Читать книгу The Fountain - Eugene O'Neill - Страница 3

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SCENE--Courtyard of Ibnu Aswad's palace in Granada.

The section forms a right triangle, its apex at the rear, right. In the left, center, a massive porte-cochère opens on the street. On the right, a door leading into the house itself. In the center of the courtyard, a large splendid fountain of green marble with human and animal figures in gilt bronze. The peristyle of the gallery running around the court is supported by slender columns of polished marble, partly gilded. The interspaces above the horseshoe arches springing from the columns are filled with arabesques, texts from the Koran, red, blue and gold in color. Above are the latticed windows of the women's apartments. Over the house-top a sky with stars can be seen. It is early night.

As the curtain rises, the court is empty and there is silence except for the splash of the fountain. Then a loud, imperious knocking, as of someone pounding with the hilt of a sword, is heard from the porte-cochère. Ibnu Aswad enters from the right. He is an elderly, noble-looking Moor, the lower part of his face covered by a long, white beard. His expression is one of great pride borne down by sorrow and humiliation. He goes out through the porte-cochère, and returns ushering in Juan Ponce de Leon and his servant, Pedro. Juan is a tall, handsome Spanish noble of thirty-one, dressed in full uniform. His countenance is haughty, full of a romantic adventurousness and courage; yet he gives the impression of disciplined ability, of a confident self-mastery--a romantic dreamer governed by the ambitious thinker in him. Pedro is a dull-looking young fellow.

JUAN--(as they enter--to Aswad) Your pardon, Sir Moor.

ASWAD--(haughtily) You are quartered here? (Juan bows in affirmation.) Welcome then, since it is the will of Allah that you should conquer.

JUAN--(graciously) I am no conquerer here. I am a stranger grateful for hospitality.

ASWAD--(unbending a bit) You are kind. I have seen you in action on the field. You are brave. Defeat loses its bitterness when the foe is noble. (moodily and bitterly--staring at the fountain) The waters of the fountain fall--but ever they rise again, Sir Spaniard. Such is the decree of destiny. (with fervor) Blessed be Allah who exalteth and debaseth the kings of the earth, according to his divine will, in whose fulfillment consists eternal justice. (fiercely and defiantly) Whosoever the victor, there is no conqueror but Allah!

JUAN--(stiffening--coldly) Your fortitude does you honor. (by way of dismissing the subject--abruptly) I am expecting friends. Will that disturb your household? If so--

ASWAD--(coldly) My house is your house. It is decreed. (He bows with stately grace and goes out, right.)

JUAN--(makes a movement as if to detain him--then shrugs his shoulders) What can I do for him? (ironically repeating Ibnu's inflection) It is decreed by Spain if not by Allah. (seeing Pedro lolling against the wall, drowsily staring at the fountain--amused) Lazy lout! Does the fountain cause you, too, to dream? (in a tone of command) Bring the wine. They will be here soon.

PEDRO--Yes, sir. (He goes. Juan paces back and forth, humming to himself. Pedro returns and approaches his master cautiously--in a mysterious whisper) A lady, sir.

JUAN--(frowning) Is she alone? (Pedro nods, Juan smiles cynically.) Surely you have mistaken her calling. Tell her I am not here. (As Pedro turns to go, Maria de Cordova appears in the arch of the porte-cochère. A heavy black veil is thrown over her face.)

MARIA--(her voice forced and trembling) Juan!

JUAN--(immediately the gallant cavalier, makes a motion for Pedro to leave, and bows low--mockery in his voice) Beautiful lady, you do me an unmerited honor.

MARIA--(wearily) Spare me your mockery, Juan. (She throws back her veil. She is a striking-looking woman of thirty-eight or forty, but discontent and sorrow have marked her age clearly on her face.)

JUAN--(astonished) Maria! (then with genuine alarm) In God's name!

MARIA--(her voice breaking) Juan, I had to come.

JUAN--(sternly) Your husband is my brother in arms. Tonight--here--he is to be among my guests. I feel that every word we speak now degrades me in my honor.

MARIA--(in a tone of great grief) You are cruel! I had to speak with you alone. This is my one chance. I leave the Court tomorrow.

JUAN--(with evident relief) Ah.

