Read-Aloud Plays Part 5

I won't be your heir!

UNCLE RICHARD

Wh--what? Good heavens! Are you _mad_?

RICHARD

I hope so. Yes, I hope that from your point of view I am quite mad. You won't understand me, because you don't understand what I most love and what I most hate. Oh you self-made Americans! When I really needed your helping hand you didn't think of me. You had the American idea that every tub must stand on its own bottom, that every young fellow must make _good_--that is, make money. You buy "art" at a certain stage in your development just as you buy motor cars, and you think you can buy artists the same way. You don't know that to buy dead art is to starve live artists.

Well, I made good. I can stand alone. Are you offering me money now to help me in my work? Not a bit! Rich men haven't changed since the first tribal chief ordered his bow and arrows, his wives and servants, to be buried with him.

UNCLE RICHARD

You conceited young rascal! I needn't leave you a cent!

RICHARD

I haven't asked you to. I never thought about your money. I can get along very well without it. But can you take it with you?

UNCLE RICHARD

Of course not! But I can leave it to whom I please.

RICHARD

Why don't you leave it to Joseph?

UNCLE RICHARD

To Joseph--my coachman? Are you joking?

RICHARD

Not at all. Didn't he save your life in the Civil War? And what have I ever done for you?

UNCLE RICHARD

I have remembered Joseph very handsomely, but to make him my _heir_--why, that isn't the same thing at all!

RICHARD

Well, to a university then?

UNCLE RICHARD

No.

RICHARD

A church?

UNCLE RICHARD

No!

RICHARD

A cat hospital?

UNCLE RICHARD

d.a.m.n cats! There's been enough of them sick in my own house!

RICHARD

Well, I give it up.

UNCLE RICHARD

You young fool! You don't know what you are saying! _Joseph! Church! Cat Hospital!_ What good would I get out of that? Is that what I have been working for all my life? No indeed!

_Richard, you shall be my heir!_

RICHARD

I won't! You are only interested in me because I bear your name. If I were John Smith, though ten times the better man, you would never waste a thought upon me. My name is an accident--I care nothing for that. My real self is my art, for which you care even less. All you want is to establish a dynasty--the last infirmity of successful men.

No, I won't be your heir!

UNCLE RICHARD

Madness, madness! What kind of a world are we coming to?

RICHARD

Listen. One day when I was walking outside Siena I came to a fine old villa with a wonderful garden. A row of cypresses ran along the wall inside, and I wanted to paint it. The gardener let me in for a tip. While I sat there working, he watching me--even the peasants have a feeling for paint over there--we heard a tap on the window. It was the padrona. I saw that she wanted to speak to me, and I went in. She was an old, crippled woman, holding to life by sheer will, sitting all day by the fire in one room. She spoke French, so we could talk. To my surprise she was very much interested in me--asked questions about my work, my family, and so on. I couldn't understand why. But when I left she began crying and told me that I reminded her of her grandson who had been killed in Tripoli, and that there was no one of the family name left, but that she had to leave the property either to a cousin whom she detested, or to the Church. And she said just what you have: that this wasn't the _same thing_. She had nothing to live for, she said, now the heir was dead, except keep the place out of others' hands. There she was, a prisoner in that beautiful villa, enjoying nothing, where an artist would have been in paradise. I see her yet, bent over the fire in a black lace shawl, crying.

On my way back to town I happened to think of my last visit with you, and my state of mind returned, my feeling of dependence and the gloomy Thanksgiving dinner. The shock of contrast between my old and my new self stopped me short in the road. In a flash I saw the lying materialism on which the world is based, the curse of dollar wors.h.i.+p that keeps opportunity away from the young, at the same time it keeps the old in a prison of loneliness and suspicion. If we wors.h.i.+pped life instead of metal disks, we would see that the young are not really the heirs of the old, but the old are heirs of the young. Then and there I vowed to keep myself clear of the whole wretched tangle, even if I had to carry laundry all my life, so that if any one ever tried to fetter me I could fling his words back in his face! (_Uncle Richard's nerves are all on edge. A terrific storm of overbearing temper visibly gathers during this speech, and the Colonel's long habit of successful domination seems about to a.s.sert itself in an explosion. But at the last moment another power, deeper than habit, older than character, represses his wrath, and when Uncle Richard speaks again it is with an earnest gentleness almost plaintive._)

UNCLE RICHARD

Richard, for heaven's sake let us stop this quarreling! Let us forget what has been said and done on both sides and begin anew. I offer you a home here during my life time, and all that I own after I am dead. I _do_ care for you, my boy, I know it now as I know my own name. Surely, Richard, you need not take this offer amiss?

RICHARD

Well, but you see, Uncle Richard....

UNCLE RICHARD