The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume II

by Thornton Wilder

  THE GIRL (Drawing up her hair languidly): He is irresistible, this great man.

  CHILDE ROLAND: Oliver! Oliver! Charlemagne! I hear your voices. It is I, Roland, without, in the dark marsh. My body I cast away for you. My breath I returned to the sky in your defense. Open the door! . . .

  (The marsh is a little put out by all this strong feeling. It lies quiet. The door slowly opens upon a hall full of drifting violet mists, some of which escape and fade over the marsh. The Girl with the red hair is seen walking away in the hall, her mocking face looking back over her shoulder. The Dark Girl, robed in gray, leans across the threshold extending a chalice to the knight’s lips.)

  THE DARK GIRL: Take courage, high heart. How slow you have been to believe well of us. You gave us such little thought while living that we have made this little delay at your death.

  END OF PLAY

  Centaurs

  CHARACTERS

  SHELLEY, the poet

  HILDA WANGEL, a character in Ibsen

  IBSEN, the playwright

  SETTING

  A theatre.

  The usual chattering audience of our theatres is waiting for the curtains to part on a performance of Ibsen’s The Master Builder. Presently the lights are lowered to a colored darkness, and the warm glow of the footlights begins again the ancient magic. The orchestra draws its bows soothingly to a gradual close and files out gropingly into the rabbit hutch prepared for it, leaving perhaps a sentimental viola player staring upward into the darkness. Suddenly the curtains are parted by an earnest young man, who stares into the shadowy audience and starts, with some difficulty, to address it.

  SHELLEY: My name is Shelley. I . . . I am told that some of you may have heard of me, may even know my poems—or some of my poems. I cannot imagine what they may seem like to you who live in this world that . . . that is, I have just seen your streets for the first time—your machines, your buildings, and especially the machines with which you talk to one another. My poems must seem very strange in a world of such things.

  (Awkward pause) Well, I wanted to say something about this play, but I don’t know how to put it into words for you. You see, I feel that, in part, I wrote this play.

  (With sudden relief calling back through the curtains) Hilda! Will you help me a moment?

  HILDA WANGEL’S VOICE: Yes, I’m coming.

  SHELLEY (Constrainedly, to the audience): A friend of mine.

  (Hilda appears in her mountaineering costume of the first act, carrying an alpenstock. Vigorously, to the audience:)

  HILDA: He promised to do this by himself, but he has gotten into difficulties. Have you told them that you wrote it?

  SHELLEY: I tried to. It didn’t sound reasonable.

  HILDA: Well, you were able to explain it to me. Help me to persuade Papa to come out here.

  (She disappears.)

  SHELLEY: Henrik, for my sake.

  HILDA’S VOICE: There, did you hear that? For his sake, he said. Miss Fosli, will you kindly push forward the wicker settee from the last act? Thank you. (A wicker settee suddenly appears)

  Now, Papa.

  (Hilda reappears leading the dramatist. Ibsen is smiling sternly through his spectacles and through his fringe of up-curling white whiskers.)

  Now sit down and Shelley will begin again.

  IBSEN: Hurry, young man. My beautiful play is ready to begin. The kingdom is on the table, the nurseries are empty, and this house is full of unconverted people.

  HILDA (Touching his shoe with the tip of her alpenstock): Hush, Papa. Let him go about it in his own way. Have you told them about the poem you were about to write when you died?

  SHELLEY: No.

  (To the audience) Ladies and Gentlemen, on the day I died—drowned in the Mediterranean—I was full of a poem to be called The Death of a Centaur, that I did not have time to put on paper.

  HILDA: You forgot to say that it was a very good poem.

  SHELLEY: I couldn’t say that.

  HILDA: You said it to me.

  (Turning to the audience) You should know that this young man had come to a time when everything he wrote was valuable. He was as sure to write great poems as a good apple tree is to give good apples.

  SHELLEY: Perhaps it would have been one of the better ones. At all events, it was never written . . .

  IBSEN (Rising excitedly and stamping his feet as though they had snow on them): And I claim that I wrote it. The poem hung for a while above the Mediterranean, and then drifted up toward the Tyrol, and I caught it and wrote it down. And it is The Master Builder.

