The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume II

by Thornton Wilder

  The Penny That Beauty Spent

  CHARACTERS

  CLAIRE-LOUISE, “LA GRACILE,” a dancer

  QUINTE, her husband

  THE JEWELER

  SETTING

  A jeweler’s shop in Paris.

  The little heartbreak takes place in a rococo jeweler’s shop. The shop is elegantly small and elegantly polished. The few jewels and the few pieces of brocade are tossed from surface to surface in a world of glass, from the chandelier to the mirrors and from the mirrors to the cases. It is royalty’s own place of purchase, and the great egotistical head is present in bust and in miniature and on the backs of spoons. The old jeweler, enigmatic and smiling, is suddenly called to the door by a great clatter. A girl enters borne on the shoulders of a boy little older than herself. La Gracile is thin and pinch-faced, but long penury has only made her the more elfin. Illness is already writing its progress in the eyes and on the brow of Quinte. But they are deliciously happy and full of their secrets. Quinte lifts her onto the counter and draws back.

  LA GRACILE: While you are with me I need never touch the ground. You can carry me from cushion to cushion.

  QUINTE: And on your gravestone will be inscribed: “Here lies an exquisite dancer, she who never touched the ground.”

  LA GRACILE: And beside mine yours will read: “Here lies her husband, the soul of her life, the sole of her shoes.”

  THE JEWELER: Mademoiselle is in pain? The feet of mademoiselle are in pain?

  LA GRACILE (After she has recovered, with Quinte, from the whirlwind of intimate amusement that this preposterous idea has caused them): No. I am the new dancer. I am La Gracile. Except when I dance I wear nothing on my feet but little velvet pockets. So when I am not wearing my practice slippers, my husband carries me about.

  THE JEWELER: Oh, you are La Gracile. We have already heard of your great success last night. The king is delighted with you.

  LA GRACILE (Shrilly, clapping her hands): Yes, yes, yes. I was a great success. Even the king’s favorite, Madame d’Hautillon, was jealous. She tried to stand on my foot. They call me the moth of Versailles.

  THE JEWELER: And now the king has sent you here to choose a present for yourself.

  LA GRACILE: How did you know?

  THE JEWELER: The king sends to me for a gift every young lady who pleases him. Madame d’Hautillon was here last.

  LA GRACILE (Chattering on): I want nothing myself. It is to be for Quinte. A chronometer, please, that strikes every hour with a gavotte and midnight with a saraband.

  QUINTE: Nothing for me, Claire-Louise. When my cough returns it will shake every ornament off me, the buttons from my coat, the rings from my thin fingers. You must have something in pearls.

  LA GRACILE: Silly Quinte, I want nothing.

  QUINTE: But I suppose . . . You must wear something for the king.

  LA GRACILE (Suddenly under a passing cloud of melancholy, resting her cheek on his hair, plaintively): I do not want a great showy pin on my breast. I want only a little white daisy from our beloved Brittany, from Grandmother’s field that had too many stones.

  QUINTE: Tell her what you have, Monsieur Jeweler.

  THE JEWELER: Mademoiselle will look at this chain? Its art is secret. It is painted gold, the work of aged nuns in Hamburg.

  QUINTE: Oh look, Claire-Louise, this flower for your hair. Many topazes were splintered to powder on the wheel before this perfect one.

  THE JEWELER: Etiquette forbids, mademoiselle, your buying that; it happens to be the very thing that Madame d’Hautillon bought for herself.

  LA GRACILE (Arousing herself, imperiously): Have you a little fat chronometer with many jewels in it?

  THE JEWELER (Proffering a tray): The best in Paris.

  LA GRACILE (Giving one to Quinte): That is for you, Quinte, from myself and from the dull king. Like my thoughts, it will rest on your heart, but long after it is sold as wire and rust my love will go on in the land where clocks do not mark off one sad moment from another.

  QUINTE (With tears): Claire-Louise, it can be of no pleasure to me. In a while it will only please me because it is a little cool in my hot hand.

  LA GRACILE (Softly, in pain): Courage, dearest Quinte, courage.

  THE JEWELER (Interrupting formally): Remember, mademoiselle, that etiquette demands that you will choose a present that His Majesty will admire on you.

  LA GRACILE (Stormily): I shall choose what I please.

