[A café in elegant 1880’s style. It has been painted on gauze drops, which either
disappear
or become translucent to reveal new and changing scenes. In the foreground to the
right, an old-fashioned telephone booth with frosted glass windows conceals the entrance
to a side room. In the foreground to the left, a pillar covers the window looking
out onto the square. Further back, slightly to the left of centre, an archway with
portieres leads to the buffet, cake display, and entrance door. This area is hidden
from the audience who sense its layout through the entrances and exits of the characters.
In the background the continuation of the café is glimpsed in a misty fashion. It
is evening. A man and a woman are sitting at the window table. He is reading a newspaper;
she is staring into space. A centre table in front of a red plush sofa is unoccupied.]
ANDRÉ:
[Comes in from the entrance, stops for a moment, and turns back towards the buffet.]
Someone phoned. There should be a letter for me. Isn’t Olsen here? Thanks—he knows
about it.
[Moves quickly into the foreground and stops by the centre table.]
The table. How touching. It seems to have been waiting for me. Hello, old table.
It’s been a long time.
[Puts a packet of cigarettes and a newspaper on the table, crosses to a hatstand that
is partially hidden by the telephone booth, hangs up his hat and coat, and looks around
with his hand resting on his coat.]
So strange. These rooms. They were an unruly battlefield once, from which we looked
out onto new worlds. Drunk with words, we set off on the most daring crusades, tore
everything apart, knocked things down, possessed of the most death-defying certainty
that only we had the strength and the ability to build high, build free.
[Takes his hand off the coat.]
Dear God.
[Goes over to the centre table, glances quickly in the big mirror above the sofa,
runs
his hand quickly through his hair, sits down, lights a cigarette—just then two wizened
old women come in from the side room, button their gloves, and adjust their hats—he
looks at his watch.]
Seven-thirty, just after—in a little while they’ll be taking their usual seats in
the old theatre.
Their theatre.
[Looks towards the window.]
Wonder what’s on?
[Checks quickly in the newspaper.]
Medea!
[Leans forward and looks at the old women who are now leaving the café.]
Those two and
Medea. Two dried-up ants crawling round with a programme and opera-glasses at the foot
of a volcanic monument. Priceless.
[Speaking of himself.]
And what about you? You and Jason? Didn’t you use to dream you were Jason, sat here
with the others and dreamed, dreamed big wonderful dreams. But what happened to the
golden fleece? Moths get into everything, dreams as well. Olsen.
[An old waiter in black pants and a short white jacket shuffles in from the side room.]
Good evening. You must have thought I was dead. Perhaps I am. It’s hard to tell sometimes.
You’ve a letter for me, I think. Someone’s sent me a letter. Why here of all places?
I don’t understand. A glass of sherry, Olsen. Thanks, Olsen, thanks.
[OLSEN leaves.]
Old times, old times. My God, I’ve slowly reached the age when one gets sentimental
over old times, sentimental and afraid. There’s no going back. What did it all add
up to? Not to what you once dreamed it would, yet to so much, in a different way,
an unexpected way. Oh yes, I must remember to ring home. I promised the boys to help
them with their math.
[He is about to stand up, but at that moment OLSEN arrives with a glass of sherry
and
an envelope.]
Ah, it’s Olsen. Who the devil can the letter be from? Thanks, Olsen, thanks.
[OLSEN leaves.]
A cheap, nondescript envelope. But the handwriting—?
[Turns the envelope over.]
Villa G—
[Looks up suddenly.]
Villa G—?
[Looks at the envelope again.]
What’s underneath? Poste restante, Sandodden, Iselø. The island with the lighthouse.
You take the ferry there from Sandhavn. Villa G—Villa Gull’s Cry, the lonely villa
out by the lighthouse. Tordis Eck. It’s from Tordis—Tordis who got engaged to half
the men around this table, behind her parents’ backs, especially her father’s. For
a fortnight I fooled myself into thinking I too was engaged to Tordis. We were sitting
here on this sofa. And the others were sitting here too. The world was turned upside
down, blown apart. Suddenly she had to go. Come over this evening, she whispered—father
and mother are out to dinner. For a second or two I felt her hand on my arm. Come
at eight. I came at eight. I was eighteen, almost nineteen. I’d just decided to go
into law. As I climbed her steps I felt a dryness in my throat; I couldn’t swallow.
She opened the door herself. We went together into the big rooms, which were dimly
lit by a few lamps. When I looked back I felt her mouth close to mine. I saw her father
everywhere, the precise cabinet minister, the cool member of numerous committees.
Her grandfather’s sabers hung above the low sofa, well-polished, gleaming, two Javanese
daggers, Japanese sword-hilts. I saw her eyes and her mouth coming closer through
a forest of weapons. Then I forgot everything, everything round me, felt only myself
and my proud triumph at being carried on wings into the temple of manhood, cabinet
ministers, and sabers. I was the victor. We met here the next day. At the old café
Bern. It was all gold and flowers. We too were fire and gold, with eyes like stars.
[The drops have slowly grown translucent revealing glimpses of gold and flowers; an
orchestra plays quietly in the far distance.]
The air became blue, the birds twittered, flew in and out between the waving portieres,
while little sylphs with airy wings fluttered in the sunlight from the square, scattered
violet petals, pirouetted, stood on pointe.
[A line of sylphs have danced in from the side room.]
Life opened up like a magic score. I could read every note. My hands were like a
juggler’s. I tossed cascades of notes into the air. The tea became champagne. Everything
was champagne. We met every day. Every day for one week. Then suddenly—suddenly she
had other things to do. The next day as well. And the next too. I heard nothing from
her for days. There was a noose round my neck, tightening slowly. I felt like a hanged
man. A cold world turned its back on me. I pulled myself together with an effort,
telephoned her, and asked her if she would like to see a movie. We could meet here.
Here at the Café Bern. I waited and waited. Then at last I heard her steps, the sound
of her heels—
[He pushes the table out, turns towards the entrance door, seems to greet an invisible
person entering the cafè, invites her to sit down—sits down himself.]
Nice of you to come. What will you have? Nothing? She smiled, shook her head, and
lit a cigarette. She’d only come to say she couldn’t join me at the movie. She didn’t
say why, and I didn’t ask. Then we sat for a little and chatted about trivial things:
a potluck supper on Saturday. Would she be there. Of course. She’d pinned two lilies-of-the-valley
to her lapel. I looked at them. I talked to them while all the time I felt the crippling
emptiness I was trapped in, a stupid, clumsy boy, too young for his age. She was the
grown-up.
[The telephone rings, OLSEN comes in from the buffet, and goes into the telephone
booth.]
Then the telephone rang. I stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray, an advertisement
for some liqueur. The name of the liqueur looked at me like people who’d been forced
to attend a funeral that wasn’t their concern.
[OLSEN beckons from the booth.]
Is it for me?
[He stands and moves towards the booth.]
I heard her say that she had to go, but I pretended not to have understood.
[He goes into the booth.]
Yes, yes, it’s me.
[All the time he is keeping an eye on the centre table.]
While a voice filled my ear with the most dreary banalities, I saw her stand, remove
the lilies-of-the-valley from her lapel, and lay them on the table next to my empty
place. Then she turned on her heels, walked past the fancy cakes in the display case,
and past the woman who took care of the buffet. Olsen held the door open. She didn’t
look back.
[He puts the phone down hesitantly and leaves the booth.]
I saw her that Saturday. She was with another man. I often saw her with other men,
but she was always the same. Come and visit us, André, please do. Father often asks
about you. Her father? Why was her father suddenly interested in me now? Your first
year at university has really impressed him. Come for dinner. Bring your girlfriend.
I don’t know her, but everyone says she’s quite enchanting. We did visit a few times.
Marianne and I. The sabers above the sofa smiled in a friendly way. I represented
no danger to the family’s well-being. That was all over.
[He has returned to the table and sat down—he sits for a moment flipping the envelope
back and forward in his hand—he is suddenly alert, and looks quickly at the envelope.]
Yes, that’s her handwriting. Oddly enough it was rather girlish, almost a bit impersonal—and
it still is.
[He opens the envelope—inside there is an old-fashioned photograph, about the size
of a postcard.]
An old photograph—?
[He hastily turns the photo and looks at the back, but there seems to be nothing written
there. He examines the envelope, but there is no clue there—he stares at the photo
again.]
An old photograph of an old lady in an old-fashioned hunting outfit. There’s a dog
lying at her feet. A dog?
[Looks up suddenly.]
The blue Pekinese!
[Looks at the photo again.]
Isabella de Creuith.
That’s who it is. The minister’s aunt. Her brother built the villa in his day, the lonely
villa on the point, out by the lighthouse. His legs were paralyzed. He used to lie
in bed all day shooting gulls through the open window, while his sister, Isabella,
followed by her dog, went up over the heath, up to the villa’s landmark, an old figurehead,
a peeling Triton with storm-blown cape and raised trident.
[Stares at the photo again, lost in thought, turns it over suddenly, and notices something
this time.]
Here, down in the corner—some faint writing in pencil—what does it say? “If I were
a poet—“
[Suddenly pushes the table away from him, as if about to stand up.]
No, it isn’t true. It can’t be true!
[Sits for a moment staring into space.]
This summer—there’s never been such a cloudless summer—we took off into the blue,
Marianne and I. The children were with Marianne’s parents. Took the car-ferry from
Sandhavn. I hadn’t the slightest clue that there was a connection between Tordis and
Iselø. We drove out to the lighthouse, swam for a while, and then lay in the sand
to soak up the sun. There wasn’t a soul in sight, just sun-bleached sand as far as
the eye could see. Suddenly we heard the sound of hooves on the sand. Who was riding
that horse? It wasn’t a rider, but a female centaur. Tordis in tight riding breeches,
her blouse open. In a cascade of sand, she reined her horse in. Leaning on my elbow
I looked up at a stranger’s face, a complete stranger’s face. I only realized who
it was when she recognized me. “André and Marianne, is it really you? I live up here
behind the big sand-dune—
there, you can see the corner of the gable. But André, haven’t you been here before? No,
that’s true, we were never here in those days. Come up and have a drink, when you’re
ready. Where are you staying, by the way? Why don’t you come and stay with me? I’m
quite alone.”
[The drops become translucent; we sense a warm deep blue summer sky.]
We got dressed and went up through the dunes.
There it was, the villa, a veritable barn of a house, with carved railings and old saga
motifs. Not a house, but a living creature.
[The drops are now completely translucent; we see the suggestion of a covered wooden
terrace with carved railings and dragon heads—MARIANNE is sitting at the top of the
wooden steps, while ANDRÉ is still sitting on the café-sofa that now seems to be part
of the house. Both MARIANNE and ANDRÉ are now looking up at the house.]
Under this roof you’d feel more than alone.
TORDIS:
[Comes out of the house in her riding breeches, a short-sleeved blouse, with a cigarette
in the corner of her mouth. She is carrying a tray of bottles and glasses—]
MARIANNE:
[Moves down a couple of steps.]
Father and mother are out here so seldom. And my husband—
ANDRÉ:
Her husband. Now I remembered. Out of an unspoken hatred for her father she had eventually
got married, married to a man who suited her father.
TORDIS:
[She has sat down on the step.]
My husband can never feel at home here, quite apart from the fact that he finds the
location and the house rather ugly. He belongs in town. We were married
there. Scotch or sherry?
ANDRÉ:
I’m sure it was Marianne she’d condemned to sherry, but we all drank scotch anyway.
Handling bottles and glasses, cigarettes and lighters, was the only domestic skill
Tordis had perfected over the years.
TORDIS:
Marianne—
[She hands the glasses round.]
Here are the cigarettes. Ah, it seems like thousands of years. How many children
do you have?
ANDRÉ:
I was the one who answered. Marianne sat turned toward the sea. Her calm was so graceful,
so completely hers. She has always had the fine balance that is at one with space.
We have three boys.
TORDIS:
And I have only one.
ANDRÉ:
Marianne’s eyes took on a listening expression, but she didn’t turn.
TORDIS:
My husband is the son I gave my father to atone for being born a girl. No, he didn’t
reproach me, but it was always in the air. From the very first I understood that the
concept “woman” was essentially inferior. I looked down on the other girls with their
dolls and despised ribbons and finery to my mother’s lasting sorrow. André, can you
remember that high school prom?
ANDRÉ:
Did I remember! It was my first meeting with Tordis. When we met again we had both
graduated from high school. I was still an adolescent, but she was still Tordis with
those slightly tired but more and more experienced eyes that seemed to hold everything
and everyone at a chilly distance. That evening as well, the evening of the prom.
TORDIS:
I was wearing pink tulle and high heels. Mother had had her way at last. She said
I was an adult. But what disturbed me most was father, the way he looked at me, a
completely new way. I saw myself all of a sudden and could have crept into a mouse
hole. Before then I’d lived my life in oil-polished leather boots and Girl Guide uniforms,
smoked pipes on the sly, roasted potatoes over campfires, and if anyone asked me what
I wanted to be, I said: a forest ranger.
TORDIS:
You were so sweet that evening. The boy who’d brought me had done it from a sense
of duty. His parents and mine played bridge every Tuesday. He soon left me to cool
my heels. Then you noticed me, felt pity for me.
ANDRÉ:
Not pity. I was alone as well.
TORDIS:
You crossed the floor.
ANDRÉ:
You were on your feet before I reached you.
TORDIS:
Yes, out of fright. Those dreadful heels. I didn’t know to stand or walk or what to
do with all my hands. A boy who’d been given a girl’s role in a school play couldn’t
have felt more wretched.
ANDRÉ:
You didn’t’ look wretched, more a bit disdainful.
TORDIS:
That was a mask, André—a protective mask.
ANDRÉ:
That scared me senseless. Especially because I knew I couldn’t dance.
TORDIS:
You were the one who could.
ANDRÉ:
With your assistance.
TORDIS:
No, André, no! You made me believe I’d been dancing all my life in high-heeled shoes
and pink silk. You got me to love those shoes. They danced me into adulthood. I danced
and danced over something, away from something, away from a little pack of wolf cubs
who called me Thiiba. I heard them call, I saw them sitting in a circle round the
fire, but I left them sitting there. Thiiba was dead, she never returned. I danced
and danced over her grave; I strewed her grave with masses of flowers. I was a flower
myself that any second could burst into bloom. Oh, André, it was a wonderful evening.
