Clair de Lune | Page 7

that had floated for years upon the sea.
URSUS
Ump!
PHEDRO
Ah--it was a long confession, and it had floated for about fifteen years
in the sea.
[He is watching URSUS narrowly.]
URSUS [starting visibly]
PHEDRO
What were you about to say?

URSUS
When one has talked to one's self for a great many years it is hard to
hold one's tongue in public.
[Enter the PRINCE--debonair and haughty. PRINCE ignores
PHILOSOPHER and pulls PHEDRO aside.]
PRINCE
Well! What have you arranged?
PHEDRO
My lord--the desires of youth are swifter than my wits. Yet I have tried.
PRINCE
Nonsense.... No rhetoric.... What is accomplished?
PHEDRO
It will be easily managed. I have your keys.
PRINCE
Is she willing?
PHEDRO
Innocence is always obliging at such a moment.
PRINCE
Neither the Queen nor the Duchess must have an inkling of this.
PHEDRO
No, my lord.

PRINCE
Tonight and tomorrow night.... What contrasts! Two crimes! A secret
and a public one!
PHEDRO
My lord is sardonic.
[URSUS after looking at them for a few moments has wandered off to
the cart, and is seen making preparations for the evening's
performance. There is the sound of DEA'S singing.]
PRINCE
Ah, how exquisite! I think I shall go and speak with her!
PHEDRO [detaining him]
Better not, my lord, much better not.
PRINCE [shaking him off]
All right, all right. Only don't insist, don't irritate me or I shall spite
myself.... I cannot bear to take any one's advice.
PHEDRO
Nor do you, my lord. I merely reminded you of the presence of your
own common sense.
PRINCE
[A pettish grimace flashing across his countenance]
I hope this performance may make the Duchess forget herself for a few
moments. She has seemed more than ordinarily bored today.
PHEDRO [murmuring]

To be so matchless as her Grace is as bad as being blind. It gives one
nowhere to look.
PRINCE
She is perfection outside; inside--I do not know. Where is that distorted
fellow that bounded away from me in the darkness just before dinner?
PHEDRO
Oh--Gwymplane--he is probably off somewhere charming the birds
awake with his flute.
PRINCE [in reverie]
Yes, Josephine is magnificent. Yet I think there is a strange grimace
upon the face of her soul. I am longing to find out what is at the bottom
of her smile. Ah, I shall be the first to bathe in her delights. It is a most
invigorating thought.
[He plucks a flower and places it in his buttonhole.]
PHEDRO
My lord finds it enchanting to be the first?
PRINCE
It is the only enchantment. If you were a real man, you would know
that, Phedro, but if you were really a man I could not confide in you.
PHEDRO [winces then recovers himself]
My lord was saying----
PRINCE [in a mood of reverie]
That passion yearns for surprises--and love hankers after peace.

PHEDRO
And in your marriage, my lord?
PRINCE
I yearn for surprises. Of course the right sort of surprises.
PHEDRO
You will get them, my lord.
PRINCE
[Who is not attending him but listening to Dea's song.]
What?
PHEDRO
My sixth sense whispers to me, my lord, that you are on the eve of
many surprises.
[The noise of the wand of the COURT STEWARD is heard pounding
through the park.]
AN APPROACHING VOICE
The Queen's court is arriving. The Queen's court precedes the Queen.
See that the performance is ready. See that the performance is ready.
[The voice dies away. There is the sound of much commotion in the
vicinity of the cart. The voice of DEA ceases and someone calls:
GWYMPLANE! GWYMPLANE answering distantly: Yes. URSUS:
Hurry. GWYMPLANE: I come. The PRINCE and PHEDRO steal
quickly away.]
CURTAIN

SCENE 3
[Courtiers entering. A lady looking through her lorgnette.]
A LADY
I hope this is not going to be too boring.
3D COURTIER
Ah, that, Madame, is the pleasure-seeker's prayer. Save me this night
from being bored to death.
2D COURTIER [a great dandy]
I hope they have enchanting costumes, and that they are well perfumed.
[He smells a scrap of lace.]
LADY
I hear he is remarkable.
2D COURTIER
Who?
LADY
The mountebank, I forget his name. He has a Latin name besides,
which I forget also, but they say that when he appears....
COURT USHER [announces]
The Queen.
[The Queen arrives surrounded by a brilliant court. JOSEPHINE
attends her, dressed entirely in silver and wearing immense emeralds.
Her hair is very formally powdered, and she wears a cherry-coloured

cloak. A coloured slave in black moiré carries her train.]
QUEEN
I am not in a mood for laughing tonight. [She glances at Josephine.] At
any rate it is always singularly depressing to go anywhere in order to
laugh. And if this clown causes me even to smile he shall have some
rare reward.
[Seats herself upon