Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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ALBERTO. Stop, stop. Respect my feelings, Waiter, as well as the ears of the young lady (he points towards the glass doors). Remember she is an American. (The Waiter, bows and goes into the hotel.)
SIDNEY DOLPHIN and MISS AMY TOOMIS
come out together on to the terrace. MISS AMY supports a well-shaped head on one of the most graceful necks that ever issued from Minneapolis. The eyes are dark, limpid, ingenuous; the mouth expresses sensibility. She is twenty-two and the heiress of those ill-gotten Toomis millions. SIDNEY DOLPHIN has a romantic aristocratic appearance. The tailoring of 1830 would suit him. Balzac would have described his face as plein de poésie. In effect he does happen to be a poet. His two volumes of verse, “Zeotrope and ‘Trembling Ears,” have been recognised by intelligent critics as remarkable. How far they are poetry nobody, least of all Dolphin himself, is certain. They may be merely the ingenious products of a very cultured and elaborate brain. Mere curiosities; who knows? His age is twenty-seven. They sit down at one of the little iron tables, ALBERTO they do not see; the shadow of the trees conceals him. For his part, he is too much absorbed in savouring his own despair to pay any attention to the newcomers. There is a long, uncomfortable silence. DOLPHIN assumes the Thinker’s mask — the bent brow, the frown, the finger to the forehead, AMY regards this romantic gargoyle with some astonishment. Pleased with her interest in him, DOLPHIN racks his brains to think of some way of exploiting this curiosity to his own advantage; but he is too shy to play any of the gambits which his ingenuity suggests. AMY makes a social effort and speaks, in chanting Middle Western tones. AMY. It’s been a wonderful day, hasn’t it?
DOLPHIN (starting, as though roused from profoundest thought). Yes, yes, it has.
AMY. You don’t often get it as fine as this in England, I guess.
DOLPHIN. Not often.
AMY. Nor do we over at home.
DOLPHIN. So I should suppose. (Silence. A spasm of anguish crosses DOLPHIN’S face; then he reassumes the old Thinker’s mask. AMY looks at him for a little longer, then, unable to suppress her growing curiosity, she says with a sudden burst of childish confidence:)
AMY. It must be wonderful to be able to think as hard as you do, Mr. Dolphin. Or are you sad about something?
DOLPHIN (looks up, smiles, and blushes; a spell has been broken). The finger at the temple, Miss Toomis, is not the barrel of a revolver.
AMY. That means you’re not specially sad about anything. Just thinking.
DOLPHIN. Just thinking.
AMY. What about?
DOLPHIN. Oh, just life, you know — life and letters.
AMY. Letters? Do you mean love letters.
DOLPHIN. No, no. Letters in the sense of literature; letters as opposed to life.
AMY. (disappointed). Oh, literature. They used to teach us literature at school. But I could never understand Emerson. What do you think about literature for?
DOLPHIN. It interests me, you know. I read it; I even try to write it.
AMY (very much excited). What, are you a writer, a poet, Mr. Dolphin?
DOLPHIN. Alas, it is only too true; I am.
AMY. But what do you write?
DOLPHIN. Verse and prose, Miss Toomis. Just verse and prose.
AMY (with enthusiasm). Isn’t that interesting. I’ve never met a poet before, you know.
DOLPHIN. Fortunate being. Why, before I left England I attended a luncheon of the Poetry Union at which no less than a hundred and eighty-nine poets were present. The sight of them made me decide to go to Italy.
AMY. Will you show me your books?
DOLPHIN. Certainly not, Miss Toomis. That would ruin our friendship. I am insufferable in my writings. In them I give vent to all the horrible thoughts and impulses which I am too timid to express or put into practice in real life. Take me as you find me here, a decent specimen of a man, shy but able to talk intelligently when the layers of ice are broken, aimless, ineffective, but on the whole quite a good sort.
AMY. But I know that man already, Mr. Dolphin. I want to know the poet. Tell me what the poet is like.
DOLPHIN. He is older, Miss Toomis, than the rocks on which he sits. He is villainous. He is ... but there, I really must stop. It was you who set me going, though. Did you do it on purpose.
AMY. Do what on purpose?
DOLPHIN. Make me talk about myself. If you want to get people to like you, you must always lead the conversation on to the subject of their characters. Nothing pleases them so much. They’ll talk with enthusiasm for hours and go away saying that you’re the most charming, cleverest person they’ve ever met. But of course you knew that already. You re Machiavellian.
