Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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SIMONE. Paul, Paul, give that to me! (She snatches the pistol from his hand.) If anything were to happen to you, Paul, I should kill myself with this. You must live, you must consent to accept the money. You mustn’t let your honour make a martyr of you.
PAUL (brushing a tear from his eyes). No, I can’t.... Give me that pistol, I beg you.
SIMONE. For my sake, Paul.
PAUL. Oh, you make it impossible for me to act as the voices of dead ancestors tell me I should.... For your sake, then, Simone, I consent to live. For your sake I dare to accept the gift you offer.
SIMONE (kissing his hand in an outburst of gratitude). Thank you, thank you, Paul. How happy I am!
PAUL. I, too, light of my life.
SIMONE. My month’s allowance arrived to-day. I have the cheque here. (She takes it out of her corsage.) Two hundred thousand francs. It’s signed already. You can get it cashed as soon as the hanks open to-morrow.
PAUL (moved by an outburst of genuine emotion kisses indiscriminately the cheque, the Baronne, his own hands). My angel, you have saved me. How can I thank you? How can I love you enough? Ah, mon petit bouton de rose.
SIMONE. Oh, naughty, naughty! Not now, my Paul; you must wait till some other time.
PAUL. I burn with impatience.
SIMONE. Quelle fougue! Listen, then. In an hour’s time, Paul chéri, in my boudoir; I shall be alone.
PAUL. An hour? It is an eternity.
SIMONE (playfully). An hour. I won’t relent. Till then, my Paul. (She blows a kiss and runs out: the scenery trembles at her passage.)
(PAUL looks at the cheque, then pulls out a large silk handkerchief and wipes his neck inside his collar.) (DOLPHIN drifts in from the left. He is smoking a cigarette, but he does not seem to be enjoying it.)
PAUL. Alone?
DOLPHIN. Alas!
PAUL. Brooding on the universe as usual? I envy you your philosophic detachment. Personally, I find that the world is very much too much with us, and the devil too; (he looks at the cheque in his hand) and above all the flesh. My god, the flesh.... (He wipes his neck again.)
DOLPHIN. My philosophic detachment? But it’s only a mask to hide the ineffectual longings I have to achieve contact with the world.
PAUL. But surely nothing is easier. One just makes a movement and impinges on one’s fellow-beings.
DOLPHIN. Not with a temperament like mine. Imagine a shyness more powerful than curiosity or desire, a paralysis of all the faculties. You are a man of the world. You were born with a forehead of brass to affront every social emergency. Ah, if you knew what a torture it is to find yourself in the presence of someone a woman, perhaps — someone in whom you take an interest that is not merely philosophic; to find oneself in the presence of such a person and to be incapable, yes, physically incapable, of saying a word to express your interest in her or your desire to possess her intimacy. Ah, I notice I have slipped into the feminine. Inevitably, for of course the person is always a she.
PAUL. Of course, of course. That goes without saying. But what’s the trouble? Women are so simple to deal with.
DOLPHIN. I know. Perfectly simply if one’s in the right state of mind. I have found that out myself, for moments come alas, how rarely! — when I am filled with a spirit of confidence, possessed by some angel or devil of power. Ah, then I feel myself to be superb. I carry all before me. In those brief moments the whole secret of the world is revealed to me. I perceive that the supreme quality in the human soul is effrontery. Genius in the man of action is simply the apotheosis of charlatanism. Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Mr. Gladstone, Lloyd George — what are they? Just ordinary human beings projected through the magic lantern of a prodigious effrontery and so magnified to a thousand times larger than life. Look at me. I am far more intelligent than any of these fabulous figures; my sensibility is more refined than theirs, I am morally superior to any of them. And yet, by my lack of charlatanism, I am made less than nothing. My qualities are projected through the wrong end of a telescope and the world perceives me far smaller than I really am. But the world — who cares about the world? The only people who matter are the women.
PAUL. Very true, my dear Dolphin. The women.... (He looks at the cheque and mops himself once more with his mauve silk handkerchief.)
DOLPHIN. To-night was one of my moments of triumph. I felt myself suddenly free of all my inhibitions.
PAUL. I hope you profited by the auspicious occasion.
DOLPHIN. I did. I was making headway. I had — but I don’t know why I should bore you with my confidences. Curious that one should be dumb before intimates and open one’s mind to an all but stranger. I must apologise.
