Chapter 4

Alice and Uncle Edward draw back the curtains, and there's another curtain to be seen. It is not beautiful to look at--but it's useful. It has six advertisements painted on it in "screaming" colour. and "keep thin" says one. "Drink and keep sober" says the next, and Somebody's Patent Something is the way. "Indulge freely; we take the consequence", the motto runs beneath the two. "Patent pearls that will deceive an oyster" says the third. The fourth's a Face Cream, and the fifth's for Shattered Nerves. The sixth says, "Believe in our Patent God and you shall assuredly be saved." From one side comes the Man of the World--Man of Business--Business Manager. Silk hat, dress coat, white waistcoat, shiny shirt, patent boots, and big cigar; he's very smart and prosperous indeed. From the other side come the four poor gods, out of work buskers of the streets, down at heel and weary. But still gods, and with a god-like snap of ill-temper to them for you to know them by.

CLOWN. Morning.

MAN OF THE WORLD. Afternoon.

CLOWN. Is it? Now [Says he to the others], you leave it to me, and let's all keep our tempers. See here, Mr. Man, is this the old 99th Street Theayter?

MAN OF THE WORLD. This, sir, and you know it as well as I do, is nothing so out of date. It is Number 2613 of the five thousand Attraction Houses controlled by the Hustle Trust Circuit of Automatic Drama: President, Mr. Theodor B. Kedger. But it is located on 99th Street, New York City.

CLOWN. Are you the boss?

MAN OF THE WORLD. I am a deputy sub-inspector of the New York and New Jersey division of the circuit.

CLOWN. Can we have a job, me and my pals, here?

MAN OF THE WORLD. You cannot.

CLOWN. And why not?

MAN OF THE WORLD. Because you are superseded.

CLOWN. What's that?

PANTALOON. I'll super if there's nothing better.

CLOWN. Where is the durn President?

MAN OF THE WORLD. I learn from the fashionable intelligence that he is at present cruising the Mediterranean on his electric yacht.

CLOWN. Where's the author of the piece?

MAN OF THE WORLD. There ain't no author of the piece. This present item is turned out by our Number Two Factory of Automatic Dramaturgy; Plunkville, Tennessee.

CLOWN. Where are the other actors... God help 'em?

MAN OF THE WORLD. There ain't no actors; we froze all them out way back. Where've you been that you've grown all these mossy ideas on you?

CLOWN. Never you mind. Tell us, what's come to the poor old 99th Street Theayter... and how.

MAN OF THE WORLD. Well, I guess I need only quote you from Volume One of the Life of Mr. Theodor B. Kedger, our esteemed President ...Nit! [And as he says "Nit," if it were not for all the anti-expectoration notices hung round he would certainly spit.] It is stacked ready to put on the market the day he passes in his checks. Hold on now. About the year 1918 Mr. Kedger, who had already financially made good over the manipulation of wood-pulp potatoes, synthetic bread, and real estate, turned his attention to the Anglo-American Theatre. For the Anglo-American Theatre did not pay. Here was Mr. Kedger's opportunity. Forming a small trust, he bought up the theatres, both of the Variety and of the Monotonous kind, bought up the dramatists with their copyrights present and future, bought up the actors--

PANTALOON. Didn't buy me.

MAN OF THE WORLD. Didn't count you.

CLOWN. Cost much?

MAN OF THE WORLD. [He winks.] The payment was partly made in shares. He then paid the Dramatists considerable sums not to go on writing, which was, of course, a clear profit. He paid the actors to stop acting, which was in some cases a needless expenditure of money. He also brought in the Cinema and Gramophone interests, organising the whole affair upon a strictly business basis.

PANTALOON. He left us out. We've had cruel hard times, but I'm glad he left us out.

MAN OF THE WORLD. Then followed some years of experiment in the scientific manufacture and blending of drama. As I speak, no less than twenty-three factories dot the grassy meads of America. The work is done by clerks employed at moderate salaries for eight hours a day. For the cerebration of whatever new ideas may be needed, several French literary men are kept in chains in the backyard, being fed exclusively on absinthe and caviare sandwiches during their periods of creative activity. No less than forty different brands of drama are turned out, each with its description stamped clearly on the can. While a complete equipment for anyone can be travelled by the operator in his valise, still leaving room for toothbrush and slumber-suit.

CLOWN. Do the public like the stuff?

