Complete Works of J M Synge Read online

  MOLLY BYRNE — [looking at him with interest.] — It’s queer talk you have if it’s a little, old, shabby stump of a man you are itself.

  MARTIN DOUL. I’m not so old as you do hear them say.

  MOLLY BYRNE. You’re old, I’m thinking, to be talking that talk with a girl.

  MARTIN DOUL — [despondingly.] — It’s not a lie you’re telling, maybe, for it’s long years I’m after losing from the world, feeling love and talking love, with the old woman, and I fooled the whole while with the lies of Timmy the smith.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [half invitingly.] — It’s a fine way you’re wanting to pay Timmy the smith.... And it’s not his LIES you’re making love to this day, Martin Doul.

  MARTIN DOUL. It is not, Molly, and the Lord forgive us all. (He passes behind her and comes near her left.) For I’ve heard tell there are lands beyond in Cahir Iveraghig and the Reeks of Cork with warm sun in them, and fine light in the sky. (Bending towards her.) And light’s a grand thing for a man ever was blind, or a woman, with a fine neck, and a skin on her the like of you, the way we’d have a right to go off this day till we’d have a fine life passing abroad through them towns of the south, and we telling stories, maybe, or singing songs at the fairs.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [turning round half amused, and looking him over from head to foot.] — Well, isn’t it a queer thing when your own wife’s after leaving you because you’re a pitiful show, you’d talk the like of that to me?

  MARTIN DOUL — [drawing back a little, hurt, but indignant.] — It’s a queer thing, maybe, for all things is queer in the world. (In a low voice with peculiar emphasis.) But there’s one thing I’m telling you, if she walked off away from me, it wasn’t because of seeing me, and I no more than I am, but because I was looking on her with my two eyes, and she getting up, and eating her food, and combing her hair, and lying down for her sleep.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [interested, off her guard.] — Wouldn’t any married man you’d have be doing the like of that?

  MARTIN DOUL — [seizing the moment that he has her attention.] — I’m thinking by the mercy of God it’s few sees anything but them is blind for a space (with excitement.) It’s a few sees the old woman rotting for the grave, and it’s few sees the like of yourself. (He bends over her.) Though it’s shining you are, like a high lamp would drag in the ships out of the sea.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [shrinking away from him.] — Keep off from me, Martin Doul.

  MARTIN DOUL — [quickly, with low, furious intensity.] — It’s the truth I’m telling you. (He puts his hand on her shoulder and shakes her.) And you’d do right not to marry a man is after looking out a long while on the bad days of the world; for what way would the like of him have fit eyes to look on yourself, when you rise up in the morning and come out of the little door you have above in the lane, the time it’d be a fine thing if a man would be seeing, and losing his sight, the way he’d have your two eyes facing him, and he going the roads, and shining above him, and he looking in the sky, and springing up from the earth, the time he’d lower his head, in place of the muck that seeing men do meet all roads spread on the world.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [who has listened half mesmerized, starting away.] — It’s the like of that talk you’d hear from a man would be losing his mind.

  MARTIN DOUL — [going after her, passing to her right.] — It’d be little wonder if a man near the like of you would be losing his mind. Put down your can now, and come along with myself, for I’m seeing you this day, seeing you, maybe, the way no man has seen you in the world. (He takes her by the arm and tries to pull her away softly to the right.) Let you come on now, I’m saying, to the lands of Iveragh and the Reeks of Cork, where you won’t set down the width of your two feet and not be crushing fine flowers, and making sweet smells in the air.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [laying down the can; trying to free herself.] — Leave me go, Martin Doul! Leave me go, I’m saying!

  MARTIN DOUL. Let you not be fooling. Come along now the little path through the trees.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [crying out towards forge.] — Timmy the smith. (Timmy comes out of forge, and Martin Doul lets her go. Molly Byrne, excited and breathless, pointing to Martin Doul.) Did ever you hear that them that loses their sight loses their senses along with it, Timmy the smith!

  TIMMY — [suspicious, but uncertain.] — He’s no sense, surely, and he’ll be having himself driven off this day from where he’s good sleeping, and feeding, and wages for his work.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [as before.] — He’s a bigger fool than that, Timmy. Look on him now, and tell me if that isn’t a grand fellow to think he’s only to open his mouth to have a fine woman, the like of me, running along by his heels.