AMY. Machiavellian? You’re the first person that’s ever said that. I always thought I was very simple and straight-forward. People say about me that.... Ah, now I’m talking about myself. That was unscrupulous of you. But you shouldn’t have told me about the trick if you wanted it to succeed.
DOLPHIN. Yes. It was silly of me. If I hadn’t, you’d have gone on talking about yourself and thought me the nicest man in the world.
AMY. I want to hear about your poetry. Are you writing any now?
DOLPHIN. I have composed the first line of a magnificent epic. But I can’t get any further.
AMY. How does it go?
DOLPHIN. Like this (he clears his throat). “Casbeen has been, and Moghreb is no more.” Ah, the transience of all sublunary things! But inspiration has stopped short there.
AMY. What exactly does it mean?
DOLPHIN. Ah, there you re asking too much, Miss Toomis. Waiter, some coffee for two.
WAITER (who is standing in the door of the lounge). Si, Signore. Will the lady and gentleman take it here, or in the gardens, perhaps?
DOLPHIN. A good suggestion. Why shouldn’t the lady and gentleman take it in the garden?
AMY. Why not?
DOLPHIN. By the fountain, then, Waiter. We can talk about ourselves there to the tune of falling waters.
AMY. And you shall recite your poetry, Mr. Dolphin. I just love poetry. Do you know Mrs. Wilcox’s Poems of Passion? (They go out to the left. A nightingale utters two or three phrases of song and from far down the bells of the city jangle the three-quarters and die slowly away into the silence out of which they rose and came together.)
(LUCREZIA GRATTAROL has come out of the hotel just in time to overhear Miss Toomis’s last remark, just in time to see her walk slowly away with a hand on SIDNEY DOLPHIN’s arm. LUCREZIA has a fine thoroughbred appearance, an aquiline nose, a finely curved sensual mouth, a superb white brow, a quivering nostril. She is the last of a family whose name is as illustrious in Venetian annals as that of Foscarini, Tiepolo, or Tron. She stamps a preposterously high-heeled foot and tosses her head.)
LUCREZIA. Passion! Passion, indeed. An American! (She starts to run after the retreating couple, when ALBERTO, who has been sitting with his head between his hands, looks up and catches sight of the newcomer.)
ALBERTO. Lucrezia!
LUCREZIA (starts, for in the shade beneath the trees she had not seen him). Oh! You gave me such a fright, Alberto. I’m in a hurry now. Later on, if you....
ALBERTO (in a desperate voice that breaks into a sob). Lucrezia! You must come and talk to me. You must.
LUCREZIA. But I tell you I can’t now, Alberto. Later on.
ALBERTO (the tears streaming down his cheeks). Now, now, now! You must come now. I am lost if you don’t.
LUCREZIA (looking indecisively first at ALBERTO and then along the path down which AMY and SIDNEY DOLPHIN have disappeared). But supposing I am lost if I do come?
ALBERTO. But you couldn’t be as much lost as I am. Ah, you don’t know what it is to suffer. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt weiss wass ich leide. Oh, Lucrezia.... (He sobs unrestrainedly.)
LUCREZIA (goes over to where ALBERTO is sitting. She pats his shoulder and his bowed head of black curly hair). There, there, my little Bertino. Tell me what it is. You mustn’t cry. There, there.
ALBERTO (drying
his eyes and rubbing his head, like a cat, avid of caresses, against her hand). How can I thank you enough, Lucrezia? You are like a mother to me.
LUCREZIA. I know. That’s just what’s so dangerous.
ALBERTO (lets his head fall upon her bosom). I come to you for comfort, like a tired child, Lucrezia.
LUCREZIA. Poor darling! (She strokes his hair, twines its thick black tendrils round her fingers, ALBERTO is abjectly pathetic.)
ALBERTO (with closed eyes and a seraphic smile). Ah, the suavity, the beauty of this maternal instinct!
LUCREZIA (with a sudden access of energy and passion). The disgustingness of it, you mean. (She pushes him from her. His head wobbles once, as though it were inanimate, before he straightens into life.) The maternal instinct. Ugh. It’s been the undoing of too many women. You men come with your sentimental babyishness and exploit it for your own lusts. Be a man, Bertino. Be a woman, I mean, if you can.
ALBERTO (looking up at her with eyes full of doglike, dumb reproach). Lucrezia! You, too? Is there nobody who cares for me? This is the unkindest cut of all. I may as well die. (He relapses into tears.)
LUCREZIA (who has started to go, turns back, irresolute). Now, don’t cry, Bertino. Can’t you behave like a reasonable being? (She makes as though to go again.)
