Читать книгу The Great God Brown - Eugene O'Neill - Страница 3

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SCENE--A cross section of the pier of the Casino. In the rear, built out beyond the edge, is a rectangular space with benches on the three sides. A rail encloses the entire wharf at the back.

It is a moonlight night in mid-June. From the Casino comes the sound of the school quartet rendering "Sweet Adeline" with many ultra-sentimental barber-shop quavers. There is a faint echo of the ensuing hand-clapping--then nothing but the lapping of ripples against the piles and their swishing on the beach--then footsteps on the boards and Billy Brown walks along from right with his mother and father. The mother is a dumpy woman of forty-five, overdressed in black lace and spangles. The father is fifty or more, the type of bustling, genial, successful, provincial business man, stout and hearty in his evening dress.

Billy Brown is a handsome, tall and athletic boy of nearly eighteen. He is blond and blue-eyed, with a likeable smile and a frank good-humored face, its expression already indicating a disciplined restraint. His manner has the easy self-assurance of a normal intelligence. He is in evening dress.

They walk arm in arm, the mother between.

MOTHER--(always addressing the father) This Commencement dance is badly managed. Such singing! Such poor voices! Why doesn't Billy sing?

BILLY--(to her) Mine is a regular fog horn! (He laughs.)

MOTHER--(to the air) I had a pretty voice, when I was a girl. (then, to the father, caustically) Did you see young Anthony strutting around the ballroom in dirty flannel pants?

FATHER--He's just showing off.

MOTHER--Such impudence! He's as ignorant as his father.

FATHER--The old man's all right. My only kick against him is he's been too damned conservative to let me branch out.

MOTHER--(bitterly) He has kept you down to his level--out of pure jealousy.

FATHER--But he took me into partnership, don't forget--

MOTHER--(sharply) Because you were the brains! Because he was afraid of losing you! (a pause)

BILLY--(admiringly) Dion came in his old clothes on a bet with me. He's a real sport. He wouldn't have been afraid to appear in his pajamas! (He grins with appreciation.)

MOTHER--Isn't the moonlight clear! (She goes and sits on the center bench. Billy stands at the left corner, forward, his hand on the rail, like a prisoner at the bar, facing the judge. His father stands in front of the bench on right. The mother announces, with finality) After he's through college, Billy must study for a profession of some sort, I'm determined on that! (She turns to her husband, defiantly, as if expecting opposition.)

FATHER--(eagerly and placatingly) Just what I've been thinking, my dear. Architecture! How's that? Billy a first-rate, number-one architect! That's my proposition! What I've always wished I could have been myself! Only I never had the opportunity. But Billy--we'll make him a partner in the firm after. Anthony, Brown and Son, architects and builders--instead of contractors and builders!

MOTHER--(yearning for the realization of a dream) And we won't lay sidewalks--or dig sewers--ever again?

FATHER--(a bit ruffled) I and Anthony can build anything your pet can draw--even if it's a church! (then, selling his idea) It's a great chance for him! He'll design--expand us--make the firm famous.

MOTHER--(to the air--musingly) When you proposed, I thought your future promised success--my future--(with a sigh)--Well, I suppose we've been comfortable. Now, it's his future. How would Billy like to be an architect? (She does not look at him.)

BILLY--(to her) All right, Mother. (then sheepishly) I guess I've never bothered much about what I'd like to do after college--but architecture sounds all right to me, I guess.

MOTHER--(to the air--proudly) Billy used to draw houses when he was little.

FATHER--(jubilantly) Billy's got the stuff in him to win, if he'll only work hard enough.

BILLY--(dutifully) I'll work hard, Dad.

MOTHER--Billy can do anything!

BILLY--(embarrassed) I'll try, Mother. (There is a pause.)

MOTHER--(with a sudden shiver) The nights are so much colder than they used to be! Think of it, I once went moonlight bathing in June when I was a girl--but the moonlight was so warm and beautiful in those days, do you remember, Father?

FATHER--(puts his arm around her affectionately) You bet I do, Mother. (He kisses her. The orchestra at the Casino strikes up a waltz.) There's the music. Let's go back and watch the young folks dance. (They start off, leaving Billy standing there.)

