ALICE. That's your word--but you usually come. Why not last night? You
knew that I wanted to see you very much.
GEORGE. I had something to do. I couldn't get away.
ALICE. Then why not have telephoned to me? Maud had opera tickets given
her--I missed "Tristan," waiting for you.
GEORGE. At last we have the real cause of your bad humor, which is not
on account of my non-appearance but your missing "Tristan und Isolde."
ALICE. You know, George, that that isn't true.
GEORGE. You started this argument--why cry if you are hurt?
ALICE. Cry?
GEORGE. It's the same as crying--and tears, you know how I hate them.
ALICE. Unless they be sprinkled on withered rose leaves, yes!
GEORGE. It's always the same thing; you constantly insult my taste and
brain.
ALICE. No, not your real taste and brain--they are fine and great. I
only insult the veneer. I try to show you yourself,--this part I will
save for you and sometime return to its owner intact.
GEORGE. Save?--how can you save something which you have never had?
ALICE. That is my affair.
MAUD (from the tea table, her voice raised in an exciting discussion).
Bernard Shaw--
GEORGE (to himself). Bernard Shaw? (To Alice.) Well, save yourself the
trouble, I will never accept that from anyone--my real self.
(Nervously.) Alice, don't bother about me--I don't want you to, do you
understand?
ALICE (laughs). You dare to command me? Well, let us both play the same
game. Tell me--why didn't you come to see me last night--what did you
do?
GEORGE. I did nothing. I wished to be alone. Solitude and silence
produce great art, I believe.
ALICE. Not when one is our age!
GEORGE. Alice, I don't understand you to-day. For some time I've been
thinking that you were changing; losing the fine sense of appreciation
which you have always had for so many things in life and in art. Now, I
am sure of it.
ALICE. Don't you understand? Well, as I said--solitude is for the aged.
GEORGE. Solitude and silence, two wonderful words. What they call up in
my mind! Solitude for the physical and silence for the mind. It is in
these states that Art flourishes in its greatest form. Art is turning
back to the works of the primitive artists, early Italians principally.
And it is here that it should turn--it should turn back to Art and not
to Nature, which only holds it back. And we who expect to figure in this
new Renaissance must live as our masters, cloistered, alone, removed
from the material, within ourselves--as Angelico or as Fra Filippo
Lippi. For from the cave of Silence comes the flame of creation, and we
who hope to receive a spark of this flame must worship in solitude, as
monks and as nuns.
ALICE (smiling). But have I not heard something about a rope ladder in
connection with Fra Filippo Lippi?
GEORGE. Legends--inventions of the common mind which sometimes are
chronicled by still commoner ones--and thus accepted finally as facts.
ALICE. Truths, I should say.
GEORGE (jumping up). I am going out!
CAMELE (in a boisterous voice). Schopenhauer, I prefer De Mau--(Her
voice is lost as Alice's is heard speaking to George.)
ALICE. Don't run away, George, I want to talk with you. I think that you
are beginning to understand the change in me, the new Alice, let us
say--and I want to make sure of it.
GEORGE (sitting down). No, I do not understand the new Alice.
ALICE. You will not, would not be nearer the truth, I think.
GEORGE. No, I do not is exactly what I mean.
ALICE. I will try again to show you then, George. (She moves closer to
him. George starts to move away from her but changes his mind evidently
and sits still.)
GEORGE. I'm ready for the revelation, Alice. Make it as long as you
like. It will probably be our last real talk together.
ALICE. Why?
GEORGE. Because--because we have nothing in common--this new Alice
pose--I can't think of it as anything else but as a pose--has or will
come between us and break up our friendship.
ALICE. And in breaking up our friendship it will produce something much
finer.
GEORGE. Finer? that is the finest thing in life--friendship.
ALICE. It is the beginning only of the finest thing in life.
GEORGE. Alice, you don't mean to say--Alice!--Lord!--you're not
making--(She blushes and turns away her eyes.)
MAUD (from the tea table). They give "Parsifal" next week. (George tries
to become composed.)
ALICE (speaking across the stage to the group). I know one of the
"Flower Maidens." I get "comps."
(Alice glances at George, who has failed to become composed.)
ALICE (after a pause). George?
GEORGE (weakly). Well?
ALICE. Do you like my pose as you call it?
GEORGE (looking at her). Is it a pose?
ALICE (after they look intently at each other, drops her glance). Yes.
(Meaning no!--and adds more excitedly.) Yes, yes!--I was only acting to
see what you would do. (But she takes his hand.)
GEORGE (noticing it but showing no objection). Alice, what is happening
to us? Here we sit hand-in-hand! It's like bad vaudeville!
ALICE (smiles). I don't know--what do you think?
GEORGE. Don't ask me. I don't understand. I can't think. I don't know.
Perhaps we are about to have a new George!
ALICE (in a suppressed tone). You understand!--a new George--you shall
come to-night!
