A GAME AT LOVE 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 AND OTHER PLAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 
 
 u 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
 19X4 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY BRENTANO s 
 
 ENTERED AT STATIONERS* HALL 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
TO JAMES HUNEKER 
 
 899166 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 A GAME AT LOVE I 
 
 THE MOOD OF A MOMENT 21 
 
 FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 39 
 
 A QUESTION OF FIDELITY 57 
 
 THE BUTTERFLY: A MORALITY 73 
 
 OPINIONS AND NOTICES 95 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THESE plays are unplayable. They were not, 
 at least, written with an eye to the stage. 
 The last I have called a Morality, a name that 
 could hardly, with propriety, be applied to the 
 others. They point out no moral, they teach no 
 lesson, and the reader may feel assured that the 
 obvious interpretation is in no case the author s 
 own. Certain truths, as I have seen them, are here 
 set down, but I decline to be held responsible for 
 anything that my characters may say or do. 
 
 I have taken the climacteric moments of imagi 
 nary novels and have embodied them in dramatic 
 sketches. This method constitutes a rebellion 
 against that species of psychological fiction which, 
 in six hundred pages, succeeds in telling us no 
 thing. For, as intellectual intercourse between na 
 tions becomes more intimate, and the body of lit 
 erature of each country is augmented by that of 
 the others, it will inevitably become a requirement 
 that the individual work of art shall be diminished 
 in bulk. Homer could write a poem in twenty- 
 four books with impunity. Not so the modern 
 artist. Nor is there any legitimate reason why we 
 should take up twice twenty-four hours of a read 
 er s time with a story that could be told no less 
 effectively in ten minutes. 
 
 I have laid some stress upon the fact that men 
 and women communicate with each other not by 
 articulate speech alone, but by a quiver of the eye- 
 
 IX 
 
PREFACE 
 
 lid or a curl of the lip. And I have left nothing 
 unexpressed that seemed to contribute to a de 
 sired effect, even at the risk of offending such as 
 would close the mouth of the Muse with that 
 muzzle which, if applied at all, should be con 
 fined to that many-headed monster the press. 
 The expressions, Man-Animal and Woman-Ani 
 mal, mayjar on sensitive souls, who rather than con 
 front a problem of erotics would follow the time- 
 honoured policy of the ostrich; but I know of no 
 combination of words equally decisive and indica 
 tive of my meaning. 
 
 It may be charged against the dialogue that it is 
 at times unnatural, and that no one of normal sanity 
 would ever dream of speaking the language of the 
 persons in these plays. This may be true or not. 
 Certain it is, that such is the language they should 
 have used, and, wherever their vocabulary did not 
 suffice, it was the good fortune of the present 
 writer to be able to assist them. 
 
 GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK 
 
I 
 
 A GAME AT LOVE 
 
CHARACTERS 
 CLARENCE (forty) 
 IRENE (between thirty and forty) 
 EVA (somewhat younger) 
 
I 
 
 (An elegant Boudoir. A desk inlaid with mother-of- 
 pearl. Bric-a-brac. Pictures.) 
 
 (EvA, blonde -, somewhat languishing^ rocks herself 
 in a dainty rocking-chair. As she swings to and fro 
 one gets a glimpse of her little feet. She holds an unlit 
 cigarette in her hand.) 
 
 (IRENE, dark^ of fuller form , reclines upon a couch. 
 Her face is that of a woman who has lived much. 
 She puffs vigorously at a cigarette and blows fan 
 tastic rings into the air.) 
 
 IRENE. Yes, tell me all about it. I am interested. 
 They say 
 
 EVA. What do they say? 
 
 IRENE (with emphasis). That he is not like other 
 men; that there is some secret in his life, per 
 haps 
 
 EVA. It is no longer any secret to me. 
 IRENE. Is it possible that you know? 
 EVA. I know that he is a bedizened doll, a tailor s 
 dummy. 
 
 IRENE (looks at her intently , but is silent]. 
 EVA. When I think how I adored him, what depths 
 I sought in those mystic eyes, what secrets in that 
 smile every fibre of my body revolts. 
 IRENE. And what did he do to make the spell snap? 
 EVA. Nothing. That is the very reason: He said 
 nothing, did nothing. I expected something new and 
 strange, nothing happened. I listened, listened to 
 
 3 
 
, : , , .A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 the silver tones of his voice, and heard a shallow 
 babbling. 
 
 IRENE. And yet you were entirely under his influ 
 ence. You were fascinated like a little bird by the 
 eyes of a snake. It was gruesome to behold. 
 EVA (with heaving breast). It is true. He was not 
 only a part of my life, he was my whole life. But 
 he would not let me share in his, would not let 
 me look more deeply perhaps to hide his own 
 want of depth. He always behaved as though he 
 were the giver. I gave him all and he did not 
 even say. Thank you. 
 
 IRENE (blowing the smoke thoughtfully through her 
 nose). Naturally. Of course it is absurd to general 
 ize. Still, you made a mistake in tactics. We wo 
 men receive in love at least as much as we give. I 
 am even inclined to believe that the old Hebrew 
 legend is not far amiss in asserting that the Lord 
 created woman from a rib of man. But neverthe 
 less men expect us to keep up the old wives tale 
 that we alone are those who give. Our only weapon 
 is man s sensual grossness. Upon this we must 
 play in such a manner that he imagines himself to 
 receive along with its satisfaction everything. 
 EVA. I know that. Still I was not so calculating 
 at that time. And then, well, you see, Clarence 
 presents a different problem. He himself knows 
 all our little arts and uses them only too well. 
 And this makes him master of the situation. The 
 unexpected takes one unawares. 
 IRENE. But that is interesting, extraordinarily so. 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 A woman can bring all these little arts into play 
 without violating her nature, because to a genuine 
 woman love and motherhood are life itself. Her 
 struggle for love is her struggle for existence. We 
 fight for love as men for daily bread. To us it is 
 at once a passion and a vocation. It s different 
 with men. If a man be a real man, he lacks both 
 time and inclination for these subtleties. When ele 
 mental passion grips him, he yields himself unre 
 servedly and genuinely; else he is either a roue, or 
 no man. (Eying EVA sharply.) Nature in making 
 him played one of her cruel tricks. He is a will-o - 
 the-wisp which lures us into abysses and to shim 
 mering swamps. 
 
 EVA. If only the swamps into which he leads us 
 were deep enough to perish in, all would be well. 
 But to soil one s feet in shallow mire! . . . How to 
 classify him I do not quite know. It seems to me 
 that he lacks all genuineness of emotion. To him 
 love is an artifice, and even life. And yet (she lowers 
 her voice) he has a sensuous attraction that is pow 
 erful, irresistible. 
 
 IRENE (with rising interest). And where did he first 
 exert that influence? How did you get to know him? 
 EVA (laying her cigarette aside, and resting her head 
 upon her hand). It was this way. He was intro 
 duced to me; I think by my husband. If you 
 have seen him once, you know how attractive he 
 is. I wanted to keep him near me. Perhaps because 
 Mildred was there, who thinks that no man can 
 resist her charms. 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 IRENE (interrupting her with a short musical laugh). 
 I think I heard it said that Mildred and he were 
 intimate at one time. 
 
 EVA. They gave no evidence of it. Beyond the 
 conventional phrases they exchanged neither word 
 nor look. 
 
 IRENE. That makes it all the more suspicious. Thus 
 will you and Clarence meet when the wounds are 
 healed. Do you still see him? 
 EVA. He comes now and then. People might talk 
 if he were to stay away entirely. To-day he is com 
 ing for another reason, that is, to bring me my 
 letters. But I had not finished telling you. 
 IRENE. You were speaking of the day on which you 
 met. 
 
 EVA. Yes, on that day he began by irritating me. 
 I cannot abide cynicism in men. He made a num 
 ber of cynical remarks, and I treated him coolly, 
 somewhat rudely, in fact. But his answers were deli 
 cately courteous, and nothing ruffled his Olympian 
 calm. 
 
 IRENE. What did he say? 
 
 EVA (involuntarily imitating Clarence s intonation). 
 "Dear lady," he said, and let his beautiful eyes 
 dwell upon mine, "there are two kinds of cynicism. 
 One kind is cheap enough it is the sophomore s. 
 But there is yet another kind that is dear, dearly 
 bought," and here his voice trembled, "it is 
 the cynicism of the mature man." 
 IRENE (speaking from the depth of her experience). 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 The old story. When a man tries to be interesting 
 
 to women, he abuses them. At times this method 
 
 repels, but if the man is handsome, it fills us with 
 
 the burning desire to teach him better. 
 
 EVA. Have you made that observation, too? There 
 
 is nothing more alluring than to teach a man or 
 
 to save him. 
 
 IRENE. Because it flatters us and him. And yet 
 
 no one has ever saved another anything better 
 
 than, at most his life; or taught him more than 
 
 the multiplication table and the alphabet. But I 
 
 interrupt you. 
 
 EVA. And so I wrote to him. 
 
 IRENE. Wrote to him? 
 
 EVA. It was not exactly necessary, but I felt that 
 
 I owed him a certain reparation. And then he came 
 
 to one of my At Homes. 
 
 IRENE. How did he behave? 
 
 EVA. He remained only a few minutes. But there 
 
 was a glimmer in his eyes, a quiver in his voice, even 
 
 when he said things that, coming from another, 
 
 would have seemed commonplace. He is a man of 
 
 precious words. 
 
 IRENE. And did you give him to understand that 
 
 you cared for him? 
 
 EVA. Not yet. I expected him to take the initial 
 
 step. 
 
 IRENE. And did he not? 
 
 EVE. No, not directly. He always made it appear 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 as if he, not I, were the object of desire. 
 IRENE. And so he was. 
 
 EVA. Perhaps. But that smile of his, that look, that 
 sigh, were not all these declarations of love, traps, 
 it may be. He never gave himself fully. His words 
 were few and equivocal. 
 IRENE. A kind of masculine Sphinx? 
 EVA. That hits it. But I doubt whether his riddle 
 is a bonafide one, whether it admits of a solution. 
 To try earnestly to solve it may be to rack one s 
 brain to no purpose. 
 
 IRENE. Perhaps he has himself forgotten the solu 
 tion . . . 
 
 EVA. Who can tell ? And then came that letter . . . 
 IRENE. What letter? 
 
 EVA (taking from her desk a number of pale blue let 
 ter s> one of which she hands IRENE). Here, read! 
 IRENE (raising the letter to her face]. H m, perfumed ! 
 (Examining the paper critically^] A strange handwrit 
 ing; almost too dainty for a man . . . (Looking up.) 
 But what is the matter with you; was the charm so 
 profound? 
 
 EVA. It is nothing. Only memories that intoxicate 
 my brain. A certain animal magnetism that flowed 
 from him and that adheres to the very paper. But 
 I have done with that. I shall return to my husband. 
 IRENE. For how long? 
 EVA (hurt). Fie! But read it, I beg of you. 
 IRENE (still looking at the letter]. No signature, no 
 date, strange . . . 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 EVA (bending over her). But read, read! 
 IRENE (reading aloud). " Upon a golden throne sate 
 " a gleaming idol . . . And it had a soul, but all those 
 " who came thither knew it not . . . And they were 
 " not to know it ... For it was the awful punish- 
 " ment of the silent idol that it had a soul and might 
 " not reveal it, if it would not endure the agonies 
 " of the lost . . . And once in seven years the most 
 " powerful of the idols, to whom belongs all might 
 "in Heaven and upon Earth, sent its messenger 
 " and tempter to break the iron fetters of that quiv- 
 " ering soul . . . and show it ... soaring high above 
 " all waters, the Saviour from afar . . . Then Heaven 
 " and Hell lamented its immeasurable sorrow, 
 " which neither could assuage . . . since it was too 
 "deep for the light and for the darkness" . . . 
 (She lays the letter aside.) A confession? But do you 
 realize that the man who wrote it is an artist? 
 EVA. In fragments, perhaps. He has all qualities 
 of the lover and the poet, and is neither. 
 IRENE. Only a fragment himself, then? 
 EVA. I sometimes thought, you know, that God 
 intended to make a great artist of him, and being 
 disturbed in His creative act, made a charlatan . . . 
 IRENE. You are hard on him. You show that your 
 love still suffers from the convulsions of death. 
 When love is buried, we grow more merciful. And 
 did he write more letters in this style? 
 EVA. No. But once when we were together and I 
 asked him to solve me his riddle, he smiled mys 
 teriously and said: "Dear lady, you must under- 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 stand that I am a great work of art. Invisible springs 
 set me in motion, and all about me must be har 
 mony, complete harmony. In the melody of love 
 the slightest discord is fatal." And, oh, how his lips 
 shone; and how a strange heavy atmosphere seemed 
 to float about him as at high mass in some great 
 cathedral . . . 
 IRENE. What a poseur! 
 
 EVA. It is easy for you to talk. You do not know 
 him. ( Takes a photograph from her desk.) Look, here 
 he is. 
 
 IRENE (scrutinizing the piflure attentively). Weak, 
 and yet brutal. These melancholy eyes brown, 
 I suppose? 
 EVA (nods). 
 
 IRENE (continuing). The brutality lies in the lower 
 part of his face. It might be the effigy of a Roman 
 emperor, cruel and self-conscious to the verge of 
 madness . . . 
 
