Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 287

DIANE. Yes.

NANETTE. Was it--Maurice?

DIANE. Yes.

NANETTE [_drawing away, her face going black_]. I see.

DIANE [_going up to her curiously_]. Who are you?

NANETTE [_drawing herself up, showing the utmost contempt, hatred and fear of Diane_]. Who are _you_?

DIANE. My name is Diane Bertral.

NANETTE. Who _are_ you?

DIANE. Just that.

NANETTE [_as before_]. I see.

DIANE [_pa.s.sionately_]. Madame, listen to me....

NANETTE. Mademoiselle....

DIANE. Mademoiselle--are you--Nanette?

NANETTE [_who seems to grow small with dread_]. Those who know me well call me that.

DIANE. He often spoke of you. He told me of you. You were his old nurse.

You were very dear to him. He always said he was the only person to reach your heart. [_Seizing Nanette's hand._] Nanette! Let me call you Nanette! Let me touch you. Let me know that heart which he could waken.

I am so in need of help. I am so in need of love.

NANETTE [_drawing away_]. Mademoiselle!

DIANE. You have lost Maurice. You know what I feel. Only you can know.

Help me. Let us help each other! We can never be strangers for our hearts bear the same sorrow.

NANETTE. I don't understand. [_Growing stern with the realization._]

Maurice! Can it be that Maurice.... No, that is impossible. He was not like that.

DIANE. Nanette. I loved Maurice. He loved me.

NANETTE [_recoiling as if at a great obscenity_]. Oh!

DIANE. Why do you speak like that? What could there be in our love for each other that was wrong? If you only knew what we were to each other.

If you only knew, Nanette....

NANETTE [_hoa.r.s.ely_]. Maurice.... I can scarcely believe it.

DIANE. Let me talk to you about him. Let me tell you about us. [_She sits on the couch left, and feverishly begins to talk._] I am an actress. We met at a supper party after the theater. You know how shy Maurice was. He was afraid of most people. I saw that. I drew him to one side and got him to talk. He was like a child when any one took a real interest in him. He told me all about himself at once, about you, and about Madame le Bargy....

NANETTE [_pa.s.sionately_]. Oh, keep still!

DIANE [_not noticing Nanette's hostility_]. And about your house in the country, and his garden and books and his piano and all the things he loved. Then he went on and told me about his work, and how he wanted to be a great writer, how he wanted to carry on what was best in the French theater. He promised to show me his play.

NANETTE. His play!

DIANE. I told him to come to my house and read it to me. He came the next day. It was the twenty-first of March. I remember the date perfectly.

NANETTE. We always left town on that day, but we could not get Maurice to go, so we had to leave him behind. Now I understand.

DIANE. Yes. He stayed to lunch with me, and that afternoon I had him read his play to me. Do you remember how beautiful his voice was? It started in a sort of sing song, like a child singing itself to sleep, but as he went on his voice grew deeper and stronger, all your senses melted into his voice and he carried you along as if on a great wave of emotion, of ecstasy. Monsieur Laugier came later. He was my manager then. I had Maurice read the play to him. And later some other people came, and every one urged Monsieur Laugier to take the play. I begged him to read it. I will never forget it. It seemed to me the most important thing in the world. Well, as you know, Monsieur Laugier did produce Maurice's play. And, although they wouldn't let me be in it, I always considered it my play, too.

NANETTE. Then the story he told us of his meeting with Monsieur Laugier--that wasn't true?

DIANE. No. I invented that for him to tell you.

NANETTE. He lied to us!

DIANE. You would never have understood.

NANETTE. Let me think--Maurice's play was produced in September, 1913.

That is two years ago. Two years.... Maurice lived here with us--day after day--saying nothing--telling us nothing--We never suspected. We never dreamed that he would deceive us.

DIANE. He did not deceive you. Not even the closest hearts can reveal everything.

NANETTE. But to continue to see you ... all that time! It is unthinkable.

DIANE. How could he explain what he didn't understand himself? How could he tell you of what was a mystery to him? From the first moment we met we lived and thought and felt as one being.

NANETTE [_vehemently_]. No! With us he was like that! He was like that with us.

DIANE. With me!

NANETTE. To think of it! A common actress!

DIANE [_jumping up_]. How could you?

NANETTE. If I had known of this affair I would have gone straight to you.

DIANE. And what could you have done?

NANETTE [_significantly_]. I could have found a way.

DIANE. You are a terrible old woman.

NANETTE. Am I terrible? I had to fight my way when I was your age--because I was not pretty. I had the choice of being a free drudge or some man's slave. So I chose to toil alone. In order to get along alone I had to stifle every drop of humanity in my being. I had to bind up my human instincts as they bind up the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of mothers who flow too bounteously with life-blood long after their babes have need of it.

I had to become sharp and bitter because sweetness and softness get crushed under in the battle to live. I learned to fight and I forgot to feel. Then, when I was used up and hard I met Madame le Bargy and she took me into her house because I had one valuable thing left. I had learned that it is wiser to be honest. I was there when Maurice was born.