SHUKRA. Nay, nay,--
OLD MAN. Shukra. I, thy father, thy G.o.d in life, curse thee. Thou hast deprived thy mother of her child, and her death of its solace. Thou hast incurred the wrath of the Spirits of all thy departed ancestors.
SHUKRA [_cries out_]. Not thus; not thus. [_Thunder and lightning, the whole sky is swept by the clouds._]
OLD MAN. Not thus? Thus alone shall it be. Cursed be thou at night; cursed be thou by day; cursed be thou going; cursed be thou coming. Thou art cursed by the spirit of the race, by the spirit of G.o.d. [_Continued thunder and lightning._]
SHUKRA [_falling at his father"s feet_]. I beseech thee, my father,--
OLD MAN [_shrinking away_]. Touch me not. [_Going left._] Cursed art thou in Life and Death forever.
SHUKRA. G.o.d!--Father, go not thus.
OLD MAN. I am not thy father. [_Deafening and blinding thunder and lightning._]
SHUKRA. Father--
OLD MAN [_going down the steps_]. Pollute not my hearing by calling me thy father. May the judgment of Indra be upon thee! [_He totters down out of sight, left, in anger and horror._]
SHUKRA. Father, hear, oh hear! [_The rain comes down in a deluge; thunder and lightning. The rain blots everything out of sight. It pours in deep, dark sheets, through which the chains and sheets of lightning burn and run. After raining awhile, the sky clears. In the pale moonlight, Shukra is seen crouching near the Sacred plant. He is wet and disheveled. He slowly rises, swaying in exhaustion. Voices are heard below._]
SHUKRA. Can it be that it is over? Has Indra judged me and found me free of error? Yea, were I in error, the lightning would have struck me. I lay there blinded by rain awaiting my death. It did not come. Yea, Indra has judged! [_Noises below; he does not hear._] O, thou shadowy world, I am free of thee at last. Free of love and loving, free of all bondage. I have no earthly ties,--I lean on G.o.d alone. At last, I am bound to no earthly being, not even--[_strange pause_]--not even,--Shanta. [_He becomes conscious of the noise of approaching footsteps and the light of the torches from below._] Who is that? [_He goes forward a few steps.
Enter Kanada, torch in hand._]
KANADA. Master, Master.
SHUKRA. Kanada, thou,--[_a pause, very brief but poignant_]. Why this agitation? Shanta, where is Shanta?
KANADA. Shanta is--
SHUKRA [_seeing the other torches rising suddenly_]. Speak! Who comes. .h.i.ther?
KANADA. They bring a dead man.
SHUKRA. Who is he? [_As a premonition of the truth comes over him._]
Where is Shanta?
KANADA [_blurts out_]. At the foot of the hill the lightning struck him.
SHUKRA [_with a terrible cry_]. Shanta,--my Shanta! [_Two men carrying torches with one hand, and dragging something white with the other, come up the steps. This vision silences Shukra. A pause follows. Another torch is seen rising behind them._]
SHUKRA [_slowly_], Shanta,--gone. [_Pause again, looking into the starry heavens._] This is the Judgment of Indra!
[_Curtain._]
THE WORKHOUSE WARD
A PLAY
BY LADY GREGORY
Copyright, 1909, by Lady Gregory.
All rights reserved.
PERSONS
MICHAEL MISKELL } [_Paupers_].
MIKE MCINERNEY } MRS. DONOHOE [_a Countrywoman_].
Reprinted from "Seven Short Plays," by Lady Gregory, published by G. P. Putnam"s Sons, by permission of Lady Gregory and Messrs.
G. P. Putnam"s Sons.
All acting rights, both professional and amateur, are reserved in the United States, Great Britain, and all countries of the Copyright Union, by the author. Performances forbidden and right of presentation reserved.
Application for the right of performing this play or reading it in public should be made to Samuel French, 28 West 38th Street, New York City, or 26 South Hampton Street, Strand, London.
THE WORKHOUSE WARD
A PLAY BY LADY GREGORY
[SCENE: _A ward in Cloon Workhouse. The two old men in their beds_.]
MICHAEL MISKELL. Isn"t it a hard case, Mike McInerney, myself and yourself to be left here in the bed, and it the feast day of Saint Colman, and the rest of the ward attending on the Ma.s.s.
MIKE MCINERNEY. Is it sitting up by the hearth you are wishful to be, Michael Miskell, with cold in the shoulders and with speckled shins? Let you rise up so, and you well able to do it, not like myself that has pains the same as tin-tacks within in my inside.
MICHAEL MISKELL. If you have pains within in your inside there is no one can see it or know of it the way they can see my own knees that are swelled up with the rheumatism, and my hands that are twisted in ridges the same as an old cabbage stalk. It is easy to be talking about soreness and about pains, and they maybe not to be in it at all.
MIKE MCINERNEY. To open me and to a.n.a.lyze me you would know what sort of a pain and a soreness I have in my heart and in my chest. But I"m not one like yourself to be cursing and praying and tormenting the time the nuns are at hand, thinking to get a bigger share than myself of the nourishment and of the milk.
MICHAEL MISKELL. That"s the way you do be picking at me and faulting me.
I had a share and a good share in my early time, and it"s well you know that, and the both of us reared in Skehanagh.
MIKE MCINERNEY. You may say that, indeed, we are both of us reared in Skehanagh. Little wonder you to have good nourishment the time we were both rising, and you bringing away my rabbits out of the snare.
MICHAEL MISKELL. And you didn"t bring away my own eels, I suppose, I was after spearing in the Turlough? Selling them to the nuns in the convent you did, and letting on they to be your own. For you were always a cheater and a schemer, grabbing every earthly thing for your own profit.