A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

Scene One

(In the gambling room at the Casino in Biarritz, seven or eight backs stand shoulder to shoulder, so that they conceal the roulette table they are lined against. The middle one is unclothed, that of a woman in a backless white evening gown. Immediately behind her a maid is seated on a straight-backed gilt chair. She is plainly dressed, wears a pair of old-fashioned rimless glasses and is crocheting a strip of lace. On her lap in addition is a taffeta draw-bag. She pays no attention to the proceedings. A clicking sound is heard, as the little ball spins around and around. It stops with a little snap, like a wooden match-stick being broken, as the ball drops into the slot.)

Croupier: Seventeen, black!

(There is a low murmur of mingled voices like the humming of a swarm of bees, combining resignation, disappointment, annoyance, surprise, and satisfaction.)

Croupier: Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

(The woman in the backless white gown suddenly thrusts her arm behind her, toward the maid, with three fingers held out to show how much she requires. The maid immediately interrupts her crocheting, pries into the draw-bag, counts out three bank notes, and places them in the waiting hand. The arm returns to the table again.)

Croupier: Nothing more goes. Nothing more.

(Again the clicking sound, again the little snap.)

Croupier: Eleven, red!

(Again the low murmur of mingled voices.)

Croupier: Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

(Again the arm is thrust out toward the maid. This time all five fingers are extended. They close, then open again, in a grasping motion, to show their owner is impatient. The maid shakes her head to herself. She opens the draw-bag, takes out five banknotes, places them in the waiting hand. The arm twists back to the table again.)

Croupier: Nothing more goes. Nothing more.

(Again the clicking sound.)

Croupier: Sixteen, black!

(Again the murmuring voices.)

Croupier: Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

(Again the insatiable arm extends itself, all fingers out, fluttering. The maid inserts her whole hand into the draw-bag this time, as one would try on a glove. She turns the bag inside-out. It is empty.)

Maid: It’s all gone, madame. There’s no more left.

(The arm slowly wilts, drops down to its owner s side like a withered vine. Then the woman slowly turns and forces her way out from between the other players. She is a handsome woman, in her forties or early fifties, but now her face is haggard, drawn. A lock of her silvery hair has fallen down over one eye. She staggers, almost as if she were drunk. The maid quickly rises, puts aside her crocheting, and puts an arm around her waist to support her.)

Maid: Lean on me, madame. The fresh air will help you pull yourself together.

Countess: Haven’t you any money of your own you could let me have? I could give it back to you tomorrow.

Maid (wryly): I never carry money of my own with me when I go out with madame in the evening. I learned not to long ago.

Countess (dazed): What’ll I do?

Maid: Come away now, madame. Come back to your hotel. You’ve been in here since it first opened, hours ago.

Countess (lifts her arm, looks at a diamond bracelet she is wearing as though having forgotten she had it on): Oh— This—

Maid (quickly stops her by putting her hand over it): You know they won’t accept jewelry at the table, madame. You’ve tried before.

Countess: Maybe I could sell it to someone in the room here.

Maid (pleading): Madame.

Madame: It’s the last of all the beautiful pieces you once had.

(She picks up her crocheting from the chair-seat, stuffs it into the draw-bag.)

Maid (in a choked voice): I can’t bear to watch much more of this. I just can’t stand it. It does something to me. I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you, madame, at the end of the week.

(Countess doesn’t answer, as though she hasn’t heard her. Stands there looking around avidly, licking her lips, as if in search of a possible source of money.)

Maid: This is a fever.

Countess (indifferently): And there is no quinine for it.

Maid (coaxing her gently, as if she were a child): Come, madame. Come away now.

(They walk slowly across the large room, the countess leaning exhaustedly against the maid. The Casino doorman, standing motionless to one side of the glass doors leading out, stiffens to attention, pulls one of the two glass doors open, holds it that way in readiness, touches two fingers to the visor of his uniform cap.)

Doorman (respectfully, ducking his head): Goodnight, madame. Goodnight, mademoiselle.

(As though this has suddenly attracted her attention to him, the countess raises her head, stops, looks at him, frees herself from the maid, takes a step over toward him.)

Countess: Young man — my friend — I wonder if by any chance you could lend me—

Maid (horrified): Madame!

(She quickly places herself between the two of them, tactfully turns the countess away, guides her to the door, which he has continued to hold open for them, and out through it.)

