Page:The Dial (Volume 73).djvu/586
NONA: Alone in his bed indeed. I know that long poem, that one with all the verses; I know it to my hurt, though I haven't read a word of it. Four lines in every verse, four beats in every line, and fourteen verses—my curse upon it!
DECIMA (taking out a manuscript from her bodice): Yes, fourteen verses. There are numbers to them.
NONA: You have another there—ten verses all in fours and threes.
DECIMA (looking at another manuscript): Yes, the verses are in fours and threes. But how do you know all this? I carry them here. They are a secret between him and me, and nobody can see them till they have lain a long while upon my heart.
NONA: They have lain upon your heart, but they were made upon my shoulder. Ay, and down along my spine in the small hours of the morning; so many beats a line, and for every beat a tap of the fingers.
DECIMA: My God!
NONA: That one with the fourteen verses kept me from my sleep two hours, and when the lines were finished he lay upon his back another hour waving one arm in the air, making up the music. I liked him well enough to seem to be asleep through it all, and many another poem too—but when he made up that short one you sang he was so pleased that he muttered the words all about his lying alone in his bed thinking of you, and that made me mad. So I said to him, am I not beautiful? Turn round and look. Oh, I cut it short, for even I can please a man when there is but one candle. (She takes a pair of scissors that are hanging round her neck and begins snipping at the dress for Noah's wife.) And now you know why I can play the part in spite of you and not be driven out. Work upon Septimus if you have a mind for it. Little need I care. I will slip this a trifle and restitch it again—I have a needle and thread ready. (The Stage Manager comes in ringing a bell. He s followed by various Players all dressed up in the likeness of various beasts.)
STAGE MANAGER: Put on that mask—get into your clothes. Why are you standing there as if in a trance?
NONA: Decima and I have talked the matter over and we have settled that I am to play the part.
STAGE MANAGER: Do as you please. Thank God it's a part that anybody can play. All you hawe got to do is to copy an old woman's squeaky voice. We are all here now but Septimus and we cannot wait for him. I will read the part of Noah. He will be here before we are finished, I dare say. We will suppose that the audience is upon this side, and that the Ark is over there with a gangway for the beasts to climb. All you beasts are to crowd up on the prompt side. Lay down Noah's hat and cloak there till Septimus comes. As the first scene is between Noah and the beasts you can go on with your sewing.
DECIMA: No, I must be heard. My husband has been spending his nights with Nona, and that is why she sits clipping and stitching with that vainglorious air.
NONA: She made him miserable, she knows every trick of breaking a man's heart—he came to me with his troubles—I seemed to be a comfort to him, and now—why should I deny it?—he is my lover.
DECIMA: I will take the vainglory out of her. I have been a plague to him.