University of Virginia Library

Interlude

Music in which blend strains familiar to University victory and prowess
in athletics.

(When the music is ending, the light fades. As the amphitheatre brightens
again, Jefferson and Cornelia are seen still standing half-hidden
by shrubbery. A man who is presently to style himself a plain American
citizen, a voter, speaks officiously at Jefferson's very elbow.)
VOTER

Mr. Jefferson.

JEFFERSON
(Startled, recovers himself with an effort.)

Sir, have I had the honor—?

VOTER

You do not know me. I am a plain American citizen, voted for you for
President. I want a word with you.

(Jefferson inclines his head at the implied obligation and gently disengages
Cornelia's hand lying upon his arm.)

JEFFERSON

You will excuse us, my dear?

(Cornelia drops a shy curtsey and goes toward a group of ladies who
have come up from the lawn accompanied by servants with baskets.
One of them greets her.)

WOMAN

Cakes for the banquet—and we have yet to slice them!

CORNELIA

Let me help.

(They go inside.)

VOTER

I admire your political principles, Mr. Jefferson. I respect your age, but
I must tell you that people are very dissatisfied with your building here—
fancy ornaments, foreign labor, extravagance of all kinds—we want more
closets and fewer columns—

(Jefferson paces away from him a few steps and then pauses, his eyes
turned toward the shadowy confines of the lawn.)

JEFFERSON

There are divers minds, sir, and divers modes of thought. That we
should have builded to meet the approbation of every individual was in itself
impossible. We had no supplementary guide but our own judgment.
(His mild voice pauses. Then turning suddenly toward the voter, he puts a period
to the conversation.)
We have builded by our taste, sir, and by our
conscience.

(He bows low with old-fashioned courtesy and goes within. The voter
stands a moment staring after him. Cabell comes up the steps and
passes. He is half across the terrace when a voice halts him. Madison
and Monroe cross the lawn together.)

MADISON

Mr. Cabell!

(The voter recovers himself with a start and puts out his hand toward
Cabell as Cabell is turning back to the steps.)

VOTER

You do not know me. I am a plain American citizen, voted for you
for the legislature—

CABELL
(Bowing rather distantly and attempting to pass.)

Accept my thanks, sir.

VOTER

I want to speak to you about Mr. Jefferson's wastefulness in the building
going on here. There is a good deal of gossip—

CABELL

Gossip, sir! Mr. Jefferson is as indifferent to gossip as Monticello to
summer mists. (Chin up, he passes on to greet Madison and Monroe. They
meet beside the rejected stone and the little camp-stool forgotten there. Cabell's
face relaxes at sight of the stool. He takes it up and folds it carefully.)
The Old
Sachem is here ahead of us.

(The voter goes down to the lawn and off.)

MADISON

Perhaps, as the workmen say, he watches through his telescope the
driving of every nail; and if one is driven falsely, mounts Old Eagle and
comes charging down to right it.

MONROE

Every nail! Ah, sirs, even we, the Visitors, scarcely know the half of
Mr. Jefferson's dreams for the University.

CABELL

Perhaps we should grow faint if we often looked aloft from this material
base, these buildings dearly fought for and not yet completely won,—
aloft to the imagined towers of science he bids us rear.

MADISON
(Musing.)

We talked together, he and I, at Monticello last night—the punch-bowl
half buried in a drift of pages, the gathered dreams of half a century.—

CABELL
(Interrupting in an undertone.)

And such ordered dreams!

MADISON

Exactly. The very books for the library listed as minutely as those
specifications for bricks he daily sets his cramped wrist to draw up. Even
a masterpiece of sound defense for what he calls "our novelties," schools
of Anglo-Saxon, agriculture, government! A packet of letters already
written to precede Mr. Gilmer to Europe on his quest for "characters of
the first order"—

MONROE

We have progressed since the day when Mr. Jefferson laid out the first
building with peg and rule and twine here in Perry's old stubble field.

CABELL

If I could but have made the legislature see the great scale of his vision!

MONROE

You have accomplished much. You will do more.

CABELL
(Sadly.)

I cannot go back another term. My health is quite spent.

MADISON

Poor Old Sachem! Does he know?

CABELL

No. I must tell him to-day.

(A boy dashes across the lawn shouting.)

BOY

He's come! Lafayette has come!

(The sound of drums and processional music. Gaily dressed people
gather on the lawn. From the building come Cornelia and the ladies.
They curtsey to the gentlemen and pass down to the lawn. Down the
center aisle of the amphitheatre and through the lane of people, who
wave handkerchiefs and cheer, passes the procession: the chief marshal
and his aids; the president of the day; magistrates and other local
dignitaries; Lafayette and his staff. A flagbearer carries the flags
of America and France. At the steps, the dignitaries pause and divide
to let Lafayette pass through. Jefferson meets him there. They
embrace, and the cheering mounts to a frenzy. "Lafayette! Lafayette!")


JEFFERSON

God bless you, General!

LAFAYETTE

Ah, Jefferson! (He turns toward the lawn and speaks to the people.)

