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Come Little Children: The Voices of PoeScene 1
[A clock tolls, for an indefinite amount of time – it is no certain time, but a moment lost in eternity. The stage is dark. Three spots come up, highlighting a triangle of persons: two on upstage pillars, and one down stage center.]
GRANDMOTHER and VOICES (HORROR AND FATALITY):
Horror and Fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a date to the story I have to tell? Let it suffice to say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves–that is, of their falsity or of their probability–I say nothing. I assert, however, that much of our incredulity comes from the inability to be alone.
[Lights dimly come up DSR. It is a poor but neat bedroom. A bed is SR, with an old rocking chair CS. She walks to the chair.]
VOICES:
Come little children
I'll take thee away, into a land
of Enchantment
Come little children
the time's come to play
here in my garden
of Shadows
Follow sweet children
I'll show thee the way
through all the pain and
the Sorrows
Weep not poor children
for life is this way
murdering beauty and
Passions
Hush now dear children
it must be this way
to weary of life and
Deceptions
Rest now my children
for soon we'll away
into the calm and
the Quiet
GRANDMOTHER:
Come little children
the time's come to play
here in my garden
of Shadows
[Shouting from offstage. US fade out. Two children, LENORE and ELEONORA, run in from DS, screaming over each other.]
GRANDMOTHER:
Girls!
ELEONORA:
Grannie! Make Lenore stop it!
LENORE:
Stop being a baby! I didn’t do anything! She’s just a baby! Baby!
ELEONORA:
I’m not a baby! She saw that I’d losted a tooth, and said that it was the bogey man who killed little girls and stoled their teeth!
LENORE:
Baby!
ELEONORA:
Make her say she’s sorry, Grannie!
GRANDMOTHER:
Lenore! Apologize to your sister right this instant!
LENORE:
[pauses]. Sorry.
GRANDMOTHER:
There, that’s better. Now, back to bed, with the both of you!
LENORE:
No! Tell us a story!
ELEONORA:
Yeh! A story!
GRANDMOTHER:
Alright. What story would you like to hear?
ELEONORA:
Let’s hear…one of Uncle Eddie’s stories!
LENORE:
Yeah! The one about [mispronouncing] Toby Dammit!
GRANDMOTHER:
Lenore! You know that’s not how you say that name! Very well. I will tell you about your Uncle Eddie’s and my friends from our childhood, Toby Dammit, and Rufus.
“Let the dead suffer no injury.” “Of the dead, say nothing but good.” Excellent laws. It is not my design, therefore, to criticize my deceased friend, TOBY DAMMIT.
[As she has read, the lights have come up on SL. It is mostly empty. Two men are on stage The SR lights fade out.]
DAMMIT:
[With Pride] My precocity in vice is awful. At five months of age I used to get into such passions that I was unable to articulate. At six months, I was caught gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months I was in the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. Thus I went on, month after month, until, at the close of my first year, I not only insisted upon wearing moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and for backing my assertions by bets.
RUFUS:
Having become a man, he can scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually lays wagers.
DAMMIT:
I would as soon lay eggs! It is a mere formula- nothing more. My expressions have no meaning attached to them whatever. They are simple if not altogether innocent expletives–imaginative phrases wherewith to round off a sentence. When I say "I'll bet you so and so,"…
RUFUS:
…nobody ever thinks of taking him up; but still I cannot help thinking it my duty to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and so I told him: Dammit! Your habit is immoral! I beg you to believe me. It is vulgar! It is discountenanced by society! It is forbidden by Congress! I entreat you! I implore you!
[RUFUS starts a fight. After a brief tussle, DAMMIT throws RUFUS off of him.]
DAMMIT:
I bet the Devil my head that you won’t try that one again!
RUFUS:
This form seems to please him best, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a man betting his brains like bank-notes.
DAMMIT:
I would be obliged if you would hold your tongue. I want none of your advice. I am old enough to take care of myself, or do you think me still a baby? Would you say any thing against my character? Did you intend to insult me? Are you a fool? [mischievously] Does your mother know that you’re out?
RUFUS:
What?
DAMMIT:
I demand to know whether or not your mother knows that you are out!
[RUFUS does not respond.]