 EVA. Do you think so too? How very remarkable! 
 He said almost the same thing. It was one night 
 after the theatre. It had rained, and the street-lights 
 were reflected on the wet, shimmering pavement. 
 We walked a short distance. His arm rested heavily 
 upon mine. He was inexpressibly beautiful, and 
 golden words flowed from his lips. And then it was 
 that for once he seemed to reveal himself entirely. 
 ...He gathered his coat about him as though it were 
 the royal purple . . . He seemed like a phantom 
 from perished ages . . . And then with dreamy, bell- 
 
 10 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 like voice, he gave me the key to the riddle of his 
 life. "Dear child," he said, "I am born out of my 
 due time two thousand years too late ... I should 
 have been an emperor in Rome . . . Yet no ... not 
 even that . . . For the Caesars were dependent on 
 popular favour ... In a remoter antiquity I should 
 have been born, then, when the purple conferred 
 the privilege of splendid madness ... I should have 
 wielded the sceptre of an Asiatic monarch, of that 
 king of the Persians who lashed the sea with chains 
 . . . and I am" Here his voice sank, and the sen 
 tence remained unfinished. And so great was the 
 man s fascination that I lost sight of the grotesque- 
 ness of his assumption and should have liked to 
 kneel at his feet under the very arc-lights of New 
 York! . . . That was the climacteric moment of our 
 love. And then (she shudders] banality. 
 IRENE. You are too exacting, my dear. Even Caesar, 
 were he alive to-day, would have his boots blacked; 
 even Isaiah would trim his beard. And in his love, 
 was he imperial there too? 
 
 EVA (blushing slightly). The strange thing was that 
 after he had expended all his arts to win me, he was 
 unpassionate almost cold. 
 
 IRENE. That is strange indeed . . . But I must make 
 the acquaintance of this marvel. 
 EVA. Take care! 
 
 IRENE. Pah! After your confession! (To herself.) I 
 wonder if she really understands him? 
 
 (The bell rings.) 
 
 (A maid comes in and whispers to EVA.) 
 
 ii 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 EVA (softly). It is he. 
 
 (She sinks upon a chair and takes up her cigarette 
 again.) 
 IRENE (steps before the mirror, patting her hair). 
 
 (Without, soft steps are heard like those of a great, 
 
 sleek cat.) 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
 12 
 
II 
 
 (On board a small Yacht. IRENE and CLARENCE. The 
 rays of the sun cast silver crosses into the green water. 
 There is a yearning as of summer in the air.) 
 
 (CLARENCE would attraff attention even in a crowded 
 thoroughfare by virtue of his beautiful eyes, a fatt of 
 which he is quite conscious. His gestures are carefully 
 studied. He inclines to stoutness. His dark hair, combed 
 back from his forehead, is beginning to show traces of 
 gray.) 
 
 (IRENE leans against the railing, holding a painted 
 parasol with which she tries to shield CLARENCE ana* 
 herself from the rays of the sun, which, however, are 
 not penetrating enough to make the shade necessary?) 
 
 IRENE. And do you call that love? 
 CLARENCE. Grosser things have been called so. 
 IRENE. And what would you call it? 
 CLARENCE. Vulgar sensuality. 
 IRENE. Even "the love that moves the sun and all 
 the stars"? 
 
 CLARENCE (smiling). Ah, Oscar Wilde? Yes, even 
 that. 
 
 IRENE. And this subtle attraction between you and 
 me? 
 
 CLARENCE. I feel that even it would come under 
 the definition of Montaigne to the effect that 
 love 
 
 IRENE. I know. But why that adjective? Why 
 should the play of the senses be called vulgar? 
 
 13 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 CLARENCE (with subtlety). Because both never feel 
 the same. 
 
 IRENE. Is that not too harsh a judgement? 
 CLARENCE. Be honest. 
 
 IRENE. Even if I am honest. We women But 
 something twitches about your lips. (After a mo 
 ment s consideration, slowly.) I fear that you are a 
 hopeless cynic. 
 
 CLARENCE (wearily, letting his beautiful eyes rest 
 upon her and laying his hand lightly on her shoulder]. 
 My dear lady, you make a grave mistake. I am not 
 (his voice begins to tremble) a cynic in the ordinary 
 acceptation of that word. 
 
 IRENE (looking at him full of anticipation). You are 
 nothing in the common acceptation. 
 CLARENCE (receiving the compliment with a graceful 
 inclination of his head). Do you see, there are two 
 kinds of cynicism 
 IRENE (looks at him sharply). 
 
 CLARENCE. Two kinds, I say. One is cheap it is 
 that of the sophomore, but there is another kind, 
 that is dear, (his voice trembles) dearly bought, and 
 that (with the air of a tragic heroine) is the cyni 
 cism of the mature man. 
 
 IRENE (to herself). The identical words. That is 
 going far! (An idea takes hold of her; then, as if 
 carried away.) Oh, I believe that you have suffered 
 deeply. 
 
 CLARENCE (is silent and looks at the sky). 
 IRENE (continuing). And the shadow of that suffer- 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 ing floats before you as the veil in the temple be 
 fore the Holy of Holies. 
 
 CLARENCE (is flatter ed> smiles, and lets his hand rest 
 somewhat more heavily upon her shoulder]. 
 IRENE. And that shadow must hide a mystery 
 deeper than love . . . 
 
 CLARENCE (looks at her in some astonishment. Then 
 to himself]. SHE KNOWS. 
 
 IRENE. And in all your wanderings through life 
 you have never (consciously seductive) never found 
 the woman to whose eyes you could lift the veil ? 
 CLARENCE (calmly to himself}. SHE DOES NOT KNOW. 
 (He encircles her closer. The proximity of the Man- 
 Animal begins to stir her blood.) 
 CLARENCE. There are things incommunicable which 
 the strong must bear alone. 
 
 IRENE. Oh, I know them too. In long nights they 
 stand at one s bedside like souls in travail to be 
 born. I too 
 
 CLARENCE. Who knows whether it would be a 
 blessing were they to gain form and life? . . . 
 IRENE. Does not all nature strive after expression 
 in flesh or sound? 
 
 CLARENCE. And what if the forms assumed by our 
 secrets be nightmares and fearsome monstrosities? 
 IRENE. Better a hideous phantom of stone than one 
 that hounds down thought in the innermost con 
 volutions of the brain . . . 
 
 CLARENCE. And so you would know the secret of 
 my life; my secret . . . 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 (She looks deep into the elfin beauty of his eyes. The 
 pressure of his arm upon her shoulder is relaxed. He 
 seems to throw his whole nervous energy into his 
 voice, whose silver sound has a weird resonance like 
 that of a great bell tolled at the bottom of the sea.) 
 CLARENCE. I will relate to you a parable. If you 
 understand it, it is well; if you do not understand 
 it, (caressing each syllable) it is better. (With solem 
 nity.) Upon a golden throne 
 
 (She starts.) 
 
 CLARENCE. Upon a golden throne sate a gleaming 
 idol . . . And it had a soul . . . But all who came 
 thither knew it not . . . And they were not to know 
 it ... For it was the awful punishment of this silent 
 idol that it had a soul and might not reveal it ... 
 if it would not endure the agonies of the lost . . . 
 IRENE (is carried away in spite of herself by a sense 
 of wonder and by the extraordinary beauty of his elo 
 cution). 
 
 CLARENCE (as if with a personal application). . . And 
 once in seven years the most powerful of the idols 
 to whom belongs all might in Heaven and upon 
 Earth sent its messenger and temper to break the 
 iron fetters of that quivering soul . . . and show it 
 . . . soaring high above all waters, the Saviour from 
 afar . . . Then Heaven and Hell lamented its im 
 measurable sorrow which neither could assuage . . . 
 since it was too deep for the light and for the 
 darkness . . . 
 
 (She recognizes perfectly the absurdity of the situa- 
 tion, but his voice intoxicates her like new wine. 
 16 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 The Woman- Animal awakens , and she yields with 
 conscious abandon to the magic of the moment?) 
 CLARENCE. You are astonished and you under 
 stand. 
 
 IRENE (with a shade of irony). You are a great 
 mystery. 
 
 CLARENCE {failing despite his subtlety to note her deli 
 cate raillery]. You are mistaken a work of art. 
 IRENE (to herself). This is too much. (His remark 
 has destroyed something of the sensuous charm^ and it 
 is rather curiosity than any other feeling that prompts 
 her to inquire further?] An artist rather. 
 CLARENCE. No. A great work of art. Mysterious 
 springs set me in motion, contrivances so delicate 
 that even the exquisite scales in the treasure houses 
 of gre at nations could not weigh them. All about me 
 must be harmony, (now almost intoning his words) 
 complete harmony. In the melody of love the faint 
 est discord is fatal . . . 
 
 (He comes nearer and again places his arm about her. 
 Something like a magnetic fluid seems to emanate 
 from him. She almost hears the throbbing of his 
 pulses and fights with different emotions of which 
 finally curiosity still gets the upper hand.) 
 CLARENCE (significantly). You understand me. 
 IRENE (falling unconsciously into the same dramatic 
 tone). I understand you. 
 
 CLARENCE. I knew it ... You would understand me 
 even without words. 
 
 IRENE (to herself). I wonder what he is driving 
 at. (Aloud.) Language is crudely inadequate. 
 
 17 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 CLARENCE. When two souls are in complete har 
 mony one always knows what the other feels. 
 IRENE. I have never known so happy an under 
 standing. 
 
 CLARENCE (as if reviving memories from an unspeak 
 able distance of time]. I had a friend once . . . And 
 he loved me ... And often we walked the long 
 paths, speaking no word . . . Those were the even 
 ings on which our conversations were most satis 
 fying . . . And on a certain night it came to pass 
 that I accompanied him from Fourteenth Street to 
 his dwelling . . . Silently we pursued our way, each 
 busy with his thoughts . . . But at Eighty-ninth 
 Street when we bade farewell to each other he 
 opened his lips and there was sorrow in his voice . . . 
 "Clarence," he said, "at the corner of Fifty-ninth 
 Street you were in the wrong" . . . 
 IRENE (to herself). That at least he did not tell her. 
 (Aloud.] How you contrive to find the right ex 
 pression for everything so delicate at once and 
 profound. You should have been a poet or a 
 CLARENCE (straightening himself like a beautiful wild 
 animal about to display all its charms before its mate. 
 If he were a cat he would emit sparks at this moment. 
 Then with a deep, melodious, dreamy voice). No, that 
 is not my vocation. I have been born out of my due 
 time ... I should have been born two thousand 
 years ago . . v . I should have been an emperor in 
 Rome . . . No 
 
 IRENE (whose desire to show that she sees through him 
 overcomes every other feeling). I know. You should 
 18 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 have been a Persian king, a Darius who in his 
 splendid madness had the ocean lashed. 
 CLARENCE (taken aback for a moment; then with im 
 movable calm). Why must women always misquote? 
 Xerxes was the man s name. 
 IRENE. I have heard every remark that you made 
 before. 
 
 CLARENCE. That is impossible, for one was new. 
 IRENE. And is it thus that you seek to impress 
 me? 
 
 CLARENCE (coming very near and taking her hands in 
 his). Certainly. And that I should try to do so 
 proves how much store I set by you . . . 
 IRENE. If you are a master of language, why do 
 you not at least clothe your thought in new forms? 
 CLARENCE. It is because I am a master of language 
 that I refrain from doing so. If I have found per- 
 fe6t expression for anything, should I not be the 
 merest tyro to change one jot or tittle? 
 IRENE. But all that smacks of the merest posing! 
 CLARENCE. Pose ! Pose ! What higher compliment 
 can I pay you than to appear before you in my 
 fairest raiment? 
 
 IRENE (whose power and wish to resist dwindle 
 equally]. And do you play this trick with all wo 
 men? 
 
 CLARENCE. With all whom I love . . . And (embra 
 cing her with both arms] is my method not justi 
 fied by its success? Have I not won my game? 
 (His lips touch hers and she suffers herself to be 
 
A GAME AT LOVE 
 
 kissed. His head sinks upon her bosom. The air is 
 heavy, athrill with summer, drenched with fra 
 grance. There is triumph in her eyes, weariness in 
 his.) 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
II 
 
 THE MOOD OF A MOMENT 
 
CHARACTERS 
 
 ALBERT (between thirty and thirty-four) 
 MARION (about thirty) 
 AN OLD-FASHIONED PERSON 
 SEVERAL PERSONS OF No IMPORTANCE 
 
{A small Room, separated from the main drawing- 
 room by Chinese hangings. In the former are MARION, 
 ALBERT, and THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON; in the 
 latter PERSONS OF No IMPORTANCE.) 
 
 (MARION is a beauty of the brunette type, who has 
 read much and lived little. Something adheres to 
 her of the misunderstood woman, who since the 
 days of George Sand has invaded fiction. Withal 
 she is fashionably dressed and wears a modern 
 coiffure. A Parisian gown of cream-coloured lace 
 serves rather to suggest than to reveal her charms. 
 She plays with two red roses whose petals she 
 plucks out, one by one, as the scene progresses.) 
 
 (ALBERT half approaches the Aesthete, half the 
 Blond Beast of Nietzsche. He is dressed with the 
 utmost care; his movements are nervous , his voice, 
 except when under the stress of emotion, deliberately 
 cold.) 
 
 (It is unnecessary to characterize THE OLD- 
 FASHIONED PERSON.) 
 
