Page 7 of Chantecler


  THE BLACKBIRD

  No, trembling Gypsy, there's not enough in this great plot to choke a

  flea withal!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Truly? I have been so horribly afraid--

  THE BLACKBIRD

  Fear, I warn you, lovely Zingara, leads to dyspepsia! It's because he

  keeps his eye closed and buried in the sand that the ostrich has

  preserved his famous digestion!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  So it might seem.

  THE BLACKBIRD

  We have in these latter days bowed Tragedy respectfully out of the

  house!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  But had we not best warn Chantecler, so that--

  THE BLACKBIRD

  He would go instantly and challenge them. And then such a whetting of

  steel!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You are right. So he would.

  THE BLACKBIRD

  On your principle, mad Gitana, an oak-gall could be made into a world.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You have much good sense.

  THE BLACKBIRD

  Daughter of the forest, I have.

  CHANTECLER'S VOICE

  [_Outside._] Coa--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Chantecler!

  CHANTECLER

  [_Approaching on the left, between the hollies, calls from afar._] Who

  is there?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  It is I!

  CHANTECLER

  [_Still from a distance._] Alone?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_With a significant look at the_ BLACKBIRD.] Yes, alone.

  THE BLACKBIRD

  [_Understanding._] I vanish--I am off to supper.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Low to the_ BLACKBIRD.] And so--?

  THE BLACKBIRD

  [_Motioning her to be silent._] Keep it dark! [_As he is leaving, by the

  right, in the manner of one giving an order to a waiter._] Earwigs

  for one!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Low._] It is wiser, you think, not to tell him?

  THE BLACKBIRD

  [_Before disappearing among the flower-pots._] Well, rather!

  SCENE THIRD

  THE PHEASANT-HEN, CHANTECLER.

  CHANTECLER

  [_Who has reached the_ PHEASANT-HEN'S _side._] Out so early?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  To see the daybreak.

  CHANTECLER

  [_With repressed emotion._] Ah--?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Teasingly._] What troubles you?

  CHANTECLER

  I have had a wretched night.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  So sorry! [_A pause._]

  CHANTECLER

  Are you going to the Guinea-hen's?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  I stayed over solely for that purpose.

  CHANTECLER

  Ah, yes, I know. [_A pause._] I dislike her extremely.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Come to her party.

  CHANTECLER

  No.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  As you please. Then we may as well say good-bye.

  CHANTECLER

  No.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Come to the Guinea-hen's. We shall have a chance to see something of

  each other there.

  CHANTECLER

  No.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You are determined not to come?

  CHANTECLER

  I am coming--but I hate it.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Why?

  CHANTECLER

  It is weak.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  No, no! That is no great sign of weakness!

  CHANTECLER

  Ah--?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Softly, coming closer to him._] What would be showing a sweet,

  delightful, and fully masculine weakness--

  CHANTECLER

  [_In alarm at her approach._] What?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Would be to tell me your secret. Oh, just a wee bit!

  CHANTECLER

  [_With a start._] The secret of my song?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Yes.

  CHANTECLER

  Golden Hen, my secret--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Coaxingly._] Often from the edge of the woods I hear you in the first

  golden glimmer of day--

  CHANTECLER

  [_Flattered._] My song has reached your shapely little ear?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  It has!

  CHANTECLER

  [_Abruptly, moving away from her._] My secret--Never!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You are not very gallant!

  CHANTECLER

  No--I am full of conflict and misery.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Languidly reciting._] The Cock and the Pheasant-hen a Fable--

  CHANTECLER

  [_Half aloud._] A Cock loved a Pheasant-hen--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  And would not tell her anything--

  CHANTECLER

  Moral--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  It was horrid of him!

  CHANTECLER

  [_Pressing close to her._] Moral: Your dress has the fascinating rustle

  of silk!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Moral: I dislike familiarity! [_Withdrawing from him._] Go home to your

  Hen of the plebeian petticoat!

