Part 4

THE AUTHOR. Dark, if you please. People are always saying I’m making portraits. So, if you’re dark, nobody can say I meant the character for the Queen or for Mistress Mary Fytton.

THE STAGE MANAGER. It’s no good going on now. It’s all up--it’s all up.

CURTAIN.

VIII

THE BLUE HARLEQUIN

(WITH APOLOGIES TO MR. MAETERLINCK)

SCENE.--_A London street; the houses are scarcely visible in the diaphanous mist. On the right, darkling, is a sausage shop; on the left a green-grocer’s. The shop windows glimmer like opals._

_Enter a_ POLICEMAN. _He is dressed in a cerulean tunic, and his truncheon is transparent and glows like a beryl._

THE POLICEMAN. It was not on my beat. It was not on my beat.

_Enter the_ PANTALOON. _He is very old_

THE PANTALOON. I am very old. I am so old that I cannot remember things. I cannot remember names.

THE POLICEMAN. Move on.

THE PANTALOON. I am always moving on. I feel like a sea-gull.

THE POLICEMAN. Move on. I have already told you to move on.

THE PANTALOON. He told me to move on. He said I would be obliged to move on. I am so old that I forget what they say to me.

THE POLICEMAN. Your beard is like grass. It is like the grass that grows over men’s graves. I do not like your beard.

THE PANTALOON. You have no beard. Your face is smooth. It has a hole on one side of it like a cheese. The moon has a hole on one side of it It is foggy in the street. The fog is shivering.

[_Pointing to the door of the sausage shop._

Behind that door there is no fog.

THE POLICEMAN. Nobody has ever opened that door. The key of that door is lost. The lock is broken. It is a useless door.

THE PANTALOON. Years ago that door had a key. There was a little red stain on the key. It wanted cleaning.

THE POLICEMAN. It was a rusty key.

THE PANTALOON. It was a latch-key.

THE POLICEMAN. It was lost on a Thursday.

THE PANTALOON. On the Friday they came to clean the key, but it was too dark to clean it.

THE POLICEMAN. On Saturday morning there was no time. On Saturday afternoon the shops were shut.

THE PANTALOON. The shops were shut all Sunday.

THE POLICEMAN. Monday was Bank Holiday. They went away on Monday.

THE PANTALOON. It rained all day on Monday. It poured with rain. The rain was damp. It had come from a damp place. It was wet rain.

THE POLICEMAN. They told me he was wanted.

THE PANTALOON. They asked me what time it was. I said: “I am so old I have forgotten what time it is. I cannot remember things.”

THE POLICEMAN. They came back on Monday night. When they came back they had forgotten all about the key.

THE PANTALOON. I said if you want to know what time it is you must ask the policeman. The policeman knows.

THE POLICEMAN. He knows.

THE PANTALOON. What time is it?

THE POLICEMAN. It is seven minutes to five. It will soon be five minutes to five.

THE PANTALOON. She goes out at five, every day, for a walk.

THE POLICEMAN. She will walk through the fog at five. She is sure to come. I am certain she will come.

THE PANTALOON. She will tell him he is wanted.

THE POLICEMAN. If he comes on to my beat I will take him up.

THE PANTALOON. He will never come on to your beat.

_Enter the_ CLOWN _with a red-hot poker, which shines like a carbuncle_

THE CLOWN. It is strange that we should meet here again. We always meet at the same place and at the same hour.

THE PANTALOON. I am so old I had forgotten I should meet you. When you walked down the street I thought you were someone else. I thought I had never seen you before.

THE CLOWN. It is so foggy in the street and my poker is getting cold.

THE PANTALOON. If you put it in the fire it will get warm again.

THE CLOWN. There is no fire in the street. The policeman says we may not light a fire in the street. It is dangerous. It frightens the people.

THE PANTALOON. Last time they lit a fire in the street it was the 5th of November.

THE CLOWN. The policeman was not there on the 5th of November.

THE PANTALOON. It was not on his beat.

THE CLOWN. His beat is far away--on the sand.

THE PANTALOON. There is a cave near his beat.

THE CLOWN. There is a public-house near his beat. There is a public-house quite close to his beat. It has two doors.

THE PANTALOON. One is marked “Public.” He never opens that door.

THE CLOWN. The other is marked “Private.” He opens it and it swings backwards and forwards.

THE PANTALOON. The people inside complain of the draught. They are always complaining.

THE CLOWN. She waits for him on the other side the railings.

