If: A Play in Four Acts, Lord Dunsany [any book recommendations TXT] 📗

ACT III SCENE 1

Six and a half years later. Al Shaldomir. A room in the palace.

MIRALDA reclines on a heap of cushions, JOHN beside her.

Bazzalol and Thoothoobaba fan them.

OMAR [declaiming to a zither]

Al Shaldomir, Al Shaldomir, The nightingales that guard thy ways Cease not to give thee, after God And after Paradise, all praise. Thou art the theme of all their lays. Al Shaldomir, Al Shaldomir....

MIRALDA

Go now, Omar.

OMAR

O lady, I depart. [Exit.]

MIRALDA [languidly]

John, John. I wish you'd marry me.

JOHN

Miralda, you're thinking of those old customs again that we left behind us seven years ago. What's the good of it?

MIRALDA

I had a fancy that I wished you would.

JOHN

What's the good of it? You know you are my beloved. There are none of those clergymen within hundreds of miles. What's the good of it?

MIRALDA

We could find one, John.

JOHN

O, yes, I suppose we could, but...

MIRALDA

Why won't you?

JOHN

I told you why.

MIRALDA

O, yes, that instinct that you must not marry. That's not your reason, John.

JOHN

Yes, it is.

MIRALDA

It's a silly reason. It's a crazy reason. It's no reason at all. There's some other reason.

JOHN

No, there isn't. But I feel that in my bones. I don't know why. You know that I love none else but you. Besides, we're never going back, and it doesn't matter. This isn't Blackheath.

MIRALDA

So I must live as your slave.

JOHN

No, no, Miralda. My dear, you are not my slave. Did not the singer compare our love to the desire of the nightingale for the evening star? All know that you are my queen.

MIRALDA

They do not know at home.

JOHN

Home? Home? How could they know? What have we in common with home? Rows and rows of little houses; and if they hear a nightingale there they write to the papers. And—and if they saw this they'd think they were drunk. Miralda, don't be absurd. What has set you thinking of home?

MIRALDA

I want to be crowned queen.

JOHN

But I am not a king. I am only Shereef.

MIRALDA

You are all-powerful here, John, you can do what you please, if you wish to. You don't love me at all.

JOHN

Miralda, you know I love you. Didn't I kill Hussein for you?

MIRALDA

Yes, but you don't love me now.

JOHN

And Hussein's people killed ARCHIE. That was for you too. I brought my brother out here to help you. He was engaged to be married, too.

MIRALDA

But you don't love me now.

JOHN

Yes, I do. I love you as the dawn loves the iris marshes. You know the song they sing. (footnote: poem just before Act III)

MIRALDA

Then why won't you marry me?

JOHN

I told you, I told you. I had a dream about the future. I forgot the dream, but I know I was not to marry. I will not wrong the future.

MIRALDA

Don't be crazy.

JOHN

I will have what fancies I please, crazy or sane. Am I not Shereef of Shaldomir? Who dare stop me if I would be mad as Herod?

MIRALDA

I will be crowned queen.

JOHN

It is not my wish.

MIRALDA

I will, I will, I will.

JOHN

Drive me not to anger. If I have you cast into a well and take twenty of the fairest daughters of Al Shaldomir in your place, who can gainsay me?

MIRALDA

I will be crowned queen.

JOHN

O, do not be tiresome.

MIRALDA

Was it not my money that brought you here? Was it not I who said "Kill Hussein"? What power could you have had, had Hussein lived? What would you