Principal Wife.
Old Woman II (Miskah.) | Wife at her toilet.
Old Woman helping.
Has Hajji not come back yet?
“No sign,” says Old Woman.
Has been to outer gate twice.
Only person there a young woman.
Guarded by two soldiers (eunuchs).
Weeping this last half hour.
They say she has been brought by Executioner’s orders.
“Another woman?
Have her brought here!”
Old Woman takes order to doorkeeper at door L. |
Principal Wife goes to top of steps and orders the otherwomen to dress and retire.
The women swim to the right end of the bath. The talk issilenced.
Zira is brought in by the slave doorkeeper, followed by theOld Woman II. |
Wife.
Zira.
Old Woman II.
[This scene enlarged during rehearsal. Marsinah (Zira) does not leave the stage, but veils. See play.]
Wife. | Wife: “What have we here?”
She abuses girl.
Ill treats her.
Leads off into inner chamber of slaves.
Zira in tears goes off by colonnade right with the Old Woman.
“I’ll soon break your spirit!”
The door left opens. |
| The Executioner enters in a bad humour. |
Executioner.
Wife. | Wife: “This is an unexpected delight!
So early? Did the Sultan not keep you to supper?”
Executioner: “What are you doing in the bath at this time of night?”
W. “I was but waiting for you to ask what you wish done with the new slave.”
E. “What new slave?”
W. “The woman who has just arrived, guarded by two of your men.”
The Doorkeeper. “The men you dispatched with Hajji, sir, this afternoon.”
E. “Oh, that woman!
I shall have her strangled.”
Wife agrees.
Says girl a slut.
Executioner finds his wife agrees with him to such an extent that he thinks the girl must be beautiful.
Rings a bell.
Old Woman II comes from Colonnade. |
| [This altered. Marsinah has not left the stage. See note above.] | He orders her to bring Zira.
The wife tries to interfere.
Executioner angry.
Wife wonders why he is in such an angry mood.
Because he may lose his head any moment.
“Lose his head?” she asks.
“Yes. This new Sultan—” |
| Zira is brought in from R. on steps by Old Woman. Zira is veiled. |
Executioner. Zira.
Wife.
Old Woman. | Executioner orders her to unveil.
She hesitates.
He tears the veil from her face.
He sees she is beautiful.
Says to his wife that she has lied.
“Go, get the girl ready.
I will come to her as soon as I have had my bath.
Until tomorrow, at least, I shall enjoy life.
After that—who knows?” |
He goes off up the Colonnade to left.
Wife orders Old Woman to take the girl away with her again.
Zira goes off by small door right with Old Woman.
There is a tapping sound on a screen on the right side. |
| Wife. | “Hajji!” |
| Wife goes and opens screen in the wall right. Hajji enters. |
Wife.
Hajji. | Wife tells him to be quiet.
Executioner near at hand.
Expects an amorous embrace.
Hajji says there is no time for love making.
He has come about his daughter.
W. “Your daughter?”
H. “Yes. Zira—She came here for the Executioner. Has he seen her? Has he gone in to her?”
W. “So she’s your daughter?
I have you to thank for this creature,
Another rival.”
Hajji wants to know where the girl is.
Can’t Wife bring her out here and let the girl escape with him.
W. “Escape?”
H. “In that way you can get rid of a rival.”
W. “And be strangled myself?”
He urges her.
If she won’t let the girl escape, at least won’t she take the girl to a sanctuary?
Sanctuary? What for?
To get her out of the way—away from Executioner.
Why not take her to the Mosque?
The Mosque of the Carpenters, where the venerable priest is?
He entreats Wife by the love she has for him.
Points out the dangerous charm of his daughter.
She will prove a great rival.
Wife is torn between jealousy and fear for her own life.
H. “You can say you took her to the
Sanctuary for purification—Take her there!”
They are interrupted. |
| The Executioner appears in a thin robe in the colonnade with two slaves. Wife escapes rapidly into inner room to right. Hajji’s escape is cut off. He grovels on the floor. |
Hajji.
Executioner. | Executioner sees Hajji and dismisses the slaves.
Amazed at Hajji’s presence. |
| [All this much more direct and brutal in play. Change made when play was written.] | Hajji says he has done everything to get back to Executioner. Bribed the Sultan’s Gaoler, faced untold dangers.
