The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950

  Which comes in dying to give something life …

  I intend that you shall have a good piano. The best.

  And when you are alone at your piano, in the evening,

  I believe you will go through the private door

  Into the real world, as I do, sometimes.

  COLBY. Indeed, I have felt, while you’ve been talking,

  That it’s my own feelings you have expressed,

  Although the medium is different. I know

  I should never have become a great organist,

  As I aspired to be. I’m not an executant;

  I’m only a shadow of the great composers.

  Always, when I play to myself,

  I hear the music I should like to have written,

  As the composer heard it when it came to him;

  But when I played before other people

  I was always conscious that what they heard

  Was not what I hear when I play to myself.

  What I hear is a great musician’s music,

  What they hear is an inferior rendering.

  So I’ve given up trying to play to other people:

  I am only happy when I play to myself.

  SIR CLAUDE. You shall play to yourself. And as for me,

  I keep my pieces in a private room.

  It isn’t that I don’t want anyone to see them!

  But when I am alone, and look at one thing long enough,

  I sometimes have that sense of identification

  With the maker, of which I spoke — an agonising ecstasy

  Which makes life bearable. It’s all I have.

  I suppose it takes the place of religion:

  Just as my wife’s investigations

  Into what she calls the life of the spirit

  Are a kind of substitute for religion.

  I dare say truly religious people —

  I’ve never known any — can find some unity.

  Then there are also the men of genius.

  There are others, it seems to me, who have at best to live

  In two worlds — each a kind of make-believe.

  That’s you and me. Some day, perhaps,

  I will show you my collection.

  COLBY. Thank you.

  SIR CLAUDE. And perhaps, some time, you will let me hear you play.

  I shan’t mention it again. I’ll wait until you ask me.

  Do you understand now what I meant when I spoke

  Of accepting the terms life imposes upon you

  Even to the point of accepting … make-believe?

  COLBY. I think I do. At least, I understand you better

  In learning to understand the conditions

  Which life has imposed upon you. But … something in me

  Rebels against accepting such conditions.

  It would be so much simpler if you weren’t my father!

  I was struck by what you said, a little while ago,

  When you spoke of never having understood your father

  Until it was too late. And you spoke of atonement.

  Even your failure to understand him,

  Of which you spoke — that was a relationship

  Of father and son. It must often happen.

  And the reconcilement, after his death,

  That perfects the relation. You have always been his son

  And he is still your father. I only wish

  That I had something to atone for!

  There’s something lacking, between you and me,

  That you had, and have, and always will have, with your father.

  I begin to see how I have always thought of you —

  As a kind of protector, a generous provider:

  Rather as a patron than a father —

  The father who was missing in the years of childhood.

  Those years have gone forever. The empty years.

  Oh, I’m terribly sorry to be saying this;

  But it goes to explain what I said just now

  About rebelling against the terms

  That life has imposed.

  SIR CLAUDE. It’s my own fault.

  I was always anxious to avoid the mistakes

  My father made with me. And yet I seem

  To have made a greater mistake than he did.

  COLBY. I know that I’m hurting you and I know

  That I hate myself for hurting you.

  SIR CLAUDE. You mustn’t think of that.

  COLBY. I’m very grateful for all you’ve done for me;

  And I want to do my best to justify your kindness

  By the work I do.

  SIR CLAUDE. As my confidential clerk.

  COLBY. I’m really interested by the work I’m doing

  And eager for more. I don’t want my position

  To be, in any way, a make-believe.

  SIR CLAUDE. It shan’t be. Meanwhile, we must simply wait to learn

  What new conditions life will impose on us.

  Just when we think we have settled our account

  Life presents a new one, more difficult to pay.

  — I shall go now, and sit for a while with my china.

  COLBY. Excuse me, but I must remind you:

  You have that meeting in the City

  Tomorrow morning. You asked me to prepare

  Some figures for you. I’ve got them here.

  SIR CLAUDE. Much depends on my wife. Be patient with her, Colby.

