Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 92

CECIL. I suppose I'm a cuckoo-May-fly. For I _hate_ wet days. And if you're going to cry again, it might just as well be wet, mightn't it? So do dry your eyes like a good girl. Let me do it for you. [_Does it with her handkerchief._]

[_She laughs ruefully._]

There, that's better. And now we're going to be good children again, aren't we?

CECIL [_holding out hand_]. And you'll kiss and be friends?

EVELYN. I'll be friends, of course. [_Sadly._] But you must never kiss me again.

CECIL. What a shame! Why not?

EVELYN. Because you mustn't.

CECIL [_cheerfully_]. Well, you'll sit down again anyhow, won't you?

just to show we've made it up. [_Moves towards tree._]

EVELYN [_shakes head_]. No.

CECIL [_disappointed; turns_]. A.... Then you haven't really made it up.

EVELYN. Yes, I have. [_Picks up her hat._] But I must go now. Reggie's coming down by the five o'clock train, and I want to be at the station to meet him. [_Holds out hand._] Good-by, Mr. Harburton.

CECIL [_taking hand_]. Eve! You're going to accept Reggie! [_Pause._]

EVELYN [_half to herself_]. I wonder.

CECIL. And he'll have to tell your mother?

EVELYN. Of course.

CECIL [_drops her hand_]. Poor Reggie! So _his_ romance ends too!

EVELYN. It won't! If I marry Reggie I shall make him very happy.

CECIL. Very likely. Marriage may be happiness, but I'm hanged if it's romance!

EVELYN. Oh! [_Exclamation of impatience._]

[_She turns away and exits R._]

[_Cecil watches her departure with a smile half-amused, half-pained, till she is long out of sight. Then with half a sigh turns back to his tree._]

CECIL [_re-seating himself_]. Poor Reggie! [_Re-opens his book and settles himself to read again._]

[_A cuckoo hoots loudly from a distant thicket and is answered by another. Cecil looks up from his book to listen as the curtain falls._]

[_Curtain._]

THE JUDGMENT OF INDRA

A PLAY BY DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI

Copyright, 1920, by Stewart & Kidd Company.

All rights reserved.

The professional and amateur stage rights of this play are strictly reserved by the author, to whose dramatic representative, Frank Shay, in care Stewart & Kidd Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, applications for permission to produce it should be made.

THE JUDGMENT OF INDRA

A PLAY BY DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI

[TIME: _The Fifteenth Century._]

[PLACE: _A Monastery on one of the foothills of Himalaya._]

[SCENE: _In the foreground is the outer court of a Monastery. In the center of the court is a sacred plant, growing out of a small altar of earth about two feet square. On the left of the court is a sheer precipice, adown which a flight of stone steps--only a few of which are visible--connects the Monastery with the village in the valley below._

_To the right are the temple and the adobe walls and the roof of the monastery cells. There is a little s.p.a.ce between the temple and the adobe walls, which is the pa.s.sage leading to the inner recesses of the monastery. Several steps lead to the doors of the temple, which give on the court. In the distance, rear, are the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, glowing under the emerald sky of an Indian afternoon. To the left, the distances stretch into vast s.p.a.ces of wooded hills. Long bars of light glimmer and die as the vast clouds, with edges of crimson, golden and silver, spread portentously over the hills and forest._

_A roll of thunder in the distance, accompanies the rise of the curtain._]

SHANTA. [_He is reading a palm-leaf ma.n.u.script near the Sacred Plant. He looks up at the sky._] It forbodes a calamity.

[_Suddenly the Temple doors open. Shukra stands framed in the doorway. Seeing that Shanta is alone, Shukra walks down the steps toward him._]

SHUKRA. Are you able to make out the words?

SHANTA. Aye, Master.

SHUKRA. Where is Kanada?

SHANTA. He will be here presently. Listen, master: it sayeth: "Only a hair's breadth divides the true from the false. Upon him who by thought, word or deed confuses the two, will descend the Judgment of Indra."

SHUKRA. The thunder of Indra is just. It will strike the erring and the unrighteous no matter where they hide themselves; in the heart of the forest or in the silence of the cloisters, Indra's Judgment will descend on them. Even the erring heart that knows not that it is erring will be smitten and chastised by Indra. [_Thunder rumbles in the distance._]

SHANTA. Master, when you speak, you not only fill the heart with ecstasy, but also the soul with the beauty of truth.

SHUKRA. To praise is good. But why praise me, who have yet to find G.o.d and,--[_Shakes his head sadly._]