THE ANGEL
THAT TROUBLED
THE WATERS
[Illustration: Decorative fleuron]
_THE ANGEL
THAT TROUBLED
THE WATERS_
AND OTHER PLAYS
BY
THORNTON WILDER
AUTHOR OF
“THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY,”
“THE CABALA,”
ETC.
[Illustration: Decorative colophon]
PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK
BY COWARD-McCANN, INC.
IN THE YEAR MCMXXVIII
COPYRIGHT, 1928
BY COWARD-MCCANN, INC.
[Illustration: Decorative fleuron]
_Second Printing_
TYPOGRAPHY BY S. A. JACOBS
PRINTED AT THE VAN REES PRESS
NEW YORK, N. Y., U. S. A.
¶ All rights in these plays are reserved by the Publishers and no
production of any sort is allowed without authorization from the
Publishers
[Illustration: Decorative fleuron]
[Illustration: Decorative page header]
_CONTENTS_
CHAPTER PAGE
I. FOREWORD xi
II. NASCUNTUR POETÆ 19
III. PROSERPINA AND THE DEVIL 27
IV. FANNY OTCOTT 33
V. BROTHER FIRE 43
VI. THE PENNY THAT BEAUTY SPENT 51
VII. THE ANGEL ON THE SHIP 59
VIII. THE MESSAGE AND JEHANNE 67
IX. CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME 75
X. CENTAURS 83
XI. LEVIATHAN 91
XII. AND THE SEA SHALL GIVE UP ITS DEAD 99
XIII. NOW THE SERVANT’S NAME WAS MALCHUS 107
XIV. MOZART AND THE GRAY STEWARD 117
XV. HAST THOU CONSIDERED MY SERVANT JOB? 129
XVI. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT 137
XVII. THE ANGEL THAT TROUBLED THE WATERS 145
_FOREWORD_
It is a discouraging business to be an author at sixteen years of age.
Such an author is all aspiration and no fulfillment. He is drunk on
an imaginary kinship with the writers he most admires, and yet his
poor overblotted notebooks show nothing to prove to others, or to
himself, that the claim is justified. The shortest walk in the country
is sufficient to start in his mind the theme, the plan and the title,
especially the title, of a long book; and the shortest hour when he
has returned to his desk is sufficient to deflate his ambition. Such
fragments as he is finally able to commit to paper are a mass of
echoes, awkward relative clauses and conflicting styles. In life and
in literature mere sincerity is not sufficient, and in both realms the
greater the capacity the longer the awkward age. Yet strange lights
cross that confusion, authoritative moments that all the practice of
later maturity cannot explain and cannot recapture. He is visited by
great depressions and wild exhilarations, but whether his depressions
proceed from his limitations in the art of living or his limitations
in the art of writing he cannot tell. An artist is one who knows how
life should be lived at its best and is always aware of how badly he is
doing it. An artist is one who knows he is failing in living and feeds
his remorse by making something fair, and a layman is one who suspects
he is failing in living but is consoled by his successes in golf, or in
love, or in business.
Authors of fifteen and sixteen years of age spend their time drawing
up title-pages and adjusting the tables of contents of works they have
neither the perseverance nor the ability to execute. They compass
easily all the parts of a book that are inessential. They compose
dignified prefaces, discover happy quotations from the Latin and the
French, and turn graceful dedications. This book is what is left of one
of these projects.
The title was to have been _Three-Minute Plays for Three Persons_. I
have lately found one of my early tables of contents for it, written in
the fly-leaves of a First Year Algebra. Quadratics in those days could
be supported only with the help of a rich marginal commentary. Usually
these aids to education took the shape of a carefully planned repertory
for two theaters, a large and a small. Here my longer plays were to
alternate with _The Wild Duck_ and _Measure for Measure_ and were cast
with such a roll of great names as neither money nor loyalty could
assemble. The chapter on Combinations and Permutations ended short by
several inches, and left me sufficient space to draw up a catalogue
of all the compositions I had heard of that were the work of Charles
Martin Loeffler. This list of _Three-Minute Plays_ was drawn up in
Berkeley, California, in the spring of 1915. It contains several that
have since been rejected, two that are in the present volume, “Brother
Fire” and “Proserpina and the Devil”, and the names of many that were
unwritten then and that still, through the charm of their titles, ask
to be written.
Since then I have composed some forty of these plays, for I had
discovered a literary form that satisfied my passion for compression.
Since the time when I began to read I had become aware of the needless
repetition, the complacency in most writing. Who does not know the
empty opening paragraphs, the deft but uninstructive transitions, and
the closing paragraphs that summarize a work and which are unnecessary
to an alert reader? Moreover, their brevity flatters my inability to
sustain a long flight, and the inertia that barely permits me to write
at all. And finally, when I became a teacher, here was the length that
could be compassed after the lights of the House were out and the sheaf
of absurd French exercises corrected and indignantly marked with red
crayon. In time the three minutes and the three persons became a habit,
and no idea was too grandiose--as the reader will see--for me to try
and invest it in this strange discipline.
There were other plans for this book. There was to have been a
series of Footnotes to Biographies, suggested by Herbert Eulenberg’s
_Schattenbilder_, represented here by the Mozart, the Ibsen, and the
St. Francis plays. There were hopes of a still more difficult series.
Dürer’s two sets of woodcuts illustrating the Passion were to serve
as model for a series of plays that would be meditations on the last
days of Our Lord. Two of them are in this book. There was to have been
a series illustrating the history of the stage, and again, two of them
are in this book. How different the practice of writing would be if one
did not permit oneself to be pretentious. Some hands have no choice:
they would rather fail with an oratorio than succeed with a ballad.