Maid: Madame, consider what you are doing.

(The maid looks around over her shoulder at the doorman. She shakes her head to him, pityingly. He nods his head in agreement with her, also pityingly. He lets the door ease closed again, holding it so that it doesn’t swing...)

Scene Two

(Living room of a villa. It is furnished in rather old-fashioned, mediocre, overcrowded taste. In the center of the room there is a round table and two chairs. The doorbell rings. The woman who goes to the door is past middle-age but still lithe. Her hair is worn in the Slavic fashion, in a braid wound circularly around her head like a coronet, and she wears a Russian peasant blouse, white-bordered with colored embroidery. She opens the door. The countess is standing before it.)

Roulette-player: You are the clairvoyant?

Clairvoyant: I prefer to call myself a consultant. I am not a fortune-teller, whatever you may think. I give advice, but I do not make predictions.

Roulette-player: Forgive me.

Clairvoyant: You are the lady who telephoned for a private appointment? Countess—?

Countess (stopping her with a slight gesture of her hand): I am. No names are necessary.

Clairvoyant: I understand. Come in, won’t you please? (Closes the door) Sit down, madame. May I offer you some tea?

Countess: It may make me less nervous.

Clairvoyant (pausing on her way out): You are nervous of me?

Countess: Just nervous altogether.

(Clairvoyant raises her brows, then goes out. Countess, waiting, is extremely restless. Drums her fingers on tabletop. Takes out a cigarette, lights it with noticeably shaky hands, takes only a puff or two, then gets rid of it again. Clairvoyant reenters left, carrying a samovar.)

Countess: You are Russian, aren’t you?

(Clairvoyant places samovar on table. While the next few remarks are being exchanged, she pours tea, each of them takes a swallow or two, then pushes it aside. The clairvoyant takes up a deck of cards, shuffles them, and begins to deal them out before her, very slowly, as if engaged in playing solitaire. Their conversation meanwhile has continued without a break.

Clairvoyant: I was, when there was still a Russia. Now I am a person without a country. They used to call us White Russians. Today even that name is forgotten.

Countess: I have a pressing need of guidance, of advice.

Clairvoyant: I know.

Countess: Then you know also the subject on which I need it?

Clairvoyant: The casino.

Countess (nodding): The casino. How did you know?

Clairvoyant: Your nervous gestures. The way in which your eyes almost seem to bum.

Countess (somberly): It is that easy to tell. I didn’t realize...

Clairvoyant: I have lived many years in this world, my friend. (Staring at her intently) You must play?

Countess: While I live, I must play. If I were to lock myself in my room and throw the key out of the window, still somehow I would find myself beside that table that very same night.

Clairvoyant (almost contemptuously, with the contempt that a non-drinker has for an alcoholic): I have heard it is this way.

Countess (wearily): Then you’ve heard right.

Clairvoyant: And you want my advice. And yet I know and you know, we both know, that you won’t take it. Still, here it is.

I give it anyway. (Slowly, with heavy emphasis) Do not play.

Countess: As well ask me to stop breathing. (Leaning toward her, in desperation) You must help me. You must I don’t want to be lectured, I want to be helped.

Clairvoyant: Let us go back, then, before we go forward. Have you ever won, at any time? Think, now.

Countess: Many times. Oh, many times. But I didn’t stop soon enough, that was the only trouble. I went on playing too long, after I should have stopped, and—

Clairvoyant: There is no ‘too soon’ there is no ‘too long’. There is only one terminal point in this, and that is the point at which you did stop. Now let me repeat: when you stopped, had you won?

Countess (In a low, hopeless voice): Never.

Clairvoyant: Judge by that then. The past is the future that lies behind us. The future is the past that lies before us. They are one and the same. Only fools think they can divide them down the middle. You have never won. You never will win. Not tonight, not a week from now, not a year from now. There is something about your personality, your being, let us call it your aura, that attracts only bad luck at the gambling-table. I have seen it in these cards here. The money cards, the diamond suite, have all consistently avoided your own card, which is this one here.

Countess (skeptically): Are they infallible?

Clairvoyant: Ask yourself that, not me. Have you ever won? Then they are infallible. It is something about you, it is inexplicable, but there it is.

Countess: But what am I to do? I know that I’ll go back there again. I can’t stay away.

