ACT III
Scene: Sir Tristram Sumner's Reception-room in the Grosvenor Theatre. At the back a door opens into a business-room. On the left is the Dressing-room. The entrance to the Reception-room is on the right. Hildreth is writing at a table when the act begins.
Enter Abbot.
Hildreth. What? Is the curtain down?
Abbot. Not yet.
Hildreth. The play?
Abbot. Still-born: so dead a house I never saw.
To-day's rehearsal sealed our doom. I pled—
I prayed him on my knees to touch no tone,
No movement, entrance, exit, gesture, pause,
Procession, picture, colour, light or shade;
But that she-devil and walking-ghost, his wife,
Had roused a deadlier devil in him: our chief
Undoes a month's fine artistry in three
Sick hours of mischief.
Hildreth. I've seen the thing before:
Rehearsal is the purgatory of plays;
It fits them for beatitude; but turn
Rehearsal into hell, then farewell heaven.
Abbot. A pin-prick does it.
[Enter Salerne.]
Well, Salerne—Heaven, hell,
And purgatory, what's the matter, man?
Why, you're as grey as putty!
Salerne. Where were you?
Abbot. When?
Salerne. When the curtain fell.
Abbot. I sheltered here.
I'm barometric: I predicted frost,
And feared I might catch cold.
Salerne. Your death of cold.
The chief was hissed.
Abbot. Sir Tristram Sumner hissed?
Impossible!
Hildreth. He was not hissed!
Salerne. He was.
A solitary hiss at first; and then
The gallery caught it up and let it loose,
Like gas escaping from an old-time batten.
Abbot. But was it meant for him?
Salerne. Straight at his head
And not a hand to drown it.
Hildreth. No applause?
Salerne. Before the hiss a little civil noise,
But not a cry, no cheer, no name, no call.
Hildreth. Why did he come before the curtain then?
Salerne. Fatuitous: his instinct failed him quite.
Abbot. He thought his personality might win
A vote of confidence against the play.
Salerne. That was his hope, no doubt. Ah, here he comes!
[Enter Sir Tristram Sumner as Ulysses. His dresser, Temple, follows him, carrying a portmanteau, which he sets on a chair. While Sir Tristram is changing he sometimes stands in the doorway of his dressing-room and sometimes speaks from within. Temple takes from the portmanteau Sir Tristram's evening dress and goes into the dressing-room.]
Sir T. Who had the gallery to-night?
Abbot. A man
Appointed yesterday.
Sir T. A novice?
Abbot. No,
Sir Tristram; from the Parthenon.
Sir T. A soldier?—
The tables and the wine? Is all prepared?
Salerne. Yes; everything.
Sir T. See that they set it out
Courageously.—
[Salerne goes out.]
A soldier, did you say?
Abbot. In Egypt and the Transvaal.
Sir T. Intelligent?
Abbot. I think he is.
Sir T. Send for him.
[Abbot goes out.]
Letters, Hildreth?
Ah, what are these? The bank, the law. No stamp;
Not posted; sent by hand.
Hildreth. An hour ago.
Sir T. Well, we have scorned such documents before.
Set them aside unopened.—Did you hear?
Hildreth. Hear? No.
Sir T. They hissed me, Hildreth.
Hildreth. Glad I am
I did not hear.
Sir T. The foulest, meanest sound,
The hatefullest! How nauseous men can be!
I think I sooner would be hissed than hiss.
The paltriness, the impotence of one
Who hisses! It hurts; it kills: a hiss can kill:
I think a hiss could kill. A curious thing,
That impotence should have the power to kill!
A strange beast, man!
[The telephone rings.
Hildreth. [At the telephone] Mark Belfry wants to see you.
Sir T. Oh! … Let him come.
Hildreth. [At the telephone] (Yes. Now.)
Sir T. I needed this—
To be well hissed: a shower-bath for the soul:
It strengthens me. An actor can't be great?
I think he can.
[Enter Mark Belfry.]
Well Belfry, how are you?
Belfry. In health, Sir Tristram.
Sir T. Have you come to buy
The theatre?
Belfry. I have.
Sir T. It's not for sale.
Belfry. It will be soon.
Sir T. As soon as I am dead.
Belfry. What are you going to do?
Sir T. This lasts a week.
To-morrow I rehearse an old success.
Belfry. And after that?
Sir T. I cannot tell.
Belfry. I can.
Sir T. Predict.
Belfry. I shall provide you with a play.
Sir T. Never!
Belfry. I take the risk.
Sir T. No name but mine
Shall flourish on my bills whilst I am here.
I hate your Yankee style, your affectation:
"Presents Sir Tristram Sumner!" No, Mark Belfry!
Belfry. That I forego. I want your theatre. Yes;
I mean to have it. Any kind of hold
To start with! Oh, I'll own the Grosvenor yet!
I fight in the open. I'll finance you; flood
Your desert, for I guess your Nile's dried up;
I'll gild the wolf's clean teeth, and flesh them too,
With prime American dentistry. No name
But yours; and no condition but my play.
It gallops hard at home; there's money in it;
A part to fit you; colours, crowds and kings.
It's curious how it came to be, this play.
One of your poets wrote upon commission——
Sir T. For you?
Belfry. For me.
Sir T. A poet, Belfry!
Belfry. Well,
The sketch was good; I liked it and the man.
The play was good, too—better than the stuff
We're acting; but I saw how out of it,
Instead of something that would crown his fame——
Sir T. The poet's?
Belfry. Yes, the poet's! Out of his play,
That might have been a stage-mark for a brace
Of centuries or so, I saw there could be shaped
A popular success to overrun
The English-speaking world for just two years,
Extract a ton of money, and be forgotten
For ever after: which is what we want.
Sir T. Indubitably.
Belfry. A commodious hack
I keep, transferred the scene, the folk, to Spain
From England, changed the age, and vulgarized
The whole. The trick was done; the money flows.
Sir T. And what about the poet?
Belfry. He trusted me;
He has no claim.
Sir T. I think the law——
Belfry. We all
Risk that.
Sir T. You shameful Yankee salesman! Play
Your tricks elsewhere.
Belfry. Don't hear you; business first.
Sir T. I've some here to attend to. Will you join
The others on the stage? No? Well; good night.
Belfry. I'll have your theatre yet!
[Goes out.]
Sir T. Never. Good night.
[Re-enter Abbot with Boulder.]
Are you the gallery?
Boulder. I am, Sir Tristram.
Sir T. What did it? Is there anything to tell?
Boulder. There is, Sir Tristram.
Sir T. Tell it, please.
Boulder. Before
The curtain fell I saw a woman's head,
A lady's, on the stair.
Sir T. What do you mean?
Boulder. It seemed to rest upon the topmost step
From where I stood and watched.
Abbot. The lady climbed
No further than the middle of the stair—
That's what he means, I think. Her head
Appeared just in the entrance.
Boulder. My meaning, sir.
The palest face I ever saw: her eyeballs
Turned about and showed the whites; she gasped
For breath and drew a deep one. While I watched,
Wondering what might be right, her eyes came down,
Dull, dead, and horrible, and she hissed like hell.
Then everybody hissed. I hissed myself.
I beg your pardon: I could no more keep
From hissing than I could from crying out
When once a dervish stabbed me at Khartoum.
The gallery felt the same; I asked those near
What set them on it, and they said they heard
A hideous hiss that made them hiss like hell.
Sir T. So. And the lady?
Boulder. Vanished into space.
Sir T. Or down the stair. You knew her?
Boulder. No, Sir Tristram.
Sir T. Of course; your first night here.
Boulder. I couldn't help
The hissing. Like something in a battle, hiss
It went and everybody hissed.
Sir T. No need
To trouble; I conceive the thing.
Boulder. We hissed
Because we couldn't help it.
Sir T. Say the word
Again, and I'll hiss too! Good night, my man.
Boulder. Good night, Sir Tristram.
[Goes out.]
Sir T. Hildreth, Abbot; come.—
About this lady not a word remember.—
I'll ask you something; did you ever see
A woman's soul?
Hildreth. I never did, Sir Tristram.
Sir T. Abbot?
Salerne. Nor I.
Sir T. And never may you need to!
Once on a time I saw a woman's soul.
I looked and looked, expecting colours, flowers,
A perfume and an opal. I found instead
A sooty cobweb diapered with limbs
And empty hulls of captives long undone.
I shook it, but the spider made no sign:
It, too, was dead. I brushed the film away,
And where it hung a mortal crevice yawned,
Obscene and dark and barren as the grave.—
How late it is! My guests will all be gone.
Come, quickly.—Prophecies fulfil themselves.
[The three go out.]
[Temple re-enters from the Dressing-room, packs the clothes Sir
Tristram had been wearing during the day, closes the portmanteau and
goes out.]
[Enter Blyth, carrying a lady's hat and clothes. He looks about, and
then beckons at the door of the Reception-room.]
[Enter Europa Troop, as Cressida.]
Blyth. [Pointing to the Business-room]
In there.
Europa. Turn up the light.
[Blyth lights up the Business-room.]
