OLD MAN:
Looks like somebody’s been messing about in here…
A burning smell. Table’s out of place… Hark you now—
Look where they’ve thrown the crown. Ptfu… Ptfu…
Shine…
I’ll rub you… And there—that casement’s wide open.
That won’t do… Let’s have a listen at the door.
[Sleepily he crosses the stage and listens.]
The rascal’s asleep… the master sleeps. For
it’s gone four, I dare say… O, Lord Jesus!
Oh, how my bones ache, how they ache! Cook
shoved some ointment at me,—says, try it,
rub some on… Try arguing… That’s all I need…
Old age isn’t some ugly mug daubed on
a fence, you can’t just paint over it…
[And, muttering, he exits.]
CURTAIN
Scene II
The same stage set as in the previous scene: the King’s study. Only now the carpet is torn in places and one of the mirrors is broken. Four of the REBELS, seated. Early morning. In the window the sun is visible, and there is a bright thaw.
FIRST REBEL:
The firing at the western gate still opens
wide its swift embraces, so as to catch—
now a soul, now a melody, now the ringing
of glass… smoke rises from the houses still,
from the hunched ruins of the senate, the museum
of coins, the museum of banners, the museum
of old statues… We are tired… All night long—
work, tumult… It must be past seven already…
What a morning! The senate blazed, like a torch…
We’re tired, confused… Where’s Tremens rushing us?
SECOND REBEL:
The draughty skeleton has clothed itself in flesh
and fire. It’s come to life. It rubs its hands.
The mob gleefully tears open the cellars, marvels
at the fires… I don’t know, don’t know, brothers,
what he’s planning…
THIRD REBEL:
Not so, not so, did we
once think to make our homeland happy… I regret
the sleepless nights of exile…
FIRST REBEL:
He is mad!
He ordered that the flying machines be burned
so as to entertain the drunkards! But some
nameless heroes came along, and grabbed
the controls just in time…
FOURTH REBEL:
This order here,
that I am copying out, is terrifying
in its tigerish playfulness…
SECOND REBEL:
Quiet…
Here comes his son-in-law…
[KLIAN enters hurriedly.]
KLIAN:
Splendid news!
In the suburbs the merry crowd’s blown up
a school; satchels and rulers are scattered across
the square; about three hundred little mites
perished. Tremens is very pleased.
THIRD REBEL:
He’s…
pleased! Brothers, brothers, do you hear?
He’s pleased!… 30
KLIAN:
Well, then, I’ll inform the leader
that my news did not much please you…
Everything, I shall report everything!
SECOND REBEL:
We say
that Tremens is wiser than us: he knows his goal.
As it says in your last ode, he is a genius.
KLIAN:
Yes. He is worthy of entering the thunders
of my melodies. Nonetheless… the sun…
dazzles my eyes.
[Looks out of the window.]
Ah—there’s that traitor,
Ganus! There, between the soldiers, standing
at the barriers: they’re laughing. They have
let him through. There he goes across
the melting snow.
FIRST REBEL [watching]:
How pale he is!
Our former friend is unrecognizable!
Everything about him—his gaze, his pursed lips—
reminds one of the saints in stained glass…
They say his wife has fled…
SECOND REBEL:
Was there a lover?
FIRST REBEL:
I don’t think so.
FOURTH REBEL:
Rumour has it that one day
he came to his wife, and on the table there was
a note, that come what may she had decided
to go, alone, back to her family… Klian,
what’s so funny about that?
KLIAN:
I shall report
everything! Here you are, spinning rumours,
like old women, whilst Tremens thinks that
you are working… There are fires out there,
everything, everything…
[GANUS stops in the doorway.]
Ah! Noble Ganus…
Most welcome Ganus… We were waiting for you…
We’re glad to see you… Please…
FIRST REBEL:
Our Ganus…
SECOND REBEL:
Greetings, Ganus…
THIRD REBEL:
Do you not recognize us?
Your friends? Four years… together… in exile…
GANUS:
Away, you hirelings of a liar!… Where’s Tremens?
He summoned me.
KLIAN:
He’s interrogating.
He’ll be here soon…
GANUS:
Well, I don’t need him.
He invited me himself, and if… he’s not here…
KLIAN:
Wait, I’ll call him…
[Goes towards the door.]
FIRST REBEL:
And we will go too…
Is that not so, brothers? Why stay here…
SECOND REBEL:
Yes,
so much to do…
THIRD REBEL:
Klian, we’re coming with you!
