CONTROLES DE SEGURIDAD TÉCNICA

The living room of SYDNEY PRICE’s apartment at North Terrace, an ordinary suite of furnished rooms in the tropical style. Another room can be seen through the door upstage center; in it a bed with torn mosquito netting, shreds of which are still hanging on the poles. A sofa to the right of the upstage door, a desk to the left. Further left, armchairs and a table, then a door leading to the hall.

PRICE is in pajamas with a blue border and a sash; ELINOR is dressed as in

Act Two, but her dress is very wrinkled. They are sitting on the sofa looking through some sort of manuscript. It’s 7:30 a.m. The blinding daylight shines through the lowered shutters. From the beginning of Act Three to a point which will be indicated, the pace of the acting must be irritatingly slow and drawn out. Long pauses.

ELINOR: (Slowly in a long drawn-out manner) It’s marvelous now. Leave it as it is. I have the feeling my husband will be here soon.

PRICE: (The same way) Just a second, just a second. I’ll just fix up the next-to-last paragraph. I’ve got to make it so perfect that no one can find fault with it. I’ve got to do what I agreed to do. Remember, I have the reputation of being Price, the genius who never slips up.

He goes to the desk and starts writing. ELINOR crosses one leg over the other, swinging it impatiently.

ELINOR: Anyhow, it’s only thanks to you that I’ve finally come to understand all this tropical demonism. Now I’m beginning to under- stand Richard. Oh! Why didn’t he ever let me know what it was all about?

PRICE: (Writing) Just a second, I’m almost finished.

ELINOR: I am sorry you’re not an artist as well a businessman. Don’t you ever write poetry, Sydney?

PRICE: (Getting up) I’m done. Poetry? No. Sometimes I paint in water colors, but it’s quite strange. Things get painted all by themselves. I don’t have anything to do with it. (Throws the paper on the table) Still, wouldn’t it be better if you went home, Ellie? By ten o’clock I’ll have to bring them at least a rough draft.

ELINOR: (Stretching) Somehow I just don’t feel like it. I don’t even know what I do feel like doing. (Suddenly) You know, I’ve got to tell you something. Nobody ever appealed to me as much as you do, Sydney. Nobody ever did. I’m telling the absolute truth. But still …

ELINOR: (Looking at him) You know what I mean. It was awful, what you did to me, but still it wasn’t at all what I’d …

PRICE: (In a broken voice) It was exactly the same for me. Today every- thing is so pale, petty, colorless, and worst of all – common. So common and ordinary that deals in coffee seem a kind of fantastic fairy tale world in comparison.

ELINOR: (Lost in thought) It’s awful.

PRICE: Yes, it’s not very cheerful. I’m also telling you the absolute truth. You didn’t appeal to me then and that’s not all. I felt something awful, something verging on the desire to commit a brutal murder, some- thing verging on superbestial madness.

ELINOR: Don’t talk like that. Last night will be repeated all over again – and then another morning just like this will happen all over again – empty and colorless as today.

PRICE: Yes – it’s ghastly. (Pause) Perhaps it’s because we’re cousins. ELINOR: And quite close ones too. But no – that’s ridiculous. This is

something far more horrible. I don’t feel that you’re real. I have the feeling that you’re a ghost, all the more terrifying because you have a body and burning lips, and such a terrible knowledge of love … I don’t even know if I love you. You’re some sort of sinister automaton.

PRICE: Don’t say anything more. I feel my life has come to an end. It already happened back then, at the Malabar Hotel. It’s only now that I understand it.

ELINOR: (Waking up from her reverie) Tell me, do you love life very much? You haven’t told me anything about yourself.

PRICE: (With irony) When have we had time for that? When you fell asleep, I immediately got down to work on that damned proposal, and I have a feeling it was the farewell performance of Price, the genius. I can’t go on with this whole business. It seems I can’t do anything at all anymore.

ELINOR: You’re not answering me, Sydney. Do you really love life? Do you very much want to go on living?

PRICE: (After a moment’s reflection) I never had that vulgar attachment to life.

ELINOR: (Suddenly radiant) But tell me, could you go on living without me now?

PRICE: (After a moment’s reflection) No. And not with you either.

ELINOR: (In a state of great excitement, getting up from the sofa) Sydney! What I’m saying may seem strange to you, but why not let me kill you? Don’t get angry at me for asking.

PRICE: (Covering his eyes with his hands as if he felt ashamed) Oh, Ellie! Do you know what you’re saying?

