by Colm Toibin
Mary. A nun is it? What right have the like of you to be walking out through the world and looking on us when it isn’t any harm we’re doing? What right have the nuns I’m saying to be meddling with the world? [She recognizes Colm.] I seen that man tonight, God bless him, and he driving round on the roads. [She goes up to him. Sister Eileen has involuntarily drawn close to Colm. Mary looks from one to the other with a peculiar smile.] You’re a fine handsome woman, God bless you, a fine beautiful woman I’m saying, and let you not mind them at all. [She puts her hand pleadingly on Sister Eileen’s arm.] Sure you won’t mind them, Sister, tell me out you won’t mind them at all?
Sister Eileen. Who shall I not mind?
Mary [throwing up her hands, and then clasping them together and turning half round with a shriek of laughter]. ‘Who shall I not mind?’ says she. ‘Who shall I not mind?’ It’s a long while since I was in school Sister, yet it’s well I know the like of that. It’s well I know you’ve no call to mind what the priests say, or the bishops say, or what the angels of God do be saying, for it’s little the likes of them knows of women or the seven sorrows of earth. [With anguish in her voice. She sinks her head and sees the bow of crepe in Sister Eileen’s hand.] … Who is it is dead, Mister, if that’s the token of death?
Colm. My uncle, Colm Sweeny.
Mary [indifferently]. And a long rest behind him, why would that trouble me now? I was afeard it was my little children [she looks up to Colm, and speaks piteously] – for if I was never married your honour, and have no children I do be thinking it’s alive they must be if I never had them itself … [Raising her voice to a plaintive cry.] I do see them sometimes when my head’s bad and I do be falling into my sleep … There are five children, five children that wanted to live, God help them, if the nuns and the priests with them had let me be [swaying herself with anguish.] … They’re always nice your honour, with clean faces, and nice frocks on them and little sticks in their hands. But I wouldn’t like them to begin to die on me, for I’m not like all the rest of [covering her face with her hands.] … and it’s queer things I do be seeing the time the moon is full. [She bends her head sobbing piteously.]
Sister Eileen. Don’t mind them now, Mary, there isn’t anything to frighten you here.
Mary [still sobbing]. Oh, my head’s perished with the night wind, and I do be very lonesome the time I do be going the bog road, with the rabbits running round on it and they drowned with the dew. [She looks up piteously at Sister Eileen, sees the little cross she has hanging round her neck; she takes the cross in her hand.] Will you give me the little cross you have Sister, for I’ve lost the one I had and I do be wanting the like of it to sit and hold in my hand. [Sister Eileen gives it to her.] … May the Almighty God reward you Sister, and give you five nice children before you die. [She gives her the rings.] … May his blessing be on them rings, and they going on your hand, and his blessing be on your hand and it working with the linen when the time is come. [She looks at the crucifix in her hand.] … This will be a quiet thing to be looking on, and it’ll keep me still the long evenings when the moon is low, and there do be white mists passing on the bog, the time the little children I have do be lepping, and crying out to each other, and making games in the dark night, and no Christian walking but myself only, and the white geese you’d hear a mile or maybe two mile and they making a great stir over the bog. [She moves towards the door.] … I’ll be going now I’m thinking, for I’ve a long way and this will be keeping me company in the dark lane through the wood. God save you kindly the two of you. There’s great marrying in the world but it’s late we were surely, and let yourselves not be the same. Let you mind the words I was saying, and give no heed to the priests or the bishops or the angels of God, for it’s little the like of them, I was saying, knows about women or the seven sorrows of the earth. [She goes out.]
[Sister Eileen goes over and puts the linen and other things back into the drawer.]
Colm. Another voice has cried out to you. In a few years you will be as old as she is. There will be divine nights like this night and birds crying in the heather, but nothing will reach you, as nothing my uncle at the other side of the hall. [He goes over to her.] I am not a woman and I cannot judge of all your feelings, yet I know you have a profound impulse for what is peculiar to women. You realize that the forces which lift women up to a share in the pain and passion of the world are more holy than the vows you have made. [She stands up before him motionless; he speaks more tenderly.] Before this splendour of the morning you cannot lie. You know that the spirit of life which has transfigured the world is filling you with radiance. Why will you worship the mania of the saints when your own existence is holier than they are. People renounce when they have not power to retain; you have power and courage … I implore you to use them.
Sister Eileen. I don’t know what to do … You are giving me such pain and yet …
Colm. There is the first note of the birds … When the sun comes over that ridge I will ask you to be my wife … You cannot refuse. The trees might as well refuse to grow fragrant and green when it is May, or the birds to sing before the dawn … There are the larks, and the wrens … You have half an hour. I will not touch you … I will not try to persuade you. It is quite unnecessary. The world will persuade you. The breath that drew out this forest of leaves and sent quivering voices to chant in them, is making of you also a beautiful note in the world … There is the willow warbler, you have a quarter of an hour. Will you go and put this dress about you. I am not in a humour for blasphemy.
[Sister Eileen takes the green dress and goes out without looking at him. He looks out for an instant, then packs the rest of the papers into the bureau drawer. He goes back to the window. In a moment Sister Eileen comes in behind him in a green silk dress which is cut low at the neck. She reaches the window just as the red morning light sweeps into the room.]
Sister Eileen [in a low voice]. Colm, I have come back to you.
Colm [turning towards her]. You are infinitely beautiful, and you have done a great action. It is the beauty of your spirit that has set you free, and your emancipation is more exquisite than any that is possible for men who are redeemed by logic. You cannot tell me why you have changed. That is your glory. As a moth comes out to a new sphere of odour and colour and flight, so you have come out to live in a new sphere of beautiful love … Listen to the tumult the birds are making in the trees. That is our marriage hymn. Without love this world would be a loathsome sandhill, and a soul without love is not a great deal better … Speak to me. I want to hear you, your voice will have a new cadence from today.
Sister Eileen. I have left my veil in the room where your uncle is lying … I seem to be in a dream that is wider than I am. I hope God will forgive me. I cannot help it.
Colm. How many people ask to be forgiven for the most divine instant of their lives. Let us be wiser than they are. [He takes up one of the rings.] Here is the ring that was the sorrowful heirloom of uncle. Give me your hand. I, the male power, have overcome with worship you, the soul of credulous feeling, the reader of the saints. From our harmonized discord new notes will rise. In the end we will assimilate with each other and grow senseless and old. We have incarnated God, and been a part of the world. That is enough. [He takes her hand.] In the name of the Summer, and the Sun, and the Whole World I wed you as my wife. [He puts the ring on her finger.]
Curtain
Endnotes
When the Moon Has Set
1 On his second visit to Coole in September 1901 Synge brought with him an earlier complete two-act version. Rejected by Yeats and Lady Gregory, it remained among his papers and was eventually published with a commentary by Mary C. King in Long Room, nos.24-25, 1982, the journal of Friends of the Library, Trinity College Dublin. The one-act version published here, a conflation of the final two drafts ‘J’ and ‘K’, was first published in J.M.Synge Plays Book I, ed. Ann Saddlemyer (Oxford University Press,1968; Colin Smythe, rev. ed. 1982).
Colm Toibin, Synge