used to talk about things right in class. He said that most educated
people think that intellect is a matter of making fine distinctions--of
seeing as two separate points what the unintelligent would believe was one
point; but that this idea was _finicky_. He wanted us to see that
intelligence might also be a matter of seeing the connection between two
things so far apart that most people would think they were always
separate. I like that. It made education _mean_ something, because it made
it depend on imagination instead of grubbing. And then he told us about
the history of our subject--grammar. How it began as poetry, when every
word was an original creation; and then became philosophy, as people had
to arrange speech with thought; and then science, with more or less exact,
laws. I could _see_ it--the thing became alive. And he said all knowledge
passed through the same stages, and there isn't anything that can't
eventually be made scientific. That made me think a good deal. I wondered
if somebody couldn't work out a way of preventing anybody from being poor.
It seems so unnecessary, with so much work being done. That's what I want
to do. Thanks to you, I--
THE MAN
Here's Rex! Rex, know my good friend. I know you will like him. Rex always
cares for the people I do, don't you, Rex?
THE BOY
Of course, I see one thing: it's the people nearest one that make the most
difference. Mother, now, she will understand.... You don't believe in
marrying, though, do you?
THE MAN
I certainly do!
THE BOY
But I thought--
THE MAN
You thought because I left one woman and hadn't found another that I
didn't care for women? Others believe that, too, but it isn't so. On the
contrary. You see, I didn't so much leave her as get away from my own
failure. Of course, there is such a thing as the wrong woman. She makes a
man a fraction. The better she is in herself, the less she leaves him to
live by. One twentieth is less than one half. But the right woman! She
multiplies a man....
THE BOY
Oh!
THE MAN
Why, you might have told from my poems how I believe in love.
THE BOY
I don't remember any love poems.
THE MAN
Bless your heart! Every one of them was a love poem. Not the old-fashioned
kind, about fading roses and tender hearts.... I sent that book out as a
cry for the mate. It is charged with the fulness of love. That's why I
could write about trees and storms.
THE BOY
I suppose if I had been older....
THE MAN
It isn't one's age but one's need. _She_ will understand. Look, the sun
has gone round the corner of the house. Is that lunch you have in the
parcel?
THE BOY
Yes.
THE MAN
Would you like to make it a picnic? I'll get something from the house, and
then we can walk to the woods.
THE BOY
I'd love to!
THE MAN
All right, I'll be ready in no time. Come, Rex!
SURVIVAL
_The garden of a home in the suburbs. A man is walking up and down alone
at dusk, occasionally stopping to water a plant, but more often falling
into deep thought, unconscious of his surroundings. About the place there
is an air of newness and prosperity._
_A young woman enters the garden from the lawn next door._
MARGARET
Look here, Roger, you can't keep this up!
ROGER
No, I can't keep this up. Besides, it's going to rain to-morrow.
MARGARET
What do you mean?
ROGER
Watering the plants. Isn't that what you meant?
MARGARET
You aren't watering the plants. I've been watching you for half an hour.
If you only would! But you keep forgetting what you are at.
ROGER
I wish it were only forgetting--it's remembering.
MARGARET
Oh Roger, don't I know? But you mustn't!
ROGER
I suppose not. I suppose not.
MARGARET
I knew all along, and I kept away. How you felt, I mean. I ought to have
come over a week ago. You haven't anybody to talk to--that's the trouble,
Roger, really. I know. Now let's have the whole thing out. Come. And don't
be afraid of me. Why, I could tie you all up in bandages if you needed it.
And not flinch.
ROGER
Yes, I guess you could.... It's, it's absurd how well I keep!
MARGARET
Hm. Isn't it? You ought to be wilting away like a rose. But no, you keep
your splendid strength and go on with two or three men's work! What would
your mother think if she heard you talking like that? Don't you know that
you couldn't please her better than by going on as you are?
ROGER
That's so. Of course. But that really isn't what I was thinking of. I was
thinking how queer this whole business is. Take our family. As far back as
I know we were always struggling along with many children and few means. I
am the first one who could really make money. And just when I could make
mother comfortable and easy ... besides, I'm all alone.