  THE JEWELER (Insinuatingly): Your life is only to please the king. He has chosen you. By sending you here he is telling you that.

  LA GRACILE: You are mistaken . . . But I am only a poor thin dancer that . . . that has worked too hard. Besides, this is my husband.

  THE JEWELER (Smiling): No, mademoiselle, he is not your husband.

  (La Gracile jumps down and walks away weeping bitterly, her little feet-sacks flopping against the polished floor. She suddenly turns with blazing eyes.)

  LA GRACILE: I shall run away to Brittany . . . I shall scratch his eyes out.

  (The Jeweler smiles at this foolish notion and leans across the counter, holding toward her a great jewel-encrusted buckle.)

  LA GRACILE (Wildly): Even though all Versailles kill me with steel pins, Quinte shall have the watch.

  (But he has fallen among the gilt chairs.)

  END OF PLAY

  The Angel on the Ship

  CHARACTERS

  VAN, the under-cook

  MINNA, the captain’s wife

  SAM, a crew member

  SETTING

  The foredeck of the Nancy Bray, lying disabled in mid-ocean.

  The figurehead of the Nancy Bray has been torn from its place and nailed to the forepost, facing the stern—back to back, as it were, with its former position. It is the half-length of an angel bearing wreaths; she is highly colored and buxom, and has flowing yellow hair. On the deck lie three persons in the last stages of rags and exhaustion: Minna, the remnant of a stout, coarse woman; Van, a little, sharp youth; and a fat, old sleepy Jamaica Sam.

  VAN (Driving the last nail into the figurehead): There she is. She’s the new Gawd of the Atlantic. It’s only a she-Gawd, but that’s a good enough Gawd for a sailor.

  MINNA (Seated on the deck): Us’ll call her Lily. That’s a name like a god’s.

  SAM: Youm be quick. Youm say your prayers quick.

  MINNA (Blubbering): Her can’t hear us. Her’s just the old figgerhead we had thirty years.

  VAN: Her’s an angel. Her knows everything.

  (He throws himself on his knees and lays his forehead on the boards. In a hoarse whisper:)

  That’s the joss way. We all got t’do it.

  (The others do likewise.)

  SAM: Us’ll pray in turns. Us must be quick. There ain’t no more water to drink, and there ain’t no more sails left to carry us on. Us’ll have to be quick. Youm begin, Van. Youms a great lad with the words.

  VAN (With real fanaticism): Great Gawd Lily, on the ship Nancy Bray, all’s lost with us if you don’t bring us rain to drink. All the secret water I saved aside is drunk up, and we got to go over the side with the rest if you don’t bring us rain today—or tomorrow. Youm allus been the angel on the front of this yere ship Nancy Bray, and you ain’t goin’ to leave us rot now. I finished my prayer, great Gawd Lily. Amen.

  MINNA: Great God Lily, I’m the captain’s wife that’s sailed behind you for twenty years. Many’s the time, great God Lily, that I shined your face so you’d look spick and span and we sailing into London in the morning, or into heathen lands. You knows everything, and you knows what I did to my husband and that I didn’t let him have none of the secret water that me and Van saved up, and that when he died he knew it and cursed me and Van to hell. But youms forgiven everything and send us some rain or by-and-by we’ll die and there’ll be no one here prayin’ to you. This is the end of my prayin’, great God Lily.

  VAN (Whispers): Say Amen.

  MINNA: Amen, great God Lily.

  SAM: I ain’
t goin’ to pray. I’m just a dog that’s been on the sea since I was born. I don’ know no land eddication.

  MINNA: We all got to pray for some rain.

  VAN: You got t’say your word, too.

  SAM: God forgive me, great God Lily, I’m old Jamaica Sam that don’t never go ashore. Amen. I’d be drowned, too, only for Van and the captain’s wife, who gave me some of the secret water, so that if they died I could roll ’em over the side and not leave ’em on the clean deck. Amen. Youms known my whole life, great God Lily, and how I stole the Portagee’s red bag, only it was almost empty, and . . . and that other thing. Send a lot of rain and a ship to save us. Amen.

  VAN (Crawling up beneath the figure and throwing himself full length; hysterically): You’ve gone and forgiven me everything. Sure you have. I didn’t kill the captain. The secret water was mine. Save us now, great Gawd Lily, and bring me back to my uncle in Amsterdam and make him leave me his three coal barges.