Grovels and at the same time tries to find out the Executioner’s position in regard to the Sultan.
Has he lost his power?
What has Sultan done to Executioner?
Executioner in a boundless rage.
How dare Hajji come and ask him questions? |
| | How dare he break into the women’s quarters and then ask for mercy?
How dare he appeal to the Executioner, after betraying him to the Sultan?
Who was Hajji before the Executioner looked with favor on him?
A swine, an abomination picked out of the gutter.
A cur, a dog,—a—
He approaches Hajji.
Hajji hurries up the steps.
The Executioner is too quick, gets up after him and takes Hajji by the throat.
Doing so, he catches hold of the chain with the coin that Hajji stole from Sheikh (Act II, Scene 4.)
Where did Hajji get this?
Hajji lies, saying it is his.
It has always been his.
Executioner produces the other half on a massive gold chain.
Miraculous!
Hajji must be Executioner’s father.
H. “You—my son?”
E. “Don’t you remember?” |
| [This was altered so that Hajji tells the Executioner all this. SeeAct II, Scene 4, where the Sheikh gives Hajji the facts.] | Executioner tells how he can just remember his father breaking a coin when they were being attacked in the desert, before he, the boy, was carried away by the Sultan’s troops.
H. “You mean when I was—Sheikh?”
E. “Were you Sheikh or just a robber, then?”
H. “Just a robber at the time—just a robber—And your mother—do you remember her?”
E. “I have tried to often—Her name escapes me.”
H. Mentions name of first wife:
“Zeenab—whom I loved above all things.”
“Zeenab! That was her name!”
H. “She had eyes like stars; and tall, she was tall like a poplar.
How wonderful is fate!
So you are her son!”
E. “Your son.” |
| Hajji, slowly eyeing him and taking the Executioner’s chain. |
| | H. “And the halves fit! What a splendid chain! What a heavy chain! Heavier than mine. You have prospered in life, my son—”
E. “My father—”
H. “Your father, yes. I am your father—Come to my arms.”
With that he takes the gold chain round the Executioner’s neck and twists it till the Executioner chokes. Forces him down on his knees.
Then he pushes him backward into the bath. Holds him under the water and drowns him. “I killed the old rat! I’ll kill his spawn! Blessed be Allah for this day of days.” He laughs wildly and exultantly. |
There is one more splash, then silence in the bath.
Knocking on the door left.
More knocking.
Then the door is broken open.
The Sultan enters with his Guard and Torchbearers, the old Woman No. I. following. |
| The Sultan. | “Where is the woman? Where is Zira?
Search the Hareem!”
Some of the Soldiers cross into door right. |
Sultan.
Hajji. | Sultan turns and sees Hajji on the steps by the bath.
“You?”
H. “Yes.” Allah allowed him to escape in order to serve the Sultan.
S. “Cut him down!”
H. “Stop! Look first whether I am not a good servant.
Look in the bath!”
The Sultan looks.
S. “The Executioner!”
H. “It was all his fault.
He drove me to attempt your life.” |
| Soldiers reënter, bringing in Wife. Other women of the Hareem follow. |
Wife.
Sultan.
Hajji.
Old Woman No. I. | Soldier says Zira not there.
Wife confesses she has sent her to
Sanctuary.
Hajji begged her to do so.
S. “Hajji! Ever Hajji! Why should he have any say in regard to Zira?”
H. “She is my daughter.”
S. “Yours!”
H. “Now say I am not a good servant when I serve you with such a daughter.
Will you still kill me?”
Old Woman No. I testifies he is speaking the truth, is Zira’s father.
S. “You have attempted my life.
What would my piety be if I pardoned the dagger that tried to kill the descendant of the Prophet?
Taking the law into your own hands (points to bath) does not wipe out your crime.
But you are the father of Zira,
The woman whom I mean to make my Sultana.
Her father’s blood must not be shed by me.
Go, then, be banished, forgotten!
Your life is spared—but only under one condition.
Henceforth you shall be as dead to me—to your daughter.”
H. “To my daughter? Never to speak to her again, to feel her cheek against mine? Never?”
S. “I have spoken.”
Hajji tears his clothes, strews ashes on his head from the brazier by his side and goes out, staggering, by door left.
The Sultan will go the Mosque to beg the High Priest to release Zira from the Sanctuary.
Curtain |