Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honour

Name: Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honour
Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Author: Сомерсет Моэм

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Сомерсет Моэм

Год написания книги

2017

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    [Lucy gives a little sob and Alec turns to the window. He wants to wound her and yet cannot bear to see her suffer.

Alec

To-morrow at this time I shall be well started. Oh, I long for that infinite surface of the clean and comfortable sea.

Lucy

Are you very glad to go?

Alec

[Turning to her.] I feel quite boyish at the very thought.

Lucy

And is there no one you regret to leave?

Alec

You see, Dick is going to marry. When a man does that, his bachelor friends are wise to depart gracefully before he shows them that he needs their company no longer. I have no relations and few friends. I can't flatter myself that any one will be much distressed at my departure.

Lucy

[In a low voice.] You must have no heart at all.

Alec

[Icily.] If I had, I certainly should not bring it to Portman Square. That sentimental organ would be surely out of place in such a neighbourhood.

Lucy

[Gets up and goes to him.] Oh, why do you treat me as if we were strangers? How can you be so cruel?

Alec

[Gravely.] Don't you think that flippancy is the best refuge from an uncomfortable position. We should really be much wiser merely to discuss the weather.

Lucy

[Insisting.] Are you angry because I came?

Alec

That would be ungracious on my part. Perhaps it wasn't quite necessary that we should meet again.

Lucy

You've been acting all the time I've been here. D'you think I didn't see it was unreal when you talked with such cynical indifference. I know you well enough to tell when you're hiding your real self behind a mask.

Alec

If I'm doing that, the inference is obvious that I wish my real self to be hidden.

Lucy

I would rather you cursed me than treat me with such cold politeness.

Alec

I'm afraid you're rather difficult to please.

    [Lucy goes up to him passionately, but he draws back so that she may not touch him.

Lucy

Oh, you're of iron. Alec, Alec, I couldn't let you go without seeing you once more. Even you would be satisfied if you knew what bitter anguish I've suffered. Even you would pity me. I don't want you to think too badly of me.

Alec

Does it much matter what I think? We shall be so many thousand miles apart.

Lucy

I suppose that you utterly despise me.

Alec

No. I loved you far too much ever to do that. Believe me, I only wish you well. Now that the bitterness is past, I see that you did the only possible thing. I hope that you'll be very happy.

Lucy

Oh, Alec, don't be utterly pitiless. Don't leave me without a single word of kindness.

Alec

Nothing is changed, Lucy. You sent me away on account of your brother's death.

    [There is a long silence, and when she speaks it is hesitatingly, as if the words were painful to utter.

Lucy

I hated you then, and yet I couldn't crush the love that was in my heart. I used to try and drive you away from my thoughts, but every word you had ever said came back to me. Don't you remember? You told me that everything you did was for my sake. Those words hammered at my heart as though it were an anvil. I struggled not to believe them. I said to myself that you had sacrificed George coldly, callously, prudently, but in my heart I knew it wasn't true. [He looks at her, hardly able to believe what she is going to say, but does not speak.] Your whole life stood on one side and only this hateful story on the other. You couldn't have grown into a different man in one single instant. I came here to-day to tell you that I don't understand the reason of what you did. I don't want to understand. I believe in you now with all my strength. I know that whatever you did was right and just – because you did it.

    [He gives a long, deep sigh.

Alec

Thank God! Oh, I'm so grateful to you for that.