this time. I sent it to Lady Jedburgh's with a note. Lady Windermere. Arthur, would you mind seeing if Mrs. Erlynne's carriage has come back? Mrs. Erlynne. Pray don't, trouble Lord Windermere, Lady Windermere. Lady Windermere. Yes, Arthur, do go, please. (LORD WINDERMERE hesitates for a moment and looks at MRS. ERLYNNE. She remains quite impassive. He leaves the room) (To MRS. ERLYNNE) Oh! What am I to say to you? You saved me last night! (Goes torward her) Mrs. Erlynne. Hush-don't speak of it. Lady Windermere. I must speak of it. I can't let you think I am going to accept this sacrifice. I am not. It is too great. I am going to tell my husband everything. It is my duty. Mrs. Erlynne. It is not your duty at least you have duties to others besides him. You say you owe me something? Lady Windermere. I owe you everything. Mrs. Erlynne. Then pay your debt by silence. That is the only way in which it can be paid. Don't spoil the one good. thing I have done in my life by telling it to anyone. Promise me that what passed last night will remain a secret between us. You must not bring misery into your husband's life. Why spoil his love? You must not spoil it. Love is easily killed. Oh, how easily love is killed! Pledge me your word, Lady Windermere, that you will never tell him. I insist upon it. Lady Windermere. (With bowed head) It is your will, not mine. Mrs. Erlynne. Yes, it is my will. And never forget your child-I like to think of you as a mother. I like you to think of yourself as one. Lady Windermere. (Looking up) I always will now. Only once in my life I have forgotten my own mother-that was last night. Oh, if I had remembered her, I should not have been so foolish, so wicked. Mrs. Erlynne. (With a slight shudder) Hush, last night is quite over. (Enter LORD WINDERMERE) Lord Windermere. Your carriage has not come back yet, Mrs. Erlynne. Mrs. Erlynne. It makes no matter. I'll take a hansom. There is nothing in the world so respectable as a good Shrewsbury and Talbot. And now, dear Lady Windermere, I am afraid it is really goodby. (Moves UP C.) Oh, I remember. You'll think me absurd, but do you know, I've taken a great fancy to this fan that I was silly enough to run away with last night from your ball. Now I wonder would you give it to me? Lord Windermere says you may. I know it is his present. Lady Windermere. Oh, certainly, if it will give you any pleasure. But it has my name on it. It has "Margaret" on it. Mrs. Erlynne. But we have the same Christian name. Lady Windermere. Oh, I forgot. Of course, do have it. What a wonderful chance our names being the same! Mrs. Erlynne. Quite wonderful. Thanks it will always remind me of you. (Shakes hands with her) (Enter PARKER) Parker. Lord Augustus Lorton. Mrs. Erlynne's carriage has come. (Enter LORD AUGUSTUS) Lord Augustus. Good-morning, dear boy. Good-morning, Lady Windermere. (Sees MRS. ERLYNNE) Mrs. Erlynne! Mrs. Erlynne. How do you do, Lord Augustus? Are you quite well this morning? Lord Augustus. (Coldly) Quite well, thank you, Mrs. Erlynne. Mrs. Erlynne. You don't look at all well, Lord Augustus. You stop up too late-it is so bad for you. You really should take care of yourself. Good-by, Lord Windermere. (Goes towards door with a bow to LORD AUGUSTUS. Suddenly smiles, and looks back at him) Lord Augustus! Won't you see me to my carriage? You might carry the fan. Lord Windermere. Allow me! Mrs. Erlynne. No, I want Lord Augustus. I have a special message for the dear Duchess. Won't you carry the fan, Lord Augustus? Lord Augustus. If you really desire it, Mrs. Erlynne. Mrs. Erlynne. (Laughing) Of course I do. You'll carry it so gracefully. You would carry off anything gracefully, dear Lord Augustus. (When she reaches the door she looks back for a moment at LADY WINDERMERE. Their eyes meet. Then she turns, and exit c., followed by LORD AUGUSTUS) Lady Windermere. You will never speak against Mrs. Erlynne again, Arthur, will you? Lord Windermere. (Smiling as he strokes her hair) Child, you and she belong to different worlds. Into your world evil has never entered. Lady Windermere. Don't say that, Arthur. There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice. Lord Windermere. (Moves DOWN with her) Darling, why do you say that? Lady Windermere. (Sits on sofa) Because I, who had shut my eyes to life, came to the brink. And one who had separated us Lord Windermere. We were never parted. Lady Windermere. We never must be again. Oh. Arthur, don't love me less, and I will trust you more. I will trust you absolutely. Let us go to Selby. In the Rose Garden at Selby, the roses are white and red. (Enter LORD Augustus c.) Lord Augustus. Arthur, she has explained everything! (LADY WINDERMERE looks horribly frightened. LORD WINDERMERE starts. LORD AUGUSTUS takes LORD WINDERMERE by the arm, and brings him to front of stage) My dear fellow, she has explained every demmed thing. We all wronged her immensely. It was entirely for my sake she went to Darlington's rooms-called first at the club. Fact is, wanted to put me out of suspense, and being told I had gone on, followednaturally-frightened when she heard a lot of men coming in-retired to another room-I assure you, most gratifying to me, the whole thing. We all behaved brutally to her. She is just the woman for me. Suits me down to the ground. All the condition she makes is that we live out of England-a very good thing, too!