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\title{Six Characters in Search of an Author \\
{\large (}\textit{\large Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore}{\large )}\\
{\large A COMEDY IN THE MAKING} }


\author{Luigi Pirandello \\
{\footnotesize English version by Edward Storer} }

\maketitle
\vspace*{\stretch{1}}

By Luigi Pirandello, 1921.

English version by Edward Storer, 1922.

New York: E. P. Dutton, 1922.

A 1925 preface by the author has not been included, as it may not
yet be in the public domain in the U.S. This work is in the public
domain in the U.S.

This \LaTeX{}-based PDF version was prepared by Ron Burkey, from an
HTML version of Eldritch Press.

\vspace{\stretch{1}}

\frontmatter

\pagestyle{myheadings}

\newpage{}

\tableofcontents{}


\chapter*{CHARACTERS of the Comedy in the Making}

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{Characters}

\markboth{Six Characters in Search of an Author}{Characters}

{}

THE FATHER 

THE MOTHER 

THE STEP-DAUGHTER 

THE BOY 

THE CHILD

(The last two do not speak) 

THE SON 

MADAME PACE 

ACTORS of the Company 

THE MANAGER 

LEADING LADY 

LEADING MAN 

SECOND LADY 

L'INGÉNUE 

JUVENILE LEAD 

OTHER ACTORS AND ACTRESSES 

PROPERTY MAN 

PROMPTER 

MACHINIST 

MANAGER'S SECRETARY 

DOOR-KEEPER 

SCENE-SHIFTERS 

\mainmatter{}

\textit{Daytime. The Stage of a Theatre }

\textit{N. B. The Comedy is without acts or scenes. The performance
is interrupted once, without the curtain being lowered, when the manager
and the chief characters withdraw to arrange the scenario. A second
interruption of the action takes place when, by mistake, the stage
hands let the curtain down. }


\chapter*{ACT I }

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{ACT I}

\markboth{Six Characters in Search of an Author}{ACT I}

{}

\textit{The spectators will find the curtain raised and the stage
as it usually is during the day time. It will be half dark, and empty,
so that from the beginning the public may have the impression of an
impromptu performance. Prompter's box and a small table and chair
for the manager. }

\textit{Two other small tables and several chairs scattered about
as during rehearsals. }

\textit{The} ACTORS and ACTRESSES \textit{of the company enter from
the back of the stage: first one, then another, then two together;
nine or ten in all. They are about to rehearse a Pirandello play:}
Mixing it Up. {[}Il giuoco delle parti.{]} \textit{Some of the company
move off towards their dressing rooms. The} PROMPTER \textit{who has
the \char`\"{}book\char`\"{} under his arm, is waiting for the manager
in order to begin the rehearsal.}

\textit{The} ACTORS and ACTRESSES, \textit{some standing, some sitting,
chat and smoke. One perhaps reads a paper; another cons his part.}

\textit{Finally, the} MANAGER \textit{enters and goes to the table
prepared for him. His} SECRETARY \textit{brings him his mail, through
which he glances. The} PROMPTER \textit{takes his seat, turns on a
light, and opens the \char`\"{}book.\char`\"{}}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{throwing a letter down on the table}{]}.
I can't see {[}\textit{To} PROPERTY MAN.{]} Let's have a little light,
please!

\textbf{Property Man.} Yes sir, yes, at once. {[}\textit{A light comes
down on to the stage.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{clapping his hands}{]}. Come along!
Come along! Second act of \char`\"{}Mixing It Up.\char`\"{} {[}\textit{Sits
down.}{]} {[}\textit{The} ACTORS and ACTRESSES \textit{go from the
front of the stage to the wings, all except the three who are to begin
the rehearsal.}{]}

\textbf{The Prompter} {[}\textit{reading the \char`\"{}book\char`\"{}}{]}.
\char`\"{}Leo Gala's house. A curious room serving as dining-room
and study.\char`\"{}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} PROPERTY MAN{]}. Fix up the old
red room.

\textbf{Property Man} {[}\textit{noting it down}{]}. Red set. All
right!

\textbf{The Prompter} {[}\textit{continuing to read from the \char`\"{}book\char`\"{}}{]}.
\char`\"{}Table already laid and writing desk with books and papers.
Book-shelves. Exit rear to Leo's bedroom. Exit left to kitchen. Principal
exit to right.\char`\"{}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{energetically}{]}. Well, you understand:
The principal exit over there; here, the kitchen. {[}\textit{Turning
to actor who is to play the part of} SOCRATES.{]} You make your entrances
and exits here. {[}\textit{To} PROPERTY MAN.{]} The baize doors at
the rear, and curtains.

\textbf{Property Man} {[}\textit{noting it down}{]}. Right!

\textbf{Prompter} {[}\textit{reading as before}{]}. \char`\"{}When
the curtain rises, Leo Gala, dressed in cook's cap and apron is busy
beating an egg in a cup. Philip, also dresesd as a cook, is beating
another egg. Guido Venanzi is seated and listening.\char`\"{}

\textbf{Leading Man} {[}\textit{To} MANAGER{]}. Excuse me, but must
I absolutely wear a cook's cap?

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{annoyed}{]}. I imagine so. It says
so there anyway. {[}\textit{Pointing to the \char`\"{}book.\char`\"{}}{]}

\textbf{Leading Man}. But it's ridiculous!

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{jumping up in a rage}{]}. Ridiculous?
Ridiculous? Is it my fault if France won't send us any snore good
comedies, and we are reduced to putting on Pirandello's works, where
nobody understands anything, and where the author plays the fool with
us all? {[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{grin. The} MANAGER \textit{goes
to} LEADING MAN \textit{and shouts.}{]} Yes sir, you put on the cook's
cap and beat eggs. Do you suppose that with all this egg-beating business
you are on an ordinary stage? Get that out of your head. You represent
the shell of the eggs you are beating! {[}\textit{Laughter and comments
among the} ACTORS.{]} Silence! and listen to my explanations, please!
{[}\textit{To} LEADING MAN.{]} \char`\"{}The empty form of reason
without the fullness of instinct, which is blind.\char`\"{}---You
stand for reason, your wife is instinct. It's a mixing up of the parts,
according to which you who act your own part become the puppet of
yourself. Do you understand?

\textbf{Leading Man}. I'm hanged if I do.

\textbf{The Manager}. Neither do I. But let's get on with it. It's
sure to be a glorious failure anyway. {[}\textit{Confidentially.}{]}
But I say, please face three-quarters. Otherwise, what with the abstruseness
of the dialogue, and the public that won't be able to hear you, the
whole thing will go to hell. Come on! come on!

\textbf{Prompter.} Pardon sir, may I get into my box? There's a bit
of a draught.

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, yes, of course!

\textit{At this point, the} DOOR-KEEPER \textit{has entered from the
stage door and advances towards the manager's table, taking off his
braided cap. During this manoeuvre, the Six} CHARACTERS \textit{enter,
and stop by the door at back of stage, so that when the} DOOR-KEEPER
\textit{is about to announce their coming to the} MANAGER, \textit{they
are already on the stage. A tenuous light surrounds them, almost as
if irradiated by them---the faint breath of their fantastic reality.}

\textit{This light will disappear when they come forward towards the
actors. They preserve, however, something of the dream lightness in
which they seem almost suspended; but this does not detract from the
essential reality of their forms and expressions. }

\textit{He who is known as} THE FATHER \textit{is a man of about 50:
hair, reddish in colour, thin at the temples; he is not bald, however;
thick moustaches, falling over his still fresh mouth, which often
opens in an empty and uncertain smile. He is fattish, pale; with an
especially wide forehead. He has blue, oval-shaped eyes, very clear
and piercing. Wears light trousers and a dark jacket. He is alternatively
mellifluous and violent in his manner.}

THE MOTHER \textit{seems crushed and terrified as if by an intolerable
weight of shame and abasement. She is dressed in modest black and
wears a thick widow's veil of crêpe. When she lifts this, she reveals
a wax-like face. She always keeps her eyes downcast.}

THE STEP-DAUGHTER, \textit{is dashing, almost impudent, beautiful.
She wears mourning too, but with great elegance. She shows contempt
for the timid half-frightened manner of the wretched} BOY \textit{(14
years old, and also dressed in black); on the other hand, she displays
a lively tenderness for her little sister,} THE CHILD \textit{(about
four), who is dressed in white, with a black silk sash at the waist.}

THE SON (22) \textit{tall, severe in his attitude of contempt for}
THE FATHER, \textit{supercilious and indifferent to} THE MOTHER. \textit{He
looks as if he had come on the stage against his will.}

\textbf{Door-keeper} {[}\textit{cap in hand}{]}. Excuse me, sir\ldots

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{rudely}{]}. Eh? What is it?

\textbf{Door-keeper} {[}\textit{timidly}{]}. These people are asking
for you, sir.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{furious}{]}. I am rehearsing, and
you know perfectly well no one's allowed to come in during rehearsals!
{[}\textit{Turning to the} CHARACTERS.{]} Who are you, please? What
do you want?

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{coming forward a little, followed by
the others who seem embarrassed}{]}. As a matter of fact...we have
come here in search of an author\ldots

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{half angry, half amazed}{]}. An author?
What author?

\textbf{The Father}. Any author, sir.

\textbf{The Manager}. But there's no author here. We are not rehearsing
a new piece.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{vivaciously}{]}. So much the
better, so much the better! We can be your new piece.

\textbf{An Actor} {[}\textit{coming forward from the others}{]}. Oh,
do you hear that?

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{to} STEP-DAUGHTER{]}. Yes, but if the
author isn't here\ldots {[}\textit{To} MANAGER.{]} unless you would
be willing\ldots

\textbf{The Manager}. You are trying to be funny.

\textbf{The Father}. No, for Heaven's sake, what are you saying? We
bring you a drama, sir.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. We may be your fortune.

\textbf{The Manager}. Will you oblige me by going away? We haven't
time to waste with mad people.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{mellifluously}{]}. Oh sir, you know
well that life is full of infinite absurdities, which, strangely enough,
do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.

\textbf{The Manager}. What the devil is he talking about?

\textbf{The Father}. I say that to reverse the ordinary process may
well be considered a madness: that is, to create credible situations,
in order that they may appear true. But permit me to observe that
if this be madness, it is the sole \textit{raison d'être} of your
profession, gentlemen. {[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{look hurt and
perplexed.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{getting up and looking at him}{]}.
So our profession seems to you one worthy of madmen then?

\textbf{The Father}. Well, to make seem true that which isn't true\ldots{}without
any need\ldots{}for a joke as it were\ldots{} Isn't that your mission,
gentlemen: to give life to fantastic characters on the stage?

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{interpreting the rising anger of the}
COMPANY{]}. But I would beg you to believe, my dear sir, that the
profession of the comedian is a noble one. If today, as things go,
the playwrights give us stupid comedies to play and puppets to represent
instead of men, remember we are proud to have given life to immortal
works here on these very boards! {[}\textit{The} ACTORS, \textit{satisfied,
applaud their} MANAGER.{]}

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{interrupting furiously}{]}. Exactly,
perfectly, to living beings more alive than those who breathe and
wear clothes: beings less real perhaps, but truer! I agree with you
entirely. {[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{look at one another in amazement.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. But what do you mean? Before, you said\ldots

\textbf{The Father}. No, excuse me, I meant it for you, sir, who were
crying out that you had no time to lose with madmen, while no one
better than yourself knows that nature uses the instrument of human
fantasy in order to pursue her high creative purpose.

\textbf{The Manager}. Very well,---but where does all this take us?

\textbf{The Father}. Nowhere! It is merely to show you that one is
born to life in many forms, in many shapes, as tree, or as stone,
as water, as butterfly, or as woman. So one may also be born a character
in a play.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{with feigned comic dismay}{]}. So
you and these other friends of yours have been born characters?

\textbf{The Father}. Exactly, and alive as you see! {[}MANAGER \textit{and}
ACTORS \textit{burst out laughing.}{]}

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{hurt}{]}. I am sorry you laugh, because
we carry in us a drama, as you can guess from this woman here veiled
in black.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{losing patience at last and almost
indignant}{]}. Oh, chuck it! Get away please! Clear out of here! {[}\textit{To}
PROPERTY MAN.{]} For Heaven's sake, turn them out!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{resisting}{]}. No, no, look here, we\ldots{}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{roaring}{]}. We come here to work,
you know.

\textbf{Leading Actor}. One cannot let oneself be made such a fool
of.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{determined, coming forward}{]}. I marvel
at your incredulity, gentlemen. Are you not accustomed to see the
characters created by an author spring to life in yourselves and face
each other? Just because there is no \char`\"{}book\char`\"{} {[}\textit{Pointing
to the} PROMPTER'S \textit{box.}{]} which contains us, you refuse
to believe\ldots{}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{advances towards} MANAGER, \textit{smiling
and coquettish}{]}. Believe me, we are really six most interesting
characters, sir; side-tracked however.

\textbf{The Father}. Yes, that is the word! {[}\textit{To} MANAGER
\textit{all at once.}{]} In the sense, that is, that the author who
created us alive no longer wished, or was no longer able, materially
to put us into a work of art. And this was a real crime, sir; because
he who has had the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death.
He cannot die. The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation
will die, but his creation does not die. And to live for ever, it
does not need to have extraordinary gifts or to be able to work wonders.
Who was Sancho Panza? Who was Don Abbondio? Yet they live eternally
because---live germs as they were---they had the fortune to find a
fecundating matrix, a fantasy which could raise and nourish them:
make them live for ever!

\textbf{The Manager}. That is quite all right. But what do you want
here, all of you?

\textbf{The Father}. We want to live.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{ironically}{]}. For Eternity?

\textbf{The Father}. No, sir, only for a moment\ldots{}in you.

\textbf{An Actor}. Just listen to him!