  [Martin Doul recoils towards centre, with his hand to his eyes; Mary Doul is seen on left coming forward softly.]

  TIMMY — [with blank amazement.] — Oh, the blind is wicked people, and it’s no lie. But he’ll walk off this day and not be troubling us more.

  [Turns back left and picks up Martin Doul’s coat and stick; some things fall out of coat pocket, which he gathers up again.]

  MARTIN DOUL — [turns around, sees Mary Doul, whispers to Molly Byrne with imploring agony.] — Let you not put shame on me, Molly, before herself and the smith. Let you not put shame on me and I after saying fine words to you, and dreaming... dreams... in the night. (He hesitates, and looks round the sky.) Is it a storm of thunder is coming, or the last end of the world? (He staggers towards Mary Doul, tripping slightly over tin can.) The heavens is closing, I’m thinking, with darkness and great trouble passing in the sky. (He reaches Mary Doul, and seizes her left arm with both his hands — with a frantic cry.) Is it darkness of thunder is coming, Mary Doul! Do you see me clearly with your eyes?

  MARY DOUL — [snatches her arm away, and hits him with empty sack across the face.] — I see you a sight too clearly, and let you keep off from me now.

  MOLLY BYRNE — [clapping her hands.] — That’s right, Mary. That’s the way to treat the like of him is after standing there at my feet and asking me to go off with him, till I’d grow an old wretched road-woman the like of yourself.

  MARY DOUL — [defiantly.] — When the skin shrinks on your chin, Molly Byrne, there won’t be the like of you for a shrunk hag in the four quarters of Ireland.... It’s a fine pair you’d be, surely!

  [Martin Doul is standing at back right centre, with his back to the audience.]

  TIMMY — [coming over to Mary Doul.] — Is it no shame you have to let on she’d ever be the like of you?

  MARY DOUL. It’s them that’s fat and flabby do be wrinkled young, and that whitish yellowy hair she has does be soon turning the like of a handful of thin grass you’d see rotting, where the wet lies, at the north of a sty. (Turning to go out on right.) Ah, it’s a better thing to have a simple, seemly face, the like of my face, for two-score years, or fifty itself, than to be setting fools mad a short while, and then to be turning a thing would drive off the little children from your feet.

  [She goes out; Martin Doul has come forward again, mastering himself, but uncertain.]

  TIMMY. Oh, God protect us, Molly, from the words of the blind. (He throws down Martin Doul’s coat and stick.) There’s your old rubbish now, Martin Doul, and let you take it up, for it’s all you have, and walk off through the world, for if ever I meet you coming again, if it’s seeing or blind you are itself, I’ll bring out the big hammer and hit you a welt with it will leave you easy till the judgment day.

  MARTIN DOUL — [rousing himself with an effort.] — What call have you to talk the like of that with myself?

  TIMMY — [pointing to Molly Byrne.] — It’s well you know what call I have. It’s well you know a decent girl, I’m thinking to wed, has no right to have her heart scalded with hearing talk — and queer, bad talk, I’m thinking — from a raggy-looking fool the like of you.

  MARTIN DOUL — [raising his voice.] — It’s making game of you she is, for what seeing girl would marry with yourself? Look on him, Molly, look
on him, I’m saying, for I’m seeing him still, and let you raise your voice, for the time is come, and bid him go up into his forge, and be sitting there by himself, sneezing and sweating, and he beating pot-hooks till the judgment day. [He seizes her arm again.]

  MOLLY BYRNE. Keep him off from me, Timmy!

  TIMMY — [pushing Martin Doul aside.] — Would you have me strike you, Martin Doul? Go along now after your wife, who’s a fit match for you, and leave Molly with myself.

  MARTIN DOUL — [despairingly.] — Won’t you raise your voice, Molly, and lay hell’s long curse on his tongue?

  MOLLY BYRNE — [on Timmy’s left.] — I’ll be telling him it’s destroyed I am with the sight of you and the sound of your voice. Go off now after your wife, and if she beats you again, let you go after the tinker girls is above running the hills, or down among the sluts of the town, and you’ll learn one day, maybe, the way a man should speak with a well-reared, civil girl the like of me. (She takes Timmy by the arm.) Come up now into the forge till he’ll be gone down a bit on the road, for it’s near afeard I am of the wild look he has come in his eyes.

  [She goes into the forge. Timmy stops in the doorway.]

