"Enigma" was first presented at the Liberal Club, New York City, in
1915.
_A man and woman are sitting at a table, talking in bitter tones_.
SHE. So that is what you think.
HE. Yes. For us to live together any longer would be an obscene joke.
Let's end it while we still have some sanity and decency left.
SHE. Is that the best you can do in the way of sanity and decency--to
talk like that?
HE. You'd like to cover it up with pretty words, wouldn't you? Well,
we've had enough of that. I feel as though my face were covered with
spider webs. I want to brush them off and get clean again.
SHE. It's not my fault you've got weak nerves. Why don't you try to
behave like a gentleman, instead of a hysterical minor poet?
HE. A gentleman, Helen, would have strangled you years ago. It takes a
man with crazy notions of freedom and generosity to be the fool that
I've been.
SHE. I suppose you blame me for your ideas!
HE. I'm past blaming anybody, even myself. Helen, don't you realize
that this has got to stop? We are cutting each other to pieces with
knives.
SHE. You want me to go. . . .
HE. Or I'll go--it makes no difference. Only we've got to separate,
definitely and for ever.
SHE. You really think there is no possibility--of our finding some
way?... We might be able--to find some way.
HE. We found some way, Helen--twice before. And this is what it comes
to. . . . There are limits to my capacity for self-delusion. This is
the end.