PAUL. But I am all attention and sympathy, my dear Dolphin. And I take it a little hardly that you should regard me as a stranger. (He lays a hand on Dolphin’s shoulder.)
DOLPHIN. Thank you, Barbazange, thank you. Well, if you consent to be the receptacle of my woes, I shall go on pouring them out.... Miss Toomis.... But tell me frankly what you think of her.
PAUL. Well....
DOLPHIN. A little too ingenuous, a little silly even, eh?
PAUL. Now you say so, she certainly isn’t very intellectually stimulating.
DOLPHIN. Precisely. But ... oh, those china-blue eyes, that ingenuousness, that pathetic and enchanting silliness! She touches lost chords in one’s heart. I love the Chromatic Fantasia of Bach, I am transported by Beethoven’s hundred-and-eleventh Sonata; but the fact doesn’t prevent my being moved to tears by the last luscious waltz played by the hotel orchestra. In the best constructed brains there are always spongy surfaces that are sensitive to picture postcards and Little Nelly and the End of a Perfect Day. Miss Toomis has found out my Achilles’s heel. She is boring, ridiculous, absurd to a degree, but oh! how moving, how adorable.
PAUL. You’re done for, my poor Dolphin, sunk — spurlos.
DOLPHIN. And I was getting on so well, was revelling in my new-found confidence, and, knowing its transience, was exploiting it for all I was worth. I had covered an enormous amount of ground and then, hey presto! at a blow all my labour was undone. Actuated by what malice I don’t know, la Lucrezia swoops down like a vulture, and without a by-your-leave or excuse of any kind carries off Miss Toomis from under my very eyes. What a woman! She terrifies me. I am always running away from her.
PAUL. Which means, I suppose, that she is always pursuing you.
DOLPHIN. She has ruined my evening and, it may me, all my chances of success. My precious hour of self-confidence will be wasted (though I hope you’ll not take offence at the word) — wasted on you.
PAUL. It will return.
DOLPHIN. But when — but when? Till it does I shall be impotent and in agony.
PAUL. I know the agony of waiting. I myself was engaged to a Rumanian princess in 1916. But owing to the sad collapse in the Rumanian rate of exchange I have had to postpone our union indefinitely. It is painful, but, believe me, it can be borne. (He looks at the cheque and then at his watch.) There are other things which are much worse. Believe me, Dolphin, it can be borne.
DOLPHIN. I suppose it can. For, when all is said, there are damned few of us who really take things much to heart. Julie de Lespinasses are happily not common. I am even subnormal. At twenty I believed myself passionate: one does at that age. But now, when I come to consider myself candidly, I find that I am really one of those who never deeply felt nor strongly willed. Everything is profoundly indifferent to me. I sometimes try to depress myself with the thought that the world is a cess-pool, that men are pathetic degenerates from the ape whose laboriously manufactured ideals are pure nonsense and find no rhyme in reality, that the whole of life is a bad joke which takes a long time coming to an end. But it really doesn’t upset me. I don’t care a curse. It’s deplorable; one ought to care. The best people do care. Still, I must say I should like to get possession of Miss Toomis. Confound that Grattarol woman. What on earth did she want to rush me like that for, do you suppose?
PAUL.
I expect we shall find out now. (PAUL jerks his head towards the left. LUCREZIA and AMY are seen entering from the garden, LUCREZIA holds her companion’s arm and marches with a firm step towards the two men. AMY suffers herself to be drugged along.)
LUCREZIA. Vicomte, Miss Toomis wants you to tell her all about Correggio.
AMY (rather scared). Oh, really — I....
LUCREZIA. And (sternly) — and Michelangelo. She is so much interested in art.
AMY. But please — don’t trouble....
PAUL (bowing gracefully). I shall be delighted. And in return I hope Miss Toomis will tell me all about Longfellow.
AMY (brightening). Oh yes, don’t you just love Evangeline?
PAUL. I do; and with your help, Miss Toomis, I hope I shall learn to love her better.
LUCREZIA (to DOLPHIN, who has been looking from AMY to the VICOMTE and back again at AMY with eyes that betray a certain disquietude). You really must come and look at the moon rising over the hills, Mr. Dolphin. One sees it best from the lower terrace. Shall we go?
