The Betrothal Part 17

GAFFER TYL

Hold your tongue, I say!... I tell you, they represent all that is best in you and in the whole family. If you obey them, if you submit to their influence, you will be happy and safe.... Mind now! They're coming....

(THE ANCESTORS _have been gradually collecting at the back of the stage. They bow, accost one another, shake hands, exchange compliments. All show affectionate respect to_ THE GREAT PEASANT, THE GREAT MENDICANT _and especially_ THE GREAT ANCESTOR, _gathering around them and listening deferentially to what they say. On the other hand_, THE SICK MAN, THE DRUNKARD _and_ THE MURDERER _are left standing apart, forming a pitiful rear-guard. The group now moves towards the benches in the foreground, where_ TYLTYL _and his companions are gathered_.)

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

(_Coming forward_.) Good-evening, Tyltyl!

TYLTYL

Good-evening ... sir!

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

Kiss me first. Don't be afraid. I look rather savage, but it is only a shape which I had to put on in order to make myself visible to you. I had no other handy.... But I am really quite clean and I don't smell bad.

TYLTYL

I never said you did!

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

No, but to judge by the grimace you made you weren't quite sure!...

(_Sitting down on the middle bench_.) I will sit down here; the Great Mendicant will take his seat on my right and the Great Peasant on my left. They don't smell either.... (THE GREAT MENDICANT _and_ THE GREAT PEASANT _take their seats; the other_ ANCESTORS _stand behind him_.) And I will take you on my knees.... I am glad to hold you in my arms for a moment.... We have known each other so long!

TYLTYL

I don't remember ever seeing you before.

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

And yet we have always lived in each other; for you were already living in me when I was on earth; and now I live in you while you are still on that same earth, which we seem to have quitted.... But what do you think of this place of ours?... Let me have the pleasure of showing you over your home.

TYLTYL

My home?

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

Certainly.... You are at home here.... And a very nice home it is....

Everything you see--this square, that prison, the church, those houses, we who live in them--all this is really only inside yourself.... People rarely see it, they don't even suspect it; but it's true.

TYLTYL

I should never have thought there was so much room inside myself and that it was so large....

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

It's much larger really; there's a great deal that you don't see.... But that is not what interests us to-day; let us come straight to the point, to the great question that brings you here.... We are going to choose the woman whom you are to love....

TYLTYL

Since you are so kind, there's one thing I should like to ask you....

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

Ask me any questions you please.

TYLTYL

How is it that I have not, like other men, the right to choose the woman I love?

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

But you have the right to choose and are here for the sole purpose of making that choice.

TYLTYL

No, they tell me that it's you and the others who will make it.

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

But I and the others are all you.... You are we, we are you; and it's all the same thing.

TYLTYL

Not for me.... They keep on telling me to hold my tongue, that it's not my business, that it's no concern of mine.... Everybody's allowed to get a word in, except me.... I've had enough, I'm sick and tired of it!...

Where do I come in? That's what I want to know!

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

You're simply acting as all men act when they think they are doing what they want to do.

TYLTYL

But, after all, dash it, what business is it of yours? I can understand, in a way, that the children I may one day have should claim some right to select their mother; but the rest of you, over here, what difference can it make to you?

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

Don't you see that it's all the same? Those who have lived in you live in you just as much as those who are going to. There is no difference, it all connects and it's still the same family.

TYLTYL

As you please, but I can't make it out.... And, if I refuse to obey, if I love just for myself, if I take a different girl from the one they want to force on me, what will they do then? What will happen?

THE GREAT ANCESTOR