The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot

by By (author): T. S. Eliot

  And you thought you were unselfish. It was only passivity;

  You only wanted to be bolstered, encouraged….

  EDWARD. Encouraged? To what?

  LAVINIA. To think well of yourself.

  You know it was I who made you work at the Bar …

  EDWARD. You nagged me because I didn’t get enough work

  And said that I ought to meet more people:

  But when the briefs began to come in —

  And they didn’t come through any of your friends —

  You suddenly found it inconvenient

  That I should be always too busy or too tired

  To be of use to you socially …

  LAVINIA. I never complained.

  EDWARD. No; and it was perfectly infuriating,

  The way you didn’t complain …

  LAVINIA. It was you who complained

  Of seeing nobody but solicitors and clients …

  EDWARD. And you were never very sympathetic.

  LAVINIA. Well, but I tried to do something about it.

  That was why I took so much trouble

  To have those Thursdays, to give you the chance

  Of talking to intellectual people …

  EDWARD. You would have given me about as much opportunity

  If you had hired me as your butler:

  Some of your guests may have thought I was the butler.

  LAVINIA. And on several occasions, when somebody was coming

  Whom I particularly wanted you to meet,

  You didn’t arrive until just as they were leaving.

  EDWARD. Well, at least, they can’t have thought I was the butler.

  LAVINIA. Everything I tried only made matters worse,

  And the moment you were offered something that you wanted

  You wanted something else. I shall treat you very differently

  In future.

  EDWARD. Thank you for the warning. But tell me,

  Since this is how you see me, why did you come back?

  LAVINIA. Frankly, I don’t know. I was warned of the danger,

  Yet something, or somebody, compelled me to come.

  And why did you want me?

  EDWARD. I don’t know either.

  You say you were trying to ‘encourage’ me:

  Then why did you always make me feel insignificant?

  I may not have known what life I wanted,

  But it wasn’t the life you chose for me.

  You wanted your husband to be successful,

  You wanted me to supply a public background

  For your kind of public life. You wished to be a hostess

  For whom my career would be a support.

  Well, I tried to be accommodating. But, in future,

  I shall behave, I assure you, very differently.

  LAVINIA. Bravo! Edward. This is surprising.

  Now who could have taught you to answer back like that?

  EDWARD. I have had quite enough humiliation

  Lately, to bring me to the point

  At which humiliation ceases to humiliate.

  You get to the point at which you cease to feel

  And then you speak your mind.

  LAVINIA. That will be a novelty

  To find that you have a mind to speak.

  Anyway, I’m prepared to take you as you are.

  EDWARD. You mean, you are prepared to take me

  As I was, or as you think I am.

  But what do you think I am?

  LAVINIA. Oh, what you always were.

  As for me, I’m rather a different person

  Whom you must get to know.

  EDWARD. This is very interesting:

  But you seem to assume that you’ve done all the changing —

  Though I haven’t yet found it a change for the better.

  But doesn’t it occur to you that possibly

  I may have changed too?

  LAVINIA. Oh, Edward, when you were a little boy,

  I’m sure you were always getting yourself measured

  To prove how you had grown since the last holidays.

  You were always intensely concerned with yourself;

  And if other people grow, well, you want to grow too.

  In what way have you changed?

  EDWARD. The change that comes

  From seeing oneself through the eyes of other people.

  LAVINIA. That must have been very shattering for you.

  But never mind, you’ll soon get over it

  And find yourself another little part to play,

  With another face, to take people in.

  EDWARD. One of the most infuriating things about you

  Has always been your perfect assurance

  That you understood me better than I understood myself.

  LAVINIA. And the most infuriating thing about you

  Has always been your placid assumption

  That I wasn’t worth the trouble of understanding.

  EDWARD. So here we are again. Back in the trap,

  With only one difference, perhaps — we can fight each other,

  Instead of each taking his corner of the cage.

  Well, it’s a better way of passing the evening

  Than listening to the gramophone.

  LAVINIA. We have very good records;

  But I always suspected that you really hated music

  And that the gramophone was only your escape

  From talking to me when we had to be alone.

  EDWARD. I’ve often wondered why you married me.

  LAVINIA. Well, you really were rather attractive, you know;

  And you kept on saying that you were in love with me —

  I believe you were trying to persuade yourself you were.

  I seemed always on the verge of some wonderful experience

  And then it never happened. I wonder now

  How you could have thought you were in love with me.

  EDWARD. Everybody told me that I was;

  And they told me how well suited we were.

  LAVINIA. It’s a pity that you had no opinion of your own.

  Oh, Edward, I should like to be good to you —

  Or if that’s impossible, at least be horrid to you —

  Anything but nothing, which is all you seem to want of me.

  But I’m sorry for you …

  EDWARD. Don’t say you are sorry for me!

