by Unknown
SAUL (who finds it difficult not to be enamoured of this boy). Is this the man of Gath come back to life?
DAVID (pleased, but reassuring). Not truly. Saul, it is your David! Behold! (He struggles to raise the spear vainly, as he strikes a new attitude.)
SAUL. It is most memorable — though not thus do captains usually carry their spears.
DAVID (troubled). I know! (He has a happy idea — speaks proudly) This is my way! (The pride goes from him and he speaks anxiously) Look — my helmet — if it slips down, then shall I pass from sight!
(SAUL comes to his aid by taking off the helmet and DAVID drags the spear along, leaving it on the ground. He looks at SAUL affectionately and speaks in a puzzled confidential way. They are sitting now.)
King, has it seemed to you that we have something in common, you and I, that we share not with others?
SAUL (surprised). Has that come to you also?
DAVID. A King and a shepherd boy. How can it be, Son of Kish?
SAUL. Perhaps it is not ordained that you are always to tend sheep.
DAVID (confident, smiling at him). Foolish one, things are not ordained about such as David, but only about kings.
(SAUL turns and comes back to him.)
SAUL. No thoughts of what may yet come to pass disturb you, David? I would know this.
DAVID. When I killed Goliath something strange did well up in me. (Shuddering) Was it the hereafter, Saul?
SAUL. That is what I would know.
DAVID (uneasily). All I have heard about what is to come to pass is of things done by evil spirits and those who call them up.
SAUL (strongly). I, Saul the King, have cut off all such out of this land. (Huskily) Nevertheless, one would wish to know.
(Suspiciously) Said Jonathan anything to you about familiar spirits disquieting me so that a harpist was brought to play before me and drive them away?
DAVID. No. (Fearful) You! Can one playing on a harp do so? (Lighting up) Saul, I can play on my harp!
SAUL (agitated — fiercely). They trouble me not. I tell you I have driven them from my kingdom. (Secretly) Yet ‘tis said there is still one, called the Woman of Endor. (Huskily) There are things that kings should know.
DAVID. Would you foresee that which is to come if you could?
SAUL. No, no.
DAVID (breathless). I would that I could do so. Have you been to the woman?
SAUL. Nay, not I. But she has come to me, David, in diverse shapes — even she seemed to be there in this day’s battle — warning me not to approach her and yet crooking her finger to entice me. (Suddenly lowering) What is it that makes me tell you this? No others have I told. (He grips him roughly.)
Now tell me your hidden things. You have them. I know, you crafty one.
DAVID. Crafty! (He rises in alarm.)
(SAUL pulls him down and becomes cunningly reassuring.)
SAUL. Nay, nay. Tell me, David, how did you know about prostrating?
DAVID (comfortable again and in his old friendly fashion). Behold, there was an old man I did see do it.
SAUL. To a king?
DAVID (merry at the thought). No! (He tells his cause of merriment.) Saul, he did it to me!
SAUL (gripping him). Be still, boy. This old man — how looked he?
DAVID. A poor one, but kind. He said he was a prophet.
SAUL. Did he say his name?
DAVID. He was called Samuel.
(saul has to take a deep breath before he can speak, but he remains crafty.)
SAUL. Was he?
DAVID. I do laugh now, but it was not so at the time.
SAUL. Tell me about that time — so that we may laugh together.
DAVID (who is boyish and confiding). It was in our house at Bethlehem, and he was secret. He carried a wallet and in it a horn, and he prayed and wetted my head with wet from the horn. And when he was going away he did prostrate himself — before David! (He laughs at it.)
(saul controls himself.)
SAUL. You said he was secret.
DAVID. Yes. Saul, there is some one he fears.
SAUL. There is — and that some one fears him! (Sharply)
What makes you think that?
DAVID. He said to my mother that if she told the thing he had done there would be but a step between him and me — and Death. King, protect me. (In a sudden fear he clings to SAUL.)
SAUL (pushing him away and holding him at arm’s length). David, how did Samuel kill Goliath?
DAVID (affronted). Samuel? That one? It was I killed Goliath.
SAUL. Yours the pebble — but think you Saul can be deceived as are the ignorant? How was it?
DAVID (letting the admission he drawn out of him). He only helped.
SAUL. Answer me — who was it?
DAVID. I will not tell you. It was not Samuel. It was — the Other One. Samuel is His servant.
SAUL. At LAST do I know ALL. (He rises and is still kingly, though broken.) Now am I forsaken.
DAVID (rising). You will not tell Jonathan? He thinks I did it all myself. (Imploring.)
SAUL (putting a sorrowful hand on DAVID’s head). Thou doomed boy.
DAVID (bewildered). Doomed? Am I doomed, Saul?
SAUL. One of us two friends is doomed.
DAVID (startled and very childlike). Do you not like me now?
SAUL (mournfully). I like you well. (He comes to the opening of the tent and, after half-closing it, stands there as if for air.)
David, you should not have told me these things.
