Short Plays

of the family and give us our portions, Giulietta. They take their places. That’s right. Serve me last, Giulietta. Sandro is hungry. Squarcio To the girl. Come come! do you not see that his Excellency will touch nothing until we have had some first. He eats. See, Excellency! I have tasted everything. To tell you the truth, poisoning is an art I do not understand. Ferruccio Very few professional poisoners do, Squarcio. One of the best professionals in Rome poisoned my uncle and aunt. They are alive still. The poison cured my uncle’s gout, and only made my aunt thin, which was exactly what she desired, poor lady, as she was losing her figure terribly. Squarcio There is nothing like the sword, Excellency. Sandro Except the water, Father Squarcio. Trust a fisherman to know that. Nobody can tell that drowning was not an accident. Ferruccio What does Giulietta say? Giulia I should not kill a man if I hated him. You cannot torment a man when he is dead. Men kill because they think it is what they call a satisfaction. But that is only fancy. Ferruccio And if you loved him? Would you kill him then? Giulia Perhaps. If you love a man you are his slave: everything he says⁠—everything he does⁠—is a stab to your heart: every day is a long dread of losing him. Better kill him if there be no other escape. Ferruccio How well you have brought up your family, Squarcio! Some more omelette, Sandro? Sandro Very cheerfully. I thank your Excellency. He accepts and eats with an appetite. Ferruccio I pledge you all. To the sword and the fisherman’s net: to love and hate! He drinks: they drink with him. Squarcio To the sword! Sandro To the net, Excellency, with thanks for the honor. Giulia To love, Signor. Ferruccio To hate: the noble’s portion! Squarcio The meal has done you good, Excellency. How do you feel now? Ferruccio I feel that there is nothing but a bait of ten crowns between me and death, Squarcio. Squarcio It is enough, Excellency. And enough is always enough. Sandro Do not think of that, Excellency. It is only that we are poor folk, and have to consider how to make both ends meet as one may say. Looking at the dish. Excellency⁠—? Ferruccio Finish it, Sandro. I’ve done. Sandro Father Squarcio? Squarcio Finish it, finish it. Sandro Giulietta? Giulia Surprised. Me? Oh no. Finish it, Sandro: it will only go to the pig. Sandro Then, with your Excellency’s permission⁠—He helps himself. Squarcio Sing for his Excellency, my daughter. Giulia turns to the door to fetch her mandoline. Ferruccio I shall jump into the lake, Squarcio, if your cat begins to meowl. Sandro Always cheerful and reassuring. No, no, Excellency: Giulietta sings very sweetly: have no fear. Ferruccio I do not care for singing: at least not the singing of peasants. There is only one thing for which one woman will do as well as another, and that is lovemaking. Come, Father Squarcio: I will buy Giulietta from you: you can have her back for nothing when I am tired of her. How much? Squarcio In ready money, or in promises? Ferruccio Old fox. Ready money. Squarcio Fifty crowns, Excellency. Ferruccio Fifty crowns! Fifty crowns for that black-faced devil! I would not give fifty crowns for one of my mother’s ladies-in-waiting. Fifty pence, you must mean. Squarcio Doubtless your Excellency, being a younger son, is poor. Shall we say five and twenty crowns? Ferruccio I tell you she is not worth five. Squarcio Oh, if you come to what she is worth, Excellency, what are any of us worth? I take it that you are a gentleman, not a merchant. Giulia What are you worth, Signorino? Ferruccio I am accustomed to be asked for favors, Giuliaccia, not to be asked impertinent questions. Giulia What would you do if a strong man took you by the scruff of your neck, or his daughter thrust a knife in your throat, Signor? Ferruccio It would be many a year, my gentle Giuliaccia, before any baseborn man or woman would dare threaten a nobleman again. The whole village would be flayed alive. Sandro Oh no, Signor. These things often have a great air of being accidents. And the great families are well content that they should appear so. It is such a great trouble to flay a whole village alive. Here by the water, accidents are so common. Squarcio We of the nobility, Signor, are not strict enough. I learnt that when I took to breeding horses. The horses you breed from thoroughbreds are not all worth the trouble: most of them are screws. Well, the horsebreeder gets rid of his screws for what they will fetch: they go to labor like any peasant’s beast. But our nobility does not study its business so carefully. If you are a screw, and the son of a baron, you are brought up to think yourself a little god, though you are nothing, and cannot rule yourself, much less a province. And you presume, and presume, and presume⁠— Giulia And insult, and insult, and insult. Squarcio Until one day you find yourself in a strange place with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own wits⁠— Giulia And you perish⁠— Sandro Accidentally⁠— Giulia And your soul goes crying to your father for vengeance⁠— Squarcio If indeed, my daughter, there be any soul left when the body is slain. Ferruccio Crossing himself hastily. Dog of a bandit: do you dare doubt the existence of God and the soul? Squarcio I think, Excellency, that the soul is so precious a gift that God will not give it to a man for nothing. He must earn it by being something and doing something. I should not like to kill a man with a good soul. I’ve had a dog that had, I’m persuaded, made itself something of a soul; and if anyone had murdered that dog, I would have slain him. But show me a man with no soul: one who has never done anything or been anything; and I will kill him for ten crowns with as little remorse as I would