And comic.
ANDRÉ:
You asked me for a glass of lemonade.
TORDIS:
I don’t remember that.
ANDRÉ:
When I came back, you were dancing with someone in his senior year.
TORDIS:
He wanted to escort me home, but father came and fetched me.
ANDRÉ:
Fetched the daughter who was a daughter at last.
TORDIS:
I didn’t tell him that. Neither him nor mother. I said I’d been bored. Yes, of course,
I’d danced. Being the father of a wallflower would have injured his pride. But what
I did tell him, that I thought boys were stupid, that pleased him, made him feel calm.
And I took good care to preserve that calm. Call it what you will, but it gave me
the freedom that I’ve cherished ever since. André, I can see what you’re thinking.
One day one has to give away part of one’s freedom, a part of oneself. I’ve done that,
André, done it gladly. But Iselø, the Villa Gull’s Cry, no one must take them from
me. My freedom lives its own life here. I have something here I can see. Something
invisible, something intangible—something—
ANDRÉ:
She let her hands fall.
TORDIS:
How can I describe it?
ANDRÉ:
She stopped suddenly. For a moment she sat lost in thought. Then she turned suddenly
to Marianne.
TORDIS:
Why don’t you stay here? Stay a few days. Please do. Sometimes one can—
ANDRÉ:
She stopped suddenly. As if she’d glimpsed someone or something that cast a cloud
across the sun—but only for a moment.
TORDIS:
Sometimes one needs friends so badly. Marianne, I know you understand me.
ANDRÉ:
What on earth had she seen?
TORDIS:
Everything’s ready. The guestroom in the gable has just been redecorated. It used
to be a bit old-fashioned and gloomy.
ANDRÉ:
I tried to turn my head in a casual manner, but there was nothing in sight.
TORDIS:
I had it refurbished last year, hoping for unexpected guests some day.
ANDRÉ:
Yes, now there was someone. A figure appeared by the last row of sand-dunes near the
sea and disappeared again.
TORDIS:
But no one came last year. You are the first.
ANDRÉ:
A man. Young. In a blue suit. Was it him she’d seen?
TORDIS:
No, don’t disappoint me. With three boys to look after, I’m sure you need a holiday.
You can have your holiday here.
ANDRÉ:
A young man in blue. Like a blue uniform. Was that the cloud that had passed across
the sun?
TORDIS:
It’s always holiday on Iselø. No, don’t ask André. You decide. I can tell you’ll say
yes.
ANDRÉ:
I said it though. A young man in blue. Of course we’d love to stay. Really love to.
I said so anyway. A young man in blue against the sun-bleached sand. But our things—we’d
as good as booked into the inn.
TORDIS:
We’ll fetch them, Marianne and I. I have my car. All modern conveniences available,
except for a telephone, and I don’t miss that. How about lobster?
TORDIS:
In the old days, when Aunt Isabella was alive, we always had lobster the first evening.
Lobster and champagne were a sort of ritual. No, Marianne, don’t trouble yourself.
I’m hopeless with domestic things, but little Emily, the half-sister of the lighthouse-keeper’s
wife, loves to help me. Come, Marianne, we’ll drive that way round. Afterwards—
ANDRÉ:
She stopped again. But this time the sun was shining.
TORDIS:
Can you see that little carriage?
ANDRÉ:
Wasn’t it what they called a phaeton—with two little yellow Norwegian ponies in the
harness?
TORDIS:
It’s my friend, my best friend here on Iselø, the old doctor.
ANDRÉ:
No, not Norwegian. I’m afraid I don’t know much about horses. But they were small.
TORDIS:
He came here a thousand years ago as a young locum, reckoned on staying a month, but
has been here ever since. Nature and hunting have bound him to the island. He’s had
no other passions.
ANDRÉ:
You could spot his type a mile away: a watch chain and walrus moustache. I think he
was driving briskly across the heath towards the lighthouse.
TORDIS:
The lighthousekeeper’s wife’s expecting her confinement. No, not immediately. Not
till November. But she’s a little—yes, how to describe it?—a little highly strung.
She lives in a strange, half-literary world full of poetry and novels. Her husband
is 15 to 20 years older than her, and a former widower. Perhaps that’s the reason.
They’d been married for seven years. Then the miracle took place. I’m sorry for the
boy. He won’t have an easy time.
ANDRÉ:
They know it’s a boy?
TORDIS:
They call him Esmond.
ANDRÉ:
The lighthousekeeper and his wife?
TORDIS:
No, the two sisters, the older and the young one. For them he’s already a living being.
He’s their escape. Their escape from the lonely evenings on Iselø and the lamp that
keeps on turning—turning and turning. Do you know the sound? Like something scraping
glass. I love that sound. For them it’s the seconds marching on the spot. But now
Esmond is coming to rescue them. When Esmond goes to school, the lighthousekeeper’s
wife will live in town, go to the theatre with Esmond, lean on his arm, smile coquettishly
at Esmond’s friends, be Esmond’s young and gifted mother. Emily sees him a little
differently. He will replace the dolls she daren’t admit she often misses, but at
the same time he’s the dream of the man, the young man, the secret power, she could
kneel before with outstretched arms, ready to serve. Emily is sweet. She’s a delightful
girl we try to help as much as we can, the doctor and I.
ANDRÉ:
Esmond, Esmond, poor little Esmond. The yellow phaeton had reached the lighthouse
now and drew up in front of the cottage.
TORDIS:
Come, Marianne. No, we’ll leave the glasses. When he’s called to the lighthouse, the
old doctor, he always drops by here. You don’t mind if I invite him to dinner? I think
you will like him. He knew Aunt Isabella, knew her well. Come, Marianne. Come, let’s
go now.
ANDRÉ:
Marianne gave me a quick glance, then followed Tordis.
[MARIANNE and TORDIS leave.]
They walked together down the path to the garage. Two women, each in her own world,
two worlds separated by in invisible wall of glass. Marianne, Marianne, there are
so many things left unsaid. I dozed off, tired by the sea air, whisky in hand. I
don’t remember how long I sat there. But I was suddenly aware of someone’s approach.
Who could it be?
[Turns round.]
It was him.
[HANSSON, the lighthousekeeper’s assistant, appears with a badminton racquet in his
hand.]
He stopped and stared for a moment. Then quickly pulled himself together. Was Mrs.
Eck at home? No, she had an errand in the village, but was stopping at the lighthouse
for a while—she’s probably there now. He looked in that direction, said his name was
Hansson, the lighthousekeeper’s assistant. I told him my name, said I was a friend
of Tordis. He had a badminton racquet in his hand, which he’d promised to repair.
Could he leave it here?
[HANSSON puts the racquet down.]
Of course. A few seconds passed without his knowing what to say next. I mentioned
the weather and the natural beauty of the island. Suddenly he said goodbye—and walked
off towards the sea.
[HANSSON has gone; we are back in the café Bern.]
Hansson. The lighthousekeeper’s assistant. They played badminton together. Hansson
in blue. Hansson visiting in his Sunday best. Surely he knew she wasn’t home? He must
have seen her driving off. Seen it from the dunes. Had he come to size
me up? Was that the reason? Yes, yes. Or rather no. It didn’t really concern me personally.
Tordis and her freedom. Yes, she had her freedom. But to call it invisible, intangible?
[The island slowly comes back into view.]
Well, why not?
[There is now a sunset sky, growing quickly darker—the DOCTOR is sitting in an old-fashioned
wicker chair with a plaid rug over his knees.]
After dinner the girls went for a walk to watch the sunset, the girls and Emily,
the little half-sister of the lighthousekeeper’s wife. They walked up to the ship’s
figurehead, while we kept sitting there together, over cognac and coffee, the doctor
and I.
DOCTOR:
Yes, yes, one grows old. It will soon be fifty years since I first met her, Isabella
de Creuith.
ANDRÉ:
The minister’s aunt?
DOCTOR:
Yes, though mind you, she was his father’s aunt. She still had a gleam of youth about
her then. She must have been enchanting once, completely enchanting. Her eyes, her
hands—the way she walked. I only wished I’d been born a little earlier. Yes, yes—now
I remember her as a strange old creature in an eccentric hunting outfit and always
followed by a blue Pekinese.
ANDRÉ:
Pekinese would be enough.
DOCTOR:
It’s not my fault.
DOCTOR:
She said it was blue. But to be honest, I had trouble seeing it. It looked more greyish
brown to me. But it was no use. She wouldn’t be gainsaid. Dicky was blue.
ANDRÉ:
Dicky, on top of everything?
DOCTOR:
She was given him by an English diplomat in Madrid. Her brother was attached to the
foreign office for a number of years. Before he was struck down by that sickness that
bound him first to a wheelchair, then to his bed. She spent her winters in Madrid
and Paris for a number of years. There were rumours of an affair. But what do I know?
They say so many things about her. On Iselø, to this very day, they say that when
the hunting season begins, you can see her coming up from the beach and crossing the
heath followed by Dicky. You can hear his bells and her whistle. Perhaps it’s true.
Anything’s possible. But my sense of the supernatural can best be called underdeveloped,
I’m afraid. Ask Tordis, if you want to know more about her. More Cognac?
DOCTOR:
Ah, yes, ah, yes.
ANDRÉ:
The doctor gazed at his cigar ash for some time.
ANDRÉ:
We heard laughter in the distance. There they were, the girls—coming down through the heather.
DOCTOR:
Lighthearted ladies on a summer evening. Dear God—our life is too short.
[after a pause]
How time flies. It seems like yesterday I was called out here to care for the minister’s
little daughter.
[after a pause]
You’re a childhood friend?
ANDRÉ:
No, a friend of her youth.
DOCTOR:
She’s still young. Young and self-assured. See how calmly she’s walking between your
wife and Emily.
ANDRÉ:
Emily turned aside now and then, plucked a spray of heather, stripped off the leaves,
then tossed it away.
ANDRÉ:
The word hung in the air like a question.
DOCTOR:
There’s something strange about that calm.
DOCTOR:
Sometimes I try to get past it, find out what lies behind it. But I never succeed.
ANDRÉ:
You mean that in reality—?
DOCTOR:
I mean nothing, nothing, nothing at all. It’s just an image that haunts me. An image
that may have no significance at all. An image I’ve probably misinterpreted. But
all the same I can’t avoid brooding over. It’s an image of her mother. Just a glimpse.
A glimpse. A single impression. Then it was gone.
ANDRÉ:
The doctor stared at his cigar again.
DOCTOR:
When Tordis came here the first time after her marriage, she came with her husband
and her parents. You’ve met her husband?
ANDRÉ:
The doctor took a long pull at his cigar.
DOCTOR:
He’s a splendid fellow, I’m sure, quite splendid. I don’t really know him personally,
only met him that one occasion. But I will say this for him, he’d done wonders with the cabinet minister. All his stiffness was gone.
He was like a real human being. Anyway, it wasn’t him I wanted to talk about, but
her mother. I’ve always admired her by the way. A dear little mother hen who’s seldom
allowed to have her say. I was invited to dinner with a couple of neighbours. Tordis
was playing hostess that evening. And what a hostess. I’ve never seen her look so
lovely. Because you must admit, few people can change so much as she does.
DOCTOR:
But that evening. I will admit I stared. It was as if she had transformed the Villa
Gull’s Cry into a fairy palace with her personality and her glow. I thought I could
hear a distant string orchestra. I wanted to dance, to say all the romantic nonsense
one never gets said. I felt wafted back to the unknown past when Isabella de Creuith
was young with a long sweeping gown and her enchanting laughter that to this very
day could make one journey to Paris, to Madrid, to hear if it still hovers in the
air. Yes, I believe it might. That evening, Tordis laughed with Isabella’s laughter.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She stood leaning lightly back against her husband,
smiling, calm, full of grace, the most natural grace, while she listened to a guest.
I turned round to look for someone with whom I could share my pleasure in that perfect
image. My glance stopped at her mother. She was staring at Tordis as well, only at
Tordis. But she wasn’t smiling. Her eyes were full of fear.
DOCTOR:
A second passed. Then she caught my glance and became all smiling friendliness in
an instant. Who took care that my glass was full? The cabinet minister. I’ve never
seen him so much at ease. He said he’d drop by one day with his son-in-law. He was
being friendly. But they never came. Not even to Iselø. Afterwards Tordis came alone.
Always dropped by to see me on her way to the villa. She still does. Always sweet
and cheerful. But every time she opens the garden gate I can see her mother’s fear,
like a sinister companion who will never leave her.
[waves]
Well, here they are, our lovely ladies of the evening. Bright and soft against the
dark heath. Was the sunset as beautiful as it should be? Not a cloud in the sky. We’ll
have a fine day tomorrow. How the evening suits you, Tordis my dear.
[TORDIS, MARIANNE, and EMILY appear out of the darkness. TORDIS wears a shawl slung
loosely over her shoulders.]
ANDRÉ:
She had changed out of her riding outfit. A strange shawl hung on her shoulders, blood-red
and black, not woollen or silk. Was it Spanish, that shawl? Had it belonged to Isabella?
Isabella de Creuith. An unknown life began to stir in the darkness.
DOCTOR:
How was my old friend the figurehead this evening?
TORDIS:
In the best of health, thank you. Two more lovers’ initials inside a heart had joined
the others. Otherwise he’s just the same.
DOCTOR:
I carved my initials on him once, but they stand alone.
TORDIS:
So do mine.
[to EMILY who is leaving.]
No, Emily, please stay. The kitchen doesn’t matter. It can wait till tomorrow. Ah
well, it’s no use our saying anything. She’s learned from her sister to keep everything
clean and tidy.
[She moves a wicker chair for MARIANNE but stays standing herself.]
How was she by the way, the lighthousekeeper’s wife?
DOCTOR:
Lying on a sofa surrounded by books and magazines. As condescending as a queen waiting
for the crown-prince to be born.
TORDIS:
She just wants to be entertained.
