Collected Novels and Plays (77 page)

CHARLES:

We were together there—

It was a honeymoon—

JULIE:

Be still. Don’t speak.

CHARLES:

A honeymoon, salty and sweet—deeply together—

I thought, I had to think. Come closer. Listen.

JULIE:

Darling, you’re not on your deathbed. I see no need

For any show of thought.

CHARLES:

But you are angry?

JULIE:

When have you ever seen me angry? I confess

My own thoughts, these past minutes, leave me less than—

CHARLES:

Well, that’s flattering! I should have thought

It was for me to be resentful of the pain,

The risk I ran with my one and only life—

And not for my own amusement. But to my eyes

Nobody’s amused, least of all yourself.

GILBERT:

Perhaps you should jump back into the water

And take your chances with the fish.

CHARLES:

You ought not to be angry. If you are angry

It cannot be because of what I’ve done

But what I’m doing now—because of what I am.

If what I did was to have angered you

You would have been angry earlier, I think.

JULIE:

I am not angry with you.

GILBERT:

And there is no earthly reason I can see

For her to be angry with me.

CHARLES:

And what am I doing now, what am I trying to say

But that I’m yours in spite of all—in spite—

JULIE:

In spite of all my what? My ways? My wiles?

Pompous! Ponderous! The Prince of Whales!

CHARLES:

Don’t try to misunderstand me, Julie.

JULIE:

You’ve lost your bet. You’re a bad loser, Charles.

GILBERT:

No. He has won his bet. He’s a bad winner.

He means we’ve sought to corrupt him, and he’s right.

JULIE:

Speak for yourself.

GILBERT:

I do. Speaking for myself,

You are an extremely difficult person, Charles,

In your simple goodness. We suspect that. More,

We’ve wanted you a trifler like ourselves.

JULIE:

Would anyone mind if we started back to shore?

GILBERT:

Don’t pretend you don’t know. You have undergone

Trial by water—that trial whereby

The accused was flung, bound, into a ditch.

If he was innocent he stayed afloat;

If guilty, he sank to the bottom like a stone.

I suppose the secret then was breath control.

In any event it sounds like a cynical business.

CHARLES:

You meant for me to sink, was that it, Julie?

JULIE:

Of course not, darling. How can you allow

Gilbert to talk that way? You’ll find me at the prow

Like a figurehead. I’ve had enough for now.

GILBERT:

We meant for you to rise up from the waves

Like a revengeful triton, brandishing

Your spear thrice-pronged with wrath,

Embarrassment and pain. We did not want

Meekness on the half-shell. We wanted proof

That you as well could turn down an occasion

For much self-knowledge, use it up idly

Thrashing about on the surface of your act.

CHARLES:

What did I do instead?

GILBERT:

Instead you did the serious human thing,

The earnest painful thing, the thing that we,

Or she particularly—she’s very touchy—

Cannot forgive. So we condemn you. The code

Is evidently of our own contrivance.

CHARLES:

It’s a brand-new experience, Gilly,

For once to take something less seriously than you.

GILBERT:

You’re lighthearted because your conscience is clear.

Wait and see.

CHARLES:

My conscience
is
clear. I am not lighthearted.

GILBERT:

Always so scrupulous. But you have a higher

Specific gravity than you did this morning.

You know what happens to carbons under pressure—

They become gems. Keep at it, you’re turning precious.

CHARLES:

Precious to Julie? To myself?

What on earth are you talking about?

GILBERT:

I have observed

That is a question people do not ask

Unless they know the answer. Wait and see.

JULIE:

That was a very good suggestion of Gilbert’s. We’ll take the bus tomorrow at noon, and arrive before dark. Gilbert is very fond of Ravenna. He says the mosaics are beyond words glorious.

JAN:

They must be, if he says so.

JULIE:

They do sound the slightest bit deadly, just the same. Asking things of one, you know. Venice is more my cup of tea. If I am tired of Venice it’s because I’m tired of myself. My exquisite stagestruck façades, my smell of money and hair, my watery reflections. It is clever of a city to have risen where there was only water, just as I am clever to be talking of Venice when Venice is the last thing on my mind.

