BARBARA: But I didn’t torture him. I was a joy to him. And think of it, Giacomo, I was the only joy he’d ever had in his life.
WESSON: And the only sorrow.
BARBARA: Why do you want to say horrid things about me?
WESSON: I don’t.
BARBARA: But you do! Look, you say I tortured Frederick.
WESSON: So you did. So you torture me.
BARBARA: But how? — tell me how, Giacomo.
WESSON: You needn’t laugh at me when I’m feeling a fool.
BARBARA: You hate me, Giacomo.
WESSON: Does it please you?
BARBARA: Why should it please me? Why should it please me, Giacomo?
WESSON: It appears to. You seem to exult.
BARBARA: I exult because you wither away when Mama scolds you! I assure you I don’t exult in your heroic appearance then.
WESSON: I don’t ask you to.
BARBARA: What does he want then — does he want me to fall at his feet and worship him, does he then? (She does so — goes on her knees at his feet, puts her forehead to the ground — raises it up and down — in a consoling, mocking voice.) La — di-da — di-da! — did it want to be worshipped?
WESSON (seizing her by the arm): Get up, you lunatic.
BARBARA: But don’t you like to be worshipped?
WESSON (gripping her arm): Get up.
She rises slowly — he grips both her arms.
You love! You love only yourself!
BARBARA (putting her tongue out at him): Tra — la-la — la!
WESSON: Yes.
BARBARA: Tra — la-la — la! (He remains holding her — she says, almost pleading): Let me go.
WESSON: I won’t.
BARBARA: I’ll make you.
WESSON: Try!
BARBARA: I will!
WESSON: Try! (A moment of silence.)
BARBARA (subduedly): You hurt my arms.
WESSON (through his teeth): And why shouldn’t I?
BARBARA: Don’t be horrid.
WESSON puts his arms round her, fastens her close.
WESSON: Oh, you’re not faithful to me!
His voice is like a cry. He reaches forward, his mouth to her throat.
BARBARA (thickly): I am.
CURTAIN
ACT III
SCENE I
Morning, the next day. BARBARA in walking-out dress, WESSON in an old jacket.
BARBARA: What time did the man say Mama would be here?
WESSON: I understood she would come for you in a carriage at ten o’clock.
BARBARA: And did she really say you mustn’t come?
WESSON: She said she wished to drive alone with you.
BARBARA: Put your coat on and come, too.
WESSON: No — perhaps she wants to talk to you, and to have you to herself a bit. It’s natural. You needn’t do anything that you don’t want to do.
BARBARA: Why should she ask me for a drive without you? It’s like her impudence — I won’t go!
WESSON: Yes, you’d better.
BARBARA: You’d say I’d better do any miserable thing they liked to ask me.
WESSON: Alright.
BARBARA: Why don’t you say I oughtn’t to go for a drive with Mama without you?
WESSON: Because I don’t care — your mother can use all her persuasions and reasons till she’s sick of it.
BARBARA: But why should she?
WESSON: It’s probably the shortest way, if we stick to ourselves all through.
BARBARA: A fine lot of sticking to yourself you do, don’t you? Think of the shrivelling creature whom Mama scolded yesterday.
WESSON: I was true to myself, then — and to you.
BARBARA: Were you — were you! Then I’ll have another kind of fidelity, thank you.
WESSON: You won’t. And now you’d better go.
BARBARA: Go!
WESSON: For your drive. You’ll find Lady Charlcote before you get to the Piazza.
BARBARA: And if I don’t choose to?
WESSON (shrugging): You’ll please yourself.
BARBARA: Tra — la-la — la!
WESSON: I wish you’d go.
BARBARA: Why do you wish I’d go? I will, then.
Exit — the door is heard to bang. WESSON watches her.
WESSON: There goes the carriage, and the old lady. I should like to murder the twopence-ha’penny lot of them, with their grizzling and whining and chuffing. If they’d leave us alone we should be alright — damn them! Miserable bits of shouters! My mother was worth a million of ‘em, for they’ve none of ‘em the backbone of a flea — She doesn’t want to stick to me — she doesn’t want to love me — she won’t let herself love me. She wants to save some rotten rag of independence — she’s afraid to let herself go and to belong to me.
He goes to the sideboard, drinks wine, looks at a book, throws it down, plays a dozen chords on the piano, gets up, drinks more wine, sits down to write, and remains perfectly still, as if transfixed — all the time he has moved quietly — the door-bell rings — he does not hear — it rings louder — he starts up and goes to the door — is heard saying, “How do you do? Will you come in?” Enter SIR WILLIAM CHARLCOTE — short, stout, a gentleman — grey bristling moustache.
