JAN: Oh, by some details.
MARTHA: Anyhow, many of our guests grumble because there isn’t running water, and I can hardly blame them. Also, there should be a lamp above the bed; for some time we’ve been meaning to have one installed. It must be rather a nuisance for people who’re used to reading in bed to have to get up to switch the light off.
JAN [turning toward her]: That’s so. I hadn’t noticed. Still it’s not a very serious drawback.
MARTHA: It’s kind of you to take it like that. I am glad the defects of our hotel don’t trouble you; in fact you seem to notice them less than we do. I’ve known people whom they’d have been enough to drive away.
JAN: I hope you’ll let me make a remark that goes beyond our pact—and say that you’re a very surprising person. One certainly doesn’t expect hotelkeepers to go out of their way to point out defects in the accommodation. Really it almost looks as if you wanted to make me leave.
MARTHA: That wasn’t quite what I had in mind. [Coming to a sudden decision.] But it’s a fact that mother and I are rather reluctant to have you here.
JAN: I must say I noticed that you weren’t doing much to keep me. Still, I can’t imagine why. You have no reason to doubt my solvency, and I hardly think I give the impression of someone with a crime on his conscience.
MARTHA: Certainly not. If you must know, not only don’t you look in the least like a criminal, but you produce the opposite effect—of complete innocence. Our reasons were quite different from what you think. We intend to leave this hotel shortly and we’ve been meaning every day to close down, so as to start preparing for the move. That had no difficulties, as we get so few visitors. But we could never quite make up our minds. It’s your coming that has made us realize how thoroughly we’d abandoned any idea of going on with the business.
JAN: Am I to understand you definitely want to see me go?
MARTHA: As I said, we can’t decide; I, especially, can’t decide. Actually everything depends on me and I haven’t made up my mind yet, one way or the other.
JAN: Please remember this; I don’t want to be a burden on you and I shall behave exactly as you wish. However, I’d like to say that it will suit me if I can stay here for one or two days. I have some problems to thrash out before moving on, and I counted on finding here the peace and quietness I need.
MARTHA: I quite understand your desire, I assure you, and, if you like, I’ll reconsider the matter. [A short silence. She takes some steps hesitantly toward the door.] Am I right in thinking you’ll go back to the country from which you’ve come?
JAN: Yes—if necessary.
MARTHA: It’s a pretty country, isn’t it?
JAN [looking out of the window]: Yes, a very pretty country.
MARTHA: Is it true that there are long stretches of the coast where you never meet a soul?
JAN: Quire true. There’s nothing to remind you that men exist. Sometimes at dawn you find the traces of birds’ feet on the sand. Those are the only signs of life. And in the evenings …
MARTHA [softly]: Yes? What are the evenings like?
JAN: Marvelous, indescribable! Yes, it’s a lovely country.
MARTHA [in a tone she has not used before]: I’ve thought of it, often and often. Travelers have told me things, and I’ve read what I could. And often, in the harsh, bleak spring we have here, I dream of the sea and the flowers over there. [After a short silence, in a low, pensive voice] And what I picture makes me blind to everything around me.
[After gazing at her thoughtfully for some moments, JAN sits down facing her.]
JAN: I can understand that. Spring over there grips you by the throat and flowers burst into bloom by thousands, above the white walls. If you roamed the hills that overlook my town for only an hour or so, you’d bring back in your clothes a sweet, honeyed smell of yellow roses.
[MARTHA, too, sits down.]
MARTHA: How wonderful that must be! What we call spring here is one rose and a couple of buds struggling to keep alive in the monastery garden. [Scornfully] And that’s enough to stir the hearts of the men in this part of the world. Their hearts are as stingy as that rose tree. A breath of richer air would wilt them; they have the springtime they deserve.
JAN: You’re not quite fair; you have the autumn, too.
MARTHA: What’s the autumn?
JAN: A second spring when every leaf’s a flower. [He looks at her keenly.] Perhaps it’s the same thing with some hearts; perhaps they’d blossom if you helped them with your patience.
MARTHA: I’ve no patience for this dreary Europe, where autumn has the face of spring and the spring smells of poverty. No, I prefer to picture those other lands over which summer breaks in flame, where the winter rains flood the cities, and where … things are what they are. [A short silence. JAN gazes at her with growing interest. She notices this and rises abruptly from the chair.] Why are you looking at me like that?
JAN: Sorry. But since we seem to have dropped our convention for the present, I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you. It strikes me that, for the first time, you’ve been talking to me with—shall I say?—some human feeling.
MARTHA [violently]: Don’t be too sure of that. And even if I have been, you’ve no cause for rejoicing. What you call human feeling is not the nicest part of me. What is human in me is what I desire, and to get what I desire, I’d stick at nothing, I’d sweep away every obstacle on my path.
JAN: I can understand that sort of violence. And I have no cause to let it frighten me, as I’m not an obstacle on your path, and I’ve no motive for opposing your desires.
MARTHA: Certainly you have no reason to oppose them. But it’s equally true you have no reason for furthering them, and, in some cases, that might bring things to a head.
JAN: Why be so sure I have no reason for furthering them?
MARTHA: Common sense tells me that; also my wish to keep you outside my plans.
JAN: Ah! That means, I take it, that we’ve returned to our conventions?
MARTHA: Yes, and we did wrong to depart from them—you can see that for yourself. Now it remains for me to thank you for having spoken of that country where you lived, and I must excuse myself for having, perhaps, wasted your time. [She is on her way to the door.] Still, let me tell you, the time was not wholly wasted. Our talk roused desires in me that were beginning to fall asleep. If you’re really bent on staying here you’ve won your case without knowing it. When I entered this room I had almost decided to ask you to leave, but, as you see, you’ve played on my human feelings; now I hope you’ll stay. And so my longing for the sea and sunshine will be the gainer by it.
[He gazes at her without speaking for a moment.]
JAN [thoughtfully]: You have a very strange way of talking. Still, if I may, and if your mother, too, has no objection, I’ll stay on.
MARTHA: My mother’s desires are weaker than mine; that’s only natural. She doesn’t think enough about the sea and those lonely beaches to make her realize you have got to stay. So she hasn’t the same motives for wanting to keep you. But, at the same time, she hasn’t any really strong motive for opposing me; and that will settle it.
JAN: So, if I’ve not misunderstood, one of you will let me stay for the sake of money, and the other through indifference.
MARTHA: What more can a traveler expect? But there’s truth in what you said.
[She opens the door.]
JAN: Well, I suppose I should be glad of that. Still perhaps you’ll let me say that everything here strikes me as very strange; the people and their way of speaking. Really this is a queer house.
MARTHA: Perhaps that’s only because you are behaving queerly in it.
[She goes out.]
JAN [looking toward the door]: Maybe she’s right. I wonder, though. [Goes to the bed and sits down.] Really the one wish that girl has given me is the wish to leave at once, to return to Maria and our happiness together. I’ve been behaving stupidly. What business have I to be here?… No, I have a reason, a good reason; I owe a duty to my mother and sister. I’ve neglected them too long. It’s up to me to do something for them, to atone for my neglect. It’s not enough in such cases to declare oneself: “It’s I.” One has to make oneself loved, as well. [He rises.] Yes, this is the room in which all will be decided. A wretchedly cold room, by the way. I can’t recognize anything in it. Everything’s been changed, and now it might be a bedroom in any one of those commercial hotels where men by themselves stay a night in passing. I’ve had experience of them, and I always used to think there was something they had to say—something like an answer or a message. Perhaps I shall get the answer here, tonight. [He looks out of the window.] Clouding up, I see. It’s always like this in a hotel bedroom; the