  CHANTECLER

  [_Stamping._] I shall be angry!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  No, no, don't be angry--Say "Coa--" [_They stand bill to bill._]

  CHANTECLER

  [_Angrily._] Coa--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  No, no! Say it nicely--

  CHANTECLER

  [_In a long, tender coo._] Coa--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Look at me without laughing. Your secret--

  CHANTECLER

  Well?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You are dying to tell it to me!

  CHANTECLER

  Yes, I feel that I shall tell, and I know I shall do ill in telling. And

  it's all because of the gold on her dainty little head! [_Going

  brusquely nearer to her._] Shall you prove worthy, at least, of having

  been chosen? Is your breast true red to the core?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Now tell me!

  CHANTECLER

  Look at me, Pheasant-hen, and try, if indeed it be possible, try to

  recognise, by yourself, sign by sign, the vocation of which my body is

  the symbol. Guess, to begin with, at my destiny from my shape, and see

  how, curved like a sort of living hunting-horn, I am as much formed for

  sound to turn and gain volume within me, as the wild duck is formed to

  swim!--Wait!--Mark the fact that, impatient and proud, scratching up the

  earth with my claws, I appear always to be seeking something in

  the soil--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You are seeking for grains of corn, seeds, I suppose.

  CHANTECLER

  Never! I have never looked for such things. I find them occasionally,

  into the bargain, but disdainfully I give them to my Hens.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Well, then, in your perpetual scratching, what is it you are looking

  for?

  CHANTECLER

  The right spot! For always before singing I carefully choose my stand.

  Pray, observe--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  True, and then you ruffle your feathers.

  CHANTECLER

  I never start to sing until my eight claws, after clearing a space of

  weeds and stones, have found the soft,
dark turf underneath. Then,

  placed in direct contact with the good earth, I sing!--And that is

  already half the mystery, Pheasant-hen, half the mystery of my song,

  which is not of those songs one sings after composing them, but is

  received straight from the native soil, like sap! And the time above all

  when that sap arises in me,--the hour, briefly, in which I have genius,

  in which I can never doubt I have!--is the hour when dawn falters on the

  boundaries of the dark sky. Then, filled with the same quivering as

  leaves and grass, thrilled to the very tips of my wing quills, I feel

  myself a chosen instrument. I accentuate my curve of a hunting-horn,

  Earth speaks in me as in a conch, and ceasing to be an ordinary bird, I

  become the mouthpiece, in some sort official, through which the cry of

  the earth escapes toward the sky!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Chantecler!

  CHANTECLER

  And that cry which rises from the earth, that cry is such a cry of love

  for the light, is such a deep and frenzied cry of love for the golden

  thing we call the Day, and that all thirst to feel again: the pine on

  its bark, the tortuous roots in woodland paths on their mosses, the

  feather-grass on each delicate spray, the tiniest pebble in its tiniest

  mica flake; it is so wonderfully the cry of all that misses and mourns

  its colour, its reflection, its flame, its coronet, its pearl; the

  beseeching cry of the dew-washed meadow begging for a wee rainbow at

  every grass-tip, of the forest begging a burst of fire at the end of

  each gloomy avenue; that cry which mounts to the sky through me is so

  greatly the cry of all that feels itself in disgrace, plunged in a

  sunless pit, deprived of light without knowing for what offence; is the

  cry of cold, the cry of fear, the cry of weariness, of all that night

  disables or disarms; the rose shivering alone in the dark, the hay

  wanting to be dried and go to the mow, the sickle forgotten out of doors

  by the reaper and fearing it will rust in the grass, the white things

  dismayed at not looking white; is so greatly the cry of the innocent

  among beasts, who have nothing to conceal, of the brook fain to show its

  crystal clearness; and even--for thy very works, O Night, disown

  thee!--of the puddle longing to glisten, the mud longing to become earth

  again, by drying; it is so greatly the magnificent cry of the field

  impatient to feel its wheat and barley growing, of the blossoming tree

  mad for still more blossoms of the green grapes craving a purple side;