During the years that these plays were being written I was reading
widely, and these pages are full of allusions to it. The art of
literature springs from two curiosities, a curiosity about human
beings pushed to such an extreme that it resembles love, and a love
of a few masterpieces of literature so absorbing that it has all the
richest elements of curiosity. I use the word _curiosity_ in the French
sense of a tireless awareness of things. (It is too late to arrest
the deterioration of our greatest English words. We live in an age
where _pity_ and _charity_ have taken on the color of condescensions;
where _humility_ seems to mean an acknowledgment of failure; where
_simplicity_ is foolishness and _curiosity_ is interference. To-day
_hope_, and _faith_ itself, imply a deliberate self-deception.) The
training for literature must be acquired by the artist alone, through
the passionate assimilation of a few masterpieces written from a
spirit somewhat like his own, and of a few masterpieces written from
a spirit not at all like his own. I read all Newman, and then I read
all Swift. The technical processes of literature should be acquired
almost unconsciously on the tide of a great enthusiasm, even syntax,
even sentence-struction; I should like to hope, even spelling. I
am thinking of some words of Renan commenting in the _Souvenirs
d’Enfance et de Jeunesse_ upon his education: “_Pour moi, (je) crois
que la meilleure manière de former des jeunes gens de talent est de
ne jamais leur parler de talent ni de style, mais de les instruire
et d’exciter fortement leur esprit sur les questions philosophiques,
religieuses, politiques, sociales, scientifiques, historiques; en un
mot, de procéder par l’enseignement du fond des choses, et non par
l’enseignement d’une creuse rhétorique._”
The last four plays here have been written within a year and a half.
Almost all the plays in this book are religious, but religious in
that dilute fashion that is a believer’s concession to a contemporary
standard of good manners. But these four plant their flag as boldly as
they may. It is the kind of work that I would most like to do well, in
spite of the fact that there has seldom been an age in literature when
such a vein was less welcome and less understood. I hope, through many
mistakes, to discover the spirit that is not unequal to the elevation
of the great religious themes, yet which does not fall into a repellent
didacticism. Didacticism is an attempt at the coercion of another’s
free mind, even though one knows that in these matters beyond logic,
beauty is the only persuasion. Here the schoolmaster enters again. He
sees all that is fairest in the Christian tradition made repugnant to
the new generations by reason of the diction in which it is expressed.
The intermittent sincerity of generations of clergymen and teachers
have rendered embarrassing and even ridiculous all the terms of the
spiritual life. Nothing succeeds in dampening the aspirations of the
young to-day--who dares use the word “aspiration” without enclosing it,
knowingly, in quotation-marks?--like the names they hear given to them.
The revival of religion is almost a matter of rhetoric. The work is
difficult, perhaps impossible (perhaps all religions die out with the
exhaustion of the language), but it at least reminds us that Our Lord
asked us in His work to be not only as gentle as doves, but as wise as
serpents.
THE DAVIS HOUSE
LAWRENCEVILLE, N. J.
_June, 1928._
_NASCUNTUR POETÆ_ ...
_We are gazing into some strange incomprehensible painting of Piero
di Cosimo; a world of pale blues and greens; of abrupt peaks in
agate and of walled cities; of flying red stags with hounds at
their throats; and of lions in tears beside their crowns. On the
roads are seen traveling companies, in no haste and often lost in
contemplation of the sky. A boy sits on a rock in the foreground.
He is listening to the words of a woman dressed in a chlamys that
takes on the color of the objects about her._
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
In a far valley, boy, sit those who in their lifetime have possessed
some special gift of eye or ear or finger. There they sit apart,
choosing their successors. And when on the winds toward birth the souls
of those about to live are borne past them, they choose the brighter
spirits that cry along that wind. And you were chosen.
THE BOY
For what gift, lady, did the choice fall? Am I to mould in clay, or
paint? Shall I sing or mime, lady? What choice fell on me and from what
master?
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
It is enough to know that you were chosen.
THE BOY
What further remains to be done? You have poured on my eyes and ears
and mouth the divine ointment; you have laid on my tongue the burning
ember. Why do we delay?
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
Be not so eager for life. Too soon you will be shaken by breath; too
soon and too long you will be tossed in the tumult of the senses.
THE BOY
I am not afraid of life. I will astonish it. Why are we delaying?
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
My sister is coming now. Listen to her.
[_The woman in the chlamys withdraws and gives place to her
sister whose feet stir not the shells upon the path. She wears
a robe of deep and noble red and bears in her hands a long
golden chain hung about with pendants. Her face is fixed in
concentration and compassion, like the face of one taking part
in a sacrifice of great moment._]
THE BOY
All is ready. What do you come to do?
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
My sister has given you the gifts of pride and of joy. But those are
not all.
THE BOY
What gifts remain? I have been chosen. I am ready.
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
Those gifts are vain without these. He who carries much gold stumbles.
I bring the dark and necessary gifts. This golden chain....
THE BOY
[_With mounting fear._]
Your face is shadowed. Draw back, take back all the gifts, if I must
accept these also.
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
Too late. Too late. You had no choice in this. You must bow your head.
THE BOY
I am trembling. My knees are hot with my tears.
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
Since only tears can give sight to the eyes.
[_She drops the chain about his neck._]
THE BOY
Then am I permitted to know the meaning of these pendants?
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
This is a tongue of fire. It feeds upon the brain. It is a madness that
in a better country has a better name.
THE BOY
These are mysteries. Give them no names.
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
This is a leaf of laurel from a tree not often plucked. You shall know
pride and the shining of the eyes--of that I do not speak now.
THE BOY
And this, lady?
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
That is a staff and signifies the journey that awaits you your life
long; for you are homeless.
THE BOY
And this ... this is of crystal....
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
That is yours alone, and you shall smart for it. It is wonderful and
terrible. Others shall know a certain peace and shall live well enough
in the limits of the life they know; but you shall be forever hindered.
For you there shall be ever beyond the present a lost meaning and a
more meaningful love.
THE BOY
Take back the chain. Take back your gifts. Take back life. For at its
end what can there be that is worth such pain?
