Ferenc Molnár

“ Goes to KARL.
We break our necks for it: that's human nature. And if it once slips through your fingers, you will run after your found sovereign. And then, when it is too late, you will discover it was worth having.
KARL
To draw a revolver for a found sovereign?
DEVIL, sitting by him
And that little woman will become dearer and more precious to you every day—you will realize that she could have given you wings—that her temperament, her beauty, her passion, would have been the inspiration of your work— all this you'll realize when she has slipped away. You could have become a master—a giant! ”

“ But remember, you have one weapon which will deal the death blow to the most attractive woman—to the woman who knows every card in the game of love—that one weapon is purity.
ELSA
This sounds strange from you!
DEVIL
All the same—it may do you some good. And now—go dance with Karl—but don't try to be a woman, be a girl. Don't try to be saucy.
ELSA, L. C.
I'm not really saucy—I'm afraid it's only a pose—
DEVIL
Don't pose. Be yourself—be bashful—look at the young man as if you were only waiting for a pirate to steal you away from girl-land—and show you the way into Woman's Land. ”

“ Nothing you can reduce to a creed. Molnar is not a preacher or a [Pg xiv] propagandist for any theory of life. You will look in vain in his plays for moral or dogma. His philosophy—if philosophy you can call it—is always implicit. And nothing is plainer than that his picture of a courtroom in the beyond is neither devoutly nor satirically intended. Liliom’s Heaven is the Heaven of his own imagining. And what is more natural than that it should be an irrational jumble of priest’s purgatory, police magistrate’s justice and his own limited conception of good deeds and evil? ”

“ MRS. MUSKAT
Oh, didn’t he? And I suppose he didn’t put his hand around your waist, either?
MARIE
And if he did? What of it?
MRS. MUSKAT
You hold your tongue! No one’s asking you—just you keep out of it.
[Pg 7]
JULIE
He put his arm around my waist—just the same as he does to all the girls. He always does that.
MRS. MUSKAT
I’ll teach him not to do it any more, my dear. No carryings on in my carousel! If you are looking for that sort of thing, you’d better go to the circus! You’ll find lots of soldiers there to carry on with!
JULIE
You keep your soldiers for yourself! ”

“ Poor Mimi! Poor Mimi!
MIMI, wiping her eyes with handkerchief, then returning it to ELSA.
I—hope—you will be—hap—happy—too!
ELSA
I—happy?
MIMI
You are going to marry Karl—
ELSA
No—no—I'm not.
MIMI
But it's you he's in love with—
ELSA
No, Mimi; I'm not the one—it's some one else.
MIMI
You don't mean Mrs. Zanden—it can't be—why, she's your friend.
ELSA
She was.
MIMI
I don't believe it—it's not love—it's a madness—a—
ELSA, jumping at the idea
An infatuation?
MIMI
Yes, that's it—he's not in love with her—he's not himself.
ELSA
You think so?
MIMI
Yesterday he acted as if he were under some strange ”

“ MRS. MUSKAT
You reprobate!
LILIOM
Old witch!
JULIE
Thank you, Mister Liliom.
MRS. MUSKAT
You seem to think that I can’t throw you out, too. What’s the reason I can’t? Because you are the best barker in the park? Well, you are very much mistaken. In fact, you can consider yourself thrown out already. You’re discharged!
LILIOM
Very good.
MRS. MUSKAT
[Weakening a little.] I can discharge you any time I feel like it.
LILIOM
Very good, you feel like discharging me. I’m discharged. That settles it.
MRS. MUSKAT
Playing the high and mighty, are you? Conceited pig! Good-for-nothing! ”

“ The smallest candle-end shows you it is worth while to burn up for the sake of a little warmth—a little light. The only end of life is to burn—to burn yourself up. You must flame and blaze like a torch and toss the fire about you. I know: your moralists tell you to love one another—don't believe them—your grubby little earth with its paltry million years is not ripe for such a love as that. It can only breed monks, madmen, Methodists. Don't be a fool, be a rogue—but be a jolly rogue—and the world is yours! Look at me! I own the earth. Here is the key of life—Love yourself—only yourself. ”

