Scene 5
Secretary (entering).
Good-day.
Clara (grasping chair as if falling).
He! Oh, if only he hadn’t come back——
Sec.
Your father’s not at home?
Clara.
No.
Sec.
I’ve brought good news. Your brother, Miss—Oh, Clara, I can’t go on talking in this stiff way to you, with all the old tables and cupboards and chairs around me; my old acquaintances, that we played among when we were children. Good-day, you there! (Nodding to a cupboard.) How are you? You haven’t changed.—I should think they’d put their heads together and laugh at me for a fool if I don’t call you “Clara” as I used to.[D] If you don’t like it, just think—“The poor chap’s dreaming, I’ll wake him up—I’ll go up to him and show him (with a toss of head) I’m not a little girl now”—that was your mark when you were eleven (pointing to a mark on the door)—“but a proper grown-up, that can reach the sugar when it’s put on the side-board.” Do you remember? That was the spot, that was the stronghold, safe from us, even when it stood unlocked. When the sugar was there, we used to play at catching flies, because we couldn’t bear to let them, flying about so merrily, get at what we couldn’t reach!
Clara.
I thought people forgot all those things when they had to study hundreds and thousands of books.
Sec.
They do forget! I wonder what don’t people forget over Justinian and Gaius! Boys, that kick against the A B C so obstinately, know why they do it. They have a sort of feeling that, if they leave the spelling-book alone, they’ll never get at cross-purposes with the Bible. It’s disgraceful how they tempt the innocent souls with the red cock, and the basket of eggs, till they say A of their own accord—and then there’s no holding them! They tear down hill from A to Z, and on and on, till they are in the midst of Corpus Juris and realise to their horror what a desert they’ve been enticed into by those curséd twenty-six letters, which they first used in their play to make tasty, sweet-scented words like “cherry” and “rose.”
Clara.
And what happens then? (Absently without interest.)
Sec.
That depends on temperament. Some work their way through, and come out again into the light of day after three or four years. They’re a bit thin and pale, but you can’t blame them for that. I belong to them. Others lie down in the middle of the wood. They only want to rest, but they very seldom get up again. One of my own friends has drunk his beer under the shade of the “Lex Julia” for three years. He chose the place on account of the name. It recalls pleasant memories. Others get desperate and turn back. They are the biggest fools of all, for they’re only allowed out of one thicket on condition that they plunge straight into another. And there are some there that never come to an end at all! (Aside.) What stuff a fellow will talk, when he has something in his mind and can’t get it out!
Clara.
Everybody is merry and jolly to-day. It must be the fine weather.
Sec.
Yes, in weather like this owls fall out of their nests, bats kill themselves, because they feel that the devil made them. The mole bores down into the earth till he loses his way and is stifled, unless he can eat through to the other side and come out in America! To-day every ear of corn puts out a double shoot, and every poppy goes twice as red as usual, if only for shame at not being so. Why should man remain behind? Is he to rob God of the one tribute that this world pays Him, a bright face and a clear eye, that reflects and glorifies all this splendour? Indeed, when I see these lazy-bones crawling out of their houses in the mornings with their brows all wrinkled, and glowering at heaven as if it were a sheet of blotting paper, I often think: “It’ll rain soon. God will have to let down His curtain of clouds; He’s bound to, so as not to be annoyed by such grimaces.” Such fellows ought to be prosecuted as thwarters of holidays and destroyers of harvests. How should you give thanks for life, except by living? Rejoice, bird! else you don’t deserve to have a throat!
Clara.
That is true, so true. It makes me want to cry.
Sec.
I wasn’t saying it against you. I can understand your being a bit down this last week. I know your old man. But, God be praised, I can make you happy again and that’s what I’m here for. You’ll see your brother again to-night. People won’t point their fingers at him, but at those who threw him into prison. Does that earn me a kiss, a sisterly one, if it can’t be any other? Or should we play blind-man’s-buff for it? If I don’t catch you in ten minutes, I’ll go without and take a slap on the cheek into the bargain.
Clara (to herself).
I feel as if I’d suddenly grown a thousand years old and time had stopped still over my head. I can’t go back and I can’t go forward. Oh, this immovable sunshine and all the gaiety about me!
Sec.
