Collected Novels and Plays
Page 47
GILBERT:
Charles isn’t frowning.
That is the way his face looks in repose.
He is a naturally melancholy person.
JULIE:
He knows
That we are looking at him.
GILBERT:
Rubbish.
JULIE:
He knows
How nervous we become when he ignores us.
GILBERT:
He also knows how nervous you become
When I’m not there to keep you from talking to one another.
JULIE:
Idiot.
GILBERT:
Fishwife.
JULIE:
Cretin.
CHARLES:
Look! Something’s at the line! Wait!
GILBERT:
It is only your wife’s beer bottle.
CHARLES:
Fish won’t strike a damaged bait.
GILBERT:
I think that’s rather decent of them.
(CHARLES reels in his line.)
JULIE:
O what a beautiful day! What soft air!
See how the light moves through the water
Like strings of a piano. And the water
Is not blue but purple. Look out there!
Think of them threading down, the strings of light,
To where an absolute darkness begins,
How they must sound against a thousand cutting fins
And mouths that would swallow me up in a bite.
CHARLES:
If you’re not careful we’ll put you on the hook.
GILBERT:
The water is purple, with the blood of talkative wives.
I do appreciate Charles’ point of view. He strives
Overmuch perhaps for integrity. Yet one can but admire
Those moments, admittedly frequent, when like a chestnut from the fire
He attains his object. Look at him now. He is perfectly at ease
Baiting his line with a fresh mullet. Deep in the purple seas
How shall mere fish, without a fraction of my high-handedness,
Be able to resist such a display of single-mindedness?
JULIE:
Why is it that we become so interesting
As soon as Charles is listening?
GILBERT:
How shall I, if it comes to that? You are at one with your bait.
And I have swallowed it, Charles, I’ve got you, it’s too late.
CHARLES:
It would seem in that case that I had you.
GILBERT:
I suppose it would and I daresay you do.
JULIE:
It would seem you both had me.
GILBERT:
I hope we always shall. I’m sure Charles will agree.
CHARLES:
Nobody ever has her for very long.
JULIE:
What a nasty remark! Gilbert, tell him he’s wrong.
GILBERT:
He’d never believe me.
JULIE:
A brother ought to defend
His sister’s reputation.
GILBERT:
But Charles is my friend!
I couldn’t lie to him!
JULIE:
O you’re the end!
GILBERT:
See how we have you?
JULIE:
Did you have this in mind
When you arranged for me to marry Charles?
GILBERT:
I arranged for you to marry Charles?
What can you mean? I did nothing of the kind.
JULIE:
You brought Charles home. You said we should make a perfect match.
GILBERT:
Well haven’t you? Of course you have. Charles was a catch.
And today it is his turn to catch us.
Tomorrow we shall let you win at cards.
What could conceivably be more stimulating
Than for three people to catch one another
In so many different ways? It keeps us going.
(JULIE crosses to Venice. GILBERT talks to CHARLES.)
GILBERT:
I have had many fascinating fishing experiences …
JULIE (to JOHN):
You understand I was talking lightly that day.
GILBERT:
… though I am not a serious sportsman like yourself.
JULIE:
O I knew what I was saying, but I said it
More as a spell to keep it from becoming.
And I am talking lightly now, not laughing
But lightly talking.
GILBERT:
Why the first time I ever went deep-sea fishing
I landed a fifty-pound something-or-other,
The marvel of all my friends, such a powerful one.
JULIE:
There is that attribute of speech
That makes for lightness.
GILBERT:
I was only a little shaver.
I had it three-quarters of an hour on the line.
JULIE:
I want to dive down,
Discover, bring back whatever it is, the black
Pearl, the sense of whatever I am,
But my bones are full of air, my words are larks,
The sun is sparkling on the surface of the water
In all directions except from underneath.
GILBERT:
Forty-five minutes is a long time.
CHARLES:
A long time for a fish.
GILBERT:
A longer time for anybody who wasn’t a fish.
JULIE:
I have not wanted to talk lightly. Do you hate me?
I shall rise above it, such is my lightness.
CHARLES:
I don’t know. I’m a fairly good swimmer.
JOHN:
Julie, be near me. This was long ago.
