Collected Novels and Plays
Page 54
My dearest …. Look at the village! How short the days are now ….
KONSTANTIN (suddenly):
Fanya, do you see?
FANYA:
What?
KONSTANTIN (pointing):
A woman—down there! It’s not the path we came by …. No, right below us!
FANYA:
Oh! Isn’t she wonderfully pretty! I’ve never seen such hair—and her clothes! Who could she be?
(Half-serious.)
On second thought, Kostya, I don’t think it’s at all nice of you to look. She’s too pretty!
(TITHONUS looks down, rises, waves his hand.)
KONSTANTIN:
She sees us, look! she’s smiling! She’s waving her hand!
FANYA:
Do you know her?
(OLGA enters. KONSTANTIN waves to the approaching figure.)
Kostya!
KONSTANTIN:
It’s so silly of you to be jealous. Look, she’s out of sight.
FANYA:
Who is she? You waved to her!
TITHONUS:
You have just seen my wife, who has charmingly taken it upon herself to join us here.
FANYA (turning):
Oh, it’s our friend! We keep not seeing you!
KONSTANTIN:
Your wife, truly?
TITHONUS:
Why should you notice an old man? Yes, Sir, my wife.
OLGA:
Children, our excursion is over, come!
KONSTANTIN:
But we mustn’t leave now!
OLGA:
Indeed we must. The carriage will be waiting. Put those things in the basket.
FANYA:
Olga Vassilyevna, what is wrong?
OLGA:
Nothing, I assure you.
(To TITHONUS.)
What devotion to come this distance on foot, in her condition! One sees that you are a good husband, a happy man …. Hurry, Fanya!
(To KONSTANTIN.)
Help her, why don’t you?
(To TITHONUS.)
You’re pouting, aren’t you?—because I would not receive your confidences. Well, I forgive you.
TITHONUS:
To forgive is to forget.
OLGA:
As you wish. I don’t forgive you, then.
TITHONUS:
Nor I you.
(Offering the serpent ring.)
But would you accept, as a remembrance, this?
OLGA:
How could I rob you of your only—I meant to say, your most unusual treasure?
TITHONUS:
One likes to offer something with associations.
OLGA:
Then keep it. I don’t doubt there’s a story behind it.
(Turning.)
Are we ready, Fanya?
FANYA:
Nearly.
KONSTANTIN:
I don’t see that we have to hurry away.
AURORA (offstage, calling):
Where are you, darling?
FANYA (closing the basket):
There!
TITHONUS (calling):
This way!
(To OLGA.)
I should be most happy to present you to my wife.
OLGA:
Pray, make her our excuses.
(To FANYA.)
Lead the way down the mountainside, chérie.
FANYA:
I think we have everything ….
(To TITHONUS, sweetly.)
Perhaps we’ll meet again. Mamma lets me have my friends to tea on Tuesdays. If you’re staying nearby—
OLGA (warningly):
Fanya!
FANYA (to OLGA):
Oh, shouldn’t I have …? I’m sorry.
(Giving TITHONUS her hand.)
Goodbye.
(To KONSTANTIN.)
Don’t leave the basket, Kostya!
(She goes out, carrying the rug.)
KONSTANTIN:
Olga Vassilyevna, I suspect you of a discourtesy!
OLGA:
How they talk, these young people! Take care of your own manners, Konstantin, and offer a sick old woman your arm. I must have the eyes of a cat, I can see nothing in this light.
(She gives TITHONUS her hand. He kisses it.)
Au revoir, Monsieur.
(Turning.)
Now where is Fanya, gone on ahead? Well, we shall have many things to tell the others, safe in the parlor, tonight ….
(OLGA and KONSTANTIN go, leaving the basket.)
AURORA (offstage, closer):
Tithonus!
TITHONUS:
I’m here! Are you all right?
AURORA:
Of course! I just wanted to see you!
TITHONUS:
I’ll pack my paints and join you down there!
AURORA:
Stay where you are! I’m not a bit out of breath!
TITHONUS:
You shouldn’t be climbing about!
AURORA:
What?
TITHONUS:
Nothing!
AURORA:
Who are you with?
TITHONUS:
Nobody!
AURORA:
I saw them!
TITHONUS:
I don’t know who they were! They’ve gone, anyhow!
AURORA (very close):
Why? They were charming! They waved to me!
KONSTANTIN (re-entering):
I left the basket after all. I hope I’m not—
(He stops. AURORA enters, visibly pregnant and flushed.)