  MINNA (Rocking herself): We’m lost. She’ll save Sam, but I’ve done what the gods don’t like. They’m after me. They’ve got me now.

  (Suddenly staring off the deck) Van! Van! Them’s a ship coming to us. Van, look!

  (She falls back crying.)

  VAN: Them’s comin’!

  SAM (Trying to jump up and down): It’s the Maria Theresa Third, comin’ right at us.

  VAN (His eye falls on the angel): What’ll they say to the figgerhead here?

  SAM (Sententiously): But that’s the great God Lily. Her’s saved us. You ain’t goin’ to do anything to her?

  VAN (Starting to beat the angel forward with his hammer): They’ll call us heathen, bowin’ down to wood and stone. Get the rope, Sam. We’ll put her back.

  MINNA (Frightened): But I can’t never forget her and her great starey eyes. Her I’ve prayed to.

  END OF PLAY

  The Message and Jehanne

  CHARACTERS

  CHARLES, the goldsmith

  TULLIO, the apprentice

  LADY JEHANNE, a beauty

  SETTING

  A goldsmith’s shop in Renaissance Paris.

  The tops of the shop windows are just above the level of the street, and through them we see the procession of shoes, any one of them a novel or a play or a poem. In the workshop one finds not only medals and salad forks for prelates, but unexpected things, a viola d’amore and folios ruled for music.

  Tullio enters from the street and confronts his master, Charles of Benicet. Tullio stands with his back to the door and lets his breath out slowly, as one who has just accomplished a great work.

  CHARLES (Rubbing his hands): So you delivered the rings?

  TULLIO: Yes, master.

  CHARLES: And what did my little brown Jacquenetta say?

  TULLIO: She twice read the verse you had written in the ring. Then she looked at me. Then she looked at the ring. “It is too cold,” she said.

  CHARLES: Too cold?

  TULLIO: She said: “But . . . but I suppose it’s what must go inside a ring!” Then she kissed the ring and bade me tell you she loved it.

  CHARLES (Arrested and puzzled): Too cold, the verse! —But I’ll make her another. We forget how they love us. And the other ring? Did you deliver the Graf’s ring to the Lady Jehanne herself?

  TULLIO: Yes, master. Into her very own hand. Her house is very old and in a bad part of the city. As I crossed the court and stood in the hall a great German, with fierce eyebrows, came in from the street with me.

  CHARLES: Yes, that’s the one she’s to marry.

  TULLIO: He asked me loudly what I had there. And I said, a box for the Lady Jehanne, and that it was for her hand alone, and I ran to the landing on the stairs. Then she came out herself. He cried out upon her: What gift was she receiving? And was it from a certain English student at Padua? And she said: “No, Baron, it is the wedding ring you have sent me.” And when I gave it to her she went in, very white, and without speaking to him. Then I went to Jacquenetta’s with the other ring, and she gave me some supper.

  CHARLES: Too cold, the verse! Start putting up the shutters; I must go and see her.

  (It has been growing darker. Suddenly a pair of shoes, a poem these, descends from the crowd, and Tullio opens the door to a knock. A beautiful lady gives Christian greeting, and a seat is made for her among the littered chairs. She sits in silence until Tullio has lighted the candles and retired.)

  JEHANNE: You are Charles of Benicet, master in precious metals?

  CHARLES: Carolus Benizentius auro argentoque magister, and composer of music to God and to such men whose ears He chooses to open.

  JEHANNE: You are a composer too?

  CHARLES: They are callings like two sisters who have ever their arms about the other’s neck. When I have made a wedding ring I compose a motet thereto. The boy who calls to see if the candlesticks are done takes back with him a Mass.

  JEHANNE (Without a breath): Oh!

  CHARLES: Can I serve you with music or with metals?

  JEHANNE: You have served me today. I am the Lady Jehanne.

  CHARLES: Ah, yes! The ring was unsatisfactory? I can make another tonight. I shall set about it at once.

  JEHANNE: No, master. The ring is very beautiful.

  CHARLES (After a pause, pretending to be embarrassed): I am overjoyed that it pleases you.

  JEHANNE (Suddenly): The verses that you put in the rings—where do you find them?

