Part 2 - Act 1 - Scene 1. Outside The House

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_ PART II ACT I SCENE I. OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

[On the right a terrace, on which the house stands. Below it a road runs towards the back, where there is a thick pine wood with heights beyond, whose outlines intersect. On the left there is a suggestion of a river bank, but the river itself cannot be seen. The house is white and has small, mullioned windows with iron bars. On the wall vines and climbing roses. In front of the house, on the terrace, a well; at the end of the terrace pumpkin plants, whose large yellow flowers hang dozen over the edge. Fruit trees are planted along the road, and a memorial cross can be seen erected at a spot where an accident occurred. Steps lead down from the terrace to the road, and there are flower-pots on the balustrade. In front of the steps there is a seat. The road reaches the foreground from the right, curving past the terrace, which projects like a promontory, and then loses itself in the background. Strong sunlight from the left. The MOTHER is sitting on the seat below the steps. The DOMINICAN is standing in front of her.]

DOMINICAN [Note: The same character as the CONFESSOR and BEGGAR]. You called me to discuss a family matter of importance to you. Tell me what it is.

MOTHER. Father, life has treated me hardly. I don't know what I've done to be so frowned upon by Providence.

DOMINICAN. It's a mark of favour to be tried by the Eternal One, and triumph awaits the steadfast.

MOTHER. That's what I've often said to myself; but there are limits to the suffering one can bear....

DOMINICAN. There are no limits. Suff'ering's as boundless as grace.

MOTHER. First my husband leaves me for another woman.

DOMINICAN. Then let him go. He'll come crawling back again on his bare knees!

MOTHER. And as you know, Father, my only daughter was married to a doctor. But she left him and came home with a stranger, whom she presented to me as her new husband.

DOMINICAN. That's not easy to understand. Divorce isn't recognised by our religion.

MOTHER. No. But they'd crossed the frontier, to a land where there are other laws. He's an Old Catholic, and he found a priest to marry them.

DOMINICAN. That's no real marriage, and can't be dissolved because it never existed. But it can be nullified. Who is your present son-in-law?

MOTHER. Truly, I wish I knew! One thing I do know, and that's enough to fill my cup of sorrow. He's been divorced and his wife and children live in wretched circumstances.

DOMINICAN. A difficult case. But we'll find a way to put it right. What does he do?

MOTHER. He's a writer; said to be famous at home.

DOMINICAN. Godless, too, I suppose?

MOTHER. Yes. At least he used to be; but since his second marriage he's not known a happy hour. Fate, as he calls it, seized him with an iron hand and drove him here in the shape of a ragged beggar. Ill-fortune struck him blow after blow, so that I pitied him at the very moment he fled from here. Then he wandered in the woods and, later, lay out in the fields where he fell, till he was found by merciful folk and taken to a convent. There he lay ill for three months, without our knowing where he was.

DOMINICAN. Wait! Last year a man was brought to the Convent of St. Saviour, where I'm Confessor, under the circumstances you describe. Whilst he was feverish he opened his heart to me, and there was scarcely a sin of which he didn't confess his guilt. But when he came to himself again, he said he remembered nothing. So to prove him in heart and reins I used the secret apostolic powers that are given us; and, as a trial, employed the lesser curse. For when a crime's been done in secret, the curse of Deuteronomy is read over the suspected man. If he's innocent, he goes his way unscathed. But if he's struck by it, then, as Paul relates, 'he is delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved.'

MOTHER. O God! It must be he!

DOMINICAN. Yes, it is he. Your son-in-law! The ways of Providence are inscrutable. Was he heavily struck by the curse?

MOTHER. Yes. That night he slept here, and was torn from his sleep by an unexplained power that, as he told me, turned his heart to ice....

DOMINICAN. Did he have fearful visions?

MOTHER. Yes.

DOMINICAN. And was he harried by those terrible thoughts, of which Job says, 'When I say, my bed shall comfort me, then Thou scarest me with dreams and terrifiest me with visions; so that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than life.' That's as it should be. Did it open his eyes?

MOTHER. Yes. But only so that his sight was blinded. For his sufferings grew so great that he could no longer find a natural explanation for them, and as no doctor could cure him, he began to see that he was fighting higher conscious powers.

DOMINICAN. Powers that meant him ill, and were therefore themselves evil. That's the usual course of things. And then?

MOTHER. He came upon books that taught him that such evil powers could be fought.

DOMINICAN. Oh! So he looked for what's hidden, and should remain so! Did he succeed in exorcising the spirits that chastised him?

MOTHER. He says he did. And it seems now that he can sleep again.