Clairvoyant: Have somebody else place your bets for you. But remember one thing, the selection must be theirs, not yours. It won’t help any if you tell them which plays to make. That is still you playing, then.

Countess: I couldn’t! I couldn’t do it! Not play myself? Just watch while somebody else plays for me? It’s the excitement, the urge, to play myself that drives me on. If I am thirsty, and you give the water to someone else, will that quench my thirst?

Clairvoyant (spreading her hands resignedly): Well, there you have it. That’s all I can tell you.

Countess: You say it’s my aura, my personality. Couldn’t I alter it in some way, hide it, disguise it, and so change my luck?

Clairvoyant: You mean tamper with your own destiny? For that is actually what you would be doing. That can be dangerous, madame.

Countess: Let it be. Anything at all would be better than this.

Clairvoyant: You could try. But I guarantee nothing.

Countess: I ask no guarantee. I wouldn’t bet on a sure thing even if I could, for then it would have no attraction for me. It’s the risk I like. All I ask is the outside chance.

Clairvoyant (laughing ruefully): Even in this you bet. You not only bet on the game itself, but you bet on the betting on the game.

Countess: And is this all you can do for me?

Clairvoyant: No. Since the consultation is not gratis, I can amplify it, I can dress it up. All you wish. Very well, let’s garnish it, then. Everything about you must be different. That goes much deeper than just the clothes you wear, the way you wear your hair, or the perfume you use. Inside yourself is where the real change must be. And can you do that, madame?

Countess: I can try.

Clairvoyant: Your thoughts must be the thoughts of someone else. The way you move, the very way you breathe, must be the way of somebody else. In your own mind you must be somebody else, you must believe you are somebody else. You must not even think of your own name or tell yourself what it is. It is no longer your name, it is the name of a stranger, who has nothing to do with you. Those whom the old-you knew, no matter how closely, the new-you no longer knows. Those whom the new-you knows, if any, will be those whom the old-you did not know. And — all this is impossible to accomplish. Humanly impossible. No, it cannot be done. And if it could, it might be better not to. You might damage yourself, destroy yourself in some way.

Countess (growing more excited): I can try! I can try!

Clairvoyant (drily): Let me wish you luck, madame. Bonne chance.

Countess (fervently): I will do it! I will! I don’t know how, yet, but I will accomplish it.

Clairvoyant (dubiously): Let us hope.

(She rises to her feet. The countess follows suit. The latter opens her handbag, brings out a handful of currency, places it on the table.)

Countess: With your permission.

Clairvoyant (shrugging matter-of-factly, as she ushers her visitor to the door, opens it for her): One’s time was given up, granted.

Countess (suddenly seizing the other’s hand and kissing it with gratitude): You don’t know how you’ve helped me! You don’t know how!

Clairvoyant (inscrutably): Have I...?

Scene Three

(The base of the Rochier de la Vierge, a rocky promontory jutting out high over the ocean at Biarritz. Around the base runs an iron guard-rail, and flanking this a paved walk. Along this walk slowly moves the countess. Her aspect is that of a woman in despair, who does not notice where she is going and does not care. She has evidently been gambling again, and with the usual result. The direction she comes from is that of the casino, and she is again wearing the spreading white dress. She stops and rests her back against the waist-high rail, one arm akimbo against it. She remains motionless thus for some time...)

(Suddenly some sort of a cloth, a garment, light-colored, drifts down from above, dangles over the rail for a moment, finally settles down to the ground near her. She notices it, stares. She steps over to it, picks it up, holds it extended at arms’ width. It is a woman’s cheap dress, plain, ordinary. Another garment floats down. Something in the nature of an undergarment, this time. Still holding the first one, she goes toward this, then stops and looks upward, to the top of the rock. On it, pale against the dark night-sky, is the undraped figure of a woman, hair streaming in the wind, who is about to throw herself into the churning, rock-spraying water far below.

(Horror and incredulity are stamped on the upturned face of the countess. A scream is heard, long-drawn and gradually fading away, as when someone falls from a great height. The top of the rock is empty now... The countess, still holding the original garment she picked up, finally lowers her head and folds her arm in front of it, as if to wipe out what she has just seen.)

Countess (to herself): That is what I should do, but I haven’t her courage.