A smell of leather;
Ledgers; business-smell; red ink and copying-ink—
The faintest spice: I feel them in the air.
Turn out the light.
[Blyth extinguishes the light in the Business-room.]
The smells are out as well.
I saw the books, the pots. Turn up the light.
[Blyth lights up the Business-room.]
The smells again. The senses, Blyth, are glued
Together. Did you ever see a smell?
Blyth. Fumes?
Europa. Oh, yes!—fumes. Now Blyth, is this correct?
Won't Abbot and his clerks be here again?
Blyth. That's not the counting-house. Sir Tristram's own.
Europa. Sir Tristram's own?
Blyth. His private business-room.
Europa. This is the most palatial theatre!
Dispose my things—there, on the roll-top desk.
[Blyth does so.]
I'll risk it, Blyth.
[Gives Blyth money.]
Blyth. [Counting the money] One short. You promised five.
Europa. [Gives a fifth sovereign] I know I did. I thought you'd let me off.
Blyth. You'll know me better next time.
Europa. That's the style! We can collaborate.
Blyth. What are you getting at?
What do you want to know?
Europa. I'll tell you, Blyth.
I want to know what makes this theatre feel
Uncanny. All the time I'm like a ghost
Astray in some mirage.
Blyth. A plump one, lady;
A very handsome one.
Europa. Thanks, Blyth; I'm fit.
I'll tell you something else, because I like you:
I want to take possession of Sir Tristram;
I have it in me, Blyth. What do you think?
Blyth. Sir Tristram's married and a gentleman.
Europa. And I'm an actress: an actress, do you see?
And furthermore, and most, there's not a crowd
Of actresses in London, or in the world.
Blyth. A many actresses have tried it on.
Europa. And all have failed, and all were bound to fail;
But every one prepared Europa's path.
Blyth. Sir Tristram's reputation's not that kind.
He's most respectable in every way:
The clergy patronize him.
Europa. I know all that.—
Well, kiss me, Blyth; my cheek. You're handsomer
Than Tristram. What! Are you respectable?
Blyth. No; but the money. I stick to that, you know.
Europa. Oha! Ohe! Why, there's another lot;
[Gives him money and kisses him.]
And this for being so smart a simpleton.
You're mine, remember; body and soul, you're mine.
Blyth. I'm yours.
Europa. Now hurry, Blyth, or you'll be missed.
[Blyth goes out.]
And I'll be mistress here, or know who is.
Blyth, Blyth! Come back!
[Re-enter Blyth.]
Blyth. For God's sake, not so loud!
Europa. Some day, I'll shout.—What do they think of me?
You heard them pass remarks.
Blyth. I heard them say
Europa's just the best thing in the show.
Europa. That's what I like to hear! Dear Blyth! Be off!
[Blyth goes out.]
The best thing in the show—Europa just,
Who caught and held Sir Tristram's eyes to-day
Until he fathomed hers. I think we said,
If looks can speak, "I'm ready when you like."
A footstep and a skirt. Sir Tristram's wife?
[Closes the door, leaving it ajar. Turns out the light in the
Business-room.]
[Enter Lady Sumner. Opening the portmanteau she searches her husband's
pockets.]
Lady S. Is this the place? No; better in the house; Best in his bed; the moment he comes home! Oh, beautifully done to drink it there And then! And with my dying breath to curse My husband for a coward that killed my soul, And feared himself to die. I'm not afraid. After I'm dead I'll come to life again, And tell him what he asked; and when I'm dead Indeed, my wraith will haunt him, whispering still The thing he asked: who had my earliest kiss Of love; who woke my heart and strung my soul To ecstasy he withered with his lust. I'll hiss it nightly in his waking ear; Torture him too with dreams. Not every night; But now and then to wear him out with doubt: I'll madden him and kill him patiently. [She finds the letter as well as the vial.] What faded letter's this? [Reads] "Do you know "that Warwick Groom and Martha Sackville were "lovers? She visited him every night in his dressing- "room at the Parthenon when he played Romeo; and "the reason why he insisted on beginning the fourth "act with the fifth scene of the third act was the reason "you guess at once: it gave them time. But that "was not the only place in the play where they "performed their private intermede. How this was "managed? Ask old Odham, Groom's dresser."
He must have known
The day he married me! My head will burst!
"She visited him every night in his dressing-room."
He knew this and he married me! My soul
It is that struggles in my wasted womb,
And cannot be brought forth but by my death,
A still-born soul and posthumous, since God
Is not! I have been nothing—worse than nothing:
A bed-mate, a convenience! Hell, hell, hell!
[Goes out.]
Europa. [At the door of the Business-room]
If I could act like that! But good, my luck!
Sweet luck and succulent! Dear luck of mine!
Plumb in the prime-joint of their mystery sticks
My fork! The venison's hung and high! I'll cut
And come again! Soul? Talk of soul! Give me
My will, my body and my clean-run brains,
Me and my purposes!
Sir T. [Without] I'll not go home
To-night.
Europa. Sir Tristram's voice!
[Closes the door and turns out the light.]
St. J. [Without] What will you do?
[Enter Sir Tristram and St. James's.]
Sir T. Sleep at the club. Sit down awhile and talk.
[Sir Tristram takes from a cabinet a spirit-frame, a syphon, and a box of cigars, and helps St. James's and himself. Sir Tristram reclines on a couch. St. James's remains on his feet throughout the scene, sometimes pacing, sometimes standing still.]
St. J. But should your wife be left alone?
Sir T. For her,
The safest way: she's bent upon my death,
And while I keep alive she lives, I think.
Best, too, for me.
St. J. How is it best for you?
Sir T. Because it's touch and go to live or die.
My life's no prize to me—worth this cigar
Perhaps; and when her stealthy whine assails
Me, begging death, I'm tempted to the point.
A little tenderness in her, a look
Of womanhood, or honey in her voice,
And there might then have been no play to-night,
But love and endless sleep. That exit's closed:
I could not die consorted with my wife,
My resolute enemy.
St. J. This sudden crash—
It jarred to-day already—is strange in you,
As my remembrance notes you.
Sir T. There can be
No reconcilement now. She prophesied
To-night's disaster, and to make all sure
Began the hissing on the gallery stairs.
St. J. She didn't!
Sir T. But she did: none other, she.
St. J. How horrible!
Sir T. Oh, worse than horrible!
The woman whom I chose has now become
A scaly leprosy about my life.
St. J. That's damnable! No more of that! Your wife
Is deeply in the right: your corpses only
Could fill the breach that opens up between you:
It is the grave that gapes. If you're to live
It must be by divorce. Do you consent?
Sir T. That also means the grave; for if we break
Our home up, bankruptcy and ruin come:
Indeed they're here already. Look at these.
[Hands St. James's the two letters.]
St. J. [Having read one of the letters]
That's nothing but a seeming urgent threat,
And very vilely-civilly worded too:
Lawyer and gentleman are synonyms,
But the law's not a gentleman.
[Having opened the second letter.]
What's this?
Your bankers?—Ah!—"and if"—
Sir T. Don't read it out.
St. J. [Having read the second letter]
If this is met you have a breathing-space?
Sir T. I can go on again.
St. J. Then this I'll meet.
Sir T. Oh, Gervase!
St. J. Not disinterested alone:
Infinite things to talk of! First of all,
Why do you set so small a price on life?
You once were proud of your vocation, knew
The meaning of the theatre, felt its wide
Domain.
Sir T. Yes, but I know it now too well,
Even as I know my wife and Warwick Groom.
Let me not know you well, Gervase, not well:
Show me the best in minims and in grams,
But hide the bulk and flood in clouds of dawn,
In silvery mists, the nimbus and the shrine
Of air and sky: the soul should not be seen,
Though mine be naked now.
St. J. You suffer, Tristram.
Naked your soul is, wounded——
Sir T. Flayed alive!
Oh, Gervase, what a spirit of delight,
Of fragrant hope, of fervent faith in men,
I brought incarnate to the theatre!
St. J. Full of vocation, I remember you:
Chiefly in Wytham Wood one afternoon——
Sir T. Ah, how we beat our academic wings
In woods, on hilltops, longing for the world
And to take up our destiny! It took
Me up, and laid me down, and racked and flayed
With unremitting care.
St. J. You held the stage
To be the true adventure of the times.
The earth was known, you said: if magic isles,
Orchards of Hesperus; or queens asleep
For centuries; or that supreme emprise,
The middle passage of the maze of streams,
Acheron, Phlegethon, Cocytus, Styx,
And the return alive from Dis's hall
Through groves of poplar, whispered madnesses,
Obsequious willows, cries, the wild lament
Of old companions, and the doleful shriek
Of her, the best-belov'd, to utter woe
Abandoned: had such high renown been still
Achievable, then had you hoisted sail
And led the way; but since the whole sad world
Was now become mere shop and market-place,
The stage remained the one way of escape,
The one adventure for the adventurous.
Sir T. I thought so; I believed so. But I found
The most ignoble strife; a jug of asps,
Where envy, vanity, avarice, wanton spite
Torment and are tormented; with such a gloss
Of tolerance and of fellowship—humour, tears,
That soothe the grit of misery into pearl!