-Demmed clubs, demmed climate, demmed cooks, demmed everything! Sick of it all. Lady Windermere. (Frightened) Has Mrs. Erlynne Lord Augustus. (Advancing towards her with a bow) Yes, Lady Windermere, Mrs. Erlynne has done me the honor of accepting my hand.. Lord Windermere. Well, you are certainly marrying a very clever woman. Lady Windermere. (Taking her husband's hand) Ah! you're marrying a very good woman. CURTAIN 1 THE SHORT STORY: RUDYARD KIPLING THE story that is short, as distinguished from the story of greater length, is not a new form of narrative, being as old as fiction itself. Under the guidance of Poe, however, and, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, of Stevenson and others, it took on certain characteristics of unity and brevity that brought it recognition as a distinct literary type, differentiated from other forms of fiction. The aim of the short story is to produce a single narrative effect,-a bit of human character. revealed in a crisis, a dramatic situation interesting in itself, some great truth of human life flashing out picturesquely. Incidents tend to become a means to an end, and are important mainly as they contribute to the effect which the writer, obeying the laws of unity, has clearly in mind. The complexity of modern life has unquestionably aided the popularity of the short story, for the demand it makes upon the reader is brief. Those who live at high tension appreciate fiction that goes right to the heart of the matter and portrays life tersely and suggestively. Not a few of the most significant writers of recent years have been drawn to this form of literature and some of them, like Mr. Kipling, have written numerous stories that can be grouped together because of having the same general background. With Mr. Kipling it is most frequently the life of the British in India. Mr. Rudyard Kipling, journalist, poet, and writer of prose fiction, has seen much of the world. Born in India, he was educated in England and showed during his school days a talent for writing. At the age of seventeen he became attached to a newspaper in Lahore and contributed both poems and stories. He then came to know well the conditions of Anglo-Indian life and the interests and habits of thought of the native population. The Britisher far from home in an enervating climate, the clash of race with race, the life of leisure among officers in army posts, and the British Tommy in barracks as well as in action, all interested him and have become known to the world through his pen. During later years Mr. Kipling has traveled much, has given much of his attention to questions of importance in national life, and the backgrounds of his stories have shifted. The selections here given are from two of the earlier volumes, Plain Tale: from the Hills and Mine Own People. She was the daughter of Sonoo, a Hillman of the Himalayas, and Jadeh his wife. One year their maize failed, and two bears spent the night in their only opium poppy-field just above the Sutlej Valley on the Kotgarh side; so, next season, they turned Christian, and brought their baby to the Mission to be baptized. The Kotgarh Chaplain christened her Elizabeth, and "Lispeth" is the Hill or pahari pronunciation. Later, cholera came into the Kotgarh Valley and carried off Sonoo and Jadeh, and Lispeth became half servant, half companion to the wife of the then Chaplain of Kotgarh. This was after the reign of the Moravian missionaries in that place, but before Kotgarh had quite forgotten her title of "Mistress of the Northern Hills." Whether Christianity improved Lispeth, or whether the gods of her own people would have done as much for her under any circumstances, I do not know; but she grew very lovely. When a Hillgirl grows lovely she is worth traveling fifty miles over bad ground to look upon. Lispeth had a Greek face-one of those faces people paint so often, and see so seldom. She was of a pale, ivory color, and, for her race, extremely tall. Also, she possessed eyes that were wonderful; and, had she not been dressed in the abominable print-cloths affected by Missions, you would, meeting her on the hillside, unexpectedly, have thought her the original Diana of the Romans going out to slay. Lispeth took to Christianity readily, and did not abandon it when she reached womanhood, as do some Hill-girls. Her own people hated her because she had, they said, become a white woman and washed herself daily; and the Chaplain's wife did not know what to do with her. One cannot ask a stately goddess, five foot ten in her shoes, to clean plates and dishes. She played with the Chaplain's children and took classes in the SundaySchool, and read all the books in the house, and grew more and more beautiful, like the Princesses