Scene FIFTH

CHANTECLER. [Coming back to the BLACKBIRD.] And so that habitual skeptical sneer——?

THE BLACKBIRD. Wiped out! My satirical whistling, as the Dog called it, now expresses pure admiration. Listen, like this:

[He whistles admiringly.] Tew! — How is that? — Tew-tew![Nodding soberly.] That's all right!

CHANTECLER. [Innocently] You are not such a bad fellow, after all. I said so to the Dog.

THE BLACKBIRD. [With profound conviction.] You're a wonderful old boy!

CHANTECLER. [Modestly.] Oh!

THE BLACKBIRD. To come it over the Hens——[He again whistles admiringly.] make them believe that he engineers the dawn![CHANTECLER starts.] A simple idea, but it took you to get on to it! Brother, I believe you were hatched in Columbus' egg!

CHANTECLER. But——

THE BLACKBIRD. All other Don Juans are donkeys beside you! Says he to himself: Make the daybreak to impress little pheasant-hens! And does it, too—succeeds!

CHANTECLER. [In a smothered voice.] Be still!

THE BLACKBIRD. Neat, the little roof which must be gilded! Complete, the ladder for the Motes!

CHANTECLER. [In a spasm of pain.] Be still!

THE BLACKBIRD. And the access of modesty, a sweet little final touch! I kiss my hand to you! Oh, he knows how—no mistake, he knows——

CHANTECLER. [Constraining himself, in a curt voice.] The Dawn? Certainly, I know her. I think I may claim that honor!

THE BLACKBIRD. You precious fakir! Don't you consider you have succeeded?

CHANTECLER. In bringing on the day? Yes, certainly, I have succeeded. Admirably, in this case.

THE BLACKBIRD. Oh, you do it so well! How awfully well he does it!

CHANTECLER. Making the light? Of course, I have done it so often! I am used to it. The Sun obeys me.

THE BLACKBIRD. So, worthy Joshua! You feel the dawn coming, and then you crow! For lightness of touch and richness of invention, give us a lyric poet!

CHANTECLER. [Bursting forth.] Wretch!

THE BLACKBIRD. [Surprised.] Are you keeping it up with me?[Winking.] Oh, we know how the thing is done!

CHANTECLER. You may know, — not I! I just open my heart and sing!

THE BLACKBIRD. [Hopping about.] That's the idea!

CHANTECLER. Blackbird, laugh at everything besides, but not at that, if you love me!

THE BLACKBIRD. I love you!

CHANTECLER. [Bitterly.] With half a heart!

THE BLACKBIRD. Can't say a word about his Fiat Lux?

CHANTECLEE. Not that! Not that!

THE BLACKBIRD. Old man, it's not my fault that I'm no gull.

CHANTECLER. [Looking after him as he hops about] He cannot keep still long enough, I suppose, to let the sacred truth sink in.[Trying to stop him in his hopping.] You behold the agony of emotion shaking me. No more baffle and keep me off with words!

THE BLACKBIRD. [Hopping past him.] Catch, if you can, and convince me!

CHANTECLER. [Imploring.] It's a matter of life — my profoundest life! Oh, convince you I must, if only for a second! I feel the holy impulse to struggle with your soul!

THE BLACKBIRD. [Hopping past him.] Do you!

CHANTECLER. In solemn earnest, at the bottom of your heart, you did — did you not? — believe me?

THE BLACKBIRD. I believe you!

CHANTECLER. [With pressing anguish.] You must in some manner be aware of the dreadful cost to me of that song? Come, use your reason. To sing as you heard me sing, you must realise that I needed——

THE BLACKBIRD. A whopping muscle and a tolerable nerve!

CHANTECLER. No, let us not make light of serious things, responsible winged creatures that we are!

THE BLACKBIRD. Let us go in for heavy-weight truths, by all means!

CHANTECLER. But can't you see that to look straight at the sun, rising before his eyes by the exertions of his larynx, one must have at the same time——

THE BLACKBIRD. Stentorian lungs and the eyes of a lynx![He hops out of the way.]

CHANTECLER. [Controlling himself.] No, I cannot give up the hope of winning this soul to the truth![Wiih desperate patience.] Come, now, have you any conception, unhappy bird, of what dawn actually is?

THE BLACKBIRD. I should say so! It's the time of day when fluffy Aurora gets busy, as it were, and plays ball!

CHANTECLER. But what do you say when you see the dawn shining upon the mountains?

THE BLACKBIRD. Mountains, I say, what on earth are you blushing about?

CHANTECLER. And what do you say when you hear me singing in the furrow long before the cricket is awake?

