ALBERTO. Stop, stop. Respect my feelings, Waiter, as well as the ears of the young lady (he points towards the glass doors). Remember she is an American. (The Waiter, bows and goes into the hotel.)
SIDNEY DOLPHIN and MISS AMY TOOMIS
come out together on to the terrace. MISS AMY supports a well-shaped head on one of the most graceful necks that ever issued from Minneapolis. The eyes are dark, limpid, ingenuous; the mouth expresses sensibility. She is twenty-two and the heiress of those ill-gotten Toomis millions. SIDNEY DOLPHIN has a romantic aristocratic appearance. The tailoring of 1830 would suit him. Balzac would have described his face as plein de poésie. In effect he does happen to be a poet. His two volumes of verse, «Zeotrope and ‘Trembling Ears,» have been recognised by intelligent critics as remarkable. How far they are poetry nobody, least of all Dolphin himself, is certain. They may be merely the ingenious products of a very cultured and elaborate brain. Mere curiosities; who knows? His age is twenty-seven. They sit down at one of the little iron tables, ALBERTO they do not see; the shadow of the trees conceals him. For his part, he is too much absorbed in savouring his own despair to pay any attention to the newcomers. There is a long, uncomfortable silence. DOLPHIN assumes the Thinker’s mask—the bent brow, the frown, the finger to the forehead, AMY regards this romantic gargoyle with some astonishment. Pleased with her interest in him, DOLPHIN racks his brains to think of some way of exploiting this curiosity to his own advantage; but he is too shy to play any of the gambits which his ingenuity suggests. AMY makes a social effort and speaks, in chanting Middle Western tones. AMY. It’s been a wonderful day, hasn’t it?
DOLPHIN (starting, as though roused from profoundest thought). Yes, yes, it has.
AMY. You don’t often get it as fine as this in England, I guess.
DOLPHIN. Not often.
AMY. Nor do we over at home.
DOLPHIN. So I should suppose. (Silence. A spasm of anguish crosses DOLPHIN’S face; then he reassumes the old Thinker’s mask. AMY looks at him for a little longer, then, unable to suppress her growing curiosity, she says with a sudden burst of childish confidence:)
AMY. It must be wonderful to be able to think as hard as you do, Mr. Dolphin. Or are you sad about something?
DOLPHIN (looks up, smiles, and blushes; a spell has been broken). The finger at the temple, Miss Toomis, is not the barrel of a revolver.
AMY. That means you’re not specially sad about anything. Just thinking.
DOLPHIN. Just thinking.
AMY. What about?
DOLPHIN. Oh, just life, you know—life and letters.
AMY. Letters? Do you mean love letters.
DOLPHIN. No, no. Letters in the sense of literature; letters as opposed to life.
AMY. (disappointed). Oh, literature. They used to teach us literature at school. But I could never understand Emerson. What do you think about literature for?
DOLPHIN. It interests me, you know. I read it; I even try to write it.
AMY (very much excited). What, are you a writer, a poet, Mr. Dolphin?
DOLPHIN. Alas, it is only too true; I am.
AMY. But what do you write?
DOLPHIN. Verse and prose, Miss Toomis. Just verse and prose.
AMY (with enthusiasm). Isn’t that interesting. I’ve never met a poet before, you know.
DOLPHIN. Fortunate being. Why, before I left England I attended a luncheon of the Poetry Union at which no less than a hundred and eighty-nine poets were present. The sight of them made me decide to go to Italy.
AMY. Will you show me your books?
DOLPHIN. Certainly not, Miss Toomis. That would ruin our friendship. I am insufferable in my writings. In them I give vent to all the horrible thoughts and impulses which I am too timid to express or put into practice in real life. Take me as you find me here, a decent specimen of a man, shy but able to talk intelligently when the layers of ice are broken, aimless, ineffective, but on the whole quite a good sort.
AMY. But I know that man already, Mr. Dolphin. I want to know the poet. Tell me what the poet is like.
DOLPHIN. He is older, Miss Toomis, than the rocks on which he sits. He is villainous. He is … but there, I really must stop. It was you who set me going, though. Did you do it on purpose.
AMY. Do what on purpose?
DOLPHIN. Make me talk about myself. If you want to get people to like you, you must always lead the conversation on to the subject of their characters. Nothing pleases them so much. They’ll talk with enthusiasm for hours and go away saying that you’re the most charming, cleverest person they’ve ever met. But of course you knew that already. You re Machiavellian.