  I have had enough of people being sorry for me.

  LAVINIA. Yes, because they can never be so sorry for you

  As you are for yourself. And that’s hard to bear.

  I thought that there might be some way out for you

  If I went away. I thought that if I died

  To you, I who had been only a ghost to you,

  You might be able to find the road back

  To a time when you were real — for you must have been real

  At some time or other, before you ever knew me:

  Perhaps only when you were a child.

  EDWARD. I don’t want you to make yourself responsible for me:

  It’s only another kind of contempt.

  And I do not want you to explain me to myself.

  You’re still trying to invent a personality for me

  Which will only keep me away from myself.

  LAVINIA. You’re complicating what is in fact very simple.

  But there is one point which I see clearly:

  We are not to relapse into the kind of life we led

  Until yesterday morning.

  EDWARD. There was a door

  And I could not open it. I could not touch the handle.

  Why could I not walk out of my prison?

  What is hell? Hell is oneself,

  Hell is alone, the other figures in it

  Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from

  And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.

  LAVINIA. Edward, what are you talking about?

  Talking to you
rself. Could you bear, for a moment,

  To think about me?

  EDWARD. It was only yesterday

  That damnation took place. And now I must live with it

  Day by day, hour by hour, for ever and ever.

  LAVINIA. I think you’re on the edge of a nervous breakdown!

  EDWARD. Don’t say that!

  LAVINIA. I must say it.

  I know … of a doctor who I think could help you.

  EDWARD. If I go to a doctor, I shall make my own choice;

  Not take one whom you choose. How do I know

  That you wouldn’t see him first, and tell him all about me

  From your point of view? But I don’t need a doctor.

  I am simply in hell. Where there are no doctors —

  At least, not in a professional capacity.

  LAVINIA. One can be practical, even in hell:

  And you know I am much more practical than you are.

  EDWARD. I ought to know by now what you consider practical.

  Practical! I remember, on our honeymoon,

  You were always wrapping things up in tissue paper

  And then had to unwrap everything again

  To find what you wanted. And I never could teach you

  How to put the cap on a tube of tooth-paste.

  LAVINIA. Very well, then, I shall not try to press you.

  You’re much too divided to know what you want.

  But, being divided, you will tend to compromise,

  And your sort of compromise will be the old one.

  EDWARD. You don’t understand me. Have I not made it clear

  That in future you will find me a different person?

  LAVINIA. Indeed. And has the difference nothing to do

  With Celia going to California?

  EDWARD. Celia? Going to California?

  LAVINIA. Yes, with Peter.

  Really, Edward, if you were human

  You would burst out laughing. But you won’t.

  EDWARD. O God, O God, if I could return to yesterday

  Before I thought that I had made a decision.

  What devil left the door on the latch

  For these doubts to enter? And then you came back, you

  The angel of destruction — just as I felt sure.

  In a moment, at your touch, there is nothing but ruin.

  O God, what have I done? The python. The octopus.

  Must I become after all what you would make me?

  LAVINIA. Well, Edward, as I am unable to make you laugh,

  And as I can’t persuade you to see a doctor,

  There’s nothing else at present that I can do about it.

  I ought to go and have a look in the kitchen.

  I know there are some eggs. But we must go out for dinner.

  Meanwhile, my luggage is in the hall downstairs:

  Will you get the porter to fetch it up for me?

  CURTAIN

  Act Two

  SIR HENRY HARCOURT-REILLY’S consulting room in London. Morning: several weeks later. SIR HENRY alone at his desk. He presses an electric button. The NURSE-SECRETARY enters, with Appointment Book.

  REILLY. About those three appointments this morning, Miss Barraway:

  I should like to run over my instructions again.

  You understand, of course, that it is important

  To avoid any meeting?

  NURSE-SECRETARY. You made that clear, Sir Henry:

  The first appointment at eleven o’clock.

  He is to be shown into the small waiting-room;

  And you will see him almost at once.

  REILLY. I shall see him at once. And the second?

  NURSE-SECRETARY. The second to be shown into the other room

  Just as usual. She arrives at a quarter past;

  But you may keep her waiting.

  REILLY. Or she may keep me waiting;

  But I think she will be punctual.

  NURSE-SECRETARY. I telephone through

  The moment she arrives. I leave her there

  Until you ring three times.

  REILLY. And the third patient?

  NURSE-SECRETARY. The third one to be shown into the small room;

  And I need not let you know that she has arrived.

  Then, when you ring, I show the others out;

  And only after they have left the house….

  REILLY. Quite right, Miss Barraway. That’s all for the moment.

  NURSE-SECRETARY. Mr. Gibbs is here, Sir Henry.

  REILLY. Ask him to come straight in.

  [Exit NURSE-SECRETARY]

  [ALEX enters almost immediately]

  ALEX. When is Chamberlayne’s appointment?

