THE HOUSE[F]
PROFESSOR and MRS. RAY are at the little table finishing their coffee. In the center there is a white-robed birthday cake with three golden candles sending a gentle light on them. A myriad of faint wrinkles on the PROFESSOR’S kindly face might betray his age, though his thin body, in spite of its slight stoop, belies his seventy years. As he sits there precisely dressed in his evening clothes, he is the personification of fine breeding, the incarnation of all that blood and culture can produce. And through it all, there glows an alluring whimsy which one has no right to expect in a professor of philosophy.
MRS. RAY, gowned also for the ceremony they are celebrating, is ten years younger; soft and gentle, too, yet sadder somehow, as though, in spite of her effort to live in his enthusiasms, it has become a bit difficult to sustain his mood of happiness.
But as they sip their coffee alone in the hotel suite with its conventional furnishings of a stereotyped comfort, graced only by a large bunch of white roses, one senses the deep and abiding affection which has warmed their long life together.
PROFESSOR
(With a sigh of contentment)
Ah!
(He sees she is thoughtful: he reaches over and takes from behind the table the quart bottle of champagne. He pours a little in her glass.)
MRS. RAY
Oh, dear; I’m afraid I’ve had enough.
PROFESSOR
Nonsense.
MRS. RAY
But I’m beginning to feel it.
PROFESSOR
That’s the intention. (Filling his glass.) There. Now a toast. (Standing with the greatest gallantry.) Here’s to my comrade of forty years: may we have as many more together.
MRS. RAY
Oh, Charles, I’m afraid that’s asking too much of Providence.
PROFESSOR
We should ask much and be satisfied with less.
MRS. RAY
(Raising her glass)
To my friend and husband.
PROFESSOR
You make a distinction?
MRS. RAY
The world does.
PROFESSOR
What is the world doing here on our wedding anniversary? (Seriously) Let’s drink to each other—and the children.
MRS. RAY
(Wistfully looking at the candles)
And the children.
(They sip: he shows he enjoys it; she sits thoughtfully while he takes out his cigarette case. He starts to take one, and then, with a twinkle in his eyes, offers her the case.)
PROFESSOR
Cigarette, dear?
MRS. RAY
(Smiling)
No: thank you. I shan’t begin at my time of life.
PROFESSOR
Cato learned Greek at eighty. The minute people cease to learn—even a vice—they have begun to grow old. So beware.
MRS. RAY
(Striking a match)
Let me light it for you.
PROFESSOR
(Slyly)
Which illustrates a woman’s part in life: encouraging vice in men, eh? (He lights it and puffs in enjoyment.) I must say I like my idea about the cake and the candles.
MRS. RAY
It’s lovely, dear. Who but you would have thought of having a birthday cake on our wedding anniversary.
PROFESSOR
I started to put forty candles: one for each year; but there was no room left for the cake.
MRS. RAY
I like the idea of three—just three.
PROFESSOR
Yes; three birthdays that meant so much in our time together: Teddy, Mary and Paul.
MRS. RAY
Forty years!
PROFESSOR
It’s a long while to be married, dear. Speaks well for our patience, eh?
MRS. RAY
And not a word to-night from our three children.
PROFESSOR
(Waving it aside)
After all, our marriage didn’t concern them—at the time.
MRS. RAY
And we never forget their anniversaries.
PROFESSOR
But think how important those have always been from the beginning: each one the start of a great adventure for us.
MRS. RAY
And more responsibility.
PROFESSOR
Certainly. Isn’t that the way we have broadened our lives? Think, dear, of how many times we have been young—once with our own youth and three times with our candles.
MRS. RAY
(She rises and goes to the roses which she inhales)
And our hair is white.
PROFESSOR
(Gallantly rising also)
That can’t be blamed on the children. White hair doesn’t indicate marriage—always. It’s a matter of pigment, I’m told, and affects bachelors equally.
MRS. RAY
You’re right, of course, dear. We have kept young through having our children; only——
PROFESSOR
(Coming to her)
Only what? Surely there isn’t a regret as you look back?
MRS. RAY
Oh, no, not regret; only so many of our dreams have never been realized.
PROFESSOR
(As he breaks off a rose and gives it to her)
But we have dreamed; that’s the important thing, isn’t it?
MRS. RAY
(Looking at rose)
I suppose so.