DOCTOR:
Of course, and the weather was perfect. I love that drive. And there’s no harm in
a glass of port. I sat with her for half an hour, then Hansson arrived.
ANDRÉ:
The name rung out like a gun-shot. Or was it just me who heard it that way?
DOCTOR:
He brought her a bouquet of white orchids. There’s a little marsh behind the lifeboat-house—
TORDIS:
Marianne, you’re freezing.
DOCTOR:
There’s a little marsh behind the lifeboat-house—
TORDIS:
Here, take my shawl.
ANDRÉ:
Marianne said she wasn’t cold, but she admired the shawl.
TORDIS:
I think it’s Spanish, Catalan. It belonged to Aunt Isabella. When she came back from
the hunt she didn’t change immediately but sat in the chair by the fire wrapped in
her shawl.
DOCTOR:
Always that shawl.
ANDRÉ:
You knew Miss de Creuith?
TORDIS:
Yes,
[after a pause]
I was six when she died.
ANDRÉ:
So you can barely remember her?
TORDIS:
When you’ve seen her once you never forget her.
[after a pause]
I was afraid of her, quite terrified. There was a cold, empty space between us.
She never said anything, never spoke to me. But she would look straight through me
from the other side of that space. Then she would suddenly turn, whistle for Dicky,
and be on her way.
[Points at a glass.]
Is that my cognac?
ANDRÉ:
No one replied. She took a sip from her glass. Stood for a moment and gazed out into
the darkness.
TORDIS:
She only spoke to me once. One evening when father and mother had guests I lowered
myself from my prison window on the second floor. Later I couldn’t believe how I’d
dared, but in those days I must have been very daring. I took a roundabout way in
my nightdress and sandals across the heath and up to my friend the figurehead. She
was sitting
there. Aunt Isabella, lost in thought at the foot of the triton. She didn’t hear me, just
sat with her back to me. I hardly dared to breathe. I heard a humming sound in the
quiet of the night. She was singing. A strange melody that made me want to dance.
She made a rocking movement with her old hips, lifted her arms gracefully, and clicked
her fingers. I stood nailed to the spot. She had turned. Quick as a flash. How didn’t
I sink into the earth? She looked at me for a second that was longer than an eternity,
then she burst out laughing. He deserved you, your tyrant of a father who will go
on his knees for “the de Creuith fortune” but still keeps our so-called madness at
a discreet distance. Our madness! What does he know about it? What does he know about
anything, when it comes to that? Come here my dear, come here and sit down. Have a
cigarette.
Now I know who will be my heir, my heir to everything. It will be you. But don’t tell
anyone, least of all your father. Let him have the pleasure of seeing it in my will.
That will be a day to remember. She slapped her thighs, clapped me on my shoulders.
We were a family all of a sudden, a six-year old girl and an old lady. Then she took
me home. We never met again, except at a distance. But each time she saw me, she gave
an extra-merry blast on her whistle and disappeared over the heath with Dicky at her
heels.
[after a pause]
She died that winter.
DOCTOR:
We found her by the cold hearth.
ANDRÉ:
Wrapped in her shawl? I was about to ask, but didn’t. It was enough to see Tordis
pulling the shawl more tightly round her.
TORDIS:
She wanted a poem read over her grave, a poem by Shelley. But father forbade it.
DOCTOR:
She got her hymns instead.
TORDIS:
Then the house was locked. We stopped coming. Everyone hoped I would forget Iselø.
But I didn’t forget. The day after my twenty-first birthday I came here. I came alone
in the twilight and went straight out to this spot—out onto the porch. You can laugh,
I won’t mind, but the first sound I heard from the heath was a welcoming whistle.
DOCTOR:
Nature up here is rich in noises.
TORDIS:
The wind in the heather sounded like distant bells. And somewhere above the heath
the sky became blue.
ANDRÉ:
The blue Pekinese? Come now. Was it really blue?
TORDIS:
Yes, blue as the sky.
DOCTOR:
Yes, our blue friend Dicky went to the eternal hunting grounds some years before Tordis
was born.
ANDRÉ:
Before Tordis was born? But wasn’t she saying a moment ago—?
TORDIS:
Doctor. Your glass?
DOCTOR:
Thank you, my dear. I have enough.
ANDRÉ:
Our blue friend Dicky.
TORDIS:
Marianne. A cigarette?
ANDRÉ:
A silence followed. One of those silences that the host or hostess usually breaks
by saying that it’s getting cold. But she said nothing. Drew the shawl around her
and gazed out into the darkness, the darkness over the heath. I’d known her once.
No I had never known her. I knew that now. As she stood
there against the night, she was a stranger, a stranger in our midst, a figure in a painting
that we looked at from the outside. A maze of experiences lay behind her, her parents
and her past, which only she could see. Somewhere above the heath the sky became blue.
It was as if a world, a strange world, was born from that word, that one word—blue.
It hung in the air like a misty sphere, a pearl the sky was playing with in its hands.
If I were a poet.—
[He suddenly stops speaking.]
Without being aware of it, I must have
said it aloud. Marianne looked up. Tordis turned.
ANDRÉ:
Emily came back at that moment. The kitchen was all clean and tidy, and now she was
ready to go. She’d like to stay, but the lighhousekeeper’s wife, her sister, couldn’t
sleep until the house was quiet. No, she could go on her own of course. She was used
to that. The gate clicked suddenly, and we heard the sound of her footsteps fading
in the sand. I gazed after her for a long time. A little summer dress running out
into the night, into the night that was peopled with ghosts of the dead, ghosts of
the unborn. Esmond, little Esmond, and Miss de Creuith. She stopped suddenly. A figure
appeared. Approached her slowly. Hansson in blue, the lighthousekeeper’s assistant.
Then they vanished into the darkness, the darkness that had had eyes. Was Tordis
aware? I don’t think so. It was as if she was thinking of something else, something
quite different.
TORDIS:
If you were a poet?
ANDRÉ:
It didn’t sound like a question she was asking me, rather a question she was asking
herself. A pause, a hesitation. Then she continued.
ANDRÉ:
The terrace was wrapped in a listening silence.
ANDRÉ:
It wasn’t Tordis who repeated the words. They repeated themselves in my ears.
TORDIS:
When I’m dead, you shall have the only photograph I possess of Aunt Isabella and Dicky.
It’s an old photograph the size of a postcard. As long as I remember, it’s been fastened
by two thumbtacks on the inside of a faded screen in Aunt Isabella’s dressing room.
And it’s still there. But you shall have it.
ANDRÉ:
Her tone was almost aggressive.
TORDIS:
I want you to have it and no one else.
ANDRÉ:
She turned to the others.
TORDIS:
The dew is falling. Shall we go in? No, Marianne, we can leave everything. I’ll take
care of it later. I love pottering about when others are asleep. Come, doctor, come.
We’ll end the evening in front of the fire. A happy evening. No, let me carry your
rug.
[She leaves with MARIANNE and the DOCTOR—the light slowly fades on the island to reveal
ANDRÉ in the café.]
ANDRÉ:
[Quickly picks up the photograph which is lying before him on the table.]
Two pushpins—it was fastened by two pushpins to the inside of a faded screen.
[The light on the island has gone completely dark, and the focus is now on the Café
Bern.]
Yes, there are the marks—two rusty marks.
[Grabs the envelope.]
It’s her handwriting. She wrote the address. When was it postmarked? Yesterday!
She knew she was about to—
[Pushes the table away from him.]
She chose the date. She chose it herself.
[Is about to stand.]
No, what’s the use?
[Falls back onto the sofa.]
I won’t get there. The last ferry left ages ago. Whatever I did, it would be too
late. It was written yesterday. She wrote it yesterday.
[Sits, staring into space.]
Yesterday. Now the lighthouse lamp is turning, turning and turning, out over the
sea, in over the heath, striking the roof of a lonely house.
[Grabs the envelope again.]
This photo is a cry for help, a terrified cry for help. Why else would she have sent
it? No, no, she didn’t want help. She sent it
here where it could have sat for days, for weeks. When I’m dead. Why
me? Why should I inherit the picture? I said it, I did say it—if I were a poet. But
I didn’t know why I said it. Yes, yes, it was blue, that one word blue, that suddenly
revealed a vision to me. A vision of what? I don’t remember. I glimpsed something,
then it was gone. She cut off my train of thought. The shawl—she stood there with
the old shawl wrapped tightly round her. Black birds and black flowers on a blood-red
background. Where is that shawl? Where is it now? Is it lying on her shoulders, while
the lamp turns, turns and turns, out over the sea, in over the heath, striking the
roof of a deathly silent house.
[Is about to get up again.]
Marianne—
[Falls back on the sofa.]
No, no, she’s not at home. She’s going to a—
[A short gentleman enters the café and stands for a moment by the cake display.]
—to a concert that began at eight. The Royal Danish Orchestra and a famous pianist.
Even if she were at home, she could do nothing. Yes, Marianne, I know that just by
being here you could help, you could help me. I have
never felt so helpless.
[The short gentleman has torn himself away from the cake display; he comes quickly
down to the foreground and hangs his hat and coat on the coat-rack.]
Never.
[ANDRÉ hides his head in his hands.]
GENTLEMAN:
[to OLSEN who appears immediately]
Thanks. The usual.
[He disappears into the side area on the right.]
ANDRÉ:
And what about the boys’ math homework? Who’s going to help them with that? Marianne,
Marianne, you never go out. Why
this evening? Why
this evening?
[A classical piano concerto can be heard in the distance.]
Mozart—a concerto for piano and orchestra, the concerto in G major, that’s what
you wanted to hear. I can see your eyes, your calm hands resting on your lap.
[The music becomes louder without being overpowering.]
Marianne and Mozart. Mozart blending with the waves pounding a desolate beach—
[The island slowly comes into view. We glimpse a stormy sky with drifting clouds.]
—a desolate beach with the bleached remains of all kinds of driftwood, which the children
of summer guests are no longer crouching to examine. And up behind the dunes—I live
up there behind the big dune. You can see the corner of the gable. No, not this evening.
Not in the darkness. Yes. Yes. There’s a light in the window on the second floor.
It’s her room, the one that was Isabella de Creuith’s. When will that light go out?
[The piano and orchestra drown in the storm, that rises to a howl; then the sounds
of the storm fade a little into the background.]
The storm is moving in from the sea over the heath, in over the house. The light
will soon be out. No, it’s still burning. I can see it. I see it. I still see it.
And here I sit, empty-handed, unable to do anything. Yes!
[He pushes the table away and stands up.]
The doctor, the doctor, her old friend the doctor.
[At the same moment the short gentleman comes in from the side room, crosses to ANDRÉ,
and points at the paper that is lying on the table.]
GENTLEMAN:
Is it your own copy?
GENTLEMAN:
Yes, I’m sorry—the newspaper.
ANDRÉ:
What paper for God’s sake?
[Notices it.]
Take it, take it, keep it for ever, I don’t have the time, do you understand, I don’t
have the time.
ANDRÉ:
[Crosses to the telephone booth, picks up a telephone directory which is lying on
a
small, one-legged marble table outside the booth; he begins to leaf through the directory.]
Iselø—Iselø—where do I find Iselø?
GENTLEMAN:
[Snaps up the paper as if he’s afraid ANDRÉ will change his mind—just then OLSEN comes
past him with a tray.]
People’s nerves nowadays, their nerves—
[He follows OLSEN into the side area to the right.]
ANDRÉ:
I comes before J. Iselø. Here it is. The old doctor. There’s only
one doctor. Iselø 18.
[He throws the directory onto the floor, goes into the booth, dials a number. The
lighting
on Iselø grows brighter. The music and the sounds of the storm become louder, drowning
ANDRÉ’S voice. We can only see from his expressions and hand gestures that he is talking—the
soundscape fades gradually into the background. He puts the receiver down, but keeps
his hand on it, supporting his forehead on the back of his hand.]
Thank you, miss—thank you.
[Straightens up.]
From a little café with patrons and newspapers a simple number shoots off through
the clouds that are towering up into a mountainous storm.
[The storm rises to a howl in the far distance; at the same moment the telephone rings.
He grabs the receiver.]
Yes, hello!
[OLSEN walks solemnly across the stage.]
The doctor, miss, I want to speak to him. Isn’t he home? He’s been called out to
the lighthouse. Don’t you mean the villa by the lighthouse? To the lighthouse itself?
Together with whom? The local midwife? It’s Esmond, it’s Esmond—no, I’m talking to
myself. Put me through to the lighthouse, but quickly, miss. I’ll hold on.
[The storm rises menacingly in the distance and dissolves in a howl.]
Esmond, Esmond, that’s what she called him, Emily who vanished into the darkness
with the lighthousekeeper’s assistant. Esmond, Esmond, you’ll be born tonight, and
she will die. Esmond and Tordis. Will they meet in the storm?
[The storm sounds mingle with the sound of breakers—the light falls on a wall with
photographs arranged round a telephone attached to the wall—the phone rings and rings,
but no one picks it up.]
No answer? That’s impossible, miss. You must realize that yourself. Either the lighthousekeeper
or Hansson. Try again, miss, keep on trying.
[The phone rings again without being picked up. The wall disappears slowly in the
darkness
and the storm, but the phone still rings a few more times, until it too fades, and
the storm sounds also fade into the background. There is silence for a moment.]
GENTLEMAN:
[Walks gingerly in from the side and is about to pick up the phone book, but as he
puts his hand on it, the storm rises to a howl—he snatches the book in a frightened
manner and disappears again.]
ANDRÉ:
What did you say, miss? There’s a storm, a hurricane? I know, I know. Yes, yes, but
even if the road to the lighthouse is cut off by sand-drifts, it must be possible
to get there on foot? What did you say, miss? You’ve talked to the driver? The man
who drives for the doctor and the midwife? Does he know that you should stop by the
gable of the lifeboat house and take the path across the heath by the ship’s figurehead?
I know that route; it takes time, but don’t give up, miss, don’t give up. For God’s
sake ring me as soon as they’re through. You have the number? I’ll wait here. I’ll
keep on waiting. I must get through. Do you understand that, miss? It’s a matter of
life and death.
[He puts the receiver down.]
Life and death.
