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_ ACT I - SCENE II
[In the palace grounds at night. Lanterns are suspended everywhere from the trees. The front of the players' cart is seen protruding up-stage left. The philosopher is seated on the steps of the car smoking a pipe. The blind girl with strange, tentative footsteps and feeling hands is busy with duties around the cart.]
DEA.
Think of it; we are in the park of the Queen, and these lilies and roses are brushed every day by the silken stir of her ladies-in-waiting.
URSUS.
Well, I do not feel much elated at being here. An ambition gained is an ambition lost, and I am too old to have many ambitions.
DEA.
It is wonderful to be in the park of the Queen--to think that the shade of these same trees darkens her jewels at midday, and that through them is cast over her a shawl of glittering ribbons upon moonlight nights.
URSUS
[patting her shoulder and smiling]
Joy makes poets out of all of us. [Half to himself] But it is only a poet who can sing in the clutches of death and pain.
DEA
[very thoughtfully]
Yet underneath all my joy I am thinking hard tonight of the beginning of things. I wonder, I wonder is it because I am nearing the end of things.
URSUS.
Dea, dearest, you are not ill tonight? You have not again those flutterings in your heart?
DEA.
Not more than I can bear. How good Gwymplane has been to me! I wish I had been old enough to see him on the night he got lost, and found me in the snow on my dead mother's breast, and God led us to you.
URSUS.
I do not wish to think of that night. You were like a tiny, frozen rose-petal, and he--he was so small himself it didn't seem possible he could have carried you all the way and God----
[URSUS covers his face with his hands and speaks in a low voice.]
When you were both under the lamp I asked him what he found to smile at. I asked him roughly to stop smiling.
DEA
[happily]
Yes, Gwymplane always smiles, doesn't he? He must have a very contented spirit. I wish that I could see his smile. How it provokes other people to laugh!
[URSUS looks at her pityingly, and pats her on the shoulder.]
I smile and weep a great deal lately over my love for Gwymplane, and I am frightened about one thing.
URSUS.
What is that?
DEA.
That someone is going to make him unhappy.
URSUS.
Gwymplane worships you. While you are singing and smiling I do not think anything could make him unhappy.
DEA.
I hope not. You know I feel that he has given his soul into my hands and that I must take care of it as I would a little child. Yes, I feel as if Gwymplane were my child, and yet something more than my child that makes my heart bound and my song tremble into silence.
[A nightingale sings in the distance.]
URSUS.
My Dea!
DEA.
Tell me, Ursus, Gwymplane is so wonderful. He--he attracts everyone so. Does he never notice any especial person in the audience? Some one whom he attracts?
URSUS.
No, Dea, and you need never worry about that. Gwymplane will never love or be beloved save by you.
DEA.
Ah, how good it is to hear that! How beautiful tonight is! I would like to sit forever like this, very near to you and talking of Gwymplane.
[A sudden voice almost at their elbow. Enter PHEDRO.]
PHEDRO.
But everyone is talking of Gwymplane.
[URSUS rising whispers to DEA to go.]
Why do you dismiss your beautiful daughter? Her pallor, her most haunting stare, have already sown chaos in the heart of a certain important personage.
URSUS.
Leave me, Dea.
[DEA silently exits.]
Who are you who visit us so abruptly?
PHEDRO
[whimsically]
I think I am a cork upon very troubled waters.
URSUS.
That does not answer me enough.
PHEDRO.
Then I am a web binding men and women while they sleep to unexpected things.
URSUS.
Ah, you are a trouble maker?
PHEDRO.
No--but I discover what is unusual in the senses of one person and in the circumstances of another person--Indeed, I have had a splendid training.
URSUS.
Where?
PHEDRO.
I have been--but I was almost showing you the colour of the water I rose from.
URSUS.
Well, I have no curiosity.
PHEDRO.
That is exactly why one wishes to talk to you. Curiosity in other people always makes me terribly suspicious. I remember suddenly the reasons that can make me curious. Now I can talk to you, for one feels you might not even listen, so you couldn't possibly care enough to repeat. I was a lackey once.
URSUS.
A sordid position.
PHEDRO.
[Becomes slightly frenzied during his speech.]
Yes. A servant is something to absorb the spittle of their irritability. A hand to arrange the pages of their private diary when they get stuck together with filth; and above all a presence between them and the mirror during those grey dawn hours when passing it, they are likely to see themselves as they are. Ah, then one must be armed with the eloquence of Cato to reassure these sow's ears that they are still silk purses. Otherwise the devil has to be bought off in the morning and with three times the effort. One thing they never count on, however.
URSUS.
And that?
PHEDRO.
The effect on another human being of their absurdity and the passion of malice they rouse from a too long concealed contempt.
URSUS
[looking at him curiously]
Contempt is the armour of snakes.
PHEDRO
[his face undergoing a change]
Is it truly, my fine gentleman? Well, my mind has been wandering and stumbled on a cul-de-sac as usual. Ah, the hope of being understood--it is almost extinct. However, if I cannot be understood, I shall, nevertheless, be felt.
URSUS.
Well, what do you want of me? I am a philosopher and as such am not occupied with any sort of facts.
PHEDRO.
I suppose not. You philosophers are blind men in dark rooms looking for the footprints of shadows, are you not?
URSUS
[smiling]
Not at all. We philosophers have merely learned to practice humour in the presence of what is commonplace. But what is it you do want of me?
PHEDRO.
What everybody wants--to talk about Gwymplane.
URSUS.
Well?
PHEDRO.
