The Countess Cathleen | Page 6

a sin, while faith's unbroken
God cannot
help but pardon. There is no soul
But it's unlike all others in the world,


Nor one but lifts a strangeness to God's love
Till that's grown
infinite, and therefore none
Whose loss were less than irremediable

Although it were the wickedest in the world.
(Enter TEIG and SHEMUS.)
STEWARD. What are you running for? Pull off your cap,
Do you not
see who's there?
SHEMUS. I cannot wait.
I am running to the world with the best
news
That has been brought it for a thousand years.
STEWARD. Then get your breath and speak.
SHEMUS. If you'd my news
You'd run as fast and be as out of
breath.
TEIG. Such news, we shall be carried on men's shoulders.
SHEMUS. There's something every man has carried with him
And
thought no more about than if it were
A mouthful of the wind; and
now it's grown
A marketable thing!
TEIG. And yet it seemed
As useless as the paring of one's nails.
SHEMUS. What sets me laughing when I think of it,
Is that a rogue
who's lain in lousy straw,
If he but sell it, may set up his coach.
TEIG. (laughing) There are two gentlemen who buy men's souls.
CATHLEEN. O God!
TEIG. And maybe there's no soul at all.
STEWARD. They're drunk or mad.
TEIG. Look at the price they give. (Showing money.)

SHEMUS. (tossing up money)
"Go cry it all about the world," they
said.
"Money for souls, good money for a soul."
CATHLEEN. Give twice and thrice and twenty times their money, And
get your souls again. I will pay all.
SHEMUS. Not we! not we! For souls--if there are souls--
But keep
the flesh out of its merriment.
I shall be drunk and merry.
TEIG. Come, let's away.
(He goes.)
CATHLEEN. But there's a world to come.
SHEMUS. And if there is,
I'd rather trust myself into the hands

That can pay money down than to the hands
That have but shaken
famine from the bag.
(He goes Out R.)
(lilting) "There's money for a soul, sweet yellow money.
There's
money for men's souls, good money, money."
CATHLEEN. (to ALEEL) Go call them here again, bring them by
force, Beseech them, bribe, do anything you like;
(ALEEL goes.)
And you too follow, add your prayers to his.
(OONA, who has been praying, goes out.)
Steward, you know the secrets of my house.
How much have I?
STEWARD. A hundred kegs of gold.
CATHLEEN. How much have I in castles?

STEWARD. As much more.
CATHLEEN. How much have I in pasture?
STEWARD. As much more.
CATHLEEN. How much have I in forests?
STEWARD. As much more.
CATHLEEN. Keeping this house alone, sell all I have,
Go barter
where you please, but come again
With herds of cattle and with ships
of meal.
STEWARD. God's blessing light upon your ladyship.
You will have
saved the land.
CATHLEEN. Make no delay.
(He goes L.)
(ALEEL and OONA return)
CATHLEEN. They have not come; speak quickly.
ALEEL. One drew his knife
And said that he would kill the man or
woman
That stopped his way; and when I would have stopped him

He made this stroke at me; but it is nothing.
CATHLEEN. You shall be tended. From this day for ever
I'll have no
joy or sorrow of my own.
OONA. Their eyes shone like the eyes of birds of prey.
CATHLEEN. Come, follow me, for the earth burns my feet
Till I
have changed my house to such a refuge
That the old and ailing, and
all weak of heart,
May escape from beak and claw; all, all, shall come

Till the walls burst and the roof fall on us.
From this day out I have

nothing of my own.
(She goes.)
OONA (taking ALEEL by the arm and as she speaks bandaging his
wound) She has found something now to put her hand to,
And you
and I are of no more account
Than flies upon a window-pane in the
winter.
(They go out.)
END OF SCENE 2.
SCENE 3
SCENE.--Hall in the house of COUNTESS CATHLEEN. At the Left
an oratory with steps leading up to it. At the Right a tapestried wall,
more or less repeating the form of the oratory, and a great chair with its
back against the wall. In the Centre are two or more arches through
which one can see dimly the trees of the garden. CATHLEEN is
kneeling in front of the altar in the
oratory; there is a hanging lighted
lamp over the altar. ALEEL enters.
ALEEL. I have come to bid you leave this castle and fly
Out of these
woods.
CATHLEEN. What evil is there here?
That is not everywhere from
this to the sea?
ALEEL. They who have sent me walk invisible.
CATHLEEN. So it is true what I have heard men say,
That you have
seen and heard what others cannot.
ALEEL. I was asleep in my bed, and while I slept
My dream became
a fire; and in the fire
One walked