Read The Tragedy of Mister Morn for Free Online

raincoats … blizzards …
    MIDIA:
    But I thought it didn’t exist?
    FOREIGNER:
Perhaps. I
    entered a dream, but are you sure that I
    have left that dream? … So be it, I’ll believe
    in your city. Tomorrow I shall call it
    a dream …
    MIDIA:
Our city is beautiful …
[ She moves away .]
    FOREIGNER:
I find
    in it a ghostly resemblance to the distant
    city of my birth—that likeness which exists
    between truth and high fantasy …
    SECOND GUEST:
It is,
    believe me, the most beautiful of all cities.
[ SERVANTS serve coffee and wine .]
    FOREIGNER [ with a cup of coffee in his hand ]:
    I am struck by its spaciousness, by its clean,
    extraordinary air: in it music sounds
    differently; houses, bridges, and stone arches,
    all the architectural outlines in it,
    are boundless, light, like the passage
    from the happiest sigh to sublime silence …
    I am also struck by the ever-cheerful gait
    of passers-by; the absence of cripples;
    the melodious sound of footsteps and of hooves;
    the flight of sledges across white squares … And
    they say the King alone has done all this …
    SECOND GUEST:
    Yes, the King alone. Gone are the times
    of hardship, never to return. Our King—
    a masked giant, in a fiery cloak—
    took the throne by force, and that very year
    the last wave of revolts died down.
    A conspiracy was uncovered: its members
    were swept aside—and, by the way,
    Midia’s husband too, although one shouldn’t
    mention it—and sent to distant mines,
    from whence the law will never call them back;
    I say the members, for the main rebel,
    their nameless leader, was never found …
    Since then, the country has been at peace.
    Ugliness, boredom, blood—all have evaporated.
    The pure sciences reach for lofty heights,
    but, recognizing beauty in the past,
    the King has protected poetry, the agitation
    of bygone ages—horses, and sails, and live
    ancient music—although alongside these,
    there wander through the air transparent,
    electrical birds …
    DANDILIO:
In bygone days
    flying machines were otherwise constructed:
    sometimes they would flap upwards,
    to the thunder of the glinting propeller,
    to the explosion of petrol, emitting a smell
    of tea into the empty sky … Forgive me,
    but where is our interlocutor? …
    SECOND GUEST:
I didn’t
notice how he disappeared …
    MIDIA [ approaching ]:
And now
    the dances will begin …
[ Enter ELLA , with GANUS behind .]
    MIDIA:
And here’s Ella!…
    FIRST GUEST [ to the SECOND GUEST ]:
    Who is that blackamoor? What a scarecrow!
    SECOND GUEST:
    And to think he’s wearing a frock-coat! …
    MIDIA:
    You are so luminous … so ethereal …
    How is your father?
    ELLA:
Still the same: fever.
    Here, do you remember, I told you?—
    our tragic hero … I begged him to keep
    his make-up on … It is Othello …
    MIDIA:
Very good!
    Klian, come here … tell the violinists
    to begin …
[ The GUESTS move through into the salon .]
    MIDIA:
Why does Morn not come?
    I do not understand … Dandilio!
    DANDILIO:
    But one must love even anticipation.
    Anticipation is a flight into the dark.
    Then all at once there’s light, a fall into
    the happy light, but then the flight is over …
    Ah, music! Please, allow me to offer you my arm.
[ ELLA and KLIAN walk past .]
    ELLA:
Is something bothering you?
    KLIAN:
    Who is your consort? Who is your black-faced
    consort?
    ELLA:
A harmless actor, Klian. Why,
    are you jealous?
    KLIAN:
No. No. No.
    I know that you are faithful to me, my bride …
    O, God!To enter you, oh, to enter,
    would be like entering a tight and searing
    sheath, to peer into your blood, to break
    through your bones, to learn, to grasp, to touch,
    to press your being in between my palms! …
    Listen, come to me! It is a long time
    until spring, until our wedding day! …
    ELLA:
    Don’t, Klian … you promised me …
    KLIAN:
    Oh, come to me! Let me break into you!
    It is not I who beg, but my starved genius,
    tormented by you, writhes in the