Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter Part 29

CHRISTINE. Sh! Sh!

ELIS. Do you know, I believe that good luck is coming our way--that hard luck is tired of us.

CHRISTINE. What makes you think so?

ELIS. Why, as I was going by the cathedral just now a white dove flew down and alighted in front of me, and dropped a little branch it was carrying right at my feet.

CHRISTINE. Did you notice what kind of branch it was?

ELIS. Of course it couldn't have been an olive branch, but I believe it was a sign of peace--and I felt the life-giving joy of spring. Where's mother?

CHRISTINE [Points toward kitchen]. In the kitchen.

ELIS [Quietly and closing his eyes]. I hear the spring! I can tell that the double windows are off, I hear the wheel hubs so plainly. And what's that?--a robin chirping out in the orchard, and they are hammering down at the docks and I can smell the fresh paint on the steamers.

CHRISTINE. Can you feel all that--here in town?

ELIS. Here? It's true we are _here_, but I was up there, in the North, where our home lies. Oh, how did we ever get into this dreadful city where the people all hate each other and where one is always alone? Yes, it was our daily bread that led the way, but with the bread came the misfortunes: father's criminal act and little sister's illness. Tell me, do you know whether mother has ever been to see father since he's been in prison?

CHRISTINE. Why, I think she's been there this very day.

ELIS. What did she have to say about it?

CHRISTINE. Nothing--she wouldn't talk about it.

ELIS. Well, one thing at least has been gained, and that is the quiet that followed the verdict after the newspapers had gorged themselves with the details. One year is over: and then we can make a fresh start.

CHRISTINE. I admire your patience in this suffering.

ELIS. Don't. Don't admire anything about me. I am full of faults--you know it.

CHRISTINE. If you were only suffering for your own faults--but to be suffering for another!

ELIS. What are you sewing on?

CHRISTINE. Curtains for the kitchen, you dear.

ELIS. It looks like a bridal veil. This fall you will be my bride, won't you, Christine?

CHRISTINE. Yes--but--let's think of summer first.

ELIS. Yes, summer! [Takes out the check book.] You see the money is already in the bank, and when school is over we will start for the North, for our home land among the lakes. The cottage stands there just as it did when we were children, and the linden trees. Oh, that it were summer already and I could go swimming in the lake! I feel as if this family dishonor has besmirched me so that I long to bathe, body and soul, in the clear lake waters.

CHRISTINE. Have you heard anything from Eleonora?

ELIS. Yes--poor little sister! She writes me letters that tear my heart to pieces. She wants to get out of the asylum--and home, of course. But the doctor daren't let her go. She would do things that might lead to prison, he says. Do you know, I feel terribly conscience-stricken sometimes--

CHRISTINE [Starting]. Why?

ELIS. Because I agreed with all the rest of them that it was best to put her there.

CHRISTINE. My dear, you are always accusing yourself. It was fortunate she could be taken care of like that--poor little thing!

ELIS. Well, perhaps you're right. It is best so. She is as well off there as she could be anywhere. When I think of how she used to go about here casting gloom over every attempt at happiness, how her fate weighed us down like a nightmare, then I am tempted to feel almost glad about it. I believe the greatest misfortune that could happen would be to see her cross this threshold. Selfish brute that I am!

CHRISTINE. Human being that you are!

ELIS. And yet--I suffer--suffer at the thought of her misery and my father's.

CHRISTINE. It seems as tho' some were born to suffer.

ELIS. You poor Christine--to be drawn into this family, which was cursed from the beginning! Yes, doomed!

CHRISTINE. You don't know whether it's all trial or punishment, Elis.

Perhaps I can help you through the struggles.

ELIS. Do you think mother has a clean dress tie for me?

CHRISTINE [Anxiously]. Are you going out?

ELIS. I'm going out to dinner. Peter won the debate last night, you know, and he's giving a dinner tonight.

CHRISTINE. And you're going to that dinner?

ELIS. You mean that perhaps I shouldn't because he has proven such an unfaithful friend and pupil?

CHRISTINE. I can't deny that I was shocked by his unfaithfulness, when he promised to quote from your theories and he simply plundered them without giving you any credit.

ELIS. Ah, that's the way things go, but I am happy in the consciousness that "this have I done."

CHRISTINE. Has he invited you to the dinner?

ELIS. Why, that's true--come to think of it, he didn't invite me. That's very strange. Why didn't I think of that before! Why, he's been talking for years as though I were to be the guest of honor at that dinner, and he has told others that. But if I am not invited--then of course it's pretty plain that I'm snubbed, insulted, in fact. Well, it doesn't matter. It isn't the first time--nor the last. [Pause.]

CHRISTINE. Benjamin is late. Do you think he will pa.s.s his examinations?

ELIS. I certainly do--in Latin particularly.

CHRISTINE. Benjamin is a good boy!

ELIS. Yes, but he's somewhat of a grumbler. You know of course why he is living here with us?

CHRISTINE. IS it because--

ELIS. Because--my father was the boy's guardian and spent his fortune for him, as he did--for so many others. Can you fancy, Christine, what agony it is for me as their instructor to see those fatherless boys, who have been robbed of their inheritance, suffering the humiliations of free scholars? I have to think constantly of their misery to be able to forgive them their cruel glances.

CHRISTINE. I believe that your father is truly better off than you.

ELIS. Truly!