The Road to Damascus, a Trilogy Part 11

STRANGER. Is that the river I hear?

LADY. The river by which I was born and brought up. I was eighteen before I crossed over to this bank, to see what was in the blue of the distance.... Now I've seen.

STRANGER. You're weeping!

LADY. Poor old man! When I got into the boat, he said: My child, beyond lies the world. When you've seen enough, come back to your mountains, and they will hide you. Now I've seen enough. Enough!

STRANGER. Let's go. It's beginning to grow dusk already. (They pick up their travelling capes and go on.)

SCENE VI

IN A RAVINE

[Entrance to a ravine between steep cliffs covered with pines. In the foreground a wooden shanty, a broom by the door with a ramshorn hanging from its handle. Left, a smithy, a red glow showing through its open door. Right, a flourmill. In the background the road through the ravine with mill-stream and footbridge. The rock formations look like giant profiles.]

[On the rise of the curtain the SMITH is at the smithy door and the MILLER'S WIFE at the door of the mill. When the LADY enters they sign to one another and disappear. The clothing of both the LADY and the STRANGER is torn and shabby.]

STRANGER. They're hiding, from us, probably.

LADY. I don't think so.

STRANGER. What a strange place! Everything seems conspire to arouse disquiet. What's that broom there? And the horn with ointment? Probably because it's their usual place, but it makes me think of witchcraft.

Why is the smithy black and the mill white? Because one's sooty and the other covered with flour; yet when I saw the blacksmith by the light of his forge and the white miller's wife, it reminded me of an old poem.

Look at those giant faces.... There's your werewolf from whom I saved you. There he is, in profile, see!

LADY. Yes, but it's only the rock.

STRANGER. Only the rock, and yet it's he.

LADY. Shall I tell you why we can see him?

STRANGER. You mean--it's our conscience? Which p.r.i.c.ks us when we're hungry and tired, and is silent when we've eaten and rested. It's horrible to arrive in rags. Our clothes are torn from climbing through the brambles. Someone's fighting against me.

LADY. Why did you challenge him?

STRANGER. Because I want to fight in the open; not battle with unpaid bills and empty purses. Anyhow: here's my last copper. The devil take it, if there is one! (He throws it into the brook.)

LADY. Oh! We could have paid the ferry with it. Now we'll have to talk of money when we reach home.

STRANGER. When can we talk of anything else?

LADY. That's because you've despised it.

STRANGER. As I've despised everything....

LADY. But not everything's despicable. Some things are good.

STRANGER. I've never seen them.

LADY. Then follow me and you will.

STRANGER. I'll follow you. (He hesitates when pa.s.sing the smithy.)

LADY (who has gone on ahead). Are you frightened of fire?

STRANGER. No, but... (The horn is heard in the distance. He hurries past the smithy after the LADY.)

SCENE VII

IN A KITCHEN

[A large kitchen with whitewashed walls. Three windows in the corner, right, so arranged that two are at the back and one in the right wall.

The windows are small and deeply recessed; in the recesses there are flower pots. The ceiling is beamed and black with soot. In the left corner a large range with utensils of copper, iron and tin, and wooden vessels. In the corner, right, a crucifix with a lamp. Beneath it a four-cornered table with benches. Bunches of mistletoe on the walls.

A door at the back. The Poorhouse can be seen outside, and through the window at the back the church. Near the fire bedding for dogs and a table with food for the poor.]

[The OLD MAN is sitting at the table beneath the crucifix, with his hands clasped and a game bag before him. He is a strongly-built man of over eighty with white hair and along beard, dressed as a forester. The MOTHER is kneeling on the floor; she is grey-haired and nearly fifty; her dress is of black-and-white material. The voices of men, women and children can be clearly heard singing the last verse of the Angels'

Greeting in chorus. 'Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, pray for us poor sinners, now and in the hour of death. Amen.']

OLD MAN and MOTHER. Amen!

MOTHER. Now I'll tell you, Father. They saw two vagabonds by the river.

Their clothing was torn and dirty, for they'd been in the water. And when it came to paying the ferryman, they'd no money. Now they're drying their clothes in the ferryman's hut.

OLD MAN. Let them stay there.

MOTHER. Don't forbid a beggar your house. He might be an angel.

OLD MAN. True. Let them come in.

MOTHER. I'll put food for them on the table for the poor. Do you mind that?

OLD MAN. No.

MOTHER. Shall I give them cider?

OLD MAN. Yes. And you can light the fire; they'll be cold.

MOTHER. There's hardly time. But I will, if you wish it, Father.

OLD MAN (looking out of the window). I think you'd better.

MOTHER. What are you looking at?

OLD MAN. The river; it's rising. And I'm asking myself, as I've done for seventy years--when I shall reach the sea.

MOTHER. You're sad to-night, Father.