MOTHER--(suddenly calls back over her shoulder) I want to watch Billy dance.

BILLY--(dutifully) Yes, Mother! (He follows them. For a moment the faint sound of the music and the lapping of waves is heard. Then footsteps again and the three Anthonys come in. First come the father and mother, who are not masked. The father is a tall lean man of fifty-five or sixty with a grim, defensive face, obstinate to the point of stupid weakness. The mother is a thin frail faded woman, her manner perpetually nervous and distraught, but with a sweet and gentle face that had once been beautiful. The father wears an ill-fitting black suit, like a mourner. The mother wears a cheap, plain, black dress. Following them, as if he were a stranger, walking alone, is their son, Dion. He is about the same height as young Brown but lean and wiry, without repose, continually in restless nervous movement. His face is masked. The mask is a fixed forcing of his own face--dark, spiritual, poetic, passionately supersensitive, helplessly unprotected in its childlike, religious faith in life--into the expression of a mocking, reckless, defiant, gayly scoffing and sensual young Pan. He is dressed in a gray flannel shirt, open at the neck, sneakers over bare feet, and soiled white flannel trousers. The father strides to the center bench and sits down. The mother, who has been holding to his arm, lets go and stands by the bench at the right. They both stare at Dion, who, with a studied carelessness, takes his place at the rail, where young Brown had stood. They watch him, with queer, puzzled eyes.)

MOTHER--(suddenly--pleading) You simply must send him to college!

FATHER--I won't. I don't believe in it. Colleges turn out lazy loafers to sponge on their poor old fathers! Let him slave like I had to! That'll teach him the value of a dollar! College'll only make him a bigger fool than he is already! I never got above grammar school but I've made money and established a sound business. Let him make a man out of himself like I made of myself!

DION--(mockingly--to the air) This Mr. Anthony is my father, but he only imagines he is God the Father. (They both stare at him.)

FATHER--(with angry bewilderment) What--what--what's that?

MOTHER--(gently remonstrating to her son) Dion, dear! (then to her husband--tauntingly) Brown takes all the credit! He tells everyone the success is all due to his energy--that you're only an old stick-in-the-mud!

FATHER--(stung, harshly) The damn fool! He knows better'n anyone if I hadn't held him down to common sense, with his crazy wild-cat notions, he'd have had us ruined long ago!

MOTHER--He's sending Billy to college--Mrs. Brown, just told me--going to have him study architecture afterwards, too, so's he can help expand your firm!

FATHER--(angrily) What's that? (suddenly turns on Dion furiously) Then you can make up your mind to go, too! And you'll learn to be a better architect than Brown's boy or I'll turn you out in the gutter without a penny! You hear?

DION--(mockingly--to the air) It's difficult to choose--but architecture sounds less laborious.

MOTHER--(fondly) You ought to make a wonderful architect, Dion. You've always painted pictures so well--

DION--(with a start--resentfully) Why must she lie? Is it my fault? She knows I only try to paint. (passionately) But I will, some day! (then quickly, mocking again) On to college! Well, it won't be home, anyway, will it? (He laughs queerly and approaches them. His father gets up defensively. Dion bows to him.) I thank Mr. Anthony for this splendid opportunity to create myself--(he kisses his mother, who bows with a strange humility as if she were a servant being saluted by the young master--then adds lightly)--in my mother's image, so she may feel her life comfortably concluded. (He sits in his father's place at center and his mask stares with a frozen mockery before him. They stand on each side, looking dumbly at him.)

MOTHER--(at last, with a shiver) It's cold. June didn't use to be cold. I remember the June when I was carrying you, Dion--three months before you were born. (She stares up at the sky.) The moonlight was warm, then. I could feel the night wrapped around me like a gray velvet gown lined with warm sky and trimmed with silver leaves!

FATHER--(gruffly--but with a certain awe) My mother used to believe the full of the moon was the time to sow. She was terrible old-fashioned. (with a grunt) I can feel it's bringing on my rheumatism. Let's go back indoors.