MARGARET
Ah, Roger, of course you feel that way! But you don't really appreciate
that wonderful mother of yours. Do you think her happiness depended on
having a new house, and a car?
ROGER
No....
MARGARET
Didn't she round out her life beautifully? Wasn't she repaid for her
struggles by seeing you succeed? Didn't she pass away as quietly as going
to sleep? And wasn't her marriage happy? You don't know how much a woman
will meet with, if she's happy!
ROGER
That part of it I can face all right, though I suppose it's hard for the
ordinary selfish man to realize that love like mother's is its own reward.
But toward the end she suffered--she worried....
MARGARET
I know she did. She told me.
ROGER
She told you? I didn't know that.
MARGARET
We were good friends, your mother and I--and women. That's why she told
me. And I think I reassured her.
ROGER
Oh! She did seem to get mightily comforted, just at the last. I never
understood why.
MARGARET
I thank heaven I really did that!--And when I looked out the window and
saw you standing here, I had to come over. I knew it wasn't your mother's
death that was hurting you, but--but your brother's.
ROGER
Arthur ... I'm glad the accident happened after _she_ died.
MARGARET
Yes. But there's something else. Something that hurts. You've got to tell
me. Everything. Don't be afraid. Face it.
ROGER
I have faced it. I--I've made up my mind.
MARGARET
There's still pain somewhere. Is it in the way you have made up your mind?
ROGER
How could that be?
MARGARET
It depends. But tell me what you thought--I mean during this last year or
so. It didn't come to you all at once.
ROGER
Well.... Of course, I always took it for granted about his music. He
seemed to be wonderful at that. And mother believed so in him. It really
began when he left college, I found he had debts.
MARGARET
Debts?
ROGER
Yes. Not just clothes and living--other things. I paid up, but I didn't
like it. I didn't like the things. But I thought it was just a boy's
foolishness. I thought he would be all right after that, but--he wasn't.
MARGARET
He wasn't....
ROGER
No. After a couple of years I had to straighten it out again. I came down
on him flat. He promised to cut it.
MARGARET
But he was doing such wonderful work!
ROGER
Yes, everybody began to say so. If he had only been that alone, the
musician! But--
MARGARET
But afterward?
ROGER
Well, a year ago I began to hear things said again. And then I found
letters and bills. It was the same thing all over. He hadn't kept his
word.
MARGARET
But what did _he_ say?
ROGER
I let it go for weeks, hoping he would say something. But never a word.
MARGARET
He loved you so. How he must have suffered!
ROGER
Yes, I suppose he did suffer. But if he cared so for me why did he try to
keep it hidden, the one thing I would hate most?
MARGARET
That was his way. It made him ashamed.
ROGER
Well, he couldn't keep it dark forever. Mother almost found out.
MARGARET
Almost found out?
ROGER
Yes. So of course I stepped in. We had a frightful row.
MARGARET
When was that?
ROGER
Six months ago. I got him clear. It was hard--this time the woman almost
got him.
MARGARET
Oh!
ROGER
I helped him. But I did it on one condition--that he go to work.
MARGARET
Work? What about his music?
ROGER
That's what he said. But I asked him if he had thought about his music
when he got into these scrapes. He couldn't say a word. So it was all
arranged for him to go into my office, right under my eye, when mother was
taken sick. Then she wanted him to stay near her, so.... And then she
died. And the accident. Well I don't see what more I could have done.
MARGARET
No.... Of course, it wasn't as if you turned against him. And the
office--he was to pay you back that way?
ROGER
Pay me back? Why, if he could, naturally; but that wasn't my idea, that
was only incidental. My idea was to get him into the habit of hard work.
MARGARET
But he always _did_ work!
ROGER
Oh, he worked hard enough. At least he turned out a good deal. But that
was spasmodic--night and day for weeks, and then loafing for weeks more.
