Works of Edwin Arlington Robinson
Page 58
FARNHAM
You might have come back before.
VAN ZORN
And I might have made a mistake in doing so. I waited for what seemed to be the appointed time, and then I came.
FARNHAM
And here you are.
[With more spirit]
Now I don’t know much about the appointed time, as you call it, but I suppose I do know what you mean by knocking at doors.
[He looks at the picture and scowls]
May I ask
[Unpleasantly]
how many times you intend to knock? And when you intend to begin?
VAN ZORN
[In a level, musical voice]
My intention was to knock once, this afternoon, if it could be arranged.
FARNHAM
[Incredulously]
You and your boat must have made a record, if that’s the way you feel.
[As if led along reluctantly by the humor of the situation]
Well, I dare say it can be arranged — and I infer that you count on me to do the arranging.
VAN ZORN
I shall never knock under other conditions.
FARNHAM
before]
And what do you intend to do after you get in? Something in the Lochinvar line? Carry the young lady away on a horse — or in a limousine?
VAN ZORN
[Seriously]
If I were to be admitted, and if I were to satisfy myself that my convictions are correct, that three people are on their way to unhappiness and disaster.... What should I do then? What ought I to do then?
FARNHAM
You look at me as if you thought I was afraid of something. I wish you would tell me what I ought to be beginning to think of you.
VAN ZORN
[Quietly]
You should think of me at all times as the best friend you have in the world.
[Farnham lights a match on the box that he has taken from the mantel and watches the flame until it burns down to his fingers.
Then he puts his hands into his pockets and looks at Van Zorn intently]
FARNHAM
[Distinctly]
How long has this been going on? How long have you been planning to marry Villa Vannevar?
VAN ZORN
[Distinctly]
I said something about four years. But time, in your sense of the word, doesn’t mean very much to me.
FARNHAM
[Almost with a sneer]
It may come to mean more — eventually VAN ZORN
[Nods slowly]
That remains to be seen.
FARNHAM
[As before]
As you see it?
[Van Zorn nods again]
My fatalistic friend, you may not care much to know what I have been doing during the past four or five years, but what I have been doing during the past four or five minutes may be of interest to you. If so, I have been asking myself why it is, in spite of my agreement, that I have been taking the trouble to listen to you. You must be aware that I would not have listened to the same talk from any other man living.
VAN ZORN
[With a strange innocence]
What possible fear can you have, if you have no doubts —
or misgivings?
FARNHAM
[Scowling]
Fear? Doubts? Misgivings? — what the devil are you driving at now?
VAN ZORN
[As before]
You might lead me to believe that you think me capable of treachery.
FARNHAM
Treachery?
[With a nasal laugh]
By treachery, I suppose you mean
[Letting his words out half-angrily, in detached phrases]
the repeated visitations — of an irresistible personality —
on the unschooled emotions — of a young lady who is about to do me the honor of becoming my wife.... Am I
about right?
VAN ZORN
[Smiling]
You speak now as if you thought me capable of almost anything — beginning with murder.
FARNHAM
[Trying to laugh]
No, I don’t think that. For I know now that even you have your limitations.
VAN ZORN
[With tightening lips]
Yes; and I am limited, for the present, at any rate, to one interview — subject to your consent and arrangement. If by any chance you should choose to change your mind...
FARNHAM
[Half-angry]
What do you mean by that? Why should I change my mind? Just because you have elected to be plain crazy — with your appointed time, and your — your Destiny — do you think I’m going to be such an ass as to take you seriously? I don’t care much for this sort of thing, and I don’t mind telling you so; but if you insist upon making a show of yourself, I don’t know that I am bound by courtesy to interfere, or by law to be responsible — under the circumstances.
VAN ZORN
That will be first rate — especially under the circumstances. Now let me be sure that we both understand.
If I call to see Miss Vannevar this afternoon at four o’clock, by special appointment, — or, if not then, at the earliest opportunity...
FARNHAM
[With an incredulous laugh]
Oh, you’ll get in. You needn’t worry about that.
[He smiles to himself and shakes his head, with a long sigh]
Shall we go out now and have something to eat?
VAN ZORN
[Smiling]
Don’t you think, Farnham, that we had better give each other a short leave of absence?
FARNHAM
[Drily]
As you say.
[With a sorry laugh]
As you see it.
VAN ZORN
Will you dine with me this evening?
FARNHAM
I’m sorry, but I can’t. But I’ll be here at ten, if that will do you any good.
VAN ZORN
[Laughing a little]
Then I shall see you at ten. And you will telephone me at my hotel — we’ll say at three-thirty?
