Read-Aloud Plays | Page 3

have been a bitter shock to you, Uncle Richard. You had both come to the point where you could have done so much with life. But you are quite well, Uncle Richard?
UNCLE RICHARD
I am never unwell. I don't believe in it. Yes, everything was ready here. In its larger issue, my life has not been unsuccessful.... But your business, Richard, it came out well, I hope?
RICHARD
Quite. You see after graduating I borrowed a certain sum to go abroad with a classmate. We had a plan for doing a book on modern Italy, he writing the text and I making illustrations. We had quite a new idea about it all. It was good fun besides. Well, the work has been placed, and now after repaying the loan I have enough to take a studio and begin painting in earnest.
UNCLE RICHARD
Hum.
RICHARD
I believe I have a copy of one of the sketches with me. (_He tears a sheet from a note book and hands it to Uncle Richard._)
UNCLE RICHARD (_looking at it wrong side up_)
A sketch. I see. Of course it is unfinished?
RICHARD
Yes. But then, no painting should be what you call "finished." A work of art can only be finished by the mental effort of appreciation on the part of the spectator. Photographs and chromos are _finished_--that's why they are dead.
UNCLE RICHARD
I was not aware of the fact. But ... you will remember, Richard, that in my letter I asked you to visit me?
RICHARD
Of course. And I shall be very pleased to stay for a few days. Very kind of you to ask me.
UNCLE RICHARD
Not at all, Richard, not at all! I--
RICHARD
On Monday I must return to New York and look for a studio. With the book coming out I feel I shall have no trouble selling my work.
UNCLE RICHARD
Studio? Isn't that--hem! rather Bohemian, Richard?
RICHARD
Good gracious, uncle, you haven't been reading George Moore, have you?
UNCLE RICHARD
But Richard, did you not understand that I wanted you to stay here longer than that?
RICHARD
Why no. How long did you mean?
UNCLE RICHARD
Er--I hadn't thought, exactly. I mean that I wanted you to bring your things here--bring your things here and just live on with me.
RICHARD
I had no idea you meant that. Anyhow, as I couldn't paint here, it's impossible. But, of course, if you care to have me stay a few days longer--
UNCLE RICHARD
But I have everything arranged for you here. Your room--everything.
RICHARD
But you see, uncle, my work--
UNCLE RICHARD
I hope you will give up your art, but if you must paint I will provide you a room for it. Do you know how many rooms there are in this house, Richard?
RICHARD
Really, Uncle Richard, I thank you, but--
UNCLE RICHARD
Don't mention it. And of course you can see to its proper arrangement yourself.
RICHARD
I had no idea of this when I came and--but you see, it's not only the studio an artist requires, it's atmosphere, the atmosphere of enthusiasm and feeling. You might as well give a business man a brand new office equipment and turn him loose on the Sahara desert as to shut a painter up in a town like this and expect him to create. Artists need atmosphere just as business men need banks. It's the meeting of like forces that makes anything really go.
UNCLE RICHARD
But we are not wholly barbarous here, Richard. This, for example, and no first-class New England city lacks culture.
RICHARD
I suppose there's no use explaining, but what first-class New England cities regard as culture your real artist avoids as he would avoid poison.
UNCLE RICHARD
Well, well. But circumstances--really, Richard, don't you think it your duty to stay?
RICHARD
Why?
UNCLE RICHARD
Must I explain? We are met, after a long separation, in circumstances personally sorrowful to me, and I trust, to some extent, to you as well. We....
RICHARD
Yes, a long separation.
UNCLE RICHARD
I admit, Richard, that from your point of view my attitude has not always been as--as considerate, perhaps, as you might have expected. But I have been a very busy man, and--
RICHARD
As far as I am concerned, uncle, I have nothing to blame you for; but my mother....
UNCLE RICHARD
Your mother? Surely, Richard, your mother never criticised me to you? She was much too fine a woman. Besides, I helped her in many ways you may know nothing about.
RICHARD
No, mother said nothing. She wouldn't have, anyhow--and as far as your helping her is concerned, I can only judge of that by results.
UNCLE RICHARD
Results? What do you mean? I have no desire to catalogue the things I have done for one who was near to me, but--
RICHARD
That's all very well, uncle, and I have no criticism to make. What's over is over. But when you speak of my duty to you, I think of how mother died so young, and how I found out afterward her affairs were so difficult. I had no idea--she sacrificed herself for me