TITHONUS (to KONSTANTIN):
She tries to do too much. It’s not right.
KONSTANTIN:
No, it’s not right …
AURORA (to TITHONUS):
Oh, what a climb! But here I am!
TITHONUS (kissing her hand):
Yes, here you are, at last.
AURORA:
But what a pretty spot! And you told me your friends had left!
(To KONSTANTIN.)
Good afternoon.
(To TITHONUS.)
I believe I have not met this gentleman.
TITHONUS:
I must confess, I—
KONSTANTIN:
Konstantin Stepanovitch Tschudin, at your service.
AURORA (giving him her hand):
I’m delighted. You’ll excuse my appearance. I was ordered—
TITHONUS:
You were ordered to confine yourself to the morning room.
AURORA (in high spirits):
Quite so, the morning room, where I belong, if I may have my little joke. But there were too many plants, the air was damp and green with them, and before I knew it I was out of doors. As I walked through the village, a dozen wise old women with rosy wrinkled cheeks pressed round me, stroking me, kissing me, showing me the way ….
(Her tone changes.)
I’m all at once extraordinarily tired.
KONSTANTIN (opening the basket):
I’m certain we have a drop of cognac here.
TITHONUS:
I trust it’s not the sight of me that has tired you.
AURORA:
Darling, you’re peevish—why?
(She picks up one or two bits of the torn photograph, vaguely puzzled?)
Tell me what you’ve done today.
TITHONUS:
Oh, nothing, you know ….
KONSTANTIN:
A very interesting picture.
AURORA:
I’m so glad! May I see it?
TITHONUS (coldly):
I’d rather you didn’t. It’s unfinished, and I don’t know if I care enough to make the necessary changes.
(Taking up his easel, paintbox, etc)
Shall we be on our way?
AURORA (accepting a glass from KONSTANTIN):
Yes, I feel—oh, thank you, you’re very kind—quite at the end of my strength. It is a new feeling—
TITHONUS (petulan
t):
Aurora!
AURORA:
—and a curiously pleasant one …
(She drinks, returns the glass, and picks up TITHONUS’s campstool.)
… part of the great human adventure ….
(She follows TITHONUS out.)
ACT THREE
(America, 1954. A garden adjoining the house of AURORA and TITHONUS. There is a reclining lawn chair among other pieces of garden furniture, a trellis and a neglected plot of geraniums. One feels that no other houses are nearby. It is early morning.)
(AURORA sits smoking. She is carelessly and unbecomingly dressed, without make-up. Within reach are gardening tools. After a moment MARK enters. He wears slacks and a white polo shirt.)
MARK:
Lovely morning, isn’t it?
AURORA (squinting):
Who’s that? Oh. No, it isn’t lovely, since you ask.
MARK:
Perhaps you haven’t had your coffee.
AURORA:
I have, though. And a filthy egg. And don’t expect me to talk about it. My mind is a Black Hole.
(He touches her neck.)
And don’t make love to me!
MARK:
In that case I’ll help you with the flowers.
AURORA:
Flowers! They’re a simple scandal. I don’t want to weed them, I want to wring their necks. Get away from them, do, they’ll smear you from head to foot. I know.
MARK (laughing):
All right. What has happened?
AURORA:
Nothing that hasn’t happened for the last hundred years. It’s like the water-drop torture, it keeps accumulating. I ought at least to be thankful that the boy has come. The boy! He’s three times your age. Old enough to give his poor mother some advice. It’s clear that I can’t think any more.
MARK:
But that’s wonderful news! I thought I saw a strange car in the drive. When did he come?
AURORA:
At the crack of dawn. For his father’s birthday.
MARK:
You should be tremendously relieved.
AURORA:
How so?
MARK:
Why, just that he’ll take his share of the responsibility. He’s retired, he’s come home, hasn’t he? You’ll have a certain freedom to lead your own life, after these years of strain.
AURORA:
I don’t believe he’s staying.
MARK:
He’s not staying?
AURORA:
I can’t blame him. What did Tithonus and I ever do for him? That’s what he said to me, his own mother, who cooked his breakfast! But he was right.
MARK:
I don’t think I’m going to like Memnon.
AURORA:
He is awfully pompous to be one’s son. I suppose it’s the result of a military career. His father’s father was the same way.
MARK:
It wouldn’t hurt him to take over for a little while.
AURORA:
No, it wouldn’t. Oh, I never dreamed I’d feel so worn, so old—!
MARK:
You will never be old.
