Authors: James Merrill

Collected Novels and Plays (73 page)

MARK:

I can’t help that.

TITHONUS:

When I think of all I have seen, people I have known—but intimately, all their lives long!

AURORA:

I don’t mean to be snappish. Something’s wrong with me today.

MARK:

Come. We have to talk.

(
He leads her to one side. They remain visible and their voices can be heard murmuring in the background.
)

MEMNON:

Must be the old man gets on her nerves. He like this all the time?

TITHONUS:

London! The parties!

ENID (
to MEMNON
):

All the time.

TITHONUS:

None of the postwar gatherings, so artfully informal, could match in brilliance those contrived and permeated by that proud and generous spirit, Mrs. Dickinson Davin, born Lady Milly Rapping. Aurora, do you remember? Aurora!

ENID (
trying to imitate AURORA
):

Yes, darling!

TITHONUS:

Moving idly through the high hushed rooms, pausing, not wholly for effect, beneath an
Emily
Mandible needlepoint, to the informed eye so much more of a piece than the glib if popular designs of her ill-fated niece, only a newcomer—of which but one or two were admitted every season—would have been taken aback at the sight of Field Marshal Pellet in lively banter with Mrs. Mock, the American ambassadress, from whose grandfather I still
treasure a handful of mosaic picked up as a very young man in Hagia Sofia …. Where am I?

ENID:

Mrs. Mock.

TITHONUS:

The American ambassadress, quite so, from whose grandmother I still treasure a handful of mosaic given her by an urchin, who knew not what it was; or Greta Stempel-Ross, fresh from her native … her native … oh, how it irritates me! Fresh from her native ….

AURORA (
softly to MARK
):

She had splendid references and a very impressive telephone manner.

MARK:

Then it’s all settled!

TITHONUS:

Well, no matter—and only the following season to take by storm the small but lofty citadel of Taste—What do I want with Venice? Lady Milly used to ask. I have my own Campanile here! And she would tap her forehead—that even in those uncertain days before the war, no, after the war, before the
other
war, yes, still shone gallantly in our midst, not only by her singing of Krank and Claude Delice, but by her revelation of the folk
melodies of her native … the folk melodies of her native … Aurora!

MEMNON:

I couldn’t take
that
for very long.

AURORA (
to MARK
):

It was odd, though—as if she’d been waiting for the call.

TITHONUS:

Aurora! Aurora!

AURORA (
to MARK
):

Excuse me.

ENID (
to MEMNON
):

Aurora’s wonderful.

AURORA (
to TITHONUS
):

What is it, my darling?

TITHONUS:

I can’t remember, I can’t remember! If you knew how it exasperates me to forget!

AURORA (
tenderly
):

What have you forgotten?

TITHONUS:

Now I’ve even lost the name. That singer. You’ve heard the name hundreds of times. I said it only a moment ago.

AURORA:

Emmy Destinn?

(
To the others.
)

He loved Emmy Destinn.

TITHONUS:

No, no, no! Not Emmy Destinn. Do you suppose I would ever forget that voice? Now, somebody said of
her
—what was it? We were sitting at supper, there were lanterns …. Well, no matter. I have it all stored away somewhere. Waste not, want not.

(
Whimpering.
)

No, I mean that girl, that girl in London before,
after
the war. Greta! Greta something-or-other—you know who I mean. Where was she from?

AURORA:

Greta Stempel-Ross! I’d forgotten all about her.

(
To the others.
)

Really, she did have a heavenly voice, heavenly.

TITHONUS:

But where was she from?

AURORA:

Roumania.

TITHONUS:

Of course. Her native Roumania.

MEMNON:

Well, that’s settled!

AURORA:

What time can it be? I must fly to the village, isn’t that a bore?

(
MEMNON looks at his watch, then listens, but it has stopped.
)

(
AURORA turns to ENID.
)

Mark said he would go with me—it’s what we’ve been plotting—if you’ll let me borrow him?

ENID (
smiling
):

Just bring him back.

AURORA:

Actually I’d go alone, if it were something I could do by myself. But it’s a surprise for Tithonus, a rather
big
surprise, which wasn’t to have been ready until today.

ENID:

So many surprises ….

AURORA (
beaming, her finger to her lips
):

My dear, I hate to ask, but for these hours, two at the most,
could
you—?

(
She indicates TITHONUS.
)

ENID:

I’d love to. Are you leaving at once?

AURORA:

Virtually.

MEMNON:

Virtuously? Ha ha ha!

ENID:

Let me just run upstairs and fetch my knitting.

AURORA (
to MARK
):

You’re quite sure you don’t mind coming?

MEMNON:

Where are you going, Mother?

MARK:

Quite sure.

AURORA (
to MEMNON
):

I have to run down to the village for something I had forgotten.

TITHONUS:

I’m chilly. The way they treat me here! Handsome is as handsome does, I always say.

MEMNON (
pulling himself together
):

You know, really think I might be—

AURORA:

Memnon, be a lamb, run to my room. You’ll find an extra blanket in the bottom drawer of the bureau.

MEMNON:

Was thinking, I might as well be shoving off myself. Long drive ahead of me.

AURORA (
fierily
):

You will stay here until we return. I’ve never heard of such utter rudeness, walking out on your father’s birthday! It’s not as though you had celebrated
all
of them with him! Do I make myself clear? Now kindly fetch that blanket.