\textbf{Leading Lady.} They want to live, in us\ldots{}

\textbf{Juvenile Lead} {[}\textit{pointing to the} STEP-DAUGHTER{]}.
I've no objection, as far as that one is concerned!

\textbf{The Father}. Look here! look here! The comedy has to be made.
{[}\textit{To the} MANAGER.{]} But if you and your actors are willing,
we can soon concert it among ourselves.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{annoyed}{]}. But what do you want
to concert? We don't go in for concerts here. Here we play dramas
and comedies!

\textbf{The Father}. Exactly! That is just why we have come to you.

\textbf{The Manager}. And where is the \char`\"{}book\char`\"{}?

\textbf{The Father}. It is in us! {[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{laugh.}{]}
The drama is in us, and we are the drama. We are impatient to play
it. Our inner passion drives us on to this.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{disdainful, alluring, treacherous,
full of impudence}{]}. My passion, sir! Ah, if you only knew! My passion
for him! {[}\textit{Points to the} FATHER \textit{and makes a pretence
of embracing him. Then she breaks out into a loud laugh.}{]}

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{angrily}{]}. Behave yourself! And please
don't laugh in that fashion.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. With your permission, gentlemen, I, who
am a two months' orphan, will show you how I can dance and sing. {[}\textit{Sings
and then dances} Prenez garde à Tchou-Tchin-Tchou.{]}

Les chinois sont un peuple malin,\\
 De Shangal à Pekin,\\
 Ils ont mis des écriteaux partout:\\
 Prenez garde à Tchou-Tchin-Tchou.

\textbf{Actors and Actresses}. Bravo! Well done! Tip-top!

\textbf{The Manager}. Silence! This isn't a café concert, you know!
{[}\textit{Turning to the} FATHER \textit{in consternation.}{]} Is
she mad?

\textbf{The Father}. Mad? No, she's worse than mad.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{to} MANAGER{]}. Worse? Worse?
Listen! Stage this drama for us at once! Then you will see that at
a certain moment I\ldots{}when this little darling here... {[}\textit{Takes
the} CHILD \textit{by the hand and leads her to the} MANAGER.{]} Isn't
she a dear? {[}\textit{Takes her up and kisses her.}{]} Darling! Darling!
{[}\textit{Puts her down again and adds feelingly.}{]} Well, when
God suddenly takes this dear little child away from that poor mother
there; and this imbecile here {[}\textit{Seizing hold of the} BOY
\textit{roughly and pushing him forward.}{]} does the stupidest things,
like the fool he is, you will see me run away. Yes, gentlemen, I shall
be off. But the moment hasn't arrived yet. After what has taken place
between him and me {[}\textit{indicates the} FATHER \textit{with a
horrible wink.}{]} I can't remain any longer in this society, to have
to witness the anguish of this mother here for that fool\ldots {[}\textit{Indicates
the} SON.{]} Look at him! Look at him! See how indifferent, how frigid
he is, because he is the legitimate son. He despises me, despises
him {[}\textit{Pointing to the} BOY.{]}, despises this baby here;
because\ldots{}we are bastards. {[}\textit{Goes to the} MOTHER \textit{and
embraces her.}{]} And he doesn't want to recognize her as his mother---she
who is the common mother of us all. He looks down upon her as if she
were only the mother of us three bastards. Wretch! {[}\textit{She
says all this very rapidly, excitedly. At the word \char`\"{}bastards\char`\"{}
she raises her voice, and almost spits out the final \char`\"{}Wretch!\char`\"{}}{]}

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{to the} MANAGER, \textit{in anguish}{]}.
In the name of these two little children, I beg you\ldots {[}\textit{She
grows faint and is about to fall.}{]} Oh God!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{coming forward to support her as do
some of the} ACTORS{]}. Quick, a chair, a chair for this poor widow!

\textbf{The Actors.} Is it true? Has she really fainted?

\textbf{The Manager}. Quick, a chair! Here! {[}\textit{One of the}
ACTORS \textit{brings a chair, the} OTHERS \textit{proffer assistance.
The} MOTHER \textit{tries to prevent the} FATHER \textit{from lifting
the veil which covers her face.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. Look at her! Look at her!

\textbf{The Mother}. No, no; stop it please!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{raising her veil}{]}. Let them see
you!

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{rising and covering her face with her
hands, in desperation}{]}. I beg you, sir, to prevent this man from
carrying out his plan which is loathsorn.e to me.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{dumbfounded}{]}. I don't understand
at all. What is the situation? Is this lady your wife? {[}\textit{To
the} FATHER.{]}

\textbf{The Father}. Yes, gentlemen: my wife!

\textbf{The Manager}. But how can she be a widow if you are alive?
{[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{find relief for their astonishment
in a loud laugh.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. Don't laugh! Don't laugh like that, for Heaven's
sake. Her drama lies just here in this: she has had a lover, a man
who ought to be here.

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{with a cry}{]}. No! No!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Fortunately for her, he is dead. Two months
ago as I said. We are in mourning, as you see.

\textbf{The Father}. He isn't here you see, not because he is dead.
He isn't here---look at her a moment and you will understand---because
her drama isn't a drama of the love of two men for whom she was incapable
of feeling anything except possibly a little gratitude---gratitude
not for me but for the other. She isn't a woman, she is a mother,
and her drama---powerful sir, I assure you---lies, as a matter of
fact, all in these four children she has had by two men.

\textbf{The Mother}. I had them? Have you got the courage to say that
I wanted them? {[}\textit{To the} COMPANY.{]} It was his doing. It
was he who gave me that other man, who forced me to go away with him.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. It isn't true.

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{startled}{]}. Not true, isn't it?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. No, it isn't true, it just isn't true.

\textbf{The Mother}. And what can you know about it?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. It isn't true. Don't believe it. {[}\textit{To}
MANAGER.{]} Do you know why she says so? For that fellow there. {[}\textit{Indicates
the} SON.{]} She tortures herself, destroys herself on account of
the neglect of that son there; and she wants him to believe that if
she abandoned him when he was only two years old, it was because he
{[}\textit{Indicates the} FATHER.{]} made her do so.

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{vigorously}{]}. He forced me to it,
and I call God to witness it. {[}\textit{To the} MANAGER.{]} Ask him
{[}\textit{Indicates} HUSBAND.{]} if it isn't true. Let him speak.
You {[}\textit{To} DAUGHTER.{]} are not in a position to know anything
about it.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. I know you lived in peace and happiness
with my father while he lived. Can you deny it?

\textbf{The Mother}. No, I don't deny it\ldots

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. He was always full of affection and kindness
for you. {[}\textit{To the} BOY, \textit{angrily.}{]} It's true, isn't
it? Tell them! Why don't you speak, you little fool?

\textbf{The Mother}. Leave the poor boy alone. Why do you want to
make me appear ungrateful, daughter? I don't want to offend your father.
I have answered him that I didn't abandon my house and my son through
any fault of mine, nor from any wilful passion.

\textbf{The Father}. It is true. It was my doing.

\textbf{Leading Man} {[}\textit{to the} COMPANY{]}. What a spectacle!

\textbf{Leading Lady.} We are the audience this time.

\textbf{Juvenile Lead}. For once, in a way.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{beginning to get really interested}{]}.
Let's hear them out. Listen!

\textbf{The Son}. Oh yes, you're going to hear a fine bit now. He
will talk to you of the Demon of Experiment.

\textbf{The Father}. You are a cynical imbecile. I've told you so
already a hundred times. {[}\textit{To the} MANAGER.{]} He tries to
make fun of me on account of this expression which I have found to
excuse myself with.

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{with disgust}{]}. Yes, phrases! phrases!

\textbf{The Father}. Phrases! Isn't everyone consoled when faced with
a trouble or fact he doesn't understand, by a word, some simple word,
which tells us nothing and yet calms us?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Even in the case of remorse. In fact,
especially then.

\textbf{The Father}. Remorse? No, that isn't true. I've done more
than use words to quieten the remorse in me.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Yes, there was a bit of money too. Yes,
yes, a bit of money. There were the hundred lire he was about to offer
me in payment, gentlemen\ldots {[}\textit{Sensation of horror among
the} ACTORS.{]}

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{to the} STEP-DAUGHTER{]}. This is vile.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Vile? There they were in a pale blue envelope
on a little mahogany table in the back of Madame Pace's shop. You
know Madame Pace---one of those ladies who attract poor girls of good
family into their ateliers, under the pretext of their selling \textit{robes
et manteaux.}

\textbf{The Son}. And he thinks he has bought the right to tyrannize
over us all with those hundred lire he was going to pay; but which,
fortunately---note this, gentlemen---he had no chance of paying.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. It was a near thing, though, you know!
{[}\textit{Laughs ironically.}{]}

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{protesting}{]}. Shame, my daughter,
shame!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Shame indeed! This is my revenge! I am
dying to live that scene\ldots The room\ldots{}I see it\ldots Here
is the window with the mantles exposed, there the divan, the looking-glass,
a screen, there in front of the window the little mahogany table with
the blue envelope containing one hundred lire. I see it. I see it.
I could take hold of it\ldots But you, gentlemen, you ought to turn
your backs now: I am almost nude, you know. But I don't blush: I leave
that to him. {[}\textit{Indicating} FATHER.{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. I don't understand this at all.

\textbf{The Father}. Naturally enough. I would ask you, sir. to exercise
your authority a little here, and let me speak before you believe
all she is trying to blame me with. Let me explain.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Ah yes, explain it in your own way.

\textbf{The Father}. But don't you see that the whole trouble lies
here. In words, words. Each one of us has within him a whole world
of things, each man of us his own special world. And how can we ever
come to an understanding if I put in the words I utter the sense and
value of things as I see them; while you who listen to me must inevitably
translate them according to the conception of things each one of you
has within himself. We think we understand each other, but we never
really do. Look here! This woman {[}\textit{Indicating the} MOTHER.{]}
takes all my pity for her as a specially ferocious form of cruelty.

\textbf{The Mother}. But you drove me away.

\textbf{The Father}. Do you hear her? I drove her away! She believes
I really sent her away.

\textbf{The Mother}. You know how to talk, and I don't; but, believe
me, sir {[}\textit{To} MANAGER.{]}, after he had married me\ldots{}who
knows why?\ldots I was a poor insignificant woman\ldots

\textbf{The Father}. But, good Heavens! it was just for your humility
that I married you. I loved this simplicity in you. {[}\textit{He
stops when he sees she makes signs to contradict him, opens his arms
wide in sign of desperation, seeing how hopeless it is to make himself
understood.}{]} You see she denies it. Her mental deafness, believe
me, is phenomenal, the limit: {[}\textit{Touches his forehead.}{]}
deaf, deaf, mentally deaf! She has plenty of feeling. Oh yes, a good
heart for the children; but the brain---deaf, to the point of desperation

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Yes, but ask him how his intelligence
has helped us.

\textbf{The Father}. If we could see all the evil that may spring
from good, what should we do? {[}\textit{At this point the} LEADING
LADY \textit{who is biting her lips with rage at seeing the} LEADING
MAN \textit{flirting with the} STEP-DAUGHTER, \textit{comes forward
and says to the} MANAGER.{]}

\textbf{Leading Lady.} Excuse me, but are we going to rehearse today?

\textbf{Manager}. Of course, of course; but let's hear them out.

\textbf{Juvenile Lead}. This is something quite new.

\textbf{L'Ingénue.} Most interesting!

\textbf{Leading Lady.} Yes, for the people who like that kind of thing.
{[}\textit{Casts a glance at} LEADING MAN.{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} FATHER{]}. You must please explain
yourself quite clearly. {[}\textit{Sits down.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. Very well then: listen! I had in my service a
poor man, a clerk, a secretary of mine, full of devotion, who became
friends with her. {[}\textit{Indicating the} MOTHER.{]} They understood
one another, were kindred souls in fact, without, however, the least
suspicion of any evil existing. They were incapable even of thinking
of it.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. So he thought of it---for them!

\textbf{The Father}. That's not true. I meant to do good to them---and
to myself, I confess, at the same time. Things had come to the point
that I could not say a word to either of them without their making
a mute appeal, one to the other, with their eyes. I could see them
silently asking each other how I was to be kept in countenance, how
I was to be kept quiet. And this, believe me, was just about enough
of itself to keep me in a constant rage, to exasperate me beyond measure.

\textbf{The Manager}. And why didn't you send him away then---this
secretary of yours?

\textbf{The Father}. Precisely what I did, sir. And then I had to
watch this poor woman drifting forlornly about the house like an animal
without a master, like an animal one has taken in out of pity.

\textbf{The Mother}. Ah yes\ldots

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{suddenly turning to the} MOTHER{]}.
It's true about the son anyway, isn't it?

\textbf{The Mother}. He took my son away from me first of all.

\textbf{The Father}. But not from cruelty. I did it so that he should
grow up healthy and strong by living in the country.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{pointing to him ironically}{]}.
As one can see.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{quickly}{]}. Is it my fault if he has
grown up like this? I sent him to a wet nurse in the country, a peasant,
as she did not seem to me strong enough, though she is of humble origin.
That was, anyway, the reason I married her. Unpleasant all this may
be, but how can it be helped? My mistake possibly, but there we are!
All my life I have had these confounded aspirations towards a certain
moral sanity. {[}\textit{At this point the} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{bursts
into a noisy laugh.}{]} Oh, stop it! Stop it! I can't stand it.

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, please stop it, for Heaven's sake.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. But imagine moral sanity from him, if
you please---the client of certain ateliers like that of Madame Pace!

\textbf{The Father}. Fool! That is the proof that I am a man! This
seeming contradiction, gentlemen, is the strongest proof that I stand
here a live man before you. Why, it is just for this very incongruity
in my nature that I have had to suffer what I have. I could not live
by the side of that woman {[}\textit{Indicating the} MOTHER.{]} any
longer; but not so much for the boredom she inspired me with as for
the pity I felt for her.

\textbf{The Mother}. And so he turned me out---.

