Scene SEVENTH

CHANTECLER. [To PATOU.] You![Reproachfully.] You have come to get him?

PATOU. [Ashamed.] Forgive me! The poacher compels me——

CHANTECLER. [Who had sprung before the body, to protect it, uncovers it.] A Nightingale!

PATOU. [Hanging his head.] Yes. The evil race of man loves to shower lead into a singing tree.

CHANTECLER. See, the burying beetle has already come.

PATOU. [Gently withdrawing.] I will make believe I found nothing.

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Watching the day break.] He has not noticed that night is nearly over.

CHANTECLER. [Bending over the grasses which begin to stir about the dead bird.] Insect, where the body has fallen, be swift to come and open the earth. The funereal necrophaga are the only grave-diggers who never carry the dead elsewhere, believing that the least sad, and the most fitting tomb, is the very clay whereon one fell into the final sleep.[To the funeral insects, while the NIGHTINGALE begins gently to sink into the ground] Piously dig his grave! Light lie the earth upon him!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Aside, looking at the horizon] Over there ——

CHANTECLER. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Bul-bul to-night shall see the Bird of Paradise!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Aside] The sky is turning white![A whistle is heard in the distance.]

PATOU. [To CHANTECLER.] I will come back. He is whistling me.[Disappears.]

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Restlessly dividing her attention between the horizon and the COCK.] How can I conceal from him ——[She moves tenderly toward CHANTECLER, opening her wings so as to hide the brightening East, and taking advantage of his grief] Come and weep beneath my wing![With a sob he lays his head beneath the comforting wing which is quickly clapped over him. And the PHEASANT-HEN gently lulls him, murmuring] You see that my wing is soft and comforting! You see——

CHANTECLER. [In a smothered voice] Yes!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Gently rocks him, darting, a glance now and then over her shoulder to see how the dawn is progressing] You see that a wing is an outspread heart ——[Aside] Day is breaking![To CHANTECLER.] You see that——[Aside.] The sky has paled![To CHANTECLER.] —— that a wing is ——[Aside.] The tree is steeped in rosy light![To CHANTECLER.] ——partly a shield, and partly a cradle, partly a cloak and a place of rest, — that a wing is a kiss which enfolds and covers you over. You see that ——[With a backward leap, suddenly withdrawing her wings.] the Day can break perfectly well without you!

CHANTECLER. [With the greatest cry of anguish possible to created being] Ah!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Continuing inexorably] That the mosses in a moment will be scarlet!

CHANTECLER. [Running toward the moss] Ah, no! No! Not without me![The moss flushes red] Ungrateful!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. The horizon ——

CHANTECLER. [Imploringly, to the horizon] No!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. ——is glowing gold!

CHANTECLER. [Staggering] Treachery!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. One may be all in all to another heart, you see, one can be nothing to the sky!

CHANTECLER. [Swooning.] It is true!

PATOU. [Returning, cheery and cordial] Here I am! I have come to tell you that they are all mad over there, at the topsy-turvy farm, to have back the Cock who orders the return of Day!

CHANTECLER. They believe that now I have ceased to believe it!

PATOU. [Stopping short, amazed] What do you mean?

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Bitterly pressing close, to CHANTECLER.] You see that a heart pressing against your own is better than a sky which does not in the very least need you.

CHANTECLER. Yes!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. That darkness after all may be as sweet as light if there are two close-clasped in the shade.

CHANTECLER. [Wildly.] Yes! Yes![But suddenly leaving her side he raises his head and in a ringing voice] Cock-a-doodle-doo!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Taken aback] Why are you crowing?

CHANTECLER. As a warning to myself, — for thrice have I denied the thing I love!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. And what is that?

CHANTECLER. My life's work![To PATOU.] Up and about! Come, let us go!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. What are you going to do?

CHANTECLER. Follow my calling.

THE PHEASANT-HEN. But what night is there for you to rout?

CHANTECLER. The night of the eyelid!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Pointing toward the growing glory of the dawn] Very well, you will rouse sleepers ——

CHANTECLER. And Saint Peter!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. But can you not see that Day has risen without the benefit of your crowing?

