All my life I have lived in this huge town, whose domes and spires are wrapped in a cloud of stink that hides the sun. The slug-dank tatters of lung that I spit out are black with the soot I have been breathing all these years. I am now come of age. Long-expected one-and-twenty has made me a fully privileged citizen of this great realm of which the owners of the Daily Mirror, the News of the World and the Daily Express are noble peers. Somewhere, I must logically infer, there must be other cities, built by men for men to live in. Somewhere, in the past, in the future, a very long way off . . . But perhaps the only street improvement schemes that ever really improve the streets are schemes in the minds of those who live in them: schemes of love mostly. Ah! here she comes.
[The YOUNG LADY enters. She stands outside the window, in the street, paying no attention to the MONSTER; she seems to be waiting for somebody.]
She is like a pear tree in flower. When she smiles, it is as though there were stars. Her hair is like the harvest in an eclogue, her cheeks are all the fruits of summer. Her arms and thighs are as beautiful as the soul of St Catherine of Siena. And her eyes, her eyes are plumbless with thought and limpidly pure like the water of the mountains.
THE YOUNG LADY: If I wait till the summer sale, the crêpe de Chine will be reduced by at least two shillings a yard, and on six camisoles that will mean a lot of money. But the question is: can I go from May till the end of July with the under-clothing I have now?
THE MONSTER: If I knew her, I should know the universe!
THE YOUNG LADY: My present ones are so dreadfully middleclass. And if Roger should . . . by any chance . . .
THE MONSTER: Or, rather, I should be able to ignore it, having a private universe of my own.
THE YOUNG LADY: If – if he did – well, it might be rather humiliating with these I have . . . like a servant’s almost . . .
THE MONSTER: Love makes you accept the world; it puts an end to criticism.
THE YOUNG LADY: His hand already . . .
THE MONSTER: Dare I, dare I tell her how beautiful she is?
THE YOUNG LADY: On the whole, I think I’d better get it now, though it will cost more.
THE MONSTER [desperately advancing to the window as though to assault a battery]: Beautiful! beautiful!
THE YOUNG LADY [looking at him]: Ha, ha, ha!
THE MONSTER: But I love you, flowering pear tree; I love you, golden harvest; I love you, fruitage of summer; I love you, body and limbs, with the shape of a saint’s thought.
THE YOUNG LADY [redoubles her laughter]: Ha, ha, ha!
THE MONSTER [taking her hand]: You cannot be cruel! [He is seized with a violent paroxysm of coughing which doubles him up, which shakes and torments him. The handkerchief he holds to his mouth is spotted with blood.]
THE YOUNG LADY: You disgust me! [She draws away her skirts so that they shall not come in contact with him.]
THE MONSTER: But I swear to you, I love – I – [He is once more interrupted by his cough.]
THE YOUNG LADY: Please go away. [In a different voice.] Ah, Roger! [She advances to meet a snub-nosed lubber with curly hair and a face like a groom’s, who passes along the street at this moment.]
ROGER: I’ve got the motor-bike waiting at the corner.
THE YOUNG LADY: Let’s go, then.
ROGER [pointing to the MONSTER]: What’s that?
THE YOUNG LADY: Oh, it’s nothing in particular.
[Both roar with laughter. ROGER escorts her out, patting her familiarly on the back as they walk along.]
THE MONSTER [looking after her]: There is a wound under my left pap. She has deflowered all women. I cannot . . .
‘Lord!’ whispered Mrs Viveash, ‘how this young man bores me!’
‘I confess,’ replied Gumbril, ‘I have rather a taste for moralities. There is a pleasant uplifting vagueness about these symbolical generalized figures which pleases me.’
‘You were always charmingly simple-minded,’ said Mrs Viveash. ‘But who’s this? As long as the young man isn’t left alone on the stage, I don’t mind.’
Another female figure has appeared in the street beyond the window. It is the Prostitute. Her face, painted in two tones of red, white, green, blue and black, is the most tasteful of nature-mortes.
THE PROSTITUTE: Hullo, duckie!
THE MONSTER: Hullo!
THE PROSTITUTE: Are you lonely?
THE MONSTER: Yes.
THE PROSTITUTE: Would you like me to come in to see you?
THE MONSTER: Very well.
THE PROSTITUTE: Shall we say thirty bob?
THE MONSTER: As you like.
THE PROSTITUTE: Come along then.
[She climbs through the window and they go off together through the door on the left of the stage. The curtains descend for a moment, then rise again. The MONSTER and the PROSTITUTE are seen issuing from the door at which they went out.]