(She removes her arm from before her face at last, goes to the remaining garments which have fallen and picks them up, one at a time.)

Countess: Be someone else, she said to me. (Looks at the garments) What better way?

(She follows the path around the turn of the rock, and off camera. When she returns, she is in the clothing of the unknown woman who has just taken her life. She stops against the rail a moment, face to camera.)

Countess: I can go back there now. I can go back and win. Win back everything I lost earlier tonight. That, and perhaps more. (Passes her hands slowly down her sides) Now I’m someone else. In clothes still warm from someone else s body. Still reeking with her thoughts, her hopes, her fears.

Almost, I can still feel her blood coursing within these clothes, her heart beating. (Shields her eyes a moment) I must not think who I am, what my name is. Was. (Uncovers them again) I must keep thinking, I am she. (Slowly) I am she. (More slowly still) I am she. (Moves away from railing) I must go back there now. I must go back— Where? I’ve forgotten. There was somewhere I wanted to go. But I’ve forgotten — where.

(Her head droops, as if she were dozing on her feet. Suddenly she lifts it, as if recalling.)

Countess: Oh, yes, I must go— Home. Home to him. He’s waiting. Waiting for me to come home.

(Opens the other woman’s shabby handbag, takes out a lipstick, passes it across her mouth just once, puts it back again.)

Countess: Just one more touch. Just one more try. Just one more, before I quit. And then I’m going home. Home to him.

Scene Four

Night. The promenade des Tamaris, overlooking the shore. A paved walk, and a stone balustrade or parapet, no more than waist-high. A pool of light from a street lamp falls on the center of the walk and of the balustrade. On the ballustrate, picked out by the light, the remains of a tattered movie-poster. Only the title still visible on it the rest a blur. “Jeux Interdits.” The black silhouettes of tamarick leaves, dangling from the branches lost in the dark above.

(She enters, perches slantwise atop balustrade, one leg touching ground, one dangling clear. The position of her body effectively covers up the movie-poster, or at least the title on it... “Forbidden Games.” She takes a cigarette from her bag, lights it, takes a single puff, then frugally stamps it out against the stone surface she is sitting on, and carefully retains it for further use.

(She glances down the walk, sees a man approaching, and immediately relights the cigarette, her manner expectant. The man comes nearer, his head slightly lowered, hands in his pockets, not too well-dressed. He walks tiredly. He doesn’t raise his head to look at her from first to last, as he passes her.)

Girl (in a peculiar, almost infantile sing-song, more like the squeak of a mechanical doll than the voice of a living person, as though she has made this salutation countless numbers of times, and it has long ago lost all meaning to her): Evening, dear.

Man (surlily, and without breaking pace): Get out of here. Don’t bother me.

(He goes on. She puts out the cigarette again, carefully retains it for further use. A moment later she sees someone else coming, from the same direction as the last time. She relights the cigarette, again staring expectantly while doing so. Another man enters, this time better dressed, almost dapper, more alert to his surroundings.)

Girl (in same sing-song): Evening, dear.

Man (pauses, turns his head, and looks at her): Oh, it’s you again. We’ve met before, haven’t we?

Girl (noncommitally): I know.

Man (patronizingly): Well, I can spend a moments time — if you can.

(She slips down from the parapet with alacrity, and links her arm in his. With the arm away from her, he surreptitiously removes a billfold from his rear pocket and transfers it to the inside pocket of his coat, where it will be more inaccessible. They walk off together. The poster, restored to view now that she has stood up, remains conspicuously visible for a moment in the center of the low stone wall. “Jeux Interditcs.”)

Scene Five

(A strip of sidewalk along one of the main shopping-streets of the town. At this hour however it is deserted. Standing before a corrugated iron shutter drawn down over some anonymous shop-window, is a solitary gendarme. The girl approaches him, passes by quickly, her head held down as though he inspires her with a guilty, or at least timorous feeling. As she goes by, he turns his head slowly, following her with his eyes. He stands there like that for several moments, as if watching to see what she will do or where she will go.)

Gendarme (finally, raising his voice with curt authority): Hey, you! Come back here a minute. (Pause) Come back here, I said! I want to talk to you.

(She reenters scene at right, goes up close to him, stands there obviously frightened, her head still hanging.)

Girl (meekly): Yes, Captain?

