The Emperor Jones - Eugene O'Neill (ereader android .TXT) š
- Author: Eugene O'Neill
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Deyāre gone. Dat shot fix āem. Dey was only little animals ā little wild pigs, I reckon. Deyāve maybe rooted out yoā grub anā eat it. Shoā, you fool nigger, what you think dey is ā haānts? (_excitedly_) Gorry, you give de game away when you fire dat shot. Dem niggers heah dat foā suātin! Time you beat it in de woods widout no long waits. (_He starts for the forestāhesitates before the plungeāthen urging himself in with manful resolution._) Git in, nigger! What you skeered at? Aināt nothinā dere but de trees! Git in! (_He plunges boldly into the forest._)
SCENE THREE_ In the forest. The moon has just risen. Its beams, drifting through the canopy of leaves, make a barely perceptible, suffused, eerie glow. A dense low wall of underbrush and creepers is in the nearer foreground, fencing in a small triangular clearing. Beyond this is the massed blackness of the forest like an encompassing barrier. A path is dimly discerned leading down to the clearing from left, rear, and winding away from it again toward the right. As the scene opens nothing can be distinctly made out. Except for the beating of the tom-tom, which is a trifle louder and quicker than in the previous scene, there is silence, broken every few seconds by a queer, clicking sound. Then gradually the figure of the negro, Jeff, can be discerned crouching on his haunches at the rear of the triangle. He is middle-aged, thin, brown in color, is dressed in a Pullman porterās uniform, cap, etc. He is throwing a pair of dice on the ground before him, picking them up, shaking them, casting them out with the regular, rigid, mechanical movements of an automaton. The heavy, plodding footsteps of someone approaching along the trail from the left are heard and Jonesā voice, pitched in a slightly higher key and strained in a cheering effort to overcome its own tremors._
De moonās rizen. Does you heah dat, nigger? You gits more light from dis out. No moā buttinā yoā fool head aginā de trunks anā scratchinā de hide off yoā legs in de bushes. Now you sees whar yoāse gwine. So cheer up! From now on you has a snap. (_He steps just to the rear of the triangular clearing and mops off his face on his sleeve. He has lost his Panama hat. His face is scratched, his brilliant uniform shows several large rents._) what timeās it gittinā to be, I wonder? I dassent light no match to find out. Phooā. Itās waām anā dats a facā! (_wearily_) How long r been makinā tracks in dese woods? Must be hours anā hours. Seems like foāevah! Yit canāt be, when de moonās jesā riz. Dis am a long night foā yoā, yoā Majesty! (_with a mournful chuckle_) Majesty! Der aināt much majesty ābout dis baby now. (_with attempted cheerfulness_) Never minā. Itās all part oā de game. Dis night come to an end like everything else. And when you gits dar safe and has dat bankroll in yoā hands you laughs at all dis. (_He starts to whistle but checks himself abruptly._) What yoā whistlinā for, you poā dope! Want all de wonā to heah you? (_He stops talking to listen._) Heah dat ole drum! Shoā gits nearer from de sound. Deyāre packinā it along wid āem. Time foā me to move. (_He takes a step forward, then stopsāworriedly._) Whatās dat odder queer clicketty sound I heah? Den it is! Sound close! Sound likeāsound likeāFoā God sake, sound like some nigger was shootinā crap! (_frightenedly_) I better beat it quick when I gits dem notions. (_He walks quickly into the clear spaceāthen stands transfixed as he sees Jeff in a terrified gasp._) Who dar? Who dat? Is dat you, Jeff? (_starting toward the other, forgetful for a moment of his surroundings and really believing it is a living man that he seesāin a tone of happy relief_) Jeff! Iāse shoā mighty glad to see you! Dey tolā me you done died from dat razor cut I gives you. (_stopping suddenly, bewilderedly_) But how you come to be heah, nigger? (_He stares fascinatedly at the other who continues his mechanical play with the dice. Jonesā eyes begin to roll wildly. He stutters._) Aināt you gwineālook upācanāt you speak to me? Is youāis youāa haānt? (_He jerks out his revolver in a frenzy of terrified rage._) Nigger, I kills you dead once. Has I got to kill you agin? You take it den. (_He fires. When the smoke clears away Jeff has disappeared. Jones stands tremblingāthen with a certain reassurance._) Heās gone, anyway. Haānt or no haānt, dat shot fix him. (_The beat of the far-off tom-tom is perceptibly louder and more rapid. Jones becomes conscious of itāwith a start, looking back over his shoulder._) Deyās gittinā near! Deyāse cominā fast! And heah I is shootinā shots to let āem know jesā whar I is. Oh, Gorry, Iāse got to run. (_Forgetting the path he plunges wildly into the underbrush in the rear and disappears in the shadow._)
SCENE FOURIn the forest. A wide dirt road runs diagonally from right, front, to left, rear. Rising sheer on both sides the forest walls it in. The moon is now up. Under its light the road glimmers ghastly and unreal. It is as if the forest had stood aside momentarily to let the road pass through and accomplish its veiled purpose. This done, the forest will fold in upon itself again and the road will be no more. Jones stumbles in from the forest on the right. His uniform is ragged and torn. He looks about him with numbed surprise when he sees the road, his eyes blinking in the bright moonlight. He flops down exhaustedly and pants heavily for a while. Then with sudden anger
