It might be serious, Though, if I chanced on Nero or Tiberius.
The Romans had no manners... This way here—
So the map says—would lead me to the year
Ten-sixty-six. I won't be such a fool
As go back where I stuck so long at school.
William the First was always dull. I know
He'd make me listen to him—standing so,
With Bayeux hands, knee crookèd, and neck bowed—
While he read all the Domesday Book aloud.
I shan't go there... Now, that's a pretty view!
[Referring to the map.
'The Eighteenth Century: Boswell Avenue.'
I might try that. But no—that won't do either.
I'd have to wear a wig or tell them why there,
Love coffee-houses more than trees and birds
And talk in such tremendously long words.
I know, I know! If I can find the way
I'll wander back into the sumptuous day
When, in his gardens near the warm lagoon,
Titian gave feasts under the stars and moon.
That would be heavenly! Those were noble times.
There was a grandeur even about the crimes
Of people like the Borgias ... and their dresses,
And the sweet way they wore their hair in tresses,
And—oh, and everything! What was Titian's date?
I mustn't err into a time too late;
But how to make quite sure? I'll take a look
In this adorable fire-coloured book—
Addington Symonds... Oh, that I knew more!
Was it in fifteen-sixty or before?
[Settling herself in one of the chairs, she becomes absorbed in her book. Enter, right, Gioconda carrying two or three modern novels.
Gioconda (speaking off, right).
I thank you, gondolier. You drowned my nurse
With true dramatic finish. Take this purse.
So—I am in that Garden where time speeds
Backward or forward as our fancy needs.
How sick I am of cloaks and ambuscades,
Of poison, daggers, moonlight serenades,
Of those dull dances that are all I get—
Pavane, gavotte, forlana, minuet—
And the long pageant of our life at Venice!
Now, in the Twentieth Century there is tennis,
With cream and strawberries round a chestnut-tree,
And day-long idling in the June-blue sea,
And soda-fountains, too, and motor-cars,
And Henley Weeks and Russian Ballet 'stars.'
Oh, what a wealth of joy that century has!
To think that I myself may learn to jazz!
Truly, I judge it has no slightest flaw—
The glorious age of Bennett, Wells, and Shaw.
[She sets her books on the table and curtsies to them.
Gramercy now—Shaw, Bennett, Wells, and Co.—
Since you have shown me what I longed to know,
How to behave, talk, smoke, and bob my hair
In nineteen-twenty, when at last I'm there.
Could I but find a guide! How shall I tell
Which road to follow? If I listen well
I ought to hear the roaring of their trains,
Their motor-horns, their humming monoplanes...
[She listens intently for a moment.
The very bees are silent... [Seeing Hilda.