  HILDA: Now you must sit down, Papa, and keep calm. We must reason this out calmly. In the first place, both are certainly about centaurs. What do you say, Shelley?

  SHELLEY: Well, it is not a strange idea, or a new one, that the stuff of which masterpieces are made drifts about the world waiting to be clothed with words. It is a truth that Plato would have understood that the mere language, the words of a masterpiece, are the least of its offerings. Nay, in the world we have come into now, the languages of the planet have no value; but the impulse, the idea of “Comus” is a miracle, even in heaven. Let you remember this when you regret the work that has been lost through this war that has been laid upon your treasurable young men. The work they might have done is still with you, and will yet find its way into your lives and into your children’s lives.

  IBSEN: Enough, enough! You will be revealing all the mysteries soon. Enough has been said to prove that The Death of a Centaur and The Master Builder are the same poem. Get in with you, children. The play is ready to start. Solness sits with his head in his hands, and the harps are in the air.

  (He goes behind the curtains. Shelley lingers a moment; a shadow has fallen across his face.)

  HILDA (Laying her hand on his arm): What is the matter?

  SHELLEY: That reminded me . . . of another poem . . . I did not write down.

  END OF PLAY

  Leviathan

  CHARACTERS

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ, a mermaid

  THE PRINCE, a shipwrecked young man

  LEVIATHAN, a sea serpent

  SETTING

  The mid-Mediterranean.

  Sunrise after a night of storm, with the sea swaying prodigiously. A great Venetian argosy has been wrecked overnight; ships and men have disappeared, leaving only the cargo spread out upon the waters. Momently new treasures from the ships’ holds float upward and, reaching the surface, are swept hither and thither for miles—Persian rugs; great lengths of brocade; boxes of spice, made from tropical leaves and bound with dried vine; and an apparently interminable swathe of gray silk unwinding from its ivory standard.

  In the foreground a mermaid is feeling her way among the stuffs with considerable distaste. To one used to the shadowed harmonies of deep-sea color these crimsons and oranges have no attraction. Brigomeïdé has the green wiry hair of her kind, entangled with the friendly snail; the iridescent shoulders of all sea-women, and the gray thin mouth.

  Suddenly she comes upon the Prince. The royal divan has been swept from the decks, and while the huge pillows are gradually soaking up the water and floating away, their Prince lies on them unconscious. For a moment the mermaid watches him open-mouthed. She steals nearer and, holding on to the tassels of seed-pearls, leans cautiously over and scans his face long and wonderingly. She sighs faintly, splashes a little in discontent, and then gazes upon him again with a frown of concentration.

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ: It’s breathing. He has not lost—what they call—the soul. I wonder where he keeps it. It is the great difference between us; we sea-people have no soul. I wonder where he keeps it! I have heard that it can be seen at times, in the eyes. Perhaps if I borrowed it from him while he slept he would never miss it. No—I will ask him for it.

  (She claps her hands suddenly to awake him, falling back, at the same time, into the water. The young man does not stir. She grows angry. She strikes the water sharply with the palms of her hands. By quick degrees a circling wind rises; gre
at fantastic waves rear themselves, robed in silk; they break over the divan and the Prince stirs. Immediately Brigomeïdé strokes the water to a stillness, and fixes her attention on the young man.)

  THE PRINCE: My father, take not your hand away. My brothers, why have you ceased talking? Where am I? —All is lost! Ave Maris Stella!

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ (Watching him intently): How could you sleep so—during the storm?

  THE PRINCE: You—you are out of a dream. You are out of my fever. Yes, yes—the storm—you—all this is but the painting of my fever. I shall awake in Venice with the lute player fallen asleep by the window. I will call to him now and he will wake me up: Amedeo! —Lute player! Shake me out of this dream!

  (The silence that follows is filled with the crackling noise as the pith fillings of the heavier cushions become saturated.)

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ (Harshly): Who is it you are calling to? There is no one here, but you and me only.

  THE PRINCE: Amedeo! —He does not answer: this is real. But you, you are dream; you are illusion. Ave Maris Stella!

