Waste Part 33

FRANCES. [_Very simply and clearly._] Perhaps one does nothing quite deliberately and for a definite reason. My state has its compensations ...

if one doesn't value them too highly. I've travelled in thought over all this question. You mustn't blame a woman for wis.h.i.+ng not to bear children.

But ... well, if one doesn't like the fruit one mustn't cultivate the flower. And I suppose that saying condemns poor Amy ... condemned her to death ... [_Then her face hardens as she concentrates her meaning._] and brands most men as ... let's unsentimentally call it illogical, doesn't it?

_He takes the thrust in silence._

TREBELL. Did you notice the light in my window as you came in?

FRANCES. Yes ... in both as I got out of the cab. Do you want the curtains drawn back?

TREBELL. Yes ... don't touch them.

_He has thrown himself into his chair by the fire. She lapses into thought again._

FRANCES. Poor little woman.

TREBELL. [_In deep anger._] Well, if women will be little and poor....

_She goes to him and slips an arm over his shoulder._

FRANCES. What is it you're worried about ... if a mere sister may ask?

TREBELL. [_Into the fire._] I want to think. I haven't thought for years.

FRANCES. Why, you have done nothing else.

TREBELL. I've been working out problems in legal and political algebra.

FRANCES. You want to think of yourself.

TREBELL. Yes.

FRANCES. [_Gentle and ironic._] Have you ever, for one moment, thought in that sense of anyone else?

TREBELL. Is that a complaint?

FRANCES. The first in ten years' housekeeping.

TREBELL. No, I never have ... but I've never thought selfishly either.

FRANCES. That's a paradox I don't quite understand.

TREBELL. Until women do they'll remain where they are ... and what they are.

FRANCES. Oh, I know you hate us.

TREBELL. Yes, dear sister, I'm afraid I do. And I hate your influence on men ... compromise, tenderness, pity, lack of purpose. Women don't know the values of things, not even their own value.

_For a moment she studies him, wonderingly._

FRANCES. I'll take up the counter-accusation to-morrow. Now I'm tired and I'm going to bed. If I may insult you by mothering you, so should you. You look tired and I've seldom seen you.

TREBELL. I'm waiting up for a message.

FRANCES. So late?

TREBELL. It's a matter of life and death.

FRANCES. Are you joking?

TREBELL. Yes. If you want to spoil me find me a book to read.

FRANCES. What will you have?

TREBELL. Huckleberry Finn. It's on a top shelf towards the end somewhere ...

or should be.

_She finds the book. On her way back with it she stops and s.h.i.+vers._

FRANCES. I don't think I shall sleep to-night. Poor Amy O'Connell!

TREBELL. [_Curiously._] Are you afraid of death?

FRANCES. [_With humorous stoicism._] It will be the end of me, perhaps.

_She gives him the book, with its red cover; the '86 edition, a boy's friend evidently. He fingers it familiarly._

TREBELL. Thank you. Mark Twain's a jolly fellow. He has courage ... comic courage. That's what's wanted. Nothing stands against it. You be-little yourself by laughing ... then all this world and the last and the next grow little too ... and so you grow great again. Switch off some light, will you?

FRANCES. [_Clicking off all but his reading lamp._] So?

TREBELL. Thanks. Good night, Frankie.

_She turns at the door, with a glad smile._

FRANCES. Good night. When did you last use that nursery name?

_Then she goes, leaving him still fingering the book, but looking into the fire and far beyond. Behind him through the open window one sees how cold and clear the night is._

_At eight in the morning he is still here. His lamp is out, the fire is out and the book laid aside. The white morning light penetrates every crevice of the room and shows every line on_ TREBELL'S _face.

The spirit of the man is strained past all reason. The door opens suddenly and_ FRANCES _comes in, troubled, nervous. Interrupted in her dressing, she has put on some wrap or other._

FRANCES. Henry ... Simpson says you've not been to bed all night.

_He turns his head and says with inappropriate politeness_--

TREBELL. No. Good morning.