Complete Works of James Joyce

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Complete Works of James Joyce Page 225

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  ROBERT

  (Surprised.) What others?

  BERTHA

  The other women. I hear you have so many admirers.

  ROBERT

  (Involuntarily.) And that is why you too...?

  BERTHA

  But you have, haven’t you?

  ROBERT

  Friends, yes.

  BERTHA

  Do you speak to them in the same way?

  ROBERT

  (In an offended tone.) How can you ask me such a question? What kind of person do you think I am? Or why do you listen to me? Did you not like me to speak to you in that way?

  547

  BERTHA

  What you said was very kind. (She looks at him for a moment.) Thank you for saying it — and thinking it.

  ROBERT

  (Leaning forward.) Bertha!

  BERTHA

  Yes?

  ROBERT

  I have the right to call you by your name. From old times — nine years ago. We were Bertha — and Robert — then. Can we not be so now, too?

  BERTHA

  (Readily.) O yes. Why should we not?

  ROBERT

  Bertha, you knew. From the very night you landed on Kingstown pier. It all came back to me then. And you knew it. You saw it.

  BERTHA

  No. Not that night.

  ROBERT

  When?

  BERTHA

  The night we landed I felt very tired and dirty. (Shaking her head.) I did not see it in you that night.

  ROBERT

  (Smiling.) Tell me what did you see that night — your very first impression.

  BERTHA

  (Knitting her brows.) You were standing with your back to the gangway, talking to two ladies.

  ROBERT

  To two plain middleaged ladies, yes.

  BERTHA

  I recognized you at once. And I saw that you had got fat.

  ROBERT

  (Takes her hand.) And this poor fat Robert — do you dislike him then so much? Do you disbelieve all he says?

  BERTHA

  I think men speak like that to all women whom they like or admire. What do you want me to believe?

  ROBERT

  All men, Bertha?

  BERTHA

  (With sudden sadness.) I think so.

  ROBERT

  I too?

  BERTHA

  Yes, Robert. I think you too.

  ROBERT

  All then — without exception? Or with one exception? (In a lower tone.) Or is he too — Richard too — like us all — in that at least? Or different?

  548

  BERTHA

  (Looks into his eyes.) Different.

  ROBERT

  Are you quite sure, Bertha?

  BERTHA

  (A little confused, tries to withdraw her hand.) I have answered you.

  ROBERT

  (Suddenly.) Bertha, may I kiss your hand? Let me. May I?

  BERTHA

  If you wish.

  (He lifts her hand to his lips slowly. She rises suddenly. and listens.)

  BERTHA

  Did you hear the garden gate?

  ROBERT

  (Rising also.) No.

  (A short pause. The piano can be heard faintly from the upper room.)

  ROBERT

  (Pleading.) Do not go away. You must never go away now. Your life is here. I came for that too today — to speak to him — to urge him to accept this position. He must. And you must persuade him to. You have a great influence over him.

  BERTHA

  You want him to remain here.

  ROBERT

  Yes.

  BERTHA

  Why?

  ROBERT

  For your sake because you are unhappy so far away. For his sake too because he should think of his future.

  BERTHA

  (Laughing.) Do you remember what he said when you spoke to him last night?

  ROBERT

  About...? (Reflecting.) Yes. He quoted the Our Father about our daily bread. He said that to take care for the future is to destroy hope and love in the world.

  BERTHA

  Do you not think he is strange?

  ROBERT

  In that, yes.

  BERTHA

  A little — mad?

  549

  ROBERT

  (Comes closer.) No. He is not. Perhaps we are. Why, do you...?

  BERTHA

  (Laughs.) I ask you because you are intelligent.

  ROBERT

  You must not go away. I will not let you.

  BERTHA

  (Looks full at him.) You?

  ROBERT

  Those eyes must not go away. (He takes her hands.) May I kiss your eyes?

  BERTHA

  Do so. (He kisses her eyes and then passes his hand over her hair.)

  ROBERT

  Little Bertha!

