BERTHA.
Please, Robert…
ROBERT.
Listening to music and in the arms of the woman I love—the sea, music and death.
BERTHA.
[Looks at him for a moment.] The woman you love?
ROBERT.
[Hurriedly.] I want to speak to you, Bertha—alone—not here. Will you come?
BERTHA.
[With downcast eyes.] I too want to speak to you.
ROBERT.
[Tenderly.] Yes, dear, I know. [He kisses her again.] I will speak to you; tell you all; then. I will kiss you, then, long long kisses—when you come to me—long long sweet kisses.
BERTHA.
Where?
ROBERT.
[In the tone of passion.] Your eyes. Your lips. All your divine body.
BERTHA.
[Repelling his embrace, confused.] I meant where do you wish me to come.
ROBERT.
To my house. Not my mother’s over there. I will write the address for you. Will you come?
BERTHA.
When?
ROBERT.
Tonight. Between eight and nine. Come. I will wait for you tonight. And every night. You will?
[He kisses her with passion, holding her head between his hands. After a few instants she breaks from him. He sits down.]
BERTHA.
[Listening.] The gate opened.
ROBERT.
[Intensely.] I will wait for you.
[He takes the slip from the table. Bertha moves away from him slowly. Richard comes in from the garden.]
RICHARD.
[Advancing, takes off his hat.] Good afternoon.
ROBERT.
[Rises, with nervous friendliness.] Good afternoon, Richard.
BERTHA.
[At the table, taking the roses.] Look what lovely roses Mr Hand brought me.
ROBERT.
I am afraid they are overblown.
RICHARD.
[Suddenly.] Excuse me for a moment, will you?
[He turns and goes into his study quickly. Robert takes a pencil from his pocket and writes a few words on the slip; then hands it quickly to Bertha.]
ROBERT.
[Rapidly.] The address. Take the tram at Lansdowne Road and ask to be let down near there.
BERTHA.
[Takes it.] I promise nothing.
ROBERT.
I will wait.
[Richard comes back from the study.]
BERTHA.
[Going.] I must put these roses in water.
RICHARD.
[Handing her his hat.] Yes, do. And please put my hat on the rack.
BERTHA.
[Takes it.] So I will leave you to yourselves for your talk. [Looking round.] Do you want anything? Cigarettes?
RICHARD.
Thanks. We have them here.
BERTHA.
Then I can go?
[She goes out on the left with Richard’s hat, which she leaves in the hall, and returns at once; she stops for a moment at the davenport, replaces the slip in the drawer, locks it, and replaces the key, and, taking the roses, goes towards the right. Robert precedes her to open the door for her. She bows and goes out.]
RICHARD.
[Points to the chair near the little table on the right.] Your place of honour.
ROBERT.
[Sits down.] Thanks. [Passing his hand over his brow.] Good Lord, how warm it is today! The heat pains me here in the eye. The glare.
RICHARD.
The room is rather dark, I think, with the blind down but if you wish…
ROBERT.
[Quickly.] Not at all. I know what it is—the result of night work.
RICHARD.
[Sits on the lounge.] Must you?
ROBERT.
[Sighs.] Eh, yes. I must see part of the paper through every night. And then my leading articles. We are approaching a difficult moment. And not only here.
RICHARD.
[After a slight pause.] Have you any news?
ROBERT.
[In a different voice.] Yes. I want to speak to you seriously. Today may be an important day for you—or rather, tonight. I saw the vicechancellor this morning. He has the highest opinion of you, Richard. He has read your book, he said.
RICHARD.
Did he buy it or borrow it?
ROBERT.
Bought it, I hope.
RICHARD.
I shall smoke a cigarette. Thirtyseven copies have now been sold in Dublin.
[He takes a cigarette from the box on the table, and lights it.]
ROBERT.
[Suavely, hopelessly.] Well, the matter is closed for the present. You have your iron mask on today.
RICHARD.
[Smoking.] Let me hear the rest.
ROBERT.
[Again seriously.] Richard, you are too suspicious. It is a defect in you. He assured me he has the highest possible opinion of you, as everyone has. You are the man for the post, he says. In fact, he told me that, if your name goes forward, he will work might and main for you with the senate and I… will do my part, of course, in the press and privately. I regard it as a public duty. The chair of romance literature is yours by right, as a scholar, as a literary personality.
RICHARD.
The conditions?
ROBERT.
Conditions? You mean about the future?
RICHARD.
I mean about the past.
ROBERT.
[Easily.] That episode in your past is forgotten. An act of impulse. We are all impulsive.
RICHARD.
[Looks fixedly at him.] You called it an act of folly, then—nine years ago. You told me I was hanging a weight about my neck.
ROBERT.
