Part 5
It's better than a ten-pound note, Jim. Jim, try and remember, Jim. Don't you remember the way we used to go for those iron safes? Do you remember anything, Jim?
JIM
Yes, I am beginning to remember now. There used to be sunsets. And then there were great yellow lights. And one went in behind them through a swinging door.
BILL
Yes, yes, Jim. That was the Blue Bear down at Wimbledon.
JIM
Yes, and the room was all full of golden light. And there was beer with light in it, and some would be spilt on the counter and there was light in that too. And there was a girl standing there with yellow hair. She'd be the other side of that door now, with lamplight in her hair among the angels, and the old smile on her lips if one of them chaffed her, and her pretty teeth a-shining. She would be very near the throne; there was never any harm in Jane.
BILL
No, there was never any 'arm in Jane, Jim.
JIM
Oh, I don't want to see the angels, Bill. But if I could see Jane again (_points in direction of laugh_) he might laugh as much as he cared to whenever I wanted to cry. You can't cry here, you know, Bill.
BILL
You shall see her again, Jim.
[_Jim takes no interest in this remark; he lowers his eyes and goes on with his work._
BILL
Jim, you shall see her again. You want to get into Heaven, don't you?
JIM (_not raising his eyes_)
Want!
BILL
Jim. Do you know what I've got, Jim?
[_Jim makes no answer, goes on wearily with his work._
BILL
You remember those iron safes, Jim, how we used to knock them open like walnuts with "Old Nut-cracker"?
JIM (_at work, wearily_)
Empty again.
BILL
Well, I've got Old Nut-cracker. I had him in my hand at the time, and they let me keep him. They thought it would be a nice proof against me.
JIM
Nothing is any good here.
BILL
I'll get in to Heaven, Jim. And you shall come with me because you taught me a livelihood. I couldn't be happy there, like those angels, if I knew of anyone being outside. I'm not like that.
[_Jim goes on with his work._
BILL
Jim, Jim. You'll see Jane there.
JIM
You'll never get through those gates, Bill. You'll never do it.
BILL
They're only gold, Jim. Gold's soft like lead. Old Nut-cracker would do it if they were steel.
JIM
You'll never do it, Bill.
[_Bill puts a rock against the gates, stands on it to reach the lock and gets to work on the lock. A good instrument to use is an egg-whipper. Jim goes on wearily with his work. As Bill works away, fragments and golden screws begin to fall on the floor._
BILL
Jim! Old Nut-cracker thinks nothing of it. It's just like cheese to old Nut-cracker.
JIM
They won't let you do it, Bill.
BILL
They don't know what I've got. I'm getting through it like cheese, Jim.
JIM
Suppose it's a mile thick. Suppose it's a million miles thick. Suppose it's a hundred million miles thick.
BILL
Can't be, Jim. These doors are meant to open outward. They couldn't do that if they were more than four inches at the most, not for an Archbishop. They'd stick.
JIM
You remember that great safe we broke open once, what had coal in it.
BILL
This isn't a safe, Jim, this is Heaven. There'll be the old saints with their halos shining and flickering, like windows o' wintry nights. (_Creak, creak, creak_) And angels thick as swallows along a cottage roof the day before they go. (_Creak, creak, creak_) And orchards full of apples as far as you can see, and the rivers of Tigris and Euphrates, so the Bible says; and a city of gold, for those that care for cities, all full of precious stones; but I'm a bit tired of cities and precious stones. (_Creak, creak, creak_) I'll go out into the fields where the orchards are, by the Tigris and the Euphrates. I shouldn't be surprised if my old mother was there. She never cared much for the way I earned my livelihood (_creak, creak_), but she was a good mother to me. I don't know if they want a good mother in there who would be kind to the angels and sit and smile at them when they sang and soothe them if they were cross. If they let all the good ones in she'll be there all right. (_Suddenly_) Jim! They won't have brought me up against her, will they? That's not fair evidence, Jim.
JIM
It would be just like them to. Very like them.
BILL
If there's a glass of beer to be got in Heaven, or a dish of tripe and onions, or a pipe of 'bacca she'll have them for me when I come to her. She used to know my ways wonderful; and what I liked. And she used to know when to expect me almost anywhere. I used to climb in through the window at any hour and she always knew it was me. (_Creak, creak_) She'll know it's me at the door now, Jim. (_Creak, creak_) It will be all a blaze of light, and I'll hardly know it's her till I get used to it.... But I'll know her among a million angels. There weren't none like her on Earth and there won't be none like her in Heaven.... Jim! I'm through, Jim! One more turn, and old Nut-cracker's done it! It's giving! It's giving! I know the feel of it. _Jim!_
[_At last there is a noise of falling bolts; the gates swing out an inch and are stopped by the rock._
BILL
Jim! Jim! I've opened it, Jim. I've opened the Gate of Heaven! Come and help me.
