by Unknown
ROBERT
(Surprised.) What others?
BERTHA
The other women. I hear you have so many admirers.
ROBERT
(Involuntarily.) And that is why you too...?
BERTHA
But you have, haven’t you?
ROBERT
Friends, yes.
BERTHA
Do you speak to them in the same way?
ROBERT
(In an offended tone.) How can you ask me such a question? What kind of person do you think I am? Or why do you listen to me? Did you not like me to speak to you in that way?
547
BERTHA
What you said was very kind. (She looks at him for a moment.) Thank you for saying it — and thinking it.
ROBERT
(Leaning forward.) Bertha!
BERTHA
Yes?
ROBERT
I have the right to call you by your name. From old times — nine years ago. We were Bertha — and Robert — then. Can we not be so now, too?
BERTHA
(Readily.) O yes. Why should we not?
ROBERT
Bertha, you knew. From the very night you landed on Kingstown pier. It all came back to me then. And you knew it. You saw it.
BERTHA
No. Not that night.
ROBERT
When?
BERTHA
The night we landed I felt very tired and dirty. (Shaking her head.) I did not see it in you that night.
ROBERT
(Smiling.) Tell me what did you see that night — your very first impression.
BERTHA
(Knitting her brows.) You were standing with your back to the gangway, talking to two ladies.
ROBERT
To two plain middleaged ladies, yes.
BERTHA
I recognized you at once. And I saw that you had got fat.
ROBERT
(Takes her hand.) And this poor fat Robert — do you dislike him then so much? Do you disbelieve all he says?
BERTHA
I think men speak like that to all women whom they like or admire. What do you want me to believe?
ROBERT
All men, Bertha?
BERTHA
(With sudden sadness.) I think so.
ROBERT
I too?
BERTHA
Yes, Robert. I think you too.
ROBERT
All then — without exception? Or with one exception? (In a lower tone.) Or is he too — Richard too — like us all — in that at least? Or different?
548
BERTHA
(Looks into his eyes.) Different.
ROBERT
Are you quite sure, Bertha?
BERTHA
(A little confused, tries to withdraw her hand.) I have answered you.
ROBERT
(Suddenly.) Bertha, may I kiss your hand? Let me. May I?
BERTHA
If you wish.
(He lifts her hand to his lips slowly. She rises suddenly. and listens.)
BERTHA
Did you hear the garden gate?
ROBERT
(Rising also.) No.
(A short pause. The piano can be heard faintly from the upper room.)
ROBERT
(Pleading.) Do not go away. You must never go away now. Your life is here. I came for that too today — to speak to him — to urge him to accept this position. He must. And you must persuade him to. You have a great influence over him.
BERTHA
You want him to remain here.
ROBERT
Yes.
BERTHA
Why?
ROBERT
For your sake because you are unhappy so far away. For his sake too because he should think of his future.
BERTHA
(Laughing.) Do you remember what he said when you spoke to him last night?
ROBERT
About...? (Reflecting.) Yes. He quoted the Our Father about our daily bread. He said that to take care for the future is to destroy hope and love in the world.
BERTHA
Do you not think he is strange?
ROBERT
In that, yes.
BERTHA
A little — mad?
549
ROBERT
(Comes closer.) No. He is not. Perhaps we are. Why, do you...?
BERTHA
(Laughs.) I ask you because you are intelligent.
ROBERT
You must not go away. I will not let you.
BERTHA
(Looks full at him.) You?
ROBERT
Those eyes must not go away. (He takes her hands.) May I kiss your eyes?
BERTHA
Do so. (He kisses her eyes and then passes his hand over her hair.)
ROBERT
Little Bertha!
BERTHA
(Smiling.) But I am not so little. Why do you call me little?
ROBERT
Little Bertha! One embrace? (He puts his arm around her.) Look into my eyes again.
BERTHA
(Looks.) I can see the little gold spots. So many you have.
ROBERT
(Delighted.) Your voice! Give me a kiss, a kiss with your mouth.
BERTHA
Take it.
ROBERT
I am afraid. (He kisses her mouth and passes his hand many times over her hair.) At last I hold you in my arms!
BERTHA
And are you satisfied?
ROBERT
Let me feel your lips touch mine.
BERTHA
And then you will be satisfied?
ROBERT
(Murmurs.) Your lips, Bertha!
BERTHA
(Closes her eyes and kisses him quickly.) There. (Puts her hands on his shoulders.) Why don’t you say: thanks?
ROBERT
(Sighs.) My life is finished — over.
BERTHA
O, don’t speak like that now, Robert.
ROBERT
Over, over. I want to end it and have done with it.
550
BERTHA
(Concerned but lightly.) You silly fellow!
ROBERT
(Presses her to him.) To end it all — death. To fall from a great high cliff, down, right down into the sea.
BERTHA
Please, Robert...
ROBERT
Listening to music and in the arms of the woman I love — the sea, music and death.
BERTHA
(Looks at him for a moment.) The woman you love?
