The End of the World, Act II

ACT II      As before, a little while after. The room is empty when the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces    about, but stops short when he catches sight of a    pot dog on the mantlepiece.      Sollers         The pace it is coming down! - What to do now? -         My brain has stopt: it's like a clock that's fallen         Out of a window and broke all its cogs. -         Where's that old cider, Vine would have us pay         Twopence a glass for? Let's try how it smells:         Old Foxwhelp, and a humming stingo it is!         [To the pot dog]         Hullo, you! Whaty are you grinning at? -         I know!         There'll be no score against me for this drink!         Of that score! I've drunk it down for a week         With every gulp of cider, and every gulp         Was half the beauty it should have been, the score         So scratcht my swallowing throat, like a wasp in the drink!         And I need never have heeded it! -         Old grinning dog! You've seen me happy here;         And now, all's done! But do you know this too,         That I can break you now, and never called         To pay for you?        [Throwing the dog on the floor.]         I shall be savage soon!         We're leaving all this! - O, and it was so pleasant         Here, in here, of an evening. - Smash!      [He sweeps a lot of crockery on to the floor.]         It's all no good! Let's make a wreck of it all!      [Picking up a chair and swinging it.]         Damn me! Now I'm forgetting to drink, and soon         'Twill be too late. Where's there a mug not shivered?      [He goes to draw himself cider. MERRICK rushes in.]      Merrick         You at the barrels, too? Out of the road!      [He pushes SOLLERS away and spills his mug.]      Sollers         Go and kick out of door, you black donkey.      Merrick         Let me come at the vessel, will you?      [They wrestle savagely.]      SOllers                 Keep off;         I'm the first here. Lap what you've spilt of mine.      Merrick         You with your chiselling and screw-driving,         Your wooden work, you bidding me, the man         Who hammers a meaning into red hot iron?     [VINE comes in slowly. He is weeping; the two wrestlers stop and stare at him, as he sits    down, and holds his head in his hands,    sobbing.]     Vine        O this is a cruel affair!     Sillers          Here's Vine crying!     Vine             I've seen the moon.     Merrick             The moon? 'Tisn't the moon      That's tumbling on us, but yon raging star.      What notion now is clotted in your head?     Vine      I've seen the moon; it has nigh broke my heart.     Sollers      Not the moon too jumping out of her ways?     Vine      No, no; - but going quietly and shining,      Pushing away a flimsy gentle cloud      That would drift smoky round her, fending it off      Wuth steady rounds of blue and yellow light.      It was not much to see. She was no more      Than a curved bit of silver rind. But I      Never before so noted her -     Sollers         What he said,      The dowser!     Merrick         Ay, about his yellowhammers.     Sollers      And there's a kind of stifle in the air      Already!     Merrick         It seems to me, my breathing goes      All hot down my windpipe, but as cider      Mulled and steaming travels down my swallow.     Sollers      And a queer racing through my ears of blood.     Herrick      I wonder, is the star come closer still?     Sollers      O, close, I know, and viciously heading down.     Vine      She was so silver! and the sun had left      A kind of tawny red, a dust of fine      Thin light upon the blue where she was lying, -      Just a curled paring of the moon, amid      The faint grey cloud that set the gleaming wheel      Around the tilted slip of shining silver.      O it did seem to me so safe and homely,      The moon quietly going about the earth;      It's a rare place we have to live in, here;      And life is such a comfortable thing -      And what's the sense of it all? Naught but to make      Cruel as may be the slaughtering of it.     Sollers             It beats my mind!         [He begins to walk up and down desparately.]     Merrick             'Twas bound to come sometime,      Bound to come, I suppose. 'Tis a poor thing      For us, to fall plumb in the chance of it;      But, now or another time, 'twas bound to be. -      I have been thinking back. When I was a lad      I was delighted with my life: there seemed      Naught but things to enjoy. Say we were bathing:      There'ld be the cool smell of the water, and cool      The splashing under the trees: but I did loathe      The sinking mud slithering round my feet,      And I did love to loathe it so! And then      We'ld troop to kill a wasp's nest; and for sure      I would be stung; and if I liked the dusk      And singing and the game of it all, I loved      The smart of the stings, and fleeing the buzzing furies.      And sometimes I'ld be looking at myself      Making so much of everything; there'ld seem      A part of me speaking about myself:      ' You know, this is much more than being happy.      