 MARION (says nothing and sighs). 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON (sighs and 
 says nothing], 
 
 ALBERT (approaching and bowing slightly). You have 
 been speaking of 
 MARION. Love, of course. 
 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON (earnestly). We were 
 discussing marriage and fidelity. 
 
 23 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, &c. 
 
 ALBERT (smiles). 
 
 MARION (half reproachfully, half coquettishly). You 
 smile . . . ? 
 
 ALBERT. What else can one do? 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON. I hardly followyou. 
 ALBERT (paying no attention to him). It seems to me 
 almost naive if any one nowadays speaks of love 
 and fidelity, or good and evil, as though these were 
 unalterable conceptions; things measurable by a 
 fixed criterion. 
 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON. The conceptions 
 are changeless enough, not perhaps in philosophy 
 since Nietzsche has turned the modern world 
 topsy-turvy; practically they are without doubt. 
 ALBERT (condescendingly). And how would you per 
 sonally define fidelity, for instance? 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON (with conviction). 
 The definition of the Civil Code suffices for me. 
 ALBERT (with a pity ing shrug). Then you can hardly 
 have penetrated very deeply into the secrets of 
 man s soul. I am not unfaithful, unless I feel so; 
 everything is subjective. 
 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON. A dangerous doc 
 trine this (uttering each syllable with angry em 
 phasis) subjectivity ! 
 
 MARION. Dangerous, perhaps, but interesting. Tell 
 us about it. 
 
 ALBERT. I can be faithful, and yet faithless ; I can 
 be unfaithful without breaking faith. But I never 
 vow fidelity, for I would seem to myself like a 
 
 24 
 
THE MOOD OF A MOMENT 
 
 lamp-vender who accompanies the sale of each chim 
 ney with a guarantee that it will never crack, al 
 though he knows that the slightest draught suf 
 fices to cause this catastrophe. 
 MARION. Do you then hold love to be so fleeting 
 a thing? 
 
 ALBERT. The most fleeting of all. One may liken 
 it to a little golden bird which perches now upon 
 this twig, now upon that, as its whim, or if you 
 please the mood of each moment commands. 
 MARION. And should we not strive to prison this 
 little bird in a jewelled cage? 
 ALBERT (speaking to her alone and ignoring THE 
 OLD-FASHIONED PERSON altogether]. Would you 
 care to put fetters on such a little creature and hurt 
 it? We do it, to be sure. And then one of two 
 things happens : Either it flies away, or else its little 
 heart breaks, and we find it one day bruised and 
 dead. Perhaps it would have remained with us 
 had we not fettered it. Constraint is the one thing 
 it cannot endure. For love is a survival from times 
 primaeval, and therefore it has the impatience and 
 the love of liberty that wild things have. 
 MARION (listens with a light slowly kindling in 
 her eyes and drops one rose-leaf after another on the 
 floor}. 
 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON. But we have no 
 thing to do with primaeval things. You seem to 
 forget that evolution has carried us beyond them. 
 ALBERT. It has. And it has carried us beyond love 
 too, most of us, at least. 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 MARION. I think I see what you mean. Others 
 have told me similar things, but these others never 
 succeeded in translating their theories into practice 
 without becoming vulgar. 
 
 ALBERT (sympathetically]. That I believe, for the 
 Art of Living is the most difficult of all the arts. 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON. Of course, if you 
 entertain such principles you acknowledge no au 
 thority ? 
 
 ALBERT. The strong man recognizes none. 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON (triumphantly}. An 
 anarchist of the drawing-room, eh? 
 ALBERT. I, like life, permit myself to be neither 
 pigeonholed nor labelled. 
 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON (looking at MARION 
 out of a corner of his eye]. Upon the basis of such 
 opinions you would not hesitate, of course, to 
 stretch out a covetous hand after your neighbour s 
 wife ? 
 
 ALBERT (with boundless contempt]. I take what I 
 desire. 
 
 MARION (looks at him full of admiration]. 
 ALBERT (continuing calmly]. I take what I desire; 
 what I do not desire I toss away. 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON (to himself]. A fine 
 specimen, I must say ! 
 
 MARION. That must make your love all the more 
 desirable to women . . . 
 
 ALBERT (drawing nearer to MARION). I drag no 
 chains through life. Is not the complete enjoyment 
 
 26 
 
THE MOOD OF A MOMENT 
 
 of a single moment better than a lifetime of plea 
 sure in homoeopathic doses? The latter makes us 
 shallower, the former deeper, and I seek the 
 depths. 
 
 MARION. Even if they are quicksands? 
 ALBERT (with that softness of intonation which the 
 Man- Animal assumes at more intimate moments). Even 
 then. 
 
 MARION (with a challenge in her voice). . . And 
 you always dare to push your theories to the last 
 extreme? 
 
 ALBERT (suppressing the impulse of brutally kissing 
 her lips for answer). If I desired to drink bitter 
 cordials out of small green glasses they would be 
 upon my table; if I found enjoyment in morphine, 
 I would not hesitate to distil it into my veins. And 
 if at last sophisticated pleasures tired me, I would 
 find my way to sailors taverns, to the wild orgies 
 of nameless haunts of shame. But that does not 
 appeal to me. It is not compatible with the aesthe 
 tic temperament. Finally, if I were to find plea 
 sure in pain itself, I would not stop even at that, 
 but crucify myself. For (stressing each syllable) to 
 permit one s self to be crucified by others is in bad 
 taste ... I tolerate only self-inflicted wounds . . . 
 MARION (gazes into his eyes as if to find there some 
 confirmation of his words). 
 ALBERT (does not avoid her look). 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON (when he sees that 
 MARION smiles, looks at both in utter astonishment 
 and with an inward shrug. ^hen y with a longing 
 
 27 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, & f . 
 
 glance at the partition). You will excuse me? 
 ALBERT (sighing with relief). Certainly. 
 THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON (mumbling to him 
 self). Too much undigested Nietzsche! Too much 
 undigested Nietzsche! 
 
 (Exit THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSON.) 
 ALBERT (the hangings having closed behind THE 
 OLD-FASHIONED PERSON, continues with even softer 
 intonation). Wounds have no attraction for me 
 now. 
 
 MARION (boldly). . . And what does attract you 
 now? 
 
 ALBERT (still bolder). The Sensuous, if it is Beau 
 tiful. (Bending over her.) You, for instance, Marion. 
 MARION (shaking the rose-leaves from her lap,falter- 
 ingly). No man has ever spoken to me in this way. 
 ALBERT. And are you angry if I do it? 
 MARION. Your frankness is something new to me; 
 it is surprising . . . (Believing her self still mistress of 
 the situation.) Yes, surprising, and, (tenderly) shall I 
 say pleasing? 
 
 (I he light of the lamp falls full upon her. Its rosy 
 
 shimmer enters into her blood. Upon her lap lies a 
 
 single rose-leaf?) 
 
 ALBERT (passionately). How wonderful you are, 
 Marion! ... I would drink your beauty in! ... 
 What a gleam in your hair, Marion! . . . The 
 petals of the rose are not so red as your lips . . . 
 A strange magic possesses me . . . (Touching her.) 
 I hear a melody from fairyland . . . The mere lust 
 
 28 
 
THE MOOD OF A MOMENT 
 
 of the flesh has no part in it ... I would kiss 
 your forehead, Marion . . . your cool, white fore 
 head . . . 
 
 (He withdraws his hand, as if wishing not to destroy 
 the ethereal atmosphere created by his last words.) 
 MARION (the Woman-Animal awakens in her). This 
 evening a great happiness has dawned for me . . . 
 (Dreamily.) All my life have I sought a man, and 
 found him at last. 
 ALBERT (strokes her hair gently). 
 MARION. You wear the uniform of society; but 
 you do not permit its conventional stiffness to fet 
 ter your soul, as others do. 
 
 (Steps are heard.) 
 ALBERT. Some one is coming. 
 MARION (softly). Don t be annoyed. No one comes 
 here except my friends, and among these people 
 I have no friends. I can still spare a few minutes 
 before going back among the philistines. Alas, all 
 my life long I have known only philistines ex 
 cept one, (with bravado) and he ended in the peni 
 tentiary . . . 
 
 ALBERT (with even greater bravado). That may 
 happen to any gentleman . . . 
 MARION. I beg your pardon, this particular one 
 forged checks. 
 
 ALBERT. That is different; it is vulgar. If he had 
 slain to rob there is a fierce beauty in that. An 
 cient instincts must awaken, (grasping her hand al 
 most rudely) instincts that have slept a thousand 
 
 29 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, & f . 
 
 years, primaeval, cruel, irresistible. 
 MARION (shivering) like Love? . . . 
 ALBERT. Stronger, perhaps, and sweeter, (almost 
 shaking her) so that every nerve in your body 
 quivers . . . 
 
 MARION (caressing the hand that holds her). Ah, 
 you are not a stranger. I have read of you in 
 Nietzsche and Stirner, but I did not know that 
 you were alive. I adore you! 
 ALBERT. Come with me! 
 
 MARION (drawing back). That is impossible! Con 
 sider, society. . . 
 ALBERT. Then come to-night! 
 MARION (trembling). How could I? My husband 
 but to-morrow . . . to-morrow I shall be 
 alone . . . 
 
 (The Chinese hangings move, and a noise is heard.) 
 ALBERT. To-morrow, then. 
 
 (He presses her hand so violently that she barely 
 
 suppresses a cry. Exit ALBERT.) 
 A PERSON OF No IMPORTANCE (entering and ap 
 proaching MARION). A most extraordinary person, 
 this gentleman 
 
 MARION (with her thoughts far away). Yes, most 
 extraordinary . . . 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
 30 
 
II 
 
 (The same Drawing-Room. Eleven o clock in the 
 morning?) 
 
 (Marion lost in dreams^ but restless with anticipa 
 tion. She wears a morning-gown of pale rose-colour , 
 which serves rather to reveal than to suggest her 
 charms^ and white carnations in her hair?) 
 
 MARION (holding a letter in which she reads from 
 time to tirne^ only to sink in dreams anew). " . . . 
 "Your image has not left me . . . Late at night in 
 "a cafe I write to you . . . The waiters are tired 
 "and would like to go home . . . But I, I tremble 
 "for the morning ... I would press the red seal 
 "of my lips upon yours . . . Love shall offer us 
 "the full measure of his ecstasies . . . We shall 
 "yield wholly with all our being, in order that 
 "neither subtle thought nor final disgust make bit- 
 "ter our feast, as they always do when one drinks 
 "slowly" . . . 
 
 (A ring at the bell is heard?) 
 
 (Footsteps.) 
 
 (A servant brings a card upon a silver tray?) 
 MARION (controlling herself with difficulty). Ask 
 the gentleman to come in. 
 
 (She walks toward the mirror, but trembles so vio 
 lently that she has to support herself against the back 
 of a chair. Before she has time to look at herself 
 
 ALBERT stands upon the threshold. He hastens to 
 
 embrace her, but stops suddenly?) 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, & f . 
 
 MARION (tenderly). You may come . . . We are all 
 alone . . . 
 
 ALBERT (hesitating]. . . . And the servant? 
 MARION. I have sent him away . . . Oh, I am so 
 happy that you came . . . Your exquisite letter was 
 like the fragrance of red flowers, like the fragrance 
 of red wine that intoxicates . . . (Looking at him 
 expectantly, and as he makes no movement to approach, 
 astonished, dumbfounded.) What is it? 
 ALBERT. Had you only consented yesterday . . . 
 You have shattered one of the fairest dreams of 
 my life . . . Not that I reproach you; still 
 MARION. You are changed since yesterday. 
 ALBERT (impatiently). I always change; but neither 
 are you the same . . . 
 
 MARION. I do not understand you . . . only this 
 morning your letter . . . and now How am I to 
 reconcile these things? 
 
 ALBERT. If you desire the truth . . . but I know that 
 you do not 
 
 MARION. Speak! I am prepared for anything. 
 ALBERT (brutally). You have lost your attrac 
 tion . . . 
 
 MARION (alternately red and pale). Oh, if any other 
 man had said that to me! . . . But I am no child; 
 I am not to be played with, I must know why my 
 charm has departed. (Hesitating, and then dropping 
 all pretence at delicacy.) You cannot cannot be 
 weary of me yet! 
 ALBERT (slightly irritated). I am as sorry as you 
 
THE MOOD OF A MOMENT 
 
 are, but the thing is impossible. I cannot offer you 
 a sufficient measure of love. 
 
 MARION. What has come over you? Are you play 
 ing a game? 
 
 ALBERT (sadly]. You see, one mood supplants an 
 other . . . Who can solve the mystery of love? . . . 
 (Drawing on one glove.) Good-bye ! . . . 
 MARION (imperatively). Stay! 
 ALBERT (somewhat more interested). Stay? 
 MARION. I insist upon it. (As she sees him twitch 
 his fingers in impatience.) Oh, I am not trying to 
 keep you. Pride alone would forbid that . . . But 
 you have poured love like molten lead into my 
 veins, you have put my soul asleep, fettered me, 
 me y who was wont to play with love, only play, 
 cautiously, as beseems a married woman . . . And 
 therefore I have a right to demand an explana 
 tion. 
 
