by Ayn Rand
HIX: You mustn’t say that. Sister Twomey is an evil woman.
EZRY: Yes, sir. . . . Gee, but she’s got such pretty curls!
HIX: Ezry, do you believe in me? Do you like to come here for the services?
EZRY: Yes, sir. . . . The Crump twins, they said Sister Twomey had a airyplane in her temple, honest to goodness!
HIX: [Desperately] My boy, listen to me, for the sake of your immortal soul . . . [He stops short. KAY GONDA enters]
KAY GONDA: Mr. Hix?
HIX: [Without taking his eyes from her, in a choked voice] Ezry. Run along.
EZRY: [Frightened] Yes, sir. [Exits hurriedly]
HIX: You’re not . . .
KAY GONDA: Yes. I am.
HIX: To what do I owe the great honor of . . .
KAY GONDA: To a murder.
HIX: Do you mean that those rumors are true?
KAY GONDA: You can throw me out, if you wish. You can call the police, if you prefer. Only do so now.
HIX: You are seeking shelter?
KAY GONDA: For one night.
HIX: [Walks to the open door, closes it, and locks it] This door has not been closed for twenty years. It shall be closed tonight. [He returns to her and silently hands her the key]
KAY GONDA: [Astonished] Why are you giving it to me?
HIX: The door will not be opened, until you wish to open it.
KAY GONDA: [She smiles, takes the key and slips it into her bag. Then:] Thank you.
HIX: [Sternly] No. Do not thank me. I do not want you to stay here.
KAY GONDA: [Without understanding] You—don’t?
HIX: But you are safe—if this is the safety you want. I have turned the place over to you. You may stay here as long as you like. The decision will be yours.
KAY GONDA: You do not want me to hide here?
HIX: I do not want you to hide.
KAY GONDA: [She looks at him thoughtfully, then walks to a bench and sits down, watching him. She asks slowly:] What would you have me do?
HIX: [He stands before her, austerely erect and solemn] You have taken a heavy burden upon your shoulders.
KAY GONDA: Yes. A heavy burden. And I wonder how much longer I will be able to carry it.
HIX: You may hide from the men who threaten you. But of what importance is that?
KAY GONDA: Then you do not want to save me?
HIX: Oh, yes. I want to save you. But not from the police.
KAY GONDA: From whom?
HIX: From yourself. [She looks at him for a long moment, a fixed, steady glance, and does not answer] You have committed a mortal sin. You have killed a human being. [Points to the room] Can this place—or any place—give you protection from that?
KAY GONDA: No.
HIX: You cannot escape from your crime. Then do not try to run from it. Give up. Surrender. Confess.
KAY GONDA: [Slowly] If I confess, they will take my life.
HIX: If you don’t, you will lose your life—the eternal life of your soul.
KAY GONDA: Is it a choice, then? Must it be one or the other?
HIX: It has always been a choice. For all of us.
KAY GONDA: Why?
HIX: Because the joys of this earth are paid for by damnation in the Kingdom of Heaven. But if we choose to suffer, we are rewarded with eternal happiness.
KAY GONDA: Then we are on earth only in order to suffer?
HIX: And the greater the suffering, the greater our virtue. [Her head drops slowly] You have a sublime chance before you. Accept, of your own will, the worst that can be done to you. The infamy, the degradation, the prison cell, the scaffold. Then your punishment will become your glory.
KAY GONDA: How?
HIX: It will let you enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
KAY GONDA: Why should I want to enter it?
HIX: If you know that a life of supreme beauty is possible—how can you help but want to enter it?
KAY GONDA: How can I help but want it here, on earth?
HIX: Ours is a dark, imperfect world.
KAY GONDA: Why is it not perfect? Because it cannot be? Or because we do not want it to be?
HIX: This world is of no consequence. Whatever beauty it offers us is here only that we may sacrifice it—for the greater beauty beyond. [She is not looking at him. He stands watching her for a moment; then, his voice low with emotion:] You don’t know how lovely you are at this moment. [She raises her head] You don’t know the hours I’ve spent watching you across the infinite distance of a screen. I would give my life to keep you here in safety. I would let myself be torn to shreds, rather than see you hurt. Yet I am asking you to open this door and walk out to martyrdom. That is my chance of sacrifice. I am giving up the greatest thing that ever came to me.