WESSON: Will you sit down?
SIR WILLIAM (taking a seat near the door): Thank you.
WESSON (offering cigarettes in a threepenny packet): Excuse the packet.
SIR WILLIAM: Thank you, I have some of my own.
WESSON throws the packet on the table and sits on the couch.
WESSON: It’s a nice day.
SIR WILLIAM: Yes. (Clearing his throat.) I called to hear from yourself an account of what you intend to do.
WESSON (knitting his fingers): I intend to do nothing but what I am doing.
SIR WILLIAM: And what is that?
WESSON: Living here — working —
SIR WILLIAM: And keeping my daughter under the present conditions?
WESSON: Barbara stays as long as she will. I am here for her while she wants me.
SIR WILLIAM: But you have no right to be here for her to want.
WESSON: But I say, while ever she wants me, I am here for her.
SIR WILLIAM: Don’t you see that is cowardly and base.
WESSON: Is it the morality of it you want to discuss?
SIR WILLIAM: Yes — yes — it is the right of it. You may perhaps think I have no room to talk. That is like your damned impudence.
WESSON: But that’s not the point.
SIR WILLIAM: A man has a right to any woman whom he can get, so long as she’s not a married woman. Go with all the unmarried women you like. But touch a married woman, and you are a scoundrel.
WESSON: So!
SIR WILLIAM: It destroys the whole family system, and strikes at the whole of society. A man who does it is as much a criminal as a thief, a burglar, or even a murderer. You see my point?
WESSON: Your point of view.
SIR WILLIAM: You see so much. Then you see what you are doing: a criminal act against the State, against the rights of man altogether, against Dr Tressider, and against my daughter.
WESSON: So!
SIR WILLIAM: And seeing that, only an — only a criminal by conviction can continue in what he is doing — a fellow who deserves to be locked up.
WESSON: If life went according to deserts.
SIR WILLIAM: If you intend to behave in the least like a man, you will clear out of this place —
WESSON: I’ve got the house on a six months’ lease.
SIR WILLIAM: I will pay the lease.
WESSON: It is paid — but I like the place, and prefer to stay.
SIR WILLIAM: That is, you will continue to keep my daughter in — in — in this shame and scandal —
WESSON: She chooses to stay.
SIR WILLIAM: If plain reasoning will not convince you, we must try other methods.
WESSON: Very well.
SIR WILLIAM: You — whom I thought to b
e doing a service by asking you to my house —
The bell rings.
WESSON (rising): Excuse me a moment.
Exit — voices — enter BARBARA, followed by LADY CHARLCOTE and WESSON.
BARBARA: Papa!
SIR WILLIAM: I came to speak with this man.
BARBARA: But why behind my back?
SIR WILLIAM: I will come when I like. I will not have women, and especially women like you, about me when I have anything to say.
BARBARA: Nor more will I have men like you interfering with my affairs behind my back, Papa!
LADY CHARLCOTE: For shame, Barbara.
BARBARA (turning, flashing): What right has he to come bullying Wesson behind my back. I came away with him — it was I who suggested he should come to Italy with me when I was coming to see Laura. So when you have anything to say, Papa, say it to me — if you dare.
SIR WILLIAM: Dare! Dare!
BARBARA: Whom are you talking to, Papa — and you of all people! I did not love Frederick, and I won’t live with him — so there — and you may go.
SIR WILLIAM (picking up his hat): I never want to see you again.
LADY CHARLCOTE: Barbara, you should respect your father.
BARBARA: Mama — you — you — then let him respect me, and the man I live with.
Exit SIR WILLIAM.
LADY CHARLCOTE: What has he said?
WESSON: It does not matter.
LADY CHARLCOTE: Well — now you must make the best of your own affairs — for you’ve cut off all your own people from you, Barbara.
BARBARA: I have not cut myself off — it’s you who have left me in the lurch. I was miserable with Frederick. I felt I couldn’t stand it. You would have helped me to have had lovers, Mama. But because I come away decently and openly you all turn on me.
LADY CHARLCOTE: You know it is impossible —
BARBARA: Very well, I will be impossible!
LADY CHARLCOTE: I shall never leave you in the lurch. (Crying.) You are my daughter, whatever happens.
Exit — WESSON hurries to the door after her — it is heard to close — he returns.
BARBARA: Why do you let them trample on you? Why do you play the poor worm? It drives me mad!
WESSON: But you don’t want me to insult your father.
BARBARA: But why do you let yourself be bullied and treated like dirt?
