Savva and the Life of Man Part 71

I curse everything that you have given. I curse the day on which I was born. I curse the day on which I shall die. I curse the whole of my life, its joys and its sorrows. I curse myself. I curse my eyes, my ears, my tongue. I curse my heart and my head, and I fling everything back at your cruel face, a senseless Fate! Be accursed, be forever accursed! With my curses I conquer you. What else can you do to me? Hurl me to the ground, I will laugh and shout in your face: "Be accursed!" Seal my mouth with the clamps of death, with my last thought I will shout into your stupid ears: "Be accursed, be accursed!" Take my body, tear at it like a dog, drag it into the darkness--I am not in it. I have disappeared, but disappearing I shall repeat: "Be accursed, be accursed!" Through the woman whom you have insulted, through the boy whom you have killed, I convey to you the curses of Man!

_[He turns in silence, with fiercely uplifted hand. Someone in Gray listens pa.s.sively to the curses. The flame of the candle flickers as if blown by the wind. Thus they stand for some time in tense silence confronting each other, Man and Someone in Gray. The wailing behind the scenes grows louder and more prolonged, pa.s.sing into a doleful chant._

CURTAIN

THE FIFTH SCENE

THE DEATH OF MAN

_An uncertain, unsteady, blinking light, so dim that at first nothing is distinguishable. When the eye grows accustomed to it, the following scene becomes visible.

A long, wide room with a very low ceiling and windowless. The entrance is down a flight of steps from somewhere above. The walls are bare and dirty and resemble the coa.r.s.e, stained hide of some huge animal. Along the entire back wall up to the stairs runs a, bar with a top of smooth gla.s.s. This is covered with bottles full of differently colored liquors that are arranged in regular rows. Behind a low table sits the Bartender, immobile, with his hands folded across his paunch. His white face is blotched with red. His head is bald, and he has a large, reddish beard. He wears an expression of utter calm and indifference, which he maintains throughout, never changing his seat or his att.i.tude.

Drunkards, both men and women, sit at small tables on wooden stools.

Their number seems to be augmented by their shadows dancing on the walls and ceiling.

It is one endless monotony of repulsive ugliness and desolation.

The men's faces resemble masks with the various features disproportionately magnified or reduced: big noses, or no noses at all; eyes staring savagely, almost starting from their sockets, or eyes narrowed to scarcely visible slits and points; huge Adam's apples and tiny chins. Their hair is tangled, frowzy, dirty, covering half the face on some of them. Despite their differences, a horrible sameness is stamped upon their faces: a greenish, ghastly tinge of decay and an expression that appears grotesque in some, gloomy and stupidly timid in others.

They are dressed in dull rags, with here a bony arm bared, there a sharp knee, and there again a frightfully sunken chest. Some are almost entirely naked. The women differ little from the men, except that they are even uglier and more uncouth. All have trembling heads and hands and walk with an uncertain step, as if on a slippery, or hilly, or sliding surface. Their voices, too, are all alike, rough and hoa.r.s.e. They speak as uncertainly as they walk, as if their lips were frozen and refused to obey.

In the centre, at a separate table, sits Man, his gray, unkempt head leaning on his arms. In this position he remains throughout the scene, except during the one moment when he speaks. He is dressed very poorly.

In the corner stands Someone in Gray, with the candle burned nearly to the end. The slender blue flame flickers, now bending, now striving upward with its sharp little tongue. Its blue throws a ghastly glare on His face and chin._

THE DRUNKARD'S CONVERSATION

--Oh my! Oh my!

--Look, everything is swaying so strangely. There's nothing to rest your eyes on.

--Everything is shaking as in a fever--the people, the chair, the ceiling.

--Everything is floating and rocking as on waves.

--Do you hear a noise? I hear a kind of noise, as if an iron wheel were rumbling, or stones falling from a mountain, large stones coming down like rain.

--It's the ringing in your ears.

--It's the tingling of your blood. I feel my blood. It flows heavy through my veins, thick, thick, black, smelling of rum. And when it gets to my heart, it all falls down, and it's terrible.

--It seems to me I see flashes of lightning.

--I see huge, red woodpiles and people burning on them. It's disgusting to smell the roasting flesh.

--Dark shadows circle around the piles. They are drunk, the shadows are. Hey, invite me! I'll dance with you.

--Oh my! Oh my!

--I am happy, too. Who will laugh with me? n.o.body. So I'll laugh by myself. _(He laughs)_

--A charming woman is kissing my lips. She smells of musk and her teeth are like a crocodile's. She wants to bite me. Get away, you dirty hussy!

--I am not a dirty hussy. I am an old pregnant snake. I've been watching a whole hour to see little snakes come out of my body below and crawl around. Say, don't step on my little snakes.

--Where are you going?

--Who's walking there? Sit down. You make the whole house shake when you walk.

--I can't. I feel awful sitting down.

--I too. When I am sitting I feel a horror running through my whole body.

--So do I. Let me go.

_[Three or four Drunkards reel aimlessly about, getting tangled up In the chairs._

--Look what it's doing. It's been jumping for two hours, trying to get on my knee. It just misses by an inch. I drive it away and it comes back again.

--Black c.o.c.kroaches are creeping under my skull and buzzing.

--My brain is falling apart. I feel the gray matter separating. My brain is like rotten cheese. It stinks.

--There's some sort of a corpse here. I smell it.

--Oh my! Oh my!

--I'll sneak up to her to-night and cut her throat.

--The blood will flow. It's flowing already. See how red it is.

--I am constantly being followed by three men. They are calling me into a dark corner of the vacant lot, and they want to kill me. They are already at the door.

--Who is walking on the walls and ceiling?

--Good Lord! They have come to take me.

--Who?

--They.

--My tongue is getting paralyzed. I'll cry. _(Cries)_

--My whole body is coming out. I'll soon be turned inside out, and then I'll be all red.