CURTAIN
ACT IV
[The scene shows a spacious room, fitted with luxurious rusticity. To the right of centre are a couple of broad windows, leading to a veranda. In the corner, right is a table, with a telephone. In the centre of the room is a large table, with a lamp and books, and a leather arm-chair at each side. To the left of centre is a spacious stone fireplace, having within it a trap door opening downward. At the left a piano with a violin upon it. There are exposed oak beams; antlers, rifles, snowshoes, etc., upon the walls. Entrances right and left.]
[At rise: CALKINS, standing by the desk, arranging some papers.]
CALKINS. [As 'phone rings.] Hello! Yes, this is the Isman camp. Prince
Hagen is staying here. This is his secretary speaking. No, Prince
Hagen does not receive telephone calls. No, not under any circumstances whatever. It doesn't make any difference. If the
President of the United States has anything to say to Prince Hagen, let him communicate with Mr. Isman at his New York office, and the message will reach him. I am sorry. those are my instructions.
Good-bye. [To HICKS, who enters with telegram.] Hicks, for the future, Prince Hagen wishes all messages for him to be taken to my office.
That applies to letters, telegrams. everything.
HICKS. Very good, sir. [Exit.]
CAL. [Opening a telegram.] More appeals for mercy.
HAGEN. [Enters from veranda, wearing white flannels, cool and alert.]
Well, Calkins?
CAL. Nothing important, sir.
HAGEN. The market continues to fall?
CAL. Copper is off five points, sir.
HAGEN. Ah!
CAL. The President of the United States tried to get you on the 'phone just now.
HAGEN. Humph! Anything else?
CAL. There has been another mob on Fifth Avenue this morning. They seem to be threatening your palace.
HAGEN. I see. You wrote to the mayor, as I told you?
CAL. Yes, sir.
HAGEN. Well, you'd best put in another hundred guards. And they're to be instructed to shoot.
CAL. Yes, sir.
HAGEN. Let them be men we can depend on. I don't want any mistake about it. I don't care about the building, but I mean to make a test of it.
CAL. I'll see to it, sir.
HAGEN. Anything else?
CAL. A message from a delegation from the National Unemployment
Conference. They are to call tomorrow morning.
HAGEN. Ah, yes. Make a note, please. I sympathize with their purpose, and contribute half a million. [To GERALD, who enters, left.]
Hello, Gerald. how are you? Make yourself at home. [To CALKINS.]
I attribute the present desperate situation to the anarchical struggles of rival financial interests. I am assuming control, and straightening out the tangle as rapidly as I can. The worst of the crisis is over. the opposition is capitulating, and I expect soon to order a general resumption of industry. Prepare me an address of five hundred words. sharp and snappy. Then see the head of the delegation, and have it understood that the affair is not to occupy more than fifteen minutes.
CAL. Very good, sir.
HAGEN. And stir up our Press Bureau. We must have strong, conservative editorials this week. It's the crucial period. Our institutions are at stake. the national honor is imperilled. order must be preserved at any hazard. all that sort of thing.
CAL. Yes, sir. I understand.
HAGEN. Very good. That will be all.
CAL. Yes, sir.
[Exit, right.]
GER. You're putting the screws on, are you?
HAGEN. Humph! Yes. It's funny to hear these financial men. their one idea in life has been to dominate. and now they cry out against tyranny!
GER. I can imagine it.
HAGEN. Here's Plimpton, making speeches about American democracy!
These fellows have got so used to making pretenses that they actually deceive themselves.
GER. I've noticed that you make a few yourself now.
HAGEN. Yes. don't I do it well? [Thoughtfully.] You know, Gerald, pretenses are the greatest device that your civilization had to teach me.
GER. Indeed?
HAGEN. We never made any pretenses in Nibelheim; and when I first met you, your talk about virtue and morality and self-sacrifice was simply incomprehensible to me. It seemed something quite apart from life. But now I've come to perceive that this is what makes possible the system under which you live.
GER. Explain yourself.
HAGEN. Here is this civilization. simply appalling in its vastness. The countless millions of your people, the wealth you have piled up. it seems like a huge bubble that may burst any minute.
And the one device by which it is all kept together. is pretense!
GER. Why do you think that?
HAGEN. Life, Gerald, is the survival of the strong. I care not if it be in a jungle or in a city, it is the warfare of each against all.
But in the former case it's brute force, and in the latter it's power of mind. And don't you see that the ingenious device which makes the animal of the slums the docile slave of the man who can outwit him. is this Morality. this absolutely sublimest invention, this most daring conception that ever flashed across the mind of man?
GER. Oh, I see.
HAGEN. I used to wonder at it down there on the Bowery. The poor are a thousand to your one, and the best that is might be theirs, if they chose to take it; but there is Morality! They call it their virtue.
And so the rich man may have his vices in peace. By heaven, if that is not a wondrous achievement, I have not seen one!
GER. You believe this morality was invented by the rich.
HAGEN. I don't know. It seems to be a congenital disease.
GER. Some people believe it was implanted in man by God.
HAGEN. [Shrugging his shoulders.] Perhaps. Or by a devil. Men might have lived in holes, like woodchucks, and been fat and happy; but now they have Morality, and toil and die for some other man's delight.
CAL. [Enters, right.] Are you at leisure, sir?
HAGEN. Why?
CAL. Mr. Isman wants you on the 'phone.
HAGEN. Oh! All right. [Goes to 'phone.]
GER. [Rises.] Perhaps I., HAGEN. No, that's all right. [Sits at 'phone.] Hello! Is that Isman?
How are you? [To CALKINS.] Calkins!
CAL. Yes, sir.
[Sits and takes notes.]
HAGEN. How about Intercontinental? [Imperiously.] But I can! I said the stock was to go to sixty-four, and I want it to go. I don't care what it costs, Isman. let it go in the morning. and don't ever let this happen again. I have sent word you are to have another hundred million by nine-thirty. Will that do? Don't take chances. Oh, Rutherford! Tell Rutherford my terms are that the directors of the
Fidelity Life Insurance Company are to resign, and he is to go to
China for six months. Yes. I mean that literally. Plimpton? What do I want with his banks. I've got my own money. And, oh, by the way, Isman. call up the White House again, and tell the
President that the regulars will be needed in New York. No, I understand you. I think I've fixed matters up at this end. I've got two hundred guards up here, and they're picked men. they'll shoot if there's need. I'm not talking about it, naturally. but
I'm taking care of myself. You keep your nerve, Isman. It'll all be over in a month or two more. these fellows are used to having their own way, and they make a fuss. And, by the way, as to the newspapers. we'll turn out that paper trust crowd, and stop selling paper to the ones that are making trouble. That'll put an end to it, I fancy. You had best get after it yourself, and have it attended to promptly. You might think of little things like that yourself, Isman. no, you're all right; only you haven't got enough imagination. But just get onto this job, and let me hear that it's done before morn- ing. Good-bye. [Hangs up receiver.] Humph! [To