What time is it?
CHARLES
Nearly twenty to seven.
AMY
John should be here now, he has the shortest way to come.
John at least, if not Arthur. Hark, there is someone coming:
Yes, it must be John.
[Enter HARRY.]
Harry!
[HARRY stops suddenly at the door and stares at the window.]
IVY
Welcome, Harry!
GERALD
Well done!
VIOLET
Welcome home to Wishwood!
CHARLES
Why, what’s the matter?
AMY
Harry, if you want the curtains drawn you should let me ring for Denman.
HARRY
How can you sit in this blaze of light for all the world to look at?
If you knew how you looked, when I saw you through the window!
Do you like to be stared at by eyes through a window?
AMY
You forget, Harry, that you are at Wishwood,
Not in town, where you have to close the blinds.
There is no one to see you but our servants who belong here,
And who all want to see you back, Harry.
HARRY
Look there, look there: do you see them?
GERALD
No, I don’t see anyone about.
HARRY
No, no, not there. Look there!
Can’t you see them? You don’t see them, but I see them,
And they see me. This is the first time that I have seen them.
In the Java Straits, in the Sunda Sea,
In the sweet sickly tropical night, I knew they were coming.
In Italy, from behind the nightingale’s thicket,
The eyes stared at me, and corrupted that song.
Behind the palm trees in the Grand Hotel
They were always there. But I did not see them.
Why should they wait until I came back to Wishwood?
There were a thousand places where I might have met them!
Why here? why here?
Many happy returns of the day, mother.
Aunt Ivy, Aunt Violet, Uncle Gerald, Uncle Charles, Agatha.
AMY
We are very glad to have you back, Harry.
Now we shall all be together for dinner.
The servants have been looking forward to your coming:
Would you like to have them in after dinner
Or wait till tomorrow? I am sure you must be tired.
You will find everybody here, and everything the same.
Mr. Bevan—you remember—wants to call tomorrow
On some legal business, a question about taxes—
But I think you would rather wait till you are rested.
Your room is all ready for you. Nothing has been changed.
HARRY
Changed? nothing changed? how can you say that nothing is changed?
You all look so withered and young.
GERALD
We must have a ride tomorrow.
You’ll find you know the country as well as ever.
There wasn’t an inch of it you didn’t know.
But you’ll have to see about a couple of new hunters.
CHARLES
And I’ve a new wine merchant to recommend you;
Your cellar could do with a little attention.
IVY
And you'll really have to find a successor to old Hawkins.
It’s really high time the old man was pensioned.
He’s let the rock garden go to rack and ruin,
And he’s nearly half blind. I’ve spoken to your mother
Time and time again: she’s done nothing about it
Because she preferred to wait for your coming.
VIOLET
And time and time again I have spoken to your mother
About the waste that goes on in the kitchen.
Mrs. Packell is too old to know what she is doing.
It really needs a man in charge of things at Wishwood.
AMY
You see your aunts and uncles are very helpful, Harry.
I have always found them forthcoming with advice
Which I have never taken. Now it is your business.
I have only struggled to keep Wishwood going
And to make no changes before your return.
Now it’s for you to manage. I am an old woman.
They can give me no further advice when I’m dead.
IVY
Oh, dear Amy!
No one wants you to die, I’m sure!
Now that Harry’s back, is the time to think of living.
HARRY
Time and time and time, and change, no change!
You all of you try to talk as if nothing had happened,
And yet you are talking of nothing else. Why not get to the point
Or if you want to pretend that I am another person—
A person that you have conspired to invent, please do so
In my absence. I shall be less embarrassing to you. Agatha?
AGATHA
I think, Harry, that having got so far—
If you want no pretences, let us have no pretences:
And you must try at once to make us understand,
And we must try to understand you.
HARRY
But how can I explain, how can I explain to you?
You will understand less after I have explained it.
All that I could hope to make you understand
Is only events: not what has happened.
And people to whom nothing has ever happened
Cannot understand the unimportance of events.
GERALD
Well, you can’t say that nothing has happened to me.
I started as a youngster on the North West Frontier—
Been in tight comers most of my life
And some pretty nasty messes.
CHARLES
And there isn’t much would surprise me, Harry;
Or shock me, either.
HARRY
You are all people
To whom nothing has happened, at most a continual impact
Of external events. You have gone through life in sleep,
Never woken to the nightmare. I tell you, life would be unendurable
If you were wide awake. You do not know
The noxious smell untraceable in the drains,
Inaccessible to the plumbers, that has its hour of the night; you do not know
The unspoken voice of sorrow in the ancient bedroom
At three o’clock in the morning. I am not speaking
Of my own experience, but trying to give you
Comparisons in a more familiar medium. I am the old house
With the noxious smell and the sorrow before morning,
In which all past is present, all degradation
Is unredeemable. As for what happens—
Of the past you can only see what is past,
Not what is always present. That is what matters.
AGATHA
Nevertheless, Harry, best tell us as you can:
Talk in your own language, without stopping to debate
Whether it may be too far beyond our understanding.
HARRY
The sudden solitude in a crowded desert
In a thick smoke, many creatures moving
Without direction, for no direction
Leads anywhere but round and round in that vapour—
Without purpose, and without principle of conduct
In flickering intervals of light and darkness;
The partial anaesthesia of suffering without feeling
And partial observation of one’s own automatism
While the slow stain sinks deeper through the skin
Tainting the flesh and discolouring the bone—
This is what matters, but it is unspeakab
le.
Untranslatable: I talk in general terms
Because the particular has no language. One thinks to escape
By violence, but one is still alone
In an over-crowded desert, jostled by ghosts.
It was only reversing the senseless direction
For a momentary rest on the burning wheel
That cloudless night in the mid-Atlantic
When I pushed her over.
VIOLET
Pushed her?
HARRY
You would never imagine anyone could sink so quickly.
I had always supposed, wherever I went
That she would be with me; whatever I did
That she was unkillable. It was not like that.
Everything is true in a different sense.
I expected to find her when I went back to the cabin.
Later, I became excited, I think I made enquiries;
The purser and the steward were extremely sympathetic
And the doctor very attentive.
That night I slept heavily, alone.
AMY
Harry!
CHARLES
You mustn’t indulge such dangerous fancies.
It’s only doing harm to your mother and yourself.
Of course we know what really happened, we read it in the papers—
No need to revert to it. Remember, my boy,
I understand, your life together made it seem more horrible.
There’s a lot in my own past life that presses on my chest
When I wake, as I do now, early before morning.
I understand these feelings better than you know—
But you have no reason to reproach yourself.
Your conscience can be clear.
HARRY
It goes a good deal deeper
Than what people call their conscience; it is just the cancer
That eats away the self. I knew how you would take it.
First of all, you isolate the single event
As something so dreadful that it couldn’t have happened,
Because you could not bear it. So you must believe
That I suffer from delusions. It is not my conscience,
Not my mind, that is diseased, but the world I have to live in.
—I lay two days in contented drowsiness;
Then I recovered. I am afraid of sleep:
A condition in which one can be caught for the last time.
And also waking. She is nearer than ever.
The contamination has reached the marrow
And they are always near. Here, nearer than ever.
They are very close here. I had not expected that.
AMY
Harry, Harry, you are very tired
And overwrought. Coming so far
And making such haste, the change is too sudden for you.
You are unused to our foggy climate
And the northern country. When you see Wishwood
Again by day, all will be the same again.
I beg you to go now and rest before dinner.
Get Downing to draw you a hot bath,
And you will feel better.
AGATHA
There are certain points I do not yet understand:
They will be clear later. I am also convinced
That you only hold a fragment of the explanation.
It is only because of what you do not understand
That you feel the need to declare what you do.