THE WOMAN IN DEEP RED
[_Slowly drawing back into the shadow of the wood._]
Farewell, child of the muses, playfellow in the bird-haunted groves.
The life of man awaits you, the light laughter and the misery in the
same day, in the selfsame hour the trivial and the divine. You are to
give it a voice. Among the bewildered and the stammering thousands you
are to give it a voice and to mark its meaning. Farewell, child of the
muses, playfellow in the bird-haunted....
[THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS _returns_.]
THE WOMAN IN THE CHLAMYS
You must go now. Listen to that wind. It is the great fan of time that
whirls on the soul for a season.
THE BOY
Stay a moment. I am not yet brave.
[_She leads him into a grotto and the young soul and his chain are
lost in the profound shade._]
_PROSERPINA AND THE DEVIL_
A PLAY FOR MARIONETTES
_A puppet-show has been set up in Venice_, 1640 A.D. _The characters
of this play are its manager and two manipulators; the puppets
are_ DEMETER, PROSERPINA, HERMES and DÎS.
THE MANAGER
[_Winningly._]
Citizens and little citizens! We are going to give you a delicious
foretaste of our great performance this afternoon, to which the whole
world is coming. This is a pantomime about how a beautiful girl named
Proserpina was snatched away by the Devil; and how her mother searched
for her over all the hills of the world; and how at last she was able
to bring her back to the earth for six months out of every year.
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
[_Behind the scenes._]
Let go them strings.
THE MANAGER
At our great performance this afternoon this same play will be given
_with words_; and besides it the story of the brave Melusina and her
wanderings when she was driven out of Parma.
THE SECOND MANIPULATOR
[_His voice rising in anger._]
You don’t have to show me!
THE MANAGER
On with the play!--but don’t forget to bring your rich aunts this
afternoon.
[_To the Manipulators._]
Hurry through with it. I’m off for a cup of wine.
[_The curtain rises with indecent haste and shows the underworld.
The rivers Styx and Acheron have been replaced by a circular
piece of cloth, sulphur-colored, with waves delicately
embroidered about the margin. This is the Lake of Wrath and
in it are seen floating arms and legs--all that are left,
alas, of great puppets_, ABRAHAM, PENELOPE _and_ JEPHTHA’S
_daughter_, MIDAS _and_ HARLEQUIN. _Beside the lake_ PROSERPINA
_is straying, robed in bluish black as one anticipating grief_.
PLUTO--_now a medieval Satan--is stealthily approaching her.
Suddenly_ PROSERPINA _throws up her arms, runs to him and
buries her face in his scarlet bosom_. NOAH’S ARK--_mutely
protesting against the part it must play, with all its
Christianized animals within it, of_ CHARON’S _barge--is
lowered from the proscenium and the curtain falls_.]
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
[_Sotto voce._]
Beard of Medusa! You made her run in the wrong direction: the hussy
courted death. Didn’t I tell you he was to chase her three times around
the lake?
THE SECOND MANIPULATOR
[_Sulkily._]
I don’t care. A person can’t tell which is his right hand and which is
his left in this place.
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
Here, you let me take her; you take the Devil.--Got the orange?
[_When the puppets are next seen_ PROSERPINA _is exhibiting grief
in pantomime. Her lord with affectionate gestures urges her to
eat of a yellow pomegranate. Sadly she puts it to her mouth.
With an odd recollection of the Garden of Eden, she tempts him
into eating the remaining half. They go out cheerlessly._]
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
All right for that. Now I’ll take the mother and the Devil. You take
the other fellow and the daughter.
[DEMETER, _a handsome Italian matron in a wide gown of brocade,
enters with her arms outstretched. At her elbow_ HERMES, _the
Archangel Gabriel, guides her through the Lake of Perdition_.
PROSERPINA _and her husband return and throw up their hands in
amazement. Again the frantic girl runs in the wrong direction
and casts herself into the arms of Satan._ DEMETER _tries to
draw her away, but a matter of pins and hooks-and-eyes prevents
her rescue_.]
THE FIRST MANIPULATOR
Oh, you Gazoon! You lack-eyed Silenus! Your hands are nothing but feet.
THE SECOND MANIPULATOR
The Devil take your show and you with it.
[_The altercation behind the scenes grows out of bounds and one
blow knocks down the stage. The Archangel falls upon the
pavement and is cherished by gamins unto the third generation;
the Devil rolls into the Lake_; PROSERPINA _is struck by a
falling cloud, and lies motionless on her face_; DEMETER _by
reason of the stiffness of her brocade stands upright, viewing
with staring eyes the ills of her daughter_.]
_FANNY OTCOTT_
_That great actress_, MRS. OTCOTT, _an actress in the tradition of
the Siddons, the Oldfield, Bracegirdle, O’Neill, is spending a
quiet month in Wales. We do not see the cottage; we do not even
see the mountains, but there is a stretch of lawn on whose gentle
slope there stands an ancient round tower overgrown with ivy. In
the shadow of this Arthurian monument_ MRS. OTCOTT _has placed a
table whereon she is sorting old engravings, playbills, letters,
contracts, ribbons--in short, her past. She is still the handsome,
humorous, Irish soul from whom every item out of the old trunks
exacts its exclamation, its gesture, its renewed indignation or
pleasure. She is attended by a blackamoor boy in livery, half
asleep against a flower-pot._
MRS. OTCOTT
Sampson! Tay!
SAMPSON
[_Springing up._]
Yes, mam. Wid or widout a streak o’ cream?
MRS. OTCOTT
Widout. And Sampson, tell Pence I am not at home. Not even to the one
in the yellow curls, or to the good black beard. And if they seem to
know that I am at home, tell them ... that I have gone up the tower,
or that I have the vapors.
SAMPSON
You wants tea widout, and tell Mrs. Pence you don’t want to see none of
de gentlemen from de Village Inn,--dat you has de vapors.
MRS. OTCOTT
There! Do you see that, Sampson? I wore that the night the King dined
with me on the stage.
