Siège remis devant le dehors imprenable. Fièvre oeil-main dans la soif du non-soi. Oeil par la main sans cesse changé à l’instant même ou sans cesse il la change. Regard ne s’arrachant à l’invisible que pour s’asséner sur l’infaisable et retour éclair. Trêve à la navette et traces de ce que c’est que d’être et d’être devant. Traces profondes.
For Avigdor Arikha
Siege laid again to the impregnable without. Eye and hand fevering after the unself. By the hand it unceasingly changes die eye unceasingly changed. Back and forth the gaze beating against unseeable and unmakable. Truce for a space and the marks of what it is to be and be in face of. Those deep marks to show.
Part IV
Human Wishes
Human Wishes
ACT 1
A room in Bolt Court. Wednesday, April 14th, 1781. Evening.
Mrs Williams (meditating).
Mrs Desmoulins (knitting).
Miss Carmichael (reading).
The cat Hodge (sleeping — if possible).
Mrs D.
He is late.
Silence.
Mrs D.
God grant all is well.
Silence.
Mrs D.
Puss puss puss puss puss.
Silence.
Mrs W.
What are you reading, young woman?
Miss C.
A book, Madam.
Mrs W.
Ha!
Silence.
Mrs D.
Hodge is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.
Silence.
Mrs D.
For his age, an uncommonly fine cat in all respects. When Hodge was a younger cat, I well remember —
Mrs W.
You are knotting, Madam, I perceive.
Mrs D.
That is so, Madam.
Mrs W.
What?
Mrs D.
I am knotting, my dear Madam, a mitten.
Mrs W.
Ha!
Mrs D.
The second of a pair.
Silence.
Mrs W.
What book, young woman?
Silence.
Mrs W.
(loudly). I say, WHAT BOOK?
Miss C.
Upon my soul, Madam, your perceptions are very fine, very fine indeed, uncommonly fine in all respects.
Mrs W.
I may be old, I may be blind, halt and maim, I may be dying of a pituitous defluxkm, but my hearing is unimpaired.
Miss C.
And your colloquial powers.
Mrs D.
Dying of a what, my dear Madam?
Mrs W.
And while I continue to live, or rather to respire, I hope I shall never submit to be insulted by sluts, slovens, upstarts, parasites and intruders.
Mrs D.
Come, come, my dear lady.
Mrs W.
Knot on, Madam, knot on, or endeavour to talk like a sensible woman.
Mrs D.
You wish to provoke me, Madam, but I am not provoked. The peevishness of decay is not provoking.
Miss C.
Insupportable hag.
Mrs D.
(rising). That is not the language of a gentlewoman, Miss Carmichael.
Miss C.
(rising). I have not the advantage, Madam, of being the relict of a writing-master.
Mrs W.
(striking the floor with her stia). Be seated; and let your scurrility be the recumbent scurrility of polite society.
Miss C.
Nor the daughter of a Welsh mechanic.
Mrs D.
Of whom you are the relict, Miss Carmichael, or of how many, I prefer not to enquire.
Mrs W.
Were I not loath, Madam, to abase myself to your syntax, I could add: or of whom the daughter, or of how many.
Miss C.
(laughs heartily, sits down and resumes her book).
Mrs W.
Is the jest yours, Madam, or it is mine?
Mrs D.
To be called a loose woman would not move me to mirth, for my part, I believe. (Sits down).
Mrs W.
And to be called the daughter of a loose woman, would that move you to mirth, Madam, for your part, do you suppose?
Mrs D.
It would not, Madam, I believe.
Mrs W.
But what would move you, Madam, to mirth, do you suppose, for your part?
Mrs D.
To mirth, Madam, for my part, I am with difficulty moved, I believe.
Silence.
Mrs W.
Madam, for mirth, for my part,
I never had the heart;
Madam, for my part, to mirth
I have not been moved since birth.
Silence.
Mrs W.
Please to take it down. I repeat. (Repeats).
Silence.
Mrs W.
Is it down?
Miss C.
It is, Madam. In what will not dry black and what was never white.
Mrs W.
Give it to me here in my hand.
Miss C.
(rises, takes a blank sheet off the table, bands it to Mrs. W. and returns to her seat).
Mrs W.
(fingering the sheet tenderly). I did not hear the scratch of the quill.
