 | The theatrocrat |  |
Scene: Sir Tristram Sumner's study in his house in Piccadilly. Sir Tristram is reading an old letter. When the door opens he puts the letter hastily in his pocket.
Enter Lady Sumner.
Sir T.
Martha! You've come to trouble me; your eyes
Are lustreless and evil. Will it end
At all? Will you give over urging death?
Lady S.
A visitor.
Sir T.
Who is it?
Lady S.
Warwick Groom.
Sir T.
Impossible: at any time impossible.
I hate him, Martha.
Lady S.
Hate? Hate Warwick Groom!
I thought you hated no one.
Sir T.
So did I!
But him I hate; because—he was my friend.
Lady S.
And would be still.
Sir T.
Therefore I hate him more!
But that's not true: hate fathoms hate, and answers
Index-like, the searching current of its thought,
Down through the earth, or round it in the nerveless
Air. Deep he hates me; by my hate I know.
I tell you, Martha, were Warwick Groom and I
Alone together for an hour, the death
Of either or of both would testify
Our rooted rancour.
Lady S.
I cannot understand!
True, he is wild, this Warwick Groom of ours,
And doors are shut against him; but a braver
Artist starves not anywhere.
Sir T.
Starves? Let him starve.
Lady S.
This is so new, so sudden, Tristram!
Sir T.
No;
Nothing is sudden that the heart brings forth.
The mushroom spawn of passing loves and hates
By thunder-showers and puddles quickly bred,
To rot as quickly, in sequestered nooks
Or by the trodden highways, are nothing—nothing
But rashes on the skin.
Lady S.
You change the figure:
The very rhapsody of Warwick Groom!
Sir T.
Plastic as molten metal! Living hate
Mine is, a deeply struck deliberate cancer
In the heart, and half as old as I: half
Of my life it is: I know it now mature
That knew it not a-growing: wholesome hate!
A wholesome cancer, a resourceful pain,
A fount of passion!
Lady S.
You forget yourself;
For now you stare and pant like some insane
Unhappy woman, sick with jealousy,
Her strangled voice and prayer, “Oh, just to crush
“My rival like a flea!”
Sir T.
So would I do!
Lady S.
I cannot understand you.
Sir T.
I understand.
We know each other, Warwick Groom and I.
No legendary friendship ever wove
The lives of men in such a gallant web
As ours displayed: the secrets of our hearts
Were interchanged like goodly gifts that made
The giver and receiver ache with joy:
Our thoughts, our deeds, our sins were known and loved
Of either; nothing irksome, trivial, dull
Could happen day or night to him or me
Since telling of it gave it import, grave
Or humorous, subtle, sweet, or sad. Too well,
Too infinitely well we knew each other!
Grudge, longing, foible, vanity, conceit,
Ambition, terror, cowardice, fancy, whim
Revealed themselves in either's consciousness
Beyond the scope and verge of comely minds,
That there might still be something to confide,
Some proof of new affection: once, at least,
Two men should know each other inside out!
To cut and carve a specimen, a corpse,
A limbless, headless trunk, malodorous, foul,
O'er-hacked, o'er-handled by anatomists,
Tyros and demonstrators, makes a job
Cleaner than knowing truly inside out
The heart of man, the actual heart of man,
Not in a general mass of studies culled
From books, but in particular, one's friend.
Had fortune not divided us I know
Both had gone mad. He hates the thought of me,
As I the thought of him—the natural end
Of every intimacy pushed outside
The limit. Souls are clad and should be seen
In vestments only: things and thoughts there are
We must not think: forbidden is the tree
Of knowledge still to those that love themselves,
Their friends, their art, their people and the world.
This is a righteous hate in him and me.
Lady S.
It desolates my heart to think it true!
What shall I say to him?
Sir T.
Give him some food,
Some drink, some money.
Lady S.
But he comes with news!
Oh, I forgot; you moved me so! Your Troilus,
It seems, is ill.
Sir T.
Ah; so. He looked consumptive.
The under-study is letter-perfect.
Lady S.
Yes;
But think: the first of such a play—so harsh,
So questionable.
Sir T.
Interest follows Troilus:
This is a blow; but not a deadly one.
Lady S.
And fortune's blows may prove caresses. Warwick
Can play the part.
Sir T.
Groom? In my theatre? Martha!
Lady S.
I once had leave to counsel you, though now
You shun me, Tristram—
Sir T.
Martha!
Lady S.
Yes, you do;
And take the mind of every one but me.
Tristram, you know my heart. Is it unclean
Like Warwick Groom's? You loved me once: has love
Fermented, like your friendship, into hate?
Sir T.
Should not a woman's heart escape the probe
Men search each other with, the fathom line,
The dredge, the sunken shaft that brings to light
No pearls of price, no gems, nor golden ore,
But wreck and rust, drowned hopes and dead men's bones?
Lady S.
There's terror in your mind: terror for me,
And terror for yourself!—But this is vain.—
I think that help has come; I yet may live.
The play, the play! No question Warwick Groom
Is Troilus to the accent. Have you lost
Your love of art along with other loves?
Sir T.
Martha!
Lady S.
Forgive me that.—Europa Troop:
It's not for love, the world and I know well,
You tossed her Cressida. The wanton salt
Of her, so loathsome to a passionate mind,
Is admirable here; and art demands
This sacrifice besides, since it may be—
That you should give the hated Warwick Groom
A part predicting him, so like a glove
It fits him.
Sir T.
Let me think; and you—think you:
Will “Troilus and Cressida” succeed?
Lady S.
I think it will; if you salute what chance
Provides, a perfect Troilus.
Sir T.
Do you feel
The fit upon you—your telepathic mood?
Lady S.
I hardly know: I think the play is safe.
Sir T.
If Groom plays Troilus?
Lady S.
If Groom plays Troilus.
Sir T.
You say he knows the part. How can that be?
Lady S.
That you must ask him.
Sir T.
Martha!
Lady S.
Fate—it's fate.
Sir T.
What's his condition? Is he well put on?
Drunk—sober—maudlin? How?
Lady S.
Sober and trim;
Pallid and beautiful.
Sir T.
You loved him once.
Lady S.
Tristram!
Sir T.
I mean, he was in love with you.
Lady S.
You knew that from the first.
Sir T.
But never knew
If you loved him.
Lady S.
You never asked me that!
Sir T.
It never troubled me; nor does it now:
But every question that a man may put,
Or may not put a woman, shapes itself
Some time or other; and the chastest mind,
When love begins to mellow, and passion falls,
A ripened friendship from the tree of life,
Thinks of his wife one time at least, “had I
Her maidenhead?”
