The Manager [annoyed ]. But we've had all this over once before. Do you want to begin again?
The Father. No, no! That wasn't my meaning! In fact, I should like to request you to abandon this game of art [Looking at the LEADING LADY as if anticipating her. ] which you are accustomed to play here with your actors, and to ask you seriously once again: who are you?
The Manager [astonished and irritated, turning to his ACTORS]. If this fellow here hasn't got a nerve! A man who calls himself a character comes and asks me who I am!
The Father [with dignity, but not offended ]. A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is. Because a character has really a life of his own, marked with his especial characteristics; for which reason he is always "somebody." But a man – I'm not speaking of you now – may very well be "nobody."
The Manager. Yes, but you are asking these questions of me, the boss, the manager! Do you understand?
The Father. But only in order to know if you, as you really are now, see yourself as you once were with all the illusions that were yours then, with all the things both inside and outside of you as they seemed to you – as they were then indeed for you. Well, sir, if you think of all those illusions that mean nothing to you now, of all those things which don't even seem to you to exist any more, while once they were for you, don't you feel that – I won't say these boards – but the very earth under your feet is sinking away from you when you reflect that in the same way this you as you feel it today – all this present reality of yours – is fated to seem a mere illusion to you tomorrow?
The Manager [without having understood much, but astonished by the specious argument ]. Well, well! And where does all this take us anyway?
The Father. Oh, nowhere! It's only to show you that if we [Indicating the CHARACTERS.] have no other reality beyond the illusion, you too must not count overmuch on your reality as you feel it today, since, like that of yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow.
The Manager [determining to make fun of him ]. Ah. Excellent! Then you'll be saying next that you, with this comedy of yours that you brought here to act, are truer and more real than I am.
The Father [with the greatest seriousness ]. But of course; without doubt!
The Manager. Ah, really?
The Father. Why, I thought you'd understand that from the beginning.
The Manager. More real than I?
The Father. If your reality can change from one day to another . . .
The Manager. But everyone knows it can change. It is always changing, the same as anyone else's.
The Father [with a cry ]. No, sir, not ours! Look here! That is the very difference! Our reality doesn't change: it can't change! It can't be other than what it is, because it is already fixed for ever. It's terrible. Ours is an immutable reality which should make you shudder when you approach us if you are really conscious of the fact that your reality is a mere transitory and fleeting illusion, taking this form today and that tomorrow, according to the conditions, according to your will, your sentiments, which in turn are controlled by an intellect that shows them to you today in one manner and tomorrow . . . Who knows how? . . . Illusions of reality represented in this fatuous comedy of life that never ends, nor can ever end! Because if tomorrow it were to end . . . Then why, all would be finished.
The Manager. Oh for god's sake, will you at least finish with this philosophizing and let us try and shape this comedy which you yourself have brought me here? You argue and philosophize a bit too much, my dear sir.. You know you seem to me almost, almost . . . [Stops and looks him over from head to foot. ] Ah, by the way, I think you introduced yourself to me as a – what shall we say . . . – a "character," created by an author who did not afterward care to make a drama of his own creations.
The Father. It is the simple truth, sir.
The Manager. Nonsense! Cut that out, please! None of us believes it, because it isn't a thing, as you must recognize yourself, which one can believe seriously. If you want to know, it seems to me you are trying to imitate the manner of a certain author whom I heartily detest – I warn you – although I have unfortunately bound myself to put on one of his works. As a matter of fact, I was just starting to rehearse it, when you arrived. [Turning to the ACTORS.] And this is what we've gained – out of the frying-pan into the fire!
The Father. I don't know to what author you may be alluding, but believe me I feel what I think; and I seem to be philosophizing only for those who do not think what they feel, because they blind themselves with their own sentiment. I know that for many people this self-blinding seems much more "human"; but the contrary is really true. For man never reasons so much and becomes so introspective as when he suffers; since he is anxious to get at the cause of his sufferings, to learn who has produced them, and whether it is just or unjust that he should have to bear them. On the other hand, when he is happy, he takes his happiness as it comes and doesn't analyze it, just as if happiness were his right. The animals suffer without reasoning about their sufferings. But take the case of a man who suffers and begins to reason about it. Oh no! It can't be allowed! Let him suffer like an animal, and then – ah yet, he is "human"!
The Manager. Look here! Look here! You're off again, philosophizing worse than ever.
The Father.. Because I suffer, sir! I'm not philosophizing: I'm crying aloud the reason of my sufferings.
The Manager [makes brusque movement as he is taken with a new idea ]. I should like to know if anyone has ever heard of a character who gets right out of his part and perorates and speechifies as you do. Have you ever heard of a case? I haven't.
The Father. You have never met such a case, sir, because authors, as a rule, hide the labour of their creations. When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him; and he has to will them the way they will themselves – for there's trouble if he doesn't. When a character is born, he acquires at once such an independence, even of his own author, that he can be imagined by everybody even in many other situations where the author never dreamed of placing him; and so he acquires for himself a meaning which the author never thought of giving him..
The Manager. Yes, yes, I know this.
The Father. What is there then to marvel at in us? Imagine such a misfortune for characters as I have described to you: to be born of an author's fantasy, and be denied life by him; and then answer me if these characters left alive, and yet without life, weren't right in doing what they did do and are doing now, after they have attempted everything in their power to persuade him to give them their stage life. We've all tried him in turn, I, she [Indicating the STEP-DAUGHTER.] and she. [Indicating the MOTHER.]
The Step-Daughter. It's true. I too have sought to tempt him, many, many times, when he has been sitting at his writing table, feeling a bit melancholy, at the twilight hour. He would sit in his armchair too lazy to switch on the light, and all the shadows that crept into his room were full of our presence coming to tempt him. [As if she saw herself still there by the writing table, and was annoyed by the presence of the ACTORS.] Oh, if you would only go away, go away and leave us alone – mother here with that son of hers – I with that Child – that Boy there always alone – and then I with him [Just hints at the FATHER.] – and then I alone, alone . . . In those shadows! [Makes a sudden movement as if in the vision she has of herself illuminating those shadows she wanted to seize hold of herself. ] Ah! My life! My life! Oh, what scenes we proposed to him – and I tempted him more than any of the others!