it is my blood which has cried out in you,
my greedy blood…
ELLA [preparing the medicine]:
One drop… two drops… five,
six… seven… Enough?
TREMENS:
Yes. Get dressed,
go… it’s late… Wait—stoke the fire…
ELLA:
Coals, coals, you blushing hearts… Fain burn!
[looks at herself in the mirror]
How is my hair? I’ll wear a gold gauze dress.
I am going…
[On her way out, she stops.]
… Oh, Klian brought me
his poems the other day; he sings them
so amusingly, flaring his nostrils slightly,
closing his eyes—like this, look—his palm
stroking the air as if it were a little
dog…
[Exits, laughing.]
TREMENS:
My greedy blood… And yet her mother
was so trusting and so tender; yes,
tender and cleaving, like pollen, drifting
through the air, onto my chest… Off with you,
you sunny piece of fluff!… Thank you, Death,
that you took this tenderness away from me:
free am I, free and reckless… Henceforth,
my servant Death, shall we oft agree… O,
I will send you out into this very night,
into those blazing windows above dark mounds
of snow; into those houses where life
twirls and dances… But I must wait…
It is not time yet… I must wait.
[Falls asleep. There is a knock at the door.]
TREMENS [shaking off sleep]:
Come in!…
SERVANT:
There is, my lord, a man out there—a dark,
bedraggled man—he wants to see you…
TREMENS:
His name?
SERVANT:
He won’t say.
TREMENS:
Let him in.
[SERVANT exits. A MAN enters through the open door and stops on the threshold.]
TREMENS:
What do you want?
MAN [slowly grinning]:
… And still
the same spotted blanket on his shoulders…
TREMENS [looks closer at him]:
Forgive me… my eyes are bleary… but,
I do recognize, I recognize… Yes,
for certain… Is it you,—you? Ganus?
GANUS:
You weren’t expecting me? My friend, my leader,
my Tremens, you weren’t expecting me? …
TREMENS:
Four years, Ganus!…
GANUS:
Four years? Not years,
but stony boulders! Rocks, hard labour,
loneliness—and then—an indescribable
escape!… Tell me, how is my wife, Midia?
TREMENS:
She lives, she lives… Yes, I recognize you,
friend—the same Ganus, quick as fire,
the same passion in your speech and movements…
So you fled? And… what of the others?
GANUS:
I escaped—they still languish… You know,
I came to you, like the wind—straight away,
I’ve not yet been home… So you say, Midia…
TREMENS:
Listen, Ganus, I need to explain to you…
It is strange that the main rebel leader… No, no,
don’t interrupt me! In truth, is it not strange
that I am free, when I know that my friends
suffer in black exile? I live just as before:
rumour does not name me; I’m still the same
twisted and secret leader… But believe me,
I did everything to burn in hell with you—
when they seized you all, I, incorruptible,
wrote a denunciation against Tremens…
Two days went by, on the third day I received
an answer. What was it? Well, listen: it was,
I remember, a dull and windy evening. I was
too lazy to put on the lights. It was growing
dark. I sat here and shook with fever,
rippling like a reflection in an ice-hole.
Ella had not yet returned from school. Suddenly—
a knock, and a man enters; his face obscured
in shadow, his voice muffled, as though it too
were tinged with darkness. Ganus, you are
not listening!…
GANUS:
My friend, my dear friend,
you can tell me this later. I’m agitated,
I cannot follow. I want to forget, forget
all this—the smoke of revolutionary
conversation, the backstreets in the night…
Advise me, what shall I do: go to Midia now,
or wait? Oh, don’t be angry! Don’t!…
Please, go on…
Understand, Ganus, I must
explain! There are more important things
than earthly love…
GANUS:
…And so, this stranger…
tell me…
TREMENS:
…was very strange. Quietly
he approached me: “The King has read your letter
and thanks you for it,” he said, taking off
his glove, and a smile, it seemed, slipped across
his hazy face. “Yes…” the messenger
continued, theatrically slapping his glove,
“you are a clever conspirator, while the King
punishes only the foolish; from this follows
a conclusion, a challenge: walk free, magnet,
and gather up, magnet, the scattered needles,
the revolutionary souls, and when you gather them,
we’ll sweep them up, and start again; so walk free,
shine on, attract…” Ganus, you are not listening…
GANUS:
On the contrary, my friend, on the contrary…
What happened next?