GEORGE. Yes!
ALICE (looking away but tightening her hold on George's hand). Mine.
GEORGE. What did you say?
ALICE. Oh nothing, nothing.
GEORGE. Alice--to-night. Now, let us go over to the tea table. Maud is
watching us.
ALICE. Do you want to go?
GEORGE (rising from the couch). No.
(Alice rises also, and they both move towards the table, George
following. He carries their cups.)
MAUD. Well, have you been talking magazine--"Azure Adder"?
GEORGE and ALICE. Yes.
ALICE. We were arranging details. We will have all the titles of stories
and poems printed in red. Don't you think that that will be good?
MAUD. Not red, blue I should say.
GEORGE. Well, in some color, red or blue.
MAUD. Blue is the better.
YVONNE (rising). I must be going--is anyone coming my way?
GEORGE. We all must be going, I suppose. I must go to the station and
meet Uncle Billy.
(Yvonne crosses the stage; the door at the back is opened suddenly and
Jack, husband of Camele, is seen.)
CAMELE (starts up from the tea table and looks frightened, saying in a
whisper to George). Hide my suit case.
JACK (in the door-way). Oh, I beg your pardon--is Vivian in?
ALICE. Hello, Jack--come in. Vivian is out.
JACK. I wanted to see him. He wishes to rent the studio for several
months, I hear.
ALICE. You can wait for him, we are just about to leave.
JACK (coming down stage, sees Camele at the tea table). Hello, Cam, what
are you doing here?
YVONNE (from the window). What a sun-set! Come and see. (They all,
except Camele and Jack, go to the window.)
CAMELE. Maud asked me to lend her my kimona. She wants to do some
Japanese dances--I brought it to her.
JACK. I didn't know that you were friendly since we were married, Cam. I
was surprised when I saw you.
CAMELE. Don't call me Cam, Jack. Try to call me Camele, here. And make
the "a" long.
JACK. Does it shock them? They make me--(seeing her canvases and paint
box). What are you doing with your canvases and paint box?
CAMELE. I was painting in the park. The canvases--the canvases--oh, I
was taking them to be framed.
JACK. All those?
CAMELE. Yes, it will be cheaper having them all framed at one
time--don't you think?
JACK. I hope so. We are so hard up at present.
CAMELE. Are we? Well, they can wait--the canvases, I mean.
JACK. I must have some clothes.
CAMELE. Again?
JACK. Again? Look at these.
CAMELE (coming close to him). You look all right, I think. (She puts her
hands on his shoulders.)
JACK. Are you ready to go? I'll not wait for Vivian.
CAMELE. Kiss me, Jack.
JACK. What for--what's the matter with you? You look tired and pale.
CAMELE. Nothing--kiss me. (They kiss. Maud, looking back into the room,
sees them. She turns quickly, picks up her hat, puts it on and hurries
out.)
CAMELE. Let us go.
JACK. All right.
CAMELE (putting on her hat). I'm going. (The others come from the
window.)
GEORGE. Yes?
CAMELE. Yes!
JACK. Here's your kimona.
CAMELE. That is for Maud.
ALICE. Where is she?
CAMELE. She went out--she'll be back, I guess.
CAMELE and JACK (moving towards the door). Good-bye!
ALL. Good-bye!
YVONNE (following them). Good-bye.
ALICE and GEORGE. Good-bye.
GEORGE (after a nervous silence). I'll see you to-night, Alice; now I
must go to meet Uncle Billy.
ALICE. Then you can't see me to-night if he is in town. You will have to
arrange about the "Azure Adder."
GEORGE. The "Azure Adder"--my life's work--my magazine. How I do wish to
get it started! Think what it means! A perfect magazine given to the
world after years of darkness. A book perfect in printing, arrangement
and in illustration--as beautiful to look at as a masterpiece of
painting or sculpture. What a standard it will create when it is
published! It will stand alone--nothing but what will suffer when
compared to it. It will be above other publications; above them as a
golden star over a world of night and ignorance--all will be beneath it!
And I who have conceived it will be lost in its splendor. Like a
bumble-bee is lost in a lily of silver. Laboring, laboring on for it to
the end, through old age, perhaps from beyond the grave. What a
life--yes, "Azure Adder," I give to you my time, my energy and my
talents. (He grows more and more excited and is now speaking to
himself.) I will make of you an aesthetic standard, an artistic gauge
and a religion! A new religion whose one and only Goddess will be
Beauty--Beauty veiled, alone and sterile! And we who work for you will
be its first priests--the priests of a new religion! You know what that
means? It always has meant, and will mean in this case, I hope,
martyrdom and perhaps death! Death for our gracious goddess--to whom I
give my mind and my body! Yes, great and awful goddess, they are yours!
(He stands, with his arms outstretched, against the door at the back.)
Do as you will! (In a loud ringing voice.) They are yours forever!!
ALICE (smiling, walks up to him). Thank you.