DOMINICAN. Yes, and he believes what he says. Yet, since he hasn't truly accepted the love of truth, God will trouble him with great delusion, so that he'll believe what is false.

MOTHER. The fault's his own. But he's changed my daughter: in other days she was neither hot nor cold; but now she's on the way to becoming evil.

DOMINICAN. How do the two of them get on?

MOTHER. Half the time, happily; the other half they plague one another like devils.

DOMINICAN. That's the way they must go. Plague one another till they come to the Cross.

MOTHER. If they don't part again.

DOMINICAN. What? Have they done so?

MOTHER. They've left one another four times, but have always come back. It seems as if they're chained together. It would be a good thing if they were, for a child's on the way.

DOMINICAN. Let the child come. Children bring gifts that are refreshing to tired souls.

MOTHER. I hope it may be so. But it looks as if this one will be an apple of discord. They're already quarrelling over its name; they're quarrelling over its baptism; and the mother's already jealous of her husband's children by his first wife. He can't promise to love this child as much as the others, and the mother absolutely insists that he shall! So there's no end to their miseries.

DOMINICAN. Oh yes, there is. Wait! He's had dealings with higher powers, so that we've gained a hold on him; and our prayers will be more, powerful than his resistance. Their effect is as extraordinary as it is mysterious. (The STRANGER appears on the terrace. He is in hunting costume and wears a tropical helmet. In his hand he has an alpenstock.) Is that him, up there?

MOTHER. Yes. That's my present son-in-law.

DOMINICAN. Singularly like the first! But watch how he's behaving. He hasn't seen me yet, but he feels I'm here. (He makes the sign of the cross in the air.) Look how troubled he grows.... Now he stiffens like an icicle. See! In a moment he'll cry out.

STRANGER (who has suddenly stopped, grown rigid, and clutched his heart). Who's down there?

MOTHER. I am.

STRANGER. You're not alone.

MOTHER. No. I've someone with me.

DOMINICAN (making the sign of the cross). Now he'll say nothing; but fall like a felled tree. (The STRANGER crumples up and falls to the ground.) Now I shall go. It would be too much for him if he were to see me, But I'll come back soon. You'll see, he's in good hands! Farewell and peace be with you. (He goes out.)

STRANGER (raising himself and coming down the steps). Who was that?

MOTHER. A traveller. Sit down; you look so pale.

STRANGER. It was a fainting fit.

MOTHER. You've always new names for it; but they mean nothing fresh. Sit down here, on the seat.

STRANGER. No; I don't like sitting there. People are always passing.

MOTHER. Yet I've been sitting here since I was a child, watching life glide past as the river does below. Here, on the road, I've watched the children of men go by, playing, haggling, begging, cursing and dancing. I love this seat and I love the river below, though it does much damage every year and washes away the property we inherited. Last spring it carried our whole hay crop off, so that we had to sell our beasts. The property's lost half its value in the last few years, and when the lake in the mountains has reached its new level and the swamp's been drained into the river, the water will rise till it washes the house away. We've been at law about it for ten years, and we've lost every appeal; so we shall be destroyed. It's as inevitable as fate.

STRANGER. Fate's not inevitable.

MOTHER. Beware, if you think to fight it.

STRANGER. I've done so already.

MOTHER. There you go again! You learn nothing from the chastisement of Providence.

STRANGER. Oh yes. I've learned to hate. Can one love what does evil?

MOTHER. I've little learning, as you know; but I read yesterday in an encyclopaedia that the Eumenides are not evilly disposed.

STRANGER. That's true; but it's a lie they're friendly. I only know one friendly fury. My own!

MOTHER. Can you call Ingeborg a fury?

STRANGER. Yes. She is one; and as a fury, she's remarkable. Her talent for making me suffer excels my most infernal inventions; and if I escape from her hands with my life, I'll come out of the fire as pure as gold.

MOTHER. You've got what you deserve. You wanted to mould her as you wished, and you've succeeded.

STRANGER. Completely. But where is this fury?

MOTHER. She went down the road a few minutes ago.

STRANGER. Down there? Then I'll go to meet my own destruction. (He goes towards the back.)

MOTHER. So you can still joke about it? Wait! (The MOTHER is left alone for a moment, until the STRANGER has disappeared. The LADY then enters from the right. She is wearing a summer frock, and is carrying a post bag and some opened letters in her hand.)

LADY. Are you alone, Mother?

MOTHER. I've just been left alone.

LADY. Here's the post. This is for job.

MOTHER. What? Do you open his letters?

