Back to Methuselah Part 58

THE HE-ANCIENT [_mildly_] Am I wanted? I feel called. [_Seeing the body of Pygmalion, and immediately taking a sterner tone_] What! A child lost! A life wasted! How has this happened?

THE FEMALE FIGURE [_frantically_] I didn't do it. It was not me. May I be struck dead if I touched him! It was he [_pointing to the Male Figure_].

ALL [amazed at the lie] Oh!

THE MALE FIGURE. Liar. You bit him. Everyone here saw you do it.

THE HE-ANCIENT. Silence. [_Going between the Figures_] Who made these two loathsome dolls?

THE MALE FIGURE [_trying to a.s.sert himself with his knees knocking_] My name is Ozymandias, king of--

THE HE-ANCIENT [_with a contemptuous gesture_] Pooh!

THE MALE FIGURE [_falling on his knees_] Oh dont, sir. Dont. She did it, sir: indeed she did.

THE FEMALE FIGURE [_howling lamentably_] Boohoo! oo! ooh!

THE HE-ANCIENT. Silence, I say.

_He knocks the Male Automaton upright by a very light flip under the chin. The Female Automaton hardly dares to sob. The immortals contemplate them with shame and loathing. The She-Ancient comes from the trees opposite the temple._

THE SHE-ANCIENT. Somebody wants me. What is the matter? [_She comes to the left hand of the Female Figure, not seeing the body of Pygmalion_].

Pf! [_Severely_] You have been making dolls. You must not: they are not only disgusting: they are dangerous.

THE FEMALE FIGURE [_snivelling piteously_] I'm not a doll, mam. I'm only poor Cleopatra-Semiramis, queen of queens. [_Covering her face with her hands_] Oh, don't look at me like that, mam. I meant no harm. He hurt me: indeed he did.

THE HE-ANCIENT. The creature has killed that poor youth.

THE SHE-ANCIENT [_seeing the body of Pygmalion_] What! This clever child, who promised so well!

THE FEMALE FIGURE. He made me. I had as much right to kill him as he had to make me. And how was I to know that a little thing like that would kill him? I shouldn't die if he cut off my arm or leg.

ECRASIA. What nonsense!

MARTELLUS. It may not be nonsense. I daresay if you cut off her leg she would grow another, like the lobsters and the little lizards.

THE HE-ANCIENT. Did this dead boy make these two things?

MARTELLUS. He made them in his laboratory. I moulded their limbs. I am sorry. I was thoughtless: I did not foresee that they would kill and pretend to be persons they were not, and declare things that were false, and wish evil. I thought they would be merely mechanical fools.

THE MALE FIGURE. Do you blame us for our human nature?

THE FEMALE FIGURE. We are flesh and blood and not angels.

THE MALE FIGURE. Have you no hearts?

ARJILLAX. They are mad as well as mischievous. May we not destroy them?

STREPHON. We abhor them.

THE NEWLY BORN. We loathe them.

ECRASIA. They are noisome.

ACIS. I don't want to be hard on the poor devils; but they are making me feel uneasy in my inside. I never had such a sensation before.

MARTELLUS. I took a lot of trouble with them. But as far as I am concerned, destroy them by all means. I loathed them from the beginning.

ALL. Yes, yes: we all loathe them. Let us calcine them.

THE FEMALE FIGURE. Oh, don't be so cruel. I'm not fit to die. I will never bite anyone again. I will tell the truth. I will do good. Is it my fault if I was not made properly? Kill him; but spare me.

THE MALE FIGURE. No! I have done no harm: she has. Kill her if you like: you have no right to kill me.

THE NEWLY BORN. Do you hear that? They want to have one another killed.

ARJILLAX. Monstrous! Kill them both.

THE HE-ANCIENT. Silence. These things are mere automata: they cannot help shrinking from death at any cost. You see that they have no self-control, and are merely shuddering through a series of reflexes.

Let us see whether we cannot put a little more life into them. [_He takes the Male Figure by the hand, and places his disengaged hand on its head_]. Now listen. One of you two is to be destroyed. Which of you shall it be?

THE MALE FIGURE [_after a slight convulsion during which his eyes are fixed on the He-Ancient_] Spare her; and kill me.

STREPHON. Thats better.

THE NEWLY BORN. Much better.

THE SHE-ANCIENT [_handling the Female Automaton in the same manner_]

Which of you shall we kill?

THE FEMALE FIGURE. Kill us both. How could either of us live without the other?

ECRASIA. The woman is more sensible than the man.

_The Ancients release the Automata._

THE MALE FIGURE [_sinking to the ground_] I am discouraged. Life is too heavy a burden.

THE FEMALE FIGURE [_collapsing_] I am dying. I am glad. I am afraid to live.

THE NEWLY BORN. I think it would be nice to give the poor things a little music.

ARJILLAX. Why?

THE NEWLY BORN. I don't know. But it would.

_The Musicians play._

THE FEMALE FIGURE. Ozymandias: do you hear that? [_She rises on her knees and looks raptly into s.p.a.ce_] Queen of queens! [_She dies_].