The Bird-Flower and the Well with a Sweep

ACT ONE

SCENE 1

In a forest, two children struggle to come up out of the earth like blades of grass. A grave voice makes itself heard, but the children do not hear it.

voice — This tale went murmuring through the forest: « Once it rained blue above the bed set in the middle of a lemon-green field. How sad was the flower beneath the three-legged bed with springs, for not a single drop reached its petal, and how it longed for just one drop of blue to wander over its white... One day green snow began to fall over the lemon-green field, over the bed with springs set above the sad flower. But the flower was withered now, for the wood had rotted and a spring from the bed fell upon the flower's petal — the flower that dreamed of being a flower no longer, that dreamed of being a bird beating the sky, chirping softly through the rain. » ...

c.2 — Hup, and there — I'm out!

Gestures of wonder. He looks around, sniffs, takes a step. Then he looks toward the other child, who is still struggling, and with his eyes tries to hurry him along.

c.1 — I won't be long! I'll shift everything I've forgotten right away.

c.2 — In my shadow it lies... for if I looked the same as them, neither the rains nor the wind would stop me...

c.1 — In a moment you can pick the threads of flowers. It won't be long! Ready in a tick, just be patient!

c.2 — Maybe the linden buds will bloom, maybe they'll fetch the pails of water from the new well, maybe they'll gaze at the stars and see how many there are...

c.1 — I told you to be patient — but what can I do if my soles won't come out of this earth. It's so wet I've sunk into it again up to the ankles. I'm straining to shift everything I've forgotten, and then you can pick the threads of flowers right away.

c.2 — And they'll sing to them like to birds, and they'll load the clouds onto their backs... They say if it rains the wrong way round, we might get two moons. Because if it rains on this one that's here now, it'll swell till it bursts in two. Smaller little ones... And if we have them, what sun would rise in the morning to make peace between the two of them, at night?

After they pick a few flowers — at first in obvious delight, then in time obviously discontented, as though the thing they had wished for had not come to pass — both sit down in turn in the grass. The child c.1 puts a blade of grass in his mouth.

c.1 — You know?... I set as many as seven stars on the crown of my head: two above my eyes, two below them. One I caught in my hair and two I held in my mouth. Because if I'd held only one, I'd have been half-open, now on the right, now on the left, so that I was open on both... The light could come into me through them.

c.2 — Don't go thinking I've got more flowers picked than you, and she won't let me look her in the eyes. But I told her to ask you — only she wouldn't. That we'd be hand in hand, and that you'd have given me yours too. But I told her yours aren't picked, that you found them already gathered, and that they couldn't be put together with mine in a single hand. But she said nothing and stuck out her tongue at me.

c.1 — And in the grass we'll lie on our backs, we'll fill ourselves with rains and... then all the birds will come and eat bread from our hands, then they'll bathe in the dust that we'll spill on purpose at the root of a tree... Listen — didn't you show them to her? Didn't she see that half were yellow and only a few were colored otherwise?

Stretching out, the child c.1 lies down on his back, hands beneath his head, the blade of grass still in his mouth.

c.1 — You know — the tale of the bird that chirps and tells everything. Do you really think it can talk so the world would understand?

In a tree a bird's chirping is heard. They start and look in that direction. Watching it, they approach slowly. Only c.2 goes on further; the other stops and sits down on the grass. Suddenly the one who had come closer too turns his back on the bird.

c.1 — Seven stars I set on the crown of my head: two above my eyes, two below them, one I caught in my hair and two I hold in my mouth. Because if I held only one, I'd be half-open, now on the right, now on the left, so that I'm open on both... The light can come into me through them.

c.2 — Let's dig a pit!

c.1 — Let's! But where?

While the spot to dig the pit is being chosen,

c.2 — We'll climb to the top of the pit, we'll cram it all in together, we'll choose and pick, and only the girls will come along with us... Do you like what I made up?

c.1 — Hey, you don't say "made up," you say "composed."

c.2 — Right, then do you like what I composed?

c.1 — No.

For a while, both are silent and only dig, dig, and dig again.

c.2 — From a flower I once had, seized by a fierce... (he doesn't know what to say), I drew out a wing of white, sad, gleaming petal...

c.1 — I wonder if we'll strike water if we keep digging like this?... They say the well, the only one we've got, wasn't dug but baptized itself: one evening the house rooster crowed its wake-up call and just like that water came running over the porch. The well had baptized itself in the yard. You know — the one with the sweep. And oh, how great the wonder was when they saw it! They wanted to pour it into all the pails of the house, until they saw it wasn't ready yet. And then — you should have seen the uproar!

c.2 — ...a wandering wind blew it off into the distances toward the waters, lost it was in the night... Why don't the leaves fall in spring?

c.1 — Because they've no water to ripen, that's why. How would you strike water now? Well, if the leaves fell, the trees would tan, and so they'd redden... so the sun would take pity on them and hide behind the moon.

c.2 — Behind moons! — there's two of them, if I want.