Lady S.
Tristram!
Sir T.
The word escaped.
Lady S.
Oh, you are crude and cruel! But I am for you:—
Not every husband; some men marry widows;
Some marry harlots; some—
Sir T.
Yes; some?
Lady S.
It seems
Some marry virgins and are none the wiser.
Sir T.
That's not like dying.
Lady S.
No. And Warwick Groom?
Sir T.
Yes; but remain. Not him alone with me.
Lady S.
There's something in your mind more than you say.
Sir T.
Without a doubt. No man can speak his mind.
Lady S.
But every woman can, I think.
Sir T.
And does?
Lady S.
If she be gently asked.
Sir T.
What shall I ask?
Lady S.
Ask? Anything. But you are harassed, ill.
Let me conclude with Groom.
Sir T.
No; bring him in.
[Sir Tristram at the telephone communicates with his business manager, Abbot, while Lady Sumner goes out and re-enters with Warwick Groom.
Groom.
Tristram!
Sir T.
[At the telephone]
Warwick!—old friend! (No, Abbot; wait.)
Groom.
You'll give me this?
Sir T.
You know the part?
Groom.
I know it.
Lady S.
We'll test him, Tristram.
[Takes up a copy of Troilus and Cressida.
Sir T.
Shame! (Yes? Sumner. No.
A dozen Heidsieck? Yes, at once; from me.
Send him my love; tell him he shall get well.)
You never played it?
Groom.
No; I studied it
When you announced the play a year ago;
And when you placed it in rehearsal—
Sir T.
Yes;
You wrote me, I remember.
Groom.
And received
No answer.
Lady S.
Tristram!
Sir T.
Hateful oversight!
Forgive me, Warwick. Having cast the part,
Not knowing you were free . . . (Yes. Sumner. What?
Yes; let the understudy dress. No. Yes.
Perhaps we'll have another Troilus. Groom.
To-night. Oh no! I think. A great success.)
Lady S.
And now I'll test him.
Sir T.
Women are merciless!
Lady S.
And that's the cue! I speak for Hector, Warwick.
“Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,
“I'll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy.”
Groom.
“Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you
“Which better fits a lion than a man.”
Lady S.
“What vice is that, good Troilus? Chide me for it.”
Groom.
“When many times the captive Grecians fall,
“Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
“You bid them rise and live.”
Lady S.
“O, 'tis fair play!”
Groom.
“Fool's play”—I'll not go on, for I have asked
Like courteous mercy, Tristram.
Sir T.
You have brought
Mercy to us, boy—a Troilus unmatched
From swift Scamander to the lordly Thames.
Groom.
Then am I happy. Tristram, Martha, years
How many have I wasted; ten, a dozen,
Despairing up and down the railways, caught
And imprisoned, like some adventurer
Forlorn, in dreary tunnels, stations, inns,
Provincial companies and theatres,
The dismallest labyrinth where every step
Stumbles at skeletons of dead ambitions
And dying reputations; as close to London
As the suburbs are, further away, that is,
Than hell from heaven, and bitterer than hell.
Be hung upon the fringe of paradise,
Stewing in brimstone with the spicy scent
Of asphodel to lave the sulphurous air,
And envy Tantalus his pleasant lines
For ever and a day!
Sir T.
You keep your zest
Of talk, your thunder and lightning.
Groom.
Let me talk—
A minute! It's a dozen lifetimes since
We met. The luck of some! the luck! Old gag,
The luck! It seems but yesterday that I
Beheld the Parthenon, one towering wave
Of wild delight from stalls to gallery, break
At my feet, the vanguard of a tide
Of triumph, governed by the moon of hearts,
The world's applause, that should have borne me on
To the trade winds and harbours of success.
One season—only one in London town!
Two failures after, and with finer parts
Than that that seemed to place me, cast me out
Provincial and suburban derelict.
Nightly to play upon the blood and brain
Of London!—Tristram! Martha!—On the best,
Most beautiful and bravest folk on earth!—
Ah, let them sneer that fail! I never fail
Although I seem to, for I love the world,
And all that's in it, and what's best I love
The best!—To play on London's sense and heart
With passion and emotion, tears and flame,
Laughter and anguish, terror, splendour, might—
As you do, Tristram, and as I could do:
Is there vocation, mission, martyrdom
That equals it? Oh, every night to act
A part of power, and feel a thousand hearts
Beat stroke for stroke with yours, in heaven, in hell,
In London—nowhere else!—in London town,
The core of the world: ten years of that—three—one,
Then any death in rags and hospitals,
Garrets and dens and drunkenness, disgraced,
Forgotten, but my inmost will achieved!
Sir T.
Your pulses hum with youth, and scarce two years
Between us!
Lady S.
Scarce a year!
Groom.
And that makes less
Than nothing 'twixt the tropics where we are,
The equatorial forties.
Sir T.
Less than nothing.
Lady S.
This, then, is Troilus, Tristram?
Sir T.
Troilus? Yes!
Off to the theatre; dress; rehearse all day,
And fire the town at night.
Groom.
I'll play the part
As ne'er I played! Thanks from my soul, deep thanks,
Tristram and Martha. Till the call-boy calls!
[Goes out.
Sir T.
Still more excitable, more frenzied. Not—?
Lady S.
Oh, no! the febrile genius of the man.
Some wine he had from me, so worn he seemed:
One glass; it lit him like a torch,
Sir T.
[At the telephone]
(Yes. Groom:
He takes the part. My great regret express
To all the principals, because to-day
I break their well-earned rest: pick out your words:
Summon them promptly to rehearse with Groom.
What? Surely. Fifty. See him when he comes.
No; extra: mornings, extra. Tut! I can't give less.
Yes; keep the understudy under arms.
Myself? At three. Box-office; libraries?
That's good . . . Ah! . . . Dubious: time will tell.)
Booked for a week, and there it stops!
Lady S.
Oh, Tristram!
Let me see! [She presses one hand to her eyes and grasps the copy of “Troilus and Cressida” tightly in the other.]
Clear! Yes; if Groom plays Troilus!
Sir T.
If Groom plays—
Lady S.
Hush! Again I see and hear!
[Throws away the book and uncovers her eyes.
Psychic, or magic, out of heaven or hell
That message comes: “If Warwick Groom plays Troilus.”
Sir T.
It rings with menace.
Lady S.
Terror! Should we fail?—
Oh, we are ruined, Tristram!
Sir T.
Once for all!
That I am facing.
Lady S.
They will help you yet!
Sir T.
Not now. Failure to-night begins the end.
