If: A Play in Four Acts by Lord Dunsany (uplifting books for women .txt) 📗
- Author: Lord Dunsany
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ALI
Protector of the Just.
JOHN
O, er—yes. Good evening.
ALI
My soul was parched and you bathed it in rivers of gold.
JOHN
O, ah, yes.
ALI
Wherefore the name Briggs, Cater, and Beal shall be magnified and called blessed.
JOHN
Ha, yes. Very good of you.
ALI [advancing, handing trinket]
Protector of the Just, my offering.
JOHN
Your offering?
ALI
Hush. It is beyond price. I am not bidden to sell it. I was in my extremity, but I was not bidden to sell it. It is a token of gratitude, a gift, as it came to me.
JOHN
As it came to you?
ALI
Yes, it was given me.
JOHN
I see. Then you had given somebody what you call rivers of gold?
ALI
Not gold; it was in Sahara.
JOHN
O, and what do you give in the Sahara instead of gold?
ALI
Water.
JOHN
I see. You got it for a glass of water, like.
ALI
Even so.
JOHN
And—and what happened?
MARY
I wouldn't take his only crystal, dear. It's a nice little thing, but [to ALI], but you think a lot of it, don't you?
ALI
Even so.
JOHN
But look here, what does it do?
ALI
Much.
JOHN
Well, what?
ALI
He that taketh this crystal, so, in his hand, at night, and wishes, saying "At a certain hour let it be"; the hour comes and he will go back eight, ten, even twelve years if he will, into the past, and do a thing again, or act otherwise than he did. The day passes; the ten years are accomplished once again; he is here once more; but he is what he might have become had he done that one thing otherwise.
MARY
John!
JOHN
I—I don't understand.
ALI
To-night you wish. All to-morrow you live the last ten years; a new way, master, a new way, how you please. To-morrow night you are here, what those years have made you.
JOHN
By Jove!
MARY
Have nothing to do with it, John.
JOHN
All right, Mary, I'm not going to. But, do you mean one could go back ten years?
ALI
Even so.
JOHN
Well, it seems odd, but I'll take your word for it. But look here, you can't live ten years in a day, you know.
ALI
My master has power over time.
MARY
John, don't have anything to do with him.
JOHN
All right, Mary. But who is your master?
ALI
He is carved of one piece of jade, a god in the greenest mountains. The years are his dreams. This crystal is his treasure. Guard it safely, for his power is in this more than in all the peaks of his native hills. See what I give you, master.
JOHN
Well, really, it's very good of you.
MARY
Good night, Mr. Ali. We are very much obliged for your kind offer, which we are so sorry we can't avail ourselves of.
JOHN
One moment, Mary. Do you mean that I can go back ten years, and live till—till now again, and only be away a day?
ALI
Start early and you will be here before midnight.
JOHN
Would eight o'clock do!
ALI
You could be back by eleven that evening.
JOHN
I don't quite see how ten years could go in a single day.
ALI
They will go as dreams go.
JOHN
Even so, it seems rather unusual, doesn't it?
ALI
Time is the slave of my master
MARY
John!
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