That's how he always got into trouble: loafing in between.
MARGARET
Don't you remember how splendid he was the day he had just finished
something? He seemed to have passed out of himself into a shining
humility. It was said of Shelley: _"Sun-treader!"_... Don't you remember?
ROGER
Yes.... Oh hang it! Why couldn't he have been only that! Yes, I remember.
I hoped that six months or so at the office--but no. Anyhow, it's all over
now.
MARGARET
What were you going to say?
ROGER
I suppose I might as well say it: I don't believe the office would have
changed him, after all. That is, permanently. He'd have done his best for
a while, and then--. No, nothing could help him.
MARGARET
Is that what you have made up your mind about?
ROGER
Oh, that. Yes, that's what started me thinking. Everybody has
difficulties, troubles, and I believe in helping a fellow every time. Life
piles up too high against one sometimes, but a little shove from the other
side will move it away. I never believed in the devil take the hindmost,
at all. But this was different.
MARGARET
Different, how? What do you mean?
ROGER
I mean that as long as a fellow's difficulties are outside him you can
help him, because as soon as they are removed he's himself again; but when
they are inside, part of the man himself, there's nothing you can do.
Nothing. You can save a person from the world, but not from himself.
That's where the devil comes in. I see it now. I believe in the devil.
MARGARET
Oh! But _Arthur_....
ROGER
I know you think I'm a brute for speaking of Arthur in connection with the
devil, but it wasn't the old-fashioned devil I meant. I meant the devil of
unfitness. Arthur wasn't _fit_. He had every chance. We can't get away
from what life is. Life shoves people to the wall every day. I've had to
fight hard myself. I admit things aren't fair all round, but Arthur had
his chance, two or three chances, and he just--dropped out. He couldn't
_survive_. And it seems to me that for those who loved him it may be a
good thing after all that he didn't have to go on.
MARGARET
Roger! You shan't say that! You shan't!
ROGER
I don't want to, Margaret, but that's what life itself says. We can't get
behind life. We can't beat evolution and the law of survival.
MARGARET
But his talent, his fine talent--and his exquisite nature!
ROGER
I know. But there it is. It's kinder in the long run to be cruel, if the
truth is cruel. We've got to be true to things as they are.
MARGARET
But take things as they are! He wasn't vicious about--about women, he was
like a child. Of course they got his money, but even so, they weren't all
mere schemers. Some of them were very decent. Why, one of them--
ROGER
What the deuce do _you_ know about them? What about one of them?
MARGARET
She cried. She said she knew it wasn't right, that he couldn't marry her,
but she did like him, and she had children of her own.... I'm sure she was
very tender to him.
ROGER
Who told you? Where did you see her?
MARGARET
_There._
ROGER
There! In my own house?
MARGARET
Yes.
ROGER
How did _she_ get there?
MARGARET
Your mother sent for her.
ROGER
My mother sent for her? Then she knew?
MARGARET
Yes. She knew everything.
ROGER
How?
MARGARET
_He_ told her--Arthur did.
ROGER
Good Lord! I never heard a word of it.
MARGARET
No. They were afraid--afraid you wouldn't understand.
ROGER
Afraid _I_ wouldn't understand? Why, _I_ understood only too well. It was
mother that wouldn't have understood. I'd have cut my hand off rather than
tell her.
MARGARET
Well, she did understand. She understood better than you did. She
understood that part of him hadn't grown up. He was like a boy. He just
walked into things....
ROGER
How did he ever come to tell _her_?
MARGARET
Once when he was sick. Your mother was taking care of him. He blurted it
all out, like a homesick boy.
ROGER
And _she_ understood? Didn't break her heart, and all that?
MARGARET
Oh, it was a shock, naturally. But they talked it all over, and your
mother sent for this woman. I knew. Arthur knew I knew....
ROGER
And mother packed her away without telling me?
MARGARET
Oh, she didn't pack her away. That is, right off.
ROGER
He kept on seeing her? With mother's knowledge?
MARGARET
Yes. Your mother liked her.
