The Poetry Corner

The End of the World, Act II

By Lascelles Abercrombie

ACT II As before, a little while after. The room is empty when the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and pacesabout, but stops short when he catches sight of apot dog on the mantlepiece. Sollers The pace it is coming down! - What to do now? - My brain has stopt: it's like a clock that's fallen Out of a window and broke all its cogs. - Where's that old cider, Vine would have us pay Twopence a glass for? Let's try how it smells: Old Foxwhelp, and a humming stingo it is! [To the pot dog] Hullo, you! Whaty are you grinning at? - I know! There'll be no score against me for this drink! Of that score! I've drunk it down for a week With every gulp of cider, and every gulp Was half the beauty it should have been, the score So scratcht my swallowing throat, like a wasp in the drink! And I need never have heeded it! - Old grinning dog! You've seen me happy here; And now, all's done! But do you know this too, That I can break you now, and never called To pay for you?[Throwing the dog on the floor.] I shall be savage soon! We're leaving all this! - O, and it was so pleasant Here, in here, of an evening. - Smash! [He sweeps a lot of crockery on to the floor.] It's all no good! Let's make a wreck of it all! [Picking up a chair and swinging it.] Damn me! Now I'm forgetting to drink, and soon 'Twill be too late. Where's there a mug not shivered? [He goes to draw himself cider. MERRICK rushes in.] Merrick You at the barrels, too? Out of the road! [He pushes SOLLERS away and spills his mug.] Sollers Go and kick out of door, you black donkey. Merrick Let me come at the vessel, will you? [They wrestle savagely.] SOllers Keep off; I'm the first here. Lap what you've spilt of mine. Merrick You with your chiselling and screw-driving, Your wooden work, you bidding me, the man Who hammers a meaning into red hot iron? [VINE comes in slowly. He is weeping; the two wrestlers stop and stare at him, as he sitsdown, and holds his head in his hands,sobbing.] VineO this is a cruel affair! Sillers Here's Vine crying! Vine I've seen the moon. Merrick The moon? 'Tisn't the moon That's tumbling on us, but yon raging star. What notion now is clotted in your head? Vine I've seen the moon; it has nigh broke my heart. Sollers Not the moon too jumping out of her ways? Vine No, no; - but going quietly and shining, Pushing away a flimsy gentle cloud That would drift smoky round her, fending it off Wuth steady rounds of blue and yellow light. It was not much to see. She was no more Than a curved bit of silver rind. But I Never before so noted her - Sollers What he said, The dowser! Merrick Ay, about his yellowhammers. Sollers And there's a kind of stifle in the air Already! Merrick It seems to me, my breathing goes All hot down my windpipe, but as cider Mulled and steaming travels down my swallow. Sollers And a queer racing through my ears of blood. Herrick I wonder, is the star come closer still? Sollers O, close, I know, and viciously heading down. Vine She was so silver! and the sun had left A kind of tawny red, a dust of fine Thin light upon the blue where she was lying, - Just a curled paring of the moon, amid The faint grey cloud that set the gleaming wheel Around the tilted slip of shining silver. O it did seem to me so safe and homely, The moon quietly going about the earth; It's a rare place we have to live in, here; And life is such a comfortable thing - And what's the sense of it all? Naught but to make Cruel as may be the slaughtering of it. Sollers It beats my mind! [He begins to walk up and down desparately.] Merrick 'Twas bound to come sometime, Bound to come, I suppose. 'Tis a poor thing For us, to fall plumb in the chance of it; But, now or another time, 'twas bound to be. - I have been thinking back. When I was a lad I was delighted with my life: there seemed Naught but things to enjoy. Say we were bathing: There'ld be the cool smell of the water, and cool The splashing under the trees: but I did loathe The sinking mud slithering round my feet, And I did love to loathe it so! And then We'ld troop to kill a wasp's nest; and for sure I would be stung; and if I liked the dusk And singing and the game of it all, I loved The smart of the stings, and fleeing the buzzing furies. And sometimes I'ld be looking at myself Making so much of everything; there'ld seem A part of me speaking about myself: ' You know, this is much more than being happy. 