A third child comes into the forest, a girl holding a big doll by the hand.

c.1 — Why are you crying, dear little girl?

f.1 — Me, crying? I'm only upset that the rain didn't wet me too, and so I wetted myself with water from the new well, and now it's as if I have tears.

c.1 — No, you didn't wet yourself with water from the new well, because that doesn't look like tears. You cried and that's that, you just won't admit it!

f.1 — I didn't cry — why do you want me to say what you say? I didn't cry, I wetted myself so I'd be rained-on too.

c.2 — Rained-on?... (nastily), well do you even know what it means to be rained-on? well if it rains...

At this moment both boys try to frighten the girl,

c.1 — the eaaarth ends... cloud smashes into cloud... and birds that flyyy start to howl blaaack...

— Ooooooo!! ooooooo!! (both in one voice)

f.1 — Stop it (tearfully), I'll tell my dad on you.

An adult appears, who says:

A — ...up to the sky to fill the road, of you it can no longer, let the daystar take wing, up to the sky to fill the road, of you to summon you, in the place that goes still, of you it dashes, that cloud of clouds... and skulls (drawing near the boys, and rapping them reproachfully over the head). Do you like what I composed?

c.1 — See now — that's how you say it?

f.1 — Dad, these boys said the earth ends when it rains. Is that so?

A — Hey boys, why did you dig this pit?

c.2 — Just because. But mister, are you her dad?

f.1 — Yes, he's my dad. He's the most dad of mine.

A — Yes, I'm her dad, but if you like I can be your dad too.

c.2 — Well no, because we don't want a dad, we dig pits, and we make verses.

c.1 — We sing of stars and we empty wells.

A — But why did you dig this pit, hey boys?

c.2 — (absent) ...That's why I wonder — when, at the moon, the wind whispers secretly of a tale, does it resemble a petal from the flower I once had?...

c.1 — We don't want a dad, we're wet and only just out of this soft earth.

c.2 — (as if revived, but still a little absent) The mud's barely dried on us. Mud from the deep lake, full of birds, with a violet sky above...

c.1 — (coming to his aid) ...Full of fish that flew with the help of wings, fish shining in the white morning sun like stones in the shade of a green tree.

c.2 — (woken) And we don't dig, we cover the grass with earth from the pit. But a house we can never bring.

c.1 — And besides, it's too early for you. We're not big enough yet for a dad. Maybe tomorrow, if you pass by here, we'll take you for a dad. But maybe only tomorrow...

c.2 — Maybe only tomorrow... maybe only tomorrow...

c.1 — Come on, let's go. Come on, let's grab that tree by the branch.

The boys move off to the back, giggling all the while. Only the father remains, with his little girl, and the doll.

A — I've told you before not to carry the doll caught like that by just one hand. And especially like that, with her, in the forest. Why won't you understand that you can never know whether and where you'll drop her, and then you're left without her.

f.1 — But Dad, didn't you say a person holds another by the hand if they love them? Didn't you tell me I love this doll and that I should keep her with me all the time?

At the back, the boys up in a tree:

c.2 — Let's throw ourselves from up here onto the tip of the blade of grass!... To feel it piercing into our flesh, from sole to knee, from heart to temples, to fall asleep down there, to feed the earth with our blood...

c.1 — Hold on — but do we even have such a thing? What knees and what blood? Where from, hey, where from?!

c.2 — ...come, let's fly toward the grass, swallowing all the wind that wraps around us!

c.1 — Where from, hey, where from?

c.2 — Come on, come! What fear have you of that single drop of dew? what fear?... Come on, come!

The child c.2 jumps and hurts himself badly. You can see how he holds back from crying.

c.2 — Stay, grass, stay still, look, I stroke you, let the wind blow you, but let the sun fill your undersides with sap. (he begins to cry) Stay, grass, stay still, still you can't make your green fly away, still you can't change the shape of your own nature...

At the front, the father goes on scolding his daughter.

A — Maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, I'll let you carry the doll by the hand, but today I'm still your dad, today I'm still your dad...

f.1 — Can I tell the boys, Dad, what was outside the forest? Can I, Dad, can I tell them? Come on, Dad, can I tell them? (the father nods)

The boys gather in the middle, suddenly revived, with the father and his little girl.

f.1 — It rained blue above the bed set in the middle of a lemon-green field. How sad was the flower beneath the three-legged bed with springs, for not a drop reached its petal. And how it longed for just one drop of blue to wander over its white.

c.1 — Tell it, tell it, and then we'll tell you one too, all right?

f.1 — One day green snow began to fall over the lemon-green field, above the bed with springs set over the sad flower. But the flower was withered now, for the wood had rotted and a spring from the bed fell upon the flower's petal — the flower that dreamed of being a flower no longer, that dreamed of being a bird beating the sky, chirping softly through the rain.

c.2 — Haven't you seen, by any chance, the bird-flower from the lemon realm? Haven't you seen that it knows where to hold a doll?... hold it by the hand, hold it by the hand... (as if he knew the tale)

c.1 — Haven't you seen, by any chance, the bird-flower, from the lemon realm?... (questioning, and amazed that c.2 seems to know the tale)

At this moment three boys and three girls come into the forest, performing a dance in a circle, spinning every which way, and carrying in their midst the little girl's doll (which had vanished earlier, all of a sudden). Stopping their dance, one boy says:

— Hold it, hold it, but hold it only by the hand... hold it, hold it, but hold it only by the hand... Off I went, off I went, and back I brought it, hand in hand as I told you... hold it tight the way I bind, for I pick it so it'll go...

A girl from the group says:

— Wind that blows yellow over the moon, you'll put out its flame!

The whole group in chorus:

— You that blow yellow, you'll put out its flame, you wind, you word, from over the moon?...

Again the girl from the group says:

— Wind of yellow that binds the syllable, word of fire!

The whole group in chorus:

— You that bind the syllable, word of fire, you wind, you word, of "is" and "to be"?...

c.2 — (upset) But there's two moons!... there's two! Two, I've said it before!

At this moment the group looks at c.2 in fright and runs off the stage.

c.1 — And so did she find it, or didn't she?

The little girl looks questioningly toward her father. Again he nods.

f.1 — They didn't find it. Not yet. But she's still looking for it, because they say that when, (in a rush) if someone offers her picked flowers and she won't accept them, saying that the one offering them doesn't have the most picked of all, so that really he'd have to pick all the flowers, and that only then would she accept them — but if he hasn't picked them all, that is, the most of them...

A — Oh, how you keep stammering — be clearer!

The little girl looks at her father in fright and begins to cry, but at his insistence she begins to repeat, between sobs:

f.1 — That is, if she doesn't accept the flowers she's given, saying she could get more from someone else... that one, they say, would be her...

c.1 — (joyful and a bit fearful) Yes, now I know why she didn't want them!! Hey, where are you? Now, now I know!!

c.2 — What do you know, hey? Quit your bawling! Lie back down, sleep some more!

The boy had fallen asleep during the little girl's tale. Now he had woken, excited by what he'd dreamed.

c.1 — Hey, that girl with the picked flowers is the bird-flower!

c.2 — (emancipated) I don't believe it! Really?

A — Which girl?

They all run off out of the forest.

SCENE 2

In the pit dug by the two children. Two voices:

— Don't you hear it? as if someone were scratching the wall from outside...

— It's only maybe the bird... the white one, with its hands in the yellow sand, it's the sickness, raw and sweet... earth and waves...

— And still you don't hear it? as if the sea were beating in the glass of the cup, yellow foam...

— It's only maybe the bird... it's only maybe the white one and the raw one, the sweet one... with its hands in the yellow sand, it's the sickness... earth and waves...

The two boys jump into the pit. Shaking off the water, one says:

c.1 — Morsels of cloud in descent spread themselves through the grass, drown the snails, catch crushed stones, only water and water. It seems to me the sky is spitting!

c.2 — Ants, take some, I call after the sun. The clouds fall to the gathering — what's to be done about the going?

c.1 — Dear horizon, pinch them hard! Dear breeze, blow them big!...

Suddenly a flash of lightning followed by a thunderclap.

c.1 — They've got bogged down too, the clouds!

c.2 — Not everything goes their way!

c.1 — How good this pit is, all the same. It doesn't get wet, it isn't driven off when it grows dark outside.

c.2 — Yes, poor thing, it's good. It just stays like that and does nothing.

c.1 — But where, I wonder, is that little girl with the doll?

