Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 11

GIL. Why, you yourself, just now.

MARG. How so? I say the heroine of the book deceives her husband with a baritone.

GIL. Ba.s.s would have been more sublime, mezzo-soprano more piquant.

MARG. Then she doesn't go to Munich, but to Dresden; and there, has an affair with a sculptor.

GIL. That's me--veiled.

MARG. Very much veiled, I rather fear. The sculptor, as it happens, is young, handsome and a genius. In spite of that she leaves him.

GIL. For--

MARG. Guess?

GIL. A jockey, I fancy.

MARG. Wretch!

GIL. A count, a prince of the empire?

MARG. Wrong. An archduke.

GIL. I must say you have spared no costs.

MARG. Yes, an archduke, who gave up the court for her sake, married her and emigrated with her to the Canary Islands.

GIL. The Canary Islands! Splendid! And then--

MARG. With the disembarkation--

GIL. In Canaryland.

MARG. The story ends.

GIL. Good. I'm very much interested, especially in the veiling.

MARG. You yourself wouldn't recognize me were it not for--

GIL. What?

MARG. The third chapter from the end, where our correspondence is published entire.

GIL. What?

MARG. Yes, all the letters you sent me and those I sent you are included in the novel.

GIL. I see, but may I ask where you got those you sent me? I thought I had them.

MARG. I know. But, you see, I had the habit of always making a rough draft.

GIL. A rough draft?

MARG. Yes.

GIL. A rough draft? Those letters which seemed to have been dashed off in such tremendous haste. "Just one word, dearest, before I go to bed.

My eyelids are heavy--" and when your eyelids were closed you wrote the whole thing over again.

MARG. Are you piqued about it?

GIL. I might have expected as much. I ought to be glad, however, that they weren't bought from a professional love-letter writer. Oh, how everything begins to crumble! The whole past is nothing but a heap of ruins. She made a rough draft of her letters!

MARG. Be content. Maybe my letters will be all that will remain immortal of your memory.

GIL. And along with them will remain the fatal story.

MARG. Why?

GIL. [_indicating his book_]. Because they also appear in my book.

MARG. In _where_?

GIL. In my novel.

MARG. What?

GIL. Our letters--yours and mine.

MARG. Where did you get your own? I've got them in my possession. Ah, so you, too, made a rough draft?

GIL. Nothing of the kind! I only copied them before mailing. I didn't want to lose them. There are some in my book which you didn't even get.

They were, in my opinion, too beautiful for you. You wouldn't have understood them at all.

MARG. Merciful heavens! If this is so--[_turning the leaves of Gilbert's book_]. Yes, yes, it is so. Why, it's just like telling the world that we two--Merciful heavens! [_Feverishly turning the leaves._] Is the letter you sent me the morning after the first night also--

GIL. Surely. That was brilliant.

MARG. This is horrible. Why, this is going to create a European sensation. And Clement--My G.o.d; I'm beginning to hope that he will not come back. I am ruined! And you along with me. Wherever you are, he'll be sure to find you and blow your brains out like a mad dog.

GIL. [_pocketing his book_]. Insipid comparison!

MARG. How did you hit upon such an insane idea? To publish the correspondence of a woman whom, in all sincerity, you professed to have loved! Oh, you're no gentleman.

GIL. Quite charming. Haven't you done the same?

MARG. I'm a woman.

GIL. Do you take refuge in that now?