Index     I     II-I     II-II     III

ACT Three

SCENE: The same. Afternoon of the next day. JOAN and SASCHA. JOAN is rather drawing SASCHA out; he is sulky and uncommunicative. He is at the piano with sheets of manuscript paper open before him making notes for an arrangement.

JOAN—Something certainly happened last night, but I can't discover what it is. It's very tantalizing! [SASCHA doesn't answer. She looks at him. He has been especially taciturn lately. Also, there are other things which make her less than contented with him.] Have you seen Hugo?

SASCHA—Yes.

JOAN—Did he say anything?

SASCHA—What about?

JOAN—About—anything.

SASCHA—There was some sort of row!

JOAN—Was there?

SASCHA—Between him and Rand. I must say I blame Hugo for it.

JOAN—What was it about?

SASCHA—I can't tell you exactly. I wish Hugo would forget this race business.

JOAN—[Studying him.] Why do you want him to forget it?

SASCHA—He'll bring a lot of trouble on himself. He has already.

JOAN—You manage to avoid trouble.

SASCHA—If everybody were as sensible about it as I am there'd be no problem.

JOAN—By sensible you mean—ashamed.

SASCHA—There's too much said about it. It's not important.

JOAN—I notice any time the question comes up you shy off.

SASCHA—Well, Hugo's too conscious about it. He's out of Germany now. Why doesn't he forget about it? It's the individual that's important.

JOAN—[Slowly.] I understand better now, Sascha, your enthusiasm last night at the Pier dance for Lady Worrell.

SASCHA—Oh, that's it. Now it comes out. [As one above that sort of thing.] Jealous!

JOAN—Isn't she a bit elderly for you, Sascha?

SASCHA—I think she's marvelous. She's a marvelous woman.

JOAN—How could you tell?

SASCHA—Well, she's so—for one thing, she's so musical.

JOAN—Is she?

SASCHA—She invited me to play at Brierly.

JOAN—Did you tell her your fee?

SASCHA—Don't be vulgar!

JOAN—When is it going to be?

SASCHA—Thursday.

JOAN—Funny she didn't invite me.

SASCHA—I'll ask her if you like.

JOAN—No, thanks. I'm proud. As long as you're back on Friday for our jaunt to Cornwall.

SASCHA—Oh, Joan . . .

JOAN—Yes?

SASCHA—I'm staying the week-end at Brierly.

JOAN—[Who knew it was coming, flaring up.] Are you? What about our date for Friday?

SASCHA—[Rather miserably. He has dreaded it.] I thought I'd better pass it up. On account of. . . Frankly, Lady Worrell can do a lot for me.

JOAN—I dare say she can. You'll meet a lot of duchesses at Brierly. You'll like that!

SASCHA—What's wrong about liking duchesses? They're as good as other people, aren't they?

JOAN—Better. Their blood is so much bluer! [A moment's pause.]

SASCHA—[Deciding it's expedient to conciliate her, faces her.] I thought you were interested in my career. After all, I'm only doing it for you, you know—in a way. Once I get really established here in England I can turn my back on anybody I want to.

JOAN—Can you?

SASCHA—Except you. I can be independent. And then we—you and I—

JOAN—[Turns away from him.] No, Sascha, this is the end.

SASCHA—[Aggrieved.] Simply because I'm going to Lady Worrell's for the week-end! [Realizes his mistake and controls himself—quietly.] Now, Joan, please, I'll get her to ask you and we'll go together.

JOAN—I don't want to go. I'm through.

SASCHA—I'm not quite sure I understand.

JOAN—[Turns on him—emotionally.] I think you do! Not that I'm not in love with you. I am and I'll have to take it, but I've always felt it. You're cold and calculating, and this about muffling your race is characteristic!

SASCHA—What do you want me to do? Shout it from the house-tops?

JOAN—It's characteristic! Instead of being proud and thrilled about it you are ashamed. That's contemptible, Sascha.

SASCHA—Oh, come now, Joan, don't take it so big. We'll talk it over when I get back on Monday.

JOAN—[Very quietly.] Will we?

SASCHA—I'm going up to practice. [SASCHA walks up the stairs leaving her alone. She crosses to the piano seat and sits down. After a moment HUGO enters from the garden through the French windows.]

HUGO—What's the matter, Joan?

JOAN—[After a slight pause.] Well, the jig's up, Hugo. . . . Between Sascha and me. He prefers duchesses.

HUGO—Does it surprise you that he should?

JOAN—Yes. It surprises me.

HUGO—But why should it? Like so many insecure people, Sascha is a snob. [LAEL comes in. She takes them in. A moment's pause.]