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ (Indignantly): I am not dream. I am not illusion. I am royal among all sea-women. —I am of the Third Order: On the three great tide days I am permitted to bind my hair with Thetis-Agrandis and wear in my ears the higher Muria.

  THE PRINCE: You are out of an old ballad, taught me as a boy, and you have come back to me in the last hour on the tide of fever. In a moment my dream will have passed on from you.

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ (Vehemently): You think I am only dream because . . . you have heard it said . . . we sea-folk have no souls.

  THE PRINCE: Soul nor body.

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ (More softly): Tell me where it is you keep your soul. Have you it always with you?

  THE PRINCE (As a great pillow floats away from under his hand): Flos undarum! Save me! Deliver me! Hear my prayer!

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ: Who are you speaking to? Did I not tell you there was no one here but you and me only?

  THE PRINCE: You! Tell me where is shore. You can swim for days. Draw me to some island. I will give you great riches . . . all you desire.

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ: Give me your soul. All my days I have longed for two things, black hair and a soul. I have not lacked anything else. I will draw you to your home if you will give me your soul.

  THE PRINCE (Violently): It cannot be given away. No one has seen it; it cannot be felt with the hands; seen or tasted.

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ: And yet they say it is the greatest thing in the world; that without it life is a cold procession of hours; that it gives all sight to the eyes, and all hearing to the ears . . . you are mocking me! I see in your face that you have it now!

  THE PRINCE: Yes, and am about to lose it.

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ: Give it to me, and I will bring up from the bottom of the sea your father and your brothers. I will return to you all the pearls that have fallen here, and draw you softly into the narrows of Venice.

  THE PRINCE (As the water closes over him): Amedeo!—Lute player!

  (Brigomeïdé turns away contemptuously.)

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ: It is something you cannot touch or see. What could I do with it so?

  (The Prince rises, dead, entangled in scarves. Brigomeïdé stares into his face long and earnestly.)

  It is true! There is something gone . . . that lay about his eyes, that troubled his mouth. The soul, perhaps.

  (She claps her hands. From a great distance a sea serpent swims hugely toward her. He is caught in the trailing lengths of gray brocade.)

  Gog-etar! There is no longer anything precious in this man. You may divide him among your young.

  LEVIATHAN: It is terrible here, lady. These spices have made the streams unendurable. By tomorrow morning the waters will be tainted as far as Africa. Already my young are ill, lady. They lie motionless in the mud, dear lady. It is terrible to see them so . . .

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ: I do not want to hear your troubles. Take this man away.

  LEVIATHAN: Thanks, gracious lady. Perhaps these hateful essences will have made him endurable . . .

  BRIGOMEÏDÉ: Cease!

  (He drags the Prince away. The frustrated Brigomeïdé starts to comb the shell out of her hair, singing. Suddenly she breaks her song and adds musingly:)

  Perhaps it is better, although your body has passed to Leviathan, still to have another part of you somewhere about the world.

  END OF PLAY

  And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead

  CHARACTERS

  A WOMAN

  A STOUT LITTLE MAN

  A TALL THIN DREAMY MAN

  SETTING

  Atlantic abyss.

  The clangor of Judgment Day’s last trumpet dies away in the remotest pockets of space, and time comes to an end like a frayed ribbon. In the nave of creation the diaphanous amphitheatre is already building for the trial of all flesh. Several miles below the surface of the North Atlantic, the spirits of the drowned rise through the water like bubbles in a neglected wineglass.

  A WOMAN (To the gray weeds of whose soul still cling the vestiges of color, some stained purples and some wasted reds): At last I could struggle no longer. My head and lungs were under intense discomfort by reason of the water with which they were filled. I said to myself: “Only think, Gertruda, you have actually arrived at the moment of death!” Even then I was unwilling to believe it, though my lungs were on the point of bursting. One is never really able to believe that one will die. It is especially difficult for sovereigns who seldom, if ever, confront inevitable situations. Perhaps you know that I am Gertruda XXII, Empress of Newfoundland from 2638 to 2698?