You don’t answer. Of course, I’d forgotten. You’re engaged. O girl, why did you do that by me? And yet, have I any right to complain? She is all that’s dear and good. All that’s dear and good should have reminded me of her. And yet for years she was as good as dead to me. In return she has——If only it were a man whom one could honour and respect! But this Leonard——
Clara (suddenly hearing the name).
I must go to him. That’s it! I’m no longer the sister of a thief! O God, what do I want? He will, he must! Unless he’s a very devil, all will be as it was. (In horror.) As it was. (To Secretary.) Don’t be offended, Frederick.—What makes my legs so heavy all at once?
Sec.
Are you going?
Clara.
To see Leonard, where else? I’ve only this one path to go in all the world.
Sec.
You love him then?
Clara (excitedly).
Love him? It is him or death. Are you surprised that I choose him? I wouldn’t do it if I were thinking of myself alone.
Sec.
Him or death? Why, girl, this sounds like despair.
Clara.
Don’t drive me mad. Don’t speak to me! You! I love you! There! There! I’ll shout it at you, as if I were already wandering beyond the grave, where no one blushes, where they all slink past one another, cold and naked, because that terrible, holy nearness of God has laid bare the thoughts of each one down to the roots.
Sec.
Me? You still love me? Clara, I suspected it when I saw you outside in the garden.
Clara.
Did you? He did, too. (Dully, as if alone.) He stood before me. He or I? Oh, my heart, my cursed heart! To prove to him and to myself that it wasn’t so, or to crush it if it were so, I did what I now——(bursting into tears). O God in Heaven, I would have pity if I were thou and thou wert I!
Sec.
Clara, be my wife! I came to you to look you in the eyes in the old way. If you had not understood my look, I would have gone away and said nothing. Now I offer you all that I am and all that I have. It’s little, but it can grow. I’d have been here long ago, only your mother was ill—and then she died. (Clara laughs madly.) Have courage, girl! You gave him your word. Is that on your mind? And I must say it’s a devil of a nuisance. How could you——?
Clara.
Oh! Go on asking me how things combine to drive a poor girl mad! Sneers and mockery on all sides when you had gone to college and never wrote. “She’s thinking about him.” “She thinks his fun was meant seriously.” “Does she get letters from him?” And then mother: “Stick to your equals.” “Pride goes before a fall.” “Leonard’s a fine young man; everybody is surprised that you turn your back on him.” And then my own heart: “If he’s forgotten you, show him that you too——” O God!
Sec.
I am to blame, I know. Well, what’s hard is not therefore impossible. I’ll get you free. Perhaps——
Clara.
Get me free!—Read that! (throwing him Leonard’s letter).
Sec. (reading).
As cashier—your brother—thief—very sorry—I have no choice in view of my office. (To Clara.) Did he write that the day your mother died? Why, he goes on to express his sympathy at her sudden death!
Clara.
Yes, he did.
Sec.
May he be—Dear God, the cats and snakes and other monsters that slipped through your fingers at the creation pleased Beelzebub, so that he made them after you. But he decked them out better than you did. He gave them human form. Now they stand shoulder to shoulder with mankind, and we don’t recognise them till they begin to spit and scratch. (To Clara.) Very good! Excellent! (Tries to embrace her.) Come! For eternity. With this kiss——
Clara (sinks into his arms).
No, not for ever. Don’t let me fall,—but no kiss.
Sec.
Girl, you don’t love him, you’ve got your word back.
Clara (dully, drawing herself up again).
And yet I must go to him; I must go down on my knees to him and stutter: “Look at my father’s white hairs; take me!”
Sec.
Unhappy one, do I understand?
Clara.
Yes!
Sec.
That’s too much for any man. To have to lower one’s eyes before him—a fellow that’s only fit to be spat on. (Pressing Clara to him.) You poor, poor child!
Clara.
Go, now go!
Sec. (to himself, broodingly).
Or shoot the dog dead that knows it. If he only had pluck! If he’d only show himself! Could I force him? I wouldn’t fear to meet him.
Clara.
I beg you——
Sec. (going out).
After dark! (Turns round and seizes Clara’s hand.) Girl, here you stand—(Turning away.) Thousands of her sex would have cunningly concealed it, only to murmur it into one’s ear in some hour of sweet forgetfulness. I feel what I owe you. (Goes out.)