Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 50

SHE. Manikin?

HE. Will you listen to me?

SHE. No!

HE. Will you listen to me?

SHE. No.

HE. Will you listen to me?

SHE. Yes.

HE. I love you----

SHE. No!

HE. I've always loved you----

SHE. No.

HE. You doubt that?

SHE. Yes!

HE. You doubt that?

SHE. Yes.

HE. You doubt that?

SHE. No. You've always loved me--yes--but you don't love me now--no--not since that rose-face encountered your glance--no.

HE. Minikin!

SHE. If I could move about the way she can-- if I had feet-- dainty white feet which could twinkle and twirl-- I'd dance you so prettily you'd think me a sun b.u.t.terfly-- if I could let down my hair and prove you it's longer than larch hair-- if I could raise my black brows or shrug my narrow shoulders, like a queen or a countess-- if I could turn my head, tilt my head, this way and that, like a swan-- ogle my eyes, like a peac.o.c.k, till you'd marvel, they're green, nay, violet, nay, yellow, nay, gold-- if I could move, only move just the moment of an inch-- you would see what I could be!

It's a change, it's a change, you men ask of women!

HE. A change?

SHE. You're eye-sick, heart-sick of seeing the same foolish porcelain thing, a hundred years old, a hundred and fifty, and sixty, and seventy-- I don't know how old I am!

HE. Not an exhalation older than I--not an inhalation younger! Minikin?

SHE. Manikin?

HE. Will you listen to me?

SHE. No!

HE. Will you listen to me?

SHE. No!

HE. Will you listen to me?

SHE. Yes.

HE. I don't love that creature----

SHE. You do.

HE. I can't love that creature----

SHE. You can.

HE. Will you listen to me?

SHE. Yes-- if you'll tell me-- if you'll prove me-- so my last particle of dust-- the tiniest speck of a molecule-- the merest electron----

HE. Are you listening?

SHE. Yes!

HE. To begin with-- I dislike, suspect, deplore-- I had best say, feel compa.s.sion for what is called humanity-- or the animate, as opposed to the inanimate----

SHE. You say that so wisely-- you're such a philosopher-- say it again!

HE. That which is able to move can never be steadfast, you understand?

Let us consider the creature at hand to whom you have referred with an undue excess of admiration adulterated with an undue excess of envy----

SHE. Say that again!

HE. To begin with-- I can only see part of her at once.

She moves into my vision; she moves out of my vision; she is doomed to be wayward.

SHE. Yes, but that which you see of her----

HE. Is ugly, commonplace, unsightly.

Her face a rose-face?

It's veined with blood and the skin of it wrinkles-- her eyes are ever so near to a hen's-- her movements, if one would pay such a gait with regard-- her gait is unspeakably ungainly-- her hair----

SHE. Her hair?

HE. Luckily I've never seen it down-- I dare say it comes down in the dark, when it looks, most a.s.suredly, like tangled weeds.

SHE. Again, Manikin, that dulcet phrase!

HE. Even were she beautiful, she were never so beautiful as thou!