The Land of Many Names/Act 1
ACT ONE
The scene represents a space in a large modern city. In front an upraised area with an outlet forward. Houses are indicated by strips of dark material and transparencies, upon which the changes of scene are projected in signs.
Night, darkness, uproar and turmoil, the music of boilers and an organ.
Elan Chol:
O, assuredly,
In this moment some grievous destiny is approaching!
Earth and heavens are collapsing!
Would that I were engulfed by an abyss
And concealed by stones!
What is life to me?
Woe unto thee, Elan Chol!
Thou art not as other men.
Unknown to thee are their joys,
Sorrow and hopes.
My soul is ailing;
My mind is creed by black plumage;
A black veil has covered it,
And night, drunken With juice from a black poppy, holds sway over it.
Naught is accomplished within me.
Within me only grief resides
As coldness within a stone.
As if some destiny were pacing upon it with heavy tread.
Perchance all is being changed!
I fain would see in a rose-hued radiance
The joys of men and their hopes,
And be healed and with a free spirit,
O, fain would I live
Or be dead
Or else depart
To distant regions!
O, fain would I be happier!
Amid turmoil a new day is being born,
A great matter is approaching with dire tread,
O, would that I were liberated!
Would that the curse were removed from me,
That I may not be damned!
With strange turmoil the earth is tossing;
With heavy tread something paces hither;
In tempest a new day is being born;
Perchance all is being changed.
O, would that I were healed!
[Pause. Daylight. A pavement is projected. Street-Sweepers enter.]
First Street-Sweeper:
What a damned life!
Second Street-Sweeper:
Damned it is!
What a cursed hole, this ill-famed city, from which I scrape the scabs with my cursed scraper! Lord help us and the devil allow us to sweep up quickly all the ashes and potsherds and muck and broken tins—deuce take it all—that are standing and lying about here
Second Street-Sweeper:
—with all this filth, and with our scrapers and brooms, and with us and our crooked legs and our regulation caps with the badge of this Babylon on them that stinks so vilely beneath my broom!
First Street-Sweeper:
I tell you, this city is the most miserable of all cities in the world. Anywhere is better than this.
Second Street-Sweeper:
Ah! you are right; the people and the cities are happier everywhere else. But this city, it is crumbling like a scurf, it oozes dirt like a sore, and fie! it sweats slime and spittle. Here iron, stone and brick crumble with sheer vexation; here all solid matter grows flabby, and every word and every breath is changed to bitter dust and clogs people’s limbs.
Drunkard (singing):
Drink, lads, drink’s all right,
Only don’t get tight
First Street-Sweeper:
Ah, true enough! Why, even the people themselves scatter dust, and dirt drips from their feet. Would that I did not know what grime is! Would that I was not kept alive by filth! Would that I was not an expert at garbage! I know what I am talking about. Whoever passes this way, whether Christian or pagan, trader or girl in patent shoes, thief or street-urchin, even an old man who is worn out with age, each and every one of them, I tell you how it strikes me: they all go tramping along after their business, hurrying and scurrying, and shaking off what they are filled with. Their essence and core. There it is lying on the ground in front of me: dirty paper, husks and rotten odds and ends.
The Drunkard:
It has been proved that dust is scattered and stones are dropped even from the stars.
Second Street-Sweeper:
Heaven be merciful to us! With the earth it is worse still. What a night it was! As if the earth wanted to fall to pieces; the dogs were howling, and there was a regular panic in the city. Plaster dropping and copings, and the ceilings! And notices and posters were flying from the houses like leaves. As I crawled out of a doorway, a big board was lying there. On it was the word “Fortuna.” That means luck. Hoho, Fortuna! Luck, but not for us, nor for anybody else either. We shall die, and it’ll be glory and amen.
First Street-Sweeper:
Why, the earth was rocking
The Drunkard:
What was rocking?
First Street-Sweeper:
Why, the earth!
It was rocking?
