Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 252

HELENA. Remember who I am.

PARIS. I have not forgotten, Daughter of Heaven. [_Suddenly he leaps to his feet._] Listen!

HELENA. Shhh! That's the King and a.n.a.lytikos in the library.

PARIS. No! No! Don't you hear the flutter of wings?

HELENA. Wings?

PARIS [_ecstatically_]. Venus, mother of Love!

HELENA [_alarmed_]. What is it?

PARIS. She has sent her messenger. I hear the patter of little feet.

HELENA. Those little feet are the soldiers below in the courtyard.

[_A trumpet sounds._]

PARIS [_the truth of the situation breaking through his emotion_]. In a moment I shall be killed.

HELENA. Killed?

PARIS. Save me and save yourself!

HELENA. Myself?

PARIS. I shall rescue you and lead you on to life.

HELENA. No one has even spoken to me like that before.

PARIS. This is the first time your ears have heard the truth.

HELENA. Was it of you I've been dreaming?

PARIS. Your dream was but your unrealized desire.

HELENA. Menelaus has never made me feel like this. [_And then with a sudden shriek._] Oh! I'm a wicked woman!

PARIS. No! No!

HELENA. For years I've been living with a man I didn't love.

PARIS. Yes! Yes!

HELENA. I'm lost!

PARIS [_at a loss_]. No! Yes! Yes! No!

HELENA. It was a profanation of the most holy.

PARIS. The holiest awaits you, Helena! Our love will lighten the Plutonian realms.

HELENA. Menelaus never spoke to me like that.

PARIS. 'Tis but the first whisper of my adoration.

HELENA. I can't face him every morning at breakfast for the rest of my life. That's even more than a Queen can bear.

PARIS. I am waiting to release you.

HELENA. I've stood it for seven years.

PARIS. I've been coming to you since the beginning of time.

HELENA. There is something urging me to go with you, something I do not understand.

PARIS. Quick! There is but a moment left us.

[_He takes her rapturously in his arms. There is a pa.s.sionate embrace in the midst of which Tsumu enters._]

TSUMU. The chiropodist has come.

HELENA. Bring me my outer garment and my purse.

[_Tsumu exits, her eyes wide on Paris._]

PARIS. Helena! Helena!

[_Helena looks about her and takes up the papyrus that Menelaus has flung to the floor._]

HELENA. A last word to the King. [_She looks at the papyrus._] No, this won't do; I shall have to take this with me.

PARIS. What is it?

HELENA. Maskanda's discourse on the hip.

[_A trumpet sounds below in the courtyard._]

PARIS [_excitedly_]. Leave it--or your hip may cost me my head. We haven't a minute to spare. Hurry! Hurry!

[_Helena takes up an eyebrow pencil and writes on the back of the papyrus. She looks for a place to put it and seeing the s.h.i.+eld she smears it with some of the ointment and sticks the papyrus to it._]

PARIS [_watching her in ecstasy_]. You are the fairest of all fair women and your name will blaze as a symbol throughout eternity.

[_Tsumu enters with the purse and the Queen's outer robe._]

HELENA [_tossing the purse to Paris_]. Here, we may need this.