Collected Novels and Plays (71 page)

AURORA (
stabbing at the flowers
):

It’s not beautiful the way I bear it. It’s your precious little wife,
she’s
the marvel. She sits and holds his hand and changes his linen and at the right interval shouts the right word in his ear, or what he appears to take for the right word. Five days of this! It’s too mortifying, meeting you so casually, having you for a month in the country, and letting her do so much. You didn’t know us when we still could do
things stylishly. But the servants today won’t put up with it, and he can’t be left alone. I’d hoped that Memnon—ah, well,
speriamo!

MARK:

Tithonus isn’t the one who needs caring for.

AURORA:

It’s quite hopeless, you know, trying to care for others. But she appears to enjoy it.

MARK:

She likes to feel helpful. I don’t know what she enjoys.

AURORA:

She’s really too perfect, an authentic
jeune fille
, the kind that used to read Goldsmith and play the harp, the kind that nowadays—listen to me, please! I talk, I swear, like a vampire at a cotillion. Next, I’ll hear myself ask you for a Fig Newton and a cup of Moxie!

MARK:

Aurora, stop this! I know that you’re baffled and worried and hurt. You insult me by the tone you take.

AURORA:

Rot. I’m simply indulging myself. Must you take away my last amusement?

MARK:

It’s no amusement, either for you or for anyone who has watched you these days.

AURORA:

Have you watched me?

MARK:

You know I have.

AURORA:

It is always amusing to give in to one’s baser sentiments.

MARK:

You have no base sentiments, try as you may.

AURORA:

Believe me, I do.

MARK:

Then confess to me the basest of them.

AURORA (
stalling
):

My basest sentiment? How Victorian that sounds! Well, it is a Victorian sentiment.

It is that I find you a very handsome and estimable man. And my most elevated sentiment is my love for Tithonus. You see, I can say anything.

MARK:

Aurora!

AURORA:

And I shall never leave him. And I am not unhappy.

MARK:

You
are
unhappy, you’re miserable! You took him as a lover, in all good faith. Well—you loved him, didn’t you?

AURORA:

You don’t know!

MARK:

Then why be all nervous and guilty because you’ve changed? What is your change compared to his?

AURORA:

I’m kinder to Tithonus than you are to that poor patient child—who, after all, supports you, doesn’t she?

MARK:

If Enid wants to support me, that’s her own affair.

AURORA:

Don’t be so touchy.

MARK:

I’m ashamed of the whole situation, if you must know. But I’m only human. Shame doesn’t become a creature like yourself.

AURORA:

Because I’m
not
human, you mean? You needn’t rub it in, Mark.

MARK:

Now who’s being touchy?

AURORA:

I know I’m not human. It’s not for lack of trying. I’ve wanted to suffer! I’ve shed tears, I’ve borne a child. I’ve been faithful to Tithonus, not that I’ve
had
to be by any means. But I wanted to go through what
people
go through. I haven’t wanted to snap my fingers and fly off in a glittering machine. I’ve done my best, but it hasn’t really worked. I haven’t
suffered enough, I suppose.

MARK:

It isn’t suffering that makes us human, to begin with. And it certainly isn’t living with Tithonus.

AURORA:

It
must
be suffering! If that doesn’t make you human, what does?

MARK:

I’ve always thought it was something you were born with.

AURORA:

Flippancy’s not going to help me!

MARK:

Oh Aurora, you’re so lovely and young, you can’t
not
be all of that, even to please your lover. Of course you talk like an old woman. He wants you old and dim, he wants to drag you down with him into some kind of horrible endless twilight. Don’t you see? You’re in danger!

AURORA:

Danger …?

MARK:

Think of him. He has hardly a mind and hardly a body, but he has twined himself about you like mistletoe. You’re forever draining yourself dry in order to replenish him. How could he die?

AURORA (
bursting into tears
):

Mistletoe!

MARK (
taking her in his arms
):

Oh my lovely. That’s it. There.

AURORA:

Do you know, can you imagine, what it means, after so long, to feel that somebody watches you, and knows, and cares, quietly, gently cares and understands? He has never wanted to know what
I
was feeling. He has never known, it has always been
himself.
…

MARK:

Leave him. Forget him. You can if you want to. Oh Aurora, come with me. I love you. Tell me you love me. Don’t tell me then, I
know.

AURORA:

Enid loves you.

MARK:

Yes. And what a poor thing it is, to
be
loved! I don’t want that. I need to feel it myself, and I do!

AURORA:

Do you mean that you would leave your wife?

MARK:

I would leave her for you.

AURORA:

There
might
be a way ….

You should not have made me weep. Tears are moral. When I’ve finished weeping, I’ve finished caring for myself. The sun shines after a little tempest, it’s like that. My sense of obligation is revived.

MARK:

But we’re both weary to death of obligations!

AURORA:

Are we? Darling, yes, I love you. There it is and there it ends. I am weary of obligations, but not to death. Thank you for these moments. I feel young and strong suddenly, and I love you. And that is all you shall ever have from me. That and this.

MARK:

I don’t understand. I want only you.