My personal triumph and the theatre's
Cannot be questioned—
Lady S.
Who would dare!
Sir. T.
But debt
Increases like a tide when sun and moon
Uplift the mass of waters and the west
Scourges the huge Atlantic. Now you laugh:
That's best. My guarantors withdraw their names
To-night, if failure knells the curtain down.
Lady S.
Tristram!—our own account!—that's overdrawn!
Sir T.
And overdrawn again!
Lady S.
The tragedy!
The only tragedy! The end of love,
The loss of children, snuffing out of hope,
Decay of soul is happiness itself
Beside the want of means—with our desires,
Experience, fancies, dreams.
Sir T.
Yes, but you laughed;
And you must laugh again and yet again.
Why, Martha, with a roof above our heads,
A crust to eat, we will be what we are,
The essence of ourselves, in every fate.
Lady S.
Live poor again? Not for a moment, Tristram!
No man can be himself in poverty,
Nor woman either: all the world knows that,
And sweats and aches and lies and sins for wealth.
No, Tristram; but the old deliverance.
Sir T.
What?
Lady S.
[Takes a vial from her pocket]
This, that so often set our hearts at rest.
Sir T.
Have I not told you never to show me that?
Lady S.
Yes; but I show it. Is your courage gone?
Are you afraid to look upon the past?
Sir T.
What purpose can it serve?
Lady S.
It eases me
To talk of it. Do you remember, Tristram?
Sir T.
What ghouls you are, you women! What hyenas,
Digging for ever in the past!
Lady S.
Have you
Forgotten? Is your memory such a sieve?
Sir T.
No! I remember many heady times
When although fortune scowled and fate undid
Our utmost toil, yet love and tranquil sleep
Fulfilled the night with this beneath our pillow,
And certain death at any moment ours.
Lady S.
And always then the sombre clouds dispersed,
And fate began to build us up again.
Sir T.
We slept together . . .
Lady S.
Yes . . .
Sir T.
Well, we shall see.
Lady S.
[Takes up the book of the play and covers her eyes again]
I see the theatre—what was Warwick's brag?—
One tidal wave of wild humanity
From stalls to gallery, surging at your feet,
If Warwick Groom plays Troilus? Why that “if”?
Sir T.
There's menace there!
Lady S.
Why can't I hear it say,
“Since Warwick Groom plays Troilus”? . . . Can't we die
At once? If you would only care to die!
I should be glad to die: I am very tired.
Sir T.
If failure rings the curtain down, perhaps
That way as well as any.
Lady S.
Will you promise?
Sir T.
No; I'll not promise! A thousand things may chance.
Lady S.
A thousand things? Yes; should a foe of yours
Or Warwick's—Tristram, they may drown his wits
In all good fellowship! Then where are we?
Will you not go and guard him?
Sir T.
Presently.
I have a thing to settle in my mind.
Lady S.
May I go, Tristram?
Sir T.
If you think it well.
Lady S.
Oh, better than well, I think it.
[Knocking.
Not for me
I hope. [Opens the door]
What? Who? The Bishop of St. James's!
Sir T.
St. James's! Come—come in!
Enter Gervase Sackville, Bishop of St. James's.
I thought the east
Had held you captive for another month.
St. J.
I finished what I gave myself to do
In half the time I judged the work would take.
Lady S.
Oh, welcome, Gervase! Like a single sorrow
You come to bless us: wonder at my words;
They have the sweetest meaning. Fortune comes
With Gervase, Tristram—how, I cannot tell:
Or short, or long, it comes: I feel it here;
But yet I go to guard the ark.
St. J.
The ark?
Lady S.
The theatre, the play, the purse—our lives!
[Goes out.
St. J.
My cousin's moody, Tristram.
Sir T.
I never thought
To need a friend for the last rite of friendship,
The revelation and unbosoming
Of weakness. Had you come a day, an hour,
Some heart-beats later, business, theatre, world,
With permanent eclipse of insight, soul,
Of something nameless yet, had spared you this
That I am going to tell you. Will you sit,
Or must you walk about?
St. J.
The highest mood
Is stillest.
[They sit.]
Sir T.
Still as death! I loved my wife,
And she loved me: she loves me strangely yet
In some dispassionate absorbing way
That tortures her. I do not love her now;
And why I know: we have no children.
St. J.
What!
Sir T.
There must be fruit of love, if love's to last.
St. J.
Now you perplex me, Tristram.
Sir T.
There were children:
You christened four—and buried them. Ah, yes;
If they had lived!
St. J.
If they had lived? What then?
Sir T.
Profound affection for the hallowed womb
That gave my passion form and brought to light
Its ecstasy in boys and girls of mine:
Desire had changed to deep affection then;
But often now I loathe this childless woman,
And think with horror how she knows my heart,
My tendernesses, selfishnesses, thoughts
Inchoate, wanton follies, baby talk:
My wife became my mistress in the end.
St. J.
Oh now I see into the depths of it!
Sir T.
When our last child had died and she and I
Were raw with grief, unhinged by wild despair,
A fount and flame of lust arose in both,
As though we had eaten of some forbidden fruit,
Or swallowed magic earth, or been bewitched,
Or drenched with aphrodisiac. At the time
My fame was in the nadir, and our lives'
Duration insignificant to us:
So every night with poison in a vial
Beneath our pillow to end it when we chose,
A letch that never seemed to sate itself
Drained us of all humanity; but I,
Refined and tempered in the heat and cold,
Desire and languor, languor and desire,
The rhythm of this, by natural sorcery
Became at last an artist: think of it!
I found myself the master of the mood,
Enchanting folk and playing on their nerves
As though an audience were a zither; made
A name far-sounding; and, by your goodwill,
Am now—Heaven save the mark, the banal end!—
Am now, Sir Tristram Sumner, nominal,
As well as actual theatrocrat.
St. J.
Do I speak now?
Sir T.
Not yet. A jealousy
More sombre than my hate—a thing to note,
That love is never jealous of the past—
A sombre jealousy begot by hate
Began to whisper “Strike her; wound her; kill.”
St. J.
Your wife and I are cousins.
Sir T.
Therefore I speak.
She has no kin but you to help her now.
Shall I go on?
St. J.
Go on.
Sir T.
My first of friends
Was Warwick Groom. Upon my marriage-morning
St. J.
Malicious, were it not so impotent.
Sir T.
Perhaps so; but I kept it.
St. J.
So I see.
Whom have you shown it to?
Sir T.
To none but you.
St. J.
Burn it.
Sir T.
[Placing the letter in his pocket again]
I can't; I feel it tells the truth.
St. J.