DAMMIT:
Ha! Your confusion betrays you. I bet the Devil my head that your mother, in fact, does not know that you are out.
[DAMMIT stomps off. RUFUS is bewildered.]
RUFUS:
Why you! Why! I’ll take you up on your wager, just you wait and see! My Arch-Enemy is that which abides on your shoulders! And, as if it’s any of your business, my mama’s knows where I am, and knows that I’ll be back at…
[RUFUS pulls out a watch, and runs off stage. The SL lights fade out as the lights come up on SR. ELEONORA AND LENORE are snoring loudly.]
GRANDMOTHER:
Rest now my children
for soon we'll away
into the calm and
the Quiet
LENORE:
[waking] Grannie, this story is boring.
ELEONORA:
Yeah, isn’t anything exciting going to happen? This doesn’t sound like an Uncle Eddie story.
GRANDMOTHER:
Oh? You’re bored? Then perhaps you don’t want me to continue, and you should just go off to bed?
LENORE AND ELEONORA:
No!
[The lights fade to half SR, and return SL. There is a bench onstage. RUFUS and DAMMIT re-enter, separately.]
RUFUS:
Well, I have done all that may be required of me, in the case of this miserable individual. I will trouble him no longer with my counsel, but leave him to his conscience and himself. [hesitates] But, although I forbear to intrude with my advice, I cannot bring myself to give up his society altogether.
[RUFUS and DAMMIT make-up.]
GRANDMOTHER:
One fine day, having strolled out together, arm in arm, Rufus and Toby’s route came to a river. There was a bridge. It was roofed over and the archway was thus very uncomfortably dark.
[SR lights fade out.]
DAMMIT:
I’d bet the Devil my head that you are scared!
RUFUS:
I am not!
DAMMIT:
No? You’re not scared of doing…say…this?
[DAMMIT begins playing around on bench]
RUFUS:
Stop! My mother told me you can hurt yourself doing that!
[DAMMIT laughs. He then spots something that is downstage.]
DAMMIT:
Hey there! See that turnstile! Why, I dare you to jump that!
RUFUS:
Which, that? It’s impossible!
DAMMIT:
Not so! I could jump it, and do a pigeon-wing over it!
RUFUS:
Lies! Braggart, you cannot do it!
DAMMIT:
No? Well, I’ll bet the Devil my head that I can do it!
[FATALITY enters from CS.]
FATALITY:
Ahem.
[RUFUS looks around, and finds FATALITY standing next to him. He starts to speak.]
FATALITY:
Ahem!
RUFUS:
Dammit, what are you about? Don’t you hear? Dammit! The gentleman says ‘ahem!’
DAMMIT:
You don’t say so? Are you quite sure he said that? Well, at all events I am in for it now, and may as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes then – ahem!
[FATALITY approaches DAMMIT, shakes his hand.]
FATALITY:
I am quite sure you will win it, Dammit. But we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake of mere form.
DAMMIT:
Ahem! Ahem. Ahem.
[DAMMIT begins to stretch, with all appearances of great seriousness.]
DAMMIT:
Ahem.
[FATALITY takes DAMMIT by the hand. Leads him upstage.]
FATALITY:
My good fellow, I make it a point of conscience to allow you this much run. Wait here, till I take my place by the stile, so that I may see whether you go over it. And don't omit any flourishes of the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I will say 'one, two, three, and away.' Mind you, start at the word 'away.’
[FATALITY walks downstage.]
RUFUS:
What right, has the old gentleman to make any other gentleman jump?
VOICES:
One.
RUFUS:
The little old dot-and-carry-one! Who is he?
VOICES:
Two.
RUFUS:
If he asks me to jump, I won't do it, that's flat.
VOICES:
Three.
RUFUS:
And I don't care who the devil he is!
VOICES:
And Away!
[DAMMIT runs, and jumps. The lights go out. A thump is heard.]
RUFUS:
How still he lies. His feelings must have been hurt – after all, he has lost his bet. Dammit, get up! Dammit!
[Lights come up on the upstage pillars, and on SR.]
FATALITY:
More than his feelings, however, had been hurt. He had received what might be termed a serious injury. He has been deprived of his head, which could not be found anywhere.