  — Oh yes, that meeting. We must run through the figures.

  CURTAIN

  Act Two

  The flat in the mews a few weeks later. COLBY is seated at the piano; LUCASTA in an armchair. The concluding bars of a piece of music are heard as the curtain rises.

  LUCASTA. I think you play awfully well, Colby —

  Not that my opinion counts for anything:

  You know that. But I’d like to learn about music.

  I wish you would teach me how to appreciate it.

  COLBY. I don’t think that you’ll need much teaching;

  Not at this stage, anyway. All you need at first

  Is to hear more music. And to find out what you like.

  When you know what you like, and begin to know it well,

  Then you will want to learn about its structure

  And the various forms, and the different ways of playing it.

  LUCASTA. But suppose I only like the wrong things?

  COLBY. No, I’m sure you’ll prefer the right things, when you hear them.

  I’ve given you a test. Several of the pieces

  That I’ve just played you were very second-rate,

  And you didn’t like them. You liked the right ones.

  LUCASTA. Colby, I didn’t know you were so artful!

  So the things I liked were the right ones to like?

  Still, I’m awfully ignorant. Can you believe

  That I’ve never been to a concert in my life?

  I only go to shows when somebody invites me,

  And no one has ever asked me to a concert.

  I’ve been to the Opera, of course, several times,

  But I’m afraid I never really listened to the music:

  I just enjoyed going — to see the other people,

  And to be seen there! And because you feel out of it

  If you never go to the Opera, in the season.

  Though I’ve always felt out of it. And can you realise

  That nobody has ever played to me before?

  COLBY. And this is the first time I’ve played to anyone …

  LUCASTA. Don’t be such a fraud. You know you told me

  The piano was only delivered this week

  And you had it tuned yesterday. Still, I’m flattered

  To be your first visitor in this flat

  And to be the first to hear you play this piano.

  COLBY. That’s not what I meant. I mean that I’ve not played

  To anyone, since I came to the conclusion

  That I should never bec
ome a musician.

  LUCASTA. Did you find it a strain, then, playing to me?

  COLBY. As a matter of fact, I think I played better.

  I can’t bring myself to play to other people,

  And when I’m alone I can’t forget

  That it’s only myself to whom I’m playing.

  But with you, it was neither solitude nor … people.

  LUCASTA. I’m glad I’m not people. Will you play to me again

  And teach me about music?

  COLBY. Yes, of course I will.

  But I’m sure that when you learn about music —

  And that won’t take you long — and hear good performers,

  You’ll very quickly realise how bad my playing is.

  LUCASTA. Really, Colby, you do make difficulties!

  But what about taking me to a concert?

  COLBY. Only the other day, I invited you …

  LUCASTA. To go to see that American Musical!

  COLBY. Well, I’d heard you say you wanted to see it.

  LUCASTA. But not with you!

  COLBY. You made that very clear.

  But why not with me?

  LUCASTA. Because you don’t like them —

  American Musicals. Do you think it’s any compliment

  To invite a woman to something she would like

  When she knows you wouldn’t like it? That’s not a compliment:

  That’s just being … patronising. But if you invite me

  To something you like — that is a compliment.

  It shows you want to educate me.

  COLBY. But I didn’t know

  That you wanted to be educated.

  LUCASTA. Neither did I.

  But I wanted you to want to educate me;

  And now I’m beginning to believe that I want it.

  COLBY. Well, I’m going to invite you to the next concert …

  LUCASTA. The next that you want to go to yourself.

  COLBY. And perhaps you’ll let me tell you beforehand

  About the programme — or the things I want to hear.

  I’ll play you the themes, so you’ll recognise them.

  Better still, I’ll play you the gramophone records.

  LUCASTA. I’d rather you played me bits yourself, and explained them.

  We’ll begin my education at once.

  COLBY. I suspect that it’s you who are educating me.

  LUCASTA. Colby, you really are full of surprises!

  I’ve never met a man so ignorant as you

  Yet knowing so much that one wouldn’t suspect.