LAEL—Hello, Joan. You must have come back very late last night. How was the dance? Did you have a good time?

JOAN—Not very.

LAEL—I'm sorry. How was the Pier dance? Was it fun?

JOAN—It was very fashionable. It was overrun with duchesses. I wonder, really, where the lower classes go to dance. [She goes out. LAEL watches her. A moment's pause.]

LAEL—What is it? Sascha?

HUGO—Yes.

LAEL—Sascha's stupid.

HUGO—Yes. He is stupid. He is also cunning and unscrupulous and greedy—and an exquisite artist, a superb artist!

LAEL—It's unfair that these attributes should go together. Poor Joan! What a pity she can't love the artist—and let the rest go!

HUGO—Pity the psyche isn't operable!

LAEL—[Lightly.] According to you—it is! An obsession, you say, may be destroyed! [He looks at her. A pause. He lights a cigarette. His hand trembles slightly as he does so. She notices it.] Hugo! Your hand is trembling. Hugo . . .

HUGO—No sleep.

LAEL—I'm glad at least that you didn't sleep. I know I didn't. [RAND enters.] Oh, hello, Rand.

RAND—[Stiffly—it's a great effort for him to do it.] Herr Willens . . .

HUGO—Yes, Captain Eldridge.

RAND—I want to apologize to you—for last night. For making a scene.

HUGO—Please don't. I understand it perfectly.

RAND—Whether you understand it or not—I beg you to accept my apology.

HUGO—Of course. [To LAEL.] You will excuse me.

LAEL—You needn't go, Hugo.

HUGO—I want to speak to Sascha. [HUGO exits through French windows. LAEL looks at RAND. RAND is abject and broken. He has aged overnight. The fresh look in his face is gone. RAND looks at her, unable to speak. LAEL is stirred with pity for him.]

LAEL—[Involuntarily, moving toward him.] Rand . . .

RAND—[In a dim voice.] I beg you—Lael—don't be nice to me!

LAEL—[Devastated by him.] Rand!

RAND—[In an ecstasy of self-reproach.] The Death of a Hero!

LAEL—What do you . . .

RAND—There was a picture of me once in the Sunday section of the newspaper in my home town. In color—very beautiful. Crossed flags over my head. Rosy cheeks. Perfect uniform. Clear-eyed look. Heroic expression. I joked about it when I saw it but now I realize—now that it is gone forever—that I took that picture seriously. I did. It was this picture of me which I've carried about in my mind all these years. It was my notion of myself. Decent fellow. Clean-cut. Well, he went to pieces last night—this wonderful effigy—smashed to bits like a lot of cheap crockery.

LAEL—After all, you thought you had some provocation. You mustn't . . .

RAND—[Paring about.] Don't tell me. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to tear him to bits. I wanted to lynch him. [Faces her suddenly.] All last night I was up—walking those roads—wishing I had him home. So I might lynch him. That's what I am!

LAEL—Poor Rand!

RAND—That's what I am!

LAEL—[Rises and going to him.] In one way or another—that's what everybody is. Why do you suppose we're all staggering pitifully toward some incalculable abyss? Because, in one way or another, that's what everybody is. I'm sorry, Rand dear, that I had to take you out of the Happy Hunting Grounds into the Cave of Despair.

RAND—[Sits in chair before her.] Well, you've done it all right.

LAEL—[Gently.] Well, it's better than whistling away in the Never-Never Land.

RAND—What is there left?

LAEL—Instead of an effigy—a human being.

RAND—Pretty poor specimen.

LAEL—Not so bad, really. I like you!

RAND—[Bitterly, without looking at her.] Do you?

LAEL—Now you can begin to live more—

RAND—After all these years!

LAEL—Why not? You're so young! And you'll find it's much more wholesome!

RAND—[Jumps to his feet facing her.] Wholesome! Do you call this wholesome? Do you think that because I've apologized to him that I've forgiven him? Or you? Do you think my telling you cures me? I forced myself to apologize to him and while I was doing it I—and for me you're . . . in spite of anything I can say to myself—you're—you're—tainted! Now you know!

LAEL—[Greatly troubled.] Poor Rand—what have I done to you? [He looks at her a moment, turns and walks out swiftly. LAEL starts to follow him, stops, realizing that her explanation will only increase his despair. She is overwhelmed herself with a kind of despair. The difficulty and the complexity of bringing human motives into some conformity with sanity and decency overwhelm her. Into the disturbed silence comes the sound of SASCHA upstairs playing the "Intermezzo in A Major" by Brahms. She lights a cigarette. HUGO comes in. He looks at her a moment standing there and comes to her impetuously. He is very tense. He has reached a decision and he must unburden. himself to her.]

