(ROSE sleeps, so do VOSS and PALFREYMAN. VOSS cries out as if he were talking in his sleep, then sits up)
VOSS:
I do not accept the terms! Zusammen?*
LAURA:
You are in no position to accept.
No one before
has dared disturb my pride.
Can we endure
now to face each other
in a glass? It is the woman
who unmakes men to make saints
of them. Zusammen!
I shall worship you.
(During this, VOSS has taken up pen and paper. He dips his pen and writes)
VOSS:
My dear Miss Trevelyan – Laura,
do not pray for me. But I would ask you
to join me in thought.
The gifts of destiny
cannot be returned. What I am intended to do
must be fulfilled, must be fulfilled.
I can write no more
at this late hour.
Tomorrow
we start by lanternlight.
LAURA:
But I am with you already. Today
I rode beside you.
Now we sit together
in the black night
among thorns, among stones,
among thorns, among stones. We sit together.
VOSS:
Away to the west is all
desert. Our shadows lead us
deeper into ourselves,
into the redness
of fire, the inferno
of love, into the sun. Our flesh
falls from our bones, we are
stripped of illusions
out here, each man alone.
I send you this
with all speed and safely to your hands Laura my own.
(He calls DUGALD)
Dugald, hör wohl zu.*
Tomorrow you will leave
for Jildra. Verstanden?**
I write paper. I give letter. Verstanden?
LAURA:
You scatter words
like torn up bits of paper
and they blow
away the vastness of you,
among thorns, among stones.
(DUGALD moves away but remains frozen. During the following duet he begins slowly to dance as if in a trance. He casts off his frockcoat, he opens the bag he carries and takes out the letters. Slowly he tears them up and scatters them)
VOSS:
I sit here alone
alone, in this starless infinity.
No house could have contained
my love, but this greater one
where greater longings
are free to grow. Today
my dearest we rode
together over the plain. Now we sit together
in the black night. I reach
across and touch your cheek, and separation
has brought us close. We speak
over distances with one
voice, our words are lilies
afloat on a lovestream,
together, their bodies joined,
their mouths.
LAURA:
I reach
across and touch your cheek, and separation
has brought us close. We speak
over distances with one
voice, our words are lilies
afloat on a lovestream,
together, their bodies joined,
their voices. Today
my dearest we rode
together over the plain. Now we sit together
in the black night. I am with you
now. I am always with you,
among thorns, among stones, though words
like torn up bits of paper blow
away in the vastness of you.
VOSS:
I send you this
with all speed and safely to your hands
Laura, my own.
CHRISTMAS DAY
HARRY raises a pole for a flag. JUDD has hung up a horse’s carcass. LE MESURIER and PALFREYMAN complete the group. To the left, outside, JACKY. To the right VOSS sitting hunched alone. To the right again, LAURA, holding ROSE’s child. PALFREYMAN reads the lesson while the others stand bareheaded. When he is finished, and during LAURA’s aria, JUDD carves up the meat and HARRY passes it around. The eating to be established as a ritual meal presided over by JUDD from which VOSS is, by his own choice, excluded. JUDD carves for VOSS, is about to hand the plate to HARRY who expects it; but goes and offers VOSS the food himself. When VOSS dashes the plate to the ground his action must be violently disruptive of the social and ritual elements in the scene, and a rejecting also of what LAURA has offered.
PALFREYMAN:
Almighty God, who hast given us Thy only Begotten Son to take our nature upon Him, and was at this time born of a true virgin, grant that we, being regenerate and made Thy children by adoption, may daily be renewed by Thy Holy Spirit: through the same our Lord Jesus Christ who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the same Spirit, world without end. Amen.
LAURA:
You may remember a woman,
Rose. It was she,
our awkward, opaque angel,
who first announced you to me.
She is gone. We buried her
I stood there at the grave.
I was nowhere. Everywhere.
I was destroyed and yet living.
At last I have begun
to understand this country
my love. Since the day (HARRY runs up the flag)
we buried her, part of me
has gone into this land.
It is suffering
that makes a country ours.
JUDD:
Here, lad, let us eat our Christmas feast.
(HARRY hands out the plate of meat first to PALFREYMAN, then to the others)
PALFREYMAN:
They shall perish, but Thou remainest, and they shall wax old as doth a garment and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed.
HARRY:
It is good to have a full belly, eh?
LE MESURIER:
Says Harry, who sees with his belly’s eyes.
LAURA:
This child
is all that Rose has left us,
a love child, Mercy,
Mercy. It is my secret,
my love token,
my joy, my consolation.
I bear it as my own,
Voss, Johann, Ulrich,
on this day I present it
to you, a gift. Mercy we call her,
a child, another life.
(JUDD has taken the plate of meat from HARRY and has come to VOSS with it. VOSS shakes his head and dashes it to the ground)
VOSS:
Nie, nie, niemals.
I do not accept the terms.
VOSS SLEEPWALKS
To one side of the stage, JUDD and HARRY, hidden.
VOSS appears.
HARRY:
He’s sleepwalkin’.
JUDD:
Is he, Harry, is he?
HARRY:
I seen another boy at the orphanage, he
was sleepwalkin’. If you wake ’em
they die.
(VOSS goes to the food-stacks. He takes a bag of flour and stands with his knife poised to slash it)
JUDD:
Watch, Harry, you’re my witness.
This is how our sextant went astray –
our sextant that might have led us out of here.
(VOSS raises his knife, slashes the bag and scatters the flour. JUDD makes to move towards him but HARRY holds him back)
HARRY:
No, no, Judd, you’ll kill him.
JUDD:
Leave me, boy, leave me.
HARRY:
He’s sleepwalkin’.
(VOSS goes on past them, and round to where he will lie for the next scene. HARRY fo
llows him)
JUDD:
Is he, Harry? … So that’s how it is.
We’re in the hands of a sleepwalker.
DELIRIUM
VOSS, half-sitting, half-lying, nursed by JUDD. PALFREYMAN and HARRY. Nearby, slightly apart, JACKY.
VOSS:
Nie, nie, niemals!
I do not accept the terms.
Have you understood nothing, you fools?
Everything was for myself! I am alone
out here. I have always been
alone. I am a desert
that no man can enter. If I strike sparks
from others, that’s so much light
in darkness. Irrsinn. Irrsinn!
If I have taught you nothing else
I have taught you to expect damnation.
Love – what can that matter,
what can hatred matter
to God, or to the man
who would be God? O the worms
that crawl and look for pity, or pity
others. Humility! I despise it
with my whole soul. I dare
to stand alone, beyond pity
or hatred, or love.
Nie, nie, niemals!
I do not accept the terms.
JUDD:
Here take a little of this good spring water.
Sleep a little.
VOSS:
Ah, Judd! Judd.
Ex-convict. Survivor.
So I am in your hands.
Niemals. I do not accept the terms.
JUDD:
A man does what he can.
VOSS:
It is like walking on the bottom of the sea.
JUDD:
(firmly) Mr Voss, sir, I do not feel that we
are intended to go further.
I have considered it
and I am going back.
VOSS:
Do you realise you are under my leadership?
JUDD:
No, sir, not any more.
VOSS:
You are suffering from fatigue. Sleep a little.
I cannot believe
that Judd is a coward.
JUDD:
It is not cowardice, if there is hell
before and hell behind,
and nothing to choose between them.
I am a plain man.
I do not understand
much beyond that. I put trust
in myself. I am going back,
and will lead anyone that is of the same mind.
VOSS:
You will lead? Have I taught you nothing then?
JUDD:
You have taught me to expect damnation.
(Ghostly dance-music from Act I. Chorus figures come whirling in, including TOM and BELLE, MR and MRS BONNER, etc)
TOM:
In stones and in thorns.
Anyone who is disposed can celebrate
a high old mass
with the skull of black and his own
bones in Central Australia.
BELLE:
Ah, this country.
MRS BONNER:
He is lost. His eyes cannot see the way.
MR BONNER:
But the map, Voss. Men need a map.
BELLE:
Ah, you may send me a black man’s spear. With blood on it!
(The dancers whirl past and when they are gone LE MESURIER is there, ragged, half-naked, mad. He begins some sort of primitive dance, not European)
LE MESURIER:
Man is King. They hung a robe
of blue sky upon him.
He rode into his kingdom
of dust. They painted his mysteries
upon the rock. He continued to eat up
distance. To raise up
the sun in the morning
and the moon was his slave by night. Fevers
turned him from Man to God.
(Towards the end of this dancers again sweep across the stage. When they have gone, at the climax of VOSS’ cry, JUDD’s place has been taken by LAURA and they are alone. JUDD and HARRY play their scene on another part of the stage)
VOSS:
Irrsinn! Irrsinn! Irrsinn!
Ah, Laura. You are here.
LAURA:
I am with you always.
Today I rode beside you. We rode
together over the plain.
Now we sit together in the black night
among thorns, among stones.
VOSS:
Spirits
afloat together
and the pale flesh hovering
above itself. Together
so close, their bodies joined,
their mouths, in the same lovestream.
LAURA:
Take a little of this good spring water.
JUDD:
He is mad. I saw that today, Harry.
I must take all this into
my own hands, I’m a survivor,
Harry. I can save us.
Will you follow me?
HARRY:
And leave him? Never, Never.
I will stick closer than anyone.
I will sit under the platform.
I will learn the languages.
I will die for him.
LAURA:
I will follow you
with my thoughts. I will be with you
among thorns, among stones.
JUDD:
Harry, you must come with me.
It’s in my hands now.
(HARRY covers his ears. As a way of shutting JUDD out, he begins to sing)
HARRY:
I saw a white bird fly out,
out, out of the bones of death. Wings
opened like hands
and a white bird went sailing over the earth.
JUDD:
Listen to me. Harry.
I am trying to save you, boy.
I will not die for him.
I will not die.
(HARRY breaks off his song and looks at JUDD. Quietly)
HARRY:
We will all die.
VOSS:
Laura. (She has risen and begins to move away)
Laura!
(LE MESURIER reappears. PALFREYMAN, JUDD and HARRY move in round VOSS)
LE MESURIER:
I am looking at the map of my hand
on which the rivers rise to the north-east.
I am looking at my heart which is the centre.
My blood will water the earth and make it bloom.
Winds will carry legends of smoke.
Birds will have picked the eyes for visions.
Trees will spring up to celebrate the godhead
with their blue leaves. Now that I am nothing,
I am. And love
is the simplest of all tongues.
(He begins to dance again. From the back, shadows of a number of aborigines appear. VOSS indicates that PALFREYMAN is to deal with them. He moves towards them)
LE MESURIER:
So they take me when the fires
are lit and the smell of smoke
and ashes climbs
above the smell of dust.
(The aborigines raise their spears)
I am not God, but Man.
(JUDD raises his rifle to protect PALFREYMAN, but VOSS stops him)
VOSS:
I forbid you to fire. These are my people.
(PALFREYMAN is speared. He turns, with the spear in his side)
PALFREYMAN:
Ah Lord, if I had been stronger.
LE MESURIER:
I am not God but Man. I am God
with a spear in his side.
They chase this kangaroo.
They cut its pride.
Where is his spirit?
It has gone out. It has all gone out.
(LE MESURIER cuts his throat. PALFREYMAN has sunk first to his knees, then to the ground)
VOSS:
Irrsinn! Frank! Frank! Irrsinn!
JUDD:
Harry, save yourself.
VOSS:
I will cross this country from one side to the other.
I mean to know it with my heart.
It is like walking on the bottom of the sea.
The mystery of life is not solved
by success, but by failure,
by perpetual struggle, in becoming.
JUDD:
You are deserting me then?
I would not have believed it.
HARRY:
Goodbye then. Go.
I would come with you.
I would come if I wanted.
(miserably) But I do not!
(JUDD goes. HARRY sinks to his knees, his hands extended to where LE MESURIER and PALFREYMAN lie. VOSS stands defiantly with his back to the audience, facing the shadows)
HARRY:
Morning stole upon the trees,
and sound vanished
in the pearly fog that lay over the earth.
The pale soles of my feet
were cold with dew.
And I saw at last,
I saw. The words came to my lips.
I saw a white bird fly out
of the bones of death, wings
opened like hands
and a white bird went sailing
out over the earth,
petals opened
white out of the seed.
(VOSS, responding to the new mood established by HARRY’s aria, has turned and settled under a sort of platform shelter. HARRY crawls in and lies at his feet. The shadows close in. JACKY is there outside)
HARRY:
I will stick closer than anyone.
I will sit under the platform.
I will learn the languages.
VOSS:
Ah, Harry, Harry Robarts. You are here.
(There now begins a double scene, in which we see LAURA, MRS BONNER and BELLE on one side of the stage, VOSS, HARRY and JACKY on the other. LAURA is in fever. MRS BONNER holds the child, BELLE is bathing LAURA’s brow)
LAURA:
Ah, dear Christ, now at last
I understand your suffering.
BELLE:
Laura. Laura. Return to us. Return.
MRS BONNER:
Think of Mercy. You must live
for the child’s sake. The child. The child.
HARRY:
Will they kill us then?
A pity. I could have got used to it, all this.
Do you remember the ship, sir?
And the flying fishes?
VOSS:
Sleep now, Harry, sleep.
HARRY:
Oh there is time for sleep. Sleep will not pass.
Unless the dogs dig.
And then they will only
scatter the bones.
VOSS:
You are the dog, Harry.