SAMPSON
[_His eyes as big as soup-plates._]
King ... James!
MRS. OTCOTT
[_Shuddering._]
No, stupid--Charles.--Go away!--This afternoon I shall devote to
another woman, to another and a different woman and yet to myself, to
myself, to myself.
SAMPSON
I’ll tell Mrs. Pence.
[_He goes out._ MRS. OTCOTT _picks up a packet of letters. One
look, tosses them away, then rises muttering, goes and stamps
on them and laughs. She returns to pick up a playbill and reads
the heading with glistening eyes_: “FANNY OTCOTT _as Faizella
in the ‘Princess of Cathay.’ First time.” She strides about
lost in thought. She almost walks into a gentleman who has
entered through the hedge. He is wearing a black hat and cape,
and has a serious worn face._]
ATCHESON
Your servant, Mrs. Otcott.
MRS. OTCOTT
[_Thunderstruck._]
Why, _no_! Yes! By the garter, it is George Atcheson. Oh! Oh! Oh!
ATCHESON
I do not disturb you, Mrs. Otcott? I ... I came to discuss a thing that
is very serious to me.
MRS. OTCOTT
[_Suddenly very pleased._]
Everything is--sit down, my friend. You always were very serious.
That’s why you made such a bad Hamlet. Delay your serious talk, George,
and tell me about the women you have loved since you loved me, and
confess that I finally made them all unendurable to you.
ATCHESON
You misunderstand me, Mrs. Otcott....
MRS. OTCOTT
[_Loudly._]
Fanny.
ATCHESON
Ah ... Fanny?
MRS. OTCOTT
All you need is a little coaxing. Well, George, a woman drove you on
to the stage when you were preparing for the Church, and a woman drove
you off, and it was my greatest service to the stage. Look, George, you
remember me as Faizella in the _Princess of Cathay_. I never did better
than that. Great Rufus, you played opposite me in it. Look!
ATCHESON
Perhaps you remember.... I lost consciousness....
MRS. OTCOTT
Ah yes! The pale divinity student fainted. Oh! George, you were
the first of my lovers. No, it wasn’t love, perhaps, but it was
beautiful. It was like hawthorn-buds and meadow-larks and Mr. Handel’s
Water-music. And since, I have never ceased searching for love. Perhaps
love strikes the first time or never at all. Then I was too much in
love with my work. And oh, George, how young we were! But you were
very dear to me in the old garret, and I’m sorry to see you’re growing
stout, for it’s one more reminder that I shall probably live and die
without having known the lightning of love.
[_She sits down with a great flow of silken draperies and shakes
her head at him ruefully._]
ATCHESON
I have come to discuss our ... our association....
MRS. OTCOTT
Thunder and Hell! don’t you call that an association!
ATCHESON
... but my view of it is very different.
[_Her shoe commences to mark time nervously on the turf._]
After my retirement from the Stage I resumed my theological studies,
and I am now Bishop of Westholmstead.
[_The shoe is now motionless._]
None of my friends know of that ... that experience in my life, but
it has always remained as a bitter ... as a distressing spot in my
conscience.
MRS. OTCOTT
[_After a pause, very rapidly._]
I see, you want to make a clean breast of the perilous stuff. You want
to make a public confession, probably. You are married?
ATCHESON
Yes.
MRS. OTCOTT
You have several sons probably?
ATCHESON
Yes.
MRS. OTCOTT
And you lie awake nights, saying: Hypocrisy, hypocrisy.
[_Pause._]
Well, make your confession. But why consult me?
ATCHESON
I have followed your course, madam, and seen the growing admiration
your art commands in Court,--I might almost say in the Church.
MRS. OTCOTT
You do not suppose that that revelation would cast any deeper shadow
on the good name of Fanny Otcott, such as it is. Remember, George,
the months you call sinful. It wasn’t love, perhaps, but it was grace
and poetry. The heavens rained odors on us. It was as childlike and
harmless as paintings on fans. I was a girl tragedienne reciting verses
endlessly before a mirror and you were a young student who for the
first time had seen a young girl braid her hair and sing at her work.
Since then you have learned long names from books and heard a great
many sneers from women as old as myself. You have borrowed your ideas
from those who have never begun to live and who dare not.
ATCHESON
[_His head in his hands and his elbows on his knees._]
I do not know what to think. Your reasoning is full of perils.
MRS. OTCOTT
Go away and tell your congregations what you please. I feel as though
you were communicating to my mind some of those pitiable remorses
that have weakened you. I have sinned, but I have not that year on my
conscience. It is that year and my playing of Faizella that will bring
troops of angels to welcome me to Paradise. Go away and tell your
congregations what you please.
ATCHESON
You give me no help in the matter, Mrs. Otcott.
MRS. OTCOTT
Go away. In the name of Heaven, go!
[_Crooked with doubt and hesitation, the Bishop of Westholmstead
goes out through the hedge. For a few moments_ MRS. OTCOTT
_sits on the table, swinging one foot and muttering savagely in
an imaginary conversation_.]
[_Reënter_ SAMPSON _with a tray_.]
SAMPSON
Three gentlemen waited on you from de Village Inn, but Mrs. Pence sent
dem away. She said you was up de tower, mam.
MRS. OTCOTT
[_Showily._]
Go call them back, Sampson. Tell them I have come down from de tower.
Bring up the best box of wine, the one with my picture painted on it. I
shall be young again.
_BROTHER FIRE_
_A hut in the mountains of Northern Italy._ ANNUNZIATA, _a peasant
woman, is preparing the evening meal over the fire. Her daughter_,
ISOLA, _about eight years of age, is playing beside her_.
ANNUNZIATA
Now, now! Not so near. One of these days you’ll be falling into the
fire and there’ll be nothing left to tell us about you but your shoes.
Put them on and get out the bowls for supper.
ISOLA
I like to play with the fire.
ANNUNZIATA
What a thing to say!
