ACT III
Late in the evening. Past ten. The curtains are drawn, and the lamps lighted. The typewriter is in its case; the large table has been cleared and tidied; everything indicates that the day’s work is done.
Candida and Marchbanks are seated at the fire. The reading lamp is on the mantelshelf above Marchbanks, who is sitting on the small chair reading aloud from a manuscript. A little pile of manuscripts and a couple of volumes of poetry are on the carpet beside him. Candida is in the easy chair with the poker, a light brass one, upright in her hand. She is leaning back and looking at the point of it curiously, with her feet stretched towards the blaze and her heels resting on the fender, profoundly unconscious of her appearance and surroundings.
MARCHBANKS. [Breaking off in his recitation] Every poet that ever lived has put that thought into a sonnet. He must: he can’t help it. [He looks to her for assent, and notices her absorption in the poker.] Haven’t you been listening? [No response.] Mrs. Morell!
CANDIDA. [Starting.] Eh?
MARCHBANKS. Haven’t you been listening?
CANDIDA. [With a guilty excess of politeness.] Oh, yes. It’s very nice. Go on, Eugene. I’m longing to hear what happens to the angel.
MARCHBANKS. [Crushed—the manuscript dropping from his hand to the floor.] I beg your pardon for boring you.
CANDIDA. But you are not boring me, I assure you. Please go on. Do, Eugene.
MARCHBANKS. I finished the poem about the angel quarter of an hour ago. I’ve read you several things since.
CANDIDA. [Remorsefully.] I’m so sorry, Eugene. I think the poker must have fascinated me. [She puts it down.]
MARCHBANKS. It made me horribly uneasy.
CANDIDA. Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have put it down at once.
MARCHBANKS. I was afraid of making you uneasy, too. It looked as if it were a weapon. If I were a hero of old, I should have laid my drawn sword between us. If Morell had come in he would have thought you had taken up the poker because there was no sword between us.
CANDIDA. [Wondering.] What? [With a puzzled glance at him.] I can’t quite follow that. Those sonnets of yours have perfectly addled me. Why should there be a sword between us?
MARCHBANKS. [Evasively.] Oh, never mind. [He stoops to pick up the manuscript.]
CANDIDA. Put that down again, Eugene. There are limits to my appetite for poetry—even your poetry. You’ve been reading to me for more than two hours—ever since James went out. I want to talk.
MARCHBANKS. [Rising, scared.] No: I mustn’t talk. [He looks round him in his lost way, and adds, suddenly] I think I’ll go out and take a walk in the park. [Making for the door.]
CANDIDA. Nonsense: it’s shut long ago. Come and sit down on the hearth-rug, and talk moonshine as you usually do. I want to be amused. Don’t you want to?
MARCHBANKS. [In half terror, half rapture.] Yes.
CANDIDA. Then come along. [She moves her chair back a little to make room. He hesitates; then timidly stretches himself on the hearth-rug, face upwards, and throws back his head across her knees, looking up at her.]
MARCHBANKS. Oh, I’ve been so miserable all the evening, because I was doing right. Now I’m doing wrong; and I’m happy.
CANDIDA. [Tenderly amused at him.] Yes: I’m sure you feel a great grown up wicked deceiver—quite proud of yourself, aren’t you?
MARCHBANKS. [Raising his head quickly and turning a little to look round at her.] Take care. I’m ever so much older than you, if you only knew. [He turns quite over on his knees, with his hands clasped and his arms on her lap, and speaks with growing impulse, his blood beginning to stir.] May I say some wicked things to you?
CANDIDA. [Without the least fear or coldness, quite nobly, and with perfect respect for his passion, but with a touch of her wise-hearted maternal humor.] No. But you may say anything you really and truly feel. Anything at all, no matter what it is. I am not afraid, so long as it is your real self that speaks, and not a mere attitude—a gallant attitude, or a wicked attitude, or even a poetic attitude. I put you on your honor and truth. Now say whatever you want to.
MARCHBANKS. [The eager expression vanishing utterly from his lips and nostrils as his eyes light up with pathetic spirituality.] Oh, now I can’t say anything: all the words I know belong to some attitude or other—all except one.
CANDIDA. What one is that?
MARCHBANKS. [Softly, losing himself in the music of the name.] Candida, Candida, Candida, Candida, Candida. I must say that now, because you have put me on my honor and truth; and I never think or feel Mrs. Morell: it is always Candida.
CANDIDA. Of course. And what have you to say to Candida?
MARCHBANKS. Nothing, but to repeat your name a thousand times. Don’t you feel that every time is a prayer to you?
CANDIDA. Doesn’t it make you happy to be able to pray?
MARCHBANKS. Yes, very happy.
CANDIDA. Well, that happiness is the answer to your prayer. Do you want anything more?
MARCHBANKS. [In beatitude.] No: I have come into heaven, where want is unknown. [Morell comes in. He halts on the threshold, and takes in the scene at a glance.]
MORELL. [Grave and self-contained.] I hope I don’t disturb you. [Candida starts up violently, but without the smallest embarrassment, laughing at herself. Eugene, still kneeling, saves himself from falling by putting his hands on the seat of the chair, and remains there, staring open mouthed at Morell.]
CANDIDA. [As she rises.] Oh, James, how you startled me! I was so taken up with Eugene that I didn’t hear your latch-key. How did the meeting go off? Did you speak well?
MORELL. I have never spoken better in my life.
CANDIDA. That was first rate! How much was the collection?
MORELL. I forgot to ask.
CANDIDA. [To Eugene.] He must have spoken splendidly, or he would never have forgotten that. [To Morell.] Where are all the others?
MORELL. They left long before I could get away: I thought I should never escape. I believe they are having supper somewhere.
CANDIDA. [In her domestic business tone.] Oh; in that case, Maria may go to bed. I’ll tell her. [She goes out to the kitchen.]
MORELL. [Looking sternly down at Marchbanks.] Well?
MARCHBANKS. [Squatting cross-legged on the hearth-rug, and actually at ease with Morell—even impishly humorous.] Well?
MORELL. Have you anything to tell me?
MARCHBANKS. Only that I have been making a fool of myself here in private whilst you have been making a fool of yourself in public.
MORELL. Hardly in the same way, I think.
MARCHBANKS. [Scrambling up—eagerly.] The very, very, very same way. I have been playing the good man just like you. When you began your heroics about leaving me here with Candida—
MORELL. [Involuntarily.] Candida?
MARCHBANKS. Oh, yes: I’ve got that far. Heroics are infectious: I caught the disease from you. I swore not to say a word in your absence that I would not have said a month ago in your presence.
MORELL. Did you keep your oath?
MARCHBANKS. [Suddenly perching himself grotesquely on the easy chair.] I was ass enough to keep it until about ten minutes ago. Up to that moment I went on desperately reading to her—reading my own poems—anybody’s poems—to stave off a conversation. I was standing outside the gate of Heaven, and refusing to go in. Oh, you can’t think how heroic it was,