Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 108

GRANDMOTHER. No. I promise you I will not be angry. Say whatever you please.

[_The Disagreeable Young Man hesitates._]

GRANDMOTHER. Well, then--out with it--speak up, my child--be it what it may as long as it is frank and sincere. Speak up, now. Come!

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Very well then, grandma. It is impossible that the story could happen in that manner.

GRANDMOTHER [_offended_]. You mean that I told an untruth?

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Oh, no. I did not say that the incident did not happen. I just maintain that it could not have happened in that fas.h.i.+on.

GRANDMOTHER. But why not?

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. On account of the details. Let us take it for granted, grandma, that as you state you commenced your exercise walk in the afternoon....

GRANDMOTHER. Yes.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Let's say that you had household duties and started out quite late--about four o'clock.

GRANDMOTHER [_disturbed, but following the cross-examination intently_].

Yes.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Very well, you started at four o'clock. The walk was a good one and consumed--let us say one hour and a half.

GRANDMOTHER. Yes.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Yes? This brings us to half-past five o'clock. In October and in a dense forest besides at half-past five it gets fairly dark at that hour. It was then that you lost your way?

THE GRANDMOTHER [_nods her head in a.s.sent_].

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Another hour and a half spent in wandering--that brings us to seven o'clock. You now reached the night lodging of the robber--here you were resting?

GRANDMOTHER. Exactly.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Quite right. Here you were waiting and resting--now we want to allow a long time for it--three--let us say--three and a half hours.

GRANDMOTHER [_involuntarily_]. Not that long....

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Oh, yes ... let us ... we'll then have reached half-past ten o'clock. It could not have been later when this forest bandit came. These pirates never go to their bed earlier. They shun light and must get their sleep while the world is the darkest. He could not sleep during the day even in the darkest forests. In short, then, it was half-past ten?

GRANDMOTHER. Half-past ten.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Now began the flight and the pursuit. You ran--let us say--full twenty minutes. That is a great deal. I was a track runner in college and I know what a twenty-minute stretch means.

Shall we say twenty minutes?

GRANDMOTHER. Twenty minutes....

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. In any circ.u.mstances it was not even eleven when you were safely out of danger?

GRANDMOTHER. Yes.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. And--and a half hour later you were sipping hot brandy in the Schwanhausen castle?

GRANDMOTHER. Yes.

[_The Disagreeable Young Man is silent._]

GRANDMOTHER [_shaking with excitement_]. And--what else?

[_The Disagreeable Young Man is silent._]

GRANDMOTHER [_she shakes with fear as to what will follow, but forces herself to face it_]. Well, say on ... what else?...

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. At six on the following morning you reached your home and.... [_He pauses._]

GRANDMOTHER [_if her loud-speaking could be called an outcry, then she cries out_]. Yes ... what else?... What happened then?... Go on ... say it ... what else?

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. [_He makes a new attempt to tell everything bravely at once, but hesitates._] In the morning at six you arrived at home. The others had no idea as to the distance between _Schwanhausen_ and _Friederichsrode_. But I wanted to see it myself, so last year with a friend I made a walking trip through that country. I tried this distance. In a half hour of slow walking I reached from one place to the other, and the horses in the Count's stables and the state roads were then in as good condition as to-day. Well, then you started from the castle at half-past five in the morning; but you reached there at half-past eleven the preceding night.... You spent six entire hours in the castle.... Then, another point--they all speak of the count, the "benefactor of us all," as the "old count."... When he died five years ago he was, of course, an old count--an old man of seventy.... But thirty-five years ago he was a young count of thirty years of age.

[_The Grandmother stares blindly at The Disagreeable Young Man.

Alarmed over Grandma's fright, he rises. He would very much like to make up to her, but he lacks words. The Grandmother rises. She is trembling. With a shaking hand she is nervously setting her dress to rights. Twice she turns to the young man to speak to him, but is unable to utter a word. Then she turns; she is about to return into the house, but remains near the doorstep. Again she turns; then she is about to go in, but turns again and remains standing._]

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN [_frightened_]. Grandma, you gave me your word that you would not be angry.

GRANDMOTHER [_she stumbles forward a few steps. She is disturbed, s.h.i.+vering, beside herself, complaining, almost sobbing_]. You are an evil child! You are a bad, bad and evil child! For fifty years I have told the same story ... always the same, same way ... and that it happened differently never, never even came into my mind.

[_Curtain._]

THE RIGHTS OF THE SOUL

A PLAY

BY GIUSEPPE GIACOSA TRANSLATED BY THEODORA MARCONE.

Copyright, 1920, by Stewart & Kidd Company.

All rights reserved.

CHARACTERS

PAOLO.

MARIO.

ANNA.

MADDALENA.