Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 51

SHE. Now you're a poet, Manikin!

HE. Even were she so beautiful as thou--lending her your eyes, and the exquisite head which holds them--like a cup two last beads of wine, like a stone two last drops of rain, green, nay, violet, nay, yellow, nay, gold----

SHE. Faster, Manikin!

HE. I can't, Minikin!

Words were never given to man to phrase such a one as you are-- inanimate symbols can never embrace, embody, hold the animate dream that you are-- I must cease.

SHE. Manikin!

HE. And even were she so beautiful as thou, she couldn't stay beautiful.

SHE. Stay beautiful?

HE. Humans change with each going moment.

That is a gray-haired plat.i.tude.

Just as I can see that creature only when she touches my vision, so I could only see her once, were she beautiful-- at best, twice or thrice-- you're more precious than when you came!

SHE. And you!

HE. Human pathos penetrates still deeper when one determines their inner life, as we've pondered their outer.

Their inner changes far more desperately.

SHE. How so, wise Manikin?

HE. They have what philosophy terms moods, and moods are more pervious to modulation than pools to idle breezes.

These people may say, to begin with-- I love you.

This may be true, I'm a.s.sured-- as true as when _we_ say, I love you.

But they can only say, I love you, so long as the mood breathes, so long as the breezes blow, so long as water remains wet.

They are honest-- they mean what they say-- pa.s.sionately, tenaciously, tragically-- but when the mood languishes, they have to say, if it be they are honest-- I do not love you.

Or they have to say, I love you, to somebody else.

SHE. To somebody else?

HE. Now, you and I-- we've said that to each other-- we've had to say it for a hundred and seventy years-- and we'll have to say it always.

SHE. Say always again!

HE. The life of an animate--

SHE. Say always again!

HE. Always!

The life of an animate is a procession of deaths with but a secret sorrowing candle, guttering lower and lower, on the path to the grave-- the life of an inanimate is as serenely enduring-- as all still things are.

SHE. Still things?

HE. Recall our childhood in the English museum-- ere we were moved, from place to place, to this dreadful Yankee salon-- do you remember that little old Greek tanagra of the girl with a head like a bud-- that little old Roman medallion of the girl with a head like a----

SHE. Manikin, Manikin-- were they so beautiful as I-- did you love them, too-- why do you bring them back?

HE. They were not so beautiful as thou-- I spoke of them-- recalled, designated them-- well, because they were ages old-- and--and----

SHE. And--and?

HE. And we might live as long as they-- as they did and do!

I hinted their existence because they're not so beautiful as thou, so that by contrast and deduction----

SHE. And deduction?

HE. You know what I'd say----

SHE. But say it again!

HE. I love you.

SHE. Manikin?

HE. Minikin?

SHE. Then even though that creature has turned us apart, can you see me?

HE. I can see you.

SHE. Even though you haven't seen me for hours, days, weeks-- with your dear blue eyes-- you can see me-- with your hidden ones?

HE. I can see you.

SHE. Even though you are still, and calm, and smooth, and lovely outside-- you aren't still and calm and smooth and lovely inside?

HE. Lovely, yes--but not still and calm and smooth!

SHE. Which way are you looking? What do you see?

HE. I look at you. I see you.

SHE. And if that fool of a servant--oh, Manikin--suppose she should break the future--our great, happy centuries ahead--by dropping me, throwing me down?

HE. I should take an immediate step off this everlasting shelf--

SHE. But you cannot move!

HE. The good wind would give me a blow!

SHE. Now you're a punster! And what would your fragments do?

HE. They would do what Manikin did.