MAN OF THE WORLD. They've got to like it. They get none else.

CLOWN. Can't you give us another chance? I'll lay we could make good.

MAN OF THE WORLD. Sorry, sonny, but I don't see how you'd fit in. Watch this attraction I'm going to try over.

CLOWN. You still rehearse, do you?

MAN OF THE WORLD. Once. Would you like to watch? Then you'll see.

CLOWN. What's it called?

MAN OF THE WORLD. It's called "Love: a Disease", and it's Number seventy-six of the High Brow Ibsen series. It ain't got nothing to do with Ibsen really, but his is still a name that sells. He was a German professor of mathematics and highly respected in his day. I'll have you see a bit of one act.

COLUMBINE. What's the plot?

MAN OF THE WORLD. No plot. It's a home life story, a conversation. A man is telling a woman that he is just bored stiff with everything on earth.

PANTALOON. Ah!

MAN OF THE WORLD. And she doesn't know what to say. That's the first act.

CLOWN. Gosh!

MAN OF THE WORLD. In the next he's asking her advice as to whether a really tired man ought to marry. And she doesn't know.

CLOWN. How long does that take?

MAN OF THE WORLD. Quite a while.

CLOWN. Which is the act we are going to see?

MAN OF THE WORLD. The third. It contains the action. About half-way through he moves across to her and says: "Don't cry, little girl, I can always shoot myself!" And then he finds out that she is stone deaf from birth, and hasn't really heard a word he said. So she goes forth into the world to learn the Oral system, while he awaits her return, when he will begin again. Are you ready? I'll ring up.

[Quite wonderfully the big cigar shifts to one corner of his mouth, almost in line with his ear, and he whistles shrilly. The curtain of the "six ads." flies away, and there's the automatic drama in full swing. Three canvas walls, liberally stencilled in the worst Munich style. And in this space are two pink gramophones on two green pedestals. One is gilt-lettered "Arthur." The other silver-lettered "Grace." The trumpets incline to each other a little, for this is a love scene going on. On a white framed space in the back wall, stage directions are written moviely. This one spells out "Arthur is still speaking. He crosses his legs and takes an asthma cigarette." Then the gilt-lettered phonograph croaks:--

ARTHUR. After all, what is love but a disease of the imagination? Don't cry, little girl, I can always shoot myself!

GRACE. [Who croaks an octave higher.] I'm not crying. Tell me more.

[Moviely the stage direction comes: "He leans forward."

ARTHUR. But why should there be one law for women and another for men? One law for childhood and another for old age? Why skirts, why trousers? Why those monotonies of sensation and experience? Why this unreality, this hypocrisy, this cowardice, this exaltation of the super-sham? Why...?

[Moviely at the back is written: "She leans forward, too."

MAN OF THE WORLD. Now the emotion thickens!

GRACE. Let us go back to the beginning.

PANTALOON. I can't hear none of this.

CLOWN. If you worked Pictures with it, it mightn't be so bad...for them as likes this sort of stuff.

MAN OF THE WORLD. We do work Pictures with the lighter and fruitier forms of drama. But here they would only obfuscate the cerebration. Wait till she cerebrates. And she cerebrates some!

GRACE. No child at her mother's knee was more innocent than I. How then did knowledge of good and evil come? I will tell you. I will tell you of the evil first ...

PANTALOON. Columbine, you go and wait outside.

GRACE. [With a louder croak.] Passion...!

CLOWN. Stop!

MAN OF THE WORLD. Don't interrupt.

CLOWN. She ain't got no right to it with a voice like that.

GRACE. Laughter...!

CLOWN. Never laughed in her life! Never had a life to laugh in!

MAN OF THE WORLD. Young man, if this were a performance, you would be dealt with by our aesthetic policewoman. Vulgar comments made in public upon works of art are now an indictable offence.

CLOWN. Works of what?

GRACE. ...And the joy of life!

CLOWN. Stop, I say!

MAN OF THE WORLD. For the last time... don't interrupt.

CLOWN. I will interrupt. And I'll smash those durned machines, though the last Clown in the world is hung for it. For that's me ...that's me! Oh, has it come to this, after all we've done for the theatre! Haven't we loved it, Grandfer, haven't we? My red-hot poker's in pawn, and I've worn out the sausages. But let's have a try to make him laugh. Take the starch out of him! Take the banknote rustle out of him! Take the Theatre from him. Save it and save him, too! Come on, old 'un. Kiss your hand, Columbine. Harlequin, if you love me, if you love the drama, have one more try. Magic...Magic! Turn these clicking clocks there back into wholesome human bad actors again, and turn the Deputy Inspector of the New York Circuit of the Hustle Bustle Trust of Automatic...

