Clair de Lune | Page 5

in the twilight. The PRINCE, who has permitted the carriage to
go by him in a wonderment intensified by the beauty of the blind girl,
walks over to the mountebank.]
PRINCE [arrogantly]
Who are you all? What are you doing here?
[Instead of answering, the mountebank hastily puts his flute into his
pocket and executes a handspring, the third taking him altogether
behind the scene, while from the front of the cavalcade, comes a high,
cracked voice in answer to the PRINCE'S question.]
A VOICE
We are players, your Highness, mountebanks commanded for the
pleasure of the Queen.

[The DUCHESS has grown very white and is standing with her hand
pressing her heart.]
DUCHESS
What was that tune he played upon his flute, and what dreadful thing
was the matter with him?
PRINCE
I do not know, but as she walked by her face was beautiful. It was like
a prayer coming into the presence of God.
DUCHESS [regarding the PRINCE sharply]
Really? What can be speaking in you? Surely not yourself?
[She laughs shrilly and exits. The flute continues to play. The PRINCE
absorbed, unheeding her departure, stands looking after the
mountebanks.]
CURTAIN
SCENE 2
[In the palace grounds at night. Lanterns are suspended everywhere
from the trees. The front of the players' cart is seen protruding up-stage
left. The philosopher is seated on the steps of the car smoking a pipe.
The blind girl with strange, tentative footsteps and feeling hands is
busy with duties around the cart.]
DEA
Think of it; we are in the park of the Queen, and these lilies and roses
are brushed every day by the silken stir of her ladies-in-waiting.
URSUS
Well, I do not feel much elated at being here. An ambition gained is an

ambition lost, and I am too old to have many ambitions.
DEA
It is wonderful to be in the park of the Queen--to think that the shade of
these same trees darkens her jewels at midday, and that through them is
cast over her a shawl of glittering ribbons upon moonlight nights.
URSUS [patting her shoulder and smiling]
Joy makes poets out of all of us. [Half to himself] But it is only a poet
who can sing in the clutches of death and pain.
DEA [very thoughtfully]
Yet underneath all my joy I am thinking hard tonight of the beginning
of things. I wonder, I wonder is it because I am nearing the end of
things.
URSUS
Dea, dearest, you are not ill tonight? You have not again those
flutterings in your heart?
DEA
Not more than I can bear. How good Gwymplane has been to me! I
wish I had been old enough to see him on the night he got lost, and
found me in the snow on my dead mother's breast, and God led us to
you.
URSUS
I do not wish to think of that night. You were like a tiny, frozen
rose-petal, and he--he was so small himself it didn't seem possible he
could have carried you all the way and God----
[URSUS covers his face with his hands and speaks in a low voice.]

When you were both under the lamp I asked him what he found to
smile at. I asked him roughly to stop smiling.
DEA [happily]
Yes, Gwymplane always smiles, doesn't he? He must have a very
contented spirit. I wish that I could see his smile. How it provokes
other people to laugh!
[URSUS looks at her pityingly, and pats her on the shoulder.]
I smile and weep a great deal lately over my love for Gwymplane, and I
am frightened about one thing.
URSUS
What is that?
DEA
That someone is going to make him unhappy.
URSUS
Gwymplane worships you. While you are singing and smiling I do not
think anything could make him unhappy.
DEA
I hope not. You know I feel that he has given his soul into my hands
and that I must take care of it as I would a little child. Yes, I feel as if
Gwymplane were my child, and yet something more than my child that
makes my heart bound and my song tremble into silence.
[A nightingale sings in the distance.]
URSUS
My Dea!

DEA
Tell me, Ursus, Gwymplane is so wonderful. He--he attracts everyone
so. Does he never notice any especial person in the audience? Some
one whom he attracts?
URSUS
No, Dea, and you need never worry about that. Gwymplane will never
love or be beloved save by you.
DEA
Ah, how good it is to hear that! How beautiful tonight is! I would like
to sit forever like this, very near to you and talking of Gwymplane.
[A sudden voice almost at their elbow. Enter PHEDRO.]
PHEDRO
But everyone is talking of Gwymplane.
[URSUS rising whispers to