The Collected Works in Verse and Prose of William Butler Yeats. Volume 3 of 8. The Countess Cathleen. The Land of Heart's Desire. The Unicorn from the Stars

THOMAS

Are you well of the fit, lad?

MARTIN

It was no fit. I was away – for awhile – no, you will not believe me if I tell you.

ANDREW

I would believe it, Martin. I used to have very long sleeps myself and very queer dreams.

THOMAS

You had, till I cured you, taking you in hand and binding you to the hours of the clock. The cure that will cure yourself, Martin, and will waken you, is to put the whole of your mind on to your golden coach; to take it in hand and to finish it out of face.

MARTIN

Not just now. I want to think – to try and remember what I saw, something that I heard, that I was told to do.

THOMAS

No, but put it out of your mind. There is no man doing business that can keep two things in his head. A Sunday or a holy-day, now, you might go see a good hurling or a thing of the kind, but to be spreading out your mind on anything outside of the workshop on common days, all coachbuilding would come to an end.

MARTIN

I don’t think it is building I want to do. I don’t think that is what was in the command.

THOMAS

It is too late to be saying that, the time you have put the most of your fortune in the business. Set yourself now to finish your job, and when it is ended maybe I won’t begrudge you going with the coach as far as Dublin.

ANDREW

That is it, that will satisfy him. I had a great desire myself, and I young, to go travelling the roads as far as Dublin. The roads are the great things, they never come to an end. They are the same as the serpent having his tail swallowed in his own mouth.

MARTIN

It was not wandering I was called to. What was it? what was it?

THOMAS

What you are called to, and what everyone having no great estate is called to, is to work. Sure the world itself could not go on without work.

MARTIN

I wonder if that is the great thing, to make the world go on? No, I don’t think that is the great thing – what does the Munster poet call it? – ‘this crowded slippery coach-loving world.’ I don’t think I was told to work for that.

ANDREW

I often thought that myself. It is a pity the stock of the Hearnes to be asked to do any work at all.

THOMAS

Rouse yourself, Martin, and don’t be talking the way a fool talks. You started making that golden coach, and you were set upon it, and you had me tormented about it. You have yourself wore out working at it, and planning it, and thinking of it, and at the end of the race, when you have the winning-post in sight, and horses hired for to bring it to Dublin Castle, you go falling into sleeps and blathering about dreams, and we run to a great danger of letting the profit and the sale go by. Sit down on the bench now, and lay your hands to the work.

MARTIN [sitting down]

I will try. I wonder why I ever wanted to make it; it was no good dream set me doing that. [He takes up wheel.] What is there in a wooden wheel to take pleasure in it? Gilding it outside makes it no different.

THOMAS

That is right, now. You had some good plan for making the axle run smooth.

MARTIN

[Letting wheel fall and putting his hands to his head.]

It is no use. [Angrily.] Why did you send the priest to awake me? My soul is my own and my mind is my own. I will send them to where I like. You have no authority over my thoughts.

THOMAS

That is no way to be speaking to me. I am head of this business. Nephew, or no nephew, I will have no one come cold or unwilling to the work.

MARTIN

I had better go; I am of no use to you. I am going – I must be alone – I will forget if I am not alone. Give me what is left of my money and I will go out of this.

THOMAS

[Opening a press and taking out a bag and throwing it to him.]

There is what is left of your money! The rest of it you have spent on the coach. If you want to go, go, and I will not have to be annoyed with you from this out.

ANDREW

Come now with me, Thomas. The boy is foolish, but it will soon pass over. He has not my sense to be giving attention to what you will say. Come along now, leave him for awhile; leave him to me I say, it is I will get inside his mind.

[He leads THOMAS out. MARTIN bangs door angrily after them and sits down, taking up lion and unicorn.

MARTIN

I think it was some shining thing I saw. What was it?

ANDREW

[Opening door and putting in his head.]

Listen to me, Martin.