Karma (Serapis Classics)

Algernon Blackwood

• Publisher: Serapis Classics
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9783962559298
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Blackwood was born in Shooter's Hill (today part of south-east London, but then part of northwest Kent) and educated at Wellington College. His father was a Post Office administrator who, according to Peter Penzoldt, "though not devoid of genuine good-heartedness, had appallingly narrow religious ideas".Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, as a newspaper reporter in New York City, and, throughout his adult life, an occasional essayist for various periodicals. In his late thirties, he moved back to England and started to write stories of the supernatural. He was very successful, writing at least ten original collections of short stories and eventually appearing on both radio and television to tell them. He also wrote fourteen novels, several children's books, and a number of plays, most of which were produced but not published. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, and many of his stories reflect this. English writer of ghost stories and supernatural fiction, of whom Lovecraft wrote: "He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere." His powerful story "The Willows," which effectively describes another dimension impinging upon our own, was reckoned by Lovecraft to be not only "foremost of all" Blackwood's tales but the best "weird tale" of all time.

ACT III

THEIR THIRD LIFE TOGETHER.

TIME—FIFTEENTH CENTURY ITALY

CHARACTERS

• Paulo Salviati, a painter, age about 25.
• Lucia, his wife, a beautiful Florentine.
• Prince Damiano di Medici, art patron.

ACT III

Scene—Paulo’s studio in Venice. A bare room of obvious poverty. Paulo painting at a large canvas.

(Enter Lucia.)

Paulo

(Turning happily.) Lucia! At last you return. My love, how I have missed you. (Kisses her.) It seemed so long. (Examining her.) You are excited! Then my uneasiness was not for nothing. Tell me. An adventure, perhaps? An admirer, of course! This flush…! (Laughs.) Little Child…! (Teasingly.)

Lucia

I’ve been but a short hour, my Paulo. And, as for adventures and admirers, they have but one name—Paulo. (Looks embarrassed slightly.) How quick you are!

Paulo

Love makes me quick. I think I guess.

Lucia

(Ashamed a little.) Listen! (They listen. The waves of the sea are audible beating against the outer walls.) You hear?

Paulo

(Patiently.) I hear, but I do not understand. It is the water only——

Lucia

(Lower.) The rising water. (Pauses, while passing hand over her forehead.) Nor do I understand. It is my weakness, I suppose. All women have something that makes them fear without a reason, and this is mine——

Paulo

(Protectively.) For which I love you all the more. For had you reasoned you would not have married me. (To himself.)Strange, strange.… (Recovers gaiety and turns to picture.) See how it grows, Lucia. All that I scraped out yesterday I have repainted. Long before the Competition Day I shall have finished it. (Enthusiastically.) Look!

Lucia

The glow, the warmth, the colour—you’ve caught it all?

Paulo

I hope so. But when my model and my critic desert me both at once like this——

Lucia

Dear Paulo. (Sighs.) And it’s so difficult for me to make five scudi do the work of ten. (Shows agitation.) I know, oh, I know. (Excitement.) Yet somehow, somehow we shall find a way. And it will be wonderful——

Paulo

(Noticing her mood and wondering.) It is you who are wonderful—(shakes finger at her) intriguing with Fate as ever——

Lucia

(Quickly.) No, not intriguing. I am but your wife—and model. (Laughs.)

Paulo

And inspiration——

Lucia

And critic——

Paulo

And manager! That is the wonder—that you who fled with a painter to learn poverty like this (shows bare room) and this (shows clothes) and this (touches heart) should bargain so cleverly in the market-place and carry home our fish and vegetables in your coloured apron—the Lady Lucia, a house-wife of the people!

Lucia

Forgetting the wine as usual, and dropping half the fish on my way! (Seriously.) Love makes it beautiful. It is for love’s sake, Paulo.

Paulo

(Emphatically.) And the work’s sake.

Lucia

(Quickly.) The work, ah yes, the work’s sake. (Excitedly.) Oh, my Paulo, what would I not do—what would I not sacrifice for your advancement—I mean, for your art, your wonderful great art. (Confused.)

Paulo

(Quietly.) This shall be our love’s first-fruits (pointing to canvas).

Lucia

(Repeats low to herself.) Our love’s first-fruits.

Paulo

(Rapt.) When you and I float over the lagoons as dust upon the wind—(turns to her from picture, and lowers voice) when you and I are gone—remembered, perhaps, only as Paulo the painter, and Lucia his inspiration—this beauty—ah, that is my dream—this beauty shall still shine out for the world.

[They watch the picture for a moment.

Lucia

I fear one thing only for you—poverty. You should have everything.

Paulo

I have. Everything that matters to an artist, and its name is inspiration.

[Looks with passionate admiration at her.

Lucia

(With growing agitation.) You left Florence for my sake. But for me, the great Princes—(with an effort) the Medici—would have helped.

Paulo

(Brusquely.) We agreed—(pretended severity)—solemnly, you remember—never to mention your princely lover’s name. Nothing stops good painting like jealousy, and at that name I see blood.

Lucia

(Smiling.) Our Palace is too poor to house even that thin ghost. You have no need to think of jealousy.

Paulo

No need now, Lucia. In Venice we are safe from Damiano di Medici. Now, will you sit for me? I burn to work. Come! You must have roses in your hands. I will go to the flower-sellers by the bridge.

Lucia

I would have brought them with me from the market-place—one scudi each! I hesitated——

Paulo

And bought ten sprats instead! My wonderful, clever house-wife. Without sprats to eat I never could paint roses! But I must have them. I shall be but a moment away, my love—a single moment (throwing kisses from the door) that will seem like years! Farewell … Little Child.

Lucia

Little Child! Ah, how I love that name, given to me with our first kiss. I love it better than my own. (Thinks a moment, puzzled.) For somehow it seems my very own——

Paulo

It is your own. The little love-name that seems to travel like memory up the ages. I shall be back as soon as you are ready.

[Exit

[Knocking at the door startles her.

(Enter Damiano di Medici.)

Lucia

You! And so soon. It is too soon. I’ve had no time to prepare him yet——

Medici

A painter receives his patron without preparat...

Table of contents

• PROLOGUE
• ACT I
• ACT II
• ACT III
• EPILOGUE