“Often it seems as if there were just nothing—”

  “I know,” Lionel murmurs.

  “ — and then, sometimes, it seems as if there must be something—”

  “I know,” murmurs Lionel again.

  Then they are both silent. Presently Helga speaks in a more commonplace tone.

  “Doesn’t it seem queer, Lionel, how people just go on living? Take Charles and Mabel. There they are; two commonplace, ordinary people. They go about together, to Dog Shows and things — and that seems to be enough — I suppose they like one another and that’s all — they seem satisfied — and with you and me it’s so different — people like them don’t seem to know when the soul calls to another soul—”

  “I know,” Lionel murmurs. His part here is very difficult. He has to sit and look like a soul and keep murmuring, “I know,” and he can’t even yawn.

  Helga goes on.

  “The other night at that silly Dog Show as soon as I saw you I could feel my soul calling to yours, right over the dogs — and at the Cat Show, the same thing. But Charles and Mabel don’t seem to feel things like that. At the Dog Show they seemed to be looking at the dogs. Just imagine!”

  There is a long silence, and then Lionel gets up and walks the whole length of the room and back again and sits down again. This dramatic piece of action means that something is coming.

  He speaks.

  “Helga,” he says, “I only mention this as an idea. Have you ever thought of poison?”

  Helga very calmly takes out a cigarette from a case and lights it very deliberately. The audience are desperately anxious. Has she or has she not?

  “Have I ever thought of poison? Poison for whom? Do you mean for us, for you and me?”

  “Oh, dear, no. For Charles and Mabel. Mind, it’s only an idea. If you don’t like it, I’ll say no more.”

  Helga turns to him a face of passionate yearning.

  “Yes, Lionel, I have thought of it, — often, and often. In fact I came over here to talk of it. Every time I look at Charles I feel that the only way my soul can grow is to poison him.”

  “I know,” Lionel murmurs. “I feel that way towards Mabel that it’s only just to her, poor girl, to poison her.”

  Presently Helga says:

  “When can we do it?”

  “To-day would be all right unless you’ve anything else on. Mabel’s going over to tea with you this afternoon, isn’t she? We can arrange it for then.”

  “But I don’t know whether I have any poison in the house. I am so unpractical a housekeeper, you know, dear.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I’ll tell Meadows to get some and take it over to Annette, your maid.”

  “But then Meadows would know.”

  “So he would. But that needn’t matter. One could poison Meadows too.”

  “But Annette?”

  “The simplest thing would be to poison Annette as well. After all, what does life mean for people like Annette and Meadows? They breathe, but that’s all.”

  “And after it’s over?”

  Lionel and Helga have risen and he draws close to her and puts his hand on her shoulders and is looking into her eyes.

  “After it’s over, then we shall be free, free to be ourselves and go away, far, far, away — together—”

  They embrace and when they break away Lionel leads Helga to the door and shows her out.

  Then he goes and sits down again and picks up a newspaper to read. After a minute he rings the bell. Meadows comes.

  “I say, Meadows, pack up a trunk of my things. I’m going away to-night.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Meadows, I wish you’d be good enough to go out and get a packet of arsenic.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get enough to, let me see—”

  “To poison an animal, sir?”

  “Yes, four animals. Thank you, Meadows—”

  And with that the two sides of the curtain fall slowly together and the first act is over.

  In the old melodrama when the curtain fell there was always a wild burst of music and bright lights and shouts of “Peanuts.” Not so in this. Only very soft lights, mostly red, are turned on and mere wisps of music thin as smoke.

  Meantime everybody discusses the play. In the old days the men used to go out and drink. Now they stay in and discuss. There is a general feeling among the women that Helga is quite right in proposing to poison Charles. Till she does that she can never expand. The case of Mabel being poisoned is not so clear. The audience haven’t seen her yet, so they can’t tell. But it is certain that two commonplace people like Charles and Mabel have no right to prevent Lionel and Helga from following the higher call of their natures. The discussion is still at its height when the curtain slides aside on

  ACT II — The Drawing Room of the Chown Residence

  And there are Lionel Derwent and his wife Mabel being shown in by Annette, the stage maid.

