Collected Novels and Plays
Page 58
(Enter, from Venice, JAN and JULIE.)
JAN:
You never told me this before.
JULIE:
I don’t understand what I’ve told you. That may be one reason. Then, too, aren’t we still courting? You can’t expect to hear all my stories in a matter of weeks.
JAN:
Go on. After you got back to the dock what happened? What happened that night?
JULIE:
This particular story clearly needs polishing. I feel I’ve been talking ever since lunch. Now I’m all talked out and I’ve missed my siesta.
JAN:
There you were in that little boat far from shore. Just a ribbon of beach on the horizon, with colorless trees. The ocean calls our deepest fears into play, our deepest selves. In a city, all this might have happened differently, or not at all.
JULIE:
What did happen was that, back in New York, I left him.
JAN:
Left … Charles?
JULIE:
You don’t imagine I’d ever leave Gilbert? Well. It’s hot. I’d rather not go on. We’ve talked enough.
JAN:
But could anyone have held out? I mean, was it Charles giving up when he went overboard—giving in? Could someone else have held out? I’m no help, am I?
JULIE:
I don’t see that you need to be so solemn, Jan.
JAN:
I’m still young. Things matter to me.
JULIE:
Touché!
JAN:
Julie! Love! I didn’t mean—
JULIE:
You’re right. I’m not young, I’m immature.
JAN:
I adore you.
JULIE:
Look at those pigeons, how can they bear it?—eating out of people’s hands. Yes, you have helped by letting me talk. It is less real now that someone other than myself has failed to understand it.
JAN:
You are not to blame.
JULIE:
Not to blame for leaving my husband?
JAN:
Not to blame for the circumstances.
JULIE:
That kind of remark simply dazzles me. It makes me feel that my total experience is somehow here, within easy reach, like so many reels of film on a shelf.
JAN:
All I mean is that the circumstances seem to narrow down to your brother.
JULIE:
Yes. Gilbert is to blame. I am finer than Gilbert.
JAN:
I like Gilbert. He makes me laugh.
JULIE:
Gilbert makes everybody laugh. No, he never made Charles laugh. That may be why they were such good friends.
JAN:
But I laugh more easily with you. When I’m with Gilbert I’m not really laughing.
JULIE:
Neither am I. It must be a power he has over me. Look! There he sits in the pensione and here I go …!
JAN:
At the risk of irritating you, it does seem curious that Gilbert should …
JULIE:
Should?
JAN:
That Gilbert should be so much in the picture? He goes everywhere you go, knows everything you do.
JULIE:
You are possessive!
JAN:
Can’t I be?
JULIE:
Of course. It’s rather touching. It brings out the older woman in me. Now what was that about Gilbert?
JAN:
I don’t remember.
JULIE:
He is after all one’s brother.
JAN:
There are limits. You said he all but picked out your husband for you.
JULIE:
Well, he didn’t pick you out, darling. I did that.
JAN:
It was Gilbert who came over to my table.
JULIE:
Perhaps. But I’d seen you first.
JAN:
I don’t know. If you’re that close to one another …
JULIE:
But isn’t that the great thing about relatives? They have to love you, you have to love them! After a certain age one meets few enough people of whom that holds true.
JAN:
You don’t honestly think in those terms.
JULIE:
I don’t? It’s a wonder I think at all, I sometimes think.
JAN:
Did Charles like Gilbert? Afterwards, I mean.
JULIE:
Oh God in heaven! Did Charles like Gilbert! Does Gilbert like me! Did I like them! Why, we doted upon one another. We shared an eye and a tooth, and woe to the unwary stranger.
JAN:
Forget I said it.
JULIE:
It’s just that I’m so weary! Charles writes, Gilbert talks—
JAN:
You’ve had another letter from Charles?
JULIE:
You ask questions! Yes, I’ve had a letter from Charles. I must really stop going to American Express. Nobody else writes to me there.
JAN:
You needn’t go. You needn’t pick up his letters.
JULIE:
Gilbert says it makes me feel modern, to get such letters from my former husband.
JAN:
“Such” letters? Does Gilbert read them?
JULIE:
Do you suppose I do? Oh what an unkind thing to say! You must not make me talk about Charles. I’ll say anything that comes into my head.
