The Infernal Machine and Other Plays

by Jean Cocteau

  What’s more, this set matches the people and actions of the play in the same hard, naive manner as the fake perspective of the photographer’s backdrop matches the subjects of his pictures.

  PROLOGUE

  The actor who will play Orpheus appears in front of the curtain.

  Ladies and gentlemen, this prologue is not in the script. Doubtless the author, if he’s here tonight, will be surprised to see me in front of the curtain. But I have a request to make. This tragedy he has given us to perform is a ticklish affair, and so I’m asking that you wait until the very end to express any objections to the way we play it. You see, we’ll be performing very high with no nets to catch us if we fall. The slightest distraction from the house might make us lose our balance. That means death for me and my fellow actors.

  He disappears behind the curtain.

  ORPHEUS

  Orpheus is seated at the table, stage right. He is interrogating the spirit world by means of taps representing letters of the alphabet. Eurydice is seated, stage left, at the table set for lunch.

  EURYDICE. Can I move now?

  ORPHEUS. Hold it one second.

  EURYDICE. But he’s not tapping any more.

  ORPHEUS. Sometimes there is a long wait between the first letter and the rest of the word.

  EURYDICE. I can guess what’s coming.

  ORPHEUS. Well, don’t!

  EURYDICE. But it’s always the same word, over and over again.

  ORPHEUS. M, M… Come on, horse. What comes after the letter M? … I’m waiting.

  EURYDICE. How long before you learn that the horse’s head is just as empty as yours is?

  ORPHEUS. Come on now, I’m listening! M! M! What comes after M?

  The horse moves.

  What’s that? Did you say something? Tell me what letter comes after M.

  The horse stamps its hoof. Orpheus counts.

  A. B. C. D. E. E? Is it the letter E?

  The horse shakes its head up and down.

  EURYDICE. What did you think it would be?

  ORPHEUS, furious. Sh-sh!

  The horse starts stamping its hoof.

  A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J. K. L. M. N. O. P. Q. R.

  To Eurydice

  And don’t you dare laugh. R? Is it really the letter R? M - E - R, mer? Did I miscount? Horse, tell me! Is it really the letter R? If it is, knock once. Knock twice if I’m wrong.

  The horse knocks once.

  EURYDICE. How many times do you have to ask him?

  ORPHEUS. Quiet, please. You’ll make him nervous. The horse gets upset when people are skeptical. Either be quiet or go to your room.

  EURYDICE. I won’t open my mouth.

  ORPHEUS. That’s more like it!

  To the horse.

  Now, M - E - R, mer… Speak, horse, I’m listening. Speak to me, horse. Horse! Come on, try! What comes after the letter R?

  The horse knocks. Orpheus counts.

  A. B. C.

  Silence.

  C. The letter C. Did you hear that, young lady!

  The horse knocks.

  A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. Merci! Merci! That’s French for “thank you.” He was spelling out “thank you”! Is that all? Is that all there is to it?

  The horse shakes its head “yes.”

  This is stu-pen-dous! You see, Eurydice, if I’d listened to you I’d never have known. “Merci, ” and that’s all there is to it. Stu-pen-dous!

  EURYDICE. Why?

  ORPHEUS. What do you mean, why?

  EURYDICE. Why is it stupendous? Of course merci means “thank you” — but so what?

  ORPHEUS. So what! Last week this horse gave me one of the most astonishing sentences the world has ever heard.

  EURYDICE. Really now …

  ORPHEUS …. one of the most astonishing sentences the world has ever heard. And I intend to use it to change the face of poetry. Here I am immortalizing my horse and you wonder why he says, “thank you.” Why the very fact that he said it in French shows how tactful he is. And all the while I thought…

  He throws his arms around the horse.

  EURYDICE. Orpheus, darling, try to be fair. Admit that since the horse gave you that astonishing sentence you’ve received one word, one single word — and not a very poetic word at that.

  ORPHEUS. Who’s to say what is poetic and what isn’t?

  EURYDICE. When Aglaonice had séances her table always tapped out the same thing.

  ORPHEUS. Leave that woman out of this. I told you not to mention her name again. She almost ruined you, didn’t she? A woman who drinks, who walks the streets with a tiger on a leash, who puts ideas in our wives’ heads and scares young girls out of marriage.

  EURYDICE. But that’s her religion. It’s moon worship!