Gendarme (rocking back and forth on his heels, for emphasis): I thought I told you girls to stay off the main streets, like this one, here in this town.

Girl: Yes, Captain.

Gendarme: Then what are you doing on it?

Girl (submissively): I’m sorry, Captain.

Gendarme: I have my orders from the higher-ups, just like I give mine to you. And don’t try to win me over by calling me Captain every other moment, it won’t get you anywhere. Now, I don’t care if you want to hang around down by the seafront-walks, where you aren’t likely to attract attention, but don’t let me catch you again on one of these brightly-lighted streets in this part of town.

It gives the town a very bad name. Respectable people don’t like it, they complain. This is the last time I’m going to warn you. If I come across you again, I’m going to run you in.

Gnu-: I was just on my way home, that was all. I live just down there, lower end of the Rue Mazagran. The only way I can get to it is by crossing through here.

Gendarme (gruffly): That’s what you told me last night too. What’s your name? (As she takes a moment to answer) What’s the matter, don’t you know your own name?

Girl (vaguely): I do, but just for a moment I couldn’t think. I’m tired. Paule’s my name. Paule.

Gendarme: Paule what?

Girl (backs her hand across her eyes for a moment, dazedly): Paule Moret.

Gendarme (nodding approval): All right. That’s what you told me last night too. All right, Paule, now you listen to me if you want to stay out of trouble — (Stares at her more closely) What did you do to your face? You don’t look quite the same to me, somehow.

Girl (meekly): Nothing, patron.

Gendarme: Something different about you, I could swear. I don’t know exactly what

Girl (placatingly): I’m just like always.

Gendarme (shrugging): Well, that’s your own affair, I suppose. (More severely) Anyway, don’t make me talk to you again, understand?

Girl (docilely): I won’t. I promise.

Gendarme: All right, go ahead.

Girl (obsequiously): Thank you, patron.

(She hurries off, the sound of her hasty footsteps dying away down the street. He stands looking after her, fingering his mustache in perplexity.)

Gendarme: I suppose that’s all they have, those poor devils, their faces. That’s why they’re always fiddling around with them, trying to change them and improve them. I can’t tell what it was, but there was something different about her.

(Turns, finally, and strolls off, left.)

Scene Six

(The scene is dark, as an unlighted room would be. Footsteps climbing stairs are heard under. One flight, then a pause at the landing. Then the next flight. Growing louder as they come higher and nearer. Then a pause as if before a door and the sound of a key being put into it. Then the door opens. A sweep of light from the stairs outside passes swiftly across a wall as it does so. The door closes again and the sweep of light goes out.)

Man (in a sigh of inexpressible content, as when one has waited for hours): At last.

Girl (sighing too.): Back again.

Man: You stood there outside it a minute or two, before you came in. I could tell. What was it?

Girl: Nothing. The stairs. My breath.

Man: The beat of my heart told me it was you.

Girl: Shall I put up the light?

Man: You’d better have it, for yourself. You’ll need it.

(Sound of a switch clicking. The scene becomes a room. A man is sitting there on a straight-backed chair placed flat against the wall. He is crouched over his own lap, as if he had been sitting there like that for a long time. His hands dangle limply down, inside his thighs. His head is raised, though, and he is staring straight before him. Eyes that are open, but do not move. The kind of eyes that do not see.

(At his elbow, also flat against the wall, is a small, narrow wooden table with a cheap clock on it. A diagonal crack runs down the plaster of the wall, from upper-right to lower-left.

(She does not enter the scene at once, but her shadow passes back and forth a number of times across the wall before which he sits.)

Man (wistfully): It’s late — again.

Girl: Later than it should be. Every night the same story. They keep me working on overtime.

(He picks up the little clock, which has no glass over its face. Does not look at it but explores the hands delicately with his fingertips, holding it down flat over his lap instead of upright as others would.)

Man: We talk to each other, this little clock and I. all through the lonely hours of waiting. Its conversation is limited. But then — (smiles across the room at her) — so is my vision. We come out about equal. I say to it, ‘Will she be here soon?’ and it answers me, ‘Tikk’. That stands for yes. I say to it, ‘Is that her step out there now, far off down the quiet street?’ and it answers me, ‘Tokk.’ That stands for maybe. That’s all it ever says, yes and maybe, never no. But that’s something, don’t you think?

