MAUD. Still, it seems that we ought to have more people to write for us.
I can think of only a few, one or two, who do good stuff, really fine
things--impressions.
GEORGE. Oh, that will be all right. We have enough material for our
first number. The demand will create the material. We will get plenty of
stuff sent in from unknowns, I think, for our future numbers.
MAUD. If not, we can all write things for it. I know that we all do
write on the quiet while posing as painters! Don't you write, Yvonne?
YVONNE (from window). No, I only paint.
MAUD (with a sneer). But--oh, well--you do read Kipling and Whitman;
that's the reason you don't write, I suppose.
(No answer from Yvonne.)
ALICE (angrily). Maud!
MAUD. Yes, that is what I mean. Art is not the glorification of the
beef-steak! "Good red blood" is what you hear their admirers talking
about principally. "Healthy" is another one of their pet words, also
"men and women." They are all meat--they forget the swaying sea-weed,
the waxen asphodel, the rose which is sick.
GEORGE. Yes, you are right. If they had their way, nothing would remain
but the normal. And as normal beings act usually in a commonplace and
unchanging manner, birth, love, death, literature, would finally lose
all material for existence and both schools would either cease or write
literature about literature. A fine end this would be for their good,
red blood. No fear, though; there are always plenty on the other side,
like us, to make the scales balance, perhaps even tip our way. Meat, the
glorified beef-steak, as you call it, Maud, has had its day. It has made
a good fight throughout the centuries, but it is going, going--and to
us--whom it called abnormal, sick, degenerate, will soon remain the
field--yes, through what it called our weakness we shall conquer!
(Maud leans forward. Alice looks hurt. Maud is about to speak when a
knock is heard at the door.)
MAUD. I'll go. (Goes and opens the door.) Camele! (She embraces and
kisses Camele in the door-way.) Camele!
(They come down to Alice and George. Camele is carrying canvases,
painting materials, a kimona and a suit case.)
ALICE and GEORGE. Hello!
GEORGE. Let me take some of your things. (Takes her suit case.) Lord,
how heavy!
CAMELE (sinking upon the couch). Heavy--I have everything in it that I
own. I couldn't stand it any longer--last night it reached a
climax--it's all over, my married life--all over, girls! I've left Jack!
Last night he struck me! (Sobs.)
MAUD (to George). The glorified beef-steak variety--how common!
GEORGE. Common, perhaps. (To himself: One can strike a woman for lots of
reasons.)
(Yvonne comes from the window.)
ALICE. Poor Camele--lie down. Let me take off your hat.
YVONNE. What can we give her? Let us make some tea.
MAUD. Yes, do. You and Alice make tea. I'll sit with her a while.
(George, Alice and Yvonne busy themselves making tea at the extreme
right, leaving Camele and Maud at the extreme left, on the couch. No one
speaks for a moment.)
MAUD (sitting at Camele's head strokes her hair). Poor girl.
CAMELE. Maud?
MAUD. Yes, dear.
CAMELE. You were right; Jack is a brute.
MAUD. All men are.
CAMELE. So you have often said, but I thought that he was different.
MAUD. Brutes, beasts.