Curtain

An extremely plain room inside THE LAWYER's office. To the right, a big double bed covered by a canopy and curtained in. Next to it, a window. To the left, an iron heater with cooking utensils on top of it. CHRISTINE is pasting paper strips along the cracks of the double windows. In the background, an open door to the office. Through the door are visible a number of poor clients waiting for admission.

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.

THE DAUGHTER. [Pale and emaciated, sits by the stove] You shut out all the air. I choke!

CHRISTINE. Now there is only one little crack left.

THE DAUGHTER. Air, air—I cannot breathe!

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.

THE LAWYER. That's right, Christine! Heat is expensive.

THE DAUGHTER. Oh, it feels as if my lips were being glued together.

THE LAWYER. [Standing in the doorway, with a paper in his hand] Is the child asleep?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, at last.

THE LAWYER. [Gently] All this crying scares away my clients.

THE DAUGHTER. [Pleasantly] What can be done about it?

THE LAWYER. Nothing.

THE DAUGHTER. We shall have to get a larger place.

THE LAWYER. We have no money for it.

THE DAUGHTER. May I open the window—this bad air is suffocating.

THE LAWYER. Then the heat escapes, and we shall be cold.

THE DAUGHTER. It is horrible!—May we clean up out there?

THE LAWYER. You have not the strength to do any cleaning, nor have I, and Christine must paste. She must put strips through the whole house, on every crack, in the ceiling, in the floor, in the walls.

THE DAUGHTER. Poverty I was prepared for, but not for dirt.

THE LAWYER. Poverty is always dirty, relatively speaking.

THE DAUGHTER. This is worse than I dreamed!

THE LAWYER. We are not the worst off by far. There is still food in the pot.

THE DAUGHTER. But what sort of food?

THE LAWYER. Cabbage is cheap, nourishing, and good to eat.

THE DAUGHTER. For those who like cabbage—to me it is repulsive.

THE LAWYER. Why didn't you say so?

THE DAUGHTER. Because I loved you, I wanted to sacrifice my own taste.

THE LAWYER. Then I must sacrifice my taste for cabbage to you—for sacrifices must be mutual.

THE DAUGHTER. What are we to eat, then? Fish? But you hate fish?

THE LAWYER. And it is expensive.

THE DAUGHTER. This is worse than I thought it!

THE LAWYER. [Kindly] Yes, you see how hard it is—And the child that was to become a link and a blessing—it becomes our ruin.

THE DAUGHTER. Dearest, I die in this air, in this room, with its backyard view, with its baby cries and endless hours of sleeplessness, with those people out there, and their whinings, and bickerings, and incriminations—I shall die here!

THE LAWYER. My poor little flower, that has no light and no air——

THE DAUGHTER. And you say that people exist who are still worse off?

THE LAWYER. I belong with the envied ones in this locality.

THE DAUGHTER. Everything else might be borne if I could only have some beauty in my home.

THE LAWYER. I know you are thinking of flowers—and especially of heliotropes—but a plant costs half a dollar, which will buy us six quarts of milk or a peck of potatoes.

THE DAUGHTER. I could gladly get along without food if I could only have some flowers.

THE LAWYER. There is a kind of beauty that costs nothing—but the absence of it in the home is worse than any other torture to a man with a sense for the beautiful.

THE DAUGHTER. What is it?

THE LAWYER. If I tell, you will get angry.

THE DAUGHTER. We have agreed not to get angry.

THE LAWYER. We have agreed—Everything can be over-come, Agnes, except the short, sharp accents—Do you know them? Not yet!

THE DAUGHTER. They will never be heard between us.

THE LAWYER. Not as far as it lies on me!

THE DAUGHTER. Tell me now.

THE LAWYER. Well—when I come into a room, I look first of all at the curtains—[Goes over to the window and straightens out the curtains] If they hang like ropes or rags, then I leave soon. And next I take a glance at the chairs—if they stand straight along the wall, then I stay. [Puts a chair back against the wall] Finally I look at the candles in their sticks—if they point this way and that, then the whole house is askew. [Straightens up a candle on the chest of drawers] This is the kind of beauty, dear heart, that costs nothing.

THE DAUGHTER. With bent head] Beware of the short accents, Axel!

THE LAWYER. They were not short.

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, they were.

THE LAWYER. Well, I'll be——

THE DAUGHTER. What kind of language is that?

