The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays
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Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson >> The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays
_Jack_
Don't care if I do. (_Takes a swallow._) I'll bring some next time, Joe.
_Joe_ (_passing bottle to the other_)
Here, Bert, it helps. Take some and give a swallow to the boys.
_Bert_
I'll take some and thank you, but I guess the boys are better off
without it.
_Jack_
How long you worked here, Bert?
_Bert_
Nigh on fifteen years, and a devil's job it is. I wanted to be a sailor,
but I got into this, and it paid pretty good, and then I got tangled up
with a family and just stayed on the job. But it's no place to spend a
life. (_Coughs._)
_Joe_
I been here 'bout as long as you, Bert. I ran away from the big woods
where my father was a lumberman. Thought I'd see the world, and just got
stuck here and never could make up my mind to get away. See the world,
eh! All I ever seed was de inside of it. If I had my way to do over
again, I think I'd take to the tall timber up dere on top.
(_Meantime the two boys, while eating with one hand out of their cans,
have been whispering and playing knuckle-bones with pieces of coal,
a little way from and behind the men. Suddenly they stop, look around
at each other and listen, for they hear the fairy dance music of
the first scene, which is not heard by these older men, who go on
talking._)
_First Boy_
Dey's havin' parade up dere.
_Second Boy_
Dat ain't band music, you mutt.
(FIRST BOY _begins to sway as if in time with the music._)
_Second Boy_
Wot's the matter?
_First Boy_ (_sheepish_)
Nuthin'. (_Tries to keep still. They both listen._) Did yer ever dance,
Buck?
_Second Boy_
Naw. (_Listens._) But I bet I could!
_First Boy_
I had a dream onct. I dremp I's in an orchard, an' they's blooms
floatin' round. I could smell 'em!
_Second Boy_
You's nutty. You can't smell in a dream.
(_They listen, and finally yield to the music, swaying their bodies,
moving their arms, and beginning to dance as the music goes on._)
_Jack_
I've been here fourteen years, since I was a boy. It ain't a place for
a man. It's too black. You get black outside and inside. Why, they say
your lungs get black from breathing this dust. And your soul gets black.
The place for an honest man to work is out in the white light, on your
ocean or in your woods, or on the roads and railways, and in the big
buildings. This kind of work is work with punishment added to it. A
little of it would be all right for men who go wrong, or for some as
needs discipline. Then some day they'll get machines to do the rest.
Ah--there's the whistle. Come on, boys, to work again!
(_A whistle sounds and all start to work as before._)
(CURTAIN FALLS)
FINAL SCENE: _Curtain rises on final scene. Same as first, with
music as before, and with the mother and father and children among
the apple-trees._ CHO-CHO _appears, right, and says: "Here they
come!"_ EVERYCHILD _enters, right, bringing with her a number
of children, who follow her and then scatter under the trees._
_Everychild_
Oh, mother, I went everywhere, and we've brought all who could come!
But there were some in holes in the ground that I couldn't reach, though
we danced and danced, and called and called. They were too far down.
And there were some ill and crippled, in hospitals, that couldn't walk,
and some hidden away in great buildings called factories--and some in
tenements, where there was no sun, and no green grass to walk on.
Mother, what shall we do? It was so hard to leave them. Won't you go
back with me, and help me?
_Mother_
Yes, Everychild. We must all go. Not one must be left down there.
_Father_
Yes, we cannot go on up the Morning Mountains until they come.
_Mother_
We will start at once, all of us, down through the highways and valleys
and cities of the world, and bring them here. Come, children, let us go.
(_They gather about her and start down, right, singing as they
go._ CHO-CHO _lingers behind for a few moments and pronounces an
epilogue._)
EPILOGUE
Not all here yet--
But they must come
To this sunshine--
To these mountains--
To these birds and trees--
To the music--
To the Land of Health,
The Land of Happiness--
They may be gay _there_--
Sometimes--
Sometimes--
But _that_ is a fool's Paradise--
My old Kingdom--
And I must lead them up
To this new land
Of hope and joy.
(CURTAIN FALLS)
TWO DOCTORS AT AKRAGAS
BY
FREDERICK PETERSON
CHARACTERS
AKRON
EMPEDOCLES
PANTHEIA
TWO DOCTORS AT AKRAGAS
[_Atlantic Monthly_, 1911.]
_Akron_
She has been dead these thirty days.
_Empedocles_
How say you, thirty days! and there is no feature of corruption?