St. J. Men cross to fortune on the stepping-stones
Of ruined rivals; matter exploits us so;
But which is better off, who triumphs most,
The ruined or the ruiner? That's reserved.
Sir T. I know, I know! And then the modern play!
St. J. Let us not think it!
Sir T. Only once it seems
A people has a theatre. Drama leaps
To instant being, power, supremacy:
From "Gorboduc" to "The Tempest" fifty years;
And nothing since. Nor can it come again,
Imagination being an outcast now,
Unsceptred, unrefreshed, unclad, unknown
In palace, hut, or hermitage: no home;
A wandering bedlam. When the world believed
In miracles of sorcery, potent drugs
Alchemical, and constellated fate
In heaven hung, then fancy had a lodge——
St. J. All this is so——
Sir T. Be patient! Here I snatch
A moment's ease, as in an interval
Of torture. While the worn-out squaws repose,
(Harpies or fiends: the laugh twists on my mouth!)
Devising keener pangs, I hear again
The fabulous music of the crystalline
Accordant spheres; so let this perfume fade,
Wind-wafted fragrance of a love-lorn scarf
Bidding farewell for ever and a day.
When elves and fairies haunted brakes and bowers,
And gods and goddesses were visitors
Hesternal at the latest; when Heaven and Hell
Was as a casket closed about the earth,
The universal jewel; and man himself
The awful judge of angels and the mate
Of God, worthy divine redemption, then
There broke a drama great and beautiful
Fresh from the dulcet brains and pregnant heart
Of England. Soul was clad; the mind, informed;
Imagination, armed, anointed, crowned;
But now all naked, empty, abject, stripped
And flayed! You understand?
St. J. I understand.
Men know there is no God, no Heaven and Hell:
They welcomed that in secret—all who thought.
But, God away, the Universe becomes
A vacuum, and the welcome turns to cursing.
They thought, "We need no God; we have our art,
"Our poetry: God is gone." But all else went
When God went: 'twas the breath of God that filled
The pipe of Pan, the bosom and the sigh
Of Aphrodite; goblins, loreleis,
Enchantments, witchcraft, ghosts, transcendent deeds,
Amazement, terror, beauty, rapture, tears,
Intolerable passions, agonies
Were of the warp and woof of God: God summed
Imagination.
Sir T. And there's no such God!
St. J. No God to speak of: the idea of God—
That's for the schoolmen: for the fatherless,
The girls that drown their bastards, broken hearts,
Incapables, incurables, castaways,
Endurers, heroes, poets, artists, kings,
Classes or masses, all who love their lives—
It helps them much to tell them of a God
Evolving slowly in the mind of man!
Sir T. But Christ, the man of sorrows?
St. J. I never preach
The man of sorrows now…. I grasp my theme:
Give me your eye and ear, your heart and brain.
Jesus of Nazareth—no, the Son of Man;
Because this Jesus is a sloppy word,
Mainly a sponge to wipe the tiresome tears
Of foolish people. He, then, the Son of Man——
Sir T. But this you never preached in Westminster?
St. J. Never directly; nor shall I preach it there.
Not of the pulpit; of the stage, this theme
Demands a crowded theatre and the mood
Expectant, tyrannous of the gallery, not
The mood submissive of the worshipper.
Sir T. My nerves begin to tingle, telepaths
Of coming wonder. Till I hear it all
You shall not leave the theatre.
[At the telephone]
(Blyth, I stay
Awhile. What do you say? What lady? Oh!—
My wife went home! Yes, you may go. My key?
I have it. True. Goodnight.) Now, Gervase, speak
As if it were the judgment-day!
St. J. It is—
It always is; and could we hear it peal,
Each moment, heavy with eternal doom,
Thunders in every heart.
Sir T. Then speak to me
As one about to die.
St. J. I speak as one
About to live!
Sir T. To one about to live!
St. J. This question like an automatic rack
Seized me and stretched me: "Will you teach a lie?"
"Behold," I cried; "I have a tender heart—
"Soft-hearted am I; let a harder man
"Confront this problem, lead the great revolt.
"Though this of God and Sin and Heaven and Hell
"Be now worn out, yet have I nothing new
"To traffic for it: let a stronger man
"Become protagonist and martyr; I
"Already faint: let this cup pass from me."
Oh it was good to say to broken hearts—
The faded women and the old worn men—
"Come unto me and I will give you rest."
Sir T. 'Tis easy comforting the poor with heaven,
And those that never tasted delicate meats,
Soft music, murmurs, vintages mature,
And savoury ecstasy of man and woman.
St. J. Kings, conquerors, artists, poets, power and wealth
Demand a concrete heaven, just like the poor.—
Still the rack wrenched me, "Will you teach a lie?"
So tortured, I betook me to the east,
The womb and cradle, nurse and school of thought,
Of knowledge, poetry, religion, art.
There in the desert, insufferable beams
Their daily meaning smote through every sense;
By night the deep immensity of heaven
Revealed its wonder: all the centuries,
The tattered stoles and finery of Time,
Departed from me, and I knew myself
Material in a Universe of pure
Material substance, conscious mystery throned
On the eternal moment that becomes
For ever new. "This is for me," I thought:
"Enough that one man once should so transcend:
"Let the world now decay." But the last pangs
Of Hell laid instant hold on me and put
Me to the question: "Will you teach a lie?"
"What must I teach?" I cried. "Teach thou the truth,"
The answer came, "the pure, material truth;
"But firstly know the truth about the lie."
Sir T. What is the truth about it, Gervase?
St. J. This:—
That Christianity is the foe of life,
Of health, of wealth, of intellect and strength;
The friend of all the feeble, the diseased,
The low, the loathsome, the depraved, the dirt,
The offal of mankind. Instinctively the strong
Laid hands upon it and wove imperial power
Out of its filthy rags: a purple star
Of high unchristian sovereignty in Rome;
In England here an aristocracy
Of brains and culture. Long they kept in check,
The churchdoms did, with Hell and Heaven for sword
And buckler, and a sense of sin to salt
The wounds they dealt—how long they kept in check
Dynamic pressure of the Christian lie
That men are equal in the sight of God!
Sir T. Men are not equal, and there is no God.
St. J. They are not equal, and there is no God.
And when the myth of Heaven-and-Hell—the valves
Wherein the world lay like an oyster pearled
With the soul of man: when this great fable gaped
And fell away, the lethal meaning, hid
In Christian tenets, like a serpent brood
Uncoiled, as rancour, decadence, despair,
In revolutions, anarchies, nihilisms,
A will to end the world. There stand we now,
Naked against the Universe.
Sir T. The truth
About the lie! The double carapace
Of Heaven-and-Hell sloughed off, mankind remains
A houseless mollusc.
St. J. Pitiful to see!
Imagination—let me use that word
Instead of soul; and let it mean entire
The powers of blood and nerve, of heart and brain,
And aught occult and undiscovered yet
In carnate matter: Imagination, not
Conceiving what has happened in the world,
Much wonders at the darkness and the cold.
How simple, how appalling, how secure
Were Heaven and Hell; what fathomless content
In that deep home of penitential fire,
That everlasting, joyful holiday
In golden streets lit by the glory of God!
Sir T. Will the great heart of the world be great enough
To bid that dream avaunt once and for ever?
St. J. It will, it must, though it should come with wars,
Convulsions, burnings, tortures, massacres,
With centuries of woe employing all
Prodigious powers of slaughter, powers of pain,
Wherein our civilized self-consciousness
Outdoes barbarity and instinct far
Beyond comparisons of Heaven and Hell.
Sir T. With wars, with woes? You think the change will be
A long elaborate travail?
St. J. I cannot tell.
Sir T. But God and Sin and Heaven and Hell that are not
Are yet the very texture of the world.
St. J. Kings, magistracies, warriors, learning, love
Being knit in Heaven and Hell, in God and Sin,
Like blood, nerve, sinew, bone in living flesh,
It may be that the change will come about
As human bodies alter in seven years time——
Sir T. In seven years' time!
St. J. No, no; no prophecy!
I mean the change may be a growth unfelt,
Or else the whole world may collapse at once,
(The rotten flesh unable to sustain
The bones, enmesh the nerves, confine the blood)
And cease to be—ashamed to be
Less than immortal and the special care
Of God, Omnipotent, Omniscient; God,
Lover, avenger, maker and destroyer.
Sir T. No! man is greater than to make an end
Because his God forsook him.
St. J. I think so, too;
And in my heart believe terrific war
Will burst the chrysalis, the Christendom
That hangs in rags about the eager soul,
Already winged and rich with crimson stains,
With sulphur plumes and violet, green and gold,
Psyche at last, pure Matter of itself.
Sir T. Psyche? Imagination.
St. J. It was my word:
Imagination be it!
Sir T. Naked against
A godless universe, with what, by whom
Must we be clothed?
