Plays Extravagant

by Dan Laurence

  SIR CHARLES. Indeed? That shews that she contemplates a union with you.

  LADY FARWATERS. You must not think she would reject you on the ground of any personal unworthiness on your part.

  THE CLERGYMAN. Then on what ground? Oh, I shouldnt have kissed her.

  MRS HYERING. Oho! You said it was she who kissed you.

  THE CLERGYMAN. Yes: I know I should have explained that. But she let me kiss her.

  MRS HYERING. That must have been a thrill, Mr Hammingtap. Life came to you that time, didnt it?

  THE CLERGYMAN. Oh please, I cant speak of it. But why should she reject me if I make her an honorable proposal?

  LADY FARWATERS. Because she will consider your honorable proposal dishonorable, Mr Hammingtap, unless it includes all the ladies of the family. You will not be allowed to pick and choose and make distinctions. You marry all or none.

  THE CLERGYMAN. Oh dear! My poor little brain is giving way. I cant make sense of what you are saying. I know that your meaning must be perfectly right and respectable, Lady Farwaters; but it sounds like a dreadful sort of wickedness.

  LADY FARWATERS. May I try to explain?

  THE CLERGYMAN. Please do, Lady Farwaters. But I wish you wouldnt call me Mr Hammingtap. I am accustomed to be called Iddy among friends.

  MRS HYERING. What does Iddy stand for?

  THE CLERGYMAN. Well, in our home I was known as the idiot.

  MRS HYERING. Oh! I am sorry: I didnt know.

  THE CLERGYMAN. Not at all. My sister was the Kiddy; so I became the Iddy. Do please call me that. And be kind to me. I am weakminded and lose my head very easily; and I can see that you are all wonderfully clever and strongminded. That is why I could be so happy here. I can take in anything if you will only tell it to me in a gentle hushabyebaby sort of way and call me Iddy. Now go on, Lady Farwaters. Excuse me for interrupting you so long.

  LADY FARWATERS. You see, Iddy –

  IDDY. Oh thanks!

  LADY FARWATERS [continuing] – our four children are not like European children and not like Asiatic children. They have the east in their brains and the west in their blood. And at the same time they have the east in their blood and the west in their brains. Well, from the time when as tiny tots they could speak, they invented fairy stories. I thought it silly and dangerous, and wanted to stop them; but Prola would not let me: she taught them a game called the heavenly parliament in which all of them told tales and added them to the general stock until a fairyland was built up, with laws and religious rituals, and finally a great institution which they called the Superfamily. It began by my telling them in my old conventional English way to love oneanother; but they would not have that at all: they said it was vulgar nonsense and made them interfere with oneanother and hate oneanother. Then they hit out for themselves the idea that they were not to love oneanother, but that they were to be oneanother.

  IDDY. To be oneanother! I dont understand.

  SIR CHARLES. Neither do I. Pra and Prola think they understand it; but Lady Farwaters and I dont; and we dont pretend to. We are too English. But the practical side of it – the side that concerns you – is that Vashti and Maya are now grown up. They must have children. The boys will need a young wife.

  IDDY. You means two wives.

  LADY FARWATERS. Oh, a dozen, if so many of the right sort can be found.

  IDDY. But – but – but that would be polygamy.

  PROLA. You are in the east, Mr Iddy. The east is polygamous. Try to remember that polygamists form an enormous majority of the subjects of the British Empire, and that you are not now in Clapham.

  IDDY. How dreadful! I never thought of that.

  LADY FARWATERS. And the girls will need a young husband.

  IDDY [imploringly] Two young husbands, Lady Farwaters. Oh please, two.

  LADY FARWATERS. I think not, at first.

  IDDY. Oh! But I am not an oriental. I am a clergyman of the Church of England.

  HYERING. That means nothing to Vashti.

  PRA. And still less to Maya.