“ KARL
You mustn't cry—it spoils your beauty.
MIMI
Oh, I'm a fool.
KARL
Now, you're talking sense.
MIMI
I've been a silly girl—but it's all over now. I'm sensible again. You are going to settle down and marry Elsa and be the most famous portrait painter in all Europe.
KARL
Mimi, child—don't speak of portraits. I feel at this moment as if I never wanted to hear the word portrait again. I'd like to run away from everything, Mimi. What do you say? ”

“ In the carousel?
LILIOM
Yes—but he was something of a bully, too. He’d fight anyone. He even hit your dear little mother.
JULIE
That’s a lie.
[Pg 179]
LILIOM
It’s true.
JULIE
Aren’t you ashamed to tell the child such awful things about her father? Get out of here, you shameless liar. Eats our soup and our bread and has the impudence to slander our dead!
LILIOM
I didn’t mean—I——
JULIE
What right have you to tell lies to the child? Take that plate, Louise, and let him be on his way. If he wasn’t such a hungry-looking beggar, I’d put him out myself. [LOUISE takes the plate out of his hand.] ”

“ JULIE goes to the kitchen door. FICSUR withdraws until she has closed the door behind her. Then he reappears in the doorway, stands on tiptoes, looks at LILIOM, then exits. Now the body lies alone. After a brief silence music is heard, distant at first, but gradually coming nearer. It is very much like the music of the carousel, but slower, graver, more exalted. The melody, too, is the same, yet the tempo is altered and contrapuntal measures of the thieves’ song are intertwined in it. ”

“ Good-bye. [MRS. MUSKAT exits. JULIE puts the candle on the table near LILIOM’S head, sits on the edge of the stretcher, looks into the dead man’s face and caresses it tenderly.] Sleep, Liliom, sleep—it’s no business of hers—I never even told you—but now I’ll tell you—now I’ll tell you—you bad, quick-tempered, rough, unhappy, wicked—dear boy—sleep peacefully, Liliom—they can’t understand how I feel—I can’t even explain to you—not even to you—how I feel—you’d only laugh at me—but you can’t hear me any more. ”

“ DEVIL kisses OLGA'S hand.
KARL
Our first love is generally our last, but our last love always our first—don't you think so?
ELSA
I don't know. I've never been really in love before—but have twice been disillusionized. ”

“ MRS. MUSKAT
Why do you go around with this man Ficsur? He’ll get you mixed up in one of his robberies first thing you know.
LILIOM
What’s it to you who I go with? I do what I please. What do you want?
MRS. MUSKAT
You know what I want.
LILIOM
No, I don’t.
MRS. MUSKAT
What do you suppose I want? Think I’ve come just to pay a social call?
LILIOM
Do I owe you anything?
MRS. MUSKAT
Yes, you do—but that’s not what I came for. You’re a fine one to come to for money! You earn so much these days! You know very well what I’m here for.
LILIOM
You’ve got Hollinger at the carousel, haven’t you? ”

“ As if she was somewhat ashamed about her husband's speculations.
We want the wheat to be bad because that will drive the price up.
KARL
What of that?
OLGA
My husband will make lots of money.
DEVIL, to OLGA
And you will get that new gown.
OLGA
How do you know I want a new dress?
DEVIL
You have a new hat—a very pretty one—and you will certainly want a new dress to wear with it.
OLGA
You must be married.
DEVIL
Married? Not the least—but I have an eye for feminine vanities. Oh, no! A wife is like a single eyeglass—it looks very nice, but one is better off without it. ”

“ A mordant wit, an inimitable raconteur, he loves life and gayety and all the luxuries of life. Nothing can persuade him out of his complacent and comfortable routine. He will not leave Budapest, even to attend the première of one of his plays in nearby Vienna. The post-war political upheaval which has rent all Hungary into two voluble and bitter factions left him quite unperturbed and neutral. ”

“ KARL
What do we care? Let's be happy—Elsa! I feel as if I had never known you before tonight.
ELSA, moves chair so she can hide OLGA from KARL. DEVIL repeats business
Why do you keep looking over there? ”

“ Something of the kind greets Molnar whenever he appears in public, and nothing is more certain than that he is the hero, the oracle, the spoiled darling of club, salon and coffee house in which artistic Hungary foregathers. ”

“ Did you understand my husband just now?
KARL
I think I did.
OLGA
He has often pretended to be jealous, but this time there was a ring in his voice that made me feel that there was something behind it.
KARL
You don't really think he's jealous?
OLGA, crosses to chair
No. But this is the first time I've been alone with you.
KARL
Now we can talk things over. I've wanted to for a long time.
OLGA, leans against R. back of chair
We've done well to avoid it all these years. A good conscience is like a warm bath—one feels so comfortable in it. ”

