[_It is night upon the deck of a small schooner, whose sails are
outlined against leaden streaks, commencing to herald the dawn._
_DEA lies extended upon a low couch, beside the chair of URSUS.
In the dim light her form possesses the eternal majesty of
sculpture. From afar the voices of sailors chanting some sad
litany of the sea. URSUS leans back in his chair, looking up into
the face of departing night. GWYMPLANE paces in and out,
anguished with unrest._]
URSUS [_to GWYMPLANE, who hardly heeds him_]
Nothing follows us. It never occurred to them that a man should want
to escape good fortune. They never think to bolt the door when they
have gilded the walls. O, how profitably one can surprise these people
who think the entire world reflects their contemplation of self.
GWYMPLANE
[_Who has not heard the preceding speech at all, comes in,
halting abruptly._]
Life, life. It has suddenly burst its leash--torn in among us like a
mad dog and wounded us, mortally, I think, [_glances at DEA_] O, the
pain, the tragedy that can come out of nonsense. Will Dea live, can
Dea live?
URSUS [_sighing heavily_]
Perhaps, perhaps. How quiet and smiling she looks. There is some great
pathos about her peacefulness as if Heaven were restoring to her
something cruelly lost in this world.
GWYMPLANE
[_Walking over to her couch and wringing his hands._]
My love, my little love.
[_URSUS rising and soothing his agonized posture with a gentle
hand, which GWYMPLANE shakes off._]
GWYMPLANE
Oh, there seems no corner in myself into which I can creep, pull down
the blinds, and shut out those horrible, jeering, grotesque, indecent
processionals that I joined and made last night.
URSUS
My poor son! You threw your body to the jackals for an hour. You
forgot there was a soul in your body to get mangled along with the
rest.
GWYMPLANE
Oh, my soul was not in all that.
URSUS
Most people perish from thinking like you. [_earnestly_] Somewhere in
you is a blinding, transfigured face, struggling up out of the
sprawled, coiling limbs of infinite pasts, yet put it in certain
conditions and it retains its fearful stamp of former bestiality. But
during death, death the last condition we follow, what a likeness unto
God appears upon the features of the worst of us.
GWYMPLANE [_who is too tortured to hear_]
Oh, how can I ever again catch at her lovely virginal hands? [_he
lifts one very gently_] Her hands have the sudden beauty and strange
fragrance of flowers that bloom among shadows. How can I ever press
my lips against them again without bruising their dear shy softness by
this weight of unworthiness I carry within me?
URSUS
Only through hope.
GWYMPLANE
Hope is for people who have not such keen noses as I. I can smell the
decay in myself far too well to go near the person I love with it.
Only to sleep, to sleep, and not have to make my way any more, through
these biting, malicious, stifling memories. How can a man's soul exist
after he knows what sodden morasses the body can clamp him into!
URSUS
Stumbling may teach a man to hold his lantern nearer the ground.
GWYMPLANE
My arms are broken. They cannot hold anything except despair.
DEA [_stirring faintly_]
[_URSUS is immediately at her side and bends over her. GWYMPLANE
stands looking down over the back of her couch._]
How fast we are going! What are we on that is moving so swiftly?
URSUS
We are sailing away, Dea, you, Gwymplane, and I, toward happiness and
safety.
DEA
I have always been happy, until----
[_She puts her hand on her heart. GWYMPLANE winces._]
URSUS [_speaking gently_]
Let me put my hand across your forehead and smooth you back into
dreams as I used to when you were a child. That will be best.
DEA
I wonder, have I not passed what is best. You say that I am on a boat,
but it seems to me I am going somewhere by myself, swiftly, eagerly,
and that I am carrying my love for Gwymplane like a sheaf of lilies
under my arm.
[_GWYMPLANE bends over, whispering her name out of the bursting
anguish of his heart._]
Gwymplane, I feel your breath across my cheek. I feel your tears upon
my face. Oh, why are you crying?
