It's like hearing music--tunes that I recognize--from the good old times Stop such useless talk now and do something. Do you know what the consequences may be if you leave us in this shape? You will go and prostitute yourselves. That's what your mother always said she'd do when she had spent the housekeeping money on lottery tickets. Not a word about our dear, beloved mother! The wind storm is coming. Put out the fire. If it catches fire here, we'll get nothing from the insurance. Put out the fire, I say, put it out.
I don't understand you. But come and give me a kiss first, for I am going away to get money for you. Can you get money? I have a life insurance that I think I am going to realize on. How much can yon get for it? Six hundred francs if I sell it, and five thousand if I die. Then you must marry him if he really loves you. But you mustn't be unkind to him, for then you'll be unhappy.
Good-bye, my dear beloved child. But you mustn't die, father, you mustn't. Would you grudge me going to my peace? No, not if you wish it yourself. Forgive me, father, the many, many times I've been unkind to you. But no one was so unkind to you as I. I felt it less because I loved you most. Why, I don't know. But run and shut the windows. Here are your matches, papa--and there's your milk.
Well, what can I do? I haven't anything else to give you. You gave me so much joy as a child that you owe me nothing. Go now, and just give me a loving look as you used to do. Are you going away? I don't understand all this. But of course you're coming back, papa. Who knows whether he will live through the morrow?
Anyway, we'll say farewell. Adieu, then, father--and a good journey to you. And you won't forget to bring something home to us just as you used to do, will you?
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And you remember that, though it's so long since I've bought anything for you children? Durand hums to himself. If I speak in veiled terms, it is only to spare your conscience in having you know too much. I've got the children up in their rooms. First you are to ask me this question, "Have you a life insurance policy?
ONE ACT PLAYS
No, I had one, but I sold it long ago, because I thought I noticed that some one became irritable when it was due. But I have a fire insurance. Here are the papers. Now, I'm going to ask you something; do you know how many candles there are in a pound, mass candles at seventy-five centimes?
Because the sixth is placed very high up and very near Can you see dawn any other way in this darkness? That takes care of the business. Now about another matter. If Monsieur Durand passes out of the world as an [Whispers] incendiary, it doesn't matter much, but his children shall know that he lived as a man of honor up to that time. Well, then, I was born in France, but I didn't have to admit that to the first scamp that came along. Just before I reached the age of conscription I fell in love with the one who later became my wife. To be able to marry, we came here and were naturalized.
When the last war broke out, and it looked as if I was going to carry a weapon against my own country, I went out as a sharpshooter against the Germans. I never deserted, as you have heard that I did--your mother invented that story. Now the ghost has risen and stands between us again. I cannot enter an action against the dead, but I swear I am speaking the truth.
And as far as your dowry is concerned, that is to say your maternal inheritance, these are the facts: After that, part of her inheritance had to be used in the bringing-up of you children, which of course cannot be looked upon as thrown away. So it was also untrue that No, that's not what mother said on her death-bed And that's the curse that has been following me like a spook. Think how you have innocently tortured me with these two lies for so many years! I didn't want to put disquiet into your young lives which would result in your doubting your mother's goodness.
That's why I kept silent. I was the bearer of her cross throughout our married life; carried all her faults on my back, took all the consequences of her mistakes on myself until at last I believed that I was the guilty one. And she was not slow, first to believe herself to be blameless, and then later the victim. And she blamed and I bore! But the more she became indebted to me, the more she hated me, with the limitless hatred of her indebtedness. And in the end she despised me, trying to strengthen herself by imagining she had deceived me.
And last of all she taught you children to despise me, because she wanted support in her weakness. I hoped and believed that this evil but weak spirit would die when she died; but evil lives and grows like disease, while soundness stops at a certain point and then retrogrades.
And when I wanted to change what was wrong in the habits of this household, I was always met with "But mother said," and therefore it was true; "Mother used to do this way," and therefore it was right. And to you I became a good-for-nothing when I was kind, a miserable creature when I was sensitive, and a scamp when I let you all have your way and ruin the house. It's honorable to accuse the dead who can't defend themselves! Will you defend me then?