[Stands with his forehead resting on the back of his hand, as before—the storm rises,
blending with passages from the classical piano concerto. In the far distance, a light
falls on TORDIS who is standing half turned away—she is wearing a light and airy dress
with the old shawl draped over her shoulders.]
GENTLEMAN:
[Enters from the side, is about to put the phone book back in its place, stops, and
stares at ANDRÉ who suddenly looks up.]
My God, he’s white as a sheet.
ANDRÉ:
[Pushing the door open.]
Tordis—
GENTLEMAN:
[Backs up against the hallstand.]
Good grief, he must have seen a ghost.
ANDRÉ:
My thoughts are reaching you—through the darkness and the storm.
[He takes a few steps backwards.]
Stop, Tordis—stop.
GENTLEMAN:
[Darting into the phone booth.]
Good Lord—
ANDRÉ:
If I were a poet—those words hold us together, bind me to you.
GENTLEMAN:
1770—yes, thank you, 1770—
ANDRÉ:
But I’m not, I’m not a poet. Why are you calling me? Why are you opening a door into
the unknown, into the invisible sky over Iselø, which is only visible to you.
[TORDIS listens as if uncertain where the voice is coming from.]
GENTLEMAN:
Yes, I’m sorry, it’s Schaumann. I’m not disturbing you?
ANDRÉ:
Don’t leave us, Tordis. I’m coming, I’m coming.
GENTLEMAN:
Yes, I said Preisler’s anniversary—yes, Preisler’s anniversary.
ANDRÉ:
I’m coming, Tordis. Don’t leave us so soon.
[The storm rises to a howl.]
GENTLEMAN:
That’s odd: there’s a real draught here all of a sudden.
ANDRÉ:
Tordis, where are you? I can’t see you.
GENTLEMAN:
Sorry, sorry, I’m here again.
ANDRÉ:
The darkness thickens. The storm comes lashing in from the sea.
[The sounds of the storm come nearer—during the following dialogue, the café begins
slowly, almost imperceptibly, to disappear. The couple at the window pay their bill.
A few more patrons come in and disappear into the side room.]
GENTLEMAN:
Yes, Preisler’s anniversary—any ideas?
ANDRÉ:
I can see the sea, the sea and the lighthouse. The lamp’s cone of light cuts through
the darkness and lights up a gable. It’s the lifeboat house.
GENTLEMAN:
What did you say? A flower basket? A flower basket with some bottles of wine?
ANDRÉ:
And there—there’s the path across the heath.
GENTLEMAN:
But what kind of wine? Can’t we meet one day?
ANDRÉ:
Who will I meet? Voices and the storm; they are all blending into one.
GENTLEMAN:
[Trying to speak over the storm.]
I said: can’t we meet one day? I’ve made a list of Preisler’s friends.
[The café has now disappeared.]
ECHOES:
Preisler’s anniversary—of Preisler’s friends—
ANDRÉ:
The voices are growing stronger, like cries, the cries of the storm gulls over Iselø.
ECHOES:
Iselø—
[A faint light falls on the top of the ship’s figurehead.]
ANDRÉ:
The figurehead—
[The storm rises to a howl, then everything becomes silent. The light slowly spreads
itself—a little old lady in a rather prehistoric, rather masculine hunting outfit
is sitting at the foot of the figurehead. She has a hunting rifle on her knees and
is busy examining its safety catch.]
Isabella de Creuith!
ISABELLA:
[Quietly as she works, then suddenly appears to be listening to something, without
noticing ANDRÉ, and takes a little silver whistle from the top pocket of her jacket.]
Dicky!
[Blows the whistle.]
Dicky!
[We can hear the sound of bells nearby and the frightened cries of a bird guarding
its nest.]
Dicky. Listen to me! Leave that lark alone. Either it’s a strange lark that doesn’t
realize you only want to play or it’s one of our own that’s let itself be disturbed
by the strange restlessness in the landscape. Quite understandably.
[Blows the whistle.]
Dicky! Dicky! How many times do I have to tell you? You’re scaring the life out of
that lark with your friendly paws. How can a little bird know that such a terrifying
face as yours is just a mask that hides a gentle wish to play?
[The sky has slowly become almost summer blue. Suddenly we hear the happy song of
a
lark.]
There, now it knows. No, Dicky, get it to come down again. It’s no weather for larks.
You forget we’re in the middle of November.
[Blows the whistle angrily.]
Dicky, you monster. You’ll wake the others. We’ll have a whole concert in a moment.
Dicky, Dicky!
[She is on her feet now, about to leave to the right, then stops.]
No. I don’t understand that dog. During the last few days his ears have been drooping
and his fur has become almost light grey, but this evening—have you ever seen such
a colour?
[Blows her whistle.]
Dicky!
[Blows her whistle.]
[Leaves quickly.]
Dicky—Dicky—
ANDRÉ:
She’s gone—
[He looks up at the sky, which is growing dark again.]
She’s gone and taken the weather with her. No, Dicky took it with him. There’s a
patch of blue somewhere above the heath.
[We hear ISABELLA calling in the far distance: Dicky—Dicky—[The sound of his bells
grows fainter and fainter, and finally disappears—ANDRÉ quickly towards the figurehead.]
TORDIS:
Aunt Isabella—!
[She appears behind the figurehead.]
Aunt Isabella—wait for me, I’m coming—
[She is about to run off to the left.]
TORDIS:
[She stops and turns quickly towards the sound of his voice.]
That voice. It’s there. The same voice, a voice calling from far, far away. But
no one can call me back. I have severed every link with what used to be my world,
every connecting thought. And yet I seem to know that voice.
TORDIS:
No. No. Don’t call me back. I’m happy now. Nothing can stop me, nothing, nothing!
[We can hear Isabella’s whistle in the distance.]
I’m coming. Aunt Isabella. I’m coming, I’m coming!
[She runs out to the right.]
ANDRÉ:
Tordis—!
[Is about to run after her, but at that moment the storm rises to a howl, and he stops
as if confronted by a wall.]
No, Tordis, don’t close the gates on me. Don’t lock me in. It’s no use. I’ll reach
you, Tordis. My thoughts will reach you. They touched your soul, but you fled, Tordis,
in self-defence. I saw your eyes, I saw your fear, your fear of yourself. Nothing
can stop you, nothing, nothing. Yes, Tordis.
I can.
[Stops suddenly with his hands on his ears.]
Preisler. Preisler. If I could be spared Preisler and his anniversary for just one
moment.
[The short gentleman from before appears in the foreground to the right with a telephone
receiver to his ear.]
The air seems to be full of flower baskets and bottles of wine.
GENTLEMAN:
Burgundy, Bordeaux—or what do you say to cognac?
[OLSEN comes in from the right, crosses the stage, and disappears to the left.]
ANDRÉ:
Yes, bring me a cognac, Olsen, a double. But quickly, quickly. And choke that man.
Get him out of the booth. I’m waiting for a call. A vital call. Do you understand
that, miss? Miss, miss, you must be through by now, to the doctor and the midwife.
Yes—yes—it takes some time. I know, I know, but it’s already taken its time. Yes,
miss, yes—I’m waiting here. I’ll go on waiting.
[He has sat down on the base of the figurehead, with his head in his hands—the short
telephoning gentleman has disappeared. The storm rises to a howl. [ANDRÉ looks up,
stares out to the right, stands, and moves back a little, so as not to be seen.]
Emily—
EMILY:
[Comes quickly in from the left in a raincoat, with a multi-coloured scarf protecting
her hair. She stops, out of breath, loosens the shawl, peers off to the left, takes
a couple of steps towards the figurehead.]
It’s them, it’s them!
[Takes the shawl off, goes over to the figurehead, leans against it with one hand,
holding the shawl with the other, as if she is about to wave it.]
The car’s stopping by the gable of the lifeboat house. And there’s Hansson’s lamp.
Oh, Hansson, Hansson—
[She sinks down at the base of the figurehead.]
—why didn’t you deny it? Why didn’t you slap my sister in the face? She was lying.
She was lying. Not a word was true, except about herself as I have never known her.
No, no! I wasn’t eavesdropping. I was standing by the sideboard, putting the silver
away, when I heard her voice in the living room. She didn’t know the washing-up after
dinner could be done so quickly. How could she? When she walks upstairs every day
and leaves everything to me. Oh, her voice, like a fishwife’s, cursing, laughing hysterically,
screaming as if Hansson was some kind of slave, flinging one filthy accusation after
another at his head, accusing him and Tordis—Tordis, Tordis Eck! No, no! It’s a lie.
Life can’t be so vile. But he didn’t answer. Why, why—why didn’t he answer? Only when
she’d stopped screaming and started to cry, only then did he say that he’d asked for
a transfer in January. Then he left. I saw him from the window. He went towards the
sea. The sea and the shore. The shore is the shortest way to the villa. But did he
go that way? Did he go to the villa, to her? I don’t know. I’ll never know. I locked
myself in my room. And let my sister hammer at the door. Hammer and hammer. In the
end she gave up, and everything was silent. The silence before the storm.
[Looks up suddenly.]
Then I heard the hooves. I knew those hooves.
[The sound of a galloping horse’s hooves can be heard through the storm; it comes
nearer
and nearer and crosses the stage, becomes fainter and fainter, until it finally fades
away.]
It was King! King, galloping across the courtyard, his stirrups swinging, and no
rider.
EMILY:
I don’t how I came down the steps into the courtyard. I suddenly felt the earth gliding
away from beneath my feet. Everything went black. But then I felt a pair of hands
on my shoulders and heard Hansson calling out:—let the horse go. It’s her that matters.
Her that matters. God, oh God, if she dies, I haven’t a friend in the world. Let her
live, God, let her live. God let her live!
[She clings to the figurehead.]
Oh God, oh God, how she lay there on the shore. Hansson lifted her up. Carried her
in his arms up over the dunes, up to the villa.
ANDRÉ:
Emily—the lamp, the lamp!
EMILY:
Oh God, if she dies—!
ANDRÉ:
It’s coming nearer, Emily, coming this way. No, now there are two. They’re separating
from each other, each going a different way.
EMILY:
If she dies, if she dies, it’s my fault if she dies! No, no! I was afraid to stay.
When Hansson went to telephone the doctor, I was alone, alone in the house, in the
empty villa, alone with her. Oh God, if it’s true. Her face? If it’s true! Her face,
her face. Where could I look? I daren’t look anywhere, daren’t get up and pull down
the blind against the storm and the darkness that gazed in through the black windows.
Isabella de Creuith! I put my fingers in my ears. Was it her whistle? Everything
round me had once been hers, the pictures, the carpets, the upholstered chair with
the silk covers. The door to the dressing room was open—the old screen, the photograph
on the screen—it wasn’t there. There was only a mark where it had been. Who had taken
it? The photograph that was to stay there so long as Tordis was alive. Her face on
the pillow, the mark on the screen. Where could I look, where could I look? What was
lying on the table by the bed where Hansson had laid her down?—A ticket to Paris,
an airline ticket? She’d told me they were in Paris, the minister and his wife. In
a few days they would meet up with her husband who was on a business trip. She’d
told me that as well. But that she herself, that she was going to travel—the date
on the ticket: the day after tomorrow. She hadn’t told me. She hadn’t told
me! She always said: we have no secrets from each other. No, I was just a child. Yes,
a child. But I’m not a child any longer. I’ve seen your world at last. And that’s
the world you are entering, Esmond, Esmond. You’ll play like the little blue-eyed
boy you are, until suddenly one day you’ll—
[Stops.]
No! Oh God, oh God, if it’s true, to have everything taken from me on one single
day. I’m not even allowed to keep my dream about Esmond. I have dreamed. How I have
dreamed. We sailed in your boat, a little white boat. Or I sat on the beach with a
book in my lap, while you built sandcastles. Emily, Emily, what are you reading? Yes,
come and see. You put your arms round my neck. Just look at the pictures. One day
when you’re big—how big you’ll be, with a jacket and a parting in your hair. That
curl—no, don’t brush it away. Hair should be curly. You’re such a fine little man—I
could hug you to death. I can see you turning seventeen, eighteen—
[A bright, almost translucent figure appears in the darkness behind the figurehead.
It is a boy or a very young man. He approaches nervously, keeping a safe distance.]
The same sweet eyes, the same delightful smile. You’ll never change, never. No!
[The figure stops, frightened.]
This doubt. This doubt. I can’t bear it. Oh, Hansson, Hansson, why didn’t you answer,
why—
[Looks up suddenly. The figure shrinks back in fear.]
Hansson—I call you Hansson, but my sister used your first name. She didn’t know I
was standing by the sideboard. God, oh God, I wish I were dead. Iselø has become a
hell—a hell that I can never leave.
[She turns and listens; stands up suddenly.]
The lamp! There they are. That’s Hansson’s lamp. It’s swinging over towards the lighthouse.
Hansson walks in front. Then comes the midwife, that witch of a midwife. It’s her
hands that in a little while will—
[Stops.]
But the doctor—the doctor—? That lamp
there in the darkness, that flickering lamp. It’s his, the doctor’s. He’s cutting across
through the heather where there’s no path and walking down past the pines. Doctor!
[She runs out to the left, not noticing that she has left her scarf on the base of
the figurehead.]
Doctor—doctor—
ANDRÉ:
Emily, your scarf—
[He bends down quickly, picks up the scarf, is about to run after her, but catches
sight of the figure that immediately disappears.]
Stop! Who’s that?
[The storm rises to a howl and seems to close him in—he stands listening for a moment,
the scarf in his hand. Then the storm sounds fade away.]
No one, no one. Only the empty air, where souls are journeying from nothingness
on their way to nothingness.
[The sound of galloping hooves is heard in the distance, coming nearer and nearer,
very near, and then fading away. He shouts as if to someone riding past.]
Tordis! Your parents, your husband. You were going to travel. But the picture
you sent? Tordis, Tordis—
[He turns, looks up.]
The sky is changing, becoming a summer blue. Isabella is whistling for Dicky—lark
song—bells—
[The sky has taken on an increasingly summer blue colour. We hear bells and lark song—he
suddenly lays Emily’s scarf on the base of the figurehead, takes a few steps back
so as not to be seen.]