Never believe it, Tristram! Martha Sackville,
Stately and unapproachable, and chaste
As fire and snow—whatever Martha Sumner
May be now.
Sir T.
The wantonest women veil
Their lust with dignity; or knowing it not,
Feel it, and are constrained and awkward: broach
It once, then lechery rushes out unstopped
By—
St. J.
Hush! Why have you told me this?
Sir T.
Advice—
I want advice.
St. J.
Tell me the rest.
Sir T.
I thought
For half an hour when this came, reasoning thus:
“Martha is chaste: against my eyes and ears
“That I will die for”—I was deep in love.
“And if she dropped a stitch, what's that to me?
“Women are sensual, full of seed like men;
“But me she loves—a different fire from that
“Uneasy prurience wondering girls and boys
“Alike give facile way to, now and then.
“Have I no past? If she has hers, we both
“Begin the world anew.” And best and worst
This Odham died upon my marriage-day.
St. J.
What kind of man was he?
Sir T.
A wastrel, prime
And perfect; a vocation—genius for it:
A parson's son, of course: acted himself
A while, then fell to dressing unperturbed.
He died of alcohol.—We played a week,—
He, Romeo, I, Mercutio; failed and lost
Three thousand pounds or so. But he and I
Were marked and sought for. Of the two I think
Groom was the abler actor, and certainly
Beyond comparison popular. Bidding high
After my marriage I declined to play
Except with mediocrities, having felt
Rather than recognised, how much depends
Upon the pathos of inequality,
The very essence of the theatre.
Groom was my rival in the public mind;
Therefore I made my book against him—he,
Against me, doubtless, burrowing underground.
Armed with advantage all unknown to him—
'Varsity, Policy, Church—I kept him out
Wherever I came in: not difficult
Without advantage even, he being then
As now, his own worst enemy, debauched
And drunken, with relapses of remorse.
In one relapse—
St. J.
Relapse!
Sir T.
—he stormed the town;
Then failed and failed again; while I became
The representative actor of my time.
My fame is rooted in his infamy:
Especially in his; and in the fame
Eclipsed of every actor—which to me
Would be the blackest infamy.
St. J.
So harsh!
Sir T.
Truth, Gervase; it's the truth; no pleasure, power,
Glory, applause, but strikes its cancerous roots
Deep in the hearts of men; for what is fame
But envy by a virtuous title saved
From dying of chagrin, transmuted echo
Of curses and of sighs!
St. J.
Come to the crux.
Sir T.
I hate my wife. She forces Warwick on me
To play the part of Troilus. Suddenly
The nebulous past contracts to this: my wife
Was Warwick's mistress before she married me;
And I could kill them both. What must I do?
St. J.
You must not kill them, and you must deny
That Martha was Warwick's mistress: deny it now.
Sir T.
Deny the roundness of a woman's limbs,
Deny the sexes and that blood is red!
Well, I deny it, since I have no proof.
What next?
St. J.
A simple thing. I long have thought
That marriages should end when love is dead—
On either side: the marriage vow should be
“Till love is dead,” not “till death do us part”;
And sacrament might end it solemnly,
As it began. The Church is backward there:
Its grip might fasten on the world again
If once divorce became a sacrament.
Sir T.
Divorce?
St. J.
Do you remember how I pled
Against your marriage?
Sir T.
I remember.
St. J.
Judged
My hidden purpose snobbish I suppose?
Sir T.
I thought there underlay your argument
A dread of misalliance.
St. J.
Wrong: my plea
Was candid. I maintained and still maintain
The artist should be celibate; a priest
Exempt from human ties.
Sir T.
I think so too;
Though when I married Martha I desired
Experience of the noble cares of life,
As the true discipline and academe
Of art. How foolish! how insane! for art
Is like religion, only undefiled
In perfect freedom and abandonment.
St. J.
You hang upon a verge of perilous truth:
Religion is the very art of art.
But that can wait: I have much to say on that.—
I hold it deadly sin, if anything
Is to be christened sin, for you and her
To live together longer, love being dead.
I counsel you to leave her; and I myself,
Who married you, will privately pronounce
A precept of divorce.
Sir T.
But Martha's fate?
St. J.
Her life will be most beautiful: refined
By love—by lust that purifies the soul
More certainly than any chastisement;
Disordered by the loss of all her children—
A doom that makes the deeds done in the flesh
Pernicious to the mind, to fancy noisome;
She shall become a perfect bride of Heaven—
Bride of the Universe.
Sir T.
Gervase—how strange!
You counsel separation?
St. J.
Before the law;
Before the Universe, divorce.
Sir T.
Again,
The Universe!
St. J.
News that can wait a while.
Sir T.
And I should be the minister of art,
Unfettered by a single private tie,
A public votary. Yes; but how? the means?
Who will provide for Martha? And myself!
Who will provide for me? The day we part,
My creditors and hers—they ruin us.
St. J.
And that is grave; yet may be overcome.
Sir T.
But what a sordid hell we welter in!
Art is inhuman, Gervase.
St. J.
Yes, all art,
And all religion and the life of man:
Inhuman, Tristram. Is it news to you?
Sir T.
Then is there no humanity in men?
St. J.
None, Tristram; none! Humanity! a dream
Phantasmal as divinity itself.
Sir T.
Humanity, divinity—ideals?
Do you believe in nothing, Gervase?
St. J.
No.
Belief—But that can wait.
Sir T.
Wait! what can wait?
That is your cry to-day. What, and till when?
Is it a revelation?
St. J.
Now you laugh;
And that is sane and good: the bitterest grin
Is hopeful. What I have to say can wait
Until—Why do you reproduce to-night
This decadent, mordant, hateful travesty?
Sir T.
“Troilus and Cressida”? It is my mood:
Man as he is—and woman. Oh, I stalk
A theory here! Heaven help us, and the cat!
I play Ulysses.
[The telephone rings.
St. J.
Shall I go?
Sir T.
[At the telephone]
No, Gervase!
What are you dubious of? (Yes. Martha! Well?
Groom? Drinking—drunk. How horrible? No. Yes.)
I'm ruined, Gervase! Martha saw and heard
Our fate to-night in that magnetic mood
She will solicit. (Yes. I come at once.)
We conquer if Warwick Groom plays Troilus;
If not our curtain's down, our lights are out,
My last part played.
[Both have reached the door hurriedly and are about to go out.
St. J.
Not though your bitterest foe
Is satisfied to-night: for “fortune comes
“With me.” So said your prophetess.
Sir. T.
She did!
The day is young: the thing may be retrieved.
When shall I see you?
St. J.
After the play.