TREMENS:
Nothing. He left,
calmly bowing… For a long time after, I stared
at the door. Since then, I rage in passionate
idleness… Since then I wait; I stubbornly await
a blunder from the strained powers that be,
so I can make a move… Four years I wait.
I dream enormous dreams… Listen, the time
is near! Listen, you living piece of steel,
will you be drawn to me again? …
GANUS:
I don’t know…
I don’t think so… You see, I… But Tremens,
you haven’t told me about my Midia!
What does she do?
TREMENS:
Her? She strays.
GANUS:
How dare you, Tremens! I must confess
I am unused to your blaspheming words—
and I will not tolerate…
[ELLA has appeared, unnoticed, in the doorway.]
TREMENS:
…in other times
you would have laughed… My right-hand man—
hard, clear, and free—has become tender,
like an ageing maid…
GANUS:
Tremens, forgive me,
if I misunderstood your joke, but you
do not know, you do not know… I have
suffered greatly… The wind in the reeds
whispered to me of adultery. I prayed. I bribed
my creeping doubts with forced memories,
with the most winged, the most sacred ones,
which lose their colour as they fly into words,
and now, suddenly…
ELLA [approaching]:
Of course he was joking!
TREMENS:
Eavesdropping, eh?
ELLA:
No. I’ve long known—
you love equivocating little words,
riddles, that’s all…
TREMENS [to ganus]:
Do you recognize my daughter?
GANUS:
What, surely it can’t be—Ella? That girl
who always lay spread out with a book, here
on this fur, while we reduced worlds to ashes? …
ELLA:
And you would blaze louder than the rest,
and smoke so much, sometimes, it seemed there were
not people but ghosts dancing in the grey-blue
waves… But how did you return?
GANUS:
I stunned
two sentries with a log and wandered lost
for half a year… And now, having finally
arrived, the fugitive dares not enter
his own home…
ELLA:
I go there often.
GANUS:
How nice…
ELLA:
Yes, I am very friendly with your wife.
Many a time in your dark drawing room
have we spoken of your bitter fate. In truth,
sometimes it was hard for me: for no one
knows that my father…
GANUS:
I understand…
ELLA:
Often,
in soundless splendour, she cried, as you know
Midia cries—silently and without blinking…
In the summer, we strolled in the city outskirts,
where you had strolled with her… Recently,
she told your fortune by looking at the moon
through a glass of wine… I’ll tell you more:
this very evening I’m going to a party
at her house—there will be dancing, poets…
[points to TREMENS]
Look, he has dozed off…
GANUS:
A party—
but without me…
ELLA:
Without you?
GANUS:
I am
an outlaw: if they catch me, I’m done for…
Listen, I’ll write a note—you can give it
to her, and I’ll wait downstairs for an answer…
ELLA [twirling around]:
I’ve got it! I’ve got it! How splendid!
You see, I study at a theatre school,
I have paints and pomades here in seven
different colours… I’ll smear your face in such
a way that God himself, on Judgement Day,
won’t recognize you! Well, do you want to?
GANUS:
Yes… It’s just that…
ELLA:
I’ll simply say
that you’re an actor, an acquaintance of mine,
and haven’t taken off your make-up—
because it was so good… Perfect! It’s not
up for discussion! Sit down here, closer
to the light. That’s good. You shall be Othello—
the curly-haired, old, dark-skinned Moor.
I’ll also give you my father’s frock-coat
and black gloves…
GANUS:
How amusing: Othello
in a frock-coat!…
ELLA:
Sit still.
TREMENS [grimacing, he wakes up]:
Oh… I think
I fell asleep… Have you both lost your minds?
ELLA:
He cannot see his wife otherwise.
There will be guests there after all.
TREMENS:
Strange:
I dreamt that the King was being strangled
by a colossal negro…
ELLA:
I think our chance
remarks seeped into your dream, got mixed up
with your thoughts…
TREMENS:
Ganus, what do you suppose,
will it be long?… will it be long? …
GANUS:
What? …
ELLA:
Don’t move your lips, talk of the King can
wait a little…
TREMENS:
The King, the King, the King!
Everything is full of him: the people’s souls,
the air, and it is said that in the clouds
at sunrise, it is his coat-of-arms that shines,
and not the dawn. Meanwhile, no one knows
what he looks like. On coins he wears a mask.
They say, he walks amongst the crowds, sharp-sighted
and unrecognized, throughout the city,
in the market places.
ELLA:
I’ve seen him ride
to the senate, accompanied by horsemen.
