Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 51

HELEN [_dreamily_]. Oscar, I didn't say that I would shoot myself. When did I say that? Where would I find the courage to do that? I only said that I will die, if you don't take me with you. I will die as I would of an illness, for I only live when I am with you. I can live without my home, without my children, but not without you, Oscar. I cannot live without you.

GERARDO. Helen, if you don't calm yourself.... You put me in an awful position.... I have only ten minutes left.... I can't explain in court that your excitement made me break my contract.... I can only give you ten minutes.... If you don't calm yourself in that time.... I can't leave you alone in this condition. Think all you have at stake!

HELEN. As though I had anything else at stake!

GERARDO. You can lose your position in society.

HELEN. I can lose you!

GERARDO. And your family?

HELEN. I care for no one but you.

GERARDO. But I cannot be yours.

HELEN. Then I have nothing to lose but my life.

GERARDO. Your children!

HELEN. Who has taken me from them, Oscar? Who has taken me from my children?

GERARDO. Did I make any advances to you?

HELEN [_pa.s.sionately_]. No, no. I have thrown myself at you, and would throw myself at you again. Neither my husband nor my children could keep me back. When I die, at least I will have lived; thanks to you, Oscar! I thank you, Oscar, for revealing me to myself. I thank you for that.

GERARDO. Helen, calm yourself and listen to me.

HELEN. Yes, yes, for ten minutes.

GERARDO. Listen to me. [_Both sit down on the divan._]

HELEN [_staring at him_]. Yes, I thank you for it.

GERARDO. Helen!

HELEN. I don't even ask you to love me. Let me only breathe the air you breathe.

GERARDO[_trying to be calm_]. Helen--a man of my type cannot be swayed by any of the bourgeois ideas. I have known society women in every country of the world. Some made parting scenes to me, but at least they all knew what they owed to their position. This is the first time in my life that I have witnessed such an outburst of pa.s.sion.... Helen, the temptation comes to me daily to step with some woman into an idyllic Arcadia. But every human being has his duties; you have your duties as I have mine, and the call of duty is the highest thing in the world....

HELEN. I know better than you do what the highest duty is.

GERARDO. What, then? Your love for me? That's what they all say.

Whatever a woman has set her heart on winning is to her good; whatever crosses her plans is evil. It is the fault of our playwrights. To draw full houses they set the world upside down, and when a woman abandons her children and her family to follow her instincts they call that--oh, broad-mindedness. I personally wouldn't mind living the way turtle doves live. But since I am a part of this world I must obey my duty first.

Then whenever the opportunity arises I quaff of the cup of joy. Whoever refuses to do his duty has no right to make any demands upon another fellow being.

HELEN [_staring absent-mindedly_]. That does not bring the dead back to life.

GERARDO [_nervously_]. Helen, I will give you back your life. I will give you back what you have sacrificed for me. For G.o.d's sake take it.

What does it come to, after all? Helen, how can a woman lower herself to that point? Where is your pride? What am I in the eyes of the world? A man who makes a puppet of himself every night! Helen, are you going to kill yourself for a man whom hundreds of women loved before you, whom hundreds of women will love after you without letting their feelings disturb their life one second? Will you, by shedding your warm red blood, make yourself ridiculous before G.o.d and the world?

HELEN [_looking away from him_]. I know I am asking a good deal, but--what else can I do?

GERARDO. Helen, you said I should bear the consequences of my acts. Will you reproach for not refusing to receive you when you first came here, ostensibly to ask me to try your voice? What can a man do in such a case? You are the beauty of this town. Either I would be known as the bear among artists who denies himself to all women callers, or I might have received you and pretended that I didn't understand what you meant and then pa.s.s for a fool. Or the very first day I might have talked to you as frankly as I am talking now. Dangerous business. You would have called me a conceited idiot. Tell me, Helen--what else could I do?

HELEN [_staring at him with, imploring eyes, shuddering and making an effort to speak_]. O G.o.d! O G.o.d! Oscar, what would you say if to-morrow I should go and be as happy with another man as I have been with you?

Oscar--what would you say?

GERARDO [_after a silence_]. Nothing. [_He looks at his watch._] Helen--

HELEN. Oscar! [_She kneels before him._] For the last time, I implore you.... You don't know what you are doing.... It isn't your fault--but don't let me die.... Save me--save me!

GERARDO [_raising her up_]. Helen, I am not such a wonderful man. How many men have you known? The more men you come to know, the lower all men will fall in your estimation. When you know men better you will not take your life for any one of them. You will not think any more of them than I do of women.

HELEN. I am not like you in that respect.

GERARDO. I speak earnestly, Helen. We don't fall in love with one person or another; we fall in love with our type, which we find everywhere in the world if we only look sharply enough.

HELEN. And when we meet our type, are we sure then of being loved again?

GERARDO [_angrily_]. You have no right to complain of your husband. Was any girl ever compelled to marry against her will? That is all rot. It is only the women who have sold themselves for certain material advantages and then try to dodge their obligations who try to make us believe that nonsense.

HELEN [_smiling_]. They break their contracts.

GERARDO [_pounding his chest_]. When I sell myself, at least I am honest about it.

HELEN. Isn't love honest?

GERARDO. No! Love is a beastly bourgeois virtue. Love is the last refuge of the mollycoddle, of the coward. In my world every man has his actual value, and when two human beings make up a pact they know exactly what to expect from each other. Love has nothing to do with it, either.

HELEN. Won't you lead me into your world, then?

GERARDO. Helen, will you compromise the happiness of your life and the happiness of your dear ones for just a few days' pleasure?

HELEN. No.

GERARDO [_much relieved_]. Will you promise me to go home quietly now?

HELEN. Yes.

GERARDO. And will you promise me that you will not die....

HELEN. Yes.

GERARDO. You promise me that?

HELEN. Yes.

GERARDO. And you promise me to fulfill your duties as mother and--as wife?