Mr. X. Do you think that I will give my father a thief for a son, my wife a thief for a husband, my children a thief for a father, my friends a thief for a colleague? Not if I know it. Now I will go to the police and give myself up.
Mr. Y. [Springs up and collects his things.] Wait a bit.
Mr. X. What for?
Mr. Y. [Hesitating.] I was only thinking—that it’s not necessary any more—as it’s not necessary for me to stay here—that I might go.
Mr. X. No, you don’t—sit down in your place at the table where you were before—then we’ll talk a bit first.
Mr. Y. [Sits down after he has taken up a black coat.] What, what’s going to happen now?
Mr. X. [Looks in the mirror at the back of MR. Y.] Now it’s as clear as possible.
Mr. Y. [Nervously.] What do you see so strange?
Mr. X. I see in the looking-glass that you are a thief—a simple, common or garden thief. A few minutes ago, when you sat there in your white shirt, I just noticed the books were out of order a bit in my bookcase, but I couldn’t notice in what way, as I had to listen to you and observe you. But now that you’ve become antipathetic to me my eyes have grown sharper, and now that you’ve on your black coat, which affords a color foil in the red backs of the books, which there wasn’t before when your red braces were showing, I see that you’ve been and read your forgery story out of Bernheim’s treatise on suggestion, and have put the book back upside down. So you stole the story as well. Now that’s why I think that I’m right in drawing the deduction that you committed your crime because you needed either the necessities or luxuries of life.
Mr. Y. Out of necessity! If you only knew!
Mr. X. If you only knew in what necessity I have lived, and live still. But that’s got nothing to do with it. But you’ve done your stretch, that’s nearly certain, but it was in America, because it was American prison life that you described; and another thing is almost equally certain: that you haven’t done your term here.
Mr. Y. How can you say that?
Mr. X. Wait till the inspector comes, then get to know. [MR. Y. gets up.] Look here, now! The first time I mentioned the inspector, in connection with a thunderbolt, you wanted to clear out. Besides, when a man has served in prison he will never go to a windmill every day and look at it, or post himself behind a window-pane—in one word, you are both a punished and an unpunished criminal. And that’s why you were so unusually difficult to get at. [Pause.]
Mr. Y. [Absolutely cowed.] May I go now?
Mr. X. Now you may go.
Mr. Y. [Puts his things together.] Are you angry with me?
Mr. X. Yes. Would you prefer it if I pitied you?
Mr. Y. [Sulkily.] Do you consider yourself better than I am?
Mr. X. I certainly do. I am better than you are. I am much smarter than you, and much more useful than you are to the general community.
Mr. Y. You are very deep, but not so deep as I am, I am in check myself, but all the same you’ll be mate next move.
Mr. X. [Fixes MR. Y.] Shall we have another round? What mischief are you up to now?
Mr. Y. That’s my secret.
Mr. X. Let’s have a look at you—you’re thinking of writing an anonymous letter to my wife and telling her about this secret of mine.
Mr. Y. Yes, and you can’t stop me doing it. Put me in jail? Why, you daren’t; and so you’ve got to let me go; and when I’m gone I can do what I want to every day.
Mr. X. Oh, you devil! You’ve found my one weak point—do you want to compel me to become a murderer?
Mr. Y. You can’t do that, you wretch!
Mr. X. You see, there’s a difference between one man and another. And you know yourself that I can’t do things like you do; that’s where you have the pull over me. But just consider—supposing you make me treat you in the same way that I treated the coachman. [Lifts up his hand to deliver a blow.]
Mr. Y. [Stares insolently at MR. X.] You can’t do it— you can’t do it; just as you couldn’t find your salvation in that chest.
Mr. X. You don’t believe then that I took it out of the earth?
Mr. Y. You didn’t have the pluck. Just as you didn’t have the pluck to tell your wife that she’d married a murderer.
Mr. X. You’re a different type of man to what I am—whether you’re stronger or weaker I don’t know—more criminal or not don’t touch me. But there’s no question about your being more of an ass; because you were an ass when you wrote in somebody else’s name instead of begging, as I managed to do; you were an ass when you went and stole an idea out of my book. Couldn’t you have known that I read my books? You were an ass when you thought that you were smarter than I was and that you could lure me into being a thief; you were a fool when you thought it would adjust the balance if there were two thieves in the world instead of one, and you were most foolish of all when you labored under the delusion that I would go and build up my life’s happiness without having first made the corner-stone safe. You go and write anonymous letters to my wife that her husband is a homicide?—she knew it when we were engaged! Now take yourself off!
Mr. Y. May I go?
Mr. X. You shall go now. At once. Your things will follow you. Clear out!
[Curtain.]
SIMOON
BISKRA, an Arabian girl.
YOUSEF, her lover.
GUIMARD, a lieutenant in the Zouaves.
SCENE I
In Algeria, at the present time.
An Arabian marabout (cemetery) with a sarcophagus on the ground. Praying mats here and there; on the right a charnel-house. Door at the back with porch and curtains; window apertures in the wall at the back. Small sand hillocks here and there on the grcrund; an uprooted aloe; a palm-tree; a heap of esparto grass.
[BISKRA enters with a burnous hood drawn down over her face, and a guitar on her back, throws herself down on a mat end then prays with arms crossed over her breast. The wind blows outside.]
Biskra. La ilaha all allah.
Yousef. [In hatft.] The Simoon comes. Where is the Frank?
Biskra. He will be here in a little space.
Yousef. Why dost thou not slay him at once?
Biskra. Nay, because he is going to do that himself. If I were to do it the whites would kill the whole of our tribe, for they know that I was the guide Ali—though they do not know that I am the maid Biskra.
Yousef. He is to do it himself? How is that to be?
Biskra. Dost not know the Simoon? Thou knowest that Simoon shrivels up the brains of the whites like dates, and makes them stricken with panic, so that life is hateful to them and they fly out into the great unknown.
Yousef. I have heard such things, and in the last combat six Franks lifted their hands against themselves. For snow has fallen on the mountains and in half-an-hour all may be over. Biskra, canst thou hate?
Biskra. Thou askest if I can hate? My hate is boundless as the waste, burning as the sun, and stronger than my love. Rvery hour of joy they have stolen from me since they killed Ali has gathered together like poison in a viper’s fangs, and what Simoon does not wreak that will I wreak myself.