They are coming up here like two ladies in conversation from a genre painting: Tordis and Isabella, each in her own rhythm. One light and fluttering, almost translucent
under her old shawl, which she keeps wrapped about her, the other closed up tight:
a firmly penciled period that marks the end of an existence. What are they talking
about? What’s their topic of conversation? Hunting, no doubt. Isabella is telling
some anecdote with gesticulating hands, while Tordis only makes a show of listening.
She is far, far away.
[ISABELLA and TORDIS come in from the left.]
I was right. It is hunting.
ISABELLA:
Dicky!
[Turns and whistles.]
Well, no, there were only a few of us, mostly from the island. We all had our usual
posts. I let the farmer from Lindholm—
ANDRÉ:
—take my brother’s post, and I stood by—
ANDRÉ:
Now Isabella has stopped too, sensing invisible resistance, but deciding quickly to
ignore it.
ISABELLA:
—and I stood by the dike at the edge of the wood, you know, over there by the Virgin’s
Oak, where the animals cross over from the enclosure. I’m hardly in position when
three deer jump past me from behind. I aimed at a young buck, missed him the first
time, but got him with my second shot. All in all that day we shot four bucks, one
roe deer, a fox, and sixteen hares.
[She sits down on the base of the figurehead. TORDIS stands turned half away from
her,
looking out over the landscape.]
ANDRÉ:
Tordis, Tordis, you know I’m here—that someone is here.
[He is lying on his back with his hands under his head, looking up at the clouds.]
ISABELLA:
The dinner that evening—
ANDRÉ:
The dinner, the dinner—
ISABELLA:
I’ll never forget it. To please the doctor, I appeared in all my finery for once.
A fire in the hearth, a good glass of wine, a lady with a train to her dress, he loved
all that. He called it style. But it had its revenge. On me, that is. Feeling a little
proud, a bit carried away with the atmosphere no doubt, I was tempted to consult a
mirror. Dear God, what a sight. A stupid old fieldmouse decked out as the Lady of
the Camelias at a masquerade. I’ve stuck to my hunting outfit ever since. It never
lets me down. The pockets may be a bit worn, but otherwise no one can deny it’s stood
the test of time. I got it the year Sadi Carnot was assassinated.
ISABELLA:
Those were happy days.
ANDRÉ:
Lost in thought she has picked up Emily’s scarf.
ISABELLA:
We called them happy.
ANDRÉ:
Aufforderung zum Tanz. The words hover like a sigh in the stillness, but no one asks the little question
needed to keep the topic rolling. Her youth, her memories—there’s so much, so much.
She draws the scarf through her hand, slowly, thoughtfully—and the end slips through.
Then she draws it through again. Even an everyday scarf can be more than just an accessory.
[half standing]
More than just an accessory.
[standing]
I must have been blind. It’s the silent extra character brought on stage by an act
of providence, the maid with a chance letter that changes the direction of the plot.
Tordis, Tordis, my thoughts are reaching out to you. They’ll make contact soon. Look,
her hands have stopped. Her gaze is suddenly focused, alert.
ISABELLA:
Is that your scarf?
ISABELLA:
No, I recognize it now. It’s Emily’s.
ANDRÉ:
Tordis. Your face.
ISABELLA:
She wore it yesterday when she went to the pastor’s daughter for her English lesson.
TORDIS:
No, not yesterday. Her lesson is this evening.
ISABELLA:
Parole d’honneur. We both saw her, Dicky and I. She leaned her bicycle against the pastor’s hedge
and went through the gate with a book under her arm.
ANDRÉ:
Tordis!
[The storm rises to a howl. The summer light disappears in darkness and driving storm
clouds.]
ISABELLA:
[She has stood up.]
In heaven’s name! What’s happening? Everything seems bewitched.
[Whistles.]
Dicky, Dicky! Is it your fault, you wicked dog? Where are you, Dicky? Can’t
you answer? Just silence and darkness, not a single bell. He must have noticed something,
be sitting quiet as a mouse. That pale thing there—is it a human shape? A boy, a child,
paralyzed with fear at the sight of such a dreadful monster.
[Whistles.]
No, Dicky, Dicky!
[She goes quickly out to the right. Her calls are lost in the sounds of the storm
that gradually move further and further away.]
Dicky, Dicky!
TORDIS:
[She is now sitting on the base of the figurehead.]
Now they’ve vanished into the darkness: a little lady and a patch of open sky.
Everything is closing in, becoming cold and grey. The storm moves in across the heath
from the sea. The villa. The lighthouse. The lamp turning. Forgotten things are
suddenly so near.
ANDRÉ:
You heard my voice.
TORDIS:
Yes, from beyond the storm. I seemed to feel the pull of something invisible. But
whose voice was it? My own thoughts, my own fear?
ANDRÉ:
It was Emily’s name at first that—
TORDIS:
That’s when I finally understood.
ANDRÉ:
She went through the gate with a book under her arm.
TORDIS:
The letter was inside the book. Or had been.
TORDIS:
I’d asked her to take it with her when she went to her English lesson. But like everyone
who plans the perfect crime I made a mistake. For some reason or other her lesson
was a day earlier than usual.
[She is now on her feet.]
Forgive me, André, for distressing you. But I assumed that if I sent a letter to
the Café Bern, it would be kept by the woman at the buffet until you dropped by one
day. I almost felt I could hear your sigh from the sofa under the mirror—“Oh, dear
God.”
TORDIS:
Yes, “dear God.” Nothing more nor less. That little sigh would have been enough for
me. No, no, perhaps you don’t understand. That’s another thing with the perfect crime.
You become so childishly self-obsessed that you don’t think of it as perfect until
you have secured one witness. A single witness. But there’s something else. No, André, no—you mustn’t’
laugh—
TORDIS:
—or think that I take myself too seriously. But in the midst of one’s helplessness
one feels a need to—to reach out to someone. But I can’t. I don’t have the strength.
This summer, you said, that evening on the terrace—“If I were a poet.”
ANDRÉ:
I only heard myself after I had said it. I was miles away.
TORDIS:
The abyss—I’ve never seen it so clearly.
TORDIS:
Between you and me. Between me and both of you. You were sitting on a corner of Marianne’s
calm. Marianne. Flocks of children can crawl over her without disturbing her repose
for one second. Marianne who never needs to grope her way to what it means to be—she
is. She is warmth and tenderness. I have never known tenderness, never shown tenderness.
Not even for my mother. When she bent over me and pressed her cheek to mine, it seemed
embarrassing, unbelievably childish. So I drifted towards my father.
ANDRÉ:
Your father, whom you’ve fought with all your life?
TORDIS:
No! Not fought. I left fighting alone. In all those years I walked backwards and
forwards down the long corridor past their bedrooms to mine, I believed that life
was a fight. But it was only a fight to avoid fighting. By never attacking one loses
one’s right to attack at all. I have lost that right. I became the silent partner.
In the game against my husband as well. A frightening need for order, regimentation,
external order, a surface image of something that resembled order, got me to enter
into a contract I imagined I could honour.
TORDIS:
I could, I could. But, André, does one have the right to steal into someone else’s
life, as if it were an apartment with a certain number of doors for playing postman’s
knock, play it willingly, so long as deep within one has one door behind all the other
doors, which can be closed and locked on that solitude that is completely one’s own?
Does one have that right?
ANDRÉ:
I don’t know your husband.
TORDIS:
The question’s not for him. It’s one I have to answer. It’s my business, André, mine—mine!
I’m tired of hiding behind excuses, excuses way back to Adam and Eve. You can forgive
other people, not yourself. The life you’ve lived and will go on living: you hold
it in your own hand. I alone am responsible for it. That’s what I think. Not with
my intellect that thrives on excuses, but deep within, in the heart of my own will,
my own being. Call it a belief. Because it is a belief. I couldn’t live without that
belief. I couldn’t. I understood too late that there is a pattern, a living pattern
that grows and flowers. I saw only myself, my own thread, believed it could make a
pattern, a unique pattern. A thread can lead you into a labyrinth easily enough, only
rarely out. Now it’s too late.
TORDIS:
Oh, André, André—
ANDRÉ:
If it’s strength you need, I have enough for both of us.
TORDIS:
If you’d said that that evening, that evening on the terrace. But you didn’t say it,
didn’t dream of saying it. You looked at me from your world of calm round Marianne,
looked at me with big surprised childish eyes, as if I were a strange lady one is
really a bit afraid of. A strange lady. Strange to everyone. That was your judgement.
ANDRÉ:
I didn’t judge you. I’ve never judged you.
TORDIS:
Without knowing it. That evening especially. Your judgement was a shrug. No, no,
I’m not rebuking you. On the contrary. I accepted your judgement. I saw how futile
it was to save something so utterly futile. Utterly. The world has other things to
think about. Forget me. Forget me as I forgot the world around me. Lean back in that
old sofa with your back to the mirror. Call for Olsen. Order a glass of sherry. We
always had sherry then, if we could afford it. Dry, not sweet. We both preferred
the sweet but were afraid to admit it. And in the midst of it all you heard twittering
birds flying in and out of the Café Bern and saw little dancers scattering flowers.
Everything was gold. You turned everything to gold. You could do that. That’s what
I loved. That and your eyes. I’ve always been in love with boys with eyes like yours.
I saw them this summer. A glimpse. Suddenly you were a boy I simply wanted to put
my arms around.
[She has turned to face him.]
André—
ANDRÉ:
The sky’s changing colour.
ANDRÉ:
It’s turning blue again.
TORDIS:
Then Dicky must be nearby. Yes, I can hear his bells.
[Calls.]
Dicky, Dicky—
ANDRÉ:
It must be hard to run with such a long coat. Through the heather, I mean.
TORDIS:
Not for Dicky.
[The sky has changed colour. We hear the sound of bells coming nearer and nearer.]
Come, Dicky—come.
ANDRÉ:
He’s much bigger than I’d thought. Bigger than a Scotch terrier.
TORDIS:
And that colour, that colour—
[The bells are now very close. The stage is full of silver-clear bells.]
No, Dicky, Dicky—
[ANDRÉ seems to be trying to stop Dicky from jumping at him.]
Don’t jump up, do you hear, Dicky? The strange man doesn’t like it. Sit, sit.
No, Dicky, Dicky—
[The bells seem to be running round the stage.]
What’s the matter with that dog?
[The bells stop for a moment. Then they begin again, in almost fawning manner.]
Here we are. Such a good little dog. Isn’t it touching when he puts his forepaws
in my lap? Those big, big paws. What have you got in your mouth? Give it to me,
give it to me. A blue gentian? But Dicky, Dicky, blue gentians don’t grow, not in
the middle of November.
[The bells sound happy and eager.]
Is it for me?
[The bells say no.]
Who then? For him?
[The bells say yes.]
It’s for you.
[She gets up.]
For you, André.
[While she puts the gentian in André’s lapel, the bells dance round them, then stop.
A whistle is heard in the distance.]
Aunt Isabella’s whistle. I’m coming, I’m coming.
[The bells seem to jump into the air.]
I’m coming, Dicky. Tell her that I’m coming.
[The bells run off and fade into the distance—TORDIS puts her arms round ANDRÉ.]
I loved you once. I loved your eyes. But I needed something else. I never found
your eyes
and that something in anyone. I never found the repose you found in Marianne. But I’ve
found it now. Let me keep that repose, André. André, André, please let me keep it.
ANDRÉ:
The light in your window is still burning.
TORDIS:
Let me go! What do you want with me?
ANDRÉ:
The shadow on the blind—
TORDIS:
No, no!—Don’t call me back.
ANDRÉ:
Now it’s stopped. Moved away from the blind. Whoever cast the shadow has gone into
your room.
TORDIS:
Whoever cast the shadow. I can hear the stealthy footsteps, the creaking shoes coming
nearer and nearer. Now he’s bending over me. A faint scent of leather and tobacco.
My old doctor, my old friend the doctor. His hand rests on mine for a moment. Then
his footstep move away, grow fainter and fainter in the room, then fade away. No,
André—no. He didn’t call me back to life.
ANDRÉ:
Because he suspects nothing. But if he did suspect—
TORDIS:
—he would do his duty, his pitiless duty. But he suspects nothing, will never suspect
anything.
ANDRÉ:
You forget where I’m sitting.
TORDIS:
No. You’re in the Café Bern. But you have no power over him from your sofa under
the mirror, only over me.
ANDRÉ:
From my sofa under the mirror—what do you see in that mirror?
TORDIS:
What do I see. What I remember. Gold mouldings round the wall, an old-fashioned coat-rack,
and half-hidden behind that—
[She grasps ANDRÉ by the arm.]
—The telephone in the kiosk! You have jumped up. Heaven be praised. Preisler’s anniversary.
It wasn’t for you.
ANDRÉ:
But the next time, or the time after that, it will be for me. Up there in the clouds,
there’s a call on its way to the lighthouse. It will be there soon. I must get though,
miss, do you hear? I’m waiting here. I’ll go on waiting. Miss, do you understand?
TORDIS:
[She is sitting, tired, on the base of the figureheard.]
She understands, André, the young girl at the island switchboard. Everyone knows
the big news by now. A man has phoned, a stranger with an excited voice. It’s the
new gossip. Everyone’s waiting for the call to go through. Have you considered what
you will say then? With a whole island listening. Whatever you say will upset them.
That’s the last thing
I want to do.
ANDRÉ:
[without looking at TORDIS]
Your parents. Your husband.
TORDIS:
You never met him.
ANDRÉ:
I saw his picture in some newspaper once—from a boat launching, I think.
TORDIS:
He was like a son to them. He gave meaning to their lives. They began to live at last.
In his world. He let himself drift with the current in the most charming way, kind
to everyone, always the same and always ready with those thoughtful little gestures
that made Mother fall in love with him. And he could talk to Father, above all listen
to him. Of course, he drifted off every now and then. He would smile at me suddenly,
when he knew he’d been caught napping, and become all friendly attention again. Why
take things so seriously? Well, I had to admit he was right. We didn’t take them
seriously. But little Mother—sometimes I felt her hand on mine for a moment—I’m just
a bit tired. Just this evening. Everyone can get tired. Suddenly her eyes were happy
again, without a shadow of fear. That fear I’d seen so often. I saw it less and
less. They felt safe. Could I take that gift from them? Could I leave my husband?
