Page:Representative American plays.pdf/848

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WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY
831
this is not the time. Perhaps you are not ready.
Michaelis. What does that matter? He is ready.
(He points at the map.)
Rhoda. (Gazing at the map, with mystic conviction.) You will succeed! You must succeed! (He paces the room. She stops him, pointing toward the hall door.) How is the child? (He hesitates. She repeats the words anxiously.) How is the child? (He shakes his head gloomily for answer.) It will get well, I am sure.
Michaelis. If it does not, I am judged.
Rhoda. Oh, don't say that or think it!
Michaelis. I am weighed in the balance and found wanting!
Rhoda. You cannot hang the whole issue and meaning of your life upon so slight a thread.
Michaelis. The whole issue and meaning of the world hang on threads as slight. If this one is slight. To the mother it is not slight, nor to the God who put into her eyes, as she looked at me, all the doubt and question of the suffering earth.
Rhoda. You must remember that it is only a little child. Its mind is not open. You cannot influence it—can you?
Michaelis. Once that little life in my hand would have been as clay in the hands of the potter. If I cannot help now, it is because my ministry has been taken from me and given to another, who will be strong where I am weak, and faithful where I am unfaithful.
(Another song rises outside, distant.)
Rhoda. (Comes closer to him.) Tell me this. Speak plainly to me. Is it because of me that your weakness and unfaith have come upon you? Is it because of me?
Michaelis. (Looking at her steadily.) Yes.— (He comes nearer.) Before creation, beyond time, God not yet risen from His sleep, you stand and call to me, and I listen in a dream that I dreamed before Eden.
Rhoda. (Shrinking from him.) You must not say such things to me.—You must not think of me so.—You must not!
(He follows her, his passion mounting.)
Michaelis. All my life long I have known you, and fled from you, I have heard you singing on the hills of sleep and have fled from you into the waking day. I have seen you in the spring forest, dancing and throwing your webs of sunlight to snare me; on moonlit mountains, laughing and calling; in the streets of crowded cities, beckoning and disappearing in the crowd—and everywhere I have fled from you, holding above my head the sign of God's power in me, my gift and my mission.—What use? What use? It has crumbled, and I do not care!
Rhoda. Oh, don't speak such words, I beseech you. Let me go. This must not, shall not be!
(She makes another attempt to escape. He presses upon her until she stands at bay.)
Michaelis. You are all that I have feared and shunned and missed on earth, and now I have you, the rest is as nothing. (He takes her, feebly resisting, into his arms.) I know a place out there, high in the great mountains. Heaven-piercing walls of stone, a valley of trees and sweet water in the midst—grass and flowers, such flowers as you have never dreamed could grow.—There we will take our happiness. A year—a month—a day—what matter? We will make a lifetime of each hour!
Rhoda. (Yielding to his embrace, whispers.) Don't talk. Don't think. Only—love me. A little while. A little while.
(The deep hush of their embrace is broken by a cry from within. The young mother opens the hall door, in a distraction of terror and grief.)
Mother. Come here! Come quick! (Michaelis and Rhoda draw apart. He stares at the woman, as if not remembering who she is.) I can't rouse him! My baby's gone. Oh, my God, he's dead!
(She disappears. Rhoda follows, drawing Michaelis, dazed and half resisting, with her. The room remains vacant for a short time, the stage held by distant singing. Beeler enters from the kitchen. There is a knock at the outer door, which he opens. Littlefield, Culpepper, and Uncle Abe enter.)
Littlefield. Your man has n't vamoosed, has he? Uncle Abe here says he saw the Indian boy slipping by in the fog.
Beeler. (Turns to the negro inquiringly.) Alone?
Uncle Abe. (Mumbles half to himself.) 'Lone. 'Spec' he was alone. Did n't
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