ROGER
Well, if women aren't the strangest things!
MARGARET
Yes, they are. Some of them. Fortunately. But you see how wrong you were,
Roger?
ROGER
How was I wrong?
MARGARET
About this unfitness--this survival.
ROGER
On the contrary. It only proves it.
MARGARET
No, it doesn't. I've been thinking, too ... about saving people from
themselves, and all that. You say it's the law of life, and we can't go
beyond life.
ROGER
No, we can't. I still say it.
MARGARET
Then what about your mother? What about all women who--
ROGER
About mother?
MARGARET
Yes. Wasn't her love a part of life? And didn't she keep on loving him in
spite of everything? Is that love blind and foolish--something for your
old evolution to get rid of?
ROGER
I never thought of it. No, of course we don't want to get rid of
_that_--but even so, she didn't save him.
MARGARET
She didn't know about it until lately--thanks to you. If she had known
sooner--and anyhow, you don't know--Of course, she couldn't have saved him
directly. But indirectly ... through another woman--
ROGER
Through another woman?
MARGARET
I mean, supposing there was another woman who loved him--one who could be
to him all he needed, who would understand, and who was all right. One he
could marry.
ROGER
Yes, but--
MARGARET
And supposing this other woman had heard things about Arthur, and was
terribly hurt, and Arthur knew she was, and that's why he kept away; but
your mother talked with her for a long while, and made her understand.
Even sent for _that_ woman--you know. And then this woman, the right one,
did understand, and was ready to marry Arthur....
ROGER
Margaret, are you crying? Are you crying, Margaret? _Margaret, was it
you?_
THE TELEGRAM
_Perron, a stout, middle-aged figure, is seated in front of his
watchmaker's establishment near the Place St. Sulpice. The awning sags,
and the shop wears an air of sober discouragement. Whatever expression the
years have left Perron's round face capable of is concentrated upon the
changing scenes cinematographed to his mind's eye by some strong and
unusual emotion. Alexandre, a tall, stooped man, with a flowing black tie,
bows in passing with old-fashioned punctiliousness to Perron, who
apparently is unaware of his presence. Suddenly Perron starts, rubs his
eyes, and glares about._
PERRON
Alexandre! Alexandre!
ALEXANDRE
Good day, my friend. You seem distraught.
PERRON
Distraught! It was the strangest thing! But sit here with me. Do. I have
something to tell you.
ALEXANDRE
I regret exceedingly, but a stupid engagement.... Later, perhaps--
PERRON
No! No! I insist! Only a great mind like yours can explain the strange
thing which has happened.
ALEXANDRE
Ah, in that case--what is a mere business affair compared with divine
philosophy? Far from being pressé, friend Perron, I have an eternity at
your service.
PERRON
First of all, tell me the exact date!
ALEXANDRE
That I can do, and not on my own authority, which in such details is often
unreliable. This morning my concierge announced with great delicacy and
feeling that to-day is Friday, the fifteenth July, and my rent is once
more due. My rent, which--
PERRON
Friday the fifteenth! Impossible!
ALEXANDRE
Alas. My concierge is of a precision the most meticulous. For all legal,
financial and military affairs, throughout the French Republic at least,
to-day is Friday the fifteenth. But why should this seem impossible to
you, a scientist and a watchmaker?
PERRON
Only listen, and you will understand why I am tempted to doubt the
calendar of the Church itself. Two weeks ago my wife announced to me that
she had reason to expect the due arrival of a son. She said there could be
no question it will be a son because in her mother's family for three
generations it has been the same, three daughters followed by a son.
Eh bien, although I have always desired a son to follow me in this
honorable and scientific profession, nevertheless I received the news
with a certain consternation. In short, my affairs have not gone too well
of late, and without my wife's assistance by her needle....
That evening I thought much how I might increase my funds, and so for two
weeks--two weeks, mon ami--I have omitted my customary café after
dejeuner, which all these years I have not failed to take with a serious
group of friends at the Trois Arts, and even have I smoked no cigarettes.