At that moment the father jumps into the pit too, with his little girl and the big doll.

c.2 — Ah! you've come too. But only once the rain's done? Where did you get lost?

f.1 — We stayed to see whether it'd rain in reverse (said the little girl in a knowing tone, her eyes on the boy who kept going on about the two moons).

c.1 — Inked is the shadow of the rains, it settles into the sky's eyes, the darkness darkening it...

c.2 — ...To leap, to cling to every drop...

c.1 — ...To find the transparency within you, to find yourself in the drop...

A — Stop with all these verses! And you, Daddy's girl, come here. Now!

f.1 — But Dad...

A — Now, I said!

The little girl heads toward her father, but on the way she drops the doll from her hand, and the doll's head breaks off. Everyone notices this. The little girl begins to cry hard, the boys start as at a bad omen. The father tries to calm the spirits:

A — Boys! You still owe a tale!

The boys look at each other in fright, withdraw to a corner of the pit, and crouch down there. One of them slowly begins to tell a story, followed then by the other:

c.1 — Late one day, a grey worm came, beside the web-house of his friend the pink spider.

c.2 — He asks you now, for I've come a second time — what am I looking for here again.

c.1 — I'm looking for the seed, a bead of light, that the little white fly gave me as a gift.

c.2 — I threw it away in spite, off into the distance — I was hungry and looking for a flower, and had no mind at all for talk. Did you not catch it, perhaps, in the net of your house?

c.1 — That I did, but I've no thought of giving it back. Try, though, to find another, a dark one, black and surly, and I'll trade with you on the spot, one for one, one for the other.

The little girl stops crying. She wipes her tears, picks up the doll's head from the ground, arranges its hair, and tries to fit it back onto the rest of the body. The father, pleased the spirits are calmed, sits down on the ground. He begins to say:

A — Children, children... Now tell me, you children, just how long have you been in this forest?

The boys, calm and with an absent air, begin to say:

c.2 — It's said it passed slowly, along with the wave... that the wave carried it through all the corners of the world, that in the corners of the world it was pricked five times... that the wave then carried it through all the places of the world, that everywhere it left its mark...

c.1 — We searched for it through all the places of the world, to find it... to find at least a drop of its blood from when it was pricked, to find at least a lost imprint of it, and we searched... and we searched... we searched...

A — But what are you doing, hey children — you're not answering what I asked you.

One to the other:

c.2 — To go...

c.1 — ...toward the snowdrop...

c.2 — ...when...

c.1 — ...to be...

c.2 — ...in this state of summer...

c.1 — ...believing...

c.2 — ...that you, winds...

c.1 — ...beside us...

c.2 — ...a feather of sky...

c.1 — ...are...

c.2 — ...to believe...

c.1 — ...believing...

c.1 — ...that you, winds...

f.1 — Dad, what's that — "you, winds"?

c.1 — (looking toward the little girl) ...toward you...

c.2 — (upset) oh, why do you tangle us up?

A — But you still haven't answered my question.

c.1 — We won't answer you at all.

Again two voices make themselves heard (mutterings). The two boys, the father, and the little girl do not hear them, though. The doll's head lies somewhere between the little girl's feet. All this while, everyone begins to fall asleep.

ACT TWO

SCENE 1

A wholly new figure makes its appearance on the stage. The set is bare of any detail; the impression of darkness persists. Only two moons, side by side, shine in the night.

p.1 — From which seeing it looks within, and it seems to it of a kind with great to-do, from where one leaps one hurls oneself out, of stairs forgotten feet padlocked, climbed and thrust by carts eaten and burnt sheds... What seems to it smiled as it goes to show both clouds and trodden hills. It's good on the back, it's good that it can — you've lain in vain, blinks taken. Bells of yours gathered, of mine sketched-away... It pushes!... it gives up on everything!... Lengthened, enlarged by sloth and ripened, I strain to enlarge the falls of napes, with bald patches split, two tousled and torn, tailed by roads and mares. I climb you, you backs scratched, I undulate, what beats from hearts spat into lips pinched, bitter and all of them mine, and mine, and mine soaked... It rains them bathed strange-strange, it dries them blown dazed-dazed, it rubs them boiled forgotten-forgotten, forgotten... And they're ready, flowered, pollens upon the grasses!... But whistlings salted, but whistlings salted...

A strange girl's voice, passionate and in love, says:

f.2 — You never came to give yourself to me, you, when it sets on the sun and on the back — my love, take heed how much song, how much it hurts, and how you never came to give yourself to me... You, when it sets on the sun and on the back, my love, take heed... take heed...