DOLPHIN (starts and shrinks). But it’s rather cold, isn’t it? I mean — I think I ought to go and write a letter.
LUCREZIA. Oh, you can do that to-morrow.
DOLPHIN. But really.
LUCREZIA. You’ve no idea how lovely the moon looks.
DOLPHIN. But I must....
LUCREZIA (lays her hand on his sleeve and tows hint after her, crying as she goes). The moon, the moon.... (PAUL and AMY regard their exit in silence.)
PAUL. He doesn’t look as though he much wanted to go and see the moon.
AMY. Perhaps he guesses what’s in store for him.
PAUL (surprised). What, you don’t mean to say you realised all the time?
AMY. Realised what?
PAUL. About la belle Lucrezia.
AMY. I don’t know what you mean. All I know is that she means to give Mr. Dolphin a good talking to. He’s so mercenary. It made me quite indignant when she told me about him. Such a schemer, too. You know in America we have very definite ideas about honour.
PAUL. Here too, Miss Toomis.
AMY. Not Mr. Dolphin. Oh dear, it made me so sad; more sad than angry. I can never be grateful enough to Signorina Grattarol.
PAUL. But I’m still at a loss to know exactly what you’re talking about.
AMY. And I am quite bewildered myself. Would you have believed it of him? I thought him such a nice man.
PAUL. What has he done?
AMY. It’s all for my money, Miss Grattarol told me. She knows. He was just asking me to marry him, and I believe I would have said Yes. But she came in just in the nick of time. It seems he only wanted to marry me because I’m so rich. He doesn’t care for me at all. Miss Grattarol knows what he’s like. It’s awful, isn’t it? Oh dear, I wouldn’t have thought it of him.
PAUL. But you must forgive him, Miss Toomis. Money is a great temptation. Perhaps if you gave him another chance....
AMY. Impossible.
PAUL. Poor Dolphin! He’s such a nice young fellow.
AMY. I thought so too. But he’s false.
PAUL. Don’t be too hard on him. Money probably means too much to him. It’s the fault of his upbringing. No one who has not lived among the traditions of our ancient aristocracy can be expected to have that contempt, almost that hatred of wealth, which is the sign of true nobility. If he had been brought up, as I was, in an old machicolated castle on the Loire, surrounded by ancestral ghosts, imbued with the spirit of the Crusaders and preux chevaliers who had inhabited the place in the past, if he had learnt to know what noblesse oblige really means, believe me, Miss Toomis, he could never have done such a thing.
AMY. I should just think he couldn’t, Monsieur de Barbazange.
PAUL. You have no idea, Miss Toomis, how difficult it is for a man of truly noble feelings to get over the fact of your great wealth. When I heard that you were the possessor of a hundred million dollars....
AMY. Oh, I’m afraid it’s more than that. It’s two hundred million.
PAUL. ... of two hundred million dollars, then ... it only makes it worse; I was very melancholy, Miss Toomis. For those two hundred million dollars were a barrier, which a descendant of Crusaders and preux chevaliers could not overleap. Honour, Miss Toomis, honour forbade. Ah, if only that accursed money had not stood in the way.... When I first saw you oh, how I was moved by that vision of beauty and innocence — I wanted nothing better than to stand gazing on you for ever. But then I heard about those millions. Dolphin was lucky to have felt no restraints. But enough, enough. (He checks a rising tide of emotion.) Give poor Dolphin another chance, Miss Toomis. At bottom he is a good fellow, and he may learn in time to esteem you for your own sake and to forget the dazzling millions.
AMY. Never. I can only marry a man who is entirely disinterested.
PAUL. But, can’t you see, no disinterested man could ever bring himself to ask you? How could he prove his disinterestedness? No one would believe the purity of his intentions.
AMY (much moved). It is for me to judge. I know a disinterested man when I see him. Even in America we can understand honour.
PAUL (with a sob in his voice). Good-bye Miss Toomis.
AMY. But no, I don’t want it to be good-bye.
PAUL. It must be. Never shall it be said of a Barbazange that he hunted a woman for her money.
AMY. But what does it matter what the world says, if I say the opposite?
PAUL. You say the opposite? Thank you, thank you. But no, good-bye.