'Tis hunger of some power in you, that lives On your heart's welcome for all sorts of luck, But always looks beyond you for its meaning. ' And that's the way the world's kept going on, I believe now. Misery and delight Have both had liking welcome from it, both Have made the world keen to be glad and sorry. For why? It felt the living power thrive The more it made everything, good and bad, Its own belonging, forged to its own affair, - The living power that would do wonders some day. I don't know if you take me? Sollers I do, fine; I've felt the very thought go through my mind When I was at my wains; though 'twas a thing Of such a flight I could not read its colour. - Why was I like a man sworn to a thing Working to have my wains in every curve, Ay, every teneon, right and as they should be? Not for myself, not even for those wains: But to keep in me living at its best The skill that must go forward and shape the world, Helping it on to make some masterpiece. Merrick And never was there aught to come of it! The world was always looking to use its life In some great handsome way at last. And now - We are just fooled. There never was any good In the world going on or being at all. The fine things life has plotted to do are worth A rotten toadstool kickt to flying bits. End of the World? Ay, and the end of a joke. Vine Well, Huff's the man for this turn. Merrick Ay, the good man! He could but grunt when times were pleasant; now There's misery enough to make him trumpet. And yet, by God, he shan't come blowing his horn Over my misery! We are just fooled, did I say? - We fooled ourselves, Looking for worth in what was still to come; And now there'a a stop to our innings. Well, that's fair: I've been a living man, and might have been Nothing at all! I've had the world about me, And felt it as my own concern. What else Should I be crying for? I've had my turn. The world may be for the sake of naught at last, But it has been for my sake: I've had that. [He sits again, and broods.] Sollers I can't stay here. I must be where my sight May silence with its business all my thinking - Though it will be the star plunged down so close It puffs its flaming vengeance in my face. [He goes.] Vine I wish there were someone who had done me wrong, Like Huff with his wife and Shale; I wish there were Somebody I would like to see go crazed With staring fright. I'ld have my pleasure then Of living on into the End of the World. But there is no one at all for me, no one Now my poor wife is gone. Merrick Why what did she To harm you? Vine Didn't she marry me? - It's true She made it come all right. She died at last. Besides, it would be wasting wishes on her, To be in hopes of her weeping at this. She'ld have her hands on her hops and her tongue jumping As nimble as a stoat, delighting round The way the world's to be terrible and tormented. - Ay, but I'll have a thing to tell her now When she begins to ask the news! I'll say ' You've misst such a show as never was nor will be, A roaring great affair of death and ruin; And I was there - the world smasht to sparkles! ' O, I can see her vext at that! [MERRICK has been sunk in thought during this, but VINE seems to brighten at this notion, and speaks quite cheerfully to HUFF, who now comes in, looking mopish, and sits down ] Vine We've all been envying you, Huff. You're well off, You with your goodness and your enemies Showing you how to relish it with their terror. When do you mean the gibing is to start? Huff There's time enough. Vine O, do they still hold out? If they should be for spiting you to the last! You'ld best keep on at them: think out a list Of frantic things for them to do, when air Is scorching smother and the sin they did Frightens their hearts. You'll shout them into fear, I undertake, if you find breath enough. Huff You have the breath. What's all your pester for? You leave me be. Vine Why, you're to do for me What I can't do myself. - And yet it's hard To make out where Shale hurt you. What's the sum Of all he did to you? Got you quit of a marriage Without the upset of a funeral. Huff Wyy need you blurt your rambling mind at me? Let me bide quiet in my thought awhile, And it's a little while we have for thought. Merrick I know your thought. Paddling round and around, Like a squirrel working in a spinning cage With his neck stretcht to have his chin poke up, And silly feet busy and always going; Paddling round the story of your good life, Your