(Her outline on the wall stands still for a moment, lowers its face, covers it with both hands.)

Man: I put my fingers to it, and I can hear its little heart going inside, beating for someone like mine does.

(She enters the scene, back to camera, going toward him. And then she turns. Her clothes are the clothes of the woman who leaped from the rock, whose life this is. Her face is the face of the woman who stood at the roulette-table, of the woman who consulted the clairvoyant. She takes down a small cannister from the shelf. She takes something from out of the top of her stocking and puts it into the cannister, giving him a quick look as she does so.)

He: They paid you tonight at the factory?

Girl (softly, and with a shudder): Yes.

He: It was getting very empty in there, wasn’t it?

Girl (with despair): Very. Did you...?

He: Yes, I shook it once, when you were out. I knew you were worried. I’d heard you pick it up and put it down again, twice, before you left, but without opening it.

(Her hand goes into the cannister. It brings out several metal bolts and washers, holds them up in its palm. Drops them in again. They clink like coins would.)

Girl: But now it isn’t empty any more. It’s all right now. Bread. Those little sausages. The wine for the meals. Maybe even a package of Caporals for you—

(Her voice trails off disconsolately.)

He (leaning forward expectantly, face held up, trying to find her): Aren’t you going to kiss me? You haven’t yet.

Girl (wincing, backing her hand to her mouth as though to keep it from him, looking away from him as she does so): This minute. This very minute. First, just let me—

(Goes off. Sound of a little water being poured into a washbasin. Then sound of it trickling off someone’s fingers. She enters again, drawing a cloth across her lips. Back and forth, over and over again, as though she could never get them clean enough. Throws it away behind her, goes to him, drops to her knees, tilts her face up toward his, and their lips meet in a long, desperate kiss, like two lost souls.)

He (slowly, as their lips finally part): My darling. My sweetheart. My wife.

Girl (slowly): My love. My husband. My life.

He: Why are there drops on your cheeks like that?

Girl: It’s the water from the basin. My face gets grubby from — the factory.

He: But we only have cold water — and these are warm.

Girl: Is the loneliness over now? That’s all that matters.

He: I can’t remember it. What was it like?

Girl: Shall I fix you something?

He: I don’t want food. I don’t need food — now. Just stay here close. Close to me. Close. The time we have is so little. The terrible loneliness of love. (His fingers lightly trace and stroke her hair.) Love is loneliness. Even if I had eyes, it would still be loneliness.

Girl: A cigarette?

He: You’re here with me. I need no third thing to intrude upon us.

Girl: Did the little boy from downstairs come and take you out as usual?

He: He found a nice bench for me, around where the fishing boats lie. I sat there in the sun. Then he came back for me and brought me home again when it got dark.

Girl: He’s a good little boy. He’s kind.

He: He told me his older sister works there at the same factory you do. She hasn’t seen you there in over a month.

(She closes her eyes. Keeps them closed for a moment. Finally opens them again)

Girl (quietly): She works days, I work nights, that’s why. You know that. They transferred me to the night-shift about a month ago. I told you at the time. Some they let out altogether, but me — I work nights now. (Her voice trails off) I work nights now. (She drops her head suddenly, as if overcome, then raises it again) Don’t talk to the neighbors in the house too much. They mean no harm, but— People are people. Sometimes people say things that might hurt you. I don’t want anyone to hurt you.

He: They’re just voices I pass on the stairs. Voices without faces.

No one exists for me, only you. (His fingers explore her face, lightly passing over her forehead, her cheeks, the turn of her chin) You haven’t changed. You’re still the same. Still the same as that last time I ever saw you, before the light went out.

Girl: Everything changes. Everything has to. Only one thing never does. Never does. Love. But even the very one who loves, even she changes too.

He: Not you. You’ll always be as you were in the beginning. When love was new, and I was a brand-new husband, and you were my brand-new wife. And we had the brand-new little house, remember? I’d come back at the end of the day, and you’d meet me out in the garden, holding newly cut flowers in your arms. Something so clean and fresh about the way you looked, always. So unspoiled.

Girl (pleading): Not those words. Some others. Any others. Gay. Youthful. Even beautiful, if you want. Not those.