Could I suddenly say that it was all over?
ANDRÉ:
You’re saying it now.
TORDIS:
No! That’s the one thing I will never say.
ANDRÉ:
But the son you gave them?
TORDIS:
If he marries again, it will make no difference. There’ll have been no divorce. They’ll
keep him. They’ll keep us both. From now on they have a living son and a daughter
in a frame. My photograph will be reflected in the shining mahogany surfaces, like
a harmless psychic who never foretells bad luck. She only brings security, permanent
security—permanent, André. And you’ll wreck that? Upset the apple cart? Is that really
your duty—your duty as a human being?
ANDRÉ:
The light in the window—
ANDRE:
It’s still burning.
TORDIS:
Don’t gaze at the house as if it were in league with you.
ANDRÉ:
In league with me—
[He turns suddenly to TORDIS.]
Yes, it is. In the struggle to find what you are hiding!
TORDIS:
I’m hiding nothing.
ANDRÉ:
That house is a witness.
TORDIS:
André!
[We can hear the bells and the whistle in the distance, but coming nearer and nearer.]
ISABELLA:
Dicky, Dicky!
[She comes in from the left, out of breath.]
Did you see him? The boy? Pale as asparagus. A little cut-out doll in much too
fancy city clothes. I’m sure he ran this way. I lost track of him for a moment, but
I found him by the lighthouse. He stood transfixed at the kitchen door, staring at
the midwife who was putting water on for coffee. Then he turned suddenly, and the
devil knows where he’s gone. The midwife from Vrem. Even a hurricane, a typhoon,
would fall to its knees whimpering at the sight of her. Let alone little Lord Fauntleroy
with his jacket and his parting, besides himself with the fear of getting a spot on
his pants.
There—there he is—trying to creep round the juniper bush. Dicky!
En avant. No, down, down, or you’ll scare the life out of him. Tordis, are you coming? Dicky,
Dicky!
[She goes out to the right—the bells and the whistle grow fainter and fainter in the
distance.]
TORDIS:
I’m coming. I’m coming.
[She turns suddenly—ANDRÉ has begun to walk to the left.]
André!
[For a moment she is in doubt as to whom she will follow—the figurehead glides slowly,
almost imperceptibly to the right. Finally she is standing there alone. It grows darker
and darker. The storm rises to a howl.]
Wait for me. I’m coming.
[The darkness envelops her.]
André—André—
[THE CURTAIN FALLS.]
[Storm and darkness. The light falls to the right, a little in the background, on
the
suggestion of a low stone dike that frames the open driveway to the Villa Gull’s Cry.
In the foreground, to the left, we sense the house itself through a corner, a pillar,
a carving. ISABELLA is sitting on the dike. She sways from her hips as if she were
dancing. She makes graceful figures and circles with her arms and marks the rhythm
now and then with a light snap of her fingers. The storm rises threateningly, then
dissolves in a howl.]
ISABELLA:
[She stops her dance with her arms still raised.]
Storm! You lovely storm over Iselø. Play up for the dance. The last dance will
be tonight. By sunrise everything will be silent. And the house, my house, you’ll
be yourself again. Without a shadow. We will dance the shadows away, pass the time
of waiting with a dance. Oh, if I could only remember that waltz. Help me, storm,
you who never forget. Help me, help me!
[The storm rises to a howl. Far away we can hear a waltz that comes nearer and nearer.]
There, there it is! The waltz that will end my last ball. My last, my last.
[The waltz fills the stage. She hums, sways from her hips, moves her arms gracefully—suddenly
she raises her hand as if to stop an orchestra—everything becomes silent.]
No, Dicky, Dicky—
[A bluish light falls on the dike.]
Not that colour.
[The blue light fades. We hear fawning bells.]
No one must see us. Or know that we are here, so near the house. Oh, Dicky, Dicky,
she said she would come, but she didn’t follow me. I heard her call a name through
the storm—André, André. I saw him only as a resisting force, a will in space. But
she is following him—
[We hear the waltz again.]
Oh, Dicky, Dicky. I shall dance tonight. Dance the past away.
[She hums, “dances,” suddenly stops, listening. The waltz has gone.]
TORDIS:
[We hear her voice in the far distance.]
André—André—
ISABELLA:
[She gets to her feet and stands in the driveway.]
She’s coming; she’s coming. She’s following him, Dicky. No, not a sound. Watch your
colour. We must go on, go on, and hunt for the boy, the pale little fellow. Once we’ve
found him, my ball can begin, my last ball. Because we’ll dance tonight. Come, Dicky—come!
[She leaves to the left behind the dike. The storm rises to a howl. We hear TORDIS’
voice in the distance, but coming nearer:—André, André. Then everything is silent.]
ANDRÉ:
[Comes in from the right behind the dike.]
Isabella—it was Isabella. Why did she run away?
[Is about to follow her, but suddenly notices the house and walks slowly through the
entrance to the driveway and stops.]
The house. The villa. The lights are on in the living room. The candelabra imaginatively
made from deer antlers and kestrels’ wings casts a ghostly glow over the empty room.
Emily’s coat is lying on a chair by the hearth. The only sign of life.
[He takes a step backwards.]
No, the lamp, the lamp, his lamp—circles restlessly round in the storm and darkness.
Now it’s disappearing round the corner towards the sea. There’s a light in the window
on the side that faces the sea. The shadow on the blinds—
[The storm rises to a howl.]
TORDIS:
André—!
[She comes in from the right and walks hesitantly through the entrance to the driveway.]
Oh, to be here again—
[She stops behind ANDRÉ and follows his gaze.]
—at the scene of the crime. What was once my life, my world, has suddenly become a
crime scene, that has to suffer being ransacked by prying eyes, measured, photographed.
Do it, André. Measure. Photograph. It will be of no use to you. I’ve hidden nothing.
I could have used other words. But was that necessary? I know you would understand.
And yet I shall be tormented, tormented until I scream. Go, go. Give me back my calm.
Go, André, go while there is still time. I have so little time. You have no right
to steal it from me. Go, André, go!
[She takes a step towards the villa.]
No! You won’t get me across that threshold.
[Clings to him to bar the way.]
André—!
[The storm rises to a howl, which mingles with fragments of the waltz. The dike glides
out to the left. A door with glass panels glides in from the left, followed by a hearth,
with the suggestion of a staircase up to the second floor. Emily’s coat lies on a
faded-green upholstered chair. There is a small ornamental table with two glasses
on it. The background fades into a veiled darkness, with hints of properties: an oriental
rug hung up to serve as a portiere, a suggested interior, an atmosphere—all is quiet.]
André—!
EMILY:
[Appears on the stairs.]
Who called? I thought someone—someone called.
[She has taken a few steps down the stairs.]
Doctor—!
DOCTOR:
[Appears behind EMILY.]
Ssh—even if she’s far, far away, she may well still be listening. Emily—it was
probably just the storm.
EMILY:
No. No, it wasn’t the storm. Doctor, doctor, can’t you sense—
EMILY:
—that we’re not alone?
DOCTOR:
The only way we can help her now is for both of us to stay calm. Forgive me, dear
girl, I’m an old man. That journey across the heath, which used to be child’s play,
even in a storm, has been a bit too much for me. In that carved cabinet,
there, just past the fireplace, there’s usually a couple of crystal decanters.
[EMILY has gone down the stairs and over to the hearth.]
She called it her medicine cabinet, Miss de Creuith, when she came home tired from
the hunt. Cognac preferably, if it’s there. Ladies, ladies, you’re always so thoughtful.
You’ve put out some glasses for me.
EMILY:
[Turns quickly.]
Glasses?
DOCTOR:
Those two there on the table, or—or has she had a guest?
DOCTOR:
Ssh—now I did hear a voice. Was it—
[He turns and listens.]
—was it her voice?
[He disappears from view at the top of the stairs.]
EMILY:
Doctor!
[She runs to the stairs.]
A guest. She has had a guest. When I saw him from the window walking towards the
sea, he was coming here. Here. Here.
[She runs up the stairs and turns towards the room.]
Here—!
[She disappears from view at the top of the stairs.]
TORDIS:
Emily—
[She tears herself away from ANDRÉ, stands for a moment looking at the spot where
Emily
had been, then turns quickly towards ANDRÉ.]
The scene of your crime. Yours! I’ve hidden nothing. Two glasses on a table. I
hid nothing. In everything I said there were two glasses between the lines. But you
weren’t content with that. And it was you one summer evening who floated a banner—if
I were a poet. In that one word—if!—you drew back hastily from that wholeness you
had glimpsed, had helped me to glimpse. The wholeness that stands above us like a
sky, binds us together, allows us freedom. But me? Why should I care? You wash
your hands, and the sky shrinks to a picturesque sunset. What will the weather be
like tomorrow? And tomorrow? On and on. Until you stand at the scene of a crime.
ANDRÉ:
Which is not yet a crime scene.
TORDIS:
Yes, André! You can change nothing, nothing, nothing. You have no power. You’re
fumbling like a boy who has only one wish—to save what cannot be saved. My face,
the only face I never dared to look at—I’ve seen it, André.
[She crosses slowly to the hearth, touches the table lightly, then the chair, and
turns.]
The cabinet minister’s daughter. A portrait with a background. A background I couldn’t
escape. Had I wanted to—but I didn’t. I stood in front of that background. Being
in front of it—was enough for me. I knew from a distance that outside me there was
a world in turmoil. That distance was enough. I danced into forgetfulness. I was
good at forgetting. I was forced to forget, forced by a terrible power within myself.
A pair of eyes, a smile, my feet began to dance. A woman’s fulfillment? Human fulfillment?
Well, I had time. I danced and danced, danced into the chain that has danced though
all the ages. One Friday, I danced in Jerusalem. Two eyes and a smile. As I journeyed
on, I only realized in my memory that the long shadows at evening were like a cross
I danced away from memory, from a thousand memories, danced through Titian’s pillars
and the palaces of Rome. Who are they burning today? A name, a name, I think I heard
it. If the earth turns and the sun stands still, the earth is grey, I dance in the
sun, the artificial sun, over bonfires and ruins, through processions and flags, ordinary
flags. Roll down the blinds. I danced, I danced, in the end alone in an empty room.
That mirror, that mirror!—at the end of the room. It drew me like an abyss. I danced,
danced, but the mirror was the strongest. I was crushed against that mirror.
[The waltz that has been coming nearer and nearer during this speech, ends in a discordant
crash.]
The truth, André!
[For a few seconds everything is still—it is as if she has freed herself from something
that had her in its grip.]
If you knew how mean and small the truth is, the truth inside, when the music stops.
A rotten piece of straw you stumble over. Two glasses on a table. Let me go, let me
go. You are forcing me down the staircase step by step. Two glasses on a table. They
can be forgotten, André. But his past, to become part of his past, to be stuck on
a wall in a row with all the others, with
her. The woman from the lighthouse. If that is true. I can’t, André. My skin is not
mine, will never be mine. After the last step there’s nothing but emptiness. Only
emptiness. André.
[Everything is quiet for a moment—then Isabella’s whistle can be heard.]
Aunt Isabella’s whistle. Thank heavens. She’s waiting out there. I’ll take the last
part of my journey with her. I’m coming, Aunt Isabella—I’m coming, I’m—
[She has turned quickly towards the background, then stops suddenly.]
The lamp. His lamp. I’m trapped. It’s circled my house evening after evening. A
pair of eyes have been watching. They’ll never let me go.
ANDRÉ:
A young man in blue, a uniform-like blue.
TORDIS:
I rode past him on the beach but didn’t recognize him. I recognized him first when
he came up to the terrace in his Sunday best. He had caught my gaze. Not a gaze, only
a glance. The most fleeting glance that had given him the right of way, the right
to come. He had that right, but I didn’t give it to him. He found excuse after excuse.
Came again and again. I tried every means of escape, but his pipe kept turning between
his quiet hands. He didn’t budge an inch. His silence hovered in the air like a desire.
But I didn’t give in. I wouldn’t be drawn into his world. Iselø, my freedom. No one
could take that from me, no one, no one. I left, came back. To show my strength.
Oh, strength, André—
[She has crossed slowly towards the hearth—everything is quiet for a moment.]
My last strength—
[She turns quickly.]
—is to escape myself.
[She takes a couple of steps forward. Her gaze is fixed on the glass door.]
André—!
ANDRÉ:
[He turns quickly and follows the direction of her gaze.]
The lamp. It’s out. There’s a hand on the door.
TORDIS:
I’m coming, Aunt Isabella—
[She runs towards the background.]
I’m coming, I’m coming!
[She vanishes in the darkness.]
ANDRÉ:
Tordis—!
[Is about to run after her, but stops—at the same moment the door opens. The wind
blows
across the stage. HANSSON comes in, closes the door quickly behind him, and remains
standing with his back to the door, his gaze fixed on the staircase.—It is quiet for
a few seconds, then EMILY appears suddenly at the top of the staircase.]
EMILY:
Hansson—
[She runs a few steps down the stairs—the DOCTOR appears behind her.]
Hansson, Hansson—
[She sinks, crying, on the staircase. HANSSON opens the door quickly, there is a gust
of wind, and he is gone.]
DOCTOR:
Hansson—?
[Without taking his eyes off the door for a moment, he bends over EMILY, but she jumps
up and runs down the stairs.]
EMILY:
No, no—no!
[She throws herself crying into the chair by the fireplace.]
DOCTOR:
[He comes slowly down the stairs, and stands for some time, thinking.]
Hansson—
ANDRÉ:
Doctor, doctor. Two glasses on a table. Oh, if my thoughts could reach you. Doctor!
DOCTOR:
[He turns quickly towards EMILY.]
Emily—
DOCTOR:
Emily—!
[He grasps her firmly by the shoulders and makes her look up at him.]
When did you last see her, I mean speak with her?
DOCTOR:
Did anything about her strike you as strange?
EMILY:
[She jumps to her feet and frees herself from the DOCTOR.]
Strange!
EMILY:
No, no. Well yes, she did give me a letter.