DION--(with intense bitterness) Hide! Be ashamed! (They both start and stare at him.)

FATHER--(with bitter hopelessness. To his wife--indicating their son) Who is he? You bore him!

MOTHER--(proudly) He's my boy! He's Dion!

DION--(bitterly resentful) What else, indeed! The identical son! (then mockingly) Are Mr. Anthony and his wife going in to dance? The nights grow cold! The days are dimmer than they used to be! Let's play hide-and-seek! Seek the monkey in the moon! (He suddenly cuts a grotesque caper, like a harlequin and darts off, laughing with forced abandon. They stare after him--then slowly follow. Again there is silence except for the sound of the lapping waves. Then Margaret comes in, followed by the humbly worshiping Billy Brown. She is almost seventeen, pretty and vivacious, blonde, with big romantic eyes, her figure lithe and strong, her facial expression intelligent but youthfully dreamy, especially now in the moonlight. She is in a simple white dress. On her entrance, her face is masked with an exact, almost transparent reproduction of her own features, but giving her the abstract quality of a Girl instead of the individual, Margaret.)

MARGARET--(looking upward at the moon and singing in low tone as they enter) "Ah, moon of my delight that knowest no wane!"

BILLY--(eagerly) I've got that record--John McCormack. It's a peach! Sing some more. (She looks upward in silence. He keeps standing respectfully in back of her, glancing embarrassedly toward her averted face. He tries to make conversation.) I think the Rubáiyát's great stuff, don't you? I never could memorize poetry worth a darn. Dion can recite lots of Shelley's poems by heart.

MARGARET--(slowly takes off her mask--to the moon) Dion! (a pause)

BILLY--(fidgeting) Margaret!

MARGARET--(to the moon) Dion is so wonderful!

BILLY--(blunderingly) I asked you to come out here because I wanted to tell you something.

MARGARET--(to the moon) Why did Dion look at me like that? It made me feel so crazy!

BILLY--I wanted to ask you something, too.

MARGARET--That one time he kissed me--I can't forget it! He was only joking--but I felt--and he saw and just laughed!

BILLY--Because that's the uncertain part. My end of it is a sure thing, and has been for a long time, and I guess everybody in town knows it--they're always kidding me--so it's a cinch you must know--how I feel about you.

MARGARET--Dion's so different from all the others. He can paint beautifully and write poetry and he plays and sings and dances so marvelously. But he's sad and shy, too, just like a baby sometimes, and he understands what I'm really like inside--and--and I'd love to run my fingers through his hair--and I love him! Yes, I love him! (She stretches out her arms to the moon.) Oh, Dion, I love you!

BILLY--I love you, Margaret.

MARGARET--I wonder if Dion--I saw him looking at me again tonight--Oh, I wonder . . . !

BILLY--(takes her hand and blurts out) Can't you love me? Won't you marry me--after college--

MARGARET--Where is Dion now, I wonder?

BILLY--(shaking her hand in an agony of uncertainty) Margaret! Please answer me!

MARGARET--(her dream broken, puts on her mask and turns to him--matter-of-factly) It's getting chilly. Let's go back and dance, Billy.

BILLY--(desperately) I love you! (He tries clumsily to kiss her.)

MARGARET--(with an amused laugh) Like a brother! You can kiss me if you like. (She kisses him.) A big-brother kiss. It doesn't count. (He steps back crushed, with head bowed. She turns away and takes off her mask--to the moon) I wish Dion would kiss me again!

BILLY--(painfully) I'm a poor boob. I ought to know better. I'll bet I know. You're in love with Dion. I've seen you look at him. Isn't that it?

MARGARET--Dion! I love the sound of it!

BILLY--(huskily) Well--he's always been my best friend--I'm glad it's him--and I guess I know how to lose--(he takes her hand and shakes it)--so here's wishing you all the success and happiness in the world, Margaret--and remember I'll always be your best friend! (He gives her hand a final shake--swallows hard--then manfully) Let's go back in!