 ALBERT. I fear that if I told you, you would still 
 misinterpret, still fall short of wholly understand 
 ing me. It seems to be impossible for a woman to 
 analyze an experience disinterestedly. 
 MARION (making an effort after self-control). Oh, I 
 can be quite objective, believe me, quite. Your 
 words have fallen upon my passion like snow on 
 fire. I look upon the whole affair (fighting down 
 her tears) as a problem. You are interested in pro 
 blems, are you not? . . . 
 ALBERT. Surely, when they are insoluble. 
 MARION (without paying attention to his remark). 
 And what is the solution of this problem? 
 
 33 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, &e. 
 
 ALBERT. It is more seemly to propound problems 
 than to solve them. To me, at least, Oedipus was 
 always less interesting than the Sphinx . . . 
 MARION. But you are interested in self-analysis. 
 ALBERT. Ah, yes. I find in it the same voluptuous 
 pleasure that coarser natures find in self-laceration. 
 And so I agree to remain to analyze. 
 MARION (coldly]. Tell me, then, how it is that yes 
 terday (she speaks with difficulty] that yesterday 
 . . . you were interested in me? 
 ALBERT. It is hard to put into words, very hard. 
 I told you that I am a man of many moods 4 , a 
 seeker after them. I yield to them entirely, be 
 cause I know, alas, how swiftly they escape us and 
 how all our phantoms vanish into nothingness. 
 You must have felt that too. Have you not known 
 some golden summer morning in which all grasses 
 were fragrant and all nature impearled with dew, 
 a morning full of holiness and sabbath peace, and 
 then a single word turned the smile upon heaven s 
 countenance into a grinning gargoyle, and impen 
 etrable mists sank upon the darkening valley . . . 
 And so it is with love . . . 
 
 MARION. And wherein did the charm of yesterday 
 consist? You had seen me before without feeling 
 it, and, having felt it, whither has it gone? 
 ALBERT (thoughtfully}. Words are so inadequate. 
 There was the illumination . . . the light in your 
 hair and in your eyes . . . the cream-coloured lace 
 . . . and between your slender white fingers, like 
 drops of blood, the petals of a rose . . . 
 
 34 
 
THE MOOD OF A MOMENT 
 
 MARION. They tell me that I am beautiful . . . 
 ALBERT. You are. 
 
 MARION. And not only at night, in the shimmer 
 of a red lamp, with rose-leaves like drops of blood 
 between my slender fingers? . . . 
 ALBERT. Not then alone. In fad:, (he looks her over 
 carefully] you are even more beautiful by day ; the 
 daylight brings out your complexion, your hair . . . 
 MARION {feeling that she has gained a point). But 
 surely you did not fall in love with a red lamp or 
 my cream-coloured dress? . . . 
 ALBERT. Yes and no. It is not any of these things, 
 it is the atmosphere, the mood. 
 MARION. And that mood is flown irrevocably? 
 ALBERT (oracularly). I have heard stories of the 
 dead who arose from their graves. 
 MARION (in the grip of an idea). And if dead love 
 re-arose and sat beside you at the banquet, would 
 it fill you with delight or horror? 
 ALBERT. Most men fear the dead if they return; 
 I would gladly look into the eyes of re-arisen 
 love. 
 
 MARION. What if ? 
 
 ALBERT (regretfully). Ah, but it cannot be. Give 
 me your hand and let us part in peace, as the 
 strong should. And when we meet, then we will 
 smile or pass each other with silent recognition, 
 and when men speak of love, we shall listen with 
 the consciousness of being richer by a new experi 
 ence. 
 
 35 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, sV. 
 
 MARION. I am not sentimental now, but my in 
 terest is alert. I will propose a plan. 
 ALBERT. And that is ? 
 MARION. An experiment. 
 
 ALBERT (to himself). That s a new element. The 
 little woman shows promise. Is it possible . . . ? 
 Who can tell . . . ? (Aloud.) And what do you pro 
 pose? 
 
 MARION. I will re-create by artificial means last 
 night s atmosphere appear, act, as I did then. 
 ALBERT (musingly). I see. You purpose to create 
 a complete mood, a harmony without discord, 
 sweet as the last dream of a hashish-eater which 
 no awakening can dispel. 
 
 (He stretches out his hand tenderly to stroke her 
 hair.) 
 MARION (warding him off). Wait till I return. 
 
 (She disappears silently from the room.) 
 ALBERT (restlessly turns the pages of a book). 
 
 (After a little while a servant enters, lowers the 
 shades, and lights the red lamp which diffuses its 
 light throughout the room.) 
 
 (Another pause. Then steps are heard which become 
 slower as they approach the drawing-room.) 
 MARION (opening the door). Don t look around! 
 (She slips in and stands for a moment beside the 
 Chinese hangings. She wears the same costume as 
 on the previous night and her hair is similarly ar 
 ranged. Her hands hold two red roses. She hastens 
 to the same seat on which she sat the night before, 
 
THE MOOD OF A MOMENT 
 
 rests her head upon one hand, holding the flowers 
 
 in the other.} 
 
 ALBERT (looking up, is struck with the sight. He 
 stands still for a moment. Then runs to her and falls 
 at her feet). You have it. Hold it fast hold it! 
 It is the same charm the identical mood! 
 MARION (beaming with happiness, plays with his 
 hair). Ah, I knew it. We shall be completely happy, 
 together make a pilgrimage to the Islands of the 
 Blessed . . . O Albert, I love you, you are strong ! 
 ALBERT (suddenly drawing back). No, it is impos 
 sible. The mood is not the same. It is like a bell 
 that is cracked. Why had you not more dar 
 ing ! ... Had you repulsed me coldly . . . cruelly 
 ... at the moment when I lay at your feet . . . 
 everything would have been possible ... I trem 
 bled after it ... hoped for it! ... 
 MARION (dropping all reserve). I thought of it ... I 
 disdained it ! (Springing up.} Do you not see how 
 madly I love you? 
 
 ALBERT (quite coldly, but with a touch of melancholy}. 
 That is just it. There is love in your eyes. Last 
 night you did not love me . . . 
 MARION. And is that a reason why you treat me 
 like a wanton? 
 
 ALBERT (shrugging his shoulders). The moment a 
 woman begins to love me, she has ceased to inter 
 est me. 
 
 MARION (pale with excitement). What insolence! 
 ALBERT. As you please. 
 
 37 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, & f . 
 
 MARION. You are brutal. 
 
 ALBERT (his hand on the door now). And would 
 you love me if I were different ? . . . 
 (MARION S head droops.) 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
Ill 
 
 FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 "And Love that caught strange fire from Deattis own eyes." 
 
 SWINBURNE. 
 
CHARACTERS 
 
 MILDRED (forty) 
 
 ALFRED (between eighteen and nineteen) 
 
 GWENDOLEN (eighteen) 
 
FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 (A Room tastefully furnished and not without lux 
 ury. Niches in the wall; couches with silk cushions; 
 rich draperies; a piano; books; a table laid for a light 
 repast; a clock; a mirror. One door leads direffly to 
 the hall, another to the inner chambers.) 
 
 (MILDRED is dark-complexioned. From time to time 
 a flash as of summer lightning passes over her face. 
 Even at a distance one would suspect her hair of be 
 ing scented with some costly perfume. In all her limbs 
 there is a certain languor as of an early September 
 day. She is the Woman of Forty.) 
 
 (GWENDOLEN appears a little older than her years 
 would warrant. She is fair. The instintts of the 
 Mother- Animal, almost entirely lacking in MILDRED, 
 are strongly pronounced in her, and lend warmth of 
 expression to her gray eyes.) 
 
 (ALFRED is blond. The dreamy expression in his blue 
 eyes is in strange contrast to the fullness of his lips. In 
 speaking he looks older than he is. His gestures are ner 
 vous and unsubdued \ but a certain, almost girlish , grace 
 saves him from the awkwardness of his age. Under the 
 stress of emotion his voice breaks into a boyish treble?) 
 
 (MILDRED goes up to the small table. She touches 
 a few dishes as if to enhance the symmetry of the ar 
 rangement. She is evidently feverish and excited. She 
 consults a little watch, set with pearls, and compares it 
 with the clock. She goes to a mirror and gently applies 
 a pencil to her eyebrows. Then she sits down at the 
 piano, strikes a few bars, and breaks off with a sharp 
 discord.) 4I 
 
M 
 
 A GAME AT LOVE, & f . 
 
 (With firm steps she approaches a desk, takes from 
 it a vial the contents of which she empties into one of 
 the wineglasses on the table?) 
 
 (She hurries to the piano again. The hands of the 
 clock point to a quarter of eleven. Footsteps. A knock 
 ing within?) 
 
 ILDRED (throwing a cloth over the table). 
 Come in. 
 
 GWENDOLEN. I am going to bed, aunt; is there 
 
 anything else you want me to do? 
 
 MILDRED (with unwonted tenderness). No, my dear. 
 
 I thank you. 
 
 GWENDOLEN (looking at her with some astonishment). 
 
 Are you not well ? 
 
 MILDRED (impatiently). Quite, my dear, quite. 
 
 GWENDOLEN. Good night, then. 
 
 MILDRED. Good night. 
 
 (GWENDOLEN goes out^ and MILDRED locks the door 
 behind her.) 
 
 (After a brief space light footsteps are heard in the 
 hall. A key is turned in the outer door. ALFRED en 
 ters^ and the light falls full upon him. He is dressed 
 as if for dinner. His fair hair and the light in 
 his eyes contrast sharply with his dark attire. He 
 throws his arm about her neck?) 
 
 MILDRED. You are earlier than I expefted. 
 
 ALFRED. Yes. I managed to get off. You can ima 
 gine how I enjoyed all the chatter, knowing that 
 
 you waited for me . . . 
 
 MILDRED. Who was there? 
 42 
 
FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 ALFRED. Girls geese! A few of my classmates. 
 Only two people of any interest, Marion and Cla 
 rence. 
 
 (MILDRED S eyes flash.) 
 
 ALFRED. Do you know, she is quite pretty. She 
 wore a dress of cream lace, and had two red roses 
 in her hand, whose petals trickled down her slender 
 fingers like drops of blood . . . 
 MILDRED. That is her unvaried appearance since 
 her absurd affair with Albert . . . 
 ALFRED. And Clarence 
 
 MILDRED. Neither of your interesting people is to 
 my taste. Above all, beware of him. You see him 
 far too often. 
 
 ALFRED. What harm can that do? His is an un 
 usually lucid mind; he is one of those people who 
 understand everything. 
 
 MILDRED. He is one of those natures who have a 
 dangerous passion for playing with other people s 
 souls. You must guard yourself against him. 
 ALFRED. He is a man of wise words and quick 
 sympathy. Think, by contrast, of my college- 
 mates! How they weary and disgust me with their 
 salacious jokes and confessions. Then, too, all their 
 ideas of life and love are so curiously repellent and 
 so different from what I feel. They would consider 
 such a love as ours as something to be bragged of, 
 but always with a tacit insinuation of its immorality. 
 And yet their commerce with women of the street 
 seems to them pardonable, even proper. 
 MILDRED. That is not altogether their fault, but 
 
 43 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, tfr. 
 
 Society s, which considers love outside of marriage 
 for a woman of one s own class a prime offence. 
 The average materfamilias is piously indignant over 
 the sin of some Paolo and Francesca, but closes 
 both eyes to her son s frequent excursions to houses 
 of painted vice. Thus, in their early youth, are 
 they robbed of the power of loving the body 
 purely. 
 
 ALFRED. They are not all so fortunate in their 
 teachers. You have taught me to see with other 
 eyes. How shall I ever thank you ! To think that 
 their fate might have been mine ! 
 MILDRED (playing with his hair). My dear, you 
 could not ever have been one of them. 
 ALFRED. But what is the matter? Your hands trem 
 ble. 
 
 MILDRED. Nothing, nothing. Feverishness, per 
 haps . . . Do you not care to eat something? 
 (She throws the cloth back from the table in such 
 
 a way that the wineglasses in one corner remain 
 
 hidden.) 
 
 ALFRED (looking at the table with child-like delight). 
 Just what I love, mushrooms and caviare! 
 MILDRED. Oh, you big baby ! Will you have a cock 
 tail? 
 
 ALFRED. Yes. I 11 have one. But put two cherries 
 into it. Then I can imagine them to be two lips 
 reddened with sharp kisses. 
 
 (fhey drink.) 
 MILDRED. Will you have a cigarette? 
 
 44 
 
FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 ALFRED. Will you? 
 MILDRED. Not to-night. 
 
 ALFRED. Then I won t smoke either. Do you 
 know, I really don t care particularly for smok 
 ing. I do it now and then, because it looks grace 
 ful and because you like it. 
 
 MILDRED. Yes. There is a strange charm in seeing 
 you hold a cigarette between your passionate boy 
 ish lips. It is hard to tell then whether its fire or 
 your mouth burns with a redder flame . . . 
 ALFRED. And I, I love to see you smoke. You 
 are the only woman whom it suits. It gives you a 
 more demoniac air. Little tips of flame seem to 
 quiver about your lips. One wonders then whether 
 it is the reflection of your cigarette or your soul 
 that dances there . . . 
 MILDRED (smiling). Another cocktail? 
 ALFRED. No, I thank you. One is enough to set 
 my blood racing in choric measures through the 
 brain . . . 
 MILDRED. Some wine then? 
 