small good life, and how the decent men Have jeered at your wry antic. Huff My good life! And what good has my goodness been to me? You show me that! Somebody show me that! A caterpillar munching a cabbage-heart, Always drudging further and further from The sounds and lights of the world, never abroad Nor flying free in warmth and air sweet-smelling: A crawling caterpillar, eating his life In a deaf dark - that's my gain of goodness! And it's too late to hatch out now! - I can but fancy what I might have been; I scarce know how to sin! - But I believe A long while back I did come near to it. Merrick Well done! - O but I should have guesst all this! Huff I was in Droitwich; and the sight of the place Is where they cook the brine: a long dark shed, Hot as an oven, full of a grey steam And ruddy light that leaks out of the furnace; And stirring the troughs, ladling the brine that boils As thick as treacle, a double standing row, Women - boldly talking in wicked jokes All day long. I went to see 'em. It was A wonderful rousing sight. Not one of them Was really wearing clothes: half of a sack Pinned in an apron was enough for most, And here and there might be a petticoat; But nothing in the way of bodices - O, they knew words to shame a carter's face! Merrick This is the thought you would be quiet in! Huff Where else can I be quiet? Now there's an end Of daring, 'tis the one place my life has made Where I may try to dare in thought. I mind, When I stood in the midst of those bare women, All at once, outburst with a rising buzz, A mob of flying thoughts was wild in me: Things I might do swarmed in my brain pell-mell, Like a heap of flies kickt into humming cloud. I beat them down; and now I cannot tell For certain what they were. I can call up Naught venturesome and darting like their style; Very tame braveries now! - O Shale's the man To smile upon the End of the World; 'tis Shale Has lived the bold stiff fashion, and filled himself With thinking pride in what a man may do. - I wish I had seen those women more than once! Vine Well, here's an upside down! This is old Huff! What have you been in your heart all these years? The man you were or the new man you are? Huff Just a dead flesh! Merrick Nay, Huff the good man at least Was something alive, though snarling like trapt vermin. But this? What's this for the figure of a man? 'Tis a boy's smutty picture on a wall. Huff I was alive, was I? Like a blind bird That flies and cannot see the flight it takes, Feeling it with mere rowing of its wings. But Shale - he's had a stirring sense of what he is. [Shouting outside. Then SOLLERS walks in again, very quiet and steady. He stands in the middle, looking down on the floor ] Vine What do they holla for there? Sollers The earth. Merrick The earth? Sollers The earth's afire. Huff The earth blazing already? [Shouts again.] O, not so soon as this? Vine What sort of fire? SOllers The earth has caught the heat of the star, you fool. Merrick I know: there's come some dazzle in your eyes From facing to the star; a lamp would do it. Huff It will be that. Your sight, being so strained, Is flashing of itself. Sollers Way what you like. There's a red flare out of the land beyond Looking over the hills into our valley. The thing's begun, 'tis certain. Go and see. Vine I won't see that. I will stay here. Sollers Ay, creep Into your oven. You'll be cooler there. - O my God, we'll all be coals in an hour! [Shouts again.] Huff And I have naught to stand in my heart upright, And vow it made my living time worth more Than if my time had been death in a grave! [Several persons run in.] The Crown 1. The river's the place! 2. The only safe place now! 3. Best all charge down to the river! 4.For there's a blaze, A travelling blaze comes racing along the earth. Sollers 'Tis true. The air's red-hot above the hills. The Crown 1. Ay, but he burning now crests the hill-tops In quiver of yellow flame. 2. And a great smoke Waving and tumbling upward. 