MARIA--(stares at him with a pitiful appeal. He avoids her eyes.) Oh, what a fool I am--(with a half-sob, as if the confession were wrung from her)--to love you, Juan! (She makes a movement toward him, but he steps back, aloof and cold.)

JUAN--(frowning) That word--we have never uttered it before. You have always been--my friend. (after a pause, with deep earnestness) Why must you ruin our rare friendship for a word that every minstrel mouths? (then with irritation) Love, love, love we chatter everlastingly. We pretend love alone is why we live! Bah! Life is nobler than the weak lies of poets--or it's nothing!

MARIA--(wounded and indignant) If you had had to fight for love as you have fought for glory!--

JUAN--(struck by the pain in her tone, kneels and kisses her hand--remorsefully) Forgive me! I would die rather than bring sorrow to a heart as kind as yours. Keep me forever in that heart, I beg--but as a friend--as it has always been.

MARIA--(with a gasp of pain) Ah! (taking her hand from his--with a deep sigh) God give you knowledge of the heart!

JUAN--(rises--plainly endeavoring to change the subject) You are leaving the Court?

MARIA--The Queen has granted my wish to retire to Cordova. (passionately) I'm sick of the Court! I long for simple things! I pray to become worthy again of that pure love of God I knew as a girl. I must seek peace in Him! (after a pause) Granada is ours. The Moors are driven from Spain. The wars are over. What will you do now, Juan?

JUAN--Peace means stagnation--a slack ease of cavaliers and songs and faded roses. I must go on.

MARIA--Where will you go?

JUAN--(smiles half-whimsically at an idea) Perhaps with the Genoese, Christopher Columbus, when he sails to find the western passage to Cathay.

MARIA--(disturbed) But they say he is mad.

JUAN--(seriously now) Mad or not, he dreams of glory. I have heard he plans to conquer for Spain that immense realm of the Great Khan which Marco Polo saw.

MARIA--What! Abandon your career at Court now when your exploits have brought you in such favor? No one would ruin himself so senselessly save in despair! (jealously) It must be from love you are fleeing! (fiercely mocking) Is a woman avenging women? Tell me her name!

JUAN--(with a mocking laugh) Love, love, and always love! Can no other motive exist for you? God pity women!

MARIA--(after a pause--sadly) God pity me--because pity is what you offer me. (as Juan seems about to protest wearily) Don't deny it, Juan. It sneers at me in your pretended scorn of love--You wish to comfort my humiliation! Am I a fool? Have you not loved others? I could name ten--

JUAN--Maria!

MARIA--Do you imagine I haven't guessed the truth? Those others had youth--while I--And my love seems to you--pitiable!

JUAN--(kneeling and taking her hand--with passionate earnestness) No, dear friend, no! I swear to you! (after a pause) What you call loves--they were merely moods--dreams of a night or two--lustful adventures--gestures of vanity, perhaps--but I have never loved. Spain is the mistress to whom I give my heart, Spain and my own ambitions, which are Spain's. Now do you understand?

MARIA--(sadly) No, Juan. (He rises.) I understand that I am growing old--that love has passed for me--and that I suffer in my loneliness. Perhaps if God had granted me a child--But His justice punishes. He has seen my secret sin. I have loved you, Juan, for years. But it was only in the last year when my heart, feeling youth die, grew desperate that I dared let you see. And now, farewell, until God's will be done in death. We must not meet again.

JUAN--(sternly) No. (passionately) I wish to God you had not told me this!

MARIA--(gently) If you are still my friend you will not wish it. It was my final penance--that you should know. And, having told you, I am free, for my heart is dead. There is only my soul left that knows the love of God which blesses and does not torture. Farewell once more, Juan. (He kneels and kisses her hand. She puts the other on his head as if blessing him.) You are noble, the soul of courage, a man of men. You will go far, soldier of iron--and dreamer. God pity you if those two selves should ever clash! You shall have all my prayers for your success--but I shall add, Dear Savior, let him know tenderness to recompense him when his hard youth dies! (She turns quickly and goes out.)

JUAN--(looks after her in melancholy thought for a while--then sighs deeply and shrugs his shoulders) Time tarnishes even the pure, difficult things with common weakness. (Luis de Alvaredo enters through the porte-cochère. He is a dissipated-looking noble, a few years older than Juan. His face is homely but extremely fetching in its nobility, its expression of mocking fun and raillery. He is dressed carelessly, is slightly drunk.)