MARGARET--(to the moon--faintly annoyed) What is Billy Brown doing here? I'll go down to the end of the dock and wait. Dion is the moon and I'm the sea. I want to feel the moon kissing the sea. I want Dion to leave the sky to me. I want the tides of my blood to leave my heart and follow him! (She whispers like a little girl) Dion! Margaret! Peggy! Peggy is Dion's girl--Peggy is Dion's little girl--(She sings laughingly, elfishly) Dion is my Daddy-O! (She is walking toward the end of the dock, off left.)

BILLY--(who has turned away) I'm going. I'll tell Dion you're here.

MARGARET--(more and more strongly and assertively, until at the end she is a wife and a mother) And I'll be Mrs. Dion--Dion's wife--and he'll be my Dion--my own Dion--my little boy--my baby! The moon is drowned in the tides of my heart, and peace sinks deep through the sea! (She disappears off left, her upturned unmasked face like that of a rapturous visionary. There is silence again, in which the dance music is heard. Then this stops and Dion comes in. He walks quickly to the bench at center and throws himself on it, hiding his masked face in his hands. After a moment, he lifts his head, peers about, listens huntedly, then slowly takes off his mask. His real face is revealed in the bright moonlight, shrinking, shy and gentle, full of a deep sadness.)

DION--(with a suffering bewilderment) Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid of love, I who love love? Why am I afraid, I who am not afraid? Why must I pretend to scorn in order to pity? Why must I hide myself in self-contempt in order to understand? Why must I be so ashamed of my strength, so proud of my weakness? Why must I live in a cage like a criminal, defying and hating, I who love peace and friendship? (clasping his hands above in supplication) Why was I born without a skin, O God, that I must wear armor in order to touch or to be touched? (A second's pause of waiting silence--then he suddenly claps his mask over his face again, with a gesture of despair and his voice becomes bitter and sardonic.) Or rather, Old Graybeard, why the devil was I ever born at all? (Steps are heard from the right. Dion stiffens and his mask stares straight ahead. Billy comes in from the right. He is shuffling along disconsolately. When he sees Dion, he stops abruptly and glowers resentfully--but at once the "good loser" in him conquers this.)

BILLY--(embarrassedly) Hello, Dion. I've been looking all over for you. (He sits down on the bench at right, forcing a joking tone) What are you sitting here for, you nut--trying to get more moonstruck? (a pause--awkwardly) I just left Margaret--

DION--(gives a start--immediately defensively mocking) Bless you, my children!

BILLY--(gruffly and slangily) I'm out of it--she gave me the gate. You're the original white-haired boy. Go on in and win! We've been chums ever since we were kids, haven't we?--and--I'm glad it's you, Dion. (This huskily--he fumbles for Dion's hand and gives it a shake.)

DION--(letting his hand fall back--bitterly) Chums? Oh no, Billy Brown would despise me!

BILLY--She's waiting for you now, down at the end of the dock.

DION--For me? Which? Who? Oh no, girls only allow themselves to look at what is seen!

BILLY--She's in love with you.

DION--(moved--a pause--stammers) Miracle? I'm afraid! (He chants flippantly) I love, thou lovest, he loves, she loves! She loves, she loves--what?

BILLY--And I know damn well, underneath your nuttiness, you're gone on her.

DION--(moved) Underneath? I love love! I'd love to be loved! But I'm afraid! (then aggressively) Was afraid! Not now! Now I can make love--to anyone! Yes, I love Peggy! Why not? Who is she? Who am I? We love, you love, they love, one loves! No one loves! All the world loves a lover, God loves us all and we love Him! Love is a word--a shameless ragged ghost of a word--begging at all doors for life at any price!

BILLY--(always as if he hadn't listened to what the other said) Say, let's you and me room together at college--

DION--Billy wants to remain by her side!

BILLY--It's a bet, then! (forcing a grin) You can tell her I'll see that you behave! (turns away) So long. Remember she's waiting. (He goes.)