AMY. Machiavellian? You’re the first person that’s ever said that. I always thought I was very simple and straight-forward. People say about me that…. Ah, now I’m talking about myself. That was unscrupulous of you. But you shouldn’t have told me about the trick if you wanted it to succeed.
DOLPHIN. Yes. It was silly of me. If I hadn’t, you’d have gone on talking about yourself and thought me the nicest man in the world.
AMY. I want to hear about your poetry. Are you writing any now?
DOLPHIN. I have composed the first line of a magnificent epic. But I can’t get any further.
AMY. How does it go?
DOLPHIN. Like this (he clears his throat). «Casbeen has been, and Moghreb is no more.» Ah, the transience of all sublunary things! But inspiration has stopped short there.
AMY. What exactly does it mean?
DOLPHIN. Ah, there you re asking too much, Miss Toomis. Waiter, some coffee for two.
WAITER (who is standing in the door of the lounge). Si, Signore. Will the lady and gentleman take it here, or in the gardens, perhaps?
DOLPHIN. A good suggestion. Why shouldn’t the lady and gentleman take it in the garden?
AMY. Why not?
DOLPHIN. By the fountain, then, Waiter. We can talk about ourselves there to the tune of falling waters.
AMY. And you shall recite your poetry, Mr. Dolphin. I just love poetry. Do you know Mrs. Wilcox’s Poems of Passion? (They go out to the left. A nightingale utters two or three phrases of song and from far down the bells of the city jangle the three-quarters and die slowly away into the silence out of which they rose and came together.)
(LUCREZIA GRATTAROL has come out of the hotel just in time to overhear Miss Toomis’s last remark, just in time to see her walk slowly away with a hand on SIDNEY DOLPHIN’s arm. LUCREZIA has a fine thoroughbred appearance, an aquiline nose, a finely curved sensual mouth, a superb white brow, a quivering nostril. She is the last of a family whose name is as illustrious in Venetian annals as that of Foscarini, Tiepolo, or Tron. She stamps a preposterously high-heeled foot and tosses her head.)
LUCREZIA. Passion! Passion, indeed. An American! (She starts to run after the retreating couple, when ALBERTO, who has been sitting with his head between his hands, looks up and catches sight of the newcomer.)
ALBERTO. Lucrezia!
LUCREZIA (starts, for in the shade beneath the trees she had not seen him). Oh! You gave me such a fright, Alberto. I’m in a hurry now. Later on, if you….
ALBERTO (in a desperate voice that breaks into a sob). Lucrezia! You must come and talk to me. You must.
LUCREZIA. But I tell you I can’t now, Alberto. Later on.
ALBERTO (the tears streaming down his cheeks). Now, now, now! You must come now. I am lost if you don’t.
LUCREZIA (looking indecisively first at ALBERTO and then along the path down which AMY and SIDNEY DOLPHIN have disappeared). But supposing I am lost if I do come?
ALBERTO. But you couldn’t be as much lost as I am. Ah, you don’t know what it is to suffer. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt weiss wass ich leide. Oh, Lucrezia…. (He sobs unrestrainedly.)
LUCREZIA (goes over to where ALBERTO is sitting. She pats his shoulder and his bowed head of black curly hair). There, there, my little Bertino. Tell me what it is. You mustn’t cry. There, there.
ALBERTO (drying his eyes and rubbing his head, like a cat, avid of caresses, against her hand). How can I thank you enough, Lucrezia? You are like a mother to me.
LUCREZIA. I know. That’s just what’s so dangerous.
ALBERTO (lets his head fall upon her bosom). I come to you for comfort, like a tired child, Lucrezia.
LUCREZIA. Poor darling! (She strokes his hair, twines its thick black tendrils round her fingers, ALBERTO is abjectly pathetic.)
ALBERTO (with closed eyes and a seraphic smile). Ah, the suavity, the beauty of this maternal instinct!
LUCREZIA (with a sudden access of energy and passion). The disgustingness of it, you mean. (She pushes him from her. His head wobbles once, as though it were inanimate, before he straightens into life.) The maternal instinct. Ugh. It’s been the undoing of too many women. You men come with your sentimental babyishness and exploit it for your own lusts. Be a man, Bertino. Be a woman, I mean, if you can.
ALBERTO (looking up at her with eyes full of doglike, dumb reproach). Lucrezia! You, too? Is there nobody who cares for me? This is the unkindest cut of all. I may as well die. (He relapses into tears.)
LUCREZIA (who has started to go, turns back, irresolute). Now, don’t