GRANDMOTHER:
About five feet just above the turnstile, crossing the arch of the foot-path, was a brace. With the edge of this brace it appeared evident that the neck of our unfortunate friend had come precisely in contact.
[Lights fade out SR. Lights come up SL. RUFUS stands alone.]
RUFUS:
He did not long survive his terrible loss. I sent for the doctors, but he would not take his medicine. In the end he grew worse, and at length died. I bedewed his grave with my tears, and, for the general expenses of his funeral, sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The scoundrels refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once, and sold him for dog's meat.
[Black out.]
Scene 2
[Lights up DSR.]
ELEONORA:
Why’d he sell him for dog’s meat?
LENORE:
‘Cause he was a baby. Like you. Grannie, can we sell Eleonora for dog’s meat?
GRANDMOTHER:
Lenore! Hush, you’re scaring your sister!
LENORE:
Only cause she’s a baby.
ELEONORA:
Am not!
LENORE:
Prove it! Grannie will tell us another story, scarier, and you can’t cry.
ELEONORA:
I can do that!
GRANDMOTHER:
Children! It’s time for bed!
LENORE:
Awww, please? One last story?
GRANDMOTHER:
[pauses] Alright. But this is your last story. ‘We who read are still among the living;
[DSR lights out. The US lights come up.]
HORROR:
but we who write shall have long since gone our ways into the region of shadows. Strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.
[US lights fade out as DSL come up. The ACTORS are seated around a small table. There is also a CORPSE, on the floor, covered in a black shroud.]
ACTOR:
The year had been a year of terror, and of feelings more intense than terror for which there is no name upon the earth.
ACTOR:
These peculiar spirits made themselves manifest, not only in the physical orb of the earth, but in the souls,
ACTOR:
imaginations,
ACTOR:
and meditations of mankind.
ACTOR:
Over some flasks of wine, within the walls of a noble hall, we sat, at night.
ACTOR:
And to our chamber there was no entrance, save by a lofty door of brass and was fastened from within. Black draperies shut out from our view the moon, the lurid stars, and the peopleless streets–
ACTOR:
–but the boding and the memory of Evil they would not be so excluded. There were things around us and about us–
ACTOR:
–things material and spiritual–
ACTOR:
–heaviness in the atmosphere–
ACTOR:
–a sense of suffocation–
ACTOR:
–anxiety–
ACTOR:
–that terrible state of existence which the nervous experience when the senses are keenly living and awake–
ACTOR:
–meanwhile the powers of thought lie dormant. A dead weight hung upon us; and all things were depressed, and borne down thereby.
ACTOR:
Yet we laughed and were merry in our proper way–which was hysterical; and sang the songs of madness; and drank deeply–although the purple wine reminded us of blood.
ACTOR:
For there was yet another tenant of our chamber. Dead, and at full length he lay, enshrouded; the genius and the demon of the scene.
ACTOR:
Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that he seemed to take such interest in our merriment as the dead may haply take in the merriment of those who are to die.
ACTOR:
But although I felt that the eyes of the departed were upon me, still I sang with a loud and sonorous voice. But gradually my songs they ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar off among the sable draperies of the chamber, became weak, and undistinguishable, and so faded away.
[HORROR enters USC.]
ACTOR:
And lo! from among those sable draperies where the sounds of the song departed, there came forth a shadow–
ACTOR:
–a shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven, might fashion from the figure of a man:
ACTOR:
–but it was the shadow neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And quivering awhile among the draperies of the room, it at length rested in full view upon the surface of the door of brass.
ACTOR:
And the shadow rested upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature of the door, and moved not, nor spoke any word–
ACTOR:
–but there became stationary and remained.
ACTOR:
But we having seen the shadow as it came out from among the draperies, dared not steadily behold it.
ACTOR:
And at length, I, speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling and its appellation.
HORROR:
I am SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal.
[HORROR pulls off the shroud. It is LENORE’S CORPSE. ELEONORA runs to the edge of the light, trying to reach the CORPSE. The GRANDMOTHER stands and walks to the CORPSE.]
LENORE:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of Shadow…
GRANDMOTHER:
Follow sweet children
I'll show thee the way
through all the pain and
the Sorrows
Weep not poor children
for life is this way
murdering beauty and
Passions
Hush now dear children
it must be this way
to weary of life and
Deceptions
[Blackout]
Scene 3
[DS spot up.]
