Chantecler

14. Act II Scene 3

THE PHEASANT-HEN, CHANTECLER.

CHANTECLER [Who has reached the PHEASANT-HEN'S side.] Out so early?

THE PHEASANT-HEN To see the daybreak.

CHANTECLER [With repressed emotion.] Ah--?

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Teasingly.] What troubles you?

CHANTECLER I have had a wretched night.

THE PHEASANT-HEN So sorry! [A pause.]

CHANTECLER Are you going to the Guinea-hen's?

THE PHEASANT-HEN I stayed over solely for that purpose.

CHANTECLER Ah, yes, I know. [A pause.] I dislike her extremely.

THE PHEASANT-HEN Come to her party.

CHANTECLER No.

THE PHEASANT-HEN As you please. Then we may as well say good-bye.

CHANTECLER No.

THE PHEASANT-HEN Come to the Guinea-hen's. We shall have a chance to see something of each other there.

CHANTECLER No.

THE PHEASANT-HEN You are determined not to come?

CHANTECLER I am coming--but I hate it.

THE PHEASANT-HEN Why?

CHANTECLER It is weak.

THE PHEASANT-HEN No, no! That is no great sign of weakness!

CHANTECLER Ah--?

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Softly, coming closer to him.] What would be showing a sweet, delightful, and fully masculine weakness--

CHANTECLER [In alarm at her approach.] What?

THE PHEASANT-HEN Would be to tell me your secret. Oh, just a wee bit!

CHANTECLER [With a start.] The secret of my song?

THE PHEASANT-HEN Yes.

CHANTECLER Golden Hen, my secret--

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Coaxingly.] Often from the edge of the woods I hear you in the first golden glimmer of day--

CHANTECLER [Flattered.] My song has reached your shapely little ear?

THE PHEASANT-HEN It has!

CHANTECLER [Abruptly, moving away from her.] My secret--Never!

THE PHEASANT-HEN You are not very gallant!

CHANTECLER No--I am full of conflict and misery.

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Languidly reciting.] The Cock and the Pheasant-hen a Fable--

CHANTECLER [Half aloud.] A Cock loved a Pheasant-hen--

THE PHEASANT-HEN And would not tell her anything--

CHANTECLER Moral--

THE PHEASANT-HEN It was horrid of him!

CHANTECLER [Pressing close to her.] Moral: Your dress has the fascinating rustle of silk!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Moral: I dislike familiarity! [Withdrawing from him.] Go home to your Hen of the plebeian petticoat!

CHANTECLER [Stamping.] I shall be angry!

THE PHEASANT-HEN No, no, don't be angry--Say "Coa--" [They stand bill to bill.]

CHANTECLER [Angrily.] Coa--

THE PHEASANT-HEN No, no! Say it nicely--

CHANTECLER [In a long, tender coo.] Coa--

THE PHEASANT-HEN Look at me without laughing. Your secret--

CHANTECLER Well?

THE PHEASANT-HEN You are dying to tell it to me!

CHANTECLER Yes, I feel that I shall tell, and I know I shall do ill in telling. And it's all because of the gold on her dainty little head! [Going brusquely nearer to her.] Shall you prove worthy, at least, of having been chosen? Is your breast true red to the core?

THE PHEASANT-HEN Now tell me!

CHANTECLER Look at me, Pheasant-hen, and try, if indeed it be possible, try to recognise, by yourself, sign by sign, the vocation of which my body is the symbol. Guess, to begin with, at my destiny from my shape, and see how, curved like a sort of living hunting-horn, I am as much formed for sound to turn and gain volume within me, as the wild duck is formed to swim!--Wait!--Mark the fact that, impatient and proud, scratching up the earth with my claws, I appear always to be seeking something in the soil--

THE PHEASANT-HEN You are seeking for grains of corn, seeds, I suppose.

CHANTECLER Never! I have never looked for such things. I find them occasionally, into the bargain, but disdainfully I give them to my Hens.

THE PHEASANT-HEN Well, then, in your perpetual scratching, what is it you are looking for?

CHANTECLER The right spot! For always before singing I carefully choose my stand. Pray, observe--

THE PHEASANT-HEN True, and then you ruffle your feathers.