  It is a large and sumptuous room with a real ceiling like the one in the first act, and with real mahogany furniture and Chippendale chairs and vases of Beauty roses — in fact just like the rooms that the audience have come out of. There are tea things on a large Hindoo brass tray on eight legs.

  Mabel Derwent goes over to the Hindoo tray and picks up a big cream-candy out of a box and eats it and says “Yum! Yum!” with animal relish. All the audience look at Mabel. They see in her a dashing, good looking woman, a blonde, all style. All the women in the audience decide at once that she ought to be poisoned, but the men aren’t so sure.

  Mabel says:

  “I say, Lionel, do eat one of these. They’re just scrumptious.”

  This is meant to show how terribly material she is.

  Lionel just shrugs his shoulders in mute appeal to heaven.

  Mabel walks around the room looking at things. She picks up a book and reads the title. “Bergsonian Illusionism,” she says, “oh, help!” and drops it.

  This shows how uncultivated she is.

  Presently she says:

  “Wonder where Charles is. If he’s out in the stables I’ll go out and dig him up. He told me he has a new hunter, a regular corker. Suppose we go out to the stables—”

  Lionel says with great languor:

  “Thank you. I take no interest in stables.”

  By this time the audience are supposed to have the exact measure of Mabel Derwent, materialism, ignorance, candy, and the horse stable. But even at that a lot of the men would refuse to poison her. Her figure is too good. On the other hand all the thin women in the audience think her too fat. The amount of fat permitted to actresses in the Piffle Play is a matter of great nicety. They have to be cast for it as carefully as tallow candles.

  So as the audience now know exactly what Mabel Derwent is like, the play passes on.

  Charles Chown comes briskly in, shaking hands with both of them. “Hullo, Mabel. How do you do, Lionel; so sorry to keep you waiting. I think Helga’s in the conservatory, she’ll be here in a minute.”

  In which Lionel Derwent says, “In the conservatory? Then I think I’ll go and look for her. I want to see that new begonia that Helga’s so keen about.”

  And with that out he goes, leaving Charles and Mabel together, as they are meant to be.

  And just the minute they are alone Mabel comes close up to Charles and looks all round and says:

  “Well?” in quite a different voice from anything she has used before. So the audience are certain that there is going to be something doing.

  Charles says:

  “It’s all right. Everything arranged.”

  And Mabel says, “Good boy—” and then she says, “Take that,” and comes and gives him a kiss. A real one, one with no new art or new thought about it.

  Charles goes on.

  “It’s all arranged. We’ll go out to the stables presently and I’ve got a taxi coming round there with your things in it.”

  “And it’s all right about the trains—”

  “Right as rain,” says Charles, drawing out a railroad folder. “We get the five thirty at the Central. Change trains half an hour out of town to get the Havana boat Wednesday evening.”

  “Lovely!” Mabel says, and then repeats more slowly and thoughtfully, “Lovely — and yet do you know, Charlie, now that it’s come at last I feel — don’t you know — half afraid — or not that — but don’t you know?” hesitating.

  Charles says “Nonsense,” and is just about to draw her to him when the door opens and Lionel and Helga come in. Lionel says to his wife:

  “Helga’s just been showing me her new begonia, — a most amazing thing.”

  And Mabel says:

  “A new begonia! Where did it come from, Helga?”

  And Helga answers,

  “From Havana. They grow so beautifully there. I should just love to see Havana. Shouldn’t you?”

  This little touch makes quite a hit with the audience. The irony of truth always does. As a matter of fact Sophocles started it four or five hundred years before Christ. But they don’t know it. They think it awfully up-to-date.

  After this there’s a little random conversation just to fill up time and then Charles says:

  “I say, Mabel, how would you like to come out to the stables and see my new mare before we have tea?”

  And Mabel answers:

  “Oh, I’d love to. I wanted to ask you about her. Come along. We won’t be long, Helga.”