The new figure starts, searches for the voice with his eyes, frightened of losing it, of letting it slip; he rushes forward and answers:

p.1 — All through the evening I searched... for an occasion of blushing cheeks, gazings-up of weepings, I teared up... you weren't there, you couldn't be found... you, when you weren't there, what did I not have?... There, I weep... softly...

There follows a longer pause in which a melody is heard, as of dream and enchantment. All this while, the director's art will make a body appear gradually on the stage — the one whose voice we heard. A very beautiful girl, almost naked yet clothed, with a very pure air. Against the background of the same melody, a dance begins in which the two undulate together without cease. Again the director's art is called upon, as well as the actors'.

p.1 — How deep, deep it seems to me?... The phantom drinks my eyes... A girl, leaving me, and the only beloved. Bloodied, the heart shows itself!... No, don't sing, bend down!... Bend, go! Lie down for me, my feet press into the depths, reddenings of cheeks... She leaves me with gazings of weepings, she tears me un-wed!...

f.2 — Be silent... be silent, beloved... yours are the good flowers, picked and re-picked, held and crushed... I take them with you, beside... beside you I take...

p.1 — Picked are mine, beside pits, windows, and stars, put in the mouth. The well... wet upon petals, gathered with me and washed...

f.2 — Be silent, beloved... Beloved...

The melody starts again, the dance resumes, the two of them die away into a gentle fire...

In the same scene as the previous dance, but on another side of it, the break of day appears. The two from the dance remain sleeping on the ground. There is heard — softly at first, and then louder and louder — the chirping of little birds, the buzzing of bees. Dawn glimmers, and in the black night a beautiful glade takes shape, in the middle of which a well with a sweep appears. Much vegetation, and the freshness of spring... The child c.1 comes onto the stage. He doesn't see those sleeping at the side of the stage. He comes in as if on a stroll, walking toward the well.

c.1 — Where on earth is this brother of mine wandering? And when, for pity's sake, did he go off so fast?... Bless his cornmeal mush! Imagine that — off all on his own, on his own say-so. Well, no matter, he'll see what I'll do to him when I find him.

Meanwhile he reaches the front of the well. He looks down into the bottom of it and begins to spit inside, in play. By this he plays in the most innocent way (this gesture is not to be interpreted wrongly). Looking into the well, he sees, mirrored in its water, a bird flying across the sky. He jerks his eyes upward and begins to run after it, beneath it. In despair at losing it, he tries to fly. He cannot, and he collapses into the grass, exhausted (I remind you that the innocence must be clearly suggested, and I warn against overdoing this).

c.1 — In vain you flee up there in the sky. You can flee... bird... you can flee... for I gnawed away the sun's rind before you. First I put out the fire of its rays. Because you know... it was as if a red bird were flying, like a bird.... I pity the red birds!... then it seemed a cloud, red, swelling like a cloud... I pity the red clouds!... red snakes then seemed to be turning into snakes... but I killed them, yes, the red snakes, I killed them!... I killed them... But then I reached the core, which I put through the meat grinder, and made little meatballs that I seasoned with mother's milk... what a supper, what a secret supper, a rich one I had!

Slowly, thoughtfully, he approaches the well again, and since the water in the well is so high that he can reach into it with his hands, the child plunges his hands into the well's water and wets them. Then he looks with naive curiosity at how the water slowly dries on his hands, taking care not to wipe it off by accident. Still looking at his hands like this, he settles in a more secluded spot with his bottom in the grass, and after his hands have dried, he takes a blade of grass in his mouth.

c.1 — (revived) Actually it's his own business that he left. And how lucky for me that I stayed. Ha — you should've seen how the poor thing looked, I think he'd go clean mad, nothing less... (pause) (dreamily) It was that we were dancing in a round-dance... we were young, only we'd take hold of the old man... (approvingly) the old man... he'd make us a strange sign... that we weren't dancing the way we should... but he was our luck, he held his body in the sign of the well... Oh, how do you not remember? (showing with gestures) The left hand stretched up beside the head, palm turned up toward the face, and the right hand stretched out in front, palm down and lowered... And we danced the way we should...

The child c.1 begins to dance in a certain way. After a while, five boys come in, in the same posture the boy has shown, and begin to dance — now in disorder, keeping the position of their hands as at the start all the while, now in a certain dance like the child c.1's. After another while (decided by the director's wish), in this melee the child c.1 stumbles upon the new figure p.1, beside the girl f.1, and tripping over him, falls down alongside. In that same instant all five children fall instantly, each where he happens to be at that moment. Immediately after, the lights on the stage go dark and the curtain falls.