KAY GONDA: [Her voice soft and low] And after you and I have made our sacrifice, what will be left on this earth?
HIX: Our example. It will light the way for all the miserable souls who flounder in helpless depravity. They, too, will learn to renounce. Your fame is great. The story of your conversion will be heard the world over. You will redeem the scrubby wretches who come to this temple and all the wretches in all the slums.
KAY GONDA: Such as that boy who was here?
HIX: Such as that boy. Let him be the symbol, not a nobler figure. That, too, is part of the sacrifice.
KAY GONDA: [Slowly] What do you want me to do?
HIX: Confess your crime. Confess it publicly, to a crowd, to the hearing of all!
KAY GONDA: Tonight?
HIX: Tonight!
KAY GONDA: But there is no crowd anywhere at this hour.
HIX: At this hour . . . [With sudden inspiration] Listen. At this hour, a large crowd is gathered in a temple of error, six blocks away. It is a dreadful place, run by the most contemptible woman I’ve ever known. I’ll take you there. I’ll let you offer that woman the greatest gift—the kind of sensation she’s never dared to imagine for her audience. You will confess to her crowd. Let her take the credit and the praise for your conversion. Let her take the fame. She is the one least worthy of it.
KAY GONDA: That, too, is part of the sacrifice?
HIX: Yes.
[KAY GONDA rises. She walks to the door, unlocks it, and flings it open. Then she turns to HIX and throws the key in his face. It strikes him as she goes out. He stands motionless, only his head dropping and his shoulders sagging]
CURTAIN
SCENE 2
The letter projected on the screen is written in a sharp, precise, cultured handwriting: Dear Miss Gonda,
I have had everything men ask of life. I have seen it all, and I feel as if I were leaving a third-rate show on a disreputable side street. If I do not bother to die, it is only because my life has all the emptiness of the grave and my death would have no change to offer me. It may happen, any day now, and nobody—not even the one writing these lines—will know the difference.
But before it happens, I want to raise what is left of my soul in a last salute to you, you who are that which the world should have been. Morituri te salutamus.
Dietrich von Esterhazy
Beverly-Sunset Hotel
Beverly Hills, California
Lights go out, screen disappears, and stage reveals drawing room in the hotel suite of DIETRICH von ESTERHAZY . It is a large, luxurious room, modern, exquisitely simple. Wide entrance door in center wall Left. Smaller door to bedroom in wall Right, upstage. Large window in wall Left, showing the dark view of a park far below. Downstage Right a fireplace. One single lamp burning.
As the curtain rises the entrance door opens to admit DIETRICH VON ESTERHAZY and LALO JANS. DIETRICH von ESTERHAZY is a tall, slender man in his early forties, whose air of patrician distinction seems created for the trim elegance of his full dress suit. LALO JANS is an exquisite female, hidden in the soft folds of an ermine wrap over a magnificent evening gown. She walks in first and falls, exhausted, on a sofa downstage, stretching out her legs with a gesture of charming lassitude. DIETRICH VON ESTERHAZY follo
ws her silently. She makes a little gesture, expecting him to take her wrap. But he does not approach her or look at her, and she shrugs, throwing her wrap back, letting it slide halfway down her bare arms.
LALO: [Looking at a clock on the table beside her, lazily] Only two o’clock. . . . Really, we didn’t have to leave so early, darling. . . . [ESTERHAZY does not answer. He does not seem to hear. There is no hostility in his attitude, but a profound indifference and a strange tension. He walks to the window and stands looking out thoughtfully, unconscious of LALO’s presence. She yawns, lighting a cigarette] I think I’ll go home. . . . [No answer] I said, I think I’ll go home. . . . [Coquettishly] Unless, of course, you insist. . . . [No answer. She shrugs and settles down more comfortably. She speaks lazily, watching the smoke of her cigarette] You know, Rikki, we’ll just have to go to Agua Caliente. And this time I’ll put it all on Black Rajah. It’s a cinch. . . . [No answer] By the way, Rikki, my chauffeur’s wages were due yesterday. . . . [Turns to him. Slightly impatient:] Rikki?
ESTERHAZY: [Startled, turning to her abruptly, polite and completely indifferent] What were you saying, my dear?
LALO: [Impatiently] I said my chauffeur’s wages were due yesterday.
