Shadowland (Mar-Aug 1923)

Two o' them Talking By Ferenc Molnar Translated from the Hungarian by Joseph Szebenyei TWO little boys, one of them five and the other six years old. They are standing on the porch. There is a gas lamp burning on the street just in front of the house. It is a dreary winter evening, about five o'clock — time to light up all around. In the dim light there, they are softly conversing. The First One: I've got six pennies already. By Sunday I'll have eight and by Wednesday sixteen. By Friday I shall have twenty, for my grandma comes on that day always and I am going to buy the aeroplane that you can pull. The Other One: The one you can pull? The First : Yes. The one that you push costs forty. Only girls get that. The boy aeroplane is a puller, and it has rubber inside and it's only twenty. The Other: Why don't you ask your father for more money ? The First : Because he committed suicide. The Other: What did he commit? The First : Suicide. Still, he is a lawyer. The Other: (Looking at him very gravely.) How did he commit suicide? The First : Well, he committed, that's all. Cant he if he likes to? The Other: But when? At noon I saw him on the street. The First : Yes, he was taking a walk and then we had lunch and then he lay down on the sofa and so he committed suicide. I couldn't ask him for money, but I am telling you, when my grandma comes on Friday, she always gives me at least five. With that I shall have the twenty and I'll buy the aeroplane. The Other: But your father . . . The First : What do you want always with my father ? 1 told you to leave me alone. The Other: Did he die? The First: Of course he died: What are you looking at me like that for ? What are you teasing me for ? Your father is a janitor and I never teased you for it, altho I could have done, because my father is a lawyer. Even if he died, he is a lawyer, attorney-at-law-. The Other: Why dont you tell me? Both are looking intensely at each other. The Other's eyes are very bright and he is all excitement. He is urging the First One with his very eyes to tell the story. The First: You are looking so funny with your eyes. The Other: Why dont you tell me? The First: Should I tell you? The Other: Yes, go on. The First : I think I can tell it. The Other: Of course you can. If you want me, I cross my heart and it will remain a secret forever ; besides, I am not going to tell anybody. The First: So you see we had lunch, and a very good lunch, for we had green peas in the soup and my mother said : I say, Sigmund, why are you so silent ? The clients call him Councillor and my mother calls him Sigmund and your father calls him the Landlord. The Other: Not always, for sometimes he calls him just Sir-— rand you needn't throw it up every time, either. The First : I am not throwing it up, only you needn't think, that now that my father is dead, we are as poor as you are, for we are still the landlords. The Other: Not true. The First : Yes it is. The Other: No, it isn't. (Pause.) The Other: And then, how was it? The First : My mother asked him : Have you got a headache, Sigmund? And she asked him: What are you looking at the child for constantly? You see, I am the child, for we have only myself. You see, that's why we shall not be poor, for we are rich because we only have one child. If we were poor, we Would have six. The Other: We only have four. The First: Well, you are not very poor; just poor. Your father only gets wages and tips for the garbage, but we get money from the court. The Other: And how was it? The First : Because my father was always looking at me. My father gave her no answer, and my mother asked him again : What's the matter with you ? Have you lost your voice? Sigmund, why dont you answer me ? My father told her : Leave me alone, my dear. He called her my dear, for with gentlemanly people it is a custom to call one another my dear. Your father doesn't call your mother my dear, for you are just common people. The Other: Why should we be common people? The First : Because your father is just a workingman, a laborer, what they call a laborer. The Other: We are not laborers, we dont go out to work. The First: Who cleans the stairs and who sweeps away the snow ? That's laboring, that's laboring. The Other: No it isn't. The First: What then is it? The Other : That's house-superintending. The First : That's laboring, too, as long as it goes with broom and shovel. So when we finished lunch and I kissed them, my father pressed me to his waistcoat, and kissed me, and pressed me and he wouldn't leave go, so my mother asked him in French so that I shouldn't understand: quelqueshosc, quelqueshose? And my father said : non, non, nori, and that, too, is in French and means no, but I was not supposed to understand, you know. The Other: And then he committed suicide? The First: No. He first told my mother that he wants to lie down a bit and sleep, and my mother told the chambermaid to put a pillow on the sofa and the ash-tray on a chair next to the sofa, for he would throw the ashes all on the floor — you burned the carpet last week, my dear, she said. The Other: Does he smoke cigars? The First: No, cigarettes. The Other: Do you ever steal any? The First : No, I dont. Do you collect tobacco ? Why didn't you tell me before? I could have brought you some. Now it's too late, he is dead. The Other: How did he die? The First : He lay down on the sofa and my mother went out of the room to read the newspaper, and then my father called me, and as I went in he was smiling. The Other: Was he smiling? The First : Yes, with his mouth and face, but with his eyes he was crying, for the tears were running down his face and he told me I should go right near to him. The Other: And you went? The First : Sure. He pressed me again to his (Continued on page 74) Page Twenty-Six