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| (As matron) My children have grown up. They have left now, and I never see them. My husband is dead, but he was a good father to his children, and I loved him dearly. I live alone now - with a few servants. The time goes quickly. The sun rises and sets again before I get time to even think the day has started. I garden a little. I cook sometimes, and entertain friends. But my greatest trial is that I never see my children. One day... |
Secundus stands.
| (As Secundus) And so she spoke on. She told me of her family and her husband. I heard of happy times, and the things that saddened her most. She told me of her garden and her cooking and her painting. Yes! She painted! |
Secundus sits. The matron's hands are in his.
| (As matron) I paint vases. Just little scenes. Of soldiers, and scholars, and emperors. Sometimes I paint an animal or a bird. Sometimes flowers. Simple things. I'm a simple person. A little educated. |
Secundus stands.
| (As Secundus) She was intelligent. She was refined. I liked her simplicity. Her charm. Yet I mustn't divert. I mustn't divert from my aim. And who was I? she asked. |
Secundus sits. His body language conveys a certain seductivity.
| Oh, someone, I said. Just someone, a student. A visitor. A wandering scholar. A peripatetic intelligence. (To audience) And she laughed. She laughed at that. |
Secundus stands.
| She liked it. Have more wine? Ah and she spoke of the sea. How she wandered there while she waited. A silent stretch of sand. A shell. A twitching sponge. An abstract log with sand-worn spars projecting into the rising breeze. Wind in the hair, and the sound, and the smell, and the gulls, and the gulls, and the gulls. |