ELINOR: (Taking him by the hands) Yes, I do. It’d be marvelous. Let me. PRICE: (Turning his head, but not taking his hands away) You’re shameless.

This is more appalling than that whole hellish night.

ELINOR: (Passionately) Be shameless with me all the way. Give me that highest ecstasy. I don’t want to murder you. I want you to fall asleep forever in my arms. Do you have any poison?

PRICE: (Looks her into her eyes) I have some Indian poison – one drop of it injected into the veins puts a person to sleep forever.

ELINOR: (Thrilled) Give it to me …

Pause. PRICE gently frees his hands from hers and goes into the bedroom.

ELINOR sits down on the sofa and falls back slowly as if she were swooning in

the highest ecstasy. Pause. PRICE comes out of the bedroom, cheerful and calm. He gives ELINOR a little smoked-glass vial.

PRICE: Here take it. (ELINOR trembles all over as if she’d been awakened

from a dream. For a moment she looks at him wide-eyed with fear. Then she seems to recognize him and reaches out her hands toward him in ecstatic delight. PRICE falls on his knees before her, putting both his arms around her waist. He doesn’t let go of the vial in his right hand.) How beautiful you

are now. Do you have a pin?

ELINOR: Oh! You’re marvelous! You don’t know how beautiful you are now. (Unpins a brooch from her collar, looking at him all the while) This isn’t courage. It’s beyond my comprehension. What’s fighting tigers or dying on the battlefield in comparison? And yet I understand you so well, I possess you so deeply at this moment. And you understand me as no one has ever been able to understand anyone ever before. And I’m yours, as no woman has ever been or ever will be again. We are unique, there is no one else like us in the whole world. (Pause) Where’s the vial?

PRICE: (Leans his left elbow on her knees and gives her the vial) Here, take it.

(He remains kneeling, embracing her hips. ELINOR takes the vial and dips the pin from her brooch in it, carefully. She puts the stopper back on the vial and places it near her left hand on the sofa. While she does this, PRICE speaks) Prick me on the lips so you won’t be able to kiss me anymore.

You must go on living – and a kiss now could be fatal …

ELINOR: That’s just what I was thinking at this very moment. Really – we’re not two people. We’re one spirit. (Raises her right hand holding

the pin)

PRICE: (Catching her right hand with his left) Wait. How will you go on living? I want to know.

ELINOR: Something is opening up before me. An immense space, filled with the smile of Infinity.

PRICE: Don’t say another word.

ELINOR: Bite your lower lip. Give me your lips. (She pricks him lightly on

the lips while looking in his eyes. PRICE rolls over on top of her. She turns him gently to the right and watches as his eyes close. Loud knocking at the left door. Enter GOLDERS. ELINOR speaks, without turning around)

Richard! Sydney’s not feeling well. Help me.

From this point on the scene should go at normal speed.

GOLDERS: (Going over to them) Taking a walk at night wasn’t good for him. You’re looking after your darling brother very tenderly, Ellie dear.

ELINOR: He wore himself out writing. If it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t have created anything half so brilliant.

GOLDERS: You expect me to believe that. (To PRICE) Say! Sydney! Get up. The boss is talking to you. (ELINOR gets up, extricating herself with

a certain amount of difficulty from under PRICE’s corpse. Then she stretches.

GOLDERS feels PRICE’s pulse. He speaks with a certain terror.) Why, he’s dead! There’s blood coming out of his mouth!

ELINOR: (With feigned astonishment) Dead? That’s impossible. He bit his lip while be was thinking over the sixth paragraph. (She touches PRICE’s forehead)

GOLDERS: Ellie! You’ve got a suspicious look. Aren’t those your teeth the marks on the corpse’s lips? He looks like someone who’s died of a heart attack. That bluish shade. Listen, you were unfaithful to me with that idiot and the next thing you know he had a heart attack and died, you Messalina! Tell me the truth this minute!

ELINOR: Unfaithful to you with my half-brother? Have you gone mad, Richard! Messalina! For a year now I’ve been living like a nun, and you insult me and call me a Messalina. (With sudden resolution) But all the same I’ll tell you the truth. I killed Price.

GOLDERS: (Terrified) You killed him? Why? How could you do away with someone else’s property? He belonged to me and to our trust. And besides, that’s taking quite a responsibility! How did you kill him?

ELINOR: (Pointing to the vial and brooch lying on the sofa) With his own poison and that brooch. (GOLDERS seizes upon the objects mentioned

and stuffs them into his pocket.) Look out, don’t prick yourself! It’s

instant death!