JAN:

We must be up early tomorrow.

JULIE:

Do I bore you? What does that pained smile mean?

JAN:

I was about to ask you the same question.

JULIE:

What does my pained smile mean?

JAN:

No. Do I bore you?

JULIE:

Forgive me. It’s been a long day and I’m tired. I
am.

JAN:

I believe you. Julie, couldn’t we just stay here? Let Gilbert go off by himself? We’d have these days to ourselves. Everything would come right between us.

JULIE:

Come right? Are things so wrong between us?

JAN:

You know what I mean. We’d have this time, we’d have each other. You’re tired? So am I. I’m still a little girl, I need my naps.

JULIE:

I should hate to miss Ravenna.

JAN:

We don’t care about Ravenna.

JULIE:

Besides, we don’t know the language as well as Gilbert. If we were here alone we should be outrageously cheated on all sides.

JAN:

That kind of cheating is fairly innocent.

JULIE:

By comparison with …?

JAN:

All right, we’ll go to Ravenna.

JULIE:

By comparison with what, dearest?

JAN:

Julie, help me to love you!

JULIE:

Go on. Tell me more about my dishonesty. You asked if I was bored. Far from it, I’m fascinated!

JAN:

I don’t ask for absolute honesty. You alone know what to tell me and what not to. But when—

JULIE:

Yes?

JAN:

What you told me today. It’s not for myself I want to know, but for you. I’m not asking for an explanation. What matters is that you begin explaining it to yourself.

JULIE:

“It?”

JAN:

That episode with Charles, your leaving him.

JULIE:

There are times when you remind me forcibly of him. I foresaw that we’d be returning to the topic.

CHARLES (
to himself
):

Julie’s leaving me? Is that what Gilbert meant? Wait and see, he said.

JULIE:

Oh Jan, you are such a reproach. I can hear the excuses you’re making for me. “I must bear with her because she’s suffering.”

JAN:

Not at all. I don’t feel that you
are
suffering.

JULIE:

You’re right. I’m not suffering.

CHARLES (
to himself
):

Whatever I do, it’s the wrong thing. And talking to her leads nowhere.

JULIE:

I’ve been arbitrary, I’ve been heartless. Is that what you want to hear? I was brought up to have the proper feelings.

CHARLES (
to himself
):

But if she leaves me I’ll be able to write to her. Letters will say what I can’t say to her face. She’ll understand, she’ll want to come back.

JULIE:

That’s why I can’t read his letters. They shame me.

JAN:

They don’t shame Gilbert? No, Gilbert has his own funny integrity.

JULIE:

And now you’re trying to shame me. You mustn’t.

JAN:

Ah Julie, you’re selfish.

JULIE:

I know. I ask everything.

JAN:

You’ve talked all day—less for my enlightenment than for your own pleasure. I’m not even allowed to comment upon what you say.

CHARLES (
to himself
):

And if she doesn’t come back, what then? She can fall in love with somebody else.

JULIE:

I’ll say no more then.

JAN:

That’s not what I mean!

CHARLES:

Strange. I can already feel sorry for him, the one who loves her next.

JULIE:

Oh why are we putting ourselves through this? If you love me—

JAN:

Julie, Julie …

JULIE:

The one who loves isn’t the loser. Charles

Isn’t the loser. To have hurt him unveils

In me, as in a public square,

An image tasteless and cheap, I mean my own.

The tourist wouldn’t even stop for it,

Whitewashed at day’s end by dreadful birds.

But Charles—my dear, I even dream of him.

I see him continue to act in honest concern

According to what he feels. I see his face

Turn beautiful under the pumice of rebuff.

One could almost pretend I’d made him a gift of it.

JAN:

And to me what gift do you make?

JULIE:

I have been happy with you here.

Encompassed by things so fabulous and rare

They can’t be hurt by the conscience we bring to them.

We stand in the center of this glimmering square

As we might stand within a human mind

At its most charitable. By tomorrow

We shall be standing in Ravenna,

Quite as if standing in the mind of God.