Even in the old world, I think, I have not seen a work that so clearly speaks
the spirit of the master as this, your Athenæum, speaks of him who has
fathered it. Its white colonnades are yet empty of young life, but a shadow
falls along them daily. Athwart the centuries, so that your sons and their
sons in turn shall walk within it, still will stretch the shadow of the friend
of freedom, of truth, Thomas Jefferson.

(Cheers, "Jefferson! Jefferson!" One voice cries, "The Declaration!"
Jefferson bows his head.)

JEFFERSON

My friends and neighbors, I am old, long in the disuse of making public
speeches, and without voice to utter them—It is my single wish to hear
you acclaim with undivided voice, as but now you did acclaim our great
guest and me, this, our University.

(A straggling voice calls, "The University!" but the crowd stirs with
confusion. The bands begin to play again, and the dignitaries go up
the steps of the terrace. There they form a lane again, and the chief
marshal by gesture invites Lafayette in to the banquet. Lafayette
turns to Jefferson, who stands looking out over the lawn, and offers
him his arm. Jefferson squares his shoulders, smiles affectionately,
and lays his hand within the elbow of the old marquis. With stately
steps they walk together into the banquet hall. Again the crowd cheers.
When the banqueters have gone the throng on the lawn gradually disperses,
some straying in groups upon the terrace to look curiously about.
A woman with her young son at her side pauses in admiration before
the unfinished capital. The voter approaches them. Cornelia, half-hidden
from them by a clump of shrubs on the lawn, stands listening.)

VOTER

I suppose you'd call that beautiful.

WOMAN

Why, no—it is still so rough—but it suggests beauty.

VOTER

H'm. More useless finery, fancy folderols, expensive toys for a man in
his dotage.

A MAN
(Coming up to them.)

Is it true that Mr. Jefferson will have no professors here but foreigners
—and Unitarians?

(The hum of voices swells and the stragglers foregather.)

VOTER

I don't doubt it. No one really knows what religion he believes in himself.

MAN

And he did get a lot of foreign notions when he lived abroad.

WOMAN

Ah, you are all swift to detract.

HER SON
(Tensely.)

But I heard you cheering, "Jefferson! Jefferson!"

WOMAN

Hush, my son.

(From the banquet hall comes an orator's voice rounding a period:
"—the friend of freedom," and then the sound of applause.)

VOTER

But, my boy, that is the thing to do, to cheer when public men stand
before us. I voted for Thomas Jefferson for President, but when it comes to
emptying out my pockets, why, that is different.

BYSTANDERS

Very different—. Indeed—. —especially for pagan professors and
un-American buildings.

VOTER

Of course it was not our business if he chose to throw away a lifetime
and a fortune on building his own house. Monticello—

(Raggi pushes through the ring of listeners and interrupts.)

RAGGI

Monticello? Ah, the fair, the serene house. Long after the flimsy shelters
in your valley lie rotted it will stand in beauty—so art endures, signori
and signore—on the breast of its little mountain.

(A breath of silence, during which Raggi picks up his chisel, left forgotten
on the stone.)

MAN

And who is he?

VOTER
(Shrugging his shoulders and turning to go down the steps.)

An importation of Mr. Jefferson's—from Italy.

(The circle breaks up and the people drift away. Raggi, leaving, is
stopped by Cornelia coming up from the lawn, portfolio in her arms.)

CORNELIA

If you please. I want to show you the drawing of the library, the great
building to stand at the head of the lawn. (She opens the portfolio on the
capital, and Raggi gives a low exclamation of pure delight.)
Do you recognize
it?

RAGGI

Recognize it? Ah!

CORNELIA

It will be smaller—

RAGGI

Of a certainty. But the proportions! The perfect round. Have you
seen it, the temple of all the gods? You have been to Italy, to Rome itself?
You know the Pantheon?

CORNELIA
(Wistfully, shaking her head.)

Only pictures. (She watches him study the drawing.)
Would rough
capitals spoil it?

RAGGI

Rough capitals? A thing impossible. They must be of marble.

(With a gesture of finality he turns abruptly away. She follows.)

CORNELIA

But of course there are different sorts of marble, some smoother than
others, whiter, some—

RAGGI

Ah, if we were but in Italy! There is the perfect marble, flawless like
untracked snow.

CORNELIA

It is—?

RAGGI

Carrara.

CORNELIA

Oh. Carrara.

(Satisfied, she turns to tie the portfolio again, and, when Raggi has gone,
sits down on the steps, her chin on her palms. Jefferson comes from
the banquet hall.)

JEFFERSON

Cornelia, you are waiting for me? But you will grow tired. Men love
talk like old wine.

CORNELIA

Shall you have a chance to speak to the Visitors of the University?

JEFFERSON

When the meat is served. We are to come here. But you must not
wait, my child. Are you delaying your carriage until the file winds up to
Monticello so that I may be your cavalier? I am but a grizzled outrider, and
Eagle an ancient mount—

CORNELIA

Listen. I have found what kind of marble we want for the capitals, the
smoothest, the whitest, the best—Carrara.