  BERTHA

  (Smiling.) But I am not so little. Why do you call me little?

  ROBERT

  Little Bertha! One embrace? (He puts his arm around her.) Look into my eyes again.

  BERTHA

  (Looks.) I can see the little gold spots. So many you have.

  ROBERT

  (Delighted.) Your voice! Give me a kiss, a kiss with your mouth.

  BERTHA

  Take it.

  ROBERT

  I am afraid. (He kisses her mouth and passes his hand many times over her hair.) At last I hold you in my arms!

  BERTHA

  And are you satisfied?

  ROBERT

  Let me feel your lips touch mine.

  BERTHA

  And then you will be satisfied?

  ROBERT

  (Murmurs.) Your lips, Bertha!

  BERTHA

  (Closes her eyes and kisses him quickly.) There. (Puts her hands on his shoulders.) Why don’t you say: thanks?

  ROBERT

  (Sighs.) My life is finished — over.

  BERTHA

  O, don’t speak like that now, Robert.

  ROBERT

  Over, over. I want to end it and have done with it.

  550

  BERTHA

  (Concerned but lightly.) You silly fellow!

  ROBERT

  (Presses her to him.) To end it all — death. To fall from a great high cliff, down, right down into the sea.

  BERTHA

  Please, Robert...

  ROBERT

  Listening to music and in the arms of the woman I love — the sea, music and death.

  BERTHA

  (Looks at him for a moment.) The woman you love?

  ROBERT

  (Hurriedly.) I want to speak to you, Bertha — alone — not here. Will you come?

  BERTHA

  (With downcast eyes.) I too want to speak to you.

  ROBERT

  (Tenderly.) Yes, dear, I know. (He kisses her again.) I will speak to you; tell you all; then. I will kiss you, then, long long kisses — when you come to me — long long sweet kisses.

  BERTHA

  Where?

  ROBERT

  (In tone of passion.) Your eyes. Your lips. All your divine body.

  BERTHA

  (Repelling his embrace, confused.) I meant where do you wish me to come.

  ROBERT

  To my house. Not my mother’s over there. 1 will write the address for you. Will you come?

  BERTHA

  When?

  ROBERT

  Tonight. Between eight and nine. Come. I will wait for you tonight. And every night. You will?

  (He kisses her with passion, holding her head between his hands. After a few instants she breaks from him. He sits down.)

  BERTHA

  (Listening.) The gate opened.

  ROBERT

  (Intensely.) I will wait for you.

  (He takes the slip from the table. Bertha moves away from him slowly. Richard comes in from the garden.)

  551

  RICHARD

  (Advancing, takes
off his hat.) Good afternoon.

  ROBERT

  (Rises, with nervous friendliness.) Good afternoon, Richard.

  BERTHA

  (At the table, taking the roses.) Look what lovely roses Mr Hand brought me.

  ROBERT

  I am afraid they are overblown.

  RICHARD

  (Suddenly.) Excuse me for a moment, will you?

  (He turns and goes into his study quickly. Robert takes a pencil from his pocket and writes a few words on the slip; then hands it quickly to Bertha.)

  ROBERT

  (Rapidly.) The address. Take the tram at Lansdowne Road and ask to be let down near there.

  BERTHA

  (Takes it.) I promise nothing.

  ROBERT

  I will wait.

  (Richard comes back from the study.)

  BERTHA

  (Going.) I must put these roses in water.

  RICHARD

  (Handing her his hat.) Yes, do. And please put my hat on the rack.

  BERTHA

  (Takes it.) So I will leave you to yourselves for your talk. (Looking round.) Do you want anything? Cigarettes?

  RICHARD

  Thanks. We have them here.

  BERTHA

  Then I can go?

  (She goes out on the left with Richard’s hat, which she leaves in the hall, and returns at once; she stops for a moment at the davenport, replaces the slip do the drawer, locks it, and replaces the key, and, taking the roses, goes towards the right. Robert precedes her to open the door for her. She bows and goes out.)