Sir T.
Till then?
St. J.
I also have my art.
Sir T.
You in your church,
I in my theatre.
St. J.
One purpose serve?
Enter Lady Sumner.
Sir T.
Martha! You've come to trouble me; your eyes
Are lustreless and evil. Will it end
At all? Will you give over urging death?
Lady S.
A visitor.
Sir T.
Who is it?
Lady S.
Warwick Groom.
Sir T.
Impossible: at any time impossible.
I hate him, Martha.
Lady S.
Hate? Hate Warwick Groom!
I thought you hated no one.
Sir T.
So did I!
But him I hate; because—he was my friend.
Lady S.
And would be still.
Sir T.
Therefore I hate him more!
But that's not true: hate fathoms hate, and answers
Index-like, the searching current of its thought,
86
Air. Deep he hates me; by my hate I know.
I tell you, Martha, were Warwick Groom and I
Alone together for an hour, the death
Of either or of both would testify
Our rooted rancour.
Lady S.
I cannot understand!
True, he is wild, this Warwick Groom of ours,
And doors are shut against him; but a braver
Artist starves not anywhere.
Sir T.
Starves? Let him starve.
Lady S.
This is so new, so sudden, Tristram!
Sir T.
No;
Nothing is sudden that the heart brings forth.
The mushroom spawn of passing loves and hates
By thunder-showers and puddles quickly bred,
To rot as quickly, in sequestered nooks
Or by the trodden highways, are nothing—nothing
But rashes on the skin.
Lady S.
You change the figure:
The very rhapsody of Warwick Groom!
Sir T.
Plastic as molten metal! Living hate
Mine is, a deeply struck deliberate cancer
In the heart, and half as old as I: half
Of my life it is: I know it now mature
That knew it not a-growing: wholesome hate!
A wholesome cancer, a resourceful pain,
A fount of passion!
Lady S.
You forget yourself;
For now you stare and pant like some insane
Unhappy woman, sick with jealousy,
Her strangled voice and prayer, “Oh, just to crush
87
Sir T.
So would I do!
Lady S.
I cannot understand you.
Sir T.
I understand.
We know each other, Warwick Groom and I.
No legendary friendship ever wove
The lives of men in such a gallant web
As ours displayed: the secrets of our hearts
Were interchanged like goodly gifts that made
The giver and receiver ache with joy:
Our thoughts, our deeds, our sins were known and loved
Of either; nothing irksome, trivial, dull
Could happen day or night to him or me
Since telling of it gave it import, grave
Or humorous, subtle, sweet, or sad. Too well,
Too infinitely well we knew each other!
Grudge, longing, foible, vanity, conceit,
Ambition, terror, cowardice, fancy, whim
Revealed themselves in either's consciousness
Beyond the scope and verge of comely minds,
That there might still be something to confide,
Some proof of new affection: once, at least,
Two men should know each other inside out!
To cut and carve a specimen, a corpse,
A limbless, headless trunk, malodorous, foul,
O'er-hacked, o'er-handled by anatomists,
Tyros and demonstrators, makes a job
Cleaner than knowing truly inside out
The heart of man, the actual heart of man,
Not in a general mass of studies culled
From books, but in particular, one's friend.
88
Both had gone mad. He hates the thought of me,
As I the thought of him—the natural end
Of every intimacy pushed outside
The limit. Souls are clad and should be seen
In vestments only: things and thoughts there are
We must not think: forbidden is the tree
Of knowledge still to those that love themselves,
Their friends, their art, their people and the world.
This is a righteous hate in him and me.
Lady S.
It desolates my heart to think it true!
What shall I say to him?
Sir T.
Give him some food,
Some drink, some money.
Lady S.
But he comes with news!
Oh, I forgot; you moved me so! Your Troilus,
It seems, is ill.
Sir T.
Ah; so. He looked consumptive.
The under-study is letter-perfect.
Lady S.
Yes;
But think: the first of such a play—so harsh,
So questionable.
Sir T.
Interest follows Troilus:
This is a blow; but not a deadly one.
Lady S.
And fortune's blows may prove caresses. Warwick
Can play the part.
Sir T.
Groom? In my theatre? Martha!
Lady S.
I once had leave to counsel you, though now
You shun me, Tristram—
Sir T.
Martha!
Lady S.
Yes, you do;
89
Tristram, you know my heart. Is it unclean
Like Warwick Groom's? You loved me once: has love
Fermented, like your friendship, into hate?
Sir T.
Should not a woman's heart escape the probe
Men search each other with, the fathom line,
The dredge, the sunken shaft that brings to light
No pearls of price, no gems, nor golden ore,
But wreck and rust, drowned hopes and dead men's bones?
Lady S.
There's terror in your mind: terror for me,
And terror for yourself!—But this is vain.—
I think that help has come; I yet may live.
The play, the play! No question Warwick Groom
Is Troilus to the accent. Have you lost
Your love of art along with other loves?
Sir T.
Martha!
Lady S.
Forgive me that.—Europa Troop:
It's not for love, the world and I know well,
You tossed her Cressida. The wanton salt
Of her, so loathsome to a passionate mind,
Is admirable here; and art demands
This sacrifice besides, since it may be—
That you should give the hated Warwick Groom
A part predicting him, so like a glove
It fits him.
Sir T.
Let me think; and you—think you:
Will “Troilus and Cressida” succeed?
Lady S.
I think it will; if you salute what chance
Provides, a perfect Troilus.
Sir T.
Do you feel
The fit upon you—your telepathic mood?
90
I hardly know: I think the play is safe.
Sir T.
If Groom plays Troilus?
Lady S.
If Groom plays Troilus.
Sir T.
You say he knows the part. How can that be?
Lady S.
That you must ask him.
Sir T.
Martha!
Lady S.
Fate—it's fate.
Sir T.
What's his condition? Is he well put on?
Drunk—sober—maudlin? How?
Lady S.
Sober and trim;
Pallid and beautiful.
Sir T.
You loved him once.
Lady S.
Tristram!
Sir T.
I mean, he was in love with you.
Lady S.
You knew that from the first.
Sir T.
But never knew
If you loved him.
Lady S.
You never asked me that!
Sir T.
It never troubled me; nor does it now:
But every question that a man may put,
Or may not put a woman, shapes itself
Some time or other; and the chastest mind,
When love begins to mellow, and passion falls,
A ripened friendship from the tree of life,
Thinks of his wife one time at least, “had I
Her maidenhead?”
Lady S.
Tristram!
Sir T.
The word escaped.
Lady S.
Oh, you are crude and cruel! But I am for you:—
Not every husband; some men marry widows;
91
Sir T.