ESTERHAZY: [His thoughts miles away] Yes, of course. I shall take care of it.
LALO: What’s the matter, Rikki? Just because I lost that money?
ESTERHAZY: Not at all, my dear. Glad you enjoyed the evening.
LALO: But then you know I’ve always had the damnedest luck at roulette. And if we hadn’t left so early, I’m sure I’d have won it back.
ESTERHAZY: I’m sorry. I was a little tired.
LALO: And anyway, what’s one thousand and seventy something?
ESTERHAZY: [Stands looking at her silently. Then, with a faint smile of something like sudden decision, he reaches into his pocket and calmly hands her a checkbook ] I think you might as well see it.
LALO: [Taking the book indifferently] What’s that? Some bank book?
ESTERHAZY: See what’s left . . . at some bank.
LALO: [Reading] Three hundred and sixteen dollars. . . . [Looks quickly through the check stubs] Rikki! You wrote that thousand-dollar check on this bank! [He nods silently, with the same smile] You’ll have to transfer the money from another bank, first thing in the morning.
ESTERHAZY: [Slowly] I have no other bank.
LALO: Huh?
ESTERHAZY: I have no other money. You’re holding there all that’s left.
LALO: [Her lazy nonchalance gone] Rikki! You’re kidding me!
ESTERHAZY: Far be it from me, my dear.
LALO: But . . . but you’re crazy! Things like that don’t happen like . . . like that! One sees . . . in advance . . . one knows.
ESTERHAZY: [Calmly] I’ve known it. For the last two years. But a fortune does not vanish without a few last convulsions. There has always been something to sell, to pawn, to borrow on. Always someone to borrow from. But not this time. This time, it’s done.
LALO: [Aghast] But . . . but where did it go?
ESTERHAZY: [Shrugging] How do I know? Where did all the rest of it go, those other things, inside, that you start life with? Fifteen years is a long time. When they threw me out of Austria, I had millions in my pocket, but the rest—the rest, I think, was gone already.
LALO: That’s all very beautiful, but what are you going to do?
ESTERHAZY: Nothing.
LALO: But tomorrow . . .
ESTERHAZY: Tomorrow, Count Dietrich von Esterhazy will be called upon to explain the matter of a bad check. May be called upon.
LALO: Stop grinning like that! Do you think it’s funny?
ESTERHAZY: I think it’s curious. . . . The first Count Dietrich von Esterhazy died fighting under the walls of Jerusalem. The second died on the ramparts of his castle, defying a nation. The last one wrote a bad check in a gambling casino with chromium and poor ventilation. . . . It’s curious.
LALO: What are you talking about?
ESTERHAZY: About what a peculiar thing it is—a leaking soul. You go through your days and it slips away from you, drop by drop. With each step. Like a hole in your pocket and coins dropping out, bright little coins, bright and shining, never to be found again.
LALO: To hell with that! What’s to become of me?
ESTERHAZY: I’ve done all I could, Lalo. I’ve warned you before the others.
LALO: You’re not going to stand there like a damn fool and let things . . .
ESTERHAZY: [Softly] You know, I think I’m glad it happened like this. A few hours ago I had problems, a thick web of problems I was much too weary to untangle. Now I’m free. Free at one useless stroke I did not intend striking.
LALO: Don’t you care at all?
ESTERHAZY: I would not be frightened if I still cared.
LALO: Then you are frightened?
ESTERHAZY: I should like to be.
LALO: Why don’t you do something? Call your friends!
ESTERHAZY: Their reaction, my dear, would be precisely the same as yours.
LALO: You’re blaming me, now!
ESTERHAZY: Not at all. I appreciate you. You make my prospect so simple—and so easy.
LALO: But good God! What about the payments on my new Cadillac? And those pearls I charged to you? And . . .
ESTERHAZY: And my hotel bill. And my florist’s bill. And that last party I gave. And the mink coat for Colette Dorsay.
LALO: [Jumping up] What?!
ESTERHAZY: My dear, you really didn’t think you were . . . the only one?
LALO: [Looks at him, her eyes blazing. Is on the point of screaming something. Laughs suddenly instead, a dry insulting laughter] Do you think I care—now? Do you think I’m going to cry over a worthless . . .
ESTERHAZY: [Quietly] Don’t you think you’d better go home now?