WESSON: I don’t.
BARBARA: You do — you do — and I hate you for it.
WESSON: Very well. (She sits down on the couch, twisting her handkerchief. He seats himself beside her and takes her hand.) Never mind, they’ll get over it.
BARBARA: Papa won’t — and I have loved him so.
WESSON: He will.
BARBARA: He won’t! Oh, but I hate him — a mean funker! But he always was a funker. He had his Selma on the sly, and when Mama found him out — it positively broke him. What did he say to you?
WESSON: He explained his point of view, which seems to me perfectly logical.
BARBARA: And I suppose you agreed with him?
WESSON: No; I didn’t agree with him — only I understood.
BARBARA: And you cringed to him, I know you did.
WESSON: I don’t think so.
BARBARA: And now they’ve left me.
WESSON: Never mind — they can slam at us, but we can stand it.
BARBARA: But it’s so horrible — and I have to fight for you, as if you weren’t a man.
WESSON: I don’t think you have any need.
BARBARA: Yes, but I have — and all the burden falls on me — you don’t take your share.
WESSON: Surely I do! Never mind, I know it’s horrid for you. But you will stick to me, won’t you?
BARBARA: I didn’t think it would be so hard — I have to fight you, and them, and everybody. Not a soul in the world gives me the tiniest bit of help.
WESSON: That’s only because you feel rotten. I love you, Barbara.
BARBARA: Doesn’t it make you hate me, all this horridness?
WESSON: Why should it? I don’t care what comes, so that we get a little closer.
BARBARA: But it’s worth it, isn’t it, Giacomo? — say I’m worth it.
WESSON (putting his arms round her and kissing her): You’re the only thing in life and in the world that I’ve got — you are.
BARBARA: Are you sure?
WESSON: I’ve got my work, which isn’t life. Then there’s nothing else but you — not a thing — and if you leave me — well, I’ve done.
BARBARA: How do you mean, done?
WESSON: Only my effort at life. I shall feel as if I had made my big effort — put all my money down — and lost. The only thing remaining would be to go on and make the best of it.
BARBARA: I suppose that’s how Frederick feels.
WESSON: I suppose it is — if only he would get a grip on and try to make the best of it.
BARBARA: But it’s not so easy.
WESSON: No, it isn’t, poor devil. But if he’s got to do it, he may as well.
BARBARA: Oh, do you love me enough, Giacomo?
WESSON: I love you enough for whatever you want me for.
BARBARA: Sure?
WESSON: Sure! The question is, do you love me enough?
BARBARA: I love you better than you love me.
WESSON: Take your hat off, I can’t kiss you.
BARBARA (obediently removing her hat): Mama told me Papa was coming — I was furious, it seemed such a mean dodge. They are mean, though, and sordid. Did he say horrid things to you?
WESSON: He said he’d thrash me.
BARBARA (laughing): Fancy little Papa!
WESSON: Are you miserable? Are you sorry you’re done out of your drive?
BARBARA: No, I’m thankful to be back with you. If only they left us in peace, we could be so happy.
WESSON: They seem to grudge it us, don’t they?
BARBARA: Yes! And Mama says perhaps Frederick’s coming.
WESSON: At any rate we s’ll have had ‘em all, then.
BARBARA: But I couldn’t bear to see him, Giacomo!
WESSON: Then don’t see him.
BARBARA: But he might do something mad.
WESSON: Let him.
BARBARA: No — I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him.
WESSON: Why should anything happen to him?
BARBARA: And what would he do if he saw me? Would he go quite mad?
WESSON: You’re not such a magical person as all that.
BARBARA: But you don’t know him.
WESSON: Quite sufficiently.
BARBARA: Isn’t it funny — when I was first engaged to him, and was reading Othello, I thought what a good Othello he’d make, better than the real one.
WESSON: You feel sure he’ll slay you, poor Desdemona.
BARBARA (laughing): Yes — he’s so Othelloish.
WESSON: And you so Desdemoniacal, aren’t you?
BARBARA (laughing): What does that mean?
WESSON: It means you sit sighing by a sycamore tree, you poor soul.
BARBARA (kissing him): O, I love you!
WESSON: Do you?
CURTAIN
SCENE II
Evening of the same day, WESSON sits alone, writing. Enter BARBARA, resplendent in an evening dress, with ornament in her hair. She stands in the doorway, looking across at herself in a mirror.
BARBARA: You’ve never seen me in this before. (He looks up — puts his pen between his teeth — she preens herself.)
WESSON (after a moment): I hate it.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 704