Miss C.
I write very quiet.
Mrs W.
I do not feel the trace of the ink.
Miss C.
I write very fine. Very quiet, I write, and very fine.
Silence.
Mrs W.
Mrs Desmoulins.
Mrs D.
Madam.
Mrs W.
You have ceased to knot, I perceive.
Mrs D.
That is so, Madam.
Silence.
Mrs W.
Mrs Desmoulins.
Mrs D.
What is it, Madam?
Mrs W.
You say you are not merry. Very well. But who is merry in this house? You would not call me merry, Madam, I suppose?
Mrs D.
No, Madam, you are not what I would call merry.
Mrs W.
And Frank, Madam, would you call Frank merry?
Mrs D.
No, Madam, I would not.
Miss C.
Except when drunk.
Mrs D.
The gross hilarity of ebriety is not merriment, Miss Carmichael, to my mind.
Mrs W.
And Levett, Madam, would you call Levett merry?
Mrs D.
I would not call Levett anything, Madam.
Miss C.
Not even when drunk.
Mrs W.
And poor Poll here, Madam, is poor Poll here what you would call merry?
Mrs D.
She was taken into the house to be merry.
Mrs W.
I do not ask why she was taken into the house. I ask is she merry or is she not merry.
Miss C.
I was merry once, I think.
Mrs W.
(loudly). What is it to me, Miss, that you were merry once? Are you merry, or are you not merry, NOW?
Mrs D.
She was taken in to enliven the house. I do not feel myself enlivened, for my part.
Mrs W.
What you feel, Madam, and what you do not feel, is of little consequence.
Mrs D.
I am aware of that, Madam.
Mrs W.
I am not merry, you are not merry, Frank is not merry —
Miss C.
Except when drunk.
Mrs W.
Silence! Levett is not merry. Who remains?
Miss C.
The cat.
Mrs W.
(striking the floor with her stick). Silence!
Silence.
Mrs W.
The cat does not remain. The cat does not enter into the question. The cat cannot be
merry.
Silence.
Mrs W.
I ask, who remains?
Silence.
Mrs W.
(loudly). I ask, who remains, who might be merry?
Mrs D.
Who was taken into the house to be merry.
Mrs W.
(striking the floor with her stick). Silence!
Silence.
Mrs W.
I ask, who remains who might be merry, and I answer (pointing her stick at Miss Carmicbael), she remains.
Silence.
Mrs W.
Is she merry?
Silence.
Mrs W.
(at the top of her voice), is SHE MERRY?
Miss C.
(softly). She is not.
Silence.
Mrs W.
(softly). Nobody in this house is merry.
Mrs D.
I hope you are satisfied, Madam.
Silence.
Miss C.
And the doctor, is the doctor…
Silence.
Mrs D.
He is late.
Silence.
Mrs D.
God grant all is well.
Enter LEVETT, slightly, respectably, even reluctantly drunk, in great coat and bat, which be does not remove, carrying a small black bag. He advances unsteadily into the room & stands peering at the company. Ignored ostentatiously by MrsD. (knitting), Miss Carmicbael (reading), Mrs W. (meditating), be remains a little standing as though lost in thought, then suddenly emits a single hiccup of such force that he is almost thrown off his feet. Startled from her knitting Mrs D., from her book Miss C, from her stage meditation Mrs W., survey him with indignation. L. remains standing a little longer, absorbed & motionless, then on a wide tack returns cautiously to the door, which be does not close behind him. His unsteady footsteps are beard on the stairs. Between the three women exchange of looks. Gestures of disgust. Mouths opened and shut. Finally they resume their occupations.
Mrs W.
Words fail us.
Mrs D.
Now this is where a writer for the stage would have us speak no doubt.
Mrs W.
He would have us explain Levett.
Mrs D.
To the public.
Mrs W.
The ignorant public.
Mrs D.
To the gallery.
Mrs W.
To the pit.
Miss C.
To the boxes.
Mrs W.
Mr Murphy.
Mrs D.
Mr Kelly.
Miss C.
Mr Goldsmith.
Mrs D.
Let us not speak unkindly of the departed.
Miss C.
The departed?
Mrs D.
Can you be unaware, Miss, that the dear doctor’s debt to nature —
Mrs W.
Not a very large one.