GWYMPLANE
My love, my dear love, there is too much beauty about you. You are an
answer to the last wish of a man's heart that blows him over the gates
of Paradise. Anyone would weep if the face of God were to shine out
suddenly through their prayers.
DEA
Oh, I understand all that. I have felt that so often about you.
[_She puts her hand tenderly on his. Suddenly she raises herself
on her elbow._]
Gwymplane! Ursus! I think--I think I am about to see! There are bright
stretches of colour beginning behind my eyes.
[_She lifts herself into a sitting position, stretching out her
arms. There is a long pause._]
O, I do see, I see!
[_She is looking up into the sky, which is becoming radiant with
streaks of dawn._]
I see a million pale ribbons fluttering through grey vapour. They are
widening into rivers of colour, into vast dazzling spaces and some
divine form is shining through now and sweeping all the darkness away
off the world, with his golden wings.
GWYMPLANE [_turning ecstatically to URSUS_]
I believe she sees.
[_He suddenly cringes away from her, and speaks in a whisper to
URSUS._]
Maybe she will see me at last.
URSUS
She sees the sky of heaven.
[_DEA drops back upon GWYMPLANE'S arm._]
GWYMPLANE [_with anguished apprehension_]
Oh, darling, do you still see? Do not stop speaking. Tell me more.
DEA
I cannot wait, I think, any longer.
GWYMPLANE
My love, then, if you are going before me, [_a strange look passes
over his face--he straightens himself_] just a little before me, will
you let fall some bright flowers from your breast that will make a
track of light for me to follow in, so that we may perhaps waken
together? O, love, how remote your beautiful face is becoming. Do you
even hear me, I wonder.
DEA [_very low_]
I do hear. Gwymplane, come nearer. That night I tried to understand,
but I thought with so much pain that I could not seem to understand.
Now the pain is gone out of any thought and I understand now how
little cause there was for pain.
GWYMPLANE
Beloved.
DEA
I know I am your beloved. Hold me close.
[_He wraps her frantically in his arms._]
I want the blessing of your arms to be the last thing in my life.
[_Suddenly a look of recognition and joy floods her face, and
her eyes seem to follow some divine approach. She murmurs_]:
How beautiful! How right!
[_And fluttering in GWYMPLANE'S arms she is dead. He lays her
gently back, lifts one of her hands, kisses it, looks at her as
if the last agony had been drawn out of his soul, then passes his
hand across his brow, tries to speak, and after a long pause:_]
GWYMPLANE
It appears we have made good our escape.
URSUS [_raising his head from his arms_]
The tide is with us.
GWYMPLANE
We are bound--where?
URSUS
Westward.
GWYMPLANE [_with tenderness_]
Dear Ursus, you were leaving your country and going to face old age
among customs, languages, peoples, strange to you, and to save us from
the talons of a pack of cards.
URSUS
You and I are going now, Gwymplane.
GWYMPLANE
I think I have no more knack for wearing costumes and masks, and I
could not ask human beings to accept me as I am, either inside or out.
Any reality is like a row of knives and each minute drags me backward
and forward across them.
[_He seems to commune upon and decide something within himself.
His voice breaks clearly over a long pause._]
Good-night, Ursus, I am going up into the prow to seek some fresher
air.
[_URSUS sits with his head on his arms, which are resting on
DEA'S coverlet. There is a faint shrill of sighing wind, with the
voices of the sailors rising beneath it, and the ascending sun
commences to throw red bars across the water._
_Suddenly the singing voices cease abruptly and a sailor hurries
in._]
SAILOR
Sir, sir, a man has fallen into the sea!
URSUS
[_Starting out of his lethargy and speaking in a strange, numb
voice._]
Then put the ship about. We return.
SAILOR
Shall we not lower boats and make search for this man--[_he shudders
and crosses himself_] for this man who has fallen into the sea?
URSUS [_half to himself_]
Let a man rest where he has gone by his own will.
_CURTAIN_