Second Street-Sweeper:
I should think it was! And what a racket it made, too!
The Drunkard:
It isn’t true!
First Street-Sweeper:
It was all swinging
The Drunkard:
It wasn’t.
Second Street-Sweeper:
But we tell you the earth was tottering
The Drunkard:
And I say it wasn’t!
First and Second Street-Sweeper:
Then go and sleep it off.
The Drunkard:
I won’t, and it wasn’t rocking. The earth? Ha, ha! why should the earth be rocking? Ha, ha! it wasn’t rocking. The earth? Ha, ha! it was me who was tottering. As soon as I’ve had a drop to drink, everything swings around me.
First Street-Sweeper:
Well, but we tell you the earth was rocking
The Drunkard:
But it wasn’t. It was me who was drunk
Well, then, you were both tottering.
The Drunkard:
No, not the earth. The earth was sober. You’ve had enough for to-day, I said to myself; everything’s swinging about again. And so it was—swinging about. What else could it do? Ha, ha! not really, you know; it only seemed to.
First Street-Sweeper:
But we say the earth was rocking
The Drunkard:
Oh, bless my soul, but the whole earth wasn’t tottering just because I staggered.
Second Street-Sweeper:
Ho, ho! that it was! That is your doing! Ho, ho! you set us rocking to and fro nicely with your drunken legs! One glass more, and we should have been flying right off the whole blessed show.
The Drunkard:
I’m hard up. I hadn’t got any more money.
First Street-Sweeper:
Thank the Lord! Let us think ourselves lucky that you are hard up. May the Lord keep you like it, with plenty more of it to come!
Second Street-Sweeper:
Look, there’s Elan Chol. That can only be him. He is standing there like a pillar.
Ah! so it is. That’s him. Elan Chol.
The Drunkard:
Elan Chol? Then I’d rather move on.
First Street-Sweeper:
What for?
The Drunkard:
It upsets me to see him. I met him several times last night. And when he’s about, I’d always rather clear off. It upsets me. He’s like a ghost. He stands there like a bad omen.
First Street-Sweeper:
That’s what they say about him. But he’s a man, and maybe better than others.
The Drunkard:
My good fellow, that’s just it. We don’t know yet whether he is a man at all. He’s more like a spirit. And he’s got a curse upon him. He brings bad luck.
Second Street-Sweeper:
That’s the tale the people tell
The Drunkard:
Well, why is it the people don’t like seeing such queer things? Why don’t they like to see, let’s say, a black stone sweating dew that isn’t from the clouds or from the earth? Or, when it gets dark all of a sudden and the birds move across the sky and you feel that there’s a meaning behind it
And what of it?
The Drunkard:
Just you wait. Or, we’ll say, why don’t people shriek when they’re in the greatest pain, but are in a sort of dumb, endless brooding? Or again, why is it that there’s sometimes a child who doesn’t learn how to play and dies an early death? And then it stares at you so. Why do they close the eyes of the dead? Why? Why? To stop it from staring at you
First Street-Sweeper:
What?
The Drunkard:
What? Why, eternal sorrow. And he, Elan Chol, he belongs to that sort.
Second Street-Sweeper:
To what sort?
The Drunkard:
Why, the dark sort. Black angels have been seen, or fateful shadows without a body, too, who live a queer life of their own, and anyone who’s born from such a connection (for sometimes they enter a human bed), anyone who’s taken his origin from there, he’s ill-fated.
First Street-Sweeper:
What?
The Drunkard:
He’s ill-fated. Where there’s anyone of that kind about, it isn’t a fit place for people to be in. And this isn’t a fit place to be in. No, it’s bad—bad in every way. And I’d rather be off. I’m off; I’m off.
First and Second Street-Sweepers:
Good-morning, Elan Chol.
