leaping +flame--and then the sudden fall into icy water. It takes months to work up +to the same pitch again.... And then Rome. + +VERA + +What, again? + +JEAN + +Oh, yes. Again. This time--for a wonder everything went smoothly. I had +watched over him like a cat, to save him from others' stupidity and his +own impetuousness. It came the very moment when he had to go to the +theatre. He asked me if I were ready, I wasn't. _I didn't want to go._ + +VERA + +You didn't want to go? + +JEAN + +No. It's difficult to explain, but somehow by then I had grown aware that +the long series of little obstacles, each one accidental and temporary, +seemed to express something unseen, something impersonal, a kind of fate +... as if the verdict had gone forth from the lords of things that Paul +was _not_ to succeed. And everything seemed to hang in the balance that +night. I thought that the fact I was aware of Paul's bad luck made me all +the likelier instrument for it to work through. So I told him I had a +headache.... He must have felt something in my voice. He dropped his +violin and demanded I tell him why I didn't _want_ to go. His intuition +told him it was a matter of will with me. I hadn't thought to have a story +ready. Besides, I was so worn out that I was on the verge of hysteria. He +stormed, and I sat staring at him without a word, wondering only why he +didn't forget poor insignificant me and go forth to his glory. I despised +him for considering me at such a moment. I didn't understand. _My_ +opinion, _my_ feeling, was more important to Paul than the rest of the +world. So, after all, I _was_ the instrument. + +VERA + +But why didn't you just get up and go? + +JEAN + +As soon as I saw how much it meant to Paul, I tried to. But it was too +late.... We sat there arguing until three in the morning. An orgy of tears +and self-immolation for us both.... I suppose he might have explained to +the director afterward and arranged another concert, but those things are +never the same the second time. Well, I forced myself to get rid of that +feeling about his bad luck. How I ever succeeded I don't know, for Paul +caught my mood and began to believe it himself. But somehow I did. And +then I made him give up his violin and begin composing. Of course we had +to have money for that. I wrote a relative and demanded, point blank, +shamelessly, two thousand dollars. I felt it was my restitution to Paul. I +received the money. What the relative thought, I don't know. I suppose he +paid it to avoid getting another such letter from me. I don't blame him. + +So we came over here and Paul started at work. I was fighting for him and +with him every moment. How he worked! Six months, like a coal heaver. Then +he finished and played it over. He tore it all up. Every note. + +VERA + +Why? + +JEAN + +He said it was written in an old-fashioned style. It was curious--in his +playing he appreciated the most advanced technic, but when be came to +compose he found himself imitating the things he had admired when he was +eighteen. It had to be worked out of his mind. Well, he did it all through +again. This time he said he was only about two years behind. Tore it up +again. But now he was convinced he could succeed. And he was magnificent! +I would have shared him with the world gladly, but I knew it was best for +him to do this work. The hours this room has seen! Well, he made a few +notes, stopped a few days to take breath, and then caught the cold that +wore him out. Over there, in that drawer, are the notes, a few scraps of +paper. The rest of it--the experience of a strong life, a visioning life, +are with the mind that is dumb. Sometimes when I sit here I hear it all +played, an orchestra ... new harmonies, pure emotion.... The wonder and +then the pain of it are almost unbearable. + +VERA + +Ah, Jean, I begin to understand. + +JEAN + +Over in London there are half a dozen men and women who caught a glimpse +of Paul as he really was. In Munich there are half a dozen more. He was at +his best in a studio among friends with a congenial atmosphere. _They_ +knew... but what is that? + +I tell you, Vera, the only way I can explain it all is by seeing two +forces, two moralities; the morality of God and the morality of nature. +Perhaps in some people they both work together for the same end, but they +don't always.... In the sight of heaven, Paul was an apostle of harmony. +In the sight of nature, he was the seed too many on the tree, the bird +wrongly colored in the forest. I sit among these things, the fast-ebbing +beats of his memory, thinking of what he might have been for others as he +was to me, and my heart breaks. Our unhappiness? A cloud passing before +the sun--nothing more. And during this past year I have come to love him +all over again, not as mate but as mother. + +VERA + +Ah, Jean, with all his bad luck, he had you! Who knows what might have +happened if you had not been there? + +JEAN + +He had _me_? No, he never had me--he _made_ me.... And that's why I sit +all alone with the things that are Paul,--Paul, the flame that was never +lit on the altar, the sword that was never drawn from the scabbard.... We +talk together, Vera. Paul and I. We talk together, and I wait for him to +tell me what to do. + + + + + +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.txt or 15983.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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