[Columbine trips across the stage. Pantaloon chuckles. Clown tumbles head over heels and sends the Man of the World flying. Harlequin leaps in the air and smites with his wand the two pink gramophones on two green stands. They vanish! Down through a trap goes the Man of the World. Red Fire! And Alice, as she tugs the curtains to, calls in her most stentorian tones...

ALICE. Grand transformation scene! I always draw the curtains rather quick because it never works quite right.

[She waits a little, and then, very simply, says

The gods go back...

[And stops and swallows. Poor dear, her throat is dry.

UNCLE EDWARD. You want your glass of milk.

ALICE. They don't ever really go. For what would become of us without them? But it rounds off the play. They just go back as flowers die to come again forever. For the seed of the gods is sown in the hearts of men. The seeds of Love and of the Magic of High Adventure and of Laughter and of Foolishness, too. Well, when they reach the Styx there still sits that philosopher, who wasn't a philosopher at all because he sought no wisdom but his own. Because of that, you see, he has found none. There he sits, deaf and blind, while Olympus flashes and thunders behind him. There he sits, chattering that there are no gods.

* * * * *

The curtains are drawn back on the last scene. The Styx again, flowing black beneath its black mountains. There sits the Philosopher, patiently. He is dressed now as a Member of Parliament, or worse. He has a fountain pen and a notebook. And the gods arrive. Mercury, Charon, Momus, and Psyche.

PHILOSOPHER. Who are you?

MERCURY. We are the gods returning.

PHILOSOPHER. [Very definitely indeed.] There are no gods. Though from time to time it has been necessary to invent them.

PANTALOON. Why, it's my friend, the philosopher!

PHILOSOPHER. Pardon me. Nothing so unpractical. I am a Political Economist. I write Blue Books. I make laws.

MERCURY. Can you row us over?

PHILOSOPHER. What a question! I have established several rowing academies. I know how rowing is done. But, as a matter of fact, I cannot row. Still it's of little consequence, for the boat was given to a museum some time ago. Besides, the latest theories tell us that there is no other side.

CLOWN. Ain't there? Well, I'm going to swim and see.

PHILOSOPHER. Pardon me, bathing is not allowed in the Styx.

CLOWN. Ain't it?

[Off tumbles Momus, and you hear him splash in the river. The Political Economist has risen indignantly. Under the bench, dusty and neglected, Psyche spies something. She runs to see. With a little cry she picks them up, and shakes and smooths them. They are the Talaria. (Do you know what Talaria are? Look up Mercurius in Lempriere's Classical Dictionary.)

MERCURY. Wings! My wings!

PHILOSOPHER. Yes, they are wings. Left here by two children, and I hadn't the heart to destroy them. But I hid them away; they are dangerous. The very sight of wings makes men and women feel above themselves.

MERCURY. Bind them on.

[And Psyche kneels to bind them on his feet.

Sir, I return you your rags and your mask. They are at least more picturesque than your present attire. Listen, the great gods are waking! Monday morning in Olympus. Charon, stay with this fellow. He means well by the world; but teach him to rebuild the boat. For when his work is done he'll be glad to escape and to rest as you row him across the river. Psyche, we're late. Let us fly.

[For the last time the blue curtains close.

UNCLE EDWARD. Now, your last bit ... the bit the journalist wrote in your album.

ALICE. Oh, yes, if you please, you're to be sure and remember that:--

In the noise and haste and bustle Fairies on the lamplit pavements; Gods in gorse and heath and heather; Fauns behind the hedges playing; Pan about in any weather. Children hear them, see them, know them; See the things the fairies show them, Harlequin in magic poses; Columbine among the roses; Pantaloon in slippered ease is Laughing at Clown's ancient wheezes In the Summer, in the Spring, In the sunshine, in the rain, Summon them and hear them cry-- "Here we are again." That's all, isn't it, Uncle?

UNCLE EDWARD. Yes, that's all.

ALICE. Good night.

[And so, the Harlequinade being over, we go home. A little later Alice and Uncle Edward and the actors, all rather tired and ready for supper, start home, too.