ALBERTO (through his sobs). You too, Lucrezia! Oh, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it.
LUCREZIA (turning back desperately). But what do you want me to do? Why should you expect me to hold your hand?
ALBERTO. I thought better of you, Lucrezia. Let me go. There is nothing left for me now but death. (He rises to his feet, takes a step or two, and then collapses into another chair, unable to move.)
LUCREZIA (torn between anger and remorse). Now do behave yourself sensibly, Bertino. There, there ... you mustn’t cry. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you. (Looking towards the left along the path taken by AMY and DOLPHIN.) Oh, damnation! (She stamps her foot.) Here, Bertino, do pull yourself together. (She raises him up.) There, now you must stop crying. (But as soon as she lets go of him his head falls back on to the iron table with an unpleasant, meaty bump. That bump is too much for LUCREZIA. She bends over him, strokes his head, even kisses the lustrous curls.) Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I have been a beast. But, tell me first, what’s the matter, Bertino? What is it, my poor darling? Tell me.
ALBERTO. Nobody loves me.
LUCREZIA. But we’re all devoted to you, Bertino mio.
ALBERTO. She isn’t. To-day she shut the door in my face.
LUCREZIA. She? You mean the French-woman, the one you told me about? Louise, wasn’t she?
ALBERTO. Yes, the one with the golden hair.
LUCREZIA. And the white legs. I remember: you saw her bathing.
ALBERTO (lays his hand on his heart). Ah, don’t remind me of it. (His face twitches convulsively.)
LUCREZIA. And now she’s gone and shut the door in your face.
ALBERTO. In my face, Lucrezia.
LUCREZIA. Poor darling!
ALBERTO. For me there is nothing now but the outer darkness.
LUCREZIA. Is the door shut forever, then?
ALBERTO. Definitively, for ever.
LUCREZIA. But have you tried knocking? Perhaps, after all, it might be opened again, if only a crack.
ALBERTO. What, bruise my hands against the granite of her heart?
LUCREZIA. Don’t be too poetical, Bertino mio. Why not try again, in any case?
ALBERTO. You give me courage.
LUCREZIA. There’s no harm in trying, you know.
ALBERTO. Courage to live, to conquer. (He beats his breast.) I am a man again, thanks to you, Lucrezia, my inspirer, my Muse, my Egeria. How can I be sufficiently grateful. (He kisses her.) I am the child of your spirit. (He kisses her again.)
LUCREZIA. Enough, enough. I am not ambitious to be a mother, yet awhile. Quickly now, Bertino, I know you will succeed.
ALBERTO (cramming his hat down on his head and knocking with his walking-stick on the ground). Succeed or die, Lucrezia. (He goes out with a loud martial stamp.)
LUCREZIA (to the waiter who is passing across the stage with a coffee-pot and cups on a tray). Have you seen the Signorina Toomis, Giuseppe?
WAITER. The Signorina is down in the garden. So is the Signore Dolphin. By the fountain, Signorina. This is the Signore’s coffee.
LUCREZIA. Have you a mother, Giuseppe?
WAITER. Unfortunately, Signorina.
LUCREZIA. Unfortunately? Does she treat you badly, then?
WAITER. Like a dog, Signorina.
LUCREZIA. Ah, I should like to see your mother. I should like to ask her to give me some hints on how to bring up children.
WAITER. But surely, Signorina, you are not expecting, you — ah....
LUCREZIA. Only figuratively, Giuseppe. My children are spiritual children.
WAITER. Precisely, precisely. My mother, alas! is not a spiritual relation. Nor is my fiançée.
LUCREZIA. I didn’t know you were engaged.
WAITER. To an angel of perdition. Believe me, Signorina, I go to my destruction in that woman — go with open eyes. There is no escape. She is what is called in the Holy Bible (crosses himself) a Fisher of Men.
LUCREZIA. You have remarkable connections, Giuseppe.
WAITER. I am honoured by your words, Signorina. But the coffee becomes cold. (He hurries out to the left.)
LUCREZIA. In the garden! By the fountain! And there’s the nightingale beginning to sing in earnest! Good heavens! what may not already have happened? (She runs out after the waiter.)