ROBERT
(Hurriedly.) I want to speak to you, Bertha — alone — not here. Will you come?
BERTHA
(With downcast eyes.) I too want to speak to you.
ROBERT
(Tenderly.) Yes, dear, I know. (He kisses her again.) I will speak to you; tell you all; then. I will kiss you, then, long long kisses — when you come to me — long long sweet kisses.
BERTHA
Where?
ROBERT
(In tone of passion.) Your eyes. Your lips. All your divine body.
BERTHA
(Repelling his embrace, confused.) I meant where do you wish me to come.
ROBERT
To my house. Not my mother’s over there. 1 will write the address for you. Will you come?
BERTHA
When?
ROBERT
Tonight. Between eight and nine. Come. I will wait for you tonight. And every night. You will?
(He kisses her with passion, holding her head between his hands. After a few instants she breaks from him. He sits down.)
BERTHA
(Listening.) The gate opened.
ROBERT
(Intensely.) I will wait for you.
(He takes the slip from the table. Bertha moves away from him slowly. Richard comes in from the garden.)
551
RICHARD
(Advancing, takes
off his hat.) Good afternoon.
ROBERT
(Rises, with nervous friendliness.) Good afternoon, Richard.
BERTHA
(At the table, taking the roses.) Look what lovely roses Mr Hand brought me.
ROBERT
I am afraid they are overblown.
RICHARD
(Suddenly.) Excuse me for a moment, will you?
(He turns and goes into his study quickly. Robert takes a pencil from his pocket and writes a few words on the slip; then hands it quickly to Bertha.)
ROBERT
(Rapidly.) The address. Take the tram at Lansdowne Road and ask to be let down near there.
BERTHA
(Takes it.) I promise nothing.
ROBERT
I will wait.
(Richard comes back from the study.)
BERTHA
(Going.) I must put these roses in water.
RICHARD
(Handing her his hat.) Yes, do. And please put my hat on the rack.
BERTHA
(Takes it.) So I will leave you to yourselves for your talk. (Looking round.) Do you want anything? Cigarettes?
RICHARD
Thanks. We have them here.
BERTHA
Then I can go?
(She goes out on the left with Richard’s hat, which she leaves in the hall, and returns at once; she stops for a moment at the davenport, replaces the slip do the drawer, locks it, and replaces the key, and, taking the roses, goes towards the right. Robert precedes her to open the door for her. She bows and goes out.)
RICHARD
(Points to the chair near the little table on the right.) Your place of honour.
ROBERT
(Sits down.) Thanks. (Passing his hand over his brow.) Good Lord, how warm it is today! The heat pains me here in the eye. The glare.
552
RICHARD
The room is rather dark, I think, with the blind down but if you wish...
ROBERT
(Quickly.) Not at all. I know what it is — the result of night work.
RICHARD
(Sits on the lounge.) Must you?
ROBERT
(Sighs.) Eh, yes. I must see part of the paper through every night. And then my leading articles. We are approaching a difficult moment. And not only here.
RICHARD
(After a slight pause.) Have you any news?
ROBERT
(In a different voice.) Yes. I want to speak to you seriously. Today may be an important day for you — or rather, tonight. I saw the vicechancellor this morning. He has the highest opinion of you, Richard. He has read your book, he said.
RICHARD
Did he buy it or borrow it?
ROBERT
Bought it, I hope.
RICHARD
I shall smoke a cigarette. Thirty-seven copies have now been sold in Dublin. (He takes a cigarette from the box on the table, and lights it.)
ROBERT
(Suavely, hopelessly.) Well, the matter is closed for the present. You have your iron mask on today.
RICHARD
(Smoking.) Let me hear the rest.
ROBERT
(Again seriously.) Richard, you are too suspicious. It is a defect in you. He assured me he has the highest possible opinion of you, as everyone has. You are the man for the post, he says. In fact, he told me that, if your name goes forward, he will work might and main for you with the senate and I... will do my part, of course, in the press and privately. I regard it as a public duty. The chair of romance literature is yours by right, as a scholar, as a literary personality.
553
RICHARD
The conditions?
ROBERT
Conditions? You mean about the future?
RICHARD
I mean about the past.
ROBERT
(Easily.) That episode in your past is forgotten. An act of impulse. We are all impulsive
RICHARD
(Looks fixedly at him.) You called it an act of folly, then — nine years ago. You told me I was hanging a weight about my neck.
ROBERT
I was wrong. (Suavely.) Here is how the matter stands, Richard. Everyone knows that you ran away years ago with a young girl... How shall I put it? ...with a young girl not exactly your equal. (Kindly.) Excuse me, Richard, that is not my opinion nor my language. I am simply using the language of people whose opinions I don’t share.
RICHARD
Writing one of your leading articles, in fact.
ROBERT
Put it so. Well, it made a great sensation at the time. A mysterious disappearance. My name was involved too, as best man, let us say, on that famous occasion. Of course, they think I acted from a mistaken sense of friendship. Well, all that is known. (With some hesitation.) But what happened afterwards is not known.