JEFFERSON
(Suddenly serious, taking her chin in his hand to study her eyes.)

My dear, we can but try. I will ask our Visitors.

(Jefferson and Cornelia separate, he going with bowed head back to
the banquet hall and she stealing softly down to the lawn.)
(Light dawns upon the terrace. Phædrus, in short, dun-colored cape
and little hard, round hat slung about his neck, comes out between
Socrates and Lysis. He wears a new and strange appearance which
cannot be entirely attributable to his clothes, although they are of
course both new and strange. It is rather a matter of lifted chin and a
far-off gaze. Lysis presses very close to him, looking up into his face
and now and then feeling the stuff of his cape. Socrates smiles whimsically
at the two of them.)

SOCRATES

Lysis, I think you are envying Phædrus. But the life of training he has
begun is rigorous. Surely you do not crave that ugly uniform. (Lysis
laughs and shakes his head.)
Or the close-cropped head? No? Perhaps
it is the mad revels of the young men, their societies of mystic names?
Nor these? Then perhaps the shield and spear Phædrus will have from the
state—and the dangers he will soon go out to encounter on the frontier?

LYSIS

Oh, no, Socrates.

SOCRATES

Then it is the sacred oath he swore just now in the sanctuary. (Lysis
not denying this, but instead looking eagerly toward him, Socrates drops his
humorous tone and speaks very gently.)
Ah, Lysis, do you suppose that you
must wait for a day and year to take an oath as sacred? Or that temples
alone can consecrate high purpose? This rough stone be your altar. Phædrus,
here, and I, your friends, will speak a prayer with you, and like good
comrades claim a share in the blessings it brings.

PHÆDRUS

But, Socrates, men say you do not believe in the gods.

SOCRATES

And you, who are my friend, who talk with me daily, how do you answer
them in your heart? Do you say, Socrates believes the sun a stone, he
has no faith in what is divine?

PHÆDRUS

No. But the men who are so clamorous to pass the sentence of death
upon you are not your friends. They declare you never sacrifice to the gods
of the state—

SOCRATES

Hush. It is sacrilege to give God to our little Attic state. Pray with
Lysis. Ask with him the dearest wish of his heart.

PHÆDRUS

Ah, I know what that will be—honor.

SOCRATES

Is that so, Lysis? Do you yearn above all things for truth? (Lysis
nods. The two youths stand by the rough stone and pray after Socrates.)
O,
Pallas, glorious goddess, keeper of wisdom,—

PHÆDRUS AND LYSIS

O, Pallas, glorious goddess, keeper of wisdom,—

SOCRATES

—give me beauty in my inward soul. May I be brave.

PHÆDRUS AND LYSIS

—give me beauty in my inward soul. May I be brave.

SOCRATES

And then, Athena, send me truth.

PHÆDRUS AND LYSIS

And then, Athena, send me truth.

(Socrates moves away, leaving Phædrus and Lysis. Phædrus, taking a
scroll from his tunic, sits down to read in it. After a moment Lysis
slips to a lower step and drops down quietly. He hugs his knees boy-fashion
and bends over to sniff delicately at the beautiful papyrus.)

LYSIS

Oil of sandalwood. Mmmm.

PHÆDRUS
(Thinking aloud.)

It would be splendid to be a poet, to speak truth, but half-knowing
how—yet easily, as the smilax climbs.

LYSIS

I have thought of that.

PHÆDRUS

After this (touching his uniform)
, I may try it,—try putting into starry
words the beauty that lumps in my throat.

LYSIS
(Reproachfully.)

But you were going to be a master artisan and fashion wings for us.
You said it would be simple to fly.

PHÆDRUS

Simple? Even the seagulls know as much, poising surely between blue
and blue in the wake of tall triremes.

LYSIS
(Still reproachfully.)

And only this morning you talked of founding a great world state so
that there might be an end of wars and all the oppressed should be free.

PHÆDRUS

Who can tell? (Moonlight silvers the façade beyond the terrace and
streaks the floor with light and shadow. A fair Athenian girl in shimmering
fabrics with garlands of unreal silver flowers stands a moment in a path of light.
Phædrus, spying her, springs to his feet, hand outstretched. Startled, she
vanishes before Lysis, leaping up and looking back, has seen her.)
It was
Helen!

LYSIS

How could you know?

PHÆDRUS

By her beauty. Was it not the glory of Greece? I have seen her in a
thousand dreams flash white-armed along these moon-barred colonnades.

(Again the girl appears. This time it is Lysis who sees her. He cries
aloud and runs toward her. She eludes him. He pursues and overtakes
her. But she breaks away and leaves him with empty arms

---

77

staring at the moon-lines on the floor. Soft music, and then the voice
of song:)
(The girl comes slowly out into the light again. Lysis meets her and
they dance of the love that comes to youth in dreams, mystic, evanescent.
At last she slips away. He follows. Other maidens come and dance
on the lawn; and the dance drifts into joyous revelry. They go off
laughing, Phædrus in their midst. The moonlight endures.)