3.The river now! 4. The only place we have, not be be roasted! Merrick And what will make us water-rats or otters, To keep our breath still living through a dive That lasts until the earth's burnt out? Or how Would that trick serve, when we stand up to gasp, And find the star waiting for our plunged heads To knock them into pummy? Vine Scarce more dazed I'ld be with that than now. I shall be bound, When I'm to give my wife the tale of it all, To be divising: more of this to-do My mind won't carry. Huff O ashamed I am, Ashamed! - It needn't have been downright fears, Such as the braving men, the like of Shale, Do easily, and smile, keeping them up. If I could look back to one manful hour Of romping in the face of all my goodness! - [SHALE comes in, dragging Mrs HUFF by the hand.] Shale Huff! Where's Huff? - Huff, you must take her back! You'll take her back? She's yours: I give her up. Merrick Belike here's something bold again. Mrs Huff [to SHALE] Once more, Listen. Shale I will not listen. There's no time For aught but giving you back where you belong; And that's with you, Huff. Take her. Huff Here is depth I cannot see to. Is it your last fling? - The dolt I am in these things! - What's this way You've found of living wickedly to the end? Shale Scorn as you please, but take her back, man, take her. Huff But she's my wife! Take her back now? What for? Mrs Huff What for? Have you not known of thieves that throw Their robbery down, soon as they hear a step Sounding behind them on the road, and run A long way off, and pull an honest face? Ay, see Shale's eyes practising baby-looks! He never stole, not he! Shale Don't hear her talk. Mrs Huff But he was a talker once! Love was the thing; And love, he swore, would make the wrong go right, And Huff was a kind of devil - and that's true - Huff What? I've been devilish and never knew? Mrs Huff The devil in the world that hates all love. But Shale said, he'd the love in him would hold If the world's frame and the fate of men were crackt. Shale What I said! Whoever thought the world was going to crack? Mrs Huff And now he hears someone move behind him. - They'll say, perhaps, ' You stole this! ' - Down it goes, Thrown to the ditry road - thrown to Huff! Shale Yes, to the owner. Mrs Huff It was not such brave thieving You did not take me from my owner, Shale: There's an old robber will do that some day, Not you. Vine Were you thinking of me then, missis? Mrs Huff [still to SHALE] You found me lost in the dirt: I was with Huff. You lifted me from there; and there again, Like a frightened urchin, you're for throwing me. Shale Let it be that! I'm firm Not to have you about me, when the thing, Whatever it is, that's standing now behind The burning of the world, comes out on us. Huff The way men cheat! This windle-stalk was he Would hold a show of spirit for the world To study while it ruined! - Make what you please Of your short wrangle here, but leave me out. I have my thoughts - O far enough from this. [Turning away.] Shale [seizing him] You shall not put me off. I tell you, Huff, You are to take her back now. Huff Take her back! And what has she to do with what I want? Shale Isn't she yours? I must be quit of her; I'll not be in the risk of keeping her. She's yours! Huff And what's the good of her now to me? What's the good of a woman whom I've married? [During this, WARP the molecatcher has come in.] Warp Shale and Huff at their old pother again! Merrick The molecather! Sollers Warp, have you travelled far? Is it through frenzy and ghastly crowds you've come? Vine Have you got dreadful things to tell us, Warp? Warp Why, no. But seemingly you'ld have had news for me, If I'd come later. Is Huff to murder Shale, Or Shale for murdering Huff? One way or 'tother, 'Tis time 'twas settled surely. - Mrs Huff They're neither of them worth you: here's your health. [Draws and drinks.] Huff Where have you been? Are you not new from folk That throng together in a pelting horror? Warp Do you think the whole land hearkens to the flurry Of an old dog biting at a young dog's throat? Merrick No, no! Not their shrill yapping; you've not heard The world's near to be blasted? Warp No mutter of it. I am from walking the whole ground I trap, And there's no likeness of it, but the moles I've turned up dead and dried out of three counties. Sollers Why, but the fire that's eating the whole earth; The breath of it is scarlet in the sky! You must have seen that? Warp But what's taken you? You are like boys that go to hunt for ghosts, And turn the scuttle of rats to a roused demon Crawling to shut the door of the barn they search. Fire? Yes, fire is playing a pretty game Yonder, and has its golden fun to itself, Seemingly. Sollers You don't know what 'tis that burns? Warp Call me a mole and not a molecatcher If I do not. It is a rick that burns; And a strange thing I'll count it if the rick Be not old Huff's. Sollers That flare a fired stack? Huff Only one