 (She lifts a bottle of red wine which almost falls 
 
 from her trembling hand.) 
 
 ALFRED. There is something wrong with you to 
 night something unusual about you. 
 MILDRED. A passing weakness. 
 
 (MILDRED^/.? the cloth entirely away and Jills the 
 
 glasses.) 
 
 ALFRED (draining his). To your health ! 
 MILDRED. To yours, (falteringly) and to the future ! 
 
 45 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 (She tastes the contents of her glass carefully and then 
 drinks it down.) Do you know, Alfred, we should 
 never have met ... It would have been better for 
 you and for me ... 
 
 ALFRED. Better? How can you say such things! 
 Did you not bring a new and radiant light into my 
 life when the great sun of your love arose for me? 
 I, to be sure, could be but little to you, beautiful 
 and courted as you are; I had nothing to give you 
 except my heart. 
 
 MILDRED. Yes, dear, but listen. I am your first 
 great love; you are my last. First love is peren 
 nially beautiful. It wears a purple raiment and a 
 wreath of roses ; it remains throughout life one s 
 dearest memory. But with the sweetness of the 
 kisses of one s last passion, there is blended a bit 
 terness in the conscious knowledge that its end is 
 always near. The colour of its robe is almost stri 
 dent in its brilliance, for it is red with the scarlet of 
 fever and the crimson of one s heart s own blood . . . 
 This love, too, bears a wreath, but it is a wreath of 
 thorns. It is the saddest of all loves, it has no il 
 lusions. I know that you will leave me, for I am 
 old. 
 
 ALFRED. You are, and will be, my one love. 
 MILDRED. Oh, you are such a child ! 1 1 is your youth, 
 it is the Eternal Masculine in you, that will drive 
 you away from me. And if not these, then the 
 artist will come, who makes of the hearts of those 
 who love him a lyre on which he plays, harmonies 
 long and full, or mere vers de societe; and when he 
 
 46 
 
FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 has lured from the instrument all songs that it 
 could give, he breaks it and throws it away. And 
 yet I am glad that I have given you a voice. It is 
 said that the love of mature women is dangerous 
 to young men. It is a lie. I believe that the society 
 of wearied and sophisticated men, who poison them 
 with their cynicism and dazzle them with their wit, 
 is far more fatal. I feel that my influence has been 
 good. 
 
 ALFRED. You gave me all. 
 MILDRED. And yet, I made a mistake. I should 
 have flirted with you, played with you as queens 
 do with their pages, but I should not have loved 
 you ; it should not have gone so deep. I love you 
 too much to let your love die in mere friendship. 
 Others may do so, I cannot. I cannot bear the 
 thought of losing you. Your limbs have the fra 
 grance of tender grasses . . . When your boy s 
 head rests on my bosom I know that my image 
 entrances you entirely, that you are not old enough 
 to have to think, when in my arms, of some per 
 verse wanton who stung your jaded nerves to a last 
 pang of pleasure. And finally, I know that our love 
 has been of deep significance to your life and to 
 your art, not a liaison that passes without trace. 
 But pass it must. That, too, is sure, and a great 
 loneliness will devour my life. 
 ALFRED (almost weeping). But I will not leave you, 
 O my queen ! You knew how to receive my adora 
 tion, to bear yourself like a queen, even as you 
 understand all that seethes and yearns and wells up 
 
 47 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 in me all that clamours after spiritual birth. You 
 unlocked for me the hidden crystalline fairy-castles 
 of Love, you showed me the secret gardens in 
 which Dalliance and Beauty walk under trees with 
 violet blossoms that break into emerald fruitage. 
 You gave me of your knowledge; you incited me 
 to creation; every verse of my poetry is an aspect 
 of your beauty, every poem is a night with you. 
 For the curve of your breasts is smooth and firm 
 like a perfect marble flower, the touch of your 
 hand gentler than the beating of angel s wings . . . 
 You have given my life its meaning, which I have 
 coined into golden words. 
 
 MILDRED. But after me others will come, men and 
 women, and they, too, will gain an influence over 
 you. I shall live to see how you come to me less 
 gladly than of old, with an excuse here and an ex 
 cuse there. (She shivers.) It were better to make 
 an end . . . 
 
 ALFRED. How can you speak so ! Why break one s 
 heart over things that are far away upon the knees 
 of the gods, hidden in gray mists, and which will, 
 perhaps, never come to pass. Why do you torture 
 our souls as they did in mediaeval cloisters, where 
 they scourged the neophyte in punishment of the 
 sins that he might some day commit. 
 MILDRED (with sudden resolution). And those old 
 monks were wise. I knew a man once who slew 
 his wife. There was no visible motive for the deed. 
 I sought him out in prison and spoke to him. 
 "Was she unfaithful to you?" I asked. "No," he 
 
 48 
 
FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 replied, "but she might have been." He met death 
 with a smile on his lips, for he knew that none other 
 had possessed, nor ever would possess, that body 
 which he loved to idolatry. (She speaks with a strange 
 exaltation, that almost frightens him.) 
 ALFRED (trying to calm her). Dearest, fairest in all 
 the world! But my love cannot pass. 
 MILDRED. Even when wrinkles will line this brow; 
 when these breasts are no longer like perfect mar 
 ble flowers, but like two faded blossoms; when my 
 body, where your lips touch it, will exhale a faint 
 scent, which you alone will notice, a scent that 
 foreshadows the odour of decay. 
 ALFRED. How strangely you speak to-day. I shall 
 kiss the wrinkles from your forehead; I shall touch 
 your breasts, so that they break into new bloom; 
 I shall drink your breath until it becomes sweet 
 as wine and as intoxicating and if I cannot give 
 you my youth, I will grow old along with you. 
 MILDRED (with peculiar intonation). And if death 
 were to part us? 
 
 ALFRED. Then would I kiss your dead hair, water 
 your breast with my tears, and lay the rose-leaves 
 of my song upon your pallid eyelids. Love like 
 mine is stronger than Death . . . 
 MILDRED. Are you quite sure of yourself? 
 ALFRED. I would pledge my very soul. 
 MILDRED. It is well. 
 
 ALFRED. What is well? And why this austerity, 
 this strange insistence? 
 
 MILDRED (with clear, impassioned tone). Fate has so 
 
 49 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 willed it, that you will be put to the test sooner 
 
 than you dream . . . 
 
 ALFRED (frightened}. How is that possible? I do 
 
 not see. There is something terrible in your eyes . . . 
 
 MILDRED. Child, look at me! How will you bear 
 
 it? (Pointing to the glass} The wine 
 
 ALFRED (springs up and stares wildly into her eyes). 
 
 MILDRED. The wine which you have drunk was 
 
 poisoned! 
 
 ALFRED (swaying and catching hold of a chair to avoid 
 
 falling). Why, why have you done this? (Grasping 
 
 his forehead.) I am dizzy already ... I thought the 
 
 wine had a bitter taste ... Is there no help? 
 
 MILDRED (with regal air). It is too late. 
 
 (The candles throw their full light upon her. There 
 
 is in her eyes a strange illumination^ and a pallor 
 
 steals over her face} 
 
 ALFRED (whose dramatic instinft awakes). If I must 
 die then, and if there is no salvation, my beloved, 
 none, then had I rather receive death from your 
 hand than from another s. I feel a quivering in all 
 my limbs. I hear the beating of strange wings. All 
 your gifts are good gifts, even the gift of death. 
 (The light in MILDRED S eyes becomes intenser. 
 
 Her pallor interchanges with redness. She places 
 
 her hand upon his head and her slender fingers run 
 
 through his hair} 
 
 ALFRED. Do you hear? even the gift of death. 
 MILDRED (with trembling voice}. And do you know 
 what death is, child? In this golden hair that I 
 
 5 
 
FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 caress to-day a slimy something will creep the 
 worm. These child eyes, now full of tears, will start 
 from their hollows ; from your slender loins will the 
 flesh fall, and into this brain, now full of words 
 like jewels, the dust of the earth will be ground 
 and loathsome things that lurk in darkness. You 
 will be in a land that knows neither love, nor song, 
 nor remembrance; you will be a thing of horror, 
 a mass of corruption. That -(her body shakes) that 
 is death. 
 
 (ALFRED has become gray as ashes. A convulsion 
 as in strong fever runs through his body. His head, 
 which she has been covering with kisses, sinks upon 
 her lap.} 
 
 ALFRED (with a sob in his voice). If I die now 
 you must lay a lily on my grave and throw in 
 secret three roses into my coffin . . . You must 
 take all my books and all my manuscripts . . . 
 Mildred, Mildred, it is very terrible to die so 
 young . . . especially with so much left unsaid and 
 uncreated . . . What an artist dies in me . . . Yes, 
 this is what you shall write upon my grave: QUALIS 
 ARTIFEX PEREO! . . . And yet of this I may boast. 
 My life has been a harmonious whole. Had I 
 grown older, it may be that discords would have 
 crept in. Thus far my life has been as a poem ; it 
 has been like faring in a silver gondola over seas 
 incarnadined, with music in the stroke of every 
 oar . . . And suddenly the storm-clouds gather . . . 
 The lightnings flash over the firmament like the 
 glow on the face of some god . . . But through the 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 roar of the tempest the melody sounds on; the 
 waves lash the^ silver gondola into the whirlpools 
 . . . Yet in destruction still rises soft music, a song 
 to you . . . And that is death death which you 
 gave me; and why should you not? . . . you gave 
 me life! . . . 
 
 (A ghastly pallor has spread over MILDRED S fea 
 tures. The light in her eyes has died. Her hands 
 clutch convulsively after his.} 
 
 ALFRED. But how pale you are! . . . Mildred . . . ? 
 Is it possible! . . . You, too! . . . Ah, a great joy 
 rises in my heart! . . . 
 
 MILDRED. Come here, Alfred. Come near, nearer. 
 I have lied to you . . . Do you really believe that 
 I could have sacrificed your life? Yet I did right 
 to lie to you. For now love, seeing the greatness 
 of yours, sweetens the thought of death. 
 ALFRED. What have you done? By the mercy of 
 God, what have you done? 
 
 MILDRED (with weak voice). It was I who drank 
 the draught! 
 
 ALFRED. Christ! What shall I, can I, do? Is no one 
 in the house? No antidote within reach? 
 MILDRED. Let be. (She looks at the clock.) The poi 
 son has done its work. Take the footstool and sit at 
 my feet. So, so. I am perfectly contented, I am per 
 fectly happy. Death comes to me not as to a flower 
 that dies anew with the fall of each petal, he comes 
 swiftly. He comes in halcyon days and gives me 
 of his drowsy vintage. Do you see, Alfred, I shall 
 remain to you a beautiful memory, perhaps the 
 
FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 most beautiful of all? I shall live in your song and 
 in your heart. But my fading eye will guard this 
 vision of you sitting at my feet. That will remain, 
 if there is memory hereafter. Dear boy, I never 
 let you know how much I loved you, how my 
 thoughts were with you day and night. A perver 
 sion men may call it; but is it not in the strangest 
 gardens of love that the fairest flowers blow? I am 
 entirely conscious of what I have done. I know 
 that Death stands beside me now, and clutches at 
 my heart with his fingers. It throbs still like a 
 flickering flame, throbs with immeasurable love. To 
 my very breast Death has risen, but my lips still 
 live . . . Do not tremble, my darling . . . Kiss me, 
 kiss me! ... Oh, how my lips are athirst! . . . 
 (ALFRED covers her face with kisses. She winds 
 her arms about him. Suddenly they relax. A white 
 foam rises to her lips and a convulsion -pitilessly 
 shakes her body to and fro. Then there is silence.) 
 (ALFRED remains for a few moments as if turned to 
 stone, unable to comprehend what has happened. He 
 touches her face with his hand and the foam sticks to 
 his fingers. Then he breaks out into violent sobbing?) 
 (At this moment a loud knocking at the inner door 
 is heard. He opens it and GWENDOLEN stands be 
 fore him. Her hair falls about her shoulders. She 
 is clad in a night-dress?) 
 
 GWENDOLEN. Merciful God! What has happened! 
 You here, Alfred! And aunt! 
 ALFRED. Dead, dead, dead. She is dead. (Almost 
 screaming?) Poisoned! She poisoned herself! 
 
 53 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fefr. 
 
 GWENDOLEN (seeing MILDRED). God! How is it 
 possible! Only an hour ago I spoke to her. (Shak 
 ing the corpse.) Aunt! Aunt! I must away must 
 call a dodtor! 
 
 ALFRED. Stay, Gwendolen. You must not go. Do 
 you not understand that you must not go ... She 
 has poisoned herself . . . 
 
 GWENDOLEN. And you? Why are you here? How 
 do you know? 
 ALFRED. Gwendolen! . . . 
 GWENDOLEN. Can it be? 
 
 ALFRED. You must think no evil of her, she loved 
 me . . . And it is this love that brought about her 
 death. 
 
 GWENDOLEN. How could this happen? 
 ALFRED. Come! I will tell you. She was dear and 
 good. And how I loved her! You must not con 
 demn her. Listen. 
 
 (GWENDOLEN sinks down on a couch in the farthest 
 corner of the room.) 
 