There is more to understand: hold fast to that
As the way to freedom.
HARRY
I think I see what you mean.
Dimly—as you once explained the sobbing in the chimney
The evil in the dark closet, which they said was not there,
Which they explained away, but you explained them
Or at least, made me cease to be afraid of them.
I will go and have my bath.
[Exit.]
GERALD
God preserve us!
I never thought it would be as bad as this.
VIOLET
There is only one thing to be done:
Harry must see a doctor.
IVY
But I understand—
I have heard of such cases before—that people in his condition
Often betray the most immoderate resentment
At such a suggestion. They can be very cunning—
Their malady makes them so. They do not want to be cured
And they know what you are thinking.
CHARLES
He has probably let this notion grow in his mind,
Living among strangers, with no one to talk to.
I suspect it is simply that the wish to get rid of her
Makes him believe he did. He cannot trust his good fortune.
I believe that all he needs is someone to talk to,
To get it off his mind. I’ll have a talk to him tomorrow.
AMY
Most certainly not, Charles, you are not the right person.
I prefer to believe that a few days at Wishwood
Among his own family, is all that he needs.
GERALD
Nevertheless, Amy, there’s something in Violet’s suggestion.
Why not ring up Warburton, and ask him to join us?
He’s an old friend of the family, it’s perfectly natural
That he should be asked. He looked after all the boys
He can talk to Harry, and Harry need have no suspicion.
I’d trust Warburton’s opinion.
AMY
If anyone speaks to Dr. Warburton
It should be myself. What does Agatha think?
AGATHA
It seems a necessary move
In an unnecessary action,
Not for the good that it will do
But that nothing may be left undone
On the margin of the impossible.
AMY
Very well.
I will ring up the doctor myself.
[Exit.]
CHARLES
Meanwhile, I have an idea. Why not question Downing?
He’s been with Harry ten years, he’s absolutely discreet.
He was with them on the boat. He might be of use.
IVY
Charles! you don’t really suppose
That he might have pushed her over?
CHARLES
In any case, I shouldn’t blame Harry.
I might have done the same thing once, myself.
Nobody knows what he’s likely to do
Until there’s somebody he wants to get rid of.
GERALD
Even so, we don’t want Downing to know
Any more than he knows already.
And even if he knew, it’s very much better
That he shouldn’t know that we knew it also.
Why not let sleeping dogs lie?
CHARLES
All the same, there’s a question or two
[Rings the bell.]
That I'd like to ask Downing.
He shan’t know why I’m asking.
[Enter DENMAN.]
Denman, where is Downing? Is he up with his Lordship?
DENMAN
He’s out in the garage, Sir, with his Lordship’s car.
CHARLES
Tell him I’d like to have a word with him, please.
[Exit DENMAN]
VIOLET
Charles, if you are determined upon this investigation,
Which I am convinced is going to lead us nowhere,
And which I am sure Amy would disapprove of—
I only wish to express my emphatic protest
Both against your purpose and the means you are employing.
CHARLES
My purpose is, to find out what’s wrong with Harry:
Until we know that, we can
do nothing for him.
And as for my means, we can’t afford to be squeamish
In taking hold of anything that comes to hand.
If you are interested in helping Harry
You can hardly object to the means.
VIOLET
I do object.
IVY
And I wish to associate myself with my sister
In her objections—
AGATHA
I have no objection,
Any more than I object to asking Dr. Warburton:
I only see that this is all quite irrelevant;
We had better leave Charles to talk to Downing
And pursue his own methods.
[Rises.]
VIOLET
I do not agree.
I think there should be witnesses. I intend to remain.
And I wish to be present to hear what Downing says.
I want to know at once, not be told about it later.
IVY
And I shall stay with Violet.
AGATHA
I shall return
When Downing has left you.
[Exit.]
CHARLES
Well, I’m very sorry
You all see it like this: but there simply are times