St. J. Heaven, Hell and God and Sin
Were but a symbol of the Universe,
A lie wherein to wrap the babyhood
Of man's imagination, which is itself
The Universe become self-conscious. That's
The whole; there is no more to say: with all
The Universe, which is imagination
Become in life a consciousness, in soul
Self-conscious (still I say it, and again,
And yet again it must be said): with all
The Universe itself, no symbols now,
Imagination must be clad and armed.
Sir T. The terror and the splendour of it thrill
Me through and through. I feel it: this is great;
This is the greatest.
St. J. Great and most terrible!
I shrink, I quail; the burden weighs me down;
The agony dissolves me: this is fear;
This, mystery. Legends of creation, tales—
(As if the Universe could have been made
In any sense mankind can give the word!)
Fantastic myths of virgins bearing boys,
And of a desperate God who gave his son
To die upon a tree—how foul a thing!—
Of dead men come alive, and signs and shows
Of tongues and thunders, cures and stigmata:
These are no mystery, but the quaint alarm
Of ignorance that harnessed vision against
The things that be in sterile dreams of spirit,
As banal, venomous-moral, hard and fast
As Matter is mysterious, fluent, pure,
Filling the Universe with miracle,
Filling and being the Universe itself.
Sir T. This makes my whole life horrible.
St. J. Most lives,
Confronting this, will shrivel into dust.
Sir T. I've never lived.
St. J. That is, you've never thought,
Never imagined.
Sir T. Never! A phantom life,
The actor's; spell-bound drudgery chained
And eyeless. What a ruthless tyrant public
Opinion is—an armed automaton
That fells its victims blindly! Entertain
A motley audience for a livelihood
You never make; be this, be that—a fop,
A fool, a hero, or a villain; lose
Conceit of everything except applause;
Be certain of success when self-contempt
Assures you that you play a popular part;
Be courteous to the bully, bland with fools—
The dreadful folk that haunt celebrities,
That haunt theatrical celebrities;
Be genial with the newsman—glad to see him;
Civil to greedy playwrights, artists, cads
And cadgers, leeches, lice and vampire-bats
That bleed the theatre; everybody's body;
Charity, politics, church—their humble servant;
And nightly the performance in the cage
Before the assorted multitude
Of people, people, people: this, and worse;
Then death and swift oblivion: nothing done;
Nothing at all to be remembered by:
No other noise so big as stage renown
Is silenced utterly by death.
St. J. No fame
Outlasts the world: there lives the hope of man:
Death's meaning is that consciousness shall cease,
The earth be purged of life; thus in the end
All men are equal, matter pure from taint
Of anguish; in the nebula become
Essential fire, free from solicitude.
This is the freedom of the Universe.
Sir T. Matter grown anxious: that is very man.
St. J. Therefore the player's is an envied lot:
No other artist so intensely lives
In the world's consciousness.
Sir T. But after death?
St. J. Dread nothing that can happen after death:
The world will cease: live in that thought, that mood,
Upon the eternal moment.
Sir T. But to mark
The world before one dies!
St. J. The inmost hope
Of all men! I believe that you and I
Could orientate the world's imagination;
And that would make a mark.
Sir T. Tell me of that!
The whole thing stirs me: tell me more of that!
First have I grasped your meaning? All the past,
Religion, drama, art is dead to us,
Because we know that all is Matter, all
Imagination, beauty, passion, power
Through time and times and changing suns and orbs
From spacious nebula to nebula.
This is the freedom of the Universe
Wherein imagination must delight,
Now that Olympus, Asgard, Heaven and Hell,
Gods, God and separate soul are dead and done.
St. J. My meaning; yes. Material Heaven and Hell,
Olympus, Hades, Asgard, Nifelheim
Are Matter's memories of pellucid fire
It once was and will be, an evidence
Of our material nature wrapped in myth
Unconsciously. Imagination lives
In Matter, being itself material power,
Irradiant, telepathic, magical,
Imponderable as lightning or the light,
Ethereal essence of the Universe.
To free this power from twenty centuries
Of God and Sin; endow it with its own,
The infinite Universe; to launch the world
In space again upon a virgin track
As though the foul old rut and blood-drenched way
Had never been! Oh, Tristram! Help me—you!
It can be done!
Sir T. How can I help you, Gervase?
St. J. I want your stage. A while ago you said
A people has a drama only once:
From "Gorboduc" to "The Tempest" fifty years;
And nothing since. The deadly truth of that
Perturbed me; and I feared my eastern work—
A play I made wherein dynamic art
Of Matter rives asunder all the scale
Of being; restrings the lyre, and sets the tune
Anew: I feared this work was wasted; now,
Having thought it out—even while we talked, my mind
Was labouring with it—that foolish fear is dead.
Twice in the past transcendent drama flowered,
A people's crowning glory. First in Greece:
A mighty triad and a rhythmic scroll,
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides.
Sir T. Euripides? A decadent, I thought.
St. J. Matter knows nothing of decadence, a word
Corrupt with spirit: only chance and change,
Power and imagination. Let me speak.—
The war with Persia, Marathon, Salamis,
Battles and victories by land and sea,
Revived in Attic bosoms, Attic brains,
Profound regard for things of Attica,
With ardent interest in the Universe
Whereof it felt itself the heart and soul.
In England next after two thousand years,
The most instinctive people in the world,
The mightiest and the freest, having undone
With axe and fire the strangling Roman creed,
That like a caul about their fancy clung,
Forthwith despatched to hell the rivalry
Of Spain, redeemed the seas, began to stretch
Their giant limbs in isles and continents,
And take the measure of the quartered globe.
Thus the imagination of these lands
Became one living cord, whereon were strung
All story, legend, lore; and like a birth
Miraculous, divine dramatic art,
Which to be truly great demands a great
Impassioned people for an audience, rose
From out the loftiest minds and shaped itself
The mirror of a master people's pride.
And now a greater England about to break
The husk of Christendom, as in its youth
It sloughed off Rome, begins the world anew,
Imperial England of itself aware,
And man, the conscience of the Universe.
I mean to spend my fortune and my life
In the high service of imagination
For England's sake and man's. The dreams, the lore,
The rags and rust of thirty centuries:
To cast these wholly, and accoutre man
In all the beauty, splendour, scope and power
Of this material, eternal fate,
The Universe, whereof he is the nerve—
The inmost fibre, flowering in brain and blood!
For this I would give up my life in pain.
Sir T. This will I help you in with all my power:
It dazzles me; it seizes on my soul.
St. J. A greater drama than the world has known
Is shrouded here in darkness.
Sir T. We must knead
The public mind into the shape of this
To make it possible. The play's the thing!
St. J. Yes; not the pulpit, not the press: the play,
Loftier and broader than religious rites,
The mirror of an empire's pride, of man's
Imagination, from the past released,
Dowered with the freedom of the Universe.
Sir T. What will this drama be?
St. J. I cannot tell.
My own play is the first step in a path
Untrodden. At the journey's end I see
A new world purged of God and purged of Sin,
Where men are healthy, women beautiful,
All men, all women, beautiful and strong.
[Re-enter Lady Sumner.]
Sir T. Martha! How like a ghost you steal upon us!
Where have you been?
Lady S. The streets, the squares, the river;
No home to go to! Wandering in the night
I saw your windows lit, and knew: I knew
You plotted here. What will you do? You're not
About to send me anywhere! I'll die;
I mean to die. I wanted Tristram too;
But I can die alone: time—give me time!
It's hard, it's very hard: you wish me gone,
And cannot understand how hard it is:
I have no children, and my husband hates me.
St. J. You have your children.
Lady S. Mock me not with that:
You know as well as I that death ends all.
St. J. Nothing can end. The mystery Matter, lasts
For ever.
Lady S. Am I mad, indeed, or you?
What are you talking of? My soul—my soul
It is, that's up in arms against the world.
St. J. If death ends all, what is the soul?
Lady S. My soul
Is me, one aching nerve from head to foot.
St. J. How is it clad, your soul? What atmosphere
Environs it, wherein does it consist?
Lady S. Naked my soul is; and it cannot breathe
For lack of air; and it consists in sin.
St. J. In sin?
Lady S. Dead sin, it cannot now commit.
Sir T. Now Gervase; put your message to the test.
St. J. There is no sin. Be silent, Martha! Fear,
Despondency, decay, the will to die
Should neither speak nor think, but fling themselves
Upon the Universe. Be silent! Let
My meaning touch your nerves. Attempt not
Apprehension: feel what I say.—This sense
Of sin is ignorance only; every voice
Must thunder that, and every intellect
Record it, every heart delight to hoard
The knowledge till the tissue of the world,
Engrained with truth, be guiltless in conceit
As in effect it is. Here we are left
Unfriended on the surface, far from home;
And that imagination which we are,
Betrayed and lost on this outlandish earth,
Believes itself to blame; but neither man
Nor Matter's answerable: the Universe
Is a becoming, a passion and a pain,
A rapt imagination. Purge yourself
Of God, of Heaven and Hell, of soul and sin,
Of small humanities, fantastic moods,
Putridities of spirit, posies, myths;
For all these dreams will leave you when you die.
Be Matter pure as flame.
Lady S. My soul, my soul!
It springs from God: there once was God.