FARNHAM
[With an easy snort]
Yes, I’ll telephone.
VAN ZORN
The Knickerbocker.
FARNHAM
[Wearily]
I know it.
VAN ZORN
Then I’ll say good-bye until — ten.
FARNHAM
[More wearily]
I understood what you said. You said ten.
[After a pause VAN ZORN goes out. FARNHAM returns from the vestibule with his hat and stick. After turning the picture to the wall, he stands for a while near the window-seat, shakes his head slowly, puts his hat on slowly, sits down, and smiles incredulously to himself. He draws figures on the floor with his stick as the curtain falls]
CURTAIN
ACT II
A diagonal view of a room in Mrs. Lovett’s house. The right corner is revealed, with half of the right wall. In the corner is a small grand piano, and to the right is a window. To the left, half way down, is the entrance, a wide arched doorway with curtains. Well down in front, somewhat to the right, is a table, before which are two comfortable chairs that partly face each other. Against the wall, to the left and below the entrance, is a couch. There are several pictures on the walls, and over the piano is a portrait of Mrs. Lovett’s late husband, showing the beardless face of a man of fifty, melancholy and rather glowering. The room has the unmistakable appearance of a place where people live and make themselves at home.
As the curtain rises, Villa Vannevar is at the piano, playing in a listless, abstracted manner the cantabile part of Chopin’s Nocturne, Op. 37, No. 2. Mrs. Lovett, sitting in the chair at the right of the table, listens, frowns, stamps her foot, and finally speaks out with evident impatience.
MRS. LOVETT
Villa Vannevar, do for heaven’s sake keep still, or play something that has a little
life in it. You play that thing as if you were crying through the ends of your fingers.
VILLA
[Turning about and facing Mrs. Lovett]
Would you have me always laughing, Auntie — like this?
[She makes a ridiculous face and laughs]
MRS. LOVETT
No, you silly child. But you needn’t look forever as if life were nothing but one long funeral. I don’t like funerals.
VILLA
[With a shrug]
I don’t know about that. It seems to me sometimes that funerals are better than weddings. When we go to funerals, we know what has happened; but when we go to weddings, we don’t even pretend to know what is going to happen.
[Looking at her foot]
I think I like funerals best.
MRS. LOVETT
You crazy child, you are positively wicked.
VILLA
Oh no, I’m not, Auntie. I’m good.
[Getting up with a sigh]
I’m good enough to be a fool.
MRS. LOVETT
[As if scared]
Villa Vannevar!
VILLA
[Laughing]
Yes, Auntie, that’s what’s the matter with me.
[Wearily]
Otto Mink and George Lucas believe already that I am one.
MRS. LOVETT
Child! Do you know what you are saying?
VILLA
[Moving about with her hands behind her]
I know perfectly well what I’m saying. They think I’m a fool for marrying Weldon Farnham — when he doesn’t more than half want me.
MRS. LOVETT
[Significantly, after a pause]
You haven’t married him yet.
VILLA
[Trying to laugh]
No, I have not.
[Pause]
I wonder if the other man — Mr. What-you-call-him —
thinks I’m a fool.
MRS. LOVETT
[With excited sarcasm]
Don’t you know what he thinks?
VILLA
How should I know what he thinks? I don’t even know that he thinks at all.
[With a pleasant nervousness]
Do you know what he thinks?
MRS. LOVETT
I know that he considers you a very charming person, for one thing.
VILLA
[Laughing]
How nice of him! He didn’t tell me so.
MRS. LOVETT
He may not have told you, but he did tell me. I am too old to be deceived.
VILLA
[Laughing]
Then you must be the oldest woman in the world.
MRS. LOVETT
[With decayed archness]
Possibly I am. In any case, I am old enough to see that he considers you not only very charming, but exceedingly impertinent.
VILLA
Then he must be a beast.
[She laughs]
MRS. LOVETT
He isn’t a beast. He’s a wonderful creature. And I am surprised out of my senses that he should be coming here to see you again this afternoon.
VILLA
[Laughing]
If you don’t go away with your wonderful creatures,
I shall throw things out of the window and shriek. For Mr. Van Zorn isn’t a wonderful creature in the least. He’s just a big overgrown man with a heap of money that he doesn’t know what to do with, and he’s coming to get you and carry you off in a taxicab.
[She sits at Mrs. Lovett’s feet and looks up into her face]
And I’ll never see my Auntie any more. And then I
suppose there’ll be nothing left for me to do but to go melancholy mad. I shall prowl around all by myself like a shut-up cat, and I’ll sit down in all sorts of comers and cry like anything.
