Clifford Bax

“ An eye like Bennett's and a beard like Shaw's.
I know your Harry—just the English type,
A silent strong man married to his pipe,
With so few words, except about machines,
That he can never tell you what he means:
But were I his, and we two went a-walking,
What should that matter? I could do the talking.
HILDA. Surely you see, Gioconda, I require
A lover who can make love with some fire.
GIOCONDA. And I a lover so much overcome
By deep emotion that it leaves him dumb.
[44] HILDA. No poetry? Then, so far as I can tell,
The Twentieth Century ought to suit you well.... ”

“ GIOCONDA. Stop! Stop! You can't go yet. You haven't told me
Where I can find the Twentieth Century.
HILDA (leading her front, and pointing to the audience) . Then,
Behold its ladies and its gentlemen.
GIOCONDA. What lovely people!... All the same, you know,
They're not as I have pictured them.
HILDA.How so?
GIOCONDA. They're all so still.... And then—my fancy boggles
To see not one who's wearing motor-goggles. ”

“ She tosses the pipe and stick off, left.
There! Did I play it well? You'd be my wife?
Hilda (sighing) .
My dear, you played old Harry to the life—
His gaucherie...
Gioconda.
His noble self-command...
Hilda.
The way he shifts his cane from hand to hand...
Gioconda.
A nervous trick that shows how much he feels...
Hilda.
All I know is—I'd have a man who kneels
And pours out passion in a style as rippling
As the best Swinburne—or at least as Kipling.
Gioconda. ”

“ How hypodermic! What she does without!
What whittling of mere obvious fact! Indeed
I sometimes tremble when her books come out
For fear there won't be any words to read....
The last two? These—hobnobbing all this time,
Not rent to rags, not mutually destroyed?
[24] For here's that famous work, 'Soul from the Slime,'
By Jung, and here 'Slime from the Soul,' by Freud.
They may be risqué but how up to date—
And James need never know I've read them.... Stop!
Surely? It is! A telegram! ”

“ HILDA. Gioconda, dear—good-bye!
(Standing in the middle of the stage, they take hands and kiss. Then they come to the front, left and right.)
So ends our fantasy—the slight design
Arisen and gone like sound in summer trees,
GIOCONDA. The burden such as every mind may seize—
That in all centuries life is goodly wine! ”

“ Pray to the gods whom Freud has left behind!
(DOROTHY lunges with the knife at DOROTHEA, who escapes by darting to the left of the table. She raises her right hand high.)
DOROTHEA. Stop! I pronounce on you this dreadful spell!
Abracadabra: complex: transference:
Theriomorphia—now it's working well—
Father-imago: schizophrenia——
DOROTHY.Hence!
Spare me!
DOROTHEA. Appendage-function: surrogate:
Enantiodromia—doesn't that one hurt?—
Libido: endopsychic——
DOROTHY.Wait, oh wait!
DOROTHEA. Persona: hypermnesia: extrovert!
Yield, in the holy names of Jung and Freud! ”

“ Have worshipped trees, loved naiads, boxed the ears
Of mountain satyrs, touched the Fleece of Gold,
And ridden great centaurs. When I catch the strain
Of Homer's verse I hear his very lyre
Trembling: for me Hector is newly slain,
And it was yesterday Troy fell in fire.
They who at last have found me little guess
Whither I lead. They fancy that one blow
Has brought down Heaven in fragments. Nonetheless,
I shall build what they think I overthrow!
And you? You're just a weir that tames my power. ”

“ She sets her books on the table and curtsies to them.
Gramercy now—Shaw, Bennett, Wells, and Co.—
Since you have shown me what I longed to know,
How to behave, talk, smoke, and bob my hair
In nineteen-twenty, when at last I'm there.
Could I but find a guide! How shall I tell
Which road to follow? If I listen well
I ought to hear the roaring of their trains,
Their motor-horns, their humming monoplanes... ”

“ DOROTHEA. My dear! I want the life of modern man.
I want to quote the works of Douglas Cole,
Think all men base except the artisan,
And smile at God, religion, and the soul.
I want to find new genius everywhere. ”

“ With Bayeux hands, knee crookèd, and neck bowed—
While he read all the Domesday Book aloud.
I shan't go there.... Now, that's a pretty view! (Referring to the map.)
'The Eighteenth Century: Boswell Avenue.'
I might try that. But no—that won't do either.
I'd have to wear a wig or tell them why there,
Love coffee-houses more than trees and birds,
And talk in such tremendously long words. ”

“ He comes! I'll take pearls as a last resort.
(Enter, left, GIOCONDA carrying a pipe and a walking-stick.)
GIOCONDA. Well, and how are you? In the pink, old sport?
HILDA. I'm glad to see you, Harry. Do sit down.
GIOCONDA. 'Some' heat to-day, what? Even here. In town
Perfectly awful. Got a match?
(She tries in vain to light the pipe from a match struck by HILDA.)
I say,
Old thing—you really look top-hole to-day.
[45] HILDA. Well, naturally: I knew that you were coming.
(GIOCONDA pulls at her pipe in silence, pokes the floor with her stick, and shifts it from hand to hand.) ”

“ Enter: and, if you will, stay with me long. But, if you like it not, Go with good grace. The man Who builds his own house builds to please himself. Twenty-five Chinese Poems, paraphrased by Clifford Bax. ”

“ Jung with your right hand, with your left hand Freud,
And clap them thrice.
DOROTHEA (following these directions) . Of course, I'm far too old....
I ought to be more rationally employed....
But still——
(DOROTHY WILD darts out from behind the screen. She is a barbaric figure clad in furs and wearing a tiara of feathers.) ”

“ Their motor-horns, their humming monoplanes....
(She listens intently for a moment.)
The very bees are silent.... (Seeing HILDA.)
Who is that?
Surely, unless the books have lied, her hat
Came from renowned 'Roulette's,' in Portman Square!
A Twentieth-Century girl! She will know where
The Spaniards gather and the Black Friars dwell. ”

“ James Joyce rebound to look like Samuel Smiles,
Montaigne, Pierre Louys——
DOROTHEA.Any one but you
Would know I read them only for their styles.
I've stood enough. Please go!
DOROTHY.But where to go?
We two make up one girl. ”

“ Before I go to supper.
(Taking the envelope which is on top, she extracts a number of Press cuttings, looks through them hastily and tosses them back on to the table one by one.)
'True romance.'
W. J. Turner—'Shows a man's desire
To write for men.... ”