 ALFRED (sitting down next to her). She came like a 
 good fairy to the troubled waters of my youth. She 
 placed her finger on my wounds. She understood 
 what I said and what I left unsaid. She under 
 stood all, and she was all to me. She filled my life 
 and my song. She was so pure, so fair, so wise; I 
 could reveal to her my most secret thoughts. Her 
 smile forgave everything. And then came Love. 
 Like a great flame it came between us and made 
 our life splendid with immortal bloom. I had no 
 warning of this; I came here happy, and she has 
 54 
 
FROM DEATH S OWN EYES 
 
 killed our dream that it might never die! And now 
 she lies cold and dead, dead! 
 GWENDOLEN (stroking his hair). How you loved 
 her! 
 
 ALFRED. Loved her? She was as beautiful as a 
 legend of long-dead loves. She was like a sun over 
 the wastes of my life. And she was beautiful, per 
 fectly, and I loved her perfectly. I kissed her 
 adorable body as though it were the Host ... I 
 burned my soul upon her lips 
 
 (His hand, entwining her neck as if seeking help, 
 
 slips down, and is arrested upon her half-bared 
 
 breast?) 
 
 GWENDOLEN (her whole body trembling). Alfred! 
 ALFRED. Oh! 
 
 ( They both spring up and dare not look at each 
 
 other.) 
 
 (At that moment a gentle sound is heard. It is the 
 
 head of the dead woman falling sideways against 
 
 the chair.) 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
 55 
 
IV 
 
 A QUESTION OF FIDELITY 
 
CHARACTERS 
 
 ALFRED {forty-five) 
 ADA (twenty) 
 
(A Library furnished with massive elegance, The 
 couches and chairs are covered with olive-coloured 
 leather. The walls are adorned with portraits of art 
 ists and writers. The modernity of the arrangement is 
 strongly pronounced?) 
 
 (ALFRED S appearance has dignity and poise. His 
 movements are calm and gracious. In his features, es 
 pecially when he smiles, there is still something boy 
 ish. His silken hair, slightly curled at the ends, is be 
 ginning to turn thin here and there^ and shows traces 
 of gray.} 
 
 (ADA. Brown hair, dark eyes; slightly anaemic. 
 She is delicately built. There is a nervous flicker in 
 her eyes, and her hands, as if in search of something to 
 play with, flutter continually up and down.} 
 
 (ALFRED and ADA sit side by side upon a couch. 
 They hold upon their knees a heavy photograph album , 
 and slowly turn its leaves?) 
 
 ALFRED. To turn over old photographs is 
 like walking through a graveyard. A little 
 cross here, one there . . . 
 
 ADA. But the originals of many of these are still 
 alive. 
 
 ALFRED. What self-deception ! They are all dead. 
 ADA (looks at him with a question in her eyes]. 
 ALFRED. Or as good as dead. It is a curious mis 
 take to imagine that photographs, when months or 
 years have passed, still resemble their originals . . . 
 
 59 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fefr. 
 
 Not even after the lapse of days ... If when we 
 part we express the hope that we shall see each 
 other again it is the bitterest of irony. For we 
 never do. 
 
 ADA. I fear that I do not quite take your mean 
 ing. 
 
 ALFRED. Man changes his personality more than 
 once in life. He sloughs it as a snake its skin. He 
 changes with every minute. Only we do not recog 
 nize the change if we have him continually before 
 our eyes. When people see each other again after 
 the passage of years, they should be introduced 
 anew, as though they were strangers. How little 
 that is understood ! But it is for this reason that I 
 have not the least desire to meet with old friends 
 or old loves if it is long since I have seen them. 
 Nothing comes of it; at best a timid attempt to 
 sustain the farce that we are still the same and still 
 interested in one another. 
 
 ADA. In that case you will find many dead here. 
 ALFRED. Yes, I have been away long and have 
 grown old. 
 
 ADA. Old? A poet old? I thought you dwelt among 
 the hills where flows the fountain of eternal youth. 
 ALFRED. You know me only from my poems. 
 ADA. And is it possible for the songs to remain 
 young and the singer to grow old? It must be 
 terrible to be older than one s poems. 
 ALFRED. Not so terrible. Each year brings its new 
 songs and the old ones are buried. They lie in their 
 coffins like the corpses of little children . . . 
 60 
 
A QUESTION OF FIDELITY 
 
 ADA. What a horrible idea ! And has the past no 
 significance to you? 
 
 ALFRED. A memory here and there. (Turning over 
 the leaves.) Aha, there is Albert. What has become 
 of him? 
 
 ADA. Do you not know that he entered a Trappist 
 monastery five years ago? 
 
 ALFRED. I am not surprised. From aestheticism to 
 asceticism there is but one step. And here is Irene. 
 I wonder what changes time has wrought in her. 
 Did she, too, enter a convent? 
 ADA. No; not yet. Mamma visits her now and 
 then, but I am not permitted to go there. 
 ALFRED. And why, pray? 
 
 ADA. She has grown very corpulent; lies all day 
 on the sofa, clad in flowing robes, reading the 
 Memoirs of Casanova and the novels of the Mar 
 quis de Sade. 
 
 ALFRED. Which, I presume, you have not read? 
 ADA. And why should I not? I am a modern wo 
 man. Have I not read your poems, too? 
 ALFRED (amused). I would hardly group those 
 books together. 
 
 ADA. I have studied you thoroughly. I have read 
 you until I know you by heart. 
 ALFRED (with a touch of irony). Have you indeed 
 read me? 
 
 ADA. You see I possess the edition de luxe of your 
 works. 
 ALFRED (smiles politely). 
 
 61 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 ADA. Oh, I know more of your life than you 
 
 think. 
 
 ALFRED. Indeed? 
 
 ADA (opens the album at a place which she has kept 
 
 with her finger during the whole conversation). 
 
 ALFRED (visibly annoyed}. You never knew her. 
 
 ADA. No, but mamma told me that it was on your 
 
 account 
 
 ALFRED (aside). It is very odd that women forget 
 
 their own love-affairs more quickly than those of 
 
 their friends. 
 
 (A short silence ensues?) 
 
 ALFRED. And so you have read my poems, and no 
 doubt admire me very much? 
 ADA. Oh, if you knew how I have lived myself 
 into your works, how you have become a part 
 of me, and how during long days and nights I 
 dreamed in what manner I should bear myself to 
 ward you and lay my admiration at your feet. And 
 when I saw you at last, I could n t say a thing. 
 I must have seemed quite silly. 
 ALFRED. Was it disappointment that bereft you 
 of speech? 
 
 ADA. No, it was something very different, some 
 thing deep, disturbing. (With a sudden tremor in 
 her voice?) I realize that you must have lived many 
 poems, not only written them . . . 
 ALFRED. The best poems are those that one writes, 
 not those that one lives. Life always leaves a bitter 
 savour in the mouth. 
 
 6z 
 
A QUESTION OF FIDELITY 
 
 ADA (with growing intensity}. Always? Surely the 
 
 poems that you lived were beautiful? 
 
 ALFRED (gently taking her hand). Child, child. 
 
 ADA (covers his hands with kisses). 
 
 ALFRED. Ada, what are you doing? (He tries slowly 
 
 to disengage his hand.) 
 
 ADA. Oh, you do not know how much I love 
 
 you! I can t help it! The love of you beats in my 
 
 temples, throbs in my blood ! (Sobbing, and again 
 
 covering his hands with kisses.) Will you repulse 
 
 the great love that I bring you, as a god disdains 
 
 too humble an offering? 
 
 ALFRED (freeing himself from her). You are a dear, 
 
 good child. But that is quite impossible. I do not 
 
 refuse the offering because it is too humble, but 
 
 because it is too costly; and because it is not the 
 
 right one. It is the poet whom you admire, not 
 
 the man. 
 
 ADA. No, it is you yourself whom I love. And 
 
 my love did not awaken until I saw you, until I 
 
 felt the compulsion of your presence, the pressure 
 
 of your hand. 
 
 ALFRED. Child, child, and yet again I say child. 
 
 When one has passed through many experiences in 
 
 the course of life, one learns to differentiate, to pick 
 
 and choose, above all to resign. The love of any 
 
 human being is a precious gift, the greatest of all. 
 
 And even into a poet s hands there falls not every 
 
 day a woman s heart, especially when (he sadly 
 
 touches his hair). And we grow more selfish, too, 
 
 more averse to change. One becomes accustomed 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, &c. 
 
 to loving a certain person and hates to break that 
 custom, establishing no more relations that last for 
 ten days or a fortnight and wreck one s peace. 
 ADA. But I tell you that I love you, love you ! 
 ALFRED. No doubt; but suppose that some hand 
 some young fellow with black locks, or golden if 
 you please (again he strokes his hair). 
 ADA. Never. I hate young men. They fill me with 
 disgust. Their very touch makes me tremble with 
 repulsion. I know they never have but one thought 
 that of possession. 
 
 ALFRED. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I 
 marry you; furthermore that some day we have a 
 child. And if I were to die then, what would be 
 come of you? For I shall die long before you. 
 ADA. I am not very strong and hardly fit to per 
 form the degrading functions of the Mother-Ani 
 mal. And at any rate, I am quite sure of this, that 
 I shall not survive you. I shall leave the world with 
 you. Let me tell you what I have often dreamed 
 of I have never told it to any one. I thought of 
 borrowing a boat, of rowing out upon the sea 
 where it is deepest, and then 
 ALFRED. You are a poor helpless little thing. One 
 feels like gathering you in one s hands, covering 
 and protecting you as though you were a little 
 bird. 
 
 ADA (leans toward him). 
 
 ALFRED. And if I were to gather you to my heart, 
 were to protect you like some dear possession, and 
 
 64 
 
A QUESTION OF FIDELITY 
 
 then one day and yet, no one could ever be to 
 
 you what I am. 
 
 ADA. Never. No other man shall ever hold me in 
 
 his arms. 
 
 ALFRED. That is not quite what I meant. 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
II 
 
 (A year later. A Boudoir with secessionist furnish 
 ings. On a small book-shelf is to be seen the edition 
 de luxe of ALFRED S poems. Above it hangs the poet s 
 piffure.) 
 
 (ADA wears a dressing-gown of pale green silk. 
 She draws in the air with sensuous delight. Upon 
 her face lies the calm of the satisfied Woman- Animal. 
 Her thoughts follow him who has just left her.) 
 
 (At that moment her husband enters. Lightly he puts 
 his arms around her and kisses her forehead.) 
 
 ADA (with sudden compunffion). How good you 
 
 are! 
 
 ALFRED. Are you not the dearest, loveliest, most 
 
 fragile thing in all the world? 
 
 (ADA S eyes turn to the copy of her husband } s 
 works on the shelf, then to hispifture, and finally 
 fix themselves upon his face which beams over 
 her benignantly .) 
 
 ALFRED. Well, child? 
 
 ADA (plaintively). Oh, Alfred. 
 
 ALFRED (searches her face with a strange smile). 
 
 ADA. I am unworthy of you. 
 
 ALFRED. Why? 
 
 ADA. I am unworthy of your love; I am a wicked 
 
 woman. 
 
 ALFRED. Child, be calm, whatever you have done, 
 
 you cannot have been wicked. 
 66 
 
A QUESTION OF FIDELITY 
 
 ADA. Oh, I deserve that you kill me with a dag 
 ger and drag me by the hair instead of caressing 
 me. Be just to yourself. Drive me from the house 
 that I have dishonoured, with lashes for my sin. 
 ALFRED. There is no sin; there should be no 
 punishment. 
 
 ADA. But if you knew 
 ALFRED. I know. 
 ADA. Robert 
 
 ALFRED (placidly]. What of it? A charming boy. 
 ADA (looks at him horror-struck). 
 ALFRED. In fad he is very charming. 
 ADA (covers her face with her hands). 
 ALFRED. I am quite fond of him. 
 ADA (sobbing hysterically). Alfred, this is frightful. 
 You might have spared me that for our old love s 
 sake you might have spared me that. It were bet 
 ter to have beaten me, to have strangled me, to 
 have lacerated my flesh to rags, but not this awful 
 this unspeakable irony. 
 ALFRED (with infinite mildness). It is not irony. 
 ADA (first looking at him as if she distrusted his 
 sanity, then turning pale with anger). If I had sus- 
 peded that! And so I am as indifferent to you as 
 a piece of wood. This is how you care for me. And 
 I gave you my youth; I let you absorb me; I sat 
 at your feet night and day, and I adored you as 
 though you were a god. (The anger oozes from 
 her.) Oh, I am a very unhappy woman. (Choking 
 sobs rise in her throat so that she cannot speak.) 
 
 67 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, & c . 
 
 ALFRED. You are ill, child. (He presses a button?) 
 
 (A servant appears at the door?) 
 ALFRED. A glass of water, please. (He walks up and 
 down the room quietly?) 
 ADA (broods sullenly). 
 
 (The servant r centers^ bearing a glass of water?) 
 ALFRED (takes it from him at the door and forces her 
 to drink as if she were a little child]. 
 ADA. I do not understand you. I stand before your 
 goodness as before a miracle. I should kneel be 
 fore you as before the image of the Crucified One 
 kneel until my knees bleed. For I have broken 
 my faith to you. 
 
 ALFRED. You err. You have not broken faith 
 with me. 
 