  of the bridge waiting for footsteps, for shadows of birds among shadows

  of branches; the voice of all that yearns to sing, to drop the garb of

  mourning, live again, serve again, be a brink, be a bourn, a sun-warm

  seat, a stone glad to comfort with warmth the hand touching, or the

  insect overcrawling it; finally, it is so greatly the cry toward the

  light of all Beauty, all Health, all which wishes, in sunshine and joy,

  to see its work while doing it, and do it to be seen--And when I feel

  that vast call to the Day arising within me, I so expand my soul to make

  it more sonorous, by making it more spacious, that the great cry may

  still be increased in greatness; before giving it, I withold it in my

  soul a moment so piously; then, when, to expel it, I contract my soul, I

  am so convinced of accomplishing a great act, I have such faith that my

  song will make night crumble like the walls of Jericho--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Frightened._] Chantecler!

  CHANTECLER

  And sounding its victory beforehand, my song springs forth so clear, so

  proud, so peremptory, that the horizon, seized with a rosy

  trembling--_obeys!_

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Chantecler!

  CHANTECLER

  I sing! Vainly Night offers to compromise, offers a dubious twilight--I

  sing again! And suddenly--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Chantecler!

  CHANTECLER

  I fall back, blinded by the red light bathing me, dazzled at having, I,

  the Cock, made the Sun to rise!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Then the whole secret of your song--?

  CHANTECLER

  Is that I dare assume that the East without me must rest in idleness! I

  sing, not to hear the echo repeat, a shade fainter, my song! I think of

  light and not of glory! Singing is my fashion of waging war and bearing

  witness. And if my song is the proudest of songs, it is that I sing

  clearly to make the day rise clear!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  What he says sounds slightly mad!--You are responsible for the rising

  of--

  CHANTECLER

  That which opens flower, eye, soul, and window! Certainly! My voice

  dispenses light! And when the sky is grey, the reason is that I have

  sung badly.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  But when you sing by day?

  CHANTECLER

  I am practising, or else promising the ploughshare, the hoe, the harrow,

  the scythe, not to neglect my duty of waking them.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  But what wakens you?

  CHANTECLER

  The fear of forgetting.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  And you believe that at the sound of your voice the whole world is

  suffused--?

  CHANTECLER

  I have no clear idea of the whole world. But I sing for my own valley,

  and desire that every Cock may do the same for his.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Still--

  CHANTECLER

  But here I stand, explaining, perorating, and forgetting altogether to

  make my dawn.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  His dawn!

  CHANTECLER

  Ah, what I say sounds mad? I will make the dawn before your very eyes!

  And the wish to please you adding its ardour to the ordinary forces of

  my soul, I shall rise in singing, as I feel, to unusual heights, and the

  dawn will rise more fair to-day than ever it rose before!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  More fair?

  CHANTECLER

  Assuredly,--in just the measure that strength is added to the song by

  the knowledge of listeners, boldness to the exploit by the consciousness

  of lovely watching eyes--[_Taking his stand upon a hillock at the back,

  overlooking the valley._] Now, Madam!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Gazing at his outline against the sky._] How beautiful he is!

  CHANTECLER

  Look attentively at the sky. Already it has paled. The reason is that a

  short while back, with my earliest crow I ordered the sun to stand in

  readiness just below the horizon.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  He is so beautiful that what he says almost seems possible!

  CHANTECLER

  [_Talking toward the horizon._] Ha, Sun, I feel you just behind there,

  stirring--and I laugh with pride and joy amidst my scarlet

  wattles--[_Rising on tiptoe suddenly, in a voice of startling

  loudness._] Cock-a-doodle-doo!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  What great breath lifts his breast-feathers?