  TIMMY. Let me not find you out here again, Martin Doul. (He bares his arm.) It’s well you know Timmy the smith has great strength in his arm, and it’s a power of things it has broken a sight harder than the old bone of your skull.

  [He goes into the forge and pulls the door after him.]

  MARTIN DOUL — [stands a moment with his hand to his eyes.] — And that’s the last thing I’m to set my sight on in the life of the world — the villainy of a woman and the bloody strength of a man. Oh, God, pity a poor, blind fellow, the way I am this day with no strength in me to do hurt to them at all. (He begins groping about for a moment, then stops.) Yet if I’ve no strength in me I’ve a voice left for my prayers, and may God blight them this day, and my own soul the same hour with them, the way I’ll see them after, Molly Byrne and Timmy the smith, the two of them on a high bed, and they screeching in hell.... It’ll be a grand thing that time to look on the two of them; and they twisting and roaring out, and twisting and roaring again, one day and the next day, and each day always and ever. It’s not blind I’ll be that time, and it won’t be hell to me, I’m thinking, but the like of heaven itself; and it’s fine care I’ll be taking the Lord Almighty doesn’t know. [He turns to grope out.]

  CURTAIN

  ACT III

  [THE SAME SCENE as in first Act, but gap in centre has been filled with briars, or branches of some sort. Mary Doul, blind again, gropes her way in on left, and sits as before. She has a few rushes with her. It is an early spring day.]

  MARY DOUL — [mournfully.] — Ah, God help me... God help me; the blackness wasn’t so black at all the other time as it is this time, and it’s destroyed I’ll be now, and hard set to get my living working alone, when it’s few are passing and the winds are cold. (She begins shredding rushes.) I’m thinking short days will be long days to me from this time, and I sitting here, not seeing a blink, or hearing a word, and no thought in my mind but long prayers that Martin Doul’ll get his reward in a short while for the villainy of his heart. It’s great jokes the people’ll be making now, I’m thinking, and they pass me by, pointing their fingers maybe, and asking what place is himself, the way it’s no quiet or decency I’ll have from this day till I’m an old woman with long white hair and it twisting from my brow. (She fumbles with her hair, and then seems to hear something. Listens for a moment.) There’s a queer, slouching step coming on the road... . God help me, he’s coming surely.

  [She stays perfectly quiet. Martin Doul gropes in on right, blind also.]

  MARTIN DOUL — [gloomily.] — The devil mend Mary Doul for putting lies on me, and letting on she was grand. The devil mend the old Saint for letting me see it was lies. (He sits down near her.) The devil mend Timmy the smith for killing me with hard work, and keeping me with an empty, windy stomach in me, in the day and in the night. Ten thousand devils mend the soul of Molly Byrne — (Mary Doul nods her head with approval.) — and the bad, wicked souls is hidden in all the women of the world. (He rocks himself, with his hand over his face.) It’s lonesome I’ll be from this day, and if living people is a bad lot, yet Mary Doul, herself, and she a dirty, wrinkled-looking hag, was better maybe to be sitting along with than no one at all. I’ll be getting my death now, I’m thinking, sitting alone in the cold air, hearing the night coming, and the blackbirds flying round in the briars crying to themselves, the time you’ll hear one cart getting off a long way in the east, and another cart getting off a long way in the west, and a dog barking maybe, and a little wind turning the sticks. (He listens and sighs heavily.) I’ll be destroyed sitting alone and losing my senses this time the way I’m after losing my sight, for it’d make any person afeard to be sitting up hearing the sound of his breath — (he moves his feet on the stones) — and the noise of his feet, when it’s a power of queer things do be stirring, little sticks breaking, and the grass moving — (Mary Doul half sighs, and he turns on her in horror) — till you’d take your dying oath on sun and moon a thing was breathing on the stones. (He listens towards her for a moment, then starts up nervously, and gropes about for his stick.) I’ll be going now, I’m thinking, but I’m not sure what place my stick’s in, and I’m destroyed with terror and dread. (He touches her face as he is groping about and cries out.) There’s a thing with a cold, living face on it sitting up at my side. (He turns to run away, but misses his path and stumbles in against the wall.) My road is lost on me now! Oh, merciful God, set my foot on the path this day, and I’ll be saying prayers morning and night, and not straining my ear after young girls, or doing any bad thing till I die.

  MARY DOUL — [indignantly.] — Let you not be telling lies to the Almighty God.