(DAVID has followed him.)
DAVID (shrinking). I know, but I wanted to tell you my things as you have told me yours.
(saul does not answer, but stands rigid, staring, DAVID gets his harp from hack and comes to opening and, sitting on a stool, though still inside the tent like saul, begins to play. He occasionally looks up, but is mostly looking at his harp. He has no fear of saul saul stands much perturbed with one hand on the part of the tent that is still open. The harp music goes on.)
SAUL (at last speaking tragically). There is an enemy in my habitation.
DAVID. An enemy? If it is so, kill him. Saul, kill him!
(He continues to play.)
SAUL (after a pause). I will kill him. David, it is you I am to kill.
DAVID (looking up and smiling happily). Oh no, Son of Kish!
(But, seeing SAUL’S face, he rises and draws back till he is out of sight, but he never stops playing.)
(For a brief period there is silence except that the harpplaying continues, SAUL is gazing at him, as has been said of the Rembrandt picture, devilish of one eye and with a tear for DAVID in the other. Then he draws close the remaining part of the opening. The tent is now shut up. The light continues to show through the interstices; and the harp goes on saul raises one side of the opening of the tent and throws his javelin. The harp stops abruptly and the light within the tent goes out. After saul has thrown the javelin at DAVID and the harp has stopped and the light gone out in the closed tent, he stands a second listening to the dead silence within the tent. Then with inarticulate cries, laughter and wild gestures he sweeps across the stage triumphant —
CHALLENGING. Suddenly he stands rigid as though hearing a voice call, ‘Hast thou slain the Lord’s anointed?’ Eyes staring wildly, he shakes with fear. Then he turns and in a tremulous voice, as one who calls for help, cries brokenly, ‘David... David.’ No sound from within, saul, a doomed figure, with his back to the tent, slowly, unsteadily sinks down on to a treetrunk and buries his head in his arms. After a few seconds, during which nothing is heard but the heavy breathing of saul, DAVID’s head peeps out of the tent. He is wide-eyed, bewildered, frightened and very sad. At sight of the collapsed SAUL his first thoughts are only of immediate flight. Noiselessly, swift as a wild animal, with his harp under his arm, he climbs up the rocks in the background, and is almost safely out of reach when he suddenly stops and looks irresolutely at SAUL. Something seems to draw him back to the enemy. Stealthily he cree
ps nearer and nearer to SAUL, fear, love and pity in his eyes. Timidly he kneels down far away from SAUL, but keeping anxious eyes fixed on him. He begins to play his harp — with one hand only — as though uncertain if this is the right thing to do saul does not stir. Slowly, without ever leaving off playing, DAVID creeps on his knees closer and closer. He begins to play a little more boldly. At last saul moves, DAVID holds his breath. Then, with great courage and determination, he draws quite close and plays his harp strongly — confidently, but never taking his eyes off saul. Listening, saul slowly raises his head and turns like one returning from another world. There is great danger in his expression when he recognises DAVID crouched, playing at his feet — smiling —
RADIANTLY HAPPY. Then all tension leaves saul and he is merely listening to the music like one very far away.)
ACT III
SCENE I
IN A VISION OF THE NIGHT DAVID FORESEES HIS FUTURE, AND KNOWS IT NOT
THE scene is the house of Jesse, as in Act I, except that the time is now late evening. The room is dimly lit by a lamp of the period. The fire is no longer in evidence. It is bedtime and the household of Jesse is about to retire to rest. In those days the preparations were of the most primitive. The beds were merely mattresses or a skin on the floor, with seldom anything for a pillow, and were huddled together as suited the convenience of the household. There was scarcely any undressing beyond shoes or a coat, and they often added warmer garments instead of taking anything off. Jesse and David and the four sons of Act I are to sleep here tonight as usual, and certain preparations have already begun. Three of the beds are already on the floor, including David’s, which is downstage.
(DAVID is already in bed, placidly drinking his evening milk, dipping bread in it and licking his bowl. He wears a white garment not unlike a modem nightgown though of ancient days. The only other person present just now is his mother. This little woman is of inexhaustible energy, and has a way of putting things in their place by butting her head at them. On rise of curtain she is climbing perilously to the window at back, carrying a board which is its shutter. She has difficulties with it but rams it cleverly in with one of those butts, just as it was about to fall. The characteristic of her butts is that she takes the object suddenly unawares, but there must be an avoidance of seeming to do it for stage effect; it is all just part of the day’s work. She finds a big lump in a bed and plays sudden dab at it with her knees instead of her head. All this is of the briefest. She is quick, vital, and an appallingly active housewife, and in a few moments she is by the side of DAVID. He, being accustomed to her ways, is regardlessly drinking his milk. Having last seen him holding his own in royal company, we now see him helpless in the hands of this whirlwind of a woman. All these silent scenes should be brief, with apparent leisureliness.)
MOTHER. Spilt again! Never did I see such waste! (She whirls him down, wipes him.)
(He submits placidly, as he knows he must.)