THE BLACKBIRD. Cricket, I say, you scandalous slug-a-bed![He hops out of the way.]

CHANTECLER. [Beside himself.] Are you conscious of no impulse to exclaim, cry out, when I have made a dawn so fine and fiery-red that the heron, flying in the early glow, looks from afar like a flamingo?

THE BLACKBIRD. Sure, brother, sure! I feel like shouting, "Bully, do it again!"[He hops out of the way.]

CHANTECLER. [Exhausted.] That soul! I am more spent with chasing it than with a whole day's grasshopper hunting![Violently.] Did you not see the sky?

THE BLACKBIRD. [Simply.] How could I? The ground is all you can see through that little black hole.[Pointing at the ftower-pot.]

CHANTECLER. Did you see the mountain-tops tremble and turn crimson?

THE BLACKBIRD. While you were crowing, I had my eye on your feet.

CHANTECLER. [Sorrowfully.] Ah!

THE BLACKBIRD. They were. performing on the soft sod something choice in the line of fancy dances!

CHANTECLER. [Giving up.] I pity youl Back to your darkness, obscure Blackbird!

THE BLACKBIRD. Your obedient servant, illustrious Cock!

CHANTECLER. My course is toward the sun!

THE BLACKBIRD. Take along smoked glasses!

CHANTECLER. Blackbird, do you know the one thing upon earth worthy that one should live wholly for its sake?

THE BLACKBIRD. There I draw the line. I won't enter the debate!

CHANTECLER. That thing is effort, Blackbird — effort, which uplifts and ennobles the lowest! For which reason, you, con- temner of every sublime aspiration, I contemn! And that fragile roseate snail, struggling unaided to silver over a whole fagot, I honour!

THE BLACKBIRD. [Snapping up the snail.] I'll make him look silly!

CHANTECLER. [With a cry of horror.] Abominable! To point a Joke — put out a little flame! An end. Here we part. You have no more heart than soul.[Going.]

THE BLACKBIRD. [Hopping up on the fagot.] I have mind, however!

CHANTECLER. [Turning, disdainfully.] That is open to discussion.

THE BLACKBIRD. [Acidly.] Oh, very well! I was administering, in my merry little characteristic way, a grain of antidote against lunacy. But I wash my claws of you. Go ahead, justify the report of your enemies.

CHANTECLER. [Returning.] Who? What?

THE BLACKBIRD. Strut about with your bill-board: "I'm the whole show!"

CHANTECLER. You associate with those who hate me?

THE BLACKBIRD. Do you object?

CHANTECLER. No, you pitiful jester! The habit has grown so strong, you can no more be in earnest about friendship now than anything else.[Going nearer to him.] Who are my enemies?

THE BLACKBIRD. The Owls.

CHANTECLER. You sorry fool! Can't you see that to believe in my destiny becomes all too easy if the Owls are against me?

THE BLACKBIRD. Rest happy, then. They have a deal on——your lighting of the world being a trifle flashy for their taste ——a deal on for cutting your throat.

CHANTECLER. Through whom?

THE BLACKBIRD. A brother bird.

CHANTECLER. A Cock?

THE BLACKBIRD. A Saint George of a Cock, who is to meet you——

CHANTECLER. Where?

THE BLACKBIRD. At the Guinea-hen's.

CHANTECLER. What a farce!

THE BLACKBIRD. Wait! It's one of those Cocks bred and trained for fighting, who would make just two bites of either you or me.[As CHANTECLER abruptly starts toward the back] Where are you going?

CHANTECLER. To the Guinea-hen's.

THE BLACKBIRD. Ha! I forgot our knightly spurs and helmet![He makes a feint of preventing him.] Take my advice, don't go!

CHANTECLER. But I will go!

THE BLACKBIRD. Hold on!

CHANTECLER. [Stopping beside the flower-pot, as if amazed.] How singular!

THE BLACKBIRD. What?

CHANTECLER. Did I understand you to say you came out of that flower-pot?

THE BLACKBIRD. You did.

CHANTECLER. [Incredulous.] But how could you possibly have got into it?

THE BLACKBIRD. [Getting into the pot,] I told you, and tell you again! Through that little black hole I was looking at the——[He thrusts his bill through the hole at the bottom.]

CHANTECLER. The earth! And now through a little blue hole you shall look at the sky![With a vigorous blow of his wing he turns the pot over the BLACKBIRD, who is heard fluttering beneath it, with smothered cries] For you hate and shun the blue sky, you Dwellers in Pots! But one can force you to see at least as much as would cover a corn-flower, by overturning your pot, now and then——with the sweep of a wing![Off.]

CURTAIN