  ORPHEUS. All right, defend her! Why don’t you go back to the Bacchantes, if you like the way they live?

  EURYDICE. I was only teasing. You know it’s you I love. One look from you and I turned my back on those people.

  ORPHEUS. Fine company for a young girl! I’ll never forget Aglaonice’s voice when she said: “Take the girl, since she wants to go. Silly women are mad for artists … but I’ll have the last laugh, young fellow, you’ll see.”

  EURYDICE. It gave me the chills.

  ORPHEUS. If I ever meet that creature again …

  He bangs the inkwell on the table.

  EURYDICE. See how nervous the horse has made you! You used to laugh, kiss me, throw your arms around me. You had a good job. The world was in the palm of your hand. Why, they couldn’t wait to read your poems and everybody in Thrace knew them by heart as soon as you wrote them down. That’s because you sang of the sun, because you were a priest singing of the gods. But then that horse came into your life. We moved to the country. You quit your job and stopped writing. Now you spend your time petting that horse, interrogating that horse, waiting for that horse to answer you. It’s ridiculous!

  ORPHEUS. Ridiculous? I was so successful I was overripe, beginning to rot, and I stunk of it. The sun and the moon, they’re all the same to me. I wanted to be in the dark-deep in the night. Not your night, or theirs, but mine! This horse knows the way. He insinuates himself into my private darkness and comes up like a skin diver bearing a few sentences. Can’t you see that a single one of those sentences is more astonishing than any poem I ever wrote? Why, I’d give every word I ever put on paper for one of those sentences in which I can hear myself purr the way you hear the ocean in a seashell. Ridiculous! What do you want out of life? I’m turning myself inside out to discover a world. I’m on the trail of the unknown.

  EURYDICE. And now we get the famous words …

  ORPHEUS, seriously. Yes, here comes the sentence.

  He walks to the horse and recites his sentence.

  “Lady Eurydice shall return from the underworld.”

  EURYDICE. That doesn’t make sense.

  ORPHEUS. Who cares if the words make sense! Glue your ear to them. Listen to their mystery. “Eurydice shall return” … now that’d be quite ordinary. But “Lady ” Eurydice! “Lady Eurydice shall return… ” Shall return. Can’t you hear the vibrations in that future tense? And then the twist — “from the underworld.” Why, you should be flattered that it’s you I’m talking about.

  EURYDICE. But it’s not you who’s talking …

  Pointing.

  It’s him!

  ORPHEUS. Who’s to say who’s talking — him, me, or nobody at all. We bump into each other in the dark; we’re up to our necks in the supernatural, playing hide-and-seek with the gods. Who really knows anything at all? “Lady Eurydice shall return from the underworld.” That isn’t a statement at all. It’s a poem, a poem of a dream, a flower plucked from the backyard of death.

  EURYDICE. Tell it to your public. They’ll never admit that poetry consists in just writing down words — and that your biggest success was a whole sentence copied from a horse.

  ORPHEUS. Who cares about success or the horse or what the public thinks. Be
sides, I’m no longer alone.

  EURYDICE. Oh, I forgot your fans! Four or five insensitive rowdies who think you’re an anarchist and a dozen adolescent morons trying to show off.

  ORPHEUS. Just wait! Some day these poems of mine will charm the beasts — the real ones.

  EURYDICE. If you scorn success so much then why did you enter your sentence in the poetry contest? The fact that you submitted a poem to the All-Thrace poetry contest means that you attach some importance to the prize.

  ORPHEUS. Someone has to make a scandal, throw a bomb. Someone has to clear the air or we’ll all suffocate. I can’t breathe any more.

  EURYDICE. But we were getting along so nicely.

  ORPHEUS. Too nicely.

  EURYDICE. You were in love with me.

  ORPHEUS. I am in love with you.

  EURYDICE. You’re in love with the horse.

  ORPHEUS. Don’t be stupid. The horse has nothing to do with it.

  Halfheartedly, he kisses Eurydice and then walks toward the horse.

  Isn’t that right, old fellow. Isn’t that right, buddy? What’s that? You love me, do you? Oh, you want some sugar? Well then, give me a kiss, Come on, you can do better than that. Isn’t he beautiful! Here.

  He takes a lump of sugar out of his pocket and gives it to the horse.

  There’s a good boy.

