The Road to Damascus, a Trilogy Part 26

MOTHER. I've just been left alone.

LADY. Here's the post. This is for job.

MOTHER. What? Do you open his letters?

LADY. All of them, because I want to know who it is I've linked my life to. And I want to suppress everything that might minister to his pride.

In a word, I isolate him, so that he has to keep his own electricity and run the danger of being broken to pieces.

MOTHER. How learned you've grown?

LADY. Yes. If he's unwise enough to confide almost everything to me, I'll soon hold his fate in my hand. Now, if you please, he's making electrical experiments and claims he'll be able to harness the lightning, so that it'll give him light, warmth and power. Well, let him do as he likes! From a letter that came to-day I see he's even corresponding with alchemists.

MOTHER. Does he want to make gold? Is the man sane?

LADY. That's the important question. Whether he's a charlatan doesn't matter so much.

MOTHER. Do you suspect it?

LADY. I'd believe any evil of him, and any good, on the same day.

MOTHER. Is there any other news?

LADY. The plans my divorced husband made for a new marriage have gone wrong; he's grown melancholic, abandoned his practice and is tramping the roads.

MOTHER. Oh! He was always my son-in-law. He had a kind heart under his rough manner.

LADY. Yes. I only called him a werewolf in his role as my husband and master. As long as I knew he was at peace, and on the way to find consolation, was content. But now he'll torment me like a bad conscience.

MOTHER. Have you a conscience?

LADY. I never used to have one. But my eyes have been opened since I read my husband's works, and I know the difference between good and evil.

MOTHER. But he forbade you to read them, and never foresaw you wouldn't obey him.

LADY. Who can foresee all the results of any action?

MOTHER. Have you more bad news in your pocket, Pandora?

LADY. The worst of all! Think of it, Mother, his divorced wife's going to marry again.

MOTHER. That ought to be rea.s.suring, to you and to him.

LADY. Didn't you know it was his worst nightmare? That his wife would marry again and his children have a stepfather?

MOTHER. If he can bear that alone, I shall think him a strange man.

LADY. You believe he's too sensitive? But didn't he say himself that an educated man of the world at the end of the nineteenth century never lets himself be put out of countenance!

MOTHER. It's easy to say so; but when things really happen....

LADY. Yet there was a gift at the bottom of Pandora's box that was no misfortune. Look, Mother! A portrait of his six-year-old son.

MOTHER (looking at the picture). A lovely child.

LADY. It does one good to see such a charming and expressive picture.

Tell me, do you think my child will be as beautiful? Well, what do you say? Answer, or I'll be unhappy! I love this boy already, but I feel I'd hate him if my child's not as lovely as he. Yes, I'm jealous already.

MOTHER. When you came here after your unlucky honeymoon, I'd hoped you'd have got over the worst. But now I see it was only a foretaste of what was to come.

LADY. I'm ready for anything; and I don't think this knot can ever be undone. It must be cut!

MOTHER. But you're only making more difficulties for yourself by suppressing his letters.

LADY. In days gone by, when I went through life like a sleep-walker, everything seemed easy to me, but I begin to be uncertain now he's started to waken thoughts in me. (She puts the letters into the post-bag.) Here he is. 's.h.!.+

MOTHER. One thing more. Why do you let him wear that suit of your first husband's?

LADY. I like torturing and humiliating him. I've persuaded him it fits him and belonged to my father. Now, when I see him in the werewolf's things, I feel I've got both of them in my clutches.

MOTHER. Heaven defend us! How spiteful you've grown!

LADY. Perhaps that was my role, if I have one in this man's life!

MOTHER. I sometimes wish the river would rise and carry us all away whilst we're asleep at night. If it were to flow here for a thousand years perhaps it would wash out the sin on which this house is built.

LADY. Then it's true that my grandfather, the notary, illegally seized property not his own? It's said this place was built with the heritage of widows and orphans, the funds of ruined men, the property of dead ones and the bribes of litigants.

MOTHER. Don't speak of it any more. The tears of those still living have run together and formed a lake. And it's that lake, people say, that's being drained now, and that'll cause the river to wash us away.

LADY. Can't it be stopped by taking legal action? Is there no justice on earth?

MOTHER. Not on earth. But there is in heaven. And heaven will drown us, for we're the children of evildoers. (She goes up the steps.)

LADY. Isn't it enough to put up with one's own tears? Must one inherit other people's?

(The STRANGER comes back.)

STRANGER. Did you call me?

LADY. No. I only tried to draw you to me, without really wanting you.

STRANGER. I felt you meddling with my destiny in a way that made me uneasy. Soon you'll have learnt all I know.

LADY. And more.

STRANGER. But I must ask you not to lay rough hands on my fate. I am Cain, you see, and am under the ban of mysterious powers, who permit no mortals to interfere with their work of vengeance. You see this mark on my brow? (He removes his hat.) It means: Revenge is mine, saith the Lord.

LADY. Does your hat press....