He: But it was that about you, always that, more than anything else. You were not the most beautiful girl in the world. Anyone can be that. A red crayon at the mouth, a black one at the eyes, can make that. You were the freshest-looking — what other word can I use? — the cleanest-looking vision that ever appeared before the eyes of a man in love—

Girl (moans): Don’t. Not that word.

He: Clean as sunlight on dew. Clean as a crystal waterfall cascading into a rock-pool. Clean as little puff-ball clouds after a summer shower has washed the sky. When you came into a room, the April breeze came in with you. Clover came in with you. That was the girl my love was, that was the girl my love is.

(A long pause follows)

He: What is it? You’re so still. You almost don’t seem to breathe— There’s distress, pulsing at me, beating at me. I can feel it.

(She crumples, slides gradually downward to the floor, crouches there on hands and knees, her head hanging over. His hand that had been caressing her hair remains extended, empty. As if so stricken she cannot rise, she begins to pull herself away from him, still along the floor on hands and knees. She reaches the door and pulls herself upright against it by grasping the knob with trembling hands. First her back is to the room, to him. Then with great effort, still holding onto the door, she turns to face him.

(His face gives a half-turn to this side, a half-tum to that, trying to locate her.)

He (bewildered): What have I said? Only tell me, tell me, and I’ll unsay it, I’ll take it back!

Girl: It’s too late. You’ve pulled me apart with just one word, just one. Now nothing can ever put me together again.

He (with mounting alarm): You’re standing by the door now. I can hear your voice sound against the wooden panel. What are you thinking of, where are you going?

Girl (softly): Goodbye, my love.

He (fully frightened now, terrified): Paule, the door is open now! I hear the emptiness of the stairs in back of your voice!

Girl (more softly than before): Goodbye, love.

He (shouting): Paule, the light’s going out again! Don’t take my light away, the only light I have! (Crying out wildly) Paule, don’t leave me in the dark!

Girl (in a whisper): Goodbye.

(The doorway is standing empty. The sound of her footsteps running down the stairs comes from the other side of it, gradually diminishing in the distance.)

He (screaming in despair): Paule, don’t go! The little clock and I, we want you here! Paule, come back! Come back! The dark! The dark! The terrible dark!

(A closed door on a lower landing of the stair suddenly opens and a woman sticks her head out. Just as she does so, the girl reaches the landing, slows momentarily to make the turn, but without stopping altogether.)

Woman (severely): Will you kindly be more quiet! All that shouting up there! And running down the stairs like that at this hour! People are trying to sleep, you know.

Girl (turning her head for just an instant as she goes by): Be patient, madame. Just a moment or two, and I won’t make another sound. I’ll be still forever after.

(She continues running on down the next flight. Woman stares after her, mouth open, as if not knowing whether she understood rightly what she just heard.)

(At the parapet along the Promenade des Tamaris, the movie poster is still in its center, “Jeux Interdits.” The girl runs by it She is tottering now from exhaustion. As she passes, she is struggling with her dress, trying to get out of it)

The dress flutters down from the tops of the Rocher de la Vierge, flutters down among the rocks, catches there, flickering in the wind. Then another garment. Then finally another. A flash of lightning bleaches the scene for a moment

Girl: I will be clean! I will be clean once more, just as I was before, just as he thinks of me still!

(Her head is upraised toward the night sky, her hair streaming in the wind. Another flash of lightning reveals her features even more clearly. Her face is definitely the face of the woman who stood at the roulette-table, who earlier stood at the foot of this same rock in a white dress, looking up.)

Girl (eyes turned upward, in prayer): Forgive me, Holy Mother. For myself, nothing. I have no claim, I make none. But for him — be merciful, have pity. Don’t let him hurt too much. Don’t let him call my name too much. Don’t let him linger alone in the dark too long.

(As she finishes praying, she lowers her head and turns it to give one last look below and behind her, from where she climbed.)

(At the base of the rock, the discarded garments are still lying there where they fell. But now a woman in a spreading white gown is standing there, looking upward toward the top of the rock. Her face expresses horror. A flash of lightning reveals it even more vividly. Her face is just as definitely the face of the woman who stood by the roulette-table, and at the foot of this rock the time before... As she looks, she hears a long-drawn scream, dwindling into the silence, as when someone is falling from a great height. A flash of lightning illuminates the top of the rock once more. It is empty. The woman in white, looking upward, transfixed.)

Woman (in a trance-like voice): Which is you? Which is I?