EMILY:
Which she asked me to post when I went to my English lesson this evening; but the
lesson was changed.
DOCTOR:
Who was the letter to?
EMILY:
Her friend, the gentleman who was here this summer.
ANDRÉ:
Doctor, doctor, that evening on the terrace.
DOCTOR:
The photograph of Isabella!
DOCTOR:
I should have known it. I should have sensed it. The fear I saw in her mother’s eyes.
That was her fear. It happened today. It happened before the horse was saddled. You old
fool!!—What was I thinking of? When she was here last, sweet and radiant.—No, no,
she didn’t need a prescription. She’d got over her insomnia. What was I thinking of?
The ticket to Paris, the fall from her horse. It was all planned to lead me astray.
The prescription she got me to write for her months ago, she’s saved it for today.
Today! You old fool! Emily, Emily. If she has the will to live, there’s still hope.
[He has gone back up the stairs, then stops.]
But does she have the will?
EMILY:
Doctor—!
[She has run up the stairs.]
DOCTOR:
Come, girl, come.
ANDRÉ:
The will to live!
[The storm rises to a howl. The waltz blends with the storm, coming nearer and nearer.
The room glides out, the candelabra vanishes. The stage seems to open out—we see a
beach, just horizon and sky. The light is strange, neither night nor day—in the middle
of the stage, a little to the right, there is a boat, half on its side, with its keel
towards the audience—ISABELLA is sitting in front of the boat on a small, old-fashioned
folding chair with a back-rest. She hums as she examines the bolt on her hunting rifle—the
storm is now far away. Only the waltz lingers like the more and more distant thrumming
of waves—we hear laughter and the happy sound of bells from nearby—ANDRÉ takes a few
steps forward and stops.]
The beach on Iselø. Isabella de Creuith.
[He walks forward again, stops, and turns to the right, listening.]
And laughing voices—?
ISABELLA:
[She looks up, shading her eyes with her hand.]
Ah, at last, at last.
ANDRÉ:
[He starts, turns, and stands for a moment listening, but ISABELLA is again only interested
in her gun. We hear joyful laughter nearby—ANDRÉ whirls round.]
A boy’s laughter. That was a boy’s laughter. A young boy, playing with Dicky.
TORDIS:
No, Esmond, Esmond—
ANDRÉ:
Emily’s Esmond?
[A ball is thrown onto the stage, and bounces a few times. ANDRÉ catches it, stands
for a moment holding it in his hand, then quickly lays it down.]
ESMOND:
[He comes in from the left. He is slim and fair. He wears a bow-tie and and little,
tight-fitting suit, too short at the wrists and ankles. Its cut is both modern and
a little dated, but with an odd colour, almost pale beige with a hint of mother of
pearl in the folds.]
No, old friend, I said no.
[He grabs the ball, then holds it high up and close to the ground as if to tease a
playfellow.]
That’s not the game.
[He throws the ball with all his strength out to the right, almost taking himself
with
it.]
There! You jackal of a Pekinese.
[He runs off.]
ANDRÉ:
Was that Emily’s Esmond? The pale little fellow who was afraid of dogs, afraid of
everything. Well I’m damned—there he is turning cartwheels, doing handsprings, while
Dicky dances round him in delight. The boy and the dog. They’re running down to the
beach. Off with his jacket, off with his clothes. It’s a swimming race. First to the
sandbar. Tordis, Tordis—no, she doesn’t hear. She’s far, far away. She’s searching,
bending over, collecting mussel shells, looking for amber, her shawl trailing in the
sand. The spirit of summer on Iselø’s beach. She’s left everything behind her, the
storm and the darkness. Tordis!
[He stops, listening—ISABELLA hums and examines her rifle—he turns quickly.]
And there you are, an old monster in an old-fashioned hunting outfit. Sitting as
if nothing had happened, as if there were oceans of time. Oh, if my thoughts could
reach you. But they can’t. You are as deaf as that door that has been shut on your
past along with Sadi Carnot and all your hunting trophies. Who am I?—no, you don’t
know that. But I know who you are. An egotistical old maid who in one sunset mood
pointed round the horizon and said to a girl, a six-year old girl: all this is yours,
you are my heir, my heir to everything. To everything. Your life, your fate, your defeat.
If she hadn’t stumbled over a wretched piece of straw, then Iselø, the Villa Gull’s
Cry, would have become her cloister, as it once was yours. Your worldly cloister.
Paris, Madrid. You sought that expensive loneliness that holds everything at a distance.
A sanctuary. You had the means to give that sanctuary elbow-room as far as the sea
and the sky. You deluded yourself into becoming the neighbour of eternity. I know
what that means. I’ve felt its call myself. We all feel it. We have it in our blood.
All of us refugees from a petty world with its dreary rules and regulations that threaten
to steal the fragrance from our personal style. The neighbour of eternity. But with
all creature comforts, central heating, a bath, a car in the garage, and above us
stands the only explanation: uncertainty. We are carried by the wave, we are foam
on the wave, that does not feel the power of the great water masses, will not realize
that
one power forces it up, another pulls it back, back to gather strength to create new
waves. The new waves: why shouldn’t one ride forward on them, just as people once
changed horses? There’s always an inn, always a horse, so long as our travel documents
are in order. But who decides what that order is? A just providence? No, a self-appointed
one. But, thank heavens, we know how to wrap everything up in silk paper embossed
with flowers and bewildering patterns, so bewildering at last, that we are ready to
die to find some sense of certainty. We who have only
one faith,
one religion,
one certainty—ourselves.
[He lets his hands sink, turns slowly towards the landscape, searches distractedly
for a packet of cigarettes, puts a cigarette in his mouth, is about to light it, then
stands listening—ISABELLA is still busy with her gun—he turns quickly.]
Oh, that humming, that humming, and that stupid gun. For Christ’s sake put it down
or I’ll—!
[Is about to turn towards the landscape again.]
ISABELLA:
In the face of such strong language—
[She puts the gun down.]
ANDRÉ:
Isabella de Creuith!
ISABELLA:
No, don’t frown like that!
ANDRÉ:
You knew I was here?
ISABELLA:
That someone was here.
ISABELLA:
If you give me so much as a single excuse, I’ll never forgive you. On the other hand
if you’ve a cigarette to spare, you will make an old monster very happy. I’ve searched
in all my pockets, and I have quite a few, but there’s not a single one. Thanks, thanks.
And a light. A tiny flame, but alive.
[He has offered her a cigarette and lit it for her with a match.]
Ah, one puff from a cigarette—and you feel whole again right out to your fingertips.
Your whole body. To be considered a human being—I could fall on my knees in gratitude.
[Inhales the smoke again.]
That evening this summer, that evening on the terrace. I came from the shore, stopped
for a second. She so rarely had guests. You sat on the terrace, I saw your face,
heard your name, the same name she called through the storm. It was then I knew who
you were, why you had come, and my hope took wings. You gave it wings. Now my ball
can begin. My last, my last. Listen to Dicky’s bells and the boy’s laughter. He’s
suddenly turned himself into an Indian with Tordis’s shawl and a couple of gull’s
feathers.
ANDRÉ:
Miss de Creuith! Isabella. This summer mood over Iselø—there isn’t time.
ISABELLA:
Look at him, look at him! Isn’t he a delight? In the middle of a fight with Dicky
he’s caught sight of a bird. The fight’s forgotten—what is that bird? Black as velvet,
with coral-red legs, and a white speck on its wings. The black guillemot. The pearl
of Iselø. I haven’t seen a guillemot on these coasts for countless years. But when
his eyes start to see, everything comes to life. Ah, Esmond, Esmond. A pity she’s
waiting, the midwife from Vrem, over there in the darkness. But you’ll come through.
You and Tordis. The will to live—there was a voice that called those words. Whose
voice was it?
ISABELLA:
It gave me certainty.
ANDRÉ:
Certainty? Don’t you understand that I have no power.
ISABELLA:
You do! You come from life.
ANDRÉ:
Isabella de Creuith, you don’t know me.
ISABELLA:
Not the facts about you, no. I know one thing about you though, or rather recognize it from others: your inimitable ability
to find a detour that ends in a blind alley—your own blind self.
ANDRÉ:
Myself, myself—no, I can’t find myself.
ISABELLA:
You loved her once.
ANDRÉ:
As a boy can love, before he knows what love means.
ISABELLA:
When you came here this evening—?
ANDRÉ:
I came like someone who jumps without thinking headfirst into the canal to save a
drowning person. Without thinking? No, without a thought. We are formed by rules.
And we act accordingly.
ISABELLA:
Yes, by them—and the last sweet remnants of a youthful love.
ANDRÉ:
No! Whatever was left, whatever may have been left, I could have shown her this summer.
But I didn’t. I let her stand against the darkness in that loneliness she “claimed”
to love. A claim she hoped would spark some resistance from me. A hope, a prayer to
be opposed. But I did not take up the gauntlet.
ISABELLA:
Your voice in the darkness followed me on my way up over the heath—if I were a poet—
ANDRÉ:
Yes, if! There lies the escape, the escape from human responsibility. You catch
a glimpse of the invisible circle. The circle that connects the others and yourself.
You feel a need to grasp it in your hands. But just as you grasp it, you look back.
You look back. You see the chair where you sat so safely, so safely. As a spectator.
Where is your parachute? That one word “if.” Then you hide your face, float calmly
and safely down into your own world. Cut yourself off from everything. Become yourself
again. Yourself?
[He stops speaking suddenly.]
But without an answer. I don’t have one. I didn’t have one. Not to myself, not to
her. I jumped into the canal. My arms grasped a drowning woman’s shoulders, but when
she opened her eyes—what could I answer? I saw only the world she had left behind
and would be forced back into again; saw it side by side with the world I call mine.
Tordis, you were right. I sit on a corner of Marianne’s calm. She
is, she’s alive, her calm is my world. Take that world from me and I would be hovering
free over empty space, over a chaos of worlds, moving into each other, out of each
other, in thousands of permutations, each with its own calendar, its own sense of
time.
There just round the corner lie deserts and kingdoms that seem to predate the writing of
the bible. Children are born, children die, from disease, from hunger, while others
must listen patiently to stories about millions of wretched people who would be happy
to eat their porridge, their cold leftovers. People are force fed, people starve,
burn witches on the front pages, keep old people alive with the most sophisticated
means, but slaughter the young, command them to slaughter others. On Sunday morning
the ten commandments are polished up to organ music. On Monday they check out the
air-raid sirens. What are lies, what is truth? Who is fooling whom? Is everyone
fooling each other? From Sunday to Monday. A couple of centimeters on a globe. A
couple of steps across a landing to the neighbour’s door. Staircase above staircase,
a chaos of worlds, a chaos of destinies, of blind eyes that only stare into themselves.
ISABELLA:
[She crushes her cigarette with her foot.]
If I were the drowning woman, I would drown on the spot, drown alone—while you looked
on. The neighbour of eternity. No, the eternal forgetful spectator, who, to hide what
he has forgotten sets himself the highest of goals, so high, so distant, so perfect
in their beauty, that they can never be reached. It’s also enough to live in the reflected
glory of other people’s lives, standing on a corner of another’s repose. But is it
enough for her?
ANDRÉ:
Enough for Marianne?
ISABELLA:
I saw her face that evening on the terrace. It seemed she was sitting outside the
circle, but one glance at her mouth, her silence, her eyes, and anyone could see that
it was you on your sofa, Tordis against her darkness, yes even my old friend the doctor,
who stood outside so helplessly. The smile on her lips. A woman, a mother. Woman,
who in her very being is the whole of life, passes life on without giving the invisible
circle a single thought, she has it in her soul, in her hands. Those hands that teach
children to walk. Learn to walk first of all. Is there anything so lovely as walking,
simply walking on the earth? The other plants, a flower, a bush, the coarse stand
of matweed, must stay where they are, stay obediently with their roots, while we put
down roots swiftly at every step, pull them up again, walk on and on, with a feeling
of belonging everywhere, everywhere is
here where we grow and bloom. But then suddenly it happens. It happens to all of us.
To Esmond in a little while. We are cut, gathered, and put in a vase. By women’s hands?
No, by the hands of men! The eternal male that owns his wife, owns his children,
owns the world, he alone is in charge of. The earth we walked on becomes a cabinet
we stand on. Your cabinet. And we remain standing there, until in the end we are in
the end just a vase enjoying our hand-painted flower motifs—or breaking into pieces.
[She points to a spot on the ground in front of her.]
Her vase is lying
there. Tordis’ vase. Smashed to pieces. And among the pieces—her will to live.
ANDRÉ:
Does she have the will? Has she ever had it?
ISABELLA:
[Looks keenly at ANDRÉ.]
It’s odd, that sofa. In my day there was never a sofa at the steps leading up to
the terrace. Or here on the beach. But I seem to see a sofa all the time. Where are
you sitting? In a rather old-fashioned café. You’ve been sitting there a long time.
One glass became several. You order another one. André, André, why don’t you just
leave and let thoughts be thoughts? It’s no use. You can’t do anything.
ISABELLA:
Why now so suddenly?
ANDRÉ:
I don’t know. I don’t know. Yet somehow I do.
ISABELLA:
André—do you play bridge?
ISABELLA:
Nor do I. I only played to amuse the doctor. He thought he could, but he never learned
what cards were trumps. What are tricks? What are tricks? And
there he would sit, with the most bewildered expression, although we all knew that he had
the card that would decide the game. You are like him. You are like my doctor. He
too forgot that women almost always lead with the jack and not the king.
[Looks into the distance.]
There’s Esmond. Dressed again. And Tordis has her shawl.
[She picks up her rifle and turns towards ANDRÉ.]
No, no, pretend I’ve said nothing. She musn’t suspect that there’s more between
us than the clear air over Iselø’s beach. Such weather, such weather—
ANDRE:
But there’s darkness over there—
ISABELLA:
Which we must pass through before the ball is over. My last, my last.
[We hear laughter and bells. The waltz can be heard far away, but coming nearer and
nearer.]
ESMOND:
[He comes running in from the left, followed by the bells. He has no tie and carries
his jacket in his hand.]