\textbf{The Father}.---well provided for! Yes, I sent her to that
man, gentlemen\ldots{}to let her go free of me.

\textbf{The Mother}. And to free himself.

\textbf{The Father}. Yes, I admit it. It was also a liberation for
me. But great evil has come of it. I meant well when I did it; and
I did it more for her sake than mine. I swear it. {[}\textit{Crosses
his arms on his chest; then turns suddenly to the} MOTHER.{]} Did
I ever lose sight of you until that other man carried you off to another
town, like the angry fool he was? And on account of my pure interest
in you\ldots{}my pure interest, I repeat, that had no base motive
in it\ldots{}I watched with the tenderest concern the new family
that grew up around her. She can bear witness to this. {[}\textit{Points
to the} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Oh yes, that's true enough. When I was
a kiddie, so so high, you know, with plaits over my shoulders and
knickers longer than my skirts, I used to see him waiting outside
the school for me to come out. He came to see how I was growing up.

\textbf{The Father}. This is infamous, shameful!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. No. Why?

\textbf{The Father}. Infamous! infamous! {[}\textit{Then excitedly
to} MANAGER \textit{explaining.}{]} After she {[}\textit{Indicating}
MOTHER.{]} went away, my house seemed suddenly empty. She was my incubus,
but she filled my house. I was like a dazed fly alone in the empty
rooms. This boy here {[}\textit{Indicating the} SON.{]} was educated
away from home, and when he came back, he seemed to me to be no more
mine. With no mother to stand between him and me, he grew up entirely
for himself, on his own, apart, with no tie of intellect or affection
binding him to me. And then---strange but true---I was driven, by
curiosity at first and then by some tender sentiment, towards her
family, which had come into being through my will. The thought of
her began gradually to fill up the emptiness I felt all around me.
I wanted to know if she were happy in living out the simple daily
duties of life. I wanted to think of her as fortunate and happy because
far away from the complicated torments of my spirit. And so, to have
proof of this, I used to watch that child coming out of school.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Yes, yes. True. He used to follow me in
the street and smiled at me, waved his hand, like this. I would look
at him with interest, wondering who he might be. I told my mother,
who guessed at once. {[}\textit{The} MOTHER \textit{agrees with a
nod.}{]} Then she didn't want to send me to school for some days;
and when I finally went back, there he was again---looking so ridiculous---with
a paper parcel in his hands. He came close to me, caressed me, and
drew out a fine straw hat from the parcel, with a bouquet of flowers---all
for me!

\textbf{The Manager}. A bit discursive this, you know!

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{contemptuously}{]}. Literature! Literature!

\textbf{The Father}. Literature indeed! This is life, this is passion!

\textbf{The Manager}. It may be, but it won't act.

\textbf{The Father}. I agree. This is only the part leading up. I
don't suggest this should be staged. She {[}\textit{Pointing to the}
STEP-DAUGHTER.{]}, as you see, is no longer the flapper with plaits
down her back---.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}.---and the knickers showing below the skirt!

\textbf{The Father}. The drama is coming now, sir; something new,
complex, most interesting.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. As soon as my father died\ldots{}

\textbf{The Father}.---there was absolute misery for them. They came
back here, unknown to me. Through her stupidity! {[}\textit{Pointing
to the} MOTHER.{]} It is true she can barely write her own name; but
she could anyhow have got her daughter to write to me that they were
in need\ldots

\textbf{The Mother}. And how was I to divine all this sentiment in
him? The Father. That is exactly your mistake, never to have guessed
any of my sentiments.

\textbf{The Mother}. After so many years apart, and all that had happened\ldots

\textbf{The Father}. Was it my fault if that fellow carried you away?
It happened quite suddenly; for after he had obtained some job or
other, I could find no trace of them; and so, not unnaturally, my
interest in them dwindled. But the drama culminated unforeseen and
violent on their return, when I was impelled by my miserable flesh
that still lives... Ah! what misery, what wretchedness is that of
the man who is alone and disdains debasing liaisons! Not old enough
to do without women, and not young enough to go and look for one without
shame. Misery? It's worse than misery; it's a horror; for no woman
can any longer give him love; and when a man feels this... One ought
to do without, you say? Yes, yes. I know. Each of us when he appears
before his fellows is clothed in a certain dignity. But every man
knows what unconfessable things pass within the secrecy of his own
heart. One gives way to the temptation, only to rise from it again,
afterwards, with a great eagerness to re-establish one's dignity,
as if it were a tombstone to place on the grave of one's shame, and
a monument to hide and sign the memory of our weaknesses. Everybody's
in the same case. Some folks haven't the courage to say certain things,
that's all!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. All appear to have the courage to do them
though.

\textbf{The Father}. Yes, but in secret. Therefore, you want more
courage to say these things. Let a man but speak these things out,
and folks at once label him a cynic. But it isn't true. He is like
all the others, better indeed, because he isn't afraid to reveal with
the light of the intelligence the red shame of human bestiality on
which most men close their eyes so as not to see it. Woman---for example,
look at her case! She turns tantalizing inviting glances on you. You
seize her. No sooner does she feel herself in your grasp than she
closes her eyes. It is the sign of her mission, the sign by which
she says to man: \char`\"{}Blind yourself, for I am blind.\char`\"{}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Sometimes she can close them no more:
when she no longer feels the need of hiding her shame to herself,
but dry-eyed and dispassionately, sees only that of the man who has
blinded himself without love. Oh, all these intellectual complications
make me sick, disgust me---all this philosophy that uncovers the beast
in man, and then seeks to save him, excuse him.... I can't stand it,
sir. When a man seeks to \char`\"{}simplify\char`\"{} life bestially,
throwing aside every relic of humanity, every chaste aspiration, every
pure feeling, all sense of ideality, duty, modesty, shame...then nothing
is more revolting and nauseous than a certain kind of remorse---crocodiles'
tears, that's what it is.

\textbf{The Manager}. Let's come to the point. This is only discussion.

\textbf{The Father}. Very good, sir! But a fact is like a sack which
won't stand up when it is empty. In order that it may stand up, one
has to put into it the reason and sentiment which have caused it to
exist. I couldn't possibly know that after the death of that man,
they had decided to return here, that they were in misery, and that
she {[}\textit{Pointing to the} MOTHER.{]} had gone to work as a modiste,
and at a shop of the type of that of Madame Pace.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. A real high-class modiste, you must know,
gentlemen. In appearance, she works for the leaders of the best society;
but she arranges matters so that these elegant ladies serve her purpose...without
prejudice to other ladies who are...well...only so so.

\textbf{The Mother}. You will believe me, gentlemen, that it never
entered my mind that the old hag offered me work because she had her
eye on my daughter.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Poor mamma! Do you know, sir, what that
woman did when I brought her back the work my mother had finished?
She would point out to me that I had torn one of my frocks, and she
would give it back to my mother to mend. It was I who paid for it,
always I; while this poor creature here believed she was sacrificing
herself for me and these two children here, sitting up at night sewing
Madame Pace's robes.

\textbf{The Manager}. And one day you met there...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Him, him. Yes sir, an old client. There's
a scene for you to play! Superb!

\textbf{The Father}. She, the Mother arrived just then...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{treacherously}{]}. Almost in
time!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{crying out}{]}. No, in time! in time!
Fortunately I recognized her...in time. And I took them back home
with me to my house. You can imagine now her position and mine; she,
as you see her; and I who cannot look her in the face.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Absurd! How can I possibly be expected---after
that---to be a modest young miss, a fit person to go with his confounded
aspirations for \char`\"{}a solid moral sanity\char`\"{}?

\textbf{The Father}. For the drama lies all in this---in the conscience
that I have, that each one of us has. We believe this conscience to
be a single thing, but it is many-sided. There is one for this person,
and another for that. Diverse consciences. So we have this illusion
of being one person for all, of having a personality that is unique
in all our acts. But it isn't true. We perceive this when, tragically
perhaps, in something we do, we are as it were, suspended, caught
up in the air on a kind of hook. Then we perceive that all of us was
not in that act, and that it would be an atrocious injustice to judge
us by that action alone, as if all our existence were summed up in
that one deed. Now do you understand the perfidy of this girl? She
surprised me in a place, where she ought not to have known me, just
as I could not exist for her; and she now seeks to attach to me a
reality such as I could never suppose I should have to assume for
her in a shameful and fleeting moment of my life. I feel this above
all else. And the drama, you will see, acquires a tremendous value
from this point. Then there is the position of the others...his...
{[}\textit{Indicating the} SON.{]}

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{shrugging his shoulders scorn fully}{]}.
Leave me alone! I don't come into this.

\textbf{The Father}. What? You don't come into this?

\textbf{The Son}. I've got nothing to do with it, and don't want to
have; because you know well enough I wasn't made to be mixed up in
all this with the rest of you.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. We are only vulgar folk! He is the fine
gentleman. You may have noticed, Mr. Manager, that I fix him now and
again with a look of scorn while he lowers his eyes---for he knows
the evil he has done me.

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{scarcely looking at her}{]}. I?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. You! you! I owe my life on the streets
to you. Did you or did you not deny us, with your behaviour, I won't
say the intimacy of home, but even that mere hospitality which makes
guests feel at their ease? We were intruders who had come to disturb
the kingdom of your legitimacy. I should like to have you witness,
Mr. Manager, certain scenes between him and me. He says I have tyrannized
over everyone. But it was just his behaviour which made me insist
on the reason for which I had come into the house,---this reason he
calls \char`\"{}vile\char`\"{}---into his house, with my mother who
is his mother too. And I came as mistress of the house.

\textbf{The Son}. It's easy for them to put me always in the wrong.
But imagine, gentlemen, the position of a son, whose fate it is to
see arrive one day at his home a young woman of impudent bearing,
a young woman who inquires for his father, with whom who knows what
business she has. This young man has then to witness her return bolder
than ever, accompanied by that child there. He is obliged to watch
her treat his father in an equivocal and confidential manner. She
asks money of him in a way that lets one suppose he must give it her,
must, do you understand, because he has every obligation to do so.

\textbf{The Father}. But I have, as a matter of fact, this obligation.
I owe it to your mother.

\textbf{The Son}. How should I know? When had I ever seen or heard
of her? One day there arrive with her {[}\textit{Indicating} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]}
that lad and this baby here. I am told: \char`\"{}This is your mother
too, you know.\char`\"{} I divine from her manner {[}\textit{Indicating}
STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{again.}{]} why it is they have come home. I
had rather not say what I feel and think about it. I shouldn't even
care to confess to myself. No action can therefore be hoped for from
me in this affair. Believe me, Mr. Manager, I am an \char`\"{}unrealized\char`\"{}
character, dramatically speaking; and I find myself not at all at
ease in their company. Leave me out of it, I beg you.

\textbf{The Father}. What? It is just because you are so that...

\textbf{The Son}. How do you know what I am like? When did you ever
bother your head about me?

\textbf{The Father}. I admit it. I admit it. But isn't that a situation
in itself? This aloofness of yours which is so cruel to me and to
your mother, who returns home and sees you almost for the first time
grown up, who doesn't recognize you but knows you are her son... {[}\textit{Pointing
out the} MOTHER \textit{to the} MANAGER.{]} See, she's crying!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{angrily, stamping her foot}{]}.
Like a fool!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{indicating} STEP-DAUGHTER{]}. She can't
stand him you know. {[}\textit{Then referring again to the} SON.{]}
He says he doesn't come into the affair, whereas he is really the
hinge of the whole action. Look at that lad who is always clinging
to his mother, frightened and humiliated. It is on account of this
fellow here. Possibly his situation is the most painful of all. He
feels himself a stranger more than the others. The poor little chap
feels mortified, humiliated at being brought into a home out of charity
as it were. {[}\textit{In confidence.}{]} He is the image of his father.
Hardly talks at all. Humble and quiet.

\textbf{The Manager}. Oh, we'll cut him out. You've no notion what
a nuisance boys are on the stage...

\textbf{The Father}. He disappears soon, you know. And the baby too.
She is the first to vanish from the scene. The drama consists finally
in this: when that mother re-enters my house, her family born outside
of it, and shall we say superimposed on the original, ends with the
death of the little girl, the tragedy of the boy and the flight of
the elder daughter. It cannot go on, because it is foreign to its
surroundings. So after much torment, we three remain: I, the mother,
that son. Then, owing to the disappearance of that extraneous family,
we too find ourselves strange to one another. We find we are living
in an atmosphere of mortal desolation which is the revenge, as he
{[}\textit{Indicating} SON.{]} scornfully said of the Demon of Experiment,
that unfortunately hides in me. Thus, sir, you see when faith is lacking,
it becomes impossible to create certain states of happiness, for we
lack the necessary humility. Vaingloriously, we try to substitute
ourselves for this faith, creating thus for the rest of the world
a reality which we believe after their fashion, while, actually, it
doesn't exist. For each one of us has his own reality to be respected
before God, even when it is harmful to one's very self.

\textbf{The Manager}. There is something in what you say. I assure
you all this interests me very much. I begin to think there's the
stuff for a drama in all this, and not a bad drama either.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{coming forward}{]}. When you've
got a character like me.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{shutting her up, all excited to learn
the decision of the} MANAGER{]}. You be quiet!

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{reflecting, heedless of interruption}{]}.
It's new...hem...yes...

\textbf{The Father}. Absolutely new!

\textbf{The Manager}. You've got a nerve though, I must say, to come
here and fling it at me like this...

\textbf{The Father}. You will understand, sir, born as we are for
the stage...

\textbf{The Manager}. Are you amateur actors then?

\textbf{The Father}. No. I say born for the stage, because...

\textbf{The Manager}. Oh, nonsense. You're an old hand, you know.

\textbf{The Father}. No sir, no. We act that rôle for which we have
been cast, that rôle which we are given in life. And in my own case,
passion itself, as usually happens, becomes a trifle theatrical when
it is exalted.