  MARTIN DOUL. Mary Doul, is it? (Recovering himself with immense relief.) Is it Mary Doul, I’m saying?

  MARY DOUL. There’s a sweet tone in your voice I’ve not heard for a space. You’re taking me for Molly Byrne, I’m thinking.

  MARTIN DOUL — [coming towards her, wiping sweat from his face.] — Well, sight’s a queer thing for upsetting a man. It’s a queer thing to think I’d live to this day to be fearing the like of you; but if it’s shaken I am for a short while, I’ll soon be coming to myself.

  MARY DOUL. You’ll be grand then, and it’s no lie.

  MARTIN DOUL — [sitting down shyly, some way off.] — You’ve no call to be talking, for I’ve heard tell you’re as blind as myself.

  MARY DOUL. If I am I’m bearing in mind I’m married to a little dark stump of a fellow looks the fool of the world, and I’ll be bearing in mind from this day the great hullabuloo he’s after making from hearing a poor woman breathing quiet in her place.

  MARTIN DOUL. And you’ll be bearing in mind, I’m thinking, what you seen a while back when you looked down into a well, or a clear pool, maybe, when there was no wind stirring and a good light in the sky.

  MARY DOUL. I’m minding that surely, for if I’m not the way the liars were saying below I seen a thing in them pools put joy and blessing in my heart. [She puts her hand to her hair again.]

  MARTIN DOUL — [laughing ironically.] — Well, they were saying below I was losing my senses, but I never went any day the length of that.... God help you, Mary Doul, if you’re not a wonder for looks, you’re the maddest female woman is walking the counties of the east.

  MARY DOUL — [scornfully.] You were saying all times you’d a great ear for hearing the lies of the world. A great ear, God help you, and you think you’re using it now.

  MARTIN DOUL. If it’s not lies you’re telling would you have me think you’re not a wrinkled poor woman is looking like three scores, or two scores and a half!

  MARY DOUL. I would not, Martin. (She leans forward earnestly.) For when I seen myself in them pools, I seen my hair would be gray or white, maybe, in a short while, and I seen with it that I’d a face would be a great wonder when it’ll have
soft white hair falling around it, the way when I’m an old woman there won’t be the like of me surely in the seven counties of the east.

  MARTIN DOUL — [with real admiration.] — You’re a cute thinking woman, Mary Doul, and it’s no lie.

  MARY DOUL — [triumphantly.] — I am, surely, and I’m telling you a beautiful white-haired woman is a grand thing to see, for I’m told when Kitty Bawn was selling poteen below, the young men itself would never tire to be looking in her face.

  MARTIN DOUL — [taking off his hat and feeling his head, speaking with hesitation.] — Did you think to look, Mary Doul, would there be a whiteness the like of that coming upon me?

  MARY DOUL — [with extreme contempt.] — On you, God help you!... In a short while you’ll have a head on you as bald as an old turnip you’d see rolling round in the muck. You need never talk again of your fine looks, Martin Doul, for the day of that talk’s gone for ever.

  MARTIN DOUL. That’s a hard word to be saying, for I was thinking if I’d a bit of comfort, the like of yourself, it’s not far off we’d be from the good days went before, and that’d be a wonder surely. But I’ll never rest easy, thinking you’re a gray, beautiful woman, and myself a pitiful show.

  MARY DOUL. I can’t help your looks, Martin Doul. It wasn’t myself made you with your rat’s eyes, and your big ears, and your griseldy chin.

  MARTIN DOUL — [rubs his chin ruefully, then beams with delight.] — There’s one thing you’ve forgot, if you’re a cute thinking woman itself.

  MARY DOUL. Your slouching feet, is it? Or your hooky neck, or your two knees is black with knocking one on the other?

  MARTIN DOUL — [with delighted scorn.] — There’s talking for a cute woman. There’s talking, surely!

  MARY DOUL — [puzzled at joy of his voice.] — If you’d anything but lies to say you’d be talking to yourself.

  MARTIN DOUL — [bursting with excitement.] — I’ve this to say, Mary Doul. I’ll be letting my beard grow in a short while, a beautiful, long, white, silken, streamy beard, you wouldn’t see the like of in the eastern world.... Ah, a white beard’s a grand thing on an old man, a grand thing for making the quality stop and be stretching out their hands with good silver or gold, and a beard’s a thing you’ll never have, so you may be holding your tongue.