ISOLA
I’d like to let my hair into it, gently, gently, gently, gently.
ANNUNZIATA
Don’t you hear me tell you it’s a wicked thing?
ISOLA
Brother Francis says it’s our brother, and one of the best things in
the world.
ANNUNZIATA
Tchk, Tchk! What makes the starling sing in his cage all of a sudden?
ISOLA
It’s Brother Francis himself looking at us.
ANNUNZIATA
Tell him to come in and have some supper.
ISOLA
Come in, my mother says, and have some supper.
[FRANCIS _appears at the door. He blesses the house._]
BROTHER FRANCIS
I can very well go on to my own supper and need not lighten your kettle.
ANNUNZIATA
Come in, Brother Francis. What you take will not even make a new ring
around the kettle. Besides, I see you have been up to the top of the
mountain again. You are cold and wet. Come and sit by the fire.
BROTHER FRANCIS
Yes, I have been up to the very top since yesterday, among the rocks
and the birds in the rocks. Brother Wind was there and Sister Rain was
there, but Brother Fire was not.
ANNUNZIATA
Now you sit by him, Isola, while I get some more wood; but don’t ask
him any questions. Now, Brother, put this fur skin across your knees.
[_She goes out._]
ISOLA
What did you do, Brother Francis?
BROTHER FRANCIS
I watched and waited to see what they would let me see. For a long
while there was nothing; then they nodded to one another, meaning that
it was permitted to me. I watched seven stars closely. Suddenly they
turned and fled inwards, and I saw the Queen of Heaven leading forth
her company before all the shipwrecked seamen of this world.--However,
do not tell thy mother, for she believes in no one’s miracles but her
own.
ISOLA
My mother says the fire is a wicked thing.
BROTHER FRANCIS
[_Turning._]
What, Sister Annunziata, how can you say that?--Why, what would cook
your broth, what would keep you warm? And when you return from the
mountain-tops, what else shines out from all the friendly windows of
the world? Look at its flames, how they lean towards us!
ISOLA
It says: Give me something to eat. Give me something to eat.
BROTHER FRANCIS
[_Excitedly._]
Yes, yes. Its warmth is a kind of hunger. I have a love for all things
in fur, feathers and scales, but I have not less a love for the fire
that warms us.
[_He edges the cloak into the fire._]
Look how it reaches for it. Wicked? Wicked? Never.
ISOLA
But, Brother Francis, it will ... it will....
[_The flames suddenly seize the cloak._ FRANCIS _rises, wrapped in
fire_.]
Brother Francis, you are on fire! Mother, mother!
[_She rushes from the hut and returns with her mother._ ANNUNZIATA
_snatches the fur from_ BROTHER FRANCIS _and throws it into the
hearth_.]
BROTHER FRANCIS
[_Still standing ecstatically with lifted hands._]
Eat, Brother Fire. I knew you wanted this. I knew that you loved me too.
[_He looks about him; then ruefully to_ ANNUNZIATA.]
Sister, you have spoiled his supper.
ANNUNZIATA
[_With somber and averted face._]
I do not know what you mean. Here is your bowl of broth. Sit down and
eat it.
BROTHER FRANCIS
Sister, do not be angry with me.
ANNUNZIATA
[_Breaking out._]
Come now, should we kill everything, the animals for their furs, yes,
and one another, to feed them to the fire? Is it not enough that it
takes our good pine tree by our road? There, that is logic, Brother
Francis.
BROTHER FRANCIS
Bring me not logic, sister. She is the least of the handmaids of Love.
I am often troubled when she speaks.
ANNUNZIATA
Must we give what makes us often warm, for that which makes us warm
only for a moment?
BROTHER FRANCIS
[_Waving his wooden spoon about humorously._]
My mind is strangely light to-night, like the flames that play about
the relics of Saint James. I could wander again through the whole night.
ANNUNZIATA
Where is your mother that she should watch over you? Had I not these
other duties I should leave everything and watch over you myself.
BROTHER FRANCIS
She is in Paradise with a golden crook, leading the flames that died
of hunger in this wicked world. She leads them to pasture on drifts of
dried leaves. Look, Isola, I know that there is flame to burn all evil
in the Lake of the Damned. I do not speak of that now,--but I know also
that fire is at all times useful to the great Blessed. It surrounds
them and they dwell in it. And even now....
[_And so on._]
_THE PENNY THAT BEAUTY SPENT_
_The little heartbreak takes place in a rococo jeweler’s shop in
Paris. The shop is elegantly small and elegantly polished. The few
jewels and the few pieces of brocade are tossed from surface to
surface in a world of glass, from the chandelier to the mirrors
and from the mirrors to the cases. It is Royalty’s own place of
purchase and the great egotistical head is present in bust and in
miniature and on the backs of spoons. The old jeweler, enigmatic
and smiling, is suddenly called to the door by a great clatter.
A girl enters borne on the shoulders of a boy little older than
herself._ LA GRACILE _is thin and pinch-faced, but long penury
has only made her the more elfin. Illness is already writing its
progress in the eyes and on the brow of_ QUINTE, _her husband.
But they are deliciously happy and full of their secrets._ QUINTE
_lifts her onto the counter and draws back_.
LA GRACILE
While you are with me I need never touch the ground. You can carry me
from cushion to cushion.
QUINTE
And on your gravestone will be inscribed: Here lies an exquisite
dancer, she who never touched the ground.
LA GRACILE
And beside mine yours will read: Here lies her husband, the soul of her
life, the sole of her shoes.
THE JEWELER
Mademoiselle is in pain? The feet of Mademoiselle are in pain?
LA GRACILE
[_After she has recovered, with_ QUINTE, _from the whirlwind of
intimate amusement that this preposterous idea has caused
them_.]
No. I am the new dancer. I am La Gracile. Except when I dance I wear
nothing on my feet but little velvet pockets. So when I am not wearing
my practice slippers, my husband carries me about.