(Two persons emerge from the hotel, the VICOMTE DE BARBAZANGE and the BARONESS KOCH DE WORMS. PAUL DE BARBAZANGE is a young man — twenty-six perhaps of exquisite grace. Five foot ten, well built, dark hair, sleek as marble, the most refined aristocratic features, and a monocle, SIMONE DE WORMS is forty, a ripe Semitic beauty. Five years more and the bursting point of overripeness will have been reached. But now, thanks to massage, powerful corsets, skin foods, and powder, she is still a beauty — a beauty of the type Italians admire, cushioned, steatopygous. PAUL, who has a faultless taste in bric-à-brac and women, and is by instinct and upbringing an ardent anti-Semite, finds her infinitely repulsive. The Baronne enters with a loud shrill giggle. She gives PAUL a slap with her green feather fan.)
SIMONE. Oh, you naughty boy! Quelle histoire. Mon Dieu! How dare you tell me such a story!
PAUL. For you, Baronne, I would risk anything even your displeasure.
SIMONE. Charming boy. But stories of that kind.... And you look so innocent, too! Do you know any more like it?
PAUL (suddenly grave). Not of that description. But I will tell you a story of another kind, a true story, a tragic story.
SIMONE. Did I ever tell you how I saw a woman run over by a train? Cut to pieces, literally, to pieces. So disagreeable. I’ll tell you later. But now, what about your story?
PAUL. Oh, it’s nothing, nothing.
SIMONE. But you promised to tell it me.
PAUL. It’s only a commonplace anecdote. A young man, poor but noble, with a name and a position to keep up. A few youthful follies, a mountain of debts, and no way out except the revolver. This is all dull and obvious enough. But now follows the interesting part of the story. He is about to take that way out, when he meets the woman of his dreams, the goddess, the angel, the ideal. He loves, and he must die without a word. (He turns his face away from the Baronne, as though his emotion were too much for him, which indeed it is.)
SIMONE. Vicomte — Paul — this young man is you?
PAUL (solemnly). He is.
SIMONE. And the woman?
PAUL. Oh, I can’t, I mayn’t tell you.
SIMONE. The woman! Tell me, Paul.
PAUL (turning towards her and falling on his knees). The woman, Simone, is you. Ah, but I had no right to say it.
SIMONE (quivering with emotion). My Paul. (She clasps his head to her bosom. A grimace of disgust contorts Paul’s classical features. He endures Simone�
��s caresses with a stoical patience.) But what is this about a revolver? That is only a joke, Paul, isn’t it? Say it isn’t true.
PAUL. Alas, Simone, too true. (He taps his coat pocket.) There it lies. To-morrow I have a hundred and seventy thousand francs to pay, or be dishonoured. I cannot pay the sum. A Barbazange does not survive dishonour. My ancestors were Crusaders, preux chevaliers to a man. Their code is mine. Dishonour for me is worse than death.
SIMONE. Mon Dieu, Paul, how noble you are! (She lays her hands on his shoulder, leans back, and surveys him at arm’s length, a look of pride and anxious happiness on her face.)
PAUL (dropping his eyes modestly). Not at all. I was born noble, and noblesse oblige, as we say in our family. Farewell, Simone, I love you — and I must die. My last thought will be of you. (He kisses her hand, rises to his feet, and makes as though to go.)
SIMONE (clutching him by the arm). No, Paul, no. You must not, shall not, do anything rash. A hundred and seventy thousand francs, did you say? It is paltry. Is there no one who could lend or give you the money?
PAUL. Not a soul. Farewell, Simone.
SIMONE. Stay, Paul. I hardly dare to ask it of you — you with such lofty ideas of honour — but would you ... from me?
PAUL. Take money from a woman? Ah, Simone, tempt me no more. I might do an ignoble act.
SIMONE. But from me, Paul, from me. I am not in your eyes a woman like any other woman, am I?
PAUL. It is true that my ancestors, the Crusaders, the preux chevaliers, might in all honour receive gifts from the ladies of their choice — chargers, swords, armour, or tenderer mementoes, such as gloves or garters. But money — no; who ever heard of their taking money?
SIMONE. But what would be the use of my giving you swords and horses? You could never use them. Consider, my knight, my noble Sir Paul, in these days the contests of chivalry have assumed a different form; the weapons and the armour have changed. Your sword must be of gold and paper; your breastplate of hard cash; your charger of gilt-edged securities. I offer you the shining panoply of the modern crusader. Will you accept it?
PAUL. You are eloquent, Simone. You could win over the devil himself with that angelic voice of yours. But it cannot be. Money is always money. The code is clear. I cannot accept your offer. Here is the way out. (He takes an automatic pistol out of his pocket.) Thank you, Simone, and good-bye. How wonderful is the love of a pure woman.