AMY. Stop. Oh! you’re forcing me to do a most unwomanly thing. You’re making me ask you to marry me. You’re the only disinterested man I’ve ever met or, to judge from what I’ve seen of the world, I’m ever likely to meet. Haven’t you kept away from me in spite of your feelings? Haven’t you even tried to make me listen to another man — a man not worthy to black your boots? Oh, it’s so wonderful, so noble! It’s like something in a picture play. Paul, I offer myself to you. Will you take me in spite of my millions?
PAUL (falling on his knees and kissing the hem of AMY’S skirt). My angel, you’re right; what does it matter what the world says as long as you believe in me? Amy, amie, bien-aimée.... Ah, it’s too good too, too good to be true! (He rises to his feet and embraces her with an unfeigned enthusiasm.)
AMY. Paul, Paul.... And so this is love. Isn’t it wonderful?
PAUL (looking round anxiously). You mustn’t tell anyone about our engagement, my Amy. They might say unpleasant things in the hotel, you know.
AMY. Of course I won’t talk about it. We’ll keep our happiness to ourselves, won’t we?
PAUL. Entirely to ourselves; and to-morrow we’ll go to Paris and arrange about being married.
AMY. Yes, yes; we’ll take the eight o’clock train.
PAUL. Not the eight o clock, my darling. I have to go to the bank to-morrow to do a little business. We must wait till the twelve thirty.
AMY. Very well, then. The twelve-thirty. Oh, how happy I am!
PAUL. So am I, my sweetheart. More than I can tell you. (The sound of a window being opened is heard. They look up and see the BARONESS dressed in a peignoir of the tenderest blue, emerging on to the right hand of the three balconies.)
AMY. Oh, my soul! I think I’d better go in. Good-night, my Paul. (She runs in.)
SIMONE. Has that horrid little American girl gone? (She peers down, then, reassured, she blows a kiss to PAUL.) My Romeo!
PAUL. I come, Juliet.
SIMONE. There’s a kiss for you.
PAUL (throwing kisses with both hands). And there’s one for you. And another, and another. Two hundred million kisses, my angel.
SIMONE (giggling). What a lot!
PAUL. It is; you re quite right. Two hundred million.... I come, my Juliet. (He darts into the hotel, pausing when just inside the door and out of sight of the BARONESS, to mop himself once again with his enormous handkerchief. The operation over, he advances with a resolute step, The BARONESS stands for a moment on
the balcony. Then, seeing DOLPHIN and LUCREZIA coming in from the left, she retires, closing the window and drawing the curtains behind her. DOLPHIN comes striding in; LUCREZIA follows a little behind, looking anxiously up at him.)
LUCREZIA. Please, please....
DOLPHIN. NO, I won t listen to anything more. (He walks with an agitated step up and down the stage. LUCREZIA stands with one hand resting on the back of a chair and the other pressed on her heart.) Do you mean to say you deliberately went and told her that I was only after her money? Oh, it’s too bad, too bad. It’s infamous. And I hadn’t the faintest notion that she had any money. Besides, I don’t want money; I have quite enough of my own. It’s infamous, infamous!
LUCREZIA. I know it was a horrible thing to do. But I couldn’t help it. How could I stand by and see you being carried off by that silly little creature?
DOLPHIN. But I cared for her.
LUCREZIA. But not as I cared for you. I’ve got red blood in my veins; she’s got nothing but milk and water. You couldn’t have been happy with her. I can give you love of a kind she could never dream of. What does she know of passion?
DOLPHIN. Nothing, I am thankful to say. I don’t want passion; can’t you understand that? I don’t possess it myself and don’t like it in others. I am a man of sentimental affections, with a touch of quiet sensuality. I don’t want passion, I tell you. It’s too violent; it frightens me. I couldn’t possibly live with you. You’d utterly shatter my peace of mind in a day. Oh, how I wish you’d go away.
LUCREZIA. But Sidney, Sidney, can’t you understand what it is to be madly in love with somebody? You can’t be so cruel.
DOLPHIN. You didn’t think much of my well-being when you interfered between Miss Toomis and me, did you? You’ve probably ruined my whole life, that’s all. I really don’t see why you should expect me to have any pity for you.
LUCREZIA. Very well, then, I shall kill myself. (She bursts into tears.)
DOLPHIN. Oh, but I assure you, one doesn’t kill oneself for things like that. (He approaches her and pats her on the shoulder.) Come, come, don’t worry about it.