[quietly]
Brothers, I’m scared…
FOURTH REBEL:
I’ll finish copying later…
I’ll go…
THIRD REBEL:
Brother, brother, what are we doing…
[KLIAN and the REBELS leave. GANUS is alone.]
GANUS [looks around in all directions]:
… A hero lived here…
[Pause.]
TREMENS [enters]:
Thank you for coming,
my Ganus! I know that you’ve been clouded
by the sorrows of life. You’ve scarcely noticed
that for a month—a month today exactly—
I have ruled over an intoxicated country.
I called for you, so you could tell me directly,
could explain… but first let a fortunate man
talk of his happiness! You know yourself—
better than anyone, Ganus—that I waited
for my day, in a delirium, in a chill…
My day has come—unexpectedly, like love!
Rumour spread like a flame that the country
had no king… When and how he disappeared,
who strangled him, on what night, and how long
a dead man ruled the land, nobody now knows.
But the people do not forgive deceit:
the burial vaults, the senate, were filled
with angry trampling. How splendidly,
how austerely, the old men died, and how
he screamed—O, sweeter than an ardent violin—
the little boy, their ward. The people took revenge
for the deception,—I seized the opportunity
to blaze up, and realized that I had waited so long
in vain: there was
no king at all—only
a legend, potent and magical! Awakening,
the mob stormed in here, and nothing but echoes
resounded through the dead palace!…
GANUS:
You called
for me.
TREMENS:
You are right, let’s turn to business:
in you, Ganus, I divined a kindred fire;
to you alone I entrusted my thoughts.
But you were tormented by a woman;
now she is gone; I’m going to ask you,
Ganus, for the last time: will you help me?
GANUS:
You summoned me in vain…
TREMENS:
Think it over,
don’t rush, I will give you a little time…
[Hurriedly KLIAN enters.]
KLIAN:
My leader, those people, the ones who recently
were singing in the streets, are being tortured…
There is no one to interrogate them…
Your assistants—how can I put it—are feeling
nauseous…
TREMENS:
All right, I’m coming, I’m coming… You,
my Klian, are a fine fellow!… I’ve long known…
By the way, one of these days I will
surprise you: I’ll order that you be hanged.
KLIAN:
Tremens… My leader…
TREMENS:
As for you, Ganus,
think it over, I ask you, think it over…
[TREMENS and KLIAN leave.]
GANUS [alone]:
A single thought torments me: here lived a hero…
these mirrors here are sacred: they looked on him…
He sat here, in this mighty chair. His footsteps
linger in the palace, like the step of a hexameter
dwindling in one’s memory… Where did he die?
Where did his shot ring out? Who heard it?
Perhaps it was out there, outside the city,
in a mournful oak forest, in the snows of night…
and his pale friend buried the hot corpse
in a drift of snow… Sin, inconceivable sin,
how can I expiate you? All of my blood
is grateful for the death of my rival and yet
all of my soul curses the death of the King…
We are duplicitous, we’re blind—and it is hard
to live, trusting only in life: earthly life
is a murky translation from the divine original;
the general thought is clear but the primordial
music is missing in its words… What are passions?
Mistakes in the translation. What is love?
A rhyme lost in transmission to our discordant
language… It’s time for me to take up the original!…
My dictionary? One simple little book with a cross
on its cover… I’ll seek out the stony arches, there,
where the respite of prayer and the full breath
of the soul will teach me the pronunciation
of life…
There in the doorway, Ella has stopped,
and does not see me, deep in thought,
fingering the fringes of her sluggish shawl… What
can I say to her? She needs warmth… Dear one…
She doesn’t see me…
ELLA [aside]:
How amusing!… I opened
and read someone else’s letter… Handwriting
like the wind, and the smell of the south… I
resealed it, just as father once showed me
in jest… Morn and Midia are together!
How can I give it to him? He thinks that she
is living in that old-fashioned backwater
that she comes from… How to give it to him? …
GANUS [approaching]:
You’re up early. Me too… We seldom meet
now, Ella: another festivity coincided
with your wedding…
ELLA:
Morning—an azure
miracle—and not a morning… it trickles… whispers…
Has Klian gone?
GANUS:
He’s gone… Tell me, Ella,
are you happy?
ELLA:
What is happiness? The flutter
of wings, or perhaps a snowflake on one’s lip—
that is happiness… Who said that? I don’t recall…
No, Ganus, I was wrong, you know… But
how bright it is today, it’s practically spring!