\textbf{The Manager}. Well, well, that will do. But you see, without
an author... I could give you the address of an author if you like...

\textbf{The Father}. No, no. Look here! You must be the author.

\textbf{The Manager}. I? What are you talking about?

\textbf{The Father}. Yes, you, you! Why not?

\textbf{The Manager}. Because I have never been an author: that's
why.

\textbf{The Father}. Then why not turn author now? Everybody does
it. You don't want any special qualities. Your task is made much easier
by the fact that we are all here alive before you...

\textbf{The Manager}. It won't do.

\textbf{The Father}. What? When you see us live our drama...

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, that's all right. But you want someone
to write it.

\textbf{The Father}. No, no. Someone to take it down, possibly, while
we play it, scene by scene! It will be enough to sketch it out at
first, and then try it over.

\textbf{The Manager}. Well.... I am almost tempted. It's a bit of
an idea. One might have a shot at it.

\textbf{The Father}. Of course. You'll see what scenes will come out
of it. I can give you one, at once...

\textbf{The Manager}. By Jove, it tempts me. I'd like to have a go
at it. Let's try it out. Come with me to my office. {[}\textit{Turning
to the} ACTORS.{]} You are at liberty for a bit, but don't step out
of the theatre for long. In a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes,
all back here again! {[}\textit{To the} FATHER.{]} We'll see what
can be done. Who knows if we don't get something really extraordinary
out of it?

\textbf{The Father}. There's no doubt about it. They {[}\textit{Indicating
the} CHARACTERS.{]} had better come with us too, hadn't they?

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, yes. Come on! come on! {[}\textit{Moves
away and then turning to the} ACTORS.{]} Be punctual, please! {[}MANAGER
\textit{and the Six} CHARACTERS \textit{cross the stage and go off.
The other} ACTORS \textit{remain, looking at one another in astonishment.}{]}

\textbf{Leading Man}. Is he serious? What the devil does be want to
do?

\textbf{Juvenile Lead}. This is rank madness.

\textbf{Third Actor.} Does he expect to knock up a drama in five minutes?

\textbf{Juvenile Lead}. Like the improvisers!

\textbf{Leading Lady.} If he thinks I'm going to take part in a joke
like this...

\textbf{Juvenile Lead}. I'm out of it anyway.

\textbf{Fourth Actor.} I should like to know who they are.. {[}\textit{Alludes
to} CHARACTERS{]}.

\textbf{Third Actor.} What do you suppose? Madmen or rascals!

\textbf{Juvenile Lead}. And he takes them seriously!

\textbf{L'Ingénue.} Vanity! He fancies himself as an author now.

\textbf{Leading Man}. It's absolutely unheard of. If the stage has
come to this...well I'm...

\textbf{Fifth Actor.} It's rather a joke.

\textbf{Third Actor.} Well, we'll see what's going to happen next.

{[}\textit{Thus talking, the} ACTORS \textit{leave the stage; some
going out by the little door at the back; others retiring to their
dressing-rooms.}

\textit{The curtain remains up. }

\textit{The action of the play is suspended for twenty minutes{]}. }


\chapter*{ACT II }

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{ACT II}

\markboth{Six Characters in Search of an Author}{ACT II}

\textit{The stage call-bells ring to warn the company that the play
it about to begin again. }

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} \textit{comes out of the} MANAGER'S \textit{office
along with the} CHILD \textit{and the} BOY. \textit{As she comes out
of the office, she cries:---}

Nonsense! nonsense! Do it yourselves! I'm not going to mix myself
up in this mess. {[}\textit{Turning to the} CHILD \textit{and coming
quickly with her on to the stage.}{]} Come on, Rosetta, let's run!
{[}\textit{The} BOY \textit{follows them slowly, remaining a little
behind and seeming perplexed.}{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{stops, bends over the} CHILD
\textit{and takes the latter's face between her hands}{]}. My little
darling! You're frightened, aren't you? You don't know where we are,
do you? {[}\textit{Pretending to reply to a question of the} CHILD.{]}
What is the stage? It's a place, baby, you know, where people play
at being serious, a place where they act comedies. We've got to act
a comedy now, dead serious, you know; and you're in it also, little
one. {[}\textit{Embraces her, pressing the little head to her breast,
and rocking the} CHILD \textit{for a moment.}{]} Oh darling, darling,
what a horrid comedy you've got to play! What a wretched part they've
found for you! A garden...a fountain...look...just suppose, kiddie,
it's here. Where, you say? Why, right here in the middle. It's all
pretence you know. That's the trouble, my pet: it's all make-belive
here. It's better to imagine it though, because if they fix it up
for you, it'll only be painted cardboard, painted cardboard for the
rockery, the water, the plants... Ah, but I think a baby like this
one would sooner have a make-believe fountain than a real one, so
she could play with it. What a joke it'll be for the others! But for
you, alas! not quite such a joke: you who are real, baby dear, and
really play by a real fountain that is big and green and beautiful,
with ever so many bamboos around it that are reflected in the water,
and a whole lot of little ducks swimming about... No, Rosetta, no,
your mother doesn't bother about you on account of that wretch of
a son there. I'm in the devil of a temper, and as for that lad...
{[}\textit{Seizes} BOY \textit{by the arm to force him to take one
of his hands out of his pockets.}{]} What have you got there? What
are you hiding? {[}\textit{Pulls his hand out of his pocket, looks
into it and catches the glint of a revolver.}{]} Ah! where did you
get this? {[}\textit{The} BOY, \textit{very pale in the face, looks
at her, but does not answer}{]}. Idiot! If I'd been in your place,
instead of killing myself, I'd have shot one of those two, or both
of them: father and son. {[}\textit{The} FATHER \textit{enters from
the office, all excited from his work. The} MANAGER \textit{follows
him.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. Come on, come on dear! Come here for a minute!
We've arranged everything. It's all fixed up.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{also excited}{]}. If you please, young
lady, there are one or two points to settle still. Will you come along?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{following him towards the office}{]}.
Ouff! what's the good, if you've arranged everything. {[}\textit{The}
FATHER, MANAGER \textit{and} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{go back into the
office again (off) for a moment. At the same time, The} SON \textit{followed
by The} MOTHER, \textit{comes out.}{]}

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{looking at the three entering office}{]}.
Oh this is fine, fine! And to think I can't even get away! {[}\textit{The}
MOTHER \textit{attempts to look at him, but lowers her eyes immediately
when} HE \textit{turns away from her.} SHE \textit{then sits down.
The} BOY \textit{and The} CHILD \textit{approach her.} SHE \textit{casts
a glance again at the} SON, \textit{and speaks with humble tones,
trying to draw him into conversation.}{]}

\textbf{The Mother}. And isn't my punishment the worst of all? {[}\textit{Then
seeing from the} SON's \textit{manner that he will not bother himself
about her.}{]} My God! Why are you so cruel? Isn't it enough for one
person to support all this torment? Must you then insist on others
seeing it also?

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{half to himself, meaning the} MOTHER \textit{to
hear, however}{]}. And they want to put it on the stage! If there
was at least a reason for it! He thinks he has got at the meaning
of it all. Just as if each one of us in every circumstance of life
couldn't find his own explanation of it! {[}\textit{Pauses.}{]} He
complains he was discovered in a place where he ought not to have
been seen, in a moment of his life which ought to have remained hidden
and kept out of the reach of that convention which he has to maintain
for other people. And what about my case? Haven't I had to reveal
what no son ought ever to reveal: how father and mother live and are
man and wife for themselves quite apart from that idea of father and
mother which we give them? When this idea is revealed, our life is
then linked at one point only to that man and that woman; and as such
it should shame them, shouldn't it?

{[}\textit{The} MOTHER \textit{hides her face in her hands. From the
dressing-rooms and the little door at the back of the stage the} ACTORS
\textit{and} STAGE MANAGER \textit{return, followed by the} PROPERTY
MAN, \textit{and the} PROMPTER. \textit{At the same moment, The} MANAGER
\textit{comes out of his office, accompanied by the} FATHER \textit{and
the} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. Come on, come on, ladies and gentlemen! Heh!
you there, machinist!

\textbf{Machinist}. Yes sir?

\textbf{The Manager}. Fix up the white parlor with the floral decorations.
Two wings and a drop with a door will do. Hurry up!

{[}\textit{The} MACHINIST \textit{runs off at once to prepare the
scene, and arranges it while The} MANAGER \textit{talks with the}
STAGE MANAGER, \textit{the} PROPERTY MAN, \textit{and the} PROMPTER
\textit{on matters of detail.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} PROPERTY MAN{]}. Just have a look,
and see if there isn't a sofa or divan in the wardrobe...

\textbf{Property Man}. There's the green one.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. No no! Green won't do. It was yellow,
ornamented with flowers---very large! arid most comfortable!

\textbf{Property Man}. There isn't one like that.

\textbf{The Manager}. It doesn't matter. Use the one we've got.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Doesn't matter? it's most important!

\textbf{The Manager}. We're only trying it now. Please don't interfere.
{[}\textit{To} PROPERTY MAN.{]} See if we've got a shop window---long
and narrowish.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. And the little table! The little mahogany
table for the pale blue envelope!

\textbf{Property Man} {[}\textit{to} MANAGER{]}. There's that little
gilt one.

\textbf{The Manager}. That'll do fine.

\textbf{The Father}. A mirror.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. And the screen! We must have a screen.
Otherwise how can I manage?

\textbf{Property Man}. That's all right, Miss. We've got any amount
of them.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to the} STEP-DAUGHTER{]}. We want
some clothes pegs too, don't we?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Yes, several, several!

\textbf{The Manager}. See how many we've got and bring them all.

\textbf{Property Man}. All right!

{[}\textit{The} PROPERTY MAN \textit{hurries off to obey his orders.
While he is putting the things in their places, the} MANAGER \textit{talks
to the} PROMPTER \textit{and then with the} CHARACTERS \textit{and
the} ACTORS.{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} PROMPTER{]}. Take your seat. Look
here: this is the outline of the scenes, act by act. {[}\textit{Hands
him some sheets of paper.}{]} And now I'm going to ask you to do something
out of the ordinary.

\textbf{Prompter.} Take it down in shorthand?

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{pleasantly surprised}{]}. Exactly!
Can you do shorthand?

\textbf{Prompter.} Yes, a little.

\textbf{The Manager}. Good! {[}\textit{Turning to a} STAGE HAND.{]}
Go and get some paper from my office, plenty, as much as you can find.
{[}\textit{The} STAGE HAND \textit{goes off, and soon returns with
a handful of paper which he gives to the} PROMPTER.{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} PROMPTER{]}. You follow the scenes
as we play them, and try and get the points down, at any rate the
most important ones. {[}\textit{Then addressing the} ACTORS.{]} Clear
the stage, ladies and gentlemen! Come over here {[}\textit{Pointing
to the left.}{]} and listen attentively.

\textbf{Leading Lady.} But, excuse me, we...

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{guessing her thought}{]}. Don't worry!
You won't have to improvise.

\textbf{Leading Man}. What have we to do then?

\textbf{The Manager}. Nothing. For the moment you just watch and listen.
Everybody will get his part written out afterwards. At present we're
going to try the thing as best we can. They're going to act now.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{as if fallen from the clouds into the
confusion of the stage}{]}. We? What do you mean, if you please, by
a rehearsal?

\textbf{The Manager}. A rehearsal for them. {[}\textit{Points to the}
ACTORS.{]}

\textbf{The Father}. But since we are the characters...

\textbf{The Manager}. All right: \char`\"{}characters\char`\"{} then,
if you insist on calling yourselves such. But here, my dear sir, the
characters don't act. Here the actors do the acting. The characters
are there, in the \char`\"{}book\char`\"{} {[}\textit{Pointing towards}
PROMPTER'S \textit{box.}{]}---when there is a \char`\"{}book\char`\"{}!

\textbf{The Father}. I won't contradict you; but excuse me, the actors
aren't the characters. They want to be, they pretend to be, don't
they? Now if these gentlemen here are fortunate enough to have us
alive before them...

\textbf{The Manager}. Oh this is grand! You want to come before the
public yourselves then?

\textbf{The Father}. As we are...

\textbf{The Manager}. I can assure you it would be a magnificent spectacle!

\textbf{Leading Man}. What's the use of us here anyway then?

\textbf{The Manager}. You're not going to pretend that you can act?
It makes me laugh! {[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{laugh.}{]} There,
you see, they are laughing at the notion. But, by the way, I must
cast the parts. That won't be difficult. They cast themselves. {[}\textit{To
the} SECOND LADY LEAD.{]} You play the Mother. {[}\textit{To the}
FATHER.{]} We must find her a name.

\textbf{The Father}. Amalia, sir.

\textbf{The Manager}. But that is the real name of your wife. We don't
want to call her by her real name.

\textbf{The Father}. Why ever not, if it is her name?... Still, perhaps,
if that lady must... {[}\textit{Makes a slight motion of the hand
to indicate the} SECOND LADY LEAD.{]} I see this woman here {[}\textit{Means
the} MOTHER.{]} as Amalia. But do as you like. {[}\textit{Gets more
and more confused.}{]} I don't know what to say to you. Already, I
begin to hear my own words ring false, as if they had another sound...

\textbf{The Manager}. Don't you worry about it. It'll be our job to
find the right tones. And as for her name, if you want her Amalia,
Amalia it shall be; and if you don't like it, we'll find another!
For the moment though, we'll call the characters in this way: {[}\textit{To}
JUVENILE LEAD.{]} You are the Son. {[}\textit{To the} LEADING LADY.{]}
You naturally are the Step-Daughter...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{excitedly}{]}. What? what? I,
that woman there? {[}\textit{Bursts out laughing.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{angry}{]}. What is there to laugh
at?

\textbf{Leading Lady.}{[}\textit{indignant}{]}. Nobody has ever dared
to laugh at me. I insist on being treated with respect; otherwise
I go away.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. No, no, excuse me... I am not laughing
at you...