Yes; some?
Lady S.
It seems
Some marry virgins and are none the wiser.
Sir T.
That's not like dying.
Lady S.
No. And Warwick Groom?
Sir T.
Yes; but remain. Not him alone with me.
Lady S.
There's something in your mind more than you say.
Sir T.
Without a doubt. No man can speak his mind.
Lady S.
But every woman can, I think.
Sir T.
And does?
Lady S.
If she be gently asked.
Sir T.
What shall I ask?
Lady S.
Ask? Anything. But you are harassed, ill.
Let me conclude with Groom.
Sir T.
No; bring him in.
[Sir Tristram at the telephone communicates with his business manager, Abbot, while Lady Sumner goes out and re-enters with Warwick Groom.
Groom.
Tristram!
Sir T.
[At the telephone]
Warwick!—old friend! (No, Abbot; wait.)
Groom.
You'll give me this?
Sir T.
You know the part?
Groom.
I know it.
Lady S.
We'll test him, Tristram.
[Takes up a copy of Troilus and Cressida.
Sir T.
Shame! (Yes? Sumner. No.
A dozen Heidsieck? Yes, at once; from me.
92
You never played it?
Groom.
No; I studied it
When you announced the play a year ago;
And when you placed it in rehearsal—
Sir T.
Yes;
You wrote me, I remember.
Groom.
And received
No answer.
Lady S.
Tristram!
Sir T.
Hateful oversight!
Forgive me, Warwick. Having cast the part,
Not knowing you were free . . . (Yes. Sumner. What?
Yes; let the understudy dress. No. Yes.
Perhaps we'll have another Troilus. Groom.
To-night. Oh no! I think. A great success.)
Lady S.
And now I'll test him.
Sir T.
Women are merciless!
Lady S.
And that's the cue! I speak for Hector, Warwick.
“Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,
“I'll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy.”
Groom.
“Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you
“Which better fits a lion than a man.”
Lady S.
“What vice is that, good Troilus? Chide me for it.”
Groom.
“When many times the captive Grecians fall,
“Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
“You bid them rise and live.”
Lady S.
“O, 'tis fair play!”
Groom.
“Fool's play”—I'll not go on, for I have asked
93
Sir T.
You have brought
Mercy to us, boy—a Troilus unmatched
From swift Scamander to the lordly Thames.
Groom.
Then am I happy. Tristram, Martha, years
How many have I wasted; ten, a dozen,
Despairing up and down the railways, caught
And imprisoned, like some adventurer
Forlorn, in dreary tunnels, stations, inns,
Provincial companies and theatres,
The dismallest labyrinth where every step
Stumbles at skeletons of dead ambitions
And dying reputations; as close to London
As the suburbs are, further away, that is,
Than hell from heaven, and bitterer than hell.
Be hung upon the fringe of paradise,
Stewing in brimstone with the spicy scent
Of asphodel to lave the sulphurous air,
And envy Tantalus his pleasant lines
For ever and a day!
Sir T.
You keep your zest
Of talk, your thunder and lightning.
Groom.
Let me talk—
A minute! It's a dozen lifetimes since
We met. The luck of some! the luck! Old gag,
The luck! It seems but yesterday that I
Beheld the Parthenon, one towering wave
Of wild delight from stalls to gallery, break
At my feet, the vanguard of a tide
Of triumph, governed by the moon of hearts,
The world's applause, that should have borne me on
To the trade winds and harbours of success.
94
Two failures after, and with finer parts
Than that that seemed to place me, cast me out
Provincial and suburban derelict.
Nightly to play upon the blood and brain
Of London!—Tristram! Martha!—On the best,
Most beautiful and bravest folk on earth!—
Ah, let them sneer that fail! I never fail
Although I seem to, for I love the world,
And all that's in it, and what's best I love
The best!—To play on London's sense and heart
With passion and emotion, tears and flame,
Laughter and anguish, terror, splendour, might—
As you do, Tristram, and as I could do:
Is there vocation, mission, martyrdom
That equals it? Oh, every night to act
A part of power, and feel a thousand hearts
Beat stroke for stroke with yours, in heaven, in hell,
In London—nowhere else!—in London town,
The core of the world: ten years of that—three—one,
Then any death in rags and hospitals,
Garrets and dens and drunkenness, disgraced,
Forgotten, but my inmost will achieved!
Sir T.
Your pulses hum with youth, and scarce two years
Between us!
Lady S.
Scarce a year!
Groom.
And that makes less
Than nothing 'twixt the tropics where we are,
The equatorial forties.
Sir T.
Less than nothing.
Lady S.
This, then, is Troilus, Tristram?
95
Troilus? Yes!
Off to the theatre; dress; rehearse all day,
And fire the town at night.
Groom.
I'll play the part
As ne'er I played! Thanks from my soul, deep thanks,
Tristram and Martha. Till the call-boy calls!
[Goes out.
Sir T.
Still more excitable, more frenzied. Not—?
Lady S.
Oh, no! the febrile genius of the man.
Some wine he had from me, so worn he seemed:
One glass; it lit him like a torch,
Sir T.
[At the telephone]
(Yes. Groom:
He takes the part. My great regret express
To all the principals, because to-day
I break their well-earned rest: pick out your words:
Summon them promptly to rehearse with Groom.
What? Surely. Fifty. See him when he comes.
No; extra: mornings, extra. Tut! I can't give less.
Yes; keep the understudy under arms.
Myself? At three. Box-office; libraries?
That's good . . . Ah! . . . Dubious: time will tell.)
Booked for a week, and there it stops!
Lady S.
Oh, Tristram!
Let me see! [She presses one hand to her eyes and grasps the copy of “Troilus and Cressida” tightly in the other.]
Clear! Yes; if Groom plays Troilus!
Sir T.
If Groom plays—
Lady S.
Hush! Again I see and hear!
[Throws away the book and uncovers her eyes.
Psychic, or magic, out of heaven or hell
That message comes: “If Warwick Groom plays Troilus.”
96
It rings with menace.
Lady S.
Terror! Should we fail?—
Oh, we are ruined, Tristram!
Sir T.
Once for all!
That I am facing.
Lady S.
They will help you yet!
Sir T.
Not now. Failure to-night begins the end.
My personal triumph and the theatre's
Cannot be questioned—
Lady S.
Who would dare!
Sir. T.
But debt
Increases like a tide when sun and moon
Uplift the mass of waters and the west
Scourges the huge Atlantic. Now you laugh:
That's best. My guarantors withdraw their names
To-night, if failure knells the curtain down.
