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Hammill Peter The Fall Of The House Of Usher Act Three (Immediately afterwards, Madeline Usher enters, in a trance) MADELINE Carriages at seven I shall wear the flower he gave me It's so cold here deep beneath the lapping water... The water The water My love Head against his shoulder, 'cross the lawn I hear the music... Silent blackness, In the lake I'm sinking slowly... Oh, how lovely, nothing could be more becoming... Underwater, floating in the icy darkness... Count the candles 'May I dance with you this evening?'... On the surface Swans are feeding high above me... Hold him tightly round and round the floor we're spinning Breathing water I am drowning Watch the sun rise driving home across the meadows... All is darkness I can feel myself dissolving The water The water The darkness The darkness My love Head against his shoulder Floating in the icy darkness Hold him tightly I can feel myself dissolving Oh how lovely Deep beneath the lapping water Count the candles I am drowning I am drowning Count the candles Floating in the icy darkness Hold him tightly I can feel myself dissolving Oh how lovely Deep beneath the lapping water Count the candles I am drowning Oh how lovely I am drowning I am drowning Oh how lovely Oh how lovely Oh how lovely MONTRESOR Stop, Madeline, look at me! My god, man, what is wrong with her? USHER Yes, it's right you should know, She is dying! I have not dared to speak of it. A chronic catalepsy had drained her of her youth. I have watched her waste away and could do nothing! A period of health is followed by sudden coma, death-like sleep. It can last a full day or more, no movement, no colour, no flame in the cheeks. MONTRESOR What, then of these dreaming visions? USHER The recovery, ah, this is even worse! She rises and moves about the house but her mind still sleeps... You see her now a mindless ghost: Beautiful, dead eyes stare in sleep, unrecognising. She speaks in dreams, sees only dreams, she haunts the house in hideous sleepwalking and may not be restrained, for like some automaton she tirelessly thrusts and tears herself against her fetters, heedless of injury. And so she walks and then she wakes, remembering nothing, so week that she can barely build up strength before she is struck down again. Month after month each attack worse than the last. Death will not wait long. Her final days are flickering past. Dear God, helpless, helpless! MONTRESOR But what is the word from her doctors? Do they hold out no hope, nor offer any treatment? USHER MONTRESOR CHORUS They do not understand her case and cannot treat a case they do not understand He does not understand You're dealing with a case Who is her doctor, a specialist I trust? Yes indeed, one of the foremost rank You're dealing with a case Then he will help her, Montresor oh, yes, no more of this he surely must You do not understand now no more talk He does not of cures, please, understand Or of doctor. I bless you concern, but know that she will walk no more tonight. When she wakes soon she will need my care. I must be there, so, dear friend, goodnight. (Usher exits with Madeline, leaving Montresor alone. The Herbalist enters) THE HERBALIST Good evening, sir. And you must be the friend of Mister Usher. I'm so pleased to meet you, sir, but have little time to spare for knowledge such as mine is wanted everywhere. In poor dwellings, yes, but some as great as Usher's. My card... MONTRESOR 'J. Ducrow, Esq. Herbalist, Doctor of Natural Medicine'... HERBALIST At you service, and it could be, sir, that you have need of my panaceas now... I have Mandrake juice that will slake any fever, cures to convince you though you be an unbeliever now... Laugh - would you? - at these seeds of mine. You question the cure's causes, but Logic and Reason do not answer, and Nature runs her courses. I have purest poppy for the soundest of sleeps; a pure cake of hemp plant that's a warranted surcease of worldly sorrow. Lying words will be believed if perfumed by this pastil, or my elixir's guaranteed to bend the will of fairest womankind. Scheme, would you, for a worldly gain? Lust after a frigid virgin? My herbs can grant your secret cravings and my price is modest! MONTRESOR No! No! HERBALIST And my price is modest... MONTRESOR No, thank you! No! HERBALIST Oh it's very modest... MONTRESOR No, no thank you! No! No thank you, No! HERBALIST Perhaps a poultice of Toadbane for weakness of the manly parts, caused by too much wine or age, perhaps by over-frequent natural indulgence... Applied with skill, it will revive the fleshy passions of a corpse... ...of a corpse MONTRESOR I said no I meant no! HERBALIST Well then, Good-day... MONTRESOR So that is Usher's idea of a doctor! That wretched mountebank can't help them. I confront madness face to face! And whatever it's cause, it lies within this place I breathe an atmosphere of sorrow; an alien despair makes my courage fail, like the collapse of an opium vision, the hideous dropping of the veil CHORUS Tormented by a thousand doubts and fancies, he will not sleep tonight. Chilled by the gloom of his surroundings, mortal, half-dead mortar. MONTRESOR CHORUS He will not sleep! I see simple solutions He will not sleep! State them laud and clear, but the echoes of the House He will not sleep! shout 'Unreason!' The one thing that I fear. The evil that is done cannot be undone. The evil that will come cannot be prevented. The evil that is done Yet somehow I must help these two tormented souls, cannot be undone. for if I cannot, who will? The evil that will come These are the friends I've loved so dearly... cannot be prevented Leave! No! What a monstrous thought! Depart! How could I even think of it! Go! Abandon those who have need of me! Leave! Oh, but what a temptation, Depart! to run like a thief in the night, Go! And yet now I cannot because it is too late Before it is too late, I feel myself bound up in before you are bound up in the web of fear and pain, the web of fear and pain, the evil that surrounds me. the evil that surrounds you. It cannot be undone. It cannot be undone. The evil that will come cannot be prevented. End of Act Three |
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