LADY. All of them, because I want to know who it is I've linked my life to. And I want to suppress everything that might minister to his pride. In a word, I isolate him, so that he has to keep his own electricity and run the danger of being broken to pieces.

MOTHER. How learned you've grown?

LADY. Yes. If he's unwise enough to confide almost everything to me, I'll soon hold his fate in my hand. Now, if you please, he's making electrical experiments and claims he'll be able to harness the lightning, so that it'll give him light, warmth and power. Well, let him do as he likes! From a letter that came to-day I see he's even corresponding with alchemists.

MOTHER. Does he want to make gold? Is the man sane?

LADY. That's the important question. Whether he's a charlatan doesn't matter so much.

MOTHER. Do you suspect it?

LADY. I'd believe any evil of him, and any good, on the same day.

MOTHER. Is there any other news?

LADY. The plans my divorced husband made for a new marriage have gone wrong; he's grown melancholic, abandoned his practice and is tramping the roads.

MOTHER. Oh! He was always my son-in-law. He had a kind heart under his rough manner.

LADY. Yes. I only called him a werewolf in his role as my husband and master. As long as I knew he was at peace, and on the way to find consolation, I was content. But now he'll torment me like a bad conscience.

MOTHER. Have you a conscience?

LADY. I never used to have one. But my eyes have been opened since I read my husband's works, and I know the difference between good and evil.

MOTHER. But he forbade you to read them, and never foresaw you wouldn't obey him.

LADY. Who can foresee all the results of any action?

MOTHER. Have you more bad news in your pocket, Pandora?

LADY. The worst of all! Think of it, Mother, his divorced wife's going to marry again.

MOTHER. That ought to be reassuring, to you and to him.

LADY. Didn't you know it was his worst nightmare? That his wife would marry again and his children have a stepfather?

MOTHER. If he can bear that alone, I shall think him a strange man.

LADY. You believe he's too sensitive? But didn't he say himself that an educated man of the world at the end of the nineteenth century never lets himself be put out of countenance!

MOTHER. It's easy to say so; but when things really happen....

LADY. Yet there was a gift at the bottom of Pandora's box that was no misfortune. Look, Mother! A portrait of his six-year-old son.

MOTHER (looking at the picture). A lovely child.

LADY. It does one good to see such a charming and expressive picture. Tell me, do you think my child will be as beautiful? Well, what do you say? Answer, or I'll be unhappy! I love this boy already, but I feel I'd hate him if my child's not as lovely as he. Yes, I'm jealous already.

MOTHER. When you came here after your unlucky honeymoon, I'd hoped you'd have got over the worst. But now I see it was only a foretaste of what was to come.

LADY. I'm ready for anything; and I don't think this knot can ever be undone. It must be cut!

MOTHER. But you're only making more difficulties for yourself by suppressing his letters.

LADY. In days gone by, when I went through life like a sleep-walker, everything seemed easy to me, but I begin to be uncertain now he's started to waken thoughts in me. (She puts the letters into the post-bag.) Here he is. 'Sh!

MOTHER. One thing more. Why do you let him wear that suit of your first husband's?

LADY. I like torturing and humiliating him. I've persuaded him it fits him and belonged to my father. Now, when I see him in the werewolf's things, I feel I've got both of them in my clutches.

MOTHER. Heaven defend us! How spiteful you've grown!

LADY. Perhaps that was my role, if I have one in this man's life!

MOTHER. I sometimes wish the river would rise and carry us all away whilst we're asleep at night. If it were to flow here for a thousand years perhaps it would wash out the sin on which this house is built.

LADY. Then it's true that my grandfather, the notary, illegally seized property not his own? It's said this place was built with the heritage of widows and orphans, the funds of ruined men, the property of dead ones and the bribes of litigants.

MOTHER. Don't speak of it any more. The tears of those still living have run together and formed a lake. And it's that lake, people say, that's being drained now, and that'll cause the river to wash us away.

LADY. Can't it be stopped by taking legal action? Is there no justice on earth?

MOTHER. Not on earth. But there is in heaven. And heaven will drown us, for we're the children of evildoers. (She goes up the steps.)

LADY. Isn't it enough to put up with one's own tears? Must one inherit other people's?

(The STRANGER comes back.)

STRANGER. Did you call me?

LADY. No. I only tried to draw you to me, without really wanting you.

STRANGER. I felt you meddling with my destiny in a way that made me uneasy. Soon you'll have learnt all I know.

LADY. And more.