GILBERT:
O my dear Charles, don’t consider it!
CHARLES:
I suppose you were only joking.
GILBERT:
Can you for a moment imagine I wasn’t only joking?
JULIE:
You hear him? He wasn’t only joking.
GILBERT:
Why nobody in his right mind would risk
Dipping his big toe in these waters. Besides—
CHARLES:
You think I couldn’t hold out?
GILBERT:
You couldn’t possibly hold out for five minutes.
JULIE:
That was how it began. Charles said he could hold out
At the end of a line, like a hooked dolphin.
I shall die remembering all that, die!
JOHN:
Darling, it doesn’t matter!
CHARLES:
Gilbert, sometimes you annoy the hell out of me.
JULIE:
I tried to reason with them. There had been a man
Whose leg was taken off by a shark in Bermuda.
People on the beach saw the blood streaming out of him
But he kept on swimming, he hadn’t felt it.
It was when he looked behind him that he died.
CHARLES:
Would you care to make a little bet?
GILBERT:
A little bet?
JULIE:
A little bet!
GILBERT:
Mercenary Charles! No. Why in ten minutes—
CHARLES:
Hook me up to that line. You’ll see.
GILBERT:
I’ll do nothing of the sort.
JULIE:
He wanted him to do it. He said five minutes the first time.
CHARLES:
I mean it. Fasten me to the line. Use the harness.
GILBERT:
Can you really be such a good swimmer? No,
I refuse to fall in with this absurd exhibition.
CHARLES:
Stop laughing at me. Hook m
e to the line.
JOHN:
He wanted it too. Charles was asking for it, Julie.
GILBERT:
You’d positively enjoy it?
CHARLES:
Why not?
GILBERT:
All right. Why not?
JULIE:
It was all at once a question of something terribly funny. They were both wearing those ridiculous harnesses that keep you from being yanked out of your chair when something big hits your line. O the idiots, I kept saying to myself. Gilbert was fastening the line to Charles’ harness. The boatman had stopped the motor. One can imagine what he must have thought, which didn’t help matters, imagining, I mean, what he must have thought.
GILBERT:
Come, little sister, lend a hand.
JOHN:
In time such incidents grow dim.
JULIE (reentering the boat):
I think you’re crazy, both of you.
CHARLES:
It’s a warm day.
JULIE:
Understand
If they should tear you limb from limb
I’m not to blame.
GILBERT:
I hear a distant band
Strike up in honor of our acrobat.
CHARLES:
I’m just as pleased to have a swim.
JULIE:
Why am I laughing? What you do
Is dreadful, Gilbert.
GILBERT:
To whom?
JULIE:
To him.
To me as well.
GILBERT:
I don’t see that.
CHARLES:
The sea is calm.
GILBERT:
The sky is blue.
JULIE:
The blue’s all wrong, the sea’s too flat.
GILBERT:
The monsters are at dalliance far below
On beds of weed and wantonness.
It’s not on us they will grow fat.
CHARLES:
I’ve often wondered where they go.
JULIE:
I never have.
GILBERT:
All ready?
CHARLES:
Yes.
JULIE:
Darling—
CHARLES:
Julie?
JULIE:
At least take off your hat!
GILBERT:
Ten minutes, mind you. Nothing less.
(CHARLES disappears over the side of the boat.)
GILBERT:
Now we shall let him swim a certain distance from the boat. How quiet it is. One would hope to hear suitable music, some light premeditated Impromptu, perhaps the Mad Scene from The Chocolate Soldier. Charles is a good swimmer. You asked why you were laughing. I daresay you knew no other way of participating in that curious moment.
JULIE:
I have found another way.
GILBERT:
My point is that people simply don’t do what they don’t want to do. In other words, if there is something they don’t want to do, they don’t do it. This is amusing.
JULIE:
You are doing what you wanted. You are doing it now.
GILBERT:
Yes.
JULIE:
You have made him and me do what you wanted.
GILBERT:
No. I have made it easy for you to do what you yourselves desired. Here we have the example of Charles doing a thing both absurd and dangerous. He is doing it because he wants to. He is not doing it at my suggestion. Soon he will be out far enough.
JULIE:
You gave him no other choice.