  IDDY. But – but – oh dear! dont you understand? I want to marry Maya. And if I marry Maya I cannot marry Vashti. An English clergyman could not marry two women.

  LADY FARWATERS. From their point of view they are not two women: they are one. Vashti is Maya; and Maya is Vashti.

  IDDY. But even if such a thing were possible how could I be faithful to Vashti without being unfaithful to Maya? I couldnt bear to be unfaithful to Maya.

  LADY FARWATERS. Maya would regard the slightest unfaithfulness to Vashti as a betrayal of herself and a breach of your marriage vow.

  IDDY. But thats nonsense: utter nonsense. Please dont put such things into my head. I am trying so hard to keep sane; but you are terrifying me. If only I could bring myself never to see Maya again I should rush out of this garden and make for home. But it would be like rushing out of heaven. I am most unhappy; and yet I am dreadfully happy. I think I am under some sort of enchantment.

  MRS HYERING. Well, stick to the enchantment while it lasts. Let life come to you.

  PRA. May I remind you that not only Vashti and Maya, but all the ladies here, are included in the superfamily compact.

  IDDY. Oh, how nice and comfortable that would be! They would be mothers to me.

  PROLA [rebuking Pra] Let him alone, Pra. There is such a thing as calf love. Vashti and Maya are quite enough for him to begin with. Maya has already driven him half mad. There is no need for us old people to drive him quite out of his senses. [She rises] This has gone far enough. Wait here alone, Mr Hammingtap, to collect your thoughts. Look at the flowers; breathe the air; open your soul to the infinite space of the sky. Nature always helps.

  IDDY [rising] Thank you, Lady Prola. Yes: that will be a great help.

  PROLA. Come. [She goes up the steps and into the house].

  They all rise and follow her, each bestowing a word of counsel or comfort on the distracted clergyman.

  PRA. Relax. Take a full breath and then relax. Do not strangle yourself with useless anxieties. [He goes].

  LADY FARWATERS. Cast out fear, Iddy. Warm heart. Clear mind. Think of having a thousand friends, a thousand wives, a thousand mothers. [She pats him on the shoulder and goes].

  SIR CHARLES. Stand up to it, my boy. The world is changing. Stand up to it. [He goes].

  MRS HYERING. Dont let that conscience of yours worry you. Let life come to you. [She goes].

  HYERING. Try to sleep a little. The morning has been too much for you. [He goes].

  IDDY. Sleep! I will not sleep. They want me to disgrace my cloth; but I wont. I wont relax: I wont disobey my conscience: I wont smell those flowers: I wont look at the sky. Nature is not good for me here. Nature is eastern here: it’s poison to an Englishman. I will think of England and tighten myself up and pull myself together. England! The Malverns! the Severn plain! the Welsh border! the three cathedrals! England that is me: I that am England! Damn and blast all these tropical paradises: I am an English clergyman; and my place is in England. Floreat Etona! Back to England and all that England means to an Englishman! In this sign I shall conquer. [He turns resolutely to go out as he came in, and finds himself face to face with Maya, who has stolen in and listened gravely and intently to his exhortation].

  IDDY [collapsing in despair on the parapet of the well] Oh, Maya, let me go, let me go.

  MAYA [sinking beside him with her arm round his neck] Speak to me from your soul, and not with words that you have picked up in the street.

  IDDY. Respect my cloth, Miss Farwaters.

  MAYA. Maya. Maya is my name. I am the veil of the temple. Rend me in twain.

  IDDY. I wont. I will go home and marry some honest English girl named Polly Perkins. [Shuddering in her embrace] Oh, Maya, darling: speak to me like a human being.

  MAYA. That is how I speak to you; but you do not recognize human speech when you hear it: you crave for slang and small talk, and for readymade phrases that mean nothing. Speak from your soul; and tell me: do you love Va
shti? Would you die for Vashti?

  IDDY. No.

  MAYA [with a flash of rage, springing up] Wretch! [Calmly and conclusively] You are free. Farewell [She points his way through the house].