THE LAWYER. Pardon me, Agnes! But I have suffered as much from your lack of orderliness as you have suffered from dirt. And I have not dared to set things right myself, for when I do so, you get as angry as if I were reproaching you—ugh! Hadn't we better quit now?

THE DAUGHTER. It is very difficult to be married—it is more difficult than anything else. One has to be an angel, I think!

THE LAWYER. I think so, too.

THE DAUGHTER. I fear I shall begin to hate you after this!

THE LAWYER. Woe to us then!—But let us forestall hatred. I promise never again to speak of any untidiness—although it is torture to me!

THE DAUGHTER. And I shall eat cabbage though it means agony to me.

THE LAWYER. A life of common suffering, then! One's pleasure, the other one's pain!

THE DAUGHTER. Men are to be pitied!

THE LAWYER. You see that?

THE DAUGHTER. Yes, but for heaven's sake, let us avoid the rocks, now when we know them so well.

THE LAWYER. Let us try! Are we not decent and intelligent persons? Able to forbear and forgive?

THE DAUGHTER. Why not smile at mere trifles?

THE LAWYER. We—only we—can do so. Do you know, I read this morning—by the bye, where is the newspaper?

THE DAUGHTER. [Embarrassed] Which newspaper?

THE LAWYER. [Sharply] Do I keep more than one?

THE DAUGHTER. Smile now, and don't speak sharply—I used your paper to make the fire with——

THE LAWYER. [Violently] Well, I'll be damned!

THE DAUGHTER. Why don't you smile?—I burned it because it ridiculed what is holy to me.

THE LAWYER. Which is unholy to me! Yah! [Strikes one clenched fist against the open palm of the other hand] I smile, I smile so that my wisdom teeth show—Of course, I am to be nice, and I am to swallow my own opinions, and say yes to everything, and cringe and dissemble! [Tidies the curtains around the bed] That's it! Now I am going to fix things until you get angry again—Agnes, this is simply impossible!

THE DAUGHTER. Of course it is!

THE LAWYER. And yet we must endure—not for the sake of our promises, but for the sake of the child!

THE DAUGHTER. You are right—for the sake of the child. Oh, oh—we have to endure!

THE LAWYER. And now I must go out to my clients. Listen to them—how they growl with impatience to tear each other, to get each other fined and jailed—Lost souls!

THE DAUGHTER. Poor, poor people! And this pasting!

[She drops her head forward in dumb despair.

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.

THE LAWYER stands at the door, twisting the door-knob nervously.

THE DAUGHTER. How that knob squeaks! It is as if you were twisting my heart-strings——

THE LAWYER. I twist, I twist!

THE DAUGHTER. Don't!

THE LAWYER. I twist!

THE DAUGHTER. No!

THE LAWYER. I——

THE OFFICER. [In the office, on the other side of the door, takes hold of the knob] Will you permit me?

THE LAWYER. [Lets go his hold] By all means. Seeing that you have your degree!

THE OFFICER. Now all life belongs to me. Every road lies open. I have mounted Parnassus. The laurel is won. Immortality, fame, all is mine!

THE LAWYER. And what are you going to live on?

THE OFFICER. Live on?

THE LAWYER. You must have a home, clothes, food——

THE OFFICER. Oh, that will come—if you can only find somebody to love you!

THE LAWYER. You don't say so!—You don't—Paste, Christine, paste until they cannot breathe!

[Goes out backward, nodding.

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste—until they cannot breathe.

THE OFFICER. Will you come with me now?

THE DAUGHTER. At once! But where?

THE OFFICER. To Fairhaven. There it is summer; there the sun is shining; there we find youth, children, and flowers, singing and dancing, feasting and frolicking.

THE DAUGHTER. Then I will go there.

THE OFFICER. Come!

THE LAWYER. [Enters again] Now I go back to my first hell—this was the second and greater. The sweeter the hell, the greater—And look here, now she has been dropping hair-pins on the floor again. [He picks up some hair-pins.

THE OFFICER. My! but he has discovered the pins also.

THE LAWYER. Also?—Look at this one. You see two prongs, but it is only one pin. It is two, yet only one. If I bend it open, it is a single piece. If I bend it back, there are two, but they remain one for all that. It means: these two are one. But if I break—like this!—then they become two.

[Breaks the pin and throws the pieces away.

THE OFFICER. All that he has seen!—But before breaking, the prongs must diverge. If they point together, then it holds.

THE LAWYER. And if they are parallel, then they will never meet—and it neither breaks nor holds.

THE OFFICER. The hair-pin is the most perfect of all created things. A straight line which equals two parallel ones.