JIM (_looks up for a moment with open mouth. Then he mournfully shakes his head and goes on drawing a cork_)
Another one empty.
BILL (_looks down once into the abyss that lies below the Lonely Place_)
Stars. Blooming great stars.
[_Then he moves away the rock on which he stood. The gates move slowly. Jim leaps up and runs to help; they each take a gate and move backward with their faces against it._
BILL
Hullo, mother! You there? Hullo! You there? It's Bill, mother.
[_The gates swing heavily open, revealing empty night and stars._
BILL (_staggering and gazing into the revealed Nothing, in which far stars go wandering_)
Stars. Blooming great stars. There _ain't_ no Heaven, Jim.
[_Ever since the revelation a cruel and violent laugh has arisen off. It increases in volume and grows louder and louder._
JIM
That's like them. That's very like them. Yes, they'd do that!
_The curtain falls and the laughter still howls on._
THE LOST SILK HAT
PERSONS
THE CALLER THE LABORER THE CLERK THE POET THE POLICEMAN
_Scene: A fashionable London street._
THE LOST SILK HAT
_The Caller stands on a doorstep, "faultlessly dressed," but without a hat. At first he shows despair, then a new thought engrosses him._
_Enter the Laborer._
THE CALLER
Excuse me a moment. Excuse me--but--I'd be greatly obliged to you if--if you could see your way--in fact, you can be of great service to me if--
THE LABORER
Glad to do what I can, sir.
CALLER
Well, all I really want you to do is just to ring that bell and go up and say--er--say that you've come to see to the drains, or anything like that, you know, and get hold of my hat for me.
LABORER
Get hold of your 'at!
CALLER
Yes. You see, I left my hat behind most unfortunately. It's in the drawing-room (_points to window_), that room there, half under the long sofa, the far end from the door. And if you could possibly go and get it, why I'd be (_The Laborer's expression changes_)--Why, what's the matter?
LABORER (_firmly_)
I don't like this job.
CALLER
Don't like this job! But my dear fellow, don't be silly, what possible harm--?
LABORER
Ah-h. That's what I don't know.
CALLER
But what harm can there possibly be in so simple a request? What harm does there seem to be?
LABORER
Oh, it seems all right.
CALLER
_Well_, then.
LABORER
All these crack jobs do seem all right.
CALLER
But I'm not asking you to rob the house.
LABORER
Don't seem as if you are, certainly, but I don't like the looks of it; what if there's things what I can't 'elp taking when I gets inside?
CALLER
I only want my hat--Here, I say, please don't go away--here's a sovereign, it will only take you a minute.
LABORER
_What I want to know_--
CALLER
Yes?
LABORER
--Is what's _in_ that hat?
CALLER
What's _in_ the hat?
LABORER
Yes; that's what I want to know.
CALLER
What's _in_ the hat?
LABORER
Yes, you aren't going to give me a sovereign--?
CALLER
I'll give you two sovereigns.
LABORER
You aren't going to give me a sovereign, and rise it to two sovereigns, for an _empty_ hat?
CALLER
But I must have my hat. I can't be seen in the streets like this. There's nothing _in_ the hat. What do you think's in the hat?
LABORER
Ah, I'm not clever enough to say that, but it looks as if the papers was in that hat.
CALLER
The papers?
LABORER
Yes, papers proving, if you can get them, that you're the heir to that big house, and some poor innocent will be defrauded.
CALLER
Look here, the hat's absolutely empty. I _must_ have my hat. If there's anything in it you shall have it yourself as well as the two pounds, only get me my hat.
LABORER
Well, that seems all right.
CALLER
That's right, then you'll run up and get it?
LABORER
Seems all right to me and seems all right to you. But it's the police what you and I have got to think of. Will it seem all right to them?
CALLER
Oh, for heaven's sake--
LABORER
Ah!
CALLER
What a hopeless fool you are.
LABORER
Ah!
CALLER
Look here.
LABORER
Ah, I got you there, mister.
CALLER
Look here, for goodness sake don't go.
LABORER
Ah! (_Exit_)
[_Enter the Clerk._
CALLER
Excuse me, sir. Excuse my asking you, but, as you see, I am without a hat. I shall be extraordinarily obliged to you if you would be so very good as to get it for me. Pretend you have come to wind the clocks, you know. I left it in the drawing-room of this house, half under the long sofa, the far end.