St. J. No God:
God hitherto has been the world's excuse,
The shadow of man that tripped him everywhere,
A phantom cul-de-sac in the Universe,
A dog in the manger. Men need no excuse:
If they must be, they must be what they are.
Lady S. And what are they?
St. J. I told you: Matter, once
Inherent in the nebula that cooled,
Contracted, and became the sun and us.
Out of the bowels of the earth we rise:
Though in that thought at home and happy enough,
Yet there imagination feels itself
The merest parvenu when it recalls
Incalculable ages throbbed away
Within the glistering fire diaphanous
That filled the deep conceiving womb of space;
And on the earth, upon the surface here,
No longer than a week-end visit seems
Its spectral period hitherto, beside
That sojourn in the cooling globe, and date
Without beginning in the pristine fire.
Lady S. I feel a meaning, Gervase, I feel a power
More beautiful than God. How stale God seems
Upon a sudden and how ugly!
St. J. Of a truth
God is an ugly dream, whate'er it meant
At one time.
Lady S. Who made us then?
St. J. We were not made.
I told you, Martha; it is man that makes—
And birds and beavers, spiders, bees and ants;
All conscious Matter makes and mars a little:
But of the staple of the Universe,
Unconscious Matter, what we know is this:
That it becomes in systems, suns and earths,
In plants and beasts and men, a Universe.
Lady S. That seems more wonderful than to be made:
I feel it may be true. But, oh, dear Gervase,
What is the use, what is the end of it?
St. J. No end, and no beginning anywhere:
Only eternity, eternal Matter
And Matter's form, imagination—No;
Not form: how metaphysic tarnishes
A simple word! Only imagination,
The most exalted name of Matter, wrought
From flame to ice, from ice again to flame
Through suns and planets, verdure, battle, blood,
Degrees of being, and miracles of change.
Lady S. Why should it be? What purpose can it serve?
St. J. It must be, since it is; and must be so,
Or certainly it would be otherwise.
It serves no purpose, it is beautiful:
That is the whole. Your children, dead, had no
Beginning and will have no end. They once
Were fire; that fire, transmuted into love,
Distilled them from your womb, and was
Itself your children: cooled again, it rests
In earth, and will be limpid fire once more,
When all the orbs that hang about the sun
Return into its bosom, or other radiant
Passion of Matter impregnate space anew.
Lady S. I need not die then, since I cannot end?
St. J. Oh now my brain rejoices! Terror lurked
Beneath that white austerity of mine,
Lest when I tried my message in the fire—
The first time: true; but with a woman, and one
Whom dread of death and fancied need of death
Kindles to any news and change of mood:
I say, I feared lest your intense despair,
That gilds my truth at once, should burn it up.
But now you think there never can be need
For terror, doubt, or agony of mind
In presence of a sinless Universe,
Where all is mystery, all imagination,
All beauty, passion, power unending, all
The purest Matter.
Lady S. I can live; but where?
Where can I find a home for this new thought?
Not in the theatre, not in the church,
Not in the houses or the books of men!
St. J. I have a mansion in a forest-aisle
Where a deep silence, intimately felt,
And poignant as a perfume, like a mode
Of subtle splendour evermore becomes.
A green and branching honeycomb of glades,
A sylvan city clusters round my house;
And near it in an arbour sancro-sanct,
A chapelle ardent of the forest, lies
In state a famous memory. There it was
The queen of the Iceni stood at bay,
A desperate hind against the Roman pack,
In that last battle of her overthrow.
The trench she dug, the mound she reared are held
By oak and beech; but in this inmost bower
Beside her camp forlorn, this secret haunt
Of emerald shadow, emerald light, a crypt
Of living silence, sculptured boscage, turf
That gathers incense from the generous earth,
There on this virgin ground, a green and bronze
Carpet of fragrancies and couch of state,
These doomed things are enshrined.
Lady S. I might begin
To live again in such a woodland haven,
If I were free.
St. J. What freedom can you want
More than the freedom of the universe?
Lady S. The freedom of the Universe!
St. J. Whereof
My message is the charter.
Lady S. But my husband?
Sir T. You have no husband now. Let Gervase speak
His precept of divorce.
Lady S. No husband now?
Sir T. A prophetess of failure who fulfils
Her prophecy against her husband, severs
The marriage-bond.
Lady S. I knew not what I did!
Oh, Tristram!
St. J. Martha!… Tristram, take her hand!
[Sir Tristram and Lady Sumner join hands.]
The speech of men is so corrupt with dreams,
Forgotten alchemy and astral lies,
So rank with spirit and the cult of God
That nothing can be said as it is known.
In the pure matter of sex, befouled with words
Of sanction supererogant, I use
The most material language to pronounce
Divorce between you. Since the pride of life
Is dead in you, the woman, and your seed
Restored to that profound unconsciousness
Which is the general mode of the Universe,
Nothing constrains you to consider him
With whom you spent yourself courageously:
Mind and imagination now are one
With Matter; and this privilege is yours,
To know alive the deep delight of death.
For you, the man, in whom the pride of life
Intensely burns, this woman is no mate.
Your art will claim you body, brain, and sex
Without a rival henceforth.—Man and wife
You are no longer. Let your hands disjoined
Witness divorce between you.
[Sir Tristram releases Lady Sumner's hand.]
Lady S. Was there once
A thing called love? Oh, love! Death—death and hell.
St. J. You drink the dead sea.
Lady S. Dead.
St. J. Yet you will live.
My car is waiting: through the silent town,
The silent city and the lamplit night,
Watched by the star-attended moon, half seen
Behind her cloudy lattice in the skies,
Our wind-shod wheels shall bear us speedily.
Lady S. What call have I to go?
St. J. The call of night,
By sleepless fancies heard and souls set free.
The forest calls you in your blood and brain:
Like spell-bound tides the billowy woodlands sleep;
Through labyrinthine thickets pencilled beams
Explode in silvery silence; far withdrawn
Behind the darknesses of clustered boles
The emerald forest moonshine glances clear,
Imprisoned wells of light. Come, Martha, come.
Lady S. The woods will cover me and hide me close.
St. J. Come, sister, come.
Lady S. I come.
St. J. Good night.
Sir T. Good night.
To-morrow, Gervase, bring your tragedy.
St. J. My play? No tragedy; a triumph, Tristram.
Sir T. A triumph may it be! Again, good night.
St. J. Good night.
Lady S. Farewell.
Sir T. Farewell. Be free; be happy.
[St. James's and Lady Sumner go out.]
I must have money.
[Opens the door of the Business-room, turns up the light, and discovers EUROPA asleep.]
Pride of life, pure sex,
Dreaming and roseate! Trick of the night, and sleep
Pretended? Smiles! ….. Europa! No; she breathes
With parted lips, her nostrils, carved and sweet
As immortelles of pearl, too delicate
To fill in slumber's heedless anarchy
Her rhythmic bosom's vaulted depths; her arms
Hang listless, and her limbs beneath her gown
Are like the gates of heaven, ajar. Superb
She-creature this! She looked desire to-day;
To-night her will effects the shortest way.
I must have money.
[Having removed Europa's clothes from the desk he is about to open it, when Europa wakens and looks about.]
Beautiful of you
To be here on the instant that my life
Begins again! You overheard?
Europa. Not all;
I slept. Your bishop with the sorcerer's voice
Of silver thrilled me first, then charmed my heart
With deep material news that brought to life
Dead dreams of mine. I want to be myself
For this one night; not the smart actress, vulgar
Business-woman that fights or smooths her way
With scorn or kisses as the battle bends,
But Matter, pure and passionate—as I am.
Sir T. St. James's message falls on fertile ground!
Europa. He says a thing there that will move the world.
Sir T. Where shall I take you to?
Europa. Come home with me.
Sir T. You think that will be best? Why do you wear
Your costume still?
Europa. I am a woman such
As Cressid was, an amateur of men;
Never inconstant while her passion lasts,
But not to be compelled by love or law.
The name I hate most in the world is wife;
And the professional drudgery of the blood
Which marriage is, seems to me hell on earth.
Sir T. Not always hell. What do you know of marriage?
Europa. I had a husband in the States.
Sir T. Divorced?
Europa. Better than that: killed in the Cuban war.
Sir T. Why do you wear your costume still?
Europa. Because
The drapery becomes me; and I meant
To change its folds for other clinging folds
Before I dressed.
Sir T. Here in the theatre?
Europa. How could I tell you would be free to spend
The night with me?
Sir T. Am I the kind of man
You take me for?
Europa. What do I take you for?
Sir T. A fool, I think.
Europa. Oh, have I overdone it?
I thought you loved the pure Material truth.
I will be difficult at once!
Sir T. Too late,
Europa.
Europa. Why? What can you not forgive?
I came; you found me sleeping, and were glad.
Sir T. The sweetest action may be spoiled by speech:
A thing no woman ever understands.
Europa. What have I said? Correct me, punish me!
I spoke too soon; my mind is scarce awake.
Sir T. How brutal women are, how cynical!
I've never known a tender-hearted woman.
Europa. Hard as a diamond am I; and my love
A jewelled flame: high hearts are always hard.