THE JEWELER
Oh, you are La Gracile. We have already heard of your great success
last night. The King is delighted with you.
LA GRACILE
[_Shrilly, clapping her hands._]
Yes, yes, yes. I was a great success. Even the King’s favorite, Madame
d’Hautillon, was jealous. She tried to stand on my foot. They call me
the moth of Versailles.
THE JEWELER
And now the King has sent you here to choose a present for yourself.
LA GRACILE
How did you know?
THE JEWELER
The King sends to me for a gift every young lady who pleases him.
Madame d’Hautillon was here last.
LA GRACILE
[_Chattering on._]
I want nothing myself. It is to be for Quinte. A chronometer, please,
that strikes every hour with a gavotte and midnight with a sarabande.
QUINTE
Nothing for me, Claire-Louise. When my cough returns it will shake
every ornament off me, the buttons from my coat, the rings from my thin
fingers. You must have something in pearls.
LA GRACILE
Silly Quinte, I want nothing.
QUINTE
But I suppose.... You must wear something for the King.
LA GRACILE
[_Suddenly under a passing cloud of melancholy, resting her cheek
on his hair, plaintively._]
I do not want a great showy pin on my breast. I want only a little
white daisy from our beloved Brittany, from Grandmother’s field that
had too many stones.
QUINTE
Tell her what you have, Monsieur Jeweler.
THE JEWELER
Mademoiselle will look at this chain? Its art is secret. It is painted
gold, the work of aged nuns in Hamburg.
QUINTE
Oh look, Claire-Louise, this flower for your hair. Many topazes were
splintered to powder on the wheel before this perfect one.
THE JEWELER
Etiquette forbids, Mademoiselle, your buying that; it happens to be the
very thing that Madame d’Hautillon bought for herself.
LA GRACILE
[_Arousing herself, imperiously._]
Have you a little fat chronometer with many jewels in it?
THE JEWELER
[_Proffering a tray._]
The best in Paris.
LA GRACILE
[_Giving one to_ QUINTE.]
That is for you, Quinte, from myself and from the dull King. Like my
thoughts, it will rest on your heart, but long after it is sold as wire
and rust my love will go on in the land where clocks do not mark off
one sad moment from another.
QUINTE
[_With tears._]
Claire-Louise, it can be of no pleasure to me. In a while it will only
please me because it is a little cool in my hot hand.
LA GRACILE
[_Softly, in pain._]
Courage, dearest Quinte, courage.
THE JEWELER
[_Interrupting formally._]
Remember, Mademoiselle, that etiquette demands that you will choose a
present that His Majesty will admire on you.
LA GRACILE
[_Stormily._]
I shall choose what I please.
THE JEWELER
[_Insinuatingly._]
Your life is only to please the King. He has chosen you. By sending you
here he is telling you that.
LA GRACILE
You are mistaken.... But I am only a poor thin dancer that ... that has
worked too hard. Besides, this is my husband.
THE JEWELER
[_Smiling._]
No, Mademoiselle, he is not your husband.
LA GRACILE
[_Jumps down and walks away, weeping bitterly, her little
feet-sacks flopping against the polished floor. She suddenly
turns with blazing eyes._]
I shall run away to Brittany.... I shall scratch his eyes out.
THE JEWELER
[_Smiles at this foolish notion and leans across the counter,
holding towards her a great jewel-encrusted buckle._]
LA GRACILE
[_Wildly._]
Even though all Versailles kill me with steel pins, Quinte shall have
the watch.
[_But he has fallen among the gilt chairs._]
_THE ANGEL ON THE SHIP_
_The fore-deck of the_ NANCY BRAY _lying disabled in mid-ocean. The
figurehead of the ship has been torn from its place and nailed to
the forepost, facing the stern,--back to back, as it were, with
its former position. It is the half-length of an angel bearing
wreaths; she is highly colored and buxom and has flowing yellow
hair. On the deck lie three persons in the last stages of rags and
exhaustion_: MINNA, _the captain’s wife, the remnant of a stout,
coarse woman_; VAN, _the under-cook, a little, sharp youth; and a
fat, old, sleepy member of the crew_, JAMAICA SAM.
VAN
[_Driving the last nail into the figurehead._]
There she is. She’s the new gawd of the Atlantic. It’s only a she-gawd,
but that’s a good enough gawd for a sailor.
MINNA
[_Seated on the deck._]
Us’ll call her Lily. That’s a name like a god’s.
SAM
Youm be quick. Youm say your prayers quick.
MINNA
[_Blubbering._]
Her can’t hear us. Her’s just the old figgerhead we had thirty years.
VAN
Her’s an angel. Her knows everything.
[_He throws himself on his knees and lays his forehead on the
boards. In a hoarse whisper._]
That’s the joss way. We all got t’do it.
[_The others do likewise._]
SAM
Us’ll pray in turns. Us must be quick. There ain’t no more water to
drink, and there ain’t no more sails left to carry us on. Us’ll have to
be quick. Youm begin, Van. Youms a great lad with the words.
VAN
[_With real fanaticism._]
Great Gawd Lily, on the ship “Nancy Bray,” all’s lost with us if you
don’t bring us rain to drink. All the secret water I saved aside is
drunk up, and we got to go over the side with the rest, if you don’t
bring us rain to-day,--or to-morrow. Youm allus been the angel on the
front of this yere ship “Nancy Bray” and you ain’t goin’ to leave us
rot now. I finished my prayer, great gawd Lily. Amen.
MINNA
Great God Lily, I’m the captain’s wife that’s sailed behind you for
twenty years. Many’s the time, great God Lily, that I shined your face
so you’d look spick and span and we sailing into London in the morning,
or into heathen lands. You knows everything, and you knows what I did
to my husband and that I didn’t let him have none of the secret water
that me and Van saved up, and that when he died he knew it and cursed
me and Van to hell. But youms forgiven everything and send us some rain
or bye-and-bye we’ll die and there’ll be no one here prayin’ to you.