ELINOR: (Looking like a little girl who’s gotten into mischief) There on the table.

GOLDERS goes to the table, takes the manuscript and glances through it.

Pause. ELINOR stays put, looking ill at ease.

GOLDERS: Marvelous. Price acquitted himself excellently before he died. Listen, Ellie. The only way out of this is for me to shoot Sydney Price’s corpse. I caught you in the very act – to judge by the look of things – understand?

ELINOR: But you can’t compromise me. That’s a horrible idea. You’ll just make a fool of yourself, that’s all.

GOLDERS: And to top it all, you appeal to me. For years you haven’t appealed to me as much as you do today. I like dangerous animals. But now even I’m beginning to talk nonsense. I don’t know how we’ll get out of this.

ELINOR: Oh, you perverse bull of a man. Oh, you naive monster.

She rubs up against him.

GOLDERS: (Taking her in his arms) Oh, damn it all, tell me what to do! ELINOR: (Caressingly) You can’t do without me – can you? Besides, I

wrote that proposal almost all myself. I dictated the most important points to him.

GOLDERS: That’s not true. That’s one thing I won’t believe.

ELINOR: (Facetiously) Didn’t I tell you the truth a moment ago, and wasn’t it a hundred times worse?

GOLDERS: But why in holy hell did you kill that poor wretch?

ELINOR: I was afraid. I was afraid I might fall in love with him. I didn’t want to be unfaithful to you. He showed me the vial, the idea came into my head and I simply couldn’t get rid of it. I admit I felt like being unfaithful to you last night. You kept pushing me in that direc- tion yourself. That’s why I went with him. Then we started writing and I didn’t feel like it anymore. But he kept begging me. Then he tried to drag me in there … (Points to the bedroom)

GOLDERS: All right, all right. But what are we going to do now? ELINOR: (After a moment’s reflection) Listen, I’m sure he’s got a revolver

on him. Take it and shoot him point blank through the heart. They’ll think it was suicide. I’ll write a letter in his handwriting. You know I can imitate anyone’s handwriting. Besides, if anyone hears the shot, we’ll say he shot and killed himself right in front of us. In any case, aim well. I’ll cover you with the pillows. Maybe no one will hear. Remember how he was always saying in public that he was in love with me. This is working out very nicely.

GOLDERS: (Looking at her dumbfounded) You know? I’m beginning to believe that it was you who wrote that proposal. Quick – give me the pillows. If he doesn’t have a revolver, I’ll shoot him down with my own.

ELINOR: (Laughing) You don’t have any reason to shoot him down now. You can just shoot him up. And don’t be sorry you’ve lost him. I’ll take his place for you. I’m going to join the company and take up business. I’ve had enough of this life of leisure. You can add my name to the firm. Now it’ll be: Golders, Fierce and Company. That’s what you were always begging me to do.

GOLDERS: (Searching PRICE’s corpse; he pulls a revolver out of the pocket) He does have a revolver. What an idea, to keep a gun in your pajamas. Give me the pillows. Really, Ellie, I feel a second honeymoon is on the way. I love you. I, Golders – really love you. (ELINOR gives him a tender look and

goes to the bedroom, returning immediately with the pillows. GOLDERS props up PRICE’s corpse on the sofa and presses the revolver against his chest.) Now

cover my hand completely on both sides.

ELINOR covers his hand and holds the pillows there. A muffled shot is heard. ELINOR drops the pillows, fluffs them up, carries them off to the bedroom and

returns instantly. GOLDERS places the revolver in PRICE’s hand.

ELINOR: There! Now I’ve got to write the letter. You know, I’m really quite impressed with you now. Killing him was child’s play. But shooting up the corpse – I couldn’t have done that. I’d be afraid he’d haunt me in the night.

GOLDERS: Didn’t he even put up any resistance? How did you do it? ELINOR: I dipped the pin in the poison while he was busy writing. He

wrote the last paragraph himself. I was so tired. When he finished, he wanted to kiss me. That’s when I pricked him.

GOLDERS: All right. But tell me the truth, why did you kill him? I keep feeling you’re hiding something from me.

ELINOR: I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t know. Understand? I don’t even know myself. I feel so good now. So light and free somehow. Besides, he used to say he didn’t want to go on living because I didn’t love him. The poor thing would simply have gone on torturing himself, and he certainly couldn’t have done it himself. I actually killed him because I felt sorry for him. But also because he would have come between us, Richard!