Elan Chol:
Street-Sweepers! The track of a bird in the winds cannot be seen, nor the path upon waters whence flows human youth. There are many human paths inscribed in the dust, and the tracks of human tread are engraved in the mire which you wipe away and smooth out. Do you not oft-times hear a shower of tears and drops of blood soaking the ground of the city? It is slippery with the mire which has been created by torment. You gather it and smooth it out. I imagine that you possess the skill of reading from the dust how grief creeps along the pavement of the city and stations itself in corners.
First Street-Sweeper:
Yes, all this is known to us.
Elan Chol:
Do you not distinguish in the dust the tracks and spots where, with leaden foot, the limping destiny of the previous day has trod?
Second Street-Sweeper:
I imagine that we can distinguish it almost with certainty.
First Street-Sweeper:
There are many such signs.
And they all become mire and dust again.
Elan Chol:
And you read them. Pray tell me, you are here clearing away a strange night which has just passed. The earth shook with a heavy turmoil, for some new destiny was moving across it with noisy tread. Explain to me what its track was like, and whither its path led, and tell me also how it seems to you. Was it a good thing or a bad one?
First Street-Sweeper:
It is hard to tell, sir. Although the path is full of litter, nothing can be seen there which testifies that this thing passed along the earth. You said at first that the track of a bird’s flight cannot be seen in the wind. Likewise the track of the morrow cannot be seen in the morning dew—
Second Street-Sweeper:
—nor the wickedness of bygone years upon the hand of the new-born. And as for the second question, although we are not familiar with this sign which did not pass along the ground, as other things arrive, one matter can be settled beforehand. I say this for all things: it is both good and bad.
Elan Chol:
You have told me little. Fate is dark. But even for this I am grateful to you, street-sweepers.
First Street-Sweeper:
This is a queer man, but he is not evil. Of him, too, I must admit, we have no clear knowledge. But here we are, talking together, and we might be caught by the inspector. It is time that we went to chatter elsewhere.
[Exeunt Street-Sweepers. Pause. A faint rumbling, which dies away. A change of scene, projected by shop-fronts.]
First Gossip:
Oh, dearie me—oh, dearie me! I’m all of a heap, and can hardly drag one foot after the other. Holy Virgin! Rolls, twopenn’orth of pepper and stewing-meat. And milk. My goodness, the price of things! And then soap and lye. And a rag to clean the floor with. And vinegar—I mustn’t forget that.
Second Gossip:
A new mop and the clock to be mended. And syrup. I heard that you can get it a lot cheaper from the man in the other street. Gracious me! My good woman, haven’t you any eyes in your head? Running into anybody like that. Ah! it’s you, ma’am, is it?
First Gossip:
And you! Good-morning. What a fright I’ve had! I was just thinking of you, and wondering how you are and whether you’re all well.
Second Gossip:
My goodness, what a night it was!
First Gossip:
I should just think so, indeed. A dreadful night.
Second Gossip:
I tell you, ma’am, no words can describe the terror I’ve been through. The crockery was all on the clatter and the clock came to a sudden standstill, and now it won’t go. Oh, this must be some sign; it came into my head right away that someone had died. It might be father-in-law; he’s got one foot in the grave, anyhow—or maybe uncle, or perhaps even my second cousin.
First Gossip:
Oh, we had a worse time than that. I quite thought my last hour had come. You know, I’m so frightened of storms. My heart goes bump and I get all out of breath, my breathing’s still so bad from my last illness; nobody’d believe what I go through. I had to hide my head under the bedclothes so as not to hear. And the bedstead kept rocking with me in it
Third Gossip:
Goodness gracious, my dear! and what about me? I’m that nervous, you know, ever since my second confinement, all the doctors gave me up. When that rumbling began, I said to my husband: “What’s that you’re doing?” And he said: “Me? Nothing. I know nothing about it.” I was that afraid, as if I was turned to stone.