  IDDY [clutching at her robe] No, no. Do not leave me. I love you – you. I would die for you. That sounds like a word picked up in the street; but it is true. I would die for you ten times over.

  MAYA. It is not true. Words, words, words out of the gutter. Vashti and Maya are one: you cannot love me if you do not love Vashti: you cannot die for me without dying for Vashti.

  IDDY. Oh, I assure you I can.

  MAYA. Lies, lies. If you can feel one heart throb for me that is not a throb for Vashti: if for even an instant there are two women in your thoughts instead of one, then you do not know what love can be.

  IDDY. But it’s just the contrary. I –

  VASHTI [who has entered silently, sits beside him and throws an arm round his shoulders] Do you not love me? Would you not die for me?

  IDDY [mesmerized by her eyes] Oh DEAR!!! Yes: your eyes make my heart melt: your voice opens heaven to me: I love you. I would die a thousand times for you.

  VASHTI. And Maya? You love Maya. You would die a million times for Maya?

  IDDY. Yes, yes. I would die for either, for both: for one, for the other –

  MAYA. For Vashti Maya?

  IDDY. For Vashti Maya, for Maya Vashti.

  VASHTI. Your lives and ours are one life.

  MAYA [sitting down beside him] And this is the Kingdom of love.

  The three embrace with interlaced arms and vanish in black darkness.

  ACT II

  A fine forenoon some years later. The garden is unchanged; but inside the distant breakwater the harbor is crowded with cruisers; and on the lawn near the steps is a writing table littered with papers and furnished with a wireless telephone. Sir Charles is sitting at the end of it with his back to the house. Seated near him is Pra. Both are busy writing. Hyering enters.

  SIR CHARLES. Morning, Hyering.

  HYERING. Morning. [He sits at the other end of the table after waving an acknowledgment of Pra’s indication of a salaam]. Anything fresh?

  SIR CHARLES [pointing to the roadstead] Look! Five more cruisers in last night. The papers say it is the first time the fleets of the British Empire have ever assembled in one place.

  HYERING. I hope it will never happen again. If we dont get rid of them quickly there will be the biggest naval battle on record. They are quarrelling already like Kilkenny cats.

  SIR CHARLES. What about?

  HYERING. Oh, about everything. About moorings, about firing salutes: which has the right to fire first? about flags, about shore parties, about nothing. We shall never be able to keep the peace between them. The Quebec has got alongside the Belfast. The Quebec has announced Mass at eleven on All Saints Day; and the Belfast has announced firing practice at the same hour. Do you see that sloop that came in last night?

  SIR CHARLES. What is it?

  HYERING. The Pitcairn Island fleet. They are Seventh Day Adventists, and are quite sure the Judgment Day is fixed for five o’clock this afternoon. They propose to do nothing until then but sing hymns. The Irish Free State admiral threatens to sink them if they dont stop. How am I to keep them quiet?

  PRA. Dont keep them quiet. Their squabbles will make them forget what they were sent here for.

  HYERING. Forget! not they.. I have six ultimatums from their admirals, all expiring at noon today. Look. [He takes a batch of letters from his pocket and throws them on the table].

  SIR CHARLES [pointing to the letters on the table] Look at these!

  PRA. All about Iddy.

  SIR CHARLES. Iddy has got into the headlines at home. The cables are humming with Iddy. Iddy has convulsed the Empire, confound him!

  HYERING. Anything fresh from London or Delhi?

  SIR CHARLES. The same old songs. The Church of England wont tolerate polygamy on any terms, and insists on our prosecuting Iddy if we cannot whitewash him. Delhi declares that any attempt to persecute polygamy would be an insult to the religions of India.

  PRA. The Cultural Minister at Delhi adds a postscript to say that as he has been married two hundred and thirtyfour times, and could not have lived on his salary without the dowries, the protest of the Church of England shews a great want of consideration for his position. He has a hundred and seventeen children surviving.