“ JULIE
What kind is that?
MARIE
Daylight comes about three in the morning this time of the year. When we’ve been up that long we’re all through with flirting and Passionate Love—and then our Ideal Love comes to the surface. It comes like this: I’ll be sitting on the bench and Wolf, he holds my hand tight—and he puts his cheek against my cheek and we don’t talk . . . we just sit there very quiet. . . . And after a while he gets sleepy, and his head sinks down, and he falls asleep . . . but even in his sleep he holds tight to my hand. ”

“ MRS. MUSKAT comes out of the merry-go-round, bringing LILIOM coffee and rolls. LILIOM mounts the barker’s stand at the entrance, where he is elevated over everyone on the stage. Here he begins his harangue. Everybody turns toward him. The other booths are gradually deserted. The tumult makes it impossible for the audience to hear what he is saying, but every now and then some witticism of his provokes a storm of laughter which is audible above the din. Many people enter the merry-go-round. ”

“ ELSA, interrupting
To what? To marry a man who is not madly in love with me—any more than I am with him. What of it? We are two perfectly sane people about to make a serious contract with our eyes wide open, instead of blinded by infatuation like crazy lovers in magazine stories. ”

“ JULIE does not move. MARIE exits. Meantime it has grown quite dark. During the following scene the gas-lamps far in the [Pg 31] distance are lighted one by one. LILIOM and JULIE sit on the bench. From afar, very faintly, comes the music of a calliope. But the music is intermittently heard; now it breaks off, now it resumes again, as if it came down on a fitful wind. Blending with it are the sounds of human voices, now loud, now soft; the blare of a toy trumpet; the confused noises of the show-booths. It grows progressively darker until the end of the scene. There is no moonlight. ”

“ KARL takes up the ash tray and throws it angrily on table.
No; she doesn't love her husband. He must be either a genius or a very common man. Marriage with them is always unlucky. Believe me, common men live so low that women are afraid somebody will steal in at night through the window which they forgot to lock. And Genius, well! That lives on the top floor—so many stairs, no elevator. ”

“ Perhaps the tragedy of the war had made Molnar’s public more sensitive to spiritual values. Whatever the reason, Budapest now accepted ecstatically what it had previously rejected, and Molnar was more of a popular hero than ever. From which it may be gleaned that Hungary takes its drama and dramatists more seriously, disapproves them more passionately and praises them more affectionately than we Americans can conceive. ”

“ I have listened to all your lies—I have seen you as I've seen a hundred like you—steal a good woman's reputation and call it success, social success—and boast about it as you drag her in the mud. You have trapped me, it's true—but you will suffer for it. ”

“ MRS. MUSKAT
Well, I only want to tell you this, my dear, so that we understand each other perfectly. If you ever stick your nose in my carousel again, you’ll wish you hadn’t! I’m not going to lose my license on account of the likes of you! People who don’t know how to behave, have got to stay out!
JULIE
You’re wasting your breath. If I feel like riding on your carousel I’ll pay my ten heller and I’ll ride. I’d like to see anyone try to stop me! ”

“ You must show a bold front—you will perhaps feel that it is hard for a young girl to fight a woman—your weapons are not quite so numerous as those of the married woman—who knows love already—who understands—may I say something shocking? ”

“ LILIOM
[Raises himself with difficulty; speaks lightly at first, but later soberly, defiantly.] Little—Julie—there’s something—I want to tell you—like when you go to a restaurant—and you’ve finished eating—and it’s time—to pay—then you have to count up everything—everything you owe—well—I beat [Pg 131] you—not because I was mad at you—no—only because I can’t bear to see anyone crying. You always cried—on my account—and, well, you see,—I never learned a trade—what kind of a caretaker would I make? But anyhow—I wasn’t going back to the carousel to fool with the girls. ”

“ KARL, concealing his pain very badly
And to think—and this afternoon—at my house—was the first time—
DEVIL, goes back of settee
She's a wonder! believe me, Karl, she's a wonder. It's just possible she's good—a dash of goodness won't hurt a pretty woman—but I hope not. I should then have to attribute my conquest to hypnotism—and that doesn't flatter my vanity. What do you think? ”