This is the end of my prayin’, great God Lily.
VAN
[_Whispers._]
Say Amen.
MINNA
Amen, great God Lily.
SAM
I ain’t goin’ to pray. I’m just a dog that’s been on the sea since I
was born. I don’ know no land eddication.
MINNA
We all got to pray for some rain.
VAN
You got t’say your word, too.
SAM
God forgive me, great God Lily, I’m old Jamaica Sam that don’t never go
ashore. Amen. I’d be drowned, too, only for Van and the captain’s wife
who gave me some of the secret water, so that if they died I could
roll ’em over the side and not leave ’em on the clean deck. Amen. Youms
known my whole life, great God Lily, and how I stole the Portagee’s red
bag, only it was almost empty, and ... and that other thing. Send a lot
of rain and a ship to save us. Amen.
VAN
[_Crawling up beneath the figure and throwing himself full-length,
hysterically._]
You’ve gone and forgiven me everything. Sure you have. I didn’t kill
the captain. The secret water was mine. Save us now, great gawd Lily,
and bring me back to my uncle in Amsterdam and make him leave me his
three coal barges.
MINNA
[_Rocking herself._]
We’m lost. She’ll save Sam, but I’ve done what the gods don’t like.
They’m after me. They’ve got me now.
[_Suddenly staring off the deck._]
Van! Van! Them’s a ship coming to us. Van, look!
[_She falls back crying._]
VAN
Them’s comin’!
SAM
[_Trying to jump up and down._]
It’s the “Maria Theresa Third,” comin’ right at us.
VAN
[_His eye falls on the angel._]
What’ll they say to the figgerhead here?
SAM
[_Sententiously._]
But that’s the great God Lily. Her’s saved us. You ain’t goin’ to do
anything to her?
VAN
[_Starting to beat the angel forward with his hammer._]
They’ll call us heathen, bowin’ down to wood and stone. Get the rope,
Sam. We’ll put her back.
MINNA
[_Frightened._]
But I can’t never forget her and her great starey eyes. Her I’ve prayed
to.
_THE MESSAGE AND JEHANNE_
_The interior of a goldsmith’s shop in the Paris of the Renaissance.
The tops of the windows are just above the level of the street,
and through them we see the procession of shoes, any one of them
a novel or a play or a poem. In the workshop one finds not only
medals and salad forks for prelates, but unexpected things, a
viola d’amore and folios ruled for music._
[TULLIO, _the apprentice, enters from the street and confronts his
master_, CHARLES OF BENICET. TULLIO _stands with his back to
the door and lets his breath out slowly, as one who has just
accomplished a great work_.]
CHARLES
[_Rubbing his hands._]
So you delivered the rings?
TULLIO
Yes, master.
CHARLES
And what did my little brown Jacquenetta say?
TULLIO
She twice read the verse you had written in the ring. Then she looked
at me. Then she looked at the ring. “It is too cold,” she said.
CHARLES
Too cold?
TULLIO
She said: “But ... but I suppose it’s what must go inside a ring!” Then
she kissed the ring and bade me tell you she loved it.
CHARLES
[_Arrested and puzzled._]
Too cold, the verse!--But I’ll make her another. We forget how they
love us. And the other ring? Did you deliver the Graf’s ring to the
Lady Jehanne herself?
TULLIO
Yes, master. Into her very own hand. Her house is very old and in a bad
part of the city. As I crossed the court and stood in the hall a great
German, with fierce eyebrows, came in from the street with me.
CHARLES
Yes, that’s the one she’s to marry.
TULLIO
He asked me loudly what I had there. And I said, a box for the Lady
Jehanne, and that it was for her hand alone, and I ran to the landing
on the stairs. Then she came out herself. He cried out upon her: What
gift was she receiving? And was it from a certain English student at
Padua? And she said: “No, Baron, it is the wedding ring you have sent
me.” And when I gave it to her she went in, very white, and without
speaking to him. Then I went to Jacquenetta’s with the other ring, and
she gave me some supper.
CHARLES
Too cold, the verse! Start putting up the shutters; I must go and see
her.
[_It has been growing darker. Suddenly a pair of shoes, a poem
these, descends from the crowd, and_ TULLIO _opens the door to
a knock. A beautiful lady gives Christian greeting, and a seat
is made for her among the littered chairs. She sits in silence
until_ TULLIO _has lighted the candles and retired_.]
JEHANNE
You are Charles of Benicet, master in precious metals?
CHARLES
_Carolus Benizentius auro argentoque magister_, and composer of music
to God and to such men whose ears He chooses to open.
JEHANNE
You are a composer too?
CHARLES
They are callings like two sisters who have ever their arms about
the other’s neck. When I have made a wedding ring I compose a motet
thereto. The boy who calls to see if the candlesticks are done takes
back with him a Mass.
JEHANNE
[_Without a breath._]
Oh!
CHARLES
Can I serve you with music or with metals?
JEHANNE
You have served me to-day. I am the Lady Jehanne.
CHARLES
Ah, yes! The ring was unsatisfactory? I can make another to-night. I
shall set about it at once.
JEHANNE
No, master. The ring is very beautiful.
CHARLES
[_After a pause, pretending to be embarrassed._]
I am overjoyed that it pleases you.
JEHANNE
[_Suddenly._]
The verses that you put in the rings--where do you find _them_?
CHARLES
Unless there is a special request, my lady, I put in nothing but the
traditional legend: _fidelitas carior vita_.
JEHANNE
[_Without reproach._]
But there are liberties you allow yourself? Master, what meant you when
you wrote within my ring?
CHARLES
My lady!
JEHANNE
[_Giving him the ring._]
Graf Klaus addresses me thus.
CHARLES
[_Reading around the inside of the ring._]
“As the hermit his twilight, the countryman his holiday, the worshiper
his peace, so do I love thee.” It was the wrong ring that was delivered
to you, my lady.