THE LAWYER. A lock that shuts when it is open.

THE OFFICER. And thus shuts in a braid of hair that opens up when the lock shuts.

THE LAWYER. It is like this door. When I close it, then I open—the way out—for you, Agnes!

[Withdraws and closes the door behind him.

THE DAUGHTER. Well then?

The stage changes. The bed with its curtains becomes a tent.

The stove stays as it was. The background is raised. To the right, in the foreground, are seen hills stripped of their trees by fire, and red heather growing between the blackened tree stumps. Red-painted pig-sties and outhouses. Beyond these, in the open, apparatus for mechanical gymnastics, where sick persons are being treated on machines resembling instruments of torture.

To the left, in the foreground, the quarantine station, consisting of open sheds, with ovens, furnaces, and pipe coils.

In the middle distance, a narrow strait.

The background shows a beautiful wooded shore. Flags are flying on its piers, where ride white sailboats, some with sails set and some without. Little Italian villas, pavilions, arbors, marble statues are glimpsed through the foliage along the shore.

THE MASTER OF QUARANTINE, made up like a blackamoor, is walking along the shore.

THE OFFICER. [Meets him and they shake hands] Why, Ordström! Have you landed here?

MASTER OF Q. Yes, here I am.

THE OFFICER. Is this Fairhaven?

MASTER OF Q. No, that is on the other side. This is Foulstrand.

THE OFFICER. Then we have lost our way.

MASTER OF Q. We?—Won't you introduce me?

THE OFFICER. No, that wouldn't do. [In a lowered voice] It is Indra's own daughter.

MASTER OF Q. Indra's? And I was thinking of Varuna himself—Well, are you not surprised to find me black in the face?

THE OFFICER. I am past fifty, my boy, and at that age one has ceased to be surprised. I concluded at once that you were bound for some fancy ball this afternoon.

MASTER OF Q. Right you were! And I hope both of you will come along.

THE OFFICER. Why, yes—for I must say—the place does not look very tempting. What kind of people live here anyhow?

MASTER OF Q. Here you find the sick; over there, the healthy.

THE OFFICER. Nothing but poor folk on this side, I suppose.

MASTER OF Q. No, my boy, it is here you find the rich. Look at that one on the rack. He has stuffed himself with paté de foie gras and truffles and Burgundy until his feet have grown knotted.

THE OFFICER. Knotted?

MASTER OF Q. Yes, he has a case of knotted feet. And that one who lies under the guillotine—he has swilled brandy so that his backbone has to be put through the mangle.

THE OFFICER. There is always something amiss!

MASTER OF Q. Moreover, everybody living on this side has some kind of canker to hide. Look at the fellow coming here, for instance.

An old dandy is pushed on the stage in a wheel-chair, he is accompanied by a gaunt and grisly coquette in the sixties, to whom THE FRIEND, a man of about forty, is paying court.

THE OFFICER. It is the major—our schoolmate!

MASTER OF Q. Don Juan. Can you see that he is still enamored of that old spectre beside him? He does not notice that she has grown old, or that she is ugly, faithless, cruel.

THE OFFICER. Why, that is love! And I couldn't have dreamt that a fickle fellow like him would prove capable of loving so deeply and so earnestly.

MASTER OF Q. That is a mighty decent way of looking at it.

THE OFFICER. I have been in love with Victoria myself—in fact I am still waiting for her in the passageway——

MASTER OF Q. Oh, you are the fellow who is waiting in the passageway?

THE OFFICER. I am the man.

MASTER OF Q. Well, have you got that door opened yet?

THE OFFICER. No, the case is still in court—THE BILLPOSTER is out with his dipnet, of course, so that the taking of evidence is always being put off—and in the meantime the Glazier has mended all the window panes in the castle, which has grown half a story higher—This has been an uncommonly good year—warm and wet——

MASTER OF Q. But just the same you have had no heat comparing with what I have here.

THE OFFICER. How much do you have in your ovens?

MASTER OF Q. When we fumigate cholera suspects, we run it up to one hundred and forty degrees.

THE OFFICER. Is the cholera going again?

MASTER OF Q. Don't you know that?

THE OFFICER. Of course, I know it, but I forget so often what I know.

MASTER OF Q. I wish often that I could forget—especially myself. That is why I go in for masquerades and carnivals and amateur theatricals.

THE OFFICER. What have you been up to then?

MASTER OF Q. If I told, they would say that I was boasting; and if I don't tell, then they call me a hypocrite.