PROFESSOR
Of course it is, dear. And we have dreamed more than most because we have been young four times.
MRS. RAY
(As she crosses to the sofa)
But it’s always been through others—for others.
PROFESSOR
But now it is for ourselves.
MRS. RAY
(Smiling)
You mean our house?
PROFESSOR
Yes. Now that they’ve retired me with a pension and our children no longer need our help, we can build our house.
MRS. RAY
(Wearily, as she sits)
We have built so many houses.
PROFESSOR
Yes. Life’s an experiment. Remember the first little cottage where Teddy was born? It didn’t leave us much margin even though it was small. Come to think of it, dear, we’ve built three houses, haven’t we?
MRS. RAY
It’s the fourth we’ve really thought of most—and that hasn’t been built yet.
PROFESSOR
That’s to be ours—all ours; with room for the children if they want to come back.
MRS. RAY
Oh, that’s it: they won’t come back now. Our house won’t suit them.
PROFESSOR
(Taking a chair over near her)
How can we expect them to come into a house that isn’t even built? You know our modern children are very peculiar. They get that from you.
MRS. RAY
Nonsense. It’s you who are peculiar. Just look at the kind of house you want.
PROFESSOR
(Doubtfully)
It is different from yours, I’ll admit.
MRS. RAY
I don’t object to the architecture. It’s the surroundings you insist on.
PROFESSOR
You want the city and I want the forest.
MRS. RAY
(Shaking her head)
We’ll never agree.
PROFESSOR
(As though with an inspiration)
I have a solution. I’ll live in your city house, if you’ll have my forest around it.
MRS. RAY
I’m afraid, dear, that is a bit impractical at present prices.
PROFESSOR
(With a whimsical smile)
But we certainly can’t have the city you love around my house in the woods! I’m afraid of the streets.
MRS. RAY
Any friendly policeman would help you across them.
PROFESSOR
Think of me walking arm in arm with a policeman! I must consider my reputation, even though I am seventy. No. (With a twinkle.) I can’t seem to visualize the house, can you, dear?
MRS. RAY
It isn’t like your dream or mine.
PROFESSOR
No. I’d have a hard time finding my birch trees in the moonlight. Have you ever noticed how lovely they are when the leaves have all gone?
MRS. RAY
Somehow they are no more lovely than the sense of life in the tall ugly buildings man has built with his own hands.
PROFESSOR
But trees are eternal.
MRS. RAY
That’s where we differ. I live in to-day: you live in all time.
PROFESSOR
That’s my profession. You lose count of time when you are a philosopher.
MRS. RAY
And I am a woman of the world.
PROFESSOR
(As he goes to light another cigarette from the candles)
I’d hardly describe you that way, my dear; that sounds so naughty.
MRS. RAY
I mean I love every minute that passes and everything the moment brings. I love the people who are of that moment.
PROFESSOR
You still dream of having a salon of celebrities?
MRS. RAY
(Smiling)
It’s no worse than the museum of antiquities on your book shelves. But I keep forgetting you want your house in the forest so you can write about the dead.
PROFESSOR
And you want your house in the city for the living.
MRS. RAY
I wish we could compromise somehow.
PROFESSOR
If we only had more money I could do away with the wilderness and content myself with a few wooded acres, I suppose. Only it must be roomy where the winds can speak. And I must have some wild things about. Though perhaps I could compromise on a pet squirrel, if necessary. (He smiles.) And if I met you that far do you think you would be willing to live an hour or so from the city?
MRS. RAY
Why, of course. But haven’t we been looking for that sort of place for years; even when we weren’t free to live where we wished?
PROFESSOR
I can’t see why money is always getting in the way of our dreams. I often wonder what scoundrel it was who first invented money.
MRS. RAY
And yet we might now be able to have what we wished if——
PROFESSOR
If? The eternal if?
MRS. RAY
(She has gone to the table, placing rose there)
I was thinking of all we gave up for our children.
PROFESSOR
Wasn’t it jolly?
MRS. RAY
While we still dreamed of the house we two would build for ourselves.
PROFESSOR
With rooms for them, don’t forget that.
MRS. RAY
And now where are our children?
PROFESSOR
Living—maybe dreaming a bit of our dreams and not knowing it is ours. That’s the lovely thing about dreams: I like to think they are never lost.
MRS. RAY
Yet here we sit alone on our anniversary and they have forgotten.