HUGO—Lael—I must speak to you.

LAEL—Yes, Hugo . . . [Before he can go on HOBART enters. He sees them together; to him this is another "Love Scene." He is carrying a highball glass and crosses to the secretaire to mix himself another drink. He has been drinking steadily since last night. His eyes are bloodshot and he is quite drunk really but he holds his liquor wonderfully well, and, though he is quite shaky, you wouldn't know he was drunk first off unless you watched him closely.]

HOBART—[Seeing them.] Well, still at it, I see! And so am I . . . [Holds up his glass.] . . . at this! Just different ways of killing time, that's all. I'm not what you call a drinking man ordinarily . . . [Takes a drink.] . . . but lot to be said for it—makes you see things in—proportion! [To HUGO.] What is there about you fellows anyway that makes women go crazy about you? [To LAEL.] What is it, Lady Wyngate? Mystery? Romance? Passion? What is it?

LAEL—[Starts to go.] Perhaps I'd better . . . Is Mrs. Eldridge? . . .

HOBART—Don't go. I'm not drunk—not very, anyway. I won't be objectionable—promise. Been all day without a soul to speak to. Phoebe has one of her headaches—she's had 'em for years. You can't go near her when she has a headache. [With a glare at HUGO.] I can't anyway. [He and HUGO look at each other. HUGO says nothing. HOBART goes on, laughing boisterously.] Maybe you think it's on account of Phoebe I'm drinking? Do you think that is the sorrow I'm trying to drown? That's good! That's very good! I've got more to worry about than that, my good fellow. You'll be glad to hear, Lady Wyngate, that my negotiations with Lord Abercrombie have broken down.

LAEL—Have they? I'm sorry.

HOBART—Why should you be sorry? Besides, you're not sorry! You're glad! He's a very clever man, isn't he, Lady Wyngate?

LAEL—Yes. He's clever!

HOBART—Knows a hell of a lot, doesn't he? That little smile of his—those little wrinkled eyes. Well, I thought I had him. Thought he realized how serious things were for us—the haves against the have-nots—the last fight. Thought he knew it, thought I'd convinced him of it. Thought it was all settled—feather in my cap—when all of sudden—last night—felt him slipping away from me—he began to joke—little jokes—flippant—then he told me . . .

LAEL—[Curious.] What?

HOBART—That, "on mature consideration," he'd decided the idea of Anglo-American Youth League wouldn't go down. He'd be glad to advise me on any project I'd care to undertake, but he made it clear he couldn't be in on it. Press of business in London—demands of his papers—all that rot. He'd just decided—God knows what decided him—to let me down. [Fanatically.] I tell you he doesn't understand—none of them understand!

LAEL—Understand what?

HOBART—[Same voice.] The danger—the danger they're heading for—we're all heading for—all last night I sat up facing it. . . .

LAEL—Facing it! Facing what?

HOBART—Losing everything I have, my fortune, my position, everything I've worked for. For money—for money—I've given up everything. My wife hates me, and my daughter—all of that—but my fortune and the power it gave me—were mine. Now they're threatened. They're in danger—terrible danger—and nobody'll do anything about it—nobody. [Turns on HUGO suddenly.] They're in danger from you! You think it's my wife I'm worried about? I've got a deeper grievance against you than that. You think it's because you killed Christ that we fear and hate you—No! It's because you gave birth to Lenin!

HUGO—[Murmuring.] You over-estimate us!

LAEL—Really, Hobart, you mustn't drink any more. . . .

HOBART—[ln despair.] What is there left but to drink?

LAEL—Nonsense. Your fortune'll last you your lifetime. You needn't worry.

HOBART—What do you know about it—or the danger? Where it's a question of money in danger I'm as sensitive as a cat. I can tell you because I know. Better than Abercrombie with his cynical manner and his flippancy, better than anybody. We're doomed—all of us rich men. It's a question—as such things are reckoned—it's a question of minutes—and it'll overwhelm us all.

LAEL—Well, you'll be no worse off than the rest of us, will you?

HOBART—No worse off! No worse off! Where's the comparison? You don't care about money. You're sloppy about money. You don't love it as I do. You don't count on it as I do. It doesn't sustain you, it doesn't compensate you for everything else you've missed. And yet you say I'll be no worse off. You're as near-sighted as Abercrombie.

LAEL—He has as much to lose as you. His lightness should give you hope.

HOBART—[Contemptuously.] Abercrombie! He's just a newspaper man—not a financier! When the Last Trumpet calls, it'll be just another headline to him!