STRANGER. But I must ask you not to lay rough hands on my fate. I am Cain, you see, and am under the ban of mysterious powers, who permit no mortals to interfere with their work of vengeance. You see this mark on my brow? (He removes his hat.) It means: Revenge is mine, saith the Lord.

LADY. Does your hat press....

STRANGER. No. It chafes me. And so does the coat. If it weren't that I wanted to please you, I'd have thrown them all into the river. When I walk here in the neighbourhood, do you know that people call me the doctor? They must take me for your husband, the werewolf. And I'm unlucky. If I ask who planted some tree: they say, the doctor. If I ask to whom the green fish basket belongs: they say, the doctor. And if it isn't his then it belongs to the doctor's wife. That is, to you! This confusion between him and me makes my visit unbearable. I'd like to go away....

LADY. Haven't you tried in vain to leave this place six times?

STRANGER. Yes. But the seventh, I'll succeed.

LADY. Then try!

STRANGER. You say that as if you were convinced I'd fail.

LADY. I am.

STRANGER. Plague me in some other way, dear fury.

LADY. Well, I can.

STRANGER. A new way! Try to say something ill-natured that 'the other one's' not said already.

LADY. Your first wife's 'the other one.' How tactful to remind me of her.

STRANGER. Everything that lives and moves, everything that's dead and cold, reminds me of what's gone....

LADY. Until the being comes, who can wipe out the darkness of the past and bring light.

STRANGER. You mean the child we're expecting!

LADY. Our child!

STRANGER. Do you love it?

LADY. I began to to-day.

STRANGER. To-day? Why, what's happened? Five months ago you wanted to run off to the lawyers and divorce me; because I wouldn't take you to a quack who'd kill your unborn child.

LADY. That was some time ago. Things have changed now.

STRANGER. Why now? (He looks round as if expecting something.) Now? Has the post come?

LADY. You're still more cunning than I am. But the pupil will outstrip the master.

STRANGER. Were there any letters for me?

LADY. No.

STRANGER. Then give me the wrapper?

LADY. What made you guess?

STRANGER. Give the wrapper, if your conscience can make such fine distinctions between it and the letter.

LADY (picking up the letter-bag, which she has hidden behind the seat). Look at this! (The STRANGER takes the photograph, looks at it carefully, and puts it in his breast-pocket.) What was it?

STRANGER. The past.

LADY. Was it beautiful?

STRANGER. Yes. More beautiful than the future can ever be.

LADY (darkly). You shouldn't have said that.

STRANGER. No, I admit it. And I'm sorry....

LADY. Tell me, are you capable of suffering?

STRANGER. Now, I suffer twice; because I feel when you're suffering. And if I wound you in self-defence, it's I who gets fever from the wound.

LADY. That means you're at my mercy?

STRANGER. No. Less now than ever, because you're protected by the innocent being you carry beneath your heart.

LADY. He shall be my avenger.

STRANGER. Or mine!

LADY (tearfully). Poor little thing. Conceived in sin and shame, and born to avenge by hate.

STRANGER. It's a long time since I've heard you speak like that.

LADY. I dare say.

STRANGER. That was the voice that first drew me to you; it was like that of a mother speaking to her child.

LADY. When you say 'mother' I feel I can only believe good of you; but a moment after I say to myself: it's only one more of your ways of deceiving me.

STRANGER. What ill have I ever really done you? (The LADY is uncertain what to reply.) Answer me. What ill have I done you?

LADY. I don't know.

STRANGER. Then invent something. Say to me: I hate you, because I can't deceive you.

LADY. Can't I? Oh, I'm sorry for you.

STRANGER. You must have poison in the pocket of your dress.

LADY. Well, I have!

STRANGER. What can it be? (Pause.) Who's that coming down the road?

LADY. A harbinger.

STRANGER. Is it a man, or a spectre?

LADY. A spectre from the past.

STRANGER. He's wearing a black coat and a laurel crown. But his feet are bare.

LADY. It's Caesar.

STRANGER (confused). Caesar? That was my nickname at school.

LADY. Yes. But it's also the name of the madman whom my... first husband used to look after. Forgive me speaking of him like that.

STRANGER. Has this madman got away?

LADY. It looks like it, doesn't it?

(CAESAR comes in from the back; he wears a black frock coat and is without a collar; he has a laurel crown on his head and his feet are bare. His general appearance is bizarre.)

CAESAR. Why don't you greet me? You ought to say: Ave, Caesar! For now I'm the master. The werewolf, you must know, has gone out of his mind since the Great Man went off with his wife, whom he himself snatched from her first lover, or bridegroom, or whatever you call him.

STRANGER (to the LADY). That was strychnine for two adults! (To CAESAR) Where's your master now--or your slave, or doctor, or warder?