  RICHARD

  (Points to the chair near the little table on the right.) Your place of honour.

  ROBERT

  (Sits down.) Thanks. (Passing his hand over his brow.) Good Lord, how warm it is today! The heat pains me here in the eye. The glare.

  552

  RICHARD

  The room is rather dark, I think, with the blind down but if you wish...

  ROBERT

  (Quickly.) Not at all. I know what it is — the result of night work.

  RICHARD

  (Sits on the lounge.) Must you?

  ROBERT

  (Sighs.) Eh, yes. I must see part of the paper through every night. And then my leading articles. We are approaching a difficult moment. And not only here.

  RICHARD

  (After a slight pause.) Have you any news?

  ROBERT

  (In a different voice.) Yes. I want to speak to you seriously. Today may be an important day for you — or rather, tonight. I saw the vicechancellor this morning. He has the highest opinion of you, Richard. He has read your book, he said.

  RICHARD

  Did he buy it or borrow it?

  ROBERT

  Bought it, I hope.

  RICHARD

  I shall smoke a cigarette. Thirty-seven copies have now been sold in Dublin. (He takes a cigarette from the box on the table, and lights it.)

  ROBERT

  (Suavely, hopelessly.) Well, the matter is closed for the present. You have your iron mask on today.

  RICHARD

  (Smoking.) Let me hear the rest.

  ROBERT

  (Again seriously.) Richard, you are too suspicious. It is a defect in you. He assured me he has the highest possible opinion of you, as everyone has. You are the man for the post, he says. In fact, he told me that, if your name goes forward, he will work might and main for you with the senate and I... will do my part, of course, in the press and privately. I regard it as a public duty. The chair of romance literature is yours by right, as a scholar, as a literary personality.

  553

  RICHARD

  The conditions?

  ROBERT

  Conditions? You mean about the future?

  RICHARD

  I mean about the past.

  ROBERT

  (Easily.) That episode in your past is forgotten. An act of impulse. We are all impulsive

  RICHARD

  (Looks fixedly at him.) You called it an act of folly, then — nine years ago. You told me I was hanging a weight about my neck.

  ROBERT

  I was wrong. (Suavely.) Here is how the matter stands, Richard. Everyone knows that you ran away years ago with a young girl... How shall I put it? ...with a young girl not exactly your equal. (Kindly.) Excuse me, Richard, that is not my opinion nor my language. I am simply using the language of people whose opinions I don’t share.

  RICHARD

  Writing one of your leading articles, in fact.

  ROBERT

  Put it so. Well, it made a great sensation at the time. A mysterious disappearance. My name was involved too, as best man, let us say, on that famous occasion. Of course, they think I acted from a mistaken sense of friendship. Well, all that is known. (With some hesitation.) But what happened afterwards is not known.

  RICHARD

  No?

  ROBERT

  Of course, it is your affair, Richard. However, you are not so young now as you were then. The expression is quite in the style of my leading articles, isn’t it?

  RICHARD

  Do you, or do you not, want me to give the lie to my past life?

  ROBERT

  I am thinking of your future life — here. I understand your pride and your sense of liberty. I understand their point of view also. However, there is a way out; it is simply this. Refrain from contradicting any rumours you may hear concerning what happened.... or did not happen after you went away. Leave the rest to me.

  554

  RICHARD

  You will set these rumours afloat?

  ROBERT

  I will. God help me.

  RICHARD

  (Observing him.) For the sake of social conventions?

  ROBERT

  For the sake of something else too — our friendship, our lifelong friendship.

  RICHARD

  Thanks.

  ROBERT

  (Slightly wounded.) And I will tell you the whole truth.

  RICHARD

  (Smiles and bows.) Yes. Do, please.

  ROBERT

  Not only for your sake. Also for the sake of — your present partner in life.

  RICHARD

  I see.

  (He crushes his cigarette softly on the ashtray and then leans forward, rubbing his hands slowly.)

