The Naturewoman Part 21

ETHEL. Oceana!

OCEANA. Oh, how I loved him! I didn't realize how I loved him! The whole face of the world was changed... and now, now... how shall I bear it? [She stares ahead of her.] Oh, Ethel, tell me I did right to give him up.

ETHEL. Why did you do it?

OCEANA. I saw he loved her, and I had to give him up. It would have been to tear his soul in half! But now that he's gone, I don't see how I can bear it! [A pause; she is lost in thought; she whispers with great intensity.] There is a vision... it haunts me... it cries out in me in a voice of agony!

ETHEL. What?

OCEANA. A little child! You have no idea... how real it was to me! It fell out of the skies upon me! The thought never left me. I heard its voice... its laughter; I saw its smile. It called to me all day, and it played with me in my dreams; I felt its little hands upon me... its lips upon my breast. And it's gone!

ETHEL. Your child!

OCEANA. And his! And think... think of the awfulness of it... it was hovering at the gates of life! It wanted to be! And I trembled.. . I suffered; at any moment I might have said the word, and it would have come. But I did not say the word... and it is gone. And now it will never come! Never... never! I have murdered the child! My child!

ETHEL. No, no, Oceana!

OCEANA. G.o.d! I can't understand it! What does it mean? Did it exist when I thought of it? Does it exist now? Who can tell me?

ETHEL. I don't know, Oceana.

OCEANA. The strangeness of it! Sometimes my whole being rises up in revolt... I could tear the skies apart, to wrest the secret from them! You see, we don't know anything. We don't know what's right, we don't know what's wrong. We're in a trap! [She rises suddenly.] No, no, I mustn't talk that way. I've lost my self-control. I let myself go, and I had no right to. Now, what shall I do? Wait, dear... let me think, let me think calmly. [Stares about her.] I want to remember what father said to me; what I promised to do. See, Ethel... the sun is setting. Look at the sky! And it's the last day of the month, isn't it?

ETHEL. Yes.

OCEANA. If father had been here we should have sat us down to one of our services! Look here. [She goes to trunk, and takes out a human skull.] Ah, old friend!

ETHEL. [Shocked.] Oceana!

OCEANA. He came from the Marquesas, I think. And here's where he was. .h.i.t with the spear. You see? Sit down. [She places the skull before her.] See, Ethel-he used to smile. And now and then he had the toothache... see that? He took himself very seriously; he was all wrapped up in the things that went on in this little cracked skull. But he lacked imagination. He never foresaw that somebody would carry him off to the New Hamps.h.i.+re mountains, and make him the text for a Hamlet soliloquy. Alas, poor Yorick! He did not know that he was immortal, you see; that life proceeded from him... unrolling itself for generation after generation without end; that all that he did would be perpetuated... that where he sinned we would suffer, and where he fought we would be strong. He did not know that he was the creator, the mystic fountain of an unexplored stream... the maker of an endless future... [She stops; a spasm of pain crosses her face.] Oh, Ethel! [Clasps her hand.] It is terrible to die young, is it not?

ETHEL. Yes.

OCEANA. Then how much worse is it to die before you are born! To be strangled in the idea... to be stifled by a cowardly thought!

ETHEL. What do you mean?

OCEANA. Oh, Ethel, stay by me, will you? Promise me you will stay by me.

ETHEL. I will!

OCEANA. I'm frightened, Ethel... frightened at myself. I've done wrong... I've committed a crime! I ought not to have let him go! I ought not to have let him go!

ETHEL. Henry?

OCEANA. No, we mustn't speak of him again. I can't bear to hear his name. I have failed... I have failed. I've been crushed by civilization! [Starts up.] But there's my island! There's the white beach, s.h.i.+ning in the moonlight, and the great breakers rolling in, and the palm trees rustling in the wind. Let us go together... to my island! Let us go back and get healed, before we try to face this world again!

[CURTAIN]