LAEL—Well, you've had your innings—and a very good time too. If you have to give way—well, put a good face on it. Buck up. Be sporting.

HOBART—Can't—can't . . . Who's going to pay for everything—that's what I'd like to know? [He again confronts HUGO.] Who's going to pay? Will you Communists pay?

HUGO—If you capitalists lend us the money . . .

HOBART—[A bit taken back.] Well, you shan't have it! And there's Rand . . . [Very confidentially to HUGO.] Do you know what his expeditions have cost? Do you know what I've spent in my lifetime for hospitals, scientific research, even art? Who's going to pay after we're gone? Who's going to pay?

LAEL—Bart, please . . .

HOBART—Poor Rand! Poor Rand! No more South Poles!

LAEL—Bart, please . . . [Into the room from upstairs comes the sound of SASCHA playing the "Intermezzo in E Flat Minor" of Brahms.]

HOBART—[Turning to LAEL for sympathy this time.] Do you know, since the surtax, my income's shrunk to nothing? Do you know what I pay each year to the Government—State and Federal? [He begins to weep. He becomes aware of the music and rushes to the foot of the stairs in the alcove, crying at he goes.] There's another one! Listen to him up there! [At the foot of the stairs.] Who's going to pay for your God-damn concerts! [Rushes to the secretaire and grabs a bottle of whiskey.] You'll see! [He starts out, crying like a baby, and through his blubbering says:] You'll want us back! [He goes out. There is an embarrassed pause. During the following scene between LAEL and HUGO, the Brahms goes on.]

HUGO—To have in the world only one thing—and to face losing that—well, as Sascha might say, it's no joke!

LAEL—In the sixteenth century—when people went to the Tower to be executed—it's always struck me how casually they died. Something beyond gallantry. Just before they put their heads on the block—it's extraordinary how they prayed for king and country. We've lost that.

HUGO—They merely faced death. Mr. Eldridge faces extinction.

LAEL—That's true. Suspicion and fear . . . .

HUGO—To be accused simultaneously of killing Christ and giving birth to Lenin—quite a feat, I must say! Just the same, Mr. Eldridge would do pretty well if he had the upper hand.

LAEL—[Smiling.] Hobart's an American and doesn't really understand democracy.

HUGO—He's drowning in a reality he doesn't understand. He hates me because . . .

LAEL—He doesn't hate you. He's afraid of you. Suspicion and fear. They're suffocating the world.

HUGO—How're you going to get rid of them? Through some cosmic psycho-analysis?

LAEL—Through understanding.

HUGO—While you're understanding the enemy, he will destroy you.

LAEL—The eternal impasse.

HUGO—Unless—you destroy him first.

LAEL—[A moments pause.] You're inexorable, Hugo, ruthlessly analytical. You're always looking for the motive behind the motive.

HUGO—[He looks at her a moment, then crosses to her, sitting beside her on the sofa.] Yesterday I fell in love.

LAEL—Hugo.

HUGO—All through dinner, sitting near you in the car going to the cinema, in the theatre—I was in love.

LAEL—I know. I too.

HUGO—I thanked God for the miracle that filled me with longing for you. From my being alone, from my isolation, from the less than nothing I had to offer, from all these I gathered strength. When Mr. Eldridge turned on me, and Rand, too, I felt strong, omnipotent—but when you turned to me so magnanimously before them all, that did for me. I felt like a thief in the pillory to whom a sentimental bystander throws a rose.

LAEL—Your pride is devastating.

HUGO—Yes. And then I went up to my room. I sat at the window and looked over the garden, asleep in the moonlight. Enchantment. And suddenly the unreality of everything, of my presence here in this house overcame me. I thought: What can I hope for—what can I foresee—vistas of bliss in this pleasant country-house—with you. But what would it end in—a self-indulgent day-dream. I thought: What am I doing here? What am I?

LAEL—What am I?

HUGO—It's your home. You belong here. But for me . . .

LAEL—But, Hugo, don't you see? I wanted my love to shield you from the odium of a graceless world.

HUGO—I hoped for love—without philanthropy.

LAEL—How untrue half truths are. I sat up last night too—thinking—about Rand and you—everything—For the first time in months it seemed to me I felt clear—I felt free. I had thought that never again would I be lost in an emotion that I could accept entirely without reservation. To love and not to be ashamed to love. This miracle I felt would never happen to me again—and now it has.

HUGO—[Kisses her hand.] You are all there is left in the world for me to love. I'll never forget you. Your radiance, your goodness, your compassion.