THE PANTALOON. The railings are very strong. They are black railings. They are in front of the area. She hands things to him through the railings. She gives him things to eat and things to drink.

THE CLOWN. It is on his beat.

THE PANTALOON. No, it is not on his beat, but it is quite close to his beat. Your poker has got cold.

THE CLOWN. I will warm it. I will warm it on the back of the policeman. He has a broad back.

[_He rubs the_ POLICEMAN _with the poker._

THE POLICEMAN. That poker is warm. It is much warmer than you think it is. (_The_ CLOWN _rubs him again._) When you do that I feel strange. I feel as if a ruby were burning near me.

THE CLOWN. I am warming you with my poker. It is good to be warm. It is so cold in this street. It never used to be so cold. It is foggy. The fog makes me hungry and thirsty. I am so hungry that I would like to eat a sausage.

THE PANTALOON. I am so hungry that I would like to eat many sausages, first one and then another. I could eat six sausages.

THE CLOWN. Let us go and take some sausages. There are some sausages hanging in that shop. I cannot see them through the fog, but I know there are some sausages there.

THE PANTALOON. I can see the sausages. They are all huddled together like pigeons.

THE CLOWN. They are close together like little wood-pigeons. I like sausages. But before we go I will warm the policeman. He is so cold.

THE PANTALOON. It is not on his beat.

[_The_ CLOWN _rubs the_ POLICEMAN _with his poker._

THE POLICEMAN. When you do that I feel as if this had happened before. I feel as if I were in a strange room full of doors and lighted candles. I do not like the feeling.

[_The_ PANTALOON _and the_ CLOWN _go into the sausage shop._

_Enter_ COLUMBINE

COLUMBINE. I had nine sisters. They were all blind, and they were all born on a Friday. Friday is an unlucky day.

THE POLICEMAN. I have been waiting for you. I thought you had gone to him. He is wanted. I thought you had gone to tell him he is wanted.

COLUMBINE. You never will find him.

THE POLICEMAN. I have been looking for him since Wednesday. I am tired of looking. It was not on my beat.

COLUMBINE. You will never find him. He knows you are looking for him. When he sees you coming round the corner of the street he runs away round the other corner. He runs quicker than you. Nobody runs so quickly as he does.

THE POLICEMAN. I saw the end of his wand yesterday. It was quite white. It was as white as the milk in the pails.

COLUMBINE. The milk in the pails is not always white. Sometimes it is yellow. But his wand is white. He hits people with it and he runs away. He runs so fast nobody can catch him.

THE POLICEMAN. I saw the spangles of his clothes the day before yesterday. They were all gold. I looked again and I thought they were silver spangles. I thought his clothes were red at first. Afterwards they seemed to be green as leaves in the orchard they cut down.

COLUMBINE. Why did they cut it down?

THE POLICEMAN. Because it was green. There are too many green orchards.

COLUMBINE. He changes his clothes so quickly nobody knows what he has got on.

THE POLICEMAN. His clothes are like the scales of fishes. They are like the scales of grey fishes in the old pond. The old pond is full of fishes. It ought to be dredged.

COLUMBINE. Nobody will ever dredge the old pond. The children fish in it.

THE POLICEMAN. His clothes are like the wings of birds. Like the wings of owls, that fly about in the tower, hooting. The tower is full of owls. It ought to be pulled down.

COLUMBINE. Nobody will ever pull down the tower. The owls kill the mice.

THE POLICEMAN. His clothes are like red sparks. Like the sparks that fly from the horses’ hoofs in the crooked lane. The crooked lane is full of horses. It ought to be made into a field.

COLUMBINE. It will never be made into a field. Too many people use the crooked lane. It leads to the mill. It is the shortest way to the mill.

THE POLICEMAN. His clothes are like the blue pebbles the old women drop into the stream. The stream is full of pebbles. It ought to be dried up.

COLUMBINE. It will never be dried up, because the old women wash their clothes in it. It is not pebbles they throw into it. It is blue from the blue-bag. They throw it in to whiten the linen.

THE POLICEMAN. I do not know. It is not on my beat. Some people say it is pebbles. Their linen is all in holes. It is frayed linen.

COLUMBINE. His linen is never frayed.

THE POLICEMAN. His clothes hide his linen. You cannot tell what colour his clothes are. Sometimes they are blue and sometimes they are red.

COLUMBINE. Some people say they are grey clothes--grey like the sand.

THE POLICEMAN. They told me they were blue. I am sure his clothes are blue.