LUIS--(mockingly) Lover of glory, beloved of women, hail! (He comes to the startled Juan as voices are heard from the porte-cochère--in a hurried, cautioning whisper) The devil, Juan! Have you lost your wits--or has she? I recognized her--and Vicente was only ten paces behind. (then again mockingly) Discretion, my stainless knight, discretion!

JUAN--(sternly) Stop! You wrong her and me. (Sounds of a loud, angry dispute are heard from without.) What is that brawling?

LUIS--My Moor. (explaining hurriedly to Juan) A fellow poet--a minstrel of their common folk. We found him running amuck about the streets declaiming to the stars that their king, Abdallah, had sold his soul to hell when he surrendered. (with admiration) By God, Juan, how he cursed! Oh, he's a precious songster, and as poet to poet I collared him and dragged him with us. Our friend, Diego, would have cut his throat for the Church's glory had I not interfered.

JUAN--(smiling) As madman for madman, eh? But why bring him here to howl?

LUIS--He has a lute. It is my whim he should sing some verses. (with an amused grin) The dog speaks only Arabic. If he is wily, he will chant such curses on our heads as will blight that fountain dry--and no one of us but me will understand. (with great glee) It will be sport, Juan! (The clamor from outside grows more violent.) By God, Diego will murder my minstrel--after all my pains. (starts to hurry out--stops in the entrance) Remember, Juan. Vicente may have recognized--the lady.

JUAN--(nods, frowning) The devil take all women! (Luis goes out. Pedro enters, carrying two large baskets full of bottles and sets them down, rear.) Drink and forget sad nonsense. Bring out cushions. We will sit beside the fountain. (Pedro goes into the house, right. Luis reënters, holding Yusef by the arm--a wizened old Moor dressed in the clothes of the common people, but wearing the turban signifying that he has made the pilgrimage to Mecca. His deep-set eyes smolder with hatred but physically he is so exhausted as to seem resigned to his fate. They are followed by Diego Menendez, a Franciscan monk, about the same age as Juan and Luis. He has a pale, long face, the thin, cruel mouth, the cold, self-obsessed eyes of the fanatic. Just now he is full of helpless fury and indignation. Accompanying him is Vicente de Cordova, a gray-haired, stern, soldierly noble of forty-five. Following them are the three nobles, Oviedo, Castillo and Mendoza. They are the type of adventurous cavaliers of the day--cruel, courageous to recklessness, practically uneducated--knights of the true Cross, ignorant of and despising every first principle of real Christianity--yet carrying the whole off with a picturesque air.)

MENENDEZ--(angrily) I protest to you, Juan. It is heresy to suffer this dog's presence when we offer thanks to God for victory.

JUAN--(stares at the Moor interestedly for a moment--then carelessly) I see no desecration, Diego--if he will sing, not howl. (turning to Vicente, scrutinizing his face keenly--carelessly) What do you say, Vicente?

VICENTE--(gives him a dark look of suspicion--coldly and meaningly) I say nothing--now.

JUAN--Ah! (He and Luis exchange a look.)

OVIEDO--Well, I say let him remain. We may have sport with him.

CASTILLO--(with a cruel smile) Perhaps with a sword-point we can persuade him to sing where the townsfolk hid their gold.

MENDOZA--Your words are inspired, Manuel!

LUIS--(scornfully) Materialists! You would sack heaven and melt the moon for silver. Juan, where is your wine? (Pedro appears, bringing cushions and goblets for each. He uncorks the bottles and pours their goblets full. Scorning a goblet Luis snatches a bottle from him and drinks from that.)

JUAN--(keeping a wary eye on Vicente) Let us drink. (takes a goblet from Pedro) To our most Gracious Sovereigns and to Spain! (He drinks.)

MENENDEZ--And to the Church! (angrily) But I will not drink until that infidel is moved apart!

VICENTE--I agree.

JUAN--(impatiently) Let the Moor go, Luis--since Diego takes himself so seriously.

VICENTE--(coldly resentful) And I? (Juan is about to reply irritably when Luis breaks in hurriedly.)