True, this has not added much to our wealth, though it has been some
satisfaction to realize I have done my possible. My health has suffered
somewhat--I have grown absent-minded, and in the morning my head feels
strange. However, that may not be due entirely to my unnatural abstinence.
However, on Friday the fifteenth July, at three o'clock precisely, as I
sat here in meditation having finished a small work, I saw a telegraph boy
hurry toward me down the street. Then had I a premonition. My heart beat
as it has not these twenty years. In an instant I was reading the message:
my brother, who long ago ran away on adventure to Indo-China, had just
died and left me a fortune in tea.
That was on Friday the fifteenth. And do you know what has happened since?
I have lived two separate lives. Yes, two existences have unrolled before
me. In one I saw myself as I would have been without the telegram. My
business fell away; my son was born a daughter, to my wife's indignation
and my own dismay; and having sold my little shop I sought work in a
cursed factory. Ah me, it was terrible! But the other picture. With my
brother's fortune I made aggrandisements and eventually moved to the Rue
de la Paix. My scientific genius was at last appreciated, and my watches
and clocks became the pride of the haute monde. My son grew into a fine
man, much resembling myself, and after learning the profession opened a
branch office at Buenos Ayres. I won the ribbon. In short, nothing lacked
to make life agreeable and meritorious.
But then it was, just at that point, I came to myself and looking up
recognized my friend the philosopher. Years seemed to have passed--two
separate life times--and startled at finding myself seated in the same
chair and wearing the same clothes, I demanded of you what day it was. And
you answered Friday the fifteenth. How can such a thing be possible?
ALEXANDRE
To think that you, a watchmaker and a petit bourgeois, should experience
what many a saint has died without realizing! I salute you, mystic,
descendent of prophets and seers!
PERRON
But what was it then?
ALEXANDRE
What was it? A mystical experience, an experience of the highest order,
like unto Saint Therese, though in symbols of mundane things. But that is
the fault of the age more than yourself. With more practise your mind will
exhibit even greater power. You must continue in the path. Who knows what
you could do after years of self-denial, when a mere two weeks without
cigarettes have brought you this vision?
PERRON
And without coffee. Don't forget the café! And now that I am rich I shall
never go without it again. No, on the contrary, I shall have at least two,
and on a silver tray.
ALEXANDRE
Do you mean to say you really believe?--But it doesn't matter. Whether or
not the telegram came, the important fact is that you had the vision. It
is for this you must be grateful.
PERRON
Can a philosopher really be such a fool? Of course the telegram came! And
I am grateful!
ALEXANDRE
No. You are the most ungrateful of men. But why mention the telegram? What
matters is whether your vision arose from seeing the telegram or seeing
the telegraph boy? The philosophic truth is the same.
PERRON
Mon dieu! What difference does it make? But I swear I have the telegram,
and it reads just as I told you!
ALEXANDRE
But no! You are ungrateful, and for that I despise you!
PERRON
But yes! And after reading it four times I locked it in my safe. Do I not
_know_ I entered my shop and locked it up?
ALEXANDRE
Yes, and do you not know also that you moved to the Rue de la Paix?
PERRON
Oh! Could it have been--Then I am ruined, and my brother is the most
selfish of men!
ALEXANDRE
But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. In the path shall you grow
steadfast and contented.
PERRON
It doesn't matter!
ALEXANDRE
Not at all. And when you have become reasonable and grateful, I shall
return and speak further with you. I shall devise for you such sacrifice
as shall make the saints but as little children. Au revoir.
(_He turns away. The clock of St. Sulpice tones the half hour. The
watchmaker listens to it with open mouth, and trembling violently, darts
through the door of his shop._)
RAIN
PERSONS
CHARLES EVERITT
MARY, his wife
WALTER, seventeen
ALICE, fifteen
HAROLD, five
_The scene shows a hotel "parlor" in the White Mountains. Beneath the
flashy ugliness of its modern wall paper and upholstery, a certain
refinement persists from an older generation. The room itself is well
proportioned, with a very good hearth. The parlor might once have been the
ball room in a squire's mansion._
_It is about seven o'clock of an August evening, the room feebly lighted
by a flickering acetylene burner. One feels the commencement of rain. A
door to the rear opens and the Everitts enter, the younger children
first._
HAROLD
She didn't give me any toast. I want some toast!
