Plays of Near & Far by Lord Dunsany (top novels to read TXT) 📗

wish the poor Earth well.

Zoon: No, lady, no. Be with me always wholly, living not partly in dreams. There is no Earth. It is but a dream that left us. See, see (pointing down) it is a dim dream.

Queen (looking down): The people move there still. See, there is Prince Ximenung. Something down there seems almost unlike dreams.

Zoon: No, lady, it cannot be.

Queen: How know you, Lord of the Mountain?

Zoon: It was too unreal for life. Love was not there. Surely it was a dream.

Queen: Yes, I knew not love in the golden palace of Zoorm.

Zoon: Then indeed it was unreal, Golden Lady. Forget the dream of Earth.

Queen: If love be real ...

Zoon: Can you doubt it?

Queen: No. It was a dream. Just now I dreamt it. Are dreams bad, my Prince?

Zoon: No. They are just dreams.

Queen: We will think of dreams no more.

Zoon: This is where love is, and here only. We should not dream too much or think of dreams, because the place is holy.

Queen: Is love here only, darling?

Zoon: Here only, Golden Queen. Do any others elsewhere love as we.

Queen: No, I think not.

Zoon: Then how can pure love be elsewhere?

Queen: It is true.

Zoon: On this clear peak that just enters Heaven love is and only here. The rest is dreams.

Queen: Could we awake from love and find Earth true?

Zoon: No, no, no. Sweet Lady, let not such fancies alarm you.

Queen: And yet folks wake from dreams. It would be terrible.

Zoon: No, no, there are things too real for dreams. You cannot waken from love. Dreams are of fantastic things, things fanciful and weak, and things confused and intricate like Earth. When you think of them in your dreams you see their unreality. But if love were not real what could there be to wake to.

Queen: True. How wise you are. It was but a fancy that troubled me. (Looking down.) It was one of those dreams at dawn. It is faint and far-off now.

Zoon: Will you love me for ever, Golden Queen?

Queen: For ever. Why not? You will love me for ever?

Zoon: For ever. I cannot help it.

Queen: Let us look at the dream far off, in the dimness our thoughts have forsaken.

Zoon: Aye, let us look. It was a sad dream somewhat; and yet upon this peak where all is love all that we see seems happy.

Queen: See the dream there. Look at those. They seem to walk dreamily as they walk in the dream.

Zoon: It is because they have not love, which is only here.

Queen: Look! Look at those dreamers in the dream.

Zoon: They are running.

Queen: Oh! Look!

Zoon: They are pursued.

Queen: The brown ones are pursuing them with spears.

Zoon: It is Prince Meliflor, Prince Moomoomon, Prince Ximenung that run in the dream. And the Prince of Huz. The brown men are close.

Queen: The brown ones are overtaking them.

Zoon: Yes, they are closer.

Queen: Look! Prince Ximenung!

Zoon: Yes, he is dead in the dream.

Queen: The Prince of Huz?

Zoon: Speared.

Queen: Still, still they are killing them.

Zoon: It is all the Hundred Princes.

Queen: They are killing them all.

Zoon: A sad sight once.

Queen: Once?

Zoon: I should have wept once.

Queen: It is so far off now.

Zoon: It is so far, far off. We can only feel joy upon this holy mountain.

Queen: Only joy. (He sighs as he looks.) Look! (He sighs again.)

Zoon: There falls the poor Prince Meliflor.

Queen: How huge a thrust it was with the great spear.

Zoon: He is dead.

Queen: Are you not happy?

Zoon: Yes.

Queen: In your voice there seemed to sound some far-off thing. Some strange thing. Was it sorrow?

Zoon: No; we are too high; sorrow cannot come. No grief can touch us here, no woe drift up to us from the woes of Earth.

Queen: I thought there was some strange thing in your voice, like sorrows we have dreamed.

Zoon: No, Golden Queen. Those fancied sorrows of dreams cannot touch reality.

Queen: You will never be sorry we have woken and left the dream of Earth?

Zoon: No, glorious lady; nothing can bring me trouble ever again.

Queen: Not even I?

Zoon: Never you, my Golden Zoomzoomarma, for on this sacred peak where there is only love you cannot.

Queen: We will dwell here for ever in endless joy.

Zoon (looking down): All dead now, all the Princes.

Queen: Turn, my Prince, from the dream of Earth, lest trouble come up from it.

Zoon: It cannot drift up here; yet we will turn from the dream.

Queen: Let us think of endless joy upon the edge of heaven.

Zoon: Yes, Queen; for ever in reality while all else dream away.

Queen: It is the years that make them drowsy. They dream to dream the years away. Time cannot reach so high as here, the years are far below us.

Zoon: Far below us, making a dream and troubling it.

Queen: They do not know in the dream that only love is real.

Zoon: If time could reach us here we should pass, too. Nothing is real where time is.

Queen: How shall we spend the calm that time does not vex, together here for ever?

Zoon: Holding your hand. (She gives it.) And kissing it often in the calm of eternity. Sometimes watching, a moment, the dream go by; then kissing your hand again all in eternity.

Queen: And never wearying?

Zoon: Not while eternity lingers here in heaven.

Queen: Thus we will live until the dream goes by and Earth has faded under Aether Mountain.

Zoon: And then we shall watch the calm of Eternity.

Queen: And you will still kiss my hand at times.

Zoon: Yes, while eternity wiles Heaven away.

Queen: The silence is like music on Aether Mountain.

Zoon: It is because all is real. In the dream nothing was real. Music had to be made and then soon passed trembling away. Here all things always are as the desire of Earth, Earth's desire that groped among fantasies finding them false.

Queen: Let us forget the dream.

Zoon (kissing her hand): I have forgotten for ever.

Queen: Ah!

Zoon: What trouble has drifted up to you from Earth?

Queen: An old saying.

Zoon: It was said in the dream.

Queen: It was true!

[She snatches her hand away.

Ah, I remember it. It was true.

Zoon: All is unreal but love, my crownéd Zoomzoomarma. Where there was not love it cannot have been true.

[He tries to take her hand again.

Queen: Touch not my hand. It was true.

Zoon: What was the saying heard in the dream of Earth that was true?

Queen: None is worthy to touch my hand; no, none.

Zoon: By Aether Mountain, I will kiss your hand again! What is this saying out of a dream that dares deny reality?

Queen: It is true! Oh, it is true!

Zoon: Out of that hurried, aimless dream, that knows not its own end even, you have brought me a saying and say it against love.

Queen: I say it is true!

Zoon: Nothing is true against love. Fate only is greater.

Queen: Then it is Fate.

Zoon: Against Fate I will kiss your hand again.

Queen: None are worthy. No, none.

[She draws her rapier.

Zoon: I will kiss your hand again.

Queen: It must be this (pointing with rapier) for none are worthy.

Zoon: Though it be death I kiss your hand again.

Queen: It is certain death.

Zoon: Oh, Zoomzoomarma, forget that troubled dream, and things said by dreamers, while I kiss your hand in heaven if only once again.

Queen: None are worthy. It is death. None are worthy. None.

Zoon: Though it be death, yet once again upon Aether Mountain in heaven I kiss your hand.

Queen: Away! It is death. Upon the word of a Queen.

Zoon: I kiss your h ...

[She standing kills him kneeling. He falls off Aether Mountain, behind it out of sight.

[As he falls he calls her name after intervals. She kneels upon the summit and watches him falling, falling, falling.

[Fainter and fainter as he falls from that tremendous height comes up her name as he calls it.

Zoomzoomarma! Zoomzoomarma! Zoomzoomarma!

[Still she is watching and he is falling still.

[At last when his cry of Zoomzoomarma comes almost unheard to that incredible height and then is heard no more, she turns, and with infinite neatness picking up her skirts steps down daintily over the snow.

[She is going Earthward as the curtain falls.

CURTAIN. CHEEZO DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Sladder, a successful man.
Splurge, his secretary and publicity agent.
The Rev. Charles Hippanthigh.
Butler.
Mrs. Sladder.
Ermyntrude Sladder.

Scene

The big house that Sladder has bought in the country. Sladder's study. Large French window opening on to a lawn.

Time: Now.

Sladder's daughter is seated in an armchair tapping on the arm of it a little impatiently.

The door opens very cautiously, and the head of Mrs. Sladder is put round it.

Mrs. Sladder: O, Ermyntrude. Whatever are you doing here?

Ermyntrude: I wanted to speak to father, mother.

Mrs. Sladder: But you mustn't come in here. We mustn't disturb father.

Ermyntrude: I want to speak to father.

Mrs. Sladder: Whatever about, Ermyntrude?

Ermyntrude (taps the arm of the chair): O, nothing, mother. Only about that idea of his.

Mrs. Sladder: What idea, child?

Ermyntrude: O, that idea he had, that—er—I was some day to marry a duke.

Mrs. Sladder: And why shouldn't you marry a duke, child? I am sure father would make it worth his while.

Ermyntrude: O well, I don't think I want to, mother.

Mrs. Sladder: But why not, Ermyntrude?

Ermyntrude: O well, you know Mr. Jones——

Mrs. Sladder: That good man!

Ermyntrude: ——did say that dukes were no good, mother. They oppress the poor, I think he said.

Mrs. Sladder: Very true.

Ermyntrude: Well, there you are.

Mrs. Sladder: Yes, yes, of course. At the same time, father had rather set his heart on it. You wouldn't have any other reason now, child, would you?

Ermyntrude: What more do you want, mother? Mr. Jones is a Cabinet Minister; he must know what he's talking about.

Mrs. Sladder: Yes, yes.

Ermyntrude: And I hear he's going to get a peerage.

Mrs. Sladder (with enthusiasm): Well, I'm sure he deserves it. But child, you mustn't talk to father to-day. You mustn't stay here any longer.

Ermyntrude: But why not, mother?

Mrs. Sladder: Well, child, he's been smoking one of those big cigars again, and he's absent-like. And he's been talking a good deal with Mr. Splurge. It's one of his great days, I think, Ermyntrude. I feel sure it is. One of those days that has given us all this money, and all these fine houses, with all those little birds that his gentlemen friends shoot. He has an idea!

Ermyntrude: O, mother, do you really think so?

Mrs. Sladder: I'm sure of it, child. (Looking out.) There! There he is! Walking along that path that they made. I can see he's got an idea. How like Napoleon.* He's walking with Mr. Splurge. They're coming in now. Come along, Ermyntrude, we mustn't disturb him to-day. He