Second Gossip:
And me! When the storm began, there was a sort of rattling in my inside, and my stomach felt as if someone run a log of wood into me. My throat went all tight and I couldn’t utter a single word. At that moment my eyes were starting out of my head and I was as white as—as—a sheet. What doings
First Gossip:
There was a rattling and the earth was all of a tremble as if it was the end of the world. The children and my husband knelt down in front of me, and they all stretched out their hands to me and said: “Ma, please don’t die.” I tell you, I was quite overcome with pity for those poor orphans.
Second Gossip:
Well, so I should think. But, my dear, I can’t make out what really happened. It must have been something to give me such a fright. But anyhow, we’re alive to tell the tale, that’s something.
Third Gossip:
But it’ll be a long time before I get over this.
First Gossip:
Me, too. What goings on there are in this wretched world! Everyone complains, everyone’s dissatisfied
Second Gossip:
What can you expect? Everything’s so dear, there’s no work, it’s impossible to earn a living; people are going about without a rag on their backs, and can’t find a home.
Third Gossip:
Everyone’s grumbling about the hard times, that it’s more than flesh and blood can stand. And the people who’ve already gone away from here! Everybody wants to clear off, to escape; they can’t live here.
Second Gossip:
What do you expect? My husband says the same: “I can’t stop here; this is just downright misery; we must get out of it, never mind where, as long as it’s away from here.”
My word, yes! Everybody here’s cursing and looking out for somewhere to go to. And those who can’t are downright miserable. Just think of all the suicides!
First Gossip:
Blessed Virgin! Only the day before yesterday there was another of ’em hanged himself; he was quite a young fellow and left a letter behind him. “Forgive me,” he wrote in it; “I shall be better off. No more happiness will bloom for me here. I am departing for more beautiful regions.”
Second Gossip:
Good gracious! But how nicely he put the letter together. Why, even Mr. Pieris couldn’t have done it so nice. “No more happiness will bloom for me here. I am departing for more beautiful regions”
First Gossip:
No, indeed. Well, he has a good time of it; he just writes poems and has no worries. And here am I, not knowing whether I’m standing on my head or my heels.
First, Second and Third Gossips:
O Lord! O Lord! it’s beginning again.
First Gossip:
No, thank Heaven, that was only a shutter.
Second Gossip:
Holy Saviour! what a fright I had again!
O Jesus! and me, too. But I must be off to look after my cooking, and I’ve still got so much shopping to do.
First and Second Gossips:
And so have we. Gracious goodness!
[Enter Pieris. The scene is changed by the projection of the signs of a city. Walls and windows.)
Pieris:
Oh, you old witless fool, is that what you’ve deserved? For what and for whom have you lived And what are you—what on earth are you? You don’t know. You don’t know until they tell you, until others tell you. Until they tell you—what is it they say? (Looks into a newspaper.) “A phrasemonger.” Oh! “Mr. Pieris lives in the blissful illusion that his hollow prophetic lyrics still mean anything to us. He must be informed with the utmost emphasis that the young generation has long since finished with his philistine messianism.” Oh, that cuts me to the quick! “This legend had to be disposed of in a critical manner in order that we might realise how worthless and superfluous is the alleged regenerative work of Pieris.” How that cuts me to the quick! My life’s work, my labour and my mission, all flung down and trampled in the dust. Oh, youth, cruel youth! Alas! there is nothing more in which one’s hopes can be placed. (Reads.) “We have now had enough of prophets, preachers and leaders in the wilderness, and we have also had quite enough of the wilderness itself and of all dreams. Nay, even more, we have now had enough of our fellow-men. For what purpose does Pieris, disregarding the absurdity of his position, still retail his shallow philosophy of fine phrases?”
Alas! shame and woe! Did I not give you of my best, and gratis? I awakened hopes in the advent of a new life. Is that a sham? I awakened faith that from the new life a new world, bringing salvation,would be born. Is that a worthless thing? I beat upon the gates and enkindled lights. In vain. Deafness and gloom prevail. I hoped and taught others to hope. I believed and urged others to believe. I loved and enjoined others to love. Alas! it was useless. Now there is nothing left. No, now even I myself neither hope nor believe nor love anything.