Mrs D.
That the dear doctor’s debt to nature is discharged these seven years.
Mrs W.
More.
Mrs D.
Seven years to-day, Madam, almost to the hour, neither more nor less.
Miss C.
His debt to nature?
Mrs W.
She means the wretched man is dead.
Miss C.
Dead!
Mrs W.
Dead. D-E-A-D. Expired. Like the late Queen Anne and the Rev. Edward——.
Miss C.
Well I am heartily sorry indeed to hear that.
Mrs W.
So was I, Miss, heartily sorry indeed to hear it, at the time, being of the opinion, as I still am, that before paying his debt to nature he might have paid his debt to me. Seven shillings and sixpence, extorted on the contemptible security of his Animated Nature. He asked for a guinea.
Mrs D.
There are many, Madam, more sorely disappointed, willing to forget the frailties of a life long since transported to that undiscovered country from whose —
Mrs W.
(striking the floor with her stick). None of your Shakespeare to me, Madam. The fellow may be in Abraham’s bosom for aught I know or care, I still say he ought to be in Newgate.
Mrs D.
(sighs and goes back to her knitting).
Mrs W.
I am dead enough myself, I hope, not to feel any great respect for those that are so entirely.
Silence.
Mrs W.
Also I should very much like to know, Madam, if the power of speech has not deserted you, for what reason it is improper in poor Poll here to mention the ‘dear doctor’, and proper in you to pronounce the sacred name of that drunken staymaker Hugh Kelly, dead and damned these five years.
Mrs D.
You are mistaken, Madam.
Mrs W.
In what am I mistaken?
Mrs D.
In saying that Mr Kelly is no longer with us. It is impossible that the creator of False Delicacy should have been laid to rest and the fact not come to my notice.
Mrs W.
Your notice! After fifty years of dropped stitches, pious exertions and charity-brats, you still speak of your notice.
Mrs D.
(scorns to reply).
Mrs W.
And your laid to rest’! Laid to rest in lakes of boiling small-beer, with his Dublin publican papa, that’s where he’s laid to rest, your stayless, playless, briefless, drunken party-scribbler.
Mrs D.
Miss Carmichael, would you have the great goodness to close the door.
Miss C.
I would not, Madam.
Mrs W.
(at the top of her voice). KELLY IS DEAD, MADAM.
Mrs D.
(rising). I have nothing more to say, Madam, but that you are mistaken, most offensively mistaken. (Exit, banging door behind her).
Enter Mrs D. She speaks from the threshold.
Mrs D.
Mr Kelly is alive and, I trust, drawing his pension without encumbrance. Mr Kelly may be poorly, but he is alive, and, I pray God, drawing his pension without encumbrance. (Exit, banging door.)
Enter Mrs D. as before.
Mrs D.
Should however Mr Kelly, by some extraordinary haphazard, be no longer alive —
Mrs W.
Nor drawing his pension without encumberland.
Mrs D.
And the fact not have come to my notice, I … I … (Weeps).
Mrs D.
I shall regret it bitterly … bitterly … (Exit, closing door softly).
Silence.
Mrs W.
Forgive me. I was musing.
Silence.
Mrs W.
I was musing as to whether what she … what the … (Breaks off. Strikes floor with stick). Pest!
Silence.
Mrs W.
I was musing thus: is what she bitterly regrets, what already it may be she … (Breaks off. Strikes floor with stick), PEST!
Silence.
Mrs W.
(in a strong decided tone). What will the woman bitterly regret, if she does not do so already, the death of Kelly or the fact not having come to her notice.
Silence.
Mrs W.
There is a notice of the mind and there is a notice of the heart. The first is nothing. And the heart is cold.
Silence.
Mrs W.
(now evidently talking to herself). For years, for how many years every day, dead, whose name I had known, whose face I had seen, whose voice I had heard, whose hand I had held, whose — but it is idle to continue. Yesterday, in the flower of her age, Mrs Winterbotham, the greengrocer of the Garden; Monday, Mr Pott of the Fleet; Sunday, in great pain, in his home in Islington, after a lingering illness, surrounded by his family, the Very Reveiend William Walter Okey, Litt.D., LL.D; Saturday, at Bath, suddenly, Miss Tout; Friday, — but it is idle to continue. I know —
Miss C.