Iām meltinā wid heat! Runninā anā runninā anā runninā! Damn dis heah coat! Like a strait jacket! (_He tears off his coat and flings it away from him., revealing himself stripped to the waist._) Den! Datās better! Now I kin breathe! (_Looking down at his feet, the spurs catch his eye._) And to hell wid dese high-fangled spurs. Deyāre whatās been a-trippinā me up anā breakinā my neck. (_He unstraps them and flings them away disgustedly._) Dere! I gits rid oā dem frippety Emperor trappinās anā I travels lighter. Lawd! Iāse tired! (_after a pause, listening to the insistent beat of the tom-tom in the distance_) I must āa put some distance between myself anā demārunninā like datāand yitādat damn drum sound jesā de sameānearer, even. Well, I guess I aāmost holds my lead anyhow. Dey wonāt never catch up. (_with a sigh_) If onāy my fool legs stands up. Oh, Iāse sorry I evah went in for dis. Dat Emperor job is shoā hard to shake. (_He looks around him suspiciously._) Howād dis road evah git heah? Good level road, too. I never remembers seeinā it befoā. (_shaking his head apprehensively_) Dese woods is shoā full oā de queerest things at night. (_with a sudden terror_) Lawd God, donāt let me see no more oā dem haānts! Dey gits my goat! (_then trying to talk himself into confidence_) Haānts! You fool nigger, dey aināt no such things! Donāt de Baptist parson tell you dat many time? Is you civilized, or is you like dese ignārent black niggers heah? Shoā! Dat was all in yoā own head. Wasnāt nothinā dere. Wasnāt no Jeff! Know what? You jusā get seemā dem things ācause yoā bellyās empty and youās sick wid hunger inside. Hunger āfects yoā head and yoā eyes. Any fool know dat. (_then pleading fervently_) But bless God, I donāt come across no more oā dem, whatever dey is! (_then cautiously_) Rest! Donāt talk! Rest! You needs it. Den you gits on yoā way again. (_looking at the moon_) Nightās half gone aāmost. You hits de coast in de mawning! Den youāse all safe.
(_From the right forward a small gang of negroes enter. They are dressed in striped convict suits, their heads are shaven, one leg drags limpingly, shackled to a heavy ball and chain. Some carry picks, the others shovels. They are followed by a white man dressed in the uniform of a prison guard. A Winchester rifle is slung across his shoulders and he carries a heavy whip. At a signal from the guard they stop on the road opposite where Jones is sitting. Jones, who has been staring up at the sky, unmindful of their noiseless approach, suddenly looks down and sees them. His eyes pop out, he tries to get to his feet and fly, but sinks back, too numbed by fright to move. His voice catches in a choking prayer._)
Lawd Jesus!
(_The prison guard cracks his whipānoiselesslyāandat that signal all the convicts start to work on the road. They swing their picks, they shovel, but not a sound comes from their labor. Their movements, like those of Jeff in the preceding scene, are those of automatons,ārigid, slow, and mechanical. The prison guard points sternly at Jones with his whip, motions him to take his place among the other shovellers. Jones gets to his feet in a hypnotized stupor. He mumbles subserviently._)
Yes, suh! Yes, suh! Iāse cominā.
(_As he shuffles, dragging one foot, over to his place, he curses under his breath with rage and hatred._)
God damn yoā soul, I gits even wid you yit, sometime.
(_As if there were a shovel in his hands he goes through weary, mechanical gestures of digging up dirt, and throwing it to the roadside. Suddenly the guard approaches him angrily, threateningly. He raises his whip and lashes Jones viciously across the shoulders with it. Jones winces with pain and cowers abjectly. The guard turns his back on him and walks away contemptuously. Instantly Jones straightens up. With arms upraised as if his shovel were a club in his hands he springs murderously at the unsuspecting guard. In the act of crashing down his shovel on the white manās skull, Jones suddenly becomes aware that his hands are empty. He cries despairingly._)
Wharās my shovel? Gimme my shovel ātill I splits his damn head! (Appealing to his fellow convicts) Gimme a shovel, one oā you, foā Godās sake!
(_They stand fixed in motionless attitudes, their eyes on the ground. The guard seems to wait expectantly, his back turned to the attacker. Jones bellows with baffled, terrified rage, tugging frantically at his revolver._)
I kills you, you white debil, if itās de last thing I evah does! Ghost or debil, I kill you agin!
(_He frees the revolver and fires point blank at the guardās back. Instantly the walls of the forest close in from both sides; the road and the figures of the convict gang are blotted out in an enshrouding darkness. The only sounds are a crashing in the underbrush as Jones leaps away in mad flight and the throbbing of the tom-tom, still far distant, but increased in volume of sound and rapidity of beat._)
SCENE FIVEA large circular clearing, enclosed by the serried ranks of gigantic trunks of tall trees whose tops are lost to view. In the center is a big dead stumpāworn by time into a curious resemblance to an auction block. The moon floods the clearing with a clear light. Jones forces his way in through the forest on the left. He looks wildly about the clearing with hunted, fearful glances. His pants are in tatters, his shoes cut and misshapen, flapping about his feet. He slinks cautiously to the stump
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