Much constellated gold, dolphin and seraphim

Shall blind us with the blessing

Of something fully expressed, the sense of having

Ourselves become expressive there. Kiss me.

JAN:

My book says it’s not the ornament but the architecture

That is meant to be most moving at Ravenna.

JULIE:

Jan, you are sublime, my student princess.

Isn’t it strange how little difference

It makes, whatever we say or do or are?

CHARLES (
to himself
):

I have observed

That is a question people do not ask

Unless they know the answer.

JAN (
to herself
):

Now it is not just myself I feel

Endangered. The lover may not be the loser.

I’ve no desire to win at her expense.

CHARLES (
to himself
):

No matter what the lines were baited with,

The fishermen concluded their affair,

Reached land without a certain sinking sense

I am still weighted with.

JULIE:

There is such lightness in the midnight air.

The undulating dome, the orange peel,

The very stars drift outward on its tide.

JAN:

Beautiful. Ignorant, too, of any real

Human consequences, like a flare

Lighting the field where innocent men hide.

JULIE:

The story’s finished now. Kiss it goodbye.

No, kiss me. The cool night air

Has taken my words up into its high gauzes

Before the first of them could reach your ear.

CHARLES:

I have observed …

JAN:

It’s not the danger or the hurt I fear

But vagueness, secrecy, the shapeless sky,

The iridescent sea, whatever causes

Thousands every day to live and die

Not knowing.

JULIE:

Never think, my dear,

That we contrive this lightness. No.

JAN:

Each little wave, before it crests it pauses,

Gathering its nerve to disappear?

CHARLES:

… that is a question people do not ask …

JULIE:

Something makes light of
us
, that much is clear.

Hold me down, I’m rising like a dancer!

JAN:

Wait, come back here!

CHARLES:

… unless they know the answer.

When the narrator of
The (Diblos) Notebook
refers back to previous pages in the notebook, as he
here
refers to “pp 29-30,” the passage can be found, in this volume, starting
here
. When he refers back to his own “p. 17,”
here
and
here
, the corresponding page is now
here
; he refers to his “p. 18,”
here
, also corresponding to
here
in this volume.

The Birthday
was first presented at Kirby Theater, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, on May 22, 1947, as part of an evening of three one-act plays produced by the Dramatic Arts Class. The play was directed by Robert Brown; the designer was Perry Minton; the technician was Perley Boone.

The Bait
was first presented by The Artists’ Theatre at the Comedy Club in New York City on May 18, 1953. The production was directed by Herbert Machiz; setting and costumes were designed by Al Kresch; lighting was by Mildred Jackson; incidental music was by Ben Westbrook; and Jack Harpman was the stage manager.

The Bait
was later presented by the BBC on its Third Programme, November 28 and December 1, 1955. Mary Hope Allen was the producer.

The text of
The Bait
first appeared in
The Quarterly Review of Literature
(vol. VII, no. X, 1955), and later in
Artists’ Theatre: Four Plays
, ed. Herbert Machiz (New York: Grove Press, 1960).

The Immortal Husband
was first produced by John Bernard Myers in association with The Artists’ Theatre at the Theater de Lys in New York City on February 14, 1955. The production was directed by Herbert Machiz; settings and costumes were designed by Richard V. Hare; lighting was by Peggy Clark; and Gene Perlowin was stage manager.

The Immortal Husband
was next presented on September 29, 1969, at the Dublin Gate Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. This production, mounted in association with The Artists’ Theatre, was directed by Herbert Machiz, with settings by Brian Collins from designs by Jane Eakin; the stage managers were Douglas Wallace and Alan Coleridge.

The text of
The Immortal Husband
first appeared in
Playbook: Five Plays for a New Theater
(New York: New Directions, 1956).

The Bait
was extensively revised for a new production of the play, paired with
The Image Maker
, which was first presented at the National Arts Club in New York City on November 19, 1988. The production was directed by James Sheldon, with sets by Paul Merrill and lighting by Amy Whitman.