LUIS--Shhh! I'll sing a song for you. (releasing the Moor and pointing to the rear) Go, brother bard, and take your ease. (The Moor goes to the right, rear, and squats down in the shadow by the wall. Luis sings)

Love is a flower

Forever blooming.

Life is a fountain

Forever leaping

Upward to catch the golden sunlight,

Striving to reach the azure heaven;

Failing, falling,

Ever returning

To kiss the earth that the flower may live.

(They all applaud as he finishes.)

JUAN--Charming, Sir Poet--but a lie. (mockingly) Love, and love, and always love! The devil seize your flower! Do fountains flow only to nourish flowers that bloom a day and die?

LUIS--Roar, lion! You will not wake my dream that life is love!

JUAN--Listen to him, Diego! We know his only love is his old mother; and yet, to judge from his songs, you would think him a greater philanderer than--than--

VICENTE--(interrupting sneeringly) Than you, Don Juan?

JUAN--(turning on him--coldly) Gossip gives many a false name--but gossip only deludes old women.

VICENTE--(growing pale) Do you intend that insult? (Their hands go to the hilt of their swords. The three nobles quicken to excited interest. Luis leaps between them.)

LUIS--For God's sake! Is either of you a Moor? (raises his bottle) Let us drink again to Spain!

OVIEDO--And to the next war!

CASTILLO--May it be soon!

MENDOZA--With a world to sack! Sing us a song of that, Luis!

LUIS--I am too thirsty. But come, I was forgetting our infidel. Let me use persuasion--(He goes back to the Moor, and can be heard talking to him in Arabic.)

JUAN--We were speaking of wars to come. With whom?

OVIEDO--With anyone!

JUAN--But guess. I think it will be in lands beyond strange seas--Cipango and Cathay--the cities of gold that Marco Polo saw.

OVIEDO--But who will lead us there?

JUAN--Why, Christopher Columbus. (They all laugh.)

CASTILLO--That Genoese mongrel!--to lead Spaniards!

MENDOZA--He's mad. He claims the earth is round--like an egg! (They all laugh.)

JUAN--(impressively) I saw him today. He was riding his flea-bitten mule as if he were a Cæsar in a triumph. His eyes were full of golden cities.

CASTILLO--Bah, Juan, you romance! The man's an idiot!

LUIS--(coming back) The more fool you to think so! He will yet find for Spain the Western Passage to the East.

CASTILLO--Or fall off the world's edge! I will wager you would not go with him for all the gold in Indies!

LUIS--You would lose!

JUAN--I'm planning to go. (All are astonished.) But not on his first voyage. Before I pledge my sword I must have proof that it can serve Spain's glory. There is no profit in staking life for dreams.

LUIS--There is no profit in anything but that! You're from the East, Moor. Tell us of the Great Khan, of Cipango and Cathay and Cambuluc, of golden roofs and emerald-studded lintels to the doors. Your people must have heard these wonders.

MENDOZA--Yes, let him sing of treasure. (But the Moor remains silent.)

LUIS--Wait, I'll talk to him. (He goes back and speaks to the Moor in Arabic. The latter replies.)

MENENDEZ--(furiously) This is all treasonable. The dog had broken the peace. The punishment is death.

JUAN--(mockingly) Let him sing of treasure, Diego. Even the Church loves gold.

LUIS--(coming back--exultantly) He consents, Juan--because I am a colleague. He will sing of treasure in the East--a tale told to his father by some wandering poet who came from Cathay with a caravan. (All except the outraged Diego and the sullen, preoccupied Vicente quicken to interested attention. The Moor strikes a few notes on his lute.) Hush! (The Moor begins a crooning chant of verses, accompanying himself on the lute. At first they are all held by its strange rhythm, then they begin to betray impatience.)

OVIEDO--By God, our wolf turns into a sick shepherd.

LUIS--Hush!

CASTILLO--(impatiently) What does he sing?

LUIS--(enrapt--vaguely) Hush, hush.

MENENDEZ--(rising to his feet as the Moor's recitative abruptly ends--harshly) This is the service in a devil's mass!