_Enter the_ CLOWN _through the window_

THE CLOWN. I would have brought you some sausages. I would have brought you a hundred sausages. They are made of pork. The pig was killed on a Friday.

COLUMBINE. Everything always happens on a Friday. I was born on a Friday.

THE CLOWN. I would have brought you more sausages than I can eat myself. I would have brought you more sausages than you can eat.

THE POLICEMAN. Nobody can eat more than a certain amount of sausages. That is why they are so sad in this street. I can eat a great many sausages.

COLUMBINE. It is a bad thing to eat too many sausages.

THE CLOWN. It is not right to go into a shop, to take away the sausages, and to eat them. The shopkeeper called him a thief because he took away the sausages.

THE POLICEMAN. It is not on my beat.

COLUMBINE. He was very hungry.

THE CLOWN. He had no right to take away all the sausages. There were none left for us. If he had not taken away all the sausages I could have brought them to you. He jumped down the chimney. It was cleaned yesterday. He took away all the sausages. He took away the sausages I would have brought you. I had meant to bring them all.

THE POLICEMAN. What colour were his clothes?

THE CLOWN. I was so frightened when he took away the sausages that I did not notice the colour of his clothes. I think they were red clothes.

THE POLICEMAN. Were they not blue clothes?

THE CLOWN. They may have been blue clothes. He jumped down the chimney and drew out his knife. It was a steel knife, and there were spots on the blade. He cut the string of the sausages from the ceiling. They were all huddled together in the ceiling like birds ... like birds in the winter.

_Enter the_ PANTALOON

THE PANTALOON. He has taken away all the sausages. I was going to bring you sausages to eat. They were hanging from the roof like little fat mice. But I am so old--I forget things. Then he came with his knife and cut them down. You must take him up. He has stolen the sausages. They were not his sausages.

THE POLICEMAN. It is not on my beat. What colour were his clothes?

THE PANTALOON. I am so old I forget things. I think they were green clothes.

THE POLICEMAN. Were they not blue clothes?

THE CLOWN (_to the_ POLICEMAN). You are so cold. I will warm you with my poker. It is a red-hot poker.

THE POLICEMAN. Whenever you do that I feel strange.

[_The_ CLOWN _rubs him with the poker._

THE POLICEMAN. I will take away your poker. I do not like to be made to feel strange so often.

[_The_ CLOWN _runs away and jumps through the shop window. The_ POLICEMAN _runs after him. At that moment the_ HARLEQUIN--_he is all blue--darts round the street corner and runs off with_ COLUMBINE.

THE POLICEMAN. He has run away with her. They said he would come when I was not looking. I shall never catch him. His clothes were blue. (_To the_ PANTALOON) I will take you up instead. I will say you took the sausages. I will not speak the truth. You will speak the truth. You will say he took the sausages. But they will not believe you. They will believe me. Now you shall come with me, along.

THE PANTALOON. I am so old. I feel as if all this had happened before.

THE POLICEMAN. I will say it was on my beat.

[_As he leads off the_ PANTALOON, _the_ CLOWN _jumps out of the window and hits him with the red-hot poker._

THE POLICEMAN. Whenever he does that I feel strange.

[_The_ PANTALOON _escapes and fades into the fog._

CURTAIN.

IX

THE MEMBER FOR LITERATURE

_It having been settled that a Member for “Literature” should be elected to the House of Commons, a plebiscite was taken among the members of all the literary clubs and societies in London._

_The result was that_ Mr. M--X B--B--M, Mr. H--LL C--E, Mr. R--D--D K--P--G, _and_ Mr. J--E K. J--E _all received exactly the same number of votes. In order to settle which of them should be chosen, it was decided that these four authors should each in turn address the same public meeting, after which the election should be by ballot, and the author chosen by the audience at the meeting should be the Member for Literature._

SCENE.--_A hall at Battersea. On the platform are a_ CHAIRMAN, _a small Committee, and the four_ AUTHORS _in question._

Mr. M--X B--B--M (_rises to address the meeting_). No politician I.

A VOICE FROM THE BACK OF THE HALL. Then why the ---- ---- do you come here to talk politics?

Mr. M--X B--B--M. That, gentle public, is what I wish carefully to avoid doing. You can lead me to the hustings, but you cannot make me think--politically. Therefore bear with me a little. Examine yourselves and you will see that, were you in my position, you would do exactly what I am going to do now. Candidature has been thrust upon me. I am forced to speak to you, I am indeed anxious to speak to you so that you may be able to choose one of the three distinguished literary men, whom you see before you on this platform, to be your Literary Member, and I wish to prevent your choice falling upon me.