  CHARLES: Unless there is a special request, my lady, I put in nothing but the traditional legend: fidelitas carior vita.

  JEHANNE (Without reproach): But there are liberties you allow yourself? Master, what meant you when you wrote within my ring?

  CHARLES: My lady!

  JEHANNE (Giving him the ring): Graf Klaus addresses me thus.

  CHARLES (Reading around the inside of the ring): “As the hermit his twilight, the countryman his holiday, the worshiper his peace, so do I love thee.” It was the wrong ring that was delivered to you, my lady.

  JEHANNE: It has broken my will. I am in flight for Padua. My family are truly become nothing but sparrows and God will feed them.

  END OF PLAY

  Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

  CHARACTERS

  CHILDE ROLAND, a knight

  THE GIRL

  THE DARK GIRL

  SETTING

  Near the scene of battle.

  The sun has set over the great marsh, leaving a yellow-brown Flemish light upon the scene. In the midst of the mire and among the tufts of iron-grass stands an old round tower. Its lower narrow door is of green bronze, scarred with many assaults. Above the door are two small windows, behind which a gleam seems to come and go.

  In the half-light that hangs over the plain a man in armor stumbles through the bog to the single step before the door. He is many times wounded; his blood flows freely to the ground. The knight blows his horn; the landscape collects itself to listen.

  CHILDE ROLAND: I die . . . Open the door to me.

  (The landscape laughs, then falls suddenly silent. Presently its subterranean waters are again heard sucking at buried tree trunks.)

  I have seen your lights here from a long way off . . . You cannot hide from me now.

  (The marsh becomes animated and fully interested in the stranger. One of the windows brightens slightly and a girl looks out. Her voice and manner are strangely detached and impersonal, as though she had been called away from some absorbing interest, and was eager to return to it.)

  Oh, you are here! Quick, descend to me. All my wounds are flowing. I am dying of thirst.

  THE GIRL: Who are you to issue commands against this tower? Some emperor, surely.

  CHILDE ROLAND: My name is written with many another upon the sword of Charlemagne: That is enough.

  THE GIRL: You are some king, perhaps—driven into the wilderness by your not too loving subjects?

  CHILDE ROLAND: No king, but a friend and soldier of kings.

  THE GIRL: Oh! This is some wise counselor. If you ar
e so wise we will quickly open the door to you.

  CHILDE ROLAND: Not wise, but often listened to in grave matters, having a voice equal with many others.

  THE GIRL (Utterly untouched, lightly to someone within): I do believe this is some sweet singer. Let us bind on our slippers right quickly and put red wine to his lips, for poets are ever our delight.

  CHILDE ROLAND: I am no singer, but one loving the string and the voice at all times. Open the door! For the wind is cold on the marsh, and the first terrible stars are stepping into their chains. Open the door, for my veins are emptied on your sill.

  THE GIRL (Leaning far out, while her red hair falls almost to his shoulders): Beat upon the door, Sir Knight. Many things are gained by force.

  CHILDE ROLAND: My hands are strengthless . . . I am fallen on my knees . . . Pity me!

  (The Girl laughs pleasantly to her companion within.)

  Reach over the stars to me, Mary, Mother of God. To you I was committed in my first year, and have renewed yearly my promises. Send from thy golden mind and thy voiceless might the issue out of this difficulty.

  (A second girl, dark and thoughtful, appears at the other window.)

  THE GIRL (Intimately): He is praying now.

  THE DARK GIRL: He is a little boy. His thoughts this last hour are returning to his earliest year.

  THE GIRL: Is it not beautiful that a knight should think of a little child?

  THE DARK GIRL: What brought you here, Knight-at-Arms?

  CHILDE ROLAND: The battle passed suddenly into the west. This tower was all I could see. And here I brought my wounds.

  THE GIRL (Softly): You see he is still able to reason; he reasons very well.

  THE DARK GIRL: What led you to think that we could help you?

  CHILDE ROLAND: I know your name! All my life I have heard of this tower. They say that on the outside you are dark and unlovely, but that within every hero stands with his fellows and the great queens step proudly on the stair.

  THE DARK GIRL: And do you believe this?

  CHILDE ROLAND (After a pause): Yes.

  (With sudden fury) Open the door! There is a place for me within. Open the door, Death!