_Akron_
None. She has the marble signature of death writ in her whole fair
frame. She lies upon her ivory bed, robed in the soft stuffs of Tyre, as
if new-cut from Pentelikon by Phidias, or spread upon the wood by the
magic brush of Zeuxis, seeming as much alive as this, no more, no less.
There is no beat of heart nor slightest heave of breast.
_Empedocles_
And have you made the tests of death?
_Akron_
There is no bleeding to the prick, nor film of breath upon the bronze
mirror. They have had the best of the faculty in Akragas, Gela, and
Syracuse, all save you; and I am sent by the dazed parents to beseech
you to leave for a time the affairs of state and the great problems
of philosophy, to essay your ancient skill in this strange mystery of
life in death and death in life.
_Empedocles_
I will go with you. Where lies the house?
_Akron_
Down yonder street of statues, past the Agora, and hard by the new
temple that is building to Olympian Zeus. It is the new house of yellow
sandstone, three stories in height, with the carved balconies and
wrought brazen doors. Pantheia is her name. I lead the way.
_Empedocles_
The streets are full to-day and dazzling with color. So many carpets
hang from the windows, and so many banners are flying! So many
white-horsed chariots, and such concourses of dark slaves from every
land in the long African crescent of the midland sea, from the pillars
of Hercules to ferocious Carthage and beyond to the confines of Egypt
and Phoenicia! Ah, I remember now! It is a gala day--the expected
visit of Pindar. I am to dine with him to-morrow at the Trireme. We
moderns are doing more to celebrate his coming than our fathers did
for AEschylus when he was here. I was very young then, but I remember
running with the other boys after him just to touch his soft gown and
look into his noble face.
_Akron_
I have several rolls of his plays, that I keep with some new papyri of
Pindar arrived by the last galley from Corinth, in the iron chest inside
my office door, along with some less worthy bags of gold of Tarshish and
coinage of Athens, Sybaris, Panormos, and Syracuse. Ah, here is the
door! It is ajar, and if you will go into the courtyard by the fountain
and seat yourself under the palm-trees and azaleas on yon bench, by the
statue of the nymph, I will go up to announce your coming.
_Empedocles_
All is still save for the far, faint step of Akron on the stair, and the
still fainter murmur from the streets. The very goldfish in the fountain
do not stir, and the long line of slaves against the marble wall, save
for their branded foreheads, might be gaunt caryatides hewn in Egyptian
wood or carved in ebony and amber. That gaudy tropic bird scarce ruffles
a feather. What is the difference between life and death? A voice, a
call, some sudden strange or familiar message on old paths, to the
consciousness that lies under that apparent unconsciousness, will waken
all these semblances of inanimation into new life of arms and fins and
wings. Let me try her thus! My grandfather was a pupil of Pythagoras
who had seen many such death-semblances among the peoples of the white
sacred mountains of far India. Ha! Akron beckons. I must follow him.
_Akron_
Enter yon doorway where the white figure lies resplendent with jewels
that gleam in the morning sun.
_Empedocles_
The arm drawn downward by the heavy golden bracelet is cold, yet soft
and yielding like a sleep. The face has the natural ease of slumber, and
not the rigid artificiality of death. 'Tis true there is no pulse, no
beat of heart nor stir of breath, yet neither is there the sombre
grotesqueness of the last pose. But the difference between life and
death is here so small that it is incommensurable, the point of the
mathematicians only. I shall hold this little hand in mine, and, with a
hand upon her forehead, call her by name; for, you know, Akron, one's
name has a power beyond every other word to reach the closed ears of the
imprisoned soul.
Pantheia! Pantheia! Pantheia! It is dawn. Your father calls you. Your
mother calls you. And I call you and command you. Open your eyes and
behold the sun!
_Akron_
A miracle, oh, Zeus! The eyelids tremble like flower-petals under the
wind of heaven. Was that a sigh or the swish of wings? Oh, wonder of
wonders! she breathes--she whispers!
_Pantheia_
Where am I? Is this death? Some one called my name. That is the pictured
ceiling of my own room. Surely that is Zaldu, my pet slave, with big
drops on her black face.... And father, mother, kneeling either side.
And who are you with rapt face and star-deep eyes, thick hair with
Delphic wreaths, and in purple gown and golden girdle? Are you a god?
_Empedocles_
Be tranquil, child, I am no god, only a physician come to heal you. You
have been ill and sleeping a long time.