I will put before you in chosen sentences, which I have carefully arranged beforehand, the reasons why I think you should not elect me. I do not want to be elected. To elect me would indeed be an unfriendly act. Such a choice would not only cause me inconvenience, but it would bring to yourselves neither profit nor pleasure. Be sure I should never think of your interests, be surer still I should never attend the tedious sittings at St. Stephen’s. I have listened to eloquence at the Oxford Union and to the gentle rhetoric of Cambridge. Not for me are the efforts of the half-witted and the wholly inarticulate at Westminster, who stammer where old Gladstone used to sing. If you have views I am not privy to them, and from your sympathies I am aloof. I know well enough that you--no more than I--care a red farthing whether the label of your Member be Liberal or Conservative. What you do care for, and what leaves me frigid, is the figure whom you can encourage by chaff or vex by sarcasm.

You want to hear that Lloyd-George ought to be thrown into a den of Suffragettes--(_Hear, Hear_)--or that Winston Churchill is good and old. (_Hear, Hear._) You want to hear it not adumbrated, but said emphatically and without the introduction of a _nuance_, either that Mr. Balfour is infallible or that he is invincibly ignorant. (_Cheers and groans._)

Now, I care not whether Mr. Balfour be right or wrong. I murmur to myself the jest of Pilate, and I do not wait for the answer. And as to the province of affairs which concerns you here, the province of the Budget, the Fiscal Question, Home Rule, the House of Lords, the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church, and other falbalas, it is for me a vague land into which Leonardo da Vinci never looked forward, and about which I have not experienced the first curiosity; nor do I care whether Mr. Balfour be inspired by an angel or an ape. (_Liberal cheers._)

As to Mr. Asquith’s claims, I am just as undecided and just as indifferent. (_Conservative cheers._) I know nothing about the Education Bill or the Children’s Bill; I have heard that one of these measures will make “Hunt the Slipper” compulsory for children under five years old, and that there is somewhere a clause being moulded which will prevent boys over sixteen years of age from playing marbles in the public thoroughfares. But since before long children will have votes for themselves and be represented in Parliament--(_cries of “Votes for Children”_)--we can surely for the present leave these perplexing questions gently suspended until they shall be dealt with by those whom they more nearly concern. (_A little boy is carried out struggling and waving a megaphone._)

But you will say--our Imperial Policy? Well, I will be frank, I am in favour of the restoration of the Heptarchy. Had I my way even Rutland should have, not only Home Rule--(_Liberal cheers_)--but a King, by Divine Right absolute. Of course, I wish our present King to remain a super-King of all the little Englands, of the 52 (or is it 365?) counties of England. (_Loud cheers._) As for the Colonies, blood may be thicker than water, but water, happily for us, is broader than blood--(_loud cheers_)--and I have always been thankful that we are separated from America, and from our other high-spirited offsprings, by so broad an ocean as the Atlantic. Our Colonies are our children. Their place is in the nursery or at school. There let us leave them to their ninepins, their whipping-tops, their rocking-horses, and their marbles. Their exploits can only weary us who are their grown-up parents, we who are obliged to read their tri-monthly reports, and to pay wages which we can ill afford for their nurses and their ushers.

I hear a lady murmuring the words “Budget” and “Fiscal Question”--magical words it is true. But we need hardly discuss them, because whatever we say or do there will always be a Budget; there will always be a Fiscal Question, and a vague alternative to it preached by an indignant and sanguine Opposition.

Whatever our taxes may be, and however we have to pay them, they will always have to be paid, and I for one shall never pay them with ecstasy. (_Cheers._) Formerly the poor had the exclusive right of paying taxes; now it is rumoured that the rich have usurped that privilege, and so grossly abused it that, the rich having become poorer than the poor, the poor must needs pay a super-tax. (_Groans and cries of “Shame.”_) Well, I only desire that there may always be people so much richer than myself that they will pay me cheerfully and generously for taking pains to write what few will trouble to read. When the day comes that there will be no more rich--(Oh, dreadful day!)--Max’s occupation will be gone, because even were I then to draw flaming seascapes in coloured chalk on the paving-stones of Piccadilly, there will be no one richer than myself to drop a bad halfpenny into the saucer which shall hang under the card, so needlessly telling the passer-by what the pictures themselves proclaim: that the artist is blind.