  EURYDICE. I don’t count any more. I could die, and you wouldn’t even notice.

  ORPHEUS. We were already dead without noticing it.

  EURYDICE. Orpheus, put your arms around me.

  ORPHEUS. Sorry, I haven’t time. I’m going into town. But, Eurydice, tomorrow’s the deadline and I still haven’t signed up for the contest.

  EURYDICE, in a burst of emotion. Orpheus, please!

  ORPHEUS. Do you see that pedestal? There’s nothing on it. And there won’t be anything on it until I’ve made my masterpiece.

  EURYDICE. They’ll throw stones at you.

  ORPHEUS. I’ll convert those stones into my own image — mold them into a bust for the pedestal.

  EURYDICE. The Bacchantes will get you.

  ORPHEUS. I don’t even know them.

  EURYDICE. You should. They’re attractive. Aglaonice hates you. And she’s entering a poem in the contest too.

  ORPHEUS. There’s that woman again!

  EURYDICE. Be fair, Orpheus. She is talented.

  ORPHEUS. You don’t say!

  EURYDICE. In an unpleasant way, of course. But in a sense, from one point of view, she does have talent. She does make some striking images.

  ORPHEUS. “In a sense… from one point of view”! Did the Bacchantes teach you to talk that way? So you admit that, in a sense, you find her images striking, that from one point of view my mortal enemies have talent. Yet you claim you love me. Well, young lady, in that sense and from that point of view, let me tell you I’ve had all I can take. This horse is the only person in the house who understands me.

  He bangs his fist on the table.

  EURYDICE. You don’t have to break the furniture.

  ORPHEUS. Break the furniture! Listen to who’s talking! My wife smashes a window every day and now she tells me I’m too rough on the furniture.

  EURYDICE. In the first place …

  ORPHEUS, pacing. I know, you still haven’t broken one today.

  EURYDICE. But…

  ORPHEUS. Well, break it! Go ahead and break a window!

  EURYDICE. Why must you get so upset over something so …

  ORPHEUS. She’s a sly one, she is! If you haven’t broken one today, that’s because you know I won’t be home …

  EURYDICE. What are you hinting at?

  ORPHEUS. Do you think I ‘m blind? You break one windowpane a day so that the glazier will come to fix it.

  EURYDICE. What if I do! He’s a fine young man, and very sensitive. And he adores you.

  ORPHEUS. How nice of him!

  EURYDICE. I have to do something while you talk to your horse, so I smash a window. You’re not jealous, are you, Orpheus?

  ORPHEUS. Who, me, jealous? Jealous of a mere boy who fixes broken windows? I might as well be jealous of old Aglaonice. Look, if you won’t break one, I will. It’ll make me feel better.

  He smashes a windowpane.

  Outside we hear: “New windows for old! New windows for old!”

  Hey, glazier! Up here! Now, who’s jealous?

  Heurtebise enters. He appears on the balcony. The sunlight strikes the panes of glass strapped to his back. He comes in the room, bends a knee, and crosses his arms on his chest.

  HEURTEBISE. Ladies and gentlemen — good afternoon.

  ORPHEUS. Come in, young fellow. It was I, I, who broke the window, and I want you to replace the glass while I’m gone.

  To Eurydice. Darling, you’ll see that he does a good job, won’t you?

  To the horse. Does he love his poet?

  He kisses the horse.

  Until tonight.

  Orpheus leaves.

  EURYDICE, to Heurtebise. You see, I wasn’t imagining things.

  HEURTEBISE. It’s unheard of.

  EURYDICE. Now you understand.

  HEURTEBISE. You poor lady…

  EURYDICE. Ever since the night he brought home that horse, ever since they’ve been talking together…

  HEURTEBISE. Has the horse answered him yet?

  EURYDICE. It says “thank you” — in French.

  HEURTEBISE. Merci is a lovely word.

  EURYDICE. For a month now we’ve been torturing each other.

  HEURTEBISE. It doesn’t make sense to be jealous of a horse.

  EURYDICE. I’d rather know he had a mistress in town.

  HEURTEBISE. You just say that…

  EURYDICE. If it weren’t for my friendship with you, I’d have given up long ago.