  And with that they go out and Lionel and Helga are left together.

  Just as soon as they are alone Helga says:

  “So you’re off the poison idea?”

  “Clear off it,” says Lionel; “as I told you just now, I don’t think it’s worth it.”

  “Worth it?”

  “Yes — I mean it would involve such a terrible fuss and nuisance. Here’s the poison — Meadows got it all right—”

  Lionel takes from his pocket a large packet in light green paper, marked with a skull and crossbones and labelled arsenic in large letters.

  “We can use it if you like. I’m not awfully particular. Only I don’t believe that much would kill Mabel anyway.”

  Helga takes the packet of poison and holds it in her hand musing —

  “But think,” she murmurs, “of the relief of death. Think of the relief to a person of Charlie’s temperament to be dead—”

  “Oh, I know that. And for that matter, Meadows ought to be glad to be dead. But you see Helga, it isn’t done.”

  Lionel walks across the stage and lights a cigarette.

  “But what can we do?” says Helga. She clasps her hands about her knees as she sits. When she does that the audience know at once that she is going to analyze herself. “Do you ever look into yourself, Lionel, deep, deep into yourself? I do. Sometimes I try to picture to myself that it’s not me but just something inside of me. Do you know what I mean, dear?”

  “I think I do,” murmurs Lionel.

  They’re off. For the next ten minutes Helga plunges into a fierce analysis of herself. As the critics of the play say afterwards, she “bares her soul,” and when she has bared it it’s “the soul of a woman buffeted by the intense light of self-perplexity and finding no anchorage in it.”

  When she is finished or as nearly finished as she is likely to be, Lionel says —

  “Then I suppose we must simply go on as we are—”

  “I suppose so, Lionel. If, as you say, Charles and Mabel have a right to live, it seems as if we have to be satisfied.”

  “Perhaps it does,” says Lionel. He takes a turn up and down the room and then he says:

  “There’s just one thing I’ve thought about Helga. It’s only an idea, so of course you can say no to it at once if there’s nothing in it. But couldn’t we perhaps get just on a train together and go away together?”

  “Where?” says Helga.

  “Oh, just anywhere. It’s only an idea. You mentioned Havana just now. Couldn’t we just get a train or a boat or something and go to Havana?”

  “I don’t know, Lionel. It all seems so strange. I must think.”

  Helga presses her hand to her forehead; this is always a sign that she is thinking, or trying to. Lionel lets her think undisturbed.

  “I don’t know, Lionel. I must think it all out. I must analyze myself and try to analyze Havana. Listen, Lionel; let me think a month. Perhaps it will be clearer then—”

  Lionel looks at his watch.

  “I say,” he says, “Charles and Mabel seem a long time in looking at that mare. How strange it seems that commonplace people like Charles and Mabel can know nothing of the kind of thing that means so much to us. I suppose they never stop to think.”

  “They never analyze themselves—” murmurs Helga.

  And just then there is a light knock at the door and Annette steps in with an envelope on a tray.

  “Mr. Chown asked me to give you this letter, ma’am, after he had gone.”

  “Had gone?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he went away in a taxi with Mrs. Derwent.”

  “In a taxi?”

  “Yes, ma’am, with luggage in it.”

  “A taxi with luggage. Give me the letter.”

  Annette presents the letter and goes out.

  Helga takes the letter, tears open the envelope and reads aloud —

  “Dear Helga: Mabel and I have decided to go away together. We are taking a train South this afternoon. I have made every arrangement for you in regard to money and that sort of thing and of course now you will be completely free. We shall not be in your way at all, as we are going far away; in fact we are going to Havana!”

  As Helga finishes reading, she and Lionel remain looking at one another.

  “To Havana!” they both repeat and then there is a little silence.

  After which Lionel says —

  “Do you know, Helga, it rather occurs to me that it’s the commonplace people who do things.”

  On which the curtain comes sliding together and the audience rises and wraps its furs round its neck, and goes home with a problem theme to ponder over and with an impression of profound thought.

  Dead Men’s Gold. A film of the great Nevada desert in which Red-Blooded, Able-Bodied Men and Women a hundred per cent American live and love among the cactus and chaparral. Something of the Ozone of the Cow Pasture mingled with the gloom of the great canyons blows all through this play.

  SHALL WE GO together this raw, gusty afternoon to the enchantment of the moving-pictures? Here, this looks a good place, this large and lighted hallway leading off the street itself. Let’s get our tickets from this golden girl behind the glass, seated there under a magic spell no doubt. This must be a good play, look how pretty the girl is! Two, yes please, downstairs, — extra ten cents? oh, the Amusement Tax, of course!

  Now through these doors and down this corridor, and through these swinging doors again and into the dark. What a vast place it is. Dear me, it’s absolutely empty! Empty? Oh, no, they are all there but you don’t see them yet, seated silent in the dark like toads under leaves. Excuse me, sir, I’m afraid I stepped on your foot. I beg your pardon madam, I didn’t see the little girl. All that bright picture stuff being flashed on the screen? Never mind it now till we get our seats. It’s not part of our play anyhow. There, sit down in this row — now we can look — what does it say? — TURKISH TROOPS ENTER THE — something — I couldn’t see — anyway it doesn’t matter where they enter, it’s only the News of the World. PASADENA CALIFORNIA, PRESIDENT HARDING PRESENTS FLOWERS TO GIRL GUIDES — STATE UNIVERSITY OF OHIO DEFEATS MIAMI AT BASKET-BALL — NATIVES OF DUTCH PAPUA HUNTING FROGS — PRINCE ARTHUR IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY CATCHING TARPON: Oh, don’t let us bother with all this, the pictures haven’t begun yet.

  Ah, now it’s going to begin. Look at that notice on the screen —

  Dead Men’s Gold. In Which Full-Blooded Men and Women Live and Love Among the Cactus and Chaparral. Authorized by the Censor of New York State

  That sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Now let’s see what’s put up next. Ah, a great face, a huge face under a cowboy hat, a face with a grin on it, yes, that’s him, see it says so underneath: —

  Big-Hearted Jim, Sheriff of Dead Bones County, Nevada

  See him turn his face round as he grins. My! how honest and attractive the human face looks when you make it four feet long. I wish they’d put it upside down. I think it would look even better. Now, what’s this next — ah —

  Bessemer Steel, Banker of New York

  — Very rich indeed evidently. How do I know that? — Oh, pshaw, you don’t understand moving pictures — look at his grey spats and that white frill along his waistcoat — that means a millionaire. No, no, this isn’t the play yet, these are only the people who are going to be in the play when it starts. Ah, now look!

  Maisie, Bessemer Steel’s Only Daughter

  Isn’t she just cute? See her smile, no wonder they applaud her — and who is this?

  Dan Yegg, Bad Man of Dead Man’s Gulch

  Bad, well I should say so. And now see all these little scenes going rapidly past — well, they’re not the play yet — those are merely places that are going to be in the play — just little touches of lonely desert, and terrible caverns, and a dear little vignette of a man choking another in a cave — and a pretty little wee glimpse of a man dying of thirst — just little foretastes of the play itself. It looks good stuff, doesn’t it? Now, we’re off!

  Bessemer Steel of New York, Banker and Financier has Spent His Life in the Amassing of Millions

  There he is in his office; see all the desks and stenographers round him. What a big, dull face he has; like a bull-frog, you say? Yes, all New York bankers have faces like that in the movies. See him speaking into his desk telephone. Say, isn’t he authoritative? Now, look, he’s listening. Must be about money from the way he shuts up his face. I guess he’s refusing somebody one of those millions that he’s amassed. Now he’s signing a cheque. Now he’s receiving a telegram . . . in fact by this time I think we’ve quite grasped the idea that he’s a rich banker with no soul. In fact, I think I could have grasped it a little sooner, couldn’t you? But, still, remember the moving-pictures have to be made clear to the humblest intelligence. And that isn’t us. . . . Ah, ha, no soul did we say? — Look at this; —

 

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