THE OFFICER. That is why you blackened your face?

MASTER OF Q. Exactly—making myself a shade blacker than I am.

THE OFFICER. Who is coming there?

MASTER OF Q. Oh, a poet who is going to have his mud bath.

THE POET enters with his eyes raised toward the sky and carrying a pail of mud in one hand.

THE OFFICER. Why, he ought to be having light baths and air baths.

MASTER OF Q. No, he is roaming about the higher regions so much that he gets homesick for the mud—and wallowing in the mire makes the skin callous like that of a pig. Then he cannot feel the stings of the wasps.

THE OFFICER. This is a queer world, full of contradictions.

THE POET. [Ecstatically] Man was created by the god Phtah out of clay on a potter's wheel, or a lathe—[sceptically], or any damned old thing! [Ecstatically] Out of clay does the sculptor create his more or less immortal masterpieces—[sceptically], which mostly are pure rot. [Ecstatically] Out of clay they make those utensils which are so indispensable in the pantry and which generically are named pots and plates—[sceptically], but what in thunder does it matter to me what they are called anyhow? [Ecstatically] Such is the clay! When clay becomes fluid, it is called mud—C'est mon affaire!—[shouts] Lena!

LENA enters with a pail in her hand.

THE POET. Lena, show yourself to Miss Agnes—She knew you ten years ago, when you were a young, happy and, let us say, pretty girl—Behold how she looks now. Five children, drudgery, baby-cries, hunger, ill-treatment. See how beauty has perished and joy vanished in the fulfilment of duties which should have brought that inner satisfaction which makes each line in the face harmonious and fills the eye with a quiet glow.

MASTER OF Q. [Covering the poet's mouth with his hand] Shut up! Shut up!

THE POET. That is what they all say. And if you keep silent, then they cry: speak! Oh, restless humanity!

THE DAUGHTER. [Goes to Lena] Tell me your troubles.

LENA. No, I dare not, for then they will be made worse.

THE DAUGHTER. Who could be so cruel?

LENA. I dare not tell, for if I do, I shall be spanked.

THE POET. That is just what will happen. But I will speak, even though the blackamoor knock out all my teeth—I will tell that justice is not always done—Agnes, daughter of the gods, do you hear music and dancing on the hill over there?—Well, it is Lena's sister who has come home from the city where she went astray—you understand? Now they are killing the fatted calf; but Lena, who stayed at home, has to carry slop pails and feed the pigs.

THE DAUGHTER. There is rejoicing at home because the stray has left the paths of evil, and not merely because she has come back. Bear that in mind.

THE POET. But then they should give a ball and banquet every night for the spotless worker that never strayed into paths of error—Yet they do nothing of the kind, but when Lena has a free moment, she is sent to prayer-meetings where she has to hear reproaches for not being perfect. Is this justice?

THE DAUGHTER. Your question is so difficult to answer because—There are so many unforeseen cases THE POET. That much the Caliph, Haroun the Just, came to understand. He was sitting on his throne, and from its height he could never make out what happened below. At last complaints penetrated to his exalted ears. And then, one fine day, he disguised himself and descended unobserved among the crowds to find out what kind of justice they were getting.

THE DAUGHTER. I hope you don't take me for Haroun the Just!

THE OFFICER. Let us talk of something else—Here come visitors.

A white boat, shaped like a viking ship, with a dragon for figure-head, with a pale-blue silken sail on a gilded yard, and with a rose-red standard flying from the top of a gilded mast, glides through the strait from the left. He and She are seated in the stern with their arms around each other.

THE OFFICER. Behold perfect happiness, bliss without limits, young love's rejoicing!

The stage grows brighter.

HE. [Stands up in the boat and sings]

Hail, beautiful haven,
Where the Springs of my youth were spent,
Where my first sweet dreams were dreamt—
To thee I return,
But lonely no longer!
Ye hills and groves,
Thou sky o'erhead,
Thou mirroring sea,
Give greeting to her:
My love, my bride,
My light and my life!

The flags at the landings of Fairhaven are dipped in salute; white handkerchiefs are waved from verandahs and boats, and the air is filled with tender chords from harps and violins.

THE POET. See the light that surrounds them! Hear how the air is ringing with music!—Eros!

THE OFFICER. It is Victoria.

MASTER OF Q. Well, what of it?

THE OFFICER. It is his Victoria—My own is still mine. And nobody can see her—Now you hoist the quarantine flag, and I shall pull in the net.