CHANTECLER I never start to sing until my eight claws, after clearing a space of weeds and stones, have found the soft, dark turf underneath. Then, placed in direct contact with the good earth, I sing!--And that is already half the mystery, Pheasant-hen, half the mystery of my song, which is not of those songs one sings after composing them, but is received straight from the native soil, like sap! And the time above all when that sap arises in me,--the hour, briefly, in which I have genius, in which I can never doubt I have!--is the hour when dawn falters on the boundaries of the dark sky. Then, filled with the same quivering as leaves and grass, thrilled to the very tips of my wing quills, I feel myself a chosen instrument. I accentuate my curve of a hunting-horn, Earth speaks in me as in a conch, and ceasing to be an ordinary bird, I become the mouthpiece, in some sort official, through which the cry of the earth escapes toward the sky!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Chantecler!

CHANTECLER And that cry which rises from the earth, that cry is such a cry of love for the light, is such a deep and frenzied cry of love for the golden thing we call the Day, and that all thirst to feel again: the pine on its bark, the tortuous roots in woodland paths on their mosses, the feather-grass on each delicate spray, the tiniest pebble in its tiniest mica flake; it is so wonderfully the cry of all that misses and mourns its colour, its reflection, its flame, its coronet, its pearl; the beseeching cry of the dew-washed meadow begging for a wee rainbow at every grass-tip, of the forest begging a burst of fire at the end of each gloomy avenue; that cry which mounts to the sky through me is so greatly the cry of all that feels itself in disgrace, plunged in a sunless pit, deprived of light without knowing for what offence; is the cry of cold, the cry of fear, the cry of weariness, of all that night disables or disarms; the rose shivering alone in the dark, the hay wanting to be dried and go to the mow, the sickle forgotten out of doors by the reaper and fearing it will rust in the grass, the white things dismayed at not looking white; is so greatly the cry of the innocent among beasts, who have nothing to conceal, of the brook fain to show its crystal clearness; and even--for thy very works, O Night, disown thee!--of the puddle longing to glisten, the mud longing to become earth again, by drying; it is so greatly the magnificent cry of the field impatient to feel its wheat and barley growing, of the blossoming tree mad for still more blossoms of the green grapes craving a purple side; of the bridge waiting for footsteps, for shadows of birds among shadows of branches; the voice of all that yearns to sing, to drop the garb of mourning, live again, serve again, be a brink, be a bourn, a sun-warm seat, a stone glad to comfort with warmth the hand touching, or the insect overcrawling it; finally, it is so greatly the cry toward the light of all Beauty, all Health, all which wishes, in sunshine and joy, to see its work while doing it, and do it to be seen--And when I feel that vast call to the Day arising within me, I so expand my soul to make it more sonorous, by making it more spacious, that the great cry may still be increased in greatness; before giving it, I withold it in my soul a moment so piously; then, when, to expel it, I contract my soul, I am so convinced of accomplishing a great act, I have such faith that my song will make night crumble like the walls of Jericho--

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Frightened.] Chantecler!

CHANTECLER And sounding its victory beforehand, my song springs forth so clear, so proud, so peremptory, that the horizon, seized with a rosy trembling--obeys!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Chantecler!

CHANTECLER I sing! Vainly Night offers to compromise, offers a dubious twilight--I sing again! And suddenly--

THE PHEASANT-HEN Chantecler!

CHANTECLER I fall back, blinded by the red light bathing me, dazzled at having, I, the Cock, made the Sun to rise!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Then the whole secret of your song--?

CHANTECLER Is that I dare assume that the East without me must rest in idleness! I sing, not to hear the echo repeat, a shade fainter, my song! I think of light and not of glory! Singing is my fashion of waging war and bearing witness. And if my song is the proudest of songs, it is that I sing clearly to make the day rise clear!

THE PHEASANT-HEN What he says sounds slightly mad!--You are responsible for the rising of--

CHANTECLER That which opens flower, eye, soul, and window! Certainly! My voice dispenses light! And when the sky is grey, the reason is that I have sung badly.

THE PHEASANT-HEN But when you sing by day?

CHANTECLER I am practising, or else promising the ploughshare, the hoe, the harrow, the scythe, not to neglect my duty of waking them.

THE PHEASANT-HEN But what wakens you?

CHANTECLER The fear of forgetting.

THE PHEASANT-HEN And you believe that at the sound of your voice the whole world is suffused--?

CHANTECLER I have no clear idea of the whole world. But I sing for my own valley, and desire that every Cock may do the same for his.