WALTER
A rotten supper!
MRS. EVERITT
Never mind, Harold, you had two cups of that beautiful milk.
ALICE
Of course it was rotten. Everything's second rate here. Ugh! what a musty
smell!
WALTER
I told father we ought to go ahead. The car could have done another six
miles easily. And we'd have reached the Mountain Inn.
ALICE
I'm sure there's a dance there to-night!
EVERITT
The car could _not_ have done the six miles. We were lucky to make that
last hill. You might have had to walk the whole way.
ALICE
Well, we always start too soon or too late. For goodness sake let's at
_least_ have some light. There's no use having it as dark inside as out.
(_Everitt goes about lighting all the burners_)
HAROLD
Hear the rain, rain, rain!
WALTER
It _is_ coming down. I never heard it make so much noise.
MRS. EVERITT
That's because city people never have a roof over their heads!
ALICE
Why, mother, the rain makes your voice vibrate like--
WALTER
Like a fire engine. I stood right by one, once.
MRS. EVERITT
Come, Harold, sit on my lap.
EVERITT
Shall I close the blinds?
ALICE
Yes.
MRS. EVERITT
No, don't. Nobody's about on a night like this.
HAROLD
Wish I could see rain. What it like?
EVERITT
What's what like?
HAROLD
Rain--rain.
ALICE
Like shower baths.
HAROLD
Oh. Mother, tell me story about rain. I _like_ rain! (_Everitt feels about
for his cigar case. A letter falls from his pocket which he picks up
hurriedly_)
EVERITT
I'm going for a cigar.
WALTER
It's like being in a submarine!
HAROLD
Mother, tell me story!
MRS. EVERITT
Once upon a time--
WALTER
I'm going out for a minute.
ALICE
I wish....
HAROLD
Once on a time!
MRS. EVERITT
Oh, yes. Once there was a little girl who lived in the country.
HAROLD
What country?
MRS. EVERITT
A country something like this. She and her mother lived in a little house
beside a brook. The little girl loved to listen to the brook outside her
window at night. One day she asked her mother where the brook went to. She
didn't want _her_ brook to run away. And what do you suppose her mother
said?
HAROLD
What her mother say?
MRS. EVERITT
She said the brook didn't really run away, when it got out of sight across
the fields it turned into rain. So then the little girl was glad whenever
it rained, because she knew it was the little brook coming back to her.
HAROLD
Oh. And is _this_ rain the brook coming back? The little girl's brook?
MRS. EVERITT
The little girl grew up and went away. But it's _some_ little girl's
brook. (_Walter comes in with sticks_)
WALTER
I thought we'd have a fire.
ALICE
Good! Make a big one.
MRS. EVERITT
Now, Harold, mother is going to put you in a nice bed, right under the
roof where the rain-drops whisper and sing. (_She takes Harold out_)
ALICE
Where'd father go?
WALTER
He said he wanted a cigar.
ALICE
He's been a long time.
WALTER
Perhaps he's gone to look at the engine.
ALICE
Walter, what's the matter with them? Last night....
WALTER
I don't know. I heard them, too. It isn't the first time they have
quarreled.
ALICE
It's terrible!
WALTER
Father's got a rotten temper, lately.
ALICE
I thought she wanted him--
WALTER
She did, but he had no business to get so angry about it.
ALICE
But why did she want to change our plans at the last minute and go into
Connecticut? Everything was arranged to come here.
WALTER.
She said he had arranged it without speaking to her. She said--there's
something about it I don't understand.
ALICE
I don't either. I--(_Mrs. Everitt enters_)
WALTER
Did he go to sleep?
MRS. EVERITT