THE MONSTER [taking out a cheque-book and a fountain-pen]: Thirty shillings . . .
THE PROSTITUTE: Thank you. Not a cheque. I don’t want any cheques. How do I know it isn’t a dud one that they’ll refuse payment for at the bank? Ready money for me, thanks.
THE MONSTER: But I haven’t got any cash on me at the moment.
THE PROSTITUTE: Well, I won’t take a cheque. Once bitten, twice shy, I can tell you.
THE MONSTER: But I tell you I haven’t got any cash.
THE PROSTITUTE: Well, all I can say is, here I stay till I get it. And, what’s more, if I don’t get it quick, I’ll make a row.
THE MONSTER: But this is absurd. I offer you a perfectly good cheque . . .
THE PROSTITUTE: And I won’t take it. So there!
THE MONSTER: Well then, take my watch. It’s worth more than thirty bob. [He pulls out his gold half-hunter.]
THE PROSTITUTE: Thank you, and get myself arrested as soon I take it to the pop-shop! No, I want cash, I tell you.
THE MONSTER: But where the devil do you expect me to get it at this time of night?
THE PROSTITUTE: I don’t know. But you’ve got to get it pretty quick.
THE MONSTER: You’re unreasonable.
THE PROSTITUTE: Aren’t there any servants in this house?
THE MONSTER: Yes.
THE PROSTITUTE: Well, go and borrow it from one of them.
THE MONSTER: But really, that would be too low, too humiliating.
THE PROSTITUTE: All right, I’ll begin kicking up a noise. I’ll go to the window and yell till all the neighbours are woken up and the police come to see what’s up. You can borrow it from the copper then.
THE MONSTER: You really won’t take my cheque? I swear to you it’s perfectly all right. There’s plenty of money to meet it.
THE PROSTITUTE: Oh, shut up! No more dilly-dallying. Get me my money at once, or I’ll start the row. One, two, three . . . [She opens her mouth wide as if to yell.]
THE MONSTER: All right. [He goes out.]
THE PROSTITUTE: Nice state of things we’re coming to, when young rips try and swindle us poor girls out of our money! Mean, stinking skunks! I’d like to slit the throats of some of them.
THE MONSTER [coming back again]: Here you are. [He hands her money.]
THE PROSTITUTE [examining it]: Thank you, dearie. Any other time you’re lonely . . .
THE MONSTER: No, no!
THE PROSTITUTE: Where did you get it finally?
THE MONSTER: I woke the cook.
THE PROSTITUTE [goes off into a peal of laughter]: Well, so long, duckie. [She goes out.]
THE MONSTER [solus]: Somewhere there must be love like music. Love harmonious and ordered: two spirits, two bodies moving contrapuntally together. Somewhere, the stupid brutish act must be made to make sense, must be enriched, must be made significant. Lust, like Diabelli’s waltz, a stupid air, turned by a genius into three-and-thirty fabulous variations. Somewhere . . .
‘Oh dear!’ sighed Mrs Viveash.
‘Charming!’ Gumbril protested.
. . . love like sheets of silky flame; like landscapes brilliant in the sunlight against a background of purple thunder; like the solution of a cosmic problem; like faith . . .
‘Crikey!’ said Mrs Viveash.
. . . Somewhere, somewhere. But in my veins creep the maggots of the pox . . .
‘Really, really!’ Mrs Viveash shook her head. ‘Too medical!’
. . . crawling towards the brain, crawling into the mouth, burrowing into the bones. Insatiably.
The Monster threw himself to the ground, and the curtain came down.
‘And about time too!’ declared Mrs Viveash.
‘Charming!’ Gumbril stuck to his guns. ‘Charming! charming!’
There was a disturbance near the door. Mrs Viveash looked round to see what was happening. ‘And now on top of it all,’ she said, ‘here comes Coleman, raving, with an unknown drunk.’
‘Have we missed it?’ Coleman was shouting. ‘Have we missed all the lovely bloody farce?’
‘Lovely bloody!’ his companion repeated with drunken raptures, and he went into fits of uncontrollable laughter. He was a very young boy with straight dark hair and a face of Hellenic beauty, now distorted with tipsiness.
Coleman greeted his acquaintances in the hall, shouting a jovial obscenity to each. ‘And Bumbril-Gumbril,’ he exclaimed, catching sight of him at last in the front row. ‘And Hetaira-Myra!’ He pushed his way through the crowd, followed unsteadily by his young disciple. ‘So you’re here,’ he said, standing over them and looking down with an enigmatic malice in his bright blue