Souls lapped in cotton wool are not for me!
Sir T. Now comes the diatribe! No woman yet
Could keep her temper past a word or two!
Europa. You struck the flint and you shall feel the fire.
I find you as I find the rest of men,
Obtuse, distrustful, flabby, impotent;
Fit to beget a fool or two at home,
And dribble out uncomfortable lives
In parliaments and stalls and smoking-rooms.
It's iron women love—Damascus blades,
Not bludgeons of the theatre stuffed with rags.
Sir T. How often have you said that? Reel-and-rote,
A parrot speech! So all viragoes scold
Since Eve dared Adam. Come; a different tune.
Europa. What? Are you strong, Sir Tristram? Are you strong?
Power in a man I worship: show me power.
Sir T. Go to your room and leave your costume there.
Europa. Give me my clothes, then.
Sir T. No; come back for them.
Europa. But I shall be half naked.
Sir T. What of that?
Europa. Will you attend me to my room?
Sir T. Not I.
Europa. The passages are dark.
Sir T. You know the way.
Europa. I know the way! This is a kind of strength;
But, sir, I'm not defeated.
Sir T. No?
Europa. Not yet.
When I return we shall resume the fight:
Since you're so masterful, I must be won.
[Goes out.]
Sir T. The cureless wound of sex that nature dealt
Gives man the victory still. If women knew
The tenth part of their power while passion lasts!
[Opens the desk and takes from a secret drawer a handful of bank-notes.]
A MONTH ELAPSES
ACT IV
Scene: Sir Tristram Sumner's Reception-room in the Grosvenor Theatre, as in Act III. Hildreth is sitting at a table with letters. Enter Abbot.
Abbot. Not yet?
Hildreth. No, Abbot.
[Enter Salerne.]
Salerne. Has he come?
Hildreth. Not yet.
Salerne. What says your mercury, Abbot?
Abbot. Zero, zero!
Salerne. I think myself the play will fail.
Hildreth. I don't.
The naivety, novelty, audacity;
The this, the that that people prattle of;
The Bishop's name, the scandal, and the cry,
The noise of the event will bring it off.
Abbot. I doubt it; and I think Sir Tristram scents
Disaster in the air.
Salerne. Never before
Do I remember such a slipshod time
As this vile month has been. Sir Tristram's hand
Is out: his eye untrue; such staging, such
A tangled skein, dropped stitches everywhere;
Warped wood and crumbling walls! The play's quite good;
But for the cast, the acting and the scene—
Give me a fit-up company astray
And starving in the potteries, and I'll whip
The top to such a purpose in a week
That this fine Grosvenor corps would drown itself
En masse to see such art in castaways.
Hildreth. Salerne, you've been with Groom! I know the sound;
That man's a malady; a passing thought
Of him will sometimes start the dullest brain
On venturous speeches.
Salerne. Start the dullest brain?
Hildreth. Like mine, I mean.
Salerne. Ah.—Yes; I've been with Groom.
He's drinking Burgundy in the "Rose and Crown."
Poor Groom! The one great actor of our time.
Finest since Garrick I should say.
Abbot. And I.
Hildreth. Come, come; no treason! Groom is very well;
But we're Sir Tristram's men.
Salerne. And loyal still!
Abbot. Oh, loyal enough! Sir Tristram needs it too.
I'd burn his bishop in Smithfield if I could.
[Goes out.]
Salerne. Why is he late?
Hildreth. You know as much as I.
Salerne. Infer as much?
Hildreth. I'll not discuss the matter.
Salerne. You're too devoted, Hildreth. Some one comes.
Hildreth. That's not his step.
Salerne. [Looking out] The Bishop! Curse his cloth!
[Goes out]
[Enter St. James's.]
St. J. Good evening, Hildreth. Is Sir Tristram here?
Hildreth. Not yet, my lord.
St. J. At what time is he due?
Hildreth. He's overdue, my lord.
St. J. Unlike him that.
Hildreth. Unlike him? Yes; a month ago.
St. J. A month?
Hildreth. May I speak freely?
St. J. Speak without reserve
If it concerns the welfare of my friend.
Hildreth. My lord, most intimately. For a month
His leading lady has led him by the nose.
St. J. Europa Troop: familiar at rehearsal;
But that I thought the method of the stage.
Hildreth. Oh no, my lord. Sir Tristram kept a state
About him always till the change began.
St. J. What change?
Hildreth. The change from promptitude and ease
To absence, fear, perplexity in all
He does.
St. J. Unjust! Consideration, care,
An artist's terror; but mastery of his work.
Hildreth. Pardon, my lord. I love him, and I know.
The definite purpose, the consummate skill
That made his management a royal game
Have left him; and he stumbles to the goal,
Which once he reached unerring and direct
As wireless news or planetary light.
St. J. Fine of you, Hildreth! But I think the play
Replies for all Sir Tristram's hesitance.
Hildreth. Partly, my lord: the play is difficult.
St. J. Where is he now?
Hildreth. None of us know, my lord.
I dread mischance.
St. J. On what conjecture, Hildreth?
Hildreth. The vaguest: at his house, no word of him;
And at his club, no word.
St. J. That means no more
Than this: he was not home nor at his club.
Hildreth. Yes, but, my lord, the first night of a play!
Not in the history of the theatre——
[Enter Sir Tristram]
St. J. No more foreboding, Hildreth!
Sir T. Gervase! High
On Heaven's dark brow we'll hang your name to-night.
[Looking over the letters.]
Bills: invitations. Why should people charge
Each other for the things they need; and why
Should one man want to meet another man?
We know what men are. In a million, one
May have the right to meet his fellows—No;
Not one in twenty millions! Men deserve
Each other's scorn.—There's nothing, Hildreth, nothing.
Hildreth. Sir Tristram, I implore you!
Sir T. Leave us, Hildreth.
You shall command me when the curtain falls.
You please me always, Hildreth.
[Hildreth goes out]
St. J. So distraught!
You're like a woman, Tristram.
Sir T. A woman? True:
Old men are like old women. Don't we know
How age makes neuters of us? All alike
Unhappy; cold and bloodless, curst and shrill!
St. J. I understand! The black rings round your eyes—
Court mourning for a day of passion, spent
In some shameless bosom! Once you could drain
The fount of energy as genial men
Will do, may do; but when the world appears
Thereafter like a desolate seaboard stripped
At ebb of tide, men must begin to spare
Their native power: the nerves are perilous things
To sport with: palsy a price exorbitant
For passing pleasure: to adventure youth
Throughout one's life—why, Tristram, that's
To burn the candle in the middle too!
Sir T. I burnt
A torch to-day to Aphrodite: yes;
And burnt it out: the more fool I; for love
Should leave a gathering coal. I know, I know!
But fear not you; my unclogged intellect
Will fling the prophet's part I play to-night
Across the footlights like a shower of stars,
Of falling stars.
St. J. Distort not hazardous tropes
To evil omens!
Sir T. Expect no triumph, Gervase.
A stormy night; shipwreck, perhaps.
St. J. At least
My prologue will compel a tolerant mood.
Sir T. A paying audience tolerant! Money's worth;
They come to be arrested, entertained.
Your speech will goad a curiosity
Already piqued. The play's a great event,
No doubt; but your success may be the world's
Defeat.
St. J. The world's defeat?
Sir T. By which I mean
You come a hundred years before your time.
St. J. You must not think, nor feel that! Heart and brain
The world is with us, waiting for our word.
Sir T. The world is waiting always for the word
It must obey, the news it must believe;
But never recognizes what it needs,
And worships only craft and jugglery.
It loves to see a well-known trick performed
Another way, to hear an old lie told
Divertingly in some fresh parable.
St. J. That's not the great mood, Tristram.
Sir T. No; it's war:
Behind, the great idea; here, in front,
The petty detail and order of the night.
Remember your prediction: You believe
Terrific war will burst the chrysalis,
The Christendom that hangs in filthy rags
About the eager soul already winged
With crimson plumes and violet, green and gold,
Psyche at last, pure Matter of itself,
Imagination, free of the Universe.
With words and shows equipped we wage great war,
And here to-night deliver battle. Temple!
[Enter Temple from the Dressing-room.]
Wine,
Heroic brandy, or the water of life? …
Champagne for me…. Nothing? To toast the play!
St. J. That's not my mood at all!
Sir T. Nor is it mine!
The shimmering surface of the player's life
Is all he flaunts when most his soul is stirred.
He turns the silver lining to the world;
The tempest and the darkness where he breeds
His high ostents and subtleties of art
Are hidden. Who can tell what tragic mirth
May occupy the other side of the moon?
St. J. Fill up for me too, Temple! I forget
In this erect and seminal thought of mine
That men are many-sided. I toast the war
Our play proclaims to-night.
[Temple, having filled two tumblers with champagne, returns to the
Dressing-room. Sir Tristram and St. James's drink.]
Sir T. The war of wars!
St. J. A century, a millennium of war
Against the sin and sacro-sanctity
That holds the world in thrall and hides from man
His true material being.
[Rouse appears at the door of the Reception-room.]