CHANTECLER. I am more sure of my destiny than of the daylight before my eyes.

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Pointing at the NIGHTINGALE who has already half disappeared into the earth.] Your faith can no more return to life than can that dead bird.

[From the tree above their heads suddenly rings forth the heart-stirring, limpid, characteristic note: Tio! Tio!]

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Struck with amazement.] Is it another singing?

PATOU. [With quivering ear.] And singing still better, if possible.

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Looking up in a sort of terror at the foliage, and then down at the little grave] Another takes up the song when this one disappears?

THE VOICE. In the forest must always be a Nightingale!

CHANTECLER. [With exaltation] And in the soul a faith so faithful that it comes back even after it has been slain.

THE PHEASANT-HEN. But if the Sun is climbing up the sky?

CHANTECLER. There must have been left in the air some power from my yesterday's song.

[Flights of noiseless grey wings pass among the trees.]

THE OWLS. [Hooting joyfully] He kept still!

PATOU. [Raising his head and looking after them] The Owls? fleeing from the newly risen light, are coming home to the woods.

THE OWLS. [Returning to their holes in the old trees.] He kept still!

CHANTECLER. [With all his strength come back to him] The proof that I was serving the cause of light when I sang is that the Owls are glad of my silence.[Going to the PHEASANT-HEN, with defiance in his mien] I make the Dawn appear, and I do more than that!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Choking] You do——

CHANTECLER. On grey mornings, when poor creatures waking in the twilight dare not believe in the day, the bright copper of my song takes the place of the sun![Turning to go] Back to our work!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. But how find courage to work after doubting the work's value?

CHANTECLER. Buckle down to work!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [With angry stubbornness.] But if you have nothing whatever to do with making the morning?

CHANTECLER. Then I am just the Cock of a remoter Sun! My cries so affect the night that it lets certain beams of the day pierce through its black tent, and those are what we call the stars. I shall not live to see shining upon the steeples that final total light composed of stars clustered in unbroken mass; but if I sing faithfully and sonorously, and if, long after me, and long after that, in every farmyard its Cock sings faithfully, sonorously, I truly believe there will be no more night!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. When will that be?

CHANTECLER. One Day!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. Go, go, and forget our forest!

CHANTECLER. No, I shall never forget the noble green forest where I learned that he who has witnessed the death of his dream must either die at once or else arise stronger than before.

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [In a voice which she does her best to make insulting.] Go and get into your hen-house by the way of a ladder.

CHANTECLER. The birds have taught me that I can use my wings to go in.

THE PHEASANT-HEN. Go and see your old Hen in her old broken basket.

CHANTECLER. Ah, forest of the Toads, forest of the Poacher, forest of the Nightingale, and of the Pheasant-hen, when my old peasant mother sees me home again, back from your green recesses where pain is so interwoven with love, what will she say?

PATOU. [Imitating the OLD HEN'S affectionate quaver.] How that Chick has grown!

CHANTECLER. [Emphatically.] Of course she will![Turning to leave.]

THE PHEASANT-HEN. He is going! When faithless they turn to leave, oh, that we had arms, arms to hold them fast, — but we have only wings!

CHANTECLER. [Stops short and looks at her, troubled.] She weeps?

PATOU. [Hastily, pushing him along with his paw] Hurry up!

CHANTECLER. [To PATOU.] Wait a moment.

PATOU. I am willing. Nothing can sit so patiently and watch the dropping of tears as an old dog.

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Crying to CHANTECLER, with a leap toward him] Take me with you!

CHANTECLER. [Turns and in an inflexible voice] Will you consent to stand second to the Dawn?

THE PHEASANT-HEN. [Fiercely drawing back.] Never!

CHANTECLER. Then farewell!

THE PHEASANT-HEN. I hate you!

CHANTECLER. [Already at some distance among the brush] I love you, but I should poorly serve the work to which I devote myself anew at the side of one to whom it were less than the greatest thing in the world![He disappears.]