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} STEP-DAUGHTER{]}. You ought to
feel honored to be played by...

\textbf{Leading Lady.}{[}\textit{at once, contemptuously}{]}. \char`\"{}That
woman there\char`\"{}...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. But I wasn't speaking of you, you know.
I was speaking of myself---whom I can't see at all in you! That is
all. I don't know...but...you...aren't in the least like me...

\textbf{The Father}. True. Here's the point. Look here, sir, our temperaments,
our souls...

\textbf{The Manager}. Temperament, soul, be hanged! Do you suppose
the spirit of the piece is in you? Nothing of the kind!

\textbf{The Father}. What, haven't we our own temperaments, our own
souls?

\textbf{The Manager}. Not at all. Your soul or whatever you like to
call it takes shape here. The actors give body and form to it, voice
and gesture. And my actors---I may tell you---have given expression
to much more lofty material than this little drama of yours, which
may or may not hold up on the stage. But if it does, the merit of
it, believe me, will be due to my actors.

\textbf{The Father}. I don't dare contradict you, sir; but, believe
me, it is a terrible suffering for us who are as we are, with these
bodies of ours, these features to see...

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{cutting him short and out of patience}{]}.
Good heavens! The make-up will remedy all that, man, the make-up...

\textbf{The Father}. Maybe. But the voice, the gestures...

\textbf{The Manager}. Now, look here! On the stage, you as yourself,
cannot exist. The actor here acts you, and that's an end to it!

\textbf{The Father}. I understand. And now I think I see why our author
who conceived us as we are, all alive, didn't want to put us on the
stage after all. I haven't the least desire to offend your actors.
Far from it! But when I think that I am to be acted by...I don't know
by whom...

\textbf{Leading Man} {[}\textit{on his dignity}{]}. By me, if you've
no objection!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{humbly, melliflously}{]}. Honored,
I assure you, sir. {[}\textit{Bows.}{]} Still, I must say that try
as this gentleman may, with all his good will and wonderful art, to
absorb me into himself...

\textbf{Leading Man}. Oh chuck it! \char`\"{}Wonderful art!\char`\"{}
Withdraw that, please!

\textbf{The Father}. The performance he will give, even doing his
best with make-up to look like me...

\textbf{Leading Man}. It will certainly be a bit difficult! {[}\textit{The}
ACTORS \textit{laugh.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. Exactly! It will be difficult to act me as I
really am. The effect will be rather---apart from the make-up---according
as to how he supposes I am, as he senses me---if he does sense me---and
not as I inside of myself feel myself to be. It seems to me then that
account should be taken of this by everyone whose duty it may become
to criticize us...

\textbf{The Manager}. Heavens! The man's starting to think about the
critics now! Let them say what they like. It's up to us to put on
the play if we can. {[}\textit{Looking around.}{]} Come on! come on!
Is the stage set? {[}\textit{To the} ACTORS \textit{and} CHARACTERS.{]}
Stand back---stand back! Let me see, and don't let's lose any more
time! {[}\textit{To the} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} Is it all right as it is
now?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Well, to tell the truth, I don't recognize
the scene.

\textbf{The Manager}. My dear lady, you can't possibly suppose that
we can construct that shop of Madame Pace piece by piece here? {[}\textit{To
the} FATHER.{]} You said a white room with flowered wall paper, didn't
you?

\textbf{The Father}. Yes.

\textbf{The Manager}. Well then. We've got the furniture right more
or less. Bring that little table a bit further forward. {[}\textit{The}
STAGE HANDS \textit{obey the order. To} PROPERTY MAN.{]} You go and
find an envelope, if possible, a pale blue one; and give it to that
gentleman. {[}\textit{Indicates} FATHER.{]}

\textbf{Property Man.} An ordinary envelope?

\textbf{Manager and Father.} Yes, yes, an ordinary envelope.

\textbf{Property Man.} At once, sir. {[}\textit{Exit.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. Ready, everyone! First scene---the Young Lady.
{[}\textit{The} LEADING LADY \textit{comes forward.}{]} No, no, you
must wait. I meant her {[}\textit{Indicating the} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]}
You just watch --

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{adding at once}{]}. How I shall
play it, how I shall live it!...

\textbf{Leading Lady.}{[}\textit{offended}{]}. I shall live it also,
you may be sure, as soon as I begin!

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{with his hands to his head}{]}. Ladies
and gentlemen, if you please! No more useless discussions! Scene I:
the young lady with Madame Pace: Oh! {[}\textit{Looks around as if
lost.}{]} And this Madame Pace, where is she?

\textbf{The Father}. She isn't with us, sir.

\textbf{The Manager}. Then what the devil's to be done?

\textbf{The Father}. But she is alive too.

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, but where is she?

\textbf{The Father}. One minute. Let me speak! {[}\textit{Turning
to the} ACTRESSES.{]} If these ladies would be so good as to give
me their hats for a moment...

\textbf{The Actresses} {[}\textit{half surprised, half laughing, in
chorus}{]}. What?

Why?

Our hats?

What does he say?

\textbf{The Manager}. What are you going to do with the ladies' hats?
{[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{laugh.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. Oh nothing. I just want to put them on these
pegs for a moment. And one of the ladies will be so kind as to take
off her mantle...

\textbf{The Actors.} Oh, what d'you think of that?

Only the mantle?

He must be mad.

\textbf{Some Actresses.} But why?

Mantles as well?

\textbf{The Father.} To hang them up here for a moment. Please be
so kind, will you?

\textbf{The Actresses} {[}\textit{taking off their hats, one or two
also their cloaks, and going to hang them on the racks}{]}. After
all, why not?

There you are!

This is really funny.

We've got to put them on show.

\textbf{The Father}. Exactly; just like that, on show.

\textbf{The Manager}. May we know why?

\textbf{The Father}. I'll tell you. Who knows if, by arranging the
stage for her, she does not come here herself, attracted by the very
articles of her trade? {[}\textit{Inviting the} ACTORS \textit{to
look towards the exit at back of stage.}{]} Look! Look!

{[}\textit{The door at the back of stage opens and} MADAME PACE \textit{enters
and takes a few steps forward. She is a fat, oldish woman with puffy
oxygenated hair. She is rouged and powdered, dressed with a comical
elegance in black silk. Round her waist is a long silver chain from
which hangs a pair of scissors. The} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{runs over
to her at once amid the stupor of the actors.}{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{turning towards her}{]}. There
she is! There she is!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{radiant}{]}. It's she! I said so, didn't
I? There she is!

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{conquering his surprise, and then
becoming indignant}{]}. What sort of a trick is this?

\textbf{Leading Man} {[}\textit{almost at the same time}{]}. What's
going to happen next?

\textbf{Juvenile Lead}. Where does she come from?

\textbf{L'Ingénue.} They've been holding her in reserve, I guess.

\textbf{Leading Lady.} A vulgar trick!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{dominating the protests}{]}. Excuse
me, all of you! Why are you so anxious to destroy in the name of a
vulgar, commonplace sense of truth, this reality which comes to birth
attracted and formed by the magic of the stage itself, which has indeed
more right to live here than you, since it is much truer than you---if
you don't mind my saying so? Which is the actress among you who is
to play Madame Pace? Well, here is Madame Pace herself. And you will
allow, I fancy, that the actress who acts her will be less true than
this woman here, who is herself in person. You see my daughter recognized
her and went over to her at once. Now you're going to witness the
scene!

{[}\textit{But the scene between the} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{and} MADAME
PACE \textit{has already begun despite the protest of the actors and
the reply of The} FATHER. \textit{It has begun quietly, naturally,
in a manner impossible for the stage. So when the actors, called to
attention by The} FATHER, \textit{turn round and see} MADAME PACE,
\textit{who has placed one hand under the} STEP-DAUGHTER'S \textit{chin
to raise her head, they observe her at first with great attention,
but hearing her speak in an unintelligible manner their interest begins
to wane.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. Well? well?

\textbf{Leading Man}. What does she say?

\textbf{Leading Lady.} One can't hear a word.

\textbf{Juvenile Lead}. Louder! Louder please!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{leaving} MADAME PACE, \textit{who
smiles a Sphinx-like smile, and advancing towards the actors}{]}.
Louder? Louder? What are you talking about? These aren't matters which
can be shouted at the top of one's voice. If I have spoken them out
loud, it was to shame him and have my revenge. {[}\textit{Indicates}
FATHER.{]} But for Madame it's quite a different matter.

\textbf{The Manager}. Indeed? indeed? But here, you know, people have
got to make themselves heard, my dear. Even we who are on the stage
can't hear you. What will it be when the public's in the theatre?
And anyway, you can very well speak up now among yourselves, since
we shan't be present to listen to you as we are now. You've got to
pretend to be alone in a room at the back of a shop where no one can
hear you.

{[}\textit{The} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{coquettishly and with a touch
of malice makes a sign of disagreement two or three times with her
finger.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. What do you mean by no?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{sotto voce, mysteriously}{]}.
There's someone who will hear us if she {[}\textit{Indicating} MADAME
PACE.{]} speaks out loud.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{in consternation}{]}. What? Have you
got someone else to spring on us now? {[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{burst
out laughing.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. No, no sir. She is alluding to me. I've got to
be here---there behind that door, in waiting; and Madame Pace knows
it. In fact, if you will allow me, I'll go there at once, so I can
be quite ready. {[}\textit{Moves away.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{stopping him}{]}. No! Wait! wait!
We must observe the conventions of the theatre. Before you are ready...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{interrupting him}{]}. No, get
on with it at once! I'm just dying, I tell you, to act this scene.
If he's ready, I'm more than ready.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{shouting}{]}. But, my dear young lady,
first of all, we must have the scene between you and this lady...
{[}\textit{Indicates} MADAME PACE.{]} Do you understand?...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Good Heavens! She's been telling me what
you know already: that mamma's work is badly done again, that the
material's ruined; and that if I want her to continue to help us in
our misery I must be patient...

\textbf{Madame Pace} {[}\textit{coming forward with an air of great
importance}{]}. Yes indeed, sir, I no wanta take advantage of her,
I no wanta be hard...

{[}\textit{Note.} MADAME PACE \textit{is supposed to talk in a jargon
half Italian, half English.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{alarmed}{]}. What? What? She talks
like that? {[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{burst out laughing again.}{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{also laughing}{]}. Yes yes,
that's the way she talks, half English, half Italian! Most comical
it is!

\textbf{Madame Pace}. Itta seem not verra polite gentlemen laugha
atta me eef I trya best speaka English.

\textbf{The Manager}. \textit{Diamine!} Of course! Of course! Let
her talk like that! Just what we want. Talk just like that, Madame,
if you please! The effect will be certain. Exactly what was wanted
to put a little comic relief into the crudity of the situation. Of
course she talks like that! Magnificent!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Magnificent? Certainly! When certain suggestions
are made to one in language of that kind, the effect is certain, since
it seems almost a joke. One feels inclined to laugh when one hears
her talk about an \char`\"{}old signore\char`\"{} \char`\"{}who wanta
talka nicely with you.\char`\"{} Nice old signore, eh, Madame?

\textbf{Madame Pace}. Not so old my dear, not so old! And even if
you no lika him, he won't make any scandal!

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{jumping up amid the amazement and consternation
of the actors who had not been noticing her.} THEY \textit{move to
restrain her}{]}. You old devil! You murderess!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{running over to calm her} MOTHER{]}.
Calm yourself, Mother, calm yourself! Please don't ...

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{going to her also at the same time}{]}.
Calm yourself! Don't get excited! Sit down now!

\textbf{The Mother}. Well then, take that woman away out of my sight!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{to} MANAGER{]}. It is impossible
for my mother to remain here.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{to} MANAGER{]}. They can't be here
together. And for this reason, you see: that woman there was not with
us when we came... If they are on together, the whole thing is given
away inevitably, as you see.

\textbf{The Manager}. It doesn't matter. This is only a first rough
sketch---just to get an idea of the various points of the scene, even
confusedly... {[}\textit{Turning to the} MOTHER \textit{and leading
her to her chair.}{]} Come along, my dear lady, sit down now, and
let's get on with the scene...

{[}\textit{Meanwhile, the} STEP-DAUGHTER, \textit{coming forward again,
turns to} MADAME PACE.{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Come on, Madame, come on!

\textbf{Madame Pace} {[}\textit{offended}{]}. No, no, grazie. I not
do anything witha your mother present.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Nonsense! Introduce this \char`\"{}old
signore\char`\"{} who wants to talk nicely to me. {[}\textit{Addressing
the} COMPANY \textit{imperiously.}{]} We've got to do this scene one
way or another, haven't we? Come on! {[}\textit{To} MADAME PACE.{]}
You can go!

\textbf{Madame Pace}. Ah yes! I go'way! I go'way! Certainly! {[}\textit{Exits
furious.}{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{to the} FATHER{]}. Now you make
your entry. No, you needn't go over here. Come here. Let's suppose
you've already come in. Like that, yes! I'm here with bowed head,
modest like. Come on! Out with your voice! Say \char`\"{}Good morning,
Miss\char`\"{} in that peculiar tone, that special tone...

\textbf{The Manager}. Excuse me, but are you the Manager, or am I?
{[}\textit{To the} FATHER, \textit{who looks undecided and perplexed.}{]}
Get on with it, man! Go down there to the back of the stage. You needn't
go off. Then come right forward here.

{[}\textit{The} FATHER \textit{does as he is told, looking troubled
and perplexed at first. But as soon as he begins to move, the reality
of the action affects him, and he begins to smile and to be more natural.
The} ACTORS \textit{watch intently.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{sotto voce, quickly to the} PROMPTER
\textit{in his box}{]}. Ready! ready? Get ready to write now.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{coming forward and speaking in a different
tone}{]}. Good afternoon, Miss!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{head bowed down slightly, with
restrained disgust}{]}. Good afternoon!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{looks under her hat which partly covers
her face. Perceiving she is very young, he makes an exclamation, partly
of surprise, partly of fear lest he compromise himself in a risky
adventure}{]}. Ah...but...ah...I say...this is not the first time
that you have come here, is it?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{modestly}{]}. No sir.