Rouse. The overture,
My lord.
[Disappears.]
St. J. I come, I come.—Strange fear perturbs
Me suddenly.
Sir T. But that's a certain sign
Of perfect power. The house will welcome you:
We love frank courage still.
St. J. Courage? What courage?
Having some gift of oratory, I
Deliver my own prologue. Courage once
Took heart in men when those who thought and spake
Were racked and roasted: this attempt
Exacts effrontery: not courage.
Sir T. Say
Effrontery: you do it; it is yours;
A piece of you: accept it; love it therefore.
St. J. A shamefulness attends this thing. The house
Will hiss me, Tristram.
Sir T. No; your fervid voice
Will mould and temper to delight the crude
Anticipation of the audience. Speak
Like one inspired; speak, Gervase, like yourself.
[St. James's goes out.]
Now, Temple, quickly!
[As Sir Tristram crosses to his Dressing-room Europa Troop enters, dressed for her part.]
Europa. Tristram! Tristram! See
How beautiful I am! Not dressed yet! Fie!
Kiss me; my bosom. Are you tired of me?
I pout then! Dear, to-day: so good you were
That I can think of nothing in the world
But to be yours; and you must come to-night!
My love is inexhaustible: as like
Irradiant metal that scatters momently
Its multitudinous lustre, as summer-time
Is like the month of June: the more it spends
The more it has to spend.
[Opens the door of the Business-room and turns up the light.]
And, dear, I need
Some money; men with bills molested me
As I came up the stairs; the attendants here
Relax their duties sadly: I believe
They're not above a bribe.
[Sir Tristram closes the door of his Dressing-room, and takes from the secret drawer in the Business-room some bank-notes, which he hands to Europa.]
How much?
Sir T. The whole!
You've had it all. This was a treacherous hoard,
And rightly spent on you. In any way
Of honest business, or dishonest art,
It had been worse than lost, like fairy gold
That turns to shreds of flint when daylight kills
Its phantom glory. It was wisely spent.
We have obliged each other.
[Sir Tristram enters his Dressing-room, and speaks from it unseen.]
Europa. How hard you are!
Harder than me. But you will come to-night?
Sir T. Perhaps. You know this splendid play will fail.
Europa. Our parts will save it, Tristram; you and I.
What chiming prattle do we love to hear—
"The play is nothing; but the acting? Ah,
"Sir Tristram! Oh, Europa!" Stupid plays
Are what we want, with skeletons to drape
In flesh and blood of us. You'll come to-night?
Sir T. If the play fails?
Europa. Can't I console you, Tristram?
Sir T. If it succeeds?
Europa. You triumph in my arms.
Sir T. Not tired of me?
Europa. Not nearly! Hateful word!
Are you tired, Tristram?
Sir T. A little, of myself.
Europa. Come home with me to-night, and you shall fall
In love with Tristram Sumner. I have charms
Beyond belief to make men love themselves.
You come?
Sir T. I come.
Europa. The coda, Tristram! Quick!
Clang, clash, sapristi, pomb! The overture
Is over. I must hear St. James's speak
His prologue.
Sir T. Do. And send me word at once
How they receive him.
Europa. I shall send my love
A message of episcopal debuts,
Episcopal debuts, episcopal——
[Goes out]
[Enter Lady Sumner.]
Sir T. [Still from his Dressing-room]
That some one?
Lady S. Yes.
Sir T. Who is it?
Lady S. One you wished
Never to see again.
Sir T. My wife!
Lady S. That was.
I came in haste. I had a deep resolve;
But all my purpose crumbled as I passed
Europa Troop in the corridor.
Sir T. [At the door of his Dressing-room] Who else!
What other actress could you hope to meet?
She takes the heroine in our play to-night.
Lady S. Your mistress, Tristram: I could tell at once.
Sir T. After the play: I cannot see you now.
[Withdraws into the Dressing-room.]
Lady S. "Do you know that Warwick Groom and "Martha Sackville were lovers? She visited him "every night in his dressing-room at the Parthenon "when he played Romeo——"
Sir T.
[Entering the Reception-room and closing the door of the
Dressing-room.]
Give me that letter!
Lady S. It's bitten in my brain.— "—And the reason why he insisted on beginning the "fourth act with the fifth scene of the third act was "the reason you guess at once: it gave them time. "But that was not the only place in the play where "they performed their private intermede. How this "was managed? Ask old Odham, Groom's dresser."
Sir T. You stole that letter.
Lady S. I stole it.
Sir T. Give it me.
Lady S. I burnt it in the forest: the flame of it
Was like a passion-flower.
Sir T. That crude account
Of nauseous lust!
Lady S. Nothing is nauseous men
And women do in any mood at all.
But to be old and done—that's nauseous; worse
Than death. Why can't we die by taking thought?
Sir T. Who wrote it?
Lady S. Odham himself. I knew his hand.
Sir T. How was this managed? Um? You won't? You must!
Odham, being ill and bribed, you took his place,
A substitute, in male attire?
Lady S. I did!
How have you guessed it, Tristram?
Sir T. Could there be
A way besides as simple—and secure!
The infantile device of Cupid, blind
Betrayer of himself! Old Odham spied:
He saw you in Warwick's arms between the acts.
A pleasant memory!
Lady S. I have faced it all.
Sir T. Why are you come?
Lady S. I came like destiny,
Prepared and armed with power and purpose, gained
In the forest. But I met your mistress: fate
Of worlds and women is shifted by such straws.
[Re-enter Hildreth.]
Sir T. Back to the forest, then.—What is it, Hildreth?
Hildreth. St. James's triumphs.
Sir T. And without offence?
No protest?
Hildreth. None. A section seemed at first
In tune for ribaldry; but soon his clear
Goodwill, the nerve and music of his voice,
His gracious looks and speech secured the house.
The gallery points his periods with applause;
The stalls sit purring like a catshow charmed
With extra cream or chin adroitly scratched;
And women from the boxes lean and listen
Like cows across a gate at milking-time.
Sir T. The house is fused then?
Hildreth. Mob at once, well pleased
With anything.
Sir T. And well begun's half done!
The prologue's over?
Hildreth. No. I meant to note
The finish; but Europa Troop despatched
Immediate news. She said——
[Re-enter Europa Troop.]
Europa. Too soon, too soon!
Oh, Tristram!—Pardon, madam—Applause has whirled
St. James's to the skies. He stands entranced,
With face uplifted like a seraph, pealing
Material music, from his prologue worlds
Away. Into the nebula! The house
Sits up and holds its breath.
[Re-enter Abbot.]
Abbot. Sir Tristram, come!
In Heaven's name come! St. James's spreads himself
Worse than we ever heard him; miles beyond
The limits of the play! He must be stopped!
[Re-enter Salerne.]
Salerne. You've told him?
Abbot. Yes. The Bishop's broken loose,
Discoursing Matter like a thunderstorm;
A thick brocade and silvery web of rain,
With crash of bells and bolts, while through the loom
A random shuttle of golden lightning plays—
As Warwick might have said.
Salerne. Amenity
To what is happening! "All is Matter, all,"
The Bishop cried, when from the gallery dropped
A question like a bomb, "Hi! What price God?"
Sir T. Olympus felt itself neglected. Well?
Salerne. Then all the blasphemy we've heard him speak
Came trolling forth, "The shutters of the mind;
"A fire-proof curtain: ghastly cul-de-sac;
"A last excuse; sublime taboo; a tip;
"A patent medicine: an accepted lie."
"Atheist!" they cry, "blasphemer!" scourging him
To reckless opposition. There he stands
At every lull in the tempest knelling out
His dogma like a tocsin. What to do
Surpasses me!
[Enter Mark Belfry.]
Belfry. God! Crowds believe in God!
My cats, Sir Tristram, what a fool you are!
A fighting parson crossed the floats and all
The stalls came after bellowing—men I mean.
The pittites followed and the gallery boys
Are breaking forms and shying splinters. "God!
"For God!" they roar, parson and moneylender,
Broker and banker, counterjumper, peer.
The women, too; they all believe in God;
Duchesses, milliners, wives and prostitutes,
They scream for God. God pays! you bet! God pays!
They'll wreck your theatre, Tristram; but I'll buy it!
The Grosvenor? Yes; in ruins! I want it. Name
Your figure, Tristram.
Sir T. Where's St. James's?
Belfry. Dead,
I guess, by this time; trampled into pulp.
[Lady Sumner sinks fainting on the couch unnoticed by the others.]
Sir T. My Gervase! God forbid! Abbot, Salerne,
Darken the theatre. Let the orchestra
Strike up a blaring march. We'll clear the stage,
And play St. James's play. Come after me!
Belfry. Cash, Tristram, cash! You know you're ruined. Name
Your price. I want the Grosvenor Theatre—and I'll——
[Sir Tristram goes out, followed by everybody except Lady Sumner.]
[Enter Warwick Groom.]
Groom. Martha! To meet you here! … Sleeping? A swoon!
[He raises her to a sitting posture, and she begins to revive. As she breathes with difficulty he unfastens her cloak, and finds her dressed like a boy.]