THE PHEASANT-HEN Still--

CHANTECLER But here I stand, explaining, perorating, and forgetting altogether to make my dawn.

THE PHEASANT-HEN His dawn!

CHANTECLER Ah, what I say sounds mad? I will make the dawn before your very eyes! And the wish to please you adding its ardour to the ordinary forces of my soul, I shall rise in singing, as I feel, to unusual heights, and the dawn will rise more fair to-day than ever it rose before!

THE PHEASANT-HEN More fair?

CHANTECLER Assuredly,--in just the measure that strength is added to the song by the knowledge of listeners, boldness to the exploit by the consciousness of lovely watching eyes--[Taking his stand upon a hillock at the back, overlooking the valley.] Now, Madam!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Gazing at his outline against the sky.] How beautiful he is!

CHANTECLER Look attentively at the sky. Already it has paled. The reason is that a short while back, with my earliest crow I ordered the sun to stand in readiness just below the horizon.

THE PHEASANT-HEN He is so beautiful that what he says almost seems possible!

CHANTECLER [Talking toward the horizon.] Ha, Sun, I feel you just behind there, stirring--and I laugh with pride and joy amidst my scarlet wattles--[Rising on tiptoe suddenly, in a voice of startling loudness.] Cock-a-doodle-doo!

THE PHEASANT-HEN What great breath lifts his breast-feathers?

CHANTECLER [Toward the east.] Obey!--I am the Earth, and I am Labour! My comb is the pattern of a forge fire, and the voice of the furrow rises to my throat! [Whispering mysteriously.] Yes, yes, month of July--

THE PHEASANT-HEN To whom is he speaking?

CHANTECLER You shall have it earlier than April! [Bending to right and left, encouragingly.] Yes, Bramble!--Yes, Brake!

THE PHEASANT-HEN He is magnificent!

CHANTECLER [To the PHEASANT-HEN.] You see, I must at all times remember--[Stroking the earth with his wing.] Yes, dear Grass!--remember the humble prayers whose interpreter I become. [Talking to invisible things.] The golden ladder?--I understand! that you may all dance on it together!

THE PHEASANT-HEN To whom are you promising a ladder?

CHANTECLER To the Motes--Cock-a-doodle-doo!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Watching the sky and landscape.] A shiver of blue runs across the thatched roofs.--A star went out just then--

CHANTECLER No, it veiled itself. Even by daylight the stars are there.

THE PHEASANT-HEN You do not extinguish them?

CHANTECLER I extinguish nothing! But you shall see how great I am at kindling!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Oh, I see a dawning of--

CHANTECLER What do you see?

THE PHEASANT-HEN The blue is no longer blue!

CHANTECLER I told you! It is already green!

THE PHEASANT-HEN The green is turning to orange--

CHANTECLER You will have been the first this morning to see the transformation!

[The distant plain takes on velvety purplish hues.]

THE PHEASANT-HEN It all seems to end in leagues of purple heather.

CHANTECLER [Whose crow is beginning to tire.] Cock-a-doo--

THE PHEASANT-HEN Oh--yellow among the pine trees!

CHANTECLER Gold it ought to be,--gold!

THE PHEASANT-HEN And pearly grey--

CHANTECLER It shall be white!--I haven't done it yet! Cock-a-doodle-doo--It's very bad so far, but I won't give up!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Every hollow in every tree is pink as a wild rose--

CHANTECLER [With growing enthusiasm.] Since love lends me strength in addition to faith, I say the Day to-day shall be more beautiful that the Day!--Do you see? Do you see the eastern sky at my voice dappling itself with light?

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Lured along and half persuaded by the madness of the COCK.] Such a thing might be, after all, since love is involved in the mystery!

CHANTECLER Resume, horizon, at my command, your fringe of little poplars!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Bending over the valley.] There emerges from the shadow, gradually, a world of your creation--

CHANTECLER Sacred things you are witnessing--To sacred things I am initiating you!--Define your outlines, distant hills! Pheasant-hen, do you love me?

THE PHEASANT-HEN We shall always love to be in the secret of the Makers of Dawn!

CHANTECLER You help me to sing better. Come closer. Collaborate.

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Springing to his side.] I love you!

CHANTECLER Every word you whisper in my ear shall be translated into sunshine for all the world to see!

THE PHEASANT-HEN I love you!