No, you need not. But defend your sisters. See to it that she marries soon, if it can be arranged.
A Deal With Death: A One-Act Play
Now, I can smell burning straw. And for Annette you must try to find a place as teacher, so that she can get up in the world and into good company. You must manage the money when it falls due. Don't be close, but fix up your sisters so that they will be presentable to the right kind of people. Don't save anything but the family papers, which are in the top drawer of my chiffonier in the middle room. Here is the key. The fire insurance papers you have. In a moment you will hear the clanging from St. Promise me one thing. Never divulge this to your sisters. It would only disturb their peace for the rest of their lives.
Her portrait is also in the chiffonier; none of you knew that, because I found it was enough that her spirit walked unseen in the home. Don't forget that she must have the best when you buy her clothes; you know her weakness for such things and to what her weakness can bring her. Monsieur Durand drops his head in his hands on the table. It's burning, it's burning!
Father, what's the matter with you? Malign Bosola then goes on a quick-fire killing spree, stabs Antonio, turns traitor on his former accomplice, the cardinal, and slays his servant into the bargain. Ferdinand then arrives to finish off the cardinal and fatally injure Bosola before expiring himself.
Each of these murders takes place in more or less the same way. Most obviously, everyone signals their passing to the audience. All, too, are eager to frame choice valedictory remarks as their life-blood ebbs away. Bosola, yet more splenetic, complains about the "deep pit of darkness" that "womanish and fearful mankind" is forced to inhabit. Lurking beneath this implausible speechifying are some rules that Webster's original audience would have readily appreciated.
The first is that anyone who dies has to be shown to be dead by declaring themselves to be so: The second is that death, at any rate for important people, is as ritualised and significant a process as the life that precedes it. The cardinal's servant may be despatched in an instant "There's for you first" , but his superiors are allowed page-long death agonies, pious or not-so-pious reflections and a great deal more.
Even in death, the tocsin of class distinction clangs through the stormy theatrical air. Shakespeare, inevitably, brought his own gloss to these conventions. Quite apart from its climactic necessity, death absorbs him as a theatrical device. On a basic procedural level, death is the lever by which to introduce the alluring figure of the ghost. Then there is the invaluable physical presence of the body - Julius Caesar's, for example, which is carried on and off stage, exhibited to crowds, has speeches made over it and, in all, plays quite a significant part after its owner has expired.
The burlesqued death is a feature of Shakespearian comedy see Pyramus's mock demise in A Midsummer Night's Dream while Shakespeare was one of the first dramatists to realise the potential of deaths that take place off-stage and are reported back to those still on it. Macbeth's passing is registered by the return of his severed head. Similarly, the final throes of Bosworth Field take place in the wings: Richard III's destruction is marked by Richmond's re-entry bearing the crown.
Dominating all this, as much in 20th-century drama as in the early modern period, is the figurative presence of death, death personified, that steady drip of ominous references to the things that death resembles, what death will do, the thought, as Anthony Powell once put it, of death as a shrouded figure that sits next to you in the room. In Patrick Hamilton's s melodrama Rope, later filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, death is literally present in all three acts, although unseen, in the shape of the body of a man murdered by the two protagonists immediately before the curtain rises and stuffed into a chest.
Yes, this is him.
No, no, I understand. Thank you for calling. DEATH enters and leans casually against the door frame. What was the phone call about? They rejected my script. No thanks to you. Are you really in a position to blame me? You said you would make this easier. You seem to be forgetting something. But you have to come through on your end of the bargain, too. Your part of the deal was —. You left me out to dry! That was my third rejection call this week.
DEATH watches him for a few moments and smirks, impressed by his sudden nerve.
Organization Type
I was just holding up my end of the bargain. I thought this was what you wanted. I changed my mind. Good to see you, too. No, not at all. I was taking a break anyway. Well, you know how it is. Have to pay the bills, and writing pays the bills, so….