Олдос Хаксли - Antic Hay

THE MONSTER: But I swear to you, I love—I—[ He is once more interrupted by his cough. ]

THE YOUNG LADY: Please go away. [ In a different voice. ] Ah, Roger! [ She advances to meet a snub–nosed lubber with curly hair and a face like a groom's, who passes along the street at this moment. ]

ROGER: I've got the motor–bike waiting at the corner.

THE YOUNG LADY: Let's go, then.

ROGER [ pointing to the MONSTER]: What's that?

THE YOUNG LADY: Oh, it's nothing in particular. [ Both roar with laughter. ROGER escorts her out, patting her familiarly on the back as they walk along .]

THE MONSTER [ looking after her ]: There is a wound under my left pap. She has deflowered all women. I cannot…

'Lord!' whispered Mrs Viveash, 'how this young man bores me!'

'I confess,' replied Gumbril, 'I have rather a taste for moralities. There is a pleasant uplifting vagueness about these symbolical generalized figures which pleases me.'

'You were always charmingly simple–minded,' said Mrs Viveash. 'But who's this? As long as the young man isn't left alone on the stage, I don't mind.'

Another female figure has appeared in the street beyond the window. It is the Prostitute. Her face, painted in two tones of red, white, green, blue and black, is the most tasteful of nature–mortes .

THE PROSTITUTE: Hullo, duckie!

THE MONSTER: Hullo!

THE PROSTITUTE: Are you lonely?

THE MONSTER: Yes.

THE PROSTITUTE: Would you like me to come in to see you?

THE MONSTER: Very well.

THE PROSTITUTE: Shall we say thirty bob?

THE MONSTER: As you like.

THE PROSTITUTE: Come along then.

[ She climbs through the window and they go off together through the door on the left of the stage. The curtains descend for a moment, then rise again. The MONSTER and the PROSTITUTE are seen issuing from the door at which they went out .]

THE MONSTER [ taking out a cheque–book and a fountain–pen ]: Thirty shillings…

THE PROSTITUTE: Thank you. Not a cheque. I don't want any cheques. How do I know it isn't a dud one that they'll refuse payment for at the bank? Ready money for me, thanks.

THE MONSTER: But I haven't got any cash on me at the moment.

THE PROSTITUTE: Well, I won't take a cheque. Once bitten, twice shy, I can tell you.

THE MONSTER: But I tell you I haven't got any cash.

THE PROSTITUTE: Well, all I can say is, here I stay till I get it. And, what's more, if I don't get it quick, I'll make a row.

THE MONSTER: But this is absurd. I offer you a perfectly good cheque…

THE PROSTITUTE: And I won't take it. So there!

THE MONSTER: Well then, take my watch. It's worth more than thirty bob. [ He pulls out his gold half–hunter. ]

THE PROSTITUTE: Thank you, and get myself arrested as soon I take it to the pop–shop! No, I want cash, I tell you.

THE MONSTER: But where the devil do you expect me to get it at this time of night?

THE PROSTITUTE: I don't know. But you've got to get it pretty quick.

THE MONSTER: You're unreasonable.

THE PROSTITUTE: Aren't there any servants in this house?

THE MONSTER: Yes.

THE PROSTITUTE: Well, go and borrow it from one of them.

THE MONSTER: But really, that would be too low, too humiliating.

THE PROSTITUTE: All right, I'll begin kicking up a noise. I'll go to the window and yell till all the neighbours are woken up and the police come to see what's up. You can borrow it from the copper then.

THE MONSTER: You really won't take my cheque? I swear to you it's perfectly all right. There's plenty of money to meet it.

THE PROSTITUTE: Oh, shut up! No more dilly–dallying. Get me my money at once, or I'll start the row. One, two, three…[ She opens her mouth wide as if to yell. ]

THE MONSTER: All right. [ He goes out. ]

THE PROSTITUTE: Nice state of things we're coming to, when young rips try and swindle us poor girls out of our money! Mean, stinking skunks! I'd like to slit the throats of some of them.

THE MONSTER [ coming back again ]: Here you are. [ He hands her money. ]

THE PROSTITUTE [ examining it ]: Thank you, dearie. Any other time you're lonely…

THE MONSTER: No, no!

THE PROSTITUTE: Where did you get it finally?

THE MONSTER: I woke the cook.

THE PROSTITUTE [ goes off into a peal of laughter ]: Well, so long, duckie. [ She goes out. ]

THE MONSTER [ solus ]: Somewhere there must be love like music. Love harmonious and ordered: two spirits, two bodies moving contrapuntally together. Somewhere, the stupid brutish act must be made to make sense, must be enriched, must be made significant. Lust, like Diabelli's waltz, a stupid air, turned by a genius into three–and–thirty fabulous variations. Somewhere…

'Oh dear!' sighed Mrs Viveash.

'Charming!' Gumbril protested.

… love like sheets of silky flame; like landscapes brilliant in the sunlight against a background of purple thunder; like the solution of a cosmic problem; like faith…

'Crikey!' said Mrs Viveash.

… Somewhere, somewhere. But in my veins creep the maggots of the pox…

'Really, really!' Mrs Viveash shook her head. 'Too medical!'

… crawling towards the brain, crawling into the mouth, burrowing into the bones. Insatiably.

The Monster threw himself to the ground, and the curtain came down.

'And about time too!' declared Mrs Viveash.

'Charming!' Gumbril stuck to his guns. 'Charming! charming!'

There was a disturbance near the door. Mrs Viveash looked round to see what was happening. 'And now on top of it all,' she said, 'here comes Coleman, raving, with an unknown drunk.'

'Have we missed it?' Coleman was shouting. 'Have we missed all the lovely bloody farce?'

'Lovely bloody!' his companion repeated with drunken raptures, and he went into fits of uncontrollable laughter. He was a very young boy with straight dark hair and a face of Hellenic beauty, now distorted with tipsiness.

Coleman greeted his acquaintances in the hall, shouting a jovial obscenity to each. 'And Bumbril–Gumbril,' he exclaimed, catching sight of him at last in the front row. 'And Hetaira–Myra!' He pushed his way through the crowd, followed unsteadily by his young disciple. 'So you're here,' he said, standing over them and looking down with an enigmatic malice in his bright blue eyes. 'Where's the physiologue?'

'Am I the physiologue's keeper?' asked Gumbril. 'He's with his glands and his hormones, I suppose. Not to mention his wife.' He smiled to himself.

'Where the hormones, there moan I,' said Coleman, skidding off sideways along the slippery word. 'I hear, by the way, that there's a lovely prostitute in this play.'

'You've missed her,' said Mrs Viveash.

'What a misfortune,' said Coleman. 'We've missed the delicious trull,' he said, turning to the young man.

The young man only laughed.

'Let me introduce, by the way,' said Coleman. 'This is Dante,' he pointed to the dark–haired boy; 'and I am Virgil. We're making a round tour—or, rather, a descending spiral tour of hell. But we're only at the first circle so far. These, Alighieri, are two damned souls, though not, as you might suppose, Paolo and Francesca.'

The boy continued to laugh, happily and uncomprehendingly.

'Another of these interminable entr'actes ,' complained Mrs Viveash. 'I was just saying to Theodore here that if there's one thing I dislike more than another, it's a long entr'acte .' Would hers ever come to an end?