Complete Poems and Plays (61 page)

R
EILLY
.
I always begin from the immediate situation

And then go back as far as I find necessary.

You see, your memories of childhood —

I mean, in your present state of mind —

Would be largely fictitious; and as for your dreams,

You would produce amazing dreams, to oblige me.

I could make you dream any kind of dream I suggested,

And it would only go to flatter your vanity

With the temporary stimulus of feeling interesting.

E
DWARD
.
But I am obsessed by the thought of my own insignificance.

R
EILLY
.
Precisely. And I could make you feel important,

And you would imagine it a marvellous cure;

And you would go on, doing such amount of mischief

As lay within your power — until you came to grief.

Half of the harm that is done in this world

Is due to people who want to feel important.

They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them.

Or they do not see it, or they justify it

Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle

To think well of themselves.

E
DWARD
.
                                   If I am like that

I must have done a great deal of harm.

R
EILLY
.
Oh, not so much as you would like to think:

Only, shall we say, within your modest capacity.

Try to explain what has happened since I left you.

E
DWARD
.
I see now why I wanted my wife to come back.

It was because of what she had made me into.

We had not been alone again for fifteen minutes

Before I felt, and still more acutely —

Indeed, acutely, perhaps, for the first time,

The whole oppression, the unreality

Of the role she had always imposed upon me

With the obstinate, unconscious, sub-human strength

That some women have. Without her, it was vacancy.

When I thought she had left me, I began to dissolve,

To cease to exist. That was what she had done to me!

I cannot live with her — that is now intolerable;

I cannot live without her, for she has made me incapable

Of having any existence of my own.

That is what she has done to me in five years together!

She has made the world a place I cannot live in

Except on her terms. I must be alone,

But not in the same world. So I want you to put me

Into your sanatorium. I could be alone there?

[
House-telephone
rings
]

R
EILLY
[
into
telephone
]
.
Yes.

[
To
E
DWARD
]
Yes, you could be alone there.

E
DWARD
.
                                                              I wonder

If you have understood a word of what I have been saying.

R
EILLY
.
You must have patience with me, Mr. Chamberlayne:

I learn a good deal by merely observing you,

And letting you talk as long as you please,

And taking note of what you do not say.

E
DWARD
.
I once experienced the extreme of physical pain,

And now I know there is suffering worse than that.

It is surprising, if one had time to be surprised:

I am not afraid of the death of the body,

But this death is terrifying. The death of the spirit —

Can you understand what I suffer?

R
EILLY
.
                                                I understand what you mean.

E
DWARD
.
I can no longer act for myself.

Coming to see you — that’s the last decision

I was capable of making. I am in your hands.

I cannot take any further responsibility.

R
EILLY
.
Many patients come in that belief.

E
DWARD
.
And now will you send me to the sanatorium?

R
EILLY
.
You have nothing else to tell me?

E
DWARD
.
                                                      What else can I tell you?

You didn’t want to hear about my early history.

R
EILLY
.
No, I did not want to hear about your
early
history.

E
DWARD
.
And so will you send me to the sanatorium?

I can’t go home again. And at my club

They won’t let you keep a room for more than seven days;

I haven’t the courage to go to a hotel,

And besides, I need more shirts — you can get my wife

To have my things sent on: whatever I shall need.

But of course you mustn’t tell her where I am.

Is it far to go?

R
EILLY
.
                You might say, a long journey.

But before I treat a patient like yourself

I need to know a great deal more about him,

Than the patient himself can always tell me.

Indeed, it is often the case that my patients

Are only pieces of a total situation

Which I have to explore. The single patient

Who is ill by himself, is rather the exception.

I have recently had another patient

Whose situation is much the same as your own.

[
Presses
the
bell
on
his
desk
three
times
]

You must accept a rather unusual procedure:

I propose to introduce you to the other patient.

E
DWARD
.
What do you mean? Who is this other patient?

I consider this very unprofessional conduct —

I will not discuss my case before another patient.

R
EILLY
.
On the contrary. That is the only way

In which it can be discussed. You have told me nothing.

You have had the opportunity, and you have said enough

To convince me that you have been making up your case

So to speak, as you went along. A barrister

Ought to know his brief before he enters the court.

E
DWARD
.
I am at least free to leave. And I propose to do so.

My mind is made up. I shall go to a hotel.

R
EILLY
.
It is just because you are not free, Mr. Chamberlayne,

That you have come to me. It is for me to give you that —

Your freedom. That is my affair.

[L
AVINIA
is shown in by
the
N
URSE-
S
ECRETARY
]

But here is the other patient.

E
DWARD
.
                                   Lavinia!

L
AVINIA
.
                                                  Well, Sir Henry!

I said I would come to talk about my husband:

I didn’t say I was prepared to meet him.

E
DWARD
.
And I did not expect to meet
you,
Lavinia.

I call this a very dishonourable trick.

R
EILLY
.
Honesty before honour, Mr. Chamberlayne.

Sit down, please, both of you. Mrs. Chamberlayne,

Your husband wishes to enter a sanatorium,

And that is a question which naturally concerns you.

E
DWARD
.
I am not going to any sanatorium.

I am going to a hotel. And I shall ask you, Lavinia,

To be so good as to send me on some clothes.

L
AVINIA
.
Oh, to what hotel?

E
DWARD.
                               I don’t know — I mean to say,

That doesn’t concern you.

L
AVINIA
.
                                 In that case, Edward,

I don’t think your clothes concern me either.

[
To
R
EILLY
]
I presume you will send him to the same sanatorium

To which you sent me? Well, he needs it more than I did.

R
EILLY
.
I am glad that you have come to see it in that light —

At least, for the moment. But, Mrs. Chamberlayne,

You have never visited my sanatorium.

L
AVINIA
.
What do you mean? I asked to be sent

And you took me there. If that was not a sanatorium

What was it?

R
EILLY
.
             A kind of hotel. A retreat

For people who imagine that they need a respite

From everyday life. They return refreshed;

And if they believe it to be a sanatorium

That is good reason for not sending them to one.

The people who need my sort of sanatorium

Are not easily deceived.

L
AVINIA
.
                              Are you a devil

Or merely a lunatic practical joker?

E
DWARD
.
I incline to the second explanation

Without the qualification ‘lunatic’.

Why should
you
go to a sanatorium?

I have never known anyone in my life

With fewer mental complications than you;

You’re stronger than a … battleship. That’s what drove me mad.

I am the one who needs a sanatorium —

But I’m not going there.

R
EILLY
.
                               You are right, Mr. Chamberlayne.

You are no case for my sanatorium:

You are much too ill.

E
DWARD
.
                        Much too ill?

Then I’ll go and be ill in a suburban boarding-house.

L
AVINIA
.
That would never suit you, Edward. Now I know of a hotel