Everything trickles…
GANUS:
Ella, Ella, did you ever
think that the daughter of a powerless rebel
would live in a palace?
ELLA:
Oh, Ganus, I miss
our little old rooms, our peace, the fireplace,
the paintings… Listen: lately I’ve come to realize
that my father is mad! We have fallen out
with one another; now we’re not speaking…
I believed in it at first… What for! Rebellion
for the sake of rebellion is both boring
and horrifying—like night-time embraces
without love…
GANUS:
Yes, Ella, you have truly
understood…
ELLA:
The other day all the squares
gazed at the sky… Laughter, screams, howls
of fury… Saving themselves from the flames,
the flyers soared up from all directions, came
together like crystal swallows, and quietly
the shimmering flock slipped away. One
fell behind and froze for a moment above
the tower, as though he had left his nest there,
and then unwillingly caught up his sorrowful
companions,—and all of them melted away
into a crystal dust in the sky… I realized,
when they had disappeared, when in my eyes
swam blinding circles—from the sun—
I suddenly realized… that I love you…
[Pause. ELLA looks out of the window.]
GANUS:
I have
remembered!… Ella, Ella… How frightening!…
ELLA:
No, no, no—keep silent, dear. I look
at you, I look into the palace garden,
I look into myself, and now I know
that all is one: my love and the raw sun,
your pale face and the bright trickling icicles
beneath the roof, the amber spot upon
the porous sugary snow mound, the raw sun
and my love, my love…
GANUS:
I’ve remembered:
it was ten o’clock, and you left, and I
could have stopped you… Yet another blind,
momentary sin…
ELLA:
I don’t need anything
from you… Ganus, I will never tell you again.
And if I told you now, it was only because
the snow today is so translucent… Really,
all is well… Days follow days… And then
I will become a mother… other thoughts
unwillingly will occupy me. But now,
you are mine, like the sun! Days will flow
after days… What do you think—perhaps
one day… when your sorrow…
GANUS:
Don’t ask me, Ella!
I don’t want to even think of love!
I answer like a woman… Forgive me… But I
burn with something other, I’m filled with something
other… I dream only of the austere wings,
the straight brows of angels. For a while
I will go to them—away from life, away
from fires, away from greedy dreams… I know
a monastery entangled by cool wisteri
a.
There I will live; through iridescent glass
I’ll look on God, listen as the bellows
of the organ breathe the world’s soul
up to the triumphant heights, and think
about vain feats, about a hero who prays
in the murk of sleeping myrtles, amidst
the fire-flies of Gethsemane…
ELLA:
Oh, Ganus…
I forgot… here, a letter came yesterday…
addressed to my father, with a note saying
it’s for you…
GANUS:
A letter? For me? Show me…
Ah! I knew it! Don’t…
ELLA:
So, can I
tear it up?
GANUS:
Of course.
ELLA:
Give it to me…
GANUS:
Wait…
I don’t know… that smell… that handwriting,
which flies headlong into my memory,
into my soul… Wait! I won’t let it in.
ELLA:
Well, read it…
GANUS:
And let it in? Read it? So that
the old pain can unfurl itself once more?
Once you asked me, should you go… Now
I ask you, shall I read it? Shall I?
ELLA:
I answer: no.
GANUS:
You’re right! There! To shreds… And put this heap
of dried falling stars here… under the table…
in the basket woven with a coat-of-arms…
My hands smell of perfume… There… It’s over.
ELLA:
Oh, how bright it is today!… The spring
shines through… Chirruping. The snow is melting.
There are droplets on the black branches…
Let’s go, let’s go, for a walk, Ganus? Do you
want to?
GANUS:
Yes, Ella, yes! I am free,
free! Let’s go.
ELLA:
You wait here… I’ll go
get dressed… I won’t be long…
[Leaves.]
GANUS [alone, looking out of the window]:
Yes, truly,
it is wonderful; a beautiful day! A pigeon
flew by there… Brightness, dampness… wonderful!
A workman forgot his spade… Somehow she lives
out there, at her sister’s, in that distant place…
Does she know of his death?… Begone, you
cunning devil! Because of you, I destroyed
my homeland… Enough! I hate this woman…
Come back to me, O music of repentance!
Prayers, prayers… I am free, I am free…
[Slowly TREMENS and the four REBELS return, with KLIAN behind them.]
FIRST REBEL:
Be more careful, Tremens, don’t be angry,
understand, you must be more careful!
It’s a dangerous path… You yourself have
heard: under torture they sang of the King…