PROFESSOR
The young have so many things to remember.
MRS. RAY
And we can never build our house now.
PROFESSOR
Nonsense. We can go on building it just as though it were really possible. Come, little mother, let’s be young together to the end. I’ll have to throw another log on this make-believe open fire in my house. (He pulls the sofa around so it faces the radiator which he eyes dubiously.) Hm! That won’t stimulate the imagination. Wait! I know.
(He goes over to the table and smiling quaintly
he lifts up the cake with its three burning
candles and carefully places it on the low radiator.
Then he presses a switch on wall nearby
and the lights overhead go out, leaving only the
candles, a desk lamp and the moonlight through
the window to give the shadows life. He laughs
and warms his hands before the candles as he
would before a fire.)
Come, dear, before my fire! By the way, is there a log fire in your dream-house, dear?
MRS. RAY
(Smiling and fitting in with his fancy)
If you are to be with me, of course.
PROFESSOR
Well then we have a blazing fire in both our houses, eh? (He sits beside her on sofa and they gaze at candles.) And how economical fuel is when you dream about it. I’ve got a whole forest waiting to be cut by me, to-morrow, after I’ve worked all morning on my new book.
MRS. RAY
And I’ve been to the musicale at the Biltmore.
PROFESSOR
What did you do this afternoon, dear?
MRS. RAY
(Tapping his arm)
Oh, I had a brilliant reception.
PROFESSOR
Receptions are always brilliant.
MRS. RAY
But this one really was. I had André Gidet and Arsène Tailleur there. They are those clever new writers all Paris is talking about.
PROFESSOR
You didn’t enjoy their witticisms more than I did a pesky little bluejay that made fun of me as I fished in my emerald lake.
MRS. RAY
But surely even you would have envied me my dinner when the celebrated Mary Mevin explained her new symphony.
PROFESSOR
Nonsense, dear. Think of grilled trout caught by my own hand! And then the long lazy silent hours afterwards with Aristotle. Nice chap, Aristotle: knew a heap about men and things, though he lived in an age when there wasn’t so much to remember as there is now. Then afterwards I confess I yawned with the comfort of it all; good, deep-reaching yawns, as Nature intended. I went out to see my friends the stars. Best friends a man ever had: a bit cold and distant, perhaps; but always there behind the clouds. (She has risen and gone to the candles. There is a pause. Then she snuffs them out.) And I suppose at the same time you were trying in vain to find them out your city window? (Sees she is sobbing very quietly: the candles are out.) Why, dear! What’s the trouble?
MRS. RAY
Oh, I can’t pretend any more. Our log fire isn’t real. Here we are all alone in a hotel apartment—before an old steam radiator and electric light. (Presses the switch again.)
PROFESSOR
(Tenderly and seriously)
I know. You left all that which might have been yours ... if ... if you hadn’t married me.
MRS. RAY
And you—without me and the children—you might have had your dream now.
PROFESSOR
(Very seriously)
No, dear. One never can realize them: that’s why they are called dreams.
MRS. RAY
(Goes to him looking up into his face)
You know, I wouldn’t have given up one hour of my life with you.
PROFESSOR
(Stroking her hair tenderly)
We have been very happy.
MRS. RAY
Yet why is there something we both feel we have missed?
PROFESSOR
Because even the happy must be incomplete or else they would cease to be happy. Isn’t happiness hope as much as realization? We have realized—not ourselves completely—yet through each other. We have been what the other sought. But only the very wise know that there is an inner life no one can be part of: a lonely place where even the dearest can not enter, because it is a lonely place.
MRS. RAY
Yes. I think that is the way it is with me, dear.
PROFESSOR
And the way it is with our house we shall never build. We can’t enter it together.
MRS. RAY
(Looking before her)
Yet I can still see my house.
PROFESSOR
As clearly as I do mine. (Looking whimsically over at the smoking candles.) Even though our own log fire is burned out.
MRS. RAY
(Smiling)
It’s changed somewhat these forty years.
PROFESSOR
Yes. That’s the way dream-houses have. (Taking her hand.) And, dear one, when we each think of our houses we can never build, let’s—let’s always go on holding each other’s hand, eh?
MRS. RAY
Dearest....
PROFESSOR
So many people lose each other when they dream.
(He kisses her tenderly.)
[CURTAIN]