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

have been doing now, but for me?

JOHN

I don't know, Miralda.

MIRALDA

Catching some silly train to the City. Working for some dull firm. Living in some small suburban house. It is I, I, that brought you from all that, and you won't make me a queen.

JOHN

Is it not enough that you are my beloved? You know there is none other but you. Is it not enough, Miralda?

MIRALDA

It is not enough. I will be queen.

JOHN

Tchah!... Miralda, I know you are a wonderful woman, the most wonderful in the East; how you ever came to be in the West I don't know, and a train of all places; but, Miralda, you must not have petty whims, they don't become you.

MIRALDA

Is it a petty whim to wish to be a queen?

JOHN

Yes, when it is only the name you want. You are a queen. You have all you wish for. Are you not my beloved? And have I not power here over all men? Could I not close the pass?

MIRALDA

I want to be queen.

JOHN

Oh-h! I will leave you. I have more to do than to sit and hear your whims. When I come back you will have some other whim. Miralda, you have too many whims.

[He rises.]

MIRALDA

Will you be back soon?

JOHN

No.

MIRALDA

When will you come back, John?

[She is reclining, looking fair, fanning slightly.]

JOHN

In half an hour.

MIRALDA

In half an hour?

JOHN

Yes.

[Exit.]

MIRALDA

Half an hour.

[Her fan is laid down. She clutches it with sudden resolve. She goes to the wall, fanning herself slowly. She leans against it. She fans herself now with obvious deliberation. Three times the great fan goes pat against the window, and then again separately three times; and then she puts it against the window once with a smile of ecstasy. She has signalled. She returns to the cushions and reclines with beautiful care, fanning herself softly.

Enter the Vizier, HAFIZ EL ALCOLAHN]

HAFIZ

Lady! You bade me come.

MIRALDA

Did I, Hafiz?

HAFIZ

Lady, your fan.

MIRALDA

Ah, I was fanning myself.

HAFIZ

Seven times, lady.

MIRALDA

Ah, was it? Well, now you're here.

HAFIZ

Lady, O star of these times. O light over lonely marshes. [He kneels by her and embraces her.] Is the Shereef gone, lady?

MIRALDA

For half an hour, Hafiz.

HAFIZ

How know you for half an hour?

MIRALDA

He said so.

HAFIZ

He said so? Then is the time to fear, if a man say so.

MIRALDA

I know him.

HAFIZ

In our country who knows any man so much? None.

MIRALDA

He'll be away for half an hour.

HAFIZ [embracing]

O, exquisite lily of unattainable mountains.

MIRALDA

Ah, Hafiz, would you do a little thing for me?

HAFIZ

I would do all things, lady, O evening star.

MIRANDA

Would you make me a queen, Hafiz?

HAFIZ

If—if the Shereef were gathered?

MIRALDA

Even so, Hafiz.

HAFIZ

Lady, I would make you queen of all that lies west of the passes.

MIRANDA

You would make me queen?

HAFIZ

Indeed, before all my wives, before all women, over all Shaldomir, named the elect.

MIRALDA

O, well, Hafiz; then you may kiss me. [HAFIZ does so ad lib.]

Hafiz, the Shereef has irked me.

HAFIZ

Lady, O singing star, to all men is the hour.

MIRALDA

The appointed hour?

HAFIZ

Even the appointed hour, the last, leading to darkness.

MIRALDA

Is it written, think you, that the Shereef's hour is soon?