[The MASTER OF QUARANTINE waves a yellow flag. THE OFFICER. [Pulling a rope that turns the boat toward Foulstrand] Hold on there!

HE and SHE become aware of the hideous view and give vent to their horror.

MASTER OF Q. Yes, it comes hard. But here every one must stop who hails from plague-stricken places.

THE POET. The idea of speaking in such manner, of acting in such a way, within the presence of two human beings united in love! Touch them not! Lay not hands on love! It is treason!—Woe to us! Everything beautiful must now be dragged down—dragged into the mud!

[HE and SHE step ashore, looking sad and shamefaced.

HE. Woe to us! What have we done?

MASTER OF Q. It is not necessary to have done anything in order to encounter life's little pricks.

SHE. So short-lived are joy and happiness!

HE. How long must we stay here?

MASTER OF Q. Forty days and nights.

SHE. Then rather into the water!

HE. To live here—among blackened hills and pig-sties?

THE POET. Love overcomes all, even sulphur fumes and carbolic acid.

MASTER OF Q. [Starts a fire in the stove; blue, sulphurous flames break forth] Now I set the sulphur going. Will you please step in?

SHE. Oh, my blue dress will fade.

MASTER OF Q. And become white. So your roses will also turn white in time.

HE. Even your cheeks—in forty days!

SHE. [To THE OFFICER] That will please you.

THE OFFICER. No, it will not!—Of course, your happiness was the cause of my suffering, but—it doesn't matter—for I am graduated and have obtained a position over there—heigh-ho and alas! And in the Fall I shall be teaching school—teaching boys the same lessons I myself learned during my childhood and youth—the same lessons throughout my manhood and, finally, in my old age—the self-same lessons! What does twice two make? How many times can four be evenly divided by two?—Until I get a pension and can do nothing at all—just wait around for meals and the newspapers—until at last I am carted to the crematorium and burned to ashes—Have you nobody here who is entitled to a pension? Barring twice two makes four, it is probably the worst thing of all—to begin school all over again when one already is graduated; to ask the same questions until death comes——

An elderly man goes by, with his hands folded behind his back.

THE OFFICER. There is a pensioner now, waiting for himself to die. I think he must be a captain who missed the rank of major; or an assistant judge who was not made a chief justice. Many are called but few are chosen—He is waiting for his breakfast now.

THE PENSIONER. No, for the newspaper—the morning paper.

THE OFFICER. And he is only fifty-four years old. He may spend twenty-five more years waiting for meals and newspapers—is it not dreadful?

THE PENSIONER. What is not dreadful? Tell me, tell me!

THE OFFICER. Tell that who can!—Now I shall have to teach boys that twice two makes four. And how many times four can be evenly divided by two. [He clutches his head in despair] And Victoria, whom I loved and therefore wished all the happiness life can give—now she has her happiness, the greatest one known to her, and for this reason I suffer—suffer, suffer!

SHE. Do you think I can be happy when I see you suffering? How can you think it? Perhaps it will soothe your pains that I am to be imprisoned here for forty days and nights? Tell me, does it soothe your pains?

THE OFFICER. Yes and no. How can I enjoy seeing you suffer? Oh!

SHE. And do you think my happiness can be founded on your torments?

THE OFFICER. We are to be pitied—all of us!

ALL. [Raise their arms toward the sky and utter a cry of anguish that sounds like a dissonant chord] Oh!

THE DAUGHTER. Everlasting One, hear them! Life is evil! Men are to be pitied!

ALL. [As before] Oh!

For a moment the stage is completely darkened, and during that moment everybody withdraws or takes up a new position. When the light is turned on again, Foulstrand is seen in the background, lying in deep shadow. The strait is in the middle distance and Fairhaven in the foreground, both steeped in light. To the right, a corner of the Casino, where dancing couples are visible through the open windows. Three servant maids are standing outside on top of an empty box, with arms around each other, staring at the dancers within. On the verandah of the Casino stands a bench, where "Plain" EDITH is sitting. She is bare-headed, with an abundance of tousled hair, and looks sad. In front of her is an open piano.

To the left, a frame house painted yellow. Two children in light dresses are playing ball outside.

In the centre of the middle distance, a pier with white sailboats tied to it, and flag poles with hoisted flags. In the strait is anchored a naval vessel, brig-rigged, with gun ports. But the entire landscape is in winter dress, with snow on the ground and on the bare trees.

THE DAUGHTER and THE OFFICER enter.

