READ STUDY GUIDE: Scenes Two–Three |
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Scene II
| Two days out. A section of the promenade deck. MILDRED |
| DOUGLAS and her aunt are discovered reclining in deck chairs. The |
| former is a girl of twenty, slender, delicate, with a pale, pretty |
| face marred by a self-conscious expression of disdainful |
| superiority. She looks fretful, nervous and discontented, bored by |
| her own anemia. Her aunt is a pompous and proud—and fat—old |
| lady. She is a type even to the point of a double chin and |
| lorgnettes. She is dressed pretentiously, as if afraid her face |
| alone would never indicate her position in life. MILDRED is |
| dressed all in white. |
| The impression to be conveyed by this scene is one of the |
| beautiful, vivid life of the sea all about—sunshine on the deck |
| in a great flood, the fresh sea wind blowing across it. In the |
| midst of this, these two incongruous, artificial figures, inert |
| and disharmonious, the elder like a gray lump of dough touched up |
| with rouge, the younger looking as if the vitality of her stock |
| had been sapped before she was conceived, so that she is the |
| expression not of its life energy but merely of the |
| artificialities that energy had won for itself in the spending. |
| MILDRED: |
| —[Looking up with affected dreaminess.]How the black |
| smoke swirls back against the sky! Is it not beautiful? |
| AUNT: |
| —[Without looking up.]I dislike smoke of any kind. |
| MILDRED: |
| —My great-grandmother smoked a pipe—a clay pipe. |
| AUNT: |
| —[Ruffling.]Vulgar! |
| MILDRED: |
| —She was too distant a relative to be vulgar. Time mellows |
| pipes. |
| AUNT: |
| —[Pretending boredom but irritated.]Did the sociology you |
| took up at college teach you that—to play the ghoul on every |
| possible occasion, excavating old bones? Why not let your great- |
| grandmother rest in her grave? |
| MILDRED: |
| —[Dreamily.]With her pipe beside her—puffing in |
| Paradise. |
| AUNT: |
| —[With spite.]Yes, you are a natural born ghoul. You are |
| even getting to look like one, my dear. |
| MILDRED: |
| —[In a passionless tone.]I detest you, Aunt.[Looking ather critically.]Do you know what you remind me of? Of a cold pork |
| pudding against a background of linoleum tablecloth in the kitchen |
| of a—but the possibilities are wearisome.[She closes her eyes.] |
| AUNT: |
| —[With a bitter laugh.]Merci for your candor. But since I am |
| and must be your chaperone—in appearance, at least—let us patch |
| up some sort of armed truce. For my part you are quite free to |
| indulge any pose of eccentricity that beguiles you—as long as you |
| observe the amenities— |
| MILDRED: |
| —[Drawling.]The inanities? |
| AUNT: |
| —[Going on as if she hadn't heard.]After exhausting the |
| morbid thrills of social service work on New York's East Side—how |
| they must have hated you, by the way, the poor that you made so |
| much poorer in their own eyes!—you are now bent on making your |
| slumming international. Well, I hope Whitechapel will provide the |
| needed nerve tonic. Do not ask me to chaperone you there, however. |
| I told your father I would not. I loathe deformity. We will hire |
| an army of detectives and you may investigate everything—they |
| allow you to see. |
| MILDRED: |
| —[Protesting with a trace of genuine earnestness.]Please |
| do not mock at my attempts to discover how the other half lives. |
| Give me credit for some sort of groping sincerity in that at |
| least. I would like to help them. I would like to be some use in |
| the world. Is it my fault I don't know how? I would like to be |
| sincere, to touch life somewhere.[With weary bitterness.]But I'm |
| afraid I have neither the vitality nor integrity. All that was |
| burnt out in our stock before I was born. Grandfather's blast |
| furnaces, flaming to the sky, melting steel, making millions—then |
| father keeping those home fires burning, making more millions—and |
| little me at the tail-end of it all. I'm a waste product in the |
| Bessemer process—like the millions. Or rather, I inherit the |
| acquired trait of the by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, |
| none of the strength of the steel that made it. I am sired by gold |
| and darned by it, as they say at the race track—damned in more |
| ways than one,[She laughs mirthlessly]. |
| AUNT: |
| —[Unimpressed—superciliously.]You seem to be going in for |
| sincerity to-day. It isn't becoming to you, really—except as an |
| obvious pose. Be as artificial as you are, I advise. There's a |
| sort of sincerity in that, you know. And, after all, you must |
| confess you like that better. |
| MILDRED: |
| —[Again affected and bored.]Yes, I suppose I do. Pardon |
| me for my outburst. When a leopard complains of its spots, it must |
| sound rather grotesque.[In a mocking tone.]Purr, little leopard. |
| Purr, scratch, tear, kill, gorge yourself and be happy—only stay |
| in the jungle where your spots are camouflage. In a cage they make |
