Cæsar's Wife: A Comedy in Three Acts

Cæsar's Wife: A Comedy in Three Acts
William Maugham

William Somerset Maugham

Cæsar's Wife: A Comedy in Three Acts

CHARACTERS

Sir Arthur Little, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.

Ronald Parry.

Henry Pritchard.

Richard Appleby, M.P.

Osman Pasha.

Violet.

Mrs. Etheridge.

Mrs. Pritchard.

Mrs. Appleby.

An English Butler; Native Servants; an Arab Gardener

The scene is laid in Cairo, in the house and garden of the British Consular

Agent

ACT I

Scene: The morning-room in the Consular Agent's house at Cairo. The windows are Arabic in character and so are the architraves of the doors, but otherwise it is an English room, airy and spacious. The furniture is lacquer and Chippendale, there are cool chintzes on the chairs and sofas, cut roses in glass vases, and growing azaleas in pots; but here and there an Eastern antiquity, a helmet and a coat of mail, a piece of woodwork, reminds one of the Mussulman conquest of Egypt; while an ancient god in porphyry, graven images in blue pottery, blue bowls, recall an older civilisation still. When the curtain rises the room is empty, the blinds are down so as to keep out the heat, and it is dim and mysterious. A Servant comes in, a dark-skinned native in the gorgeous uniform, red and gold, of the Consular Agent's establishment, and draws the blinds. Through the windows is seen the garden with palm-trees, oranges and lemons, tropical plants with giant leaves; and beyond, the radiant blue of the sky. In the distance is heard the plaintive, guttural wailing of an Arab song. A Gardener in a pale blue gaberdine passes with a basket on his arm.

Servant

Es-salâm 'alêkum (Peace be with you).

Gardener

U'alêkum es-Salâm warahmet Allâh wa barakâta (And with you be peace and God's mercy and blessing).

[The Servant goes out. The Gardener stops for a moment to nail back a straggling creeper and then goes on his way. The door is opened. Mrs. Appleby comes in with Anne Etheridge and they are followed immediately by Violet. Anne is a woman of forty, but handsome still, very pleasant and sympathetic; she is a woman of the world, tactful and self-controlled. She is dressed in light, summery things. Mrs. Appleby is an elderly, homely woman, soberly but not inexpensively dressed. The wife of a North-country manufacturer, she spends a good deal of money on rather dowdy clothes. Violet is a very pretty young woman of twenty. She looks very fresh and English in her muslin frock; there is something spring-like and virginal in her appearance, and her manner of dress is romantic rather than modish. She suggests a lady in a Gainsborough portrait rather than a drawing in a paper of Paris fashions. Luncheon is just finished and when they come in the women leave the door open for the men to follow.]

Mrs. Appleby

How cool it is in here! This isn't the room we were in before lunch?

Anne

No. They keep the windows closed and the blinds drawn all the morning so that it's beautifully cool when one comes in.

Mrs. Appleby

I suppose we shan't feel the heat so much when we've been here a few days.

Anne

Oh, but this is nothing to what you'll get in Upper Egypt.

Violet

[As she enters.] Is Mrs. Appleby complaining of the heat? I love it.

Anne

Dear Violet, wait till May comes and June. You don't know how exhausting it gets.

Violet

I'm looking forward to it. I think in some past life I must have been a lizard.

Mrs. Appleby

I dare say the first year you won't feel it. I have a brother settled in Canada, and he says the first year people come out from England they don't feel the cold anything like what they do later on.

Anne

I've spent a good many winters here, and I always make a point of getting away by the fifteenth of March.

Mrs. Appleby

Oh, are you staying as late as that?

Anne

Good gracious, no. You make Lady Little's heart positively sink.

Violet

Nonsense, Anne, you know we want you to stay as long as ever you can.

Anne

I used to have an apartment in Cairo, but I've given it up now and Lady Little asked me to come and stay at the Agency while I was getting everything settled.

Mrs. Appleby