Oh, would that this city had collapsed last night, when all the seams of earth and heaven were ripped open amid turmoil! Oh, this ill-fated soil, permeated with so much blood and so many sighs, which the ages and generation after generation have poured upon it! (Threateningly.) Delusive city, bloated with the thoughts which you have stifled! You graveyard of hopes! Youth grows up from you like a poisoned blossom. Ah! far, far hence! Ah! a new life and a new world! Oh, cruel city! Oh, evil, pitiless youth!
[Exit. From the other side The Lover and The Beloved.]
The Beloved:
Why did that old man threaten us so? Here are evil people.
The Lover:
They begrudge us our happiness. How can a man be happy who does not love
The Beloved:
—and is not loved?
Oh, my love, love of my soul, breath of my heart! what do I care for the world when your eyes love me?
The Beloved:
My world, that is you.
The Lover:
And you are the soul of my life. When last night it seemed that the end of the world was approaching with din and turmoil, I though only of you. Only for you was I afraid. I yearned only to be able to protect you, or to die in your embrace.
The Beloved:
I, too, thought only of you. It seemed as if the earth were bursting and the whole universe were falling to pieces. I said to myself: Protect us, God; let us meet again while we are still alive. Or, if I am to die here alone, permit our souls to meet again on some blue or pink star!
The Lover:
Oh, my darling! But we have not died. The city and the people are all alive, and everything is the same as it was yesterday. I should like to be with you far away from here; I should like to be with you on a new earth, where there are no people, only we two with our love, in a new paradise, far from this city and the people, only we two, happy and alone.
The Beloved (in his embrace):
Dearest, how happy I should be with you far, far from here.
Zealot:
Ha! shame upon you—shame upon you, city full of lewdness and mischief! Woe unto you, unclean streets, cross-roads of sin and marts of transgression! Oh, whore of Babylon! God’s countenance is bowed above your roofs that it may judge you.
Zealot:
Ungodly people, wallowing in the slough of your countless sins, the measure of your drunkenness, lewdness, selfishness, profiteering, pillage and hatred is brim-full. Lo, the God of Hosts has raised His right hand in righteous menace and this night proclaimed unto you the hour of destruction.
Woman from the Crowd:
In the name of God’s martyrdom, what is coming upon us? What happened in the night?
Man from The Crowd:
What’s he talking about? The night has passed and nothing so dreadful has happened. The sun shines or not, just as yesterday, and people are alive or not, just as yesterday.
Zealot:
The Lord of Hosts has raised His right hand in righteous menace. The very air was in turmoil and the earth cracked to its bones, for beneath the wrathful finger of God the gates of hell were half opened to engulf you!
Second Woman from the Crowd:
O God, what will happen to us?
Well, what? What could befall us worse than what we already have?
Zealot:
This night the Lord sent a first warning unto you. The hour of judgment is approaching. Turn your thoughts to repentance.
First Man from the Crowd:
Drop your talk about repentance. You’d do better to give us bread.
Second Man from the Crowd:
It’s mighty little of these sinful delights that we’ve enjoyed.
Zealot:
And the Lord has passed judgment and
First Voice from the Crowd:
This is clericalism.
Second Voice from the Crowd:
We want a positive explanation! A scientific one! This is
Third Voice from the Crowd:
This is reactionist talk.
Zealot:
Ha! the hour of judgment is coming, and Babylon will be razed to the ground, and stone shall not remain upon stone. The earth shall split asunder, and from the abyss shall be heard the voices of the rejected: “Alas, mountains, fall ye upon us! Alas, ye hills, conceal me!” But the righteous shall rejoice
First Man from the Crowd:
Ah! that’s Mr. Dollarson riding to the Stock Exchange.
Second Man from the Crowd:
Mr. Dollarson always has the first and the best news about everything. We will ask him what really happened in the night.