of my ricks alight? O Glory? There may be chance for me yet. Merrick Best take the train To Droitwich, Huff. Vine [at the door] It would be like a stack, But for the star. Sollers [to WARP] Yes, as you're so clever, You can talk down maybe yon brandishing star! Warp O, 'tis the star has flickt your brains? Indeed, The tail swings long enough to-night for that. Well, look your best at it; 'tis off again To go its rounds, they tell me, from now on; And the next time it swaggers in our sky, The moles a long while will have tired themsleves Of having their easy joke with me. [A pause.] Merrick You mean The flight of the star is from us? Sollers But the world, The whole world reckons on it battering us! Warp Who told you that? Sollers A dowser. Merrick Where's he gone? Warp A dowser! say a trampling conjurer. You'll believe aught, if you believe a dowser. Sollers I had it in me to be doubting him. Merrick The noise you made was like that! But I knew You'ld laugh at me, so sure you were the world Would shiver like a bursting grindlestone: Else I'ld have said out loud, 'twas a fool's whimsy. Vine Where are you now? What am I now to think? Your minds run round in puzzles, like chased hares. I cannot sight them. Merrick Think of going to bed. Sollers And dreaming prices for your pigs. Merrick O Warp, You should have seen Vine crying! The moon, he said, The silver moon! Just like an onion 'twas To stir the water in his eyes. Sollers He's left A puddle of his tears where he was droopt Over the table. Vine There's to be no ruin? - But what's the word of a molecatcher, to crow So ringing over a dowser's word? Warp I'll tell you. These dowsers live on lies: my trade's the truth. I can read moles, and the way they've dug their journeys, Where you'ld not see a wrinkle. Vine And he knows The buried water. Warp There's always buried water, If you prod deep enough. A dowser finds Because the whole earth's floating, like a raft. What does he know? A twitching in this thews; A dog asleep knows that much. What I know I've learnt, and if I'd learnt it wrong, I'ld starve. And if I'm right about the grubbing moles, Won't I be right for news of walking men? Merrick Of course you're right. Let's put the whole thing by, And have a pleasant drink. Shale [to Mrs HUFF] You must be tired With all this story. Shall we be off for home? Huff You brass! You don't go now with her! She's mine! You gave her up. Shale And you made nothing of her. [To Mrs Huff] Come on. Mrs Huff Warp, will you do a thing for me? Warp A hundred things. Mrs Huff Then slap me these cur-dogs. Warp I will. Where will I slap them, and which first? Mrs Huff Maybe 'twill do if you but laugh at them. Warp I'll try for that; but they are not good jokes; Though there's a kind of monkey-look about them. Mrs Huff They thinking I'ld be near one or the other After this night! Will I be made no more Than clay that children puddle to their minds, Moulding it what they fancy? - Shale was brave: He made a bogy and defied it, till He frightened of his work and ran away. But Huff! - Huff was for modelling wickedly. Huff Who told you that? Mrs Huff I need no one's telling. I was your wife once. Don't I know your goodness? A stupid heart gone sour with jealousy, To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning. - Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had No notion how, and flung the clay aside. - O they were gaudy colours both! But now Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank, Fear of a loon that cried, End of the World! Huff Shale, do you know what we're to do? Shale I'ld like To have the handling of that dowser-man. Huff Just that, my lad, just that! Warp And your fired rick? Huff Let it be blazes! Quick, Shale, after him! I'll tramp the nght out, but I'll take the rogue. Shale [to the others] You wait, and see us haul him by the ears, And swim the blatherer in Huff's farm-yard pond. [As HUFF and SHALE go out, they see the comet before them.] Huff The devil's own star is tha! Shale And floats as calm As a pike basking. Huff There shouldn't be such stars! Shale Neither such dowsers,and we'll learn him that. [They go off together.] Sollers Why the star's dwindling now, surely. Merrick O, small And dull now to the glowing size it was. Vine But is it certain there'll be nothing smasht? Not even a house knockt roaring down in crumbles? - And I did think, I'ld open my wife's mouth With envy of the dreadful things I'd seen! Curtain.