CLERK
Oh, er--all right, only--
CALLER
Thanks so much, I am immensely indebted to you. Just say you've come to wind the clocks, you know.
CLERK
I--er--don't think I'm very good at winding clocks, you know.
CALLER
Oh, that's all right, just stand in front of the clock and fool about with it. That's all they ever do. I must warn you there's a lady in the room.
CLERK
Oh!
CALLER
But that's all right, you know. Just walk past up to the clock.
CLERK
But I think, if you don't mind, as there's someone there--
CALLER
Oh, but she's quite young and very, very beautiful and--
CLERK
Why don't you get it yourself?
CALLER
That is impossible.
CLERK
Impossible?
CALLER
Yes, I have sprained my ankle.
CLERK
Oh! Is it bad?
CALLER
Yes, very bad indeed.
CLERK
I don't mind trying to carry you up.
CALLER
No, that would be worse. My foot has to be kept on the ground.
CLERK
But how will you get home?
CALLER
I can walk all right on the flat.
CLERK
I'm afraid I have to be going on. It's rather later than I thought.
CALLER
But for goodness sake don't leave me. You can't leave me here like this without a hat.
CLERK
I'm afraid I must, it's later than I thought.
(_Exit_)
[_Enter the Poet._
CALLER
Excuse me, sir. Excuse my stopping you. But I should be immensely obliged to you if you would do me a very great favor. I have unfortunately left my hat behind while calling at this house. It is half under the long sofa, at the far end. If you could possibly be so kind as to pretend you have come to tune the piano and fetch my hat for me I should be enormously grateful to you.
POET
But why cannot you get it for yourself?
CALLER
I cannot.
POET
If you would tell me the reason perhaps I could help you.
CALLER
I cannot. I can never enter that house again.
POET
If you have committed a murder, by all means tell me. I am not sufficiently interested in ethics to wish to have you hanged for it.
CALLER
Do I look like a murderer?
POET
No, of course not. I am only saying that you can safely trust me, for not only does the statute book and its penalties rather tend to bore me, but murder itself has always had a certain fascination for me. I write delicate and fastidious lyrics, yet, strange as it may appear, I read every murder trial, and my sympathies are always with the prisoner.
CALLER
But I tell you I am not a murderer.
POET
Then what have you done?
CALLER
I have quarrelled with a lady in that house and have sworn to join the Bosnians and die in Africa.
POET
But this is beautiful.
CALLER
Unfortunately I forgot my hat.
POET
You go to die for a hopeless love, and in a far country; it was the wont of the troubadours.
CALLER
But you will get my hat for me?
POET
That I will gladly do for you. But we must find an adequate reason for entering the house.
CALLER
You pretend to tune the piano.
POET
That, unfortunately, is impossible. The sound of a piano being unskilfully handled is to me what the continual drop of cold water on the same part of the head is said to be in countries where that interesting torture is practised. There is--
CALLER
But what are we to do?
POET
There is a house where kind friends of mine have given me that security and comfort that are a poet's necessity. But there was a governess there and a piano. It is years and years since I was able even to see the faces of those friends without an inward shudder.
CALLER
Well, we'll have to think of something else.
POET
You are bringing back to these unhappy days the romance of an age of which the ballads tell us that kings sometimes fought in no other armor than their lady's nightshirt.
CALLER
Yes, but you know first of all I must get my _hat_.
POET
But why?
CALLER
I cannot possibly be seen in the streets without a hat.
POET
Why not?
CALLER
It can't be done.
POET
But you confuse externals with essentials.
CALLER
I don't know what you call essentials, but being decently dressed in London seems pretty essential to me.
POET
A hat is not one of the essential things of life.
CALLER
I don't want to appear rude, but my hat isn't quite like yours.
POET
Let us sit down and talk of things that matter, things that will be remembered after a hundred years. (_They sit_) Regarded in this light one sees at once the triviality of hats. But to die, and die beautifully for a hopeless love, that is a thing one could make a lyric about. That is the test of essential things--try and imagine them in a lyric. One could not write a lyric about a hat.
CALLER
I don't care whether you could write a lyric about my hat or whether you couldn't. All I know is that I am not going to make myself absolutely ridiculous by walking about in London without a hat. Will you get it for me or will you not?
POET
To take any part in the tuning of a piano is impossible to me.
CALLER
Well, pretend you've come to look at the radiator. They have one under the window, and I happen to know it leaks.
POET
I suppose it has an artistic decoration on it.
CALLER
Yes, I think so.
POET
Then I decline to look at it or to go near it. I know these decorations in cast iron. I once saw a pot-bellied Egyptian god, named Bes, and he was _meant_ to be ugly, but he wasn't as ugly as these decorations that the twentieth century can make with machinery. What has a plumber got to do with art that he should dare to attempt decoration?
CALLER
Then you won't help me.
POET
I won't look at ugly things and I won't listen to ugly noises, but if you can think of any reasonable plan I don't mind helping you.
CALLER
I can think of nothing else. You don't look like a plumber or a clock-winder. I can think of nothing more. I have had a terrible ordeal and I am not in the condition to think calmly.
POET
Then you will have to leave your hat to its altered destiny.
CALLER
Why can't you think of a plan? If you're a poet, thinking's rather in your line.
POET
If I could bring my thoughts to contemplate so absurd a thing as a hat for any length of time no doubt I could think of a plan, but the very triviality of the theme seems to scare them away.
CALLER (_rising_)
Then I must get it myself.
POET
For Heaven's sake, don't do that! Think what it means!
CALLER
I know it will seem absurd, but not so absurd as walking through London without it.
POET
I don't mean that. But you will make it up. You will forgive each other, and you will marry her and have a family of noisy, pimply children like everyone else, and Romance will be dead. No, don't ring that bell. Go and buy a bayonet, or whatever one does buy, and join the Bosnians.
CALLER
I tell you I can't without a hat.
POET
What is a hat! Will you sacrifice for it a beautiful doom? Think of your bones, neglected and forgotten, lying forlornly because of hopeless love on endless golden sands. "Lying forlorn!" as Keats said. What a word! Forlorn in Africa. The careless Bedouins going past by day, at night the lion's roar, the grievous voice of the desert.
CALLER
As a matter of fact, I don't think you're right in speaking of it as desert. The Bosnians, I believe, are only taking it because it is supposed to be the most fertile land in the world.
POET
What of that? You will not be remembered by geography and statistics, but by golden-mouthed Romance. And that is how Romance sees Africa.
CALLER
Well, I'm going to get my hat.
POET
Think! Think! If you enter by that door you will never fall among the foremost Bosnians. You will never die in a far-off, lonely land to lie by immense Sahara. And she will never weep for your beautiful doom and call herself cruel in vain.
CALLER
Hark! She is playing the piano. It seems to me that she might be unhappy about it for years. I don't see much good in that.
POET
No. _I_ will comfort her.
CALLER
I'm damned if you do! Look here! I don't mind saying, I'm damned if you do.
POET
Calm yourself. Calm yourself. I do not mean in that way.
CALLER
Then what on earth do you mean?
POET
I will make songs about your beautiful death, glad songs and sad songs. They shall be glad because they tell again the noble tradition of the troubadours, and sad because they tell of your sorrowful destiny and of your hopeless love.
I shall make legends also about your lonely bones, telling perhaps how some Arabian men, finding them in the desert by some oasis, memorable in war, wonder who loved them. And then as I read them to her, she weeps perhaps a little, and I read instead of the glory of the soldier, how it overtops our transitory--
CALLER
Look here, I'm not aware that you've ever been introduced to her.
POET
A trifle, a trifle.
CALLER
It seems to me that you're in rather an undue hurry for me to get a Jubu spear in me; but I'm going to get my hat first.
POET
I appeal to you. I appeal to you in the name of beautiful battles, high deeds, and lost causes; in the name of love-tales told to cruel maidens and told in vain. In the name of stricken hearts broken like beautiful harp-strings, I appeal to you.
I appeal in the ancient holy name of Romance: _do not ring that bell_.
[_Caller rings the bell._
POET (_sits down, abject_)
You will marry. You will sometimes take a ticket with your wife as far as Paris. Perhaps as far as Cannes. Then the family will come; a large sprawling family as far as the eye can see (I speak in hyperbole). You'll earn money and feed it and be like all the rest. No monument will ever be set up to your memory but--
[_Servant answers bell. Caller says something inaudible. Exit through door._
POET (_rising, lifting hand_)
But let there be graven in brass upon this house: Romance was born again here out of due time and died young. (_He sits down_)
[_Enter Laborer and Clerk with Policeman. The music stops._
POLICEMAN
Anything wrong here?
POET
Everything's wrong. They're going to kill Romance.
POLICEMAN (_to Laborer_)
This gentleman doesn't seem quite right somehow.
LABORER
They're none of them quite right to-day.
[_Music starts again._
POET
My God! It is a duet.
POLICEMAN
He seems a bit wrong somehow.
LABORER
You should 'a seen the other one.
CURTAIN