Lady S. Oh, Warwick, are we dead? My throat is parched
Enough for hell.
[He breaks the neck of a bottle of champagne, fills a tumbler, and gives her to drink]
Alive still in the world
Of lust and lush! Oh, Warwick, strike me, hurt me!
My withered fancy flounders in the mire;
My memory chooses words I never loved,
Ideas foreign to my prime. Pure pain,
Absorbing every sense, would clean my soul.—
Is this the Parthenon or the Grosvenor, Warwick?
Groom. The Grosvenor, Martha.
Lady S. Something is happening here.
Groom. Something abnormal for the stage! I passed
Unnoticed in the tumult!
Lady S. Listen, Warwick,
As if you were the Universe itself.
No one would give an ear, or understand;
But you will, Warwick; I belong to you;
You had the bloom and scent, the flower of me.
I think of that unhallowed, holy week
A hundred times a day, a hundred times.
You were my lover, Warwick, and my friend;
My child, my doll: I used to dress you, dear.
I live in that: that wonder-working time,
When all my senses and my soul, aroused
From the sweet slumber of virginity,
Became one instinct and ardour of womanhood.
Lay your proud head upon my bosom, love—
My faded bosom.—Now, my dear, now, now!
If we could fall asleep and never waken.—
Why did I marry Tristram! Why? Not once
Have you demanded that.
Groom. Because I guessed.
He showed me to you——
Lady S. Hush! He did: and more—
He told me you were any woman's man.
Groom. That was true, too.
Lady S. But you adored me, Warwick?
You had a passion for me, a passion, Warwick?
Groom. I loved you then as truly as I love
You now; haggard and worn, or fresh and sweet,
You were and are the woman of my choice;
You only, Martha.
Lady S. And you, my man of men.
Give me some wine again. Will you not drink?
[They drink; and Lady Sumner sings.]
When I had found a gem I lost
Where none would ever think,
My heart became a cup of wine
I gave my love to drink.
My voice is cracked; but, Warwick, do you know,
There's not a happier woman in the world.
You wonder at my dress? Sit here by me:
I'll tell you pleasantly the whole romance.
And smoke! Do you remember how we quarrelled
About tobacco? You loved it best, you said—
To plague me, Warwick: better than women or wine.
But when I wept you tossed a box away
Of Delicadedzas worth their weight in gold.
[While Groom turns to the cabinet to choose a cigar, Lady Sumner pours the contents of the vial into her wine. GROOM then sits beside her.]
This is the story, Warwick. My husband knew:
Blackmail, or wanton mischief, Odham meant,
And wrote him; but he died, old Odham did,
If you remember, on my wedding-day.
My husband never told me. A month ago
I found old Odham's letter, and knew by it
The fire and fuel of my husband's hate.
My husband loved me long; and I loved him,
Although I married him in a pique at you:
People are made that way: a man and woman
That pig together come to love each other.
Blister my tongue! It is not I that speak—
Only the ruins of me, the broken bits.—
My husband's love being dead and mine being dead—
That kind of love dies out, and when it dies
It's dead indeed, in women: dead love being turned
To festering jealousy and hate in him
By reason of the letter he ignored
When I was young and queen of hearts—I used
To think it beautiful of me to keep
Myself for Tristram: I had, you know,
A thousand lovers, Warwick: is it true
I was as tempting as they said and sang?
Groom. All men adored you, Martha: doubt it not.
Your shape, your walk, your talk, your mouth, your eyes,
Body and soul, all men desired you, dear.
Lady S. I shall die happy, Warwick.—My husband's hate,
My horror of myself were killing me,
When Gervase came, my cousin Gervase; he
Whose play it is to-night. Did some one say
They're trampling him to death? But that can't be!
Groom. Oh, that's impossible!
Lady S. I dreamt it, Warwick.—
My cousin Gervase, bishop and genius, best
Of angels always, with a wonderful
Injunction from the Universe, a most
Authentic mandate, severed us; and me
He carried to the forest, there to clothe
My naked fancy with the Universe,
A sinless, Godless Universe of his.
It seems to me a matter of little moment
Whether there is a God or not; but Sin
Is great—the greatest: all is death save Sin:
That is my message, Warwick! Every one
Must have a message now: the only way
To individualize. Warwick, have you
A message?
Groom. I have a message, Martha; one
I shall deliver shortly.
Lady S. Tell it now.
Groom. Not now; and not to you.
Lady S. In everything,
My dearest love, you shall be absolute Warwick,
And tell me not, or tell me as you choose.
Groom. I see how much you need to talk. My heart
Is listening: speak your heart out, child.
Lady S. I roamed the forest day and night and fixed
My fancy in the nebula at first.
Profound relief it was to breathe no more
The breath of man and woman, love and hate,
Desire, despair, Heaven, Hell, and God, and Sin:
To be pure soullessness awaiting chance,
My cousin told me of, when all the orbs
That hang about the Sun, and me and mine
Shall fall into its bosom, or other radiant
Passion of Matter impregnate space anew.
But life was not so easily rebuked:
I had that letter; and through the nebula,
As potent rays will pierce substantial things,
It seared itself upon my heart and brain.
My sin tormented me; and everywhere
Nothing but Sin I saw: concupiscence
Of insect, bird, and beast: bloodstained besides;
Not only foxes, weasels, falcons, rats,
But blackbirds, thrushes, robins drenched with blood
Of helpless prey and raving drunken songs.
In candelabra where the scented oil
Of honeysuckle burned, I found a crowd
Of shameless couples, male and female, paired—
A brothel of midges, Warwick; in tender bells
Of chaste convolvuluses spider-wolves
Attacked unhappy bees; and once I saw
A cheerful skylark chewing a grasshopper
That wriggled like a man being sawn asunder.
I thought of business, policy, pleasure, war,
Where folk devour each other; and in a flash
I understood that it must still be so:
No man or woman can ever lift a foot
Except to tread and splash in someone's heart.
And out of that my dazzling message sprang,
That Life is the Sin of the Universe. You see?
We do not sin; we are Sin, Warwick. Yes!
It makes the whole world beautiful, I think.
The Sin is great and splendid, deep and high,
Exquisite Sin: physicians feel like this,
Studying a perfect fever, or some disease
It palsies one to think of. Life is Sin,
The wonderful wild Sin of the Universe.—
[Rises, and walks to the door and back.]
Where was I, Warwick?
Groom. [Rises] In the forest, Martha.
Why did you leave it?
Lady S. For a purpose, high
And tender. I took upon myself the Sin
Of the Universe as far as the Universe has sinned
In me; repented of it, and straightway came
To Tristram, intending to confess and be
Forgiven. First I went home, and dressed myself
Once more in these, the wrappage of my sin,
My special sin, my passionate, wilful sin:—
We are the sin of the Universe; but Sin
Itself can sin? Perhaps; I cannot tell.
Groom. You kept these?
Lady S. In a wardrobe, fresh as spring
With yearly lavender. A fitting garb
Of penitence it seemed; a punishment,
A pang, indeed, to show myself to him,
My husband, in the vesture of my love!
Groom. And did you not?
Lady S. No, Warwick, for I met
His mistress at the door, and gentleness
Became malignity.
Groom. But afterwards?
What end did you propose?
Lady S. My death, my death!
Oh, love, I wish to die: I mean to die—
Alone, without regret. That week of Sin
I came here to repent envelopes all
The past and all the future in a cloud
Of glory. At the sight of you my mind,
And that imagination which I am—
Let me remember that: the Universe
Is pure imagination conscious in us:
Most beautiful! The Universe becomes
That week of passionate Sin and hides my soul
As in the pristine fire. Take off my cloak.
[She advances to the centre of the room. Groom follows and removes her cloak.]
Am I not beautiful again?
Groom. As fresh
As hawthorn buds, desirable as wine
In summer droughts and molten calentures,
As sweet as bread and meat to starving men!
What miracle is this?
Lady S. The miracle
Of Life triumphant. Drink to Life and Love.
[They drink.]
It stings a little! … Help me, Warwick! Oh!
[He supports her to the couch, and she sits.]
Groom. You've taken poison? Have I drunk it, too?
Lady S. No, Warwick; I took it all. I want to die.
Help me; embrace me; hold me! Oh, what pain!
Let me lie down.
[He lays her on the couch.]
Inflexible as love,
Death rends and hurts at first; but soon its way
Is like a summer voyage in the south.
What bells are these? That music in the air?
I know!—the stealthy hansoms jingling past
With doors half open, nightly traps to catch
Adventurous lovers. Cafés disengage
Self-centred diners fed and flushed to dream
Of deeds of love in glimmering theatres,
The woman and the man, till it be time
To take each other sweetly. Kiss me, Warwick.
You have your arms about me?
Groom. Yes.
Lady S. I die
Wrapped round about with youth and love and life.
The earth is like a chariot of fire
Wheeling into the Sun. Good night.
[Dies.]
Groom. Good night.
Nothing is wonderful since all is wonder.
[He covers Lady Sumner's body with her cloak. Then he takes from his breast-pocket a long sheath-knife.]
Now for my message.
[Goes out.]