Lady S.
Tristram!—our own account!—that's overdrawn!
Sir T.
And overdrawn again!
Lady S.
The tragedy!
The only tragedy! The end of love,
The loss of children, snuffing out of hope,
Decay of soul is happiness itself
Beside the want of means—with our desires,
Experience, fancies, dreams.
Sir T.
Yes, but you laughed;
And you must laugh again and yet again.
Why, Martha, with a roof above our heads,
A crust to eat, we will be what we are,
The essence of ourselves, in every fate.
Lady S.
Live poor again? Not for a moment, Tristram!
97
Nor woman either: all the world knows that,
And sweats and aches and lies and sins for wealth.
No, Tristram; but the old deliverance.
Sir T.
What?
Lady S.
[Takes a vial from her pocket]
This, that so often set our hearts at rest.
Sir T.
Have I not told you never to show me that?
Lady S.
Yes; but I show it. Is your courage gone?
Are you afraid to look upon the past?
Sir T.
What purpose can it serve?
Lady S.
It eases me
To talk of it. Do you remember, Tristram?
Sir T.
What ghouls you are, you women! What hyenas,
Digging for ever in the past!
Lady S.
Have you
Forgotten? Is your memory such a sieve?
Sir T.
No! I remember many heady times
When although fortune scowled and fate undid
Our utmost toil, yet love and tranquil sleep
Fulfilled the night with this beneath our pillow,
And certain death at any moment ours.
Lady S.
And always then the sombre clouds dispersed,
And fate began to build us up again.
Sir T.
We slept together . . .
Lady S.
Yes . . .
Sir T.
Well, we shall see.
Lady S.
[Takes up the book of the play and covers her eyes again]
I see the theatre—what was Warwick's brag?—
98
From stalls to gallery, surging at your feet,
If Warwick Groom plays Troilus? Why that “if”?
Sir T.
There's menace there!
Lady S.
Why can't I hear it say,
“Since Warwick Groom plays Troilus”? . . . Can't we die
At once? If you would only care to die!
I should be glad to die: I am very tired.
Sir T.
If failure rings the curtain down, perhaps
That way as well as any.
Lady S.
Will you promise?
Sir T.
No; I'll not promise! A thousand things may chance.
Lady S.
A thousand things? Yes; should a foe of yours
Or Warwick's—Tristram, they may drown his wits
In all good fellowship! Then where are we?
Will you not go and guard him?
Sir T.
Presently.
I have a thing to settle in my mind.
Lady S.
May I go, Tristram?
Sir T.
If you think it well.
Lady S.
Oh, better than well, I think it.
[Knocking.
Not for me
I hope. [Opens the door]
What? Who? The Bishop of St. James's!
Sir T.
St. James's! Come—come in!
Enter Gervase Sackville, Bishop of St. James's.
I thought the east
Had held you captive for another month.
St. J.
I finished what I gave myself to do
99
Lady S.
Oh, welcome, Gervase! Like a single sorrow
You come to bless us: wonder at my words;
They have the sweetest meaning. Fortune comes
With Gervase, Tristram—how, I cannot tell:
Or short, or long, it comes: I feel it here;
But yet I go to guard the ark.
St. J.
The ark?
Lady S.
The theatre, the play, the purse—our lives!
[Goes out.
St. J.
My cousin's moody, Tristram.
Sir T.
I never thought
To need a friend for the last rite of friendship,
The revelation and unbosoming
Of weakness. Had you come a day, an hour,
Some heart-beats later, business, theatre, world,
With permanent eclipse of insight, soul,
Of something nameless yet, had spared you this
That I am going to tell you. Will you sit,
Or must you walk about?
St. J.
The highest mood
Is stillest.
[They sit.]
Sir T.
Still as death! I loved my wife,
And she loved me: she loves me strangely yet
In some dispassionate absorbing way
That tortures her. I do not love her now;
And why I know: we have no children.
St. J.
What!
Sir T.
There must be fruit of love, if love's to last.
St. J.
Now you perplex me, Tristram.
Sir T.
There were children:
You christened four—and buried them. Ah, yes;
100
St. J.
If they had lived? What then?
Sir T.
Profound affection for the hallowed womb
That gave my passion form and brought to light
Its ecstasy in boys and girls of mine:
Desire had changed to deep affection then;
But often now I loathe this childless woman,
And think with horror how she knows my heart,
My tendernesses, selfishnesses, thoughts
Inchoate, wanton follies, baby talk:
My wife became my mistress in the end.
St. J.
Oh now I see into the depths of it!
Sir T.
When our last child had died and she and I
Were raw with grief, unhinged by wild despair,
A fount and flame of lust arose in both,
As though we had eaten of some forbidden fruit,
Or swallowed magic earth, or been bewitched,
Or drenched with aphrodisiac. At the time
My fame was in the nadir, and our lives'
Duration insignificant to us:
So every night with poison in a vial
Beneath our pillow to end it when we chose,
A letch that never seemed to sate itself
Drained us of all humanity; but I,
Refined and tempered in the heat and cold,
Desire and languor, languor and desire,
The rhythm of this, by natural sorcery
Became at last an artist: think of it!
I found myself the master of the mood,
Enchanting folk and playing on their nerves
As though an audience were a zither; made
A name far-sounding; and, by your goodwill,
101
Am now, Sir Tristram Sumner, nominal,
As well as actual theatrocrat.
St. J.
Do I speak now?
Sir T.
Not yet. A jealousy
More sombre than my hate—a thing to note,
That love is never jealous of the past—
A sombre jealousy begot by hate
Began to whisper “Strike her; wound her; kill.”
St. J.
Your wife and I are cousins.
Sir T.
Therefore I speak.
She has no kin but you to help her now.
Shall I go on?
St. J.
Go on.
Sir T.
My first of friends
Was Warwick Groom. Upon my marriage-morning
This letter came:—“Do you know that Warwick
Groom and Martha Sackville were lovers? She
visited him every night in his dressing-room at the
Parthenon when he played Romeo; and the reason
why he insisted on beginning the fourth act with
the fifth scene of the third act was the reason you
guess at once: it gave them time. But that was
not the only place in the play where they performed
their private intermede. How this was managed?
Ask old Odham, Groom's dresser.”
St. J.
Malicious, were it not so impotent.
Sir T.
Perhaps so; but I kept it.
St. J.
So I see.
Whom have you shown it to?
Sir T.
To none but you.
St. J.
Burn it.
102
[Placing the letter in his pocket again]
I can't; I feel it tells the truth.
St. J.