in fairy tales. The Chaplain's wife said that the girl ought to take service in Simla as a nurse or something "genteel." But Lispeth did not want to take service. She was very happy where she was. When travelers-there were not many in those years came in to Kotgarh, Lispeth used to lock herself into her own room for fear they might take her away to Simla, or out into the unknown world. One day, a few months after she was seventeen years old, Lispeth went out for a walk. She did not walk in the manner of English ladies-a mile and a half out, with a carriage-ride back again. She covered between twenty and thirty miles in her little constitutionals, all about and about, between Kotgarh and Narkunda. This time she came back at full dusk, stepping down the breakneck descent into Kotgarh with something heavy in her arms. The Chaplain's wife was dozing in the drawing-room when Lispeth came in breathing heavily and very exhausted with her burden. Lispeth put it down on the sofa, and said simply, "This is my husband. I found him on the Bagi Road. He has hurt himself. We will nurse him, and when he is well, your husband shall marry him to me." This was the first mention Lispeth had ever made of her matrimonial views, and the Chaplain's wife shrieked with horror. However, the man on the sofa needed attention first. He was a young Englishman, and his head had been cut to the bone by something jagged. Lispeth said she had found him down the hillside, and had brought him in. He was breathing queerly and was unconscious. He was put to bed and tended by the Chaplain, who knew something of medicine; and Lispeth waited outside the door in case she could be useful. She explained to the Chaplain that this was the man she meant to marry; and the Chaplain and his wife lectured her severely on the impropriety of her conduct. Lispeth listened. quietly, and repeated her first proposition. It takes a great deal of Christianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, such as falling in love at first. sight. Lispeth, having found the man she worshipped, did not see why she should keep silent as to her choice. She had no intention of being sent away, either. She was going to nurse that Englishman until he was well enough to marry her. This was her program. After a fortnight of slight fever and inflammation, the Englishman recovered coherence and thanked the Chaplain and his wife, and Lispeth-especially Lispeth -for their kindness. He was a traveler in the East, he said-they never talked about "globe-trotters" in those days, when the P. & O. fleet was young and smalland had come from Dehra Dun to hunt for plants and butterflies among the Simla hills. No one at Simla, therefore, knew anything about him. He fancied that he must have fallen over the cliff while reaching out for a fern on a rotten tree-trunk, and that his coolies must have stolen his baggage and fled. He thought he would go back to Simla when he was a little stronger. He desired no more mountaineering. He made small haste to go away, and recovered his strength slowly. Lispeth objected to being advised either by the Chaplain or his wife; therefore the latter spoke to the Englishman, and told him. how matters stood in Lispeth's heart. He laughed a good deal, and said it was very pretty and romantic, but, as he was engaged to a girl at Home, he fancied that nothing would happen. Certainly he would behave with discretion. He did that. Still he found it very pleasant to talk to Lispeth, and walk with Lispeth, and say nice things to her, and call her pet names while he was getting strong enough to go away. It meant nothing at all to him, and everything in the world to Lispeth. She was very happy while the fortnight lasted, because she had found a man to love. Being a savage by birth, she took not trouble to hide her feelings, and the Englishman was amused. When he went away, Lispeth walked with him up the Hill as far as Narkunda, very troubled and very miserable. The Chaplain's wife, being a good Christian and disliking any.. thing in the shape of fuss or scandalLispeth was beyond her management entirely-had told the Englishman to tell Lispeth that he was coming back to marry her. "She is but a child you know, and, I fear, at heart a heathen," said the Chaplain's wife. So all the twelve miles up the Hill the Englishman, with his arm round Lispeth's waist, was assuring the girl that he would come back and marry her; and Lispeth made him promise over and over again. She wept on the Narkunda Ridge till he had passed out of sight along the Muttiani path. Then she dried her tears and went into Kotgarh again, and said to the Chaplain's wife, "He will come back and marry me. He has gone to his own people to tell them And the Chaplain's wife soothed Lispeth and said, "He will come back." At the end of two months, Lispeth grew impatient, and was told that the Englishman had gone over the seas to England. She knew where England was, because she had read little geography primers; but, of course, she had no conception of the nature of the sea, being a Hill-girl. |