Have you had this gold mine with you long?
URSUS.
Years and years.
PHEDRO.
You bought him, I suppose, from some travelling show?
URSUS.
No, he came to me of his own accord, and yet by accident.
PHEDRO.
Was he riding the wind? And did it drop him by chance upon your knees?
URSUS.
He came by accident. He remains of his own accord.
PHEDRO.
Curious.
URSUS.
What is curious?
PHEDRO.
The irrelevancy of my mind.
URSUS.
Of what were you thinking?
PHEDRO.
Tell me, did you--did you--ever hear of the Comprachicos?
URSUS.
Yes--why?
PHEDRO.
Inhuman people they must have been.
URSUS.
Not more so than those who gave them their practice.
PHEDRO.
They have provided most of the circuses that roam around the world with freaks.
URSUS.
They had a great knowledge of surgery.
PHEDRO.
Yes. They had an amusing way of putting young children into a press--young children whose existence it would have been very uncomfortable to admit in certain glittering circles. This press was shaped like a bottle so that the growth became abnormal, and when the press was lifted the human form had already attained the shape of a bottle. They could also print everlastingly rather strange expressions upon the human countenance.
URSUS
[starts]
Yes, yes, I have heard of that.
PHEDRO.
However, even such people were afraid to die.
URSUS.
During the death of the worst person his soul shines through for a moment.
PHEDRO
[rather uncomfortable]
Well, well, to go back. A strange story came under my authority written by one of these Comprachicos.
URSUS.
Really, how was that?
PHEDRO.
You know I am an official.
URSUS.
Of what sort?
PHEDRO.
I am the examining magistrate of all the jetsam from the sea that is washed from anywhere whatever upon our shores.
URSUS.
That is an original position!
PHEDRO.
It was created for me by the Queen to whom I have rendered much service. But I was saying that a most extraordinary story happened along in a medicine bottle that had floated for years upon the sea.
URSUS.
Ump!
PHEDRO.
Ah--it was a long confession, and it had floated for about fifteen years in the sea.
[He is watching URSUS narrowly.]
URSUS
[starting visibly]
PHEDRO.
What were you about to say?
URSUS.
When one has talked to one's self for a great many years it is hard to hold one's tongue in public.
[Enter the PRINCE--debonair and haughty. PRINCE ignores PHILOSOPHER and pulls PHEDRO aside.]
PRINCE.
Well! What have you arranged?
PHEDRO.
My lord--the desires of youth are swifter than my wits. Yet I have tried.
PRINCE.
Nonsense.... No rhetoric.... What is accomplished?
PHEDRO.
It will be easily managed. I have your keys.
PRINCE.
Is she willing?
PHEDRO.
Innocence is always obliging at such a moment.
PRINCE.
Neither the Queen nor the Duchess must have an inkling of this.
PHEDRO.
No, my lord.
PRINCE.
Tonight and tomorrow night.... What contrasts! Two crimes! A secret and a public one!
PHEDRO.
My lord is sardonic.
[URSUS after looking at them for a few moments has wandered off to the cart, and is seen making preparations for the evening's performance. There is the sound of DEA'S singing.]
PRINCE.
Ah, how exquisite! I think I shall go and speak with her!
PHEDRO
[detaining him]
Better not, my lord, much better not.
PRINCE
[shaking him off]
All right, all right. Only don't insist, don't irritate me or I shall spite myself.... I cannot bear to take any one's advice.
PHEDRO.
Nor do you, my lord. I merely reminded you of the presence of your own common sense.
PRINCE.
[A pettish grimace flashing across his countenance]
I hope this performance may make the Duchess forget herself for a few moments. She has seemed more than ordinarily bored today.
PHEDRO
[murmuring]
To be so matchless as her Grace is as bad as being blind. It gives one nowhere to look.
PRINCE.
She is perfection outside; inside--I do not know. Where is that distorted fellow that bounded away from me in the darkness just before dinner?
PHEDRO.
Oh--Gwymplane--he is probably off somewhere charming the birds awake with his flute.
PRINCE
[in reverie]
Yes, Josephine is magnificent. Yet I think there is a strange grimace upon the face of her soul. I am longing to find out what is at the bottom of her smile. Ah, I shall be the first to bathe in her delights. It is a most invigorating thought.
[He plucks a flower and places it in his buttonhole.]
PHEDRO.
My lord finds it enchanting to be the first?
PRINCE.
It is the only enchantment. If you were a real man, you would know that, Phedro, but if you were really a man I could not confide in you.
PHEDRO
[winces then recovers himself]
My lord was saying----
PRINCE
[in a mood of reverie]
That passion yearns for surprises--and love hankers after peace.
PHEDRO.
And in your marriage, my lord?
PRINCE.
I yearn for surprises. Of course the right sort of surprises.
PHEDRO.
You will get them, my lord.
PRINCE.
[Who is not attending him but listening to Dea's song.]
What?
PHEDRO.
My sixth sense whispers to me, my lord, that you are on the eve of many surprises.
[The noise of the wand of the COURT STEWARD is heard pounding through the park.]
AN APPROACHING VOICE.
The Queen's court is arriving. The Queen's court precedes the Queen. See that the performance is ready. See that the performance is ready.
[The voice dies away. There is the sound of much commotion in the vicinity of the cart. The voice of DEA. ceases and someone calls: GWYMPLANE! GWYMPLANE answering distantly: Yes. URSUS: Hurry. GWYMPLANE: I come. The PRINCE and PHEDRO steal quickly away.]
CURTAIN _
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