DIVINE: (_Quickly_) You win.
ULSA: Then I love you again.
MR. ICKY: So I’m going to lose my little daughter...
ULSA: You’ve still got a houseful of children.
(CHARLES, ULSA’S _brother, coming out of the cottage. He is dressed
as if to go to sea; a coil of rope is slung about his shoulder and an
anchor is hanging from his neck._)
CHARLES: (_Not seeing them_) I’m going to sea! I’m going to sea!
(_His voice is triumphant._)
MR. ICKY: (_Sadly_) You went to seed long ago.
CHARLES: I’ve been reading “Conrad.”
PETER: (_Dreamily_) “Conrad,” ah! “Two Years Before the Mast,” by
Henry James.
CHARLES: What?
PETER: Walter Pater’s version of “Robinson Crusoe.”
CHARLES: (_To his feyther_) I can’t stay here and rot with you. I
want to live my life. I want to hunt eels.
MR. ICKY: I will be here... when you come back....
CHARLES: (_Contemptuously_) Why, the worms are licking their
chops already when they hear your name.
(_It will be noticed that some of the characters have not spoken for
some time. It will improve the technique if they can be rendering a
spirited saxophone number._)
MR. ICKY: (_Mournfully_) These vales, these hills, these
McCormick harvesters--they mean nothing to my children. I understand.
CHARLES: (_More gently_) Then you’ll think of me kindly, feyther.
To understand is to forgive.
MR. ICKY: No...no....We never forgive those we can understand....We
can only forgive those who wound us for no reason at all....
CHARLES: (_Impatiently_) I’m so beastly sick of your human nature
line. And, anyway, I hate the hours around here.
(_Several dozen more of_ MR. ICKY’S _children trip out of the
house, trip over the grass, and trip over the pots and dods. They are
muttering “We are going away,” and “We are leaving you.”_)
MR. ICKY: (_His heart breaking_) They’re all deserting me. I’ve
been too kind. Spare the rod and spoil the fun. Oh, for the glands of
a Bismarck.
(_There is a honking outside--probably_ DIVINE’S _chauffeur
growing impatient for his master._)
MR. ICKY: (_In misery_) They do not love the soil! They have been
faithless to the Great Potato Tradition! (_He picks up a handful of
soil passionately and rubs it on his bald head. Hair sprouts._) Oh,
Wordsworth, Wordsworth, how true you spoke!
“_No motion has she now, no force;
She does not hear or feel;
Roll’d round on earth’s diurnal course
In some one’s Oldsmobile._”
(_They all groan and shouting “Life” and “Jazz” move slowly toward
the wings._)
CHARLES: Back to the soil, yes! I’ve been trying to turn my back to
the soil for ten years!
ANOTHER CHILD: The farmers may be the backbone of the country, but who
wants to be a backbone?
ANOTHER CHILD: I care not who hoes the lettuce of my country if I can
eat the salad!
ALL: Life! Psychic Research! Jazz!
MR. ICKY: (_Struggling with himself_) I must be quaint. That’s
all there is. It’s not life that counts, it’s the quaintness you bring
to it....
ALL: We’re going to slide down the Riviera. We’ve got tickets for
Piccadilly Circus. Life! Jazz!
MR. ICKY: Wait. Let me read to you from the Bible. Let me open it at
random. One always finds something that bears on the situation.
(_He finds a Bible lying in one of the dods and opening it at random
begins to read._)
“Ahab and Istemo and Anim, Goson and Olon and Gilo, eleven cities and
their villages. Arab, and Ruma, and Esaau--”
CHARLES: (_Cruelly_) Buy ten more rings and try again.
MR. ICKY: (_Trying again_) “How beautiful art thou my love, how
beautiful art thou! Thy eyes are dove’s eyes, besides what is hid
within. Thy hair is as flocks of goats which come up from Mount
Galaad--Hm! Rather a coarse passage....”
(_His children laugh at him rudely, shouting “Jazz!” and “All life
is primarily suggestive!”_)
MR. ICKY: (_Despondently_) It won’t work to-day.
(_Hopefully_) Maybe it’s damp. (_He feels it_) Yes, it’s
damp.... There was water in the dod.... It won’t work.
ALL: It’s damp! It won’t work! Jazz!
ONE OF THE CHILDREN: Come, we must catch the six-thirty.
(_Any other cue may be inserted here._)
MR. ICKY: Good-by....
(_ They all go out._ MR. ICKY _is left alone. He sighs and
walking over to the cottage steps, lies down, and closes his eyes._)
_Twilight has come down and the stage is flooded with such light as
never was on land or sea. There is no sound except a sheep-herder’s
wife in the distance playing an aria from Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony,
on a mouth-organ. The great white and gray moths swoop down and light
on the old man until he is completely covered by them. But he does not
stir._
_The curtain goes up and down several times to denote the lapse of
several minutes. A good comedy effect can be obtained by having_
MR. ICKY _cling to the curtain and go up and down with it.
Fireflies or fairies on wires can also be introduced at this
point._
_Then_ PETER _appears, a look of almost imbecile sweetness on
his face. In his hand he clutches something and from time to time
glances at it in a transport of ecstasy. After a struggle with himself
he lays it on the old man’s body and then quietly withdraws._
_The moths chatter among themselves and then scurry away in sudden
fright. And as night deepens there still sparkles there, small, white
and round, breathing a subtle perfume to the West Issacshire breeze,_
PETER’S _gift of love--a moth-ball._
(_The play can end at this point or can go on indefinitely._)