DION--(dazedly, to himself) Waiting--waiting for me! (He slowly removes his mask. His face is torn and transfigured by joy. He stares at the sky raptly.) O God in the moon, did you hear? She loves me! I am not afraid! I am strong! I can love! She protects me! Her arms are softly around me! She is warmly around me! She is my skin! She is my armor! Now I am born--I--the I!--one and indivisible--I who love Margaret! (He glances at his mask triumphantly--in tones of deliverance) You are outgrown! I am beyond you! (He stretches out his arms to the sky.) O God, now I believe! (From the end of the wharf her voice is heard.)

MARGARET--Dion!

DION--(raptly) Margaret!

MARGARET--(nearer) Dion!

DION--Margaret!

MARGARET--Dion! (She comes running in, her mask in her hands. He springs toward her with outstretched arms but she shrinks away with a frightened shriek and hastily puts on her mask. Dion starts back. She speaks coldly and angrily.) Who are you? Why are you calling me? I don't know you!

DION--(heart-brokenly) I love you!

MARGARET--(freezingly) Is this a joke--or are you drunk?

DION--(with a final pleading whisper) Margaret! (But she only glares at him contemptuously. Then with a sudden gesture he claps his mask on and laughs wildly and bitterly.) Ha-ha-ha! That's one on you, Peg!

MARGARET--(with delight, pulling off her mask) Dion! How did you ever--Why, I never knew you!

DION--(puts his arm around her boldly) How? It's the moon--the crazy moon--the monkey in the moon--playing jokes on us! (He kisses her with his masked face with a romantic actor's passion again and again.) You love me! You know you do! Say it! Tell me! I want to hear! I want to feel! I want to know! I want to want! To want you as you want me!

MARGARET--(in ecstasy) Oh, Dion, I do! I do love you!

DION--(with ironic mastery--rhetorically) And I love you! Oh, madly! Oh, forever and ever, amen! You are my evening star and all my Pleiades! Your eyes are blue pools in which gold dreams glide, your body is a young white birch leaning backward beneath the lips of spring. So! (He has bent her back, his arms supporting her, his face above hers) So! (He kisses her.)

MARGARET--(with overpowering passionate languor) Oh, Dion! Dion! I love you!

DION--(with more and more mastery in his tone) I love, you love, we love! Come! Rest! Relax! Let go your clutch on the world! Dim and dimmer! Fading out in the past behind! Gone! Death! Now! Be born! Awake! Live! Dissolve into dew--into silence--into night--into earth--into space--into peace--into meaning--into joy--into God--into the Great God Pan! (While he has been speaking, the moon has passed gradually behind a black cloud, its light fading out. There is a moment of intense blackness and silence. Then the light gradually comes on again. Dion's voice, at first in a whisper, then increasing in volume with the light, is heard) Wake up! Time to get up! Time to exist! Time for school! Time to learn! Learn to pretend! Cover your nakedness! Learn to lie! Learn to keep step! Join the procession! Great Pan is dead! Be ashamed!

MARGARET--(with a sob) Oh, Dion, I am ashamed!

DION--(mockingly) Sssshh! Watch the monkey in the moon! See him dance! His tail is a piece of string that was left when he broke loose from Jehovah and ran away to join Charley Darwin's circus!

MARGARET--I know you must hate me now! (She throws her arms around him and hides her head on his shoulder.)

DION--(deeply moved) Don't cry! Don't--! (He suddenly tears off his mask--in a passionate agony) Hate you? I love you with all my soul! Love me! Why can't you love me, Margaret? (He tries to kiss her but she jumps to her feet with a frightened cry holding up her mask before her face protectingly.)

MARGARET--Don't! Please! I don't know you! You frighten me!

DION--(puts on his mask again--quietly and bitterly) All's well. I'll never let you see again. (He puts his arm around her--gently mocking) By proxy, I love you. There! Don't cry! Don't be afraid! Dion Anthony will marry you some day. (He kisses her.) "I take this woman--" (tenderly joking) Hello, woman! Do you feel older by aeons? Mrs. Dion Anthony, shall we go in and may I have the next dance?

MARGARET--(tenderly) You crazy child! (then, laughing with joy) Mrs. Dion Anthony! It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? (They go out as

The Curtain Falls)