GOLDERS: (Kisses her passionately on the lips) I love you, Ellie! Now I know you’re mine. Blood and breeding really do count for something after all. I love you madly. For the first time in many years I feel I’m not Golders, not an automaton in the gum trade, but really a human being.

ELINOR: (Gently freeing herself from his embrace) I can see that. Let me write the letter, you great big baby! Give me Sydney’s manuscript. I’ve got to get into the spirit of his handwriting.

She takes the manuscript given her by GOLDERS and goes to the desk and writes.

GOLDERS: (Sits in the armchair, thinking; after a while) Still, damn it all, there’s something about these women that makes it impossible ever to know anything about them really and truly.

ELINOR: (Comes back with the letter and gives the manuscript to GOLDERS) Here’s what I’ve written: “Elinor! I can’t live without you. I’m your brother, but I love you with far from brotherly feelings. Yours forever, Sydney.”

GOLDERS: (Takes the sheet of paper and compares it to the manuscript) Marvelous. Put it on the desk. No one’s come. Apparently nobody heard the shot. Lucky I came here on foot.

ELINOR: There’s nobody upstairs. It’s a two-storied house. Miss Hackney, a money-lender, and some colored hanger-on of hers live downstairs. (There is a knock at the door.) Come in!

JACK: (Enters, very pale, but elegantly dressed; red spots on his face) Oh, excuse me …

GOLDERS: Mister Jack! Price killed himself here a short while ago. A frightful accident. Have they all gone deaf out there? No one’s coming.

JACK: (Looks at the corpse) Oh! How sad. (To GOLDERS) Some hideous Siamese let me in. No one out there knows anything about it. (To ELINOR) Poor Price. He was in love with you. I know all about it. I’m completely grown up. Please believe me, Mrs. Golders. I went through so much yesterday. (To GOLDERS) Mr. Golders, I slipped out of the house this morning. I went to your place. The people there told me where you’d gone. I want to start a new life. Starting at the very beginning. Just like you and Father. They don’t want to give me any money at home. I’ve got to have money of my own. I beg you, take me on as a lift-boy in your office. I know you won’t refuse me. I want to be a great businessman too. But I’ve got to start at the bottom. I won’t smoke opium! It’s revolting. If you knew how seasick it made me, and not the slightest pleasure.

GOLDERS: I like that. All right, my boy. You’ll be my lift-boy.

JACK: Thank you, sir. I knew you were a good judge of people. Papa is too, but only about people who aren’t in his own family.

ELINOR: (Goes over to JACK and hugs him) Poor boy. How much he must have gone through during the last few hours. Poor little Jack. Whenever you take me up in the lift, I’ll give you some nice candy.

And on Sunday I’ll invite you to visit us if it’s not nice for you at home. Right? You won’t say no to me?

JACK: All right, Madam. Only I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with you the way Price did. But I won’t commit suicide. I feel sorry for him, but I must say he was stupid. Life is so wonderful.

GOLDERS signals ELINOR to let go of JACK.

GOLDERS: (To his wife) You’re not that old yet, my child. (To JACK) All right, but will you say that to me in two weeks, my boy!

JACK: Certainly, sir. I have strong will power. We’ve been testing it back in Europe. I won two contests for strong will power.

Knocking at the door. Enter BRITCHELLO, BERTHA, LILY, and TOM.

BRITCHELLO: Jack! You haven’t run away again, have you? Oh! The rascal!

GOLDERS: Excuse me. Quiet please. There’s a corpse in the room. My wife and I found – (Emphatically) do you understand, Mr. Britchello, do you understand, Mr. Radcliffe – my wife and I found Sydney Price’s dead body here. He committed suicide after writing a pro- posal for the activities of our trust. That Price had a brain tough as an ox! But at the same time so subtle, like a spider web. Here’s the man- uscript. (Shows him the manuscript.) Mr. Radcliffe, I’m taking you on as secretary of our association, to take Price’s place. I hope you’ll do a good job. (To his wife) Here’s a new victim for you, Elinor. (To TOM) Mr. Price killed himself because of his unhappy love for my wife. I’m giving you fair warning, Mr. Radcliffe. That’s right. (TOM bows,

confused.) Jack’s going to be my lift-boy. (To BRITCHELLO) Don’t

waste your breath, Mr. Britchello. It was his own idea. That’s right. Isn’t that so, Mr. Jack?

JACK: Yes, Mr. Golders. You’re a second father to me. It’s like in that