Zealot:
And the Lord shall say: “I have sent destruction upon the earth in the guise of angels’ cars, that the hoofs of the horses and the tips of their swords may trample the earth”
First Man from the Crowd:
Enough of that.
Second Man from the Crowd:
Enough of that, you with your angels’ hoofs.
The Crowd:
The best explanation of what happened in the night will be given to us by Mr. Dollarson himself.
The Crowd:
Good-day, Mr. Dollarson.
Dollarson:
Good-day, people.
Mr. Dollarson, you always have the first news about everything. We should like to know what really happened in the night.
Dollarson:
Ah yes! last night. I have already been informed about it.
Second Man from the Crowd:
Well, sir, can you tell us?
Dollarson:
Certainly I shall be pleased to let you know.
The Crowd:
Well, we are most eager to hear about it.
Dollarson:
Well, then, I have the best authority for saying that there has been an elemental catastrophe, an extensive upheaval of the earth’s strata, or, in other words, what is known as an earthquake.
The Crowd:
We thought at the very first that it’s only an earthquake.
Dollarson:
The occurrence, however noteworthy in a geological respect, has no particular economic bearing. No considerable damage has been occasioned
The Crowd:
We are glad that there is no damage.
—more particularly as regards the interior of the country. I am informed, however, that a number of inundations manifested themselves in the coastal regions, while at sea there were considerable storms, and—as far as I can judge from the information at my disposal—there will be a number of losses in shipping. In this respect Mr. Vandergold will perhaps incur some liabilities
The Crowd:
What does that matter, as long as we don’t.
First Man from the Crowd:
But here comes Mr. Vandergold himself from his office
The Crowd:
And he always has more accurate news than Mr. Dollarson.
Dollarson:
What else do you want to know? Mr. Vandergold will only confirm to you what you have already been told by me.
Second Man from the Crowd:
But Mr. Vandergold is more wealthy and has a bigger factory
The Crowd:
Good-day, Mr. Vandergold. Our respects to you, sir.
Good-day, people. Ah, Dollarson! how are you? Mining shares have dropped a little, but I think you managed to get rid of them in time, eh?
Dollarson:
And what about your railway holdings?
Vandergold:
Yes, yes; it’s the sort of thing that’s got to be put up with.
Second Man from the Crowd:
Excuse me, Mr. Vandergold, for making so free, but we’d like to hear from your own lips
Dollarson:
These people want you to tell them the same as I have done: that there has been an earthquake, which, on the whole, had no further consequences. Perhaps only some of your shipping
Vandergold:
Oh, is that your information?
Dollarson:
It is. This, I think, is all that is to be said about the whole matter.
First Man from the Crowd:
Let Mr. Vandergold himself tell—
By all means; it is so. Mr. Dollarson has his information, and he has told you everything he knew. Our city was affected by an earthquake last night
Second Man from the Crowd:
An earthquake
Vandergold:
—the maximum force of which was felt on the coast. By an upheaval of the sea a number of ships were destroyed
Dollarson:
You see, everything just as I said.
Vandergold:
—but
The Crowd:
Now Mr. Vandergold is speaking
Vandergold:
—but—do not be offended, my friend—Mr. Dollarson’s information is not complete.
The Crowd:
Listen; now we shall hear a fuller account.
Vandergold:
As regards the cause of this earthquake
Listen to the cause.
Vandergold:
—well, then
First Man from the Crowd:
Let’s hear now, Mr. Vandergold
Vandergold:
This was no mere earthquake.
Second Man from the Crowd:
That’s what I thought straight away. What was it, then?
Vandergold:
My information is beyond question. A strange and great event has occurred.
The Crowd:
A great event has happened.
Vandergold:
So listen. Last night, amid the rumbling of the earth and in an ocean tempest, a great island emerged in the middle of the Atlantic.
The Crowd:
Ah!
Vandergold:
Did I say an island? It is a great new continent!
Oh, what a piece of news!
Vandergold:
Yes! A sixth continent has been born in the middle of the ocean.
Curtain.