  A STOUT LITTLE MAN: Your Imperial Highness’s experience is much like mine. I lived about five hundred years before Your Imperial Highness. I had always dreaded the moment of extinction, yet mine was less painful than a headache.

  THE EMPRESS: We know now that the real pain comes to us in the ages that have passed since then. Have you too been swinging in mid-ocean, tangled in a cocoon of seaweed, slowly liberating your mind from the prides and prejudices and trivialities of a lifetime? That is what is painful.

  A STOUT LITTLE MAN: I was a Jew and very proud of my race. Living under what I took to be the aspersions of my neighbors I had nourished the arrogant delusion that I was notable. It has taken me five hundred years of painful reflection to disembarrass myself of this notion. I was a theatrical producer, and thought myself important to my time—wise, witty and kindly. Each of these ideas I have shed with a hundred times the pain of losing a limb. Now I am reconciled to the fact that I am naked, a fool, a child.

  THE EMPRESS: In my life I believed fiercely that everything of which I said MY had some peculiar excellence. It was impossible to imagine a citizen proud of any country save Newfoundland, or a woman vain of any hair save the golden. I had a passion for genealogies and antiquities, and felt that such things merely looked forward to myself. Now these many years I have been wrapped in barnacles, divorcing my soul from all that it once loved. Even my love for my son and my son’s love for me have vanished through sheer inconsequence. All this is the second death, and the one to be dreaded. I was afraid that when I had shed away my royalty and my beauty and my administrative talent and my pure descent and my astonishing memory for names—I was afraid that there would be nothing left. But, fortunately, underneath all this litter I have found a tiny morsel of . . . but dare we say the Name? —But what was yours?

  A STOUT LITTLE MAN: Horatio Nissem.

  THE EMPRESS: Speak to that man who is rising through the water beside you.

  HORATIO NISSEM: Who are you, and what particular follies have you laid aside?

  A TALL THIN DREAMY MAN: I was a priest of the gospel and a terrible time I have had taking leave of my sins. I tremble to think how but a few moments ago I still retained a longing for stupidities. Yes, sir, for the planets. I felt sure that they had personalities, and I looked forward after my death to hearing their songs. Now I know that sun and moon and stars have fallen like dust into the lap of their maker. I told myself,
also, that after death I should sit through eternity overhearing the conversation of Coleridge and Augustine and Our Lord—there I should embrace my loved ones and my enemies; there I should hear vindicated before the devils the great doctrines of Infant Baptism and Sacramental Confession. Only now have I been delivered from these follies. As I swayed in the meteoric slime I begged God to punish me for certain sins of my youth, moments I well remembered of rage and pride and shame. But these seemed of no importance to him: he seemed rather to be erasing from my mind the notion that my sins were of any consequence. I see now that even the idea that I was capable of sinning was a self-flattery and an impertinence. My name was Father Cosroe: now my name is Worm.

  THE EMPRESS: We still cling obstinately to our identity, as though there were something valuable in it. This very moment I feel relics of pleasure in the fact that I am myself and no one else. Yet in a moment, if there is a moment, we shall all be reduced to our quintessential matter, and you, Mr. Nissem, will be exactly indistinguishable from me. God Himself will not be able to tell the Empress of Newfoundland from the Reverend Doctor Cosroe.

  HORATIO NISSEM (In mounting terror): I am afraid. I refuse to give myself up.

  THE EMPRESS: Do not cry out, fool. You have awakened all my rebellious nature. O God, do not take away my identity! I do not ask for my title or my features; do not take away my myself!

  HORATIO NISSEM: Do you hear? I refuse to give myself up. O God, let me not be mistaken for a Gentile.

  FATHER COSROE: Your screaming has aroused my madness. Let me keep my particular mind, O God, my own curious mind, with all I have put into it!

  (The three panic-stricken souls reach the surface of the sea. The extensive business of Domesday is over in a twinkling, and the souls divested of all identification have tumbled, like falling stars, into the blaze of unicity. Soon nothing exists in space but the great unwinking eye, meditating a new creation.)

  END OF PLAY

  Now the Servant’s Name Was Malchus