JAN:
I make you talk? Gilbert makes you laugh? It doesn’t seem to me that you are made to do anything.
JULIE:
Now you’re angry and you don’t love me.
(Enter GILBERT.)
GILBERT:
Oh! Ben trovato! Ah! Flirting at Florian’s!
My sweet little sister is beautifully bad!
Come with me, cara, we’ll go in a gondola!
Gondoliere!
JULIE:
Gilbert, you’re mad!
GILBERT:
I’ve dawdled all day with impossible people.
Jan, will you join us?
JULIE:
Keep up our morale?
JAN:
No, I must really—
GILBERT:
Then be a wet blanket.
I’m for a ride down that crazy canal!
JAN:
What is this passion of Gilbert’s for boating?
JULIE:
See, you are laughing! I knew you would be.
JAN:
Then why are you laughing?
JULIE:
I’m not really laughing,
But I’m going with Gilbert.
GILBERT:
We’ll meet you for tea!
(GILBERT and JULIE go.)
JAN:
When Julie and I settle down, it will have to be
back home. I’ll need to work. On my own I could
have held out until next year—not now. My parents
are already up in arms, and sharing expenses with
Julie and Gilbert isn’t the answer. I hope Gilbert
stays on in Europe. He belongs here.
If we return to Venice, let it be winter,
The mirror whitewashed, empty and aloof.
Drifting with this warm glitter, this loose life,
I’m out of my depth—oh, not very far as yet,
And learning, thanks to Julie; being changed;
Loving, loved in return; no end to either
The changing or the loving. And Julie’s changing,
Or says she is, at least—some days it’s more
Like changing back to what she was before.
The self I was, at any rate, that day
Three months ago in Rome, at the café,
When Gilbert asked was I American,
Lies sanded over, deep in sparkling water.
Fifty years from now, what will I be—
A drowned blue-green theater of memory
?
A Bridge of Sighs? Well, Venice and reflections …
And that other setting? Even before Julie spoke I could feel the shudder of the engine, the heat and brightness of the day, the blue of the Gulf Stream pitching. There they sat in the white boat, the men with their bait and their tackle. That whole endless afternoon trembles and brightens around her still. Over and over she enters the scene, trying to read it like a compass, sounding its depths, wondering—
(In the course of JAN’s speech the lights have dimmed on Venice and brightened on the fishing boat now occupied by JULIE, GILBERT, and CHARLES.)
JULIE (sings the Barcarolle from Les Contes d’Hoffmann):
Nuit plus douce que le jour,
O belle nuit d’amour!
GILBERT:
Is he steering us the right way?
I know we’ve passed that patch of seaweed once before, today.
JULIE:
Le temps fuit et sans retour
Emporte nos tendresses!
GILBERT:
Was that the last beer, Julie?
It seems a pity, don’t you think,
That we have nothing more to drink?
And didn’t I tell you to make more sandwiches?
To be hard of hearing has its advantages.
JULIE:
Desormais je ne parlerais que français.
From now on I shall speak only French.
GILBERT:
And it would serve her right, wouldn’t it, Charles?
It must be by design that nobody talks to me.
Shall we call it a day? Have I done something wrong? You see,
I am reduced to these childish interrogatives.
JULIE:
We know what happens when we talk to you.
Nous savons bien ce qui arrive—oh what’s the use!
Why is Charles frowning?
GILBERT:
He is a naturally thoughtful person.
JULIE:
He knows
That we are looking at him.
GILBERT:
Rubbish.
JULIE:
He knows
How boring we become when he ignores us.
GILBERT:
He also knows how boring you become
When I’m not there to keep you from baiting him.
JULIE:
Crumb.
GILBERT:
Fishwife.
JULIE:
Cretin.
GILBERT (sings):
Loin de cet heureux séjour
Le temps fuit sans retour!
CHARLES:
Look! Something’s at the line! Wait!
GILBERT:
It’s only your wife’s beer bottle.
CHARLES:
Fish won’t strike a damaged bait.
(CHARLES reels in his line.)
JULIE:
Oh what a beautiful day! What soft air!
See how the light moves through the water
Like harp strings. And the water
Isn’t blue but purple. Look out there!
Think of them shimmering down, the strings of light,
To where an absolute darkness begins,
How they must sound against a thousand cutting fins
And mouths that would swallow me up in a bite.