VOICES:
True! -nervous -very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and–
ELEONORA:
–am; but why will you say that–that
VOICES:
–you are mad!
ELEONORA:
No! The disease had sharpened my senses–not destroyed–not dulled them. Above all is the sense of hearing acute. I hear all things in the heaven and in the earth. I hear many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?
FATALITY:
By degrees–
ELEONORA:
How first the idea entered my brain:
HORROR:
very gradually–
ELEONORA:
It haunted me!
FATALITY:
take the life of the old one!
ELEONORA:
I loved her!
HORROR:
rid thyself of her forever!
ELEONORA
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad.
HORROR:
Madmen know nothing!
ELEONORA:
You should have seen me! You should have seen how wisely I proceeded
FATALITY:
–with what caution
HORROR:
–with what foresight
ELEONORA:
–I–
FATALITY:
–killed her.
ELEONORA:
That night, I turned the latch of her door and opened it–oh so gently! Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers
HORROR:
–of my sagacity.
ELEONORA:
I had made an opening sufficient for my head and I thrust it in. Oh, to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly–very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old one’s sleep.
GRANDMOTHER:
Who’s there?
ELEONORA:
She was still sitting up in the bed listening.
[GRANDMOTHER groans.]
HORROR:
It was the groan of mortal terror, the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe.
ELEONORA:
I knew the sound well. It has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I knew what the old one felt. Her fears had been growing upon her. She had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. Yes, she had been trying to comfort herself with these suppositions: but she had found all in vain. All in vain; [giggles hysterically]
FATALITY:
because Death, in approaching her had stalked with her black shadow before her, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused her to feel–although she neither saw nor heard–to feel the presence within the room.
ELEONORA:
And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?–now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old one’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old one’s terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me–
HORROR:
the sound will be heard by a neighbor!
FATALITY:
The old one’s hour has come!
[ELEONORA leaps at GRANDMOTHER. She screams. There is a brief tussle. The HEARTBEAT continues]
ELEONORA:
There was no pulsation. She was–
HORROR:
stone dead.
ELEONORA:
The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. So cunningly, that no human eye could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out–no stain of any kind–no blood-spot whatever.
[A knock is heard off stage. ELEONORA answers, and brings on an OFFICER, played by LENORE, followed by the VOICES.]
OFFICER:
Good evening, my dear. Is Miss Annabel in? Your neighbors reported a shriek earlier tonight, and we were sent to check in on you
FATALITY:
and your sister
HORROR:
and your grandmother.
ELEONORA:
Welcome, sirs. The shriek, I fear, was my own in a dream. As for my grandmother, she is absent in the country. [Aside] I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search–search well. I led them, at length, to her chamber. I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.
[HEARTBEAT louder. The VOICES prowl around ELEONORA. The OFFICER rambles on, while ELEONORA speaks.]
ELEONORA:
The officers were satisfied. They sat, and we chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears.
FATALITY:
The ringing became more distinct:
HORROR:
–It continued and became more distinct:
ELEONORA:
I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness–until, at length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.
No doubt I now grew very pale;–but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased–and what could I do?
HORROR:
It was a low, dull, quick sound
FATALITY:
–much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.
ELEONORA:
I gasped for breath
HORROR:
He hears it not.
ELEONORA:
I talked more quickly–more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased.
FATALITY:
He will not be gone.
ELEONORA:
Oh God! what could I do? I foamed–I raved–I swore! It grew louder –louder–louder!
HORROR:
He smiles!
ELEONORA:
Almighty God! -no, no!
FATALITY:
He hears!
HORROR:
–he suspects!
FATALITY:
–he knows!
HORROR:
–he makes a mockery of my horror!
ELEONORA:
I can bear that hypocritical smile no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now–again!–hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!
"Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed!–tear up the planks! here, here!–It is the beating of her hideous heart!"
[VOICES pounces on ELEONORA.]
[Black-out.]
Fin.
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Comments: 2
Me toooo....I re read it to add in paragraphs and things and...yeah. It wasn't bad, was it?
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