JEHANNE
It has broken my will. I am in flight for Padua. My family are truly
become nothing but sparrows and God will feed them.
_CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME_
_The sun has set over the great marsh, leaving a yellow-brown Flemish
light upon the scene. In the midst of the mire and among the tufts
of iron-grass stands an old round-tower. Its lower narrow door is
of green bronze, scarred with many assaults. Above the door are
two small windows, behind which a gleam seems to come and go._
_In the half-light that hangs over the plain a man in armor stumbles
through the bog to the single step before the door. He is many
times wounded; his blood flows freely to the ground. The knight
blows his horn; the landscape collects itself to listen._
CHILDE ROLAND
I die.... Open the door to me.
[_The landscape laughs, then falls suddenly silent. Presently
its subterranean waters are again heard sucking at buried
tree-trunks._]
I have seen your lights here from a long way off.... You cannot hide
from me now.
[_The marsh becomes animated and fully interested in the stranger.
One of the windows brightens slightly and a girl looks out.
Her voice and manner are strangely detached and impersonal, as
though she had been called away from some absorbing interest,
and were eager to return to it._]
Oh, you are here! Quick, descend to me. All my wounds are flowing. I am
dying of thirst.
THE GIRL
Who are you to issue commands against this tower? Some emperor, surely.
CHILDE ROLAND
My name is written with many another upon the sword of Charlemagne:
that is enough.
THE GIRL
You are some king, perhaps,--driven into the wilderness by your not too
loving subjects?
CHILDE ROLAND
No king, but a friend and soldier of kings.
THE GIRL
Oh! This is some wise counselor. If you are so wise we will quickly
open the door to you.
CHILDE ROLAND
Not wise, but often listened to in grave matters, having a voice equal
with many others.
THE GIRL
[_Utterly untouched, lightly to someone within._]
I do believe this is some sweet singer. Let us bind on our slippers
right quickly and put red wine to his lips, for poets are ever our
delight.
CHILDE ROLAND
I am no singer, but one loving the string and the voice at all times.
Open the door! For the wind is cold on the marsh, and the first
terrible stars are stepping into their chains. Open the door, for my
veins are emptied on your sill.
THE GIRL
[_Leaning far out, while her red hair falls almost to his
shoulders._]
Beat upon the door, Sir Knight. Many things are gained by force.
CHILDE ROLAND
My hands are strengthless.... I am fallen on my knees.... Pity me!
[THE GIRL _laughs pleasantly to her companion within_.]
Reach over the stars to me, Mary, Mother of God. To you I was committed
in my first year, and have renewed yearly my promises. Send from thy
golden mind and thy noiseless might the issue out of this difficulty.
[_A second girl, dark and thoughtful, appears at the other
window._]
THE FIRST GIRL
[_Intimately._]
He is praying now.
THE DARK GIRL
He is a little boy. His thoughts this last hour are returning to his
earliest year.
THE FIRST GIRL
Is it not beautiful that a Knight should think of a little child?
THE DARK GIRL
What brought you here, Knight-at-arms?
CHILDE ROLAND
The battle passed suddenly into the west. This tower was all I could
see. And here I brought my wounds.
THE FIRST GIRL
[_Softly._]
You see he is still able to reason; he reasons very well.
THE DARK GIRL
What led you to think that we could help you?
CHILDE ROLAND
I know your name! All my life I have heard of this tower. They say that
on the outside you are dark and unlovely, but that within every hero
stands with his fellows and the great queens step proudly on the stair.
THE DARK GIRL
And do you believe this?
CHILDE ROLAND
[_After a pause._]
Yes.
[_With sudden fury._]
Open the door! There is a place for me within. Open the door, Death!
THE FIRST GIRL
[_Drawing up her hair languidly._]
He is irresistible, this great man.
CHILDE ROLAND
Oliver! Oliver! Charlemagne! I hear your voices. It is I, Roland,
without, in the dark marsh. My body I cast away for you. My breath I
returned to the sky in your defense. Open the door!...
[_The marsh is a little put out by all this strong feeling. It
lies quiet. The door slowly opens upon a hall full of drifting
violet mists, some of which escape and fade over the marsh. The
girl with the red hair is seen walking away in the hall, her
mocking face looking back over her shoulder. The dark girl,
robed in gray, leans across the threshold extending a chalice
to the Knight’s lips._]
THE DARK GIRL
Take courage, high heart. How slow you have been to believe well of us.
You gave us such little thought while living that we have made this
little delay at your death.
_CENTAURS_
_The usual chattering audience of our theaters is waiting for the
curtains to part on a performance of Ibsen’s_ THE MASTER BUILDER.
_Presently the lights are lowered to a colored darkness, and the
warm glow of the footlights begins again the ancient magic. The
orchestra draws its bows soothingly to a gradual close and files
out gropingly into the rabbit-hutch prepared for it, leaving
perhaps a sentimental viola-player staring upward into the
darkness. Suddenly the curtains are parted by an earnest young
man, who stares into the shadowy audience and starts, with some
difficulty, to address it._
SHELLEY
My name is Shelley. I ... I am told that some of you may have heard
of me, may even know my poems,--or some of my poems. I cannot imagine
what they may seem like to you who live in this world that ... that
is, I have just seen your streets for the first time,--your machines,
your buildings, and especially the machines with which you talk to one
another. My poems must seem very strange in a world of such things.
[_Awkward pause._]
Well, I wanted to say something about this play, but I don’t know how
to put it into words for you. You see, I feel that, in part, I wrote
this play.
[_With sudden relief calling back through the curtains._]
Hilda! Will you help me a moment?
HILDA WANGEL’S VOICE
Yes, I’m coming.
SHELLEY
[_Constrainedly, to the audience._]
A friend of mine.
HILDA
[_Appears in her mountaineering costume of the First Act, carrying
an alpenstock. Vigorously, to the audience._]