CAESAR. He'll be here soon. But you needn't be frightened of him. He won't use daggers or poison. He only has to show himself, for all living things to fly from him; for trees to drop their leaves, and the very dust of the highway to run before him in a whirlwind like the pillar of cloud before the Children of Israel....

STRANGER. Listen....

CAESAR. Quiet, whilst I'm speaking.... Sometimes he believes himself to be a werewolf, and says he'd like to eat a little child that's not yet born, and that's really his according to the right of priority.... (He goes on his way.)

LADY (to the STRANGER). Can you exorcise this demon?

STRANGER. I can do nothing against devils who brave the sunshine.

LADY. Yesterday you made an arrogant remark, and now you shall have it back. You said it wasn't fair for invisible ones to creep in by night and strike in the darkness, they should come by day when the sun's shining. Now they've come!

STRANGER. And that pleases you!

LADY. Yes. Almost.

STRANGER. What a pity it gives me no pleasure when it's you who's struck! Let's sit down on the seat--the bench for the accused. For more are coming.

LADY. I'd rather we went.

STRANGER. No, I want to see how much I can bear. You see, at every stroke of the lash I feel as if a debit entry had been erased from my ledger.

LADY. But I can stand no more. Look, there he comes himself. Heavens! This man, whom I once thought I loved!

STRANGER. Thought? Yes, because everything's merely delusion. And that means a great deal. You go! I'll take the duty on myself of confronting him alone.

(The LADY goes up the steps, but does not reach the toy before the DOCTOR becomes visible at the back of the stage. The DOCTOR comes in, his grey hair long and unkempt. He is wearing a tropical helmet and a hunting coat, which are exactly similar to the clothes of the STRANGER. He behaves as though he doesn't notice the STRANGER'S presence, and sits down on a stone on the other side of the road, opposite the STRANGER, who is sitting on the seat. He takes of his hat and mops the sweat from his brow. The STRANGER grows impatient.) What do you want?

DOCTOR. Only to see this house again, where my happiness once dwelt and my roses blossomed....

STRANGER. An intelligent man of the world would have chosen a time when the present inhabitants of the house were away for a short while; even on his own account, so as not to make himself ridiculous.

DOCTOR. Ridiculous? I'd like to know which of us two's the more ridiculous?

STRANGER. For the moment, I suppose I am.

DOCTOR. Yes. But I don't think you know the whole extent of your wretchedness.

STRANGER. What do you mean?

DOCTOR. That you want to possess what I used to possess.

STRANGER. Well, go on.

DOCTOR. Have you noticed that we're wearing similar clothes? Good! Do you know the reason? It's this: you're wearing the things I forgot to fetch when the catastrophe took place. No intelligent man of the world at the end of the nineteenth century would ever put himself into such a position.

STRANGER (throwing down his hat and coat). Curse the woman!

DOCTOR. You needn't complain. Cast-off male attire has always been fatal ever since the celebrated shirt of Nessus. Go in now and change. I'll sit out here and watch, and listen, how you settle the matter alone with that accursed woman. Don't forget your stick! (The LADY, who is hurrying towards the house, trips in front of the steps. The STRANGER stays where he is in embarrassment.) The stick! The stick!

STRANGER. I don't ask mercy for the woman's sake, but for the child's.

DOCTOR (wildly). So there's a child, too. Our house, our roses, our clothes, the bed-clothes not forgotten, and now our child! I'm within your doors, I sit at your table, I lie in your bed; I exist in your blood; in your lungs, in your brain; I am everywhere and yet you can't get hold of me. When the pendulum strikes the hour of midnight, I'll blow cold, on your heart, so that it stops like a clock that's run down. When you sit at your work, I shall come with a poppy, invisible to you, that will put your thoughts to sleep, and confuse your mind, so that you'll see visions you can't distinguish from reality. I shall lie like a stone in your path, so that you stumble; I shall be the thorn that pricks your hand when you go to pluck the rose. My soul shall spin itself about you like a spider's web; and I shall guide you like an ox by means of the woman you stole from me. Your child shall be mine and I shall speak through its mouth; you shall see my look in its eyes, so that you'll thrust it from you like a foe. And now, beloved house, farewell; farewell, 'rose' room--where no happiness shall dwell that I could envy. (He goes out. The STRANGER has been sitting on the seat all this time, without being able to answer, and has been listening as if he were the accused.)

[Curtain.] _

Read next: Part 2: Act 2: Scene 1. Laboratory

Read previous: Part 2: Characters: Characters

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