THE DAUGHTER. Here is peace, and happiness, and leisure. No more toil; every day a holiday; everybody dressed up in their best; dancing and music in the early morning. [To the maids] Why don't you go in and have a dance, girls?

THE MAIDS. We?

THE OFFICER. They are servants, don't you see!

THE DAUGHTER. Of course!—But why is Edith sitting there instead of dancing?

[EDITH buries her face in her hands.

THE OFFICER. Don't question her! She has been sitting there three hours without being asked for a dance.

[Goes into the yellow house on the left.

THE DAUGHTER. What a cruel form of amusement!

THE MOTHER. [In a low-necked dress, enters from the Casino and goes up to EDITH] Why don't you go in as I told you?

EDITH. Because—I cannot throw myself at them. That I am ugly, I know, and I know that nobody wants to dance with me, but I might be spared from being reminded of it.

Begins to play on the piano, the Toccata Con Fuga, Op. 10, by Sebastian Bach.

The waltz music from within is heard faintly at first. Then it grows in strength, as if to compete with the Bach Toccata. EDITH prevails over it and brings it to silence. Dancers appear in the doorway to hear her play. Everybody on the stage stands still and listens reverently.

A NAVAL OFFICER. [Takes ALICE, one of the dancers, around the waist and drags her toward the pier] Come quick!

EDITH breaks off abruptly, rises and stares at the couple with an expression of utter despair; stands as if turned to stone.

Now the front wall of the yellow house disappears, revealing three benches full of schoolboys. Among these THE OFFICER is seen, looking worried and depressed. In front of the boys stands THE TEACHER, bespectacled and holding a piece of chalk in one hand, a rattan cane in the other.

THE TEACHER. [To THE OFFICER] Well, my boy, can you tell me what twice two makes?

THE OFFICER remains seated while he racks his mind without finding an answer.

THE TEACHER. You must rise when I ask you a question.

THE OFFICER. [Harassed, rises] Two—twice—let me see. That makes two-two.

THE TEACHER. I see! You have not studied your lesson.

THE OFFICER. [Ashamed] Yes, I have, but—I know the answer, but I cannot tell it——

THE TEACHER. You want to wriggle out of it, of course. You know it, but you cannot tell. Perhaps I may help you.

[Pulls his hair.

THE OFFICER. Oh, it is dreadful, it is dreadful!

THE TEACHER. Yes, it is dreadful that such a big boy lacks all ambition——

THE OFFICER. [Hurt] Big boy—yes, I am big—bigger than all these others—I am full-grown, I am done with school—[As if waking up] I have graduated—why am I then sitting here? Have I not received my doctor's degree?

THE TEACHER. Certainly, but you are to sit here and mature, you know. You have to mature—isn't that so?

THE OFFICER. [Feels his forehead] Yes, that is right, one must mature—Twice two—makes two—and this I can demonstrate by analogy, which is the highest form of all reasoning. Listen!—Once one makes one; consequently twice two must make two. For what applies in one case must also apply in another.

THE TEACHER. Your conclusion is based on good logic, but your answer is wrong.

THE OFFICER. What is logical cannot be wrong. Let us test it. One divided by one gives one, so that two divided by two must give two.

THE TEACHER. Correct according to analogy. But how much does once three make?

THE OFFICER. Three, of course.

THE TEACHER. Consequently twice three must also make three.

THE OFFICER. [Pondering] No, that cannot be right—it cannot—or else—[Sits down dejectedly] No, I am not mature yet.

THE TEACHER. No, indeed, you are far from mature.

THE OFFICER. But how long am I to sit here, then?

THE TEACHER. Here—how long? Do you believe that time and space exist?—Suppose that time does exist, then you should be able to say what time is. What is time?

THE OFFICER. Time—[Thinks] I cannot tell, but I know what it is. Consequently I may also know what twice two is without being able to tell it. And, teacher, can you tell what time is?

THE TEACHER. Of course I can.

ALL THE BOYS. Tell us then!

THE TEACHER. Time—let me see. [Stands immovable until one finger on his nose] While we are talking, time flies. Consequently time is something that flies while we talk.

A BOY. [Rising] Now you are talking, teacher, and while you are talking, I fly: consequently I am time. [Runs out.

THE TEACHER. That accords completely with the laws of logic.

THE OFFICER. Then the laws of logic are silly, for Nils who ran away, cannot be time.

THE TEACHER. That is also good logic, although it is silly.

THE OFFICER. Then logic itself is silly.