 ADA. Your belief in me is wonderful. It almost 
 fills one with fear to be so loved. It will give me 
 strength in the future. But first there must be no 
 thing between us but the naked truth. Robert 
 ALFRED. I know, I know. I came a little later on 
 purpose, so as to leave you to yourselves. 
 ADA. Are you an angel or a devil? (Moaning?) Do 
 you not understand it was not a harmless flirta 
 tion? I have brutally broken the faith I vowed 
 you. I have responded to another s kisses, his 
 flesh and my flesh, my blood and his, were one ! 
 ALFRED (with slight weariness]. But, dear child, I 
 know it. 
 
 ADA (trembling]. And ? 
 ALFRED. Your views are strangely Old Testament, 
 
 68 
 
A QUESTION OF FIDELITY 
 
 yet you boasted of being a modern woman ! 
 ADA. Modernity! Modernity! That is a phrase 
 one uses in polite conversation, not when one s life 
 is at stake ! 
 
 ALFRED. But I am modern and have learned to 
 mould my life accordingly. It is passing strange 
 that in the presence of the New Man the New 
 Woman becomes at once and invariably the Old 
 Eve. Let me give you some more water; it will do 
 you good. You are calmer already. Just sit still, 
 and I will sit down next to you. 
 ADA. And how can you forgive what love never 
 forgives? 
 
 ALFRED. There is nothing to forgive. 
 ADA. And you will continue to live with me? 
 ALFRED. Why not? Surely, we are very happy. 
 ADA. And so will you not kill me? and do not love 
 me? 
 
 ALFRED. But you have not been unfaithful to me. 
 You cannot be, not even if you would. 
 ADA. I cannot be? 
 
 ALFRED. You can be unfaithful to me only with 
 myself. In that sense you are untrue to me daily; 
 in that sense we are all untrue. For, look, when 
 we get to know any one we make unto ourselves 
 an image of him, and it is this image of him that 
 we love. The man himself changes from day to 
 day. Do you not remember my telling you that? 
 And soon he is no longer like that image, or pic 
 ture if you will, even if at first the resemblance was 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 perfect. The man has become another. If we love 
 this other we are untrue to the object of our first 
 love. But if our love clings to the image, to the 
 idea, if we refuse to see the gradual changes deepen, 
 then we become untrue to the man himself. And 
 thus it is that with himself we break our faith with 
 him. 
 
 ADA. And so you assert that I cannot be untrue 
 to you? 
 
 ALFRED. Only if another means to you exactly 
 what I do, to body and to soul, in the present and 
 in the past. Your average man is more easily re 
 placed than I. Robert is a delightful boy, but he s 
 not I ; others will come, but they, too, will not be 
 I. I will tell you of an experience in my life. Mil 
 dred 
 
 ADA. You have never spoken to me of her. 
 ALFRED. Because I do not care to drag the dead 
 from their graves and touch their cere-cloth with 
 ghoulish hands. A dead love is either profoundly 
 indifferent or ineffably sacred in either case we 
 should honour it with silence. 
 ADA. And for that reason you were so angry when 
 I 
 
 ALFRED. Yes, because it is terrible when men will 
 not let the ghost of another s love rest in peace, 
 but from mere curiosity shake it from its repose 
 and drive it to wander upon earth . . . You know I 
 loved Mildred. (The echo of an old sorrow stirs his 
 voice.) She died for me, for love of me. Yonder 
 her corpse lay upon the chair on which I had 
 70 
 
A QUESTION OF FIDELITY 
 
 sworn her eternal faith. And here I sat with an 
 other woman. 
 ADA. My mother? 
 
 ALFRED. I spoke of my sorrow to her. She con 
 soled me. And at that moment, for the twinkling 
 of an eye, in the very presence of the dead woman, 
 a sudden desire clutched us by the throat. And 
 yet I cannot say that I was unfaithful to her. The 
 other love and all that followed had their place in 
 my heart; but the place was not the same. No 
 other was to me what she was. The heart of man 
 is a house of many mansions and hidden chambers. 
 It is not so narrow as the moralists would have 
 us think. 
 
 ADA. I do not know whether I understand you or 
 not. I am as one who gropes in darkness; gleams 
 of light come to the eyes of my soul, but their 
 vision is blurred. 
 
 ALFRED. And this is what life has taught me: 
 Forgive those who are unfaithful to you, for un 
 faithfulness there is none. Yield to the lust of the 
 flesh, for it is as nothing. Receive every love that 
 is given you, for it will make you rich. Let every 
 love that spreads its wings go free, for so it is or 
 dained, and so it will come to pass ; and who would 
 fetter the wind with chains or catch the gossamer 
 in a snare? This is the Law, the new Law. It is 
 the same for man and woman, and whoso breaks 
 it breaks his heart. 
 
 (He takes her hand in his and caresses it.) 
 ADA. The gospel you preach is as strange as it is 
 
 7 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 new, but its charity at least is boundless, and you 
 will not have been compassionate in vain. I will 
 never see him more. Robert 
 ALFRED. Why not? I have no objection to your 
 receiving his visits. 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
V 
 
 THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 (A MORALITY) 
 
 I 
 
CHARACTERS 
 DEATH 
 
 A BUTTERFLY 
 
 CHORUS OF THINGS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN 
 His WIFE 
 His SONS 
 
I 
 
 (A Sleeping-Chamber with conventional furnishings. A 
 table bearing medicine flasks. A simple bed upon which 
 reposes THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. At his head stands 
 DEATH in the guise of a skeleton from whose shoulders 
 falls a long black cloak. He is shadowy at first and 
 scarcely visible, but his shape assumes definite outline 
 as the scene progresses^) 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (musingly]. And so it 
 seems that I am about to die . . . Must die? 
 Yes, I must. It is strange how clear my thoughts 
 are. And I have no fear of Death, no fear. Truly, 
 why should I fear him? He comes to-day, or to 
 morrow, or yet again to-morrow what matters 
 when? And in the grave, under a green mound, 
 how shall I slumber? Shall I hear the grass grow, 
 and the flowers open, and passing swallows beat 
 their wings? Nay, but the dead hear not, for 
 death is not a sleep death is an end, an end of 
 all, and knows no awakening. Is it not passing 
 strange? This body that has borne me for sixty 
 years shall cease, cease in the twinkling of an eye. 
 Is it not strange? And when the end comes I 
 shall not know nor remember, and my soul shall be 
 as nothing. Is it not very strange? But of this 
 one thing is my heart glad: I do not fear death 
 meanly as men do, fear neither Heaven nor Hell. 
 Life in the invisible beyond my faith could not and 
 would not see . . . Yet have I led a life clean and 
 honourable and triumphant over temptation in the 
 
 75 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, tfr. 
 
 sight of all men. Yes, I have fought the good 
 fight, not as a child, fearful of the mother s rod, 
 but through the freedom of my manhood s strength 
 c . . Bitter is the sweetness of sin ... (he smiles) 
 and now I must die. . . . (He gazes through the win 
 dow.) Yonder the sun grows crimson in his death 
 dies in his blood. (Joyously.) The sun and I 
 we die together; together having done our good 
 day s work. . . . 
 
 (A sound is heard as of music that, soft at first, 
 grows in intensity. The sun sinks below the horizon. 
 A perfume of poignant sweetness fills the room 
 and a magical light illuminates it. A chorus enters 
 of female forms , clad in many-coloured raiment, 
 and bearing a shining crown.) 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (with great wonder). Who 
 are ye? 
 
 CHORUS. We are the Things that Might Have 
 Been. 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. What is the glittering 
 something that ye bear. 
 
 CHORUS. The Crown of Life that never pressed 
 thy brow, the happiness whose light thy temples 
 never felt . . . 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (earnestly). A life whose 
 law was duty, such was my happiness. 
 CHORUS. We are that life which thou hast never 
 lived, the deeper mysteries which thy glance never 
 pierced . . . 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (austerely). I was a faithful 
 citizen of my country; I leave the world better for 
 
THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 my coming. What would ye more? 
 CHORUS. We are the moment of power that passed 
 thee, we bear the lily of might thou didst not dare 
 to pluck . . . We are honour, power, glory . . . 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (insistently). Not unto all 
 is it given to rule. I did what lay in me. 
 CHORUS. We are the unforgettable deeds thou 
 mightst have done, the perished dreams lost when 
 thy duty to others made thee forget thy duties 
 to thyself . . . We are fame that bloomed not 
 for thee; the laurel we bear never touched thy 
 locks . . . 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. I was a good husband to 
 my wife. She loved me, though I was uncrowned 
 of fame. 
 
 CHORUS. We are the word of love thou didst not 
 dare to speak. We are the women, golden and dark 
 of hair, with eyes of azure, emerald and amber, 
 thou mightst have loved; their gleaming limbs 
 we are, their breasts, their arms, their shoulders 
 which thy hands never touched. We are the crim 
 son blooms upon the Tree of Life, the fire of lips 
 unkissed . . . 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (irritated). I was a good 
 father to my children, made of them useful men 
 and women. Was not that better? (His voice trem 
 bles.) Speak, was not that better? Could I have 
 been that, had I yielded to you? 
 CHORUS. We are the mystical children of dreams, 
 unborn of women whom thou didst not love . . . 
 We are minutes and hours and years vanished while 
 
 77 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, &t. 
 
 thou wert busy feeding the mouths at home . . . 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (stung out of his calm). My 
 life has been stainless, and in that consciousness 
 my heart is lifted up ! If I passed by many plea 
 sures, therein I was right, surely, surely, I was 
 right. The higher happiness I did not lose. Not 
 all chords in my soul s harmony vibrated; the 
 chords that sounded had the deeper tone . . . 
 Blind to the earth, I gazed into the sun . . . 
 CHORUS. We are the pallid moonlight of the 
 soul . . e We are the passion flowers in the Garden 
 of Love . . . We are the scarlet hours dreamed of 
 through fevered nights, sweet-bitter desires un 
 slaked, golden fruits that passion brings in its 
 golden bowl . . . We are many-coloured birds in 
 the Paradise of Sin . . . We are the nightingales 
 that sing in summer nights . . . We are the flowers 
 whose fragrance kills . . . We are the purple cloak 
 of beauty about the skeleton of life . . . We are the 
 music whose maddening sweetness never thrilled 
 thy nerves the deathless human yearning that 
 utters itself, at times in good, oftener in evil . . . 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. How the song stirs! A 
 new world rises before my dimmed eyes, a gleam 
 ing, glittering world. Yet was it not greatly done 
 to love the sun and flee the shades that lure to 
 deep abysses? . . . Have I not tasted all ennobling 
 feelings as father, patriot, friend? Was it not wise 
 to leave the chord of brutal depths unsounded? 
 . . . But if I have been deceived, if I have not 
 been a complete man, then is life lost indeed, its 
 
 78 
 
THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 columns crumbling, then is all lost . . . 
 CHORUS. We dance where the deep shadows are, 
 we are secret runes in the Book of Fate the 
 splendid consciousness of self that, having lived 
 through all that is human, understands all. And 
 because thou didst not know us thou must perish 
 like a moth dancing in a sunbeam . . . 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (whose expression has grown 
 to be one of helpless despair, feverishly and with a 
 shrill, excited voice). Ah, fool that I was who thought 
 to be a complete man, thought to act nobly by 
 keeping you afar ... by fettering my soul, then 
 when I bit my lips that should have bled with 
 kisses, not with pain . . . when I crucified my flesh 
 and lost my soul! (Calmer.) But I will live yet, 
 yet snatch, like a late and famished guest, some 
 few remnants from the Banquet of Life ... I will 
 live for you with you O fair and evil dreams, 
 for a little space . . . 
 
 DEATH (whose form has gradually become clear, steps 
 forward and stretches forth his hand with a gesture 
 of command and solemn majesty). It is too late. 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. Too late? 
 DEATH. Thou must follow me. 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. Whither? 
 DEATH. Into the emptiness without. 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. Into the dreary shadow? 
 That cannot be, it is too terrible now that I see 
 that my life has been as nothing! From void to 
 void! 
 DEATH. From void to void! 
 
 79 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, &t. 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. Is there no help? 
 
 DEATH. None. 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. And so from life unlived 
 
 I must pass unto death. 
 
 DEATH. Unto death. 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN. I will not! I defy thee. 
 
 Surely the will is mighty and my heart still beats, 
 
 still throbs passionately in my breast. Thou must 
 
 set me free! I cannot follow thee, and will not. 
 
 DEATH (unmoved, points at the hour-glass concealed 
 
 under his cloak}. 
 
 (And now the CHORUS has faded away. he family 
 
 of THE RIGHTEOUS MAN enters. His WIFE sits 
 
 down beside him, his SONS stand with heads bent} 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (looks upon his WIFE with 
 
 an expression of horror and disgust}. Thou monster 
 
 of evil omen, get thee away from me ! Thou hast 
 
 stolen my happiness. 
 
 THE WIFE. But dear, dear husband, thou must 
 know me, thy good wife through adversity and 
 prosperity, in labour and renunciation ! Thou must 
 remember how last year . . . dear God ! 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (who has listened with a 
 petrified look, in the strident accents of madness). I 
 know thee only too well, thou vampire, thou my 
 lost life. Leave me ! Leave me ! Yonder, yonder, 
 are those whom I love! 
 
 THE WIFE (looking into the empty space). Where? 
 ONE SON. He knows not what he says; it is the 
 fever that speaks. 
 
 80 
 
THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 THE OTHER SON. Poor father! 
 THE WIFE (weeps silently). 
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (seeing his SONS, bitterly). O 
 misbegotten brood! Yonder, yonder, are the chil 
 dren of my heart, whom I starved that ye might 
 be fed ... 
 