CHANTECLER Say it again, and I will gild that mountain suddenly!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Wildly.] I love you!--Let me see you gild it!

CHANTECLER [In his greatest, most splendid manner.] Cock-a-doodle-doo! [The mountain turns golden.]

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Pointing to the lower ranges, still purple.] But the hills?

CHANTECLER Each in its turn. To the highest peaks belong the earliest rays! Cock-a-doodle-doo!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Ah!--across yonder drowsing slope a stealing gleam--

CHANTECLER [Joyously.] I dedicate it to you!

THE PHEASANT-HEN The distant villages are coming into view.

CHANTECLER Cock-a--[His voice breaks.]

THE PHEASANT-HEN You are weary!

CHANTECLER [Stiffening himself.] I refuse to be! [Wildly.] Cock-a-doodle-doo!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Exhausted!

CHANTECLER Do you see those tatters of mist still clinging? Cock-a-doodle-doo!

THE PHEASANT-HEN You will kill yourself!

CHANTECLER I only live, dear, when I am killing myself giving great splendid cries!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Pressing close to his side.] I am proud of you!

CHANTECLER [With emotion.] Your head bows--

THE PHEASANT-HEN I listen to the Day arising in your breast! I delight to hear first in your lungs what by-and-by will be purple and gold on the mountain sides!

CHANTECLER [While the little distant houses begin to smoke in the dawn.] I dedicate to you moreover those reawakened farmsteads. Man offers trinkets, I--wreaths and plumes of smoke!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Looking off.] I can see your work growing,--growing in the distance.

CHANTECLER [Looking at her.] I can see it in your eyes!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Over the meadows--

CHANTECLER On your throat--[In a smothered voice.] Oh, it is exquisite!

THE PHEASANT-HEN What?

CHANTECLER I am at once doing my duty, and making you more fair. I am gilding my valley, while brightening your wing. [Tearing himself from love, and dashing toward the right.] But the shadow still fights all along the line of retreat. There is much to be done over there! Cock-a-doodle-doo!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Looking up at the sky.] Oh, look!

CHANTECLER [Looking too, sadly.] How can I prevent it? The morning star is fading out!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [In a tone of regret for the little bright spark which the growing light must necessarily quench.] It is fading out--

CHANTECLER Alas!--But shall we therefore despond? [And tearing himself from melancholy, he springs toward the left.] There is still much to do over here. Cock-a--[At this point the crowing of other COCKS ascends from the valley. CHANTECLER listens, then softly.] Hark! Do you hear them now?

THE PHEASANT-HEN Who dare--?

CHANTECLER The other Cocks.

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Bending above the plain.] They are singing in the rosy light--

CHANTECLER Yes, they believe in the light as soon as they see it.

THE PHEASANT-HEN They sing all in a haze of blue--

CHANTECLER I sang in total blackness. My song rose from the cheerless shade, and was the first to rise. It is when Night prevails that it's fine to believe in the Light!

THE PHEASANT-HEN How dare they sing when you are singing?

CHANTECLER Let them sing! Their songs acquire significance from mingling with mine, and their tardy but numerous cries unconsciously hasten the flight of the dark. [Straightening upon his hillock, he calls to the distant COCKS.] Now, all together!

CHANTECLER AND ALL THE COCKS Cock-a-doodle-doo!

CHANTECLER [Alone, with familiar cordiality.] Forward, forward, boldly, Day!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Beside him, stamping her feet.] Boldly, Day!

CHANTECLER [Crying encouragements to the Light.] Yes, there, there before you, is a roof for you to gild! Come, come, a touch of green on that patch of waving hemp!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Beside herself with excitement.] A glimmer of white on that road!

CHANTECLER A wash of blue on the river!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [In a great cry.] The Sun! Look, the Sun!

CHANTECLER There he is, I can see him, but we must hale him from that grove! [And both of them, moving backward together, appear to be drawing something after them. CHANTECLER prolonging his crow as if to drag up the SUN by it.] Cooooooo--

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Shouting above CHANTECLER'S crow.] There he comes--

CHANTECLER --oock-a--

THE PHEASANT-HEN --climbing--

CHANTECLER --doodle--

THE PHEASANT-HEN --above--

CHANTECLER --doooooo!

THE PHEASANT-HEN --the poplars!