(She surveys him doggedly.) Now sleep. At once! One, two, three! He sleeps! (Suspiciously examining him, wamingly.)
He sleeps, I tell you.
DAVID (quaking). Not in the dark! Mother, you promised to give me a rush-light.
(This woman is secretly proud of him now, but there is no soft sentiment in her. She is still hopelessly perplexed about what it all means.)
MOTHER. No more talk of rush-lights. (Sitting on his bed.)
How it comes to be that you who are afraid to sleep in the dark killed this Goliath... (Despairingly) I know not.
DAVID (who easily loses faith in himself).! DID KILL HIM, MOTHER, DIDN’T I?
MOTHER (worried). You say you did.
DAVID (faltering). When it IS light, I know I did, but in the dark I am not so sure.
MOTHER (shaking her head). Nor would I be sure if it were not that we have the spear.
DAVID (brightening). Yes! The spear! Is it hid in a new place tonight?
MOTHER (looking round cautiously). H’sh! Yes, another new place. (Scared) David, when the news spreads to our neighbours, it will do the work of Bethlehem for days untold.
DAVID (glorious). My brothers will say we are the eight sons of Jesse!
MOTHER. H’sh! Not a word on your life to anyone until Samuel comes again.
DAVID (obediently). No, oh no!
MOTHER. Unless the ass acquires speech we are safe. Yet, though none here knew it was you, reports are already circling round the well of Bethlehem that the giant was killed by some boy. They even say that he cut off Goliath’s head.
DAVID. Do they? (He is promptly possessed by the grandeur of this idea.) I remember now, I did cut off his head. I sawed it off with the spear!
MOTHER. Thou little liar! (Troubled) What am I to think?
(Gazing at DAVID) How may I believe that a king had the heart to throw a javelin at your yellow head!
DAVID. My shepherd-man! He did not mean to throw it at me, but at another, who was his enemy; he was distraught because of that enemy and did mix us up. I do love him still.
MOTHER (despairingly). It is beyond me.
DAVID. Mother, I have lost my sling.
MOTHER. Careless boy!
DAVID. The sling I killed Goliath with! (He is in despair.)
MOTHER (relenting). Your sling is safe. (She shows it to him slung secretly round her neck and concealed in her bosom.)
DAVID (dumbfounded). Why have you it there?
MOTHER (she becomes harsher, to get away from sentiment). Sleep, I tell you, you confusion! And no more of that dreaming of yours and hiding your head beneath the coverlet. Then do you look little like a champion!
DAVID (quivering). They were not as dreams, for lo, it was as if they lived.
MOTHER. They? What mean you by they?
DAVID (huskily). Do you think they are they that Saul spoke of — that which is to come to pass?
MOTHER (exasperated). Some curse was on me when I bore you, boy.
(She treats him roughly and is going off with his bowl when AMNON enters at back with two nearly empty sacks flung over his shoulders. She speaks sharply.)
You are late again, Amnon. (Contemptuously) The maidens at the well, I suppose.
AMNON. Ah me! (He is jealous of DAVID’s dress and speak sarcastically) Are these old eyes mistaken or do they see David in a coat of the night?
(DAVID displays himself vaingloriously.)
MOTHER. You all had a coat of the night at his years. Moreover, it is the same coat. (She goes out.)
(AMNON takes off his shoes, kneads his bed for bumps, finds another bed that he likes better and gets into it, rolling up his sacks as pillows, aminadab and shammah enter, carrying their beds, and place them; neither uses a pillow, but both put on warm coats of wool as their one preparation for bed. ELIAB enters from back in a merry mood — but not at all intoxicated. The mother returns.)
AMNON. See Eliab roistering, mother. He has been boasting in the rest-house of his deeds at the camp of Saul.
MOTHER (tartly). It is high time that he returned thereto.
ELIAB. Ay, they need me. (He makes a sort of dancing approach to his bed.)
(All are lying down or sitting on their beds when JESS E enters in his shirt-sleeves.)
JESSE (heavily). Woman, I am disturbed about the ass. I notice some change in him. He is less compliant, and brays haughtily as if he thought himself a more notable ass than of old.
MOTHER. Can it be so?
(But she and DAVID exchange looks of subtle meaning.
jesse is putting on a thick coat.)
Which bed for you tonight, Jesse?
JESSE (yawning). Let me see. Where is Amnon?
AMNON. I am here, father.
JESSE. Arise, Amnon. I will take your bed. Your choice is ever sound.
(AMNON submits and they all get settled in their beds.)
MOTHER (now holding the lamp). May good slumber be your hap, Jesse.
JESSE (as his goodnight greeting). And yours. But it depends on that David, and his dreams. (
He holds up belt.) This is for the first who breaks my rest tonight.
(The mother, after one glance round, goes off, carrying the lamp. The room is not quite plunged in darkness, as a little light comes from door, which she has not closed. There is a pause.)
DAVID. Father!
JESSE. Quiet there!