_Pantheia_
Yes, I feel weakness, hunger, and thirst. I remember now that I was
well, when suddenly a strange thought came to me on my pillow. I
thought that I was dead. This took such possession of me that it shut
out every other thought, and being able to think only that one thought,
I must have been dead. It seemed but a moment's time when the spell of
the thought was broken by an alien deep voice from the void of nothing
about me, calling me by name, calling me to wake and see the day. With
that came floods of my own old thoughts, like molten streams from AEtna,
that were rigid as granite before the word was given that loosed them.
_Empedocles_
Did you not see new things or new lands or old dead faces, for you have
been gone a month? I am curious to know.
_Pantheia_
How passing strange! No, I saw neither darkness nor light. I heard no
sounds, nor was conscious of any silence. I must have had just the one
thought that I was dead, but I lost consciousness of that thought. I
remember saying good night to Zaldu, and I handed her the quaint doll
from Egypt and bade her care for it. Then the thought seized me, and I
knew no more. My thoughts which had always run so freely before, like
a plashing brook, must have suddenly frozen, as the amber-trader from
the Baltic told me one day the rivers do in his far northern home. Oh,
sir, are you going so soon?
_Empedocles_
Yes, child. You must take nourishment now, and talk no more. But I am
coming again to see you, for I have many earnest questions still to put
regarding this singular adventure.
_Akron_
Let me walk with you. I will close the great door. Already the gay
streets are silent, and the people crowd this way, whispering awe-struck
together of the deed of wonder you have done this day. You have called
back the dead to life, and they make obeisance to you as you pass, as if
you were in truth a son of the immortals. Your name will go down the
ages linked with the miracle of Pantheia. You are immortal.
_Empedocles_
Nay, 'tis not so strange as that, and yet 'tis stranger.
_Akron_
I would know your meaning better.
_Empedocles_
The power of a thought, that is the real wonder! We just begin to have
glimpses of the effects of the mind upon the body. To me, Akron, the
faculty has set too great store upon herbs and bitter drafts, and
cutting with the knife. I would fain have the soul acknowledged more,
our therapy built on the dual mechanism of mind and substance. For if an
idea can lead to the apparent death of the whole body, so might other
ideas bring about the apparent death of a part of the body, like, for
example, a paralysis of the members, or of the senses of sight, feeling,
hearing; and in truth I have seen such things. Or a thought might give
rise to a pain, or to a feeling of general illness, or to a feeling of
local disorder in some internal organ; and I feel sure I have likewise
met with such instances. And if an idea may produce such ailments, then
a contrary idea implanted by the physician may heal them. I believe
this to be the secret of many of the marvels we see at the temples and
shrines of AEsculapius and of the cures made by the touch of seers and
kings.
But this teaching goes much deeper and further. If we could in the
schools implant in our youth ideas which were strong enough, we should
be able to make of them all, each in proportion to his belief in himself
and his ambition, great men, great generals, thinkers, poets, a new race
of heroes in all lines of human endeavor, who should be able by their
united strength of idea and ideal finally to people the world with gods.
I have among my slaves, who work as vintners and olive-gatherers, a
physician of Thrace, as also a philosopher of the island of Rhodes, a
member of the Pythagorean League. These I bought not long ago from the
Etruscan pirates. Every evening I have them come to me on the roof after
the evening meal, and there under the quiet of the stars we discuss life
and death, the soul and immortality, and all the burning problems of
order, harmony, and number in the universe. What surprises me is that
this Thracian should be so in advance of the physicians of Hellas,
for he holds as I do that the mind should be first considered in the
treatment of most disorders of the body, because of its tremendous
power to force the healing processes, and because sometimes it
actually induces disease and death. And we have talked together of the
incalculable value of faith and enthusiasm so applied in the education
of the child, this new kind of gardening in the budding soul of mankind,
and of what new and august races might thereby come to repeople this
rather unsatisfactory globe.
I am minded to free these slaves, indeed all my slaves, and I have the
intention of devoting the most of a considerable fortune, both inherited
and amassed by me, to the spread of these doctrines and to the public
weal, particularly in the matter of planting in the souls of our youth,
not the mere ability to read and write Greek and do sums in arithmetic,
but the seeds of noble ideas that shall make this Trinacria of ours a
still more wonderful human garden than it has been as a granary for the
world's practical needs. From this sea-centre we send our freighted
galleys to Gades in the West, Carthage in the South, Tyre in the East,
and to the red-bearded foresters of the Far North. I would still send on
these same routes this food, but also better food than this, stuff that
should kindle and feed intellectual fires in all the remote places of
the earth.