LALO: [Tightens her wrap furiously, rushes to the door, turns abruptly] Call me up when you come to your senses. I’ll answer—if I feel like it tomorrow. ESTERHAZY: And if I’m here to call—tomorrow.
LALO: Huh?
ESTERHAZY: I said, if I’m here to call—tomorrow.
LALO: Just what do you mean? Do you intend to run away or . . .
ESTERHAZY: [With quiet affirmation] Or.
LALO: Oh, don’t be a melodramatic fool! [Exits, slamming the door]
[ESTERHAZY stands motionless, lost in thought. Then he shudders slightly, as if recovering himself. Shrugs. Walks into bedroom Right, leaving the door open. The telephone rings. He returns, his evening coat replaced by a trim lounging jacket]
ESTERHAZY: [Picking up receiver] Hello? . . . [Astonished] At this hour? What’s her name? . . . She won’t? . . . All right, have her come up. [Hangs up. Lights a cigarette. There is a knock at the door. He smiles] Come in!
[KAY GONDA enters. His smile vanishes. He does not move. He stands looking at her for a moment, two motionless fingers holding the cigarette at his mouth. Then he flings the cigarette aside with a violent jerk of his wrist—his only reaction—and bows calmly, formally]
Good evening, Miss Gonda.
KAY GONDA: Good evening.
ESTERHAZY: A veil or black glasses?
KAY GONDA: What?
ESTERHAZY: I hope you didn’t let the clerk downstairs recognize you.
KAY GONDA: [Smiles suddenly, pulling her glasses out of her pocket] Black glasses.
ESTERHAZY: It was a brilliant idea.
KAY GONDA: What?
ESTERHAZY: Your coming here to hide.
KAY GONDA: How did you know that?
ESTERHAZY: Because it could have occurred only to you. Because you’re the only one capable of the exquisite sensitiveness to recognize the only sincere letter I’ve ever written in my life.
KAY GONDA: [Looking at him] Was it?
ESTERHAZY: [Studying her openly, speaking casually, matter-of-factly] You look taller than you do on the screen—and less real. Your hair is blonder than I thought. Your voice about a tone higher. It is a pity that the camera does not p
hotograph the shade of your lipstick. [In a different voice, warm and natural] And now that I’ve done my duty as a fan reacting, sit down and let’s forget the unusual circumstances.
KAY GONDA: Do you really want me to stay here?
ESTERHAZY: [Looking at the room] The place is not too uncomfortable. There’s a slight draft from the window at times, and the people upstairs become noisy occasionally, but not often. [Looking at her] No, I won’t tell you how glad I am to see you here. I never speak of the things that mean much to me. The occasions have been too rare. I’ve lost the habit.
KAY GONDA: [Sitting down] Thank you.
ESTERHAZY: For what?
KAY GONDA: For what you didn’t say.
ESTERHAZY: Do you know that it is really I who must thank you? Not only for coming, but for coming tonight of all nights.
KAY GONDA: Why?
ESTERHAZY: Perhaps you have taken a life in order to save another. [Pause] A long time ago—no, isn’t that strange?—it was only a few minutes ago—I was ready to kill myself. Don’t look at me like that. It isn’t frightening. But what did become frightening was that feeling of utter indifference, even to death, even to my own indifference. And then you came. . . . I think I could hate you for coming.
KAY GONDA: I think you will.
ESTERHAZY: [With sudden fire, the first, unexpected emotion ] I don’t want to be proud of myself again. I had given it up. Yet now I am. Just because I see you here. Just because a thing has happened which is like nothing I thought possible on earth.
KAY GONDA: You said you would not tell me how glad you were to see me. Don’t tell me. I do not want to hear it. I have heard it too often. I have never believed it. And I do not think I shall come to believe it tonight.
ESTERHAZY: Which means that you have always believed it. It’s an incurable disease, you know—to have faith in the better spirit of man. I’d like to tell you to renounce it. To destroy in yourself all hunger for anything above the dry rot that others live by. But I can’t. Because you will never be able to do it. It’s your curse. And mine.
KAY GONDA: [Angry and imploring at once] I do not want to hear it!
ESTERHAZY: [Sitting down on the arm of a chair, speaking softly, lightly] You know, when I was a boy—a very young boy—I thought my life would be a thing immense and shining. I wanted to kneel to my own future. . . . [Shrugs] One gets over that.