RICHARD
No?
ROBERT
Of course, it is your affair, Richard. However, you are not so young now as you were then. The expression is quite in the style of my leading articles, isn’t it?
RICHARD
Do you, or do you not, want me to give the lie to my past life?
ROBERT
I am thinking of your future life — here. I understand your pride and your sense of liberty. I understand their point of view also. However, there is a way out; it is simply this. Refrain from contradicting any rumours you may hear concerning what happened.... or did not happen after you went away. Leave the rest to me.
554
RICHARD
You will set these rumours afloat?
ROBERT
I will. God help me.
RICHARD
(Observing him.) For the sake of social conventions?
ROBERT
For the sake of something else too — our friendship, our lifelong friendship.
RICHARD
Thanks.
ROBERT
(Slightly wounded.) And I will tell you the whole truth.
RICHARD
(Smiles and bows.) Yes. Do, please.
ROBERT
Not only for your sake. Also for the sake of — your present partner in life.
RICHARD
I see.
(He crushes his cigarette softly on the ashtray and then leans forward, rubbing his hands slowly.)
RICHARD
Why for her sake?
ROBERT
(Also leans forward, quietly.) Richard, have you been quite fair to her? It was her own free choice, you will say. But was she really free to choose? She was a mere girl. She accepted all that you proposed.
RICHARD
(Smiles.) That is your way of saying that she proposed what I would not accept.
ROBERT
(Nods.) I remember. And she went away with you. But was it of her own free choice? Answer me frankly.
RICHARD
(Turns to him, calmly.) I played for her against all that you say or can say; and I won.
ROBERT
(Nodding again.) Yes, you won.
RICHARD
(Rises.) Excuse me for forgetting. Will you have some whisky?
ROBERT
All things come to those who wait.
(Richard goes to the sideboard and brings a small tray with the decanter and glasses to the table where he sets it down.)
555
RICHARD
(Sits down again, leaning back on the lounge.) Will you please help yourself?
ROBERT
(Does so.) And you? Steadfast? (Richard shakes his head.) Lord, when I think of our wild nights long ago — talks by the hour, plans, carouses, revelry...
RICHARD
In our house.
ROBERT
It is mine now. I have kept it ever since though I don’t go there often. Whenever you like to come let me know. You must come some night. It will be old times again. (He lifts his glass, and drinks.) Prosit!
RICHARD
It was not only a house of revelry; it was to be the hearth of
a new life. (Musing.) And in that name all our sins were committed.
ROBERT
Sins! Drinking and blasphemy (he points) by me. And drinking and heresy, much worse (he points again) by you — are those the sins you mean?
RICHARD
And some others.
ROBERT
(Lightly, uneasily.) You mean the women. I have no remorse of conscience. Maybe you have. We had two keys on those occasions. (Maliciously.) Have you?
RICHARD
(Irritated.) For you it was all quite natural?
ROBERT
For me it is quite natural to kiss a woman whom I like. Why not? She is beautiful for me.
RICHARD
(Toying with the lounge cushion.) Do you kiss everything that is beautiful for you?
ROBERT
Everything — if it can be kissed. (He takes up a flat stone which lies on the table.) This stone, for instance. It is so cool, so polished, so delicate, like a woman’s temple. It is silent, it suffers our passion; and it is beautiful. (He places it against his lips.) And so I kiss it because it is beautiful. And what is a woman? A work of nature, too, like a stone or a flower or a bird. A kiss is an act of homage.
556
RICHARD
It is an act of union between man and woman. Even if we are often led to desire through the sense of beauty can you say that the beautiful is what we desire?
ROBERT
(Pressing the stone to his forehead.) You will give me a headache if you make me think today. I cannot think today. I feel too natural, too common. After all, what is most attractive in even the most beautiful woman?
RICHARD
What?
ROBERT
Not those qualities which she has and other women have not but the qualities which she has in common with them. I mean... the commonest. (Turning over the stone, he presses the other side to his forehead.) I mean how her body develops heat when it is pressed, the movement of her blood, how quickly she changes by digestion what she eats into — what shall be nameless. (Laughing.) I am very common today. Perhaps that idea never struck you?
RICHARD
(Drily.) Many ideas strike a man who has lived nine years with a woman.
ROBERT
Yes. I suppose they do.... This beautiful cool stone does me good. Is it a paperweight or a cure for headache?
RICHARD
Bertha brought it home one day from the strand. She, too, says that it is beautiful.
ROBERT
(Lays down the stone quietly.) She is right.
(He raises his glass, and drinks. A pause.)
RICHARD
Is that all you wanted to say to me?
ROBERT
(Quickly.) There is something else. The vicechancellor sends you, through me, an invitation for tonight — to dinner at his house. You know where he lives? (Richard nods.) I thought you might have forgotten. Strictly private, of course. He wants to meet you again and sends you a very warm invitation.