Never believe it, Tristram! Martha Sackville,
Stately and unapproachable, and chaste
As fire and snow—whatever Martha Sumner
May be now.
Sir T.
The wantonest women veil
Their lust with dignity; or knowing it not,
Feel it, and are constrained and awkward: broach
It once, then lechery rushes out unstopped
By—
St. J.
Hush! Why have you told me this?
Sir T.
Advice—
I want advice.
St. J.
Tell me the rest.
Sir T.
I thought
For half an hour when this came, reasoning thus:
“Martha is chaste: against my eyes and ears
“That I will die for”—I was deep in love.
“And if she dropped a stitch, what's that to me?
“Women are sensual, full of seed like men;
“But me she loves—a different fire from that
“Uneasy prurience wondering girls and boys
“Alike give facile way to, now and then.
“Have I no past? If she has hers, we both
“Begin the world anew.” And best and worst
This Odham died upon my marriage-day.
St. J.
What kind of man was he?
Sir T.
A wastrel, prime
And perfect; a vocation—genius for it:
A parson's son, of course: acted himself
A while, then fell to dressing unperturbed.
103
He, Romeo, I, Mercutio; failed and lost
Three thousand pounds or so. But he and I
Were marked and sought for. Of the two I think
Groom was the abler actor, and certainly
Beyond comparison popular. Bidding high
After my marriage I declined to play
Except with mediocrities, having felt
Rather than recognised, how much depends
Upon the pathos of inequality,
The very essence of the theatre.
Groom was my rival in the public mind;
Therefore I made my book against him—he,
Against me, doubtless, burrowing underground.
Armed with advantage all unknown to him—
'Varsity, Policy, Church—I kept him out
Wherever I came in: not difficult
Without advantage even, he being then
As now, his own worst enemy, debauched
And drunken, with relapses of remorse.
In one relapse—
St. J.
Relapse!
Sir T.
—he stormed the town;
Then failed and failed again; while I became
The representative actor of my time.
My fame is rooted in his infamy:
Especially in his; and in the fame
Eclipsed of every actor—which to me
Would be the blackest infamy.
St. J.
So harsh!
Sir T.
Truth, Gervase; it's the truth; no pleasure, power,
104
Deep in the hearts of men; for what is fame
But envy by a virtuous title saved
From dying of chagrin, transmuted echo
Of curses and of sighs!
St. J.
Come to the crux.
Sir T.
I hate my wife. She forces Warwick on me
To play the part of Troilus. Suddenly
The nebulous past contracts to this: my wife
Was Warwick's mistress before she married me;
And I could kill them both. What must I do?
St. J.
You must not kill them, and you must deny
That Martha was Warwick's mistress: deny it now.
Sir T.
Deny the roundness of a woman's limbs,
Deny the sexes and that blood is red!
Well, I deny it, since I have no proof.
What next?
St. J.
A simple thing. I long have thought
That marriages should end when love is dead—
On either side: the marriage vow should be
“Till love is dead,” not “till death do us part”;
And sacrament might end it solemnly,
As it began. The Church is backward there:
Its grip might fasten on the world again
If once divorce became a sacrament.
Sir T.
Divorce?
St. J.
Do you remember how I pled
Against your marriage?
Sir T.
I remember.
St. J.
Judged
My hidden purpose snobbish I suppose?
Sir T.
I thought there underlay your argument
105
St. J.
Wrong: my plea
Was candid. I maintained and still maintain
The artist should be celibate; a priest
Exempt from human ties.
Sir T.
I think so too;
Though when I married Martha I desired
Experience of the noble cares of life,
As the true discipline and academe
Of art. How foolish! how insane! for art
Is like religion, only undefiled
In perfect freedom and abandonment.
St. J.
You hang upon a verge of perilous truth:
Religion is the very art of art.
But that can wait: I have much to say on that.—
I hold it deadly sin, if anything
Is to be christened sin, for you and her
To live together longer, love being dead.
I counsel you to leave her; and I myself,
Who married you, will privately pronounce
A precept of divorce.
Sir T.
But Martha's fate?
St. J.
Her life will be most beautiful: refined
By love—by lust that purifies the soul
More certainly than any chastisement;
Disordered by the loss of all her children—
A doom that makes the deeds done in the flesh
Pernicious to the mind, to fancy noisome;
She shall become a perfect bride of Heaven—
Bride of the Universe.
Sir T.
Gervase—how strange!
You counsel separation?
106
Before the law;
Before the Universe, divorce.
Sir T.
Again,
The Universe!
St. J.
News that can wait a while.
Sir T.
And I should be the minister of art,
Unfettered by a single private tie,
A public votary. Yes; but how? the means?
Who will provide for Martha? And myself!
Who will provide for me? The day we part,
My creditors and hers—they ruin us.
St. J.
And that is grave; yet may be overcome.
Sir T.
But what a sordid hell we welter in!
Art is inhuman, Gervase.
St. J.
Yes, all art,
And all religion and the life of man:
Inhuman, Tristram. Is it news to you?
Sir T.
Then is there no humanity in men?
St. J.
None, Tristram; none! Humanity! a dream
Phantasmal as divinity itself.
Sir T.
Humanity, divinity—ideals?
Do you believe in nothing, Gervase?
St. J.
No.
Belief—But that can wait.
Sir T.
Wait! what can wait?
That is your cry to-day. What, and till when?
Is it a revelation?
St. J.
Now you laugh;
And that is sane and good: the bitterest grin
Is hopeful. What I have to say can wait
Until—Why do you reproduce to-night
This decadent, mordant, hateful travesty?
107
“Troilus and Cressida”? It is my mood:
Man as he is—and woman. Oh, I stalk
A theory here! Heaven help us, and the cat!
I play Ulysses.
[The telephone rings.
St. J.
Shall I go?
Sir T.
[At the telephone]
No, Gervase!
What are you dubious of? (Yes. Martha! Well?
Groom? Drinking—drunk. How horrible? No. Yes.)
I'm ruined, Gervase! Martha saw and heard
Our fate to-night in that magnetic mood
She will solicit. (Yes. I come at once.)
We conquer if Warwick Groom plays Troilus;
If not our curtain's down, our lights are out,
My last part played.
[Both have reached the door hurriedly and are about to go out.
St. J.
Not though your bitterest foe
Is satisfied to-night: for “fortune comes
“With me.” So said your prophetess.
Sir. T.
She did!
The day is young: the thing may be retrieved.
When shall I see you?
St. J.
After the play.
Sir T.
Till then?
St. J.
I also have my art.
Sir T.
You in your church,
I in my theatre.
St. J.
One purpose serve?
| The theatrocrat | |