'Tis hunger of some power in you, that lives      On your heart's welcome for all sorts of luck,      But always looks beyond you for its meaning. '      And that's the way the world's kept going on,      I believe now. Misery and delight      Have both had liking welcome from it, both      Have made the world keen to be glad and sorry.      For why? It felt the living power thrive      The more it made everything, good and bad,      Its own belonging, forged to its own affair, -      The living power that would do wonders some day.      I don't know if you take me?     Sollers         I do, fine;      I've felt the very thought go through my mind      When I was at my wains; though 'twas a thing      Of such a flight I could not read its colour. -      Why was I like a man sworn to a thing      Working to have my wains in every curve,      Ay, every teneon, right and as they should be?      Not for myself, not even for those wains:      But to keep in me living at its best      The skill that must go forward and shape the world,      Helping it on to make some masterpiece.     Merrick      And never was there aught to come of it!      The world was always looking to use its life      In some great handsome way at last. And now -      We are just fooled. There never was any good      In the world going on or being at all.      The fine things life has plotted to do are worth      A rotten toadstool kickt to flying bits.      End of the World? Ay, and the end of a joke.     Vine             Well, Huff's the man for this turn.     Merrick             Ay, the good man!      He could but grunt when times were pleasant; now      There's misery enough to make him trumpet.      And yet, by God, he shan't come blowing his horn      Over my misery!      We are just fooled, did I say? - We fooled ourselves,      Looking for worth in what was still to come;      And now there'a a stop to our innings. Well, that's fair:      I've been a living man, and might have been      Nothing at all! I've had the world about me,      And felt it as my own concern. What else      Should I be crying for? I've had my turn.      The world may be for the sake of naught at last,      But it has been for my sake: I've had that.     [He sits again, and broods.]     Sollers      I can't stay here. I must be where my sight      May silence with its business all my thinking -      Though it will be the star plunged down so close      It puffs its flaming vengeance in my face.     [He goes.]     Vine      I wish there were someone who had done me wrong,      Like Huff with his wife and Shale; I wish there were      Somebody I would like to see go crazed      With staring fright. I'ld have my pleasure then      Of living on into the End of the World.      But there is no one at all for me, no one      Now my poor wife is gone.     Merrick         Why what did she      To harm you?     Vine             Didn't she marry me? - It's true      She made it come all right. She died at last.      Besides, it would be wasting wishes on her,      To be in hopes of her weeping at this.      She'ld have her hands on her hops and her tongue jumping      As nimble as a stoat, delighting round      The way the world's to be terrible and tormented. -      Ay, but I'll have a thing to tell her now      When she begins to ask the news! I'll say      ' You've misst such a show as never was nor will be,      A roaring great affair of death and ruin;      And I was there - the world smasht to sparkles! '      O, I can see her vext at that!     [MERRICK has been sunk in thought during this, but VINE seems to brighten at this notion, and speaks quite cheerfully to HUFF, who now comes in, looking mopish, and sits down ]     Vine      We've all been envying you, Huff. You're well off,      You with your goodness and your enemies      Showing you how to relish it with their terror.      When do you mean the gibing is to start?     Huff             There's time enough.     Vine             O, do they still hold out?      If they should be for spiting you to the last!      You'ld best keep on at them: think out a list      Of frantic things for them to do, when air      Is scorching smother and the sin they did      Frightens their hearts. You'll shout them into fear,      I undertake, if you find breath enough.     Huff      You have the breath. What's all your pester for?      You leave me be.     Vine             Why, you're to do for me      What I can't do myself. - And yet it's hard      To make out where Shale hurt you. What's the sum      Of all he did to you? Got you quit of a marriage      Without the upset of a funeral.     Huff      Wyy need you blurt your rambling mind at me?      Let me bide quiet in my thought awhile,      And it's a little while we have for thought.     Merrick      I know your thought. Paddling round and around,      Like a squirrel working in a spinning cage      With his neck stretcht to have his chin poke up,      And silly feet busy and always going;      Paddling round the story of your good life,      Your small good life, and how the decent men      Have jeered at your wry antic.     Huff              My good life!      And what good has my goodness been to me?      You show me that! Somebody show me that!      A caterpillar munching a cabbage-heart,      Always drudging further and further from      The sounds and lights of the world, never abroad      Nor flying free in warmth and air sweet-smelling:      A crawling caterpillar, eating his life      In a deaf dark - that's my gain of goodness!      And it's too late to hatch out now! -      I can but fancy what I might have been;      I scarce know how to sin! - But I believe      A long while back I did come near to it.     Merrick      Well done! - O but I should have guesst all this!     Huff      I was in Droitwich; and the sight of the place      Is where they cook the brine: a long dark shed,      Hot as an oven, full of a grey steam      And ruddy light that leaks out of the furnace;      And stirring the troughs, ladling the brine that boils      As thick as treacle, a double standing row,      Women - boldly talking in wicked jokes      All day long. I went to see 'em. It was      A wonderful rousing sight. Not one of them      Was really wearing clothes: half of a sack      Pinned in an apron was enough for most,      And here and there might be a petticoat;      But nothing in the way of bodices -      O, they knew words to shame a carter's face!     Merrick      This is the thought you would be quiet in!     Huff      Where else can I be quiet? Now there's an end      Of daring, 'tis the one place my life has made      Where I may try to dare in thought. I mind,      When I stood in the midst of those bare women,      All at once, outburst with a rising buzz,      A mob of flying thoughts was wild in me:      Things I might do swarmed in my brain pell-mell,      Like a heap of flies kickt into humming cloud.      I beat them down; and now I cannot tell      For certain what they were. I can call up      Naught venturesome and darting like their style;      Very tame braveries now! - O Shale's the man      To smile upon the End of the World; 'tis Shale      Has lived the bold stiff fashion, and filled himself      With thinking pride in what a man may do. -      I wish I had seen those women more than once!     Vine      Well, here's an upside down! This is old Huff!      What have you been in your heart all these years?      The man you were or the new man you are?     Huff             Just a dead flesh!     Merrick             Nay, Huff the good man at least      Was something alive, though snarling like trapt vermin.      But this? What's this for the figure of a man?      'Tis a boy's smutty picture on a wall.     Huff      I was alive, was I? Like a blind bird      That flies and cannot see the flight it takes,      Feeling it with mere rowing of its wings.      But Shale - he's had a stirring sense of what he is.     [Shouting outside. Then SOLLERS walks in again, very quiet and steady. He stands in the middle, looking down on the floor ]     Vine     What do they holla for there?     Sollers     The earth.     Merrick     The earth?     Sollers     The earth's afire.     Huff     The earth blazing already?         [Shouts again.]      O, not so soon as this?     Vine         What sort of fire?     SOllers      The earth has caught the heat of the star, you fool.     Merrick      I know: there's come some dazzle in your eyes      From facing to the star; a lamp would do it.     Huff      It will be that. Your sight, being so strained,      Is flashing of itself.     Sollers              Way what you like.      There's a red flare out of the land beyond      Looking over the hills into our valley.      The thing's begun, 'tis certain. Go and see.     Vine             I won't see that. I will stay here.     Sollers             Ay, creep      Into your oven. You'll be cooler there. -      O my God, we'll all be coals in an hour!     [Shouts again.]     Huff      And I have naught to stand in my heart upright,      And vow it made my living time worth more      Than if my time had been death in a grave!     [Several persons run in.]     The Crown      1. The river's the place!      2.     The only safe place now!      3. Best all charge down to the river!      4.        For there's a blaze,      A travelling blaze comes racing along the earth.     Sollers      'Tis true. The air's red-hot above the hills.     The Crown      1. Ay, but he burning now crests the hill-tops      In quiver of yellow flame.      2.     And a great smoke      Waving and tumbling upward.      3.    The river now!      4. The only place we have, not be be roasted!     Merrick      And what will make us water-rats or otters,      To keep our breath still living through a dive      That lasts until the earth's burnt out? Or how      Would that trick serve, when we stand up to gasp,      And find the star waiting for our plunged heads      To knock them into pummy?     Vine         Scarce more dazed      I'ld be with that than now. I shall be bound,      When I'm to give my wife the tale of it all,      To be divising: more of this to-do      My mind won't carry.     Huff         O ashamed I am,      Ashamed! - It needn't have been downright fears,      Such as the braving men, the like of Shale,      Do easily, and smile, keeping them up.      If I could look back to one manful hour      Of romping in the face of all my goodness! -     [SHALE comes in, dragging Mrs HUFF by the hand.]     Shale      Huff! Where's Huff? - Huff, you must take her back!      You'll take her back? She's yours: I give her up.     Merrick             Belike here's something bold again.     Mrs Huff [to SHALE]         Once more,      Listen.     Shale         I will not listen. There's no time      For aught but giving you back where you belong;      And that's with you, Huff. Take her.     Huff             Here is depth      I cannot see to. Is it your last fling? -      The dolt I am in these things! - What's this way      You've found of living wickedly to the end?     Shale      Scorn as you please, but take her back, man, take her.     Huff      But she's my wife! Take her back now? What for?     Mrs Huff      What for? Have you not known of thieves that throw      Their robbery down, soon as they hear a step      Sounding behind them on the road, and run      A long way off, and pull an honest face?      Ay, see Shale's eyes practising baby-looks!      He never stole, not he!     Shale         Don't hear her talk.     Mrs Huff      But he was a talker once! Love was the thing;      And love, he swore, would make the wrong go right,      And Huff was a kind of devil - and that's true -     Huff      What? I've been devilish and never knew?     Mrs Huff      The devil in the world that hates all love.      But Shale said, he'd the love in him would hold      If the world's frame and the fate of men were crackt.     Shale             What I said!      Whoever thought the world was going to crack?     Mrs Huff      And now he hears someone move behind him. -      They'll say, perhaps, ' You stole this! ' - Down it goes,      Thrown to the ditry road - thrown to Huff!     Shale      Yes, to the owner.     Mrs Huff          It was not such brave thieving      You did not take me from my owner, Shale:      There's an old robber will do that some day,      Not you.     Vine          Were you thinking of me then, missis?     Mrs Huff [still to SHALE]      You found me lost in the dirt: I was with Huff.      You lifted me from there; and there again,      Like a frightened urchin, you're for throwing me.     Shale             Let it be that! I'm firm      Not to have you about me, when the thing,      Whatever it is, that's standing now behind      The burning of the world, comes out on us.     Huff      The way men cheat! This windle-stalk was he      Would hold a show of spirit for the world      To study while it ruined! - Make what you please      Of your short wrangle here, but leave me out.      I have my thoughts - O far enough from this.     [Turning away.]     Shale [seizing him]      You shall not put me off. I tell you, Huff,      You are to take her back now.     Huff         Take her back!      And what has she to do with what I want?     Shale      Isn't she yours? I must be quit of her;      I'll not be in the risk of keeping her.      She's yours!     Huff          And what's the good of her now to me?      What's the good of a woman whom I've married?     [During this, WARP the molecatcher has come in.]     Warp      Shale and Huff at their old pother again!     Merrick             The molecather!     Sollers             Warp, have you travelled far?      Is it through frenzy and ghastly crowds you've come?     Vine      Have you got dreadful things to tell us, Warp?     Warp             Why, no.      But seemingly you'ld have had news for me,      If I'd come later. Is Huff to murder Shale,      Or Shale for murdering Huff? One way or 'tother,      'Tis time 'twas settled surely. - Mrs Huff      They're neither of them worth you: here's your health.     [Draws and drinks.]     Huff      Where have you been? Are you not new from folk      That throng together in a pelting horror?     Warp      Do you think the whole land hearkens to the flurry      Of an old dog biting at a young dog's throat?     Merrick      No, no! Not their shrill yapping; you've not heard      The world's near to be blasted?     Warp         No mutter of it.      I am from walking the whole ground I trap,      And there's no likeness of it, but the moles      I've turned up dead and dried out of three counties.     Sollers      Why, but the fire that's eating the whole earth;      The breath of it is scarlet in the sky!      You must have seen that?     Warp         But what's taken you?      You are like boys that go to hunt for ghosts,      And turn the scuttle of rats to a roused demon      Crawling to shut the door of the barn they search.      Fire? Yes, fire is playing a pretty game      Yonder, and has its golden fun to itself,      Seemingly.     Sollers         You don't know what 'tis that burns?     Warp      Call me a mole and not a molecatcher      If I do not. It is a rick that burns;      And a strange thing I'll count it if the rick      Be not old Huff's.     Sollers             That flare a fired stack?     Huff      Only one of my ricks alight? O Glory?      There may be chance for me yet.     Merrick             Best take the train      To Droitwich, Huff.     Vine [at the door]         It would be like a stack,      But for the star.     Sollers [to WARP]             Yes, as you're so clever,      You can talk down maybe yon brandishing star!     Warp      O, 'tis the star has flickt your brains? Indeed,      The tail swings long enough to-night for that.      Well, look your best at it; 'tis off again      To go its rounds, they tell me, from now on;      And the next time it swaggers in our sky,      The moles a long while will have tired themsleves      Of having their easy joke with me.     [A pause.]     Merrick         You mean      The flight of the star is from us?     Sollers         But the world,      The whole world reckons on it battering us!     Warp      Who told you that?     Sollers         A dowser.     Merrick             Where's he gone?     Warp      A dowser! say a trampling conjurer.      You'll believe aught, if you believe a dowser.     Sollers      I had it in me to be doubting him.     Merrick      The noise you made was like that! But I knew      You'ld laugh at me, so sure you were the world      Would shiver like a bursting grindlestone:      Else I'ld have said out loud, 'twas a fool's whimsy.     Vine      Where are you now? What am I now to think?      Your minds run round in puzzles, like chased hares.      I cannot sight them.     Merrick         Think of going to bed.     Sollers         And dreaming prices for your pigs.     Merrick             O Warp,      You should have seen Vine crying! The moon, he said,      The silver moon! Just like an onion 'twas      To stir the water in his eyes.     Sollers         He's left      A puddle of his tears where he was droopt      Over the table.     Vine             There's to be no ruin? -      But what's the word of a molecatcher, to crow      So ringing over a dowser's word?     Warp             I'll tell you.      These dowsers live on lies: my trade's the truth.      I can read moles, and the way they've dug their journeys,      Where you'ld not see a wrinkle.     Vine             And he knows      The buried water.     Warp         There's always buried water,      If you prod deep enough. A dowser finds      Because the whole earth's floating, like a raft.      What does he know? A twitching in this thews;      A dog asleep knows that much. What I know      I've learnt, and if I'd learnt it wrong, I'ld starve.      And if I'm right about the grubbing moles,      Won't I be right for news of walking men?     Merrick      Of course you're right. Let's put the whole thing by,      And have a pleasant drink.     Shale [to Mrs HUFF]             You must be tired      With all this story. Shall we be off for home?     Huff      You brass! You don't go now with her! She's mine!      You gave her up.     Shale          And you made nothing of her.     [To Mrs Huff]             Come on.     Mrs Huff             Warp, will you do a thing for me?     Warp             A hundred things.     Mrs Huff             Then slap me these cur-dogs.     Warp      I will. Where will I slap them, and which first?     Mrs Huff      Maybe 'twill do if you but laugh at them.     Warp      I'll try for that; but they are not good jokes;      Though there's a kind of monkey-look about them.     Mrs Huff      They thinking I'ld be near one or the other      After this night! Will I be made no more      Than clay that children puddle to their minds,      Moulding it what they fancy? - Shale was brave:      He made a bogy and defied it, till      He frightened of his work and ran away.      But Huff! - Huff was for modelling wickedly.     Huff             Who told you that?     Mrs Huff              I need no one's telling.      I was your wife once. Don't I know your goodness?      A stupid heart gone sour with jealousy,      To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning. -      Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had      No notion how, and flung the clay aside. -      O they were gaudy colours both! But now      Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank,      Fear of a loon that cried, End of the World!     Huff          Shale, do you know what we're to do?     Shale          I'ld like      To have the handling of that dowser-man.     Huff          Just that, my lad, just that!     Warp             And your fired rick?     Huff      Let it be blazes! Quick, Shale, after him!      I'll tramp the nght out, but I'll take the rogue.     Shale [to the others]      You wait, and see us haul him by the ears,      And swim the blatherer in Huff's farm-yard pond.     [As HUFF and SHALE go out, they see the comet before them.]     Huff             The devil's own star is tha!     Shale             And floats as calm      As a pike basking.     Huff             There shouldn't be such stars!     Shale      Neither such dowsers,and we'll learn him that.     [They go off together.]     Sollers             Why the star's dwindling now, surely.     Merrick         O, small      And dull now to the glowing size it was.     Vine      But is it certain there'll be nothing smasht?      Not even a house knockt roaring down in crumbles?      - And I did think, I'ld open my wife's mouth      With envy of the dreadful things I'd seen!         Curtain.