  SIR CHARLES. Then there’s a chap I never heard of, calling himself the Caliph of British Islam. He demands that Iddy shall put away all his wives except four.

  HYERING. What does the Foreign Office say to that?

  PRA. The Foreign Office hails it as a happy solution of a difficulty that threatened to be very serious.

  HYERING. What do you think about it all yourself, Pra?

  PRA. Think! Thought has no place in such discussions. Each of them must learn that its ideas are not everybody’s ideas. Here is a cablegram from the League of British Imperial Womanhood, Vancouver and Pretoria. ‘Burn him alive and his hussies with him.’ Do you expect me to think about such people?

  HYERING. Nobody has made any practical suggestion, I suppose?

  PRA. The United States intervene with a friendly suggestion that the parties should be divorced. But the Irish Free State will not hear of divorce, and points out that if the parties become Catholics their marriages can be annulled with the greatest ease.

  HYERING. Oh, the west! the west! the west!

  PRA. Oh, the east! the east! the east! I tried to reconcile them; and I had only two successes: you and Lady Farwaters.

  HYERING. You kicked me into the sea.

  SIR CHARLES. You made love to Lady Farwaters.

  PRA. I had to use that method with very crude novices; and Lady Farwaters, with her English ladylike bringing-up, was so crude that she really could not understand any purely intellectual appeal. Your own mind, thanks to your public school and university, was in an even worse condition; and Prola had to convert you by the same elementary method. Well, it has worked, up to a point. The insight you obtained into eastern modes of thought has enabled you to govern the eastern crown colonies with extraordinary success. Downing Street hated you; but Delhi supported you; and since India won Dominion status Delhi has been the centre of the British Empire. You, Hyering, have had the same diplomatic success in the east for the same reason. But beyond this we have been unable to advance a step. Our dream of founding a millennial world culture; the dream which united Prola and Pra as you first knew them, and then united us all six, has ended in a single little household with four children, wonderful and beautiful, but sterile. When we had to find a husband for the blossoming girls, only one man was found capable of merging himself in the unity of the family: a man fed on air from his childhood. And how has this paragon turned out? An impotent simpleton. It would be impossible to conceive a human being of less consequence in the world. And yet, look! There is the Imperial Armada, in which every petty province insists on its separate fleet, every trumpery islet its battleship, its cruiser, or at least its sloop or gunboat! Why are they here, armed to the teeth, threatening what they call their sanctions? a word that once meant the approval of the gods, and now means bombs full of poison gas. Solely on account of the simpleton. To reform his morals, half of them want to rain destruction on this little household of ours, and the other half is determined to sink them if they attempt it.

  HYERING. They darent use their bombs, you know.

  PRA. True; but what is to prevent them from taking to their fists and coming ashore to fight it out on the beach with sticks and bottles and stones, or with their fists? What do the ultimatums say, Hyering?

  HYERING [reading them] Number one from the English admiral. ‘If the polygamist-adulterer Hammingtap is not handed over by noon tomorrow’ that is today ‘I shall be obliged to open fire on Government House.’ Number two, from the commander of the Bombay Squadron. ‘Unless an unequivocal guarantee of the safety and liberty of Mr Hammingtap be
in my hands by noon today’ that came this morning ‘I shall land a shore party equipped with machine guns and tear gas bombs to assist the local police in the protection of his person.’ Number three: ‘I have repeatedly informed you that the imperial province of Holy Island demands the immediate and exemplary combustion of the abominable libertine and damnable apostate known as Phosphor Hammingtap. The patience of the Holy Island fleet will be exhausted at noon on the 13th’ today ‘and the capital of the Unexpected Islands must take the consequences.’ Number four –

  SIR CHARLES. Oh, bother number four! They are all the same: not one of them has originality enough to fix half-past-eleven or a quarter-to-one.