AURORA:

There, enough! I
must
get at those flowers. Is it my turn now to comfort you? You’re not cross with me? My voice sounds so fresh and happy, I can’t think why …. Am I happy? I must be, yes I am, deliciously so, for no good reason. Poor poor dear dear young man!

ENID (
entering from the house
):

Good morning.

AURORA (
blandly
):

And dear lovely good creature that
you
are! We’ve been talking about you. I was saying, if you
knew
what it does for me, for all of us, to have you here. I may be a goddess, but you are a saint. I’m afraid it’s telling on you, though.

ENID:

No, I’m fine, really I enjoy sitting with him. It’s an education, just listening.

AURORA:

I simply meant you look a trifle worn.

ENID:

That’s my hay fever. I have it every summer. My eyes swell up.

AURORA:

I want you to rest today, just the same. Read, go down to the lake, do whatever you feel like doing. Memnon will want to be with his father, and I shall want to—

be with Memnon. He’s only here for the day.

ENID:

I know. He told me.

AURORA:

Oh, you’ve met then. Doesn’t he strike you as rather bourgeois?

ENID:

Oh, I couldn’t tell. I met him just now in the hall. Tithonus was awake and had called for you.

AURORA:

And Memnon’s with him now?

ENID:

I don’t know. I told him he could go in, but he said he thought he would—

AURORA:

Don’t tell me what he thought. I don’t want to know.

MARK:

Should Tithonus be left alone?

ENID:

Good heavens, I wasn’t thinking!

AURORA:

No no no no
no
, dear. Let
me
go. Does he know it’s his birthday?

ENID:

I don’t think so. I had a present for him, but it didn’t seem to register.

AURORA:

Aren’t you an angel! What did you give him?

ENID:

He complains so of the cold, I’ve been knitting a little scarf. Rather, it
began
as a little scarf, but if anything, it’s too long now.

AURORA:

I’m sure it’s perfect. When he gets used to it, he’ll love it. It takes a few days, you know, with new things. Well ….

MARK:

Aurora, think about what I’ve said.

ENID:

I think I shall go down to the lake. Will you come? I love to look over the side of a boat. You can see your face in the water if it’s calm and you’re turned away from the sun. Not a reflection really, a kind of dark transparency, and through it, below, the grasses moving, something white, one or two fish ….

These unbroken shining days! How does she manage them?

I don’t want to pry, but tell me—what is Aurora to think about?

MARK:

I suggested we might all go off one of these days, with a picnic. There are some fascinating things not far away, churches, antique shops. You know better than I, after reading the guidebook.

ENID:

I didn’t know you enjoyed sightseeing.

MARK:

Whatever made you think I didn’t? Once in a while, it’s very pleasant. I didn’t know you had hay fever.

ENID:

Whatever makes you think I do? And how about Tithonus? You know he can’t be moved.

MARK (
lighting a cigarette).

Strange. I didn’t think of that.

ENID:

Didn’t she?

MARK:

Didn’t she what?

ENID:

See that as an objection to your plan?

MARK:

Yes—so she did.

ENID (
faintly
):

Then why, if the whole thing is impossible, did you ask her to think about it?

MARK:

You’ll have to speak louder if you want me to hear you.

ENID (
doing so
):

Or did you intend for me to stay with Tithonus while you and she go off together?

MARK:

No, certainly not. I’m sure she can get someone from the village. We might offer to pay for whoever comes. We can afford it, and it would be a nice gesture.

ENID:

It has to be someone he knows!

Oh dearest, all I mean is that I
don’t
take much pleasure in sitting with him the better part of the day and night.

MARK (
losing his temper
):

Then why do it, if you don’t enjoy it?

ENID:

Don’t be cross.

MARK:

Don’t be pathetic.

ENID:

I’m surprised you have any preference in the matter.

MARK:

What matter?

ENID:

The matter of how you want me to be.

MARK (
politely
):

I’m sorry. Be just as you are.

ENID:

Just as I am! With my eyes swollen and my heart sick? If that’s how I am—oh Mark, make me stop! I don’t want to talk this way, I’m beginning to feel at home in this unhappiness. In another moment I’ll start
liking
it!

MARK:

That’s so typical of you, Enid, to find the silver lining of an imaginary cloud.

ENID:

What’s the matter with us? It’s like being in an earthquake. The ground slips from under you, but silently, and in bright sunlight.

MEMNON:

Morning!

MARK:

This will be Memnon.

Good morning.

MEMNON:

Just looking around, thanks. Don’t believe you and I have met. I’m the old man’s son, retired myself now.

MARK (
shaking hands
):

How are you? I think you already know my wife.

MEMNON:

Can’t say I’ve had that pleasure—

Why sure! Isn’t that the limit? Why, I thought you were the nurse! No offense, I hope?

ENID:

None whatever. I
am
the nurse.

MEMNON (
to MARK
):

What outfit were you in?

MARK:

Excuse me?

ENID:

What outfit were you in, dear?

MARK:

I was thirteen when the war ended.

ENID (
smoothing it over, to MEMNON
): How do you think your father looks?