The carriage gleams all over in blue lacquer.
On the door there is a crown, and in
the window the blind is lowered…
TREMENS:
… and, I think,
inside there’s no one. Our King walks
on foot… And the blue lustre and the black steeds
are for show. He is a fraud, our King!
He should be…
GANUS:
Stop, Ella, you have
put paint in my eye… May I speak…
ELLA:
Yes,
you may. I will look for a wig…
GANUS:
Tell me, Tremens,
I don’t understand: what do you want?
While wandering through the country I have
noticed that in four years of radiant peace—
after wars and revolutions—the country
has grown wonderfully strong. And the King
alone achieved all this. What then do you want?
New upheavals? But why? The power of the King
is living and harmonious, it moves me now
like music… I too find it strange, but I
have understood that to rebel is criminal.
TREMENS [rising slowly]:
What did you say? Did I mishear? Ganus,
you… repent, regret, and practically
give thanks for your punishment!
GANUS:
No.
For the sorrows of my heart, for the tears
of my Midia, I will never forgive the King.
But, consider: while we were declaiming
grand words—on the oppressed, on poverty
and the suffering of the people—the King
himself was already acting in our stead…
TREMENS [walks heavily around the room, drumming his fingers on the furniture as he passes]:
Hang on, hang on! Did you really think
that I worked with such determination
for the good of an imaginary “people”?
So that every manure-filled soul, some
drunken goldsmith or another, some gnarled
stable-boy could polish his dainty nails
up to a mirror sheen, and bend his little
finger back in affectation, when shaking
off his snot? No, you were mistaken!…
ELLA:
Move your head to the right a little… I’ll pull
the astrakhan fur on for you…
Papa,
sit down, I beg you… You are dizzying me
with your movements.
TREMENS:
You were mistaken!
Revolts there may have been, Ganus… Time and again,
in city squares across the ages, have gathered
low-browed criminality, mediocrity,
and baseness… Their words I was repeating,
but I meant something more—and I had thought
that through those blunt words you felt my true fire,
and that your fire answered mine. But now,
your flame has tapered, it has turned to passion
for a woman… I feel great pity for you.
GANUS:
&
nbsp; But what is it you want? Ella, don’t get
in the way while I’m talking…
TREMENS:
Did you see,
one windy night, by moonlight, the shadows
of ruins? That is the ultimate beauty—
and towards it I lead the world.
ELLA:
Don’t protest…
Sit still!… Press your lips together. A little
touch of arrogance… There. Some carmine
inside the nostrils—no, don’t sneeze! Passion—
in the nostrils. Now yours are like those
of Arabian horses. There we go.
Please be quiet. After all, my father
is absolutely right.
TREMENS:
You say:
the King is a great sorcerer. Agreed.
The sun has swollen the taut granaries,
the wonders of science are accessible to all,
labour is lightened by the play of hidden forces,
and the air is clean in the warbling workshops—
with all this I agree. But why do we
always want to grow, to climb uphill
from one to a thousand, when the downward path—
from one to zero—is faster and sweeter? Life
itself is the example—it rushes headlong
into ash, it destroys everything in its way:
first it gnaws through the umbilical cord,
then tears up plants and birds into shreds,
and our heart beats inside us like a greedy hoof,
till it smashes through our chest… And the poet,
who breaks up his thoughts into sounds? Or
the maiden, who prays for the blow of a man’s love?
Everything, Ganus, is destruction. And
the faster it is, the sweeter, the sweeter…
ELLA:
Now
for the frock-coat, the gloves—and you’re ready!
Really, Othello, I am pleased with you…
[declaims]
“But yet I fear you; for you are fatal then
when your eyes roll so: why should I fear I know not,
since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel fear…”
Oh, your boots are shabby—well, never mind…
GANUS:
Thank you, Desdemona…
[looking at himself in the mirror]
Well, look at me!
It’s been a while, it’s been a while… Midia…
a masquerade… Lights, perfume… quick, quick!
Hurry, Ella!
ELLA:
We’re going, we’re going…
TREMENS:
So,
you’ve decided to betray me, my friend?
GANUS:
Don’t, Tremens! We’ll talk some other time…
It’s hard for me to argue now… Perhaps
you are right. Farewell, dear friend… You
understand…
ELLA:
I won’t be late…
TREMENS:
Go, go.
Klian has long been cursing you, himself
and everything else. Ganus, don’t forget…
GANUS:
Hurry up, hurry up, Ella…
[They leave together.]