THE TEACHER. So it seems. But if logic is silly, then all the world is silly—and then the devil himself wouldn't stay here to teach you more silliness. If anybody treats me to a drink, we'll go and take a bath.

THE OFFICER. That is a posterus prius, or the world turned upside down, for it is customary to bathe first and have the drink afterward. Old fogy!

THE TEACHER. Beware of a swelled head, doctor!

THE OFFICER. Call me captain, if you please. I am an officer, and I cannot understand why I should be sitting here to get scolded like a schoolboy——

THE TEACHER. [With raised index finger] We were to mature!

MASTER OF Q. [Enters] The quarantine begins.

THE OFFICER. Oh, there you are. Just think of it, this fellow makes me sit among the boys although I am graduated.

MASTER OF Q. Well, why don't you go away?

THE OFFICER. Heaven knows!—Go away? Why, that is no easy thing to do.

THE TEACHER. I guess not—just try!

THE OFFICER. [To MASTER OF QUARANTINE] Save me! Save me from his eye!

MASTER OF Q. Come on. Come and help us dance—We have to dance before the plague breaks out. We must!

THE OFFICER. Is the brig leaving?

MASTER OF Q. Yes, first of all the brig must leave—Then there will be a lot of tears shed, of course.

THE OFFICER. Always tears: when she comes and when she goes—Let us get out of here.

They go out. THE TEACHER continues his lesson in silence.

THE MAIDS that were staring through the window of the dance hall walk sadly down to the pier. EDITH, who has been standing like a statue at the piano, follows them.

THE DAUGHTER. [To THE OFFICER] Is there not one happy person to be found in this paradise?

THE OFFICER. Yes, there is a newly married couple. Just watch them.

THE NEWLY MARRIED COUPLE enter.

HUSBAND. [To his WIFE] My joy has no limits, and I could now wish to die——

WIFE. Why die?

HUSBAND. Because at the heart of happiness grows the seed of disaster. Happiness devours itself like a flame—it cannot burn for ever, but must go out some time. And this presentiment of the coming end destroys joy in the very hour of its culmination.

WIFE. Let us then die together—this moment!

HUSBAND. Die? All right! For I fear happiness—that cheat! [They go toward the water.

THE DAUGHTER. Life is evil! Men are to be pitied!

THE OFFICER. Look at this fellow. He is the most envied mortal in this neighbourhood.

THE BLIND MAN is led in.

THE OFFICER. He is the owner of these hundred or more Italian villas. He owns all these bays, straits, shores, forests, together with the fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the game in the woods. These thousand or more people are his tenants. The sun rises upon his sea and sets upon his land——

THE DAUGHTER. Well—is he complaining also?

THE OFFICER. Yes, and with right, for he cannot see.

MASTER OF Q. He is blind.

THE DAUGHTER. The most envied of all!

THE OFFICER. Now he has come to see the brig depart with his son on board.

THE BLIND MAN. I cannot see, but I hear. I hear the anchor bill claw the clay bottom as when the hook is torn out of a fish and brings up the heart with it through the neck—My son, my only child, is going to journey across the wide sea to foreign lands, and I can follow him only in my thought! Now I hear the clanking of the chain—and—there is something that snaps and cracks like clothes drying on a line—wet handkerchiefs perhaps. And I hear it blubber and snivel as when people are weeping—maybe the splashing of the wavelets among the seines—or maybe girls along the shore, deserted and disconsolate—Once I asked a child why the ocean is salt, and the child, which had a father on a long trip across the high seas, said immediately: the ocean is salt because the sailors shed so many tears into it. And why do the sailors cry so much then?—Because they are always going away, replied the child; and that is why they are always drying their handkerchiefs in the rigging—And why does man weep when he is sad? I asked at last—Because the glass in the eyes must be washed now and then, so that we can see clearly, said the child.

The brig has set sail and is gliding off. The girls along the shore are alternately waving their handkerchiefs and wiping off their tears with them. Then a signal is set on the foremast—a red ball in a white field, meaning "yes." In response to it ALICE waves her handkerchief triumphantly.

THE DAUGHTER. [To THE OFFICER] What is the meaning of that flag?

THE OFFICER. It means "yes." It is the lieutenant's troth—red as the red blood of the arteries, set against the blue cloth of the sky.

THE DAUGHTER. And how does "no" look?

THE OFFICER. It is blue as the spoiled blood in the veins—but look, how jubilant Alice is.

THE DAUGHTER. And how Edith cries.