(
MEMNON goes out.
)

TITHONUS:

I’m cold, cold …. I could freeze before anyone …. Not even in Portugal, that February ….

(
AURORA smooths his brow, absently.
)

Aurora, is the summer over? I shall come begging for grain, like the grasshopper ….

MARK:

It hurts to sever ties. Once we’re away—

AURORA:

Oh my dear, beware of me. Beware of my facility. It’s too easy, everything I do.

MARK:

Those years with Tithonus weren’t easy.

AURORA:

Oh, they
were
, now that they’re over! I feel myself shaking them off, uncontrollably! I couldn’t turn back if I wanted to.

MARK:

But think who you are! If you can’t easily rid yourself of a problem, who can?

AURORA:

My problem now is you. All too easily I see you as a way out, a little staircase of flesh by which to climb again into the open air. Have I the right? Do I love you that much?

MARK:

Yes. But I don’t matter. What matters is that you fulfil your destiny.

AURORA:

I have no destiny, you know.

MARK:

You do, though. You need to live by pleasure and light, anyone who sees you knows. And as long as you love me, I shall help make all that more vivid.

AURORA (
touched
):

Mark, Mark—what can I give you, to show you all the things I feel?

MARK:

Nothing unusual, nothing costly. Just let me keep my own mortality, which you will have made precious.

AURORA:

Your own mortality? Do you mean that you
want
to die?

MARK:

No. Not for a moment. But it won’t matter. You can’t understand, and why should you?

AURORA (
kissing him
):

You’re charming and you’re right. Why should I understand?

MARK:

What time are we picking up the nurse?

AURORA:

I told her we’d be leaving almost at once.

MARK:

Then let’s go!

MEMNON (
entering with the blanket
):

If
this
doesn’t keep him warm enough …. Is he asleep?

AURORA:

His eyes are shut. Look, he has thrown his covers off.

(
To MARK, as she begins to arrange them.
)

Help me.

TITHONUS (
shrinking from MARK
):

Aurora, they’re hurting me! Their hands are rough!

AURORA (
to MARK
):

I’ll do it, then. I thought he knew your touch.

(
She continues to enfold him, like something wrapped away for winter. Enter ENID with her knitting.
)

MEMNON:

Wouldn’t have thought he’d care so much.

ENID:

When does one ever finish caring?

TITHONUS:

Aurora, keep me warm …. I fear the winter …. Soon the winds will be upon us, roaring ….

AURORA:

Sleep now, Tithonus.

(
He shuts his eyes.
)

ENID:

There is such a sadness in his face, as though he knew ….

AURORA:

Knew what, my dear?

ENID:

That you were leaving, if only for an hour or two.

MARK:

That cover has the look of a cocoon.

AURORA (
her task finished
):

It does. Goodbye. And if by noon we shouldn’t have returned, give him some food—a cup of broth, or tea. He needs so little …. So.

ENID:

Mark—do you have some money with you?

MARK:

No.

(
To AURORA.
)

Do I need money?

AURORA:

Perhaps she wants something from the village.

(
To ENID.
)

Can we bring you something from the village?

ENID:

No.

AURORA:

Then shall we go?

(
Starts out.
)

Oh wait! Before the light fails, so as not to forget—!

(
She takes a camera from her purse, gets into position, focuses.
)

Smile, everybody! Let’s remember this day always!

(
Snaps picture.
)

There! Be good!

(
AURORA and MARK leave. A long pause. MEMNON starts to smooth out a wrinkle in TITHONUS’s cover.
)

TITHONUS (
waking refreshed
):

Ah! Have I slept? Yes, I think I have had a nice nap. Aurora! Something is not as it should be. I have an uncanny instinct in such matters. I once took it upon myself to warn a young friend of mine, the poet Clarence Boiler DeKay, on the eve of his marriage. Forty years later he confessed to me privately that I had been right. A stitch in time saves nine. My mind swarms with interesting observations. I am never bored. I have lived longer than anybody, and
acquired a profound experience of the human heart. It is too late to pretend otherwise. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The pot calls the kettle black.

MEMNON:

He used to tell me
I
talked in clichés!

TITHONUS:

An idle mind is the Devil’s workshop.

MEMNON (
hemming and hawing
):

You know, think I’d better be shoving off myself now, if you’ll excuse me. Got a long drive ahead of me. Mother wanted me to hang around till they checked in, but if I know her, once she starts whipping out that camera she’s gone for the whole day. Guess I don’t need to tell you how she appreciates what you’re doing. She told me this morning that until you came she hadn’t had a holiday for she didn’t know how
long, years I guess.

(
ENID is silent.
)

You know, it’s funny—this place always gave me the creeps. Folks say, home is where you hang your hat. Closer to truth, it’s where you hang
yourself.
If you’d like me to stay till they come back, I’d be glad to, really would.

(
ENID shakes her head, forcing a smile.
)

She didn’t want me to stay either, if you ask me. Just trying to be polite, being my mother and all.

TITHONUS:

Wilful waste makes woeful want. Nothing succeeds like success. I have learned all this through bitter experience.

MEMNON:

Can’t see that it’s much fun for you, sitting with him.

ENID (
tonelessly
):

I don’t mind. More and more it appears we have interests in common.

MEMNON:

How do you mean?

TITHONUS:

I feel a storm approaching. That is not as it should be.