CHANTECLER [In a last, dry-throated, desperate crow.] Cock-a-doodle-doo [Both stagger, suddenly flooded with light.] It is done! [He adds, in a tone of satisfaction.] A proper Sun,--a giant! [He totters toward a mossy rise and drops against it.]

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Running to him, while all grows brighter and brighter.] One song now to greet the beautiful rising Sun!

CHANTECLER [Very low.] I have no voice left. I spent it all. [Hearing the other COCKS crowing in the valley, he adds gently.] It matters not. He has the songs and praises of the others.

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Surprised.] What? After he appears, he hears no more from you?

CHANTECLER No more.

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Indignant.] But in that case, perhaps the Sun believes the other Cocks have made him rise?

CHANTECLER It matters not.

THE PHEASANT-HEN But--

CHANTECLER Hush! Come to my heart and let me thank you. Never has there been a lovelier dawn.

THE PHEASANT-HEN But what will repay you for all your pains?

CHANTECLER Echoes of awakening life down in the valley! [Confused living noises are beginning to mount from below.] Tell me of them. I have not the strength to listen for myself.

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Runs to the top of the rise, and listens.] I hear a finger knocking against the rim of a brazen sky--

CHANTECLER [With closed eyes.] The Angelus.

THE PHEASANT-HEN Other strokes, which sound like a human Angelus after the divine--

CHANTECLER The forge-hammer.

THE PHEASANT-HEN Lowing,--then a song--

CHANTECLER The plow.

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Continuing to listen.] Sounds as of a bird's nest fallen into the little street--

CHANTECLER [With growing emotion.] The school!

THE PHEASANT-HEN Imps of whom I catch no glimpse buffet one another in the water--

CHANTECLER Women washing linen.

THE PHEASANT-HEN And suddenly, on all sides, what are they--iron locusts rubbing their wings together?

CHANTECLER [Half rising, in the fullness of pride.] Ah, if scythes are whetting, the reapers will soon be harvesting the golden grain! [The sounds increase and mingle: bells, hammers, washer-women's wooden spades, laughter, singing, grinding of steel, cracking of whips.] All at work! And I have done that!--Oh, impossible!--Pheasant-hen, help me! This is the dreadful moment! [He looks wildly about him.] I made the sunrise! I did! Wherefore And how? And where? No sooner does my reason return--than I go mad! For I who believe I have power to rekindle the celestial gold--I--well--oh, it is dreadful--

THE PHEASANT-HEN What is?

CHANTECLER I am humble-minded, modest! You will never tell?

THE PHEASANT-HEN No, no!

CHANTECLER You promise? Ah! let my enemies never know!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Moved.] Chantecler!

CHANTECLER I feel myself unworthy of my glory. Why was I chosen, even I, to drive out black night? No sooner have I brought the heavens to a white glow, than the pride which lifted me aloft drops dead. I fall to earth. What, I, so small, I made the immeasurable dawn? And having done this, I must do it again? Nay, but I cannot! Nay, it would be vain! Never need I attempt it! Despair overtakes me--Comfort me, love!

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Tenderly.] My own!

CHANTECLER Such a burden of responsibility resting upon me! That inspiring breath which I await when I scratch in the sand, will it come again? I feel the whole future depending upon an incomprehensible something which might perchance fail me! Do you understand now the anguish gnawing me? Ah, the swan is certain, by bending his neck, to find under water the grasses he delights in; the eagle, when he swoops from the blue, sure of falling upon his prey; and you are ever sure of finding in the earth the well supplied nests of the ants,--but I, for whom my own work remains a mystery, I, possessed ever by the fear of the morrow, am I sure of finding my song in my heart?

THE PHEASANT-HEN [Clasping him with her wings.] Surely, you will find it, surely!

CHANTECLER Yes, talk to me like that. I listen, I heed you. You must believe me when I believe, and not when I doubt. Tell me again--

THE PHEASANT-HEN You are beautiful!

CHANTECLER About that I care very little.

THE PHEASANT-HEN And you sang beautifully!

CHANTECLER Say that I sang badly, but tell me that it is I who make--

THE PHEASANT-HEN Indeed, indeed, I admire you beyond all bounds and measure!

CHANTECLER No,--tell me that what I told you is true--

THE PHEASANT-HEN What?

CHANTECLER That it is I who make--

THE PHEASANT-HEN Yes, my glorious Beloved, yes, it is you who make the dawn appear!

THE BLACKBIRD [Suddenly appearing.] Well, well, old man!