SCENE 2

The same child c.1 we find lying somewhere at the root of a stately, great tree with many drooping branches. The tree's position will be suggested to be exactly where, in the previous scene, the new figure p.1 lay. Likewise the child c.1 remains exactly where he had fallen in the previous scene, in the same position as before. There is a clear daylight, at high noon. A sensation of heat and sultriness. As if still not woken from the sleep he was in, c.1 begins to undress because of the heat. He is left in only a rag covering his hip. As in a tale told to himself, still held by the spell of sleep and half awake, c.1 talks to himself. The sensation this scene must give off is one suggesting torment and contempt combined with a helplessness of self-mastery.

c.1 — ...It's not allowed!... the sweet pleasure grips him, her fineness magnifies him!... He tells me no!... the bone begins to weep... oh, how much I'd give to be able to stop it for a single moment!?... Why?... it's a law of man... You're a man now!... you're a man... Now and now... oh, it can't be... you're a man!... that the sun might whisper you an image long locked away... And he tells me no!... his heart runs, runs out of me toward white veins... looking through skin with hair... and nails...

At this moment c.1 is on his feet and begins to laugh. This laugh suggests ignorance and innocence more than madness. It is as if someone else speaks through him.

c.1 — ...the steps drown in stale flesh... walk, for once!... short, the spiders, the spiders from the pit's web, the spiders in the web... Don't leave me alone, Mama!... (pause) Oh, the nights with sun have passed... the days with moon... the buds had already died, the sun had lit the earth white... For the rest, the flowers... the flowers... reigned... black and cold. The green columns (he leans against the tree) were beginning to rust in the sweet warmth of the wind... my eye is full: spring?...

Here c.1 seems fully awake, and after a moment of confusion he settles down quietly at the root of the tree, and in a sad voice says:

c.1 — It's quiet and there's no one, and again that locked-away longing begins in me... and it's warm and great, in everything it's shameful to be alone...

Looking off somewhere into the distance,

c.1 — Send me at least one of those does with a star on its brow, gentle and lithe, for mine grew old long ago... Mama, oh, please don't leave me alone, for everything is coming back to life... and I want it to die, to strip itself bare and... to die...

At this moment, while c.1 seems exhausted and sad, leaning against the trunk of the tree, a wholly new figure p.2 appears. He, visibly affected, begins to speak as though to a large audience. At the same time, though, the child c.1 also says something, so that they speak somewhat at once, but not one over the other.

p.2 — I'm an angel, yes, don't be surprised, it's simple. If you have wings, a little crown, and you're naked, you're an angel. (pause) Fine, I'm an angel, (he notices c.1) but what of it? Well, it's something. You tell me too — isn't it something, to be an angel? You sink into your thoughts and tell yourself you're an angel, then, as an angel, you start doing something to prove you're an angel. So you go off, you look into the distance and try to see who needs help. If you find someone, you do everything you can to reach them, even to fly. Then you tell them you're an angel — they won't believe you (to c.1) — but you'll give them the help they need, and they'll believe you. (pause) (concluding) So, you're an angel. Only one thing trips you up: you have no wings, no little crown, and you're not naked. But it doesn't matter, because you're a new-style angel. I'm not a new-style angel. That's not how I went about becoming an angel. With me it happened otherwise... I thought I was an angel, and I became an angel... So I'm an old-style angel.

c.1 — You stately one, who in secret realms... O sky of likeness and of summons... O sky of night and of forgetting... Learn to take color in me, learn to wind through me... O sky of likeness and of summons, you stately one, who in secret realms..

Although it seemed that p.2 had drawn c.1's attention somewhat, the latter, at the end of p.2's speech, turns his back on the one in question. Not at all troubled by c.1's lack of attention to him, p.2 approaches the tree on a side opposite to where c.1 sits leaning, and in the same tone as at the start begins to say:

p.2 — To try always to be a tree, green and transparent, and by implication to be a man no longer — with all the risk of such a thing in our day — requires of the brain an effort, if not a difficult one, then at least a singular one, an effort that anyone would be capable, in the end, of making. But the physical effort required for this kind of resemblance demands of the human organism a mastery (searching for his words) a difficult mastery, which not all people possess. (gesturing) I make my case: the legs would have to be joined together, forming the trunk. Note from the very outset the absence of roots --- what is not seen does not exist. Then, in continuation, the chest, with the heart beating in it, so that to the hands and the head is left the role of embodying the branches. And I've put a full stop, because here a minimum of attention is required. The branches, the hands, and the head; the leaf, the finger, and the brain. One might say that to a minimum of leaves there must always correspond just ten fingers and just one single brain. Well now, here intervenes the one place where man, with all his mastery — the mastery I've spoken of — is incapable of imitating, contenting himself with reducing complexity to simplicity, the prosaic to (very affectedly) superiority. Simple equals superior... But, since to set two elements in opposition there must be a resemblance between them, in our case this manifests itself as: trying always to be a man — and we all realize this is impossible to achieve — and, by implication, to be a tree no longer...

At this moment c.1 suddenly grabs a branch of the tree, trying to climb up into it. For this he makes a great effort. The figure p.2 notices this and stops speaking, frightened. Very sadly, pressing on each word, c.1 begins to say, looking toward the sun:

c.1 — I'm up high, in a tree, and above me the sky is black... it rains seldom... and below, a white shadow trembles on the softness of the earth... I don't believe in dreams!... I don't believe in fairy tales, I don't believe in shadows!... (pointing with his hands toward the sky) Come, fill my mouth with earth, my eyes with stars, let birds settle in my hair, let me forever long for them... I'm only a poor nest at a forking of branches... I'm only a poor nest at a forking of branches...

The curtain falls.

ACT THREE

SCENE 1

In the pit dug by the children — which now, in the light of day, shows itself to be blue in color — the girl's father is asleep. At a certain moment he starts from his sleep and discovers he is alone in that pit. The children and the little girl had left.

A — Woe is me, woe is me, but I've slept a long while. Oh, but where could they all be? And is it still raining?

Trying to see whether it's still raining, he notices that the pit has deepened so much that he can no longer get out. He begins to grow agitated, to move about, to look for a way out. Suddenly two voices are heard:

1 — I will, I'd like to be willed...

2 — I love, I'd like to be loved...

1,2 — toward a secret place ceaselessly I move, I'm as in an empty glass of liquors too hot... (innocent laughter)

2 — to be loved, I love...

1 — to be willed, I will...

1,2 — toward a secret place, that I may move, a fist of time I strike from my temple, created earth I loosen from my eyes... (at this moment the pit closes up still more) That I may fulfill myself, that I may reach the edges, in droplets the fullness drips into me, in the empty glass ceaselessly to move...

The girl's father falls to his knees in fright; he senses evil things. The voices fall silent.

A — Why are you silent?! Why are you silent? ... (finding on the pit's wall the downward-pointing root of a tree, he seems to address the tree) And you, tree, why are you silent, why silent with yourself, with your sap... for only you taste the flesh of the earth, of the wells... only you pierce the stone and the name... you bend your stillness over the pit, alone and deep... You alone can speak of darkness, of the dark... Why are you silent with yourself, with your sap?!... tell me how you grew, how you bit from the wing of light. What does the bone of an animal taste like?... but, but the drained bone of a man?!... tell me, were children born in the gloom among your roots?... are there migrating birds in the black?... show me the shape of your branch... tell me the tumult of the whirlwinds, the falling of the leaves and the weeping of the rains... tell me! why are you silent with yourself, with your sap?... (worn out) ...I run slowly through you, I fill your leaf... I run slowly... I fill your leaf...

On the ground, he notices his little girl's doll; he puts its head back on. A flicker of hope can be read on his face, and as if in a sign of summons he throws the doll up through the opening of the pit, up into the light. It is silent; nothing more is heard.

A — No, I don't believe my little girl won't come for me. She'll come, for certain. After all, I'm her daddy. And who else but I can give her dolls so lovely and as big as the ones she likes. She'll come for me, I'm sure of it. I won't be left shut in here, after all... She'll find the doll up top and she'll know I slept longer than I should in this pit... In this cursed pit... (looking around) But what is it with this pit, that it's so blue? (he begins to feel along the walls of the pit) Those two children are probably doing me in. (suddenly growing angry, he begins to mimic the children in a squeaky voice) "don't throw stones in the water! — why shouldn't I throw stones in the water? — don't muddy the well."... But what they found at this well I really don't know — only it doesn't sound good to me at all. And then, "the bird-flower, the bird-flower" — it's as if they know who the bird-flower is. The bird-flower... oh, they know it well...

After a moment, as if discovering something, his face contorts with terror and dread:

A — But this cannot be!! This cannot be!!...