LAEL—[After a moment.] That has a valedictory sound, Hugo.

HUGO—Yes. I must leave you, I must go.

LAEL—Where?

HUGO—Back to Germany.

LAEL—[Almost in terror.] Oh! But you can't go back, Hugo. They'll—stop you.

HUGO—I must risk it.

LAEL—Don't go, Hugo!

HUGO—I must. I must. Look at my career—a public taster of the arts—a dilettante in everything, except that I was paid. Behind this decorative curtain I was forced to discover that there is a harsh reality. Well, I must investigate this reality further. To stay here, to go to America would only be a continuation of my life before. Intellectual squirearchy! I was able to feed my vanity with the comfort of knowing that I made and unmade reputations. Lehrmann—I made Lehrmann—I created a world in which Lehrmann was king; and what sort of a world is it? Out of egotism and vanity I created worlds without testing the foundations on which they rested. A criminal architect who builds houses that topple on their hapless tenants. I see now that there is only one thing left: To destroy the inhuman—to discover humanity.

LAEL—You talk about humanity—discovering humanity—as if it were an abstraction—an essence like the elixir of life which you might find somewhere in a bottle and dispense. Hugo, listen, humanity is here, all around us. I tell you what I wish you'd do. Humor me. Let me take you for a holiday through our shires and let me show you our common folk. You'll find them kindly and gentle. In their faces you'll see how impossible, how far beyond them, are ferocity or brutality or mass-hate. Let me take you, Hugo, and you'll see—you'll be comforted.

HUGO—But I don't want to be comforted. I don't want to be soothed. What you say about England is true. I feel it in you who are the best of England. But what right have I to this immunity? A sybarite in a famine.

LAEL—You're an artist, Hugo. What have you to do with feuds and hatreds and rebellions? Can't you try to see it as I see it? You see, I believe in England. I believe in gradualness. I believe in muddling through. I believe—a poor foolish illusion, I suppose—I believe that in the main people are reasonable and corrigible and sweet—fragments of God.

HUGO—That isn't a belief. It's a mirage. A self-hypnosis. A wish-fulfillment.

LAEL—I allow for that. And is it your dream that the world, overnight, can be scrubbed clean of injustice and left glowing with humanity?

HUGO—It's that I must find certitude at last, and, having found it, if necessary, die for it.

LAEL—Or kill for it?

HUGO—Or kill for it.

LAEL—You are leaving to fight a mania as ravaging as a forest fire that burns down everything before it, leaving stumps and ashes where there had been strength and growth. I don't want it to consume you, Hugo, dearest Hugo. Don't go. You may be lost in it—and to me.

HUGO—Dearest Lael—I can't stay because of one thing—that I remember the past year. And what I remember . . .

LAEL—[Understanding completely.] Wouldn't let you rest.

HUGO—No. I'm determined at last to view the world—including myself—completely without illusion. It's a matter of life and death. I see now that goodness is not enough, that kindness is not enough, that liberalism is not enough. I'm sick of evasions. They've done us in. Civilization, charity, progress, tolerance—all the catchwords. I'm sick of them. We'll have to re-define our terms.

LAEL—[Seeing the inevitability of their separation.] The iron has entered into your soul, Hugo. You have crossed some frontier—into some region—where I cannot follow you.

HUGO—If I can ever return—it will be to you.

LAEL—[Faces him.] You will find me here. There is a genius for wandering and a genius for remaining behind. There is the shooting star and the fixed. Perhaps when you come back—you will find that in our own way we have realized your dream.

HUGO—I know this—that while you live—one needn't despair.

LAEL—Then you need never despair. For nothing will destroy me. [With deep feeling, her valedictory.] I shall live forever and so will you. Our enemies will beat against us and find that we have a strength beyond their clamor, beyond their forces. [HUGO and LAEL look deeply into each other's eyes without moving. Then Hugo turns and goes out. LAEL watches him until he has left the room, starts instinctively to follow him, stops: RAND enters from the garden.]

RAND—Lael! [LAEL stops but doesn't face him. She is looking away into some vision of her own.] Joan's just told me, Lael—that you never saw Willens until you met him in London. I can't tell you how I feel—how humiliated—If there was any way I could make you see how deeply ashamed I am—you'd—you'd . . . [There is the sound of a motor leaving the driveway .]

LAEL—Hugo's gone.

RAND—I know now, Lael—whether he goes or stays—there's some awful fence in my mind and in my spirit, and you're on the other side, and no matter what I do I'll never be able to break through to you—never.

LAEL—We're all shut in behind our little fences, Rand—

The Curtain Falls

Index     I     II-I     II-II     III