I think I have now lightly shaken by the hand those questions which, as the phrase goes, are at issue, and although I have not given you my reasons in clauses, headings, and sections, I hope I have made it perspicuous to you that I do not wish to be a member of Parliament, and that were I to be chosen, I should not lift my eye-glass to justify your choice; I would not sacrifice the whiff of a cigarette for all the perfumes of St. Stephen’s. But as a postscript, I am in favour of full-dress debates; and by that I mean debates in the House of Lords where the Peers are dressed in robe and coronet; and these debates, were I King of England, should be compulsory and frequent. And as one postscript leads to another, I will tell you that were a more competent Guy Fawkes to blow up the House of Commons, and were it never to arise from its ashes, I should say “Ouf!”

[_He sits down. Discreet cheers._

MR. H--LL C--E (_rises_). Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, loath as I have always been to obtrude upon the public gaze----

A VOICE. Why, it’s Shakespeare!

ANOTHER VOICE. No, it tain’t. It’s the Wax Bust.

MR. H--LL C--E. Loath as I have always been----

A VOICE. As a Manxman, are you, or are you not, in favour of Votes for Women?

MR. H--LL C--E. Loath as I am----

THE SAME VOICE. He’s not in favour of Votes for Women and he’s a Manxman! (_A terrific blast is blown on toy trumpets and megaphones._)

ANOTHER VOICE. Tails for Manx Cats.

MR. H--LL C--E. Loath as I am----

VOICES. Votes for Women. (_Loud uproar--some women are ejected._)

[_After a hurried confabulation it is settled that_ MR. R--D--D K--P--G _shall address the audience, and that_ MR. H--LL C--E _shall speak later._

MR. R--D--D K--P--G (_rises_). There was once an Aunt-Hill. It was a small Aunt-Hill, and from the summit to the base of it the distance was about as long as the slip of an E.P. Tent.

The Aunts were busy. They worked all day and sometimes all night. Now when Aunts work all night it’s worth going to see. The hill grew bigger and bigger, and tunnels were burrowed, and after some months the Aunts had annexed a whole forest. They were pleased with themselves.

“The sun doesn’t set on our Aunt-Hill,” said one Aunt.

“Our Aunt-Hill is the key of the Eastern forest,” said another. The Kingdom of the Aunts grew so large that they sent some of their younger workers to make Aunt-Hills beyond the forest. This they did, and their Aunt-Hills grew big, too. Then the Aunts were pleased and said: “We are the greatest Aunts in the World.” But one of the Aunts--he wrote things for the other Aunts to read--said: “Take care, you were small once; and if you don’t go on working you’ll be small again.” But the Aunts said he was a fool. Then the Aunts began to get slack and look on at their little Aunts playing at rolling the acorn.

Now in a neighbouring forest a rival Aunt set up a hill and began training an army.

Then the Aunt who wrote things said: “Take care, these new Aunts will grow strong and take away your Aunt-Hill.” But the Aunts didn’t listen, they went on looking at the Aunts playing at rolling the acorn. And one of the leading Aunts said: “He’s a scaremonger, don’t listen. He’s a ‘Jingaunt.’ It’s Unauntish to say such things.” So nobody cared, and the new Aunts came and took the old Aunts’ Aunt-Hill and made them all into slaves.

[MR. R--D--D K--P--G _sits down._ (_Cheers._)

MR. J--E K. J--E (_rises_). Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen----

A VOICE. Does your mother know you’re out?

MR. J--E K. J--E. Yes, but my mother-in-law doesn’t. (_Terrific cheers._) Gentlemen, I don’t think I need say any more. I’m the only man so far who has said to you a single word you’ve understood. (_Cheers._) So I think I’ll let well alone. My politics are Home Rule at Home, and down with Mothers-in-Law. (_Renewed cheering._)

[MR. J--E K. J--E _sits down._

[_After brief consultation on the platform_, MR. H--LL C--E _rises again._

MR. H--LL C--E. Loath as I am----

MANY WOMEN. What about Votes for Women?

[_There is an uproar; a scuffle and a fight. It is impossible to continue the business, so the question as to who shall be elected is put to the Meeting. The people proceed to vote by ballot. The votes are then counted by the Committee in a room adjoining the platform. After an interval the_ CHAIRMAN_comes on to the platform._

THE CHAIRMAN. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now have the pleasure of reading out the result of the Election. The figures are as follows:--