\textbf{The Father}. You've been here before, eh? {[}\textit{Then
seeing her nod agreement.}{]} More than once? {[}\textit{Waits for
her to answer, looks under her hat, smiles, and then says.}{]} Well
then, there's no need to be so shy, is there? May I take off your
hat?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{anticipating him and with veiled
disgust}{]}. No sir.... I'll do it myself. {[}\textit{Takes it off
quickly.}{]}

{[}\textit{The} MOTHER, \textit{who watches the progress of the scene
with The} SON \textit{and the other two children who cling to her,
is on thorns; and follows with varying expressions of sorrow, indignation,
anxiety, and horror the words and actions of the other two. From time
to time} SHE \textit{hides her face in her hands and sobs.}{]}

\textbf{The Mother}. Oh, my God, my God!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{playing his part with a touch of gallantry}{]}.
Give it to me! I'll put it down. {[}\textit{Takes hat from her hands.}{]}
But a dear little head like yours ought to have a smarter hat. Come
and help me choose one from the stock, won't you?

\textbf{L'Ingénue} {[}\textit{interrupting}{]}. I say...those are
our hats you know.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{furious}{]}. Silence! silence! Don't
try and be funny, if you please.... We're playing the scene now I'd
have you notice. {[}\textit{To the} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} Begin again,
please!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{continuing}{]}. No thank you,
sir.

\textbf{The Father}. Oh, come now. Don't talk like that. You must
take it. I shall be upset if you don't. There are some lovely little
hats here; and then---Madame will be pleased. She expects it, anyway,
you know.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. No, no! I couldn't wear it!

\textbf{The Father}. Oh, you're thinking about what they'd say at
home if they saw you come in with a new hat? My dear girl, there's
always a way round these little matters, you know.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{all keyed up}{]}. No, it's not
that---I couldn't wear it because I am...as you see...you might have
noticed... {[}\textit{Showing her black dress.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. ...in mourning! Of course: I beg your pardon:
I'm frightfully sorry...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{forcing herself to conquer her
indignation and nausea}{]}. Stop! Stop! It's I who must thank you.
There's no need for you to feel mortified or specially sorry. Don't
think any more of what I've said. {[}\textit{Tries to smile.}{]} I
must forget that I am dressed so...

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{interrupting and turning to the} PROMPTER{]}.
Stop a minute! Stop! Don't write that down. Cut out that last bit.
{[}\textit{Then to the} FATHER \textit{and} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} Fine!
it's going fine! {[}\textit{To the} FATHER \textit{only.}{]} And now
you can go on as we arranged. {[}\textit{To the} ACTORS.{]} Pretty
good that scene, where he offers her the hat, eh?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. The best's coming now. Why can't we go
on?

\textbf{The Manager}. Have a little patience! {[}\textit{To the} ACTORS.{]}
Of course, it must be treated rather lightly.

\textbf{Leading Man}. Still, with a bit of go in it!

\textbf{Leading Lady.} Of course! It's easy enough! {[}\textit{To}
LEADING MAN.{]} Shall you and I try it now?

\textbf{Leading Man}. Why, yes! I'll prepare my entrance. {[}\textit{Exit
in order to make his entrance.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} LEADING LADY{]}. See here! The
scene between you and Madame Pace is finished. I'll have it written
out properly after. You remain here...oh, where are you going?

\textbf{Leading Lady.} One minute. I want to put my hat on again.
{[}\textit{Goes over to hat-rack and puts her hat on her head.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. Good! You stay here with your head bowed down
a bit.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. But she isn't dressed in black.

\textbf{Leading Lady.} But I shall be, and much more effectively than
you.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} STEP-DAUGHTER{]}. Be quiet please,
and watch! You'll be able to learn something. {[}\textit{Clapping
his hands.}{]} Come on! come on! Entrance, please! {[}\textit{The
door at rear of stage opens, and the} LEADING MAN \textit{enters with
the lively manner of an old gallant. The rendering of the scene by
the} ACTORS \textit{from the very first words is seen to be quite
a different thing, though it has not in any way the air of a parody.
Naturally, the} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{and the} FATHER, \textit{not
being able to recognize themselves in the} LEADING LADY \textit{and
the} LEADING MAN, \textit{who deliver their words in different tones
and with a different psychology, express, sometimes with smiles, sometimes
with gestures, the impression they receive.}{]}

\textbf{Leading Man}. Good afternoon, Miss...

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{at once unable to contain himself}{]}.
No! no!

{[}\textit{The} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{noticing the way the} LEADING
MAN \textit{enters, bursts out laughing.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{furious}{]}. Silence! And you please
just stop that laughing. If we go on like this, we shall never finish.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Forgive me, sir, but it's natural enough.
This lady {[}\textit{Indicating} LEADING LADY.{]} stands there still;
but if she is supposed to be me, I can assure you that if I heard
anyone say \char`\"{}Good afternoon\char`\"{} in that manner and in
that tone, I should burst out laughing as I did.

\textbf{The Father}. Yes, yes, the manner, the tone...

\textbf{The Manager}. Nonsense! Rubbish! Stand aside and let me see
the action.

\textbf{Leading Man}. If I've got to represent an old fellow who's
coming into a house of an equivocal character...

\textbf{The Manager}. Don't listen to them, for Heaven's sake! Do
it again! It goes fine. {[}\textit{Waiting for the} ACTORS \textit{to
begin again.}{]} Well?

\textbf{Leading Man}. Good afternoon, Miss.

\textbf{Leading Lady.} Good afternoon.

\textbf{Leading Man} {[}\textit{imitating the gesture of the} FATHER
\textit{when he looked under the hat, and then expressing quite clearly
first satisfaction and then fear}{]}. Ah, but...I say...this is not
the first time that you have come here, is it?

\textbf{The Manager}. Good, but not quite so heavily. Like this. {[}\textit{Acts
himself.}{]} \char`\"{}This isn't the first time that you have come
here\char`\"{}... {[}\textit{To} LEADING LADY.{]} And you say: \char`\"{}No,
sir.\char`\"{}

\textbf{Leading Lady.} No, sir.

\textbf{Leading Man}. You've been here before, more than once.

\textbf{The Manager}. No, no, stop! Let her nod \char`\"{}yes\char`\"{}
first. \char`\"{}You've been here before, eh?\char`\"{} {[}\textit{The}
LEADING LADY \textit{lifts up her head slightly and closes her eyes
as though in disgust. Then} SHE \textit{inclines her head twice.}{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{unable to contain herself}{]}.
Oh my God! {[}\textit{Puts a hand to her mouth to prevent herself
from laughing.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{turning round}{]}. What's the matter?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Nothing, nothing!

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to} LEADING MAN{]}. Go on!

\textbf{Leading Man}. You've been here before, eh? Well then, there's
no need to be so shy, is there? May I take off your hat?

{[}\textit{The} LEADING MAN \textit{says this last speech in such
a tone and with such gestures that the} STEP-DAUGHTER, \textit{though
she has her hand to her mouth, cannot keep from laughing.}{]}

\textbf{Leading Lady.} {[}\textit{indignant}{]}. I'm not going to
stop here to be made a fool of by that woman there.

\textbf{Leading Man}. Neither am I! l'm through with it!

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{shouting to} STEP-DAUGHTER{]}. Silence!
for once and all, I tell you!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Forgive me! forgive me!

\textbf{The Manager}. You haven't any manners: that's what it is!
You go too far.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{endeavouring to intervene}{]}. Yes,
it's true, but excuse her...

\textbf{The Manager}. Excuse what? It's absolutely disgusting.

\textbf{The Father}. Yes, sir, but believe me, it has such a strange
effect when...

\textbf{The Manager}. Strange? Why strange? Where is it strange?

\textbf{The Father}. No, sir; I admire your actors---this gentleman
here, this lady; but they are certainly not us!

\textbf{The Manager}. I should hope not. Evidently they cannot be
you, if they are actors.

\textbf{The Father}. Just so: actors! Both of them act our parts exceedingly
well. But, believe me, it produces quite a different effect on us.
They want to be us, but they aren't, all the same.

\textbf{The Manager}. What is it then anyway?

\textbf{The Father}. Something that is...that is theirs---and no longer
ours...

\textbf{The Manager}. But naturally, inevitably. I've told you so
already.

\textbf{The Father}. Yes, I understand...I understand...

\textbf{The Manager}. Well then, let's have no more of it! {[}\textit{Turning
to the} ACTORS.{]} We'll have the rehearsals by ourselves, afterwards,
in the ordinary way. I never could stand rehearsing with the author
present. He's never satisfied! {[}\textit{Turning to} FATHER \textit{and}
STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} Come on! Let's get on with it again; and try and
see if you can't keep from laughing.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Oh, I shan't laugh any more. There's a
nice little bit coming for me now: you'll see.

\textbf{The Manager}. Well then: when she says \char`\"{}Don't think
any more of what I've said. I must forget, etc.,\char`\"{} you {[}\textit{Addressing
the} FATHER.{]} come in sharp with \char`\"{}I understand, I understand\char`\"{};
and then you ask her...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{interrupting}{]}. What?

\textbf{The Manager}. Why she is in mourning.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Not at all! See here: when I told him
that it was useless for me to be thinking about my wearing mourning,
do you know how he answered me? \char`\"{}Ah well,\char`\"{} he said,
\char`\"{}then let's take off this little frock.\char`\"{}

\textbf{The Manager}. Great! Just what we want, to make a riot in
the theatre!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. But it's the truth!

\textbf{The Manager}. What does that matter? Acting is our business
here. Truth up to a certain point, but no further.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. What do you want to do then?

\textbf{The Manager}. You'll see, you'll see! Leave it to me.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. No sir! What you want to do is to piece
together a little romantic sentimental scene out of my disgust, out
of all the reasons, each more cruel and viler than the other, why
I am what I am. He is to ask me why I'm in mourning; and I'm to answer
with tears in my eyes, that it is just two months since papa died.
No sir, no! He's got to say to me; as he did say: \char`\"{}Well,
let's take off this little dress at once.\char`\"{} And I; with my
two months' mourning in my heart, went there behind that screen, and
with these fingers tingling with shame...

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{running his hands through his hair}{]}.
For Heaven's sake! What are you saying?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{crying out excitedly}{]}. The
truth! The truth!

\textbf{The Manager}. It may be. I don't deny it, and I can understand
all your horror; but you must surely see that you can't have this
kind of thing on the stage. It won't go.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Not possible, eh? Very well! I'm much
obliged to you---but I'm off!

\textbf{The Manager}. Now be reasonable! Don't lose your temper!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. I won't stop here! I won't! I can see
you've fixed it all up with him in your office. All this talk about
what is possible for the stage...I understand! He wants to get at
his complicated \char`\"{}cerebral drama,\char`\"{} to have his famous
remorses and torments acted; but I want to act my part, my part!

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{annoyed, shaking his shoulders}{]}.
Ah! Just your part! But, if you will pardon me, there are other parts
than yours: His {[}\textit{Indicating the} FATHER.{]} and hers! {[}\textit{Indicating
the} MOTHER.{]} On the stage you can have a character becoming too
prominent and overshadowing all the others. The thing is to pack them
all into a neat little framework and then act what is actable. I am
aware of the fact that everyone has his own interior life which he
wants very much to put forward. But the difficulty lies in this fact:
to set out just so much as is necessary for the stage, taking the
other characters into consideration, and at the same time hint at
the unrevealed interior life of each. I am willing to admit, my dear
young lady, that from your point of view it would be a fine idea if
each character could tell the public all his troubles in a nice monologue
or a regular one hour lecture. {[}\textit{Good humoredly.}{]} You
must restrain yourself, my dear, and in your own interest, too; because
this fury of yours, this exaggerated disgust you show, may make a
bad impression, you know. After you have confessed to me that there
were others before him at Madame Pace's and more than once...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{bowing her head, impressed}{]}.
It's true. But remember those others mean him for me all the same.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{not understanding}{]}. What? The others?
What do you mean?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. For one who has gone wrong, sir, he who
was responsible for the first fault is responsible for all that follow.
He is responsible for my faults, was, even before I was born. Look
at him, and see if it isn't true!

\textbf{The Manager}. Well, well! And does the weight of so much responsibility
seem nothing to you? Give him a chance to act it, to get it over!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. How? How can he act all his \char`\"{}noble
remorses,\char`\"{} all his \char`\"{}moral torments,\char`\"{} if
you want to spare him the horror of being discovered one day---after
he had asked her what he did ask her---in the arms of her, that already
fallen woman, that child, sir, that child he used to watch come out
of school? {[}SHE \textit{is moved.}{]} {[}\textit{The} MOTHER \textit{at
this point is overcome with emotion, and breaks out into a fit of
crying.} ALL \textit{are touched. A long pause.}{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{as soon as the} MOTHER \textit{becomes
a little quieter, adds resolutely and gravely}{]}. At present, we
are unknown to the public. Tomorrow, you will act us as you wish,
treating us in your own manner. But do you really want to see drama,
do you want to see it flash out as it really did?

\textbf{The Manager}. Of course! That's just what I do want, so I
can use as much of it as is possible.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Well then, ask that Mother there to leave
us.

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{changing her low plaint into a sharp
cry}{]}. No! No! Don't permit it, sir, don't permit it!

\textbf{The Manager}. But it's only to try it.

\textbf{The Mother}. I can't bear it. I can't.

\textbf{The Manager}. But since it has happened already...I don't
understand!