| you conspicuous. |
| AUNT: |
| —I don't know what you are talking about. |
| MILDRED: |
| —It would be rude to talk about anything to you. Let's |
| just talk.[She looks at her wrist watch.]Well, thank goodness, |
| it's about time for them to come for me. That ought to give me a |
| new thrill, Aunt. |
| AUNT: |
| —[Affectedly troubled.]You don't mean to say you're really |
| going? The dirt—the heat must be frightful— |
| MILDRED: |
| —Grandfather started as a puddler. I should have inherited |
| an immunity to heat that would make a salamander shiver. It will |
| be fun to put it to the test. |
| AUNT: |
| —But don't you have to have the captain's—or someone's— |
| permission to visit the stokehole? |
| MILDRED: |
| —[With a triumphant smile.]I have it—both his and the |
| chief engineer's. Oh, they didn't want to at first, in spite of my |
| social service credentials. They didn't seem a bit anxious that I |
| should investigate how the other half lives and works on a ship. |
| So I had to tell them that my father, the president of Nazareth |
| Steel, chairman of the board of directors of this line, had told |
| me it would be all right. |
| AUNT: |
| —He didn't. |
| MILDRED: |
| —How naive age makes one! But I said he did, Aunt. I even |
| said he had given me a letter to them—which I had lost. And they |
| were afraid to take the chance that I might be lying.[Excitedly.] |
| So it's ho! for the stokehole. The second engineer is to escort |
| me.[Looking at her watch again.]It's time. And here he comes, I |
| think.[The SECOND ENGINEER enters, He is a husky, fine-lookingman of thirty-five or so. He stops before the two and tips hiscap, visibly embarrassed and ill-at-ease.] |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —Miss Douglas? |
| MILDRED: |
| —Yes.[Throwing off her rugs and getting to her feet.]Are |
| we all ready to start? |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —In just a second, ma'am. I'm waiting for the |
| Fourth. He's coming along. |
| MILDRED: |
| —[With a scornful smile.]You don't care to shoulder this |
| responsibility alone, is that it? |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —[Forcing a smile.]Two are better than one. |
| [Disturbed by her eyes, glances out to sea—blurts out.] A fine |
| day we're having. |
| MILDRED: |
| —Is it? |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —A nice warm breeze— |
| MILDRED: |
| —It feels cold to me. |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —But it's hot enough in the sun— |
| MILDRED: |
| —Not hot enough for me. I don't like Nature. I was never |
| athletic. |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —[Forcing a smile.]Well, you'll find it hot |
| enough where you're going. |
| MILDRED: |
| —Do you mean hell? |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —[Flabbergasted, decides to laugh.]Ho-ho! No, I |
| mean the stokehole. |
| MILDRED: |
| —My grandfather was a puddler. He played with boiling |
| steel. |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —[All at sea—uneasily.]Is that so? Hum, you'll |
| excuse me, ma'am, but are you intending to wear that dress. |
| MILDRED: |
| —Why not? |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —You'll likely rub against oil and dirt. It can't |
| be helped. |
| MILDRED: |
| —It doesn't matter. I have lots of white dresses. |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —I have an old coat you might throw over— |
| MILDRED: |
| —I have fifty dresses like this. I will throw this one |
| into the sea when I come back. That ought to wash it clean, don't |
| you think? |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —[Doggedly.]There's ladders to climb down that |
| are none too clean—and dark alleyways— |
| MILDRED: |
| —I will wear this very dress and none other. |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —No offence meant. It's none of my business. I was |
| only warning you— |
| MILDRED: |
| —Warning? That sounds thrilling. |
| SECOND ENGINEER: |
| —[Looking down the deck—with a sigh of relief.]— |
| There's the Fourth now. He's waiting for us. If you'll come— |
| MILDRED: |
| —Go on. I'll follow you.[He goes. Mildred turns a mockingsmile on her aunt.]An oaf—but a handsome, virile oaf. |
| AUNT: |
| —[Scornfully.]Poser! |
| MILDRED: |
| —Take care. He said there were dark alleyways— |
| AUNT: |
| —[In the same tone.]Poser! |
| MILDRED: |
| —[Biting her lips angrily.]You are right. But would that |
| my millions were not so anemically chaste! |
| AUNT: |
| —Yes, for a fresh pose I have no doubt you would drag the |
| name of Douglas in the gutter! |
| MILDRED: |
| —From which it sprang. Good-by, Aunt. Don't pray too hard |
| that I may fall into the fiery furnace. |
| AUNT: |
| —Poser! |
| MILDRED: |
| —[Viciously.]Old hag![She slaps her aunt insultinglyacross the face and walks off, laughing gaily.] |
| AUNT: |
| —[Screams after her.]I said poser! |
| [Curtain] |
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