The girl's father collapses to the ground as if struck down by lightning. Two voices are heard:

voices — Black is blue... Black is blue... (laughter) Black is blue... black is blue...

SCENE 2

A lemon-green field; the two children, at play, come onto this field. The light is as at the setting of a day. They toss the girl's doll back and forth between them — the doll they had found earlier by chance. As they were playing like this, at a certain moment they notice, right in the middle of this field, a three-legged bed with springs. This makes one of the children, with the doll in the air, fail to catch it, and so it falls to the ground and again its head breaks off. The children notice this in passing but pay it no mind. As if possessed, both begin to run toward the bed and try to get onto it. But since the bed has room for only one of them, a silent squabble breaks out, from which neither emerges the winner. Tired, they each sit down with their bottoms in the grass, propped against the foot of the bed, each on a different side of it. Each keeps trying to outwit the other's watchfulness, trying to catch the other off guard, but neither succeeds. The child c.1 takes a blade of grass in his mouth.

c.1 — Don't you try to shout loud.

c.2 — Why shouldn't I shout loud?

c.1 — So that we don't screech, that's why...

After a pause

c.2 — Well, we screech so we won't shout, and then we shout so we won't screech.

c.1 — (absent) Why can't I touch the flower with my finger?

c.2 — So that we won't shout — and why, so that we won't shout, so that we won't screech, that's why!

Absorbed in shouting, the child c.2 doesn't notice how c.1 slowly rises to his feet...

c.1 — (thoughtful) Where's the flower? where's the flower?...

c.2 — (inattentive) Which flower? which flower?...

c.1 — (amazed) Which flower? which flower?

...and in the next moment he slowly sits down, without c.2 noticing it, on the three-legged bed with springs. The director's art will make the audience understand that, pricked by a spring of the bed, the child c.1 falls asleep serenely, forever. The child c.2, however, will not realize this. Suddenly, somewhere far off, the creaking of a well-sweep is heard. The child c.2 hears the sound and, as if enchanted, heads toward that well. The director's art will arrange that at the start of this scene the well is not seen, but appears on the stage only at this moment. Enchanted, the child c.2 heads toward the well, his eyes on its sweep, on which he sees something:

c.2 — You bite hard from the flesh and find yourself changed to a beast. From stolen hearts, vestal shynesses; it shaves me with cut blades reddened, greatly rendered vigils. I uttered myself of you, beloved, eyed cheeks of white... How I pine for you... Dear, shall we go with our backs upon the Moon, strung along?... (pause) I had set my foot, soles in eyebrows, on stones of the Moon bathed, cut, through dusty selenic peaks... I push with a finger, with blood, through all, on bosoms of white, on bosoms of white soaked, and maybe... lay down your ear, from senses stretched out the thundered birds beat gently... Storm of waters, storm of waters... Don't stir the kisses, they won't sit bathed... it walks over this way... it walks over this way...

At this moment the girl f.2 appears like a phantom, somewhere behind the child, so that he does not see her. She sees the doll on the ground with its head broken off to one side; she bends down, lifts it, fits its head back into place. Then she walks on, looking for a spot in the nearby forest. The boy c.2, now reaching the well, very close to its surface, after a few moments in which he smiles at the water, falls serenely into it, never to come out of it again. The girl f.2, having found the spot she sought at the edge of the forest, digs a pit. Noticing the red sun as it sets, she says:

f.2 — ...it wavers... it draws in dream-air... how deeply it passes through, in the streak of night... a sheen of marble... (as if to herself) ...the lake twinned... paired... paired... with red... beneath the vault of moons, of stars... triangles... the sun...

At the moment she places the doll in the pit, green snow suddenly begins to fall over the whole stage. After a while, once the doll is completely buried, the girl f.2 turns to face the audience and stands there, silent in the snowfall, like a phantom. Slowly, the girl f.2 disappears beneath the stage (with the help of a trapdoor). A grave voice makes itself heard:

voice — And one more word went murmuring nearby, in the forest: « The well baptized itself out of dry, rare stone. It baptized itself all at once with storm-water. In its surface, your face in the sun you would glimpse, and on its sweep at once a bird you would see. » ...

The curtain falls.

--- THE END ---

For the director's information, I note that the actor who embodies the child c.2 will play both the wholly new figure p.1 and the wholly new figure p.2. Likewise, the actress who plays the little girl f.1 will also play the girl f.2.

ANDREI FODOREANU

approximate running time (text only): 70 min. — approximate running time (performed): 120 min.