\textbf{The Mother}. It's taking place now. It happens all the time.
My torment isn't a pretended one. I live and feel every minute of
my torture. Those two children there---have you heard them speak?
They can't speak any more. They cling to me to keep up my torment
actual and vivid for me. But for themselves, they do not exist, they
aren't any more. And she {[}\textit{Indicating the} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]}
has run away, she has left me, and is lost. If I now see her here
before me, it is only to renew for me the tortures I have suffered
for her too.

\textbf{The Father}. The eternal moment! She {[}\textit{Indicating
the} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} is here to catch me, fix me, and hold me eternally
in the stocks for that one fleeting and shameful moment of my life.
She can't give it up! And you sir, cannot either fairly spare me it.

\textbf{The Manager}. I never said I didn't want to act it. It will
form, as a matter of fact, the nucleus of the whoie first act right
up to her surprise. {[}\textit{Indicates the} MOTHER.{]}

\textbf{The Father}. Just so! This is my punishment: the passion in
all of us that must culminate in her final cry.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. I can hear it still in my ears. It's driven
me mad, that cry!---You can put me on as you like; it doesn't matter.
Fully dressed, if you like---provided I have at least the arm bare;
because, standing like this {[}\textit{She goes close to the} FATHER
\textit{and leans her head on his breast.}{]} with my head so, and
my arms round his neck, I saw a vein pulsing in my arm here; and then,
as if that live vein had awakened disgust in me, I closed my eyes
like this, and let my head sink on his breast. {[}\textit{Turning
to the} MOTHER.{]} Cry out mother! Cry out! {[}\textit{Buries head
in} FATHER'S \textit{breast, and with her shoulders raised as if to
prevent her hearing the cry, adds in tones of intense emotion.}{]}
Cry out as you did then!

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{coming forward to separate them}{]}.
No! My daughter, my daughter! {[}\textit{And after having pulled her
away from him.}{]} You brute! you brute! She is my daughter! Don't
you see she's my daughter?

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{walking backwards towards footlights}{]}.
Fine! fine! Damned good! And then, of course---curtain!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{going towards him excitedly}{]}. Yes,
of course, because that's the way it really happened.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{convinced and pleased}{]}. Oh, yes,
no doubt about it. Curtain here, curtain!

{[}\textit{At the reiterated cry of The} MANAGER, \textit{The} MACHINIST
\textit{lets the curtain down, leaving The} MANAGER \textit{and The}
FATHER \textit{in front of it before the footlights.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. The darned idiot! I said \char`\"{}curtain\char`\"{}
to show the act should end there, and he goes and lets it down in
earnest. {[}\textit{To the} FATHER, \textit{while he pulls the curtain
back to go on to the stage again.}{]} Yes, yes, it.'s all right. Effect
certain! That's the right ending. I'll guarantee the first act at
any rate.


\chapter*{ACT III }

\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{ACT III}

\markboth{Six Characters in Search of an Author}{ACT III}

\textit{When the curtain goes up again, it is seen that the stage
hands have shifted the bit of scenery used in the last part, and have
rigged up instead at the back of the stage a drop, with some trees,
and one or two wings. A portion of a fountain basin is visible. The}
MOTHER \textit{is sitting on the right with the two children by her
side. The} SON \textit{is on the same side, but away from the others.
He seems bored, angry, and full of shame. The} FATHER \textit{and
the} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{are also seated towards the right front.
On the other side (left) are the} ACTORS, \textit{much in the positions
they occupied before the curtain was lowered. Only the} MANAGER \textit{is
standing up in the middle of the stage, with his hand closed over
his mouth in the act of meditating.}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{shaking his shoulders after a brief
pause}{]}. Ah yes: the second act! Leave it to me, leave it all to
me as we arranged, and you'll see! It'll go fine!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Our entry into his house {[}\textit{Indicates}
FATHER.{]} in spite of him... {[}\textit{Indicates the} SON.{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{out of patience}{]}. Leave it to me,
I tell you!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Do let it be clear, at any rate, that
it is in spite of my wishes.

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{from her corner, shaking her head}{]}.
For all the good that's come of it...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{turning towards her quickly}{]}.
It doesn't matter. The more harm done us, the more remorse for him.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{impatiently}{]}. I understand! Good
Heavens! I understand! I'm taking it into account.

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{supplicatingly}{]}. I beg you, sir,
to let it appear quite plain that for conscience' sake I did try in
every way...

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{interrupting indignantly and
continuing for the} MOTHER{]}. ...to pacify me, to dissuade me from
spiting him. {[}\textit{To} MANAGER.{]} Do as she wants: satisfy her,
because it is true! I enjoy it immensely. Any how, as you can see,
the meeker she is, the more she tries to get at his heart, the more
distant and aloof does he become.

\textbf{The Manager}. Are we going to begin this second act or not?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. I'm not going to talk any more now- But
I must tell you this: you can't have the whole action take place in
the garden, as you suggest. It isn't possible!

\textbf{The Manager}.. Why not?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Because he {[}\textit{Indicates the} SON
\textit{again.}{]} is always shut up alone in his room. And then there's
all the part of that poor dazed-looking boy there which takes place
indoors.

\textbf{The Manager}. Maybe! On the other hand, you will understand---we
can't change scenes three or four times in one act.

\textbf{The Leading Man}. They used to once.

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, when the public was up to the level of
that child there.

\textbf{The Leading Lady}. It makes the illusion easier.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{irritated}{]}. The illusion! For Heaven's
sake, don't say illusion. Please don't use that word, which is particularly
painful for us..

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{astounded}{]}. And why, if you please?

\textbf{The Father}. It's painful, cruel, really cruel; and you ought
to understand that.

\textbf{The Manager}. But why? What ought we to say then? The illusion,
I tell you, sir, which we've got to create for the audience...

\textbf{The Leading Man}. With our acting.

\textbf{The Manager}. The illusion of a reality.

\textbf{The Father}. I understand; but you, perhaps, do not understand
us. Forgive me! You see...here for you and your actors, the thing
is only---and rightly so...a kind of game ...

\textbf{The Leading Lady} {[}\textit{interrupting indignantly}{]}.
A game! We're not children here, if you please! We are serious actors.

\textbf{The Father}. I don't deny it. What I mean is the game, or
play, of your art, which has to give, as the gentleman says, a perfect
illusion of reality.

\textbf{The Manager}. Precisely---!

\textbf{The Father}. Now, if you consider the fact that we {[}\textit{Indicates
himself and the other five} CHARACTERS.{]}, as we are, have no other
reality outside of this illusion...

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{astonished, looking at his} ACTORS,
\textit{who are also amazed}{]}. And what does that mean?

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{after watching them for a moment with
a wan smile}{]}. As I say, sir, that which is a game of art for you
is our sole reality. {[}\textit{Brief pause. He goes a step or two
nearer the} MANAGER \textit{and adds.}{]} But not only for us, you
know, by the way. Just you think it over well. {[}\textit{Looks him
in the eyes.}{]} Can you tell me who you are?

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{perplexed, half smiling}{]}. What?
Who am I? I am myself.

\textbf{The Father}. And if I were to tell you that that isn't true,
because you and I...

\textbf{The Manager}. I should say you were mad---! {[}\textit{The}
ACTORS \textit{laugh.}{]}

\textbf{The Father}. You're quite right to laugh: because we are all
making believe here. {[}\textit{To} MANAGER.{]} And you can therefore
object that it's only for a joke that that gentleman there {[}\textit{Indicates
the} LEADING MAN.{]}, who naturally is himself, has to be me, who
am on the contrary myself---this thing you see here. You see I've
caught you in a trap! {[}\textit{The} ACTORS \textit{laugh.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{annoyed}{]}. But we've had all this
over once before. Do you want to begin again?

\textbf{The Father}. No, no! That wasn't my meaning! In fact, I should
like to request you to abandon this game of art {[}\textit{Looking
at the} LEADING LADY \textit{as if anticipating her.}{]} which you
are accustomed to play here with your actors, and to ask you seriously
once again: who are you?

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{astonished and irritated, turning
to his} ACTORS{]}. If this fellow here hasn't got a nerve! A man who
calls himself a character comes and asks me who I am!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{with dignity, but not offended}{]}.
A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is. Because a character
has really a life of his own, marked with his especial characteristics;
for which reason he is always \char`\"{}somebody.\char`\"{} But a
man---I'm not speaking of you now---may very well be \char`\"{}nobody.\char`\"{}

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, but you are asking these questions of me,
the boss, the manager! Do you understand?

\textbf{The Father}. But only in order to know if you, as you really
are now, see yourself as you once were with all the illusions that
were yours then, with all the things both inside and outside of you
as they seemed to you---as they were then indeed for you. Well, sir,
if you think of all those illusions that mean nothing to you now,
of all those things which don't even seem to you to exist any more,
while once they were for you, don't you feel that---I won't say these
boards---but the very earth under your feet is sinking away from you
when you reflect that in the same way this you as you feel it today---all
this present reality of yours---is fated to seem a mere illusion to
you tomorrow?

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{without having understood much, but
astonished by the specious argument}{]}. Well, well! And where does
all this take us anyway?

\textbf{The Father}. Oh, nowhere! It's only to show you that if we
{[}\textit{Indicating the} CHARACTERS.{]} have no other reality beyond
the illusion, you too must not count overmuch on your reality as you
feel it today, since, like that of yesterday, it may prove an illusion
for you tomorrow.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{determining to make fun of him}{]}.
Ah. excellent! Then you'll be saying next that you, with this comedy
of yours that you brought here to act, are truer and more real than
I am.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{with the greatest seriousness}{]}.
But of course; without doubt!

\textbf{The Manager}. Ah, really?

\textbf{The Father}. Why, I thought you'd understand that from the
beginning.

\textbf{The Manager}. More real than I?

\textbf{The Father}. If your reality can change from one day to another...

\textbf{The Manager}. But everyone knows it can change. It is always
changing, the same as anyone else's.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{with a cry}{]}. No, sir, not ours!
Look here! That is the very difference! Our reality doesn't change:
it can't change! It can't be other than what it is, because it is
already fixed for ever. It's terrible. Ours is an immutable reality
which should make you shudder when you approach us if you are really
conscious of the fact that your reality is a mere transitory and fleeting
illusion, taking this form today and that tomorrow, according to the
conditions, according to your will, your sentiments, which in turn
are controlled by an intellect that shows them to you today in one
manner and tomorrow...who knows how?... Illusions of reality represented
in this fatuous comedy of life that never ends, nor can ever end!
Because if tomorrow it were to end...then why, all would be finished.

\textbf{The Manager}. Oh for God's sake, will you at least finish
with this philosophizing and let us try and shape this comedy which
you yourself have brought me here? You argue and philosophize a bit
too much, my dear sir.. You know you seem to me almost, almost...
{[}\textit{Stops and looks him over from head to foot.}{]} Ah, by
the way, I think you introduced yourself to me as a---what shall...we
say---a \char`\"{}character,\char`\"{} created by an author who did
not afterward care to make a drama of his own creations.

\textbf{The Father}. It is the simple truth, sir.

\textbf{The Manager}. Nonsense! Cut that out, please! None of us believes
it, because it isn't a thing, as you must recognize yourself, which
one can believe seriously. If you want to know, it seems to me you
are trying to imitate the manner of a certain author whom I heartily
detest---I warn you---although I have unfortunately bound myself to
put on one of his works. As a matter of fact, I was just starting
to rehearse it, when you arrived. {[}\textit{Turning to the} ACTORS.{]}
And this is what we've gained---out of the frying-pan into the fire!

\textbf{The Father}. I don't know to what author you may be alluding,
but believe me I feel what I think; and I seem to be philosophizing
only for those who do not think what they feel, because they blind
themselves with their own sentiment. I know that for many people this
self-blinding seems much more \char`\"{}human\char`\"{}; but the contrary
is really true. For man never reasons so much and becomes so introspective
as when he suffers; since he is anxious to get at the cause of his
sufferings, to learn who has produced them, and whether it is just
or unjust that he should have to bear them. On the other hand, when
he is happy, he takes his happiness as it comes and doesn't analyze
it, just as if happiness were his right. The animals suffer without
reasoning about their sufferings. But take the case of a man who suffers
and begins to reason about it. Oh no! it can't be allowed! Let him
suffer like an animal, and then---ah yet, he is \char`\"{}human\char`\"{}!

\textbf{The Manager}. Look here! Look here! You're off again, philosophizing
worse than ever.

\textbf{The Father}.. Because I suffer, sir! I'm not philosophizing:
I'm crying aloud the reason of my sufferings.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{makes brusque movement as he is taken
with a new idea}{]}. I should like to know if anyone has ever heard
of a character who gets right out of his part and perorates and speechifies
as you do. Have you ever heard of a case? I haven't.

\textbf{The Father}. You have never met such a case, sir, because
authors, as a rule, hide the labour of their creations. When the characters
are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but
follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which
they suggest to him; and he has to will them the way they will themselves---for
there's trouble if he doesn't. When a character is born, he acquires
at once such an independence, even of his own author, that he can
be imagined by everybody even in many other situations where the author
never dreamed of placing him; and so he acquires for himself a meaning
which the author never thought of giving him..

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, yes, I know this.

\textbf{The Father}. What is there then to marvel at in us? Imagine
such a misfortune for characters as I have described to you: to be
born of an author's fantasy, and be denied life by him; and then answer
me if these characters left alive, and yet without life, weren't right
in doing what they did do and are doing now, after they have attempted
everything in their power to persuade him to give them their stage
life. We've all tried him in turn, I, she {[}\textit{Indicating the}
STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} and she. {[}\textit{Indicating the} MOTHER.{]}

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. It's true. I too have sought to tempt
him, many, many times, when he has been sitting at his writing table,
feeling a bit melancholy, at the twilight hour. He would sit in his
armchair too lazy to switch on the light, and all the shadows that
crept into his room were full of our presence coming to tempt him.
{[}\textit{As if she saw herself still there by the writing table,
and was annoyed by the presence of the} ACTORS.{]} Oh, if you would
only go away, go away and leave us alone---mother here with that son
of hers---I with that Child---that Boy there always alone---and then
I with him {[}\textit{Just hints at the} FATHER.{]}---and then I alone,
alone...in those shadows! {[}\textit{Makes a sudden movement as if
in the vision she has of herself illuminating those shadows she wanted
to seize hold of herself.}{]} Ah! my life! my life! Oh, what scenes
we proposed to him---and I tempted him more than any of the others!