  HEURTEBISE. Eurydice …

  EURYDICE. She looks at herself in the mirror and smiles. Just think, I’ve done something clever. He’s finally noticed that I’ve been breaking a window every day. Instead of telling him I was breaking glass to bring good luck, I said it was to get you in the house.

  HEURTEBISE. I’d have thought that…

  EURYDICE. Let me finish. We quarreled, of course, and he smashed a window himself. Heurtebise, I think he’s jealous.

  HEURTEBISE. Then since you love him …

  EURYDICE. The worse he treats me the more I love him. You know, I think he was even jealous of Aglaonice.

  HEURTEBISE. Aglaonice?

  EURYDICE. He has a horror of everything that suggests the people I used to know. That’s why I’m afraid we’re taking an awful chance. Sh-sh! I can’t help feeling that horse is listening to us.

  They tiptoe to the horse’s stall.

  HEURTEBISE. He’s asleep.

  They tiptoe downstage.

  EURYDICE. Did you see Aglaonice?

  HEURTEBISE. Yes.

  EURYDICE. Orpheus would kill you if he found out.

  HEURTEBISE. He won’t find out.

  EURYDICE, pulling Heurtebise further from the horse, toward her room. Do you have it… it?

  HEURTEBISE. I have it.

  EURYDICE. What did she put it in?

  HEURTEBISE. A lump of sugar.

  EURYDICE. Was she in a good mood?

  HEURTEBISE. No mood at all. She simply said, “Here’s the poison. Bring me back the letter.”

  EURYDICE. She won’t like what I wrote.

  HEURTEBISE. Then she said: “Just to make sure nobody knows, here’s a self-addressed envelope, written in my own hand. All she’ll have to do is insert the letter and seal it. No one will ever know she’s written me.

  EURYDICE. No matter what Orpheus thinks, Aglaonice can be very thoughtful. Was she alone?

  HEURTEBISE. There was a girl with her. Those were no people for you to run around with.

  EURYDICE. Of course, they weren’t. But I still think Aglaonice is a very sweet person.

  HEURTEBISE. Don’t trust those sweet persons and well-meaning men. Here’s the sug
ar.

  EURYDICE. Thank you …

  She takes the sugar and fearfully walks to the horse.

  I’m afraid.

  HEURTEBISE. Are you backing out?

  EURYDICE. Not backing out, just afraid. Now that it’s time to act, I don’t think I can go through with it.

  She walks downstage to the writing table. Heurtebise?

  HEURTEBISE. What?

  EURYDICE. Heurtebise, you’re sweet. You wouldn’t…

  HEURTEBISE. Come, come. That’s a very big thing to ask.

  EUBYDICE. You said you’d do anything to help.

  HEURTEBISE. And I’ll say it again, but…

  EURYDICE. Of course, if it inconveniences you in the slightest, I wouldn’t think of it.

  HEURTEBISE. Give me the sugar.

  EURYDICE. Thank you. I think you’re very brave.

  HEURTEBISE. What if he won’t take it from me?

  EURYDICE. Try.

  HEURTEBISE, near the horse. I confess my legs are a little shaky.

  EURYDICE. Be a man!

  She crosses left and stops at the door of her room.

  HEURTEBISE. Here goes!

  In a weak voice.

  Horse … Horse…

  EURYDICE, looking out the window. Heavens, it’s Orpheus! He’s coming through the garden. Quick, pretend you’re working.

  Heurtebise tosses the lump of sugar onto the table and then pushes the table against the wall between the rear window and the door to Eurydice’s room.

  Climb on the chair!

  Heurtebise climbs on the chair and pretends to take measurements of the window frames in the glass doorway. Eurydice slumps onto the chair at the writing table. Orpheus enters.

  ORPHEUS. I forgot my birth certificate. Where did I put it?

  EURYDICE. In the bookcase, top shelf on the left. Shall I get it for you?

  ORPHEUS. Stay where you are. I’ll get it myself.

  He passes in front of the horse, stopping just long enough to pat it. He takes the chair on which Heurtebise is standing and carries it to the bookcase. Heurtebise remains in position, suspended in mid-air. Eurydice stifles a cry of surprise. Orpheus, who notices nothing strange, climbs onto the chair and rummages on the top shelf of the bookcase.

  Here it is.

  Orpheus puts the birth certificate in his pocket, climbs off the chair, carries the chair back to the window, slides it under Heurtebise’s feet, and leaves the room without saying a word.