GILBERT:
Is it for me to provide alternatives for Charles when there are, as they say in Shreveport, seventeen different things he might be doing at this very moment? Think, Julie! To pretend, as you have all your life, that other people oblige you to do distasteful things is no more than a failure to admit your own taste for doing them. I admit my taste for doing them. I shall enjoy treating Charles, my old friend, to the experience of nearly drowning. If I admit that, there is no reason why you in turn should not confess that you will enjoy watching your husband nearly drown. Charles himself at this very moment is bound to be thinking of how he will profit—It is strange. Whenever you stop listening to me I begin to feel that I have been talking out of sheer nervousness.
JULIE:
I’m sorry.
GILBERT:
These were things I felt you ought to know. Is there anything on your mind?
JULIE:
It’s as though I were a little girl again, after my bath, in a white and yellow dress, all delicate and pure. I can hear Father telling me in that voice of his—you know, you talk very much like him sometimes—“Do one thing and do it well,” he used to say. And I would nod with great round eyes …
GILBERT:
Nonsense. Your eyes were always small, even as a child.
JULIE:
… and my little chin would quiver, and before long it would be as though I had done my one thing, and done it well, just by listening to him, you see. And I would feel grave and pure and peaceful, the way I feel now. Isn’t it silly?
GILBERT:
Perhaps now you can tell me what it is you have done and done well, for you to feel this way.
JULIE:
I couldn’t possibly. That’s why I say isn’t it silly.
GILBERT:
Ask Charles whether it’s silly or not.
JULIE:
I’d nearly forgotten Charles. What’s the matter with me?
Did you see the expression on his face? He was very angry.
GILBERT:
I never get angry, why should he?
Charles! Are you ready?
CHARLES (offstage):
Ready!
GILBERT:
Now you will see that for all his struggling
I need only keep mischievously pulling at the line.
He will be drawn backwards through the brine.
He will want to breathe and will breathe water.
His every gesture will be cut short, he will go
Counter to his wish and to the motion of the waves.
In no time at all he will be utterly exhausted.
If he is angry, the minutes that follow
Will fit his anger like a glove. Fight, Charles, fight!
(As GILBERT begins to draw in the line, the stage darkens. Enter CHARLES. He speaks from stage center, beneath a faint green spot.)
CHARLES:
I am not one to think much about pain.
I would not choose to dwell upon myself
In public, sipping at a tumbler of stale water.
It has never been my thought to preach to the fish.
Nevertheless, if I am ever in my life
To think profitably, to see with clear eyes,
Let it be now. Although my throat and eyes
Burn with seawater as with such tears of pain
No innocent man could shed in his whole life,
let me achieve a clearness about myself,
For it is neither her brother nor big fish
fear, nor even the white jaws of water
That hurt and hold me, but an unkinder water
Chilling and deepening in Julie’s eyes.
It is there blindly I thrash now, as a fish
Gasping in air is amazed by the pulse and pain
Of an element newly thrust upon itself.
She might have said, “You have made a mess of your life,
But I into whose care you gave that life
Am weeping. Taste, my love, this healing water.
Test me with your hands, your lips, your eyes.”
She might have said, “I couldn’t care less myself
Whether you sink in pride or swim in pain.
That is for you to decide, you poor fish!”
Instead, neither caring nor careless, she chose to fish,
To fish using as
bait my only life,
Waiting in what suspense for the inevitable pain
To swallow me where I hang in her scorn’s water.
And indeed, a recognition with phosphorous eyes
Glides slowly upward from the depths of myself.
Innocent visions are those that proceed from self.
Dolphin, medusa, hammerhead shark, starfish
Shall look at me henceforth with Julie’s eyes,
Telling me ever and over to give my life
Up to those eyes, sink, as I do through water,
Towards the dark love children would call pain.
Julie! this pain is sweet as a loss of self.
Draw me from water, leave me to the fish—
You cannot save my life. I have seen your eyes.
(The spot goes out. CHARLES disappears. JOHN and JULIE, on either side of the stage, light cigarettes and hold the burning matches before their faces.)
JOHN:
Julie?
JULIE:
Yes. I’m here.
JOHN:
Your voice is so strange. Are you all right?
JULIE:
I’m all right.
JOHN:
I love you.