\textbf{The Father}. Maybe. But perhaps it was your fault that he
refused to give us life: because you were too insistent, too troublesome.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. . Nonsense! Didn't he make me so himself?
{[}\textit{Goes close to the} MANAGER \textit{to tell him. as if in
confidence.}{]} In my opinion he abandoned us in a fit of depression,
of disgust for the ordinary theatre as the public knows it and likes
it.

\textbf{The Son}. Exactly what it was, sir; exactly that!

\textbf{The Father}. Not at all! Don't believe it for a minute. Listen
to me! You'll be doing quite right to modify, as you suggest, the
excesses both of this girl here, who wants to do too much, and of
this young man, who won't do anything at all.

\textbf{The Son}. No, nothing!

\textbf{The Manager}. You too get over the mark occasionally, my dear
sir, if I may say so.

\textbf{The Father}. I? When? Where?

\textbf{The Manager}. Always! Continuously! Then there's this insistence
of yours in trying to make us believe you are a character. And then
too, you must really argue and philosophize less, you know, much less.

\textbf{The Father}. Well, if you want to take away from me the possibility
of representing the torment of my spirit which never gives me peace,
you will be suppressing me: that's all. Every true man, sir, who is
a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for
the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as
to give a meaning and a value of his own to life. For me this is everything.
I cannot give up this, just to represent a mere fact as she {[}\textit{Indicating
the} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} wants. It's all very well for her, since her
\char`\"{}vendetta\char`\"{} lies in the \char`\"{}fact.\char`\"{}
I'm not going to do it. It destroys my raison d'être.

\textbf{The Manager}. Your raison d'être! Oh, we're going ahead fine!
First she starts off, and then you jump in. At this rate, we'll never
finish.

\textbf{The Father}. Now, don't be offended! Have it your own way---provided,
however, that within the limits of the parts you assign us each one's
sacrifice isn't too great.

\textbf{The Manager}. You've got to understand that you can't go on
arguing at your own pleasure. Drama is action, sir, action and not
confounded philosophy.

\textbf{The Father}. All right. I'll do just as much arguing and philosophizing
as everybody does when he is considering his own torments.

\textbf{The Manager}. If the drama permits! But for Heaven's sake,
man, let's get along and come to the scene.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. It seems to me we've got too much action
with our coming into his house. {[}\textit{Indicating} FATHER.{]}
You said, before, you couldn't change the scene every five minutes.

\textbf{The Manager}. Of course not. What we've got to do is to combine
and group up all the facts in one simultaneous, close-knit, action.
We can't have it as you want, with your little brother wandering like
a ghost from room to room, hiding behind doors and meditating a project
which---what did you say it did to him?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Consumes him, sir, wastes him away!

\textbf{The Manager}. Well, it may be. And then at the same time,
you want the little girl there to be playing in the garden...one in
the house, and the other in the garden: isn't that it?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Yes, in the sun, in the sun! That is my
only pleasure: to see her happy and careless in the garden after the
misery and squalor of the horrible room where we all four slept together.
And I had to sleep with her---I, do you understand?---with my vile
contaminated body next to hers; with her folding me fast in her loving
little arms. In the garden, whenever she spied me, she would run to
take me by the hand. She didn't care for the big flowers, only the
little ones; and she loved to show me them and pet me.

\textbf{The Manager}. Well then, we'll have it in the garden. Everything
shall happen in the garden; and we'll group the other scenes there.
{[}\textit{Calls a} STAGE HAND.{]} Here, a backcloth with trees and
something to do as a fountain basin. {[}\textit{Turning round to look
at the back of the stage.}{]} Ah, you've fixed it up. Good! {[}\textit{To}
STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} This is just to give an idea, of course. The Boy,
instead of hiding behind the doors, will wander about here in the
garden, hiding behind the trees.. But it's going to be rather difficult
to find a child to do that scene with you where she shows you the
flowers. {[}\textit{Turning to the} BOY.{]} Come forward a little,
will you please? Let's try it now! Come along! come along! {[}\textit{Then
seeing him come shyly forward, full of fear and looking lost.}{]}
It's a nice business, this lad here. What's the matter with him? We'll
have to give him a word or two to say. {[}\textit{Goes close to him,
puts a hand on his shoulders, and Leads him behind one of the trees.}{]}
Come on! come on! Let me see you a little! Hide here...yes, like that.
Try and show your head just a little as if you were looking for someone...
{[}\textit{Goes back to observe the effect, when the} BOY \textit{at
once goes through the action.}{]} Excellent! fine! {[}\textit{Turning
to} STEP-DAUGHTER.{]} Suppose the little girl there were to surprise
him as he looks round,, and run over to him, so we could give him
a word or two to say?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. It's useless to hope he will speak, as
long as that fellow there is here... {[}\textit{indicates the} SON.{]}
You must send him away first.

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{jumping up}{]}. Delighted! Delighted!
I don't ask for anything better. {[}\textit{Begins to move away.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{at once stopping him}{]}. No! No!
Where are you going? Wait a bit!

{[}\textit{The} MOTHER \textit{gets up alarmed and terrified at the
thought that he is really about to go away. Instinctively she lifts
her arms to prevent him, without, however, leaving her seat.}{]}

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{to} MANAGER \textit{who stops him}{]}.
I've got nothing to do with this affair. Let me go please! Let me
go!

\textbf{The Manager}. What do you mean by saying you've got nothing
to do with this?

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{calmly, with irony}{]}. Don't
bother to stop him: he won't go away.

\textbf{The Father}. He has to act the terrible scene in the garden
with his mother.

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{suddenly resolute and with dignity}{]}.
I shall act nothing at all. I've said so from the very beginning.
{[}\textit{To the} MANAGER.{]} Let me go!

\textbf{The Step-Daughter} {[}\textit{going over to the} MANAGER{]}.
Allow me? {[}\textit{Puts down the} MANAGER'S \textit{arm which is
restraining the} SON.{]} Well, go away then, if you want to! {[}\textit{The}
SON \textit{looks at her with contempt and hatred. She laughs and
says.}{]} You see, he can't, he can't go away! He is obliged to stay
here, indissolubly bound to the chain. If I, who fly off when that
happens which has to happen, because I can't bear him---if I am still
here and support that face and expression of his, you can well imagine
that he is unable to move. He has to remain here, has to stop with
that nice father of his, and that mother whose only son he is. {[}\textit{Turning
to the} MOTHER.{]} Come on, mother, come along! {[}\textit{Turning
to} MANAGER \textit{to indicate her.}{]} You see, she was getting
up to keep him back. {[}\textit{To the} MOTHER, \textit{beckoning
her with her hand.}{]} Come on! come on! {[}\textit{Then to} MANAGER.{]}
You can imagine how little she wants to show these actors of yours
what she really feels; but so eager is she to get near him that...
There, you see? She is willing to act her part. {[}\textit{And in
fact, the} MOTHER \textit{approaches him; and as soon as the} STEP-DAUGHTER
\textit{has finished speaking, opens her arms to signify that she
consents.}{]}

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{suddenly}{]}. No! no! If I can't go away,
then I'll stop here; but I repeat: I act nothing!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{to} MANAGER \textit{excitedly}{]}.
You can force him, sir.

\textbf{The Son}. Nobody can force me.

\textbf{The Father}. I can.

\textbf{The Step-Daughter}. Wait a minute, wait... First of all, the
baby has to go to the fountain... {[}\textit{Runs to take the} CHILD
\textit{and leads her to the fountain.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. Yes, yes of course; that's it. Both at the same
time.

{[}\textit{The second} LADY LEAD \textit{and the} JUVENILE LEAD \textit{at
this point separate themselves from the group of} ACTORS. \textit{One
watches the} MOTHER \textit{attentively; the other moves about studying
the movements and manner of the} SON \textit{whom he will have to
act.}{]}

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{to} MANAGER{]}. What do you mean by both
at the same time? It isn't right. There was no scene between me and
her. {[}\textit{Indicates the} MOTHER.{]} Ask her how it was!

\textbf{The Mother}. Yes, it's true. I had come into his room...

\textbf{The Son}. Into my room, do you understand? Nothing to do with
the garden.

\textbf{The Manager}. It doesn't matter. Haven't I told you we've
got to group the action?

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{observing the} JUVENILE LEAD \textit{studying
him}{]}. What do you want?

\textbf{The Juvenile Lead.} Nothing! I was just looking at you.

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{turning towards the second} LADY LEAD{]}.
Ah! she's at it too: to re-act her part! {[}\textit{Indicating the}
MOTHER.{]}

\textbf{The Manager}. Exactly! And it seems to me that you ought to
be grateful to them for their interest.

\textbf{The Son}. Yes, but haven't you yet perceived that it isn't
possible to live in front of a mirror which not only freezes us with
the image of ourselves, but throws our likeness back at us with a
horrible grimace?

\textbf{The Father}. That is true, absolutely true. You must see that.

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to second} LADY LEAD \textit{and}
JUVENILE LEAD{]}. He's right! Move away from them!

\textbf{The Son}. Do as you like. I'm out of this!

\textbf{The Manager}. Be quiet, you, will you? And let me hear your
mother! {[}\textit{To} MOTHER.{]} You were saying you had entered...

\textbf{The Mother}. Yes, into his room, because I couldn't stand
it any longer. I went to empty my heart to him of all the anguish
that tortures me... But as soon as he saw me come in...

\textbf{The Son}. Nothing happened! There was no scene. I went away,
that's all! I don't care for scenes!

\textbf{The Mother}. It's true, true. That's how it was.

\textbf{The Manager}. Well now, we've got to do this bit between you
and him. It's indispensable.

\textbf{The Mother}. I'm ready...when you are ready. If you could
only find a chance for me to tell him what I feel here in my heart.

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{going to} SON \textit{in a great rage}{]}.
You'll do this for your mother, for your mother, do you understand?

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{quite determined}{]}. I do nothing!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{taking hold of him and shaking him}{]}.
For God's sake, do as I tell you! Don't you hear your mother asking
you for a favor? Haven't you even got the guts to be a son?

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{taking hold of the} FATHER{]}. No! No!
And for God's sake stop it, or else... {[}\textit{General agitation.}{]}

{[}\textit{The} MOTHER, \textit{frightened, tries to separate them.}{]}

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{pleading}{]}. Please! please!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{not leaving hold of the} SON{]}. You've
got to obey, do you hear?

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{almost crying from rage}{]}. What does
it mean, this madness you've got? {[}\textit{They separate.}{]} Have
you no decency, that you insist on showing everyone our shame? I won't
do it! I won't! And I stand for the will of our author in this. He
didn't want to put us on the stage, after all!

\textbf{The Manager}. Man alive! You came here . .

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{indicating} FATHER{]}. He did! I didn't!

\textbf{The Manager}. Arent't you here now?

\textbf{The Son}. It was his wish, and he dragged us along with him.
He's told you not only the things that did happen, but also things
that have never happened at all.

\textbf{The Manager}. Well, tell me then what did happen. You went
out of your room without saying a word?

\textbf{The Son}. Without a word, so as to avoid a scene!

\textbf{The Manager}. And then what did you do?

\textbf{The Son}. Nothing...walking in the garden... {[}\textit{Hesitates
for a moment with expression of gloom.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{coming closer to him, interested by
his extraordinary reserve}{]}. Well, well...walking in the garden...

\textbf{The Son} {[}\textit{exasperated}{]}. Why on earth do you insist?
It's horrible! {[}\textit{The} MOTHER \textit{trembles, sobs, and
looks towards the fountain.}{]}

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{slowly observing the glance and turning
towards the} SON \textit{with increasing apprehension}{]}. The baby?

\textbf{The Son}. There in the fountain...

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{pointing with tender pity to the} MOTHER{]}.
She was following him at the moment...

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{to the} SON \textit{anxiously}{]}.
And then you...

\textbf{The Son}. I ran over to her; I was jumping in to drag her
out when I saw something that froze my blood...the boy standing stock
still, with eyes like a madman's, watching his little drowned sister,
in the fountain! {[}\textit{The} STEP-DAUGHTER \textit{bends over
the fountain to hide the} CHILD. \textit{She sobs.}{]} Then... {[}\textit{A
revolver shot rings out behind the trees where the} BOY \textit{is
hidden.}{]}

\textbf{The Mother} {[}\textit{with a cry of terror runs over in that
direction together with several of the} ACTORS \textit{amid general
confusion}{]}. My son! My son! {[}\textit{Then amid the cries and
exclamations one hears her voice.}{]} Help! Help!

\textbf{The Manager} {[}\textit{pushing the} ACTORS \textit{aside
while} THEY \textit{lift up the} BOY \textit{and carry him off.}{]}
Is he really wounded?

\textbf{Some Actors.} He's dead! dead!

\textbf{Other Actors.} No, no, it's only make believe, it's only pretence!

\textbf{The Father} {[}\textit{with a terrible cry}{]}. Pretence?
Reality, sir, reality!

\textbf{The Manager}. Pretence? Reality? To hell with it all! Never
in my life has such a thing happened to me. I 've lost a whole day
over these people, a whole day!

\begin{center}Curtain. \end{center}

\bigskip{}
{[}\textit{Luigi Pirandello received the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1934. He died in 1936, before he was to play the Author in a Hollywood
film version of this play. For a page in Italian with a short biography
and links to the original of this play along with others, please see}
{\scriptsize http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/p/pirandello/index.htm}
{]}
\end{document}