MRS. LOVETT
[Pleased]
So you have found his name at last, have you?
VILLA
I like his name. It sounds like a bassoon. But I don’t like his eyes as well as I do the other man’s.
MRS. LOVETT
[Disturbed]
Do you mean Weldon Farnham’s?
VILLA
[Calmly]
No, I was thinking for the moment of George Lucas’s eyes. Mr. What’s-his-name’s are too much like blue search-lights.
MRS. LOVETT
You needn’t call him Mr. What’s-his-name — and you needn’t mention George Lucas. I am sorry that he has come to be what he is, but I don’t care to have his name mentioned in my house.
VILLA
But you used to like him once, Auntie, — and this wonderful creature of yours liked him at first sight. As a matter of fact, he likes him better than he likes any of the rest of us.
MRS. LOVETT
Don’t talk such nonsense.
VILLA
I’m not talking nonsense.
[Laughing]
Anyhow, Auntie, your wonderful creature has taken a wonderful fancy to George — I beg your pardon — and I
don’t know how you are going to change the course of events, even if you tell me that I have a head like an Edam cheese — which I haven’t, in the least. My head makes Otto think of a very nice horse. He said so.
MRS. LOVETT
Otto may have said so because you act so much like a donkey.
VILLA
I don’t act in any respect like a donkey, and I don’t think you ought to say such things. For I am an extremely well-behaved young lady — except at times.
[Pause]
If you look at me like that much longer, Auntie, I’ll say bow-bow; and then I’ll put both my paws on your shoulders, and then I’ll bite you.
[She snaps her teeth and laughs]
MRS. LOVETT
[Reluctantly]
My dear Villa, why did you bring up George Lucas’s name again?
VILLA
[With a kind of triumph]
Why do you bring it up again, Auntie?
[Pause]
At any rate, he never injured anybody.
MRS. LOVETT
[Sharply]
But he disappointed everybody — and that’s as bad as injuring them. I’m not sure that it isn’t worse.
VILLA
But something may have happened.
MRS. LOVETT
Something always happens. What would be the use of living if things didn’t happen?
VILLA
[Slowly]
I know. But if they happen at the wrong time, and under the wrong conditions...
MRS. LOVETT
[With a sniff]
Well, what do you mean? Do you mean that when a boy with more than ordinary brains chooses to make an utter fool of himself, and continues to do so until he grows up and everybody loses all patience with him...
[She stops and looks angrily at her fingers]
VILLA
[Getting up and speaking thoughtfully]
No, I don’t mean just that... George’s father must have been a very strange man.
MRS. LOVETT
[Rapidly]
It doesn’t make any difference what you mean. Besides
[Slowly, with significant vagueness]
if you consider yourself engaged to Weldon Farnham, you ought not to think of other men at all. And you are not supposed to know anything about men like George Lucas’s father.
VILLA
[Laughing]
You did that very badly, Auntie.
[With mock-deliberation]
And so you want this new man with the queer name — this wonderful creature — all to yourself!
[Going behind Mrs. Lovett and putting her hands on her cheeks]
And you’re a dear, and you’re a pig, and you want him all to yourself, and it’s nearly time for him to come.
MRS. LOVETT
[Shaking her head free and looking over her shoulder]
Do you know that you grow sillier and sillier every day of your life?
&n
bsp; VILLA
[Drawing Mrs. Lovett back and looking down into her eyes]
Well, would you have me stay forever and ever the same?... If you will roll your eyes back just a little farther, Auntie, I shall see myself in them — as I did when I was a little girl.
[Pause]
THE MAID
[In the doorway]
There is a gentleman to see Miss Villa. He gave me this card.
VILLA
[Taking the card and examining it]
But there’s nothing on it.
[She gives the card to Mrs. Lovett and laughs nervously]
MRS. LOVETT
Dear me! I hope he isn’t going to be eccentric.
VILLA
He may be an anarchist or something.
[Shrugs and laughs]
Go downstairs, Jenny, and find out the creature’s name, and what he wants. If he asks for fish, give him a serpent.
MRS. LOVETT
[Reprovingly]
Villa!
MAID
His name is Mr. Lucas.
MRS. LOVETT
Then why didn’t you say so?
VILLA
Tell him to come upstairs, Jenny.
[The MAID goes out]
MRS. LOVETT
[Bewildered]
What in the world does this mean? And what in the world do you mean by asking him to come upstairs?
VILLA
Heaven only knows, Auntie. I don’t seem to know what anything means today.