LUIS--(passes his hand across his eyes, then stares into the fountain dreamily) He sang of treasure--but strange to your longing. There is in some far country of the East--Cathay, Cipango, who knows--a spot that Nature has set apart from men and blessed with peace. It is a sacred grove where all things live in the old harmony they knew before man came. Beauty resides there and is articulate. Each sound is music, and every sight a vision. The trees bear golden fruit. And in the center of the grove, there is a fountain--beautiful beyond human dreams, in whose rainbows all of life is mirrored. In that fountain's waters, young maidens play and sing and tend it everlastingly for very joy in being one with it. This is the Fountain of Youth, he said. The wise men of that far-off land have known it many ages. They make it their last pilgrimage when sick with years and weary of their lives. Here they drink, and the years drop from them like a worn-out robe. Body and mind know youth again, and these young men, who had been old, leap up and join the handmaids' dance. Then they go back to life, but with hearts purified, and the old discords trouble them no more, but they are holy and the folk revere them. (with a sigh) That's his tale, my friends--but he added it is hard to find that fountain. Only to the chosen does it reveal itself.

MENENDEZ--(furiously) Idolatry!

OVIEDO--Is this his treasure? By God, he mocks us!

LUIS--Fools! Beauty is lost on you. Your souls clink like coppers. (Menendez slinks back step by step toward the Moor. Luis grabs a bottle.) Come, let us drink! We'll all to Cathay with Don Christopher. You can burrow for dung there--but I will search for this fountain.

JUAN--(drinking--a bit tipsily) Drink and forget sad nonsense! The devil! His song beguiled me until you tricked it into that old woman's mumble. Youth! Is youth a treasure? Then are we all--except Vicente--priceless rich; and yet, God's blood, one has but to look to see how poor we are!

LUIS--Poor in spirit! I understand you, Juan.

JUAN--Fountain of youth, God help us, with love to boot! I wish he'd sung instead of the armies and power of the Great Khan! (then half-aside to Luis) The tale is always told to the wrong person. There was one here not long ago who would have given pearls for drops from that same fountain!

VICENTE--(who has crept vengefully toward Juan in time to hear these last words--with cold fury) A moment ago you taunted me with age--and now you dare--(He slaps Juan across the face. They draw their swords.)

LUIS--(trying to intervene) For God's sake, friends!

OVIEDO--(with excited interest) A duel! (The others echo this. Suddenly there is a harsh shriek from the rear. Menendez appears from the shadow, dagger in hand, a look of fanatical triumph on his face. Forgetting the duel, the others stand appalled.)

MENENDEZ--(sheathing the dagger) I have slain the dog. It was high time.

LUIS--Miserable bigot! (Raging, he tries to throw himself at the monk, but Juan grasps him and forces him down on a cushion. He breaks down, weeping.)

MENENDEZ--(coldly scornful) What! A soldier of Christ weep for an infidel!

JUAN--(sternly) Be still, Diego! (then frowning--curtly, in a tone of dismissal which silences all protest) Our reveling is under an ill star. There is blood upon it. Good-night. (turning to Vicente) Until tomorrow.

(Vicente bows and goes, accompanied by Menendez. The young nobles troop out behind, disputing noisily about the coming duel.)

JUAN--(comes over and puts his hand, on Luis' shoulder--in a mocking, but comforting tone) Come, Luis. Your brother romancer is dead. Tears will not help him. Perhaps even now he drinks of that Fountain of Youth in Dreamland--if he is not in hell.

LUIS--(raising his head) Juan, why do you always sneer at beauty--while your heart calls you liar?

JUAN--(frowning) I have Spain in my heart--and my ambition. All else is weakness. (changing his tone--carelessly) Well, you were right. Vicente recognized--and so, a duel. I'll prick him in the thigh and send him home to bed. She will nurse and love him then--and hate me for a murderer. Thus, all works out for the best in this fair world! But--a rare thing dies--and I'm sad, Luis. (shaking himself and taking a goblet of wine) Come, forget sad nonsense. We will drink to voyaging with Don Christopher--and to the battles before those golden cities of Cathay!

LUIS--(recovering his spirits--grabbing a bottle) Lucifer fire your cities! I drink to my fountain!

JUAN--Your health, Sir Lying Poet!

LUIS--And yours, Sir Glory-Glutton! (They laugh, clink goblet and bottle, and drink as

The Curtain Falls)