  Perhaps that’s why I like you.

  COLBY. That’s not quite the reason.

  LUCASTA. Oh, so you believe that I like you?

  I didn’t know that you were so conceited.

  COLBY. No, it’s not conceit — the reason that I’m thinking of.

  It’s something quite simple.

  LUCASTA. Then I wish you’d tell me.

  Because I don’t know.

  COLBY. The first time we met

  You were trying very hard to give a false impression.

  And then you came to see that you hadn’t succeeded.

  LUCASTA. Oh, so I was trying to give a false impression?

  What sort of impression was I trying to give?

  COLBY. That doesn’t really matter. But, for some reason,

  You thought I’d get a false impression anyway.

  You preferred it to be one of your own creation

  Rather than wait to see what happened.

  I hope you don’t mind: I know it sounds impertinent.

  LUCASTA. Well, there’s one thing you haven’t learnt yet,

  And that is, to know when you’re paying a compliment.

  That was a compliment. And a very clever one.

  COLBY. I admit that at first I was very bewildered

  By you … and B.

  LUCASTA. Oh, by me … and B.

  COLBY. Only afterwards,

  When I had seen you a number of times,

  I decided that was only your kind of self-defence.

  LUCASTA. What made you think it was self-defence?

  COLBY. Because you couldn’t wait to see what happened.

  You’re afraid of what would happen if you left things to themselves.

  You jump — because you’re afraid of being pushed.

  I think that you’re brave — and I think that you’re frightened.

  Perhaps you’ve been very badly hurt, at some time.

  Or at least, there may have been something in your life

  To rob you of any sense of security.

  LUCASTA. And I’m sure you have that — the sense of security.

  COLBY. No, I haven’t either.

  LUCASTA. There, I don’t believe you.

  What did I think till now? Oh, it’s strange, isn’t it,

  That as one gets to know a person better

  One rinds them in some ways very like oneself,

  In unexpected ways. And then you begin

  To discover differences inside the likeness.

  You may feel insecure, in some ways —

  But your insecurity is nothing like mine.

  COLBY. In what way is it different?

  LUCASTA. It’s hard to explain.

  Perhaps it’s something that your music stands for.

  There’s one thing I know. When you first told me

  What a disaster it was in your life

  When you found that you’d never be a good musician —

  Of course, I don’t know whether you were right.

  For all I can tell, you may have been mistaken,

  And perhaps you could be a very great musician:

  But that’s not the point. You’d convinced yourself;

  And you felt that your life had all collapsed

  And that you must learn to do something different.

  And so you applied for Eggerson’s position,

  And made up your mind to go into business

  And be someone like Claude … or B. I was sorry,

  Very sorry for you. I admired your courage

  In facing facts — or the facts as you saw them.

  And yet, all the time, I found I envied you

  And I didn’t know why! And now I think I know.

  It’s awful for a man to have to give up,

  A career that he’s set his heart on, I’m sure:

  But it’s only the outer world that you’ve lost:

  You’ve still got your inner world — a world that’s more real.

  That’s why you’re different from the rest of us:

  You have your secret garden; to which you can retire

  And lock the gate behind you.

  COLBY. And lock the gate behind me?

  Are you sure that you haven’t your own secret garden

  Somewhere, if you could find it?

  LUCASTA. If I could find it!

  No, my only garden is … a dirty public square

  In a shabby part of London — like the one where I lived

  For a time, with my mother. I’ve no garden.

  I hardly feel that I’m even a person:

  Nothing but a bit of living matter

  Floating on the surface of the Regent’s Canal.

  Floating, that’s it.

  COLBY. You’re very much a person.

  I’m sure that there is a garden somewhere for you —

  For anyone who wants one as much as you do.

  LUCASTA. And your garden is a garden

  Where you hear a music that no one else could hear,

  And the flowers have a scent that no one else could smell.

  COLBY. You may be right, up to a point.

  And yet, you know, it’s not quite real to me —