  CHANTECLER

  [_Toward the east._] Obey!--I am the Earth, and I am Labour! My comb is

  the pattern
of a forge fire, and the voice of the furrow rises to my

  throat! [_Whispering mysteriously._] Yes, yes, month of July--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  To whom is he speaking?

  CHANTECLER

  You shall have it earlier than April! [_Bending to right and left,

  encouragingly._] Yes, Bramble!--Yes, Brake!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  He is magnificent!

  CHANTECLER

  [_To the_ PHEASANT-HEN.] You see, I must at all times

  remember--[_Stroking the earth with his wing._] Yes, dear

  Grass!--remember the humble prayers whose interpreter I become.

  [_Talking to invisible things._] The golden ladder?--I understand! that

  you may all dance on it together!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  To whom are you promising a ladder?

  CHANTECLER

  To the Motes--Cock-a-doodle-doo!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Watching the sky and landscape._] A shiver of blue runs across the

  thatched roofs.--A star went out just then--

  CHANTECLER

  No, it veiled itself. Even by daylight the stars are there.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You do not extinguish them?

  CHANTECLER

  I extinguish nothing! But you shall see how great I am at kindling!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Oh, I see a dawning of--

  CHANTECLER

  What do you see?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  The blue is no longer blue!

  CHANTECLER

  I told you! It is already green!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  The green is turning to orange--

  CHANTECLER

  You will have been the first this morning to see the transformation!

  [_The distant plain takes on velvety purplish hues._]

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  It all seems to end in leagues of purple heather.

  CHANTECLER

  [_Whose crow is beginning to tire._] Cock-a-doo--

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Oh--yellow among the pine trees!

  CHANTECLER

  Gold it ought to be,--gold!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  And pearly grey--

  CHANTECLER

  It shall be white!--I haven't done it yet! Cock-a-doodle-doo--It's very

  bad so far, but I won't give up!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Every hollow in every tree is pink as a wild rose--

  CHANTECLER

  [_With growing enthusiasm._] Since love lends me strength in addition to

  faith, I say the Day to-day shall be more beautiful that the Day!--Do

  you see? Do you see the eastern sky at my voice dappling itself

  with light?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Lured along and half persuaded by the madness of the_ COCK.] Such a

  thing might be, after all, since love is involved in the mystery!

  CHANTECLER

  Resume, horizon, at my command, your fringe of little poplars!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Bending over the valley._] There emerges from the shadow, gradually, a

  world of your creation--

  CHANTECLER

  Sacred things you are witnessing--To sacred things I am initiating

  you!--Define your outlines, distant hills! Pheasant-hen, do you love me?

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  We shall always love to be in the secret of the Makers of Dawn!

  CHANTECLER

  You help me to sing better. Come closer. Collaborate.

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Springing to his side._] I love you!

  CHANTECLER

  Every word you whisper in my ear shall be translated into sunshine for

  all the world to see!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  I love you!

  CHANTECLER

  Say it again, and I will gild that mountain suddenly!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Wildly._] I love you!--Let me see you gild it!

  CHANTECLER

  [_In his greatest, most splendid manner._] Cock-a-doodle-doo! [_The

  mountain turns golden._]

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  [_Pointing to the lower ranges, still purple._] But the hills?

  CHANTECLER

  Each in its turn. To the highest peaks belong the earliest rays!

  Cock-a-doodle-doo!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Ah!--across yonder drowsing slope a stealing gleam--

  CHANTECLER

  [_Joyously._] I dedicate it to you!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  The distant villages are coming into view.

  CHANTECLER

  Cock-a--[_His voice breaks._]

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You are weary!

  CHANTECLER

  [_Stiffening himself._] I refuse to be! [_Wildly._] Cock-a-doodle-doo!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  Exhausted!

  CHANTECLER

  Do you see those tatters of mist still clinging? Cock-a-doodle-doo!

  THE PHEASANT-HEN

  You will kill yourself!