THE BLIND MAN. Meet and part. Part and meet. That is life. I met his mother. And then she went away from me. He was left to me; and now he goes.

THE DAUGHTER. But he will come back.

THE BLIND MAN. Who is speaking to me? I have heard that voice before—in my dreams; in my youth, when vacation began; in the early years of my marriage, when my child was born. Every time life smiled at me, I heard that voice, like a whisper of the south wind, like a chord of harps from above, like what I feel the angels' greeting must be in the Holy Night——

THE LAWYER enters and goes up to whisper something into THE BLIND MAN's ear.

THE BLIND MAN. Is that so?

THE LAWYER. That's the truth. [Goes to THE DAUGHTER] Now you have seen most of it, but you have not yet tried the worst of it.

THE DAUGHTER. What can that be?

THE LAWYER. Repetition—recurrence. To retrace one's own tracks; to be sent back to the task once finished—come!

THE DAUGHTER. Where?

THE LAWYER. To your duties.

THE DAUGHTER. What does that mean?

THE LAWYER. Everything you dread. Everything you do not want but must. It means to forego, to give up, to do without, to lack—it means everything that is unpleasant, repulsive, painful.

THE DAUGHTER. Are there no pleasant duties?

THE LAWYER. They become pleasant when they are done.

THE DAUGHTER. When they have ceased to exist—Duty is then something unpleasant. What is pleasant then?

THE LAWYER. What is pleasant is sin.

THE DAUGHTER. Sin?

THE LAWYER. Yes, something that has to be punished. If I have had a pleasant day or night, then I suffer infernal pangs and a bad conscience the next day.

THE DAUGHTER. How strange!

THE LAWYER. I wake up in the morning with a headache; and then the repetitions begin, but so that everything becomes perverted. What the night before was pretty, agreeable, witty, is presented by memory in the morning as ugly, distasteful, stupid. Pleasure seems to decay, and all joy goes to pieces. What men call success serves always as a basis for their next failure. My own successes have brought ruin upon me. For men view the fortune of others with an instinctive dread. They regard it unjust that fate should favour any one man, and so they try to restore balance by piling rocks on the road. To have talent is to be in danger of one's life, for then one may easily starve to death!—However, you will have to return to your duties, or I shall bring suit against you, and we shall pass through every court up to the highest—one, two, three!

THE DAUGHTER. Return?—To the iron stove, and the cabbage pot, and the baby clothes——

THE LAWYER. Exactly! We have a big wash to-day, for we must wash all the handkerchiefs——

THE DAUGHTER. Oh, must I do it all over again?

THE LAWYER. All life is nothing but doing things over again. Look at the teacher in there—He received his doctor's degree yesterday, was laurelled and saluted, climbed Parnassus and was embraced by the monarch—and to-day he starts school all over again, asks how much twice two makes, and will continue to do so until his death—However, you must come back to your home!

THE DAUGHTER. I shall rather die!

THE LAWYER. Die?—That is not allowed. First of all, it is a disgrace—so much so that even the dead body is subjected to insults; and secondly, one goes to hell—it is a mortal sin!

THE DAUGHTER. It is not easy to be human!

ALL. Hear!

THE DAUGHTER. I shall not go back with you to humiliation and dirt—I am longing for the heights whence I came—but first the door must be opened so that I may learn the secret—It is my will that the door be opened!

THE LAWYER. Then you must retrace your own steps, cover the road you have already travelled, suffer all annoyances, repetitions, tautologies, recopyings, that a suit will bring with it——

THE DAUGHTER. May it come then—But first I must go into the solitude and the wilderness to recover my own self. We shall meet again! [To THE POET] Follow me.

Cries of anguish are heard from a distance. Woe! Woe! Woe!

THE DAUGHTER. What is that?

THE LAWYER. The lost souls at Foulstrand.

THE DAUGHTER. Why do they wail more loudly than usual to-day?

THE LAWYER. Because the sun is shining here; because here we have music, dancing, youth. And it makes them feel their own sufferings more keenly.

THE DAUGHTER. We must set them free.

THE LAWYER. Try it! Once a liberator appeared, and he was nailed to a cross.

THE DAUGHTER. By whom?

THE LAWYER. By all the right-minded.

THE DAUGHTER. Who are they?

THE LAWYER. Are you not acquainted with all the right-minded? Then you must learn to know them.

THE DAUGHTER. Were they the ones that prevented your graduation?

THE LAWYER. Yes.

THE DAUGHTER. Then I know them!