 (The WIFE and SONS overwhelmed, draw back.) 
 DEATH (unseen of the others, steps close to the bed). 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (seeing him). Fool that I 
 was! All is at an end. My curse upon the state, 
 upon my marriage, my children, my duty; they 
 have slain my soul ... I am lost, and my happi 
 ness, my own dear happiness, mine by right . . . 
 where is it? You have cheated me of it ... It was 
 so fair, this happiness of mine, seen ever only from 
 afar; it was so bright, so radiantly beautiful . . . 
 Perhaps I had caught it, had ye not weighted 
 my feet with lead . . . 
 THE WIFE and THE SONS. Father! 
 THE RIGHTEOUS MAN (hoarsely). It was so fair, 
 my happiness, so fair . . . 
 DEATH (softly places a finger upon THE RIGHTEOUS 
 MAN S mouth). 
 
 (At that moment flutters against the window-pane 
 something large and gaudy like to a BUTTERFLY.) 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
 81 
 
II 
 
CHARACTERS 
 DEATH 
 
 THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 DISGUST 
 
 POSE 
 
 ENNUI 
 
 THE SEVEN SINS 
 
 (UNTRUTHFULNESS, PRIDE, AVARICE, ENVY, MUR 
 DER, GLUTTONY, UNCHASTITY) 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN 
 THE SOUL 
 
II 
 
 (A gorgeous Chamber illuminated by a crimson lamp, 
 and furnished with subtle elegance. Upon a bed of 
 purple and fine linen lies THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN 
 dying. At the head of the bed y as in the first scene ^ 
 stands DEATH.) 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (dreamily). Slowly the 
 leaves fell from the linden-tree, slowly the wind 
 robbed them one by one, and, ere the tree knew, 
 it stood bare. Like beseeching arms it stretched 
 into the air its naked boughs; drearily and de 
 spairingly rustled its leaves on the ground. Sha 
 dows of death float through my soul, like ebon 
 swans upon an argent mere . . . The trembling 
 shadow of death darkens the clusters of shimmer 
 ing orchids . . . The bleeding roses droop, as if in 
 prayer, their fiery blooms . . It is the hour of 
 parting from all things dear, and this soul of mine 
 will flutter far like a helpless bird whither? 
 whither? Like a little homeless bird will it lose it 
 self in the infinite void which is the universe . . . 
 Is death a sleep, and will an angel some day come 
 unto all graves and wake the sleepers with a lily 
 wand? . . Will the celestial armies sing before the 
 sun measures sweeter than the sobbing of nightin 
 gales on earth? . . It matters little. I arise from the 
 feast of life, satisfied. Dying as I have lived, I force 
 even death to yield me a strange and subtle pleasure 
 from its very pain. I can say truly that I have 
 lived my life, have tasted it with every nerve, have 
 
 85 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, & f . 
 
 burned my heart in the flame of every passion, 
 and struck each chord upon the gamut of human 
 emotion with a masters hand ... I have walked 
 hand in hand with beauty, often by abysses of ter 
 rible loveliness wherein flames quivered, orange 
 and red and violet. I have trodden the grapes of 
 pleasure in the winepress of life. I have lived like 
 a philosopher, and thus will I die ... 
 
 (Hideous noises are heard in the hall. Hoarse 
 voices; screeches; obscene sounds. Enter ENNUI, 
 DISGUST, PosEy followed by THE SEVEN SINS.) 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Who dares to intrude 
 here? Who are you? 
 
 ENNUI (greenish-comflcxioned) peevishly). Old ac 
 quaintances. 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (coldly). I do not ac 
 knowledge the acquaintance. 
 ENNUI (yawning again). Dost thou not? These 
 fine gentlemen usually have short memories. I am 
 called Ennui, and it is I who brought into thy life 
 the Seven Sins . . . 
 
 DISGUST (ashen in complexion y hiccoughs). And I 
 who stung thee from repose again and again on 
 the search after new sensations, as one that sea 
 sons tainted food with unheard-of spices, I am 
 Disgust. 
 
 POSE (with painted lips Jauntily). And I, who do not 
 desert thee even on thy death-bed, I am called Pose. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (amiably). I appreciate 
 your coming, but by all means rid me of this dis 
 gusting crowd. 
 86 
 
THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 POSE. Impossible. I have served thee faithfully, 
 but there are moments in life when every face must 
 drop its mask, and this is such an one. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (with careless ease). Very 
 well, then. If you wish to amuse me with your 
 comedy even when I am dying I am satisfied. I 
 can find pleasure even in this. In fad:, it is charm 
 ing of you. I am extremely interested. But will 
 you not introduce these ladies to me? 
 DISGUST. They know thee well. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Who are they? 
 DISGUST. The Seven Sins. 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Ladies, I am enchanted. 
 Permit me to inquire what you carry there? 
 THE SEVEN SINS. A little table. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. What is it for? 
 THE SEVEN SINS. A dissecting table. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (pointing to a veiled some 
 thing upon the table). And what is that? 
 DISGUST (removes the veil y and a little dove with 
 ruffled feathers is seen). 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. What kind of a little 
 beast is that? 
 
 THE SEVEN SINS. A dove thy soul. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. How delightful . . . 
 Ah, poor little dove, hast thou hurt thy wings? 
 
 (The dove opens its eyes.) 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Dear little soul, I do 
 not wonder that thy feathers are ruffled when such 
 rude hands touch thee . . . There, you stupid 
 
 87 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fefr. 
 
 wenches, leave my soul in peace! 
 THE SEVEN SINS. It is too late. Thy soul is ac 
 customed to us, for it has never been nourished 
 from other hands than ours. 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. That admits of discus 
 sion; my sins had nothing in common with you, 
 and upon the whole, you weary me. (To DISGUST, 
 who is scribbling on a scrap of paper,) What art thou 
 writing there? 
 
 DISGUST. The list of thy sins, or perhaps the pro 
 gramme of the comedy we enact . . . Thy whole 
 life hast thou played at comedy, and loved it; why 
 should thy death be aught else? . . . 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Very well; let the play 
 begin. For I feel that I am growing weaker. (He 
 looks into a hand-glass^) 
 POSE (interrupting). And more fascinating. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Very true. 
 
 (THE SEVEN SINS have in the meantime formed a 
 semi-circle about the bed. DISGUST stands on one 
 side^ ENNUI on the other. POSE takes up her station 
 at some distance. DEATH remains motionless. From 
 the semi-circle UNTRUTHFULNESS steps forth.) 
 POSE (softly). My little sister. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Who art thou, painted 
 creature, repulsive harlot of the false hips? Surely 
 I had no dealings with thee! 
 
 UNTRUTHFULNESS (sweetly). I am thy most faith 
 ful friend, the meaning of thy life, the word that 
 issued daily from thy lips . . . 
 
 88 
 
THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (contemptuously}. Not 
 thou. The lies that I spoke were exquisite lies. 
 They brought joy and ecstasy; they were works of 
 art, or rather like the essence of the lotus-flower; 
 like blue flowers they were, or little elves with 
 golden wings and silver stars in their hair . . . 
 POSE. So it seems to thee, because thou always 
 sawest my little sister through stained glasses. (She 
 passes her hands over his eyes} 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Ah God! How the 
 picture changes ! No more of thee ! 
 
 (UNTRUTH FULNESS steps back. Then comes forth 
 with mincing steps infinitely grotesque PRIDE.) 
 PRIDE. I am Pride. Under my spell thou hast 
 shrugged thy shoulders at God and his Universe. 
 Thou wast 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. An aristocrat of the 
 Intellect 
 
 PRIDE. A fool. Thou didst build unto thyself a 
 high tower, and didst gaze down from it upon man 
 kind. But the tower was builded of sophistries and 
 rose into the skies of Delusion. Verily had the 
 worth of men been weighed in a golden balance 
 thy weight would have proved lighter than that of 
 the meanest among them. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (makes an averting gesture). 
 
 (A little man with bird-like claws steps forth} 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Who art thou, thing 
 of horror? Surely thou art a stranger to me, thou 
 with the rheumy eyes, hideous monster, malodor 
 ous carrion thou? 
 
 89 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, WV. 
 
 AVARICE (whimpers). I am Avarice. Look into 
 mine eyes. Thou knowest me well. Oh, thou wert 
 not sparing of gold, thou threwest to the poor 
 many a thoughtless alms thou must look deeper. 
 Thou didst bury thy talent, thou thoughtest to 
 have found Happiness, and wouldst not throw to 
 any mortal even a crumb from thy store. Thou 
 didst keep truth locked in thy soul and didst not 
 spend one grain of it ... Did thy heart ever, for the 
 twinkling of an eye, beat for another? . . Didst thou 
 give any morsel of the Love that was in thee? . . 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (taken aback, interrupts 
 him). But my philosophy perhaps thou art right 
 My . . . Another vision! 
 
 (Thereupon approaches a little man with jaun 
 diced skin and distorted features.) 
 ENVY (maliciously). I am Envy. 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. Envy? 
 ENVY. Who but I sat behind thee driving thee to 
 ever new excesses? If any one had accomplished 
 a great task in good or in evil, it gave thee no 
 peace till thou hadst surpassed him in evil. Dost 
 thou not know me? 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (with toneless voice). I 
 know thee. 
 
 (The dove beats its wings. THE UNRIGHTEOUS 
 MAN sinks into meditation. Forth steps a pallid, 
 menacing figure. His intellectual face is branded 
 with an expression of such fierce cruelty that THE 
 UNRIGHTEOUS MAN trembles involuntarily^) 
 
 MURDER. Thou knowest me. I am the plaything 
 90 
 
THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 of thy dreams. For my sake thou wast envious of 
 the Borgias and of the Roman emperors. But even 
 they were but blunderers compared to thee . . . 
 They slew, they poisoned the body and tortured 
 it, but thou slewest souls with thy soul. Little 
 brother, dost thou remember me? 
 
 (He cackles with hoarse laughter and whiskers 
 something into THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN S ear.) 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (pales). 
 
 (T he convulsions of the little dove become in tenser.] 
 (The moon recedes behind clouds?) 
 (After a brief space GLUTTONY steps forth?] 
 GLUTTONY (sucking its teeth). Ah, sweetheart, 
 we enjoyed life, did we not? We ate pheasants 
 tongues and rare mushrooms and drank foaming 
 wine . . . And thou didst right. For soon must 
 thou eat earth and the fruits of corruption, and 
 drink the water of the grave . . . Think of me who 
 sat daily at thy board, covering my ungainly form 
 with purple and my baldness with vine-leaves . . . 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (makes a gesture of dis 
 gust). 
 
 GLUTTONY (with strident voice). Ah, thou needest 
 not be so queasy now. Have I not eaten four times 
 daily at thy table, even if thou gavest me another 
 name and a decent little cloak? . . . 
 
 (THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN covers his head. The 
 dove grows more quiet and lets its weary little 
 wings hang down!) 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (softly). Ah, perhaps all 
 
A GAME AT LOVE, fcfr. 
 
 of you are in the right all. My life was fearfully 
 small and mean. Waste places I saw through a rosy 
 haze, and my foot trod on treacherous quicksands 
 . . . But one consolation remains to me: I have 
 loved regally, splendidly with a love that moves 
 Heaven and Hell, with a great, a beautiful love 
 not a good love did I say good? Nay, I said 
 great, fair, splendid, purple . . . 
 
 (From among THE SEVEN SINS approaches a wo 
 man regally clad in purple raiment, who has until 
 now remained in the background^) 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (looking joyfully upon 
 her). Thou thou understandest me . . . Speak! 
 was I not a King in the Golden House of Love? 
 a very God in the Garden of Passionate Dreams, 
 where Birds of Paradise whir through the twilight? 
 ... I have blended Heaven and Earth, have I 
 not? Speak! 
 
 UNCHASTITY (tenderly). Surely, my beloved, thou 
 didst all this. 
 
 (She bends over him.) 
 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN. What is it that passes 
 from thee? Art thou the Pest? 
 UNCHASTITY. Nay, my dearest, I am Love, thy 
 love, who comes from the scented garden where 
 Birds of Paradise whir through the twilight . . . 
 My breasts are white like two small cockatoos. 
 My figure is slender as a palm-tree, and red as the 
 lotus-flower are my lips which thou kissed till they 
 bled! Am I not fair? See, my beloved, see! ... 
 
THE BUTTERFLY 
 
 (The purple cloak glides to the floor and reveals a 
 body corroded with canker?) 
 
 DEATH (who has slowly become visible, steps forth). 
 THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN (tries to speak.) 
 
 (The dove beats its wings convulsively.) 
 DEATH (lays his finger on THE UNRIGHTEOUS MAN S 
 lips). 
 
 (The little dove lets its feet and head hang limply ; 
 its feathers fall out and its little naked dead form 
 is left?) 
 
 (THE SEVEN SINS and their companions have faded 
 away?) 
 
 (Out of the room of THE RIGHTEOUS MAN comes 
 the glittering form of the BUTTERFLY. // flies in 
 through the open window, touches lightly the brow 
 of the dead man and flutters away. The beat of its 
 wings sounds for a little while like the echo of a 
 song heard from afar?) 
 
 (CURTAIN) 
 
 THE END 
 
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 1936 
 
 4 1936 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY