William Yeats - Where There is Nothing

Jerome. [ Going over to the place Paul Ruttledge has pointed out. ] I don't see anything.

Paul Ruttledge. You are getting blind, Jerome. Can't you see that the poultry have been scratching there?

Jerome. No, the grass is perfectly smooth.

Paul Ruttledge. Well, the marks are there, whether you see them or not; for Mr. Green and Mr. Dowler and Mr. Algie and the rest of them run out of their houses when nobody is looking, in their real shapes, shapes like those on my hedge. And then they begin to scratch, they scratch all together, they don't dig but they scratch, and all the time their mouths keep going like that.

[He holds out his hand and opens and shuts his fingers like a bird's bill.

Jerome. Oh, Paul, you are making fun of me.

Paul Ruttledge. Of course I am only talking in parables. I think all the people I meet are like farmyard creatures, they have forgotten their freedom, their human bodies are a disguise, a pretence they keep up to deceive one another.

Jerome. [ Sitting down. ] What is wrong with you?

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, nothing of course. You see how happy I am. I have a good house and a good property, and my brother and his charming wife have come to look after me. You see the toys of their children here and everywhere. What should be wrong with me?

Jerome. I know you too well not to see that there is something wrong with you.

Paul Ruttledge. There is nothing except that I have been thinking a good deal lately.

Jerome. Perhaps your old dreams or visions or whatever they were have come back. They always made you restless. You ought to see more of your neighbours.

Paul Ruttledge. There's nothing interesting but human nature, and that's in the single soul, but these neighbours of mine they think in flocks and roosts.

Jerome. You are too hard on them. They are busy men, they hav'n't much time for thought, I daresay.

Paul Ruttledge. That's what I complain of. When I hear these people talking I always hear some organized or vested interest chirp or quack, as it does in the newspapers. Algie chirps. Even you, Jerome, though I have not found your armorial beast, are getting a little monastic; when I have found it I will put it among the others. There is a place for it there, but the worst of it is that it will take so long getting nice and green.

Jerome. I don't know what creature you could make for me.

Paul Ruttledge. I am not sure yet; I think it might be a pigeon, something cooing and gentle, and always coming home to the dovecot; not to the wild woods but to the dovecot.

Jerome. I wonder what creature you yourself are like.

Paul Ruttledge. I daresay I am like some creature or other, for very few of us are altogether men; but if I am, I would like to be one of the wild sort. You are right about my dreams. They have been coming back lately. Do you remember those strange ones I had at college?

Jerome. Those visions of pulling something down?

Paul Ruttledge. Yes, they have come back to me lately. Sometimes I dream I am pulling down my own house, and sometimes it is the whole world that I am pulling down. [ Standing up. ] I would like to have great iron claws, and to put them about the pillars, and to pull and pull till everything fell into pieces.

Jerome. I don't see what good that would do you.

Paul Ruttledge. Oh, yes it would. When everything was pulled down we would have more room to get drunk in, to drink contentedly out of the cup of life, out of the drunken cup of life.

Jerome. That is a terribly wild thought. I hope you don't believe all you say.

Paul Ruttledge. Perhaps not. I only know that I want to upset everything about me. Have you not noticed that it is a complaint many of us have in this country? and whether it comes from love or hate I don't know, they are so mixed together here.

Jerome. I wish you would come and talk to our Superior. He has a perfect gift for giving advice.

Paul Ruttledge. Well, we'll go to the yard now. [ He gets up.

Jerome. I have often thought you would come to the Monastery yourself in the end. You were so much the most pious of us all at school. You would be happy in a Monastery. Something is always happening there.

Paul Ruttledge. [ As they go up the garden. ] I daresay, I daresay; but I am not even sure that I am a Christian.

Jerome. Well, anyway, I wish that you would come and talk to our Superior. [ They go out.

Charlie Ward and Boy enter by the path beyond the hedge and stand at gate.

Charlie Ward. No use going up there, Johneen, it's too grand a place, it's a dog they might let loose on us. But I'll tell you what, just slip round to the back door and ask do they want any cans mended.

Johneen. Let you take the rabbit then we're after taking out of the snare. I can't bring it round with me.

Charlie Ward. Faith, you can't. They think as bad of us taking a rabbit that was fed and minded by God as if it was of their own rearing; give it here to me. It's hardly it will go in my pocket, it's as big as a hare. It's next my skin I'll have to put it, or it might be noticed on me. [ Boy goes out.

[Charlie Ward is struggling to put rabbit inside his coat when Paul Ruttledge comes back.

Paul Ruttledge. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want to come in?

Charlie Ward. I'm a tinker by trade, your honour. I wonder is there e'er a tin can the maids in the house might want mended or any chairs to be bottomed?

Paul Ruttledge. A tinker; where do you live?

Charlie Ward. Faith, I don't stop long in any place. I go about like the crows; picking up my way of living like themselves.

Paul Ruttledge. [ Opening gate. ] Come inside here. [Charlie Ward hesitates. ] Come in, you are welcome.

[ Puts his hand on his shoulder. Charlie Ward tries to close his shirt over rabbit.

Paul Ruttledge. Ah, you have a rabbit there. The keeper told me he had come across some snares in my woods.

Charlie Ward. If he did, sir, it was no snare of mine he found. This is a rabbit I bought in the town of Garreen early this morning. Sixpence I was made give for it, and to mend a tin can along with that.

Paul Ruttledge. [ Touching rabbit. ] It's warm still, however. But the day is hot. Never mind; you are quite welcome to it. I daresay you will have a cheery meal of it by the roadside; my dinners are often tiresome enough. I often wish I could change – look here, will you change clothes with me?

Charlie Ward. Faith, I'd swap soon enough if you weren't humbugging me. It's I that would look well with that suit on me! The peelers would all be touching their caps to me. You'd see them running out for me to sign summonses for them.

Paul Ruttledge. But I am not humbugging. I am in earnest.

Charlie Ward. In earnest! Then when I go back I'll commit Paddy Cockfight to prison for hitting me yesterday.

Paul Ruttledge. You don't believe me, but I will explain. I'm dead sick of this life; I want to get away; I want to escape – as you say, to pick up my living like the crows for a while.

Charlie Ward. To make your escape. Oh! that's different. [ Coming closer. ] But what is it you did? You don't look like one that would be in trouble. But sometimes a gentleman gets a bit wild when he has a drop taken.

Paul Ruttledge. Well, never mind. I will explain better while we are changing. Come over here to the potting shed. Make haste, those magistrates will be coming out.