  RICHARD

  Why for her sake?

  ROBERT

  (Also leans forward, quietly.) Richard, have you been quite fair to her? It was her own free choice, you will say. But was she really free to choose? She was a mere girl. She accepted all that you proposed.

  RICHARD

  (Smiles.) That is your way of saying that she proposed what I would not accept.

  ROBERT

  (Nods.) I remember. And she went away with you. But was it of her own free choice? Answer me frankly.

  RICHARD

  (Turns to him, calmly.) I played for her against all that you say or can say; and I won.

  ROBERT

  (Nodding again.) Yes, you won.

  RICHARD

  (Rises.) Excuse me for forgetting. Will you have some whisky?

  ROBERT

  All things come to those who wait.

  (Richard goes to the sideboard and brings a small tray with the decanter and glasses to the table where he sets it down.)

  555

  RICHARD

  (Sits down again, leaning back on the lounge.) Will you please help yourself?

  ROBERT

  (Does so.) And you? Steadfast? (Richard shakes his head.) Lord, when I think of our wild nights long ago — talks by the hour, plans, carouses, revelry...

  RICHARD

  In our house.

  ROBERT

  It is mine now. I have kept it ever since though I don’t go there often. Whenever you like to come let me know. You must come some night. It will be old times again. (He lifts his glass, and drinks.) Prosit!

  RICHARD

  It was not only a house of revelry; it was to be the hearth of
a new life. (Musing.) And in that name all our sins were committed.

  ROBERT

  Sins! Drinking and blasphemy (he points) by me. And drinking and heresy, much worse (he points again) by you — are those the sins you mean?

  RICHARD

  And some others.

  ROBERT

  (Lightly, uneasily.) You mean the women. I have no remorse of conscience. Maybe you have. We had two keys on those occasions. (Maliciously.) Have you?

  RICHARD

  (Irritated.) For you it was all quite natural?

  ROBERT

  For me it is quite natural to kiss a woman whom I like. Why not? She is beautiful for me.

  RICHARD

  (Toying with the lounge cushion.) Do you kiss everything that is beautiful for you?

  ROBERT

  Everything — if it can be kissed. (He takes up a flat stone which lies on the table.) This stone, for instance. It is so cool, so polished, so delicate, like a woman’s temple. It is silent, it suffers our passion; and it is beautiful. (He places it against his lips.) And so I kiss it because it is beautiful. And what is a woman? A work of nature, too, like a stone or a flower or a bird. A kiss is an act of homage.

  556

  RICHARD

  It is an act of union between man and woman. Even if we are often led to desire through the sense of beauty can you say that the beautiful is what we desire?

  ROBERT

  (Pressing the stone to his forehead.) You will give me a headache if you make me think today. I cannot think today. I feel too natural, too common. After all, what is most attractive in even the most beautiful woman?

  RICHARD

  What?

  ROBERT

  Not those qualities which she has and other women have not but the qualities which she has in common with them. I mean... the commonest. (Turning over the stone, he presses the other side to his forehead.) I mean how her body develops heat when it is pressed, the movement of her blood, how quickly she changes by digestion what she eats into — what shall be nameless. (Laughing.) I am very common today. Perhaps that idea never struck you?

  RICHARD

  (Drily.) Many ideas strike a man who has lived nine years with a woman.

  ROBERT

  Yes. I suppose they do.... This beautiful cool stone does me good. Is it a paperweight or a cure for headache?

  RICHARD

  Bertha brought it home one day from the strand. She, too, says that it is beautiful.

  ROBERT

  (Lays down the stone quietly.) She is right.

  (He raises his glass, and drinks. A pause.)

  RICHARD

  Is that all you wanted to say to me?

  ROBERT

  (Quickly.) There is something else. The vicechancellor sends you, through me, an invitation for tonight — to dinner at his house. You know where he lives? (Richard nods.) I thought you might have forgotten. Strictly private, of course. He wants to meet you again and sends you a very warm invitation.

 

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