There’s a ship—
[He stops suddenly, listening.]
Who the hell’s playing music? Someone’s playing.
[He bends down suddenly and picks up an invisible stone.]
No, I’m damned if I’m going to dancing classes.
[He throws the stone with all his strength in the direction of the waltz—there is
a
sudden silence.]
That’s better.
[He turns.]
Come, Dicky, come. My beautiful ship. We’re going for a sail.
[He throws his jacket away and sits astride the boat. The bells dance happily round
him.]
Sail and sail to the end of the world. In fair weather and storm. We’ll sail away
from all those people on the beach. Just let them jump up and down waving their arms.
What do I care? Reef the sails. All hands to the wheel. Here comes a breaker. Well
done, shipmate, you cleared it. We’ll leave Iselø behind and all the old women who
can’t tell the difference between a man and a girl. Heigh, watch your head, the boom!
Well, what’s a few bruises matter? See, now the sea’s calm again. We can lie idle.
No, I’ll be damned if we can. The ship needs a thorough painting. It looks like some
damned old coffin ship. What colour shall it have? No, believe me old friend, it won’t
be white. That’s what Aunt Emily has dreamed about: a little white boat. A sugar-swan
on a moonlit sea. Good God, no. It’s going to be blue. Blue as the sky. Blue as your
coat, old friend. It’s a damned fine colour.
TORDIS:
[Enters from the left. She has picked Esmond’s jacket up and stands with it in her
hand.]
Esmond—
ESMOND:
What are you grumbling about?
TORDIS:
I’m not grumbling.
ESMOND:
We’re sailors. Haven’t I the right to say what I damn well please? I don’t mind, you’ll
say, but what if other people heard you—other people!
[He jumps down from the boat.]
Thanks, it’s from before my grandmother’s time.
[Snatches the jacket from her.]
To hell with you women.
[The bells jump up at him. He bends down as to pet the invisible Dicky.]
Well, old fellow, the voyage is over. They always find us, even in the middle of
the sea.
[He begins to puts his jacket on.]
ESMOND:
[He whirls round.]
Tordis—!
ISABELLA:
But Esmond dear—
ESMOND:
The lady from the villa—!
ISABELLA:
You’re not afraid of Tordis?
ESMOND:
The lady who’s going to—No—!
[He turns to escape but is stopped by ANDRÉ.]
Let me go. Let me go.
ESMOND:
Don’t touch me—you least of all!
ISABELLA:
Oh, you were playing so happily with her before. You borrowed her shawl.
ESMOND:
Her ice-cold shawl that only brings bad luck.
TORDIS:
Oh, Esmond, Esmond—
ANDRÉ:
The sky is changing colour. The darkness is on the march.
ESMOND:
The darkness and the storm. The storm from the sea. Just listen to her song.
[The sky grows dark. The storm rises threateningly and blends with the waltz and a
singing voice.]
ANDRÉ:
It’s as if a voice is reaching us through the storm. Who is singing?
ESMOND:
It’s that ugly witch with her coffee pot. She’s after me. I’ve no escape. I’m trapped,
imprisoned, between the lady from the villa and the midwife from Vrem. No! I won’t
enter your world! Never. Never! You can’t force me. Let me go, let me go! Her hands
are coming nearer, her wicked claws, they’re out to grab and throttle me. Her hoarse
voice bores through everything like a rusty awl. The midwife from Vrem. Listen to
what she’s singing. Listen to her song!
[ISABELLA is now on her feet. Everyone moves in a group to the right. The song comes
nearer—on the right a greenish light falls on the suggestion of a kitchen, the corner
of a stove, part of a wall hung with lids and saucepans—the MIDWIFE from Vrem stands
in the light with a coffee pot in one hand and a cup in the other. She moves in an
almost dancelike rhythm and almost sings her words.]
MIDWIFE:
I am the midwife from Vrem. Come to you my little ones, you little fresh-boiled shrimps
in a pool of slimy blood. One slap on your bottom and I give you breath. Yes, scream,
scream. You’ll have good cause to scream. But oh, it all goes so quickly, even if
the bad times seem to creep along. No, no, little fellow in your drenched diaper.
The way from the first cry to the last sigh is as short as the snap of a finger. And
then we’ll meet again when you must be gotten ready and laid in a coffin—a coffin,
a coffin—with a hymnbook stuck under your chin to keep the smile in place, the smile
you never had. Three shovelfuls of earth—boom tara boom—down into the wet wormy clay,
to join the maggots, you who are maggots yourselves. Eaten up by maggots in the midst
of life. Heigh-ho. There’s dancing tonight. One is coming and the other goes. And
up
there in the sweaty marriage bed she’s writhing and gasping with the
pains, while her husband tends the lamp in the tower. Yes, writhe and groan, my dear,
in your loneliness, push your guts out, clench your teeth. You came here in pain,
you will live in pain, the everlasting torment is reborn from pain.
[A scream is heard from the room above her—she puts the coffee pot down, and drinks,
listening—she empties the cup, wipes her fingers on her apron, and turns slowly.]
Yes, yes. It’s time for work.
ESMOND:
No!
[The light vanishes. The midwife leaves. The sky begins to take on a lighter colour—ISABELLA
sits down again on her folding chair.]
Go to hell with your coffee pot. You’ll never get me into the world you’ve rejected
yourselves, never, never!
ESMOND:
And you have the nerve to say that—you with your accursed mausoleum of a house.
TORDIS:
Everything you just heard—you’ll soon forget.
TORDIS:
You’ll grow away from it. You’ll forget it all.
ESMOND:
No! My body will remember. My body and my skin. It will lie hidden somewhere. It
will follow me like a fear, a fear no one can explain, no one can understand. It will
resurface again and again, but people will only say—pull yourself together, Esmond.
Healthy boys aren’t afraid of the dark. The dark? Do you know the dark? No! No!
You’ll never get me into your world, never, never!
ISABELLA:
Don’t tell him that life is a gift.
TORDIS:
It is a gift. The most beautiful gift.
ANDRÉ:
Don’t believe her!
ESMOND:
I won’t cross the threshold.
ANDRÉ:
It should have been a gift for her. But she didn’t want it. She wouldn’t accept it.
An empty packing case to be returned, like the ones in a railway storage room, that
fool the other goods into believing that their address leads straight to wonderland.
That is what she is. No, I’m with Esmond. That’s not the game we play.
TORDIS:
You have to be worthy of the gift.
ANDRÉ:
Rubbish! As if he should be worthier than others.
TORDIS:
Esmond, don’t listen to him.
ANDRÉ:
And you were the one who was tired of excuses, excuses back to Adam and Eve. Look
at the piece of straw you stumbled over. What do you call that? A screen for all
the real excuses. I hope that young man there escapes all that.
TORDIS:
Oh, if only he can.
ANDRÉ:
[to ESMOND]
Dare you go through all that?
ISABELLA:
Dicky—
[a faint sound of fawning bells]
Oh thank heavens, there you are.
TORDIS:
Esmond—
[She falls on her knees in front of the boy who shrinks back in fear.]
If you had been my son—
ESMOND:
No, I don’t want to be a son. Not anybody’s son. Don’t speak of it.
TORDIS:
—I’d have told you about life that opens up visions far into eternity at the snap
of a finger, eternities of endless beauty, richness, and warmth. I have felt if myself,
Esmond, but I dared not turn that feeling into reality.
ESMOND:
Another dream. It’s all dreams. Everyone wades in dreams. Before you are born, you
are forced to live in other people’s idiotic dreams; but we have hardly come into
the world before we have to perpetuate the dream our parents never realized. We only
become ourselves when we’re so old we can sit down and dream on in our children, demand
of them that they keep dreaming on for us.
ANDRÉ:
And you’ll let them do that to you?
ISABELLA:
Ah, thank God, the blessed spirit of contradiction.
ESMOND:
Did you say me?
[We hear the fawning bells again. He seems to be trying to stop a dog from jumping
up at him.]
No, Dicky, no—it’s not playtime now. This is serious. I could turn a somersault
in anger. Who do they think I am? What the hell do they take me for? A sissy, a
coward? Well, they can think again.
[He turns quickly towards ANDRÉ.]
What did you mean—let them tell that to you?
TORDIS:
Oh, Esmond, Esmond—
ANDRÉ:
I meant—well, it doesn’t matter. You won’t enter the world you call ours anyway. When
it comes down to it, you don’t have the will to live.
ESMOND:
The will? The will to live? What about you?
[with reference to TORDIS]
And her?
[with reference to ISABELLA]
And her? You’re like three shipwrecked souls on a raft, who I can bring safely
to land as easily as falling off a log. Will, did you say will? That wreck of a tent
you’ve left behind you, that could bloody well, pardon my language, be raised again
with fresh hands. Look at my hands—why couldn’t they ignite a living flame that could
pierce the darkness along with other flames, a sea of little flames, push back the
darkness, turn it into light, the light of human freedom? Yes, you three shipwrecked
souls on your raft with your hands full of broken hopes, your own hopes, only your
own. A hope can never be broken, a hope can be handed on, on to the next, the next
in the chain, a chain of runners on their way through space, through light, the light
above mankind. I’m talking like a book, damn it, I know that. But there’s a spark
in every living being that can set whole worlds on fire. We are here to live, to
make ourselves worthy of life—life, life with other people!
TORDIS:
Life with other people. Oh, Esmond—my hope—
ESMOND:
Your hope, Tordis? You’re out of the race. The unknown relay runner. That’s not
your role. You made yourself redundant in a sea of living flames. You never felt
their heat, Tordis. It’s too late.
ISABELLA:
The lighthouse lamp is turning—turning and turning. We’ll soon be at the second when
our ways must part.
ESMOND:
All of a sudden you look so strange, all of you. The darkness, the storm, that witch
of a midwife. There are walls around me of hate and power, but no—no! No power on
earth can hold me back. I can make it. I can make it. Without conditions. I can
make it alone.
[to TORDIS]
You lady from the villa, stay in your nothingness. That’s all you’ve ever known.
You were given everything, everything. What untold millions have fought for and still
fight for, you received as a gift, an undeserved gift. You didn’t have to raise a
finger. You only had one gift my dear: to bring death to everything around you in
the very midst of life. An empty container marked return. Empty containers have no
value. How could you go on living anyway, when you have never lived?
TORDIS:
No, I’ll begin, begin—begin again, Esmond. My nothingness was my hiding place where
I tried to hide the fact that I had cancelled my subscription to life, but never really
lived. My empty hands were afraid to take the gift. They had no right. I stood outside.
Life, life with other people—now for the first time I understand what “with” means.
But it’s too late. André, it’s too late.
ANDRÉ:
No! It is not. The light on the window blind, the doctor, the doctor, your old friend,
the doctor—can you hear his voice?
TORDIS:
Far, far away. He’s bending over me.
ANDRÉ:
His voice, Tordis. What is he saying? What is he asking? The will to live? Does she
have the will to live?
TORDIS:
I have it, Doctor. I have it,
yes. Life, life with others. I was given it by Esmond. Doctor, Doctor, don’t let go
of my hands. I’m on the way back.
[The storm rises to a howl and blends with the waltz. ISABELLA is now standing. For
a moment everyone stands motionless. Then the storm fades into the background.]
ISABELLA:
When you said son—oh, that was what I once wanted to have said, would have given my
life to say. But heaven be praised, today I’ve been given a daughter, a living daughter.
My ball is over, my last, my last, and I can walk up over the heath with Dicky, keep
on walking, until the past fades into the sunset, fades, and is gone.
[The bells make their fawning sound. She bends down to pet her invisible dog.]
Dicky, your coat has never been so beautiful as it is this evening.
ISABELLA:
Forgive me, André. I found comfort, an invisible strength, in the inexplicable strangeness
I once tried to deny. The island weather, the clear sky over Iselø, the sky that
stands above us all like a dome—
TORDIS:
Dicky could have never have had a different colour.
ESMOND:
No, blue as my boat. Get it painted. Remember.
ISABELLA:
And remember, André, when you meet her—
ANDRÉ:
When I meet Marianne—
ISABELLA:
Tell her what you told me.
TORDIS:
A corner of her calm strength. One day that will be mine.
ISABELLA:
Ah, Tordis, Tordis, my darling Tordis, my heir to everything except my fate, never,
never my fate. You heard it that way. How else could you hear it? That was the piece
of straw I stumbled over. That evening you came up to the figurehead in your little
sandals. Your father had been tormenting me at dinner with that pedantic rubbish of
his that sounded like some ministerial agenda. I had a glass of port. I had another
glass, and my thirst for revenge grew wings. And it struck you, the very last person
I wanted it to strike. Oh, how difficult it can sometimes be to live.
ANDRÉ:
Miss de Creuith, Isabella—
ESMOND:
Look—the lighthouse lamp.
TORDIS:
It stopped suddenly.
ISABELLA:
Then it’s time. No, no goodbyes. Just a farewell as a new greeting to the life we
love.
TORDIS:
Must learn to love again.
ESMOND:
Damn it all—let’s roll up our sleeves, then.
ISABELLA:
Dicky. En avant!
[The storm and the waltz rise to a roar.]
TORDIS:
I’m coming, Doctor. I’m coming, I’m coming.
[ISABELLA has turned and begins to walk towards the background, while TORDIS walks
slowly down to the foreground on the left, and ESMOND down to the foreground on the
left. Only ANDRÉ is left standing alone in the middle of the stage—everything is growing
dark and drowning in the storm and the waltz—A light falls slowly on ANDRÉ—the café
reappears and the island fades. The storm sounds and the waltz fades away. The setting
is as it was at the beginning of the play. The telephone rings in the booth. ANDRÉ
walks quickly towards the booth, but stops and turns—MARIANNE comes in from the entrance
and looks around to find ANDRÉ.]
GENTLEMAN:
[The Preisler’s anniversary man comes quickly in from the side room, goes into the
booth, picks up the receiver, opens the door, and calls out.]
It’s for you!
ANDRÉ:
Marianne!
[He runs over to her, picks her up, and carries her in his arms out of the café—the
waltz builds to a fanfare, and beyond the café we see the blue summer sky over Iselø.]
[THE CURTAIN FALLS.]