CHARLES:
If you’re not careful we’ll put you on the hook.
GILBERT:
But, back to Charles. I think the world of him. He strives
Overmuch, perhaps, for integrity. Yet one can only admire
Those moments, thrillingly frequent, when like a chestnut from the fire
He attains his object. Look at him now. He’s wholly at ease,
Baiting his line with a fresh mullet. Deep in the purple seas
How shall mere fish, without a fraction of my high-handedness,
Be able to resist such a display of single-mindedness?
How shall I, if it comes to that? You are at one with your bait,
And I have swallowed it, Charles. I’ve got you, it’s too late.
CHARLES:
It would seem in that case that I had you.
GILBERT:
I suppose it would and I daresay you do.
JULIE:
It would seem you both had me.
GILBERT:
I hope we always shall. I’m sure Charles will agree.
CHARLES:
Nobody ever has her for very long.
JULIE:
What a nasty remark! Gilbert, tell him he’s wrong.
GILBERT:
He’d never believe me.
JULIE:
A brother ought to defend
His sister’s reputation.
GILBERT:
But Charles is my friend,
I couldn’t lie to him!
JULIE:
Oh you’re the end!
GILBERT:
See how we have you?
JULIE:
Did you have this in mind
When you arranged for me to marry Charles?
GILBERT:
I arranged for you to marry Charles?
What can you mean? I did nothing of the kind.
JULIE:
You brought Charles home. You said we’d make a perfect match.
GILBERT:
Well, haven’t you? Of course you have. Charles was a catch,
And today it is his turn to catch us.
Tomorrow we shall let you win at cards.
What could conceivably be more stimulating
Than for three people to catch one another
In so many different ways? It keeps us going.
(JULIE returns to Venice. GILBERT talks to CHARLES.)
GILBERT:
I have had many fascinating fishing experiences …
JULIE (to JAN):
You understand I was talking lightly that day.
GILBERT:
… though I am not a serious sportsman like yourself.
JULIE:
Oh, we knew what we were saying, I suppose,
But doesn’t one talk lightly of a thing
With fingers crossed to keep it from becoming?
GILBERT:
Why, the first time I ever went deep-sea fishing
I landed a fifty-pound something-or-other,
The marvel of all my friends, such a powerful one.
JULIE:
Words lend themselves to lightness, then too late
The veils float off, leaving the naked threat.
GILBERT:
I was only a little shaver then.
I had it three-quarters of an hour on the line.
JULIE:
I want to dive down,
Discover, bring back whatever it is, the black
Pearl, the sense of whatever I am,
But my bones are full of air, my words are larks,
The sun is sparkling on the surface of the water
In all directions except from underneath.
GILBERT:
Forty-five minutes can be a long time.
CHARLES:
A long time for a fish.
GILBERT:
A longer time for anybody who isn’t a fish.
JULIE:
I hadn’t wanted to talk lightly. What’s worse,
Such is my lightness, I shall rise above it.
CHARLES:
I don’t know. I’m a fairly good swimmer.
JULIE:
You hear him? He wasn’t only joking!
GILBERT:
Why, nobody in his right mind would risk
Dipping his big toe in these waters. Besides—
CHARLES:
You think I couldn’t hold out?
GILBERT:
You couldn’t hold out for five minutes.
JULIE:
That was how it began. Charles said he could hold out
At the end of a line, like a hooked dolphin.
JAN:
Love, i
t’s over!
CHARLES:
Gilbert, sometimes you annoy the hell out of me.
JULIE:
I tried to reason with them. There had been a man
Whose leg was taken off by a shark in Bermuda.
People on shore saw the blood streaming out of him
But he kept on swimming, he hadn’t felt it.
It was when he looked behind him that he died.
CHARLES:
Would you care to make a little bet?
GILBERT:
A little bet?
JULIE:
A little bet?
GILBERT:
Mercenary Charles! No. Why in ten minutes—
CHARLES:
Hook me up to that line. You’ll see.
GILBERT:
I’ll do nothing of the sort.
JULIE:
Gilbert wanted it. He said five minutes the first time.
CHARLES:
I’m serious. Fasten me to the line. Use the harness.
GILBERT:
Can you really be such a good swimmer? No,