AURORA:
Don’t tell me, my sweet. Hand me the shears. No, I meant the trowel. I may look the same, but listen to me. I sound like Madeleine Usher.
MARK:
I get angry hearing you make fun of yourself. The beautiful way you bear this situation—
AURORA (stabbing at the flowers):
It’s not beautiful the way I bear it. It’s your precious little wife, she’s the marvel. She sits and holds his hand and changes his linen and at the right interval shouts the right word in his ear, or what he appears to take for the right word. Five days of this! It’s too mortifying, meeting you so casually, having you for a month in the country, and letting her do so much. You didn’t know us when we still could do things stylishly. But the servants today won’t put up with it, and he can’t be left alone. I’d hoped that Memnon—ah, well, speriamo!
MARK:
Tithonus isn’t the one who needs caring for.
AURORA:
It’s quite hopeless, you know, trying to care for others. But she appears to enjoy it.
MARK:
She likes to feel helpful. I don’t know what she enjoys.
AURORA:
She’s really too perfect, an authentic jeune fille, the kind that used to read Goldsmith and play the harp, the kind that nowadays—listen to me, please! I talk, I swear, like a vampire at a cotillion. Next, I’ll hear myself ask you for a Fig Newton and a cup of Moxie!
MARK:
Aurora, stop this! I know that you’re baffled and worried and hurt. You insult me by the tone you take.
AURORA:
Rot. I’m simply indulging myself. Must you take away my last amusement?
MARK:
It’s no amusement, either for you or for anyone who has watched you these days.
AURORA:
Have you watched me?
MARK:
You know I have.
AURORA:
It is always amusing to give in to one’s baser sentiments.
MARK:
You have no base sentiments, try as you may.
AURORA:
Believe me, I do.
MARK:
Then confess to me the basest of them.
AURORA (stalling):
My basest sentiment? How Victorian that sounds! Well, it is a Victorian sentiment.
(Serious.)
It is that I find you a very handsome and estimable man. And my most elevated sentiment is my love for Tithonus. You see, I can say anything.
MARK:
Aurora!
AURORA:
And I shall never leave him. And I am not unhappy.
MARK:
You are unhappy, you’re miserable! You took him as a lover, in all good faith. Well—you loved him, didn’t you?
AURORA:
You don’t know!
MARK:
Then why be all nervous and guilty because you’ve changed? What is your change compared to his?
AURORA:
I’m kinder to Tithonus than you are to that poor patient child—who, after all, supports you, doesn’t she?
MARK:
If Enid wants to support me, that’s her own affair.
AURORA:
Don’t be so touchy.
MARK:
I’m ashamed of the whole situation, if you must know. But I’m only human. Shame doesn’t become a creature like yourself.
AURORA:
Because I’m not human, you mean? You needn’t rub it in, Mark.
MARK:
Now who’s being touchy?
AURORA:
I know I’m not human. It’s not for lack of trying. I’ve wanted to suffer! I’ve shed tears, I’ve borne a child. I’ve been faithful to Tithonus, not that I’ve had to be by any means. But I wanted to go through what people go through. I haven’t wanted to snap my fingers and fly off in a glittering machine. I’ve done my best, but it hasn’t really worked. I haven’t suffered enough, I suppose.
MARK:
It isn’t suffering that makes us human, to begin with. And it certainly isn’t living with Tithonus.
AURORA:
It must be suffering! If that doesn’t make you human, what does?
MARK:
I’ve always thought it was something you were born with.
AURORA:
Flippancy’s not going to help me!
MARK:
Oh Aurora, you’re so lovely and young, you can’t not be all of that, even to please your lover. Of course you talk like an old woman. He wants you old and dim, he wants to drag you down with him into some kind of horrible endless twilight. Don’t you see? You’re in danger!
AURORA:
Danger …?
MARK:
Think of him. He has hardly a mind and hardly a body, but he has twined himself about you like mistletoe. You’re f
orever draining yourself dry in order to replenish him. How could he die?
AURORA (bursting into tears):
Mistletoe!
MARK (taking her in his arms):
Oh my lovely. That’s it. There.
AURORA:
Do you know, can you imagine, what it means, after so long, to feel that somebody watches you, and knows, and cares, quietly, gently cares and understands? He has never wanted to know what I was feeling. He has never known, it has always been himself.…
MARK:
Leave him. Forget him. You can if you want to. Oh Aurora, come with me. I love you. Tell me you love me. Don’t tell me then, I know.
AURORA: