Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Persons
PART I
Scene I
Scene II
Scene III
PART II
Scene I
Scene II
Scene III
About the Author
Copyright 1939 by T. S. Eliot
Copyright renewed 1967 by Esme Valerie Eliot
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ISBN 978-0-15-630157-2 (pbk.)
First Harvest edition 1964
eISBN 978-0-544-35835-5
v1.0214
Persons
AMY, DOWAGER LADY MONCHENSEY
IVY, VIOLET, and AGATHA,
her younger sisters
COL. THE HON. GERALD PIPER, and
THE HON. CHARLES PIPER,
brothers of her deceased husband
MARY,
daughter of a deceased cousin of Lady Monchensey
DENMAN, a parlourmaid
HARRY, LORD MONCHENSEY, Amy’s eldest son
DOWNING, his servant and chauffeur
DR. WARBURTON
SERGEANT WINCHELL
THE EUMENIDES
The scene is laid in a country house in the
North of England
PART I
The Drawing Room, After Tea.
An Afternoon in Late March
Scene I
AMY, IVY, VIOLET, AGATHA, GERALD,
CHARLES, MARY
DENMAN enters to draw the curtains
AMY
Not yet! I will ring for you. It is still quite light.
I have nothing to do but watch the days draw out,
Now that I sit in the house from October to June,
And the swallow comes too soon and the spring will be over
And the cuckoo will be gone before I am out again.
O Sun, that was once so warm, O Light that was taken for granted
When I was young and strong, and sun and light unsought for
And the night unfeared and the day expected
And clocks could be trusted, tomorrow assured
And time would not stop in the dark!
Put on the lights. But leave the curtains undrawn.
Make up the fire. Will the spring never come? I am cold.
AGATHA
Wishwood was always a cold place, Amy.
IVY
I have always told Amy she should go south in the winter.
Were I in Amy’s position, I would go south in the winter.
I would follow the sun, not wait for the sun to come here.
I would go south in the winter, if I could afford it,
Not freeze, as I do, in Bayswater, by a gas-fire counting shillings.
VIOLET
Go south! to the English circulating libraries,
To the military widows and the English chaplains,
To the chilly deck-chair and the strong cold tea—
The strong cold stewed bad Indian tea.
CHARLES
That’s not Amy’s style at all. We are country-bred people.
Amy has been too long used to our ways
Living with horses and dogs and guns
Ever to want to leave England in the winter.
But a single man like me is better off in London:
A man can be very cosy at his club
Even in an English winter.
GERALD
Well, as for me,
I’d just as soon be a subaltern again
To be back in the East. An incomparable climate
For a man who can exercise a little common prudence;
And your servants look after you very much better.
AMY
My servants are perfectly competent, Gerald.
I can still see to that.
VIOLET
Well, as for me,
I would never go south, no, definitely never,
Even could I do it as well as Amy:
England’s bad enough, I would never go south,
Simply to see the vulgarest people—
You can keep out of their way at home;
People with money from heaven knows where—
GERALD
Dividends from aeroplane shares.
VIOLET
They bathe all day and they dance all night
In the absolute minimum of clothes.
CHARLES
It’s the cocktail-drinking does the harm:
There’s nothing on earth so bad for the young.
All that a civilised person needs
Is a glass of dry sherry or two before dinner.
The modern young people don’t know what they’re drinking,
Modern young people don’t care what they’re eating;
They’ve lost their sense of taste and smell
Because of their cocktails and cigarettes.
[Enter DENMAN with sherry and whisky. CHARLES takes sherry and GERALD whisky.]
That’s what it comes to.
[Lights a cigarette.]
LVY
The younger generation
Are undoubtedly decadent.
CHARLES
The younger generation
Are not what we were. Haven’t the stamina,
Haven’t the sense of responsibility.
GERALD
You’re being very hard on the younger generation.
I don’t come across them very much now, myself;
But I must say I’ve met some very decent specimens
And some first-class shots—better than you were,
Charles, as I remember. Besides, you’ve got to make allowances:
We haven’t left them such an easy world to live in.
Let the younger generation speak for itself:
It’s Mary’s generation. What does she think about it?
MARY
Really, Cousin Gerald, if you want information
About the younger generation, you must ask someone else.
I’m afraid that I don’t deserve the compliment:
I don’t belong to any generation.
[Exit.]
VIOLET
Really, Gerald, I must say you’re very tactless,
And I think that Charles might have been more considerate.
GERALD
I’m very sorry: but why was she upset?
I only meant to draw her into the conversation.
CHARLES
She’s a nice girl; but it’s a difficult age for her.
I suppose she must be getting on for thirty?
She ought to be married, that’s what it is.
AMY
So she should have been, if things had gone as I intended.
Harry’s
return does not make things easy for her
At the moment: but life may still go right.
Meanwhile, let us drop the subject. The less said the better.
GERALD
That reminds me, Amy,
When are the boys all due to arrive?
AMY
I do not want the clock to stop in the dark.
If you want to know why I never leave Wishwood
That is the reason. I keep Wishwood alive
To keep the family alive, to keep them together,
To keep me alive, and I live to keep them.
You none of you understand how old you are
And death will come to you as a mild surprise,
A momentary shudder in a vacant room.
Only Agatha seems to discover some meaning in death
Which I cannot find.
Arthur in London, John in Leicestershire:
They should both be here in good time for dinner.
Harry telephoned to me from Marseilles,
He would come by air to Paris, and so to London,
And hoped to arrive in the course of the evening.
VIOLET
Harry was always the most likely to be late.
AMY
This time, it will not be his fault.
We are very lucky to have Harry at all.
IVY
And when will you have your birthday cake, Amy,
And open your presents?
AMY
After dinner:
That is the best time.
IVY
It is the first time
You have not had your cake and your presents at tea.
AMY
This is a very particular occasion
As you ought to know. It will be the first time
For eight years that we have all been together.
AGATHA
It is going to be rather painful for Harry
After eight years and all that has happened
To come back to Wishwood.
GERALD
Why, painful?
VIOLET
Gerald! you know what Agatha means.
AGATHA
I mean painful, because everything is irrevocable,
Because the past is irremediable,
Because the future can only be built
Upon the real past. Wandering in the tropics
Or against the painted scene of the Mediterranean,
Harry must often have remembered Wishwood—
The nursery tea, the school holiday,
The daring feats on the old pony,
And thought to creep back through the little door.
He will find a new Wishwood. Adaptation is hard.
AMY
Nothing is changed, Agatha, at Wishwood.
Everything is kept as it was when he left it,
Except the old pony, and the mongrel setter
Which I had to have destroyed.
Nothing has been changed. I have seen to that.
AGATHA
Yes. I mean that at Wishwood he will find another Harry.
The man who returns will have to meet
The boy who left. Round by the stables,
In the coach-house, in the orchard,
In the plantation, down the corridor
That led to the nursery, round the corner
Of the new wing, he will have to face him—
And it will not be a very jolly corner.
When the loop in time comes—and it does not come for everybody—
The hidden is revealed, and the spectres show themselves.
GERALD
I don’t in the least know what you’re talking about.
You seem to be wanting to give us all the hump.
I must say, this isn’t cheerful for Amy’s birthday
Or for Harry’s homecoming. Make him feel at home, I say!
Make him feel that what has happened doesn’t matter.
He’s taken his medicine, I’ve no doubt.
Let him marry again and carry on at Wishwood.
AMY
Thank you, Gerald. Though Agatha means
As a rule, a good deal more than she cares to betray,
I am bound to say that I agree with you.
CHARLES
I never wrote to him when he lost his wife—
That was just about a year ago, wasn’t it?
Do you think that I ought to mention it now?
It seems to me too late.
AMY
Much too late.
If he wants to talk about it, that’s another matter;
But I don’t believe he will. He will wish to forget it.
I do not mince matters in front of the family:
You can call it nothing but a blessed relief.
VIOLET
IVY
Yet it must have been shocking,
Especially to lose anybody in that way—
Swept off the deck in the middle of a storm,
And never even to recover the body.
CHARLES
“Well-known Peeress Vanishes from Liner.”
GERALD
Yes, it’s odd to think of her as permanently missing.
VIOLET
Had she been drinking?
AMY
I would never ask him.
IVY
These things are much better not enquired into.
She may have done it in a fit of temper.
GERALD
I never met her.
AMY
I am very glad you did not.
I am very glad that none of you ever met her.
It will make the situation very much easier
And is why I was so anxious you should all be here.
She never would have been one of the family,
She never wished to be one of the family,
She only wanted to keep him to herself
To satisfy her vanity. That’s why she dragged him
All over Europe and half round the world
To expensive hotels and undesirable society
Which she could choose herself. She never wanted
Harry’s relations or Harry’s old friends;
She never wanted to fit herself to Harry,
But only to bring Harry down to her own level.
A restless shivering painted shadow
In life, she is less than a shadow in death.
You might as well all of you know the truth
For the sake of the future. There can be no grief
And no regret and no remorse.
I would have prevented it if I could. For the sake of the future:
Harry is to take command at Wishwood
And I hope we can contrive his future happiness.
Do not discuss his absence. Please behave only
As if nothing had happened in the last eight years.
GERALD
That will be a little difficult.
VIOLET
Nonsense, Gerald!
You must see for yourself it's the only thing to do.
AGATHA
Thus with most careful devotion
Thus with precise attention
To detail, interfering preparation
Of that which is already prepared
Men tighten the knot of confusion
Into perfect misunderstanding,
Reflecting a pocket-torch of observation
Upon each other’s opacity
Neglecting all the admonitions
From the world around the corner
The wind’s talk in the dry holly-tree
To inclination of the moon
The attraction of the dark passage
The paw under the door.
CHORUS [IVY, VIOLET, GERALD and CHARLES]
Why do we feel embarrassed, impatient, fretful, ill at ease,
A
ssembled like amateur actors who have not been assigned their parts?
Like amateur actors in a dream when the curtain rises, to find themselves dressed for a different play, or having rehearsed the wrong parts,
Waiting for the rustling in the stalls, the titter in the dress circle, the laughter and catcalls in the gallery?
CHARLES
I might have been in St. James’s Street, in a comfortable chair rather nearer the fire.
IVY
I might have been visiting Cousin Lily at Sidmouth, if I had not had to come to this party.
GERALD
I might have been staying with Compton-Smith, down at his place in Dorset.
VIOLET
I should have been helping Lady Bumpus, at the Vicar’s American Tea.
CHORUS
Yet we are here at Amy’s command, to play an unread part in some monstrous farce, ridiculous in some nightmare pantomime.
AMY
What’s that? I thought I saw someone pass the window.