I was wrong. [Suavely.] Here is how the matter stands, Richard. Everyone knows that you ran away years ago with a young girl… How shall I put it?… with a young girl not exactly your equal. [Kindly.] Excuse me, Richard, that is not my opinion nor my language. I am simply using the language of people whose opinions I don’t share.
RICHARD.
Writing one of your leading articles, in fact.
ROBERT.
Put it so. Well, it made a great sensation at the time. A mysterious disappearance. My name was involved too, as best man, let us say, on that famous occasion. Of course, they think I acted from a mistaken sense of friendship. Well, all that is known. [With some hesitation.] But what happened afterwards is not known.
RICHARD.
No?
ROBERT.
Of course, it is your affair, Richard. However, you are not so young now as you were then. The expression is quite in the style of my leading articles, isn’t it?
RICHARD.
Do you, or do you not, want me to give the lie to my past life?
ROBERT.
I am thinking of your future life—here. I understand your pride and your sense of liberty. I understand their point of view also. However, there is a way out; it is simply this. Refrain from contradicting any rumours you may hear concerning what happened… or did not happen after you went away. Leave the rest to me.
RICHARD.
You will set these rumours afloat?
ROBERT.
I will. God help me.
RICHARD.
[Observing him.] For the sake of social conventions?
ROBERT.
For the sake of something else too—our friendship, our lifelong friendship.
RICHARD.
Thanks.
ROBERT.
[Slightly wounded.] And I will tell you the whole truth.
RICHARD.
[Smiles and bows.] Yes. Do, please.
ROBERT.
Not only for your sake. Also for the sake of—your present partner in life.
RICHARD.
I see.
[He crushes his cigarette softly on the ashtray and then leans forward, rubbing his hands slowly.]
RICHARD.
Why for her sake?
ROBERT.
[Also leans forward, quietly.] Richard, have you been quite fair to her? It was her own free choice, you will say. But was she really free to choose? She was a mere girl. She accepted all that you proposed.
RICHARD.
[Smiles.] That is your way of saying that she proposed what I would not accept.
ROBERT.
[Nods.] I remember. And she went away with you. But was it of her own free choice? Answer me frankly.
RICHARD.
[Turns to him, calmly.] I played for her against all that you say or can say; and I won.
ROBERT.
[Nodding again.] Yes, you won.
RICHARD.
[Rises.] Excuse me for forgetting. Will you have some whisky?
ROBERT.
All things come to those who wait.
[Richard goes to the sideboard and brings a small tray with the decanter and glasses to the table where he sets it down.]
RICHARD.
[Sits down again, leaning back on the lounge.] Will you please help yourself?
ROBERT.
[Does so.] And you? Steadfast? [Richard shakes his head.] Lord, when I think of our wild nights long ago—talks by the hour, plans, carouses, revelry…
RICHARD.
In our house.
ROBERT.
It is mine now. I have kept it ever since though I don’t go there often. Whenever you like to come let me know. You must come some night. It will be old times again. [He lifts his glass and drinks.] Prosit!
RICHARD.
It was not only a house of revelry; it was to be the hearth of a new life. [Musing.] And in that name all our sins were committed.
ROBERT.
Sins! Drinking and blasphemy [he points] by me. And drinking and heresy, much worse [he points again] by you—are those the sins you mean?
RICHARD.
And some others.
ROBERT.
[Lightly, uneasily.] You mean the women. I have no remorse of conscience. Maybe you have. We had two keys on those occasions. [Maliciously.] Have you?
RICHARD.
[Irritated.] For you it was all quite natural?
ROBERT.
For me it is quite natural to kiss a woman whom I like. Why not? She is beautiful for me.
RICHARD.
[Toying with the lounge cushion.] Do you kiss everything that is beautiful for you?
ROBERT.
Everything—if it can be kissed. [He takes up a flat stone which lies on the table.] This stone, for instance. It is so cool, so polished, so delicate, like a woman’s temple. It is silent, it suffers our passion; and it is beautiful. [He places it against his lips.] And so I kiss it because it is beautiful. And what is a woman? A work of nature, too, like a stone or a flower or a bird. A kiss is an act of homage.
RICHARD.
It is an act of union between man and woman. Even if we are often led to desire through the sense of beauty can you say that the beautiful is what we desire?
ROBERT.
[Pressing the stone to his forehead.] You will give me a headache if you make me think today. I cannot think today. I feel too natural, too common. After all, what is most attractive in even the most beautiful woman?
RICHARD.
What?
ROBERT.
Not those qualities which she has and other women have not but the qualities which she has in common with them. I mean… the commonest. [Turning over the stone, he presses the other side to his forehead.] I mean how her body develops heat when it is pressed, the movement of her blood, how quickly she changes by digestion what she eats into—what shall be nameless. [Laughing.] I am very common today. Perhaps that idea never struck you?
RICHARD.
[Drily.] Many ideas strike a man who has lived nine years with a woman.
ROBERT.
Yes. I
