Curtain

On the shores of the Mediterranean. To the left, in the foreground, a white wall, and above it branches of an orange tree with ripe fruit on them. In the background, villas and a Casino placed on a terrace. To the right, a huge pile of coal and two wheel-barrows. In the background, to the right, a corner of blue sea.

Two coalheavers, naked to the waist, their faces, hands, and bodies blackened by coal dust, are seated on the wheel-barrows. Their expressions show intense despair.

THE DAUGHTER and THE LAWYER in the background.

THE DAUGHTER. This is paradise!

FIRST COALHEAVER. This is hell!

SECOND COALHEAVER. One hundred and twenty degrees in the shadow.

FIRST HEAVER. Let's have a bath.

SECOND HEAVER. The police won't let us. No bathing here.

FIRST HEAVER. Couldn't we pick some fruit off that tree?

SECOND HEAVER. Then the police would get after us.

FIRST HEAVER. But I cannot do a thing in this heat—I'll just chuck the job——

SECOND HEAVER. Then the police will get you for sure!— [Pause] And you wouldn't have anything to eat anyhow.

FIRST HEAVER. Nothing to eat? We, who work hardest, get least food; and the rich, who do nothing, get most. Might one not—without disregard of truth—assert that this is injustice —What has the daughter of the gods to say about it?

THE DAUGHTER. I can say nothing at all—But tell me, what have you done that makes you so black and your lot so hard?

FIRST HEAVER. What have we done? We have been born of poor and perhaps not very good parents—Maybe we have been punished a couple of times.

THE DAUGHTER. Punished?

FIRST HEAVER. Yes, the unpunished hang out in the Casino up there and dine on eight courses with wine.

THE DAUGHTER. [To THE LAWYER] Can that be true?

THE LAWYER. On the whole, yes.

THE DAUGHTER. You mean to say that every man at some time has deserved to go to prison?

THE LAWYER. Yes.

THE DAUGHTER. You, too?

THE LAWYER. Yes.

THE DAUGHTER. Is it true that the poor cannot bathe in the sea?

THE LAWYER. Yes. Not even with their clothes on. None but those who intend to take their own lives escape being fined. And those are said to get a good drubbing at the police station.

THE DAUGHTER. But can they not go outside of the city, out into the country, and bathe there?

THE LAWYER. There is no place for them—all the land is fenced in.

THE DAUGHTER. But I mean in the free, open country.

THE LAWYER. There is no such thing—it all belongs to somebody.

THE DAUGHTER. Even the sea, the great, vast sea——

THE LAWYER. Even that! You cannot sail the sea in a boat and land anywhere without having it put down in writing and charged for. It is lovely!

THE DAUGHTER. This is not paradise.

THE LAWYER. I should say not!

THE DAUGHTER. Why don't men do something to improve their lot?

THE LAWYER. Oh, they try, of course, but all the improvers end in prison or in the madhouse——

THE DAUGHTER. Who puts them in prison?

THE LAWYER. All the right-minded, all the respectable——

THE DAUGHTER. Who sends them to the madhouse?

THE LAWYER. Their own despair when they grasp the hopelessness of their efforts.

THE DAUGHTER. Has the thought not occurred to anybody, that for secret reasons it must be as it is?

THE LAWYER. Yes, those who are well off always think so.

THE DAUGHTER. That it is all right as it is?

FIRST HEAVER. And yet we are the foundations of society. If the coal is not unloaded, then there will be no fire in the kitchen stove, in the parlour grate, or in the factory furnace; then the light will go out in streets and shops and homes; then darkness and cold will descend upon you—and, therefore, we have to sweat as in hell so that the black coals may be had—And what do you do for us in return?

THE LAWYER. [To THE DAUGHTER] Help them!—[Pause] That conditions cannot be quite the same for everybody, I understand, but why should they differ so widely?

A GENTLEMAN and A LADY pass across the stage.

THE LADY. Will you come and play a game with us?

THE GENTLEMAN. No, I must take a walk, so I can eat something for dinner.

FIRST HEAVER. So that he can eat something?

SECOND HEAVER. So that he can——?

Children enter and cry with horror when they catch sight of the grimy workers.

FIRST HEAVER. They cry when they see us. They cry——

SECOND HEAVER. Damn it all!—I guess we'll have to pull out the scaffolds soon and begin to operate on this rotten body——

FIRST HEAVER. Damn it, I say, too! [Spits.

THE LAWYER. [To THE DAUGHTER] Yes, it is all wrong. And men are not so very bad—but——

THE DAUGHTER. But——

THE LAWYER. But the government——

THE DAUGHTER. [Goes out, hiding her face in her hands] This is not paradise.

COALHEAVERS. No, hell, that's what it is!