  REILLY. At eleven o’clock,

  The conventional hour. We have not much time.

  Tell me now, did you have any difficulty

  In convincing him I was the man for his case?

  ALEX. Difficulty? No! He was only impatient

  At having to wait four days for the appointment.

  REILLY. It was necessary to delay his appointment

  To lower his resistance. But what I mean is,

  Does he trust your judgement?

  ALEX. Yes, implicitly.

  It’s not that he regards me as very intelligent,

  But he thinks I’m well informed: the sort of person

  Who would know the right doctor, as well as the right shops.

  Besides, he was ready to consult any doctor

  Recommended by anyone except his wife.

  REILLY. I had already impressed upon her

  That she was not to mention my name to him.

  ALEX. With your usual foresight. Now, he’s quite triumphant

  Because he thinks he’s stolen a march on her.

  And when you’ve sent him to a sanatorium

  Where she can’t get at him — then, he believes,

  She will be very penitent. He’s enjoying his illness.

  REILLY. Illness offers him a double advantage:

  To escape from himself — and get the better of his wife.

  ALEX. Not to escape from her?

  REILLY. He doesn’t want to escape from her.

  ALEX. He is staying at his club.

  REILLY. Yes, that is where he wrote from.

  [The house-telephone rings]

  Hello! Yes, show him up.

  ALEX. You will have a busy morning!

  I will go out by the service staircase

  And come back when they’ve gone.

  REILLY. Yes, when they’ve gone.

  [Exit ALEX by side door]

  [EDWARD is shown in by NURSE-SECRETARY]

  EDWARD. Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly —

  [Stops and stares at REILLY]

  REILLY [without looking up from his papers]. Good morning, Mr. Chamberlayne.

  Please sit down. I won’t keep you a moment.

  — Now, Mr. Chamberlayne?

  EDWARD. It came into my mind

  Before I entered the door, that you might be the same person:

  But I dismissed that as just another symptom.

  Well, I should have known better than to come here

  On the recommendation of a man who did not know you.

  Yet Alex is so plausible. And his recommendations

  Of shops, have always been satisfactory.

  I beg your pardon. But he is a blunderer.

  I should like to know … but what is the use!

  I suppose I might as well go away at once.

  REILLY. No. If you please, sit down, Mr. Chamberlayne.

  You are not going away, so you might as well sit down.

  You were going to ask a question.

  EDWARD. When you came to my flat

  Had you been invited by my wife as a guest

  As I supposed? … Or did she send you?

  REILLY. I cannot say that I had been invited;

  And Mrs. Chamberlayne did not know that I was coming.

  But I knew you
would be there, and whom I should find with you.

  EDWARD. But you had seen my wife?

  REILLY. Oh yes, I had seen her.

  EDWARD. So this is a trap!

  REILLY. Let’s not call it a trap.

  But if it is a trap, then you cannot escape from it:

  And so … you might as well sit down.

  I think that you will find that chair comfortable.

  EDWARD. You knew,

  Before I began to tell you, what had happened?

  REILLY. That is so, that is so. But all in good time.

  Let us dismiss that question for the moment.

  Tell me first, about the difficulties

  On which you want my professional opinion.

  EDWARD. It’s not for me to blame you for bringing my wife back,

  I suppose. You seemed to be trying to persuade me

  That I was better off without her. But didn’t you realise

  That I was in no state to make a decision?

  REILLY. If I had not brought your wife back, Mr. Chamberlayne,

  Do you suppose that things would be any better — now?

  EDWARD. I don’t know, I’m sure. They could hardly be worse.

  REILLY. They might be much worse. You might have ruined three lives

  By your indecision. Now there are only two —

  Which you still have the chance of redeeming from ruin.

  EDWARD. You talk as if I was capable of action:

  If I were, I should not need to consult you

  Or anyone else. I came here as a patient.

  If you take no interest in my case, I can go elsewhere.

  REILLY. You have reason to believe that you are very ill?

  EDWARD. I should have thought a doctor could see that for himself.

  Or at least that he would enquire about the symptoms.

  Two people advised me recently,

  Almost in the same words, that I ought to see a doctor.

  They said — again, in almost the same words —

  That I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

  I didn’t know it then myself — but if they saw it

  I should have thought that a doctor could see it.

  REILLY. ‘Nervous breakdown’ is a term I never use:

  It can mean almost anything.

  EDWARD. And since then, I have realised

  That mine is a very unusual case.

  REILLY. All cases are unique, and very similar to others.

  EDWARD. Is there a sanatorium to which you send such patients

  As myself, under your personal observation?

  REILLY. You are very impetuous, Mr. Chamberlayne.

  There are several kinds of sanatoria

  For several kinds of patient. And there are also patients

  For whom a sanatorium is the worst place possible.